Category: Uncategorized

Stephen Coghlan’s Centaur Erotica Novel

Comedy has to walk a thin line, take risks. Comedy is the lecherous little elf whispering into the king’s ear, always telling the truth about human behavior. -Mel Brooks

I have always enjoyed comedy. I love parody and satire in the style of Mel Brooks, Monty Python and other comedians of the 70’s and 80’s. There have been many who argue that the rise of political correctness will be the death of comedy. Stephen Coghlan’s 50 Shades of Neigh, a Centaur Erotica Novel, parodies some themes of a famous novel of a similar name. Yes, you read that correctly, Centaurs. There’s a little interspecies action going on here too. I would argue the focus of his novel is more on racial and social class structures. The erotica and romance complement these themes.

Now before I dive in, I am going to put a disclaimer. One of my pet peeves when I see reviews is people who were warned what the book was about (for example, in this case erotica), read it anyway. Then they write a bad review because, “I don’t like erotica.” If the following statements apply to you:

• Erotica is disgusting
• Monte Python makes no sense
• Blazing Saddles highly offended me
• I think “dirty” books should be censored
• I worship EL James and anyone who parodies her work should burn in hell

There are plenty of other entertaining novels by talented authors out there. This one just is not for you; on the other hand (or hoof), if you want to read something on the wild side that will at times make you spit your beverage across the room, by all means proceed.

Setting And Characters

Stephen sets his story during WWI. Princess Clopia, heir to the Mercenary Free State, witnesses the senseless and devastating carnage of the initial battles of what would become “The War to End All Wars.” Sensing impending doom for her kind, she travels with her guardian Sussex, to the United States. She seeks a peaceful solution that will keep her kind out of the war. She meets up with Susan Hartel, a charming Creole woman working in New York City. Susan has used her intelligence and charm to rise above the racism and classism prevalent in the early 20^th  Century America, and has become a personal assistant to the powerful business man, Mr. Barns.

Susan brings the Princess to the prosperous farm of Buck, an American Centaur who has developed new methods of farming and food production. Stephen does an excellent job of creating tension between the commoner farmer, Buck and the Warrior Princess Clopia. He presents the classic clash of old-world class and social structure vs new-world ideals. On a romance and erotica scale, he definitely hits home on that fetishization of the old west American Cowboy. I easily pictured Buck as Brad Pitt from Legends of the Fall.

The romance between Centaur Sussex and human Susan was tender and sweet. I have to admit though, I found the sex scenes a little hard to picture at times (wait…they’re going to what?????? WHOA…). And Sussex definitely plays on the female fantasy of the European Gentleman, a sexy mix of Sean Connery and Liam Neesen with some horse thrown in.

There’s a hefty does of intrigue, action, passion and adventure as these four come to grips with their place in a world at war.

50 Shades of Neigh is definitely a departure from Stephen’s usual writing. While he plays with parody and satire, he includes a lot of tenderness and romance. This is something that I feel both comedy and erotica sometimes miss the mark at times. While not a master of the genre yet, Stephen’s first foray into this arena is highly entertaining. If you like satire with a splash of romance, intrigue, and some interspecies erotica thrown in, 50 Shades of Neigh is a fun ride.

A blog post about the history of the First People who lived at the mouth of the Klondike (Tr’ondek) before the ’98 Gold Rush.

In my research for my Historical Fiction, A Drink of Darkness, set in Dawson in 1898, I would be remiss in not discussing the Tr’ondek Hwech’in, the First People who dwelled in the area that became Dawson City, Klondike City and Lousetown. There is so much information on this unique group of people, who I do feature in my novel, that I decided to try to do a series of blogs just on the Hwech’in. Here is the first.

Tr’ondek Hwech’in Meaning in Han

Tr’o-Hammer rock used to drive the salmon weir stakes into the mouth of the river

Ndek-“river” part of the word

Hwech’in-People

Put together means loosely “people at the mouth of the Klondike river”

When large deposits of gold were discovered in a small tributary of the Klondike River on August 17, 1896, a veritable stampede ensued.

The Forty-mile Region (for those who follow me, this is where my cabin in Chicken is located), had been actively mined for almost 15 years at this point. Miners rushed from the 40-mile and staked every claim on the “Bonanza and El Dorado” creeks (renamed after the strike).

What is often glossed over is that this region was not empty. The Han speaking Athabascan First People who called themselves the Tr’ondek Hwechin (loosely translates to “people at the mouth of the Klondike River”) had been living in this region for centuries. When prospectors began to arrive, they quickly pushed out the First People living at the mouth of the Tr’ondek. This river would come to be called the Klondike, a derivation of the aforementioned Han word.

The rapid influx of people created a forced take over of their ancestral village at the mouth of the river. The Hwech’in had no concept of land ownership or that someone could purchase a piece of land and keep it. The tragic story of a clash of cultures and how they were manipulated out of their rightful land can be read about in my reference by Helen Dobrowolsky below.

Hammerstones, A History of the Tr’ondek Hwech’in. Dobrowolosky, Helene. Tr’ondek Hwech’in, 2014. @heritagetrondek.ca

https://www.yukonbooks.com/shop/customer/product.php?productid=6858&xid=4ad57e222bca0098960948c6f956a6e0

Chief Isaac and other elders foresaw the trouble with disease and alcohol this new wave of people brought and eventually moved the village five miles downstream to another site south of the Moosehide Creek. The new village was renamed Moosehide.

The Hwechin knew about gold—the metal was abundant in the stream beds all around them. According to Dobrowolsky, the children would collect the soft, pretty stones. What can be hard for us to understand is that gold had no value to their way of life. The rivers were abundant with fish, which the Hwech’in had become experts at harvesting from the river. Women spent the short, hot summers gathering the multitude of berries, herbs, mushrooms, bark and other highly nutritious vegetation to sustain them through the winters and ward off diseases like scurvy and rickets. The men hunted large animals like moose, caribou and bear. They utilized the hides for clothing and shelter. Though shiny and pretty as jewelry to us, and useful in many applications, gold is a soft, malleable metal that was mostly useless in their lifestyle.

The Hwech’in went through a rapid, drastic change in lifestyle as gold fever swept through the region. Their resilience as a people and slow reclamation of their stories and hope is truly inspiring.

I have made many friends through the online writing community who I really cherish. Many of them have provided unique guidance and tips on writing and getting published as I venture into the rough world of writing and querying. One of the things I get complemented on frequently is my seeming ability to “get a lot done.” I thought I return the favor by doing a blog post to share some of the goal setting and time management skills I have learned over the years as a technician and engineer, because they have really carried over to my writing.

Goals

One of the things I notice when I look around our writing community is a lack of solid goals. I see many people setting really vague goals like:

• I want to write a book
• I want to get published
• I want to sell a lot of books

Think that is fantastic, I really do. It is a great first step. One of the things I have learned over the years is the SMART method of goal setting. For those of you who have never heard of it, there are plenty of resources available. I have included a link to one below:

https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/other/smart-goal/

SMART is an acronym standing for:

• S-Specific
• M-Measurable
• A-Achievable
• R-Realistic
• T-Timely

A goal of “I want to publish a book” is vague because:

• It is not specific. What kind of book? Do you plan on writing in more than one genre? Why do you want to write this book (more on this later)
• It is somewhat measurable, but still lacks definition. Are you content with indie publishing? Do you plan to self-publish? Or is it traditional publishing or nothing for you?
• Achievability starts to fall apart unless you have defined the first two.
• I’m about to hit at a sore spot for some in the realism category…many want to be the unicorn, the one that submits their manuscript on the first try and instantly has 3 agents/publishers vying for it. Yes it could happen, but from what I have seen it can be a long, discouraging process that may have NOTHING to do with the quality of your work. Are you ready to pull your manuscript back and edit/shelve it in favor of another project?
• There is no time bound set on this goal. A better goal would be to state, I plan to have a 1^st draft done in X amount of time, and start the querying process by X date, etc.

Motivation

It is difficult to manage your time if you don’t know what goal you are trying to achieve and even more importantly, WHY you are trying to achieve it. When things start to get tough, it is easy to get derailed when you don’t have solid motivation behind your efforts.

Think about your characters in your stories. It is important for the reader to understand their motivations in order to have a great plot that doesn’t seem forced. The same applies to our own lives.

Social Media and Procrastination

This could practically be a blog post all on its own. There are actually many out there, and I constantly see people on Social Media complaining about distractions while they procrastinate.

I really can’t blame them.

We live and work in an era where everything is out to steal your time and attention. In fact, the inventors of social media dedicate segments of their business to try to engage you and keep you glued to your device and constantly coming back for more. Without solid goals in mind, it is easy to fritter away hours mindlessly, and end up with nothing to show for it. I think this is where goal setting comes into play.

See this great article from IEEE Spectrum about the science of attention theft

https://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/portable-devices/stop-attention-thief

Personal Goals

I knew once I got my bachelor’s in electrical engineering that I would progress to getting my Professional Engineering License, and then a Master’s Degree. But I did not really have a solid reason why other than the vague, polite answer, “It’s for my professional development.”

I started taking classes through WPI’s online master’s Program. I attended from 2013-2014, then admittedly I stalled out due to both a head injury and frustration. I remember sitting in my office alone at 2 am (my shift started at 6am) staring at a problem I couldn’t figure out, and asking myself:

• Why was I doing this to myself?
• What was the point?
• What was I trying to accomplish here?

I was working long hours, making good money anyway. I had set a goal of getting this degree, but I had no real idea why. I was incredibly unhappy at work to boot. I was rudderless and wanting to quit

Then I came across a great article in 2015. One was an excerpt from a book by Lewis Howes called the School of Greatness. It walked you through an exercise called “The Perfect Day Itinerary.” You write in detail what your perfect day would look like. Then you write up your itinerary for that perfect day. Then you analyze how you would set goals to get to that perfect day. For the sake of brevity, I won’t share my own “perfect day” here, maybe in another blog, but it gave me the ah-ha moment I needed to re-start my classes for my master’s program and get moving again. I could see what I needed to do, and why I needed to do it.

I included a link to Lewis Howes “Perfect Day Itinerary” for those of you who are curious

https://lewishowes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Perfect-Day-Itinerary-PDI.pdf

Life Purpose

Another great resource was from author/writer/blogger Mark Manson. His article 7 Strange Questions to Help Yourself Find Your Life Purpose

I think my favorite question was #1:

What is your favorite flavor of sh-t sandwich, and does it come with an olive?

Mark Manson-7 Strange Questions to Help You Find Your Life Purpose

And Manson sums it up beautifully. Everything comes with a cost, and nothing is great all the time. As a writer, you’re going to get harsh criticism. You’re going to get piles of rejections. People will troll you just for the fun of it, leaving 1-star reviews even though they never read your book.

The bigger question is what makes your end goal worth it? Is it holding your book in your hand? Is it having your mom gush over the dedication at the front? Is it the awesome review from a stranger that said what you wrote spoke to them?

Then you have found your olive. Enjoy it my friend.

The rest of the questions were equally great, but I will leave it up to you to read the blog. Trust me, it’s worth it.

Thanks for reading. I’m proud to say my hard work paid off, and my Alaskan horror novella, The Dark Land about legendary creatures stalking the backcountry of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park is available on Amazon. Sign up for my newsletter for sneak peeks at the sequel and other works in progress. I promise I won’t SPAM (even though we do like our SPAM here in Alaska!, #2 consumer after Hawaii).

….They went to the Stars, my Review of Hanson Oak’s Contribution to the Dark Tides Anthology

https://hansonoak.com/

IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO MADE THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE SO OTHERS COULD REACH THE STARS

AD ASTRA PER ASTERA

(A ROUGH ROAD LEADS TO THE STARS)

GOD SPEED THE CREW OF APPOLLO I

–Inscription on the plaque in memory of the crew of Apollo I (Gus Grisham, Ed White, Roger B Chaffee)

“Hope is the thing with feathers

 that perches in the soul

And sings the tune without words

And never stops at all.”

-Emily Dickenson

As I read They Came From the Sea, They Went to the Stars, Hanson Oak’s contribution to Gestalt Media’s Dark Tides Anthology, I could see some parallels between his novelette, the Black Hen Witch and this story. The method of approaching the quest for answers between his two stories is philosophically different. I will try to explain (without spoilers). Overall, this story’s haunting themes of love, loss, family and soul mates reminded me of the movie What Dreams May Come (1998) with Robin Williams.

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” The first gates of the Inferno- Dante’s Divine Comedy

Hanson draws the reader in immediately with the description of Oliver’s suffering at the loss of his wife and children. Five years after the terrible accident that took their lives, he still haunts the graveyard where they were laid to rest—or so he thought.

One night he encounters a beautiful gypsy (she reminds me a lot of his character Corta, from the Black Hen Witch). She tells him she traded them for a second life and convinces him to dig up his wife’s coffin. He does—and realizes the coffin is empty with a door leading out the back. Hanson’s description of the scene as he opens the door into this unknown world to follow his loved ones brought to mind the quote above from Dante’s Divine Comedy.

