Tare Character Art Reveal! (+ Newsletter!)

Guys, I have art of my character Tare! :O

I’d never commissioned art before, but I won a character commission from the amazing Hazel B. West of Midnight Coffee Art and so I picked Tare because he’s my favorite of my characters. (Don’t tell the others. Just kidding. It’s no secret. XD)

I was nervous about it but Hazel was AMAZING and so patient and helped me figure out what I was looking for in this art piece and she did an INCREDIBLE job taking my vague wishes and coming up with a piece of art that I absolutely adore. She totally blew me away with the result. LOOK AT IT!

Tare from my WIP series (Kedran’s Wood by Deborah O’Carroll). Art by Hazel B. West (@midnight_coffee_art on Instagram).

I cannot! I love it so much! It’s Tare! :O Leaning on a wall being cool and mysterious and a little dangerous! IN HIS LEATHER JACKET. I JUST. *heart-eyes* I mayyyyy be a little obsessed with this art. 😉

I’ve been sitting on this piece since November and it’s been my computer desktop background (and phone wallpaper…) ever since. XD And I’m so excited to share it at last!

I also completely love this ADORABLE Chibi-style artwork of Tare which Hazel also drew for me. Tare will probably never speak to me again. WORTH IT. He’s so tiny! And grumpy! And way too cute!

Adorable Chibi art of my character Tare! Art by Hazel B. West (@midnight_coffee_art on Instagram).

Imagining what his friends known as “the Chess Club” would say about tiny cute Tare art has me in stitches. XD

I also made a silly little banner with Canva and the Cute!Tare art, just for fun. (Tare says “Thanks, I hate it.”) XD

If you don’t hear from me again, I’m probably being held hostage by my own character for having the audacity to parade character art of him in front of my readers. He won’t admit it but he does like the first art of him. 😉 (Even if the attention all this art is getting him is, in his opinion, the worst. Tough, Tare — the burden of having fans and an obsessed author. XD)

All of this also inspired me to make some new mock-covers of the books so far in this modern fantasy series I’m writing. It’s been fun and is inspiring me to work on the series again after way too long!

(These are just-for-fun covers, and for the record, the books are still not anywhere near publication-ready, but I’m currently writing the third book and they’ve been my for-fun writing project for over a decade now. One of these days!)

This also may be a good moment to mention that Tare has a Twitter account! There’s…not much there yet but one of these days I’m sure he’ll start posting. 😉 (Er…if I get inspiration for it.)

Anyway, this was a sort of belated celebration of one decade since finishing the first draft of book one in March of 2013, and eleven years since the first day Tare walked onto the page in April of 2012. One day he’ll hopefully make it onto a shelf as well, it just…may take a bit.

But in the meantime I’m just sooo pleased that he has this cool art by Hazel! ^_^ I love it so much!

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Artist (and author) Shout-out!

Let me brag on Hazel B. West for a minute!

I highly recommend this artist for character art commissions and hope to have her do some more of mine someday! Do check out the commissions page at her Ko-Fi page! And art account on Instagram @midnight_coffee_art!

And author account @modern_bard67! And her blog! If I missed any links, they’re most likely HERE!

In addition to being an awesome artist, Hazel also runs an amazing Etsy shop (I love the journals she makes!), and writes incredible books I adore! If you’re impatient for Tare’s series, or, you know, more of Agent Sean’s stories, and it’s taking me awhile to share either . . . well, you can meantime check out some of Hazel B. West’s spectacular books for some modern fantasy featuring snarky guys in cool coats, action, banter, brothers, and humor — all of which are things I enjoy writing and reading about!

Click the covers below to check out my reviews for these books! Or go straight to the latest release, Sweet Vendetta Blues.

But seriously, Hazel is awesome and has been an amazing inspiration and writing buddy over the years. Do give her a follow if you’re not already! ^_^

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Also! I’m hoping to (finally) start sending out newsletters very soon, with writing and life updates!

So if you’d like to make sure you get updates on what’s up with my character Tare — and, you know, other writing updates — you can subscribe to my quarterly (ish) newsletter!

(If you’ve already subscribed, you don’t have to re-subscribe! I’m just migrating it to a different provider and planning to dust off the newsletter and start sending it out next week, hopefully!)

What do you think about the Tare art? Leave a comment below to let me know!

Thanks for reading!

Ishness: Random Things I’m Enjoying Edition

Long time no blog, eh?

I thought it would be fun to toss a random list onto the blog, of some things I’ve been loving lately, in an attempt at something upbeat. *nervous laugh* And because blogging! It used to be a thing! So here we are.

In no particular order, and with no attempt at being an exhaustive list, here are . . .

Some things I’ve been loving lately:

Book

The Windward King by K. T. Ivanrest — I recently finished this and it was SUCH a delight! Buddy story, shapeshifting, castles, pirates, fabulous characters, betrayal, royalty, snark . . . it had everything! ❤

Music

The Rose (Cara Dillon) — Replace “love” in this song with writing and it felt . . . something. I could also listen to Cara Dillon’s voice all day long!

My Land (Celtic Thunder) — This makes me think of returning to my storyworlds and hanging out in my WIPs again. ^_^

Movie

I’ve been catching up on some movies including several superhero things. It’s been fun. 🙂

The Batman (2022) — I finally saw this one and aside from some dark stuff I just . . . really enjoyed how Batman-y it was. Just. Yesss! Because Batman. XD

Blog Posts

I really enjoyed this amazing post about Noblebright Fantasy and a return to blogging. Let’s do this, people! Wonderful read from K.M. Carroll.

I related so hard to this wonderful post by the lovely Emily Grant about being stuck. I feel like she said everything so much better than I can and sort of summed up a lot of how I feel about being stuck on blogging, writing, etc. It made me feel less alone, so maybe it will help others who may be in those trenches. ❤

Upcoming Events

FicFrenzy (March 15-April 15) — I’m super excited for a writing challenge my dear writing buddy Christine Smith is hosting! Check out the page about it here. ^_^

March Magics — The creator of March Magics (a celebration of the books of Diana Wynne Jones and Terry Pratchett) is hosting this one last time and I’m sooo looking forward to it. I even tracked down another short story by DWJ that I hadn’t read yet and I’m saving it for that.

A Kickstarter

The image kind of says it all, but I had the chance to read The Orb and the Airship early and it was definitely one of my favorite reads last year! I am SO excited about this gaslamp fantasy series and I totally recommend checking out the Kickstarter page and following it to be notified on launch (which is February 20). Any interest or sharing is sooo appreciated! I love this world and these characters SO MUCH just from the first book and I can’t wait to see where they go in the rest of the series. It’s seriously so good. 😀

A snippet from one of my WIPs

“What are we doing, again?” I whispered, quieter this time, as we turned a corner and made our way up a steep, narrow white marble staircase up toward a gallery of white stone columns.

“Being very, very quiet,” he breathed in my ear, giving me the urge to smack his face even if it might result in both of us toppling off the steep stairs. “And,” he went on, “avoiding the honestly alarming librarian. But mostly,” he finished, as we came out on the gallery and hid in the shadow of column, “looking for a book.”

“A book,” I repeated, and looked at him. He raised one eyebrow very slightly, as if in a shrug.

As one, we craned around the pillar, poking our heads out to lean enough to see over the long gallery railing of white marble—and gazed down from our new vantage point at a literal maze, so large that it looked a little shadowy and hazy at the far end. A literal maze built of bookshelves overflowing with books.

“Well,” I said, a little scathingly, “I think you’ve found one.”

unedited snippet I wrote last month for my WIP The Other Half of Everything

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Thanks for Reading!

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little look at some things I’ve enjoyed lately.

Normally I’d try to make it perfect, extensive, with more pictures and other proper-marketing-things but . . . I just want to blog. A bit. And not worry about perfectionism or likes or any of that sort of thing. (We will not discuss the writing update post I haven’t posted due to its now-out-of-date nature… Ahem.)

Have a lovely Wednesday, readers. ❤

A Poem: Shatter, Juggle, Human

Heya, blogosphere. Just a poem today.

It’s the same in the graphics and in the text, so it can be read either way — you can either read the graphics or scroll past them to the text. 🙂

Thanks for reading. ❤

dear everyone
i have let down:

i am sorry

for that email i didn’t reply to

for that book i said i would read
for you
and never
got around to reading

for that thing i said
i would do
and didn’t
do

for everything else
that i should be
sorry for

i’m sorry that i
am human
and fail
and have only time
limited
and that when life is hard
i sometimes
am too tired
to do
the thing
or that i put it
in a safe folder
in my brain
so safe
that it gets lost
and i cannot
find
it again

i’m sorry
that sometimes
when i’m juggling
a glass ball or million
that sometimes i
d
r
o
p
one
or several
and it (they) breaks (break)
and the broken pieces
are all i see
on the ground
even while i’m juggling
the ones
that are most important
(i hope)

and the shattered tasks
and wishes
and hopes
and wishing well
and meaning
good things
but being human
are broken & need to be
swept up
and started fresh
before my feet can
step
on shards of splintered intentions
and make me fall
and
d
r
o
p
all the others

