Thursday, May 30, 2013

Free-Verse Haiku

forgive
like I forgot
the past.
 
make waves
and drown in sorrow
like it's over.
 
she finds ways
to be a sadist
with my heart.
 
smile
I am nothing
nevermore.

Protect Yourself

Poor's Box
 
Protect yourselves
and NEVER let them fear you
or they'll shoot you.
Stay poor. Stay quiet.
Live inside the shadows
Or your jail cell.
Have children who have children
Keep them stupid.
Keep them breeding.
You can be anything

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Known

I’ve known those whose only crime was love
I’ve known people far too decent for this world
I’ve known sinners who were saints
I’ve known heroes hiding in the shadows
Because our indifference put them there.

I’ve known longer nights than days
I’ve known pain so real it’s beautiful
I’ve known longing
I’ve known fear
I’ve known blinding hate that cracked the earth
And love that healed the wound.

All Saints Passage

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Blog Tour with Author Cinta Garcia de la Rosa

BLOG TOUR - LITTLE NANI REVISITED

       

            Thank you for visiting this wonderful blog today so you can know a bit more about Little Nani, her stories, her world, and her author. OK, her author is not as interesting as Little Nani, but what can we do? They go hand in hand, so please bear with her.
            Why are we here today? Because Little Nani is suffering a series of changes. “The Funny Adventures of Little Nani” was published for the first time last September 2012, both in print and in ebook form, on Amazon and Createspace. However, along the months, I started feeling less enthusiastic about my book, thinking that the cover was dull and boring, and also thinking that the stories could be improved, maybe going through some extra editing and proofing. So that’s what I did, and now I am much happier about the result and I trust that I will start getting many more sales. Why? Because I will make the books available not only on Amazon and Createspace, but also on Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, and Feed-A-Read.
            There will be also many different options to buy the books. Do you want to buy the whole set of stories? You can do it. Do you want to buy just some stories, the ones you think you would like? You can do it too, since I will publish the stories individually on Smashwords. So you see, different options to match different customers, different readers.
            Once all this is settled and the books are republished on all those retailers, I will start to do the same process with the second book in the Little Nani series, which will be available next Fall.
            Follow the whole blog tour since I will be announcing all the news in the different blogs!



BLURB
Little Nani is a little girl who likes helping people. However, when she helps people the results can be a bit unexpected. Why is that? Little Nani is a witch! Or at least she wants to be a witch. With her magic wand, she will try to cast different spells to help her friends, but she won't be successful all the time.
            Follow Little Nani in her funny adventures and meet her extraordinary friends. Funny ostriches, horses that love reading, super-fast turtles, grumpy zombies... Little Nani has lots of friends! You can also draw your own characters!
            Little Nani is willing to become a good witch. Will she manage to do it? Who knows? Read the stories and discover what happens next!

AUTHOR BIO.


            Cinta Garcia de la Rosa is a Spanish writer who has loved the written word since he discovered she was able to read books at age 5. Since then, she has become a bookworm and reads around 100 books every year. She also writes, every day, compulsively, even in the middle of the night. You cannot control when inspiration hits you, can you? She writes in English because she is convinced that in a previous life she was British, so writing in English feels more natural to her than writing in her native language. Yes, she is crazy like that. Cinta Garcia is the author of “The Funny Adventures of Little Nani”, a collection of short stories for children, and “A Foreigner in London”, a short story published on Smashwords. She is a member of Independent Authors International (iAi).


INTERVIEW

When did you first show an interest in the English language?
When I was 12 I had my first English lesson. I loved it so much that I decided I would study English and become an English teacher. Since then, I got a BA in English Studies, I have lived in London, I have studied at Oxford University, I write in English, and my love for the language just grows and grows every day.

What was the first book you read in Spanish?
“The Wizard of Oz”.

What was the first book you read in English?
“Marcel and the Mona Lisa”, by John McRae. It’s a very short mystery book I had to read for my English class while in High School. A mouse named Marcel had to investigate who had stolen the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. It was a fun book and I still have it on my bookshelf.

How much has teaching inspired your writings?
Not much. I get inspired by my daily life, friends, and other situations, but teaching is not a big inspiration for me.

Did your students encourage you to publish?
I should say yes and let people think that it’s awesome to be an author and to be encouraged, but the truth is that they really doesn’t care much about my publishing books. Unluckily, my students are not very fond of reading, even though I try and try to make them read more.

I’ve noticed you’re an amazing translator.  Do you think online translators will ever be as good as humans?
Thank you, Ben. I love translating. And no, online translators will never be good because there is no way they can grasp the context of a certain sentence or the tone of a certain paragraph. They have a set of words and synonyms they can use, but a translation made by an online translator will never sound natural or accurate. They need the human factor for that.

