Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 29

Argh Author: Deb Blake’s Everyday Witch’s Familiars Oracle (Everyday Witch Tarot)

Our own Deb Blake invites you to meet your magical menagerie in her brand new tarot deck. Whether they’re delivering wisdom from the gods or lending a paw, wing, or hoof to magical activities, familiars bring you inspiration and joy. Through this oracle, you can connect with them like never before.

Bestselling author Deborah Blake and award-winning illustrator Elisabeth Alba present forty familiars―domestic, wild, and fantastic―that each have unique and empowering messages for you. These amazing creatures, grouped by the five elements, carry powerful guidance for your divination practice and daily life. Shuffle the cards, draw your companion, and enjoy all the gifts these animals have to offer.

Buy Links
Amazon Print
Barnes & Noble
Llewellyn

Author Links:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/deborahblake
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/deborah-blake”
Newsletter: http://dld.bz/dWEQs
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/deborahblake

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deborah.blake
Blog: http://deborahblake.blogspot.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deborahblakeauthor/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/246753.Deborah_Blake

Bio
Deborah Blake is the author of the Baba Yaga Series from Berkley (Wickedly Dangerous, Wickedly Wonderful, Wickedly Powerful), as well as the Broken Rider Series, the Veiled Magic series and the cozy mystery Catskills Pet Rescue series. She has written over a dozen books on modern witchcraft with Llewellyn Worldwide, along with a tarot and an oracle deck. When not writing, Deborah also works as a tarot reader, and energy healer. She lives in a 130-year-old farmhouse in rural upstate New York with various cats who supervise all her activities, both magical and mundane.
Website: http://deborahblakeauthor.com/

This is a Good Book Thursday, May 30, 2024

This week I found that unicorn, a brand new book series that was wonderful, thanks to Gary+Hayenga: the Emma Jameson Dr. Bones mysteries. Also thanks to Gary, I spend two days reading all four books, they were that good. Thank you, Gary.

What did you read this week?

Working Wednesday, May 29, 2024

So it’s 4:30 AM and I am trying to figure out details as I rewrite the second act of Very Nice Funerals. Bob is asleep because I’m talking about acts and he doesn’t do acts. And also because it’s 4AM and he keeps these weird hours like getting up at dawn. And also because he’s in TN and I can’t wake him up to get answers. There’s a reason we haven’t been in the same place in fifteen years. So I’m stuck sending him stuff like the below. Plotting. I am not good at it. Especially at 4AM. But by damn, I am working.

What did you work on this week?

Crusie’s Guide to Art 9

“The Nightmare” by Henry Fuseli.
“Ever since it was first exhibited to the public in 1782, this picture has been an icon of horror. Showing a woman supine in her boudoir, oppressed by a foul imp while a ferocious-looking horse glares on, the painting draws on folklore and popular culture, medicine, concepts of imagination, and classical art to create a new kind of highly charged horror image.” From the Tate website.
All this needs as an update is a bear in the background with the title “Wrong Choice.”

Happiness is a Little Sun

I’m calling it: It’s summer in PA. I’m sitting on my ridiculously small patio with an umbrella shielding the laptop and most of me, and it’s perfect weather–84 with a breeze–and I’m thinking that parts of the rest of the world are on fire–CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL, PEOPLE–so I should temper my enjoyment of weather this warm in May, but right now, in this moment, I am warmed by the sun and happy.

What made you happy this week?

Wear the Lilac and Don’t Forget Your Towel

Today is Wear the Lilac Day in honor of Terry Pratchett, with a reminder to carry your towel in memory of Douglas Adams, two writers we lost too soon but who will be with us forever through the marvels of their books. So find go find a lilac towel and for god’s sake, don’t panic.

Placeholders, the Use Of

I’ve always used pictures of placeholders in my work, just to keep my vision of a character clear until they came alive on the page. Once a character takes off, the placeholder falls away, but until then, the pictures act as touchstones. This becomes doubly important when collaborating. You really need to be on the same page or photo for that. So here are some of the placeholders that Bob and I have used.

Liz and Vince from Lavender’s Blue
I’d always seen Liz as Mary from In Plain Sight, but I’d cycled through several Vinces, never quite able to get it right, until Bob rewrote him and then it was clear to me that he was Tom Hardy from the Mad Max movie. Only, you know, he showered a lot more often.

Liz and Lavender
I wanted two women who were superficially alike (especially from the back) but totally different.

Anemone and George
Bob and I had totally different ideas for Anemone–he wanted Dolly Parton and I wanted Sue Ann Niven (only warm and loving), but since the placeholders fall away as the character becomes real, it didn’t matter. We both agreed on George.

And then when we got to the next series, we needed people who were different. Very hard not to write the same characters when you’re writing first person, so we picked very different faces for the placeholders, which have now fallen away since we’re finishing the second book. I still like how they’re very different and yet still have that Crusie/Mayer vibe.

Rose and Max from Rocky Start

So the plan for placeholders is to find pictures that somehow fit the sense of the character, not so much a lookalike, although that’s very helpful if you’re collaborating, but something that gives the personality, which is why you can use pictures of different people for one character as long as they sum up the character when taken together. Even if you don’t use collage, having pictures as a touchstone as you write is a huge help.

This is a Good Book Thursday, May 23, 2024

I’ve been reading about toasted cheese. Hey, I had a Very Bad Day Wednesday and that was soothing. “Everybody knows how to make toasted cheese, here are some variations to try.” No, I will not be putting avocado on mine, but I am open to Sriacha. Anyway, it was a comfort and educational and it took me out of my VBD, so I’m fine now. So that’s a Good Book even if it isn’t a book.

What did you read this week?

Working Wednesday, May 22, 2024

I made a map.

Hey, listen, if you knew the hell I went through to get that map for the Rocky Start series, you’d applaud. Bob and I thought we were writing about the same town, but it turns out . . . nope. But now we have the start of a map–some space still to fill in–and it only took THREE FREAKING DAYS.

Amazing how helpful it is, though. Bob just said,”We should probably do this before we write the books.” YA THINK?

Map in Progress:

I know it doesn’t look like three days, but we had some stuff to work out. (There’s a CREEK???)

What did you work on this week?

Crusie’s Guide to Art 7

Detail of Judith Beheading Holofernes, 1599 by Caravaggio. If you want to do a deeper dive on this subject, check out Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith. I liked this one for humor because Judith just looks annoyed, but Gentileschi’s Judith got help and went to work and she is furious. It’s wonderful, particularly if you know that painter’s background. Possibly the first Me Too painting.

Kathleen Gerberick over on Facebook had a cogent comment: “I read somewhere that women who have put on a few extra pounds live longer than the men who point it out.”