To Write or Not to Write by Nancy M Bell

 

To explore more of Nancy's books click on the cover above. 

I'm working on another installment of the A Longview Romance series. Storm's Refuge was the first book, which was followed by Come Hell or High Water and A Longview Wedding. Michelle is the heroine in the first three books and her life is turned upside down when her supposed fiance comes home from the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas married to someone else. 

Rob Chetwynd, the fiance in question, has played a role in the first three books, but this time I'm sharing how the impromptu Vegas wedding comes about. Kayla's Cowboy is the title and is told from Kayla's POV. How she meets Rob and how their relationship progresses is certainly a work in progress.  

I'm struggling with how to bring these two disparate characters together. Kayla is an accomplished dressage rider who is at the NFR to give a demonstration of her sport. Her sponsors have arranged the whole thing and have sent another horse and rider pair along as well. Kayla and Anna split the duties with one of them doing the riding and the other providing the commentary on a rotating basis. This is all okay until Anna's horse, Arizona, gets cast in the stall and unable to perform, which puts added  pressure on Kayla and Wellington. 

Anna's a bit of a party animal and she brings Rob and his pal into Kayla's orbit. She thinks the cocky, but admittedly sexy, cowboy is an adrenaline junkie for getting on rough stock not to mention enraged bulls.  But, things take some twists and turns and she is thrown into his company more and more. Somehow, the cockiness wears off and a more vulnerable side of Rob comes to the forefront.

He confesses that, while he and Michelle have been friends forever, and everyone in Longview expects them to get married, Rob isn't in love with Michelle that way. His mother is pushing him to get on with it, and Michelle is certainly unaware of his reservations, added to the pressure is the fact his late father's dying wish was that Rob and Michelle get married and combine the Wilson and Chetwynd  ranches. Rob isn't ready to settle down with Michelle and he sure as hell isn't ready to quit the rodeo road.

That's it so far, now I've just got to figure out how Kayla agrees to marry him. She noticing the chinks in his armour and as a woman who was raised by her aunt after her parents died, she realizes how Rob's cocky facade is just a front to hide the face he's fighting his own demons. 

So, to write or not to write, the dreaded writers block. I keep turning my characters this way and that and trying to figure out how they fit together. <sigh> 

I know this dilemma should help me deal with the Covid isolation blues, but somehow it just doesn't seem to be working. I'm into Covid Winter x 2 and not liking it at all. Hopefully, either Kayla or Rob will cosy up with my muse and help me out here.

Until next month, happy writing. Stay warm, stay safe and stave off the dreaded writer's block.

Nancy 

Being a Blog Host or Guest by Janet Lane Walters #BWLAuthor #BlogHost #BlogGuest

 

I have an active blog eclecticwriter and often have guests. I’ve been guesting on other people’s blogs. Since the first of the year, I’ve been noticing some things about the blogs I’ve visited. They all did something I often do not do. So I’m making a note to let the person pposting to know when their material will go live. Hopefully I’ll remember. Now for some questions from people who have blogs and those who visit other people’s blogs.

 

How do you promote your own blog when you have guests? Do you let them know? Do you post the appearance on Facebook, Twitter or other places that allow promotion? I try to do them all.

Do you go to your won blog when there’s a visitor and read the comments and make your own if needed? This is something I hope to do better with.

 

Now for those who are guesting, a few questions. Do you visit the blog and let the author know you’re glad to be there? Do you promote your appearance on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and other places that allow this type of promotion? Do you check periodically for those who have visited and made comments? Do you dialogue with those who have commented?

 

When I visit, I do promote the blog I’m visiting on the day I appear. I also chack for about a week to see if there are any comments and also to comment if needed.

 

Other people’s blogs can give you venues and find readers and writers you may not know.

 

 

My Places

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Crazy Canucks, by J.C. Kavanagh

 

The Twisted Climb

Book 1 of the award-winning Twisted Climb series

Winter time in central Ontario, Canada, brings about snow, ice, freezing rain, blizzards and white-outs. If you like extreme weather, you'll fit right in. If you don't like the cold or any of the above weather conditions, well, you won't like Canadian winters. Me, I love it. Having the crisp, icy-cold wind ripple against your cheeks and feeling the delicate frostiness of snowflakes descending on your face... ah, that is a rejuvenating winter experience.

Me and my awesome and often crazy partner love to cavort in the elements. Summer is for sailing. Spring and Autumn are for taking care of the woods on our rural property. But winter - oh winter - it's for:

• Chopping and stacking bush cords of hardwood
• Shovelling snow (and driving snowblower)
• Hiking the property (with glass of wine in mittened-hand)
• Snowshoeing the property
• Bonfires 
• Enjoying home-cut fries/poutine around the bonfire
• More snow shovelling (and driving snowblower)
• Star gazing at back of property (with glass of wine in mittened-hand)

Ian and J (carved by Ian with chainsaw)

Firepit area

One section of trails

Clearing driveway in 'Canadian' disguise

Woodstove ready

After the hike... photobomb

And our newest outdoor entertainment: Axe/Knife throwing

My partner has this thing about knives (is it a guy thing?) and ever since axe-throwing became popular, he's wanted to build a target and set it up beside our shop. So, during the Christmas break, he decided it was time to design and build the target. Once that was accomplished, then of course we had to buy a set of throwing axes/knives. No sense building a target without deadly instruments.

Have you ever thrown an axe? Or a specially-designed throwing knife? Not for the faint-hearted. But definitely a challenge. Also a hilarious challenge. Most throws will have the axe/knife 'clunk' against the target and fall straight down. Or, it will completely miss the target (it's 40" x 50"). Great fun!  

J-I Axes homemade target. Yup, it says 'EyesBull'

Canadian chill at -25 Celsius (-13 F)

While some people might think outdoor winter activities are for crazy Canucks, I like to think they're for anyone crazy enough to enjoy the elements. That's me.

However, if you're the kind of person who prefers to curl up inside your home with a hot cup of cocoa, then I have two perfectly good, non-deadly instruments for you to hold on to. The first is: The Twisted Climb, voted Best Young Adult book, and the second is The Twisted Climb-Darkness Descends, voted Best Young Adult book in 2018. Book 3 in this exciting series is on the way!

Until next time, stay safe everyone.

J.C. Kavanagh, author of
The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends (Book 2)
voted BEST Young Adult Book 2018, Critters Readers Poll and Best YA Book FINALIST at The Word Guild, Canada
AND
The Twisted Climb,
voted BEST Young Adult Book 2016, P&E Readers Poll
Novels for teens, young adults and adults young at heart
Email: author.j.c.kavanagh@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/J.C.Kavanagh
www.amazon.com/author/jckavanagh
Twitter @JCKavanagh1 (Author J.C. Kavanagh)
Instagram @authorjckavanagh

What is Special About the First of January?

 

            The first of January, also known as the New Year, is the largest celebrated holiday in the world. In almost every country, whether Japan, Australia or Brazil, the day is marked with festivities, firecrackers and feasts.

            Astronomically speaking, January 1^st is an odd time for the New Year. It signifies neither the spring nor the fall equinox, nor does it coincide with either of the two solstices. It lies in the middle of the earth’s journey between the Zodiac constellations of Capricorn and Aquarius and doesn’t match with the end or beginning of any of the seasons.

            In original cultures, spring marked the beginning of a New Year, logically enough, since the season marked rebirth—of plants and crops, after the barrenness of winter. It’s the season when, according to natural cycles, animals and birds mate. In China, the Spring Festival coincides with the New Year. According to the ancient Babylonian, Egyptian, Indian, Iranian and Mayan calendars, the year commences with the spring Vernal Equinox, usually in March or April, when the sun starts its northern journey.

            So how did January 1 become the beginning of the New Year? The first instance occurred in Rome, in 153 BC, under the rule of Julius Caesar. It marked the Roman civil year, when Roman consuls, the highest officials of the Roman republic, started their one-year tenures. After the fall of the Roman Empire, medieval Europe banned January 1^st as the New Year, considering it a pagan holiday, and replaced it with the 25^th of March, which roughly corresponds to the date of Jesus’s death and resurrection.

            The use of January 1 as the New Year can be traced to the Gregorian calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory XII in 1582 as a way to correct the Julian calendar. The imprecision in the Julian calendar, which added a full day every hundred-and-twenty-eight years, created difficulties for the Church in calculating Easter, celebrated on the Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon on or after the twenty-first of March. European scholars had been well aware of the calendar drift since the early medieval period. After much debate, in 1622, the Catholic Church adopted January 1 as the beginning of the New Year.

Many people in the world follow two and, sometimes, more calendars, pertaining to their cultures and their religious holidays. Best wishes for the New Year, whenever you celebrate it!

Mohan Ashtakala (www.mohanauthor.com) is the author of  "The Yoga Zapper," a fantasy, and "Karma Nation," a literary romance. He is published by Books We Love (www.bookswelove.com)

The Past is a Different Place...by Sheila Claydon

 Find my books here

Readers are taken back to the 1800s in Remembering Rose, the first book in my Mapleby Memories trilogy. In the third book, due out in May and still untitled, readers are taken to the 13th century. Until today I didn't expect to travel further back but now I have learned a whole lot about life 50,000 years ago.

Why? Well because my 20 year old granddaughter, who is studying Biology at university, asked me to check a paper, shortly due to be submitted, for flow, and also to advise on losing approximately 400 words without significantly altering the research. 

As it is a scientific paper I had to read it through several times to fully understand it, especially the scientific terms, but once I done that I became really interested. I learned, for example, that animals and humans have domesticated each other. Initially wolves and humans lived in the same area but without interacting, but by the time humans began to develop into agricultural societies, about 10,000 years ago, they were working together. It is thought that a human preference for smaller, more docile and therefore easier to manage dogs, are what led to the breeds we see today.

One of the interesting changes is that wolves could solve tasks by observing the behaviour of others and they could also follow the human gaze to 'see' a problem, whereas domesticated (wolves) dogs cannot differentiate between the intentional and accidental actions of their handlers. Domestication has taught them to ignore cues not specifically addressed to them. Instead, living in close contact with humans has taught them to rely on help rather than trying to solve problems independently.

Cats, of course, are very different and it is thought that initially they probably took advantage of the the mice and food scraps they found around the first settlements. Later they learned to live with humans, becoming more docile and developing behaviour and reward conditioning, but even today, thousands of years later, they are still largely independent, and able to find their own food and breeding partners.

Domestication of horses occurred much later, around 6,000 years ago and, surprisingly, given how important horses have been for transport, farming etc. over many centuries, their behaviour has changed far less than that of dogs and cats. While they benefit from the food, shelter, physical care and protection humans provide, left to their own devices they would still very quickly reassume a feral lifestyle.

There was much, much more. All of it interesting. However I found the animal/human relationship the most intriguing. Probably because I have been around dogs, cats and horses all my life but never, until now, considered how they have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. And how we have helped them do just that. And how they, in turn, have helped us domesticate ourselves.