COMING FOR MONEY by F.W. vom Scheidt

Coming for Money by F.W. vom Scheidt

In summary, Coming For Money is a novel about the world of global finance and a human quest for success, understanding and love.

How I came to write it is much like a montage of photographs, all taken of the same subject, but all taken from several perspectives.

I have always written.

Following the adage of write from what you know best, I wrote from my first hand-hand experience accumulated as a director of an international investment firm. I wrote as truthfully as possible of the world of international finance — not with the over dramatization so common in film and television, but with an intimate telling through a first-person narrative … of what it can be like to labour in the world of money spinning … of how the money’s immense leverage for triumph or disaster doesn’t so much corrupt people as corrupt the way they treat each other … of how the relentless demands of the money so often deprive you of sufficient time and energy to live through the events of your emotional and interior life.

In addition to this witnessing of the world of international finance, Coming For Money is also a provocative literary novel.

That flows, I think, from the fact that, throughout my life, I have always sought to maintain my integrity in a struggle with questions that have no answers.

So the novel flows from some of the questions I continually ask about life. The plot advances along questions arising from how we relate to our careers: How much money is too much? And how fast is too fast in life? And the central character advances along deeper questions in his own life: How do we cope with love and loss?

Moreover, because our societies equate financial success with a successful life, we are often blind to the inner stories of countless people in all endeavors who, in their desperate search for inner happiness, endlessly repeat a formula for financial success even while remaining deeply unhappy due to unresolved emotional and psychological issues at their core. I wanted to bring one of these inner stories to life.

The result is a deeply felt narrative about the isolation of today’s society, the prices great and small paid for success and the damages resulting from the ruthless exercise of financial power.

I also wrote the Coming For Money to be a good story well told.

The story is event-driven. It follows Paris Smith. As he steps onto the top rungs of the corporate ladder, he is caught between his need for fulfillment and his need for understanding; between his drive for power and his inability to cope with his growing emptiness where there was once love. When his wife disappears from the core of his life, his loneliness and sense of disconnection threaten to overwhelm him. When he tries to compensate by losing himself in his work, he stumbles off the treadmill of his own success, and is entangled in the web of a fraudulent bond deal that threatens to derail his career and his life.

Forced to put his personal life on hold while he travels nonstop between Toronto, Singapore and Bangkok to salvage his career, he is deprived of the time and space to mourn the absence of his wife and regain his equilibrium.

In the heat and turmoil and fast money of Southeast Asia, half a world from home, and half a life from his last remembered smile, he finds duplicity, friendship and power — and a special woman who might heal his heart.

As much as I want to write a literary novel, I wanted to write a story that was fast-paced and highly readable.

And finally, I wrote Coming For Money because I had no other choice.

I sat down at the keyboard. Although I have always been a literary writer, I had no idea how I would capture my experiences in international finance in literary fiction. Without thinking, the first sentence came to me. I typed it. Then I looked at that sentence for a long time.

Instinct told me that the sentence had risen from something that was deeply absorbing me, and that it was something I had to tell. I knew I had to find some way to tell it truthfully. From that point, I knew there was no way out . . . except to construct the novel.

While Coming For Money is a story that advances from chapter to chapter along the corporate intrigue that beats at its heart, and continually mirrors the financial headlines of our daily newspapers, it is much more. It is an illustration of what happens to us as human beings when we lose emotional connectiveness, when we lose emotional logic.

And this was how Paris Smith came to me – because he is tragically, if admirably, flawed. He is not flawed in the classic Shakespearean sense of a noble man who is brought to ruin by his own avarice or rage. His weakness is not that he lusts after wealth or power or flesh. Rather, and far more important for us in these times, he is flawed in that he never learned the great lesson of his generation: don’t become emotionally involved. Paris Smith’s weakness is that he needs, and has always needed, emotional involvement in order to sustain his life. It is for him – as, ultimately, it is for us all – as necessary as breathing.

