Sandi Brackeen's Blog

California

I know y’all think I’ve been slacking again, and I have, but book one has now been reissued, and is back on Amazon and Createspace, and I’m looking for other places to put it as well. The new cover is below.
 However, in the meantime, I’m taking a much needed break and visiting friends in California. I love the pace of life out here, at least in their circle, and I love the fact that even in late June, you can sit outside a good bit of the time. As a native Texan, this is something foreign to me. Late June in Texas is hot, humid, and generally in the middle of an air quality alert, if you are anywhere in the vicinity of a city. 



I can breathe, and I can sit outside, what a concept. The best part about traveling, however, is that with any luck, you get to relax, and I have been doing nothing but relaxing. We have been to the movie, to a theater with electric recliners and tray tables with drink holders, to a pasta buffet at one of the local wineries, and tastings at several others. A nearby brewery has BBQ on Friday nights, and today we drove up to Big Trees state park to picnic. 

Photography opportunities are abundant, and the shot of an eagle in the top of a tree today was my most exciting so far.  I also got some lovely shots of Pardee Lake.  Those will all be up on www.NaturalImagesbySandi.com shortly.  

Alas, however, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end, and after not having to take a single allergy tablet for a week, my allergies awakened immediately on my return, and went immediately to bronchitis.  This is fairly common for me, but it does tend to slow me down.  I have finally recovered, and feel human again, so I’m back to my blog. 
I’ll be putting up more teasers from Reaching for Beyond this summer and fall as I finish getting it ready to go, so please let me know what you think.

Reaching for Beyond excerpt:


So much blood.  All I could see when I first walked into the room was blood.  I was glad I had the paper booties on, but there was no way they could stand up to that much blood. Whether I would ever get all the blood out of my shoes would be a crapshoot, but I wasn’t going to bet on it.  My feet squished when I walked into the room. 
I couldn’t even see the body at first. Even with my shields as tight as I could get them, emotions screamed through the room, and through me.  Rage. Pain. Terror. My hands shook, and I hid them in my pocket. I tried to ground, and when my mind finally began to process the scene, my stomach revolted. I swallowed rapidly to keep from bolting for the door.  My anger increased.
I thought I’d seen some bad scenes, but I was completely unprepared for what I was seeing and feeling. It was beyond anything I could have imagined, and I have a very dark, twisty imagination. I’ve seen some things I would have preferred not to see in this job, but this was in a whole new category.
Even as I pushed past the emotions permeating the room, I could still smell the blood and death, the Lilin and Were. The blood and the darkness were still there. Blood had soaked in to every visible surface in the bedroom, stood in pools on the carpet, and dark energy continued to spread through the place, reaching for me, trying to bathe me in its sliminess. More puddles held the legs of the furniture where the floor and furniture had absorbed all they could. I could barely process the scene. Some things your mind just refuses to accept. This was one of those things.
What was left of the body was lying on the bed in another pool of blood, and that increased my anger. It was hard to tell, but I thought it had been a young woman. She didn’t look much more than twenty, but it was hard to tell with her face distorted by her screams. Her head had fallen back when her throat was torn out, and even though the killer had eventually severed it from the body, the head, still seemed to be leaning back, screaming. Somehow, the killer affixed the head to the headboard.  Her torso was lying in the center of the bed.  I couldn’t really tell what color the spread had been.  It was all dark red now.  Her stomach was ripped open, intestines, and internal organs spilling from it like so much spaghetti. 

Re-release of Digging Up the Past

Well, here I am slacking again, but I wanted to make sure I knew what would come next for my books.  Booktrope, my publisher went out of business as of May 31, 2016; however, I re-released Digging Up the Past on June 1, 2016 independently.  This is a new experience for me, and I like to consider all new experiences as adventures.  Whether it is traveling alone to a new place, learning a new skill, or just learning a new way to do something I’ve done before, I think the best way to approach it is as something to look forward to.  
Change is not easy, and very few people like even the idea of getting outside their comfort zone, but firmly believe the only way we can continue to grow is to leave the comfort zone and try something new.  As a result, I have decided to be an indie author, at least for this book, and probably the next one, so I’m looking forward to this new adventure, and I hope you will all join me on the adventure.
Digging Up the Past has a new cover.  My friend Doug Myerscough did the front cover, and I did the back one.  While I love the cover that I had when it was published with Booktrope, I want to save that cover for a later book, and use the new one to celebrate the new publication.Isn’t it awesome!  
The ancient artifacts really bring out the spirit of the book since the mystery surrounds an artifact missing from an archaeological dig.  When magic returned to the world, with the uprooting of the stones of the Bimini Road, those artifacts that used to be just curiosities, once again became instruments of power, and a spade that grants immortality and the ability to raise the dead is just too great a prize for someone.  
Excerpt:Immortality? Now that’s tempting. Throw in an army of the dead, and hey, any evil overlord would kill for that package. When the Homeland Security Service’s Department of Unusual Events, or DUE, assigned my partner, Jason, and me to this case, the file said the spade we were looking for was valued at eighteen million dollars and belonged to the Peruvian government. Stolen during shipment from Peru to the local university, the spade, along with a number of the other artifacts uncovered on a dig site in Peru, was scheduled for study here. According to our file, the HSS believed it had been stolen for financial gain or, perhaps, to cause an international incident. Not our usual type of case, but not unheard of either.What the file didn’t mention was that this wasn’t just any gold spade. This was the Spade of Apocatequil. Peruvian legend has it that where ever Apocatequil stuck this spade in the ground, people sprang up. Now, the spade is believed to grant the holder immortality and the power to raise the dead. Minor omission. My cover on this assignment was that of a college student. I also worked as a dog walker for the Bradens, who were our primary suspects, so every afternoon, Angel, the Bradens’ German shepherd, and I made the two-block walk to the dog park near the Bradens’ house. When I pulled in at the house, I could tell no one was home. The Bradens would be at the local dig site until at least dark, getting set for the summer dig, and it wasn’t unusual for Keesha, the Bradens’ daughter, and Mena, the operative from Cerberus Security who’s been acting as her nanny, to be out in the early afternoon. I clipped the leash on Angel and we headed for the park.Oh, as for why they should be our primary suspects, that’s the easy part. John Braden was the American archaeologist on the Peruvian dig. His wife, Sonya, was the lead anthropologist on that same dig, and that put them at the top of the list of suspects. That placement was further supported by the fact that someone else believed they had the spade. Our file also indicated that things had been stolen from other dig sites when they were in charge. The hard part was that there was no evidence, solid or otherwise, that they took the spade, or that they were involved in any of the other thefts. I’d gotten to know the Bradens and Mena fairly well, and as an empath, I could tell you that the Bradens were definitely anxious, scared even. The catch is that even with my empathic skill, it’s hard to tell one anxiety from another, and they had a legitimate reason to be anxious. Someone was threatening to kidnap their daughter.

Guest Blog Wesley Britton: New Release The Blood of Balnakin���The Beta-Earth Chronicles: Book Two

Hello fellow readers, Wesley Britton stopping by to talk about my newly published novel, The Blood of Balnakin���The Beta-Earth Chronicles: Book Two.  For Sandi���s blog, I thought I���d talk about a few things I had to consider while writing a sequel.
First, I have to thank two people for helping out. In the debut story, The Blind Alien, I introduced a number of characters in a polygamous family along with issues that I���d have to introduce all over again in book two for readers who might not have read the first book or probably have forgotten what had happened to whom and why and where and when.   It was editor David Menefee who strongly encouraged me to deepen my descriptions of the established cast of characters in the sequel���s introduction, especially just what everyone looked like. In the first chapter of Blood of Balnakin, I also went to great pains to touch on the significant events in The Blind Alien, especially the impact many of these would have in the sequel.    Thus, I tried to make the sequel understandable for readers completely new to the saga.
In particular, in The Blind Alien, the Renbourn family was blamed by an entire country for the devastating explosion in the city of Bergarten which resulted in the deaths of thousands. Because of this, Tribe Renbourn had to flee across the ocean to try to set roots in a new country. But Lorei Cawl Renbourn, a blind prophetess of the goddess Olos, had seen three visions of inevitable events that would ultimately reconcile the family with the country of Balnakin. While Lorei is unhappy about what these three things will mean, The Blood of Balnakin leads to the fulfillment of these visions. Thus, books one and two of the Beta-Earth Chronicles can be seen as two chapters of the same epic.
I must also thank my wife, Betty Britton.  After reading an early draft of book two, she asked, ���Don���t these wives ever argue with each other? Don���t they ever play tricks on each other? Don���t the children ever get underfoot?��� I can���t emphasize enough the importance of these questions.

For example, I���d spent considerable time dealing with the many pressures the outside world was putting on the family, but I needed to do more with conflicts within the tribe itself. That led to a very important sub-plot where various wives have very different responses to what will take place in the climax. In fact, that conflict becomes one of the most important threads of the tapestry.
I confess, the question about tricks led to one of my favorite chapters in the book.   You���ll read a rather elaborate description of trickery that sets up one of the funniest seduction scenes I could imagine. It���s something of a major surprise for the character you can meet in the attachment to this post.
I admit, I don���t really think I met my wife���s desires describing underfoot children.   As you���ll discover, there are so many major characters in Blood of Balnakin, trying to invest many more paragraphs to the next generation could have really muddied up things.  Still, the children of Malcolm Renbourn and his wives take on stronger roles than they had in The Blind Alien and they will come closer to center stage in books three and four.
So, just a few observations about my writing process.  I can add The Blood of Balnakin is packed with surprises in character development, provides many strange new settings, and unfolds in an unique style of story-telling.  Find out more at my website:
www.drwesleybritton.com
Thanks for letting me visit with you a few minutes!
Excerpt:To whet your appetite for the newly arrived The Blood of Balnakin���The Beta-Earth Chronicles: Book Two, I thought I���d share a sample excerpt from the book here.
This passage introduces a major new character in the saga. I hope you���ll want to learn much more about her in BOB!
Kalma: I am daughter of the great city of Bergarten, a city I have known with pride, shame, and aching womb all my days. In the twenty-five years of my growing near the three rivers, I thrived in the knowledge my home city was a center of the world. All around me were the wide, clean walkways leading past gleaming buildings unlike any in any other city on Olos earth. I knew these flowing streets well, I knew I was one fleshly part of the best of humanity. My Bergarten was where the future shaped, where discipline and energy superseded the ways of others tangled in their tired pasts. But I also was shaped by a family deeply troubled by the slavery of fellow Balnakins sharing not our deep, earth-soil colors. I knew well our Sojoa sheets shone because of the polishings of blues dangled from rooftops or belted to mechanical ladders. Riding in our trans from one site to another, my Mother often circled her breasts with single finger loops, signaling gratitude to be blessed each time she glanced at a sullen blue woman tuning tools, unloading tracs, crawling down into pipes below ground. Many such women would know spears, children, family not. Futures not. We whispered our regret. But only whispers, silences, prayers. After all, without the blues, our greatness possibled not. Then, my soul ached and more as I was in Bergarten the day the soundless explosion robbed my city of its heart. I was one of those shoved onto an evacuation bus at stadsem that cursed day, cramped with students and sweating teachers on the road north when the catastrophe took away the rooms we sat in but minutes before. I can name names of many who exist no more. My belly tightens still to think of them. Had not my Tribe fast boats on the Gell River, two of my Sisters and their children would also exist no more. To say more, for years, my family has been a deep part of what I loved most about Bergarten. For one matter, unlike many, my father, Lius Salk, built his empire of connections relying not on what he considered a dishonest means of business. That is, as he rose in the ranks of the shipping company of Mhelapras, he chose not his wives based on tunic sewings. Instead, each of his five bondings were daughters from the New Dome Church of No-Stratas founded by the eminent Devlin Joco Llyam. Llyam's congregation agreed on various principles including the possibility, but rarity of, true prophecy. We believed Olos was indeed the Mother of All, and that all included all skins. This meant Olos abhorred slavery. No member of the New Domes associated with Devlin Llyam could own or deal with the selling of humans. This meant we had few prosperous, powerful tribes to share worship with. My father looked for wives with these beliefs knowing they would come from families with these values. He wanted wives focused on their children. So, each of us grew in a home devoted to our betterment while my father grew his company in countries stained not by human bondage. He worked with makers of goods with sellers all over the globe interested in unique wares from cultures across land and sea. As Father rose to the top of Mhelapras, we rose with him. True said, in each family, seeds bear different fruits. My brother Mool became as interested as my father in the ways of connecting makers with distributors. So, he established his own healthy branch to the family's growth into the countries south of the Psam Peninsula, mostly on the continent of Verashush. But my brother Kinn could find his way not. He became an angry student at the Lipran Stadsem, graduating just before the news came out that an alien was in the Halls of the great Bergarten Institute of the Species. Kinn stood in the audience the day Doctor Malcolm Renbourn reached out to two globes. Later, Kinn raged in father's house the day the alien snuck across the border into Rhasvi. My father dismayed when Kinn denounced loud the Lipran authorities for having allowed this escape to happen. Why had any fool put a Shaprim robe on a blue, why was a creature so obviously defective contained not here in Bergarten where all the world should come and beg access to our knowledge? "Olos put her stamp on every Brown," Kin preached, "when she marked us with her own color, the color of her most fertile land! What is blue but an empty shade between day and night? Unnatural. Name one other creature sharing this strange pigment!" He laughed. "And these are creatures to envy, pity not! How relaxing to have no decisions to make, no will to exercise! We shelter, feed, guide these off-colors!" My father had known not my brother had changed at the Stadsem. Into this nest of anti-slavery philosophies, a racist had emerged. And Kinn became more than that when one-fourth of our city became a dome in the earth, a gaping hole where once friends and companions lived. One horrible day, my father's office view overlooked a wound that now defined a culture. Devlin Llyam's home was but two-lanes away. During the first years after that damnable rip in Olos appeared, such men and their women grieved in silent wonder. During the same years, men and women like my brother Kinn spoke often and loud. "I stood there, right there at the very center of that wound in the Mother! By miracle alone three of my Sisters survived! But a minute, a moment, our Tribe, too, would have had souls with bodies not for holy burning!" All Balnakin homes knew the debates. Yes, drain and bleed Rhasvin coffers for compensation. But compensate who? How can lost knowledge be re-claimed? Who owned the lost land? They were gone, too. Rebuild? Build a memorial? Answers were slow. But those like Kin looked for answers not. Vengeance. Slashing, burning, crushing of all creatures whose skin was brown not. Consuming, unyielding rage. So, father sent my brother to Alma in the hopes the distance might calm his angry spear. To live among blues who were slaves not, Balnakin, Rhasvi not. For a time, we knew not of success in father's dreams. We more concerned with our world turned upside down.
To learn more about the Beta-Earth Chronicles, stop by���www.drwesleybritton.com

To order The Blood of Balnakin, it���s at:http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Balnakin-Beta-Earth-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B01EYE3CD4?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Guest Blog Wesley Britton: New Release The Blood of Balnakin—The Beta-Earth Chronicles: Book Two

Hello fellow readers, Wesley Britton stopping by to talk about my newly published novel, The Blood of Balnakin—The Beta-Earth Chronicles: Book Two.  For Sandi’s blog, I thought I’d talk about a few things I had to consider while writing a sequel.
First, I have to thank two people for helping out. In the debut story, The Blind Alien, I introduced a number of characters in a polygamous family along with issues that I’d have to introduce all over again in book two for readers who might not have read the first book or probably have forgotten what had happened to whom and why and where and when.   It was editor David Menefee who strongly encouraged me to deepen my descriptions of the established cast of characters in the sequel’s introduction, especially just what everyone looked like. In the first chapter of Blood of Balnakin, I also went to great pains to touch on the significant events in The Blind Alien, especially the impact many of these would have in the sequel.    Thus, I tried to make the sequel understandable for readers completely new to the saga.
In particular, in The Blind Alien, the Renbourn family was blamed by an entire country for the devastating explosion in the city of Bergarten which resulted in the deaths of thousands. Because of this, Tribe Renbourn had to flee across the ocean to try to set roots in a new country. But Lorei Cawl Renbourn, a blind prophetess of the goddess Olos, had seen three visions of inevitable events that would ultimately reconcile the family with the country of Balnakin. While Lorei is unhappy about what these three things will mean, The Blood of Balnakin leads to the fulfillment of these visions. Thus, books one and two of the Beta-Earth Chronicles can be seen as two chapters of the same epic.
I must also thank my wife, Betty Britton.  After reading an early draft of book two, she asked, “Don’t these wives ever argue with each other? Don’t they ever play tricks on each other? Don’t the children ever get underfoot?” I can’t emphasize enough the importance of these questions.

For example, I’d spent considerable time dealing with the many pressures the outside world was putting on the family, but I needed to do more with conflicts within the tribe itself. That led to a very important sub-plot where various wives have very different responses to what will take place in the climax. In fact, that conflict becomes one of the most important threads of the tapestry.
I confess, the question about tricks led to one of my favorite chapters in the book.   You’ll read a rather elaborate description of trickery that sets up one of the funniest seduction scenes I could imagine. It’s something of a major surprise for the character you can meet in the attachment to this post.
I admit, I don’t really think I met my wife’s desires describing underfoot children.   As you’ll discover, there are so many major characters in Blood of Balnakin, trying to invest many more paragraphs to the next generation could have really muddied up things.  Still, the children of Malcolm Renbourn and his wives take on stronger roles than they had in The Blind Alien and they will come closer to center stage in books three and four.
So, just a few observations about my writing process.  I can add The Blood of Balnakin is packed with surprises in character development, provides many strange new settings, and unfolds in an unique style of story-telling.  Find out more at my website:
www.drwesleybritton.com
Thanks for letting me visit with you a few minutes!
Excerpt:To whet your appetite for the newly arrived The Blood of Balnakin—The Beta-Earth Chronicles: Book Two, I thought I’d share a sample excerpt from the book here.
This passage introduces a major new character in the saga. I hope you’ll want to learn much more about her in BOB!
Kalma: I am daughter of the great city of Bergarten, a city I have known with pride, shame, and aching womb all my days. In the twenty-five years of my growing near the three rivers, I thrived in the knowledge my home city was a center of the world. All around me were the wide, clean walkways leading past gleaming buildings unlike any in any other city on Olos earth. I knew these flowing streets well, I knew I was one fleshly part of the best of humanity. My Bergarten was where the future shaped, where discipline and energy superseded the ways of others tangled in their tired pasts. But I also was shaped by a family deeply troubled by the slavery of fellow Balnakins sharing not our deep, earth-soil colors. I knew well our Sojoa sheets shone because of the polishings of blues dangled from rooftops or belted to mechanical ladders. Riding in our trans from one site to another, my Mother often circled her breasts with single finger loops, signaling gratitude to be blessed each time she glanced at a sullen blue woman tuning tools, unloading tracs, crawling down into pipes below ground. Many such women would know spears, children, family not. Futures not. We whispered our regret. But only whispers, silences, prayers. After all, without the blues, our greatness possibled not. Then, my soul ached and more as I was in Bergarten the day the soundless explosion robbed my city of its heart. I was one of those shoved onto an evacuation bus at stadsem that cursed day, cramped with students and sweating teachers on the road north when the catastrophe took away the rooms we sat in but minutes before. I can name names of many who exist no more. My belly tightens still to think of them. Had not my Tribe fast boats on the Gell River, two of my Sisters and their children would also exist no more. To say more, for years, my family has been a deep part of what I loved most about Bergarten. For one matter, unlike many, my father, Lius Salk, built his empire of connections relying not on what he considered a dishonest means of business. That is, as he rose in the ranks of the shipping company of Mhelapras, he chose not his wives based on tunic sewings. Instead, each of his five bondings were daughters from the New Dome Church of No-Stratas founded by the eminent Devlin Joco Llyam. Llyam's congregation agreed on various principles including the possibility, but rarity of, true prophecy. We believed Olos was indeed the Mother of All, and that all included all skins. This meant Olos abhorred slavery. No member of the New Domes associated with Devlin Llyam could own or deal with the selling of humans. This meant we had few prosperous, powerful tribes to share worship with. My father looked for wives with these beliefs knowing they would come from families with these values. He wanted wives focused on their children. So, each of us grew in a home devoted to our betterment while my father grew his company in countries stained not by human bondage. He worked with makers of goods with sellers all over the globe interested in unique wares from cultures across land and sea. As Father rose to the top of Mhelapras, we rose with him. True said, in each family, seeds bear different fruits. My brother Mool became as interested as my father in the ways of connecting makers with distributors. So, he established his own healthy branch to the family's growth into the countries south of the Psam Peninsula, mostly on the continent of Verashush. But my brother Kinn could find his way not. He became an angry student at the Lipran Stadsem, graduating just before the news came out that an alien was in the Halls of the great Bergarten Institute of the Species. Kinn stood in the audience the day Doctor Malcolm Renbourn reached out to two globes. Later, Kinn raged in father's house the day the alien snuck across the border into Rhasvi. My father dismayed when Kinn denounced loud the Lipran authorities for having allowed this escape to happen. Why had any fool put a Shaprim robe on a blue, why was a creature so obviously defective contained not here in Bergarten where all the world should come and beg access to our knowledge? "Olos put her stamp on every Brown," Kin preached, "when she marked us with her own color, the color of her most fertile land! What is blue but an empty shade between day and night? Unnatural. Name one other creature sharing this strange pigment!" He laughed. "And these are creatures to envy, pity not! How relaxing to have no decisions to make, no will to exercise! We shelter, feed, guide these off-colors!" My father had known not my brother had changed at the Stadsem. Into this nest of anti-slavery philosophies, a racist had emerged. And Kinn became more than that when one-fourth of our city became a dome in the earth, a gaping hole where once friends and companions lived. One horrible day, my father's office view overlooked a wound that now defined a culture. Devlin Llyam's home was but two-lanes away. During the first years after that damnable rip in Olos appeared, such men and their women grieved in silent wonder. During the same years, men and women like my brother Kinn spoke often and loud. "I stood there, right there at the very center of that wound in the Mother! By miracle alone three of my Sisters survived! But a minute, a moment, our Tribe, too, would have had souls with bodies not for holy burning!" All Balnakin homes knew the debates. Yes, drain and bleed Rhasvin coffers for compensation. But compensate who? How can lost knowledge be re-claimed? Who owned the lost land? They were gone, too. Rebuild? Build a memorial? Answers were slow. But those like Kin looked for answers not. Vengeance. Slashing, burning, crushing of all creatures whose skin was brown not. Consuming, unyielding rage. So, father sent my brother to Alma in the hopes the distance might calm his angry spear. To live among blues who were slaves not, Balnakin, Rhasvi not. For a time, we knew not of success in father's dreams. We more concerned with our world turned upside down.
To learn more about the Beta-Earth Chronicles, stop by—www.drwesleybritton.com

To order The Blood of Balnakin, it’s at:http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Balnakin-Beta-Earth-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B01EYE3CD4?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Riley, the Loner

Whew!  I feel kind of like Ash over there right now. I’m happy to say I have finally realized why Riley’s been resisting as I’ve progressed through Reaching for Beyond.  What I’m not happy to say is it will push back the release for a bit while I do rewrites; however, it will be a much better book for the delay.  The good news is that the work is progressing more rapidly than it has in a while, so it will be coming up soon.
See the problem is that Riley is a loner, and I’ve been trying to force her to be with people most of the time, and it’s apparently been driving her a little batty. I’m looking forward to seeing her individual approach to more of the events in the book.  The rest of the crew is still around, and are big parts of her life, but as you know, and as she reminded me, Riley is well able to take care of herself without being with someone all the time.  

Jason and Cam

She and Jason work together, but they work best when they each pursue their different approaches to each individual case, and then come together to compare notes and bounce ideas off each other, so I’m going to let them take their preferred approach, and see if it doesn’t flow better. 
The relationship between Riley and Cam will change and develop in this book, but I have no idea which direction they will take.  They haven’t let me know yet what they want to do, but I’m sure they will.

Other Characters

Some of the other characters from Digging Up the Past will be in Reaching for Beyond as well, and there will be some new people to meet, but where they will fit into Riley’s life remains to be seen. She tends to try to keep people at arm’s length because people around her often die.
I don’t know why I suddenly failed to listen to her about how she works best, but there it is.  It’s a mistake I will not to make again, but since I tend to try to take control of situations, I can’t make any promises, so I’m sure Riley and I will but heads again before the series is over.  I’m sure the payoff for this conflict will be more interesting books for you, and it will certainly be a wild ride for me, and probably for both of us. Enjoy! 

Reaching for Beyond: Excerpt

Dark energy, dark and somehow slimy energy slithered over my defensive shield and down my spine.  I shuddered.
My stomach churned. The blood and death were bad enough, but the smell of werewolf, and Lilin combined with the dark energy that I couldn’t identify emanating from the house concerned me more than the smell alone. The dark energy seemed to seep through my shields, and the effect it was having on me scared the crap out of me.  I could feel anger rising.
I wished that Sam, the DUE wizard, or my partner, Jason, who wasn’t in town yet, were here, for moral support if nothing else, but maybe by the time I talked to them, I could figure out how to explain it, and even more importantly, maybe I could figure out why it was making me angry. It wasn’t emotional energy. It was just dark. Even so, with my training and shields, it shouldn’t have affected me at all, much less so strongly. The only benefit I could see right now from either my training or my shields was that I realized what it was that was making me angry.  Knowing that helped me know how to push it back and not take it out on the people around me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell exactly why it was making me angry, and it didn’t seem to be connected to the Lilin or Werewolf energy.  It might not have helped if it was connected to one of them, but at least I’d have a place to start.
 “Are you alright?” One of the uniforms asked me. He was young, and probably had never been to a scene like this before. He also looked like he thought I was going to contaminate the crime scene, but I was willing to bet he still hadn’t been inside, and it would probably be best if he didn’t go.
“No. Let’s get this done.” It came out sharper than I intended it, but the anger kept rising, pushing me to lash out. Knowing what was causing it helped some, but the urge to punch someone was increasing. When an empath lashes out, our emotions spill out over everyone. If I wasn’t careful, I could start a brawl at the crime scene. Not particularly helpful when trying to solve a crime and a good way not to be invited back.
www.sandibrackeen. com Digging Up the Past Purchase Links: iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/digging-up-the-past/id1022527729?mt=11
 
Barnes & Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/digging-up-the-past-sandi-brackeen/1100322121?ean=9781620159590
 
Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Digging-Up-Past-Tales-Atlantis-ebook/dp/B012EHKCNQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438312045&sr=8-1&keywords=sandi+brackeen 

Developing New Ways to Express Creativity:

I am all about creativity.  At work there are often restrictions on how far you can take that creativity, even if you’re in a creative job like mine.  I always tell people, “they pay me to write and take pictures, and it doesn’t get much better than that.”  However, when you work in Law Enforcement, you can only take that creativity so far.  Choosing the right word, and taking the best picture you can while dealing with topics where it is critical that truth and formality is maintained most of the time can sometimes feel a bit limiting at times when you’re like me and like to make things up.  
This week, on the other hand, I’ve been developing a new skill that while you are still seeking the truth of your best interpretation, you still expend more creativity in the creation of what you hope is a good likeness, composite drawing.  You are working from a description, and possibly pictures of facial features, to help get an accurate impression of a person’s face.  I’ve always enjoyed drawing, but since I’ve never had any classes, it generally takes me longer than I have time for to get a drawing to a point where I’m even remotely happy with it.  This class cut down on that time considerably while giving me focused skills for drawing composites.  
I also feel like you just can’t have enough skills, and you should never stop learning, so this class filled both those criteria, and took me out of my comfort zone it an excellent direction.  I am now a composite artist, albeit a new one, who is still perfecting her skills, but I believe that all forms of creativity merge, and the more you exercise your creative muscles, the better honed they become, just like your physical muscles.  I’m hoping this will also speed up my progress on book two of the Tales from Atlantis.  It’s in revisions, but there’s something, I just can’t put my finger on yet, that I need to change, and I will not put it out until I figure it out.  I want you to have only the best of me and my work.  I will include an excerpt that I’m good with for a bit of a teaser. 

Excerpt: Reaching for Beyond
Even when I pushed past the emotions permeating the room, the blood and the darkness were still there. Blood had soaked in to every visible surface in the bedroom, and darkness flooded the place, reaching for me, trying to soak me in its slimy energy. More blood stood in puddles where the floor and furniture had absorbed all they could. What was left of the body was lying on the bed in another pool of blood, and that increased my anger. It was hard to tell, but I thought it had been a young woman. She didn’t look much more than twenty, but it was hard to tell with her face distorted by her screams.
The fact that the body was in pieces made it more difficult to tell for sure the victim’s gender or age, but her head had fallen back when her throat was torn out, and even though the killer had eventually severed it from the body, the head, still seemed to be leaning back, screaming. Somehow, the killer affixed the head to the headboard.  Her torso was lying in the center of the bed.  I couldn’t really tell what color the spread had been.  It was all dark red now.  Her stomach was ripped open, intestines, and internal organs spilling from it like so much spaghetti.  It was almost a warped parody of the human form.  The heart had been extracted from the torso and placed on top of it. The heart and torso, lying on the bed in the center of the room, looked more like a gruesome centerpiece than something that had recently been part of a human being. The arms and legs were almost shredded, but you didn’t notice at first because they were separated from the rest of the body.  At first it looked like the victim had been pulled apart because of the way all the pieces were separated.  Body parts lay on the bed, on the dresser, in the corners of the room, and under the window.  As I focused on the heart, a pattern began to force its way through my appalled senses and into my consciousness. The body hadn’t just been pulled apart.  There was method in this destruction.

The Bimini Road

Okay, I suppose I will allow myself the excuse of pneumonia for running late on the blog, but I am also happy to say that I'm still on track to bring you something new each week.



I’ve talked about how the series came into being with a contest prompt for a contest I didn’t enter.  The series focuses on what would happen if magic returned to the world.  However, the germ of an idea started a developing train of thought that started with “How” would magic return to the world and evolved into the Tales of Atlantis, a world built on the premise that the removal of the stones from the Bimini Road caused Atlantis to rise, and magic to return to the earth.
Like many people, I’ve long been fascinated with the legends of Atlantis, so the opportunity to read more about it was a plus for me.  The stones from the Bimini Road have long been associated with Atlantis, and the Bermuda Triangle, so it seems reasonable to my writer’s brain that the stones are what keeps Atlantis, and all its magic submerged, and the remarkable things that happen in the Bermuda Triangle are the result of that submerged magic.
The Bimini Road is an underwater rock formation near North Bimini Island.  Various claims have been made that call this either a wall, a road, a pier, a breakwater, or some other man-made structure. However, there are two schools of thought on this.  One group says that it’s man-made and dates back to 7195. The other school of thought says the stones are a natural occurrence that’s a result of tidal patterns, and dates it back to 3500. No matter which way you look at it, the existence of the stones is fascinating and provides rich possibilities for development.  In Riley’s world, the removal of these stones returned magic to the world, and initiated a transformation among those of magical mixed bloodlines. Many people have had the tendencies of their non-human side becoming part of their natures. As usual, the people this is happening to are more easily able to accept the change than those who are not changing. This makes it more difficult for the preternaturals who would like to go about their lives as always, but slowly, more and more people are beginning to accept the magical beings into society. 
Many of those who have not changed natures, like to pretend it never happened, so in an effort to keep this acceptance, and ensure that preternaturals don’t run rampant over the mundanes, the Department of Unusual Events, or DUE, was formed.  Riley and her partner, Jason, work for DUE and deal with those things most people don’t want to acknowledge exist.


Available from:

iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/digging-up-the-past/id1022527729?mt=11 Barnes & Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/digging-up-the-past-sandi-brackeen/1100322121?ean=9781620159590 Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Digging-Up-Past-Tales-Atlantis-ebook/dp/B012EHKCNQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438312045&sr=8-1&keywords=sandi+brackeen






Bio:

Sandi lives in Texas with three roommates, two Yellow Labs, a Shepherd/Border Collie mix, a Great Pyrenees, a Standard Poodle, and assorted other critters.  Most of the animals were rescues.  Sandi’s full time job is as the Public Information Officer for the local Sheriff’s Office, and she teaches English part time at the local Community College.  She says she has a couple of degrees from the University of North Texas lying around somewhere, and she’s been writing ever since she can remember.  Sandi took time off for work and school, and previously her writing has been more geared toward short stories and academic papers.  Sandi publishes a newsletter and several articles a month in her current position, and much of her writing is geared toward work, but she has now added writing fiction and currently has several more books in the works.

Haunted Prisons

I am working on a fascinating series of newsletter articles for work that I’m going to expand into some longer articles about haunted prisons and jails.  You might be surprised to know how many jails and prisons, all over the country, are rumored to be haunted.  I’m no ghost hunter, but I am fascinated by legend and lore, and this is some of the best.The first prison I am writing about is the Huntsville Unit Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. The ‘Walls,’ as it is called, is the oldest prison in Texas and it still processes and houses inmates. Stories of ghostly apparitions and strange noises abound, and it’s no wonder; history has been made here. All Texas inmate executions are carried out here, so it’s no wonder there are tales of hauntings.
A few years back, a co-worker and I were down and Sam Houston University in Huntsville, and we had the opportunity to tour the Walls unit.  We saw the yard and the education building that were the scene of a hostage siege in 1974 in which four people died.  We also saw the death chamber and the abandon sections of the prison which is where most of the hauntings appear to take place.
The Huntsville Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is the oldest prison in Texas.  It was built in 1948 and 1849, and has been the scene of executions ever since, first through hangings, and then since 1924, through the use of the electric chair, “Old Sparky.” Following that, and up through current day, it is the site for lethal injections.  
Unexplained phenomena often originate from the original death row site located on the first floor of the East Building. The original death row and death chamber of the Walls Unit has not been in use since the 1950s. The South Building, as well as the catwalk connecting the two buildings are also said to be haunted by former inmates, who seek revenge.One story tells of a Kiowa War Chief, Santanta, who was incarcerated for life, and in 1878, rather than live locked up, he chose to take his life by jumping from an interior third floor walkway.  He’s said to still be there, so it’s especially sad to think he managed to bind himself to the prison even in death, and never achieved the freedom he sought.
In addition, in July of 1974, three inmates took hostages in the educational wing of Huntsville’s Walls Unit.  The siege lasted eleven days, and four people died, including two inmates and two civilians.  Those ghosts remain as well.  Stories tell of officers confronting prisoners who disappear through walls. Others have reported hearing disturbing cries, and even words like “Hey Captain, hey Captain” which is suspected to refer the original warden at the walls, who was called Captain, although, he is by no mean the only Captain it could refer to.  
Excerpt:  Reaching for BeyondI took a few deep breaths to center myself while we slipped on gloves and paper booties to avoid contaminating the crime scene, but the smell of blood was so strong to my shape shifter senses that when it combined with the darkness, trying to center almost made it worse. The rest of the house looked almost undisturbed. The plant, in the corner of the living room, lay on its side, dirt spilling onto the carpet, but that was the only sign anything had happened, until you got to the bedroom. The lack of footprints leading from the blood should have told an observer that the killer was preternatural if nothing else did, but overall, the rest of the house didn’t look nearly bad enough for the quantity of blood I could smell. 
Death creates a kind of a void of energy in the area of the death, and here, it seemed to have sucked all the air out of the house.  To my empathy, it’s like it’s trying to drain me of all my energy. With every step, the knot of anxiety in my stomach got a little larger and a little colder. The void echoed against my shields. Blood spatter on the outside of the bedroom door told me I wasn’t going to like what I saw, but I’d known that going in.
So much blood.  When I first stepped into the room, all my mind could process was blood.  It occurred to me that I was glad we had the paper booties on, but there was no way they could stand up to that much blood, and it would be a crapshoot as to whether or not I’d ever get the blood out of my shoes.  My feet squished in it when we walked into the room.  I couldn’t see the body at first.  Emotions screamed through the room, and my shields.  Rage. Pain. Terror.  When my mind finally began to process the scene, my stomach revolted, and I swallowed rapidly to keep from bolting for the door.  My anger increased, and I grabbed Jason’s arm again to use his energy for balance.
I hadn’t realized how unprepared I was for what I was seeing and feeling. The scene was beyond anything I could have imagined, and I have a very dark, twisty imagination. I’ve seen some things in this job I would have preferred not to see, but this was in a whole new category.
“Holy shit, what’s that?” Jason breathed the words more than spoke them. The shocked look on his face told me he could feel the energy that was now swirling through me.
“Energy, dark, dark energy.”

Life, the Universe, and Everything

The title started out as just an homage to Douglas Adams, as I talked about life, the universe, and everything, but then I couldn’t help but start thinking about the books, the series, and the movie, and how much influence they had on the culture of, at the very least, a subset of people, okay, geeks, of which I and a number of my friends are members, but beyond that, it has gained cult status worldwide.  If you ask Google for the answer to life, the universe, and everything, the answer is 42. 
Originally a series of radio scripts for BBC, the series was later adapted to “stage shows, novels, comic book adaptations, a 1981 TV series, a 1984 computer game, and 2005 feature film. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has become an international multi-media phenomenon. The novels are the most widely distributed, having been translated into more than 30 languages by 2005,” which gives those who may not be familiar an idea of just how influential the series was, and is.
To this day, among many of my friends, 42 is likely to be the answer to any question of an esoteric nature, and will solicit nods, grins, and chuckles, generally followed by a discussion of whatever the original question was.  My people know where their towels are!  You never know when you will run in to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Trall. 
When I graduated from college, the first time, I had a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy party.  We had pan galactic gargleblasters, and since we couldn’t find Algolian Suntiger teeth, we used crawfish claws, and yes, as a couple of people at the party would attest, that yes, it “is like having your brain smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick"  It was a good party.
Naturally, much of the appeal comes from the reader’s ability to identify with the characters, and to recognize aspects of people they know in the same diverse group of characters.  If you have somehow missed this series, I wholeheartedly recommend it. This series hits all the right notes for me, and while I write a very different type of book, Adams is one of the authors I consider an example of the type of author I would like to be.  His quirky look at the world continues to entertain long after it was written.


Excerpt from Reaching for Beyond:Recently I’ve begun absorbing whatever energy is around me just as though I had tapped a ley line, and one time I even did this channeling kind of thing with a dead friend’s journal, but that’s another story, and the only time that’s happened. The one giving me the most trouble at the moment was that the dark energy that had oozed past my shield at the crime scene. It made me feel decidedly bitchy.As we got in the car, Jason looked at me for a long moment. “You haven’t told him you’re here yet have you?”“So what if I haven’t?  I didn’t know how long we’d be here, and we’ve been busy.”“Too busy to make a phone call?”“Shut up.”Jason laughed as he walked into his own room to go through the photos he’d taken again, and the ones he’d gotten from Giles, looking for, well, anything that might help us make sense of the murder and the crime scene.I took a few minutes to catch my breath and think before I called.  I still couldn’t’ understand the affect he had on me.  I’ve been around a lot of men, and even loved one, once, but even he didn’t have the effect on me that Cam did.Cam answered on the second ring. “Delany.”“Hey there,” I said, knowing he’d recognize my voice.“Riley. Hi. How’s it going?” His voice, as smooth as silk, even over the phone could speed up my heart rate. He’d had that effect on me since the first moment I’d laid eyes on him, and while he “was” gorgeous, I’d come up with nothing to account for the fact that he was the only man I’d ever met that could speed up my heart rate just by proximity.“Good, I suppose. Jase and I just caught a new case that I need to talk to you about.”“Sure. How can I help?’“Meet me for lunch?”“You’re in town?” I could hear the smile in his voice, although there was also the possibility it was a leer. We always seemed to somehow end up naked when we got together, but between the demands of my job, and his, we’re keeping things casual. Between my commitment issues, and the fact that my family would never accept him, I have to admit that the lack of forward movement in our relationship is my fault.
 

When did you start writing?

I’ve been taking some art classes to improve my sketching which I haven’t worked on with any degree of regularity since high school, and my instructor and I were chatting about life, and writing, and drawing, and she asked when I started writing.  I had no answer for that.  I don’t remember ever not writing.  There have been times when life has gotten in the way, and I haven’t written much in the way of fiction or anything that could be remotely considered fiction, which is my first love as far as writing goes, but I have always written.
When I was in grade school and middle school, I wrote stories and poems, most of which were what you would expect from a kid.  In other words, they were horrid, but I have gotten a somewhat embarrassed laugh out of them on those occasions when I have been cleaning out something and came across one.  In high school, I wrote stories, and rather bizarre philosophical analysis of different words that would strike me as odd.  On one occasion, I remember waxing philosophical about the word nothing.  I believe it had to do with why we were naming the absence of a thing.  Yes, I was an odd child, but I think that’s probably true of most writers.  In order to get anything done, we have to lock ourselves away from the rest of the world, shut out all distractions, or try to and focus on a fantasy world that we’ve created in our heads.  This is not something most people choose to do.  Personally, I can’t imagine anything else, and I don’t ever remember a time of not being like this.  
Once we started talking about it, Katie, my art teacher, realized she was the same way about drawing.  I think most people probably have something they enjoy that they can’t remember ever not doing, and that’s a wonderful thing.  I hope you have found yours.  I feel sure you have one, but we don’t always realize what that thing is until we are asked about it.  The discussion made me think about that business of letting life get in the way, so in that spirit, I also set goals for the year rather than making resolutions, and this year, one of my goals is to write more of what I like.  This means blogging more regularly, and working on my fiction.  Blogging is sometimes hard for me because I’m an introvert, and putting myself out there without a character or twelve in front of me is not something that comes easily.  However, one thing it does do is get me started writing, so my goal for the year, and yes, I’m late getting started, is to blog at least once a week, even if it’s short.  I will also be sharing bits and pieces of my work in progress, the new book in the Tales from Atlantis!  The working title is Reaching for Beyond, and I think you’ll enjoy it.
Reaching for Beyond Excerpt:
Blood and death. All I could smell was blood and death.  Sometimes having a Shape shifter’s sense of smell is not a good thing. The void energy of death mingled with the scent and echo of life cut short echoed inside me. Slamming up against that was a dark, dark energy that stunk of ritual magic.  No one had mentioned blood magic when the call came in to DUE.My partner, Jason, and I flashed our D.U.E. IDs as we crossed the police tape and started up the cracked walkway.  Somehow, I always expect more cops, but other than a few on the perimeter, it was just the crime scene team and the M.E.  The house looked normal enough, a big, old rambling thing that might have made the historical register with a bit of refurbishing.  It sat in one of those neighborhoods that should have kids riding bikes up and down, and touch football games going on.  Normal.  What was inside wasn’t normal.My stomach churned. The blood and death were bad enough, but the smell of werewolf, and Lilin combined with the dark energy that I couldn’t identify emanating from the house concerned me more than the smell alone. The dark energy shivered over my skin, and I could feel anger rising. I grabbed Jason’s arm to keep my balance.His blond head turned to me and he whispered. “Are you ok?”“Fine,” I said. “Just a little shaky.”I’d fill him in on the dark energy later. Maybe by then, I could figure out what it was, and why it was making me angry. The energy wasn’t an emotional energy. It was just dark. Even so, with my training and shields, it shouldn’t have affected my emotions at all, much less so strongly. The only benefit I could see right now from either my training or my shields was that I realized the dark energy was making me angry, and that let me push it back and not take it out on the people around me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell exactly where the anger was coming from, and it didn’t seem to be connected to the Lilin or Werewolf energy.  It might not have helped if it was connected to one of them, but at least I’d have a place to start. “Do you need to stop?” Jason put his hand at the small of my back, lending me his energy.“No. Let’s get this done.” It came out sharper than I intended it, but the anger kept rising, pushing me to lash out. Knowing what was causing it helped some, but the urge to punch someone was increasing. When an empath lashes out, our emotions spill out over everyone. If I wasn’t careful, I could start a brawl at the crime scene. Not particularly helpful when trying to solve a crime and a good way not to be invited back.