Ring of the Ice Queen

Paperback and E-Book ready to buy.

James Mace — Fri, 21 May 2010 08:46:26 +0000

The novel is now with the publisher and available to either download, or to buy as a paperback.

Artwork Commissioned

James Mace — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:43:39 +0000

After seeing the artwork of Jesus Garcia Lopez on Matt Bridger’s site I decided to see if I could commission him to produce artwork for this site and the book cover. Having sent him a description of what I wanted he returned a sketch to me which I liked. I have now officially commissioned him to re-create a scene from the story and eagerly await news from him that it is complete.

When the artwork arrives it will of course be on display on this site.

If you would like to see examples of the artist’s work, go to the links page for a link to his site.

Proof Reading Complete

James Mace — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:58:51 +0000

I’ve had my work back from the proof reader which is good news. The bad news is that the formating template I pasted my work into is causing all sorts of problems with chapter headers not presenting correctly. I’m going to have to go back to my original Rich Text File and make the alterations suggested by the proof reader to that. Then I’m going to try a different template to paste into. Hopefully that will sort out the formating problems.

Domain Name Added

James Mace — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:47:36 +0000

Back in July I registered ringoftheicequeen.com having first trying to register ringoftheicequeen.co.uk When I went to register the co.uk name someone was sitting on it, which was a bit of a surprise. I wasn’t too concerned since the dot.com was more prestigious. Anyway, today, having been sent and offer by LCN.COM to register a co.uk for £2.50 per year, I decided to give it another try. To my surprise the co.uk was now available. So I went ahead and registered it for two years.

The good thing about this is that www.ringoftheicequeen.co.uk is already sitting in the directories of a number of search engines, because I registered it originally around 2005. So now people who find the entries made at that time, can now find their way to my new site.

All things come to he who waits!

Acer Aspire One

James Mace — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 09:52:06 +0000

I wanted a more portable device on which to work on my stories, when I am away from my desk. Previously I had used a Palm. There was no keyboard, so I had to “type” using a stylus. I got quite proficient with it, but the screen of the device became marked where the tip of the stylus had been striking it. Another problem arose when I had it taken from my home last September.

I did have a laptop, but that was heavy and the battery life was very poor.

In March of 2009 I bought an Acer Aspire One with a 16gb solid state hard drive. This has proved to be a very good little machine. Although I wasn’t too keen on the linux operating system, I was used to working with Open Office Writer which the netbook came with. I liked the fact that it’s keyboard was of the right proportions, enabling me to type comfortably. The battery life is pretty good too. Working on word processing it can last up to 3 hours, which is adequate for me.

The main drawback with it I found was the Linux operating system. If you are not familiar with it, it can be a big problem trying to install any new program you may want.

A friend of mine also has the same model and decided to put XP on it. He formatted it with the NTFS file system and it worked so abysmally slow, that he re-installed linux. He told me he has since learned that this model prefers Fat 32 as the file system for it to work with XP.

Sequel

James Mace — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 09:37:29 +0000

Well, I’ve been at a bit of a loss with what to do with myself as I wait for the proof reading and the commissioned artwork to be completed. So I’ve decided to start work on a sequel. This story follows Anya as she makes her way through the new and undiscovered lands that lie over the top of the globe.

Fantasy Art

James Mace — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:17:15 +0000

As a writer of fantasy stories it should come as no surprise that fantasy art is one of my passions. I started out with the art of Boris Valejo. I bought a couple of his books back in the 1980’s and one day showed them to some of the people I was sharing a flat with. But none of them were interested. In fact a young woman, who was part of our circle of friends, found them decidedly disturbing and never looked at me in the same light again.

But later I discovered the work of Luis Royo and one of my favourites Dorian Cleavenger. I bought three of the latter’s books directly from him and they were signed copies. In fact I have one of them for sale in my Amazon shop. If you’re interested, just clcik on the link below to take you directly to the relevant page.

New Works and Visions of Dorian Cleavenger Vol. 2

Progress 2

James Mace — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:22:01 +0000

The proof reading is I think going to take longer than the 2 weeks I said earlier. My proof reader has work of his own to do, so I’ll just have to be patient.

I am busying myself with creating maps for this site. I’ve done two so far. Take a look!

Progress 1

James Mace — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:14:39 +0000

Having finished my re-write of the 6th draft of this novel, I have now sent it off to the proof reader. So I’ll probably have a couple of weeks to wait before he gets back to me.

In the mean time I’m putting together my web site. Which is slowly taking shape, though not having the art work I wanted to hand it is a bit of a problem.

I bought my domain name yesterday. ringoftheicequeen.com will take you to the main site

I originally wanted ringoftheicequeen.co.uk which I had used a few years ago, but found that someone had bought it. Which was a bit disconcerting.