Author Interview with Erika Lindsen

Erika Lindsen

What is your favorite food? Color? Place?

I am in love with cheese pizza with pineapple and tomato. So good! My favorite color is yellow. It’s bright, yet holds a bit of mystery to me. My favorite place? Hmm. I went on vacation to San Antonio and it is a gorgeous city.

If you could change one thing about the world what would it be?

More love for animals.

What’s the name and genre of your book?

Heaven’s Core is a sci-fi romance with cyborgs and swords and sexiness.

Who is the audience for this book?

I’d say anyone that love lighter sci-fi, maybe someone new to the genre. And definitely the romance crowd. Keep in mind, it is sweeter (no on page sex) but that doesn’t hold it back.

Tell us why you to write horror tangled with romance?

I think it’s because they’re my two loves. I’ve always been interested in demons and ghosts, but romance captured me a long time ago. So why not mash them?

You started writing very young, what inspired this path? 

More freedom to say what I want and live vicariously through others.

Do people in your life inspire characters in your books? 

 Traits, yes. Not really full characters.

How has your upbringing influenced your writing?

Always use my imagination

Tell us how you came up with the idea of writing books to support your nephew’s treatments.

When Joey was diagnosed with cancer, it was like being kicked over and over again. I have so many horror stories from the hospital. But the kids there are stronger than most adults. So I wanted to give back by donating all proceeds from my Erika Talbot children’s book to the hospital. We had a successful Christmas last year.

Do you have a special routine you go through before you begin writing?

I write while I let my ferret exercise, so it goes: pop, computer, ferret, good to go.

What kind of books did you read that influenced your own writing?

Any and all romance.

If you could play a character you created, which one would you be?

Hannibal. I want to be a sword fighting cyborg

Do you start writing with the end of the story?

Nope, I go in order.

Do you have characters, or plot first?

plots

What do you find most challenging?

Balancing everything out.

What kind of research do you do for your books?

I make up most of what I write, mostly because I am Google challenged.

How do you choose the title?

It just kind of hits me.

Do you see yourself in your characters?

God no lol

Do you have a new book in the works?

I will be releasing At the Bullet’s Tip in July. It’s a romantic suspense. 

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Erika Lindsen was born in Ohio in 1987. She enjoys reading and writing paranormal romances, some with a sexy twist. Her favorite creatures are vampires, zombies and harpies, in that order. She has survived the Mayan apocalypse but not holidays with the family.

From Erika:

Some days are not easy being a writer. Some people will tell you it’s too many plot bunnies to choose from. Some will say writer’s block. So me, I’m having to form a sentence.

I was diagnosed with multiple mental disorders, the three hard ones being bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder and social phobia. It may sound weird, but when a writer plots and gets to know their characters, I get nervous. I have this awesome idea for a swordsman or assassin, but they intimidate me. Yes, something I’ve created freaks me out. I wonder if my weirdness will rub off on them. Then I realize it will make them more real. But it’s a struggle.

Subbing books to publishers is not easy. Every writer, and person for that matter, is afraid of rejection. We all want to be accepted. But my BPD makes it love or hate. If I get the courage to sub, I sometimes retract the submission.

Life with a mental illness is never easy. I see multiple doctors and take a cocktail of drugs to stay stable. But the thing that does get me through it is writing. Somehow, my disease will let me into a world that I can explore. It keeps me busier than any basic hobby. It keeps me thinking and guessing. I think when you have a disability it’s best to find something that safely challenges you. Some days are harder than others, some days are impossible. You have to know your limits and be ready to push them, or not, depending on what keeps you healthy.

I used to hate my illnesses. My characters were to plastic because I wanted them to be “normal,” but then I figured out that readers don’t want normal, and that it only makes me, and therefore my characters, unique. 

Martial Training - A Personal Journey

Instructor Charles

Martial training will affect every aspect of your life. 

When I began my training, the physical rush - the release of endorphins - was the most satisfying aspect of the nightly classes I attended as I learned the new and compound ways my body could move. The coordination of these movements was extremely challenging, and yet rewarding at the same time. The ability to move repeatedly through unique postures began to have the intended effect: strengthening my body and increasing my flexibility while I learned how these movements were applied in self defense. It took a while, but somewhere along the path, instead of just surviving the physical lesson I began to challenge my ability to control my breathing while doing the movements.

Like a snowball barreling down a hill I began to notice how this enhanced the awareness I had of my body. I started paying attention to my manner (how I carried myself), and was pleasantly surprised when people in my work-a-day world started to comment that something seemed different about me. They thought I seemed happier. Well, something was different, I was striving to gain control over myself in many different ways. I was seeing the success (winning over myself) that comes with a concentrated and focused effort, guided by practitioners who had clearly achieved a fantastic level of skill - one that I hoped to reach. Their skill was apparent not only in their physical ability, but in their confidence level, their focus, and their determination. I wanted to emulate their serenity, how they carried themselves, and their strength of mind as well as body.  

I began practicing every day while balancing my role as a single parent. Often my children would do their homework or read a book in the waiting room while I participated in the nightly lessons.  As each month of my initial year of training passed, I could do more with body and breath control. These physical abilities allowed me to begin putting more of my mental energy into the desired result of each lesson. This mental focus, or mind, compounded the changes in my biology. I needed less sleep, I was more energized, I noticed greater mental acuity, and control over my emotions was increasing in great strides. 

Early on in my training, one of my Instructors advocated washing my uniforms separately from other laundry. As I did this I started to notice the level of toxins washing out of them, which causes murkiness of the water, decreasing. This further confirmed in my mind the change in my biology. I wondered about the veracity of this finding and started strictly controlling the wash cycle of my 3 uniforms to privately challenge what I saw before my very eyes.  The need for 3 uniforms in rotation was due to the time it took for them to air dry; I found the dryer was very harsh on their life expectancy.  By the culmination of my 2nd year of training I was absolutely convinced that I had changed my biology through my practice. 

It has been many years since I began this process, and now as an instructor I witness these changes in my students. I teach them what I was taught, and how it affected every area of my life in a positive way. Martial training is a personal journey, we all face challenges that are as individual as our lives. What can be gained by each unique person is the same - along with self defense - better health, better focus, and better attitudes. And so, better lives. 

Children respond well to training. It helps their bodies develop properly, 

and helps their mind focus, and they learn how to defend themselves.

Zhen Ren Chuan is located at 301 Broadway, Arlington, MA
Tel: 781 646-8660 
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The Toy Closet

by Rebecca Forster

Every year I go into manic closet cleaning mode and this year is no exception. I started last weekend, working my way up from the first floor to the second. I cleaned out the junk drawer in the kitchen (where did I get all those wooden skewers. More importantly why did I buy them?), the wrapping paper closet (a misnomer since it is filled with recycled gifts in bags that I will stuff with a pouf of tissue paper), the cleaning closet (I need a new mop), and, finally, the toy closet.  

The toy closet is in my oldest son’s room. He has not lived at home for years but it will always be his.  It is a rather plain room with a bed we use for guests, a desk, and a television. What makes it special is the paneled door that leads to the toy closet. The door is painted bright white, the knob is brass and the door itself is three feet high. Standing in front of it I feel like the too-tall Alice in Wonderland. Like Alice, I can’t resist opening that little door. 

Inside this room under the eaves, the floor is carpeted and a bare bulb hangs from the slanted ceiling. The room is horrendously hot in the summer and incredibly cool in the winter. There are no windows.  You can’t hear anything when you are inside. 

Against the front wall are a chest of drawers and a steamer trunk that accompanied me to college. Both pieces explode with fabric. I have carted fabric back from Hong Kong and England and Hungary. I have bought out every fabric sale I have come across. In my next life I will be a designer. In this life I am simply a woman who thinks she will eventually stitch together an evening gown made of a piece of iridescent silk laced with peacock feathers. In my mind that dress is a beautiful creation; in reality I would have no place to wear it and would look a little bit like a colorful dust bunny if I did.

To the right are suitcases. Battered and bruised, airline tags still hang from the handles and remind me of a hundred adventures and millions miles traveled. Behind those cases are the crutches, boots, and canes that I've kept just in case any of us ever break anything. In our family, the only one who ever breaks anything is Eric. Even as a kid he jumped without looking. The crutches, boots and canes belong to him. He hasn't needed them in years. He still jumps without looking but seems to have learned how to land solidly on his two feet.

On the left are boxes of toys that I keep for the grandchildren I hope to have one day. I will give them boxes of Hot Wheels and Legos that my son, Alex, favored. He was a methodical child, lining up cars, clipping together the oddly bubbled pieces of plastic until he made cities and castles. He quietly figured things out, moving forward with such great determination, focus and intelligence that his father and I marveled. Today, he is an incredible man, lining up his life with an enviable precision and vision, unafraid of what may come because he has planned for every contingency.

And behind all of this are the big, blue, plastic containers full of my books. Twenty-eight years ago I put six copies of my first book inside one of them. Now I have two big containers: six copies of each of the twenty-eight books I've written. Inevitably I spend an hour rearranging these books. I keep them in the hopes that my children will take them to their house someday when I’m no longer here and share them with their children. I entertain the thought that they a few will survive the years and be passed down to my great-grandchildren. I like to think that someone will read them and know who I was through the words I’ve written. I like to think that those books will end up in someone’s toy closet, too precious to put in the trash and too curious to give away. 

As you can imagine, this closet is never really cleaned out. Everything inside it is touched and looked at. It is the rabbit hole where I fall into memories, reassess the path I've taken in life, indulge in a moment to be a little proud of it all – the children, the travels, the books I've written. I am lucky and I am grateful and the best thing I could wish for anyone is that somewhere in the house there is a tiny door that leads to a closet where they can hide away with the things that matter to them.  

Rebecca Forster

Author of the Witness series and other best selling legal thrillers.

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From Sundial to Circumpunct

"Circumpunct" means "encircled dot." "Circum" in Latin means "around." "Punct" in German can mean either "a dot in a circle," or "a point along a trail," or both. It's a timeless Masonic symbol that reveals and dates a prehistoric event, and locates the regions where it occurred. The event manifested around the Rhone, Loir, and Rhine Rivers, and in Southern England: it was the discovery and application of occultation (interruption of light from a celestial body) with a plumb-bob and string. The plumb-bob gives perfect vertical, and at the point where it crosses the horizontal string (+) it measures the passing of a star behind it. The circumpunct symbolizes this measuring process, and where it appears, it reveals and dates only one of a number of advances in proto-historic knowledge and technology. This event advanced most everything we do so vigorously that it compares with the advent of transistors, which led to today's cell phones. 

Points along the trail to the circumpunct include: 

(Noon-stick: Site north in the night sky, whack a stick into the ground, then position a second stick between the first and north, so the line between them points north. During the day, it’s noon when the first stick’s shadow points toward the second stick – a solar noon-stick points to true north, mother Earth’s axis mundi: inertial north.)

Points along the trail following the circumpunct include: 

One of the earliest uses of the circumpunct symbol is at the Loughcrew Giant Megalith, and depicts the high accuracy of azimuth measured by occultation. Here, imaged with other astronomical and calendric symbols, it stands not just for the sun, but any celestial object measured in this manner - using a plumb-bob and a string. We have included some translations of the symbols on Loughcrew, 3200 BC, for your enjoyment. 

We note that occultation is so accurate, technical modifications of it (crosshairs in a telescope site, instead of a plumb-bob and a string) used by today's astronomers reveal planets orbiting distant stars. The circumpunct is an ancient symbol of this accuracy.

Like most symbols from prehistory, the circumpunct has gathered layers of meaning over time. It has become a symbol for the solar orb and the universe, megalith observatories, Kether of the Sephirot, sun-gods such as Ra, gold, the sun, the eye, spirit or inner man, the Unmoved Mover, the Eye of God, the center, the beginning, and many more. Masons use this symbol to represent living a circumscribed life, and sometimes it is imaged with a vertical line on each side. The lines, when positioned top and bottom, represent the extreme positions of the sun's analemma at Cancer and Capricorn. 

Article © 2013 Michelle Snyder and Dr. Robert Duncan-Enzmann. Duncan-Enzmann spent decades collecting, examining, and translating Ice Age inscriptions. The amazing stories told by these translations expand our knowledge and understanding of prehistory. Ice Age Language: Translation, Grammar, and Vocabulary, a collection of these translations, has been published by White Knight Studio. Visit  Michelle's Once Upon a Time blog. Michelle has written several books which are available at Amazon. Visit her author page to find ones you like.