The River, Waterfalls, and the Writing Life by S. L. Carlson

The River, Waterfalls, and the Writing Life by S. L. Carlson

I am S. L. Carlson, a proud and grateful BWL Publishing Inc. author. My books can be viewed and purchased by visiting https://www.bookswelove.net/carlson-s-l

 

 Part I:

Waterfalls in northern Wisconsin flow best in May, when most of the snow has melted and the rains have begun filling the rivers. May is also a time before mosquitoes, thick enough to carry off a human, start to immerge, and before tourists start crowding in. It was an adventure.

Locating waterfalls was mostly tentative. I had two paper maps open on my lap, as well as a sightseeing book of Wisconsin, as well as a brochure on waterfalls in two counties. Even so, directions were not always clear, and our time limited. Finding a waterfall was all a matter of trust: my husband trusting me to get us into the approximate area; me trusting maps and books which sometimes contradicted; trusting signs with no further directions of where to go, but having to take our best guesses. Sometimes, physical signs to reach it were antiquated and/or vague.

 

To reach two of them, it took driving various dirt backroads reach the trailheads, followed with gorgeous woodland hikes of an hour one way to the tumbling falls. One hike was under rumbling-thundering skies. But adventure and determination ruled. And the end result was well worth it.

 

Sometimes, physical signs to reach it were antiquated and/or vague.

 

After finding a place to park, we wandered near hydroelectric plants, through forested areas beside fenced-off cliffs, then followed our ears to the sound of rushing water.

 

The river above the more major falls often runs deep, swift, and silent. Then comes the continuous tumble of water. (Earplugs were recommended for one.) After the churning and bubbling ceases below the falls, the river once again runs quietly.

 

Part II:

My writing life, writing a novel, is like a river. It can start with an idea, like a spring bubbling up in a high meadow. As the idea develops, the story-stream widens into a river with more characters, action and plot, running deeper and faster. I start writing faster as I feel the story coming to life. I must admit that there are times when I write blind, not sure where the river is going. Sometimes a tributary leads me to backwater or a still pond. Do I block it off or ignore it, or is it interesting enough to keep in? Always, though, I must backtrack to return to the writing river, to the essence of the story.

My river tumbles as whitewater over rocks with various conflicts in the story.

There are twists and turns in the river I can’t always see around. I mean…which the reader can’t see around. There are areas with towering cliffs on each side, evidence of erosion from the many authors before me, carving the way for me to follow. Then comes the climax, the rushing, tumbling, crashing to below. But follow the river downstream, and it continues on, silent and calm.

 

From the bubbling beginnings of a story idea, my novels develop into the deep and silent river flow, gathering more and more speed, to the sound and expectation and excitement of the dramatic climax, the waterfall, finally concluding with the quiet, satisfactory story ending.

 

May each book you read follow to the thrill of the river and waterfall adventure.

 

S. L. Carlson Blog & Website: https://authorslcarlson.wordpress.com

BWL Inc. Publisher Author Page: https://www.bookswelove.net/carlson-s-l 

The Narcissistic Villain

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Villains can be a tricky proposition--in fiction as well as in our day to day world.  We all hope we don't become entangled with malevolent people--ones who wish us harm--in real life. "Mad and Bad & Dangerous to know," was said of Byron, who was definitely NOT the kind of man you wanted to enchant your daughter. However, in a story, a villain provides driving force to a plot, and gives the hero and heroine an antagonist with whom to spar.  Inside a book, we are safe; there is no actual blood spilled.

By the way, the gentleman on the spooky cover above is not the villain, although he is a shape-shifter. The villain in Zauberkraft: Black is "a man of wealth and taste" who also happens to be a vampire. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and vampires, certainly, have eternity in which to brood and plot.

Villains can be fun to write--my cohort were brought up on movie theater cowboy serials, thus today, in our most entertainment ready mode, we still enjoy a good melodrama. Here, the white hats win and the black hats are carted off to justice. And what could be more melodramatic than a movie like "The Heiress"? Though this picture was made before I emerged from my mother, it's one of those movies I vividly remember seeing for the first time. I remember long cold Skaneateles winter-frigid afternoons, wrapped in woolens and watching a small Zenith TV. The somber black and white flickering on the screen matched the mood of the frozen world outside.

