Thunder Girl coloring pages!

A tradition of Brad Swift's readups is to have coloring pages available so kids (and parents!) can color a scene from the story while listening to Ben Fife narrate. For the Thunder Girl readup, they asked if I wanted to provide illustrations, so I put together some coloring pages!

I had a lot of fun doing these--especially Ceres, who I've never actually drawn before. I had a lot of fun making her look super alien and menacing, which of course completely contrasts with her personality.

You can download all three of these pages at full-resolution here. I've included both print-ready PDFs and the raw high-quality PNGs, whichever suits your fancy (especially if you want to color digitally).

Happy coloring, and I hope to see you on the 17th!

Check out this brief interview I did with Brad Swift as a preview for my guest author event! You can learn some fun stuff about Thunder Girl, including how the idea came about, and some insights into the development of Hermes.

I hope it gets the gears turning in your brain for more questions to ask me on the 17th!

Thunder Girl Guest Author Readup!

 

It's official! (Don't you just love this awesome banner they put together?!)

I'm making a guest appearance on author Brad Swift's series of Zoom events with my zany steampunk dinosaur adventure Thunder Girl!

Benjamin Fife, the narrator of the audiobook version, will be narrating excerpts from the book, and I'll be fielding questions from the audience. There will also be some other fun stuff involved, including but not limited to Thunder Girl coloring pages!

As a reminder, you can sign up here (the page is still displaying information for March's event, but the signup form will still get you registered for my event).

Hope I'll see you there! Or if you don't want to join the Zoom call, I hope you'll enjoy the event via Facebook, or later when it's uploaded to YouTube!

Hi all, thanks for your patience and understanding. I've been doing a lot of retooling, and I've gotten back to a place where my work brings me joy again, which is wonderful.

It also makes me very excited for some fun new developments happening. First of, On Borrowed Wings is getting an audiobook! I'm once again working with Benjamin Fife and his awesome narrating talents to bring to life this sci-fi thriller about ancient giant robots, psionic powers, and overcoming the things that you think are holding you back from achieving your potential. That should be happening sometime this year, so keep an eye out for updates!

Also, I'm very excited for my guest appearance on W. Bradford Swift's Guest Author Readup series! It should be a lot of fun. You can register here (note that the information for March's Readup is still there as of when this post was written, but registering should get you on the list for the Zoom meeting for my appearance).

Finally, I just got done really fleshing out the plot outline for Blue Diver, and I'm so excited for it! I got to detail some fun secondary characters, as well as sketch out the basics for all the mechs. Maybe I'll doodle some concept art at some point. Also, I'm super excited because the story will at one point feature a Thorne–Żytkow object!!! Yay!! That's going to be fun. I love when I can fit nerdy stuff into my writing.

Brother Wolf

Ben Fife did an incredible job with the Thunder Girl audiobook! But as I was listening to it, I felt like there were some things I didn't quite wrap up well in the novel. And since Ben was already recording, it wasn't like I could publish a revised edition.

So instead, I decided to write my ideas in this short story epilogue!

I also figured since I was teasing so much at Salt Lake City throughout the book, I might as well actually write about it a bit.

Please note that this story is a direct continuation of the end of the book, so please don't read it if you don't want spoilers!

The setting sun, low on the horizon over the Great Salt Lake, dyed the peaks of the Wasatch Range a deep and vivid orange. It was summer, and the mountains were free of snow, covered instead with an abstract patchwork of trees and brush.

Networking thoughts

I had a panic attack yesterday morning. I went to sleep at 11, then woke up at 1:30 am feeling completely awful all over, and wondered how my life had gotten so stressful. Two hours and a lot of prayer and introspection later, I finally figured it out and figured out what needed to change, and as soon as I acted on my decision, the panic subsided and I was able to get back to sleep.

What follows are some thoughts and feelings on what I feel was a really bad turn in my writing career, and why I am changing direction right now. I'm writing this in the hopes that you will learn from it. I'm disabling comments on this post because I really don't care to know what anyone thinks of this. I'm sharing my feelings not because I care what other people think of me, but in an attempt to help others who may be starting to venture where I did. Pull up and pull out, now. You're worth more than that. Have respect for yourself and for your work.

I also apologize if you read this and feel like I am referencing you directly. If you are reading this blog, you are most likely not one of the people who caused me so much grief and pain these past few months. The people I am referring to - most of whom I have only had brief contact with - would likely never think to look at my blog, because they're too wrapped up in their own little worlds to have any interest in anything I'm doing that isn't benefiting them.

Mental Wellness Break

Hello all,

With the release of Earthkeepers and the Thunder Girl audiobook, I have decided to shift my focus to taking care of myself and my mental and physical wellness.

I will write a more involved post about this later.

I'm off to regain my happiness.

Take care, everyone.