Our Perception Makes Our Reality

Our sense of time passing is an illusion, determined largely by how quickly our brain processes what's happening around us. Color is another thing determined by our brain, each specific shade determined by the way our brain interprets information received from the cones in our eyes. Our taste buds actually do relatively little to tell us about the food we eat – instead, our brain takes the information received by our nose, adds in backup data from our tongue, and cooks up an entirely new sense known as taste.

Most of what we perceive as reality, in fact, happens inside our head. Even when other parts of our bodies are what's actually receiving the data, it's useless to us until our brain translates it into something we understand. And, unlike computers,  each set of neurons and stem cells is even more unique than our fingerprints. It's more than a cliché that no two people see the world in exactly the same way – it's scientific fact. And, when you're human, how you see the world determines how your world actually is.

That's even more true when it comes to less tangible things. If brain waves determine color, taste and even time itself, then they're definitely in the driver's seat when it comes to things like beauty, goodness and wonder. That's why everyone's taste is different – what one set of neurons sees a beautiful may not be what another set of neurons sees as beautiful. So if someone doesn't find you attractive, that's says nothing about how you look. It just means that their way of perceiving the world simply wasn't compatible.

It can't change the data of your life – horrible events will happen, no matter what our attitude is – but it can change how you translate that data. It's the inside of your head that tells you whether to focus on the good things or the bad things in your life, or if a particular challenge is something you're capable of overcoming.  You don't get to decide what happens to you, but you do get to decide what it all actually means.

It also determines how we see ourselves. Your perception of your own attractiveness has an effect on how attractive you actually are to people, because it changes how you carry yourself and the confidence you project when you interact with others. If you see yourself as brave, you won't get intimidated by challenges that come your way. You will, in fact, will yourself into bravery.

If you see yourself as stupid, you'll get easily frustrated by tasks and give up on things you decide are "too hard." If you see yourself as smart, on the other hand, you'll set yourself to the challenge of problem solving because you know you're intelligent enough to succeed. You'll be more likely to solve the problem simply because you were willing to use all of your energy and intelligence to tackle it. Your IQ and skill sets don't change, but the results do.

We can help program our brains, shifting our perceptions inch by careful inch. It's not easy, and sometimes you need help in order to make it happen, but you can literally change your life by adjusting your mind.

There's an entire world being built inside your head. Make sure it's the one you want to be living in.

Night owls, sleep, and making peace with mornings

http://cliparts.co/sleeping-clip-art-free

Sleep and I have a complicated relationship.

I’ll admit, I’m much more fond of it than I used to be. Going to bed was the worst kind of chore when I was a kid, somehow worse than doing dishes or even weeding the garden. I had to lie there, close my eyes and do absolutely nothing, because if I talked or read or sang that meant I wasn’t sleeping. I thought that sleeping was the most boring thing in the entire world, and I resented giving up every second my precious evening I had to give up in order to sleep.

Now, though, there are some nights when I’m utterly, gloriously relieved to collapse into bed. When I don’t have the physical or mental energy left to do more than stare at walls (or late night television, which is only slightly more interesting than the blank wall at times), sleep can feel like a glorious reward for a job well done.

Still, that’s only on some nights. If I have any kind of energy left, I’d much rather be reading a book, catching up on the DVRd episodes of my favorite show, or talking to a friend. Sometimes, I’d even rather be cleaning, because there are some nights when 1 a.m. feels like the perfect time to scrub the sinks or sweep the kitchen floor. You might question the sanity of the thought the next morning, but it’s hard to argue with the fact that your house is now slightly cleaner

Like many night owls, I’ve even made my peace with having to be functional the next morning. We have all kinds of tricks to make it through the first half of the day, most of which involve snooze alarms, large amounts of caffeine, and trying to arrange your schedule so you don’t have to do any complicated thinking until after noon.

You also get good at narrowing your sleep schedule as far as you can get away with, sneaking out a few extra minutes of consciousness anywhere you can. I’ve gotten really good at knowing exactly how much sleep I need to be a reasonable facsimile of a human being, and mostly try to stay in that general area. As long as I sound relatively coherent, no one seems to notice.

The thing is, though, that I notice. Living like this means that, while I get to keep my nights, I’m sleepwalking my way through at least half my morning. There’s a lot of stuff you miss when you’re only at 50 percent capacity, or even 75 percent, and most of that are those nice-but-unnecessary things that help make life worth living. I’m convinced that nights are better than mornings, but what if that’s because nights are the only part of my life I’m fully awake for?

So maybe I’ll start considering sleep a priority instead of an annoying chore I’m forced to do. I don’t want to give up my nights completely, but if I hand over a little bit of them – by going to bed at midnight instead of 1:30 a.m., maybe – then maybe I’ll have a little more brainpower to experience my morning with. Only then will I really be able to judge whether sunlight is worth all the fuss everyone else seems to make over it.

Don't just dream, write!

Writing is hard. There are millions of books, essays, blog posts, letters, diary entries and online rants going into detail about how hard it is. We’re creating worlds here, taking little squiggles of ink and pixels and making them into entire living, breathing worlds, and it takes all of our blood, sweat and tears to make it happen. We’ve got to wrestle with characterization, dialogue, plotting, timing, interpersonal relationships, symbolism and any number of things that Literature teachers spend years talking about.

            

The biggest challenge, though, is getting started in the first place.

           

I’m a journalist by trade, and if you talk to any one of us long enough you’ll find out that most of us have a novel we’ve always meant to write. The same is true of Tumblr and online message boards, where fans come up with a whole host of fanfiction plots that they swear they’ll write or keep hoping someone will write for them.  Each and every one of them can always tell you the plot of their unwritten novel or story in exquisite detail, having spent hours, days or even years of their free time working it all out in their heads. They’re outlines even the most planning-obsessed writer would kill for.

            

And the tragedy of it all is that most of these stories will never be able to be read, because none of these people ever seem to write them down.

           

Getting that first sentence out of your head and onto the paper can be unspeakably terrifying. You’ve dragged your fantasy out into reality, and every insecurity and doubt you’ve ever had comes right along with it. The sentence sits there, lifeless, completely without the crackle and sparkle the story has in your dreams, and you want nothing more than to delete it immediately.

            

But don’t. Go on to the second sentence instead, then the third, fourth and even the fifth. Rip the scene out of you word by word and lay it down on the page. Let the characters you’ve come to know so well laugh and scream and trip all over the page. It doesn’t matter if it’s the first scene of your story. It doesn’t even matter if it’s any good. What matters is that it’s there, it’s real and you can touch it.

           

If you do this for long enough, you might get lucky and the words will start pouring out of you on their own. If that happens let it all pour out of you, not worrying if you’ve gotten a description wrong or part of the dialogue is terrible or you don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few minutes. All that matters right now is getting the words out of you and on to that page.

            

Later, you can go back and slap it all into shape. Even the most experienced writers rewrite and edit their work dozens of times, throwing away whole scenes and changing characters and redoing the ending when the first one didn’t work.

In the novel I just finished writing, I literally stumbled my way through an entire third act plot twist because I knew I needed to get from point A to point B but I had no clue how to get there. Later, when it was done and I could see the entire story arc laid out in front of me, I went back and rewrote that whole section exactly the way it should have been.

The truth is, no one’s first draft is very good. But if you never write that first draft, you’ll never get to the second (and the third, fourth, fifth, etc.). And, more importantly, you’ll never get to that moment when someone reads your story and tells you how grateful they are that it was out in the world for them to find. 

Why paranormal is so popular

Johnny Worthen, author of the new "Eleanor," is stopping by to talk about why everyone can't get enough of the paranormal:

Paranormal writing reaches for that often overlooked emotion in the human spirit: Wonder. Akin to love and horror, It is a juvenile emotion often lost in adulthood, beaten out by cynicism and experience. But in the best of us, there’s always at least a little spark looking for wonder in the world.

Wonder is the feeling of realizing there’s more to the world than we thought, more than we know and in the paranormal, more even than is known. A touch of magick in any setting creates a cascade of possibility and excitement. This too is in your world. How will you adjust to it? What else might be there?

That’s what Paranormal does that other genres don’t do. Whereas a person might levitate in a science fiction story with the aid of technology, if it’s done in a paranormal setting, it’s a whole different event. It’s a new nature that the world must respond to in a different way. It rattles us in a way that open ended technological progress doesn’t.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 

- Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio

Wonder. It is a powerful emotional tool but like a strong spice, a little goes a long way. If there’s too much magick in a story, it’s not wonderful, it’s reality. There’s a place for that but when miracles are commonplace, they cease being miracles.

In ELEANOR, THE UNSEEN for example, I go to great pains to create a realistic setting, with honest modern characters and places. Then into that, I drop a single paranormal thing - a Skinwalker – and allow the world to react to that. How the characters respond – fear or wonder, hostility or acceptance is the crucible that tests them.

Moreover, I chose to frame the miraculous in my story as realistically as possible. I created costs for it, recognizing (though taking some liberties with) the laws of conservation of mass and energy. This was meant to slide my paranormal out of the realm of the supernatural and into the real of possible biological. 

Eleanor’s wonderful power is balanced by terrible costs – the pain, always pain, change is pain. It’s work to do it, requires planning and time. Vulnerability. All this creates a metaphor for the story; change and acceptance, appearances versus reality, the terrible necessity of change and the desire to blend in.

Eleanor, shy, unassuming Eleanor is in fact wonderful, more wonderful than anyone can imagine. When the wonder is revealed does it mean she’s different or the world is bigger than anyone thought? Who must change?

How to get the book:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Eleanor-The-Unseen-Johnny-Worthen/dp/1939967341/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400344815&sr=8-1&keywords=eleanor+by+johnny 
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/eleanor-johnny-worthen/1117389206?ean=9781939967343
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18754928-eleanor

Heeere's Johnny!

https://www.facebook.com/JohnnyWorthenBooks 
https://twitter.com/JohnnyWorthen
http://www.johnnyworthen.blogspot.com/

Mapping my mind

One of the most important tasks of a map is to identify the dangerous places. Landslides, impossibly strong currents, jagged rocks – we mark down where they are, so the people who come after us can know to stay away. Some choose to venture in anyway, but the map helps them know they need to be cautious.

            There are days when my entire head seems to be a dangerous place. There are hurts so old and deep that the resulting emotional scar tissue rises up like mountains. Waves of emotion will crash into me at unpredictable moments, strong enough to send even the toughest ship off course. Monsters of panic lurk in the shadows, always ready to send their claws at my throat.

            I started mapping the inside of my head when I was in high school, trying to time the waves so I would at least know what direction they were going to toss me in. It took me years of careful, methodical study before I could predict them as well as the tides, trying to organize my life so that my tasks best suited my emotional state and forgiving myself when I couldn’t. Learning to let the water only carry me so far, and to never forget how off course I was.

            Those years added more details to the map, cautious expeditions into the thickets of fear and careful outlines of the boundaries of the pits of self-doubt. I know the shape of my scar-tissue mountains, and have carefully outlined a few careful trails that will let me navigate the foothills without getting caught in an unclimbable area or falling to my death. I have marked many of the places where panic waits, and though I can’t avoid it I am no longer surprised.

            None of this has razed the mountains, cleared the jungles or defeated the monsters waiting for me. The purpose of a map is only to identify what’s already there, leaving the choice of what to do with it to the person reading. It’s a light in the darkness, not a weapon.

            But oh, how I need that light. The world is still a terrifying place, full of uncertainty and things that want to hurt me, but over the years I have stopped being afraid of myself. I know the contours of my mind as I know few other things, and even the dangers have become as familiar to me as the walls of my bedroom. I have learned how to navigate them, and because of that they are no longer enough to stop me from exploring the wild, beautiful places my mind contains as well. Any jungle has its treasures as well as its dangers, and if you watch for them both there is no place that’s closed to you.

             I’m not quite there yet. There are still a few shadowy places that I’m not brave enough to venture in, too uncertain what I’ll find once I cross beyond the boundaries of what I know. But I will, one day.

            A map maker doesn’t like blank places.  

Guest column: Fresh Zombies

Today we're going to here from F.J.R. Tichnell, author of the upcoming YA novel "Confessions of The Very First Zombie Slayer (That I Know Of)." She's going to talk to us about the challenges of keeping zombie fiction new and exciting:

With all the zombie-related fiction out now, how do you make them seem fresh?

It's true, everyone does seem to be zombie obsessed lately, myself included. As with any trend, lots of zombie stories run together, following all the same tropes and rehashing the same material.

Thanks to the significant lead time in publishing, I had no idea while I was writing Confessions of the Very First Zombie Slayer (That I Know of) just how big this whole zombie thing was going to get by the time release day rolled around. I'm not one to jump on a bandwagon, certainly not if I don't have something new in mind to contribute, but with all the zombie fiction in existence both before and since I wrote Zombie Slayer, I still see something missing from all there is to choose from.

Cassie’s story is that something.

The vast majority of zombie fiction is written by men, about male protagonists, for a primarily male audience. That's not to say that there aren't female zombie-fic lovers -- I'm proud beyond words to be part of a healthy generation of she-geeks who don't fear the icky bits -- but we continue to be mostly an afterthought.

What zombie fiction there is that's written with a female audience in mind, particularly a teenage female audience, tends to be either unrelentingly depressing dystopia, or sentient zombie romance that isn't particularly zombie-ish.

Now, I'm a fan of a broad spectrum of horror. I like dark stuff, including serious zombie fiction, but zombies of the unromantic and non-sentient variety also have a lot of potential for silliness and humor that's only been widely explored in R-rated guy-oriented comedies.

I wanted to bring the fun of zombie slaying to new zombie geeks, especially girls. I wanted to write about a girl who can crush skulls, love a fellow human, and still crack a smile.

Zombie Slayer's categorical distinctions aside, though, the most important part of making any story fresh is not to depend on the gimmicks to make the story.

You can tell a story about zombies or about vampires or about a machete-wielding slasher, but unless you're the first person in a generation or two to use that device, you'll have just another zombie (or what-have-you) story.

There are only so many stories you can tell about zombies. People run from zombies. People hide from zombies. People do bad things because of zombie and angst about it.

The stories that stand out, other than the ones that can pull off being remembered simply for coming first, are the ones that are about characters.

Ideally, Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and contemporary settings should be support and seasoning for the story of the characters' self discovery and relationships, not a crutch or replacement.

I had lots of fun with the zombies in Confessions of the Very First Zombie Slayer (That I Know of). There's plenty of brain-mashing action to go around, but at its core, it's a road trip story. It's about a group of friends working out their issues, strengthening their friendships, and coming of age together, and I hope that, as well as enjoying the zombies, readers will come to love Cassie and her companions as much as I do.

Confessions of the Very First Zombie Slayer (That I Know of) blurb:

The world is Cassie Fremont’s playground. Her face is on the cover of every newspaper, she has no homework, no curfew, and no credit limit, and she spends her days traveling the country with her friends, including a boy who would flirt with death just to turn her head. Life is just about perfect—except that those newspaper headlines are about her bludgeoning her crush to death with a paintball gun, she has to fight ravenous walking corpses every time she steps outside, and one of her friends is still missing, trapped somewhere in the distant, practically impassable wreckage of Manhattan. Still, Cassie’s an optimist. More prone to hysterical laughter than hysterical tears, she’d rather fight a corpse than be one, and she won’t leave a friend stranded when she can simply take her road trip to impossible new places to find her, even if getting there means admitting to that boy that she might just love him, too. Skillfully blending effective horror with unexpected humor, this diary-format novel is a fast-paced and heartwarming read.

F.J.R. Titchenell bio:

F.J.R. Titchenell is an author of Young Adult Sci-Fi and Horror fiction. She is represented by Jennifer Mishler of Literary Counsel and currently lives in San Gabriel, California with her husband and fellow author, Matt Carter, and their pet king snake, Mica.

The "F" is for Fiona, and on the rare occasions when she can be pried away from her keyboard, her kindle, and the pages of her latest favorite book, Fi can usually be found over-analyzing the inner workings of various TV Sci-Fi universes or testing out some intriguing new recipe, usually chocolate-related.

Confessions of the Very First Zombie Slayer (That I Know of) is F.J.R. Titchenell’s first novel. Her first novel coauthored with Matt Carter, Splinters, will be available fall of 2014.

Links:

Website: www.fjrtitchenell.weebly.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FjrTitchenell

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FJR_Titchenell

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4384865.F_J_R_Titchenell

Amazon listing: http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Very-First-Zombie-Slayer/dp/1939967309

Other details:

Confessions of the Very First Zombie Slayer (That I Know of) is F.J.R. Titchenell’s debut novel, to be released May 6^th, 2014. It is a Young Adult Horror-Comedy.

Presenting Kate, from "Fairy Godmothers, Inc."

This is Kate, my Fairy Godmother extraordinaire, as conceived by the fabulous Lettie. I especially love the official uniform, which is somehow both fabulous and exactly the sort of thing that would drive Kate nuts. Feel free to share the image, if you'd like, though please don't get rid of the attribution at the bottom. 

Poetry confessional

So… I was really into poetry in college, as I’m sure many of you were/are (I’ll have to tell you about the depressing poetry contests, sometimes) but I hadn’t written in years. As Mark Twain said, “Contentment does not lend itself well to verse.”

Then… I kind of went through a super stressful time lately, and my first poems in years suddenly fall out of my fingers. And, since you’re a captive audience, I’m subjecting you to them.

000

sweetclipart.com

Nero fiddled while Rome burned

But no one thought to ask

If it was he who struck the match

If the slide of bow across strings

Was a mock of the city he’d felled

Without an army at his back

A celebratory dance

For the destruction he’d conjured

Or if he saw the flames

Only when others did

Tasted death as it was carried on the wind

And reached for the fiddle

So he could spend his final moments

In song

000

Somewhere, the world is ending

There may be warning signs

Arguments in the night

Whispers of disappearing money

The slow fading of the light in their eyes

But that final morning

Always keeps its silences

Never admitting

That this will be the last moment

Before your own private apocalypse

There will be no time to mourn

No companion with you in the bunker

Only blue skies

That seem a thousand miles away

And the memories of a world

That lies shattered at your feet.

Friday Chat: Lehua Parker, author of "One Shark, No Swim."

Lehua Parker

Today we welcome Lehua Parker, author of the exciting Niuhi Shark Saga. The latest book in the series, “One Shark, No Swim,” continues the adventures of a young man named Zader and his mysterious connection to the water. Lehua sits down with me to talk about her new book, which is out now.

How is Zader different than the last time we saw him in One Boy, No Water, the first book in the Niuhi Shark Saga?

After his experience standing in seawater during the fight and after what he sees when Leia dives into the ocean at the end of One Boy, No Water, Zader begins to question things he always took for granted. He begins to test Uncle Kahana, and when Uncle Kahana isn’t forthcoming, Zader starts to hide things he’s feeling and doing. In One Shark, No Swim Zader is restless, more aggressive, and hungry like a shark.

Have you found it’s easier or more challenging to get deeper into the series? Why?

In my head, the whole series is one long story. Book 1 introduced all the characters and explained how things began. Now that the readers are on board, we’re paddling out into the deep water of how things change. It’s a lot more fun to write.

Do you feel any differently about Zader’s world now that you’ve had more experience with it? Have you discovered more about it?

 Zader’s world is part of a larger writing universe I think of as Lauele Town. There are other stories about characters we’ve met in the Niuhi Shark Saga that I’d like to write one day. Most of them are not for MG/YA readers. When I write a novel, I have the major beats in my head, but nothing remotely like a detailed outline. At the computer I think, “Okay. In this next scene Zader needs to meet his art teacher. What’s he doing?” And like magic I see the scene unfold with Zader walking up to the beach pavilion where Char Siu and some girls are mimicking the newest dance craze. And then Zader says he hates K-Pop. Those kinds of discoveries keep me writing.

What are the challenges of writing for a MG/YA audience?

Through the series I’ve realized that for my audience a lot of the tension and conflict that I felt was in the story wasn’t on the page yet. Middle grade readers are just beginning to understand symbolism, metaphor, and allegory. They don’t make connections between things that older, more experienced readers do. I’ve learned to write in neon and hold up big signs saying, “Pay attention to this. You may be quizzed on it later.”

The new book, One Shark, No Swim, has less Hawaiian Pidgin English in it than the first edition of One Boy, No Water, which is also being released in a second edition with less Pidgin. How did that decision come about? 

There were a couple of assumptions in my marketing plan that didn’t work out the way I planned.

I had the idea that the series would gain readers in Hawaii first, then move across the Pacific to California, Nevada, Washington, Utah—places where a lot of ex-pat islanders live. If I lived in Hawaii or had gone with an islander publisher, this probably would’ve been the way it worked. But living in Utah with a publisher based in Utah as well, it was tough to get books on Hawaiian bookstore shelves. With middle grade readers and their parents it’s all about being able to pick up a book before buying it. I learned eBook services aren’t the best distribution system for an audience without smart phones, iPads, or Kindles yet.

When I first conceived of the series, I wanted to write books that I would’ve loved as a kid growing up in Hawaii. In literature, there are almost no characters that looked, talked, and acted like the people I knew. I also wanted to write something that would appeal to island boys who didn’t like reading. I chose to write a lot of the dialogue in a kind of Pidgin-lite thinking non-native speakers could still follow the action and that islanders would automatically switch Anglicized words to their proper Pidgin ones.

Adult readers have no problem getting into the Pidgin groove. New or reluctant readers—the very audience I was aiming for—struggle with what looks like broken English to them. Mainland schools throw their hands up. They like it, but don’t know what to do with it. So I basically had a series written using unconventional language for an audience that didn’t read books and a distribution system that couldn’t get it in their hands—even if they decided to look.

Something had to change.

That’s when I realized the series needed a Pidgin-ectomy and wrote One Shark, No Swim with far less Pidgin and Hawaiian words. It needed to appeal to readers who liked to read first and island kids second. When I was writing One Shark, No Swim I approached  Jolly Fish Press with the idea of doing a second edition of One Boy, No Water. When JFP inked a new distribution deal with IPG, they came back and said the time was right. Since all of their titles would have to be re-formatted, it made sense to do the second edition now.

What’s next for Zader and his ‘ohana?

In book 3, tentatively titled One Fight, No Fist, Zader’s human world begins to collapse. He meets his sister and biological mother and begins to understand what’s at risk and why he was hidden with his adopted family. Readers will get to know the Niuhi side of the story.

If you could say one thing to everyone who picks up one of the books in the Niuhi Shark Saga, what would it be?

Thank you! Mahalo for picking it up. Between the covers you’ll find adventure, a loving and supportive family, danger, excitement, and all the trials and tribulations of growing up different. You’ll meet Zader, a boy who’s allergic to water, see how islanders live, and maybe take a little piece of Hawaii home with you.

Lehua Parker’s Biography

Lehua Parker is originally from Hawaii and a graduate of The Kamehameha Schools and Brigham Young University. In addition to writing award-winning short fiction, poetry, and plays, she is the author of the Pacific literature MG/YA series the Niuhi Shark Saga published by Jolly Fish Press. One Boy, No Water and One Shark, No Swim are available now. Book 3, One Fight, No Fist will be published in 2014.

So far Lehua has been a live television director, a school teacher, a courseware manager, an instructional designer, a sports coach, a theater critic, a SCUBA instructor, a playwright, a web designer, a book editor, a mother, and a wife. She currently lives in Utah with her husband, two children, three cats, two dogs, six horses, and assorted chickens. During the snowy Utah winters she dreams about the beach.

Connect with Lehua Parker

Blog & Free Short Stories: http://www.lehuaparker.com/

All things Niuhi Shark Saga: http://www.niuhisharksaga.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LehuaParker

Twitter: @LehuaParker

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6426317.Lehua_Parker

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/lehuaparker/

Email: AuntyLehua@LehuaParker.com

One Boy, No Water

11 year old Alexander Kaonakai Westin—Zader for short—is allergic to water. One drop on his skin sears like white-hot lava. Too bad a lifetime of carrying an umbrella and staying away from the beach isn’t the answer, especially when his popular almost twin brother Jay looks destined to become the next Hawaiian surfing sensation.

But avoiding water is just the tip of Zader’s troubles. Eating raw seafood and rare meat gives him strange dreams about a young girl in a red cape and nightmares about a man with too many teeth. There’s also the school bullies who want to make Zader their personal punching bag, the pressure of getting into Ridgemont Academy, and the mysterious yearly presents from his birth family that nobody talks about.

It’s enough to drive Zader crazy, especially when he suspects old Uncle Kahana and ‘Ilima know a secret that explains his unusual biological quirks. After all, they were the ones who found him newborn and abandoned on a reef and brought him to the Westins to adopt. Uncle Kahana swears Zader is ‘ohana—family—by blood as well as adoption.  Too bad he’s not saying more.

When Jay quits surfing after a shark scare, Zader decides it’s time to stop hiding in the shadows and start searching for answers.

Growing up adopted in Hawai‘i just got a little weirder.

One Boy, No Water               

Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/One-Boy-Water-Lehua-Parker/dp/0984880127/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379789539&sr=8-1&keywords=lehua+parker

Barnes & Noble

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/one-boy-no-water-lehua-parker/1112184898?ean=9780984880171

Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15713351-one-boy-no-water?from_search=true

One Shark, No Swim

There’s something bugging adopted Zader Westin, something more troubling than his water allergies where one drop on his skin burns like hot lava. It’s bigger than his new obsession with knives, designing the new murals for the pavilion with Mr. Halpert, or dealing with Char Siu’s Lauele Girlz scotch tape makeover. Zader can’t stop thinking about a dream, the dream that might not have been a dream where Lē‘ia called him brother then jumped into the ocean and turned into a shark.

Zader’s got a lot of questions, not the least being why he’s hungry all the time, restless at night, and why he feels a constant itch on the back of his neck. It’s making him feel like teri chicken on a pūpū platter, but Zader doesn’t want to think about chicken, not with his growing compulsion to slip it down his throat—raw.

With Jay busy at surf camp and Uncle Kahana pretending nothing’s happening, Zader’s left alone to figure things out, including why someone—something—is stalking him before it’s too late.

Summer in Lauele Town, Hawaii just got a little more interesting.

One Shark, No Swim:           

Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/One-Shark-Swim-Lehua-Parker/dp/1939967104/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379752439&sr=8-1&keywords=one+shark+no+swim 

Barnes & Noble

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/one-shark-no-swim-lehua-parker/1114940697?ean=9781939967107

Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18114896-one-shark-no-swim

Words

I love words. Each line and curve, each sound shaped by a human mouth, contains infinities. 

            

At some point I began to see words lining the world like bricks, every line and curve of reality bracketed on all sides by the description of it that unspools in my head. Every person that I know is a symphony of words, the memory of a thousand conversations mixing with a hundred silent realizations and that thing (or two) I keep meaning to tell them but never do. Words run through the marrow of my bones, skim over the surface of me like a second skin. My face is an accident of genetics, familiar but not particularly evocative of my identity. But read my words, and you’ll truly get a taste of who I am.

            

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t see the world this way – memories are mostly words, the only thing left when the hazy pictures have faded away. My childhood was filled with stories: smiling out at me from brightly colored books, scribbled across construction paper by my own hands, or spinning in the air as my family passed old memories back and forth like a ball tossed in the summer sunshine. Every story contains its own little world, each word holding a crash of lightning or the sound of someone’s laughter, and I had a thousand to choose from at any one moment. 

             

When I was younger I built them up like little castles, putting together simple stacks of word-bricks like other kids did with their super-sized Legos. The word-castles grew as I grew, developing turrets that spun upward into the heavens and moats that stretched fathoms deep. I learned how to build everything I wanted to see, shaping the words so they would radiate with the sound of someone’s laughter and follow the curve I could see so clearly in my mind. I pulled the words out of my heart, out of the hearts of those I loved, and used them to fashion blood and breath and bones.

When I die, all that will be left of me is words. The stories I’ve left behind will sit on shelves or in some forgotten corner of the Internet, and memories of me will be passed from mouth to ear among those who knew and loved me. I will live on as the thing I love the most.

Fairy Godmothers, Inc.: High School Edition

Yes, this is my creation as well. 

So, I was digging through my old papers one day, and discovered that my darling Kate is a bit older than I originally thought. It turns out that I wrote my first (albeit short-story version) of “Fairy Godmothers, Inc.” in high school, though it was only called “Fairy Godmother” at the time because my ability to come up with clever titles had apparently not grown in yet. Kate’s original name was Maeve, apparently (why, I couldn’t tell you), and the proto-Bubbles was named Glenda (okay, so she probably would have preferred I keep that).

            

The entire short story no longer survives, thankfully, but I thought you might be amused by an excerpt (the urge to edit while I typed it in was nearly overwhelming, but I resisted). It’s an interesting look at some of my early concepts, the way my style has refined over the years, and the fact that I am apparently a great deal funnier today than I was in high school.

           

000

           

First off, we had to deal with the dress. I conjured up Fairy Tale Confection #317 and held it out to her. She was just about to take it when she started sneezing violently. Not only sneezing, but coughing, shaking and in general acting as though she had been exposed to New York air. Yet another reaction I’ve never gotten before. This girl could set a record before the night’s out.

            

After some major scientific study (a wild guess) we found out the cause of her trauma. It was the dress. Okay, pick number two.

            

Soon, pick number two turned into pick number 52, all with the same response. Finally, Miss Cinderella over here finally decided to inform me of the little fact that she was allergic to silk, cotton, velvet, satin, all fabric dyes, lace, and roses. Of course, all Fairy Godmother brand dresses contain at least one of these items.

           

Then a horrible thought struck me. There was, way in the back, one dress that didn’t, but no self-respecting Fairy Godmother would dare use it. It was a natural colored polyester (is there a natural color for polyester?) A-line dress. The very thought made me shudder, but I had no other choice. With a heavy heart, I conjured it up.

            

000

           

I have more, if your courage hasn’t failed you yet. 

Special Client

Special Client
by Jenniffer Wardell

"What the hell is this?"

"It's a script."

"I know it's a script, Frank, but what do I need a script for?" My improvisation not doing a good enough job for you?"

"No, Harry ..."

"Harriet!"

"Sorry. Of course not, Harriet. You're the sexiest voiced cross-dresser we have on staff, and I love the job you're doing. But this is for a special client."

"A phone-sex line has a special client?"

"Weird, I know. but this comes straight from the higher-ups."

"A phone-sex line has higher-ups?"

"Harriet..."

"Okay, okay. But still, why do i need a script? I'm creative -- I can treat this guy right."

"I'm sure that you can, but this one has ... special needs."

"Any more special than the guy that got turned on by egg yolks? He hung up satisfied."

A pause. "Well ... yes. Have you read the script, Harriet?"

"Not yet. But even when I do, how do i know what guy to use it for? We take names and credit card numbers, but the script doesn't include either."

"You'll know. Besides, he always calls at the same time."

"And when would that be?"

"I don't remember." A pause. "Do you know what the time difference is between here and Eastern Europe?"

"Eastern Europe?!"

"Just read the script, Harriet."

"Fine." A pause. "Night ... a huge bed ... balcony window ... black cape ... a fantasy scenario? That shouldn't be too hard."

"Keep reading."

"Nightgown -- ok ... heaving breasts -- like that's original ... a lot of neck descriptions -- unusual, but not a problem ... biting ... hey, wait a minute. Frank ..."

"Don't worry about it, Harriet. I'm sure you'll do great. Remember to compliment him on his huge, throbbing teeth. He loves that. Bye."


Click. 

Cast your perfect “Fairy Godmothers, Inc.” movie!

www.freestockphotos.biz

We’ve all had it happen. They finally make a movie of our favorite book (or comic book series), and we stalk the Internet for every scrap of information. Then the cast list comes out and… him? They pick him? Or her? They don’t look anything like [insert name of character here]! What were these people thinking?

Well, we’re about a million years away from even the possibility that there might one day be a “Fairy Godmothers, Inc.” movie, but I believe in planning ahead. I want your dream casts, people. What actors/actresses do you see stepping into the shoes of Kate, John, Rellie, Bubbles and the rest? I’ve speculated about this question on a blog or two, but I’d really like to know how you guys see the characters in your mind’s eye.

Do your best to give me the full cast – I’d really love to hear who you guys suggest for Ned and Jon’s mother. You can e-mail me your list at jennifferwardell@gmail.com, but I’d rather you leave it in the comments either here or on Facebook so that everyone else can get ideas or comment on your genius. If possible, also cite a movie/TV show the actor/actress has been in. None of us are afraid of Google, but it might save time if we don’t have to do it for everyone.

Depending on the responses, I’ll comb through the answers and assemble an overall dream cast that I’ll post next week (with proper acknowledgements to the genius casting agents involved, of course). I’ll also add some special recognition if anyone feels tempted to get creative with their casting – a Shakespearean version, for example (all guys) or actors/actresses from a different era.

I’d really love to hear from everyone who’s read the book. Even if you hadn’t, check out the preview at Amazon.com and tell me who you’d cast as Kate and Jon (and whatever other characters make it in).

UPDATE: Some of the winners!

Ned: Logan Lerman
http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com/2013/08/getting-to-know-you-ned-fairy-godfather.html

Lawton: Gabriel Mann
http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com/2013/08/getting-to-know-you-lawton-rogue-with.html

Bubbles: Judi Dench
http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com/2013/08/getting-to-know-you-bubbles-scary.html

John: James Wolk
http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com/2013/07/getting-to-know-you-jon-charming-kates.html

Rupert: Channing Tatum
http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com/2013/07/getting-to-know-you-rupert-charming.html

Deities 101: The Mythology of the Pipe Woman Chronicles

We have a visitor today! The amazing Lynne Cantwell has recently released “Annealed,” the latest book in her Pipe Woman Chronicles series (Never heard of it? Check it out on Goodreads!) Her literary playground is the world of gods and goddesses, and she’s stopped by to offer us a Deities 101-style look at the power players in her world.

The Mythology of the Pipe Woman Chronicles
by Lynne Cantwell

When I began writing the Pipe Woman Chronicles, I made a conscious decision to make it a different kind of urban fantasy.  Instead of incorporating vampires, zombies, and other things that go bump in the night, I decided to mine various pre-Christian pantheons for the otherworldly beings who populate my novels.  Here's a quick primer.  If you’re interested in seeing what they look like, I’ve created a Pinterest board.  Feel free to stop by!

Kicking things off is White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman, the Lakota Sioux goddess who gifts Naomi with her extra-special powers of persuasion.  The Lakota believe White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman brought them the sacred pipe they smoke when making decisions for the tribe.  She also taught them their seven sacred ceremonies – among them, the Sun Dance and the hunka, or making-of-a-brother, ceremony that both occur in Annealed.

Many Plains Indian tribes – including the Lakota and the Ute – include Coyote in their belief systems.  Coyote is a Trickster who can change shape at will.  He is always cooking up some scheme to enrich himself at someone else's expense.  The Ute have a number of stories about Coyote plotting to have sex with one woman or another.

Another Ute legend is that of Blood Clot Boy. (I couldn’t find a picture of him for the Pinterest board, sorry – although that may be just as well.)  He transformed initially from a clot of buffalo blood into a human-like boy, and a childless couple adopted him.  His chief activity was providing his family, and later his tribe, with plenty of buffalo – an important function for a nation whose subsistence largely depended on them.

Three Aztec (or, more properly, Mexica) gods figure in the Pipe Woman Chronicles: Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, and Coatlicue.  Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca seem to be brother gods who swap control of the world at the dawn of each new age, or sun.  We are currently in the Fifth Sun, and the god in charge is Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent who some New Agers believed would return to Earth at the end of the Long Count that occurred last winter.  Tezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror, is another Trickster – a shapeshifter who commonly takes the form of a jaguar.  Early Christian chroniclers would often try to cast one local god in the “good guy” role and another in the “bad guy” role, and Tezcatlipoca drew the short straw for the Mexica.  But the evidence suggests that he was respected rather than feared, and that he would even help his followers on occasion.

Coatlicue was probably imported by the Mexica from an older tradition.  She is considered to be the Mother of some members of the Mexica pantheon (although not the mother of either Quetzalcoatl or Tezcatlipoca, despite the conflation of their separate myths).  Her youngest son, Huitzilopochtli, led the Mexica from their fabled paradise of Aztlán to their final home in what is now Mexico City.  Legend has it that she is still waiting for Huitzilopochtli to come back home to her.

From sunny Mexico, we move to cold Northern Europe and the Norse pantheon.  I think almost everybody is familiar with these gods:  Odin, the one-eyed AllFather; Frigga, his wife; Thor, the hammer-wielding god of thunder; and Loki, who is yet another Trickster.

And from the Celtic pantheon, I’ve brought in Brighid.  Catholics know her as a saint. But before Christianity came to Ireland, Brighid was the goddess of smiths, poets, and healers.  There is a shrine in Kildare where a perpetual flame is tended in her honor in a twenty-day rotation: women keep the flame lit for nineteen days, and Brighid Herself tends it on the twentieth.  Or so the legend goes.

Part of the fun of writing the Pipe Woman Chronicles was getting all of these different gods and goddesses together and playing them off of one another.  I hope my readers will enjoy their interplay, too.

SYNOPSIS
It’s zero hour…
Naomi has just two weeks to find a new home for Joseph's grandfather. The old Ute shaman is fighting for his life against a mysterious injection of toxin he received at the hands of the Norse Trickster god Loki. If Naomi is to defeat Loki once and for all, she must learn what it is he seeks under the old man's wickiup.
She has just one week before she must mediate between the Earth's pagan gods and goddesses and the Christian God. If her efforts fail, all of humankind will suffer the consequences.
And her baby is due any day.
In this, the fifth and final book of the Pipe Woman Chronicles, Naomi is in a race against the clock to balance the demands of her body, her family, and her friends – and she must do it while the whole world is watching.
AMAZON BUY LINK - http://amzn.to/13GulSX
GOODREADS - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17922277-annealed

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lynne Cantwell has been writing fiction since the second grade, when the kid who sat in front of her showed

her a book he had written, and she thought, "I could do that." The result was Susie and the Talking Doll, a picture book, illustrated by the author, about a girl who owned a doll that not only could talk, but could carry on conversations. The book had dialogue but no paragraph breaks. Today, after a twenty-year career in broadcast journalism and a master's degree in fiction writing from Johns Hopkins University (or perhaps despite the master's degree), Lynne is still writing fantasy. In addition, she is a contributing author at Indies Unlimited and writes a monthly post for The Indie Exchange.

GOODREADS http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/696603.Lynne_Cantwell

FACEBOOK - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lynne-Cantwell/

BLOG - http://hearth-myth.blogspot.com/"

AMAZON - http://www.amazon.com/Lynne-Cantwell/e/B005JTP5NE/

TWITTER - https://twitter.com/LynneCantwell/

Fairy Godmothers, Inc.'s newest employee

Meet the latest hire at Fairy Godmothers, Inc.! (And the dragon I drew at this year's chalk festival...)

Anyone know what her name should be?

My little dragon problem

I have a little dragon problem.

Normally, I'm fairly discreet about it. I no longer doodle dragons all over everything - mostly because the work I do is entirely on the computer now - and my dragon t-shirts are now only a small part of my massive collection of geeky t-shirts. But there's one area where my love of dragons is impossible to ignore - the Magic on the Sidewalk chalk festival, which is held every May in Bountiful (where the newspaper I work for is based). Amazingly talented artists line the street to transform squares of concrete into art, and yet somehow I ended up with a long-standing slot of my own. I enjoy taking part, but the only thing I can reliably draw is dragons.

This is not my first dragon, but it's definitely the first I feel comfortable
showing the public at large.

Normally, I prefer traditional Western dragons to wyverns - I feel
like life must be instinctively harder without hands of some kind. This was my
attempt at bonding to the species. 

Not my best work (the actual dragon is very tiny), but rain gave me less
time to work than usual. I'm afraid I either got a bit lazy or experimental,
which can occasionally amount to the same thing.

I imagine the rest of him is hidden beneath the walkway.

I was out of town in 2012, which means the friendly soul above is my most recent dragon up to this point. I'm currently working on this year's creation, and I'll unveil it in a post tomorrow once I'm finished. 

Guest Blog: Developing New and Interesting Characters

On today's blog we have Andy Washburn, co-author of the new book "Pitch Green." He's got some interesting thoughts on what it takes to bring a new character into the world.

Dissociative Identity Disorder

(Or Developing New and Interesting Characters)

 

By Andy Washburn

(Some personal thoughts)

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is the technical name for what we laymen refer to as a “split personality”.  It is a controversial diagnosis with some experts believing it is not real, or maybe even therapist induced.  (Isn’t Wikipedia wonderful?)  I bring this up, because I sometimes believe I may have a form of DID, though I have never seen a therapist.  (I was going to say, “Where is the fun of having a mental disorder if you get it fixed?” but then I worried that someone with a real mental disorder would be offended, and yes, I think that people with mental disorders are the most likely to be reading my stuff.  Whatever.)

When I’m writing, I sometimes believe that I have multiple personalities within me, all battling to get out, or at least take control of the writing process.  And, most of these personalities, wait, no, all of these personalities are younger than me; healthier than me; and without a doubt, thinner and better looking than me.  The sixteen year old personality is especially keen to take over.  He must not have caught a look of me in the mirror yet.

It is from these disparate and distinct personalities that I form the characters that I write about in my novels.  To some extent or another, everyone I write about, or maybe I should say, everyone I write for is deep down inside my id somewhere. (Damn, I am esoteric!)  So, when I write about different people I am really just writing about some part of myself.  I am the young, good looking, high school football star Cal; and I am also the middle aged, overweight, balding, mean and obnoxious Mr. Samuel. (Both characters from Pitch Green.)

In real life, I am not young or good looking, but neither am I mean or balding.  I’m only a little obnoxious.  But both of these characters are inside of me, and I only need to bring them out and put them in the story to write about them.  I am not writing about people I observe, though I love to observe other people.  I am writing about myself.  No matter how different or unique each character is from the others, I’m there.

Of course, this begs the question: “What about the female characters you write about?”  (My sons will all stop reading this right exactly at this point.)  If I were really cool, and politically correct, I would claim to have female personalities along with the male personalities.  But I am only cool, not politically correct, and no matter how deep you look inside of me, you will not find a woman, or even any woman-type being.  My wife will confirm this.

This does not mean I cannot write for the women I write about.  Women are people, (that sounds so patronizing) and we overlap enough as people that I don’t have a problem writing from a woman’s perspective.  That is, as long as I have women, like my wife and daughters, who read what I write and tell me when I have it wrong.

This means, analogous with the way I write for the guys, when I write for women, I am looking out of their eyes at the world that is being created for them.  So, if I’m not part woman, (and there are a few bullies from my high school days who would claim that I am), the women that I write about are part me.  (I told you I was esoteric.)

The way this works, evidently, is that the guys I write for are all looking out my eyes as I write for them, but as I write for the women, I am the one looking out of their eyes.  Weird, huh?  But, that is the way it works, and for me, it works pretty well.

Whether or not this means I have DID, I don’t know, though it is probably indicative of a need to at least go to therapy.  Yea, well, I’m still not going.  Why mess with all those extra personalities?  I need them when I’m developing new characters.  After all, that’s how I write.

 

Brief Joint Bio of the Brothers Washburn:

We are two of 9 sons (16 children total) who grew up in the Mojave Desert near Death Valley.  Our father was a dentist, who built up a practice in Trona, California, a small mining town.  While we were growing up, he was the only dentist in town.  As the good citizens of Trona mined the minerals of Searles Valley, Dad mined their teeth.

When, in turn, Andy and I went off to college, we left the desert and never looked backed.  We thought we were done with Trona forever, but couldn’t have been more wrong.  For about 35 years, I was a business lawyer working for international commercial finance companies in the mid-west.  For about 25 years, Andy was a trial practice lawyer working in Southern California.  We both have many years of formal writing experience.  While we have kept our law licenses current, we are now having fun writing fiction full time.

After we each moved to Colorado for different reasons, we talked for some time about starting a business together.  We have always been story tellers, first to our siblings, then to our own children, and now to our grandkids.  Scary stories are a family specialty.  A few years ago, I started writing a young adult science fiction series, so when Andy also tried his hand at writing fiction, it didn’t take long for us to come together as The Brothers Washburn on a young adult horror series. The tale is of course set in Trona, California, the perfect setting for a horror series.

The general outline for Pitch Green, the first book in our Dimensions in Death series, came together in November of 2010.  We were attending a writer’s seminar in Manhattan, listening to panel discussions by top literary agents during the day.  One night, as we rode the subway from one end-of-the-line stop across town to the opposite end-of-the-line stop, and then back again, we mapped out the basic elements we would need to expand a favorite childhood scary story into a full-length novel.  Andy wrote the first rough draft, and then, in our typical tag-team effort, I took that draft over to edit and expand the tale.  In the writing of the first book, the ground work was laid for both the sequels and prequels in that series.