Author ~ Echoes of Avalon

Burning Castles, marionette knights, doppelgangers, and medieval combat in slow motion set to a score of Gregorian Chant.

That’s how the prologue to the sequel of “Echoes of Avalon” begins.

“Ripples in the Chalice” is the sequel to “Echoes of Avalon” currently under development and follows shortly after the events ending in Echoes.

Again the setting is largely in Avalon, utilizing elements from history, legend, mythology, and sweeping human themes. Chiefly, living with the consequences of one’s choices.

Patrick is an Avangardesman now, but has left briefly to visit his family in Ireland and takes Aimee with him. He has agreed to leave the cup he brought to Greensprings from the cave temporarily in the care of Father Hugh so that it may be venerated as a holy object. He fully intends to return it to the cave on his return as he promised the cup’s guardians.

However, others have different plans and enemies old and new set forces into motion that will shake the foundations of time and history.

Overcoming your demons to fight monsters is one thing, living with your choices is quite another.

Two chapters will appear on this website and Goodreads. The prologue will act as a teaser, depicting events taking place towards the end of the story where Patrick stops to reflect with the “Other” (aka the “Apparition”) as to how things could have gone so wrong. And all indications in the prologue are that things have gone horribly wrong. Patrick’s reminiscing are the beginning of the story. Chapter One: King, Queen, and Bishop will set the stage for the primary antagonists whose plots will turn Patrick’s world upside down and force him to make some hard choices and show him that taking a stand comes with a price.

I hope you read and enjoy the sample drafts. Feel free to contribute your thoughts on them, as now is the time to let your influence be known while the metal is still hot and malleable.

Poster Says it all: Get out of the house and enjoy!

It seems like everyday your email is filled with requests from friends and colleagues to join this or that social network, creating an alphabet soup of social sites clogging your inbox: Flickr, Reddit, Google+, Twitter, Digg, and LinkedIn.

It was the latter that caught my attention when I found myself out of work some years ago, casting my job-search net as wide as possible. I decided to investigate. I had heard it was more like Monster or CareerBuilder―someplace to post your resume. At first glance it looks just like that, your resume on screen. But a closer examination quickly shows that it’s more like a Facebook for professionals. Sure, it has all the classic elements of your resume―objective, work experience, education, skill list―but it’s no static document. It’s a living and dynamic page going more in depth.

If anything, the one page resume you send to a potential employer should be crafted to interest them enough to go to your LinkedIn page (if a business accepts electronic resumes, you can facilitate this by having a live web link on your resume).

Once at LinkedIn, there are the classic resume items as mentioned, but you are able to expand them into larger paragraphs. Using key words and phrases that succinctly express skills and experience at the beginning of each paragraph, you can draw readers in further and elaborate your abilities that you couldn’t on a single page resume.

Likewise, you’re able to elaborate on your hobbies and how your personal life skills can compliment job requirements. In an age where there are increasing numbers of qualified applicants, you need to differentiate yourself from the other drones by proving you’re interesting and well rounded.

This is made easier by LinkedIn’s ability to display your blog posts and Twitter feeds which prove just how interesting you are.

Proof that LinkedIn is the love child of Facebook and Monster.com include job boards showing jobs based on keywords in your profile, recommendations to connect with members in your industries, and suggestions to join groups that revolve around your interests. Like Facebook, you can insert a profile picture to put a face to your skills.

Quid Pro Quo is made easy. You can give and receive recommendations with your connections, making it unnecessary for potential employers to ask for them since they are publicly posted.

Now the fun stuff.

What sets LinkedIn apart is the option to include up to 16 apps on your page, enhancing your profile. These applications not only make you more marketable, but also help you learn, collaborate, and be informed. Examples include showing how smart you are by posting your Amazon reading list, and your corresponding book reviews. And if you’ve written your own book, it’s easy enough to make sure the book that shows up at the top of your reading list is your own.

There is an app to post documents that are samples of your work.

If your career involves creative arts, consider a slideshow app that visually displays your crafts. The slideshow can also be used to walk a viewer through scenarios (either with simple text or a full blown multimedia presentation) related to your work experience.

You can see my profile as an example: http://www.linkedin.com/in/adam1copeland

LinkedIn isn’t just about getting a job. It’s also about keeping a job while networking, keeping current/relevant and growing. A necessity in this day and age.

For a limited time this weekend, March 2nd through March 4th, my novella The Tower that appeared in Chaos Theory Magazine will be available on Amazon as a free Kindle eEook ( http://www.amazon.com/The-Tower-ebook/dp/B007DMIK7I ). The Tower came about as a need to give substance to the villain in my novel Echoes of Avalon. My wise editor, Sarah Cypher, insisted that my villain was two dimensional, a card board cut-out and stereo type of bad guys. She said he needed motive. A history. People needed to understand him and find him believable. Thus was born The Tower, a flash-back sequence on the life of Loki. The eBook novella ends with bonus material, the first chapter to Echoes of Avalon, and a fantastic piece of art work by artist David Greene. And if you miss the free promo it is only $0.99. Also, you can find it in Amazon’s Lending Library.

Okay, maybe it’s not a time-honored and classic publication like Analog or Weird Tales, and maybe it’s a quirky little internet E-zine, but it’s a publication and I’ll take it. Chaos Theory: Tales Askew has accepted my short story (novella, really), Jhove’s Tower – which is essentially the middle chapter of my novel Echoes of Avalon – a flashback scene for the villain Loki. It is about his origins and what his obsession with Avalon is all about. If you are a fan of the movie 300, you’ll probably dig Jhove’s Tower. Chaos Theory is collection of eclectic stories of speculative fiction, with a wide variety of sci-fi, fantasy, and the paranormal. You can enjoy Jhove’s Tower at http://www.genspace.com/ctta/issue-14/tocframe.htm

When Amazon announced their new Amazon.de kindle store and that my book “Echoes of Avalon” was included there, I was skeptical. I thought to myself, “That’s nice that my book is included there, but who is going to buy an English language book of Irish-Anglo historical fantasy in Germany?” Well somebody did, because my account racked up a sale there today. I still have consistent sales in Britain too, so evidently the whole Kindle international venue is a viable market. So, if you published and were holding back on not only converting to ebook format, let alone opting into international distribution, I’d seriously think about it.

I’ve written a new short story. I’ve long struggled with shrinking my stories down to manageable lengths. The upside of writing very descriptively is that I create beautiful scenes that leave no mistake as to what I’m trying to show. The downside is that these scenes can go on, and on, and on. With “In the Isle of the Beholder” I practiced packing a lot of info into a minimal amount of words and descriptions that, hopefully, evoke just as much emotion.

What is “In the Isle of the Beholder” about? It is:

” ‘Lost’ meets the ‘Twilight Zone’ on a secluded tropical island where a young girl, who has only known the island and her parents, is faced for the first time with the ‘Pale People.’ People she had always thought, until now, her parents had made up. Especially when describing them as wearing turtle shells for hats. But now they are here and threaten their way of life…and her definition of what is beautiful.”

And you can read it on this website under the tab “Other Writing.”

It’s now possible to give away kindle eBooks as gifts, even if you’re not yourself a user of eBooks. My own “Echoes of Avalon” makes a great gift, especially at only $0.99 (not bad for a 500 page paperback!). Details at http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_left_sib?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200555070

My latest opinion piece on the coolness of smart phones can be seen at my Allvoices site at http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/6243375-smart-phone-coolness