As Paris Smith refuses to relinquish his search for emotional connectiveness, he becomes a character we learn to appreciate and admire. In the sometimes stubborn, sometimes creative, battles he wages against other men in his corporation who are pitted against him, Paris Smith becomes ever more conscious of how he could stem his personal pain and loneliness by simply retreating emotionally and victimizing those around him. Or he might learn anew how to offer up his own emotional involvement. I’ll leave it for readers to see how this plays out in the end, and to decide what they may want to take away from his quest for human meaning in our contemporary world. But I hope readers will appreciate Paris Smith as much as I do.

In writing Coming For Money, I have tried to tell this story in a way that will let others in our increasingly isolated society know that they are not alone. I have also tried to say something about the value of not surrendering to the seduction of victimizing others as a defence against being victimized. In writing a narrative about not giving up, I attempted to capture something true and evocative about how all journeys toward the light begin in darkness. And I have offered readers some assurance that, of such journeys, they can become restored to wholeness.

F. W. vom Scheidt is a director of an international investment firm. He works and travels in the world’s capital markets, and makes his home in Toronto, Canada. He is also the author of a new book, Coming for Money (Blue Butterfly Book Publishing), a remarkable and provocative novel about the world of international finance and the human quests for success, understanding and love. You can find out more about his book at http://www.bluebutterflybooks.ca/titles/money.html.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE LAUNCH OF AN ONLINE INFORMATION PRODUCT by Phyllis Zimbler Miller

The release of my novel Mrs. Lieutenant (www.MrsLieutenant.com) threw me headlong into the world of online marketing.  I set out to learn everything I could about this brave new world.

In the course of this quest I decided to form a company that would share my newly acquired Internet marketing knowledge with others in an easier manner than the piecemeal way in which I’d learned.

I wanted to offer Internet marketing training at a reasonable cost, especially for book authors who often have minimum promotional funds.

The answer to this proposal seemed to be a monthly Internet marketing program in which one main topic a month would be covered.  In this way the material covered would not be overwhelming and could actually be implemented.

Then all kinds of new problems/obstacles presented themselves, such as which membership software should I use?  There were numerous possibilities, many recommended by people I trusted.  And each software solution had different capabilities.  Which ones would I need/want most?

Then there was the delivery method for the monthly information.  How best to do this as people have different learning styles?

The solution was to record a monthly “conversation” teleseminar that would be available for listening online, downloading as an MP3, or reading the transcript of the conversation.

Then later in the month there would be a live question-and-answer teleseminar on this topic with the audio replay available afterwards.

This solution then meant new recording software upon which to decide.

By now you should have an idea of the numerous decisions with which I was dealing.  And I thought to myself: Why don’t I write about these decisions for my Examiner.com column (www.InternetBizBlogger.com) to help others who may be facing these same questions?  And I did this for the month of June.

Then I thought:  It would be nice for people to be able to have the month’s worth of articles all in one ebook for easy access and learning.

And thus was born the ebook What You Should Know About the Launch of an Online Information Product –- an ebook designed to help make it easier for others to set up their own membership sites.

Of course, the step after the creation of the ebook (and adding it to my company website www.MillerMosaicLLC.com) was to go on a virtual book tour for it with Dorothy Thompson of www.PumpUpYourBookPromotion.com as I’d done for my novel Mrs. Lieutenant.

And this brings me full circle to writing this guest post for “The Story Behind the Book.”

Author Phyllis Zimbler Miller’s company MillerMosaicLLC.com has just launched the Miller Mosaic Internet Marketing Program to help people promote their brand, book or business.  You can learn about the program at http://www.WeTeachWebMarketing.com.  She’s also a National Internet Business Examiner at http://www.InternetBizBlogger.com and active on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ZimblerMiller .  Her new ebook What You Should Know About the Launch of an Online Information Product grew out of her Examiner.com articles about the launch of the Miller Mosaic Internet Marketing Program.  She is also the author of the novel http://www.MrsLieutenant.com .

