Kaye Lynne Booth's Blog: Writing to be Read, page 107

Don’t miss your chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card and have your story included in the next WordCrafter paranormal anthology!

Don’t miss the fast approaching submission deadline for the 2021 WordCrafter Paranormal Short Fiction Contest.

April 30th is right around the corner. We want your stories about ghosts, spirits, and things that go bump in the night.

Winner receives a $25 Amazon gift card and inclusion in the Where Spirits Linger anthology.

See full submission guidelines.

#Bookreview – Last Call and Other Short Fiction by Kaye Lynne Booth

Roberta Eaton Cheadle features a review of my short story collection, “Last Call and Other Short Fiction” on her “Roberta Writes” blog site today. Drop by and see what she has to say about the short fiction of Kaye Lynne Booth

What Amazon says

Six premium short storiesby author Kaye Lynne Booth. Stories in this collection has something for everyone witha mixture of time travel, suspense, humor, origins and speculative fiction.

Last Call- (Time travel science fiction) -Things aren’t going too good for Derek and he thinks his life is over, until he stops in for a Last Call. Will a bar in the middle of nowhere turn out to be his curse or his salvation?

Terror on the Mountain Trail- (Suspense) – It’s a perfect spring day until Kellie and Randy are attacked by a crazed man in the wilderness.

Earth Mother– (Origin Story)

A Turn of the Tables– (Speculative fiction) – Are vampires really invincible? One vampire is about to find out.

A True Hero- (Humor) – Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. This one is heroic indeed.

Man of Her Dreams-…

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Dark Origins – Little Jack Horner, a nursery rhyme

When I was a girl I loved nursery rhymes. I had a beautiful Mother Goose book which I used to read often. Over the years that book disintegrated from frequent use and it was eventually disposed of. When my oldest son was born, I replaced it with a few new nursery rhyme books, all of which are beautifully illustrated.

Picture from: https://historydaily.org/nursery-rhymes-are-not-what-they-seem-the-story-behind-little-jack-horner

One of my favourite nursery rhymes is Little Jack Horner. The modern version goes like this:

Little Jack Horner.

Sat in the corner,

Eating a Christmas pie;

He put in his thumb,

And pulled out plum,

And said “What a good boy am I.”

The text of the original nursery rhyme is somewhat different and is believed to have originated in 1538 during the English Reformation. During the years 1536 to 1541, King Henry VIII set about an administrative and legal process whereby he disbanded monasteries, priories, convents, and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland. The incomes previously earned by the monasteries were expropriated by the crown and their assets were seized.

It is speculated that the Jack from this nursery rhyme is Thomas Horner who was a steward to the last abbot of Glastonbury, Richard Whiting. According to the story, Horner was sent to London with a Christmas pie for King Henry VIII. Inside the pie the deeds to twelve manor houses were hidden. These were intended to be a gift to the king and a last effort by Richard Whiting to prevent the nationalisation of church lands and the destruction of Glastonbury Abbey.

On the way to London, Horner discovered the deeds hidden in the pie and took for himself the deeds of the manor of Mells in Summerset. Shortly afterward, Horner moved into the manor and his descendants have lived in the manor house for generations. They dispute the claim that the deeds were stolen by Horner.

The origin of this nursery rhyme fascinates me so much I have incorporated it into my writing. In my supernatural novel, Through the Nethergate, it is mentioned by one of the main supporting characters, the Monk.

Extract from Through the Nethergate relating to Little Jack Horner

Here is an short extract from Through the Nethergate that details the original wording of this nursery rhyme and a peek into its history:

“Margaret continued to watch him. She wasn’t sure where this outpouring of information was going.

I’m talking to a ghost, she thought. Someone who says he was born in 1483. Bewilderment and fear fluttered in her stomach.

The monk seemed to pull himself together and continued to speak:
“In 1536, King Henry VIII set about the dissolution of the monasteries. Monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland were disbanded and their income and assets appropriated by the Crown.”

The monk’s eyes seemed to glisten in the dim light.

“In the run up to Christmas 1538, Richard Whiting sent a gift to the king in a last effort to prevent the nationalisation of church lands and the destruction of the abbey. The gift was a huge Christmas pie with the deeds to a dozen manor houses hidden inside it. The abbot chose two trusted men to deliver the gift; one was his steward, Thomas Horner, and the other was me.”

A smile suddenly lit up the monk’s face.

“Do you know the nursery rhyme, Little Jack Horner?”

Margaret nodded again. A little taken aback at this sudden change of direction to the conversation.

Now he sings of Jackey Horner,
Sitting in the Chimney-Corner,
Eating of a Christmas pye,
Putting in his thumb, Oh fie!
Putting in, Oh fie, his Thumb,
Pulling out, Oh strange! A Plum.

“That nursery rhyme was written about Thomas Horner. During the journey, he opened the pie and took out the deeds of the manor of Mells in Somerset, which he kept for himself.”