i wish
i could be
like a robot
who can juggle them all
each
glittering glass ball of
life things & thoughts & dreams
wishes, promises, meanings
and would never
drop one
and would succeed
each time
and to always
get it right
each
time

but i think
a robot
would not feel
feel
feel
or stop
to look around
at the
reasons
to keep juggling
and a robot
is not
who i am
anyway

a robot does not
know
dreams
or people
or love or care
for people
and those are
reasons
to keep juggling

and so
i am sorry
but i hope that i
can keep on
juggling
the things that
matter
most
and i hope
that one of those is
your
thing

even if it has
to be
a new thing
not an old one
that i am still sorry
this not-robot
dropped
and lost
and felt
sorry for
for all these minutes & years & time
now to be
swept up & tidied away
in a safe folder
in my brain
so safe
that it gets lost
and i cannot
find
it again

so that i can move
forward
and juggle
and feel
for the right reasons
for dreams
and for people
like
you
again

9-Year Blogiversary + Giveaway!

Nine years ago, on September 9th, 2013, I created my first blog — namely this one!

It’s true I have another one and also that my posting has been nearly nonexistent on both of them this last year, but I still have a huge soft spot for this li’l original blog of mine! So I love to celebrate when it has another “birthday” and today is no exception.

To celebrate, I’m giving away a hardcover copy of In the Region of the Summer Stars by Stephen R. Lawhead, book one in the Eirlandia trilogy! (US only; sorry INT peeps! Scroll down for the info.)

There are a couple of reasons why I chose this book.

One is that, over on my book blog today, I posted a review for the second and third books in the Eirlandia series. So you can CHECK THAT OUT if you like! (And if you haven’t read my review for the first book, which I’m giving away today, you can do so HERE.)

The other reason is . . . Well . . . This little Road of a Writer blog was my first official “internet home” where I put down roots in the blogging community and started sharing my writing journey. It’s . . . been a long and winding road, and sometimes I need to remind myself that the journey is more than the destination (that elusive destination). But more than that, sometimes, like Bilbo Baggins, I have a hankering for a cozy, homey place when the adventure is a little much. That homey place for Bilbo is his Hobbit hole at Bag End in the Shire with the kettle singing. That homey place of the internet for me is this little blog. And one of the homey places I’ve discovered more recently in literature is Eirlandia. It sings to my heart and makes me long to live there, among the rolling green hills and the noble people and the land of wonder. So . . . it felt fitting to share a little bit of that ancient-Ireland home-on-the-page with some other reader, here on the ninth anniversary of my internet home’s foundations being laid.

(And, of course, giving away presents on one’s birthday — or in this case, one’s blog’s birthday — is a time-honored Hobbit tradition, speaking of Bilbo and giveaways.)

To all my readers . . . Thank you for dropping by my internet home! It’s always an honor. ❤

And happy blogiversary to my li’l ol’ blog!

GIVEAWAY

EDIT: Giveaway closed. Congrats to Sarah P.! Thanks, everyone, for entering!

To enter to win, drop by the Rafflecopter at this link!

a Rafflecopter giveaway https://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js

(Giveaway is open 9/9/22-9/14/22. US only. Must be 18 or have parental permission. One winner will be chosen at random. Winner will be contacted by email and will have one week to respond before another winner is chosen. This giveaway is for one (1) hardcover copy of the book IN THE REGION OF THE SUMMER STARS by Stephen R. Lawhead, is hosted by Deborah O’Carroll, and is not affiliated with the author, WordPress, or any other entity. Not responsible for packages lost in the mail.)

Thanks so much for reading and for celebrating with me!

Funnest Films/Shows I Watched Last Year

Today, something random!

Because I haven’t posted in almost literally forever, and I found this in my drafts and thought I’d finish it and share it. (A wizard is never late — my new blogging tagline for when I vanish for months. ;))

My movie and show watching is super varied and one of the few true “hobbies” I have, meaning I don’t overanalyze it or pressure myself about it like I do about everything else. XD (*cough*Writing and reading.*cough*)

That said, because last year I actually kept track of what I watched (which I don’t always do), here are a few films and shows I enjoyed!

(Just a disclaimer that I don’t necessarily endorse all the films/shows below and their content etc.)

ALL THE SHOWS I WATCHED IN 2021

(Not pictured: The Mandalorian, Leverage: Redemption, Almost Paradise, and Over the Garden Wall)

This category isn’t so much “funnest” as “all.” XD There were several shows last year I watched a bit of here or there, but the ones I watched more than a few episodes of were:

• Avatar: The Last Airbender – Finished Season 2 and 3 and YES, FINALLY HAVE SEEN IT! Adored this show. XD So happy I finished it. 😀 Zuko, Uncle Iroh, and Sokka are my faves.
• The Mandalorian — Most of (but have to finish S2) – Enjoying so far, mostly! Mando himself is the absolute best and Baby Yoda is adorable.
• Leverage — I re-watched the entire original Leverage show last year! I don’t re-watch shows, really? It takes long enough to watch one once. But it had been a long time since I’d seen it and it was a huge comfort re-watch during a stressful year last year, and was just so fun. ^_^
• Leverage: Redemption — All of it so far – Eh. There were ups and downs; not as good as the original but I did enjoy parts of it. Mostly Eliot Spencer. XD
• Almost Paradise — All of it so far – I needed something to try after missing Eliot and co. from those two shows, so I tried this one out and it was an enjoyable show with Christian Kane, and while it had the usual cop-show kind of stuff, I appreciated the extra humor. 🙂 I’m curious to see more.
• Over the Garden Wall – I don’t even know why but this was so addicting and kind of amazing and I have mixed feelings about the end but otherwise it was adorable/spooky and AAHH WHAT DID I JUST WATCH? This made an impression and I’m basically Wirt. XD (And my sister and I randomly say POTATOES AND MOLASSES sometimes now.)
• The Librarians – I watched the first couple of seasons last year, and actually finished at the beginning of this year – SO fun! As with any show there were less-favorite things, but on the whole I just really enjoyed the characters and the concept and fantasy element and it was just a crazy fun show! (Yes, I did watch a lot of Christian Kane last year. He plays a lot of fun characters. XD)

SOME MOVIES I ENJOYED IN 2021

(Not pictured: Shang Chi, A Cinderella Christmas, and The Button of Doom)

• Studio Ghibli — I watched a few of these (still need to finish them, though) and my favorite ones overall that I watched last year were probably Ponyo, Up On Poppy Hill, and The Castle of Cagliostro. Also, the hero and music in Princess Mononoke are also MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE!!! (Even if the film as a whole was a bit too dark for my personal taste. O_O But I adored parts of it!)
• Jason Bourne 3, 4, and 5 — Yeahhh, I figured out I love Jason Bourne movies. XD I just…I enjoy them? I was sad about a certain death in the final one but otherwise I had a blast watching the final three in the series.
• The Mummy — I finally watched this series! XD I don’t love everything about them, especially the spookiness (and the change of actress for the final movie), but they were fun adventures and I enjoyed the humor and characters a lot. ^_^ Soo much fun!
• Pride and Prejudice (1985) — I had never seen this older version! It wasn’t as gorgeously filmed as newer ones, but I found the casting to be excellent, and the adaption was great too. It was really enjoyable!
• Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings — This was the only film I saw in theaters last year (I have since seen Dune, though!), for a sibling’s birthday, and while it wasn’t perfect it was definitely a super fun, enjoyable ride and it made me laugh and I enjoyed the characters and it was exciting and pretty and…yeah. Enjoyable. 🙂
• A Cinderella Christmas — This was a random Christmas movie I watched and it was cute and Cinderalla-y and…I don’t know, I just enjoyed it for some reason!
• The Button of Doom (short) — I adore the Megamind film. XD So this short in a collection of short films was so much fun! Set after Megamind. Superhero/villain fun. XD

Fave movie rewatches of last year

(Not pictured: The Secret of Moonacre)

• Howl’s Moving Castle — Because of course! I adore the book the most but the movie’s delightful. It makes me happy!
• Mortal Engines — I don’t know why I love this movie so much but I DO; I just enjoyed it a ton. So sorry to those who dislike it. XD I’ve decided taste in films/shows is just SO individual and subjective. 🙂
• Equilibrium — This is a dark one, so beware, but uncharacteristically I really liked this one despite its super-dystopian nature. XD Christian Bale plays a very different sort of character in this.
• The Secret of Moonacre — Another case of loving the book and movie, despite them being SO different. This one was just…randomly whimsical and fun. 🙂 (The book is called The Little White Horse and I adore it. They’re almost unconnected though. XD)
• Labyrinth — I had only recently discovered this one after hearing about it for YEARS and yeah, it’s kind of strange but it was just kind of a blast. So many great moments! And I finally “met” the Goblin King.

So there’s a glance at some of the funnest things I watched last year! Told you I have strange taste. XD

I’ve not been keeping close tabs on my watching habits this year, but I’ve been dipping into anime this year (give me recs if you have any!) and I saw Dune in the theaters this winter — oh my word. It was so epic!

Let me know if you like any of these, or about something fun you’ve watched recently, or if you have a favorite anime you recommend!

Thanks for reading!