Showing posts with label guest author. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guest author. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Guest Author Victoria Adams

 The trip that wasn't on my bucket list


A tale of a trip I never knew was on my bucket list, and other unplanned adventures.

As much as I love the ocean, I normally appreciate its wonders from the beach. I have been on boats, mostly lake-sized, and the occasional sailboat in the Gulf. It’s not that I don’t like boats, but the opportunity, funds, and incentive never occurred at the same moment in time. Until a couple of years ago.

I love writing, and I must admit, I love numbers. My day job for a very long time has been taking care of other people’s numbers. A couple years ago, one of my clients was invited to a day trip on a deep-sea fishing charter boat as a reward for a job well done. The invitation was for the staff and each person’s plus one. Any licenses required would be included. (If you know about these things, you know we still paid the tips and brought our own lunches).

For some reason, my client thought I should be a participant, so a day was picked post tax season allowing me to join. Everything was set, right?

Um, not quite. Part of getting ready for such trips includes making sure you have proper attire, cash for tips, and lunch. Oh, and a plan to be on the dock before the crack of dawn. I did make sure I had appropriate gear, but then it appeared that no one had planned the rest of it. Getting a check cashed was easy, and I arranged to stay over in town so I could order and pick up the lunches we would need. I also stocked up on saltines, 7-Up, and apples (good for queasy tummies) and seasick meds. Somehow, I managed to load up, check out, and get to the dock at the appointed time. At which point I pressed other people into moving my treasures to the boat.

This was May and the weather was still on the chilly side with lots of rain and wind. I wasn’t all that sure this was going to be the trip I had signed up for. I can tell you that the owner piloted the boat, and I do believe that our exit from the bay was as smooth as he could make it. Fully committed at this point (you do NOT turn the boat around unless someone is dying) I figured I’d just hang on for dear life and hope for the best.

I was in luck. Once we broke free of the bay, we found a sunny, nearly flat ocean surface. I’m told by those who know that it is rare that the waves are not much higher than you would find on a lake. As long as the boat was moving, I was fine. Anchored, not so much. I did try out the fishing part for a bit, but I had more fun handing out my goodies, making sure everyone got the lunch they wanted, and taking pictures.

Our seagulls are well trained and know to follow the charter boats on their way back to shore because chum is on the menu. By the time we docked, the crew had the fish skinned, cleaned, and sorted into bags.

I probably would not try this adventure again (unless I’m on a really, really big boat), but I’m glad I did decide to go this one time. Our boat maxed out our person limit, so I made it home with 30 pounds of fish which I immediately divvied up among friends while keeping a few pounds for myself.

If you ever visit the Pacific Northwest, you should check out the coastal town of Westport, WA with its active fishing community, awesome restaurants, and local-folk atmosphere. Plus, they have really fund festivals. (check out https://www.westportgrayland-chamber.org/

Victoria Adams

https://victoriasreadingalcove.com   

Adams lives and works in the resplendent Pacific Northwest. She spends her time with her characters and a feline named Sir Linus. She has published two nonfiction titles and contributed to anthologies of fiction and poetry. Her exploration of the world and ideas, in general, can be found at victoriasreadingalcove.com.


Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Our Guest Author Today is Ginger Strivelli

 We were together


“We were together. We were home. We were in our world whirling through our universe. It was a perfectly common day. We were in our right timeline and in our right dimension. We were living. Everything around us was normal. Nothing was amiss. We received no warning that it was all about to go badly amiss.

At first, we didn’t realize we were being dragged somewhere else, somewhere not normal. We just suddenly felt hot. Our planet is always cool. We have not traveled to other planets in our universe. We did not know if we had been teleported to some other planet that was hot. We wondered if we stumbled into some time portal and had traveled not to another planet but to the prehistoric past of our own planet, which was thought to have been much warmer many millennia ago.

However, we have not been taken to another planet in our universe or to another time on our planet. We hadn’t even been taken to some parallel universe as the place we found ourselves was too unlike our universe to be at all parallel. It was paranormal. It was totally unfathomable. We just knew we had to have been spirited away to some wholly different dimension.

