Tuesday was very exhausting. Made it to bed at 10 pm. Eek! Unthinkable for my teen ages. Anyways work proved to be extremely active in things that need to be done and I was drained. To strengthen my fatigue the weather decided to send two thunder storms and I get incredibly sleepy, when it rains. I recall almost falling asleep standing straight on my feet.

I visited the friendly neighborhood dermatologist and she seems very happy with my face and prescribed me the full treatment, because I was on probation with the new medicament. It will last for the whole summer and I should see her in September. I will have to visit a beautician once every month and she says that the red spots on my skin will eventually phase out and melt into my usual complexion. Hope it happens soon.

I also had the pleasure to experience the wonderful, pleasant and kind service of the post office as I asked what it costs to send a book overseas {note the heavy sarcasm}. I blame the unbearable heat for the bloodlust and acid tongue of the woman, unfortunate enough to be bothered by moi, who remained ever so polite and sugar coated. I forgot to take the book today for another round. Tomorrow maybe will be a more productive day in that aspect.

I also sent my order list for the USA titles I die to have and will be receiving a list of prices soon on my e-mail and I will make my picks, although I already know that Gena Showalter’s new series will be the first to get. In the mean time I need to finish a few series I started and got the books like Karen Chance’s series, got all three books with one read.

Another task done yesterday was to buy an MP3 player and what a glorious one I bought: green and yummy. I walked for an hour and a half through half the city to get all this done and well my thighs hurt like hell from the friction and I guess that is what exhausted me so much. At least I managed to decipher it and install the software on my PC. It has space for videos and pictures and all that jazz with 2GB of memory on it. None too shabby.

On the writing front things look pretty much the same. I am almost done with chapter 13: “Chit Chat over at Tea Time” – mind you there will be no chit chat or tea involved. *evil g* But yesterday I was too exhausted to coordinate my limbs to write.

I am scared of Friday and Saturday. We have 653 people in our charge arriving at airport for their hotels and 433 departing from their hotels. I will be up all night and running, but I will have to get out of work on Friday to go to the gym, so Saturday will be hell for me.

Here is an excerpt from my interview with author Justin Gustainis at “Temple Library Review”Urban Fantasy Land”. Choose your pick. and “

8. No more asked about that one. In the novel the readers can see what an interesting concept of the demons you have. If I recall one was a mutant Teletubby. My question is how the heck that happened and will this quite innovative idea be developed in the following books?

The Teletubbys are evil, Harry. Surely, you already knew that?

9. Yup, I know that. Never go near them without a chainsaw. Did you find it hard to devise the magical system, which is Libby’s tool? It’s not exactly Wicca, but it has its own origins in culture for all I gather. Who helped you or did you rely on google?

Oh, I consulted a couple of witches of my acquaintance. They explained the origin of their magic, and demonstrated to me its power. I’m just glad they’re on our side, if you know what I mean.

At the end of this post I will feature my to-do-list:

Blogging comes harder and harder these days with the constant heat blasts and my unwise decisions to go out the week nights and get friendly with the bottle. Although I don’t overdo the drinking part, mornings at 7 am can be quite painful, so this is a belated post regarding my reading progress and challenges, partly to set things straight and well to play in Weekly Geeks #9, whose theme this week was challenges. Here are the rules quoted straight from our headquarters “Hidden Side of a Leaf”:

1. If you participate in any challenges, get organized! Update your lists, post about any you haven’t mentioned, add links of reviews to your lists if you do that, go to the challenge blog if there is one and post there, etc.

2. If you don’t participate in any challenges, then join one! There’s a good selection of possibilities over on my right hand sidebar (scroll down) where I list those I participate in. There’s also A Novel Challenge, a blog that keeps track of all sorts of reading challenges.

3. Towards the end of the week, write a wrap-up post about getting your challenges organized OR if you’re joining your first challenge, post about that any time during the week. Once you have your post up, come back and sign Mr Linky with the link to the specific post, not just to your blog.

I shall begin with the real part of the post and “Herding Cats Challenge”. Here is how I stand with my three main books for the challenge. I am certain that I will have time for the next three:

“Left Hand of Darkness” by Ursula Le Guin ~ READ: I can’t really believe that I had to go throw three different novels al from the Hainish cycle to get to this one, which is deemed as one of the best titles in the genre. I personally am left with mixed feelings as I am in awe with Ursula Le Guin’s worldbuilding and symbolism behind it all, but as a story I didn’t quite enjoy it as it had a tough journey through ice and well winter is not one of my interests, so I didn’t quite like it as much. Review is yet to follow.

