Stepping Through the Thin Places

“Thin places,” the Celts call this space,

Both seen and unseen,

Where the door between this world

And the next is cracked open for a moemnt

And the light is not all on the other side. 

– Sharlande Sledge

Many spiritualities in today’s world have a concept of “thin places.” These are the places where it seems the divine, the heavenly, leaks over into our everyday world. Relationship with and experience of the holy is somehow easier to touch in these “thin places.” One Celtic saying states that heaven and earth are three feet apart, but in the thin places that distance is smaller. People flock to their own personal thin places and to communal thin places in search of numinous experiences at these liminal places.

The Burren, Co Clare, Ireland

The power of the other is right there, just on the other side, if only we could reach out and embrace it. In real life this translates into spiritual highs, religious experiences, and divine encounters. In the world of fiction, we are able to make manifest those unknown worlds. We are allowed to step through the thin places and enter the “Otherworld.” We must deal with beings and forces that have come through the “thin places” from worlds unknown.

Fae Lord

Traditional "thin places" often exist in marked places: cairns or rock structures placed there by people long ago so as not to accidentally stumble through, hedges marking the boundary between known and unknown, twilight and dawn marking the changing from day to night and vice versa, doors, thresholds, gates, graveyards, beaches, all these can mark liminal "thin places." We see examples of the dangers and wonders of what can come through these places throughout myth and legend. There are the Fae, the Fair Folk, the Others, unexplainable beasts and monsters, changling children. There are legends of people who walked through a "thin place," spent one night of revelry with the Fae and returned to find 100 years had passed in their own time. 

From these legends, this cultural memory, we tap our imaginations and write stories of the wonderful and awful things that happen when the two worlds cross. We push our way through mothballs and coats as Lucy steps into Narnia for the first time. We prepare ourselves for battle with the Winter Fae as Harry Dresden opens a door to the Ways in the Never Never. We run alongside Mac as she flees the death-by-sex fairy through the streets of Dublin. We look through fairy stones, cross over bridges, run directly into barriers between train platforms, crawl into cairns, and so much more all in an effort to experience this Other world along with our most beloved characters.

I have always been fascinated by books and stories about "thin places," especially those with a Celtic and/or Arthurian bent. Some of my favorite books as a child (and still) are Stephen R. Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle and his Song of Albion trilogy. Stories like this have shaped my experiences and my dreams. They have primed my imagination to look for the impossible and sense the amazing. I still feel the wonder and get shivers up my back when I stand on the very edge of a rocky outcropping, close my eyes, and just feel the spray from ocean as it hits my skin. The "thin places" closest to my soul are always those where water meets the land, whether it be at a beach, a cliff over the ocean or even the starting block as I am about to dive into a swimming pool. There is that moment when I close my eyes, take a deep breath and tumble into a world completely different from the one where I walk and talk and live my life. Anything could happen. Just once I would love to lift my head out of the water, having dived through a "thin place," and find myself in a completely new land or find myself breathing under the water because I have become a mermaid or ... or ... or ...

Make Like the Hulk—And Shift

Guest post by Poppy Dennison

One of the most fun—and most challenging—aspects of writing paranormal fiction is world building. Before you can even begin writing, you have to answer some key questions about the world you’re creating. It’s all in the details. Even the most minor decision can impact how your story unfolds.

Take shifters, for example. There are a ton of tropes that exist for shapeshifters of all kinds, and werewolves in particular. Are they impacted by silver? Can they only shift at the full moon? Do they become slobbering beasts or is their human side still in control?

All are important questions to answer before you start writing. In my novel Mind Magic, one of those “minor decisions” I made early on affected several scenes later in the novel. The question I had to answer: What happens to their clothes when they shift?

Seems silly, but it’s one of those details that readers notice and question. If their clothes are never mentioned, but simply disappear, readers will want to know how and why. If their clothes are left in a shredded pile, readers will want to know about the practicality of them roaming around naked once they return to their shifted form.

Minor details—great impact!

