y1 by Sherrie Cronin

Part 1: Fire Dancing for Fun and Profit

Chapter 3. June 2009

Zane Zeitman had spent nine months pretty well establishing to his own satisfaction that being a lab technician sucked. At least it did here at Penthes Pharmaceuticals, a downtown Chicago-based mid-sized corporation known for its philosophy of stiff internal competition and high rewards for the golden few capable of rising above the company's other eight-hundred or so employed peons. What was worse was that Zane had understood the situation perfectly well when he took the job. So as he lurched along, holding on tightly to a pole he shared with four other commuters on the overly full El train, he figured he had only himself to blame.

Zane's slightly slender, five-eleven frame seemed to have become shorter and rounder over the last nine months of work, and his skin was pastier. His non-descript medium ash-brown hair was disarrayed as usual and the khakis he wore, one of three pairs of acceptable work pants that he now owned, had permanent coffee stains from the long hours of trying to stay awake in the lab.

Dr. Peter Hulson Sr., Penthes’ still highly involved seventy-three-year-old founder, was exceedingly proud of being a self-made multimillionaire. He catapulted in the 1970s from the middle class into significant wealth and power on the sole basis of his intellect, drive, and hard work. Or at least that is how Dr. Hulson told the story when interviewed and when addressing his employees. Zane supposed that the real story behind the myth was a bit more complicated, as real stories tended to be, but he was willing to give the old man his due as being brilliant in the field of modern drugs relating to mental health. And he fully acknowledged Dr. Hulson was entitled to shape whatever sort of corporate culture he wished in his own company.

But when one was basically on the low end of the hired help, not deemed qualified to make decisions or contribute in any fashion other than by doing exactly what one was told, Zane was discovering that life in the jungle was pretty miserable. Do well, and the competitive geniuses above you in the hierarchy just want more. They are trying to get theirs. Do poorly and you've caused them to stumble, a sin which will not soon be forgiven.

As a particularly large woman bumped against him when the train screeched to one more stop, Zane shook his head, trying to reconstruct how he had gotten himself into such a miserable position. Graduating a year ago with his shiny bachelor's degree in neuroscience from one of the nation's most prestigious universities, he and his friends had celebrated mightily with drunken relief. And when he got his diploma, his parents had literally cried with pride. Their genius son. Their firstborn.

It turned out that it was nice someone had thought he was so very special, because the job market the summer of 2009 was considerably less impressed. As his friends had scattered off into graduate schools, jobs, volunteer work and under-employment, Zane became increasingly aware that he himself had landed in a field in which a Ph.D. was a minimum requirement for responsibility and advancement. And though the workings of the human mind and how it interfaced with the body absolutely still fascinated him, the prospect of five or six years of, say, pulverizing rat brains in a blender and examining the results, did not enthuse him. He had hoped that a few years break in the working world would help.

But the working world did not have so much to offer. If he wanted to get away from academia, which he did, then he was either going to end up tending to others’ lab experiments in the private sector, or he was going to end up in something like sales or marketing in a field related to pharmaceuticals. Both sounded distasteful. But so did waiting tables.

Worse yet, entry-level jobs for those in his situation at bigger firms with reputations for caring reasonably well for their employees seemed to have gotten filled before he ever got his application in the door. Zane thought it was fairly apparent that it would have been helpful to have had an uncle or old family friend at one of these places, looking out for a suitable spot for him well before graduation. That was just the way of the world.

But after a few discouraging months of job searching, first from his campus apartment and then from back home in Texas when his money ran out, Penthes had interrupted his growing desperation with a request for a phone interview. Zane knew he was not particularly outgoing on the phone, but he had tried his very best with this one as he was frankly running out of options. And something must have impressed these folks enough, because they offered him a position in Chicago. Maybe, he thought in retrospect, they were impressed by his desperation.

There was no moving allowance offered, but yeah, his parents would help him get there. And it wasn't so much a job as it was a sort of poorly paid contract for an eighteen-month probationary period. Nine months as a lab assistant, then the same as an assistant in sales and marketing. This was unusual, but the company said that they wanted him to experience both entry-level avenues, to see what he was best at. Frankly he agreed it would be good for him to try both. Then, the contract specified that they would talk about his future.

Zane figured that the nine months in the lab would be relatively easy, mildly enjoyable, and, if he was lucky, even a bit informative. Instead, it had been hell. Driven young researchers, fighting each other to impress every boss between themselves and Dr. Hulson himself, were more than willing to use and abuse Zane with workdays that went late into the night, and weekends that almost always required his time as well. Appreciation was nil, and he figured out quickly that there was no way for him to get an "A." He was tense most of the time.

Except for Britta, a fellow graduate of his who had also landed a job in Chicago, and her housemates who had taken him in, he had no real friends in town and no time to make any. Life had gone from hard work and fun to just plain hard work. Zane was puzzled by how thoroughly this had happened. He could not believe that his life, actually anyone's life, was meant to be little more than a series of long tedious days drinking bad coffee in windowless rooms, punctuated by sleep, food, a little TV and then more of the same, with the occasional drunken partying on weekends to provide the rare moment of joy. That was just crazy.

As his mandated stint in sales and marketing approached, he realized that he had gone from dreading it, to looking forward to it. He had no illusions about being good in a field which required that he act friendly when he didn't feel like it and that he exaggerate the good points of products he did not necessarily believe in. Zane had never liked lying. But any change right now just had to be a good thing.

To make matters worse, vacation time during this probationary period was ridiculously limited. He had barely managed to get a day off to go back to Texas for a long weekend before he began his new assignment. What he really would have liked was several days in Cancun, but neither the money nor the time was there for that. So Zane figured he could settle for just some of his dad's home cooking and his mom's sympathy. Way better than nothing. And the really good news was that he left for Texas tomorrow.

His mom looked baffled when she met him at the airport, and it took Zane awhile to figure out that it was his physical appearance. Oh right. Damn.

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Genre – Speculative Fiction

Rating – PG13 (occasional crude language & main character is gay)

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Living the Life You Love by Paula Renaye

CHAPTER 1

WHAT ARE YOU
WILLING TO DO?

If you value it, you’ll make time for it.
If it’s important to you, you’ll make it happen.

What are you willing to do to live the life you love? What are you willing to do to get what you really want?

These seem like simple questions, don’t they? The answers may seem simple too, and you may be thinking, “I’ll do whatever it takes to get what I want,” or “I’ll do anything, absolutely anything, to fix my problem. “Well, these are nice thoughts, but they aren’t true. I know for an absolute fact that you won’t do “anything.” I won’t.

If my goal is to have more money, I’m not willing to rob a bank to get it. Are you? That’s an extreme example, but it does highlight the fact that things may not be as clear-cut as you think.

So, let’s try it again with a bit of a twist. Are you willing to change yourselfin order to get what you want and live a life you love?

Talk about getting to the hard stuff right out of the gate! Seriously, think about it. Are you willing to let go of some of your thoughts, beliefs and behaviors? Are you willing to consider that something you thought of as “just the way it is” may not be? Are you willing to change critical aspects of your life to get what you say you want? How much of the way things are right now—the way you are right now—are you really willing to change?

I can hear you already: “Of course I’m willing to change. I know I need to change some things or I wouldn’t be reading this!”

Not so fast.

How about where you live? Are you willing to move? Quit your job? Go back to school? End a relationship? We all think we’re willing to do anything—absolutely anything—to make things different in our lives in order to accomplish a goal we say we want or to stop some pain that has us on our knees. But is it really true?

Let’s try a different question: What in your life are you not willing to change? Your job? Where you live? How often you talk to your mother? What you eat? Who you hang out with? Whether you have pets? What you do in your spare time? Who you live with?

Before you can realistically expect your dreams to come true, you have to figure out why they haven’t already. Recognizing what you’re not willing to do is a great first step.

For example, if you have a full-time job and watch television four hours every night, and you’re not willing to quit working or stop watching television, then it’s going to be difficult for you to meet a variety of goals. You can’t go back to school unless you take weekend classes. You can’t work out every other day unless you park an exercise machine in front of the television.

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Genre – Personal Development / Self-Help / Motivational

Rating –G

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Time and Space by Shireen Jeejeebhoy

Chapter 1
THE SNATCH

FORTY. Tomorrow, I will be forty. That number echoes in my footsteps as I walk the familiar beat to work.

Time.

That’s my name, and … where did the time go? When did I get to forty? What does it mean?

Beat, beat, beat: my footsteps rap along the sidewalk in time to the music pumping into my ears from my iPod touch. My footsteps distract me. But only for a moment. I think: at my age, my mother still had not had me. That’s why my mother and father had called me “Time.”

“It was about time your mother got pregnant,” my father would say often during post-Sunday-dinner coffee, as he leaned back in his worn armchair lighting his pipe.

“And it was about time you got out. You sat in there and sat in there and would not come out,” my mother would retort to me.

“So we called you ‘Time’,” Father would say. Then he would end the story with: “Seemed logical.”

“Seemed appropriate,” Mother would counter as Father finally managed to pull a draw from his pipe and emit three puffs.

What a horrid name, I think, as I turn the corner onto Queen. Today, it’s made me obsessed with time and with turning forty. I see a people-stuffed streetcar trundle by, and I sigh. It’s been awhile since I gave up trying to catch the streetcar to work and reluctantly woke up earlier to get there on foot.

Peggy and Sue have this big birthday lunch planned for me tomorrow at our favourite restaurant. And the boss has generously—I roll my eyes at “generously”—given me two hours off so we can take our time. The whole thing is surreal.

Bzzzttt.

I take my iPod touch out of my skirt pocket and look at it. The screen is dark, and I press the Home button. No notifications. I turn it this way and that to find what created that strange noise. It seems okay. I shrug, slip it back into my pocket, and continue walking along my route.

The morning sun is slanting sharply along the sidewalk in front of me, toward me, pointing at me, that old woman turning forty. I want to hide from its edgy light, but no point in crossing the street into the shadowed sidewalk. I’ll only have to cross back again. I hate walking.

Voices interrupt my thoughts, and I glance into a garishly-painted alley and think: Ford Nation has obviously missed this place. But perhaps there’s so much graffiti in Queen West alleys, it’s worn out Mayor Ford and his fans before they could erase it all. But there’s no one loitering or walking in the alley, only solitary people like me hustling along Queen Street, coffee cups in hand. Suddenly, I stop. I look at my empty hand: I forgot to get my morning café latté, no whip, soya milk, half-sweet, grandé. I think of retracing my steps, but then I’ll be late, and the boss doesn’t like tardiness. He gets in a snit if I’m even one minute late. My feet resume walking.

And my thoughts resume churning.

At my age, my parents had been married twenty years. It would be another five before I was born. They’d both died a decade ago. I have no sisters or brothers. And since both my parents were only children, I had no immediate cousins. As a child, I met these strange adults my parents called “distant cousins” on special occasions like weddings, adults who embraced me in powder and perfume, exclaimed over how much I’d grown, making me squirm. But I haven’t seen them since the funeral.

The last funeral.

I’ve been alone in the world for ten years, yet until today I hadn’t dwelled on it, hadn’t felt alone. I live in the house my parents lived in. I’ve been working at the same kind of job since I graduated from university with my English Lit degree and went right into a temping agency. Father tried to get me to think bigger, but what was I good for? I’m bad at math. Numbers confuse me. And science is gibberish. Only eggheads do science anyway. But then who’d want an English grad? I thrust away a stray memory of an interview with … I can’t even remember now. Father had said I’d sabotaged it; Mother had said never mind, I was born to type. And so type I did and have until this day. I thought it’d be temporary until I found my feet. Yet there they are, my feet, attached to the bottom of my legs, and they’re taking me to my admin assistant job as they do every weekday.

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Genre – Science Fiction / Time Travel

Rating – PG13

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John’s Gospel: The Way It Happened by Lee Harmon

cHAPTER 1

The Preexis T en T Chris T

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. —Revelation 21:6

Ruth reappeared from the door of the house with a writing board and quill. She produced an empty scroll from under her arm, sat down upon a wooden stool near John, and with a defiant glance toward Matthew, said one word: “Ready.”

“Thank you, Ruth! But first, Matthew, tell me what brings you back to Ephesus?”

“No, you go first, John. Why are you here at the home of Ruth’s mother? I hardly expected to find you here. You’re in no condition to travel.”

“Should I not visit my flock, so long as I live? And also, I’d heard you were arriving.”

“Me? You came to see me?”

John shrugged. “I came to see the son of Samuel.”

