Beyond the Mind Maze

Author: Maria Messini

  • 17 Simple Ways to Make an Impact (reblogged)

    There’s a wealth of “how to succeed” advice, targeting aspiring or new self-published authors, crammed in blog posts that later might turn into ebooks with a short life span — apparently the self-publishing trends are as fickle as fashion. Being an aspiring author myself, I’ve been studying success stories, popular or conflicting views, counter arguments (never skipping the comments section where readers often either verify or distance themselves through personal experience), but nowhere had I seen the “it” factor being discussed; the simple fact that some people might diligently follow well-trodden paths which, in their case lead to a dead end, while others seem to develop Pied Piper-like powers along the way, drawing the masses in.

    Before writing this off as simply a case of unbeatable charisma which either you have or you don’t, read this unique and comprehensive article by Kimberley Grabas of Your Writer Platform. Kimberley says that even this can be taught, and I believe her.

    Your Path to Influence: 17 Simple Ways to Make an Impact

    Image from Your Writer Platform

    Languishing in obscurity?

    Things pretty quiet on the visibility front?

    You’ve tried to follow advice from the “guru de jour” to get your writing career on the map, but despite your best efforts, your ideal audience remains surprisingly resistant to your appeal.What’s worse, is that you know it’s possible to build a loyal, invested community, because the evidence is all around you.

    Somehow, both new and experienced writers are finding ways to stand out and get their work noticed.But here you are, playing patty-cake with the crickets, debating if it would hurt to just let one of those spam comments through (it’s about time your blog got a little love, right?):

    “am to a great extent impressed with the article I have just read. There is not much to say except the following universal truth: You never know where to look when eating a banana. I will be back.”

    Okay, maybe not.

    (Desperate chic is not the look that bestselling authors are wearing this season.)

    So what does it really take to get noticed?

    ______________________

    (Read the rest of this amazing article on Your Writer Platform.)

  • Choices by Sheila Bliss

    This guest post is brought to you by Fabulosity Reads Book Tours and the fabulous Wendy Ewurum!

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    CHOICES –  Guest Post by Sheila Bliss

    There were so many things I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be a TV news anchorwoman, a fashion designer, a news journalist, a nurse, a teacher and a psychologist. That’s quite a variety. I wanted to make sure I had all the bases covered. I was also a voracious reader. My entire family was. Memories as a kid always involved a family member reading a book. My dad, my mom, and my older sisters. The best vacations also involved sharing our responses to whatever book one of us was reading at the time. My family instilled in me a huge love for reading. It was also my escape. My childhood was lonely at times and broken. Reading allowed me to escape the loneliness and I found solace reading about people who experienced a similar pain between the pages of a book. The words breathed life into these imaginary people that I wanted to be friends with, that I wanted for family. It also sparked a deep desire to create those same feelings of connection, relief and escapism for another person. Ultimately, I wanted to create and help people in the process. Teaching called the most to me at the time of college major declaration, though. My fear of failure was strong, so strong I allowed it to overshadow my desire. So, I went with door number two or six if you count all my other options. I could still be creative and I loved working with children, especially children in impoverished areas. Although if you talked to my family they would swear I became a teacher just so I could boss people around. In the fourteen years I taught, I felt restless, I still felt a deep yearning to explore something different. I’m a goal oriented person. I like challenges and I wanted to challenge myself to something bigger. I wasn’t getting any younger and I wanted to write.

    I always wrote something, really bad poetry, random thoughts, character names, gratitude journals, quotes, lesson plans, wish lists and ideas for novels. I started my very first scrapbook when Princess Diana and Prince Charles were married in 1981 at the age of thirteen. I cut out pictures and wrote my own bubble quotes for each picture. I was so proud of myself. I kept going from there, writing diary entries, taking creative writing classes whenever I could in high school and college, keeping journals that were cathartic and therapeutic during some dark days in my early twenties when I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder that was incredibly exhausting and as equally painful. I took a break from teaching sixth grade in West Philadelphia so I could figure out how to tackle this auto-immune disease, went back to school to procure my master’s degree and started my family. When my oldest who is now sixteen, was ready to begin school I went back to school with her and started teaching Kindergarten. I’ve been there ever since. I love teaching. I love Kindergartners. They are my absolute favorite, but my yearning and restlessness was increasing and suddenly my reading choices were changing as well. My girls started talking about this book Twilight. I had no idea what they were talking about and I insisted that I read it first before they did. I was hooked, but what interested me more than anything was Stephenie Meyer’s personal story about how she started. She inspired me to sit in my girl cave, as my husband has affectionately dubbed it, and write something more than lesson plans. She gave me the courage to put my ideas that gnawed at my brain on my computer screen and actually save it and then have the nerve to label it. It was reading Jamie McGuire’s personal story that gave me the balls to self-publish it. I never met Jamie. She wouldn’t know me from Eve, but her story, her advice she posts on her blog, inspired me to not be afraid. She held my hand even though she didn’t know it or me. For the first time in my life, I was truly going to live by my own personal mantra, feel the fear, but do it anyway. It was time for mommy to practice what she preached to her little people at home. It was time to go big or go home. The clock was ticking and it wasn’t the female one, it was the life one that kept chiming through the night, through the fog of my dreams.

