My Dragon Muse - Farloft

Cherrie McKenzie of CoActive Dreams asked me where my dragon, Farloft, came from. 

In this 'spot' I explain my dragon muse.

Podcast with CoActive Dreams - Cherrie McKenzie

LIVE YOUR DREAMS ... THE DREAM IS YOURS

That is the header on Cherrie's website. CoActive Dreams a station with podcast interviews of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

I was please when Cherrie asked me to appear on her show. We met on Twitter and hit it off immediately. We were kindred spirits. I have always believed in visualization and the power of the mind. The same things Cherrie teaches.

Cherrie sent me a list of five questions she said we might, or might not, get through in the 20-25 minute interview she would conduct from which to edit the 18 minute podcast. We made it through all the questions and then the real conversation started. We chatted away for another hour and a half. It was like catching up with an old friend.

I should stop being amazed at the wonderful people I meet on Twitter, but I just can't. It is like the universe has opened a channel and technology has allowed us all to reach out and touch those we lost track of from past lives.

I hope you enjoy the show.
Fun, Fantasy and Farloft

Unexpected Visitations

I tweet perhaps 3-4 hours a day. In a little over a year I have acquired over 10,000 followers, many of whom I consider friends. It is amazing to me how attached and involved one can become with other folks on Twitter. 

You meet someone, you share something, you connect. You laugh a lot, you cry a little, soon you are exchanging emails and Skyping someone in a country half-way round the world.

It is a rare and delightful pleasure when you can actually meet one of those fellow internet friends in person. In May, I had the pleasure of meeting Cheri Matthynssens in Astoria for the day. 

This past Labor Day weekend I was delighted when I heard Charlotte Ashlock was going to be in town. I met Charlotte online and have been pleased to share numerous enlightening conversations with her over the past year or so. She is a thoughtful young woman who never ceases to amaze me with the depth of her intellect. 

I asked her to share tea with me in the Moroccan Room and she accepted. We had a delightful visit. When I found out it was her first trip to Oregon I asked her if she would like to take a drive up The Gorge. She said yes and we were off. 

I hope she will consider visiting again sometime for a bit longer, so I can play tour guide and show her some more of the lovely state I live in and call home.

Thoughts of Being Green - Author Unknown

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

She was right - our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same battles over and over. So they really were recycled.

But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. 

But too bad we didn't do the green thing back then.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220-volts - wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house - not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers or popcorn to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and replaced the razor blades instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

July Update

Well, the month of June just slipped through my fingers. Do you feel the same way? I spent a lot of time in the garden.

I cleaned up and spiffed up the Moroccan Room so I could do a little entertaining in those lazy days of summer when it is too hot to do anything in the garden beyond 10:00 am.

Click on the link below to take the monthly tours of the garden, the Moroccan Room, or if you just want to sit and listen, the audio book of "James & the Dragon" is there too.

Our Quiet Corner - Garden & Moroccan Room Tours


I did a lot of writing, editing and formatting too! I hope to have all The Farloft Chronicles in paperback by the 1st of August. 1-3 are up already. The Farloft Chronicles in Paperback 4 and 5 coming soon. If you haven't read the Chronicles yet, perhaps now is the time. If you have read them, I must tell you I am very excited about the way they look in print.

Yogoloth

Yogoloth got his first two and sent me this cute picture with his dragon and gryphon 'softies.'

 


As soon as The Farloft Chronicles are all in paper, I will have a surprise for all of you. Farloft has been dictating his latest Chronicles #6 to me and it will be out sometime in late August or early September. Sarah is working on another great cover portrait for it. It will be the story of how we met, way-back-when.

Then, I will be back to writing about our friend Cody, the shape-shifter in The Realms. Shifting in The Realms He still has a lot of adventures to tell us about. Not least of which is the realization that Simone might be in love with someone else. Life can reach out and bite a wolf, no matter how strong he is.



The Society of Enlightened Dragonologist site will be up and running August the 1st. Until then, here is the blog site with a few little teasers to whet you appetite. The Society of Enlightened Dragonologists

Lot of fun things going on. I hope you will drop in and visit sometime this summer. Have a glass of iced tea in the Moroccan Room and catch up.

- Astoria Author's Rendezvous - May 2014

I just spent two days in Astoria at the Rose River Inn B&B. I went there in order to meet with Cheri M. of @balanceguide on Twitter. She is an author of two wonderful adult fantasy adventures and several children's books.


We wanted to get together to talk Dragonology since both of us have resident dragons. It was a delightful chat of over six hours while we sat on the sun porch of my room and had high tea. (I hope we did not set off any seismic trimmers - @DS_Books gave the USGS prior warning of our meeting and also saw that all donkeys in the area were stabled with appropriate ear muffs.)


I took everything to make the tea special (Cheri likes jewel tones) so it was a Moroccan tea with cast iron teapot, gold flatware and pottery plates. Boy, was that suitcase heavy to lung up the stairs to the second floor. Lol


Pictures below are of the tea 'fixing,' the B&B, the sun porch (I moved the table in the corner to the front of the couch for the tea), some of the lovely flowers (look for more on Twitter) and a gift to Cheri from Farloft of a mug from his Hoard .

A Review from a Friend of Shifting in The Realms, my latest paranormal novella.

Marsha tagged you in a post.


Marsha wrote: "Theresa Snyder, Amazon won't let me post a review of this book by my author friend, so I'm posting it here. I am not a fan of the sci-fi/fantasty genre, so. I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy her story in this series! I found the writing engaging, the characters enjoyable and believable. The pace was good. Now I want to read stories about Cody! So I wanted to say 'well done', and I'd give this 4 stars, if Amazon would let me. "




Shifting in The Realms - The Twin Cities Series