The official blog for THG StarDragon Publishing. Publishing spiritual/paranormal fantasy and open to non-fiction spirituality works. Please don't forget to visit the side pages and check out the main site as well. There is now also a podcast!
Selkies' Skins
Current book in series Temple and Skinquest. Enjoy Castle and Well from Amazon, B&N and Smashwords while waiting for that and the prequel's audiobook "Pearls of Sea and Stone: Book of Seals".
Kitties do so love to roam, but sometimes what they really want is a home. Minnie thought that she wanted to be wild and free until she spent time with a shy little girl. Learn how they both find out what love is in this sweet story published by our friend over at Pen It Publications.
Minnie's Choice AKA Minnie's Decision
By Patsy E. Stackhouse
Illustrated by Teresa Amehana Garcia
I was paid per illustration, so sales do not net me any royalties, and my Amazon Associates account did not sell enough for them to allow it to continue so purchasing via my Amazon link nets no finder's bounty.
This Friday the flash fictions presented are once again set within what is now the Dreaming Twilight universe.
"The Story of Flame" is an older flash fiction that Lacy/Aria wrote before I discovered and became involved in Nisa. Here we learn about the moment Flame passed from a Nisean Guardian and Ascended to one of the Spirits of the Land.
"The Shrine of the Gatekeeper" by Teresa Garcia (myself) tells of the moment that Raikou first entered into Nisa after making the long passage through the mists and moutains (the Dreaming Twilight) that sealed the version of her land the known Raikou hails from.
You can help support the parcels of the lands including the current iteration of Nisa maintained by Dreaming Twilight in Ontario (as we slowly purchase the sim in bits and spurts) by visiting our locations inworld. If you open up about land and see it is a parcel owned by Dreaming Twilight than that is part of our collective. If you visit inworld you can send Linden dollars to Java Charisma which will go toward paying tier. Or, you can donate toward the tier so we can continue unfolding the varous lands and storylines by sending tips over Paypal to java.charisma@gmail.com.
Responses will be recorded and posted on my Youtube channel, my
podcast, and on my blog.
Thank
you for agreeing to be interviewed. Below are several questions. You
do not have to answer all of them but the more that are answered and
the more detailed they are the more viewers and listeners get to know
you and your work. Some may seem a little silly. If there is
something that hasn’t been asked on this please feel free to make
an addition and share your answer. Based on the answers to the
following questions there might also be some additional questions I
end up asking you before this is read out and recorded.
Please
also send the author/illustrator/etc picture that you use associated
with your work’s image (or your book in the wild photo if you’re
shy). If you do not yet have one please have someone help you with a
photo that you feel captures how you wish to present yourself to the
world. This can also be a stylized drawing of your or your persona if
you have reasons (such as safety or transitions) not to show yourself
in a recognizable fashion.
===
Pre
Interview Questions:
a)
What name and gender are being used to refer to you? If they do not
match your birth name and gender are you open about it? You do not
have to disclose legal/birth name and gender, but if you want it
mentioned you write under an assumed identity or have more than one
identity you work under for this industry that can open up new lines
of discussion.
Rowan
and Male
b)
Are you an author, poet, illustrator, editor, game writer, game
creator, publisher, or multiple? If you have multiple roles in the
publishing community then which ones are they? If you have multiple
roles feel free to answer each question with sections for each role.
Game
creator and general nerd.
c)
What books, games, or other publishing related projects have you been
involved in the production of?
DH
===
1.
What got you interested in (writing/illustrating/editing, etc)?
Many
moons ago before the advent of smartphones and when laptops were
about as portable as a ton of bricks, I played other games of a
similar ilk and got fed up of them being buggy or the developers
buggering off for real life (touch of irony there). So I decided to
create my own.
2.
What company or companies are you doing work for/with?
Apart
from my own none I can say.
3.
What projects are you currently working on?
I
really..really..really..
want to get DH updated to new shinyness. I’m also doing my Masters
degree does that count as a project? Then of course there’s the IVF
stuff now that’s a project ;) not really work related but time
consuming. Most of the other stuff I can talk about is on github
https://github.com/rwky/
4.
Do you have any future projects in mind to take on?
Yes
tons, of which none I can think of at the moment but there’s a huge
list somewhere..
5.
What is your favorite project?
DH
will always be my fav.
6.
Is this career something that you always wanted to do?
Nope
I wanted to be a biochemist when I was at college, even got accepted
for MSci (Master in Science) at Nottingham University but decided it
wasn’t for me.
7.
Do you find it difficult, or find some aspects more difficult than
others?
Sitting
on my arse for 12 hours a day isn’t so good when you’re in your
30s. 30 year old me wishes he could tell 20 year old me to go outside
more so the 30 year old me bits would ache less.
I’m
pretty well adapted for the long distance asynchronous communication
(i.e. email) but being on call 24/7 for the past 10+ years does get
a little tiring at times.
8.
What is a normal day like for you? Is this your side job or main job?
In
the words of Forrest Gump “What’s normal anyways?” I don’t
have a normal day, every day is different. Assuming I’m at home I
wake up, check my emails/calendar and write today’s todo list, then
I get cracking on it. Most days I get through most of it but
inevitably some days something blows up (normally multiple things in
one go) so then I have to deal with a mountain of shit.
DH
is a side job (though was main job for a while years ago) my main job
is “making bits of the internet work” (quoting myself), if it’s
to do with Linux servers or web programming then I probably do
it/have done it.
9.
How do you manage balancing this with family and any other work you
may have?
I’ll
let you into a secret, there are two of me! (Something I often tell
clients when they wonder how I can do so much). I don’t really
manage to balance I just do what I can and let some off the less
urgent stuff fall by the wayside. Adulting sucks ya know!
10.
What hobbies do you have?
Is
beer a hobby? If so then that. I’m also a fairly avid pokemon go
player and also play on steam/nintendo 3ds/nintendo switch. TV is one
of my favourite things to relax with especially in the bath. I’m
endeavoring to read the Anne McCaffrey Pern series again (takes a
while) on kindle.
11.
If you could be anything in the world besides this, what would it be?
Can
I say a cat? Seems like they have a good life! Though job wise. I
would like to work in the space industry.
12.
Do you feel that school helped set you up toward following this path
in the publishing industry?
Not
at all. I did all my relevant qualifications after getting into
programming.
13.
If you could go back to school is there anything you wish you had
paid more attention to?
Nah,
I was one of those annoying people that’s good at most academic
subjects. TBH IMHO most of high school was a waste, I’m not a fan
of how the UK education system works, it’s highly focused on
memorizing things instead of being able to use knowledge. Degree
level isn’t much better which is why I left Manchester Uni to go to
the Open Uni. Manchester’s masters courses are “read this book,
remember this algorithm” where as the OU is “Here’s a project,
go figure out how to do it”. Since my memory is abysmal these days,
in the words of homer simpson “everytime I learn something new it
pushes something old stuff out of my brain”, the school of
remembering things by rote is useless to me.
14.
What advice do you have for the next generation?
* Go
outside the world is big weird and wonderful, go see it.
*
Don’t fall for rampant consumerism this planet is finite, try not
to screw it up for yourselves and future generations.
*
Keep your options open, what you think you want to do now probably
won’t be what you want in 10, 20, 30 years.
*
Relaxxxxxxxx….that thing you’re worrying about probably isn’t
that bad (ok sometimes it is but unless you’re dying it’s
probably not).
15.
What advice do you have for your age peers that may also want to take
part in the publishing industry and specifically with your area
within it?
Don’t
be afraid to take the jump into something new, it can be scary
especially when you have a significant other, kids, mortgage etc. but
if it’s something you really want to do then go for it, life’s
short so try and be happy with it.
16.
Is there anything else that you’d like to add that we didn’t
discuss?
Thanks go to Oscelot Haalan for getting the audio podcast to behave and upload.
#Singularity #AlternateWorlds #Dimensionality
This Friday I present three flash fictions. Two of them are by a guest, one Aria Wolfram or Lacy Musketeer. The third is my own.
Parting by Aria Wolfram: Nisean lore has always hinged around what disaster befell the original inhabitants of the country in the universe I first entered Nisa from, and long been tied into alternate realities and timelines. In this tale we learn one version of how Ar'ia first enters one of several concurrent versions of Nisa wherein anthro versions of Raikou and Horin rule Ibexia (and adopt her in adulthood) and what that entry looked like from the point of view of her father when she enters the singularity. Or perhaps it could be said the spirits of those who would take physical incarnation to later be the duo. There are alternate theories one could spin from this as well.
This is Nisa by Aria Wolfram: I also recommend listening to the original version of the tale as recorded for the MLP world version that she wrote, as recorded by Illya Leonov. She agreed to let me record and share her tale providing that I utilize the version for the currently enacted timeline wherein the denizens tend toward anthro and less toward the MLP based version Nisa was originally held to based on the universe rp was at the time done within (back when it interacted with Roanoak before the Changeling massacre and later the Canterlot bombing when that timeline was communally abandoned and "stored").
For posterity, Illya Leonov's recording of the first version: http://www.soundcloud.com/illya-leonov
You can visit Nisa and Ibexia as well as several other parcels owned and maintained by the Dreaming Twilight in the Second Life sim of Ontario.
The Seer by Teresa Garcia: A Seer of indeterminate age attempts to share what is most dear and wondrous with you. But what is your reaction to her world?
It has been a very busy several days (several months). In addition to The Ian's Realm Saga part 1 going live on Dianne Gardner's Gumroad store I came to the computer to the notice that the print edition of Mythical Minstrelsy, volume 2 has gone live and available for sale on Amazon, to join the kindle edition. I see that they have not yet been linked, but I expect that to be done sometime soon by the system.
The price is a bit higher than I would like, but it is due to the fact that color print costs a bit more, and there are indeed color images, although the divider images are grey scale.
I am particularly pleased with the cover. It printed darker than expected (always hard to tell how dark something will print) but it suits the mood of the Second Life photography shoot that I did to obtain the images to work with for the cover.
The print edition of volume three is still in production. I am going through the manuscript compiled into the .doc from Scrivener to ensure that it has all of the high dpi images inserted. Ebooks tend to use a lower dpi than what is suitable for print due to file size issues.
Part One of "The Ian's Realm Saga" audiobook is now available on Gumroad.com for purchase and download. Parts Two and Three are available there for pre-order.
Mrs. Gardner has several other related projects available as well.
We were supposed to get broadband today. However the installer was a no call (on landline nore spotty cell line) no show. They didn't even drive by the house and I was watching out the front window. And they kept removing the cell number from the account. Very disappointed. We later found out that this was due to a lack of manpower. The appointment is scheduled for the 21st now.
