MAY CHRISTMAS STAY IN OUR HEARTS ALL YEAR LONG!

 

I  worked all through yesterday and am working all day today, 

(Ill and injured folks need blood every hour)

but I wanted to wish all my cyber friends the very best life has to offer!

DO YOU WRITE WHAT IS POPULAR OR WHAT YOU LOVE? IWSG Post

 

https://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/p/iwsg-sign-up.html

Are you a weathervane in your writing?

Hoping to catch the prevailing wind of what is popular?

Or do you write what you love even if no one else is interested?

,

You are Lucas, survivor of the Long Dying, 

the 2nd War to End All Wars.

No winners, only losers.

Forgotten by your government,

Betrayed by your commanding O.S.S. officer,

On a train through the Alps

to Vienna

to help film THE THIRD MAN,

a film which sums up the

disillusionment of the Post War

world ...

too much like today's.

The chill of twilight,

the taste of ashy despair,

the hollow eyes of starved passers-by,

the galling look of trust in

the eyes of your remaining companions.

You know you will not survive Vienna.

Too many old enemies await you.

But you swear on the ghost of

Marcus Aurelius 

that your friends will.

No one is interested in my

DARK HOLLYWOOD SAGA.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1729794009

It seems only I am interested in the 

Golden Age of Hollywood.

myths of New Orleans & post war Europe,

and tales of love & intrigue.

Still, I feel that if you write what you love,

the love will shine through.

By writing what you love, you will always write stories that are powerful and that mean something to you. 

Your energy and love will become evident to readers. This is when an editor picks up your story and says, this must be the book of his/her heart.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

NEVER FORCE A CLEVER GIRL TO DO YOUR BIDDING

 

GIVING THANKS IS HEALING

 

The practice of gratitude can help retrain your brain to help reorient it out of despair. 

Gratitude helps us realize that our challenges are not the only things in our lives at any given moment 

and that, even in the most extreme situations, there are still things for which to be grateful.

LIFE IS WARFARE

 What do you think?

HAVE ANY OF YOUR CHARACTERS HELPED YOU?

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09LGTN9GY

Lucas, my strange socially adapted sociopath, has spoken to me in how to recuperate from my massive heart attack. 

 

Have any of your fictional characters counseled you in the past?

Let me know. 

MIGHT I RECCOMEND THE PERIPHERAL?

 

As my world has taken a dive into the Rabbit Hole, I have discovered this intriguing show: 

Fun stuff that makes you think

It is a fun ride

MASSIVE HEART ATTACK! IWSG Post

 BEEN WONDERING WHERE I'VE BEEN?

I won the Trifecta no one wants to!

A massive heart attack.

(Heart at 35% efficiency)

Diabetes 

High blood pressure

I can afford six of the eight pills.

The other 2 cost $600 a month each!

When I told the doctor I could not

afford that much monthly,

he looked at me like he had

never heard those words in that order!

I go to see the doctor tomorrow.

Say a prayer and maybe buy an audio book

or two!

https://www.amazon.com/Roland-Yeomans/e/B0086O40BM

No complaints.

I've had a good run.

Thanks for being my friends.

TO DIE TWICE_HAPPY ADA LOVELACE DAY!

"My brain is more than merely mortal." 

actual quote from

Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace

https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-in-Code-audiobook/dp/B07N12FKBV/

HAPPY 207th BIRTHDAY, ADA BYRON!

{From the pages of THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH}

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1508804540

       I am Ada Byron.  I died and willed myself back to a semblance of life.  I did the same for my lover, Margaret Fuller, she of the existential mind and passionate embrace.


       On this fine New Orleans morning, I may well die again.

 

  Odd.  I can almost feel young Victor’s eyes on me, his hand on mine, those laughing gypsy eyes telling me that he has a plan, that everything will be all right.

I smile demurely over my dining table at Margaret and my uninvited guest: Abigail Adams, President of America Corps, the ridiculous name for America’s Revenant Empire.

She sips her tea cup full of O Negative blood that I keep for Renfield and smiles with red-stained teeth.  She is dressed in a black business suit much like Margaret’s.  But her satin blouse has a frilly jabot like my own.

I know that her private quarters are done in an exact replica of the bedroom she shared with her husband, John, when he was the second president of the United States. 

 

I would have pity for her had she pity for any who stood in her way of Empire. As it is, I have only the guarded respect one has for a rattler coiled to strike.

Her smile broadens, cheapens, loses all authenticity.  “This need not end badly, Lady Lovelace.  We three here are each from the same era and morality.”

To my left, Margaret speaks harshly.  “This need not have happened at all, Madame President.  There was a time when you would not even have thought of invading another’s home at all.”

Abigail sighs.  “The times have changed.  All is adrift.  Humanity has lost its mooring.”

I laugh without pleasure. “Humanity, Abigail? You have not the slightest idea of what that word means anymore.”

“And you do,” smirks Abigail.

“Yes, because of Samuel I do.”

“It is you,” I continue, “that seems to have a broken compass, Abigail.”

“Life for Margaret,” stonily speaks Abigail.  “Or death.  Your choice.”

“No.  Yours, Madame President.”

“Yours,” insists my uninvited guest – and as a revenant, just how did she accomplish that feat?  Perhaps madness confers certain abnormal abilities in a revenant?

Abigail raises her haunted eyes to meet mine.  “All you have to do is convince that stubborn McCord to see the light and join my crusade to repel Empress Theodora’s troops from these shores.”

“All,” I laugh.  “Do you not want me to give him a Judas kiss while I am it?”

Margaret leans forward as if to convince with her not inconsiderable presence.  “You know Samuel as well as we do, if not better, for you have known him longer.  He will not consent for any armed or undead conflict in his city.”

Abigail goes even paler and statue erect.  “His city?”

“Yes, his city,” I whisper.

I gather my scattered wits and continue, “Your own husband made him swear to protect New Orleans.  Why do I have to tell you this?  You were there, hiding in the shadows, Madame President.”

There was a soulless giggle from the foyer door.  We turn.  I sigh.  Things have gotten … interesting.  I stiffen.

The ghoul, Alice Wentworth, looks at us with blue-fire eyes.

 I feel Victor near.  In this room.  But how can this be?

“President?” Alice sneers.  “Empress is the true title.  Empress of the American Revenant Empire.”

I look at Abigail’s narrowed eyes.  Eyes which have looked calmly at men being sucked dry of their blood by cruel, cold, efficient machines as she murmurs,  “I preside over America Corps.”

Abigail places down her drained blood cup with a deadly grace.  “So, ghoul, where is that perversion that would join his loins to yours?”

At those words, the scamp in question slips from the misty body of Alice.  And Victor Standish, the fourteen year old Ulysses, laughs that reckless laugh of his.

 Victor smiles, waving his fingers in front of his face as if they were a fan.  “Is it hot in here, or it is just me?  Joins loins with Alice?  Whew!  That’s a pretty hot image there, your worshipfulness.”

The smile drops from his lips.  "And if you haven't noticed, Your Hind-Ass, your moral compass doesn't exactly point North anymore."

 

{Then, of course, with the intrusion of Victor, things get even more interesting.}

***
More on the woman who wrote the first computer program a 100 years before the invention of the computer:

WOULD YOU WRITE HORROR? IWSG Post

 

Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/blackrabbitkdj-13427895/

We are living in a horror movie.

The Russians are said to be deploying 

a Poseidon torpedo.

Fact is they may have already deposited one off our shores months ago

OCTOBER is horror month. 

It is popular to be scared then. After all, movies, shows, and months eventually end

Do you know what galvanized President Regan 

to work so hard for world peace? 

A TV movie.

I have been finding it hard to write about 

fictional horror, 

feeling too much like Nero

fiddling while Rome burned.

Scientific studies indicate that those

who are not so empathic

can enjoy horror movies more

than those who feel more

negatively about those in torment.

What do you think?

Stephen King wrote:

"I think people do kind of gravitate towards horror stories when times are tough, and times are scary."

Are you finding writing

harder these days?

Thanks to Damyantii, I have this month's IWSG question:

My favorite genre?

Historical fantasy

I get to right certain wrongs that have galled me in my historical research.

Alfred Hitchcock's misogynistic cruelty on set after set, I was able to let my sociopathic former O.S.S. agent deal with him in my 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09LGJZ842

 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NRKWZTZ

Only $7.68 at the moment in hardcover!

I was able to spend nearly a year with my favorites, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, and Nikola Tesla in 1895 Egypt

while doing my own rendition of THE MUMMY!

Like Damyanti, I make setting and its history an actual character in my novels.

Unlike Damyanti, my historical novels have not been optioned for the screen.

PHOTO BY Gage Skidmore 

(Although I did dream that Tatiana Maslany emailed me wanting to portray the female version of my blood courier in BLOOD WILL TELL! )

https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Will-Tell/dp/B00E7UTGLS/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

MAY ALL YOUR WRITING DREAMS COME TRUE. :-)

DO YOUR SIDE CHARACTERS FADE IN THE READERS' MINDS? IWSG Post

 

 

A former TV executive says why She Hulk appears bland and Ally McBeal seemed vibrant is 

the latter's side characters "popped" with life while She Hulk's seem one dimensional and fade away in the background.

Is that true?

Maybe? I am not a former TV executive, but it made me wonder how vibrant my side characters are.

How vibrant are yours?

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to find out:

WHAT'S THEIR BACKSTORY?

Present scenes that give them access to speak from their hearts and share their life’s journeys, dreams, and goals.

WHAT MAKES THEM SMILE?

Nothing reveals the personalities of your side characters more than what makes them smile or laugh.

WHAT EVENT INFLUENCED THEM THE MOST?

 Was it political, health-related, or romantic? How did she/he rebound from it? Or did she/he never recover?

WHAT ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTS THEM?

It will only take a small scene of outrage in their actions or sobs in their throats that will etch their nature in your readers'  mind and delineate them from one another.

WHAT IS THE DISTINCTIVE PATTERN TO THEIR LIVES?

It is fascinating to see how subtly good authors weave the actions of their side characters in the lives of the others. Many of the crises in great books derive from the clashing patterns of the side characters.

Oh, when I was homeless for 7 months after hurricanes Laura and Delta, this is how I listened to books.

COYOTE CALLING

 

https://www.amazon.com/Coyote-Calling-Shifter-Seeker-Book-ebook/dp/B0B8BDZTJX/

The multi-talented Heather McCorkle has done it again.

Have you ever noticed? 

Troubles do not play fair. 

They gang up on you all at once, 

seemingly trying to elbow their way to get to the head of the line 

to take off your head!

You thought human politics was foul and dangerous?

Try surviving werewolf politics ... werewolves descended from Vikings at that. 

Sonya finds herself with the prospect of landing in a grave marked, "She died doing the right thing."

Worse, she has dragged her best friend, reaper Ayra Valdisdöttir, into that grave with her.

It soon turns into a Blood Moon:

A Navajo shifter appears on her doorstep with a life-threatening mystery along with untrustworthy estranged relatives.

Then, her mother goes missing.

What is happening?

And could Life please make

her troubles take a number?

If you like Norse Mythology, Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson series, and mystery, 

you will be wowed by Coyote Calling.

You have to hit CC to get the lyrics in English

DEADLY LADIES

Hurricane Katrina was among the worst natural disasters in the history of the United States, 

and it made landfall in New Orleans today in 2005.

The federal government and President George W. Bush were roundly criticized for what was perceived as their slow response to the disaster. 

The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Michael Brown, resigned amid the ensuing controversy.

Two weeks later, Hurricane Rita, the forgotten hurricane, destroyed Cameron Parish and nearly destroyed my town of Lake Charles. 

Hurricane Rita was the most intense tropical cyclone on record in the Gulf of Mexico and the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded.

I wrote an urban fantasy of my experiences in New Orleans and Lake Charles: 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1511548207

It is Hurricane Season once again, think good thoughts of me, all right? And maybe pick up the paperback or audio book, too.

AMERICA IS A BAD MEL BROOKS FILM

 How strange.

Police made at least two stops with Paul Pelosi in custody before bringing him to jail following a May 28 crash. 

He had more than 2 hours to burn off alcohol in his system before investigators took a blood sample.

The maximum prison sentence for an insider trading violation is now 20 years. 

The maximum criminal fine for individuals is now $5,000,000.

President Biden's obvious cognitive decline emboldens our enemies 

and our allies unsure of the worth  of our support.

Yet Congress turns a blind eye to this. 

What profit is his condition to those politicians?

Now, for a little humor: