ANNOUNCING!!!!

The Sword of Teneraz is officially on Amazon.com and Barnes and Nobles.com!

(Legally now. . . . It appears that our little mix up from before has been cleared up. Either Amazon took care of it, or the person, whoever it was, took it off or changed the price. In any case, there is no longer a copy of TSOT on sale for $151.57. :) )

I have placed links on the sidebar that you can follow to the sites. You can find the links beneath the image of my book. But now comes a step that I am kind of nervous to take. . . . I am going to send a copy to one of my all time favorite authors, and someone who I look up to as somewhat of a mentor to me in the writing genre of life; Wayne Thomas Batson.

For a while I have thought that I would take this step, and dreamed out exactly how I would go about doing it. But now that the time has actually come, I am extremely nervous. . . as I suppose you might imagine. I've put off the actual step of writing out a letter and sending it to him with the book because 1) My book wasn't actually for sale any place besides Lulu.com, so I wasn't sure if I should do it quite yet, or wait until it was a little bit further distributed (well, that reason has gone down the drain now. . . .), and 2) Well. . . to be quite honest. . . even with all of that daydreaming and planning out how I would compose a letter, I now find myself at a loss of what to write. . . . Embarrassing, I know. . . especially for a writer. But that never failing old rapscallion Writer's Block has struck hard, and, I imagine, is probably cackling wildly to himself from the depths of his hideously dark and menacing cave over his success once more.

But now I must be off! However, I will be sure to let you know any resulting news or progress as I send my book to Wayne Thomas Batson, and await a response. :)

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

Beyond the Mask

Well, I have some VERY exciting news!!!!! :D Last night, at 1 o'clock, Burns Family Studios announced their next film project; Beyond the Mask.

Me, being the fanatic fan of their last film–Pendragon: Sword of His Father–that I am, stayed up until the wee hours of the morning for their announcement, and then looking and re-looking over all of the information that they had released. But let me tell you. . . it was worth it. . . completely! I have been looking forward to what their next film would be ever since I watched Pendragon for the first time, and I was not disappointed. Indeed, my expectations were probably surpassed ten times over! For the first full minute after I watched the production trailer, all I could do was sit there, my mouth gaping and eyes bulging while I made garbled little sounds of pleasure that may have been me trying to muffle the scream of pure joy and thrill that was bubbling up inside of me. I've since watched that same production trailer about 5 times. And you can watch it too by clicking right here. . . .

However, to make this film they need lots of people to sponsor. If you follow the same link above, it will lead you to their Kickstarter site where you can donate money to help them fund the film. The deadline for sponsoring is August 31st, and they must have at least $20,000 by then, or else the film won't get funded. Besides their production trailer, there is another short video that shows more of their progress and plans for the film as well as explaining how Kickstarter works.

Even if you aren't able to support them financially, they are looking for volunteers as extras and/or helpers to create sets, props, and costumes. You can sign up for this on their website. I'm planning on helping out in whatever way I possibly can, and I hope that you will do the same. :)

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

When Life Speeds Up Without Warning. . . .

You know that feeling?? When all of a sudden it feels like you're running at break neck speed just to keep up with yourself. . . . Well, I'm just getting into the downward slope of that feeling right now. I'm thinking that it must have been toward the end of last month that life started speeding up for me. I successfully went through my first ever production week for a short film that I wrote, produced, directed, and am now editing. My hope is that it will get into this up coming San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival (some of you may remember last year when I was an extra in a short film that was a semi-finalist in that same film festival, if you don't, you can find that post here). Making a short film like that was SUCH an amazing experience!!! Even with the stresses that it caused, and even. . . even as we sat there all stuck on the beach that we were filming on, huddled under towels and the few beach umbrellas that we dared have open, trying to keep both ourselves and especially the equipment dry while a big storm was raging over us. . . even then, I could very happily tell myself, that this was where I belonged, this was what God had created me to do, at least at this point in time.

Since that experience of a lifetime, my mind has been overrun with exhilarating thoughts and plans for future films (short AND feature length!), but of course I've had to make myself leave those as mere ideas running around in my head and occasionally over notes to pick up later, so that I could work on completing the editing for this short film. Knowing me, if I started writing a screenplay for one of those others, I would probably never get back to finishing this one. . . . So, they shall just have to wait patiently on the sidelines for the time being. :)

I've been able to work farther on "The Wolves of Langoor" as well, during this time, and the plan is to get myself back into a schedule of writing every single night. If I did that, I think that I should easily be able to make my goal of completing the first draft for TWOL by the end of November 30th (that will take me through NaNoWriMo).

And so, for the most part you are caught up on my life. . . . I'm continuing to work on character development for my role in the short film that the sister of my friend is making (see here for a bit more details on that), so that is always fun. :) The second read through for that is this Saturday, and then Burns Family Studios announces their next film project this Friday!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D So I am very eagerly awaiting the weekend! :D

Amorette 99 (who was just barking rather obnoxiously in a brave "I will defend everyone!" sort of way–as much as a 4 pound puppy can–at a prop still sitting in my bedroom from filming week) greets you all. :)

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~