Creating Story . . .

SoulBreaths Blog

SPIRITUAL BLOG: D'VORAH     NOTES

SoulBreaths. Soul stories. Frequent flashes of light that pierce the deepest darkness. Split seconds where the soul intersects the natural and encounters divine revelation. Fan the flame of your soul journey, delving deeper, pushing higher. Standing on a bridge between Judaic and messianic thought. Sometimes as a tightrope walker. A trapeze artist. Reflecting. Respecting. Reascending.

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Legacy

YA DYSTOPIAN FICTION: ELLERY A. KANE     NOTES

She was a first-time author with a smart story. It marked the beginning of more book projects with her. Developmental editing started it off, working with her to flush out characters, form, story lines, pacing, etc. By the end, kick-butt author Ellery A. Kane (foresenic psychologist by day) had knocked it out of the park. IPPY Gold Award, YA category, e-book. Not to mention a Notable Book award (Epic Saga division) in the Shelf Unbound Writing Competition and runner-up in a Florida Book Festival. Legacy gets the three-book series going, transporting readers into a world where rebels, acceptable emotionally-altering drugs, and a Guardian Force collide. Oh, how amazing is Augustus, a deliciously evil character you love to hate.

Story line: San Francisco is deserted, the Bay Bridge bombed, and the BART subway trains grounded. The Guardians, members of an elite and mysterious government-appointed military police force, are maintaining order at all costs—thanks to emotion-altering drugs like Emovere that suppress fear and anxiety. Lex Knightley, daughter of a prominent forensic psychiatrist, risks entering the devastated city to partner with the Resistance, a group of rebels intent upon exposing the dangers of Emovere. Lex discovers an ally in Quin McAllister, a magnetic Guardian Force recruit with a haunting past that binds them together. As she uncovers the secrets of the Guardian Force and confronts the truth about her family, Lex begins to realize that even those closest to her are not quite who they seem.

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The Hanging Tree

PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER: ELLERY A. KANE     NOTES

People's lives are fractured—and our minds are just plain scary. That's what makes performing developmental editing and line editing for author Ellery A. Kane's books a wild ride. She's a forensic psychologist by day and pulls ideas from her work. See what I mean? Scary, yet thrilling and thought-provoking. The Hanging Tree, book two of her adult psychological thriller series—Doctors of Darkness—is a perfect example.

Story line: On her thirteenth birthday, newly orphaned Evie witnesses a brutal attack at the hanging tree. Her best friend died that night—she's sure of it. But there's no body, no crime scene, no witnesses.Twenty-three years later, the whole night is still a blur. The murderer, a faceless, nameless man. When another body turns up at the hanging tree—a girl, strangled—Evie is certain her lost memory holds the key.

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Daddy Darkest

PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER: ELLERY A. KANE     NOTES

After developmental editing and line editing several of author Ellery A. Kane's books (starting with her first young adult dystopian series), I've beyond enjoyed working with her on this adult thriller series, a series where Kane clearly moved into new writing levels. The first in the series—Daddy Darkest—taps into the author's day job as a forensic psychologist, giving us a window into the mind.

Story line: Small-town-girl Samantha "Sam" Bronwyn boards a plane with her best friend, Ginny. Destination: San Francisco. But when Ginny disappears inside an airport bathroom wearing Sam's letterman jacket, it doesn't take Sam long to figure out she was the intended target. Now she's drawn into a dark past she never knew existed—where secrets aren't all that's buried and revenge comes at the highest price.

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Go Face Yourself

NONFICTION: LUKE L. LAFFIN     NOTES

It takes courage to write honestly, transparently. Yet, that's what Luke L. Laffin has done in his soul-digging book, Go Face Yourself: A Healing Journey, based on his walk with G-d toward a deeper truth within. It was an honor to perform a developmental editing/line editing fusion on this important, life-transforming book.

Book's story/premise: A tremendous strength comes from looking beyond pain and adversity into the realm of heaven—seeing God’s hand in the events and circumstances of your life. Yet in today’s culture, most of us do just the opposite. We go to great lengths to avoid pain and discomfort—severing ourselves from whatever drags us down. We count trials as the result of not working hard enough and tragedy as punishment. Sometimes, even undeserved punishment. Hardships become our proof of a failed, unsuccessful life.This book sets out to debunk those cultural lies so you can be freed.

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HouseGuest

YA FANTASY SHORT STORY: J. NELL BROWN     NOTES

Weaving the historic within spiritual fantasy makes for a fun yet thoughtful read. What makes it better? Having the privilege of working with the author, J. Nell Brown. Performing a developmental edit w/line editing and Judaic consulting on this short story—"HouseGuest"—was a b-l-a-s-t. I mean, a dark force involved in an intricate plan for world domination, making deals with a middle-schooler—that's interesting stuff. It's the prequel to the author's Orphan Dreamer series.

Story line: Only a year ago, a Jewish family, the Bushcrofts, escaped Nazi Germany. The date is December 11, 1941.Asher Bushcroft is twelve-years-old, short, and a social outcast. His sister, Natalia, is sixteen, breathtaking, a gifted violinist, and dancer. They are inseparable, or so it seems. But every villain has a beginning, and Asher's villainous beginning starts on the same day that the US enters World War II. Asher barters with a dark force named Nomed to win the affections of a popular girl at school.

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A Generation of Lighted Evergreens

YA FANTASY SHORT STORY: J. NELL BROWN     NOTES

Once again, I worked as developmental editor for J. Nell Brown—anesthesiologist by day, author the rest of the time. Her sweet, close-to-the-bone short story, "A Generation of Lighted Evergreens," is a companion to her Orphan Dreamer series.

Story line: "If love’s a fish, she must be a pink salmon, swimmin’ up a cold water creek—troubled, tryin’ somethin’ mighty to find her intended." Austin’s journey for love begins. It’s 1967; Austin is a simple American man—hardworking, loving, and faithful. Hands calloused, he works a cutlass in sugar cane fields in Belle Glade Florida. Mind elsewhere, he’s lost in dream world as he desires to discover his life’s purpose and find his pink salmon swimmin’ up a cold water creek, troubled, tryin' somethin' mighty to find her intended—a metaphor that Austin equates with love.

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Orphan Dreamer: The Glass Tattoo

YA FANTASY NOVEL: J. NELL BROWN     NOTES

As book editor and Judaic consultant for J. Nell Brown's novel—The Orphan Dreamer: The Glass Tattoo—I journeyed with the author's characters through an amazing story, crossing broad time eras, difficult (and sometimes disturbing) life encounters, cultural divides, and spiritual dimensions. The story is solid; the message impactful. It gets into your heart and causes you to evaluate your thoughts on human relations, race, individual purpose/destiny, and spiritual issues.

Story line: Quirky school girl, Danny Rose, navigates mean girls in her neighborhood while secretly time-traveling into exotic worlds of the past and future, searching for clues required to solve ancient puzzles that will be the key to saving her enemies from a dark force that seeks to eradicate humans and inhabit Earth.

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Reclaiming Your Core:
Restoring the Foundations of Faith

NONFICTION: LUKE L. LAFFIN     NOTES

Sometimes you need to hit reboot. Working as developmental editor and book editor for Luke L. Laffin's first book was refreshing. Reclaiming Your Core: Restoring the Foundations of Faith reveals his passion for his beliefs, stripping away the excess and getting the soul spiritually fit again.

Book's story/premise: With honest emotions and his personal life experiences, Luke connects the dots between getting physically in shape and reclaiming the core of your true identity in Christ—showing Christian readers how to build on the rock-solid foundations of their Christian faith by confronting, examining,and tearing down the hidden, compromising strongholds of religion,doctrines of demons, and traditions of men.

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Blues, Preludes & Feuds

MEMOIR/HYBRID ALBUM-eBOOK: PETER SALTZMAN     NOTES

There's creative. There's artistry. Then there's Peter Saltzman. With a deep jazz-and-blues core, he's carved a broad career in the music industry as composer, pianist, singer-songwriter, and entrepreneur; his work reviewed as "ambitious, richly layered, brilliant, jaw-dropping." Then he got the idea to write his memoir—em>Blues, Preludes & Feuds: A Musical Memory but not simply as a book . . . but with his original solo piano compositions tailored for each chapter and seamlessly blended in an innovative platform so you're reading and listening (or doing one or the other) at the same time.

Lucky me. I had the privilege of working with him, developmental editing and book editing, determining the right artistic, editorial style to match his unique voice, story, and music.

Story line: A funny, reflective tale of how Saltzman traverses his early years in a Jewish-American home during the politically charged times of 1960s Chicago to becoming a budding teenage jazz musician, and eventually, a composer whose works—hailed as “powerful stuff”—are performed and recorded globally.

Music: The mélange of highly structured and improvisational music purposefully disturbs the air as Saltzman reveals his tale of being an artistic soul in search of its unique self, often feeling out of sync with the conventional world. The music skillfully wends around the narrative in an organic flow, telling the story in its own way: Improvisational. Structured. Meaningful.

Segment one of Blues, Preludes & Feuds: A Musical Memory is completed: In time, the other segments will unfold. Follow the link, click the teaser menu bar, and follow the arrows in the lower right-hand side. Prelude, 4'33", Of Silence, Middle C is Not. All good places to start.

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