J H Wear’s Blog

When visiting another country it seems there is an obligation to do some shopping. I took Laurie to a mall near Auckland and agreed to meet at Starbucks later. I managed to visit any shops I was interested in, have a bottle of water, drink a coffee and then waited. Laurie in the same time managed to visit two shops. I sensed a problem immediately. 

At the end of the afternoon she finally made around to most of the stores and bought a purse and a couple of tops. I managed to buy two pints of beer and read two newspapers.

I did managed to daydream a bit and come up with another part to Castle 3, a wedding of all things to write about. Hey, I already have figured out the big battle but need to wrap up few other things. Gotta go- Laurie wants to do more shopping and I’m the driver.

Jack

I have landed in New Zealand, Wellington to be exact, and was able to spend a bit of time there before taking a short flight to Nelson. Great country to visit and I highly recommend it as a tourist destination.  I’m also doing some driving and that does take some getting used to. First, one has to remember to stay on the left side of the road. That isn’t too bad. However, when I approch their round-abouts (traffic circles) I get a bit concerned as I try to figure which exit to take while watching for traffic coming from the wrong side. It has made travelling interesting.

I remember the first time I went to New Zealand, six or seven years ago. It was a great vacation and the unique landscape and plant life inspired me to write my first novel Talnut. If you read Talnut, and have the chance to travel to New Zealand, I believe you will see the parts of New Zealand transported in my story. Talnut was my first novel and I fondly recall how it came about. I don’t mean to be giving it a plug here, but it describes an alien world quite well. That strange world is actually only a plane flight away. (Okay, in my case an 18 hour plane flight).

I’m not able to do much with my website while in New Zealand, but on my return I will upload some new pictures and possible do another contest. Likely something  to do with Talnut.

Best wishes

Jack

Dragons in the Water was released yesterday by Midnight Showcase Publishing. The story is a fictional account about dragon boats and I tried to put some humour in it based on the experiences I had as a dragon boat paddler. I really enjoyed my time in a dragon boat and met many wonderful people. My wife Laurie still is part of the River Rats Dragon Boat team and that helps me stay in contact with many of the members. So this story is my tip of the hat to those who put their energy into dragon boating and for letting me a part of it. I hope all those who are involved in the sport enjoy the story.

The dragon boat story took me away from working on Castle 3, The New King. I’m about halfway through on that story and will focus my efforts on finishing it. I had some delays due to some renovations our home but they are now done so I will have a bit more free time to write, though this week I am pouring wine in Calgary at Winefest. I’m at table 20 if you’re down there and would love to say hello to you.  

One problem all writers have is making sure a story flows properly. As an author sometimes we want to change the pace of a story so that it fits in with a change in the action. However, and I speak as a reader myself of a lot of books, sometimes the flow or pace is sudden and we are caught unaware. We trust ourselves as writers and our editors to catch those mistakes, but it is something that can happen to the best of us.

For myself, I rarely try not to force myself to write when I’m tired. That leads to errors and dull writing. I like to write when I can do a large section at a time and I find it’s much easier keeping the story flow continuous.

I have a new story coming out at the end of the month. “Dragons in the Water” is scheduled for release in the third week of February by Midnight Showcase. It is a humorous look at dragon boat races through the eyes of Harry Webster, a reporter for a local paper. He discovers an old friend of his, Sheldon, has joined a dragon boat racing team. And as Harry knows, wherever Sheldon is, there is trouble and a mystery.

Cheers

Jack

A few weeks ago I travelled down to Calgary with my wife and my mother. Our destination was the Glenbow Museum and the reason for going there was the exhibit of the Warbrides. The warbrides were ladies that met and later married soldiers during the second world war.  These ladies gave up their homeland to move to Canada and elsewhere. The exhibit was put together by Bev Tosh, and she did an extremely good job of explaining what the warbrides went through. Of particular interest for myself was the portrait done of my mother in her wedding dress painted on a wood board, done by Bev. In all she has painted about a hundred portraits, catching the personality of different warbrides.

As I looked through the exhibit I realized that each of these brave women had a story to tell. There were hardships of leaving friends and family to travel to a new country, not knowing what they would find there. In all about 44,000 ladies made the difficult decision to go, and each has a story to tell.

My mother also donated her wedding dress to Bev’s collection and it was a special moment to see it on display in the museum. It was a truly a moment to step back in time and get a glimpse of what was then. I doubt one can truly appreciate what was going through their minds at that time, but it is worth to try. If you have opportunity to see this fine exhibit, please take the time to do so.

