Penny’s Two Cents by Penny Orloff

 

When I was a child, my mother’s family was five generations deep, five generations alive at the same time. Some of those people lived well over a hundred years. They were living history. Their stories and the stories they told of their ancestors’ ancestors were part of a six-thousand-year-old oral tradition.

By the time I was seven, I was consciously collecting stories that had been in the family for generations. I became a reliquary. I would guard and preserve these treasures for the generations to come. And when I grew up, I would be one of those Old Storytellers. 

I soaked up random memories from my grandma’s childhood in Russia, my dad’s memories of his long years at the orphanage, my great-grandmother's tale of her youngest child, my grandma’s little brother Georgie, running off to be a gangster—which I later realized was how my mom and dad eventually met each other.

At the family table, it was understood that nobody under the minimum age of 40 had anything to say of any imaginable interest or importance. Shah, shtil! Shut up and listen—you’ll learn something. Those people had outlived the pogroms, the post-WWI influenza epidemic, the great depression, Hitler. They had survived to tell the tales. So would I.

Early on, I was aware of creating the Old Storyteller character I imagined I could be. I had lots of tribal elders as role models among my mother’s mishpochah: very old musicians who’d played forever (I still have the violin that belonged to my grandfather’s grandfather). Very old singers of songs from a hundred years past (I still have Russian and Yiddish songs that belonged to my grandmother’s Grandma Masha).

They had their way of doing Old Age. And some day, I would do that. I would be that.

Time has chipped away at the sharp corners, sanded down the jagged edges, smoothed out the rough and rocky terrain that was a younger Penny. I am “colorful” and “eccentric” now, instead of weird. I realize I haven’t been in a fistfight in over 20 years. PS: I always fought above my weight class. You don’t wanna mess with me…

Cinderella has become the Fairy Godmother. Sometimes, from here, I look back on a younger me, and I remind her who she’ll be when the scars are healed, when the back-against-the-wall fight to the death has ended in survival, when the foolish, forever life-altering choice has given the inevitable result.

More than any successes—and there have been great successes—I realize that, during every meaningful challenge, from time to time this Me I have become used to appear to the girl who was becoming, and said, “Hey, Pen, look who you get to be!”

I didn’t know all the strange details of the journey to that future Me, but I must say I’m about where I expected to be. This is Autumn. This is the Harvest. The wounds are healed. I like my scars. My heart has been broken. And broken again. And will break, again.

One of the great gifts of Age is permission to tell the truth. Another is independence from the good opinion of other people. At 75, although certainly mellower I still feel like the snarky little me I have been, all along. But, sometimes, when I catch an unexpected glimpse of myself in a mirror across the room, I’m astonished to see this old gal, this Old Storyteller I always imagined I would be.

If you’re going to tell people the truth, be funny or they’ll kill you.—Billy Wilder 

NEW RELEASE: Your Forgotten Sons - by Anne Montgomery

Find it on Amazon HERE

Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares to enter World War II in 1943.

A chance comment has Bud assigned to the Graves Registration Service, where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine: a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose shadowy past leaves many unanswered questions.

When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva's love be enough to save him? 

New Release: I'm looking for people who can't write good - by Dan Baldwin

Find it on Amazon HERE

Topics include: Writing Into The Dark, Beginnings-Muddles-Endings, Indie vs. Traditional Publishing, Ghostwriting, Copyright and Contracts, Handling Isms, the Myths of Rewriting, Character Development, Marketing and Promotion, Dialog, Narrative, Your Gut Knows More Than Your Brain, The Best Job in the World, Mistakes I Made Told So You Don’t Have to Make Them—over 125 tips, hints, and warnings. The Santiago Mysteries author Ron Wick says, “Authors, future authors, and wannabe authors: Dan Baldwin's I’m Looking for People Who Can’t Write Good is an on-target treatment for the details of good writing. His style is like having a chat with a colleague about the craft. His pearls of wisdom come in depth, have great examples and a touch of humor. Read and learn.”

"Dan Baldwin, in his understated brilliance, has caught the essence of what it means to be a writer and how to go about doing it even if you’ve never written more than a few sentences in a letter to a friend. There are so many anecdotes and stories from his extensive experience that you will find yourself laughing and taking notes at the same time.

"Throughout the sections he delves into all the various areas needed to be a successful writer. You will not lack for information when you read Dan’s book. You absolutely don’t want to miss this, get your copy now and START WRITING!" -

~ Mary Ann Carmen, Paranormal Mystery Author

Dan Baldwin is a ghostwriter with more than 50 business books to his credit. He is also a novelist who has six published Westerns, three mysteries, a political/crime-thriller, and two short story collections, and four non-fiction works on the paranormal. Awards for his novels include:

Finalist - National Indie Excellence Award for Caldera III-A Man of Blood and Trapp Canyon.

