New Year’s is just around the corner, and like many, I couldn’t help but reflect on the year gone by. As I do so, I realize it hasn’t been that great of a year. Personally, it was a stressful year as we were building a house on top of all our other work. Anyone that has built a house knows the stress involved. I chuckled when a friend of my asked whether my husband and I were still together during the nerve-wracking ordeal. We lost six people very dear to us; God rest their souls. With our teenage son, there were a few grey-hair moments that we would have preferred not to experience. And even with my writing, I had missed a number of great opportunities that literally put me into tears.

 

 

The more I thought about all the things that were terrible about 2012, the more depressed I got. To get out of that depressive mode, I began to make a list of all the good things that happened, or things I learned from the things that did not go well, making me a better person.

 

 
• All the effort, time, and money that we put into our new house, produced a beautiful dream-home for us, and the stress our relationship as husband and wife endured made us closer as a couple.
• There is nothing nice about losing a loved one, but we cannot stop the circle of life. We have our cherished memories that enrich our lives, and  others are expecting new bundles of joy to help fill the gaps.
• Through the trying ordeal, that we endured with our son, in the end, it worked out and made our relationship with him stronger and better, something that could have easily taken a turn for the worse, causing us to lose him.
• As for my writing, my husband said, “Don’t cry over spilt milk.” And he is correct; there will be many more opportunities that come along. The time was obviously not right for me, and it gave me the opportunity to be better prepared to find those opportunities and be ready for them when they come my way.
• In the greater scheme of things, my problems seem miniscule and unimportant when I compare them to some of the catastrophic events that have taken place across the globe in 2012, shedding a new light on what I should be focusing on.

Trials and tribulations will always come along; it is, after all, a part of life. I guess what is important is not to dwell on hardships, but to learn from them, being better prepared for them, and maybe even avoiding some from happening with the wisdom that has been gained.

I look at the coming year of 2013 as being a new opportunity, allowing me to clear the slate and start a new year with optimism and hope. I need to remind myself that ‘viewing life as the glass half-full’ makes it a far better ride.

I wish all of you a happy and healthy New Year! May all your dreams and wishes come true in 2013.

Regards!
Alandra CL

I love to hear from you, so email me at acl@alandracl.com

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Prequel to “The Thoughtmover Series”

He raced as fast as his legs carried him, down the steep mountain path, winding through the tight underbrush, and hurling himself over the golden-stoned boulders. Leaves and branches smacked against his face and limbs, but he ignored the stings. Magtor had discovered that the war had begun, and his family was in imminent danger. As king of Neval, he and his family were on top of the Tarconian army’s list of who to hunt, brutally torture, and then kill.

He jumped more rocks in his path and swung around the larger trees. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled down his back, soaking his shirt.

“Almost there!” he consoled himself, praying that he reached them on time.

Their hut sat near a tributary of the Talon River, at the base of the Cardell Mountains. Unable to transfer his thoughts in the valley below due to the dense stone, he had journeyed to the top of one of the highest snow-capped peaks to a small temple that rested there, to discover the latest news of the predicted attack.

During his communications, Lord Dalton, the neighboring King of Edoma, had informed him about the uprising of the Tarconian army and their pursuit to re-instate slavery amongst the people.

Magtor cringed, knowing the long dreaded Mover’s war had begun. And the Tarconian army was rounding up all the royal Movers of each country to either convert or kill them. And he, as one of the most powerful Movers who held a world-altering Arcanum that they coveted, was their most sought after target.

He ran faster. Cramps pained his thighs and his heart pounded heavily, aching, but he urged his body onward.

How often he had wished not to be privy to the unorthodox knowledge explaining the horrid reason for the Mover’s creation. The Arcanum was an unbearable weight that added to his already heavy burden as king and one that gave him doubts about his own beliefs and values.

Although Magtor had received Dalton’s horrific news during the nightspan, he had immediately fled the small temple, sprinting down the mountainside since then, to reach his family before the soldiers arrived at dawn. With the sunspan having now awoken, it left him little time to reach the hut and escape with his family before the army’s arrival.

Magtor glimpsed the hut in the distance and dragged in a breath of heartfelt relief when he sensed no Tarconians in the area. Dalton had encouraged him to flee directly to the Golden Cave, to find refuge, without losing valuable time to retrieve his family. For Magtor, that was not an option. He could not live with himself if he did not try to save his mate and two boys.

Sprinting the last stretch down the base of the mountain, he finally spotted his two sons, chopping wood at the side of the hut, and his wife, Onella, picking thorn berries along the wooden fence surrounding the garden. As Magtor neared, he shouted as loud as his aching lungs permitted, “They’re coming! We must flee!”

 NOVELETTE SOON TO BE RELEASED!

    This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual people, events, or places is entirely coincidental.  

The Masters’ Arcanum Copyright © 2012 by Alandra CL  

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce the book, or portions thereof. It is forbidden to sell or use this book in anyway for the purpose of monetary gain. Plagiarism of this book or any part thereof is prohibited.

 

 

Not too long ago, I finished a prequel to my Thoughtmover Series. Writing a story of my characters’ younger lives showed me new sides to their personalities and gave me a deeper understanding of why they behave the way they do.
Life experiences don’t necessarily change a personality, but it will move people into directions they may otherwise not take.
I have gained a greater affinity toward my characters through this process, allowing me to tell their stories better.

“It isn’t the things that happen to us in our lives that cause us to suffer, it’s how we relate to the things that happen to us that causes us to suffer. ” – Pema Chodron

Regards!
Alandra CL

I love to hear from you, so email me at acl@alandracl.com

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Jamie rushed up to his best friend, excited about the prospect of making the football team at school. Tryouts were the next day, and he had signed up.
“Hey, Sam! Guess what? I’m trying out for the football team this year.” He was hopeful, having trained all summer to be in shape.

 

“You’re joking, right?” Sam asked, shaking his head. “There’s no way, with your size, that they’ll pick you. Have you seen the size of the guys they choose?”

That was not what Jamie wanted to hear. He’d had such high hopes on making the team after training so hard. Doubt wedged its way into his thoughts.
He had grown several inches in the last year to reach five-foot-five, and his scrawny physique had filled out considerably with all the weight lifting he had done. But Sam was right, he was short compared to the five-ten-plus players that usually made the cut. Would talent be enough? Maybe at his height, it wasn’t enough to get him on the team. Maybe he should wait or pick another sport. If only he loved another sport as much as he loved football.

 

 

How often has someone said to you, “That’s impossible!” or “You can’t do that,” instilling doubt of success in your mind, perhaps even causing you to give up.
These statements are anything but uplifting and often hold us back from experiencing our true potential. Physically or mentally, we can all be so much more if we stop putting limits on ourselves.

Here are individuals who succeeded despite the odds against them:

Michael Jordan had been cut from his varsity basketball team during his sophomore year. At 5’11”, he was considered too short back then. He went on to become a legend in the sport.

Thomas Edison, the American inventor of the light bulb, was told by his teacher that he was too stupid to learn anything. He had in his lifetime 1,000 U.S patents to his name.

Ludwig Van Beethoven was deemed hopeless and told by his first music teacher that he would never succeed as a composer. He became one of the greatest composers.

J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter Series, had her first book rejected by numerous publishers. She became the first billionaire author.

 

One of the things I do besides writing my novels is writing magazine articles. Although not all topics are extraordinary, I do get opportunities to write about fascinating people with unbelievable feats. One such person is Chad Netherland, 10-time Guinness World Record holder in strength. Two years ago, I wrote an article about him for the Inside Kung Fu magazine (See article below). Then already, I thought his feats were miraculous- unbelievable even. Since that time, he has gone on to break his records and set many new ones. This type of dedication to success is commendable. If people used his level of dedication to achieve their goals, the sky would be reachable.

 

 

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another. - Napoleon Hill

 

Click on pages to enlarge print.

 

Regards!
Alandra CL

I love to hear from you, so email me at acl@alandracl.com

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When Melody stepped out the door that morning on her way to work, she gasped with surprise, when she saw a fallen tree trunk lying straight across the end of her driveway. The windstorm must have knocked it down during the night. A sigh of resignation followed, realizing the trunk was blocking her exit.

How was she to get to work on time? And, she still had to drop her son off at daycare. As a single mom, she couldn’t afford to miss more work. As is, she often needed to ask for extra time off when her five year old son, Billy had emergencies.

“Mommy, what happened?” Billy shouted as he scooted out beside her, noticing the tree lying there. He rushed up to it with his backpack bouncing on his back. “Cool!” He hopped on top of the trunk and walked across with his arms spread out as if he were on a balance beam.

“Cool” is not the word that came to Melody’s mind. The word that she was thinking of was not appropriate to utter in front of her six year old. She walked up to the long trunk dejectedly. Who did one call to remove a fallen tree? And how long would it take?

Melody tossed her purse and keys onto the grass and then bent down to try and lift it. Although the trunk was not too large, the many branches made it heavier than it looked. The stump didn’t budge. “Great!” she replied sarcastically.

Just as she scooped up her purse to fetch her cellphone, Mike, her neighbor from across the street, stopped as he was jogging by.

“Hey, do you need help?” he asked, trotting up her driveway, surveying the problem.

“I’m not sure we can lift it,” she admitted.

Mike bent down to grab the trunk. He raised it slightly, but it was obviously too heavy for one man to carry away.

Melody realized, she’d have to call her boss after all and talk her way out of another late arrival.

“Wait with calling someone.” Mike signaled over. “I’ll get Greg, Bob, and Michael from up the street to come down here. I think they’re all still at home.”

Melody didn’t know what to say. She’d always been friendly with her neighbors, waved at them, brought flying garbage bins back to their doorstep and even shoveled snow from their sidewalk when she was doing her own, but she never had time to chat or socialize with any of them. As a single mom, she never had time. She felt guilty for putting them all out of their way, but before she could utter a word of refusal, Mike had already left. The only one that seemed happy about the fallen trunk was Billy who was busy jumping on and off it.

Melody couldn’t believe that within fifteen minutes, the tree trunk had been moved off to the side of her driveway by four of her neighbors. One of them even offered to remove the trunk later at no cost because he wanted firewood.

 

 

 

Now that is teamwork.

 

Just recently, through a social-network discussion group, a large group of us helped each other out. It was amazing how in a short time, through teamwork so much had been accomplished. It’s at times like these that you experience the power that comes together through group effort, and then you feel like anything is possible.

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” – Henry Ford

 

Regards!
Alandra CL

I love to hear from you, so email me at acl@alandracl.com

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“Peter!” his wife called out from the kitchen. “Can you return this dish-set to the china store for me? Today is the last day it can be returned for a credit.”

Peter grumbled, not interested in the slightest to leave while his hockey game was on TV. “Does it have to be done now?”

“Yes,” his wife insisted. “The store is only open for another hour.”

“All right,” he said, grudgingly rising up from his comfortable chair. “Where is this place?”

She strode over to the doorway to face him. “You go to the end of the road, make a right. Then drive about five kilometers until you see the new town houses on the right side, make a left there. Then drive until you see the big bank on the left and a small pizzeria on the right. There, you make another left and then you take an immediate right. Go another block until you come to a white church, turn left and then just before you hit the four-way stop sign, it’s the red brick building on the left that says Traditional China.”

Peter furrowed his brow with utter confusion. “Never mind, I’ll put it into the navigation system.”

 

If you make things complicated, you run the risk of  being misunderstood. 

A writer’s blog that I follow talked about writing practices that worked for highly successful authors (Writing Secrets of Prolific Authors By David Masters - http://writetodone.com/2012/01/23/writing-secrets-of-prolific-authors/), and I realized how valid and true these suggested practices are.
David states in his blog that one practice of Isaac Asimov was to write clear and simple. How often have I heard that writing should be invisible and should flow and be uncomplicated?

Isaac Asimov (500 books)quoted, “I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing—to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer prize. I would write merely clearly and in this way establish a warm relationship between myself and my readers, and the professional critics—well, they can do whatever they wish.” -

Isaac made a good point; simple and clear writing probably won’t get you a Pulitzer prize but what it does do is make reading easy and enjoyable for your readers. And that is who we are writing for, our readers. Especially today, when lifestyles move faster than the wind, most people want things quick and easy.  I think all of us writers like to show off now and then, but in writing, it is something no writer can afford to do. Writing should be invisible. Invisible means that readers don’t notice the words they are reading but grasp only the idea the words relay.

Invisible writing is simple writing.

 

As I comb through my writing, I look for areas that have too much complex wordage, areas where I can say things in a simpler way that makes it effortless for the reader to comprehend.
As usual, editing my own work is a difficult task. I don’t always see my mistakes. To try to catch areas of my writing that are overdone, I go through the following steps:

 

• Remove ‘big’ words and replace them with simple ones – Try to remove unusual or uncommon words. If an unusual or uncommon word is used than limit one of those per sentence.
• Write for your audience – Write sentences so that whoever is reading it, they will understand it. I gear my writing to approximately a grade nine reading level to ensure almost every one’s understanding.
• Clarify unfamiliar words – In fiction writing, especially in fantasy, where some words are ‘made up’, the reader needs to know what those words mean – no dictionary will tell them. Through dialogue or added information, explain the meaning to the reader. Specialized terminology or abstruse words, I think are often better replaced.

By taking away complex wordage, it makes the writing more understandable and enhances the story.

 

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo DaVinci

 

 

 

 

Regards!
Alandra CL

I love to hear from you, so email me at acl@alandracl.com

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