Cleaning up old files and finding gems

All day I have been blogging all over about the files I have found while cleaning and organizing my computer.  Something all writers need to do is to try to keep their ideas and fragments organized.  I wont say i have been the best at this but I am enjoying sorting things into new categories that will hopefully get more stories finished.  Who knows.  So many titles, so many stories and I just want to write them all!

Here is another gem I found.  I believe I started this one around the turn of the century.  It is a bit old but hey not as old as some of my other incomplete tales!

***

New friends

Chapter one

Just who is this stranger?

He came around the corner to a battle taking place. One of the large ones had hold of a woman. She was fighting with everything she had. He could see her right arm hanging, bloody at her side. She held some type of gun/rifle in her left and was firing repeatedly into the beast. It gave a great howl as the bullets struck it and charged the woman. Swinging with it's great paw, it knocked the gun out of her hand and grabbed her by the leg. Hefting her up, with it's claws sinking into her ankle, he lifted her up so that she dangled, head down, above the street. He was sure she was done in but she just twisted around and kicked with her free leg, jarring the beast enough that it let her go.

As she crashed down to the littered and broken pavement he rushed out from his hiding place and shouting out strange words flung his hands forward. A light of pulsing blue flared out and struck the beast in the center of the chest. It howled loud and long, as it dissolved into the air. He walked over slowly, keeping an eye out for the beast's mate. When he reached the side of the woman he was amazed to see her still breathing. Landing on your head from three feet in the air could easily crush the skull. She moaned and opened her eyes. There was a dazed glaze over them. He reached down and eased her head off the ground.

Reaching into his hip pack he pulled out an ampoule and broke it under her nose. Hoping she would react normally but you could never tell on this messed up world. She started up, sneezing. "*What?!*" She pushed back at his hand.

"Take it easy, now. I'm here to help." His voice was deep and smooth. The woman without meaning to, relaxed. "Let me look you over. You're covered in blood." He lowered her back to the pavement and slid his hands over her body, about an inch away.

"Not good here," he whispered more to himself than the woman. "The arm is broken in two places, compound at the elbow." He moved down to the leg the beast had held her up by. "The knee is all torn up," then the ankle. He hissed, "punctures. Not good."

Enya tried to get her eyes to focus. The blow to her head had addled her senses. "Who?"

Bending over her was a man with long, thick, black hair. He was doing unpleasant things to her but his voice held her still somehow. She felt trust. This bothered her but she couldn't remember why. "Why?" As he moved to set her arm she passed out from the pain.

"Not good, but it will be easier if you're not awake for all this, little one." The man continued working her wounds until he had them set and bandaged. Then he reached inside his shirt and pulled out a small silver cylinder. Placing it to his lips, he blew. Within a few moments a small car rounded the corner and stopped by his side. A small furry woman got out the passenger door and knelt down next to the man. "Careful, she's been badly injured." 

******

Gotta love stories where the main character falls through a time/space pocket to another world right?  I know there is a lot more to this one out there...can't wait to write it!

New Releases, yes I do release my own stories

Since August ends on Monday and this weekend is a holiday I decided I would release the three stories I had been holding onto.   Three different tales from three different series
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ETCI3OK Not Just Another Morning of Business, Guardians of the Gate City side story 1:  Sheldon is one of Harry’s friends, a dragon who deals in information.  He is not having a good morning.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ETP6812 Now and Forever (Mythos of Love, #3): Sometimes the pledge you make to your Lord is not what you expected
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ETCIRKU The Pest House, Death Walks Through 9: Pest houses are where they took those very contagious to get better or die but not everyone taken there were sick.

Now these are obviously only the most recent of each of these series.  I have really started to like writing in my series.  My tales are short so it helps keep me on track.

I have been spending the past week trying to come up with a new title for my upcoming horror stories.  While they are not as dark as more horror stories they are darker than my other stuff.  Most mental horror stories I guess.  I am hoping I can come up with something good.  I have tossed around things like Twists of the Mind or Dark Dreams but I will come out with something.  There are six tales in the works that will fall into this short stories series.  Yes more short stories in the works!

Reading comic books and graphic novels

Now a lot of people out there either look down on comic books or don't realize the artform that they really are.  Most of the comics printed today are really more than the simple comic book from when I was a kid.  The stories are richer, the art is both more detailed and less and they cover topics that are central to the world today.

Anyone who watches the movies as they come out know that the big dollar draws in the summer are mostly comic book characters lately.  Superman, Batman, Wolverine, Spiderman and others.  They are strong characters living in complex worlds that are just a step to the right or left of our own.

The thing is when dealing with a lot of people my age unless they are crazy people like me many of them think that comic books are a waste of reading material.  This is just not so.

Recently while on a bus ride with my daughter I ended up in a discussion with one of the teachers from her school.  When she asked her what she had been reading over the summer my child proudly popped up with Elfquest and Archie comics.  The look on this teachers face was like she had just bit into a lemon.  Now really that was just wrong.

Having a ten year old child who is devouring comic books is a good thing.  With all the video games, youtube, movies and tv shows out there having a kid who will read ANYTHING is a good thing.  She said I should make her read Nancy Drew as if that was the cure for her reading things filled with Elves (wrong attitude to take with a fantasy author right?)(

Well the next time we headed off to the library we spotted Nancy Drew and in of all things graphic novels.  I talked my daughter into trying one and she is has just finished reading the five and sixth of those books that she picked out herself at the library.

Now I know graphic novels have less words in them than most books.  After all since they have an artist the authors don't need to do the setting of scene for the reader.  The way my daughter rips through these things I think is interesting.  As a child with working memory issues she has trouble accessing the words.  It is like when you know something and it is on the tip of your tongue but can't pull it out of your mind.  We all have moment like that but my daughter has them all the time.  That she rips through graphic novels and comic books makes me excited for her.  She enjoys them and I do not have to make her sit down and read them like I used to have to other books.  This is a good thing.

Sometimes in our current culture we put too much emphasis on having each child exactly like the others and do not look to see the wonder that is each child.  We need to find out what makes them excited and then go for it.  I am glad she is reading and when she is ready I will turn her on to the Manga I have in the basement.  The next step in the wonderful world of fiction that will hopefully someday let her pick up a copy of Dragonsong from Anne McCaffrey and enjoy the tale in print.

Watching old movies with the kid

One of the joys of modern technology is the ability to sit down with your child and watch a movie that came out back when you were a kid.  Nowadays there are of course a lot of parents who are young and have been able to access the movies they grew up with on Netflix or blueray but I grew up before we even had films on VHS tapes.

I can remember back when I was in my late teens bugging the manager of the local video store about when my favorite movie at the time, Beastmaster, would be out on VHS.  This was quite a while ago.  You didn't get ads telling you when a movie would be out on video tape and available for rental.  Heck most people did not even have a VHS player.  This was in the days of the VHS and BETA wars and if you did not catch a movie in the theatre you have to hope and pray that someday it would be shown on tv.

Now you can go online or to the local library (we hit the library) and rent or buy you movie within weeks or months of its release in theatres.  That is both a wonderful thing and a sad thing.  Kids today will not have that anticipation of waiting for a good movie.

Well back to the kid.  She got very excited because i let her pick out two movies.  The great thing about my child is she does not just watch the most current CGI filled movies.  She loves watching old animated movies from when her sisters were kids, when I was a kid and even when her grandmother was a kid!

Today she brought home with her Disney's Fox and the Hound.  A lovely film with two creatures who don't know they aren't supposed to be friends and what happens when they grow up.  Not super long of course but like all Disney flicks it managed to stand the test of time and was well worth watching even in the new millennium.

The other film is Balto.  For those of you who don't know this one (really?) it is an animate film based on a true legend from Alaska of a half wolf/half husky who is part of the team that brought home a badly needed vaccine to help a town filled with sick children.  A lovely tale filled with lessons about life and love and understanding. 

Films like these are not as popular now as they should be.  These films are great for kids of all ages and it would be a great thing if more parents would show them to their kids.

Doing some painting again.

Since today was a painful type of morning for me I decided to paint for a bit.  When I was out with my hubby he got me new paintbrushes so I could do something a bit more detailed.  I think these would have come out better if my wrists weren't aching up a storm but they arent too bad.  The first one here

Now I am not sure if it is good or not here.  I mean with the glare issues of taking the photo that is.

