MARDI GRAS ... MAGIC ... MURDER

Mardi gras in 1947

Mardi gras present day

MARDI GRAS … MAGIC … MURDER

In 1947 New Orleans

THREE KINGS DAY marks the start 

of the official Carnival Season

  

Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte, 

Our Lady of Holy Death, 

is stalking the French Quarter

 killing apparently at random.

 

What does the psychotic actress, Irene Dupré, know of this entity and what lies behind the murders?  

 She remains silent, 

only smiling.

Santa Muerte’s strange acolyte lurks in the shadows watching, waiting. 

Waiting for what?

Frank Capra is filming a historical fantasy in the city with Jimmy Stewart, Cesar Romero, and the enigmatic Irene Dupré.

Former O.S.S. operative, now the film’s Prop Master, known only as Lucas, 

finds himself in the middle of the mystery with more questions than answers. 

His lost love back from the dead,  

Ingrid Durtz, 

and his best friend, Mitchell Mack, are at a loss on how to stay alive, much less catch a supernatural killer.

Then, there is Lucas’ former O.S.S. team mate, Father Darael, whose gift of a Seraph Blade is literally a two-edged blessing.

You see, Darael is a  

Seraphim Provocateur. 

And whose side is he really on, the Celestial or the Fallen?

 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N75DRKC
Kindle: $2.99
 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1795380225
Paperback: only $7.97

The 13 interior images and 
eerie wraparound cover are worth it!
 

Buy your copy now.

You won't regret this 

Mardi Gras trip.

ARE YOU HOLDING YOU BACK?

What do you see when you look in the mirror?

Do you let others define you?  Do you allow circumstances to confine you?

"If there is no enemy within, there can be no unbeatable enemy without."
- Wolf Howl


Life hits hard.  

It can hit harder than we can.  But it is not about being hit hard.  It is about how hard we can get hit and keep on going.

Pain can take our breath away.  It usually is temporary or at least ebbs.  

But if we quit because of the pain, it will last forever.

You may look around you and think others have things so much easier.

Yet nothing that grieves us can be called little:

 by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a beloved doll and a king's loss of a cherished crown are events of the same pain.

FEAR is a part of all our lives.  It can paralyze us or haunt us.  What can dissipate fear?

FOCUS.  If you focus on the task at hand, one section at a time, you can dial down the fear.

But Focus gains its strength from our DREAM.  

Not your DREAMS.

Yet those are important, too.

People ask me many times through the course of the day, "How are you?"

I tell them, "I'm pretending I'm dreaming."

There is a reason for that answer:

Most people work hard for a living.  They have tough lives. Structured lives.

They work all day, have dinner, put the kids to bed, go to fitful sleep, and get back to the grind early the next morning.

Everything else in life except for DREAMS has rules.

The only place you're truly free is when you fall asleep and dream.  

If you live life as if it were a dream, you free yourself to be creative, imaginative, and give the day all the wonderful things that are inside you.

But I am talking about your life's DREAM, the image at which your heart is aimed.

How strong is that DREAM?  Do you want it more than being thought cool?

Do you want your dream more than to party, to troll Facebook, to sleep?

That depends on the WHY of your dream.

What is the WHY of your life?

Do you want to succeed to have a sports car in your garage, money in the bank?

Do you want to see a smile on your child's face?

Yet, next September when Wall Street crashes, what will happen to your happiness?  

When your child leaves the nest, will your happiness leave with him?

That depends on your WHO.

WHO do you believe you are?  WHO do you want to become?

Are you who you want to be? Do you even know who that person is?

Not WHAT you want to be but WHO you want to be.

What is the meaning of your life?

Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, was sent to a Nazi concentration camp with his wife, where he and she were soon separated.

 His wife Tilly was transferred from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belson camp, where she died. 

Frankl's mother Elsa was killed by the Nazis in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

His brother Walter died working in a mining operation that was part of Auschwitz. Apart from himself, the only survivor of the Holocaust among Frankl's immediate relatives was his sister Stella. 

She had escaped from Austria by emigrating to Australia.  

Viktor speaks of that time:

We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. 

The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles.

The man marching next to me whispered suddenly: "If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don't know what is happening to us."

Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: 

The salvation of Man is through love and in love. 

I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, 

be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. 

In a position of utter desolation, when Man cannot express himself in positive action, 

when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way – an honorable way –

in such a position Man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. 

 Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

He also said:

 "If we take man as he is we make him worse. If we take man as he should be we make him capable of becoming what he can be."

I believe in the passions of others. It is the greatest act you can do for someone: to have faith in them and who they are.

I will leave you with what he said of happiness and success:

 “Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.

 For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, 

and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself 

or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. 

Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. 

I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. 

Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—

success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it”

 What do you think?

The SECRET to BOOK SALES

“Not all marketing people 

are writers, 

but all writers must learn 

to be marketers.”

- Joanne Kraft

Book sales: 

The Holy Grail of all writers.

Secret: 

You can't control what will 

catch on with readers, 

but you can control your content.

Make your story the most

riveting, touching, 

and self-affirming prose

you can.

Writing is the business of creating books 

and selling them to readers.

If we only do the one 

without trying our best 

to do the other,

we are rowing 

with only one oar.

We tend to go

in circles

when we do that!

Donna Reed ruined me 

by what to expect 

when entering a book store!

Why do I say that?

Don't let your failed expectations 

keep you from persisting

in your dream.

Success as an author is found in endurance. 

Writing is a marathon not a sprint.

Do something to market your book(s)

 each day

FOR THREE YEARS.

Yeah, three years.

Not getting the sales you want?

Non-persistence may be the culprit.

Vary your methods to keep them fresh

BUT IN THE 

EYES OF POTENTIAL READERS.

And, no, 

that does not mean 

YELL and TELL

 on Twitter!

Aren't you tired of checking 

your Tweetdeck only to

be hammered by crass brags 

about books by their authors?

THEN HOW?

Like with exercise, how to

make marketing a habit and effective

is to 

MAKE IT FUN

MAKE IT DIFFERENT.

Have a Blog?

No, don't daily hawk your book!!

Mama, make the bad people stop

misunderstanding me.

Write posts that are helpful, 

funny, and personal.

You have a side-bar.

Post your new books on it.

 You have blogging neighbors

Visit them.

No! 

Don't talk about your book!

Mama, the bad people are at it again!

Talk about them.

If they have problems, hurts, concerns,

talk about them.

 Hurting people usually need

 a listening, caring ear 

more than they need 

an answer to their problem ...

to feel understood and appreciated.

Do the same with Facebook.

Only a few will visit your blog in gratitude

and notice your books in the sidebar.

But if, at their own accord, they

DECIDE TO BUY ONE OF YOUR BOOKS,

they will more likely finish it

and LIKE IT.

Maybe even review it!

 And if they don't?

You will have made a friend.

How cool is that?

What do you do

about your

book marketing?