Sea's Nod

Saturday, February 8, 2025

Scrapbooking Saturday #5: Elven World

Hello All! This week's theme was Elven World.

*** Supplies on the pages are from Coracreacrafts

*** If you have seen any weekly meme like thin this one , please let me know.

Monday, February 3, 2025

VBT: Bitroux

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GENRE: Science Fiction

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BLURB:

If Merouac ever thought his life’s work would culminate in leading the metal workshops of the Transcontinental Railroad Project, he was sorely mistaken.

Now, his true challenge lies in navigating the other-worldly abilities he’s only beginning to understand—abilities that allow him to tune metal to interdimensional frequencies.

While trying to be a guardian to his niece, Evra, he’s realising she may have more to teach him than he ever expected. At the same time, his decision to help an interdimensional race find refuge underground puts him at the centre of an even deeper mystery.

As reality reshapes itself around him, Merouac faces a growing realisation: the world of Ahm is on the brink of a profound transformation, and everything he thought he knew may soon be shattered.

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EXCERPT:

There was something about that zone of quiet concentration. It was always somewhere in the middle of those quiet moments where the blue light of the Top Hats had started to appear at the edge of his gaze. It had always been hard to see the things directly in his sight; they shifted and moved and always seemed hazy and insubstantial. He wondered if, in those moments, he had drifted into the Maolfi state without realising it.

He kept working. The surges of static came and went, heating his body, and then leaving, giving him a sense that his whole body was buzzing, vibrating. He kept moving, concentrating only on the wood. And things started to shift, but not in the way he had anticipated.

Soon, two piles had been moved and Merouac was starting to feel a welcome feeling of tiredness. He contemplated leaving the last pile of wood for the morning but kept moving instead. Then, something sounded.

He looked up. Nothing. Had anything made a noise at all? He felt sure he had heard something. All was still. What was it that he thought he had heard? Like someone or something was crashing through the trees, perhaps. He shook his head. Nothing unusual stirred, the flickering lights continued and below he could see hummers and their fluorescent markings shimmering in the trees.

Then he realised. He hadn’t heard it. He’d felt it.

He closed his eyes, tried to make his way to the place the Faurin called the Maolfi state. Kii had wanted him to find a place of deep listening. And perhaps what he was just starting to understand was, that you could listen with all your body, and feel sound in other ways than just noise.

After a time, he opened his eyes again and saw spheres hovering in the air, full of something he couldn’t quite comprehend.

Reaching out to touch them, they felt full and weighty and yet his hand could partially pass through them. They were not solid, and yet they were full. Like bubbles being blown by some invisible child, they formed and hung in the atmosphere.

They grew larger, then fuzzier, then collapsed from their own weight, dripping a strange sentience that dispersed back into the atmosphere. Often, they formed again straight away, the same spheres, the same size and colour, the same weight, only to burst and disperse once again.

Some of the smaller ones were only as large as his hand. Others, twice the size. And then hovering at greater height, larger spheres his whole body could have walked through. They shifted and mutated, formed and faded, pulsed and glowed. They were magical.

‘This is different,’ he said out loud, and grinned.

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AUTHOR:

Jordan Harcourt-Hughes is an abstract painter, writer and communications professional. She’s passionate about all aspects of creativity, life-long learning and personal wellbeing. Over the last fifteen years she’s led, coached and developed creative professionals across the Asia-Pacific region.

Jordan’s books, studio workshops, courses, coaching and resources are an invitation to explore the rich landscape of creative experiences open to all.

High Country is Jordan’s second novel set in the world of Bitroux.

Website

Goodreads

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GIVEAWAY:

A randomly drawn winner will be awarded a $25 Amazon/BN gift card

Rafflecopter

Thursday, January 30, 2025

VBT: These Are Not My Words

GENRE: Poetry

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BLURB:

Echoing Chuck Palahniuk’s statement. “Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known,” this collection explores identity. These poems drift down rivers of old, using histories private and public and visit people that I love and loathe. Through heroes and villains, music and cartoons, literature and comics, science and wonder, and shadow and light, each poem canals the various channels of self and invention. As in the poem, “Credentials,” “I am a collage of memories and unicorn stickers…[by] those that have witnessed and been witnessed.”

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EXCERPT:

Refurbished

Susan taught me that poetic energy lies

between the lines, white noise scratching

and clawing between images, ideas,

things…

And like a poem,

the chair was molded by my Tio’s hands,

an antique wooden upholstered desk chair.

My Tio moved from Durango, Mexico

to Forth Worth in 1955.

He became a mason and wood worker.

He bricked the stockyards

He built the signs

He died in 2005.

Now,

matted. Worn. Faded floral design. Wood

scarred like healing flesh.

The arms torn, ratted by the heft of his arms

and the stress of the days. The foam peeks

out.

The brass upholstery tacks rusted. I count

1000 of them. With each,

I mallet a fork-tongue driver under its head.

A tap, tap, tapping until it sinks beneath the tack,

until the tack springs from its place.

I couldn’t help but think of a woodpecker.

A tap, tap, tapping into Post Oak,

a rhythm…each scrap of wood falling to the ground

until a home is formed.

Until each piece of wood like the tacks removed

shelter something new.

I remove the staples, the foam, the fabric,

the upholstery straps

until it’s bones.

I sand and stain

until its bones shine.

I layer and wrap its bones with upholstery straps,

foam, fabric, staples and tacks.

New tacks, Brass medallions

adorning the whole, but holding it

all together—

its bones

its memories,

its energy.

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AUTHOR :

Donovan Hufnagle is a husband, a father of three, and a professor of English and Humanities. He moved from Southern California to Prescott, Arizona to Fort Worth, Texas. He has five poetry collections: These Are Not My Words (I Just Wrote Them), Raw Flesh Flash: The Incomplete, Unfinished Documenting Of, The Sunshine Special, Shoebox, and 30 Days of 19. Other recent writings have appeared in Tempered Runes Press, Solum Literary Press, Poetry Box, Beyond Words, Wingless Dreamer, Subprimal Poetry Art, Americana Popular Culture Magazine, Shufpoetry, Kitty Litter Press, Carbon Culture, Amarillo Bay, Borderlands, Tattoo Highway, The New York Quarterly, Rougarou, and others.

Website: http://www.donovanhufnagle.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/donovanhufnagle

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dhufnaglepoetry

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/These-Are-Not-My-Words/dp/B0DBMN46M4/ref=sr_1_1

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

One randomly chosen winner via rafflecopter will win a $25 Amazon/BN.com gift card.