Philippa Ballantine - Author

Award-winning Author of fantasy, science fiction, and steampunk

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RavenCon schedule

It’s been a hectic whirl around Dawn’s Early Light release schedule, so it will be a nice change to get out of the house for an event.

RaveconRavencon is in Tee’s hometown, of Richmond, Virginia. It’s become a happening town since Tee’s departure…but I don’t mention that too often or he might start ranting about that 😉

Anyway, Ravencon is a grand ole time, with Elizabeth Bear and Scott Lynch being guests this year. Both are awesome folk, and we’re hoping to steal them away to introduce them to the joy of the New Zealand pie, at Proper Pie Company.

Our daughter will be with us, and she’s looking forward to the delights of the children’s track.

My schedule is on the light side, but here’s where you can find me.

Saturday

Noon (Reading) Boardroom

5 pm (Panel) Secrets of Publishing: Small Press Publishing

Sunday

11am (Panel) Someone Else’s Sandbox

Library of Congress event

It’s been a crazy month, March. It’s been hard to take a breath, let along blog…so forgive me for that.

We started Tales from the Archives, and launched the third book of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences—all while doing nearly fifty blogposts, and twenty podcasts.

Then I launched Weather Child, and kept working on the audio for Ministry Protocol.

April was a relief to reach, I can tell you.

Next week though, I have an event I am really looking forward to. I spent 13 years as a librarian, and so the invitation to speak at the Library of Congress Professional Association is like a coming home in a way.

If you are in Washington DC next week, I hope you’ll come, as it is open to the public as well.

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The Library of Congress and ME!

When you study to be a librarian, you end up using a lot of resources from the two motherships of librarians; the British Library, and the Library of Congress.

So being invited to talk there is beyond exciting for me. I’ll be discussing women in steampunk and fantasy which is a topic I find fascinating. They are more than just corsets and chain-mail bikinis. I plan on delving into my heroines, both characters, and writers, so it will be quite a fun journey.

I hope if you are within the DC area, I will see you there.

 

Pip at the Library of Congress

Guest Post – Jaded

Jade EYEAs part of the Write By the Rails Endless Possibilities Blogtour, I’m happy to welcome Kristy to my blog with the description of her Young Adult novel, Jaded.

Jade has spent her entire life within the confines of the eye-color- obsessed Nirvana commune. She dreams of experiencing freedom but travel to the Outside is forbidden. Besides, she’s a dutiful daughter who never breaks the rules. As her seventeenth birthday approaches, however, she realizes just how little she wants to follow the commune rules. She doesn’t want to undergo another eye color surgery, or immediately choose a life partner, or follow her parents’ life paths of teaching or wine making. In fact, her green eyes suit her just fine, she’s never even been on a date, and she’s passionate about photography. And yet she’s resigned to do as she’s told because it’s easier for her to close her eyes and follow orders.
Her Grandmother Ruby’s murder is the catalyst that causes Jade to open her eyes wide for the first time in her life. She’s devastated yet determined to find the killer and their motive. With help from her mysterious friend Tyrian, and Peaches, the commune leader’s sweet daughter, Jade unearths dark secrets which include her mother’s illicit affair, her maternal grandparents’ escape from Nirvana, and a plethora of murders. To make matters worse, someone is hell bent on ending Jade’s mission for the truth, and that someone is most likely the killer.
Jade can’t continue conforming to an evil society and yet she fears the Outside is just as corrupt. If she resolves to flee and is caught, the punishment is banishment to the slave cabins…and blinding.
Although Jaded is considered a young adult dystopian novel, adults will be able to relate to Jade’s plight.

Kristy Feltenberger Gillespie lives in Warrenton, VA with her husband, two cats, and two dachshunds. She’s a middle school counselor, graduate student at Longwood University, (pursuing a degree in School Library Media) blogger, short story and YA novel writer. When she’s not working, she’s traveling or dreaming of traveling. She’s been to 39 states and is planning a 9 state road trip with her mom in the summer of 2014.

