Tag: forever

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…forever in a day…

I’ve been awake since 2am because of anxiety. I leave for the airport in about a half hour. I haven’t ridden this edge of anxiety since my Kane days. Literally shaking right now.

But! I am also so excited at the same time. I’ve already medicated, so that should help me not have a panic attack just walking into the convention.

For airplane reading, if I don’t fall asleep, I have my own book, Forever, because I’m doing a book thing next Thursday with a reading group at a former coworker’s new workplace and I haven’t been immersed into that world in a hot minute. Picked it up last night and skimmed through the first chapter.

I had forgotten how much I love that character and that world. So much of my life went into that book. I may sign it and leave it somewhere at the con for someone to find. I do that from time to time.

Anyway, if you want to follow my anxiety-filled first SPN con experience, follow me on Threads (@nataliejcase) as I will be spewing things as they happen and posting pics (and yes, the “big camera” and “big lens” are coming along for the ride.

Might drop content on Insta and FB as well, so take peeks there too if you like.

Y’all be good while I’m gone, or at least don’t burn the world down or start and apocalypse.

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of noise and static

I’m that person who has trouble focusing on a single task at a time. I grew up with the need to be in constant motion, to always be doing something and “sitting” didn’t count as “something”. Even in high school, I had to have music or the television playing in order to focus my brain on my homework.

Today, I use a lot of documentaries to occupy that space in my mind while I work. When I write, there’s usually music playing, unless I’m writing poetry. That’s about the only thing I think I need silence for. Sometimes the music I play while writing is driven by what I’m writing.

For example, while working on the first book in the Blood Witch trilogy, I listened to a bunch of baroque music, driven by the fact that one of my characters was into that sort of sound. When working on Forever, there was a playlist that wound itself through time, like Amara did, starting with some tribal beats and working up through history.

Book 2 in the Blood Witch series didn’t have a decided playlist, it kind of moved around songs in my library and I’d just skip songs that didn’t fit what I was writing. As I’m working on Book 3, I’m having trouble finding the musical flow. The story is set in a culture roughly equating to 1880 London, but the music of the time is not resonating with the story telling.

Somewhat more effective is a random playlist of “sound” rather than set music. Think atmospheric, not quite meditative kind of sound. Lots of long single notes and gentle waves of sound. It also helps when I have a headache, like this morning.

My coffee is getting cold, and I have words to wrestle into place, so happy Sunday, Readers. May it be filled with kindness.

Cover Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

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sheltering in place (and Forever in audio)

I feel like there should be something witty or comforting to say right now, but the world around us is falling to pieces, people can’t work, can’t make money and the bills still come.  All around me people who work in stores and salons and theaters are filing unemployment claims to try to scrape by while we shelter in place.

For most of us born after the last world war, this is unprecedented.

It’s an odd thing. As an agoraphobe, this is largely how I live anyway, but now that I have to live this way, I find myself frustrated a little at not being able to just decide to build up my courage and take myself out somewhere…to the park, to eat…whatever.

I probably wouldn’t anyway, but we always want what we can’t have, right?

Shelter in Place…a term we have used mostly as a means to keep people safe during terrifying emergencies like an active shooter, an escaped convict. Who thought we would ever use it to keep people safe from a virus?

Well, if you need something to occupy some of your time, my vampire novel, Forever, is now available in audiobook format and I have some free codes if you’re interested in reviewing it. Just hit me up on my Facebook page.

And with that, dear Readers, I am off to make some more coffee, drink some more water and prepare myself for a day of phone interviews.  Stay safe, wash your hands, shelter in place and we’ll get through this thing together.

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a complete set

Looking for a gift for someone who loves to read?  The entire Shades and Shadows trilogy is available as a complete set for your loved one’s Kindle (or your own).  For the first time, you can own the complete story from the beginning before violence and xenophobia tear a country apart, through a sort of war that finds our heroes scattered and hurting, to the conclusion.

Come meet our heroes, Shades Mason and Raven, Shadows Alaric and Bryan, Shifters Sahara, Maddie and Evan, and young Zero who is both Sage and Shadow, and so much more, as they try to navigate a world, and a war, fighting for the survival of their tribes.

