Tala Ridge Alpha Update

Tala Ridge Alpha Update

Since the lockdown started, we've been at home all but three days. 

Twice, two weeks apart, we went to purchase groceries. Once, we took a drive just to get out of the house for a bit. 

We didn't have the gas to go far, and even with prices low, we didn't want to stop for more. We saw several vehicles on the road but didn't stop anywhere. 

So, with all that time at home, you'd think I could get a lot of writing done. 

Truth is, I have gotten some done, but not as much as I wish. 

I've had to spend more time cooking (and washing dishes) than is normal, and I've been trying to get my sewing machine to work. It sews, now, but still has problems. 

I've been asked to sew masks for some local people, as well as other items. With my machine acting wonky, I'll get it done, it just takes a lot more time. I even thought about buying a new machine, but there's not a retail place within driving distance that isn't sold out of them.

Even so, I'm up to 23,159 words on Tala Ridge Alpha. Right now, I'm in the middle of writing the major conflict and climax. After that, I still have some minor conflicts to tidy up, as well as set up the next book in the series. I've run into a few snags, though. 

I need to contact a friend who has a background in police work to make sure I don't make glaring mistakes in the way I handle some upcoming scenes. It would be much easier face-to-face, but it will have to be done by phone. 

Here's a snip from my WIP, Tala Ridge Alpha:

Terrell stood on the second-story porch, clenched fists resting on the snow-laden rail, while he stared unseeing over the trees at the waning moon. Trying to remember his early life. Trying to remember the things the pack told him. He had no doubt they were true, but the events they related didn’t match his memories. Memories his father must have planted.

The lemony tang of truth had filled the room while the pack reluctantly told him about the night his father killed both Dana’s human mother and Terrell’s shifter mother. Ainle’s sorrow howled through his mind. In his distraught state, he couldn’t comfort the wolf. He had no comfort to give. Now, he had to find a way to tell his half-sister what happened to her mother. At least it could wait for a while since she left for Texas with her adopted parents over the weekend.

The door behind him opened, then quietly closed. Snow crunched beneath boots, but no one spoke. Terrell sniffed and recognized Josh. Though comforted by his friend’s presence, he perversely wished he was alone. He couldn’t believe his father did something so despicable. He knew the man was evil, but . . ..

Terrell sniffed, took a gasping breath, and blinked to hold back the angry tears that threatened. “How could he do that, Josh? How could he murder Dana’s mother and my mom? And then turn on the pack like that?”

Josh stepped up to the rail, one hand in his jacket pocket, the other holding Terrell’s jacket. Terrell glanced at the jacket held out to him, then turned his gaze back to the moon. The cold bit into his bare arms, but he didn’t want the coat. He didn’t deserve the warmth. Sighing, wordlessly letting Terrell know he was there if he was needed, Josh draped the jacket over Terrell’s shoulders.

One tear slipped through Terrell’s control and trekked down his cheek. “No wonder they’re so afraid of me. How do I fix this?” He spun to face Josh, his jacket falling to the snowy porch. “How?”

Josh shook his head. “I don’t know, Alpha.”

“Yeah. Neither do I.” He hesitated, then whispered, “He had to be insane. What if, what if I’m like him?”

“You’re not. King Nate wouldn’t have placed you as alpha if you were.”

Slapping mounded snow off the rail, Terrell stalked back inside. Ainle whined in his mind, but with the distress crushing him, Terrell didn’t know how to comfort either of them.

---

I hope you and those you love are healthy and safe.

Take care,

Texas Ranch Wolf Pack Series
Available in Kindle Unlimited!

Need Low-Cost Entertainment? Consider E-Books!

My Kindle Fire

Need Low-Cost Entertainment?

With businesses and schools closed, reports are that many families are turning to books for entertainment and home education. The major problem with that is the cost.

The cost of a book is largely controlled by the manufacturing process. However, ebooks don't have as many costs as paperbacks, so they could be a better deal right now.

E-books

I read Amazon's Kindle ebooks on the Kindle Fire (see left) that I received as a Christmas gift a few years ago. Occasionally, I read on my computer screen.