She can be found online at ; Amazon, her blog Keep Calm and Write On Facebook Twitter and Goodreads

Guest Post: The Care & Feeding of a Novelist, Part II

If you’ve been keeping up with the Endless Possibilities Blog Tour from the Write by the Rails crew, then you might have seen the Part I of this post. I’m an author, but I’m also a Holistic Health Coach.  I love writing about health & wellness, and then I love to jump into the paranormal and urban fantasy realms. Both are therapeutic

A quick review:
·      Hide the potato chips.
·      Have a fun water glass/bottle
·      Set a timer
·      And, schedule time to move

While those are some of the basics, I’d like to point out a few, deeper ways to really enhance your health AND your writing skills.

Meditation & Visualization
Some times, we get so caught up in the events of our lives that we can’t think or even see clearly. Start with taking just a few minutes and the start and end of your day to stop, focus, and breathe. This simple process can make a tremendous difference in what you’re able to accomplish and how much calmer your state of mind is. I don’t care whether you call it prayer, gratitude check, meditation, or whatever other terms you can think of. The purpose is to calm your mind down and just be. And yes, this is harder than you think. We live in an online, fast paced society. Most of us don’t know how to get our brains to calm down.

The practice is simple:
·      Sit up, resting your back against the headboard of the bed, a wall, or the chair.
·      Close your eyes.
·      Take a deep breath in and up, pulling your navel into your spine and expanding your chest. Then out and down, letting your chest collapse downward and your stomach rounding out. For those musicians and singers out there, yes, this is different than the breathing methods you’re taught. The beauty of this method is, that if you’re doing it correctly, your mind can’t be wandering. You have to truly focus to keep your breathing pattern working in this manner.
·      Just be, for however long you like. Or, however long you’ve set the timer for.

Try this daily for a week and see what progress you make on not only your writing, but your sanity too.

Get Physical
This is taking exercise beyond the idea of just get up and get moving. I challenge you to hit the gym, check out the weights, and push your body more than you have before. Now, that doesn’t mean jump all in if you’ve never touched a weight! And yes, for many it will be far outside your comfort zone. Take the gym up on the free personal training session. Most gyms have that offer. Learn about the machines, read fitness articles to figure out a routine. Alternately, you can always ask me too. I have a number of routines on my site and happily create custom ones with links to illustrate what the exercise movement is.

For those who are already active, step it up yet again. Take a kickboxing class, hit the heavy bag, or train for a 5K. Exercise gets the blood flowing in the body and to the brain. Personally? I love to hit the heavy bag. Of course, I train without gloves and tend to scare the guys out of the boxing room. That’s just a bonus. However, I notice I also have better focus when I’ve let go of whatever stress was hanging around, getting that physical forces it to release.Stacia

I’d love to hear how you keep your health up and your stress down! You can share here, or even send me an email at staciakelly at gmail.com

Stacia D. Kelly, Ph.D., is the author of the fiction works, “Phyxe: Goddess of Fire”, “Ichi”, and the upcoming “Gaian.” Her non-fiction work includes “Reduce You”, “Muse”, and “Nine Months In, Nine Months Out.” Read more at www.staciakelly.com.

Guest Post – Writing the Fight

IchiAs part of the Write By the Rails Endless Possibilities Blogtour, I’m happy to welcome Nick Kelly to my blog to talk about writing fight scenes.

When Pip asked me to write about building fight scenes, I was shocked. “Phoenix Rising” starts with a big bang and a prison break. Agent Braun loves to blow things up. That’s part of what makes the juxtaposition between her and Agent Books work.

I love to write science fiction, cyberpunk, and riding that edge between suspense and horror. My current projects include the cyberpunk Leon “Catwalk” Caliber stories, and the Urban Samurai series that I write with my blushing bride and co-author, Stacia D. Kelly.

