|
Adrik
waited in the guard’s room a couple of corridors along from Kornfeld’s
cell. There was only one way out, so the Jew had to pass this room. He
spun a Makarov on his finger, aimed at imaginary targets and thrilled at
the thought of using it. The gun was standard issue, but he would’ve
chosen it anyway. Totally reliable, pull the trigger and out pop the
bullets. The blowback design expels the spent case to the right and
loads the next cartridge into the chamber – easy. And fully armed with
eight rounds, he would use them all.
This
wouldn’t be his first killing and sure as hell wouldn’t be his last.
Kornfeld was a pain, and it was Otto who mattered. He would do anything
for him. Why should he care about some Jew who got in the way?
But
time dragged, and Kornfeld hadn’t yet made a show. For one horrible
minute he thought there might be another way out – but no, that isn’t
even possible. Calm down, be patient… Try as he might, he couldn’t, and
the idea ran around his head, irritating him beyond measure.
He
left the guardroom and paced the corridor outside. At first a short
distance and then a bit further into the next passageway. No good – he
had to find out what had happened. With gun in hand and footsteps
stealthy he reached the cell door – it was slightly open. Oh shit, did
that mean there was another way out? Or maybe Kornfeld had gone deeper
into the prison block. Or maybe he was in the cell hoping the element of
surprise would be with him.
Possibilities
ganged up. Kornfeld knew Lubyanka well. What if there was another way
out and that little bastard knew it? If so, Otto would kill him, never
mind the Jew. He kicked the door fully open, slammed it against the cell
wall, stood back and then moved in, pointing the gun around to make
sure Kornfeld wasn’t hidden on either side of the opening. The cell was
dimly lit and he found it difficult to see. He would stay put until his
eyes got accustomed to the light. A body, he saw a body. It was covered
with a greatcoat, on the bunk facing the wall.
He
was clearly supposed to think it was Kornfeld. In that case he’d be
under the bunk waiting… But then that’s obvious too, so he might be on
top with the guard pushed underneath. That made more sense – it would be
easier for him to make an attack from on top – but, shit, wouldn’t that
be what he wanted him to think?
To
be sure of the kill, Adrik wanted to shoot above and below – but he
couldn’t. How would he explain the soldier’s death? Oh, Otto, if only
Otto was there to tell him what to do. But he wasn’t, he had to make up
his own mind. The Jew was on top – yes, definitely on top.
Cautiously,
he edged forward, pointed the pistol to the back of the person’s head
and pulled the body towards him with gun steady and ready to fire. As
quickly as his huge form allowed, he pulled the greatcoat away.
Fuck!
The guard! No time to react. A leg came from under the bunk with
incredible speed and wrapped around the back of his. At the same time,
the Jew’s other foot came against his knees and pushed. Adrik had
brought his legs together when he tore the coat away and Kornfeld used
the imbalance to his advantage. Adrik’s arms went out. He hovered
awkwardly, then almost regained control, but Kornfeld pushed harder and
Adrik went flying backwards with his legs in the air. A sense of
suspension ended and he fell heavily, striking the hard stone floor. His
head bounced, shudders chased through his brain and he found himself
staring at the ceiling, wavering between conscious and unconscious.
The
pain pierced his skull and he noticed his head had rested in a pool of
warm liquid. He hadn’t seen that when he came in. Numbness consumed his
body; he couldn’t move. But then his blurred vision saw the bleary
outline of the Jew. Awareness came that his body was being rolled over.
He was paralyzed, but it didn’t stop the surge of fear that ran through
every fibre of his being.
Set
against the backdrop of Soviet, post-war Russia, Birth of an Assassin
follows the transformation of Jez Kornfeld from wide-eyed recruit to
avenging outlaw. Amidst a murky underworld of flesh-trafficking,
prostitution and institutionalized corruption, the elite Jewish soldier
is thrown into a world where nothing is what it seems, nobody can be
trusted, and everything can be violently torn from him.
Genre - Thriller, Crime, Suspense
Rating – R
A
blank screen morphs into a visual version of white noise. You begin to
hear your heartbeat thumping, wondering if it will match the cadence of
the blinking cursor. Before you know it, thirty minutes have drifted by,
then an hour. You awake from your mental stupor and ponder how you can
ever re-capture time wasted, your mind grasping for a coherent thought.
Not just any coherent thought, but the next great sentence of the
greatest novel in the twenty first century.
We’ve all been there. So, how do you cope with it?
Writer’s
block. Okay, I said it. The elephant in the room. Honestly, I rarely
use the term. Because I just don’t give in to suffering from it. Ever.
Why?
For the most part—this is my own personal way of addressing life’s ups
and downs—I think it’s more of a crutch. If I allowed myself to go
there, I could find many excuses to not write. We’re not robots or a
manufacturing plant. We’re eating, breathing, mind-straying humans, who,
at times, can lose our focus, or our groove. That’s okay. Don’t beat
yourself up. Don’t pound your fist in frustration, or dig a trench in
the floor from pacing yourself to death. It’s counter-productive.
For
starters, I’m a believer that we’re all as unique as snowflakes. Many
of us are writers in some form or fashion, while a few of us create in
other ways, music, painting, sculpture. But we’re all going to respond
to bumps in our journey to share our creative endeavors in different
manners.
Back
in the day, I cranked out story after story as a newspaper reporter. At
times, I’d have no more than thirty minutes to whip out a twenty-inch
story. Early on in my journalism career, I’d let the pressure get to me.
Finally, in an attempt to free myself from the mental torture and
inevitable stress, I thought through the deadline scenario while I was
jogging one day. There was a correlation, I could see, to my running
workouts. If I was tense, my breath was shortened, I’d have a miserable
run, my time would suck and I simply wasn’t going to get better.
I
learned to prepare myself for those deadline stories. I quickly
understood that you perform your best when your mind is calm, free of
clutter, and your body relaxed. Focused, yes, tense, not so much.
I
realized I didn’t want to be my own worst enemy. Countless other things
in life either purposely or coincidentally create hurdles for us to
overcome. I was determined—and still am—to not let my mental psyche be
on the enemy side of the ledger. In other words, I want my stride over
the hurdle to be as smooth as I can make it. And I will make it. Every
time.
Expressing
your creative self is one of life’s greatest gifts. You deserve an
honest, but encouraging signal from within your own mind. Be real, be
productive. Be true to yourself. But if you have a brief period of time
when you’re not feeling the mojo, don’t sweat it. Let confidence flow
through your bloodstream, cut yourself a break and come back to it
refreshed and ready to establish yourself as the greatest author of this
decade. Just don’t blame…you know, it.
Behind
the façade of every corporate takeover executives pull levers this way
and that, squeezing the last profitable nickel out of the deal. But no
one knows the true intent of every so-called merger.
No one knows the secret bonds that exist.
An Indian technology giant swallows
up another private company that has deep roots in North Texas. For one
unassuming man the thought of layoffs, of losing his own job to a bunch
of arrogant assholes feels like a kick to the jewels.
Until the day Michael’s life changes forever.
Perverse alliances. An affair of the
heart. A grisly murder. A spiraling string of events thrusts Michael
into a life-or-death fight to save a tortured soul and hunt down a
brutal killer…one who lurks closer than he ever imagined.
Greed knows no boundaries.
Genre – Suspense, Thriller
Rating – R
a Rafflecopter giveaway
If
you’ve read my author bio somewhere on the Web, you know that I live on
a mountain ranch in Colorado and have a rather spirited Golden
Retriever named Shelby. She follows me everywhere and wouldn’t give me a
moment of solitude if I didn’t periodically assert my rights to be an
independent being and do things like going to bathroom by myself. But I
also have a wife who enjoys kanoodling with me from time to time, and it
isn’t very romantic if a Golden Retriever is simultaneously licking
your face. Fortunately, the young lady has her own, comfy bed on the
floor. That would be the dog, by the way, not my wife.
As
a writer, I clearly spend a lot of time at my desk, and Shelby is
always nearby. She spends most of her time in the media room adjacent to
my study staring out the French doors, monitoring our property for the
multitudes of deer who frequently chow down on our landscaping. If I
hear Shelby whining or barking in there, I know exactly what’s going on,
and I’ll jump from my desk to let her out so she can chase them away.
When she returns, she usually opens the door to let herself in and trots
into the study looking like she had just saved the world from a nuclear
holocaust.
You
would think, since pushing down the door lever is a piece of cake for
her, she’d also let herself OUT, but she doesn’t quite have the knack of
pulling the door open yet. It’s so much easier to push from the
outside. Then I have to get up and close the door again.
But
Shelby’s favorite little caper is to come into the study periodically
throughout the day and stare at me with a very clear message in her
eyes: “Dad, I don’t know what you’re doing in here, but it’s quite
boring, and I need you to stop it. Let’s go outside and do something far
more entertaining like barking at things that don’t exist.”
These
visits happen more frequently as the day goes on since we’re getting
closer and closer to “quitting time” (or at least dinner time if I plan
to return to work afterwards). Usually, after I spin around in my chair
and see her staring me down, I’ll call her over and spend a couple of
minutes giving her vigorous petties. That will pacify her for some
indefinite period of time, after which she comes back for an encore
performance, clearly hoping I’ll listen to reason this time.
I’m
not saying we don’t take occasional breaks during the day to play, take
a hike, exercise, or go for a ride in the car. We do all that. But I
still adhere to a regimented work day, which means no less than 8 hours
(and often 10 or more) at my desk, and that’s a lot of sedentary time
for a dog to endure. Sometimes she’ll goof around outside without me for
a while, especially if chipmunks or other nefarious creatures are in
need of chasing around. But in no time she’s back at the study, and I
need to get up and close the door, hopefully before those dastardly
chipmunks scurry inside.
Oh,
if you’re wondering why I harbor such contempt for chipmunks, just
check out my author blog at GoodReads.com and read about our
cutting-edge chipmunk relocation program. Then you’ll understand.
So
it’s safe to say that Shelby has no understanding of why I fiddle with a
four-screen computer workstation all day (I trade stocks, too), and I’m
sure she thinks we’d both be better off if I did something else for a
living. But my former career was in structured finance, which often
entailed 60 to 80-hour work weeks with barely enough time outside the
office to eat and sleep. If I went back THAT life, she would hardly ever
get to see me, and I doubt that’s what she has in mind.
Sometimes puppy dogs just don’t think things through.
"James Bond Meets Fifty Shades of Grey"
Immerse yourself in the world class novels that combine action,
mystery & suspense with tantalizing and tastefully written erotica.
You’ll find all your sensibilities roused at once with Kevin Sterling’s
ultra-sexy, action-packed Jack Lazar Series.
In
this fourth action-packed thriller, Jack travels to Denmark for a
business venture, but what seems to be a textbook transaction turns into
a nightmare after he gets involved with Katarina, a vivacious Danish
girl who apparently lacks a moral compass, not to mention an off button.
After naively believing their liaison was just a random encounter, Jack
discovers she’s connected to his business deal, and there’s a dangerous
political group with skin in the game, too.
Katarina makes a convincing case of being a victim, not part of the conspiracy, but can Jack really trust her?
The
firestorm gets out of control as Jack digs deeper, unearths the
convoluted plot behind it all, and discovers that innocent people are
being heartlessly killed. He’s not only horrified by the reason why it’s
happening, but how it’s being done, and there appears to be no way to
stop it from occurring again.
Then
the scheme’s real objective emerges, launching Jack into action with
intelligence operatives to prevent it. But that’s not so easy with
assassins on Jack’s tail, forcing him to struggle for survival while
trying to prevent Katarina from getting caught in the crossfire.
Genre – Action, Mystery, Suspense
Rating – R
My mind is like my office, cluttered with creativity. On one wall are two sets of book shelves sweeping the ceiling. A few of the shelves are filled with papers scribbled with writing for various books that will one day be written. There is one shelf reserved for notebooks where each notebook contains notes or writing for a particular book. I have piles of notes on the table next to me. These piles are for my current book I’m working on and for my next book.
