Books For Christmas?

I’ve mentioned that when you write for a smaller independent publishing house, you cannot be shy.

Indeed, you must constantly be shameless.

You have to toot your own horn, loudly, if you are to stand any chance of rising above the cacophony of the very large chorus of other writers vying for the attention of the readers.

You also have to play with extra enthusiasm and gusto during those major shopping seasons when you are not just competing against other books, but against the universe of anything that pleases and entertains humanity.

A daunting task indeed.

But toot we must. So, my fine, five readers, let’s see if you can follow this tune.

I love when a reviewer, like Vikki Bernstein, mentions enjoying the characters she has met in The Claire Saga to the point where she would love to hang with them. That’s the whole point to TCS, to make you want to join the motley crew and embark along with them on their evolving adventure.

I love my fictional characters because they are all based upon real sentient entities I know and love. I want the readers to feel that love. Join the crew.

For example, by now, everyone knows Claire the Mule, who is based on my very own loving fur family magical creature, shown below in a Christmas Carrollian fashion through a cold winter window.

She was the linchpin that started it all. Without her, there was no story. Indeed, it’s Claire’s story.

So, when I developed the other characters in the books, to join Claire on her Odyssey, I started by including those personality traits that drew me – over these almost seven decades on this go around on our mortal coil – to their flesh and bone counterparts.

Once the character’s personality was established, my work was done. The character took off into the story like a baby sea turtle, released off the beach into the ocean. Their part of the story then arrived in that next wave, channeled from “the field” we are all part of, and the characters reacted to the events in that story as their personalities dictated. Completely immersed.

Now the book Ms. Bernstein reviewed, An Alien Appeal, is the second of the five novels in TCS. It’s when the already established core group of characters introduced in the Goodfellas meets Wizard of Oz storyline established in The Wise Ass first take to the stars above Casa Claire,

where we not only learn of some of the characters’ origins, but possibly our own, while the future – fictional and otherwise – is foreshadowed.

It’s all there, already written in the stars. I’m just the scribe, the courtroom stenographer, taking it all down as the story flashes in my extended mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_mind_thesis

And as wild as the story gets, and continues to creatively evolve through the next three books, the characters, the constantly expanding motley crew that are drawn into Claire’s gravity, continue to coalesce and bond into a family – into which each new reader is invited. Just turn that first page and you’re in. One of us (gooble, gobble). Welcome.

It’s like arriving at a rave, standing in the dark, feeling the energy of all of those wonderful strangers around you, gently jostling, waiting for the first common sound wave to start you all dancing. Shoulders softly bump, fingers gently brush, your sympathetic nervous system galvanizes in anticipation. Wonderful goosebumps. Before you realize what is happening, the music of the spheres starts to play, you surrender to the rhythm of story and your mind is launched. And, hours later, when the sun finally rises, and you turn that last page, you are ecstatically exhausted. You have danced with all of the characters, and are left wondering if that all really happened.

It did, if you believe.

So, now that Claire’s story is completely(?) shared in The Claire Saga, what better way to show the people you love, Terran and Centaurian, Teen to Centenarian, physical and ethereal, on both sides of the veil, that there’s a fun story that can whisk a reader away over the Christmas holidays, like the Polar Express. And the books are the golden ticket.

So let’s see if I can get you fine, five readers to tell your friends and family that this holiday season, we want to make Amazon and Hollywood sit up and take notice of The Claire Saga.

While you are spreading all of that Holiday cheer during those unending Holiday parties, become that person who draws a crowd over in the corner of the room, by whispering all you know about The Claire Saga, its mule and its scribe.

After all, if you are one of the regular fine, five readers of this blog, you know all the backstory.

So, start now, this morning by the office water cooler or coffee machine, so those lucky friends and associates have time to get their orders in before the Christmas rush.

Maybe a successful run will free me up in early 2025 to start writing again. If the market is there, I will.

But before that happens, Monday is upon us and I need to cuddle some kitties, and make my rounds.

And no matter what else else we get up, let us make today a great one.