Ruth Nestvold's Blog, page 38

20 Things You Didn’t Know About Dr. Seuss

Ruth Nestvold:

I absolutely love Dr. Seuss. I read the books to my kids, and now I’m reading them to my grandkids. Green Eggs and Ham was the first book Lisa ever read out loud from cover to cover in English. But I did not know that we have Theodor Geisel to thank for the word “nerd” — did you?

Originally posted on Flavorwire:

A wizard of the written word, today marks the 110th birthday of Theodor Geisel — better known as the dear Dr. Seuss. The beloved children’s author and illustrator create...

Crossing things off the to-do list – and #WIPpet Wednesday

I was over on Goodreads the other day (something I don’t actually do very often, since the ratings system there tends to depress me), and I noticed that I had a personal message. It was a note from a reader, asking if there were any plans for Shadow of Stone to be published on any other platforms like Kobo? So I had to confess that I’d been intending to for some time, but just never got around to it.

I have to admit, one of the reasons I haven’t been publishing my books like a fiend on all pl...

Yseult available used for only $999.11!

That’s right, you understood correctly: you can currently get my novel Yseult on Amazon used for under $1000!!! Since who knows how long this incredible deal will be available, I took a screen shot:

I have no idea how this amazing inflation happened, but I’m assuming it has to do with someone’s price bots going stir crazy. At least it gave me quite a laugh last night. And as of today, the price is still there. So go ahead, see for yourself if you don’t believe me.*

Given those kinds of prices,...

Travel theme: Ancient – Ireland

Fellow WIPpeteer Xina posted about a challenge the other day regarding ancient ruins. Since I love to travel, and one of the main things I like to do when traveling is visit old rocks (as I like to call them), I have a lot of travel photos of things ancient. I decided to share some pictures from a research trip to Ireland for my novel Yseult almost a decade ago.

First off, a picture from the ancient Celtic site, the Hill of Tara:

A couple of shots from the prehistoric burial grounds at Newgra...

Historical costumes and some editing

Once again, no new words for me since the last post. Today was another granddaughter birthday, and since the girls really like (or at least they claim to like) the custom-made Barbie dresses from their Grandma, I got out the sewing machine again and put together a few more creations:

The Barbie on the left is wearing a Galadriel dress I found on the Internet. I even removed some of the Barbie’s atrocious eye makeup with fingernail polish remover. But I just don’t have the time to go whole hog...

Another excerpt from Jay Lake collab “Recontact” for #WIPpet Wednesday

This round of words, I’d been intending to get some new words written every day, but it hasn’t happened, or at least only rarely. Instead, I’ve been spending most of my time editing: first, Chameleon in a Mirror; then “An Airship for Elise”; and now, the novella with Jay Lake, Recontact. But for the time being, I am happy to say that Recontact is finished. I’ve sent copies off to Jay and my daughter, who will be helping me make the cover.

I also continue to make consistent progress on the tra...

Progress on various fronts and an excerpt from Recontact (with Jay Lake) for #WIPpet Wednesday

Since last week, most of my progress has been on the translation. I have no new words to report, but I did get “An Airship for Elise” finished in time to submit to “Women Destroy Science Fiction” and I’m very happy about that. I also had the girls a couple of times in the last few days, and that eats into writing time a lot. But it’s too fun to miss. Lately, Mira has been getting into learning how to write letters. Here’s a work we produced together yesterday:

I wrote the “Oma” on the top lin...

“An Airship for Elise” for #WIPpet Wednesday

Since publishing Chameleon in a Mirror on the weekend, I have temporarily turned to a completely different project, a steampunk short story entitled “An Airship for Elise.” The reason for that is simple: I want to submit something to the Lightspeed Special Issue, “Women Destroy Science Fiction!” I actually wrote the story a couple of years ago and put it through the Villa Diodati workshop, where I got some great feedback and suggestions. But I’ve been concentrating so much on novels these day...

Chameleon in a Mirror now available for Kindle!

My big update of the week is that I finally managed to get another book published! I uploaded Chameleon in a Mirror to KDP yesterday, and today it is live!

I want to thank all my beta readers and critique partners over the years for all their help. Feedback is so essential! I may not always take the advice I get, but I do address problems — I might resolve them in a different way than is suggested in the critiques, though.

I also have a question for you all. The only “time travel” category o...

Depressing discoverability issues, an update, and #WIPpet Wednesday

The other day, I read a great post by Chuck Wendig about book discovery, and how much more difficult is getting to find “channels of discovery” as an indie author. As long as you don’t mind profanity, I highly recommend it for anyone who is considering going indie or has already self-published. He provides a lot of numbers, a lot of uncomfortable opinions, some suggestions for what to do to get out of the deluge, and a nice graphic I’m going to link to, illustrating how tough we all really ha...