Home Articles posted by KD Sarge (Page 9)

Happy Surprises

As I’ve confessed before, I’m super good at finding ways to procrastinate. Or maybe I should call it vegetating? Self-care? Anyway. It’s been a rough week for me, with tons of stuff to do and a good amount at home, so naturally I’ve been wasting time, this go-around on YouTube. Yes. I’m watching competition-show auditions. I just love watching the joy–the happy judges, the jumping families, the contestant’s realization that they really are pretty blasted awesome, that this dream isn’t silly, that their work wasn’t wasted… And I just love love LOVE when Simon Cowell’s eyebrows go up. And that happy sigh as he watches Susan Boyle in that first audition. (You’ve seen this one, haven’t you?) Just remember, if you’re needing happy and you want more music from one of these stars, for sanity’s sake, search on YouTube or specifically search “so and so MUSIC” because otherwise you get all these click-baity articles like how this group broke up or that singer “slammed” the people on the show that discovered her. Now let’s get back to the music and the happy. This lady has everyone dancing! And how cute are these two? And now we’re just posting some videos. Because you deserve to have your socks knocked off. I mean, what’s not to love? Look at this young lady from Ukraine. If you haven’t seen this already, you HAVE to see this girl. Such a sweet voice, so much talent, and she writes songs too. And she’s overcoming one…

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KD’s Kitchen Adventures

Often when making small talk with friends and acquaintances, I tell people that I don’t cook. It’s just easier than admitting the truth–that I can cook, and when I have a good clear recipe or some experience with what I’m doing, I can actually cook well. Most of the time, though? I just don’t. I mean, effort. And then you do, and there’s dirty dishes! And people who say they want things like ribs and then you put all the effort and time into making ribs and they don’t eat them. (looking at you, my child…) There are, however, bunches of reasons to cook one’s own food. Health, for one–pretty much anything you make at home is going to be better for you than that same thing bought in most restaurants. All that sugar and salt and nasty stuff they put in there? That’s not a bug. That’s a feature. They are trying to get you addicted to their food! And it works. Oh my yes, it works. If I drive by Burger King and the smoke from the broiler drifts through my car…yeah. I love my Whopper with cheese. They are seven hundred fifty calories, but I love them. Another issue, of course, is cost. A Whopper with cheese (as if I only get a Whopper when BK lures me in!) is now what, $5? Take the family and I’ll spend $25-30 easily. For that I could buy all the fixings for a meal at home, and still have…

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In the Forests of the Night

    Seize the Fire Book 2 As a Keeper-Apprentice, Hiro Takai followed his master everywhere. The adept Eshan Kisaragi taught him swordcraft and spellcasting and demon-fighting, but it was only after Hiro’s Kindling that he learned what Eshan couldn’t teach him. Such as what could go wrong in a ritual that tied the soul of a human mage to a creature of elemental power. Or how quickly the Keepers could turn on their own. Damaged and dangerous, Hiro fled, seeking the one person he knew would help—his teacher and his beloved, Eshan. Now, though—Hiro found Eshan, in the midst of a battle he could not win and would not lose. Now Eshan’s body lives but lies withering, while his soul clings to the elemental tiger…somewhere. Hiro can feel it to the south, in lands his studies never reached, where demons are unknown but spirits walk the paths of the Forests of the Night—and sometimes wander out. Hiro has one chance to save his beloved. If he can find the tiger, if he can retrieve Eshan’s soul before his body fades, a way may be found to make his master whole. With a failed priest and a possessed boy as guides, with a mad phoenix in his soul and a growing understanding of just how little he knows of magic, Hiro will follow wherever the tiger leads. As Hiro searches for his lover’s soul, Eshan, more than half-mad from the sundering of his being, meets a child fleeing both his…

