Réal Laplaine's Blog, page 9
January 4, 2019
Now is the greatest period in literary history
To anyone entering the literary arena today, the sheer magnitude of published authors, most of them independent, could be daunting.
October 18, 2018
The Other
The Other is a new thriller novel, releasing on Christmas 2018. It's a novel I've been wanting to write a very long time and which has undergone various renditions inside my writer's world. It finally came together.
The Other is a story about an 18-year-old girl by the name of Kaetlyn O'Sullivan, born of Nigerian parents, and later adopted by an Irish couple living in a small town off the southwestern coast of Ireland, Kaetlyn begins to demonstrate unique attributes at a very young age. She is intelligent beyond her years, but in ways that are both remarkable and inexplicable. As she grows, her above average aptitude sets her apart, treated by her peers as "odd", insensitive and peculiar. By the age of 15, Kaetlyn begins to have a recurring nightmare, one that relentlessly visits itself upon her. She tries to fathom why, and why that same dream, all the while feeling the pressure building inside of her until one day she explodes and finds herself in front of a psychologist discussing the matter. As they delve into her past, they soon shockingly discover that the dream is actually a past-life experience - and the challenge becomes unlocking its secrets. At the same time, the Irish navy has just discovered an anomaly buried in a cliffside near her home. As fate would have it, Kaetlyn's past-life experience, and the discovery of this strange object, soon collide. She finds herself cast into a pinnacle role, caught in the middle of a global power-play, where she alone can access the secrets of this craft and save the world from a global meltdown, literally.
Pre-order the ePub (eBook) for 50% off the release price. The book will be emailed to you upon release. Pre-order at: www.reallaplaine.com
The Other is a story about an 18-year-old girl by the name of Kaetlyn O'Sullivan, born of Nigerian parents, and later adopted by an Irish couple living in a small town off the southwestern coast of Ireland, Kaetlyn begins to demonstrate unique attributes at a very young age. She is intelligent beyond her years, but in ways that are both remarkable and inexplicable. As she grows, her above average aptitude sets her apart, treated by her peers as "odd", insensitive and peculiar. By the age of 15, Kaetlyn begins to have a recurring nightmare, one that relentlessly visits itself upon her. She tries to fathom why, and why that same dream, all the while feeling the pressure building inside of her until one day she explodes and finds herself in front of a psychologist discussing the matter. As they delve into her past, they soon shockingly discover that the dream is actually a past-life experience - and the challenge becomes unlocking its secrets. At the same time, the Irish navy has just discovered an anomaly buried in a cliffside near her home. As fate would have it, Kaetlyn's past-life experience, and the discovery of this strange object, soon collide. She finds herself cast into a pinnacle role, caught in the middle of a global power-play, where she alone can access the secrets of this craft and save the world from a global meltdown, literally.
Pre-order the ePub (eBook) for 50% off the release price. The book will be emailed to you upon release. Pre-order at: www.reallaplaine.com
The Other
The Other is a new thriller novel, releasing on Christmas 2018. It's a novel I've been wanting to write a very long time and which has undergone various renditions inside my writer's world. It finally came together.
August 31, 2018
Women read more than men
According to various studies, women are now reading more than men.
Yup! Time to man-up guys. Drop those cell phones, skip a game or two on tv, and sink your teeth into a book. Here are a couple articles of interest on this subject:
"There is ample statistical evidence showing that adult-women read more novels than men, attend more book clubs than men, use libraries more than men, buy more books than men, take more creative writing courses than men, and probably write more works of fiction than men. If, as a demographic, they suddenly stopped reading, the novel would nearly disappear." https://www.huffingtonpost.com/warren...
"A couple of years ago, British author Ian McEwan conducted an admittedly unscientific experiment. He and his son waded into the lunch-time crowds at a London park and began handing out free books. Within a few minutes, they had given away 30 novels. Nearly all of the takers were women, who were "eager and grateful" for the freebies while the men "frowned in suspicion, or distaste." The inevitable conclusion, wrote McEwan in The Guardian newspaper: "When women stop reading, the novel will be dead."
"McEwan's prognosis is surely hyperbole, but only slightly. Surveys consistently find that women read more books than men, especially fiction. Explanations abound, from the biological differences between the male and female brains, to the way that boys and girls are introduced to reading at a young age. One thing is certain: Americans—of either gender—are reading fewer books today than in the past. A poll released last month by The Associated Press and Ipsos, a market-research firm, found that the typical American read only four books last year, and one in four adults read no books at all." https://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...
I know it seems in this day and age of digital yahoo, where everything we could want appears to be available to us at the click of our smart phone, but there is nothing that replaces the fulfillment of the imagination and our minds, like books. And given these statistics, it is a scary proposition to consider that if families do not engender an interest in reading, but only hand their kids cell phones and themselves sit in front of HBO and Netflix, rarely, if ever reading, what does that portend for the future? Books are knowledge. Cell phones are, unfortunately, becoming more a source of controlled propaganda through social media and such. One must choose which is more important to the development of good character, a prudent mind and the ability to actually think for oneself, and not become just another cog in the endless spinning wheel of social media.
See more blog articles at https://reallaplaine.com/blog
Yup! Time to man-up guys. Drop those cell phones, skip a game or two on tv, and sink your teeth into a book. Here are a couple articles of interest on this subject:
"There is ample statistical evidence showing that adult-women read more novels than men, attend more book clubs than men, use libraries more than men, buy more books than men, take more creative writing courses than men, and probably write more works of fiction than men. If, as a demographic, they suddenly stopped reading, the novel would nearly disappear." https://www.huffingtonpost.com/warren...
"A couple of years ago, British author Ian McEwan conducted an admittedly unscientific experiment. He and his son waded into the lunch-time crowds at a London park and began handing out free books. Within a few minutes, they had given away 30 novels. Nearly all of the takers were women, who were "eager and grateful" for the freebies while the men "frowned in suspicion, or distaste." The inevitable conclusion, wrote McEwan in The Guardian newspaper: "When women stop reading, the novel will be dead."
"McEwan's prognosis is surely hyperbole, but only slightly. Surveys consistently find that women read more books than men, especially fiction. Explanations abound, from the biological differences between the male and female brains, to the way that boys and girls are introduced to reading at a young age. One thing is certain: Americans—of either gender—are reading fewer books today than in the past. A poll released last month by The Associated Press and Ipsos, a market-research firm, found that the typical American read only four books last year, and one in four adults read no books at all." https://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...
I know it seems in this day and age of digital yahoo, where everything we could want appears to be available to us at the click of our smart phone, but there is nothing that replaces the fulfillment of the imagination and our minds, like books. And given these statistics, it is a scary proposition to consider that if families do not engender an interest in reading, but only hand their kids cell phones and themselves sit in front of HBO and Netflix, rarely, if ever reading, what does that portend for the future? Books are knowledge. Cell phones are, unfortunately, becoming more a source of controlled propaganda through social media and such. One must choose which is more important to the development of good character, a prudent mind and the ability to actually think for oneself, and not become just another cog in the endless spinning wheel of social media.
See more blog articles at https://reallaplaine.com/blog
August 11, 2018
Why you should read books
If ignorance is the enemy of freedom, then reading must, logically, be one of the stronger allies.
According to some sources, the average person stops educating themselves (those of us privileged enough to have access to education) by the time they are thirty years-old. After that, if not even before, the bulk of people launch into a career and lifestyle which engages them in other challenges, few of which include actually educating their minds. While statistics and research vary, one research group (Pew Research) showed that upwards of 28% of adults surveyed in America had not read a book in the entire prior year. This, in one of the supposedly most educated nations.
We could blame the decline in reading on the rise of live-streaming television (Netflix, HBO et al), Facebook and other social media which has people's minds switched to another frequency, but there is another much more subtle and pervasive undercurrent at work.
How many media sources in your life are currently telling you to READ and increase your knowledge? Compared to the massive hourly assault on you by commercials telling you to buy a new car, to gamble, to buy this and that? It's practically nothing, and there is a reason for that. Literate people, people who delve into books and read often, are not so easily swayed nor are they so vulnerable to the constant barrage of commercialism selling society on a lifestyle of excess, as opposed to expanding their mental horizons. Sadly, we are being educated to wrap up our enlightenment period by our mid-twenties, launch into a career - and then be good obedient citizens. Few sources are telling us TO READ, and fewer still are telling us to keep expanding our mental horizons ... because ... well, reading frees the mind, whereas ignorance ... you got it.
Don't be a slave to the media-obsessed-culture. Pick up a book and expand your mind - and keep doing it. Soon, you'll realize that your mind craves it, because it's healthy for the soul.
According to some sources, the average person stops educating themselves (those of us privileged enough to have access to education) by the time they are thirty years-old. After that, if not even before, the bulk of people launch into a career and lifestyle which engages them in other challenges, few of which include actually educating their minds. While statistics and research vary, one research group (Pew Research) showed that upwards of 28% of adults surveyed in America had not read a book in the entire prior year. This, in one of the supposedly most educated nations.