“Well, you may see my father as well, then.” Matthew pointed to a limestone ossuary near the gate, making no attempt to hide the scowl on his face. “I bring his bones home to where he lived, where he last found happiness. He’ll be buried here in Ephesus.”

“Your father died?” John rolled onto a shoulder to stare across the courtyard at the modest, undecorated box. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” “I’m not surprised. You keep yourself quite separated here, John.” John made a face. “These are my people. My sheep.” He waved a hand at the expanse of Asia Minor.

“Yes. Well.” Matthew still scowled, wondering if this were a good time to make his exit. But where would he go? To John, he replied as politely as he could manage, “I know how close you were to my father, but his spirit left months ago.”

“It’s good that he died in Judea. To be buried in Jerusalem is like being buried under the altar, right? Why did you move his bones from there?”

Matthew’s scowl turned into a sneer. “Oh, we didn’t last long in Jerusalem. It remains a sorry excuse for God’s city, still in shambles from the war. You may remember, John—we left Ephesus heading for Jerusalem just shortly after your vision, because my father could no longer support us with his bricklaying business. He broke ties with the trade guild, you know, at the temple of Artemis.”

“Yes, I know,” John said simply.

Matthew’s eyes flashed bitterness before he continued. “They called us heathen here, John! Heathen! Because my father believed in Christ rather than their deified caesars! Christians are hated here in Ephesus.” Because you taught us to deny the gods and customs of this land, Matthew avoided saying aloud. “My father could no longer find work, except among your Christians, who could not support us. So we left.”

“Samuel always wanted to return to Jerusalem.”

“Yes, he did. He spoke of it often to me. ‘God’s city,’ he called it. ‘The Holy City’! ‘The bride of Christ’! A miserable joke. We did not stay there long but returned to Syria and settled in Antioch.”

Ruth spoke now, her voice taking on a milder tone. Matthew’s apparent pain had chased the tease away. “You know, John, they have additional gospels in Syria now. Two more works of God, two more anonymous gifts—tributes to the life of our Christ.”1

“Yes, I am aware,” John nodded, glancing at Matthew. He clearly knew Matthew to be the origin of one of the two, though he gave no indication of approval or disapproval. Steering the conversation back on track, he asked Matthew, “How are the Christians in Antioch?” “They struggle, like here. Christians are no longer welcome in the

synagogues. I went to a service with my father a few days before he died. He wished to experience one last Sabbath, sharing the rituals of our God in the synagogue, so we endured the stares and joined the congregation. The president noted our arrival and asked me to lead us in the Amidah, the common prayer.”

“And you did?”

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Genre – Religion / Christianity

Rating – G

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Website http://www.dubiousdisciple.com/

Blurred Lines by Breena Wilde

Hooking has four important rules.

1.  Cash only.
2.  Use protection.
3.  Carry mace.
4.  Don’t fall in love.

Twenty-year-old Cadence is a prostitute and she lives by the rules. They keep her alive, and they keep her heart protected. But when she agrees to take one last job to get out from under her pimp, she discovers some of the rules might be worth breaking.

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Genre - Erotic New Adult

Rating – NC-17

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The Druid Legacy by Mark Miller

Chapter 1                            Footprints

It was a warm day, and sweat ran down the small of my back as I walked the familiar game trail.  I crinkled my nose and smelled my own armpits.  Admittedly, I have not been as good about bathing since my parents were taken, but I wasn’t sure if the smell was me or the bag of dead rabbits I was carrying.  I was really good at laying traps and usually came home with a full load.  The last time out, I carried home so many I had enough to smoke and store three rabbits for the winter.  It was easy to catch rabbits now, but I would need enough food to make it through the winter when there would be no vegetables from the garden and game would become scarce.  Any animals I would catch then would be leaner with less meat on their bones.  I didn’t think I would have too much of a problem though, since game was always plentiful and I seemed to have a gift for trapping.  I don’t know why, but I seemed to know where the animals would go.  My dad said it was uncanny how I could trap.  He use to hunt deer and an occasional boar, but at 12 years old I knew I couldn’t pull his bow or hold the boar spear.  I wasn’t a large boy, so I focused instead on what I could do: pull carrots and trap small game.  Some days I would go down to the creek and fish, but I really didn’t like the taste of fish.  Since no one made me eat it any more, I didn’t do it often.

As I walked along the trail, I stared down at my boots and I thought about what my mother would say about my appearance.  My big toe stuck out of the top of my right boot and the sock had given out before the boot.  I grinned to myself as I thought about my mother chastising me for my dirty toenails and my long hair. She would put her hands on her hips or point a finger at me and say, “Wesslayn Grace, just because we live in the woods now, doesn’t mean we live like animals!”  I knew my mother was mad when she called me by my full name.  Everyone else called me Wess.  I hated it, as I knew it meant I was likely to be punished for something I had done, but now I missed it and would give anything to hear her call me by my full name.

I had done a good job keeping the cabin repaired, chopping wood, and keeping up with the garden, but I naturally leaned towards the work my father use to do.  Staring at the hole in my boot, I knew I was going to have to learn how to do something or I was going to have a really miserable winter.  My feet were growing and my pants were a bit short as well.  The idea of me trying to sew my own pants out of dead rabbit fur had me giggling to myself as I came to my last trap.  I stared down at it more than a little confused.  The bait was gone, and the trap had been destroyed. 

As I tried to puzzle out what had happened, I noticed that there were strange footprints all around the area.  I crouched down next to one to study it closer.  The track was about the size of my foot, but there were three toes that each ended in a point.  My stomach sank; I had seen these tracks before.  They were all around our cabin the day my parents disappeared. As I crouched there, I thought back to that day. I had come home from trading with the Millen’s farm.  The Millen’s live about a half day’s walk to the west of our cabin, so when I go to trade there I normally sleep over.  I liked going there because I got to play with my friend Myka.  We had been friends since we moved here and built the cabin almost six years ago.  She is almost as good outdoors as I am, even though she is just a girl.  Working on the farm long hours has made her strong and tougher than most girls.  Whenever I went to visit, her dad would let her take off from her chores so we could go play. If she had too much to do I would jump in and help. Her mom died when she was young, so Myka is an only child like me.  With no brothers around to help with the chores, her dad counted on her to work on the farm, so I wasn’t allowed to stay more than one day.

That particular day I was carrying my pack full of hard cheese, eggs, and flour when I returned home.  At first I didn’t think anything was wrong, it was a pretty spring day and the door was open.  My mom often aired out the cabin as she cleaned or cooked if the weather was mild.  As I slipped my pack off my shoulders, the first thing I noticed was there was no fire in the hearth.  This was a rare thing as there was usually water to boil, food to cook, clothes to clean, or something else requiring a fire.  If a fire wasn’t burning, there were usually coals still present.  On that day the hearth was cold and the coals weren’t banked, so I knew right away the fire had burned out on its own the night before. 

PI looked around the cabin.  The blankets were gone, as well as the food crates and jarred vegetables.  I climbed up to the loft were I slept and my blankets were gone too.  I looked down from the ladder and froze, with a lump in my throat.  I hadn’t noticed before that my father’s great sword was gone from the mantle.  My dad hadn’t touched that sword since we came here.  Whenever I asked him about it I would get a cryptic answer like, “Maybe one day you will need to know how to use that thing.  When you are ready I will teach you, but hopefully that day will never come.” 

I climbed down and walked back out the door and really looked around the clearing in front of our home.  The three-toed footprints were everywhere.  I had never seen these before and I didn’t know what could have made them.  I walked around the back of the cabin towards the garden and there was blood splattered on most of the trees.  As I turned around, I noticed the walls were stained with dark red streaks.  I had gutted and cleaned plenty of animals out here so I knew how much blood could come from one animal, but this was more blood than I had ever seen.  This might be an odd thing to say, but the huge amounts of blood gave me hope. My dad was the toughest guy I knew and I pictured him swinging his sword in massive circles to protect my mother, killing evil goblin things by the dozens.  Despite the blood, there was no sign of them anywhere.  I searched the woods, but I am no tracker.  After searching every day for months, I gave up hope that I would ever find my parents or the creatures that took them from me.

Looking down at that track now I had a dreadful feeling.  Whatever these creatures were, they were still here.  I looked up from the track and knew I had to try to follow them.  I glanced up at the sky to check the time.  It was about two hours until sun down.  I would definitely not be able to track them in the dark.  I dropped my hand to my belt and tested the edge on my small hatchet.  It was a little duller than I would have liked, and I cursed myself for not sharpening it this morning.  My skinning knife was razor sharp, but the blade was short and would barely help as a weapon.  With grim determination, I dropped the dead rabbits and set out down the path to follow the prints.

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Genre – Young Adult Fantasy

Rating – PG

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An Astrologer’s Journey by Kelly Lowe

Chapter Two
The Search for Myself
Drifting, drifting, drifting …

It was the early 1980s when I made a career move to Stuart, Florida. With no family, no friends, and no emotional support within two hundred miles, I felt like a ship adrift without an anchor. I was totally alone without friends or family close by.

I was looking forward to my new adventure in sales and marketing at this luxurious waterfront resort. It even had a marina where I could dock my sail boat. I was looking forward to my new position, which involved developing a sales and marketing plan to bring group and convention business to the resort.

Although I loved my job, which required long hours, I continued to feel very alone and isolated when the day came to an end. I guess that is what motivated me to seek outside interests other than work and sailing.

I was fortunate. The local college offered a variety of different and unusual subjects, one of which was astrology. This was long before astrology was as mainstream as it is today. Since I was single and looking for “Mr. Right,” I had picked up a couple of “astrological compatibility” books at the bookstores over the years. When I saw the opportunity to actually take a class and learn more about astrology, I was really excited.

I also took classes in Spanish, real-estate and how to fly an airplane—although I must admit that the astrology class was the only one that stuck with me. I never learned to speak Spanish, and I never learned how to fly an airplane. Nor did I pursue a career in real-estate.

What I did learn was fascinating and satisfying, and seemed to answer a lot of questions I had about things I was experiencing in my life. Although I didn’t master the Spanish language, I did learn another language, the “Language of Astrology.” And what a captivating language it turned out to be. Little did I realize it at the time, but astrology would soon open a whole new world for me—a world in which understanding myself, my family, my coworkers and friends wasn’t such a mystery. What I learned, to my initial amazement, was that results here in this world are a direct product of when something is initiated. Timing, it turns out, really is everything.

It would be a mistake to imagine me in those days as some kind of “spiritual seeker” searching for a connection with the universe, or seeking the meaning of life. The truth is that I was just trying to get to know myself better and figure out why I do the things I do, and why I was feeling so

“Since then, the closer I have looked, the more astrology has made sense— not just in
general, but

in almost every instance it has tested positive ...”

unsure about everything. I didn’t want lofty wisdom about the supernatural, eternity, or the spiritual realm. Later on in life I would ask such questions of myself, but at this point I wanted something concrete, and astrology offered concrete explanations.

As a result of this class and my own studies I was eager to seek a professional interpretation of my astrology chart. I inquired about making an appointment for an astrological consultation with my teacher at the college, but she

was not seeing new clients at that time. However, she did refer me to a woman who lived in Hollywood, Florida. When I called Brenda to make my first astrology consultation appointment, she asked for my date, time and place of birth.

The hour-and-a-half drive from Stuart to Hollywood was filled with anticipation and excitement. What was this stranger going to tell me? Would she be able to help me sort out the dilemmas that I was experiencing in my life? Was she going to recognize that my life was in turmoil? Was she going to see that I was in my season of discontent? Would she see that I wanted to sell everything I owned and take off to sail around the world on my sailboat? That, although I had relocated and made a career change, I was still like a ship without an anchor? I was adrift. I felt that something was about to happen or that a change was coming in my life but I didn’t know what, or when it was going to happen.

I was going to see Brenda with so many questions in my mind. I was seeking direction and answers. I wanted to better understand myself and why I was feeling the restlessness that troubled me so. But I was also feeling hopeful. Because the usual answers from the mainstream had failed to give me peace, and because I had already started studying astrology at the college, I went to see Brenda without a bit of skepticism. I was ready to listen, learn, and apply her insightful information. I was eager to learn.

Since then, the closer I have looked, the more astrology has made sense—not just in general, but in almost every instance it has tested positive when I compared what it indicated might happen and what actually did happen in my life and the lives of my friends, family and clients. Since that day in Brenda’s office, I have understood and appreciated myself much more. Of course, I’ve faced life’s usual problems, but I never again felt I had nowhere to turn for answers or explanations.

I still remember as if it were yesterday the moment that I walked into her office. Although I had given her only my birth information—date, time and place—over the phone when I made the appointment, it appeared that she already knew me very well.

Prior to my arrival she had calculated my astrological chart by placing all of the planets in the respective signs and degrees where they had been positioned at the time and place of my birth. She then placed the planets in the respective houses. Of course I didn’t realize exactly what all of this meant at the time since I had not yet learned all the nuances of this new language.

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Genre – Memoir / Astrology

Rating –PG13

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Connect with Kelly Lowe on Facebook

Website http://astrologytalk.com/

The Newbie Author’s Survival Guide by AK Taylor

The Author Platform

You may or may have not heard this term before. It is essentially your fan base, brand, and network all rolled into one. In our survival scenario, your platform is how you draw people to your location or base: it's like flashing your mirrors, building signal fires, blowing a whistle, shouting, or anything else you would do to call for help.

One problem with this term is that it sounds as though you have a building phase and then you're done. Actually, you’ll be constructing your platform as long as you are a published author. It should always grow in size or refinement. Many pieces to this puzzle will be sorted out, but the goal is to reach the readers who are your customers.

You accomplish this by using all tools available to you. We will need a social media presence, a blog that is search engine and social media optimized, and a subscription or permission-based network. Launching and updating each of these things takes time. So the best point to start building these are before you publish your book. Many authors, however, have been so engaged in writing, editing, typesetting, and proofing that don’t know about this until they publish. Truth be told, I was one of them.

Remember that the product is you, not your book. You need to become either the expert (nonfiction) or the dependable good read (fiction). To do this, you need to build a public image, a reputation, and a trust with the public. Only then will they start looking at what you’ve got.

So let's get started by examining the pieces of a platform, what each does, what to do to get the best performance, and what not to do when constructing them. Remember: This is not an overnight project. This is how you start getting people’s attention.

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Genre – NonFiction

Rating – G

More details about the author & the book

Connect with Amanda Taylor on Facebook & Twitter & GoodReads

The Kings of Charleston (Vol. 1) by Kat H. Clayton

Chapter One

~ * * * ~

The buzz of my alarm clock jolted me from my pleasant dreams. I turned over and searched for the snooze button. Piercing rays of sunlight streamed in through the double French doors and infiltrated my bed. Ugh. I had forgotten to close the curtains the night before.

I stepped onto the cool floor and jogged over to the French doors in an effort to close them, but my eyes had already adjusted to the warm, peach-colored light. I looked out onto the rolling hills of our farm. One of our colts pranced across the field, kicking his hooves up like a practiced soldier. I smiled to myself and a warm, fuzzy feeling filled my chest. There was no peace and happiness I could find like flying through the woods on the back of a beautiful thoroughbred. No expectations, no rules to follow.

I refocused my attention to the dreary day that had already been planned for me. I decided after breakfast, church, the luncheon party, and the CNN interview, I would spend some time reading in the comfort of Wendy’s stall. I needed to read four chapters of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for English class before Monday, and I couldn’t think of a better place to do it. That thought alone would get me through the rest of the day.

I walked toward my closet in search of something to wear. Without stepping outside, I knew the air was still icy, so I looked for a warm skirt or pantsuit. I found a skirt suit in an emerald tone, with black lace trim around the collar and cuffs. I knew the color would bring out my eyes and pretty up my ghostly-pale skin. Funny and ironic that my family owned “Ghost” Hill Farms and had named me Casper. I was ecstatic that vampires were the cool thing right now so I didn’t have to waste time on self-tanner. No matter how much time I spent outside, I only burned before returning to my pasty shade of white.

I pulled the skirt and the black shell off the hanger and threw them on. Ugh, I had forgotten the pantyhose before putting the skirt on. I pulled out a drawer in my closet and searched for a pair of black hose. I couldn’t wait to go to college, where I could wear sweat shirts and jeans every day. No more prim and proper suits that were so not what I wanted to wear. They weren’t trendy, comfortable, or anything that my friends at school had to wear on a regular basis.

After finally getting the suit on—and the ugly black pumps—I went back into the bathroom and applied a little makeup. I pulled out a pair of diamond stud earrings and a simple necklace, and rushed downstairs for breakfast.

As I walked into the formal dining room, I instantly realized something was off. The aura in the room felt too calm and peaceful. Normally, Mother would be staring at her reflection in the large gold mirror behind the dining table, fixing her hair, makeup, or clothes, all the while fussing about the maid’s inability to pick up after a party. Dad should be lounging at the table with the paper in one hand and a coffee mug in the other.

He had a cup of coffee in his hand, but neither The Lexington Herald Leader nor The Wall Street Journal appeared on the long mahogany table. They were both sitting quietly, looking up at me with timid-smiles. A sense of panic crept into my empty stomach. Mother tapped her French-manicured nails on the table, and then signaled for me to sit beside her. I did her bidding without any protest. I sat down at the table and took a deep breath.

“Honey, I’ve got some good news,” Dad said with a big smile. His face was finely tanned from the hours spent out on the farm. His black hair was slicked back in a way that always made me think of a mobster.

“What?” I said in a clipped tone, crossing my arms over my suit jacket. This wasn’t going to be good news at all.

“We’re moving to Charleston,” he said matter-of-factly.

No discussion? Simply a stated fact. I was blown away. So Mother hadn’t been lying last night. This was big news and I regretted not getting up from bed to talk to them. Several emotions were all competing in my head.

“Charleston? West Virginia?” Bewilderment won the mental fight.

Dad gave a hearty laugh. “No, honey, Charleston, South Carolina.” He looked over at Mother, shaking his head at my inability to telepathically understand what he had meant in the first place. As if I shouldn’t have even considered West Virginia, even though it’s way closer than South Carolina.

Without warning, hot tears stung my eyes and threatened to cascade down my burning red cheeks. I looked up at the crystal chandelier dangling above the dining room table and bit my bottom lip. I refused to let a single tear fall. I hated crying in front of anyone, especially my parents.

“I’m not going.” I closed my eyes and shook my head.

“It’s not up for discussion,” said Dad, his voice deep and commanding.

I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. I stared at his cat-green eyes, which I had inherited. They were flat and without their normal sparkle. I wasn’t used to him being so firm with me. He had always been my ally when my mother and I had one of our famous fights.

“But what about the horses? And it’s going to be my senior year!” I got up from the table and stood behind the chair I had been sitting in.

I looked over at my mother. She sat with her bony arms crossed over her chest, looking down at the table. Normally, by now Mother would have said something, but she was quiet and refused to look at me. She wasn’t completely on board with this idea either.

“The farm manager will handle things here. Since the Derby is over, we don’t have too much to worry about until the Preakness. And you’ll make new friends.”

I felt the tears coming on again. Yeah, I knew I could make new friends at school, but I had no desire to try to fit in somewhere new my last year of high school. I didn’t want to be the kid who everyone barely remembered after graduation, and the thought of facing a new school without the horses to run home to was unbearable.

“No.” I clenched my hands around the back of the dining room chair.

“We’re moving and we’ll move right after school lets out.” He took a gulp of coffee, sat the mug on the table, and snapped his fingers for the maid to come in and take the empty cup.

“That’s only a week away!” I shouted. How could they have made a decision like that so fast? Or had they been planning it behind my back for awhile? That thought sent my temper through the roof. I let go of the back of the chair and backed away from my parents.

“Yes, I know. We’ll leave that weekend. No need to pack, really, just a few things. The movers will pack what we need, and we’ll buy the rest.”

I searched desperately for the words to challenge this lunatic idea. “If we’re keeping the farm, then why do we need to move?” I was beginning to get desperate to change his mind. Stabbed in the back by my own parents! I was so angry that the tears were starting to blur my vision.

“I got a call a couple of weeks ago from a friend offering a business deal that I couldn’t afford to pass up in this economy. You have to understand this is in our family’s best interest. I’m doing this for you,” he said with vindication. He was trying to make me feel guilty, because I was being ungrateful in his mind.

Please—all for me. He always used, “You’re the future of this family and it’s all for you,” to justify any thing he did. I wasn’t buying it today.

“Then I’ll stay here until I finish school and then I’ll go to the University of Kentucky. There won’t be any need for me to move to Charleston. I’ll stay here . . . at the farm,” I said as my final offer.

“That’s not an option. We want you with us during your last year of school before you go to Harvard.”

I instantly bristled at his demands for me to not only come with them, but that as a Whitley I was attending Harvard. Sure, I had the grades and the scores to get into Harvard, but I had no desire to go to that pretentious school. I wanted to go to the University of Kentucky, where I could stay close to the farm.

I wanted to eventually take over the family’s thoroughbred legacy. I had no desire to take over any of my dad’s other ventures. Our family owned several factories in Lexington, Louisville, and Cincinnati. We also owned a publishing company, a movie production company, and a stake in a fashion house. But none of that interested me. I didn’t want an empire to run. Money always changed people into zombies who were only looking to feed their greed.

I looked over at Mother, who was still suspiciously quiet. Her lips were pursed and she fiddled with her pearl earrings. When I stared at her, she intentionally avoided eye contact.

“What do you think, Mother?”

She finally looked at me. “I think it’s a great idea,” she said quietly, her lips pursed. I was convinced she was telling the truth.

“Fine, I guess there isn’t much I can do about it, but don’t expect me to be happy. And, by the way, I’m not going to Harvard,” I said, turning my back on them and marching out of the room before he had time to respond.

I stomped up the stairs, charged into my room, and slammed the door behind me. I flung myself onto the bed, not caring if I messed up my makeup or hair. If they were lucky, I’d show up for their stupid press conference. I was seriously thinking of riding Wendy across the rolling fields into a picture perfect horizon and never coming back.

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Genre – YA / Mystery / Suspense

Rating – PG13 (No sex scenes, some violence)

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Connect with Kat H Clayton on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://kathclayton.com/

EleMentalist (Excerpt) by Steven O’Connor

Book excerpt: EleMental: A First-person Shooter

Whenever I am asked to do a reading (at a local bookshop, at a school…), time and again I go back to the simple choice of reading this first chapter from EleMental. It has every aspect of what is present throughout the remainder of the book. The emotion, the angst and frustration, the thrill and spills, the humor, and some quirky, thought-provoking ideas (I hope they are thought provoking, anyway!).

I particularly love reading out loud how a virtual video game starts up and shuts down, both of which are present here. I hope you enjoy reading it.

– Steven O’Connor

Chapter 1: ‘Attention game’

Willis was weak. He was ill. And he was lost.

The city’s buildings reached high, throwing out long shadows and reminding him of the Shade Specter monsters from a virtual game that was all the rage a few years back – not that he’d ever played the v’game himself, or any v’games at all. V’gaming wasn’t his thing.

He stood in the darkness of one shadow with his back to a department store wall and gazed out at the moving crowds, avoiding their glances.

As soon as his mother’s zipcar had lifted from the curb and buzzed away, leaving him alone, he felt nauseous. What was he doing here? He had no idea which direction led home. Cities were foreign to him, and yet here he was, smack bang in the middle of the biggest one he could imagine. Fool. He knew how this dumb outing was going to end: with him contacting his mum or dad and one of them coming to fetch him.

No! He would not message home. He was practically fifteen. This might be a new place to him, but he was capable. He’d find his own way home. Somehow.

Then Willis saw him. Zeb Redman. He’d know him anywhere; only the coolest kid from his class. Correction. The whole damn school.

He shot past Willis on his hyperboard, crouching low for speed. The hyperboard’s erupter – the small suspension laser generator fixed at the back – thrummed loudly.

Maybe if Willis followed him, he would learn a thing or two about living in this place. Or at the very least, he could point Willis in the right direction.

Willis raced after him.

***

Zeb Redman cursed as he spun around the corner, balancing on his speeding hyperboard, and saw the last thing he wanted to see. The queue at Screamers V’Games Universe was mammoth. It snaked from somewhere deep within the store, out through its snapping auto-doors and stretched out of sight down the street. The disappointment gnawed at him. Wagging school had made no difference.

The store’s flashing signs seemed to taunt him: Experience the new Plush. Free trials all day. Don’t miss out.

Zeb sighed, flipped from his hovering hyperboard, and landed on the street curb. Far in front of him, perched at the head of the queue, some lucky guy was set to be the first to experience the new Plush DVP – deep virtual player – v’games console. Zeb gazed the other way, down the shuffling queue of hopefuls. At ten minutes a turn, it would be nighttime before his chance at a free try-out came around. The place would be closed by then.

He closed his eyes and released a slow breath, relaxing as he’d trained himself to do prior to taking on a high-level boss enemy. As in v’games, so in life. He decided to go in anyway. With all this commotion going on, you never knew what you might find. Behind him, he was half-aware of some kid approaching. He looked wet. No one worth knowing, that was for sure. He ignored him, stepped forward and worked his way through the queue and into the store. People glared, but he held up his arms, all innocence. ‘It’s all right. Not queue jumping. Just trying to get in.’

With the rack full, he was forced to carry his hyperboard. He wandered the aisles of expensive v’games that filled the store’s shelves, thoughts of which monopolized his every waking moment. Especially the gleaming rows of gloss-wrapped 2050 first-person shooter new releases – v’games with packaging that sported moving images of exploding army death-tanks, multi-headed trolls with weapons the size of cannons, grinning aliens with scarred and bloodied bodies … Xtreme-rated horrocore. All bearing the latest in ziptech security seals. Impossible to steal.

But his instinct for an opportunity had been right. The crowds fussing over the new v’games console provided an excellent diversion. After a period of frustrated browsing (everything was out of his price range!), he spied something he knew he could have – with a bit of skill and luck. An old first-person shooter called Hoolyguns. It was sticking out of the corner of a weightless sales bin otherwise chock-a-block with dated v’romances and offworld tour guides.

He slung his hyperboard across his back, straightened his bag at his side, and spent a long time stalking the bin as it floated through the store’s aisles. Waiting for the right moment. And as it drifted towards an out-of-the-way exit, far from the winding queue and the onlookers clustered at Plush v’space-windows oohing and aahing at the virtual action within, Zeb’s own excitement mounted. Though it wasn’t Xtreme-rated or anything, it looked compatible with his old Magnum 50. So who was he to complain? He, with only a Magnum console at home and nothing decent to play on it. He, who hungered for any first-person shooter. New, old, secondhand, whatever.

And it bore an ancient security imprint. As far as Zeb was concerned, it was a giveaway and the disappointment about the Plush try-out slipped from his mind.

He watched. He crept forward. He waited.

A security zipcam meandered up and stopped close to the bin. It clicked and hissed as it lowered itself to the floor, its many lenses rotating. Then it lifted again and moved on, heading down a nearby aisle.

Now! Moving in, Zeb hustled the bin up against the wall. Using his body to block the view of anyone who might be watching, he snatched the v’game from the sales bin, pulled a screwdriver from his pocket, squeezed it until a sharp stick of hard blue laser shot out, and slash, cut, strip! Security imprint: gone. No zipcam would bother chasing and recording him.

Plunging the v’game into the depths of his bag, he was out that door.

***

Careful to keep his distance, Willis had been watching Zeb Redman as he’d cruised up and down the aisles. But when at last he’d summoned up the nerve to approach him in the store, Zeb suddenly sped out by a side exit. Willis ran after him and pulled up abruptly outside. Zeb was right in front of him, facing down the busy street, his hyperboard in his hands. Annoyed pedestrians maneuvered around the pair of them.

Willis raised a hand, reaching out to touch Zeb’s shoulder. ‘Excuse me,’ he said.  It was unlike him to be this forward. ‘I was wondering if you could help—’

Without turning to look at him, Zeb slapped Willis’s hand away. ‘I don’t know anything and I didn’t do anything,’ he barked. Dropping his hyperboard to the ground, he jumped on it, kicked at the erupter with his heel, and sped away.

Willis watched until he disappeared around a corner. Then he reached for the Zeepad fixed at his waist. It was time to message home.

***

When Zeb arrived at his place, he hurried down the corridor towards his bedroom.

His mother shouted something from her room, her words muffled. He detected the sounds of her Zeeplayer. Stopping, he pressed an ear to her door. A spacefront reporter was in the middle of an update on the asteroid mining disputes. ‘Growing even more unstable,’ the male voice said. The voice cut off and Zeb heard the strains of a drippy soap opera. His mother had flicked channels.

He pushed on down the corridor. ‘Hi, Mum,’ he yelled as he passed her door. ‘Gotta study. Like we agreed.’

He imagined her in there: propped up on a pillow, Zeeplayer turned to maxiwidth and smothering the opposite wall in embracing arms and bodies, couples tangled together. Her glass within easy reach. If his dad weren’t off spacefronting, it would be a different story. Forget it, Zeb told himself. Who needed a father? Focus on the v’gaming. There was nothing like it. The real world could go suck.

He booted his door shut, kicked some strewn clothes out of the way and crouched before his Magnum 50, which sat on an old plastic crate near his bed. He hit the small switch on its face and waited. When nothing happened, he slapped it. ‘Wake up!’ he growled.

A dull red light flickered and a square opened at the console’s center, gaping like a hungry mouth. Digging deep into his bag, he seized the v’game. He drew it out, removed the shiny black cube from its packaging and fed it into the console.

Jumping up, Zeb dragged his bedroom’s dusty curtains closed, cutting out all light from the real world.

‘Attention Magnum,’ he said. ‘Seal room for sound and start game.’

Turning, he watched as the v’game kicked in. His messy bedroom melted away, replaced by …

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Genre – Young Adult / Science Fiction

Rating –PG

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Connect with Steven O’Connor on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://stevenoconnorwriting.com/

Lengths For Love by CS Patra

Chapter 2

From that point on, I visited her whenever I could and stayed as long as possible. She spent most of her time in bed now, so I decided not to do anything big. Whatever vampire-related thing she wanted to do, I would do it without fail. Sometimes all we could afford to do was talk all night. It worked for me. By then, my exams were over and I was ready to help her with anything else.

Yet I didn’t know what was happening with her cancer. I wasn’t sure when she was going to start chemotherapy or if she had even started it. She wasn’t telling me very much about the treatments or the illness. At first, I figured she was just embarrassed by it, but she never felt like bringing it up. Worst of all, I had not heard anything from her family. I had no idea if they even knew she was sick. Who was driving her back and forth from the clinic? Who looked after her at night? Why did no one come around while I was there? To make matters worse, her stress was giving me stress. I would look in the mirror and notice the same skinny black-haired, brown-eyed guy that I had always known. The difference was that he was worn out.

I kept my silence about the whole thing until that night, when we had a date. It was our first date since her exams started. Alexis was feeling well enough to go out. I made my way to her dorm room and found her sitting on the bed again, reading the rest of her book. She was in her pajamas and looked surprised to see me.

“Ian, I had no idea you were coming,” she said.

“Well, of course I’m coming today. You said I could. You ready to go?” I asked.

“It’s a date night, isn’t it? I completely forgot.” She closed her book. “Oh, I’m sorry. I swear I’ll get better at remembering things.”

“Ah, don’t worry about,” I sighed, sitting down with her. “I can wait for you. Is there any place in particular you want to go?”

“Not really,” she admitted. “We should just get pizza and a movie and stay in here. You can always rent ‘Interview With a Vampire’ again.”

“You have the movie, babe. You have every vampire movie ever made.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine, you choose something.”

“How about that vampire documentary that you taped some time ago?” I suggested. “We don’t have to rent it and we’ll just get them to deliver the pizza here. We’ll have your favorite: mushrooms and red peppers.”

“Delicious. You know what I love, Ian.”

I ordered the pizza while she popped in the movie. For the next hour, it was just the two of us. We sat and ate in silence, not sure how to break the ice between us. Alexis kept looking up at me like she wanted to say something, but no words came out of her mouth. It was as though she was afraid. I decided to give her a little help and see what I could pull from her.

“You know, I wish you didn’t have to go somewhere else for better treatment,” I said. “I don’t see why they can’t do it here.”

“These doctors are good, but they aren’t the best,” she explained. “At this point, I want the best. I want a chance at living. My parents aren’t upset with me going away. I wish they could be here to help me with this, but it’s impossible at this point. Work, money... all that’s getting in the way. It’s going to cost a lot in terms of medical bills and I can’t stand it. I don’t care if I only get one more year or even six months of life. Heck, I’ll take two more months of living. That’s more than enough for me. But so far, no one can predict that much.”

“So you think that if you go away, someone can tell you?” I felt the pit in my stomach getting larger. I did not like where the conversation was headed.

“Ian, remember what you told me back in the day? That you’d go to any length for love?” she began, picking up her plate and dumping it in the trash.

“Um, yeah. What about it?”

That had been a big mistake on my behalf. Not the question to ask. I knew what Alexis knew—there was no way we were going back to the way we were. Even if Alexis had six months left, it would not feel the same. We would not be able to go everywhere we wanted or do everything we had left to do. I could keep hoping and wishing things would change, but I had hoped and wished she would get better, and that didn’t happen.

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Genre – Supernatural / Romance / Fiction

Rating – PG13

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Connect with CS Patra on Facebook & Twitter

Tricia O’Malley – How to Market Online to Promote Your Book.

How to market online to promote your book

by Tricia O’Malley

Listen. I get it. You are a creative genius. Your book should just call to people. Believing in yourself and your book is step one. Marketing is step two. An un-marketed book will quietly gather dust like those ugly tube socks in the corner of Walgreen’s.

Don’t let your book become those socks. It’s time to step up and commit to daily marketing. Spend an hour each day on the following activities:

Think outside the box.

Is your lead character a fashionista? A floral shop owner? A computer nerd turned super hero? Go to where those people spend time online. Reach out to flower shop owners and talk to them about carrying your book. Go to online chat communities (they are everywhere) and talk to people about your genre. Look for bloggers that cover any topic in your book, reach out to them, and pitch them for a book review.

Look for the blogs of major magazines.

Many major magazines update their blogs frequently. They need a constant flow of information to post about. Look at their writer submission guidelines. Most magazine blog articles are written by freelance writers. Query them on submitting an article regarding a topic that you are knowledgeable about. The topic doesn’t have to just be about your book or what is in your book. What you want is the byline. And that lovely paragraph at the end that says: “Tricia O’Malley is the author of The Stolen Dog and…” Boom. Another plug. Then you update your own website showing how your articles are on magazine websites.

Use HARO.

HARO (Help A Reporter Out) is an excellent FREE resource. When you sign up, you’ll receive three emails a day with queries from reporters looking for information on articles that they are writing or radio shows that they are producing. Read them every day. If there is a topic that you are knowledgeable about or if there are queries looking for authors to weigh in – reply to the email. These are time sensitive, but an excellent way to get placed in articles.

Use Facebook.

Search keywords related to your book topic. Find pages that follow your topic and email the owner of the page. Offer a free book in exchange for them sharing your link. Keep searching variations of your topic. For example my book is about our stolen Boston terrier. But I don’t limit myself to just looking up Boston terrier groups. I look for animal lovers, dog lovers, lost dog groups, rescues and so-on. You never know who will be interested in sharing your book.

Do a giveaway.

Once you’ve made some connections, offer to do giveaways. Obviously, you can do a Goodreads giveaway. But, if you start connecting with bloggers or Facebook pages – check their stats. Look at how much they interact with their audience. Do they have a thriving, interested audience? Do a giveaway. Do they rarely comment and/or have comments on their posts? That means most people aren’t even seeing their posts. No giveaway.

Be funny.

On your own social media channels – use pictures or memes. Funny stuff sells. Make sure it has a link to your book. Look at George Takei – he has a gazillion followers and he shares funny stuff all day long. Then when he wants to make a point or make a sale – he does so in a second. Don’t feel too constricted or niched out by having to be only in your genre. Have fun, have a personality, and be involved.

Ultimately, the best thing you can do for networking online is to seek to establish true, authentic connections. Follow up with people, be nice, and always ask people to share your book. I wrote a review of Guy Kawasaki’s book, APE, and sent it to him. He promoted it to 1.2 million of his Twitter followers. You don’t know if someone will help you if you don’t ask. The worst that can happen is that they will say no. No harm – no foul. Put yourself out there and hustle!

 

When Briggs, a Boston terrier, is stolen from his family's deck and shoved into a waiting car, a chain of events unfold that shakes the city. The Stolen Dog follows Tricia and Josh, Briggs' owners, as they fight a force unknown, enduring death threats, psychic interventions, false leads, fake set-ups, and the threat of dog fighting. A heart-wrenching yet ultimately uplifting story of love, fearlessness, and hope — a captivating view of the best and worst of humanity — The Stolen Dog will make you hug your pets closer.

A portion of all proceeds will be donated to animal rescues.

The Stolen Dog is a true story.

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Genre - Pets/Narratives/Essays/Breeds/General

Rating –PG-13

More details about the author

Connect with Tricia O'Malley on Facebook

Website www.thestolendog.com

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