Cliff Ball's Blog

Chapter 1: The Curse of Fictional Convergence

Once upon a time, in a galaxy not so far, far away, there was a once normal public library in Everyday Town, USA. A library assistant, named Bonnie, had somehow held sway over management for years, since she always got herself excused from work by being absent for months at a time. She found her power had limits though, for she was fired one day out of the blue. She came storming out of the offices after her meeting with the Circulation Librarian, and declared for every soul to hear, “Hear me now and listen well,” while what appeared to be menacing clouds gathered above her, “this travesty will not stand! You will all pay and pay dearly you will …”

“Is she turning into Dark Willow from Buffy or something?” whispered a library page to one of the other library assistants.

“Silence You!” roared Bonnie the Witch.

The page disappeared right out of sight, while Bonnie continued, “I curse this place this day. You will experience all fiction in this place, firsthand. No one can hide, for you will pay, for this travesty will not stand!” In a flash of light, Bonnie disappeared.

The boss came out of her office and asked, “What just happened?”

Everyone responded that Bonnie was being her overly dramatic self, since nothing seemed to have happened that day.

The next day, around noon or so, a boy appeared out of nowhere, and said, “I am Sam, Sam I Am. I like green eggs and ham.” Then he turned to ask one of the librarians, “Do you know where I can find some green eggs and ham, ma’am?”

The librarian, muttering to herself, said, “Oh great, Dr. Seuss characters.” Out loud, she replies, “No, Sam I Am, I do not know where you can find green eggs and ham.”

Suddenly, without warning, a man stepped out of the book stacks, and said, “Greetings Sam I Am, I am Hannibal Lecter, and I like fava beans and a nice chianti. However, I could probably try some green eggs and ham, would you like to find some green eggs and ham so we can share?”

“I am Sam, I like green eggs and ham, so sure, let us go and eat some green eggs and ham. Lead the way, Hannibal who likes fava beans a nice chianti.”

“Um, Sam, that would really not be a good idea,” interrupted the Librarian.

Bonnie’s curse had woven itself into the very air. The fluorescent lights hummed an ominous tune, and Dewey the cat, prowling along the circulation desk, twitched his tail nervously. Alexandria, the head librarian, hurried in from the archives, arms loaded with overdue notices and a half-finished latte. She froze at the sight of Dr. Seuss’s most famous creation strolling past the graphic novel aisle.

“Excuse me,” she said, blinking hard. “Why do we have a children’s rhyme character asking for lunch alongside a convicted sociopath?”

Sam I Am cheerfully hopped onto a rolling ladder. “Green eggs! Green eggs! Have you any?”

Hannibal adjusted his cufflinks and smiled with polite menace. “I prefer my ham—dare I say—unsullied by chlorophyll. But I’m open to new experiences.”

Alexandria motioned for Nancy Drew, perched high on the mystery shelf, to intervene. Nancy slid down on a rope of book tags and landed gracefully between Sam and Hannibal. “Perhaps this is a misunderstanding,” Nancy suggested. “Sam, Mr. Lecter, why don’t you both wait here while I fetch refreshments from the break room?”

“No refreshments!” Hannibal said, eyeing Nancy’s knotwork. “Just green eggs and ham.”

Sam clapped his hands. “Yes yes yes, let’s find them!”

Meanwhile, in the back stacks, the Arcane Archivist was performing an emergency audit on magical anomalies. She tapped a wand against her clipboard and frowned. “There’s a new flux in the fiction wings. Chapter headings are rearranging themselves, and the spine of Dracula is rattling like it needs seasoning.”

Bonnie—absent until this moment—reappeared in a swirl of ochre leaves and brimstone-scented smoke. She hovered above the return slot, arms crossed. “Enjoying my curse?” she hissed. “Soon, every story in this library will step off the page.”

The lights dimmed. Fictional characters began emerging in droves: Sherlock Holmes carrying Victorian-era suitcases, Elizabeth Bennet sighing dramatically in front of the romance shelves, and Captain Ahab pummeling the nautical section. The hush of the library gave way to murmurs, gasps, and the faint clang of steel on marble.

