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Author Insights EC: Giovanni's Angel Excerpts

Author Insights 11: Topics vs. Themes (part 2)

authorinsight

Topic: 1a subject of conversation or discussion

Theme: 2a unifying or dominant idea, motif, etc., as in a work of art

The Three Major Themes of Eternal Curse

Purpose | Discovery | Faith

Discovery

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice. ~Arthur Schopenhauer

Much of the “action” of this story is fueled by need to discover something or the actual process of discovery. In this story the role of discovery is two-fold. There is the physical act of finding something new or “new to you” and then there is the realization of something that’s been there all alone, but has been hidden or unseen.

I’m not giving away any spoilers here, but the discovery of the Eternal Curse is the ultimate goal even though the characters don’t know they are looking for it. In truth, the curse itself isn’t a secret or mystery, but the characters do struggle with acknowledging that it truly does exist. Ultimately, it is the discovery of what the curse actually is and deciding how it will affect their lives hence forth that is greatest discovery Giovanni and Mira will find.

Oh, but there is so much more to be discovered in the interim. Intimacy between two people is always a journey of discovery especially when not focusing on the physical. While Giovanni has much to learn and discover about relationships, in general, platonic and romantic, Giovanni, Mira, and Abraham learn a lesson or two about emotional intimacy and attachment to others.

Eternal Curse also happens to be one of those stories that doesn’t just come right out and tell you some things. Much of the plot has to be figured out by the reader which also adds to the sense of discovery. There are some discoveries that are so minute, that if you aren’t reading carefully, you might not pick up on them until the very end.

Lastly, the discovery of truth is hindered by the presence of fear. Fear is the main obstacle holding back the characters of this story from learning the truth. As fears are overcome and set aside, discoveries will abound only to lead to more mysteries and struggles to solved and overcome.

To hunt is instinct, to discover is intellect; to be human is to never stop searching.

Next time I’ll touch on the subject of Faith. Until then, please enjoy this excerpt from Eternal Curse: Giovanni’s Angel.

~

Mira sat in silence, watching a tear form in Giovanni’s right eye. She couldn’t figure out if he was trying to scare her or if he really meant what he was saying. With shivers running down her spine, Mira realized she had to break this awkward silence. “So, what did you think when you first saw me, that is before I fainted? Was I what you were expecting?” she asked cheerfully.

Giovanni’s body perked up as he began to answer her question. “You were not what I expected you to be. I thought you’d be older. You seemed to have done so much in your life and expressed yourself with such wisdom and maturity. I thought you’d be a good companion for Abraham.”

“Abraham!” Mira said with a giggle. “You must have thought I was really old… Tell me, am I much of a disappointment to you?”

Giovanni thought about it for a moment. He relived the experience in his mind and tried to explain and understand what he felt the moment he first saw her, but he couldn’t do it. He had never felt that way before. “I don’t think I was disappointed at all,” he said. “I think I was overcome with excitement. I liked the way you looked right away, but you also made me feel…small somehow.”

“Oh, okay,” said Mira, a little flattered and disappointed at the same time. She felt she’d heard a compliment somewhere in Giovanni’s statement, but his speech and mannerisms lacked the emotion to solidify the feeling. Mira wasn’t quite sure how to react at that point. After a few silent moments of awkward tension, Mira began to raise herself up to head back into the house. Just then, Giovanni started to say something, as though they had been conversing the whole time.

“Did you know that you’re named after a special star?” he said, looking up at the sky.

“No, I didn’t know that,” she replied, retaking her spot on the porch. “I always just assumed I was named randomly. My benefactor never told me that my name had any significance.”

“Oh, but it does,” said Giovanni as he turned his head to look at her. “You are named after the first of a series of stars that change their brightness over periods of time. Mira is a large red star and it shines for like three hundred or so days at a time and then disappears from sight.” He returned his eyes to the sky as he continued to explain. “Then it miraculously reappears again. That’s why they called it Mira when they discovered it. It was like a miracle to them.”

Mira was in awe at Giovanni’s rhetoric. “Thank you for sharing that with me. That was wonderful,” she murmured. Giovanni shook his head, as if to say you’re welcome, but said nothing else and remained gazing upon the starry night. Mira thought to ask for the significance of his name, but it seemed that Giovanni had already shut down socially for the night. Mira said good night to him and headed off to her room.

Eternal Curse: Giovanni’s Angel Copyright © 2013 Toinette Thomas

A new edition of this book is now available.

If you missed part 1 of this post, please visit the Writer’s Revolution to get the scoop.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

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Guest Posts

Writing/Poetry Promotion Tips by Lillian Brummet

Despite the global economic issues facing us today and the rising competition on the book promotion market, poetry is a growing market with an increasing readership. In the world of writing it is generally well known that poetry is one of the hardest genres to market, however there are a number of opportunities if one knows where to look.

Over the years I’ve noticed a growth in online radio programs that focus on poetry. Like print publications, each radio program will have a unique focus – some may accept poetic works according to the region, genre or topic. If you have access to the internet, all you need to do is do a search at each online radio station using key works such as poetry, poets, writing and the genre you write in (i.e. gardens, environment, social change, etc).

When you prepare the query there are several options to consider. First, how do you appeal to their audience? When does the radio show go live? How do listeners access the archived show? How do you plan on promoting the event if they decide to feature your work?

Depending on the radio program’s operations you might be calling in to a live show, or you might be recorded for a later date. Most radio shows will simply have a conversation over the telephone, so your location is not usually an issue, and this helps you reach a global audience. Some radio shows are Skype friendly (skype.com); Skype offers a way for people to have conversations using their computer and a headset – which is a budget-friendly option helping us avoid expensive long distance telephone charges. The host might want to interview you about the creation process, your experiences with poetry readings or the publication industry. They will likely need you to read at least one of your poems on air, be sure to choose poems that suit their audience.

The host may ask you to offer a pre-recorded MP3 file of your reading, and this is where you can have a lot of fun with having background music, or a variety of sounds from nature to industry – depending on your reading. When creating an MP3 file you can either use a recording of a live performance you did recently at a poetry café or something like that, or you can do a reading specifically for that radio show. Some radio shows will ask you to provide only one poem in MP3 format, others will want a longer performance. Be sure you have clarified what the host or program director requires from you.

Occasionally a radio host will be open to playing a 30 second promotional MP3 for your published book, magazine or website during one of their shows for free – all you have to do is ask. MP3 files that were created for radio shows are useful for websites as well, allowing visitors to a website to listen to the author reading their work in their own voice.

Online radio is only one option for a poet’s marketing plan. We can also consider online publications from e-zines to blogs that are often very willing to highlight a poet’s work. Be sure to offer those MP3’s to these sites as well, you never know what they might like to use. Another frugal and useful option is YouTube videos (youtube.com) where you can record yourself reading your work, or presenting it to a live audience. These videos are helpful for websites, publications and blogs to enrich the experience for their audience.

~ Lillian Brummet: Award-winning author, book marketing guru, owner of the award-winning Brummet’s Conscious Blog, and both the host and executive producer of the Conscious Discussions Talk Radio show. (http://brummetmedia.ca/)

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

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Guest Posts

When A Fantasy World Spills Over by Jaq D. Hawkins

Click image to see more books in the Deathgate Cycle.

I’ve read Fantasy since a very young age and one of the wonderful discoveries of my young reading days was the series. Fantasy writing involves a lot of world building and setting up ‘rules’ of the society, but more importantly, the reader as well as the writer often falls in love with an imaginary world and a series allows both to continue to visit these Fantasy realms in our imagination.

Some of my early loves were Anne McCaffrey’s Pern and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover. I was fascinated by the laws of Physics and how they were gently warped in Roger Zelazny’s Amber. Some worlds were less of a joy to visit, such as the challenging worlds conquered by Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion series heroes and the prison world of the Deathgate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Even these worlds embraced the fantastic and stretched the imagination into the far reaches of possibility. The seedy streets of Thieves World and the subculture of vampires in Anne Rice’s novels that began with Interview With the Vampire allowed the reader to adventure in dark and dangerous realms from the safety of their favourite reading chair.

I first became a published writer in the old traditional way in the 1980’s, but I was writing in a non-fiction genre and there was a part of me that always wanted to write in my own Fantasy world. I made an attempt once or twice to formulate an imaginary world and found that it couldn’t be forced. I had written a lot of fiction in high school, but as much as my Mind, Body, Spirit books flowed easily, my inspirations for fiction had become fragmented during many years of my life when I was travelling a lot and experiencing different aspects of real life.

It was something from real life that eventually sparked the seed of a new Fantasy realm. George Bush II was about to be re-elected *cough* and I had dipped my toe into activist groups in an attempt to start a worldwide protest movement that would reflect the atmosphere of 1969. I found that modern activist groups mostly worked separately and each had their own agenda, so co-ordinating anything after the effects of the ‘me’ generation of the 1980’s was effectively impossible. While contemplating how things should be rather than how they are, a line of dialogue entered my mind.

“We are not like you. We do not glory in having power over our own kind. Or imagining that we do.” ~Haghuf, Dance of the Goblins

It wasn’t something that a human was likely to say to another human, so in my mind the speaker became a goblin and suddenly an idea for a whole society, a Shamanistic subculture of goblins was born. Ten minutes later I was busy scribbling and when I stopped, chapter one was finished. I threw in some magicians for the goblins to interact with and they took over as the ruling class and suddenly, a whole new Fantasy world had effectively laid itself out for me.

During the course of writing the first book, the second and third books became notes files. There were things I wanted to follow up in subsequent generations, but I decided I would definitely stop at three. A series that goes on too long can weigh heavy on a reader. As much as I enjoyed Deathgate Cycle, I was very anxious for it to finish in the last few books. However, Darkover and Anne Rice’s Vampire books had transcended the sequential series by expanding through stand alone books. These worlds can be dipped in and out of without any need for sequence. My answer to this was to work towards a book of short stories related to my goblin world, Meat For the Storytelling. At this stage I have story notes to fill two volumes, but the stories that have been released to date can be read at http://jaqdhawkins.wordpress.com/.

When I finish ten of them, I will bundle them into the first collection and offer it at minimal price. How long it will go one to further volumes will be decided by the goblins. As long as I still have need to visit their world, the short stories will make a convenient arena to fill in pieces of back story or new adventures that reveal more detail about the societies that make up the series.

If you are writing about a Fantasy world, don’t feel that you have to put everything into a first book. Let it unfold in stages so that both you and your readers can enjoy the thrill of discovery at every point along the way. To build a world begins with a basic landscape and a few rules. The rest will fall into place as you write. Once you have established your own world, side novels or stories can go on for as long as someone, especially the writer, wants to return just one more time to experience this special realm of your imagination.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords