Facebook Pages for the Zombie Lover

Facebook and Zombies!  No, I don't mean that undead state we achieve while clicking on "likes" while viewing photos of people's lunches or yet another video of sleeping walruses.  I'm talking about facebook pages where you can get your fill of zombie art and literature, jokes, and even serious science.  It's not just girl zombie authors who get a little...obsessed?...about their topic, after all.  These guys are serious--and a lot of fun:

ZNN:  ZNN stands for Zombie Newz Network. Where you can find like minded people who love zombie culture! Survival to funny pictures we're you're one stop shop!  Lots of pictures, survival tips, weapons of choice.  I'm always amused when it pops up on my news feed.

Zombies:  Visit us @ www.Zombies.ws - Zombify Yourself @ www.ZombieMe.com - Add or promote your own products @ www.Zombies.ws/z/promotion This site is more entertainment oriented--books and movies, products and comics.

Zombie Research Society:  Show your support for the Zombie Research Society, because what you don't know can eat you! www.ZombieResearchSociety.com This page supports a company that sells, yep, ZRS stuff.  (If you want to trick out your car with stickers for zombie hunting, they have them.)  You can count on this page for zombie videos, pictures, etc., and they have contests and give-aways of their merchandise as well.

Carter Reid:  Carter is a zombie artist and cartoonist and has a bizarre sense of humor, as you might expect.  I enjoy his status updates, and he reminds you when his latest Zombie Nation cartoon is up.

Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse - Catastrophes and Human Behavior: 
Zombies invade Michigan State University in the groundbreaking course “Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse – Catastrophes and Human Behavior"  Yep, it's a college course about zombies!  Well, not quite.  It's more about how humans behave in a crisis.  However, the students post videos about their own survival experiences.

So, if you don't have enough to waste your time (did I say that out loud?), check out these sites. 

 

Posting this old picture of my study

It's an awful mess, which is the point.  I'm using it as to illustrate a lesson I'm doing in Housekeeping for Writers at the MuseOnline Writers' Conference.  Too bad you aren't there to learn how to not let it get so bad!  But take heart, the conference is scheduled for next year, and I'm doing this workshop again.  Want to register?  Go to http://www.themuseonlinewritersconference.comif you want more details, or go to http://is.gd/tmowcf and register on the forums, then take the poll to get registered for 2014.  (It's a simple click on "please register me.")

Mini-Review: Konig's Fire by Marc Schooley

I've been invited to do a blog hop next week, so instead of posting some of my writing today, I'm sharing a review of this awesome book. Great for Halloween reading.

 

Summary:  They Called Me Nebuchadnezzar

The Nazis have established a torture center in a mine at the heart of a Romanian forest. Here they interrogate prisoners and, sometimes, throw them into the furnace at the heart of the mine.

Only now, the primeval forest is rising against them, unleashing a preternatural army to besiege the great iron gate of the mine. The fearsome guards become terrified prisoners and the furnace itself burns with hungry anger against them.

Sascha König, a man they called Nebuchadnezzar, is their only hope. He is master of the furnace. All along, he has been Hitler’s ardent servant. But now...König is wrestling with demons of his own, and the Master of all fires is calling him to Himself through the haunting eyes of a little gypsy girl König did not save.

Purchase on Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Königs-Fire-ebook/dp/B0047DW6EE

Mini-Review: A great read for Halloween because it is creepy in the extreme.  Marc has woven a chilling tale where evil is physically manifested in  the natural world.  Horror worthy of a Stephen King novel mix with the real horrors of a Nazi concentration camp.  Nonetheless, there is an underlying theme of redemption which grows with the story.  Be warned: the protagonist is not immediately likeable, or his own redemption quick and easy.  That was part of the draw for me, although my husband tired quickly of Konig's cowardice.  I say stick with it; the payoff at the end is worth it.

Cargo: a Zombie Short Film

This is an awesome film on YouTube, a great take on zombies and survival.  I love the father's foresight!  I could totally see my husband coming up with this, too.

Excerpt form Mind Over Psyche: Inside a Psychic Malestrom

I realized that the excerpts I've shared so far have been kind of ordinary, especially for a book that's about psychics, so today for the Mind Over Psyche tour, I present you a snippet from when Deryl and Tasmae are caught in the stored memories of Guardianju, Tasmae's insane predecessor of 5000 years ago.  Tasmae's being forced by events to experience these memories, and she's not handleing it well.  Deryl has dived in (kind of literally) to help her.

In the waking world, his body lay frozen, his mind shorted out, overloaded by the pandemonium of images assailing his mind. In the world of the Remembrance, he struggled and thrashed and could not stop screaming.

He felt himself being torn apart from the inside. Fire blazed across his back and legs. His blood pooled, threatening to burst his veins and his skin. He tumbled helplessly through a hurricane of pain, in too much torment to notice his fall until he smacked hard against something like water or quicksand—and like water or quicksand, it pulled him under.

Mental anguish replaced the physical torture as the “sea” morphed into a mass of lost psyches. They bumped and swirled against him, tried to press themselves upon him, into him. Snatches of memories, most of them painful, flooded his mind. They pulled him down. He fought them psychically as he fought physically to reach the surface. He’d rather face the agony of the surface than the insanity of the sea.

He was losing. Thoughts tangled around him, too many, too strong. He was going to die there, drowning in a strange sea that was half psyche, buried by the painful experiences of others. His thrashing grew more violent, but he knew he couldn’t fight them.

Then stop fighting, a memory of Joshua called faintly. Defense! Get your shields in close and strong!

Desperately, Deryl tried to imagine his ragged shields pulling in, knitting themselves close and tight, strong as armor. The psyches faded only slightly, but it was enough. The sea became water again.

He broke the surface, gasping and trembling, tread water, and forced his mind to think coherently as he sought his bearings.

The world reflected the turmoil he felt. Above, the sky glowed red shot through with black. Cruel-looking blue lightning arched from cloud to cloud, though he could not hear the thunder over the blaring wind. The sea churned about him, and the rain fell in cold sheets. Two large stars fought to shine through the darkness, yet oddly, the planet between them flared, clearly visible. Barin.

A wave forced water into his mouth and nose. He sputtered, felt the world gray. Pain wracked him.

Where was Tasmae? What was this—a kind of memory? Could Gardianju have really experienced this? No wonder Tasmae—

“Tasmae!” he called, his words immediately ripped away by the wind. His telepathic call fared better; he could almost feel the psyches below him pounce upon it like sharks feeding. Buffeted among them was a dark shape, nearly a psychic null point.

“Taz!” All his fear and pain suddenly vanished in the need to get to her, and he plunged in again to pull her from the depths.

The depths were not so eager to release her, and they had had longer to ensnare her. Tendrils of thought, like seaweed, clung to her body, but unlike seaweed, these thoughts had weight and a kind of intelligence. They dragged her down and him with them. No matter how he struggled, he could not pull her to the surface.

Even if he could, what then? They were trapped. There was no way out of Gardianju’s memories.

No way out but through.

Swallowing his fear, he stopped struggling and allowed himself to be pulled down, and as he did, the memories of Gardianju the Miscria insinuated themselves into him until he could no longer tell the difference between her, Tasmae, or himself.

Purchase links for Mind Over Psyche: 

Epub: https://www.getonic.com/EmbedStore/76200/1734

Kindle: https://www.getonic.com/EmbedStore/76202/3746

Print: www.amazon.com/Mind-Over-Psyche-Karina-Fabian/dp/1897492685

Real-World Weight Loss: Month Nine!

I can hardly believe that I've been going to the gym faithfully for nine months now.  That's the amount of time it takes to grow a baby!  Alas, I haven't' lost a pregnancy's worth of weight, but baby days are over, and middle-age weight is make of sterner stuff!

The thing I love most about circuit torture is it never stays the same.  One minute cardio, one minute weights, mixes for floor, free weights, nautalis.  Some weeks, we have weight vests; some days, we do Tabata.  In nine months, I've not seen the same routine twice.  Today was Aggression Release Friday.  Ryion had set up the punching stations I've been wondering about for months. We punched one and kicked another.  Plus, we did punches with weights, and did slam ball (in which you hold a sand-filled ball over your head and slam it to the ground.  Sand-filled balls do not normally bounce, so the fun is to see how high you can make it rebound.)  We also had the inclined sit-up station.  We needed something to feel aggressive about, after all.

Hit me, baby!  I love the abuse!

It's been a long time since I punched anything.  The first time, I apologized, but by the end, I was getting into it.  "You want a piece of me?"

Yeah, sometimes, I get odd looks in the gym.  Why do you ask?

Anyway, considering that this month, I had a 2-week break with no exrcise and not-so great food, I did pretty well.  I've stayed under 145, though not lost more, and you can see my stomach has gotten a little paunchier than last month.  That's okay, though.  It's slow progress but steady overall.  Today, I pulled out a shirt that was tight last winter and it fits great!

Love that the extra chin is going away!

Will admit to having been fine with a bigger butt.  Want the waist to go away!
Lately, I've started replacing some of the cardio with abs.

