Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Halloween…Why I love being scared

I have always been a horror buff. My first scary movie was at the tender age of eight, when I snuck into the living room while my mother was watching a show called Creature Feature (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creature_Features) . Unfortunately for me, they were playing Night of the Living Dead…eeek!

Needless to say, I had horrible nightmares. I even begged to sleep in my mother’s bed, to no avail. However, since then I was hooked on horror. I graduated to sneaking out of bed and watching Creature Feature to experience Frankenstein, Dracula and many more as possible before getting caught.

This thirst for the thrill of fear escalated to my reading various masters of horror to include Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Frank Peretti, John Saul to name a few. My obsession didn’t stop there. I became interested in true stories of mayhem and horror also and started to watch shows that told of ghostly tales, murder mysteries and serial killers.

How did this insatiable need to be thrilled by fear help in my writing?

Little did I realize that the digesting of all of these villainous materials rapt with evil men, women, real life killers and ghostly beings would assist me in the development and understanding of creating the villains for my novels.

More Halloween reflections

So for this Halloween, realize that the thrill of the fear for some is real. Don’t become so desensitized to horror or evil that you become unsympathetic when something horrific truly happens. However, when you are enjoying the excitement that a good scary movie brings, and something creepy and crawly slithers across your feet … enjoy Halloween, a time to be frightened.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

TEEN LOVE – “Does a teenager really fall in love?”

I was hunting around on my favorite writer’s hang out on AW (Absolute Write Forums) and the topic of teen love came up. The question alluded to, ‘Does a teenager really fall in love?’ My honest opinion, why couldn’t they?


QUALITIES OF TEEN LOVE


I remember being in love as a teenager only about three times. Yep, three times. Each love was so fascinating, intense, exciting, all-consuming, and obsessive. I would write the boys name in my notebook over and over again. I would think about them every free moment of the day. When I kissed that boy, it felt as though he was the sun and the moon of my very life at that time.


If I could bottle that up and sell it, it would be called LOVE POTION #9.


QUALITIES OF ADULT LOVE


For me, love as an adult, was a lot slower to burn than teenaged love. As an adult, I only allowed myself to fall in love with one person. The difference between my teen love and my adult love is drastic. As an adult, I was cautious, skeptical, held back a lot of myself until the guy proved that he was trustworthy, worth my time, interesting enough to hold my interest, and sexy enough to keep me attracted.


Did it have the intensity of teen love? No, not because I didn’t feel the things I felt for my love as a teenager. I was just too jaded, mistrustful, and too smart to let anyone consume me that didn’t show that they were truly interested. Not to mention, the end of those teenaged love affairs were just too darned painful.


MY ANSWER TO THE QUESTION


Yes, teenagers can fall in love. All love starts out as an infatuation. It starts with attraction, hunger, excitement, the chase, and hopefully ends in true love. True love, which consists of trust, passion, comfort, attraction, bonding, and most of all friendship. Love is worth the ride whether it ends badly or last forever.


In my case, one of my teen love’s became my adult love, who is my best friend, my husband and so much more than I ever could have imagined. Yes, at times I do allow myself to feel all those things for him I did as a teenager, but my adult ways still makes me cautious to let it totally consume me.


REFLECTIONS ABOUT LOVE


My motto is and will always be, live your life and enjoy the adventure of it all. That means, that whenever love is lost or you stumble along the way. Get up, dust off, plaster a smile on your face and focus on the exhilaration of the experience of love, of life, of failures, of pain, of recovery, and the adventure and experience of being able to live, learn, and to have loved.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

TUESDAY TEASER - EXPLORER X – Alpha (comes out 2/2010)

This scene takes place during Aadi’s rescue of Eirena from a cruel race named Femoh, on the planet Shrenas where she and Aadi crash land.



Aadi thought of Eirena and called out to her mind again, “Eirena! Fight! Fight!”


Aadi went forward for a physical attack, and although he was still a bit shorter than the Femoh, the power he felt throughout him refused to let him feel weak or inferior. He went for the neck of the Femoh standing ahead of him and pushed the poison that he held deep within and the image of its painful, sharp burning through the veins of the Femoh he held in a strangle hold. The Femoh looked to be in deep pain, but it would not submit. It punched Aadi in his face, and another grabbed his arms from behind. Aadi was determined to destroy them and kicked the Femoh in front of him in the stomach. With power he barely held at bay, he jerked his arms free from the Femoh that held him. Then, he turned around and punched it in the neck. He jabbed his fingers into its eyes without mercy, and it fell to its knees. Aadi kneed up into his jaw. He didn’t wait to see it fall as he followed Jantik in the direction of the huge blast they heard down the hall.



