As promised, a little background on the new domain name. Firstly, kudos to my friend Jen that helped me pull together some domain names which ultimately turned into the new site. I did not give her an easy task.

The Burnt Mountain site was great for the time that I needed it, but honestly, it was a short-sighted creation. The only reason it ended up being called Burnt Mountain Books was because I was well into the second book by the time I started goofing around with a website, hence the plural. Had no idea at the time it would turn into a five-book series. I also didn’t know where things would go from there. The Monster Within released in 2013. It’s now 2018. Five fantasy books later and the first sci fi book will release in 2019, I think we can agree that it’s been a busy run!

What’s in a domain name?

I am more than a writer. I have a lot of creative outlets. Some of those outlets, I do well (painting with acrylics), some of them I utterly suck (wood working) but I still enjoy doing them. This is the real reason for the new website being something other than Cheryl Campbell Writer or Author or whatever. I wanted it to go broader than only my writing. I don’t have a link on the site up yet for the other creative stuff I do, but that will come in time. I’m still living on the road, so I don’t have access to the photos of various paintings and other projects I’ve done over the years.

So that was Jen’s task. I have lots of stuff I do and other things coming, so what the heck do I call the new website that I know I need but no clue what to name it. Jen and I were having dinner chatting this over. She threw things out to me, and I looked up the names to see if they were available. By the time we were done, I had four domain names written on a recycled napkin (recycled in that it was from recycled material, not fished out of the rubbish bin and used as a note pad).

I sat on that list for a bit to “feel” my way around them and see which one resonated the best. You already know the one I picked. The soup part is a double meaning. With the mix of creative outlets, sounds like a soup to me. Plus, as a Campbell, I have carried the nickname of Soup around for a while.

Jen’s reward for helping me pick the names was a huge thank you, and I did give her the pen back that I borrowed to take notes on the napkin. She’s been one of my early readers turned test reader from the beginning, so I’d already named a character after her in the first sci fi book. Bonus points, that character survives book one. Extra bonus points, that character reappears in the second sci fi book. Extra extra bonus points, that character survives the second book too!!!  Read my work and you’ll understand why this is a major accomplishment for one of my characters. 😉

Quickie Publishing Update

The name of the sci fi book has changed per recommendation of the publisher. Forgotten Echoes is now Echoes of War. Me likey! 🙂 So you’ll see that name referenced now on the website. I finished the first draft of the second Echoes book last week. That one is sitting off to the side, unnamed, for a while to mellow while I play with some other things I’m doing as part of that creative soup.

image from sxc.hu

I know I promised this a while ago, but I have been working on it. The new website is mostly up and running, well, it’s up. The running part is in progress of being developed. So you don’t just jump right over there and stop reading now, I’ll give you the link LAST.

I’m using a new WordPress theme called Lavander that I think is really slick. It has a bit more convolution to it than the one I’ve been using on the burntmountainbooks.com site, so it’s taking me time to get used to it. I have all the links set up across the top of the page and a few other things. I eventually figured out how to link my Instagram account to the new site, so photos post at the bottom there when I post them to Instagram … oh, yeah, and the Instagram thing is new too.

Even I had to duck the lightning bolts on this one … I have a twitter account now too. I SWORE I would never do one, but my publicist said I gotta, so I did. Yikes. I don’t plan to be twittering away my time on it though and I sure as hell won’t be using it to follow the current mass of celebrity and political ass hats using it for whatever idiotic purposes they use it for. It’ll be an information tool for me regarding publishing and book contacts that I don’t have and can’t get through fb or instagram.

Since I’m so fantastically clueless on book publishing, book marketing, and the myriad of tools available, I’m relying on the publicist to continue to be patient, enlighten me, and help me through the mazes. It’s kinda like being lost in the woods. If you’ve been there, you know what this feels like.

I have been legit lost in the woods. No phone. No compass. No water. I had my camera though, but ultimately lost as hell in the sticks of Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge in Mississippi around 1998 or so after wandering off the trail and opting for a “short cut” that turned into a freakin’ mess.

Thankfully Sarah from Smith Publicity is my compass in this book forest.

So bear with me as I beat up this new website and sort out the crap therein and figure out how things work. The site is currently bare bones as you’ll see once you start clicking.

New website:  http://www.cherylscreativesoup.com

To get signed up for the blog that will move off the Burnt Mountain site and to the new one in the coming weeks, go to the sign up thingy on the right side of the screen at  http://www.cherylscreativesoup.com/blog/

Instagram: CherylsCreativeSoup

Author facebook page (this will be replacing the existing Burnt Mountain fb page in coming weeks):  http://www.facebook.com/cherylscreativesoup

They’re all a work in progress so relax if you see something you don’t like. Odds are it will change tomorrow anyway. 🙂

I’ll do a post on why I went with Cheryl’s Creative Soup, but if you know me well enough, you’ve likely already figured it out. Until next time!

I will admit that Zugspitze sounds more like something that happens during or after a sneeze, but it’s the name of the tallest peak of the German Alps. Thankfully they had trains and gondolas that would take you up to the top. Some seriously hard core hikers were climbing the thing, and I admired them for their perseverance and insane toughness as I watched from the cable car hauling me and the other lazy tourists upward. The lake you see in the image above is of Lake Eibsee, a glacial lake known for its clear waters. The picture doesn’t do it justice, but the water was almost turquoise. So spectacular.

I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to Germany and England and made it back into Boston last night after a 20 hr travel day. I caught a second (probably more like a fourth) wind and was up till 11 last night then woke up at 5 this morning. My body clock is still a bit backwards. I was back in bed at 830 this morning for an hour or so before feeling remotely human again. So I’m hoping I can flip back to my usual wake/sleep cycle now. Fingers crossed.

One of the really nice things about all the work travel and hotel stays is the accumulation of hotel points. I used those points for my hotels in Munich and London, so those stays were free. When I left Garmisch, I went back up to Munich since I was flying out the next morning for Heathrow. I stayed at the Hilton (for free!) that is on site at the airport. I will say that is one of the fanciest hotels I’ve ever been in.

It’s made of a lot of glass. Tons of natural light coming in everywhere. The elevators and elevator shafts are also see through. The rooms (which thankfully aren’t all made of glass) were seriously decked out. The flushing operation thing for the toilet was a built-into-the-wall touch screen that was motion activated. So as you approached said throne, the panel lit up. I was so fascinated by this thing that I, of course, started playing with it. In the process I walked into the shower wall because it was made of glass and I didn’t see it as I shifted to move to the side of the toilet to frig with the touchscreen. I immediately started cracking up after I realized what I had bounced off of in my attempt to play with the toilet. This room also had touch screen lights that I could work the entire room from the bed. Handy. It also had speakers in the ceiling in the bathroom that would sync with your phone when you plugged it in via USB next to the bed. Seriously cool stuff though I didn’t use it. I was already going to bed by the time I figured that one out.

I made the flight to London and got to the hotel just outside of the city on Thursday. I ended up in another fancy hotel complete with a Lamborghini (sadly, not mine) parked out front along with lots of other high end cars. I was not aware that I was staying in another swank Hilton (for free!) until I got there. My room had a freakin chandelier in the middle of the ceiling. I could control the lights with a wide-range dimmer switch that I will admit to playing with turning the lights waaaay down then waaaay up while giggling like a school girl. To say I’m easily amused is an understatement! The bathroom didn’t have touchscreen toilet flushing but it did have an in-wall mounted TV in the bathtub with a waterproof remote and speakers in the ceiling. I opted for a shower that night and managed to not walk into the glass walls that time.

When it came time to switch hotels again and head over to Guildford, England to watch some soccer and hang out with friends and family, I was back into a hotel that was more my level. A Holiday Inn. No Lamborghinis parked outside that baby.

The romp in Europe was a screaming success and loads of fun. I have the final week of my vacation now to goof off some more and take it easy in the States. I’ll head back up to Maine midweek and see what kind of stuff I can get into there for camping. I can promise you my tent is minus a toilet (much less a touchscreen toilet), fancy cars, and chandeliers.

Image above by me, view from Zugspitze. 2018.

I can’t tell you off hand without looking it up what # day of this 17 day trip it is. After being in Dusseldorf, Bochum, Aachen, Hattingen, and Munich, I’m currently in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in a valley of the Alps. Gorgeous is an understatement, even with the rainy/foggy/drizzly mix. It’s a beautiful town, and I’m thrilled to hunker down here for a few days and do a mix of exploring, writing, and being a vegetable.

I have actually managed enough German to ask a question and have someone reply in English: “I’m sorry, I don’t speak German.” To which I replied: “Great. Because I don’t either.” haha

I’ve also managed, twice now, to start off a statement in German and finish up in Spanish then just resort to English (or just pointing and grunting) after butchering my attempt to speak German. Because that multi-language deal in the same sentence doesn’t frig with someone’s head or anything, especially mine.

