Guest Post w/Giveaway - The Riesa Series by LD Towers

 

Teufel and New Austrian Order

by LD Towers

 

GENRE: Military fiction 

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BLURBS:

 

BLURB FOR NAO:  

1938. Germany is moving faster than Standartenführer Hagen Kohl thought possible. Sent down to Vienna to investigate a potential threat to Hitler’s plans for Austria, Hagen is drawn in to an aristocratic world he’s never encountered before. Without Hauptsturmführer Eugen Friesler at his side, Hagen is in more danger than he could have imagined as he hunts for a shadowy organization called the New Austrian Order. Back in Germany, Galiena von Steinberg returns to Riesa and the von Steinberg Gesellschaft, but taking over the reins of her Grandfather’s empire comes with many challenges. Can she protect her family holdings while keeping true to the new sense of self she has worked so hard to find?

 

BLURB FOR TEUFEL: 

Against the politically charged background of Nazi Germany's police state, Standartenführer Doctor Hagen Kohl is trying to carve out a profession for himself in the SS. A middle class intellectual with a doctorate in Literature, Hagen is a an investigator who hunts criminals within the party apparatus itself. Hagen justifies everything by his personal code and patriotism, unable to see the flaws of the regime he serves. When he is ordered to investigate members of the army, he discovers patriotism is entirely a matter of perspective. His eyes are further opened by exposure to Galiena von Steinberg; an aristocrat whose own experiences bring him into the entanglements and intrigues at the highest levels of Third Reich society.

 

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EXCERPT: 

Excerpt for Teufel:

 

“I don’t think it right to order a man to his death and then not have the fortitude to stand there and watch him die,” Hagen voiced gruffly to Best. 

“What ever happened to plausible deniability, Kohl?” Best blustered. 

“Damn, Best! Shut up!” Müller groaned again. 

Hagen bored his eyes into Best. “I don’t give orders I feel the need to deny. I acted as I saw fit.” 

Best stared back for a moment and then tore his gaze away. “I am only worried about potential legal entanglements, Kohl! I can only protect the SS from itself if it behaves in a responsible manner,” The words were insultingly spoken. “You already have half the SA trying to kill you. Do you want the Wehrmacht out for your blood too? If they hear about Bittrich, you could bet your car on the fact they would send someone to eliminate you. Quite rightly from a legal standpoint.” 

Hagen stood, pulling his dignity and authority around him like a cloak. Very formally, he addressed Werner Best. “Oberführer Best, you seem to have a great deal of choler over this matter with Leutnant Bittrich. Would you care to step outside and discuss it in private with me? I really don’t think we need to clutter up the briefing with this sniping.” Hagen was more than willing to go toe to toe with Best over this. If anything, reducing the man would give him no end of pleasure. 

Werner Best snapped to his feet. “Gladly, Standartenführer Kohl.” The tension between the two men crackled in the air as they bristled at each other like a pair of wild dogs.

 

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"Writers block. I’m a sufferer. I’m actually suffering from it at the moment. You know exactly what I mean. You don’t have to be a writer to feel the pain of being creatively moribund. We all have that email to a friend that we’ve put off because we know its going to be long and we just can’t get it together long enough to sit down and write it. That report for work we have to write, and we end up changing the fonts, looking at the formatting, going back to the data for another evaluation and then coming up with something more pressing to do.  

It happens. It didn’t take much for me to come up with those examples because I’m ticking all those boxes personally at the moment.  I’ve sat with the first three sentences of this post in a window for five days because I just wasn’t feeling what I was trying (or not trying) to say. But deadlines are deadlines and I suddenly realised that the struggle of trying to write this post was probably more interesting than the utter doggerel I was trying to put to paper. Or bytes. Or whatever! 

So what gets us out of it? For me and work (and this article) it was a boot in the bum. I NEED IT NOW! Yes, Ma’am! Sometimes I’m a good little soldier. But for my fiction? OY! Bums are not self booting! It is very rare that we say, ‘Yeah. I kicked my own butt for not doing X.’ Putting more pressure on yourself to boot your own bum is also not very conducive to creative output. Don’t press your luck, all you get is squished luck!  

Sometimes the best way out of writers block is to change the narrative. Work on something else. Much much easier said than done. I can hear you already! Come on, LD! I just told you I couldn’t write, and now you are saying write something different? What the hell, man?  

Did I say to write something else? No. I said to work on something else. They say that when you can’t sleep, get out of bed and do something else for 20 or 30 minutes. Invent a new story in your head. Live out a scenario in your head with your characters that doesn’t fit in your story now, but that you might use somewhere else… or never!  

Or play with your favourite fantasy. My personal favourite is… What would happen if I fell through a wormhole and ended up in time period X in my modern clothes, with everything I have on me. For example… There I am, walking down the street with my laptop, phone and iPad in my backpack, my makeup bag, my assorted backpack loot, and wearing my usual uniform of something vaguely retro. I fall through a manhole cover. There I am, standing in Paris in 1915.  

1915, there is electricity… with the right plug, I can use my computer! The phone isn’t going to work, but the pictures are there. The music is there. My ipad? STACKED with my research on WWI and WWII.  In fact, I have consolidated battle plans for almost all the major battles of WWI. I’ve a pdf or three on the evolution of aeroplane design from 1914-17. What would I do? Would I try to change the course of history? Or would I go hide in an alley somewhere and  cry? And what would people think of me with my blue hair? 

So while I may not be writing, I’m still using my brain creatively instead of putting more pressure on myself. Usually that pops me out of writers block in a week or two without all the recriminations. I find there is the same shame with writers block as there is with when you break  your diet. OH NO! I ate a bag of chips/didn’t write my promised 2000 words! I am a HORRIBLE person who deserves to be ruthlessly flogged. How does that help? Most truly creative people that I know are more than somewhat neurotic. We rock at feeling terrible about ourselves and often jump at any opportunity! I have writers block! Where is my hair shirt! 

Be gentle with yourself. I know I already said that, but I’m going to say it again because I know you just nodded in understanding and totally ignored it! BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF!  This too, shall pass! What comes out of you when it does will be even more brilliant than if you tried to force it. Soon you will get that little wiggle of an idea in your brain, you will sit down in front of the computer or the typewriter or that mocking pad of paper and you will show it who is boss! 6000 words later, you will be doing a victory lap around your favourite writing space, pounding on your chest like a gorilla and howling your triumph to the universe! 

You know, I’m feeling more creative already. Maybe I will get that email to my friend finished… and then…." ~LD Towers

  

AUTHOR Bio and Links: 

LD Towers travels the world like a rootless vagabond! A military historian, she searches out places of conflict to find a deeper insight to the things she writes about. Presently enjoying the warm weather and azure seas of Central America, she has lived all over Western Europe, including 5.5 years in the incomparable Berlin. 

Primarily working in Historical and Military Fiction, LD sometimes sneaks in the odd Dystopian or Modern Thriller piece. Also look for a series of novellas about the despicable yet intriguing Meinrad von Steinberg from the Riesa Series, coming in fall 2015. 

website:www.ldtowers.net

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/L_D_Towers

FB: https://www.facebook.com/LDTowerswalks 

Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/LD-Towers/e/B00ZMFTJTQ

Page for Teufel: http://www.amazon.com/Teufel-Riesa-Book-LD-Towers-ebook/dp/B00ZLT5LCW

 

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GIVEAWAY: 

LD Towers will be awarding a $40 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway