Kellyann Zuzulo's Blog

Content as High Fashion

Your content should be as sharp and captivating as Claire in House of Cards. Never a hair out of place…

The clothes make the man or woman. When people can’t see you, words will be the first impression of you. Whether spoken or written, the content you virtually wear is your own personal “look.” Is your content well-groomed and tailored? Do your shoes match your bag? That is, do your verbs match your subjects? And it’s not just about grammar. Visitors to your website and your blog or readers of your book want to be able to quickly understand what you have to say. And they want to be wowed.

Don’t make the content mistake equivalent of forgetting to brush your hair. That is: Review, revise, edit!

Here are five simple things you can do to be clear, to be captivating, and to be content pretty:

Start with a sentence that is not longer than eight words. Trust me. You can elaborate later.
Use conversational language. They used to call it colloquial language, but then that wouldn’t be conversational. Get it. Stick to simple terms and reduce industry jargon, unless it’s necessary to define your services or your character is uptight.
The 21st-century reader moves fast. Your prose should, too. If you need to elaborate with a long compound sentence, follow with at least two short, punchy sentences. Use active verbs. Inject personality. (see how I did that ;))
Always double-check the meaning of words you’re not sure of. A word that is obviously misused is like a runner in your stocking. It immediately cheapens your appearance.
Review. Rewrite. Edit. It helps to have someone else read over your work. If you don’t have a beta reader and can’t afford to hire an editor, save the file and don’t look at it for 24 hours. Then go back and read through line by line. You’ll be amazed at what you see on this go-round. Clean it up and send it out.

You’re looking good already!

~Kellyann Zuzulo

That First Kiss

Illustration from Rainha das flores on tumblr http://hadesefone.tumblr.com/

To Have and To Hold is the book that started the 101 Nights journey. First books and first kisses. As spring fills the air with crisp breezes and promises of soft soil ready to burst with flowers, I thought a first kiss story would be a good match. Following is an excerpt from To Have and To Hold where Amani is meeting Jason for the first time, at the wedding altar. When their lips meet, what will happen?

Closing her eyes, Amani steeled herself. She had avoided looking at the man at her side, Jason Masters, her new husband, had avoided looking at him all through the ceremony and before. Now she glanced at him sidelong.

Despite her barb at Westcott and the people who worked with him, Dr. Jason Masters was by no means little. Amani was taller than most human men, yet he was taller than she by a forehead. That irked her. Neither was he bad-looking. For a human. Okay, he was hot. She had come across the term in her cultural research of the human world and liked it. Hot. Forged from fire, her people reveled in flame. This word suggested the comfort of Jinnistan’s scorched mountains, the joy of riding Sinbad into the Bitu Valley so rife with fissures to the center of the earth that the air crackled with fire.

Her new husband’s jaw flexed, and cocking her head Amani assessed him further. The poor guy was agitated. But, who wouldn’t be? It was his wedding day and he was meeting his bride for the first time. Oh, and by the way, she was a genie. And in a bad mood. His full lips formed a straight line—an attempt to appear stoic or munificent? No. Neither. He appeared raw and somewhat bewildered but resigned to his task. A good scientist with a difficult hypothesis. A hypothesis that was even now standing in front of him.

He turned, and the expression on his face was both wary and…surprisingly playful. “Do I get a kiss?” His voice was smooth and deep. For an irritating moment he seemed pleased with what he saw, with Amani, then Amani’s gaze whipped back to the Covalink CEO, the main architect of this spectacle, who’d scoffed and turned away. Sudden anger at Westcott’s demeanor, her situation, and humans in general got the better of her. In one graceful flip of her hand, Amani flung back the curtain of hair from her shoulder and flourished three fingers at Westcott’s retreating back, preparing to singe his suit just enough to make her feel better.

“Whoa, there!” Her husband’s grip on her wrist was faster than she would have given him credit for, and Amani was startled to find herself staring into eyes the color of the Topaz Caves on the far side of Jinnistan. A lock of brown hair had fallen across her husband’s broad brow, and he twitched his head as though to shrug it away. The strands clung together as though damp. “Not a good idea.”

“Is any of this a good idea?” she snarled at him, consciously ignoring the tiny coterie of Covalink executives and Jinnistan ambassadors who were now beginning to mingle. With a twist of her arm, she dislodged his grasp.

If not for the flower-laden pedestal at her hip, she would have moved entirely away from him. She barely saw his lips move, but his voice was low and rueful. “Too late now.”

Their faces were close enough for a kiss, she realized. Her husband stared back, not blinking, his black eyelashes as thick as the fringe on a hand-tied carpet. The way they shadowed his amber eyes reminded Amani of a soft feather caressing her naked back, and the thought sent a shiver down her spine. Even more potent, for the second their gazes locked she felt challenged and equal at the same time. Her shiver radiated outward, wrapping around her waist and making her suddenly all too aware of his closeness. Something inside her trembled.

He quirked his lips. “Now, how about that kiss?” Smirking like a child, she leaned into him. “Fine.” She knew her duty. Kissing a human would be no more momentous than stepping on an ant—for her. For him? Well, he would be the ant. The contact would provide a nice electrical shock on those soft, full lips. “Pucker up, pretty boy.”

Find out what happens next.

Download a copy today for your Kindle, Nook,

computer, or phone at Boroughs Publishing Group.

Best Wishes,

Kellyann

Free Editing for Students

I’m offering an editing special for the months of March and April … just in time for students of all levels to clean up those mid-term papers. I’ll edit up to 2,000 words of a file for free. Click the link below for details.

Free Editing for Students.

Tight Write

One quick tip as you move through your manuscript: economy of words. Every sentence you write is building on your scene, the image that lives in your mind and that you’re transferring to the page. Don’t overdo the plaster work. Instead of …

Pausing, she moved quickly out of the room and dashed down the stairs.

Try …

She dashed out of the room and down the stairs.

Especially in a book, it is not just a sentence on its own. It is part of a structure. Have faith that what you wrote just before this part is clean, concise, and compelling. If you’re not sure, go back and trim.

Build that story!

~Kellyann

The book that’s nothing like 50 Shades … She’s the Boss

Ever Afters released this week from Boroughs Publishing Group. It’s book five in the 101 Nights Romantisodes, a series about the genie Amani and her new human husband, Jason Masters. Despite his name, she’s the boss. I hope you’ll check out the story … no need to start with book one. If you like the characters and the adventures of a strong-willed genie stuck in suburban New Jersey–with a mission to save her homeland and a marriage of convenience that she’s starting to warm to–then, by all means, go back to the other books. It’s a well-written tale (I have a great editor) that will transport you. Trust me.

Get it from Amazon, Smashwords, or All Romance eBooks

Best Wishes,

Kellyann

kfzuzulo.com

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Jinn are No Laughing Matter, says Saudi Citizen Fed Up with Mockery

…and he’s absolutely right. The existence of the jinn has been acknowledged for thousands of years. They are recognized in the Koran. We may not know if they exist for certain, but the point is that we don’t know that they don’t exist. Follow? There are many things in this world that remain unexplained. Just because we don’t have the answers doesn’t mean there is no substance to the question. My recent series of books, 101 Nights, explains the existence of Jinnistan and their resident jinn as a parallel dimension separated from us by the fluctuation and cohesion of electrons and protons: disassemble matter in one spot and reassemble it in another and it may very well come together as a lithe and lovely jinni named Amani or a large and fearsome figure … that would be Sumer.

There are plenty of anecdotal examples of their existence and Mr. bin Jleid mentions some in his column in the Saudi Gazette of November 29, 2014. While I sympathize with him that some of the stories seem ridiculous, isn’t that the very point he’s railing against? Who’s to decide what seems ridiculous? Check out these examples he cites. (What do you believe?)

THE international and Arab media last week published a story and photograph of a boy who is said to be Saudi. The boy’s father had taken the photograph and on seeing it several days later, discovered a smiling and naked jinn next to his son.

“And say, ‘O my Lord! I seek refuge with thee from the suggestions of the Evil Ones. And I seek refuge with Thee O my Lord! Lest they should come near me.’” (Holy Qur’an verses 23:97-98).

Science is still incapable of detecting and monitoring jinns. Some non-Muslim scientists deny the existence of jinns. Yet, some of us claim to have successfully photographed them with digital cameras?

The way the Western media portrays Saudis’ belief in jinns is a very disturbing; something needs to be done to prevent further mockery.

It is we who are responsible for this negative media coverage because it is the local media that is obsessed with publishing sensational news stories.

The practices of some of our journalists and newspapers require stern action and those guilty of ethical breaches should be banished from the profession for good.

Users on the immensely popular micro-blogging site, Twitter, regularly post jinn stories involving Saudis. I have read stories about jinns launching fireworks in Arqah Hospital and Saudis in their hundreds storming the hospital to evict them.

Then there was the Saudi sheikh who held a dialogue with a jinn live on air, and then there was the jinn who set a Saudi man’s home on fire 10 times, something that was confirmed by the Civil Defense.

Then there was the jinn in Al-Qassim who — after being cornered by a family using verses of the Quran — said, “I want to come out. I’m fed up after three years.

I have been sent by a Sudanese magician to you!” There was also the famous group of jinns who drove empty cars around Madinah.

Stories like these have made us become the laughing stock of both the Arab and foreign media. Also, let us not forget the sense of fashion displayed by some sheikhs and judges who are allegedly possessed by jinns during office hours.

These news stories are shameful and are not something that should be reported or taken seriously in an enlightened society. Such stories do not reflect the Saudi culture.

We believe in the existence of jinns as mentioned in the Holy Qur’an and by the Prophet (peace be upon him). As for the news items that are being circulated, most are simply creating confusion.

I don’t know whether we should apologize to everyone who has read such stories or the jinns whom we have wronged.

Read the text of Mr. bin Jleid’s column in the Saudi Gazette from November 29, 2014.

And if you’re intrigued by the possibility, read my books.

Best Wishes,

Kellyann

What’s In Your Stocking?

It’s the holidays. While it should be a time of warmth and love, Lola Baz knows only the regret and pain of a marriage devoid of either. But when the magic of the season arrives on the night before Christmas, also known as Saturnalia, Lola finds a gift in her stocking that can liberate her from loneliness. Read The Christmas Bottle today! Download it from Amazon or buy in other versions from Boroughs Publishing Company. On sale for 99 cents!

Merry Christmas!

Kellyann Zuzulo

12 Tales for Christmas | Boroughs Publishing Group

Check out this wonderful anthology of romantic holiday stories …. a new generation of holiday classics, 12 of ‘em! My story is The Christmas Bottle. Get all 12 for just $2.99.

 

12 Tales for Christmas | Boroughs Publishing Group.

The Betrayal Begins

from Dangerous Devotion, the fourth book in the 101 Nights series of Romantisodes from Boroughs Publishing Group

Chapter Two

Amani felt strong arms hard under her breasts. For the first time in almost three months, she felt safe. But then it all came back to her and she knew. She wasn’t safe. Twisting her body, she tried to wrench free of Sumer’s grasp. Her strength was gone from her. She felt as limp as the netted eels she once pulled from the phosphor streams in the Cobalt Mountains. The memory of that place pressed solace into her mind. Her home. She could almost smell it.

With the clean scent of juniper and sun-fired rock blanketing her mind, she opened her eyes. The scent prevailed. And another aroma bloomed. It was that of the orchids in the fire forests of Jinnistan. Blinking, she looked around. Veins of lapis ribboned the wall she looked upon. It was the uneven topography of a cave wall. And growing from a moisture-slick crevice was a single lavender orchid. She inhaled. Warm spice, cardamom and pepper swam with a draft across her face. Home?

“Let me go,” she demanded, wriggling her torso against her captor.

“Not so fast, Ani. I think you’ll find that your legs won’t hold you.” Sumer turned her to face him. “So I will.” His lips, full and shining where he licked them, were slightly open as his gaze coursed over her face, down her front. She saw the glint of white teeth behind his lips, like sharp sun-bleached coral glimpsed in the water, waiting to shred flesh. She tugged the white linen shirt she wore unbuttoned over a white camisole tight against her chest. It was Jason’s shirt. She flinched when Sumer ran his hands down her back.

“Unhand me!”

“Hold still,” he muttered. “I’m checking for fractures.”

She stilled, remembering. They had traveled from one dimension to another, with nothing more than the energy of the stolen Heart of Bitu around his neck. Transmorphic migration done in tandem had been known to break the bones of a passenger.

Sumer’s hands were hot as he pressed them in a trail down the knots of her spine. His fingers were long and broad. When he reached the waistband of her black yoga pants—pulled on that morning after a wild night of lovemaking with Jason—he pushed past the elastic border. Her breath caught in her throat as he slid his fingers side to side on her bottom.

Unsummoned and unappreciated, tingles shuddered down the backs of her thighs. “I think you’re enjoying this,” she growled.

He ignored her. A first for Sumer. He never seemed to miss an opportunity to raise her ire. When his hand spanned the hard ridge of her hip, she winced. A bolt of pain dizzied her. Her forehead fell forward against his shoulder. She felt disembodied, vaguely aware that for a millisecond Sumer’s touch grew gentle.

“Ani.” Sumer’s voice was a plea. There was a tone of concern she’d never heard from him. “Ani.” His arms swept under her legs and he carried her to a corner of the cave. A cushion of white camel fur cradled her when he set her down. He crouched next to her, seeming uncomfortable with seeing her so vulnerable. They had been lovers and adversaries. But she had never been at his mercy. She couldn’t help but think that had Jason been here, he would smooth the hair back from her face. Patience and concern would light his features like a beacon. Sumer simply seemed puzzled.

“Move your legs.” Sumer’s voice was stern.

Amani’s brow furrowed.

“I think your pelvis is fractured.”

She was suddenly aware that she had to concentrate on moving her legs. Pain shot down her left side. Sumer pressed two fingers against her left hip and an azure glow radiated from the touch into her body. Tension buzzed across her midsection.

“Move your legs,” he repeated.

Slowly, she stretched one long limb alongside Sumer’s bent thigh. Needles of pain shot up her legs from the soles of her feet.

“There,” she said, triumphant.

“Now the other one.”

His tone was so intent that she didn’t question. She straightened the second leg. Sumer ran his hand along one of her thighs to the knee and then did the same on her other leg, massaging as he went. Without lifting his hand, he shifted his body so that he crouched between her legs. The firm pulse of his fingers felt good against her stiff muscles. She sighed.

Sumer’s eyes flashed briefly with something like amusement. “Good. Bend them at the knees.”

She did as commanded, pleased with her body’s response. Sumer had risked her health but also his own when he dragged her from New Jersey. The jinn were expected to travel solo. There was precious little energy left in Jinnistan. Their safe arrival was a testament to Sumer’s unusual molecular strength. Amani shook her head. No time to dwell on how well endowed—biologically or otherwise—Sumer was.

Sumer hovered on his knees in front of her, between her legs. She was suddenly aware of his large hands gripping the soft flesh of her inner thighs. His voice husky, he said, “Now, wrap those remarkable legs around my waist and I’ll show you how to generate some energy.”

Kicking one leg free of him, she cursed. “Damn you, Sumer. Move away from me now or I swear I will—”

“Will what?” Sumer’s gaze narrowed and he leaned in. “You’re as weak as a foal. Not even fit to ride.” She could smell his skin. It was the smell of cinders and green reeds. Violence and promise. But a promise of what?

“Back off.” She pushed against his chest and drew herself to a sitting position. He sat back on one bent leg, a thick forearm draped across his knee as he continued to watch her. His skin was as tight and smooth over his muscles as polished granite. She dropped her gaze. Water trickled somewhere behind her as though an underground spring ran through the floor of an unseen passage. The catacombs of the Cobalts. They were, indeed, in a cave beneath the fire forests.

After his insurrection against the ruling Tribal Council at the Silver Citadel, Sumer had absconded to the mountains with his army of loyal Marid jinn, the warrior class, the fiercest of the jinn. “Happy to see me?”

She glanced up at him. His black eyes assessed her. One fine eyebrow arched sardonically.

“You stole my stone.” She swiped again at the glimmering green gem around his neck, but he twitched back and out of reach.

He laughed. “You buried it in the dirt.”

“I was trying to remove it as a resource for you. Since you had already interrupted my mission—”

“Don’t you mean sweet moon?” Sumer’s top lip curled in disgust.

“Honeymoon,” Amani corrected. She remembered the intrusion of Sumer, appearing to her in the kitchen of Jason’s home on a chill April morning, not long after she had committed herself to work with the humans to find a remedy for her nation’s fading power. At any cost. Even at the cost of her pride, her freedom, and her body.

Uncle Azon had discovered that the integration of jinni and human auras generated electrical energy that fed the proton cycles within Jinnistan. Cycles that were desperately needed to keep Jinnistan alive. A scourge of inexplicable energy shortages had stripped Jinnistan of its reserves and of many of its citizens. Amani’s parents had been among the first to die. A type of fear—an emotion that was virtually unknown to the jinn—gripped her world. No longer could the jinn alter their molecules to travel with the wind through space and time.

Transmorphic migration had been outlawed. Marid jinn, ifrit, and ghul castes alike were encouraged to leave their homes across the broad expanse of Jinnistan’s Bitu Valley, Cobalt Mountains, and lava plains to gather at the Silver Citadel. These were the warrior caste, the ruling caste, and the farmers and crafts jinn. The protonic scourge did not discriminate.

