Exuberance!

I finished my dream board with my word of the year on it this week.  I love it!  Being able to image search on google certainly beats the days of hunting through magazines for pics.  I'm not sure many magazines even contain the sorts of images that I'd consider inspiring!
 

 

Exuberant colour. You can't go past a good maple for that.  

 

What a delight to the eye!   With wind gently blowing them, they were even prettier, so I got little bit of video for you and added some lovely music by the musician, Hauk, from his album called "Love Songs. Lamentations and Lifthrasir."  The song is called "Freyja's Tears."

We had a lot of fun this week doing a photo shoot and article about women in our Bushfire Brigade for our local newspaper.  It was such a laugh and the feeling between us all, both we women and our family members who came along to support our effort, was so lovely.

I've been thinking about another short story for Freya Fjordrider.  I can't say she is my most exuberant character, because I need to factor in the mad Brodie Mac Brodie from the Norse World Tales, but she is certainly consistently full of life and fun to write. I had so much fun writing the last short story (novella?) for her, the link for which I now can't find.  What the? I thought I'd put it on this blog for you to read!  I'll see if I can find it.  

Anyway, when starting to think about this new story, I'd thought about going back to her earlier life, back to when she met the hideous but charismatic Ferss the Fierce, who shows up in Golden Bear, and doing the story of how they met and adventured together, but actually, the more I think on it, the more it needs to be a full novel.  Hmm, now I'm torn between writing the next Satan story and the next Freya story!  What a very pleasant quandary to be in.  I certainly haven't dried up for novel ideas yet!

It's Andrew's birthday today. Happy birthday dearest one!  We all love you lots!

     

I found this pic the other day while looking for something else. I've done so many interesting things in my life, and yes that really was my exuberant hair!

I wonder what's next in this exuberant life?



  

New Beginnings and Other Stuff

I resigned as Equipment Officer for my Brigade this week.  It is affecting my health.  It is not the fires or caring for the station and vehicles, though you would expect it to be those.  No, it is the bloody meetings!  Jeezuz!

This is the card I got from our darling 1st Lieutenant. So nice to know I am appreciated.   

A fellow dog lover, as you can see.  :D  The crochet reference is because I crochet during the meetings, which he says rather reminds him of the ladies who would knit while sitting in the front row audience of the guillotine during the French Revolution.  Sometimes, the meetings feel almost as deadly!  Crocheting gives my fingers something to do when I get upset and makes the long pointless hours of conflict seem to be more useful.  Seemed.  Ha!  No longer!      

I'll still be going to fires and a member of the brigade, but as a non-officer I don't have to go to meetings, and I am having a rest from doing their social media too.  I would not say I regret the last two years, because it has taught me so much, given me wonderful new friends, and shown me new aspects of my own courage and ability, so it is all good.  Change is good too, as is letting go of that which is not serving your best interests.       

With my mind and time not taken up with brigade matters and stresses, hopefully I can find mental space to start writing the next novel. Novel number 12!  Who'da thunk it!  Next will be a sequel to Chicken Soup for Satan.  I think.  Am rather tempted to write another Freya novel, since I have so much fun writing her stories and I think I need some light writing, because Land of Giants took it out of me a lot.  I put so much into that book and it shows, but it was hard too.  We'll see.  I would love to be back in the world of Satan Smith and his lovely dog, Ghost, too.  I've missed them, especially Ghost.  The characters of my books, especially the animal ones, become so real to me because when I write them I can really see them and know their moods and likes and dislikes and funny ways, and miss their presence just as if they were one of my own pets.  Sometimes I want to own a White Shepherd just so I can have Ghost with me again, but of course she or he wouldn't be him anyway.  I'll just have to write him another story.    

My sister PJ's photo of the original art on her wall, together with the print book.

Let's see, what else?  My chookies made me giggle a lot this week when they discovered our pile of jarrah sawdust and took to dismantling it with great gusto.

Nobody knows how to enjoy life like a chicken!  Please ignore Nanny Ogg's vulture-like appearance.  She is currently molting, apparently only on her head and neck!  It is growing back in fairly quickly, thank goodness.  She was genuinely bald at first, with nothing but grey pins all over her head and neck.  Yikes!

Niamh's afghan is still growing and getting close to finished. Not sure how many more rows,  Perhaps six or seven, but the rows take quite a while to get around now.  There is something so cosy about snuggling under something you are still making.