We could blame the decline in reading on the rise of live-streaming television (Netflix, HBO et al), Facebook and other social media which has people's minds switched to another frequency, but there is another much more subtle and pervasive undercurrent at work.
How many media sources in your life are currently telling you to READ and increase your knowledge? Compared to the massive hourly assault on you by commercials telling you to buy a new car, to gamble, to buy this and that? It's practically nothing, and there is a reason for that. Literate people, people who delve into books and read often, are not so easily swayed nor are they so vulnerable to the constant barrage of commercialism selling society on a lifestyle of excess, as opposed to expanding their mental horizons. Sadly, we are being educated to wrap up our enlightenment period by our mid-twenties, launch into a career - and then be good obedient citizens. Few sources are telling us TO READ, and fewer still are telling us to keep expanding our mental horizons ... because ... well, reading frees the mind, whereas ignorance ... you got it.
Don't be a slave to the media-obsessed-culture. Pick up a book and expand your mind - and keep doing it. Soon, you'll realize that your mind craves it, because it's healthy for the soul.
July 16, 2018
Existential thriller - what is it?
From the start of my writing career, I was plagued with this question: what genre am I writing in? I knew what I wanted to write about, but finding a classification for it in the world of books so that readers could identify my books from other authors, that was the problem. So, here we go, I write existential thrillers. Everyone knows what a thriller is, they come in different genres, such as crime, sci-fi, etc. How does existential fit into it?
Merriam Webster's dictionary defines the word existential as: "... grounded in existence or the experience of existence"
In a literary sense, as it applies to writing, one could view existential thrillers more or the less the same as philosophical thrillers. The table is up for debate on accepted definitions, but generally speaking, it is defined as: Philosophical fiction, also existential fiction, and refers to the class of works of fiction which devote a portion of their content to questions normally addressed in philosophy. These might include the function and role of society, the purpose of life, ethics or morals, the role of art in human lives, and the role of experience or reason in the development of knowledge. Philosophical or existential fiction works can include science fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction- and of course, thrillers.
If you have read books such as, Aldus Huxley's A Brave New World or The Island, Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, and so many more, then you have read an existential or philsophical thriller.
Existential thrillers generally carry a strong message to the reader. It's not only about the thrill ride, the theme or the protagonist's challenges, it is just as much about the existential perspective on our world. In his book, 1984, George Orwell introduced the concept of "Big Brother" - an authoritarian state, to the world, becoming a classic existential thriller.
In the main, my books fit this category. So while you are getting a good read, you are challenged to think about perspectives offered.
This is not soapboxing, it is simply offering the reader the opportunity to question, challenge or weigh up the factors on the table before them.
There you have it, existential thrillers. Enjoy!
See the full blog post at https://reallaplaine.com
Merriam Webster's dictionary defines the word existential as: "... grounded in existence or the experience of existence"
In a literary sense, as it applies to writing, one could view existential thrillers more or the less the same as philosophical thrillers. The table is up for debate on accepted definitions, but generally speaking, it is defined as: Philosophical fiction, also existential fiction, and refers to the class of works of fiction which devote a portion of their content to questions normally addressed in philosophy. These might include the function and role of society, the purpose of life, ethics or morals, the role of art in human lives, and the role of experience or reason in the development of knowledge. Philosophical or existential fiction works can include science fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction- and of course, thrillers.
If you have read books such as, Aldus Huxley's A Brave New World or The Island, Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, and so many more, then you have read an existential or philsophical thriller.
Existential thrillers generally carry a strong message to the reader. It's not only about the thrill ride, the theme or the protagonist's challenges, it is just as much about the existential perspective on our world. In his book, 1984, George Orwell introduced the concept of "Big Brother" - an authoritarian state, to the world, becoming a classic existential thriller.
In the main, my books fit this category. So while you are getting a good read, you are challenged to think about perspectives offered.
This is not soapboxing, it is simply offering the reader the opportunity to question, challenge or weigh up the factors on the table before them.
There you have it, existential thrillers. Enjoy!
See the full blog post at https://reallaplaine.com
July 3, 2018
Sex trafficking is today's slavery
Slavery is a word most of us associate with a generational period, a time when the British Empire enslaved colonial lands; when ship-loads of indigenous Africans were sent off to America and sold into bondage; a time when landlords of old times exercised the rights of ownership over people who worked their lands.
