FIRST TWO BOOKS OF THE FROM DARKNESS TRILOGY - AWAKENING & NET OF JEWELS - ON SALE ENDING NEW YEARS DAY at MIDNIGHT! SEE MY HOME PAGE FOR THE BUY BUTTONS.

ARTS & LEISURE
‘Vistas and Visions’ at the Stray Cat  Gallery

August 14, 2013 — BETHEL, NY — “Vistas and Visions,” a show featuring the work of Carl Scorza, Nancy Sadler, and Herb Janow, will open at the Stray Cat Gallery on Friday, August 16, with an opening reception on Saturday, August 17 from 4 to 7 p.m. The show runs through August 28.

Carl Scorza’s fascination with vistas became apparent as early as 1997, in a program he co-developed called “World Views,” in which he and other artists spent a year painting from the top of the World Trade Center, and has continued with an exploration of other dramatic panoramas.

Author Jacqueline Stigman wrote of Nancy Sadler’s haunted landscapes:
"Nancy Sadler’s paintings speak of an incandescent garden of earthly grandeur. Rusting, broken, burning, abandoned, fiery and majestic. Her searing contemporary vision is that of a Radioactive Luminist.” Read the essay at www.jacquelinestigman.com.

Herb Janow, who spent much of his life in private practice as a pediatrician, has found in artwork an outlet for expressing a whole different field of vision. Using dynamic brush strokes and palette knife application, he works in a spontaneous style of which he writes, “Painting has allowed me the freedom to express myself quickly and emotionally.”

Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, Saturday 10 to 7 p.m. and Sunday 10 to 6 p.m. Visit www.straycatgallery.com or call 845/423-8850.

I'm still approximately 2/3 thru the read thru for Book Three - RETURNNNNNNN! And as I said yesterday very excited! Those of my beta readers who have already read it will be in for a number of surprises and new twists and turns that I can't wait to share!! I should finish the read thru over the weekend, maybe a day more!
Then  I realized that I'd also made such changes in AWAKENING AND NET OF JEWELS from their earliest forms, that those who read them before pubbing will have some great surprises!
And then there are those discovering THE FROM DARKNESS Trilogy for the first time.! So there is excitement about AWAKENING & NET OF JEWELS too! Thank you for your emails!
So I better get back to the read thru! And just so you know I am also working on the eReader version for you!
And just so you know, Book Three RETURNNNNNNN while a complete book, later to be pubbed in one volume, is also a part of an ongoing series  and in 2014  THE TAROT-TAROT Trilogy will Begin!
All  Julie Norwood and Griffin Digger Books! 
Happy Holidays! 
Have a Merry& Safe Christmas & Very Happy New Year!
                                                                                          - Jacqueline!

I'm about 2/3 thru the read thru for Book Three - RETURNNNNNNN! And very excited! Those of my beta readers who have already read it will be in for a number of surprises and new twists and turns! Should finish the read thru over the weekend. 
Then send to my awesome interior book designer, Gail Cross in Arizona. She works like lightening so I know I'll be fine tuning next week and really close to being able to pub hopefully by New Years!

I read on a site for writers and readers recently - although sorry to say I'm not sure which one - that often when readers learn that an author has divided their book into three and call it a trilogy it is a ploy to make more money.
Three charges instead of one. 
I have published two books in paperback, available on Amazon - ebooks to come - and now working on the publication of the third book, and yes, FROM DARKNESS was written as one book. The reason I divided it into three was because it added up to over 800 pages or so. I thought it would be easier for my readers to carry and hold smaller books  to read on the way to work or even at home in a comfortable chair or couch or in bed.  Also some readers told me they preferred installments like a trilogy
So I did it for good motives. Now I think I was suffering from Big Book Guilt. Year before last at a conference for readers and writers I attend each year - ThrillerFest - I decided to take part in AgentFest sort of like speed dating where you could meet with any of the agents attending and see if they were interested and if you thought you would want to work with them.
I spoke with four agents. All said they were interested but demanded, and I mean DEMANDED,  that I cut the book down to a word count that would have amounted to about 300 pages. I liked three of them, two in particular, but one was rude in her tone of voice in her demand regarding cutting the book.
Of course publishing is a business and I know why they preferred representing shorter books. Those are easier to sell to a publishing house because they are taking a chance on an unknown author and have to consider cost of production, mainly paper I suppose.
As I've mentioned in an earlier post I did then create a shorter version but  sat back and realized I had cut the heart out of my book and everything that made it uniquely mine.
When I learned more about self publishing the more I read about it the more I liked the idea. My story would decide how long it would be. And readers have loved long books if they are ones that really engage them and that they enjoy.
I no longer am influenced by Big Book Guilt. Which doesn't mean that the author doesn't edit quite a bit. I know I did. My book was originally 1,245 pages long. Anne Rice's Witching Hour is over 1000 pages and I've read it several times. Just one example.
So, my book will be available as three books in paper and for eRaders but later I will publish it as one volume too. Some readers have already requested that and in hard bound. I'll do paper and explore hardbound when the time comes.
Actually two famous writers who attend ThrillerFest had suggested that I break the book into three. But at the time I couldn't imagine doing that. When I became open to the idea and explored where I would end each book I found I could do it easily.
So now you know why FROM DARKNESS is now in three books and will later on be available in one volume.  - Jacqueline

As many of you know I fell in late August, dislocated my shoulder and shattered part of one of the tuberosities (those bumps on the end of a bone) and am still recovering. That's my excuse.
I keep thinking Christmas is definitely close but a ways off when, well, you know, it's next week!
My seasonal clock is not in sinc with the world. I lost an entire season while in rehab: all of autumn (September, October, and first week of November).
All of which to say that I see that I will not be able to get Book Three - RETURNNNNNNN published by  Christmas. Instead I'm aiming for New Year's. Aiming for it. It's possible. Will also depend on whether my book's interior designer is available during the holidays, too. But I will really try. For one thing because I want to get Book Two - NET OF JEWELS and Book Three - RETURNNNNNN available for all eReader devices, which requires some doing.  Awakening will be ready for the eReaders soon, maybe a couple of weeks. And then - I want to get back to my next book! TAROT- TAROT!
                                                                                                                                                                                           - Jacqueline                                 

In Stephen King's book ON WRITING he shares along with lots of good stuff for writers the story of his being hit by a car or was it a van and his recovery. I should check but am in too much pain right now.

I was in a bad car accident when I was 21. I was sitting in a car in the passenger "death seat." Riding with a good driver  but we were hit by another car that was speeding toward us on a two lane highway just off the turnpike in Youngstown, Ohio. Passing through on our way from our Christmas in Chicago our hometown on our way back to New York City  and we didn't know that this stretch of road did not have a speed limit.  Thus the speeding car. Teens driving without insurance.

We were turning in front of them to reach a motel and their car was very far away. We just didn't know how fast they were going and that by the time we had turned broadside on the road about to enter the road to the motel their car hit us. My side of the car. Thank goodness it was a 4 door because their care drove halfway thru our car and bounced out 80 feet before stopping. They hit our car towards the back seat doors or I wouldn't be here writing this today.

When I came to, and back then there were seat belts that only reached across your lap,  it was like a centerfold from the New York Daily News.  My door was open, I was hanging by my seat belt out the door and the driver has made his way over to me although we both were bleeding internally. I remember feeling very cold and that I was dying.
A kind woman driver stopped and called a nearby hospital and also gathered up what was left of our Christmas presents.
I didn't feel any pain until the the ambulance came and they moved me. Then I knew. My back was in extreme pain. And back injuries were serious.

In a nut shell, the impact crushed one of my vertebrae and it took a year to recover. A long story not for now.
But after that I always thought nothing so terrible would happen to me again. I mean what are the odds? After a bout with cancer in 1996 I should have known better but optimistic me. Now I do know better. Something terrible can happen at any time and it scares the day lights out of me!