This has been my view a lot this week.   I took four pics to take in all of the the tree, and google made them into a panorama for me.  

  

My tummy has been a lot better but i haven't felt up to much work around the place yet.  What I have been able to do is drag a chair around the autumnal driveway, following the sunny spots and playing my lyre.  This is the Singing Jarrah who lives right by our cottage.  I have been practicing my tree song ready to record it, and this tree loves me to sing and play near it, in fact it enjoys being near all of our daily interactions. I hadn't expected that when I went to talk to it.  Most trees are very communal and interested in other living beings and even humans, especially trees who live in close proximity to us.  As you can see, this one is very close to the cottage indeed!

What else?  Oh yes, I said I'd show you an 'after' shot of the tv/bookshelf area.  This is it now.  Much neater, and now we can get to the books behind by just rolling the cabinet out.  

Not the most spectacular sunset for colour, but it was so very gentle and pretty and hopeful. 

As the sun sets on one thing, it rises on another.  I have plans for new ways to be useful to my community.  More on that soon. 

          

     



      

   

Poor Andrew!

When your missus blogs, you're never safe from being photographed.

When the phone rings while you are half way through a shave and she comes in and thinks you look sexy rockin' your braces...

 

...to when you get an eye test and she thinks you look all steampunk.  :D

Some of the plants here are looking pretty good too, though not as good as Andyroo.

I put this Illawarra flame Tree in the ground at least 20 years ago. It is one of my all time fave trees.  Right now it is doing that thing it sometimes does, which is flowering.

Google offered me that last one as an artistic rendering. It kind of captures the feel of it better than the ordinary pic.  The camera can't quite get the flare of the red.   

The blues and purples of the last few fresh flowers on the pet hydrangea, Pompom, caught my eye yesterday.  So pretty!

She's a pet because they require a lot of water and she's pretty much the only plant we have like that.

We've just got back from a ride on Andrew's motorbike, known as Whim, because he bought her on one.  Whim needed a longer run since she's been a bit neglected lately, so we took her across to a hills pub in Gidgegannup and had a drinky on the high verandah.  I took this pic of our trusty steed from up on our airy perch.  We played rummy in the shade and had tall, icy, non-alcoholic Fire Engines.  (Red cordial and lemonade, with a slice of lemon.) Never let it be said we aren't exciting people!   :)

 
Being on the pillion isn't as much fun as riding for yourself, which I used to do, but generally I always chose to take the car so the dogs could come and my bike was not used enough and I sold it long ago.  I only get the urge on lovely days like today when it is warm but not hot, or on hot nights after a stinking hot day, when to ride through the night feels like bathing in warm milk.

Actually, as to being a bit boring these days, the weekend looks like it might be a bit lively.  I'll see how we go and report back!

My recent writing foray is finished. I wrote a Freya shortish story for my good friend Gavin for his 50th Birthday.   The nice thing about the Freya world is that you can pretty much do what you like, and I did, and had a lot of fun doing it too!  I might put it up to Goodreads or somewhere for you to read, or here if it isn't too long.  Perhaps I can do installments?  Wait for it!

The baby Pink and Grey Cockies are starting to arrive in town.  They are on the wing now and following mum and dad around driving them nuts.  I got video of them but they are a bit far away. I'd have cropped the video but actually what I love best about it is the magnificent Marri trees blowing in the wind.

The endless sawing sound is the baby nagging, then the weird noise is her being actually fed by the parent, who has their beak down her throat.

I always think it is mean of the babies not to give the long-suffering parents a rest after a feed, but they always start nagging again straight away.  Yesterday I saw one or the other parent lose their temper and give the baby a bit of a biff as if to say, "Shut up, you little brat!"  It was probably dad.  Daddy birds are less patient than mummy birds, as a rule.   :D

If you want to see a close-up, this one is much better.

I'm lucky bird noises don't bother me, because between all the nagging and then the feeding, it can all go on for a long time!              
 


  

Hard to tell it's winter

We just had lunch at a local cafe.  This was the sky we sat under.

How gorgeous is that? My leg in my black jeans was burning.  It was about 22C.

This morning, after me doing my daily words and making a batch of biscuits, we sat out and had morning tea with mum in her back verandah with the sun streaming in to warm us.

Angus was his usual snuggly self and did this fun face for me so I had to photograph it.

 

Then he did his handsome face instead.

We felt a bit like lazing around today because yesterday we did our first controlled burn of the year.

This is Michelle and I with the firebugs that we use to start the fire, and 1st Lieutenant Angus (the fellow Firey not the family Labrador!) organising getting lunch orders ( a very crucial operational aspect!) It was pretty damp so we had to pretty much make lines across the burn area with them every two metres or so as we ran the fire up the hill.   No need to remind you that I am the shortarse, is there? :)

   

I love this one that I got of Angus.

 And this one of Andrew weirds me out!

 

The smoke and light patterning was lovely at times.

 

The burn was nice and cool so no trees burned up too high, and we found and moved the resident Bobtail Goanna in time to keep him safe, so I was very happy about that.  Will be interesting to see how the area comes back by spring, which will be easy to do because the burn was done on my sisters' place!

The grass trees are inclined to go up a bit much though!  Still, better they do it now than during summer!  Like many Aussie plants, they survive and even thrive on fire, so will not be harmed by being burned like this.  

  
It is due to rain this evening, so things might return to winter weather after that.  I don't mind, then we can do inside things, like crochet and art.

My Niece Niamh is still working on her self portrait with her pony, Ollie. We've had one more session and I think we have one more to go.  There's no hurry.  A lot gets discussed and learned in the process as she goes.

I've been having the best time a novelist can have!  Bá from South America is a fellow writer and one of my creative and supportive peer circle, the Blissful Sisters, as we call ourselves.  She has been reading the first Freya novel, "Freya and the Golden Bear" and really loving it.

She keeps sending me little messages as to where she is up to and what moments she is enjoying or surprised by.  It is as if I get to read my book for the first time, by experiencing her enjoyment.  What a gift!  Thank you Bá!            

The Making of the Cover Art For "Freya and the Hairy Goddess."

I'm writing and posting this on Thursday because my computer has been behaving a bit oddly and I don't want to miss posting tomorrow.

Starting tomorrow for four days, Freya and the Golden Bear, the first book of this series, will be free for kindle from Amazon.  Go for it!  Have a read!  What have you got to lose?  It's a wild adventure full of interesting friends and foes, and should make you laugh too.  I certainly wrote it to be light and funny, and by all accounts it hits the spot.  


The second book of the series, Freya and the Hairy Goddess, is now available on Amazon as well.  My first readers tell me it's as if the first book never ended, except that the two stories do stand alone.  I'm not a big fan of cliffhanger novels, I'd rather give you your money's worth with each book.  So, if you enjoy the first one you've got for free, which I'm sure you will, do buy the second one too.  :)       

I was a good little artist this time and remembered to do some progress shots for the art work, so here goes.  There were a few pages of sketches done first.

Some were me working out how I wanted the cover to work.  The first idea wasn't quite right.  Too much of the giant vulture went onto the spine and back cover.  I tried some very different ones but kept coming back to the snow vulture.  I'd had that image in my mind for ages and knew it could work, I just needed to change the way the three figures interacted with each other and the required cover format.  

So I kept sketching.

 

Until I hit on the right one.  See the bottom left drawing?  Oh yeah, that was it!

So it got played with some more. Note the studies of vulture feet down the right hand side.  :)

And I spent some more time getting Freya and Dinna just right.

And then it was time to go for the actual canvas, already base-painted with blue, and to draw it one more time.  Actually it was drawn twice more, because I decided my backing blue was too dark, and I got the positioning of the figures a bit wrong, so I over-painted the backing again and redrew it.  

 

 
Then I began to line in some colour. I was aiming for most of the scene to be in blues and whites to let the main features really stand out and yet allow the text to be easily visible, so I needed the white feathers to be outlined in a slightly darker blue to bring them out of the white and blue background just enough to show up.

So, then it was time to block in some white. 

 

I'd drawn a kind of topknot on the vulture but decided it looked too much like angry Bigbird, so I changed it into a full ruff type thing around the head, which looks way cooler.

I also had the neck bare of feathers, and therefore pink, at one stage, but it looked hideously... well... the best word to use here is probably,"phallic," so that had to go too!  :D  

And so I just kept fiddling and layering till I had it how I wanted it. I was deep into art space by then and forgot to take more photos as I went!  Whoops!   

