Excerpt: Mind Over All by Karina Fabian

Karina Fabian will be our chat guest August 2, 2015. Join us in the chatroom at 7 pm ET (New York Time).

Blurb: At last, Deryl has it all. He’s mastered his psychic abilities and escaped both the asylum on Earth where he was being studied and the influence of the alien Master who would use his powers as a weapon. He found acceptance among the psychic people of Kanaan and will soon be a father. However, the danger isn’t over.


The Master’s people plan to invade his new homeworld, but even worse, the planets are set to crash into each other. Deryl will have to accept his role as savior of both worlds and push his mind’s powers to the limit in order to save the people he loves most.

Excerpt 1:

Joshua rested his elbows on the counter and let out a long breath. He tried to imagine an entire planet being destroyed, but it was just too big; all his mind pictured were scenes from science fiction movies. But he could understand being terrified for someone he loved—oh, could he identify with that.

Rather than the smooth, nearly instantaneous trip he’d experienced teleporting to Earth, the return to Kanaan felt like trying to drive blind through a hurricane. Forces he didn’t have the thought power to define buffeted him from all sides, trying to draw him of course or tear his friends from his grasp. But his daughter Called him, reaching out to the only person she was aware of besides her mother, and Deryl followed her trust like a beacon, using all his stubbornness to push through the current while keeping Sachiko and Joshua tethered to him.

Excerpt 2:

Deryl braced his feet, splayed his hands palms downward, and sucked the energy from Barin. When Deryl had first been learning to control his abilities, particularly to deal with the legion of impressions coming at him from others around him, Joshua had taught him to shield himself from the mental/emotional aspects. Over the past year, he’d taught himself to filter those aspects out. It was energy, all energy, pure and neutral, like food once processed through the digestive tract. Now, he applied the same skills to Barin, stripping away the pain of the turmoil, taking the energy into himself, storing it, letting it build. The tremors under his feet stilled. The waves crashing against the rocks calmed. The wind that drove the poisonous air against his makeshift mask quieted.

In response, Deryl’s breathing accelerated, his blood raced, his stomach churned. Adrenalin coursed through him, making him shake. He ignored it, pulling further on Barin, reaching into the ground, through the air, and to the ley lines that arched weakly overhead. A detached part of his mind worked physics problems of angles and forces. Barin needed shields, and he was just the man to do it.

The key to his sanity lay in creating shields—barriers against unwanted thoughts and emotions, clumsily erected until Joshua and his neuro linguistic programming style of psychology had taken him at his word that he was truly psychic and helped him create stronger, more clever shields. He’d further honed his skills on Kanaan, training under Salgoud in anticipation of a Barin attack: manipulating energy to protect himself, then Tasmae, gradually expanding— He could do this. It was just a matter of size and energy.

Two minutes to atmosphere. Deryl’s muscles strained as he lifted his hands over his head, palms still fat but now toward the sky. His hasty calculations complete enough, he released the power to meet the Miscria Storm.

The Joy of Having Written by Karina Fabian

The Joy of Having Written By Karina Fabian

Every now and then, we have Tabata week at the gym I attend.  If you don’t know Tabata, think of it as being in labor:  20 seconds of hard pushing and pain, followed by ten seconds of rest.  Of course, drugs are discouraged and your trainer might not appreciate it if you snarl, “This is your fault!” but it only lasts an hour, and then you’re done until the next day.  Sometimes, I enjoy going to the gym, but it had been a crazy week, anyway, and my motivation was low, even less so for Tabata, but I went. 

Why?  Even though I didn’t look forward to going, I enjoyed having gone.

That’s how it goes with writing sometimes.  There are plenty of times when I don’t feel like writing.  Sometimes, other things in life seem much more important, whether planning a surprise for my husband’s retirement or doing dishes.  Sometimes, it’s looking at my Amazon sales and realizing that, should something horrible happen to Rob, I would not be able to support my family on my writing.  Rarely, but on occasion, a bad review or comment from someone will make me wonder why I bother.

But why I bother in those moments is the same reason I bother to go to the gym:  Even if I don’t want to write, I invariably enjoy having written.

There’s a definite satisfaction in a scene well crafted, a character who comes alive on the keyboard, or a sentence that makes your eyes sting with its poignancy.  (Just wrote one of those today, in fact.)   There’s getting that message out of the blue from a reader saying they loved my book, or from an editor asking when the next story is coming.  There’s that hope that this story, this novel, will be the one to break through—but of course, that will never happen if I don’t write it.  I know, too, that I’m in this for the long term.  I love writing.  I love having written, and I love going back over my own stories and marveling anew at the adventures I lived without ever leaving my chair.

