You don't have an ereader?!

Fun fact: ?! combo is called an interobang! Go ahead. Say it. Interobang! It's fun. 

Ok so, lemme tell you, I love my ebook. I don't know how we survived without them in my house. I'm married to another Bachelor of Arts, English Literature and there are ten boxes of books in the basement that we can't even think about putting on display. We had to pick and choose what we were going to put on our five books cases in the house.

I understand some people don't like them. Recently, someone returned one after honestly giving it a try and finding that they weren't reading at all because of it. Legit. But don't dis the ebook until you've taken one out for a ride. It's freed up so much room in the house for us.

My credit card, on the other hand... room seems to be shrinking...

Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. Ebooks, and you not owning one.

Well, that's OK. Because there's another awesome new technology out there, called PoD. Print on Demand.

That's right, ladies and germs, we're up on a PoD. It's set to roll and ready to read upon delivery to your front door. It will take about 6 weeks for it to be available through a few different channels from Amazon, but you can check it out on CreateSpace  right now.

Please understand the cost of printing is far greater than an ebook distribution, but we did our best to keep the price down on the print. If you really want to find out what the Apathetic Avengers are all about, check it out - in real print with real ink and paper!

And a really big migraine from getting the whole cover to line up...

Apathetic Avengers: The Faction Stories Vol 1 - in print!

Welcome to Volume 2!

Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting Volume 2! 

Being a teenager is hard enough without putting on a mask and making mortal enemies. But when you have both, and a part time job, things are little more complicated.

Edgar, Rachel, Alex, Celeste, Laura and Susan joined forces to save the their classmates at Red Bug Regional High School from a sinister group that was picking the students off one at a time. The team worked a little better than they had expected and now, they’re stuck… as the Apathetic Avengers.

With the FBI as their secret backers, they begin to discover that Red Bug, Downing City and Freemont County, Iowa, is not nearly as innocent and naïve as they thought. And they weren't the only ones who shouldn't have been in the playground… 

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ENJOY! 

Review This!

There is only one thing that helps a book move along in its shelf life and that is THE REVIEW. 

We need your help.

We have a marvelous review on Amazon, and a nice one BN-- thank you both -- but we need more. We understand that this may not be your kind of story; totally cool. But we would love you forever if you could review the book, or at the very least, give us a star rating. 

A review gives a quick rundown on our style, our characterization, our story arc. We're not asking you to be lit majors on this- did we manage to keep Rachel 'rachel-like' all the way through the story. Do our characters grow and change? Do the various parts of the story come to a logical conclusion, or follow a logical thought. 

If you choose to only rate us on the star system-- please judge us by our writing and not our story. 

What the heck do I mean? Well, here's an example. I absolutely hate the movie "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". I don't enjoy the story, I don't like the story arc. I don't like the graphic nature of some of things that go on. Just not my bag, man. But. If you ask me to judge the film for more than its story- the fine points of movie making -- it's a good movie. Nice cinematography, good acting, story arc follows itself. Consistency of characters. Soundtrack. All are good. If I were to rate the movie on those alone, I would give it 3.5/5. It's not ground breaking, but it's not like I'm trying to watch "2-Headed Shark Attack". 

We appreciate honesty: if you we shouldn't give up our day jobs, tell us. 

Pop over. 

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Just drop us a few stars and a quick line.

Spoiler: We have a TREAT for you coming soon. Like within 24 hours soon! Get ready!

See? We love you. 

Unmasking the Master

Edgar inspired me to write this. He is not a nerd by chance. He was crafted that way by careful choice. And he's backed up by our own Nerdy Tendencies. Simon has a weird love for Pokemon (and lentils) and I have a deep, timeless love for Star Wars.

Unrequited, really. Judging by my six fan-fiction books that will never see the light of a saber.

I am disturbed by something I read today about my beloved. Above and beyond me not liking the idea of a stand-alone Star Wars, and that is what they are saying, I am disheartened by the choice of focus for the movie: Yoda.

I can't tell you how little interest I have for Yoda. He's 900 years old in RotJ and he plays the wise old sage in the 6 movies. Everything I need to know or care to know about him is in there. I don't want a whole 2+ hours on him! If you focus on him, you will remove the mystery of the master.

One should never want to see beyond what the master presents you.

