Wednesday Words

Pic by Winfried Bruenken

Flash Fiction: Patty-Cake

By Mary Findley

Magazine Cover by Sarah Alten

"Patty-Cake, Patty-Cake, Baker's man ..." Dr. Isabel Regis sat on the floor in a black evening gown, her golden hair in diamond combs. Julie, the baby sitter, folded into place.

"Bake me a cake as fast as you can ... " Julie kept up the rhythm. Emily squealed as her mother joined her dress-uniform-clad father in the doorway.

“So beautiful,” Captain Lincoln Regis murmured into her ear.

“We haven’t had a night alone in three years.”

“My coma, Baby Emily, or Baby Sentinels, nonstop. God gave us people who made us come out of our den and be civilized for one night.”

“It was nice getting all dressed up, fussing over me instead of diapers and wipes.”

“Or plexiglass housings or fiberoptic cable or …” Linc opened the car door for her. “Hey, could we skip the reception and ... ?”

“The marines would come looking. What if they found us?” Izzy giggled. “How can they honor us for our work in cheap clean energy, anti-gravity and robotics if we don’t come to our own reception? The Lord brought us here, and expects us to do everything decently and in order.”

The Sentinel on the sidewalk waved its tentacles as if saying good-bye. It floated five feet off the ground, egg-shaped, bronze-colored plexiglass glowing with Izzite gas power: light and buoyancy. Its red forward sensor panel followed the car out of sight.

***************

Two black figures flitted behind the house. The Sentinel moved. A soundless flash filled the night air. The Sentinel lay on the ground, tentacles twitching and groping, energy core pulsing and sizzling. The saboteurs continued.

A second Sentinel met them at the rear of the single-story quadrangle of buildings housing apartments and the research team laboratories. Another silent explosion knocked the Sentinel against the wall shattered its globe and rocked the whole building.

Julie had put Emily to bed and gone to the bathroom. Terrified, she discovered the door was jammed. She pounded on the door, screaming for help. She could hear Emily begin to cry in the nursery.

Two saboteurs rounded the front of the Regis house. A third Sentinel appeared in the open garage. This one had perfectly round housing, almost clear, faintly golden. It hovered almost six feet above the ground and its tentacles were longer and thicker. It had no visible sensory devices.

One intruder tossed a bomb, signaling the other to run. The Sentinel seemed to drift. The brilliant flash obscured it for a moment. When the light faded the front of the Regis home was blown away. The Sentinel, however, continued moving toward the saboteurs. One threw another explosive. The Sentinel's tentacles reached for the two saboteurs and drew them toward itself. Both screamed.

***************

“Now, now, Captain, Doctor, I know it looks bad, but everything’s okay,” the marine guarding the ruined front of the Regis house assured them. “We’re getting the babysitter out of the bathroom. You need to get your little girl.”

Linc and Izzy tore down the hall. Just inside the nursery door they skidded to a halt.

“Well, we prayed that the new design would be an improvement,” Linc whispered.

“More durable, more adaptable.” Izzy nodded. “Just like God helped us plan it.”

“Did we – um – did you –”

“I did not plan that.”

Emily sat up in her crib, reaching her chubby hands toward the waving tentacles of the Ultra Sentinel as it hovered over her. She patted the tentacles which seemed to be patting back. “Pa-Cake!”

*****

Thanks for reading. Here's a Crash Course On How To Write Flash Fiction.

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Books From G8Press, Books From Authors On Writing And Other Resources

I was trying to describe Pinterest to a fellow conferee this weekend and couldn't find the words. Maybe the workshops affected my brain cells. It's a digital pinboard with lots of pretty pictures. Of course that doesn't explain why a writer should have a Pinterest account as part of her, or his, platform. All I can tell you is, it works. In the "How to Market Your Book" workshop we were told that publishers want to know how much of a following, or platform, you have. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and yes, Pinterest.

The one Pinterest board we have for G8Press is getting us traffic. I guess that's all I need to say. Love it.

Source: fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net via Debby on Pinterest

Here's the BEST, and most interesting, review of The Avengers, by Mary Findley, I have read.