Human trafficking is far from dead. Although figures vary, since traffickers don’t report their taxes and revenue, it is estimated that up to a million or more people are trafficked yearly, many of them into work-camps, sweat-shops and forced labor, and many of them, young girls, women and children who are forced into a life of sexual servitude. It is happening all around us, not just in lands across the seas and it is a massive global industry today.
Much of the problem with human trafficking is that we refuse to accept that it is all around us. Sweat-shops which produce our clothing or running shoes or whatever, far too-often, are manned by forced-labor. Young girls, women and even children are sold by the hundreds of thousands every year into sexual bondage, a conservative figure by the way, and forced to work in brothels and the sex-industry, under threat of punishment or danger to their families, and usually held hostage by traffickers who force them to toe-the-line by denying them freedom, their passport, money or other means of escape.
The victims of trafficking are all around us. The young girls forced to prostitute. The women forced to sit on streets and beg for money. The laborers who work for peanuts under threat of being sent back to poverty elsewhere.
How do we end trafficking? First we have to stop pretending that it is not a major issue in the world and continue to raise awareness that behind closed doors, this travesty and dehumanizing operation is happening. Secondly, we must take action to cut off the demand and supply.
An NGO in Sweden, one of many such around the globe, called Real Stars, campaigns to introduce the Swedish model for countering-human trafficking. Sweden was the first country in the world to make it a crime to shop or buy sex. They stopped criminalizing the victims and started targetting the buyers - consequently, prostitution and the sex-trade in Sweden has diminished. There are many other organizations and individuals providing models to help eliminate this modern-day slavery.
At Behind Closed Doors, an initiative I started to help expose human sex-trafficking, I offer my book See Me Not, for free, a story based on true facts, as an ambassador to help spotlight the issue. To get a free copy, go to this page on my site (BEHIND CLOSED DOORS).
There is little that the human race cannot accomplish when we put our minds to it. The problem with the issue of human trafficking is that not enough minds have collectively put their shoulders to the wall and pushed hard enough to topple the empire of slavery. It's time!
Article by author Réal Laplaine
See official blog at www.reallaplaine.comSee Me Not - Hope Never Dies
Human trafficking is far from dead. Although figures vary, since traffickers don’t report their taxes and revenue, it is estimated that up to a million or more people are trafficked yearly, many of them into work-camps, sweat-shops and forced labor, and many of them, young girls, women and children who are forced into a life of sexual servitude. It is happening all around us, not just in lands across the seas and it is a massive global industry today.
Much of the problem with human trafficking is that we refuse to accept that it is all around us. Sweat-shops which produce our clothing or running shoes or whatever, far too-often, are manned by forced-labor. Young girls, women and even children are sold by the hundreds of thousands every year into sexual bondage, a conservative figure by the way, and forced to work in brothels and the sex-industry, under threat of punishment or danger to their families, and usually held hostage by traffickers who force them to toe-the-line by denying them freedom, their passport, money or other means of escape.
The victims of trafficking are all around us. The young girls forced to prostitute. The women forced to sit on streets and beg for money. The laborers who work for peanuts under threat of being sent back to poverty elsewhere.
How do we end trafficking? First we have to stop pretending that it is not a major issue in the world and continue to raise awareness that behind closed doors, this travesty and dehumanizing operation is happening. Secondly, we must take action to cut off the demand and supply.
An NGO in Sweden, one of many such around the globe, called Real Stars, campaigns to introduce the Swedish model for countering-human trafficking. Sweden was the first country in the world to make it a crime to shop or buy sex. They stopped criminalizing the victims and started targetting the buyers - consequently, prostitution and the sex-trade in Sweden has diminished. There are many other organizations and individuals providing models to help eliminate this modern-day slavery.
At Behind Closed Doors, an initiative I started to help expose human sex-trafficking, I offer my book See Me Not, for free, a story based on true facts, as an ambassador to help spotlight the issue. To get a free copy, go to this page on my site (BEHIND CLOSED DOORS).
There is little that the human race cannot accomplish when we put our minds to it. The problem with the issue of human trafficking is that not enough minds have collectively put their shoulders to the wall and pushed hard enough to topple the empire of slavery. It's time!
Article by author Réal Laplaine
See official blog at www.reallaplaine.comSee Me Not - Hope Never Dies
"Fake books" - is that next?
In the wake of Donald Trumps’ propaganda campaign against free press, popularizing the meme, “fake news” as a means of discrediting any media which has exposed his scandalous background and dictatorial Administration, “fake books” might be next.
According to numerous analyses of past disastrous dictatorships, one of the very early signs of a dictator is an attack on free press and free expression. Such "leaders" uniformly negate free speech out of terror that they will be exposed for who they are and that the media or writers in other arenas, will help sway public opinion against them.
Now that “fake news” has been adopted in other lands, a term now being casually used by other “leaders” who simply want to shut down any opposition by entering reasonable doubt into the equation, it is likely that authors and writers will be next on the target list.
It sounds extreme, of course, to think that in this day and age, anyone would censor free speech and media, but in the past several years, since Edward Snowden blew the whistle on NSA secret surveillance and intrusion of privacy rights nationally and abroad and was labelled a traitor to his country; and then Donald Trump with his insistence that the media should not have the right to criticize him, are we seeing the rise of the Third Reich again? A sort of Nazism where it becomes dangerous to speak out against the party line? Where one can be publically attacked and ridiculed, and even targetted as a traitor to the nation because one spoke the hard truths?
The day books and their writers, are labeled as "fake" is the day we must be prepared to act against the dictatorship and its supporters, because that is a line across which no democracy can exist - and already, that democracy is being seriously threatened today.
Article by author, Réal Laplaine
See official blog at: www.reallaplaine.comThe Deception People
According to numerous analyses of past disastrous dictatorships, one of the very early signs of a dictator is an attack on free press and free expression. Such "leaders" uniformly negate free speech out of terror that they will be exposed for who they are and that the media or writers in other arenas, will help sway public opinion against them.
Now that “fake news” has been adopted in other lands, a term now being casually used by other “leaders” who simply want to shut down any opposition by entering reasonable doubt into the equation, it is likely that authors and writers will be next on the target list.
It sounds extreme, of course, to think that in this day and age, anyone would censor free speech and media, but in the past several years, since Edward Snowden blew the whistle on NSA secret surveillance and intrusion of privacy rights nationally and abroad and was labelled a traitor to his country; and then Donald Trump with his insistence that the media should not have the right to criticize him, are we seeing the rise of the Third Reich again? A sort of Nazism where it becomes dangerous to speak out against the party line? Where one can be publically attacked and ridiculed, and even targetted as a traitor to the nation because one spoke the hard truths?
The day books and their writers, are labeled as "fake" is the day we must be prepared to act against the dictatorship and its supporters, because that is a line across which no democracy can exist - and already, that democracy is being seriously threatened today.
Article by author, Réal Laplaine
See official blog at: www.reallaplaine.comThe Deception People
June 21, 2018
Is reading dangerous?
Woman EX
According to one study, reading catalyzes bouts of imagination and happiness – distracting the reader from “reality” and vaulting them into another world. The inherent danger, apparently, is that one loses touch and fantasizes about other realms.
Another study suggests that authors are part of a secret conspiracy designed to rock the proverbial boat with ideas and visions which offer alternative paradigms.
According to some “experts”, reading is dangerous as it unsettles established norms, and makes people question mediocrity. The conclusion offered is that those engaging in this activity do so at their own peril.
In the introduction to his American Dictionary of the English Language of 1828, Noah Webster warned that by permitting literacy to drop below the waterline, words could be redefined, so that concepts such as freedom could easily transition to something entirely different, for example “sacrificing some freedom for security”, using the very terms that regulate a democracy as tools of oppression against a population with a limited vocabulary.
Authors would unanimously agree that reading is healthy, and some might even face heinous accusations of outright heresy for suggesting that reading beats rifling through social media …
Article by author, Réal Laplaine
According to one study, reading catalyzes bouts of imagination and happiness – distracting the reader from “reality” and vaulting them into another world. The inherent danger, apparently, is that one loses touch and fantasizes about other realms.
Another study suggests that authors are part of a secret conspiracy designed to rock the proverbial boat with ideas and visions which offer alternative paradigms.
According to some “experts”, reading is dangerous as it unsettles established norms, and makes people question mediocrity. The conclusion offered is that those engaging in this activity do so at their own peril.
In the introduction to his American Dictionary of the English Language of 1828, Noah Webster warned that by permitting literacy to drop below the waterline, words could be redefined, so that concepts such as freedom could easily transition to something entirely different, for example “sacrificing some freedom for security”, using the very terms that regulate a democracy as tools of oppression against a population with a limited vocabulary.
Authors would unanimously agree that reading is healthy, and some might even face heinous accusations of outright heresy for suggesting that reading beats rifling through social media …
Article by author, Réal Laplaine
