Shawn L. Bird

Original poetry, commentary, and fiction. All copyrights reserved.

Double Wow! September 7, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 11:35 am
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I have been following Grace’s movements on Kindle, since they have each book’s ‘Bestseller Stat” right on the listing. (FYI, she’s in the top 9% of e-book sales today).   I have been very curious to know about iTunes listings, because it seemed to me that most of the people I was hearing from had bought their copy on iTunes.

Just this week I discovered the iTunes Book Charts. Grace Awakening has a profile there. I learned that it was doing quite well, so well in fact, that it had been making regular appearances on the list of  Top 100 Fantasy eBooks in Canada!  Needless to say, I was excited. (Picture Shawn squealing and leaping about).

Last night I went through every chart from the day Grace debuted at 34th place (her best stat).  I was absolutely astounded to discover that she spent 14 days straight in the Top 100 during the first two weeks of August!

Holy Cow!!

After that, she’s popped on and off the list, so she’s sitting around the 100 line.  She’s been on again the last couple of days. I am so excited that my book baby is off in the world making her own friends. I can’t believe that she’s holding her own statistically with authors like J R R Tolkein, Terry Goodkind, and David Edding! I’ve read those guys!

I read a lot of SciFi/Fantasy as a kid. I am one of those Star Trek and Star Wars nerds. It’s so cool that Grace has a place among ‘my people.’ 😀


I hope she has the staying power to keep there, and that more people find her and fall in love with her and her friends.  I’m really looking forward to the release of Grace Awakening Power, and seeing what she does when she’s not just dreaming, but has some potency behind her!  Will she take off into the stratosphere?

Thanks to you for reading. Grace and I appreciate you entering our world.

 

without music September 6, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening — Shawn L. Bird @ 1:04 pm
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“Without music, life would be a mistake.”

-Friedrich Nietzsch

Do I need to say anything else about this?  Everyone living inside the pages of Grace Awakening knows all about this, except Ares perhaps, but even he thinks it’s important enough to try to destroy.

 

secrets September 5, 2011

Filed under: Pondering,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 11:23 am
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In the entire history of our marriage, it was the only secret I kept from her, and eventually it became impossible to fix.  With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not.

Water for Elephants.  Sara Gruen.  p. 415

This is a valid point, don’t you think?  Whether or not the thing you conceal is important in later years, it can become a “Why didn’t you tell me?” sort of thing.  Mind you, I also know that shrug that says, “Well that’s no big deal!” and just accepts the fact that some people are nervous about sharing news that they think will be taken badly.  Some people get all worried about things like that, and others shake it off.  In the past.  Water under the bridge.  Who cares now about such things?

What do you think?  When is keeping the secret bigger than the secret itself?

 

Wow September 4, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening — Shawn L. Bird @ 11:00 am
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Wow. I am a little stunned here today. I just discovered a website that tracks the iBook chart data and posts Top 100 for various genres. To my joy and astonishment, apparently Grace Awakening “has appeared 55 times” in the Top 100 Fantasy or SciFi/Fantasy in Canada this summer. It reached a high of #34 the week after release.

Wow. Pretty good for a brand new book from a brand new author! I’m looking forward to charting Grace’s adventures as word spreads.

Pretty cool what you can find on the internet.

Oh, yesterday was also a big day because I got a new fan on my Facebook Author Page: a high school student from New York who writes very enthusiastically of the book. I’m thrilled 😀 Word is spreading!  I’m so happy that Grace is off finding new friends in faraway places!

How about you?  Are you a new friend of Grace?  Where do you live?

 

25 things September 3, 2011

Filed under: Commentary — Shawn L. Bird @ 8:34 pm
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This is an interesting article that hits on quite a few interesting points about the new realities of self-publishing.  I like that he applied the exchange student mantra:

Not better.  Not worse.  Just different.

Oh- language warning.  The diction is a little blue.

