Guest Blog on BRUMMET’S CONSCIOUS BLOG
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Guest Blog on BRUMMET’S CONSCIOUS BLOG

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Recommeded Resources Below:

This was another fun guest post, because Lillian and Dave asked such thoughtful questions. Check out Brummet’s Conscious Discussions.
If any readers have questions for me, send them and I’ll post answers on this blog. Thank you!

World of Writing

— World of Writing —
That’s right! It’s time for another fascinating interview with other writers, offering their insights on the industry. Loyal listeners of our radio sho may remember we had Tracy Slatton on as a featured guest back in May 2008 – check out the full interview via: Midlife & the Italian Renaissance

She has some more interesting thoughts on the industry that she’d like to share with us today, but first let me tell you a little about her. Traci L. Slatton is a graduate of Yale and Columbia, and she also attended the Barbara Brennan School of Healing. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, sculptor Sabin Howard – and she’s here to speak about both her life as an author and her thoughts on the world of e-publishing. * Find Traci @: www.tracilslatton.com

Q: Where are you from?
People ask where I am from, and I say, “Around.” My dad was in the Navy, so we moved frequently. I was born outside Chicago and grew up in Groton, CT; Norfolk, VA; Millington, TN; and Olathe, KS. I’ve been in New York city since 1985 and I consider myself a New Yorker.
Because I grew up in a peripatetic military life, my books reflect my love for travel, for different ways of being in the world. There is curiosity and adventure to life. Fallen is set in France, right after the world has ended. But this is France after a devastating apocalypse. The Botticelli Affair takes place partly in New York city, but the main character, luscious art forger Laila Cambridge, travels to Paris, Amsterdam, and Rome—three of my favorite cities.
Q: When did you consider yourself a writer?
I knew when I was 6 years old, after reading my first “big book,” that I wanted to write novels. It has been the longing that has led me through my life. In some way, everything I have done has been about that goal, that longing. I was the first person in my family to go to college, and I was accepted into Yale after my junior year of high school. That was, for me, about becoming a writer. I was determined to do whatever it took to get there.
Q: Do you use more than one voice in your writing? (first/second…)
My three novels are largely written in the first person. Part of my process is about feeling myself, and imagining myself, deeply into the main character. The character comes alive when I use ‘I.’
Laila, my bubbly art forger in The Botticelli Affair, was fun to write because she’s zany and frisky, while also wrestling with her dark temptations. Emma, the main character in Fallen, struggles with her own heart. Emma is on a mystical odyssey, and her choices are fateful. She is trying to find joy and meaning while keeping a group of children alive.
Q: What is your profession and educational background?
I received a bachelor’s from Yale in English and an MFA in creative writing from Columbia. I also attended the four year Barbara Brennan School of Healing. I spent many years as a hands-on healer. Now I am a professional writer. I’ve also been raising three and a half children—‘half’ being my beautiful step-daughter.
Q: What is your mission?
My mission is to write novels that entertain, uplift, and awaken the reader. I intend to write stories that will buoy people through troubled times, as well as delight them while they are reading.
For these reasons, I write novels where the stakes are high. In Fallen, there has been an apocalypse. So the question is, what is left, when everything is gone? In this story, I propose that it is love.
Q: What do you consider to be your greatest strengths and weaknesses?
I think I create three-dimensional characters, that’s a strength. But I am borderline wordy. It’s imperative for me to have a good editor!
Q: About e-Publishing and Self publishing
It’s a brave new world of publishing. Because of e-publishing, we are in the midst of the greatest revolution in publishing since the invention of the Guttenberg Press, which, by the way, put a whole class of people out of work within a generation: scribes. And initially, there was quite a lot of resistance to printed books; members of the elite classes believed that no educated man would buy coarse printed books. We’ve all seen how that turned out!
The traditional publishers are dinosaurs, fossilizing in front of our eyes. They take too long to read manuscripts, they take too long to get manuscripts into printed form, they respond too slowly to the market, they are afraid to take risks, they are terrified of innovation and run from it, they run themselves on old-school business ‘rules’ that are outmoded and largely false for books, they run via group-think and committee-mind so they lack creativity and vision, their PR departments are incompetent, they want to be gatekeepers instead of gate-openers serving the reading public, and they have no sense of nurturing mid-list authors and developing a career over time. Basically, traditional publishing houses are searching vainly for an algorithm that will guarantee that every book they publish will be a bestseller. To that end, they beat the deceased equine until it is a gelatinous mass.
This is a time when independent-minded, innovative, pathologically persistent authors can do very, very well—because they can get their books out to the reading, buying public quickly. However: beware of literary agencies that offer to publish your novel for you, for a price. In my mind this is a serious conflict of interest for a literary agency and a shocking dereliction of ethical responsibility. If an agent likes your book but can’t sell it, take your book and e-publish it yourself.
HOWEVER, and this is crucial: it is imperative that every e-publishing author do a few things: 1. Hire a professional manuscript editor and do at least 2 revisions, and 2. Hire a professional copy-editor and have the manuscript copy-edited before sending it to the e-publisher. These are not optional. They are mandatory. Sloppy books are not taken seriously and will not sell. My third recommendation is to hire a PR firm. Readers can’t buy your books if they don’t know about them!
Find Dave and Lillian Brummet, excerpts from their books, information about their radio program, newsletter, blog, and more at: www.brummet.ca * Support the Brummets by telling your friends, or visiting the Brummet’s Store – every sale raises funds for charity as well!
Fun guest blog on MOONLIGHT GLEAM’S BOOKSHELF
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Fun guest blog on MOONLIGHT GLEAM’S BOOKSHELF