“What about you?” Margaret asked. “What happened to you?”

The monk looked at Margaret, his smile slowly fading.

“I was killed, of course. Stabbed through the heart by that treacherous and thieving Thomas Horner.”

The monk’s shoulders slumped dejectedly and his mouth turned downwards.”

The story of the Monk’s death is included as a short story in a murder mystery anthology, Death Among Us.

Picture from Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glastonbury_Abbey

I was planning to visit the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey last year, but sadly Covid-19 put paid to that trip.

There are two interesting features of Glastonbury Abbey that make it very interesting to me:

The graves of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere’s tomb are purported to be in Glastonbury; andThe Abbot’s Kitchen is described as “one of the best preserved medieval kitchens in Europe”Site of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere’s purported tomb beneath the high altar. Picture from Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glastonbury_AbbeyAbout Roberta Eaton Cheadle

I am a South African writer specialising in historical, paranormal and horror novels and short stories. I am an avid reader in these genres and my writing has been influenced by famous authors including Bram Stoker, the Bronte sisters, Amor Towles, Stephen Crane, Enrich Maria Remarque, George Orwell, Stephen King, and Colleen McCullough. 

I was educated at the University of South Africa where I achieved a Bachelor of Accounting Science in 1996 and a Honours Bachelor of Accounting Science in 1997. I was admitted as a member of The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants in 2000. 

I have worked in corporate finance from 2001 until the present date and have written seven publications relating to investing in Africa. I have won several awards over my twenty year career in the category of Transactional Support Services.

I have been published a number of anthologies and have two published YA books, While the Bombs Fell and Through the Nethergate. I have recently published my first adult novel called A Ghost and His Gold which is partly set in South Africa during the Second Anglo Boer War.

Find Roberta Eaton Cheadle

Blog: https://wordpress.com/view/robertawrites235681907.wordpress.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobertaEaton17

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robertawrites

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Roberta-Eaton-Cheadle/e/B08RSNJQZ5

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Want to be sure not to miss any of Robbie’s “Dark Origins” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress. If you found it interesting or entertaining, please share.

Criticism – it’s an art form

Drop by Barbara Spencer’s “Pictures from the Kitchen” for a eye-opening post on the importance of criticism in writing, and ways to deal with seeming negativity based on her own experiences. Lot’s of food for thought, and it’s a great lead in for the release of the third book in her “Children of Zues” trilogy, “The Drumming of Heels”.

Pictures From The Kitchen Window

Why do people write books?

It’s a question I’ve been asking myself for years. On the face of it, tying yourself to a desk for months and months is crazy, especially when our world offers a never-ending cornucopia of delights. Is it the story that gets lodged in your brain and refuses to disappear like the line of a song you keep humming? Or is it a passion for words – their use and arrangement on paper – as it is for poets? I can more easily understand an artist who sees the world in terms of colour, aquamarine and ochre, or a musician who hears a sequence of notes which he embroiders into a symphonic poem, than I can an author.

For me, though, it’s always been about telling a story, which makes me a plotter not a pantser and for years I have told my stories, both funny…

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“No Secret Too Small”: A historical western novel

No Secret Too Small

I always love reading the historical western novels of Loretta Miles Tollefson, and No Secret Too Small was no exception. It has all the attention to detail that I’ve come to expect from her Old New Mexico Novels, placing me into a setting and time that no longer exist, yet Tollefson makes it feel oh, so real, even if only for the time it takes to read the story. Loretta Miles Toleffson masterfully paints a visual picture for the mind’s eye, bringing historical times and events to life with brutal clarity.

Miles’ Old New Mexico Novels are skillfully written to feature many of the same characters at various points in time. So, while No Secret Too Small features Alma, who was introduced as a baby in Not My Father’s House, (see my review here), this story is easliy followed when read as a stand alone book. This story is a part of more than just the saga of one family, it is a part of a piece of history, a time when living was a gamble, in a land where survival is no game.

No Secret Too Small speaks to that struggle to survive, but it also speaks to the racism and predjudice of the period. Old New Mexico in the 1800’s is no place for a woman alone with two children. But pride is a funny thing and that is just where Alma and her mother and brother find themselves in a time of civil unrest and rebellions, after her mother discovers the truth about her father’s heritage. We receive Alma’s story through her young eyes, as she watches her mother struggle to survive as she discovers and deals with the predjudices she didn’t even realize that she had. Alma learns much about the world and human nature, much of it too ugly for such young eyes to view. She yearns to return to her valley, and to be a whole family once more, but she has little control over the adult world around her. She can’t make her father come for them any more than she can make her mother decide to return home.

If you like historical novels that paint their periods vividly for readers, and features characters you can care about, then No Secret Too Small is a must read. A well-crafted story that holds the reader’s interest until the last page has turned, Tollefson draws you into the story and takes you back with her characters into times long past with period details that have obviously been well researched. A story that will no doubt touch hearts, I give it five quills.

