Author Archives: admin

[30DoG] Day 2: What technology are you grateful for?

You mean, besides all of it? LOL! I love my computer because it’s so all encompassing, particularly for my writing. When I can’t be at my computer, I stick to my smartphone and occasionally my tablet. My iPod gives me music when I’m not at home. And bedtime doesn’t feel right without my Kindle.

And for the record, just because I adore the versatility of my Kindle, it doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned the visceral enjoyment of an actual book in my hands. It’s a matter of convenience and what’s on hand, particularly when I travel.

This is part of the 30 Days of Gratitude meme.

[30DoG] Day 1: What smell are you grateful for today?

Today I am incredibly grateful for the combined scents of lavender and peppermint. This combination is my go-to whenever I have a migraine. It makes me feel better almost instantly, and can filter out the cigarette smoke smell that is one of my major aura-style indicators of impending migraines.

This is part of the 30 Days of Gratitude meme.

40 Questions Meme…

Okay, so I’m going to use this meme from FB as a way to ease back into posting over here.

And FTR, the list is somehow missing numbers 24 & 25, so this actually works out to 38 questions total. *shrugs*

  1. Are you named after someone?
    My mom’s two favorite characters from Little Women.
  2. When is the last time you cried?
    It was recent, that’s all I can remember atm…
  3. Do you like your handwriting?
    Sometimes. It depends on how sloppy it’s gotten.
  4. What is your favorite lunch meat?
    Olive loaf.
  5. How many kids do you have?
    4 — Leo [14], Stasia [13], Gabe [10], & Elphie [8].
  6. If you were another person, would you be friends with yourself?
    Probably? It depends on what I’d be like as that other person.
  7. Do you use sarcasm?
    Do you breathe?
  8. Do you still have your tonsils?
    Yes
  9. Would you bungee jump?
    Probably not.
  10. What is your favorite cereal?
    Cap’n Crunch with Crunch Berries
  11. Continue reading

State of the AJ — July 2016

I used to do these posts over on LiveJournal and Dreamwidth a lot, then I just kind of slacked off.  The last time I did one of these posts anywhere was in April of 2014.  I won’t try to update every single thing that’s happened since then, but I’ll hit some of the major points.

Continue reading

Brief Review of Amber Argyle’s Daughter of Winter

While I haven’t read the first 2 books in the series, I did get an ARC of this one and found it quite enjoyable. I am now very happily going to be finding copies of the earlier books, as well as any further sequels, as I got truly sucked into the story.


Bargains. Only the truly desperate make them. Only the truly desperate need them. And always, the desperate pay. 

The silence and never-ending dark of winter are all Elice has ever known, for she is the daughter of the Winter Queen. Isolated in a northern queendom with only the seals for company, she dreams of color and music and life. So when a whaling ship crashes just offshore, she doesn’t hesitate to rescue the lone survivor, Adar, who quickly becomes her friend. She must keep him hidden from her mother at all costs, for if the Winter Queen discovers him trespassing, she’ll kill him. 

When her mother reveals just how dark her soul has become, Elice realizes she is as much a prisoner as Adar. To ever know true freedom—to ever become the woman she was meant to be—she must flee with him. But in their flight, she begins to see hints of something more nefarious. The darkness that has taken hold of her mother is spreading, staining the world with its influence. 

Unbeknownst to Elice, a bargain was made long ago. A bargain she was born to fulfill.


Here’s the purchase links:
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1N74pgi
iBooks: https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/book/daughter-of-winter/id1061184951?mt=11
Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/daughter-of-winter-1
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/daughter-of-winter-amber-argyle/1123641840?ean=2940152478631
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17185327-winter-s-heir

Don’t forget to leave a review after you’ve read the book! Even a one liner helps authors immensely.
Word of mouth sells more books than just about anything. To help out, you can share this on facebook, tweet this on twitter, or pin this pin.

 

In honor of World Poetry Day…

So in honor of World Poetry Day, and as a way to bring this blog back to life, I’ve decided to post an older poem that I adore. I wrote this cento back on 27 April 2011, based on the poems in Sylvia Plath’s Ariel. Please look below the poem for more information on both the cento format and my thoughts behind the creation of this particular poem.

“Sea in Winter”

A far sea moves in my year.
The sea
       shattering its grey one
and the sea
       blinding me with its lights.
The dark fruits revolve and fall.
We make new stock from the salt.

Nun-hearted and blind to the world,
and like the cat I have nine times to die.
My body is a pebble to them.
The secret is stamped on you,
       faint, undulant watermark.

Seven hours knocked out of my right mind,
       pulp of your heart.
Is it the sea you hear in me,
       its dissatisfactions?

Through the black amnesias of heaven,
there is the sunlight,
playing its blades
       black sweet blood mouthfuls —

       The dew makes a star
       while the child smiles into thin air.
       Even in your Zen heaven we shan’t meet.

The blood that runs is dark fruit.
There’s always a bloody baby in the air.
A gift, a love gift
       utterly unasked for,
silver beast between two dark canyons.
The blood blooms clean —
       in you, ruby.

This is the sea then, this great abeyance.
Over your body the clouds go,
       the silver leash of the will,
       curve of water upleaping.
A concatenation of rainbows.

The moon is my mother,
       she is not sweet like Mary,
but it shimmers, it does not stop,
       and I think it wants me —

       The barbarous holly with its viridian scallops
              pure iron,
       they rise on either side of him like stars.

If the moon smiled, she would resemble you,
with my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck,
trawling your dark as owls do.

All by myself I am a huge camellia.
I am the magician’s girl who does not flinch.
I am no source of honey
       to scour the creamy crests,
as the moon, for its ivory powders, scours the sea.

Winter is for women.


“Cento or found poetry is created by using extant text from other sources. It can be full verses or lines of poetry, snippets of dialogue, what have you. These borrowed bits and pieces can be combined with the poet’s own words, creating a kind of patchwork, or the poet will solely use the source material without adding their own words. In either case, punctuation, capitalization, and line placement can be changed around within the poem.

For this poem, I chose to take a single line from each of the forty poems listed in the original manuscript of Ariel by Sylvia Plath. The lines are listed here in this poem in the exact order of the poems as Plath wanted for her manuscript. Each line chosen was one that stood out for me as something I wanted to use. In many cases, there were poems that had multiple options that appealed to me, but the choice wasn’t made until I sat down tonight to actually create this poem. I am quite sure that I could go back and reread the poems at another time, and I would be pulling completely different lines to create a wholly different poem.

Plath’s work has been a part of my life since I was about 13yo or so. In fact, Ariel [the US version] was the first thing of hers that I read back then. I will very easily admit that a lot of my poetic influence came from Sylvia Plath’s work.”

Dark Avalon Divination hits Etsy!

All of the readings available with Dark Avalon Divination are now offered in our Etsy store, Muses Mountain. You can find them in the Dark Avalon Divination section of the store.

To celebrate this occasion, we are offering a Summer Blowout Sale. Everything in the Muses Mountain store is 50% off from now until 31 August 2015. When you make your purchase, use the 2015SUM50 coupon code.