Into Our World of Anxiety and Fear Come the Raindrops of Human Transformation

Raindrops Of Love For A Thirsty WorldSan Francisco, CA (April 20, 2017) –– A timely spiritual guide to surviving and thriving in today’s pervasive, gloomy atmosphere of alienation and fear, the new book, Raindrops of Love For a Thirsty World, lays out a path to life‐long self‐actualization, and reconnection through a shared consciousness. The author, Eileen Workman, has summoned the profound wisdom of The Life Force in a series of loving messages. These communications come at an opportune time, as we drift in a sea of anxiety and worry, deeply shaken by recent political, economic and social crises, and starved for connection due to divisiveness.

A decade ago Workman experienced a startling spiritual awakening. Abandoning her high‐powered, highly‐paid role in the financial world, she opened up to a channeled gift of eloquent, soul‐stirring passages from what she calls LIFE –– “The Life Force” –– a field of energy and love that transformed her life and her relationship to humanity.

In four parts, Raindrops of Love For a Thirsty World encourages readers to undertake selfexamination in a way that encourages them to fall back in love with themselves and learn to practice healthy self‐discipline, self‐awareness and self‐love.

Part I ‐ Soft Love: The Wonder of Self‐Realization
Part II ‐ Tough Love: The Challenge of Self‐Discipline
Part III ‐ Self‐Love: The Responsibility of Self‐Actualization
Part IV – Life Love: The Freedom of Self‐Governance

As receivers of these compelling, wise messages from LIFE, readers are exhorted to manifest their greatest gifts in the world, which is exactly what the author decided to do when she changed the direction of her own life. This personal transformation and connection to the limitless love of LIFE is the key to a rewarding, meaningful life.

Encourage others to realize that your amazing ingenuity and imagination, when filtered through the perspective of life awareness, holds the power to generate awesome new creative potential . . . This is why I encourage you to trust the living process . . . For you live within a self‐organizing, self‐scaffolding field of living love that manifests as light.

Speaking directly into the heart and soul of each reader, Raindrops of Love For a Thirsty World enables them to wed their minds and hearts in a holy communion. That marriage enables us to move beyond the influence of collapsing social systems and political and economic hostilities. Through the clarity of our newly realized life purpose and enlightenment as received from the Raindrops of Love, we can transform ourselves and the world.

I know how confused you have felt . . . and how you’ve struggled to find your proper place in the world. I’ve watched you grow lost in the dramas of human society. In this precious now moment, you can reclaim your native tongue and commune with me in our mutual language, for the language of Life has been ever your birthright, Beloved.

About the Author

Eileen Workman spent sixteen years in the financial industry as First Vice President of Investments at a major Wall Street firm. After a profound spiritual awakening, she departed the high‐powered world of money and wrote Sacred Economics: The Currency of Life, which questions assumptions about the nature of capitalism. The book is about directing our attention toward the purposeful design of a more compassionate, cooperative, and abundantly flowing economic system from a spiritually‐driven perspective. “ . . . one of those rare individuals who not only talks the talk of the financial world because she worked in it, she also walks the walk of one who has made meaningful changes in her own life to reflect the ideals she believes in.” In her new title, Raindrops of Love For a Thirsty World, Workman calls down the wisdom and the words of the Life Force, inviting us to embrace our fullest capacity as a species.

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Book Information
Title: Raindrops of Love For a Thirsty World
Pub Date: April 20, 2017
Author: LIFE, as shared with Eileen Workman
Publisher: Muse Harbor Publishing
List Price: $18.95
ISBN: 978-1-61264-207-9
Format: Quality Trade Paperback and Kindle
Distributor: Ingram
Information: www.warwickassociates.com
Subjects: Spirituality, Personal Growth
Rights: World

 

 

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Plotting (Part 2)

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Rules-headerA notebook for fiction writers and aspiring novelists. An editor’s perspective.

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It’s all about the drama, dahlings.

Books and blogs about “plotting a novel” are as ubiquitous as leaves on a summer tree. I suspect some of these efforts are actually very good. Others? Not so much. That being said, let me cut to the chase. Good plotting can be explained in one word: Drama.

Yup. Tension. Uncertainty. Double-cross. Forbidden love. Hatred. Amnesia. War. Politics. A sinking ship. In other words, drama. It’s all about the drama, dahlings. That’s the secret ingredient; a very, very important element of successful fiction. Writing a book that’s lacking dramatic impact? It probably won’t (IMHO) sell.

