This week has been a hard, emotional, roller coaster of a time. I don't really feel up to making a post but I had something exciting to share, so here I am, making myself stick to my schedule. I had a tremendously fun time visiting my writer friend Frances Pauli this week. Where the kids got to play with hers. We went bowling, watched the kids swim, played with her two week old puppies. Such a cute litter :) And we actually got to get some work done as well.

I've been wanting to make a book trailer for a while but didn't quite know the ins and outs. Thankfully, with her help in pointing out how to use the tools I was able to put this together.




http://youtu.be/BYhRR-n7E68




I had a lot of fun making it. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you all think of it? You can either leave a comment here or send me an email through the contact form.

Have a wonderful week :)

So it's Sunday again. This marks week three of actually managing to update my blog, go me :D Happy summer solstice everyone! So far it's been a wonderful spring and a promising look into summer. The weather has been great. Warm and sunny, with periodic rain to water everything. It's been so nice that a lot of the flowers, like the daisy's and foxglove, all bloomed earlier than usual here. They normally don't start blooming until mid June. But they are past their prime already and almost done. We had daisies in full bloom in May.

There's so many activities I want to do with the kids, the beach, zoo, picnics, camping, that I can already feel fall encroaching. This summer is going to go by in the blink of an eye.

I'm finally past the halfway point in my revision of Flight. At this rate it's going to take me another two weeks before I'm done *sigh*. I'm hoping it will pick up speed. Keep your fingers crossed.

Now, for anyone who hasn't seen my twitter or FB, Emergence started a kindle countdown sale yesterday. As of this moment it is at .99c for the next 4 hours then it goes up to $1.99 for 40 hours. It will be on sale until Saturday. So if you got the paperback but want the kindle as well, or just haven't gotten it yet and want to, now's the time. It won't go on sale again until after Flight is released.

So, today I guess I'll leave you with a few pictures I had planned to upload from RadCon back in February. Better late than never, ;D

I had a beautiful blog post. It was wonderful. I came up with it in the shower. And when I got out, it was gone. Now you'll have to make do with this one.

Slow... Why does it have to be so slow. <grin>  So the revision on flight is in progress. I got all of the Beta's back. I smashed them all together (thank you combine feature) and got to work. I love that feature. Putting them all together in one document really lets me see the places where more than one person has commented on the same problem. Not to mention I only have to go through the document once.

At first glance, as I scanned through each as they returned, I didn't think there would be much in the way of drastic changes. So I was optimistic that I would get through it quickly. I have a rainbow of Beta's ;) Each specializes in different things. Some are writers who give me great feedback based on knowing the craft of writing, others are nit pickers who find my grammar or punctuation or redundancies. Then I have readers who don't necessarily know craft but they know my story, both past and future. Then there are the cold readers. The people who I hope will one day pick up my story just to read it. It's amazing what they find.

I love having so many different viewpoints to help me make my story better. The comments, while at first glance seemed straight forward, when I got into them really caused me to delve deeper. Showing places where the reader wanted to know more that I didn't see for the forest. The end result comes in new scenes, characters that didn't have as much screen time have found the light of day. Questions that weren't important to me I now realize I need to answer. It's an exciting thing. I know that it's stereotypical for writers not to want to change their babies. But I love (and hate, lol) the revision process. I don't have a problem whacking out phrases, lines or even entire scenes if they aren't working. Sure, some times there's a touch of whine (but I liked that) But on the whole if it doesn't work it goes. And I can always see the improvement for the pruning. Makes the tree more healthy.

So that's where I'm at this week. I'm only a quarter of the way through instead of done like I had hoped. But I really like the direction it's going. Now that school is out I'm hoping I can move faster, keep your fingers crossed.

It's amazing how fast time can go by. I had thought I would post updates after Radcon, and any number of other times since then. But somehow I always feel self conscious about what to say. Even when I have awesome stuff to report :)

Radcon went amazingly well. Not having ever sold in person before I took my box of books and figured it was way more than I needed. But I got the shock of my life when I nearly sold out that box over the weekend. I want to thank all the wonderful readers who were interested enough in my book to take it home with them. I can't wait to go next year. And by then I should have 4 titles in hand.

So, in an effort to try and actually stay on top of the blog I've decided to work at making sure I make a blog post every Sunday. Even if I have no idea what to say, lol.

This week is easy, so much time has passed that there's lots to talk about. First on the list is Flight, the second book in the Genesis Chronicles. I have gotten it back from all the Beta readers and just today started the revision. I'm 35 pages in and hope to have it off to the editor by the end of the week.  After that I'll be able to hopefully lock down Flight's release date, but I'm hoping for the beginning of August :D

While Flight is out visiting I'm going to finish up the second draft on Sundered, the first of the Cambion novels. A paranormal romance about the Kelusis, the race of Incubus/succubus which are symbiotic with humans. I can't wait to dig deeper into this story.

On a super exciting note I got a wonderful piece of fan art from J. Voss.  At the moment in my writing if I had to pick one favorite character it would be Kieran, so I can't say how happy this made me.

And in so many ways it means 'I've made it' to me. My ultimate goal with my stories is to make someone feel. And to influence someone to dream about it to the point that they want to make something, fan art or fic, is a dream come true.

And I wanted to share it with you. :)

It amazes me some times how small the world can seem.  I got a phone call from my mother in law who lives in Colorado.  She had been at a garden center and during the course of conversation with someone over the fairy gardens asked if they liked to read fantasy, and mentioned Emergence to them.  She received the surprise of her life when they said, 'Why yes, I have.  My cousin in Maine is reading it right now and loves it!'

It was such a thrill to have her call and tell me about a complete stranger all the way across the country that my words could touch.

And for all of you who haven't seen it yet, here is the link to the amazon page for Emergence.

http://www.amazon.com/Emergence-Genesis-Chronicles-Siana-Wineland-ebook/dp/B00HZFYVEY/ref=sr_1_10_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1391469853&sr=8-10&keywords=emergence

It’s been twenty-five years since people started to change in the Pacific Northwest…  Since the emergence of the first Valkyries.  Most find it easier to pretend the problem doesn’t exist.  That the contagion isn’t something that can touch them.  Unfortunately the next to transform, and sprout wings, could be anyone.

Most of all, Jessica Reuther wants nothing more to do with Valkyries.  But when a recovery team comes for her, she becomes the contested bone among the wolves.  And a vicious game of tug-o-war ensues while she is forced to face a reality she prayed would never come.  In the wake of her metamorphosis, a new kind of change begins to sweep through the fledgling race, one that could have devastating consequences for humanity.


I normally make my posts in the evening but today decided to see if I could reach new eyes with a different time period.

I hope today finds you with high spirits even if your weather doesn't cooperate.

So, the moment I’ve been waiting for (and of course all of you too, right?) has finally arrived.  The first book in the Genesis Chronicles, Emergence, is finally available for sale.  Both the trade paperback and the ebook are available at amazon.  But you can also buy the trade paper through my createspace estore front if you click this link.

It’s been twenty-five years since people started to change in the Pacific Northwest…  Since the emergence of the first Valkyries.  Most find it easier to pretend the problem doesn’t exist.  That the contagion isn’t something that can touch them.  Unfortunately the next to transform, and sprout wings, could be anyone.

Most of all, Jessica Reuther wants nothing more to do with Valkyries.  But when a recovery team comes for her, she becomes the contested bone among the wolves.  And a vicious game of tug-o-war ensues while she is forced to face a reality she prayed would never come.  In the wake of her metamorphosis, a new kind of change begins to sweep through the fledgling race, one that could have devastating consequences for humanity.

Emergence is the first instalment in the Genesis Chronicles series.  The second book, Flight, is in revisions at the moment and will be released later this summer.  If you would like an appetizer of the start of the book, I have posted the first four chapters under the books button at the top of my website.

And Merry Christmas, Yule, and all the other holiday’s I’ve missed writing about.

It’s been a very good holiday season here for us.  Today the sun is shining bright on a cold frosty morning.  The water is clear out over the straight.  We don’t get days like this often enough.  Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good rain storm but when its weeks straight it
 
gets pretty boring.  I’m sure I would get sick of sun if it was out all the time too.

The holiday season was beautiful.  We decorated inside and out.  And had family come from far and near to celebrate with us.  The kids are at an age where staying home was important to them.  It’s the first Christmas they both remember having at home and they made
the most of it.  The hustle and bustle and hecticness was fun but it is nice to start to get back to our own schedule. 

With the end of the holiday’s and this bright shiny day out, can’t help but start to dream about spring. And what better way than setting up our seed order for our garden this year.  Our favorite seed supplier is Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  If you haven’t heard of them I highly recommend looking them up for your seed needs.  They are all non-gmo and organic seed.  I also really like 
potatogarden.com.  They sell great potatoes to grow.

So the huge dreams of bountiful garden harvest have begun.  Only the passing of the year will show how close to the dream we come, but the journey will be fun and worth it.