Alexandria raised her voice. “Order! This is a library, not a literary Comic Con convention!”

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The post Introducing The Library Saga: Where Stories Fight Back appeared first on Cliff Ball - Christian Author.

Hey all. While I’m attempting to write another novel (my seventeenth), I’ve decided to go back into my files, a mix of digital and written on paper, and look for every short story I’ve ever written to see if I can clean them up and publish them. Since my novels are somewhat serious, ten of which being Christian end times, I figured I’d do something light-hearted.

With that in mind, I remembered one that I started writing back in 2008 when I worked in a library, before I had independently published anything online (I first vanity published with iUniverse for Out of Time in the later part of ’08, KDP wasn’t letting in self-published authors just yet & Smashwords was a couple years later), and it was a story that I really kind of just wanted to make my co-workers laugh. I have this weird sense of humor sometimes, when I’m not an oh-so-serious introvert, and I was thinking of having various characters from the books in the library meet each other in a goofy kind of way, maybe magically, maybe technologically.

The library staff in the story gets mixed up in all sorts of shenanigans from Sam I Am randomly appearing to Nancy Drew investigating the various mysteries of the goings-on in the library to the actual physical card catalog causing book classification anomalies because of Melvil Dewey himself to The Communist Manifesto and The Federalist Papers arguing with each other in the background on the The Shelf of Disputed Ideas. The staff gets everything sorted out at the end of the story-or so they think….

The story’s name is The Library Saga: Guardians of Genre. It’s for adult and YA readers who love whimsical fantasy, libraries, metafiction, and genre mashups, and might appeal to people who like Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett. It’s probably not for everyone, but what is?

Here’s the cover.

This is a ten chapter short story. Thirty pages, 9400 words. Depending on how well this does, I’ll probably make it a series. I will release this first in ebook and paperback and then I’ll make an audiobook.

Will be widely available, instead of just on Amazon, and I’ll also put it on my website bookstore to give away copies for free. If you want a free copy, just let me know.

Here’s a sample from part of chapter 1:

Chapter 1: The Curse of Fictional Convergence

Once upon a time, in a galaxy not so far, far away, there was a once normal public library in Everyday Town, USA. A library assistant, named Bonnie, had somehow held sway over management for years, since she always got herself excused from work by being absent for months at a time. She found her power had limits though, for she was fired one day out of the blue. She came storming out of the offices after her meeting with the Circulation Librarian, and declared for every soul to hear, “Hear me now and listen well,” while what appeared to be menacing clouds gathered above her, “this travesty will not stand! You will all pay and pay dearly you will …”

“Is she turning into Dark Willow from Buffy or something?” whispered a library page to one of the other library assistants.

“Silence You!” roared Bonnie the Witch.

The page disappeared right out of sight, while Bonnie continued, “I curse this place this day. You will experience all fiction in this place, firsthand. No one can hide, for you will pay, for this travesty will not stand!” In a flash of light, Bonnie disappeared.

The boss came out of her office and asked, “What just happened?”

Everyone responded that Bonnie was being her overly dramatic self, since nothing seemed to have happened that day.

The next day, around noon or so, a boy appeared out of nowhere, and said, “I am Sam, Sam I Am. I like green eggs and ham.” Then he turned to ask one of the librarians, “Do you know where I can find some green eggs and ham, ma’am?”

The librarian, muttering to herself, said, “Oh great, Dr. Seuss characters.” Out loud, she replies, “No, Sam I Am, I do not know where you can find green eggs and ham.”

Suddenly, without warning, a man stepped out of the book stacks, and said, “Greetings Sam I Am, I am Hannibal Lecter, and I like fava beans and a nice chianti. However, I could probably try some green eggs and ham, would you like to find some green eggs and ham so we can share?”

“I am Sam, I like green eggs and ham, so sure, let us go and eat some green eggs and ham. Lead the way, Hannibal who likes fava beans a nice chianti.”

“Um, Sam, that would really not be a good idea,” interrupted one of the Reference librarians.

