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Brush Turkeys Reign supreme on the Far North Coast

Posted in anecdotes, brush turkeys, bush turkeys, Far North Coast of NSW, Fiction writers, gardening, Indie authors, north coast of nsw, south-east Queensland, true stories, tagged anecdotes, Australian writers, brush turkeys, bush turkeys, Danielle de Valera, far north coast of NSW, Fiction writers, gardening, north coast of nsw, South Golden Beach on October 21, 2017| 2 Comments »

When I first came to the Northern Rivers of New South Wales, brush turnkeys were not protected. Consequently, a sighting of them was a rare thing. Sometimes as we were driving along we’d see one making its way stealthily through the bush. The kids would be excited. “Look, a brush turkey!” Now, with the advent of their protection, all that has changed. Today they stride confidently around the suburbs, chortling to themselves and ripping up domestic gardens. Nothing is safe. They will even hop up into pot plants and rip them up, too — just for the hell of it.

Brush-Turkey-001

Brush turkey

After losing my little vegie patch twice this year to brush turkeys, I went online to see if there was anything, anything, that might deter them. The web was full of the cries of irate gardeners, and not just from areas close to nature reserves and bush. Apparently the birds are striding around city suburbs as well. Fences don’t work; in spite of their heavy, ungainly appearance, the birds can get over fences ten, eleven feet high — ours like to fly up onto the carport port roof and walk about up there, their claws making nerve wracking sounds on the corrugated iron roofing.

Some people tried scarecrows, with differing results. The people across the road from me tried teddies.

Yard 15X8.5@72

Mostly, though, the consensus on the web was that nothing could be done. I liked my little herb and vegie patch; it provided a nice change from sweating over the content editing of my Brisbane novel. I liked to go out there when the going got tough and pull a few weeds, or just admire the silverbeet plants. Eventually I hit upon the idea of covering the patch with pieces of old aluminium fencing, which a neighbour kindly gave me. The turkeys still prowl about, but at least the parsley is looking healthy, poking up through the gaps in the fence, but something (not turkeys) is eating the silverbeet. And the marigolds.

Consensus on the web is that the only way of dealing with brush turkeys is the catch-and-remove method. You catch them and take them many miles away to the bush or a nature reserve, whichever comes first. As I don’t drive, this option is not available to me. Natural predators? They don’t seem to have any. The cat is no use; the birds are too big, you’d need a cougar to bring them down. As I watch them pacing around the garden in the late afternoon, my heart is full of trepidation. These birds breed every year. If we think it’s bad now, what’s it going to be like next year? And the year after that.

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Celebrating the Winter Solstice in Summer down under

Posted in Australian authors, Australian writers, books about cats, cat lovers, cats, Christmas, Christmas down under, Danielle de Valera, Dropping Out: a tree change novel-in-stories, e-books, Far North Coast of NSW, Fiction writers, hippies, Indie authors, MagnifiCat the novel, north coast of nsw, posts about cats, Short stories, stories about cats, tagged Australian Christmas, Cats, Christmas, Christmas down under, Christmas in Australia, Danielle de Valera, far north coast of NSW, Fiction writers, hippies, indie writers, north coast of nsw, stories, the writing process, Wrting on December 22, 2016| 7 Comments »

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found it strange celebrating a winter solstice festival in the middle of summer. As Christmas approaches and we swelter here in Australia, praying for rain on Christmas Day so we won’t be bathed in sweat while eating the Christmas dinner, we find ourselves looking longingly at pictures like this.

Oh, how we wish …

All’s fine with me, up here on the Far North Coast of New South Wales. To anyone who bought Dropping Out, the collection of linked short stories I put out in early October at https://www.amazon.com/Dropping-Out-change-novel-stories-ebook/dp/B01LXF9QEB I’d like to say thank you.

And so I currently have a little cat fairy tale called “Perversity” going free at: http://www.catsstories.com/perversity.html If you’re in the mood for a cat fairy tale, this 700 word story could be for you. The story’s zany illustration (below) was done by my daughter Tara Sariban.

While all’s well with me, my old cat seems to be failing.

