Tara Ellis's Blog: Making Progress, page 6

#Fantasy Ebook #Giveaway!

My friend, author Kandi Wyatt, is hosting a cover reveal for book five in her series, Dragon Courage, and is also giving away a complete set! Check out the new cover, read a bit about the series, and be sure to enter the drawing for the giveaway!





Is there really a right way to braid leather? Ruskya doesn’t know anymore. Is it worth fighting over? Twenty-one winters ago, he was ready to take on the turquoise dragon rider, but now he fears facing his oldest son.
            Kyn, Ruskya’s youngling, wonders if he’s going crazy when an image begins haunting his dreams. Soon, he realizes it may be the key to helping not only Ruskya and his son Ardyn, but all younglings and their trainers as they adjust to growing up.
            Will Kyn be able to help Ruskya, Ardyn, and the other young riders? Follow your favorite characters from the exciting Dragon Courage series as they empower the next generation and give dragons to their posterity.



Bio:
Even as a young girl, Kandi J Wyatt, had a knack for words. She loved to read them, even if it was on a shampoo bottle! By high school Kandi had learned to put words together on paper to create stories for those she loved. Nowadays, she writes for her kids, whether that's her own five or the hundreds of students she's been lucky to teach. When Kandi's not spinning words to create stories, she's using them to teach students about Spanish, life, and leadership.

Website: http://kandijwyatt.comFacebook: http://facebook.com/kandijwyattTwitter and Instagram: @kandijwyatt




Enter for your chance to win the complete set!  a Rafflecopter giveaway



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SPECIAL OFFER! .99 Sale

New ReleaseOnly .99!!!
A Mysterious Christmas on Orcas Island

PURCHASE HERE
When Sam and Ally get a special Christmas invitation to Orcas Island, they have no idea that the small island has such big mysteries.
When their friend, Sandy, begs them to help her solve a troubling situation, they are drawn into a puzzle with layers of uncertainties. From secret meetings, to legendary ghosts, they explore the picturesque setting in an attempt to make sense of it all.
But in the middle of their plight, a storm of the century bears down on them. Not only do they end up battling the raging storm, but also a criminal plot. Stranded and alone, can the girls come together to overcome their most harrowing adventure yet?



Prefer a paperback? It makes the perfect Christmas gift!Buy your paperback here!


Better yet, pick up the whole series! :)

Contact me here for special pricing for SIGNED, personalized copies. Only $35 for all six books, and $5.00 shipping (in the States) Save over 25% off the list price!

A Distant Echo - A New Crime Series!

I have an announcement that I'm quite excited about! 
I've started a new crime thriller series, under the pen name Tara Meyers. As an introduction to this series, I have just released a short story, A Distant Echo. It's about 10,000 words, so an hour to an hour-and-a-half read.
This is a different theme than what I've written so far, under Tara Ellis. It's in the adult crime genre, so a bit more gritty than my kids and teen books! While still on the PG13 side, the situations are intense and not suitable for younger readers.
Check it out, and then sign up for the newsletter for your chance to win an advance copy of the first full length novel, Echoes of Fear, coming out January, 2017.
A Distant EchoAMAZON LINK

Criminal profiler, Chris Echo, has worked hard to become one of the elite members of Seattle's police department. Nothing, not even her personal life, gets in the way of her pursuits to track down ruthless killers. With a serial murderer on the loose, Chris struggles to find the connections necessary to close in on a suspect. While taking risks to force the answers, she unexpectedly places herself in the path of her worst nightmare.
A Distant Echo is a short story of around 10,000 words and takes the average reader one to one-and-a-half hours to read. It is a lead-in to a new, thrilling crime series called The Chris Echo Mysteries.

A #FREE Scifi For You From a Friend!

THE LODESTONE
by J. Philip Horne
is now available for free on InstaFreebie!