DIARY OF A MAD GEN Y ER by Marcus Dino

Eeeeeeeeeek I’m just so excited to be writing this blog. I’ve had so many recently on this blog tour. Ok I’m not Marcus; I’m Fifi Larouche, struggling actress/waitress who is determined come heck or high water to make it to the top of the mountain in Hollywood and will let no one stop me, the main character in Diary of a Mad Gen Yer. Marcus is just so busy you know with his school job……..He says he’s like teaching six periods and is grading all these papers and just doesn’t quite have the time to write these blogs, so I’m filling in for him. It really doesn’t matter because I’m actually the real author of Diary and Marcus’s first book, Fifi; Anything Goes in the Double Os. I’m a real person who gives Marcus my stories but he’s better at things like grammar than him so he takes all the credit as ‘author.’ Beside’s Fifi by Fifi would sound a bit funny wouldn’t it? Without me Marcus would write a book with excerpts like “See Rebecca run up the hill with Jack and Jill and Fifi and then they all went to Hollywood.” A nice fella but not with much imagination, I do have a bit of spice in my life and they’re shown in my stories which I’m sure you’ll find a bit more interesting than “Ohhhhhhh Fifi had just another interesting day where she accidentally stepped on the shoes of a wolf who tried to make a pass at her at the restaurant, then in the afternoon she got rejected at her hundredth audition, then when she came home she snapped at her lovely roommate Marissa who asked her ‘how her day went,’ then she calls up her boyfriend Biff late at night about how much she hates Hollywood and wants to go back home to Des Moines, then she cries herself to sleep.” I mean that kind of stuff is too ho hum, too ho hum, you’ll never see that in my silly stories and my silly blogs.

Now as for the things that inspired me to write Diary. These are my daily struggles my dear…..Silly things that go on in my life in a daily basis; well that’s where the ‘short short’ stories come from. I mean face way it, some of the ‘dreams’ I have in Diary are more entertaining than any movie or TV show you see today. My good old ‘right cerebrum,’ making up all these fun nightly picture shows up when I am sound asleep. Sometimes I really hate getting up to the world of ‘reality’ after enjoying being in one of my silly dreams. Now my blog Fifi’s Thoughts well they are just like daily thoughts that come out of my head at the end of a long day after say getting rejected an umpteenth time at an audition or after another frustrating day dealing with ornery customers at my waitressing job…….Ditto for my silly poems, silly thoughts that come out of my head and that I then put it into ‘poetic form’…..Now my fairy alter ego ‘Flifi’ from the ‘Alternate Earth’ she just gives a lot of good advice to kids and people unlike these other fairies who fly around and throw pixie dust all over the place.

Let me tell you about some of the other characters in Diary, there’s my best friend Alocki who is an alien from another planet and the smartest person I ever met, my liberal and fellow wannabe actor boyfriend Biff (we wannabe actors need to stick together), and my as I said before there’s my fairy alter ego Flifi. There’s also a few ‘minor’ but just as interesting characters like Dick, a stuck English Oxford grad atheist/scientist friend I love arguing ‘religion versus evolution’ with There’s the ‘200 year old Great Writer’ from the ‘Astral World.’ Omigosh I love listening to him, an Englishman from the ‘days of Dickens and Emily Bronte.’ There’s Helos who along with Alocki is from Zatoris which orbits our nearest star Alpha Centauri. Helos is like the second smartest person I ever met but he can be a bit absent minded, you know just like really smart people can be.

So anyways I really enjoy writing this blog for you people and hope your read Diary when you have the chance. I mean that is when you can find the time to read Diary. I know some of you people are quite busy and don’t have much free time. You know you need to walk your pet wallaby and stuff like that.

Marcus Dino has had an interesting professional career, first as an Aerospace engineer, next as a passionate math teacher teaching in urban Los Angeles which he currently still does, and finally, as a part time literary fiction author.  It is Mr Dino’s being a die hard movie buff that led him to writing Diary of a Mad Gen Yer in addition to his first novel, Fifi, Anything goes in the Double Os, first published in 2003.  Mr Dino is a graduate of Chapman University and he also has Masters Degrees in both Education and Electrical Engineering. Diary of a Mad Gen Yer and Fifi can be found at www.smashwords.com and www.summertimproductions.net.  Mr Dino’s personal website which includes numerous blogs, short stories, and poems involving his central character Fifi Larouche, which helped inspire him to write his anthology, Diary, can be found at www.authorsden.com/marcusdino.