I am also holding a sale on paperbacks.  I currently have 10 copies of Forever and 11 copies of Through Shade and Shadow (with the original cover) available.  From now through December 24 they are $7 each, or both for $12 plus shipping cost.  Just reach out to me via email at natalie@nataliejcase.com and we’ll sort the details.

I hope to have a giveaway set up soon (amazon is giving me headaches over it). If you have already read any of these, I would appreciate it if you would leave a review on Amazon.  Every review helps us get the books in front of more readers.

It’s writing day, so I am off into a land of fantasy.  Happy Sunday, Readers!

 

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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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a taste of Forever

(image via http://streamline.filmstruck.com/)

I will admit that I have had a lifelong fascination/obsession with vampires.  It started young.  I remember watching Salem’s Lot  when I was just a wee eleven years old.    I’m not cognizant of any significant vampire related moments prior to that, but I have very vivid memories of watching it on TV in the apartment where we lived in Hilton, NY.  Of course, some of that is to do with my age, and some with the fact that my younger brother had snuck down the stairs to watch for at least parts of it and was haunted for MONTHS after by the scene in the image above.

So, it would be safe to say the Stephen King introduced me to vampires.  He was by no means the last to walk me into the dark, of course.  I read the book the movie was based on that same year, and after that I dug into other books and movies and TV shows, too many to count and name, for certain.

By the time I was 20 I had read Dracula enough times to know entire passages by heart.  I wasn’t content to stop there either, I dug into vampire lore, exploring the different ways they were presented in different cultures…the similarities, the differences.  I was fascinated by the concept of immortality,  drawn in by not only the idea of being witness to history, but the mundanity of living a daily existence where every night bleeds into the next.

I was, as a pubescent teenager is like to, pulled to the erotic notion of the biting, of taking life from the very essence that keeps us all alive, the intimate nature of that exchange, while also at the same time, being a practical child, by the idea that not every meal could be an erotic buffet of hot neck biting and licking that led to what my teenage hormones could only imagine.  I found myself thinking about other ways a vampire might get what she needed, without the entanglement of the humanity that comes with drinking from a human chalice.

By the time I was sixteen, I had a pretty good idea what my vampires would be like, if I were to write about vampires…and from that idea, Amara was born.

It is safe to say that Amara comes from those first vampires I experienced, and is influenced by those that came after.

And you can experience Amara and all her nuance right now for 99 cents!  Forever is available right now for Kindle at the low price of 99 cents. Grab your copy today…and leave a review if you would!  Reviews make writers happy!

My coffee cup seems to be empty, I best go fill it up.  Happy Wednesday, Readers!

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and just like that, it’s June

I’m not really sure where January, February, March, April and May have all gotten themselves off to, but I hope they’re having fun.  It seems like just a day or two ago I was struggling to remember to write 2017 on things instead of 2016 (or the inexplicable occasions where I wrote 1996….what?), and here we are on the first of June.

We sent May out with a bang though.  My niece graduated high school on Tuesday.  She is the youngest of my brother’s kids, and I couldn’t be more proud of the woman she is becoming.  The school she graduated from is one of the top 1% of schools in the country and her classmates are all amazing students, most of whom will be attending four year universities and colleges in the fall.

I got back from all of that frivolity last night, and when I woke up this morning it was June.  Already, my calendar is jam packed for the month.

babf_logoStarting this weekend when I will be at the Bay Area Book Festival in Berkeley, California signing (and selling) books.  I will have copies of my two novels, Forever and Through Shade and Shadow as well as my small collection of poetry.  Sale pricing is $12 each for the novels and $2.50 for the poetry collection.

I can take cash, credit cards and paypal.  It should be a fun day for the whole family.  With all of the vendors and authors, there should be something for everyone!

San Francisco Pride is at the end of the month, for a completely different festival to bookend the month.  Pride likewise has something for just about everyone.  If you come out to one or both days of Pride remember to wear sunscreen, dress in layers, wear comfortable shoes, and please consider dropping a dollar (or more) into one of those pink buckets.  Every penny goes to support the organization that creates the festival and/or the organizations that take care of our community.

