Only the geese are happy

Took a ride down to Lockport for a look at the St. Andrews Lock and Dam. This is what it looked like:








Like the title says: Only the geese are happy.

A little update

Spring is supposed to be here but looking outside it doesn’t appear that way with all of that snow still on the ground. We had some warm weather a couple of weeks ago and the snow was beginning to melt. But then it got cold again and we had another snowstorm which dumped more snow onto the ice that had been forming. The culverts are still frozen and the water has not been able to drain toward the Red River. We don’t live far from the river. I’m a bit worried that we might get water in our basement from overland flooding. We’ve never had problems before but that doesn’t mean anything. Like they say when you invest money in the stock market: Past performance does not guarantee future results.
The river rose quite a bit last week and there was some flooding along River Road. A few houses had their basements filled with water. Now the municipality raised the surface of the road by putting gravel on it. In some places the road was raised up to six feet. Actually, the road is acting like a dam that is supposed to keep the water away from the properties on the other side. The river level has dropped a little but it will rise again when the water comes up from the States. Maybe even higher than before. Apparently it is not to reach the level we had in the Flood of the Century in 1997. Much of the land south of Winnipeg will still be flooded. Winnipeg will be spared with the expansion of the floodway around the city.

This is a picture of the ice that was pushed up onto the road while it drifted down the river toward Lockport.




This is River Road with a view toward Lockport. It won’t take much until the water floods the road

We went to the Museum of Man and Nature in Winnipeg last week to see the display of dinosaur skeletons. The display was lent to the museum from China. Some of the skeletons are genuine but most were replicas of originals. To read about dinosaurs is interesting but to see the skeletons is mind boggling. It is hard to believe that these giant creatures once roamed the Earth so many millions of years ago. I’m glad I wasn’t alive then. But maybe I was? Some people call me a dinosaur.

I haven’t done much writing. Been busy installing a new floor in our kitchen. I used those laminate floorboards that just click together. Apparently it’s easy and anyone can do it. What a nightmare with all the angles around the counters! It took me a whole week of measuring, cutting, and clicking (and cursing) until I finally finished it. I still have the back hall to do but that will be a cinch now that I’m an expert. (Ha, ha…)

I’ve been tracking my sales on Fictionwise and found that my books seem to be selling quite well. Six of my books were in the top twenty sellers on March 14, with ‘Mother of Light (The Xandra, Book Two) being at number 7, Goddess of Life at number 9 and Seeds of Chaos, Book One at number 10. Seeds of Chaos, Book Two was number 5 in overall sales in the twenty days before March 21. Dual Visions was number 4 on March 21 and Cliffs of Time reached number 7 on March 29 in overall sales.
Stardogs Two (Redemption) reached number 3 in sales on February 7. How many books that translates into I have no idea. Unfortunately, the money I receive for my books is so pitiful it is hardly worth mentioning. Fictionwise takes most of the money. It seems to be the Law of the Universe: The one who does most of the work gets rewarded the least.
But that’s okay…I guess. I write for fun and not for the money (Grrr….)

King Cobra

My novel ‘Mark of the Cobra’, which I pulled from publication by MSFiction last year has now found a home. I did some revisions, changed the chapters around, changed the title to ‘King Cobra’, and sent it to another publisher. This publisher concentrates more on erotica and is more suitable for the type of novel King Cobra is.
I don’t write sweet romance. My stories are mostly geared up to male readers. I’m not saying that women can’t enjoy them if they like these kinds of stories. By all means, do read them. Most of my stories have a male protagonist. The heroes are tough and usually oversexed (horny?).
King Cobra has a lot of sex in it and also some violence, but I believe it is basically a good story, a thriller, and I didn’t want to re-write the whole book, as my editor at MSFiction suggested. Had I decided to do that it would have been a different story, not the one I wanted to tell. Maybe some day I will write a novel with the title ‘Mark of the Cobra’, but it will be another story.
I am busy with other works right now. I’ve reached 60,000 words with my Science Fiction novel ‘Epsilon’ and I have much more to go before it is finished.
Right now I’m taking a break from it and I’ve decided to write Book Four in the Xandra series. I had some ideas kicking around in my head and they wanted to come out. So far I’m at around 13,000 words. I’m aiming for 75,000 words, but this is something hard to predict. It all depends how it progresses. Usually, once the story starts to grow, more characters want to join and the novel becomes longer than planned. Strange, how things sometimes develop. A minor character who was only mentioned briefly suddenly wants a larger part in the story. And that is a good thing. That is how a story gets fleshed out and more interesting. This creation process is a wonderful thing and sometimes I ask myself Where the heck did this come from? It seems the deeper I move into the new world I’m creating the more stuff I notice and the more is to tell. Sometimes I have no idea where I’m going with what’s happening to the characters but it always seems to come together in the end. It is not only the reader who enjoys reading a story; the writer also enjoys writing it. And that is a good thing because I don’t read that much any more. If I didn’t find pleasure in writing where would I find my enjoyment? How would I be able to explore new and wonderful worlds?
Check out ‘King Cobra’ here and don’t be shocked by the explicit picture: A1AdulteBooks

You can also go to my website to read more about it.