While Azon Zarin imagined an alliance with humans to help create a generator to renew Jinnistan’s resources, Sumer Rafsi envisioned conquest. His claim that the humans were not to be trusted and that what nuclear power they had should be taken forcibly was the more aggressive option. The burden of deciding which route would rescue her doomed homeland had fallen to Amani.

“I think you were removing it as a resource for yourself.” His chin dropped and his tone grew more grave. “You know that my plan would be the quickest way to save our homeland. Don’t you?” Those black eyes were so intent upon her that Amani could see why other Marid jinn trembled in his presence. But not her. Never her. She would die before she would show fear. Before she would allow him to think that there was the slightest chance she would align herself to him.

“Why did you come, Sumer?”

“You were taking too long.” He pounced to his feet and stretched his arms over his head. The tattoos that marked his as Marid wound around his triceps like barbed wire.  Lowering his arms, he tore open his light blue cotton shirt. Buttons scattered on the cave floor with little pearlized clicks. He dropped it in a heap. He spat on it.

“I stink of human!” His black gaze settled on her face. Rolling back the massive mounds of his shoulders—the Heart of Bitu glittering between the shelves of his pectorals—he said, “And so do you.”

Amani pushed up on the cave floor and struggled to her feet. “You have to take me back there, Sumer.”

His grunt became laughter that echoed down the dark corridors of the cave. “Do you command me, Ambassador?”

Straightening to her full height, Amani cranked her neck from left to right and inhaled. “I do.”

Sumer’s jaw tensed. “You like to say that, don’t you?” He mocked her tone. “I do. How easy it was for you to marry a human. I told you from the beginning that it wasn’t necessary. It was just another way that we allow the humans to control us. We could have taken what we needed. I have the army and the means to trespass in their world.”

“What you sought to do, Sumer, would have meant the deaths of thousands, and the enslavement of millions. Even if we wanted to, we don’t have the energy to take the human world.”

“Your Uncle Azon did. He found the portal directly into one of their energy generators and could easily have navigated the power of their reactors into our world. Instead, he sought alliances with men like Jason Masters and that vermin, Warren Westcott who runs Covalink as though it were his empire. He was a fool.”

There was determination and vengeance in Sumer’s voice. “We are the jinn, Amani. We have been free and conscious beings since before those creatures of dirt hauled themselves from the primordial effluent.”

Fisting his hands at his sides, he took first one step and then another toward her. It seemed that fury gripped him. A struggle was apparent in the creases around his onyx eyes. “I tell myself that you didn’t know you were betraying us. But it is hard to believe, Amani. Hard to believe when you lay with one of them. When you call them ‘friends.’”

Amani blinked. “What are you talking about, Sumer? You’ve known all along about the treaty. About my role as an emissary to work with the human scientist. Approaching it this way offers a quick solution and a long-term plan for the rejuvenation of Jinnistan, without any loss of life.”

She moved close enough to touch him, laying her fingers gently on his forearm. His gaze was troubled. She had known him long enough to know that he was not being idly cavalier. Something had happened.

He stared down at her. His broad, rugged face was without emotion, but his gaze probed her, assessing, judging. “Then you have been betrayed, too.”

A slim coil of dread wormed its way from her stomach to her throat. She could only whisper. “Tell me what’s happened, Sumer.”

His words were so simply stated that she didn’t comprehend at first.

“They’ve taken Persha.”

Download your copy of Dangerous Devotion today  http://boroughspublishinggroup.com/bo...

Point of View—What IS It? How to Find the Perfect Voice for YOUR Story

kfzuzulo:

If you’re a writer, start taking notice of who’s telling the story in the books you read. It’ll help you establish the voice in your own writing. Read Kristen Lamb’s explanation of Point of View…

Originally posted on Kristen Lamb's Blog:

Geiko Caveman.

Monday, we talked about the Three Acts of a Writer’s Journey. The first hint we might be tipping into The Apprentice Phase is we hear the word P.O.V. and panic. What is THAT? Prisoners of Vietnam? Pets of Vegans? Pals of Viagra?

We ALL know writing a novel is FAR from easy. We just make it look that way ;) .

Today, I’m putting on my editor’s hat. Many of you decided to become writers because you love to write. Duh. I’ll even bet most of you, back when you were in school, also made very good grades in English. Thus, you might assume that you naturally know how to write a novel that is fit for successful publication.

Maybe you do. But, if you are anything like me when I started out? You might not know as much as you think you do.

Why?

Our high…

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