Another rainy Monday

Yup it rained and will rain more today.  I got some photos, and now I have to sit my butt down and work on matching photos to poems for my next collection.  Now i could just put in lovely images of flowers but I did that last time.  This time I want to be a bit different.  The images should convey what the poem is about right?  Well we will see.  With the clouds and the sun that breaks through from time to time it is a day to reflect.

Music, tea, photos and poems.  Can make for a good day or a sad one.  Just not sure.  The rain washed away the dirt and pollen but t the moment the world looks a bit washed out to me.  Later this week the vibrant will be back and wonder will cover us all.  Just a little image of some tadpoles for today.  Normally I throw all my photos over on Window of my Mind but I thought this was kinda sweet.  My daughter took this on a walk we took together.  We have to remember no matter what else that happens in our life that the world continues to bring new life into being.  Simple little things that make you smile if you look for them.

I don’t know why I am introspective today but we all need days like this to clear out our minds.

Maybe this is what I need

 

Clarify your thoughts

Clarify
keep the words simple
tell the truth
for it will come out in the end

Keeping secrets
can lead to more pain
than the truth you hide
pain we both feel

Think deep
look inside
tell  yourself what is true
clarify your thoughts

 

Finished the edit

Not sure how well I did but damn I caught stuff my spell checker should have.  Yes I do use spell check and grammar check but for some reason the darn things have been only checking half my files.  What i mean is that I will be editing along happily fixing the booboos and wham I get an error message saying that the .dll file for spell check and grammar check is missing…how can it be missing halfway through using it?  I am thinking maybe my computer needs a nice check up from the hubby.  He can probably figure it out.  If he wasn’t working so hard and so much at his job.  Poor guy.  Having to work Father’s day is not fair but well it happens.

Now as far as I can tell Harry’s tales are ready for the world to read in one place.  Once I get a spiffy new cover done (thank you for this hubby mine) then i will post it up for sale.  Still trying to work out the price point for this.  I have sold the first five stories in the collection for 99 cents each (okay I put them up they didn’t sell lots) but I can’t see putting the collections at six or seven dollars.  Maybe I will go with $4.99.  See if people want it that way.  It will be a real bargain because they will be getting the five stories all ready released plus the novella that I finished up.  A lot of pages of some of y favorite character’s stories.  After doing that final edit last night and luckily caught the paragraph where I switched from first person to third.  That would have been embarrassing to have pointed out to me.

Now the Guardian tales don’t have any romance in them so I know I won’t be getting an audience from that part of the reader world but they are fun.  Yes they get darker, everything does right?  But Harry’s view of the world is still what you would expect after reading the first one.  A little world weary but a lot honorable.  He is just a good guy with a tough job.

I got the poetry book started.  I know I should be sitting down and working out what images to add to what poem but well I am not in the headset to do that.  Between finishing up Harry, getting stories together for another anthology and trying to remember to advertise all my work I seem to be tired.  Tired enough that I have taken off time to just read some good stuff.

I have a lot of other people’s work to read and since I have been having trouble with the whole head hurting thing I have read between headaches.  But tomorrow is a new week so I can just get my butt in gear and hopefully finish Blackbird for the anthology and get the images I want set up for the poetry book.  Ah goals..we all need them right?

Editing and formatting…or oy my head

While the writing part of my job is fun and confusing it is the editing and formatting that truly drives me nuts.  Once you have your immortal words down on the computer screen/notebook you have to go through and fix all your booboos.  In my case typos need to be fixed.  I think faster than I type, yes that is possible.

Like all authors  I could go through and edit my work into nothing but I try to stop at a point.  Yes it would be great to be able to afford a prereader and a proof reader and an editor but I still haven’t reached that point in the wild world of writing.  When the average price I have found so far is $300 or more, well it puts it way out of my price range.  Someday when I actually make money at this all my early works will get the professional treatment but for now I just have to do what I can right?

Now last night I took all the Harry stories and put them into one file.  This morning I ran the spell and edit checker on them and made sure the formatting was okay.  I plan on putting little commentary bits before each tale for those who have not read these tales.  As a book it comes to about 95K, which makes it my second largest book.  Hopefully having a full collection will boost sales.    The final tale in that collection is an exclusive story that will not be put up for sale separately.

Once I get that part done I will have to come up with a really good cover that will work for both the ebook and paperback version.  Yes this well be in paperback for those of you who want it.

The other thing I have been doing is sorting through my over 300 poems and making a new collection.  This one will not be quite as big as Love, Loss and Loneliness.  I went with less poetry so that I can price it lower.  I plan on sorting through my images and putting in things that will hopefully be a good match for these poems.  Unlike the last book these are less emotional and more pondering or musing.  I write a lot of different things as my readers know.  I have not decided yet if I will change the images to black and white though.  If i do it will be because in a paperback it is cheaper than a full color book.

I have tried in the past few days to write some new poems for another collection.  While the one I have compiled contains mostly musings on the world, the other two I have in progress are about the seasons and about family.  Generations of Love so far has twelve poems about daughters, mothers and grandmothers.  Yes all female but that is my family.  While I have nephews I have no sons.  Writing about my kids is very personal and I hope inspirational to those who will read them some day.

Yes I am still working on short stories at the moment.  Blackbird is about two thirds done and hopefully I will finish it by the end of the month so it can go into the Writer’s stuff anthology with I Can’t Love you anymore.  Two different stories with romance at their roots.  I Can’t love you is another Death Walks Through short but done in a totally different way.  I will release it as a separate tale a few months after the anthology comes out.  Or I might just hold onto it for the Deaths anthology.  Never know.

It looks like In the Dark will be longer than I first thought.  This tale has barely begun but it has interesting images coming together and it went from just and Urban Fantasy to an after the world Changed tale.  That will probably take it into a new series or at least a different one.

So much to work on and only so much time right?

It has happened again….

What you ask has happened again?  Well a song has demanded that I use it for a story.  The past month and some it seems that the music on my IPod is the channel for the muse who uses me to tell tales.  First it was Cheating the Hangman, then Let’s Make a Memory, then I Can’t Love you Anymore and now it is the Blackbird.  Damn me but that is a lot of tales inspired by music.

This little tale is sort of a fantasy romance.  What happens when the girl you married turns away from you to go to a sorcerer?  Not necessarily what the song is about but the chorus is there.  “If I were a blackbird, I would whistle and sing and flutter my wings o’er her lily white breast.”  Yeah I listen a lot to Silly Wizard.

I have done stories from songs before.  A Bargain Made with Fur, When Shadows Rise and Night and Day all came from music.  A good writer is inspired by the world around them.  Music, tv, movies, trees, flowers, animals, butterflies and people.  They all find a way to spark something inside those who use words to tell the world of what they see.

Sometimes the tales take longer than others for sure.  But some write themselves in hours or days.  I Can’t Love you wrote itself in under two days.  An odd first person tale for me because it keeps switching POV.  I try not to do that in first person stories but this one it made sense.  Submitted it for the Writer’s Stuff anthology.  Now if I can finish Blackbird  I just might submit it too.  It is different enough I think.  Me and my odd little tales.

 

Anthologies Galore

It seems like this season is filled with anthologies.  A number of my writers groups have decided to put together collections of stories and poetry.  Some for charity, some as a contest and some just as an experiment and a way to get out names out there.  Now I have done a lot of these over the past year.  What with the Angels Cried anthology to the April Rains, United We Stand and the newest Twist of Fate I am in four charity anthologies.  Then there are the non charity ones.  Reflections of the End should be out soon as will Dark Minds.  There in the Secrets anthology being worked on and now one from the Writer’s Stuff FB group.  It is a good thing I do a lot of short stuff.  I actually have three different ones coming out that I don’t have names for!

You might ask am I doing anything new that is just mine and of course I am.  I still need to actually edit Sudden Disappearances and hopefully find a beta reader before the Guardian of the Gate City can be compiled and put out.  Never mind there is that Rabbit Hole story I started on the Google group.  So much to do and so little time to focus.

Now if I can avoid migraines I will ge t a lot more writing done.  While sales are as slow as a snail I am still making a sale here or there.  This month it seems to be my older stuff and that is a nice thing of course.  The fact that I sold a copy of my poetry book on Apple was a nice shock yesterday.  I had not thought I would see any sales from over there at all.  Now if Kobo would pick back up and D2D.  Not that I am complaining that I have sales on Amazon this month.  Last month I had a whole one on Amazon and i have mostly sales there this month.  It is fun to figure out where is doing the best.