On the writing front, we are stepping closer to that dream accomplished.  Cover concepts are being thrown around for Emergence.  And if we are lucky it’ll be more than a concept soon.  As soon as Emergence is out the gate then I can finish the last of the first draft of Dae’s book, the first Cambion novel I have planned.  Then on to the edits for Flight of the Valkyrie, the book after Emergence.

The work plan for the year is etching itself out into the calendar and if we can stay on the road it’s looking like it’ll be an excellent year.

I hope all of yours will be as bright and sunny  :D

Yes, I know it's a couple of days past, but who cares? It's still a fun holiday.  I didn't manage to get on any device on the day to actually wish anyone a happy day.  But the sentiment was there none the less.  We had a great day.  Took the kids to family for a fun trick or treating outing where they cleaned up.  Full pumpkin buckets all around. 

Here's the pumpkins we managed.  Even with very careful inspection looking for bruises we still lost two from the inside out.  The first is a Grimm Beowulf.  A pattern LeeAnn drew from the Rooster Teeth Anime show RWBY.  The middle is my four year olds.  She just wanted squares, lol.  Said she wanted a minecraft pumpkin.  And the third is my son's Jake from the neverland pirates.  He had trouble with his pumpkin so I ended up doing most of it.  His pumpkin had super strength skin.  And he couldn't puncture it, plus the pattern consisted of lines and only lines.  I ended up widening the lines just a touch because I couldn't see how light would get through.  I was shocked at how well it turned out.  It was worth the trouble.
For Halloween this year Autumn wanted to be Rapunzel.  Nice and easy.  Just ordered from the Disney store.  Which was a much better alternative.  All other princess costumes at stores were the sexualized kind.  What 4 year old needs a miniskirt on Halloween night!  By going through the store I got a real dress that went down to her feet.  Much prettier too.

Though I had a terrible time getting the hair circlet to stay on properly.  But she loved it.
As for Raine, he found a box in the spring that he loved.  We had to keep it safe all year.  And this is what we got.

We painted it up.  And instant Creeper!  We had planned to use sponges to get a block effect but with the move kind of ran out of time, but it still came out decently.  I stitched together a pair of green legs and he could actually carry his own pumpkin, which we hadn't expected.  His biggest difficulty was how hot the cardboard got.  So I ended up carrying a creeper around by the eyes over my shoulder for a good portion of the night.
And all of us adults got into the fun also.  We had a masquerade lady, a medieval lady and Scottish peasant, lady pirate, and Harry Dresden.  Lots of fun all around.  I hope everyone had a great holiday. :)

This is just too good to pass up.  I shared it yesterday on my twitter and Facebook but decided it needed more than that.  YouTube O'clock hit in our household last night and we were cruising the videos.  I don't even remember how we ended up finding this gem, but we've always loved this song, ever since we first heard Heather sing it in Phoenyx, and couple it with one of my favorite movies...
I felt that they did an amazing job fitting the footage to the music.  And blending in the voice track of the movie at good points.  And really, who doesn't love the Hulk and his Puny gods comment. :D

    This was taken outside of our dining room window.  Such a lovely view to sit at the table with.  Life has been interesting of late, (when is it not, lol).  We've ended up moving from the apartment we have rented in downtown Seattle for the last three years.  We are now back in the country.  It is a bitter sweet move.  But for the best.  We miss the fun hustle and bustle of Capitol Hill.  A place we will always feel like home.  But the change to the fresh ocean air is so much healthier for the children.  We can step out our door and cross the street to the state park and walk to the beach.  I fell asleep last night to the beautiful haunting sounds of the fog horn from the light house down the road.  It is a very inspirational transition for our life.
    I don't know how long we will get to stay in this wonderful place, but we will enjoy our time while we have it.  In the mean time work can proceed on finishing up the house at the farm- without us being in the way with living- :)
    I'm super excited. In the cottage here I will finally have my very own desk! In a room with a door to help keep small children out.  I can't wait to set it up.  We're still blazing trails through boxes.  But on the writing front Emergence is done, now I'm just shopping for a copy editor and need to deal with the cover.  
    While that's going on I'm also 10k into a new paranormal romance series.  Called the Cambion Novels.  The series will be set around a group of Incubus and Succubus.  And is slated to have five books to start.  After those we'll see if I continue the series or not.
    And don't worry.  I haven't forgotten poor Silren and Ashton.  I have great plans for them eventually.  Though I might not continue them as a serial.   I have a feeling their story rates a few books of their own :)