Marian Allen's Blog, page 375

#SampleSunday A Girl and Her Dino

I’m pleased to announce that the Southern Indiana Writers are putting our anthologies out for Kindle as well as in print. First up is BEASTLY TALES.

Real and imaginary, tame and wild, within us and without us, animals have always touched our lives.

Here’s the beginning of one of my stories in it.

Fish and Visitors — excerpt
by Marian Allen

Brittany punched John Randolph in the face three times, because she was mad. Then she bit Lavern’s foot till her teeth ached, because she was still mad. Then she threw Lavern so hard she bounced off John Randolph and landed on the floor. She was still mad, but she felt much better.

Brittany was four. She hated her name and she loved her Mommy and Daddy. Her best friends at pre-school changed at least once a week, but her best friends at home were always Lavern, the stuffed armadillo, and John Randolph. John Randolph was an inflatable Tyrannosaurus Rex two feet taller than Brittany.

“I don’t WANT her here!” Brittany whispered, so Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t hear.

“I don’t want her here, either,” said Lavern.

“Me, too,” said John Randolph. “But she’s coming, anyway. She’s coming today. I heard your Mommy say it this morning when she got you up.”

Brittany punched him again. “But I wished really hard on the first star last night.”

“That stuff never works,” said Lavern. “That’s for babies.”

Brittany twisted Lavern’s head around upside down, but her heart wasn’t in it. The worst of the mad was over. When Mommy called her into the living room again, she went, carrying Lavern by her tail.

Mommy patted the couch next to her. Brittany clambered up and sat close, with Lavern on her lap. Mommy opened the photo album across their legs and pointed out the pictures they’d looked at so often before.

“This is Brittany Woods and me when I first met Daddy. Brittany introduced us, remember I told you that? They had been dating off and on, but she just cold-bloodedly made a date one night with two boys at the same time–Daddy and another boy, Bert Byrum–and she talked me into coming, too, and pretended it was supposed to be a double date.” Mommy laughed. “The rest is history.”

Brittany nodded. “I was named after her,” she said in her deep, gravelly voice. All the grownups except Mommy and Daddy coaxed her to talk, and then they always laughed, though she didn’t feel like they ever heard anything she said. Inside, she said, I don’t like it that I got my name from somebody else. I don’t like it that you got Daddy from somebody else. They both came from her, so I don’t like her. If she gave me her name, she might take it back.

Amazon Print: $12.24
Kindle: $2.99
Lulu PDF: $2.64

~*~

The character of John Randolph is based on John Allen, the inflatable T-Rex who was #4 Daughter’s best home friend until he disintegrated at last.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: What was your main character’s favorite toy animal/doll as a child?

MA

Fun With Catalogs

Not Victoria’s Secret. Quite the contrary. For some reason, my mother gets a catalog from an outfit called Living Grace: Affordable Church Supplies Since 1948.

Now, this might not sound like much fun to you, but I’m here to tell you, I was rolling on the floor. This catalog is AWESOME!

Did you know, you can get your very own crown of thorns? 6″ diameter, boxed. It’s regularly $20, currently knocked down to $9.99. You can get enough ashes to anoint 500, too, for only $13.99 a bag.

Is it wrong for this to send me into whoops?

You can get an eight-piece resurrection set, including a tomb with a roll-away rock door, an angel, three astounded women, two astounded men, and Jesus — No, wait a minute, I have to show you this. Here is the picture. [1/18/2014 The item is no longer in the catalog, alas.]

I totally want this. I would make the guy in the black robe be all, “No way! You did NOT see the risen Lord! You’re just making that up. It always has to be about you, Mary Magdalen, doesn’t it?” And then Jesus would come up behind him and be all up in his grill and go like, “Don’t be dissin’ my homies.” And then he’d throw the guy in the black robe into the tomb and close it up and not let him out until he said, “Uncle!” and “I’m sorry! Mary Magdalene rules and I drool!” and, just for fun, “For the love of God, Montressor!”

You can get a wooden cross made to be gripped — No, look at this: [Alas, again.]

You could put a world of hurt on somebody, whacking him with that fist.

You can get clergy shirts with collars (insert collar for clergy shirts now on sale for $0.99 each). Imma have a non-clergy character buy some clergy shirts. Or maybe a burgundy coronation tapestry chasuble with matching inner stole, tailored for a beautiful drape with Velcro® side closures for non-slip fit.

Okay, there are some really good things in here, from church supplies to tooky little gifts. Fun to browse.

If you want to browse, too, go to the Living Grace web site and browse away. I’m keeping Mom’s catalog because I just can’t bear to give it up.

