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Tree House Tales

by Sherry Thompson

Released December 07 2014

Giveaway ends in 27 days (January 14, 2015)

5 copies available, 60 people requesting

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Thinking Outside The Box (THT again)

NEW!
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Go to "Now For Something Completely Different" for an extract from "The Last Battle"

(Tree House Tales fantasy novelette)

Thinking Outside The Box About Something Outside The Box

I knew I needed to write a book description and an author bio for my Tree House Tales antho but I avoided both chores until the last minute. Have you noticed how obligations appear more difficult the longer you procrastinate? The last minute for these chores arrived when the publishing process refused to complete its routine until I turned in my overdue homework.

I tried to write something suitable several times, loathed every effort and erased them all. In the old days, especially in old comedy films, crumpled paper would have been scattered all around my full trash can--or maybe knee deep around my chair. 

So here I was, owner of a blog about "Imagination, Inspiration and Creativity" who was defeated when she tried to describe her own work. It wasn't like I was writing a description of "Ulysses".

Why was this so hard? Simple. I was approaching the fearsome Book Description the way I imagined I dreaded writing high school book reports, specifically imagining writing a book report late at night after just skimming the last third of the book.

I didn't skim or rather scribble a rough draft of my Tree House Tales entries. Some entries were written nearly 30 years ago. I reworked and revised the already revised twenty short stories and the thirteen anecdotes or "whatevers" for nearly a year. I spent much longer than I'd expected choosing art and deciding which "Narenta Tumults" extracts to use with my "How I Write" afterword. 

I knew THT maybe better than I wanted to by the time it was ready for publication so I wasn't in the best frame of mind when required to describe the project.

There was a solution for that and it didn't involve Swiffer mops. Once upon a time, I was inspired to create everything in THT. Now it was time for all those odd little entries to do their share. Time for them to start 'thinking outside the box' of their individual stories, to inspire each other to create a book description that fit them all.

I was about to tell them this when they told me. They pointed out that all they lacked were hands--more specifically fingers--to key in their account. Since I was handy, they h/i/r/e/d/  d/r/a/f/t/e/d/ threatened me to do it.

Seriously. Threatened. "Write this up in the third person, or we'll chase away your Muse. Again."

So, with trembling fingers (and toes) I offer t/h/e their Tree House Tales Book Description.

"TREE HOUSE TALES is a fantasy collection of short fiction & non-fiction written between 1983 & 2014. THT was never a planned literary work nor was it a proto-collection awaiting critical mass. It—or rather /w/e/ they—were files saved in a common folder, once manila & now digital. Short stories, anecdotes, art, poetry and "beats-mes" kept company for as much as 30 years—all that time left to /o/u/r/ their own devices.

I theorize that works which originally had little in common—besides being file neighbors—began communicating in ways humans cannot begin to understand. I think they found they had commonalities they never guessed and not just that "We have the same author" thing.

Fantasy, folk tradition & mythic stories about the Fae discovered they had more in common than some author.

Horror & humor agreed to disagree. Maybe even work together. Deities and Demons, not so much.

Short stories written by and about Aliens compared notes with Tales by and about the Fae, i.e. elves, faeries, brownies or maybe clever mice.

Stoahs, dragons, cats and seabirds debated the existence of humans beyond their presence in fiction.

Wishbones & bear-eating fish learned about “reality” (whatever that is) at the feet of both humorous & scary non-fiction. (feet?)

Since none of their fellow literary prisoners were alike, the short works suspected that readers might vary in their tastes. There might be 100s or 1000s of people yearning to read about vengeful trout, queens of the Fae, unlikely aliens kept safe by Witness Protection, what hit men do on their day off, and why tech can be scary & hurricanes terrifying but sorcerers are much worse!

Critical mass just sort of happened. Short stories, anecdotes, artwork, poems, extracts & “beats-mes” discovered that they felt homeless & unread because they were homeless and unread.

Every anecdote & each tale from the Faerie Realm began dreaming about living where Ursa Major, Narenta & a Mother Goose pumpkin patch shared the same saunas.

Or finding their true home on the bookshelf of a compulsive reader. Or lurking inside a Kindle waiting to scare their reader inside out!

It was time to take their futures into their own … titles, join together & become a book! Not just any book but a COLLECTION!!!

Together they vowed never to rest until they had been read not once but many times!

Or until their author became a blithering idiot! Or both! Yes, both!

“Unread is unknown!

“Unknown is unread!"

~~~~~

TREE HOUSE TALES ANNOTATED TABLE OF CONTENTS

TREE HOUSE TALES is a collection of short stories, fantasy, humor, suspense, SF, horror & beats me; fantasy art, anecdotes, poems & novel extracts.

Here's the annotated table of contents.

  ~~~~~  

Fantasy Mostly

  ~~~~~

I Need a Horse;
A Sailor's Tale (mythic tale);
Sisyphus (interlinked horror story); 

Circles (aliens & daydreams);
Garden Mosaic (poems);
Daisy & the Paper-Mice (2 sides of a paper trail); 

The Windowed Door (prose poem);
Luckiest Hunter Ever (story outline, story-telling suggestions);
The Dragon's Tail Tale (tall tale fantasy); 

No Substitutions (Parental love & Fantasy adoptions);
Winter's Season (a what if);
Smashed Fairy Song Cycle (humor); 

Dream, With Joey (strange luck w/ a side of paranoia);
A Dream with Bowling (Confidential informant in hitman land. With bowling); 

The Queen of the Tor Sidhe (poem);
Shadow Harper (new take on an old tradition); 

The Pumpkin Smasher (Mother Goose vs the FBI. With trolls);
Gajit's Research Expedition (SF, undergrad research papers, culture shock);
Dingle (finish the story challenge); 

The Last Battle (novelette: faerie tales, horror & war) -- 

  ~~~~~  

Reality, Whatever That Is

  ~~~~~  

Preteens, Horses & Aliens;
Baffled by the Green Door;
Fandom 101;
How I Learned to Hate Phones; 

A Fannish Internet Sub-Creation of a Hyper-Dimensional Pocket Universe; 

Sherry's Cake is Major Hit at Coffee Hour Film at 11; 

EgoBoogling or what artists, authors, actors & musicians do when they ditch work; 

Catzis#1 by the human,
Catzis#2 by Khiva & Vartha;
Rainstorm Coming (scattered drops of poetry); 

Hurricane Hazel (an 8-year-old's memories);
Between Worlds (poem re Ocean City NJ)

END OF REALITY (that's a relief!) 

  ~~~~~  

How I Write

  ~~~~~  

Extracts from 5 Narenta novels: 

Seabird, Earthbow, Marooned,

The Gryphon & the Basilisk; Da Boid,Da Tree-rat 'n' Da Loser

A Smidge of Plot, A Glob of Character:

Khiva the Stoah (Earthbow and G&B);

Bert-and-Marsha-from-Hoboken (Marooned).

 ILLUSTRATIONS

~~~~~

TREE HOUSE TALES; A Collection of Short Stories, Non-Fiction Shorts, Art, and Extracts From Five Narenta Tumults Novels

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0692348441/

Tree House Tales at Goodreads

THT's actual cover--with many thanks to Grace Bridges

The book measures 6x9.

I'm sorry that I posted such an inaccurate guesstimate re THT's publication date.
Short version? The complexities of GIMP--the graphics software for the cover--shut down my wild-eyed optimism. I thought I had two options:
pay lots to an expert GIMPer to resuscitate bits and pieces of cover
postpone publication until I had learned GIMP.

Do you remember a certain SF actor demanding, "I want that third alternative!" ?

Enter Grace! aka the superhero known as "The Third Alternative!"  Yippee!

I'm not making predictions this time... Just looking forward to the moment Tree House Tales pops into existence!

NEW!

Send email to The Daily Scroll or to The Scroll Chamber Press 

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Tree House Tales is hours away from completion

"Almost there. Almost there." 

said the leader of the attack squadron shortly before he blew up.

I have:
A manuscript which has:
20 stories in "Fantasy, Mostly"
13 short pieces in "Reality, Whatever That Is"
15 grayscale illustrations 
Extracts from five Narenta Tumult novels
one correction I still need to fix
and 
one additional paragraph (The novelette keeps yelling "Feed Me!" It thinks it's a novel)

A recently remodeled front cover with new copper wiring, pipes and a huge patio.

A sort of spine that's too large and refuses to shrink

I know. It looks well-behaved enough here but take my word for it...


A back cover that needs redoing.
Or not. 
Does the font look squiggly to you, or is it my eyes?
Yes, I know. It's squiggly. Sigh.

(... but I don't WANT to retype all that...)

Finally, 
accomplishing all of the steps that Amazon wants. Picky, picky, picky.
example: I have "categories" but I have yet to write book description.
I've had enough trouble trying to characterize Tree House Tales to friends who already sort of know what I'm doing, sort of.
Maybe Amazon will accept a link to this blog entry?

I'll update this before the end of the day, two minutes before I take a nap.
A LONG nap.
Please comment if you have any thoughts about anything.
(No, I don't know why the ocean is so close to the shore.)

With many thanks to many friends but, at the moment, mostly to Grace (publisher & Amazon intricacies guru) without which there would be no sanity here. And no almost-entirely-ready book. The sanity may be slipping anyway but at least Grace postponed it.

SherryT (maybe)

NEW!
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Tree House Tales collection, due out before Christmas!

    
                                                                       NEW!
                                          Send email to The Daily Scroll or to The Scroll Chamber Press
                                                                      scrollchamberpress@gmail.com

Tree House Tales has been "Forthcoming!" for the last six months but now the actual publication date is fast approaching! Unless something goes seriously amok, THT's premiere will be well before Christmas.

I've posted the latest version of the THT table of contents below...
1.  To give potential readers some advance information about the collection.
2.  To fish for deperately needed help in vetting the manuscript before publication, especially the stories. THT is the first work I've ever written without editorial advice. The situation concerns me greatly. Please scroll to the bottom of this entry for more about how you can help. Thanks!

The THT table of contents below was last revised Oct 30 2014
It is wildly inaccurate.

My Dec 16 blog entry, "Thinking Outside the Box" has the revised  Table of Contents  
Or go to Amazon's entry for Tree House Tales

Title Page                                                           2

Thumbnails of my artwork will be scattered throughout the book.

I'll provides replicas of the originals on a still-to-be-determined website. 

Table of Contents                                                                                    4

FANTASY, MOSTLY                                                                                  6

“Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.” -- Jules de Gaultier

I Need A Horse                                                           7      humorous, fantasy, flash

A Sailor’s Tale                                                            8      fantasy, modern mythology/folktale

Sisyphus                                                                    10      suspense/horror   PG-17

Circles                                                                       13      SF, humor

A Garden Mosaic                                                      16      poetry

Daisy & the Paper-Mice                                    17     mystery or suspense, from a cat's POV

The Windowed Door                                                 20     light fantasy

Luckiest Hunter Ever                                                 21     

  Story Outline. Story-Telling Suggestions.                                                       oral fantasy designed for narrator & children

The Dragon’s Tail Tale                                              23     tall tail fantasy

No Substitutions                                                         27     fantasy flash fiction

Winter’s Season                                                         29     fantasy (pseudo-mythology)

The Queen of the Tor Shee                                        40      poem

Shadow Harper                                                           41     story based on European tradition

The Pumpkin Smasher                                               44      humorous modern day fantasy

Gajit’s Research Expedition                                      50      SF, humor

Dingle    Finish the story challenge.                                                  57     fantasy, invitation for readers to finish the story

The Last Battle (novelette)                                         58     fantasy, written for the PG 17 reader 

REALITY, WHATEVER THAT IS                                                            74

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." --Philip K Dick

Preteens, Horses, and Aliens                                      75     memoir

Baffled By The Green Door                                       78     memoir

Fandom 101                                                                82     memoir

Tis The Season To Be Typing                                    88        (omit?)

