Word Song

Words
Escape
Faster than
You can think them
crawl away from your
mind. Don't capture me, lock
me away, stuck on paper
exposed, naked for all to laugh.
Cover me. Put me in a safe place
Hold me in you heart. Sing me home to stay.

What do people want?

What do people want when they come to a blog? I've had at least 150 visitors over the past two weeks which is wonderful. That's not counting my own visits to check for comments. But when people click on a blog what are they looking for and what do they want to see at this blog?

Does humor work?

Inside info about publishing?

Writing struggles?

Writing tips?

Real life stories?

Pictures?

Medical stories and mental health horror stories? Do I have some of those? Ask me about the past five months.

Readers, what do you want to see?

Bribes? Post a comment and I'll put you in a drawing for an original collage.

Now for the shameless promotion part.

BLOODY MURDER, the sequel to PRIVY TO MURDER, releases in October, in time for Halloween. Be sure and go to http://www.eternalpress.ca/ and order PRIVY TO MURDER so you can read it before the sequel is released. If you need a short Urban Fantasy fix, pick up FAIRY DUST at the same time.

Great Deal for Gena Showalter

I guess YA is the place to be because Gena Showalter just signed a wonderful deal for a YA Urban Fantasy. She's local just like Rachel Vincent who also recently signed a deal for YA Urban Fantasy. Need to start writing for those teens. We owe it all to the success of Stephanie Myers and the TWILIGHT series.

Recommendation

I know I often recommend different books, like all the urban fantasy books out there, but I have an even better one and I've only listened to part of it.
Warning, it's extremely existential, buhdist, Zen-like.
It's a two CD set called "A conversation on the Writing Life" featuring two giants, Julia Cameron: Author of THE ARTISTS WAY, and Natalie Goldberg, author of WRITING DOWN THE BONES (and numerous other books.)

They discuss:
How can writing best be practiced? What is the difference between therapeutic writing and writing for publication? How to deal with mood and time? Is it good to "dabble in different arts such as music, painting, and writing? How is addiction related to the writer's life?

It was published ten years ago and is as true today. It should be available on Amazon. Whether you write fiction or nonfiction, genre or literary, it's the writing process itself that is so important, more than the product. Whether or not you write 1st drafts long-hand or compose at the computer. I compose at the computer except when I journal or write poetry, then the tactile thing, with my fountain pen is important to me.

Journaling outdoors with the birds, perfect. Keep writing, listen to this, read Natalie Goldberg's WRITING DOWN THE BONES and WILD MIND. Read Julia Cameron's THE ARTIST'S WAY.

Changes

Yup, changing layout again. I may have to just find someone to do one for me since I can't find what I want in the customized ones.

I read a blog that asked what everyone liked to read on holiday, on vacation, on a rainy day. Do you save up certain books for that special day off, favorite authors, types of stories genre's. What do you like to have for that particular day at the beach when time stretches out, limitless to the horizon.

Name your poison. I'll enter you into a drawing for a copy of my e-story, "Fairy Dust." The deadline to enter will be May 26.

Conference pictures finally

AmyShojai with cat books, Ruth Rakestraw with hers at the book signing Saturday night.

Signing one of my post cards. No paperbacks yet but fun anyway.



Me at my first book signing, with the World of Myth Anthology, has my story Mam in it.
Sarah has stories in the anthology also.

My beautiful friend, Sarah with her newest book, "Trust the Night."She has the anthology there also as well as Blood Atonement and Trust the night. We did have fun.

Pictures

I wanted to have conference pics but my daughter has to find the stick to her camera. I do have one from Rinda. On the left is Sarah Wilson, who has a wonderful new book out, "Trust the Night" from Samhain Press. Rinda Elliott in the middle, new agent, contract soon. Me, having fun and grinning like an idiot as usual.

The next picture, on the right, I stole from Rinda because she always says how she takes terrible pictures. I should look so bad. Almost has a Sophia Loren look.

Dark Fiction

In the past, after school shootings, it has come to light that students wrote dark fiction, depicting drinking, drug use, killing, before they walked into a school and shot fellow students. In the wake of the Virginia Tech killings, The Wall Street Journal cites incidences where students have been expelled for creating dark writing or art and expressing non conformist leanings, to the extent that more than one college in Virginia has had a student detained for a weekend at a psych facility and even when psychiatrists deemed him not to be a threat, expelled him anyway. The detention was based upon the art and/or writing produced by the student.

Students write dark. Where would American literature be without Edgar Allen Poe? We can't view every non-conformist as a threat in a country founded upon the nonconformist approach. Are we going to lynch Stephen King? Get rid of the people who write about serial killers not to mention blood-thirsty vampires? We are trying to pidgeon-hole people to the point we make them afraid to express themselves at all. One student swears he will only write about butterflies and rainbows from now on. That kind of writing would eliminate George Bernard Shaw, Steinbeck, Hemingway and most of the other renowned writers of our time.

In the quest for safety, our country could stifle the very thing that has made this country great, freedom of speech.

Fun and Games

I just love when a story decides to take itself to a new level. Love it. Now I have to figure out just where it was going but I think it will be a fun ride. I was working on Bloody Murder and suddenly (I can say that, it's my blog.) Suddenly Tali and Cher went somewhere I hadn't thought of and had an experience I never imagined. Now I have to figure out what to do with it. How fun is that? I love my job, at least my writing one. It will be fun to see what happens. Just hope I can figure it out.

Random Thoughts

I love spooky stories. If you do to, go to www.eternalpress.com and click on the blog. It's paranormal day and I'm hooked already on a couple of the books.

Also, I heard just a snippet about a new movie coming out where a plague causes everyone but one man to go blind and he's horrified by what he sees. Could they have re-made "The Day of the Triffids?" Does anyone but me remember that movie? Should be interesting but I didn't catch the title of the new one so, we'll see.

I'm told Stephanie Myers new adult book, "Host," is is really good so I'm going to have to read that in my spare time. So many books, so little time.

Worked on a scene in my WIP yesterday and this morning thought of things that should be in it. Now I'm at work, still thinking of things I need to do to the scene. I won't be able to get back to it until tonight after Megan's play unless I sneak away at lunch. It's driving me nuts. Also, shouldn't be blogging because . . . I'm at work. So gotta go and catch you later.

Visit Eternal Press Blog for Paranormal Day

It's Paranormal Day on the Eternal Press Blog. So, have you run out to get your fix?
You haven't?
What are you thinking?
What better on Paranoramal Day than to read all about fairies and elves and pixies, oh my! Oh, yeah, don't forget about the were-wolf and the mean old ghouls.
Oh, I know, I know, you haven't finished the newest Sookie Stackhouse or Dresden. Forget those, They take too long. Rush out and get FAIRY DUST. Not only is it fun and action packed, it's short.
Seriously folks, you want to read it today, and you can. Well, maybe not so seriously since I wrote it. I'm never serious.
But, Boudicca Andraste Ryan (Ande for short) gets into all kinds of trouble after she meets a sexy were-wolf, has her father's amulet stolen and gets into fights with both a pixie and a ghoul. That's before she even sees the evil wizard who wants to end the world as we know it.
Rush right out to http://www.eternalpress.ca/ and buy it now, read it on your lunch hour. Hurry, hurry hurry, before it sells out. OK. It won't sell out, it's an ebook. But you don't want to be the one person in your crowd who didn't read it, now do you. Well, Do you?

Royalties

I had a nice surprise yesterday, a royalty check. My last couple of royalty checks have been nice, not enough to live on but helpful for sure. But . . . isn't there always one of those? It's for nonfiction, the stuff I don't want to write. Whiny me, I want to write mystery and fantasy and a combination of the two and make money from it. Not a fortune, although I wouldn't turn that down either, but at least as much as I make from writing about resistant organisms and the life.