When making my plan for the shifters in Mind Magic, I kept thinking about The Incredible Hulk. Now, I’m probably dating myself a little to admit that I used to watch the television show back in the late 70’s. “Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” I love that line.

It always cracked me up seeing The Hulk in David Banner’s clothes. There was a lot of shirt ripping going on in that show. (Kinda sexy, don’t you think? Or is that just me?) I loved the scenes with Hulk’s biceps tore apart the seams of the prim and proper dress shirts worn by the good doctor.

And don’t get me going on the jeans that suddenly became capri pants when worn by the big green guy.

By watching that show, and reading scores of other shifter books, I figured out that having my wolves wandering around in shredded clothes wasn’t practical. But I didn’t want them to just disappear into the magical mist. And having them take the time to take off all of their clothes before they shifted just wouldn’t work for some of the action scenes I had planned.

I had to take the time to think about the magic of shifting, and what it would entail for my shifters. As much as I wanted to see my alpha, Gray, roaming around in a ripped up shirt (rawr!), I knew I would need a different solution to the clothes dilemma.

In my world, the ability to shapeshift is a magical one, so the solution to the clothes also became magical in nature. It worked for all the details I needed to take care of as the story progressed, and by planning in advance, I wasn’t stuck with a continuity problem later in the novel.

When working in a paranormal world, understanding even the smallest details of how your characters are impacted by their supernatural abilities is extremely important. Take the time to ask questions before you dive into the novel. Who knows, maybe shredded Hulk shirts will fit into your world.

Blurb:

Magical species must never mix. According to the rules, Simon Osborne should ignore the children’s cries for help. After all, they’re werewolf cubs, and he’s an apprentice mage. But for once in his life, Simon breaks the rules and rescues the cubs, saving them from a demon intent on draining them of their magic.

Of course, all actions have consequences, and Simon’s bold move earns him the displeasure of his peers and the attention of the cubs’ alpha, a man named Gray Townsend.

The last thing Gray needs is a mage in his life, but Simon did save his son. Since Simon is now a friend of the pack, Gray doesn’t have much choice about it—or the forbidden attraction that goes along with it. Unfortunately for the alpha, he needs Simon’s help to track down the demon behind the kidnappings—before it strikes again. Simon and Gray must join forces to protect the pack, even as they struggle to resist the temptation that threatens to destroy them both.

Available now from Dreamspinner Press.
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=2887&cPath=55_602


Bio:
A sassy southern lady, Poppy Dennison developed an obsession with things that go bump in the night in her early years after a barn door flew off its hinges and nearly squashed her. Convinced it was a ghost trying to get her attention, she started looking for other strange and mysterious happenings around her. Not satisfied with what she found, Poppy has traveled to Greece, Malaysia and England to find inspiration for the burly bears and silver foxes that melt her butter. Her love of paranormal continues to flourish nearly thirty years later, and she writes steamy love stories about the very things that used to keep her up all night. If her childhood ghost is lucky, maybe one day she’ll give him his own happily ever after.

Visit her on her web site: http://www.poppydennison.com/,
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/poppydennison,
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ParanormalPoppy
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5108648.Poppy_Dennison

Messages From the Other Side

I wasn’t intending to do another post on ghostly matters, but here I am.  I seem to have ghosts on the brain while I wait for news about my ghost story submission.  Patience is not one of my strengths.  That’s not the only reason that ghosts have been on my brain lately.  Throughout my life, when someone in my family has passed there have been times that I swore I felt their presence again, passing me along a message.

One of the most memorable and the time that I felt it the strongest was just before my wedding.  I was going through a recipe box that my friends and family had put together with their personal favorites and missing my Granny, wishing she could be there to see me on my wedding day, when I came across a recipe card in her handwriting that my dad had slipped in there.  I swear I felt her hand on my shoulder at that moment.  The feeling was so strong that I burst into tears.  And I knew without her saying a word that she would be there with me on my big day.

My father-in-law passed in March suddenly and it’s been a huge shock to the entire family.  He was such a kind, gentle man.  He touched so many lives and I can’t express how much I’ll miss him.  The rest of the family has been holding it together for my mother-in-law who is devastated.  They were incredibly close. 

