Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Something to Nibble on...

RELEASE DAY was yesterday!! Woo-hooo, Shivers is on Amazon for Kindle HERE! I am tired and ready for the end of the work week, but I will post some tips about release days this weekend, natch?! 

In the meantime some flash fiction for ya!






He wasn't very good at this. Hunting. The whole stalk and seduce nightmare. There were things he didn't excel at, surprising as it may seem to some, Mortimer knew this and usually he didn't care. There were things in life where lacking skill was nothing shameful. Playing the xylophone, for instance. He couldn't play a note....and there was noth...well.... of course he could play a note. On a xylophone, who couldn't? Really that was a rather bad example....

Was it schizophrenic to roll your eyes at yourself? Or merely delusional?

Mort groaned and pushed up from the table, rubbing one shaking hand through his tangled black curls. He needed a walk to clear his head, that was the ticket, he told himself brightly, even though he knew very well that was not what he needed. And that was both delusional AND irrational, but Mort was no longer listening to himself. He was good at that.

The beach was lovely, and who expects a vampire on a beach? Even at dusk, with only the lightest blush on the waves remaining from the sunset, the warm breeze scented with salt and sand and occasional whiff of coconut suntan oil and Venus starting to wink softly in the night sky. It was camoflage and every hunter needs camoflage, even a mythical one. And vampires were a myth, yes? A year ago, just one year ago, the answer would have been, but of course, yes! There is no such thing. Mort's mouth twisted.

And now he was such a thing. Ironic, wasn't it?

In the end, though, hunting is not needed. She is stumbling back to her hotel, silver heels dangling from long pink nails, her bare toes curling into the sand as she looks up at him, as he brushes her sun-kissed hair out of her wide blue eyes. She's not quite drunk enough. Fear and resignation enter her gaze at nearly the same instant.

'I promise I won't bite." Mort hears himself saying and winces.

He's never been very good at lying, either~ but her scream is short and the night is long.

Friday, April 25, 2014

I can DO this! (I AM doing this!)

It's been quite the week for this beginning writer. It sounds weird to say that. After all I have been writing stories almost as long as I can remember. But this e-publishing journey is quite the trip and def something brand new for me.

I want to share some of what I learned this week for those beginning this journey or thinking about it, or for the merely curious.

For those who only want the writing, keep reading, there might be something special for you. ;)

For the rest of you, the biggest thing I learned these last weeks is just keep moving forward!

Let me rephrase that:


I know, I know, like Marlin you may get tired of hearing it, but hum that little ditty to yourself and don't stop.

Not because you are terrified of formatting, of creating a website, of braving Twitter or having to decide on a cover. Just take a deep breath and wiggle those fins.

First of all, after all my research I decided on KDP, otherwise known as Kindle Direct Publishing. It seemed the simplest, and definitely the cheapest (how does FREE sound?) way to get my book to the biggest amount of people. If you have an Amazon account already you can use that sign in info, or just join.

KDP

It really walks you through the process like a helpful friend, giving you hints on everything from what genres to choose(you are allowed 2 for each book), search terms(don't use ones already in your title or blurb to increase your search power and reach more peeps).

It doesn't however say much about formatting, so I will. Let me say I got really scared because of an article I read via Twitter. Twitter is weird, IMO, but there are a LOT of helpful people on there and its a fantabulous way to reach other writers and readers. However, like a lot of other places, watch where you step because it gets pretty deep in there. Some people are on there just to make $, which is fine except when they do that by terrifying you. So let me ease your mind:

You do NOT need to spend $200 to have someone format your book for the Kindle!

You do however, need to be fairly skillful with Word, or know enough to search youtube for helpful hints on things you do not know. Like creating a Table of Contents that will work in Kindle for instance:

Creating a Table of Contents

That's the big one. Other than that, just make SURE your margins and indentations are consistent throughout and obviously, edit, edit and EDIT again. You do not want to see the happy dance I did when I clicked the upload and convert to KDP button and it returned successful. Or when I used the handy preview on Kindle feature and everything looked bee-you-ti-FULL. I only had one glitch, my title page subheading was off-center. Kindle gives you directions to edit using a zip file. I am not going to get into my struggles with that, but it didn't work for me. So after some head-to-keyboard therapy,  I decided to just go back and submit a second edition of my book, correcting the centering on that. I will probably just delete the first edition once the 2nd clears, but for those who want a sneaky sneak peek before the release:

Shhh!