After eight months at the gym, including four or five weeks of Tabata, I’ve lost 25 pounds.  That puts me at just under 145.  One of the ladies asked me what my ultimate goal was.  I suppose I could go for 120 or 125, which is what my weight from my teens to my early thirties, but I realize that it doesn’t matter as much to me, any longer.  Maybe I’ll get there, but if I can stay around 140 and keep going with my exercising, then I’m satisfied.

You know, I have to keep that same attitude with my writing.  Someday, I may make the NYT best-seller list.  I may find my Amazon sales grow enough to let my husband quit his day job.  But if that never happens, then if I can keep writing and producing and find readers who love my work, then I’m satisfied.  Even when my motivation is low, and things around me discourage me from my craft, I keep pounding away at those words, the same way I pound away at the weights (minus the labor-like groaning, of course.)

After all, the real satisfaction is in having written.

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Karina Fabian is on tour for her latest book, Mind Over Psyche. Winner of the 2010 INDIE for best Fantasy (Magic, Mensa and Mayhem), Karina Fabian has plenty of voices in her head without being psychic.  Fortunately, they fuel her many stories, like the Mind Over trilogy. Mrs. Fabian teaches writing and book marketing seminars, but mostly is concerned with supporting her husband, Rob Fabian as he makes the exciting leap from military officer to civilian executive, getting her kids through high school and college, and surviving daily circuit torture…er, circuit training.  Read about her adventures at http://fabianspace.com.  

Find Karina at:

Website: http://fabianspace.com, http://dragoneyepi.net

Blog:  http://fabianspace.blogspot.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karina.fabian

Twitter:  http://twitter.com/#!/KarinaFabian

Google +:  https://plus.google.com/103660024891826015212

Greater Treasures Blog Tour!

The Writer's Chatroom Chat Rules

by Vern the Dragon

Once again, I, Karina, and Sister Grace will be in the Writers Chat Room, this time to promote the novella Greater Treasures. Grace and I will share the computer, and I have the feeling some other yahoos from other stories might drop by Karina’s to say hi. We’ll see. This is my show, after all.

I always have a good time doing this. The chatters are good with questions and banter, and know (for the most part) how to treat a dragon. Of course, there’s always someone new, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to set a few ground rules:

#1. If you want to make jokes about my eating people, they’d better be good ones. Truth is, I haven’t snacked on human flesh in nearly nine centuries—something that comes up in Greater Treasures, as a matter of fact. Not that I haven’t been tempted, mind you, especially when someone has to make a remark like, “Don’t make him mad, or he’ll eat you.” It’s not that I offend easily, but have you any idea how many times I’ve heard that since coming to the Mundane world? If you want to make that kind of joke, you’d better find an original approach. I promise to do the same.

#2. It’s all about me. (And Sister Grace and Karina, but mostly me.) I don’t want to hear about your dinner unless you’re sharing, or your personal troubles, or the book you’re writing. You have a dragon character, too? Finish the book and get your own time slot. Sunday night is my night. (And Grace’s and Karina’s, but mostly mine.) So take your side conversations to the side—i.e., private messages--and if someone walks in late, there’s no reason for the whole room to greet him. The only times that’s appropriate is in a bar where everyone knows your name--or when I walk into a room, but I’m a dragon. Along those lines, if any characters drop by, go ahead and give them some attention, but if they try to steal my show, I’ll be telling them the same thing, only not as sweetly.

#3. I’m not like a dragon of Mundane legend. Faerie dragons are immortal and androgynous. IE, there are a few of us, we don’t reproduce, and we don’t die. We can, however, be seriously inconvenienced. So, no jokes about getting killed, no innuendos about the damsels I may or may not have captured, no asking about my romantic life. Tell you what, though: I’ll give a free ebook to the first person to ask me in chat about some of the times I’ve been seriously inconvenienced. Can you believe no one’s asked me that before?

#4. Relax; I won’t bite you. Seriously. The last time I bit someone was when I was starving to the point of losing my mind, and I needed the magic ring he was wearing…and he was a middle-manager megalomaniac who deserved it. I come to the chat room to relax and have some fun. And hopefully sell some of my books, which brings me to…

#5. Show some appreciation: Feed the dragon and Audrey. If you can afford a buck, buy the ebook—and do it through the TWC page. A fiver will get you the print version. If you don’t have a dollar to spare, don’t worry about it. I’ve had my share of times when I filled my belly with alley rats. Also, if you wish to feed my ego, by all means, gush. Pay no attention to what Grace says about it.

