Guest Jen Wylie

Collective Nouns...of the paranormal
by Jen Wylie

Some time ago I wrote on my blog about the fun of collective nouns. For those of you going “huh?”, a collective noun is a word used to define a group of objects, where objects can be people, animals, emotions, or other things. These can be general, such as a flock of birds, or more specific to a certain species, such as or a pride of lions, a murder of crows, etc.

This whole idea got me to thinking about collective nouns for the fantastical. So let's play with that!

An Internet search showed some are already in popular use, such as a kiss of vampires. Others have come up with ideas on their own.

For the shape shifting types it would be logical to use the collective noun for their animal, ie a pack of werewolves, a pride of were-lions etc. This could also apply to those with names other than 'were'. For example, selkies, which shift from seal to human could have the collective noun for seals when in that form. However in this case things can get confusing, as it is not uncommon for a species to have more than one collective noun. Seals have the following: Pod, Bob, Harem, Herd, Rookery.

But what about everything else? I like a gore of zombies. BRAINS! How about a fickle of elves? Do you know of any common usages, or have a good idea of your own?

About the Author:

Jennifer Wylie resides in rural Ontario, Canada with her two boys, Australian shepherd, a flock of birds and a disagreeable amount of wildlife. In a cosmic twist of fate she dislikes the snow and cold. Before settling down to raise a family, she attained a BA from Queens University and worked in retail and sales. Thanks to her mother she acquired a love of books at an early age and began writing in public school. She constantly has stories floating around in her head, and finds it amazing most people don’t.

Jennifer writes various forms of fantasy, both novels and short stories. Sweet Light is her debut novel published in 2011 by Echelon Press. She is also the author of the YA short story series, Tales of Ever, as well as the shorts Jump and The Forgotten Echo.

You can find her pretty much anywhere online:
Jen's website
Jen's blog

twitter: @jen_wylie
Jen's facebook page
Jen's smashwords page
Jen's Amazon Author page


HALF-CENTURY GIVEAWAY: Jen will be giving away an ebook as part of my half-century giveaway bonanza. Leave a comment to be entered in the drawing. Good luck to everyone. - E :)

This and That

It's been a kind of crazy week here having to deal with insurance and towing and AAA and getting daughter's car fixed but overall, I think things have settled down and hopefully she will have her car tomorrow before she goes to work.

I totally forgot to mention Friday that Susanne Drazic, the person who leaves the most comments here and who bestowed upon me the RAOK on her blog, posted a review of "The Proposal". Part of forgetting this was that I was away from my desk most of the day and it slipped my mind. For the review, drop by her blog and leave a comment.

On the sales side, I sold one copy of "The Tulip Kiss" on kindle and no sales anywhere else. I am running a special deal on my state books through the 7th of July - buy 2 get 1 for 1/2 off ($25 for three books/$50 for all six which is like buying five and getting one for free, plus no shipping costs). For more information, you can check out the JGDS blog.

I do plan on getting back to my state stories soon but I'm waiting on some other things from Heather before I get back to writing anything. She's got one more fix on "Train of Clues" and I'm thinking of trying that one out as an ebook as well just to see if it will work in that format being that it is illustrated. I'm also waiting on the cover for "Butterfly Halves" so I can get that published. Of the two persons I shared the first cover with, I've had differences of opinion on several aspects of the cover. Things I like about it, they don't and things I'm not crazy about, they like. I've passed both opinions and mine to Heather and hopefully she will come up with the perfect cover.

If you are a horse lover or even a horse rider or know someone who is, my other blind friend, who is also an author, Andi Mills, has an article here about using mini horses as service or guide animals.

This week's guests will be Jen Wylie, author of the Ever series and several other short stories, Darcia Helle, author of many suspense stories, and a special appearance by Jo Linsdell for her "Out and About a Day at the Zoo" book tour. See you all in the postings - E :)

Pacing and Maggie Toussiant (discontinuation of the 50-day blitz)

Last night was our monthly local Sisters in Crime meeting and our guest was author Maggie Toussiant. She talked about pacing your scenes, chapters and books and how to catch some of those pesky pacing problems. We also had an interactive session where she gave us two characters and we provided a little bit of background information and then we formed several small groups and had to come up with a scene - either a fast paced action, slow paced action or fast paced dialogue or slow paced dialogue. Interesting what happens with the same background information, how each group came up with different scenarios. A fun exercise in pacing.