Now I need to see what I can finish in the next three weeks.  School will be out for the summer soon and as all you parents know that makes it hard to get anything done.  Kids in and out and demanding attention at the worse times.  I am not sure i will get a lot of writing done this summer.  All I can hope is she finds things more interesting than bugging mom for snacks every 20 minutes!

Walking and pondering

As you readers know for the past year plus I have been vehicleless.  Now at times yes it bugs me to all get out but most days I actually do enjoy my walks.  Walking should be done at your own pace, even if that pace is slower than those you are with!

This morning as I walked back from picking up rice and yeast I strolled about, did my photo taking and thought.  Of course the first thought was why didn’t I bring spare batteries but i will go into that over on the Window of My mind blog.  What else I thought it all the things we miss when we buzz around in vehicles.

Besides the lovely bits of nature that I find tucked in odd places there are all the people.  Now since I am out and about in a residential neighborhood I see a lot of older folks who are walking their dogs, sitting on their porches or in their yards and in many ways it is incredibly sweet.  When you are moving along fast in a car or even on a bicycle you miss seeing a sweet elderly couple sitting on a wooden swing in their yard just enjoying the morning.

While I used to be the woman who had to do everything, not because I wanted to, I never got to just stroll much.  When you are supporting your family and have to get THINGS DONE, well you can’t enjoy.  Now I can.  Yes I still do many things for my family but at a slower pace.

What does this have to do with writing you ask?  Well see writing comes from what we see and do, what we have inside but also what is outside.  I have many little tales that came from just seeing a bird sitting on a chair outside or a butterfly flying around my window.  Inspiration strikes us all differently.  Today as i walked and tried to take more photos I thought that I should have taken my sketch book and pencils with me.  No I would probably not have used them right there but if i had a folding camp chair I might have settled in the field by the house and sketched out the wild flowers that are blooming like mad right now.  Many different colors of weeds, simple things that most people just dont pay attention to.

Even the humble and at times annoying dandelions have taken an interesting look right now.  Who knows, maybe when it gets a bit warmer I will do just that.  Go out and sketch, clear my mind and then go back to working on my ghost stories.  I like getting to pick and chose just what I will be doing instead of having a boss tell me.  I have my husband to thank for the peace that I have found.  Think I will make him some fresh bread for a treat.

Another Sunday morning

Another week is done and it amazes me how much you can get done.  A lot of writing, baking, photographs and even some drawing.  With the weather getting hotter and oh so much more humid outside it does make you want to just lie in front of a fan and do nothing but the more I do the better the day is right?

I think Harry is glad I have finished him up for the moment.  I am not being hammered by him telling me another tale.  Now comes the wonderful job of cleaning up my mistakes.  Yes i know a professional editor would be better but I still can’t afford one.  Paying $100 or more for a story that might sell only a handful of copies is a losing proposition right?  I just have to run it through as many editing programs as I can and read, read and reread what I have done.  Considering the errors I find in reading the professional stuff I don’t feel too bad about my misplaced sommas.  Some day when I pass the milestone of at least one of my tales selling over one hundred copies by itself then I will try to find someone who can do the editing for me.

I am taking a break from Harry, long enough to let it perk a bit before editing.  I really should buckle down on the Death stories now.  I have at least three in the works and if I can get them finished up there should be enough for another collection.  Now Death will have more stories in total than Harry will simply because the ghost stories tend to be shorter.  I have seven up all ready and the people who have read them liked them at least.  I should probably go to the library in town and see what they have on local ghost stories.  Could find something good to twist and create with.  I haven’t learned a lot about Barrie in the nearly three years I have been here and I should.  I am going to be spending the rest of my days in this place so why not?

 

Finished the writing on Sudden Disappearances

Yup finished it up just now.  Yes it is rough, yes it will need editing and yes it leaves things open at the end but that was the idea.  I mean you can’t do a sequel without an opening right?  Harry has taken some nasty punches and will have to learn to ask for help.

Now the next stories in this cycle will be a bit of a back step.  Filling in the back stories for major characters so that the other guardians are better know is a good thing.  Jackson, Daniel, Maeve and even Sheldon will get their own tales.  In fact one story for Sheldon is done and will be out next month.  Of course I will need to come up with a back story for that little surprise that Harry was given.  That will be a lot of fun to write for sure.

I am going to let this marinate for a few days before I go back and work on the editing.  I need to obviously go through and make sure it is spelled right, that I didn’t mix up names or change important info by accident.  Spell check seems to shut itself off when I am writing some days and that annoys me.  Plus I need to make sure the grammar is as good as i can and hopefully find a beta reader to catch anything I miss.  Once it is cleaned up then I get to put all the shorts together with the now just shy of 40K word novella.  As this is a longer piece it will make selling it as only available in the collection a good deal.  My readers wont feel rooked by getting only one new story in the book.

As I let that sit I will move back to the Death Walks Through stories.  I have three more of those and once they are done I can combine them together for a collection also.  Hopefully the collections will move better than the stand alones have.  Now I know that the market is tight and sales are slow but this month I can honestly and truthfully say that almost every sale has been of my erotica.  Yes I am proud of most of those tales but I would rather see sales of my nonerotic work do better.

In other writing news both charity anthologies from the Independent Poets group on facebook are now live!  I am rather proud that we managed to get them together and out.  All the money raised goes to charities helping the victims.  I am proud that I helped get these out there and moving.  You can purchase a copy right now of both of these on Smashwords.  Here are the links

April Rains https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/318496  For the victims of the West, Texas plant explosion

United We Stand https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/321005 is for the victims of the Boston Marathon Bombing

also of course if you are still interested there is Angels Cried https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/268589 which is for the victims families of the Newtown shooting.

Work is progressing on another anthology called Twist of Fate, which will raise money to help those effected by the Moore, Okalhoma twisters.  Expect to see something next month.

And lastly Reflections of the End will be out soon.  That is a non charity anthology that has one of my stories in it.  As will Dark Minds, another anthology.

Once i have links for those two anthologies and one other I will put them up on my blog

Happy Memorial Day

Today is to me a day to remember not just the armed forces men and women who have passed but all those who serve.  While Veterans day is meant for those who have served their country to distinction I think this day is more for those who have died.  Not just the soldiers, sailors, airmen and women or those in the National Guard and Coast Guard services.  We need to remember the rest who serve and have died in service.  The police officers, fire fighters, first responders, nurses and teachers who have died.  In the past year we have lost many who are not service men and women in what is traditionally thought that way.  We have lost teachers to madmen and distastes, lost fire fighters to fires and madmen and police officers who are just doing their duty.  They too need to be honored.  Let us honor them all and remember that they too leave behind family and friends who feel that hole in their lives.  There are so very many people go give selflessly so that the rest can live their lives.  From social workers gunned down by disgruntled adults to ambulance drivers shot because they dared go in where others would fear to tread.  I salute you all!

What was I thinking?

Okay you folks know I am willing to help with things.  I have donated time that I should be writing to do two websites now for writing groups.  Lucky for me I am not too bad at this but it does take time.  In today’s world you need to have as many ways of getting the word out about your books as you can get.  The only problem is on working on these two I forget to update my own website or even this blog.

As things get finished i will have more time but it seems like I am doing more web stuff than writing.  I really need to finish up Sudden Disappearances…well at least the writing part.  This story will need a pre-reader and I hope I can find a good one.  I am still on the fence about whether or not I should release it as a single or just put it in the collection.  While this would help the sales of the collection is it fair to make the people who have bought the other tales have to pay for the book to get the most recent?  This is something commonly done i know.  Most likely I will do the collection and then months later put that story out alone.  But we will seen.

I will admit I have taken time off to do things like read and watch some movies.  I am trying to catch up on all the really good movies that come out but as we have to wait to see them I get lost at times.  We watched Ironman3 last night and I loved it of course..but tis morning I realized that I really need to buckle down and do more.  More writing, more editing, more covers, more trailer and more plugging my work.

I have been tossing around the idea in my mind of offering my photos and cover work to others.  At the simple price of $5 to $10 each.  Nothing as fancy as what the hubby does.  Does simply one of my photographs manipulated and the text put in place.  This could be a way to earn a bit more money.  We need it.  So any of you authors who have liked my covers and want one, let me know.  I will be willing to help you out.  Same if you need a book trailer.  I can do something good for you for a cheap fee.