Famine is Everywhere

Famine is everywhere.

Hunger for food, hunger for money, hunger for love, and the list goes on and on …

Do you want to fight me, do you want to fight famine? I will give you the secrets on how to wage war on me. There is really only one and it’s not a secret.

Random Acts of Kindness.

If you want to defeat me then do something nice for someone every day. Go up to someone who is having a bad day and give them a compliment. Give food to a food bank or a family in need. Pay for the coffee or fast food meal of the person behind you in line. Help out at shelter or soup kitchen. These are only a few of the things you can do to defeat me. 

I am only a symbol of what people are doing to themselves. These days, greed is what is causing me, Famine, to spread. The sense of community and helping each other is a rare thing these days and if we do not get back to basics, back to performing kindness without any personal gain, the Famine will continue to take over. 

If this hunger continues, people will ruin themselves. Human purpose in life is not simply to sustain that one human. Yes, make yourselves happy, do things for yourself, but it’s not that hard to do something in the community to help someone else. You could change a life or maybe even save a life. 

Just do it. Go do a random act of kindness and see how it makes you feel. 

As for me, I am sitting back, watching the world feed on its own hunger and eat each other alive. 

Famine Out~~

Creating Monsters

Hey Everyone, Conquest here and we are going to talk about creating monsters today!
 
The character bio of the antagonist in your story is as important as the protagonist.  Sometimes it’s difficult to remember that the bad guy has to be as completely fleshed out as the good guy.  He needs personality traits, he needs general repetitive sayings, and he needs motivations.  A truly believable monster will have a definite reason for what he’s doing.

I try to think of it as an experiment in profiling.  Whether you are using a supernatural creature or a human being, you need to know how your monster came to be who he is today.  Fully knowing his back story will help you write him better.   You don’t have to give your readers his entire life’s story, but knowing it will help make him more believable.
Let’s take a look at some popular monsters and see how they add up in the believability category.

Frankenstein:
Made of many different men.  Amazing strength.  Lacking intelligence.  Capable of strong emotion.  (Uh oh....there’s the culprit right there.  Strong emotion is what drives poor Frankenstein.  Most of us can identify with him because we are also capable of the same thing. His emotion controls his motivations, so we understand why he’s doing what he does.)

Freddy Kruger:
Locked in spirit realm, can only interact when the victim is in a dream state.  Omnipotent in dream state.  Can control every aspect of victim’s dream.  Deadly.  Warped sense of humor.  Filled with rage.  Seeks vengeance on everyone he can find.  (Uh oh.....again strong emotion.  Freddy was burned alive by the parents of the children he allegedly hurt in real life.  He genuinely feels the need for retribution.)

Hannibal Lector:
Seemingly unemotional.  Serial Killer.  Highly intelligent.  Vicious, brutal, sadistic, narcissistic, psychopath.  Now Hannibal is much more complex than the previous two characters.  Throughout the books we see traces of humanity.  We do see some emotionally motivated actions, but for the most part he seems incapable of any real emotion other than anger.  Until you get to Hannibal Rising.  When you go back to the beginning and see all the traumatic events he endured, your initial hatred and disgust for the monster transforms.  By then we can clearly see how he ended up being who he is and why he kills.

These are the things that make a monster unforgettable.  And that’s exactly the type of antagonist you want to have in your story.  So when you are writing, don’t skimp on the bad guy.  Be sure he has grounded motivations for what he’s doing.

~Conquest~

(Willow Cross)

Good Eats from Conquest

This is a dish I actually thought up myself.  I’m always looking for ways to shorten dinner preparation because I’m ALWAYS short on time.  My two crock pots are my best friends when it comes to cooking as they are perfect for saving time and energy.

Crock Pot Pork Casserole

Ingredients
Sliced Pork Loin (up to 10 pieces depending on crock size)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 jar/can beef gravy
1 can corn
1 pkg. onion soup mix
4 potatoes
1 bag shredded cheddar cheese
Salt
Pepper

Place the sliced loin in the bottom of your crock.  In a separate bowl, mix the canned soup, gravy, and dry soup mix.  Add 1 can of water.  Cover the loin slices in mixture, salt and pepper lightly and cook on high for 4 hours.
After 4 hours, drain corn and dump into pot.  Clean potatoes (Pealing is not necessary. Your preference.)  Slice potatoes in quarter inch slices and press down into gravy mixture.  If you will not be eating for several hours, turn the crock down to medium.  If you intend to eat within two hours, leave it on high.
When you are ready to eat, stir pot and dish into bowls.  Spread the shredded cheese over each bowl to your preference.

My kids go nuts over this recipe.  I hope yours will enjoy it too!

~Conquest~
(Willow Cross)

Annual Four Horsemen Spooktacular!

You are cordially invited to the Annual Four Horsemen Halloween Spooktacular. Click on the picture above to accept our invitation. We can't be sure that you'll survive, but you'll definitely have a great time. Come and meet the horsemen, play a few games, enter the rafflecopter and win some fabulous prizes by some pretty amazing authors.

I'm always ready to bring it, so step up! ~War