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Winner of the 2010 INDIE for best Fantasy (Magic, Mensa and Mayhem), Karina Fabian has imagination that takes quirky twists that keep her--and her fans--amused. Nuns working in space, a down-and-out Faerie dragon working off a geas from St. George, zombie exterminators—there’s always a surprise in Fabian’s worlds. Mrs. Fabian teaches writing and book marketing seminars, but mostly is concerned with supporting her husband, Rob Fabian as he makes the exciting leap from military officer to civilian executive, getting her kids through high school and college, and surviving daily circuit torture…er, circuit training. Read about her adventures at http://fabianspace.com .

Vern gripes about the junk in his warehouse in Greater Treasures, but he and Grace have started going through boxes, and they’ve agreed to send something to one of my readers.  Leave a comment or question for Karina, Vern, or Sister Grace.

Ten Tips for Writing for Anthologies

Ten Tips for Writing for Anthologies
By Karina Fabian and Kim Richards
From the Home Office of The Zombie Cookbook, www.zombiecookbook.net

1. Read the Guidelines! Study the Guidelines! Love the Guidelines! BE the Guidelines! Anthologies are often very specific in theme, scope and word count. The closer you get to meeting their needs, the more likely you will be accepted. For example, for The Zombie Cookbook, (www.zombiecookbook.net ), Damnation Books (www.damnationbooks.com ) wanted anything to do with cooking zombies or cooking and zombies. This meant any zombie story which didn't involve cooking or food in some way, was rejected based upon that.

2. From Kim: "The best advice I ever got for writing for an anthology was this: jot down ten story ideas and then write number eleven. The reason being the first ten will get you through all the stereotypes and overdone ideas. By the time you get to eleven, you're opening up to new ideas and creativity. Unique is a plus."

3. From Karina: Know who you are writing for! I had some folks send me a story for the Catholic sci-fi, Infinite Space, Infinite God II that started with a diatribe about how priests abuse kids. I never got to the story before tossing it. It should have been clear to anyone who'd looked at the website that we support the Catholic Church. (Incidentally, ISIG I (www.isigsf.com ) did have a story that treated the topic with realism but also with perspective. It was accepted.)

4. Don't wait until the last minute to submit something, especially if you're writing it specifically to submit to this anthology.

5. As with any manuscript, you want to send out your best. For stories written just for the anthology, the temptation is to rush through it to meet the deadline. It still needs to grow through the revision and editing process. Send it through your critique group and revise. Anthologies have only a few slots to fill and will have a lot of stories wanting in. Your piece needs to be at its strongest to stand out above the crowd.

6. There're two schools of thought about submitting to anthologies: the first is to write your stories and should an anthology open up where one you have saved on the hard drive fits in, then submit it. The other is to write a story just for that anthology. Both have positives and negatives. For saved stories, there's a temptation to just send off what you have without giving it a good editing first. Too many authors will send stories they can't sell to anthologies and then get upset when it doesn't sell to the anthology either. They aren't a dumping ground for your weak stuff. Maybe there's a reason it hasn't sold before now. It also might not actually fit the theme they're looking for. Look hard at your story and be sure. A little tweaking can't hurt.

7. If you're going to write for an anthology, especially one that pays a portion of the royalties, be willing to do some marketing if you're accepted. Go on a virtual book tour, send out some press releases, tell all your social groups. You're helping yourself and the other contributors--and you'll make yourself shine in the eyes of the publisher.

8. Anthologies need editing, too. Work with the editor. Also be sure to give the editor the other info you need--like your bio--by deadline. In this case, procrastination doesn't just hurt you, but all the other contributors who were accepted.

9. Remember that, with few exceptions, anthologies are not big money makers. Publishers usually do it for love, fun, promotion or charity. Writers join for fun, publicity, and sometimes charity.

10. From Karina: If you had fun with your story, consider doing more with those characters. Mercedes Lackey did many adventures of Tarma and Kethry, including some novels, after writing a story about them for Sword and Sorceress. My DragonEye, PI, (www.dragoneyepi.net ) series of books and novels started from a story I wrote for Firestorm of Dragons. (www.firestormofdragons.com )