The Heart of a Writer
I have eclectic tastes that spill over to
what I love to read and the movies I love to watch. I’ll go on a
jag and watch the same movie again and again, seriously, upwards of
10-12 times. My most recent jag includes – Divergent and The Fault
in Our Stars (though I had to come to terms with Divergent’s
Tris/Shailene Woodley dating her brother Caleb/Ansel Elgort in Fault
– Hazel/Gus).
I’ve seen the following movies at least
a dozen times:
Captain America, Thor, The Avengers (I’m
a huge Marvel fan), i-Robot, both of the new Star Trek movies (with
Chris Pine), Despicable Me, Brave, Tangled and Epic. I also love
Turner Classic Movies, timeless black and white hits such as Hondo,
the Great Escape, The Yearling, Sunset Boulevard and To Kill a
Mocking Bird. Around the holidays I can’t get enough of Alf and
all the various versions of A Christmas Carol.
I love books in the same way I
eclectically love movies – all and then some. But isn’t that the
best way we can be as readers and writers? In that eclectic means -
a person who
derives ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of
sources (bing’s definition) isn’t this what the world craves, if
not needs? Individuals brimming over with diversity – unique,
sporadic, odd, extraordinary, from the inside out.
As an African-American,
who says I can’t write books where the majority of the characters
aren’t Black? Because I have gray in my hair who says I can’t
write a book where the plot and themes revolve around teenagers?
Because I live in Michigan who says I can’t write scenes that take
place in California or West Virginia? Who says?
As writers we take our
readers on adventures many will never take themselves. We stretch
their imaginations, introducing them to new thoughts while at the
same time challenging the popular or mainstream mindsets and opinions
of their circular worlds: suggesting there’s perhaps another way to
see, to think, to be. At the end of the day we writers want to
entertain, yes, but we want the reader to grow and expand too.
That’s why I became a writer.
Aldous Huxley, writer of
Brave
New World
had this to say - “Words
can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll go through
anything. You read and you’re pierced.”
That’s what I
hope to do as a writer, pierce the reader to their very core. I want
you to laugh and cry and get mad, and I want to make you think. I
want you to think outside your home and neighborhood, your gender and
age and yes the color of your skin. I want you to see the world
around you through maybe a bit of a different lens, and I want you to
realize that at the end of the day you and I really aren’t all that
different. Ultimately, we writers just want to be your friend.
The Heart’s Journey Home by Nikki Jackson
Publication date: September 12th 2015Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
California Blend Summer Vacation is the first book of this series.
As book one it introduces the three main characters: Tori Logan, AJ Reynolds and Kalea Kinimaka.
It’s summer vacation, and all seventeen-year-old Tori Logan wants to do is hang out with her two best friends, practice her mixed martial arts and go to FBI spy camp. Summer means freedom (mostly from adults) and Tori plans to fill every spare moment of her last summer before graduating from High School with all the fun things she and her best pals can come up with.
The Heart’s Journey Home Book CoverTori, whose mom died of breast cancer when she was young, has always relied on her own strength to get by – especially because her Archeologist father tends to leave her behind with his live-in girlfriend while he gallivants around the world on digs. Thankfully, Tori can take care of herself. She knows exactly who she is and what she wants to do with her life. Her Lakota Sioux grandfather, a former Navy SEAL, trained Tori in self-defense from a young age. Now, as a teenager, Tori excels at mixed martial arts and the use of various weapons. During the summer she will be attending an FBI sponsored Summer Camp which she hopes will lead to her dream job – becoming an FBI serial killer profiler.
With her two best friends at her side, Tori believes she can handle anything. And with summer vacation stretching before them, the trio plans to find plenty of adventure.
But while Tori is determined to be independent, life has other plans for this fierce young woman, and they include coming to grips with some hard – and surprising – truths about both her past and her future.
Excerpt:
“I
gotta go,” Tori said.
“I
was thinking that for the first day of summer vacation maybe we could
do something as a family,” Rachael faintly smiled. “When you dad
wakes up...”
“Dad
got home late and won’t be waking up until 4, by then it’ll
almost be time for the bar-b-que so I’ll see you guys anyway.”
Tori was talking and backing out of the kitchen.
“Then
maybe you and I...” Rachael started but Tori cut her off.
“Look,
you’re my dad’s girlfriend not my mother, we don’t have to
hang. I gotta jet. I’m meeting AJ at Kalea’s.” And with that
Tori bounded out of the kitchen and ran towards the front door.
Rachael
sighed shaking her head. “How long?” she whispered.
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I
could really use a belt.
Fin thought as he jumped from the porch, bounding over the five
steps. Running down the graveled drive at break-neck speed he cursed
the fact he was wearing tennis shoes - that along with the baggy,
beltless pants was hemming up his stride.
The
sound of shrieks and a male voice yelling at him in a foreign
language didn’t help the matter. Fin tripped over his own size 12
feet, rolled and got up running. After gathering his wits about him
he heard a muffled roar zoom past him followed by a streak of green.
He was unsure of what it was but he was too scared to try to figure
it out – he was running now – minus the jeans and a tennis shoe.
Fin
all but dove into his Camaro thankful he’d left the keys in the
ignition and not in his pants pocket. He turned the key and sped down
the drive, kicking dirt and gravel in his wake. In his rear-view
mirror he could see the crazy man chasing him with the longest,
sharpest sword he’d ever seen.
Making
it to the end of the drive, Fin did a complete donut, spun the
vehicle around in the right direction and then tore off down the
street. Tori had grabbed his errant shoe and AJ leaned down to scoop
up the jeans, then the two of them tore down the drive after Fin.
Kale
Kinimaka stomped angrily up the drive to the house. “You get in the
house!” he yelled as his daughter Kalea was climbing onto her own
scooter, a 1960s era Vespa 90SS, refurbished in a shiny hot pink.
“Daddy!
We were just going to the Observatory,” she whined.
“In
the house!” he ordered. Kalea shoved the scooter to the side and
stomped past her mother.
“I
hope you realize you’re hampering the exploration of knowledge!”
she cried over her shoulder. Disappearing down the hall, a door
slammed in the distance.
“Oh
Kale,” Pualani shook her head.
“Surely
you’re kidding me Loni,” Kale waved the sword toward the door.
“Some boy comes to pick up my daughter and his pants are halfway
down his butt?! Then he’s driving my only child away in some car
and he’s already half out of his clothes! At the door! And how old
is he anyway!” Kale stomped and sputtered, swearing in Hawaiian.
“Will
you put that thing away before you cut yourself?” Pualani said.
Kale looked at the exquisite sword forgetting it was in his hand. The
Katana had been given to him by his father who received it from his
father before him, and so on all the way back to the original owner –
a Japanese Samurai.
Author Bio:
Nikki Jackson considers herself to be an Indie Writer, Journeyman and Traveler. She's camped out in the Grand Canyon just to see the sunrise over a stupendous backdrop and she yet dreams to travel to Mount Everest, not to climb any part of it but to simply stand at the North Base Camp and take it all in, in person. Nikki's love of adventure was inspired at an early age at the local library where she spent summers reading about young travelers going cross-country and around the world. She loved the adventures that took her out of the bottom bunk of her bed (her favorite reading spot) and had her soaring across the clouds to lands filled with wonderful and diverse people. It was then and there Nikki decided she wanted to be a writer - she wanted to have the same effect on people reading books had on her. The Heart's Journey Home is the beginning of the adventure.
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