For anyone who isn't familiar, here's the plot. A naive, lonely heiress falls prey to a narcissistic con man, whose plan is to marry her, drive her mad, and then have her committed so he can assume control of her fortune. At first, he is the caring, genteel lover of whom she's dreamed. He does every little romantic thing for her so that, without knowing anything about him, she accepts his proposal. In modern psychological parlance this is called "love bombardment."  It's the full charm offensive with which the narcissist sweeps his target off her feet.

Next, the husband seduces the parlor maid and enlists her aid in his plot. Then the two of them begin to undermine his wife's trust in her sanity. Every night, he turns down the gaslight in the hall just a little bit, all the while staunchly insisting that his wife's "just imagining" it. The setting, in 19th Century America, where women were easily dispatched to asylums by husbands who had tired of them, smooths the villain's way.

Now, more than half a century later, "gaslighting" is a term with which most are familiar. Now, however, instead of referring to the actions of a single smooth sadist in an old film, it's commonly used by therapists to describe one of the ways in which a narcissist first undermines and then controls his relationship partner. In the real world, the narcissist is a dangerous creature, and lately it seems they are everywhere.

Back to the more innocuous world of fiction, where a narcissistic personality type makes a great villain. The narcissist, it turns out, has a sort of universal playbook. Reliably unreliable, considering only their own advantage, they love nothing and no one. In their world, empathy, or its cousin, sympathy, are incomprehensible, concepts "for suckers." They swallow up the people around them like a black hole. Absolute power, a constant stream of praise from sycophants combined with blind obedience to their whims is a narcissist's dream of heaven.

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Some of the other traits that characterize a narcissist are grandiosity, an excessive need for admiration, disregard for the feelings of others, inability to accept criticism, and an air of entitlement and superiority. They target vulnerable, empathetic people who have something they want; they are masters of manipulation. When they don't get what they want, they become epic bullies, hounding their targets into submission.

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Without really knowing what exactly I was doing or sticking a label on and then writing a character to fit the diagnosis, I have used this type of antagonist in several of my books. In some of these stories, the character is somewhere along the spectrum toward utter self-centeredness.

After all, the true full blown malignant narcissist (at least, as a fictional character) is one who seems constantly in danger of "over the top." There is, after all, a wide spectrum of human behavior and one of the first duties of a writer is to convince the reader that the story is--on some level--believable. So many of my villains are somewhere in the dark gray end of the zone, not irredeemably black.  Still, there are some terrors in these books of mine. 

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~~Juliet Waldron
Website of Juliet Waldron

Road Trips

 

All my books are available at  http://www.bookswelove.com/baldwin-barbara/

            And we’re off. Whether everyone’s piled in the car or in a mobile RV; whether it’s just you, or you and a friend riding bikes or motorcycles, taking a road trip is one of the greatest adventures you can have. If you mapped out your trip beforehand, did you leave time for unexpected stops? Did you plan to specifically stop at tourist attractions along the way to your destination? Whatever you plan, DO NOT get in the car, buckle up and not stop until you get to your destination.

Lavender fields in Ontario, Canada

          

The very best road trips are those times you find unexpected treasures along the way. Sure, there are a whole lot of “The World’s Largest”…whatever. There are even towns that have very creatively turned themselves into a travel/tourist stop.

 One such place is Casey, Illinois, where throughout the town you will find the world’s largest golf tee, the world’s largest wind chimes, the world’s largest knitting needles (which actually work!), and the world’s largest rocking chair – all in one town!

            Yet the very best “finds” are sometimes “hidden in plain view”. Have you ever seen barn quilts while driving through the Midwest? What about a long, long row of fence with old cowboy boots upside-down on each of the fence posts? When we were kids traveling to grandma’s house in the summer, there were no interstates and we could find all sorts of things as we drove two lane highways. (Remember travel bingo?) Finding Burma Shave signs was always a great treat.

            

One of the most intriguing finds recently was during a drive from Niagara Falls, Canada to Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. The highway was cut through rocky hills and suddenly we began seeing rock statues high along the tops of rock outcroppings. These weren’t carved out of rock, but were rather what looked like statues of people made out of rocks. We were seeing them from the ground and they were anywhere from a foot to more than eighteen inches tall.

Further research when we had the time and we discovered they were “Inukshuk”, used by the Inuit in the north as directional markers. They are in the shape of a person to signify safety, hope and friendship. These stone sculptures were important for navigation, as a marker for hunting grounds, or possibly to denote a food cache. And we found them totally by accident!

Once upon a time I took a trip across Missouri into Kentucky to eventually end up in Tennessee. I loved the estates I saw in Kentucky, given romantic names such as “Misty Farms”. Large brick homes with tall white columns across the front were surrounded by white wooden fence, and many had green pastures full of thoroughbred horses. On the interstate, I drove by a uniquely built barn; so unique I pulled off the interstate at the next exit, turned across the overpass and returned the opposite way to get another look at the structure. Going the proper speed, I missed it again. The second time I exited the interstate, I took a back road and found a piece of history – an old tobacco barn with open slats on the sides and a totally unique interior. At that moment, I decided the rest of my trip would be made on back roads and two lane highways. As a writer, road trips such as this are invaluable for everything from collecting strange and unique names to use in my writing, to imagining scenes as real life slides by the windows.

I’ve posted covers from two books this month – “Love in Disguise” and “Hold on to the Past” because both of these are about traveling. The first takes place along and aboard the first transcontinental railroad, and the second is about a trip on the Missouri River aboard the Steamboat Arabia. Both are great “road trip” stories of a different sort, full of mystery and romance and can easily be ordered at http://www.bookswelove.com/baldwin-barbara/.

Taking a road trip is something we can begin to do as we emerge from the pandemic because it doesn’t involve large groups of people in very public places. Fill up the car with gas, pack a lunch and head out along the back roads. Perhaps you’ll come across the fire-breathing dragon we did!

And whatever you do, don't just read the billboard about the Drive-Through Safari. Take that exit!

Barb Baldwin

http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin

http://www.bookswelove.com/baldwin-barbara/

Beware the Most Dangerous Animal in the Jungle...by Stuart R. West

Of course I'm talking about the great lumbering beast: the American Ox. Otherwise known as myself.

Click for comic mystery antics.

 I don't camp. Never have, never will. Nature and I don't get along. If I so much as glance at poison ivy, I turn into a giant blister bubble. On the other hand, my wife loves camping and nature. Everything that is nature except for...the unspeakable eight-legged critters. She suffers from a truly bad case of arachnophobia. 

My wife (kinda, sorta) avoiding arachnids in the jungle (what she doesn't know won't kill her.)

Over the course of our trip, several people thought they could cure my wife's fears easy-peasy with some Dr. Phil nonsense: "Oh, the best way to conquer your fear is to face it." Someone else tried the routine of "no, no, spiders are good! They bla, bla, bla..." While their intentions were good, they've never witnessed my wife jump out of a moving car once she spotted a spider. While she was driving. Twice.

So, for obvious reasons, people thought we were crazy for going to the jungle.

My wife, um, enjoying the floor.

Me, I possess the grace of a big, clumsy meth-head trying to thread a needle. Getting in and out of the boat proved extremely problematic. Our guide, Victor--an amiable sort, fluent in English and bird-song--grew weary of my (literally) rocking the boat. Constantly, he told me to "slow down, slow down." But he didn't understand speed was the only way I kept from falling, sheer momentum my only ally. Amazingly, I didn't capsize the boat, but I capsized myself a couple of times. 

Victor standing at ease and defying gravity in our boat.

Once, Victor wanted to redistribute weight throughout the boat so he instructed me to move back a bench. I'd successfully moved myself back before by just using my arms and swinging my body backward, so I thought I could do it again. Methinks I'd forgotten the 50 pound backpack attached to my body. I fell between the benches, legs up in the air like half-price day at the old-West brothel. A particularly poor day to wear white pants (and what was I thinking wearing white pants into the jungle anyway? Terrible fashion choice.). 

A good larf was had by all (except for me and my wounded pride. Not to mention my wounded posterior).

Falling isn't anything new for me. Gravity and balance are not my friends. While escorting us across wooden planks to the local jungle health clinic, Victor remarked on one of our cohorts' very good balance. I said, "I think she has better balance than me." 

Victor readily agreed. "Much better," he said. "Much, much better."

Of COURSE nature just loves Victor.

So there I am, floundering around in the jungle, trying my damnedest not to fall on snakes or worse, planting my feet ploddingly, arms out like a new-born tyke learning to walk. Hardly jungle material.

Back to that health clinic... The Yanamano Clinic--a small, humid building just off the river--is run by a doctor from Wisconsin and services the locals (or at least those who've embraced Western medicine). The doctor, understandably frustrated by the government's lack of aid, caring and health care, ripped through a list of her recent patients and their alarming ailments. Needless to say, machete wounds topped the list. A sobering (and sweltering) visit, it truly made me grateful for what we take for granted in the States.

Solar-powered (and without air conditioning, natch), the small operating room was a sparsely lit hot-box where the doctor sweats over her patients while sewing them up. Recently, a fan had been installed (a huge deal) and a bright light bulb had been donated (again, victory). Doctors Without Borders swung by one day with good intentions and big ideas, but little could truly be done. It's a very bleak situation for both the locals and the doctors because help doesn't come from many places. And the locals are uneducated about their own ailments and what modern medicine can do for them. 

Later, I was told this was one of the better clinics. At least there weren't holes in the ceiling.

On the way out of the clinic, I made a big mistake, a huge one.

As we left the clinic, I held the door open for everyone because Mom taught me to be a gentleman. Our boat driver, Walker, glared menacingly at me as he slowly walked through my proffered opened door. Victor, our guide, actually stopped dead in his tracks, stared at me. He opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head and hurried through the door. Hands flailing, they chatted animatedly and angrily back to our boat. Clearly I'd done something to offend them.

Only later did I realize my whoopsie moment. 

The culture of Peru is muy machismo. Men are men and the very mention of a "metrosexual" will get you beat up. Men drive motokars and women work in the kitchen, end of story. However, the men are fooling themselves, for women truly rule the roost. It's a very sexist culture, but only superficially so. Regardless, men take their manly manliness very manfully.

Things weren't right between Victor and myself until the end of the trip.

Friendsies again! (L to R: My wife, Victor, me, Jungle Momma Connie)

On the bright side, my wife had only one minor spider incident. In the boat, she reflexively kicked our friend's butt to get rid of a small, menacing arachnid. (I purposefully didn't tell my love about the lodge's four pet tarantulas until we'd left). Not bad odds for the jungle!

Speaking of odds, what're the odds Wendell Worthy can race against time to save his brother's life by running through downtown Kansas City in his underwear? Not very good! Find out in my comic thriller, Chili Run.

Laughs and thrills just a click away!

Welcome to...Monkey Island! by Stuart R. West

Despite the banana in the title, this has nothing to do with Monkey Island except a whole lotta monkey business.

 "For you see, Mr. Bond, Monkey Island is a training ground for my personal army of monkeys where I shall eventually unleash them on an unwitting world to conquer...Disneyland! Mwah-hah-hah!"

Marvel at the cute, wacky antics of lovable monkeys!

Yes, Monkey Island sounds like a James Bond villain compound, a perfect setting for a future secret agent novel, one that has the creative juices flowing. And, yes, Monkey Island actually exists. Come with me now, intrepid explorers, as I recount more adventures in the Amazon ans we visit...MONKEY ISLAND!

Tuesday morning we set out by boat on the Nanay River, an Amazon River tributary. Where the tributary meets the Amazon River, a visually distinctive color change differentiates the two rivers from "black (that's what it's called, although it's not really. Hey, I don't make up the rules.)" to light creamy brown. Shifting sediment causes color change. 

Thrill at the incredible changing water color!

Which is just one of the many amazing things about the Amazon: the landscape changes constantly. (I saw a huge tree actually topple into the river as we traveled. And there are "walking trees!" They uproot themselves and move toward sunlight. Sure, they're slow, but they'd probably beat sloths in a foot race any day.)

See the incredible, uncanny tree that walks like a man!

Soon, we neared MONKEY ISLAND ("ka-blammo!"). My spidey senses tingled (or maybe that was water sickness). As we disembarked, I was quickly reminded of my lousy sense of balance and lack of grace. Pay heed, folks, for we'll be revisiting this theme many times.

