Bad decisions make GREAT fiction. I know it’s tough to not write about fully evolved/self-actualized characters, but those guys are B-O-R-I-N-G. We like to watch people grow, probably so we might glean some hint of how to grow, ourselves. The more messed up a character is? The more INTERESTING they become.
Come on! You know it.
If you were at a restaurant and had a choice of where to eavesdrop, would it be the couple talking about their plans for the week as a team baking cookies for the school? Or would it be the nasty breakup on Table 6?
If we don’t have conflict, the story falls flat. Everything comes too easily and that is a formula for a Snooze-Fest. I am SO HUMBLED and honored to be friends with THE LEGEND Les Edgerton. In his mind? NOTHING comes easily. Even if your protagonist just wants directions, she should…
It is finally release day! Â Lets give a warm welcome to Amber Skye Forbes and her debut novel!!!
WHEN STARS DIE Â is an insightful examination of human suffering and the first installment of The Stars Trilogy.
  When Stars die by Amber Skye Forbes.  Release date Oct 22. Price $12.79
Shadowy figures haunt Amelia’s days in Cathedral Reims, and they are waiting for her to join them. Redemption isn’t possible for a witch, but she’s committed her life to trying, as long as she can still protect her younger brother, Nathaniel. What she doesn’t realize is that Nathaniel’s been seeing the figures too, and that both of them are about to be submerged into a much different – and more dangerous – world than they ever knew existed. They unite with the dangerously attractive priest, Oliver Cromwell, in hop
HERE IS A UTUBE TRAILER IF YOU WANT TO CATCH A PEEK!
Meet the author
Amber Skye Forbes’s first publication was a short story titled “Dead Poet’s Pendulum” published in The Oddville Press when she was nineteen. Since then she has had a few editorial stints: slush pile reader for The Oddville Press, Executive Editor for Sorean: A Gothic Magazine, where she had two installation fiction pieces published, a few articles, and some photography,Editorial and Communications Intern for YALITCHAT, and Founder and Managing Editor of The Corner Club Press. Outside of her writerly life, Amber loves painting, doing photography, playing video games, and mothering her cat. She lives in Grovetown, Georgia where she attends Augusta State University with a track in English middle education.
If you want to reach out to Amber here is where you will find her:
Just a reminder that When Stars Die by Amber Sky Forbes is being released on OCT 22, 2013. Â I’m very excited!
Â
WHEN STARS DIE Â is an insightful examination of human suffering and the first installment of The Stars Trilogy.
 When Stars die by Amber Skye Forbes.  Release date Oct 22. by ACE Publishing.  Price $12.79
Shadowy figures haunt Amelia’s days in Cathedral Reims, and they are waiting for her to join them. Redemption isn’t possible for a witch, but she’s committed her life to trying, as long as she can still protect her younger brother, Nathaniel. What she doesn’t realize is that Nathaniel’s been seeing the figures too, and that both of them are about to be submerged into a much different – and more dangerous – world than they ever knew existed. They unite with the dangerously attractive priest, Oliver Cromwell, in hop
HERE IS A UTUBE TRAILER IF YOU WANT TO CATCH A PEEK!
Meet the author
Amber Skye Forbes’s first publication was a short story titled “Dead Poet’s Pendulum” published in The Oddville Press when she was nineteen. Since then she has had a few editorial stints: slush pile reader for The Oddville Press, Executive Editor for Sorean: A Gothic Magazine, where she had two installation fiction pieces published, a few articles, and some photography,Editorial and Communications Intern for YALITCHAT, and Founder and Managing Editor of The Corner Club Press. Outside of her writerly life, Amber loves painting, doing photography, playing video games, and mothering her cat. She lives in Grovetown, Georgia where she attends Augusta State University with a track in English middle education.
If you want to reach out to Amber here is where you will find her:
SORIN SUCIU, author of the contemporary fantasy, The Scriptlings:
“Amber’s writing is dark, marked by suffering and a deep understanding of what makes us tick, not to mention tock. Her devastating first-person narrative and present tense combo makes it hard not to be drawn into the story. While “When Stars Die” is categorized under Romance, there is so much more to it than that. Indeed, I would even argue that romance is not even the main dish, but rather the subtle spice that takes the whole plate up a notch.”