Buy Link for No Secret Too Small

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Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.

Treasuring Poetry: Meet poet and author, Ritu Bhathal, and read about her thoughts on poetry

Today, I am delighted to feature Ritu Bhathal, talented poet and author, as my Treasuring Poetry guest. Ritu has a lovely poetry book, Poetic RITUals, a romance, Marriage Unarranged, and is a contributor to This is Lockdown, compiled and edited by MJ Mallen.

Which of your own poems is your favourite?

There are a lot of poems I have written, which resonate, but one of my favourites will always be this one:

From Twinkle To Reality

Let me take you down that road,

Much travelled through eternity

The journey to become a mum,

From twinkle to reality.

The plans you make at a young age,

Full of gurgles and laughter,

The horror as you realise,

What really does come after!

The fun of trying,

The monthly wait.

The disappointment,

That feeling, you hate…

The years of trying,

Full of hospitals and checks,

The medication taking you over,

You feel like total wrecks…

Then finally, the day comes

That positive is clear

The goal that you were aiming for,

Has suddenly come near.

The months of fascination,

Your changing body grows

The feeling of satisfaction

That only you can know.

Those pain-filled days, or hours

To reach the prize you sought

The feeling of satisfaction

That this little bundle brought.

I gaze at you in wonder

Are you really here?

I’m overwhelmed with happiness

And a tiny bit of fear.

Will I be able to give to you

All you want and need?

As you look at me, wide eyed

Snuggled close while you feed.

Little blessing, sent from God

My heart is filled with joy

I will do all I can for you,

My darling baby boy.

And so the cycle continues

The waits and checks again

We’re gifted with a gorgeous girl

After a little more pain.

My life is here with me right now

Some twinkles from my eyes.

But I’ll never forget those twinkles

That now, do grace the skies… 

A lovely poem, Ritu, that all parents can relate to. I can see why it is your favourite.

What inspired you to write this particular poem?

This poem is dedicated to my wonderful children, recognising the struggles to have them, and remembering my 2 angels lighting the sky at night. The words just came to me, one day, as I was running a bath. The poem formed within ten minutes, and garnered a great interest on my blog when I published it, and on my anthology, Poetic RITUals.

Which genre of poetry do you enjoy writing the most and why?

I have learned a lot about poetry, since I began blogging. I do love simple rhyming couplets and four-line rhyming verses, but I also love the succinct haiku, senryu and tanka forms. It’s amazing how much you can convey in such few syllables.

Which genre of poetry do you enjoy reading the most?

I don’t have a favourite genre of poetry to read. I find that, depending on the subject, all forms can appeal. Sometimes freeform poetry speaks to me, sometimes it is the simple abab rhymes. And who doesn’t love a limerick?

What is your favourite poem?

I have to say I don’t have a strict favourite poem, but I am a huge fan of Pam Ayres.

Here is a great one!

YES I’LL MARRY YOU MY DEAR

Yes, I’ll marry you, my dear.
And here’s the reason why.
So I can push you out of bed,
When the baby starts to cry.
And if we hear a knocking,
And it’s creepy and it’s late,
I hand you the torch, you see,
And you investigate.

Yes I’ll marry you, my dear,
You may not apprehend it,
But when the tumble-drier goes
It’s you that has to mend it.
You have to face the neighbour
Should our labrador attack him,
And if a drunkard fondles me
It’s you that has to whack him.

Yes, I’ll marry you, my dear,
You’re virile and you’re lean,
My house is like a pigsty
You can help to keep it clean.
That little sexy dinner
Which you served by candlelight,
As I just do chipolatas,
You can cook it every night!!!

It’s you who has to work the drill
And put up curtain track,
And when I’ve got PMT, it’s you who gets the flak,
I do see great advantages,
But none of them for you,
And so, before you see the light,
I DO, I DO, I DO!!

Haha, Ritu, you had better hope Hubby Dearest does not read this.

Poetic RITUalsWhat Amazon says

Delve into a book of verse exploring different topics and different genres, all with a RITUal twist.
A collection of poetry drawing on the experiences of the writer, ranging from matters of the heart, love for the family, situations in life and some verses written with a humorous twist.

My review

This is a delightful book of poetry with a lot of variety in the tone and content of the poems. They are all written from a very human perspective and cover the day-to-day life of a Mother of two, wife and employee with a lovely twist of humour. As all of these things myself, I found the verses to be very relatable. The book is divided into four sections which each deal with different aspects of life, namely, Family RITUals, Life rituals, Rituals of the heart and Rituals to make you smile.

Who could not enjoy such words as the following:

“Snuggled close while you feed.

Little blessing, sent from God

My heart is filled with joy”

This took me right back to those first days as a Mother and the closeness of cuddling your new-born and breastfeeding.

“A cough or sniffle, fever, rash

You wish you could

make them well

but other than love, and Calpol

It’s a parent’s

Form of Hell”

As a Mother of a child with a chronic illness, this verse had me nodding my head in agreement and feeling Ritu’s anguish.

I would recommend this book which is a keeper. A book to delve into for a smile when life gets heavy going.

Purchase Poetic RITUals

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Other books

You can read my review of Marriage Unarranged here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1UMFET10EPA4M

You can read my review of This is Lockdown here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R10H47WGGWTVWT

About Ritu Bhathal

Ritu Bhathal was born in Birmingham in the mid-1970s to migrant parents, hailing from Kenya but with Indian origin. This colourful background has been a constant source of inspiration to her.

From childhood, she always enjoyed reading. This love of books is credited to her mother. The joy of reading spurred her on to become creative in her writing, from fiction to poetry. Winning little writing competitions at school and locally encouraged her to continue writing.

As a wife, mother, daughter, sister, and teacher, she has drawn on inspiration from many avenues to create the poems that she writes.

A qualified teacher, having studied at Kingston University, she now deals with classes of children as a sideline to her writing!

Ritu also writes a blog, www.butismileanyway.com, a mixture of life and creativity, thoughts and opinions, which was awarded first place in the Best Overall Blog category at the 2017 Annual Bloggers Bash Awards, and Best Book Blog in 2019.

Ritu is happily married and living in Kent, with her Hubby Dearest, and two children, not forgetting the fur baby Sonu Singh.

About Robbie Cheadle

Robbie Cheadle has published nine books for children and one poetry book. She has branched into writing for adults and young adults and, in order to clearly separate her children’s books from her adult books, is writing for older readers under the name Roberta Eaton Cheadle.

Robbie Cheadle’s Sir Chocolate children’s picture books are written in sweet, short rhymes which are easy for young children to follow and are illustrated with pictures of delicious cakes and cake decorations. Each book also includes simple recipes or biscuit art directions which children can make under adult supervision. Her books for older children also incorporate recipes that are relevant to the storylines.

Roberta Eaton Cheadle’s supernatural stories combine fabulous paranormal elements with fascinating historical facts.

Children’s picture books – available as a square book and an A5 book (co-authored with Michael Cheadle):
Sir Chocolate and the strawberry cream story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the baby cookie monster story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the sugar dough bees story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the Condensed Milk River story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the Sugar Crystal Caves story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the Fondant Five story and cookbook
Sir Chocolate and the Ice Cream Rainbow Fairies story and cookbook

Middle school books:
Silly Willy Goes to Cape Town (includes five fun party cake ideas)
While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with Elsie Hancy Eaton)

Poetry book:
Open a new door (co-authored with Kim Blades)

Supernatural fantasy YA novel:
Through the Nethergate

Horror Anthologies (edited by Dan Alatorre):
Spellbound
Nightmareland
Dark Visions

Paranormal Anthologies (edited by Kaye Lynne Booth):
Spirits of the West
Whispers of the Past

Murder mystery Anthology (edited by Stephen Bentley)
Death Among Us

Find Robbie Cheadle

Blog: https://bakeandwrite.co.za/

Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com

Twitter: BakeandWrite

Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram

Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books

Want to be sure not to miss any of Robbie’s “Treasuring Poetry” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress.

“Mind Fields” – Weight Loss: Fact Or Fiction

Weight Loss: The Fiction of Being Skinny

Mind Fields

I estimate that each of my legs weighs sixty pounds. That leaves a hundred pounds for the rest of my body. My head probably weights twenty, which leaves eighty for the arms and torso. My belly, that piece of me that surprised me totally when it arrived in the years between forty and forty five, my belly must take up sixty pounds of that remaining eighty. It’s a classic middle-aged man’s belly. It is true, I eat too much and most of that eating is done in bed. Every night of my entire life I have munched or crunched something as I read myself to sleep.

Snack Foods

My theory is that I am seeking a substitute for breast milk. My early days on this planet were not a paradise of blissful bonding between  mother and child. My father tells me that I had night terrors. I tell him that if I was terrified of anything, it was my mother. 

During my futile attempts to rid myself of this belly, I’ve done ten kinds of abdominal exercises, hundreds of reps daily, for months and months on end. My belly didn’t get smaller. It got bigger. 

Why was I exercising my six-pack this way? What myth did I buy into? If I wanted to get rid of my belly, I should have done absolutely nothing. I should have, with the wisdom of hindsight, accepted the fact that this belly is here to stay, it’s a natural by product of aging. It just IS, and why is that so horrible? Why is everyone buying gizmos, electronic abdominal muscle stimulators? Why do they buy gimmicks with names like Abbacizers, Sixpackalongs, Abhancers? Why do people hang from bars and pull themselves up and back, up and back, or lay tilted on long boards, going up and back, up and back? There’s more than a little insanity in this vain pursuit. The obsession with the six pack is about vanity and its monster shadow, insecurity. Our culture pumps its toxic load of media venom into our collective psychic bloodstream, so that we feel inadequate if our bodies don’t adhere to some contemporary ideal of beauty. For the moment, that ideal has become horrifically thin; it forms the ironic counterpoint to the visible reality that Americans have gotten chronically fat.