I believe the mind has more than one subconscious. My theory is that the brain has a layer of them and I have a subconscious for each book I plan to write or have partially written. For me, writer’s block doesn’t exist. If I get stuck, I simply forget about it, knowing that the next morning, the writing will be there. My subconscious has written it while I was sleeping.
There are two times my mind likes to write. One, of course, is when I’m sitting in front of the computer deliberately writing but never forcing the words. The second time is, sometimes, when I’m relaxed. I’ll be at my Zumba class exercising and suddenly my subconscious will start writing. Dialogue or narration comes spilling out. Sentences, paragraphs, or plot will disappear if not put on paper as soon as possible. My mind only comes up with it once and then moves onto another part of the book.
When I go out to eat, I often have to write on napkins because my mind decides to become creative in the middle of a chicken salad sandwich.
I have piles of scribbling. I try to get organized and write in a notebook. I’ve got two notebooks laying around with writing for my current book. I have ten notebooks dedicated to future books with scribbling that came out as fully-written prose.
When I begin a new book, I go through the scribbling to find what’s already been written. Sometimes it’s dialogue or prose, or plot, or character development, or a sketchy outline of the story. Often it’s the ending of the book or the beginning.
My brain, also, likes to write when I’m driving. I’ve had to pull into parking lots to scribble on pads of paper. This doesn’t happen often any more since I no longer have to commute to a job but write full time. I once tried a tape recorder, but a different part of the brain does speech. As soon as I open my mouth, the writing vanishes from my subconscious, and I can’t remember a word or what it was even about. But if I write with my subconscious, the words flow.
When I’m trying to go to sleep, my mind will start writing occasionally. I have to keep getting up and scribbling on the notebook I keep on my nightstand. I sometimes finally tell my brain to shut up so I can sleep.
If I’m beginning a new book, my brain will go nuts and the words and voices spill out like a fountain.
The last thing Miranda ever expected was to see her brother’s ghost at the fallen Twin Towers.
It’s bad enough survivor Christopher Michaels scares her with claims that if one dies violently, his ghost will haunt the place that holds his name. And to top it all, one of those thousands of ghosts follows Miranda to her hotel. The only certainty is the ghost grabbing her under the covers is not Jake.
Their parents’ deaths separated Miranda from Jake when they were kids. Michaels insists Jake brought them together and it’s no coincidence that of thousands mourning at Ground Zero, it’s his best friend she bumps into. Some best friend. Michaels is more like a moocher. The cheapskate never has money, just a blood-stained wallet he broods over. Miranda has no choice but to hang out with the weird Michaels in order to unravel her brother’s past.
As Miranda spends time with Michaels, she begins to wonder who he really is. Against her better judgment, Miranda becomes emotionally entangled with Michaels, a bitter alcoholic with a secret linked to her brother and that blood-stained wallet.
I Will Always Love You is part mystery, suspense and romance, a novel that will keep the reader turning the pages!
Genre – Suspense, Mystery, Romance
Rating – PG
Can you tell me about yourself: where you’re from, where you grew up, and what you have done with your life?
I grew up in the slum-lands of 50’s North East England and left school at 15 years of age without any form of qualification. From school I went to work in the local shipyards on the River Tyne. At 19, I went into the merchant navy, drifted, or bobbed, through life until it became pointless, gave it up in favor of working in a quarry in Essex. When I married, I realized my life was plodding along without horizons; it looked bleak. I started studying. After completing O and A levels, I began a degree course and obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and computing. The qualification got me a job in the Ford Motor Co. IT dept where I became a project business analyst. I took an early retirement at 50 and that was when I began writing seriously.
How did the idea of the book come to you?
I have relations who lived in ‘The Pale’ (a barren place where the Jewish population was forced to live – think Fiddler on the Roof). They escaped the czarist pogroms in the late 19th century. Some came to England, others to the US and Canada.
