“We are starting photo direction in select spots in Asia, this project’s actually on its 2nd year in the pot. It’s been a matter of getting all the right ingredients for what we originally envisioned and I believe we’ve found the talent we were always looking for.” announced founding partner Kyle Virina.

“H2O’s been slowly building its team in Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand. But I believe Korea and China – of course – may be able to present us with many collaborative opportunities considering their being media power-houses in the region.” he added.

“Media distribution is always a major challenge. This is why this down-stream portion was a critical area our business development team concentrated on the last 6 months so that we didn’t create a product to only find out we couldn’t roll it out in the end. We will be announcing in the next few weeks key partners in those markets I mentioned earlier.”

H2O recently secured exclusive distribution rights for military-grade technology that the firm plans on utilizing for the event as well as the companion advertising program for the documentary series. Virina concludes, “We’re very excited about not only on the content side but also on the platform portion as well. I liken this era of ‘media convergence’ to the early days of television when not only were people discovering what programs were being developed but learning more about the actual technology of the medium as well.”

Little Older, A Little Wiser? By Rie McGaha

I wasn’t always this old, which may surprise some, especially my grandchildren. Neither was I always this wise, which may also surprise some, especially my grandchildren. It never surprises me how stupid I was in my younger years. When I think back on events of my life, I can only shake my head and wonder how I survived my own stupidity. The old saying, “Youth is wasted on the young,” rings truer as I get older.

There was a time when I thought I was invincible and the only danger out there was getting pregnant as a teenager, which I did, so hey, one down! I can joke about these things now because most of my younger years were an exercise in the absurd. That is the view hindsight gives me. But I guess if each of us examines our youth, we’ll all find one or two ridiculous acts we committed in the name of invincibility.

Now, in my later years I find I’m much slower. I take life day by day and yet, they slip by so quickly, I can barely keep up. When I was young I had the entire world and all the time there is to do what I wanted, but somewhere along the way that view disappeared. Somehow twenty turned in forty over night, and my kids became adults and had their own lives, which is the way it’s supposed to be. Funny though, because no one told me how fast I would go from a twenty something mommy to a thirty something Nana. Yes, a Nana at thirty-four. Not only has the fact my children are all adults with their own children reminded me of my dwindling years, I actually have an adult grandchild. Mathew turned eighteen in January 2011, with Destiny following in a couple of years, and on down the line until all thirty-six of them is grown. I can only wonder how long before I am also a great-grandmother.

While I try my best to grow old gracefully, there is a part of me that still wishes for the energy and to have endless time before me to do those things that I wasted my youth on. But in the end I have to also take into account all the things I managed to accomplish over the years. The children I raised to be wonderful men and women, the man I married who has made me so happy, and the new families my children are creating that keep me so busy. It would be great to be young again, but as I look back, I wouldn’t change a single thing. Every step I took then, was one step closer to the person I am now. All in all, it’s not such a bad place to be.

* * * *

Rie McGaha is an author, editor, and reviewer. She has more than a dozen books to her credit, and her recent release, Calen, is the first book in the My Soul To Keep Trilogy, with the other two books being released later this year from Silver Publishing. You can join Rie, GA Hauser, & Stormy Glenn for Blog Blast 2011 (http://blogblast2011.blogspot.com/), on Blog Talk Radio, May 14, 2011 at noon CST, with an all day group chat at Erotic Promo. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eroticpromo/

Prizes will be given away all day long, so join us! And check out Blog Blast 2011 for a list of prizes, and “follow” us to be entered into the grand prize drawing.

Everyone who comments on this blog is also eligible to win!

 Calen by Rie McGaha:

When Calen MacLeod begins having dreams of an ethereal beauty who beckons to him, he passes it off as just having an itch he hasn’t scratched in a long time. But when he leaves on a journey to find her, following the directions she’s given him in his dreams, he begins to doubt his sanity. And when he finds himself high in the Mackinaw Mountains in a secret fortress with unicorns and a pink and white castle, surrounded by women, each one more beautiful than the next, it’s a fantasy no man would want to wake up from. But Arianna is the only woman for Calen.

The women of the Fortress have lived in peace, hidden away from the humans who tried to annihilate them all. But now a 500-year-old demon is out to destroy the women’s matriarch, Ariella, and he’ll stop at nothing to complete his mission. When Calen MacLeod shows up, he throws a wrench into Damon’s plans. Never let it be said Damon isn’t ready for anything, but when he kidnaps Arianna and takes her to modern day San Francisco, is he ready to meet Calen, who will stop at nothing to save his ladylove?