    I started Choices in 2009. It’s taken me five years from beginning to the end product you’ve purchased on Amazon. I wrote during the summer months, during holidays, weekends, days off and sometimes these characters hijacked my sleep and I wrote all night and then taught all day. I’ve had some major bumps in the road, some huge failures and some huge successes writing this book. Some people are shocked at the subject matter because I’m a Kindergartner teacher, but honestly that’s not all I am. I am a creator. I wanted to write something outside my realm of knowledge. Some of my friends were shocked and couldn’t understand why I didn’t write a children’s book…um, because I didn’t want to. I wanted to write something real, something edgy, something dark, yet promising, hopeful. I wanted to write a big romance, but not a typical romance that’s sweet and neat. I wanted to write something gritty and real. I wanted to write a story about a strong woman who’s had some strong situations that forced her to feel out of control and her response to it. I wanted to write about a character that was forced to really examine her life. I wanted to write a story that forced this character to ask herself the question no one wants to ask themselves, am I happy or am I lying to myself and believing the lie? Am I just going through the motions? I wanted to write a story about how a woman doesn’t have to sacrifice everything about herself in order to save someone who isn’t interested in saving themselves. When is enough? When do you draw the line in the sand and say I need to take care of me now. Life is hard. Life gives you cards you don’t want. Life is unfair. Life is real. Life isn’t pretty sometimes, but it does give you choices. So, therefore, I give you Choices.

    Choices-SheilaBliss-600x900

    Book Blurb

    One never truly knows what goes on behind closed doors in a marriage. On the surface Laurel Brittingham’s life is idyllic but when you dive below the sparkling facade and submerge yourself within the murky, slimy sand at the bottom, life is never as it appears.

    Laurel is a devoted, loving and loyal wife and mother. She married her high school sweetheart and created three new young lives during her marriage to Paul, all the while denying and avoiding the role his demons played in their marriage. Laurel’s only saving support system, other than her three children is her rewarding career as a nurse and her three gal pals that she cherishes beyond words. Addictions, anger and emotional abuse are the cornerstone of her marriage until one day life presents an interesting choice.

    Laurel wasn’t looking for him, she wasn’t seeking him out. Laurel was loyal; for better or worse, weren’t just vows they were a way of life. Fate or destiny introduced a much younger man into her life; a much younger man who was also the son of a good friend. Brandon turned her world and her heart inside out and upside down. Their love was undeniable and soul mending.

    Unfortunately, everything has a price. Their relationship unravels a web of lies, betrayal, abduction and deceit. What Laurel doesn’t know is how close to home this ugly web of lies comes. Laurel begins to travel down a path of shocking truths with twists and surprises she never fathomed, even saving a soul she never thought possible. She’s forced to make choices that will affect her family, her friends, and her happiness, but more importantly may destroy the very life she holds dearest.

     

    About Sheila Bliss

    This independent author enjoys writing books about circumstances that shape a person’s life and that life is all about the choices we make.

    She hopes that you enjoy reading her first novel Choices as much as she’s enjoyed writing it!

     

    Get in touch

    https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSheilaBliss

    https://twitter.com/authorbliss

    http://authorsheilabliss.blogspot.com/

    Buy Link

    AMAZON

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  • V-Card by Alicia Michaels

    If you enjoy reading New Adult romances but want to do without the interminable angst, don’t miss “V-Card”, Book 1 in Alicia Michaels’ Sharing Spaces series. The excerpt made me laugh out loud! Also, check out the giveaway below:

    a Rafflecopter giveaway

    V-Card, Sharing Spaces Book 1

    by Alicia Michaels

    New Adult, Romance, Comedy

    April 20th, 2014

    Author’s Website | GoodReads

    Jennifer Nolan has been unlucky when it comes to love; even more unfortunate when it comes to sex. In fact, the twenty year-old college junior is about to enter her senior year still carrying her v-card. All she wants is to be with that special someone without it resulting in a trip to the emergency room, runaway office supplies, or being scarred for life by someone’s weird fetishes. With several botched attempts under her belt, she begins to fear she’ll end up a lonely spinster or a crazy cat lady.

    With only 60 days until her 21st birthday, Jennifer is determined to lose her virginity once and for all. Little does she know that her mission will lead her down a path toward love. She never expects that her mission will lead her to a discovery of what true womanhood is, and where true and lasting love begins.

    Excerpt

    My mission? To lose my stupid virginity by my twenty-first birthday … which is in two months. I can’t very well go into the next phase of adulthood with my v-card. How can I honestly call myself a ‘woman’ if I fidget, wheeze, and just about have a heart attack at even the thought of intimacy? Any guy I date is going to wonder what the hell is wrong with me.

    So, it’s happening. I’m not sure when, or with who—since I’m not dating anybody—but I’m determined not to see twenty-one without shedding that one last thing keeping me at girl-status.

    Drastic, much? I don’t think so. Maybe if you knew some of my history, you wouldn’t either. First, there was Jeremy …

    My first attempt was as seventeen years old, senior year. It was like something out of a cheesy movie, making out in the back of a car after Homecoming at Lookout Point. Okay, so the place isn’t called Lookout Point, but The Ridge is a cliff overlooking my small Texas hometown and people do go there to make out. Me and Jeremy had been dating for six months—a lifetime in TDT. That’s Teenage Dating Time, by the way.

    Anyway, things were getting pretty hot and heavy. The windows were steamed up and we had collapsed on to the backseat in a tangle of writhing arms and legs. Jeremy had me topless and was pretty much in teenage-dude heaven. I mean, I don’t want to brag or anything, but I’ve got some pretty nice boobs. Not too big or anything; average size, but almost the perfect shape and symmetry. Although, with the lack of finesse Jeremy showed in handling them, I doubt he would have cared if one was three sizes bigger than the other, or if my nipples were two different colors.

    That familiar tingle of horny teenage hormones was tearing me up inside, turning me into a panting, thoughtless animal. I guess that natural high was what made me bold enough to attempt my first B.J. I mean, how hard could it be? It’s not exactly rocket science.

    At least, I didn’t think it was. Apparently there is a science to it, especially when you wear braces. In my enthusiasm, I might have gone in a little too hard. I slipped, my face landed in his lap, and I almost unmanned him. To be fair, the wound was superficial, but there was so much blood you’d have thought someone was stabbed to death in the back of that car.

    After dropping Jeremy off at the emergency room, I pretty much ended our relationship by ignoring him until graduation. He didn’t seem to mind. After I mutilated his man-parts, I doubt he would have felt safe getting in the sack with me without some major life insurance.

    Let’s see, my next attempt came during my first semester of college, just a few months after my eighteenth birthday. Somehow, I managed to catch the eye of a teacher’s aide. He was a graduate student working on his Master’s in Education. While he was officially considered ‘faculty’, the age gap wasn’t that much and he was too gorgeous for me to be put off with teacher vibes. Slender with long legs and broad shoulders, ginger colored hair and green eyes peeking out from behind sleek, rectangular glasses. Alistair: even his name was sexy.

    We traded a lot of smoldering looks across the classroom. Those looks turned into short conversations in passing. Some flirtations where our hands touched as we exchanged papers. One of those hand-touching exchanges led to me being propelled into an empty classroom.

    Once again, the moment played out like something from a film. Alistair grabbed my ass and pulled me up against him, his lips crashing down over mine in a seductive move that left me swooning like an idiot. We tore at each other’s clothes, and as soon as he had my pants off, he lifted me and threw me onto a desk.

    And right onto a stapler.

    You’re probably thinking the two staples I took to my left butt cheek would have been enough to end it, but apparently I’m a glutton for punishment.

    “I’m okay, really,” I told him, pulling him in for a kiss.

    “Yeah?” he asked, his smile crooked and sexy as he swept the contents of the desk aside to avoid any more injuries. “I’ve wanted this forever,” he said, his mouth tracing a path from my neck and down to places that made my toes curl. My only response was a whimper, as I allowed him to lay me back, struck dumb by his sex appeal as he rested his weight over mine on the desk.

    This resulted in another trip to the E.R.

    Who’d have thought those classroom desks were so flimsy? It splintered as if it were made of matchsticks, dropping me to the floor, where I cracked the back of my head open on the tiles. A concussion and a few staples were enough to dampen that encounter. Luckily, Alistair did a good job covering up what we’d been about to do and no one was the wiser. When no one questioned his story about how he’d perched on top of the desk I’d been leaning against, causing it to collapse, we were in the clear. I probably could have had a chance with Alistair after that if I’d wanted it. Especially if the longing looks he threw my way were any indication. However, by then I was so freaked out about sex, I just couldn’t bring myself to allow him to get me alone. At the end of the semester, he graduated and I never saw him again.

    After that, I decided my first time was going to have to be more vanilla to avoid injury. Good ole missionary position, laying on a bed sex … that was the way to do it. My braces were long gone and office supplies couldn’t impale me.

    The chance came my sophomore year when I met Geoff, a moody, brooding art student. He was sexy in a less obvious way. Thin, long, and tall, with an ethereal face framed by inky black hair. He drew pictures of me and called me his muse. He was a total weirdo, but in an artsy sort of way. At least, I thought it was only in the artsy sort of way. He had me fooled for about four months and I thought I we were on our way to a long lasting relationship. That was before he got me half naked in his room and proceeded to try to tie me to the bed with a set of very scary looking leather straps. I don’t think I even bothered to get dressed before I ran, screaming for the hills.

    After that I pretty much gave up. There have been a few guys I was interested in, and even a couple of great first dates and kisses. Just a month ago, I went on a date with a guy from my Sociology class. He was cute, funny—and, most importantly—normal. Just the kind of guy I wouldn’t mind giving my virginity to. Unfortunately, when our kisses started to turn in to something more, the twitching and wheezing started and I panicked. If I’m not careful I’m going to develop a reputation for this crap.

    No, actually, I’m not.

    I’m not, because I’m determined to just power through and do it.

    The countdown is on.

    60 days.

    Oh God, I think I’m going to barf.


    Author Bio
     I began my writing career as an author of Fantasy and Science Fiction. My first books include The Lost Kingdom of Fallada Series and The Boinics Series.

    An army wife and a mother of three, my days are never dull and I never lack for anything to do. I love to cook, sew, and of course, read.

    I’m a believer in the written word and I love transporting people to different settings and allowing them to make friends with my characters.

    Links

    Website: http://www.fantasybyalicia.com

    V-Card Website: http://www.vcard-aliciamichaels.com

    Twitter: http://twitter.com/fantasybyalicia

    Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fantasybyalicia

    GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6469080.Alicia_Michaels

    Amazon: http://amzn.com/e/B009CVNFXM

  • Love Sonnets? Now? (Change the question for an exclamation mark.)

    In this day and age, we are told to shirk conventionalism, seek originality, see life in its true colors and peel off all glossy veneer in search of the truth. Grit has been the new cool for some time now, and it is glorified in literature, even poetry (lose the constraints of rhyme; use free-verse). Until a few years ago, I consciously tried that angle. It was my dark phase: dark rock music, dark literature. Grit was the crux of it all.

    Then I became a mother. With Greece steeped in recession and all sorts of challenges surfacing out of nowhere, grit became too relevant, so obvious in life around me that I needed to retreat to something safer. Fast. A world I’d like my daughter to live in. Call it conventional, call it old-school or cliché, I immersed myself into reading and writing romance seeking the truth through the expression of love. Because when it comes down to that, no struggle for originality is needed other than the evocative manifestation of genuine emotion.

    In poetry, this is called a love sonnet. Its beauty, its message, is brought forward through a conventional structure (fourteen lines in iambic pentameter) but that only strengthens its effect. No room for originality there … or is there? In the case of Kevin M. Jackson’s collection of sonnets, there is. Because, when he started expressing his innermost feelings towards a girl through sonnets, he was only sixteen, and in true teenage form, the Shakespearean structure wasn’t challenging enough. So he created his own rhyme system—more challenging, equally evocative.