 

Source: yawriters.blogspot.com via Debby on Pinterest

We've been told he's good for advertising. Makes you wanna read a book, right?

And Pinterest helps with those book sales. It's over 80% female which explains the awesome and friendly community. Just sayin'.

Check out our book by Sandra Schoger Foster and purchase it now in time for Father's Day!!

Source: createspace.com via Debby on Pinterest

Social Networks! How's your platform?

Short Story: Twenty to Two

By Andy Poole

“The worst is not; so long as we can say ‘this is the worst!’” ~ William Shakespeare, King Lear IV.I.27.



In a crowded tavern at Regensburg, Adrian Barrow loosed his sword in its scabbard as he peered around the doorframe and down the crude banister. The auburn-haired English mercenary’s sea-grey eyes watched as the Imperialist officer below engaged in earnest conversation with the innkeeper. He clearly did not have tavern pastimes on his agenda. The room filled with harquebusiers—more lightly equipped cavalry than their heavy cuirassier brethren—and their sword hands were itching for the draw.

“How many, Filip?” Barrow asked his Swedish companion, a shorter and heavier man with wispy blonde hair and mustache.

“I say roughly a score of horse,” said Filip, his complexion paling as his beady eyes surveyed the situation unfolding below.


“Twenty against two. I’ve seen worse.”

“I’ve seen better!”


Barrow slid back into the room and pressed against the wall. “Any chance of you getting the horses while I hold them off up here?”

“No, the soldiers are too many! I’ll never reach the door!”
“Through the window.”

“Adrian, the height—!”

“I’d be more afraid of Solingen steel.”

“Point taken.” Filip peered cautiously through the latticed window, keeping as low a profile as possible. “Four horsemen are waiting outside. We’re trapped!”

Barrow heard the officer below spit out his orders, followed by the thumping of boots on the wooden floor and the creaking of the stairs as men and equipment burdened the tired, sagging banister. “Get the reports, quickly!”

The Swede fumbled for the satchel of the prized documents and gear.

“Forget the food, we travel light.” Barrow drew his long, swept-hilt sword from its scabbard, his forefinger curled over the wide quillon. He peered through the opening in the door. The shadows on the wall spread and darkened. Barrow seized the little stool by the bedside, kicked the door open and hurled the stool at the column of soldiers, darting back around the corner as angry shouts and pistol shots greeted him. Stumbling and curses announced that his effort reaped the desired result.

Barrow waved at Filip and shouted, “To the adjoining room. Hurry!” He kicked an ascending soldier full in the stomach, sending him falling back with a groan onto his companions. “Go!”

Filip scrambled for the door of the next room. Pistol balls and splintered wood followed him. Barrow followed, keeping his front to his opponents, ready for their inevitable attack.

“Vorwärts!” A bearded German veteran charged with a deep-throated roar, his long hair trailing behind him in a billowing blur. Steel clashed on steel. The blades rang dull as attack and parry met. Barrow’s opponent possessed a strong wrist that knew the trade. The blades locked; Barrow drew his dagger from its sheath and plunged the point into the veteran’s thigh. His opponent howled and leaped back. The bloodied dagger glanced aside a thrust as Barrow’s sword point slid between the ribs of a new assailant.

He backed toward the door, desperately warding the ever-increasing blows as the corridor crowded with enraged Germans. He crossed his blades to block a blow and then pushed the attacker back into the crowd. Barrow seized the precious little time he stole and backed into the more easily defendable doorway. A gleam of steel caught his eye. He sidestepped the attack and slammed the door on the swordsman’s fingers. An agonized shout erupted behind the door, the fingers spread wide and throbbing red, and the sword clattered to the floor. The hand escaped between the door and the threshold. Barrow pushed hard on the door, but the mass of soldiers pressed back. He wouldn’t hold for long. He turned, sheathed his weapons and seized the Swede.

