Kendra Leigh Castle

Archive for the ‘visual inspiration’ Category

My internet was down most of yesterday.  I was okay with it for a while, thinking it was part of a larger issue that they would fix in a couple of hours.  Then my neighbors came home from work, and THEIR internet was out, and they swarmed the tech guy who finally got sent out after I called.  People need their internets, man   Turned out the power box in this side of the neighborhood had gone up.  At least there weren’t riots.  I think it was touch and go there for a while.  You know what’s weird?  I distinctly remember my life before heavy internet use, or any at all.  I also remember what it was like before telemarketers.  I’m not that old, but my children are going to think this all makes me a dinosaur! 

Anyway, I had a great trip, left Tuesday and came back Sunday.  Got to play with my year-old nephew Aiden, who has somehow gone completely blonde between March, when I saw him last, and now!  My sister living in California is a total bummer, but that’s the Navy for you (she’s a Navy wife too).  I got to go consume mass quantities at Mac’s Speed Shop, which is the best freaking BBQ, like, EVER.  I drank a lot of Fat Tire beer, which is my current favorite.  And I managed to write, though not quite as much as I wanted to.  It’s hard when you take me out of my natural element…that would be parked either in my office or the big chair in my bedroom, wearing ratty PJs, and typing away.  My contract with GCP came yesterday, though, which is AWESOME.

Hope you all are enjoying the end of summer.  It’s still NASTY hot here, which has caused my husband to make all kinds of noise about eventually moving back North.  We’re both native NYers, and it’s a beautiful state, but, um…it snows.  A LOT.  Sometimes I miss it a little, but mostly I don’t.  I do, however, get homesick for it at the oddest times…like today In my alternate reality where I am fabulously wealthy I’d have a summer house on one of the lakes up there, and a place someplace else.  Probably I need to stop watching so much HGTV.  All of those International House Hunters have two homes!  Wah!  Oh well, here for now.  If you all are curious, here’s a page about my hometown, Adams, NY.  It’s small and quaint and no one knows where it is except others from the North Country!  My family has all scattered from there since I got married and left.  I was lucky, though…I grew up in a small neighborhood where my grandparents lived next door and my uncle and aunt (who were my dad’s twin brother and my mom’s younger sister) lived up the street, and the adults were all rfiends and tended to drink beer at various people’s houses every Friday night.  It was a nice way to grow up.  Here are some shots of stuff I actually do miss about the Frozen North:

The Burrville Cider Mill

Apple Cider donuts!!

Lake Ontario

Lots of old farms

Fall

Sackets Harbor, the inspiration for Kinnik's Harbor in COTHM

Talcott Falls, very near my old house

Pretty, huh?  It ain’t all roses, believe me, but there are a lot of nice things about growing up in the North Country.  Of course, a big problem is that there’s a lot of this:

SNOW

The 2008 storm back at home, or MORE SNOW

One of the ice storms that happen periodically

Hmm, maybe I should just use it for inspiration and stay where I am.  Anyway, if you all could live anywhere, where would it be?  Do you like where you are?  Miss where you’re from?  I’m off to grab more coffee, but I’ll be back

Somehow, it’s Monday again

I feel like I’m finally starting to get my feet back under me after last week.  For anyone out there who doesn’t follow me on facebook, which is a place where I contentedly fritter away valuable writing time on a regular basis, I lost my oldest Pekingese, Fizgig, last Wednesday.  Didn’t feel like blogging about it on Friday, and still can’t look at his picture without crying like a baby, so I’m not going to say much about it except that I’m still in the process of mourning him.  He had lived a good life for 13 years, and he was beautiful, and I miss him.  And that, as Forrest Gump might say, “is all I got to say about that.”  But to those of you who’ve expressed your condolences, please know that I’ve really appreciated them.

Now, on to lighter things!  I have finally managed to find my instructions for getting my mug, plus the cover of Renegade Angel, up on the very cool Nocturne Authors website.  Click HERE to check it all out…in another month I get to be front page material!  September might wind up  being pretty cool if I can stay sane.  I’ll be doing a bit of guest blogging, running some contests, and generally promoting the tale of my sexy fallen angel, Raum, and the half-human woman of his dreams (or is it nightmares?) Ember.  Fun stuff!  Except that I also have that incredibly frightening September 15 deadline I need to hit for my cat-shifting vampire story, and while I am SO loving discovering this story as I’m writing it, WOW is it gonna be tight!  I can do it.  I’m on track.  But I see some pain in my future, because my best-laid plans tend to get blown all to hell on a regular basis.

And then, of course, there is the impending arrival of Chewie.  In less than three weeks.  Do you see the potential for chaos here?  Hmm…methinks that behind this sweet face may be some devilment.

   Hope you all had a good weekend!

I was going through some of my stuff earlier (as I prepare to actually do some, you know, WORK today, LOL) and ran across this hottie who Donna sent me for my birthday last month.  I haven’t really begun to think about Book 2 in the vampire series yet, apart from knowing who the hero is and basically what his issue will be.  But…seeing him today got me thinking what an EXCELLENT vampire he’d make.  What do you think, ladies?  Hero material?  His name will be Jaden, and he’ll actually be appearing pretty soon in the book I’m working on right now. 

They’re already starting work on a cover for the book that is currently called Dark Awakening.  Is that not AWESOME?!  I’m amazed.  And terrified.  I must finish this book!!  They did ask what my hero looked like, in detail.  In reply, I sent this picture…MsM, you’ll appreciate this

That’s my Tynan. *happy sigh*

Hope you all have a Monday that’s full of inspiration!

As you read this, I am cruising down the highway in a seated position, probably humming to myself and definitely BORED.  I love visiting my parents, but the drive back is pretty dull.  Not much to look at but road, which I guess is good for not getting distracted…but then again, I get distracted just by being bored.  It’s a vicious cycle. 

So it’s back to the grind for me.  I sent the fun werewolf proposal off yesterday after giving it one more read (yup, Julia became Mia, and all was well).  I could see that being a category series, if it works out.  Apparently I missed my werewolves a little bit, LOL, which I already knew.  Speaking of, if anyone out there hasn’t read any of the MacInnes Werewolves trilogy and wants to, I’ve discovered they’re out of print, so snatch up a copy if you see it.  The good thing is, they’re still available secondhand since they’re not old, and they’re also available in e-book.  That bit of info made me very glad I kept two copies of each book just for me on my shelf!

Anyway, I’ll go home, I’ll put stuff away, and I’ll get my butt in the chair and WRITE.  I’ve got a five page a day quota to meet to reach my deadline, so I’m thinking I need a better office chair.  The one I have is pretty, but it kills my back.  Any of you have any suggestions for a good, not hideously expensive desk chair? 

Hope everyone had a good Fourth.  We cooked out, pigged out, and watched fireworks on the beach, which was pretty much just how I wanted to spend it.  And now…back to reality.  Boo.  Hiss.  Have a great Monday, everyone!  And enjoy the pic of Keifer, the non-sparkly vampire.  I looooved him as the Lost Boys’ David way back when. 

It’s the longest day of the year, and fittingly, also my birthday   I have hit the big 3-3 today, horrors.  Doesn’t feel much different than any number I’ve hit for the last few years, but I’m starting to think I’d like to put more birthdays on hold for a little bit!  Oh well, better than the alternative, right?   I spent my weekend working with Monster Dog, who is still determined to teethe on the world, and getting my hair did, which was fun.  I have bangs for the first time since a rather unfortunate haircut I had back in the sixth grade, which then became an unfortunate incident with a poodle perm.  There are pictures.  No, you can’t see them.

Anyway, to celebrate the passage of spring into summer, and also to celebrate the wonder that is ME, heh heh, I invited some of my favorite menfolk over to par-tay.   Feel free to get your groove on.

So whaddaya say, ladies?  Break out the bubbly, put on some thematically-appropriate cheezy euro-pop from back when I was out at the clubs every weekend, and let’s have some fun!

Morning, everyone!  So as you might have guessed, my weekend was a little consumed with the arrival of a dog we were going to call Bogie, and yet somehow have continued calling Casper.  Don’t ask me why.  He doesn’t really look like a Bogart in person…but then, I’m not all that sure he looks like a Casper, either!  I want to call him Loki, but I’m being ignored, so Casper it probably will stay.

Friday night was an adventure.  The transport up from South Carolina was delayed over maintenance issues with the van, so they got off at noon instead of 7 to drive up to DC.  As youmight guess, traffic on a Friday afternoon was a mess, and the arrival time got pushed back a few times.  It was going to be 7:30.  Then it was 8:30.  Then 10:30, 11:30, midnight…

The big white van rolled into the parking lot right about 1 am, and there was some cheering from the crowd of tired fosters and adoptive parents of all the animals inside.  You could hear the van before you could see it!  It was about the size of your average painter’s van, I guess, and somehow, inside, they had stuffed the crates of about 60 dogs.  For some of these animals, it was get stuffed in and make the ride or get euthanized, so the rescue people save as many as they can.  Lots of laughing, because there was one big Saint Bernard puppy, Lord Byron, who was too big to go in the back.  He sat very regally in the passenger seat   Anyway, we met a bunch of great people, plus our incredibly nice adoption coordinator Alison (who in her “spare time” does something with HIV clinics in Africa and is a world traveler besides).  Lots of wonderful animals lovers, and a young couple we hung with who were waiting on their first “kid,” a pretty little Aussie mix named Chloe.

So anyway, we could hear the van before we could see it.  Lots of barking, as you might imagine!  And wow, the smell when the doors opened…well, you gotta figure how many hours the dogs had been in there with minimal breaks.  We’d been warned!  Fortunately, Casper was probably the fifth dog out.  Because he’s a puppy and not fully vaccinated yet, he was handed directly into my arms and we had to scoot so as not to expose him to anything else the other dogs might be carrying.  He was pretty scared and had to be pulled out of his crate, but once he was in my arms and got to slurp some water from a bowl that Brian held over my shoulder, Casper perked up.  The ride home was fun, just because I had a big white puppy on my lap who kept turning around to give kisses.  I gotta tell you, though.  He is BIG, and I didn’t realize how difficult it can be to find enough lap for a dog this size!!

It was a busy, tiring weekend.  Casper is a sweet puppy, very busy, very interested in everything, and completely adorable.  I swear he’s grown just in the couple of days he’s been here.  We gave him a bath as soon as we got back here about 3 am (one of our awesome neighbor friends hung out on our couch while we were gone), because baby was kind of ripe, though not from poo, thank God.  He really wants to play with the Pekes, who have kept busy finding places to lay that he might not notice them (they are SO not interested), he really wants to play with the cat (who has whacked him in the head a couple of times for being an obnoxious puppy), and he really wants to play with us.  Fortunately, we can oblige him.  Casper is different from any dog I’ve ever had.  Apart from being huge, he’s clutzy and messy.  He goes galumphing all over the house, knocking into things.  He’s hit his head a few times on chairs and then acts like someone has caused this to happen to him.  He eats his kibble and somehow creates a debris field that extends into other rooms.  And he drinks water with his mouth open, then wanders away, still with his mouth open, drooling half of what he was trying to drink all over the floor.  In short, he is a mess.  He’s also completely awesome.

So that was my weekend.  Things are settling down here, though I imagine it will be a week or two before the animals all adjust to the new living arrangements.  Hoping the potty training happens quickly, but he’s doing pretty well so far.  What’s interesting, and what you may have guessed from the title of my post, is that Casper’s origins don’t appear to be quite as pristine as everyone had thought!  It doesn’t matter a bit to me, because rescues often have origins that are a little mysterious, and we’d originally been looking at a mutt anyway.  But there are a few things about Casper that aren’t quite Pyr.  Rather than having the classic Pyrenees double dew claws on his hind legs, he has…none.  that’s usually a good indication there’s something else in there.  But apart from that, his ears aren’t quite as long and seem to want to stand up (I love his one wonky ear that’s nearly standing up half the time), his face is a bit more refined and, well, wolf-like, AND, the best indicator of what else in lurking in his genes, one of his eyes is parti-colored, meaning there’s a small blotch of near-white on one brown eye.  Know what the only breed that has those eyes is?

Yep, looks like Casper has a bit of Husky in him.  And if his looks didn’t give it away, the way he howled along with an ambulance siren yesterday would have!  So our new baby is a Great Pyrenees Husky, and looks a lot like a big white wolf.  Fitting, huh?  I wouldn’t have it any other way!  Hope you all had a great weekend too

Well, what do you all think?  The “weather event” we’ve been having here got my butt in gear on a few things, amazingly enough.  I’ve been wanting to redo the site for a while now…the old template worked well enough as a stopgap, but it was never quite what I wanted.  I had to just pull one off the internet, and though there are hundreds of templates out there, nothing I chose was ever really going to be “mine.”  The problems were that a)I don’t know code, b)I have no idea how to design a website in general, and c)I’m not really interested in forking over a bunch of cash to someone who does right now.  So it took some looking around to find a product that would allow me to design for wordpress without, well, actually knowing how to design for wordpress.  I wound up using Artisteer.  Very user-friendly if anyone is ever looking to do the same!  Which is not to say that I didn’t swear at the screen at all, but that would happen no matter what.  It’s a way of life.

Anyway, it’s very late, but I’m feeling all pleased with myself, so I thought I’d put up a post.  Just in case anyone noticed that I’d redecorated   If you notice anything funky, let me know…the old font killed my eyes (one of the many things I couldn’t fix with the old template), so I made it bigger.  Hope that works for everyone, along with everything else all shiny and new around here.  I have a very cool blue dragon head that I almost put in the header…I may save him for the future!

Hope you all had an excellent week, and I’ll see you Monday!

Manuscripts, I mean, not the Stephen King story (though that was pretty good).  Any writer will tell you that manuscripts do NOT stay gone, no matter how many times you try to send them off in the mail, by email, anything.  There’s always something.  And even once you get them on the shelf, chances are you’ll have a look out of morbid curiosity and discover, much to your chagrin, that you missed something anyway.  That said, I now have, parked upon my messy desk, the line edits for RENEGADE ANGEL which are fairly pressing in nature (as in, I have a couple of weeks and they’re due…quick turnaround, which is fine).  After flipping through, I’m comfortable that there’s nothing earth-shattering that must be messed with at this point, but there are a number of items I need to address with my Red Pen of Doom.  SO, I will be absent from blogging this week while I get this stuff done.  I very much like my editor and her assistant, and I’d like to make ‘em happy

Hope you all had a good weekend…my baby girl had a wonderful swim meet, making me a very proud mom (really, I stand amazed…she does things I could never do and makes them look effortless, plus she’s just a really great kid), and I’ve enjoyed having my mom in town.  I managed to watch Sleepless in Seattle yesterday with her, and only half listened to my husband’s mutterings about “chick movies” when he occasionally wandered through.  Man, I love that movie.  It’s one of my fave romantic films ever.  He’s right, though, it’s a total chick movie

Have a great week, ladies!  And for fun, what are some of YOUR favorite chick movies?

I had to share this most excellent video that MsM gave me a heads up about the other day.  I haven’t had Sir Guy over in a while, and he certainly is a big bad handsome man to end the week with.  Brooding!  Black Leather!  *swoon*  You all have an excellent weekend!

I treated myself last night and stayed up playing PS3, running around wearing leather armor and stabbing things.  I didn’t get to play all weekend, and I’ve discovered it’s a handy carrot to dangle for myself as a reward to get things done.  It’s just a little thing, but it does the trick!  Anyway, I’m enjoying the rogue I built.  I can pick all sorts of locks, and I’m learning how to maneuver her so she gets behind the stuff we’re fighting and stabs them in the back.  And of course, she looks fabulous even covered in blood.  Which everyone usually is in this game.  I still laugh when I have to have serious in-game conversations while totally splattered.  You have to fight some seriously freaky stuff, though.  I’m at the Circle Tower, which is where the Magi are when they’re not being taken over by all of these fascinatingly horrifying creatures I need to destroy.  Tonight’s body count included a lust demon, rage demons, blood mages, and a bunch of reanimated corpses who were really pissed off about something or other.  Plus, abominations, which are just…gross.  Anyway, since I babble about having slayed darkspawn occasionally, I went and found a trailer for the game so you all can see what I’m zoning out with when my brain needs a break (erm, warning, it’s also bloody, ’cause the game is kind of like that).  In case you’re curious:-)  I already had to fight the ogre at the end of the trailer, and the first time I saw it I was like “Aw, maaaaaaan, seriously??”  All of which is to say, I’m kind of a big dork.  Which you’ve likely already guessed.  Have a good one, ladies!  And Donna, I hope you are learning to love the Nook!