Thoughtful Thursday, 3D and Writing
Welcome to Thoughtful Thursday, where we chat about 3D and writing. Today I have a bit of a twist on the topic. Since Book 2 of the Persis Chronicles, Emerald Keep, is out on April 8th, I figured I’d share a little bit about knitting and 3D and use the opportunity to share about the book, too.
When Rachel and I created Persis, we wanted a world that valued handicrafts and the home arts. The job of a homemaker has become invisible and thankless, thanks in part to the fact that it’s largely women’s work. The women’s liberation movement in the United States did a lot to emancipate women from being chained to the kitchen sink, but as a consequence, their traditional work of raising children and caring for the home became less than laudable.
I have a friend who is about thirty-five years older than me. She decided to stay home and raise five boys of her own, as well as twenty-nine foster children. She told me that she’s endured a lot of grief from women friends who said that she wasn’t living up to her full potential, and that she was oppressed. That made me sad, because she’s an incredible mom and creates a home in which people enjoy spending time.
Because of that, we wanted the home arts to be elevated in importance such that they were considered to be a critical part of society. The job of the Keeper is a desirable part of the fabric of life. Developed to support miners and livestock farmers, the Keepers are trained to manage household bookkeeping, cooking, and various arts.
For our book release, we’ve both made scarves. The picture at the top of this post is the Emerald Keep Scarf. I knitted it because I love to make things, and this was fun to do because it was referential to my own book. I felt closer to the world we created by making something for the book, which is an unexpected side benefit.
So tell me, what do you like to make, whether it’s a meal or something artistic?
Announcing Day One of the Emerald Keep Keepsake Tour – Celebrating the Release of Book 2 of the Persis Chronicles!
Welcome to my new home on the web! Over the course of the next month, I’ll be migrating here permanently. The Blogger blog will still be available in the archive, but we made the decision to move to this one because it makes it easier to keep everything in one place – all the writing, the knitting, coffee, and chocolate you could possibly want. And of course, cats. It’s the internet. We must have cats.
But for today, rather than cats, I’ve got something even better for you, Dear Reader! It’s the brand new cover of Emerald Keep, hot off the presses – well, at least hot off the cover artist’s computer. The artist is Brandon Clay, and you can see more of his work, here.
The Keepsake Tour is a little different – instead of giving away gift cards or other electronic media, we decided to give away something tangible. We also have a double Grand Prize – since we’re Noon and Wilder, we figured that it made sense to have two prizes. I’ll be making a hand-knit Emerald Keep scarf, and Rachel’s making a hand-crocheted Emerald Keep scarf. Two lucky winners will be selected from a drawing at the end of the tour. How do you enter? Well, that’s easy! Simply leave a comment along the tour and you’ll be entered in!
Check back for the rest of the tour, daily between March 8th and Release Day, April 8th. We’ll have behind-the-scenes tours, outtakes, peaks at research and hand-drawn maps, and excerpts. If there’s something in specific you’d like to see or read about, tell me in the comments, below.
We’re glad you found your way to to us. Thank you for reading!
Archive
I started this blog years ago on Blogger. Though all the information has been imported to this site, there may have been a loss of formatting. If you’d prefer to view the original blog, please click here.
Archive
I started blogging on Blogger, and although all of the content has been imported to this new site, there may have been a loss of formatting. So, if you’d like to read the blog in its original form, please click here.
Tiger Tiger
When you grab a tiger by the tail, sometimes he bites back.
Veterinary trauma surgeon and animal empath Sasha Soskoff has found everything he ever wanted with his new partners Neal, Steve and Carlos. Life feels as safe and secure as it can be among a group of ex-Marine tiger shifters. Until a homeless man is found, gruesomely mauled and murdered, near Neal’s BDSM club.
When it’s determined a rogue tiger did the deed, the jaguars’ accusing eyes turn toward Sasha’s lovers. The precarious balance of peace tips dangerously toward war.
Neal knows damned well none of his tigers committed the crime. Someone must be in Chicago without his knowledge or permission, and they’d better find him fast before uncertainty and conflict rip the tight-knit band apart from the inside.
As Sasha struggles to heal the stress fractures forming among his tiger family, he begins to wonder if his dreams of a home, and love, were too good to be true. And it’s precisely that moment the killer strikes at the heart of the tiger clan—Sasha himself.
Shop on Amazon.
Burning Bright
Curiosity never killed this cat, but love could have deadly consequences.
Sasha Soskoff has two reasons for moving to Chicago: secure a tenured position in veterinary research medicine, and widen his horizons. After a night at the city’s hottest new club, though, a wrong turn down a dark alley narrows his focus to surviving three muggers. As consciousness fades, he catches a glimpse of his rescuer, whose mere appearance is enough to chase the attackers off.
