Jamie Ferguson's Blog, page 9

There’s no such thing as too many fondue pots

This year I celebrated my birthday with fondue! My personal chef went a bit overboard and made four pots – two with broth and two with oil, one each for seafood and for non-seafood. This was not only fun (and tasty!), it also made for an interesting experience as there were only four people at dinner…

I own a fifth fondue pot, but we didn’t use it this time – which was a very good thing, because there was no more room on the table.

The year of the pomander?

It’s a busy and festive time of year! I am always busy, of course…

Stars in the Darkness

Stars in the Darkness has launched!

I started working on this anthology last winter. I wanted to put together a collection of stories about why being just matters – here are the guidelines I gave the authors:

Stories should show why being just matters, and/or what the consequences are for individuals, groups, towns, countries, or humanity if justice is not expected, encouraged, or enforced legally.

Your story can be positive or negative, upbeat or dark – anything is fine as long as your story...

Cats!!!

My plan to finish the first draft of my feline hero story over the weekend did not come to fruition. I did accomplish a number of other things which were more time-critical, and confess I bumped doing laundry to the top of the list. I’m looking forward to getting back to this story soon, though! I love adding cats to my stories, which I’m sure is a sign that our household has been catless for far too long.

In celebration of cats and stories about cats, here’s a snippet from my story “Clyde a...

Home is where the dogs are

I had a fantastic time at the week-long writing workshop in Oregon, but I’m SO happy to be back home with Rosie and Jasper!

Hiking this morning did feel a bit strange at first after two weeks spent sitting

Sunshine on the Oregon coast!

I’m in Lincoln City, on the Oregon coast. And it’s actually sunny!

I realize the sun does shine up here, it’s just almost always rainy when I come to the coast. I’m here for WMG Publishing’s week-long Master Class. This is a business class, not a writing workshop, so it’s a full week of talks about marketing, branding, and other fun topics (or at least fun for me!). There are 60+ people in the class – I knew 20 or so people from previous workshops, and it’s been great to catch up with them a...

Goblins are sneaky

I’m very pleased with myself for managing to sneak goblins into a Christmas story…

Halloween is coming!

My short story “The Truth About Goblins” is out in a new bundle!

Celebrate Halloween with these spooky, creepy tales. On that darkest night of the year, when the veil between the ordinary world and the world of scares and imagination fades away, treat yourself to stories that thrill and chill you. Some tales are sweet as candy, some chill to the bone. Are the monsters real? Or just people in rubber masks?

If you’re up for a trick and a treat, curl up with these scary stories. Just remember t...

Hooray for fall!

I dutifully took my weekly peek at my deadlines yesterday, and became frightened…

I created a weekly calendar reminder when I almost missed a recent deadline, and set up lots of annoying notifications so I start getting reminded to look at my spreadsheet a full day in advance. This is working out very well, although it is increasing my stress level because I now have a constant reminder about all the things I’ve committed to doing for the next year and a half.

There once was a dragon…

A few weeks ago I woke up in the middle of the night and had a hard time going back to sleep. For some reason I started thinking about dragons, and entertained my sleepy-but-sleepless self with a story about a dragon. I’ve thought about this idea every time I’ve had trouble sleeping ever since, and yesterday realized this story is the perfect fit for the fairy tale bundle series I’m organizing!

The current plan is to put together three bundles in the fairy tale series. If there’s enough inter...