Most artists work for one or two houses and some only do freelance stuff, preferring not to be tied to a house. And many of them work for a publisher and do a lot of covers for people who are self-publishing. I’ve a feeling that my cover for Debra Holland’s Sower of Dreams will be a fantasy entry for me in next year’s Ariana awards. It’s a lush cover that took more than half a dozen images to create and it doesn’t have a single person on it!

Aside from doing covers for authors who self-publish, I occasionally do covers for Pink Petal Books, Passion in Print and MLR Press. Last year’s win for me was a Pink Petal Books cover. This year the two finalists for Winterheart Design are Black Heart Down by SJ Frost, an MLR Press cover and Blown Away by DL Jackson, a Passion in Print cover. I love pretty much anything Shannon and Dawn write so I’m doubly pleased to be able to provide both authors with a little cross-promotion.

Now, the question is whether I can repeat and win an Ariana again this year. I have to admit I would be so very stoked to win again. I’m not being hopeful because as I said above, the competition is quite stiff, but I would really like to win a second year in a row. It gives me a little bit of cache to be able to say I have two Arianas. But we’ll see what happens in March. And if I lose, there’s always next year and Sower of Dreams. Besides, I’ve done a lot more covers in other genres this year. I’ve got several historical covers under my belt now and of course Debra’s fantasy trilogy. Having covers in more categories is a good thing.

Now, I need to show you a luscious Marcus for this Monday to be complete. I just cannot face a Monday without him any longer. This is what I get for having posted him for so many years of Mondays. I can’t handle Monday without him.

Working in his underwear. It doesn’t get any better than that for me! Well, unless he was nekkid. LOL

October is just around the corner now and I’ve got an October release the first week of the month and deadlines for two Christmas stories, both gay rom. I’m about 3K words from finishing the first one so I’m thinking I just might be right on time to my editor with it. The second one has hardly any words written but since it’s a short story of 8-10K words I hope to be able to write it fairly quickly. Then it’s back to a novella I’ve had a lot of trouble with. I’m determined to complete it before Christmas though so wish me luck!

Happy Monday!

The thing about commutes is that I usually think of them as total freeway time. And in the past, for me anyway, they always have been mostly freeway time. The new commute has very little freeway time. Most of the time is spent on surface streets and a stint down my own road, Carbon Canyon. The canyon road reminds me of the highway between Salinas and Monterey, the one that winds past Laguna Seca. I’ve driven that road more times than I could ever count. After all it’s home turf for me and I lived there 29 years. I made a lot of trips down that road in nearly 30 years. Every time I go down Carbon Canyon Road I think of home as in where I grew up. But honestly, this canyon is becoming home to me now in a very short space of time. I like it so much in the canyon that I don’t mind the drive. As commutes go, it ain’t much of a commute and hardly any of it is spend with my foot on the brake inching my way up the freeway.

Sure, the Chino Hills residents use my road as a commuter short cut to their homes just over the county line into San Bernardino County. And yeah, that means that sometimes I do spend some time with my foot on the brake inching along. But it’s not on the freeway. It’s on the canyon road itself which is loaded with stuff to look at. Personally, I’m a little fascinated by the trees that were burned in the 2008 fire. I stare at them and stare at them as I inch along. Most of the canyon has grown back it’s vegetation so it’s not very burned out looking but I try to imagine what it must have looked like and it creeps me out a little. It’s still not much of a commute despite the crawling that sometimes occurs on Carbon Canyon Road. And I’m home in about 30-40 minutes.

Home’s the key word here. I love coming home. I love the canyon and the wildlife. The longer I’m here, the less that the word “home” means Monterey County. I guess I’ve found my place here in Southern California. I never would have thought it would be out at the edge of a once burned out canyon but there ya have it.

Since it’s Monday, it’s time for a Marcus.

That would make a nice avatar. He’s got great arms! Hope you all have a great Monday!

Anyway, one night last week Swirly the Guard Cat was sitting in the window sill of my author cave hissing. The window is on the front of the house with a view of the carport. It was open a little (not enough for one of them to squeeze out) and he saw/heard something outside. He’s a pretty good alarm. Anything, anyone comes into our carport and Swirly hisses. The closer they get to the window, the louder he gets until eventually he starts growling. He stopped hissing pretty quick though because the person in the carport was Rott.

Rott comes up to the window and the babies all crowd around as he starts to tell me why he’s wandering around outside at 1:30 am. He’d found a couple of coyotes in our yard stalking a baby possum. Or in Rott’s words, “Coyote Take Out.” He chased them off but they didn’t go any farther than our carport because of the presence of their snack to go. So Rott shooed them out of the carport into the street. While he was telling me about the baby possum and that he saw the rest of the coyote pack up the street, the coyote take out took a hike and made good his escape. With the possum gone, the next time Rott shooed the approaching coyotes, they left and joined the pack, running up the street and around the corner.

After that, Rott and I went to Denny’s for an early morning breakfast. The coyotes stalking the baby possum in our yard was pretty much the highlight of our week. Rott now tells the babies if they aren’t good, he’s going to put them outside to be coyote take out!

Work is going to be pretty crazy for me starting this week because my co-worker is leaving. I’ve no idea how I’m going to get all the work done and I’m seriously unhappy about this turn of events. So I’m hoping to get a bit of a jump on month end over the next couple of days before she leaves. After that, I don’t even want to think about how tired I’m going to be.

Between coyotes in my yard and my co-worker leaving, I need some serious cheering up which of course means I need a Marcus.

Oh, yum. He really does make my Mondays much better! Hope you all have a wonderful day!

So I had a nice cover flat of Tales of the Darkworld Volume Two and a big fat file of galleys. Volume Two is two novellas, each one just over 40K. So that’s more than 80K of words to check. Yowch! I saw them in my email and knew I needed to get cracking. Did that happen? Oh, no. Instead, I listened to ghost stories as told by Rott who has been encountering a ghost in our new house.

Now, most people would label me a non-believer. Rott pretty much does. But he’s seen the ghost several times now and that has prompted him to tell me. The first time he saw the ghost he was in the laundry room and he turned to go through the door into the kitchen when he saw an apparition rush toward him, then through him and disappear. He said there was a rushing sound like a waterfall, a loud whoosh of sound that dissipated when the ghost did. He also said it was male and very angry. Scared spitless, Rott ran out of the house, got in his SUV and tore out of there. He came back an hour later and all was quiet.

Rott decided to have a conversation with the ghost to let him know we weren’t anything to be afraid of or angry with. He said he told the ghost, we can all live here peacefully…we’ll leave you alone and you leave us alone. The ghost didn’t come back after that. Until this week. Not sure what would have set a ghost off this week but Rott says he’s seen him two or three times. And when he turns out the living room light and tries to kick back on the couch and watch TV, he can feel the presence of someone else in the room and he has to turn the light back on.

Well, this time the ghost is unnerving Rott. Really unnerving him. Like to the point that Rott wants to get rid of the house. The ghost is freaking him out.

I just sat silently through Rott’s story. I’m never sure what to believe when people tell me ghost stories. I’ve never seen a ghost or sensed the presence of one. I have gotten bad vibrations from places before and later found out something awful happened there. But I’ve never seen a ghost. I don’t know that I believe in them. Well, to be honest, I’m not sure I disbelieve in them either. I do believe that Rott believes in them and I believe that he believes he saw one. For that alone, I treat his words fairly seriously.

How does one combat a ghost? Especially when your spouse pretty much wants to pack up and leave it behind and when you yourself do not feel the presence of anything bad. Do we have a seance? Go ghosthunting? Call ghostbusters or myth hunters or whatever those TV dudes are called?

It’s a pretty weird dilemma to have that’s for sure. Anyone have any advice? I’ll be sure to pass it along to Rott if you do. Meanwhile, I need a Marcus.

Look at all that skin. *sigh* If our ghost looked like that, I’d never want him to leave! LOL Hope you all have a happy and haunting free Monday!

I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to go to work. I don’t want to do anything except eat a handful of Tums, drink a ginger ale and go back to bed and pull the covers over my head. I feel like a total six year old moaning about a tummy ache. But the damn thing is awful! It’s not the sharp, throbbing pain of a broken bone. It’s not the tight pounding of a migraine. It’s not the set my bones on fire flare of arthritis. It’s just a slightly nauseous, slightly achy, bad egg burp tasting tummy ache. It’s gross and the nagging quality of the churning ache is annoying and exhausting.

Why such a simple kind of pain would seem worse than the time I severely cracked a couple of metacarpals in my hand is a mystery. A broken bone should be worse than a stomachache, shouldn’t it? Maybe it’s because as children, stomachaches totally felled us. As an adult, when you get a stomachache your brain drags up memories of past stomachaches and makes you feel as if you can’t get over this without your mom’s soothing touch and words of comfort. Maybe you need a mouthful of chalky pepperminty Pepto Bismol, the stuff your mom gave you when you were a kid. It’s like half of the discomfort of the stomachache is the fact that your mom isn’t there to make you feel better.

So I’m just gonna whine in my head to myself until the tummy ache goes away. I’ve got no Pepto nor mom to soothe the damned thing. I’ll eat a couple more Tums and grab an ice cold Coke or ginger ale before I leave for work. The icy, fizzy soda will probably do the trick and settle my stomach, but I’ll still feel cranky cause yanno…I have a tummyache and I want my mom! LOL Adults can be such big babies, can’t we?

Hopefully, Marcus helps rid me of the stomachache. Never underestimate the beauty of the Marcus. He can do a lot for an ailing soul.

I feel a bit better now. It might be the Tums or it might be Marcus. Either way, I’d best toddle off to the office. I’m getting back a job I gave up to someone else a few years back now that I have some great help in my part of the department. There is nothing like having competent co-workers to make your workday smoother!

Have an awesome Monday everyone!