The next thing I worked on was, of course, a new flower.  I mixed up some shades to see if I could make it seem more 3D

Didn't come out too bad I think.  I will be deciding later if i want to add more to this or not.

The final painting was a bit of a test for me.  I had picked up a feather on a walk recently and thought, Hey why don't I try to paint a feather on canvas?  Now it was a bit tricky but here you go.

Did it work?  Good question but i had fun doing it.

Painting on the small or hey this is fun

Now any of you who follow me on facebook know I decided to try my hand at painting this summer.  I have had my successes and my failures of course.  Working with small canvases and acrylic paints I have painted flowers and the moon so far.  Now in no way do I claim to be a talented artist, no more than I think i am the most talented writer but i enjoy doing this.  The canvases I like to work with are both small at 5x7 and cheap.  I can get a three pack of them at the dollar store for a dollar.  This means I can teach myself to paint and not feel like I am wasting money.

Over the past two months I have been experimenting with different techniques using a variety of brushes.  Again the nice part about this is that everything I need comes from the dollar store.  In fact the very first canvas I bought even came with a small table top sized easel.

Okay actually to be honest my hubby started me off.  He bought me my first bottles of paint and brushes.  He was very sweet at this and very patient with my lack of confidence.

This image is the first one I painted and you can see it is bad. 

As you can see I had not learned yet to layer colors.  One of the earliest tricks in painting with acrylics to learn is that you put down one color, then let it dry before putting down the next.  I did better on the next set of paintings.

While they don't look great here they are actually rather nice displayed in my living room.  You can see I have some idea now about how to use the brushes to make petals and to use layers of colors to give depth to the painting.

Not that I haven't had my mistakes.  Yes the first one above was bad but so was this one

This image of death was so bad that I went out to a real craft/painting store and spent money on something called Gesso.  This product allows you to reuse your canvas by covering up your horrible mistakes.  This painting and two others that I don't have pictures of took two coats of Gesso to completely cover up.  Thankfully it is an easy process.

Gesso is a product that looks like think white paint that both covers up your mistakes and adds texture to your canvas.  A lot of painters who stretch their own canvases use it in the prep stage.  I have been lucky in that those cheap little canvases I buy are all ready prepared to paint directly on.

Here are a few more that I have done, just for the fun of painting

The one on the top had my attempt at a signature on it.  I don't know how the real artists sign there work. I really don't.  I think that will be my next thing to learn for sure.

Now these two paintings (final two for now) I actually used for more than just being pretty images on canvas.  The first I have used as a cover for my next Death Walks Through short story.

I have been told it has a nice eerie feel to it.  I hope so.

The next is my attempt at water flowers.  Now these came out so nice that my daughter decided she needed it for the background image in a photo of her latest gundam.  I like it.

Now I have a few others in the works.  I have started a sun to match the woman in the moon above and I have a canvas painted black as a background to what I hope will be a really nice feather painting.  Wish me luck!

Dragons, inspiration, magic or just a really cool toy?

Yup yesterday I said I would put up pics of my dragons but not just any of them.  These photos are of a line of kids toys known as megablock dragons.  They are snap together creatures with fun colors and poseability.  My sweet hubby got these for me a while ago.  Now they are getting hard to get since the company has stopped making them.  Figures right?  The fun thing with them is you have the big ones that look great and then you have the little ones that you can use in all kinds of fun little dioramas.  I have set them up from time to time attacking my hubby's Kreo transformers and next I plan to set them up in little battles with my SD gundams.  Here are some of the ones I have.

These guys are fun as you can see.  I have an army of yellow dragons and a scattering of other colors.  Of course my current favorite is the bottom image.  He is a draco lich...a skeleton dragon.  Unlike the ones above him he had a ton of parts.  It took me most of an hour to put him together.  He was filled with blue crystal lego pieces.  The others are a body, arms and legs, head and tail and wings and you are done. While I have them set up in various ways right now once I get the gundams built (and my daughter goes back to school!) I can play around and make little battles with them.  I may be almost old I am still a kid at heart and these are fun.

While I write a lot of interesting tales I don't put all my crazy creativity into my stories.  Sometimes you have to get out your toys and just play right?  Besides there is only so much I can do with my dragon characters (so far)