EXCERPT:

“Da, we’ve returned with news you aren’t going to like,” Caleb called out.

William stood and turned to the trio. He raised his brows as he looked them over. “So who’s this then?” He nodded toward the boy in Calen’s arms.

“That’s what you’re not going to like, Da. We need to get the babe here to Margaret for care, and then we can tell you the tale.”

William pulled the rope, and a loud bell rang out. A moment later, his sister-in-law Margaret came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a cloth.

“What is it you’re wanting? I’ve bread to finish kneading if you want it for supper,” she said, looking at William.

He sighed. The woman had no respect, but without her, he’d have never been able to raise his sons after their mother died.

Margaret turned toward Calen and Caleb and opened her arms. She walked over and wrapped all of them in a hug.

“My boys are home.” She put a hand on each of their faces, patted their cheeks, and then nodded toward the boy. “And what have we here?”

Taking the child from Calen, she hugged him to her breast, then looked at the two grown men with questions in her eyes, but they shook their heads.

“Later,” Calen said.

Margaret nodded. “Aren’t you a sweet one?” she cooed to the little boy. He nuzzled closer to her, and she hugged him tightly.

“How old are you now? Can you show me?” He held up four fingers. “Oh, well, aren’t you a big boy then? Can you tell me your name?”

“Arion,” he said, barely above a whisper.

“Arion,” Margaret repeated loudly and then headed back toward the kitchen door.

With his sons, William watched until the pair disappeared.

“He wouldn’t even look at us,” Caleb said with a shake of his head.

William grinned. “Like all of us, I s’pose he knows Margaret will get what she wants, so it’s just as well to give it to her and get it over with.”

They all chuckled and sat together. “So…” William looked at each of his sons. “Tell me

the story.”

it’s been a while since I last posted, partly because I’ve been busy with work commitments after the extra long Easter break and because while I’ve tried to concentrate on the third installment of the Col Sec series I’ve found that I’ve neglected my blog.

Perhaps neglected is the wrong word, it’s more like that I haven’t been able to think of anything to post on here and instead of posting absolute drivel I thought it best to wait until I had something worth saying before sitting down to type.

Now, you might say that what this is, constitutes drivel and I wouldn’t argue too much on that point either. I just thought that if anyone was interested on why there has been fewer comments from me here then you had the right to know why.

I’m finding the third installment of the Col Sec series to be my most challenging novel yet, both in its scope and the various character viewpoints that I have to constantly keep aware of. I’m excited by the story arc and how it all develops throughout the series and once people latch onto it I’m sure it’ll be among many ‘looked for’ series already out there.

Anyway back to work now, hope to see you soon with news of the release date for Omega, the second installment of the Col Sec series, until then, keep safe and keep reaching for the stars,

Jan.

Secret Seven Win Through 8th impression 1970

I constantly find copies of Enid Blyton’s books when I’m at chairty shops, garage/car boot sales and school fairs. My childhood favourites were Noddy, Famous Five, Secret Seven and the Adventure series.  I have 6 Secret Seven hardcopy books with dustjackets in good condition from my childhood, 8 well-read paperbacks from the Adventure series reprinted in the mid-1970s and one reprinted in 1968, and Those Deadful Children (1967 repint). But despite the hardcopy books’ mostly being reprinted in the late 1960s and 1970, (7th or 8th impressions) they don’t have high resale value – I’m not going to make hundreds selling them. That’s because of the huge volume of books sold over the years.

Collectors want the authors older books, especially first editions of Famous Five and the Adventure series, with books, covers and dustjackets in good condition. Website: the-first-edition.com is asking 65 pounds for the 7th edition of the Castle of Adventure published in 1954 – hardcover with dustjacket.

There’s often first edition hardcover Blyton books on Trademe without dustjackets selling for as little as $4 which is a cheap way to buy the books for young readers.

Check out this blog on the value of her books http://www.bookride.com/2010/03/collecting-enid-blyton.html. A seller wants AU$750 for a 1952 signed hardcover copy of Adventures of the Wishing-Chair so it’s worth buying a good condition early copy if it’s going cheap at a garage sale or charity shop.