And don’t confuse drama as “some little ruckus” that one sprinkles sporadically around a story. Drama isn’t a garnish. Nor is it specifically reserved for those dark, thunderous Shakespearean epics where witches cackle, swords clash and treachery abounds. Drama can be as aloof as a secret glance, a snicker, a subtle movement. Drama is a constant that should infuse every fictive work. That should be a rule—and so now it is! Rule #27. Make drama your novel’s constant companion. It lurks upon every page—either undulating or overwhelming—ready to spring or having already sprung, hiding, panting, waiting to lunge again. Drama can shout or whisper to the reader. Sometimes it even hides in plain sight, waiting for the perfect instant to snatch away banality. To dissolve normality.

And yet, don’t confuse drama with impending tragedy. Yes, a tragic tale is fraught with drama. A child’s death, a war, an emotional breakdown, a marital conflict… all dramatic, fictive situations that a writer can utilize to build a story. But what about light-hearted romance? What about comedy? Realize that every romantic tale is laden with great gobs of interpersonal drama. And comedy, even slapstick comedy, is simply drama interpreted through a playful or joyous lens. But it’s still about drama, first and foremost.

Don’t believe so? Think of any comedic film. (I’ve discovered that remembering a film sequence is far easier than remembering a specific snippet from a book. And easier to dissect as well.) For instance: Notting Hill. Lovely romantic comedy—and filled with drama. The Holiday? Filled with drama. Annie Hall? Filled with drama. The Princess Bride? It’s a Wonderful Life? The Hangover? Drama. Drama. Drama. And drama. Remember Finding Nemo? The little guy loses his mother and 99% of his siblings. Gets lost at sea. Almost eaten by a shark. Captured and confined to an aquarium. Makes a daring escape. It’s funny—but it’s also constant drama!

Groucho Marx once said,“Comedy is when you slip on a banana peel. Tragedy is when I slip on a banana peel.” And yet both banana-based scenarios contain drama—both genres must provide a continual tool bag of genre-specific dramatic moments to survive, and to thrive in its fictive form.

Refer again to Rule #8, which states, in part: Keep your characters moving. You’re either pushing characters toward drama or pulling them away again.

I can’t really give a writer much additional structural information on basic plotting. Have an idea? Play with it! Test it! My personal belief has always been: write what you feel, write what you want. (So long as it’s dramatic, of course.)

And do understand that dramatic plotting isn’t always about remarkable external circumstances, about drooling zombies or horrific wars or big ships slowly sinking. Good plotting is also about (and sometimes only about) great character development. (Check out these flicks: The Madness of King George. Or Before Sunrise. Or Pride and Prejudice. Beautiful films, with stories predominately carried by superb dialogue. Or meta-classics like Mindwalk and My Dinner With André.) I’ve often said that if you lock two interesting people in a closet and give them great, dramatic dialogue, I’d rather read that book than about all the Transformers in the world.

So, yeah, successful plotting is a combination of great dialogue, great timing, great suspense (comedic or tragic) and certainly great writing in general. Good drama is larger than life. Deeper than reality. Great plotting is the result of daydreaming that begins with a single, simple “what if?” concept.

Remember Rule #27. And don’t confuse drama as “some little ruckus” that one sprinkles sporadically around a story. Drama isn’t a garnish. Drama is your story’s constant companion.
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Plotting (Part 1)

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Rules-headerA notebook for fiction writers and aspiring novelists. An editor’s perspective.

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I want to write a book, but…”

The fiction writers that I know, we’re all daydreamers at heart. The obstacle that many of us confront is—well, we’re all daydreamers at heart. And, sorry to say, but daydreams don’t magically turn into completed novels. You’ll need to develop a whole different set of skills. See First Drafts for a deeper dive into that potential quandary.

However, to briefly recap: Our Right Brain—that artsy-fartsy, huggin’ and feelin’ hemisphere—is content to sit on a comfy couch all day, dreaming about pirates or dragons or what happened that one night at summer camp. Our Left Brain—the logical, mathematical, factual part—pays the bills. Sets the alarm clock. Saves for rainy days. Begins to write a novel, word by word, and page by page. And guess what, sometimes those diametrically opposed abilities, those two halves of the same damn brain, don’t easily mesh. However, when our Right/Left lobes are able to synchronize—that’s how best-sellers are made.

