Time travel for less than $2000

That's right, folks. I time traveled for under $2000. See where this Alaskan author wound up? That's an 18th century tall ship, sitting in Port Jackson, in the area we now know as Darling Harbour.

Maybe I'd better clarify. The money was for my plane ticket from Phoenix to Sydney, Australia. I truly and honestly time traveled, but I went forward a day (I never experienced January 8, 2014). My intent was to go back 235 years, sort of. I flew to the land where the First Fleet arrived in 1788 in order to experience the terrain and climate those convicts, marines, and sailors encountered when they landed in the 'unknown to white man' region.

If you don't know about the First Fleet, I'm sure you will after reading my book, Fairies Down Under. It's still in process, but I will tell you that it's about a 21st century time traveler, wrongly convicted of a trivial crime, who winds up being transported from England to Australia rather than hang from the gallows.

And that ship in the picture above: that's the James Craig, the only full time tall ship sailing the world today. It's huge, takes quite the crew to sail it, and bounces over the waves like a carnival ride. Both make me sick, but I'd go back to Sydney in a heartbeat (and the 24 hour flight). I think I'll wait a year or so, though. I want to have my book completed for my next journey. Everyone Down Under knows about the First Fleet, but they don't know yet that a time traveler helped them survive that first year...

The Great Big Fairy is the story that precedes Fairies Down Under. If you haven't read it, here's a link. I really think you'll enjoy the story of another time traveler, the 21st century 6'7" red head who goes 'home' to Revolutionary War era North Carolina, to the time traveling family he left behind.

NOTE: I already know of at least one way to time travel. If you know of others, please share. I promise not to tell anyone else...

Hollywood and Vine to Darling Harbor?

Hollywood and Vine? Yup, we have that intersection up here in Alaska, too...Wasilla, to be exact. It’s not my jumping off place, but it’s close.

And, in case you didn't know, Darling Harbor is in Australia: Sydney, New South Wales.

The airfare and hotel are booked and paid for. January 12th, 2014, I will be in Sydney. After taking a day to adjust to the time difference and the 23 1/2 hours spent in the air or in airports, I’ll be walking the same beaches as did those First Fleeters (is that correct terminology?): the convicts and mariners who first set foot on Australian soil to establish a colony for England in 1788. 

I'm going south (just about everywhere in the world is south from where I live in Alaska) to research FAIRIES DOWN UNDER, the fifth book in THE FAIRIES SAGA. 

I’ve read volumes, both online at websites and in paper and e-books, but I want to ‘feel’ the air in January, smell the trees and dirt (arboretums, here I come), feel the ocean beneath my feet. You see, even though I am very prone to seasickness, I will even sail on a big ship, the 1874 barque James Craig, to get as close as I can to being in the shoes of one of my time travelers.

Oh, and it will be deep into our Alaskan winter, with only 6 hours of daylight, when I go down to the middle of a Sydney summer. Counting down, just over 100 days left!

Free stuff can be priceless

No, it's not an Easter gift (well, not really), or a bribe to encourage warm spring weather to come to Alaska  (I doubt anything would work for that!), or an homage to the writing muses.

I'm giving away free copies of the e-book version of The Great Big Fairy: Back Again (part one of three parts). It's a painless, priceless way to see if you like my style of writing. I figure that if you like it, you'll tell others and (hopefully) will give me a good review or thumbs up, encouraging other readers to purchase my books. Hey, what can I say? I'm a capitalist at heart, and would love to quit my day job and write for a living.

And you get to find out how to time travel...at least according to the HOOTT (Haviland Opinion Of Time Travel)!

A free, extended preview of part two (TGBF: The Bartered Woman) is included at the end of part one.

Tell your friends and Facebook buddies, Twitter to all (please), that Easter weekend is their chance to snag a 'Great Big Fairy' for free.

click below to go to Amazon:
Free 'The Great Big Fairy: Back Again (Part One)

(Here I am, giving a print copy of the full book to Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski. All three parts of The Great Big Fairy is available as a complete e-book from Amazon, or hard copy from Amazon and other booksellers)

Thanks for serving, Senator Murkowski!

Blake Shelton as Benji

Every author has a visual image of her characters in her head. If she finds the right words, her readers will see whom she sees, too.

Okay, that's a perfect world. If books did it all, no one would ever go to the movies.

So, here's a shortcut, a cheat if you will. Blake Shelton was my inspiration for Benji, THE GREAT BIG FAIRY. Oh, and if you didn't already know, fairies are time travelers.

I needed someone tall, blue-eyed, red haired, and with dimples. Well, Blake Shelton is three out four...or four out of four if a box of Nice 'N Easy is thrown in. And my Benji loves to sing. Would that make Blake a five out of four?

Buy or borrow THE GREAT BIG FAIRY on Amazon and spend time with the good humored, gorgeous hunk of male, Benji MacKay, the 6'7" former wrestler and reluctant porn star as he seeks a way to return to the 18th century. And find out what happens once he's there and why it is so important he come back to the 21st century.

Thanks for looking,

Dani Haviland, author

THE FAIRIES SAGA

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Fairy-Fairies-Saga-ebook/dp/B005ITNIPM

p.s. I don't know who took the photo; photographer and source weren't identified on Google, but thanks for sharing.

Happiness and goals: gifts we give ourselves

The 'Wake up in the morning with a smile' virus 

It’s been four years now and I’m still smitten with the happiness virus. Mine is fed by giving in to my love of writing. Such happiness is not to be cured, but should be spread. Fortunate is she who has found her love and followed it. My advice to others: if you have something—a talent or maybe just a strong desire—that causes you to awaken with a grin, embrace it, cultivate it, and share it. It might be good for others, too. 

Writing is my happiness. Sharing is my privilege. As of December 2012, I have composed four and a half novels (and published two of them), penned numerous novellas, spent a week in and about Greensboro, North Carolina for the sole purpose of research (it’s the home zone of most of my stories), purchased and/or downloaded dozens of research books, and cut and pasted countless rows into my Excel database of storylines for THE FAIRIES SAGA. I compulsively jot random plots, quotes, and themes into notebooks or tap them onto my smart phone, saving them for (possible) inclusion in future works. Writing is still my happiness.

Goals are gifts we give ourselves and my next one is to travel to Australia in January 2014. Part of FAIRIES DOWN UNDER, the fifth in my series, transpires in January 1788 with the arrival of The First Fleet, the ships laden with prisoners transported from England to Australia. I want to endure the climate at the same time of year as did those hardy men and women, touch and smell the exotic flora, tread those historic sites, investigate the museums, and barefoot those seashores.  It’s also a great time and place for research since I’ll be leaving Alaska in the icy gloom of winter to spend a couple of weeks in sunny, summertime Sydney.

Give yourself a gift, a small goal, not one of monetary gain, but of seeking happiness. Singing, sewing, serving others: do what truly makes you happy. A song written for the church choir, a cap crocheted for a new baby, a book of poems for your mother, mowing the lawn for the old couple next door. These are simple gifts; gifts to yourself, and also for others.

Happiness is ours to create, culture, and ultimately, to share.

Dani Haviland, author

The Fairies Saga

www.danihaviland.com

Roses from 2011. A lousy summer, but still there was beauty.

Found: Proof that time travel exists!

I saw it in today’s (November 9, 2012) Anchorage Daily News. If it was published in an accredited periodical, it has to be true, right?

Of course, one had to read between the lines to see what Ken Bensinger of the Los Angeles Times was really saying. The headline read: ‘Number crunchers were right despite what pundits said’ and was meant to reveal that mathematicians “called the presidential race and a slew of smaller contests with stunning accuracy.” Mr. Bensinger believes mathematicians gathered data from Gallup, Rasmussen, and other polls taken throughout the election campaign and then used computers to, well, I’m not sure how they did it, but supposedly, these math wizards accurately called all the Electoral College votes and dozens of smaller, local elections.

I say they simply jumped forward in time a month, maybe only a week, and read the November 7^th newspaper.

After all, if a time machine were built, wouldn’t super brainiac mathematicians be involved somewhere? Don’t those guys have a club or secret gang or something they belong to, Mensa maybe?  True, time travel to the past would be easier, but finding a focal point a mere week into the future wouldn’t be too risky. I’m sure the math brigade could find a volunteer brave enough to risk jumping forward a few days to gather information so they could ‘verify’ their results. If they had goofed up on a prediction or two, they could tweak the data to make sure their credibility was secure.

Now, put on your super-geek suit, master mathematician, and leap forward far enough to find the cure to cancer and world hunger. I don’t think anyone could go forward far enough to find the cure for meanness or stupidity; they’ll probably be around forever.

Dani Haviland, author
The Fairies Saga
www.danihaviland.com

(picture above snapped last week in Greensboro, NC while on a fact finding mission).

Feeding fact to fiction

I'm here in beautiful High Point, just outside of Greensboro, NC proper, to research the local 'feel' and visit a few of the museums and parks in the area. I wanted to make sure I wasn't goofing up on, well, I had no idea where I needed help, so came to make sure I wasn't misrepresenting anything or anyone, living or dead.

I left the gate at Ted Stevens International Airport in the wee hours on Sunday October 28, 2012 with all the monitors providing news updates about the impending tsunami approaching the Sitka area and arrived twelve hours later (finally) at Greensboro Airport with their bright boxes warning about Hurricane Sandy and her cousins, the winter storms from Canada, who would be arriving in a couple of days. Coast to coast chaos: what a time to travel!

For right now, the power is still on, a cool, wet wind is blowing outside, and I am snuggled under a deep comforter here at The Inn at Greensboro Airport, blogging after fine tuning my itinerary for my fact checking tour. I had to switch the order of a few investigative sites because I didn't want to travel west to the mountains on Tuesday. Snow is expected and, although I have lots of experience with driving on that cold and slippery 'stuff,' I'm not too sure about everyone else. I'll spend Tuesday inside the many museums in the area, safe, warm, and dry.

Feeding fact to fiction: My first book, NAKED IN THE WINTER WIND, starts on October 30, 2012. I wrote the story four years ago and postdated it. I needed at least two of my characters to have solar-powered cell phones. They didn't have them (that I could find) in 2008. Guess what? They have them now. Although they aren't common in the US, they are available elsewhere and are in the hands of two of my lovely ladies of fiction. So, since it has already taken so long to get this story into digital readers, I decided to wait a couple more months and make everything factual. The weather reports: they'll be in there. Anything else that happens here in Greensboro, up until Halloween night, will be, too.

Oh, and the picture below is totally random. I'm not using my own computer, but did have a picture of a couple of wild and crazy teenagers (my daughter is the one who can't decide on a hair color) getting ready for Zombie Fest.

I'm hoping the next book will be out in a month or so. I just have to get my editor to make his suggestions and then it's out there on Amazon (e-book version will come first)

Adios!
Dani Haviland, author
The Fairies Saga
www.danihaviland.com