* RISING TENSIONS will be published in paperback very soon. I will put the link for it here as soon as it's available to buy. In publication, RT will be followed up by Ellie's Autumn Rain.
Lost in the Autumn Rain,
so suddenly happiness gone
Buxton shot, so much pain,
feeling stuck, guess evil won.
Lost in the Autumn Rain,
banished to exile.
The world has gone insane,
so unfair, quite senile!
Lost in the Autumn Rain,
without a clue
of the cause, the bane,
or of what to do.
Lost in the Autumn Rain;
oh the sleepless nights;
when will this wane;
when feel delights?
Love and science
virtues twin
treasured subjects
for the pen!
It was in a laboratory
where Emily met Ben.
Their story is far from dull;
not exactly Barbie and Ken!
Her brother Lewis brought them together,
as collaborators on his human experiment.
They switched the brains of a beautiful bodied woman,
and a classy paraplegic gent!
Ben's love breathed life,
into Emily's broken heart.
He proposed to make her his wife,
for nothing could keep them apart.
La Mela Florentina
In her mother's image,
in her father's name
La Mela Florentina
her legendary lineage,
her inexplicable fame
La Mela Florentina
her very intelligent mind,
and extraordinary beauty
La Mela Florentina
compassionate, ever so kind,
and tantalizingly naughty
La Mela Florentina
Partly girl next door,
partly princess ideal
La Mela Florentina,
exquisite to the core,
beguilingly real
The story begins with Jeph and Anne;
it's true they fell in love at first sight,
and without fuss or plan,
their love was pure, strong and bright!
Annie had four children, teenaged and troubled.
Tatiana thought she was a royal;
and to the Nazis, Fred was loyal!
The twins had problems too,
especially Emily, whose heart was blue.
Jephthah was a Finn,
born and raised in Turku.
He thought living with Anne was a sin,
therefore marriage was a must do!
Jeph's castle doubled as a museum,
for history and art,
from the land of the Finn!
Anne set up her own school for math,
unaware of what Fred planned,
within his den!
Fred was brilliant, though full of hate.
underground, he built his lair.
In power loving Oskar he found a mate,
and benefactor to fund his dare!
The marriage of Anne and Jeph was a trial.
About the kids' learning,
they argued all the while!
Yet the kids' were yearning....
Tatiana pined for a royal prince;
Sean attempted to keep the peace.
Inside his lair, Fred grew tense,
hatching his plans, craving release!
Emily lost her heart to a boy,
on the spot, in her mother's style!
For Buxton filled her heart with joy.
So suddenly, there was no denial.
An affair of the heart,
between Annie and Otto
sent Jephthah off with a start!
In the castle was chaos.
Tempers flared, furies raged!
A city destroyed!
The Nazi's hatred uncaged!
Colliding Passions: The first story of Petra Chewsteraghi
CP has a few missing chapters. Some places in the story are filled in with summaries of the missing chapters. The authoress is Ashley.
The new story of Petra Chewsteraghi
Untitled, unfinished, ongoing sequel to CP, also written by Ashley
The saga of the Gen X and Y Chewsters
Focus on the Chewsters of XXI, and written by Ashley (unfinished, ongoing)
Elijah Chewster
The unfinished back story for Elijah Chewster, written by Ashley
Askew Universe
An unfinished physics fan fictional story written in 2003 by Ashley and Ellie
A History of Rising Tensions
Rising Tensions was copyrighted in 1996 by (then) Ashley Rovira, (then) Elishka Webb, and Garrett Gross. It was revised and published online in 2008 by Ashley Claire Michael.
The novella that inspired a continuous Chewster drama in the minds of Ashley & Ellie began in stealth. Ashley & Ellie took turns writing chapters in their notebooks during classes @ Burbank High School, Burbank, California. Between classes, they exchanged notes and tried laboriously not to laugh out loud in the next classes while reading the other’s chapter.
It was one of the things that helped Ellie overcome intense grief over the loss of a dear friend, Clara, to whose memory the novella is lovingly dedicated.
The person who inspired the character Anne Frances Foyla is an actual Algebra and Geometry teacher @ Burbank High. She taught Geometry to Ashley, and that & Algebra II to Ellie. She remains on the payroll @ Burbank High. She is a kind, caring, and amazing person.
Dr. Sussman is another caricature of a BHS teacher. The caricature is a flattering portrait of the muse! In this case, the muse is not half as cool as his caricature!
The person who inspired the character of Fred Chewster was, is, and might always be a jerk. The authors’ caricature of his person was inspired by his flirtation with the revolting ideals of Nazism. It is small wonder that this lowest form of humankind became a lawyer.
Most of the characters in the novella are caricatures of people known by the authors during high school. Some of the characters inspired by fellow students were Otto Damike the idiot, Eric and Ike Foyla, Kermit the butler, Julian the security guard, the mysteriously-named BM, Suzette the cook, and of course Sean. The authors caricatured themselves in the form of Tatiana and Emily. Garrett loosely inspired the ever-practical Lewis. Emily’s sweetheart and savior, Buxton, is loosely based on the easygoing, fun-loving young man who is now Ellie’s husband. The authors tried to make atonement for naming his caricature Buxton, and for (~SPOILER WARNING~) [a certain tragedy in the final chapter] by making him a hero and giving him the most famous surname in mafia fiction.
Margot, Stewart, Wolfgang, and Peter Chewster were inspired by royalty. Perhaps it is unwise to name the royal muses. Suffice it to say that these characters are loose representations of certain British and Swedish royalty.
Elijah Chewster started as a rough caricature of Ellie’s physician, also named Elijah. Like the muse, Elijah is ethical, compassionate, highly motivated and successful, and Jewish. That Elijah Chewster’s children include Fred the Nazi is one of many tensions that propel the conflict in the novella. The combination of Emily’s angst, Tatiana’s anger, and Otto’s idiocy, among other things, adds fuel to the blaze.
The Finnish characters - Jephthah, Schmidt, Franz, and the Duke & Duchess of Turku - are, oddly enough, random creations, based on no one in particular. The authors have never traveled to Finland and don’t know any Finnish people. In 1996, the authors didn’t know much about Finland beyond its geography. Subsequent education has confirmed that there is no actual Duke of Turku. In fact, there are no living Finnish dukes. Finland has been a grand duchy, at turns part of the Swedish and Russian empires. During the First World War, Finland toyed with the idea of its own monarchy, even recruiting a German prince to wear the crown. But the Finnish monarchy hardly survived the war and today the country is a republic.
Rising Tensions has been an adventure (not always, but mostly pleasant) for the authors, who consider 1995, not 1996, to be its commencement. In 2005, the authors held a ten-year anniversary party, during which guests were served “Chewster Beer” and, in a nod to the outrageous “dinner party scene” in the novella, toast and plain yogurt.
2008 marked the centennial for the real Burbank High School and new life was breathed into RISING TENSIONS.
