Bored

By Dan Haring

Lately I've been feeling a bit like this:

Work has been pretty slow, and I'm kind of in a holding pattern on my current WIPs while I wait for notes, so my mind has been flitting around, distracted by pretty much any shiny thing I lay eyes on. Believe it or not, there's only so much web surfing you can do, so each day has a fair amount of this in it:

I really just need to start working on something new and pour all my effort into it. But it seems like as soon as I start, work is going to get busy and I'm going to get notes back and the new project will have to be put on the back burner and I'll feel like this:

But I guess it's better than doing nothing at all. I mean, there's only so many times I can watch stuff like this.

 (but I have to admit the number is surprisingly high.) So tomorrow I'll be starting up on an old WIP and seeing where I can take it. At the very least I'll be able to exercise my brain a bit more, and I might even finish the story.

Dragon Eggs

Lexi Brady
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At five years old I believed in magic (still do if we are being completely honest here) and at five years old I found a dragon egg. It was exactly like any dragon egg I had ever read about, or seen in any movie.

With colors swirling together like clouds before a storm the egg felt cool to the touch. I discovered this egg at a garage sale, did they not realize what a treasure they were practically giving away? Holding in gingerly in my hands I asked my great grandma to buy it for me. She did, and then with great care I put it in her purse so that the dragon could stay warm.

Everyone in my family attempted to explain to me that it was just a stone egg, that there was really no point to me taking care of it the way I did. But how could I listen to them when magic was radiating from that egg every time I held it?

As I grew older I found more "stone eggs" that I knew I had to have. Varying in color and size I am now in the possession of 11 dragon eggs. Over time though it became less about the nurturing of the egg and more about the possibilities I saw when I held them.

I feel the same way about writing and reading... The possibilities are endless, whether you are creating the character from your own imagination or are reading a book magic happens. You feel it as you turn the pages and smell the apple tree the protagonist is sitting under, or when your stomach flips as the hero fly's for the first time.

As I plan out my story lines and the lives of the characters I created I find myself in awe (and a tad bit overwhelmed) by all of the possibilities there are.

Will my character realize there wrong doings? Repent and help save the day? Will he instead decide to choose neither the light or the dark?

Will he find a dragon egg that hatches once it feels his awaited touch?

While I wait for my own collection of dragon's eggs to hatch I am pondering these questions of where this story will take me and my characters. A journey long and rocky, or a fall swift and sharp I have yet to discover the end of the road of possibilities magic contains..

Magic is imagination.

Until next time,

<3 <3 Lexi

TV Shows I’m Addicted To

Jordan Dane
@JordanDane


I have my DVR set up with countless shows I record. My husband also knows my interest in the strange and peculiar NOVA Science shows or historical documentaries. As a writer, anything can stir your imagination and you never know what small tidbit can fuel a book or series. I once did a whole proposal after seeing a science show on venomous snakes.

Here are a couple of my fav TV shows adapted from books:

Hannibal – OMG! I am giddy for Thursday nights now because of this show. This is an adaptation of Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, but it is a prequel where FBI BAU profiler, Agent Will Graham, is brought in to consult with his old boss, Jack Crawford, and hunt serial killers. We meet the infamous Hannibal Lecter in the wild, before he gets caught. Will is good at his job, depicted as closer to Asperger's & sociopaths, and can visualize himself as the killer. This puts him in need of therapy, as you can imagine, but his boss picks Hannibal Lecter as his psychiatrist. This is graphic stuff, but the tongue in cheek dark humor is over the top and the psychological trauma worsens in Will, as we see him falling apart and under the care of Lecter. It’s mesmerizing to watch. Hugh Dancy is yummy as Will Graham and Mads Mikkelson as Hannibal redefines the role, big shoes to fill after Anthony Hopkins.

Justified – This show’s season has ended, but it gets better each year. Writer Elmore Leonard is the guy behind this show and the writing is superb. The characterizations and the dialogue are worth every minute of your time to watch this show. One of my favorite things to do is tweet my fav lines as the show is one. Many of my writer friends do this. Marshal Raylan Givens and criminal childhood friend Boyd Crowder are two characters to watch. The season that just ended was my favorite (and that’s saying something). Pure Rayland and Boyd.

Cable Shows I Have Recently Become Addicted to:

The Borgias – Jeremy Irons is damned sexy as a Pope. And his son, Cesare Borgia, has me spellbound…especially when he’s naked. Family scandal and treachery in enticing scenes.

Merlin – This is a different take on King Arthurs Court with a younger King Arthur and his loyal servant, Merlin, who can secretly do magic, a practice that is outlawed in Camelot.

Bates Motel – Yes, Psycho revisited, but this is before Alfred Hitchcock’s version, when Norman Bates is a teen. The making of a psycho and his weird relationship to his crazed mother.

What are some of your favorite guilty pleasure TV shows…and why do you like them? Are you addicted to any of the shows I watch?

Meet Michelle Birbeck, Author

Enjoy, ADR3NALIN3 fans ♥

What got you into the world of the paranormal?

MB: My first taste of anything vampire was when I was fifteen. My friends and I started reading the Nightworld Series by LJ Smith, and I was hooked. From the first book I wanted more, and when there were no more, I wanted other books. I devoured everything I cold get my hands on. From there I found Anne Rice and loved her; I still go back to her books on occasion and my favourite has to be Pandora. These days my favourites are the Black Dagger Brotherhood books, but I still have a huge soft spot for the Nightworld series, even though it has never been officially finished.

In such a saturated market of vampire books, how does yours stand out??

MB: Because it isn't about vampires. The Keepers' Chronicles aren't your typical human girl falls in love with vampire and wants to be turned into the undead. It is nothing like that, in fact! Sure, there's love in the books, and there are plenty of vampires, but what it's really about, the whole series, is the Keepers.

They're what make The Keepers' Chronicles stand out, because they're new. All these vampires, all these takes on the mythology, they all have one thing in common: Vampires are supernatural creatures with the strength and ability to wipe up poor humans from the face of the planet.

So why don't they? Power corrupts, that saying is older than I know, and it stands as true now as when it was first uttered. The vampires of the Keepers' Chronicles are no exception, and what is stopping them is the Keepers. Immortal beings with the power to influence the mind, to keep the immortal races hidden in the shadows. But they have a weakness at the start of the series: when they meet their partners, their mortal lives become theirs. Kill a Keepers' partner and the Keeper dies.

So for those looking for a twist on the vampire genre, a new take on the myth of the undead, the Keepers' Chronicles has just that. Love, danger, vampires, wars, and everything in between.

You've written 3 books for that series, will you stop after those are out or will this be an ongoing saga??

MB: Two books and a short story, yes! And it is not stopping there! The initial series is four novels long: The Last Keeper, Last Chance, Exposure, and Revelations. Then after that there are a couple of other characters who speak loud enough in my head to want their own books, but instead of being sequential, they will be tie ins with the series. The short stories came about because there are some 'missing years' in book one, The Last Keeper, and I got a number of requests to write what happened in that time. However, given the circumstances, it wouldn't make a very happy book, so I decided to write A Glimpse Into Darkness. This is a short story set in those missing years, 1064's U.S.S.R, to be exact, and it follows some of Serenity's life during that time. There will be more short stories in the coming years as the series progresses, but I don't know what they are yet!

With all those subplots demanding their own spotlights and all the books coming out, do you think you'll ever write something else than the Keepers series?

MB: Oh, absolutely! I am in the process of looking at publishing a young adult novel called The Stars Are Falling, and I am actively publishing short horror stories. the next one out will be The Phantom Hour due on October 26th. I have a whole folder dedicated to ideas and plots, though, so I have plenty to keep me going for years to come!

Famous last words?

MB: If you want to be a serial killer, try being a literary one: less mess, less jail time!

BUY THE KEEPERS!!

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Michelle has been reading and writing her whole life. Her earliest memory of books was when she was five and decided to try and teach her fish how to read, by putting her Beatrix Potter books in the fish tank with them. Since then her love of books has grown, and now she is writing her own and looking forward to seeing them on her shelves, though they won’t be going anywhere near the fish tank.

She blogs and Tweets @michellebirbeck