Dirty Dozen Character Interviews – Dani Erikson – Bundle/Fantasy/Paranormal/Monsters

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So, I’m Going to Write a Spin-Off

Hercules and Xena

(I wrote this without remembering that I’d talked about this story over the years.  Keeping the hero a secret was already a lost cause.  I could rewrite the post, but I’m finding it kind of funny that I totally forgot my own motormouth.  Same goes for Wednesday’s post and Friday’s ‘big reveal’.  Yeah . . . I’m an idiot.)

I’m gearing up to do my summer release, which is titled Quest of the Broken-Hearted.  I’m going to reveal the plot on Friday, but I will say that it connects to Legends of Windemere.  This brings in a lot of challenges that I haven’t had to contend with before.  One wrong step can cause damage to this book, the original series, and future Windemere tales.

My biggest worry when writing this story was spoilers.  I have to refer back to the original a few times to maintain the connections.  Considering the plot, this isn’t too hard, so it’s more a question of holding stuff back.  Things have to get mentioned and you can only have characters be so vague before it seems unnatural.  The finale of Legends of Windemere had an impact on the entire world, so people are going to talk about those who lived and died.  I did my best to avoid going into the details, but you still have to mention something.

Another concern was demonstrating the passage of time since it’s two 2 years after the battle with the Baron.  I have to show that repairs have been made, but there are still scars on the world and people.  The main character has to show this too.  They have to show an evolution with pieces of their former self, which I found to be a real challenge.  After writing the Legends characters for so long, it’s hard to pull them out of their original roles and mentalities.  Even those who make cameos felt a little rough because it was like trying to write a new persona over an old friend.  There’s not really an easy way to test this out either because I’m rather biased here.

Honestly, I never thought it would be so hard to go back while pushing forward.  This is probably the biggest balancing act I’ve ever had to do.  I thought introducing Mab in The Mercenary Prince and then going to her older self in War of Nytefall was a challenge, but it really wasn’t.  That was returning to the past and showing how she got to where she was over the course of centuries.  Quest of the Broken-Hearted goes in the opposite direction with me having to show where a person has ended up after everything that’s happened.  You have to come up with events and results without actually showing them, but still fit them into a conversation.  This might be why I’ve been so nervous about the story.  Thankfully, it’s got a lot of action too.

So, what do you think about spin-offs?

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Review: The Hat by C.S. Boyack #superhero #paranormal

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The Hat by C.S. Boyack is a quick and fun read that involves a young woman with a magic hat, missing babies, music, and an anachronistic artifact trying to figure out the Internet.   There is a good amount of humor and tension-fueled action, so it’s a hard book to put down.  Length wise it’s definitely more novella than novel, which means perfect for a reader with very little extra time.

The driving force for me with this story is the interaction between Lizzie and The Hat itself.  It reminds me a lot of Venom when he was the Lethal Protector, but with fewer teeth and no promises of brain eating.  There are battles for control between the two since they’re practically thrown together and need to figure things out.  The fast pace of the story gives the characters little time to play the doubt and hesitation game that you see a lot in superhero stories, which makes sense for a short work.  Although, there are moments when it feels like Lizzie accepts things a bit too easily, but it’s hard to tell since she has moments of giddiness about the whole thing.  Can’t say I’d be any different if I had a magical hat that allowed me to do things like play music or fight crime.  So, there’s definitely a realism to them.

I really enjoyed discovering The Hat’s powers because you don’t really see such a thing as that powerful.  It’s introduced as fairly basic as protective, which you can see by its first few actions.  This begins to branch out throughout the story when they reach situations that it can help with.  At first, I thought it would be rather deus ex machina, but it all makes sense.  Nothing goes that far off the established base with The Hat.  It can talk to Lizzie in her head?  Then, it makes sense that it can mess with the mind of anyone else that touches it.  I won’t say how, but The Hat really is cunning.  By the end, I felt like I had a clear understanding of the workings of this artifact.

The only issue I had with the story is that its shortness worked against it in a few places.  If it was spread out a little more then the urgency of the action wouldn’t crash into the more laid back comedy.  Both of these were really well done, but there wasn’t much of a transition between the two points.  There’s a point that starts with an urgency to give chase, but Lizzie and The Hat stopped to go shopping.  I mean, it was important stuff that they were getting, but I was scratching my head about the sudden stop to the tension.  It was explained why they weren’t in such a rush after the fact and the scene really opened up Lizzie’s personality.  Yet, I kind of felt like this was an unfortunate stumbling of pace, which it did recover from.  The grand finale was amazingly well done and the final chapter hit a perfect action/comedy combination.

I would recommend this story, especially for anyone who loves superheroes and paranormal tales, but lack the time to read a full novel.

