Ruth Nestvold's Blog, page 41

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...

Shadow of Stone now available in paperback

I got the paperback version of Shadow of Stone the other day, and did a hard copy check of the formatting. All looks good, so now I can announce it here! Here’s a photo:

There really is something quite wonderful about physical books. They’re a lot of work, and I don’t sell very many, but they’re a joy to hold in your hands. I really need to make more of my works available in hard copy. Maybe with practice, the formatting wouldn’t take me as long.

Changing horses in the middle of the stream – or, changing projects in the middle of Nano

So, I’m doing something which is probably very stupid, but I’m also hoping to learn more about myself as a writer in the process. I mentioned a couple of posts back that A Wasted Land has been coming along more slowly than I had hoped. Mostly this has to do with me needing to do more research and related brainstorming. I thought I had the plot pretty much mapped out, I had a synopsis and the first chapter with me at the last Villa Diodati workshop and I got some good feedback on it — but I al...

Excuses department: getting rid of tomatoes

I continue to be behind on just about everything, and this time the big excuse was the final harvest in the garden. On the weekend, we finally pulled out the tomato plants and brought whatever fruit was still on them home with us. And it was way more than I would have thought possible:

And this, mind you, in the middle of November in Germany! The temperatures have dropped quite a bit since, so it’s a good thing we pulled them when we did.

That means, however, that I have been spending more ti...

Back to Shadow of Stone again for #WIPpet Wednesday, and a Nano update – kinda

Yesterday and today, I had to take a break from Nano-ing in order to finish the final editing pass of Shadow of Stone. On my personal list of priorities, it’s more important to me that I make the paperback version of SoS available before Christmas than it is that I “win” Nano. So now I am going through the interior reviewer app provided by CreateSpace to make sure that the formatting really is as good as it looked in my DOC and PDF files. When I made the book of my dad’s memoirs this summer,...

“Dragon Time” live as Countdown Deal, and “Gawain and Ragnell” finally free!

I posted yesterday about the new KDP Select “Countdown Deals” and my decision to give it a whirl with my YA short story collection, Dragon Time. It took a while, but the sale is now live:

Also, I am very happy to announce that today Amazon finally price-matched Gawain and Ragnell, and it is now permafree. Download! Tell your friends! Send links to everyone who enjoys Arthurian fiction! *g*

I want to thank everyone who tattled on me and helped to make this novelette free. Cross your fingers fo...