“Persuasion” by Jane Austin ~ READ: Quite frankly after reading “Pride and Prejudice” I was left with the impression that every Austin novel is a surprise packet as that one, but well “Persuasion” didn’t quite do it for me. Too much narrative for the book’s own good and it was quite boring at the beginning, but the ending was so much pleasurable. Review is yet to follow.

“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte ~ READING: This will take time as I am caught in a love triangle between three books at the moment, so progress is low, but I am quite entertained by what the novel has to offer. Mr. Rochester and Jane certainly develop an awkward sort of friendship. I can’t wait for more.

Now let’s proceed to my other interesting reading projects:

“The Summoner” by Gail Z. Martin ~ READING: I am gonna lock myself at home these three or four days so that I can finish it once and for all, as I have been dragging it quite the while and I need the review. It isn’t bad, but well it’s more like an epic fantasy of no great innovations or greatness, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

“Witchember” by John Lawson ~ READING: This novel is a sort of disciple of the Tolkien style of fantasy, but I love its grittiness. I am enjoying this one immensely and can’t wait to read it as fast as I can, which is a bit impossible, since I have way too much to do and oh brother, I need me some clones. I particularly enjoy how magic is being portrayed and it's almost constant use, which doesn't seem like overdoing it.

Now for the grand finale, I am hosting my first giveaway over at “Temple Library Reviews” and it has one of the best urban fantasy novels “Black Magic Woman”!!!!!

{PS: This amazing pciture comes from none other than Stephanie Pui-Mun Law from Shadowscapes}

I took two days of off air time and when I come back I get over swamped with information. It seems that for the two days I have been missing too many updated their blogs. My blog tour only finished with all the blogs on Blogger, which leaves my LJ people for tomorrow. I never knew life could be so hectic and I am so stopping adding people on my blog roll. I love new acquaintances, but I am getting a bit overwhelmed with the data. Anyways if someone thinks I am not showing enough on their blog, simply know that I am reading, but can’t afford to comment.

So let’s move to my life. Thursday got me drained with the German graduation party since we all passed the special German exam and now carry the piece of paper stating we can speak almost as good as a German would. The day put me in panic mode since I had no formal clothing and had to mix a strange combo with weird clothes. This reminds me that with the money from my summer job I will update my closet. Of course Thursday and Friday had me in another aspect since I went to a beautician about the dark spots on my face and I died, since she squeezed them and shocked them with electricity. Ouch!

Friday I saw my friend photographer/artist/sword fighter Svetla and drank wine in the Sea Garden among nature. We chatted about projects and how she was going to play into a replay of an old swordfight over my home city Varna in the medieval ages and I am so going to watch. We decided to start a web comic together and possibly create the perfect idea for anime and then sell it to a Japanese company and see our baby developed. But those are just wild dreams like my grand computer game scheme.

Friday brought many new books as well. Almost full list with cover art on “Temple Library Reviews”:
~ “Black Magic Woman” by Justin Gustainis
~ “The Summoner” by Gail Z. Martin
~ “The Blood King” by Gail Z. Martin
~ “Spirit Gate” by Kate Elliot
~ “Witchember” by John Lawson
~ “Brida” by Paulo Coehlo

I made a new decision. I will write my novel on a journal and then during rewrites revert to the PC. I found writing by hand to be more fast, efficient and gripping. The same amount of words, 1K to be exact, written on hand takes faster and I barely notice pass. My thoughts have time to fully form and my hand keeps up with my brain and vice versa. The PC makes my eyes hurt and I get distracted easily by Google. Bad Google!! So I am on the hunt for new journals and made my friend Alex, that amazing gal, to bring me some from her dad’s firm as they have too many, but I am not sure, because they have salamis on their covers. Considering her dad works in the meat product business is the bad side.

I am pretty pissed at my dad, since the lazy man spent these 7 hours in the other part of the house and did absolutely nothing! Yes, he did absolutely nothing. I repeat nothing apart from resting himself, because he was oh-so-tired to the brink of exhaustion, since he prepared lunch. I proposed to my mom to give him as a late birthday gift an apron saying “The woman in the House” since my mom wears pants way more often anyways. Every day I ask myself the question “Will I become like this, when I get old?”. Quite frankly it’s worse than the scariest zombie horror movie.

Anyways in between rooms we managed to organize all the books we owned, my mother and me, and due to all the new books and other items we have collected recently we had to say bye to a great part of those books. My mother has over 300 titles in her personal library, most of them in Russian, so with a heavy heart she has to donate a lot, near 100 of those to the city library. My books ran up to nearly 70, which are not as much as I would like to have, but I have read more than 70 I assure you! So because of the whole review blogging I am saying bye to exactly the half. It’s painful! So painful! The good part is that they are going to a friend of mine, who enjoys fantasy, so the thought that they will be loves is soothing.

Good news for today is that I contacted Solaris and received an e-mail today regarding my request to review for them. The answer is affirmative, so soon I will have books to read. Yum! Thanks to Dolce Bellezza I will be receiving a very early birthday present in the form of “Inkheart” and I am pleased to know that John Joseph Adams will send me his anthology “Wastelands”. On a side note I will be guest blogging at The Book Swede so Chris will be sending me more books. All in all, I won’t be bored soon.

Today I hosted my interview with Kristopher Reisz over at Temple Library Reviews and for my LJ people, always wanting to know more, the treat is in the usual places HERE and THERE. Sadly though, I failed to write my review of “Taste of Night” by Vicki Pettersson. Well there is always tomorrow for that as well.

Been cleaning the shelves lately and trying to find small crevices left here and there to fit all my books. My house is small and sadly inhabited by six other human beings, who have their stuff and greedily want to take all the space for their stuff. Of course I spend around 80 bucks on books this year, because of my unhealthy attraction to the bookstore hunk and all I get is trouble. Sadly, I might consider donating books to libraries or giving them to friends, but seeing how all I have is fantasy I doubt anyone would want them anyways. I would give them away too of course on my blog, but unless you are a Bulgarian I highly doubt that you will cope with the language. Sigh.

Anyways I found some cool titles, while cleaning. I never realized I have read George R R Martin before until I found his “Windhaven” lurking around. I was thirteen, when I read it and being bad with the memory I totally forgot, who the author was.

However these are the new books in the collection:
1. Stephen King with “Salem’s Lot” (Mihai did recommended, I did want to read it and then pop the universe presents me with a new reprint in Bulgarian with cool slick covers)
2. “Perfume: The Story of a Murder” by Patrick Süskind
3. “Gifts” & “Voices” in one book by Ursula LeGuin.
4. “The Children of Hurin” by Tolkien
5. “Equal Rites” by Terry Pratchett

I so have to update my Shelfari.

Anyways since it’s Friday and I am thinking of doing a Friday Fifteen of the novels included on my To Be Read list. Those five above are included simultaneously.
1. “Savor Me Slowly” by Gena Showalter (100 pages in the story)
2. “Amberlight” by Sylvia Kelso
3. “Dark Maiden” by Norma Lehr
4. “Truancy” by Isamu Fukui
5. “Left Hand of Darkness” by Ursula LeGuin
6. “Jane Ayre” by Charlotte Bronte for the Herding Cats challenge
7. “Persuasion” by Jane Austin for the same challenge
8. “Inkheart” by Cornelia Funke, yet again for the challenge
9. “Awaken me Darkly” by Gena Showalter
10. “Mistborn: The Final Empire” by Brandon Sanderson

Add to these the first five and the list concluded, but I so have to read the Walker Papers, I have the first three novels and the novella Banshee Cries or at least I think it’s a novella. I am too lazy right now to check, you can decapitate me later if I made a mistake. *yawn* Then come of course the Rachel Morgan series, whole first five books I have, but dear oh dear, haven’t been able to read. Time management skills suck.

Side Notes:
~ I will attempt to write something on my current WIP “FiB”, but that will happen after my cup of coffee and the report will most probably will be documented tomorrow.
~ I posted my review of “Carrie” by Stephen King on Temple Library Reviews, but since the novel is old and interest is more likely to be small and me being lazy to post all over the Internet, I will limit it to there only. Sorry LJ people.

I am so hyper excited today, because good things keep happening and I am so excited to be alive this week. I think Karma finally decided to give me the week of good things happening. First my literature teacher is sick, which means no final grade deciding test on Wednesday! Now Dolce Belezza, this amazing woman with one of the best blogs out there, gave me this:

I am so honored to have this Gold Card Award and be considered as a great friend by this amazing person, whom I’ve known for not enough time. As the rules go I am going to grant this card to five other bloggers, who have been extra ordinary friends to me and have great blogs, even though I want to give it to ten people. Bellezza know that you deserve this one too, but I don't think I can send it to you again, since you already have one.

1. Marcia Collete: She is this doll with big brains and sweet talk. Cross the literary wisdom of a literature professor with the bubbly personality of an innocent cheerleader and there you have it. What I love most about her is not only the topics she chooses to blog about, but the time she takes to comment back every single comment on her post.

2. Tyhitia Green: What I like about Tyhitia is her love for the horror and her wickedness to post all these macabre pictures on pink font. Major creepiness for me. she has been super duper friends with me and commented, when I doubted anyone read my Blogger. Of course her appreciation posts for different months like Black History Month and Women’s History Month honor big names in both the literature world and the normal one.

3. Karen Mahoney: My LJ author in the making, who is going to make it. Her blog is full of all literature tads and bits related. She is this Wonder Woman counterpart with just the best sense of humor is willing to embrace you open heartedly and make you her friend. You go girl!

4. Meredith Wood aka Shea: Another LJ author in the making with one heck of an attitude. What I like best about her is that she thinks my crappy jokes are funny and that she let me read her manuscript as a beta reader. I am going to mention that in my memoirs you know. She is right now something as my critique partner and her comments are awesome!

5. Fandoria aka Leisa: Like all my friends this one is yet again in the literature department and is a cooky person that I wanna hug. Apart from her blog, which I totally love, she just was there when things were crazy and showed me that my life is not going to crash and burn. Thank you for that darling.

And I am finally going to participate in a reader’s challenge called 342,752 Ways to Herd Cats. The challenge runs from May 1st through November 30th. You list 10 of your favorite books and submit the list to her. Then you go and look at other peoples’ lists and pick 3 books from their lists and commit to read them. Bottle of Shine is the host for this challenge and there you can find other people’s lists. So here are my 10 for the scheme:

1. “Dracula” by Bram Stocker
2. “The DaVinchi Code” by Dan Brown
3. “Dark is the Moon” by Ian Irvain ~ Actually I love all the four books in the series, so if you like start from the first one and read everything.
4. “Wyrd Sisters” by Terri Prattchet
5. “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde
6. “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov
7. “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austin
8. “Alchemist” by Paulo Coehlo
9. “Stray” by Rachel Vincent
10. “Scent of Shadows” by Vicki Pettersson

And these are my three official books that I will read:
1. “Left hand of Darkness” by Ursula LeGuin
2. ”Jane Ayre” by Charlotte Bronte
3. “Persuasion” by Jane Austin

{PS: This is some superheroes X-Men. I had this art for a very long time and have no idae who the artists are. I think it's the original comics creators. The ghosty is Wicked, while the other is the Infamous Lady Deathstrike}

The Library News Bulletin

It’s that time of the week, where I will be sticking to all fiction and writing related and provide the freshest Tuesday Teaser, since I completed it only minutes before posting. Anyways first I start by announcing that I finally received “Unleashed” by Kristopher Reisz (Kris, the Bulgarian post finally decided to bring it), “Amberlight” by Sylvia Kelso and “Dark Maiden” by Norma Lehr (Theresa, did you teleport these, because they came rather fast?).

“Wish Away” is coming along pretty well, if you ask me, mainly because I write it at school, while my teachers drag about really boring things and that is the perfect environment to concentrate and get some words done! The story is several pages long in the note book and well I think that’s good. I didn’t bother doing the word count manually.

Also while writing this story I had an amazing epiphany about writing that has never occurred to me at all. I mainly struggle with dialog for two reasons: A) I write the most boring cliché lines and I have to think hard to make it a bit more spicy and B) I always get distracted with the tags, because while characters talk I like them to do something, think something or simply dump info and I need to imagine what they are doing while saying their lines. In the end I forget what the other character was going to say next and writing dialog is turning out to be a small scale apocalypse. A) simply can’t be handled any other way and I have to think, but B) is easily overcome. I scribbled down the dialog, just lines without anything else and then I number them, after which I simply take my time for the tags. This is my writing epiphany! Thank you for listening!

