Review: The Silent Companions

It's not often that I run across a book that irritates the hell out of me, but The Silent Companions was one of them. I bought the book because it was part of a list of top horror novels, so I figured it was a safe bet. But tastes vary, and this one didn't melt the butter for me.

In short, The Silent Companions is a Gothic/Historical Horror about a house haunted by evil dwelling inside dummy boards. What are dummy boards? These are dummy boards: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/discover/history/art-collections/exploring-the-history-of-dummy-boards

The concept itself is brilliant. Dummy boards are creepy, and who in their right mind would want them hanging out in their house?

In addition to this fascinating concept, what else did the novel get right? The ending. Endings of far too many stories disappoint me for a variety of reasons. This one stuck with its Gothic Horrorness to the end and didn't pull any "happily ever after" or "there's hope for the future" crap.

MINOR SPOILER ALERT: evil wins, yay!

Now for the reasons this book drove me nuts.

This story had soooo much potential. The opening couple of chapters had me hooked. A woman in an 1860s asylum who has suppressed the horrors she's been through and a doctor who must help her remember to save her from the gallows. Did she commit the crimes she's accused of or not? Then a dive into the past to learn what happened. A rundown estate, a village of people who fear said estate because of its "witch," creepy painted cutouts of people moving around on their own, a 1630s dairy full of secrets. What's not to love here?

But I was surprised to find the book was so skinny when I pulled it out of the box. Hmm, must be tight writing, I thought. And I love novellas, no problem. But after those opening chapters, I started realizing the issue. Actually, 4 main issues that had me gritting my teeth:

1. TELLING. Soooo much telling. That's why the book is shorter than it probably should be.

About a quarter of the way through I started circling all the uses of "felt/feel." In fact, there are lists of emotions that the POV character was "feeling" from one moment to the next. This is one of my major pet peeves. Mainly because we're instructed OVER AND OVER not to do this, to find ways to SHOW how a character feels, with minimal TELLING of emotion words. How did this author get away with this? Who the hell is her editor that she/he didn't say, "Hey, this is annoying. You can dig deeper than this."

Because of this main issue, when the shit starts hitting the fan and the "companions" start showing up en masse, I started ROLLING MY EYES. Never what a writer wants their reader to do, right? (And this book is published by PENGUIN, who I expected to have elite standards and tastes, for the love of ARGH!)

Example, from page 124:

Sarah: "I don't mind telling you, it gave me the collywobbles."

Elsie: "I must admit, I felt a little strange myself." (my margin note: that's the best she can come up with?) She looked down. Strange was an understatement. Unravelled, opened up, exposed: they were more accurate words. (my margin note: please use them, author) Fear pushed so much out of a person...

(I got the impression that the author is feeling out this scene as she writes it, and is nailing down what the character Elsie feels as she goes along, and leaves that meandering in situ, rather than editing it later for stronger wording.)

I admit, there was ONE scary chapter where the POV character is running down a dark corridor with these dummy boards pursuing behind her, but writing that out causes me to laugh out loud. Just imagine it: People painted on wooden cutouts, so lifelike they are mistaken for real people until they're seen up close. "Oh, it's a painting!" Creepy and cool and unique, right? But then imagine these the things scraping along the floor, joggling side to side while chasing a human with legs--and somehow catching up with her. I can totally see how this idea might be inspired by a nightmare that woke the author up in a heart-pounding cold sweat. But it doesn't translate too believably into fiction.

(So I'm tempted to conclude, as Elsie's doctor did, that these were figments of her imagination from the beginning.)

2. modern language

The decades we're dealing with here are the 1860s and the 1630s. The diary entries (that explain the origin of the family curse) from the years before the English Civil War were especially annoying. Anne (the diarist) woulda been speaking/writing almost like Shakespeare. Certainly more like the characters in Dafoe's novels. As a lit major, my studies in these eras are so thorough--I know what to expect! But the diary entries are written in modern style with a few words thrown in like "Fie!" "Perchance" and "aye" thrown in to remind us we're not in modern times. (at least Purcell didn't go so far as to use "okay" throughout the book *coughLydiaKangcough*).

This issue leads to everyone sounding the same. Should two characters living centuries apart write their stories with the same writing style/voice? Absolutely not. Elsie and Anne sound identical. Seriously? This lack of authenticity causes my suspension of disbelief to wither. I get it that writing in that antiquated style would be so difficult, so let's not make the attempt and slow down the presses, okay? Time is money.

Every once in a while the text would include a teeny-tiny historical factoid to back up what was going on, and I'd be like "Oh, look, the author did a some research." Seriously, I thought that at one point. (So unlike Fingersmith where the details are so rich and entwined with the whole that you are THERE with the characters, you believe absolutely that you are in the 1800s.)

3. floating body parts

"Her eyes flew about..." p. 263

"Her eyes shot back down the staircase." p. 229

When read in the frenzy of the action, things like this can be overlooked, but separated out and read on their own, they become ridiculous. This is why a diligent editor will point out cases of floating body parts. The one I come across most frequently is "his head twisted around" or "her head swiveled." Why not just "looked" instead of reminding us of that scene in The Exorcist? Honestly, I'm relieved Purcell didn't include this particular ickiness along with the flying eyes.

I think this happens when an author is searching for an interesting way to say something ordinary and probably to avoid starting yet another sentence with "She" as in "She looked over her shoulder" and "She searched the room."

4. withholding

I get the repressed memory thing, but when a POV character is repressing memories and ALSO alludes to certain details she knows happened during that event but the detail is so disjointed that I'm left saying, "What does that even mean?" until the BIG REVEAL, there's withholding so that there can BE a big reveal, and it's contrived and irritating as hell. (No spoilers here though, because that would ruin THE BIG REVEAL.)

For the love of all words holy, just tell me! So I can share the character's agony and understand the stakes underlying the secret. When a reader can't share in the characters' stakes, and in the feelings they're obviously feeling (because we're told they are), the reader may start doing that eye-roll thing. 

MY CONCLUSION: this novel HAD to have been written in a rush, without time to triple-check the prose and catch the crutches lazy/rushed writing employs. And then Purcell's well paid Penguin editors didn't catch this stuff and request corrections. Or maybe they did and Purcell declined. Whatever. 

Point is, I feel frustrated, so I feel the need to skip Purcell's other works in future. That will leave me feeling quite satisfied.

Still, in the words of LeVar Burton, "Don't take my word for it." Here are the purchase links: GOODREADS

Review: A Head Full of Ghosts

 I just finished A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay (2015).

I'm used to reading Horror short stories, so reading a full-length horror novel feels like a step forward (or downward into the dark). My first impression is that A Head Full of Ghosts is "a comfortable horror story." Given the title, I expected ghost possession, in the tradition of A Turn of the Screw. But this is a modern cousin of The Exorcist.

And after having survived watching that film and reading that book (as therapy after watching the film), it's hard to scare me with demon possession stories. That's why this was a "comfortable" read. It was packed with enough familiar things that I wasn't pissing my pants every five minutes or having nightmares. In other words, it didn't offer much new in the way of possession stories. Comfortably classic. It even pokes fun of the whole concept of possession literature in the form of "blog posts" that break down the possession genre and the reports of this story's particular possession in modern terms, which, honestly, give much needed breathing space between the violent, disturbing moments of the possession itself, while drawing out the tension and providing shocking foreshadowing.

The other breakaway from The Exorcist was the ending. In a priceless article that follows up the novel (in which the author explains what horror is or ought to be, in his opinion), he poses the question "what happens to these people after the event? how do they get on with life after surviving such horrible things?" (paraphrased) And that's how this story ends, with more horror of a different kind. No spoilers though.

The characters were perfectly believable and realistic in their reactions and behaviors, as were the explanations/hints as to why Plotpoint XYZ was happening, which cast just enough doubt on the situation to keep the reader wondering: Is this real? Is she lying? Plus, the flow and structure of the novel made for an effortless read. There's no belaboring anything. And I couldn't put it down. So I finished the novel in about 4 days, which is hugely odd for me, as it generally takes me a couple of weeks to sit through a novel.

Given Tremblay's answers to the paraphrased questions above, I'll be seeking out more of his work in the future.

For more, visit the Goodreads page and links for A Head Full of Ghosts.

End of the Year Sale: "A Nocturne In Red"

Hey, hey!

The Smashwords End of the Year Sale begins today and runs through January 1. 

Now is your best chance to snatch up my novella, "A Nocturne In Red" for 75% off! That means this quick read (normally priced at $4.99) is now only $1.24 for the next two weeks. Find the download button at this link:  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1480370  

Is this novella for you? Grab it and give it a go.

Blurb:

Sanjen Laurelius, a lute-wielding bard, is a rising star.

He's also wanted by the emperor.

When he calls upon his special brand of song-magic to fight off a rampaging harpy, he finds himself the object of unwanted attention: a powerful officer in the emperor's service hires Sanjen to find the cure for a curse that has transformed a favored concubine into a bloodthirsty monster. But Sanjen's past is catching up with him. Can he find a way to save the victim of the curse before his employer discovers his true identity—and returns him to the emperor in chains?

End of 2023 BOOK Sales

Home for the holidays? Need a new something to read while basking in the warmth of a crackling fire? Something short that won't bog you down once the downtime is over? Novellas are the way to go. And it just so happens, I have one for fans of the fantasy genre.

I’m excited to announce my novella, "A NOCTURNE IN RED," will be promoted on Smashwords as part of their 2023 End of Year Sale starting on December 15! Be sure to check back for more updates and links about the promotion and support your favorite storyteller(s)!

What's better than books on sale? Nothing!

Look for this cover:

Until then, "NOCTURNE" is available at AMAZON and these EBOOK DISTRIBUTORS.

Thanksgiving

Getting ready to stuff myself and regret my life choices, but it will be so worth it. I am grateful for my family and friends. And taste buds. Let us not take the humble taste bud for granted.

Favorite dish to savor:  candied sweet potatoes

Favorite Thanksgiving activity:  napping to football

Sanjen Performs Everywhere

It's time to move on from Kindle exclusivity. I weighed republishing my stuff through IngramSpark or Draft2Digital, and decided to go with D2D. At least, with my darling guinea pig novella, "A Nocturne In Red." (The process was so simple that I'll likely do the same with all the others a little at a time.)

As of this week, Sanjen's first adventure is available, not just at Amazon, but everywhere D2D distributes books. I cannot express how excited I was to be able to download my book from Apple Books. Yes, I was my own first sale there. 😋

So now my beloved messed-up bard is "booked" at Apple, Kobo, and Scribd, and will soon perform at Barnes & Noble and all other venues too. If you want to follow his rising career and fall under the spell of his magical music, this is the link to all his current bookings:  https://books2read.com/u/3y6r0V

Crossing fingers that greater exposure widens his success with fans.

Here's the cover to look for:

Blurb:

Sanjen Laurelius, a lute-wielding bard, is a rising star.

He's also wanted by the emperor.

When he calls upon his special brand of song-magic to fight off a rampaging harpy, he finds himself the object of unwanted attention: a powerful officer in the emperor's service hires Sanjen to find the cure for a curse that has transformed a favored concubine into a bloodthirsty monster. But Sanjen's past is catching up with him. Can he find a way to save the victim of the curse before his employer discovers his true identity—and returns him to the emperor in chains?

Genre: somewhere between dark and epic fantasy

Length: novella (a quick weekend read)

Content warnings: drug use, gore, language, allusions to sexual content

I'm A Proofreader at Fiverr

My proofreading Gig has been approved at Fiverr. I'm so excited to toss my net over somebody's manuscript or website and snag those pesky typos and grammatical slips. I just need somebody to take a chance on my skills and click that Order button.

The link to my Gig can be found AT THIS LOVELY LINK.

Or THIS LINK. Both should lead to the same place.

So what is this Gig all about? I'll just quote the Gig description:

My job = final polishing by correcting the following: 

• spelling 
• grammar 
• punctuation 
• typos 
• floating words 
• omitted words 
• word usage 
• format inconsistencies 
• broken links 

What this Gig is NOT about: 

• changing your writing style, voice, or message 
• editing for clarity, structural, or developmental issues (that's a whole other kettle of fish) 
• working with early, unedited drafts 
• beta reading for plot arc, character arc, etc. 

Genres I love to tackle: 

• fantasy, sci-fi, horror and all related subgenres 
• historical 
• literary
• mystery/thriller
• middle-grade
• nonfiction: including memoir, blog posts, articles, essays, website content 

Genres better suited for someone else: 

• romance 
• erotica 
• religion 
• hardcore military fiction 

My rate: $5 per 1000 words of any total length, be it 500 words or 150,000. 

Delivery times: 

• up to 5000 words = 5 days 
• up to 25,000 words = 14 days 
• up to 100,000 words = 30 days 
• over 100,000 words = 45 days

______________

Once I get a few jobs under my belt, I'll be raising those prices a bit, so whoever comes along first will get the better deal.

For this Gig to work, I can ONLY be contacted about this job at the above links. Any attempt to solicit a job here on my blog or other social media outlets will be refused and the link sent to you anyway, so just follow the link.

Meme of the Day: Childlike Wonder

 

One of the most important things we carry with us (if we're lucky) and one of the first things I fear we lose is the ability to view the universe and the people in it with a child's sense of wonder.

Decades ago, I made the conscious decision to hold onto this quality, and it takes conscious effort to put it into practice, because it forces me to step out of my concerns for tomorrow and regrets of the past and linger in the moment.

It's in the little nature things: the veins in a leaf, the sparkle of sun on snow, the texture of water, the glide of a cloud. And in the silly things: the burn of mint toothpaste, the galaxy swirl of foam in my espresso, the way my cats' eyes "blow out" when they stalk a string, sledding with kids.

And it's primary expressions are gasps, sighs, laughter of delight, and the question "Why?"

Hold onto it. If it's slumbering or dormant, reawaken it. Because life is as dull as cardboard without it.

I'm Reading: Murder & Mayhem

Seems I'm reading several things at once, because, I mean, who's suffering from overstimulation these days? Anyway...

Reading # 1:

I feel scarred. Scarred, not scared. I just finished reading the short story "Shards" by Ian Rogers, which is included in Ellen Datlow's anthology Best Horror of the Year, Volume 14. I haven't been too impressed with Volume 14's offerings (I liked Volume 13 better), even though I've passed the 50% mark of the ebook. And then today I reached "Shards." Holy shit. I'm sick and disturbed and deliciously satisfied by it. 

I'd even argue that it's one of the best horror stories I've read to date. Even the ending did not disappoint, which I can rarely say about stories in this genre. "Shards" passed all my pet-peeve checks with flying colors.

The quick and easy summary: Five fast friends vacation in a remote cabin (classic) and discover a gramophone in the basement, then all hell breaks loose. 

Sounds simple, maybe even cliched, but it blew my socks off. And I'm still reeling with a queasy feeling in my gut and a creeped-out swooping sensation in my brain.

Reading #2:

Cain's Jawbone. Ever heard of it?

My nephew ran across it recently and bought me a copy (sweetest guy ever). I had heard the title in some remote past, but had no idea what it was nor what I was getting myself into. The 100-page "novel" is actually a whodunit puzzle: "the world's most fiendishly difficult literary puzzle," says the book's tagline. Since its publication in 1934, only 3 people have been able to solve it.

The first problem is that the mystery was published out of order. Literally like the author Torquemada had tossed all 100 of his neatly typed pages in the air a few times then gathered them up at random and handed them into the publisher as-is. The margins of the pages have that little "scissors" symbol inviting the reader to cut out all the pages and arrange them in the proper order -- if they can.

The second problem is that the different characters all tell their part in first person, so you're not sure whose point of view you're reading until you read enough to start putting clues together.

