A Writer's Life is Making the Most Out of the Universe

I am having so much fun!

I knew world building for a novel was great, but universe building is even better. You may have noticed the additions to the Legacy Universe. I love mythology, so I am creating my own for this extended universe of different stories, characters, and supernatural elements. 

It is fun. 

I am also outlining some counterintelligence novels. Often in a universe we see only the effects of the antagonist, I want to get to know them. Should we feel empathy for the bad guys? Or, pity? 

My characters have already been showing me and talking to me in a creative sense, not a "need medication" sense. I believe there are some good scenes in the works. I am brainstorming plot lines and other scenarios as I go along.

Likewise, I have to refocus my efforts. I have been doing chores to get ready for winter. Energy efficient curtains for the back door, shopping for the house, and just regular stuff that needs to be done. That means I have to budget time for writing. I do need to sit down and make some time to write more.

And, do you like the book cover designs? Some will be revised and polished down the line, but you get the idea. 

I love being artfully creative. You should see my Tshirts! 

Anyway, I am planning out my strategy. Now, if I could get help with my chores! 

A writer's life. I wouldn't change it for the world. 

Have a great and wonderful day.

Seasonal Outlook for New Opportunities

I wanted something more for Undawnted as to the change of seasons. 

Therefore, I created four different book covers: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. I wanted to jot down how the seasons reflected my inner dialogue. These books will be an amalgamation of art, prose, and poetry. 

If others would like to join this e-book, then I can make an anthology series. I would publish the books under the Sonoran Dawn Studios (my publishing house) banner. If no one joins this unique series, then I will write it off as C'est la vie, such as life. 

Here are the book covers so far. 

If you would like to participate, please drop me a line using the Contact Form.





Have a great and seasonal day!

Reach for Your Flower Power

The Flower Within is a late winter/early spring poem that will lift your spirits.

This poem is one of a handful of poems being released for the spring season on Undawnted's YouTube Channel for review. Read it for yourself and leave a comment. 

If you would like to read other nature poems, try Effloresce.

Have a great and wonderful day. 

______

 

Undawnted's YouTube Channel offers poetry shorts to full-fledged poetry feature films in our Poetry Slam section. This new playlist will give you more of the rhymes you crave.

Subscribe for more award-level poems written by DL Mullan.

 

 

Welcome to Undawnted's Winter Frost Seasonal Reads

Winter 2019-2020 is here!

Grab your hot cocoa and your peppermint sticks. It is time to read by the roaring fireplace. Undawnted has a list for you.

With my Winter Frost Seasonal Reads program, I collect my favorite literary prose, creative poetry, and entertaining fiction combined with some seasonal recipes curated just for you. 

In the next few weeks, I will be highlighting some of my collection. 

I hope you enjoy the pieces as much as I have writing them for you.

Have a great and wonderful day! 

Name Calling

It was one of those days. You know those days. Days that the most rudimentary application flees your mind as if drinking and writing were habitual. 

Needless to say, I don't drink. 

Future Banner for Nocturnal Redemption

So what was the authorian infraction? Names. Names to my characters to be exact. I spent so much time working out plot lines, characterization, and dialogue that I forgot to give more than half my characters surnames. 

The travesty! 

Not really, but the situation did give me another prescription in my bid to edit and polish Nocturnal Redemption: In the Eye of the Beholder. 

So I went out on a discovery expedition. My antagonist, Chloe, needed a dark name. One that showed where she was in the story. I wanted to do: deWinter, but thought the name too closely resembled the Dumas character in The Three Musketeers. 

Since one of the scenes is and others will be in France, I decided to investigate the French word for winter, which happens to be le hiver. In my rounds on the internet I discovered place names like de l'hiver, and l'hiv. That gave me the idea to name her: Chloe de L'Hiv (of the Winter). 

Neat, right?

To name a character in one's story takes a little time and effort. Many new writers are overwhelmed by the task. There are an innumerable amount of baby name websites to choose from. The way to go about naming your characters is to know who your characters are and where they come from. 