Finalist - New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards for Sparky and the King and Bock's Canyon

Winner - New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards for They Are Not Yet Lots - a non-fiction work about psychic detecting.

The paranormal investigative book (with Dwight and Rhonda Hull) Speaking with the Spirits of the Old Southwest -Conversations with Miners, Outlaws, and Pioneers Who Still Roam Ghost Towns will be published by Lewellyn Worldwide in May, 2018

He is an avid hiker, especially in Arizona's Superstition Mountains and the Mogollon Rim country. He "plays at" the Native American flute and the kalimba. Check out Dan's work on his fiction web page www.fourknightspress.com and his non-fiction site www.danbaldwin.com.

Louis Braille By Wayne Winterton, PhD

 

WHILE PLAYING IN HIS FATHER’S LEATHER SHOP, three-year-old Louis Braille tried to push an awl into a piece of leather, as he had seen his father effortlessly do many times. With his face much too close to the action, the awl slipped and, in a blinding second, the point of the tool penetrated deep into one of his eyes.

His parents rushed him to the local doctor. But in 1812, there was little hope and even less knowledge about antibiotics. The perforated eye was lost, and an uncontrollable infection ate away at the remaining eye shortly afterward. 

Louis, intelligent and creative, was blind by his fifth birthday. However, he coped with his blindness well, first with help from his three older siblings and later with the use of walking canes made by his father. He attended school with sighted children until the age of ten, when he was invited to enroll in one of the world's first schools for blind children, the Royal Institute for Blind Youth.

Linguist Valentin Haüy had established the Institute in 1785 as a trade school in which blind students learned to weave and to make their own school uniforms. They made and sold items to the public, including fishing nets, chair cushions, and buggy whips. They even learned to play musical instruments and were in demand for public performances. But for Louis, the skill he treasured most was reading.

Reading was taught through a system devised by Haüy in which large books, some so heavy they couldn’t be lifted, could be read by tracing the shapes of the letters of the alphabet with the fingers. Each letter had to be felt and interpreted, the letters and words stored in the reader’s memory until the sentence was clear. Unfortunately, the first words of a sentence were often lost before the last words could be interpreted, making the system slow and inefficient.

At the time of Louis’s enrollment in 1819, the school library contained fourteen books. As slow as the reading was, Louis quickly read every book and asked, “Where are the other books that blind persons can read?” 

From young Louis’s point of view, the more significant problem was that there was no way for a blind person to hand produce Haüy’s embossed characters. At 12, Louis wanted not only to read but to write as well, and he knew it had to be possible. The beginnings of that possibility were already under development by a military officer, Charles Barbier, at the French Royal Military Academy in Paris, following the annihilation of an army post when a French soldier had exposed his squad’s position by lighting a lamp to read a military dispatch. 

Captain Barbier called his experimental writing Ecriture Nocturne (Night Writing), using a system loosely based on Samuel Morse’s Morse Code, in which up to eight dots and dashes were used to represent characters of the French alphabet. Barbier’s writing used an embossing tool to form the Morse Code’s dots and dashes on a moistened sheet of heavy paper.

Louis Braille 

 In 1823, Louis Braille and other top students demonstrated Haüy’s system at a French Museum of Science and Industry event. Captain Barbier was there to demonstrate his Night Writing to the participants. When Barbier gave Louis a copy of his system, the boy knew he had found the foundation for a language of his own. Within a year he had reduced the dots-per-character from twelve to six and begun to write on heavy paper with a pointed, awl-like stylus—not unlike the one that had blinded him as a child. It would take 100 years before the world would adopt his system. But eventually, Braille became the preferred method for written communication for the blind.

Louis Braille never left the National Institute for Blind Youth. Instead, he became one of the school’s most dedicated teachers. One week before he died in 1852, he dictated his Last Will and Testament, giving his wealth to his family and his clothing and a few personal items to his students. The will included a peculiar request: that a certain wooden box in his room be “burned to ashes” without being opened. After his funeral, when it came time to burn the box curiosity got the best of his family. Opening it, they found hundreds of promissory notes in Braille from students who had borrowed money from their generous teacher over the years.