Pick up a copy by clicking here!

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Available Now! ‘The Contract’ by John W. Howell & Gwen M. Plano #bookboost #fathersday

The CONTRACT between heaven and earth

By John W. Howell & Gwen M. Plano

Thank you, Charles, for inviting us to join you today. We are very grateful to be featured on your Legends of Windemere blog. Though Windemere is of a world different from our own, it’s amazing how exciting the adventures can be. Thank you!

The Contract

Available on Kindle and Paperback

Kindle priced at $0.99 for the introduction.

The CONTRACT is a different story for writers John W. Howell and Gwen M. Plano. For either of them, it is their first attempt at co-authorship. After a year of Hurricane Harvey and other challenges, they have created, what they have termed, an inspirational thriller that bridges heaven and earth.

Here is the blurb:

The earth is threatened with a catastrophic political event which could result in international warfare and destroy all life on the planet. In heaven, a divine council decides that extraordinary measures are essential. They call for an intervention that involves two souls returning to earth. The chosen two sign a contract that they will work to avert the disaster.

Brad Channing, a Navy SEAL, and Sarah O’Brien, a teacher, become heaven’s representatives on earth. The story follows them as they individually and then together face overwhelming obstacles and eventually end up on a strategic Air Force base in California. It is there that they discover a conspiracy to assassinate the President of the United States. The terrorists have a plan for global dominance, and they are determined to complete their mission. Although military leadership appears to have the President’s best interests at heart, it is not clear who can be trusted and who should be feared. The action is rough and tumble as Brad and Sarah try to figure out the culprits for the plot that will turn into a worldwide conflagration unless stopped.

If you enjoy thrillers, this is one with enough twists and adventure to keep you riveted and guessing. If you like your thriller along with a good romance, Brad and Sarah’s initial attraction and eventual love will sustain you as they live out their heavenly and earthly desires.

Trailer

Here is an excerpt.

The general rose from his chair and walked around the room with his brow furrowed. He looked at Brad as if he didn’t see him. Then he switched the topic of conversation. “Tell me about the chopper. Military?”

“No, sir. Fast, though. Looked like an MD500.I’m not sure, though.”

“A corporate chopper. I’ll see what we can pick up. Now, the plan.”

The general laid out a map of the base on his desk. He circled Quarters twenty-three. “What’s it near, Sailor?”

“It backs up to the ball field.”

“Exactly. Rutherford wants to take out the President and eliminate you as a side benefit. I’m not sure whom he works with, but he has connections. The Agency will handle Bruce; we’ll make sure the President gets protected. Do you feel ready for another assignment, Sailor?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. At sunset, an airman will come by for your SUV. He’ll take it to a detonation site, and the team will remove and expend the explosive. They will check your car end to end for any other devices. Then they will return the car to you. Be sure to show the airman the tracking device that you found in the headliner. If it is as you believe, they will put it back into the car so that Bruce suspects nothing.”

Authors Bio.

John Howell Head shotGwen's headshot

John began his writing as a full-time occupation after an extensive business career. His specialty is thriller fiction novels, but John also writes poetry and short stories. His first book, My GRL, introduces the exciting adventures of the book’s central character, John J. Cannon. The second Cannon novel, His Revenge, continues the adventure, while the final book in the trilogy, Our Justice, launched in September 2016. The last, Circumstances of Childhood is a family life thriller story and launched October 2017. All books are available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.

John lives in Port Aransas, Texas with his wife and their spoiled rescue pets.

John’s other books.

Available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/author/johnwhowell

Gwen had a lengthy career in higher education, and it was there that she published her first book, Beyond Boundaries, for students interested in volunteer work in developing countries. After she retired, she wrote her award-winning memoir, Letting Go into Perfect Love.

Gwen lives in Branson, Missouri with her husband.

Gwen’s books

Available on Amazon at https://amzn.to/2wdXsrn

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Mission Accomplished: Now Begins the Summer of Recovery

Wait!  Don’t go anywhere because I will still be blogging and on social media.  There’s also Quest of the Brokenhearted coming out in a little over 2 weeks.  By the way, should I make that one start at 99 cents for the first month?  I’m not sure if I should do that and bump up to $2.99 or go right for the main price.  Seems risky to do a price change and I don’t know how well 99 centers are doing.  Anyway, I will be resting up this summer, but I will still be around as long as the little master of the house allows me.  Going to be tough since I now have two game controllers, so we can play at the same time.

Now, I’m going to do a quick run down of what I accomplished since January:

  1. Published War of Nytefall: Loyalty
  2. Wrote and edited Quest of the Brokenhearted
  3. Wrote and edited War of Nytefall: Lost (September release)
  4. Wrote War of Nytefall: Rivalry (December release)
  5. Plotted out The Longbow of Ichabod Brooks
  6. Kept up with blogging and scheduled stuff to mid-September
  7. Drove my son to school in the morning, martial arts in evening, and helped with homework.
  8. Retained some level of sanity

That’s a lot for 6 months in my opinion and it doesn’t count all the holidays, birthdays, school events, school breaks, and an anniversary.  Also, it ignores the cooking, sleeping, bathing, and errands that came about.  So, I’m really tired, but happy that I finished before school ends.  My son has one more week, which will not be all full days.  I still need to make it through the weekend too.  My hope is to get out and meet with an old friend next weekend and there’s a small trip coming up too.  So, it isn’t like I’ll have the chance to lounge around.  It’s more that I won’t have deadlines looming over my head.

I won’t be entirely idle either.  There’s Raven’s Wrath, which is the last of the Dawn Addison stories that I’ve been posting throughout October since 2015.  This is 13 chapters and 31 sections (a trend I’ve been doing since #2), but I don’t edit it.  I just write and go since it’s just for fun.  Beyond that, I’m probably going to fiddle with a few future stories and try to figure out what I’ll tackle once school starts again.  It might end up being editing of Rivalry and then taking War of Nytefall: Eradication.  I might do a little of Ichabod Brooks too, but that’s a release for next summer.  So they don’t feel left out, I still don’t know what to do about Lloyd and Cassidy.  Their next adventure is written, but it’s impossible to do 5 releases a year on my budget when they bring in very little attention.  I considered using Sundays to post their story section by section, but that feels insulting to them.

Staying on the writing topic for a bit longer, I think I came the closest to writing my first sex scene ever.  Might be the only one too.  The two characters aren’t really subtle in their flirting, but I stop before the main act actually happens.  A lot of kissing and making it clear that both of them have lost their shirts.  It was weird to write, but I felt like I couldn’t settle this scene with a simple kiss.  It needed to be made clear for something that happens in Eradication.  That’s all I’m going to say, which might already be too much.

Victories aside, I had a lot of anxiety problems.  Sunday didn’t go as planned with me getting to write all day.  People changed their schedules and emergencies turned up, which left me entertaining my son.  I got enough in to counter a school event, but I spent the whole week with the fear of a distraction ruining everything.  The anxiety got worse after a few stressful discussions and encounters too.  By Wednesday night, I was barely sleeping and using what little strength I had to keep writing and take care of the unavoidable responsibilities.  Have to admit that I was probably saved by a surge of energy when I was writing the final battle, which carried me into Friday with a little more pep.  Still, there were times where I felt like my body was being physically stretched to the point where one more tap would create agony instead of discomfort.  This is probably what took a lot more out of me than anything else.

I had another thought, but I was asked to have a Pokemon battle with the kid in the middle of doing this.  We don’t play the video game.  He has some plushies, but mostly we pick Pokemon out of his book and begin yelling attacks.  It’s rare that I win.  Crud, I forgot I had water on the stove.  Off again.

Let’s just get to the weekly goals:

  1. Finish the September posts.
  2. Prep a few Quest of the Brokenhearted teasers.
  3. Look over outline for War of Nytefall: Eradication
  4. PIZZA!
  5. When school drops to half days, playtime with son.
  6. Starting working on characters and story for another ‘Sin’ story.  Two more to go with those.  Really need a series title for that one.  ‘Sin’ or ‘Adventures of Sin’ doesn’t really work.
  7. Gradually consolidate all information on my superheroes.  See what I have before I decide how to work it out.
  8. Pick an anime that I can watch in about 3 days.  Gurren Lagann?  I only have what Netflix and Amazon Prime give me.  Really wish I could find Yu Yu Hakusho since I never got to finish that one.
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TALON, Book 3 – Flight For Life, first chapter – Guest Post by – by Gigi Sedlmayer…

Chris The Story Reading Ape's avatarChris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

Moody Matica

Humph.’ Frustrated, Matica sighed heavily then pushed her empty plate into the middle of the table. Crossing her lower arms and placing them on the table, she laid her left cheek onto them and looked gloomily at Talon who stood beside her, grooming his feathers, what he regularly did these days. ‘Talon,’ she whispered. His head snapped up, eyeing her. ‘Should I really go with Dad to Cajamarca or should I stay here with you?’

Mira, Aikon and Matica were sitting at the bench outside, finishing their last lunch together. After the storm and the heavy rain that had hit the village five days earlier for two days, it was now only partly overcast with little rain here and there. Today was the first day with only scattered clouds and no rain up to now.

Since the storm had settled down, Crayn had decided, with the go-ahead…

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Tools of the Telling Trade: Tarot Cards

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Honestly, I don’t know what to say about Tarot because I feel like I’ve heard and said it all throughout the years.  As I mentioned before, I hung out with a lot of Wiccans and this was a common tool.  Everyone had their own deck and there were various spreads with people having different preferences.  It was interesting how every person seemed to have their own flavor here.  That makes it even more difficult to go into detail because there’s an individuality that I saw at times.

I think most people have a general idea of how these work too.  You have the person think of question or ask it out loud while one of you shuffles the deck.  Depending on the details, you choose the cards and place them one by one.  This was typically done face down to prevent either party from jumping ahead or making assumptions in the early stages because of what they see coming.  I remember this being important in the 3-card Past, Present, and Future one.  Interesting thing is that I only remember seeing the 3-card and the very complicated Celtic Cross in college, which felt like the two extremes.  Anyway, you go card by card with each one having a certain meaning, which is also dependent on if it’s right side up or upside down.  Again, you have some vagueness to the answers to allow for personal deciphering.

So, what can I really say about tarot?  I mean, it does get used a lot in fiction and sometimes even correctly.  All I can share are some tips that one can consider when working this into a story.

  1. Study the spreads that you want to use.  Each card has a different meaning and goes in a specific order.  Most readers won’t realize if you mess up, but you’d be surprised what happens when people see you put research into this.  They accuse you of being a witch and try to burn you at the stake . . . or they point out in a review that it’s really good that you didn’t fake the details.
  2. Not every deck needs to be flashy with intricate paintings on the back.  It’s more important that they are easily identified.  I met a few Wiccans who preferred simplistic designs because they had less of a visual distraction.  Of course, this decision depends entirely on the character.
  3. Apparently, tarot began as playing cards, which might not have any purpose other than it’s an interesting tidbit.
  4. The suits don’t always have to be the established ones because there are different combinations.  There should always be four and then the Major Arcana, but you can use a variant.  Typically, it’s sword, coin, cup, and baton/staves, but there’s no reason a non-Earth story needs to stick with those exact choices.
  5. Energy is very important with tarot, which is why you never touch a deck without permission from the owner.  Most likely, you will only be allowed to touch it when doing a reading too.  The reason is because the owner of a deck takes the time to sync with the cards and put their own energy into it.  Random touching can contaminate them and requiring a cleansing.  I do remember there being some communal decks, but was always told that they weren’t always trustworthy.  You might think this is strange, but fortune telling does require clarity of mind and energy.

That’s all I can really think of as far as tarot goes.  There’s plenty of sites out there to help you figure out more.  Fortune telling in general is a tough addition to a story because you want to give foreshadowing without being obvious.  Yet, being too vague can cause all sorts of problems as well.  This might be why you don’t see it that often and villains tend to have the seers who warn them of an imposing threat.  That one we can all see coming since we follow the hero throughout the story.  Still, using this could always cause a small problem in terms of spoilers, so be careful.

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Book Spotlight – Tales of Erana: The Warrior’s Curse – Fantasy/Bundle

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It’s Release Day!

Unknown's avatarDon Massenzio

SAMPLEWell, I’m a bit nervous today. I’m releasing my new book, Extra InningsIt’s my ninth fiction book and tenth book overall.

So, why am I nervous, you might ask?

Well, this book is a major departure from my usual crime/detective drama genre. It has elements of supernatural/paranormal devices and really isn’t at all about crime.

The beta readers were very positive about the story premise and the book overall. I hope that those of you that choose to read it, enjoy the story as much as I enjoyed dreaming it up.

You might be asking: What is it about?

Here is a blurb that sums it up:

Joe McLean hates his life. A lonely, divorced, middle-aged man, stuck in a cramped apartment, the only bright spot in Joe’s life is cheering on his hometown baseball team.

Now, the local stadium, the place of many childhood and adult memories…

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The 2018 Author Interview Series Featuring MT Bass

Unknown's avatarDon Massenzio

It’s time for the next subject for my 2018 author interview series. Author interviews are posted every Friday throughout the year.

I am honored to continue this series with Ohio author MT Bass

You can catch up with all of my past author interviews (nearly 200) on my Author Directory page.

If you’re an author interested in being interviewed in this series, I still have limited spots available for 2018. You can email me at don@donmassenzio.com

Now, please enjoy this interview with MT Bass:


OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERADo you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?

I’m just not smart enough to know what other people, including readers, really want—especially marketing-wise. I mean, I can barely corral and control my own fictional characters sometimes. I certainly want people to read my books.  And there are many, many authors I admire greatly – some for their artistic ability…

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