She's Being Smug With Me

We're listening to Mandy by Barry Manilow.

My fantasy author, Sandy Lender, says this song has more meaning for me than I realize. It is quite lovely, but I don't believe, as a man, I should admit that openly in your society.

So let us begin the blog post.

My purpose today is to tell you should be reading about my bride-to-be, Amanda Chariss, in the Choices trilogy. She's just great, you know. You can pick up the full-length novel, Choices Meant for Gods at the Publisher's site, or on Amazon, or at your local bookstore. Or you can pick up this nice little chapbook titled What Choices We Made that has a short story about Amanda as a child. Oh, sorry, Chariss, as a child. (I still use the name I prefer for her despite Sandy's constant badgering...)

The next installment in the trilogy is due out soon. Choices Meant for Kings gives you more of Mandy's story and the...wait a minute...is that why the song's important? Now Sandy's giving me that smug smile of hers.

All my best to you readers.
Nigel
Tags: Mandy, Barry Manilow, Choices Meant for Gods

She's Impressed by the Bird

I'm being forced to listen to Rudebox by Robbie Williams.

My fantasy author, Sandy Lender, has this pet bird that she's talked about over on her main blog, Today the Dragon Wins. Today, she gave him some millet as a treat and proceeded to marvel over how easily he uses his beak to pick the tiny little seeds out of their husks, leaving the husks to float like dust in the air. (She now has to dust...)

In her first novel, Choices Meant for Gods, I recall only a short reference to one ofersey'n's possession of hawks. Now that I come to think of it, I believe that may have been edited out. The original work was over 250,000 words, you know. Her publisher still took it on, but, really, there was no doubt editing was required.

Now when Choices Meant for Kings is released, Lord Akelous Foresterson will be brought in again, and, again, he has one of his hawks on his arm. My lovely bride-to-be is taken with birds, and I can't help thinking that Sandy forced this characteristic upon her because of Petri. Oh. Sandy assures me that Chariss loves all animals, and that's why she tolerates a dragon in her bedchamber. Nice. Why, again, do I help this woman with marketing?

Tags: pet bird, dragon, Choices Meant for Gods, Choices Meant for Kings

She's Posting About Pet Rights for Earth Day

Right now I'm listening to Mack the Knife (and Sandy says I should make it clear I'm listening to the version from the Brian Setzer Orchestra) on Sandy's iTunes.

Tomorrow is Earth Day and my fantasy author, Sandy Lender, has been irritating me today with her soapbox topic for her blog over at Today the Dragon Wins. Pardon me. I need to rephrase that. Sandy has shared her views concerning the topic about which she'll post for Earth Day. (She's just shared these views ad nauseum...)

Seems someone in your government has introduced a bill (don't ask me what that means exactly--I'm still grasping the concept of Earth Day) that will dictate what kind of animals you can keep as pets, and will prohibit you from moving your animals with you if you should move to another region of your land. But because the bill will prevent you from transferring ownership of your pet to anyone else, it will require you to have your pet put to sleep if you choose to go ahead and move. It seems to stomp all over the rights people in this land are supposed to have. (Oh, Sandy says that's one of the reasons people should be upset about it.) Personally, I would be upset if someone said my pet had to be killed. Doesn't that go against everything Earth Day stands for?

You can read all about this bill and Sandy's opinion (and you know THAT will be a treat) at Today the Dragon Wins April 22. Enjoy.

In the meantime, I'll work at promoting the books. You all remember my lovely bride-to-be, Amanda Chariss? Yes, I'm still pleased to suggest you should read all about her and her duties in Choices Meant for Gods, What Choices We Made, and the upcoming Choices Meant for Kings. And I promise to keep Sandy hard at work on Book III, the prequel, and the spin-off novels that seem to be growing like mad out of her mind. It's an exciting time in the writing den.

Tags: Earth Day, Choices Meant for Gods

She Says It's a Form of Flattery

I'm supposed to tell you all that my fantasy author, Sandy Lender, is currently listening to Mad World by Tears For Fears. I guess it would be more appropriate to say I'm listening to Mad World by Tears For Fears while I post something promotional for her and she leans over my shoulder to make sure my promotional efforts are acceptable.

Anyway. The reason she says this is a form of flattery is because we're stealing the "update on iTunes" from an agent's blog that she was perusing last night. She was most impressed with the woman's musical selections on her iPod (I actually know what that is, by the way. Sandy has one. An iPod Nano that...what? Of course they care. They'll want to know what you listen to just as you wanted to know what that woman listened to.)

I have just been informed that no one cares yet what Sandy listens to. But for those of you who don't already know, it's usually Duran Duran.

I've also just been informed that I've wasted everyone's attention span on this nonsense instead of promoting Choices Meant for Gods, What Choices We Made, or the upcoming release Choices Meant for Kings, so you'll have to come back another day to hear more about them. My apologies.

Nigel Taiman
Tags: Mad World, Tears For Fears, Duran Duran, Choices Meant for Gods, fantasy author, Sandy Lender

She's Just Too Stressed Out

My fantasy author, Sandy Lender, is planting things today. It's a way to reduce stress. She talks to the plants. Tells them how lovely and green they are. She uses a very calm and relaxed voice. She mixes their water and liquid food just right and moistens or soaks their soil according to what type of plant she's working with. It's a stress-reducing process that usually leaves her quite mellow.

I appreciate this because it usually means we'll be working on editing and Book III rewrite time well into the night.

And I approve of that.

Book II, Choices Meant for Kings, is still in a holding pattern while publishing schedules rollick through the usual hiccups and bumps. ArcheBooks Publishing is a smaller publisher, as those of you who have been following the saga know, so the process can't be rushed much. And I think that's one of the things that causes Sandy stress. She's speaking at the Naples Press Club Writers Conference April 4 and 5, and it's distressing to know that the second novel in her fantasy series won't be available to promote. But she has the first novel, Choices Meant for Gods, and the chapbook, What Choices We Made, to use for examples in her talks. Anyone who's going to be in Southwest Florida that weekend would benefit greatly from the many topics of interest at the conference and will enjoy the offerings from the vendors at the adjoining Authors and Books Festival. You can get all the registration information you need at the Naples Press Club's link to the festival.

Hope to see you there.
Tags: fantasy author, Sandy Lender, Naples Press Club, Authors and Books Festival, Choices Meant for Gods

She Wrote this Paper Once

Don't ask too many questions about this post. My fantasy author, Sandy Lender, just called in here and asked if I'd tell the story of the day she totally screwed up in one of her core classes in college. I have no idea what a core class is, and I'm "in" education.

She says this is a nightmare college students in this society often have.

She went to class one morning to see many other students stapling papers together and stuffing papers in nice colored folders, etc., and she wondered at the buzz of energy in everyone. Then the professor walked in and asked for everyone to hand their papers forward. Oops. She thought the paper was due a week later and had not even begun work on it. So she watched helplessly as every other student turned in the assignment, worth whatever percent of the final class grade it was worth, while she had nothing to hand forward.

At the end of the class hour, she sprinted back to her dorm room, whisked out some reference books, and wrote a paper on whatever the topic was. She cited her sources at the end, printed it out, put it in a nice colored folder, and sprinted over to her professor's office. He wasn't in. So she wrote an honest note that she had forgotten to prepare the paper for class that morning and asked him to please accept it late and left it under his door.

He was very kind to accept the paper and even gave her an A.

Sandy says THAT is stressful writing. It reminds me of the proposal she had to write for her publisher when she pitched the Choices trilogy. She had to do that whole marketing piece one night because she thought her pitch was going to be a weekend later than it actually was. Another nightmare for some people that she's actually lived. Interesting...

All my best,
Nigel

She Makes Lists

I must apologize for my long absence from posting. To those of you who have been sending me e-mail, and to those of you who accosted me in person over the Christmas holiday, I want to say I’m sorry for neglecting to keep you up to date on the happenings in Sandy’s life. You must understand, though, taking care of my fantasy author, Sandy Lender, has been a fulltime job as of late. I have good news there: she’s doing very well. In fact, she’s doing so well that she’s participating in your society’s annual tradition of setting new year’s resolutions. (You can share at the main blog.)

I can’t recall her ever doing this before…
Now, I’ve seen her set goals. And I’ve seen the crazy system she uses to meet the goals. You can use this blog as a how-to guide if you like—how to make your new years resolution a reality or how to keep your new years resolution. Whatever you like. But, I warn you, it’s a bit odd. It focuses on lists. Stages of lists. Random lists and organized lists.

She starts by writing the goal in the middle of a piece of paper. Then she writes out random two- to four-word actions she will have to take to get to the goal. She writes them as they occur to her in rapid-fire succession all over the paper, speckling it with these action items in no particular order. It looks chaotic but she refers to it as stream-of-consciousness. She will usually set the paper aside after a while and come back to it frequently with new action items that have occurred to her over the period of a couple days.

When she feels satisfied that she has plenty of actions written down to help her get to her goal, she’ll sit down and prepare an organized list or two…or three… Depending on the goal she’s trying to reach, there might be internal goals to hit first.

Here’s an example to make it all make sense.

Back when Sandy moved to Florida, she needed an extra large sheet of paper. She bought one of those huge sketch pads and placed “move” in the middle of it. Some of the random actions were “sell house”, “find a school for xxx”, “find a job”, “pack”, “get boxes”, “revise resume”, “garage sale”, “clean out basement”, etc. Now, as you can see, “revise resume” would go on a list under “find a job”, but for this initial, stream-of-consciousness exercise, the point is to get as many action items down on paper as you can. Organizing them is the second step.

And that’s what she did next. She turned over all school-related actions to her ex-husband because the move centered around getting him to a school where he could lift out of his decade-long depression. The rest of the items went on lists that she organized and put in motion so the goal of moving could be met.

So what new years resolution do you need to sit down and think about meeting? You might try this anal-retentive list-making system of Sandy’s. Start with the “splatter” of actions and ideas all over a large piece of paper, and then organize those actions and ideas into manageable lists that lead you to success.

Good luck with your goals and resolutions this year.

Tags: new years resolution, goal, list, actions

She Got Flowers...Sort of

So my fantasy author got home from today's radiation zapping and said, "oooo, the apartment smells a bit like stinky trash. I'll take that out." She proceeded to do this. On her way back from the dumpster she saw a woman walking around the corner of the building with a large vase of tall pink roses and a plush white teddy bear clinging to the large vase. She was instantly intrigued.

The woman began walking up the steps to the apartment and Sandy became further intrigued.

But no.
The woman stopped halfway up the stairs, looked at the number on the door and started back down the stairs. When she saw Sandy walking toward the building, she called out, "Do you know which apartment is 202?"

Sandy was very disappointed, but after relating the story to a friend, she received the lovely image above via e-mail. She says it's as cool as the real thing.

Tags: fantasy author

She Hasn't Repressed This One, Careless Memory #13

A Glimpse into a Writer's Life
When my fantasy author, Sandy Lender, was a young girl, she stood in the check-out line at the grocery store with her mother one day. In your society, towns are so highly populated that people have to stand in line with their food to pay for—oh, she tells me you already know this.

Anyway, Sandy stared at the headlines on the magazines while they waited their turn in line, and one particularly large title stood out from the others. It said, "Talking to Your Teens About Virginity". She found this curious, so, in front of everyone in the store, she turned from the magazines to her mother and asked, out loud, "Mom, what's virginity?" And she pronounced it incorrectly, to boot.

Given the nature of this parent-offspring moment, she knew, in the future, that she had to incorporate it into a story. (You know how those writers are…everything's fair game.) She knew that a young Amanda Chariss, the heroine of her epic fantasy trilogy, had to supply one of these embarrassing moments to her guardian and mentor, the great wizard Hrazon. Because there's no room for such backstory in the Choices Meant for Gods trilogy, Sandy included the little tale in the upcoming short story anthology What Choices We Made. You won't be able to get your hands on the piece until the end of November (the busiest shopping day of the year, she says…whatever that means), but, as soon as the book is available, she'll let me announce it here and you can enjoy Hrazon's embarrassment as much as I did when I read it.

In the meantime, the first novel in the trilogy is already out. You can pick it up at Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc., or order it online or at Amazon.

Tags: virginity, Choices Meant for Gods, What Choices We Made, fantasy author, Sandy Lender, writers life