The CreativeLife update, the 100 day project, and some shameless promo ;)

Hello there!

I don't know if this happens to you, but once a new year gets going, life seems to fall back into its usual routines. Routine is not a bad thing, don't get me wrong, but I don't like being bored. It is the primary reason I am self-employed - I can say no to work or negotiate a deadline if I am too busy to take on new work. Another reason I decided to go back into self-employment was to spend more time being creative. Enter the 100 day project.

I tried it in 2024 and could barely make it to day 10 without giving up. It took some soul searching to discover why since I was making tiny paintings. Creative, for sure, and I should have been able to continue doing that for the following 90 days. The plan had been to make 100 tiny paintings. I eventually realised that I got bored. Doing 100 of the same thing definitely did not work for me. But I really wanted to try again, so I had to come up with a new idea. Will it work? I have no idea, but it is a better plan than what I had in mind last year.

The plan (and how it fits into my 2025 goals)

I mentioned the group challenges I plan to participate in and the projects I design for my art group in my previous post. I have also mentioned the novel currently with my editor. Knowing how my workload is expanding, I can hardly find the time to add yet another challenge to my day. Unless I think outside the box.

The 100 day project is not just about art, or craft, or even a single project. It is about being creative on a daily basis. So here is the plan for my 100 day project: I am going to draw, paint, write, or make something every day. It won't be the same every day.

I might do a project that will take several days or even weeks, but I will also do small things in between. This way, I won't get bored but still manage to do something creative every day for a hundred days.

Practically, I need to plan time to create every day. I have mentioned that my art group meets once a week for two hours, so that will continue to be the schedule for Thursdays. The rest of the week is not as easy. But I am committing to spend at least 30 minutes every day to create something. If I don't have 30 minutes, then 10 minutes will have to do.

The commitment (and my accountability tracker)

Habit trackers abound on social media in various shapes and forms. I also have one in my Bullet Journal for tracking my daily goals.

I thought I would use that, but I am inclined to think that a separate tracker would be more useful. Instead of just ticking off that I have achieved the objective for the day, I will add the time I spent to it. This way, I can see which days I have more time, which will be helpful for planning future art competition paintings or doing commissions.

Of course, there is no such thing as a perfect plan, with life throwing curve balls just as you think everything is under control. But a daily practice and some useful data will not go to waste even if life interferes.

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Some of my books, will be promoted as part of a special sale on @Smashwords to celebrate Read an Ebook Week 2025 from March 2-8. Be sure to follow me for more updates and links to the promotion for my books and many more! #ebookweek25 #Smashwords

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The challenge details

The 100 day challenge starts today. You can still join and find all the details and the social media sharing here.

I doubt that I will share every day. I don't like social media that much, but look out for my posts on Instagram with the tags #dothe100dayproject and @dothe100dayproject.

This is only a partial CreativeLife update. I will share my progress on the rest of my goals in my next post. Don't forget to check out the Smashwords sale coming next week.

Stay creative - until next time!

💜Linzé

One month in...Goals and 2025 so far

To follow some kind of structure, and I have decided to use my first post of 2025 as a guide, then I can see how I am doing compared to the incredibly productive year I had last year.

Work: January was unexpectedly quiet. The work was there, but some clients weren't ready with the hardware or documentation I needed for the tests. I did manage to start some tests, so this coming week is a continuance of those jobs.

Business: As I write this post, I am slapping myself against the head because I forgot to send out an invoice at the end of January. Stupid newbie mistake! But first thing on Monday, that invoice will be going out, that's for sure.

Books read: Although I have the goal to read more non-fiction this year, I haven't finished the first book yet. I have read a few fiction stories while out and about and waiting somewhere. A Kindle is definitely convenient, but reading time at home is much more limited. I schedule art-making time on my planner, so I am now scheduling time to read the non-fiction books too. Two hours per week for a start.

Goal: read at least 12 books, 8 of which will be non-fiction. I am currently reading Black Holes by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw.

Books published: It is a bit early in the year, even for me, but my first book is already with my editor. Tiger Gold is scheduled for publication in April 2025. I don't have the exact date yet, so keep an eye out if you like my books.

Goal - Novels: Tiger Gold - The Strikemasters (April 2025) and The Guardian of Dreams - Lords of the High Council (Dec 2025). They will be books 9 and 10 in my Nations of Peace series.

Goal - Novella: Rowan, I Dare You (July 2025); it is the first story of a new series, The Silk Club stories.

Words written: Writing continues on a new novel. No title yet. So far, I have written 10,981 words this year, although the manuscript has over 100k words already. There is no goal for the number of words.

Goal - stories: The plan is to finish the current draft (by the end of March) and another novella by the end of the year, if possible.

Sketchbook for 2025 practice

Other projects: I don't plan for these except for the projects for my art group. We will do a project every other month with the in-between months planned for drawing and painting techniques practice in a sketchbook we made in December last year.

Goal - art: I will probably take part if the AGAC competition is on again this year,. Since it is a competition, there is a deadline, and planning to work on the painting works around that deadline.

Goal - art: I am a member of Artkula.com, and usually do at least one of the monthly challenges every month.

Many lofty goals for 2025, but I don't beat myself up if I don't make a goal, except for projects with a deadline. Those take priority when it comes to my time.

I haven't mentioned the apothecary cabinet because I haven't started working on it yet. But I will share my progress once I do start.

Stay creative, until next time!

💜Linzé

2024 - a crazy year in review

Can I do it again it 2025?

When I look back at this past year, I shake my head because what I have managed to do blows my mind. Did I plan all of this? But more importantly, can I do it again?

Honestly, I have no idea how I managed all of that. Of course, I plan things, like we all do, but to have actually done it—I have no words.

But let me show you what I am talking about. This is the list of stuff I managed to complete in 2024:

Work: I am self-employed but contracted as a safety certification engineer by a testing authority in Pretoria. And I managed to do 59 jobs for them in 2024. That is more than one per week! Practically, that means that I did several jobs in parallel because the average time for the work I do is about three weeks, with some jobs taking two to three months.

Business: I also do consulting work for South African companies who want to export their high-tech products. I assisted with 9 technical construction files for EU and UK exports.

Books read: I love the Goodreads reading challenge, and 2024 was a fiction year for me. I did read one or two non-fiction books, but I wanted to read more fiction, and cosy mystery is my genre of choice. I would read when I was eating breakfast alone or had to wait for people. My Kindle lives in my handbag, so it is always at hand for those unplanned minutes. And by doing this, I managed 145 books. I cannot tell you how that happened, but it did!

Books published: Thanks to my fantastic editor, Vanessa Wright, I got two novels in The Nations of Peace series published in 2024. You can check them out here: A Memory for Love (book 7), and Prime Pledge (book 8).

Words written: I've been keeping track of the number of words I write since 2014. I have been writing since 2000, so getting that first number of words for the spreadsheet took some effort. In 2024, I wrote 163,000 words. I have managed more in previous years, but in my defence, I have been busy with other things.

The good news is that the series' ninth book is on my priority list to finish formatting and send it to Vanessa next week for editing. It is scheduled for publication in April 2025.

Art projects: I did one commission (6 drawings) in 2024. I finished the Inktober challenge in October (I post my drawings to Instagram), about 10 pieces in a sketchbook, and completed 13 paintings. I didn't participate in any exhibitions last year but may do so again this year.

Other projects: I love building models and finished two in December. I bought a few items to make an apothecary cabinet, which I received this past week. There will be some construction work, and I am considering sharing my process in a few blog posts.

When I look at this list, I shake my head mainly because I cannot comprehend how I managed everything. Am I particularly motivated or productive? Definitely not. But once I get stuck in on a project, whether it is work or a painting, I get it done.

I put everything I have to do every week in my planner, mostly so I don't forget to do the laundry, but it helps a lot.

I don't plan the number of jobs; that is out of my control, nor do I plan the number of art projects. I lead an art group, so I have to plan projects for them, but I also belong to a group where there are two challenges every month. All these activities keep the artistic and creative juices flowing.

Writing has been in my blood for so long that I no longer think about it. Several ideas are on my list, so I am never short of ideas when the muse strikes me with the urge to pen a few words.

This post is getting long, so I will share my 2025 goals in another post.

Have you had a year like I had in 2024? What was your secret to getting everything (and more) done?

Do something creative. It's good for you. 😂 Until next time!

💜 Linzé

VAMPIRE ROMANCE SEASON 12 Dec - 1 Jan

Snuggle up to a sexy vampire

VAMPIRE ROMANCE SEASON 12 Dec - 1 Jan

Jarod and Wolfe find their soulmates amidst the challenges of vampire royal life.

Find PRIME PREY and PRIME PLEDGE at 75% off during the end of the year!

PRIME PLEDGE by Linzé Brandon (Book 8 in the Nations of Peace series)

PreSALE offer - get the book BEFORE its release on 1 December 2024! 

Wolfgang Hauer is not just a businessman, he is the Prime Alpha, prince of the vampires. Like all the males he craves the relationship with his soul-mate. Cursed into blindness by a vindictive lover, he is deprived of the chance to see the tiny flame in the eyes of the woman who would fulfil that craving. Until he meets Isabeau, whom he knew was going to change everything ... including his future.

Isabeau D'Amour is the epitome of beauty with her long, curly black hair, flawless skin and deep green eyes. But she has the brains of a brilliant engineer and researcher in the field of medical robotics. And yet underneath all the beauty and brains hides her true nature: she is a ritual healer, Karri'anah. Revered by the vampire clans for her abilities, she is cursed by her bloodline. She needs to be loved to be beautiful.

Meeting Wolfe stirred emotions inside her heart that she didn't know was possible. But when she learned of his curse, how could they possibly get involved if she wasn't his soul-mate and then deny him the chance to meet the woman he craved?

Sinister forces threaten their lives and family disputes are not helping them figure out if there was a future for them. But Isabeau quickly learned that Wolfe wasn't someone who took those threats lightly as he rallied his cousins around him to actively search out and take the threats head-on.

Prince or not, Wolfe was not going to let his chance at happiness slip through his hands. He would make sure that people understood that being Prime Alpha was not about being royalty, it was about responsibility, and protecting his people and his soul-mate, no matter the cost.

PRIME PLEDGE is available from these online retailers:

Smashwords Apple Books Barnes and Noble

Everand Gardners Kobo Books

Take a look at the rest of the series here

BOOK FEATURE: The Medusa Psalms by Kyle Toucher

     This book is a collection of 10 stories and 2 novellas, taking place within, or tangential to, Walpurgis County, a place benighted by fallen angles and old curses, pockets of time dilation, and a sinister cult fixated on the end of all things. Overlooking the entire place broods Walpurgis Peak, a snarling ogre of a mountain, beneath which a comatose entity convalesces, kept alive by a colossal bio-mechanical atrocity, known only as The Machine.

     Connected by events and recurring characters, whether taking place in the 19th, 20th, or 21st centuries, the history and lore of Walpurgis County revealed through the stories of those who lived it.  Exorcisms and scarecrows. A wicked mountain and an unaging house. Disintegrating family and a lonely motel. Demons and monsters. Alternative history and the end of all things. Methamphetamine and Slayer.

👉👉  BOOK TRAILER  👈👈

🔖Get the book on Amazon here

Excerpt from 'Billy Beauchamp and the Monster Cartel'

Scarlet, leaning to accommodate Fate, gazed up at me. The twins wore a plain white dress of mismatched sizes, no shoes, and a garland of flowers arranged in each mane. Scarlet, the pagan maiden eager to plunge into the volcano. The look in her eye told me she had resigned herself to that day and had not that sacrifice spelled doom for her younger sister, I felt she would have acted on it there and then.

I felt sorrow for her. Though so pure and unafraid, I saw a future in service to monsters as they feasted on tentacles, traumatized children, and walked the endless line between desolation and damnation.

The conjoined sisters turned away and joined hands with the others. Six girls formed a perimeter around the magic weave. A freakish sight by any measure, but it would be a crude disservice to refer to these young ladies as freaks. In the Purg, bones fused in ways not seen, bloodlines ran long and true. Haunted and hunted had found refuge here, despite the bloody knife of Walpurgis Peak and the terrible events shat upon its slopes.

“Pneuma,” said the tallest of them, Destiny I believe. Her twin, Candi, half her size and nearly half her age, repeated the word in a whisper.

“Haima,” said another.

“Mystiko,” said a third.

The last time I heard Greek, Lena and I were in a restaurant in Studio City, and she had to order for us because I was about four Ouzos into a future DUI. But in the presence of Penny Brynnwick’s daughters, their words were clearly understood: Breath. Blood. Secret.

One second the magic circle was an ugly nightmare of lines and symbols―the next, an icy extrusion of light burst from those same lines. Shadows splashed throughout the Grand Room, and somewhere in the hollows of my heart, I knew if I stared at this shadow theatre long enough, I’d catch a glimpse of what waited out there, in the Elsewhere, that place of abandonment The Proprietor lamented over, the place where the monsters were left behind.

The temperature dropped. Serpents of frigid air slithered through the Grand Room. In their linen dresses and bare shoulders, these barefoot girls made me feel like a coward for shivering in my long sleeves, jeans, boots, and leather vest. Their hair, caught in the gale, sought the center of the conjuring rug.

🔖Get the book on Amazon here

About the Author: Kyle Toucher

Kyle Toucher is the author of the novel Live Wire, from Crystal Lake Entertainment, the novella Life Returns, and the Black Hare Press release, Southpaw.

He recently appeared in the anthologies Dead Letters: Episodes of Epistolary Horror and To Hell and Back, from Crystal Lake and Hellbound Books respectively.

This September, expect his first collection The Medusa Psalms: Welcome to Walpurgis County ―also from Crystal Lake Entertainment―to rise from the slab of a coroner's office near you. Ten stories. Two novellas. One benighted landscape.

Chat to Kyle on social media

X: @kyletoucher

Instagram: @kyletoucher

Smashwords Summer/Winter sale - The Nations of Peace are on sale!

 The first seven Nations of Peace books are 50% off for the whole of July.

Series link to the sale books

Series link to the sale books