Doing the brainstorming first before researching the name for a character cuts out the middle man so to speak. 

I went from panic mode to a quick afternoon's jaunt into France. The internet is a wonderful place. A writer can now venture any where in the world. 

So do not get stuck naming your characters, get proactive with fleshing out your characters and researching those ends online. 

Have a great and wonderful day!

Short Stories Section Update: Season Side Up! Series

I had this idea pop into my head. A brilliant idea, I may add. This idea was to fashion a series of books about the seasons. 

Now that concept is nothing new, so I have to put a twist on the idea to make it mine. I will combine poetry, maybe some original digital art, and of course package the books up for entertainment. 

Kind of like a diary but without the teenage angst! 

When I get more into writing these little gems, I will let you know what direction I am heading in for sure. 

Right now, I am just so excited about these books, especially the book cover art. Isn't this one fabulous? You can view the rest of the book series on the Short Stories section.

Divine inspiration. The muse descended and she brought chocolate! Good, Muse. Keep the creativity flowing! 

Have a great and wonderful day!

On Holiday Schedule for the Rest of the Year

It is time to kick back and relax! 

Oh, who are we kidding? I am busy editing and writing Nocturnal Redemption for a winter release. As well as I have updated Sonoran Dawn Studios, Poetry, and Publishing sites. My personal site has also seen a good scrub. 

With the temperatures decreasing, it is time to bundle up and write! Winter is always a fun time to sit and write. At night, when all the shows are repeats due to the holidays, I have dedicated nights to polish for next year's release. 

2017 appears to be going to the fictional side of writing. 2016 was nonfiction essays and recipes for the most part. This new year should see two new chapbooks as well as one novel plus the second book to In the Name of Blood series. 

By the end of December, I should have a great list of publications ready for their debut. Then Sonoran Dawn's Schedule page will be updated. 

But for now, I will write and create and edit. So I will update the blogs in between this last push of the year. No more releases are expected until 2017. 

As you can see my vacation has been all work and lots of play! 

Have a great and wonderful day! 

Autumn Brings a Chill

A cooler night and morning are on their way. Autumn is that time of year when the light equal the darkness, sweaters are needed for that evening walk, and the leaves turn beautiful colors across the higher terrains. 

The warm sultriness of the monsoon has faded. Insects have begun their transition into the slumber of hibernation. Winter is on her way, but not until autumn has his way. 

Eventually, leaves will crinkle and fall. In the end, so will we all. Evening is upon us.  We will watch as the nights grow longer and the stars glisten evermore above. 

Autumn brings a chill so light a lantern to guide us on our way. 

What do you love about the change of seasons? 

Have a great and wonderful day.

Welcome to Winter

It is officially the last season of the year. 

Have a Safe and Wonderful Holiday Season! 

Hot, Dry, and Sunny with a Touch of the Holidays

The desert is a strange place to live.

Heat and monsoon storms can make the summer months nearly unbearable. The rest of the year, except for six weeks in the winter, makes up for this hot uncomfortable weather. I for one cannot wait for autumn.

I have been searching for a way to be celebratory in the fall without falling into the religious/consumer trappings of the modern world.

If you want to give thanks or presents, why is it only on designated holidays?

Governments or churches should not be setting the standard. As a free thinking adult, I should be setting my own course. I should be my own role model.

So as the heat lingers I have been plotting my days of celebration for this autumn. From simple meteor showers to feasts, my non-conformist ways should not make my life dull or uninviting.

If you could make your own holiday schedule, what would it be?

Have a great and wonderful day!  

The Dog Days of Summer

Tomorrow will be 1m45s shorter.

 Yeah, yeah, yeah... promises, promises.

Summer cannot end soon enough. I live in a hot and arid location. It is great to live here most of the year, except June through September. 

Before I was taken ill, I loved the heat. Now, my body cannot regulate itself as well to extremes in temperature be it hot or cold. The heat of the desert creates more lethargic days and days filled with migraines. Some headache cycles can last for ten or more days. 

