Photo session with Wrenee for the cover of Soulstice

I’ve been busy, busy, busy putting the final touches on my latest project, Soulstice, the companion novella to Souled.  This novella puts a spotlight on Alyx,  who, in Alyx’s own words, is the “dark, totally misunderstood, totally underestimated, misfit” of Sandpoint High School.

I adore Alyx – her strength, courage, and her mysterious background.  What makes her qualified to stand up to Seth in his dark hours?  What was her path that brought her to be who she is?

Although she will have floor time in the upcoming sequel, I wanted to satisfy the curiosity of many of the readers who’ve asked me, “Who exactly is Alyx?”

I’m fortunate and eternally grateful that my friend, and outstanding author, Fabio Bueno (his novel Wicked Sense is definitely one of my favorite reads), has taken it upon himself to give me a shout out on his blog and share with you the cover of Soulstice.

In continuing the theme of “keeping it local,” the beauty on the cover is Wrenee, a student here in Sandpoint, Idaho.  Once again, Sandpoint produces a teen professional enough to step up and handle something as important as the cover of a book.  Add to that the makeup expertise of Kimberlee Langford, creative cover design by Crystalyn Abercrombie (my tattoo artist), and photographer, Victoria Melendez.

Curious yet???

Then please head on over to Fabio’s site to check out the cover and to learn a bit more about what the story is all about!

“Girls Night Out”  Me (left) with two of my amazing friends, Natascha and Kate, on my trip to California.

I was explaining to my son exactly why I went on a vacation to California, leaving him and his older brother in the care of their father.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I know.  You’re going through a mid-life crisis.”

I spun around so quickly, I think I scared him.  The only reason why my youngest boy didn’t receive my full wrath after that remark was because I figured he had been parroting the words of my ex.  He had to have been.  Who else would be so closely affected by me wanting to escape from responsibility for a mere week (out of 1,144 weeks that we were together)?  The one man on this planet to have tried – and succeeded – to have guilted me from doing those things and seeing those people who really fed my soul.  (Okay, so I allowed it, but still…)

“Mid-life crisis” is usually said with a judgmental and condescending tone.  To me, this phrase smacks of negativity.  As if reaching this point is a bad thing, as if we’ve stepped over to the darker side of the tracks.

Anyway, whoever whispered that choice little phrase into my son’s ear needs to hear what I have to say.

Self Discovery is the new Mid-Life Crisis. 

“Mid-life crisis,” I think, is being in a place of self discovery.  It’s when we look around and reassess our life and say, “Hey! There I am! I had no idea I would enjoy something like that.”  So we start playing and doing things we’d forgotten to have fun doing.  Stuff we’d stupidly put on hold for… what?  Whatever we were doing that we felt took precedence over our own needs, could have been tailored to work around or with us.  If we hadn’t shelved the fun or passion for so long, we never would have gotten to this point in the first place.  And while we’re in this state of “confusion,” our loved ones sit back and patiently wait for us to “come back” to our senses.  Will we ever come back?  I hope not.

I believe those with the tsk, tsk attitude might be a tad frightened when people like me wake up one day and say they’ve had enough.  I’m a threat.  I can single-handedly shake their tree and leave them scratching their heads, wondering what just blew through their forest.  I’m a break from their safe routine.

The reality is that this state of mind should be encouraged, for it is through the process of finding out what makes us happy, that this happiness will undoubtedly spill over into the outside world, not fester and breakdown, such as what happened to me not too long ago.

So, today, on my 50^th birthday, I find myself still making up for lost time, and with a little help from my friends, the road to discovery has been over-the-top amazing.

The joy I’ve found and the joy I have yet to find will be for my friends and family as well.  So, here’s to 50 more years of self discovery….  Cheers!

It’s All Good.  No expectations.

It’s a double-edged sword.  A two-faced creature.  The stuff that either makes dreams come true or shatter into itty bitty tears.  It’s the glue between relationships – personal or professional.  It’s what raises the bar for a lot of us or, if not met, can disappoint and crush.

No.  It’s not love.

It’s expectation.

Expanding on yet another post I wrote almost two years ago about boxes and labels and expectations being a big part of that, I’ve come to another crossroads in my still-developing life.  I’ve been willing to accept that I cannot be contained, cannot be categorized, and I’ve reveled in that freedom.  But it wasn’t enough.  Others still criticized and pushed their expectations on me to be a certain way and, though I stood my ground, I’d found old habits threatening to resurface.  I felt guilty and wanted to bend to their will.

So this time around I’d made it perfectly clear.  Do. Not. Expect. Anything. From. Me.  I am who I want to be, not who you want me to be.  Not my job to fulfill your expectations.

It was easy for me to wrap my head around the fact that their expectations were their issue.  Not mine.