He’s fourteen, and for some months now, he’s been losing weight. I know animals tend to lose weight as they grow older; a device nature has to lessen the load on the heart, but his weight loss came on suddenly (since the end of August), so it’s a cause for concern. I’ve had various tests done on him, and he’s due for a blood test for FIV (feline HIV) and feline leukemia on 3 January. He’s seems well and happy, and he’s eating well, so at this point, it’s a bit of an unknown.

I plan to spend the first six months of next year putting the scenes for the sequel to MagnifiCat (https://www.amazon.com/MagnifiCat-Animal-Fantasy-Danielle-Valera-ebook/dp/B00H0ORWQY) into the right order.

After that, I’d like to spend some time finding a title and cover for the Brisbane novel I hope to put out in 2018. Because it’s a long work (108,000 words, at present), I’ll start content editing it in the second half of ’17. That way I’ll have plenty of time to pull the whole thing together, line edited, copy-edited and proofed by September ’18. I’m a tortoise at everything I do, I need all that time just to get all the various processes right.

For the rest of this year, though, I’m not planning to do much at all, except catch up with a lot of things I’ve been avoiding doing on the internet. If you’ve been working hard all year, I hope you too find time to kick back and take it easy.

Merry Christmas, everyone! And a safe and happy New Year.

Dani

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The Dropping Out Book Launch and Other Disasters

Posted in alcohol, Book launches, cats, chance, e-books, fiction authors, Humour, Indie authors, north coast of nsw, posts about cats, tagged anecdotes, Australian humour, Book launches, Cats, Danielle de Valera, far north coast of NSW, Humour on October 28, 2016| 10 Comments »

Sitting here waiting for my son and his wife and kids to wake up. They leave to return to the UK today. I hadn’t seen my son for ten years, and I’d never seen my grandchildren, who are nine and five. They’ve been here for three weeks, on and off when they weren’t exploring the countryside in their rented campervan, and it’s going to be a wrench, I know.

I sit here sipping coffee, trying to fortify myself for the ordeal to come. Fortunately, my daughter, who’s up from Melbourne, will be here until Monday, so I won’t have to lose them all at once.

Attachment. The Buddhist masters have always talked of the evils of attachment. Not that it’s evil in itself, but that it causes us humans so much pain from loss, or even the fear of it. But then, I wonder, how would we care properly for our young if we weren’t attached to them? Attachment seems to be hardwired into us, with all that it entails.

There’s one being in my household who won’t be sad to see the whole caravan go. That’s my cat Tim, who’s spent the past 14 years in the peace and quiet of my solitary existence, and who’s never had to deal up close with little people.

He had to be taken to the vet yesterday afternoon with nervous exhaustion. The vet gave him a B shot. I could’ve done with a B shot myself.

I’m still recovering from the book launch last night, which turned out to be a comedy of errors. The first night I chose at the hotel for drinks turned out to be too close to my daughter’s arrival from Melbourne. So I moved the night from Wednesday to Thursday — usually a quiet night for pubs. To my horror, after I’d notified all the people concerned, I discovered that the pub was holding a huge band night with a $30.00 cover charge that Thursday. So I moved the night to Friday.

I had envisaged a nice quiet book launch on a quiet night in a peaceful garden setting. Some food, some drinks, nice conversation; a good way to put a full stop to the book I’d just completed.

We could hear the music blocks away as we parked the car. After that, it was all shouting, as we tried to make ourselves heard over the din. More than half of us were well over sixty, and we had a particularly hard time. “What was that?” we kept saying to one another. “Say that again.” I envied the cat, at home watching TV and enjoying his newfound B status, nerves all nicely taken care of.

Anyone reading this who was invited but couldn’t come, you didn’t miss anything. But as they say, it’s all part of growing up and being human. And these things have a habit of being funny later on.

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Dropping Out of Society in Australia in the ’80s

Posted in Amazon KDP, Australian beaches, Australian writers, beaches, Book titles, Dropping out of society in Australia, e-books, Far North Coast of NSW, Fiction writers, hippies, Indie authors, north coast of nsw, street people, tagged far north coast of NSW, hippies, Nimbin Festival, Point Lookout, sea change stories, Stories about sropping out, Stradbroke Island, street people, tree change stories on October 9, 2016| 8 Comments »

THE GENESIS OF DROPPING OUT: A TREE CHANGE NOVEL-IN-STORIES

Years ago, when I was pregnant with my second child, I ran away to Point Lookout on North Stradbroke Island to escape relationship problems with my then partner.