“Hey! wha—”

Barrow ran headlong for the window. He crashed through the latticed windowpane and landed on his feet in a shower of glittering glass. The four horsemen outside were still visible, but farther away, just as he had planned. He released his shaken companion, undid his cloak, and waved it before him. Just in time. The harquebusiers before them leveled their carbines. Bursts of fire and smoke discharged from the muzzles, the deafening crack of ignited black powder reverberated off the walls of the town. Lead balls ripped through the cloak screen and whizzed by the fugitives’ ears.
The Swede made to run for the stables, but Barrow seized his arm. “Forget the horses, come on!” Barrow charged at the mounted men with blade drawn. His companion followed, brandishing sword and dagger.

The horsemen charged, bare swords flashing in their hands. Barrow sidestepped an oncoming warhorse and parried the whooshing blow directed at his face. The horse reared as the rider jerked the reigns to halt the momentum of his steed, causing him to miss his second swipe. Barrow lunged at the thigh, piercing through both muscle and horse, sending rider and mount down onto the street. He turned just in time to duck under a vicious, hissing swing, and parry the thrust of another harquebusier. Barrow seized the extended sword arm with a free hand and jerked the rider from the saddle. His knee careened with the man’s nose to stun him as he leapt into the saddle.
The rider closest to Barrow drew his pistol and leveled to fire. The weapon clattered to the street as Barrow’s sword edge slashed the gunman’s wrist. The harquebusier cried out and gripped his bleeding hand, whilst Barrow charged home and rammed the hilt of his sword into the man’s face, knocking him senseless to the ground. Barrow then turned his attention to his companion. Filip had cut down the last rider from his mount.

“Get on!” Barrow shouted.

Filip needed no persuasion. He sprang onto the unburdened horse and both companions dug their heels into the sides of their new steeds just as the harquebusiers from the inn assembled on the street, carbines in hand. The Imperialists issued a thunderous fusillade, but the flying lead passed harmlessly by their quarry. The two riders galloped on, down the streets, past the cursing and shooting sentries at the gate, and out of town.

“You think they will catch up?” Filip asked.

“Not a chance,” said Barrow as he cast a glance back at the Swede. He flashed his teeth in a martial grin through a blur of auburn hair. “What did I tell you? Twenty to two isn’t too bad!”

“Bad enough that I never want to do that again!”

“The greater the odds, the greater the reward,” Barrow retorted.

Filip shook his head. “You Englishmen are mad, eager for impossible fights!”

“Haha!” Barrow boasted. “We English folk have a long tradition of winning ‘impossible fights,’ as the French discovered the hard way at Crecy and Agincourt; and as the Spaniards discovered in the English Channel!”

He turned his attention back to the road. The Swedish army under Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar lay not far ahead, and he and his companion had successfully procured the Regensburg garrison numbers and patrol schedule, and lived to share them. Another mission accomplished, against the odds. Adrian Barrow now felt it safe to predict that the coming siege would go well for the Swedes, quite well indeed.

The End

copyright, 2012 by Andy Poole
Andy's Fan Page on Facebook


Sources
Brzezinski, Richard. Lützen 1632. Westport: Praeger, 2005.
Roberts, Keith. Matchlock Musketeer: 1588-1688. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, Ltd., 2002.
Wedgewood, C.V. The Thirty Years War. Garden City: Anchor Books, 1961.
The Thirty Years War. The Heilbronn League, the Fall of Wallenstein and the Battle of
Nördlingen (1632-34). “Saxe-Weimar takes Regensburg.” http://www.pipeline.com/~cwa/Nordlingen_Phase.htm.

Thursday Thoughts: The Dracula Theory

Into the wee hours of last night and into this morning, a young Facebook friend and I started a thread on my page. The status update was quite silly: "Happy International Jugglers' Day" it said. Andy left a response saying the only thing he was good at juggling were ideas. From there, the conversation shifted to Bram Stoker's Dracula. The book, btw, is available FREE on my Pinterest Board. Follow me while you're there.

In any case, here's the Facebook thread (leaving out the unnecessary beginnings and in between shenanigans) with Andy's review, from a Christian's world view, of Dracula with a few comments from fellow author Mary Findley at the end.

