March is shaping up to be busy! 

I'll be in Vancouver for some fun, but then, from March 28th through 30th, you'll find me at Island FanCon for the second year! I've got a bigger table, and I'm sharing! Meet my partner in crime below:  Richard Winder! 

I met Richard through the Sooke Writer's Collective, and I was blown away by how well he immediately fit in. He's a diligent member of the Long Prose Group and is throwing in great feedback for others while also working on an amazing new project involving realms and dragons! His current works are SciFi, although I'd be remiss not to mention his 4 seasons of non-fiction mushroom cookbooks. This man's knowledge is vast! Check out the links below to see more!
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Mid-April (specifically April 12th), I'm also at the Fantasy and Fairie Faire in Sidney at the Mary Winspear Centre. PLUS I'm in a writer's panel at the event!  It promises to be a day of great fun with costumes and magic. Yes, I have to dress up. I've decided to go as Shimmer. Pictures to follow! 
Promises to be a busy spring! Come out and see me!

MEET RICHARD and his SciFi books!!

Richard Winder is an indie science and science fiction writer and retired forest biologist living in Sooke, B.C. He likes to paint and draw, and to speculate about the futures that might lie ahead for all of us. He has been writing and publishing sci-fi stories for over a decade, and his self-published fictional works include two well-received space operas set in his Stella universe.
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He has also  published a post-apocalyptic novel about North American isolation titled Merika, along with New World Endings—an anthology with over a dozen very diverse short sci-fi stories and novelettes. 
You can follow Richard at @scifiwriter.bsky.social or https://www.facebook.com/richardswinder and his works are highlighted at https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/rswinder

Check your inbox! I have drawn the name (well... email address) for the winner of the book from the Dragon Voice's 5h anniversary giveaway! One lucky winner is getting a free book! 

Thanks to everyone who shared and I hope it was fun for all! See you for another round... maybe in another 5 years!

Can you believe it's been 5 years since I took the leap into publishing. Since then, I've had a second child, grown my vet clinic, gotten a contract with 4 horsemen Publications, become an "international author" (4 countries!) and seen another either books come to life in print and ebooks! Wow! It's been a journey! 

I'm going back to basics on this one, reflecting on the many people who have helped me reach this point in my dream of sharing the World of the Tainted. I'm leaving Espar in the next few books, and one coming up leaves the world entirely so that's a whole new adventure! 

To celebrate, I'm giving away a book. I couldn't decide which book would be best, so I decided to just let the winner choose! Ebook or paperback (sorry; not all have hardcovers or audiobook so can't do that), and any of the Weapons of Espar, Son of No Man Series, or Dragon's Talon. If you ask nicely, and are willing to wait a bit, I might even be able to make it His Last Name (the newest release; Jan 20th!) 

Contest runs from Jan 1-15th, 2025. There's no sign up or special requirements to enter; just enter with your email at landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/a4b7h8 and you're good to go. One entry per person!

So Happy Birthday to Dragon's Voice, and Happy 5th anniversary of publication to me! Help me celebrate!

News update? Absolutely time!

First, Happy holidays everyone! It's busy around here as I renovate instead of celebrate but we're close to finishing it off! Meantime, I've got presents organized but not wrapped! 

I had a blast at the Craft Fairs and looks like I've got a few more opportunities to do some more of that this year- maybe a con in the states, but for sure Island FanCon here in Langford and now a NEW faerie and fantasy event in the spring. Watch this space for details! 

While it's hard to believe, Nov 2019 was when I published my first book, Dragon's Voice. While it remains one of my favourites, we've certainly come a long way since then! So I wanted to celebrate and what better way than doing a book GIVEAWAY! 

Jan 1st to 20th, I am taking entries to win a free ebook OR paperback! No signing up for newsletters or reviews. Just enter to win a book OF YOUR CHOICE of mine. Watch the inbox and social media for the chance to enter (one entry per person) starting Jan 1st then share it around! Let's help someone start 2025 on the best foot!

I also had an exciting opportuntity to chat with J. L. Henker, a fellow writer! I've been following her for a long while; she was one of the first newsletters I signed up for! Her taste in art is gorgeous and fabulously dragon-filled! That video is now available at
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRslAfCqkbs

AND it turns out her free download was busted, so here's a fixed link! https://storyoriginapp.com/giveaways/221f6e90-b88f-11ee-8c12-e344a043283c

Lastly, here are the deal and shared group promos from this month! Get them while they're hot, then hunker down with a hot cup of cocoa and enjoy some reading time this holiday season!

A while ago (around May if you believe the blog posts) I came to the possibly erroneous conclusion that blogs were dead. Don't get me wrong; there were places where they still thrived, like cooking recommendations and travel experts. But for writers, who was reading blogs and is it really a way to connect with authors? I never read blogs. It's not my thing and never was. So why bother? 

Lately, I've had a bit of a change of heart. That said, I have no intention of becoming another "how to write" blog because that's for other writers, and I'm here for readers. I love to teach, answer questions, and help others, so there's still that behind what I write, but I don't want to re-hash that which already has a ton of information available. I don't need to talk about how to edit, where to publish, or whatever. There are many better resources than me for that! 

So, instead, I want to turn this into a news spot. For those who get the newsletter, this will be maybe a bit repetitive (or very repetitive depending on the month,) but I still want to have this available in case some (gasp) doesn't subscribe to the newsletter. The newsletter will still be the best place to get information first, but this blog will be a more permanent home for the updates that would otherwise have no place to land! 

Plus I can share other group promotions, free or on-sale ebooks from myself and other authors! On that note, I plan to swap over to BookFunnel in the next few months, as soon as I polish up a new Reader Magnet (aka freebie!). Don't worry; all current subscribers will get a link to download it for free!

So there you go; the new plan.... or maybe I should say the "news" plan. Watch this space for updates and news as it becomes available! See you out there!

Speaking of freebies and group promotions... check these out!

Growing up, I couldn’t fathom anything beyond a happy ending. I didn’t want to read a book that left me hanging or had me feeling sad. I remember the dread of getting to a certain point in the book, like looking at the time left on a movie, and realizing they couldn’t wrap the plot up satisfactorily in the time remaining.

Note that I said ‘satisfactorily.’ 
 
I have had a few books (Fire with Fire by Charles  E Gannon was one of those!) where I got that feeling (they can’t make it!!) and they did make it… but it was hurried and ended up being jarring. It can feel like a Scooby Doo episode where they catch the monster, and Velma then explains the mysteries. That works for a 20-minute TV show, but it’s not as fulfilling for a novel. I was already invested in reading the whole book! I feel cheated when they cram all the things they never explained into a monologue from a bit character. Feels like cheating.
 
On the opposite end, we have books that don’t finish. I’m not talking about leaving a thread or two open, but rather the entire thing. The "To be Continued" shock! I much prefer series’ with books that are complete by themselves but have a longer/larger plot that spans the series, however long. But I do want to know there’s an end. While I like many of the Dresden Files books, I’m getting tired of the bogeyman ‘Black Council’ figure that has been woven in since book 2 Fool Moon. He does slowly reveal more of it… but twenty books is a long time to wait! 
 
I realized that my first draft of book 2 (Celebrant) in the Son of No Man series had this issue. It wasn’t complete, it was just another step in the larger arc of founding Espar. But I’d done the thing I hated; left all the threads open! It took another draft to fix that, pulling together one of the subplots so it could be completed in that book alone. To avoid spoilers, I’ll just say it ends in fire!
 
But even when I finish a series (or the standalones like “Dragon’s Voice”) I didn’t like the “wrapped up like a present” endings. Too Scooby Doo! What I default to is the bittersweet ending. Happy middle ground!
 
While I will wrap up my novels, maybe leaving a thread open for sequels, I tend to have a ‘yes… but’ ending. Yes, they defeated the demon. But the magic has still been hunted to near-extinction. Yes, they have founded the kingdom, but Tohmas’ mind is being destroyed. Or, in the case of a book not yet published: Yes, they won the day and fell into each others’ arms, but they didn’t find the cure.
 
Not perfect and pretty. Will that turn some people off? Probably. I don’t write perfect happy endings it seems. I get close but my need to make it ‘realistic’  (quotes are because I’m still writing fantasy!) still wins out!
 
What kind of ending do you prefer?

Check out some free reads below, but they end March 31st so grab 'em quick! 

We want things to be simple. Black and White. An absolute dichotomy. Of course, life is not like that. And that's what makes writing fun! 

I got tired of evil villains a long time ago. No one was purely evil without being insane! As the expression goes, no one is the villain in their own story. We all think we are the heroes! So when I write, I work hard to find those ‘real’ villains who have depth to their story before bringing them in to interact with my protagonists.

I was doing up a little ‘what I do’ vs ‘what I don’t do’ (see below!) and I realized I didn’t do villains who were just evil. The closest I came was the demon in Dragon’s voice and even HE considered himself very reasonable and his cause (self-preservation and research) just. Son of No Man series had antagonists, not villains, and in some cases, I couldn’t tell who I was cheering for!

I started to think this philosophy was impacting my ability to write middle-grade or maybe even young adult novels. I thought maybe the idea of the shades of grey, without a clear right or wrong, isn’t conducive to that audience.  But the more I thought about it, the more books I could recite that DID have complicated antagonists. It was so pervasive that I had all but overlooked it. 

So you won’t see me writing the ‘evil wizard taking over kingdom’ books. That’s ok though; there are plenty of people who will! There’s a place for those stories! It’s just not what I’m going to write. No different than my love of bittersweet endings that are happy, but with farther-reaching consequences. Or how I avoid overpowered characters (as cool as it is sometimes to read about them). I did have to take romance off the list of things I don’t do. His Last Name broke that trend. And I suspect the 'Chosen One' trope will show up... but it'll be twisted when it does!
 
Sometimes, we all want the simple answer; there’s a hero and a bad guy. But for the times in between, I have what I do; a mix of people with opposing goals that cause conflict. What do you prefer?

(Promos below- get them before February ends!)