Wayne Winterton, PhD

Wayne Winterton began his career in 1963 as a public school teacher, and later as the principal of two schools on the Navajo Reservation (Lake Valley, and Dzilth-na-o-dith-hle). He was also the Superintendent of the Albuquerque Indian High School, the Superintendent of Schools for the Northern Pueblos Agency (northern New Mexico), and during 1978-79, he served as the interim President of the Institute of American Indian Arts, a junior college in Santa Fe. In 1986, he joined the staff of the Bureau of Land Management’s National Training Center in Phoenix as the Division Chief for Administrative and Media Services, and later, as Center Director before his retirement in 2004 with 41 years of public service.

Polishing the novel, my favorite part of the writing process - by Vijaya Schartz

 

After lots of research, after sweating the plot, the character motivations and conflicts, the surprises and roadblocks along the way, the setting, the technology, and all the details that come into creating a good story, my favorite part of writing is what some writers hate: the “rewriting.” I prefer to call it “Polishing.” It’s an opportunity to take a story and make it better.

I like to watch the credits at the end of movies to see how many screenwriters were involved. The more writers, the better the script, the better the lines, the better the character development, the better the story. These are my favorite stories. Even in a movie, I like good writing.

Now that I went through several rewrites for each chapter, got feedback from my critique partner, there is still much work to do.

I spent several months with my free-thinking tiger-riding Valkyrie and the strong disciplined angel who oversees her, I know them well. I have discovered things about them I would never have suspected when I started writing the novel. I have found deep emotional connections in their past, and I have come to love and understand them. They are my children and I want them to do well, grow, and find their happiness.

But this can only happen after I make them suffer, sacrifice, and deserve their final reward. Although I do not enjoy the suffering, it is a necessary phase of their evolution.

This stage of writing is the reward for me. No more stress about deadlines, or whether or not the story will come together at the end. I can finally relax into the polishing, adding texture, flavor, color, emotion, and a deeper meaning to each scene, each paragraph, each character. I can go back to the beginning and implement the quirks they developed while I was writing.

I will also add a few scenes, flashbacks, dreams, to bring more layers to the story.

Some early secondary characters have become more important as the story developed, and now deserve a name and a little more time in the spotlight. The villains also deserve a chance to explain themselves. No one is totally good or totally evil. We are all shades of gray… even the red devil from another universe threatening to take over our galaxy.

ANGEL REVENGE, Book 3 of the Blue Phantom series, will be released in October 2024. “An unruly Valkyrie on a flying tiger, a stern angel in love with the rules, and evil knocking at the gate… what could go wrong?”

amazon - B&N - Smashwords - Kobo

In the meantime, catch up with the first two novels in the Blue Phantom series: ANGEL SHIP and ANGEL GUARDIAN: There is a phantom ship that glows like a beacon in black space, appears and vanishes, and never registers on scanners. Rumors say it will save the righteous, the oppressed, and the downtrodden… and slay the unworthy without mercy. The space pirates fear it. Their victims pray for it... but its help comes at a price... 

Happy Reading.

Vijaya Schartz, award-winning author

Strong Heroines, Brave Heroes, cats

http://www.vijayaschartz.com

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New Release: Nostalgia - Stars of Yesteryear - by Jack Hawn

Find it on Amazon HERE

 How can I not publicly compliment the designers of that front cover, folks? That should attract some attention, especially with Frank Sinatra, and Muhammad Ali flexing his muscles, the Andrews Sisters, Big-Band leader Les Brown, and the framed photo of Dinah Shore and me above my computer. This unique book is a reprint of interviews and articles about famous stars of yesteryear I wrote about for the Los Angeles Times, from which I retired more than thirty-five years ago. All or nearly all are deceased now, which might explain why a 94-year-old would undertake such a project. 

Now in the twilight of my writing career, I decided that a third book following Blind Journey: A Journalist's Memoirs and its sequel, Insomnia: Two Wives, Childhood Memories and Crazy Dreams, would simply be too much work. 

Among the fifty-plus articles in my book, Nostalgia: Stars of Yesteryear, is a feature on the McGuire Sisters, one of my best-loved trios. 

Titled “An Unforgotten Affair—Las Vegas, 1985” the story details my meeting with the ageless trio in their Hilton Hotel room.

I met the McGuire sisters—the "Sugartime” sweethearts—when they returned to the spotlight, appearing at the Las Vegas Hilton after a 17-year hiatus. For Christine, Phyllis, and Dorothy, it was as if time had stood still. Sleek, sexy, and glittering as always, they still harmonized like angels, chattered like giggly teenagers, and drew packed houses wherever they performed. 

When I stepped off the elevator on the 29th floor of the Hilton en-route to interview them, I was escorted to their suite by a gun-packing bodyguard. The sisters were extremely security-conscious then, courtesy of an erstwhile link with the underworld—Phyllis' legendary love affair with Mafia boss Sam Giancana. 