    Kevin has written over 170 sonnets, which he now decided to share with the public. He broke them down into four collections, the first of which he recently published on Amazon, entitled “For Life with Love”. From the first time a teenage boy’s heart flutters at the sight of a girl to the struggles of a committed relationship, the words flow effortlessly, beautifully, and the rhyme is not a constraint but a vehicle. Excitement, joy, doubt, fear, regret are all seeped in the kind of love that has the power to infuse even darkness with the glow of hope. Now tell me that this isn’t the outlook we all need in our lives, no matter what we’re after, or how we’ve decided to go about achieving it.

    “For Life with Love: The Sonnet Collection Book 1” reached No. 3 in its category on Amazon last month and was listed under “Hot New Releases” in poetry.

    You can download it here: “For Life with Love: The Sonnet Collection Book 1” by Kevin M. Jackson

  • From Molly Green’s blog: Save $$ With A Manuscript Proof Checklist

    This has got to be one of the most useful articles I’ve read lately, and it’s no surprise it appeared on Molly Greene’s blog. All writers want to submit a clean(ish) manuscript to their editor or proofreader, especially if they charge by the hour, but there are pesky errors that wiggle their way into every single page, of the kind that we tend to develop a blindness to. So, if you think that you’ve done an ace job cleaning up your manuscript, use Molly’s checklist and see what else you’ll weed out. Because some weeding you’ll do. Has anyone scrolled down with the pilcrow enabled? Anyone?

    MM Jaye

    ______________________________________________

    Save $$ With A Manuscript Proof Checklist

    Does your proofreader charge by the hour? If the answer is yes, you may be able to reduce your bill by taking steps to find and repair basic typo-type errors that slip by during the editing phase. Let’s face it, when we’ve read a (fiction or non-fiction!) manuscript a thousand times, we miss a lot. This is my basic run-through before I send my baby to beta readers, then again before I submit for the final proof.

    Um, bad news, it’s a manual process. It can be time-consuming. You’re going to hate it. It offers the best payback when you scroll through your document several times, focusing on one type of problem with each pass. But good news, it works! Use this as a template to create your own proofreading checklist. Note: Before you begin, you might want to make a copy of your mss and rename it to retain the previous version.

    Read the rest of the article on Molly’s Blog and do NOT neglect to read the comments’ section! Great tips there too!

  • A fantastic (literally and figuratively) novel FREE on Amazon!

    Now, that’s the kind of alert for book lovers that I love to share! “The Necklace of Goddess Athena”, a fantasy novel that I’ve read and 5-starred, is FREE on Amazon on April 17-18. Enjoy a family adventure of Greek myths and time travel that the Fantasy & Sci-fi Network has described as a “Rare Gem”. The ebook has reached Amazon’s #1 in Mythology and #2 in Fairy Tales. It has also made the shortlist in the Fantasy category for the “50 best self-published books worth reading” from Indie Author Land!

    And if that’s not enough to convince you that we’re talking about an amazing author, know this: “The Lady of the Pier: The Ebb“, Effrosyni’s upcoming paranormal summer romance, set in Brighton in the ’30s and in Corfu in the ’80s, has cleared Round 2 in Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award contest and is now a quarter-finalist! I’m not surprised, as I had the honor to beta read the manuscript, and I know first-hand that it was well deserved. But until that’s published, don’t miss out on Effrosyni’s debut novel!

    Book blurb

    Efimios is an ancient Greek and an unsung hero of Athens. He has saved the city countless times by undertaking time-travelling missions as instructed by Goddess Athena herself. Now an elderly man, he sends his son Phevos and his adopted daughter Daphne on a time-travelling quest to modern-day Athens. Mysterious as always, he only advises his children to look out for the signs without offering any explanations. Mystified, yet eager to obey their father’s will, Phevos and Daphne settle down in this new world, having been offered assistance by two orphaned siblings: Ksenia and Manos. New friendships and romantic love change their lives while their father’s covert purpose is gradually revealed. As the youngsters continue to unravel the secrets of their family past, inevitably they get caught up in the ongoing conflict between two Gods, one of which becomes their protector and the other, their worst nemesis. Who will prevail when the rival Gods meet again and will the mortal bystanders survive to tell the tale?

    An excerpt follows, but for your reading pleasure, I suggest you read it on my new complementary excerpts’ blog MM Jaye’s friends write

     

    Book Excerpt

    First, there was this tremendous roar.

    Everything around them shook with force and then, a blinding light surrounded them as they were taken through a cyclone of ear-piercing sounds. Phevos held the hand of his sister Daphne inside the forceful vortex of Time.

    Neither of them knew where they were headed as they swirled frightened beyond description, their bodies surrendered to the powerful whirlwind. Their eyes were tightly shut to the blinding flashes of light and a sound that resembled a sweeping tornado tortured their ears. In the twenty years of his life, Phevos could never have imagined the intensity of the experience.

    Although still captured in this unprecedented storm of light and sound, he managed to recall random pieces from his father’s stories. Efimios, his father and teacher, had described to him hundreds of times his experience of the Passage through Time but Phevos never expected there would come a day that he would experience it himself and at that, in such a different way.

    Suddenly, he realized in panic that his sister’s hand had slipped away from his. He started calling out her name but through the roar he couldn’t even hear himself speak.

    All at once, there was darkness and a soothing silence and next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground.

    A strong buzz still sounded in his ears. It took a few moments to fade as he opened his eyes and tried to gather his wits. His body felt numb at first but he managed to sit up somehow and look around him. The ground felt wet under him and the air smelt of grass.

    The moon shone high above on a starry sky with a velvet light that was ample, allowing him to inspect his surroundings quite easily. He was in an orchard.

    There were trees, plants and bushes all around him.

    Panicking, he realized that he was alone.

    Connect With The Author

    Blog: http://www.effrosinimoss.wordpress.com

    FB Book page: https://www.facebook.com/Necklaceathena

    FB Author page https://www.facebook.com/authoreffrosyni

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/frostiemoss

    Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7362780.Effrosyni_Moschoudi

    Google + : https://plus.google.com/+EffrosyniMoschoudi

    LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/effrosyni-moschoudi/82/347/a01


    Buy Links

    Amazon (US): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I5GXHCO

    Amazon (UK): https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00I5GXHCO

    Blog Tour By Badge 600

     

     

     

  • Excerpt: You Can’t Kill The Multiverse (But You Can Mess With Its Head) by Ira Nayman

    Multiverse front

    (Excerpt offered by permission of the author)

    You Can’t Kill The Multiverse (But You Can Mess With Its Head) by Ira Nayman

    Genre: Humourous science fiction

    1. The Necromantic Uncertainty Principle in Action

    All of the ingredients – many of which were difficult to find in this heathen realm – had been collected. The eyes of various beasts were freely available at a specialty market in Kensington. Various herbs could be found in what the people of this realm called “supermarkets,” where they were sold for pittances. The blood of a virgin was a little harder to come by, but, after three tries, the wizard found one by surfing through a place on a magical scrying glass called Craigslist. The young woman – Gladys Kravitz of Niagara Falls – seemed immune to his charms, so the wizard drugged her drink – purely in the name of world domination! – and took the serum that he needed. When she woke up the next day, she would be weak and woozy and have an uncontrollable craving to eat jelly beans, but at least she would wake up the next day. For what good that would do her.

    The wizard read the prognosticatory pages of many of the local papers (such as The Star and The Globe) to determine when the moon would be at its fullest. While there, he picked up this nugget of wisdom: ‘Today will not be a good day to start a new project’. And, indeed, it would not be a good day FOR THE CREATURES WHO LIVED IN THIS REALM! He would have laughed evilly at this thought, but the steam from the ingredients coming to a boil in the cauldron was playing havoc with his asthma, so the wizard settled for a wicked grin and the promise of much evil laughter to come.

    “Alzabracheem fectid barada nictu,” the wizard intoned as his hands snaked in front of him and he put the fourth toe of his left foot in, he put the fourth toe of his left foot out, he put the fourth toe of his left foot in and he shook it all about. As the stench from the boiling cauldron contents started to grow, his chanting became louder and his motions more animated. Part of him suspected that his landlady, Missus Schmelson, would give him no end of grief if she was unable to get the smell out of the drapes, but it was a small part of him, easily ignored as the dark ritual reached its climax.

    “ALZABRACHEEM FECTID BARADA NICTU!” he shouted, his motions becoming what can only be described as ‘frenzied’.

    “ALZABRACHEEM KLAATU BARADA NICTU!”

    Then, just as the wizard feared he would collapse from exhaustion before the climax of the ritual…there was a mild ‘poof’ and a wisp of pale grey smoke rose out of the cauldron before it was dissipated by the air conditioning. (It was a humid July night, okay? Where does it say that casting a world-threatening spell has to be done in discomfort?)

    This was not what the wizard had been promised by the Malificient Malefactorum de Maliciosi. He was expecting the sky to darken and blood to rain from the clouds. He was expecting a rumbling so deep it shook the earth with a trembling, fearsome [MODERN ENGLISH TRANSLATION: a fearsome trembling]. He was expecting various demons to pour forth from a hole in the universe, create a little havoc, then await his command. He was expecting to hear cries of terror from the street, the horrific wailing of those whose comfortable, familiar world had turned into a nightmare. When you are expecting the horrific wailing of those whose comfortable, familiar world had turned into a nightmare, poof and a wisp of pale grey smoke just don’t cut it.

    He couldn’t understand what had gone wrong – the wizard had been studying the Malificient Malefactorum de Maliciosi since his uncle Maladroissier had given it to him for his fifth birthday. He consulted the great book of evil spells. Over over sideways over under sideways down – he had clearly done the hand gestures properly. Same with the incantation – his southern accent may have distorted the words a little, but the meaning should have been clear. The contents of the cauldron were still bubbling, so the wizard tried the incantation again, this time enunciating the words more clearly and making the hand gestures more slowly and fluidly. He was rewarded with a ‘pop’ and acrid orange smoke. No blood raining from the sky. No horrific wailing of…you know.

    It wasn’t because the wizard was fat BECAUSE THE WIZARD WASN’T FAT, OKAY? His…overabundance of physical presence was pure muscle. Mostly. Well, damn the pox-eyed pusillanimosity of Polidor, anyway, who said evil sorcerers all had to be tall and thin? Other than all of his teachers at Worthags, the school for evil sorcerers (where, okay, fine, sure, he had to admit that he had only graduated 23rd in his class – middle of the pack – not bad, but not enough to get you into the really top flight covens. Look, the important thing is that he did get his degree, and it qualified him to practice the dark arts every bit as much as Jimmy Malfantome, Marise Maldarictor or any of the other students who had graduated ahead of him, okay? Anyway, he would have done much better if he hadn’t had to take Zombies in seventh grade – zombies, uuuuuuugh! But, Animal Familiars was full – what can one do? He knew he shouldn’t dwell on the past so much, but, really…umm…what was he talking about, again? Oh, right…) And, all of the other students. And, his parents. And Evelina Malaproptor, authoress of The 25 Bad Habits of Really Successful Warlocks. Still, he thought, surely evil isn’t about how much you weigh, but about the content of your heart. Your dark, bile-filled heart.

    The wizard screamed in frustration. Almost immediately – with unseemly haste, actually – somebody banged on his floor from below. “Sorry, Missus Rosinante,” he shouted. “I…I stubbed my toe. It was very painful, as you might –” The tenant below banged on his floor a couple more times with greater urgency. “Right. Right. Sorry,” he mumbled to himself. He imagined the blood raining down especially hard on her head.

    It was late and he was discouraged. Deciding to call it a night, the wizard turned off the burner on the stove and moved the cauldron to a cold burner. A conscientious evil sorcerer will always clean up his workspace as soon as he has cast his last spell (or, so Evelina Malaproptor would have one believe), but his heart wasn’t in it. The cleaning would have to wait until morning.

    The wizard went to bed, oblivious to the croaking that was coming from the street outside his window.

    2. Faith, Hope and Severity

    “Frogs?” Superintendent McCrae barked in disbelief.

    Faith and Hope looked at each other as though that could somehow change the answer. It didn’t. So, they looked back at their boss and Hope responded, “Yeah. Frogs.”

    “The size of cars?” Superintendent McCrae continued.

    “That is correct,” Faith answered. “It makes sense, since…” she bit down on her lip, but the words had to come out: “the cars had turned into frogs.”

    “The cars had turned into frogs?”

    “Yes, sir.”

    “What,” Superintendent McCrae asked in the certain knowledge that he was not going to like the answer, “happened to the people in the cars?”

    ____________

    If you wish to find out what happened to the people driving the cars that turned into giant frogs, buy “You Can’t Kill The Multiverse (But You Can Mess With Its Head) here: http://amzn.to/P11Rmn

    To connect with Ira Nayman, use the links below:

    WEB SITE: Les Pages aux Folles
    URL: http://www.lespagesauxfolles.ca

    FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/ira.nayman
    FACEBOOK WRITER’S/FAN/WHATEVER PAGE: Ira Nayman’s Thrishty Friednishes
    URL: http://www.facebook.com/ThrishtyFriednishes
    TWITTER: https://twitter.com/#!/ARNSProprietor

    BOOKS: Alternate Reality News Service collections (Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be, What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children’s Toys and Luna for the Lunies!) and the novelsWelcome to the Multiverse (Sorry for the Inconvenience) and You Can’t Kill the Multiverse (But You Can Mess With its Head) can be purchased on Amazon.com
    URL: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&sort=relevancerank&search-alias=books&ie=UTF8&field-author=Ira%20Nayman

    ARNS BOOK TRAILER: “A Book Trailer Called ‘Book Trailer’”
    URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er2FshjzaWY

    NOVEL TRAILERS
    First Novel: http://bit.ly/WelcomeMultiverse_Trailer
    Second Novel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7MYosQPkfc

    ELSEWHEN PRESS WEB SITE: http://elsewhen.co.uk/

  • A pie that reveals lost stuff: a pre Greek Easter story of lost and found

    In the five months of this blog’s life, it has sort of branded itself as an all (genre) inclusive, writer-friendly place, and I never felt that random musings or personal experiences would make a good fit. Therefore, this post is an exception.

    This week (the week leading to the Greek Orthodox Easter) is the most spiritually and traditionally rich time of the year. My parents have always been big on upholding tradition. The problem was that they weren’t exactly democratic as to the extent my sister and I were supposed to be involved; it had to be all the way, no questions asked, or else they’d meticulously work on our guilt complex. Of course, growing into my own skin, I soon revolted, and ever since, I retain my respect but keep my distances from traditions. One instance when I’ll consciously bring them forward is when I feel that my octagenarian parents need some soothing. And that’s what made me bake the Saint Phanourios’ pie last week.

    Saint Phanourios pie

    Saint Phanourios’ name means “the one who reveals” (the same etymology as “phenomenon”) and, according to the tradition, if you’ve lost something valuable and you’re in despair, all you have to do is bake his pie (which is more a cake than a pie) pray for his mother’s soul to find rest (there is no relevant evidence, but apparently she was sinful) and whatever you seek for will be revealed to you. In many occasions this has worked, but I was always skeptical, thinking that, of course, if you’ve exhausted all possible locations where you might have misplaced an item, you bake a pie, and resume searching, then the chances for the item to turn up afterwards are definitely better. Last week, though, I was forced to reconsider.

    My dad is a prostate cancer patient and he has to have a very expensive shot twice a year. In spite of the recession, the state still provides for this particular shot. Last week, as he was going to visit his doctor for the shot, riding his antique motorbike (a wonderful conversation piece wherever he goes) the paper bag where he kept his insurance papers, the shot prescription with dozens of state stamps of approval, his cell phone and various documents, apparently slipped from the handle and he lost everything. No paperwork meant no shot. Reproducing it could take weeks. When I saw the state he was in, I thought he wouldn’t make it. To an eighty-six-year-old man, every little thing he owns is as valuable as a life line, not least the documentation that guaranteed his on-going treatment. Losing it equaled a small death. My sister and brother in law went out in a vain search, but I couldn’t do much as my little one was ill, plus I don’t own a car. Seeing my father white as a sheet, the only thing I thought of offering was the reassurance that I’d bake a Saint Phanourios pie, which I managed to put together in no time at all, hoping to assuage his fear.

    And then, things started happening: a teenage girl called my mother, claiming to have found my dad’s cell phone. She’d gone through his contacts and located his home number. She hadn’t found anything else. My dad met up with her, got his phone back, and then together with my sister scanned the entire area, as the paperwork scattering near where the phone fell would make sense. They found nothing. When they returned empty-handed and desperate, my mom had another phone call. This time it was a man who had stopped at a red light and saw paper strewn on the street. He got off his motorcycle, thinking that someone was in need of those papers (because that’s how everybody thinks and acts, right?) picked everything up, went home, read through them, located a random phone number, called and got my dad’s home number from them. Every single item was retrieved.