"The plot bolts off of page one like a racehorse out of the gate at Churchill Downs, and never really slows down""The world and magic tied together delightfully"
THE LODESTONE is the story of a boy caught between two worlds.
When twelve year old Jack Paris feels the small jaws of a creature that shouldn't exist clamp down on his leg, life as he knows it in Texas comes to a sudden end. An evil wizard from another world hunts him for unknown purposes and will stop at nothing to capture him. When Jack finally realizes why the wizard needs him, he learns that to live and love, you sometimes have to be willing to die.


You can check out the reviews on Amazon, then head over to InstaFreebie to get your free copy.

Grab your #FREE #horror story!

FREE



I had so much fun giving this book away last week, that I decided it would be fun to do it again for Halloween! While the series is classified as a science fiction, many readers also refer to it as a bit of a horror story. Think ... Invasion of the Body Snatchers. There's some definite creep factor, and you will probably want to read it with the lights on!!!!

Infected, the ShinersAn alien plague. A sixteen-year-old girl. A fight to save the world.

When a rare meteor shower unleashes a mind-altering infection, the people Alex loves begin to change. They're smarter, faster, emotionless, and they have a plan. One that doesn't include her.

Guided by cryptic clues left behind by her deceased father, Alex follows a trail of increasingly shocking discoveries. Earth's history isn't what she learned in school, and a new hive mind threatens to rewrite the future.

Alex is a fighter, but pursued by both friends and an unknown enemy, it will take everything she has to fulfill her destiny. Desperate to save her little brother, she flees to the mountains surrounding her home, where the only chance for humanity has lain hidden for thousands of years.

WINNER, Reader's Favorite Book Awards, 2015, Honorable Mention, YA scifi
FINALIST, Young Adult Finalist in the IAN Book Awards, 2015


AMAZON LINK



Read the whole series for FREE all the time with Kindle Unlimited!

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RELEASE DAY!

A Mysterious Christmas on Orcas IslandBook #6The Samantha Wolf Mysteries
AMAZON LINK



When Sam and Ally get a special Christmas invitation to Orcas Island, they have no idea that the small island has such big mysteries.

When their friend, Sandy, begs them to help her solve a troubling situation, they are drawn into a puzzle with layers of uncertainties. From secret meetings, to legendary ghosts, they explore the picturesque setting in an attempt to make sense of it all.

But in the middle of their plight, a storm of the century bears down on them. Not only do they end up battling the raging storm, but also a criminal plot. Stranded and alone, can the girls come together to overcome their most harrowing adventure yet?

Be sure to read all of the adventures!

Book #1  The Mystery of Hollow InnBook #2  The Secret of Camp Whispering PinesBook #3  The Beach House MysteryBook #4  The Heiress of Covington RanchBook #5  The Haunting of Eagle Creek Middle SchoolBook #6  A Mysterious Christmas on Orcas Island



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Christian YA Fantasy on Sale for .99!

.99 SALE!MERCY'S PRINCEAmazon Link




Do you like epic medieval fantasy with dragons of all sizes and a sweet romance? Through October 28, the award-winning YA Christian fantasy Mercy’s Prince is only 99 cents. Although the first of a trilogy, this book can stand alone. Universal Amazon link: myBook.to/Mercys_Prince


 

Got Zombies?

NEW RELEASE!From Author Alex McGilvery
AMAZON LINK


Zombies are cool in movies, but everyone knows they aren’t real. Pranthi meets a woman who tells her there are zombies in nature. Soon after Pranthi’s camera catches a man turning zombie. This isn’t the plague like the movies. Life goes on, more or less normally, until it doesn’t and nothing will ever be the same.
The Gods Above is the latest of Alex’s work to reboot classical monsters, in Sparkles and Blood he tackles witches, vampires and carnivorous frogs.


For the remainder of this year, anyone who purchases The Gods Above from his website will receive a free ebook of Tales of Light and Dark, which is a collection of somewhat twisted fantasy.






Alex McGilvery is an author who lives and writes in Flin Flon, MB along with his wife, two dogs, and nice scotch collection.
The Gods Above Website
FB Author website
Author Amazon Website

FLASH #Giveaway!! Award Winning #YA #Scifi - Today only!

TODAY ONLY! FREE
AMAZON LINK
An alien plague. A sixteen-year-old girl. A fight to save the world.

When a rare meteor shower unleashes a mind-altering infection, the people Alex loves begin to change. They're smarter, faster, emotionless, and they have a plan. One that doesn't include her.

Guided by cryptic clues left behind by her deceased father, Alex follows a trail of increasingly shocking discoveries. Earth's history isn't what she learned in school, and a new hive mind threatens to rewrite the future.

Alex is a fighter, but pursued by both friends and an unknown enemy, it will take everything she has to fulfill her destiny. Desperate to save her little brother, she flees to the mountains surrounding her home, where the only chance for humanity has lain hidden for thousands of years.

My Favorite Location to Hike & Photograph

Today I'm going to step back from blogging about writing and books, and turn my focus (no pun intended) to photography.

I've always been into trying to capture a setting in such a way, that to the person looking at the finished product, they feel as if they're there. What this means to me, is not over-processing. Photoshop and Lightroom have their place -trust me, I know this- but for nature photography, realism means transporting the viewer to where you were, not to where you wish you were. ;)

My personal challenge is to see how close I can get with the raw image. No, I don't mean shooting in the RAW (for those reading this that now what that means). I have shot in the RAW and it drove me crazy. I now have a laptop brimming over with gigantic RAW and TIFF images that I have no desire to do anything with. Call me lazy, but I want to spend my time getting to where I'm taking the pictures, not sitting here redefining them.

It might be for that reason, that I may never progress too far in this industry. It seems that lately, it's all about the latest programs and gadgets. Stacking, morphing, blending and enhancing. I like to keep things simple.

Having said that, I'd like to share some images from both my favorite place to hike and photograph, Mount Baker. More precisely, Baker Lake, as seen from the North Baker Lake trail. It's a maintained trail that runs north and south along the east side of the lake, around 14-16 miles long. There's a trail head at either end, and several hike-in campgrounds along its course. I have started out at both ends, and I definitely prefer the south end. Maple grove campground is four miles in, and has what I consider to be the nicest camping spots, as well as the only dock.

This first picture I took at dusk from one of these campgrounds. It was last summer, during my brief experiment with shooting in the RAW.



Here's the set up:

Camera: Nikon D7000
Lens: Wide angle 14mm
Aperture: F2.8
Shutter speed; 14.5s
ISO: 800

Both exposure and focus were manual. I had the camera on a tripod with an infrared remote.

Although this was shot in RAW, as I said above, the processing was minimal. Mostly sharpening, with a little adjustment to the contrast and saturation.


This second picture is also up at Baker, but taken from the public boat access at the PSE campground just before the Baker Lake dam.

It was around 1 am in the morning, and it's the second time I've caught the northern lights up there!


Details:

This was NOT shot in the raw, but just good 'ole high res jpg

Camera: Nikon D7000
Lens: Wide angle 14mm
Aperture: F2.8
Shutter speed; 69.2s
ISO: 800

Manual focus and exposure.

As you can see, I held this one open for a long time! I again had the camera on a tripod and used my remote. (obviously, you would have to with such a long exposure)

One thing I need to stress, is that to capture these nighttime sky shots, you REALLY need a lens that has an infinity setting. Otherwise, the focus isn't going to be right. When you're dealing with long exposure, any little thing that is off will distort and ruin it. I have found this out the hard way. Make sure you're on a firm surface, don't hang anything from the tripod, don't walk around it, don't bump it and you HAVE to use a remote.

I hope this might be of some help to those of you wanting to try some night excursions! It's really been a journey of trial and error for me. I know, that my lack of interest in the more advanced processing might hurt my end results, but that's just how I am. I tried it. I forced myself to experience it, and it made it feel more like a job than something I loved. Now, that's not saying that the photographers who excel in photoshop and advanced editing are doing something wrong. On the contrary. But for me, photography is a way to relax, and as soon as I turn it into anything else, it looses its appeal.

So ... get out there! Do whatever makes you happy and experiment with the settings, as well as how you look at things.