Because of them, I looked into Jewish history in Russia and was shocked to learn of the suffering there. But it gave me an idea for a story. However, 19th century Russia didn’t fit. I trawled through Russian/Soviet history until I came to the post-war period. The setting was perfect for me, but I had to take away the protagonist’s Jewish religion. First, to fit in with his military ambitions and also to demonstrate that it isn’t only about religious belief – prejudice is prejudice.
What made you want to become an author?
Being an avid reader, I’ve always had an aggravating yearning to write something serious, I wanted to replicate, or do better, than what I was reading. Of course, when you start, you don’t do it right, but I’m the type of person that can’t leave a thing alone until I feel I have a handle on it. I’m not sure if I intended to write a full length novel, but the learning process became all consuming and here I am.
Is this the only book you’ve written? Do you have others planned?
Birth of an Assassin is a debut novel and is the first in a series. The second episode is complete, but needs a final sweep to smooth it. I’ve also written the third in the cycle, but that needs at least one more draft. The time period of the second book runs in parallel with Birth of an Assassin; this time the setting is in Turkey. As for the third novel, it pulls the previous two together to create a single unit.
What made you want to write about human trafficking, prostitution and organized corruption in Russia?
It was because of one of the episodes I’d learned about early in my research. A child was reported kidnapped, and later found murdered. The czarist state pointed the finger at the Jewish population. Why? To avert a growing hatred from ordinary workers against the fat cats who exploited them. And the state succeeded; pogroms began, culminating in1903at a place called Kishinev. Later, it came to light that the child’s family had been guilty of the murder, but by then the state had achieved its objective: diffusing the worker’s anger. I moved this story to a place in history that fit, the post-war period, but I needed an analogy for the child’s death. That my protagonist was framed for human trafficking and murder because of corruption within the state seemed the perfect conduit.
You enjoyed writing the book, but were there times you found it difficult or harrowing
Yes, of course. My research travelled from 1900 to 1960 and took in too much of the inhumanity practiced between human beings during that time. To feel it as you read it is distressing, whatever color, creed or religion of the people involved.
How important do you think education was for your writing and is it ever too late to learn
I studied the sciences, but it expanded my mind enough that I could embrace other disciplines, so I can’t emphasize how important education is. I think I’m a good example of how it’s never too late to learn, as I was in my early thirties before beginning my degree. I got a reasonable career out of it and now spend more hours writing than I ever did working in harness – and I love it. What more can I say?
Is there any special reason you chose a Jewish protagonist
In the main because of the respect I have for my wife’s family.
Can you give any advice to aspiring writers?
Each time you fall, and you will, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again. In other words keep on keeping on.
What books did you enjoy growing up with?
Huckleberry Finn, don’t ask why, but in my mind’s eye I always saw myself in his shoes and my best friend as Tom Sawyer; he was Tom because his family had more money than mine.
Who is your favorite author?
Too many to say, but I do get particularly absorbed reading John Connolly.
What book should everybody read at least once?
Reading is subjective, so one book can’t appeal to all. All I can say is that if a book lives on in your mind, there will come a time that it will be worth reading again.
Set against the backdrop of Soviet, post-war Russia, Birth of an Assassin follows the transformation of Jez Kornfeld from wide-eyed recruit to avenging outlaw. Amidst a murky underworld of flesh-trafficking, prostitution and institutionalized corruption, the elite Jewish soldier is thrown into a world where nothing is what it seems, nobody can be trusted, and everything can be violently torn from him.
Genre - Thriller, Crime, Suspense
Rating – R
Writer’s block is something every writer experiences, especially those who create fiction. It’s like hitting a roadblock in the middle of a story with no clue as to which way it should go, the frustration building and building as we rattle our brain for the answers. And if there’s an impending deadline involved, we feel like throwing in the towel, shamefully admitting our failure to responsibly meet the reasonable due dates we were given.
The mistake most of us make is relentlessly pushing ourselves to keep going, which just makes the situation worse. What we need to do is step back, realign our thinking, and move forward anew.
How does one do that? Here are a few suggestions.
