S.R. Howen's Blog, page 5
July 24, 2013
Virtual Blurb Blitz Tour: The Billionaire Princess b...
Virtual Blurb Blitz Tour: The Billionaire Princess by Christina Tetrault
Christina will be awarding a $15.00 Amazon or BN gift card (Winner's Choice) to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour.
BLURB:
She was raised as an American Princess
Following the betrayal of a former lover, Sara Sherbrooke swore off relationships, too afraid she would be used again. Instead she has devoted all her energy to succeeding in politics without relying on her family name. That is until one night in Hawaii with her brother's best friend Christopher Hall.
He is a self-made billionaire
Technological genius and CEO of Hall Technology, Christopher Hall first met Sara Sherbrooke when he and Jake Sherbrooke were college roommates. While attending Jake's wedding in Hawaii, Christopher is reintroduced to Sara, a beauty who was once way out of his league. But now as the most eligible bachelor in Silicon Valley, the only thing stopping Christopher from pursuing Sara is the thought of betraying his best friend.
As they work together to promote a new education initiative, neither can deny the attraction between them. But will their growing romance be worth all of the consequences?
EXCERPT
As Sara sat sipping a bottle of sparkling water, the door opened again. Silently, she watched as Christopher Hall climbed in. If she hadn't seen him countless times on the web, she never would’ve recognized the man who'd climbed in the limo as her brother's Cal Tech roommate. She recalled meeting the tall skinny kid with shaggy light brown hair and glasses when her family moved Jake into his dorm freshman year. On the few occasions she had seen him back then he'd been dressed in jeans, Converse sneakers and t-shirts with hard-rock bands emblazoned on them. The man seated across from her now seemed to be someone else entirely.
Today his light brown hair was cut fashionably short and there was no sign of the glasses he used to wear. And those were not the only changes she noticed. There was no missing the way his broad shoulders filled out his dress shirt.
For a second Sara sat speechless and stared at the man, as her pulse kicked up a few notches. Before he noticed her staring, Sara regrouped and pasted on her best society smile. “Hi Christopher. Did Jake tell you what is going on?”
Christopher shook his head. “No. He just said to get out here, but I have a guess.”
Sara expected him to continue and let her in on his suspicions. Instead he grabbed a soda water for himself. When several minutes passed and he didn't say anything else, she couldn't keep herself from asking her next question, “So, what is your guess?”
Christopher paused with the bottle halfway to his mouth. “My money is on a wedding, but it's just a guess.”
“A wedding? No. Charlie and Jake wouldn't do that. Our parents would be furious.”
“Like I said it's just a guess, but I know Jake and an out-of-the-blue wedding wouldn't surprise me at all.”
Would her brother do that to their parents? Sure a sudden unexpected wedding might be something Jake would talk about, but not something he'd ever go through with. Jake Sherbrooke and Charlotte O'Brien's wedding would be a huge affair much like Dylan and Callie's the year before. Considering the size of the Sherbrooke family and the fact that the American public seemed so fascinated by them, how could it be anything less?
But if not a wedding like Christopher predicted, what other reason could Jake have for asking Christopher and her to Hawaii on such short notice? Other than an impromptu wedding like Christopher suggested nothing else made any sense.
“Have you met Charlie?” Sara asked in an attempt to start a conversation. Over the years they'd had few conversationsso Sara figured she could either ask him about his company or the one thing they had in common, her brother.
Christopher returned his water to the holder near the door and Sara's eyes watched the way the muscles in his upper arm flexed and moved. The sight sent her hand toward the air vent, which she redirected toward her face.
“I met her last year at Jake's office and we've all gotten together several times since. I like her. She seems perfect for him.”
“I think so too.” Sara reached for more water. “She's definitely the right woman for mybrother.” She took a sip from the bottle and then asked him about his company.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
I wrote my first story with characters similar to those in the Sweet Valley Twins books at the age of 10 on my grandmother's manual typewriter. As I got older my stories and characters became more mature. During my freshman year at UMass Dartmouth, I read my first romance novel and fell in love with the genre. I have been writing contemporary romance ever since.
Today I live with my husband, three beautiful daughters and two dogs in Massachusetts. Whenever I have a free moment you'll find me either reading a romance novel or working on my most current story
Author Links:
Website:
Facebook:
Twitter:
Blog:
Pinterest:
Buy Links:
AMAZON
AMAZON UK
B&N
iTunes
KOBO
All Romance Ebooks
.
Christina will be awarding a $15.00 Amazon or BN gift card (Winner's Choice) to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour.
BLURB:
She was raised as an American Princess
Following the betrayal of a former lover, Sara Sherbrooke swore off relationships, too afraid she would be used again. Instead she has devoted all her energy to succeeding in politics without relying on her family name. That is until one night in Hawaii with her brother's best friend Christopher Hall.
He is a self-made billionaire
Technological genius and CEO of Hall Technology, Christopher Hall first met Sara Sherbrooke when he and Jake Sherbrooke were college roommates. While attending Jake's wedding in Hawaii, Christopher is reintroduced to Sara, a beauty who was once way out of his league. But now as the most eligible bachelor in Silicon Valley, the only thing stopping Christopher from pursuing Sara is the thought of betraying his best friend.
As they work together to promote a new education initiative, neither can deny the attraction between them. But will their growing romance be worth all of the consequences?
EXCERPT
As Sara sat sipping a bottle of sparkling water, the door opened again. Silently, she watched as Christopher Hall climbed in. If she hadn't seen him countless times on the web, she never would’ve recognized the man who'd climbed in the limo as her brother's Cal Tech roommate. She recalled meeting the tall skinny kid with shaggy light brown hair and glasses when her family moved Jake into his dorm freshman year. On the few occasions she had seen him back then he'd been dressed in jeans, Converse sneakers and t-shirts with hard-rock bands emblazoned on them. The man seated across from her now seemed to be someone else entirely.Today his light brown hair was cut fashionably short and there was no sign of the glasses he used to wear. And those were not the only changes she noticed. There was no missing the way his broad shoulders filled out his dress shirt.
For a second Sara sat speechless and stared at the man, as her pulse kicked up a few notches. Before he noticed her staring, Sara regrouped and pasted on her best society smile. “Hi Christopher. Did Jake tell you what is going on?”
Christopher shook his head. “No. He just said to get out here, but I have a guess.”
Sara expected him to continue and let her in on his suspicions. Instead he grabbed a soda water for himself. When several minutes passed and he didn't say anything else, she couldn't keep herself from asking her next question, “So, what is your guess?”
Christopher paused with the bottle halfway to his mouth. “My money is on a wedding, but it's just a guess.”
“A wedding? No. Charlie and Jake wouldn't do that. Our parents would be furious.”
“Like I said it's just a guess, but I know Jake and an out-of-the-blue wedding wouldn't surprise me at all.”
Would her brother do that to their parents? Sure a sudden unexpected wedding might be something Jake would talk about, but not something he'd ever go through with. Jake Sherbrooke and Charlotte O'Brien's wedding would be a huge affair much like Dylan and Callie's the year before. Considering the size of the Sherbrooke family and the fact that the American public seemed so fascinated by them, how could it be anything less?
But if not a wedding like Christopher predicted, what other reason could Jake have for asking Christopher and her to Hawaii on such short notice? Other than an impromptu wedding like Christopher suggested nothing else made any sense.
“Have you met Charlie?” Sara asked in an attempt to start a conversation. Over the years they'd had few conversationsso Sara figured she could either ask him about his company or the one thing they had in common, her brother.
Christopher returned his water to the holder near the door and Sara's eyes watched the way the muscles in his upper arm flexed and moved. The sight sent her hand toward the air vent, which she redirected toward her face.
“I met her last year at Jake's office and we've all gotten together several times since. I like her. She seems perfect for him.”
“I think so too.” Sara reached for more water. “She's definitely the right woman for mybrother.” She took a sip from the bottle and then asked him about his company.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
I wrote my first story with characters similar to those in the Sweet Valley Twins books at the age of 10 on my grandmother's manual typewriter. As I got older my stories and characters became more mature. During my freshman year at UMass Dartmouth, I read my first romance novel and fell in love with the genre. I have been writing contemporary romance ever since.Today I live with my husband, three beautiful daughters and two dogs in Massachusetts. Whenever I have a free moment you'll find me either reading a romance novel or working on my most current story
Author Links:
Website:
Facebook:
Twitter: Blog:
Pinterest:
Buy Links:
AMAZON
AMAZON UK
B&N
iTunes
KOBO
All Romance Ebooks
.
July 23, 2013
Blog Blitz with Author SRHowen
Blog Blitz with Author SRHowen
Christmas in July, unwrap a summer ebook blog blitz, welcomes S.R.Howen
"The old one will come. When he comes, his one true wife must carry within her a child of the old one who would be king. Only then can the heart be found and the evil of the world kept in its bounds." –The Prophecy of the Land
Sorann is the queen's daughter and training to be an empathic healer. Javert is a member of the wandering tribe called the Zingari and their future king. When Sorann's failed healer's magic test brings them together, they discover the prophecy governing the land is false. In order to prevent magic, and the Zingari, from being wiped from the land, Sorann must become Javert's wife and leave everything behind that she once held dear.
Tricked by demons, and followed by the queen's soldiers, they must find the fabled Wizard's Heart in the frozen Winter Valley.
What sacrifices will they have to make along the way, and will Javert ever discover the true meaning of the Wizard's Heart before his people and the love of his life are lost?
This is the first book in the fantasy series Tales of the Zingari.
Some thoughts on being an editor, from S. R. HowenSome thoughts on editing. What is an editor’s job? Sometimes I think, and I have been at this a long time, that new writers don’t have a clue what an editor does, or should do. You send your baby into the world, and fantastic, do cartwheels, you have a contract. Now what? Okay, you read the contract, you understand most of it, so you sign it.
Then you get the introduction letter from your editor. You look forward to the edits and the suggestions that will make your book better . . .
Unfortunately, many times this is the dream of every editor, that we wish every author understood. How did that writer make it to that place where they get the contract—is often the cry of writers? A lot of it has to do with the perception that writers have of an editor.
With the idea that an editor will fix typos, misspelling, word Usage, and grammar as well as punctuation, they send out their manuscript looking like a group of crows stepped in ink. Often when asked, why didn’t you at least run spell check? The answer is: That’s not my job, that’s what an editor is for!
This is what I would like writers to understand, you need to put the best possible effort into your manuscript, it may be a great idea, but if it’s buried under basic errors, you won’t get a contract. You wouldn’t go to a job interview dressed in the clothes you took out of the hamper that you did house cleaning in the day before, so why would you send out a manuscript that wasn’t clean and pressed and dressed neatly?
Writing is a business. You can call it art. But it is a business; it’s not your baby. You may feel you gave birth to the story and you need to love the story to tell it well, but you also need to have some distance from the love affair. To be able to stand back and see the ugly spots in order to fix them.
An editor is there to help you get your vision down on that page, to make it shine, to polish the story until it does. They are not there to take the place of spell check, and basic knowledge of grammar. Yes, we all make mistakes that an editor will find, but don’t think that fixing all of them is the editor’s job.
That’s your job as a writer, a craftsman has all the tools in his tool box to build the house, he doesn’t expect someone else to bring them.
I’m happy to share my tool box on many things, if you have done your work as a writer.
So what do I tell my authors?
No question is a dumb question. ASK!
Everything your editor asks you to do is open to discussion, if you don’t agree with me, present your case. We will talk about it.
Writing is a business. You can call it art. But it is a business, it’s not your baby. So when I say fix this or this doesn’t work, I am not insulting you, I am helping you make a product that will sell.
I will hound you to the seven circles of hell to promote.
I will hold your hand, if need be, and offer a shoulder of understanding if needed, and I will help you promote as much as I can. And I will stand behind you and your book, we will get it in the best possible shape to present to the world—then the real work begins.
Author BioS.R. Howen grew up on a farm for the most part, spending part of her childhood as a military brat. The one constant in her life is story telling. She's always been a story teller--not a popular thing to be when you are five.
She's been with Wild Child since 2000 as an author and an editor. Currently, she lives in Texas with her family and assorted citers, 14 cats, 2 dogs, 2 squirrels, and a racoon.
She follows a Native American lifestyle--believing that each thing does indeed have its own spirit, and avoiding processed foods. If she couldn't kill it, catch it, or pick it in the wild, she doesn't eat it. Other than that, she loves fast cars, good writing, and good editors. They are a writer's best friend.
Find more of S.R. Howen here: Facebook
Facebook Author’s Page
Blog: Critters at the Keyboard
Author Web page
Twitter
Goodreads
Book Blogs
Author's Den
Google+
Linked In
Pinterest
Buy her Books here:
Wild Child Publishing
Amazon
Please visit these other sites and leave a comment to win a $10 GFC to Wild Child Publishing.
Critters at the Keyboard . . .
Blog by Imagine
D.A.Bell
William Gibbons
Highland Rogue Writing
There is no Spoon
Dear Reader
Shadows of the Past
Audrey Cuff
Richard Uhilg
Christmas in July, unwrap a summer ebook blog blitz, welcomes S.R.Howen
"The old one will come. When he comes, his one true wife must carry within her a child of the old one who would be king. Only then can the heart be found and the evil of the world kept in its bounds." –The Prophecy of the LandSorann is the queen's daughter and training to be an empathic healer. Javert is a member of the wandering tribe called the Zingari and their future king. When Sorann's failed healer's magic test brings them together, they discover the prophecy governing the land is false. In order to prevent magic, and the Zingari, from being wiped from the land, Sorann must become Javert's wife and leave everything behind that she once held dear.
