Ruth Nestvold's Blog, page 40

Happy New Year! And Happy new #WIPpet Wednesday!

We had a wonderful New Year’s Eve. We had the granddaughters again, like we have the last couple of years, and at midnight, we went outside to enjoy the fireworks on our street corner and shoot a couple of our own:

Fireworks are such a wonderful way to bring in the New Year, a celebration of what is to come.

During the quiet days between Christmas and New Year, I’ve been concentrating on catching up on the Big Translation Project. So I fear I haven’t managed to get back to the latest installm...

Another creative outlet, and my quarterly accounting post

Yesterday, I dragged the sewing machine out for the first time in months (at least!) Not only do I have tons of mending to do, I wanted to do something creative other than writing for a change. So I made this medievaly fairy / elf outfit:

I realize Barbies are politically incorrect and lead to inferiority complexes, but they are also ubiquitous. I played with them as a girl, as did my daughter, and we both turned out to be fairly reasonable adults, with fairly healthy egos. And the dolls are...

Happy holidays to all!

I have come to the conclusion that Christmas is a full time job. Here’s what I’ve been up to in the last couple of days:

And that doesn’t include all the shopping for dinner, marinating the lamb, etc.

We put up the tree with family on Saturday, which involved getting it, decorating it, and eating cake (cherry cheesecake, which I made before the festivities). Then we had the girls overnight. But before their parents left for a blessed night alone, we discovered that Mira still fits in an Amazo...

Getting back to Amber: An excerpt for #WIPpet Wednesday

The holiday season continues to take its toll on my writing progress, that and the fact that I’ve been spending more time on the big translation project again, now that Nanowrimo is over. But today I had to go into town to do some more Christmas shopping, and yesterday I had grandma duties. (I am constantly amazed at the folks who can write while having small children around! I don’t seem to have the concentration necessary. My own writing ambitions went on hold when my kids were young.)

Anyw...

Reconsidering the Anglo-Saxon “Conquest” — and an update

Last week, I mentioned a couple of interesting books I’ve been reading in researching the era of The Pendragon Chronicles, and I had a request for more info. So I will try to provide a brief summary before I continue on to my writing update.

Both books treat the era of the so-called “Dark Ages” in Britain, dark because we have so few written records from the period. One of the few is “The Ruin and Conquest of Britain” by Gildas, a jeremiad written in Latin, which truly does paint a very bleak...

New cover for Facets of Glass

I have a new design from Littera Designs for the second book in the Glassmakers Trilogy, based on feedback I got here on my blog and elsewhere:

This is a for a series of YA novellas set in an alternate Baroque period with magic. Facets of Glass takes place in Prague and other settings in Bohemia (mostly equivalent with present-day Czech Republic).

Just for fun, here are some of the images I’ve started collecting on Pinterest:

http://www.pinterest.com/ruthnestvold/facets-of-glass/



So what do yo...

Research, lack of words, and another #WIPpet for Wednesday

Word creation has nearly come to a halt for me, for a couple of reasons. One is that Christmas is coming up, and I’ve been doing a lot of Christmas shopping. Another is that I’m kind of under the weather, and my brain doesn’t work as well when it’s fogged up. Finally, and possibly the most important, I’ve gone back to doing a lot of research for the third book of The Pendragon Chronicles. In addition to the book on the Anglo-Saxons I mentioned a couple of weeks back, I’m also reading two exce...

Finishing Nanowrimo and a WIPpet snippet

We had our traditional Stuttgart Thanksgiving on Saturday, Nov. 30 (Thursday is not a holiday here in Germany), and I was so burned out afterwards, I couldn’t bring myself to post on Sunday — that I actually managed to “win” Nanowrimo! I’m very glad, not necessarily regarding the winning part, but I think of those 50,000+ words there are definitely a few that will be usable. And I’m getting quite a kick out of the mystery experiment.

Completing 50,000 words for the month of November is my big...

Consulting the Surreal Oracle, and another excerpt for #WIPpet Wednesdays

When I wrote up my report on the last Villa Diodati workshop a while ago, there was something I forgot, and that was to explain a little game we played called The Surreal Oracle. Ben Rosenbaum introduced the game at a workshop in southern France a couple years back, and we’ve been playing it off and on at Villa Diodati ever since. The rules are fairly simple. Each person writes down five random questions and five random answers on a piece of paper, like this:

Then you go around the circle and...

The Parrots of Bad Cannstatt

A couple of days ago, this is what I saw when I looked out of the window of my study:

They make an insane racket, but every time I see them it makes me happy. They’ve become kind of a mascot for me, the way they’ve made a home for themselves in the cold, gray city. They don’t migrate — they can’t fly far enough. I find it amazing that they can survive a German winter.

A lot of locals can’t stand the Papageien and their loud screeching, but I even forgive them that. We’ve got good windows, and...