With the wonky weather yesterday and today, I threw on the rain gear and wandered all over town. I found an Irish pub last night and settled in for a pint of cider. Yeah, I know, I’m in flipping Germany and I’m drinking English cider. I can’t explain it, either. I just don’t like beer. After a pint and a half I meandered (If you’ve seen me after a single pint, you’ll know what exactly is involved with my meandering.) back to the gasthof (guesthouse) where I’m staying. I showed up just in time for my dinner reservation there complete with traditional singing and dancing. I didn’t get any good pictures of this because the dancers were too fast to grab a pic off my phone without it blurring.

The dinner menu was in German, so I was winging it. I recognized fisch (fish) and went with that. Darned if the whole damn trout didn’t come out on the plate, haha. I got tired of picking the bones out of the meat after a while, so I gave up and had the potatoes which were fantastic. After a liter of water with dinner, the cider was finally wearing off, so I bailed for my room.

Today I had the rain gear back on with the intent to grab a tour or two somewhere, wasn’t sure where, just somewhere. I ended up just wandering around town with a self-tour of getting a little lost and finding my way back out again. Good times. I took the REALLY long way around to the booking place to go up Zugspitze, the highest mountain in the German Alps. I’ll go back there tomorrow to do that one when the weather is clearer since I couldn’t book a day in advance. And I found the short way around which was a tunnel I’d walked right past TWICE on my mission to find the booking office. Glad I wasn’t in a hurry. haha

Sunday I’m booked to go see Neuschwanstein castle. I have to book a bus to get to the town then figure out the rest of the getting there part to the actual castle. Turns out you have to book that one two days in advance and pick up your tickets 1.5 hrs before your tour. Guess that’s their way of getting you in town and keeping you around to buy stuff while you wait. I don’t know yet what I’m doing on Monday. There is a fantastic chance I’ll wing it just like the other days.

I haven’t done a thing with the new website yet. I thought I was done with publicist interviews pre-vacation and would have a decision there, but I have some follow up stuff to do once I’m back in the states. I started off with 8-10 websites or so for publicists. From those, I narrowed things down to four that piqued my interest. Did four calls and narrowed that down to two. I learned that one of the interviews wasn’t with the actual person I’d be working with, so that will be the extra call. I can tell you that of the four initial calls, they were all great. These folks aren’t making this decision easy, that’s for sure!

Image above by me, 2018, Hattingen, Germany. Sorry it’s a little fuzzy. I had to scale it way down for the website off the original camera jpg. Technology. Weeeeee!

There will be some changes coming to this website later. Ultimately I will be migrating this site to merge in with what will become my main/primary website. More on that later. I won’t bother giving you the new link now because you’ll just click on it, and it won’t work. No one, especially me, likes a tech glitch. So the link will come once I have the new site set up and construction complete. Don’t hold your breath on this. It’s going to take a few weeks.

My first task is to survive the rest of this week at work and next week, then run flying out the door like I’m on fire to kick start vacation. To be honest I’m already moving at a steady pace, at least mentally, into vacation mode.  Next Thursday I’ll fly back to Boston (where the truck and all my crap is), swap out travel gear to get the backpack then head back to Logan Airport on Saturday to put my rumpus on a plane to Germany.

In book news I have been doing something that feels very weird, cool, but weird. I have been interviewing publicists. It’s weird because I’ve never interviewed anyone before. I mean, I get it, I have to do this if I want to find the right fit with the publicist I’ll use for Forgotten Echoes, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s WEIRD. I’m always the one getting interviewed, not the other way around. I never really interviewed my dog sitters. They came highly recommended to me so they were basically already hired by the time I met them. So, yeah, me interviewing someone else is seriously wonky. I’m managing though. I have done three calls thus far and the fourth is next week, the afternoon before vacation officially starts.

I have a whole lotta nothing planned for my vacation. I’m visiting with friends once I arrive, then I head to Munich, then to Garmisch, back to Munich, then to London. Seventeen day trip with only lodging, flights, and rail pass booked. Stuff to see and do, I’ll wing it. I plan to do a lot of walking around, getting lost, hilariously misusing what little I have of the German language, writing, reading, and just generally chilling out. I will not be doing any kind of frantic anything. I’m not on a mission to see and do as much as I can cram in during that time. I come back to the states with almost a whole week remaining of vacation where I’ll be in parts of Maine, not sure which parts yet, but parts. I will be traveling according to the groove, the Force, the wind, the whatever, and it’s going to be amazing!

I’ll post again on the flip side at which point I can tell you what all I did on my travels and what happened with the publicist interviews. By that time I may also have more information on the publishing adventure and new website. Stay tuned.