Here’s the short version of the author’s life thanks to  www.blytonbooks.co.uk: Enid Mary Blyton, born 11th August 1897 and died 28th November 1968, was probably the twentieth century’s most successful writer of children’s books. A phenomenally prolific author, she wrote an estimated 800 books during a literary career that spanned more than forty years. In 2007 she was the fifth most popular author in the world, placing her ahead of Shakespeare. Enid Blyton trained as a teacher and qualified in 1918 after which she taught for several years at schools in London. She wrote in her spare time and in 1920 she renewed her acqaintance with school-friend Phyllis Chase who was working as an illustrator. The pair decided to submit work together, a turning point in their careers. Enid’s first book, Child Whispers, was published in 1922 and the following year she met Hugh Pollock, editor at George Newnes publishers, whom she was to marry in 1924. 

Although she wrote hundreds of books for young and older children, Enid Blyton is probably best known for her successful ‘series’ such as the Famous Five, Secret Seven, Adventure and Mystery books. The Noddy series of books have also been extremely popular, and many of Enid’s works have been adapted for television. In addition to these famous series, Enid Blyton wrote numerous books on the natural world, Biblical subjects and re-told tales from the Old and New testaments. Famous Five hardcover books with dustjackets have ab etter resale than secret seven. The adventure hardcopy books with dustjackets and noddy books sell well.

Check out www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/index.php for more on the author and her books.

We want you to meet the new YooHoo & Friends from the WannaBe “Adventure” Series – Superhero, Spaceman, Aviator, Cowboy, Pirate and Pirate’s Mate because you’ll need to be familiar with them to answer this week’s question. Don’t forget, answer by commenting on this blog post or via Twitter using @YooHooFriends in your tweet — then you are enterered to win for the week! Good luck

Q: Which other “adventure” YooHoos would you like to see Aurora make in the future?

-YooHoo

Yesterday the 3rd annual “Get Lost” orienteering competition was held at Cooper’s Rock State Forrest.  The four-hour race challenged over 40 competitors to locate as many of the 30 checkpoints as they could in the allotted time.

After locating checkpoint much like the example checkpoint above, competitors used a unique hole punch found at the checkpoint to mark the corresponding box on their score sheet.  Each checkpoint is assigned points based on its distance from the starting/finish point and the difficulty of locating it.

After the race, competitors were provided food and refreshments and discussed the experiences they had. “You can’t get much more fun than running through the woods as fast as you can,” said Joey Holly a WVU engineering major, who was first place in the male solo novice division.

In addition to the pysical challenge, those competing were required to understand navigation and were provided a race map and compass as their only tools to locate the checkpoints.  “Definitely unique, it takes a lot of brains, but it also takes a lot of brawn at the same time,” said competitor John Bozek, “I was exhausted.”

Despite the lingering snow, the event was fortunate to have great weather and perfect temperatures for such a race.  “Cooler temperatures than usual for this time of year,” said event coordinator, Nathan Kile, “but we still had 40 racers and a dozen or so volunteers show up and everyone seemed to have a real good time.”

Winners in a variety of categories were awarded trophies, which were miniature checkpoint markers.  Event results can be found on the iplayoutside event page.

The “Get Lost” orienteering competition is part of the Morgantown Adventure Sports Series and will continue next weekend with the Mountain Duathlon.

With the “Harry Potter” film series winding down, fans rushed to theaters to give the wizard-adventure series a huge send-off.

The seventh movie in the fantasy franchise, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1,” opened with a fairy-tale figure of $125.1 million over the weekend.

Source:
http://www.mywolfbook.com/se/articles/1/5/harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-debuts-with-125-million

As I mentioned in my last post, Enid Blyton used pins to insert new pieces of text into the typescript for The River of Adventure.  Pins, like paperclips and staples, have a nasty tendency to rust over time.  This rust, if left unchecked, will not only cause the pins to eventually disintegrate completely, but will also eat through the paper and cause significant damage to the typescript.

So, as I have been cataloguing, I have been carefully removing all the pins I find, some of which are already very rusty.  Once the pins have been removed, the pages are inserted into clear melinex sleeves.  This means the revised text is held in its original position on the page, maintaining the integrity of the revised pages, while the melinex (a chemically inert transparent sleeve) stabilises the condition of the paper and makes it easier and safer to handle.

As I carefully removed the rusty pins and peeked beneath the pinned blocks of text, I hoped these replacement passages would turn out to be radically different from those underneath.  So far, however, they have proved slightly misleading in that regard.  These cut and pinned revisions appear to simply be clean, retyped copies of the text underneath, incorporating some minor revisions made by hand.  Blyton was perhaps concerned that her manuscript annotations might prove confusing or unclear to her editor, and so tidied up the draft with the aid of scissors and pins.  Not quite the radical rewrites I might have hoped for, but there may be more waiting to be discovered!