One of my favorite characters in your Little Nani series is Thunder the Turtle.  How did you come up with him?
Well, I was thinking of a funny character for that particular story and my dad suddenly asked me if I had fed my turtles. It happens that my turtles are really fast. Whenever I try to get close, they run away and it is hard to find them. So I thought that a fast turtle would be pretty cool in my story.

Environmentalism seems to be a theme as well and especially with the robot.  Do you consider yourself to be an environmentalist?
Yes, I am very concerned about nature and the environment. I try to do my best not to destroy nature more than what it really is, so I recycle as much as I can and buy organic and recycled products. Protecting nature and animals is really important. They help to keep the balance and we need them.

You’re also releasing your Little Nani stories individually in ebook form.  Can you tell us a little more about it?
Sure. Well, I noticed that people are a bit reluctant to buy books if they are a bit expensive. I guess it’s normal; we all hesitate to buy a book by an unknown writer if the price is a bit high. However, we authors need to earn our share, so what can we do? So I thought that maybe by releasing the stories individually and pricing them cheaper people would start buying them and, if they liked one story, they would get hooked as to buy the rest of them. So I guess it is just a marketing strategy. And I will publish them both on Amazon and Smashwords. At a later stage I will publish bundles of stories, so people can get a group of stories together at an affordable price too.

Do you have any advice for new writers?
I am not such a good writer or an important one as to advice others, but if I have to I simply tell other writers to write. Just that. You want to be an author, just write. Write every day. Write at every occasion that you can spare a couple of minutes. Write even if you don’t have anything to say. Write, write, write. That’s the only way we have to become good writers. Lately, I am also advising people to develop a thick skin, because not everybody will love our books, so we must be prepared for when the bad reviews start coming.

Thank you, Ben, for hosting me on your blog. Little Nani and I love spending time in your company.

GIVEAWAY!

            Don’t forget to leave a comment, so you can enter the giveaway for the opportunity to win a signed copy of “The Funny Adventures of Little Nani”. If you leave comments in several blogs during the tour, you will get an entry for each comment. So don’t hesitate to comment!

LINKS TO THE BOOKS.

MEDIA LINKS:
Askdavid.com: http://askdavid.com/reviews/book/children-book/3237

The Wave of Everything

Waves

Sometimes I feel powerless
Against the rising tide.
The moon is beautiful
And I get lost in stars
Imagining the waves as stairs
Instead of death.
Climbing scythes
But not my destiny.

The truth is out there, Scully,
But we are sinking
Drowning underneath a
Wave of Everything.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

We Must Remember

We must remember that everyday is new.
The past can break the rocks around us
But it won't break us.
The waves will crash,
The sky will fall,
But you, my dear,
Stand tall.
RUAT CAELUM

Thursday, May 09, 2013

Moonlight

We get it on most every night
When that moon is big and bright

Sid hummed along to the music.  He had every night for the past hundred years.  It was his curse:  The same song, the same restaurant, the same night for all eternity.  All for one thoughtless act he could never take back.

It's a supernatural delight
Everybody's dancing in the moonlight

She was young and he was drunk.  Sid thought she wanted him.  He was blinded by desire as he forced himself on her.  She screamed, but no one came except Sid.

Everybody here is out of sight
They don't bark and they don't bite

The guilt was overwhelming.  Sid woke to see a bloodied creature sobbing in the corner of his room.  He took her to the hospital, and confessed his sins.  It wasn't enough.

They keep things loose, they keep it tight
Everybody's dancing in the moonlight

He met her mother in the same restaurant he had found her daughter.  She stared daggers and he found the retribution comforting.  “I am not here to ease your guilt,” she said over her plate of cold eggs.  “I am leaving, but you aren’t.  You will stay here and remember every detail.  The courts can punish you for life, but I will for eternity.”

Dancing in the moonlight
Everybody's feeling warm and bright

Sid nursed a martini as she left.  He looked around the room and saw an empty booth.  No one sat there, and no one ever would again.  The busboys and servers passed it without notice.  It was their seat.  Or what would have been.


Wednesday, May 08, 2013

Conversation at the Hair Salon

famous hair

I overheard a conversation
At the hair salon.
A man told his stylist that
Missions to Mars were not far off.
He was optimistic for the future
On another planet.
She was curious
Not fully understanding
As he went on about the possibilities
Of aliens and technology in satellites.
How much did she really know,
And how much did she feign enthusiasm?
Answers, like the sky that day, were overcast.

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/_imax/4341391869/