Thursday Thoughts: Universal Dreaming

Posted on June 23, 2022 by Silver James

So. I’ve been having weird dreams lately. When I dream, I’m a fairly lucid dreamer who remembers the dream in good detail. Or at least I used to. Here lately? Weird dreams. Disjointed. With odd people. Odd places. Odd circumstances. And none of them long enough to really get a feel for whatever my brain is trying to get across to me.  As a result, I sort of wish the Universe was right on this one.

Silver, oh Silver… you’re dreaming-g-g-g.

Dreaming of lavender fields, turquoise seas, and emerald isles. Mountains that rise and fall, oceans that heave and sigh, and jungles that give and take.

You’ve dreamed up heaven and earth. All of the people and all of the places. What’s “good” and what’s not. What you like and what you don’t.

You’ve dreamed of me, and of yourself, and of things you no longer remember, yet they, too, carry on.

Yet as meticulous as you’ve been, there are some things, I dare say, that are too often forgotten, Silver: that you’re dreaming, that you’re free, and that the dreamer is always greater than their dream.

Z-z-z-z-z-z-z,
The Universe
© http://www.tut.com ®

Go on, Silver, look around you. Seems pretty real, doesn’t it? That’s how good you are.

I’d prefer to go back to the lucid dreaming. That’s were a lot of scenes for my books come from. The realer, the better. Wait. Is that even a word? Technical, I think it’s supposed to be more real but that messes up the rhythm. What about y’all? Do you dream vividly?. 

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Wednesday Words: Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda

Posted on June 22, 2022 by Silver James

We’ve come to the mid-month Hump Day. Which means I had to tax my brain to come up with a new snippet. I fear the Twit folks who took over #1lineWed are running out of inspiration. Which happens. To all of us. On the other hand, #ThursdayThreads is still going strong. Today’s blened prompt is *AS A* and “We always could.” Here’s the scene that popped out using those two things as inspiration. Again, the scene doesn’t need a lot of explanation. Either I’m getting better, or I’m getting boring.
*I***
As a leaden sky dropped flakes of winter white, Meg leaned back against the man she’d tried so hard to resist. This was not the time. This was not the place. And this should not be the man. She’d grown up in her mother’s shadow. Alana North might be a fabulous actress but her taste in men ran to extremes. Six marriages, the first to Meg’s father, the very stiff-upper-lip British army officer. While Major General David Muir was stand-offish and cold, he was also a man who could be depended on. In her teens, she’d figured out that the poor man was baffled by a little girl who bounced from pink tutus and Hello Kitty to climbing trees and wanting a polo pony. She smiled at the memory. She’d turned out to be a pretty decent polo player, much to her father’s surprise.

Her five step-fathers included a drugged-out rocker and a movie mogul with many ex-wives, mistresses and a slew of messed-up kids. He was followed by a tortured-soul of a struggling actor, a Hollywood real estate czar, and the pool guy. She rolled mental eyes at the cliche and wondered how her own life had devolved into the same.

Frasier Kincaid. Enigma. Hot. Cold. Intense. Laid back. Man. Except he wasn’t. Not exactly. That’s what he’d said. “I’m not exactly human.” And she’d seen his wolf.

“What?” Kin’s question whispered across her ear.

“What what?” she countered.

“You are thinking so hard I can hear you in my head.”

“Oh.” She thought some more, decided he didn’t need to follow her down the rabbit hole of her early life. Instead, she picked a topic that she was curious about and figured she was entitled to some explanations.

“The change. How does it work?”

“It just does. My kind, we always could shift.” Which was a lie. Sometimes, having the gene wasn’t enough and a Wolf couldn’t shift. Sometimes they died trying. He’d been one of the lucky ones. A survivor. Until now. Without Meg, he wouldn’t survive.
****
And there you have it–a brief peek into Meg’s backstory. Progress. Writers, any words to share today? Readers, would you want to be a shifter? I’m kinda torn. Part of me could be a wolf. At least part of the time. I mean, I like my steak medium rare, but I’m too lazy to chase it down. 😉

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Tuesday Treats & Titles: Solstice Style

Posted on June 21, 2022 by Silver James

Today is the summer solstice.. That’s the longest day in the year in the sense that thee is way more light than dark. I did a lot of research on solstices and equinoxes for the first book I sold to a publihes, and it was published not long after. So, today, we’re going back in time for our titles, in this case FAERIE FATE, FAERIE FIRE, FAERIE FOOL, and FAERIE FAITH. They’re all still available digitally and maybe in print because I think Wild Rose did POD, though it might take awhile to get a print copy.