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New Year, New Filing System

I’ve been editing forever. Seriously. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t editing. So when I finally sent the last of Hiro II off to the marvelous Erin Zarro for copyediting? It was time for a celebration. It was time for some fun, and time to accomplish some of the stuff I’ve been putting off while editing forever. So I did some dishes. Enforced the taking down of the Christmas tree. Took a friend to lunch. Rearranged my files. I’ve been meaning to do it for YEARS. Why Sunday was finally the day? I couldn’t tell you. But I did it. I already had five different colors of file folders. I also had the same five colors of hanging files, coincidentally enough! So I dove in. Stuff that’s personal to me, I filed in blue folders. “Certificates.” “School Stuff.” “TDP.” For my daughter (who creates a TON of paperwork with every step, holy smokes) red. Labels include “Health,” “School,” and “Trouble.” Things owned like the car, the house, appliance manuals, receipts–those are in yellow. Pet paperwork, general family stuff, that’s orange. Then the financial stuff, naturally, is in green. Taxes, pay stubs, aaaallll that stuff that comes up… At the very front of the top drawer, in easy reach from my desk, I have six files labeled for the months. January/July, February/August, and so on. Those are my “I don’t know what to do with this, do I need to do anything with it?” files. So instead of letting…

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What I Did (Planned to Do) On My Winter Vacation

With some thoughts, you know when you think them that it means you’re a grownup. When you would love to just go take a bath. When you wish you could take a nap–but you acknowledge that you can’t. When you look around your bedroom at the beginning of a week off for staycation and think, “I need to clean.” It’s bad in here, y’all. I mean, of course there’s the Christmas clutter. My room is the only safe place for wrapping, and also to get that big ol’ tree in the living room, other stuff needed to be stuck out of the way. So there’s that. Boxes that need breaking down but the dumpster is already full. Wrapping paper odds and ends that I should just stick in the recycling, but I always think one day I’ll need that tiny odd-shaped piece. Need to put the rolls of wrapping paper away, get the bows and the boxes for lights stashed under the bed, make sure the ribbons are out of reach of the cat… There’s also the new things. I got candles and movies and a book and yay! But all that stuff has to find a home now, and that’s not going to be easy. There was a lot of STUFF in here already. Which brings me to the old things. Yesterday I spent a pleasant hour getting rid of things I haven’t touched all year (well, since unpacking after the move, and probably for the year or two…

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Remakes and Reboots and Flops, Oh My!

Like many, I have bemoaned the fact that Hollywood seems stuck in the past, refusing to look to the future. We need new ideas! We need new stories! I mean, who needs a Mad Max reboot? …actually, no. Forget that. I do. I need Furiosa in my soul. She gives me such fierce joy. But seriously. Ghostbusters? That movie was practically perfect! Why would you– Scratch that. Holtzmann is my happy place. Don’t touch. Mine. This is why Hollywood keeps doing it. Because we (or me, at least) keep buying! I loved Pacific Rim so much. But with that ending–I mean, come on. How are you going to make a sequel? Spoiler alert–they made a sequel. And it looks bada##. You can bet my butt will be in a theater seat the first week it comes out, grinning at John Boyega as Stacker Pentecost’s son and squealing delight when my adored Mako Mori comes onscreen. I thought Star Wars should have stopped at Return of the Jedi. As each prequel came out, I wished harder that they had just stopped at the original trilogy. But I had to see The Force Awakens, and now I love Rey, Finn, Poe–and you better believe there was some serious screaming at a certain point in the trailer for The Last Jedi, zomg… Thor Ragnarok…well, everyone probably knew I was going to see that. It has Loki in it! I probably would have skipped The Dark World but for Loki, but I’m hearing such…

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Caffeine Connoisseur

I’m not a coffee snob. Just because I know good coffee doesn’t mean I turn my nose up at bad coffee. Unless I have a choice. I mean, I’m not going to take the bad coffee if the good coffee is right there. I guess I’m a bit of a coffee snob. I can’t help it. Good coffee is just so good. I’ve always preferred good coffee to bad, but lately I’ve gotten more picky about it. A few months ago I acquired a French press. I don’t remember why, I think I thought it was pretty and it would be just as easy as using my little one-cup drip brew since we have a water cooler that heats the water. And it was just as easy, and more of an experience. I even got an hourglass to time my brewing. The thing with a French press, though, is you have to get the grind right. Coffee ground for drip coffeemakers is finer than what you’re supposed to put in a French press. And while it is possible to find coffee specifically ground for the French press, it’s not easy. Not in grocery stores, anyway. So I decided to try grounding my own. I had a little handheld blade grinder for when I was feeling fancy. Surely that would work! Good lork, those things are loud! And I had to really pay attention, or the grind would still be too fine, and I’d be drinking solid coffee at the bottom…

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Sneak Peek at In the Forests of the Night, Book II of the Seize the Fire Trilogy

Hello! I’d love to write a cheery introduction, but I am dying of a cold right now. (DYING, I tell you.) Please enjoy this sneak peek at In the Forests of the Night, releasing November 15th! Here’s Book I, Burning Bright, if you need a refresher.   In the once-fair city of Olencia, high in one of the unbroken towers of the Kisaran, the Lady Inizre slipped through a door and shut it softly behind her. A girl sitting by the bed stared in the dimness of one candle, then started out of her chair. “My lady! Your veil startled me. I thought—” She took a deep breath. “I did not sleep. I have been pinching myself—” she held out her arm as proof. “Peace, child.” Inizre waved her off. “Has he been restless?” “No, Lady Inizre.” The girl shook her head. “Not a sound while I’ve watched.” She smiled, as they taught healers early to do. Smile, and project confidence to the frightened family. “He sleeps, my lady. He will heal.” Either she had no healing talent, or she lied extremely well. Inizre did not care to learn which. “I cannot sleep,” she said, “so I will watch him. Go to your bed, child.” “As you will.” The girl dropped a curtsy and slipped out. When the door had closed behind her, Inizre approached the bed. “Eshan,” she breathed. “My son. Ten long years I yearned to see your face, now it hurts to look on you.” But for…

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Adventures in (Avoiding) Editing

Friday I stayed home from work. I had a touch of a stomach bug, enough that I definitely needed to stay home, so I wasn’t ditching work–I was just really glad that I needed to be home. I needed the day to edit. Edited all day Saturday, excluding a grocery store run and probably some time wasted at some point. By Sunday I was getting tired of editing. So I made a deal with myself–twenty minutes of editing, ten minutes of break. There’s a lot of stuff I’ve been needing to do for a while, and I wanted to get some of it dealt with. The first break, I cleaned the litterbox, then decided to light a candle to deal with the residual smell. I grabbed a candle holder, took an empty tealight shell out of it and crunched it in my hand, then dropped a new tealight in and lit it. Then I touched my face or something with the other hand, and scratched my freaking face deep enough to draw blood with a tealight shell. I went back to editing. Next break, I decided to see if switching the light bulbs in the track lighting in the kitchen would help anything. We hate the track lighting, but we’re not ready to have it replaced. Anyway–took a little longer than ten minutes, but I got the bulbs replaced and the kitchen is 3x a bright as it was, yay me! I went back to editing. But before very long…

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Curiosity Killed the Cat – Part 1

Curiosity Killed the Cat A free fantasy serial by KD Sarge Part 1: Through a Hidden Door A child’s city, Srivasi thought when the horses crested a small rise and below them the forest held back from the edges of oddly short buildings of white stone with golden streaks. Graceful arcs that should have soared, domes that should have stood tall— “His scarf!” Gerda shouted, making Srivasi’s head ring. She wriggled, twisting and shoving and nearly knocking him out of the saddle before she slid off the back of his horse to land on her feet. “I see his scarf!” At the sound of her voice, goats came running to cavort about her. “My darlings, here you are!” She ran to meet them. “But where is Dasid?” she asked the goats. “Small ruins,” Jhi Bo growled in Fwenye as she swung down from her horse. “They are still ruins. Why is it always ruins?” The black warhorse shook his head as if to echo her disgust, bridle-bells jingling. “I warned you,” Jhi Bo muttered as Srivasi scrambled down. “Did I not? Just because a woman weeps…” “She’s a child,” Srivasi argued despite his still-ringing ears and the fact that Gerda was a solidly-built girl not two fingers shorter than he was, who wrestled farm animals and younger siblings every day of her life. “An orphan child, looking for her little brother. How can we not help?” “Easily,” Jhi Bo grumbled, but she dropped one rein to the ground in signal for…

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