Blast from the Past -- to celebrate LAUNCH DAY

 BLAST FROM THE PAST!

This is a video I made for an earlier version of All's Fae -- with a different publisher.
Since then, I've added to the stories, tweaked some things, added fun new material.
The SPECIAL EDITION hardback of All'S Fae has entries frm the Ether Lexicon, the Fae source of all knowledge and advice.

Enjoy!

But don't try to find the publisher -- Uncial Press closed their doors several years ago. I miss them! They were great to work with!

Taste the Book: GROWING UP NEIGHBORLEE

April release from Uncial Press.

"Well it's like--" Kurt scowled and I could almost hear humming, he was thinking so hard. "There was this one TV show where this guy had to learn how to do it and the guy who was teaching him said to think about his power like an extra hand."

"What does that mean?"

"Just think really hard about what you want the superguy power to do, and... I don't know, just think really hard."

Simple enough, right?

Wrong?

I'm still not sure to this day how I made the mental connection, and how I switched over from kinda-sorta flying to grabbing all the trash the bullies had been throwing at us, and with the power of my mind flinging it back at them. With interest. All that really mattered right then was that I did it.

While the bullies ran away screaming and whining and then tried to claim that Kurt and a whole bunch of the big boys ganged up on them, I curled up with my first superpower-induced sick headache, and a nosebleed. That taught me and Kurt a huge lesson that day.

Actually, a number of lessons. We were too young and inexperienced to put it all into words or separate the factors and different variables. The important part was that we shouldn't try too much or work too hard, when it came to using our superhero powers. Fortunately, Kurt had already figured out another important rule: fuel! He ran to the concession stand and bought two creamsicles and three packages of cookies. He had already learned that using his gizmo talent made him achy-hungry, and if he didn't eat something right away, it turned into a killer headache like I had.

I inhaled the treats, leaving just the one creamsicle for Kurt. By the time Mrs. S blew her whistle to round us all up to climb back on the bus to go back to NCH, I was feeling almost normal. Almost, because once my headache went away and the nosebleed stopped, I felt like I was floating about four inches off the ground. It was a heady feeling of power, to know I had beaten the bullies at just five years of age.

Taste the Book: GROWING UP NEIGHBORLEE

April release from Uncial Press.

Kurt just looked at me. Then he grinned. I liked that grin. It was nasty and it was like laughter was going to explode out of him and he knew something wonderful.

"If you can lift yourself up in the air, maybe you can lift other stuff?" he finally said.

"But I don't know how."

"Come on, don't be a girl!"

"But I am a girl."

He stared at me for a few seconds, then he grinned, but it was a different kind of grin.

"Can any of the superheroes in your comic books do it?"

"Yeah." He yelped as a pinecone got him right in the eye, and slid back farther under the table, rubbing at his eye. "Hold on, I gotta think."

The problem with the comic books Kurt had read was that they showed but didn't explain. Later, he gave me all the comic books where a superhero had telekinetic power, not that either of us knew that particular word at the time. Usually the only instructions we got consisted of a kind of greenish ray shooting out of someone's head, and blasting a car or tearing a wall apart.

"I don't know," he finally said. "It's kind of like... You know how on TV they show people with superpowers."

"No. We don't get to stay up that late."

"Well it's like--" Kurt scowled and I could almost hear humming, he was thinking so hard. "There was this one TV show where this guy had to learn how to do it and the guy who was teaching him said to think about his power like an extra hand."

"What does that mean?"

Taste the Book: GROWING UP NEIGHBORLEE

April release from Uncial Press.