However, Kindle books can be read on a phone, or on any device that can download the free Kindle Reader. These devices include Android, iPad, and Mac and Windows computers.

The Kindle App is available from the Apple App Store
Google Play, or download from Amazon for PC & Mac.

As of May 2019, Amazon had over a million books enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. Personally, my reading is almost exclusively on Kindle Unlimited (KU).

With a fixed income, I don't have the funds to purchase as many books as I read. Nor do I have time to travel back and forth to the library. Even if I did, our town library, like most others across the country, is closed until the pandemic is over.

So, for $9.99 a month, I am able to read as much as I want to read in a huge variety of genre fiction categories and even in nonfiction.

Non-fiction available includes cookbooks, how-to, business, self-help, educational, and more. Kid's books are in KU, too!

KU subscribers can borrow up to 10 books at a time, then return them to borrow more. As far as I know, there isn't a limit on how many you can borrow each month, just those 10 books at any one time. If there is, I haven't hit it, yet, and I read a lot of books.

 


Amazon is offering a trial membership free for 2 months.

Just to be clear, I am an Amazon Affiliate, which means if you click on the links in this or any other article on this blog, and then make a purchase, I will receive a small advertisers fee at no cost to you.

As a fixed income family, this is one of many ways I use to bring in a little extra income to help cover living expenses and the costs of producing my books. If you'd rather purchase from a clean, unaffiliated link, simply go to Amazon and search for the products you are interested in purchasing.

All but one of my books, Viper Pit, is available in Kindle Unlimited, and that one is available at Barnes and Noble at no cost. I've tried to get Amazon to reduce the price to match, but so far they haven't done so.

One reader told me she'd rather buy my books than borrow them so that I would receive royalties. The good news is that Amazon pays royalties to authors whose books are borrowed through Kindle Unlimited, too. For each page read, the author receives a fraction of a cent.

It may not sound like much, but it does add up. Most of my author income comes from the royalties I receive for borrowed and read books. So, it's a win for the reader and a win for the author, too.

My sincere and heartfelt hope is that you and your family stay safe and healthy during these trying times.

Take care.

Later,

Texas Ranch Wolf Pack Series

Homeschool Isn't Really Scary

Karen Arnold/PublicDomanPictures.net

Homeschool Isn't Really Scary

To all the fans and readers of the Texas Ranch Wolf Pack series, you and your families are in my prayers during this national and world health crisis.

As a former homeschool mom and grandmother, I want to reassure those who are now in this position without planning or desiring to be homeschoolers. It can be done, and it's not that hard.

My Homeschool History

I started homeschooling my son in the seventh grade without intending to. Gangs threatened him. In my opinion, the public school officials weren't taking appropriate protection measures, so I brought him home to homeschool. Over the next few years, I completed high school with him and the senior year for my daughter. I later had experience helping them homeschool their children from an early age.

First, take a deep breath and relax. It does you no good and it stresses the kids if you are overwhelmed by this. Take a week, or even two, to decide how to go from here. In the meantime, there are lots of cable television shows and documentaries the kids can watch and write short 1 or 2 paragraph reports on. Or even record a short verbal report on the computer.

Books and Magazines as Textbooks

Do you have books in the house? Magazines? These can be used as reading textbooks. Share your favorite age-appropriate books with your children. Take 30 minutes to an hour a day and read out loud to them. It gives you family time and will create memories they will cherish.

Next, take stock of what you can do. If you have Internet available, and if you're reading this you do, search for fun resources. There are lots of paid sites, but there are tons of free resources, too!

One of the most effective and appreciated (though not at the time) courses I insisted upon was Independent Living Skills. Both boys and girls need to learn to do basic cleaning, cooking, and maintenance. You might even teach how to sew on a button or make a garment from a pattern. If you don't know how to do these things, check out YouTube, and learn along with the kids. Make it a family affair.

Online Resources

Project Gutenberg

You have resources available to you that I didn't have when I first started homeschooling. We used the library extensively. Unfortunately, most libraries are closed, but that doesn't mean you can't get books to read or study.

You can even get old schoolbooks for the kids at Project Gutenberg. You can download text files, HTML files, PDF files, audio files, and sometimes MOBI files for your students to read or listen to. Click the image to the left to learn more.

They will have most, if not all, the classics. Books from Plato to Jane Austen and more are free. They also have some of the early Progressive Readers used by public schools many years ago.

Here are a few other online resources:

Funbrain.com
Puzzlemaker
Puzzle-Maker
The TeachersCorner
TeachersPayTeachers Free Worksheets
The Online Zoo
History for Kids
Cursive Writing Worksheets
K5Learning
Math Games


Have older kids? Try these: 

Goodtyping.com
Khan Academy
W3Schools Computer Programming Courses
Grammar classes
YouTube Training videos on everything from Karate to Sewing to Science and more


And check out the resources under the Homeschool Links heading on this page:

AroundMomsKitchenTable/Education

All these sites have resources that will make your homeschooling efforts easier. And you can find even more with a Google or Bing search.

Homeschool Isn't the Same as Public School

Remember, homeschool isn't the same as a public school. Because you don't have the bell interrupting, because you don't have twenty or more kids to wrangle, and because you don't have set schedules, homeschool is more relaxed. Or should be. Kids can read at the dining table, in bed, or on the living room floor. It doesn't really matter where learning occurs as much as it does that learning happens.

Have your children document their school activities using journals. Another great idea is to have the kids produce an online newsletter for family and friends detailing their activities and what they've learned. A friend of mine did this with her teens. Writing assignments were highlighted as feature articles. It can be done easily with Word, Google Docs, or OpenOffice.

OpenOffice is a free and open productivity suite that is free to download in Windows, Linux, and OS X versions.

OpenOffice.org

Relax and enjoy the opportunity to see what brilliant kids you have.  

Depositphotos.com

With all the resources available, homeschool can be fun for all involved. After all, if you include an Independent Living Skills class, you can get help with sewing, gardening, dishes, cooking, laundry, cleaning, and much more.

Even younger children can learn these things. Many lessons can be included, such as science/chemistry in cooking, engineering and building in sewing, and health in food preparation and cleaning. They learn and you get needed help. And they get a grade which gives a little incentive to be more active with helping.


Activities that also count as learning:

• Making bread
• Crocheting a potholder
• Knitting a scarf
• Sewing a purse
• Building a model of a famous place with Legos
• Listening to authors read their books on YouTube or listening to audiobooks
• Learning or practicing cursive writing
• Watching zoo videos about animals
• Watching historical documentaries
• Teaching children to use the washing machine and dryer
• Loading the dishwasher while discussing health
• Creating a personal cookbook of favorite recipes
• Researching family history
• Studying your Bible

Peter Griffin/PublicDomainPictures.net

Even playing games is educational. Yahtzee, Monopoly, Life, Clue, Candyland, Solitaire, Checkers, and Chess among others, all
help with thinking skills, and can give rise to discussions about math, money, and strategy.

Yes, math, grammar, and other school subjects are important, but these things are just as important.

My son once told me that if I hadn't insisted on the Independent Living Skills class, he wouldn't have been able to feed himself or keep his clothes clean after he moved out. Of all the classes he took in high school, he appreciated that one most.

Final Thoughts

My father was a carpenter. Years ago, my mom and I were working with my daughter and her friends to teach basic sewing machine skills by helping the girls make a simple apron. He made some comments on the quality of their work, and they challenged him to sew an apron. He did, surprising them. Dad told them, "Building is building, whether you're using fabric, plastic, concrete, wood, or steel. All require thought, measuring, and cutting. Each piece has to fit the next to make the whole work. The same concepts apply."

Homeschooling is similar, in that many pieces need to fit together. The good news is that they often overlap. Your kids enjoy Legos? Great! Have them build something for art class. Your kids love to draw? Great! Have them draw a scene from their favorite book or a historical event.

Homeschooling isn't just sitting down and doing lessons or worksheets. Homeschooling is broad and covers almost any activity the family can do. Make it fun for all involved.

Take care,

Texas Ranch Wolf Pack Series