Neal Harrison doesn’t often have to call on his skills as an ex-Marine to maintain control at his club. But with Sasha, he can’t seem to keep his hands to himself. Yet there’s danger in allowing any close relationships, particularly with a naïve young newcomer. The safety of his business depends on the iron-clad secret he and his ex-Marine buddies all hide.
While Neal seems happy to satisfy Sasha’s insatiable curiosity about the erotic scenes played out in the club’s private rooms, Sasha senses his new lover is holding something back.
When the truth claws its way out amid a night of tribal blood and violence, Neal discovers his lover has a secret of his own. And that the forces arrayed against them all could make a mugging look like a walk in the park…
Shop on Amazon.
Lines of Lights – A Poem
 |
| Image © 2015, A. Catherine Noon All Rights Reserved |
Lines of Lights
Moving at speed past the window, reverse parallax.
Facing backward on the train, the lights receded.
Facing backward on the train is a title.
A good title for a memory, even.
Metaphoric.
Like Benjamin Button, living backwards to get forwards.
When everyone is walking in the other direction, sit down and get still.
Follow the still, small voice insight and listen.
What does it say?
I don’t know, I’m still listening.
What about now?
Shh. You can hear it too.
Listen.
Rhythm.
Manic Monday – Startcher Engines!
It’s Monday! I feel like I should say something uber-motivating, that makes us all jump out of our chairs and make something massively awesome.
Feel motivated yet? 🙂
We’re almost ready to go live on the new site. I’m so excited. It’ll have a home for my blog (i.e. this one) and my Knoontime Knitting blog, as well as a section for books and promo stuff and bio and everything. I feel like such a little kid.
Every iteration of my online presence has brought new things to learn and new fun stuff to play with. This time, it means I’ll be leaving my beloved Blogger platform behind and migrating to WordPress. The coolness of the website functionality overwhelmed the familiarity and ease-of-use of Blogger, so that’s ultimately what made the decision easy. You won’t notice much of a difference in terms of what you can do on the blog, meaning you’ll still be able to comment and share stuff, but on the back-end it makes it much easier for me and my webmistress.
I have some neat newsy items for you today, as well:
First, my workshop “Unleashing the Creator Within” is in full swing over at Coffee Time Romance.
While it started on the 1st, you’re very welcome even now, at the mid-point. We’re having a lot of fun with some non-traditional tools like music and word art.
Second, the BDSM-a-palooza is from Feb 17th to the 19th at the Smutketeers! I’m participating with 50 other fabulous authors and the amazing ladies of the Smutketeers – there will be daily prizes, a grand prize with gifts from all of us, and more fun than you can shake a whip at.
Third, the Nice Girls Writing Naughty will be hosting a very special event – Fantasy Date Night with the Nice Girls and their friends, Feb 21st, on our Facebook group from 6:00p to 11:00p Eastern Standard Time. I’ll be teaching at that time, so I can’t join you, but I know you’ll have a ton of fun without me – just save me some chocolates and a date, and we’ll be fine. ~grin~
Happy Monday!
Make Something Monday – The Emerald Keep Scarf
Now that I’ve sorted out the design and simplified it, the Emerald Keep Scarf is coming along very nicely. Last week, I talked about the difficulties I was having with it and how the design process was coming – or, as it turns out, not coming. This weekend I got almost 18 inches done. At this rate, I’ll be done by the end of next weekend or the middle of the week following, well in advance of the start of the Keepsake Book Tour.
The stitch is a simple pattern from Barbara Walker’s A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns called Two-Color Star Stitch. I find her books invaluable in designing projects because she puts the knitter in the driver’s seat. Through teaching how the fabric works inherently, to how geometric designs are created by the yearn, a knitter can go from a basic student of the subject to a designer in very short order. I have a long way to go before I’m a master knitter, but I am a lot closer to the goal because of her books. I highly recommend them.
I’ve made this stitch pattern a couple times before, and I like its simple beauty. This time, I selected an emerald green dark tone for the main color and a light mint for the accent.
The more I work with this pattern, I find that I like the reverse of the fabric just as much as the front. It ends up looking almost beaded in texture, with neat edges on each side.
I cast on 30 stitches, since it’s multiples of 3; on size 7 needles the fabric is quite wide. There’s a lot of horizontal stretch to it and it will curl (which is why I had such difficulty with edging it). I don’t mind the curl in the finished design, it has its own beauty; I’ll still play around with some possibilities for edgings in future projects but since I needed this done for the book tour, I didn’t have the time.
I did have an interesting breakthrough as I was working it. It finally it me that the colors are tied to the stitch order; meaning that row 2 is always Color A and row 4 is Color B. I don’t need to keep track of the row count because I know which pattern row to work based on the color on the needle. All wrong side rows are purled, so it’s an easy pattern to memorize – even for me, with the difficulty I have with 2D to 3D translation.
Keep your eyes peeled for the Keepsake Tour; it starts March 8th. Emerald Keep is out on April 8th.
What are you making this Monday? Please tell me in the comments; I’d love to know.