    Coincidence? You could say so. But check this out: the girl’s name was Io and the guy’s name was Ionas (both names are very rare in Greece)!! Well, I give up. The pie worked big time, and now I’m a convert.

    The pie/cake is ridiculously simple to put together, delicious and also 100% vegan, so if I piqued your interest here is the recipe and the ritual:

    Ingredients:

    • 2 cups freshly squeezed orange juice
    • 2 cups sugar
    • 1 cup virgin olive oil
    • 750 grams (1.65 pounds) self-raising flour
    • 4 tablespoons cognac (brandy)
    • 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
    • 1 cup blonde raisins (sultanas) – roll them in flour first
    • 1 tablespoon mixed cinnamon and clove (ground)
    • icing sugar on top (optional)

    Preheat oven to 350F (180C). Mix sugar and oil well until sugar melts. Then add all ingredients apart from raisins and mix well. Add floured raisins and give batter a toss. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a knife inserted at cake’s center comes out clean. Leave to cool. Sprinkle icing sugar on top if desired. Distribute to family members and pray that Saint Phanourios’ mother’s soul finds rest.

    Sit back and wait. No, actually don’t. As with everything in life, divine intervention works best when you give a helping hand.

    Happy Easter!

     

     

     

  • Ira Nayman – WIP interview

    In this week’s interview, I’m honored to feature Ira Nayman, author of humourous science fiction and satire. Ira was the winner of the 2010 Jonathan Swift Satire Writing contest and the author of the *NEW* novel You Can’t Kill the Multiverse (But You Can Mess With its Head) the [INSERT GUSHING PRAISE HERE] sequel to Welcome to the Multiverse (Sorry for the Inconvenience) both available from Elsewhen Press (http://elsewhen.co.uk/) He has also penned the short story collections Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be, What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children’s Toys, Luna for the Lunies!, The Street Finds Its Own Uses for Mutant Technologies and The Alternate Reality News Service’s Guide to Love, Sex and Robots (available online through Amazon, Indigo/Chapters and others).

    Don’t miss out! Read a hilarious excerpt from You Can’t Kill The Multiverse (But You Can Mess With Its Head) on MM Jaye’s friends write!

    Ira, I’m really excited to have you here. Apart from your published work, what else should we know about you?

    Okay. I have a brain that unfolds in twenty-seven dimensions into the shape of an elephant at the centre of a rose.

    I devoted my life to writing humour when I was eight years old; I did it intermittently when I was young and have been doing it steadily since 1984. My main project is Les Pages aux Folles; the Web page by that name, which features weekly satirical writing and absurdist cartoons, has been going since September, 2002 (in fact, it just hit its 600th consecutive week). Although humour is my main genre, I have combined it with a hefty dose of speculative fiction over the last six or seven years. One result of this, an offshoot of Les Pages aux Folles, is the Alternate Reality News Service (ARNS). As you might guess from the name, ARNS sends reporters into other dimensions and has them write news articles about what they find there. ARNS has been described by a couple of readers as “a science fiction version of The Onion.” Five collections of news, reviews, interviews and advice columns in the series are currently available as ebooks and/or in print.

    I have written two novels that have been published By Elsewhen Press: Welcome to the Multiverse (Sorry for the Inconvenience), and; You Can’t Kill the Multiverse (But You Can Mess With its Head). They chronicle the adventures of investigators for the Transdimensional Authority (TA), which monitors and polices traffic between dimensions. My current work in progress is my fourth novel, the latest TA adventure called Random Dingoes; depending upon the whims of my muse (not to mention the interest of my publisher), it will either be the final novel in a trilogy, or the latest novel in a series.

    Oh, and I, uhh, may have been exaggerating about my brain. It only unfolds in eleven dimensions, and it’s a wildebeest, not an elephant.

    I’d really like to have a visual of what a wildebeest looks like. Exercise in lean writing: give us a synopsis of your current WIP in under 200 words.

    Transdimensional Authority investigators Noomi Rapier and Crash Chumley are sent to another dimension to track down the kingpin of a cartel that sells a drug called Transdimensional Joy Joy. The drug is said to give users the ability to experience multiple realities at the same time…but at a cost. The investigators work their way up the chain of command and are about to arrest the man behind the drug ring when they are thrown out of the universe; they find themselves back at the point where they entered it for the first time. WTF?! The rest of the novel deals with Noomi and Crash as they try to figure out what happened and deal with it.

    I’m definitely joining them in their quest! Are you happy with the pace of your work? Do you aim at a specific word count each day?

    This is my fourth novel, and the experience of writing each has been different. My first, Welcome to the Multiverse was a fever-dream experience; it was written in a stupid short amount of time. The second novel, You Can’t Kill the Multiverse, is made up of six chapters, five of which are interlocking novelettes. I wrote the first two, paused for a few months and wrote the others piecemeal over the next several months. My third novel, a stand-alone called Both Sides. NOW!, is made up of 40 sections of roughly 2,000 words each. For the most part, I wrote each section in a single day over a period of about nine months.

    So, sure, while I would like to write 2,000 words a day until a first draft of the novel is completed, that has only happened to me once, and I think that experience was atypical of how I write longer works. I expect this novel will be written in fits and starts over the better part of a year. That having been said, I wrote the first 17,000 words of Random Dingoes straight through, and have since taken a break to consider where to take the story from where I left off.

    Plotter, pantser or both?