I have to admit, I wrote FAERIE FIRE first. Only it wasn’t FAERIE FIRE. Nope. It was “Highlander” (the TV show with Adrian Paul playing the immortal Highlander.) I wrote a screenplay/;story about one of his previous loves being reincarnated and him having to protect her.  Then I heard publishers were looking for time travel romances again based on Karen Marie Monings continued success. So I came up with the idea of FAERIE FATE. And it occurred to me that I could convert the :fan fiction into an actual book with the hero sort of based on Duncan McLeod, though Duncan Ross was not immartal. He was sort of cursed by the Fae, though, to repeat his lifetimes until he found his true love. Then Abhean, the Fae Harper, takes things into his own hands and hurls Rebecca Miller back in time.

Both FIRE and FOOL carry on the theme of lovers reincarnating until they figure it out, get it right, and find their Happy Ever After. In the final novella, Abhean gets his when Mannan Mac Lir gets a little PO’d at the Harper’s interference and hurls him into the human world, as…*GASP* a human! On, noes! This is me doing a Muppet Flail. Anyway, those were fun books to write and while they aren’t the first I wrote (trust me, those won’t see the light of day), I’m pretty proud of them.  I’ve linked the covers and titles to the FAERIE REIGN page on my website. You can find buy links there if you’re interested in checking them out.

I also have to admit that I I tended to munch–a lot–while writing all of those books. I wrote most of FATE during my lunch breaks as I was working full-time back in those days. Wendy’s. Taco Bell. A Greek place that’s no longer in business. So that’s our treat today. Fast food. What’s your favorite fast food place?

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Monday Memo

Posted on June 20, 2022 by Silver James

Note to self: It is Monday. All day. Do not forget this fact.

Drover is home. Drover is the name of my Highlander. The garage has been empty without him. The good news is, the Kids found a car they really liked, was a good deal and they could afford the payments. It’s a 2017 Nissan Pathfinder, with only 34K miles. It’s white, has a few bells and whistles and gets very decent gas mileage. Plus, they get 3rd row seating and/or cargo space. It’s pretty. I petted it at the dealership when we met Baseball Boty there Friday to drop off Stormy and to bring Drover home. I’m free! When means I’m very likely at Walmart and then Starbucks as you read this, depending on how early you get up.

In other news, there’s not much to tell. It’s hot. It’s humid. I have the summer doldrums. That means I want to eat ice cream for dinner–which LG and I did Saturday night. He had Blue Bell Peachy Peach and I had Moollinium. Good stuff.

There was baseball–MLB and college. My Cards split with the Red Sox. Now they go play the Brewers. It’s like green eggs and ham. OU beat Texas A&M and played Notre Dame last night. If I remember, I’ll come back and update the winnder. If not, check the internet if you care. LOL

I really don’t have much else to say. Seriouwly. Last week was pretty much a blur. Except “pop” computer games are freakin’ addictive. I will not open on today. No, really. Stop laughing. I used to have three games on Bing that I played–Bing Homepage Jigsaw, Sliding Tiles (using the homepage pic as the background) and 2048 which is a number game. After checking email, news, and blogs each morning, I would play each of this one time and then I’d be ready to work. Then Microsoft, which owns Bing went and mess things up. Kinda like the new “records” page for KDP, which is Amazon’s self–publishing platformen. The new setup depresses me. It’s very in-your-face about getting no sales. The old version was just a graph and somehow, it didn’t depress me as much. Ah well.

Okay. I seriously need to work today. And deal with Stormy. And LG. And Boone. Jake. Loki. Pete? I go out to the garage and pet him because as long as there’s food in his bowl and he gets the occasional pet, he’s a happy cat. I want to be a happy cat. Who else wants to be a happy cat? And who did something interesting this weekend?

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Friday Sinema: Shopping

Posted on June 17, 2022 by Silver James

I am NOT a shopper. I don’t like wandering aisles, going store to store, comparing things only to return to the original thing I looked at. Shoes, clothes, groceries. Sadly, these things cannot be done on-line, which is where I tend to do the majority of my shopping. I caught this short video the other day and it made me not only laugh, but relate. I’m like the tall, skinny guy. I have a list. I know approximately which aisles I need to hit. I grab and run. Easy peasy. Even when people want to stop and visit about Jake. What kind of shopper are you? Be honest, now. 😉

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Thursday Thoughts: Universal Easy

Posted on June 16, 2022 by Silver James

If you’re doing something you love, it’s supposed to be easy, right? If telling stories is your thing and you know the characters and the tale unfolds as you speak the words (or type as the case may be) and it’s all an effortless endeavor. Except it’s not. Writing is hard. It’s work. It is not for the fainthearted. Despite what the Universe says. Except the Universe is right. It should be easy. So often, we get in our own way. We make it harder than it has to be. We fight the words instead of working with them. We fight the characters instead of letting them evolve the way their story demands. We fight the way the story is going because we planned on Destination A and the plot keeps meandering down different paths, turning left at the crossroads instead of right, and is self-determined to arrive at Destination Z despite our best intentions.

