Creating Unforgettable Family Moments

It has been a while since I last posted a blog here. With so much happening, I have only found time to work on new projects (two of them related to THE CONJUNCTION OF THE REALMS) and study for my new Advanced Cinematography class.

Today, however, this trend changes and I would like to introduce you to a concept that is prevalent throughout THE CONJUNCTION OF THE REALMS (Part One): creating unforgettable family moments.

When our daughter was born, I heard so many people say, “Enjoy her as much as you can because they grow up so fast!” I remember brushing off those comments because, of course, I was going to enjoy our brand new baby daughter and I didn’t want other people imposing their thoughts on my experience. Yes, a bit immature on my part.

The years do go by so fast, it is true, and today what I treasure most are the moments we created together as a family. In the book’s preface, I mention how both my husband and I used to make up worlds through invented stories for our little girl who is now an adult. Those were probably some of the best times we had together, when it was just the three of us. She would be laying in her bed, my husband and I would be sitting on the floor, and her room would simply fill up with an almost-visible magic fog.

I decided to bottle that experience and try to share it someday with other parents and kids. That was the main motivation for writing THE CONJUNCTION OF THE REALMS (Part One).

For parents: you can read it for your kids before they go to bed at night. I recommend gathering however many kids you have in one of their rooms, with a dim-light. Lighting always helps create the mood for bed-time stories. Keep them excited about the moment and what is going to happen next.

For pre-teen, teens, and adults: you can leave the pressures of this world and embark in an adventurous voyage to the world of imagination. The characters will come alive to you, and you will keep wanting to go back to that enchanted place.

I hope this gets at least a few to exit for a moment the cares of this world and travel to another, where the love of family is stronger than death and decay, where the imagination within you can create the impossible, and you get to experience an upward spiral with each moment you are engaged in the book.

"If you haven't gotten your copy, you are missing out on the magic."

With Imagination You Could Create Worlds Unseen...

Remember when you were a kid and thought you could fight the darkest monsters or simply fly over a pristine lake? With your imagination you could create worlds unseen and visit them whenever you wanted. But then you grew up. And the worlds you so deliberately crafted disappeared in the past. That is, until now.

The Conjunction of the Realms brings the world of imagination back to you and you back to it. In this whimsical mystery novel written for all ages, Grandpa Kingsley takes his family and the readers on an unforgettable adventure where imagination and reality collide.

As an author of content for kids I know the difficulty of creating a world that is intriguing, engaging and fun. “The Conjunction of the Realms” has achieved that goal, and gone way beyond, in both originality and beauty. It is a giant leap for the genre. This has great “Legs!” — Frank J. Radice, TV Executive

2014 © Livre Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Digital or print reproduction NOT permitted without written consent from Livre Press, Inc.

“The Vesuvius Escapade” by Maureen Cardoso coming in 2014

In “The Conjunction of the Realms (Part One),” Maureen Cardoso is the Kingsley's youngest daughter. As a child, she dreamt of being a scientist; she followed current discoveries and was fascinated by DNA sequencing, molecular structures, and genomes. By age ten, she had memorized the periodic table of chemical elements. In spite of her scientific side, she carried strong artistic traits that led her to write poems, stories and children’s books.

Maureen studied macro-biology but interrupted her degree to have Philly, her firstborn. She always carried a pen and paper with her because she was also a writer. Paulo, her Brazilian husband, tried to give her an electronic pad or tablet, but she preferred her paper notepad, claiming that a true writer will use napkins if necessary. A small, local publishing company had picked up some of her children’s books. Still her hope was that someday her books would make it across the isle, into the hands of one of the more prominent publishers of London.

With the advent of electronic publishing, Livre Press, Inc. is making Maureen's books available for download on Amazon, iBooks and Barnes & Noble in 2014. Watch out of the announcement.
Here is a sample of Maureen's writing: the Preface for the first book she ever published, “Voyage One: The Vesuvius Escapade.”

 

Preface

At age 10, I wrote a song about a little gnome who loved to row his boat on the sea waters under the moonlight.  He loved the moon because he thought it was made of vanilla ice-cream, so he followed its reflection on the ocean hoping to reach that inexhaustible supply of his favorite dessert.

My sister Esther and I grew up hearing fantastic stories about gnomes, my favorite being one whose name was Laddy Dah. Our dad, Phil Kingsley, was quite the old Irish story teller. It is no wonder that at age 10, Laddy and his family were alive in my imagination. His wife’s name was Lynda and they had three kids: Lyle, 11, Lilly, my age, and Cousin George, 12. Dad’s stories were animated and rich in content. Laddy was always at the center of them.

When my first son was born, I began to cogitate on the idea of writing and illustrating Dad’s stories so they would be preserved for our family. I thought of a kids’ book format where each chapter would be a voyage and Laddy would be the guide to take you, dear reader, through amazing imaginary places. This story is the beginning of your journey. There are many more to come from Dad’s story repertoire. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did growing up and as much as I enjoy telling them now.

Maureen Cardoso
8/28/2003

Excerpt From “Voyage One: The Vesuvius Escapade”

2013 © Livre Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part is not permitted except with written authorization from Livre Press, Inc.

The Mysteries of Easter Island

In “The Conjunction of the Realms (Part One)” Grandpa Kingsley and others make a trip to Easter Island with the purpose of investigating a murder. From Northern Ireland to Easter Island. What is the connection? And why?

To answer properly, one must first understand that there is no distance in the world of imagination, where humans or other beings can travel unhindered from one location to another in fractions of a second. With that in mind, Grandpa Kingsley decided to incorporate Easter Island into the surroundings of his stories because from the time he was a young lad, the island always fascinated him. Especially the legends of the moais.

Now, the inhabitants of Easter Island call its famous statues moai. Those visiting the isolated Pacific Island cannot ignore the prolific presence of moais everywhere.

Throughout the island, moais are found in various stages of preservation. Some have their pukaos intact; pukao is the word for the statues’ red volcanic hats. Others are half-buried. While a few remain placed on a plateau or ahu. There are one-hundred and twenty-five ahus with standing moais. For instance, Ahu Tongariki has fifteen; however, the majority of the remaining ahus has only one. Grandpa Kinsgley taught his grandchildren the following:

Rapa Nui is what the natives call Easter Island. If you ask the people who live there about the origin of its monolithic statues called moai, they will explain that a previous civilization of royal beings transported the large rocks using their minds. Through concentration, they used the power of their minds to move these enormous rocks from one location to another. It is also said of this remote island that it may once have been the site of an astronomical observatory—not an observatory of astronomical proportions, but a scientific outpost of a long forgotten, antediluvian civilization that studied the stars. Not all archaeologists agree with this possibility, but further indication points to the island having been known as Mata-Ki-Te-Rani, which means “Eyes looking at heaven.”

To find out more about Grandpa Kingsley’s trip to Easter Island, you can purchase “The Conjunction of the Realms (Part One)” in any digital platform at Livre Press, Inc.

Photo taken by Ian Sewell, July, 2006. Ahu Tongariki on Easter Island. These moai were restored in the 1990's by a Japanese research team after a cyclone knocked them over in the 1960's.

Who Were the Enlightened Writers?

In the book “The Conjunction of the Realms (Part One)” I make mention of a war that took place in the realm of imagination first, but it then permeated into the realm of man.

Various kids who have read the book, asked me if I could elaborate on this war and explain in more detail what happened. I decided to incorporate in the second book an in-depth description of what became known in “The Conjunction of the Realms” as the 80-Year War.
At Livre Press, Inc. we are also developing an interactive timeline to be featured in a multi-touch “The Conjunction of the Realms” Companion Book to be released on iBooks just in time for Christmas (more about that coming soon). For now, though, I am posting a modified excerpt from Part One and would love to hear your thoughts.  See if you can connect the dots with real world history and find out who were the enlightened writers. Grandpa Kingsley tells the story:

“From the middle ages all the way through the early 1900’s, trolls, rebellious dwarves, evil goblins, ogres, witches, monsters, vampires, werewolves, and all sorts of horrendous, malefic creatures dominated the world of imagination. Children lived in fear. Belief in miracles was at an all time low. Wars were imminent in various countries, and the hope of a better world was waning quickly as people’s hearts grew sick.

In the early 1900’s, a few elves began an ‘idea’ revolution, which later became known as the 80-Year War (1903 -1983). Elves in those days were the most advanced of all creatures in the world of imagination. It was not always so. Their existence became almost extinct during the dark ages when the forces of evil ran rampant in the four corners of the earth. Their ingenuity and genuine care for humans stopped the destruction, and they managed to survive. To combat the evil of lies and fear, these same elves invited a small number or writers and story tellers to participate in their revolution by creating new worlds, filled with amazing wonders, adventures, laughter, joy, excitement, and integrity. Even confronted by the danger of being considered crazy and becoming outcasts in the society of the time, the writers began writing, and the first literary pieces started to be released as early as the 1930’s. This new kind of literature was destined to influence the generations to come! It was a war of words; a war between love and hate, truth and lies, faith and skepticism. Their books revealed the triumph of love, truth and faith, causing a relentless reaction in the forces of darkness. The evil forces plotted to fight all truth being propagated by the writers and storytellers. The fight was so intense that it influenced the world of matter, to the point of provoking the horrors of the Second World War. Many good writers and storytellers who survived World War II incorporated their experiences in future literary works depicting the victory of good over evil. But the war was far from over.

Now, the beings from the world of imagination gain strength by becoming known and by having people believe in them. The dark creatures’ plot after the Second World War was to obfuscate the existence of these beings so they became weaker to the point of vanishing. They inspired the rulers of countries to burn books and put in an insane asylum anyone who dared to believe in a world other than the material one; they filled the scientists’ heads with empirical and pragmatic theories so anything imaginable had to be proven in order to be real, and to believe in the invisible was to be an impossible feat. Filling people’s hearts with fear was what the forces of evil did best.

Such plot would have been successful had not Fireno, one of the elves who started the truth revolution, stepped in and paid the high price of annihilating all lies with his own life. The beings that abide in the realm of imagination do not deteriorate, in other words, they do not die of old age. Either a stronger creature takes their life or they lay it down. In times of peace, these beings can live for an undetermined amount of time. In times of war, many lose their lives. Whenever an elf laid down his life fighting against a lie, truth emanated so strongly out of his or her spirit that it took down a great amount of evil (not necessarily the creatures but the forces that made them act that way). Many elves have given their lives throughout the centuries. Somehow, Fireno’s death in 1983 was the last drop, putting an end to the 80-Year War.

The force of truth was mighty inside Fireno. When he died, so did the remaining powers that opposed all truth. Lying creatures, over time, lost their desire to lie and therefore lost their desire to perform their evil deeds. The rulers of the countries that plotted against the stories were removed from power and a renaissance of new stories and ideas based on truth and light began. Today, the world of imagination has been completely rid of evil. Not only we get to live in this renaissance of truth, but we get to participate in the conjunction as the two realms get closer and closer to each other.”

If you liked this and would want to read more about the “80-Year War” please leave me a comment, retweet this post, share it on Facebook, or simply mark it as Like. I will know that it doesn’t mean necessarily that you Like it, but that you would like to know more.

“The Conjunction of the Realms (Part One)” can be purchased at Livre Press, Inc. in any digital format.

2013 © Livre Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part, digitally or on paper, not permitted without written authorization.

Press Release for "The Conjunction of the Realms (Part One)"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 

“The Conjunction of the Realms (Part One)”

A thrilling and original adventure to the world of imagination for the entire family.

