Phillip T. Stephens's Blog: Wind Eggs, page 21

ORWELL MATTERS, “A Little Poem” and … “Power is not a means. It’s an end.”

His impression on those of us raised in the 20th Century is indelible. We remembered him when Reagan adopted the language of the oligarchy, such as “Peace through strength.” Now, in this world where the President declares that he is free to “disagree with the facts” (Sean Spicer), we need him even more. The animals are truly running the farm.

THE POET BY DAY

George Orwell (1903-1950), BBC Photograph in the public domain, curtesy of Penguin Books, India

A LITTLE POEM

A happy vicar I might have been

Two hundred years ago

To preach upon eternal doom

And watch my walnuts grow;

But born, alas, in an evil time,

I missed that pleasant haven,

For the hair has grown on my upper lip

And the clergy are all clean-shaven.

And later still the times were good,

We were so easy to please,

We rocked our troubled thoughts to sleep

On the bosoms of the trees.

All ignorant we dared to own

The joys we now dissemble;

The greenfinch on the apple bough

Could make my enemies tremble.

But girl’s bellies and apricots,

Roach in a shaded stream,

Horses, ducks in flight at dawn,

All these are a dream.

It is forbidden to dream again;

We maim our joys or hide them:
Horses are made…

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How to SELL Your Book—First, What IS It?

Kristen Lamb helps writers identify their target market (an important lesson if you want to sell your books). Don’t ignore the link where she spells out the requirements for a book to fit a specific genre.

Kristen Lamb's Blog

Before we get started, a quick announcement. I want to let you know that I begged, pleaded and bartered for Hollywood Producer Joel Eisenberg to offer a Master’s Series and being the AWESOME human being he is, he is doing How to Maximize Your Earning Potential as a Full-Time Writer just for us. This is three two-hour classes learning from a big name in Hollywood in your own home and it is recorded if you can’t make it live. He normally runs this series for $399, but he is super helpful and generous and giving it to us for $199.

The film industry is BOOMING and filmmakers need writers who can create excellent content. Joel is going to teach you how to tap into that massive emerging market.

Valentines Day gift. *wink wink* Just sayin’.

Okay, let’s sally forth…

One of the reasons I love blogging is I get an…

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Looking for an agent? Write as Mister

Rebologged from Kristen Twardowski’s Writer’s Workshop

Sadly, the publishing industry is still run by male executives. I’ve spoken to a number of female agents and even editors, but their selections are still based on what they perceive the industry to want, and the industry still prefers male-driven narratives and the metaphors that accompany them.

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Image from Caroline Nichols’ blog post

I find this ironic since industry figures show the number of female readers outweighs the number of men. However,  the recent experience of a certain female Presidential candidate, not to mention interviews with women voters who thought a woman should never be President, leads me to suspect even female readers can be conditioned by the choices of the masculine editing and marketing empire.

I worked as fundraising organizer for a well-known grassroots social justice group in the eighties and would have laughed at this analysis as “feminist sour grapes” until I worked for the office in Austin where two women served as the head organizers. The men who worked under them openly went out of their way to humiliate the women and undermine their authority. Only when I witnessed this did I realize how difficult it is for women in any profession to gain the respect of the old-boy network, including a progressive old-boy network that claims they’re sensitive to “women’s issues.”Meg Cabot shares Catherine Nichols’ experiment with author agents’ gender perceptions with Kristen Twardowski’s Writers Workshop.

Meg Cabot shares Catherine Nichols’ experiment with author agents’ gender perceptions with Kristen Twardowski.

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Antagonists Are People, Too

We usually think of antagonists and villains in relation to mysteries, thrillers, etc. But antagonists are important even in novels about everyday life, school, work, etc. Conflict drives every novel and the one of the best ways to create conflict is to introduce one or more antagonists. In my YA novel Seeing Jesus my heroine, Sara, faced villains in the school bullies (mean girls), a foul-mouthed boy, one of her teachers and even, at times, her parents.

The joy of writing antagonists is that they don’t have to remain antagnists. Sara’s parents don’t realize they’re the villains until they see the effect of their decisions on Sara’s life, one of her antagonists comes the the rescue and becomes her friend. And some villains remain villains.

If you use antagonists well, they can add dimension and excitement to any novel. Rachel Poli offers tips on how to develop antagonists.

Rachel Poli

It’s hard to have a good plot without someone to drive your protagonist forward. Often times, that someone happens to be a “bad guy.”

Someone who is not nice, someone who isn’t your protagonist’s number one fan, someone who wants the spotlight for themselves and goes about it the wrong way. There are a lot of reasons a protagonist becomes a protagonist. Often it’s something bad, but sometimes it’s not.

Who is the antagonist?

The antagonist is a character in your novel. Often times they are the “bad guy,” the person the protagonist is trying to stop, the person the readers don’t root for.

However, you have to remember that the antagonist is just as important to the novel as your protagonist is.

There are many different types of antagonists.

The Psychopath
The Hater
The Power Hungry
The Insane
The Rival

There are more types of villains, of course, but…

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10 Things You Shouldn’t Say to Someone With BPD.

Depression and BPD are diseases and they are serious. (There is a difference from being depressed and suffering from depression.) They aren’t just ideas in our heads that we can overcome with will power. Nor do meds alone work. We have to work on our lifestyles to avoid and resist triggers. Assuming platitudes and proverbs will help someone suffering from BPD is no different than telling a quadriplegic she can walk if she just puts her mind to it.

Blogger Jynx shares her own feelings about the subject.

iamthedeadpool

Now there is a LOT that can upset someone that has feelings off the radar, because everything can be taken negatively and personally. However, there are some key things that just shouldn’t be said. EVER. And if you think about it, there’s nothing anyone can really say or do that would hurt us most than the torment we put ourselves through. Those demons we live with daily that constantly put us down, tell us we’re shit people, not worth anything and never will be, the world is far better off without us and nobody will ever truly understand and love us. It’s hard enough batting those make-believe downers away, and when a real-life person confirms our thoughts it just amplifies their shouts. And then we’re back in that dark room, thinking of ways to hurt ourselves physically to stop the pain. Ironic, no?

1) You’re overreacting.

No, we’re…

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More truth

Thanks to Elfkat for posting this blog.

Adventures and Musings of an Arch Druidess

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Enjoy a 10-Day Virtual Vacation: Mystery Thriller Week

Block off your calendars for February 12-22 and prepare to log in for the inaugural Mystery Thriller Week online-conference. The organizers just began posting the calendar anew adding even more events as guest writers submit more reviews, blog links, and interviews and writing tips.

[image error] Organizers Benjamin Thomas, Vicki Goodwin and Sherrie Marshall Spitz put a lot of work into this event, reaching out to writers and keeping on top of us to make sure we keep our commitments and get them in by deadline.

Even as I write this bloggers and writers are corresponding, sending out review copies, reading review copies and coordinating events and posts. I can’t count the number of reviews already scheduled, and the organizers are looking for reviewers to post titles still in the queue.

If you’re interested in reviewing titles still waiting for reviewers, contact Vicki. Don’t forget to tweet and Facebook your friends and followers with the hashtag:

#MysteryThrillerWeek

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Book Release: Border Lines

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I don’t usually promote books with this blog, but a friend asked me to promote L.E. Fitzpatrick’s new book Borderlines, now available for pre-order. Reminiscent of David Cronenberg‘s1981  film Scanners, the second book in the Reacher’s series features the search for a psychic with the power to kill.

Book Description

When the perfect job comes up, Charlie doesn’t think twice about taking it. This is the break he’s been looking for and nobody, not even the rest of his team, can persuade him otherwise.

The job means working for an old enemy and crossing the border into London. Both are risky, but Charlie has no idea how high the stakes really are. The team will have to confront their past, each other and a killer who is closer than they realize. But can they all make it out of the city alive?

“We all remember that kid in Piccadilly. That determined look he had on his face as he willed all those people to him. Just using his mind, he pulled them close then blew them all to pieces. It could be anyone. Your neighbor, your friend, your lover. Remain vigilant. Reachers are everywhere.”

Excerpt

He switched off the engine anyway and an uncertain lull settled in the car. If John wasn’t going in it meant that Rachel didn’t have to go either. She couldn’t help being tempted, it would be a lot easier than confronting Darcy.

“You can stay if you want Rach,” Charlie offered.

She shook her head, being part of the family meant taking the good and the bad. For everything good she would have to overcome something bad. She had her new shoes, it was time now to confront Darcy.

“What are we waiting for?”

Charlie’s mobility was improving by the day. The damage from the stab wounds in his back was never going to completely heal, but he was coping with the residual pain now and learning how to use his body again. Using his crutch, he made every move look effortless. He pivoted himself out of the car and swung around to open the door for Rachel.

The rain fell in heavy sheets. They were soaked before they even reached the porch. There was a makeshift door left ajar and, inside, the remains of the old chapel battled against the elements leaking through the holes in the roof. Decaying pews were haphazardly scattered as though someone had tried to shield them from the water, but the roof was in such a state now it poured just as heavily inside as it did out.

The windows on the left side of the building had survived. Their modest stained glass darkened by the absence of the sun. The right side were long gone, unable to stand the decades of storms battering the country.

It was a chapel once belonging to the Church of England and now occupied by Catholics. The effect was a strange one. The statue of the virgin and a few indistinguishable saints were perched on nearby pews, as out of place as an atheist in the house of God. Rachel inspected them with a slight fondness. She wasn’t particularly religious, but these were symbols from her childhood.

Charlie walked passed the statues. He headed into the vestry calling Darcy’s name while Rachel walked around the dark nave trying to make out the stone saints. A large, crucified Christ hung over the altar. It was too big for the size of the church, looming over the nave and scrutinizing parishioners. Rachel remembered a similar icon from her childhood, and how the nuns had got so angry with her when she happened to query Jesus’ apparent Aryan ethnicity. A smile touched her lips at the memory. She glanced up at this Jesus and was surprised to see his bare black feet. Then frowned when she noticed the cuffs of his jeans. Her eyes widened as she saw a face she hadn’t seen since she was a little girl.

“Charlie!” she screamed.

Darcy was stripped at the waist. His ribs poked out of his leathery skin, an omen of malnutrition. His arms had been tied with bloody ropes to a crude cross constructed from a broken pew. There had been no rope left for his feet so instead a belt held the eighty-year-old’s legs in place. There were other marks too – burns on his chest and face, dried blood on his bruised body. How long had he been up there?

“Get John!” Charlie said

Author Info

L E Fitzpatrick is a writer of dark adventure stories and thrillers. Under the watchful eye of her beloved rescue Staffordshire Bull Terrier, she leaps from trains and climbs down buildings, all from the front room of a tiny cottage in the middle of the Welsh countryside.

Inspired by cult film and TV, L E Fitzpatrick’s fiction is a collection of twisted worlds and realities, broken characters, and high action. She enjoys pushing the boundaries of her imagination and creating hugely entertaining stories.

THE RUNNING GAME, is the first in her paranormal thriller series, set in dystopia London under the Creativia label and now BORDER LINES is the second installment of the Reachers series.

L.E.Fritzpatrick Titles

Running Game

Dark Waters

Anthology Dark

Safe Haven

Family

The lost Sheppard

Traitors Day

Harvest

Flames and Blood

Find L.E.FritzPatrick

Author page
Facebook fan page
Amazon
Twitter
Website

What Has Christianity Ever Done For Us?

We owe a great deal to both the Moslems and Christianity for preserving and advancing math, philosophy and science from the Greeks. Catholic scholars embraced and preserved Plato, the Moslems, Aristotle. Scholars such as Roger Bacon introduced empirical thinking into Catholic philosophy, and others, such as Anselm, laid the foundations for modern philosophy. Moslem scholars advanced the field of mathematics, bridging the gap between classical and modern math.

Some of our civilization’s finest writers are monotheists, or were influenced by Christian, Jewish and Moslem thought.

We should never confuse Christianity with its advocates. Christianity, which was founded on tolerance, service and forgiveness mutated into the belief that truth was more important than people.1 Jesus would have challenged that proposition and Mohammed, although also a warlord, would have most likely rejected it as well.

1It’s easy to think this shift occurred with Christianity’s rise to political power in the fourth century, but violence between Christians can be traced back earlier—at least partially to the rise of official offices within the local churches. Politics has as much to do with violence as the misunderstanding of faith.back

Nicholas C. Rossis

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Yes, I borrowed the title from the well-known Month Python sketch from Life of Brian.

Knowing my interest in religions and history, Electra got me The Evolution Of The West by Nick Spencer, based on a recent review by The Economist (from which I’m quoting below). A book that is doubly appropriate, as it examines the effect of Christianity on Western values, and argues that, to understand our present and shape our future, we really need to examine the past. And Christianity is a formative part of that past – surprisingly so for our secular times, when authors from Diderot to Richard Dawkins have raved about the triumph of secular man. What, after all, has Christianity ever done for us?

Rather a lot, argues Nick Spencer. Like a prophet crying in the post-modern wilderness, Mr Spencer provokes reflection that goes far beyond the shallow ding-dongs of the…

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THE BeZINE, Jan. 2017, Vol. 3, Issue 4 – Resist

Why do poets dread a Trump Presidency so much? Perhaps because each Tweet is an anti-poem that steals a little more of our humanity. BeZine calls for a collective act of poetic protest, and I want to forward that invitation to readers.

THE BeZINE

“When injustice becomes law, nonviolent resistance becomes duty.” Petra Kelly (1947-1992), co-founder of the German Green Party (1979) at a rally in Nuremberg (1983).

Our theme this month is Resist! We’ve chose it to coincide with a protest today that was initiated by poets Alan Kaufman and Michael Rothenberg. Thanks to Alan and Michael, poets across the United States will gather on the steps of their local city halls and take their stand against the backward values that the U.S. President Elect represents. PEN America also sponsored an event today at the New York City Public Library and thanks to them protests are happening today in ninety U.S. cities and some cities outside the States.

As is our tradition at The BeZine, voices in protest are not limited to the U.S.

What are we trying to accomplish by protesting? “Dump Trump” is a rallying cry for some but it’s unlikely to happen, at least in the short-term.

We think what makes sense and what people want to focus on…

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