Trip abroad - Rhine River Cruise

So, on June 20, my mother and I as part of a group of twenty, flew to Amsterdam. Our first stop was a visit to the Van Gogh Museum which of course was an art teacher's dream. After that, the bus took us to the MS Gerard Schmitter, our home on the Rhine River for the next 5 days. Anyway, I'm going to post a few pictures of our first day abroad.

Yes, not the most flattering photo of me as the sun was in my eyes, but it shows our first glimpse of the famous windmills.

That night I experienced a rather interesting excursion where we took a smaller boat around the canals to see Amsterdam at night. My mother wasn't up for the excursion so I went alone. On board, there were 20 Americans, about 30 French, 20 Scandinavians and a couple from Argentina and one from New Zealand. Well, none of my group elected to go so I found myself among a group of French who spoke little if no English. The guide walked us to the boats and put me on one with the French. The tour was lovely but when we docked, the guide said she had to wait for the boat of Scandinavians before she could walk me back but I was welcome to go with the French.

A small group welcomed me into their midst. So, there was me, the couple from Argentina who only spoke Spanish, and the couple from France. The Frenchman spoke a little English and kept me company while his wife spoke enough Spanish to keep the other couple company, but we struck up a bond of sorts so we always said good morning each day.

Distant Obsession

This is a cover reveal and a bit of backstory on a book coming out in August. Whoop!

Summer before last, I co-authored a book with one of my writer buds. I always said I'd never co-author a book because I know me too well. I'm too controlling and I want what I want but somehow I found myself accepting the challenge. Big Mike (M. W. Davis) wrote the initial plot and then basically bowed to all my suggested changes. Wow. He's a plotter and I'm not. I go with my gut as the story progresses so it was quite a challenge to blend our two thought processes into one. Anyway, with the exception of one or two scenes, he wrote from the hero's perspective and I wrote from the heroine's perspective. The outcome proved a success.

The hardest thing about this was the genre. I don't typically write romantic suspense or maybe I do. I know I try to insert a bit of mystery or suspense in all my books but not to the point that it's the main focus. I surprised myself with this one. When we began, it was supposed to be the beginning of a series but due to time constraints, I had to bow out of project two. Big Mike is taking the reins solo on the sequel but I can tell he's most excited about it.

Here's the blurb:

After years struggling to succeed as an artist, Lilah Randal accomplishes here dream, only to return from her first sold out exhibition to find her husband and his mistress in bed, murdered. For a year she’s persecuted by the cops and media, accused of killing the Senator, her husband. With no proof, only suspicious, the police give up, but not the news hounds, nor the discomforting phone calls or late night attempted intrusions into her home. Reluctantly, Lilah stalls her career, assumes a different identify and begins fresh, hiding in a small town far away from the attention of DC. Her days are filled with new vigor as the serenity of the Cherokee Valley surrounding Watauga Lake feeds her creative muse under a fake alias, Carmen. Yet her nights remain hollow, like her marriage to the Senator, until she becomes obsessed by the allure of a stranger that glides by her cabin in his sailboat. Both his male form and solemn expression bleed into every painting, every midnight fantasy, until her new dream becomes reality. Lilah learns her future will remain corrupted by the past until she solves the secret behind her husband’s murder and explores her attraction to the mysterious sailor.

 

Why a note from a fan is so important

I've been in a writing slump for a while. Mainly because I've assumed more duties with my day job, but I received a note from a fan a few days ago and her words have encouraged me to try harder. I write each day even if it's only one sentence but one sentence a day won't get the book finished in a timely manner so I'm going to work harder at drafting much more a day.

 

She also asked some questions and I thought I'd share my answers here. First, she was interested in The Keeper of Moon Haven and if I had plans for a sequel. The Keeper is one of my all time favorites and when I drafted the story, I had plans for a whole series. A blue moon is a second full moon in one month. I wanted my story to coincide with Samhain so I chose October for the month with my blue moon. I then researched dates for occurrences of two full moons in October. For the most part, this happened every nineteen years but not always. My next plan was to have a book set in each year the blue moon happened in October. That said, I do indeed have plans for more in this series. In fact, I'm about 5000 words away from finishing the second book - Lucien's story, but I had trouble deciding how to end it so I put it aside to work on other projects.

 

I currently have five books in various stages of completion but I'm concentrating my efforts on two this summer.

 

So fans of fiction, if you really like a book, let the author know. Your kind words of encouragement might be all that's needed to help the author finish that next book.

A weekend with the Kingston Trio

Last weekend, my husband and I went to see the Kingston Trio in concert at the Dosey Doe in The Woodlands. It was a fabulous concert. The owners had torn down a barn in Kentucky and reassembled it in Texas and then had the architects create a building with nigh perfect acoustics. They have the tables in front of the stage set up "German" style. We had a seat right next to the stage. The food was outstanding as well.

We arrived early as we'd never been before which gave us time to enjoy the meal and visit before the group performed. They sang for about an hour and a half. Afterwards, they stayed and talked with everyone in a most relaxed and friendly manner.

When I was growing up, neither parent was much into music. We had a turn table in the living room and I think they owned all of 10 albums, but my father's favorite group at the time was the Kingston Trio. My girl friends and I would play dress up and dance to those tunes. Sometimes we'd switch and play Herb Albert's Tijuana Brass but mostly we played Kingston Trio songs. At the time, the rest of my friends were all talking about the Monkees and the Beatles. I had no idea who these groups were. I did buy a Cowsills' album with some allowance money and even talked my mom into taking my best girl friend and myself to a concert. Too funny.

Most of the songs were ones we sang at Girl Scout camp so hearing the Kingston Trio in concert brought a lot of good memories. Thanks guys for still performing.

Strange happenings in my author world

Yeah, so I've been buried in school stuff and should be working on it as we speak but I'm taking a break. My publisher sent out a query or survey regarding social media so I think - I've got a little time and I won't remember later, so I'll take the survey now. Hmm, enlightening.

First, when I do a search for my name, facebook doesn't even show. No surprise there, as I've had no time whatsoever to indulge in chatting on that site.

Amazon was a bit more puzzling. When I did a search for my name, my author page did not show. What? So - I log in and find my author page that way. It asked for any updates. I made a few changes and did a search again. My author page is not linked any more to any of my books and it doesn't show when you do a search however, it shows fine when you type in the direct link: amazon.com/author/ciaragold

Not only that, but several of my books that were in print are no longer showing as available. Have I been away too long? Probably. Can't do anything about it until March, though so ...

In the meantime, I will be writing again as soon as contest season is over.

What I learned from watching Johnny Football

Tonight I watched the Ags rally together to win a football game in which they were trailing 21 points at half time. Indeed, the Duke team was very impressive the first half, but Manziel never lost faith in himself or his team mates.

No matter what you want in life, attitude is half the battle. I've had writer's block for about 8 months now. I've never suffered like this before and while I open up my current WIP each night and manage a sentence or two, I'm not really writing. I need to adopt Manziel's attitude and his spirit for winning. I need to focus more. So - maybe this is sort of my new year's resolution but I think it's more. What Johnny taught me isn't anything new but an affirmation of what I already knew and just shelved for the time being. Time to unshelve the go-get-em attitude and make some serious waves on this story.

That said, maybe I can give Manziel something in return, a reminder that education is more important than glory because glory can be short lived when you least expect it. Yes, I'm a huge Aggie fan and have been since I was a student there from 76 - 78 and perhaps part of me is selfish in wanting to see him stay and play two more years. But I'm old enough that it won't end my world if he does choose to go to the NFL. I will still cheer for the Ags no matter who plays. But as a teacher, I hope he chooses to stay for the education, for that degree, for the Aggie ring, for the diploma his mother will proudly frame one day.

Yeah, now you all know a little more about me. I regret that my degree isn't from TAMU but at the time they didn't offer art and it was the only thing that seemed to catch my interest. If I'd known I would one day become a writer also, I would have stayed for a degree in English or History but I don't regret being an artist and a teacher. Going to TAMU for the first two years gave me so many wonderful memories.

I was really proud of all the players tonight (including the Duke players). They showed the real spirit of what it means to be a team. Whoop!!!!

Spent the night in a Haunted Hotel for Christmas

We spent four nights and four days at the lovely Hotel St. Nicholas in Cripple Creek, Colorado. We had a second floor room but my son spent the night on the third floor. He was the only one of our extended family who had an encounter and though both can probably be argued, I'll opt for the fact that he did indeed get visited.

On the first night there, he woke around 4:30 AM to the most horrid sulfur smell. (We joked that he was just smelling himself but he assured us the odor was outside the sheets.)  My daughter looked it up online and indeed one of the signs you've had an encounter is a horrid odor.

The next day, he went into his room, shut the door and went into the bathroom. When he came out, his door was wide open. The rest of our family swears they did not try to play a trick on him.

St. Nicholas was originally a hospital built by the Catholic Sisters of Mercy in 1898. There used to be an underground tunnel connecting the hospital to the nearby church so the nuns could travel to and from during bad weather. (Indeed, it was cold and snowy when we arrived.) The building served as a hospital until 1972. In 1995, the structure underwent major renovations and decoration to become the historic Hotel St. Nicholas.

The Hotel is said to be inhabited by two friendly but mischievous spirits and one unidentifiable anomaly. One is said to be that of a young boy, Petey, who is thought to have been an orphan who was cared for by the nuns. The other is a miner, known as "Stinky" who frequents the office area or back stairway. You're supposed to know you've been visited by him by his awful, sewer-like odor. I do believe he paid a visit to my son.