Anita rode with me to the meeting and as usual I was the talker all the way home. I did a little brainstorming about Imogene's story thinking about the pacing of the story. So far, the three pages I've written are slow paced, narrative, not much action but fitting for where the story starts. I know the prologue will disappear because I've got the scene in my head and unsure if I've put it down on the paper yet as to when the secret comes out. I don't know if I can pull off a slow-paced beginning with a faster-paced majority of the story or not but I'm going to try. One thing that did come from the brainstorming session with Anita is that I believe this story will call for a "postlogue", not so much an epilogue but more of an "author's note" explaining certain elements in the story. Don't worry it won't be long - a couple of paragraphs at the most and will be something to the effect of: This is truly a work of fiction because after my many hours of research and the findings of historical data and other information would not make this story happen in such a way. (I know it needs some work and there will be a little more to it than that but you get the gist of the meaning - Imogene is pure fiction and there are no facts to really base much of the story on other than possible places in a different time from when the story takes place.)

I'm discontinuing my 50-day giveaway blitz as I've had only three comments (six actual but only three answered the question) on the first day and I've tried to go to my social groups and post everywhere to stop by my blog and leave a comment to be entered for whatever the day's giveaway is. Since it seems no one is interested in leaving comments, it isn't worth my time to put out there my time or effort to get readers and followers and folks who will at least just leave a comment in order to try to win whatever I may be giving away on any given day. I'll go back to my posting schedule as before - Mondays and Thursdays with guest bloggers the 4th week of the month and an occasional review of books I've read on my kindle.

The end of this month, Jen Wylie and Darcia Helle as well as Jo Linsdell are my guest bloggers and there will be free ebooks during Jen's and Darcia's days. Jo will be a guest on my blog two more times as part of her 3-month blog tour and a free ebook will be given away on her last appearance. I will probably do some occasional giveaways during the next couple of months. I haven't really decided.

I hope you all will still at least read my blog and see what I have to say. See you all in the postings - E :)

Kindlegraph

I love my kindle but still like paperback books too. I subscribe to Jen Wylie's blog, author of the Ever series that I've been following (can't wait for the next installment - lol). Anyway, her posting today is about kindlegraph, a place where authors can do "electronic signatures for ebooks" - Makes me excited to put my upcoming YA paranormal mystery (Finally Home) out as an ebook. I'm passing this on to a few of my writer buddies who do have ebooks available so that I can get their "kindlegraph" on the books I've already purchased. Hope all you writers take advantage of this (all you need is a twitter account to sign up). Happy writing and signing, ya'll - E :)

Book Review: Tales of Ever by Jen Wylie

Tales of Ever series by Jen Wylie is another in the electric short series from Quake Me, a division of Echelon Press.

Jen Wylie had this reader hooked from the first story. She takes you into a world of danger and foreverness that one cannot escape no matter what. I so love this series and cannot wait for the next three installments.

We follow "Fire Girl" through her adventures in the land of Ever and meet many interesting characters along the way. The three available stories in the series are Banished, Fire Girl and Shadow Boy. I'm not much of a fantasy/sci-fi reader but I must say that Ms. Wylie absolutely drew me in and in such a way that I really forgot I was reading fantasy/sci-fi or whatever the genre is.

RATINGS: 5 stars (for the series and each book)

Book Info:
Banished
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 168 KB
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: Echelon Press (March 1, 2011)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B004Q9TX4A
Lending: Enabled


Fire Girl
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 146 KB
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: Echelon Press LLC (April 5, 2011)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B004VFN5SO
Lending: Enabled


Shadow Boy
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 225 KB
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: Echelon Press LLC (May 4, 2011)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B004ZFVSBG
Lending: Enabled


I definitely want the rest of this series - keep up the great job, Jen.