Category Archives: Nandy Ekle

Movie Quotes

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

Movie Quotes

By Nandy Ekle

“I’m too old to be young and too young to be old.” Fried Green Tomatoes

“He left you when he went to seek his god, I lost him when he found him.” The Ten Commandments

“To live! To live would be an awfully big adventure!” Hook

“Just think. One day we’ll be buried here, side by side, matching coffins, our lifeless bodies rotting together for all eternity.” The Addams Family

“As you wish.” The Princess Bride

“I don’t think we’re Kansas anymore, Toto.” The Wizard of Oz

“Here’s my hat, Horace. I’m staying where I’m at, Horace. Dolly’ll never go away again.” Hello Dolly

“It’s a jolly holiday with Mary.” Mary Poppins

“That massive spider jumped on me and went straight for my jugular.” Ghost Adventurerers

“I am what I am!” Popeye

“Here’s Johnny!” The Shining

“No other factory in the world mixes their chocolate by waterfall.” Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

“Freedom!” Braveheart

“Anybody want a peanut?” The Princess Bride

“I see dead people.” 6th Sense

“This quarter, this quarter here is my wish, and it didn’t come true. So I’m taking it back. I’m taking them all back.” The Goonies

“Holy rusted metal, Batman!” Batman and Robin

“There is no spoon.” The Matrix

“Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” Forrest Gump

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

Book Review – The Headless Cupid

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Book Review – The Headless Cupid

By Nandy Ekle

 

The thing I loved about The Headless Cupid was the humor. This was the story of a blended family, which was just becoming a common situation back in the early 70’s. A widower with four children married a divorced woman with one daughter. The daughter was the same age as the oldest sibling of the four, but being an only child, she didn’t know how to fit into a large family. She puts on airs of being involved in the occult, which was also a buzz word around that time.

The story is told in the oldest sibling’s point of view. He has become the care taker of the younger siblings since their mother’s death and he just wants peace and friendship. He wants his new step-sister to feel like part of the family and decides to g along with her in her search of the occult.

It’s the younger siblings who provide the humor as they approach the whole thing as a game. The book also has some intense moments as they deal with a poltergeist.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

 

PROMOTING YOU: Amazon Author Central

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PROMOTING YOU: Amazon Author Central

Natalie Bright

Frontiers in Writing conference, hosted by an Amarillo writer’s group,
featured Debbie Macomber as the keynote speaker many years ago. If this name
is unfamiliar to you, Macomber is one of today’s most popular women’s
fiction and romance author, with more than 200 million copies of her books
in print worldwide. As a newbie writer, I was definitely star struck.

One of the best pieces advice I’ve ever heard, and something that stuck with
me, came from Macomber. She said, “Do one thing every day that will promote
you or your writing, no matter how big or small. At the end of the year
you’ll have a list of 365 things done.”

Over the next several months, I’ll be blogging about “Promoting You” with
topics ranging from big things that might take you several hours, to not so
big things taking you several minutes. In the end, it’s all good and it’s
all important to your career as an author.

AMAZON AUTHOR PAGES

If you have books listed for sell on amazon.com, right under the book title
is your name. If you hover over the name, a window should pop up with a link
to your Amazon Author Page. Every author can access this feature,
traditional or Indie.

Join at https://authorcentral.amazon.com and sign in using the Amazon
account where you publish your books. Be aware that Amazon has rules regarding multiple accounts for sellers.

Once you have set up your account, “Add a book” which can be searched by
ISBN or title. It will appear on your Author Central site within 24 hours,
usually less, has been my experience. Approval from your publisher may take
several days, if you are not self-published.

You can post or edit original content at any time, such as a picture, add
your bio, pictures of author events, videos, and link your blog with RSS
feed. Your blog posts will automatically appear within 24 hours. There is
even an events calendar.

To Do this Week:

1. Set-up your Amazon Author page at Author Central.
2.  Create an Amazon Author Page URL link and let everyone know by tweeting
the link.
3. Tell us about it, too – post the link in the comment section below.

Book Review Introduction

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Book Review Introduction

By Nandy Ekle

 

I learned to read early and I learned early why reading is fun. I remember the primers. Our school didn’t have Dick and Jane and Spot. We had Jeff, Mary, Mike and Bingo (B-I-N-G-O, and Bingo was his name, oh!)

I remember getting books from the public library, school library, and from the Scholastic company. Back in the late 60’s and early 70’s, books like Mrs. Pigglewiggle, Amelia Bedelia, Encyclopedia Brown, and Little House on the Prairie were all the buzz with kids my age. And I read them all and loved them all.

Then I discovered a specific author who had written several books. Zilpha Keatley Snyder. After Dr. Seuss and Laura Ingals Wilder, Zilpha Keatley Snyder was the next author to take my breath away. I read The Headless Cupid, The Velvet Room, The Changeling, The Witches of Worm, and The Egypt Game. To a choose a favorite of those would be like choosing a favorite out of my children.

When It’s Good, It’s Very Very Good; When It’s Bad, It’s Horrid

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When It’s Good, It’s Very Very Good; When It’s Bad, It’s Horrid

By Nandy Ekle

 

And, of course, I’m ranting about the computer. In today’s world, a simple pen and paper, or even a typewriter are archaic and hardly even worth thinking about. The corporation I work for during the day loves to think of itself as paperless, except for the actual letters we print to send to our clients. For old timers like me, those of us whose favorite things in the whole world are gel pens and Big Chief Tablets, this has taken a lot of work to appreciate.

And so, everything in the world is on a computer, out in cyberspace, up in the cloud. And in most cases this is very convenient and freeing. I especially like being able to do my research for a story sitting own my couch in the living room. I love being able to have all my tools in my lap because it all weighs less than five pounds. And most of all, I love having unlimited books, unlimited blank sheets of paper, and unlimited kegs of ink to use whenever and however I want. For these reasons, I love my computer, at work and at home.

But then there are the times when the computer refuses to work. These are times when my day job is totally crippled, even completely shut down. And the things available on my home computer are a distraction to my stories.

And those are the times that remind me of the poem of the little girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very very good. But when she was bad, she was horrid.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

 

The Next Part

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Post Cards From the Muse

The Next Part

By Nandy Ekle

 

Sigrun crouched in the corner of the dark house. She had lived there longer than there was a house with a dark corner. She had been tiny then, just an insignificant dot amid all her brothers and sisters. She remembered how they constantly ran over her, stampeding their way through the woods. When the last of them was gone, she took a deep breath and stretched her legs. This area was hers. And good riddance to them all. She preferred to hunt alone.

But that had been so long ago. She had never heard from them again. From time to time she saw someone who might have been familiar, but she didn’t call out their name to see if they were her kin. Really and truly, she didn’t care.

But now, slinking into the dark corner of the empty house, she felt a slight bit of loneliness. Ages and ages alone, no parents, no siblings, no lover, not even an enemy around her. Occasionally an inferior would wander into her path and trip her traps. When that happened she was happy to unleash them—for a time. She listened to them cry and babble. They screamed, they groveled, they threatened her, and then they whined and sobbed. And when they got to that point, she killed them. Then she would be alone again.

Her stomach growled. Thinking back, it was nearly a year since her last meal. Had she really hidden in the corner of this old house that long without eating? Rubbing her eyes, she ventured out and began preparing a trap for a meal.

The Post Card

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

 

The Post Card
By Nandy Ekle

 

I’ve been sitting here for a week staring out my window, trying to think of something to write. Anything. At. All. I see a squirrel run up a tree and think, Okay, must be something there. But nothing interesting happens. I watch as a beetle trudges across the sidewalk to the other side and wonder if I can make a play on the old “chicken crossing the road” story. But then I decide that’s too cliche.

I’m about to give up and spend another day not writing when the mailman puts a stack of letters in my mailbox. Looking through the day’s deliveries I find a couple of bills (must remember to make those payments), sales’ ads, sales’ gimmicks, and a few announcements to “Resident.” Then I come across a picture of a beautiful sandy beach. The sun is setting and the palm trees are almost black against the bright purple, pink and orange sky. The white foamy water has seeped across the beach nearly up to the legs of the two Adirondack chairs positioned under the fronds of the trees.

I turn the post card over and see these words: “No Drama Here.” And the story of who sat in those chairs under those starry palms with their feet swishing in the tide, and how they got there. The events leading up to such utterly delightful peace exploded in my mind and I couldn’t get to the computer keyboard fast enough.

Dear Muse. I get frustrated with you, nearly on a daily basis. But when you’re right, you’re very right indeed. Thank you.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

 

THE BEGINNING

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THE BEGINNING

By Nandy Ekle

 

 

Prologue

Andrea felt the pinprick on the pad of her heel. The first thing that crossed her mind was the memory of the the empty glass falling out of her hand as she walked from the living room couch to the kitchen. It had hit the floor with a loud explosion, invisible splinters of glass raining across the room. She tried to sweep it all up, but the sudden sting in her heel made her wonder if she had missed a piece.

The second thought she had was that her heel—actually her whole foot had begun to burn as if it were on fire. Sweat beaded on her forehead and the feeling of flames raced up her leg, into her hip, and crossed to the other leg at the exact moment it also flew up her chest, arms, neck, face, and covered her scalp. Her jaw clenched painfully for a couple of minutes, then absolute numbness. Her legs fell out from under her and she fell to the floor.

The last thought she had before paralysis closed her eyes was that she was utterly alone. Tom was at work, the kids were in school, even the dog was at the vet. And she could not move any part of her body to get to the phone.

An undetermined amount of time later, Andrea became aware of being in a dark room. She couldn’t see anything, could just barely breath. No part of her body would obey her instruction to move. She felt something heavy and sticky covering her face. Her arms were definitely at her sides, but the sticky substance was wrapped tightly around her body. Somewhere close by she heard a strange clicking sound, then felt another pinprick in the top of her head going deep into her brain. She tried to scream as what felt like an arrow tipped with fire pierced through her skull and all the way to her spinal cord. No sound would come from her throat. The clicking sounds became more like the sounds of liquid being sucked through a straw. The pain turned into the sensation of floating up through a narrow tube up to another world.

All in all, the entire process only took about thirty minutes. When it was over, Andrea was an empty husk wrapped like a mummy and thrown against the wall. Nia had emptied Andrea’s carcass of all its essence. She threw the empty bag of bones against the wall, slunk back to the dark corners of the secret room, and locked the door. Andrea had been strong with a lot of essence that would keep Nia’s hunger away for a long time. And now she needed rest.

She curled her legs under her body and slept.

Friday Funnies

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

Friday Funnies

Gathered by Nandy Ekle

 

200 Words

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200 Words

By Nandy Ekle

 

 

I’m starting this goal of writing at least two hundred words a day. Sickness, health, richer, poorer, hell or high water, I’m going to write two hundred words a day, and more if I can wring them out.

I will not worry about cohesion, plot, punctuation, spelling, long sentences, short sentences, or run-ons. There will be at least two hundred words a day.

I may be tired, sick, sick and tired, giddy, depressed, busy with grandkids, busy with grown kids, busy with no kids. I may be so down I can barely drag my self out of bed. On the road, on the high seas, hidden high up on a mountain top. In a crowd, or all alone, I will put down two hundred words.

The purpose of this two hundred words a day journal is to get the words flowing again. Words are like blood cells. They tend to stick together and close up portals where they might flow out and land on the pages. Like beautiful flower-shaped blotches of blood stains, words on the pages are soothing and sweet smelling, even when they’re dark and scary.

So this is my goal. For the next six weeks, I will get at least two hundred words a day added to this journal.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.