Good at The Bad, by J.C. Kavanagh

Book 2 of the award-winning The Twisted Climb series

Peace and tranquility are by-products of sailing. Capturing these serene moments are difficult. You have to choose between ‘leaving’ the moment to concentrate on a photo/recording device, or, still your soul to imprint the moment on your mind.

Georgian Bay art in the sky

 

Imprinting these special moments adds to the hundreds if not thousands of imprints in the playground of your mind. As I write this, I’m on week two of a month-long sailing vacation in Georgian Bay, Ontario. I’ve mentally captured hundreds of images and stored them all over the playground in my mind. Some are on the ladder steps leading to the zipline platform; some are tied to a slim-shady bridge made of vines, and others are stored in the dark recesses of an old wooden cupboard. All patiently waiting for the perfect moment, for the perfect scene, for the perfect character.

 

 

I’m anchored at The Bad River on the northeast side of Georgian Bay. When the weather is bad here, it’s really bad. But when it’s good, it’s an earthly paradise. This is the place that jumped from reality and into the playground of my mind – and then leapt into the pages of my award-winning sequel, The Twisted Climb – Darkness Descends. There you will find the Devil’s Door Rapids. There too, you will find the treacherous waterfall and the great cliff.

Devil's Door Rapids at The Bad River
Georgian Bay, Ontario

My sailboat, Escape Route II,
anchored at the cliffs of The Bad River

Adventures are calling. Who will respond?

 

J.C. Kavanagh

The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends (Book 2)
voted BEST Young Adult Book 2018, Critters Readers Poll and Best YA Book FINALIST at The Word Guild, Canada
AND
The Twisted Climb,
voted BEST Young Adult Book 2016, P&E Readers Poll
Novels for teens, young adults and adults young at heart
Email: author.j.c.kavanagh@gmail.com
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Weird Television Shows

Television has given us some of the strangest ideas in entertainment. Here are eight of the most bizarre shows ever:

1) The most tone-deaf concept: Heil Honey I'm Home! 

Hitler getting his ears chewed off by Eva Braun

A British sitcom, written by Geoff Atkinson and produced in 1990, which was cancelled after one episode. It centers on Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, who live next door to a Jewish couple, Arny and Rosa Goldenstein. The plot?  Hitler's inability to get along with his neighbours (you think?) It caused controversy when broadcast and has been called "perhaps the world's most tasteless situation comedy".

2) Love me, Love My Car: My Mother, The Car

As its title suggests, My Mother The Car dealt with a talking automobile. Jerry Van Dyke starred as David Crabtree whose mother, Gladys, has been reincarnated as a 1928 Porter car. Announcing the show’s cancellation in May 1966, The Chicago Tribune’s television critic Clay Gowran called My Mother The Car “a horror that defies description.” A total of 30 episodes were broadcast: the last new episode aired on April 5, 1966.

3) Cook and Vomit: Close to the Bone: Surgeons and Chefs

This is pretty much what it sounds like. Chefs, surgeons, a lot of edible anatomy, plus a dose of hard-body doctor windsurfing footage--turns out the show's resident surgeon, Dr. Hu, knows how to cut through both cervical fascia and sick waves. Everyone involved in this is Canadian, and an article from Dr. Hu's medical alma mater reports that the show actually aired on the Canadian Learning Channel in 2004. Good thing restaurants don't provide health care.

Brutal humiliation of Earthlings by Alien Monkey News Anchors

4) Alien Monkey New Anchors: Mikorte Informativo

Think our late-night comedians are harsh? This Mexican news-satire show has hosts that dress as monkeys from another planet and mock what’s going on with Earthlings.

5) Taking on the Russian Police: The Intercept

Who wouldn’t like to receive a brand-new car for free? That was the concept behind this Russian game show. A guest would come on to the show and drive off with a car. Of course, where’s the “game” in that? So the producers added this wrinkle: After you got your car, they would report it stolen to the police. If you avoided the cops for 35 minutes, the car was yours. The show included “losers” getting beaten by Russian cops.

6) Celebrity Executions: Ramez Galal's Prank Show

Paris Hilton on the Bus to Eternity

Ramez Galal, an Egyptian prankster who has the rapid intensity of someone who takes his Red Bull intravenously, is the star of the show and is accompanied by his crew of "sidekick terrorists." A bus full of actors and one mark (usually a celebrity or group of tourists) is hijacked by Galal and his team, who are covered in headscarves and wielding AK47s. The marks are then dragged out of the bus, blindfolded, forced to their knees and told they're about to be executed. Just before the trigger is pulled, Galal reveals himself and the prank.

