A Brit's Take on Thanksgiving

As you all know I am a Brit living in the States, so we don't celebrate Thanksgiving back home in England. But I have to say it is my favorite Holiday. It trumps July 4th every time, I even like it more than Christmas, because it is just like Christmas Day but without all the commercial rubbish that Christmas has now become.

Thanksgiving is a day when family and friends get together and share each other, just like at Christmas but with so much less pressure.

I love it and I love my friends over here because we have no family near, and we are always invited to join someone elses and that's what makes Thanksgiving so special.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, whether you're from the States or not.

New Moon

Had to mention it. I went to see the New Moon movie on Friday and I thought it was much much better than the Twilight movie. I have always been a fan of Jacob and he was portrayed just as I imagined him, in this movie, what a sweetie. The smoking hot bod didn't hurt either :-)

I am really interested to see the next one, Eclipse as that was my favorite of the 4 novels.

I joked to my friend as the credits were rolling at the end and the credit for Stephenie Meyer came up. I told her that one day we would be sitting watching a movie in that theatre and it would be my name to come up as the "Based on a novel by..." I have my dreams and so far all of them have come true. Not necessarily in the order I dream them or how I imagine it to happen, but so far they do seem to happen.

The Audio book is coming along nicely. I have recorded and uploaded 4 chapters so far and have 5 people subscribing, which surprised me so soon after starting this project.

If you are interested in listening to me read The Amulet, the address is http://www.alisonpensy.podbean.com

Please feel free to leave some feedback in the comments section.

The Amulet - Audio Book

I am in the process of recording The Amulet to make it an audio book. I am doing it chapter by chapter and so far have chapter 1 uploaded on a podcast. I split it into 2 parts because it is so long.

You can click on the title and it should take you there. I apologise if it doesn't, I am still navigating my way around the techie aspects of being an author. If you can't get to it by clicking on the title here is the address http://alisonpensy.podbean.com

It is free to listen to, I just thought it would be a fun thing to do as I have had several people tell me that they would love to hear me read it, so here goes.

If you do stop by to check it out, I hope you enjoy it, and please let me know what you think.

Toot my own Horn

It's a toot-my-own-horn kind of day today. I am excited because I just got off the phone with a local bookstore, Stonecrest Book & Toy in Osage Beach, MO. They want to carry my book and I am over the moon. Looks like they'll be doing a book signing there, too in the near future.

It's still a dreary old day here in mid-Missouri and I got off work early. Hopefully I can get another few paragraphs written.

A Perfect Day to Write

It's a gloomy, rainy day here today and perfect for sitting inside with my laptop on my lap and writing the sequel to The Amulet. I have to admit that it is taking me much longer to write the sequel than it did to write the first book. I think a lot of the reason why has to do with expectations.

When I was writing the first book, no one had any expectations of it or me. I was just a friend writing a book and "wasn't that fun". But the book has been such a success locally that I now find myself in the position of having to live up to expectation and that's not an easy thing to do.

So I will keep plugging on with the next book and hope that I can make it as good or better than the last. I had no idea going into this that a sequel would be such a hard thing to accomplish. But then again I enjoy a good challenge.

So as I listen to the heavy rain beating upon my roof, I can sit guilt free inside and do something I love, rather than rake and burn the millions of leaves that lay like a blanket across my property.

For the Love of Animails

I am an animal lover, I have a menagerie and love them all. Problem is, I don't seem to be having much luck with them just recently and it's sad.

A few weeks ago, one of my cats got very ill almost overnight and had to be put down. Then on Sunday I found a growth in one of my horse's ears and took her to the vet and he confirmed it was a tumor, a huge one infact, it takes up nearly her whole ear canal.

The horse in question is Gypsy, the very same horse I use in my novel. The vet took a biopsy and now we have to wait a week for the results.

Please say a prayer for her, I'd like to carry on our "real life" adventures for a long time to come.

Need a Name

This one is for you. I need a name for Faen's father. He is of noble birth, very loving and hightly respected. Can't give away much more than that because there are things about him you will find out in the book, when it's written. Okay, I'm getting there, I promise.

Halloween

I hope everyone had a happy Halloween. I did. I love Halloween, it is one of my favorite holidays, especially this year because a major piece of action happens at a Halloween costume party in my next book, and I have been writing that scene over the past few days, so the timing was perfect. It was purely coincidental, too.

As for my real life Halloween, it was alot of fun. Our town put on a "Safe Kids" Trunk or Treat at the City park, and people could turn up in the their cars and hand out candy to the kids in a safe environment. It was the first one held here and was a huge success. If I had to guess, we probably had about a thousand people through. Parents and kids.

The costumes were great. I got to judge the costume contest and it was hard.

My next favorite holiday is just around the corner. You may think this strange for a Brit, but I love Thanksgiving, and I enjoy it so much more than Christmas.