My finger has a heart beat

I’m sitting here typing this with two fingers. I can’t believe how hard it is. It’s off putting having to look where my fingers are going AND look at the screen at the same time. Yes, I’m one of those who uses the screen to see what I write. I csn blame Secretarial College where they’d stick paper to the top of the typewriter (yes, typewriter .. am I showing my age?) It covered our hands so we couldn’t see what our fingers were doing.

Anyway, why is she typing with two fingers, you ask? Well, THIS is why … (my apologies to those with sensitive stomaches).

Yummy, huh?

I was de-nitting dear daughters hair. Damn things can bite! LOL. Nah, just kidding.

I went to open the top draw on our bathroom vanity and it broke off. Now, the vanity has been a bone of contention for some time now. Basically it is falling apart. The top draw has come apart and been stuck back together, but doesn’t sit on the runners so drops down all the time (gripe #1). The whole thing dips down and to the back so when you wash your hands the water from turning on and off taps pools along the back & stains (gripe #2). The handle on the bottom draw was already missing when we bought the place so it’s practically impossible to open (gripe #3). And recently there has been a ‘dead’ smell eminating from the cupboards underneath, despite it having been emptied and scrubbed out (gripe #4). SO, as you can guess I’ve been at Hubby to replace the damn thing. I mean we own a Hardware Store, he can get one at a reasonable price for Christ sake!

Anyway, as I was saying. I went to open the top drawer when the ceramic handle came off in my hand. I was taken by surprise and it took a few moments to notice that there were two big flaps of skin now hanging off my finger. As you can imagine the blood soon followed. I must say that it is hard to stop the urge to take off to the hospital, especially when you know it is deep. I was worried that I may have hit the bone on the joint. But I’m resisting for the time being. I’ll give it a few days to see what it’s going to do. Hopefully it won’t get infected. At least the bleeding has slowed.

So you can bet that the new vanity will NOT have ceramic handles. And the upside of the whole incident is that I WILL get a new vanity AND I can give Hubby ‘the finger’ without being called out for it!

Hallelujah and pass the Gin, it’s OVER!

LOL! God I love that – Hallelujah and pass the gin. Thanks AJ for adding that to my very limited repertoire

Well, that’s that for another year, eh? Christmas is over. Gone. Kaput!
I can’t believe how glad I am to see the back end of Christmas this year. Honestly, where has all the joy gone? I kept waiting for someone to come and clock me on the head with the Merry stick, but as usual they passed me bye.

It’s just too hard now, isn’t it? The shopping, the lack of money, the long list of things to do, the secrets and pretense for the kids, ‘Yes darling, Santa really does exist’. I thought we got to re-live our childhood through our kids. I was so looking forward to enjoying Christmas once I’d had kids. But, now I really do understand why Mum and Dad never looked that excited about Christmas LOL! I couldn’t even be bothered getting the annual photo with Santa this year. I vowed I would not be going near the Shopping centres within a week of Christmas but would you believe the kids school didn’t break up until the 21 December!

So. No photo with Santa this year. In all honesty I don’t think the kids even noticed. Too bloody busy winging about not getting enough. Ungrateful little …. darlings.

Anyway, we’ll be heading off next week to visit the rellies in Sydney. Great more presents (yes I am being sarcastic ). We being the kids and I. Hubby gets two weeks of peace (lucky bugger!). The worst part of that, of course, is the travel. 5-6 hours of solid driving on one of the most dangerous pieces of road in NSW. The Pacific Highway. Then we’ll be back home for a week before we head off (down the coast again) to catch up with some friends visiting from London to show off their twin daughters.

Before I know it, January will be over and the mad rush to get the kids ready for school will start, then it’s my daughters birthday … ahh .. the list just keeps growing. It’s no wonder I drink so much.

Anyway, in amongst all this I have five covers to get done. Yeah, I know it’s nothing compared to what other cover artists are pumping out. I guess that’s the upside to being with only one publisher at this stage.

Actually I’ve just sent off a draft for my first Pirate themed book I can’t help but wonder what stock sites offered before the Pirates movies came out. Honestly. Now every damned ‘Pirate’ looks like Captain Jack. Don’t get me wrong. I loved. LOVED. Johnny as Captain Jack. But when are people going to realise there will never be another Johnny. Or Captain Jack for that matter. Come on people. Use your creativity. Give me something to work with here!

*sigh* Well that’s it from me for the time being. I’ll try to get in as much as possible before we head off but January may be a little quiet in this little part of the world.

Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Just in case I don’t get a chance to say it

P.S. I don’t know how you ladies do it! Finding great pictures to add to your blogs. I an never find anything worthwhile without a watermark on it. What’s your secrets! I mean, do you just type in ’santa flashing’ or something and get what you were after? I just can’t seem to do it for some reason

Quick Breakdown of The Price of a Sword

Thought I would share with you quickly, how the final cover draft for The Price of a Sword came about.

Okay. So first things first. The Price of a Sword is an Historical, so this in itself was going to limit stock possibilities. You would really think that some forward thinking photographer out there would realise the need for attractive models in period dress. Considering that the publishing industry is a big time user of stock sites. But that is a whole other post and I digress ..

It was decided that we’d just go with the Hero on the cover, so after trawling through the stock sites, I managed to pull the following together. The sword isn’t in his hand at this stage, but I’m sure you get the idea Oh, and I’ve also added some perspective to the targe (shield). Now, for some strange reason I thought that this book was the second in a series. So I originally set the cover up like Prince of the Three Mountains where the Hero was chopped off at the waist by the title banner. Claire quickly set me straight and suggested that perhaps we could use the Hero’s full torso in this one.

 

 

Now that I have the Hero partially together, I moved on to the background. The story is set in a Castle on the moors. So with a bit of cutting, pasting & blending .. ta-da .. and we have a castle on the moors. Sometimes I might match the colour of the objects so they blend better but I don’t think I did that here. I quite liked the glow that the castle had to it and the lighting on the model seemed to mirror that ’sunlight’ effect.

 

 

Next I’ll place the images together to get a feel for placement, lighting and suitability. If I’m happy I will continue by adding more detail to the images. The Hero had some Greek blood, hence the dark hair and Greek writing in his tattoo arm band. I’ve also added the sword by this stage. There was some additional lighting on the model’s right shoulder/arm that I didn’t want, so I’ve painted that out. I’ll usually then finish off by touching up shadows and highlights.

 

 

Then it’s on to the Titles. This is probably where I have the hardest time of it. Deciding where to place the text without detracting from the cover. Sizing, fonts and colours are possibly where I fall down the most. I’ve only just recently started working on the full cover spread in one document. I used to have one file for the cover, one for the spine and one for the back. While it’s taken some getting used to the full spread is probably the easiest to manage. Plus there’s less files to have to send to Claire Which I’m sure she is happy about

So here we have it. The final full cover spread with titles.

 

 

 

 

 

Sweet Dreams & The Price of a Sword

Latest ‘Coming Soon’ covers released over at TEB!

Sweet Dreams by Dakota Rebel. I have to admit that I was feeling a little bit of pressure doing this cover. Only because Dakota had put so much trust in me. It is her baby, after all Anyway, the first thing that jumped out at me from the cover request form was the Hero’s green eyes. I was having trouble finding the ‘right’ model so decided to experiment a bit. I’m glad I did. The eyes really do make you feel like the Heroine is being watched over in her dreams. Now for the Heroine, I’d been wanting to use this image for quite some time and it just seemed to fit this cover perfectly. I kept the green colouring right throughout the cover by adding a green silk sheet (originally red). The first cover draft didn’t have the textured background but it was a bit stark and boring. So I added some texture and voila! Sweet Dreams

The Price of a Sword by Ellie Tremayne. I’ve actually created a special ‘Cover Breakdown’ that goes into detail on how this cover was created. Go check out my next post.

Silent night (I wish!)

So we did the Carols in the Park this evening. Actually, it was Carols in the Church Hall because of the rain, but all I had to do was turn up, so it was no biggie. Darling daughter went off and got into her class group, whilst the demon child and I went and found a seat. I had a sudden panic attack when I realised that, because we were in the church, we’d inadvertently become part of the Church Service. Now, if it were just myself I would have quite enjoyed the service. But as I mentioned before, I had the demon child with me (aka, my 3yo son).

What is it about boys that they never (NEVER!) stop moving. He was up and down the whole bloody 1/2 hour (for that is all I could take). Getting more adventurous as the minutes passed. I lost him more than once amongst the crowd but I was more worried of him deciding to head out onto the street. Numerous times I went to look for him only to find that he’d made his way back to the seat. He wasn’t one bit worried that I wasn’t there and I was beginning to get odd looks from other parents towards the end. I’m not quite sure if they were sympathetic or accusatory, LOL.

Now, I have to ask this. WHY do they insist on singing carols two octaves above any normal person’s range? And they wonder why no-body sings! I mean. I’m not going to sit there sounding like a cat being tortured when I can dutifully mouth the words am I! Actually it’s funny sitting there listening. You can always tell when no-one knows the words because things go quiet and previously clear singing suddenly becomes a mumble .. LOL.

Aaaanyway, it all ended quickly enough. I’d have stayed if it weren’t for you know who – damn my husband for talking me into taking him (he stayed at home *rolls eyes*). We then rounded up dear daughter, only to have her start whining because she wanted to stay. Believe me when I say she could quite easily reach those high notes with here winging. She’s never grateful for what she does get. No. She’s always (always) wants more and if she doesn’t get it she starts up with the air raid siren. Honestly, sometimes she really can suck the joy out of an outing.

Honest to F’ing god, these kids drive me insane. No wonder I drink too much!

Hmm.. maybe those sexy male demon’s in my dreams really did spawn my children. I have a demon child and a Dementor!

Broke, Unholy Lust and Tribute to the Goddess

Well, it finally happened. Wednesday I went to finish the Christmas shopping. I get paid on a Wednesday, you see. Anyway, I was so good. I picked up only what was needed as I knew that I had to do the groceries before I went home. So there I am at the grocery checkout and how unusual, the groceries cost more than what I have in my account. Yes, this is quite normal for me. However to save embarrassment I ususally whip out the Mastercard and pay with that. Well, yes you guessed it. This time there was no money available on the Mastercard, I had no extra cash in my wallet (again, not unusual) so I then had to find $84 worth of groceries to hand back.  What a bloody nuisance! I really needed the majority of the things that I had to hand back.  I don’t know how everyone else in the world is finding the finances these days, but christ! $100 does not go very far *sigh*.

I’m so annoyed with myself for letting the Mastercard get away from me like that. I purposely have a low limit because I know how quickly it can build up and I am thankful for that small mercy.  So, it seems I’ve already spent my next couple of Cover cheques LOL! Nothing like getting some enjoyment out of your hard earned cash, eh?

Anyway, enough of my whining ’cause another two covers have been released over at TEB.

Tribute for the Goddess by Brynn Paulin. This was probably my first real attempt at replacing a model’s face. The model with the hair didn’t look quite innocent enough, but I’m really happy with how this worked I mucked around a bit and was able to re-create a water effect by using textures and motion filters, then added some cloud & lightning brushes for the background. The guy I really liked, except for the lighting, however, I managed to make it look like it belonged there by tinting the background to match the aqua lighting. A couple of hair brushes for him and we were complete! I think this was the second draft. The first had a full body shot of the Goddess. She was holding a flower but I had to paint that out because it was irrelevant to the storyline.

Unholy Lust by Iona Blair. This cover went through a few drafts, trying to get the right feel. I had troubles getting this one for some reason. But that’s it. Sometimes no matter how hard you try, the covers don’t come together as easily as you’d like. This could possibly be why I’ve just done the dark background & swirl brushes. I did like the couple though, and was quite intent on using them. Still, all in all it’s not too bad

Jealous!

You know, being surrounded by all these talented writers can really get quite depressing.

I’ve been dabbling in writing as far back as my early teens. My girlfriend and I would write erotic stories (well, as erotic as a 12 year old can get *rolls eyes* LOL) about .. of all people .. Wham’s George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. Or Steve Norman from Spandau Ballet or Morten somebody from Aha. OMG! I can’t believe I’m admitting this LOL. Anyway, every few days, we’d write a story and then swap them. I’d always get annoyed that I would get stuck with Andrew and my girlfriend would get George. Ha ha .. so who’s laughing now eh? Aahh … those were the days

Anyway, my love of writing all things romance has not changed. Except for the fact that I rarely write these days. I have numerous wonderful stories and characters who still come to visit me and give me a prod every now and then (in the blandest way possible of course ) Like Sarah and Julian (Historical set in colonial Australia), Blade and Layne (Sci-Fi), Zoran & Cale (Urban Fantasy) just to name a few. *sigh* all their stories remain unfinished. Unfortunately my biggest downfall is the ability to plot a storyline.

I don’t know why my stories can’t have a start, middle and end. And why do I always seem to be starting in the middle? Possibly that’s because that’s where all the good stuff is LOL. The visions appear in my head. A bit like a scene from a movie. It’s a snapshot that catches my attention and I just have to write about it. Usually it’s the first kiss. But then after that, nothing, nada .. *crickets*. I just don’t know how authors come up with these incredibly interwoven plot lines that have you sitting back in awe and proclaiming ‘hell yeah!’

Obviously it’s the lead-up that has me hooked. All that endless tension of wondering does he or doesn’t he, will she or won’t she. All that gut-wrenching angst where you find yourself ranting at the book “Just kiss her for Christ sake!” Yeah. I’m one of those.

I think my biggest downfall is my internal editor. I just can’t for the life of me move on until I feel that the first chapter is worthy of a best seller. Then I seem to hash and rehash, edit and re-edit to the point that the story is no longer the one I had in my head and then I have to try to pull all the pieces together, which of course, no longer fit. Then I get disgruntled with it and put it aside as a couple of new characters step up to the plate. And so the cycle begins again.

*sigh* I need help.

The collecting bug

So. The Christmas tree is finally up and I’ve just spent the afternoon washing my collection of Depression glass. Phew! That’s one job that I avoid for as long as possible. I took a photo to share, considering it will probably be another 12 months before it looks this good again, LOL!

Both these cupboards (and others) are jam packed with more glassware (Depression & Art Deco). Unfortunately I just don’t have the bench space to show it off. Especially with little 3 foot terrors running around the house. And yes. We have had a few breakages. Luckily nothing too expensive

The dark brown cabinet was made by my grandfather. I replaced the old glass windows with some lead-lighting that I did myself. One of those many arty courses that I’ve dabbled in in an attempt to find my creative outlet (including leatherwork, crocheting, knitting, beading, felting, watercolour painting, oil painting … and the list goes on )

I remember seeing a green glass collection in a magazine once and I just fell in love with it then and there. I love tracking down pieces and trying to identify where they’re from and who manufactured them. A couple of my favourites are actually Crown Glass ware which was an Australian company. The quality is no where as good as the Czech, English or American glass but they’re still beautiful pieces. The green float bowl which the Angel is standing in is quite rare and the amber oval vase (centre) is just beautiful up close. For some reason Amber is not as popular as the greens/blues/pinks but bunched together and when the sun hits them they are just so cheerful!

One day I’ll have a nice house to show them off in, with specially built wall cupboards and shelves. *sigh* Guess I’d better buy myself a lottery ticket

The US folks out there may recognise some Jadite in the cupboard. That was an extension to my green glass collection. I just love the solid milky green contrast to the other glass. The Jadite is quite expensive now (as is the green glass) and there are cheap fakes now flooding the market. It’s so hard to tell what you’re getting when you purchase on line

Well, I’ve probably bored my three watchers so enough with my ramblings More covers to come soon!