A Fannish Internet Sub-Creation of a

     Hyperdimensional Pocket  Universe                      89    SFish humor co-created by Babylon 5 fans        

Sherry’s Cake is Major Hit at Coffee Hour!    

  Film at 11!                                                                 92     memoir                               

EgoBoogling                                                               94      humor

Rainstorm Coming                                                      97      poetry

Hurricane Hazel                                                          98     memoir

Between Worlds (poem)                                           101      poetry

CATSIZ AND OTHER CRITTERS                                                            103

Catzis   (with cat illos)                                               104     memoir, cat-related humor

Squirrelsiz                                                                  105     memoir

Crabsiz                                                                       106     memoir

Readerziz                                                                   107     humor

More Catziz                                                               108     cat-related humor

Fairieziz: The Smashed Fairy Song Cycle                110     Faerie-related humor; PG-13?

niDgRhEtAmMaSre                                                                                      112

Hexa-Lyrica                                                                    113     dream

Dream, With Joey                                                           115     dream

A Micro Dream                                                               117     dream

A Dream With Bowling                                                  118     dream, PG-13 humor      

Dream Fragments: The Pagoda Secret, Diving Dream  120     dream,

A Dream With KB & Then Without Her               122    dream, PG-13 suspense

Two of Cara’s Dreams From “Seabird”                          123    dream

Dreams & Writing; How To Remember Your Dreams  124     essay/advice re dreams

 The Witch’s ORIGINAL Gingerbread House (art)        125     sample artwork thumbnail

Selected Quotations                                                         126

                  

~~~~~

EXTRACTS FROM FOUR NARENTAN  NOVELS                                    127

Seabird, Narenta #1

Extract 1, The “teaser” inside front cover                                     128

Extract 2, The Shrine

Someone had placed a seabird-shaped plaque at the very top of the

wall. Its black surface had tiny glittery bits scattered on it, possibly to

represent stars. Cara blinked. The raised panel receded, becoming a bit

of night sky glimpsed through a window cut into the wall.

She blinked again but she couldn’t trick her eyes into seeing a raised

panel. Patches and slender bars of sunlight brightened the dim interior,

their sources the five windows in the remaining walls. A dozen

half-formed questions welled up. The solemn serenity of that night

view quelled them all.                                                                                     

Extract 3, Stowaway                                                                      131

Earthbow, Narenta #2                                                        

A tiny extract from THT’s long “Coris plot thread”:        

 “If you would be so good.’

Cenoc answered. ‘Certainly. The wound still pains you?’

The keep-master nodded.‘The third row. Its handles are of ebony.’

Cenoc rose and turned to the screens.

Pressing his back against the cabinet, Coris grasped

his sword hilt & braced himself to attack.”

The Gryphon & the Basilisk, Narenta #3

Extract 1                                                                                       140

Hextor Nigragr, shadow lord, sorcerer and once viceroy of Narenta, waited for his dread

master to leave the room before arising. When the door was closed, he stood slowly and

gathered his black cape about him with silent hands. He was not yet used to wielding his

body again and the movements were slightly awkward.                            

                                                Extract #2                                    141                                                                                                         Extract #3                                    144

Marooned, Narenta #1.5  (forthcoming!)

Extract 1,  Chapter One, 1st Scene

Chaotic memories of fire, howling or screaming and fierce wind

were replaced in a breath by cool dim blue and a gentle tug

she couldn’t identify.                                                                      145

Extract 2,  Chapter Two, 1st Scene  

"…carefully,” warned a hushed male voice. “Don’t wake…”

Memory was still reminding her that her sword was gone, but instinct had already won that race by several seconds. She sprang up dagger in hand, before the man could finish his instructions.

Two shadowy shapes leaped back. Steel rang on either side. Striking toward the closest target on her right, she felt the tip of the dagger catch slightly on a rib then slide cleanly past the obstacle. Rough cloth and blood touched her hand, as the hilt pressed against the man’s body. The ensuing scream was still building as she pulled the dagger free and spun toward her other attacker. Metal flashed in the golden moonlight, and she tilted away from the deadly arc. She kicked out sideways and felt the sting of her foot striking mail.                                                                                    147          

Afterword

How I Write, or Smidge of Plot, Glob of Characterization:         149       essay

Examples: Khiva the Stoah; Bert-and-Marsha-from-Hoboken    150

The End                                                                                          151

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tree House Tales cover design to date

The final version will have patches of wrinkled paper randomly stuck to the interior wood of the treehouse. Each scrap will provide hints about THT's contents.

THT is the first work I've ever written without editorial advice. The situation terrifies me.
You can help by volunteering to read advance copies of 2-3 stories and offering your impressions.
I'm not soliciting book reports much less formal editorial reviews.
However, I do need a little more than "Great!", Awful!", or "Eh".
If you respond with something like "Take this out of the collection while you can!", please give me a reason.
In exchange I'll do my best to send free PB copies of THT to any cobbler's elf who helped me in a substantial way.
If you're interested, please write to me at KhivasMommy@gmail.com with the Subject "cobbler's elf".

Thanks!

The Daily Scroll is on hiatus.

I will post Fantasizing Fotos Fridays #10 shortly, after which The Daily Scroll will be on hiatus.

As an author, I want to give priority to writing and to the publication of my work:

Editing and publication prep for "Tree House Tales" an eclectic collection of short works--both fiction and non-fiction.

Originally due out this summer, THT -will- be available by the end of the year!  Or else!  ;-D

Publication prep for two Narenta fantasy novels.

Final writing and editorial work on "Marooned", a third Narenta novel.

And non-writing obligations such as Small Group Studies, physical therapy, and the mundane but time-consuming logistics of day-to-day life with limited access to transportation.

Thank you for reading!

Please look for FFF #10! 

Watch for future Daily Scroll entries!

If you wish to stay informed about this blog or my writing,  write to me at ScrollChamberPress@gmail.com with "Scroll" in the Subject, 
or check my FaceBook page,  www.facebook.com/sherry.thompson.395

original illo for Narenta Tumults

Imagination & Reality

Imagination Is The Only Weapon In The War Against Reality.

Fantasizing Fotos Fridays #9

Remember to think about the picture and imagine what is going on

before looking at what I wrote. No two people will imagine the same thing.

That would be weird.

~~~~~

I'm embarrassed. I had the advantage of knowing the picture's title, "Perfect Vacuum"* and I still got it wrong. I'd plead my lack of physics-training if I hadn't seen a bunch of SF films, both imaginary & true accounts, where air is pulled into the vacuum of space, through a tiny hole in the ship's hull.

I assumed that the little girl was being pulled out of her bedroom window by, well, something. When I saw the books, especially the open book with its many pictures, I thought...
That she had been reading the book a moment earlier.
That one picture in the book had awakened her imagination.
And that inspired by it she imagined the barrier of her windows breaking, allowing her to enter a different world. A world brought into being by her own creative thoughts.

Just the kind of scenario I love!

Except for the vacuum. Still being very dim bulb and not yet thinking about the picture's title, I began wondering why the windows were breaking loose in such a strange fashion. That pigeon appears to be pressed to the glass of the left frame because it's being pulled as well.

Vacuum. Nuts.

Based on the direction in which the windows are flying, her room was the vacuum. Did that make it empty in a way other than lacking oxygen? She had to have been outside when the windows broke. Otherwise she wouldn't be flying across her very empty room.

Is she returning to her home after an adventure?

What next? Will the windows defy physics and reassemble themselves? Physics says no way--our imaginations answer why not? Once back in her room, will the little girl be back in a vacuum? That would be totally unsatisfactory. Her experiences, her dreams, anything she imagined has to be coming back with her--filling her thoughts and every corner of her once-familiar room as well.

~~~~~

How many of us thought about a vacuum, either to use it or ignore it as we fantasized about the foto? How many of us never thought about a vacuum at all? I wonder how much our stories vary  in FFF #9. I'm guessing more than usual. (Remember: you can leave comments)

*Picture title and its creator:
"Perfect Vacuum--Jeremy Geddes (craft in service of imagination)."

