Category Archives: Humor

March 17, 2013 · 10:05 am

No Rest for the Wicked, or Lettuce Give Thanks

Saturday was a busy day. It started out at 6:30 am with preparing two rather nice boys for human sacrifice on the altar of the Bull God. This was followed by a prophetic dream. At about 12:30 I chatted with a rather witless Minotaur, until 2:30 p.m. when I had to put away my toys, shower, and get myself properly dressed for dinner out with my old school mates.

I love writing fantasy.

I’ve been working on the ritual sacrifice scene for two days, and gradually it’s evolving into what I want it to be. The prophetic dream scene has also been on the work table for two days, and it too is evolving. The end is nigh on this manuscript, and I am beginning to chafe at the bit, just wanting it to be finished so I can get going on two other tales that I have sitting on the back burner.

But it won’t be that easy.

No, there’s no rest for the wicked. I suppose attempting to sacrifice perfectly nice characters on the altar of a dark God qualifies me as being wicked.

At least I hope so.

Irene Roth Luvaul and I have one more trip through Huw the Bard, and then he will be going to the Beta Readers. While he is being read, I will work on my two other projects for a bit, before I plunge back into prepping Huw for publication, and doing a rewrite of Mountains of the Moon.

In the meantime I’ve been writing as fast as I can, and trying to get the first draft of MOTM done, with an actual ending and everything.

Saturday night my old classmates and I dined at a nice local restaurant. It was my first big dinner event since becoming vegan and the meal I was offered was excellent and satisfying. I had a nice green salad with balsamic vinaigrette, sautéed mixed vegetables, a baked potato with salsa and guacamole, followed by a strawberry sorbet. It was a delicious meal, and I felt like I’d had a real dinner out.

The interesting thing about dining out, now that I’ve made the change to a vegan diet, is that there is a way that I can eat well without making a big ordeal out of it. I have to be proactive and take responsibility for my meals by simply calling ahead and speaking to the chef about what items on their menu might be appropriate for a person who eats no dairy or meat.

This is really a life lesson for the indie author too–we must be proactive if we want something positive to happen with our career. We must set aside time blog, and tweet, and make sure that when our author name is googled we are all over the first page that comes up. We must do this in as professional a manner as we are able, as the drunk-driving rap is probably not going to sell our books. We must establish regular habits of writing our books, writing blog posts, doing the social networking that we despise, AND we have to learn how to be our own best advertisement. Why, yes, I do just happen to have a copy of my book in my trunk. Yes, I do accept cash, checks, credit cards and jewelry. Who should I autograph this book to? Yes, I love shopping here at Safeway.

No rest for the wicked.

We can’t sit back and just hope for the best, or we might be stuck with a plate of french fries and a bowl of lettuce.

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Filed under Adventure, Books, Humor, Uncategorized, Vegan, writing

Tagged as fantasy, humor, vegan lifestyle, writing

March 7, 2013 · 2:14 am

Sitting in a Starbucks

Today I am in Seattle, sitting in a busy Starbucks, working on my book. It ‘s kind of cool, blogging and working on my book on the ground floor of an office building that houses Amazon.

There is something about this rainy city that I love. It fires up my creative mind. Plus, I lived in Seattle until I was 9, and to me it has always been home.

The book is rolling along well–so well that I begrudge the time it takes to blog! The characters are occupying most of the space in my mind–to the point that I can hardly carry on a conversation without sounding like an idiot.

Designing melèes with strange creatures and putting my characters through hell and yet still finding something humorous in their situations–I’ve never had a job more rewarding. (Although, I admit it’s financially rather UNrewarding.) Still, maybe the next book will be the one!

I’m sitting here in a Starbucks, in Seattle, watching the rain and the people and loving my job. I don’t care if I’m not a bestseller and I don’t really care if I ever am. I’ve finished writing four (count them –> FOUR!) books and can all those nay-sayers say they have done that? So I’m not published by one of the Big Six. And so my books aren’t on the hot one hundred yet! I’m an indie and I do the best I can, which is all one can ask of themselves.

I am sitting in a Starbucks living my dream, writing a book. It doesn’t get much better than that!

My advice is this–do what you love, and do it to the best of your ability. Life is too short to spend most of it waiting for the right time to happen, or for someone to give you permission to live.

Find your “Starbucks” and make your life happen!

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Filed under Battles, Books, Fantasy, Humor, Literature, Uncategorized, writing

Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, fantasy, fiction, humor, literature, magic, vegan lifestyle, writing

March 3, 2013 · 7:52 pm

Parsifal, Wagner, and the Muse

Things are back to normal here at La Casa del Jasperson–at least, as normal as the interior of a spinning blender ever is. I strive to create a zen-like home to compensate for the strange detours life takes us on. The way my creative mind works, I need to have an orderly environment or I can’t focus on my work.

Epilepsy is disorderly in the extreme! Dealing with hospitals and life-changing events takes a toll on one’s creativity. Worrying that the new medicine won’t work, or your loved one won’t be able to tolerate the poison is terribly stressful. Thus, despite the fact that I brought my lap-top and spent the same number of hours staring at the screen this last week, I accomplished very little, other than taking my main characters a few steps closer to their doom. I managed only 3000 words for seven days of writing.

But that changed yesterday when I managed to write 1200 words in one productive hour. The reason my hour was so productive is this—> Three weeks ago, before life took the side-trip, I was suffering from a bout of writer’s block.

I’ve always known what was going to happen with this tale, but I was writing it by the seat of my pants, as usual! SO in desperation, two weeks ago I made a 3000 word outline of where I wanted the story to go, right down to the epilogue. Immediately, I was able to get the story moving again.

I know! It’s genius! I took my own advice!

During this week of worry and stress, I spent a lot of time out on Wikimedia Creative Commons looking at some of the greatest art ever collected. It is humbling to realize that these artists saw no great rewards for their work, in fact they were barely able to eke out a living at it. I came across the picture that graces todays post, Parsifal, by Hermann Hendrich. The castle in the background is exactly the sort of place my characters have found themselves. The fir trees and the remoteness of this picture gave a form to my idea, and I was more easily able to create the story of what happens next.

The interesting thing is, Hendrich got his imagination jump started by having seen the Wagnerian opera, Tannhäuser. (YouTube link here!)

Go figure–an artistic type whose muse is fired up by big, loud, epic music! Of course I was captivated. The creative process that others experience is as interesting to me as is their final, amazing product.

Today, it is 7:28 a.m. on an early spring Sunday. I am listening to loud German opera overtures via YouTube and mentally preparing to get 3000 or more words written today.

So as the world here in Olympia (the navel of the universe) gets back to normal, all will end well for my heroes…or will it…heh heh….

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Filed under Adventure, Battles, Books, Humor, Uncategorized, Vegan, writing

Tagged as adventure, fantasy, humor, literature, living with epilepsy, romance, vegan lifestyle, writing

February 28, 2013 · 10:12 pm

The ‘e’ word, part 2

MSClipArt MP900390083.JPG RF PD Epilepsy.

My oldest daughter had a grand mal seizure when she was 26 years old, and has not had any issues since. She also deals with obsessive compulsive disorder, and is doing well because she is on a good treatment regimen for her conditions. she is a beautiful, happy woman of 39, with a 6-year old child (The Boy who frequently appears in this column.) Early on, Daughter 1 decided to face her problem and deal with it appropriately. The Boy will be her only child, as she had to go off her meds for that year in order to have a healthy child, and she isn’t going to chance that again.

Adult Onset of Epilepsy with no discernible physical cause is more common than I once thought, though it is still rather rare. It is hard to find information on it. Many adult seizures are caused by tumors, alcohol and drug abuse, or aneurysms, and frequently these can be cured.

However, many times there is NO PHYSICAL CAUSE that is discernible via MRI or EEG. This is the case in two of my children.

My son, who shares the same father with Daughter 1, always showed the same intensity of thought and purpose, combined with obsessing that his father and his sister had. He recognized early on that his OCD was crippling him, and sought treatment for it.

He will be 35 in a month, and has only had his seizure disorder for 18 months. He had trouble accepting it, refusing to believe it could occur again, since his sister had only had the one seizure that we knew of. Then, when he was forced to see that he had “a problem with seizures” he believed he could cure it with the proper diet, and exercise. When that notion was proven wrong, he at last went on the meds that his doctors prescribed, and he went 10 months with no seizures.

Because he is an analytical man, he wanted to see if the meds were working, and went off them for 5 days, and had 3 grand mal seizures and at least 1 minor seizure in 2 days. Fortunately, he was in the hospital, and they were able to get him on a good regimen for his meds.

Now he has faced the reality that he has epilepsy for no apparent reason, and there is no way to cure it. To my everlasting relief, he is making good decisions and going forward with life, instead of letting his epilepsy rule him.

On occasion, a physical cause can be found for the random seizures that characterize this disorder, but frequently no cause can be found. In my children’s case, no root cause can be found, but their father’s side of the family has had some history with random aneurysms and other odd occurrences, such as clinical Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Medication treats the symptoms, but also frequently has other effect that are not so desirable.

Thus, the dilemma that all people who must take these medicines face.

As an author, I have the perfect positive escape for the stressful things in my life. I write, I play games, I read books, and I reorganize my spoon collection–I stay busy. My chosen career is one I can carry with me, so when a family member is having a crisis, I can pack up the laptop and go to the rescue for however long it takes to help them work through the problem.

For a Vegan, this is an adventure, indeed! I have found ways to travel and dine on the road without having to go hungry.

My advice to those living with epilepsy still stands. Take the poison, and live the life you are given to its fullest. Deal with the problems when they arise and put them behind you. Happiness is a state of mind that must be cultivated.

Many people spend hours thinking about where they went wrong, and reinforcing the negative thoughts. This makes them negative, unhappy people!

To be happy, one must deliberately cultivate the positive things that are ALSO happening in their life, and give them more importance than the negative. Make your face smile, even when you aren’t being watched and you might be surprised at how much better you feel!

We all have random bad things that pop in and out of our lives. We live in a sometimes hard world, but we have this wonderful, glorious opportunity to see the real beauty of the world around us.

Grab it, and don’t let go!

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Filed under Battles, Epilepsy, Humor, Literature, Vegan, writing

Tagged as battles, fiction, humor, living with epilepsy, vegan lifestyle, writing

February 22, 2013 · 5:36 am

“Spam the Vegan!” shouted the Queen. “No quarter!”

One of the things I’ve noticed on all of my blogs is the number of strangely phrased, oddly ambiguous but pleasant comments from random “people” with email addresses and links referencing pictures of “hot young high-school girls, all of legal age” in compromising situations.

Yeah, right.

Strangely enough, these comments are frequently quite garbled as if they were translated to English by an old version of Google Translator. Another interesting thing is they frequently say, (and I quote,) “I need information of this more. I have search how can I get more.” Well now, that really pertains to the conversation we were having about +Orson Scott Card and character development, doesn’t it…

And these comments are frequently addressed to much older posts, as Johanna Garth, author and blogger from Portland Oregon, has also mentioned, possibly in the hope we wouldn’t notice. (She blogs on the most interesting things, over on Losing Sanity – you should check her out!)

These enterprising hawkers of underage hookers think that if they say something nice and ambiguous I might believe that it pertains to my blog. They think I will post their comment without checking to see what sort of links they have embedded in it! Heh – heh – wrong!!! Grandma wasn’t born yesterday. The internet is my business, and I take business seriously. I’ve learned quite a bit about the wolves in sheep’s’ clothing who lurk in the dingier alleys of the old web since I first began this crazy journey.

Strangely, this barrage of spam has really escalated since I began occasionally mentioning the word “VEGAN”.

I can only assume that their antiquated version of Google Translator has interpreted that word as implying that I am a “VIRGIN” and they are kindly offering me hope that one day I will no longer be afflicted thusly.

Now, we know Grandma has lived long and enjoyed every minute of her life and with four marriages behind her and 11 grandkids she is not a candidate for sainthood. I intend to keep on enjoying life to the fullest until the universe explodes, or whatever, so party on! Play that funky music, and dance the way you feel like dancing, but don’t try to trick me into being a carrier for purveyors of sleaze.

Really, one would think that scouring the internet all day and posting random comments with sleaze-links in unknown blogs would be awfully time-consuming. The return can’t possibly be worth the effort they must put into it. All their work in trying to insinuate links to their sleazy drivel, everything from porn to cold remedies on my blog is barking up the wrong tree, because I use Akismet here on WordPress and verify every comment that slips through so that my blog doesn’t accidentally become a festering boil on society’s rump.

I also do the same on my other blogs. What fun! It’s almost humorous the lengths folks will go to get you to be an unpaid advertiser for them.

Still, at least I’m doing well enough that 6 – 12 spammers a week feel my blog posts are worth wasting their time on. Maybe it’s the same person, who knows, but hey – in this business, attention is attention, even if it’s negative attention!

I’m so happy about the extra attention that I wrote a poem:

Spam, Wonderful Spam – they know I exist, so therefore I am!

Spam, Fabulous Spam – The Nigerian Prince need MY helping hand!

Spam, marvelous spam – the meat I can’t eat as it’s not Ve-gan!

(It rhymes if you say it just right! Honest!)

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Tagged as adventure, fantasy, humor, literature, Spam, vegan lifestyle, writing

February 15, 2013 · 11:18 pm

The Sedative Box

Alas, I find that the week spent with my grandson didn’t advance my manuscript any further. I didn’t even get any book reviews done this week, although I did find Nemo.

And Waldo.

And the last shred of patience I ever had.

The Boy is six, and is off-the-chart-smart, requiring no entertaining on my part what-so-ever. He is a real firecracker, and just listening to him as he is playing is a hoot. Batman and Darth Vader teamed up with The Green Lantern to kill Smeagol, thus saving Bilbo from a dreadful death.

I’ve mentioned before that The Boy is a sponge and literally soaks up everything he sees and hears. This child repeats EVERYTHING he hears or even thinks he has heard. He is VERY verbal with a huge vocabulary (of which he knows the meaning and proper use of every word), extremely sassy, and regularly loses his precious, carefully monitored television privileges, which he is deeply remorseful for, but not enough to remember to curb his lip when talking back to Mama (She Who Controls The TV.) Curbing his commentary is both time-consuming and all-important, as it has led to some trouble in social situations.

For the most part, Grandma’s role when babysitting is to gently but firmly remind The Boy that we show respect to everyone when we speak to them, and when he responds with verbal abuse, I respond by parking him in the corner for some quiet time. Grandma sets the timer on the stove for five minutes and we both rest our ears. When the timer goes off, we hug and make up our quarrel, OR he goes back to the corner to reflect on where he miscalculated and went wrong for just a while longer.

Oddly enough, The Boy doesn’t like tofu in his stirfry. Go Figure! And Grandma doesn’t do mac and cheese–what a tragedy! We did find something he would eat, and we agreed to disagree.

I have ten grandchildren and one great-grandchild. The Boy is the only one of my grandchildren that requires special handling, although the others are just as talented and amazing as he is. Unlike the others, this child can’t be left to his own devices, or mayhem WILL ensue. Because he requires more intense handling, I’ve had a lot of individual time with him that I’ve not had with the others.

I can honestly say he is not my favorite grandchild, because they are ALL so awesome and so individual that I could never have a favorite. They range in age from 23 years on down to to 5 months and fall into 3 batches. The great-granddaughter is 4 years old and is amazing to me–we’ve developed a special friendship bonding in Grandma’s kitchen.

In the first batch, the oldest is attending college full-time and raising her child as a single mother and doing exceedingly well at both jobs. She inspires me to do better at my own work. The next oldest is my ‘Fairy Goth-Daughter’, an artist and musician, who hooked me up with Rammstein and Appocalyptica. The third oldest is 20, an actress, and has found work in HBO documentaries and even a straight-to-video movie. She is also managing a fast-food restaurant to pay her bills, since acting pays as well as authoring does! (insert ‘lol’ here.)

The next age group ranges from 14 to 6 and their interests are still varying. Two want to write, one loves to draw and he is awesome at drawing any sort of car you would want. The other three don’t have any particular area of focus yet, but I see glimmers of artistic and musical ability in them all.

The littlest, at 5 months, is really into the cat and his dog. He tries to sing when you sing with him, which I find quite entertaining–it keeps grandma busy and out of trouble for hours.

But what I love about The Boy is his imagination. He let’s his imagination fly freely, and I can see the seeds that, with good direction, will grow into a filmmaker or author or scientist there. The Boy thinks WAY outside the box because it hasn’t occurred to him yet that there is a box!

It ‘s my job, as The Grandma, to see that they ALL realize there are NO BOUNDARIES to what they can do or be. Success isn’t measured in how many toys and possessions you gain. It’s measured in your happiness quotient.

Are you happy? When you get home from earning your daily bread do you look forward to a chance to spend an hour or two at your real work? My happiness quotient is very high, and always has been, even when I was working as a hotel maid. Happiness is a state of mind you must deliberately cultivate.

When you get home, why not simply forget to turn on the TV? (Or as I like to think of it, the sedative-box.) What has it ever done for you besides offering mindnumbingly similar programs interspersed with commercials designed to make you feel you aren’t complete without the product they are hawking. Bored and discontent is not how I want to live, so I find myself reading and pursuing other hobbies in the evening.

Today, I am also looking up. Two asteroids, one imploding over Russia and one doing a close fly-by is quite enough entertainment for one day! For all my friends in Russia, I hope you were not affected by the event this morning!

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Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, fantasy, fiction, literature, vegan lifestyle, writing

February 8, 2013 · 8:47 pm

Redemption and the Wayward Pen

I started my day today by reading Alison DeLuca’s great blog, Fresh Pot of Tea this morning, and her topic is Redemption. She has written an awesome post on villains and redemption, and I suggest you pay a visit to her blog and read the post.

Redemption in your villains is a topic that interests me, because in the Tower of Bones series I have a nasty villain, Baron Stefyn D’Mal, who is, in many ways modeled on the original Mad, Bad and Dangerous To Know man, Lord Byron (if he were wholly devoted to the God of Darkness and was crazy on steroids.)

In the first book, Tower of Bones, we discover some of D’Mal’s history, and there is some reason to feel bad for the child he once was, but he is in no way a good guy.

In Forbidden Road, Stefyn D’Mal interacts with the protagonists somewhat less directly, but his influence is no less profound on the outcome of the tale, and his evil God has him firmly in hand.

Why are we attracted to tales of Redemption? Is it because we are aware of our own frailties and when we are immersed in the redemption of the fictional evil genius, whom we have secretly admired, we are some how redeemed ourselves? I think for me there is a secret relief in the notion that by one selfless act of heroism a person can counter a lifetime of misdeeds.

I’ve had a novel on the back burner since 1998 that will probably never be published, because it is terribly flawed and pretty outdated now. But I love the characters. In this tale there is one character who is not really a central character but her stubbornness causes no end of trouble for her family. But in the end, she jumps between the shooter and her niece because the desire to protect those you love is sometimes stronger than common sense.

I think that having a really great villain makes a story compelling. Great villains are why we read Harry Potter, and the Lord of the Rings. The Wheel of Time has great villains–a LOT of them– which is what drives the plot(s). When I read a book with villains that really frighten me I return to it later and analyze what it is about that character that inspired such an emotional reaction in me. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at what Robert Jordan did with the Forsaken. Lanfear and Asmodean were frequently pleasant, engaging people and one could feel a certain sympathy for them despite the knowledge that they were evil. Even Demandred had a certain cachet that one could relate to.

This makes writing your villains complicated. They are bad, or they wouldn’t be villains, they’d be the heroes. But it is a rare person who is completely consumed by evil, and so when we see the softer side of the devil we grudgingly like him.

Who knew Satan was a cat-lady?

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Tagged as adventure, Alison DeLuca, battles, fantasy, humor, literature, Lord Byron, writing

February 6, 2013 · 7:54 pm

Great Collaborations

Rainbow_-_Ritchie_Blackmore's_Rainbow_(1975)_front_cover This album, Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow was a watershed moment for me, musically. I discovered Rainbow when my first husband and I moved to Bellingham Washington to go to college. We had one child, our daughter Leah. We were pretty broke, and couldn’t go to many concerts, but we did invest in new music as often as we could.

I was the one who was the Rainbow and Led Zeppelin freak. I liked Deep Purple, but something about Rainbow really grabbed me. Darryl was into The Who and Argent. We were also crazy about Procol Harum, Focus and Genesis. Heart also figured largely in the noise that erupted from our small apartment.

The thing about great bands that inspires me is the chemistry between the members that lead to great collaborations. Some of the most powerful music of my generation was created during the 1970’s. The collaboration that still reigns supreme in my heart is the Ronnie James Dio and Ritchie Blackmore collaboration in the band Rainbow. Separately, they were brilliant, unmatched in their skill and talent. Together they were pure magic, creating thunderous, powerful, bone-shaking music like The Gates of Babylon and the beautiful, lyrical Catch the Rainbow. Alas, Dio passed on in 2010 but his legacy lives on.

In books, there are great collaborations that produce incredible tales that change the face of the fantasy genre. MythAdventures by Robert Lynn Aspirin and Jody Lynn Nye were the game changers for me as far as my reading material went. They brought the fun to the party!

The Darkover Series that was begun by Marion Zimmer Bradley and which included collaborations with various authors such as Mercedes Lackey and Deborah J. Ross was wildly popular among my friends. The Dragonlance series, which came out of TSR’s Dungeons and Dragons game empire was another series that introduced the fantasy genre to a wide audience of young people. This collaboration between Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weiss hooked my son Daniel as a teenager, and turned him into a rabid fan of speculative fiction.

Currently I’ve been reading The Adventures of Don Valiente and the Apache Canyon Kid. It a book that is a collaboration between John A. Aragon and Mary W. Walters, and it’s one that is not only NOT a fantasy (it’s a WESTERN) it’s an actual physical book as opposed to a Kindle book. This awesome book details the adventures of Roz, a young lesbian cowgirl and her mentor, caballero Don Valiente. I’ve never been a fan of westerns, but THIS book is a game changer for me.

I love books and music that expand my boundaries. Every time I hear something new and powerful, like Apocalyptica, Rammstein or Evanescence or read a book in an unfamiliar genre I am inspired to create on my own and my work benefits. Music, art and books are like yoga for my soul!

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Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, dragons, humor, literature, Ritchie Blackmore, Ronnie James Dio, writing

February 4, 2013 · 5:28 am

Vegan and loving it (mostly)

Me at the age of 29

When I set out to write a novel, I approach it from the viewpoint of a storyteller. This creates some problems with having “a passive” voice when the first draft is “eye-balled” for revisions. Of course, I can’t see it unless it is pointed out to me, so I have to allow another person to read it.

Some people will tell you that allowing ANYONE to see a manuscript at that stage of development is just plain suicidal. It’s certainly difficult for me to do, but I’m doing it. If I am to chug these things out with any speed at all, I have to bite the bullet and let Irene have the first look at it. Hopefully, getting rid of the passive voice immediately will be a positive step toward making the ms ready to be edited.

In the past I have finished the entire ms before I allowed anyone to see the first draft. Before I let them see it, I went over it a million times. When I sent it to them, I was sure it was a good as I could get it. Still, the first chapter that was sent back to me was a sea of red.

Sigh.

So, the premise is this–I’m going to have to revise it anyway. If all these strange things I can’t see in my own work are going to still be there after I’ve wasted a year on grooming the story, why bother? Why not just go for it and see what happens? Irene was bored, and needed something to work on. We agreed that this is a true experiment and if I can’t do it, I won’t feel too embarrassed. (edit: Correction – Irene says she was NOT BORED and may never have been bored in her life. Knowing her as I do, that’s most likely true!)

However, the first chapter arrived back in my Gmail this morning. It was a sea of red just like the finely polished apple would have been, and it said basically the same things. SO maybe this is a more streamlined way to get the process done; I hope so! It is helping me to stay focused on the final chapters of the book as I write them, and I am keeping the active voice more clearly in my mind.

It’s a first draft. I’m most likely still letting the ‘thats’ and ‘whichs’ fly where they may, and be aware: commas are landmines in my hands. Hopefully Irene will still like the book when I’ve dragged her all the way to the end.

I’m sure some will remember that on December 31, 2012 I became a vegan. That means I stopped including meat and dairy in my diet, completely. I got off to a good start with a fun dinner party that was split fairly evenly between vegans and carnivores. So now, 34 days into this, I am still vegan, and surprisingly I’ve found it to be easy.

The picture at the top left is of me in 1982, two years after my first thyroid tumor was removed. I’ve lived an active life for the most part, and on the occasions when I did gain weight, I was able to take it off. At the age of 55 I began gaining weight and I was unable to shed it. Now 4 years later I know it was because of two unavoidable things: menopause and the thyroid.

I’ve lost 7 pounds of weight since January 01, 2013. Losing weight is difficult with a thyroid tumor, and since the tumor is benign and isn’t life threatening, we aren’t opting for surgery. Instead I’m making positive changes in my lifestyle and the weight is slowly coming off.

Some of my weight loss can surely be attributed to the energy I’ve burned reading labels. I’ve always avoided GMO products and also corn syrups and corn sugars, but now I’ve a whole new world of things to be on the lookout for! For instance, I have discovered that vitamin D3 is rarely vegan while D2 always is, casein is a milk protein that finds its way into stupid things like soy cheese and honey. I avoid anything with the word lactose although I’ve been told that most other lac- ingredients are fine. I am not well-educated enough yet to know what is what so I just avoid it if it says ‘lac-‘.

I do know that if the product has any cholesterol, even 1 mg, then the product is not vegan, because cholesterol is not found in any plant-based products. So that means there is some sort of animal-derived ingredient. When I found that out, I looked at my cooking oils, products that I thought were vegan by virtue of being olive or safflower oil and I found that they were spiked! The bastards! Even margarine can have animal based products in it!

So now, I am careful to carry a list of no-no words and I try to stay vigilant. After all, either you are a vegan, or you are not–there is no such thing as ‘sort-of -a-vegan’. For me, I think giving up the dairy is what has made the difference in my health. I feel better, I have more energy, and by golly I did lose seven pounds in 34 days.

I guess I’ll keep on keeping on a while longer, and see what happens. Heck, I have all day to read labels and not much else to do in the way of excercise.

Unless you count ranting, tearing my hair out and desperately squeezing out my self imposed word-count goal of NO LESS THAN 1800 words a day.

I get a lot of excercise from that.

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Tagged as fantasy, humor, literature, vegan, vegan lifestyle, writing

February 1, 2013 · 6:35 pm

It’s Official

It’s official – Forbidden Road is now available as a kindle download! I’ve even made a tweet:

FORBIDDEN ROAD-bk 2 in #TowerOfBones series http://amzn.to/ForbiddenRoad Sorrow, Peril and Magic in the Valley of Mal Evol!

This is where it gets strange. I have this weird feeling of being disconnected from the process, even though I am in the middle of doing it. I’ve done everything I can think of to get the word out, and now I can only hope for the best. I think people who like Tower of Bones will be curious as to where the story goes.

Writing Forbidden Road was an emotional thing in many ways. There are some serious, dramatic moments in this book. All I know is the book is done and has left the building!

Now I am taking my imagination backwards in time to finish the book Mountains of the Moon, which covers the events of forty years prior to Tower of Bones. This book is a stand-alone book as Tower of Bones was and is in many ways a comedy. Wynn, Edwin’s grandfather was a bad-boy!

Once Mountains is finished I can flesh out Valley of Sorrows. Some of the events in Valley involve John Farmer’s coming to terms with his inability to face the fate of one of Wynn’s companions, in an event he felt responsible for.

So today is the big launch, another chick has left the nest! Now I must get busy and write, write, write!