CL MANNARINO, avid reader of Young Adult Romance:
“This is a fascinating and thoughtfully plotted debut, and well-written in the technical sense. As my first Christian book, or any book with heavy overtones of spirituality or religiousness, When Stars Die has certainly been an entertaining read.”
Superstition is the belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any natural process linking the two events, such as astrology, religion, omens, witchcraft, etc., that contradicts natural science. (wikipedia)
I am the type of person that likes to defy the natural order and go against what others believe t be bad luck. Â When I was a kid, I stepped on every crack I could find, Â and my mother’s back is just fine. Â (And no I wasn’t trying to hurt her!).
This doesn’t mean I don’t believe in magic or other things that science can’t prove, because I absolutely do believe in things I can’t see or explain. (Ghosts, Witches, Magic, reincarnation, and the creatures that I swear live in the wall sockets.)  I think I just like to live on the edge a little.  I’m the kind of person who wants to jump out of a perfectly good airplane!  reinventingsandib.com
Seriously it’s on my bucket list!
But back to superstition.  I have no issues going under a ladder, crossing a black cat (cause they are too cute!),or  opening an umbrella in the house just because it drives people nuts!  I don’t understand how people can come to the conclusion that these will cause bad luck.  How did this come to be?  And how does the superstition remain in this day and age?  I swear I must have broken at least a dozen mirrors in my lifetime and I really don’t have any more bad luck than the next guy.  Of course that is totally subjective.  Maybe if I had been more careful I would be a millionaire by now!  Or a world famous Author!
I came across this site with many common superstitions and I shook my head when I read them.
 http://www.csicop.org/superstition/library/common_superstitions/
I mean seriously “A cat will try to take the breath from a baby”.  The cat just likes the smell of the milk the baby drank, they are not evil creatures.  How dare they insult the  kitty!  Kitty’s are sacred in some cultures.
The Egyptians new how to treat a cat! (Of course they also buried them with the dead to protect them in the next life – poor kitty)
Maybe I love black cats because of the Witch in me? Â They are just adorable. Â How can anyone ever think this guy is bad luck?
scary-pictures.feedio.net
So my question to you is …Do you believe in any superstitions? What are they?  How did you come to believe in this?  I love hearing from you, so please leave a comment.
I am very excited to be a part of the debut for Amber as her first book is about to be released. Â When Stars Die is a Young Adult Paranormal Romance set to be released by ACE publishing on OCT 22, 2013. Â Â
Â
WHEN STARS DIE Â is an insightful examination of human suffering and the first installment of The Stars Trilogy.
 When Stars die by Amber Skye Forbes.  Release date Oct 22. Price $12.79
Shadowy figures haunt Amelia’s days in Cathedral Reims, and they are waiting for her to join them. Redemption isn’t possible for a witch, but she’s committed her life to trying, as long as she can still protect her younger brother, Nathaniel. What she doesn’t realize is that Nathaniel’s been seeing the figures too, and that both of them are about to be submerged into a much different – and more dangerous – world than they ever knew existed. They unite with the dangerously attractive priest, Oliver Cromwell, in hop
HERE IS A UTUBE TRAILER IF YOU WANT TO CATCH A PEEK!
Meet the author
Amber Skye Forbes’s first publication was a short story titled “Dead Poet’s Pendulum” published in The Oddville Press when she was nineteen. Since then she has had a few editorial stints: slush pile reader for The Oddville Press, Executive Editor for Sorean: A Gothic Magazine, where she had two installation fiction pieces published, a few articles, and some photography,Editorial and Communications Intern for YALITCHAT, and Founder and Managing Editor of The Corner Club Press. Outside of her writerly life, Amber loves painting, doing photography, playing video games, and mothering her cat. She lives in Grovetown, Georgia where she attends Augusta State University with a track in English middle education.
If you want to reach out to Amber here is where you will find her:
SORIN SUCIU, author of the contemporary fantasy, The Scriptlings:
“Amber’s writing is dark, marked by suffering and a deep understanding of what makes us tick, not to mention tock. Her devastating first-person narrative and present tense combo makes it hard not to be drawn into the story. While “When Stars Die” is categorized under Romance, there is so much more to it than that. Indeed, I would even argue that romance is not even the main dish, but rather the subtle spice that takes the whole plate up a notch.”