~~~~~

Craft in the Service of Imagination

Cool.

Imagination-Exercising #7

Advice from Ernest Hemingway

Write the truest sentence that you know

Consider your options carefully. I mean don't settle for: 

"The earth orbits the sun." 

or 

"I have two noses  eyes, one nose, two ears and one mouth."

~~~~~

Stuck? Here's a few ideas that may inspire you to create one that is better.

Your choice, as always.

Compose a sentence to convey a truth about which you feel strongly.

Have you have observed something about a person or a group of friends which always holds true for them? That "something" may inspire your truest sentence. 

(Just think before sharing)

Ironic statements sometimes point to a truth but do they qualify as the truest sentence?

It may depend on your wording.

Take time to dig deep inside yourself. What is true about you?

~~~~~

Got it? Good
You've done what Ernest Hemingway recommended!


Can you do what SherryT recommends?

"Write the falsest sentence that you can."

As in the Hemingway exercise, don't settle for:
"Everyone on Earth lives a mile above the Grand Canyon."
or
Coffee is just a cup of tea brewed backwards.


Here's a better effort.
Can you create a sentence falser than the following one?
"Painstaking research has demonstrated that everyone on Earth is honest."

~~~~~

Mine? Eh. See below.
"I've always thought my brain contained Fig Newton crumps
but now I see that was just a fignewton of my amalgamation."

I'm not satisfied with mine yet but I'm out of time for now.


Fantasizing Fotos Fridays #9 will be up soon!

"The Author"

Imagination-Exercising #6

Disqualified:  Remembering

...situations from your past, a family member's past or a friend's past.

Illustration by Julia Gamolina

Imagine someone you don't know having a plan you have never had. 

Hint: Get to know your imaginary person before you do anything else. Make sure you stay within your person's thoughts (in character) throughout.

Now imagine their goal as clearly as you can.

Using at least three steps, create a scenario in which the person's original plan ends up resembling the tangled graph.

How does this person react?

Reverse Graphs 

(different plan, different person, different results)

A different person expects their plan to result in the situation we see represented by the tangled graph. For whatever reason (your choice) they must still make the attempt. 

Again, be sure to keep yourself immersed in this second person's thoughts.

Create a scenario--in at least three steps--where things work out in spite of the difficulties your person foresaw.

How does this person react?

"Observe Less. Imagine More."

“Imagination is the key to creativity. Take all the possibilities you’ve ever noticed and weave them together.”

“If you are able to imagine it, it is not “unrealistic”.

 “Inspiration comes forth from within. It’s what the light burning within you is about, as opposed to motivation, which is doing it because if you don’t do it, there will be negative repercussions."                                                                 ~ all quotations, Abraham Hicks*

Alice Rhyslynn*

Observationalist extraordinaire

Folktale and Fantasy Artist

Seeker of the Deep Magic

Welcome to Here at the Studio

Here At the Studio:Transformation

Freedom’s Realm Studios

Haida Gwaii, British Columbia

Canada

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*Why this entry exists

Saw a picture on FB I liked.
Wanted to post it here but I wasn't sure who the artist was.
Did a Google search for the one name on the picture.
He wasn't the artist. Perhaps a "prosperity & happiness now" guru?
Saved three of his phrases that happen to mention Imagination, Creativity & Inspiration.
Redid my search using Google Image.
Bumped my nose on several paintings, none of them the one with which I started.
Pinned a couple of them, chiefly cats both big and small.
Remembered why I was scanning images.
Fell down a fascinating rabbit hole called "Here At The Studio"
Read Alice Rhyslynn's absorbing account of her adventures beginning in Haida Gwaii, British Columbia and--months or years later--ending in Haida Gwaii.
Based on her web logo, decided that Alice Rhyslynn created the picture I saw on FB.
Wanted to like her or fan her somewhere or other, but couldn't find a place to do it.
Wanted to have (low-priced) "Narenta Tumults" cover art painted by her.
As if.
Settled for bookmarking her website and posting this entry.