Posting my titles on Google Play or what the heck am I doing?

Yeah I found the page to list my links but I am not sure how to market these.  Google play is basically a way for those who read on their phones to access amazing new titles (like mine) to read on their google phones.  So I have doing my best to figure out how to market over here

.To Save Face or Family, a novel on Google Play

So far I have only two of my titles up but I hope to have the rest up by the end of July.  Not the simplest thing to do but the more places people can buy my work the better.  In fact as a shock I found I had two sales over on the Kobo Writers Life page.  I don't get a lot of sales on Kobo and in the past year the majority of them were titles on my D2D or Smashwords books, so it was nice to see.  So if you can go check out my titles on GooglePlay

Alone: an Acrostic poem | Lisa Williamson | Sad | Poem | Storyenet.com

Alone: an Acrostic poem | Lisa Williamson | Sad | Poem | Storyenet.com

Look what I got for my anniversary?

Yup I have been happily married now for four years.  My sweet hubby decided when he was in Toronto for business to pick me up a new little kit to put together.  If you had told me four years ago that I would actually be happy to receive a gundam to put together i would have given you the old stink eye but these guys are actually kinda fun to put together.

Now this little kit was on the easy side for me.  As you can imagine after building these for the past year with the hubby I am getting better at them.  I didn't need any help putting it together and managed to do it in about an hour(ish). This was one of the simpler kits I have done and I actually didn't mind that at all.  As you can see by the photos, he is a zaku style SD in green with some fun pop on armor...and I do mean pop on.He was very simple to put together with a minimum of stickers and joints.  Mostly a pop me together little guy.

Not the best pics I have taken but well you can see that he is a little guy.  That is the salt shaker from my dinning room table next to him.  He is just about four inches tall and he has this huge battle axe that makes him almost tip over when you put it into his hand.  Simple, silly but sweet, IMO.  I enjoyed taking a break from being a mom and baker to make him.  Hopefully next week I will finally sit down and work on the 1/144 models that Fox set aside for me.  One of them is so old that we have to actually use glue with it.  And that is why it isn't done yet.  That glue gives me a headache pretty quick.

So enjoy my little friend here and hopefully soon i will have some more...and of course someday soon I will do a little action battle type photo series of my little guys playing.

Read a biography or hey I do read other stuff!

During the past week or so I have of course read a lot of things.  From my usual fantasy to paranormal romance to a biography...yes I said a biography.

See we had a day where storms rolled through and power was very iffy.  What is a woman to do but pick up an actually hardcover that has been sitting around on the shelf since I moved to Canada.

That book was I am Jackie Chan.  Yup that Jackie Chan.  See my hubby is a huge fan of the man, as am I.  We all know his amazing movies and I used to own some of his earlier works before i moved to Canada.  So I thought, what the heck and i dove into the book.

It is filled with lots of photographs from his life and it is told from his point of view. You learn all abut his growing up in Hong Kong and in one of the troops of the Chinese Opera.  Now this tale really starts in 1956 when his parents signed him over to the school he was to spend the next ten years at. Times were very different as was the world he was living in.  Mr Chan was not a scholarly child, a bit of a brat by his own telling and a boy who needed to move. 

The school he entered was a very harsh one.  In the world of today he would have been considered abused horribly by the school and his parents would have been brought up on charges but in China at this time they were doing there best to give him a chance at a better life.

While the book needs the steady hand of a good co-writer and editor to match today's standards, this book is actually quite enthralling.  You find yourself gasping in horror and rooting for the young Jackie and saddened at times by the losses in his life and cheering at the good things.  Unlike reading fiction, this book it true.  The master actor/comedian/stuntman and more lived this life and this book makes you believe it.  It is a snapshot of a world that very few know of.

I am told that the book out there now is very different from the copy I have.  It has been rewritten and edited but I wonder if it lost the feel of reality that this copy has?  Sometimes editing and rewriting should be avoided.  This book is one man's view of his life, from a point of view very different than the westerners who read it.  This westerner felt that disconnect but still could not put down the book.  It is a great read and made me glad i knew these things about a very fine man.

Re-reading a master

While I have spent a lot of time reading the new and amazingly talent crop of indie authors out there, I do from time to time, pull out some of the older fiction.  Over the past week I have been working my way through Roger Zelanzy's Chronicles of Amber books.

Now anyone who knows these series, knows that it is one of the very best written bits of fiction out there.  There is political intrigue, back biting, fantasy creatures, magic of a type not commonly seen, religion and a whole lot of other things that make series great.

The first five books of this series are from the point of view of Corwin of Amber.  One of a dozen or more brothers and sisters who are heirs to the throne of Amber, which is the center of all reality.  It starts off with him not knowing who he is and we are taken through a lot of ups and downs and confusion as he learns who he is, where he belongs and just who should be the kind of Amber.