Because more recently, August 26, 2013. I experieinced what finally convinced me. And now makes me think of Stephen King a lot as I work on my books in pain with lack of adequate pain killers because of recent government Big Brother regulations.
This accident, far less dramatic, I simply? fell in my apartment and dislocated my right shoulder. Falling probably because of my weaker right ankle, the only holdover and relatively recent development from the earlier car accident. .

The pain from the dislocation blew any concept I ever had of pain completely out of the water. And I was home alone. And couldn't reach my phone. After realizing the ceiling was not going to open with golden clouds and a large helping hand, but that this situation was entirely in my court, I realized I would have to get to my front door to get help.

The position I was in after the fall and stayed in was left leg tucked under me, right leg straight out in front of me, my head on my knee - a position I never thought I could do! Inch by inch I moved to my front door about 15 feet away from where I fell. It took an hour.

Once I got there, luckily my arm was long enough to reach overhead and turn the locks and open the door a few inches.  Remember, my right leg was straight out in front of me so I had to turn around in my postage stamp size tenement foyer to reach up and yes! I reached the locks and opened the door and began calling for help. I know all my neighbors but no one was home at 9:30pm that night.

But thank God, it being a tenement, built about 1917, with open staircases, a neighbor on the floor below me was taking out the trash to the chute and heard me. I know him too and his family but if he hadn't been taking out the trash just then it would have taken God knows how long for me to get help. He called an ambulance that took me to the ER at the hospital nearest me.

Now 3.5 months after I am still in recovery. It seems the shoulder is one our most complex joints. I not only dislocated the shoulder but also shattered the top of my humorous, the long bone between the elbow and the shoulder.

Now Stephen King had and sorry but I'm not looking up the details now, just writing from memory of reading his book, seriously injured his pelvis. I remember reading that once he could get back to writing and that was a while he could only write for short periods of time - about a half hour bec of the pain while sitting.

I was much luckier. But after surgery and 5 days in hospital I spent 2 months living in a rehab.. My hand did not look like a hand. It looked like a grey balloon. Quite striking.  My forearm and upper arm swollen, the skin stretched tight and the muscles hard as wood. They had tensed at the time of injury and never relaxed on their own. But exercise helped with that.

Now I'm home, working my day job from home, and working each day on my books while in what the doctors call discomfort but we the injured call pain. It's hard but yes, getting better. Although my pharmacist tells me recovery will prob take all of six months. Therapists come four days a week to teach me exercises or torture me depending on your point of view.  But on my own with doctor's orders not to push, pull, or carry with my right arm it's a challenge.

Which is why, knowing that Stephen King was injured more seriously than I, he is my role model for getting to the computer and working each day regardless of how I feel.
                                                                                                                                                               Jacqueline  Stigman
                                                                                                                                                               12.16.13.
                                                                                                                                                                NYC
                                 

Over the weekend I did complete tweaking the file for the ePub file that will enable my book to be read as I wrote on nearly every device known to man, except maybe your toaster. or your new coffee maker! But you never know!  And in 53 countries! So exciting!

Hi, I am now waiting for the mobi file that will make my books available on Kindles.
Over the weekend I'm going to complete tweaking the file for the ePub file that will enable my book to be read -  I believe - on nearly every device known to man, except maybe your toaster. But you never know!
The tweaked file will prob go back and forth between me and the person who is converting the file. But as soon as I get both  in what I hope is perfect shape I will be uploading to SMASHWORDS. They have a process of functional tech approval for the files to go thru.
And then, FROM DARKNESS - Book One - Awakening will be available on about 12 or more devices!
SMASHWORDS is a publisher and distributor, and its Founder, Mark Coker, is in my opinion the Max Perkins for Indie Authors.
Authors R.A. Konrath and Mark Coker provided the info on the net for me to make the decision to self publish and I have never looked back. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the way for me.
Authors will find his very generous videos and R.A. Konrath's Blog invaluable. 
Coker speaks clearly and succinctly so is good to listen to, and makes the business side of Indie publishing finally understandable for people like me, for whom business info has always seemed hard to grasp.
Konrath made it clear to me that I wanted to publish my books.
So check back! I'll let you know as soon as From Darkness - Book One - Awakening is ready for eReaders!  - Jacqueline