 Phyllis wasn't opposed to providing details of how she had met him and been almost immediately hooked by his charm. It had been an exciting relationship, but she didn't dwell on it. She had loved him. Period. 

 For her sisters Christine and Dorothy to remain silent while the leader of the trio dominated the interview was impossible. After seventeen years of virtual silence following Giancana’s murder in 1975, all three had a lot to update— sometimes all speaking at once. 

 Besides being one of my favorite trios, those beautiful, bubbly, non-stop talking young women were one of my favorite interviews recorded in this book.

My Name Ain’t Nobody by Dan Baldwin

 

I recently heard a new-ish writer complain that “nobody knows me, so I’ll never make it as a published writer.” That last bit about making it may be true. Success depends on many factors, but being a nobody isn’t one of them—unless the writer decides to make it so. At one time nobody had ever heard of Mark Twain, Hemmingway, Harper Lee, Jack Kerouac, Isaac Asimov, or Stephen King. As writers each of us starts from the same starting line of public awareness. Such awareness requires that the writer accomplish five basic tasks.

#1: Write a good story. That’s easy in the sense that writing is a joy; it’s the easiest job in the world. Writing does require discipline. To enjoy, and I mean to really enjoy the fun of writing, you have to have a daily schedule and you have to stick to it. Writing well develops over time, and the skill improves with age. The more you write, the better writer you become.

#2: Share the wealth. The worst judge of a writer’s work is the writer. The success of the work depends on the readers, on the market. It’s important for the writer to forget any qualms about being good or successful or recognized. Publish! Put the work on the market, forget about it, and move on to the next story.

#3: Become your own force multiplier. A force multiplier is something that increases the power of a single person, unit, or army. A writer’s force multiplier is his ability to produce more work. One-hit-wonders occur, but that’s no way to earn a living, support a lifestyle, or become known as a successful writer. Once readers find your story—and some will— they will want more. It’s the writer’s job to make sure that their readers’ desire for more is fulfilled. If they can’t find more, they move on to someone who is more disciplined and who produces sequels, prequels, and a continual stream of new works.

#4: Play the long game. Publishing today is easier, faster, and more profitable for the author than at any time in history, but the writer seeking fame and a fast buck will be disappointed. I can write a novel and have it published around the world within 30-45 days of handing the manuscript over to my designer/formatter. But my thinking is never focused on weeks or months. I think in terms of years—and I mean five-years-down-the-road thinking.

#5: Call your own shots. As noted, you must write to a schedule. Study writing, publishing, marketing, and something completely removed from writing (to keep your mind stimulated). Learn the ins and outs of publishing. The publishing world is still in turmoil over the Indie publishing revolution. As hustler Tony Curtis said in Operation Petticoat, “In confusion, there is profit.” Thanks to this confusion, writers have more options than ever. Use them to your advantage. Learn all you can about contracts and copyrights, covers and formatting, promotion and marketing. It takes time, and it’s all part of playing the long game.

Remember, each of us bolts from the same anonymity at the literary starting line. How far you go after the starter’s gun depends solely on you.

The author of westerns, mysteries, thrillers, short story collections and books on the paranormal, Dan Baldwin has won numerous local, regional, and national awards for writing and directing film and video projects. He earned an Honorable Mention from the Society of Southwestern Authors competition for his short story Flat Busted and was a finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards for Trapp Canyon and Caldera III— A Man of Blood. A finalist in the New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards for Sparky and the King, Baldwin won the 2017 Book Awards for Bock’s Canyon. His paranormal works are The Practical Pendulum—A Swinging Guide, Find Me as told to Dan Baldwin, They Are Not Yet Lost and How Find Me Lost Me—A Betrayal of Trust Told by the Psychic Who Didn’t See It Coming. They Are Not Yet Lost and How Find Me Lost Me both won the New Mexico-Arizona Book Competition. More at www.fourknightspress.com and www.danbaldwin.com 

I am not concerned that I am not known. I seek to be worthy to be known. —Confucius 

Building a Galaxy - Part III - by Daniel Dickinson

 

PART 3: Dickinson’s Domains

Having compared two approaches to building a fictional multi-verse or microcosm, we can see strengths and weaknesses between them. Tolkien was focused, drawn down, and stylish, with painstaking attention to details of individual objects as his characters discovered them in a scene. Gaimen allows the alternate worlds and their accompanying distortions of time not only to become integral parts of the story but, sometimes, to dictate the narrative. When I began writing the world my characters would one day inhabit, I made the conscious effort to create a domain that could live and breathe without the interference of my characters.

I set off on my journey into that world when I was twelve years old, typing away on the family computer. The atmosphere generated in the monochrome, Lotus 1-2-3 lighting began to fill with character descriptions—their likes and dislikes materialized next to height, weight, and weapon of choice. I wrote their names for the first time, solidifying them in a reality all their own. A cosmos born from a single spark of my young imagination flowered into a galaxy-spanning universe full of diverse life, waiting to be discovered. My willingness to write down every detail gave me freedom to explore the crevices of the universe I had germinated and gave me license to move about unhindered by research of histories, religions, governments, and cultures.

With each new layer I was compelled to ask a greater scope of questions. How had this world come into being? Who or what did the denizens worship, where had their gods come from, how did time work? Did it matter if I answered those questions? Absolutely not! Should it matter to you? Your call.

There is no wrong way to accomplish world-building. For example, in my alternate world are gods and goddesses, as well as eldritch gods—gods beyond the perception of time and space. Here is an illustration from Chapter 52 of my upcoming novel, The Apostate Jester:

“Her mind focused on the missing piece of her soul that was dedicated to the goddess; and, with stark realization she knew that above all else, this was the one thing she needed. She was taught in the seminary that there were gods of good, pure light—kind, giving. And there were gods of darkness—vile, corrupt. But to have them come together in truce while facing something foreign, like a malignant tumor in the void of some distant, forgotten space, was something new. It was hard for her to comprehend. It made her question the balance of everything, her faith in the divine order of things, good versus evil, right versus wrong.” 

At the beginning of this series, I offered the likeliest issue most fiction writers grapple with: “Where do I start?” If size seems daunting, start small: As Tolkien did, focus in on the characters and unfold the world around them as they, themselves, discover it for the first time. Or go Gaimen-wild: Build a galaxy of information inhabited by dozens of worlds, each waiting to be written about. Or begin with your own experience, expand on it, use the knowledge you gain every day to build a fictional realm within the tangible world you live in.

But start with a question. Any question. You can focus on a grain of sand: What color is it? Is it coarse or smooth? Does it belong on a beach somewhere or a desert? Does that beach have rocks? Are there cliffs nearby? Then ask the next question: Is this where your character starts his journey, or might it be the beginning of a world that suddenly blossoms into something greater? Eventually, you may find yourself in an enigmatic realm like the Space Between:

“It was hard to let his guard down anymore. Leo wondered if he would ever be able to let go, should they finally make it out of this situation. Everything he had ever known about the world seemed somehow insignificant while they traversed the Space Between. Every shadow held dangers; and since entering the monstrous tower, he felt even more on edge—as if millions of eyes were watching them” (Chapter 52 - The Apostate Jester).

There were no epiphanies during the process; however, I experienced an overwhelming sense of accomplishment as I added layer upon layer into the world I began to craft. I felt eager to jump in and cultivate that domain. Land masses shifted to make room for more islands and continents. Peoples, monsters, magics, gods, bloomed into entire gardens of lore and resources I could pull from.

Of course there were setbacks: hard drives fail, files become corrupted, whole sections are lost. But each time, I found it easier and easier to replace the missing portions because the world had already come alive—it could even mend itself whenever my meddling grew too destructive.

The process was not effortless. There were times when I had to step away to contemplate a particular need for a section of lore. And sometimes I forgot the brilliant idea by the time I sat down to type it out. Don’t let the frustrations of the process overwhelm you. Every step forward is an accomplishment. 

As a rule, I would never suggest taking notes—it interrupts the creative flow. But it can be very useful during world building. Keep a small note pad with you and jot down ideas as they come to you, to be fleshed out later. Create a wiki page, or a compendium of your world. 

 Making manifestly untrue things believable and deep is a process that involves burrowing into your imagination. Be aware of your daydreams and use them to develop and expand the invented world you’re building. By expanding or contracting the boundaries of the cosmos your characters inhabit, you can choose the right size for yourself and your narrative. Let mistakes happen. Don’t be afraid to tear a world down and start over, keeping what you like. Imagination has no limits. Ask your own questions, expand on those I’ve provided. And in a galaxy that has no constant, realize that time is relative, there is no end. 

Relax and enjoy the journey. 

WORLD ARCHITECTS

Building Fantasy Worlds Workshop

Presented by Daniel Dickinson Zoom Workshop

Saturday, August 17, 2024 10:00 AM MST

Contact arizonaauthorsassociation@gmail.com to Register 

Take a captivating journey of creativity and imagination in the Arizona Author’s Association Workshop on world-building, designed for writers, storytellers, and enthusiasts eager to craft rich and detailed fictional worlds. Throughout the workshop, participants will delve into the fundamental elements of world-building, exploring intricate aspects such as geography, cultures, history, politics, and magic systems. 

Engaging discussions and hands-on exercises will guide attendees in shaping unique and believable realms, fostering a deep understanding of the interconnected elements that breathe life into a fictional universe. Join us and unlock the building blocks to creating immersive and unforgettable fictional spaces.

Beginning at the age of ten, Arizona native Daniel Dickinson has spent a lifetime inventing realistic realms for his fictional characters. His fantasy world, Xonthian—created during his teen years—is an entire domain that allows his characters’ journeys to unfold in a diverse setting. He enjoys giving educational presentations about world-building and fantasy genres, in general. Daniel’s published works include the short story, Escape from Ogre Island; a two-story horror book, Don’t Close Your Eyes: Two Thrilling Tales of Terror; Aggression Factor; and Gathering Tide. Upcoming: The Apostate Jester. https://www.tigerforce.net/ https://www.amazon.com/author/ddickinson W

rite to Daniel at: danield@tigerforce.net 

New Release: Leaning into curves - by Linda Sandel Pettit

 

Find it on Amazon   HERE

International Speaker, author, and mentor, Dr. Linda Sandel Pettit has written a compelling tale of an intuitive intelligence that guides us through life— mystical, magical, and practical. LEANING INTO CURVES is a story of hope that our journeys through life can be sure-footed when we listen from and follow the way of the heart, the beingness of love. LEANING INTO CURVES is, first, a love story. It is a poignant tale of forbidden love between a 24-year-old woman and a Catholic missionary priest twice her age; of two souls who crossed the boundaries of religious beliefs and dogma to honor their hearts. It is a tale of crushing loss when a tragic car accident on Christmas Eve ends their earthly relationship. It is tale of one woman’s trust in the spiritual wisdom unfolding from her soul to guide her through suffering and death to a new love. Available at

LEANING INTO CURVES is one woman’s search for the sacred feminine, divine female power. It is a candid, insightful and lyrical story of transformation that explores: judgment and forgiveness, separation and connection, desire and surrender, mystery and miracles, intuition and synchronicity, and faith and love.

With over five decades dedicated to writing, four decades immersed in counseling psychology, and two decades serving as a spiritual mentor, Dr. Linda brings a wealth of experience and expertise to her writing, speaking and client work. She holds a doctorate in counseling psychology, a master’s degree in counselor education and a bachelor’s degree in journalism. More at www.lindasandelpettit.com   

Martial arts in my action-packed science fiction novels - by Vijaya Schartz

 

Preview of my upcoming novel's cover (October 2024)
Find more of my books on my website HERE

Once a Martial artist, always a Martial artist. My fascination with Martial arts started early. I remember being the smallest in my Judo and Karate Club as an early teen, in France, learning the ropes from big men three times my size and weight. It made for good fun when we did David and Goliath public demonstrations, as the teacher pitted me against the tallest, biggest, baddest, strongest man in the club. The spectators cheered when I threw him across the mat.

I practiced other sports over the years, Gymnastics, surfing, skating, etc. But Martial Arts always remained on my mind.

Later, in Hawaii, I discovered Aikido and immersed myself in that discipline. There, too, we did public demonstrations, to show that technique and agility always overcame brute strength. For a 5-foot, one-hundred-pounds girl like me, it was the perfect equalizer. Then I learned to wield the sword, the long pole, the knife, the night-stick, and other weapons.

After many years of daily practice, I became the teacher. With age, I realized I didn’t have to take hard falls on the mat, day after day to keep my skills sharp. I moved to a more peaceful form of Martial Art, Tai-Chi.

But all these disciplines have become part of me, like a second nature. And, of course, this is reflected in my novels. Whether they are Samurai, bounty hunters, rebels, spaceship captains, Valkyries, Amazons, avenging angels, soldiers, or law enforcers, I write strong heroines and brave heroes, fighting for justice, to save the galaxy, or to defend what they love.

If you like action adventure with a hint of romance, check out my science fiction novels. Here are some recommendations. Find them on:

amazon - B&N - Smashwords - Kobo

amazon - B&N - Smashwords - Kobo

amazon - B&N - Smashwords - Kobo

Happy Reading!

Vijaya Schartz, award-winning author

Strong Heroines, Brave Heroes, cats

http://www.vijayaschartz.com

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Looking for Comp Titles Catching Up with a Whole Genre by Adrienne Miles

 

When it comes time to submit a manuscript for representation or publication, agents and publishers need to know where it fits among all the books that are currently being published. One bit of shorthand for this is a list of comparison titles, or “comps.”