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/08/30/25-things-you-should-know-about-self-publishing/

 

gone, not forgotten September 2, 2011

Filed under: anecdotes,Friendship — Shawn L. Bird @ 11:24 am
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Once upon a time I had a friend who was a middle child.  She was an eldest daughter between a precious son and an adorable daughter.  She was the kind of child who chafed at constriction, who felt injustice and inequality, who was determined to have her own way even if it hurt.

She made some choices that were painful for friends and family alike.  But time wore down the edges, softened attitudes and then life blossomed.  She joyfully awaited the birth of a child.  Like many things with her, it was a high risk endeavour.  She didn’t do things the easy way.  Doctors said they’d ensure the delivery was a safe one.

The child arrived, but the delivery wasn’t safe.   There came baby, blood, coma and after a time of lingering, she left.  A final injustice.

She didn’t get to see her baby grown into an amazing young woman.  She didn’t get to become all she could have been herself.  But she lives on in our memories, and on her birthday, a tear may fall…

Thinking of  her today.

 

purdah September 1, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening — Shawn L. Bird @ 11:12 am
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In Grace Awakening Myth, Bright comments that purdah is a “curse word.”  Just for clarity, I thought I should include a thorough definition of what it actually is.  In short, it means separation.  It is the act of separating female family members from public. There are variations of practice depending on location and faith.  Knowing Bright, you will be able to understand why she thinks it’s a curse word.

In 1925 Marmaduke Pickthall, a British convert to Islam and translator of the Quran, gave a lecture in Madras entitled “The Relation of the Sexes”[7] which condemned purdah in the Indian subcontinent, and also criticized the practice of face veiling among Muslim women.

If you read the article, you will have a clear understanding of the real definition, and have a historical context for a practice that exists in some places even today.

 

watering elephants August 31, 2011

Filed under: book reviews,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:41 pm
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I just finished reading Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants which is my book club’s September read.  It’s hard to say what I loved most about this book.  Sara Gruen is a masterful storyteller, and she does a brilliant job of flashing between the present in a nursing home and the 3.5 months in depression era Benzini Brothers Circus.  Her narrator is protagonist “90 or 93” year old Jacob.  It is a testament to Gruen’s skill that he rings entirely true.  She has thoroughly captured the frustration of strong mind being caught inside a feeble body as Jacob remembers the joys and horrors of  life on a circus train.

I remember loving circus books as a kid, and plainly that hasn’t changed.  When I reached the last 50 pages, I couldn’t see how on earth it’d be possible to wrap all the conflicts in so little time, but she does.  I loved the ending as well.  I didn’t see it coming and it made me happy.

Great book.  Highly recommended.

 

kiss August 30, 2011

Filed under: Poetry — Shawn L. Bird @ 3:45 pm
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your eyes meet mine and

your lips beckon mine to seal

the hint of promise

 

Concordia August 29, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Mythology — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:44 am
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In Greek mythology, the goddess in charge of unity and agreement is Harmonia.  In the Roman pantheon, it’s Concordia.  Concordia has some responsibilities that Harmonia doesn’t have.  Concordia is responsible for marital harmony and connection, as well as the unity of mankind.  In Grace Awakening, Concordia was given the surname Iugo.  Iugo is Latin and reflects this role.  According to the Google translator  iugo encompasses the following verbs:

join, joint, join together, bind together, band, link, connect, inosculate, interlace, interlock, bridge, couple, rally, compound, amalgamate, clasp, leash, pair, marry, yoke, wed, complect, harness, aggregate, conjoin, pan, agglutinate, commingle, lark, conflate, compact, unite, fun, mate

You get the idea.  Concordia’s job here is to join couples.  To ensure strong bonds of communication, she has a ceremonial rite of bonding.  Ben takes advantage of this opportunity to strengthen his ties to Grace.  He is trying to tie them together in a way that ensures no one can pull them apart.

What do you think about this?  If you had an opportunity to layer the bonds between you  and your beloved so that your communication was clear and no one could separate you, would you take advantage of it?  Or do you prefer a little mystery in your relationship?  Do you want to maintain more privacy than Grace is able to have after she’s bonded?