Hello, everyone! A warm welcome to my blog.
I’m participating in Colleen’s 2020 Weekly Poetry Prompt Challenge. Today’s photo prompt was provided by Trent McDonald. I’m sharing a Haiku and Tanka.
Swans glide together
as lake mirrors the trees
a serene portrait
Mysterious swans
enduring all the seasons
dressed in white feathers
Together for a lifetime
A beautiful, loving pair
I hope you enjoyed the poems. Thanks for stopping by!
The year 2020 has seen its share of major historic events and bizarre incidents in just a little over five months–– including the acquittal of President Donald Trump in an impeachment trial, the bushfires in Australia, the rapid spread of the coronavirus pandemic, and the entire world grinding to a halt as businesses shut down and people are quarantined.
As I ponder on these events and others like the death of (a legend) Kobe Bryant in a helicopter crash, the United Kingdom withdrawing from the European Union, the Dow plunging 2,997 points due to coronavirus fears, the 2020 Summer Olympics postponed, and the fact that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped down from their duties as senior royals in Buckingham Palace, I want to pinch myself to be sure I’m not in some dark and eerie nightmare. Despite the peculiar times we’re living in, I’m sure everyone can find at least one thing to be thankful for, right?
I’m thankful that my family and I are doing well, and that we have plenty to eat and drink, and our toilet paper inventory is full. I’m grateful that this nightmare has not prevented me from doing a lot of reading and writing. My cooking and baking skills have gotten better. Despite the fact that I miss my family I have enjoyed our zoom get togethers. I’m also grateful to be in such great company during isolation – there are no better quarantine buddies than my husband JC and Pomeranian Scribbles. I have a roof over my head and a great view of a golf course. How could I not feel gratitude in my heart.
Although there are a plethora of strange happenings there are also appreciable moments. To be honest, there have been times when I’ve been down, fearful, anxious – none of us has ever lived through times like these. It’s easy to feel vulnerable and like you have no control over the outcome of your life. But when have we ever had total control over the outcome of our lives? We can’t focus only on the negative – it won’t solve a thing. Let’s think about all we should be grateful for.
“The most powerful weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. Train your mind to see the good in this day.”
Gratitude should be
as natural as breathing
Inhale and Exhale
Stay healthy, helpful, and calm, my friends!
It’s the fourth week of the month – time for a Theme Prompt! Last month, Colleen Chesebro from Colleen’s 2020 Weekly Poetry Challenge selected Sally Cronin to pick this month’s theme:
I am the night sky
you are the feverish stars
that fill up my soul
You are the night sky
I am the stars you embrace
only to help me
shimmer all the more brighter
you hold me close until dawn
Thanks for stopping by today! Have a safe and happy Friday!
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August sort of crept up on me this year. My AC is working doubly hard since it’s sweltering hot outside. Thank God for afternoon showers to cool things off. August is a big month in my family because my sisters and I all have birthdays this month. We even have a couple of cousins born in August too.
Anyway, today I wanted to talk a little about book covers and the genre of your book. Do you think book covers are important? What should book covers actually do? I believe that book covers are important because they’re the first impression your book makes on the reader. I know there’s a saying, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ but many people do. I’ve actually heard people say that they can tell the difference between a traditionally published author and an indie author by the book cover. 
Of course, what’s most important to me is the content inside but first, you have to attract the reader to your book. An intriguing cover will tempt the reader to pick up your book and once the book is in his or her hand the next natural thing to do is to turn it around and read the blurb and that’s when you hook them with your fabulous writing. A good cover needs to grab attention immediately, be striking, beautiful, clean and professionally made, but also let readers know instantly the basic genre.
The reader should know whether your book is a fantasy, horror, romance, sci-fi . . . by looking at your book cover. The cover also often convey the geographical locations and the main character’s age and sex which is also important.
I can’t stand it when a book misrepresents itself. Call me crazy. Also, and this may seem random, let me mention that the categories on Amazon are getting more and more ambiguous every day. It’s getting hard to figure out a book’s genre. I understand that putting general categories like Fantasy, Romance or Horror alone is not good for the Amazon algorithms but some people get so creative with these categories that they’re confusing the heck out of some people (including me).
If you wrote a horror book and there are ghosts and witches in your story then Kindle store>Horror>Witches>Ghosts are great categories, but I’ve seen some weird combinations that don’t make sense and it’s obvious that the author did it to climb up the ranks. And I’m telling you, your book may come up in the ranks at first, but readers are not going to be happy when they think they’re getting a romance novel and instead are getting hardcore erotica.
I found a great article that can help you make the most of the Amazon Categories while still representing your book accurately. Read this and you’ll thank me later. How To (Ethically) Hack Amazon Categories | David Gaughran
Okay, the bottomline is to be honest about the genre of your work and make sure your book cover, blurb and Amazon Categories clearly represent that genre.
**Check out the book covers below. I’m sure you can’t mistake their genres. If you’re interested in more info. about a book click on its image.
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Clear and Nature are this week’s prompt words chosen by Colleen Chesebro ~ The Fairy Whisperer.
*The catch is that we can only use the synonyms to these words in our poems.
Colleen hosts a challenge that anyone could participate in called, Colleen’s Weekly Tanka Tuesday Poetry Challenge every Tuesday, and you have until Sunday to create a post featuring your Haiku, Tanka, Haibun, Etheree or Cinquain poem. She is an author and poet, and also does book reviews and so much more on her blog. Be sure to check it out.
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Have you been to NYC? What was your favorite part of the trip?
Today I’m sharing a Haiku and Tanka followed by a short excerpt from my new book, Son of the Serpent.
The poems are written in the ocean’s point of view at the time of the Great Flood. I hope you enjoy it.
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As I prepared to leave Shuruppak, rumors about a man named Noah, who claimed to be God’s prophet, came to my attention. According to my human servants, this man said God speaks to him and has told him there shall be a catastrophic event. Every living thing on this planet shall perish, except those beings selected by God Himself.
The servants laughed and took pleasure in ridiculing this man. They called him insane. I, however, have learned throughout the years that there is always some truth to the ramblings of the insane. I would like to see this man, Noah, and listen to his preaching, thus my departure would have to wait.
In the middle of the night I awoke to booming thunder, the likes of which I had not heard since the days I wandered in the wilderness with Gadreel when we first arrived on this planet. I leaped out of my bed and ran to a nearby window. The sky was ominous, with large bitumen-black clouds gathering to form gigantic ones. My superior vision allowed me to see things in the darkness that no other being could. A flash of lightning lit the world white for a moment. Rain began to fall, first tapping on the window and then becoming a rapid succession of beats.
I threw on a garment and ran outside to get a better look. There were still people outdoors, servants slow to finish their tasks for the day and others who came out to see what was happening. They ran for cover as storm clouds spat their loads of water. Sharp droplets of icy-cold water needled my shoulders and back. I shivered under the prickly feeling. The rain came in torrents now. Puddles formed, and the puddles became streams. They grew into rivers. I ran to a nearby tree to take shelter under it.
I hid from the people running and screaming in fear and shifted to my serpent form. The torrent became more intense, and the night grew darker with the bruise of thick, angry clouds. A wall of rain moved over the tree I stood under, and the drops drummed against the canopy. So much water fell from the skies that the sound blurred into one long, whirring tumult.
Many of the people of Shuruppak left their flooded homes and wandered the streets like lost souls. They had never seen a storm of this magnitude. Some had only been familiar with the morning dew. I had seen enough. I spread my wings and took to the sky. Flying had never been more difficult. The rain pelted my wings, while bolts of lightning threaten to spear me as they sliced the air to my left and right.
The earth shook and sent shockwaves rippling through the ground like water, destroying houses in an instant. Fires exploded everywhere, and the smell of smoke twisting through the air between raindrops was acrid on the hot breeze. Regular clatters rang out as structures crumbled apart and fell to the ground. I needed to escape, find shelter, but where could I hide from such devastation? The skies were becoming more and more dangerous. I flew toward the coast, but my wings grew too heavy and sodden to keep me airborne. I fell to the beach.
I looked toward the coastline, wincing and moaning, feeling the pain of my fall. I had been to this beach before, but it looked strangely unfamiliar now, abnormally vast. I thought maybe the darkness of the night was playing tricks on my vision, but then I realized why the beach looked so strange. The surf had drawn back hundreds of miles; the abandoned sand twinkled in the moonlight despite the rain.
I gasped at a black line on the horizon and watched as a colossal wave swept toward me at hundreds of miles per hour—rushing, roaring, angry froth foaming from between its lips. I stared, eyes fixed, as the wave surged in. I knew it was impossible to escape it. Heat had never left my body as fast as it did in this brief moment of realization. The torrent came after me, granting me a few seconds to enjoy breathing the ocean air before it wrapped me in frigid foamy fingers and dragged me to the ocean floor.
I struggled as sand and briny water filled my lungs, causing them to expand and burn. As the wave moved, it pulled me along with it, like it wanted me to witness the devastation it would cause. My death would not be simple or fast, for the powers granted to me by the fruit from the Tree of Life would sustain me. Powers I once cherished now seemed a curse.
As the wave pushed me along, I crashed into debris in the water. Every stab, rip, and fracture my body suffered brought me immense pain. Men, women, and children drowned, their dead bodies floating around me, yet I remained alive.
The giant wave hit Shuruppak. It was nothing like the waves which lap the shore every minute of every day. This was a gigantic wall of water, cold and powerful. It came over land with the power of a volcanic blast. It moved over the city with more ease than a wave over the sand, reducing houses and structures to rubble and killing every living thing.
My broken body filled with water, sand, and debris until the weight of it fixed me to the ocean floor. People, livestock, uprooted trees, and all manner of structures floated past me. The rain continued to pour.
The sky was now hinting at sunrise. Nothing escaped my eyes and ears, but I was immobile. Every inch of my body throbbed with pain, and the cold of the water chilled my bones. As I lay motionless, I watched a large wooden vessel approach. It was the greatest ship I had ever seen. It glided over the water’s surface, throwing its shadow to the sea floor as it sailed past me, turning day to night. I overheard people singing and the roar, moo, bleat, and bray of animals coming from the vessel. Not everyone had perished. Some shall go on, while I remain imprisoned in this watery grave. The weight of the water pressed down on me, crushing me, as the rain increased its depth.
The feeling of drowning never left me. The feeling of panic, unable to take breath, to inflate my lungs. The slow filling of my larynx––gagging, coughing, briny water forcing its way through my nostrils and into my lungs like acid. I would drown and die, and after a moment of peace, the process began again.
A familiar recollection filled the void in my head, spinning memories of Beelzebub lying at the bottom of the Euphrates River bound in chains, disfigured by suffering and hate. Is that also to be my fate? Shall I become a grotesque monster wallowing in fear, self-loathing, and pain?A sharp, loud wail pierced my psyche, and I realized it was I who did the screaming.
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Try and Life are this week’s prompt words chosen by Colleen Chesebro ~ The Fairy Whisperer.
*The catch is that we can only use the synonyms to these words in our poems.
Colleen hosts a challenge that anyone could participate in called, Colleen’s Weekly Tanka Tuesday Poetry Challenge every Tuesday, and you have until Sunday to create a post featuring your Haiku, Tanka, Haibun, Etheree or Cinquain poem. She is an author and poet, and also does book reviews and so much more on her blog. Be sure to check it out.
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Sprint Turned a Wrecked Car Into a Mangled Emoji for This ‘Don’t Text and Drive’ Sculpture.
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Congregate and Passion are this week’s prompt words chosen by Colleen Chesebro ~ The Fairy Whisperer. *The catch is that we can only use the synonyms to these words in our poems.
Colleen hosts a challenge that anyone could participate in called, Colleen’s Weekly Tanka Tuesday Poetry Challenge every Tuesday, and you have until Sunday to create a post featuring your Haiku, Tanka, Haibun or Cinquain poem. She is an author and poet, and also does book reviews and so much more on her blog. Be sure to check it out.
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Happy and Morose are this week’s prompt words chosen by Colleen Chesebro ~ The Fairy Whisperer. *The catch is that we can only use the synonyms to these words in our poems.
Colleen hosts a challenge that anyone could participate in called, Colleen’s Weekly Tanka Tuesday Poetry Challenge every Tuesday, and you have until Sunday to create a post featuring your Haiku, Tanka, Haibun or Cinquain poem. She is an author and poet, and also does book reviews and so much more on her blog. Be sure to check it out.
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Did you know that the fear of Friday the 13th Phobia is called – Paraskevidekatriaphobia? Now that’s a word for a game of hangman.
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Old and Days are this week’s prompt words chosen by Ronovan Hester of Ronovan Writes.
Ron hosts a challenge that anyone could participate in called Ronovan Writes Weekly Haiku Poetry Prompt Challenge every Monday, and you have until Sunday to create a post featuring your haiku poem. He is an author and poet and also does author interviews and much more on his blog. Be sure to check it out. Read Ron’s Haiku Prompt Challenge Guidelines for more information.
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Chance and United are this week’s prompt words chosen by Ronovan Hester of Ronovan Writes.
Ron hosts a challenge that anyone could participate in called Ronovan Writes Weekly Haiku Poetry Prompt Challenge every Monday, and you have until Sunday to create a post featuring your haiku poem. He is an author and poet and also does author interviews and much more on his blog. Be sure to check it out. Read Ron’s Haiku Prompt Challenge Guidelines for more information.
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