	15-Jan	18-Sep		total loss
weight	169	143.6		25.4 lb dec
body fat	38.5	26.7		11.8 dec
chest	38.7	34.5		4.2 dec
bust	41.1	37.4		3.7 dec
waist	39	33.6		5.4dec
hips	42.8	37.9		4.9 dec
abs	42	36.9		5.1 dec
thigh	22	20.6		1.4 inc
calf	15	14.4		.6 dec
bicep	11.6	11		.6 inc
forearm	10	9.5		.5 dec
neck	15	14.2		.8 dec
Total loss				27.2 inches

Mini-Review: Caleb

Summary:  Educated as a companion to a rich white boy in Boston and promised freedom, Caleb was instead sold down South into the hard life of a field slave. Bought by a new master after five years, he uses his brains to jump from the cotton fields to a soft job and gain the trust of his master, but will settle for nothing less than freedom. As the Civil War threatens, he uses his fists to fight his way out of slavery. After a perilous trip north, he joins the Union army and sets off on the adventure that will bring him face to face with his former master on the field of battle.

Caleb is a historical novel that chronicles one man's fight against adversity, daring to succeed in the face of insurmountable odds and terrible hardship.

Review:  This is an interesting Civil-War-era novel form the point of view of a Northern slave sold south, where he gains his freedom, goes back north, and joins the army just as the war starts.  I found the perspective refreshing, as the characters were realistic in their complexity.  They Southern slave owner whips Caleb for refusing to talk, yet helps him buy back his freedom, coming up with a plan where Caleb can earn the money.  Some slaves preferred the security of their own slavery on the plantation to the unknowns of freedom.  In the North, some jobs and bosses were on par or worse than those of the slave-held in the South, which is what leads Caleb to the army rather than any desire to "free his Black brothers."  My only complain is that words the end, especially, things come too easily to Caleb.  He worked hard and was smart, but it was all a little to pat.  Nonetheless, a good read.

Purchase on Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Caleb-A-Historical-Novel-ebook/dp/B00COH20K0

Mind Over Psyche Excerpt: Tasmae Kicks Butt

I was asked by Beth Barany if I had kick-butt heroines in Mind Over Psyche, so I thought I'd share a little about Tasmae, who is the heroine of the trilogy.  Tasmae is immensely powerful, physically and psychically.  She's also way out of her element, half trained in her true Talent and saddled with the responsibility of protecting her entire planet--from another planet.  I don't mean the people; I mean the planet.  How does one woman stop another world from crashing into hers?  Ah, spoilers!  Read the trilogy, lol.  I can tell you she can't do it alone--Deryl, also known as the Ydrel, is going to work with her.  In the meantime, she's also been trained as a warrior, and she's really good at that and a bit vicious, as you can see in this scene.

Tasmae left Joshua and Deryl brooding over the last of their meals. Leinad would not have approved, but he did not know Deryl like she did. She trusted Deryl, as the Miscria had always trusted the Ydrel. Still, it bothered her that Deryl refused to answer her questions until he’d taken care of his friend. In truth, he seemed as confused about his arrival as they were. Perhaps Leinad was right that the answers could only be found in the Remembrance.

She reached out with her senses, determined where Salgoud and Leinad stood conversing, and headed in that direction. The earthquake had stilled under her care, and she thought she had a few days’ respite. If Deryl could advise Salgoud directly on the strategies she had tried to adapt, she could take time to experience the Remembrance. Not that she had a choice, but she would do it on her terms.

She found them, as expected, leaning against a wall in the outer courtyard where many of the warriors busied themselves with sword practice. Salgoud’s eyes were on his troops, taking in flaws of step or swing, noting improvements, but even so, he kept his attention on what Leinad was telling him—about the Ydrel and probably her, no doubt. She did not interrupt. She would know what she needed to know soon enough.

Leinad pinned her with his stare. She felt his urgency, the call of the Remembrance—

And I shall, she agreed. But that is not my only duty now, and I cannot allow it to monopolize me. She shared with him a hint of the obligations pulling on her: the preparations for war, the increased needs of Kanaan, neither of which she could tend to while under the influence of the Remembrance. Add the sudden, mysterious arrival of the Ydrel—

That is why the Remembrance Calls! he protested.

Salgoud, whom they’d included in their conversation, added that Ocapo and his everyn, Spot, understood their roles well enough that they could do without her for much of the training. For whatever reason, the Ydrel is here. Let him teach us directly, Salgoud added.

She projected warmth—how often they thought alike. She told Leinad that she would take time to make the arrangements with Deryl, and then—if Kanaan were still—she would give herself to the memories of Gardianju. She felt his sullen assent, turned to go.

Salgoud pushed her into the middle of a sparring circle. She managed to duck and roll to avoid getting smacked by a practice blade. She came up in a crouch, her short sword out of the scabbard she wore and a dagger from her hairpiece in her other hand. The two sparring warriors hesitated only a moment before turning on her. She ducked below the swing of one, scored on the side of the other, barreled between them, and spun toward Leinad and Salgoud. She swung her sword toward the unarmed Leinad, forcing Salgoud to defend him, while with her other hand, she jabbed her dagger toward the warrior’s gut. He anticipated the move, blocked it, and the two stood, weapons locked, until neither could stand it and both broke into snickers.