After that it was kindly photographed by Andrew and it was time to open Gimp to get the cover finalised.  What do you think?  I wanted Freya and Dinna's bravery and teamwork to stand out on the cover.  I hope they do, and I hope it encourages you to want to read the book.  It was so much fun to write, and I'm sure you'll find it so if you read it.  :D

 

 

     

Messing Around on the Anglo-Saxon Lyre Again

This is the silly tune I wrote for my book character, Freya Fjordrider.  It's a dialogue between two people sitting outside a tavern watching the world go by.

Usual provisos involving amateur status of musician.  :)

Quality of the video is a tad low since it was taking forever to load at a better quality.  The internetz was feeling a bit crappy. But, it looks and sounds ok.  The background noise is wind in the trees, and that was always going to be there!

I'm late getting this up due to video-loading slowness, and it's time for dinner,  so that will do for today.  Friday I'll tell you about a free offer on Freya.  :)    

   

Some More Lyre playing by me.

Some videos, posted with the usual provision that I'm a very amateur amateur.  :D

I couldn't believe it, I did one recording of, "The Wanderer," outside with my old camera and only did a tiny flub once, and the memory was full about 5 seconds before the end, dammit!

So we set up again with a newer camera with more memory, this time inside because it was noisy home-from-school-time outside, and I played the song about five times and came to a messy halt every time, so I had a go at this lovely tune, written for the Anglo-Saxon Lyre by Keith Seddon, to settle myself down a bit.  It's called, "For My Lost Love," and was written for his wife, Jocelyn.  It has sadness in it, but joy too. I always think of their love while I play it.

  
After that I flubbed, "The Wanderer," a couple more times and then Cyrano Kitty decided the table was where the action was to be had, so he joined me.  I thought he might help and he did a bit.  I eventually got it about as well as I was going to, and you'll just have to take my word for it that I can play this tune all the way through very nicely when there isn't a camera around.  A born performer I am not! :D  Still, I know that folks are very interested in my lyre, so here you go:

I learned this song by watching and listening to the video of Peter Pringle playing it, and now if you like, you can go watch his version, tuned a little differently and enhanced electronically.  It is more impressive than my version, that's for sure, but I do love playing it, and you'll notice I slipped Odin in there.  In the 10th C, it could have been either Odin or the Christian God he was praying to, and there is some talk that the poem is older and was perhaps modified to be Christian at a later date. Odin likes it better that I put him back into it.  :)  

 
Yesterday I finished my first edit and read-through of, "Freya and the Hairy Goddess."  I did it in four days because I was enjoying it too much to stop.  I really do let myself go a lot when writing these Freya books and it is always fun to read them and giggle away to myself at the situations and quips I come up with. 

I have notes to help me go back and fix this place and that, and more grammar and spelling checks and read-throughs to do, but the book is good, if I do say so myself.  Like the first Freya book, Freya and the Golden Bear, it is Sword and Sorcery, but far from serious or dark.  It is rather naughty, and quite funny. Music may not come naturally to me, but writing novels surely does!

This morning we made a big trek across town to find me a Djembe.  It still smells a bit goaty from the new skin (they have to be skinned here in Oz) and the dogs were rather keen on a nibble.

"Can I eat it mama?"

It was made in Ghana and the guy who buys them, Paul, from Akwaaba, purchases them directly from the makers, so that is a good way to make sure the artisans get a fair wage. It's going to be my Christmas pressie, but I don't think I'll be able to hold off playing it till then. It will be off to drumming circle with me next week!  It has an antelope and a big old tree carved on the base and I knew it was the drum for me as soon as I saw that tree!

May your coming week bring you lots of lovely music to make or listen to, and some silliness and giggling too!

          

Freya and the Golden Bear is in Print!

Golly it took the Proof copy ages to get here, but when it did it was most beauteous!

It should be live on Amazon US soon, and maybe in a couple of weeks for Amazon UK.  In the meantime the Kindle edition is still only 99 cents.    

This is the first novel I ever wrote. It is not as polished as some of my later ones, but it is full of life and fun.  If you like to read Sword and Sorceries but get tired of them taking themselves too seriously, this is the book for you.  If you like horses, this is the Sword and Sorcery for you. If you like strong female lead characters, this is the fantasy for you.  Plus, it's just downright funny.  Be warned, though, it's a bit rude.

I'm so close to having Chicken Soup ready for proofing and Kindle.  When it goes live to Kindle, I'll celebrate by having a book giveaway, so please like my Facebook page ready for that!

This week in crochet, I sent my latest amigurumi off to his new home with my niece, so I can post him now.

Man, that mane took some time to do!  I rather liked it spread right out before I doubled it and sewed it down.

For some reason, he ended up looking like a teddy masquerading as a lion. Not sure why.  The original pattern doesn't look like that.  Something about the eye placement I think, or maybe my choice of colours.  Anyway my niece is happy with him and he's very cuddly so that's what counts.

For my twitcher friends, I found this video I did a few years back of a mama magpie feeding her baby. Not much changes for the maggies year by year.  Every year it's a new nagging open mouth.  :)

We have a cyclone coming down the West Coast of Australia today, but hopefully by the time it reaches here it will be nothing but plenty of rain, which we and the trees will be very glad of.  I wish for you the very weather than you most need!

                       

About Freya and the Golden Bear

The character Freya Fjordrider began as a persona for me in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism).  I chose the name Freya because I'd recently moved into a household of Pagans and begun to discover the Gods other than the Christian God, and Freya of the Norse Pantheon was the first Goddess who came to my attention. 

I chose to add Fjordrider to my name because I then owned a little mare called Sherry.  She was buckskin, and Fjord horses look similar (though are golden or cream duns).  She was actually a Part Arabian and not really very Fjordy at all!  I'd like to own the real thing but not many Fjords in Oz, even now.  Sherry was a fiery, opinionated little lady, who never walked if she could prance, or trotted if she could instead canter sideways.  I adored her and she was mine till the day she died.  Anyway, she was close enough to a Fjord, so Freya Fjordrider I became at SCA events. I think I was about 22 then.

This is Sherry and I at a camping event we had held at our place. On one of the days, we had a Quest, and Sherry and I had been charging about through the forest pretending I was a bored immortal. If questers encountered me, they had to work out that I needed to be entertained in some way in order to be convinced to give a clue to them.  It was heaps of fun.

By the time this photo was taken, Sherry was a bit over it, as you can see from her expression!  You can just see the somewhat tired ears of my dear heart dog, Keech in the bottom left of the photos too.  She and her sidekick, Sam, were a little tired of traipsing back and forth through the hills as well!  For so many years it was we four together.  Me, Sherry, and those two dogs, Keech and Sam.

 Anyway, at some point the character of Freya Fjordrider, in my head, became louder, wilder, and stronger than my SCA persona, or I, myself, ever was.  By the time I was stuck at teacher's college, knowing it wasn't the right place for me but determined to stick it out till I got my degree, she had become a bit of an icon for me.  What would Freya do, I wondered to myself in certain situations. Generally be a lot more outspoken and have a lot more fun than I was having, I usually decided!

So, in those teacher's college years, and on into the time I spent as a bad relief teacher and then as a better youth worker, I wrote that first novel, Freya and the Golden Bear. The more I dressed and acted as something I wasn't, crushed myself into a mold I was never made for, the more important it was to spend time writing Freya's adventures. All my formative years of reading Robert E Howard's Conan books, and all those Asterix Comics, stood me in good stead, as Freya and her bad-tempered horse managed to fight their way out of every situation I put them in.  I think she somehow also channeled Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat, another of my early favorite characters.  

I had a ball with it!  I wrote it on a little orange manual typewriter that my Grandmother had given me as a present way back when I'd first decided I wanted to be a writer.  Often I'd be sitting right by my potbelly stove on a cold winter night, typing away madly, with the typewriter on a milk crate and me sitting on a low footstool, the better to be right by the fire and warm as I wrote.  I remember I was deep in the middle of some exciting scene one time, when a log fell out of the open door of the fire, and I jumped right to my feet and was all set to fight off the invaders, I was so adrenalised.  I was very glad no-one but the dogs was there to see me do it!

Of course it's had a lot of revisings, this book, but as I've polished it, I've always tried to maintain the energy and rough humour of it. I think I've managed that.  It's for sure the funniest book I've written yet, and also by far the rudest!

The latest book I'm writing is about as serious as anything I've done so far. Not by planning, it's just how it's worked out.  I do wonder if perhaps my next book will be a revisit to the world of Freya Fjordrider, just to really loosen my writing up again.  She has plenty of land left to rollick over yet!