He father is missing, the magician who was both tutor and master of the courts is rumored to be mad and is also missing.  Everything to drag you along into a world that is rich and well written.

While it has been well over a decade since I last read the series I found myself pulling for Corwin and really interested yet again in the mechanization that the brothers and sisters go through in these books. There are parts that drag to me and they did drag in the first reading way back when but they don't distract from a masterful telling of these interconnected books.  If you are a fan of fantasy you really should pick up these books and read them.  There is a reason that he was considered a master and this book series is it.

Now I am currently reading the second series of the Amber books.  This time the main character is Merlin, Corwin's son.  We met him literally at the end of the first series of books and here we find that Merlin is facing a lot of the same things that his father did.  There are forces outside of Amber this time that want to destroy the kingdom and we get to meet other relatives that we did not know about before.  It seems that this family is more twisted than even the family we see on Game of Thrones.  So folks, do yourself a favor, pick up all ten books and settle back for a wild ride through Shadow.

A bit behind on my reviewing or hey anthologies!

Okay I have an excuse.  A new book release means I do have to spend a lot of time marketing that book.  Not that marketing has done me much good so far but it is the attempt correct? 

Between blasting the web with notices of my new and amazing new read....(okay sorry but here!)

New book release!  Face:  A uniquely oriental belief concerning honor, respect and responsibility.  Many will give everything, including their lives, for this concept.

Destiny is a young woman of two clans.  She has willingly joined the ranks of the Firm to  protect a younger brother who has a great destiny.  But it is her role that is the question.  Was she simply born to protect her younger brother or is her role in the universe a greater one?

When the unimaginable happens friends join ranks to fight monsters born out of the mind of men but also those from outside our realm.  The question is, will they Save Face or Family? http://tinyurl.com/m2wc2q2

(back to our regularily scheduled blog =P)

Yeah I know but I need to plug my book right?

Okay this weekend when I was sitting back and relaxing I decided to read up some of the anthologies I have on my ebook reader.  Now anyone who follows my babbling knows I have been a fan of anthologies for a long time.  These collections of many authors tales are a great place to learn if you like an authors style or not.  Short stories are not simply snippets from longer stories, they are an art form in their own right.  Yes I write many, many, many of them, I admit it.  But long before I started writing them I had been reading them.

Back in the 80s I discovered the anthologies of stories set all in the same world.  From Thieve's World to Merovingen Nights to the Darkover anthologies I had many hours of reading pleasure.  Into the 90s I kept buying any that tempted my eye in the book story.  This weekend I sat back and read through the anthologies that Mercedes Lackey put together in her Valdamar series.  Again I found short stories that are like a gateway drug into authors I haven't read.

I admit that my favorite this weekend was from Under the Vale.  The story Simple Gifts had a lighter feel than many of the stories and it was well worth reading.  Now a lot of people read these anthologies and then go on to review the stories like they are incomplete novels.  To me it seems like they just want to complain.  If they wanted a novel then they should go ahead and BUY A NOVEL.  These are short stories, they are not easy to write and write well.  They are complete stories in their own right and are but a moment in time for that world.  Expecting lots of character development or deep meaning is like expecting a youtube video to have the same impact as a full movie.  Really folks, sit back, relax and enjoy these tales.

whoa looks like I am getting a bit preachy but it could be because I am tired of people reviewing one artform as if it was another.  We all have different tastes but then that is what makes us human right?

Happy Victoria Day everyone

Yup it is a stat holiday up here in Canada.  There were a ton of booms last night from all the neighbors lighting off fire crackers.  It was rather nippy for what should be the kick off to the summer here with the temps dropping down to freezing last night but we deal right?

I have been a very busy writer type, getting To Save Face or Family out but I did do some reading this week of course!  Decided to read three of Phaedra Weldon's books and started a fourth one.  She has a fun take on OOB or out of body traveling and ghosts.

Here are three quick reviews which i will expand over on my BookLikes blog.


Wraith:

A very interesting paranormal.  Zoe is a Traveler, that is a being who can go OOB or Out of Body.  She has a small business as a snoop or private investigator.  She basically goes as a disembodied spirit and listens in on conversations.  No cheating spouses though.  Just business transactions.  She gets hired to listen in on a conversation but instead witnesses a murder most scary.  Well worth reading and this book makes you want to read more.

Spectre:

The follow up to Wraith, in this book we get more tension in the form of men who are interested in our Zoe.  She has all the same issues that most heroines of this genre have.  That is she wants the man who can't or won't understand what she is and is just not attracted to the ones who are (or is she?)

Phantasm:

Third book and whoa does this series pick up speed. Lots of danger, lots of intrigue and lots of confused Zoe.  She needs to pick a man and pick the right now.  I can see this series of books being picked up by one of the networks.  It would make a great tv show.