Book Signing

I went to Lisa Beard’s book signing today. People stood in line for hours to get a picture, to have her sign their book. She ran out of books in the first hour. It was amazing. She held it in the local book store and she is a teacher in the community so many of…

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I Write My Own Books!

My name is Julia Schmeelk and I write my own books. In the world of Indie Publishing, there seems to be a rash of plagiarism, also an entire culture of people writing for others, collecting a fee per word. (These are called ghost writers and are usually grossly underpaid and under valued) I am not…

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Security

Have you ever been to a clothing store and admired all the different security devices they use to keep someone from ripping off their clothes? Today I went shopping with my mom, dad, and husband, but this has happened before. A security device was accidentally left on an article of clothing. What made it funnier…

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Reviews Arrive

As an author, I cannot stress enough how important reviews are. It is not just marketing or promotion, Amazon promotion or sales; it is about building confidence as a writer. Reviews tell the writer that they are doing something right, or they need to improve a particular area. Today was pretty exciting. I got two…

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Exciting Purchase

We now have two vehicles. I am not sure how long that will last, but we added to the occupants of our driveway for now. This new vehicle is in good shape and should carry Shawn’s scooter with ease. It would never accommodate a dragon as a passenger, but few modern conveyances would. It occurred…

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Mammalian Dragons

The dragon, Brom

With two opposable thumbs on each hand and two more thumbs on each foot, claws that are strong and sharp enough to rip and strip meat from bone, the dragons of NewEarth are well adapted to life on their beloved planet. They have a mane of fur on the back of their heads, moving down…

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Wagons

Zack and Rogor riding a wagon pulled by a cattle.

Wagons are interesting, and a bit complex when you think about designing them for different animals that range in sizes and for a variety of purposes. Let’s start with the smallest wagon used for transporting infants, both dragon and human. It has a rope to pull it with, four wheels and metal belt look like…

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Amazing Exchange

I was paging through Facebook and Twitter, as I do from time to time, and I came across a woman asking about characters with disabilities. I answered that the NewEarth Series has at least one disabilities described in each book, a challenge that a character, human or dragon, has to work with and she asked…

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Joy of Writing

Aside from the whole make-it-up as you go, invent a world, populate it, and set your characters free- god like powers, a writer has a few other joys. One of them is working your but off to tell a story, and later, years later, going back and rediscovering it. I have a bank of books,…

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Book 8

I worked on the Newsletter and started putting things together for book 8. I completed the story in 2014 and I have done some self-editing, but not in the last year, so I wanted to make sure I sent the best descriptions to Athena, my wonderful talented illustrator, as she begins to work on the…

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