Cheeky!

Mr Blackbird was very annoyed last week... chattering away LOUDLY. He was so annoyed he never even moved when I went closer to photograph him.

Why all the noise? Because there are sparrows nesting near his territory, and it gets worse... Mr sparrow is collecting grass in the blackbirds' territory and even went and sat on the same gate as him too.

What a cheek!

Into the Woods...

...

A few weeks back, when the weather was good, we took a walk in the forest. I'd completely forgotten I had photos still in my camera until today. I've used one for my April banner photo - looking up at the sky.

We wandered around, trying several different paths...

It got surprisingly hot once you were sheltered in the forest.

We met people with dogs and even a few on horseback and one forest walker who was very reluctant to be photographed. Every time I aimed the camera... he ran like mad! But eventually, by being verrry slow and patient, I managed these photos:

The gorse was full of flowers and the birds were singing like mad. I wish I could catch the sounds and the mixed smell of pine and warm coconut gorse flowers.

It was a perfect day. :-)

Book Bugs and Blogs

My friend Betty and I have started a new blog. :-) It's called BOOKS UNCAGED and we intend to fill it with all things related to books, writing and publishing.

Come over and wish us good luck! :-)

Easter Wishes

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Easter Blessings

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with love
and an ecard.

click HERE

Seeds of Success

I found something I'd written over a year ago, saved in a file and forgotten. It seemed apt, coming up for Easter, so I'm posting it today.

Recently the topics of Manifesting and the Law of Attraction have been springing up everywhere I go. For those who aren't sure what those terms mean:

The Law of Attraction states that what we 'send out' is what we attract back. In other words; our prayers, wishes, dreams, desires... fears. You send out hate - you get back hate from others. You send out fear - the world sends you more things to fear. You send out Love - you are blessed with more love. :-)

Manifesting is the idea of taking this knowledge and using it to your own advantage. It seems very "New Age", but in actual fact manifesting isn’t a new concept. Around 2000 years ago a man named Jesus knew it well. He called it FAITH and promised that even a tiny amount could move a mountain.

The movie “The Secret” summed up Manifesting in three words – “Ask, Believe, Receive.”
Jesus, 2000 years earlier, summed it up in a very similar way:

"Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened."

Matthew 7:7

So, if it’s always been out there, and always available to us, how come we aren’t all busy moving mountains? Because society tends to be teach the complete opposite - that the only way to get anywhere in life is through hard work and struggle.

Our books and movie plots revolve around conflict and struggle. We love the drama of it. We are scared to let it go. It is the drug that makes us feel we are accomplishing something. We hold it up as a badge of honour. "I worked long and hard to get here," we say with pride. It's as if the amount of effort quantifies the amount of success. If humans are out there globally manifesting anything as a world consciousness... it's got to be struggle.

In spirituality this becomes: "Look how long it took me to reach this level of enlightenment. Look how long I studied, searched, sweated tears and to be redeemed."

Yet Jesus, who started a religion that can be quite obsessed with the hard work ethic, proclaimed we should be like the 'lilies in the field' who do not toil and yet are clothed in the Creator's beauty.

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So the very man who started the Christian religion disagreed with the concept of struggle...

What could we create, what would we manifest, if we all gave up believing that we are here to struggle?

I'm on Kindle

I know I've been very quite lately, in big part due to my hands, but also because I've been busy getting my book, First Light, ready to put onto Kindle.

The longest struggle has been creating a new book cover. Last time I had to go with the Printer/Publisher choice of this...

Dull "blaaah" cover. :( Back when this first came out I did my own artwork to create bookmarks and a YouTube video as advertising. At least here I had a chance to create something I liked.

This time I wanted something that really expressed what the book is about - the world and its people. So I worked on created a city that fitted the capital city and that took AGES, but I'm really thrilled with the results. I even got in the dock front (far right), where two of the main characters are destined to meet up. :-)

Then I added in the mountains, which are important, and the two moons, because they're fun and point out that this world isn't Earth, and then I added Daen's face, because she just brings it all together. The fonts gave me grief too. I forgot the fact that Amazon link pictures are thumbnails - on a thumbnail my first font vanished and my second became a blob. :-(

So... FINALLY, after months of slow and painful work, (painful thanks to my hands and my fusy arty perfectionism!) here it is, my new cover:

The actual book (writing) transference was... interesting. They tell you it's a case of take your word doc, save it as html webpage, send it to them, but inbetween lies a whole range of formatting and coding errors that can boil your brain! Hubby and I took two full days to get the manuscript completely error free. Then I had to wait as Amazon checks all the legalities, such as "do you really own this book?", "Do you have publishing rights?", etc.

Well... it is finally up, on ALL the Amazon Kindle stores from the America to France. :-)

I even have an author page!

I'm so thrilled, and so relieved all my months of hard work has finally reached an end. Now the equally hard, but more fun side begins - advertising! Amazon already has me connected to Shelfari, which was very nice of them. I want to update my YouTube video for the book with a new, better version, but I promise not to leave my blog so ghostly empty this time.