Thanks to that we've-got-a-secret smile from Angela, I decided I needed to practice my kinda-sorta flying, to show her what I could do next time we met up. I found a sheltered spot at the far end of the field where the older kids played baseball and soccer, in the thick clump of trees enclosed by the fence encircling the orphanage grounds. My practicing consisted of rising up as high as I could get before I got scared and then hanging there until the ground started to look a little fuzzy before I came back down. At five years old, twenty feet off the ground was the equivalent of Mount Everest. I had just worked up the nerve to try some sideways shifting when Kurt walked into the little clearing where I was practicing, and looked up at me. Fortunately, I was wearing shorts, rather than a skirt. Skirts were for church and school.

"You hum really loud." He was grinning at me.

"No I'm not." I was rather indignant, because I knew enough to keep quiet while I was practicing, so the bullies and bigger kids who might make fun of me wouldn't see me.

"Yeah, you do, but it's not the kind of humming that people can hear."

"That's stupid. How can you hear it if people can't hear it?" I came down a little faster than I intended and my knees wobbled when I hit. Kurt caught hold of me, and a funny buzzing sensation kind of shocked me where his hand touched my bare arm.

"Like that." He grinned wider, gray eyes sparkling, and rubbed the hand that had touched me on the front of his t-shirt. "It's okay, I hum too."

"Are you laughing at me?" I had already run into the two chief bullies who reigned during my time at NCH. They had overheard Miss Abby talking with another houseparent, so delighted with my reading ability, and came running to inflict their new nickname on me: Lanie Brainy.

"Nope. We're superheroes."

"Huh?"

That was my introduction to the amazing world of comic books and superheroes and mutants and super powers and saving the world.

Taste the Book: GROWING UP NEIGHBORLEE

April release from Uncial Press.

That day in Divine's, though, I cast my five-year-old caution aside and was ready to raise myself up for a closer look at the Wishing Ball. I was still attached to Mrs. Silvestri, like a kite on a string.

Angela walked in just as my feet got about three inches off the floor. She smiled at me, winked, and gestured down at the floor with a flick of her fingers. I settled back down and she came around the counter, pulled out a four-step ladder, and put it next to the counter on the end, giving me a more ordinary path up to the Wishing Ball. Right that moment, I knew this pretty blond lady who smiled at me like we had an enormous secret--and who didn't shout in astonishment at what she saw--was going to be a very good friend. Mrs. Silvestri introduced me to Angela while I climbed up, my gaze on her the whole time, and that was when Angela told me it was called the Wishing Ball.

Angela was, is, and likely always will be, one of those ageless women, with long, oval face and sculpted cheekbones. She has an incredible, thick, long fall of hair in a dozen shades of gold, with hints of strawberry in it, and big eyes that are usually blue--different shades, depending on her mood--but can sometimes seem gray and sometimes hint at green. The day I met her, she wore her usual handkerchief print blue dress with draping sleeves and no waist, what some might call a granny dress or hippie dress. Since it was August, she wore sandals.

"Do you know what a wish is, Lanie?" Angela asked me, once I was settled on the counter, with my legs hanging off the edge, braced on one arm and gazing into the Wishing Ball.

"It's something you want really bad lots, only it's kind of hard to get." I saw her reflection next to mine in the dark rainbow swirling surface of the ball, and tore my gaze away from it long enough to meet her incredible blue eyes. "And sometimes it's something you want really bad lots for other people, because they need it a whole lots more than you."

"Really? Like what?" Her smile softened and turned thoughtful, and she glanced at Mrs. Silvestri, who was standing behind me with one hand resting on my back. Like she thought I might fall off the counter?

Taste the Book: GROWING UP NEIGHBORLEE

COMING RELEASE!

Get your advance tastes here for GROWING UP NEIGHBORLEE, published by Uncial Press.

Every other Saturday through April, when the book is released, you'll get a piece of a scene. The weeks in between will feature scenes from another April release: SANCTUARY, part of the Guardians of the Time Stream series, from Desert Breeze Publishing.

I stood there for a few seconds, staring at the Wishing Ball, with my hand firmly tucked in Mrs. Silvestri's, just amazed. I wanted to get up there, and I was playing with the idea of using my trick to get up to the counter for a closer look, when Angela walked into the room.

