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:

DID THE CANNIBAL VISIT YOU LAST NIGHT?

 

Our fiery star spit out a series of bursts on Sunday that are now headed in the direction of our planet and could trigger a strong geomagnetic storm.

 

One of those bursts, called a coronal mass ejection, or CME, is expected to collide and consume another, creating what's called a cannibal CME event.

Like the cell phone ad says, "Can you hear me now?" Or did the Solar Cannibal eat the internet last night?

Did one of you out there insult Mother Nature? 

And if so, could you PLEASE apologize!

A little dark humor to go

with the dark news:

MOVE ON, NOTHING TO FEAR HERE

 The time intervals between magnetic fields reversals have fluctuated widely, 

but average about 300,000 years, with the last one taking place about 780,000 years ago.

Official talking heads all agree, it will be nothing to worry about. But no humans were alive then to record what happened.

But there was one living thing that recorded what happened. 

A study of an ancient, well-preserved tree that was alive the last time the Earth's magnetic poles flipped tells a different story.

Chaos ensued. 

The weakening of the Earth's magnetic field briefly transformed the world by altering its climate and allowing far more ultraviolet light to pour in.

Anyone noticing drastic changes in weather patterns lately?

You think world governments trust us to handle terrible news well?

No. Me either.

IF YOU SEE ME, WEEP

 

The Elbe River’s hunger stones, carved centuries ago to mark the low-water levels that were recorded on years when crops failed and famine occurred.

 This one, dating back to 1616, reads “If you see me, weep.”

But perhaps the times are showing us other danger omens?

What do you think?

A little Magic to lift your spirits.

What Is the Last Book You Read? When? Why?

 

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, 

and slightly exhausted at the end, for you lived several lives while reading.”

 - William Styron

Book Lovers Day is celebrated 

on August 9 every year. 

This is an unofficial holiday observed

 to encourage bibliophiles to celebrate 

reading and literature.

People are advised to put away their smartphones and every possible technological distraction and pick up a book to read

Sadly I've lost count of the times I've nearly been run over by stockers in WalMart, 

orderlies delivering supplies, 

or walkers on the street too lost in their smart phones to even notice the world around them.

Have we become addicted to our cell phones?

Do any of your non-author friends read for pleasure?

Has life of late made it hard for even you to read?

Is the book destined to take its place beside the slide rule?

What do you think?

WHAT DO WOMEN WANT? IWSG Post

 

In fiction that is.

In romance I already know the answer: 

what I don't have.

Women account for 80 per cent of fiction sales. More women than men are members of libraries and book clubs. 

Women make up the majority of the audiences at literary festivals and bookshop events. 

They listen to more audiobooks, and attend more literary evening classes.

 Most literary bloggers are women.

I'm not whining, mind you. All right. 

Maybe a little.

https://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/p/iwsg-sign-uphtml

But what has this to do with this month's question?

When you set out to write a story, do you try to be more original or do you try to give readers what they want?

The ghost of William Faulkner was looking over my shoulder as I wrote this, and said,

"The cries of the spirit have been lost in the roil and tumult of rising inflation, of rattling nuclear sabers, and of infantile demands to cater to ever-changing personal pronouns and sexual identities.

By all means, believe the moon is sentient, but do not demand I sing hymns to it at midnight with you. You will find yourself like Linus alone in the pumpkin patch.

Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

Leave no room in the mind for anything but the old verities of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed—

love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. 

Until he or she does so, she labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. 

His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1795380225

 

To me, the human heart is genderless.

It knows only loneliness, loss, insecurity, compassion or its lack, generosity or greed, fullness or never ending hunger no matter the sex of its host.

I write about what interests me: 

the colorful past, the tragic struggles of human souls striving for what they wrongly believe will fulfill them, for if you are not already complete within yourself no other soul with do the job,

the supernatural, the Golden Age of Hollywood and its secrets, and the colorful urban legends of New Orleans.

I answer questions that have interested me:

 How was it like to be a lesbian in Hollywood where the false fronts were not only found on the studio lot?

How was it like to be a returning soldier from WWII when PTSD was not even recognized much less treated?

What was it like to be a beautiful actress trying to navigate the treacherous waters of deviant studio heads and amoral directors?

I started each of my last three novels with diary entries from a woman who finds herself resurrected in another woman's body after having died on the battlefront two years prior.

I thought it might ground the reader more firmly into the mind of a major character in the novel's eerie story though it is told through the eyes of her wartime lover.

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

Tastes change. 

If you write what you believe readers want, you might be wrong, you will be writing under false colors, prone to be shot at from every side, your heart will not truly be in your prose and it will show.

Worse.

You might be successful and be trapped writing in a style and genre you do not enjoy,

If you stay true to yourself, you will never steer yourself wrong. It may be to a lonely port, but it will have been a worthy journey for your spirit.

But what do I know? 

My favorite Loreena Mckennitt song is an instrumental.