Bonnie’s curse had woven itself into the very air. The fluorescent lights hummed an ominous tune, and Dewey the cat, prowling along the circulation desk, twitched his tail nervously.

Alexandria, the head librarian, hurried in from the archives, arms loaded with overdue notices and a half-finished latte. She froze at the sight of Dr. Seuss’s most famous creation strolling past the graphic novel aisle.

“Excuse me,” she said, blinking hard. “Why do we have a children’s rhyme character asking for lunch alongside a convicted sociopath?”

Sam I Am cheerfully hopped onto a rolling ladder. “Green eggs! Green eggs! Have you any?”

Hannibal adjusted his cufflinks and smiled with polite menace. “I prefer my ham—dare I say—unsullied by chlorophyll. But I’m open to new experiences.”

Alexandria motioned for Nancy Drew, perched high on the mystery shelf, to intervene. Nancy slid down on a rope of book tags and landed gracefully between Sam and Hannibal. “Perhaps this is a misunderstanding,” Nancy suggested. “Sam, Mr. Lecter, why don’t you both wait here while I fetch refreshments from the break room?”

“No refreshments!” Hannibal said, eyeing Nancy’s knotwork. “Just green eggs and ham.”

Sam clapped his hands. “Yes yes yes, let’s find them!”

Meanwhile, in the back stacks, the Arcane Archivist was performing an emergency audit on magical anomalies. She tapped a wand against her clipboard and frowned. “There’s a new flux in the fiction wings. Chapter headings are rearranging themselves, and the spine of Dracula is rattling like it needs seasoning.”

The post New Short Story Series appeared first on Cliff Ball - Christian Author.

This will be the first blog post I’ve done in almost three years! Back in 2016 and 2017, I was burned out from writing eleven novels in four years, so I got stuck on two that I had planned on writing after I had finished with The End Times Saga and Perilous Times series. I promoted my novels a little after that, then it got to barely, and by the end of 2022, I was over the whole idea, or so I thought. I also kind of let my website go for a while, so I have a lot of adding to it to do and freshening it up wherever pictures and links are broken.

So, one the novels I had planned on in 2017, was a sequel (or full series) to The Long Journey, where the next novel has the main character and his family dealing with the Civil War and its fallout. So, I began doing research, but due to the MC being Cherokee, I discovered the Cherokee nation had its own mini-civil war during the main war, so I got discouraged and stopped because I wasn’t sure how to weave the story correctly. At the moment, that’s really far on the backburner and I will revisit it, eventually.

The other novel that I started writing after getting stuck with the other one, is a what-if story about a Gen X man (write what you know, right? lol), this time I have it briefly set during those fun days of 2020. He’s watching YouTube videos about Gen X nostalgia and wishing he could be thirteen again so he could change some things in his life that he had always regretted. I had about four chapters done when I pretty much lost the plot, not really knowing where to go with the plotline since I myself really couldn’t remember things from 87-92 due to my general apathy towards junior & senior high. The novel started meandering and then I just hit a brick wall creatively. So, I walked away from it and writing in general, thinking I was done with sixteen novels to my name.

Then, I lost my job this last July. I’ve been having difficulty even getting interviews/jobs thanks to companies relying solely on checking resumes with ATS (Applicant Tracking System) and using video interviews (one way Zoom/Teams interviews are so stupid when I live in the same city as the company and also kind of intimidating for an introvert like myself), so I began wondering what I should do to keep busy in the meantime. I decided to see if I could restart my freelance proofreading WFH business that I stopped in 2013 due to my dads’ health failing and mom needing a lot of help, which eventually required almost my full attention for a couple years, so I abandoned the idea. I realized as I was trying to figure out what to do that I’m so far behind on what freelancing has turned into thanks to AI and tech in general, that it’s pretty overwhelming.