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Moonlight Gleam

This was a good time… I participated in a character guest post on Moonlight Gleam’s Bookshelf. I got to be Luca from IMMORTAL, Laila from THE BOTTICELLI AFFAIR, and Emma from FALLEN.
Am I already those characters? Yes and No. Novels and screenplays are like dreams, everyone in them is the author. But it’s not that simple, because consciously, to create a character, I merge qualities from many different people I know. A three-dimensional character in a story is a kind of chimera.
So it was an opportunity to inhabit my own mythos, and I got to play….

Character Guest Post With Traci L. Slatton

Traci L. Slatton has kindly agreed to participate in a character guest post starring “Emma”, as well as characters from her previous novels “Luca”, & “Laila” to discuss her inspiration for writing in honour of her newest release Fallen.

Traci: “Blog readers, please meet Emma Anderson from FALLEN, Laila Cambridge from THE BOTTICELLI AFFAIR, and Luca Bastardo from IMMORTAL. Guys, who’d like to talk about my inspiration for writing?”

Emma: “I’m a painter and illustrator, and before the apocalypse, I got my inspiration from looking into the faces of people around me. Especially my loved ones’ faces.”

Laila: “Who needs inspiration? It’s just so much fun to forge the Old Masters! I don’t wait for inspiration. I just have a blast doing what I do best. Gimme a paintbrush and some terra verde green and a little lapis lazuli blue: voilà, a Vermeer!”

Emma: “You’re lucky. I live during the end times. Billions of people have been killed in a global eco-disaster. We survivors are left struggling to stay alive, fighting vicious rogue bands, and haunted by strange psychic powers that dissolve us into madness.”

Laila: “What a drag! But you know, it’s not easy for me, either. My dad is missing and he’s being pursued by vampires. Evil, remorseless, blood-hungry vampires.”

Luca: “Inspiration? I get inspiration from Giotto’s frescoes, from Botticelli’s ravishing female figures. Such inspiration gives me the courage to endure a brutal indenture in a brothel of horrors.”

Laila: “I can paint just like Botticelli.”

Emma: “It’s not painting that saves me now. It’s love. When the world ends, all that’s left is love.”

Luca: “I am waiting for the great love who has been promised me. I chose her, and I know that the Laughing God will bring her to me, when His joke is ripe. I love her already and I haven’t even met her yet. Love is the only immortality we can know.”

Laila: “I’m waiting for my love, too. I can be close to him, but I can never quite have him. It’s too perilous. The hottest guy I ever met, and he smells so yummy, too. I just want to wrap myself around him and squeeze!”

Luca: “My great love smells like lilacs and clear light.”

