Trudy Myers's Blog, page 20
July 27, 2021
Hank's Widow
July 24, 2021
Boxed Set
If you win a paperback copy of Hank's Widow from our giveaway, it will come with instructions for getting a free copy of The Game from Smashwords.com. Smashwords has a number of different e-book formats, including some that can be read on your computer.
Our giveaway is going strong now, so don't forget to sign up for a chance to win a copy!
July 20, 2021
Hank's Widow
It is now possible to sign up for our give-away, where we will be giving away 10 autographed paper copies. That opened up today as well, and in glancing at the stats for it, we already have over 300 people having signed up! Thank you all for your support.
Hubby and I went out to lunch to celebrate this milestone, it having been some time since one of my books has been published. We went to one of our favorite restaurants, and as usual, the food was copious and delicious! Since we are both dieting, it's a good thing we don't celebrate in this manner too often!
But a writer's work is never done, as evidenced by the number of irons I currently have in the fire. I am formatting Hank's Widow and its prequel into a Boxed Set, which should be available in a few days. Plus editing/rewriting my next romance, plus editing my husband's next book, plus... Well, if I try to list all the irons, I'll get too tired to work on any of those projects!
Remember, if you get a copy of Hank's Widow, and decide you want to read the prequel, The Game, just contact me at MoonPhazePub@hotmail.com, and I'll tell you how to get a free copy of The Game.
July 18, 2021
Hank's Widow update
My beta readers for Hank's Widow wanted to know what happened to the 4 Cousins at some point in the past that shattered their brother-like relationship. So I wrote a short story about what happened, with the intention of 'bundling' the romance novel and the short story together. I've never done that before, and I am busy trying to get them set up as a Boxed Set, but it will take me a couple days yet to get that done. But rest assurred that if something happens, and you get a copy of Hank's Widow, but don't get a copy of The Game, you can contact me at MoonPhazePub@hotmail.com. I will be happy to send you instruction for getting a free copy of The Game so you can understand the 4 Cousins a little better.
July 12, 2021
Hank's Widow
May 15
Prologue
The sky was overcast, the air saturated with mist, as if the entire universe found this day as sad and miserable as the hu-mans who lived through it.
In a tiny town in Nebraska, a glistening red car pulled off the graveled street and into the driveway of a small house that had seen better days, stopped close behind the ancient sedan parked in front of the garage.
The lawn was overgrown, but the driver of the sports car ig-nored the drops the grass deposited on his black suit legs and polished shoes. He opened the front door and climbed the 3 steps to the enclosed front porch, then walked into the house’s front door, into the living room. He walked forward, faced the sofa, and considered the picture frames on that wall. Each frame held a number of photos of people; some trimmed down to show only one person. He was well familiar with these frames and their contents, although some of the faces he didn’t know personally.
The final frame held his attention. Large and crowded, it held all the grandchildren. Most of them had spouses, too. Gram had been toying with the idea of getting a larger frame for the grandchildren, and to use this frame to start a collection of great-grandchildren. But she hadn’t gotten around to it.
His gaze landed on the last 4 grandchild entries, and his eyes stung. Way back when those pictures had been of babies, they had looked like quadruplets, although they weren’t. As they grew, they had each slowly developed their own look, until they looked like brothers, and not the cousins that they actually were. The 2 in the middle of those 4 were still high school graduation photos. The outside 2 were wedding pictures; one of Lyle and his extremely pregnant bride; Lyle looking bored and Gloria looking… scared.
But the picture he stared at was the other wedding photo, a snapshot of a blissfully happy couple on the steps of a large courthouse.
“Forgive me, Gram,” he muttered, then removed that frame from the wall, pulled the happy couple from the collection. In another moment, the frame was back in place and he slipped the photo into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
Just in time.
He turned as the outside door opened and another black-suited man stepped onto the porch, paused to wipe his shoes on the welcome mat. The 2 men could have easily been mistaken for brothers. The first man stepped forward and opened the door to the porch. “What are you doing here?”
The other man held up 2 bottles of beer. “Thought we could both use one of these.”
A brilliant flash of light and deafening thunder left them momentarily dazed. Then the sky opened and rain fell in sheets. In Nebraska, a hard rain might last a few minutes or several days. They unbuttoned their suit jackets and moved forward to sit at the dining room table, unscrewed the caps from their beers.
“Got any plans for this place?” asked the recent arrival.
The first man took a pull from his drink and watched the rain through the windows. “I only half own it. So, no, not with-out talking with Hank. Keep it from falling down, I guess.”
“Well, here’s what I think.”
“You’ve started thinking?” the first man teased. “That will sure surprise your old teachers.”
The other man grinned in acknowledgement of the teasing, then let it fade. “I was thinking you should at least lock it up tight. Otherwise, Lyle’s likely to move in. And even if he didn’t, he’d probably sell everything off, piece by piece.”
“He doesn’t own it.”
“Would that stop him?”
The first one sighed. “No. Probably not.” He stood up. “Well, turn off the utilities… I can call the companies tomorrow and get them officially turned off, but I can turn things off here today. You want to check the doors and windows? And I’ll lock the front door as we go out. Once the rain settles down.”
“Sure. I’ll start with the garage and work my way back here.”
They both entered the kitchen, turned right through the washroom, out to the enclosed breezeway between the house and garage. The first man halted at the hot water heater, while the second headed to the other end of the breezeway.
The first man cleared his throat. “Bob, Lyle’s got his family at the old Jessup place.”
Bob stopped halfway down the breezeway, but didn’t turn. “I know.”
“I could ask Hank about letting them live here.”
Bob sighed. “I won’t ask you to. He has to grow up. I can’t condone bailing him out any more, Chuck.”
“You sure?”
Bob continued up the breezeway to the garage door.
July 10, 2021
Triassic Period Part 2
Now let's take a look at the inhabitants of the Triassic Period.
Three categories of organisms can be distinguished in the Triassic record: survivors from the Permian–Triassic extinction event, new groups which flourished briefly, and other new groups which went on to dominate the MesozoicEra.
To go back to the beginning, after the extinction event just before the Triassic Period began, the Earth's biosphere was impoverished. It was well into the middle of the Triassic before life recovered its former diversity. Therapsids (including what would become mammals) and archosaurs (including crocodilian reptiles) were the chief terrestrial vertebrates of this period. A specialized subgroup of archosaurs, called dinosaurs, first appeared late in the Triassic, but did not become dominant until the succeeding Jurassic Period.
The first true mammals also evolved during this period, as well as the first flying vertebrates, the pterosaurs, who were a specialized subgroup of archosaurs.
In marine environments, new types of corals appeared in the Early Triassic, forming small patches of reefs of modest extent compared to the great reef systems of modern times. The shelled ammonites (whose shell resembled that of the modern nautilus, but is not an ancestor) recovered, diversifying from a single line that survived the Permian-Triassic extinction.
The fish fauna was remarkably uniform, with many families and genera exhibiting a global distribution in the wake of the mass extinction event. There were also many types of marine reptiles. The first of the lizard-like animals appeared in the Early Triassic seas and soon diversified, and some developed to huge size during the Late Triassic.
On land, the surviving plants included ginkos, ferns, and horsetails, among others. Seed plants came to dominate the terrestrial flora. In the northern hemisphere, conifers and ferns flourished. A seed fern genus would dominate Gondwana throughout the period.
Many groups of terrestrial fauna appeared in the Triassic period or achieved a new level of evolutionary success during it. They include lungfish, Temnospondyls (early amphibians that had mostly been replaced by reptiles, they made a come-back in this period), Rhynchosaurs (the primary large herbivores in many Triassic ecosystems), Phytosaurs (looked like crocodiles, but unrelated), Aetosaurs (heavily armored and mostly herbivorous), Rauisuchians (the keystone predators of most Triassic terrestrial ecosystems), Theropods (dinosaurs but not the large kind that would come later; most were 1-2 meters long), and Cynodonts (a large group that includes true mammals, complete with hair and a large brain).
Some amphibians were among those groups that survived the Permian-Triassic extinction event. The first ancestors of frogs are known from the Early Triassic, but did not become common until the Jurassic (which comes next).
Among reptiles, the earliest turtles appeared during the Late Triassic Period.
During the Triassic, archosaurs displaced therapsids as the dominant amniotes. This may have contributed to the evolution of mammals by forcing the surviving therapsids and their mammalia-form successors to live as small, mainly nocturnal insectivores. Nocturnal life may have forced the mammaliaforms to develop fur and a higher metabolic rate.
Though the end-Triassic extinction event was not equally devastating in all terrestrial ecosystems, several important clades of large reptiles disappeared, as did most of the amphibians, groups of small reptiles, and others (except for the proto-mammals). Some of the early, primitive dinosaurs also became extinct, but more adaptive ones survived into the Jurassic. Surviving plants that went on to dominate the Mesozoic Era included modern conifers.
The cause of the Late Triassic extinction in uncertain. It was accompanied by huge volcanic eruptions that occurred as the supercontinent Pangaea began to break apart about 202 to 191 million years ago, forming one of the largest known inland volcanic events since the planet had first cooled and stabilized. Another possible but less likely cause for the extinction event might be global cooling.
Giveaway for Hank's Widow
She wanted a quiet place to pursue her writing. He's loved her since he first saw her photograph. Will her grief prevent him from claiming her heart?
Sign up for the giveaway should start on July 20th, and end on August 19th. Don't forget to sign up, and good luck!
June 26, 2021
Something Different
And now we interrupt this series of blogs to bring you a commercial break.
I've often wondered what other writers talk about in their blogs, without it seeming like they are constantly pitching their wares. I solved that dilemma for myself by talking about the various research I've done, whether or not that research had anything to do with what novel I am currently writing or editing. I hope my efforts amuse my readers.
But I am an author, and a publisher, and so once in a while, I need to inform the world what I have been doing. Buckle up, this is a speedy re-hash of the past 6-8 months.
De-Evolutionby John Lars Shoberg was published (MoonPhaze LLC) in November of 2020. It is a science fiction novel about humans who colonize a planet and cannibalize their ship to help build their colony. Then they find out that what they had thought was an example of native fauna was actually an intelligent species, although their culture had devolved in the past 100 years to that of cavemen. Will the humans be similarly effected? —It is available on Smashwords.com, Amazon, MoonPhaze.com, and possibly at your local book seller. It has been met with some success. You can find a review of it on https://jimsscifi.blogspot.com/, entry dated Saturday, June 19th, 2021.
The Stone Ship (The Stone Builders #2) by John Lars Shoberg was published in May of 2021. Although it is a sequel to The Stone Builders (Available from MoonPhaze.com), it stands on its own pretty well. It is a science fiction adventure. —The military found a large chunk of a spaceship made of stone while exploring a new star system. They assemble a group of scientists to study the artifact, and leave them there to their studies while the military ship goes off to finish exploring the system. Then an unknown ship is noticed approaching the scientists. Is it the Stone Builders, looking for their ship? Or even worse, the unknown species that managed to destroy a ship made of stone? —It is available on Smashwords.com, Amazon, MoonPhaze.com, and possibly at your local book seller. It has had the same amount of success as De-Evolution, in a shorter amount of time, although we haven't found any reviews of it at this time.
Meanwhile, I have written 2 romance novels and a short story. And I'm deep in the middle of getting them published.
Hank's Widow(Small Town Happiness #1) by Linda (NMI) Joy, my pen name for romances, will be published July 20, 2021, if I don't run into too many snags. I've already had a few, but right now I'm waiting for the cover to be finished before turning it over to the printer. —After her husband is killed in a winter traffic accident, Wanda finds in his papers a deed for a house in the middle of Nebraska. Unable to afford their Chicago apartment on her own, she decides to move to that house. In her husband's extended family, she finds 3 cousins who all look remarkably like him. Will she ever finish grieving when her husband's face is around every corner? —It is currently available for pre-order from Smashwords.com and MoonPhaze.com. I expect to get it uploaded to Amazon in the next few days, ready for that July 20th publication date.
"The Game" (Small Town Happiness #0.5) by Linda (NMI) Joy, will also be published July 20, 2021. It is a short prequel for Hank's Widow and my other romance, which is currently being edited. "The Game" is a short story happening about 6 years before Hank's Widow, which shows how the Four Cousins' close relationship fell apart. Because it is so short, (24 pages), it will only be in ebook formats, and will be bundled with Hank's Widow at no additional charge.
Waiting for Glori (Small Town Happiness #2) by Linda (NMI) Joy is hoping to be published in January 2022. I am currently doing a 2nd edit/rewrite, and I typically do 3 or 4 edits. —Gloria has finally escaped from her husband's abuse and neglect. Now she needs to figure out how to stand on her own, for her son's sake. Progress takes time, but she doesn't stop to wonder if her independence will allow her to find love.
And I have an artist working on the cover for And the Meek Shall Inherit, another science fiction novel by John Lars Shoberg. I need to go through it for one last edit, looking for pesky grammar mistakes that have managed to slip my attention before this. We are anticipating a November publication date.
AND I made a goal of publishing 4 books during 2021, so I need to find another... Perhaps one of ours that is no longer in print. There's 3 or 4 to choose from.
Wow. I tired myself out just going through the list and remembering all the stuff I still need to do. And on the other hand, I'm a little amazed at all I've accomplished. I'd like to remind all my readers, that if you've read a book—whether a MoonPhaze book or not—please help the author out by posting a blog. Goodreads is a good place to do it, if you belong, or maybe on your own blog.
Good reading!
June 21, 2021
Cover Reveal & ARC requests
I am accepting requests for ARCs with the intent that you will write a review once you've read Hank's Widow. The ARCs will be electronic, so let me know what format you want. Without any guidance from you, I will send a PDF file.
Send your request for an ARC to MoonPhazePub@hotmail.com
June 12, 2021
Triassic Period Part 1
The Triassic Period spans 50.6 million years, from 251.9 million years ago to 201.4 million years ago. It is the first and shortest period of the Mesozoic Era. It both started and ended with a major extinction event.
The Permian–Triassic extinction devastated terrestrial life. Diverse communities with complex food-webstructures took 30 million years to reestablish.
The Triassic period ended with a mass extinction which was particularly severe in the oceans. All the marine reptiles disappeared except for the ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. Invertebrates like molluscs were severely affected. In the oceans, 22% of marine families and possibly half of marine genera went missing.
The vast supercontinent of Pangaea continued until the mid-Triassic, after which it began to gradually split into two separate landmasses, Laurasia to the north and Gondwana to the south.
During this time period, almost all the Earth's land mass was concentrated into a single supercontinent centered more or less on the equator and spanning from pole to pole. The Tethys Sea penetrated the east side of this continent for a good distance along the equator. There was an older branch of the ocean (called the Paleo-Tethys Ocean) north of the Tethys Sea that was now closed off by a group of moving islands that became a strip of land.
During the mid-Triassic, a similar sea penetrated along the equator from the west coast. This sea was not named in the article I read. All the rest of Pangaea's shores were surrounded by the world-ocean known as Panthalassa. Although it was not stated, my guess is that these 2 long seas coming from the east and the west along the equator finally met, and Pangaea was no more.
The sea level was consistently low compared to the other geological periods. The beginning of the Triassic saw the sea level at around present sea level, rising to about 10-20 m (30-60 ft) above sea level during the Early and Middle Triassic. Then the sea level began to rise, with it reaching up to 50 metres (150 ft) above the present sea level. It then began to decline, reaching a low of 50 metres below the present sea level, which continued into the next time period.
The global climate during the Triassic was mostly hot and dry, with deserts spanning much of Pangaea's interior. There is no evidence of glaciation at or near either pole. In fact, the polar regions were apparently moist and temperate, providing a climate suitable for forests and vertebrates, including reptiles. Pangaea's large size limited the moderating effect of the global ocean; it's continental climate was highly seasonal, with very hot summers and cold winters. The strong contrast between Pangea and the global ocean triggered intense monsoons.
The climate shifted and became more humid as Pangaea began to split apart. The Triassic may have mostly been a dry period, but evidence exists that it was punctuated by several episodes of increased rainfall in tropical and subtropical latitudes of the Tethys Sea and its surrounding land. It may be that volcanic activity helped trigger climate change during this period.
Next we'll take a look at the inhabitants of Earth during the Triassic Period.
