Posts Tagged ‘contemporary fantasy’

Secret Legacy: Excerpt, Book Club/Reader Guide, Giveaways, Appearances

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

Secret Legacy is finally here! I can honestly say that no other book has captured so much of my fascination and imagination. Those of who who’ve been following the blog for a while know this truly has become the book of my heart in so many meaningful ways.

Check out all the cool stuff that’s happening. Help me celebrate! There’s something for everyone.

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Dark Legacy, Book 1 in the Legacy series, is a FREE EBOOK May 2nd – May 9th. Grab your copy of the digital download. Begin the psychic fantasy journey from the very beginning, at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders and Diesel Books. Then look for the .99 cent promotion from May 9th – May 23rd, and the $2.99 promotion from May 23rd-June  6th.

June 17th, Dark Legacy’s a FREE FRIDAY DOWNLOAD at Barnes and Noble’s Unbound blog.

Read a Secret Legacy Excerpt, Reader and Bookclub Guide, and Reviews.

Enjoy this Legacy Series Interview and Secret Legacy book trailer.

The  Night Owl SciFi Interview tells you more about the series.

Leave a comment in  these contests for your chance to win free Secret Legacy downloads and signed copies of Dark Legacy.

Follow the Blog Tour, for more great info and chances to win:

Look for more interviews and articles, like Secret Legacy’s feature at International Thriller Writers.

Read weekly Dream Theoryand Psychic Realm updates here on the blog,to go deeper into the Legacy Series’ worldbuilding.

Look for my ITW Thriller Roundtable  appearances, discussing:

  • May 30th-June 5th Is fact really stranger than fiction? How do you weave the two to make a really compelling story?
  • June 6th-12th How would you characterize your literary voice? How did you develop it?

The Psychic Realm: Waking Emotions Feed Dreaming Realities

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011

Our minds deal with powerful emotions as we dream. Or is it that our lives play out the realities our dreams feed? And is all of this just “every day speak” for a psychic connection we don’t consciously accept?

Think about it, if you accept my premise–which is supported many dream scientists and those who immerse themselves daily in the fringe science and parapsychology that my Legacy series is based on. Just like Sarah in Secret Legacy (well, not just  like her, because we’re not full-on, sometimes psychotic psychics so powerful we’re seen as a threat to national security ;o), when our  minds are in turmoil, they respond by trying to relieve the pressure of that turbulent state. How do they do that without interrupting the day-to-day living that keeps us going? Dreams.

dream emotions

When negative emotions and moods surge, our dreams are an outlet we should embrace. Subconsciously at first, until you master some of the lucid dreaming techniques we’ve discussed, your dreams allow you to surrender to what you fear or resist in the everyday. They give you a stage on which to work through conflict, and they equip you with the tools you need face a looming crisis in your waking life.

It’s a type of roll playing that’s more intellectual than psychic. Well, okay, it, takes on a sinister roll for Sarah Temple in Secret Legacy, when her gifts grow so powerful she and those she loves and the little girl she’s searching for could actually die as the result of the toxic dreams government scientists are inflicting on her mind. But for us, not so much. For us, it’s how many scientists are beginning to believe our psychological minds work.

So, relax when you realize you’re having emotional, vivid dreams that are challenging and slightly scary. (more…)

Dream Theories: Lucid Dreaming Techniques Behind the Legacy

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

What do you dream? How much do you know about what you know, when you’re dreaming? And if you know…does that mean you’re still really dreaming?

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t, on a regular basis, conscious on some level when I was dreaming. Maybe it’s because all my life my imagination has crossed easily from the not-quite-there into my reality and back again. Maybe it’s that sometimes my dreams seemed more real than my awake–like my novels do when I’m heavy into plotting and drafting and revising them. Maybe it’s just that when I was little and began learning how to see the world, I was too young to know that seeing that way wasn’t normal. That everyone doesn’t so enthusiastically embrace the same escape from the here and now.

lucid dreaming 2

I’ve always remembered flashes of dreams, some more than others. And the ones I could remember, I’ve at times found myself slipping back into again and again.

Cool?

Odd?

Either way, that’s not really lucid dreaming. That’s not bringing conscious intention into a dream, the way my psychics do in the first two books of my Legacy Series.

It’s nowhere near the techniques dream scientists like the Stephen LaBerge, Ph. D. have developed (using relaxation and autosuggestion and hypnosis) to target the mind to be aware and focused on predetermined concepts, and then to empower the mind to remember what has been dreamed. If you’re truly intent on knowing more about your dream world and interacting more with that reflection of your waking life, I highly recommend checking out his book,  Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming.

Of course I took creative license with the science behind the world building I did for Secret Legacy and Dark Legacy, creating their Psychic Realm. I had to, to solve some of the trickier challenges I faced with the dream modeling my characters do (targeting and projecting dreams). Otherwise, I’d have had to get too technical explaining the science everything was based on.

But I was able to work in some of the really cool stuff I learned along the way as I researched lucid dream science.

Things like:

Choosing that the projected dreams would begin as DILD (Dream Induced Lucid Dreams). And then as the Center’s fictitious Dream Weaver program progressed the dream “host” whose mind was being targeted would be programmed to perform behavior in a daydream state–a variation of WILD (Wake Initiated Lucid Dreams) that I took creative license with. Both terms, WILD and DILD, are based in scientific reality, then I let my imagination take a stroll while not getting too technical within the boundaries of my fictional world–though setting up the basics in Dark Legacy without losing the reader was definitely a challenge.

Playing with the basic principles of muscular paralysis, sensory stimuli blockage and activation of the key areas of the brain while dreaming in REM state: the fact that you shouldn’t be able to move while dreaming that you’re falling or whatever; that what’s happening around you when you sleep shouldn’t be breaking through to a conscious state; and that you should break free of the dreaming world’s model once you leave REM state. But, of course we all know people who sleep walk, we’ve probably all had something from our environment bleed through into a dream, and who hasn’t jerked himself from a dream a time or two, limbs flailing, or woken suddenly and been unable to move for a few terrifying seconds (something known as sleep paralysis, where your mind is on the verge of REM sleep and ripped away)? I had fun with all of these, doing my own thing with real scientific concepts. (more…)

The Psychic Realm: Shared Dreaming, Shared Lives

Thursday, April 14th, 2011

Dreams are windows into the unconscious mind–into the knowledge within. Sharing that wisdom and knowledge, shared dreaming, is a breathless connection few have experienced. But there are studies that tell us that people who are close enough to one another and share a deep enough bond can indeed find themselves linked to one another’s dream patterns.

We’ve talked before that dreams communicate with us and the waking world through emotions. Waves of feelings feed the dreams and flow back into our lives from them. These same emotions speak to others in our waking lives. When things are particularly challenging and chaotic or amazing and wonderful, those close to us share part of our experience, as feelings surge through us and our lives. So it’s no so far fetched to imageine that someone who understands us deeply (a close sibling, a mate, a nurturing parent) might at times carry something of our emotional patterns into their own dream states.

dreamsharing

Taking it one step further, let’s assume that you discuss some of the images you see in the dreams you remember with those who wonder what’s troubling you, or perhaps they’re as excited as you are by something wonderful that’s occurring in your life.  Since our dream symbols and settings are touchstones that often reflect a portion of our everyday reality, those images will seem as familiar to those close to us as the emotional states that drive them. Making it possible, when you think about it, that some of those same images might become shared experiences with others dreaming alongside our lives.

Pretty reasonable, right? You know me better than that.

My psychic twins in Dark Legacy and Secret Legacy don’t just compare notes and realize they’re seeing and feeling some of the same things when they sleep. They’re often driving each other’s demented dreams, and when they’re giving each other a break, someone else even more demented is pushing their sleeping minds to the brink of insanity. Oh, and their magical family legacy gives them the ability to channel theirs and others emotions, and those feelings give Sarah and Maddie Temple access to others unconscious minds through their dreams, both sleeping and day dreams. Enter the government scientists determined to turn the Temples gifts into direct-strike psychic weapons that can be remote programmed and triggered at will, with the dreamer never knowing their mind has become a host to another…

So, what’s up with that? Surely something like that is total make believe.

Except there are dream scientists like Montague Ullman working in laboratories to understand the mind’s ability to dream share. (more…)

Dream Theories: The Fantasies You Hide From

Monday, April 11th, 2011

Can we impact our waking worlds through dreams? Does being conscious while we sleep make us more aware when we wake? Does what we imagine challenge what is real? According to lucid dreaming concepts–yes. Dream stories reflect our waking emotions and hopes and fears. Embracing our fantasies inspires us to resolve our real-world challenges. It’s all connected. It’s all “truth.” It’s all us.

In Secret Legacy and Dark Legacy, I take this concept to the extreme. I send psychics into unsuspecting innocents minds to program and test dream behavior the sleeper is unaware is taking place, laying the seeds for homicidal daydreams to later be remote-triggered, making  the “host” mind a walking, untracable time bomb.

dangerous dreams

Not so uplifting a concept, but it was a totally cool variation to write ;o) And in both books, Sarah and Maddie Temple’s dream work is not only personal, but spinning out of control. They can’t save their waking minds, their legacy, or an innocent child whose gifts are being manipulated by government scientists, until Sarah confronts and conquers the deadly dream images she’s run from since she was a little girl.

Luckily, the challenges we face are less dire, but there’s still power in our dreams. There’s power in being aware and in control of our sleeping minds’ journeys and messages. Realistic or normal or fantastical, there’s the potential for great revelations waiting for us in our sleeping worlds. Plugging into our dreams more lucidly can be exhilarating.

I’m one of those people who realized early in life that I could be conscious in dreams. There were times, even as a child, when I knew I was thinking and feeling in an altered, virtual place that was only a reflection of my waking life, and all the while I somehow knew I was asleep.It started out as fun. Freeing. There was a dreamlike quality to everything, and for a girl with a vivid, overactive imagination, what could be better!

Then, around the time I was in college and my computer programming and math classes kept me up late most nights with advanced algorithms and problem sets to puzzle through, I realized that my dreams were working overtime for me even after my conscious mind turned off.I’d fall asleep with an unsolved problem on my mind, and too often to be a coincidence would wake the next morning with the next piece of the puzzle waiting for me.

advanced math

Not every time, and at this point I was too tired and over scheduled to be aware of what my mind was doing. I didn’t remember the dreams, but that part wasn’t important. (more…)

Dream Theories: Color Your Emotional Truth

Monday, April 4th, 2011

Do we dream in color? Can the colors in our dreams function like an internal mood ring? My research writing my new sci-fi / fantasy Secret Legacy tells  me so. So much so, that color becomes an important clue to revealing the Temple Legacy’s volatile, potentially deadly secrets. Because color reveals mood in our sleeping worlds.

Whether you remember them or not, most agree that we see our dreaming realities like we do our waking ones–in color. So why do so many people believe they only see things in black and white while they sleep? Since dream images fade quickly, unless we work on remembering them as quickly after waking as possible, the colors just as easily disappear with them. Also, how often do we actually stop and notice color in our daily lives? How aware are we of the hues in our environment while we’re awake? The answer tends to be “not often” for most people. Why would our dreaming awareness of color be any different?

color explosion

Plus, there’s the emotional tie between dream colors and our awareness of a sleeping vision’s meaning. Remember from past Dream Theories posts that emotion is the single, strongest, most universal tie between a dream and the dreamer’s reality. Our feelings and emotional reactions to what we’re seeing are often our only “real world” connection to the crazy stuff our minds obsess about while we’re asleep.

When I encourage people to work on techniques that allow for more lucid dreaming, I always start with making you more aware of your feelings before you sleep, while you’re dreaming, and immediately after you wake.  Many people are uncomfortable at first, connecting with the strong emotion that feeds the creation of our sleeping realities, but making the conscious decision to do it can be an exciting step toward understanding what our dreams are trying to tell us. Color works the same. Color is your mind’s way of reflecting emotion and mood within a dream. Which in turn can mirror the emotion and mood of our waking reality, and how we feel about things we need to do to make our lives better. Things we often avoid or resist or are too worried or scared to attempt.

Think about it. (more…)

The Psychic Realm: Trending Topics

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

I blog weekly about the Dream Theories behind my Secret Legacy and the rest of my paranormal fantasies. And about the Psychic Realm I’ve created for my characters’ world. When you  need another boost of psychic, paranormal, fantasy fun, check out my Psychic Realm Daily! Another paper that pulls articles and links and so forth from my social media feeds.

psychic

Link to the paper and it’s stories here.I started building the content, because I wanted to keep up with trending topics in psychic phenomenon. Now, you can too ;o)

To subscribe to it or any of the other digital papers I’ll regularly feature (click back to yesterday’s post to peak at my Sci-Fi/Fantasy Daily),  navigate to each of the papers’ Headlines page and click the Subscribe button.

Then navigate around the paper using the top menu and let me know what you think!

Sci-Fi/Fantasy Daily

Monday, March 28th, 2011

I’m heads-down into promotion planning for Secret Legacy, and I’m psyched (no pun intended) about the cool opportunities out there to plug into social media and viral marketing. Including eNewsletters like my Sci-Fi/Fantasy Daily.

scifi fantasy

It’s one of the ways I’m networking on Twitter and Facebook, by releasing daily glimpses of cool sci-fi/fantasy, psychic and paranormal articles and links shared by others in obsessed with the same topics. The format is fun and easy to read, very much like an digital newspaper. Well, actually, that’s exactly what these cool things are ;o)

I’ll be sharing them here throughout the next week or two, so you can hook up with the ones you like.

So for now, let me know what you think of my Sci-fi/Fantasy Daily.

Enjoy!

Dream Theory: Interpreting dream time travel…

Friday, March 25th, 2011

It’s easy to forget our feelings. In fact, many of us prefer it. Except… Our dreams tend to take their own path when we sleep, and often they time travel–as my psychic twins experience all over again in Secret Legacy. Things that we’ve forgotten we’ve thought or felt in the past come back to us in our dreams. Something in life turns our mind back, and our sleeping world follows. There’s something we haven’t dealt with, something we must feel from that time.

time_travel

In Dark Legacy, yesterday dreams were how one twin (the psychotic one ;o) finds her sister again and begs for her help. You know, while she’s trying to kill her and everyone she feels has abandoned her to her terrifying gifts and the government scientists experimenting on them. In Book 2,  Secret Legacy, now that Sarah Temple’s free of her mad scientists and her mind is healing (or so she thinks), dreams from the past come for her again–only this time under someone else’s control. Discovering who’s using a secret child to send Sarah to the brink of madness once more becomes an odyssey in facing the past and the emotions and the near childhood breakdown she’s forgotten all these years is the only way she’ll save herself and her twin, the child whose amazing mind is being weaponized, and every dreamer that could become the next dream target.

Lucky for us, others aren’t driving what we remember in dreams (at least, most of the time they’re not). Unlucky for us, we don’t have a brotherhood of watchers helping us decode the symbols and images, the clues, our sleeping minds leave to help us figure out what we need to deal with so we can see more clearly how our past is forming our future.

Our dreams are, more often than not, showing us what’s happening in our subconscious  minds when we’re awake. (more…)

Dream Theory: A Programmed Mind at Rest

Friday, March 18th, 2011

“We teach others how to treat us,” I told a group of students last weekend, when we shifted into the communication skills portion of our weekend together. In the Psychic Realm I’ve created in my Legacy novels (and in the fringe science I base my psychic world building on) our minds teach our dreams how to transport us while we sleep. Our “every day” programs our resting realities.

I’ve promised for a while  now to post regularly about what I’ve learned writing Secret Legacy and what I’ve created in both it and it’s sister book, Dark Legacy. We’re grooving toward an exciting May/June launch/re-launch season for both projects, so let’s get busy talking about the spooky and not-so-spooky stuff that enthralls me about the mind’s power to create.

Yes, our dreams are for encoding memories and filtering out the chatter and rebooting for a new conscious day. But sometimes the unconscious noise is too important to move on from, no matter how determined we are to lock it away. And it’s these the seeds from which our strongest, most recurring dreams evolve.

As we stay unaware when we’re awake, our dreams tend to crank up the dial on dealing with whatever need/goal/fear is being repressed. They actually take on the challenge of getting us back on the track of facing the inevitable truth, that the energy we most avoid is the reality we most need to confront. So we do. Over and over. In dream cycles that keep the emotions of whatever’s challenging us in the forefront of our minds, even if we turn away from the details themselves.

Does this mean we’re subconsciously programming the very dreams we need, in order to confront our demons?

Some believe so.

mind control steve marley

No, not THAT somebody, but it is a cool album. You should check it out ;o)

In Secret Legacy, the programming is more intentional. (more…)