Laila: “What does clear light smell like? Hey, there’s a beautiful Botticelli painting for sale, it has a pristine provenance provided by my friend Lord Cromer. I can get you a good deal . . . “

Luca: “Sandro Botticelli is one of my best friends. I already get good deals. Though he does negotiate relentlessly. It’s the Florentine way. At heart, Florentines care about money, food, and art. And wine. I myself have a fondness for vino nobile di Montepulciano. Though I don’t know if I’m Florentine. I don’t know my origins.”

Laila: “I’m a margarita fan, myself. Nothing like tequila to inspire a rowdy game of strip poker!”

Emma: “We don’t have the luxury of money, wine, and art. Food is the luxury now. I don’t know if the human race even has the luxury of a future. Arthur says we do, but I am not certain. He believes that we’ll rise out of the ashes and create a better life. He’s like that, always trying to do something noble and good. I just want to keep a few children alive . . .”

Luca: “God’s grace sees us through. There’s always God’s grace, even when we can’t see it. But we know it’s there. We’re receptacles for it, because of our souls.”

Laila: “The man I love has half a soul. What does that mean? What is a soul, anyway? Does having a soul explain why I’ll spend my last dollar on a pair of above-the-knee white patent leather boots with six-inch stiletto heels? Is there an explanation for that?”

Emma: “Soul has something to do with the invisible field of information that holds us all, the way the ocean holds fish and algae and seaweed and its myriad other creatures. I think soul may be what got us into trouble with the mists. Our souls make us vulnerable to psychological influence via the biomind.”

Laila: “What’s a biomind? Never mind, I don’t want to know!”

Emma: “Arthur knows. He’s brilliant.”

Laila: “I hope he’s hot, because he sounds like a smarty pants.”

Emma: “He’s beautiful beyond the dreams of women.”

Luca: “The most beautiful man I ever met was Leonardo, son of Ser Piero da Vinci. He was also the most talented and intelligent. I was his tutor, but he taught me more than I ever imparted to him.”

Laila: “You’re not so bad yourself, Luca Bastardo. Too bad I’m six inches taller than you!”

Emma: “You both have red hair, though Laila, yours is flame-colored, and Luca, yours is yellow-red. I’d love to paint you both. Laila, your laughter is infectious. Luca, your soulfulness emanates from you!”

Traci: “So did you guys figure out what inspires me?”

Laila: “Tequila and patent leather boots?”

Emma: “No, silly, it’s love!”

Luca: “Love and beauty!”

Laila: “Love, beauty, and laughter!”

© 2011 Traci L. Slatton, author of Fallen
Great review of FALLEN
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Great review of FALLEN

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Good words & a highly intelligent read from The Book Worm’s Blog:

★★★★

…Slatton’s natural storytelling ability takes over and the reader finds themselves engrossed in another well envisioned story world.

This book is very well written, and is another great example of Slatton’s creative abilities. (But the reader is going to want to remember going in that this is the first of a trilogy — or you will find it very depressing, and even fatalistically frustrating.) Slatton has once again allowed her ability with words to develop a post apocalyptic world that draws the reader in, and allows them to work towards the struggle of survival right along side the characters. The characters are compelling and real in that Slatton is not afraid to develop characters that are more than one dimensional. They have weaknesses, and compulsions that are both horrifying and ennobling. Slatton has developed characters that have the courage to face a failing world, while at the same time demonstrating not only everything that is right about mankind, but everything that is wrong, as well. All of these characters are more than they appear on the surface. They are each confronted with a devastating situation that brings out not only the best, but the worst in each of them at the same time. It is all of these varying traits that gives the reader pause, and the opportunity to reflect on what actually makes up an individual, and why we — as a species — are given these vastly different character traits. These vast differences ultimately beg the question why are such emotional characteristics an overwhelmingly important part of the human experience?

Read the whole review at The Book Worm’s Library!

FALLEN on sale on Amazon!
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FALLEN on sale on Amazon!

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For one week only, FALLEN is 99 cents on AMAZON!

FALLEN is the powerful story of love at the end of times. Emma is a woman struggling to survive and keep seven children alive in a world ravaged by chaos, madness, and war.

Emma meets the charismatic Arthur, who leads a strangely well-provisioned camp of men who seek to rebuild civilization. But Arthur hides a secret. Slowly she falls for him, but can she stay with him, when his secret is revealed?