I hope everyone enjoyed Christmas and New Year’s. Our household was busy, and a bit tiring. In December we started some renovations downstairs to convert an unused room to a bedroom for some guests. Laurie and I worked late at night to complete the room in time. Our son in Vnacouver brought his girlfriend and her mother (she was visiting from New Zealand) to stay with us for a few days. Another son from Calgary brought his wife and two year old to stay with us. It was busy and fun. Lots of people, lots of food, and not enough hours to do everything.

My writing took a beating. In fact it came to a virtual standstill, as it was impossible to find the energy and enough quiet to concentrate. That doesn’t mean progress wasn’t made as far as writing stories is concerned. One area was my editors who were working on material I have submitted. I am happy to announce that Dragons in the Water will be released in March. I will give you more details on the story in another blog. I also was able to spend some time thinking about stories I am working on. Castle, part 3, The New King was stalled during the Christmas rush but in my mind I worked out some of plot problems and now have a clear vision where to take the story.

I have a few more stories that formed in my mind that I will work into a plot at a later date. So while the keyboard was idle it doesn’t mean nothing was being accomplished.

More blogs to follow soon!

I wrote a short halloween story that was included in my book Shadows and Sensations. Last month I decided to make ”Fallen Angel” available for anyone to read and it was free download from my website. Yareah Magazine has also picked it up and it is available in their December’s edition- http://www.yareah.com/magazine/index.php/literature-literatura/609-fiction-fallen-angel

Yareah is a Spanish/English online magazine and has a lot of interesting literature and art. Take a look when you have some time.

Besides Fallen Angel I also have a couple of other free stories, “The Garden” and “Calendar Girl”. I hope you enjoy the stories.

Cheers

Jack

It’s been too long since my last blog. I hate making excuses but there have been too many priorities. Home renovations have used a fair bit of my time. The room in question was started two years ago and we were unable to complete it until now (long story). My company, Kiwi Imports, has been busy as well. We specialize in New Zealand wine and it has been popular lately. On the writing side of things I did have the release of the second novel of the Castle series. Castle- Return to Domum was released a couple of weeks ago.

Castle-The Fall to Domum, was given a good review by Coffee Time Romance. The link is http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/BookReviews/castlethefalltodomum.html  I hope to get a few reviews for Castle 2 as well.

Back to Castle-Return to Domum. I really enjoyed writing this story as I was able to improvise as I wrote about a new world. I had a chance to mold it a little different that the original Domum world.

I am working on the third book of the series and I hope I can bring in all the extra characters we met in the first book and let everyone know how they made out. 

For the American readers, happy Thanksgiving.

As the title says, I’m giving out a free Halloween story, but only for the next week. I don’t think there is much of a point having a Halloween story after October 31st, but here it is for the next week. Just go to my website and click a couple of buttons and presto! you’ll have Fallen Angel. Just a warning- it is an adult story. 

This past week Castle2, The Return to Domum was released. I love the front cover, something I had absolutely to influence on but will try to take some credit for anyway. A big thanks to Bratt for her work.

I neglected my writing this weekend. There are renovations to do in the basement and it is a bit of a struggle. The spiders now have to find a new home as new walls are put up and the whole area gets transformed.  I also got stuck in my office, doing mounds of paperwork related to my wine business. Maybe tomorrow, or Tuesday, or Wednesday I’ll get back to writing.

Have a good week and try to avoid renovations- they take up too much time.

Castle, The return to Domum has been released! I’m pretty excited about it as I believe it’s a great story. I think the cover is fantastic as well. Of course, since I wrote the story, my opions may be slightly biased.

The story is hard to describe in a few words, but takes place on two worlds. On Domum we have a few characters, namely Gilbert and Marisa. Marisa is a new character and she is a sex slave to Lord Troy. They have been empowered to travel to Earth to seek help to reverse a magic spell placed on their world. On Earth we have the warlock Madoc exciled from Domum and his new companion Angela. Madoc, with his knowledge of magic, is making a living as a magician. He is bored and wants to return to Domum, and isn’t expecting to a woman to suddenly turn his world world up-side-down.

We have a few other characters of course and you will know most of them from the first novel. But the relationships have progressed and life is just a little more complicated for some of them.     

Anyway I hope you have a chance to read the book and the series. I think you enjoy meeting the people hiding iside the covers.