**********

Andy Poole: He's EVIL and no vampire since has ever surpassed his literary power of persona. But even he couldn't topple the power of the cross or sever the bond between Mina and Jonathan!


Debby de Quilettes-Alten: Okay, backtrack a little. Expound on why you like this book.

Andy Poole: Oh wow. It's my second favorite below LOTR. I love the Gothic atmosphere in this book, and it's set in England (land of my ancestors) and Transylvania (I love, love, love Eastern European history!!!). The love story between Mina and Jonathan Harker, unshaken by the colossal evil set against them, is so beautiful! The characters are so well-written and believable, and the narrative itself is through their different POVs via diary entries, letters, phonograph transcripts, telegrams, and newspaper articles. There is also the ominous threat by an ancient demon, there's clear good vs. evil, and there are Christian themes.

Debby de Quilettes-Alten: What are the Christian themes?

Andy Poole: Well, as a Protestant, some of them aren't very applicable to me since Bram Stoker writes from a clearly Catholic point-of-view. Characters can drive the evil back with a crucifix, which I personally think is silly since I've seen churches hit by demonic attack from within. But Dracula is more than just undead, if I remember a quote right--he's an ancient demon that's been at work for centuries--a different take on vampires in my experience. Probably the most blatant Christian theme I've seen in Stoker's writing was actually his short story "The Judge's House" in which the hero throws a book at a ghost in the form of a rat, which runs away in horror. Then the hero realizes that the book was a Bible.

Debby de Quilettes-Alten: Ah, very interesting. Okay, haven't read the book. How does it compare to the movie. I think Gary Oldman was in it?

Andy Poole: Oh man, I couldn't even finish the full version of the Francis Ford Coppola film (starring Gary Oldman, as you said, and Anthony Hopkins , Cary Ewles, and Keenau Reeves) because of the content. I watched it edited on TV and it was better but I still felt gritty. That was the closest to the original story but it also had serious departures, morally and in theme. For me, the romance plot was ruined. It went from the faithful, unshaken sacrificial love of Jonathan and Mina to Mina falling for Dracula's advances. Then in the last scene Johnathan allows Mina to go and spend time with Dracula as he's writhing in his death throes. Are you kidding me?

What it got right--Arthur's trip to Dracula's Castle, Dracula's crossing to England on a Russian ship, Lucy's vampirism and staking at her tomb, part of the asylum subplot, and that the heroes fought gypsies in Transylvania in their pursuit of Dracula after his departure from England.

I have yet to see any film that faithfully captures the book. The Christopher Lee/ Peter Cushing "Horror of Dracula" is my favorite so far, though it is a major plot departure.

BTW, when I was debating someone else about whether Christian horror is Christian, I said the following bit about the novel.


"Dracula was not the object of a glorified teenage date, but portrayed as a demonic creature at war with humanity. Mr. Renfield, one of Dracula's servants, hungers to consume life, but winds up losing his sanity, is housed in an insane asylum, and Dracula kills him in a very inglorious way when he offers information to the heroes on Dracula. Mr. Renfield's lust for immortality and pact with Dracula did not pay off--instead of becoming an immortal, he's leveled prostrate on the floor of a loony bin. The heroes stood against Dracula at great risk to themselves and defeated him, one character even giving his life in the final battle to allow it to happen. One of the most powerful things I take away from that novel is the beautiful love story of Jonathan and Mina Harker and their unshakeable bond that holds through the stress of their ordeal. I really fail to see how all of this glorifies evil; rather, I see it as ever bit of a depiction of the battle between good and evil."

Mary Campagna Findley: I missed this whole *splutter* thing. But Andy said it excellently well. Judge's House, a version of Dracula for us non-Catholics, and we're all set. And I loved what John Silver said in Treasure Island when the pirates gave him the Black Spot. "Who's been cutting a Bible?"

Andy Poole: I wouldn't say "The Judge's House" is a non-Catholic Dracula. It didn't end with any hope like Dracula did. So far, it's the most depressing of Stoker's work I've read.

Mary Campagna Findley: No, I meant the Judge's House was good for what it was, mentioning the power of the Word of God. What we need is a non-Catholic Dracula with substance over symbolism.

Andy Poole: If I ever write a story with actual vampires I've thought of a scene where one would laugh at the showing of the cross, saying "Do you think a mere trinket can ward me off?" I accepted it as a plot element, but really mere metals have no spiritual impact, it is by the power of God alone that demons are driven out.

I don't really remember there being Catholicism in "Dracula's Guest," though that is thought to have been the original first chapter of the novel. That story was visually RICH...

Mary Campagna Findley: Have to look that one up ... Your idea of vampires scoffing at crosses is not original. In our materialistic age it's been done. We need to emphasize the reality of spiritual power.

Andy Poole: Ja.

Debby de Quilettes-Alten: Yeah, I think these high school vampires like on Vampires Dairies don't need the cross anymore. Heck, they've got these vamps walking around in daylight.

Mary Campagna Findley: There was a lot of symbolism in Dracula that could be used for real spiritual meaning, just as Jesus spoke in parables. The cross, the water, etc. all stand for the power of God, His Word, Christ, the Holy Spirit. It's worth a thoughtful-Christ-minded read. The ability of sin, like that of the maid stealing the cross from Mina's friend's body, to pollute the efforts of righteousness. Never-say-die courage. Reliance on age, experience and wisdom. It goes on and on.

*********

Those Glamorous Geeky Toys

The new shipment of Geeky toys has finally arrived. I know, stand up and cheer, right? Topping the Geek Toys 2012 writer's list has to be the portable, and would you believe, collapsible toaster. Yes, you heard it, toaster. In the month of May we are attending two writers' conferences in far off lands and one can never be in other lands, or motels, without a portable toaster. I'm packing it right next to my laptop.

And don't forget the bacon jam to spread on your toast ... my mouth is literally watering. Then if there's time between workshops, get out your geeky giant doughnut pool float. FYI, someone has taken a bite out of it, but it still floats.

On a more serious note (we have them now and again), check out the Amazon promotional codes. These are great savings on many different products; books for $3.99 and less, or buy 4 books for the price of 3, a list of free books, Kindle books and free music from rising stars. And if you come back from time to time to Geek Alerts they have updated codes. Don't miss out.

Visit the loveable geeks' website for news and info on the latest--gadgets, gizmos and anything geeky. Lots of fun to be had by all. Save money is what they will do for you, so you can afford to buy more gadgets! (Insert maniacal laughter here.) By the way, Fluffy and Butch would like to let you know the Geeks have Petsmart coupons. Just sayin'.

Thursday Thoughts: My Burden and the Birds

Sometimes God gives us something to share with others, like I believe this post should be from my friend, Sharon. But it is still a love letter from God to the writer. I think it needs to be read again....

Yesterday I decided to have a serious meeting with God.
I arranged some extra pillows on my bed, got my Bible, my journal, and then plopped into the fluff. I told God it was over! This anxiety had to go! I didn’t want to be anxious anymore. It was sucking the life out of me. I told him I really wanted to hear from him on this—about how to be rid of my burden of worry

With so many precarious situations in my family…not to mention stressful eruptions, and sudden changes of direction, my strength was waning. I felt like the character in my son’s computer game who has fought so many battles his health points are almost gone.

So I told God I really needed his help. Could he please speak to me? That’s when God reminded me about the birds. Now I have read about the birds in Matthew 6 many times. But this time the passage really jumped out at me.

"Look at the birds of the air."

Okay Lord, I’ll go outside and look at the birds.

"They do not sow or reap."

You’re right, Lord. They just swoop down and pluck snacks out of the grass.

"They don’t store anything away in barns."

They certainly don’t seem to be worrying about the future.

"They don’t need to. I take care of them one day at a time."

Are you saying you will take care of my needs, one day at a time, too?

"You are more valuable to me than a bird."


Thank you. Will you take care of my family’s needs too?

"Yes, and you won’t add a single hour to your life by being anxious."

I’ll try to be more like the birds.

"Good."

I wish I could fly.


"Seek first the kingdom of God and you will fly, just like they do."(Matthew 6: 26-27;33)

Sharon P.