So I am regulated to the indoors, only to venture out into the night. That means I try to sleep days and only do chores in the early morning hours with the rising sun. 

Winters are a little different. I am up by mid morning and back in bed by mid afternoon as I cannot get warm without the direct sunlight. So somewhere in the middle I do my one hour of chores, grab a shower, and hunker down until the sun warms my home again.

What a life! 

I feel like I live on a bed life preserver. 

I hope this coming winter I can get some creativity flowing again. This spring and summer have been harsh on me. Mean people, especially, have reared their ugly heads and my body cannot take the stress. Migraines, sleepathons are amongst the notables. 

But I am ready to start getting my art and writing out there again. I do not know exactly where as of yet. I am working on it. 

I am making a plan and checking it twice. 

Maybe this time the planets will align to come to my aid and not to my determent. 

How do you cope with life interfering with your plans? 

Have a great and wonderful day! 

Spring is Here, Sports are Overrated, and Stories Abound

Yes, I know those in the upper and eastern portions of the United States are frozen.

In Phoenix, 80's are on their way! Good, I hate the cold. I hate snow even more. I did live in Iowa as a child and I am so glad we fled, I mean: moved.  

The only wish I have is that frigid weather would ruin the Super Bowl. Then maybe Arizona would not be cursed with having to host another one. 

I know that sounds harsh but sports are not important. Sports are for fun. Sports are not supposed to be a person's main focus in life or take up their extra cash.

Let's put it this way.... We pay men to play with a ball in several sports more than we pay our teachers to teach our children, people to watch our children while we are at work. It is really obscene once you put sports in perspective to the rest of our world. 

These examples demonstrate the failing of ethics and morals. Roman Gladiators and idolizing current sports figures are but two different sides of the same coin.

In writing, a writer can find the similarities between the past and present as well as what irritates him or her about their own culture and use that experience to create another society in fiction.

Perhaps writing about how cultures defeat their male worship sports binge might be a good novel to write.

That and the weather. I cannot wait for our nice warm weather to stay awhile, even if the temperatures do not ruin the Super Bowl. At least I will have a good time being outside again. 

Well, if the planes stop spraying lines all over that make me ill and cause breathing problems. Yeah, clean air days and blue skies would cure a lot of what ails me.

Have a Very, Merry Spring?

Today it was warm. Tomorrow and the rest of this week will be in the lower 70's. Yippee! 

Since I am chronically ill, my body cannot regulate its own temperature that well. Anything below 90 and I am breaking out the winter wear. As long as the house gets warm during autumn and winter afternoons, I am pretty well set to do some household chores. 

Then as the sun sets, I take a shower and jump into bed. The cats get fed on or before dusk until the warmer temperatures of spring hit. 

Right now as I type this post from my heavily blanketed bed, my feet are ice cold, my fingers tingle, my head hurts, and my eyesight is blurry. I do need new glasses but it's the roving migraine that I contend with nearly daily that puts pressure on the optic nerve and creates this vision problem.

Could be worse. I could have not learned to touch type and this post would be unreadable. I also increase the magnification on the pages so I can read bigger lettering. The red underlines of typing errors helps too.

As our weather stabilizes and we remain warm and dry, I will be getting to more of my house as the days commence. An hour of housework can create a happy area of cleanliness. 

When the 90's return. so will the cleaning of the area rugs. I don't have carpet or tile because I am allergic to the chemicals. I have carefully laid out rugs. Vacuuming them does produce a breathing reaction even with my carbon mask on, but in the winter it is a necessity.

But it sure does not feel like winter, which is fine by me. The last few winters have been very cold with hard freezes and bushes being burned back. Not a fun sight. I rather have a mild winter so the humming birds can drink the nectar from my Golden Dew Drops' violet and white flowers. 

So this week is a very, merry spring. 

And no... you can keep your snow. I lived in Iowa before and you can still keep the snow. I live in the desert and I am happy.

Have a great one!