Linzé's Mischief: 1 May 2016

It has been a busy month of April, but Camp NaNoWriMo has been a good one for me. I managed to finish the first draft of my contemporary novel, We, the One. I also finished the first draft of the fifth (and final) story in the Third Gender series, entitled Breathe.

I hate editing, but yeah, I do spend some time editing my own work before sending it off to a professional editor. Galen's Hope, my story for Project JOURNEY, has left my email outbox a few minutes ago to start its journey towards publication as part of the anthology.

It has been a journey for sure. Three authors had withdrawn from the project while another has joined about two weeks ago. I have been privileged to read one or two of the stories (still first drafts) of the other authors and it still amazes me what people come up with. I give them a small brief, and the variety of the stories that result is nothing but worth the effort on my part.

My JOURNEY story is part one of a trilogy, if you like, entitled THE LAST GRYPHON. Part one is called, Galen's Hope, and starts the journey of Galen Surov, the last Gryphon, to find hope after losing everyone in an unexpected attack on their planet, Xyridia. The second story is Richard's Choice, with the conclusion entitled, Galen's Destiny. THE LAST GRYPHON trilogy will be published at the same time as the JOURNEY anthology, round about September 2016.

I decided to do that, not to keep people waiting on the outcome.

My next challenge, yeah it is a challenge, is to edit Waiting for Adrian, the fourth novel in the Nations of Peace series.

You might recall the difficulties I had with coming up with a title for the story, well that problem struck again with the cover. I simply couldn't get it sorted. Even my husband, who does the actual graphic work for me, had no solution for the problem of the design I came up with. After several attempts, we abandoned the design and I went back to my original idea. Such is the life of an indie author!

I have taken the plunge and committed myself to review three books in the next two months. The first is the debut romance novel of a local author, Aziza Eden Walker. I hope to have it read and reviewed before Francois and I go on our annual holiday in the middle of May. Since we are going to Botswana again, I will be doing another Follow Me tour where you can enjoy the experience with me.

The second book is a science fiction novel, by Ed Kurst. It has been a while since I have read a full-length sci-fi novel and I am looking forward to it. It looks intriguing from the description.

The last book is a romance novel about second chances. Keep an eye out for my impressions if these genres interest you.

The last chapters of The Friendship Affair will be posted during May. My next blog serial, The Billionaire Baritone, will start in June. It will also go on Wattpad if you would rather follow it there.

Since tomorrow is a public holiday, I will have a short working week. Always something to look forward to.

May your week be filled with success in whatever your choose to do.

A to Z Blog Challenge: Z

Z is for Zeitgeist - noun. The general spirit or mood of a particular period of history.

What a fascinating word. My dictionary didn't indicate the origin but it looks German to me.

If the zeitgeist of the Middle Ages could be described as depressing, would the Renaissance be considered enlightening?

It has been fun learning 26 new words, wasn't it? Until the next A to Z Blog Challenge, keep on learning something new every day!

A to Z Blog Challenge: Y

Y is for Yealing - noun. A person who is the same age as oneself.

Another letter of the alphabet that I had to go online to find since my dictionary didn't have a Y word that I didn't already know. I liked yealing, so I picked that one. It is so unknown even my spellchecker didn't recognise it. Maybe because it is Scottish in origin. 

Does that mean that I have to use a Scottish accent to compose a sentence? 🤔

A to Z Blog Challenge: X

X is for Xystus - noun. A long portico in which athletes used to exercise in ancient Greece.

Since my Dictionary didn't have a word starting with X that I didn't know, I went online and learned that there are 120 words in the English language that start with an X.

If you included words that are no longer in use, it amounts to 400 of them. Wow!

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/how-many-words-begin-with-x

A to Z Blog Challenge: W

W is for Weft (and warp) - noun. The threads that are passed over and under the warp threads to make cloth.

Of course, these things would have names. I actually learned these words from a recent program on television. Don't ask which program or channel. I wasn't paying that much attention. The weft (or woof) goes parallel to the loom (the thread on the shuttles) and the warp are the threads held by the loom.