But, also thanks to AI and updated technology, I realized I could make every one of my novels into audiobooks, so that’s what I’ve done. For The End Times Saga, only the first four novels were audiobooks because it was easy and affordable to get voice actors before Amazon bought Audible and changed the rules, so that’s why there was only four audiobooks, instead of seven, for that series. Now, because those four are exclusive, I could only make the next three novels exclusive to Amazon/Audible, as it wouldn’t make sense to have the last three available everywhere, but not the first four. Anyway, using Amazon’s Virtual Voice, I now have the entire End Times Saga available as audiobooks in just a couple days as I listened to make sure the AI pronounced things carefully, although flatter than I would’ve liked (I’m not sure I could do any better). However, I plan on ending being exclusive to only Amazon/Audible so I can upload the entire series to sell on other platforms, including my own.

For other novels that I could add to my store on Gumroad: the three in the Perilous Times series The Long Journey, The Usurper, Don’t Mess With Earth, and The New Frontier Series, I used Amazon’s virtual voice for Audible, then used the virtual voices from Google Play books to create those so I could use Voices by In Audio for distribution to other platforms, but that takes time. With Google Play, I could have separate voices, which I only did for the female characters in the novels for the Perilous Times. Unfortunately, the female characters almost all sound the same to me, like Siri or Alexa, but with accents. Samples are available to listen to on Youtube or on the Gumroad product pages.

Now the what-if novel. I decided to restart it. I was still not sure what to do with where I was stuck in chapter 4 and my outline not being nearly as laid out as I thought. so I went to ChatGPT and gave it some prompts. It returned with clearer ideas than what I originally had, along with an outline that was laid out better than what I did. It also helped with giving me the slang of the period that I didn’t remember due to me being a nerd who spoke “proper” American English, and other sensory details and pop culture references that I didn’t remember or know either, like hanging out at the mall, since it was too far from my house.

So, now I have clearer vision of where I want my novel to go story wise, which is called, Second Chances. So, look out for that in the coming weeks or months, depending on how long I’m down the rabbit hole of Gen X pop culture videos.

The post New Novel & New Audiobooks appeared first on Cliff Ball - Christian Author.

Times of Harvest is a Christian End Times short story collection based off the End Times Saga series of novels. Currently only available as an ebook for $2.99.
​
Jonathan Tsosie – an Arizona Navajo, who becomes a Christian as a youth while spending a summer with a Christian family in Phoenix. Becomes a law enforcement officer for the Nation as an adult. Helps other Christians as they run from the corrupt federal government.
Laura Hall – A high school student who is the senior class treasurer for her school. Is a dedicated Christian. Ends up at Camp 13 when the government rounds up all the Christians.
Jon Ryan – The family doctor for the Atwood’s in Nebraska. Starts his career around the time the United States Health Service comes into being. Skips around government regulations for many years before the government finds out. Previously published individually.
Xavier Doolittle – The head of the Secret Service at the White House. Is a back-sliding Christian and we read about the back story of what led him in that direction. Previously published individually.

Where to buy:

Amazon Kindle

Apple iBooks

Barnes & Noble Nook

Google Play

Kobo

Smashwords

Other Retailers (Books2Read link)

 

If you haven’t yet, please check out The End Times Saga seven novel series, which is available as ebooks and paperbacks. Also available as a box set.

The post New Release: Times of Harvest appeared first on Cliff Ball - Christian Author.

Hey, everyone, my novel The Falling Away was chosen as one of the “10 Exciting & Suspenseful Works of Christian Fiction” at the Ezvid Wiki.

A little background on Ezvid: They were founded in 2011 as the world’s first video wiki, and is now among the top 3,000 websites in the United States. Their YouTube channel has over 425,000 subscribers and 250 million views since founding. So, check it out, along with the other 9 Christian authors and their novels the site has chosen.

Update on what I’ve been doing, since I’ve been silent for a while. At the end of 2017, I finally managed to find a full time job, so I’ve stepped away from writing fiction for the time being. My current job is writing descriptions for muscle/performance car parts, such as Corvette, Camaro, Challenger, Charger, etc. and I write upwards of 10k words a day, or up to a 50k novel a week. This pretty much satisfies my writing itch for the time being, but I do want to have 20 novels written at some point.

