Should We Authors Speak Out in Troubled Times? @RochelleWeber #OpEd #Politics #Religion

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I scheduled a guest this week, but she did not send her info back to me, so I needed to come up with something at the last minute. This is a question my publisher MuseItUp Publishing, Inc., asked for our company blog (http://museituppublishing.blogspot.com/) that I didn’t have time to answer—then.

In the past, I’ve talked about some of my beliefs. For instance, I believe there’s a power greater than me. I believe that power has both masculine and feminine energies and I honor both. I believe Jesus was a great teacher, and I’d like to know what he was really doing between the time he stayed in the temple talking with the elders for six days without his parents at the age of twelve and when he began his ministry at thirty. (I said six days because his parents were three days away when they realized he was missing. It would have taken another three days to get back and retrieve him.) At any rate, that’s eighteen years of his life missing from the Bible.

So, do people want to hear what I have to think in troubled times? Frankly, in these particular times, I’m afraid to speak. There’s supposed to be a women’s rally in Washington, DC, the day after the inauguration. Traditionally such rallies are held at the Lincoln Memorial. The so-called President Elect has instructed the National Park Rangers to prevent the ladies from meeting there. He says he needs the space for “inaugural activities.” The day after his inauguration? His first full day in office and he’s already planning to deprive people of their First Amendment rights to gather and speak?

I suppose many people would think I was part of “the problem.” If I were younger, had the energy and the money to get downtown, I'd be protesting this election. I've already started signing petitions. Or better yet, I wish I had the money to get to that rally in DC. Anyone who has read my first book Rock Bound should know how I feel about so-called Presidents who overstep the power of their office.

Should we, as authors, raise our voices in troubled times? Any time we see wrongdoing, we should all raise our voices.

Sneak Peak Sunday: Rock Bound—Signing Her Life Away

Tag Line:  Jake Johnsrud saved Annie Peterson’s life.  Now slaves on that God-forsaken rock, the Moon, how will they survive?

 Six Paragraphs:  Signing Her Life Away

“You women are being transported as auxiliaries. You’ll service the men.”

“Service how?” Annie asked timidly. She thought she knew the answer, but couldn’t quite accept it. The guards were grinning at the sides of the room.

The colonel leered at her and answered, “However they want you to.”

“Women have done worse things to survive,” Crystal muttered as she signed her papers.

“Ten years isn’t so long,” Vivian agreed and signed her name. She took it for granted she would be able to return to Earth when her term was up.

…

Well, it was prostitution or death. Annie supposed she could endure ten years as a prostitute. She imagined the women would perform other services for the miners as well, such as cooking and cleaning. It wasn’t like she was a virgin. Besides, once she paid her debt to society, she would be able to come home to Bobby. She hoped that he and her mother were both alright. She refused to consider any other possibility. She agreed to the sentence and signed the papers before her without reading them. After all, she already knew she was being screwed.

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Six Sentences from Rock Bound

 

A dictator has taken over the United States.  When citizens protest the downfall of the Constitution at the Mall in Washington, DC, US troops open fire on them.  Some of the survivors are going to the Moon as slave labor for the Freezeland Mining Corporation, which is, of course, owned by Tad Freezeland, the dictator.

Six Sentences:

August, 2051

Federal Corrections Center—Petersburg, VA

The prisoners who passed their physicals were fitted for pressure suits, which were issued by the Freezeland Mining Corp. Jake Johnsrud and the Johnson twins were amazed the FMC was spending so much money to outfit its miners—until they were each handed a chit to sign. The cost of the p-suits had been calculated in pounds of ore. The FMC would support them and their fellow inmates until their indentures were paid, but they would be accumulating a debt in cubic yards of ore for every day the FMC had to house and feed them.

In fact, the chits were backdated to the date of their arrests. Their indentures would grow daily, unless they managed to wrest enough ore from the rock not only to pay their original indentures, but also to pay for their equipment, room, and board. … It finally occurred to Jake he was facing a life sentence, rather than the ten years to which he had agreed.

BLURB:

The future is a dangerous place for dreamers and idealists.

When a dictator takes over the United States, Annie Peterson attends a protest in Washington, DC, with her husband Paul. US troops fire into the crowd killing him, and Jake Johnsrud, a virtual stranger, risks his life to save hers. They are among the survivors who are sentenced to slavery on the Moon for their “crimes”—Jake as a miner; Annie as a sex slave.

Jake fights increasing feelings of anger and jealousy as Annie struggles to perform her job, while she resists her increasing attraction to him. Along with their fellow inmates, they fight to survive on the lunar "rock" that is their prison.