Sherrie R. Cronin's Blog, page 52
March 15, 2014
The True Children of a Lesser God
I know that people want to read light happy things, but every so often I find a blog that tears at my heart and screams for me to pass along the message. This post says to me, think of the children everywhere. In Syria, absolutely, but also in every other repressive and war torn society that we prefer not to consider.
Originally posted on Attenti al Lupo:
We are not talking about it. It’s a shadow. Just far and away. We are not talking about it.
We are not talking about the children of Syria.
In February a report was presented to the U.N. Security Council that verifies the terror suffered by Syria’s children during three years of an insane conflict. But they don’t care. No action.
Children have been sexually abused. Raped. Executed. Children have been used as human shield. Their relatives have been tortured before them.
More than 10,000 have been killed. We are silent. They don’t exist. The children of Syria are far and away. Shadows and ashes that we ignore.
They are the true children of a lesser God.
Filed under: empathy, peace Tagged: children, compassion, tolerance, war, world peace
March 8, 2014
Frustration
Momma said that their would be days like this, or so the song goes. We all have them. Not just days, but weeks when both the big and the little annoying things of the world overtake everything.
I’m struggling with writing momentum right now. The plot for my latest book, d4, has spiraled out of control and I’ve spent a whole painful month reigning it back in. That’s way too long and I am so frustrated. Meanwhile my to-do pile is overflowing with real world problems like bills and taxes that I cannot keep ignoring. Breathe. It will all get done. My own job has been unusually demanding these past couple of weeks, so I can add a new chronic right shoulder and neck ache that is clearly computer related to my list of frustrations. Keep breathing.
As is so often the case when I am floundering, my immediate loved ones all have issues in their own lives right now that I cannot fix. There is a downside to having a very empathic nature, and as I turn on the news to relax, I know deep inside that isn’t going to help.I can’t explain why, but war anywhere frightens and depresses me. So does tyranny and repression. My heart goes out to the people of the Ukraine and Venezuela, both of which are now exploding. Breathe. You don’t help anyone by being agitated.
We just finished a primary here in Texas in which candidates in my area battled each other to prove how each was more conservative than the other. The message was non-stop, delivered via unwanted phone calls and unavoidable fliers in the mail. The spiteful nature of much of the rhetoric was so depressing to a middle-of-the road independent like me. What to do, what to do.
Write? Work? Pay bills? Help my daughter move? Run for office? Go fight oppression in another country?
I think I’ll start by just putting some heat on my shoulder and breathing deeply. Calming down sounds like the best way to begin.
(please drop by and visit the Facebook pages of Fractal Enlightenment and Hippie Peace Freaks and give them a like for the images shown above.)
Filed under: empathy Tagged: aches, bills, empathic, frustration, helplessness, news, politics, taxes, time, war, worry
February 25, 2014
Passion
I tend towards vehement feelings anyway, so giving me inspirational material that encourages me to follow my passion is a little like giving gasoline to an arsonist. At the very least, if you’re going to do it, get away quickly.
Over the past year I’ve developed a beginners love for a form of Chinese moving meditation called qigong, and I’ve also come to enjoy the blog of my sifu, or qigong instructor. Recently he wrote about his own decision years ago to leave a comfortable normal life in New York and pursue his dream to teach an ancient Asian art to the of people in Florida. He asked his readers for any similar stories of waking up one day and deciding “I’m meant to do something totally different” and then doing it. There were a surprising number of responses and interesting, even inspirational tales.
I mostly prohibit myself from responding to the blog posts of others. I know, I know, that’s against all etiquette and advice for how to be a successful blogger, but it’s a black hole for people like me and I have to just say “no”. I granted myself an exception on this one, though, and told my own story of deciding one day that I’d waited long enough in my life to write the stories in my head. I started an outline for six books and a schedule for finishing them over the next three years. It was a goofy and unrealistic plan, but as it has morphed into something I can do,and now that I’m working on book five it’s pretty certain that I will do it. Why? I’m not sure. Meanwhile, I’ve been learning and growing and improving as a writer and as a human and I’ve never been happier in my life.
Writing my simple response to that post reminded me how lucky I am to be doing what I am sure I am meant to do. There is an incredible power in a such a belief. Where will pursuing my most deeply held passion ultimately take me? I have no idea. In fact, I have a pretty strong suspicion that it might not even matter.
Check out the blog post at Flowing Zen that got me starting on this subject, and drop by Facebook and like Growing Bolder and Wordporn, the sources of the two wonderful images shown here.
Filed under: writing Tagged: blogging, blogging etiquette, dreams, inspirational material, lucky, meant to do, meditation, passions, Qigong, qigong instructor, writing
February 16, 2014
Ranked number one!
Excuse the childlike excitement here, but c3 has achieved a milestone for me and I’m having trouble sitting still long enough to type about it. I’m just finishing my first Kindle Select giveaway for my new book, and it has managed to hit number one in its subcategory of metaphysical fiction. It even made it well into the top 100 for all genre fiction (beating out a LOT of erotica) and as high as 58 for all science fiction and fantasy.
I am truly excited about this new book which I believe manages to expand my overall story of a family with subtle, believable superpowers while still offering a unique and exciting plot. It also furthers my tale of how these heroes work together to make a better world.
As of midnight tonight, c3 is no longer free on Amazon, but it’s incredibly cheap, with a lot of thrills for just $2.99. You can pick it up here.
Filed under: writing Tagged: amazon, c3, fantasy, free, genre fiction, giveaway, kindle, kindle select, metaphysical fiction, new book, number one, science fiction
February 13, 2014
February 1, 2014
A mind traveling 16-year-old seeks her kidnapped friends.
My 4th novel is out on Kindle today! Please check out Teddie’s story here at Amazon and share it with others if you enjoy it.
c3 Synopsis:
Teddie’s life as a sixteen year old hasn’t always been easy, but nothing has prepared her for the unexpected dangers she encounters as an exchange student in Darjeeling. A frightening world in which young girls are bartered and sold stretches its icy fingers into the beautiful resort town and touches her friends one by one.
Terrified, Teddie finds that her own mind develops a unique ability for locating her friends and that an ancient group of mind travelers is willing to train her to use her new skill to save these girls. It will require trust in ideas she barely believes, and more courage than has ever been expected of her. When it becomes clear that the alternative is her friends’ deaths and the unchecked growth of an evil crime lord’s empire, Teddie accepts the challenge and shows those guilty of unspeakable crimes just how powerful a young woman can be.
c3 is part of 46. Ascending, my collection of loosely interrelated novels about five very different family members who each discover that they can do the extraordinary when circumstances require it. I have designed these books to be read as stand alone stories or in any order.
If you enjoy c3, consider z2, the tale of Teddie’s father as he learns to use his ability to warp time to protect Teddie and her friends against a threat from a white supremacy movement at Teddie’s high school, available here. You may also enjoy y1, the story of Teddie’s brother Zane as he develops an odd ability to alter his appearance. You can get it here. Of course please check out x0, the subject of this blog and the story of Teddie’s telepathic mother as she finds herself the unlikely hero in a rescue mission in Nigeria.
c3 is out on on Kindle starting today (January 31, 2014). It will be available in paperback and in other electronic bookstores early this summer.
Also, check out my new blog for c3 here. Not only will I feature fun tidbits about the book and information about giveaways, but I will also be blogging about the struggles faced by real life young women the world over, and be telling stories of the true heroes amongst them.
Filed under: writing, y1 and z2 Tagged: 46. Ascending, astral projection, c3, Darjeeling, fantasy, friends, human trafficking, India, mind travel, new book, out of body, super powers, superheroes, Teddie, teenagers with super powers
January 24, 2014
Understanding the underwear bomber
As a human, I wish fervently for a world filled with empathy and mutual respect amongst the many nations, religions, races and preferences that fill this globe. As a writer, I understand that a story filled with nothing but such enlightened people probably isn’t going to be much of story. Instead, I must create, understand, and bring to life those who would do others harm.
The worst villain I have created may be the crime lord in my new novel c3, a ruthless man who harbors a taste for unwilling virgins. Or it may be my Nigerian fanatic in x0, who works to blow up an airplane leaving Lagos right before Christmas 2009. Of all the characters I have ever written, I struggled the hardest to understand both of these men, and to describe how they justified their actions to themselves.
How realistic is such horrible behavior? Clearly most of the folks in line with you at the grocery store are not capable of these kinds of atrocities, and we are all thankful for that. But even my worst characters are based on information I have come across in real life. Some of x0 was born out of my interest in Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, known as the “Underwear Bomber”. A 23 year old Nigerian, he hid plastic explosives in his undies and attempted to detonate them while on board a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009.
I think his story tugged at me because a week later I began work as a consultant with an oil company exploring in offshore Nigeria. I immediately got to know several young Nigerian men who were about his age. As I became friends with my new co-workers, I puzzled over the story of of this youngest child of sixteen, son of a wealthy Nigerian banker and his second wife. I learned that such huge families, encompassing multiple wives, were not uncommon in Nigeria and I could now personally attest to the fact that they produced people as loving and talented as families structured the way I was used to.
So what makes anyone decide to kill a bunch of complete strangers who have done him no harm? As I began to write x0, I knew that the villain in my book would be older, far more manipulative, and not tied to Muslim terrorist organizations or their goals. Nonetheless, I felt that I had to better understand this underwear bomber in order to create the character that would drive the plot of x0.
I read. A fellow student said that Abdulmutallab started every day by going to the mosque for dawn prayers, and then spent hours in his room reading the Quran. Unusual, especially for a young person, but hardly evil and even what some would call praiseworthy. “He told me his greatest wish was for sharia and Islam to be the rule of law across the world,” said one of his classmates.Okay, now I was getting somewhere. It’s one thing to immerse oneself in a religion, quite another to decide that every other human on earth should believe and do the same. Clearly those of many different faiths share this zeal to convert or even coerce, but in my heart, once you think that you know what everyone else should believe, you’ve entered rocky moral ground.
Luckily the bomb went off with no injuries except to Abdulmutallab who was apprehended as he left the plane. When he was sentenced to life without parole in 2012, he declared that Muslims were “proud to kill in the name of God, and that is what God told us to do in the Quran.” I don’t know a single Muslim who agrees with that, although my knowledge base is limited to co-workers who share my hope for a peaceful world.
The underwear bomber did not hope for peace. He preferred destruction to a world that wasn’t the way he thought it should be. Once I understood that fact, I understood him. Understanding is not agreeing. I abhor what he did, I abhor death caused by anyone of any faith who thinks that the people of the world are better off bleeding than being free to make their own choices. Those who would kill to convert are about control. They are not about God, or love or peace.
(Please like the HippiePeaceFreaks and TabooJive pages on Facebook for these two clever images. Please see my blog y1 blog for an upcoming post about why I made pharmaceutical companies my villain, and see my z2 blog for my tale of researching racist groups in America.)
Filed under: Nigeria, writing Tagged: bombers, control, creating villains, God, love, Nigeria, peace, religious fanatics, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, understanding, underwear bomber, villains
January 17, 2014
Writing about Superpowers
I write speculative fiction, in a genre known as magical realism. In my worlds, fantasy-type things happen as part of normal reality and you, the reader, are hopefully convinced that neither magic nor yet-to-be-invented science are involved.
Each of my books concerns a character with a different superpower, and each time I have struggled to invent ways in which the power doesn’t work. It turns out that the abnormal abilities are fun, but it’s those limitations that make for a good story. In x0, my first protagonist discovers that she is a telepath. I could tell early on that if I let her powers go wild, by halfway through the book she’d pretty much run the world. That’s not much of a story.
One solution was to create villains with equal or greater powers, but this yielded a sort of comic book cosmos that wasn’t what I was after. I wanted a believable lady in a universe that looked like my own, in which she dealt with dangerous but real people. So, she could read minds, but obviously not easily or at a distance or all of the time.
In my second book, y1, my main character is a real life shape shifter. Once again, if he could turn himself into anything and he had even a little imagination, he ought to be in charge of everything before the plot really gets going. Luckily, I developed his powers as being rooted in his amazing fine muscle control and certain chameleon-like color alteration abilities. That left him limited by his hair, his clothes and his approximate size. No turning into wolves or refrigerators or flies on the wall for him. His limitations helped me craft a plot that involved the fanciful but didn’t spin out of control before it even got started.
My hero in z2 can slow down the passage of time to the point where it almost stands still. Once again I was challenged to limit his capabilities. He begins the book thinking that his unique talent only shows itself when he is playing sports. As he finds himself in a variety of physical emergencies, he figures out that he is more versatile than he realized. Fortunately it takes him to the end of the novel before he learns to dependably control and use this power. This lack of knowledge about how and when his superpower can be called upon allowed him to occasionally save the day without becoming too powerful.
I am now finishing up final edits on c3, and beginning my fifth book d4 and both introduce new superpowers developed in the other family members. I’m enjoying playing with these new plot lines, and working my hardest to keep my remaining super people from becoming entirely too invincible. I want them to ultimately save the day, but not until they have had adventures that my readers will enjoy.
Thanks to Hippie Peace Freaks for the wise saying. Please like their Facebook page.
(Note: I originally wrote this as part of a blog tour with Orangberry Book Tours and this content has appeared at Bunny’s Review, Me, You & Books, High Class Books, Reading the Dream Life and at Imagination in Books. )
Filed under: Telepathy, writing Tagged: magical realism, super powers, superheroes, teenagers with super powers, writing, writing fiction
January 6, 2014
No resolutions needed, just be better
I love beginnings. New books, new towns, new classes, new years. Heck, I even like starting a new game of scrabble. As you might expect, January is one of my favorite months because I love the possibilities that a whole new year brings. In 2014, I can be anything. I can take up bird watching or mud wrestling. I can dye my hair blue. I can learn Portuguese. Obviously the list is infinite. It’s not what I pick that matters, but rather the very idea that this year is a fresh piece of paper. I will write something on it, and whatever it is, years later I will be telling people how I started that way back in 2014. So I might as well make that something good.
Maybe this is why I don’t get the whole the resolution thing. Why confine yourself to a few obvious improvements that you know you ought to be making anyway? Yeah, yeah, we’re all going to get more exercise and eat healthier. Seriously, I hope we all do. But 2014 is going to be so much more exciting than that. So why not resolve to just be better. You know. Do more things. Act more like you should. Take better care of yourself and others and let the specific hows and whens work themselves out as the year unfolds.
Meanwhile, it can’t hurt to be open to the exciting choices that are going to come marching by like a parade of pink elephants dancing outside your window. There are some animals you should definitely pass on. You’ll know which ones they are when you see them. Others will be like cayenne pepper. Try just a pinch, but not too much. Luckily, a good bit of the menagerie will be well worth sampling. From bubble gum bubbles to bongo drum banging, you and I both will get opportunities to try new things in 2014 and say “Wow. I liked that.”
January first is, of course a perfectly arbitrary time to start a year. Plenty of other traditions celebrate other calendars, leaving the truly unfettered with the possibility of starting a New Year again on January 31 (Chinese New Year) May 15 (Buddhist New Year) September 25 (Jewish New Year) October 25 (Islamic New Year) to name just a few. I know that it’s radical, but one can even go so far as to consider every day a fresh start!
(Please like the Facebook pages of Growing Bolder, of The Light Within, and of Bye Bye Normal. Thanks to them for sharing the witty and wise displays shown here.)
Filed under: something different Tagged: be better, beginnings, bongo drums, bubble gum, cayenne pepper, fresh start, new year, pink elephants, resolutions
December 30, 2013
May 2014 bring peace, joy and hope to all!
Please enjoy this collage of my favorite images of peace from the past year.
Thanks and credit to (from upper left, clockwise) 1. Robert J.R. Graham’s website 2. http://hashtagpeace.tumblr.com/ 3. http://peace.maripo.com/p_hands.htm 4. Peace and Harmony by Lauren Voiers 5. Shutterstock 6. Artist saleire at Red Bubble 7. Hippie Peace Freaks Facebook Page 8. Original art by Laura Barbosa 9. Peaceful World by Peace Simon
For a look at my favorite images of joy from 2013, please visit my y1 blog here.
For a look at my favorite images of hope from 2013, please visit my z2 blog here.
Filed under: art for peace Tagged: art, art for peace, doves, images of peace, Lauren Voiers, peace, peace signs
