Author: Joseph Carrabis

Stephen Parrish and the Editors of Lascaux Review’s “The First 100 Words”

This gem is must reading for any authors, wannabes, and students of writing. Probably because I agree with 99% of it (I question some of the examples).

First, it’s a guidebook to getting past editors’ and publishers’ bullsh?t meter. I stress getting the opening correct when talking with writers and few get the message. Read this book and if you still don’t get the message, get out of the game.

Second, I learned from it (sometimes painfully). Some of Parrish’s suggestions caught me in an “Oy. I do that” and I had to ballup to my own inadequacies. Never fun, always necessary, definitely joyful when I realize the lesson’s stuck.

Third, I earmarked and highlighted the book to death. I haven’t commented on a writing guide in quite a while and this one is definitely worthy.

Give it a read if you’re an author, writer, wannabe, writing student, and learn!

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The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery) – Chapter 13 (was Chapter 7 long, long ago, now modified)

The Alibi – Chapter 13

 
Leddy sat across from Penny Lane in the Boston Public Library’s Johnson Building. Leddy always thought she and Penny’d look like a tower salt&pepper shakers if Penny could get on her shoulders. Leddy, stocky and dark like her father, Penny thin and fair like her father if he didn’t get to his Bermuda home for a weekend.

Out the window she watched firetrucks and ambulance race towards the waterfront until people crowded around her and blocked the view. She switched her tablet from screen to dVids, a gift from Penny’s father, and guided her drone with a specialized pen she designed inside MIT’s Media Lab as part of the Future Entrepreneurs Club. She couldn’t stop actionable ideas from coming to her. Her advisors wondered if she were adopted. Grad students and professors attempted to copy her designs. Penny’s father, Briggs, told Penny to keep an eye on her and bring any things she came up with to him.

Briggs had Penny and Leddy to lunch at least once a week. He ate little, a salad if anything and rarely more, bottled water on the side, made sure Leddy ate like a queen, and probed her about anything Penny brought to his attention, but gently, conversationally, so she wouldn’t catch on.

Leddy thought him a playable fool. He could get her hands on tech even her Media Lab buds knew nothing about and Leddy always let him think something profitable would come of it.

But gently, conversationally, so he wouldn’t catch on. After their third lunch she started picking at her food.

She’d order everything and anything, then have it boxed up to go and pass it around when she got back to the lab.

A lot of those students were just getting by.

And Leddy liked to pay it forward when she could.

She tapped Penny’s tablet. “People will see what’s on your screen.”

Penny laughed. “I’m going inside. I’ll be able to sell this, create a bidding war. We’re the first on the scene.”

“You take too many chances.”

Penny kept her tablet active. “You don’t take enough. What are you doing?”

“Watching vehicular and foot traffic.”

“Do you listen to yourself? You sound like your father.”

“You sound like yours.”

“Yeah? How ’bout you give those dVids back. Briggs won’t mind.”

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Previous entries in The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery)

We do what we can for nursing mothers

Once again we glory in Hecate and note she has concerns.

Because we value The Old Ones in our lives, their concerns are our concerns.

In this case, we suspect Hecate is concerned about the growing Coyote population in the woods behind our home.

We want the Raccoons to feel safe when they grace us with their presence.

Likewise, we want Coyote to know we appreciate them as well.

Hmm…

A problem to be solved…

 

My first completely new novel in seven years, The Inheritors, is due out 30 Jun ’23 – Care to review it?

  1. My first completely new novel in seven years, the myth-metaphysical-coming of age-urban science fantasy (like many of my books, it falls into several categories. apologies if that doesn’t suit you) The Inheritors , is currently available for preorder on Amazon (and it would be kittens nice if you preordered it! it would make all the words in the book so happy!).
  2. The Inheritors will be available and on promo starting 30 June 2023 (99¢ Kindle, $11.99 Print) until 15 July 2023.
  3. Would you like a free The Inheritors PDF or ePub ARC in exchange for a review on Amazon, Goodreads, and/or BookBub? You would? Then comment you would on this post or reach out via

    Let me know you’d like either

    • a PDF or ePub ARC and
    • when the review will go up (The Inheritors is ~400 print pages).

    I’ll email the you ARC ASAP.

Thanks!

The rest of this email contains The Inheritors early reader comments (which will probably end up as front matter in the book along with yours, if you get them to me before 28 June 2023).

<BEGIN HYPE>
The Inheritors coverEarly Reader Comments
Joseph Carrabis’s Inheritors is a wild, time-traveling, mind-bending story… A staggering amount of world-building is layered in every chapter, making you hungry for more. Physics, mysticism, biological science, and theology are woven into dark, thought-provoking settings that are altogether different but connected and reward the reader the deeper they look. Yet, a suitable setting would be nothing without interesting characters, which this book has plenty of. A shape-shifting monster driven by primal desires brushes shoulders with intelligent design, becoming an incarnation of vengeance. A child with a strange gift is abducted from home and must learn to co-exist with beings far different from himself. A boy exposed to dark magic and demonic rituals must tread carefully or become the thing he dreads. All these elements combine into a thrilling tale that concludes with a bang and gets richer with every telling. Yes, this one is a must-read but get ready, because you’re going to want to read again and again.

It is rare to find someone who writes the way Joseph Carrabis does—with the gift of a true storyteller, weaving stories that enrapture readers from the first word to the very last. As they travel through the The Inheritors’ pages, readers will encounter so much more than just the story of a little boy named Tommy. Guided by Carrabis’ carefully-metered and eloquent prose, readers will find themselves on a journey they could have never before imagined possible, challenged to rethink everything they thought they knew about history, time, space, and the nature of life itself. Reminiscent of the works of Pynchon, Clarke, and Vonnegut, The Inheritors is as intricately complex as it is emotionally resonant and will no doubt draw readers back again and again for subsequent rereads. A magnum opus of modern day storytelling, The Inheritors is evidence of Carrabis’ consummate skill as a writer.
<END HYPE>

The Alibi Previous Chapters