Gail Daley's Blog, page 3
March 25, 2023
Want a free book?
Please consider reviewing The Arcadian Web. The genre is science fiction mixed with a cozy mystery and a little romance. I’ve included a copy of the cover. Here is the link to download the book: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/k30czrr2ah
Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123240684-the-arcadian-web
If you do a review, please notify me of where and when it will be posted.
Thank you for your consideration. I appreciate your time.
Gail Daley
A Little More World Building for Halcyon Colony
I though some of my readers might appreciate a little information which goes into developing a new colony for a new book. I may have some more information later about some of the other animals and plants…Please forgive the bad photoshopping. Remember this is simply for informaiton–I’m not attempting to paint a masterpiece here.
2023 03 25Up all night with another migraine. I wonder if its those new antibiotics they gave me for the bronchitis. I remember the Cipro did that to me. Well, I’ve finished them so hopefully it won’t reoccur. Still too droopy to write on Ambition though. My next chapter is on Napoleon’s relationship with Jason and his growing fascination with Scarlet. Going to shift the locale to Laughing Mountain because the next two chapters are where they discover Halcyon. Dagmar and the others are sent to explore it. Napoleon keeps Scarlet in Phoenix by saying her classes to teach the clones to blend into Normal society are too important to interrupt. The exploratory crew discover the Porcina herds and Dagmar, Hogun, Yael and Killian discuss adapting native animals for transportation and riding.
PORCINA Herd animals domesticated for transportation and for uses horses and donkeys were used for on earth. There are three main varieties: All have large heads and short necks, with relatively small eyes and prominent ears. Their heads have a distinctive snout, ending in a disc-shaped nose. Porcina typically have a bristly coat, and a short tail ending in a tassel. Legs are long to allow for fast running. The body is typically thick and round. A Porcina Equine can run about 30 miles an hour for short stretches.
Porcina have a well-developed sense of hearing, and are vocal animals, communicating with a series of grunts, squeals, and similar sounds. They also have an acute sense of smell. Porcina are omnivorous, eating grass, leaves, roots, insects, worms, and even frogs or mice.
The canine teeth are enlarged to form tusks, used for rooting in moist earth or undergrowth, and in fighting.
Porcina are intelligent and adaptable animals. Adult females (sows) and their young travel in a group while adult males (boars) are either solitary, or travel in small bachelor groups. Males generally are not territorial and come into conflict only during the mating season.
Litter size varies between one and four, depending on the variety. The mother prepares a grass nest or similar den, which the young leave after about ten days. Porcina are weaned at around three months and become sexually mature at 18 months. In practice, however, male Porcina are unlikely to gain access to sows in the wild until they have reached their full physical size, at around four years of age. In all varieties, the male is significantly larger than the female, and possesses more prominent tusks.
PORCINA MAXIMUS – About the size of a Clydesdale. They are Used primarily as a draft animal for plowing and pulling large loads.
PORCINA EQUINE are about the size of a quarter horse. They are used Primarily as a riding or carriage animal.
PORCINA PALAWANare about the size of a large pony and used to pull small carts or wagons, and sometimes as a mount for children.
March 16, 2023
Babylon Shattered
Blackmail Sparks Murder on a planet of Psychics in this cozy Science-fiction Mystery
A Cozy Science-Fiction Mystery
When Clemintine LaSalle steals her mother’s Indenture contract papers from the blackmailer’s safe, she accidentally gets his blackmail list too, and someone wants that list badly enough to frame her for murder…
Shangri-la was designed to be the next utopia. But it’s flawed and someone is attempting to destroy it. A war is building between the Reformers who want to correct their flawed government and the Conservatives who want things to stay the same. Neither faction wants their schemes or their identities exposed. Unfortunately, a blackmailer knows the who the players are on both sides of the conflict. They have been paying him to keep their identities secret, but now he’s dead and his blackmail information has gone missing…
March 4, 2023
WORK JOURNAL – Jan/Feb
2023/03/04
UPDATE: I’ve revised the release dates and sequence of my Outlawed Colonies series. Since I’m still struggling with Cloned Ambition, I’ve decided to release The Arcadian Web as book no 5, (Its already finished), and Cloned Ambition is now book 6. New Schedule is below:
UPDATED RELEASE DATES FOR THE OUTLAWED COLONIES SERIES:
BOOK TITLE SERIES NO RELEASE DATE
Babylon Shattered 4 2/1/2023
Arcadian Web – Arcadia II 5 4/30/2023
Cloned Ambition 6 6/30/2023
City of Deception – Barsoom II 7 9/30/2023
Daughter of Shadows Shangri-La II 8 11/30/2023
Riddle of the Halivaara Wheel Lemuria II
9 1/31/2024
Dawn of the Clones Halcyon II 10 3/31/2024
2023/03/01
I lost my phone in my new purse today. Brand new purse with these lovely 3 deep pockets in front so naturally I chose one of them for carrying my phone. It’s about 12”. Well, when I tried to take the phone out to charge it, it wasn’t there, so I asked my son to call it. I could hear it ringing and it was coming from my purse! So, we unloaded the purse, and I could see the shape, but couldn’t reach it. It turns out that lovely pocket has a hole in the bottom! The phone had slipped out the hole and was between the lining and the outer skin of the purse! You can be sure I checked the other pockets for holes!
