The New year introduces some changes to the Big Red Chair on Mesmered. Rather than limiting it to just indie writers, I have decided to extend it to people I meet in real life and virtually who fascinate me, in the belief that something of their choices and their activities will interest you as well.
Most readers know of the power of the phoenix, its ability to re-create itself out of flame in a dire situation. 
Lizzy Ford’s life has been filled with such darkness but her unerring strength is her ability to be reborn, to struggle on, to reinvent… better and stronger ever time. Lizzy is one of my fellow Indie chicks and I leave her to tell you her story.
A Thousand Glass Flowers is giving me the time of my life. Initially it took off like a rocket on Kindle on Amazon.com and then I signed with a digital publishing group called MWiDP for Amazon.co.uk. Last week I was rattling away on Facebook that I was excited ATGF had managed a .co.uk #ranking at least once a week for the four weeks that I had been on MWiDP’s lists. Anything from #15 onward!
My latest guest was born of academia, wanted to be a cat burglar, got high through the seventies (one is desperate to ask was it good?) hates diets but has never ever had a surfeit of life and in addition writes killingly observant blogs on the world of writing. Not only that, her latest book, Food Of Love, is amongst other things an homage to chocolate.
“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read. “ ~Attributed to Groucho Marx
It’s been ages since I had the time to enter an old-fashioned bookstore. I had to go to the city the other day to have repairs run on my specs and because I was in the city, I decided to visit my two favourite bookstores. One is a café/bookstore and I spent a long time sifting through the coffee-table titles. One called The Treehouse Book.
The Twilight Saga has just been read. Yes, I know I’m very late to the party but I seemed to subconsciously want the hype to go away so that I could draw my own conclusions.
My opinion of the books is of little matter to anyone but myself. But what I will say is how much I preferred the other male protagonist, Jacob Black, 
the Quileute werewolf. This prompted me to think on Finnian of the Færan, the male protagonist in A Thousand Glass Flowers and I felt the need to compare him with Edward Cullen (blasphemy) and with Jacob Black (secondary blasphemy).
I don’t think many people really know how sweet my tooth is. Well, maybe Shea Mcleod does, as you’ll see on Sept 7th on her blog.
But I crave sweet stuff. If I go out, I look at the dessert menu first and then order small, ‘lite’ pre-cursers. I cook to stop the family from starving, but I truly ‘cook’ when I make sweet stuff. A terrible admission in these days of sugar overload. Actually, when the terrible January 2011summer storms wiped out the Queensland (Australia) sugar harvest, I, along with many others, stockpiled sugar in the pantry.
Shéa MacLeod once told her mother she wished life was more exciting. It was only later she realized you should be careful what you wish for. Her adventures have led her from the Scottish Highlands to the shores of Maui. She’s tried belly dancing and samba. She’s been a soap maker and candy seller. She even tried her hand at massage therapy. And she knows how to milk a goat. Shéa is the author of urban fantasy post-apocalyptic scifi paranormal romances with a twist of steampunk. I was thinking today (I do that sometimes) what would have happened if I had never ever taken up the offer of publication in 2008, when YWO.com set up their print publishing scheme for new writers.
Taking advice from the indie faerie!
I’ve been formatting for Kindle, preparing for print, writing a new story, researching… so much work and the thing is, at the same time, I have been aching. In the neck, shoulder, up over the back of the head. I have been kayaking recently and I thought I had torn a muscle. I’ve not kayaked for ages and am desperately unfit in all the required places.