Fight scenes are easy. Fight scenes are an excuse to engage in one of my favorite things – martial arts. Stacia and I are certified self-defense instructors. We often teach women’s self-defense. Translation: She teaches, and I put on the FIST suit and get punched and kicked for hours on end. We own swords, batons, knives, and all sorts of objects with which a person can defend herself. (That includes the occasional lamp or collectable figurine.)

I admit that not everyone can throw these elbows, knees, punches, kicks and choke holds. Even for those of us who are trained, things can still go wrong. The FIST suit only covers so much real estate. Last year, while we were staging a fight scene for “Ichi”, Book One in the Urban Samurai series, Stacia threw a roundhouse kick higher than I expected. The result was a very painful few weeks with a broken rib.

Pain makes writing a scene easy. Break your rib and you can explain the acute pain of the break, the long-term aching in your body, the limitation of your movement, how it affects your breathing, and even how you have to need to alter your sleeping pattern. I use this type of experience to translate a Hollywood fight scene into something the reader can feel. An experienced fighter completes a session in seconds, not acrobatic, overblown, extended movements. (and never the Hollywood Headbutt).

Below is a very short snapshot of a fight scene in “Catwalk: Messiah”, the first book in the Leon “Catwalk” Caliber series.

Catwalk MessiahThe slight glimmer of metal rolled from the alley, a simple cylinder that looked like a soda can. Three meters past the alley’s edge, it erupted into brilliant white light. Delilah tried to avert her eyes, falling to her hands and knees, facing away from the illumination. Even squeezing her eyes tight, the brilliant light flashed in her brain. She could only imagine its effect on the vampires.

She struggled to make out the shapes. Everything was a blur. Her heart was in her throat. To her right, she saw three figures, heard a scream, and then could find only two. She blinked repeatedly to clear her vision. There was a loud snap and then only a solitary figure remained upright. The other fell, its silhouetted head gone from its body.

The remaining figure leapt in her direction, and she prayed it wasn’t attacking her. She squeezed her eyes tight. Every breath felt like forever. She wanted to scream, but couldn’t. The combination of shock and fear paralyzed her.

She opened her eyes again. The brilliant light was gone. She could make out figures, but her head still shook with fading fireworks. What had happened and was it over?

“This is all your fault, you shocking ****!”

She swung her attention to her left, getting a foot under her and standing up, disoriented and afraid. Though the stars and flashes still pounded against her skull, she saw the bloodied, angry face of the lead vampire. Fangs bared, he screamed as he approached.

Raising her hands in self-defense, she realized she still had the pepper spray. In a fury, the vampire batted it away. One quick shove and she fell backwards. As she struggled to sit up, the blonde vampire was atop her. He made a sound, half hissing, half growling, his mouth open just a few centimeters away. His face had been punctured by the glasses, the blood filling the creases of his skin.

Suddenly, he was gone. His sound was cut short as he was yanked backward. There was a sickening sound of flesh impacting something solid. It was repeated, with interspersed cries and howls.

Finally, there was silence.

—————————————————————————————-

 

Nick KellyNick Kelly is a veteran musician, trainer and speaker.

His musical travels have taken him all over the United States, singing with the band Division, or entertaining local DC-MD-VA crowds with the energetic cover band, Just Wanna Play.  He has played everywhere from the Virginia Wine and Garlic Festival to Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.

Nick’s public speaking engagements have helped hundreds of business owners to understand the necessity of “Communicating Effectively with Purpose” and “Developing and Understanding Your Vision.” He presents to coaches and parents on the importance of health, understanding of the glycemic index, and the massive energy drink market.

Nick is an Internet Safety advocate, and an ambassador for Enough is Enough online safety. He has written on the subject for Prince William Living and Fredericksburg Parent magazines.

He is the author of the Leon “Catwalk” Caliber cyberpunk series, which debuted in the 2001 comic, Independent Voices 3 and continues in novels with 2013′s Catwalk: Messiah. He co-authors the Urban Samurai series, beginning with 2013′s Ichi.