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Kim McDougall

Blog posts : "General"

New for Fall 2024

Fall has hit us with some spectacular colors and weather. It’s been nice enough for me to continue to spend time in the forest while I edit A Knack for Metal and Bone. I officially sent it off to my editor for first looks this week. If all goes well, I’ll have a release date and pre-order informa...

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Writing Roadblocks

This is a visual representation of how edits are going on A Knack for Metal and Bone. I was sailing along, expecting to have a competed draft by next week and then I hit this roadblock. This isn't to say that I have writer's block. Rather, it means that I hit an unexpected wall in my plot and for...

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  This is me riding Booker for my second lesson after not riding for nearly 12 years. I have rediscovered muscles I didn’t know I have.  You can see in this picture I am wearing half-chaps. These are leather protectors for the bottom half of your leg. I used to wear these back in the day, but...

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I often get asked questions such as “Do you still get paid if I read your books on Kindle Unlimited (or from the library or ‘insert other format here’).” In general, my answer is, “If you read my books, I’m ecstatic however you got them. Thank you.” There are two caveats to that. The first is boo...

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January Book Bonanza!

Happy New Year! I hope you had a fun and safe holiday season. I traveled a bit to see family, snuggled with the grand babies and had some girl time with both my mother and my daughter. It was a perfect holiday, until I came home sick. Not Covid, luckily, but a bad head cold. It's the price you pa...

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Unicorns Don't Cry, (Valkyrie Bestiary Book 8) brought a whole new menagerie of critters for Kyra. There's the conies, feisty little rabbits; Ludger the Puckwudgie, who is more than he seems; Chug, the abused unicorn who wants to feel pretty again; and the little whatsis sunflower. Which one ...

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Meet the new critters

The results are in from last newsletter's poll. The overwhelming majority want to see more farmyard tales, despite the liquids that were spewed after reading about Booker's teeth and sheath day. If you missed that story, you can still catch it on last week's Blog.    There's a lot of news thi...

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Teeth & Sheath Day

Here’s an amusing horsey story for you. It’s not for the faint of heart, so read on with caution. Seriously, if you don’t want to know about the grittier parts of animals husbandry, this post is not for you.   Still with me? Ok. Here goes. A couple of years ago, we bought a hobby farm and mov...

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A scene 8 books in the making

Whew It's done. Today I sent Unicorns Don't Cry off to my wonderful editor, Elaine Jackson for a final proofread. This one took a lot out of me but in a good ways and sad ways. The final scene in this book is one that I envisioned way back in 2018 when I first started sketching out a story arc...

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Never stop learning

Since a lot of my stories come from my own experiences, I like to top up my well once in a while by learning new things. Experiences are fiction fodder or brain food, and they just make life interesting. In the past 2 weeks, I took a foraging class, visited a composting facility, and spent the da...

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Today, I have some fun and some not-so-fun pictures to share.   As I write this, an area of forest the size of Belgium is burning only a few hours north of me. Please don’t worry about me. We are all safe. There have been a few local fires, but they were put out quickly. Our only suffering is in ...

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So this happened. I'm in the middle of republishing my children's books after my publisher went out of business during Covid. I ordered a proof copy of Once Twice Thrice and this is what I got. This is the cover of my book. So far so good. But look inside, and...oops! That's not my book. Ye...

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It's all about the critters

Did you know that you can visit Kyra's blog in real life? Yup. Click on any blog link in an ebook and you'll find Kyra's real home on the "Ley-net". Or you can visit it at valkyriebestiary.com. My amazing daughter, Genevieve, has been redoing some of the images on the blog. Here's one of my favo...

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As you can see by that lovely headline, my kitties have decided to spend the next 4 months glommed to my side. Yes, we had our first snow. And it's cold. bitterly cold. The first week of November, I was out walking in short sleeves. Now it's well below freezing. Koko, my 6-month old kitten is so...

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Summer's end...end of an era

As I write this, I’m watching the coverage of Buckingham Palace and the thousands of people who have thronged to the gates to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth II. It’s strange to think of a world without her. As a Canadian, Queen Elizabeth has always been part of my past, present...

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Life goals: hedge witch or crazy cat lady? So I did a thing. Really, it's no surprise. I adopted a 4-week old kitten. Meet Kokomo. Here we are bonding over our love of literature. My life goals include becoming a hedge witch and wearing pinecones in my hair or surrounding myself with 100 cats....

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Who's Your Dark Fairy?

  While researching evil fae creatures for a new book (and that’s no where near the worst thing in my search history), I found a large number of dark female fae creatures. Some were old hags who became omens of death like the banshee, others were young and beautiful like the Leanan s&...

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Reading Challenge Revealed!

It feels like Christmas and the New Year were months ago already. We’ve been in lockdown again, so I’ve been taking this time to edit book 5 of the Valkyrie Bestiary. I should have news on that front very soon, maybe even a release date. I’m a bit late to the party to go over...

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Smell the Trees!

What’s so special about these trees, you might ask? They look like any other trees, but these are soon to be my new refuge. Yep, we did it. Hubby and I bought a farm. Or at least a property that will become a farm. Right now it’s a big forest with some cleared land that will be pe...

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A couple of weeks ago, I was walking Maggie, the hell-hound-in-training, when I tripped and busted up my knee pretty badly. Couldn’t walk on it for over a week. You can see a really cute video of Maggie running through the daisies by clicking on the image below (note: this will link to a p...

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