Simon Rose's Blog, page 60

What’s it all about? Sources of inspiration for Flashback, Twisted Fate, and Parallel Destiny

Flashback was published in 2015. It’s a paranormal mystery adventure for young adults featuring ghosts, psychics, and Project Mindstorm, a secret operation involving deadly mind control experiments, as Max investigates events concealed for over twenty years. The initial idea was one of the first that I had when I began my writing career but the novel took a while to develop to my satisfaction.

In Flashback, Max, a fourteen-year old boy, experiences strange dreams and visions, which appear to be from someone else’s life. He also sees a ghost and fears that he might be losing his mind. However, following an encounter with elderly private detective John Carrington, Max learns of government conspiracies, secret kidnappings, and mind control experiments conducted by a rogue scientist and his psychic accomplice.

 

Twisted Fate is the second part of the paranormal  trilogy and the story begins around the time of Max’s fifteenth birthday when he receives a box of personal items that once belonged to his mother and soon begins to have strange dreams and experience disturbing visions. Max steadilylearns the shocking truth about his mother and her possible connection to Project Mindstorm.

Max also meets Julia, a girl with dark hidden secrets, as he attempts to alter his mother’s fate and his own, for better or worse. He and Julia embark on a seemingly impossible mission involving deadly psychics, paranormal phenomena, and multiple shifting timelines. On the run and pursued at every turn by the powerful and ruthless Kane, Max and Julia engage in a desperate race against time in an attempt to save countless lives and transform their own destiny.

 

In Parallel Destiny, the third part of the trilogy, Project Mindstorm no longer exists and Kane and his associates no longer represent a danger. However, Max and Julia now have to contend with the sinister Alastair Hammond and his experiments into the existence of parallel universes and alternate realities.

Marooned within a bewildering series of multiple universes, Max and Julia are forced to fight for their own survival and to save the very fabric of reality from Hammond’s deadly scheme.

Flashback was originally a single novel but more or less as soon as it was published I realized that there was more to the story. My father also read Flashback and asked when the next one was coming out. I thought that he was referring to my next novel but he meant the next paranormal adventure and pointed out several areas in Flashback where there were opportunities for more stories.

There were also some unanswered questions so I got to work on a further installment. While writing Twisted Fate I knew that there was a third story and had an idea for a novel involving parallel universes that I realized would be a perfect fit to wrap up Max’s adventures. The third part of the trilogy, entitled Parallel Destiny, will be published early next year.

 

 

 

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Seeing the Light: Writers and Seasonal Affective Disorder – Part Six

Regular physical exercise can help with stress relief and prevent the onset of SAD. Feeling more fit makes you feel better about yourself overall and generally improves your mood.

Giving in to those winter blues can also be stressful and lead to overeating, overindulgence in alcohol or other unhealthy pursuits, so you need to take care of your body, watch your diet and get enough sleep. Make time to relax and get away from your writing once in a while, especially if you work at home. 

And even if you do suffer from cabin fever, make sure you invite people into that cabin for a tea or coffee on occasion during the winter or at least go to visit their cabin instead. Writing is a solitary and often lonely profession and staying connected with your friends and acquaintances, and not just online, is vital if you are to get through the winter.

SAD may be a fact of life for many people out there, but it doesn’t have to be a sad part of your life during the darker winter months, so keep writing and get that book finished. After all, there may be someone in a sunnier place beating you to it.

For help with your writing at any time of year, check out my coaching and editing programs.

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Seeing the Light: Writers and Seasonal Affective Disorder – Part Five

Many people are adversely affected each year by the winter blues and writers are no exception. There are many ways to combat SAD, including antidepressants and other medications, but bright artificial light treatments are common as a means to give the body more exposure to the light that is lacking once winter approaches. 

For SAD sufferers, shorter days and long nights can initiate depression, excessive fatigue and other issues. Not simply the ‘winter blues’, Seasonal Affective Disorder is recognized as a form of depression, which can have serious consequences. 

However, you don’t have to mourn the passing of summer by looking ahead with a sense of impending doom and there are many ways to cope with feelings of lethargy and mood shifts in fall and winter. Make your home or writing workplace brighter by opening blinds, perhaps even adding extra windows and trim tree branches or bushes close to the house that block sunlight. If a trip to warmer latitudes isn’t in your budget, get outside as much as you can, taking advantage of sunshine even on cold winter days. Take more long walks and if its not too cold, simply sit peacefully on a bench in a park and soak up the sun. 

For help with your writing at any time of year, check out my coaching and editing programs.

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Seeing the Light: Writers and Seasonal Affective Disorder – Part Four

In ancient Greece and Rome, the works of Plato, Aristotle, Virgil and others may have been composed at night, with very little illumination. Monks in the Middle Ages would also have worked all year round and such works as Beowulf or the Anglo Saxon Chronicle would never have been written if everyone in the scriptorium had SAD. 

Did Shakespeare only write in the spring and summer? Candlelight was his only option if he chose to write his plays and sonnets after the sun had set. The same applied to Samuel Pepys, who we can assume wrote at least a portion of his diary entries in the evening, as he recorded his reflections on the day, in all four seasons. And of course Charles Dickens was a prolific writer for twelve months of each year, with only candlelight, oil or gas lamps to enable him to write.

For help with your writing at any time of year, check out my coaching and editing programs.

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North Glenmore Park Craft Market

Today I’ll be at the North Glenmore Park Craft Market from 10 am to 3 pm.

I’ll be signing copies of The Alchemist’s Portrait, The Sorcerer’s Letterbox, The Clone Conspiracy, The Emerald Curse, The Heretic’s Tomb, The Doomsday Mask, The Time Camera, The Sphere of Septimus, Flashback, Future Imperfect, Twisted Fate, Parallel Destiny, Shadowzone, Into The Web, and Black Dawn.

The event is located at 2231 Longridge Drive SW in Calgary. Hope to see you there.

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Book Signing at Indigo Signal Hill November 25

This Sunday, I’ll be at Indigo at Signal Hill in Calgary from noon to 5 pm.

I’ll be signing copies of The Alchemist’s Portrait, The Sorcerer’s Letterbox, The Clone Conspiracy, The Emerald Curse, The Heretic’s Tomb, The Doomsday Mask, The Time Camera, The Sphere of Septimus, Flashback, Twisted Fate, Future Imperfect, and Parallel Destiny.

Indigo is located at 5570 Signal Hill Centre SW in Calgary. Hope to see you there.

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Seeing the Light: Writers and Seasonal Affective Disorder – Part Three

So how does SAD affect writers? Are those in Canada, the northern USA, and Scandinavia less prolific in the winter months? Does the cloud cover in Vancouver or in Britain reduce the amount of literary work originating in those areas? Do American writers in Florida create more prose between October and April than their counterparts in Minnesota? 

Is a writer in Australia or South Africa more likely to produce a larger body of work because he or she has more sunlight? Many of us may prefer to escape to a sunnier environment each winter if possible, but would it be to a writer’s advantage to live there permanently, in order to become more proficient at his or her chosen craft?

There are undoubtedly writers with SAD who are less motivated to write in the winter. And yet, our ancestors, who had no access to artificial light to illuminate the gloom of winter, still managed to write and their work is no less impressive. Cave paintings may have created in the daytime, when ferocious animals were less likely to be around. Yet in the dark caves, the pictures would have been painted by the light of a flaming torch. 

For help with your writing at any time of year, check out my coaching and editing programs.

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Edgemont Community Association Winter Craft Sale

Today I’ll be at the Edgemont Community Association Winter Craft Sale from 10 am to 3 pm.

I’ll be signing copies of The Alchemist’s Portrait, The Sorcerer’s Letterbox, The Clone Conspiracy, The Emerald Curse, The Heretic’s Tomb, The Doomsday Mask, The Time Camera, The Sphere of Septimus, Flashback, Future Imperfect, Twisted Fate, Parallel Destiny, Shadowzone, Into The Web, and Black Dawn

The event is located at 33 Edgevalley Circle NW in Calgary. Hope to see you there.

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Seeing the Light: Writers and Seasonal Affective Disorder – Part Two

Seasonal Affective Disorder is primarily a mood disorder, with sufferers experiencing normal mental health throughout the year, but becoming depressed or generally more down in the winter months. Seasonal variations in a person’s mood may be related to light, or rather the lack of it. 

SAD is often more prevalent in higher latitudes and in Finland, for example, the rate for SAD is close to 10%. Winter depression is a common slump in the mood of the inhabitants of Scandinavia. Researchers estimate that up to 20% of the population is affected, and there are words in the Icelandic and Swedish languages that specifically refer to seasonal affective conditions. 

Excessive cloud cover, an aspect of daily life for those living in the Pacific Northwest in North America, may also increase the number of sufferers in a particular region. Researchers have estimated that SAD in U.S. adults is around 1.5% in Florida, yet closer to 10% in the northern states. The effects of the changing of the season on a person’s mood and energy level, even those people in apparent good health, are well documented and it is common for people living at high latitudes to experience lower energy levels in the winter months, both north and south of the equator. 

For help with your writing at any time of year, check out my coaching and editing programs.

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Seeing the Light: Writers and Seasonal Affective Disorder – Part One

At this time of year, many people in the northern hemisphere notice that its getting a little colder each day and it gets darker much earlier, especially after we alter the clocks for daylight saving time.

Many of us develop cabin fever and grow sluggish during the winter months and may eat more or sleep longer when daylight is in short supply and the temperature begins to fall. It may be harder to get out of bed or for some people to even generate much enthusiasm each morning.

These are common experiences related to the change in the seasons, but some individuals can have a far more serious reaction when the end of summer heralds the coming of fall and winter.

Once simply known as the ‘winter blues’, the effect of less light in the winter may be severe for some and is a recognized medical condition, diagnosed as SAD or Seasonal Affective Disorder. SAD can also occur in the summer, when it is known as Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder.

For help with your writing at any time of year, check out my coaching and editing programs.

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