2023/02/27
Antheraea Polyphemus… basically a tarantula with wings. Big surprise: this insect can be found everywhere in the continental United States except Arizona and Nevada, and in every Canadian province except Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island. Unlike my Marabunta who are carnivorous, these insects are herbivores,
This goes to show that there is never anything new under the sun! I made up the Marabunta, and, lo and behold, there actually is an insect which looks like it! Much smaller of course. All it needs is a stinger and it could be one of the Marabunta in my latest Outlawed Colonies book The Arcadian Web. Of course, it would need to be a lot larger: about 18” tall and about 24” long…
Release date for the Arcadian Web is set for 4/30/23.
2023/02/22
I got another chapter done on Ambition today. It’s the one where Scarlet and the others arrive at Phoenix. Doing more development on how the clone society actually works, as well as more character building on Yael and Napoleon…
2023/02/20
I need to get started on the dishes, but I’m being lazy this morning. My new glass teapot arrived yesterday—I can just put it in the microwave, which will save getting two things dirty whenever I want a pot of tea in the evenings. It also came with 4 thimble sized cups. They’re cute but they don’t hold enough for more than a swallow or two of tea. Not sure what I’m going to do with them—like the pot they are glass so easily broken. Guess I’ll either give them away or find a place to store them. Vernon and I are attempting to declutter the house, so saving then really isn’t a good option…
I tried to do a little more work on Ambition yesterday, all I succeeded in doing was rearranging some of the chapters through once I realized I needed more development in some places. This book is going to end with the clones arriving on Halcyon and starting to colonize it. I think. For the story to move the way I envision, I’ll need to do something drastic to Napoleon so Yael can take over, which means more character development on him…
2023/02/19
Today was a less than productive morning: thanks to my lovely Apple desktop, I lost a bunch of work. My computer ate my excel spreadsheet I use to keep track of the promotions I do for my books, so I spent the morning partly restoring my list of links to them and to each individual book. The links for the entire Outlawed Colony series was gone. I retrieved the major ones from D2D, but I still need the others from BookBub, Book Funnel, Goodreads, and a slew of others. I’m considering adding a copy of the links to my book info sheets. At least that way I’ll have an extra copy of them. Thanks for listening to me rant. It does feel good to have a place to vent without someone thinking they need to “fix” things! 
2023/02/09
I haven’t done any writing today. One of my favorite authors (Amanda M Lee) released two new books in two of her series this week, so Instead of writing I’ve been binge reading them. E. M. Foner also had a new book out. Occasionally, it doesn’t hurt to relax and not work. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy writing my new books, but sometimes I do run out of plot and need to recharge my creativity battery.
2023/02/05
Finished another chapter on Ambition today. I’m about to start the chapter on the fight at Uncle Bobs house. The more I look at it the more I think I might be splitting the book up. I’m also considering killing Napoleon off so I can slot Yael in as the leader of the clones on earth…somehow this always happens. I write a killer outline and about halfway through the book it starts running away with the story.
2023/01/28
Well, I got the chapter about Scarlet’s time at the Clone Farm done. I had to pull out that chapter of Clone Initiative to refer to it since I didn’t want to make any mistakes in it. I suppose I could have copied and pasted it and just added in the new POV, but I didn’t want to do that as I think it would have been cheating. I think I did okay with it. The next chapters involve settling in at the Phoenix Spa, and helping Tally, Liam and company foil Hatchers attempt to recover the infant and toddler clones. I also need to add in Scarlet’s trip through the portal to speak to Dagmar about Napoleon’s attentions.
I got the proof copy of Arcadian Web yesterday. It’s way too rough to let it stand. Fortunately, I have a couple of months for expansion and rewriting before its release date in July.
2023 01/24
The internet is incredibly slow this morning. I have things I need to do, but I left the office before I got frustrated enough to take a blunt instrument to my desktop. This is probably because Apple just did another software upgrade. I wish they would quit trying to fix stuff that isn’t broken!
I’ve been working on Ambition in bits and pieces. I need to write the chapter where Dagmar and the others (and readers) are introduced to the Clone Familia Doctrine. I just had them meet a wounded Abraham (the clone who wrote it). He had been approaching the PGA clone farms and making contact through the fences with clones trapped inside to tell them about the doctrine. He was wounded because some of Napoleon’s raiders mistook him for a normal and shot him.
