Russ Wallace's Blog, page 2

Author Russ Wallace of Zenobia – Birth of a Legend and Zenobia – Challenging a Legend is on our spotlight this month.

Outside of writing an epic historical novel, Russ Wallace has many other interests and hobbies. Reading is one of them. He reads all kinds of genres. He loves to read and study the bible.One thing people may not know about him — since the Zenobia series is adventurous historical drama — Russ loves humor. You might even consider him an amateur stand-up comedian. Whenever opportunity allows he loves to share this talent. Russ’s wife Ruth says when they are on a cruise, which they are world travelers, Russ enjoys doing his stand-up comedy gig at the talent night.
Russ’s day job for most of his life was designing and building houses. The designing part especially has helped with developing his creativity skill.
Not only is Russ planning a seven book series for Zenobia, he has another historical fiction series on the back burner, and plans to write a diet book to share his knowledge of health and fitness. A lot more to come from Russ. 
Russ enjoys sharing a good Limerick (Poetic Verse Form) with others.
Russ is a great gardener and landscaper- wherever he lives you are sure to find lots of trees, plants, and flowers all around.
April is National Humor Month; Lawn and Garden Month; National Poetry Month; and Stress Awareness Month. All those things seem a perfect way to focus on what Russ enjoys. 
April 2014 is National Humor Month!
You know what they say, “Laughter is the best medicine.” 

Did you know that adults laugh about 15 times a day while children laugh hundreds of times a day?There is strong evidence that laughter can actually improve health and help fight disease. Studies show that laughter could be the simplest and surest way to reduce stress and improve physical and mental health. Josh Billings, a researcher from the late 1800s, may have said it best – “There ain’t much fun in medicine, but there’s a heck of a lot of medicine in fun.” See Article at: http://sciencemadefun.net/blog/national-humor-month-the-science-of-laughter/
The fact is that laughter itself changes us physiologically. Like exercise or waving your arms around, it boosts the heart rate and increases blood flow, so we breathe faster and more oxygen is delivered to the body’s tissues. Our facial muscles stretch and we actually burn calories when we’re laughing. In fact, the mere act of smiling can alter your mood almost immediately.Laughter Reduces Stress: When stressed, we produce a hormone called cortisol. Laughter can significantly reduce cortisol levels.Laughter Can Reduce Pain: Laughter causes us to produce endorphins, which are natural, pain-killing hormones.Laughter Strengthens the Immune System: A hearty laugh decreases stress hormones and increases production of T-cells, immune proteins and infection-fighting antibodies.Laughter Helps the Heart: When we laugh we increase blood flow and the function of blood vessels, which can help prevent cardiovascular problems.Laughter Relaxes the Whole Body: One good belly laugh can relieve physical tension and relax your muscles for up to 45 minutes.Laughter Helps You Recharge: By reducing stress levels and increasing your energy, laughter can help you focus and achieve more.Full article found at – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/national-humor-month-laug_n_1441488.html

HUMOUR FOR LEXOPHILES (Lovers of Words)
I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger; Then it hit me.
To write with a broken pencil is pointless.
When fish are in schools they sometimes take debate.
A will is a dead giveaway.
Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
A backward poet writes inverse.
In a democracy it’s your vote that counts; in feudalism, it’s your Count that votes.
With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.
When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
You are stuck with your debt if you can’t budge it.
A boiled egg is hard to beat.
He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
When you’ve seen one shopping center you’ve seen a mall.
Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
Acupuncture: a jab well done.
For more funny lexophiles go to: http://www.humormonth.com/index.html   

Check back all month as we focus on humor
More information can be found at:Founder: http://www.larrywilde.com/month.htm  Website: http://www.humormonth.com/index.html

Zenobia is the most powerful woman you've never heard of.

 It’s time to change that-
Zenobia is incredibly beautiful like her ancestorCleopatra, in book two Zenobia – Challenging a Legend,she will use seduction to bringrevenge upon her enemies.

Zenobia is highly intelligent, well educated and speaksfive languages.  
Zenobia carries the greatest female military mind inhistory. She’ll eventually come into control of thesecond most powerful army in the world.   
In book two, Zenobia – Challenging a Legend, Zenobia learns about a slave trade organizationkidnapping young innocent ladies and Zenobia iscompelled to take action and turns her warrior skillsinto piracy.  

Zenobia’s love for justice will bring her into conflictwith the strongest empire on earth, she will set hersights on the greatest conquest of all – Rome.  

Picture from Zenobia the Musical (copyright Photography by Michelle Ho)For more information see: https://www.facebook.com/zenobiathemusical
 We appreciate your support and hope you will continue to enjoy Zenobia’s story as it unfolds.
To view the full article about the history of female superheroes please check out our website at: http://geodepress.com/female-superheroes-and-why-zenobia-will-make-a-great-one/

What makes a good superhero? And why would Zenobia be a strong superhero?

See our full article on what-makes-a-good-superhero Below we've added why we think Zenobia would be a strong superhero. 
 
Zenobia trains as a warrior in Zenobia – Birth of aLegend and becomes elite with her bow and arrow andextremely skilled with a sword.


     In Zenobia – Challenging a Legend, Zenobia disguisesherself to get up close and personal with her enemies.



Zenobia should have been put to death at birth justbecause she was a girl. She was raised pretending to be aboy. That gave her plenty of motivation to prove a girlcan be just as useful as a man.  
 
Zenobia – a true historical figure from 3rd centurySyria, led her armies against Rome. She rode onhorseback wearing full armor. 
  Real or fictional superheroes show us how to stand up for what it right.
Zenobia is a great example of what a super hero is andthe world needs to learn about her amazing story. 
Tune in next week as we explore female super heroes.

Zenobia a Superhero

An interesting article on Entertainment weekly:
12 Signs It’s a Joss Whedon Project… 1. Strong Women
 Read full article at http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20302134_20738454_30025734,00.html

Joss Whedon is known for writing scripts with strong female characters. Whedon’s work has reached cult status, like, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Also, my all time favorite TV series “Firefly” and the movie “Serenity,” which had plenty of strong women characters. Whedon’s lists of accomplishments are long with great creative characters, men and women. Right now the entertainment industry is on a big Superhero kick. Wouldn’t it be great to have more novels, comic books, and movies that have strong female Superheroes?

AH HA! I FOUND ONE.  Shannon Hale, my favorite author and movie screenwriter wrote recently about loving Superheroes growing up but not having enough female superheroes.  I completely understand. Check out Shannon’s new book coming out March 4th called “Dangerous” that has a female Superhero. I think we need to support great projects like this to let the world know we want more. See Shannon Hale’s blog at: http://oinks.squeetus.com/2014/02/a-dangerous-history.html


To me, Zenobia would be the perfect Superhero, especially since she’s a real person in history.  I’m always surprised that she’s been overlooked in the history books. Her story is unknown but what a great story it is. It’s time to get to know Zenobia. She’s a strong woman who stands up for justice. She conquered Egypt, battled alongside her troops, and challenged Rome. Now that is real Superhero status.
Would you like to see a movie about Zenobia the Superhero?
If I could do the casting for the movie about Zenobia the Superhero, I would get Lorrisa Julianus to play our lovely butt kicking Zenobia.  She’s already well acquainted with the part of Zenobia.  Lorrisa Julianuscreated Zenobia the Musical and did an excellent job playing Zenobia.
Zenobia with a determined look, “if looks could kill.”
(Lorrisa Julianus)
Zenobia the deadliest women who ever lived (Lorrisa Julianus)Check out the FB page for the musical at https://www.facebook.com/zenobiathemusical
Wouldn’t it be great if we could get Joss Whedon,Shannon Hale, and Lorrisa Julianus on board to write amovie script for the Zenobia series?  I’d love to seeZenobia on the big screen someday. For now, I’m goingto enjoy Zenobia the book series by Russ Wallace andread about how she tries to change the world for thebetter.
So what do you say, would you like to see more femalesuperheroes?

Another strong female character can be found in book two, Zenobia - Challenging a Legend.

Meet Tyrianna a sub-plot character from Zenobia - Challenging a Legend. As we are editing book two and we've run into some historical questions on where Tyrianna is from. Read from our website to learn how we came up with Tyrianna's home country Nubia. http://geodepress.com/zenobia-challenging-a-legend-book-two-in-our-young-adult-historical-fiction/


http://ib205.tripod.com/foreign_lands.html
    Nubia has a long history of queen rulers. Tyrianna is a strong-minded female like Zenobia. They will become fast friends in book two, Zenobia- Challenging a Legend. 

It's Olympic time! Zenobia would've loved to participate in the ancient Olympics but was she allowed?

Read historical facts about the ancient Olympics and modern-day Olympics. For instance, do you know when women first started participating in the Olympics? Go to our website to get the answer:  http://geodepress.com/zenobia-in-the-ancient-olympic-games/





Here's some modern-day Olympic firsts:

1908: Madge Syers wins the first women’s Olympic gold medal in figure skating.

Ski jumping will be offered for women for the first time ever at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

Fans can't wait for book two, Zenobia - Challenging a Legend to be released.

We love to hear from fans who've read Zenobia - Birth of a Legend, book one in the Zenobia book series. Here's what one fan said:  "Please hurry with ZENOBIA – CHALLENGING A LEGEND and more books like  it. I couldn't put it down! I think women and girls should make this a  MUST READ.  Thank you for the reading pleasure."

More editing of Zenobia - Challenging a Legend but this scene goes down the toilet.

It is not what you think when we say the editing goes down the toilet. You think we mean we scrapped the scene and threw it out but we didn't. We're literally talking about toilets in this scene.

Read all about it on our website:  http://geodepress.com/this-post-has-gone-down-the-toilet-as-we-edit-a-scene-in-zenobia-challenging-a-legend-book-two-in-our-young-adult-historical-series/



We hope you're enjoying the editing process as we are sharing from book two, Zenobia - Challenging a Legend, a young adult historical fiction. Coming soon!

Zenobia - Challenging the Legend, a young adult historical series about the warrior queen Zenobia

Russ Wallace, the author of Zenobia - Birth of a Legend is hard at work getting book two, Zenobia - Challenging a Legend ready for release. 

You can read from our website http://geodepress.com/ as we highlight book two in our young adult historical series about the warrior queen Zenobia. 

We'll share with you some of the research we do to make sure it's historically accurate to 3rd century when Zenobia lived. We're finding all kinds of interesting tidbits about ancient history while doing the editing process. 

For example, While Zenobia is in Alexandria, Egypt she finds herself in a deadly situation as a wicked blood thirsty man  is wanting to seduce her and gives her a gift- a sapphire necklace with an alloy of gold that looks like silver. 





Click on the link to go to our website and read what part of this necklace is historically correct and what part is not-Editing-book-two-zenobia-challenging-a-legend-a-young-adult-series-about-the-warrior-queen-zenobia

Check back for more historically correct items. For instance, did they have indoor bathrooms in the 3rd century? 

The History of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Here at Geodepress we like to focus on education, especially as we highlight the Zenobia Book Series. Education is very important to Zenobia. Not only did she train physically with her bow and arrow and sword but she challenged herself mentally by learning all that was available to her.  We've been sharing interesting facts from each of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and hope we've broaden your knowledge of Ancient History. Like many other history buffs, we are fascinated by the Ancient Seven Wonders.
Zenobia visits two of these Wonders in book one, Zenobia- Birth of a Legend. Read the post at: http://geodepress.com/lighthouse-of-alexandria-one-of-the-seven-ancient-wonders-of-the-world/


"Many historians now believe that the list served as a guidebook for ancient "tourists" traveling to see the revered sites.The "wonders of the world" concept dates back to the fifth century B.C., when the Greek historian Herodotus contemplated the amazing achievements of art and architecture created by the Persians and the Greeks.However, Antipater of Sidon, who wrote in the second century B.C., is credited with putting together the first list of wonders."
Oct. 18, 2006  -  Read full article at: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/7Wonders/story?id=2583185



Howard David Johnson
My favorite artist Howard David Johnson has captured the beautiful Seven Wonders.

Take a look for yourself at: http://www.howarddavidjohnson.com/7wonders.htm

Attention Teachers: Howard David Johnson's pictures are available for classroom use.  E-mail for permission at :  info@howarddavidjohnson.com or check with your school library. View at :  http://www.howarddavidjohnson.com/sevenwonders.htm