There is also the tax and royalties stuff, but it is pretty straightforward and I had read up on most of it before hand, so that was cake.

Oh and the cover. You can pay people to do covers and I probably will on my next book, just to get something a little more original than the stock Kindle formats. Their Cover Creator, though, is pretty simple to use. I am very lucky in that my baby sister is a great photographer and she let me browse her images and I picked one that I really loved and used that.

M Blomquist Photography (shameless family plug)

Her work is quality and the right pixel count. If you do use your own images, make sure you have a good resolution, so it looks professional. I was quite happy with what I was able to come up with for my first shot.

And then voila! I have a book on Kindle, ready for the masses. ;) Masses, of course, being relative. lol

Release of Shivers is next week! OMG!!

More, more, MORE to come, I am sure. I am having fun on this journey and having fun sharing it, too!

**Note** it appears I may not be able to republish after all, BUT it also appears I do not have to do the zip and re-zip file either, I tried just re-uploading a corrected Word file, will let you all know if it worked!***

**reuploading the Word file was a total success, woo-hoo!


Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Just Like Riding a Bike



Remember when you ditched your training wheels? That glorious feeling of accomplishment and freedom?






The bruises, the cuts and tears?






My daughter went through that little rite of passage this weekend.She watched me with shining eyes and a big grin as I loosened the nuts and pulled those two metal brackets off her beloved pink bike with the white plastic basket, almost dancing in place. And then when we went down to the road she took off like a
swan, perfect graceful, she didn't even realize I wasn't holding on to her. For about thirty heady seconds.






Then she did. And with realization came fear.





So she wibbled and wobbled and of course it happened. Down she went. It hurt and there was blood and torn skin and a bit of tears. And now she was scared. She didn’t want that to happen again.





Still she got back on.






Only this time there was no beautiful perfect grace, this time there was hesitation. Caution. Fear. She looked at me instead of the road. Panicked when she began to wobble. The falls came more often now. And so did the tears. It’s hard to watch that as a parent. As a human being.






I kept talking to her, trying different things, but the more she fell, the more scared she got, the slower she went, the slower she went the more she fell. Finally I stopped her and looked at her little tear streaked face, ‘Honey, when you start to feel like you are going to fall, that’s when you need to go faster, okay?’ I got what I call the Willis look, you know the one:



















She wasn’t buying it, but she trusts me, even though she thinks I am crazy sometimes. So she tried it. I could see her knuckles clench on the handlebars as she started to wobble, and her sneakers would start pumping faster… and faster…and sure enough she could stay up longer.. and then longer. The falls didn’t stop and they probably won’t stop completely. Not for a long time, if ever. But she gets it now.






Later that night I was lying in bed, worrying sick about my writing. About the book. About how do I do this? What is the point? Who is going to say what? Who am I kidding? What does it matter, nothing is going to come of it anyway… Maybe I should just forget it. And then it hit me. What I had showed my daughter but forgot myself.






The way to get rid of fear isn’t to slow down. The last thing you want to do is lose momentum, right?






You have to pedal faster, not running away from your fear, but into it. White-knuckled maybe, knowing if you crash at this speed it will hurt a lot more, but if you don’t go for it, really go for it, you’re going to be stuck on those stupid training wheels forever, always wondering what real freedom feels like.






I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to wonder.






I want to know.








Friday, April 18, 2014

Oh My Dark Darling

It has been a long long exhausting week, but as I near the finish line for releasing Shivers, here's another bit of Max's story, Max has long been a favorite of mine and hope he will become one of yours. His story is long and convoluted, and this piece is one of the darkest....





Oh My Dark Darling.......

Nadine slipped from the harem like a dark ghost, feeling the cool silk of desert night against her skin. She couldn't hardly breathe as her feet in their elegant embroidered slippers ran lightly over the mosaic tiles of the courtyard. She passed the gurgling fountain without a glance, her black eyes searching the blacker, moonless night for him.

He had been entertained by the sultan this eve. Not in the harem, of course. No intact man, other than the sultan himself could enter the harem, but in the palace proper. She wouldn't have even seen him if she hadn't been entertaining the sultan with her singing when he'd arrived. 

Tall, much, much taller than the rather puny Suleiman, more on a height with the proper men of her own country, though more slender and with eyes as blue as storm-darkened seas. Eyes that had made her shiver as she was lead back to the harem. eyes that had followed her with a gaze as hot as a physical touch.

How she knew he would meet her here, Nadine couldn't say. But she knew he would. Just as she knew she could never go home and see her beloved mother again. Or her cool green lake with it's soft mud that would coat her feet as she splashed her little sisters and brother. But those memories were best left alone, they were speckled and smeared with blood, fear and pain....

Nadine caught her breath as she felt the whisper against her cheek, the hand that slid around her hip, flattening over her silk-covered belly and pulling her back. 

"You answered." The velvety voice made her smother a whimper.

"How could I not?" She let her head fall back and felt the dance of warm fingers along her neck.

"How indeed." Lips followed the fingers and Nadine sighed. Warmth such as she had never felt filled her from head to toe. She had never longed for a man, Had never been given the chance. But she longed for this one. She burned.

He turned her in his arms and pulled her down beside the fountain. She couldn't see the falling water but she could hear it as his mouth continued to move over her smooth ebony skin, lingering over the throb of her jugular for a long moment, making her heart beat quicken in something very like fear before sliding down her collarbone and lower, over her wrap now. Wetting the silk as he drew a firm nipple into his hot mouth and caressed it with his tongue. Nadine gave a soft cry, her back bowing off the cool tiles.

He took his time with her, as no one had ever had, not the vicious warriors that had took her virginity, the slave traders who had gotten more from her body than mere gold or even the rather kind harem merchant and the indulgent, if boring sultan. He made her sweat, made her beg and sipped her juices from her body before he even entered her. She never had the presence of mind to wonder why he showed absolutely no concern at the death he was courting by taking a member of the Sultan's harem within shouting distance of more than five hundred trained warriors.

And in the witching hour before the dawn began to light the sky, when he told her what he was and what she could be, Nadine did not hesitate. She already loved him.

Fifty years later in Venice, Max knew he had made a mistake. Nadine had already been half-insane from the horrors she had endured before him. He wasn't sure if the streak of cruelty she had was innate, or acquired from all she survived, but it increasingly sickened him. She relished Cesar and Desdemona's blood parties even as he was finding himself turning away from the hedonism of his vampiric acquaintances.

And now, tonight, he had refused to attend the latest 'bash' and she stood before him, wild and beautiful and furious.

"Maximillian, you vex me! Why do you not want to be with me any longer? Do you hate me so? Do you despise me now?" Her black eyes snapped, but Max held back a sigh with difficulty. This argument had gotten old about half a dozen years ago.

"Vex you, love? Why should it vex you if I would rather spend time with you here, alone?" He spread his arms wide, indicating the lush chamber they currently occupied. Max loved Venice but he was more than ready to move on. But Nadine refused to leave her friends. That argument, too, was very old.

Nadine growled. "You must be getting tired of me, if you do not wish to be seen with me in front of our friends."

Max sighed. "Your friends, Nadine, Not mine. I don't have friends."

That lovely face twisted into that grimace he was beginning to hate. "You have that bitch, Anna."

Before he quite knew what he was doing Max's hand was wrapped around that taut column of Nadine's throat. And squeezing. It was only her gasp that got him to shake his head and drop his hand, staring at it for a second as if he didn't recognize his own limb.

"I knew it!" Nadine shrieked as he backed away from her."You love her, you don't love me....you never have!!"

Max stared at her, wondering why it had to be one or the other, but already knowing in his heart he no longer felt love for Nadine, even though he once had. Maybe not as he did Anna, but love was love, wasn't it? He said nothing and Nadine grabbed her hair and tore at it.

"Get out!! Get OUT!" When the door closed behind him, Nadine shut her streaming eyes for half a second before she took all the trinkets off the desk and hurtled them at the door, then the paintings on the wall, the water basin and pitcher, the jewelry from her wrists and ears, tearing her skin as she pulled off gold in a senseless fury, blood trickling from her ears and neck, her hair wild and boiling around a livid and darkly purple face.

