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Imagination Friday

Blue Moon

• by M. Pax
• Part 2
• fantasy
• copyright 2011 M. Pax, all rights reserved

Missed Part 1? Catch up HERE

Claudette pulled open the door, and the wind pushed, knocking past her in a whirring gust. It rushed in dirt and twigs and moon and night, piling it on the floor.

From the worn and warped boards the heap rose, a restless column reaching and grasping, filling out Emile’s repaired coat. The lantern sputtered and hissed, flailing on its wick, and with a harrowing shrug the thing blew it out.

The summoned night came forth, earth and sorrow and wind and moon, lumbering, stumbling. “I missed you so,” it said, an eerie, misaligned copy of her dear Emile.

Ever so grateful for any bit of him at all, Claudette wept and fell into his loamy embrace, welcoming the icy tendrils stroking her flesh. With him she moved, clutching, swaying, waltzing out into the thicket under the lauding moon. Emile caressed her with cold, with thorns, and with sighs, cherishing her tears and smiles, cradling her heart.

In perfect abandon they reeled in passion until the winds collapsed. Then they rolled and tussled in eternal avowal, fulfilling promises once made… I take thee Claudette… I take thee Emile… J’adore. Je t’aime. Love mended and bridged, knotted and knitted, joined for all time.

In a bundle of sore, requited spirit, Claudette swore her devotion upon his heaving chest. Emile’s new sewn heart beat strong ’til the horizon exhaled a puff of dawn.

Emile faded with the ghostly light. “Au revoir ma petite.”

Moon, grit, and thistle kissed her lips and left her in a void. She grieved into the woolen cloak, empty and wasted, smelling of his spilled blood. The heart she’d stitched lay limp, crumpled and deflated, tattered and ruined.

Three years would pass until the next enchanted night, an eternity to wait on her honeymoon, but the interval would make her cherish their time all the more. “I keep you ’til then, Emile. Keep you ’til then.”

With strands of gold thread Claudette wrapped a tender twig he’d left in her hair and fastened it around her finger. A testament to her fidelity. At last she was wed — to magic and to the blue moon and to the summoned soul of her beloved Emile.

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Winners of The Backworlds signed paperbacks

• Tyrean Martinson
• Tandi S. Cortez

• Congrats winners!

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Writers4Writers is this coming Monday, May 20th

Gear up for May’s Writers4Writers! Not signed up? Need to know more of what it’s about? SEE HERE

Monday we work to send Laura Eno and Marian Allen into super stardom… so we can all say we knew them when.

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The Quintessence of Absence by Sean McLachlan

Can a drug-addicted sorcerer sober up long enough to save a kidnapped girl and his own Duchy? In an alternate 18th century Germany where magic is real and paganism never died, Lothar is in the bonds of nepenthe, a powerful drug that gives him ecstatic visions. It has also taken his job, his friends, and his self-respect. Now his old employer has rehired Lothar to find the man’s daughter, who is in the grip of her own addiction to nepenthe. As Lothar digs deeper into the girl’s disappearance, he uncovers a plot that threatens the entire Duchy of Anhalt, and finds the only way to stop it is to face his own weakness.

Sean’s latest fantasy novella, The Quintessence of Absence, is out now on Amazon, Amazon UK, Smashwords, and will soon be at other outlets as well. This story originally appeared in Black Gate magazine.

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Celebrate the Small Things

Every Friday, Vicklit of Scribblings of an Aspiring Author hosts the celebrate the small things blog hop.

*Had a great workshop on writing short fiction last Saturday, had my local crit group on Monday, met my writer gal pals on Tuesday. Good writing week.

*Went on a date with Husband Unit last night. Went to see Star Trek: Into Darkness in IMAX 3D. It was awesome. What a fun ride. Nonstop fantastic action from start to finish. Can’t wait for #3! :D

*Thanks for stopping by. Have a great weekend everybody!

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Over the weekend I attended a workshop on short fiction. Instead of a lot of talking at us, the instructor had us do a lot of writing.

I knew that before going and had a gnawing fear in my gut. Although I normally write in the mornings, could I perform under pressure with expectations from others that I produce something?

I told myself to get over it, and besides I had to return Save the Cat to the friend who loaned it to me [the copy I ordered arrived! Yay!] Yeah, I know I’ve been talking about this book a lot lately. But it was like a revelation to me. I’m now planning my books more than I ever have. This book spoke to me on a level that made sense. I think maybe it just helped me crystallize what I had been doing and make it better and stronger, so that it’s not so haphazard, so that I understand what I’m doing.

Anyway, that’s how we keep an infusion of inspiration and growth — keep an open mind and keep learning.

The workshop began with a handout of Kurt Vonnegut’s eight basics of Creative Writing 101. Anyone who is a Vonnegut fan gets bonus points with me, and he served as inspiration when I had to think of an anecdote from my life to write about. I stood behind him in line at a news stand once in NYC. Fan girl squeal! And it had me thinking about when I first moved to NYC. From there the thoughts and words poured out.

As if it happened yesterday, I sat on the number 7 train on my way to my first Manhattan job interview. Although it was spring, it was snowing and lots more happened… but that’ll be in the story.

Also as clear as yesterday, I sat with my friend Nikki in the garden of our favorite restaurant in the West Village, sipping frosty mugs of Molson Golden, talking about writing. Quintessential New York. Memories and experiences I treasure and draw from again and again.

Back to class! We took our anecdotes and worked on how to fictionalize moments from our lives. Who is the character? What does the character want? Change either one of those and you can rewrite any bit of inspiration in a myriad ways.

It was a different way of using real life in fiction for me, so it was fun. I enjoyed getting back to writing about reality.

I have to laugh at that last sentence. Most of my life I jonesed to get to writing about things wildly creative and not at all real. A change very welcome in my reality, and it puts a wistful smile in my heart…

Back to class! For the next exercise we wrote down two secrets, threw them in a hat,  then drew one. We had to write from that character’s perspective. Fate gave me a great sci-fi/fantasy prompt. Yeah, that’s another budding piece of short fiction. 

After that, we had to take our first anecdote and write the story from another character’s perspective. The only other person in my anecdote was Kurt, so I became Kurt Vonnegut. Awesome!

My point in all this, never say no to an opportunity to see the world and your writing differently. Never fear freshening up. Welcome it with open notebooks and a fresh pen.

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Jewel of Shaylar

Laura Eno’s latest fantasy is now out!

Archaeologist David Alexander investigates the cave where his father disappeared and hurtles into another world, one filled with magic and bizarre creatures. The mad ravings in his father’s journals of icemen and dragons may not be fantasies after all.

Convinced his father may still be alive, David begins a treacherous journey to find him and discover a way home. Along the way, he encounters a few unlikely friends. A Dreean warrior, a beautiful thief and a satyr join him as he searches.

David’s arrival into this new world sets off an explosive chain reaction of events. Faced with powerful adversaries and few clues, he may not get the chance to rescue his father before disaster strikes, condemning both of them to death. Or worse.

Read Excerpt

Purchase at: KindleUS  / KindleUK / Nook / Smashwords / Kobo / Paperback

Add to your Goodreads

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Today is the Last Chance to Enter May’s giveaway

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Backworlds

by M. Pax

Giveaway ends May 16, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

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With my breakfast every morning, I read a little from Scientific American or Sky & Telescope. Since I go from breakfast to my office, it gets my brain chugging nicely… usually.

When I read about nanotechnology in food, I got a little weirded out. There are nanosize particles on our food. Some may be on purpose to intensify flavors and mouth feel [ie, to make less fatty food creamier in texture on the tongue]. Others may not be on purpose – byproducts from the milling process or the environment.

The environmental health group As You Sow is working to crowdfund further testing of foods to make sure nanopowders are harmless. The EU requires nanomaterials to be labeled, the USDA does not. I keep thinking — ewwww!

A few pages later is an article on how the foods we eat communicate to our cells and can make us sicker or healthier. Biochemicals in all foods [natural and not] can elicit reactions similar to hormones in human cells.

All of this has to be known by the food companies, and it made me wonder whether they engineer food to control us… ie, binge eating and food addictions. They must… or am I paranoid?

Maybe mind-control chocolate isn’t so far from reality. Food for thought. For more on this topic, see the May 2013 issue of Scientific American.

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Passing Time is Free this Week!

Ellie Garratt’s Passing Time is free this week.

Passing Time: Nine Short Tales of the Strange and Macabre
available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Have a sneak peek:

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Last few days to enter May’s giveaway!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Backworlds

by M. Pax

Giveaway ends May 16, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

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Imagination Friday

Blue Moon

• by M. Pax
• Part One
• Read Part Two

Blue moon it was, the second full moon of a savage March; large and looming, hanging low with portend. For two years Claudette had waited for it. Bereft.

Winter hung on, and her late mother whispered with the wild winds, “Blue moons are magic. Unleash ta tempete.” The brimming tempest whipped around the cottage at the edge of the wood, shoving bramble against the rough mortared stones. The scratching echoed the ancient sorcery rushing forth from her lips. “Charm the night, Claudette. Call him.”

Claudette clutched at the plea, entwining it with her desire; a weaving of thread, heart, and luna passed down through her female ancestors since time began.

The lantern sputtered and spat, reeking of kerosene. Yet she hovered close, ignoring the bite of sparks on her skin. She rocked and keened and stitched and stitched; embroidered until her fingertips went numb. Into his coat she wove their names. Claudette et Emile. Over and over. Toujours.

War and a musket ball robbed her of Emile too soon. Two years ago she mourned over him on the battlefield, tearing at her hair and cheeks. His chest spilled over the soil, an empty cave shattered by lead; his heart obliterated in shreds, damning hers.

She clung to the sorrow, rejecting the solace of time. The mistral kicked up to a howl, thrashing at her pane. She dared to glance, but he wasn’t there.

“Too soon,” her mother cooed with the rising moon.

Claudette wailed, screeching for what she feared to never hold again. “Bless me, bless me, wild precious night.” She bent with fresh resolve over Emile’s woolen cloak smeared with the debris of his death. Her teeth cut a length of red silk, then her soul sang of him. The cadence of a long ago eve anointed her thread — the night he begged for her hand.

The needle wove with tenderness — up and over, around and through. She stitched him a new heart.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Claudette flamed with fire. She sewed with more passionate spirit, fever knitting her brow.

Bamp. Bamp. Bamp.

She cried out, burning, knotting off the new brocade. Before going to the door, she smoothed her hair and pinched her cheeks.

[Part Two - Next Friday]

• copyright 2011 M. Pax, all rights reserved

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Celebrate the Small Things

Every Friday, Vicklit of Scribblings of an Aspiring Author hosts the celebrate the small things blog hop.

I celebrate happy kitties and kitty cuddles, Husband Unit cuddles, too.

The WIPs make progress. Onward and forward.

Thanks to Erin Dameron-Hill for helping me with a secret project. If you want to know what it is sooner rather than later, sign up for my newsletter before May 20th. I’ll also be sending a sneak peek of Beyond the Edge, Backworlds #4 in that newsletter [chapter one].

Thanks to all the friends and colleagues who are so generous and supportive. This would be so much harder without you. That includes you.

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May Giveaway

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Backworlds

by M. Pax

Giveaway ends May 16, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

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