We’re a culture with a lot of food. There’s never been a civilization in the history of the world with more food. It’s hardly surprising that everyone eats a lot, gets fat and the ideal of beauty is to have arms and legs so thin that you have to walk around storm drains lest you slip through the bars and get washed out to sea.

I wish we could weigh thoughts just as we weigh butter, or scrap metal. How much would my daily output of body-shame weigh? How many pounds, kilos, ounces, grams would every thought weigh, those thoughts that go, “Oh I wish this belly would flatten out, it makes me feel so unattractive, so grotesque?”

Beneath the veneer of our society a drumbeat of subliminal command roars like an underground subway train. It’s saying, rhythmically, “hate your body hate your body hate your body hate your body.” Chugga chugga chugga chugga.

People who are at war with their bodies spend money on ridiculous products. Teeth whiteners! When did this obsession come along? Who cares about teeth whiteners? People who use them look ridiculous. There’s a blinding beam of Cheshire Cat grin every time they open their mouths, a light so blatantly artificial that it obscures the rest of the face with its message: “I am insecure and hopelessly vain.  I use teeth whiteners.”

Recently I heard a radio spiel about a product that reduces shadows under the eyes. Oh my god, here we go again!  The script describes the grotesque anatomical process behind eye shadows: a horrific network of bloated capillaries spreads beneath your eyes until they burst forth to spill a dark disgusting goo of congealing blood, thus producing bruised tissue, thus producing embarrassing and unsightly morning-after shadows, hanging and spreading and sagging until they’re the size of wrinkled leather saddle bags beneath your optical sockets.

Eeeeeeww! How humiliating! Burst blood vessels, bruises, discoloration? Wrinkled leather saddle bags beneath my eyes? I can’t have that! 

This is how to create a market for a useless product. People will start fixating on their fatigue-shadows, examining the mirror for any hint of darkening skin. The stuff will sell like crazy, as another reason to hate one’s body darkens the horizon of the national psyche. This insanity is all about money. People who hate themselves spend more money, spend compulsively, to cover their unhappiness. It serves the interests of marketers to create a social condition in which self hatred becomes the paradigm.

I have to ask myself the question, “Which is worse, being overweight, or being guilty, stressed and ashamed of being overweight?” Which damages my health more? I think it’s the latter. I think that stressing and hating my body is more toxic than glugging down three milkshakes a day.

How many ridiculous weight-loss products bloat the bandwidth of the media empires? How many bogus concoctions feed on the fervent wish that one can lose pounds and become shapely without any effort?

I have invented my own product to add to this glut for gluttons: “Thindremeä!” Here’s the commercial, presented by a blandly attractive blonde woman in front of a red- white- blue studio set enhanced by computer graphics showing fat bodies and thin bodies arranged for before/after comparison.

“Do you dream of going to sleep fat and waking up thin? Now your dreams can come true! Two tablets of clinically proven Thindreme before bed will melt the pounds away as you sleep! The more you sleep the thinner you will get. This new miracle compound acts upon the metabolism of your slumbering body and converts fat cells using the principle of DCE, or Dynamic Caloric Extrapolation. It is a proven fact that Rapid Eye Movement sleep is an untapped source of caloric output. In other words, REM sleep is exercise! Thindreme has come along to utilize this remarkable opportunity. The more you dream, the more weight you lose! Within four to six weeks you can emerge a brand new person, thin, sexy, appealing, without any effort on your part! Forget about diet, exercise, lifestyle. You don’t need will power. Thindreme does it for you! Now you can be the man or woman of your dreams! If you order in the next ten minutes, Thindreme will double your order, and at no extra cost, will give you this free nose hair trimmer. And there’s more! We will also add to your order this stylish miniature folding piano! So pick up the phone, and order now! And remember, Thindreme is Clinically Proven.” *

(Now, the disclaimer is read quietly and quickly:)

*Thindreme (wackazone hydrochloride) can produce side effects in a significant minority of users, including blurred vision, stuttered speech, nausea, excess ear wax, demonic visions, spastic extremities, impotence, frigidity, memory loss, extreme body odor, blurted expletives, colorful flatulence, Fixed Eye Syndrome, increased hair growth on the lower back, muscle cramp, constipation, diarrhea, logorrhea, Recalcitrant Plebny, and black facial warts. If dreaming does not occur, possible weight gain is indicated.

            A Product of ExCon Industries”

          
I’ve given up trying to rid myself of this belly. I know that a group of cannibals would find me delicious. My bicycle thighs would be a Kentucky Fried delight, the most giant Crispy ever to appear in a cannibal’s bucket. 