NO TEACHERS LEFT BEHIND by HBF Teacher

Day after day of dealing with disrespectful students, unsupportive supervisors, and rude and often demeaning parents takes a toll on even the most determined teacher.  When a teacher deals with these things for years, the teacher, once filled with an incalculable amount of passion for teaching and saving the world, begins to lose hope and becomes disillusioned and frustrated.   That disillusioned and frustrated teacher is me, HBF (Hopeful But Frustrated) Teacher.

As a child of a school teacher and the granddaughter of a teacher, I sat and watched enviously as both of my loved ones planned their lessons and graded papers.  It seemed so cool to me.  In school, I was lucky enough to be placed in classrooms with outstanding teachers who encouraged me to think outside of the box.   I adored these teachers so the idea of being a teacher rose even higher on my list of possible occupations.  A wonderful college experience moved teaching to the top of my career list.

Oh the dreams I had about my first year of teaching!   I dreamed of students who wanted to learn, the kind who read simply because they loved to read and not because you made them read.   Of course, they would be distracted like people their age, but they would easily be led back on task and never rude and disrespectful.  I imagined parents who believed in teachers and eagerly accepted a portion of the responsibility for their children’s educations.  In other dreams, there were administrators who actually provided me with the supplies and encouragement I need to be a successful teacher.

Those were dreams.  The past years have revealed the reality.  I can’t even pay most of my students to read, and the majority of my students choose to play rather than learn five days out of five.  My ideal parents are far from ideal.   If their children don’t receive high scores, then it’s always my fault.  It doesn’t matter that their children don’t do homework, don’t complete assignments and don’t study for tests.  It’s always the teacher’s fault.  At the end of the day, the “real” administrators see it the same way.

Because of this, I wrote the novel, No Teachers Left Behind.   It is my hope that after reading it, the American public will realize that the future of America relies on more than the students in schools today.   It also relies on the teachers, the ones who are truly being left behind.

HBF Teacher has been a public school Middle grades teacher for three years.  Before that, HBF substitute taught for two years.  HBF has also worked as a live-in nanny and an accounts payable representative.

Today when not nurturing young minds, HBF enjoys travel, photography, culinary arts, and the cinema.  The Cohen Brothers and Tyler Perry are among her favorite artistic contributors.

You can find more about HBF Teacher and her work online @ http://www.noteachersleftbehind.info/

WRITING AS A SACRED PATH by Jill Jepson

For many years, my life followed two threads that seemed very separate and distinct. One was writing. It was something I always did in one form or another. Even at the age of three, I would tell stories that my mother would write down. I’d love to think that I was the literary equivalent of a baby Mozart, who composed brilliant piano works at four, but my first stories don’t show a genius in the making. What they do show is a lively imagination and an early love of language – two essential qualities for a writer.

The second thread had to do with spirituality. I was a very spiritually oriented child. For a time, this took the form of a deep belief in the faith of my parents, Roman Catholicism. It went beyond simply going through the ropes because my family did. I lived and breathed the faith. It meant something very profound to me, something that hasn’t entirely abandoned me even decades after I left the church.

I didn’t have the difficult experiences with Catholicism that some people tell of. I’ve heard people talk about having to heal after a Catholic childhood, but mine was very benign and full of love. The problem wasn’t that I was injured in some way by the church, simply that I stopped believing. It happened very suddenly. In fact, I can remember the day. I was thirteen. I was sitting at my desk in Mrs. James’s eighth grade class, and the thought simply came to me: What if none of it’s true? What if all the stories of the church—even God Himself—is all a fairytale? It was a horrifying thought. But I was a child who believed in searching for the truth even if it was painful, so I couldn’t force myself not to think it.

That day was the beginning of a spiritual search that lasted for many years. I read book after book about the religions of the world. At college, I took classes in the meditative practices of Asia. Then I began my traveling life. After college, I moved to Japan for two years, traveled through Siberia, spent time in Europe. Later, I spent three years in India and many months in China, the Middle East, Central America, Southeast Asia. Everywhere I went, I explored the spiritual life of the people. I spoke with all kinds of practitioners—shamans, yogis, Buddhist monks, Sufi dervishes. I read, observed, and, when appropriate, practiced the rituals and rites of the faiths I encountered.

It was a wonderful adventure, and it taught me so much. But it didn’t help me find a spiritual tradition that worked for me. Nothing fit. Then the Universe gave me a good, swift kick. And that’s what opened my eyes.

I went through a terrible spell. My marriage was crumbling. I lost my job. I’d earned a doctorate in linguistic anthropology and was discovering what a non-existent career path that was. The stress made me ill, and I was in chronic pain with a disorder that went misdiagnosed for two years. I ended up moving back in with my parents, in the small farming town I’d left two decades earlier, and sank into depression.

But, as always, I still had one, perfect thing in my life: writing. I journaled and journaled. I vented all my rage and despair on the page. I started rebuilding my life through my writing. And that’s when it dawned on me. I didn’t have to search for a spiritual path. I was already on one. Writing was my path. It was as real and fundamental, as deep and resonant as anyone’s religious faith.

That was the spark that led to my book, Writing as a Sacred Path: A Practical Guide to Writing With Passion and Purpose. It took years of work after that initial inspiration. I interviewed scores of writers. I read writers’ biographies, published letters, and journals, and many works on the writing process. I developed dozens of writing exercises—I call them “sacred tools.” But the initial impulse was that sudden weaving together of two threads—writing and spirituality—that I had been spinning for years.

Jill Jepson is a traveler, professor, and transformational life coach, and the author of three books and over 60 articles. She holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Chicago as well as degrees in writing, psychology, social science, and Asian studies. Using her extensive travels to places as diverse as Guatemala, Syria, Siberia, and Afghanistan, her writing explores spiritual traditions, history, culture, personal growth, and the writing process. Through her business, Writing the Whirlwind, she offers coaching and online workshops for writers, activists, and others. You can visit her website at www.writingthewhirlwind.net.

DISTANT THUNDER by Christian Fiction Author and Pastor Jimmy Root Jr.

Inspiration is an interesting word with Biblical roots. It literally means that something is breathed out by God. I would not put the fictional story of Distant Thunder in that category, but its foundation of Biblical prophecy certainly qualifies. Being a life-long student of Bible Prophecy, I found it a natural transition from teaching those prophecies to creating a story with prophecy as its basis.

One of the stunning aspects of ancient Old Testament scripture is how what was predicted over twenty-five hundred years ago has, and is coming true today. Ezekiel the prophet witnessed a vision that described the re-birth of the nation of Israel. He also related how a coalition of nations, soon after that re-birth, would gather to destroy the Jewish nation. I use the word stunning because Ezekiel listed the exact nations that are headlining today’s news as being mortal enemies of Israel. Is that a coincidence? I think not and therein the idea to write a fictional story based on current events was born.

Now, in the creation of Distant Thunder and The Lightning Chronicles, inspiration comes into play. I took two passions from my personal life, Bible prophecy and the military thriller genre, and blended them into what I am calling a prophetic fiction thriller. Using what is most familiar to my own purpose I began by creating a character based on the life of a Pastor. As with my wife, many have asked if Pastor Ty Dempsey, one of the two main characters in the book, happened to be my alter ego. The answer is a resounding no. Aspects of my daily life show up simply because that is what is familiar to me. But Ty is his own man. He is an ordinary individual that is confronted with an extraordinary and frightening circumstance. He portrays how heroism is alive and well, even though that heroism might go unnoticed.

The real work came with the second main character, something that was totally apart from my personal experience. Moshe Eldan is an Israeli F-16 fighter pilot. Although the thought of flying something so powerful and dangerous as a fighter jet has always been a dream, I have never been within a hundred yards of an F-16. So, I began with a series of questions that led me deep into the research of my character’s surroundings. That included studying the advanced military weaponry and tactics used by the Israelis and other national air forces. It meant buying an F-16 flight simulator and spending hours trying to figure out how the thing worked. I confess I had a blast, plus, the aerial dogfight sequences in which fighter jets are shot from the sky became quite realistic. Thankfully, the military aspects of Distant Thunder passed muster as a 9th Air Force Combat Instructor reviewed the material and called it “spot on.” From that point, the rest of the story was easy and just exciting in the writing as it will be for the reader.

I have read of authors spending weeks outlining a storyline in order to make their book come alive. But for me, the story seemed to flow from the very start. I found myself surprised and perplexed at the actions of my characters, and that is how it should be. They were as unpredictable and conflict-driven as any normal human being. That, to me, is the greatest inspiration of all.

Jimmy Root Jr., has served as an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God since 1982, including service in Nebraska, Missouri, and a seven year term as a missionary in Colombia, South America. Jimmy is the lead Pastor of Family Worship Center of Smithville, a growing suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. Married to his wife Jean for twenty-nine years, the Roots have three grown children.

Root is a 1981 alumnus of Central Bible College of Springfield, Missouri where he majored in Biblical Studies and Pastoral Theology. He is also an alumnus of Southeastern University, Lakeland Florida, where he majored in Intercultural Studies.

A lifetime student of Biblical prophecy, Jimmy is also the Professor of Eschatology, The Study of End Times, for Berean University through the Northern Missouri District School of Ministry. He is a featured speaker at Churches and other venues, and is the host of “The Bible Uncensored” radio broadcast heard on radio stations around the country.

His writings, both in book form as well as his blog, are purposed to be a wake-up call to a sleepy American church that seems to be losing a truly Christian World View. Distant Thunder and its sequels, A Gathering Storm and Then Comes Lightning, will reveal to the adventure/thriller aficionado the reality of the coming fulfillment of Biblically prophesied events. You can visit his website at www.lightningchronicles.com or his blog at www.prophecyalert.blogspot.com. Connect with him on twitter at www.twitter.com/JimmyRootJr and Facebook at www.facebook.com/jimmyrootjr.

LOSE THE DIET by Kathy Balland

When I was working with hypnotherapy clients, I discovered that the number one issue that people wanted help with was weight loss. In fact, obesity has become a crisis in the US. More than one third of US adults – over 72 million people in addition to 16% of US children are obese. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, since 1980 obesity rates for adults have doubled and rates for children have tripled. And obesity has led to other health issues. Even though we know everything there is to know about calories, carbs, fats, proteins and how much we “should” weigh, the problem keeps getting worse. I wanted to talk about why that is, and provide tips and tools so that people can achieve permanent weight management success.

First of all, diets are impossible to maintain, and therefore cause the Yo-Yo affect of weight loss followed by weight gain, which is more detrimental to the body than simply remaining obese. (The weight loss followed by weight gain is actually more stressful to the body than staying overweight.) Here is why dieting causes the yo-yo effect:

At the physical level, when you stop eating your body creates a genesis enzyme that “sticks” the fat together, making it more difficult to release the fat into the bloodstream so that it can be used as energy. (Your body does this because it is trying to conserve energy due to the lack of food.) This is why it is important to eat regularly to keep the metabolism going.

At the mental level, we are really being driven by our subconscious mind which is 88% of our mind. (I refer to it as the “soul”.) The subconscious is where our habits and emotions are, and those emotions really drive the binge-eating. But also, the subconscious mind does not process negatives. So if you tell yourself “I’m not going to eat that” the subconscious hears “I am going to eat that”, so the more you try to deprive yourself, the more you are going to crave it. And even though you may not consciously want something, the subconscious will want it – and it will win every time.

When we learn to let go of the diet pills, diet food and fad diets (the not-so-quick fixes) and get in touch with ourselves, then we can find the real answers. Lose the Diet shows you how.

Kathy Balland is the author of: Lose the Diet – Transform your body by connection with your soul. For a FREE half hour guided meditation audio to help you relax and reconnect, sign up at: www.LoseTheDiet.com. The book trailer is: www.DietFreeMovie.com. Follow Kathy on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/LosetheDiet