Eirena heard Aadi’s voice yell through her mind, and she had pushed all the power that she had used to bury her pain out of her stomach and through her hands, feet, and eyes, which threw Finul and the Femohs standing between her and the door down to the ground. The power surged through her like a river of fire. It hurt, yet felt addictive. She would kill them all, and now! She broke her binds, pulled the power back within her, and jumped up to stand. Her pain was forgotten as revenge, anger, and hatred at her tormentors filled her soul. The Femohs that remained standing attempted to rush toward her. She pulled deep at that power source of her pain and forced it out through the palm of her hand, knocking her attackers back against bars of the cell that held her. She walked over to Finul, who had just recovered from her first blast, his head moving from side to side. He looked up at her and smiled.


“My turn, Finul!” she said clearly in the tongue of Shrenas. He looked surprised and terrified at the realization that she knew his name in his own language. She kneeled on his stomach while keeping his colleagues at bay with the power filled surge from her left hand. She took him by the neck and started to use the power within her to choke him.


“You love giving pain? Well, I am giving it back to you!” she said as she concentrated on the feeling of the knives and the acid that had burned her skin brought forth a red beam that caused Finul to cry out in a dying pain. He started to seep blood of silver into the granite floor of the cell as Eirena heard someone yell her name.



“Eirena, don’t kill it! Stop!” Aadi screamed. He jerked the cell door open, grabbing Eirena around the waist. With no time to think about what the change had done to her, he secured her over his shoulder. He had to get them out of there alive and without any of them being captured. The remaining Femoh ran off in terror, and Finul lay unconscious and bleeding from his ear, eyes, and nose.


“No! He will die now!” Eirena yelled breathing hard with her determination to finish the deed.


“Eirena, there are millions of them. We need to go! We are in danger here!” Aadi said as he pulled Eirena up, holding her waist, adjusted her on his shoulder, and grabbed a shocked Jantik as he ran in hyper-speed through the hallway, jumping up out of the sinkhole from which he came. Eirena was too stunned by Aadi’s speed and too relieved to see him to fight to go back and finish killing her tormentors. However, as she let him carry her over his shoulder, she promised herself she would kill a lot more Femoh before they left this miserable planet.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

HAVE YOU EVER WANTED TO BE A SUPER HERO?

HAVE YOU EVER WANTED TO BE A SUPER HERO? How would you become one in real life?

Alright, I admit it; I want to be a super hero. Never mind the fact that I am a grown woman with kids. I have always wanted to be one. From the first time I saw Wonder Woman, I wanted to be like her. I wanted to be beautiful, alluring, and strong enough to do any sized opponent some real damage.


I’ll even admit that at my five feet stature, I feel like a super hero inside. I believe that because of this desire, this fantasy, I started to make this a real possibility for me in my life.


HOW DO YOU BECOME A SUPER HERO IN REAL LIFE?


There are lots of ways we humanoids can become super heroes in real life.


I have become one by being what today’s society deems as a ‘Super Woman’. I work full time and part-time while being a mom, a wife and kicking out a novel in four months in which I live my super hero fantasies out on paper. My friends tell me that I am not normal, however doing all of these things seem completely normal to me. It is who I have conditioned myself to be.


My husband became a ‘Super Man’ when he was driving home one night and saw an accident up ahead of him. He actually jumped down a hill and over a guard rail, to turn over a three hundred pound man to give him CPR. Although he didn’t save the man’s life, he was instrumental in doing so because he tried too.


My cousin Armor (yes that is his real name) became a ‘Super Boy’ when he and his brother were playing with friends in the woods behind their home. One of the boys put a fire cracker into a gas can. Well my younger cousin Aaron went to check on the impending explosion and it blew up in his face. My cousin Armor, although typically not a strong kid, picked up his brother and ran him all the way home. His parents weren’t home at the time, so he called 911, and put his screaming brother under cool running water until the ambulance got there.


Anyone can become a ‘Super Hero’ you just have to find your gift, your strength and realize that you too can make a difference, save a life, and enrich yours at the same time.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Character Pictures for EXPLORER X - Alpha! Click on Teasers on my website www.lmpreston.com