Amanda Cale's Blog

I’ve been doing some new stuff, specifically learning SQL! I need income and, though my previous position involved data entry, it didn’t really involve data analytics, so I’m adding that to my skill set.

I’m also working on Book 3 and really wanting to tighten it up. I’ve re-done some scenes in the effort of a big overhaul to events in the plot, and with that, really punch up the appearances of certain characters.

I’m really trying not to give too much away.

It’s pretty wild that we’re already halfway through October, so I’m going to also plug my Etsy shop here, The Marsh Lantern. What’s in it right now is handmade jewelry, mostly earrings, and I’d love if you’d take a look at it. I’ll post some pics below of my current listings, of which there are a total of 25.

As you’re starting to consider gifting for the holiday season, I do hope you’ll consider supporting small businesses and indie authors. I do sell my books on Amazon, and there are times (like today) where the jacketed hardcovers of Riddle and Compass are actually cheaper on Amazon than the paperbacks.

One cool thing is that you can also gift e-books, and that might make a fun stocking stuffer or other kind of small gift for a reader in your life. The e-books are currently 99 cents each.

Thanks for reading today! I’m restarting week 3 of C25k today (I’ve that week more than once, and finished it once) and am taking the plan at a pace that isn’t straightforward moving through the weeks. Week 3 has been enough of a challenge that I have parked on that one, and I’ll definitely have to consider whether I want to move forward to Week 4 next week.

Thanks for reading!

Yesterday afternoon, I restarted C25k with week 1, day 1, and it was really good to be able to do that. Whether or not I’ll need to repeat the week more than once before moving on to week 2, I don’t know. But I’ve gotten it started.

I really need to add in strength training of some kind. C25k is only three days a week, and while I do walk Stella regularly, so I do get regular exercise, I need to add in at least some body weight exercises. Nerd Fitness has one, but I won’t be using that complete workout.

I need to find something that I can sneak in after walking Stella, or while my husband can occupy her, because I do need to be able to pay attention to what she’s doing. She’s a pretty good puppy, and we’ve had success with a simple button board (there are only two buttons on it) and a bell on our back door, but puppies are kind of like toddlers and need that supervision. I really don’t need to have a separate workout right now, and I’d be fine doing some elevated pushups, squats, lunges, and planks for now, a couple days a week. Writing is, after all, a sedentary thing by nature.

I haven’t been writing this through in one go. I applied for a job, and threw a Frisbee with Stella some, but she’s also afraid of the noise the school bus makes as it moves through the neighborhood.

Revisions are a little different from just straight-up drafting a novel. I’m fairly satisfied with the general structure of Book 3, for example, but as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the changes are hefty, involving removing characters from scenes, which is a little easier, and the rewrites of scenes that I need to do, because something major in that scene is no longer a factor. Likely, I’ll need new scenes completely.

It hasn’t been easy to get the Riddle series out. Riddle itself was published in 2014, and Compass wasn’t released until 2023. That’s something completely on me, with various factors at play. As an indie author, I literally do everything. I can’t afford to pay editors or cover artists at all, and even the software I use now is free and open source. GIMP and Krita were what I used for the cover of Compass, along with a Wacom tablet I already owned, and I used Libre Office to set the book up for printing. The learning curve can be steep, but worth it. It just does take time to get a book ready when it’s only me, and marketing is even harder, especially when you don’t write in a hugely popular genre like romantasy.

I think my habit of being a serial drafter is good. It’s let me draw this world out more, the one so dear to my heart for so long. It means I’m slower to release, but hopefully it also means that readers are getting a good book when it releases.

Thanks for reading today.

I do actually intend to restart it today, later in the afternoon.

Part of that motivation is teaching my puppy, Stella, that if I leave the house, I am going to come back. She definitely has some anxiety about that.

My shoes are pretty beat up, and they’re not fresh anymore. Stella is able to walk a couple of miles at a time, so she’s been getting walks. She’s just not a running buddy yet.

In other news, I’ve gone back to revising today. I also worked some in the prequel. Not a ton, but a couple of pages. My best ability to focus involves music, though I have also been known to write during times I should have been paying better attention to other stuff, like World Geography class in ninth grade and a video about the St. John’s Bible in Art Appreciation class my senior year of college.

But music is really the best. Interestingly enough, it’s harder for me to read when there’s music playing, particularly if there are lyrics (which means I have struggled if there are people talking in a video that’s playing nearby.) Writing, though? A playlist is an essential tool for me.

The revisions I’m working on are hefty changes to the most recent draft of Book 3, all of them very needed. I think we all have those moments as writers where we can feel stuck, like our characters aren’t as dynamic as they need to be, or at least not all of them. The changes I’m making will heavily affect the actions of some secondary characters, and it’s going to be good to bring them back to how they started in Riddle.

Here’s something, too: Riddle and Compass are 99 cents each in e-book format. If you know someone who reads YA adventure, and likes portal fantasy, or you do, this is a good time to get them. I know you can gift Kindle books as well, so one idea you could do is making a gifted e-book part of a gift basket. We authors always appreciate any support you can give us.

Wish me safety and fun as I embark again on C25k, and thanks for supporting indie authors and reading today’s post.

I’ve been pretty much working on the Riddle series, off and on, since 2001. That was the year I wrote a short story for English that became a really terrible first book that I worked on in World Geography class in second semester of ninth grade. The story never, ever left my head, and went through plenty of changes before being what it is now.

Currently, I’m in the revision stage of Book 3. My hope is that with the changes I am making, the book will be closer to being ready for publication. Soon, I need to start working out what I want the cover to look like. Since I truly cannot afford to hire a cover artist, designing the cover is on me.

And one thing I have started is the handwritten draft of Book 4. Yesterday afternoon, while my puppy was laying in the sun, I went in my house and got what I’ve written of it, and started reading. I’ll obviously have to change some things in future drafts of it, and as I finish it. Unless something changes and I feel like the series needs another book, Book 4 will be the final book in the Riddle series. This particular story, so near and dear to my heart, will be finished and published.

I do have other ideas, such as the prequel, which I have started. I have other ideas and projects. I’m not going to stop being a writer because the Riddle series will be finished.

Do you ever have this feeling about a project that you’ve been working on? Not sadness, but just…a realization? I don’t know if it’s because I was fifteen when I got the first idea for what would become Riddle, or what. It is ingrained in my life, and I really do love it.

We’ll definitely see.

If you want to check out this YA portal fantasy series, you can find links here, which is also clickable at the top of the page. If you’re looking for indie authors to support, and looking for birthday or holiday gifts for teen readers who really like fantasy, I’m definitely suggesting my books to you. Thanks for any support you give indie authors, and thanks for reading today!

A while back, on a post about an author event, I mentioned how some random things I already had helped me create a cake topper for my wedding that was truly unique.

I can recap for you: my wedding cake topper was made from a Dragonology dragon action figure, with a raven/crow bird bead wired to a paw, both of which I’d randomly purchased in college. The action figure came from Target, and the bead came from a shop in downtown Greenville, South Carolina called The Beaded Frog. The dragon sat beside a blue polymer clay cake, with lighter blue dots on it, and a small piece of black card stock with an “A” stamped on it glued to the top. I’d made the little cake at a time when I’d had this idea for a business where I’d make small polymer clay replicas of people’s wedding cakes. That never really took off, but all these things came together to make our wedding cake topper. I wrote and printed a context explaining the dragon and bird and put it in a frame beside the cake.

One thing included in this story was that our wedding date happened to be the same exact date that I met my husband eleven years before. And as to what led to meeting him…read on.

Fast-forward back to the days of a different Internet, the early 2000s. The Lord of the Rings film trilogy had started to be released, and I loved these movies and the books.

At some point, I became aware of the “.co.uk” suffix for websites, and at random, I typed in the “lordoftherings.co.uk” web address. The site featured a discussion forum, which I joined and participated in very enthusiastically.

This is the big crux: the draw of the discussion board.

In my senior year of high school, a friend of mine had a discussion forum on his website, Graphic Raptor. I joined as the name “QuotetheRaven” and participated.

That spring, at a class trip to a Christian camp in Western North Carolina, I decided to go to a different college than the local one I was planning on going to. The friend who owned that website was also headed to my newly chosen destination.

At the school in question, before classes started but after move-in weekend, there was a meeting for freshman that had a reception afterwards. I tracked my friend down at the reception, and he told me that there was a discussion forum on campus.

Sold. I joined, signing up as “TheRaven.” Eventually, I attended a couple get-togethers, the second of which was the day I met this guy who was also on the forums. He was the first to speak to me, and we became friends.

It also turned out that we were in the same lab section for General Chemistry, and it was a late one: Wednesday afternoons until 5:50. We’d meet other people at supper, and wind up being the only two left, talking until they started flicking the lights to kick people out. By the end of the year, after some growing pains, it was clear we were pretty much on the same page relationship-wise. Both of us headed to home for the summer.

Also, there was a phone conversation where we figured out we’d been at that Christian camp senior trip at the same time. In the camp-wide photo, my husband is standing near the high school friend who’d told me about the discussion forums at college.

And it wasn’t until just before our wedding that I figured out that our wedding date was the actual date that my husband and I had met in 2005. I didn’t do that on purpose; we got married in September, but my original choice was October. The church where we got married was running an event in October, and weren’t able to accommodate a wedding during that month. It wasn’t the only factor, but it was a big one in the particular September Saturday we picked. I had a “hang on a second” moment and scrolled back through my phone calendar, remembering the sequence of Saturdays at the beginning of my freshman year of college.

It’s wild that there’s a chance that I might not have met my husband if I hadn’t typed “lordoftherings.co.uk” in my browser, or if I hadn’t gone to a matinee showing of The Fellowship of the Ring at one of our local theaters in 2002, or if my brother hadn’t been told about the book by a friend of his at school.

What if the movies had never been made? They were what drew me to The Lord of the Rings fandom in the first place, and that in turn influenced me as a writer. But if Peter Jackson hadn’t wanted to make movies, would someone have?

What if Tolkien had never started constructing the rich languages and histories of Middle-Earth?

And closer to the present…what if I’d decided to go to a local college?

There are so many factors that seem random in life, things that happened because other stuff happened. Are there ultimate ends to stories that are reached regardless of the deviations on the way, or do all alterations always lead to different endings?

The question is unanswerable.

But I’m thankful that I typed in “lordoftherings.co.uk” on my browser in the early 2000s.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, so here are some updates.

We brought home one of the very sweet rescue pups at the end of May, once she was spayed and ready to come with us. She’s been a sweet source of joy for me and my husband, the first dog we adopted together. We named her Stella, which just seemed like the right name for her.

Stella will be about six months old at the end of August, and she’s going to be a big dog. Though she has her overly excited spicy moments, she’s got a sweet, soft heart and loves to snuggle. She’s also capable of walking two miles with me in the mornings, and though she’s a little nervous, it’s good for her. We’re still dealing with her being anxious if we leave her alone, which is something we’re trying to do so she knows that we’re coming back. It hasn’t stuck yet, and she gets very upset and yells at us when we return to the house, but it’s okay.

Unfortunately, before writing this today, I made the mistake of wearing my flip-flops to take her out to potty instead of my Crocs, as I have a blister on my toe. Stella assumed that I was leaving because flip-flops are what I wear most of the time in the summer, particularly when I leave the house.

She’s a sweet little buddy, though, and a joy to have in our home.

In Book 3 news, I finished the most recent draft and started revising it. It’s not ready for release, but it’s in a good place for the changes I need to make. I’m also starting to add chapter divisions, and I had my husband pick up a three-inch wide three-ring binder the other day. Optimally, this draft will be the one I print for a read-through before fully having it ready to start the publishing process.

Also, the title is different than what I had originally planned for it to be, so at some point, I’ll also be doing a title reveal.

If you’re working on a project today, I wish you the best, and thanks for reading!

I take time each morning to read while eating breakfast and drinking my coffee.

Right now, I’m reading the third book in the Children of the Consortium series, by Cathy McCrumb. (Here’s her website!) The title of the book is Guardian, and the publisher of this series is Enclave Publishing. (I’ve actually got a few books for which Enclave is the publisher, and they’ve all been good, and fit in a niche that I think is well-needed in Christian fiction: science fiction and fantasy. That’s another discussion, though.)

One of the things that struck me was the level to which humanity is incredibly creative. Even when you just have the category of books, and just keep it to fiction…it’s wild.

So many worlds. So many ideas.

It can be mindboggling how limitless the stories seem to be, and it speaks to a drive that seems to be written in our bones.

In my faith, there exists the concept of humans being created in the image of God. You can find this in Genesis 1:26-27. Judaism and Christianity, in sharing a creation narrative, also share this. Believing that humanity is a particularly special creation does not mean that we should believe that God looks like us. But it’s interesting that these verses come in the latter half of a chapter in which creation itself is being formed.

And that, I think, could be a clue to at least a part of humans finding our place as the image-bearers of God, because it seems that one of our deepest joys comes in creating.

I am not a theologian at all. I am a creative, and I’m an author. I have joined the many others who have, through that bone-deep drive to make something, pursued just one of the many arts that humanity engages in.

Not one of us are perfect, but it’s so wild to think about all the stories and characters and plots and worlds that authors have built. Even when they’re inspired by previous works, there’s a uniqueness when someone truly begins to pursue a story that they wrote because they loved another one.

And so many creative arts share this attribute, this pursuit of something. Not an imitation, but a drive to echo. While the concept of humanity’s creation in the image of God may not be wholly contained within creativity, it certainly seems to play a part.

Thanks for reading.

I’ll start with puppies.

Yesterday, my husband and I had a meet-and-greet with two puppies that we were looking to adopt from a local rescue organization. We stayed at the meeting place for a while, as the puppies ran around and played and gave us plenty of kisses. We had gone there considering one of them in particular, but when we left, we’d decided on the other, though my husband wanted to sleep on the decision. Before he headed off to work this morning I confirmed that we’d picked that puppy and texted the person I’d been communicating with about the adoption.

So the next step is a communication group online, and the puppy we picked will be getting spayed. After a recovery period, then we get to officially adopt her! I’m really excited. We’ll have to get our home puppy-proofed, and still need to clean some things out of the pantry. But it’s going to be so joyful to have a puppy in our house, and it’s the first time we’ve ever picked one out together.

My day started pretty early, with week 2, day 1 of C25k. I didn’t finish my first attempt at week 2, and took a week off last week. I can tell I’ll want to repeat this week, and I don’t know how many times.

Book 3 is still coming along. I could really push forward on it while I wait for the official adoption day. After all, once our pup comes home, I’ll be pretty busy with training and playing, and all the stuff that comes with a new puppy. I’ve done pretty well at word count, maybe because I have a clear idea of where I’m going, and also because I’m working alongside a finished draft. There are elements there that are being written that I’m not having to fully come up with, while I’m making changes, but there are also new things coming up. One thing I don’t have is chapter divides; I’m still just using asterisks at this point. If this leads to a draft I’d feel good about printing out for more edits, then I’d be coming up with the chapter divides before printing.

I’ll be working this afternoon on Book 3, after I eat some lunch. Thanks for reading!

In 2012, when I was twenty five, my family said goodbye to my childhood dog Minnie. She was over fifteen years old and came to the end of a journey with aggressive melanoma that began in her mouth. It was hard to lose Minnie, and with her passing, our home was without a dog. Our other dog, Buster, had passed the year before, at only eight years old, due to kidney failure.

Within a month after we lost Minnie, I turned my eye to choosing her successor. I wanted a puppy, and a listing on Craiglist led me to a Wake County rescue based in a veterinary clinic. I filled out an adoption application, and was approved to adopt, and I had my eye on one puppy in particular, a little charmer named Pippa.

But the weekend wasn’t an option, as I was going to my grandparents’ house for the weekend with my mom. This rescue did not hold puppies. I had to be okay with the possibility that Pippa would no longer be at the rescue once Monday came. I spent the weekend up there, and monitored Pippa’s listing on my Blackberry.

On Monday morning, back at home, I made the call to the rescue. Pippa was still available.

And then came the emotion. The irrational fear that my childhood dog would hold it against me for getting a new dog. I called my mom, crying and worried, and she assured me that Minnie wouldn’t hate me for that. I decided that I wanted to adopt Pippa.

Mom and I drove out to the rescue, and upon our arrival, we were accompanied to the front door by a friendly orange cat who then proceeded to step into each of our laps when we sat down in the lobby to wait for Pippa and her sister to be brought out to go potty.

I paid the fee, and we took her home. Pippa growled at a fake plant in my parents’ front hallway. At the time, Mom and I were sharing a vehicle, due to hers probably needing some work or repairs. I don’t remember. I do remember taking her back to work, as I also had to go to my part-time job at a local museum, and Pippa actually spent part of her first day with my family in my mom’s office.

That afternoon, when my dad got home from work, he told us that he’d heard Minnie’s song on the radio. If that’s not Minnie offering her blessing from beyond over us adopting Pippa, then it’s a big coincidence. I think it’s the former.

My journey with Pippa wasn’t as long as I was expecting it to be, and it took me a while to get to the point where I knew I wouldn’t be so much in that hypervigilant caregiving mode once a dog came into our lives again.

That is probably the difference in the time frames in which I have pursued adopting another dog: the caregiving. Heart disease is something that can be monitored and managed, and I did that since October of 2021. Because my family chose not to pursue cancer treatment for Minnie, it was more of a progressive thing, something not monitored as closely.

Also, I think there could be a difference between the childhood dog who grows with you and the one you choose as an adult. Minnie was my birthday present when I turned ten, the fulfillment of a wish I’d had for years. She grew with me like a sibling. She traveled with our family when I moved in for college, visiting me with them when they would drive down, and even going on our family vacation in 2010, hanging out with my uncle and paternal grandparents while I went with my mom and dad and brother to Universal Studios. (Buster was, at the time, boarded with our veterinary clinic.)

Pippa was the dog I chose as an adult, taking her in and raising her like a daughter. Though she wasn’t friendly to my now-husband when they met, she grew to adore him.

This past Friday night, we filled out an application for a local dog rescue. Earlier today, I called the veterinarian’s office that Pippa went to and gave them permission to release information should they get a call from the rescue. I am waiting to hear back from the rescue.

Friday morning, half-dreaming, I heard a bark I was very familiar with: Pippa’s, from a distance.

That’s not why I decided to fill out an application, but maybe it was her very distinctive voice agreeing with what I was feeling.

This will be the first time my husband and I have adopted a dog together. He grew up with a dog, and knew my dogs. We were long distance when I got Pippa. This will be new.

Pippa was perfect, and the next one will be the right dog, just as she was.

Thanks for reading.

I got quite a lot of work done on the current draft of Book 3. I do want to mention again that this is not whole cloth creation. I have the previous draft open and am typing from that, changing and refining, but there are changes. It’s a good idea, I think, to shore up what I can ahead of time, because I am hoping that we will be bringing a puppy into our house soon.

But here is my word count from yesterday.

And here is my total word count for this draft of Book 3.

It’s going well at this point.

I’m about to start working again. I don’t think I will write over 5,000 words today. But it’s still pretty early in the afternoon, so we’ll see. I don’t want to have any sort of over-straining from typing. I don’t have a mechanical keyboard, nor am I using the one standard to my Macbook. It’s a keyboard that would have originally come with an iMac G3, and while it works well, I also have a tendency to type very hard, which would still be the case with a mechanical keyboard until I taught myself not to.

If you’re working on a project today, I wish you well, and thanks for reading!