I also need to write the chapters covering Scarlet’s escape and the abortive raid on Liam’s house. I think it would also be a good time to cover how the Phoenix cult works from the inside.
February 20, 2023
Babylon Shattered is now out!
Babylon Shattered Colony of Shangri-La I
Book 4 of the Outlaw Colonies
Blackmail Sparks Murder on a planet of Psychics in this cozy Science-fiction Mystery
A Cozy Science-Fiction Mystery
When Clemintine LaSalle steals her mother’s Indenture contract papers from the blackmailer’s safe, she accidentally gets his blackmail list too, and someone wants that list badly enough to frame her for murder…
Shangri-la was designed to be the next utopia. But it’s flawed and someone is attempting to destroy it. A war is building between the Reformers who want to correct their flawed government and the Conservatives who want things to stay the same. Neither faction wants their schemes or their identities exposed. Unfortunately, a blackmailer knows the who the players are on both sides of the conflict. They have been paying him to keep their identities secret, but now he’s dead and his blackmail information has gone missing…
#Sciencfiction #blackmail #murder #womensleuths #psychic #alienplanet #stargate #dystopian #utopia #dystopia #romance #danger
January 22, 2023
Work Blog January 3-30
2023/01/21
I recently posted a question in one of my Facebook groups about artificial intelligence created book covers, and I was astonished at the amount of vitriol it generated. You would think I had advocated selling their first born into slavery! The admin locked the post and I don’t blame them!
Mostly I was curious what all the fuss was about. I received a bunch of replies about how AI creations steal artists work, etc. none of which applies to me as I make my own covers for my own books and always pay royalties when I use parts of photos from reputable sites like Shutterstock, pixaby, and BookBrush.
I wrote more on Cloned Ambition today. I got a couple of chapters done. Hopefully, I’ll get more done tomorrow.
2032/01/14
It’s a rainy Saturday morning. I remember those from when I was a child. It meant Daddy stayed home instead of going out to work, Momma didn’t do any housekeeping chores because she didn’t want to make him feel as he was in her way, and after cartoons went off I went to my room and read since I didn’t want to watch whatever football game was showing…
Today I tried to work some on Cloned Ambition. I say tried because since it was raining, my son decided to organize the medicine cupboard and get rid of outdated stuff and put extras in the office shelves so we could actually find the current meds. Don’t get me wrong, it’s needed done for months, but he wanted my input so he interrupted me like every 5 minutes or so to make a decision on what to throw out. It’s this kind of stuff that makes writers lock their doors when the creative muse strikes! I could have done that, but then either Andrew or Vernon would have been pounding on it to see if I was okay…and then pouted because I locked them out.
I’m three chapters (And a lot of bits and pieces) in and I realize this is going to be a longer book than some of the others. But I’m regaining my enthusiasm for it, now that I’ve gotten The Arcadian Web down in rough. I’ll be able to let that one cook a while and work on Ambition without it intruding.
2023/01/12
Such a lovely surprise: when I tried to open one of my books, I was told Word couldn’t be opened. I’m doing a hard reboot, so we’ll see if that restores the app to functioning.
I’m in here on Facebook so I won’t take a blunt instrument to my desktop.
I considered just opening the damn thing in Pages or Google Docs (which I might have to do), but neither of them have such excellent editing capabilities—when the bloody program works that is!
01/09/2023
I just got one of those basawakward compliments from my son (at least I’m hoping it was a compliment and not a subtle insult). I think I’m safe tho’ as he doesn’t do subtle. He said I was the kind who would go along on the quest to rescue the princess and then slap her for being an idiot.
I realized when he said it that I probably write my heroines like that too.
I just had a horrifying thought: They say that girls marry a man like their daddy and men a woman like their mother…
01/08/2023
It’s too late in the afternoon for coffee so I made a cup of oolong tea. I couldn’t concentrate on my WIP (either one of them) so worked on the free reader magnet I’m doing: a workup of Confederation Planets and people in my Space Colony Journals Universe. I still need a cover for it. It’s short only about 50 pages. I’d like to get the maps redone by someone who is really good at making them. I did them using graphic tools from Word because I can’t seem to get the mapmaker software to work the way I want it to…
Eventually I plan to create one for Rulari and for St. Antoni and the Outlawed colonies too.
01/03/2023
I’ve been having a lot of trouble lately with the Microsoft programs for MAC. I am considering switching to Google Docs. I’ve never used it so I expect there will be a learning curve, but I’m tired of excel either going bad or refusing to save my changes. I haven’t yet had too many issues like that with Word, but I’d like to have a backup on tap. Google docs also has a newsletter template (it would be nice to use a regular publisher program again for the local art events newsletter I publish. It can be done in either word or pages, but neither of them is really designed for desktop publishing. We’ll see.
I also saw an e-book template. I might try it too…
January 2, 2023
Welcome to 2023
WELCOME TO 2023!
Well, here we are again. I hope 2022 was productive and safe for everyone. I had a few challenges: My husband had to undergo open-heart surgery (he had a triple by-pass). I had to learn to cook without salt (his new diet). Our two Ford trucks bit the dust and we had to buy a new one for the pool service. My computer kept eating my tax documents…
However, I was blessed also: Vernon survived the surgery and he is now doing well. (sadly, one of our pool service customers who was also a member of my local art guild, did not). Vernon is now keeping track of his own medicine, and in consequence doing a much better job of it. He is also learning to cook (although he is frustrated because he expected to immediately become a good cook). I finished the first three books of my new series, and they are now out and selling well, although I wish sales were higher.
My goals in 2023 are to learn how to record my books into audible format without it costing me an arm and a leg, to learn how to make video trailers that includes both voice overs and music for my books, create dust jackets for hardback books, and make each of my books into a hardback.
I’m looking forward to completing the Outlawed Colony Series and publishing the last three volumes of it. I am planning to do at least one more book each on the new five colonies. Web of Arcadia is coming along excellently. Book 7 will be on Barsoom (City of Deception). I don’t yet plots for the other colony books (Lemuria, Shangri-La and Halcyon), but I expect those will come to me.
NEW SERIES RELEASE DATES:
BOOK TITLE SERIES NAME SERIES NO RELEASE DATE
Babylon Shattered Outlawed 4 2/1/2023
Cloned Ambition Outlawed 5 6/30/2023
Arcadian Web – Arcadia II Outlawed 6 7/31/2023
City of Deception – Barsoom II Outlawed 7 9/30/2023
Daughter of Shadows Shangri-La II Outlawed 8 11/30/2023
Halivaara Wheel Lemuria II Outlawed 9 1/31/2024
Dawn of the Clones Halcyon II Outlawed 10 3/31/2024
WELCOME TO 2023!Well, here we are again. I hope 2022 was ...
WELCOME TO 2023!
Well, here we are again. I hope 2022 was productive and safe for everyone. I had a few challenges: My husband had to undergo open-heart surgery (he had a triple by-pass). I had to learn to cook without salt (his new diet). Our two Ford trucks bit the dust and we had to buy a new one for the pool service. My computer kept eating my tax documents…
However, I was blessed also: Vernon survived the surgery and he is now doing well. (sadly, one of our pool service customers who was also a member of my local art guild, did not). Vernon is now keeping track of his own medicine, and in consequence doing a much better job of it. He is also learning to cook (although he is frustrated because he expected to immediately become a good cook). I finished the first three books of my new series, and they are now out and selling well, although I wish sales were higher.
My goals in 2023 are to learn how to record my books into audible format without it costing me an arm and a leg, to learn how to make video trailers that includes both voice overs and music for my books, create dust jackets for hardback books, and make each of my books into a hardback.
I’m looking forward to completing the Outlawed Colony Series and publishing the last three volumes of it. I am planning to do at least one more book each on the new five colonies. Web of Arcadia is coming along excellently. Book 7 will be on Barsoom (City of Deception). I don’t yet plots for the other colony books (Lemuria, Shangri-La and Halcyon), but I expect those will come to me.
NEW SERIES RELEASE DATES:
BOOK TITLE SERIES NAME SERIES NO RELEASE DATE
Babylon Shattered Outlawed 4 2/1/2023
Cloned Ambition Outlawed 5 6/30/2023
Arcadian Web – Arcadia II Outlawed 6 7/31/2023
City of Deception – Barsoom II Outlawed 7 9/30/2023
Daughter of Shadows Shangri-La II Outlawed 8 11/30/2023
Halivaara Wheel Lemuria II Outlawed 9 1/31/2024
Dawn of the Clones Halcyon II Outlawed 10 3/31/2024
December 7, 2022
Outlawed Colonies Series is Here!
Created in defiance of Earth-Gov and the Industrial Giants who control access to the off-world colony Portals, 5 rebel Colonies exist. They survive under the very noses of those who would destroy them…
#Militarysciencefiction #intrigue #danger #stargate #sciencefiction #portal #rebellion #colonyinspace
September 14, 2020
Sorry to say goodbye
I’m sorry to say this, but the recent changes to the way blogs are created on WordPress has decided me to switch my main blog over to Tumblr https://gaildaleysalienworldmances.tumblr.com. If you have been enjoying my posts, please click on the link and follow me on Tumblr.
Gail Daley
