Vivid Musings

Maven (The Endure Series, Book One), by S.A. Huchton
Genre: Science Fiction Romance (New Adult)
Release Date: June 3rd, 2013

How far would you go for love?

Since losing her parents at 14, young prodigy Dr. Lydia Ashley has focused on one thing: an appointment on the Deep Water Research Command Endure. Now 21, she’s about to realize that dream, but nothing is how she imagined it would be. Her transitional sponsor forgets her, her new lab is in complete chaos, and, as if that weren’t enough, she’s about to discover something so horrific it could potentially destroy all life on the planet. 

Daniel Brewer, a noted playboy and genius in his own right, may be exactly what she needs… Or he may make everything worse.

Has she finally found a puzzle she can’t solve?

If you’re wondering why I’m taking part in a cover reveal for a SciFi Romance, blame the author, S.A. (Starla) Huchton. She is an award winning author, award nominated podcaster, graphic artist, vocalist, book designer and friend. Over the years, I have been many times impressed by her incredible talent, her strong female voice as a creator, her incredible energy and tireless work ethic.

So, while not my usual genre, I’m greatly looking forward to reading Maven, just to see what Ms. Huchton can enchant me with this time.

All you get today is the cover, but the book will be available on June 3rd, 2013.

Links:
Twitter: @riznphnx
MAVEN on Goodreads
S.A. (Starla) Huchton’s Home Page
Designed by Starla Website
S.A. Huchton’s Facebook Author Page

I can’t recall if I met Ms. Huchton before or after listening to her podcast novel, The Dreamer’s Thread. But I do remember how she lured me in to listening: Cheyenne Wright. He was one of the voices she assembled for the audio production. I “met” Cheyenne through Twitter and my old podcast, The City of Heroes Podcast. Cheyenne was also a player of the superhero MMORPG, and we discovered that we also share birthdays. His voice is rich and powerful and I was curious to hear what he had lent it to. No slouch himself, Cheyenne has won no less than three Hugo Awards for his work on the web comic/graphic novels/novels over at Girl Genius.

Pretty quickly, I fell in love with the world Ms. Huchton created in The Dreamer’s Thread, characters and story. Yes, I of course loved Cheyenne’s contribution, but the story and imagery held me enraptured. I devoured it, and still recommend it to any that are interested in fantasy.

What Starla doesn’t know is that back in my 4-days-a-week running days, I would take a longer route home because I didn’t want to stop listening to her podiobook, The Dreamer’s Thread. (Yay, extra calorie burn!) And in recent months, the images Ms. Huchton brought to mind in The Dreamer’s Thread have helped me on my current quest: finding silver linings, regardless how dark the circumstances. I have even been using her descriptions of finding the “thread” in one of my guided meditations (helpful with my Health Blah related stress management).

Many thanks to Ms. Huchton for her literary and personal contributions to my life and for all she brings to the world.

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Author Bio:

Starla Huchton released her first novel, The Dreamer’s Thread, as a full cast podcast production beginning in August 2009. Her first foray went on to become a double-nominee and finalist for the 2010 Parsec Awards. Since her debut, Starla’s voice has appeared in other podcasts including The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, The Drabblecast, and Erotica a la Carte. She is also a voice talent for Darkfire Productions, and narrates several of their projects, including The Emperor’s Edge series, This Path We Share, and others. Her writing has appeared in the Erotica a la Carte podcast, a short story for The Gearheart, and an episode of the Tales from the Archives podcast (the companion to Tee Morris and Philippa Balantine’s Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series), which garnered her a second finalist badge from the 2012 Parsec Awards. Her second novel, a Steampunk adventure entitled Master of Myth, was the first place winner in the Fantasy/Science Fiction category of The Sandy Writing Contest held annually by the Crested Butte Writers Conference. Maven is her third completed novel and the first in a planned series of four.

After completing her degree in Graphic Arts at Monterey Peninsula College, Starla opened up shop as a freelance graphic designer focusing on creating beautiful book covers for independent authors publishers. She currently lives in Virginia where she trains her three Minions and military husband.

• If Game Of Thrones took place entirely on Facebook
• This has been great fun to read as Season 3 has unfolded and I am linking to the Season 3 page instead of the most recent episode for those of you that are not caught up on their viewing.