Two mistakes that novice writers often make are: 1. Ignoring the initial Right Brain part, and sitting down to write a novel without a solid game-plan.* And, 2. Ignoring the subsequent Left Brain part and pretty much never getting past the daydream stage, content to play with those private fantasies day after day, year after year and rarely, if ever, getting those words down on paper.

Part of the issue is basic plotting. Why? Because plotting involves both Right and Left sides of our brains. It’s a very transitional step in writing a novel, very much the Persephone of the literary world. You’ve got one foot firmly in Right Brain world, the other firmly in Left Brain world. Some writers hover there, unable to fully commit.

Your ability to plot out a novel—on paper (whether in outline form, or as a first draft) beginning to end—is you, the writer, making that commitment.

The Shortness and Sweetness Of It All.

What is plotting? A plot is either a single, escalating dramatic event/situation or a series of dramatic events/situations that take readers from Point A (your first page) to Point Z (your last page.) No matter your genre—sci-fi, thriller, fantasy, mystery, romance, horror, dark comedy, light comedy, coming-of-age, zombies in Manhattan… all of it!—a writer’s basically asking, and then answering, a sequential, integrated series of What If…? questions.

And, yup, we covered What If…? scenarios in the previous blog, but it’s pretty important stuff, so here’s a bit more info, because those What If…? scenarios are synonymous with creating a dynamic plot structure. For example:

Q. What if…?  A woman named Maggie is vacationing alone on Skull Island. While on a moonlight walk, she discovers a suitcase with a million bucks washed up on a beach. (Your inciting incident, BTW.) Now what does she do? A. She decides to sneak the suitcase back to her hotel room to further investigate. She has a few drinks and dreams of being rich. She’s just about broke, and a million bucks would be nice. She wakes up the next morning with a clear head and ultimately decides to report the money to the authorities.

So then what? Q. What if…? The next morning she learns the local police chief is dead, the money missing and she realizes she might be implicated in some horrendous crime. Now what does she do? A. She’s already befriended Pierre, the resort’s handsome, charismatic bartender, who seems to be a rational, likeable sort. She’ll seek his advice.

So then what? Q. What if…? Pierre listens sympathetically and tells her to keep the money a secret until he can figure out what do do. She agrees.

Q. And what does Pierre do? A. He stealthily places a call to Dr. Martinique, ruthless boss of the island’s crime syndicate. A million buck is theirs for the taking.

Q. So then what? A. Ah… s’up to you. You’re providing the appropriate questions, and then providing appropriate (and sometimes intentionally misleading) answers—sequentially and compellingly. Over and over for a few hundred pages, until a reasonable conclusion presents itself.

Is there a key to good plotting? Yes. One must provide a suitable beginning, and a middle, and an ending, as seen through the eyes (POV) of your character(s) and/or through omniscient narration. Every scene you write must integrate seamlessly (within the parameters of your story line) with your previous scene and your next.

And that’s all the help you’ll get here. That should be the only help you’ll require. Because creative souls thrive on the unknown. But piercing that cosmic uncertainty in any journey imaginable—that’s your choice. Your vision. But the genre, the style, the passion, the energy, the suspense and revelation—that’s all you.

Bon voyage!

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* When I say “ignoring the game plan” I’m talking about the clueless, not about Pantsers—at least the successful ones—e.g.; those among us who begin writing with little or no concrete plot in mind. But don’t confuse a pantser with a literary anarchist—knowingly or not, a pantser does have a game plan in mind, just one not physically outlined or jotted out on endless Post-It Notes. That aforementioned roadmap is still there, just its cerebral. A pantser’s journey will have a logically deduced beginning, sequentially sound middle and a relevant, often inevitable ending—or else that manuscript will never see the light of day. At least not by traditional publishers.

Refer again, should you desire, to: Where To Start. And: Focus on the Now. And: First Drafts.

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Author and Visual Artist, Stephen T. Vessels, Releases New Collection of Stories published by Muse Harbor Publishing


 

“A unique collection of 11 short stories and a novella ranging in genre from science fiction and dark fantasy to amalgams hard to label.”

 

The-Mountain-The-Vortex-and-Other-Tales-Front-Image-620x264

Los Angeles, CA, 2016-Aug-04 — /EPR Network/ — Muse Harbor Publishing has released The Mountain & the Vortex and Other Tales, a collection of stories by author and artist, Stephen T. Vessels. The collection of 11 short stories and one novella is a blend of science fiction, dark fantasy, and cross-genre stories with illustrations. The book is now available for purchase through Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com.

“Originally the book was not going to be a collection,” says Vessels. “We were only going to publish the novella. But the publishers said, ‘The more the merrier,’ and let me do whatever I wanted, and paid for illustrations, and were wonderful, and it became this marvelous reality. I’m amazed by how my stories talk back and forth to each other across the pages. It’s like getting to step back from my own mind and watch it work.”

Included in Vessels’ collection are the short story “Doloroso,” a Thriller Award finalist, and “Lighter Than Air,” which received the Best Fiction Award from the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. All of the stories in The Mountain & The Vortex and Other Tales are accompanied with illustrations by Jean “Mœbius” Giraurd, Alan M. Clark, Steven C. Gilberts, Cheryl Owen-Wilson and the author himself. Vessels is also a visual artist whose latest solo art exhibition, which features a collection of his ballpoint pen drawings, will run from August 4, 2016 through August 27, 2016 at the Andre Zarre Gallery in New York City (www.andrezarre.com).

Stephen T. Vessels is a Thriller Award nominated author of science fiction, dark fantasy and cross-genre fiction. His stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and collections from Grey Matter Press and ShadowSpinners. He has written art and music reviews for the Santa Barbara Independent and is also a poet, whose poems have been published in journals and a chapbook from Slack Buddha Press. He writes all of his drafts longhand.

To learn more about Stephen T. Vessels, The Mountain & The Vortex and Other Tales (Muse Harbor Publishing, 2016, ISBN: 978-1-61264-240-6, $17.99, www.stephentvessels.com), or Vessels’ ballpoint pen drawings, please visit www.stephentvessels.com.

To learn more about Muse Harbor Publishing, please visit www.museharbor.com.

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Finding Your Voice (Part 3)

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Rules-headerA notebook for fiction writers and aspiring novelists. An editor’s perspective.

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Finding Your Voice (Part 3.)
Point of View: Narrative vs. Authorial Voice

A.K.A.: First Person (1P) vs. Third Person (3P). It’s a bigger issue than me or him.

Note: Various writing teachers/critics refer to narrative and authorial voice as an author’s Point of View (POV). However, as not to confuse an author’s own voice with the author’s characters’ voices, I shall refrain here from using POV, and simply refer to narrative or authorial voices as first person or third person, respectively.

The Narrative Perspective—linguistically speaking, deictic referencing—is a grammatical stew of who, when and where, essential information that will greatly influence the tone and tenor of your novel. Who is telling the story—you, the author, or one or more or your characters speaking through you? Might you also choose to impart an all-knowing, omniscient voice to further describe your characters? And when is your story told? (Now or then?) Where? (Here or there.) All relevant questions to ask yourself before you begin to write.

Your options? A list of common perspectives:

• First person/past tense (e.g.; narrator’s voice): I loved Paris.
• First person/present tense: I love Paris.
• Third person/past tense. (e.g.; authorial voice): She loved Paris.
• Third person/present tense: She loves Paris.

Less relevant and not recommended (except as dialog or inner monologue, as these styles cannot wholly sustain a fictive work):

• Third person/omniscient/present conditional): She would one day find love in Paris.
• First person/future tense: I will love Paris.
• Second person/past tense: You loved Paris.
• Second person/present tense: You love Paris.
• Second person/future tense: You will love Paris.

Jay McInerney wrote the entirely of Bright Lights, Big City in 2nd person. The novel begins: “You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning…” This voice can sustain a novel—McInerney’s is a very good novel—but not easily and probably not without being regarded by your literary peers as ‘effusive.’ So, no, if you’re new to novel writing, probably don’t use it.

Finding one’s own narrative perspective—that is, writing a novel in first person (1P) vs. third person (3P)—is a bigger issue than simply writing “I am going to town” or “She went to town.” You’ll likely find that your sentence construction, your cadence—possibly your entire plot structure—significantly different, depending on which voice you choose. Visual cues will differ. Character depth will differ. Your character’s thought patterns will differ. Character motivations may differ in terms of your relying on dialog (two characters communicating) versus internal monologue (a character thinking unspoken thoughts to which the reader is privy). You may find your entire writing style shifting to some degree, to accommodate the voice you choose.

Also, when writing in 1P, using a narrative or narrator’s voice, you’re restricted to solely using the “I” character to impart knowledge to the reader. Mary may be thinking about killing me, but I don’t know that for certain. Only your principal character will reveal thoughts to the reader—an attribute that can be both incredibly illuminating and restricting. If you’re writing in 1P, you’re allowing the character to speak directly to the reader. For instance, Barbara Kingsolver begins her novel The Bean Trees:

“I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine’s father over the top of the Standard Oil sign. I’m not lying. He got stuck up there.”

However, should you, as author, choose to tell your story from your own perspective, you’re speaking in authorial voice. You’re writing in 3P, typically in either past or present tense. In the novel Prodigal Summer, Kingsolver begins:

“Her body moved with the frankness that comes with solitary habits. But solitude is only a human presumption. Every quiet step is thunder to beetle life underfoot; every choice is a world made new for the chosen. All secrets are witnessed.

“If someone in this forest had been watching her—a man with a gun, for instance, hiding inside a copse of leafy beech trees—he would have noticed how quickly she moved up the path and how direly she scowled at the ground ahead of her feet.”

Using authorial voice, you have the added bonus of alternating with—should you choose—an omniscient voice. As omniscient narrator, you’re essentially a puppet-master looking down upon your characters and providing the reader with an objective overview of their lives. Interestingly, in Prodigal Summer (above), Ms. Kingsolver shifts to present tense to reflect her omniscient voice in the second line.

Remember the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town? (It’s been a high-school staple for decades.) Mr. Wilder ingeniously offers his omniscient voice a living stage persona, a character unseen and unknown by the other actors. Early in Act I, the Stage Manager states: “Over there is the Congregational Church; across the street’s the Presbyterian. Methodist and Unitarian are over there.” The Stage Manager is not speaking to the actors. He’s speaking to the audience. The actors are oblivious to the Stage Manager’s presence.

Another example—and advantage—of writing in 3P is switching freely between authorial voice (shown in italics below) and omniscient voice (in bold italics):

As Jonathan stumbled through the steaming Manaquirian jungle, he felt a sudden sting on his shoulder. Christ, he hated mosquitoes. He considered them nothing more than tiny, insufferable vampires, sucking the lifeblood from any creature who dared enter their blistering realm. Little did Jonathan know that this insect would infect him with a lethal strain of malaria that would, without an antidote, inexorably dissolve his brain into a soggy beef broth.

It can be a good way to build drama.

If you write in 1P, do realize that we, your readers, won’t know (until Jonathan himself tells us) that his brain is turning to mush. If Jonathan doesn’t know, we don’t know either. However, there exists subtle methods to invoke a similar sort of faux omniscient information. No, you’re not using omniscient voice. You’re cheating by creating a useful backstory. Or hearsay. Or conversations with convenient strangers. Thus:

As I stumbled through the steaming Manaquirian jungle, I felt a sudden sting on my shoulder. Christ, I hated mosquitoes. They’re insufferable buggers, little more than tiny vampires sucking the lifeblood from any creature who dares enter their blistering realm. Years ago, while camped in Tupana, I’d heard horror stories about a rare killer mosquito hiding in this part of the Amazon. It was a new breed of insect whose sting would slowly dissolve a human brain into a soggy beef broth. I hoped to God one of those little lethal bastards wouldn’t find me, as the nearest medical facility, and the nearest antidote, awaited me in Manaus, a good fifty miles away.

Different voice? Sure, and likely a different style, subliminal or not. For instance, I didn’t intend to alter the above translation (3P/1P), but each voice demands nuance and subtlety. It’s not as simple as switching from him to me. Your novel will be built around the specific voice you use.

So… not sure which voice to use? Might I suggest allowing yourself a few pages to toy with different perspectives? Write a scene in 3P and then rewrite those same pages in 1P. Try past tense. Try present tense. Does a particular voice call to you? Do you feel yourself able to better express yourself more articulately using a particular voice? Personally, I find this exercise to be one of the more enjoyable guilty pleasures of beginning a new book.
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