What can we infer from this dearth of evidence for rewriting and revision?  It suggests a writer with a very clear, defined vision of her books – she knew exactly what she wanted to write, and she wrote it.  But there may be other factors involved as well.  It seems quite probable, as her popularity grew, that she felt the pressures of time and the expectations of her fans, and developed an increasingly efficient approach to her writing as a result.  Her typescripts certainly suggest a formidable mastery of her craft, and a very ‘no nonsense’ approach to writing.  Which, given the volume of work she had published, is perhaps not surprising!

As the Blyton collection was purchased at auction, the material had been divided up into lots for the purposes of sale.  This simply means that the whole archive – consisting of books, typescripts, original artwork, and other items (including some of Blyton’s fur coats!) – was split into smaller parts, or lots, and each of these was auctioned individually.  In the case of most of the typescripts purchased by Seven Stories, one lot equated to a complete draft of one title.

However, not all of the lots were quite as straightforward as they seemed.  What was identified in the sale catalogue as a draft of Five Go to Mystery Moor turned out to be a draft of The Circus of Adventure.  There is a manuscript label in Blyton’s hand with the draft, stating “This is the original manuscript of Five Go to Mystery Moor“, and the preliminary pages (title pages, foreword and contents page) of the typescript are for that novel.  But the rest is most definitely The Circus of Adventure.  The fate of Five Go to Mystery Moor is itself a mystery!

It was a beautiful day for kayaking.

Yes, I had a birthday about a week ago. On the morning of my birthday I found three new grey hairs in my beard. I decided to counter the greying of my beard by going kayaking – nothing like fresh air and a marsh full of birds to fight back the effects of aging.

I went to one of my favorite spots – Bald Head Island – and joined the Bald Head Island Conservancy on one of their kayak trips. It was a beautiful day, a great paddle and a welcome break from my routine.  Read about it on The Island Times, Bald Head Island’s blog.

The kayaking birthday boy.

The Farm to Table Wine Dinner, sponsored by Childress Vineyards, featured many locally-sourced food products.

In graduate school one of our great friends – Adam Shobert – began pouring wine at The Wine Sampler, a local wine shop. His approach to wine really opened up my eyes and my palate and, before he moved to Ohio for greener pastures, we were Friday night regulars for his tastings. Now, thanks in no small part to Adam, I’m a wine convert. Under his guidance, it didn’t take long and I feel like I’ve developed a decent (but still undertrained) palate.

Which brings me to last weekend.

Last weekend (September 24 – 26), Bald Head Island hosted the second annual North Carolina Wine & Food Weekend. The weekend featured several North Carolina wineries, some delicious local food, a wine dinner and sparkling wine brunch (where they served, wait for it, bananas foster French toast). As the Adventure Blogger for The Island Times, Bald Head Island Limited’s blog, I felt it was my duty to explore the culinary delights at the festival. I wrote about it here. Hope you enjoy. And I hope you can make it next year.

The always lovely Lauren was the perfect weekend companion.

I mentioned that I am buying second-hand hardcovers. I made one exception, by purchasing the full set of the Adventure series from Navrang. They shipped them quickly via UPS, and the books are arriving today!

“Shut the door, idiot!” roared the voice from nowhere, ”and don’t sniff! Where’s your handkerchief?” 

Back to the books – the first two of the series are great. I read Island while we were on a vacation on the Oregon shore, and one could easily envision a Craggy Tops perched halfway down a cliff next to the roaring sea with the mysterious Isle of Gloom nearby. Blyton seemed to brush over character development a bit - after a while the characters of Phillip and Jack seemed to just meld into basically the same character to me. Other than that the books are great. I’m not sure I’d say these are two of the best adventure stories ever written by Enid Blyon as the book blurb says, but they were enjoyable nevertheless.

Head over to Bald Head Island for some geocaching or another adventure. I do. And I'm a Doctor (an MFA actually, but it's a terminal degree).

I’ve been geocaching for a while. If you’re unfamiliar, geocaching is a GPS based treasure hunting game. People hide boxes and clues and you find them by using a set of latitude and longitude coordinates entered into your GPS. I suppose if your orienteering was good enough you could do it with maps. I think that’s going a little far, and that’s coming from an Eagle Scout.

So, I went geocaching on Bald Head Island. Actually I found a few and hid two of my own. And I wrote about it for The Island Times, the Bald Head Island blog. Check it out, dust off your GPS or that old Silva compass and go have an adventure.