Somewhere between those bookends, I will be taking a couple of days to head out to Yosemite with my mother, to enjoy some nature and some truly breathtaking views, like this one, which I took on my last trip to Yosemite in 2010.

4795598576_4edc53f518_o

But for now, I should go pour my second cup of coffee and get to working the day job.  Hope you all have a pleasant day!

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a festival of books

I have a confession to make.  I have never been to a book festival or convention or other celebration of books.  Not as a reader, certainly not as a writer.  Some of the reasons for this are fundamental issues of who I am, namely the agoraphobic part of who I am.  Large crowds, even mediocre crowds in small spaces make me sweat, palpitate, hyperventilate and ultimately need to leave quickly unless I do an awful lot of prep work first.

So, when I show up on Sunday, June 4th at Civic Center Park in Berkeley, California, I will be attending my first event.

babf_logo The Bay Area Book Festival is in it’s third year, and while I’d love to be able to attend some of the talks and such on Saturday, I have other obligations.  But come Sunday morning, I will load up my cart with books and a table cloth (reminder to self, get a tablecloth), my tablet and credit cart doohicky plus a bunch of water and snacks for the day, and I will BART myself into Berkeley and find my assigned place in the park for the day.

Of course, I hope to sell enough books to break even on the day, but beyond that, my hope is that I can keep my agoraphobic anxiety down and that I get to meet new folks, talk about my books and other books.  I’d love to meet readers who are passionate about what they read and love.  I’d also love to meet fellow authors who are passionate about what they write and love.

If it isn’t too much to hope for, I’m going to hope that some of my friends and family come out to see me too.  It isn’t every day an author gets to do their first event like this…and if I’m being truthful, maybe having someone watch my table for a bit while I look around would be awesome too.

So, if you’re somewhere in the San Francisco Bay area and fancy some book loving come Sunday, June 4th, you should hope on BART and take yourself to the Berkeley Civic Center station.  The park is just a short walk away.

I won’t be too hard to find.  I’ll be the author with green hair, probably wearing a fedora or other hat, and possibly a Star Wars shirt, depending on my mood.  Come Say HI!

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Beltane blessings and happy Monday

May 1st, it’s one of the “big ones” for most modern Pagans.  Beltane is a celebration of life, the awakening of the earth, the dancing of the maypole, the fervor of frenzied mating that calls out to all creation that now is the time to seed the fields.

Many of my Pagans friends were up and out before the dawn, gathering in fields and on hilltops to sing and dance in the daylight, to greet the rising sun with cheer.  It is the time of the maiden, of flower crowns and a heady innocence that leads into day, and as night falls, brings us to the fires to be baptised and raised up, delivering us into the heat and passion of creation.

For the rest of the world, it’s Monday.  A beginning of a different kind.  Here in San Francisco it feels like we’ve finally turned a corner weather wise.  The nights are still cool, but the days are getting warmer.  I’m celebrating with a change of hair color that seems to suit both the holy day of Beltane and the return of the spring.

green

Yes, I went green this weekend, after spending a ridiculous amount of time getting all of the red out of my hair.  I really like the way it turned out.

Anyway, enough of my prattling at you.  Did you know you can still get Forever  for free (on Kindle)?  Today and tomorrow.  You can’t get much better than Free!  And, while Amara’s story may seem more like Samhain reading than Beltane, who knows when the next time is you can get it for nothing?

So, I’m going to get on with the day job now.  I hope all you Pagans out there have a smashing Beltane, and the rest of you, Happy Monday!

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Forever for free

Right now, you can pick up a kindle version of my first book, Forever, for absolutely nothing!  Yes, you read that right.  Enter the dark world of Amara, born both human and vampire, caught between two worlds and struggling to be true to herself.  You can also visit the book’s page on Creativia.org to learn more.

You can also check out my author’s page on Creativia.  It’s new and improved!  Just click here.

I hope you take advantage of this special offer.  It’s good until the 2nd of May, so hurry!

And, as always, I’d love a review once you’ve read it!