It will “all” seem far easier, Silver, when you keep in mind, all of the time, that it’s supposed to be easy.

Everything.

That was easy,
The Universe
©www.tut.com

Silver, starting right now.

Everytime I see people melting down over this, that or another (*koffjansixkoff*) I want to break out into that song from “Frozen.” You know the one. The earworm one that everybody did karaoke videos of for like…forever? Yeah, that one. Well, at least the chorus. I need to keep that in mind when I get wrapped around the axle of my writing. I nead a big red Easy button (do y’all remember that commercial?)–or a sound effects button on my computer/phone so I can program the song in to play when I need the reminder.

Okay, I wasn’t going to do this but I can’t resist. I had to watch the video and you know what? There’s a good message there for me and my writing so t’heckfire with it. I’m sharing. What message are you going to take away from the lyrics today?

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Wednesday Words: Surprise

Posted on June 15, 2022 by Silver James

So, I’ve mentioned previously that I sort of blanked out Thursday. That means I didn’t participate in Thursday Threads, even though the prompt–“She can hear us.”–is/was a good one! And the #1lineWed prompt was equally good–SURPRINGSLY, Off-guard, Taken by, Bombshell.

See? Good stuff to work with there. Well, I finally got around to putting the prompts together and this is a happy little scene that clattered from the keyboard. It happens soon after a previous scene, where the famous rock star who is aow a military commander appears in our refugees’ encampment. Note that Maxim is the teenaged boy in the group.
****
Muffled giggles followed the whispered, “She can hear us.”

Meg lay very still, concentrating on keeping her breathing measured, as if she was still asleep.

“No she can’t. She’s sleeping.” More giggles from behind hands pressed over mouths.

Her command of the Ukrainian language was far from expert but after spending almost a month with the orphans, she was picking up the finer nuances of their conversations. Twelve-year-old Anichka and the slightly older Galyna had curled together, sharing their sleeping bags.

“Can you believe Vadim was here?” Anichka asked, her surprise and glee evident despite her best efforts to mute the volume.

“He hugged me.” Galyna’s voice, filled with wonder, returned to almost normal volume.

“I was so jealous,” Anichka admitted. “But then he signed things for all of us.” She sighed a deeply feminine sigh that was so pre-teen.

“He is handsome.”

Anichka’s voice turned a little sly. “I thought you liked Kin best.”

“I did,” Galyna said. “But I can’t marry him. He is Meg’s.”

“So you think you can marry Vadim?” There was teasing in Anicha’s tone but also a touch of scorn.
Meg tensed. She’d never noticed the other children being mean to Galyna and she was hoping that she hadn’t misread Anichka.

Galyna laughed. “No, silly. He is a big star with lots of pretty women. He would never marry me.”

Meg’s heart broke a little at the stark truth and acceptance in the little girl’s statement.

Now it was Galyna’s voice that sounded a little sly. “What about you? I thought you wanted to marry Maxim.”

A sharp “Shhh!” was followed by the sounds of a rustling tussle. Once more she thought to intervene but was caught off-guard when a low, husky voice whispered in her ear.

“Am I yours, Meg?”
****
And there you have it. A little “free range” writing to add to the on-going story. Writers, do you have any suraprising words that you don’t want “her” to hear that you want to share? And readers, who was your teenage crush? I’ll confess. I had two–Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees and Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and the Raiders. And if you know who they are, then you’re old as dirt like me. 🤣

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Tuesday Teats & Titles: Italian Style

Posted on June 14, 2022 by Silver James

We celebrated my sister-in-law’s birthday last night at Olive Garden. I hadn’t eaten there in…wow…at least two years or so. Still love the salads and the bread sticks. For some reason, I started thinking about a “conversation” held on a book blog I follow. The post centered on books where food takes a starring role and got into all sorts of nooks and crannies from deep descriptions of what’s being prepared and/or eaten to restaurants depicted in books to actual recipes.

