WOW!
“The Emissary: Journey” which is the first book of “Horsewomen of the Zombie Apocalypse” has made the finals for Best Novella of 2014.
Now, it needs your votes.
However, the site is now DOWN.
LOL
I guess I’m not the only person who is broadcasting their good fortune…and begging for votes.
I wil post the links as soon as the site is back up.
Don’t go change that channel!
This matted mess is what I started with. Very discouraging to have the fleece turn into these nast matts. However, all is not lost.
This is a fleece picking machine. A small one that is very powerful. See those razor sharp nails? They pick apart the fleece. What you get is in the next photo.
Soft and fluffy again. The fleece just needs carded and spun. Or dyed, carded and spun.
Pictures are worth a thousand words, right? In this case the word is “HOT” a thousand times. LOL
Even the flowers are wilted in the heat, drip irrigation can’t keep up with the heat. Might have to turn it to the highest setting.
So I made the skirting table out of bird netting and PVC pipe. It’s a nice, large surface, and half the fleece fit on it. I shook a lot of dirt out of the fleece before I washed a small part of it.
Three changes of water with soap, two rinses and a stint in the spin cycle later. Well, it was okay, fairly clean, and of course, matted.
I ran it through the picker and got a soft cloud of lovely fluff. I carded some of it.
Tomorrow I start spinning this fluff into yarn.
There will be pictures, I promise.
Half of Grumpy’s fleece.
The deed is done for the year. I have 4 bags of fleece, my back is completely trashed, but I couldn’t be happier with the yield.
I was really worried about Grumpy. I knew the weather was going to get hot and I knew he was carrying 3 inches of fleece all over his body. I also knew he wasn’t going to go down quietly. Poor little guy had been handled very little until he came here. So he’s little more than a wild animal.
The photo above is half of Grumpy’s fleece.
I had to make up a skirting table in a hurry. I had originally thought to use something else, something removable, but it was too much work. This way we used plastic pipe and bird netting I already had. It’s worked perfectly, so far. The fleece is a bit damp, so it’s going to sit outside for the night. By afternoon it should be ready to re-bag or wash.
Likely I’ll wash a big batch of it. I’ve got a serious itch to get my hands on this stuff. I want to dye it in deep moody blues and mix in lots of pretty sparkle. I’m thinking sweater, or large shawl.
A lock of hair, staple length appears to be at least 3 inches. Yowza!
I don’t know micron counts. But I know soft – this is really soft. Filthy dusty, but really soft. I left it outside to air, and the gentle breeze and a bit of shaking has taken the second cuts and a bunch of dust out.
After I dye half of it in blues, I’ll dye a bunch of greens, mix the green with some chestnut for a woodsy color of yarn. Then, I don’t know. Maybe card up a bunch to spin…into art yarn?
I’ve seen Sheri’s photos of her goats, so I’m leaning towards getting some mohair locks. I think alpaca and mohair is going to make a crazy soft yarn. Something a knitter would flip over.
PigPen and Grumpy
The guys aren’t happy. There’s been a lot of fighting, with PigPen instigating it. That dark patch on Grumpy is a long scratch with a nasty looking bruise under it.
I was starting to panic – Grumpy was carrying two bags of fleece on his little body. I knew he was suffering.
But I found a woman who would shear them for us. I helped, and the guys seemed to appreciate that it was me who held them and talked to them. They came back to the barn for food afterwards, which is always a good sign.
We have 4 bags of fleece from three alpacas. Grumpy’s is longer and bulkier than the others.
I’m going to start working on the fleeces tonight. Going to build a skirting table for the fleece and pick the second cuts and fiber out of it. The dirt will need to be washed out. Over and over again.
Swallow the Moon is #Free Amazon US
Swallow the Moon FREE on Amazon Australia.
Swallow the Moon – Free in Canada!
Swallow the Moon – Free in the UK!
Not sure why they did this. But Swallow the Moon is now free at Amazon US and AU.
Get your free copy now!
Amazon gave away over 450 copies yesterday. I’m amazed at how much support I got from my friends to spread the word.
Right now, the e-book is riding high at #5 on the Romance, Paranormal, Ghost list.
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #638 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
#5 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Paranormal > Ghosts
#6 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Holidays
I was just reading up on the Passive Voice blog about villians i.e. Maleficent.
I get to blow my own horn on this blog. LOL So I will say that characters who are ‘Pure Good’ or ‘Pure Evil’ bore me to tears. I don’t read horror, slasher or killer thriller because too often the villian is ‘Pure Evil.’
I’ve blogged about “Villians Who Eat Babies for Breakfast” in a post called ‘Over Kill’.
I’m careful to use a very light touch with “Swallow the Moon” – I give the reader plenty wiggle room to wonder how the story is going to turn out. There are levels of evil and I try to hit them all.
I’m loving this short time on the Best Seller’s List. I’m going to let it go until Amazon gives away at least 3k ebooks. Then I’ll track down the site that triggered this round of freebies and raise the price back to $0.99.
We’ll see how long it takes to get there.
Stay tuned!
“Swallow the Moon” is back at $.99 after a week as a freebie. Amazon gave away almost 1k ebooks.
That was fun!
This is a photo of the lovely wool I’ve been working on for a couple months.
It’s a three ply yarn. There’s a Charcoal gray, an Antique Red, a Silver and a Dusty Rose. For some reason it reminds me of Good and Plenty candy.
It was not easy to 3-ply, for some reason it kept getting tangled in my fingers. There must have been too much twist. It washed out just fine. Lovely stuff, though.
It’s funny. Once I spin a yarn, I have nothing to say about it. My mind is blank, except for the knowledge that’s it’s done and I really enjoyed spinning it.
Lil Dynamo – lives up to it’s name.
I’ve got several llama fleeces, and the problem with llamas are they are dirt bathers.
After a few hours with an unwashed llama fleece, I wake up that night with my sinuses completely closed up.
That’s a LOT of dirt.
So washing a llama fleece takes many, many washings. Each one has the potential to matt the fleece a little bit more.
So the other day, I really blew it and matted a white llama fleece. It was just a mess. Not felted, because I could pull it apart, but the fiber was in knots. I went to Etsy to price pickers and found this little oak picker that is small enough to fit under the bed.
I put a fist full of matted llama in. It took a couple of passes to get the mats out, and with it came handfuls of dirt. But the fiber is a lovely fluffy mass now. Not a matted mess. (Big sigh of relief!)
I think carding is now possible.
I Humbly Announce: Nomination for Best Novella
Yes, I am very grateful for this nomination.
The Emissary: Journey is the first of the series “Horsewomen of the Zombie Apocalypse.”
In a world where the stinking dead walk the land, Bethany McLeod must take her sisters Alexis, Dani and Julie cross-country to Fort Chatten, Kentucky, a journey of 100 miles. Can four women and six horses make it 100 miles and arrive alive?
It’s just three years since the Zombie Apocalypse. The McLeod and Davidson’s clans survive in a world where the muerto viviente – walking dead – infest the cities and towns.
Alexis McLeod is a healer, eager to prove herself. She volunteers to travel to Fort Chatten, the home of the Davidson clan. Led by Bethany, the four sisters risk their lives to help Clan Davidson.
Armed to the teeth, the sisters are horse archers, light cavalry, quick enough to avoid the muerto.
Militia, marauders and mad-men abound, the stinking dead walk the land, eating everything in their path.
But what will they find if they get to Fort Chatten?
This story is suitable for all ages.
I saw this and I don’t believe it.
I’ve been around the self-publishing scene since 2008.
I remember when Amanda Hocking and David Danglish were just getting started. They couldn’t afford to pay anyone to get their ebooks onto any bestsellers’ lists. They had to do their own covers and struggled to pay for editing.
There are others on this list who were in the same boat – people who were struggling to pay their bills, pinning their hopes on making a few extra bucks with their e-books. They gave each other support and encouragement and celebrated the modest success they enjoyed.
This post is just bullshit.
ResultSource is one of many companies offering to help authors buy their way onto New York Times and USA Today Bestseller lists. ResultSource was outed by The Wall Street Journal in The Mystery of the Book Sales Spike,
How Are Some Authors Landing On Best-Seller Lists? They’re Buying Their Way.
After you read The Wall Street Journal article google “authors buying their way onto bestseller lists” for an even more eye-opening experience. As also told by The Wall Street Journal, a growing number of author frauds are buying their way onto the New York Times Bestseler List and USA Today Bestseller List, including Hugh Howey and Melissa Foster.
Soren Kaplan purchased about 2,500 books through ResultSource, paying about $22 a book, including shipping, for a total of about $55,000, to buy his way onto the bestseller lists. He also paid a few of $20,000 to $30,000 to ResultSource for…
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