Excitement swelled in our group as we walked the planks up to...Monkey Island! ("Bum, bum, bummmm...") 

Duck and cover from flying feces!

Another habitat (brought to you by the fine folks of the previous manatee habitat), Monkey Island personnel rescues rare monkeys and nurses them to health. Unlike the manatee habitat, though, the monkeys roam their island freely to mess with unsuspecting visitors.

Our host warned us to wash off all bug spray and sunscreen since there'd been an earlier incident where several monkeys died by licking toxic bug lotion. We were also told, "monkeys are curious. So watch your jewelry." Understatement.

Our group washed up, stripped down, and prepared to enter...MONKEY ISLAND ("Dun, dun, dunnnnnn...").

Three minutes into our tour, a woolly monkey approached my wife, crawled up her body, and tossed its arms around her. For twenty minutes, they were inseparable as the monkey licked and kissed her and tugged playfully at her necklace.

Get jealous as my wife finds comfort in the arms of a furry stranger!

One of our traveling companions wasn't so lucky. Sara's monkey started off all cutesy, innocent and sweet, but within seconds "cute" morphed into stark-raving TERROR! The monkey climbed atop Sara's head, yanked at her hair, entangled its limbs throughout Sara's tresses, and held on tight. Like a victim in the film The Birds, Sara ineffectively tried to disengage her primate pal, plucking at it to no avail. That monkey wasn't going anywhere.

Elsewhere on MONKEY ISLAND ("Zinnnnnngggg!"), another fellow traveler, Liz, welcomed a monkey into her arms. But this monkey had a hidden agenda, an evil one. Feigning sweetness, it jabbed out, snatched Liz's glasses, and tore off into the bushes. Miraculously, one of the guides was able to retrieve the glasses.

Don't dare trust these little buggers!

Yet another monkey dragged one of our pals, Kelly, by the hand. We all thought it the cutest thing. Until the demonic beast's true intentions became apparent. The creature stopped Kelly by a small tree, positioned her oh-so-carefully, then used her as a ladder to climb into the tree's limbs.

Hold onto your wallets and purses!

Even the sloth appeared less than trustworthy, evil gleaming in its eyes. (But I wasn't too worried; even I could outrun a sloth should it come to it.)

Me? My only contact was with a parrot. Oh, sure, it was friendly enough as it roosted on the teens in our group, but when I approached, it pecked at me.

Beware the feathered face of evil!

Maybe these surface-cuddly beasts truly were a secret, evil army in training after all. 

Speaking of nefarious goings-on lurking beneath the facade of innocence, check into the mysteries surrounding the citizens of Peculiar County.

Visit enchanting Peculiar County today, just one click away.

Adventures in the Amazon: Motokar Madness! by Stuart R. West

I flew 3, 265 miles to Iquitos, Peru, and all I have to show for it is a case of diarrhea! I kid, I kid (not really). 

Actually, I learned quite a bit from our trip to the Amazon, both about myself and the untapped, vast unexplored world around us. The adventures my wife and I shared will surely inform my future books and writing. Over the next several months, I'll be sharing some of my voyages into the jungle. So strap in, folks, it's gonna be a wild ride.

My wife and I all touristy in a motokar death-trap!

But I survived! Barely. My first time out of the United States and man, did I go big.

Day one of our journey to Peru actually took a day-and-a-half, all of it travel. Three flights, three airports, three rounds of security and customs and trauma. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a sucktacular traveler: "Are we there yet?" "I'm bored." "Can't we just be there?" "He's looking at me funny!" (My poor suffering wife.)

At 6', 2", weighing in at 225 pounds, flight engineers clearly didn't have me in mind when they created their flying crackerboxes. Our overnight flight to Lima was a contortionist's nightmare. At midnight, the flight attendants fed us dinner, then hurriedly shut out the lights, their intention to have us sleep for eight hours so they wouldn't have to deal with us. Sure, uh-huh, right. It's like trying to sleep in a bookcase.

When we finally landed at the Lima, Peru airport, I desperately found myself wishing I'd paid attention to my two years of high school and two years of college Spanish. Honestly, the local people in the airport put me to shame, most of them able to speak passable English. And here I am--ugly American--stomping around, adding "O's" onto the end of English words. ("Luggage-o?")

The Peruvian people were very helpful, even if all of them had different advice. Out of pure luck, we finally realized we had to reclaim our luggage and check it again. Total fish-out-of-water moment.

But once we hit the Iquitos airport, I was a whale-out-of-water, a (not so) Great White. The departure area was pretty much the size of a living room, hotter than asphalt on a Summer day, a crowded, sweaty hub of humanity.

Okay, about Iquitos... Hardly the touristy, exotic getaway locale I expected (man, I really should've done some research), Iquitos is over-populated, full of political corruption (citizens are forced to vote by law and bribed to swing a vote for the equivalence of twenty bucks), trash-strewn, crime-ridden, humid, terrifying, and absolutely exhilarating and thrilling in a roller-coaster, pants-wetting kinda way. Like an island, Iquitos is only reachable by boat or airplane.

History lesson! Years ago, Iquitos's citizens came out of the jungle and adapted civilization as they knew it (learned from TV) in their new city. Literally hundreds of tin shanties can be seen right next door to the few wealthy residents. Up to four families share the small, ramshackle dwellings. 

Yet even the worst tin shacks--holes and all--have direct TV dishes mounted on the roofs. Things exploded about six years ago when the former jungle dwellers discovered the internet and smart phones. Welcome to civilization.

The amazing Armando, motokar driver extraordinaire!

Unfortunately, as an adjunct to "civilization," unemployment (the rubber industry--Iquito's past major source of jobs and income--dried up, leaving people jobless) prospered.

Unless you're a motokar driver.

We've all been in white-knuckled cab rides before. Now imagine that multiplied by 200,000 unleashed motokars.

What's a motokar, I hear you asking? Why, it's a three-wheeled motorcycle of sorts. Unprotected, the driver sits in front while the terrified passengers are sardined into a tiny cabin behind him. Different designs adorn the tarp (Spiderman, Scooby-Doo, appropriate flames of Hell), the driver's number posted on back.

It's the primary vehicle of choice (cars are a rarity) and a new source of income, drivers eking out enough soleils for a day's worth of beans and rice.

And driving laws? Heh, don't be silly. Someone told us, "In Iquitos, there are no rules, no lanes, no lines, and no laws." (Check out the video below if you don't believe me.)

On our trip from the airport to the hotel, I thought we were going to die (and here I figured the jungle would get me). Two-laned streets turned into five and six, hundreds of motokars jockeying for front position like a vicious roller-derby. Near misses were common, no sweat to the crazed, undoubtedly caffeine-infused drivers. From the left, hundreds more swarmed. On the right, a small dirt road unleashed another couple hundred. They fused together like a massive swarm of bees, all of them chasing the honey at the end of their furious flight.  They swerved, cut others off, bounced back and forth like pinballs. The song, "Ride of the Valkyries" played out in my head as I held on for dear, sweet life.

Miraculously, we arrived at the hotel unscathed. There we met the gracious organizer of our trip, our "Jungle Momma" and her husband. 

Then we slept.

The next morning, cocky and sure of myself, I proclaimed, "Hey, nothing to it! I survived my first day. Got this by the cajones! What could possibly go wrong?"

As it turns out, kismet's got it out for me badly.

For a different kinda trip, come on down to Peculiar County, a lovely little day-trip away. Just make sure you're home before dark and lock those doors.

Click here for a scenic tour of beautiful Peculiar County!

I don't do horror, but I like a little thrill - by Vijaya Schartz

Find all my BWL titles at your favorite online retailer here

Let's face it, many books and movies nowadays focus on the scary, the morbid, the deadly, the darkness in people's souls. Some are masterfully written (thank you Mr. Stephen King) and that's well and good for those who relish the genre. Personally, it gives me nightmares. When a hopeless group of people is doomed to certain death by an unknown and unstoppable evil, watching them die one at a time in utter paralyzing fear, panic and dismembering bloodshed is not fun to me. Horror focuses on creating fear... a negative emotion that releases toxic chemicals in the human body.

