The occult is strictly defined as “supernatural, mystical, or magical beliefs, practices, or phenomena.” The word comes to us from a Latin word meaning “hidden from view, covered up, concealed.” For some reason, though, the word has taken on a darker overtone–you can talk of magic all you want without being accused of anything nefarious. … #AtoZChallenge – O is for Occult
I’ve spent several novels, now, naming characters, but book 2 of Red Slaves presented me with a new opportunity: To build fake words in to the world as a representation of the culture and expectations of those beings. As I mentioned earlier in this challenge, Anne meets ghilen in book 2. While I was able … #AtoZChallenge – N is for Niu Wen
One of the fun sub-themes of my Red Slaves series is the escape to the banya to relax and enjoy women-only time between Olga and Anne. In book 2, this expands to include the possibility that Anne’s new home can accommodate her desire to find inner tranquility and balance. When I saw the picture at … #AtoZChallenge – M is for Mineral Springs
For all that I’ve been happily married and deeply in love for more than 15 years, now, this was the first I considered what, specifically, it means to love and be loved. My father decided to divorce my mother after 42 years, despite her objection. It’s been a challenge to understand why, and even more … #AtoZChallenge – L is for Love
The Central Asian Republics have held a certain fascination for me since I was a little girl and my dad came back from what we joked was a “literal field trip.” He worked for the Foreign Agriculture Service, and we were posted to Moscow in 1978. Since he was trained as an agricultural economist, it … #AtoZChallenge – K is for Kazakhstan
Last year I had a problem with this letter, and stretched to make JAM fit. This year, Anne’s adventures took her into the Himalayan mountains. One of the first ways she tries to identify where she is is by taking a deep breath, whereupon she remarks at the scent of juniper. Once again, I’d let … #AtoZChallenge – J is for Juniper
I had originally been going to write about Igor for this installment of the A-Z challenge, but since he ends up being such a pivotal character, it would be hard to do so without risking spoilers. (And that’s spoiler enough, right there…) 😉 So I’m pulling back to the perspective of what Igor represents: The … #AtoZChallenge – I is for Intelligentsia
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I had faced writing book 2 of the Red Slaves series with some trepidation–after all, I’d only had peripheral contact with China, and had expected to have my characters spend some time there. As the story developed further, it became apparent that rather than a real location, Anne and … #AtoZChallenge – H is for Himmapan
Although I had lived in Taiwan for almost a year and a half and spent some time learning at least a beginning level of Mandarin Chinese I was intimidated by the thought of setting some piece of the second book of the Red Slaves series in China. As it turned out, that location wasn’t so … #AtoZChallenge – G is for Ghilen
In book one of the Red Slaves series, Natasha tells the group about her flight of dragons. In book two, protagonist Anne has to learn to deal with the reality of that grouping. And she gets to learn about flying. One of the fun bits of research I did for a particular scene in the … #AtoZChallenge – F is for Flight