So, thinking about all that, after eating at an Italian restaurant, I remembered that one of Sade’s favorite places to eat in DC is a little Italian place where Sinjen takes her to eat after picking her up from her FBI office. This happens right before she cuts and runs. Again. Dang but that vampire is patient.

Anyway, no recipe because I make stuff from scratch–meaning a bit of this, some of that, that kind of cheese because that’s what in the fridge and this pasta because I have enough in the pantry. So, That’s my post for today. The title: GHOSTS & THE ANCIENT STONES. Go read it if you haven’t.. Just click on the cover or the title for the Book2Read landing page to find the on-line bookseller or subscription service of your choice.

As for our regular programming, what about y’all? Do you like books with culinary delights. locations, and/or characters included?

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Middle Monday

Posted on June 13, 2022 by Silver James

Well, it’s sort of the middle. June has 30 days so technically, Wednesday is the exact middle but today puts two Sunday’s behind us and two Sundays to look forward to. I know. I’m weird. Psst. I totally identify with this pair

It’s hot. Seriously hot. We’ve had back-to-back heat advisories for several days. Yesterday hit 103 at the neighborhood bank. Ofiffically, heat index was 108. My poor AC. Plus, critical rate on electricity of 43 cents a kilowatt hour. Normally, it’s 11. And the idiots in DC want to do away with fossil fuel. When 60% of electricity if produced by fossil fuel and some states are already having rolling blackouts due to the drain on the electrical grid but hey, they want us to go out and buy $60K electrical vehicles and buy the fossil fuel we need from terrorist countries who produce DIRTY fuel. Seriously?

Okay. Climbing off my soap box. It just really pisses me off. LG fill up his truck yesteray. $92. NINETY-TWO FREAKING DOLLARS!!! And gas is relative “cheap” here, compared to the rest of the country. Moving on.

Stormy is here early today. His dad is stull doing Oklahoma History on the Road and baseball camp doesn’t start until Wednesday. That means I had to hit Wallyworld yesterday. Whole different set of People of Walmart in there on a Sunday. Since the Kids still have my Highlander, LG was nice enough to drive Jake and I. He dropped us off and headed down the shopping center to Home Depot to pick up a shevling unit for me for the garage. We don’t know if there was a cat fight or a ghost or what, but the shelf that was in there with laundry stuff and the cube of my Pepsi Zero. It had collapsed and broken during the night. Granted two of the legs had previously broken and been duct taped. If you have a “smart” phone, get the Gas Buddy app. It relies on people reporting gas prices but it lists all the stations near you with the price. It saved us almost 10 cents a gallon and we didn’t have to drive out of our way to fill up the truck.

FYI, I’m ignoring last week. I actually blanked out Thursday so there was next to no writing, revisions took a bad continuity turn (fixed now), and I buggered my shoulder again. Part of the problem is the height of the cabinet I use for my mouse. It’s about 3 inches too tall which puts my arm and shoulder in a weird position when I have to do a lot of mouse work. It sucks to be old but I can’t “fix” the problem until I get my office rearranged and lets not even go there, uh-kay?

There a little Pete Progess to note. He’s come nose-to-nose with both Boone and Jake. Boone’s like “Huh. A weird cat. It’s orange.” Jake is like, “Car? Car! Ride? Ride! Oh. Orange cat. Hi. I’m going in the car!” Loki, on the other hand, is all like, “What the hell is that thing? It sorta smells like me but it’s orange. With short hair. And Mom! What IS IT?!?!?!” Loki has not been up close to another cat since he was a little kitten. We lot Adidas when he was about 2 months old and she was already mostly “bed ridden.” Not sure Pete will ever truly be an indoor cat. He likes the garage and enjoys following us around ourside. We’ll see.

OSU lost in baseball regionals. OU went on to win in the super regionals and the baseball team is now headed to Omaha for the College World Series. Am I the only one who giggles and thinks of Peyton Manning whenever the word “Omaha” comes up?

And that it for me. Like I said, last week has been erased from memory and the weekend was too hot to do anything but complain about how hot it was. What’s going on in your world? FYI, the shoulder is a little better, so long as I stay away from the mouse. We’ll see how typing goes today. Later, taters!

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Friday Sinema: Commercial Break

Posted on June 10, 2022 by Silver James

Okay, y’all. I know this one is way longer than I usually post but trust me. I laughed out loud so many times, LG came in from the den to see what was so funny. Then I had to replay it for him. Also, you don’t have to be a Southerner to enjoy. You just have to have a warped sense of humor. Which one was your favorite? Have a great weekend!

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