Fair enough. That said, filling a box on a query form labeled "List some books that are similar to yours. (500 characters or less)" can be daunting to the uninitiated. Speculative fiction is only part of what I read, and for most of my adult life, my reading hours have been limited by, well, life.

What to do? I thought hard, perused Writer’s Digest’s gargantuan array of information and instruction, thumbed through several books, researched online, and pored over awards lists. I consulted the most recent Locus Recommended Reading List (https://locusmag.com/2024/02/2023-recommended-reading-list/)—which is awesome, by the way, for finding reading material. I found a zillion new favorite authors but no comps—at least nothing matchy-matchy, which is probably a good thing. But what was I supposed to type in that dratted rectangle on the query forms?

I started making headway at answering this question when I found the podcast, The Shit No One Tells You About Writing, whose delightful presenters critique real query letters submitted by listeners and often feature a guest speaker once the critiques are done. They have a Substack, too.

Then I discovered more agents who are actively demystifying the publishing process. I almost tripped over the Short Fuse Guides from Fuse Literary when researching agents to query. I sprang for the paid version of Kate McKean’s Substack, Agents and Books, when I read her post, “Don’t Be Dr. Frankenstein,” about comp titles because not only did that post answer my questions about comps, I learn something new every time she posts.

I learned some more at the Las Vegas Writers Conference in April 2023. They had an entire track on what to do with a finished manuscript.

One common thread running through almost all the advice I read or listened to was the recommendation to ask for help from a librarian to build a list of potential comparison titles. Then start reading. You want to make sure that the titles that look like comps actually are.

Duh. I’m a retired librarian; I have done reader advisory interviews by the bucketful. The tools for finding “readalikes” have not changed much since I retired, so I dug in.

First I did the lazy thing. I went to Goodreads, selected books that came close, and went to the “Readers Also Enjoyed” display at the foot of the screen. This can be tricky because that list appears to be a list of other books that people who clicked on your target book also clicked on. I’m not the only person in the universe with eclectic taste in literature. But once you’re in the ballpark, eliminating the obvious duds is pretty simple. Amazon and Overdrive have similar services; the same caveats apply. I also had a great time on fantasticfiction.com, looking for books my favorite authors recommend.

As I plowed through the lists, it occurred to me that looking for comp titles is a little like networking. The best networking is rarely focused; it happens when you live your life and pay attention to the people around you. With that in mind, I added titles to my to-be-read list that may or may not be comps but I think I’ll enjoy reading.

Then I went into librarian mode and dived into some databases my local public library makes available: Books and Authors, Literature Resource Center, Novelist, and WorldCat. Most aren’t free, but many public libraries offer free access for library card holders.

The gold standard for reader advisory, though, is finding somebody who knows the genre inside and out. Somebody like the sweet, motherly children’s librarian where I used to work. She was our resident authority on true crime books.

But wait! My local library lists a resource called Your Next Great Read in alphabetical order on its web page, right after WorldCat. It’s their own form. Fill it out with the names of books and authors close to what you seek, give them your email address and library card number, press submit, and it’ll be in the librarians’ inbox.

You bet I filled that form out. Sure enough, a living, breathing librarian sent me a list of authors to try. While some on the list are familiar, many are new to me and I can’t wait to read their work. 

If you are looking for me, I’ll have my nose in a book. I am re-learning the genre inside and out.

Adrienne Bengtson, who writes science fantasy as Adrienne Miles, picked back up her lifelong interest in writing after retiring from the U.S. Air Force and a 25- year career as a librarian. She is getting ready to publish her debut novel, Spider’s Wyrd, with Brick Cave Media later this year. In addition to reading and writing, she enjoys travel, hiking, fiber arts, and doting on her daughters, sons-in-law, and grandchildren. She plays Celtic traditional music on the penny whistle and keyless flute, and sometimes plays the great Highland bagpipes in public. She lives in Mesa with her husband and their cats. For more: https://adriennemiles.com

New Release: Ariel's Song - Published poems by Dawn Pisturino

 

Find it on Amazon  HERE

Ariel's Song is a collection of intensely personal poems written between 1987 and 2023 that features various styles and themes, from twisted limericks that make you laugh to traditional sonnets that make you think and feel the world around you. There is something for everyone to enjoy: dark poems, love poems, nature poems, funny poems, poems about death and grief, poems about abuse and heartache, children's poems, and experimental poems.

Dawn Pisturino is a retired nurse in Arizona whose international publishing credits include poems, short stories, and articles. Her poetry has appeared in several anthologies, most recently in Hidden in Childhood: A Poetry Anthology, Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women, and the 2023 Arizona Literary Magazine. She is a Mystery Writers of America and Arizona Authors Association member.

Character and Conflict and Plot by Dan Baldwin

 

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When asked, “Where do I start my novel? How do I get things moving?” I respond with, “Start with character and you’ll find the conflict.” 

Character and conflict are the key elements in beginning a work and in keeping the reader’s interest piqued all the way through to “The End.” Everything flows from character. Conflict keeps that motion moving forward. 

The Bad Guy. In the first of my Ashley Hayes thrillers, the villain is Clovis Bassett, a white guy who thinks he is a Caddo Indian god. One of the joys of writing that novel was entering into an insane mind. (I have been told that I have a good grasp of the criminal mind. I think that was a compliment.) Bassett is more than nuts; he’s a serial killer. 

His Conflict is his inability to remember “The Place of Crying.” This is a real place in Arkansas where Caddo lore says the tribe emerged from the Earth’s interior. It’s a hill overlooking the Red River. Bassett believes he has to enter the earth at this place, become reborn, and return to rule as an angry god. He can’t “remember” this location, which sends him on a bloody quest to find it. 

The Good Guy. Detective Herbert Eugene “Bummer” LaSalle is a cop looking for the serial killer. Bummer is an overweight, aging, nearly-burnt-out cop. His Conflict is, obviously, finding the bad guy. A secondary conflict is with himself, primarily focused on his aging. 

The Heroine. Ashley Maud “Ash” Hayes is an archaeology professor and an expert on the Caddo Indians. Additionally, she is an expert in wilderness survival. She studies survivalist techniques as a teaching aid. “Learn about ancient man by learning how he lived,” she says. 

 Her Conflict. Ash studies and espouses European contact throughout the Americas prior to Columbus. This is the initial conflict the reader encounters. When LaSalle brings her in to help find Bassett because he believes she can “think Indian,” the detective’s conflict becomes her conflict, too. 

That’s how I begin a novel. The characters grab my attention. They tell me about their lives and their conflicts. Trust me, their lives and conflicts are far more interesting than anything I could make up on my own. When they start talking, I start writing. That’s it. 

“Er, Dan?” 

“Yes?” 

“What about plot?” 

“If you have characters and conflict, you don’t need a plot. Just listen to those characters and follow their lead.” 

For inspiration and more tips, go to www.fourknightspress.com and www.danbaldwin.com 

I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. — Thomas Jefferson 

About the author: Dan Baldwin is the author of westerns, mysteries, thrillers, short story collections and books on the paranormal. He is the winner of numerous local, regional, and national awards for writing and directing film and video projects. He earned an Honorable Mention from the Society of Southwestern Authors writing competition for his short story Flat Busted and a Finalist designation from the National Indie Excellence Awards for Trapp Canyon and Caldera III – A Man of Blood.

Researching Norse Mythology for my upcoming novel - by Vijaya Schartz

 Research is always a fun part of writing a story, even in science fiction. That’s where I usually find interesting details to feed the plot and define my characters.

In Angel Revenge, Book Three of the Blue Phantom series, coming out in October, my futuristic heroine is a Valkyrie. I had to brush up on my Asgardian knowledge through research. I learned much about the culture and symbolism of the ancient Viking gods.

We all know about Thor, Loki, and Odin through the Marvel universe, but Valkyries are not as well known. And I happen to like strong warrior women for my heroines.

Here are a few facts about Valkyries. They were women warriors ordained by Odin, given a magic armor where their powers resided. They could shapeshift into birds. They had many other abilities such as visions of the future. They flew into battle riding flying horses (Pegasus) or geese, or dragons. They wielded spear, bow and arrow, and dragon-fang swords.

Their function was to select the worthy fallen in battle and take them away to enjoy the Halls of Valhalla, a warrior’s paradise full of good food, beer, women, and fighting. The Valkyries were long-lived, like all Asgardians, but their armor also made them impervious to most weapons.

However, they had one weakness. I won’t tell you what it is, so as not to spoil the story.

In Angel Revenge, my heroine is Valka. She survived Ragnarök and finds herself on her own. She still fulfills her destiny and rescues worthy warriors fallen in battle… but for a different purpose. She rides a genetically engineered flying tiger and carries many blades and blasters. I'm considering either of these tigers for the cover:

 

Here is the tag line: An unruly Valkyrie on a possessive flying tiger, a strict angel in love with the rules, and evil pounding at the gate… What could go wrong?

The book comes out in October and will be the last of the Blue Phantom series. In the meantime, you can read the first two books:

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Vijaya Schartz, award-winning author
Strong Heroines, Brave Heroes, cats
http://www.vijayaschartz.com
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