Between 2012 and 2016, I wrote 10 novels, so I was burned out, but I did try to write a sequel to The Long Journey. It involved the Cherokee family going through the Civil War, but I found out that issue was complicated after doing quite a bit of research on the subject, so I decided to step away from that for a while to figure out what to do next. Then, I started writing a what-if novel about a Gen Xer who wanted to go back and change what happened in his life starting from when he was a teen. I actually wrote almost 18k words before I hit a creative brick wall, so I set it aside for the time being. One of these days, those will get finished.

Anyway, check out the above link to the Ezvid Wiki and have a great week.

The post 10 Exciting & Suspenseful Works of Christian Fiction appeared first on Cliff Ball - Christian Author.

As of March 2, Times of Turmoil, book 1 of 7 in The End Times Saga, is free on Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, and Google Play.

The Evans family tries to destroy Christian influence in the US.

Kindle: http://amzn.to/ZLdoEn
Nook: http://ow.ly/f6tn309xhxs
Apple: http://ow.ly/FKlM309xhzJ
Kobo: http://ow.ly/2LdC309xhDD
Smashwords: http://ow.ly/8Rvi309xhGu
Google Play: http://ow.ly/TtJV309xhLI

or get it directly from me on my website in epub or mobi/kindle formats:
http://cliffball.net/downloads/times-...

These Great Books are FREE Today:

And Check these Great Reads for only 99¢ Today:

And The Giveaway:

FIRST PRIZE: (1 WINNER) Your choice of a 7″ Kindle Fire or $50 Cash via Paypal!

SECOND PRIZE: (2 WINNERS) Each will have a choice of 3 of the 99¢ Books listed above!

ENTER TO WIN

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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The Long Journey is Christian historical fiction and the first novel in An American Journey series.

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law authorizing the removal of southern tribes to Indian Territory in the west. In 1838, the Trail of Tears occur when the remaining people are forcibly removed and marched a thousand plus miles on foot.

George Massey, a twenty year old Cherokee, finds himself being force-marched to Indian Territory during the winter of 1838. Eventually, he gets lost in the Kentucky woods and finds a family who takes him in. The novel follows his adventures as he travels west and gets involved in all sorts of historical events from the 1840’s to 1850’s.

 

Where to buy:

Paperback

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, Books a Million, Createspace

eBook

Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks, BN Nook, Deeper Shopping Christian Books, Kobo, Scribd, Smashwords

 

Want to learn more about the historical events depicted in the novel? Then please check out these links:The Cherokee Nation website

The Trail of Tears on History.com

The First Emigrant Train to California (PDF) by John Bidwell

The Bidwell-Bartleson Emigrant Party on The California GenWeb Project’s website

The Emigrant Parties to California 1841-1846 (PDF)

Mexican-American War on History.com

Bear Flag Revolt/Republic on History.com

The Gold Rush of 1849 on History.com

The post The Long Journey: Historical Fiction appeared first on Cliff Ball - Author.

Hi all, hope you’ve been having a great new year so far.

Well, I decided to come back to my wordpress hosted site, since the self hosted site doesn’t seem to be working out very well after trying it for nearly three years. Since leaving this site, I’ve finished The End Times Saga, which is a total of seven novels and two short stories. I’ve also written two more series, one is another end times series, called The Perilous Times, consisting of only three novels. The other series is historical fiction, called An American Journey, currently consisting of one novel, The Long Journey. For the second novel of the historical fiction series it was (or still is) going to be based during the Civil War. Since the main character is Cherokee, I was thinking of basing the story around the Cherokee Nation being involved in the fight, but due to what I’ve researched so far, they seemed to have mostly fought amongst themselves and what few engagements with the Union they did have, they were neither successful or unsuccessful campaigns. They were mostly hampered by lack of supplies and being cavalry mounted instead of infantry. I have no idea when I’ll have that novel finished. I’m also currently working on a what-if story, which will be standalone.

Right now, I’m redesigning this site, creating new pages, and updating all the links to where my books are being sold. I’m also in the process of having all my novels go wide instead of being exclusive to Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited, so I’ll be basically relaunching the novels with accompanying blog posts in the next few weeks, so please stay tuned for that.

Thanks and God bless.

The post Updates appeared first on Cliff Ball .