FREE BOOKS!

The Dog Days of Summer are upon us.

 

The heat makes us lethargic, stuck inside the house to keep cool. You've already seen all the summer movies. You've been to the mall more times this last month than you did while shopping for Christmas presents.

 

And last but not least, the kids are driving you bonkers. School is just around the corner and it can't get here quick enough to save your sanity.

 

*drumroll*

 

Which makes it time for some free books!

 

During the week of August 4-8, 2014, I am offering all my Goblin Apprentice books for FREE!

 

The books are for ages 7-15. Yes, I've had readers as young as seven and as old as fifteen read these stories. If your kids are on the younger end of the range, then you might want to start with the books on the bottom as they lean more toward the chapter book length and style.

 

The book covers will take you to my Amazon page, where you can individually download each book, or you can click the books on the right side of my blog.

 

Be sure to check that the Kindle book is free, and not just the Kindle unlimited notation.

 

Please feel free to spread the word, share the link on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ as I will be out of pocket this week.

 

 

May the stories keep the little monsters occupied until it's time to buy school supplies!

 

Later, Peeps!

Dragon Days of Summer excerpt

It seems like it's been forever since I've blogged, but it's only been about three weeks. Actually, by now, I thought I would have had shoulder surgery and be in an arm sling that would totally immobilize my left shoulder.

But I cancelled my surgery because the cervical spinal injections seem to be taking care of the immediate problem . . . for now.

I hope y'all took the opportunity to download my books when they were free, even if you haven't had a chance to read them. Sometimes I download books and then finally get around to reading them 6-7 months later!

To that end, I thought I'd post a very short excerpt from DRAGON DAYS OF SUMMER, Book Four of The Goblin's Apprentice series.

***

 

Chapter One

Parenting 101--Pester your Kid

 

I stared out the car window and watched the grass flash by. Spring had been wet this year, which made everything grow like weeds, including the weeds.

 “So, do you want to talk about it?” Mom asked as she drove us home.

The simple answer would be “No”, but sometimes Mom just didn’t get it. Two hours of mind-numbing detention. Two hours of sitting in the same room as Bubba. Two hours spent in a troll hole would have been better than the complete and utter boredom of the school library. What a total waste of time.

It didn’t help that school was almost over for the year and Mrs. Dillard didn’t see the need to assign us any homework. It wasn’t like I could pull my Celestian physiology book out of my backpack to start reading up on mermaids, dryads, or trolls. Or whip out my sword and practice a few moves. Or even try manipulating stuff with my earth magic.

Though . . . come to think of it, the thought of calling a dust bunny to attack Bubba did have its merits.

What was the point of being a goblin’s apprentice if the goblin never bothered to show up?  It wasn’t my problem the aforementioned goblin was being held captive on the alternate realm of Celestia, was it?  Where was his replacement?

I softly snorted. Why did I even bother to pretend I was still the goblin’s apprentice?

No one was banging on my door asking for my help with the war. In fact, I hadn’t heard a peep from anyone in months.

And my little adventure with the leprechauns, pixies and faeries didn’t count. Leprechauns only cared about themselves. Their only concern was how to use the war to their advantage.  Faeries and pixies were minor Mythicals; no one on the Celestian Council cared about them or their contributions to the war effort.

K’vn and Rory were the only Mythicals I had contact with, well, other than Zinzara—but a brownie and gnome weren’t exactly challenging opponents to train with. And Little Dude had disappeared when Darien was released from Castle Dragonskull’s dungeon.

I missed Little Dude. Things always grew exciting when he popped up.

 

Later, Peeps!



Good Friends



Meg, Me and Marilyn



A few days before Christmas, Meg drove into town for a quick visit with Marilyn. Actually, the Twisted Sisters were planning a girls retreat to a resort spa called the Canebrake. They try to get together monthly just to get away. In October, they managed a jaunt down to Cozumel . . . the dogs!

Jealous some?

Sha-yah!

Anyhoo, we managed to sync our schedules for breakfast . . . er, brunch . . . er, lunch . . . um . . . it really ended up being all three. We started at 9 AM, but I didn't get home until almost 1 PM. Good thing IHOP wasn't very busy!

I don't have much to say about our visit other than we talked about EVERYTHING!

I love my sisters from different mothers. They are very special to me. In fact, their emotional support during 2011 has helped me see my dreams of publishing my middle grade series, The Goblin's Apprentice. This is from Sugar Plum Disaster's acknowledgement page:
 

Writing is such a solitary business, but without the wonderful support of my family and friends, it would have been a struggle. I would like to send a special thank you to my wonderful friend and cover artist, Laura Morrigan, who is a talented writer on top of her artistic skills. Another special thanks and shout out goes to Meg Reid who was there for me when I freaked out during the entire Goblin’s Apprentice series. I’m sincerely glad she has my back. And to Marilyn Pappano who took me under her wing and taught me how to fly.

I really can't express how much your friendship and support has braced me up over this last year.

I love you both very, very much.

Thank you.

HELP!

Today, my writer friend and amazing cover artist, Laura Morrigan and I did two writing sprints. Basically we are in a private chat room and wrote for twenty minutes, and rest for ten--this was how I finished TROLL in nineteen days. During our break we either chat, do stuff around the house or refill our coffee, etc. I also try to envision the next 500 words of the story. When the time's up, we sprint again. I tried to write in 30 minute sprints, but I found myself getting side-tracked too easily.

Anyhoo, I'm writing GA #4 and I realized that I had forgotten many of the minor character's names. ACK!! So I simply put Mrs. XXXX as the newspaper lady and ZXXXX for my dragon-dog.

So--I WILL GIVE AWAY ALL THREE OF MY STORIES TO ANYONE WHO VOLUNTEERS TO LIST MY CHARACTERS AND WHO THEY ARE.
It doesn't have to be much:

Kyte Webber--main character
Bryn Webber--Kyte's mom
XXX--leprechaun in John Deere hat. . . . See? I can't even remember their names! Oh, the leprechauns would actually have two names, 1) their real one, 2) the leprechaun one . . . I think they start with GN---

I'm serious about this offer, but you have to do your part, please . . . pretty please.

If you don't want to read them, maybe you know of someone who does.

Email me if you're interested: magolla@cox.net

PLEASE AND THANK YOU!

GNOME cover!!

Last week, I chopped, diced and julienned GNOME, cutting the word count from 42,000 words to 32,000 words and tightening it until it was squeaky clean.  The story is out with two beta readers to catch my stupid mistakes. I hope to fix the little stuff this week, write a back cover copy, add a teaser for FAERIE (Book 2 in the series), and format it to have it up and running March 1.
And here's Rory Leafhopper:

Later, Peeps!