You can find General KAVAK, "the worst villain in sci-fi history" in the Ancient Enemy series

In my novels, I prefer to focus on hope, and the courage of the brave heroes and heroines who overcome their fears to fight the battle of good vs. evil. Although reviewers said I write "The worst (meaning best) villains in sci-fi history," I do not need a large body count to demonstrate they are bad guys. Usually, one death by elephant, one human sacrifice, or one severed head rolling on the sand is enough to make my point... there are bad people out there, and demons, and things that go bump in the night. But in my books, for every demon there is a loving immortal, a determined human, or a half-angel willing to risk their very life to fight it.

The Archangel twin books, a tale of redemption in the battle of Good vs. Evil

In the world of medieval fantasy romance, I've been accused of writing bloody battle scenes, because I do not sugarcoat the middle ages. As a writer, I want to reflect the truth of the historical period according to my extensive research. In the horror genre, however, I would be considered an innocent babe. My goal is to write an uplifting story with flawed but worthy characters who constantly overcome their fears and limitations to save others.

The Curse of the Lost Isle series depicts the Middle Ages in a realistic way

Call me a boy scout if you like. I just like the good guys to win and redeem themselves in the process. I like action, adventure, and romance in my books, those I read and those I write. I've been accused of mixing genres, and I'm proud of it. So sue me. I live for the thrill of a good story, with heroic heroes and villainous villains, plenty of action and adventure, and a dash of romance.

Vijaya Schartz, author

Romance with a Kick

http://www.vijayaschartz.com

A LEAP OF FAITH - MARGARET TANNER

SELECTION OF LAND - A LEAP OF FAITH

In a leap of faith, driven by desperation and the chance to improve the lives of their families in Australia, men took advantage of the Selection of Land Act, and staked their claim on parcels of crown land. Unfortunately, for many inexperienced in the ways of farming in a harsh continent like Australia, they were doomed to failure and heartache. Many not only lost their land but their lives. Others struggled on for years, their lives blighted by bitterness and regret at a leap of faith that didn’t deliver the riches they had dreamed of. Some made an adequate living. A few, of course, prospered. Rather than a leap of faith, I would call it a lottery. It all depended on the experience of the man, but more importantly the quality of the land on which he selected.

In Australia the 1860/61 Land Act allowed free selection of crown land. This included land illegally occupied by the squatters, (wealthy ranchers), who had managed to circumvent the law for years. A similar scheme apparently operated in the US as well, (nesters against the ranchers).

The Act sometimes allowed selectors (small farmers) access to the squatters’ land, and they could purchase between 40 and 320 acres, but after that, the authorities left them to fend for themselves. Not an easy task against the wealthy, often ruthless squatters who were incensed at what they thought was theft of their land.

The Act of Selection was intended to encourage closer settlement, based on intensive agriculture. Selectors often came into conflict with squatters, who already occupied land. The bitterness ran deep for many years, sometimes erupting into violence.

Steele Rudd (a pseudonym for Arthur Hoey Davis 14.11.1868 – 11.10.35), an Australian author wrote a story On Our Selection. He based it on his father’s experience as a selector struggling to make ends meet on a small parcel of land.  It started out as just one chapter published in a magazine in December 1895 and eventually became the basis for Dad and Dave, a popular radio series which ran from 1932 – 1952.

Henry Lawson 1867 – 1922, was born on the gold fields of NSW. Many believed him to be the first poet to capture the Australian way of life. After a childhood ear infection, he was totally deaf by the age of 14, and he grew up to be bitter about his poverty and ill-fortune.

In 1888 he started publishing his stories and poems.

The Fire at Ross’ Farm, was a classic poem about selector versus the squatter.

Robert Black, the squatter’s son, loved Jenny Ross the selector’s daughter.

When Robert tells his father about the bushfire (wild fire) threatening the Ross farm, his father said, and I quote these couple of lines from Henry Lawson’s poem, which I feel epitomise the extent of the hatred and mistrust between the squatters and the selectors.

Then let it burn the squatter said, I’d like to see it done

I’d bless the fire if it would clear Selectors from my run (run is an old, no longer used, Aussie term for ranch).

FIERY POSSESSION (HISTORICAL FICTION WITH ROMANTIC ELEMENTS)
Jo Saunders is a feisty American beauty and Luke Campton is a wealthy squatter.

Explosive results and tragedy follow Jo and Luke when they cross the fine line dividing love and hate.

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