New Year starting, new stuff happening. Tsika brutal mode and nu-goth

A preview of new Tsika imagery in the form of a band greeting card for their New Years Eve performance. Work is proceeding on both Book 4 of the series and on the Polish edition slated for launch in 2016.

Practically speaking, I'm still not hitting the critical eyeball demographics who would like these stories. If I can get someone to open the book and start, they almost never put it down. 2016 will be the year of Book 4 as well as hunting up a publisher who offers exactly the services I need in promotion and distribution.

A belated  Christmas cards.  ;)

A cartoon (RB3) avatar of Tsika and her friend Glycerin

Sorry, been a very strange last couple of months but I has pictures!

First, a timeline of Glycerin as the lead guitarist of the band evolves over four volumes.

Next, a couple of Tsika posters for the recent shoot preparing for the release of volume 4.

Say hello to Kpau, energetic drummer and goofball goblin for the band. Modeled by Chimera, mua/costume by Elisanth, photography by Zatsepin.

And a few candid moments from my visit to Prague where I got to roam the town with Mamiko and Lady Sariel - who model Tsika and the newest band member Nadia Kawa respectively. That is the rest of my extended family in the elevator. My elder son has a challenge to Mamiko in Counterstrike when she gets her home Twitch studio running. Prague was a *great* vacation destination.

Got back to the US where within a few days my wife and I were t-boned by a high speed vehicle that totaled our car and left us banged up. Life is random. Need a new car, we didn't have to "go on the cart" like in Monty Python.

Facebook has become a strangled disaster for reaching people. More energy here.

Visual character evolution: Glycerin

From left to right, the image shows Glycerin as she starts out in a sort of sad clown neo-mod scheme, grows into a dark brutal look, then reboots in bright retro themes. I sometimes say the series is actually about Tsika and Glycerin with the others (including Blar) as catalysts. If I picked a single protagonist, it might be Glycerin and her labyrinth journey between light and darkness. The six foot tall lanky creature that Kpau calls "her favorite space alien" is complicated in ways even her closest friend Tsika does not realize as the series begins.
Pick up the series in paperback via any book retailer (they may have to order it), or in Kindle format at Amazon. Working on getting the Nook readers updated with the latest versions. You can catch on daily babblings by me (story excerpts, print and poster works, etc) on Facebook.

B H Branham on Facebook

I'm also lurking on Twitter, Instagram, and most other platforms as "bhbranham".

Kpau lurking, and Glycerin reading.

I'm in the middle of Volume 4 writing, slashing, deleting, revising, expanding ... meanwhile also finishing up on two photo shoot projects. One is done. Late career Glycerin. I particularly like this one of her reading quietly between takes on a photo shoot for an album cover.

WE HAVE KPAU! ATTENTION!
The shoot for Kpau is in post-proc but I put together a couple of teaser images. Here's one.

My model for Tsika and I are trying to work out a schedule for the next shoot where we will get to see "brutal metal Tsika" rather like the metal Glycerin on the cover of Go Go Godzilla of the Rocket Science series.

Snippet from volume 4. It's easier to spoil the comedy moments without screwing up the storyline.

===========================================================

Blar peered over his sunglasses at the darkening road. The highway lighting was off on break it seemed. Kpau slouched in the passenger seat snoring like an erratic kazoo. Tsika and Glycerin were quietly curled up sleeping in the van's bench seat behind them.

Just as Blar began to think it was time to un-equip his sunglasses, Kpau's phone began buzzing the theme to an old television series called "Rawhide". She stirred, punched it off and sat up to peer around.

Grinning idiotically, she put her sunglasses on then assumed a serious deadpan face.

"It's one hundred and six miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of weed, it's dark... and we're wearing sunglasses."

Blar glanced at the odometer, then made a face. "You spent days figuring that out and messed with our schedule just enough to make that happen, didn't you?"

"Yup!"

"You could be rich with the kinds of skills you keep bubbling up at me, but--"

"Nah, I'd rather be with you guys."

"Well, it's one hundred and five miles to Chicago now and yes, you can have pizza every meal if you want when we get there."

==============

7th Annual NW Book Festival this Saturday

From 11am - 5pm at the Pioneer Plaza Square in the middle of Portland, huge bricked city block with art next to light commuter rail MAX, can't miss it.

This also happens to the opening scene location in the book series "It Really IS Rocket Science" where Blar first sees Tsika in a coffee shop.

I will have all the current titles from the series available to buy and sign. I also plan to have 8x10 photo prints of the models who portray two of the main characters, Tsika (the petite Russian bass guitarist) and Glycerin (the lanky British lead guitarist).

There will be over a 100 authors, publishers, and artists, also speakers. Check the website for details. Here's a couple of example prints. There will also be prints with character quotes:

Hope to see you there.

New Cover for Volume Two of the IRIRS series, "Surfing With The Alien"

The new cover for the second volume (IRIRS, "Surfing With The Alien") is ready. It will make its way into Kindle editions and onto paperbacks in late July. We're pretty proud of it. The old cover was pretty but dead and static compared to the two Glycerin covers. Mamiko has made the character Tsika look more sophisticated and a bit gritty to reflect the Perfect Princess is a bit gritty and naughty and the quality of the image is much better, which allowed the cover designer to do more exotic things with the image.

We're shooting all the upcoming covers this summer. There will be another cover with Mamiko, reflecting Tsika's brutal metal evolution, a cover with Elisanth - showing Glycerin evolving to her own style. For a long time, Tsika chose Glycerin's outfits for her. These are looking splendid. Holding off previews until I've paid for them. ;)

And we may have a Kpau cover, shoot for that is planned in a few weeks.

The Tsika Project has results, currently choosing from the vast array of pics.

Say hello to Tsika Tsarinkov. The name Tsika isn't Russian ... it's a nickname. A school administrator mangled and mispronounced her birth name. The class thought it was funny and abused her with it for days before she decided to *own* the name. After that, only very special people were allowed to call her by birth name "Tsarina". She looks the part of a perfect princess but has a fiery boisterous personality. Swears constantly, drinks, prone to going nuclear if her friend Glycerin is in peril.

Model: Mamiko
Ph: Piotr Pro Photo
for BHBranham (author of It Really IS Rocket Science)

Possible book cover candidate

Fan Club Print Candidate

Tsika and her Lollipop Spell

Stalker man spots me smoking. Is bad for him.

Glycerin's Daily Journal - a selected note.

Glycerin is the lead guitarist of IRIRS and a main character in the book series. Something gleaned from her personal journal:
===
Today, little dove Kpau asked me, "If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill herself, is it considered a hostage situation?". She meant it funny, I thought it was funny - but then we both started crying and ended up hugging.
Some days the whole blooming band is crazier than a bag of ferrets and sugar cubes, not just me. -- Glycerin &\
===
Books available at:
http://www.amazon.com/Brad-H-Branham/e/B00GBM1T0Q

"Glycerin" Glycca Ping Wendham and Dissociative Identity Disorder

The book series, It Really IS Rocket Science, is superficially about the adventures and romances of a rock band. 

It's also a collection of character studies of a group of rather unusual misfits who depend on each other. It isn't an utter secret at this point that Glycerin, the lead guitarist of the group, is afflicted ("enhanced?") with Disassociative Identity Disorder. Symptoms vary greatly from patient to patient - Glycerin exhibits one particular set of behaviors coupled with PTSD and clinical depression. 

They call their rock band The Lost Girls for good reason. I wanted the series to be fantastic but based on reality - so I did a lot of research to portray each woman with the complexity of their real disorders. Kpau and Tsika exhibit different symptoms but still reflective of PTSD behaviors. Both have coping mechanisms that mostly work. 

Glycerin is going to get to do some self-discovery of her nature in the next novel in a setting she feels safe in, where she won't be drugged into oblivion or burned at the stake. I needed more sophisticated neuroscience understanding. Here's a synopsis of one of the many papers I'm plowing into. For Science. 
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Opening paragraphs describe the general features - many of which apply to Glycerin

 Dissociative identity disorder is characterized by the presence of two or more identities or personality states, each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and the self (DSM-IV-TR). At least two of these identities recurrently take control of the person’s behavior. Dissociative identity disorder is frequently accompanied by dissociative amnesia, characterized by an inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness. Patients with dissociative identity disorder also commonly experience a range of other symptoms, including depersonalization, derealization, spontaneous autohypnotic symptoms, pseudopsychotic symptoms such as passive influence from and/or hearing the hallucinated voices of alter identities, and multiple somatoform symptoms (1) . 

In clinical studies, most patients with dissociative identity disorder have also been found to meet the DSM-IV-TR criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (2) . In epidemiological studies of the general population, the prevalence of dissociative identity disorder has been found to range from 1% to 3% (3) . 

Numerous studies have shown an association between a dissociative identity disorder diagnosis and an antecedent history of childhood trauma, usually multiple, sustained forms of maltreatment beginning in early childhood (4 – 8) . Although the accuracy of recall in patients with dissociative identity disorder has been debated, patients’ accounts of maltreatment have been independently verified in several studies by using corollary history from family informants, childhood medical records, and social service documents (6 , 9) . Accordingly, the disorder has been conceptualized as a childhood-onset posttraumatic developmental disorder (10 , 11) . Despite these findings, essentially nothing is known about the neurobiology of dissociative identity disorder. 
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Read Glycerin's story (and that of the other women) by visiting http://www.amazon.com/Brad-H-Branham/e/B00GBM1T0Q and other book retailers.

Lady Sariel: Model shoot in the bank building because it was damn cold outside

Lady Sariel: Z wąsami w kamienicy banku.: Siemano! Przepraszam, że była tu taka cisza w ostatnich miesiącach, ale moje życie wywróciło się do góry nogami w ostatnim czasie. Jak pewni...







Chrome has the lovely ability to translate entire pages with a single right click of the mouse. Lady Sariel in a recent shoot she blogged about. She's going to portray Nadia, a new character in my book series about a rock band - It Really IS Rocket Science.

Random Bits and Notes

The Kindle version of the third volume, "Go Go Godzilla" has been long delayed by a couple of explosions and my easy distraction in writing volume 4. Deepest apologies to those patiently waiting for it - I've set aside all writing time to get it done.

In other news, people on Facebook are aware of a new character joining the roller coaster ride. Her name is Nadia, a Polish keyboardist and bass guitarist. She is hired in on short notice during the European tour - she hopes to make it permanent. Let the human comedy of errors, misunderstandings, and missteps begin. I've started a project with a model and clothing designer who goes by the name Lady Sariel professionally (https://www.facebook.com/LadySariel). Book cover ahead.

 



Speaking of book covers, I've been chatting with a publisher -- they like my books, they like my covers. But they want me to split my books into smaller nuggets. Volume 2 in particular is really two story arcs - so I don't mind splitting that up. The real reason for the 3 books initially is that I wanted 3 books on my shelf that told a particular arc of the overall story. I could just edit the 3 books down but fans of the series are aghast at that idea. So I am considering recutting the 3 books into 4. And future books will be shorter - more like typical novel lengths instead of the nearly Harry Potter dimensions I am prone to.

The "Tsika reshoot project" has been delayed for over six months now, mostly due to an unhappy collsion of real life interrupts and occasional funding shortages. Mamiko's arm is now healed, she has moved to Warsaw, started a new life, and actually shares a flat with Lady Sariel -- a pair of goblins loose in the big city.

When they moved in, they found a huge cache of ancient clothing and played "flashback dress up" one evening.


I have had some decent book sales and freed up some funds for proper long range planning of the series. Have a preview of "post lolita brutal" Tsika in various test shots. Back to work with me.

It’s Valentine’s Day – Tsika and Glycerin have greetings for the fans

The pair of women got together with their little images and GIMP tools and cobbled these together. Each reflects the character in some way. Have a casual Valentine's Day ... I just use it to thank women who improve my life just by existing. ;)    (click on the images to enlarge them)
Models (Tsika portrayed by Mamiko  , Glycerin portrayed by Elisanth)

Neil Gaiman: "How to be a Writer"

"Write the ideas down. If they are going to be stories, try and tell the stories you would like to read. Finish the things you start to write. Do it a lot and you will be a writer. The only way to do it is to do it. "

Seriously. That's the whole thing. Also, don't plan to make a living at it. Plan to enjoy it. There are seminars and books on "how to write a best seller" ... typically they involve you writing non-fiction self-help books full of shit for 99cents on Kindle.

Faster way to suck the love for something into a dried husk of death.

The only advice I'll give is to please STOP writing fiction that looks like a movie  script. A script is not a story. People writing anime-themed fan fiction seem to be particularly awful about this. You have to immerse the reader, describe the environment, what are they wearing, what is the weather like, etc. But not as an information dump, weave it into the descriptive prose little bits a time in between the dialog.

The air is cold so Tsika wears a coat. "Is god damned cold!"

*vs*
Tsika shivered in her coat and stamped her feet. Her ears hurt from the frosty air. "Is so fucking cold it hurts to breathe! Why the fuck do I live where it hurts to breathe, damn it?!"

Neither one is perfect but I'll take the latter one any day because the character no longer feels distant.