As for me novel I wrote the days 1K and I am very proud. Getting something done takes time and I know I should be studying and after this blog post I will, I promise, but it feels so good.

Here is my progress meter:

25765 / 80000 words. 32% done!

Now all things aside it’s time for the teaser! Enjoy:

{I would like to announce the beautiful artwork has been done by Timothy Lantz aka Acheron, who is extremely talented. The green one is Polyhymnia, the muse of sacred songs and hymns.}

I am back in full swing, well sort of. My schedule is definitely tight and I can’t keep neglecting geography and damn you would think that a 111 thousand square meters of a land would be easy to learn, but damn it would seem that we are near the line of where two tectonic plates merge, well not exactly there, but close enough to there and other factors to get every single damn form of relief there is! Grr, I am going insane.

So this is a sort of update on how I am being. So here is what has happened to me or maybe I made it happen to me so it’s. Either it’s good sort of.

1) I am writing again. I finished chapter six and I am reaching a point, where plot is starting and writing will be going slower since I have to pay attention to the elements I want to add. Because of bad memory I made a list. Right now however I am developing the healing system for my world and I don’t want to make everything easy and possible like a D&D board game I am adding major restrictions and side effects. Here is where I am at with the whole word count:

2) To not kill my brain cells slowly in school, because we really don’t anything there, but rot and wanting to subdue the instinct to claw myself out of there I started a short story called “Wish Away”. It’s an experimentation in the Bizarro genre, plus paranormal. Bizzaro is basically fantasy so extreme and twisted that there are no laws explaining it and the aim is to not make sense.

3) I finally received the five set books. I mean “The Guilty” took the longest to come since its release date was really soon and adding that to the whole travel time it is normal to come this late. I don’t mind. Now I have to read it!

4) In the meantime I am working on a poem using a lot of Celtic lore and symbolism and it’s something I haven’t done in a while and I love researching. Plus now to make me happy is this amazing beta of a YA I am privileged to read and I am nearly done. Tomorrow will be time to end it and send it with my comments.

God I never felt so busy before, but I want to spread some joy with a funny list. Click the link below!

Well since I have nothing typed from my countless projects I shall be sharing small excerpts from the two works of fiction I have published under the brand new Mystic Moon Press. I should have been promoting them and well it hasn't been that successful due to my total inability to promote the said works and so they are dying a slow ebook death on their site and everywhere else, so I am renewing the fight for publicity and probably more sales. Hopefully. So here it is this hybrid between Teaser Tuesday and Promotiong Day!

“The Dragon Lady” is a short story that goes for 1.29$ on the market not sure whether people sell short stories a piece, but I am not complaining. This is high fantasy in my second world of elementalism and here is the blurb:

 “Two sisters, distanced emotionally from each other by their mother's passing, restore the bond of sisterhood during the Festival of the Fogs and on the grounds of the cursed temple. Lila comes to terms with her grief and behavior,
while Miranda learns to forgive and experiences the 'Ancestral Ascend'.”

“House of Satin, Nights of Passion” is my erotica novella and it promises a great variety in terms of intimacy, edgy hotness and all the naughtiness in the world. I am still waiting for reviews on this one. I also did it under a fake name in case erotica is not my genre after all. Here is the blurb:

“William Braddock has built a life for himself with a nice humble house in San Francisco, two jobs he can easily juggle with a pleasent hobby as well. But his peace crashes and burns into a steamy sequence of orgasms as his roommate Cassandra Bynes returns from a three week trip with the reinvented personality of a Playboy Bunny.

Soon William gets sucked into her new life of careless sex and finds himself working as an elite prostitute in a multi-million dollar mansion, where his life and sexual views are rotated 180 degrees.

What happens in this house of satin sheets? Only you can find out.”

That's from me for now. wait till tomorrow when my Math test will be gone and I will contemplate on writing, a very nice book dealing with the same subject and how I see things for myself. I will be asking questions and I will be answering questions in the spirit of a discussion. So feel free to ask whatever you want or answer some of my own questions tomorrow.