- Breathing. I’m not just talking about taking a few deep breaths, although that never hurts. I’m suggesting we follow the advice of Andrew Weil, MD, who tells us that we transform our mind and body into optimum functionality when our breathing is deeper, slower, quieter, and more regular. The goal is to make this a lifelong practice and transform our breathing whenever it crosses our mind, like when we’re driving, standing in line, watching TV, waiting for an appointment, etc. The idea is, if we do it often enough, our bodies will eventually start functioning that way automatically. But to get us past this CURRENT mind fog, we need to treat it more like meditation. So we close our eyes, focus entirely on our breath, and slowly count to five with each deep breath in and out, keeping the pace regular and soft. If our thoughts get distracted from our breath, we gently bring them back. Do this for 10 to 15 minutes straight, and you’ll be in a completely different frame of mind.
- Questions and Answers. The nature of writer’s block is a disconnection from our story and characters, right? So let’s open up the lines of communication and get it back by whipping out a legal pad and hand-writing questions and answers about what’s stumping us (no computers for this exercise). If it’s a plot issue, write something about “how could this incident have happened despite these conditions?” If you’re having trouble with a character, start a conversation. Ask them why they’re so mad, or can’t figure out what to do, or don’t want to follow your storyline. I find that my characters bloom into their own, real personalities, and sometimes they have to do what’s right for them, whether I like it or not. So it’s important for me to take steps to understand them better, and sometimes I have to adjust my story accordingly.
- Images. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a half dozen should easily get us through a chapter or two, wouldn’t you think? Before I start each book, I find a picture of someone who personifies each main character, and sometimes it really helps to pull them up on one of my screens and stare at or talk to them when I’m looking for answers. The same is true for settings. If a scene is going on in Paris, and I don’t know where it’s headed, I’ll pull up some images of Paris and see what they inspire. If you need more stimulation, try a little video that resembles where you are in your book. For example, if I’m having trouble writing a car chase, I might put on that scene in “The Rock” where Sean Connery steals the German guy’s Humvee, and Nicolas Cage chases him all over San Francisco in a Ferrari. If that doesn’t get me going, I don’t know what will.
- Theme Music. Do you know why Hollywood pays so much money to composers to score the perfect background music for a motion picture? Because it evokes emotion and immerses us in the moment. So, if we hop onto iTunes and buy the soundtrack for a movie that has similarities to our book, it simply has to get us in the right mood. Let’s use the example of “The Rock” again. Since I write action/mystery/suspense novels, that soundtrack can really get me going.
- Distraction. Everyone knows it’s occasionally necessary to take our mind off the subject at hand to get more clarity. But I think mindless activities don’t help because a portion of our brain is still actively trying to solve the problem. I suggest truly engaging our consciousness elsewhere, thereby blocking our thoughts from the issue so we can come back fresh. For me, this is a good time to work on other book-related activities like marketing, blogging, cover designs and book trailer concepts. It all has to be done, so we can’t possibly feel like we’re spinning our wheels.
Not everything works for everyone, nor does anything work all the time. But I encourage you to try a few of these recommendations when writer’s block leaves you stranded and let me know how they work for you.
Happy writing!
The Jack Lazar Series has it all from mystery and suspense to action, humor and romance
Jack heads to Egypt to investigate a crash-landed World War II fighter plane that was recently discovered in the middle of the Sahara. But something remarkable was left onboard, and people will stop at nothing to possess it.
An Egyptian Girl with Blue Eyes? Just Stunning.
But Jack soon finds himself in the middle of a hornet's nest as he becomes enthralled with Dalia, an exquisite woman of Egyptian and English descent whose father is the Egyptian Head Consul to the UK, not to mention a formidable ex-agent with the Mukhabarat. The man's skills and weapons come in handy as he and Jack join forces to battle a faction that has plans to kill millions of innocent people and subject the world to their twisted ideologies.
A Race Against Time
The trail leads to Northern Europe as all hell breaks loose. And before long, it's up to Jack and Jack alone to cheat death as he struggles to save Dalia, her father, and scores of unsuspecting people from the plot of a deranged madman.
Genre – Action, Mystery, Suspense
Rating – R
|
|
|
|
Posts