One night last week, my husband woke up crying.  He’d had a dream about his dad and asked him why he left us.  And he said that his dad just smiled at him.  When he told me, I knew the exact smile he was talking about.  It was that smile of his that said, stop worrying, everything is going to work its way out.  I knew then that Dad was okay and I shared that with my husband and he said that he felt it too.

The next day I shared that story with my mother-in-law and she said that she dreamt of him too.  She was at the hospital and couldn’t find him and was frantic when he came up behind her, hugged her and said that he was okay. 

I was pretty sure that Dad was trying to send us a message.  What really clinched it for me was when my sweet little three year old niece said to her, “Nana, Poppi’s sleeping.  Poppi’s sleeping and woke up.  He smiled.  Poppi’s okay.”

Out of the mouths of babes. 

Please share with me any experiences you might’ve had with your own loved ones.  I hope they gave you the sense of peace that mine did.

- Marguerite Labbe

Friday the 13th

Friday the 13^th

By: Embry-the unlucky-Carlysle

Friday the 13^th, that magical, mystifying day. Some say its evil; some say it’s lucky I say it’s cursed. Well today, it certainly is for me.

I got up this morning just like I do every weekday morning by hitting the snooze button on my alarm clock every 9 minutes (which I’ve never understood why it’s 9 minutes and not 10) anyway after the 4^th time I decided I should get up for work.

Things went strangely well for me, bed made-check, shower taken-check, clothes on-check, makeup on-check….

Squirt of perfume onto neck-uh uncheck. More like squirt of perfume straight into the eyes causing massive pain and mascara to run all over face-check.

So after spending twenty more minutes I cannot spare to replace said makeup I am now running really close to maybe possible being late to my job that is forty minutes away from where I live. Not so good.

So finally I’m ready to leave for work so I get into my car and start it and it makes this God-awful sound, like a steel door going through a wood chipper. Uh yeah not so good considering I just shelled a butt load of money yesterday for a new a/c compressor. (I live in Texas, soooo can’t live down here without an a/c in the car, house, office, restaurant, store…well you get the picture.) Anyway now where was I? Oh yeah the noise. Well I decide to let it run for a few minutes hoping the sound would stop and luckily it does. I back out of the garage and look for the remote for the opener only it’s not where it’s supposed to be. (20 year old darling daughter was last to use my car, it’s probably in her purse, because, hey all 20 something’s carry them in their purse) uh huh.

So, too continue I get out of my car, go back into the garage and hit the button on the wall, then I have to leave quickly to get out before the garage door comes down on me, of course why would I ever think this was the end of all my back luck. I trip out of my sandals landing on my derriere on the driveway in a dirty spot and yes you guessed it I’m wearing white pants.

Shock: We down south wear white before Memorial Day---scandalous…..LOL

So another 10 minutes later I’m changed and finally thank the Gods I’m on the road. I have now called work to tell them I am running late.

So I’m driving along and lo and behold the check engine light comes on…..Oh for the love of carbs. Are ya freaking kidding me???? (Of course I use that much more explicit adjective, but I’ll keep this PG).  Someone seriously hates me today….So I pull my car over to the side of the road and bang my head on the steering wheel and say that word like a mantra…

Suddenly it dawns on me, remember me saying that my 20 year old had the car last? Could it be that yet again she put gas in but forgot to turn the cap until it clicks several times? Can I possibly catch a break maybe?  I bravely get out of the car in rush hour traffic to check and thank the Gods who cursed me earlier it wasn’t on tight. I take this and the 18 wheelers who honk at me as a sign my day will get better. (by the way thanks Budweiser man you were cute too ;) )

Finally, blessedly I make my way to work and I’m only ten minutes late (thanks to the cops who are normally out for being at the donut shop and not clocking traffic)

I have to sit back and wonder why on earth all this happened today to me, could it really be because it’s Friday the 13^th? Maybe. More than likely it’s because I laughed my proverbial ass off at my bestest friend NJ Nielsen when she told me about her superstitions.