    I never start writing a story without knowing how it will end and having at least some idea of the major plot points that will get me there. For Random Dingoes, for example, I knew why Noomi and Crash were thrown out of the first universe they went to, and how their investigation of that would unfold in subsequent chapters. In this sense, I am a plotter. However, because my stories tend to be rich in detail, there are a lot of elements that I do not plan out in advance, elements that I explore in the process of writing the work. So, while I know that there will be an investigation of a drug cartel, how Noomi and Crash actually get to the point where they are about to arrest the kingpin is something I am working out in the writing. I believe that the fun I have in discovering the unfolding of the plot in this way is conveyed to the reader. In this sense, I am a pantser.

    Have you experienced “writer’s block” and how do you overcome it?

    I am fortunate to have an easy-going relationship with Elsewhen Press; I send them manuscripts as I finish novels. Since we don’t really contract for books until after they are written, the only deadlines I have are those that are self-imposed (and, then, the only one I really have is to write one novel a year). Thus, while I have periods where I am not inspired to work on a novel, I don’t feel any pressure to keep writing it regardless, and I don’t consider these periods “writer’s block,” with all of the negative connotations that the term implies.

    One strategy I employ to keep the creativity flowing is to always have several writing projects on the go. In the past year, for instance, in addition to the Web site and novel, I have written short stories and the pilot for a television series based on my first novel, and have developed ideas for an original comic book. When I find myself unable to move forward with one project, I simply work on another one. In this way, I write something almost every day of the year (unlike many novelists, who write for part of the year and research for the balance).

    I think of my Web site as “the insatiable maw” which must constantly be fed. Writing humour to a weekly deadline, which I have been doing for over 11 years, requires tremendous discipline, and has helped train my subconscious to find solutions to creative problems quickly. However, when this does not work there are ways of priming that pump. One is to do more research on the subject I’m writing about (often, learning more will spark creative ideas). Another is to think about the problem before going to sleep (since the unconscious mind works best without having to compete with the conscious mind). I have also heard that writing the opposite of what you intended, or just something unexpected or ridiculous, while it isn’t likely to make it into the final draft, can often free up the creative juices, although I haven’t used this technique myself. (Usually, when I come up with something ridiculous, I highlight it in my final draft!)

    What’s your worst enemy in getting that first draft finished?

    This may sound strange, but too many ideas. I sometimes find myself bouncing too quickly between projects, without making any significant headway in any of them. When this happens, I usually take a nap, because my mind is clearly telling me that it cannot concentrate on anything in a productive way.

    As answers to this question go, “too many ideas” is a first! Could we take a look at your workspace? Is there a particular place you find inspiring?

    So, this is my workspace. Sure, it looks chaotic, but, then, isn’t the role of the writer to bring order out of chaos? Yeah, I’m not buying that one, either.

    In fact, it’s not nearly so chaotic as it looks. The piles of newspaper clippings on top of the box of tissues (mustn’t use the word Kleenex as it’s a brand name!) are potential sources of Alternate Reality News Articles. The small pile next to the monitor are obituaries (which I sometimes feature on my Web site). The small pile next to the printer (which does not print, although I still use it sometimes to scan things) are subjects that should be dealt with immediately while the pile of clippings actually on the printer are potential sources of inspiration. The pile next to the keyboard are clippings that I have already used that are waiting to be thrown out. When any pile threatens to collapse, burying me under the rubble, I toss the bottom two thirds or so and start again.

    You see? I do have a system!

    Unique! Now your photo is “pinned” on my Featured Writers’ Workspace Board on Pinterest. How do you intend to celebrate writing “The End” of your draft?

    By starting to write something completely different.

    Is humourous science fiction the genre you will brand yourself with or do you see yourself branching out in the future?

    Humour is my main project, and that is the genre I hope to be associated with. I am having a lot of fun writing speculative fiction, so I will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future. However, under certain circumstances, this might not be the case. For example: I went through a decade when I was writing nothing but scripts, mostly for original TV series, but also for feature length films. These include scripts for, among other things, romantic comedies, political satire, a sitcom, a humourous anthology series about vampires and some scripts that could be described as surreal. If I was ever in a position to get any of this material produced, the fact that it is not science fiction would not be a concern for me. Not that that’s ever likely to happen, but, when your brain unfolds in eleven dimensions, you have a lot of space in which to dream!

    You put a new spin on the term “prolific”. Would you like to share with us links where we can find you and your work?

    WEB SITE: Les Pages aux Folles
    URL: http://www.lespagesauxfolles.ca

    FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/ira.nayman
    FACEBOOK WRITER’S/FAN/WHATEVER PAGE: Ira Nayman’s Thrishty Friednishes
    URL: http://www.facebook.com/ThrishtyFriednishes
    TWITTER: https://twitter.com/#!/ARNSProprietor

    BOOKS: Alternate Reality News Service collections (Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be, What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children’s Toys and Luna for the Lunies!) and the novelsWelcome to the Multiverse (Sorry for the Inconvenience) and You Can’t Kill the Multiverse (But You Can Mess With its Head) can be purchased on Amazon.com
    URL: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&sort=relevancerank&search-alias=books&ie=UTF8&field-author=Ira%20Nayman

    ARNS BOOK TRAILER: “A Book Trailer Called ‘Book Trailer’”
    URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er2FshjzaWY

    NOVEL TRAILERS
    First Novel: http://bit.ly/WelcomeMultiverse_Trailer
    Second Novel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7MYosQPkfc

    ELSEWHEN PRESS WEB SITE: http://elsewhen.co.uk/

    It was pleasure talking to you, Ira. Thank you and best of luck with all your projects!

     

  • Reflections upon a recent accomplishment

    Reflections upon a recent accomplishment

    I feel that supporting and spreading the success of a friend is more important than sharing anything else, so it is with great pleasure that I share with you Effrosyni Moschoudi’s exciting accomplishment. Having read and reviewed (5 stars) her amazing debut fantasy, The Necklace of Goddess Athena, I’m even more thrilled with the readers’ positive reception. Read more on Effrosyni’s blog: