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.

HAILING FREQUENCIES CLOSED

 

BEAM HER TO HEAVEN SCOTTY

EACH OF US HAVE

OUR OWN MEMORIES OF HER

AND WHAT SHE MEANT TO US.

MY PRAYERS GO TO HER SON

AND FRIENDS.

HER VOYAGE AMONG THE STARS

IS JUST BEGINNING.

MAY HER JOY BE ETERNAL.

ARE YOU HAVING TROUBLE WITH YOUR BOOK?

 IS THE JEOPARDY IN YOUR BOOK "NOVEL?"

THE 9;30 TO HELL

A train from Madrid was surrounded by wildfires this Monday morning.

What if the wildfires had been worse?

What if you were a doctor helping an expectant mother give birth at that very moment?

What if you were that expectant mother?

What if a psychopath was on that train, realizing he was soon to die ...

but now he could kill to his twisted desires content?

WHAT IF YOU STARTED YOUR BOOK TOO LATE IN THE STORY?

Timing in stories and in jokes is everything.

Think of the Timing Chain in a car

Timing Chain?

The timing chain is a component of the car engine that synchronizes 

the rotation of the crankshaft and camshaft in the engine's lower and higher portions.

You're the mechanic of your book.

What if you went back in the time of your story?

What if one of your characters finds Time to be only waves to be easily surfed along its endless eddies and undertows?

What mischief could she/he commit?

How would it shape their outlook on life and humans?

ARE EVEN YOUR SIDE CHARACTERS FLESHED OUT OR 

ARE THEY BUT SKETCHES THAT LEAVE LITTLE IMPRESSIONS ON YOUR READERS OR YOUR PROTAGONISTS?

For your book to "LIVE" all your characters must live for your reader.

What made THE BATMAN evocative was that even Gotham became a living character that shaped its citizens. 

David O. Selznick is a side character in my WIP and he was the blueprint for Harvey Weinstein,

leaving greatness and shattered lives in his wake.

But he was far from being unique in Hollywood.

In fact, my studio head, Samuel McCord, was hated by all the others for his refusal to "join the club."

 So? Has this helped you at all?

Let me know?

What I consider 

Ingrid's and Lucas'

Love Theme: