I’ll be here, blissfully sitting on the back of a horse.
Don’t desert me! I may have time to work a little on the sequel to Incorporeal.
Monthly Archives: June 2011
Incorporeal…yes…becoming corporeal.
Blurb:
Sara Wise is sick of ghosts. They’ve haunted her since she was a child, destroying her family, endangering her life. When an incorporeal being appears in her shower, she curses him soundly and orders him out, but this ghost is sticky. Not only does he invade her shower, he moves into her home, invading her dreams, sharing her bed. The reluctant Sara finds herself falling in love with a dead man.
Despite Sara’s objections, Natan de Manua isn’t permitted to leave. Protecting the woman is both his penance and his means to redemption. She’s not easy to protect, she fights him nearly every step of the way, except in her bed. Nathan may have come to regain his soul, but instead he risks losing his heart.
Coming soon to a Kindle, Nook, and other e-reader near you!
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,
By Judith Viorst.
This was one of my kids’ favorite bedtime stories when they were little.
Wednesday has been like this, an Awful, Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
The only thing that made it better? This photo. It brought a smile to my face for many reasons. US Airways is so going to pay…This guy gets on one of their flights, but this guy gets kicked off???
Allowed to fly as is…
The University of New Mexico student kicked off for sagging.
Either you have a dress code, and you enforce it equally, or you don’t have a dress code. Which is it?
The Illusion of Immortality.
Like Icarus flying too close to the sun, don’t we all suffer from it at one time or another?
I remember the day my husband realized he was not immortal - and it took him longer than you might imagine. I mean, we already had three kids and a big mortgage. He was out biking with a friend, traveling down a steep grade at a high rate of speed when he hit a sharp curve. Down he went. Fortunately, the bike stayed between his legs and protected him from nothing worse than losing skin from a third of his body. He was damn lucky. But that was also the day he grasped the fact that he is not invulnerable. I could nag all I wanted to, he had to discover the illusion of immortality for himself.
There’s an article in the most recent issue of ESPN The Magazine about this very thing - except the author missed the point of her own article. It’s about Steph Gilmore, an Australian surfer, perhaps the best female surfer in the world, who was attacked by a man wielding a metal bar in the garage of her own apartment building. She was nearly killed. Her physical injuries have healed, but it’s healing the mental and emotional aftermath of the attack that’s tough.
The article addresses PTSD. Yes, it is one of the themes behind Ms. Gilmore’s difficult recovery. But the larger theme is the illusion of immortality. Elite athletes take huge risks. The only way you can take those huge risks is to believe in the illusion of immortality. If you’re worried about dying all the time, you’d never fly off a ski jump or surf down a wave fifty feet high or climb a sheer rock wall.
Steph Gilmore seems to realize this, as she says in the last paragraph: “I’m human? I don’t want to be human,” she says. “I want to be a superhero.”
Should I somehow connect this story to writing? Maybe. We often create characters who are superheroes. Sometimes, like Icarus, they fly too close to the sun and burn their wings.
What’s luck got to do with it…
A lot, I think.
I’ve been reading lately about success and failure. The Sunday New York Times had a three page article on Amanda Hocking, while on Saturday Anny Cook wrote a very touching post entitled The Rush all about the unanticipated perils of today’s publishing world. She should know - I consider Anny a voice of wisdom and experience when it comes to indie publishing. She never pulls her punches and she’s been in the paranormal romance world a whole lot longer than me.
I wonder why some books sell and others don’t. If I said otherwise, I’d be lying. Isn’t that the question we all ask ourselves? What makes a book sell? Is it hard work? Is it promo, paid advertising, platform building? Is it writing a damn good book? I’ve read some damn good books that don’t sell.
Or is it none of the above? Yesterday a friend told me luck may be a big component in every success. I agree. Sometimes it’s writing the right story at the right time for the right audience, or coming up with the right concept at the right time for the right audience. There’s truth in the old adage about being in the right place at the right time.
The concept of luck affecting an outcome looms large in Ringworld, by Larry Niven. The character, Teela Brown, is recruited by Puppeteer Nessus, for the voyage to Ringworld. Her sole qualification is that she’s a sixth generation human bred for luck. The notion is that luck is a genetic trait that can be selectively bred into humans. She’s included among the crew in the hopes that her ‘luck’ will bring the mission success.
Unfortunately I can’t claim to have been bred for luck. Wait a minute…let me think…considering the calamities my ancestors managed to avoid over the centuries, I may be mistaken.
In any case…what do you think?