WRITING PROMPT: Would your main character want an action figure set of the primary moment of his/her religious tradition? What would he/she do with it?

MA

#Caturday Katya Is Lonely

Katya Graymalkin here.

My granny has been feeling bad, so Mom has been staying with her. Granny just lives next door, so Mom comes back home for an hour or two a day.

While Mom is up there, she’s practicing with her new camera phone. Her first good pictures ought to be of ME, but they’re of Granny’s cats. I was about to be jealous, but then I saw the pictures, and then Mom said I could be the one to post them, so that was all right.

This is Ozzie looking out the window at the birds. That stuff on the rug is bird seed shells. Birds are messy.

Now wait till you see this next one. This is Sweetie Pie.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha HAAAAA!!

Okay, yes, I used to eat my fur, too, but I STOPPED, all right?

Sweetie Pie doesn’t eat her fur all the time, but she’s been doing it this week. Maybe she feels sad because her Mom hasn’t been well.

I’m happy to say that Granny is feeling better. I’m hoping Mom can come home tonight. Not because I want her to take pictures of me. No, not that, at all.

But she might as well, right?

A WRITING PROMPT FOR ANIMALS: What would you tell an animal who eats their fur?

KG

Wunderbar

The first thing I want to say today is:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!!!♥

Wunderbar is a song, not a sweet. It’s a number in one of my favorite musicals: Kiss Me Kate, a movie of a company putting on a musical version of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.

Here’s the song I’m talking about. Brush Up Your Shakespeare is another favorite from the movie. Oh, hell, just about ALL the songs are favorites!

Hope you enjoyed it.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Two characters reminisce about their youth.

MA

Selfies With New Phone

Here’s the first picture I took with my new camera phone.

Pretty sad, eh? The second picture was of my finger, which I have redacted.

So I turned the lens away from myself (always a good idea) and took this. The big thing hanging off my shadow’s arm is not, believe it or not, my purse; it’s a sack o’ stuff I was taking to Mom’s.

It’s a picture of my shadow self. Is it Jungians who’ll get that pitiful joke or Freudians? Jungians, I think.

ANYWAY, after that, I took this picture of the shelf in our vestibule, with statues of a kitchen witch, two BVMs and The Handsome Monkey King. Also: a snowman and a winter angel given to me by my Pal Pat Stackhouse.

Slowly but surely, I’m getting the hang of this thing. I think.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character sees something unexpected in a mirror.

MA

No Quarter For Hunger

Back in December of 2012, our pastor gave us tubes of holiday M&Ms. Those tubes, she pointed out, are exactly the right size for storing quarters. She suggested we save our quarters in those tubes and donate them to Kids Against Hunger, which our church was going to help out in February.

In early 2013, we collected our donations and joined a bunch of other people in Harrison County. For ninety minutes, we packed food, ending up with 52,074 meals specially formulated for undernourished kids. Here is a report — with pictures.

I kept my tubes and bought some more and kept collecting my quarters. We’ll be participating again this year, and here’s my stash.

How many quarters in that picture? Those are stacks of four.

No, I wasn’t mean enough to take in the quarters: I ran them through the bank’s counting machine, deposited that amount in my account, and wrote a check.

I’m really looking forward to the event. It was SO MUCH FUN!

See if there’s an event where you are at the Kids Against Hunger website.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character saves change for a year and does what with it?

MA

Smart Phone, Dumb User

I got a smart phone at last. I’ve managed to make a phone call with it, so that’s good. I tried taking a picture, and got a lovely shot of my own fat thigh and another of my finger. I took a couple of nice ones of Mom’s cats, which I’ll post as soon as I figure out how to, you know, post them.

The main reason I wanted a smart phone was to use a Square credit card reader to sell books at events. The second reason was to maybe record some cooking videos. Would you like to see a video of my cooking process?

And, because this post is short and pathetic, and because my grand-chinch celebrated her one-year Forebber Homeiversary yesterday, here is a video of a chinchilla doing tricks.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write about a character who is so busy he or she gives a daily job very short shrift.

MA

Tags For Your Book

A friend asked me for a tutorial on putting keywords on her books. If you publish your own books through Kindle or Create Space or Smashwords, you’ll be asked to supply some tags (or keywords). If you have a publisher, some of them ask you for keywords.

Here’s what I said about tags a couple of years ago:

Tags are words that a reader might use in searching for a book. Think of a librarian or bookseller asking you, “What can I help you find?” And you say, for example, “I’d like a book about a strong female. If it has a dog in it, that’s even better. And I’m going on vacation to Paris next year, so something set in Paris would be fun. Do you have any mysteries like that?” And the librarian or bookseller says, “Hmmm…. Do you like racy stuff?” And you say, “Sure do! In fact, if there’s some steamy romance in it, I’m sold!” So the librarian or bookseller thinks, “Strong female, dog, Paris, mystery, racy, steamy, romance,” and finds some books to recommend.

People who are looking for books often look using keywords. People who sell books often categorize books by keywords, to help them match readers and works.

But, my friend says, what if you just can’t think of keywords? She says her mind doesn’t work that way. If she searches for something, she uses phrases and sentences, not individual words, so telling her to think of individual word searches doesn’t help her.

So I sez, sez I, “Go through a description of your book and pull out important, descriptive words.”

For example:

From Hell Alley to TerraNet comedy stardom. Connie Phelan‘s goal is to be top dog in a high-status social group calling itself The Good Society. When the Society invites her to a planet where slavery is legal, Connie is faced with choices: Accept ownership of slaves who throw themselves on her mercy or refuse, leaving them free for an unscrupulous Socialite to abuse? Abandon Honey, an alcoholic hanger-on, or risk her own status in the group to support her? And who SHOULD go into that cannibal pot?

No, I’m not going to flog this EVERY DAY.

Keywords: comedy, female protagonist, space travel, science fiction, slavery

I’m not sure if wiseass is a category; if it were, I’d just use that five times.

Click here to read the first chapter.

Buy in print.

Buy for KINDLE.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Using the blurb for your book or someone else’s book, come up with the best five keywords (tags) to aid someone in finding exactly that book.

MA

#SampleSunday The Price of a Slave

Here’s another excerpt from SIDESHOW IN THE CENTER RING, now available in print and for Kindle. In this excerpt, Tosun offers himself for sale. Connie, the first-person narrator, has refused to buy him in spite of his pursuit of her as owner.

SIDESHOW IN THE CENTER RING — excerpt
by Marian Allen

Tosun turned to me. “I don’t want to be released from my service to you, but I’ll accept my liberty if you force it on me.” When I didn’t say anything, he went to his chestpack and pulled something out of it. Something that crackled as he unfolded it. He brought it back to where Darryl and Marissa and I stood and handed it to me.

It was pink. The seller’s name was Tosun; the space for the buyer’s name was blank.

I remembered Tosun telling me that some Marneri, ones who renounce their worldly goods (like Religious, I had said), cancel their papers. That meant they were anybody’s who took them. Tosun was one.

“Budhi could have claimed you as well as me.”

Tosun nodded. “If he’d wanted to, although goliards–” he grinned wickedly, “–are in less demand than Terrans. But I wouldn’t have stopped him. The Yol–”

“When you’re quite through,” said Darryl. “Let me see that paper.”

“What’s to stop me from selling you to somebody else, if I accepted you, just like any other slave?”

“Nothing.”

“What’s to stop me from buying you and giving you to yourself?”

“My vows. Yolan can’t own slaves.”

“I have vows of my own. Don’t they matter?”

“Only you can say what matters to you. As for me: it’s you or them.”

Darryl snatched at Tosun’s paper. “Let me see that.”

“Just a minute. Don’t be so grabby.”

Where did principles and backbone come into this? Was it principled to own another person?

Was it principled to let Darryl own him? But what was I going to do–run around after Darryl all Season, and dash out with a fistful of credits every time he looked like buying somebody?

No, but….

Tosun watched me, waiting for my decision. He didn’t understand. He didn’t care. He wasn’t afraid.

He wasn’t asking me to be afraid for him, either. Why should I–

Darryl grabbed for the paper again.

I whipped out a pen and put my scrawl on the dotted line. To the glee of everyone who’d yawned in my face when I’d moralized on the evils of slavery, I bought a man, and paid for him with a token credit.

Probably worth about thirty pieces of silver.

~*~

In paperback.

For Kindle.A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character is maneuvered into doing something against his or her principles in order to avoid a worse evil.

MA

#Caturday Katya Finds A Coat

Katya Graymalkin here.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about pets wearing coats and boots when they go out into the sub-zero temperatures. Mom looks at me and laughs because A) I don’t go out when it’s cold and wet and B) I slide off and hide if she even thinks about putting something on me.

But this. This, I would wear. In fact, I need it! Everybody buy lots of Mom’s books so she can buy me this!

Schnauble on etsy has stuff my Mom thinks are cool, too, but this — this is the Best. Thing. Ever!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR ANIMALS: Write about this magnificent animal in this magnificent coat!

KG