7) The Bachelor” knock-off, starring Mothers-in-law: Perfect Bride

This show was what can be called the Indian version of Splitsvilla. Like Splitsvilla the male and female contestants were made to stay in a picturesque villa and performed brainless tasks. However, the winning jackpot, in this case, was not a date but a wedding. And the best part, the mothers of the prospective grooms were also to reside with the female contestants of the show and judge them to be worthy or not of their sons. For those who like romance served with a side of awkwardness, with tension thick enough to slice with a knife.

8) The never-ending drug-trip from the ‘70’s: Monkey

Who? What? Where? How? But mostly, WHY?

Attempting to sum up the plot is an exercise in futility, but needs must, so here goes: An immortal

human-monkey hybrid with magic powers who was born from an egg on a mountain top joins a Buddhist monk who’s actually a woman on a pilgrimage to India. They are accompanied by a water monster (Sandy) and a pig monster (Pigsy) and travel around either on a biddable cloud or a shape-changing dragon who serves as the group’s horse. The horse can talk, and is voiced in the English version by Andrew Sachs. From China.

 Mohan Ashtakala is the author of "Karma Nation," a Literary Romance, and "The Yoga Zapper," a fantasy. Check him out at: www.mohanashtakala.com or at Books We Love, www.bookswelove.com

A modern Miss and a modern kiss...by Sheila Claydon

Click here for more of my books

With teenage grandchildren I am under no illusion that today's writers have to look to their politically correct credentials if their stories are to pass muster. My goodness how times have changed!

I was first published in the early 1980s when it was still entirely possible for the heroine to be kissed against her will or, through lack of a voice, be coerced into doing something that was anathema. Of course we all know this still happens in real life, in sad situations where women and, more often, young girls remain powerless, but there is no longer any place for this in the sort of escapist romances I write.  Nowadays the heroines are all feisty (and rightly so). They have careers and independence. Their sexual back history is usually alluded to sufficiently to make it clear they are not entirely innocent. They are also prepared to walk away from any romantic liaison that doesn't satisfy them emotionally.

They are, of course, also computer savvy, carry cell phones, drive, often own property and are frequently fearless when faced with either physical or emotional dilemmas.

The only way around this is to write historical romances when life and behaviours were very different, and this became very clear to me when I wrote Remembering Rose, the last book I had published.  It is a story of several romances, one of them being that of Rose who lived in the 1800s. The juxtaposition of Rose's life and that of her great-great granddaughter (researched from historical accounts by real people) is a real eye-opener. I am old enough to remember the attitudes of past times, however, and the practical reasons behind them, whereas modern teenagers and twenty and thirty somethings are not, and why should they be. Life has changed almost beyond recognition and is continuing to do so, and writers have to try to keep up with it.

Lisa, the heroine in that first book of mine, Golden Girl, now republished by Books We Love as a retro romance, is light years away from Rachel, the heroine of Remembering Rose. And so is the storyline. Nobody would ever try to push Rachel around whereas Lisa had to fight off unwelcome advances and suffer in silence when nobody would listen to her voice.

So what does that say about me? Someone who lived in London in the swinging sixties, which, unless you were part of a small coterie of celebrities, were far, far less swinging than history would have us believe! It says I started off as a Lisa but have ended up as a Rachel, something that has happened to many women of my generation but certainly not all. To keep up a writer needs to mix with people of all ages, especially younger ones, and learn from them, or become irrelevant.

I thought of this when I revisited the half written manuscript of my latest novel, the one that has been sleeping on my computer for almost two years while I concentrated on other things. After a hiatus I can feel the need to write stirring again but, because life changes are moving exponentially nowadays, I read it was some trepidation.  What was I going to have to change? Fortunately it looks OK. The language and attitudes are fine and the storyline is still relevant. I am having trouble with moving it forward though because this time there will be teenagers involved as well as the main protagonists who might end up as step parents ( a first for me)...oh yes, and a ghost as well...just like in Remembering Rose. It seems that the village of Mapleby, which is the setting for both books, and for a further one in the future, is haunted...not by ghouls or goblins but by the spirits of past romances. Writing again promises to be an interesting ride.