In those days, it was wonderfully primitive —a four-and-a-half-hour journey by boat to get there, followed by a one-hour journey by bus across the island to the point; no pub, no electricity, earth toilets, an ice works, a post office and a general store. I lived in a one-room cabin with my first child, a boy. We loved Straddie, but because my first child had been a Caesarian and the specialist intended the second to be the same, eventually as my time drew near I was forced to return to the mainland.

While I was there, however, an American couple befriended me. They were an interesting pair. She had been a theatre sister at the Johns Hopkins, and we were all big readers. One night over dinner, they tried to persuade me to write short stories. At that stage I was still carrying the Brisbane novel like the proverbial albatross around my neck. (Still am, in fact, but all that will change in 2018.)

To return to the point, over dinner they extolled the virtues the short story held for writers, one of which was a quick remuneration. I remember at the time saying simply, “I can’t write short stories.”

Time passed, as it does. When my partner and I broke up for good, I found myself alone with two small children. Remembering what the Stradbroke Island couple had said about short stories (the magic word was remuneration), I put away the Brisbane novel and turned to stories as something I could manage between the children and the chores. It took me a while to get the hang of the form, but in the end I did, and started aiming for well-paid competitions and magazines. As is always the case with submissions of any kind, the old 1 in 9 rule applied. That is: expect 1 acceptance for every 9 rejections. That way, you won’t be crushed, and occasionally you might even be pleasantly surprised.

Occasionally.

Now, after 25 years of writing short stories, most of them set in Byron Shire, I’ve been able to put together a collection called Dropping Out.

I would’ve loved to call it something enigmatic like Richard Flanagan’s The Sound of One Hand Clapping — or something beautiful, like Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night. But the book was intended for the internet market (though there is a POD option available for those, like me, who like the feel of a book in their hands) and search engines make hard masters, so it’s called Dropping Out: a tree change novel-in-stories. Which translated means the stories are all character linked, so the book reads like an episodic novel.

Do pop over and have a look if you have time. This is my one and only collection of short stories, there won’t be another.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/669161

and

https://www.amazon.com/Dropping-Out-change-novel—stories-ebook/dp/B01LXF9QEB

Amazon has a generous sample in their Look Inside feature.

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Writing a novel out of order is a mug’s game.

Posted in Australian writers, Bob Ellis, books about cats, Danielle de Valera, e-books, Far North Coast of NSW, Fiction, fiction authors, fiction editors, Fiction writers, Humour, Indie authors, Indie publishing, madness, manucript assessments, manuscript appraisals, new writers, new writing, north coast of nsw, Short stories, struggling writers, the writing process, Writing, tagged Amazon KDP, anecdotes, Australian humour, Cats, Danielle de Valera, e-books, far north coast of NSW, fiction writing, How to write a novel, indie authors, north coast of nsw, the writing process, writing a novel out of order on April 9, 2016| 4 Comments »

I’ve spent the first three months of this year finishing off the 1st draft of the sequel to the cat book. (See right.) I’m now at around 80,000 words, and I’m embroiled — no other word for it — in arranging the scenes in chronological order. You see, I write novels out of order, just picking one scene from the story line as the mood takes me. I don’t do this with short stories, which I plan out in advance, but I do it with novels, god help me. Now I’m the proud possessor of around 80,000+ words, roughly 85 scenes — all out of order.

To get a book out of this is no mean feat. When I saw the extent of the problem, plus the fact that I still had three critical scenes to write, I thought of lying down on the railway tracks.

But the train doesn’t run in these parts anymore.

How to proceed from here? My method was to buy a packet of catalogue cards, write the name of each scene plus a brief description on a catalogue card, and then sort the cards into piles representing the main characters. I then sort each character pile into their journey arcs. After that, I shuffle the cards until they’re in what I hope is the right order for the novel, interpolating the main character cards as I go. This takes time. Quite a bit of it, in fact. When that’s done, I take the printout of the novel and put the printed out scenes into the order I obtained via the catalogue cards. Then I read the printout to see if it flows, where bridges need to be added, etc.

It’s madly time consuming, and I’m only at the catalogue card stage at present; I have a fair way to go yet. Unfortunately, it’s the kind of thing that can’t be hurried. Glitches in the plot will always appear at this point, and it takes time to work through them, for something to occur to me that will solve the problem.

Writing a novel out of order is a mug’s game; I don’t recommend it to anyone. But that’s my way with novels; I just take them on, one bite at a time, until eventually they’re done.

So here I am with my catalogue cards wrapped around with a rubber band. I get up in the morning, put on my dressing gown, feed the cat, make a cup of tea, and shuffle the catalogue cards.

I predict it will be a while yet before I have a properly organised printout that I can use to arrange the scenes in the right order in the computer version.

As the late Bob Ellis used to say, “So it goes.”

PS If you’re wanting to catch up on any of my short stories, the easiest way to do it is to go to http://www.amazon.com/Danielle-de-Valera/e/B00H286LXI There’s a list there of all of them.

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Chinese New Year 2016

Posted in Australian authors, Australian editors, cat lovers, cats, Danielle de Valera, fiction authors, fiction editors, Fiction writers, Happy Chinese New Year, Indie authors, north coast of nsw, South Golden Beach, Year of the Fire Monkey, tagged Cats, Chinese New Year 2016, Danielle de Valera on February 7, 2016| 6 Comments »

Tomorrow, the 8th February, ushers in Chinese New Year, the Year of the Fire Monkey. Sometimes I wish I lived somewhere where there was a celebration of that — I’ve always related to CNY far more than the traditional western New Year’s Eve, which, in Australia, is just an excuse for a good piss up.

Though NYE’s not as bad as Australia Day, which is a regular Bacchanalia.

I hope this new year brings you all good health and happiness. What about wealth? I hear you say. Strangely enough, that’s really not that high on the happiness scale – as most people who’ve ever come suddenly into money will tell you when the glitz wears off.

Different animal years in Chinese astrology are said to affect different signs in different ways. Checking on the link below to see how I might fare in this Year of the Monkey, my prediction’s not looking very good; I hope I will be able to keep the cat in the style to which he’s become accustomed.

Cat worried about maintaining his standard of living.

Perhaps you’ll fare better. Have a look at the link below (one of the most comprehensive re CNY I found in a Google search), if you’d like to know what your fortune holds in the Year of the Fire Monkey.

http://www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/2016/

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Shaune Lafferty Webb talks about her latest novel Cold Faith

Posted in anecdotes, Australian authors, Australian writers, Cold Faith, Danielle de Valera, fiction authors, Fiction writers, Indie authors, Indie publishing, new writing, Patrick de Valera Manuscript Development Services, Shaune Lafferty Webb, tagged Australian writers, Cold Faith, Danelle de Valera, e-books, Fiction writers, indie authors, Shaune Lafferty Webb on November 23, 2015| 2 Comments »

Many thanks, Danielle, for inviting me to say a little about my latest release Cold Faith, the first instalment in a three-part series being published by Hague Publishing.

Cold Faith http://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00VBZQ8FY

Cold Faith is set in the aftermath of a protracted volcanic winter that has devastated the planet and left only isolated pockets of survivors. Seeing just one slim chance for survival, the main character Rab decides to set out on a perilous journey north in search of a fabled city rumoured to be one of the many staging areas where spaceships were launched to ferry the people of Earth to a salvation planet; the evacuation plan was known as Safe Harbour. Unfortunately for Rab, he is coerced into taking the last three surviving children of his village with him. After one of the children breaks his leg, they are rescued by a young woman named Sunny, who leads them to her underground city where a large band of survivors are living in comparative luxury. As far as Safe Harbour is concerned, Sunny appears to be a belligerent sceptic, while her old grandfather is a believer like Rab. The two insist on joining Rab as he continues his journey north with only the young girl from his village. It’s then that Rab’s real troubles begin.

Despite its scientific foundation, Cold Faith is a character-driven narrative that follows Rab’s journey of discovery—which ultimately reveals not only the true nature of the planet’s desperate situation but also much about himself. Like Rab, I had a bit of a quest of my own in writing Cold Faith. I wanted to explore the drive behind humans’ unyielding struggle for survival in situations where all seems lost and our capacity to accept that all questions may not necessarily be answered even at journey’s end. Ultimately only the readers will be able to tell me if, as an author, I succeeded in my quest.

My favourite character in Cold Faith is Sunny. She is tough and complex. Some reviewers have been quite taken with the relationship between Rab and the young girl who features prominently in the story. My stories are all heavily character-based, so I’m glad readers are identifying their own personal favourites.

While the opportunity for writers to see their work published has expanded, the fall-out is a flooded market and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for any one emerging writer to be noticed. I’d like to take this opportunity to invite everyone who purchased and enjoyed Cold Faith to keep an eye out for the sequel Faithless, which is due out in 2016. In the meantime, I have two earlier books readers may like to sink their teeth into: Bus Stop on a Strange Loop, a time travel novel, http://www.amazon.com/Stop-Strange-Loop-Shaune-Lafferty/dp/0980749794 and Balanced in an Angel’s Eye, http://www.amazon.com/dp/0987154877 both of which are available from the usual places as well as Amazon. You can find out a bit more about my books on Goodreads, Amazon and on my publishers’ websites.

Thanks, Danielle.

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Farewell, Ed Griffin

Posted in books about prison, e-books, Ed Griffin, Indie authors, leaving the priesthood, prison, prison reform, prisoners, tagged Canadian writers, ebooks, Ed Griffin, indie authors, Indie publishing, leaving the priesthood, prostate cancer, Roman Catholic priests on October 24, 2015| 5 Comments »

It’s with regret that I hear of the passing of Ed Griffin, Canadian writer, champion of prison reform, and mentor to many, who taught creative writing at a number of Canadian prisons, until his progressive views on the rehabilitation of prisoners saw him barred from giving any more of the classes that had meant a lot to many inmates.

Ed was no stranger to controversy. He was active in the civil rights movement of the ‘60s, and marched in Selma with Martin Luther King. He became a Roman Catholic priest in 1962, but left the priesthood in 1968. In 1976, he opened a commercial greenhouse in suburban Milwaukee with his wife Kathy, raising children and growing flowers. In 1988 the family moved to British Columbia, where he helped to establish a writing community in Surrey. He is the founder of Western Canada’s largest writer’s conference, the Surrey Writers’ Conference.

I met Ed during my early forays online in 2012. He turned out to be a good friend, writing reviews for my animal novel MagnifiCat, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00H0ORWQY and for a number of the short stories I formatted and put on the web, http://www.amazon.com/Danielle-de-Valera/e/B00H286LXI Quick with an encouraging word, and never one to complain, he told us of his diagnosis of prostate cancer about a year ago. Gradually his posts at Writers Write Daily, https://writerswritedaily.wordpress.com/ and Prison Uncensored, https://prisonuncensored.wordpress.com/ slowed to a trickle and finally stopped. When I emailed him one time to ask how he was, he replied cheerfully, saying the medication he was now on made him lethargic and it was difficult for him to write posts. About a week ago, I woke up one night thinking about him and rose to find an email in my Inbox, telling me of his passing.

As part of his championing of those in prison, through the John Howard Society, a humanitarian organization, http://www.johnhowardbc.ca/ Ed started a little bursary called the Ed Griffin Educational Bursary This bursary, to which anyone can contribute, aims to help inmates with the expenses of higher education. Those contributing receive a tax receipt from the John Howard Society, who present money to the educational institution the winning inmate has chosen. Anyone wishing to honour his memory in a concrete way might consider donating at: http://www.edgriffin.net/bursary.html

I know Ed would like that.

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About “The Cyborg’s Story”—a short story

Posted in Amazon KDP, Australian editors, Australian writers, e-books, Far North Coast of NSW, Fiction writers, genetic engineering, Harlan Ellison., Indie authors, Kindle, new writers, stories about cyborgs, The Cyborg's Story, the writing process, tagged Aurealis, Australian indie writers, cyborgs, Danielle de Valera, Dirk Strasser, genetic engineering, stories about cyborgs, The Cyborg's Story on March 10, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Just as in every short story collection there’s usually one that causes the writer a great deal of difficulty, I imagine there’s also one the writer likes above all the others. This is certainly the case with me. “The Cyborg’s Story”, originally published as “Roses” is definitely my favourite short story—of the ones I’ve written, that is. My favourite short story ever is “Catman”, by Harlan Ellison, a wonderful story, which incidentally has nothing really to do with cats.

Published in the Australian sci-fi/fantasy magazine Aurealis in 1999, “Cyborg” tells the story of Michael 64, a winged cyborg security expert hired by Thurston, the human Director-General of Genetic Engineering, to guard Azuria 27, a famous winged cyborg dancer, whom Thurston has operated on so that she can pass for human. Such a procedure is illegal in 2175, the year in which the story is set. Azuria is secretly in love with a man called Elliott. She thinks she is making the change for love, but Thurston has much bigger plans; he is a man who believes that humans are merely a link in the evolutionary chain towards cyborgs. Michael, who starts out in the story as a hardened security expert addicted to Blue Monday, an off-world drug imported illegally at exorbitant cost, ends up in love with Azuria and saddled with the problem of whether or not to out Thurston and his plan for cyborg supremacy.

I had a heck of a time getting this story published in Aurealis in 1999. Dirk Strasser, the editor, had a strict 6,000 word policy for submissions, and the story was 7,000 or thereabouts. He wouldn’t budge as a matter of principle, although he liked it. I sweated some more and managed to get it down to where it is now: 6,350 words. Beyond that, I couldn’t go; I was right down on the bones of the story. Desperate, I sent it back to Dirk, with 6,000 words printed on the title page, and he accepted it. Whether he knew it was really longer, I’ll never know, but honour had been satisfied and the story then called “Roses” saw the light of day. It’s the only sci-fi story I ever wrote. Or ever will.

It’s a very soft story, a mix of love story and mystery. Perhaps that’s why I like it so much. I get bored very quickly with most genre writing, demanding as it does a devotion to straight line narrative, and often lacking any sense of something bigger, particularly in the area of characters and their relationships.

Anyway, here is is, my favourite of them all: “The Cyborg’s Story” aka “Roses”. Only one more to go and I will be able to start working on the collection. “Cyborg” is available for 99c at:

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/524901

and Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UE3NKHI

I hope you like it as much as I do,

Dani

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Last Train to Parthenia – genesis of a short story

Posted in Australian writers, C S McClellan, Danielle de Valera, e-books, Far North Coast of NSW, Fiction, fiction authors, Fiction writers, Indie authors, Indie publishing, last minutes of life, north coast of nsw, photographer, railway accidents, Short stories, stories about pople facing death, sword & sorcery stories, Sydney, tagged Inner-city circle StateRail Sydney, John Beresford photographer, nightshift work, north coast of nsw, photos of trains, railway accidents, Robert E Howard, steam trains, sword and sorcery stories on February 14, 2015| 6 Comments »

In every collection of short stories I imagine there’s always one that causes the author real problems. This was certainly the case with me. “Last Train to Parthenia”, a death trip story, caused me more problems than all the rest put together. Maybe it was the considerable length of 8,500 words; I don’t usually work in that length, preferring a shorter one of around 5,000 words. Maybe it was the story itself, I don’t know. I just know the thing caused me all sorts of problems, and took about three times longer to perfect than any of the other stories I’ve so far put up. In its various incarnations, I ran it past three different readers (two male, one female) none of whom liked the early versions or got what I was trying to convey. I had opted for subtlety, you see, but clearly that wasn’t going to work. I ended up having to spell the darn thing out far more than I had intended, and I hope that, in the collection coming out at the end of the year , where there’ll be a print book, I can pull back a little again in favour of subtlety. I have always preferred mystery to explicitness — which is why porn leaves me cold, I guess.

The story Unhappily married, Bob Johnson has taken a night job working on the inner-city circle of StateRail, Sydney. He is a man who has always sought escape from reality in sword and sorcery magazines. His great favourite is the work of Robert E Howard, ill fated author of the Conan novels (dead at 30 by his own hand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Howard). One night Johnson finds a pewter bracelet on the railway tracks. He decides to keep it, regarding as a lucky talisman—an amulet. A few nights later, while at work, he is hit by a train. In the last seven minutes of his life, before his brain shuts down, he imagines that, through the magic power of the amulet, he has been transported to a romantic world full of broadswords, intrigue and glamorous women.

Anyway, here is the darn thing, and am I glad to be finally leaving it behind me. It’s now around 7,500 words long and available for 99c at:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/515862

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TGIVXAI

I hope you enjoy it. Oh, and the very best to you all for the Year of the Sheep, Dani

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