Do you have a new blog post?

[edmjill]

I have TWO new posts on my blog today. Topics are Research and Plot. Have a look!

http://jilledmondson.blogspot.ca/2013/0 ... -ward.html

http://jilledmondson.blogspot.ca/2013/0 ... -plot.html

[longknife]

California - A Slave State @ http://msgdaleday.blogspot.com

And a slave trader was Johan Augustus Suter - the guy where gold was supposedly discovered in 1848.

Actually, Mexicans knew about the gold in 1841 and the Padres knew it was there in 1812.

[edmjill]

Today's blog post is an interview with thriller author Douglas Wickard, who has just released A PERFECT SETUP - the second Sami Saxton novel. Have a look! http://jilledmondson.blogspot.ca/2013/0 ... uthor.html

[Quill]

Today's blog post is an interview with thriller author Douglas Wickard, who has just released A PERFECT SETUP - the second Sami Saxton novel. Have a look! http://jilledmondson.blogspot.ca/2013/0 ... uthor.html

Good to see you back on Bransforums, ed!

How is the blogging going, and the book sales?

[longknife]

Lotos-Land

If ever one were justified in rising out of the path of exact narration, and indulging in a brief spell of the fanciful or ideal, it is in thinking of California when the white men came. A narrow strip of seaboard, the air low breathing and of tender tone, with green and grizzly mountains for a background, all opening toward the sunwaves of this is our lotos-land, where fancy may place the lotos-tree, with its leaves like the ears of elephants, and its branches drooping down from heaven. Among these branches are birds of sweetest song, whose strains are fresh from paradise, and under their shadow angels. pause and rest. The seeds of this tree each encloses an houri; and from its roots spring the two rivers which flow by the invisible throne of Allah. Sitting on a lotos-tree, rising from the watery mud, the Egyptians picture deity, while the great desert prophet places a lotos-tree in his seventh heaven.

It is a winterless earth's end perpetually refreshed by ocean, a land surpassed neither by the island grotto of Calypso, the Elysian fields of Homer, nor the island valley of Avalon seen by King Arthur iu his dying thought. Here day after day, and year after year, may come the stranger, and eat the lotos, and be happy; he may eat the lotos and forget the old home and country, forget the wife and children, content forever to rest in this strange land, waking to fall asleep again, and dream day-dreams and night-dreams, as he floats silently down the sluggish stream of time. Here might be placed the Hebrew's Eden, or the beatitude of the Buddhist; here may the dark-eyed Italian enjoy his dolce far niente, and the sighing ghost of Charles Lamb find a region beyond the domain of conscience. And I doubt not, if proper search be made, that here may be found the singing-tree of the Arabian tale, the leaves whereof are mouths, each one of which discourses harmonious music.

At either end of this seaboard strip is a beautiful bay; San Diego, in the south, the starting-point in Alta California of the Franciscan friars in their tour northward, the initial point in their line of mission buildings, San Francisco being the northern terminus.

This is but a tiny bit of a book written by Hubert Howe Bancroft in 1888. After wading through his other tomes, this really amazed me. If you want to read more, check out my blog, Father Serra's Legacy.

[AnmaNatsu]

I don't blog, per se, I podcast

My latest episode, "Not a Real Writer? Bull!" is now up though. It's available on Spreaker at http://www.spreaker.com/show/the_lackadaisical_writer or via iTunes

[longknife]

Check out my comments on what we were taught in school about early California @ http://msgdaleday.blogspot.com

I also learned where the derogative word “Greaser” came from!

[AnmaNatsu]

Posted my newest episode, World Setting, on the challenges of setting stories in the "real" world vs a made up one.

http://www.spreaker.com/user/anmanatsu/ ... rce=widget

[DwightOkita]

I have a new blog post in my blog "Long Day's Journey Into Dwight." In the post, I answer 10 questions
about my new book THE HOPE STORE, which is about the first store in the world to sell hope over the counter.
The novel is trippy, speculative.

http://dwightokita2011.blogspot.com/201 ... t-big.html

Currently, Hydra/Random House is reading it. Hydra is their new ebook science fiction imprint. Unagented writers may query them
with five pages from their books. And if the editor likes it, she will request the full. My editor has been reading my full for a month
and said she will let me know her decision in a week or two. I'd love a 3 book deal with Hydra. It seems with the big publishers launching
new ebook imprints, this make it much easier for them to take chances on new writers. A friend of mine just got a 3 book deal with Harper Collins
thru their romance ebook imprint. He is also unagented and self-published several books on his own.

Dwight Okita
http://www.DwightOkita.com

[edmjill]

Choosing Character (ahem, Porn Character) Names http://jilledmondson.blogspot.ca/2013/0 ... names.html

[edmjill]

Avoid Rejection Letters - An Editor's Checklist http://jilledmondson.blogspot.ca/2013/0 ... check.html

[AnmaNatsu]

Just posted episode 5 of my podcast: http://www.spreaker.com/user/anmanatsu/ ... _episode_1

[edmjill]

Update on the Sasha Jackson Mysteries TV Option http://jilledmondson.blogspot.ca/2013/0 ... pdate.html

[longknife]

The Spanish Missions on the California Peninsula - a guest post by David Kier who possesses an amazing collection of maps, photos and documents on the subject. I linked to his sites on the post.

[edmjill]

Yay! PI Sasha Jackson is coming back soon! http://jilledmondson.blogspot.ca/2013/1 ... -back.html