Victoria Zigler's Blog: Zigler News, page 121

#Writing Wednesday - March 22nd 2017

Do you dream of being a published author? Or, perhaps, there's something else - writing related or otherwise - you've been putting off because you're afraid of failing, or afraid of what others will think? If so, feel the fear and do it anyway. You'll be glad you did!

Once you've got your fear under control, you need to figure out what it means to write for market, and if that's the route you're taking or not. Personally, I just write the story that wants to be written, and worry about trying to get it noticed by the right audience later. But you can - and should - do what you feel is right for you.

Anyway...

Do you write for a middle grade audience? If so, here are some common themes in middle grade fiction... Which one will be right for your story? Only you can decide that. Regardless of the theme though, here's some advice on writing the middle grade novel.

Regardless of the age range you write for, however, here's a look at effective novel intros, to help you get your story started right.

If you write fantasy, you may want to take a look at these seven tips to traversing the fantasy countryside.

Fantasy or not, while you're writing your story, remember to write like you talk. Also, make sure you get your facts right throughout your story by doing your research. But, the question of when you should conduct your research is open for discussion, and is ultimately up to you.

Next, here are five tips for writing good dialogue, which may be useful to you. It's a repost for the person who wrote the post, but I'm not sure if I posted the tips before, so figured I'd go ahead and post them... Better to have them twice than not at all, I think.

Oh, and if you're struggling with writers' block, here are six ways to transition out of writers' block.

Last, but certainly not least, if you're a published author, don't forget you need to send copies of your books to the legal deposit libraries.

A #Poem For The 2017 #Spring #Equinox

In the Northern hemisphere, the 2017 Spring (or Vernal) equinox comes on March 20 at 10:29 a.m. UTC (March 20 at 5:29 a.m. CDT). That's today... 29 minutes after the time this is scheduled to go live. Since that's the case, I thought I'd share a poem I wrote recently about Spring taking over from Winter. So, here it is:

Winter And Spring

Glad his work is done,
Winter lays down his weary head,
Content to spend the next nine months
Fast asleep in his comfortable bed.

Meanwhile, Spring is awakening,
And her energy knows no bounds.
She's ready to perform her dance,
That coaxes new life from grounds.


© 2017 ~ Victoria Zigler

#Photos Taken With Our New Camera

My "keeper for the day experience" at drucillas park is this coming Wednesday.

Now, we can't guarantee we'll be allowed to take photos of everything. But we want to be able to take decent photos whenever taking photos is an option. I mean, if taking photos will upset the animal in question, we'll obviously avoid doing so. But we want to capture photos of as many of my animal encounter experiences as possible, as I'm sure you can understand.

Unfortunately, the camera we've had for the past several years isn't that great: we keep forgetting how to work the flash, and the lense keeps getting dirty. This means we either get blurry shots, or shots that are too dark to see anything. Remember those times it's looked like a bad day and I've said it wasn't? That was our old camera playing up.

My iPhone has a camera on it, which does take good photos. But the battery doesn't last long on it because of me needing to use voiceover all the time, and the battery life is even worse when I'm using TapTapSee to take photos (if you don't know, TapTapSee is a talking photo app for iPhones, and the only way I can take and interact with photos successfully using my phone). Not to mention, taking photos using TapTapSee is a slow process. This means that using my phone to take photos will only be an option for maybe a couple of shots (if we're lucky) and will then leave us with a phone that has no battery in it... Not the end of the world, but not ideal (especially when we're so far from home). Oh, and there's the small problem of Kelly not being very good at using my iPhone, which means him taking photos of me doing things is rather difficult to say the least, since he takes even longer than I do, due to me needing to talk him through each stage of it.

So, we did the only thing we could think to do: we brought a new camera.

In all fairness, we've been saying we could do with a new camera for some time.

Anyway, it's a Canon IXUS 285 HS Digital Compact Camera, if you're interested in knowing exactly what we got. Not the most fancy of cameras, perhaps... There were much fancier ones (with much higher price tags, of course). But much better than the old camera; Canon is usually a good make, and was one of the brands approved by my Dad, who knows a lot about photography.

So, we got it a couple of weeks ago, and have been testing it out a little to see how it works. The photos of the rodent gang I've put up since the start of March were taken with the new camera, and so were the photos I'm about to show you (the ocean photo from last week was taken with my iPhone, in case you're wondering).

Anyway... Enjoy!

(The photo above is a view of the ocean from our living room window, and was taken late afternoon on March 2nd 2017).

(The photo above is another view of the ocean from the same window, which was taken later in the evening on March 2nd 2017).

(The photo above is a night time view out of the same window, just to show we get more than just a blank dark image when taking nighttime photos with the new camera, and I believe was also taken on March 2nd 2017).

(The photo above is of the nearby church steeple, and was taken from another of our windows, this time on March 3rd 2017).

#Furkid Friday: #Chinchilla #Photos

Um... Hi everyone. This is Mollie the chinchilla.

At the start of this month, the human caretakers took a couple of new photos of me and my chinchilla sister, Maizie, so I thought I'd post them here for you to see. There are only two of them, but here they are, anyway.

This first one is of us in our cage. I'm the one in the wooden house thing, Maizie is the one on top of it:


This one is of us in our playpen:


I hope you enjoyed seeing the photos.

Squeak soon,
Mollie

#Writing Wednesday - March 15th 2017

A fellow author created a (totally not serious) author bio generator, so I thought I'd have some fun with it and liven up my own author bio. Here it is:

Victoria Zigler was born in a barn sometime in the last century and grew up in the surrounding fields with the horses learning to juggle potatoes. She left the farm for the African wilderness where she spent several years living with a pride of lions who adopted her. Victoria now lives in an invisible spaceship in Earth's orbit with her favourite lion from the pride and a monkey who snuck aboard when nobody was looking. When not writing bestselling
novels, Victoria likes to juggle food ration packs in between games of fetch with the lion and games of chess with the monkey.

There, don't I sound more interesting? *wink*

OK, now we've had some fun, let's get serious and move on to this week's links...

If you're a writer too - published or not, exciting life or not - do you view your writing as a business or hobby? If it's the former, you may want to consider these ways to show your writing is a business. I don't have a bank account or credit card reserved for business earnings/expenses, and I don't have a fancy reader that allows people to pay me by card using my phone (my iPhone would probably die half way through the transaction anyhow, due to how quickly it uses up the battery with my need to use Voiceover, combined with the phone being several years old, and the battery being the original one from it). But I have done most of what they advise in that post (though my system of organizing my earnings and expenses is different to that of the article's author). The main point though is, if you don't view your writing as a business, neither will anyone else... Including Uncle Sam.

Whether you write for business or not, however, you may want to take a look at this post on writing speculative fiction, especially since the advice in it is valid regardless of the genre you write in: writing fiction may involve making a lot of stuff up, but that's no reason not to make things realistic.

Speaking of making things realistic, here are some ways animals enhance fiction, complete with tips on how to be sure the scenes with pets or wildlife in them make sense for the story.

Finally, always remember that it is worth it.

Just Filling You In On Recent Day To Day Life

(The above photo is the view out of one of the windows in our living room, showing the rough ocean, and large waves, on the mildly stormy morning of February 23rd 2017, while parts of the country were dealing with Storm Doris).

We've had a couple of decent storms, but the weather hasn't been as rough as it was this time last year. No more snow either, unfortunately. Well, I think it's unfortunate. Almost everyone else around here disagrees with me on that fact, however. Anyhow, I should say that in my area storms haven't been so bad. Parts of the country have had some really nasty storms. For example, Storm Doris, which hit on or around February 23rd 2017 - depending on exactly where you were in the country - caused a lot of damage in some areas. We've just been lucky in this area.

No matter the weather though, I've been making a point of going out each day. Well, OK, most days it's just going downstairs, hanging out enjoying the fresh air for a few moments, and then coming back inside. But that's still an improvement on how little I was stepping outside the door before. I even do it on busy days, of which we've had a lot recently.

Our boiler has been replaced. We were told initially we'd have a guy come for a quick visit to see if it needed repairing or replacing, and to check other heating related things (attic insulation, radiators, etc) and then it would take them a couple of hours to do the work, even if it was a replacement. Yeah, right! The initial guy was here most of the morning, and he was followed by another to verify what the first guy was saying, as well as a third to take photos before any work was done. Then a guy came to make sure the amount of insulation we have in the attic was the right amount (and would have installed more if it wasn't). After that the guy came to replace the boiler, and a job that should have taken a couple of hours turned in to a two day job, because he had to redo some of the piping for the gas lines. Then an electrician had to come, because the boiler has some electrical parts that the gas guy's not qualified to do. After that a guy came to give the boiler its official "this boiler works" certificate (I forget the actual name for it). Then the guy with the camera came back to do the "after" photos. There was anything from a day to a week between the visits from each guy, which meant that the whole thing stretched out through January and in to early February.

Of course, I couldn't do much when the guys were here, because I need the use of my ears to do most things I do, and the freedom to move about without fear of getting in their way or tripping over things to do most other things. But they had tools around, and they were making noise poking about and doing their jobs, which severely limited my ability to get things done. Not to mention, I'm not very good at being productive when waiting for people, so couldn't even get much done while waiting for the guys to arrive on the various days they were coming to do their respective jobs. I'm not complaining, since we did need a new boiler, and we could feel the benifit of better heating immediately. But it was frustrating at the time, and has put me behind my personal schedule with some things. Never mind, it's done now, which is a good thing. Erm... The boiler being done is a good thing, I mean. The not getting as much as planned done part... Not so much.

When the first guy came, he said some of the pipes weren't looking too great on one of the radiators, so either those pipes would need replacing, or they'd need to replace the whole radiator. It took so long for them to say anything more about that after the boiler was done that I thought they'd forgotten about it (it was only last week they came for that). But I guess they just needed to wait for the plumber to be able to fit us in. Anyway, all he'd been told was that it wasn't working as well as it should. Well, apparently it was no wonder since there was a valve of some sort that should have been open and wasn't. Once he opened that it was working much better. He didn't end up replacing anything while he was here though. He said it's possible they could send him back to replace either the pipes or the whole thing at a later date, but since it's working fine now, they may leave it for the time being. He might have replaced it anyhow, had it been up to him, but he was only told to come and make it work better, so that's all he did. Apparently he'd get in trouble if he did more than he was meant to, and says it's better for him to risk being sent back to do more, than to risk being in trouble for doing more than his bosses wanted to pay him to do. Annoying for the people who have to have multiple visits for things that could be done in one, but understandable from his point of view.

The plumber did do one extra thing while he was here though, and took a look at our kitchen sink's hot tap, which wouldn't work. Turned out the "handle" bit you grip to turn the tap had come loose. He took that off, put it back on again, and the tap was working. So we were glad about that, since doing dishes in a sink without a working hot tap wasn't very easy (thankfully, though it had been hard to turn the tap on and off for a while, it only actually stopped working literally a couple of days before this plumber visit, so we didn't have to deal with that issue for too long). He says the "handles" of the kitchen taps may need replacing in the not-too-distant future, but at least that's all that's wrong with them, and they're fine for now. I'll mention it to the landlords when they come pick up the rent later this month though, just to make sure they're aware of that potential future issue.

Speaking of the landlords... The landlords are trying to arrange for the bathroom floor to get done, finally, which is a very good thing. It means more potential chaotic and unproductive days for me, but it needs doing, and I'll be glad when it is. They also need to sort a problem with a couple of the windows. But I'm not sure when they'll start trying to arrange that. One thing at a time though, I guess. Besides, there's been a lot going on around here as it is, so a little part of me is relieved they aren't talking about doing the windows too right now (even though I do hope they do them soon).

Another thing that happened, which I'm also pleased about, is that we also now have curtains up in our bedroom, with help from our friends, Lorna and Andy, who did that for us. I doubt they'll see this, but... Thanks very much - again - for your help with that, Lorna and Andy. Thanks especially to Andy, who actually did the work involved in putting the curtain rail and curtains up for us (with help from Kelly when it was needed).

Anyway, somehow, despite the chaos from all of that going on, we did get some things done that we'd hoped to. We got most of the shelves sorted, and a lot of our stuff organized on to them. We're down to needing a couple of shelving units, and having only about four boxes to unpack (the stuff that will go on those shelving units). In theory we'll be sorting those in the next month or so. But, hey, we got most stuff unpacked before we'd been here two years, and with all the repair work going on lately, I happen to think even that was impressive; I hadn't counted on so many workmen in and out when I decided to make unpacking and organizing contents of boxes an important priority for the start of this year, so I'm pleased with our progress in that area, even if there are other areas where I'm disappointed with how little I've achieved recently.

So, that just about covers the main points of what's been happening around here over the past couple of months.

Before I end this though, I just want to say a belated happy birthday to our nephew, Devon, who is now officially an adult, having celebrated his 18th birthday on February 25th. Also, happy belated birthday to our friend - and one of my cover artists - Jacob, who celebrated his birthday yesterday. While I'm here, I'll also say happy birthday ahead of time to my brother, Wayne, and friend, Rita, who will be celebrating their birthdays on March 15th and March 28th respectively.

March 2017 #Vegetarian Friendly #Food Themed Thoughts (FD)

When I was making a vegetarian version of a shepherd's pie a couple of weeks ago, I found I hadn't made enough potato to give a decent layer on top of the other stuff that goes in to one. I've had this happen in the past a couple of times, and fixed the problem by adding carrot to the mashed potatoes, with good results. Except, I didn't have enough carrot either. What I did have, however, was a can of pumpkin puree. So I decided to use that to bulk up the mash for the topping. A bit of advice if you're thinking of doing the same thing... Don't! Adding pumpkin puree to mashed potatoes in general works. It makes a lovely creamy mash. But it didn't seem to work too well for the shepherd's pie. It wasn't dreadful, and I ate it. But it made the shepherd's pie taste wrong; it was like it wasn't cooked properly, even though that wasn't the case. Honestly, I don't feel that particular cooking experiment was a success, and it's one I certainly will not be repeating.

If you'd like some recipes that are worth trying, however, check out my website's recipe section, where you'll find all sorts of recipes. Most of the recipes on my website are suitable for vegetarians, and some are even suitable for vegans.

#Smashwords #ebookweek17 - #SALE Ends Today!

The ninth annual Smashwords Read an eBook Week promotion kicked off on Sunday March 5th 2017 - as I mentioned on Monday - and runs through to the end of today (Saturday March 11th 2017).

As I also mentioned on Monday, I've enrolled my entire Zeena Dragon Fae series in the promotion. They're 75% off, which means you can get all four books in the series for the price of one. Of course, this is exclusively on Smashwords. But since they offer a good choice of formats, and I enable all of the available ones for my books, you'll easily find a format that works for you, regardless of your eReading device of choice. In fact, if you can read this post, there'll be a way you can read my books. In other words, unless you read exclusively physical copies of books, this is a great chance to get an excellent deal.

The books in the series are as follows:

1. Zeena And The Dryad
2. Zeena And The Gryphon
3. Zeena And The Mermaid
4. Zeena And The Phoenix

Simply click on the book titles to go to their Smashwords pages. Then enter coupon code RAE75 at checkout to get any - or all - the books in the Zeena Dragon Fae series for 75% off. Yes, it is the same code for all four books.

I'm not the only author to enroll, so don't forget you can also check out what other books are on sale this week. Not everyone enables all formats though, so be sure to check format availability before you buy.

Oh, and feel free to share this post with anyone and everyone.

Remember: Sale ends March 11th 2017... That's today... So hurry if you want to get some bargain eBooks!

#Furkid Friday: Joshua The #Degu's 4th Birthday (FD)

Hi humans, rodent types, and anyone else reading this. This is Joshua the degu.

(Above photo of me taken on March 2nd 2017).

Yesterday I got to have one of those birthday things, which meant extra treats. The human caretakers gave me both oatmeal and Cheerios for breakfast, and a treat I love called "chinchilla cookies" at dinner time. I really enjoyed everything, of course. I have cereal of some sort for breakfast every day, but I got a bigger helping than usual yesterday... I don't usually get two kinds of cereal.

The only way my birthday would have been better is if my degu brothers were here to share it with me. I'd have liked my gerbil brothers to have still been next door to my cage too. I miss my degu brothers and gerbil brothers. I miss my ratty sisters too. I know my chinchilla sisters are still here, but it's not the same. I don't understand why my rodent siblings keep going away, and I don't like it one little bit. I'm still watching the human caretakers in case they're up to something, but if they are then I don't know what it could be, since they don't seem to be doing anything different with us than they always have. I'll keep watching them though... Just in case.

Squeak soon,
Joshua

Joshua Turns Four (FD)

Today (March 9th 2017) is the fourth birthday of our remaining degu, Joshua.

Of course, it would have also been the fourth birthday of the rest of the J boys - Joshua's brothers - today, but we lost Jasper, Jenks, and Jacob last year (in June, September, and November respectively).

Joshua has now been our only degu for four months. He's doing well, but when Joshua first found himself alone, we were really worried, especially since the loss of his brothers seemed to have destroyed the trust we'd earned from him. But we've worked with him patiently over these past few months, and managed to regain a lot of that trust back. He's still reluctant to allow us to pick him up, and some days doesn't like to be touched. But he'll let us pet him some days. He also now accepts food from Kelly with only a slight hesitation, and from me without any hesitation at all (in fact, he runs to greet me at the cage door for his morning piece of cereal every day). Compared to the way he'd try to stay as far away from our hands as possible, even if we were offering food, after we lost Jasper, Jenks, and then Jacob, this is a huge improvement.

Anyway, as I said, Joshua is four years old today. So... Happy birthday degu buddy!