My trick was something I had discovered quite by accident, just a few months before. I was momentarily unsupervised at the cottage while the houseparents were busy with the babies. I wanted a cookie and I didn't want to wait for someone to open the cupboard and get it for me, so I climbed up onto the table in the kitchen and walked across it to the counter. A logical progression for a nearly-five-year-old, right? The problem was the four-foot gap between the kitchen table and the counter. I didn't stop to think, I just took a couple steps back and made a running leap, like I had seen someone do on TV the night before.

My jump took me up to the top of the cupboards, and I hung there in the air, for a good ten seconds before drifting down to the shelf where the cookies sat out in plain view.

I could fly. Kinda-sorta fly. Not zipping through the air like a jet like a certain alien superhero. More like controlled gliding, or going straight up, hovering, and coming straight down. When I got older, that talent made it possible to get incredible photos. But again, I'm getting ahead of myself.

The thing is, for a nearly-five-year-old, I had no idea that I couldn't or shouldn't kinda-sorta fly or hover or whatever the formal label was for what I could do. I just figured it was another ability that was part of growing up, like tying my shoes, counting past one hundred, telling time, and reading. By this time, I had already figured out that learning a new trick before one of the adults showed me how to do it earned some uncomfortable attention. I didn't get in trouble for learning to read and tie my shoes faster than normal, but the fuss and extra attention made me uncomfortable.

Explain to me why it's so unusual to learn how to read by leaning over the shoulder of the person reading to us before bed, and picking out the words on the page and following along? Just pay attention, and it's easy to learn dozens of necessary tricks to get along in the world. Of course, being less than five years old, I didn't have that reasoning worked out in my head, I just did what worked. Explaining what I hadn't verbalized was next to impossible.

By the time I walked into Divine's, I had figured out that it was smart to keep new tricks hidden until I saw other kids near my age doing the same thing. So, I kept my hovering to myself, and practiced at night, when everybody was asleep, or when I was alone on the playground behind the cottage.

Can You Help an Author Out?

What a DEAL!!! Get a free book -- all you gotta do is write a review on Amazon.

Until September 20, my newest Neighborlee, Ohio novel (fantasy, humor) HERO BLUES is available on Story Cartel. If you haven't heard about Story Cartel before, it's a place to get ... taa daa ... FREE books, and a chance to win prizes, just for downloading books to read and review. Sound good to you?

Would you help me out by downloading, reading, and reviewing HERO BLUES? I guarantee you'll like it, and even laugh. Money-back guarantee (oh, yeah, that's right, you're not spending any money .... )

Here's the link. Please help me out -- and have some fun while you're at it???

https://storycartel.com/books/hero-blues-a-neighborlee-ohio-story

Off the Bookshelf: TITANIUM by Linda Palmer

Today's Spotlight book hasn't officially hit the bookshelves yet.

TITANIUM, by fellow Uncial Press author Linda Palmer, is due to be released in February.

You can pre-order Uncial Press books from Amazon and Kobo and Nook and iBooks -- I believe -- so it might be a good idea to put this on your wish list and ask for it before it's officially out.

Yeah, it's that good.

Part suspense, part romance, part sociological treatise on fandom and the wounded warriors phenomenon ... there's a lot of book packed into its mere 180 pages.

Riley is our heroine, a college student working a frustrating job for the proverbial boss from heck. Some jerk customers at the taco stand target her -- jerks dressed up as zombies.

Fortunately for her, Zander, a vet who lost a leg, has a sixth sense for danger. He notices the zombies watching Riley and leaps into action. Despite his better judgment, their lives are soon intertwined. Which is a good thing when Riley's estranged father enrages some lunatic fringe fans of his cult classic comic book, "Titanium," and they -- yep, you guessed it, the zombies -- strike out at Riley to ... well, you're just gonna have to read the book to find out what's going on and why.