 

In this whimsical mystery novel written for all ages, Grandpa Kingsley takes his entire family along with the reader on an unforgettable adventure where imagination and reality collide.

Burbank, CA – October 10, 2013 – Sandra Alex is debuting her fantasy literature “The Conjunction of the Realms (Part One)” released on August 1, 2013 through the Kindle Publishing program of Amazon.com. The trilogy collection contains elements of mystery, thriller, adventure and romance for the coming of age demographic, and for parents and grandparents alike. An Irish-themed party will be held in November for the launch with members of the press.

National Emmy Award winner Frank Radice, television producer and co-author of Random House’s popup book “Sam Katz on the Loose,” said, “As an author of content for kids I know the difficulty of creating a world that is intriguing, engaging and fun. ‘The Conjunction of the Realms’ has achieved that goal, and gone way beyond, in both originality and beauty. It is a giant leap for the genre. This has great ‘Legs!’”
 
Chere Berman, author of acclaimed poetry book for women, “Amber String of Beads” offered the following five-star review on Amazon: “Utterly original and spellbinding. The Conjunction of the Realms is quite unlike anything I have ever read… what you will discover will both delight you and release your inner child to consider the possibilities of the world that we live in. The illustrations are winsome and lovely….I can’t wait for Part II!”
 
Sandra Alex is available for interviews and appearances. The eBook is currently being distributed via Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Kobo.com and on Apple’s iBooks store.

About Sandra Alex

 

Sandra, an entrepreneur and creative writer originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has been working towards the publication of her first book for the past ten years while raising her daughter, running a successful software business and consulting for major television studios. As a cinematographer, Sandra co-owns Studio City’s production company, Shoot to Film, and is the founder of Livre Press, Inc., an e-publishing corporation that she started to support the release of upcoming books.

For more information about THE CONJUNCTION OF THE REALMS (Part One), please visit: www.livrepress.net or call at (800) 804-1173, Ext. 107.

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Positive feedback all the way from Germany!

I wanted to share a positive feedback for “The Conjunction of the Realms (Part One)” from Hanni, a native German who lives in Munich:

“It truly amazed me to read such a positive book about love and family, and it seems to make one dreaming… Normally I don’t read fantasy so I don’t have much comparison with others in this genre. But I just liked it. Most (especially sophisticated) literature usually dwells on the negative sides of humanity and this was different. Fantastic job…”

Thank you, Hanni, for liking this book and for your kind words. It was my intent to do just that: dwell on what we can be as human beings, provide a vision for the families, and for a future that is different from what we have now. I understand that by exposing all of the ugliness that exists inside the human heart then there are no surprises. I get that. But I also believe that by focusing so much on the negative, almost exalting evil, a certain cynicism is generated along with a warped look on life.
This is not to say that life is easy, or as my dad used to put it: “Life is not a sea of roses.” “The Conjunction of the Realms (Part One)” does not aspire to be the next Pollyanna, and it definitely does not portray life as a “sea of roses.” I cannot imagine experiencing the loss of a 3-year old child. And yet, that is what happens in our story. For the Kingsley’s family, life took a whole new meaning after that event. They never healed from the loss, but that pain heightened their awareness one of another, and whenever a contentious situation arose, they consciously opted to express kindness instead of irritation; a smile instead of a frown, and so on. I ask of the reader: if I don’t believe that a family like Grandpa Kingsley’s can exist on the earth, what kind of earth am I wanting to leave behind for the future generations? The challenge of “The Conjunction of the Realms” is to provoke the reader to dream and dream big, to think of what the future can be, rather than looking limitedly at how the present presents itself. I hope that more readers can say like Hanni: “…it seems to make one dreaming.”

“The Conjunction of the Realms (Part One)” can be purchased at Livre Press, Inc. in any digital format.

2013 © Juan Hernandez (used with permission). Reproduction in whole or in part is not permitted without written authorization from Livre Press, Inc. or Juan Hernandez.