We came to this dimension as one. We were all one being just as we were at home. When we arrived, we did not yet know the horror of this dimension’s beings’ having singular existences. We learned that fright when we were moved from the heated entry point by the hands of two different mythical beings. Two plural beings! At their touch, we instantly telepathically understood that the creatures of this dimension are all different. They are separate, somehow. They are alone and apart! We were terrified when we learned of this supernatural affliction. If given more time we would have pondered how they managed such an unimaginable fate. We would have come to feel sorry for them if we’d had a little time. We did not have that much time though to think.

These monstrous creatures loomed over us, huge and round. They looked down upon us with these expressions of happiness or madness, we couldn’t tell which. We didn’t know what they had planned for us as they picked us up in their fleshy limp hands and put us on cold stone. Our warmth started to leak away at once. We were glad because of that. We were not used to being warm. It might have killed us, we had thought when we were in the warm place. We were mighty relieved to be removed, even by the monsters but only for a few precious moments.

We calmed as we cooled but then began to contemplate what the monsters had brought us to their sickly twisted dimension for. What would become of us? Would we become different entities like the monsters were? Would we any moment be jerked back to our own dimension? We prayed to our descendants that we would be taken back home as suddenly as we had been ripped from there. We simply could not take any more fear of this strange place and its stranger multiple beings.

Just like our random instantaneous arrival into this dimension, suddenly our nightmare took an evil turn. Our worry and fear was replaced with sheer terror of a fiendish kind! We experienced the most sinister sensation. It took us a moment to figure out what had happened to us. Part of us was suddenly just gone. Part of us was dead but not ascended. Part of us was nowhere, not back home, not in the afterlife, not elsewhere, but nowhere. Nothing like that had ever happened to us in our dimension. We had no understanding of such bizarre magic or science. How could such a thing even be possible, even in this different dimension? We were so shocked we stopped communicating and just screamed inconsolably in discordant harmony.”

***

“Grandmother, can I have more?” Luna asked as sweetly as the cookie she had just eaten. “They are such whittle bitty gingerbread men.”

“How can Grandmother say no to your whittle bitty face!” Violet said to her granddaughter. “You can have two more, right now my sassafras! I’ll make us some hot chocolate and we will watch the movie about Santa Claus and his reindeer while we eat them all. I can’t wait. When I was a little girl just like you, my grandmother made gingerbread men for me and her to eat while we watched it.”

***

“Our screams all stopped in a speechless stupor as it happened again...and again! We clung to ourselves, what was left of ourselves. We had a flash of a thought of trying to figure out a way to make it stop but it was hopeless. We had no idea why, how, or what was happening to us. We had no chance of stopping what we did not even know.

***

“Grandmother?” Luna called from the couch as she precariously balanced the plate full of gingerbread man cookies. “Hurry, it is about to start!”

Violet rushed from the kitchen herself balancing two cups of steaming hot chocolate. “I’m here, my sassafras. Oh, no I forgot the marshmallows!” She sat the cups on the coffee table and ran back to the kitchen.

“Grandmother! Can I have a cinnamon stick to stir my hot chocolate with, like you use?”

“Sure, my sassafras!” Violet came leaping back onto the couch beside her granddaughter just as the toothpaste commercial ended and the movie started. She put marshmallows and cinnamon sticks in their cups. She hugged her granddaughter as she bit a head off one of the gingerbread men and handed another one to Luna. Luna copied her grandmother’s beheading bite, giggling.

***

“Oh, how we were panicking as again and again parts of us just vanished, gone from all time, all space, and all dimensions. We tried to discuss our doomed fate. We tried to bemoan how we had lost all hope. Nevertheless, we could only wail and sob. It was unreal. We still didn’t understand what was happening to us, but it kept happening and happening until there was nothing of us left. We were together but gone.


Ginger Strivelli is an artist and writer from North Carolina. She has written for Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, Circle Magazine, Third Flatiron, Autism Parenting Magazine, Silver Blade, Cabinet of Heed Literary Journal, The New Accelerator, and various other publications for thirty years. She loves to travel the world and make arts and crafts. She considers herself a storyteller entertaining and educating through her writing.




Saturday, October 6, 2018

Guest Author: David Polhemus #OurAuthorGang

Our guest today is David Polhemus


Hello Author gang,

My Name is David Polhemus and I live in beautiful Colorado Springs, Colorado. This place has inspired me to include its powerful spirit in my books. I am 51 years young and started writing book one of my series in 2011. I am in production with Axe Amazon Audible for book two in the Mitherion series because it’s a direct continuation of Mitherion book one. 

Mitherion (Book 1) 

Completed Audiobook Cover
The book Mitherion is a small tale in a large world. It documents the story of Prometheus "Prom" and his friends Blue, Cee and Gahr. As their tale unveils we find them adventuring in the realm of Mitherion. Mitherion is a small portion of Pangaea. The supercontinent of Pangaea is a place that really existed one hundred and thirty million years ago. As the tale transpires we find the mighty warrior Prom returning to his friends through a dark and stormy night. Elsewhere, the angel Lucifer sires a child, a Nephilim named Luthisis. The plot thickens as Prom and company meet the arch-enemy of Lucifer, Magnus the first vampire who is plotting to kill Lucifer's son. Luthisis dwells in a horned tower in a vast desert in the distant south.
I am currently recording book one for the experiences and plan to have both Mitherion 1 and 2 in that format. I have learned so much more about my book from recording it and highly recommend you try it even just for the experience it creates for you and your writing.

Thanks for your time.
David Polhemus
Colorado Springs, Co

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David Polhemus

3 months ago  -  Shared publicly
Mitherion All
Prolegomenon Alpha (Prolog)



Hello, my name is David Polhemus and I am the author of the Mitherion books.
The Mitherion stories so far are over a thousand pages long and thirty hours in length. I want to talk about the beginnings were it all came from, what my influences are and how my books came to be.
My first and main influence is J.R.R. Tolkien; I always liked his one foot in front of the other adventuring style in a large detailed world filled with good and evil.
I even like the Tolkien rip offs like the sword of Shannara.
Before I wrote my books I asked myself what kind of book do I want to write and then I knew it was going to be a fantasy adventure and I wanted to tell a story that I would really like. So I started with reading, listening on Audio book to all of Tolkien’s books including the Silmarillion and the new book the Children of Hurin. I researched the world maps and immersed myself in his style.
I have read hundreds of amazing stories and I want to mention a few here.
I read Battlefield Earth in the eighties one year after L. Ron. Hubbard died. That book is one of the best story’s I have ever read. It is over a thousand pages long and years ago I would buy used copies of it and hand them out to people if they wanted to read it.
Another one from my early days is a book by Bram Stoker called Dracula. I read it before I knew the story and it is an all-time favorite. The Vampire in my first book Magnus is a tribute to Bram Stokers Vampire. Magnus King Diamond in my book is a very different and original tale. I do not copy my influences I just interpret what I feel from them.
Another Author I really like is Piers Anthony his stories are very colorful and tongue in cheek but he always stretches the boundaries of the imagination. I like the first book of the Incarnations of immortality especially the first one were death gets shot in the face and dies and the shooter has to become death in his place. The Spilt infinity series by Piers Anthony splits science fiction with fantasy having the main character go between both realms.
Moving on,
The Inferno by Dante is a hard book to read and very dark but is filled with amazing depth and suffering in vast areas and in great graphic depiction.
Alike the Inferno, the next book is a kindred spirit to it and is one of my most favorite in the genre of hell depiction. It is called Gods Demon. It’s a newer book compared to the inferno which is over one thousand years old. Gods demon is a vast slow dirge on how the dukes and royalty of hell who are the fallen angels make there palaces and kingdoms from bricks made of the fallen souls that land in hell, a good book for the kids. This author wrote the book to match his artwork which is even stranger.
Robert A. Heinlein and his book Starship Troopers changed the way I understood what books could do. His space marines being shot from space to the ground influenced my jettisoned warriors the bombardier troopers in book one.
Let’s change gears a bit I want to talk about my teen years. When I was fourteen I owned every issue of the original Star Wars comic books. I was at the age when they seemed like magic, until my stepmother Karen made me rip them up as a punishment.
Just for the record I now own three complete sets of that original Star Wars Comic series.
I do love fantasy it’s my favorite genre, but there are too many unbelievably books filled with gods and mages and witches.
Fantasy Adventure is my favorite kind of story. So not finding any good ones I decided to write my own book and bring the excitement of Tolkien and Battlefield earth and Starship troopers mixed with Bram Stoker and my years of D and D experience with me into my own original story then I would have control and the excitement of making the magic. Having learned how to play Dungeons and Dragons at the age of fourteen in junior high I have used that knowledge at fifty one along with all those years of lessons and experience as a palate to paint my masterpiece.
My imagination is very powerful and I am creative. I didn’t steel anything from my influences; I just let my own ideas grow from them.
Lastly I want to mention that ten years ago I found the magic of audio Books and have consumed hundreds and hundreds of the best and most amazing stories since then. Some of the very best books I have listened to because it’s the way I read nowadays. Every night I set my IPod touch sleep alarm and fade away into adventure. The best Audio Books are up to you and you tastes.
I really like Post-Apocalyptic survival, bug out treks through societal break down, EMP (electromagnetic pulse) sun flares, zombie apocalypse, anything were a small band of people have to go somewhere against great and tricky odds.
Thanks for your time and thanks for listening.
David Polhemus
Prolegomenon: 2


Mitherion is my first book; I started writing in late 2012 and finished it in 2015.
I’ve rewritten it now in 2017 getting it ready for Audible audio books. Writing books one and two gained me many years of experience and I’ve used it going back through both books line by line. I cut out bloated sections and added enhancements detailing the stories with several upgrades and corrections. The improvements in my craft have made the books far better than I could before. I have defined the people places and encounters in a better way re-evolving the book’s writing making it grow and become clearer in a much better version.

I’ve rewritten both books now to make them better with the improvements in my craft. I’m reinterpreting the books as if the people and places and encounters are real. I see them very clearly now. The Characters have been trying to leap off the pages and escape from fantasy into reality for a very long time because they are real to me. They are parts of me and my family and my friends and my enemies.


The rewriting of my books happened on plains but on no train and in my automobile. Every day at work on my IPad 12 and on my computer in my room painted gold. It came to me in waking dreams and from thin air. In the beginning I wrote on scraps and grocery store bags. Now here it is in the best version ever. Enjoy this adventure with Prom and his friends in the vast ancient land of Mitherion.

In conclusion I would like to say I’m not even close to finishing yet. My third book which the first six chapters are included here is going to be an epic worldwide fantasy adventure.
Read more (76 lines)
 
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Nikki McDonagh

3 months ago  -  Shared publicly
Hi David!
 
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Ruth de Jauregui via Google+

3 months ago  -  Shared publicly
Today #OurAuthorGang welcomes author David Polhemus. His epic fantasy Mitherion books are available in paperback and he's working on the audiobooks now!
 
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Ruth de Jauregui

3 months ago  -  Shared publicly
Welcome to our blog, David! Your book sounds great!
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Toi Thomas

3 months ago  -  Shared publicly
Thanks for joining us today David. Your stories sounds interesting and your adventure with creating audiobooks sounds exciting.
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Cindy Smith

3 months ago  -  Shared publicly
Welcome and best wishes for your endeavors
 
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Cindy Smith shared this via Google+

3 months ago  -  Shared publicly
 
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Toi Thomas via Google+

3 months ago  -  Shared publicly
Today we welcome author David Polhemus to #OurAuthorGang.
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Erika M Szabo shared this via Google+

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Erika M Szabo

3 months ago  -  Shared publicly
Nice to have you on our blog David
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Lorraine Carey

3 months ago  -  Shared publicly
It's so great to have you as a guest today, David. You do live in a beautiful place that will inspire you to write. Your new books sounds very interesting.
 
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Eva Miranda via Google+

3 months ago  -  Shared publicly
Toi Thomas originally shared this
Today we welcome author David Polhemus to #OurAuthorGang.

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