The Family That Reads Together.....

These lovely ladies are reading The (Dis)Appearance of Nerissa MacKay.
Have you gotten a copy yet?  You can get one here.

Also, if you review the book or send me a photo of yourself reading the book (under 18s accompanied by a parent, as above), your name will be entered into my upcoming contests for books and swag. :)

Creepy Cemetery Writing Prompt Photo

Last year, my blog views skyrocketed when I posted a series of creepy cemetery photos.  Somehow I missed this one, so I thought I'd share it this year.
This was taken in the Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Salt Lake City.  It's the angel Gabriel, waiting to awaken the dead.

(Click on the image to enlarge it.)

Halloween Writing Prompt Photo: Thistle House

Last weekend was Fall Break and I traveled south to Cedar City to the Fall Shakespeare Festival by a different route than usual.
One of the small towns I passed through is now a ghost town, destroyed by the Thistle Dam break and mudslide of 1983.  This house sits near the highway, still half-submerged in a scummy pond.  If ever you needed an image of a "haunted house," this one is sad enough to fill that requirement.
Ignore the reality and create the backstory, my writer friends. :)

(Click on the photo to enlarge it.)

Read A Good Book In The Autumn Sunshine

Julie's picked a perfect porch spot to read The (Dis)Appearance of Nerissa MacKay.  Where would YOU like to read it?

Get your copy right here.
And then send me a photo of yourself reading it.  I'll enter your name into the upcoming prize drawing.

Get Your Hands On A Great Book!

Traci's reading The (Dis)Appearance of Nerissa MacKay.  Wouldn't you like to get your hands on a copy of it?

You can get a copy here.
Don't forget to send me a photo of yourself reading my book so I can enter your name into the big drawing for prizes!

Get Your Nose Into A Good Book.

Angie's reading The (Dis)Appearance of Nerissa MacKay.  When are you going to read it?

You can get your copy here.
Be sure to send me a photo of yourself reading; those who do will have their names entered into an upcoming contest with lots of books and swag as prizes.

Kick Back And Read!

Kevin's reading The (Dis)Appearance of Nerissa MacKay.
Isn't it time YOU got a copy?

Check it out right here on Amazon.
And once you get a copy, be sure to send me a photo of you with the book!  Everyone who lets me use their photo and/or reviews the book for me, gets her/his name entered into an upcoming contest with LOTS of prizes!

Disappear Into A Good Book

Susan's reading The (Dis)Appearance of Nerissa MacKay.  How about you?

You can buy your copy here.
And once you get a copy, be sure to send me a photo of you with the book!  Everyone who lets me use their photo and/or reviews the book for me, gets her/his name entered into an upcoming contest with LOTS of prizes!

Get Excited About The (Dis)Appearance of Nerissa MacKay

Michele and Mary are pretty excited about the book.  Are you?

You can get your copy here.

And once you get a copy, be sure to send me a photo of you with the book!  Everyone who lets me use their photo and/or reviews the book for me, gets her/his name entered into an upcoming contest with LOTS of prizes!

Writing Photo Prompt: Masked

Here's a pic I took in 2011.  I think it's a great little tale waiting to happen.
Maybe you'll write that tale. :)

Click on the pic to enlarge it.

Writing Prompt Photos: Great Salt Lake

I occasionally like to pull photos out of my collection and post them as writing prompts.  Here are a couple of Max from one of our trips out to the Great Salt Lake.
Remember to click on the photos to enlarge them.

What comes to mind with this one?  Camera nut?  A humorous tale involving rising tide and/or an ATV?  Seagull attack?  Or perhaps the desolation of the place (it's actually Black Rock Beach) will inspire a post-apocalyptic tale.

No, he's not in the Arctic, but feel free to write an exploration tale of the frozen north.  :)
Here Max was actually standing on a large "lake" of salt crust.  The salt layer was about an inch thick over smooth sand, but it was tough and did not crack under our weight as we walked.

Writing Prompt Photo: The Shoe Tree

(Yes, Max already posted about this.  I know.)

West of the Salt Lake Valley, out past Tooele (if you're not from Utah, you probably can't pronounce that correctly), we have the West Desert.  On the highway to the abandoned town of Iosepa (colonized by Hawaiians in the 1800s -- because somehow that made sense to someone at the time, putting folks used to tropical weather in a desert and asking them to farm productively), there is a shoe tree.  And this, folks, is a picture of the shoe tree is a snow storm.
Yup, a tree hung with shoes in the middle of the desert in the snow.  Looks like a good writing prompt to me. :)

(Don't forget to click on the photo if you want to enlarge it.)

Oh-So-Very-English Story Starter

Every once in a while, I pull a random picture out of iPhoto and use it as a story starter.  Here's one for today:

This shows a picnic meal of a scone with clotted cream and jam, accompanied by ginger beer.  (That's non-alcoholic, if you're curious.)  It just doesn't get any more stereotypically English than this snack -- unless it's tea and biscuits (cookies, that is) with the Queen.
The real story here is that I walked from Cambridge to Granchester one hot and sticky summer day in 2007, accompanied by a die-hard, born-again American Baptist fellow whose name I can no longer recall.  My enjoyment of the outing was rather diminished by the humidity and by his refusal to discuss anything other than his own narrow outlook on life.
However, the photo is a great set up for fiction.
What would you do with it?  Who's picnicking in the park?  Why?  When?
Feel free to share your ideas or link to your own post if you write something about this.
Have fun.

Going Vintage

Monday was Presidents' Day, and I should have been grading essays.  But instead I went nuts making "vintage" images for new products on my zazzle Shafer ArtWorks store.

Isn't this one gorgeous?
My sister-in-law refers us as The Shafer Museum.  We seem to have everything odd we might need at sometime.
Seriously, to get ready for this photo shoot, I walked from room-to-room in the house, grabbing scrapbook paper, Tim Holz gears and clock faces, public domain photos (that's Evelyn Nesbit in the above photo, the girl who beat Miley Cyrus and her wrecking ball by a century when she swung about in the nude on a velvet swing), Victorian valentine reproductions, vintage jewelry, antique books, dip pens and ink (with extra nibs), lace, ribbon, a silk rose, a decorative plate, antique buttons, antique marbles, dried lavender blossoms, and my Cannon point-and-shoot.
My photo studio was the landing on the stairs where the light was good.
For about 30 minutes, I positioned and repositioned still lifes, switched angles, and made shots.  Then I cleaned up, uploaded the photos onto my laptop, and dinked around on iPhoto with the effects button for a while.
Presto!  Cool, steampunky, vintage-look, "gaslight romance," psuedo-Victorian photos!

I love this one, too!

This one is made into a pocket journal with a wrap-around cover, so half the photo's on the other side.

I call this one the Time Traveler's Notebook.  :)

And there are more, but suddenly blogger's throwing fits about the URLs again.  I hate it when it does that; there's no rhyme or reason to it!  Ugh.
Oh well.
Please drop by Shafer ArtWorks and check out these notebooks to see the rest!

Introducing: Shafer ArtWorks!

I've been thinking about doing this for months now, so, over the weekend -- once I recovered from the lack of sleep, caffeine-and-sugar overdose, over-stimulation, aches, pains, and hostility which make up parent-teacher conferences -- I ignored a good deal of housework and most of a pile of essays (OK, I got SOME of each done!) and started a business.
Sort of.
Look, for my whole early life, my father was self-employed.  Our family ran the oldest silk-screen printing company in Utah, and it went quite well until an early heart attack forced Dad to retire earlier than he'd planned.  My folks offered to let me run the business, as I knew how and had worked with Dad for years, but my heart was in teaching and I knew I had not the art talent my father had.  The business was sold -- and a few years later, the folks who bought it went under and it failed.
All of this means that 1) I've always had the POV of the self-employed, 2) I've grown up thinking creativity and marketing are normal, 3) I've grown up as the daughter of an artist, and thus I see the world in various frames.  (Beautiful scenery is thought of in terms of how it would make a good painting.  And I read people's tee-shirts.  Always.)
Now, Mom and Dad are at a stage where they could use a bit more cash (well, who isn't at that stage, really?).  Dad has enough gorgeous paintings to fill a gallery on his own, but only the ultra-wealthy buy fine art in its original form.  (Yes, he's sold some paintings in Park City -- home of the über-wealthy -- as well as Moab, St. George, and Salt Lake, but most people don't want to pay what paintings are worth.)  However, ordinary folks will buy good art if it's in a form they can afford: posters, calendars, notecards, etc.  (They'll also buy bad art this way.  Just sayin'.)
Thus, I've convinced Dad to start again: an online business this time, with little or no overhead costs.  Mom's the internet junkie of the two of them, not Dad (who never learned to type, so computers seem a bit intimidating to him still), so I've had to show him how it will all work.
Max has kindly agreed to help us when we actually set up our own website, and Dad and I already know how and where to have professionals photograph the paintings which are too large to be scanned in.  But, more research showed me that Zazzle.com has pretty much the best deal for people who want to merchandize their art/graphic art/photos, so I went ahead and set up a zazzle store.
Here it is: www.zazzle.com/shaferartworks.  Click here to check it out.

They also create this snazzy little flash panel for folks to use in advertising their stuff:



make custom gifts at Zazzle

My dad's artwork isn't ready yet, so it's just my photography.  I spent several hours this weekend sorting through photos and finding what works best.  Oddly, it's not the great scenic views that are working on notebooks and iPad cases and light switch covers; it's the closeups of flowers, of vintage fabric, and of off-beat things, like a WWII ration stamp booklet.
See what I mean?

This quince blossom photo looked so good I put it on everything from a pillow to an iPhone case.

And, I planned on putting in some other pictures, but blogger's being all weird and won't accept the URLs, even though the quince blossom one was just fine.  *rolls eyes*

So, I've been in business for about 48 hours.  I haven't sold anything yet, but I hope to.  I'm wondering if my photography will sell better, the same as, or not as well as my books (which are still available on amazon!!)  But if you're in the market for some gifts or home decor, do drop by Shafer ArtWorks and have a look.  :)

I promise to make a HUGE announcement once Dad's artwork is available!

PS. Max, I used the photo I took of your stained glass inset on your door.  I hope that's OK.  It's my photo, but it IS your door.  Let me know if it's not OK, and I'll take the stuff down.

It makes a pretty spiffy clock, though!

(Now why will blogger let me post this image but not the two others I wanted???!!!  grrrr)

Random Photo Story Starter 2/9/14

Here's a great little photo I snapped a few years back, then tinkered with on a couple of different apps.
Perhaps it will inspire a story or two from readers.  (If it does, do let me know.)

(Remember to click on the pic to enlarge it.)

PS I don't even know who these girls were, except that they were college students and over the age of 18.  (I asked before I took the photo.)

A Random Photo As A Story Starter 2/8/14

I haven't blogged much lately.  Sorry about that.
Today, my excuse was battling dust bunnies and grading essays.
So, here, have a gratuitous and weird photo to inspire your writing:

Oh, yes.  There's a real story behind it.  But the point is that you create the character, or rather that you create a fictional version of someone who is clearly already a "character."
Have fun.

Concept: The Illustrated Half-Vampire

So, awhile ago, I got this idea of putting together both of my Half-Vampire books and selling them as a set in e-book form.  I got the text ready, but I've been fiddling with the cover.  Nothing has really made me happy.  Thus, I haven't actually published the "boxed" set yet.
Then, this weekend, I had this brilliant idea.  Why not add photos?  I have tons that I've taken for research purposes while writing the two books.
So, this weekend, have I cleaned the house thoroughly like I should have done?  Well, I picked things up and did some laundry.  (Please don't look at the dust bunnies in the corners.)  Have I graded the tests I brought home?  Uh, nope.
Instead, I have worked on placing photos into the texts of my Half-Vampire books.  But, of course, now I realize there are many more photos that could be put in, but they're not yet in digital format, as I took them before I bought my first digital camera.  Thus, I think I'll be digging through scrapbooks soon and picking out more photos.  (Or do I just take PILES of pics to Inkley's and get them to digitize the whole thing?  Won't I want all those photos from my year of living in Scotland digitized anyway????  Wow.  Big, big, BIG project on the horizon.)
At any rate, while I'm taking a break from writing the first draft of The Chocolate Smuggler's Notebook, I suppose this is a good thing to be doing.  I hope it'll spark renewed interest in the books.

Got Your Nose In A Good Book?

What's your reading goal for this year?  I'm going to try again for 120 books, or 10 per month.  So far, for January, I've read 9 and have 2 others partly finished.

Looking for something new to read?  May I (not so) humbly suggest Becoming Brigid?
Or, if you've already read it, tell your friends about it!
It's Celtic mythology + time travel, with illegal cloning, a stolen hearse, ghost hunting, a mysterious and romantic stranger, and the worst ex ever thrown in for good measure.  C'mon, you know you want to find out how all that fits in together!

Need more convincing?  OK, how about a few words from reviewers?

Pre-teen Mom says:
I stayed up way to [sic] late last night because I had to finish this book
K. Danials says:
I enjoyed this one so much I read it twice.
And an anonymous Amazon Customer says:

Of the three books written by Lisa Shafer, this is my favorite.

Hannah at goodreads says:
I was literally laughing out loud so much while reading this. I really got into the story and had trouble putting the book down.

Still not enough?  How about some contests?
I'm giving away both a paperback copy AND an e-copy on Word Spelunking.  Click here to enter.
And I'm still carrying on with the winter swag giveaways.  On February 2, I'll be giving away the gift bag shown here.  To win the goodies/swag bag, read the book and review it on Amazon, Goodreads, or your blog, and/or send me a jpg of yourself reading the book (with the cover showing).  You can earn up to 4 entries, and your name stays in the contest until you win or I run out of prizes, whichever comes first.  (I still have 3 more prizes after this one!)

What are you waiting for?

Writing Inspiration Photos: Tourists in China!

Okay, it's January, the most blah month of the year.  Plus, I've had the flu.  Plus, it's the end of the term, and soon I'll be swamped with grading and frantic requests from parents who haven't bothered to check their kids' scores for weeks but are now suddenly interested.  Yuck.  Double yuck.
So, let us divert ourselves with amusing photos to inspire stories!
What you do with these is up to you.  One of my cyber friends wrote up a whole blog post on one of my photo sets.  And I know my cemetery photos last October drew hundreds of hits to this blog, so someone must've wanted some inspiration for something.
For today's set of photos, I've pulled up some blurry digital pics of old snapshots.  I'm not sharing these because they're such great photos; I'm sharing these because they might spark a story in someone's mind.  All of the original photos were taken by me in October of 2001, while I was on a UNESCO-sponsored dance tour in China.
Ready?  Let's begin. (Don't forget to click on any photo to enlarge it.)

Not for all the tea in China.....
Yeah, that's an American gal picking tea on a farm in China.
Maybe you've never seen tea being grown before.  I certainly hadn't until the day I took this picture.
I will leave the rest of the story up to you.

Here, an American child poses in front of a statue of a Chinese warrior.  (Yes, I blurred her features slightly on purpose, but enough time has passed that this little girl is now an adult anyway, so I'm not too worried.)  You can make up the story yourself, but I will tell you that, in 2001, a beautiful African-American child was enough of an oddity in large cities in China that she attracted attention everywhere we went.

This is a photo of a photo of selections from one of our meals.  Items on the plate include broccoli, a mushroom, a pea pod, noodles, a bamboo slice, an unidentified object shaped like an olive (but it wasn't an olive), and the head of a baby bird (complete with beak).
Before I went to China, I used to tell people that I liked Chinese food.  Nowadays, I say, "I like Chinese-American food."  It's much more accurate.  :)
I could tell you many a tale here, but that's not the point.  I'll let you be inspired to write your own story about this.

If you are an American and have not traveled outside of your homeland very much, you've probably never seen one of these before.  We always called them "Squatty Potties."  They used to be very common in Italy -- although there they often looked more like shower stalls that flushed -- and these were some of the very nicest public toilets available in China in 2001.  This particular one was (obviously) even clean enough to warrant a photograph.
The rest of the story is yours to create.  (Heaven knows I've got enough true ones of my own!)

And, of course, no photo essay on China would be complete without mentioning the signs.  Even back at the beginning of the present millennium, China had, in touristy places, many signs with English as a second language on them.  The trouble was that no one ever seemed to have bothered to have a native speaker of English check any of these signs.  This one, for example, reads: Protecting Tree: Please Not SIIINNG.   Hence, we came to refer to this language as "Close Enough English."
The rest of the story, my friends, is yours to create.

Have fun!  And if you do get inspired to write something thanks to one of these photos, I'd love to know about it.  Just post a comment.