When I compare my life to the living hell in which I see that most people exist, I feel grateful for the good life that I have. My relationship with my partner has its sick elements, to be sure, its ‘enablings’ and ‘codependencies’ (how I love this modern language of the heart’s twisted pathways). We don’t fight. If something starts to fester between us, it will come out in a talk, a gentle but firm confrontation where our fears are expressed and laid to rest.

This was supposed to be about my belly, but I can’t write about that part of my personal real estate without including all kinds of other things in my life. My belly doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it isn’t just floating around in space, a belly, without connection to the rest of the universe. My belly may be causing storms on Neptune, for as we have recently discovered, everything has a connection to everything else. It’s the Butterfly Effect. Or in this case, The Belly Effect.

 My belly is a dominating presence in my life. I, who spent my youth being thin and sinewy, looking like a Hindu holy man from the hippie trail in Nepal, am now somewhat imprisoned by this entity who sits astride the center of my body. It goes everywhere with me. My vanity is not the main actor in this dismay. My vanity went out about the same time as my hair. Well, that’s not exactly true. I am concerned with how I appear to other people. The problem is, I know that the one person least qualified to judge how I appear to other people is myself. And that is a universal law. You, who think you look thus and thus to the outside world, are completely deluded. When you look in the mirror, the information you receive is so utterly tainted by your needs and dreams that you might as well be looking at a stranger. I wish people would understand this.

            YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE. YOU NEVER WILL.

There are so many ingredients that go into an appearance that are invisible to the owner of a human body, that said owner should just give up. Photographs lie for many reasons. Photos capture one two hundredth of a second, and in that two hundredth of a second, an expression may be crossing your face that is otherwise invisible, so quickly do the facial muscles change with the passing of emotion. That’s why we often look odd in pictures. Videotape is in some ways even worse. I don’t know a single soul who doesn’t cringe when viewing his or herself on video. Its distortions are insidious but nonetheless real.

I say this to my fellow humans: do your best to be hygienic, wear clothes that are comfortable and that please you, and let your nature emerge, because that’s what happens anyway. Your appearance is determined by your nature. The way you look is about energy, not physical features.

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Feral Tenderness

Arthur Rosch is a novelist, musician, photographer and poet. His works are funny, memorable and often compelling. One reviewer said “He’s wicked and feisty, but when he gets you by the guts, he never lets go.” Listeners to his music have compared him to Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, Randy Newman or Mose Allison. These comparisons are flattering but deceptive. Rosch is a stylist, a complete original. His material ranges from sly wit to gripping political commentary.

Arthur was born in the heart of Illinois and grew up in the western suburbs of St. Louis. In his teens he discovered his creative potential while hoping to please a girl. Though she left the scene, Arthur’s creativity stayed behind. In his early twenties he moved to San Francisco and took part in the thriving arts scene. His first literary sale was to Playboy Magazine. The piece went on to receive Playboy’s “Best Story of the Year” award. Arthur also has writing credits in Exquisite Corpse, Shutterbug, eDigital, and Cat Fancy Magazine. He has written five novels, a memoir and a large collection of poetry. His autobiographical novel, Confessions Of An Honest Man won the Honorable Mention award from Writer’s Digest in 2016.

More of his work can be found at www.artrosh.com

Photos at https://500px.com/p/artsdigiphoto?view=photos

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Day #4 of the WordCrafter “Seizing the Bygone Light” Book Blog Tour: My Review

Seizing the Bygone Light Book Blog Tour

Day four of the WordCrafter “Seizing the Bygone Light” Book Blog Tour brings this wonderful tour to a close. Thanks to all who ventured on this brief book tour with us. On Day #1, I introduced this wonderful collection of photgraphy and poetry, Seizing the Bygone Light: A Tribute to Early Photography, an amazing collaborative effort from Cendrine Marrouat, David Ellis, and Hayida Ali, right here on Writing to be Read.

Seizing the Bygone Light authors, the ProArtMo Collective

On Day #2, we visited Barbara Spencer’s Pictures from the Kitchen Window, where she interviews the three members of the ArtProMo Collective about their inspiration for Seizing the Bygone Light and the combining of poetry and photography as a storytelling medium.

Seizing the Bygone Light: A Tribute to Early Photography

Day #3 found us over at Robbie Cheadle’s Robbie’s Inspiration, where we get a guest post from the authors about their visions and collaborative efforts to create this unique collection of visual imagery and verse.

Seizing the Bygone Light: A Tribute to Early Photography

Now here we are, back where we started, where my review of this very interesting collection will finish off the tour. I want to thank you all for joining us, and if you missed any of the four blog stops along the way, just click on the links above to go back and see what you miss kelellpe.

Seizing the Bygone Light: A Tribute to Early Photography

My Review

Seizing the Bygone Light: A Tribute to Early Photography combines the visual media of photography and the art of poetry into a insightful method of storytelling. Cendrine Marrouat, David Ellis, and Hadiya Ali are visionaries in their arts. This collaborative effort employs the use of styles of both photography and poetry, which they have created themselves, exploring new and unique realms in their individual mediums.

The book is structured into three sections of black and white photographs. The third section combines the Pareiku and Haibun poetry of David Ellis with photographs of bygone days, while the reminigrams created by Cendrine Marrout produce timeless photos, and the captivating subjects and striking images of nature by Hadiya Ali are inspired by the photographic images of Irving Penn and Karl Blossfeldt, but her young eye and fresh vision offer unique perspective. The result of this collaborative effort is a stunning collection of inspiring visual stories that pay homage to the black and white era of days past, while at the same time, celebrating the rise digital photography with their original and innovative styles

Inspirational and innovative, Seizing the Bygone Light: A Tribute to Early Photography, is a must for anyone with an interest in photography or its history and for anyone who likes to view the world through a unique and captivating lense, as well as those who just have an appreciation of poetic form. I give it five quills.

Buy Link for Seizing the Bygone Light: A Tribute to Early Photography

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About the Authors

Hadiya Ali is a 19-year-old Pakistan-born artist who now lives in Oman. A keen observer of people,
she noticed at a very young age how talented market workers were at what they did – but that they
seemed unaware of their own talent. So she decided to capture their stories with her camera.
Before she knew it, her project had attracted attention and she had been booked for her first
professional photoshoots, suddenly realizing that she, too, had been unaware of her own talent all
this time.
Hadiya works on projects that capture unique stories and themes. Some of her photography is
featured in The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: 2020 Edition.

David Ellis lives in Tunbridge Wells, Kent in the UK. He is an award-winning poet, author
of poetry, marketing workbooks/journals, humorous fiction and music lyrics. He is also a co-author
and co-founder of Auroras & Blossoms, and the co-creator of PoArtMo (Positive Art Month and
Positive Art Moves) and the Kindku / Pareiku.
David’s debut poetry collection (Life, Sex & Death) won an International Award in the Readers’
Favorite Book Awards 2016 for Inspirational Poetry Books.
David is extremely fond of tea, classic and contemporary poetry, cats, and dogs but not snakes.
Indiana Jones is his spirit animal.

Cendrine Marrouat is a French-born Canadian photographer, poet, and the multi-genre author of
more than 30 books. In 2019, she co-founded the PoArtMo Collective with Isabel Nolasco, and
Auroras & Blossoms with David Ellis. A year later, Ellis and she launched PoArtMo (Positive Art
Month and Positive Art Moves) and created the Kindku and Pareiku, two forms of poetry. Cendrine is
also the creator of another poetry form (the Sixku) and a type of digital image (the Reminigram).
Cendrine writes both in French and English and has worked in many different fields in her 17-year
career, including translation, language instruction, journalism, art reviews, and social media.

Together, Cendrine, David, and Hadiya comprise the PoArtMo Collective, an artist collective dedicated
to creating and releasing inspirational and positive projects.

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Craft and Practice with Jeff Bowles – Characters in Need of Color

Each month, writer Jeff Bowles offers practical tips for improving, sharpening, and selling your writing. Welcome to your monthly discussion on Craft and Practice.

I’m a big fan of color. Maybe it’s the art lover in me, but I can’t stand boring compositions. A little passionate red, cool and withdrawn blue, yellow to energize, purple to pacify. My stories are always full of color. I design them that way so I don’t get bored in the telling. Attention span of a cocker spaniel, I assure you. I figure if I’m getting bored, my readers don’t stand a chance.

In this edition of Craft and Practice, we’ll look at colorful characters. Where do they come from? How can we more easily create them? Let’s assume you find them preferable to stock characters that are functional but not especially inspired. I’m here to tell you that you don’t need much in terms of preparation. Outlines, character sheets, written histories, throw them all out for the time being. The trick here is to open yourself up, to trust your instincts and your ability to create something sort of magical and unique to your abilities, to your point of view. It’s not so much that preparation can hamper our ideas or dampen our expression of them. This is true some of the time, but not always. It’s more that the tighter we constrict our creativity―that’s constrict rather than channel; one is suppressive by nature and the other is purposefully expressive―the more likely we are to produce wooden and inflexible components.

Your characters don’t want to be inflexible. Trust me on this. They long to be unpredictable, passionate, full of life. Some writers like to work with a net. Perfectly understandable. It’s cleaner and in some sense easier. But I’d like you to consider the possibility that extra work at the conclusion of a writing project is worth more in the long run than an equivalent amount of preparation. The final product is bound to be less like everyone else’s stories and more like your own, and that’s a win in my book.

Let’s run a brief exercise to illustrate the point. Character A asks Character B for something to drink. Character A doesn’t visit other people’s homes very often, so the request doesn’t seem rude or presumptuous. Character B is a friendly sort, charitable in all the ways it matters, and if it’s possible to provide hospitality and comfort to Character A, then that’s precisely what Character B will do. Outcome: Character A gets to drink. Huzzah!

Notice that in just a few brief character descriptions, I’ve told you everything you need to know in order to enjoy the scene. Do you care what Character A’s first car was? Not unless it has direct bearing on the scene at hand. Do you care if your protagonist prefers Pizza Hut to Domino’s? Not as such, because they’re not eating right now. They’re, you know, drinking. What if childhood trauma involving fruit punch makes them thirstier than the average beverage enthusiast? I mean, that may be pertinent information. Put it in and see how it reads. In this way, story serves character, not the other way around. These imaginary folks living rent-free in your head, they might change their spots entirely by the time you’ve written THE END. In fact, we sort of need them to. It’d be damn boring if they didn’t. I’m saying the desired effect is best achieved organically. Think about your standard rising action chart

Notice the trajectory, one smooth line shot straight toward a conclusion. Don’t design your plot or your characters in this manner. Just don’t do it. Trust me, that line reads a whole lot better when it’s perforated, imbalanced, full of ups and downs, at last arriving at that ultimate destination. In real life, human beings do not proceed along a straight trajectory. Great actors know this. They understand innately to respond to moments as they come. One foot in front of the other, not all the feet all over the world all at once.

Imagine going onstage with a dozen pages of notes stapled to your forehead. This scene should be easier to perform because you have at your disposal so much background information. Right? Wrong? Yes? No? How’s your performance? Natural or constricted? I mean really, is that stuff helpful, or is it dead weight? A given scene tells me I should be afraid of snakes. The next one tells me I’m falling in love with someone who owns a lot of snakes. The core of my character remains, but the dictates of motivation, action, and reaction are all over the map. Am I in love with snakes and afraid of love? No, of course not. My name is Character A, and I’ve just been bitten by a rattler. See? No preplanning required.

Here’s another classic scenario for you to consider. You can night drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas without ever seeing further ahead than the thirty feet of illumination provided by your headlights. The road is there, it promises to deposit you at your destination, but even it has no idea what will happen along the way. Maybe you don’t end up in Vegas at all. Maybe your characters have decided they’d rather go to Reno. Are you going to tell them no? They’ve already hit the ATM and booked serviceable lodging!

Thinking of your writing in terms of performance is a good habit to cultivate. Just try it. Write a simple scene for which you’ve planned nothing. It’s not important where these characters have been, how much money they have, what their likes and dislikes are. All that matters is the spontaneous influencing the spontaneous. That’s the meaty part, the gold in the coal mine.

Fluff is a chore to read. If you don’t believe me, dig out one of your first serious pieces of writing and tell me how much of it is pertinent and how much ought to be nixed. I know, painful, right? Reminds me of the first piece of honest criticism I ever received, “I only have three problems with this story. The beginning, the middle, and the end.”

The good news about this craft is that there are a million and one ways to skin a cat. I’ll be back with more Craft and Practice next month. No cat-skinning required. See ya!

Jeff Bowles is a science fiction and horror writer from the mountains of Colorado. The best of his outrageous and imaginative work can be found in God’s Body: Book One – The Fall , Godling and Other Paint Stories , Fear and Loathing in Las Cruces , and Brave New Multiverse . He has published work in magazines and anthologies like PodCastle, Tales from the Canyons of the Damned, the Threepenny Review, and Dark Moon Digest. Jeff earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at Western State Colorado University. He currently lives in the high-altitude Pikes Peak region, where he dreams strange dreams and spends far too much time under the stars. Jeff’s new novel, Love/Madness/Demon , is available on Amazon now!

Check out Jeff Bowles Central on YouTube – Movies – Video Games – Music – So Much More!

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#Blogtour – Behind-the-Scenes Look at ‘Seizing the Bygone Light: A Tribute to Early Photography’

Day #3 of the WordCrafter “Seizing the Bygone Light” Book Blog Tour finds a guest post from the authors, Cendrine Marrouat, David Ellis and Hadiya Ali to tell us more about this amazing collection on “Robbie’s Inspiration”, hosted by Robbie Cheadle. Please join us in supporting these authors in their ambitious efforts to pay historical tribute.

Robbie's inspiration

Welcome to Day 3 of the Seizing the Bygone Light blog tour hosted by WordCrafter Book Blog Tours.

Welcome to the talented David Ellis, Cendrine Marrouat and Hadiya Ali with their new book Seizing the Bygone Light: A Tribute to Early Photography.

PoArtMo Collective started as FPoint Collective, a group of photographers. When we recently relaunched, we decided that it was time to welcome a larger diversity of artists.

Our passion for photography is still there, though. And while some of us are professional digital photographers, we are all indebted to the pioneering days of the art form, a time when documenting the minutiae of everyday life was the norm.

In 2020, we wondered how we could pay tribute to those old days through a multimedia project involving three artists, digital images, and poetry. The concept would be challenging, but we knew we could achieve something unique.

We decided…

View original post 1,713 more words