Month: October 2024

Happy SEVENTH SON Day!

Happy Tenth Birthday, Seventh Son! That’s right, it’s the tenth anniversary of the day I published my first book child. Ten years since I became a published author!

Hard to believe it’s been that long. But it must be, as the book got a number of younger siblings in the meantime – three more in the Septimus series, one fairy tale retelling (Martin Millerson), and two Christmas novellas. And there are others in the offing.

So, Seventh Son. Here’s what it’s about:

Cat was ordinary—until the day a blue bowl whirled her off to a magical medieval world…

Catriona, ex-librarian, dumped by her boyfriend, is just trying to restart her life when she gets sucked into and carried off by a blue pottery bowl. Suddenly thrown into a world where she can’t move for mysteries, how is this modern town girl going to cope alone in the woods with a comatose man and a muddy baby? And there’s that hint of something sinister…

That’s the book as it stands right now, and it’s still available as FREE EBOOK on Amazon and all your other favourite ebook sites! (At least it’d better be. On Amazon the book price sometimes snaps back to asking for money. If that’s the case, let me know and I’ll get them to fix it; but you can also go to Smashwords and download the free copy for your ereader – .mobi for Kindle, .epub for pretty much all other readers. Or contact me and I’ll send you a copy!)

And now for the big announcement: Seventh Son is getting a makeover! (The book, not the person – he’s fine as he is.) You see, in the ten years since I first published it – thirteen years since I wrote it – I’ve grown as a writer. And I’ve become an editor. So when I recently re-read the book with an editor’s eye, I realized that while I still really like the story, I could make it even better with a rewrite.

But don’t worry, the story itself won’t change! I’m just rewriting some of the language (giving it a stylistic edit, in editor’s terms). Sort of like those “digitally remastered” old movies – same movie, sharper image and brighter colours. And speaking of colours, I’m hoping to eventually put on a new cover, as well. While I love the covers that Steven Novak created for the series (he’s great, highly recommend), I want to change them to something that reflects the tone and genre of the books a little better. But when that happens I’ll let you know.

Meanwhile, I’m really enjoying hanging out with Cat and Guy and Bibby and all their friends again, right there at the beginning of their story. It was the blue bowl that started it all…

Life, the Universe, and Ten Years of Being an Author. Happy Birthday, Seventh Son!

Seventh Son‘s book birthday cake from its first birthday

Aurora, or: What Really Matters

For the last couple of months or so, I’ve been meaning to write a blog post. I was going to call it “Unsocial Media”, and it was meant to have been all about why I haven’t posted much for most of this year. I was going to be eloquent, and witty, make excuses and give explanations, be philosophical, tell you all about the important things in life…

But then, last night, this happened.

It was literally awesome.

I’ve been hoping and wishing to see the Aurora Borealis for years. It’s been a bucket list item for me. I’m on an Aurora Watch mailing list that sends me notifications with yellow alerts and red alerts when there’s likely to be one in my area. But I’d never actually seen them. Until a couple of days ago, when one of the Offspring came home after dark and dragged me outside: “You gotta see this!”

Truth be told, I needed to have them pointed out to me. I’d been expecting and looking for something spectacular, bright, red-and-green, undulating in the sky exacly north of here. But what I saw were some brightish, whitish, streaky things that I could have easily mistaken for clouds, in the Eastern sky, no less.

That’s them? That’s the Northern Lights?

It was. And once I knew what I was looking for, I saw them. All over the sky, not just the North like I expected. They come and go so quickly, you can miss them if you don’t pay attention. And to the naked eye they’re mostly white, at least the ones I saw were.

But they do dance. And they are spectacular. And there are colours – just not quite what I had expected. In fact, it’s quite possible that this was not actually the first time I’ve seen the Aurora Borealis; in all my times of hopefully gazing north, I might well have been looking right at them, and not known what I was seeing.

Last night, I was ready with my fancy camera and tripod. And I caught pictures of them, and the camera saw things my eyes did not and showed me the colours. But that’s not even that important. I sat outside on my balcony for more than an hour, wrapped in a hoody and a blanket and a poncho, and I think I had a big huge silly grin on my face for almost the entire time. I saw the Aurora.

So I’ll spare you my eloquence on that other stuff, there is no need for it.

Because this, my friends, is Life, the Universe, and the Things That Really Matter. It truly was awesome.