EARLY PRAISE FOR FALLEN:


Fallen is a riveting page turner. Traci L.Slatton takes the reader on a mystical odyssey where death lurks around every corner. The choices one makes determine survival. Fallen is a thoroughly absorbing read written by a master story teller.

-Mary T. Browne psychic, author, The Five Rules of Thought, Power of Karma, Life After Death
Artist as Psychopomp – Tune in Mon July 11, 2011 – Monty Taylor – Living Consciously
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Artist as Psychopomp – Tune in Mon July 11, 2011 – Monty Taylor – Living Consciously

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FROM MONTGOMERY TAYLOR, ABOUT MY GUEST APPEARANCE ON HIS SHOW
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JOIN ME! Monday, July 11, 2011 at 12:00 NOON
www.talkingalternative.com

Call in live: 877-480-4120
Hello Everyone,

I hope you can tune in to us this coming Monday, July 11th at 12:00 NOON EDT (and call in with any questions you may have during the live broadcast). If you are busy at work, tune in anytime that is good for your schedule or time zone by simply clicking on the archive of any of our past programs. The website is: www.talkingalternative.com and my program is called “Living Consciously”.

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Here’s a summer reading project that makes a difference!
(The recent series of solar and lunar eclipses continues to bring to us a future of revelations and insights.)

First, here’s a new word to add polish to our vocabulary: psychopomp. According to the dictionary, a psychopomp is a guide that conducts the uninitiated Soul between realms of consciousness and different stages of cosmic reality. In Jungian psychology, the psychopomp is a mediator between the unconscious and conscious realms. It is symbolically personified in dreams as a wise man or woman, or sometimes as a helpful animal. In many cultures, the shaman also fulfills the role of the psychopomp.

We don’t always expect to find psychopomps in the field of art and literature, but consider this perspective:

When looking at art throughout the ages, a little interpretive trick is to look for the character in the painting or sculpture who is holding a staff. This is the esoteric symbol showing that the figure in question was serving as a guide to a destination of fuller self-realization. In art of ancient times, Hermes is often seen holding a staff or cadeusis to identify him as such a guide. After all, Hermes (Mercury) was the only Olympian that could go from the heights of Olympus to the depth of Hades(different levels of consciousness) without restriction. He was the Divine Messenger that could communicate with every level of human psychic evolution. Later, in the art commissioned by the Catholic Church, the Saints and even the Christ were depicted carrying staffs to portray them as guides to the Heavenly Realms.

But who left us the legacy of these messengers? It was the Artist! It is important to remember that people could not read and write as a collective society until very recent times. So, it was the symbolism in the art of temples, cathedrals, and sacred places that conveyed the message.

This week I will have as my guest the visionary writer TRACI L. SLATTON, who steps into just such a role from the unexpected realm of the written word of fiction. Using written language the way a painter of the Renaissance uses crushed pigments of meaning and fine shading of emotion to transport us into time, both past and future, she celebrates the immortal voyage of the Human Spirit. Her latest books take us to the brink of what we think we know about time.

Traci Slatton’s works share a theme of linking the worldly perception of our existence to the transcendental. Her novels have been translated into over seven languages. Her recent books “Piercing Time and Space” and “Immortal” foreshadowed the current release of her most recent novels “Fallen” and “The Botticelli Affair”. They bring us into a world of insight and our relation to the endless cycles of time as we know it. After all, 2012 is rapidly approaching!

Traci Slatton is married to the pre-eminent sculptor Sabin Howard, whose widely-collected bronze sculptures champion the ideals of the Renaissance and their role in connecting us to the value of classical esthetics in our present reality.



Please let your friends know about this wonderful program that is such a joy to host. And please, if you can catch it, let me know your ideas for future program topics.

You can also join us on Facebook – Talking Alternative Fan Club, Twitter – @talkalternative, also at LinkedIn or IM us using AIM Messenger: talkalternative@aol.com

Best wishes always, Monty
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Montgomery Taylor
MontgomeryTaylor22@nyc.rr.com

JOIN ME! Monday, July 11, 2011 at 12:00 NOON
www.talkingalternative.com