Tricked by demons, and followed by the queen's soldiers, they must find the fabled Wizard's Heart in the frozen Winter Valley.
What sacrifices will they have to make along the way, and will Javert ever discover the true meaning of the Wizard's Heart before his people and the love of his life are lost?
This is the first book in the fantasy series Tales of the Zingari.
Some thoughts on being an editor, from S. R. HowenSome thoughts on editing. What is an editor’s job? Sometimes I think, and I have been at this a long time, that new writers don’t have a clue what an editor does, or should do. You send your baby into the world, and fantastic, do cartwheels, you have a contract. Now what? Okay, you read the contract, you understand most of it, so you sign it.
Then you get the introduction letter from your editor. You look forward to the edits and the suggestions that will make your book better . . .
Unfortunately, many times this is the dream of every editor, that we wish every author understood. How did that writer make it to that place where they get the contract—is often the cry of writers? A lot of it has to do with the perception that writers have of an editor.
With the idea that an editor will fix typos, misspelling, word Usage, and grammar as well as punctuation, they send out their manuscript looking like a group of crows stepped in ink. Often when asked, why didn’t you at least run spell check? The answer is: That’s not my job, that’s what an editor is for!
This is what I would like writers to understand, you need to put the best possible effort into your manuscript, it may be a great idea, but if it’s buried under basic errors, you won’t get a contract. You wouldn’t go to a job interview dressed in the clothes you took out of the hamper that you did house cleaning in the day before, so why would you send out a manuscript that wasn’t clean and pressed and dressed neatly?
Writing is a business. You can call it art. But it is a business; it’s not your baby. You may feel you gave birth to the story and you need to love the story to tell it well, but you also need to have some distance from the love affair. To be able to stand back and see the ugly spots in order to fix them.
An editor is there to help you get your vision down on that page, to make it shine, to polish the story until it does. They are not there to take the place of spell check, and basic knowledge of grammar. Yes, we all make mistakes that an editor will find, but don’t think that fixing all of them is the editor’s job.
That’s your job as a writer, a craftsman has all the tools in his tool box to build the house, he doesn’t expect someone else to bring them.
I’m happy to share my tool box on many things, if you have done your work as a writer.
So what do I tell my authors?
No question is a dumb question. ASK!
Everything your editor asks you to do is open to discussion, if you don’t agree with me, present your case. We will talk about it.
Writing is a business. You can call it art. But it is a business, it’s not your baby. So when I say fix this or this doesn’t work, I am not insulting you, I am helping you make a product that will sell.
I will hound you to the seven circles of hell to promote.
I will hold your hand, if need be, and offer a shoulder of understanding if needed, and I will help you promote as much as I can. And I will stand behind you and your book, we will get it in the best possible shape to present to the world—then the real work begins.
Author BioS.R. Howen grew up on a farm for the most part, spending part of her childhood as a military brat. The one constant in her life is story telling. She's always been a story teller--not a popular thing to be when you are five.She's been with Wild Child since 2000 as an author and an editor. Currently, she lives in Texas with her family and assorted citers, 14 cats, 2 dogs, 2 squirrels, and a racoon.
She follows a Native American lifestyle--believing that each thing does indeed have its own spirit, and avoiding processed foods. If she couldn't kill it, catch it, or pick it in the wild, she doesn't eat it. Other than that, she loves fast cars, good writing, and good editors. They are a writer's best friend.
Find more of S.R. Howen here: Facebook
Facebook Author’s Page
Blog: Critters at the Keyboard
Author Web page
Goodreads
Book Blogs
Author's Den
Google+
Linked In
Buy her Books here:
Wild Child Publishing
Amazon
Please visit these other sites and leave a comment to win a $10 GFC to Wild Child Publishing.
Critters at the Keyboard . . .
Blog by Imagine
D.A.Bell
William Gibbons
Highland Rogue Writing
There is no Spoon
Dear Reader
Shadows of the Past
Audrey Cuff
Richard Uhilg
July 22, 2013
The Billionaire Princess by Christina Tetrault
Virtual Blurb Blitz Tour: The Billionaire Princess by Christina Tetrault
Christina will be awarding a $15.00 Amazon or BN gift card (Winner's Choice) to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour.
BLURB:
She was raised as an American Princess
Following the betrayal of a former lover, Sara Sherbrooke swore off relationships, too afraid she would be used again. Instead she has devoted all her energy to succeeding in politics without relying on her family name. That is until one night in Hawaii with her brother's best friend Christopher Hall.
He is a self-made billionaire
Technological genius and CEO of Hall Technology, Christopher Hall first met Sara Sherbrooke when he and Jake Sherbrooke were college roommates. While attending Jake's wedding in Hawaii, Christopher is reintroduced to Sara, a beauty who was once way out of his league. But now as the most eligible bachelor in Silicon Valley, the only thing stopping Christopher from pursuing Sara is the thought of betraying his best friend.
As they work together to promote a new education initiative, neither can deny the attraction between them. But will their growing romance be worth all of the consequences?
EXCERPT
As Sara sat sipping a bottle of sparkling water, the door opened again. Silently, she watched as Christopher Hall climbed in. If she hadn't seen him countless times on the web, she never would’ve recognized the man who'd climbed in the limo as her brother's Cal Tech roommate. She recalled meeting the tall skinny kid with shaggy light brown hair and glasses when her family moved Jake into his dorm freshman year. On the few occasions she had seen him back then he'd been dressed in jeans, Converse sneakers and t-shirts with hard-rock bands emblazoned on them. The man seated across from her now seemed to be someone else entirely.
Today his light brown hair was cut fashionably short and there was no sign of the glasses he used to wear. And those were not the only changes she noticed. There was no missing the way his broad shoulders filled out his dress shirt.
For a second Sara sat speechless and stared at the man, as her pulse kicked up a few notches. Before he noticed her staring, Sara regrouped and pasted on her best society smile. “Hi Christopher. Did Jake tell you what is going on?”
Christopher shook his head. “No. He just said to get out here, but I have a guess.”
Sara expected him to continue and let her in on his suspicions. Instead he grabbed a soda water for himself. When several minutes passed and he didn't say anything else, she couldn't keep herself from asking her next question, “So, what is your guess?”
Christopher paused with the bottle halfway to his mouth. “My money is on a wedding, but it's just a guess.”
“A wedding? No. Charlie and Jake wouldn't do that. Our parents would be furious.”
“Like I said it's just a guess, but I know Jake and an out-of-the-blue wedding wouldn't surprise me at all.”
Would her brother do that to their parents? Sure a sudden unexpected wedding might be something Jake would talk about, but not something he'd ever go through with. Jake Sherbrooke and Charlotte O'Brien's wedding would be a huge affair much like Dylan and Callie's the year before. Considering the size of the Sherbrooke family and the fact that the American public seemed so fascinated by them, how could it be anything less?
But if not a wedding like Christopher predicted, what other reason could Jake have for asking Christopher and her to Hawaii on such short notice? Other than an impromptu wedding like Christopher suggested nothing else made any sense.
“Have you met Charlie?” Sara asked in an attempt to start a conversation. Over the years they'd had few conversationsso Sara figured she could either ask him about his company or the one thing they had in common, her brother.
Christopher returned his water to the holder near the door and Sara's eyes watched the way the muscles in his upper arm flexed and moved. The sight sent her hand toward the air vent, which she redirected toward her face.
“I met her last year at Jake's office and we've all gotten together several times since. I like her. She seems perfect for him.”
“I think so too.” Sara reached for more water. “She's definitely the right woman for mybrother.” She took a sip from the bottle and then asked him about his company.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
I wrote my first story with characters similar to those in the Sweet Valley Twins books at the age of 10 on my grandmother's manual typewriter. As I got older my stories and characters became more mature. During my freshman year at UMass Dartmouth, I read my first romance novel and fell in love with the genre. I have been writing contemporary romance ever since.
Today I live with my husband, three beautiful daughters and two dogs in Massachusetts. Whenever I have a free moment you'll find me either reading a romance novel or working on my most current story
Author Links:
Website:
Facebook:
Twitter:
Blog:
Pinterest:
Buy Links:
AMAZON
AMAZON UK
B&N
iTunes
KOBO
All Romance Ebooks
.
Christina will be awarding a $15.00 Amazon or BN gift card (Winner's Choice) to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour.
BLURB:
She was raised as an American Princess
Following the betrayal of a former lover, Sara Sherbrooke swore off relationships, too afraid she would be used again. Instead she has devoted all her energy to succeeding in politics without relying on her family name. That is until one night in Hawaii with her brother's best friend Christopher Hall.
He is a self-made billionaire
Technological genius and CEO of Hall Technology, Christopher Hall first met Sara Sherbrooke when he and Jake Sherbrooke were college roommates. While attending Jake's wedding in Hawaii, Christopher is reintroduced to Sara, a beauty who was once way out of his league. But now as the most eligible bachelor in Silicon Valley, the only thing stopping Christopher from pursuing Sara is the thought of betraying his best friend.
As they work together to promote a new education initiative, neither can deny the attraction between them. But will their growing romance be worth all of the consequences?
EXCERPT
As Sara sat sipping a bottle of sparkling water, the door opened again. Silently, she watched as Christopher Hall climbed in. If she hadn't seen him countless times on the web, she never would’ve recognized the man who'd climbed in the limo as her brother's Cal Tech roommate. She recalled meeting the tall skinny kid with shaggy light brown hair and glasses when her family moved Jake into his dorm freshman year. On the few occasions she had seen him back then he'd been dressed in jeans, Converse sneakers and t-shirts with hard-rock bands emblazoned on them. The man seated across from her now seemed to be someone else entirely.Today his light brown hair was cut fashionably short and there was no sign of the glasses he used to wear. And those were not the only changes she noticed. There was no missing the way his broad shoulders filled out his dress shirt.
For a second Sara sat speechless and stared at the man, as her pulse kicked up a few notches. Before he noticed her staring, Sara regrouped and pasted on her best society smile. “Hi Christopher. Did Jake tell you what is going on?”
Christopher shook his head. “No. He just said to get out here, but I have a guess.”
Sara expected him to continue and let her in on his suspicions. Instead he grabbed a soda water for himself. When several minutes passed and he didn't say anything else, she couldn't keep herself from asking her next question, “So, what is your guess?”
Christopher paused with the bottle halfway to his mouth. “My money is on a wedding, but it's just a guess.”
“A wedding? No. Charlie and Jake wouldn't do that. Our parents would be furious.”
“Like I said it's just a guess, but I know Jake and an out-of-the-blue wedding wouldn't surprise me at all.”
Would her brother do that to their parents? Sure a sudden unexpected wedding might be something Jake would talk about, but not something he'd ever go through with. Jake Sherbrooke and Charlotte O'Brien's wedding would be a huge affair much like Dylan and Callie's the year before. Considering the size of the Sherbrooke family and the fact that the American public seemed so fascinated by them, how could it be anything less?
But if not a wedding like Christopher predicted, what other reason could Jake have for asking Christopher and her to Hawaii on such short notice? Other than an impromptu wedding like Christopher suggested nothing else made any sense.
“Have you met Charlie?” Sara asked in an attempt to start a conversation. Over the years they'd had few conversationsso Sara figured she could either ask him about his company or the one thing they had in common, her brother.
Christopher returned his water to the holder near the door and Sara's eyes watched the way the muscles in his upper arm flexed and moved. The sight sent her hand toward the air vent, which she redirected toward her face.
“I met her last year at Jake's office and we've all gotten together several times since. I like her. She seems perfect for him.”
“I think so too.” Sara reached for more water. “She's definitely the right woman for mybrother.” She took a sip from the bottle and then asked him about his company.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
I wrote my first story with characters similar to those in the Sweet Valley Twins books at the age of 10 on my grandmother's manual typewriter. As I got older my stories and characters became more mature. During my freshman year at UMass Dartmouth, I read my first romance novel and fell in love with the genre. I have been writing contemporary romance ever since.Today I live with my husband, three beautiful daughters and two dogs in Massachusetts. Whenever I have a free moment you'll find me either reading a romance novel or working on my most current story
Author Links:
Website:
Facebook:
Twitter: Blog:
Pinterest:
Buy Links:
AMAZON
AMAZON UK
B&N
iTunes
KOBO
All Romance Ebooks
.
Blog Blitz with Author Audrey Cuff
Blog Blitz with Author Audrey Cuff
Christmas in July, unwrap a summer ebook blog blitz,
welcomes Author Audrey Cuff, Ed.D
When Ashley Brown was five years old, her parents left her in the care of her grandma, though her mother promised to return for her. At fourteen, Ashley is still living with her grandmother in Highland, a city on the outskirts of Maryville, a place known as the "ghetto."
Ashley has shadowy memories of her mother taking her to her favorite place, the library. Reading a good book allows Ashley to escape her poverty and crime infested community. One afternoon after listening to the Mayor's press conference, Ashley discovers that the Mayor is taking away the community library. In spite of being put on punishment for a week by her grandma for defending herself from the school bullies, Ashley feels it is worth the risk to sneak out of her apartment to mail a letter she has written to the Mayor about keeping the library open.
Every day homeless people approach her and beg for something to eat or for money. The most frequent requests come from two disheveled individuals Ashley has nicknamed "Orphan Annie" and the "businessman bum." As if escaping the homeless people isn't enough, there are a bunch of bullies who harass Ashley. One day, the bullies chase her into an alley. They force her to the ground and Ashley is afraid of what could have happened next. This is one time Ashley wished she listen to her grandma.
In print and ebook formats, the book, City of Thieves will be an audio book by September 2013.
Read an excerptGrandma, Grandma, what is so wrong?” I said. I jumped out of my chair and run toward the TV.
“That stupid mayor. I don’t believe it! She’s shutting down the library. The only library we have in this community and replacing it with some, some business store,” Grandma yelled. She scowled at the TV. “I don’t believe the stupid mayor. You see what I mean about people in power making decisions that ruin your life, and you have no say about anything.”
“Oh, oh, Grandma, that’s so terrible. The library is the only place I have left that’s positive in the community.”
“Ashley, don’t you get it? They don’t give a hoot about people from our neighborhood. All they care about is making money off of the poor,” she said.
Then a quick flash the mayor came on the television. Suddenly, my knees felt weak and heavy. I felt like I was ready to collapse.
“Grandma, what is, is the mayor’s name?” I asked. I struggled not to stumble.
“I’m not for sure. Some person name Baldwin, a Mrs. Baldwin I guess. Oh watch they are showing that evil witch on television right now,” Grandma said. She glared at the television. Grandma was going nuts.
I desperately tried not to break down, Grandma didn’t have a clue that I’d met Mrs. Baldwin, and I wasn’t about to tell her. Luckily, Grandma was going crazy about the mayor; she didn’t notice that I’m emotionally falling apart.
Author BioDr. Audrey Cuff was inspired by her special needs students to write her debut novel, City Of Thieves. She wanted her students reach their goals and aspirations regardless of obstacles and shortcomings in life. She also wanted her students to understand that they could fight to better their communities.
Dr. Cuff is a special education teacher at a high school in SouthJersey. She taught psychology for the past 13 years to freshman students. She is a vegetarian. She enjoys evenings at home with her family and friends. She completed two marathons in 2005 and 2006 in Hawaii for charity research to cure HIV /AIDS. Also, her other hobbies consist of reading, going to the movies and of course writing. She has two children, and three grandchildren. Dr. Cuff received her doctoral degree from Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara California. She has the following certifications: Teacher of Psychology, Teacher of Special Education, and Supervisor of Education. She was nominated and received the Outstanding Teacher award in April of 2006 City of Thieves is part of a three book series.
Find more about Audrey hereFacebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Fielding University News
Find her books hereAmazon
Wild CHild Publishing
B&N
Please visit these other sites and leave a comment to win a $10 GFC to Wild Child Publishing.
Critters at the Keyboard . . .
Blog by Imagine
D.A.Bell
William Gibbons
Highland Rogue Writing
There is no Spoon
Dear Reader
Shadows of the Past
Audrey Cuff
Richard Uhilg
Christmas in July, unwrap a summer ebook blog blitz, welcomes Author Audrey Cuff, Ed.D
When Ashley Brown was five years old, her parents left her in the care of her grandma, though her mother promised to return for her. At fourteen, Ashley is still living with her grandmother in Highland, a city on the outskirts of Maryville, a place known as the "ghetto."Ashley has shadowy memories of her mother taking her to her favorite place, the library. Reading a good book allows Ashley to escape her poverty and crime infested community. One afternoon after listening to the Mayor's press conference, Ashley discovers that the Mayor is taking away the community library. In spite of being put on punishment for a week by her grandma for defending herself from the school bullies, Ashley feels it is worth the risk to sneak out of her apartment to mail a letter she has written to the Mayor about keeping the library open.
Every day homeless people approach her and beg for something to eat or for money. The most frequent requests come from two disheveled individuals Ashley has nicknamed "Orphan Annie" and the "businessman bum." As if escaping the homeless people isn't enough, there are a bunch of bullies who harass Ashley. One day, the bullies chase her into an alley. They force her to the ground and Ashley is afraid of what could have happened next. This is one time Ashley wished she listen to her grandma.
In print and ebook formats, the book, City of Thieves will be an audio book by September 2013.
Read an excerptGrandma, Grandma, what is so wrong?” I said. I jumped out of my chair and run toward the TV.
“That stupid mayor. I don’t believe it! She’s shutting down the library. The only library we have in this community and replacing it with some, some business store,” Grandma yelled. She scowled at the TV. “I don’t believe the stupid mayor. You see what I mean about people in power making decisions that ruin your life, and you have no say about anything.”
“Oh, oh, Grandma, that’s so terrible. The library is the only place I have left that’s positive in the community.”
“Ashley, don’t you get it? They don’t give a hoot about people from our neighborhood. All they care about is making money off of the poor,” she said.
Then a quick flash the mayor came on the television. Suddenly, my knees felt weak and heavy. I felt like I was ready to collapse.
“Grandma, what is, is the mayor’s name?” I asked. I struggled not to stumble.
“I’m not for sure. Some person name Baldwin, a Mrs. Baldwin I guess. Oh watch they are showing that evil witch on television right now,” Grandma said. She glared at the television. Grandma was going nuts.
I desperately tried not to break down, Grandma didn’t have a clue that I’d met Mrs. Baldwin, and I wasn’t about to tell her. Luckily, Grandma was going crazy about the mayor; she didn’t notice that I’m emotionally falling apart.
Author BioDr. Audrey Cuff was inspired by her special needs students to write her debut novel, City Of Thieves. She wanted her students reach their goals and aspirations regardless of obstacles and shortcomings in life. She also wanted her students to understand that they could fight to better their communities.
Dr. Cuff is a special education teacher at a high school in SouthJersey. She taught psychology for the past 13 years to freshman students. She is a vegetarian. She enjoys evenings at home with her family and friends. She completed two marathons in 2005 and 2006 in Hawaii for charity research to cure HIV /AIDS. Also, her other hobbies consist of reading, going to the movies and of course writing. She has two children, and three grandchildren. Dr. Cuff received her doctoral degree from Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara California. She has the following certifications: Teacher of Psychology, Teacher of Special Education, and Supervisor of Education. She was nominated and received the Outstanding Teacher award in April of 2006 City of Thieves is part of a three book series.
Find more about Audrey hereFacebook
Goodreads
Fielding University News
Find her books hereAmazon
Wild CHild Publishing
B&N
Please visit these other sites and leave a comment to win a $10 GFC to Wild Child Publishing.
Critters at the Keyboard . . .
Blog by Imagine
D.A.Bell
William Gibbons
Highland Rogue Writing
There is no Spoon
Dear Reader
Shadows of the Past
Audrey Cuff
Richard Uhilg
July 21, 2013
Blog Blitz with Author Richard Uhlig
Blog Blitz with Author Richard Uhlig
Christmas in July, unwrap a summer ebook blog blitz, welcomes Richard Uhlig
Richard treats us to the first chapter of his novel MYSTERY AT SNAKE RIVER BRIDGE
Chapter OneMy name is Ron Riley, Jr., but no one except geezers call me that. I'm known at school as Kodak because I always have a camera hanging from my neck. Why? I’m a reporter/photographer at my old man’s weekly newspaper, The Harker City Bugle.
Is this a job I asked for? Guess again. I mean, it makes me totally un-cool. Tell me, what chick drools over a doofus who stands on the sidelines snapping pictures of jocks scoring touch downs and baskets? I might as well be gay.
You’re thinking, hey, your old man owns a newspaper, and that’s choice, right? We’re not talking the New York Times here. Heck, we’re not even talking The Wichita Eagle Beacon.
Fact, The Bugle’s circulation is a whopping fifteen hundred and seventeen, the exact same number of souls who went down on the Titanic.
Another fact, slaving at The Bugle is a lot like being on a sinking ship. Over the last few years Dad has lost serious advertising money because half the stores in town have gone belly up since the railroad folded.
After Mom died -- she penned the “Family Living” section of the paper -- Dad couldn’t afford to hire someone new, so guess what? Yours truly had to go to work for less than minimum wage.
But there is one cool thing I’ve discovered with this gig. I like words.
I groove on hooking them up like box cars on a train and seeing where they take me.
My main man, Fart Bomb, calls me Word Nerd because I’m always looking up new words in Webster’s.
Here’s the hitch. When you live in Snoozeville like me, where pretty much everyone goes to church on Sunday, and most adults are grey gray hairs living on the Security, juicy scoops are about as common as Beluga caviar. How am I suppose to strut my writing stuff when I’m forced to cover “stories” like the bingo wins down at the VFW hall on Saturday night? The killer adjective or action verb only goes so far at sexing up an article titled “Highlights From the Lutheran Church Talent Night”.
So, when it comes over Dad’s police scanner that a car was found under Snake River Bridge, my ears whip around like Rhubarb's, my cat, when she hears a mouse scratching under the fridge. Dad pushes his chair back from the breakfast table. He, my big sister Melissa, my only sib, and I have been chowing down on that lumpy oatmeal she makes every morning.
“Ron, fetch my boots and load up the camera,” Dad croaks in his bullfrog-deep voice. “Melissa, put my coffee in the Thermos.”
I snatch up Dad’s scuffed Red Wing field boots from the back door mat and haul them over to him. “If a car went through the Snake River Bridge railing, that’s at least a fifty foot drop.”
Dad nods. “Would be a miracle if anyone survived that fall.” He struggles, reaching over his girth to tug his left boot on, so I bend down and pull with both hands on the boot tops. That’s right, Dad’s a porker. At almost three hundred and fifty pounds, he’s been a black hole of food consumption since Mom died. He snarfs more calories in a day than Melissa, Rhubarb, our garbage disposal, and me combined. And that's saying something because my sister is no twig, and I used to be fat myself. More on that later.
I clear my throat as I lace Dad’s boots. “How about if I shoot this one for you?”
He shakes his triple-chinned head when he heaves himself up.
“But you promised me I could help out on the next big story, remember?” I’m told I have a doe-eyed look that would make Jesus himself feel guilty, I use it on him.
“Haven’t you heard of post-traumatic stress disorder?” my sister says in her helium-sucker's voice. “After a person witnesses a horrific event, like a car accident, they can suffer from depression, nightmares, even phobias for years.”
“Too late, I’m already living with you.”
“That’s enough,” Dad barks. “Apologize to your sister, right now.”
“Sorry, Sis.”
She turns away, folding her arms over her chest.
After Mom died, Melissa dropped out of K-State, where she was an honors psychology major. She moved home and became the self-appointed family caretaker, making the meals, clipping grocery coupons and nagging us about every little thing, like not taking off our shoes when coming into the house, leaving my bed unmade and my dirty clothes on the bathroom floor. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. On July 4th Sis is to tie the knot with Brandon Miller, Dickerson County Sheriff's Deputy extraordinaire.
“Look, Dad,” I barter, “I’ll cover next week’s city commission meeting if you’ll let me go with you this morning.” This stops him in his tracks like I knew it would. Dad gets bored at the city meetings and often falls asleep. Afterwards, he has to trail around after the commissioners to find out what happened.
“Oh, all right. Get your camera. I’ll be out in the truck.”
My sister’s tarantula-leg-like eyelashes flutter at me in disgust. “Why do you want to photograph a gruesome sight so badly?”
“Because I’m a psycho pervert.”
“I think you have serious unresolved issues about Mom’s death.”
“Whatever.”
My photography knapsack swings from my neck as I book it out the back door. It isn’t even eight o’clock on this June morning and it has to be eighty degrees out. Wispy white clouds streak the blue sky like talcum powder on our bathroom floor. I throw open the passenger door of Dad's Chevy pickup. Behind the wheel, he’s nibbling on a dark chocolate Hersey bar. I sink into the seat with its busted springs as he starts the engine. The C.B. radio squelches and scratches.
“I want you to be nice to your sister,” he scolds between bites. “She’s under a lot of pressure with the wedding coming up. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
Dad believes she’s spazzing out lately because she has to organize the whole nuptial shindig herself. I believe diet pills have a lot to do with it. She is desperate to drop 15 pounds for the Big Day, so she’ll fit into Mom’s old wedding dress.
We cruise through the empty streets of Harker City, the burg where I’ve lived all of my seventeen years, with its limestone courthouse, two banks, two gas stations, two grocery stores, three bars and eight churches. You’ve probably never heard of Harker City, and for good reason.
Nothing.
Exciting.
Ever.
Happens.
Here.
Period.
Except for one Mexican family, The Lopezes, who own The Taco Caboose, and the one black family, the Washingtons, who own Colonel Chet’s Bar B Q, and Casey Coyote, the sheriff's Native American foster daughter, the good citizens of Harker City are as white as Marshmallow Fluff.
Speaking of Casey Coyote…when Dad swings us onto Trapp Street, I’m surprised to see her blue Chevette parked in front of the Lutheran Church parsonage. Casey babysits for Reverend Mike and his wife a lot, but at eight o’clock on a Sunday morning?
We zoom past the Dairy Queen and drive east onto Highway 76, heading out across the pancake-flat prairie.
Dad lowers his visor to block the morning sun and says, “Covering car accidents is the one part of my job I dread.”
“Then give ‘em to me.” I reach into my knapsack and take out my Kodak camera. “If I cover another quilting bee or 4H livestock competition, I’ll go bonkers.”
