In the Name of Blood Book Cover Art

The vampire, crime-drama, In the Name of Blood is out in PDF, ebook form. The next books in the series are due out every year in October 2017, 2018 respectively. 

With a book series, cover art is essential for readers to recognize the set.

So the author came up with these covers:

Simple, but concise.

If you would like to start at the beginning, In the Name of Blood is available on the Sonoran Dawn Studios' Lulu Spotlight. 

Have a great and wonderful day!

My Favorite Time of the Year

It is October. 

I must confess: I never imagined that I would live this long. Not more than four years ago, I was bedridden on oxygen and unable to care for myself.

Instead of proper medical care, my former family and friends sought to abuse me in a manner that is criminal. Now I am having to deal with their immature and criminal acts once again. The stress takes its toll.

Well, you have seen from my non-posts. Sorry about that. I am still dealing with the situation, but I am hoping the family works out the details and no longer is apt to dragging me into the situation.

As for writing, well, none of that has happened. Sorry again.

I hate being of delicate in nature and I hope my constitution bounces back one of these years, for I would love to finish all of my books in a timely manner as well as meet any of my readership in actual person.

I have lofty goals, I know, but there is not one goal I have set that I have not attained in one manner or another. 

Which brings us to Halloween! October is my favorite month. I would like to return to giving out candy, dressing up, and decorating the yard, but alas that will not be this year. I did it once two years or so ago, and I did not fair well. 

I shall return to my former activities, slow and slow, but I shall.

Right now, I must get back to writing for myself, the Gazette, and my readership because nothing says entertainment like a chick with brain inflammation, knowledge, internet access, and an axe to grind.  

And, this is the time of year for axes. 

Have a scary and unpredictable day! 

 

_____

 

A writer at heart, Undawnted's own creative spark, DL Mullan, began writing short stories and poetry before adolescence. Over the years, Ms. Mullan has showcased her literary talents by self-publishing several collections of her poetry. She also writes novels, designs apparel, and creates digital art. Ms. Mullan‘s creative writing is available in digital and print collections, from academia to commercial anthologies. As an independent publisher, she produces her own book cover designs as well as maintains her own websites. She is an award-winning digital artist and poet. In 2022, DL Mullan begun sharing her knowledge via A Novelist Idea Newsletter. If you too want to become a Fearless Phile, then subscribe to her newsletter at her Substack.

Learn. Grow. Master… with Undawnted.

Blood Oath; Blood War Debut

In the past I have written many stories, but none so experimental as Blood War. 

Crime drama, family story, comedy, and horror all rolled into one piece. I like taking an established genre and mixing in other elements. That is how Blood War began.

I have placed the story on a writer's forum for critiques. The positive feedback I received was amazing. I never knew readers were so hungry for new. 

Over time, I have edited, added, and polished the story to fit within the definition of a horror novel. The additions have created a better story that I named: Blood Oath; Blood War. I cannot wait to publish this emotive and provocative story.

To read more about this novel and my other writings, please go to the Fiction page.

I hope to publish the book this coming October 1st.

*****
Blood Oath; Blood War is: In the Name of Blood find the novel in the Long Fiction section.

Home Alone for the Holidays

That is one thing that upsets me about the holidays. Since I am chronically ill and no one wants to help me out: I am home alone for the holidays.

I have always been ultra responsible. Clean. Non-smoker. No drugs. No alcohol. 

I have taken care of everyone one else including their messes. When the tables were turned, good bye! and good luck! 

Even now I take care of other people's cats in the neighborhood. The man next door trapped and spayed a mother cat and her three babies. Then he stopped caring for them. One was so skinny and sickly, I scrounged up some food to give to her. Another sibling was ill and I had to give her up, my service cat, to the Humane Society to fix up and adopt out. (I so mourn for her everyday.) 

Then there's the man's renter. A drug addict with AIDS who doesn't help me out even when I demanded him to do so. I am left holding the bag and his grey, long-haired Russian Blue calico cat.

Four, 16lb bags of dry cat food, five bags of natural litter, and sixty cans of wet food a month to keep up everyone's cats on the block. Perhaps I should start a donation site and link it here so I can see if anyone can help me before I have to send half away to the Humane Society. I just cannot keep up.

So as I lay here in bed trying to stay warm, I am alone. The cats I do have inside love sleeping on my couches. They are great couches by the way, which I cover with towels. 

When my family left me, they left me with nothing. Literally. I had a bed, desk, computer chair. I believe that was all. They took everything else in the house including the appliances. 

My family was trying to further debase, torture, and punish me for being chronically and devastatingly ill. Part of which was their fault. They made me ill with black mold from a leaky sink. 

After not telling me for two years of the leak, I had to call for a handyman while I was trying to recover from the pesticide poisoning from my former employer... I was not a well woman to be doing anything. So my family left the black mold to grow in the particle board for seven months after I fixed the leak.

By the way, it takes less than an hour to remove the particle board from a sink cupboard... but that was too much to ask of my family.

By then, I was skeletal, allergic to practically everything because my immune system was already collapsed from the mercury poisoning. It just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?

My inheritance was also confiscated by my family as I guess payment of taking care of me when I had taken care of them for over ten years. My bills apparently weren't as important as their bills. 

So I am here. I should probably get out my copy of Home Alone just to cheer me up. Well, that's if I still have it and it too wasn't already confiscated like so many of my other possessions were. 

OMG, how depressing... I must find something good.

I did get furniture eventually when I received my disability. I discovered I didn't have to go into chemical laden stores to shop for furniture. I was so happy! 

I found a furniture store across town that was an outlet of sorts. I got a beautiful two-tone dining table, six chairs, a couch, and sofa for a very reasonable price. Good furniture too. I believe it is called Ashley Signature Furniture. Of course, I paid the close-out prices! I didn't have much to spend. 

I did find another online store with discounted furniture and got a wonderful bedroom set. I never had a bedroom set before. It's the warm dark cherry wood. 

Okay, I turned the bad into good. Wheew! That was a close one. 

So I better go harass my kitties, steal one to watch a movie with me as I cannot wait to sleep to see if Sugar Plums really do dance in our heads!

Have a great and wonderful night! 

P.S... my Home Alone dvd is missing ;(

Afternoon Naps and Other Forms of Healing

Even for adults studies have shown that naps in the afternoon are great for the body, mind, soul, and spirit. 

I now have to take daily naps. Two or three hours in addition to the twelve to sixteen I sleep daily makes for a short day. Chronic fatigue is a symptom of my MCS/EI/Mold illnesses.  

It's a tough pill to swallow even if I am allergic to most pharmaceuticals.  I like when I have the energy to get something done. Often, I have to budget my time and make command decisions on what can and cannot be done in a day. 

Some chores get sacrificed for others. Dishes... I hate dishes especially since my hands are dry, cracked, and bleeding most of the time. My body cannot keep oil in itself so water and soap make a bad situation even worse. Laundry is pretty simple. Vacuuming once a week. Dusting is whenever.

Since I require a lot of fresh air from open windows, dust accumulates. Welcome to the desert! So dusting is not a task I put much stock into. It gets done when it gets done. 

When my windows are not open, I must rely on my air cleaners. That is: heavy duty air cleaners. These cleaners run all day and night, windows opened or closed plus I have a MERV 12 air filter in my heatpump unit. 

It is not my lungs per se; it is my liver. The mold and mercury inside my body hiding in organs and other tissues as well as in bonded molecular components eats up my sulfur, antioxidants, and methyl groups. I must also eat protein all day in order to assist my liver in maintaining some type of control (and we haven't even covered the renal damage from black mold found in my kidneys). 

Without my liver stabilized, I am unable to breathe properly and I require oxygen supplementation. The liver does many great tasks for the body. One of which is breaking down harmful substances into non-harmful substances. When my body has to concentrate on the already high amount of toxins and biotoxins in me, my liver cannot self-regulate. So I become allergic to the air I breathe, water I drink, and food I eat. 

Scary.

For instance, a few weeks ago I had a tablespoon of buttermilk ranch and had a severe allergic reaction while I was eating a tomato. I had had ranch for months without an issue, but that night my body decided that a line had been crossed. I have no idea how or why but regular ranch dressing is okay and buttermilk ranch is not. 

Talk about frustrating. I have to wait for my body to stop reacting until I can even try a tomato again or risk a permanent allergy. Isn't chronic illness wonderful?!

Now try to explain this scenario to people who do not have these types of sudden and unclear reactions. Others try to understand but then stop because it is easier to label someone crazy, insane, or psychotic than to realize the symptoms are real and part of a larger toxic cascade happening in the body. 

I have had the experience of knowing and living with people who rather bully you, isolate you, and threaten institutionalization instead of doing the right thing. Right being: researching the issue within the community that has said medical problems, finding the best course of treatment, and following through by getting the patient to the right physician. 

Sounds simple, right? Do the right thing by another person. 

As a former caretaker of my elderly mother, I always did the right thing by the person I was taking care of. When the roles were reversed, my parental unit and siblings decided to ignore the medical issues in lieu of scare tactics. 

Because of course someone that sick cannot possibly be mentally stable. 

Truth be told: the people who neglect, abuse, and torture someone who is physically, medically, or mentally ill are not only criminals but are morally and ethically corrupt to the point beyond rehabilitation.

In order to combat the cyclical night terrors associated with being terrorized, I have discovered meditation. Guided meditations on youtube and other free websites have become routine and helpful. I am glad I found them.

Rewiring a damaged/injured brain due to lack of medical attention is essential to combating reactionary impulses in the primitive brain. Plus I have cognitive issues as well as Central Nervous System damage stemming from systematic inflammation. 

I may not be able to drive, remember much in my short term memory, or use hand-eye coordination, but I am finding new and unorthodox ways to recreate neural pathways so I may recover some of what was lost over the past five years.