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| Happy New Year !
I hope your Christmas was joyful and a special time with family. As we bid farewell to 2023, I send you my warmest wishes for a happy and exciting New Year. May the next 365 days be filled with love, laughter, and countless moments of inspiration.
For more than one moment of story inspiration, take a look at the prequel to the Realmshift Trilogy: Fourteen-year-old Aleryck is good with a slingshot and at herding goats, but not much else. When the mysterious voice of ‘The Ancient’ tasks him with inscribing words of freedom on a magical tablet, he starts to believe he is important … more important even than his elder brothers. Then the Ancient asks Aleryck to hide the tablet in Medar--beyond the perilous Chasm--for future generations, forcing Aleryck to reluctantly seek the help of his jealous siblings. Left for dead in the treacherous Wastelands when his brother, Taran, steals the tablet, it soon becomes a race against time to recover the tablet or it will be lost forever. If Aleryck and Taran can't settle their differences and learn to work together to fulfil the task, the people of Medar will be enslaved for all eternity. Check it out here.
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2. A New Year's Trivia Puzzle |
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This month's puzzle is Christmas and New Year themed . Answer the questions to reveal the hidden picture!
Click on the picture or this link and the puzzle will open for you to complete.
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How was your Christmas? We had a fun family morning and lunch. Amy made it home, but Daniel was in America, so we missed him a lot.
Every year as part of the lead up to Christmas we get out our Nativity scene and put the Wise Men some distance from Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus. Every day they get a little closer until they arrive next to baby Jesus on Christmas day. In the top picture there's only one more sleep until Christmas morning, but the Wise Men have a long way to fall if they can't figure out how to get down off the table. I posted photos of their journey on our family chat, and we all agreed with Daniel that they'd need to abseil down.
The dragon in the picture is my dream Christmas present...he'd be perfect in my garden. But I'm going to have to wait until next Christmas...this year I received trees for my garden instead. Something for the dragon to hide behind when I get him next Christmas! Before Christmas we flew down to the South Island to pick up a new car for our campervan business. We made a few stops driving it back; the bottom right picture is on the way to Hanmer Springs, one of our favorite spots in New Zealand.
I have to confess not much writing has happened in December. Okay, exactly no writing has happened. :( And I'd like to say things might improve in January, but it's a pretty hectic month. Next month I'll let you know if I managed to get up early to do some tinkering on the story. I hope I can. |
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4. Nate's Christmas Jokes |
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Nate, the jokester from the series for 9-12 yr-olds: Crime Stopper Kids Mysteries, has some more fun jokes for you: 1. What did the ghost say on January 1st?
-Happy Boo Year
2. Where can you find comedians at a New Year's Eve party?
-In the punch line 3. Knock, knock.Who's there? Radio. Radio who? Radio not, it's a New Year.
4. What happened to the person who stole a calendar on New Year's Eve? -They got 12 months! 5. What happened to the phone and the firework that were arrested on New Year's Eve? -One was charged, the other was let off. |
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5. Free Short Story: Jangle's Rainy Day
© 2022; Karen Cossey. All Rights Reserved
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It was a rainy day at the zoo. Jangles, the hippopotamus, loved rainy days because she didn’t have to sit in the mud pool to keep cool—she didn’t like being dirty. Best of all, there was no chance of being shy or embarrassed because few people came to the zoo on wet days. There was no one to laugh at her or ask her to “show them ‘er teeth”.
Rudolph, the big show-off, was a hippopotamus who loved people. He hated rainy days.
“Come on, Rudolph, let’s play!” Jangles said. But Rudolph said, “No point, no-one’s watching. It’s a rainy day. Ain’t nothing happening.” He skulked over to the wall and shut his eyes. Jangles loved walking about her enclosure in the rain, getting washed clean, though she wished she could explore the whole zoo. |
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Out of the blue, she heard it—a little voice calling. “Hello Jangles, I’ve come to see you. I’m the only one here.”
Over the fence she saw a boy, maybe seven or eight, wearing a bright yellow raincoat. Jangles recognized him; he was the boy who often came with his father. He always smiled at her and said sweet things, like, “Isn’t she beautiful, Dad?” and “I wish we could take her home.”
All at once, she felt embarrassed. Had he seen her bottom? She wanted to sit in the mud pool and hide; but she made herself walk closer to the fence and say, “Hello” in hippo-speak.
“Where’s your dad?” she asked.
“I left him by the lions,” he said in people-speak.
Jangle’s enormous mouth opened wide in amazement. The clever little boy understood her! Everyone knows hippos, being clever animals, can understand people-speak; but she’d never heard of any person understanding hippo-speak.
“How do you know what I said?” she asked.
“I just do,” he replied. “I’m not sure how. But last time I was here, you asked Rudolph to let you hide from all the people, so I thought you’d be out today, because hardly anyone visits in the rain. I wanted to talk to you!”
So, Jangles asked him all about himself, and he asked her all about herself. She learned his name was Troy; he was eight, had a little sister, liked playtime and lunchtime at school but hated handwriting. He learned she was nine, liked lunchtime and nighttime when everyone left, and knew how to spell but not write.
After a while, Troy said, “I better go find my dad. He’ll be looking for me.”
“I’ll help you. Just unlock the gate over there and I can take you round the zoo,” Jangles suggested. Troy fiddled with the old rusty lock; the gate swung open, and he climbed onto Jangles’ back. As they walked through the zoo, the animals came out of their shelters and called out to them. What a hullabaloo! The zookeepers, sitting in the warm staff room, had never heard such a racket. Two of them decided they better put on their raincoats and check out what was going on.
Jangles and Troy were having a great time talking to the animals. Bananas the monkey said he would help look for Troy’s dad, so they let him out and he sat on Jangles’ back behind Troy. Wriley Wroo, the kangaroo, said he wanted to help, so they unlocked his enclosure gate and he hopped along beside Jangles. Tuskannie, the baby elephant, also came to help (her Mom was asleep). She followed behind, holding onto Jangles’ tail with her trunk. Pirate the parrot came for a ride, perched on Jangles’ head.
They went round a corner and stopped short. There, in front of them, were two zookeepers and Troy’s dad, looking soaked and very pale.
All the animals started squealing, “We found him! We found him!” What a din!
It was Troy and Jangles who realized that the only ones who didn’t seem excited were the zookeepers.
“I better go so you don’t get into any trouble,” Troy said, sliding off Jangles’ back. “I’ll see you next week.”
“I better go too,” Jangles said, recognizing the word ‘tranquilizer gun’ the zookeeper said into his walkie talkie.
“Come on, everyone!” Jangles called to the others. She felt quite the leader, and not shy or embarrassed as the animals followed her back to their enclosures.
Jangles was the last one home. As the zookeeper shut the gate behind her, Rudolph stirred from his sleep and woke.
“What’s happening?” he asked Jangles.
“It’s a rainy day. Nothing ever happens on a rainy day. Nothing at all.” |
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Jangles Rainy Day is found in the ebook: Cinderella Sarah Two. Only USD2.99 on Amazon. |
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New Year's Eve we went for a walk and got caught in a downpour. It was so humid the rain actually felt good. We have to get out more for walks in January because in February we're planning on doing a three day hike with our kids and some friends. Lucky my son Daniel will be there-I might be able to get him to carry some of my stuff! Until next month, Happy Reading |
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P O Box 6040, Tauranga, New Zealand / All rights reserved |
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