Turns out she will never walk under a ladder (which is a smart thing) because one time the entire paint can fell on her, and if that wasn’t enough she did it again another time and the ladder fell on her. Maybe she had a bad day like mine, or maybe she’s just klutzy (I go with the latter) who knows.

But I can promise you for the rest of this day I will avoid, ladders, black cats, wee fairy folk (hey they could be here) and any other superstitious things I can think of. I will also keep salt with me to ward off evil spirits, of course with my luck I’ll just throw it in my eyes.

Here’s hoping you all have a much better Friday the 13^th then I did.

((hugs)

Embry

Top Secret Project Revealed

Stumbling around the interwebs, going places where I don't belong, I ran across this government report. Most of it was redacted but what was available is amazing!

...a high-ranking official, speaking under the condition of anonymity, had this to say about the project: "What we did to those volunteers was horrifying. The screams, the victims we had to provide in order to stave off their bloodlust.... I'll never..."

Details are on a need-to-know basis, but the project has proven blood and tissue samples harvested from the New Mexico crash site will interact with human cells to provide super-human powers. Increased strength, cognitive skills, and healing capability will give our soldiers the edge in any future conflicts.

Breeding of these newly improved humans is already underway. Accelerated incubation periods has produced incredible results. Continued funding to monitor and train these offspring is essential to our security.

The implications are astounding. And terrifying.

~xxx~

P.S. Yes, this is an April Fools post. But the just the possibility is frightening, no?

Guest Post - With friends like these...

Sometimes a character comes along that is fully real in your head. He's just there. And try as you might, you can't ignore him. Nicholas Rider in Bitter Harvest was one such character. It didn't help that he kept planting himself in my mind, chained to a metal ceiling and naked with a really interesting tattoo down his back. But then Rider is wicked like that.

He wouldn't leave me alone. And so I started to play with him, find out his world and who his love interest would be. That's when I struck my major problem. Rider was most definitely male. But the nebulous character who started to form as his love interest, the one who'd interrogate him--and be affected by him--was also a man. Try as I might, I couldn't make either of them women. I knew m/f. I wrote m/f. Time to panic.

I was nervous, I was out of my comfort zone. I was also in www.writechat.net ... a place packed with enablers.

CM Torrens and Marguerite Labbe are eager to make everyone write man love. And they're good at it. Some might say...relentless. *grin* They encouraged me to write the story as it needed to be written. So, I took my first steps into writing m/m. 

I love to write sexual tension, and what surprised me with these two men was the ease with which it flowed between them. I didn't question it. Rider has no self restrictions and I was surprised to find a freedom in m/m that I'd never truly experienced in writing m/f. I don't believe it was solely his character. I've written a full ms and and another part of one and I found the same was true there too. (Yes, I am addicted to m/m now and I know who to blame. Please see previous paragraph ;-) ) 

Two male characters don't form with the same complications as a male/female pairing. The baggage isn't there. It's a simple thing, but I felt it as I wrote Bitter Harvest. I've also realised the weight, been aware of it, as I've written an m/f story this week. It's an observation that's thrown my new characters into a sharper relief for me. Which I love.

So I'd like to thank CM Torrens and Marguerite Labbe for letting me post on this blog and for (cracking the whip) helping me to write my very first m/m book. :)

Wonder if I can get them back with plot bunny or five... :D 

Kim

It's 2050, and humans are an endangered species. Lieutenant Robert Sutton has survived the collapse of civilization by luck, his wits, and a chance mutation that makes him immune to the nano-virus that has wiped out millions. Now, his compound of survivors is surrounded by the infected, who are driven by the need to spread the contagion through sex. It is only a matter of time before they attack. So when Sutton is assigned to interrogate a prisoner who claims to have overcome the infection, he immediately suspects a trap...

 

Nicholas Rider may have survived the virus, but he's a changed man, ruled by his desires. But his need for Sutton is different. Rider craves an end to his overwhelming needs, and Sutton could be the man to do it.

 

Secure in his belief that he's invulnerable, Sutton can't understand or resist his intense attraction to his prisoner. Will Rider be his downfall--or his savior?

 

 

Buy Links:

 

Carina Press: 

http://ebooks.carinapress.com/ContentDetails.htm?ID=F2E5C6D9-69B5-4AB9-BD5D-68DC034E91C5 

Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Bitter-Harvest-ebook/dp/B0070Y00B8/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_7" 

Amazon UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bitter-Harvest-ebook/dp/B0070Y00B8/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331383732&sr=1-5" 

Amazon DE:

http://www.amazon.de/Bitter-Harvest-ebook/dp/B0070Y00B8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331383805&sr=8-1" 

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bitter-harvest-kim-knox/1108374897?ean=9781426893445"

 

Kim Knox brews sex, magic, darkness and technology in a little corner of North  West England. She writes erotic science fiction and fantasy romance for  Carina Press, Ellora’s Cave, Samhain Publishing, Cleis Press and others.

 

http://www.kim-knox.co.uk/ 

http://twitter.com/kimknox

http://www.facebook.com/KimKnoxAuthor

Local Legends II

One of the neat things about Southern Maryland is that there are a lot of back country, winding beautiful roads that have very little traffic.  It’s what makes them creepy too, especially when you breakdown after midnight and have to hike a mile down a wooded road to find help.  Thankfully, I had friends to keep me company, of course they brought up every horror movie we’d ever seen while we were walking and the house that we lived in at the time was old, creaky and built next to an abandoned plantation, so none of got sleep any when we made it home.

It was on one of these many back roads that a friend first told me of the Legend of the Goat Man who supposedly haunts P.G. County, no more than twenty minutes from me.  The Goat Man is an axe-wielding, half-man, half-beast who attacks cars as they go through his territory.  Some claim that he was once a scientist at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center who experimented on goats until it all went bad.  Others claim that the scientist, Dr. Stephen Fletcher, created the creature by mixing the DNA of a goat with his assistant, who then escaped.  Another version is more harmless, where the Goat Man is actually an old hermit who wanders the back roads and lives in a cave nearby and runs away when people approach.

 There are several different locations in the area where the Goat Man is supposed to pop up.  Fletchertown Road is one place, another is the roads behind the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center.  (Lucky me, I went to college right next to there.)  Or near an old tuberculosis sanitarium near Governor’s Bridge which also has another legend connected to it, the Cry Baby Bridge.  Supposedly, if you stop there at night, you can hear the sound of a baby crying.  Apparently, the baby’s mother threw her child off the bridge when the baby’s father refused to acknowledge it and abandoned them.

 

As you can tell, I love ghost stories of all kinds.  I’ve recently submitted my own ghost story, Ghosts in the Wind, which has a few things in common with these local legends.  Like the Legend of the Blue Dog, my story involves the ghost of a murdered man and like the Legend of the Goat Man, my story has a hybrid creature.  There are Jackal Wraiths who feed off the spirits who linger in limbo and at one point, the murderer gets possessed by them.  There’s even the ghostly sounds of a crying baby.

Andrei Cuza and Dean Marshall just celebrated the ten year anniversary of their commitment ceremony only to have their happiness shattered. On his way home from closing a business deal, Dean stops on the side of the parkway to help a young mother with her flat tire when her ex catches up with her. Blake Olsen murders her and Dean and takes off with his two kids.

Andrei has been haunted by ghosts all of his life and bears the guilt for his younger sister Ileana being stuck in limbo. When Dean returns to him as a ghost the double-punch of losing him and now having to watch him founder if he doesn’t move on is almost more than Andrei can bear. Ghosts are stuck at the moment they died, unable to adapt to the changes in their living loved ones.

Dean has made a promise though, and until he helps Andrei track down the missing kids, he isn’t going anywhere. There are dangers in limbo that Andrei doesn’t know about, Jackal Wraiths that devour souls who succumb to their anger and they’re hunting Dean. And dangers to Andrei as well, who pays a price so he can have Dean’s touch one more time. Time is slowly running out as Dean and Andrei try to figure out how to say goodbye while they track down a killer who’d be more than happy to kill again.