Michelle L. Levigne's Blog, page 108

Book of the Week: ZYGRADON

Today starts a focus on my Arthurian fantasy series, The Zygradon Chronicles. All published by Uncial Press.

There are 5 books in the series:
ZYGRADON
BRAENLICACH
THREE DROPS OF BLOOD
LADY WARHAWK
THE RIFT WAR

Hope you enjoy these excerpts!

ZYGRADONChild of Blood or Child of Life, both born in a fierce winter storm. Mrillis was orphaned in a battle against the Nameless One, the most evil enchanter the World had ever known. Raised by the most powerful Rey’kill enchanter of their time, Mrillis and Ceera grew up as brother and sister, and discovered their destinies and magical talents – and knew they would always be together. 


When the Nameless One targeted Mrillis, to either destroy him or turn him into the Child of Blood, all the armies of the World joined together to defeat him. He left three children, Three Drops of Blood, according to prophecy. The oldest, a boy, became Mrillis’ friend. Endor, Mrillis and Ceera grew up together, exploring their talent, learning their destinies, and fighting to find a cure from the ravages of star-metal that poisoned their world. 

Almost by accident, Ceera attempted to use star-metal as metal, and tame it. And from her hammer, the Zygradon was born, to harness all the magic of star-metal in the world.

Off the Bookshelf: THE STARK NAKED 21-DAY METABOLIC RESET, by Brad Davidson

This is one of those situations where you start reading a health-related book and you think, "This is too good to be true, there's gotta be catch."

Then you get far enough into it and you realize no, it's NOT too good, it's very true. The catch is that it's gonna take some dedication and discipline and planning to make it work.

*sigh*

On one level, the author makes the whole change-your-eating-habits-and-fix-your-metabolism-and-have-all-the-energy-you-want proposition sound so common sense and DO-able. And yet when you realize what you have to put into it, the rearranging in your schedule and your pantry ...

*ouch*

For three weeks, you have to stick with the eating plan, the limitations, the cleansing of your system to, yes, reset your metabolism. After that, you reintroduce foods into your menu, paying careful attention to the impact of each new food, so you can determine whether it's friendly to your new, rearranged digestion and energy and habits. Sounds simple, right?

*whimper*

I want to do this, but ... I'm a sugar addict. And that's just one of my excuses. I think I'll start off slow, applying a few principles at a time from the book, until I get acclimated to better habits, like no carbs in the morning and drinking hot lemon water first thing, and essentially build up the strength to take the plunge. Yeah, that's the coward's way, but a wise woman knows her limits.

New Book Excerpt: KILLING HIS ALTER-EGO

Published by Desert Breeze Publishing:

Until Kyle came by and ruined it. He's got this smirk and this "I told you so" attitude. He actually said that to one of the tech guys, when I finished my shot and could finally walk off. Something like, "Told you she'd do it." Yeah, like the big jerk knows anything about me? I fell into that whole stupid trick of Alyssa's, where she keeps referring to us by our character names. A couple times I really felt like we really were Jess and Bridger, teaming up against the bozos running the colony and threatening to destroy an important valley area with this power plant. Like we could understand each other. Then Kyle does something stupid like burping and ruining the shot. Or shaking up cans of beer to make like champagne, to celebrate with the stunt guys when a scene goes right. I am definitely not going to sit around and watch the other people filming their scenes if I'm not going to be in them. Nope, gonna use homework as an excuse to hide in my trailer.
Sometimes it's really hard to pretend Kyle is Bridger when we're doing our scenes. And then there are times I turn around and catch him watching me and I just get this weird shiver all over. Not like the scum-bums in our class who think anything in skirts is fair game, and if you're not one of the popular girls then you should be grateful for attention from them. You know? Why does he watch me like that all the time?

Mom is waking up. I better get off. Another day of filming ahead of me. We're going to be in the water most of the day, either swimming up to the power plant intake, or getting pulled downstream when the dam blows up. Fun, fun, fun. Maybe I can talk Mike into changing the big heroic scene, where Jess steals Bridger's coat and makes colony security think she's him, and they shoot her, letting Bridger get away. Either talk them into killing Jess or capturing Bridger and letting the aliens-disguised-as-animals break him out. What do you think?

New Book Excerpt: KILLING HIS ALTER-EGO

 Published by Desert Breeze Publishing:
Wednesday, August 16
Okay, things aren't quite so bad as I thought they'd be Monday morning. Maybe it was stage fright, even though there's no stage? The cameras do kind of look like prehistoric monsters.
Anyway, the first two days of shooting weren't so bad. Mostly because I was doing all my solo shots, where Jess has run away from the colony and trying to survive out in the wilderness by herself. The animal wranglers are pretty nice, and some of them know who Mom is, so they were nearly asking for her autograph. You should have seen some of the other actors staring, when they let me handle the falcon that brings Jess this mutant-looking rabbit with bug eyes. Got to play with the wolf cubs, too. They said I have "the touch." Well, duh. You grow up playing with wild animals, you know how to talk to them, y'know?
I was feeling pretty good, other than being a little ticked that they changed some of Jess's lines. Hello? We're on an alien planet. What makes them think that the aliens speak English? It's not like we have a Universal Translator or anything. They cut all my lines where Jess talks to the animals and then kind of slaps herself for being stupid enough to think they'd understand. Of course, they're working on bigger hints that the animals who protect Jess and bring her to Bridger are aliens. So I guess that works out. I hope it's better on film than it felt when I was saying the lines.

You know how we were goofing around, pretending we were scouting and setting up traps for colony security and helping Bridger escape traps and all that fun stuff? We were such little kids, but it was so much fun. There were a few times during the shooting when I could actually slide back into that pretending so hard it became real. That made everything a lot better.

New Book Excerpt: KILLING HIS ALTER-EGO

Published by Desert Breeze Publishing:


Honestly, I'm wondering what I'm doing here. Sunday we were supposed to spend the whole day reading through the script and just figuring out the subnotes or whatever Mike the director calls them, you know, what the characters are thinking underneath the lines. I learned not to volunteer what I was thinking when I wrote the lines. Turns out, writers are the lowest of the low in Hollywood. The guys at craft services get more respect than writers. They feed us, in case you were wondering. Weird how I'm picking up the lingo so fast. I certainly don't want to pick up much else of anything around here. Anyway, it turns out that even though I'm the writer and I created half the characters, I don't know what anybody is thinking when they say the lines that I wrote. Conrad Emerson, the guy who plays Captain Simmonds, and Kyle Hawkes are about the only actors who didn't sneer at me when I explained why lines had to be said a certain way, so lines later on in the script would make sense. I think they didn't sneer at me because I met both of them before filming, and they both know I'm the writer. Everybody else is all, "You're just a stupid kid, what do you know?" The second time someone snarled at me, Mike snarled back at them that I was the writer, so yeah, I did know something, since I knew what was going to happen later in the script, and it just showed that none of them had read the script yet or they'd know what I was saying made sense. Didn't stop them making faces and muttering at each other, but at least they didn't do it out loud where he could hear it.
What a bunch of jerks. Actors are all jerks.
Yeah, that includes Kyle Hawkes.

Now that you've picked yourself up off the ground, here's the scoop. Even though he was so nice to me in April, the guy is a bozo. He's an overgrown adolescent. Just as bad as the jerkfaces in our class. Getting back to what I was starting to say before, about Sunday, we were supposed to spend the whole day going through the script. We didn't because Kyle and some of the stunt crew guys and most of the lighting crew guys were out drinking and goofing around Saturday night, until Sunday morning. So they were all sleeping late and hung over. None of them -- except Kyle -- had to show up for the meeting, so what did they care? So when Penny came by the trailer Sunday morning and said I'd be free until after lunch -- and added, "Like usual," so that means those bozos have done this before -- she offered to have someone drive me into town if I wanted.

Off the Bookshelf: DARK IN DEATH, by J.D. Robb

Thank goodness for e-book borrowing capabilities at the Cuyahoga County Public Library!

I reserved this book 4 months ago, and when the book showed up in the stores, started checking my place in the queue waiting to read the next book in the adventures of near-future homicide detective Eve Dallas. I was 91 -- but my position in the line dropped quickly. Either the library had a lot of e-book copies, or people did like me and read fast! As in neglected other duties to read....

This particular adventure has some uncomfortable parallels with both popular movies (Stephen King's Misery) and current crime events, where people take out their frustrations on innocent parties. In this case, a successful crime writer has a wacko fan who turns quickly from adoration to menacing. The fan, who intends to be a writer too, decides that the writer has stolen her work of genius and warped it. It won't do any good to point out that the book was in pre-production before the fan sent the completed manuscript to her, without permission, wanting feedback.

The fan decides she's going to prove what a good writer she is by writing and improving on murder scenarios. She's decided villains are the real heroes. Yeah, warped. Eve and her allies are in a race against time to figure out who the next victim/target will be and prevent another murder, while identifying the wacko writer-wannabe fan. Chances are good she'll finish "rewriting" by killing the writer whom she once adored. Oh, yeah, and "write" Eve into the story line, too.

My favorite part of these books is the ever-developing relationships and interactions and the changing dynamics among the characters. Great fun to jump back into the familiar world, despite the murderous circumstances.

New Book Excerpt: KILLING HIS ALTER-EGO

Published by Desert Breeze Publishing:


Monday, August 14
Hey, Sam --
I figured out why they wanted me to play Jess. This is a two-bit outfit. All the guys on the crew are grumbling about it. They do everything as cheap as they can, and that includes hiring kids with no acting talent or experience. One of them even told me that I was like a bazillion (his words) times better than the slinky dame (his words) who was here last week. They said she was crawling all over Kyle, on camera and off. They were laughing about how she was past fifty, makeup three inches thick, and her full-body girdle creaked every time she moved, playing this matriarchal witch who wants Bridger to donate to a big test tube baby factory. Can we say double-ick-gross-vomit?
Kind of makes me think selling my first-ever script wasn't so incredible. If that's the kind of stuff they're buying.

They were laughing about how uncomfortable Kyle was, having to be nice to the old bimbo off camera. Even though she doesn't have a lot of credits (at least, ones she'll admit to in public, according to Ricky the animal wrangler), she has powerful relatives in the business. So they didn't shoot her with a tranquilizer the first time she tried to play tonsil hockey with Kyle. Not part of the script. Maybe they bought my script because Jess most definitely does not kiss Bridger?
Anyway, we got here on Friday night, and the Internet was out at the hotel, so I had to wait to report to you like I promised until we actually got out on location this morning, with the trailers, and they got the wireless signal up. I swear, the first thing I'm going to do with my check for acting is get a portable wireless doohickey thingy. You know what I mean? I don't want to have to depend on everybody else having a signal I can link to.

New Book Excerpt: KILLING HIS ALTER-EGO

Published by Desert Breeze Publishing:

"You complained that Jess had all the good lines," Alyssa said with her characteristic smirk.
"That's why it was great. Less work for me." Kyle thought he could breathe again when Raine's nose crinkled up and she smiled. Relief -- she understood that he was joking.
"You have to help me convince Raine to take a screen test, see how she'd do playing Jess."
"I don't know how to act," Raine said, coloring a little more.
"Neither do I," Kyle said.
"But--" A cute little wrinkle dug in between her eyes when she frowned and her mouth opened and closed, visibly confused.
"Until I helped my cousin Jamie with his graduation project in film school -- that's him over there on the patio, the bear--" Kyle gestured. Jamie was watching, enough to raise a hand when everyone turned to look at him. "Until I did that film, I never did any acting. In the pilot, the guys on the crew were calling me Pinocchio -- to my face -- because my performance was so stiff. It got better."
"That's what you think," Alyssa muttered, and winked at Raine. She let out a squeaking snort of a giggle.
"Yeah, and I felt like an idiot, but less of one. You'll do fine."
"Listen to the man," she said. "Would Bridger lie to you?"
Raine blushed again, while Kyle muffled a groan. He hated how Alyssa kept referring to him as Bridger. Marvin said it was a trick to get actors to "be" their characters. Kyle felt like he had something many-legged crawling inside his shirt. He had seen what happened to guys in high school and college who believed their press releases about what great athletes or scholars they were. Just about the time they really thought they were "all that," they tripped over something big and ugly. Usually something they didn't want other people to know about them. Usually in a big, public way. He didn't want that to happen to him. It would, if he let people talk like he was the character he had played.

New Book Excerpt: KILLING HIS ALTER-EGO

Published by Desert Breeze Publishing:

Kyle managed to sound fifty I.Q. points more intelligent as he said goodbye to Menger. The show's creator chuckled and shook his hand again, and admonished him to take good care of himself, because the first season was going to be an active one. Anyone who wasn't used to the rigorous shooting schedule of a television series could get wiped out and crash very easily.
"Yeah, well, the guy sure doesn't know you. Mountain Man Garrett," Jamie muttered, once Menger had exited into the hotel room.
Kyle knew he shouldn't stare, but something like dread held his attention on the five people seated around the poolside table, talking. Maybe the smart thing would be to go inside. The more he stared, the younger Raine looked to him. He knew exactly what he would do to a guy who stared at Katie like he was staring at Raine.
Jamie just laughed at him and leaned back, his notebook on his lap, and put his feet up on the patio table.
Disaster struck, in the form of Alyssa looking around and gesturing at him, then beckoning him to come over. Kyle knew he should have listened to his gut instinct and gone inside about five minutes ago.
Raine looked even younger when he walked over to the table and Alyssa introduced him to Raine, her mother, Dr. Rilke, and her agent, Larry Pondsby. His palms felt like waterfalls as they shook hands.
"I thought your script was great," he said, and hoped no one noticed when he wiped his hands on his backside. Raine's big gray eyes got even bigger and she blushed just enough to notice under her creamy tan. She had to be an outdoors type of girl, to have that good coloring so early in the spring. Kyle thought about asking if she liked to go canoeing or hiking. He didn't, because that sounded lame in his head.

New Book Excerpt: KILLING HIS ALTER-EGO

Published by Desert Breeze Publishing:

"Does she like animals?" Kyle asked, trying to redeem himself. "Just from the way Jess interacts with the animals in the script, I get the feeling the writer knows animals, how to work with them. Wild animals. Back home, we get a lot of people who don't even go to the zoo. They ignore our safety warnings and then talk to the animals like they understand English and..." He shrugged.
"Yes, indeed. Raine, so I'm told, has an incredible gift for animals. Her parents run a wildlife rescue center and she is something of their secret weapon, able to calm sick animals so they can be treated."
"Is that a fact?" Alyssa took another step off the patio and tipped her head to one side, studying Raine. "What do you think of her, Kyle?" She laughed when he just shook his head, unsure what she was getting at. "Does she look like Jess to you? Can she act?" She turned back to Menger.
As a matter of fact, Raine did look a lot like Kyle envisioned Jess, when he read the script.
"How old is she?" he had to ask.
"Hmm, still in high school. She's the protégé of a colleague. That's how she came to have consultant credit in the pilot script," Menger said.
"Triple threat," Jamie muttered.
"How's that?"
"She writes, she's a critter wrangler, she's cute, and if she can act..." He shrugged.
"That's four," Kyle had to say. His cousin snarled silently at him, earning soft chuckles from Alyssa and a thoughtful look from Menger.
"Excuse me," Alyssa said. "I shouldn't take long, but--"
"No need," Menger said. "I spotted a coffee shop next door. I think I'll settle down there and get some notes jotted down while the ideas are still clear in my head."
"Sounds good." She nodded to the three of them and set off around the pool.