On Tuesday, I was the featured interview on the site, setting a record for the most visits to that site, author Bernadette Marie tells me, to read my interview. The interview is still there, so stop in to read. On Friday we’ll will be giving away a copy of my romance novel, Of All the Western Stars, to one winner.

In the guest blog, I talk about how I was bitter to have encountered the marvelous history of Tudor England at an early age. Bitter? Yes, because no one had seen fit to let me know amazing time in history existed, hiding it in a tedious recitation of names and dates. Those of us who have roamed through history know the world of the past, much like science fiction shows us the history of the future, is fascinating, bright, and filled with people whose lives shaped us and our world.

In the interview, I talk about how my romance novel came about, giving credit to my own romance with my now-husband, Geo Rule:

This novel came about because I was in the midst of the first real romance of my own with the man who is now my husband. We met online, on an Internet science fiction forum in the early days before things like online dating existed, and had a long-distance romance from 2000 miles apart. While this frustrated, distant, but powerful romance of our own was taking place, I took my first trip to England, visiting the very locations I use in the novel. All these things twined for me from these experiences of my own—love with a distant, unreachable man in a strangely science fiction way combined with the locations and people of Tudor England. In many ways, Of All the Western Stars is a bit autobiographical!

My historical-time travel-science fiction romance novel, Of All the Western Stars, is now available on Kindle from Amazon.com! You don’t need a Kindle to read Kindle books. Just select to purchase the novel, then Amazon will ask if you’d like to read the novel right away online, or if you’d like to download their free Kindle reading software.

Available at Amazon.com

Of All the Western Stars is a foray into the land of the Tudors. The novel is a romance with history meeting science fiction as a young man, Ashur, time travels from five hundred years in our future to the world five hundred years in our past.

Lost and trapped, Ashur meets Lisette Weston, a young lady also trapped in the world of Tudor England. Obliged to marry for the good of family position, Lisette faces a loveless future of restriction and tedium until she finds Ashur and the magic he brings to her world.

But Ashur is not her shining knight come to rescue her and sweep her away with him. He is a fugitive from the future with a terrible burden of conscience for his own actions, pursued by those whose quest for vengeance against him will stop at nothing.

Author Bernadette Marie has been an avid writer since the early age of 13, when she’d fill notebook after notebook with stories that she’d share with her friends. Her journey into novel writing started the summer before eighth grade when her father gave her an old typewriter. At all times of the day and night you would find her on the back porch penning her first work, which she would continue to write for the next 22 years. In 2007 – after marriage, filling her chronic entrepreneurial needs, and having five children – Bernadette began to write seriously with the goal of being published. That year she wrote 12 books. In 2009 she was contracted for her first trilogy and the published author was born. In 2011 she (being the entrepreneur that she is) opened her own publishing house, 5 Prince Publishing, and has released contemporary titles and will begin the process, eventually, of taking on other authors in other genres. Also in 2011 she became co-owner of Seven Songs Press and will release a novella as part of an anthology with other very talented authors in November 2011.

On Warrior Princess Romance Writer blog site, I am the featured interviewee today, will have a guest blog on Thursday, and will be giving away a copy of my romance novel, Of All the Western Stars, on Friday to one winner.

In the interview, I talk about how my romance novel came about, giving credit to my own romance with my now-husband, Geo Rule:

This novel came about because I was in the midst of the first real romance of my own with the man who is now my husband. We met online, on an Internet science fiction forum in the early days before things like online dating existed, and had a long-distance romance from 2000 miles apart. While this frustrated, distant, but powerful romance of our own was taking place, I took my first trip to England, visiting the very locations I use in the novel. All these things twined for me from these experiences of my own—love with a distant, unreachable man in a strangely science fiction way combined with the locations and people of Tudor England. In many ways, Of All the Western Stars is a bit autobiographical!

My historical-time travel-science fiction romance novel, Of All the Western Stars, is now available on Kindle from Amazon.com! You don’t need a Kindle to read Kindle books. Just select to purchase the novel, then Amazon will ask if you’d like to read the novel right away online, or if you’d like to download their free Kindle reading software.

Available at Amazon.com

Of All the Western Stars is a foray into the land of the Tudors. The novel is a romance with history meeting science fiction as a young man, Ashur, time travels from five hundred years in our future to the world five hundred years in our past.

Lost and trapped, Ashur meets Lisette Weston, a young lady also trapped in the world of Tudor England. Obliged to marry for the good of family position, Lisette faces a loveless future of restriction and tedium until she finds Ashur and the magic he brings to her world.

But Ashur is not her shining knight come to rescue her and sweep her away with him. He is a fugitive from the future with a terrible burden of conscience for his own actions, pursued by those whose quest for vengeance against him will stop at nothing.

Author Bernadette Marie has been an avid writer since the early age of 13, when she’d fill notebook after notebook with stories that she’d share with her friends. Her journey into novel writing started the summer before eighth grade when her father gave her an old typewriter. At all times of the day and night you would find her on the back porch penning her first work, which she would continue to write for the next 22 years. In 2007 – after marriage, filling her chronic entrepreneurial needs, and having five children – Bernadette began to write seriously with the goal of being published. That year she wrote 12 books. In 2009 she was contracted for her first trilogy and the published author was born. In 2011 she (being the entrepreneur that she is) opened her own publishing house, 5 Prince Publishing, and has released contemporary titles and will begin the process, eventually, of taking on other authors in other genres. Also in 2011 she became co-owner of Seven Songs Press and will release a novella as part of an anthology with other very talented authors in November 2011.

Of All the Western Stars is a foray into the land of the Tudors. The novel is a romance with history meeting science fiction as a young man, Ashur, time travels from five hundred years in our future to the world five hundred years in our past.

Lost and trapped, Ashur meets Lisette Weston, a young lady also trapped in the world of Tudor England. Obliged to marry for the good of family position, Lisette faces a loveless future of restriction and tedium until she finds Ashur and the magic he brings to her world.

But Ashur is not her shining knight come to rescue her and sweep her away with him. He is a fugitive from the future with a terrible burden of conscience for his own actions, pursued by those whose quest for vengeance against him will stop at nothing.

I have been invited to be guest author and blogger to be interviewed on the website of romance author, Bernadette Marie. Look for my appearance there starting January 17th talking about Of All the Western Stars and how a science fiction and non-fiction Civil War history author – me – came to be writing a romance novel! On Friday, one winner will receive a free copy of the novel.

Coming in the next few weeks… Stars That Sing the Requiem, a collection of five of my science fiction short stories, each featuring a woman who reaches for the stars.

Tudorland explores an area I’ve long been interested in, which is the history of the Tudor and era in England. Since I was only eleven-years-old and saw the movie Anne of the Thousand Days, I’ve been keenly interested in this historical era. The people and events of that time shaped the very nature of the world we live in right now.

The Tudorland website will feature book reviews from my extensive library of Tudor-era non-fiction books, as well as looking at some of the popular fictional accounts. I will also review movies and television programs focusing on the time.

Coming soon will be my own novel taking place in this time, Of All the Western Stars.

About to be released on Kindle at Amazon.com, Of All the Western Stars is an historical/time travel romance novel set in 1518. The story blends science fiction and historical romance.

I have also been invited to be guest author and blogger to be interviewed on the website of romance author, Bernadette Marie. Look for my appearance there the week of January 15th talking about Of All the Western Stars and how a science fiction and non-fiction Civil War history author – me – came to be writing a romance novel!

Of All the Western Stars is a foray into the land of the Tudors. The novel is a romance with history meeting science fiction as a young man, Ashur, time travels from five hundred years in our future to the world five hundred years in our past.

Lost and trapped, Ashur meets Lisette Weston, a young lady also trapped in the world of Tudor England. Obliged to marry for the good of family position, Lisette faces a loveless future of restriction and tedium until she finds Ashur and the magic he brings to her world.

But Ashur is not her shining knight come to rescue her and sweep her away with him. He is a fugitive from the future with a terrible burden of conscience for his own actions, pursued by those whose quest for vengeance against him will stop at nothing.

Check back for release information for Of All the Western Stars, and visit Tudorland!

The emerald, diamonds, and amethysts in the title refer to what was known as Suffragette Jewelry, with initials of the colors of the stones being a message to give women the vote.

I created the cover art for both novels, which feature my own dear Tasha-cat in the roll of the novels’ magical, mystery-solving cat, Tatania. Like my own Tasha, magical cat, Tatania, is a deaf, white cat with extraordinary perceptions. As the author says, Tatania helps solve mysteries, “without missing a nap.” Mary Matthews also recently honored Tasha and her fictional counterpart, Tatania, with a donation of $1000 to an animal shelter where both novels are set.

In my review of Splendid Summer on Amazon.com, I refer to the novel as the “other coast’s Boardwalk Empire,” which is an apt description, as the eras overlap, though Splendid Summer is far less bleak and violent!

My review of Splendid Summer:

Splendid Summer was an introduction to a new world to me, the Roaring Twenties at a luxury hotel on the coast in San Diego. When the new season of Boardwalk Empire came on, just this week, I realized that show took place in the same time-frame as Splendid Summer, which I had read earlier. It increased my interest in both Boardwalk Empire with its dark, damp gloom, and wicked characters, and Splendid Summer with its brighter west coast setting and far, far more innocent characters. As we grow to find redeeming traits in the Boardwalk Empire characters (I hope), I expect the characters in Splendid Summer’s sequels to grow darker as they delve into this world of crime in the ’20s.

Splendid Summer is a short novel introducing an innocent girl being plunged into the darker side of the Roaring Twenties through helping to solve the murder of her uncle. Grace is more than a bit naive, and a bit vapid at times, yet shows much promise to grow and discover the era and her new world, letting us see it through her eyes.

A character I was most intrigued by, yet who got too little screen time in this story, was the magical white cat, Tatania. I very much look forward to seeing her role develop in future stories in this world.

This book is light reading, not very long. At times I found the narrative a tad scanty and lacking detail and development, yet at the end I still ended up with a very vivid set of imagery of the setting. The characters are also not fully fleshed out, yet show promise of growing more through future adventures. This is, really, a nice setup for future tales to come.

Splendid Summer is available on Kindle. No Kindle reader is required. Amazon provides a very friendly, free application that will let you read Kindle content right on your PC!

Just two days ago, on Sunday, we had what was probably our last boating day of the season. Next time we go up to the boat it will just be to get it over to the boat launch, maneuver it onto the trailer, and bring her to storage to rest for yet another long winter. But Boat Day on Sunday was glorious, with the temperature in the mid-80s, no wind, deliciously, pleasantly warm and summery. The spiders agreed.

The adage, “Even a bad day boating is a good,” certainly must hold true when it comes to this time of year. We hadn’t been up for several weeks, so under the cover that protects our pretty pontoon several generations of spiders had grown. Several generations… entire civilizations of spiders grew and mutated into the most monstrous spiders ever seen. These were Indiana Jones-sized spiders, huge and arrogant in their ownership of what we had lightly assumed–monthly payments aside–was our boat.

The spiders disagreed. And they almost won. I’ve said many times to Husband he is lucky I’m not afraid of spiders. Generally, I’m not, and I’ve even been bitten by a Black Widow spider while we lived in California. These enormous spiders all over our boat and boat cover almost defeated me, turning me into a squealing girl.

These spiders knew if they were brushed away they’d go into the lake and become fish food. They knew so had defenses prepared to defend their pontoon kingdom. They were like Spiderman with his silk thread ready to swing him from place to place. As soon as I’d brush one away it would be right back climbing up on me or toward me.

“Don’t look down!” Husband told me at one point, which I immediately interpreted as “LOOK DOWN AT ONCE!” Yes, it was huge and it was climbing up my chest. Gaaa!

We dumped the spider-infested cover on the dock and had a lovely day boating. In the sunshine they mostly left us alone unless we did something foolish like raise the bimini cover, or try to use the potty-alcove. Still, always lurking was the knowledge that when the beautiful, good day of boating came to an end, we’d have to put that accursed, spider-filled boat cover back one. I was near to whimpering when Geo suggested we just dump the thing in the boat and leave all open to air (and weather and partiers and fisherman looking for a place to sit and fish, etc.). Still, even with leaving our boat unprotected behind us, the good day of boating stayed good for not having to face the spiders again.

That place, and those Americans onboard, are our time’s Alamo. Remember Flight 93. They fought for us. They died for us. They knew what they were doing. They knew what they were facing. They knew what they were sacrificing. That place in Shanksville is hallowed ground. It is not the site of a tragedy, but of a triumph.

I had the opportunity to visit the site in the fall of 2010, before any memorials were built, or visitors’ centers or interpretive centers. I’m glad we went when we did. There was nothing really there but an empty field and the tributes and tokens left by those who visited. Those who came–hundreds of thousands of people every year–came only to pay their respects. That says more than any monument can. It’s right and appropriate that a permanent memorial is built there, but I’m still glad I got to see and visit the site before.

Flight 93 also shows up what those on the other flights most certainly would have done, had they known the true situation.

honorflight93.org

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

National Anthem, Verse 3

The donation to PAWS of Coronado is, “…in honor of Tatania, the magical white cat in Splendid Summer… also in honor of the memory of Beautiful Tasha, the cat who stepped up to play the role of Tatania on the cover of Splendid Summer”.

As human mama and papa to Tasha, lost to us in this world just a few weeks ago, we are honored by the memorial, and are pleased and proud to see Tasha grace the cover of Splendid Summer in the role of the magical cat Tatania.

When I did the redesign I’ll call the “misty blue lake” design, I built using ASP.NET, a programming language based on Windows servers. It’s also the language I use on the television station website, so I’m comfortable with it. However, I also wanted to add a content management program and chose WordPress. It’s an amazingly versatile program, and free, but it runs on PHP, which I have used, but not a lot.

The Misty Blue Lake design–This is Lake Pokegama in Minnesota, where we often boat. I thought of this as Our Spot until the last visit, but that’s another story.

None of the content management programs (meaning “blog software”) for ASP.NET were adequate. None of the ASP.NET programs worked to feed just selected bits posts into my main page. I could do this with WordPress but had to use an iframe to put the PHP content into the ASP.NET page. Yuck! ASP.NET and PHP don’t play well together.

So, I’ve surrendered to PHP as my main site code. Of course, the more I use it the more comfortable it is. Switching web code languages back and forth is a bit like being in a foreign country where you do speak the language but not fluently. It takes thought and translation for a while.

The Laura Ingalls Wilder portion of my website I have split off entirely. I had had two installs of WordPress running on one database. But that was causing me problems when I shifted the main site page into the root directory. Now the Laura Ingalls Wilder has its own WordPress database, though I will continue to use ASP.NET for the bulk of the pre-existing pages, such as the Little House photo pages. WordPress does lack some flexibility when it comes to putting html into posts.

All this revision, at the same time as I was setting up my new Twitter account, has me wanting to do a visual redesign, as well. I was working on graphics to customize my Twitter page and liked the look I created there. It’s darker and more vibrant. It should work better with the bar menu I want to have on this site.

Twitter background for the new website design here

Time is always the problem. I have so very, very little, and anything I do here means I’m sliding off work for my clients. Hopefully, though, I will get this done in a timely way and not leave this site hanging half done, as poor Civil War St. Louis has been!

We lost our dear Tasha last night, age 16. She was our baby from the time we were first married. Abandoned at four-weeks-old, weighing only one pound, and deaf, it was we who were the luckiest people on earth to become her mama and papa.

Christmas 2010 we finally did something I’d always wanted to do, take Tasha to the pet store to have a photo taken with Santa. She was the only cat there, and very patient and indulgent of us. Being deaf, the noise didn’t bother her, and she’s never been afraid of dogs, so the surrounding din didn’t disturb her.