Some people complied, some people didn’t and that, honestly, annoyed me because,  damn it.  I expected them to respect my request.

Ahh, but I’d gotten caught in my own box of expectations, didn’t I?  It didn’t occur to me until my cousin mentioned that she was waiting for someone to do something and it wasn’t panning out.  She then added, “Oh well.  That’s my expectation.  Gotta let it go.” This ah-ha moment hit me like a nice 2 x 4 across my ego.  I had to release the expectations I had of others.  Yeah, I know.  I said “duh,” too.

It’s brilliant.  Obvious and simple, but brilliant.  I’d thought of all of the little expectations I’d had of other people and I just had to laugh, starting with the expectation that others will release their expectations of me.  A close second was how events or situations should turn out.  Unpredictable at best with all of the possible outcomes, it was far easier to release that expectation then to try to control something I had no control over.

So, yeah.  This expectation thing is a two-way street, a journey that if everyone took, could very well circumvent a lot of frustration.  As much as we might like to, we cannot control and we cannot predict what another will do.  We can only observe and try to respect.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

There are so many ways to say it and it all boils down to choice.

Us or Them.  Ultimate Joy or Ultimate Misery.  Yin or Yang.

I’ve recently had to let things go in a few areas of my life, because the energy coming in didn’t come close to what was going out.  I had sped through Burnout City and crashed into the Major Deficit Dump.  And that was just physically.  Mentally I’d gone into autopilot mode, not fully experiencing anything on any level.

Last summer, I’d first written about taking it all on, making myself miserable in the process, and how it affected me.  I’m very skilled at filling up my minutes with activities or people or obligations, but not so skilled at releasing them once it no longer serves me or weighs me down.

And making the decision to walk away hurt.  A lot.  There were things that had been a part of me for months that had become embedded under my skin.  I hadn’t even recognized it as being separate from me.

But as much as it hurt to close the door on some relationships, to permanently or temporarily cross events off my social calendars, and to readjust my goals, the result for me was absolute relief.  I’m not up there in the frenzy of the mosh pit anymore, and because of that, my priorities have taken on new life.

As certain as I am that this was the best choice for me, I’m equally certain I’ll find myself back in the same predicament in a few months from now.  Letting go of the old stuff allows the new to flow back in, which will more than likely create backlog.  Then the shedding process will start all over again.  That’s just one of the laws of nature – the law of my nature.

How about you?  Do you find yourself taking on more than you should?  At what point do you draw the line?  Is there a line at all?

As writers, we look to our friends and family to spread the word and, of course, they always come through.  And within our online community, we are fortunate enough to have other writers and readers who open their blogs freely to lend a hand as well.

I want to take this opportunity to thank those bloggers who helped me reveal my new cover of Souled this past week.  Please support them by visiting their blogs.  They really are awesome peeps!

Angela Peart, Author  

From Sarah with Joy

Crazy Four Books

A Dream Within a Dream

I Like These Books

Lizzy’s Dark Fiction

What’s on the Bookshelf

Tracy James Jones 

The Readiacs 

Cherie Reich, Author

An Avid Reader’s Musings 

Reading in Paradise 

Fangirlish 

Book Lover’s Hideaway

And a huge thank you to everyone who shared on Facebook and Twitter!

Change is good.  Change is positive.  But it doesn’t make it any easier to let something go…

As much as I adored the original cover of Souled, I felt a change was needed to encompass more of the essence of the novel, which, in addition to ancient sorcery, was a story of love so absolute, so pure, it could transcend ordinary reason.

And because the location of the story took place in North Idaho, I wanted to include the community of Sandpoint in the Souled experience.

I was fortunate that Scott and Elaina, “regular” teens in Sandpoint, agreed to be the models for this cover.  Although neither of them are professional models, they handled themselves like pros and gave the photographer, Victoria McCune, 100% effort.  And in my opinion, it shows.

Also helping to put a professional touch to the make-up part of the session, I was thrilled to have Kimberlee Langford, make-up specialist, on board.

The tattoo design from the original cover, designed by Crystalyn Abercrombie, was definitely kept as part of this cover as that is a constant symbol in the story (as well as tattooed firmly onto my own body).   Steve McCune pulled together all of the pieces to create the final cover.

It’s been incredible working with the people in the community on something such as this project, because after all, it’s their town, their turf, and their support of the novel is very important.

I’ve had a lot of fun so far and I hope you enjoy this cover as much as I do.

Souled is available on Amazon in ebook and print format.

This post is going to deviate a little from my norm as I fulfill a promise I made to my #slenderman Twitter peeps for pictures.