Leinad, still flat against the wall, gave them the full brunt of his displeasure.

You know what happens when you bring a Remembrance into a ‘war’ zone; besides, we need to work on your reflexes, she chided lightly as she backed more carefully away from her general and left the practice grounds.

The Ydrel and his friend had had enough privacy, she’d decided. It was time they spoke with her.

Purchase links for Mind Over Psyche: 

Epub: https://www.getonic.com/EmbedStore/76200/1734

Kindle: https://www.getonic.com/EmbedStore/76202/3746

Print: www.amazon.com/Mind-Over-Psyche-Karina-Fabian/dp/1897492685

Mini Review: Kindle Book Millionaire

This book covers aspects of writing, self-publishing, and marketing Kindle books, form choosing your topic to what words to include in your title, even tips for making a teaser that sells.  Rayappan is not a fiction author, but a writer and a businessman, who at the beginning at least, hired people to write the books he then sold on Kindle.  Thus, his focus is making the book high visibility on Amazon, especially Kindle Direct.  Non Fiction writers will get more out of this book than fiction writers, as some of his techniques may not work.  (For example, he suggests 5 percent of your words in a description need to be keywords.  So, a marathon book should use the word "marathon" five out of every 100 words.  A good and effective idea if the book is about running a marathon, but imagine saying "marathon" five times in a one-paragraph teaser for a romance starring a marathon runner.)

If you get this book, definitely read it with a notebook or open file to take notes.  (BTW, he's not a millionaire, but does claim to earn about $2700/month on his books.)

Pruchase it on Kindle:  http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Book-Millionaire-Publishing-ebook/dp/B00D9RQK3C

Exclusive Excerpt of Mind Over Psyche

This month is my Mind Over Psyche book tour.  It came out Sept 13 from DragonMoon.  For the next couple of weeks, I'm sharing some excerpts.

This is from near the beginning of the book.  As you may know from Mind Over Mind, Deryl has psychic abilities that drove him insane years ago, but working with Joshua helped him get them under control.  However, no one but Joshua and Dr. Malachai believe him--and Malachai has had no intention of ever releasing Deryl from the mental institution.  In Mind Over Mind, Deryl, while feverish, thought demons were after him (they were) and used telekinesis to fight them off.  This scene takes place a couple of weeks later, in Dr. Malachai's office:

When Deryl didn’t answer except to glare his challenge, Malachai shrugged.  “Thanks to your…demonstration…while delirious during your appendicitis, I believe it’s safe now to admit you do have some unexplainable talents, and that they may indeed be a factor in your emotional stability.  Quite a breakthrough, if you think about it.”  He leaned his elbows on his desk, hands clasped, and regarded Deryl with a not-quite smug smile.

Deryl seethed inside, but forced himself to mimic the psychiatrist’s posture.  He was getting out of this place, one way or another.  “So?”

Malachai raised a brow, and the fullness of the plan pressed into Deryl’s mind even before he felt the invitation.

Still, Deryl squinted, making a show of concentration.  No way would he let Malachai know the extent of his abilities.  He’d always had a hard time reading the chief psychiatrist—now was his chance to take advantage of Malachai’s openness.  Besides, he needed time to think.

Malachai’s name on respected psychiatric journals.  No more articles in rag-mags like Psychic Living Now!

“You want to study my abilities openly…” Deryl spoke slowly.

Malachai on the podium at international symposiums, presenting his findings to his peers, video of Deryl in an MRI chamber performing tricks while the results of his brain scan played on a separate screen.

Malachai nodded.  “In return, I will arrange for you to have outpatient status.”

Deryl being called to his side, like a faithful dog, and told to perform similar tricks for Malachai’s audience.

Malachai pointed to the EEG machine in the corner.  That surprised Deryl; usually, it remained discreetly behind the cabinet doors until he had Deryl’s cooperation.  “It’s the best we have at the moment, but enough for a start.  We’ll do a simple telekinesis exercise and get some preliminary readings.  Monday, I’ll use that data to arrange for more precise instruments.  This is your chance at a normal life…”

Malachai with his own private institute, combing the country for other psychics.  A team of scientists under Malachai’s direction, drawing blood, administering drugs—playing with Deryl’s body chemistry to determine the cause of his abilities.  Seeking a way to replicate them in others.  

A normal life?  Deryl shivered.  “And if I refuse?”

A barrier clamped down so hard on Malachai’s thoughts that Deryl flinched.  

“I think neither of us wants to investigate that possibility,” he replied, but Deryl felt the threat in his bland words.

Want more?  Here's where you can purchase.

Epub: https://www.getonic.com/EmbedStore/76200/1734

Kindle: https://www.getonic.com/EmbedStore/76202/3746

Print: www.amazon.com/Mind-Over-Psyche-Karina-Fabian/dp/1897492685