“Son, by focusing on local events The Bugle serves an important function in the community. It gives people’s lives meaning. If it’s in print, it’s important.”
So you know, Dad repeats this mantra about once a week. It kinda freaks me out he doesn't remember saying it. Alzheimer’s Disease? Self-Reassurance Disease? Either way, he's become quite philosophical since Mom died.
After a few minutes, Dad turns north on the roller coaster, deeply-rutted Snake River Road. Rocks crunch under our tires and ping against the undercarriage as we bounce along.
So, here it is 1990. Major stories are breaking all over the globe. Nelson Mandela freed from a South African prison, the Berlin Wall has come down, American troops are invading Panama. But you wouldn't know any of this reading the The Bugle. Me, I want to be a legit word nerd. I want to cover the stuff that matters. Maybe win a Pulitzer some day. And, I know what you're thinking, Yeah right, kid, the Pulitzer. Dream On.
Well, get this. Hemingway began his career as a newspaper reporter right here in the Midwest, less than a 150 miles from Harker City. Okay, he worked for the Kansas City Star and not The Bugle. Still, it’s a start.
Dad double-clutches into low gear as we struggle up a hill. We dip into the valley, and I see the red flashing lights of emergency vehicles. My pulse kicks up a notch. Ahead, the rusted trestles of the Snake River Bridge remind me of my old erector set.
Dad slows to a stop behind the sheriff's cruiser at the east end of the bridge. “Just stay out of the way and let me do the talking.” He reaches into the glove compartment, crammed with Hershey bar wrappers and yellowed gasoline receipts, and takes out his black reporter’s notebook.
Camera in hand, I trail Dad along the side of the road. Police radios crackle in the humid air. For once I feel like a real journalist covering a real story.
Up ahead, Ed Sanders, owner of Ed’s Tow Service and Auto Repair, leans his wiry body against the front fender of his wrecker. He looks totally zoned out while dragging on that cigarette.
“What do we have, Ed?” Dad calls out
Ed’s green eyes check us out from under the blue bandana wrapped pirate-style around his forehead. “One known fatality. Appears the driver missed the bridge at the curve and shot down the embankment right into the river.”
“Who’s the victim?” Dad asks.
Ed shrugs. “I just got here. Say, Ronny,” Ed drops his cigarette to the dirt and grinds it under his boot heel, “I’m almost done with your Ford.”
“Great. When can I pick it up?”
“Swing by the garage Tuesday.”
“Y’got it.”
Dad and I walk past my soon-to-be-brother-in-law, Brandon, on his hands and knees in the thick grass, so absorbed in whatever he’s doing there he doesn’t notice us.
We hurry by the idling ambulance, lights flashing, the back door open and the gurney missing. In the center of the narrow, one-lane bridge, Sheriff Gerald Bottoms stands squinting through binoculars like a general at D-Day. The old wood planks creak and groan under foot, and between them the river below rushes by. Usually a trickle this time of year, the water is moving fast due to the recent heavy rains. My gaze follows the river upstream to the big Harker City Lake Dam, water gushes from the overflow outlet in the shape of a rooster’s tail.
I lean over to the bridge railing. A car is upside down and half-submerged in the murky water below. To the left, two paramedics struggle to pull an object from the water. The object is a woman, floating face down, her red dress fanned over the water like a flag. The way her head bobs up and down in the current, it looks like she’s nodding. The shock of discovery hits me full force, and I’m too freaked out to do anything more than stare. I haven’t seen a dead person since Mom was laid out in her casket two years ago.
“I see we have a fatality, Gerald,” Dad says, snapping me out of my trance.
The sheriff lowers his binoculars and turns to us. A caterpillar-like eyebrow arches and he smirks at me. “Your dad letting you cover the big stuff these days?”
“Said he wanted to come.” Still gasping from the walk to the bridge, Dad dabs his sweaty forehead with a white handkerchief.
“Well, I’m glad he did. Brandon dropped our new Minolta into the river a little while ago.”The sheriff sighs and shakes his head. “Ronny, I’d like for you to get some shots of the car for my report, if you don’t mind.”
“No problem, sir.” I walk to the railing and snap pics of the death scene below. I adjust my focus. One of the men in waders is Allen Flood, the local mortician who is also an EMT.
“Body thrown at impact,” the sheriff says. “She didn’t stand a chance.”
“Who’s the victim?” Dad asks.
“Janice Crawley.”
I spin to the sheriff. “Reverend Mike’s wife?”
Sheriff Bottom nods grimly.
Dad shakes his head.
Unbelievable. How can Mrs. Crawley, a mother, a preacher’s wife, a special ed teacher at the high school, be floating dead in Snake River on a Sunday morning? It makes no sense. I saw her a couple days ago at the parsonage when I went for a run with her husband. Everyone liked Mrs. C.
“Is Reverend Mike in that car?” I ask.
The sheriff shakes his head and tucks a toothpick into the corner of his mouth. “No. Appears she was alone. Reverend called my office just shy of midnight reporting her missing. What a shame, huh?”
Dad’s voice cracks, “On the Sabbath, no less.”
The sheriff eyeballs the east entrance of the bridge. “Drivers never slow down at that curve. I’ve asked the county to put up one of those ‘dangerous curve’ signs, but the commissioners don’t move unless it’s an election year.”
“Have you told Reverend Mike?” Dad asks.
“Yeah. He should be here any minute to identify the body.”
The EMTs lift a stiff Mrs. C. onto the stretcher. I zoom my lens on her, opening the aperture two stops. Her color-drained face is swollen like a melon. Her pale, unblinking eyes seem to stare right through me. With her blue lips and matted wet hair, she looks like the mannequin we used to practice CPR on in health class.
“Is this blood?”
I lower the Kodak. Dad points at some brownish red-spots on the railing.
“Looks fairly fresh,” Dad observes.
A trail of red dots run along the floor of the bridge toward the west end.
The sheriff nudges his hat back. “I had Brandon collect some samples of it for the lab.”
Dad also leans on the railing. “What do you make of it?”
“Not much.” The sheriff returns to looking through his binoculars. “People fish off this bridge all the time.”
I clear my throat. “Isn’t that a lot of blood for a fish?”
Dad glares at me as if to say, Didn’t I tell you to let me do the talking?
“Junior,” the sheriff says into the binoculars, “I’ve caught channel cat in this creek that bled like a slaughtered heifer.”
He straightens his spine, spins the focus wheel on his scopes, and says in a serious whisper, “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Adrenaline courses through my body.
“What is it, Gerald?” Dad asks.
The sheriff hands Dad the binoculars and points. “There are two quartering pheasants over by that fence. What I wouldn’t give to have my twelve gauge right now.”
I follow those bloody dots to the entrance of the bridge, snapping photos as I go. They form a kind of trail down the rocky bank to the water’s edge.
“Ronny, make way,” Mr. Flood shouts as he and the other guy struggle to carry Mrs. Crawley’s bagged body up the embankment.
I hike back over to where Dad and the sheriff, and now Brandon, stand together on the bridge.
“I didn’t find any skid marks at the curve,” my sister’s fiancée reports. “Which leads me to believe she didn’t attempt to stop before she went over. Another thing, her headlights were off.”
The sheriff stares at him, chewing his toothpick. “I’m sure the paramedics cut the battery cable first thing. That’s standard operating procedure.”
Brandon shakes his head. “The headlight knob inside the car was switched off. The medics told me they hadn’t touched it… Maybe we should seal off the area.”
“What the heck for?” the sheriff asks.
“On the off-chance this wasn’t an accident.”
The sheriff shakes his head. “You’re thinkin’ this was a suicide?”
My future brother-in-law shrugs. “That could explain what she was doing out here alone after dark.”
Sheriff Bottoms stops chewing and stares at his underling like he is a zit on the end of his nose. “Mrs. Crawley was one of the happiest people I’ve known.”
A familiar, beige Buick LaSabre drives up. The driver’s door flies open, and out steps Reverend Mike, my triathlon coach and our family’s minister. He looks totally spent, unshaven, with dark bags under his light-blue eyes. Sheriff Bottoms leads the Rev to the back door of the ambulance. Mr. Flood, ever the solemn mortician, unzips the top of the body bag. It seems so wrong to see someone as tall and strong as Reverend Mike break down like a scared little boy.
I’m not one who cries at the drop of a hat, like my sister does, but let me tell you, I have to bite my bottom lip to control the sobs.
“I-I don’t understand.” Reverend Mike wipes tears with the back of his hand.
“This is one of the most dangerous roads in the county,” the sheriff says.
“She dropped me off at church last night,” Reverend Mike says, “but she never came home.”
Dad pulls a white hanky from his pants pocket and hands it to Reverend Mike. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Reverend.”
Brandon ambles over. “Reverend, I hate to do this now, but I need to ask you a few questions for my report.”
“That can wait,” the sheriff snaps.
“It’s all right,” Reverend Mike says, “I’d rather get it over with.”
Brandon whips out a tiny notebook from his shirt pocket and clicks his pen like he is some kind of FBI bad ass. “Did your wife’s car have mechanical problems?”
Reverend Mike shakes his head while blowing his nose in the hanky.
“Do you, uh, know if she’d been drinking,” Brandon asks.
Sheriff Bottom glares at Sis’s squeeze. “For crying out loud.”
“She had one beer with dinner,” Revend Mike says, “but that was around seven o'clock.”
Brandon clears his throat. “I’m sorry to ask this, Reverend, but was your wife depressed?”
Sheriff Bottom stares daggers at Brandon. “Thank you for your time, Reverend Mike. You best go on home to your daughter. We’ll take care of things from here.”
Reverend Mike slumps toward his car, and I hot foot it over to him. “Uh, Reverend?”
He stops and looks at me, all red-eyed and sniffling.
“How about I drive you home?”
“That would be nice, Kodak.”
Reverend Mike is one of the few adults in my life who calls me Kodak. And I like him for that reason alone.
Author Bio:
Richard Uhlig needed time, and distance, to find the perspective on his small-town childhood that would allow him to create the funny, aching, quirky characters and scenarios featured in his novels and films. A professional screenwriter, Rick now lives in New York City and counts film noir, Russian novels and "deliciously dark comedy" among his literary influences. Married to his high school sweetheart, Rick is an international traveler and a devoted father of two.
Find Richard here:Facebook
Blog
Web Site
Please visit these other sites and leave a comment to win a $10 GFC to Wild Child Publishing.
Critters at the Keyboard . . .
Blog by Imagine
D.A.Bell
William Gibbons
Highland Rogue Writing
There is no Spoon
Dear Reader
Shadows of the Past
Audrey Cuff
Richard Uhilg
July 20, 2013
Blog Blitz with Author Patrick Royal
Blog Blitz with Author Patrick Royal
Christmas in July, unwrap a summer ebook blog blitz, welcomes Patrick Royal:
A group of people are experiencingnightmares. They are a bit more than just bad dreams. After numerous reports of an outbreak of nightmares, unexplainable deaths begin to occur. Three decades later, it happens again. There is speculation that the deaths are at the hands of a demon. Is it a Demon or something more sinister? If it is a demon, can it be stopped?
Sleep Stalker will appeal to the YA13+ crowd as well as adult readers. It takes you on a wild and terrifying ride from the 1960's to modern time and to Hades and back. Do you have yourcoins for the ferryman...
Some thoughts from Patrick:
My 10’s
What are 10 items on your bucket list? To become famous.To become wealthy.To become a number #1 seller.To meet Stephen King.Have 50 published novels.To go to Hawaii.To make a difference in someone’s life.To be able to stay home to write and make a living doing it.Have one or more of my novels made into a movie.Get back in shape.
Who are your 10 favorite authors?Stephen KingV.C. AndrewsClive BarkerJames PattersonMark TwainJohn GrishamJ.K RowlingS.R HowenDean KoontzRobert Ludlum
What are your 10 favorite books?Sleep StalkerITSalem’s LotFlowers In the AtticStand By MeWatchersWeaveworldThe Adventures of Tom SawyerGreen MileShining
What are 10 weird things about you?1. I pick up extremely quick on things that I’m passionate about.2. When I get tired, I rub the top of my head.3. When I get tired of chewing a piece of gum, I’ll drop it into my cola to chew it later.4. I prefer cold spaghetti.5. I smother my pancakes with country gravy.6. I can’t wear shorts in tall grass.7. I have to check my email every hour on the hour.8. I must crack my neck and knuckles when I first wake up.9. I’m very impatient.10. I have to lay on the floor at least 5 minutes with my German Shepard after work.
If you were stranded on an island what 10 things would you most want with you?Laptop or computer.booksFoodCell PhoneEyeglasses9mm pistolKnifeRadioLighterFlashlight
What are your 10 favorite songs?HungryIt’s A Long Way To The TopPorn Star DancingMake you feel my loveSweet Child of MineHome Sweet HomeRegulatorsMore Than A FeelingHotel CaliforniaShoot To Thrill
What are your 10 least favorite foods?Brussels SproutsHot DogsCabbageCheesy Macaroni Collard GreensSpamAnchoviesClamsOystersCorn Dogs
What 10 things absolutely drive you insane?Getting behind an old person: walking or driving.Someone that doesn’t turn out the light when they leave a room.A loud TVA messy houseA person using stacks of coupons in checkout lane.Driving in bad weather.Someone to talk to me while I’m writing.Talking on the phone.Satellite going out when it rains.Vehicle breaking down.
Name 10 dead people you wish you had known.John CandyJohn BelushiMichael DunkanMichael LandonBruce LeeAlfred HitchcockRod SerlingChris FarleyH.P LovecraftRobert Ludlum
What 10 things do you most enjoy?
SexWritingReadingWoodworkingPaintingWorking outSleepingBrowsing the webListening to musicWatching movies
Author Bio:Patrick Royal is a family man. Born in Virginia, raised in Northwest Indiana, he and his wife Lynette have resided in Western Kentucky for seven years. An avid watcher of Horror movies and reader of Stephen King. He's inspired to use the gift God gave him to chill his readers. He is also the author of Novels "Jacobs Closet", and "Sleep Stalker".
Find More of Patrick here:FACEBOOK
MY WEB SITE
TWITTER
PINTEREST
AUTHORSDEN
BUY SITES:
Wild Child Publishing
Amazon
Other books here
Please visit these other sites and leave a comment to win a $10 GFC to Wild Child Publishing.
Critters at the Keyboard . . .
Blog by Imagine
D.A.Bell
William Gibbons
Highland Rogue Writing
There is no Spoon
Dear Reader
Shadows of the Past
Audrey Cuff
Shanbreen
Richard Uhilg
Christmas in July, unwrap a summer ebook blog blitz, welcomes Patrick Royal:
A group of people are experiencingnightmares. They are a bit more than just bad dreams. After numerous reports of an outbreak of nightmares, unexplainable deaths begin to occur. Three decades later, it happens again. There is speculation that the deaths are at the hands of a demon. Is it a Demon or something more sinister? If it is a demon, can it be stopped? Sleep Stalker will appeal to the YA13+ crowd as well as adult readers. It takes you on a wild and terrifying ride from the 1960's to modern time and to Hades and back. Do you have yourcoins for the ferryman...
Some thoughts from Patrick:
My 10’s
What are 10 items on your bucket list? To become famous.To become wealthy.To become a number #1 seller.To meet Stephen King.Have 50 published novels.To go to Hawaii.To make a difference in someone’s life.To be able to stay home to write and make a living doing it.Have one or more of my novels made into a movie.Get back in shape.
Who are your 10 favorite authors?Stephen KingV.C. AndrewsClive BarkerJames PattersonMark TwainJohn GrishamJ.K RowlingS.R HowenDean KoontzRobert Ludlum
What are your 10 favorite books?Sleep StalkerITSalem’s LotFlowers In the AtticStand By MeWatchersWeaveworldThe Adventures of Tom SawyerGreen MileShining
What are 10 weird things about you?1. I pick up extremely quick on things that I’m passionate about.2. When I get tired, I rub the top of my head.3. When I get tired of chewing a piece of gum, I’ll drop it into my cola to chew it later.4. I prefer cold spaghetti.5. I smother my pancakes with country gravy.6. I can’t wear shorts in tall grass.7. I have to check my email every hour on the hour.8. I must crack my neck and knuckles when I first wake up.9. I’m very impatient.10. I have to lay on the floor at least 5 minutes with my German Shepard after work.
If you were stranded on an island what 10 things would you most want with you?Laptop or computer.booksFoodCell PhoneEyeglasses9mm pistolKnifeRadioLighterFlashlight
What are your 10 favorite songs?HungryIt’s A Long Way To The TopPorn Star DancingMake you feel my loveSweet Child of MineHome Sweet HomeRegulatorsMore Than A FeelingHotel CaliforniaShoot To Thrill
What are your 10 least favorite foods?Brussels SproutsHot DogsCabbageCheesy Macaroni Collard GreensSpamAnchoviesClamsOystersCorn Dogs
What 10 things absolutely drive you insane?Getting behind an old person: walking or driving.Someone that doesn’t turn out the light when they leave a room.A loud TVA messy houseA person using stacks of coupons in checkout lane.Driving in bad weather.Someone to talk to me while I’m writing.Talking on the phone.Satellite going out when it rains.Vehicle breaking down.
Name 10 dead people you wish you had known.John CandyJohn BelushiMichael DunkanMichael LandonBruce LeeAlfred HitchcockRod SerlingChris FarleyH.P LovecraftRobert Ludlum
What 10 things do you most enjoy?
SexWritingReadingWoodworkingPaintingWorking outSleepingBrowsing the webListening to musicWatching movies
Author Bio:Patrick Royal is a family man. Born in Virginia, raised in Northwest Indiana, he and his wife Lynette have resided in Western Kentucky for seven years. An avid watcher of Horror movies and reader of Stephen King. He's inspired to use the gift God gave him to chill his readers. He is also the author of Novels "Jacobs Closet", and "Sleep Stalker".Find More of Patrick here:FACEBOOK
MY WEB SITE
AUTHORSDEN
BUY SITES:
Wild Child Publishing
Amazon
Other books here
Please visit these other sites and leave a comment to win a $10 GFC to Wild Child Publishing.
Critters at the Keyboard . . .
Blog by Imagine
D.A.Bell
William Gibbons
Highland Rogue Writing
There is no Spoon
Dear Reader
Shadows of the Past
Audrey Cuff
Shanbreen
Richard Uhilg
July 19, 2013
Blog Blitz with Author Bastian Caldwell
Blog Blitz with Author Bastian Caldwell
Christmas in July, unwrap a summer ebook blog blitz, welcomes Bastian Caldwell
Lilike Avrill Lansing is damaged. She is also unemployed, barely surviving a loveless marriage, and hiding a secret so painful that it’s eating her alive. The damage began when, as a student, Lily, inhabited a unique and dangerous world: Whitman College. Located in a small city with big murder and crime rates, it is nothing like the suburb she was raised in. But the harshcity is not nearly as dangerous as the predators that roam the Whitman campus, preying on innocence and leaving a trail of ravaged souls in their wake.The damage culminates ten years later at a dinner party where in the span of an evening Lily destroys her marriage and alienates her friends. She finally realizes that she must tell everyone the truth about what really happened during her years at Whitman. But can her marriage, her friendships, survive the truth?
The Complete Lily Lansing takes you on an emotional and often humorous journey of one woman's life as she struggles to overcome the secret of her college years. But can the support of friends, the belief in honesty, the sharing of tears, the power of love, and especially the ability to laugh through the hard times help her to become whole again?
An adult coming of age story November 27, 2012
By TiggerKatI saw this story as an adult coming of age story. We are all familiar with the standard coming of age story, but what about when you reach adulthood and you've never found yourself? You've hung onto the past that's damaged you? How do you break free of that and find who you are? In this story Lilly must come to terms with her life to find a happy and fulfilling future. Can she be happy and leave the past behind, you'll have ot read the book tofind out. No spoilers here.
Great read December 18, 2012 By D. Busch Amazon Verified PurchaseI started reading this book yesterday afternoon and couldn't put it down. I highly recommend it. I can't wait to see how it ends.
Some thoughts from Bastian:
Life Advice from Buddhist Holler
Sometimes I feel like the coal miner’s daughter of the internet writer’s world. No, I wasn’t raised in grinding poverty and the land here is pretty flat, but as a published writer I am constantly aware of the limitations imposed on me by my background, especially when I compare myself with other writers. I am, and will always be, unsophisticated and small-town. Or, as one of Dominick Dunne’s characters would put it, I am the type of person who “pronounces the “t” in often.” But I digress.
My first novel was published over six months ago in EBook form, but since Kindle and Nook are words from a foreign tongue that is not spoken much where I live, none of my friends or family have read The Complete Lily Lansing. Okay, I do have one friend who read it, we’ll call her Michele, and Michele said some passages moved her to tears. This bolstered my self-esteem significantly, and even though Michele spends most of her free time playing a game called corn-hole instead of reading, I’m sure she knows quality when she sees it.
For those of you whose only knowledge of south jersey is gleaned from watching spray tanned people curse and have sex on TV, I should probably explain what its really like here, so you can have a better idea of where this advice is coming from.
Picture a small, three county oasis of people who should have been born south of the Mason-Dixon Line but weren’t. Instead, we drive our pickup trucks and build our fire pits in the middle of a large metropolitan area, surrounded by Camden, Philadelphia and New York. To the city people we must seem like hicks. Instead of shopping at Banana Republic we buy our clothes at Target and instead of buying stocks, we own things like dirt bikes and dune buggies. Okay, sometimes we buy stocks too, but we just don’t talk about it much.
I have a friend who visited once from north jersey and was amazed that we owned things called “snow pants.” I was pretty amazed that she didn’t.
But the best way I have ever heard our little demographic described is “hillbillies with money.” That does not mean we are rich, not by any means, but instead of tar-roofed shacks we live in relatively nice houses and we can afford regular dental care.
A few summers ago my cousin, we’ll call him Troy, did make one of those truck bed swimming pools, the kind you see jokes about on the internet. But it was no joke to Troy, his kids were hot and he needed to entertain them so he lined his truck bed with something rubbery, got out the hose, and his two kids had a pool for the day. He now has his own built in pool complete with an authentic-looking Tiki-bar, and we all politely pretend the truck-yard pool thing didn’t happen. Don’t worry Troy, your secret’s safe with me.
Now, despite my humble upbringing, somehow at the age of eighteen I left for college, armed with a suitcase full of clothes I bought that summer on the boardwalk and an accent that fell somewhere between a southern drawl and Ebonics. I quickly realized that my off- the-shoulder sweatshirts with neon letters boldly spelling out the name of the most partying shore town weren’t cutting it. So I applied for and received my first credit card and headed to the closest Macys, where I traded in my Madonna rags for a weeks’ worth of more presentable clothing.
Shortly thereafter, dressed a little better for success but still more coal than diamond, a professor suggested speech lessons, rudely pointing out to me that the first day of the week wasn’t pronounced “sun-dee.” Her words stung, but speech lessons turned out to be unnecessary. Somewhere, deep inside myself in a place I hadn’t knowexisted, I knew how to speak the queen’s English as if I were born in the Upper East side of Manhattan and accidently transplanted here. Switching back and forth between proper speech and my hometown dialect was literally like a switch I could throw on and off. In college? “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.” Back Home: “Youse don’t know nothin’. He said so hisself.”
But the most life-altering event of my college years occurred when in my junior year, a copy of the book Siddhartha fell into my hands. I read it, and then I read it again, and then I read it again. Suddenly everything about my life made sense. I knew what I wanted, and most importantly, what I had to give. I had all the answers to the questions I had never even thought to ask.
Which brings me to today—I am still a practicing Buddhist living in a postcard-worthy small town, who has never met another Buddhist living in these parts. So as for my spiritual studies, I go it alone, practicing my own blend of homemade Buddhism, as I have for the past twenty-some years.
Mornings are spent meditating, doing yoga, and then trying to write the great American novel, (again.) But sometimes, if I’m being honest with myself, I still let my background and my geographical placement on this little blue planet hold me back.
In practical terms, this means I am so slow with anything computer related, that I pay my teenage daughter to post pictures to my blog. This is the same daughter who corrected me last week for pronouncing our presidents first name as if it rhymed with “attack” (it doesn’t.) What can I say, I haven’t watched television news in years I’m more of a reader, and sometimes the learning isn’t just a curve for me, it’s a an ice covered slope and I’ve forgotten my climbing gear and snow pants.
But worst of all, having reached middle age (a place just as foreign and bizarre to me as middle earth) I have only learned a handful of things that I feel fit to write about on my new blog.
Yes, my NEW blog. My publisher’s requirement and my worst nightmare. I feel a little like the neighbor with the worst house on the block, standing on my weed-choked lawn and frowning in bewilderment at the peeling paint, the tattered shutters, but having no idea how to fix it.
So I procrastinate. I make excuses (all true, but still they fall on death ears.) Because in the end my editor gently insisted I post something to my blog and fresh out of new excuses and a habitual pushover, I uploaded this post.
In my defense, I am still recovering from a pit bull attack and can only type with one arm. And since its summer, I’m eager to head outside and work in my vegetable garden. So even though this piece could use another edit or three, I think I’m gonna stick a fork in it and call it done.
RX DRUGS. Cause as many illnesses as they cure. I read somewhere that each prescription drug has an average of seventy side effects-some life threatening. Now I’m not saying don’t take them, rather be mindful of what you are taking. Even common ones like allergy and asthma medicine can cause symptoms ranging from sore throats to suicidal thoughts and depression.
The best way to stay healthy is to live a healthy lifestyle, which means doing some form of exercise every day and sticking to a healthy diet. But most doctors won’t look up long enough from their prescription pad to tell you that.
GET A HOBBY-A while back, I taught English at a school for kids deemed “at risk.” That meant they were given the choice between school and jail time, and theyreluctantly chose school. There was also a smattering of soon to be teen moms.
Sometimes they asked me for life advice, but they were never concerned about important things like how to pay for the diapers once the baby was born or the fact that being in a gang shortened their life expectancy to the equivalent of dog years. The questions they posed were always about relationships. Like most people I know, the problems with their love life, or their lack of one, had eclipsed everything else that was going on in theirlives.
And for every scenario they presented, my answer stayed the same. GET A HOBBY. Find something that you enjoy and do it often. Because setting time aside to do something you enjoy, purely for the enjoyment of doing it, increases your self-worth and allows you to become the type of person who is worthy of a real relationship. And when the time is right you will find one. Until then, don’t waste your life engrossed in constantconflicts with people who very plainly don’t care about you. You are far t0o busy doing (insert your new hobby here.)
GIVE ANNONYMOUSLY. I’ve had my own charity for about 8 years. No one knows about it except for my daughters. It is 100 percent funded by me. I want to make the world a better place. I believe in the ripple effect. If I can make just one person feel better, their smile can travel the globe, touching one person at a time. I hope someday it touches you.
ADOPT A PET. Your local shelter has a variety of animals, not just cats and dogs. Birds, guinea pigs and hamsters need love, too. And studies show that having a pet improves your health by lowering your stress level. Save a life and everyone wins.
MINDFUL EATING. Stop grazing like an antelope in a field full of wheat thins and think about what you’re eating. Then you won’t be tempted to eat until your stomach feels like it’s going to explode. And you will learn to be more selective about everything you put into your body.
Buy organic whenever possible. Avoid GMO’s as a rule.
Google “Monsanto” and read as many articles as you need to understand that we asAmericans have the poorest quality food available to us than almost any other country in the world.
And don’t buy into that “eat a bunch of small meals all day” nonsense. Give your stomach time to digest your food, usually 2-3 hours. Then give it another hour just in case.
WALK. Every day for at least 30 minutes. An hour is better. And in case you should come upon a wayward pit bull, yell loudly and carry a big stick.
MEDITATE. Every day. Let it become a habit.
Meditation will end those weird arguments you have in your head with other people, where you’re like Marcia Clarke pleading your case to Judge Ito. It will also silence that annoying inner voice that constantly reminds you how much you have to do whenever you try to relax, or numbers the ways in which your body is ugly, and confirms that despite even your best efforts, you will never be good enough. Meditation stops racing thoughts. And then you are at peace.
Here are two of my favorite meditations. Stop reading and try them now. Feel the miracle of your body and mind when they are at peace.
Meditation 1…
On your in breath say to yourself: breathing, I know that I am breathing in.
On your outbreath: breathing, I know that I am breathing out.
Meditation 2…
Breathe in for a count of 7. Breathe out for a count of 11.
How simple is that?
BE KIND TO EVERYONE. And not because you want people to think you’re a good person or because you’ll get a karma credit somewhere down the line. Rather, develop an understanding that most people you will meet carry inside of them a well of pain that is possibly as great as or greater than any pain you’ve ever experienced. R.E.M. said it best: Everybody Hurts.
DRESS FOR A PARTY-EVERY DAY. My youngest daughter went through a stage where she dressed like a clown. Okay notliterally, but her brightly colored skirts, paired with logo tees and patterned knee-highs clashed louder than my metal trash cans when the raccoons knock them over.
But she was a treasure to behold when she came down the stairs each morning, and her self-esteem was through the roof. I could tell she felt beautiful. That’s the important part--dressing in a way that makes you feel good about yourself.
Because your dream job, dream date or the opportunity of a lifetime could be just around the corner, and if you’re wearing your “I’m just running out for a pint of Haagen-Dazs” sweats, you might have to book in the opposite direction.
I learned this lesson the hard way when I took my girls swimming at a local lake, wearing one of my mom’s old swimsuits that was about four sizes too big for me and so worn out that it sagged in the butt even when she wore it. Somehow, I had gotten it into my head that the cedar water would permanently stain my cutelittle bikini and that since the lake was at least two miles from my home, I couldn’t possibly run into anyone I knew. But that’s a story for another time.
EMBRACE YOUR
For example, it took me almost an entire month to get over the humiliation and feelings of remorse after I brought food to a neighbor’s party on a tray from the dollar store. This happened a few summers ago, but I can still recall the scorching look she gave me when I asked for the tray back, as if its small price automatically disqualified it from returning home with me. (In my defense, I bought it at one of those dollar stores where not everything is a dollar, but that’s hardly the point.)
I’ve finally let that incident go, and If I find myself backsliding and feeling guilty for not being good enough in someone else’s eyes, I say this mantra “Who cares what other people think. There is no spoon.” If you follow my advice and watch The Matrix, you will understand the reference. It is very empowering.
WATCH THESE MOVIES.
The Matrix—Remember, there is no spoon.
8 Mile—Spoiler: Near the beginning there is a scene where Rabbit walks in on his mom having sex. (Ick.) Just hit fast forward like I do.
The Pursuit of Happiness—the title says it all.
Musicals--watch them frequently with family or friends and sing along. My favorites are Grease, Mama Mia, and (even though it’s not a musical) Pitch Perfect.
Avoid movies with excessive violence. They are poison for the mind.
READ THESE BOOKS.
The Power of Now and A New Earth—Eckhart Tolle
You Can Heal Your Life—Louise Hay
True Love—Thich Nhat Hanh
Outliers—Ten thousand hours. I think it really can be that easy.
Siddhartha-I keep a copy in my car on CD.
The Complete Lily Lansing--Help me turn my dream of being a stay at home mom to two needy teens and two lonely poodles who miss me terribly when I am at work into a beautiful reality <3
NEVER WEAR FLIP-FLOPS AS SHOES.
Even though it’s been years since the actress whose name begins with a “G” made them popular, people are still wearing cheap, rubber shower shoes as shoes and thinking it’s okay. Each season, they rush in herds to Old Navy to stock up during the two pairs for five dollars sale, before all the good colors are gone (this year I got dark pink, light pink, and lavender). Anyway, it’s a lazy habit and it took a brush with death (not mine) for me realize it. Here’s what happened:
As I’ve mentioned, I was recently attacked by a pitbull. And I was wearing flip-flops. So not only was I unable to get in a good kick in, but I was very easily knocked to the ground and mauled. I can (almost) make jokes about it now, but in truth I am quite traumatized and one of my poodles was almost killed during the incident.
But back to the flip-flops: as I struggled, limping, to get away, the pit actually gave me a flat tire as a final humiliation.
If I had not been wearing flip-flops, I believe I could have fought the dog off better. So the next time I walk my dogs I’m borrowing my daughter’s Doc Martins.
They say time heals all wounds. Sometimes it heals them so well that you actually forget them. So it is with utter disappointment in myself that I remember another injury, some summers back, and a broken vow to never, ever wear flip-flops as shoes again, unless I was at the beach or living in an alternate universe where I frequently had to use public showers. Anyway, the incident took place in my own bathroom.
I was in the process of painting the walls a pretty peach color from some famous clothes designer’s new line of pastels. The radio was playing, the curtains fluttered in the breeze, and I was feeling pretty good about myself until the little rubber thing between my toes that held my flip-flops to my foot broke and that little bit of momentum sent me careening backwards off the ladder where, paint brush in one hand, paint can in the other, I landed hard in the bath tub, smacking my head. It’s not as bad as it sounds because it was at that moment, looking up at the walls from the vantage point of the ground, that I realized the paint was a little too orange, like a Johnson’s baby aspirin, and I decided to start again with something closer to a ballet-slipper pink.
Anyway, to sum things up, I don’t expect anyone to learn from my mistakes, just because I wrote about them in my blog. Sometimes even I don’t learn from them until I’ve made them a few more times. And if you find yourself backsliding, like Idid yesterday when I wore my daughter’s periwinkle flip-flops to the mall because they matched my new sundress perfectly, take a moment and forgive yourself. Then repeat after me: Who cares what other people think. There is no spoon.
Author Bio:
Bastian is living her dream life at the beach with her family and her poodles.The Complete Lily Lansing is her first novel.
Find Bastian here:
Blog
Blog email
Website
Facebook Novel Page
Buy her Books here:
Amazon
B&N
Wild Child Publishing
Please visit these other sites and leave a comment to win a $10 GFC to Wild Child Publishing.
Critters at the Keyboard . . .
Blog by Imagine
D.A.Bell
William Gibbons
Highland Rogue Writing
There is no Spoon
Dear Reader
Shadows of th e Past
Audrey Cuff
Shanbreen
Richard Uhilg
July 18, 2013
Blog Blitz with Author L William Gibbons
Blog Blitz with Author L William Gibbons
Christmas in July, unwrap a summer ebook blog blitz, welcomes L William Gibbons
With a supernatural undercurrent, The Fourth Marker is the story of an elderly man, Gabriel Townsend, whose spirit is being crushed between the metaphoric anvil of his pragmatic views and the falling hammer of his wife's pending death. While a child on the family farm during the Great Depression, Gabe rejected legends of his Native American ancestors and ignored miraculous cures of three family members. Gabe's half-breed paternal grandfather, Noopah, tried to teach him tribal legends and the old ways, explaining that, after most Indians had been killed or driven from their lands by the Army and settlers, tribal elders returned to their lands inspirit form after their deaths. They dwelled at a sacred hill on the family's land and protected their descendants from early death and white man's diseases.
During those years, three family members were cured of life-threatening diseases, but Gabe's pragmatic mother, not of Native American blood, blindly credited their recoveries to the nascent field of modern medicine. After each recovery, a person of evil character and not of tribal blood disappeared, followed by the mysterious appearance of a wood marker on the sacred tribal hill. Yet, despite those events and Noopah's words, Gabe adhered to his mother's intractable views.Now facing the loss of his wife, he relives his childhood memories, guided by the spirit of his grandfather from beyond – well beyond – the grave. Finally understanding the truth of long ago, he decides to beg the tribal spirits to take his life in exchange for his wife's, aware that a fourth marker would signify his own life – and death.
As Gabe's father noted, "some understand only what they see; others see only what they understand." The Fourth Marker highlights this most human of vices against the backdrop of Native American legends with ample helpings of farm life during the Great Depression.
Some thoughts from Bill:
BEFORE COWBOYS AND INDIANS
A highly successful genre for generations of novels, television, and film has been the Western. For many of those generations, "cowboys and Indians" has been a common theme, popular not only in the United States but, based on this writer's personal experience, in Japan, England, and France and surely in many other countries.
Except for a few examples, chiefly James Fenimore Cooper's, The Last of the Mohicans, most settings for the theme, and variations thereof, have been west of the Appalachian and Allegheny Mountain ranges and the majority of those west of the Mississippi River. However, the relationships between the relatively new arrivals to North America's eastern shores and the indigenous people in those areas were established long before the time periods represented in most novels and film. Further, those beginnings impacted all later relationships between the two groups down through the centuries, even to the present day.
In 1608, English soldier and intrepid adventurer, Captain John Smith, explored the Chesapeake Bay, the United States' largest estuary, and its far reaching tributaries under the auspices of the Virginia Company of London. His maps and intelligence regarding the Native American populations, philosophies, and practices served the English well for the next century in their quests to establish a Virginia colony and to further their commercial interests.
Through the centuries, Native American populations in eastern North America were wooed, threatened, and manipulated, at various times, into serving the interests of the English, Dutch, Swedes, Spanish, and French in various wars and skirmishes, including The French and Indian War (Seven Years' War), United States' Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the United States' Civil War.
The land mass defined by the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean is the Delmarva Peninsula which includes the whole of Delaware (Del), the Eastern Shore of Maryland (Mar), and two counties of Virginia (Va). Contemporary place names such as Chesapeake, Nanticoke, Pocomoke, Quantico (Maryland), Chicamocomico, Wicomico, Manokin, Accohannock,Assateague, and many others on the peninsula reflect the names of tribes, subtribes, and native place names used long before first contact with Europeans.
The United States' Indian Removal Act of 1830, which resulted in the Trail of Tears episode in American history, required all indigenous people, with few exceptions, to leave their tribal lands in the southeast and east, along the eastern seaboard. Some tribal members on the Delmarva Peninsula as well as other areas in the east, defied the government and remained on their ancestral lands, hiding from authorities in the Great Pocomoke Forest, outlying islands, and swamps on the southern peninsula.
A conscious decision to "hide in plain sight" or not, they eventually intermarried and bred with local whites, African-Americans, and mulattoes. Many families whose ties to Delmarva date back a generation or more share a heritage with those aboriginal people; however, the prejudice and racial bias ofa bygone era caused many to ignore – even deny to this day, witnessed by this writer – their lineage.
Determination of one's "Indian-ness," usually based on persistent family lore and legend and aided by convenient and wide-ranging research resources available on the internet, has resulted in an upsurge of interest in Native American DNA that still exists on the Delmarva Peninsula. Although less concentrated among the peninsula's population than during America's Great Depression, Native American blood still courses through the veins of many of Delmarva's residents.
Author Bio: Born the first of three children to Charles and Lydia Gibbons in 1946 in Wilmington, Delaware, Bill's young family moved back to their homeland of Maryland’s lower Eastern Shore, part of the Delmarva Peninsula, shortly after his birth. There, he attended school and worked on the family farm in a community of farmers from whom he gained much of the knowledge of farm life that would show up in his writing decades later.Following graduation from Wicomico Senior High School, Bill enlisted for four years in the U.S. Air Force, serving in Texas, Mississippi, Japan and Washington, D.C. Upon completion of military service, he attended University of Delaware while working full-time as a laboratory technician and later as a computer programmer for a large, international chemical company in Wilmington, DE. While attending college, he augmented his G.I. Bill tuition benefits with sales of his art, e.g. oils, pastels, and ink.
He was transferred to Atlanta, GA and Tampa, FL, working in industrial chemical sales, and eventually back to Wilmington, DE. Taking early retirement from that company, Bill moved back to his childhood home of Salisbury, MD and entered the real estate sales, home improvement contracting and real estate investment fields. While involved in real estate sales, he was a contributing columnist in the local Salisbury newspaper, writing about real estate sales, purchases, and investment. Later, he was a political cartoonist for the same newspaper.
Bill entered college again at Salisbury University, a campus of the University of Maryland System, at the age of sixty-three with a double major in physics and philosophy. As a result of academic successes in his writing at SU, paired with his experience with a newspaper column and political cartoon publications, Bill pursued his life-long ambition to write in the fiction genres.
Always a devotee totravel, all languages, and experiencing other cultures, Bill has lived and traveled in Asia, traveled throughout Europe and in most U.S. states and Canada. He speaks, reads and writes Japanese, although not as fluently as he would wish, is a light airplane pilot, is currently studying Spanish, and is a member of Eastern Shore Writers Associationand American Mensa®. He has also been published in Mensa® Bulletin, the organization's national monthly magazine.
On October 6, 2011, Bill's wife, Sharon, gave birth to their first child.
Find Bill here:
Web Site
Blog
Buy his Books here:
Amazon
B&N
Please visit these other sites and leave a comment to win a $10 GFC to Wild Child Publishing.
Critters at the Keyboard . . .
Blog by Imagine
D.A.Bell
William Gibbons
Highland Rogue Writing
There is no Spoon
Dear Reader
Shadows of th e Past
Audrey Cuff
Shanbreen
Richard Uhilg
July 17, 2013
Blog Blitz with Author Dorothy A. Bell
Blog Blitz with Author Dorothy A. Bell
Christmas in July, unwrap a summer ebook blog blitz, welcomes Dorothy A. Bell
An Oregon Historical Romance
Fiddle playing, hard drinking Royce O’Bannon believes he’s worthless like his old man, no woman should have anything to do with him.Music teacher Cleantha Arnaud, her virtue long spent, believes her life is over; crippled and barren, no man would want her.When the two outcasts become lovers, hopes and dreams blossom within their parched souls. Royce’s vengeful daddy begins acampaign of retaliation against his traitorous sons and the town that gave them a second chance. Now Royce, feeling the weight of responsibility thrust upon him, follows his daddy into the dark tunnels beneath Pendleton’s streets tostop his old man from his path of destruction. With a swift crack on the head, all of Royce’s newly found hopes and dreams could be shattered like candied glass.
Some thoughts from Dorothy:
Where do I find inspiration to write?
Music and names—names of people, first and last names, the names of roads and creeks. I love to look at old photos. Do I constantly write, no, there’s a movie going on in my head almost all the time. In my head, I am all my characters on the screen. I become them one by one. I speak as they would, I move as they would and I know how they would respond. I know where to begin the story and how to tell it as the scenes unfold, and I know where it will lead. I don’t believe that sitting, doing nothing and going into my story a waste of time, it is the beginning. The hard part is transferring what is in my mind to paper or my computer. I have to allow the story to unfold, wrinkles and all and organize it later. Author Bio: Dorothy grew up in southern Iowa, moved to Oregon’s Willamette Valley at the age of eleven. she picked strawberries and beans in the summer to earn money for school clothes. In high school, she loved history, geography, speech class and school plays. She made the honor roll because she didn’t take geometry or trig; Dorothy stuck to art and literature courses. Dorothy played the snare drums in the high school band.At the age of sixteen, the boy that had pestered her from the moment he saw her that first day of school in the sixth grade, asked her, one wintry, November day to go for a scooter ride up into the coastal range. After that, they became inseparable, and here they are, fifty years later, very close partners in everything we do.Dorothy started to write Regency Romances to entertain myself. Dorothy sent them off to publishers now and then. She facilitated a writer’s critique group for several years and learned a lot from fellow writers. She took writing courses at a community college. But, she thought she learned the most by submitting her work to publishers, editors and agents, and getting feedback.Laid low for nearly twenty-five years with arthritis, forced to use a battery-powered cart, Dorothy took up aquatic exercise and became an instructor. she retired after eighteen years of instructing, and now goes to the pool and do her own thing. After two surgeries to replace her knees, Dorothy went to work on herself and lost eighty-five pounds, which she has kept off. With renewed energy, Dorothy put more into her writing, submitted her work, then rewrote and kept submitting, which she will continue to do.Her husband and she live in Central Oregon with two West Highland White terriers and one big, angora tuxedo cat. Dorothy enjoys gardening and landscaping. Find Dorothy here: Facebook
D. A. Bell Buy her Books here: Freya’s Bower
Amazon
Please visit these other sites and leave a comment to win a $10 GFC to Wild Child Publishing.
Critters at the Keyboard . . .
Blog by Imagine
D.A.Bell
William Gibbons
Highland Rogue Writing
There is no Spoon
Dear Reader
Shadows of the Past
Audrey Cuff
Shanbreen
Richard Uhilg
Christmas in July, unwrap a summer ebook blog blitz, welcomes Dorothy A. Bell
An Oregon Historical Romance
Fiddle playing, hard drinking Royce O’Bannon believes he’s worthless like his old man, no woman should have anything to do with him.Music teacher Cleantha Arnaud, her virtue long spent, believes her life is over; crippled and barren, no man would want her.When the two outcasts become lovers, hopes and dreams blossom within their parched souls. Royce’s vengeful daddy begins acampaign of retaliation against his traitorous sons and the town that gave them a second chance. Now Royce, feeling the weight of responsibility thrust upon him, follows his daddy into the dark tunnels beneath Pendleton’s streets tostop his old man from his path of destruction. With a swift crack on the head, all of Royce’s newly found hopes and dreams could be shattered like candied glass.
Some thoughts from Dorothy:
Where do I find inspiration to write?
Music and names—names of people, first and last names, the names of roads and creeks. I love to look at old photos. Do I constantly write, no, there’s a movie going on in my head almost all the time. In my head, I am all my characters on the screen. I become them one by one. I speak as they would, I move as they would and I know how they would respond. I know where to begin the story and how to tell it as the scenes unfold, and I know where it will lead. I don’t believe that sitting, doing nothing and going into my story a waste of time, it is the beginning. The hard part is transferring what is in my mind to paper or my computer. I have to allow the story to unfold, wrinkles and all and organize it later. Author Bio: Dorothy grew up in southern Iowa, moved to Oregon’s Willamette Valley at the age of eleven. she picked strawberries and beans in the summer to earn money for school clothes. In high school, she loved history, geography, speech class and school plays. She made the honor roll because she didn’t take geometry or trig; Dorothy stuck to art and literature courses. Dorothy played the snare drums in the high school band.At the age of sixteen, the boy that had pestered her from the moment he saw her that first day of school in the sixth grade, asked her, one wintry, November day to go for a scooter ride up into the coastal range. After that, they became inseparable, and here they are, fifty years later, very close partners in everything we do.Dorothy started to write Regency Romances to entertain myself. Dorothy sent them off to publishers now and then. She facilitated a writer’s critique group for several years and learned a lot from fellow writers. She took writing courses at a community college. But, she thought she learned the most by submitting her work to publishers, editors and agents, and getting feedback.Laid low for nearly twenty-five years with arthritis, forced to use a battery-powered cart, Dorothy took up aquatic exercise and became an instructor. she retired after eighteen years of instructing, and now goes to the pool and do her own thing. After two surgeries to replace her knees, Dorothy went to work on herself and lost eighty-five pounds, which she has kept off. With renewed energy, Dorothy put more into her writing, submitted her work, then rewrote and kept submitting, which she will continue to do.Her husband and she live in Central Oregon with two West Highland White terriers and one big, angora tuxedo cat. Dorothy enjoys gardening and landscaping. Find Dorothy here: Facebook
D. A. Bell Buy her Books here: Freya’s Bower
Amazon
Please visit these other sites and leave a comment to win a $10 GFC to Wild Child Publishing.
Critters at the Keyboard . . .
Blog by Imagine
D.A.Bell
William Gibbons
Highland Rogue Writing
There is no Spoon
Dear Reader
Shadows of the Past
Audrey Cuff
Shanbreen
Richard Uhilg
July 16, 2013
Blog Blitz with Author RobRoy McCandlessChristmas in July...
Blog Blitz with Author RobRoy McCandless
Christmas in July, unwrap a summer ebook blog blitz, welcomes RobRoy McCandless
Pain.
Pain that deserves a capital letter when it’s in the middle of a sentence like it’s the proper name of metaphorical being.
Like Death.
Like Lust.
This was Pain who had not come for a pleasant visit of chatting over beers and boneless chicken wings dipped into discolored ranch sauce. He had shown up to do his job, clocked in on time, sat down at his desk, and went to work on my gut.
I’ve been in pain before. I’ve had two knee surgeries, an appendectomy and a bowel resection. Each experience was more painful than the previous, each requiring an increasing amount of time and medication to recover.
Looking back, it’s as if Pain had set out a series of milestones, goals in preparation for today.
“I need you to drive me to the hospital,” I gasped out into my cell phone as my wife listened.
“It’s that bad?”
I was in too much pain to respond. The abdominal cramping had started the night before, and none of the usual suspects had done any good in relieving it. I’d managed to get to work, but the cramping had increased, and I’d asked my boss if I could go home. Two hours later I had tried to take some Milk of Magnesia, my last line of defense in these circumstances.
Instead of relieving me, the cramping had suddenly shot up, and I’d found myself bent over the toilet, vomiting.
I hadn’t stopped vomiting.
I vomited the Milk of Magnesia. Then I vomited the water I had drunk. Finally, I had started dry heaving, a bit ofbile flecked with blood.
That’s when I knew it was serious.
“I can’t leave right now,” my wife responded. “Can you wait 30 minutes.”
My head, filled with a light sheen of red Pain, started doing the math. Thirty minutes of waiting, doubled over, and gasping for air. Five minutes of struggling to get out of the house and into the car. Fifteen minutes to reach the hospital if there was only light traffic, or thirty minutes if the traffic was heavy and we had to slog through or find a surface street. Five minutes to find a parking place. Five minutes to walk into the hospital.
That meant, at best, one more hour with Pain.
“I’ll drive myself,” I replied.
I don’t remember what was said after that. Pain has gripped my intestinal tract and refused to let go. Even now, my stomach is giving me little echoes of Pain, like the afterimage of an incredibly bright light burned into the cornea of my eye. It gives me pause, makes me conduct a full body check to see if this time it will be like last time, and I need to start reaching for the car keys.
The moment passes, unlike the Pain of that day.
I didn’t hang up on my wife. She said something about trying to get to me as soon as possible, and I grunted out responses while I struggled to move around the house.
I put on loose fitting clothing: sweat pants and a t-shirt. Then I thought better of the t-shirt and threw a Disney-themed hockey jersey over it. Hospitals are always cold, and I’m always cold, which means I freeze. I couldn’t bend over to put on socks or shoes, so I suffered with the knowledge that my feet would be ice as I slipped on my flip-flops.
I found my keys. I found my wallet. I made sure I had my insurance card.
I doubled over with Pain, my left arm wrapped around mymiddle as if I had been cut open and only my fingers could keep my loose, slippery, bloody intestines inside me. My right hand gripped with painful fingers the back of a kitchen chair, as if I could offset one Pain for the other by squeezing hard enough.
I could not.
You should not drive drunk. You should not drive tired. You should not answer a cell phone or text while driving.
You should not drive with Pain.
He won’t take the wheel from you, steer you gently to the side of the road and apply the brake. He doesn’t pat you on the back, or place a warm washcloth against yourforehead. In the car, he sits with you, closer and more intimate than any lover, and he does his work. No position, no shifting, no mindset can free you from his grasp. He holds you and holds you and holds you. You can’t push Pain aside, once he’s paid you a visit. He just continues, doggedly, like a cubicle-lackey pounding away at his keyboard, watching the workday clock that never moves past 9:13.
I drive in the far right lane, the “slow lane” because I don’t trust myself. I know I’m a distracted driver. I know I present a potential danger to myself and everyone around me. I also know Pain. As Jim Morrison sung, I keep my eyes on the road. I keep my hand upon the wheel. I focus on breathing. I scream in sudden, twisted bouts of abdominal cramping. In my head, fists twist my intestines, my guts, and tie them into the Gordian Knot.
Pain is intractable and untenable.
I make my exit and am at once relieved and struggling. I’m in a bad way, and I know it. I can barely sit up, and I still have lights and other cars to navigate through.
I offer a prayer that there will be a close parking stall.
Pain must have intercepted that particular request. He rejects it out of hand.
The furthest stall from the entrance is the only one open. I’ve already spent several minutes in fruitless search. My body is covered in a light sheen of Pain-induced sweat. I assume my skin is ashen, my eyes red-rimmed and haunted. I assume this, but I have no time to look at my reflection.
I start the long, Pain-filled shuffle from my car to the ER entrance.
A security guard on a bicycle sees me, and I think he’s going to ask if I’m ok, if I need help Ican’t even wish for him to do something; anything. I’m clutching at my middle, trying to keep my innards from exploding. I’m trying to press Pain back inside my stomach. Trying to keep from screaming as the next bout of twisting, iron-strapped Pain bounds around me and holds on tight.
The guard turns on his bike and cycles away. I struggle through some shrubs where a path wasn’t intended, but has been created by the passage of thousands of feet each day. People like me who were seeking the straightest, most direct line.
The doors to the ER are automatic. They swing open as if pulled by over-eager children, desperate to please. They are noisy and I stagger through.
My hand reaches into my pocket and I pull out my wallet, then I grab onto the counter for support. I try to pull my insurance card out, but the nurse stops me.
“Can you walk inside?” she asks me. She knows Pain. “Don’t bother with that, just come in.”
Even before I start nodding my head in response, a buzzer sounds and move toward it like a metaphor to a life-preserver.
“Can you sit down?” the nurse asks.
“Yes,” I croak.
The nurse is incredibly efficient. She is incredibly kind. She is incredibly sympathetic and empathetic. She asks questions, pounds her keyboard with the speed and diligence of a professional. She was not trained to be a typist or a computer user. She was trained to help people. But to do that, she has also trained to do this, and she does it.
“We don’t have wheelchairs,” she tells me. I have no idea where the conversation has gone, or if there has even been one. Any responses I gave her were automatic. Pain has me fully in his grip and he’s not letting go this time. He’s not giving up. This isn’t some trick of mental prowess. Pain has me completely in his grasp, and this is no longer cramping; this is a single cramp.
“I . . . can . . . walk,” I tell her, but she grabs one of my arms, removing it from my middle where I had been holding myself together, and I nearly collapse against her. I can’t even tell you her hair color or her build. I can’t tell you if she was tall or short or fat or thin. I only had eyes filled byPain.
She calls to other ER personnel and I’m surrounded. They ask me questions and I know all the answers. They ask if I can take off my shirt. They hand me a gown and ask me to put it on. They ask me to take off my flip-flops. They ask me to lay down.
I relate my medical history, the interesting colorful bits that I know relate directly to Pain. My wife appears and an IV goes into my arm.
“I’m giving you something for the nausea,” a male voice says.
I don’t care.
I’m crying.
My wife has my hand, and I’m struggling to stay still, but Pain has filled me completely. I don’t even feel the nausea medication. It might as well be saline or spit for all the good it does. I try to breathe and to contain myself, but my entire world is now Pain, Pain, Pain.
This, then, is zealotry. This is fanaticism. This is obsession.
This is the complete and utter focus on one and only one element of life to the complete exclusion of everything else.
Pain.
He doesn’t grin at me in victory. That’s not his way. He’s “just doing his job” and there is no glee in it as he sits on my stomach, slowly twisting the crank that has bound me up, and won’t stop.
“It won’t let go,” I scream out, and I pound my feet against the ER bed. “It won’t let go.”
Tears stream down my pinched face, and I slam my clenched fist against too-thin padding. My wife has my other hand, and she tells me I’m hurting her. I let go. She strokes my head. I tell her over and over and over that I’m sorry for this. She responds over and over and over that it’s not my fault.
I keep crying and pounding and apologizing.
My attending nurse asks my wife to move, because she’s on the side with the IV. I won’t note any of this until later, because in a moment, after some words that I can’t hear, the first of many, many, many injections of pain medication are administered.
There is no flood of sudden comfort. No quick release from Pain’s grasp.
I simply pass out.
Over the next two weeks of my four-week stay in the hospital, Pain will be a constant companion. Then, this major project complete, his work done, the clock now reading 4:55, he will start to gather his things. He doesn’t ever leave. No, not myPain. He stays with me, and like a bigbrother he will reach out and squeeze every now and then to remind me that we travel this road of life together.
Siddhartha Buddha said, “Life is pain.”
I don’t hate Pain, or loathe him for a job well done. I do fear him. The memory of Pain is like Jason from the Friday the 13th series: a constant, elemental presence who causes fear with even the hint of appearance.
But I live.
I live with Pain.
Author Bio:
RobRoy McCandless has been a writer both professionally and personally for nearly two decades. He was born under a wandering star that led him to a degree in Communication and English with a focus on creative writing. He is the author of the many unpublished words (anthropomorphic is a good one) and continues to research and write historical and genre fiction.
Find RobRoy here:
Facebook
Highland Rogue Writing
Please visit these other sites and leave a comment to win a $10 GFC to Wild Child Publishing.
William Gibbons
Dear Reader
Critters at the Keyboard . . .
Blog by Imagine
D. A.Bell
Highland Rogue Writing
There is no Spoon
Shadows of the Past
Audrey Cuff
Richard Uhilg
Christmas in July, unwrap a summer ebook blog blitz, welcomes RobRoy McCandless
Pain.
Pain that deserves a capital letter when it’s in the middle of a sentence like it’s the proper name of metaphorical being.
Like Death.
Like Lust.
This was Pain who had not come for a pleasant visit of chatting over beers and boneless chicken wings dipped into discolored ranch sauce. He had shown up to do his job, clocked in on time, sat down at his desk, and went to work on my gut.
I’ve been in pain before. I’ve had two knee surgeries, an appendectomy and a bowel resection. Each experience was more painful than the previous, each requiring an increasing amount of time and medication to recover.
Looking back, it’s as if Pain had set out a series of milestones, goals in preparation for today.
“I need you to drive me to the hospital,” I gasped out into my cell phone as my wife listened.
“It’s that bad?”
I was in too much pain to respond. The abdominal cramping had started the night before, and none of the usual suspects had done any good in relieving it. I’d managed to get to work, but the cramping had increased, and I’d asked my boss if I could go home. Two hours later I had tried to take some Milk of Magnesia, my last line of defense in these circumstances.
Instead of relieving me, the cramping had suddenly shot up, and I’d found myself bent over the toilet, vomiting.
I hadn’t stopped vomiting.
I vomited the Milk of Magnesia. Then I vomited the water I had drunk. Finally, I had started dry heaving, a bit ofbile flecked with blood.
That’s when I knew it was serious.
“I can’t leave right now,” my wife responded. “Can you wait 30 minutes.”
My head, filled with a light sheen of red Pain, started doing the math. Thirty minutes of waiting, doubled over, and gasping for air. Five minutes of struggling to get out of the house and into the car. Fifteen minutes to reach the hospital if there was only light traffic, or thirty minutes if the traffic was heavy and we had to slog through or find a surface street. Five minutes to find a parking place. Five minutes to walk into the hospital.
That meant, at best, one more hour with Pain.
“I’ll drive myself,” I replied.
I don’t remember what was said after that. Pain has gripped my intestinal tract and refused to let go. Even now, my stomach is giving me little echoes of Pain, like the afterimage of an incredibly bright light burned into the cornea of my eye. It gives me pause, makes me conduct a full body check to see if this time it will be like last time, and I need to start reaching for the car keys.
The moment passes, unlike the Pain of that day.
I didn’t hang up on my wife. She said something about trying to get to me as soon as possible, and I grunted out responses while I struggled to move around the house.
I put on loose fitting clothing: sweat pants and a t-shirt. Then I thought better of the t-shirt and threw a Disney-themed hockey jersey over it. Hospitals are always cold, and I’m always cold, which means I freeze. I couldn’t bend over to put on socks or shoes, so I suffered with the knowledge that my feet would be ice as I slipped on my flip-flops.
I found my keys. I found my wallet. I made sure I had my insurance card.
I doubled over with Pain, my left arm wrapped around mymiddle as if I had been cut open and only my fingers could keep my loose, slippery, bloody intestines inside me. My right hand gripped with painful fingers the back of a kitchen chair, as if I could offset one Pain for the other by squeezing hard enough.
I could not.
You should not drive drunk. You should not drive tired. You should not answer a cell phone or text while driving.
You should not drive with Pain.
He won’t take the wheel from you, steer you gently to the side of the road and apply the brake. He doesn’t pat you on the back, or place a warm washcloth against yourforehead. In the car, he sits with you, closer and more intimate than any lover, and he does his work. No position, no shifting, no mindset can free you from his grasp. He holds you and holds you and holds you. You can’t push Pain aside, once he’s paid you a visit. He just continues, doggedly, like a cubicle-lackey pounding away at his keyboard, watching the workday clock that never moves past 9:13.
I drive in the far right lane, the “slow lane” because I don’t trust myself. I know I’m a distracted driver. I know I present a potential danger to myself and everyone around me. I also know Pain. As Jim Morrison sung, I keep my eyes on the road. I keep my hand upon the wheel. I focus on breathing. I scream in sudden, twisted bouts of abdominal cramping. In my head, fists twist my intestines, my guts, and tie them into the Gordian Knot.
Pain is intractable and untenable.
I make my exit and am at once relieved and struggling. I’m in a bad way, and I know it. I can barely sit up, and I still have lights and other cars to navigate through.
I offer a prayer that there will be a close parking stall.
Pain must have intercepted that particular request. He rejects it out of hand.
The furthest stall from the entrance is the only one open. I’ve already spent several minutes in fruitless search. My body is covered in a light sheen of Pain-induced sweat. I assume my skin is ashen, my eyes red-rimmed and haunted. I assume this, but I have no time to look at my reflection.
I start the long, Pain-filled shuffle from my car to the ER entrance.
A security guard on a bicycle sees me, and I think he’s going to ask if I’m ok, if I need help Ican’t even wish for him to do something; anything. I’m clutching at my middle, trying to keep my innards from exploding. I’m trying to press Pain back inside my stomach. Trying to keep from screaming as the next bout of twisting, iron-strapped Pain bounds around me and holds on tight.
The guard turns on his bike and cycles away. I struggle through some shrubs where a path wasn’t intended, but has been created by the passage of thousands of feet each day. People like me who were seeking the straightest, most direct line.
The doors to the ER are automatic. They swing open as if pulled by over-eager children, desperate to please. They are noisy and I stagger through.
My hand reaches into my pocket and I pull out my wallet, then I grab onto the counter for support. I try to pull my insurance card out, but the nurse stops me.
“Can you walk inside?” she asks me. She knows Pain. “Don’t bother with that, just come in.”
Even before I start nodding my head in response, a buzzer sounds and move toward it like a metaphor to a life-preserver.
“Can you sit down?” the nurse asks.
“Yes,” I croak.
The nurse is incredibly efficient. She is incredibly kind. She is incredibly sympathetic and empathetic. She asks questions, pounds her keyboard with the speed and diligence of a professional. She was not trained to be a typist or a computer user. She was trained to help people. But to do that, she has also trained to do this, and she does it.
“We don’t have wheelchairs,” she tells me. I have no idea where the conversation has gone, or if there has even been one. Any responses I gave her were automatic. Pain has me fully in his grip and he’s not letting go this time. He’s not giving up. This isn’t some trick of mental prowess. Pain has me completely in his grasp, and this is no longer cramping; this is a single cramp.
“I . . . can . . . walk,” I tell her, but she grabs one of my arms, removing it from my middle where I had been holding myself together, and I nearly collapse against her. I can’t even tell you her hair color or her build. I can’t tell you if she was tall or short or fat or thin. I only had eyes filled byPain.
She calls to other ER personnel and I’m surrounded. They ask me questions and I know all the answers. They ask if I can take off my shirt. They hand me a gown and ask me to put it on. They ask me to take off my flip-flops. They ask me to lay down.
I relate my medical history, the interesting colorful bits that I know relate directly to Pain. My wife appears and an IV goes into my arm.
“I’m giving you something for the nausea,” a male voice says.
I don’t care.
I’m crying.
My wife has my hand, and I’m struggling to stay still, but Pain has filled me completely. I don’t even feel the nausea medication. It might as well be saline or spit for all the good it does. I try to breathe and to contain myself, but my entire world is now Pain, Pain, Pain.
This, then, is zealotry. This is fanaticism. This is obsession.
This is the complete and utter focus on one and only one element of life to the complete exclusion of everything else.
Pain.
He doesn’t grin at me in victory. That’s not his way. He’s “just doing his job” and there is no glee in it as he sits on my stomach, slowly twisting the crank that has bound me up, and won’t stop.
“It won’t let go,” I scream out, and I pound my feet against the ER bed. “It won’t let go.”
Tears stream down my pinched face, and I slam my clenched fist against too-thin padding. My wife has my other hand, and she tells me I’m hurting her. I let go. She strokes my head. I tell her over and over and over that I’m sorry for this. She responds over and over and over that it’s not my fault.
I keep crying and pounding and apologizing.
My attending nurse asks my wife to move, because she’s on the side with the IV. I won’t note any of this until later, because in a moment, after some words that I can’t hear, the first of many, many, many injections of pain medication are administered.
There is no flood of sudden comfort. No quick release from Pain’s grasp.
I simply pass out.
Over the next two weeks of my four-week stay in the hospital, Pain will be a constant companion. Then, this major project complete, his work done, the clock now reading 4:55, he will start to gather his things. He doesn’t ever leave. No, not myPain. He stays with me, and like a bigbrother he will reach out and squeeze every now and then to remind me that we travel this road of life together.
Siddhartha Buddha said, “Life is pain.”
I don’t hate Pain, or loathe him for a job well done. I do fear him. The memory of Pain is like Jason from the Friday the 13th series: a constant, elemental presence who causes fear with even the hint of appearance.
But I live.
I live with Pain.
Author Bio:RobRoy McCandless has been a writer both professionally and personally for nearly two decades. He was born under a wandering star that led him to a degree in Communication and English with a focus on creative writing. He is the author of the many unpublished words (anthropomorphic is a good one) and continues to research and write historical and genre fiction.
Find RobRoy here:
Highland Rogue Writing
Please visit these other sites and leave a comment to win a $10 GFC to Wild Child Publishing.
William Gibbons
Dear Reader
Critters at the Keyboard . . .
Blog by Imagine
D. A.Bell
Highland Rogue Writing
There is no Spoon
Shadows of the Past
Audrey Cuff
Richard Uhilg
