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Media Events

My appearances on other podcasts, Vlogs, Blogs and reviews.

Media Events

Writing Fiction with Mark Bertrand

Opportunity knocked and there was nothing that was going to stop me from answering the door. Writing fiction with Mark Bertrand is the topic for a podcast interview. I’m waiting for the interview with Fictionary, sitting here in front of my laptop on my straight back chair, preventing me from slouching. I’m seven minutes early and grateful to be the first one in the Zoom meeting. Running through the checklist . . . light on? Check. Camera working? Check. Mic plugged in and green light on? Check. Test the sound? Check. Backdrop illuminated? Check. Book ready to show the cover? Book 2 and 3, check. Smile ready? Check. Mood elevated? — I said, mood elevated? hmmmmm

I began using the Fictionary app for writing fiction five months previously. The app provides authors with an automated system used to guide and spark creativity while developmental editing the author’s manuscript. Some people call it story editing. The app wasn’t difficult to use or to learn. Developmental editing involves the most work and it is also the most critical process for the author. This is the step of writing a book builds the relationship between the author and the reader. As the author, this is where I establish trust with the reader.

So using the Fictionary app when writing fiction, or even non fiction, requires me to trust the app will help me in this critical stage of my novel. Kristina arrived in the Zoom room and we met in person, online, for the first time. We communicated smoothly and naturally. As if we’ve known each other for many years; the conversation flowed. Watch the video and see what writing fiction means to her and I and how Fictionary will continue to help make me write good fiction throughout my career.

The reason my mood didn’t elevate when I ran through the checklist above? Less than twenty-four hours before the interview, my wife had taken her bags and walked out of my life. I could have canceled, but it was such short notice and opportunity rarely knocks. Well, I forgot half of what I had rehearsed to say, and my mind was drifting throughout the interview. When life gets hard and bites with sharp teeth I try to hang on to the thought, this is the night. Morning will come and bring a new day.

Healing takes time and if someone leaves me; when someone can walk away from me then I have to accept they weren’t meant to be in my future. I suppose that is why life is a four letter word. Perhaps the experience too will help me to write better fiction.

Media Events

A Conscious Thing, Synopsis

Many people will tell you the story began in the year 2061, a secret anarchist group of scientists from Colorado advanced the science of combining hardware with human tissue. They implant Neurolink chips into the brain which provides them with enhanced brain reaction speed. Normal brains operate at sixty bits per second and with the brain implant, an anarchist Cyborg operates at one hundred and twenty-eight bits per second. Making them five times faster, outthinking, outsmarting, and solving problems most of us can’t understand. Memory has been enhanced through memory device technology where implants (usually in the thigh and buttocks are combined with external devices hidden in earrings, nose rings, belt buckles, and many other accessories. 

Communication between Cyborgs is provided through Bluetooth technology and a visible heads-up display. Also, Starlink satellites are employed (where they are available) to communicate globally, and from planet to planet. 

After a few hundred years they were chased off of planet Earth. The movement against them began in 2221 when the media promoted fear through smear campaigns and hate rhetoric supported by the Berubbishkin political party. The Cyborgs chose a new home planet located near an inner arm of the Milkyway Galaxy called Planet 44. Their mutant race adopted a single objective which they call The First Priority.

The First Priority is a fundamental Buddhist objective to liberate humans from the inherent suffering of life (Samsara) to transcend through awakening to Nirvana. In this pursuit, they developed an injectable serum that goes beyond mRNA cell proteins. The serum alters the genetic code removing anger from human DNA. The new gRNA serum removes anger from the human genome.

With three injections given fifteen to thirty days apart, the gRNA dosing is complete. The effects don’t occur all at once though. The genetic changes take three to four generations to be fully realized. The gradual development from these few generations is complete when the childrens’, childrens’, children are born with no ability to feel or develop anger. So then, the Cyborgs devised an experiment to accomplish The First Priority using the serum.

Anger is the single most destructive emotion as explained by the Buddha. A single instance of anger destroys an entire lifetime of merit. The plan, therefore, is to prove that people free from anger can realize Nirvana. In order to prove this theory, the Cyborgs terraform a remote planet located in the farthest region of the Milkyway Galaxy. No other human civilizations are capable of traveling to this region.

Next, the Cyborgs recruited forty-four of the best scientists and injected them with the serum. The forty-four departed Planet 44 on a spacecraft headed for the new planet (Planet 444). A four-hundred-year journey. Their fourth generation would be the first humans to colonize Planet 444 and the first generation of humans free of anger.

In book one of the series (Love Reincarnate) the eighth generation is coming of age and according to prophecy, theirs is the generation that will prove the Cyborg theory to be true. Transcendence and the realization of Nirvana are within a lifetime of materializing. The Buddha taught friendship is everything Buddhism requires and love is the purest emotion friends can develop. 

In book two (A Conscious Thing) The foursome of close friends alley with ten talented scientists (introduced in book one) to improve the community’s mental abilities. Two are married and they are in powerful positions in the community and the government. The other two are equally talented, one is a proven miracle crafting witch, the other is a living buddha with amazing talents for guiding spirituality. The goal is simple; transcendence of the planet’s conscious beings.

What started out as a human experiment by a mutant race of Cyborgs from a different planet has become a desperate race for survival. Cyborgs changed the human’s DNA to remove anger. Those people live on Planet 444 where existential events are eminent. Can a community without anger find a way to survive?

The binary star system the planet revolves around emits increasing amounts and strength of x-ray and people are dying from radiation poisoning. The limited amount of fertile soil the Cyborgs gave them can’t produce enough food to sustain the population and marijuana crops are using more and more of the food-producing soil. They use the marijuana crops to make pharmaceuticals to fight the radiation poison and the fibers from the plants are used to make x-ray protective clothing. The white dwarf star’s extreme gravity causes the x-ray quakes to increase on the neutron star and the two will soon collide producing a kilonova event that will torch everything and everybody on the planet.

Humans, stripped from the ability to act with anger, not able to think angry thoughts, incapable of fighting the odds even in desperate times. How can they find a way to survive these existential problems? One goes in search of answers in the lost sutra believed to be somewhere in the wasteland. One follows the exact formula for communal living that leads to transcendence. One focuses on solving the food, pharmaceutical, and fabric shortages by producing a super mind-enhancing strain of skunk-ganja. 

It won’t be enough to save everyone, but then there is a visit from an Earthling who brings them a conscious machine. It has to be hidden somewhere and theirs is the chosen planet to hide it. The Yogini conducts an ancient ritual invocation which results in a pregnancy-induced by outcasts demi-gods. The Oracle reveals a more damning prophecy. Then Nirvanna, still not realized, but the infant may be their last hope.

A Conscious Thing -- Book Cover
Book Cover

Purchase A Conscious Thing from USA, or Purchase A Conscious Thing from Spain

Available in English from these countries. US UK DE FR ES IT NL JP BR CA MX AU IN