This weekend, I took my cousin and her husband to a house I own in North Idaho (which I no longer live in) to show them around.  It’s the home I referred to in a previous post.  The home sits on a beautiful and heavily-wooded 5 acres with lots of places to roam and hide.  There are places that are really magical alongside of  some creepy pockets of slash created by previous loggers.  We walked around the property and got some really interesting pictures.  With all of the interest in Slenderman, and my son’s insistence that I don’t even think about it (which of course I did after that), I’m wondering.  Did I draw him to me?  And where the heck does he really live?

You’ll have to click on the pictures to see what I’m talking about…

My cousin’s husband and I checking out the neglected garden. Look closely on the right of the photo…

I was showing them the faery glen but – fortunately I was looking the other way – we had a close encounter of another kind…

So what do you think?  More than one Slenderman?  Fact?  Fiction? Our overactive imagination?  You tell me.  Should we start a new hashtag of #slenderheads?

Come back Friday to check out the new cover for Souled.  It’s got a whole new feel to it.  I think you’ll agree.

Two years ago my oldest called me over to his computer, totally freaking out.

The second of the original Slender Man images, by Victor Surge – alastairstephens.com – Do you see him under the trees?

J:  “Mom!  Look at this!  The Slenderman!”

Me:  What is that?

J:  The Slenderman!  Oh, my God, Mom.  You have to see this picture of him!  He’s real!

Me:  Seriously?

J:  Yeah!  If you look at him, you’ll die!

Me:  So they guy who took this picture is now dead?

J:  Probably!  But not everyone can see him so those are the ones who are  safe.

*eye roll*

For those of you who don’t know about the Slenderman, here is an explanation from ufosearchonline.com:

“Slender Man (or Slenderman, depending on how you spell it’s name) is described as wearing a black suit strikingly similar to the visage of the notorious Men In Black, and as the name suggests, appears very thin and able to stretch his limbs and torso to inhuman lengths in order to induce fear and ensnare his prey. Once his arms are outstretched, Slender Man’s victims are put into something of a hypnotized state, where they are utterly helpless to stop themselves from walking into them. Slender Man is also able to create tendrils from his fingers and back that he uses to walk. Whether Slender Man absorbs, kills, or merely takes his victims to an undisclosed location or dimension is also unknown as there are never any body’s or evidence left behind in his wake to deduce a definite conclusion.  Slender Man is most often seen as a tall, extremely thin man with long, strange arms, and a face that no two people see the same way (if they see any face at all). Where he comes from is as much a mystery as what he wants.” 

*Big sigh*  How could it be that my son had so readily accepted, albeit with a fit of tears, that the Easter Bunny wasn’t real when I broke the news to him? (Yeah, yeah, yeah.  In my defense I thought he already knew and was just going along to make me happy.)  My son had eventually figured out that I was Santa Claus and took that with relative grace when I confirmed his suspicions.   The bottom line – he trusted me enough to accept my truth.

But in the case of Slenderman… no dice.  Nothing I said would convince him.  The fact that this mythical creature existed obviously resonated with him.  I can’t possibly begin to understand that one, but until we moved out of our house on five forested acres, he refused to go outside after dark, swearing to me that one night he saw the Slenderman peek around the corner at him while he waited for the dog to come back inside.  And now that we’ve moved into town?  My son is always out after dark.  Apparently the Slenderman doesn’t like to hang around the lake or Starbuck’s after dark.   But in the heavily treed areas…

Look… over my shoulder… Um.  Yeah.

There’s only so much we can do to protect our children from beliefs that freeze them up or make their imaginations go wild.  At this point, this is one of those things I have to file in the “Let It Go” folder.  He’ll figure it out… I hope.

If you really like stories that make you wonder… what if,  check out Souled, a novel about what happens when a high school wrestler invites another soul to inhabit his body.  You can purchase it for $2.99 on Amazon.  Just click and download.  Easy.

Seventeen years ago, as part of my efforts to be the “perfect” mom, I adopted other women’s examples of what raising children “should be,” even if it didn’t resonate with me.  Man, was that exhausting.  I had rules up the wazoo and fought to keep them in place.  And the boys fought back.

But eight months ago the blinders dropped to my feet and I found that I had forgotten to preach what I practiced.  The solution was so simple.

Let them be.

Which is exactly how I prefer to be treated.  I don’t want anyone telling me what to do or telling me what path to choose, so why should I do that to my boys?  Sure, my body may be older, but my children’s souls are just as experienced as mine.   These boys aren’t mine in the possession sense.  From a spiritual point of view, I don’t have the right to put borders around their spirits and make them the exact image that society or even I believe to be true.   I’m here to guide them, not mold them.  They know who they need to be.  Besides, what a waste of time when quite possibly after 18 years, they’re going to do and be what they want anyway.  I know I did.

