Rachel.

Rachel.

My name is Rachel Molina (or Iridian Blackswell) and I live in the middle of nowhere USA, so naturally I devote most of my time to doing nerdy things which shall not be named and, of course, writing. I spend most of my time on my own, which could account for why some of my book ideas are so strange. For simplicity's sake, here's a little overview of what I am currently working on. There's two that I'm actively writing back and forth on, but I have some that I'm kind of reserving for Nanawrimo or something (I might as well do an overview on those as well). So, here goes. Oh, and I'm putting an excerpt or two first from each just because I want to :) Also, all my plots are complicated, so bear with me. They also are not completely planned out yet, so there are holes and things that I don't quite know yet, just to warn you in advance.

The World on the Other Side of the Window:

“But I don’t even know if any of this is real.”

“Ah, and that’s the real problem, isn’t it?” Zared leaned forward, raising his eyebrows. “You are not the first person I have met who has had doubts about the reality of all of this. And who can blame you? I will admit that this is all very strange, and that it must be difficult for you to wrap your mind around. Actually, I’m sorry to tell you this, but it gets stranger. I think it’s time to get down to the brass tacks of what exactly is going on here. You see, Frazer, Zulegalen is only able to exist the way it does because it is not exactly on Earth .It is, but not on the version of Earth that you know. If it were, it would surely be discovered.”

“…What?”

“Imagine that there is a sheet hanging to dry in your front yard with the sun shining in such a way that, if you stand to the side, you will observe that the sheet is casting a shadow. There is the sheet, the one that appears most solid and substantial to you, and its less substantial shadow. Our reality here is a little like that. You could say that we live in Earth’s shadow, though it’s a little more complicated than that. It would be more accurate to say that we live on a different plane of reality, but that is more difficult to comprehend.”

“I still don’t really understand…”

“This should be intuitive to you, of all people,” Zared said. “You interact with a slightly different branch of reality all the time: the reality of the deceased. In many ways, you are more involved in a “shadow of the Earth” than you might realize.”

This particular book is derived from a trilogy that I have already written, but was not satisfied with. It tells the story of a teenager, Frazer Bluwitt, who lives in the small town of Cedar in his familial house. The Bluwitts have a very strange family history of "gifts" that range from an ability to predict the weather with moderate accuracy to Frazer's unusual ability to converse casually with the dead. Because he has grown accustomed to speaking to "thin air", Frazer startles the town folk and has grown up as an outcast; his only friend is his ghostly companion Logan and his eccentric parents. Frazer is completely bored with life until one day when everything changes for him dramatically. A peculiar phenomenon takes place (which is explained later in the book) and Frazer finds himself in what seems to be another world, a world populated with unusual people who are surprisingly similar to him. For the first time in his life, he finds himself somewhere where he belongs...until the man in charge of this world, Zared, turns out to have quite the dark side. In order to save the world that he came from, Frazer has to team up with his newfound (living) friends and figure out a way to stop Zared and his forces before it's too late.

Weird, I know, but that's the basic gist. It's less strange inside my head.

Death List:

   “Who is it?”

   “You know who it is,” Freedom replied, even though he could not possibly know until he had spoken unless he had memorized his number. Chances were that he still wouldn’t know who Freedom was, even after he had spoken.

   Another pause.

   “Williams?”

   “That’s right.”

   Freedom could practically hear him smiling on the other end of the phone. He had never actually seen him before, but he had always had the distinct feeling that his teeth were chipped and yellow, just by hearing the way that he spoke.

   “How are you? Still alive, I see. Haven’t stepped in a puddle and fried your brain yet, huh?”

   “Not yet,” Freedom said. He did not especially like making conversation with this person, but he was afraid to rush the deal. Despite all of the reliability that his connection had shown him, Freedom still could not bring himself to trust him. How could he put his faith in a criminal?

   “Yeah, well…” There was the distinct sound of a nose being blown on the other line. “There’s still time.”

   “I suppose there is,” Freedom agreed.

This book takes place in a distant future where, in order to put an end to overpopulation, the governments of several countries have installed a phenomenon known as the Death List. Essentially what the Death List does is predetermine one's date of death when they are born, thus deciding the length of their life. These Dates are selected by computer, and are supposed to be random...but it turns out that the opposite is true. A group of about fifty thousand characters struggles to escape the confines of Paradise City in order to discover the truth about the Death List and the people behind it, but it isn't easy. As they drift in and out of each other's lives, they are forced to come face to face with the real world, the likes of which they have never been allowed to see.

This one is also weird, but it's not as weird as this next one.

The Mind Program:

   “You know how you’re not Ferris?”

   Ferris raised his eyebrow.

   “…Yeah…”

   “Well, I’m not Fox. That’s what the Mind Program does.”

   “I don’t under--”

   “It’s really simple, Not-Ferris.” Fox cut him of coldly, staring him dead in the eye. “That letter you have in your hand? That’s the truth. What you were told you signed up for isn’t.” He laughed, shaking his head at the floor. “They didn’t study your mind! They took it.”

   “People can’t just take other people’s minds,” Ferris argued. “A mind's not a…thing.”

   “Oh, really, Not-Ferris?”

   “Yeah, really!”

   “Riddle me this,” Fox said, leaning forward, a crooked smile on his face. “Your name isn’t Ferris. So what is it?”

This is undoubtedly the strangest of them all. The Mind Program tells the tale of a young man who awakes in a hospital to discover that he has volunteered to undergo an experimental surgery that has essentially replaced the prominent parts of his mind with someone else's. Ferris Volk, along with the handful of others who have undergone the procedure, was told that his mind would be studied, not taken. The doctor who preformed the surgery is carefully elusive about answering Ferris's questions and releases Ferris from the hospital without the money he was promised for taking part in the procedure and without his true identity. Thus, Ferris embarks on a journey with some of the other victims of the surgery to find the person who he unwittingly donated his mind to...though he is forced to realize that getting it back might be easier said than done.

There is one more book, Preventing Apocalypse, that I have written, but it was the first one that I ever did and is therefore in a state of confusion and disrepair. If I sort it out and redo it like I have been planning to for an eternity, I shall put it on here as well.