CL MANNARINO, avid reader of Young Adult Romance:
“This is a fascinating and thoughtfully plotted debut, and well-written in the technical sense. As my first Christian book, or any book with heavy overtones of spirituality or religiousness, When Stars Die has certainly been an entertaining read.”
Fear is the most important tool in any writer’s toolbox. Fear is the beating heart of conflict, no matter the genre. Fear of death. Fear of losing love, not finding love, not recognizing love. Fear of change. Fear of remaining the same. In Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novella The Road, the story was less about a fear of death and more about the fear of survival at the expense of one’s humanity. In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan explores the fear of continuing generational curses.
In Winter’s Bone, Woodrell examines fear of family, what it takes to possibly betray family and risk death by turning on kin. In Virginia Woolf’s classic Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf probes the fear of being meaningless. Alduous Huxley’s Brave New World explores the fear of government, the tendency of the masses to devolve to mediocrity, and the dangers of society…
First, a quick announcement. For those who’ve been waiting, my new social media book Rise of the Machines–Human Authors in a Digital Worldis now available in PRINT. Yay! *happy dance* Almost 300 pages and 1.1 pounds of AWESOME. All you need to build a solid author platform and have time to do the most important part of the job—WRITE MORE BOOKS.
All right. Since it’s coming up on October, it seemed fitting to delve into the genre of Horror, and not simply for those who write spooky tales, but for the rest of us as well.
Elisabeth Kubler Ros once stated:
There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt. It’s true that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But…
Horror is probably one of my favorite genres and always has been. When I was a teen, we didn’t have YA. We had Dean Koontz, Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft and Clive Barker. My parents were thrilled I was reading. I wonder how they would’ve felt had they known what I was reading. Yet, growing up, I couldn’t get enough scary books or horror movies and not much has changed.
Even now, when life is stressful, out of control, or I’ve had a day that’s simply served me my own tail-end on a platter, what’s my favorite outlet? A good scary movie. Not slasher flicks, but horror; terrifying, well-thought stories. In a way, I find this strange, since I dedicate most of my waking hours to making other laugh, empowering them, teaching them and encouraging them.
So why, of all things, would I be drawn to something that could scare the…
When I saw this meme on Facebook, I though my husband was going to have to scrape me off the floor I was laughing so hard. And, like most things in life, if I’m left long enough to marinate on something, I frequently discover a hidden truth or a lesson we can all apply to life, our work and our art.
There are a lot of lessons out there about author branding (I’m right, though :D). There are those who hail the genius of automation, or claim we should be outrageous, shocking, and rattle The Establishment (whatever that is). I suppose all paths are viable, though all will yield different results.
The Automated Path
There are marketing technophiles who will gladly (and often for a fee) set up our social media to act on its own. We spend an hour writing clever snippets, plug them in and POOF! A machine…
O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.
…
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet.  So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,  Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title.
I love this scene from Romeo and Juliet and it is probably one of the few lines that I can recite by heart to this day.  (I learned this in grade 9…many years ago.)  It always struck a chord with me.  So when I write  I try to make my names match my characters.  This can be very subjective since  a strong name to me could be Nathan
Hellooo Nathan!
but to you Nathan could bring images of a wimpy character.
  Nathan?  Really? Hmmm.  So you see the dilemma.
When I start writing, I write whatever name comes to mind at the time of writing. Â I then analyse during editing whether or not to keep the name for various reasons. Â My current story has three strong male leads.
Jesse – the popular, good looking, high school Jock. Â Not a jerk but usually sweet and very charming. Â Loved by all, but a little conceited and not the swiftest.
Justin – the boy next door, smart, funny, best friend of my Heroine, possible love interest with a heart of gold and a strong romantic – love you forever- kind of guy.
Jake – the mostly bad, mostly evil demon who has a tiny bit of good in him. Â Oh and he is about 100 years old, but looks 18, so an older name would be good.
S o you see the problem. Â Too many J’s and the reader gets confused.
I am looking for help for any or all names. Â Hopefully I will get some new ideas to fit my characters. Â I appreciate any and all feedback. Â Please leave me a comment on a name for which character.
  When Stars die by Amber Skye Forbes.  Release date Oct 22. Price $12.79
 Photo taken from quickbrownfox.com
cat7cat.wordpress.com
reinventingsandib.com
scary-pictures.feedio.net
 Nathan?  Really? Hmmm.  So you see the 
Cynthia Stacey 