The third problem is that the characters are hardly ever named. You run across first names, nicknames, occasionally a whole name (used a single time), or career references ("the minerologist" for example), and it's up to the reader to figure out who is who -- and to separate the actual characters from random names tossed in to confuse things.

All that in addition to having to solve who killed whom.

At first, I thought it sacrilege to cut out a book's pages, but now, having acquainted myself with the puzzle on a first read-through, I'm eager to dig out my scissors and get chopping. Though, even if I figure out the pages' proper order, I doubt I'd be able to wade through all the obscure 1930s references, red herrings, and vague naming scheme to solve the murders.

I may spend the rest of my life puzzling it out…

Thanks, beloved nephew.

June Reflection

June has been a crazy-busy month with several fun things worth remembering.

* To kick off, my niece and I embarked on a LOTR marathon. She had never seen the movies before, so it was a highlight of my life to get to be the first to watch them with her (she's not the apple of my eye or anything). By the time the day arrived, I had a spread of delectable foods that any Hobbit would drool over. It's a long journey to Mordor and back, after all, and we definitely did not starve.

* FINALLY, I got to take my camper (affectionately called Little Blue) to an actual camper spot and spend the weekend in it in nature. Bought the adorable R-pod 180 last August and every attempt so far had fallen through. At last! And did we get put through the hoops. My poor husband had to back the thing into THE WORST spot ever: a steep incline with several curves in it and washed-out drop-offs on both sides. WTH. Despite his anxiety about it, he rocked it. Then we learned that the water spigot was 85 feet away (WTH), and we had 25 feet of hose. So as soon as we get parked, we had to drive 20 mins into the nearest Walmart for gobs more hose. The next morning, a storm blew in with winds that, thankfully, had decreased from 65 mph to 45, and Little Blue did great.

The glorious things: taking my second home with me like a crab wearing a shell, wearing a bathing suit in the rain, a pair of Canada geese with four goslings, nosy crows, the sound of waves at night, fishing with my nephews and catching a 20 pound catfish (WTH). 

Still to come! 

* My 23rd wedding anniversary on the 24th, for which my husband and I are driving to Colorado to attend the Pike's Peak Hill Climb. We've never attended this race, and to claim a good space to watch, we have to be climbing up that mountain at 2:30 IN THE MORNING! This ought to be a crazy adventure.

* I ought to finish the first draft of my historical WIP--which will earn me a bottle of champagne. It's a bloody mess, and I can't wait to dive into edits.

Pics from the camping trip:

This pic doesn't even capture the horrendousness of the drive hubby had to back down.

Gorgeous sunset view from our camping spot.

The storm's gust front pushing in at 6:30 am.

Yeah...

Review: Remarkable Creatures

 

Fossils are a huge attraction for me, so Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures was a given for me to read. I even photographed the book with an ammonite impression my friend and I discovered in Colorado, and a conglomerate of crinoids I found on a lakeside. 

I was so excited to read about these two historical women, Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, who pioneered the science and discovery of fossils. The novel did not disappoint. It's a quiet story without the huge dramatic dramas we expect from fiction. The tension is mostly internal as these two women take up scientific pursuits in the early 1800s when science was exclusively male. Both spinsters, they also struggle internally with feelings of self-value and significance and must unearth their own inner strength.

The historical aspect is so convincing that I forget I'm not stepping into this time as my current reality. Chevalier is clearly at home with the historical genre b/c the narrative feels so authentic and natural without being heavy-handed with factoids and explanations of antiquated practices in an attempt to make it feel authentic while achieving the opposite. I have a lot to learn from this author.

What's tragic to me is that, except for the few people in the field and certainly the people of Lyme Regis where Philpot and Anning lived, the huge contribution these two women made in the development of paleontology is still largely unsung. Their names were successfully buried from most of us by the male-ruled scientific community. This novel manages to bring them out of the shadows and display for the world the beauty and the legacy these women left behind. 

For that alone, Remarkable Creatures is worth reading. Then, on top of that, we get the gorgeous prose and wise insights we love in well-told fiction. So it's a double win.

Bedlam & Baths

Ah, the neverending adventure of the historical writer. I dived down the rabbit hole recently during my research, and a dark one it was too. Mental illness is a theme that features strongly in my current WIP, and it's fair to say that treatment for mental illness for much of human history has been horrifying. Because my WIP takes place in the 1870s, I had to dive into the practices of the day.

There's a reason why "Bedlam" has become a universal term in the English language. Chains, starvation, and squalor are just the highlights. In the current draft I'm slogging through, one of my characters experiences the "water cure." Maybe it's just me and my aversion to water (yeah, sure), but how such a practice was supposed to "shake lunatics out of their insanity" is beyond me.

A sketch of Bethlehem Royal Hospital, or Bedlam

On a lighter note, a contest at LegendFire got me writing a bit of flash fiction, and a major plot point brought those little wooden nesting dolls to mind. The perfect metaphor! But what the heck are those things called? "Russian nesting dolls" is okay, but I wanted the actual name. Turns out they're Matryoshka. I love feel smarter than I was yesterday.

Mucha Carah

I'm having a helluva lot of fun with MidJourney these days, despite all the grumblings against it. It's just too much fun to see my written words bloom into images, to see my characters and settings interpreted in dozens of different ways. 

This is MJ's take on Carah, the heroine of books 3, 4, and 5 of the Falcons Saga -- if artists Alphonse Mucha and Julie Bell collaborated. The first was done with MJ's version 4, the last two are version 5. Of course, v4 can't get the hands right. I've had very little success with birds' wings either. Hands and wings, as common as they must be in source imagery, are a mystery to this ai. I do find it interesting, however, that despite my prompt not once including the word "book," the ai insisted that a sorceress would be holding a book. Every single image, except the last one, featured a book.

https://www.courtellyn.com/2019/05/06/sons-of-the-falcon/

Summit In Sight

Image from Unsplash

So I haven't detailed much progress on Blackbird in a long time, mainly because writing this draft has felt like climbing an interminable mountain. Is it ever going to end???

Even my husband and my mother, who are my biggest supporters, have been asking, "Are you ever going to finish it?" To which I invariably give them a look that is the non-finger version of flipping them the bird. If I were a snarkier sort, I might invite them to kindly sit in my chair for a few days and finish the damn thing themselves. But I'm not. So I wrote on.

On a good day, I don't really love writing a rough draft. And as far as Blackbird goes, the writing has been slow and difficult. Probably because the historical genre is so new to me and demands a certain level of accuracy and knowledge that can't be invented as with fantasy. It has been ... uncomfortable ... like squeezing into a spandex suit.

And my greatest fear for this story is that it will bulge in all the wrong places.

BUT! After slogging on step by step, scene by scene, the end of the climb is within sight. I hope to conclude Draft 1 by the end of June. Then I can begin the part of the process that excites me. Cutting the fat, bulging up the scrawny bits, and otherwise administering the necessary plastic surgery that turns this ugly child into a supermodel.

Well, I can dream, can't I?

Is the Nile REALLY 1000 Miles Long?

 I have no idea. But Amelia Edwards claimed it was nearly that in her travelogue A Thousand Miles Up the Nile. Published in the 1870s, this firsthand account of traveling the Nile by dahabiyah tops the list of irreplaceable research material that I'm devouring while writing my historical novel. 

I finally thought to add it to my Goodreads bookshelf. The review I posted there is as follows: 

A Thousand Miles Up the Nile by Amelia B. Edwards
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Along with Lady Duff-Gordon's published letters, A Thousand Miles Up the Nile has my go-to source for setting details (and shocking imperialist attitudes) when researching for my historical novel, which takes place two years before this book was published. My copy is dogeared, marked up, highlighted, and tagged with stickies. And when I traveled the Nile myself in 2021, Edwards' descriptions kept whirling through my head: in the rural parts of Egypt, much remains the same, and it was a trip back in time. To see the same things she described in the 1870s was breathtaking. I can't imagine what I would have done without this priceless firsthand account.

Even if I hadn't needed the book for research, Edwards' prose is magnetic, her insights both timeless and marked by her era, a fascinating read.

View all my reviews

Review: Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield

 A very brief review. Just a quick reaction, really, that I posted at Goodreads. As follows:

Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book. Several weeks have gone by since I finished it, but I cannot stop thinking about it. The rooks are haunting me -- in a good way. The story is an epic character study of a deeply flawed man, interwoven with mythology (no spoilers). The prose is poetic, the wisdom profound and moving. The only complaint I had was that, in the first half of the book, there is little setting detail. I'm a sucker for immersive settings, and this narration was slim in that regard, until the last half. The longer I read, however, I realized that had Setterfield included richer setting details throughout the novel, the thing would've been needlessly long. The two settings that matter, the mill and the funerary goods emporium, are painted in thorough detail. And so everything fall into place and the author's choices make sense.

(view spoiler)[The biggest question that haunts the reader throughout is whether the rooks are sabotaging Bellman's life, or has William Bellman sabotaged it himself? The reveal at the end is heartbreaking and worth sticking around for. (hide spoiler)]

This is a story I will read again in a few years. 

View all my reviews

Blackout Poetry

Blackout poetry is not poetry you write when the power goes out. I guess you could, BUT! Blackout poetry is the surprising results you get when you take a piece of text from elsewhere, carefully select a few of the words on the page, and black out everything else, leaving a startling new message. In honor of National Poetry Month, I took a random page from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (which is in the public domain) and ran it through the Blackout Poetry Maker, here: BLACKOUT POETRY MAKER 

  

 If I were to reformat these words, I might make them look like this: 

night, my retreat

of anguish-- 

wild, broken 

objects ranging 

through cold stars 

and bare trees-- 

voice 

of universal stillness

Shiny New Editions

Slowly but surely, I'm re-releasing several of my publications with new covers and, in some cases, revised text.

I decided to start at the beginning. Way back in 2011, I published my story "Fire Eater" on Amazon as a sort of test run to learn the formatting ropes before I went through the grueling process of preparing a novel series for publication.

So today, I completed the cover art and interior edits (very minor) for this dark fantasy novelette, in the hopes that snappier art will entice more readers to download the story. It received positive reviews, of which I am very proud.

So, just as a record, and an example of how critical cover art is to attracting readers, I'm going to share the old cover and the new. The comparison is laughable.

Old Cover. BLECH!

 

New Cover. YAY! (Love that 3D affect in the pupil!)

Next up, I'll slap new digs on Sanjen's story, the novella A Nocturne in Red. Later in the year, I hope to do the same for the entire Falcons Saga, with hefty revisions for Book 1.

Download "Fire Eater" for Kindle HERE.

National Poetry Month: The Clerihew

I have learned something new about poetry, which isn't hard because poetry is such a huge, broad, varied topic. New things keep falling out between the lines, and shimmer, bedazzling.

The Clerihew (who knew?) is "a whimsical, four-line biographical poem of a type invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. The first line is the name of the poem's subject, usually a famous person, and the remainder puts the subject in an absurd light or reveals something unknown or spurious about the subject. The rhyme scheme is AABB, and the rhymes are often forced." (Wikipedia)

So I gave this form a go in honor of National Poetry Month, and this is the cute thing I came up with:

Not earth-shattering poetry, but fun. The rhyme scheme is ABBA, too, but it's lucky it ended up rhyming at all, given my lack of a knack for it (nailed that internal rhyme!). But most importantly, I learned something, which is always a win. I do admit, however, I have a crush on that silly ol' bear.

Microfiction: One Last Toast

Microfiction used to scare me to death. How can someone encapsulate and entire story in so few words??? But giving it a try, I learned how many words are NOT needed to convey an idea.

This miniature sci-fi piece was written for LegendFire's 100 Weekly Contest. 100 words, no more, no less. Prompt words: light, stable, bar. First published in LF's Compendium, 2021. 

(Click image to enlarge and read more easily.)