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  Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now vid

• Shaun of the Dead is on while I fold laundry. Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now is featured during a zombie fight, and as always when I hear this song, I kinda lose my mind. I really love it. A quick search led to the vid below, by JRescalvo. The lyrics are shown along with some nifty representations of the late Mr. Mercury, but the images freeze completely around the 1:30 minute mark while the song plays on. It’s far more interesting than the lyric-only vids and has none of the sad stuff, unlike when watching videos of Queen before Freddie Mercury passed away. Twenty-something years ago and it still feels like too soon…

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• School of Thrones

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• It’s okay to not like things…
  ‘Nuff said?

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• Grownups by Randall Munroe
  I‘m a long time fan of the web comic and this is my second favorite strip of his, which is saying a lot. I have a few dozen favorites bookmarked, but this one speaks to the life I tried to embrace four years ago when we found ourselves in an  empty nest. I can’t recommend the web comic enough, but at this time, there are over 1,200 strips posted. There’s a handy search bar if you prefer to pop in a keyphrase or word. I recommend you also hover you mouse over the strip, since hides further awesome in the “hover text,” which I replicated here, just for you!

I found out earlier today that a friend from my younger days killed himself on Monday. I still can’t wrap my head ’round it.
Many tears have been shed.
Confusion voiced, to an unfortunate and extremely sweet friend that I stumbled into immediately after receiving the news.
Guilt over being a Debbie Downer on that friend’s evening.
Decision to not wallow, and to celebrate life instead, in Bryan’s honor.
Shame over not reaching out after hearing through the grapevine that his mom passed away last year.
Rage over the waste of confused yet kind person with great musical talent.
Guilt over causing my extremely hard-working husband to delay watching the Walking Dead, out of respect for my raw feelings.
More tears, more rage and a few impassioned proclamations, including one to climb out of sadness and celebrate, again.
Happiness while briefly connecting with a far away beloved for a silly video chat and much giggling.
Guilt over pushing sadness to the side.

And now, just puffy eyes and a simple plea remain, as clichè as it is:

If you are considering harming yourself, don’t. You are not alone. There are resources available to help you. Please reach out to any of the countless suicide prevention charities or local services available to you.

If you know someone may be contemplating harming themselves or someone else, please try and get them help. You cannot “rescue” anyone, only they can. Don’t fool yourself, you are not in control. They are. But you may be able to help them get on the path out of the darkness. And you aren’t alone. Those same organizations will help you get help for your friend. You can Google it for fresh results, but below are a few from my search.

And if you have no one that you feel is in need but still want to help, please consider donating to charities that help those that find themselves unable to cope. 

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

Take Five to Save Lives

Veterans Crisis Line

I hope you found the peace you were seeking, Bryan.
*blows a kiss*

Two things I want to announce on the subject of conventions:

My planned conventions:

Chooch and I will attend Balticon, only one week away, at the Hunt Valley Marriott in Maryland. I am shocked and gratified that this will be my 5th in attendance and 4th as a panelist!

At this point, I’ve not received my official schedule, but as of now I know that I am scheduled to be at:

• Friday’s Meet and Greet
• Saturday at 8 pm (I believe) in the Derby A Live Recording of SpecFicMedia.com Presents – Beyond the Wall: A Game of Thrones podcast. Come join our entire ‘cast cast as we explore the HBO series “Game of Thrones” as well as the book series. We vigilantly try to avoid spoilers, but either the cast or the audience may drop one or two. Based on our recordings to date, expect more F-bombs being dropped than spoilers. *It is known.*
• Sunday at 10 pm in the Chase, I will be joining authors Barbara Friend Ish and P.G. Holyfield as we do readings from our works. Nothing makes me more nervous than a reading, but I hope to do it up right for my breast cancer anthology, with a tentative July release date.
• When feeling up to it, my standard meeting points are the foyer, the bar, the courtyard or the Dealer’s Room.  Is it true there is no

I will be attending Philly Comic-Con, June 2 and will remain in Philly until the 4th for a private celebration. At this point, it appears that work obligations make keep Chooch away for this one.

We hope to make the trek to Dragon*Con for Labor Day weekend, but we will not know until closer to September if we will be able to attend or not.

TuacaCon, hosted by P.G. Holyfield and presented by SpecFicMedia.com is a virtual convention with writers, artists, musicians and performers giving their all with no travel costs! The date has yet to be determined, but the last two years was great fun and free! It is rumored that it may occur in Northern Virginia this year, and have even more folks in the live audience than ever before!

Also, if we meet at Balticon, Philly Comic-Con, Dragon*Con and/or TuacaCon, please know that for many possible reasons that I am sometimes easily confused or overwhelmed, hopefully due to one or all of my Health Blahs** or treatments. Please do not take offense if you get a negative vibe from me, in nearly all cases I can assure you that it is not you. It’s me. I am posting this here in case I have trouble verbalizing or am unaware of the issue. I don’t want a fuss made, I just want to avoid causing any misunderstandings.

Otherwise, I’m shy but say hi if you recognize me. Or leave a comment, @ me on Twitter (@VividMuse) or whatevs to let me know if you will be at any of these and maybe we can meet up!

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**Health Blahs – my term for my small collection of non-life threatening, yet problematic maladies.

The schedule is not in its final form yet, but here is my schedule as it stands right now.

Note: ALL of my events are on Sunday!

Noon in the Chesapeake ~ Paulette Jaxton’s book launch for The Empress Sword
Recently published by Dragon Moon Press, I’ll be helping Paulette serve up tasty nomz inspired by the book and there will be a reading from the book by Nathan Lowell!

6PM in the Chesapeake – Girls’ Rules Live! ~ Women in the Gaming World
I’ll be joined by Laura Burns, Christiana Ellis, M.A. in PA, and Jett Micheyl. I’m also hoping for a special guest!
It’s not just Felicia Day having fun in the diverse world of gaming, it’s women from all walks of life. Join this all-female panel discuss their experiences after years of gameplay. We’ll discuss all manner of gaming, as this panel reveals what it’s really like when boy discovers that “girl” doesn’t always mean Guy In Real Life.

7 PM in the Chase (lower level) ~ Reading from my Mom’s short story, “Grandma.”
This story is the inspiration and centerpiece for a (Breast) Cancer Anthology I’ll be publishing in time for her birthday in 2012. I’ll be requesting submissions for written works and artwork for the collection and will be paying for accepted works. All proceeds from the book will go to established cancer charities.

9 PM in the Chesapeake – Into the Blender Live: Take My Geek Card (I Dare You!)
Guests include: P.G. Holyfield, Marc Bailey and Rich Sigfrit
This time we’re taking on a touchy subject: There are countless arenas of geek affection, but some seem near universal: movies, television, and books. Whether it be Star Wars or Firefly; Lord of the Rings, or Buffy; Gaiman or Pratchet – there are things you are SUPPOSED to love as a geek. Well, we don’t love them all and I bet you don’t either! Come compare your likes and dislikes with an assorted panel of lovers and haters of every genre.

10 PM in the Chesapeake ~ Geek Parenting in New Media
Our panel of geek parents chime in with their thoughts on raising young geeks. What is the right age to show the kids Star Wars? Do you show them all 6 or only the good ones. What websites are good and safe for kids at what age? How do you teach your kids about Internet privacy? How do you prepare them for “Greifers” on gaming systems? When is it OK for them to use their real name?

I’ll then be attending the remainder of the Time Traveler’s Ball, hosted by Christiana Ellis in the Garden Room!

And if you are in need of promotional buttons NOW is the time to order them! There is no delivery charge for buttons delivered at Balticon. I will be taking my equipment to Balticon, but will have to charge a higher rate for any I craft while at the con due to time constraints. For information, check out my site, VividMuseCreations.com.

Chooch and I came up with this little helper to expand your social media dynasty ~ fully customizable w/your QRCode, $2 if ordered by noon Wednesday, $5 if made at Balticon. Viv@VividMuseCreations.com

I finally got the message we were waiting for from the Realtor since we listed our house for sale on Friday, that someone was coming for a look. I know that the first buyer won’t put down a contract, but I’ve been terrified about the market. Just knowing that there’s an actual market for our home is reassuring.

After we left the dentist appointment, we returned home and sure enough, someone had indeed been there. What a relief! We then headed out for our planned outing with our dear friend Philippa Ballantine, her parents visiting from New Zealand, and the spectacular Sonic Boom (daughter of Tee Morris). Pip’s dad had business nearby and we were invited to join them for lunch and for me to make good on my long-promised pottery painting trip with Sonic Boom.

It was a sorely needed break in the day for Chooch and I, as we were able to put the other stuff to the side for a bit and just revel in their fine company.

After lunch, Chooch had to return to work, loathe as he was to do so. We jumped in the limo (why yes, I did say limo! The Ballantines travel in style!) and went to the pottery studio. I had promised a pottery painting trip to Sonic Boom as her birthday present last summer, but was then shocked to find that the three pottery studios I knew of had closed, including one by her house and two by mine. I happily discovered that one studio by me had actually just moved and that’s where we headed.

It was delightful seeing Sonic Boom’s excitement, even though she’d already done it before. She took her time picking out just the perfect piece and paint colors. As she painted, Pip and her mother painted a lovely piece together, and Pip’s dad impressed us all with the bold design he painted on his piece. Sonic Boom worked very hard getting her work exactly the way she wanted it, until she spotted the studio cat, Whiskers. She was a bit distracted after that, but who can blame her? He’s a lovey cat that just wanders around jumping into unsuspecting laps for scritches and such.

Happy with all the work done, we jumped back into the limo and they took me home. Everyone piled out for a pit stop before they headed back home, and ended up staying and visiting before waving goodbye to Chooch as he was on a conference call.

I had a wonderful time over lunch, and it was absolutely delightful meeting Pip’s parents. They are just as you’d expect of the people that raised her: intelligent, extremely kind and very funny. Keeping up with Sonic Boom is just as fast-paced as you’d imagine, and I was fairly exhausted from all the fun and laughter we shared.

After they left, I started trying to get caught up on the work I’ve been unable to do for the last few weeks. It was pretty hectic and I wore myself out, but got a lot done, including a quick 5 minute recording that took over an hour to get done. That’s right, an hour, thanks to a crashing computer. As usual, it took Chooch 5 minutes to figure out and fix the problem and I was able to get it done and sent off. By that time, I was extremely stressed and cursing (sorry for that, fine Twitter followers) and my jaw was killing me.

We got in the car to head to band practice, and I medicated the pain and worked on the laptop on the road. I love being able to take the work with me, but I most enjoy the drive when Chooch and I just get to chat.

At Phil’s, we headed down to the band lair and relaxed and chatted with the band while waiting for Dennis (guitarist) to arrive. I was finally able to exhale for what felt like the first time in a long time, and I believe Chooch felt the same way. I still can’t believe how well everyone meshes together and I love spending time with them, whether it’s watching them play or chatting about clothes, kids and pasta makers.

They made amazing music, as always, as they ran through the set list for their show at Axum on Friday night. They are playing two sets, as they were bumped up to headline the show. So they’ll be playing later (11 pm) but longer, which thrills me.

The door proceeds for the band are being split between my Breast Cancer fund-raising efforts for the Richmond Race for the Cure, and between another woman’s efforts for the Komen 3 Day. I’m still blown away that the band offered to do this, and will be there to support them no matter how late they play.

I hope you can join us, as it will be a fun-filled night. Details are posted in Facebook.

Home now as I finish up this post, and I’m glad the insane day is over. It definitely felt as if I was strapped on a roller coaster with all the highs and lows. I’m happy that there were more good things then bad, but the sleep I’m about to get is well deserved.

Goodnight, Dear Readers!

The majority of the house prep is done and our home has been listed for sale. Now it’s just a matter of knocking out the yard sale to clear the garage and we can sit back and wait for the offers to come rolling in. Oh, I forgot, we have to keep the house pristine for potential buyers while living in it with a large dog that drools and sheds a lot. No big deal, right?

The site Home Ec 101 first came to my attention, guessing here, when author Mur Lafferty tweeted about it at some point in 2010.  I looked into it and was immediately sucked in. It provides all sorts of information for those that may have never learned how to do the basics of cooking and cleaning and find themselves in need of guidance. The site also gives guidance on home repairs and laundry solutions. The site is not just for beginners, as I’ve been maintaining a home of my own for over 20 years and still find lots of useful information. There is even a section on cooking, with information for beginners, along with recipes and food safety.

From the site, “Home-Ec 101 is an attempt to reach average people and teach them the domestic arts that make life a little less expensive, a little easier, and a little more enjoyable.”  Blogger Heather Solos gives a slightly different take on how to get things done, and I enjoy it. You don’t get beaten up for not being Martha Stewart and it casts a realistic eye on the availability of time and funds of American families.

My very favorite thing about the site? The cleaning schedule. When I first perused the site I jumped at a pre-made, no thought needed schedule for keeping the house clean. I fell off the schedule during the Christmas rush, but now that my home is clean and needs to stay that way, I’m back on the program.

It’s simple and straight-forward, although not easy. Yesterday was laundry catch-up and bedding day, and since I was otherwise occupied for most of the weekend, that means pretty a LOT of laundry had to be caught-up. I didn’t finish (four bedrooms and not being well), so I’m rolling it in to today’s tasks, which includes cleaning the floors and a 15 minute quick pick-up and smudge patrol.

There is a standard set of tasks to do every day, along with items like those listed above added on top. I really enjoyed the results when I did it before, and like everything else, consistency is what will make it a success or a failure. Miss one or two days and you can catch up easily without a major re-cleaning. More than that and you’d better put some real time aside. Being back on this schedule will also prevent me from feeling like I have to obsess for hours every day, just in case we’re lucky enough to have someone interested in viewing our house.

And while customization of the list may be needed to fit your individual households, it’s a great place to get into the mind set of keeping things tidy.

**Thanks to Mia for noticing the schedule posted in my kitchen, as it reminded me to share the site here. I hope you find it as useful as I have.**

You know how you sometimes go to read a blog, and notice that some of the commenters have images next to their comment? Gravatar is the reason why. I will throw in the usual disclaimer that there may be other services that do this, I’ve just not heard of them.

From their site, Gravatar is described as:

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A Globally Recognized Avatar

Your Gravatar is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. Avatars help identify your posts on blogs and web forums, so why not on any site?
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If you go to the site, you will find a simple way to upload your image, photo or otherwise, that will represent you on blog post comments. You can even update it when you like.

For site owners, there is instruction on how to allow Gravatar to work on your site. I can’t tell you how easy or difficult it is, since my technology specialist, aka husband, sets it up on all of our sites. But it is certainly set up for most, if not all, of the blogs that I read.

If you’d like your image out there to accompany your words, give this free service a try. I’ve been using Gravatar for well over a year and have had no complaints.

So there, a technology post that a wee percentage of you possibly don’t already know. Rawr level up?

This series of posts was inspired by my discovery of Victorian rules of etiquette. The following is a rule concerning calling cards, and when to share them. If you are unfamiliar with the concept, they are similar to business cards, but are used by individuals. A husband and wife would have their own calling cards, and there were strict guidelines to be followed in their distribution to avoid a social faux pas.

Although we no longer use calling cards at social occasions, having hosted many parties through Evite, I found this one to be relevant to today’s world:

“Calls should be paid within a week after the receipt of invitations to a dinner party.”

In those days, your calling card would serve as your R.S.V.P., with a note explaining your acceptance or rejection of the event in the form of a courteous explanation. While I realize that current day logistics may prevent people from responding to Evites within a week, frequently having had a quarter or more of the invitees not respond ever is a bit of stress on the host and hostess. You have no idea if those people may show up and then expend funds to ensure there is enough to cover the largest pool of attendees possible. It is then double disappointing when they don’t come.

My husband and I have been overnight guests of friends quite a lot recently. At this point, the most time consuming part of packing is getting my usual grooming needs organized, partly because the big bottles take up so much space. I’ve gotten the cheap mini-bottles from Target before, but they aren’t labeled clearly enough to be useful or are cheap and fall apart quickly.

For a separate reason, I was wandering about in my dear friend’s nineteenOthree Etsy Store. She crafts beautiful boxes and travel cases, and I was hoping to have a peek at what she’s preparing for her booth at Balticon. While there, I discovered these bottles, and treated myself to them.

They are beautifully designed, but more importantly the full set of six manages all of my beauty product mischief. The labels are waterproof and clearly labeled, so even with soap in my eyes I should be able to tell the conditioner from the facial cleanser.

The photo below shows the set that I ordered, and they are perfectly sized for a long weekend away at a convention and even meet FAA requirements for liquid container size.  The care in packing and wrapping made it a treat to open, and although I’ve not yet used them, I’m already impressed with the quality of the product and recommend to any with such a need.

Click on the photo to go to Mia's Etsy Shop

I suggest you head over to nineteenOthree Etsy Store to peruse Mia’s beautiful inventory of cases, bottles and boxes, especially if steampunk or the Edwardian age call to your sense of style.

You will also find her selling her beautifully embellished wares at Balticon, Memorial Day Weekend. Bon voyage!