Writer's Platform Building Second Campaigner Challenge

The Writer's Platform Building Second Campaigner Challenge is here!  Here's my entry:   

         Imago Interrupted 

After two nose surgeries, liposuction, breast augmentation, and a barrage of beauty treatments, Margaret was almost...perfect.  One more treatment and she’d finally be beautiful, breathtakingly so, like her childhood friend, Diana.  No more being Diana’s “plain” friend - the one men ignored.  

After this, they’d want her.  After all this, in Margaret delusional mind, she'd achieve synchronicity.

“Hold still, Margaret. Almost done.” Dr. Frank said, making one last injection.  The miasma of nitro seeped eerily from the cryotank.

The needle’s contents crept through Margaret’s veins.  Laced with stem cells, the treatment promised to regenerate Margaret’s face to a youthful state.

Margaret mumbled.

“Don’t move. You’ll cause damage.” Dr. Frank clipped, blotting blood from her face.

Margaret’s mouth opened in pain. “Ahhhh.”

“Do not oscitate!”  Dr. Frank shouted.

Margaret panicked eyes glanced at his nurse.  Her worried expression mirrored Margaret’s. Not good.

Dr. Frank cursed, snatching more gauze.

Margaret felt her lips become uncomfortably plump.  Her forehead stretched far too much; underneath her tendons felt torn.  She hadn’t planned for this; the horrifying lacuna where everything went terribly wrong.  She wanted to scream.

Too late.

In the end, Margaret's beautification efforts were futile.

Truth be told, they were downright ugly.

That's it!  I'm adding this one to my Hallucinating Housewives #FF.  Fun stuff.  Looking forward to reading the others. :)

Mina B.

Silent Genes – Book Cover Draft

Hey, check out a draft of the cover art for my book, Silent Genes.  It’s cool, right? This is a first draft and although it needs some work… I still think it rocks. It’s got a dark and sinister feel to it...which I love. 

For inquiring minds, the book cover art was done by Alex, owner of Immature Productions. He’s also the designer for the header of my wicked blog. The feedback I’m getting on my book, blog and the overall design has been far greater than I anticipated…and all positive, of course. There are so many people that have helped me on this journey that I plan on blogging about them soon, thanking them for all their support.


Stay tuned for that plus more book cover drafts as well as another sneak peak of Silent Genes, Chapter 2, The Transaction.


Mina

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The Big Reveal, Silent Genes

As promised, I said my next blog post would be Chapter 1 from my debut novel, Silent Genes. Before I divulge the story’s beginning, I’d like to give some insight into one of my main characters, Sarah Whitaker.


Sarah is a recent widow, but what’s most important is she’s a mother of two small children, Conner (4) and Jessica (2).  Death sets the stage for this chapter, unfortunately. And now Sarah is dealing with the after effects. I’ve tried to imagine what it would take for a young mother to withstand a horrific blow such as losing a husband and for a child too lose a father. What would her thoughts be like? How does she manage to move forward? Sarah once was a vibrant, strong woman, only now with the recent life changing events, she is broken.


Please enjoy and feel free to comment or send me an email, minaburrows1@gmail.com

Click to read: Chapter 1: Broken


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My first novel, Silent Genes

Some of the first books I’ve written were children’s books. I used to travel extensively for work and often found my mind drifting toward untold children stories, right about when the plane was taking off. For some reason that feeling of being suspended in air would catapult my mind into another stratosphere. As it were, I took the ideas, wrote small tales, unpublished ones at that, and shared them with friends and family. It was truly my first experience with writing, one that I treasure and understand greatly as I sit here today.



Fast forward to several years later, and I found myself driven or thrust into a story that seriously beckoned me. What’s story is that? Silent Genes



They say to write what you love to read and so I did



So, what are the silent genes?



With much controversy over stem cells and the heated debate over adult vs. embryonic stem cells, Americans have, what I believe, a filtered view about stem cells. Under the previous administration, embryonic stem cells were a “no, no” for research and development in the US. While America was in a political and ethical debate about embryonic research, other countries forged ahead. Countries like the UK were doing remarkable research, trying to combine human and animal DNA. Sounds more sci-fi than science, right? You bet, but all true. Being a former employee for a blood stem cell company, - nothing to do with embryonic stem cells - I found the research fascinating and followed it with much interest. The goal with the researchers was to use these human-animal embryos for advanced testing for diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Unfortunately, the research was plagued with issues stemming around three silent genes. And because of the inability to activate such genes, fusing the animal and human DNA was proving to be far more complex.



And that, my friends, is where my story about vampires, Mayan gods and humans all begins.

Read below a special clip about my story and let me know what you think.



Dr. Kyle Montach is cursed. Time is ticking and he’s fated to become what he fears the most, one of his kin, a vampire. Unless he finds a cure to halt his vampire transformation, his soul, along with his humanity, will be lost forever.

Kyle’s a scientific anomaly; one created in a stem cell lab by his mother, Margaret. She’s a powerful vampire and brilliant scientist, who took a human embryo and combined her and her husband’s, Oswin, vampire DNA and for divinity purposes, added the DNA of a jaguar. And the result was Kyle, the first ever human born with vampire genes.


As an avid researcher, Kyle believes that stem cells are the key to unlocking the mystery behind silencing his vampire genes. While Kyle fights to find a cure, he’s plagued by his family’s incessant meddling not to mention a sadistic, vampire ex girlfriend. In the midst of his personal discovery, Kyle meets widow and mother, Sarah Whitaker. Like Kyle, Sarah’s dealing with her own personal changes. Both Kyle and Sarah are lost in their own way.


In a bizarre twist of events, Kyle learns about life, love and finds the strength to pursue a human life with Sarah, the woman of his dreams. With vampires, family expectations and divine interventions looming around every corner, Kyle embarks on his own transcension that changes the course of his life and binds Sarah to him forever.


Stay tuned for a special sneak peak at Chapter 1.



Thanks, Mina