Author's Blog

A New Member to Our Family

We recently had a new addition to our family – a Siberian Husky.

Naiya Pic close up

 

Life in our home has certainly changed due to this one and half year old pet that my son has adopted.  I’m certainly getting more exercise with needing to take her for frequent walks. Better yet, with her energy, she is walking me.

We have only had her for a few weeks, but she already has become a family member. Amazing how quickly we all fell in love with her. 

 

 

I read a quote the other day about dogs and their personalities that I found interesting. 

A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.” – Arthur Conan Doyle

I wondered  if  there is truth to this statement? As a new dog owner, I went to “Cesar’s Way” website and found this article written by Nicole Pajer that says what your dog’s behavior says about you.

http://www.cesarsway.com/dogbehavior/basics/What-Does-Your-Dogs-Behavior-Say-About-You#ixzz32V7NLvZW.

What do you think about this?

New Website Design Launched Today

I am thrilled to be sharing with you my new website. It has been a long time in coming but the wait was well worth it.

paint-tray1In designing the site, I worked closely with my web-designer and graphic artist, Alex to produce a website that reflects my personal style along with those of my genres. His extensive knowledge and amazing artistic skills have made an attractive author website that I previously only dreamed of having. Aesthetic, simplistic in design, and ease of usage were our main focus – I think we accomplished all and more.

Thanks, Alex! Great job. It was a pleasure working with you on this new site.

 

The timing of the launch matched perfectly to my soon-to-be released thriller “The Sussex Deal”. This edge-of-your-seat thriller deals with the purchase of the Sussex property by real estate tycoon, Dominic Lombardi and the deadly conspiracy that follows.

With the lengthy break that I had taken from my writing for personal reasons, I am excited to finally be back and creating full-force. I have several novels to be released in the upcoming months, and I will work diligently with my web-marketer to make them and my future novels a success.

Glad to be back!

 

 

 

 

 

Forget the Trials and Tribulations

happy-new-year-2013-smaller

 

New Year’s is just around the corner, and like many, I couldn’t help but reflect on the year gone by. As I do so, I realize it hasn’t been that great of a year. Personally, it was a stressful year as we were building a house on top of all our other work. Anyone that has built a house knows the stress involved. I chuckled when a friend of my asked whether my husband and I were still together during the nerve-wracking ordeal. We lost six people very dear to us; God rest their souls. With our teenage son, there were a few grey-hair moments that we would have preferred not to experience. And even with my writing, I had missed a number of great opportunities that literally put me into tears.

 

 

disappointmentThe more I thought about all the things that were terrible about 2012, the more depressed I got. To get out of that depressive mode, I began to make a list of all the good things that happened, or things I learned from the things that did not go well, making me a better person.

 

 
check_mark• All the effort, time, and money that we put into our new house, produced a beautiful dream-home for us, and the stress our relationship as husband and wife endured made us closer as a couple.
• There is nothing nice about losing a loved one, but we cannot stop the circle of life. We have our cherished memories that enrich our lives, and  others are expecting new bundles of joy to help fill the gaps.
• Through the trying ordeal, that we endured with our son, in the end, it worked out and made our relationship with him stronger and better, something that could have easily taken a turn for the worse, causing us to lose him.
• As for my writing, my husband said, “Don’t cry over spilt milk.” And he is correct; there will be many more opportunities that come along. The time was obviously not right for me, and it gave me the opportunity to be better prepared to find those opportunities and be ready for them when they come my way.
• In the greater scheme of things, my problems seem miniscule and unimportant when I compare them to some of the catastrophic events that have taken place across the globe in 2012, shedding a new light on what I should be focusing on.

Trials and tribulations will always come along; it is, after all, a part of life. I guess what is important is not to dwell on hardships, but to learn from them, being better prepared for them, and maybe even avoiding some from happening with the wisdom that has been gained.
wine_glass (2)

I look at the coming year of 2013 as being a new opportunity, allowing me to clear the slate and start a new year with optimism and hope. I need to remind myself that ‘viewing life as the glass half-full’ makes it a far better ride.

I wish all of you a happy and healthy New Year! May all your dreams and wishes come true in 2013.

The Masters’ Arcanum – Novelette soon to be released

Prequel to “The Thoughtmover Series”

He raced as fast as his legs carried him, down the steep mountain path, winding through the tight underbrush, and hurling himself over the golden-stoned boulders. Leaves and branches smacked against his face and limbs, but he ignored the stings. Magtor had discovered that the war had begun, and his family was in imminent danger. As king of Neval, he and his family were on top of the Tarconian army’s list of who to hunt, brutally torture, and then kill.

He jumped more rocks in his path and swung around the larger trees. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled down his back, soaking his shirt.

“Almost there!” he consoled himself, praying that he reached them on time.

Their hut sat near a tributary of the Talon River, at the base of the Cardell Mountains. Unable to transfer his thoughts in the valley below due to the dense stone, he had journeyed to the top of one of the highest snow-capped peaks to a small temple that rested there, to discover the latest news of the predicted attack.

During his communications, Lord Dalton, the neighboring King of Edoma, had informed him about the uprising of the Tarconian army and their pursuit to re-instate slavery amongst the people.

Magtor cringed, knowing the long dreaded Mover’s war had begun. And the Tarconian army was rounding up all the royal Movers of each country to either convert or kill them. And he, as one of the most powerful Movers who held a world-altering Arcanum that they coveted, was their most sought after target.

He ran faster. Cramps pained his thighs and his heart pounded heavily, aching, but he urged his body onward.

How often he had wished not to be privy to the unorthodox knowledge explaining the horrid reason for the Mover’s creation. The Arcanum was an unbearable weight that added to his already heavy burden as king and one that gave him doubts about his own beliefs and values.

Although Magtor had received Dalton’s horrific news during the nightspan, he had immediately fled the small temple, sprinting down the mountainside since then, to reach his family before the soldiers arrived at dawn. With the sunspan having now awoken, it left him little time to reach the hut and escape with his family before the army’s arrival.

Magtor glimpsed the hut in the distance and dragged in a breath of heartfelt relief when he sensed no Tarconians in the area. Dalton had encouraged him to flee directly to the Golden Cave, to find refuge, without losing valuable time to retrieve his family. For Magtor, that was not an option. He could not live with himself if he did not try to save his mate and two boys.

Sprinting the last stretch down the base of the mountain, he finally spotted his two sons, chopping wood at the side of the hut, and his wife, Onella, picking thorn berries along the wooden fence surrounding the garden. As Magtor neared, he shouted as loud as his aching lungs permitted, “They’re coming! We must flee!”

 NOVELETTE SOON TO BE RELEASED!

    This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual people, events, or places is entirely coincidental.  

The Masters’ Arcanum Copyright © 2012 by Alandra CL  

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce the book, or portions thereof. It is forbidden to sell or use this book in anyway for the purpose of monetary gain. Plagiarism of this book or any part thereof is prohibited.

 

 

Not too long ago, I finished a prequel to my Thoughtmover Series. Writing a story of my characters’ younger lives showed me new sides to their personalities and gave me a deeper understanding of why they behave the way they do.
Life experiences don’t necessarily change a personality, but it will move people into directions they may otherwise not take.
I have gained a greater affinity toward my characters through this process, allowing me to tell their stories better.

It isn’t the things that happen to us in our lives that cause us to suffer, it’s how we relate to the things that happen to us that causes us to suffer. ” – Pema Chodron