She reached up to pull the huge gilt mirror off the wall, but stopped abruptly at the sight of her reflection. Nadine gasped once, face to face with her insanity before lifting the mirror and hurtling it to the floor. It shattered with an almighty crash, knocking the lamp from the trestle table and plunging the room into total blackness, but Nadine's heart shattered very, very quietly and her worst screams were in her mind.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Excerpt from Shivers

This is from the novella- Max in the NYC, soon to be released in the short story compilation, Shivers. 

 Lissa leaned against the rain-slick alley wall, soaked to the bone and shivering. The smell of icy New York City rain, damp, grey and tinged with steel flooded her nostrils...somehow easing the burning pain in her throat.
  She had been so stupid, and Lissa hated stupidity worse than anything. It was an unforgivable weakness in her opinion. She tilted her head back, feeling the fat cold drops splash against her face, mixing with hot tears and washing them away. Pat so wasn't worth this shit, Lissa knew that. 
  Now she did, five minutes since walking in on him and Kelsey, after she traveled halfway across the country to surprise him. And if she was honest with herself, Lissa had only decided to come to NYC because she suspected something, something in the cooling tone of Pat's voice....

  Ahhh, so damn stupid.
  She turned to leave the alley, shivering in her skirt and tank top. Ridiculous sexy clothes that were so not her. A laugh burst out of her, helpless and slightly hysterical. Cut off abruptly when she saw the three hulking figures approaching her; misty, dark and distorted by sheets of silvery rain. Three men, but with feral looks on their smiling faces, looking more like hungry animals as they formed a half-circle around her. Thunder rolled down the alley as she backed against the brick wall again. Oh, this day just could not get any worse....she screamed as the first reached out a beefy tattooed arm for her bare shoulder.
  Maximillian Gray lifted his head, his blue eyes narrowing. He was under the alcove of the Ritz, waiting impatiently for his cab. He sighed at the faint sound tickling his sensitive ear drums. It really was none of his business, none of his concern. He should stay right here, let the damn humans get on with their barbarity. But something in that scream tugged at his heart.....and Max had really thought he'd finally killed off that part of himself. Guess it was just too stupid to die off properly.
  Folding the newspaper under his arm and wincing once for the damage he was about to inflict upon his poor suit, the vampire stepped out into the downpour. Instantly soaked, he growled once before running down the street so fast he blurred into the rain.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

The devil is in the details.

The devil is in the details. 


We've all heard that one before, eh? But it is especially true of trying to self-publish your first ebook. OMG, the choices: Bookbaby, Smashwords, KDP. The formatting. I had to watch about a dozen youtube how-to vids just to figure out bloody formatting. (Inserting a table of contents, anyone?) The money. Do I pay to publish, (Bookbaby)? Or not, (KDP, Smashwords)?

Build an audience. Get a blog up and running. Learn how to embed links, create a media hub. Sell yourself. Make a fantastic website that will attract readers like flies and zap them into buying your work. Tweet. Blog. Advertise. Give away. Promote.

Are you exhausted yet?

I am. I sooo, sooo am. I want to lay my head on my keyboard and cry.

What happened to good, old-fashioned writing? It wasn't THAT long ago that I still wrote things longhand with (egads!) an actual pen and paper. Remember the smell of ink and wood pulp and liquid white-out? Three-ring notebooks with crossed-out lines and notes in the margins that even I couldn't decipher. Ahh, those were the days. When it was just about the writing. Why can't it all be just about the writing, damnit?

Well, for one thing, no one would ever read it. And isn't that really the whole point? What is the good of a incredible fantasy world full of demons and gods and heartbreak and pathos if no one shares it with you? Money and fame would be nice (okay, a lot more than nice), but really, I want to invite people into my worlds and have have you all go, ohhhh, ahhh, oh I love that, I hate that, isn't that beautiful? Kinda like showing off a brand-new house, but one with vampires lurking in the corners and ghosts in the mirrors and magic in the dust bunnies. Sure, its wanting to show off, but its more than that, the chemistry of storyteller and listener. 

It's about the story, the great wonderful unnameable thing that connects people to people through time and space. And really, that is the only real magic in this old world, isn't it?

And what do you know? Making magic is a lot of boring, time-consuming, tedious and head-banging-into-keyboard work. But it's worth it.

Isn't it?