Unless you've been frozen in carbonite by a bounty paying slug, you've heard of Amazon. Not only has Amazon dominated the quality products-competitive price model in the Online arena, they are one of the biggest book sellers in the world.

Just over a week ago I threw the novel I spent a year taking from concept to completion against the Amazon publishing wall and I'm currently waiting to see how well it sticks.

The Blood Keeper's Prophecy is a Young Adult novel in the head of a sixteen-year-old girl who survived the vampire apocalypse.  The book is the first in the Blood Keeper trilogy, a story straddling a thick dystopian-paranormal line.

It is now available for Kindle. If you don't have a Kindle, you can download the Kindle reader to your personal computer here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000426311

The Kindle reader app is also available for iPhone/iPad and for Android. Basically, if you're reading this blog post, you have access to Kindle (for free!).

The results of the Kindle giveaway were far beyond what I had expected. The Blood Keeper's Prophecy landed #28 in the Top 100 Free on Amazon in the Paranormal/Fantasy category. It hasn't sunk in that something I wrote is actually sitting on all those Kindle devices around the world. Click here to download your copy: Buy the Books

I'm anxious to know how my self-publishing experiment ends. I'm nauseated, at times, wondering if this will be another sidestep, an inch forward, or a leap forward. I wonder if I have made a mistake, or if there is something I should have been doing differently.

One thing I wouldn't do differently is write it. It doesn't matter who you are, or whether or not you have ambitions of being a writer, you will learn something after sitting down at a keyboard and punching out 100,000 words. You might learn you'd rather eat sandpaper than be a writer, but at least you learned it for yourself. For me, I learned I'm a better writer now than I was a year ago, and as long as I write today, I'll be an even better writer tomorrow.

I have a recurring dream of no faces.

Light comes in squares. Little squares and big squares. Flashing white and blue and green and rainbow.

What I think are voices aren’t voices at all. It’s tapping. Dense tapping on glass. Hollow tapping on plastic.

No eyes to meet or laughter to hear. Just 1 and 0, 0 and 1.

Binary.

I pinch my arm and force myself to accept that this is not a recurring dream. I am living in the reality of the 21st century.

There are no faces here. Only files, gigabytes, and messages delivered in Arial and Times New Roman. Will the newest generation ever be able to say something like, “I recognize that handwriting”? How could they, when there is no handwriting to be had? Not for us. Not for us with more computer technology in our pockets and purses than Apollo 11.

In our collective reality that is the First World in the 21st century, we don’t see each other. Names and faces are replaced with email addresses, usernames, and text fonts.

We don’t laugh, we lol.
We don’t offer an opinion, we btw.
We don’t question injustice, we wtf.

Life comes to us in screens. Computer screens, phone screens, music screens, game screens, automated teller screens, self check-out screens. You’re reading this blog through a screen, and without which, I wouldn’t be able to bitch to such a large audience.

Somewhere between The Pony Express and .mp3 players, we lost touch with humanity. We stopped seeing each other. We stopped seeing faces. We stopped seeing each other as human beings who have shared experiences in hope, fear, disappointment, doubt, joy and anticipation. We are lost in a world of screens that has removed us from the cohesive nature of humanity, which was once looking someone in the eye and having a real conversation.

We’re at a point where the genie can’t be put back inside its iBottle. Technology has been integrated into everyday life to the point of physical and emotional dependence. Two years ago I moved to the West coast without a GPS or smartphone. Friends questioned how I would get there. How I would find a place to live. How I would find a grocery store. Imagine their shock when I replied, “I’ll use a map and talk to people.”

That’s how deep we are down the technology rabbit hole. I accept that technology is here to stay, but what of humanity?

My answer is: As long as there are flash mobs, all is not lost.

Dancing and/or singing flash mobs are my lighthouse on the coast of Human Existence. In a matter of minutes, a group of individuals emerge from a crowd to perform a predetermined routine to an unsuspecting audience. Be it at an airport or food court, these flash mobs urge us to put our screens and worries away for a few minutes to look at the faces. We are in this world for only a blink, and if you stare at your screen for too long, you’ll miss it.

Yet I find myself at the intersection of Ironic and Paradox, for, without those screens in the unsuspecting audience, and the screen from which I type, I would have never witnessed the very flash mob that restored my faith in humanity that was already lost in the very screen needed to experience it.

Below are two of my favorite flash mobs. Look at faces and use your screens wisely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P99p6l8v0FQ&sns=fb

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE