Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip
That started from this topic port aboard this tiny ship
The mate was a mighty sailing man, the skipper brave and sure
Five passengers set sail that day on a three hour tour
A three hour tour
Of course it begs the question why the Howells, Ginger, and even Maryanne brought enough clothes to dress differently for almost ever episode. Also, why did Thurston bring a trunk full of cash? Plot holes!
Battle Hymn of the Republic seems to have been a bad choice. The song has been playing in my head since yesterday. :-(
A tyrant named Donnell who wants to conquer the U.S.and set up a dictatorship? Does he hold military parades? :-)
I'm missing something. What's wrong with that verse, njc? Also, I did here that verse on Spotify yesterday.
K, you have to admit it's a more powerful title for attracting Christians at a glance. Requiem is, admittedly, more neutral. I made some notes overnight to see what else might work.
Oh, and learning the terminology of English Grammar gives you words to express your thoughts on the subject.
"I like the way it reads." :-)
Switched series title again. I think the latest is more powerful. I wonder how many people under thirty will get the reference to the hymn.
I consider my time better spent on the three R's--reading, research, and writing. JP
Amen!
I did some research, Dirk. You can "deactivate" your account insted of deleting it. THis way, you retain your account, but nobody can see or post things to you. The deactivation remains in place until you either log in and reactivate it OR use your FB credentials to log in to another site.
Bill
Thanks, Bill. I saw that, too. I decided to delete it. Of all my FB friends, there are at most six who I already interact with through this site. The remaining eighty or so friends sent me friend connections out of the blue. Most of them post stuff I don't want to see in my feed. And I despise videos that start running without waiting for me to click. I like to read, and the muted videos are a distraction, like annoying ads.
I read it this morning. The closest I found to a usable title was Doomed to Flames. Meh.
For the second time in a few years, I've deleted my Facebook account. Is it just me, or is it a complete waste of time? All I ever see are those stupid autorun videos when I would rather read intelligent posts written by fellow authors.
Does anyone successfully use Facebook for marketing your books?
Thanks.
Dirk
Looks like we have a winner: Requiem for Heaven and Earth. Revelation mentions that the old heaven and the old earth pass away.
Thanks, njc. I checked Foretold, Dies Irea, and other phrases from the video. They're all used, except for Chant for the Dead. Unfortunately, that's somewhat off topic.
Although more poetic than evil sounding, I like it better than mine.
Thanks.
Dirk
Apocalypse Unleashed is also taken.
Son of a... Eve of the Apocalypse doesn't show up under Amazon books, but it's the name of a Warcraft game.
Nuts. I thought of Unholy Trinity, but it's been used for ten different books.
Thanks. Unfortunately none of those draw me in, especially since few people will know what the foreign words mean.
Why "eye" of the Antichrist? I should add that it's only the first book that focuses primarily on the Antichrist. After that, it's more of an ensemble, including the False Prophet, Satan, and in the 3rd book, Christ.
What do y'all think of the name of my trilogy (Chronicles of the Second Coming). It's a little long/religious, but most of the best names are taken by other authors, and I don't want to duplicate them to avoid confusion. The target audience is readers of thrillers and Christians. The title "The Exorcist" was ideal for the book/movie from the 70's. It suggested a horror film with a hint of Christianity. Should I try for a title including the term "Apocalypse", which is probably more recognizable to non-Christians than the "Second Coming"?
Thanks
Dirk
Speaking from the perspective of a newbie, it's hard to review someone else's work and even harder when reviewing a more experienced writer. I've been giving plenty of reviews, but feel shy about doing so. We're talking here about reading and reviewing genres we maybe not so familiar with. It can be hard to fully appreciate a good story when it's not what you're used to reading, and so on. I'd figured that the point system, at least in quantitative terms has reciprocity built in. Lots of things to figure out as a newcomer.
I agree about the difficulty of trying to review more experienced writers. I often find I have little to add, except for an occasional missing comma or confusing description. I've done plenty of reviews where I find fewer than 5 things to comment on, so I don't meet the minimum to receive points. I have a bazillion points already, so that doesn't matter to me. One thing I try to do is give more reviews to experienced writers, so what I lack in quality I make up for in quantity. Granted, I accumulate lots of points, but I tell the recipients of my reviews why I do it.
Welcome PulakK. We were just discussing new users the other day and ways to help them learn best practices for the site. You've done step one, which is to say hello. Next step is to post a new thread in the Premium group summarizing your novel(s) and asking for interested reviewers. You can subsequently use the thread for brainstorming with other members and for discussing feedback you've received. Be sure to respond to each review to acknowledge the effort of the reviewer. For inline reviews, you can even respond on a comment by comment basis, if you're so inclined. Finally, be sure to reciprocate by reviewing the works of those authors you wish to hang onto as long term reviewers. You need to review in order to accumulate points to post your own work. Don't be discouraged if you get some negative reviews. Those can be some of the most helpful. I had one reviewer years ago who told me to start over and why, so I did. The result was a much better second draft. It's your baby, though, so ignore whatever feedback you disagree with. Hope this helps.
From catholic.com:
The word Rapture is connected to the Latin word rapiemur, which appears in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians in the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible. It means to be raised up or caught up:
The dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord. (1 Thess. 4:16–17).
Therefore, Catholics believe that those Christians who are still living at the Second Coming of Christ will be gathered together with those who have died in Christ to be forever with the Lord. Catholics do not generally use the term Rapture, nor do they believe in a Rapture that will take place some time before the Second Coming, as do many Evangelicals.
Protestants Dispensationalists use the term rapture to refer to an event in the future when God's chosen ones will be physically removed from Earth so as to be spared the Great Tribulation, which is the persecution by the Antichrist and the False Prophet, of those left behind on Earth prior to Jesus's return. Evangelicals believe Jesus fill physically reign on Earth for a literal thousand years of peace before the Day of the Lord (Judgement Day - cue Terminator theme song).
As it says in the quote, Catholics generally don't use the term to avoid confusion with Evangelical beliefs. Catholics interpret most of Revelation as symbolic, which means no reign of Christ on earth before his return on Judgement Day. The thousand years referred to in Revelation is the Church age, which is arbitrarily long and began with Christ's ascension to Heaven in the 1st century. Christ already rules from Heaven during this period through the Eucharist (Catholic Mass, with its sharing of His body and blood).
I've only begun to engage Catholics about the new story in forums for research purposes. I haven't shared any major details with them, except that I'm writing a Catholic-oriented series of novels about the Second Coming. I haven't received any flak from anyone yet. Serious Catholics probably won't like the ending to the trilogy, since it probably won't include condemnation to the lake of fire of unrepentant sinners.
I don't plan to release Galaxy Tales in its current form. I'm still thinking if there's a way to rewrite it without treating Christianity irreverently (e.g., writing the Heretics Bible with the New Commandments and Jesus's arrival in Joseph's mind, where He tells Joseph that he is the reincarnated second son of twelve children that Christ fathered with Mary Magdalene.) I also don't like the level of violence in Galaxy Tales, but was unable to eliminate most of it as I wrote v3, otherwise the story would have fallen apart. Basically the story needs a complete rewrite.
Decided to put my thread here for now since this forum has more activity than the Mysteries & Thrillers forum. This thread is for brainstorming and additional feedback about my new trilogy. Please subscribe to the thread if interested.
The story is a supernatural thriller based on the Bible's Book of Revelation (i.e., the Apocalypse). The story will be centered around a character named Connor. The summary for book one follows:
Living in a Catholic orphanage in Rome, fourteen-year-old Connor has special gifts. He comforts the grieving, heals the sick, and casts out demons from the possessed. As the Church struggles to understand his supernatural abilities and reconcile them with accepted doctrine, priests, bishops, and cardinals in Rome are dying at an alarming rate, either by accident, suicide, or murder. Soon the Pope’s Council of Cardinal Advisers concludes the Church is being stalked by the Antichrist, and Connor becomes his main target. The Council must move swiftly to save Connor, who may be the Church’s long-awaited Christ returned in the flesh. What follows is a desperate struggle between good and evil that could decide the fate of Christendom and all of humanity with it.
In case anyone is interested, there is a loosely related short story in my portfolio called Connor. Unlike that story, the trilogy will be set in Rome and the Middle East. The priest who runs the orphanage will be the primary POV character for book one, just as Father Gregory was in the short story. I won't be getting inside the head of Connor until book two in order to maintain a sense of mystery about him in the first book.
I'm probably at least three months away from writing the first chapter since the up front research is brutal. I'll continue to post minor revisions of my Galaxy Tales story as time permits.
I usually encourage new members to introduce themselves and their WIP in the Premium group and ask for reviews. I also encourage them to reply to all of their reviews and reciprocate with those authors they want to keep as reviewers.
Count me in as a reviewer, Bill. I've been waiting for you to get back to it.
Connor's arc is well-defined, although it's still just in my head. I'm currently converting one of the Revelation study guides into notes and am about 2/3 of the way through that. After that, I need to create a timeline of end time events, since Revelation is not chronological (nor logical!). A lot of it is symbolic, which means the disasters and battles are usually not to be taken literally. I need to decide which events I'll use and how to represent them. I'm also compiling notes for each book, after which I'll write detailed summaries and chapter outlines. The hardest part will be that my research and book notes will probably run 200 pages. The way my memory works, I have to reread the same stuff every few weeks, otherwise I forget a lot of it even exists. It's amazing the neat things I discovered in rereading v2 of Galaxy Tales to write v3. And I probably already read v2 fifty times in writing/editing it.