A master is someone who has gone through their own trials and tribulations and you shouldn't wish to see those. Once you see the blood on their hands, their mystique is gone, and so is some of the relevance of the wisdom imparted. 

You will, for example, never know more than what's relevant to the story with Catton or Lassard. (Ooh, is that a spoiler?) There is much much more to them, as Simon says (ha!), that goes on "between the panels". We have extensive information on both of them that you, the reader, and our heroes will never find out. But it shapes their responses and actions and words.

Trust me when I say, you don't want to see this stuff. Someone doesn't get to be a "master" by never hurting anyone, never screwing up, never being the fall guy or the sucker. When a Master is present in the story, it is not their past that is important but their present. If you unmask the master, you unravel the mythos. 

Do you really want to know about the people that Yoda has killed? Even though he carries the green saber, it's still a killing weapon. Do you really want to see him rushing in where he had warned Luke not to? Do you want to see all the blood on Catton's hands? Or all the bodies behind them?

What would you do if you found out that Catton wasn't the 'master' he had led you to believe? 

Luke finds out that Ben Kenobi isn't the person he thought he was. (And Luke, being the whiny douchecanoe that he is eventually names his son Ben, in what is clearly a chance for him to recreate his own Master in the unscared image he originally had). It does alter his view of him, no matter what you saw on the screen: Luke spends most of The Truce at Bakura wondering if Ben was really worthy of being a master. Because of that, Luke nearly turns to the Dark Side not once, not twice, but THREE times.

Unmasking the master introduced doubts into the lessons that were more valuable than the history of the teacher would allow them to be. Hence why the history of the master should be masked. 

I use this very device to get one of my future characters in very.hot.water. Her master revealed more than he should have and introduced the subconscious doubts that undo her training for just long enough for the bad guy to catch her. 

So, I don't want to know more about Yoda. His students have enough flaws that they can find their own trouble without knowing about his problems from his past. You're taking away some of the mythos that makes the character so interesting by delving into his origin. We're not supposed to know.

And after Jar Jar Binks, I think that perhaps moving forward would be a good idea. 

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This Post is Total Filler...

But yes, I've run out of time to really give you a blog here. So, instead, I'm giving you a weird regional food. 

Y'gotta love Philly. Right? 

Right?! 















Chocolates by Mueller offers these as a gag/spoof/weird holder over tradition of some sort at the Reading Terminal. If you're ever in Philadelphia, you must make Reading Terminal Market a stop on your tours. It's plain nuts in there. And there's some really amazing food to boot. 

Meanwhile, I'm editing my heart out and with any luck, y'all will have the second book THIS WEEK. *Mwah* 

...oops. A little bit of my Southern showing there. Lemme just tuck that back in~~ 

Ha! almost forgot: 

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Moving Right Along--

Very soon, my dear loyal followers, you'll start getting barraged by a whole NEW Volume of the Apathetic Avengers! 

We're on the fine editing portion and I'm gonna make sure that you can stop hearing about Volume 1, and start getting bombarded by Volume 2: Welcome to Downing City. 

The Apathetic Avengers are starting to figure out their team dynamic-- as well meeting some of the Big Bad Villains that rule in Downing City. 

... and then there's junior year. 

Keep your eyes peeled! We're talking short time here! Meanwhile-- 

Ah. You know the drill: 

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Editing Gets Furry Around Here...

So it's editing time. Damn the Topedoes, full speed ahea-- Oh.

Seems like someone decided it was time to get in my way. She's done this a few times, but usually when I was on the floor or on the bed, editing. This time, she climbed right up on the couch and got in my way.  

So, anyway. We're on our way with the new one. Success includes 47 out of 114 pages of hand edited page inputted (? is that even a word?) into the digital world. We're still finding our editing rhythm, but I think that we might have an idea of what needs to happen. 

"Welcome to Downing City" Faction Volume 2 is coming!!  Soon!

And with luck on your side, "The Natural Order of Things" Faction Vol 3 will be hot on it's tail. 

Ooh, how about WIP line, my treat? From "Bus", in Volume 2. I'm such a tease! 

“Don’t be so negative, Rowan,” Susan said.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but someone was just killed, stuffed with explosive and blown up,” Rachel said, not breaking her stride. “I think it’s OK if I say that we’re not on the upside of this fight.” 

Meanwhile, check out the Volume 1, where it all starts: 

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