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sale time

As I was looking for a book, I came across a small cache of copies of Through Shade and Shadow with the original cover.  If you recall, when we released In Gathering Shade, we redesigned the cover.

through-shade-and-shadow-reders-favSo here I sit with a bunch of the old covers and I thought that would be a good time to run a quick sale!  From now until I run out of copies, I’m going to sell them for $5 each plus shipping!

But wait, there’s MORE!

While I’m at it, I have a bunch of copies of Forever as well! Those are also $5 each while supplies last.

If you’re interested in either of these, drop me a line at forever-complete_tcc-readers-favoritenatalie@nataliejcase.com and let me know what you want to find in your mailbox.  That’s also my paypal address, so you can forward payment that way.

And, just because I can, I’ll toss in my poetry book for $2 each, because I can.

Now then, I best get myself busy with work and a second cup of coffee.  I hope y’all have a great Thursday!

 

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saturday means writing

My weekends, when not completely eaten up with familial or other obligations, usually begin with writing.  I drink coffee and throw words at the page on whatever project I’m working on until either (or both) the coffee or the words run out, then I get on with the day’s chores.

This morning I woke up with a headache, so I’m hoping the coffee will help chase it away.  I need to go out eventually today, to pick up some prescriptions and a few groceries, but hopefully the headache will be gone by then.

I haven’t decided yet which project to work on, but I haven’t quite finished that first cup of coffee either.  I’m leaning toward the fun of the epic fantasy story, because my two primary characters are my happy place right now and the plot that was previously a bit vague has come more strongly into focus this week.

What about you, dear Readers?  What are your plans for the weekend?  I hope they include a good book or two!

Have all of mine yet?

Forever– For the vampire lovers

Through Shade and Shadow and In Gathering Shade – For those who like their contemporary fantasy with a taste of reality.

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coffee in a paper cup

Today began with dropping my favorite coffee mug (well, one of them, in this case the one I keep in the office) on the floor in the office kitchen and smashing it into about five pieces.  Smashing, no?

I shook it off and got some coffee started and set out to dig through my email.  I’ve been down with a stomach bug since Sunday. So, while I worked from home yesterday, I ignored a lot of stuff.

In forty days I leave on vacation.  Two weeks in France and Italy with my good friend from England.  The history and art geeks in me are so excited I can barely function!  I got the city pass I bought for Rome in yesterday’s mail, and I’m just buzzing about it.

Italy has been on my bucket list since before I had a bucket list.

And now that my step-father’s memorial is over, and after this weekend we should have my mother completely moved into her new place, that means I now have time to turn my energy back to writing.  I wrote about a half a chapter this last week, and it felt really good.

I have some major editing to do on Where Shadows Fall before I can get it submitted to my editor, but I also have two other projects on the burners again after a long absence.  With any luck, August can be the month of finishing that trilogy and getting it into the publisher.

For now, I’m reclaiming the day with coffee out of a paper cup, and a new order into Death Wish Coffee for a new favorite coffee mug.

Smashing!

 

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the path to perfection

I’m a writer.  Left to my own devices, I would probably never stop fiddling with a story.  I still find places in things I wrote twenty years ago that I’d change, fix, re-write, update, flesh out….you get the idea.

So there comes a point in every manuscript where I have to make myself take my hands off it and send it to my editor.  I’ve reached that point with Where Shadows Fall.

Later today I will be sending it off to my hard working editor who will correct all of my typos, point out the places where I don’t tie things together, ask me what was I thinking here, give me comments on characters and characterization and give me feedback on what’s missing, what needs more fleshing out and how to fill up that plot hole I didn’t even see.

When I get it back from her, I’ll be a step closer to ready to submit to my publisher.  Before submission, however, it’s my turn to use what she gives me to make the story shine.

Finishing this book is a milestone.  It ends the story begun in Through Shade and Shadow,  and closes off a chapter in my writing life.  There are so many stories bursting inside my head and I can’t wait to see where they take me next!

Now, to a cup of coffee and the day job.  Happy Wednesday, Readers!!

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the early morning quiet

I’m in the office over an hour earlier than normal this morning because I need to leave early to shoot some senior portraits for a lovely young lady. So early in fact, none of the restaurants down stairs were open when I got here.

The office is dark and quiet and I’m the only one here.  It’s times like these I enjoy, which is also why I love working from home and living alone.  The silence is pristine. and the quiet is very settling…which is good when you have a day as full as this one is going to be.

Over the weekend I spent a lot of time working on Where Shadows Fall, because the ending just wasn’t working for me.  It’s a lot better now, which brings us closer to the place where I get it off to the editor who will make it even better.

I also spent some time reconsidering an old story idea that has been hanging around the back corners of my brain since I was in my twenties.  May see if I can breathe some life into it.  Not sure it has the plot for a full novel though.  Possibly a novella.  We’ll see.

Sounds like the coffee is ready, and I should take advantage of this quiet while I can, so I’ll leave you here, my lovely readers.  I hope your Monday is filled with hope and wonder.

 

 

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where shadows fall

The final book in the Shades and Shadows trilogy has been a slow go for me, not because I was bored of the story or anything like that.  In fact, I still love this story a great deal.  However, in the process of re-writing the first two books several times there were a number of significant changes in the plot that needed to be carried over into the final book.

Making sure I got all of that right took some time, and then I had three possible endings in mind, so I had to make some decisions. This weekend, I wrote the ending, and the “zero draft” as it were, is finished.

That’s not to say that Where Shadows Fall is ready for the editor.  I have a lot of work to do on it before that time. I have at least two pages that contain notes such as “Insert description here” and “needs better dialog” and other such creative bits, and the word count is far below what it needs to be as a result.

Still, it’s a big thing to finish a trilogy.  With any luck I’ll be able to tell you how to get Where Shadows Fall this summer!

But for now, I’m off to the day job and a second cup of coffee.  Happy Monday, Readers!

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dystopia

When I was a teenager I loved dystopian fiction.  I was obsessed with the idea of the end of the world as we know it and how the people left after catastrophe would survive. I wanted to visit all kinds of different worlds with different types of societies and different means of living.

Part of that, for certain, was caught up in my religious outlook and my internal self doubt that I would slip up somehow and miss the rapture so as to be stuck behind on an earth that was living in the tribulation period, but aside from that, I was drawn to the plucky upriser, the person who stood up to the dystopia they found themselves in and rather than submitting to their fate, they fought back, they carved out their own place or stood up to an unjust system, rebelled against a corrupt government.

I guess I still am.  I just never suspected that dystopia would be so easy to establish.  No global calamity was needed, just a government run by people more concerned with money than the well being of its citizens.

Heh, when I first wrote the first draft of Through Shade and Shadow almost six years ago now, I considered it’s political plot to be too far fetched.  No one would believe America could be torn apart that fast, even with an outside influence at work behind the scenes.

Now, here we are in a land where the president and congress are more concerned with corporate welfare and the well being of millionaires and billionaires than they are for the rest of the citizens, where safety regulations are swiftly becoming a thing of the past, where cities can poison their own people with lead with no consequences, where children can be mowed down with guns no other civilized country allows in the hands of its citizens and over the grieving of their mothers we as a nation shout about our rights to own these death machines.

But, just liked in all of those dystopian stories I read as a teenager, someone is rising up. Heroes are emerging. Resistance is beginning.

And just like in those stories, those heroes are teenagers.  I know this plot.

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coming back strong

I’ve spent most of the first month of 2018 sick.  I caught a cold at New Years that became a sinus infection that did not respond to the first two antibiotics we tried.  I just finished my course of clarithromycin yesterday.  I’m still super congested, but feeling so much better!

Which means I can begin to focus on writing again.  This has me excited.  I’m nearly done with the zero draft of Where Shadows Fall, the finale of the Shades and Shadows series, and I’m five chapters in on a new novel, and I have two short stories in the works!  It’s a busy time to be me, I guess.

I will be focusing on building my Patreon in the coming months as well, hoping I can use it to source enough money to work on getting audio books recorded.   I’m still working out what exactly to offer over there, but it will include some behind the scenes looks at work I’m doing, possibly so vlogs of me talking about writing, and other fun things, including patron-only giveaways.

That said, I should get on over there to post something for my patrons, and then get back to work.  The words won’t write themselves!

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#amwriting

It’s another Saturday, so of course that means it’s time to write.  Which is good, because I have three different stories percolating in my head.  Of course there is Where Shadows Fall, but there is a new short story idea that I’m just starting on, and the new novel tentatively called The Gift of Blood.  Not sure which will get my writing hours today.

I have to go out later today to pick up a few things and transfer some money, but aside from that my weekend is going to be spent right here at home.  I have a guest coming in from England on Wednesday, and I need to make sure the house is up to snuff.

Yule is just around the corner, with Christmas hot on its heels, and even with vacation on the horizon, it feels very hectic.  I hope you all are closing in on done with your shopping and wrapping and all the prep that comes with the holiday seasons.

I’m off to refill my coffee cup and get to making words appear.  Happy Saturday, Readers!

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where shadows lie

Saturdays are my writing days.  I spend my mornings visiting in the worlds I have created and drawing out the stories of those who live there.  I have, in recent weeks spent much of my writing time creating a new world, but this morning I am once again submerged into the world that is Shades and Shadows.

My goal is to wrap up this story in this last book, so writing includes a fair amount of revisiting to make sure I pick up all the loose threads of story.  And there are a lot of threads.

As I rework a scene I wrote months ago that involves a rather large scale bombing I can’t help but revisit in my mind all of the terrible acts we can do to one another, the destructive power that is a human being filled with hatred.

It can be easy to lose ourselves in despair as we continue to see this destruction unfold in our real lives.  It can be easy to forget the force for good that is a human being filled with love.

When despair threatens to overwhelm, I have found the best remedy is to counter it with small acts of kindness.  Humanity is found in the smallest acts.

Happy Saturday, Readers!