After all, people read fiction because they want to, resistant organism are appealing to someone trying to make a plan to prevent their spread, not because they're fun. Not because they want to find out what happens next. Well . . . I take that back, I kind of enjoyed writing about things like disasters and bioterrorism, but that's my background. Sane people don't want to dwell on some of that.

OK, back on subject. How to get royalties from fiction: work hard, write a lot, market a hell of a lot more than I've done, then write some more, have you books available on multiple sites in multiple formats and in print also. There. That's my plan and I'm sticking to it. But, if anyone has more wonderful ideas, post them here.

Spiders

Rinda has a post up about spiders and scorpions, at http://relliott4.wordpress.com/
A good post to creep you out.

I read a horror comic when I was a kid in grade school. It told the story of a girl who came home from school, went into her house and found everything dark and way too quiet. The door closed behind her. When she reached for the light switch, her hand grabbed hold of a giant furry spider. She screamed and woke up in school, still in class, with everyone laughing at her.

She walked home that day and reached her house. Now she was afraid to climb the stairs to her front porch. Shaking off her fear, knowing it was just a silly nightmare, she made it to her front door. Even when she opened the front door to a dark house, she had to made herself go through the door, only to have it slam behind her. In the dark she automatically reached for the light switch, only this time, when she touched the spider, she never stopped screaming.

Hence my fear of Spiders and reaching for light switches in the dark.
Have I remembered that story for the past 55 years, since I was about ten? Yes.
Did I stop reading horror comics and horror stories? No.
Do I like being creeped out in books? Absolutely.

Sometime I'll tell you about my grandmother's bedtime stories and you'll understand just why I'm so warped. What story or experience creeped you out? Come on. Tell all.

Mother's Day

Everyone out there have a wonderful Mother's Day.

I had a good day, heard from all the kids, talked to my mother and sister. Straightened up my office, yay, I can find things again-except for my OWFI which is, I'm sure, somewhere safe.

I found out I'm in the top ten Eternal Press authors for Fictionwise sales with "Fairy Dust." Paranormal is it. I hope that "Bloody Murder" with the new elements catches on and makes people want to go back and read "Privy to Murder." Excited about the sales. Won't make me rich but a good feeling that some people like my stuff.

I started reading the new Sookie Stackhouse vampire book. Love those. Now I have to finish writingBM and get FD the novel started. Onward and upward.

Post Post Conference

I enjoyed conference this year in spite of responsibilities. I've heard good and bad about the new venue at the Reed Center. Yay for more room, boo for the long walking distance from room to conference and the less than stellar ability to handle food for the crowd, Yay for the calibre of the speakers, friendliness of the attendees.

So, all-in-all it went well. Now it's time to get back to writing and stop whining about no time, finish "Bloody Murder" and start the new "Fairy Dust."

Oklahoma writer hits NY Times best seller list, Gena Showalter is #8 with her new book.

Post Conference-Rain and wind and hail Oh My

It seems people from NY don't understand how a little hail can damage a car. Now they do as we had baseball size hail in Midwest City Thursday night and everyone had to gather in the basement at the Sheraton conference center.

Also, some table were set up for another conference and some people from a workshop gathered at those tables to continue their session. I thought a gentleman was going to have a stroke before he moved everyone away from the tables. Turns out, classified info was in the notebooks on the tables. Mind you, if I had classified info, I wouldn't have it set out 12 hours or so before the session, but then that's just me.

Got to meet and socialize with Meredith Bernstein, agen extrodinaire, Rebecca York, Katherine Jensen and some of my buds from both Romance Ink (Kathy Moad, Sara Besore and Rinda Elliott) and Cuchara Writer's Guild (Amy Shojai and Cherie Wallis Jackson.)

I learned a lot of marketing things from Dan Poynter, CJ Lyons workshop was great, JA Jance gave an engaging keynote address. I'm so looking forward to next year when I don't have responsibilities for helping run the conference and can veg.

Had my first book signing and actually sold one. It was a lot of fun. I will post pictures as soon as I can. Now back to work work and pushing up my word count for Bloody Murder. More on conference later.