Papa Pat reviews “The Ugly Knight”

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Papa Pat gave me a very nice review for my book, The Ugly Knight. 🙂

Excerpt:

This is such a pleasant, pleasant book! There is a lightness in the way it is written, that even in the scenes where Korton (The Ugly Knight) and Elzi (his resolute love interest) face the Ultimate Evil, it’s almost…peaceful. There is one exception, which I’ll get to later.
I THINK that the reason the book is so pleasant has to do with the nature of Korton. He is an unassuming young man, the son and grandson of a tailor, so he doesn’t have snooty attitudes to get over before he becomes likable. He succeeds in his difficult apprenticeship process because he works hard. He gets up early. He takes care of his own horse. And while he does not have the raw, natural talent of Jelan, a senior squire who befriends him, he just keeps practicing and hammering away until, pretty much to everyone’s surprise, he finishes early and with greater skills than any of his peers.
It’s true character, not just a role that he is playing. On his first quest, to kill a dragon, he takes the time to befriend an aged house servant. Because this is a book, of course, it MUST be shown that his easy-going relationships with servants produce unexpected rewards, but honestly folks: he’s not doing it for that reason. He’s just a nice guy. And he meets a nice girl, and good things happen: they become friends, and eventually fall in love.

For Cyber Monday

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The Ugly Knight

(Since everyone else is doing it. 😀 )

I’ve put “The Ugly Knight” on sale for the next few days at Amazon. Today it’s on sale for $1.99, tomorrow it’ll be $2.99, etc.

If you like it, or even if you don’t, please leave a review.

And yes, I know the cover could be improved, it’s too generic.

I’ve taken the plunge

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I’ve put my first novel (written over 20 years ago) out on Amazon, blurbless, coverless as it may be. That’s a generic cover, made with Amazon’s Cover Creator. It isn’t too bad looking, but I’m going to see if I can’t find/make etc., a better one in the next couple of weeks. This is the story of a young knight going out to fight a dragon (and that’s part of the reason I haven’t written a blurb yet. What else is there to say? 😕 )

This isn’t the novel about An & Mattan which still has the first draft linked in the sidebar, and which I’m still working on with Barb, my editor friend. I was trying to make Mattan like a rock, but according to most of my alpha readers, I missed, and turned him into a doormat instead. There still is an implied inertness, but one that comes from weakness instead of strength.

Barb, bless her, thinks that he really is a rock, and he’s just so reserved that no one can get to know him until we draw him out some more. She has me working on various pieces of the book, and swears that it’s getting much better. All I can see at the moment, though, are pieces of the book strewn all over, like the time my parents refinished the piano.

Anyway, I plan to get back into blogging regularly soon. I keep getting distracted, by real life, by my characters An & Mattan, and by books I’m reading.

Please Help Me Fix My Non-Working 2010 Hyundai Accent

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My friend Barb could use some help in getting money to have her car fixed.

Barb Caffrey's Blog

Folks, I’m beyond frustrated. I had to set up a GoFundMe page to help me fix my car…and I didn’t want to do this.

Here’s what happened:

Over the past 41 days, I’ve tried to get Hyundai USA interested in fixing my non-running 2010 Hyundai Accent Blue. I bought it in November of 2011 at 37,000 miles; it conked out due to the transmission’s casing having cracked at 67,000 miles on September 1, 2014 — three days before I was scheduled to go in for surgery.

So I had the use of my car for less than three years before the transmission’s casing cracked. I’ve never had a car do this before. Not at any amount of miles.

Mind, I have had transmissions go out before. But not like this, and certainly not this early.

I realize that cars, like anything else, are on a continuum. Some cars do very…

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Say “Hi” to the Neighbors

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Today’s Blogging 101 challenge was to follow five new topics and five new blogs. Unfortunately, I’m already following enough blogs and feeds that I have difficulty keeping up with them all. So, instead, I’m going to list five blogs (of the many) that I follow:

  1. According to Hoyt The ramblings of Sarah Hoyt (and friends). This includes political commentary, novel chapters, discussions of writing, and the writing industry, and much more.
  2. The Elfyverse My friend Barb Caffrey discusses writing, her books, sports, politics, book reviews, whatever else is on her mind.
  3. Mad Genius Club A group of indie writers discuss various aspects of self-publishing, from making covers, to editing. They discuss the perils and perks of self-publishing. And have great fun doing so.
  4. Nathaniel Hoover’s Blog Nathaniel Hoover posts many game play-throughs on YouTube, under the names GeminiLazer and GameCola (he also is an editor at the GameCola site). My son loves watching his videos (among others), and so I get to hear them (over and over and over). Somewhere along the line, I’ve gotten to really like his sense of humor, and started following his blog, and commenting frequently. (Probably not as frequently as I do at According to Hoyt or Mad Genius, but it stands out more.)
  5. Be Swift, Be Precise My husband’s blog. ❤ He tries to blog every day. Frequently it’s on things he covers in the classes he takes, some thought on movies, books, life in general.

I have numerous other blogs that I enjoy and follow, but I limited it to five. I had a tough time deciding which ones to include. (Other than my husband’s. That one was easy.)