It is my belief that we come into this existence knowing what our life path is.  The road map has already been printed up, although our free will sometimes overrides that map and takes us on some wild side trips.   When we truly deviate off that path,though, it doesn’t go unnoticed.  Don’t we feel the discord when we want to go one direction and someone tries to convince us otherwise? Especially if the only source of righteousness is in their own mind?  Or what about compromising on something we truly believe in?

My mother pushed me to go to college because it was what I “should” do, yet all I did was spin my wheels, lost a lot of brain cells, and ran up a student loan that never should have been.  Besides, halfway through the first year I realized I still didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up.  This is one area I won’t push my boys on.  No amount of lecturing is going to make this the right choice for them.  True motivation must come from them.  Otherwise it becomes my job to keep them going, a burden that will have us both resentful.

In the months past, I’ve gotten a clearer view of who my boys really are.  Without the shoulds masking their true source, I’ve been able to appreciate their way of thinking.  I’m beginning to understand what makes them tick and why they don’t fit into the boxes I’ve been trying to put them in.

Sex, drinking, drugs, school, safety, curfew – those are issues I will never compromise on.  Honestly, though, I have no control over their ultimate decisions on those topics, but I’ve made damn sure they know what the consequences are if they deviate from my “recommendations.”  So, armed with that information, it’s their decision as to what outcome they desire.

Some may think this is the wrong approach or the lazy way to parent, but it is actually very difficult at times.  To stand back and watch their actions put in motion a set of reactions (whether they be mine or someone else’s) makes me want to peek out from behind splayed fingers.  It’s nothing short of a challenge to stay back and let them do damage control.  On the flip side, when they are really thinking it out and the outcome is in their favor?  It’s awesome.

It felt good to finally release the ties, because forcing the boys to do what they clearly do not want to do didn’t resonate with what I was all about – freedom of choice and independence. I’ve let my boys make choices of when to go to sleep (though the connection between late nights and being tired the next day still hasn’t sunk in), meals, what school classes to take, and friends.  As long as safety isn’t an issue and they’re not hurting others, I’m good.

Which might explain why they gravitate to me and not to the “other.”  That “coolness” factor I seem to have with the boys and their friends is, I believe, actually the elation they experience when they connect with who they are.

Think about the people we tend to gravitate toward – those who speak to and understand our souls.  Not those who contradict or repress our fires, but those who stoke it, feed it, and encourage it to rise.

My boys’ path is their own.  I’ll be there to dust off their knees, put a band-aid on a broken heart, give them advice on hangover cures, and I’ll give them room to fly, because they’ll need it to get over the Grand Canyon-size crevasse of thought that yawns between “the other half” and me.

Then I got side-tracked by a link sent to me by my friend in Arizona, an interesting and timely story of a woman in New Mexico who listed her soul for sale on eBay.  Click here to see one of the stories circulating he internet.

Want to see who would actually do this and why?

According to one story, eBay has a strict policy about selling human body parts and remains on their site, but they may need to redefine their policy to include souls.  One newscaster actually brought up the point of the logistics of this auction – How is it to be delivered?   How do you know if what you bought has been delivered?

If one were to actually purchase a soul, I would imagine there would be either total elation or total conflicting vibrations that would swirl around inside  our body, leading us to know if it had been “delivered.”  Typically, as like attracts like, an outside entity is attracted to a host body that has the same vibration that it has, such as a happy person, a sad person, an adrenaline junkie – which in turn would heighten whatever is our prominent vibration.  On the flip side, I could see a soul latching onto a host for the sole purpose of draining the host’s energy, while the host soul fights the intruder for control.  That would be where the Jekyll and Hyde thing would play out.

In the case of this New Mexico woman, though, it’s neither of these.  As proof of delivery, the woman offers of a piece of paper – a $2000 piece of paper.  A bill of sale of sorts.  Huh.  Kind of a let-down if you ask me.

But, for Seth Thompson, the high school student who bought a soul on eSouled.com (a site still under contruction – but check it out just for kicks), what he received was quite different than a piece of paper and was a hell of a lot cheaper.  Here is an excerpt from Souled:

My palm began throbbing—not like thorns or needle pricks—more like claws had sunken in and raked down the skin. But my palm was the least of my worries. Because, though I didn’t want to believe it, I felt it. Something was inside me. Something… other. Very other.

A second pulse inside me beat steady, strong, and disturbingly close to mine.

And then the truth hit me. Hard. I knew.

The soul had been delivered.

So, yeah, there’s a lot of crazy stuff out there for sale as people try and unload and make a quick buck.  What about you?  What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen for sale?  Were you  tempted to buy it?

Speaking of crazy things for sale, check out Natalie Hartford’s blog where she posts the best of the craziest and unusual items on the internet.