“But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.”
― Martin Luther King, Jr.

Oliver enters a bizarre world reminiscent of a cross between Oz and Wonderland. He has no idea where he needs to go, other than to The Collector of Odd Things, who has his family. The gypsy assured him this was where he needs to be.

One of the interesting aspects of Oliver’s quest to find his family is his need to remove his shoes made of leather. The everchanging path is riddled with thorns “like kitten teeth.” Yet the creatures of the strange land he has entered will not tell him how to get to the Collector of Odd things “carried on death.” The thorns shred his feet to an agonizing, bloody mess, but it is worth it to get to his family.

While it is blood and pain instead of water, his feet, and his soul, are undergoing a cleansing of sorts. The cleansing of the feet goes back to ancient times and referenced multiple times in the Bible and the Quran. It is still practiced today in many eastern religions before important events and holidays. It makes sense in regions where people walk in sandals and bare feet amongst livestock. It is a means to prevent the tracking of dirt and disease into the home.

In Oliver’s situation, he cannot reach the home of the Collector of Odd Things in his old state. He must undergo a cleansing not only of the body, but mind and spirit as well. The physical pain is only one part. Once he removes his shoes and buries them, the creatures tell him the secret to keeping on the path to the home of the Collector of Odd Things. But once more, it is a riddle that Oliver must puzzle for himself.

“To stay on course you must be mindful of the now, but focused on the then.”

Oliver’s quest is introspective. To find the answers he seeks he must look inward. He can’t count on an external savior to just come along and tell him the answer. Every step of the quest will be met with a question or riddle which he must come up with the answer himself.

It is fascinating how much religion comes to play in myths, legends and storytelling of a culture. The style of quest and philosophy portrayed in Hanson’s story is found more often in Greek or Eastern religions where it is common to meet a question with another question. Salvation is never found externally, but through meditation, fasting and guided questioning.

In Western storytelling, often a wiseman (or woman), magical being (God) comes along and reveals the answer to the hero after enough suffering has occurred in the quest. This hearkens back to the differences in the religions themselves. Western Christianity tells you to just believe what is written in the Bible, ask for salvation, and it is given. Islam is more of a hybrid, demanding more fasting and supplication before the answer and salvation is granted. Eastern Christianity (Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Coptic Christian are some examples) are unique hybrids that draw more on Greek Philosophy and demand introspection for salvation.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.-For Whom the Bell Tolls, John Donne

Okay, I had to put this poem in here, because of the scene with the bell outside the door of the house. I really enjoyed the Oliver’s quandary as he debated ringing the bell, and then what happens once it is rung. The reader can feel every moment of this scene. Oliver imagines himself trapped, but he needs only to change his perspective to find his way out.

“We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming – well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.”
― Amy Tan, The Hundred Secret Senses

In order to be with his family once more, The Collector of Odd things gives him yet another riddle, tell him what the bottle he values contains. The contents are what “drove mankind from the water and took them to the stars.” Once again, the answer cannot be just given, it has to be found. Oliver must set out into the strange world of changing paths to find the answer within himself.

“If she is always changing the path,” Oliver asked. “How can I trust it will lead the right way?”

“The answer is always obscured by questions and not all of them will be your own. If the answer is not in here, then it is out there, and if you don’t know where to look, it doesn’t matter where the trail will lead. You must simply trust it will lead you to right where you need to be, exactly when you need to be there.”

The paths lead him to the very girl who continually changes the paths, The Seeded Girl.

Forever waiting for her parents, she alters the paths hoping they will lead her parents back to her. As he exchanges both questions and answers in her garden, he works his way to his own answer of what lies in the bottle.

“It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.” –Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl

I will leave it to the reader to follow through to the end and discover what Oliver decides is in the bottle. As to the answer he gave the Collector of Odd Things, I have given clues with the quotes I have included with my review. In the end, I feel that the answer is actually ambiguous and changes based on each person the Collector of Odd Things gathers to him. To me, there is no right or wrong answer, and the Collector will never complete his collection. I get this impression based on the conversation between Oliver and the Seeded Girl. Just as she will wait forever for parents who aren’t looking, The Collector of Odd things will continue to gather things, creatures and answers until the end of time.

Thanks for reading. My next blog post will be about Bombay Peggy, a unique character of Dawson City. I also plan on doing some posts about our upcoming plans for next summer’s building projects in Chicken.

Psychological Thriller by Dawn Hosmer

https://www.dawnhosmer.com/

Color helps to express light. Not the physical phenomenon, but the only light that really exists, that in the artists brain—Henri Matisse

Our human fascination not only with light, but with color, makes sense at least for those of us who can see. We live in a world centered around vision and the ability to see. At the same time, it is amazing to consider that what we can see with the human eye is only a tiny silver of the full electromagnetic spectrum. The portion that makes up visible light is from 4×10^14 through 8×10^14 Hz (or approx. 380-740 nanometers who to prefer to look at it in wavelengths). It can be broken down into 7 basic waves:

• Radio
• Micro
• Infrared
• Visible
• Ultraviolet
• Xray
• Gamma

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts—Marcus Aurelius

Dawn’s book is a fast-paced thriller about Tessa, a young woman with a gift—or a curse, depending on perspective. When she touches someone, she at times absorbs a piece of them in the form of color. Each color has a different meaning. She might take on a memory, emotion, personality trait or talent from the person she touches. In the meantime, she loses a fragment of herself in the process. After so many years, she no longer knows how much of her psyche is herself and how much belongs to people she has contacted along the way.

Estranged from her wealthy family, she lives in the small college town of Chandlersville. Multiple women have gone missing/turned up murdered. Tessa inadvertently touches the murderer in a crowd during a search for the most recent missing girls. In an instant, she takes on the murderer’s desires and proclivities. Now Tessa must find the killer before she loses herself completely

I’ve always been a fast reader, and when I get really into a book, I can polish one off in a couple of hours. I decided to bring Dawn Hosmer’s thriller, Bits and Pieces as a book to read on the plane. I think I set a new record. I started it as the plane pushed back from the gate. I finished it 20 minutes before landing, putting me at about 2 hours and 30 minutes. Yep, I got pretty into it. The downside is that there were some pretty disturbing/triggering scenes. When I get to those in something I am reading or writing, I like to get up and pace. Kind of hard to do on an airplane at 30 K feet with a drink cart in the aisle. I am sure the guy seated next to me thought I was nuts as did most of the flight attendants.

Art is to console those who have been broken by life—Vincent Van Gogh

Dawn uses first person point of view in Bits and Pieces. From a personal perspective I feel this can be difficult to pull off. I have read many books where the author attempts to write in first person only to botch it by telling me things the character couldn’t know unless they were psychic or by dropping out of first person. Dawn pulls it off seamlessly. She embeds the reader fully into the mind of Tess. In the process she creates a relatable and believable young woman who is struggling with not only this strange gift she has been given, but her place in society. She sees herself as a freak, who doesn’t dare touch someone for fear of losing a piece of herself (she almost reminds me of Rogue from the X-Men).

One of the fascinating aspects of Dawn’s book is Tessa’s use of art to deal with her gift and with the struggles it brings. It is well documented that art is a therapeutic tool. I know for myself, my writing is a means of expressing things I cannot say out loud.

Tessa paints the things that she “sees” at the urging of her therapist. As she devolves into the mind of the killer, she paints the women he has killed in great detail. This was one of the most disturbing yet exquisite parts to read. I would love for Dawn to hold a painting themed night based on this scene where we could get together and everyone paint what we think these pictures should look like. (Maybe this is something we can suggest to Gestalt Media, Dawn?)

Dawn also pulls off some unique twists at the end that will have the reader saying, “wait, what?” But when they re-read, they will realize the foreshadowing and clues were there all along. At the risk of spoilers, I will refrain from delving too deep. I will say I had the feeling that something was off with the character in question. I just thought it was going to go in a slightly different direction.

The one character I struggled with was actually the love interest, Jonas. I felt at times his reactions were incongruent to the scenes. That being said it might be due to the plot line/suspense Dawn was trying to keep going in the story. Once again, at the risk of spoilers, I will refrain from going into detail.

Overall, this was a fantastic story that had me on the edge of my seat. I can’t wait to see where Dawn takes us next with her writing.

Thanks for reading! My next review will be of Hanson Oak’s They Came from the Sea, they Went to the Stars, part of the Dark Tides Anthology. I will doing a few more blogs on my fall trip to Dawson City, and our next years projects for the cabin in Chicken.