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.

You readers know that I have been a part of three different charity anthologies to try and help the families who have been hurt through guns, bombs and explosions.  And now we have Mother Nature ripping apart families.  It is horrible and would have been horrible if that was all that happened this year but with the man made disasters, the hurricane and now this?  I am like many feeling battered and bloodied and I have no contact in these disasters.

I wish there was more I could do than lend my words to this sadness, this madness but it is all I can do.  I will search for writers who plan on helping and i will offer my words.  I am so hoping that the rest of this year will just be normal days, normal storms.  Please you Powers That Be leave the babies alone.  They need to grow up and be the leaders of tomorrow.

So today until I find a place to give my words I will post the poems I have written this morning

Six months of sadness

Six months of news
of children being hurt
six months of madness
and what can we do?

Turn on the news
and what do you see
Guns, bombs and storms
tearing apart families

It is hard to see the good
to see the hapiness to be found
when so many little faces
can no longer smile

***

Yet again

Storms coming through
bringing danger in their wake
One moment you are safe
the next you are not

We stand by helpless
unable to understand
how nature has turned against us
and smashed towns flat

So many in danger
so many lost
what can we do
than offer up our thoughts

Prayers and well wishes
money and clothing
anything we can do
will barely be enough

****

We can hope that the sun will shine for those who lost more than any mother could stand.

Getting a move on in Sudden Disappearances.  Since I will be having a horde of evil monsters (no really just a sleep over for my daughter) I will have to get what work i can done before school gets out.  I do really want to finish this story and get the collection out.  Did some quick research and I think I will give the Ruskalka the name Svetlana.  A good Russian number I think and it will help to create her.  A tragic figure in this tale will be a good thing.

So much to find out about this story.  If it gets too long I might have to do it as a stand alone book but we will see.

The sun is out and the plants are looking really good out there.  One of the pepper/bean plants is looking peaked though.  Now that might be the soil or it might be the fact that I seem to have an army of squirrels and birds in my back yard.  They are fun to watch but they could be attacking them.  I have no clue.

Later I am going to break down and try my new paints and brushes.  So nice of my hubby to get me them for mothers day.  I think my first painting will be of the tulip buds Kaylan forced on me at school today.  I should be able to make something okay…I wont say I am goign to be a great artist but even if they are childlike I will post what I have done up over on my window of my mind page.  Need something besides all my photos over there right?

My mind has decided that Svetlana is not the cause of all the issues in SD but we will see where it goes.  Could be the Death Mage or some other creature will be the issue.  This is going to be fun.

And then this morning on they news there are 8 dead and 72 injured from tornadoes.  I have been lucky enough to only ever see one in my life and how horrible that this happened.  This year has been so hard on families and it is only May.  What will the rest of the year bring?  I am sure there are sad people in other countries claiming it is God’s righteous wrath on the US…heck even those living there who are saying it but no.  I might not be a Christian but I know that it is man who decides this not the gods.  Tornadoes unlike the bombs and gunmen and explosions are just nature and chance but still there are those mourning right now who need to know people care.

Yeah I know I started out with a light comment.  And I stick to it.  This day is bright and spring is here.  We have flowers and birds and little furry critters to remind us that beauty exists just und3r our feet if we just look for it.

Onto my writing.  Harry has snuck in things I did not even expect.  Am I writing this story or am I just letting him use my hands?  All writers think this from time to time.  Yes there are those who have made it a job, a way of making money.  They write by rote and plan and outline everything.  I do think they have more control and some of them are amazing in their stories but the spark of my writing can not follow hard outlines.  I can set myself a deadline and I will write to it but plotting it all out before I write it?  Nope.  I like the free flow but then I do that with so many things.  Patterns are great for sewing and recipes for baking but I will continue to write what fills my mind as it comes.

The sales are slow as all my writer friends know.  It seems everyone is in a funk and that could be just the economy or the warm weather causing people to think more of movies than of the written word.  Who knows.  I have had sales, most of them at B&N for erotica but at least I have a few right.

Today I plan to bug people for release dates for all those anthologies i am supposed to be part of.  After all new titles that no one has read as a good thing.  If they don’t come out soon I will be annoyed.  Some of them have been on hold for a month or more.  I could have released them myself by now!

Time to work on even more.  I really have so many ideas and so little time.

Course the upside is I have a bunch of story starts that will probably someday be put out for people to read.  I have saved most (not all) of my story starts over the years.  Yes I have lost a number of them when I moved or when computers decided to die but I still have quite a lot to work with.  Some of them come out very very different than I had intended for sure.

Now I need to come up with something for the second edition of Angel’s cried.  I have a poem that is working through my head and I will get it written.  Thankfully I don’t need it quite yet.  I have been busy of course getting the website together for the Author’s Choice anthologies.  When doing a website for a bunch of people it takes time to get all the information up and posted for sure.  Usually I have all the information I need on my computer but this time I had to rely on others and they all are very busy people so it is not quite done.  and having my net issues and power outages don’t help.

The plan today is to actually wake up and write!  For some reason I am dragging today and that makes me want to snooze instead of work.  Could be the reversion to late winter here in Canada.  It is mid May and the temps are at the freezing level..way too cool.

Maybe some fresh air today will wake me up enough to get another story finished!

My original dark tale was Descents, which is in the Gates collection.  Dark and eerie it fit in that book because of the gate in the story.  Though I will admit I am thinking of a new set of tales once I get Descents and the others back.  With titles like Man’s Roads, And Darkness Claims it all, Light search the Night and Walk Blind Into the Night these tales would be darker than my usual.  I guess I could call the series Descents into Darkness.  That would be a nice title don’t you think?

Course not all of my tales are dark.  I do have lighter more romantic fair just waiting for me to finish them up and put them out.  Flame Vixen is one of them and Singer of the Blood Song another.  They will of course have me normal odd fantasy flavor but with romance as a big component.  What to call them I have no idea.

Now I finally put up the last of my finished erotica stories.  And He makes three is pretty much smut but well you never know what sells right?  I obviously would rather my fantasy sell but I will take sales where they come. 

Today I started writing to Richard Marx.  One of my all time favorite singers.  His songs have inspired me to write poetry and of course short stories.  Hazards is based on his song Hazard and Children should be heard is based on Children of the Night.  So this now story, Now and Forever, is of course based on the lines of that song but it always has bits inspired by other songs from the same album.  While I have only typed as of now 710 words, it is a start.  Who knows where it will go.  This man telling this tale is doomed for sure though.  Never ever sign a contract with blood, no matter who tells you to do it.

I will post excerpts from some of the tales I have mentioned over on books by Lisa Williamson and of course the two covers on my newest stories over on Window of my mind.

The anthology group…Authors Choice asked me to help put together a website for our books.  The first one, Reflections of the End, will be out very soon now and I have started up a simple page.  Not sure how well it will turn out but it will give you readers a place to read about the books, the authors and where you can buy said anthology.  This group should be around for a while and we are all ready working on a second collection.  The first is about the end of the world…a very popular subject right now.  The second one will be about secrets.  I’m having a bit of trouble getting the second story to flow but I will get it done.

Now the work on the new website has reminded me that I have not updated my own website in a bit.  So later I will try to go in and add in the new reviews I have.  Two that are not up on the site yet along with the titles of the newer releases.  I have been busier than I thought when I look back at it.

I have one more erotic (okay I admit this one is almost pure porn) story to put up.  I need to change the title because the working title would not attract a reader at all.  Once I figure out a title I can whip together a cover and post it up.  I have been using draft2digital and it is a lot easier for sure.  They give you templets for things like dedication page and also written along with the copyright page.  Nice handy things they you don’t have to change for each publisher.  So that will be nice.

This month I still have the brown bar of shame on amazon but have actually sold two shorts through D2D.  One went on B&N and the other on amazon.  So they don’t show on the amazon site as a sale but I have sales and that makes me happy.  Okay so it is only 2 short stories but it is a start for the month right?

I have been working out how I will be doing the next poetry book in my head.  I will of course be using images again and I think if I can pull it off i will put the text on the image.  The problem there is having it in a color that can be read right?  With the spring images I have gathered filled with green and other colors this will be fun.  I need to be a bit more relaxed when I start to photo manipulate.  Thank goodness my hubby gave me photoshop!

I have got to start taking photos of the baking i am doing.  While my muffins dont come out the jumbo things that all other cookbooks show i think they look as good as they taste.  They are more in line with the size we should be eating.  The ones you see at the bakeries out there are all either two to four servings IN JUST ONE MUFFIN!  That is crazy and unhealthy.  If you are making stuff from scratch and don’t mind the smaller size then my muffins will be perfect for you.  So I will take those photos and use them in my at the moment imaginary cook book.  I will do one but when is the question.  So many ideas and so little time.

I have started working on Moments of Love, another ghost story.  Listening to music during my walks is making so many ideas fill my head.  This one came from Make a Memory by Bon Jovi.  In the video of the song he is a ghost and well you can see where that is going right?  So between that for the Death Walks through series and Down the Rabbit Hole for the Worlds Apart I am hitting my series with new tales.

and I am babbling today aren’t I?  Could be I don’t want to move on to something else or just that I want to babble.  Either way I need to get some work done on my writing!

I know very well that the work I sent to the publishers needed editing.  I had expected them to edit them and tell me what to fix to make them more saleable, not publish them untouched.  It was enough to make my blood boil but it did get me working again.  If they won’t give them back and let me fix them then I will just go on to more and different work that I will publish myself.

As always ideas come from all over for me.  Yesterday when I was asked to join the Rabbit Hole well it started a story.  I have 2K in words now and it is doing what is usual for me.  I is spinning out in a totally different story than I thought it was going to be.  Sort of a new world story.  Now that can be interesting and I can only hope some reader will enjoy it when it is done.

With spring being sprung finally I am seeing more flowers blooming.  I did not think to bring my camera this morning and well now that I have to stay inside to wait on the hot water heater inspection (yes a second one no idea why) I so want to just hop outside and take photos.  I have got to remember to charge my batteries at night and take my camera with me when I go out every day.  It is the time of year when I will be getting lots of new photos for use are book covers, book trailers, poem videos and of course poetry collections.  I might not have the best camera but I do take some really good photos and I plan on continuing to do so.

Right now I am jsut sitting here, drinking cold chai and listening to Billy Joel tell me he wants me just the way I am.   I had thoguht I would try to write something sweet and romantic today.  A short story of course but a loving set in the real world type story.  Just as an exercise to see if I could do it.  Looks like the odd part of my brain said nope.  I am the mad writer and I guess i have to write mad tales.  Hope People continue to read them.

Today I’m not in the same OMG I can write mode.  Yes I will do some writing later but right now it is sit, drink herb tea from a cool little dragon pot I have and think.  Think of how i want tales to go and ponder what images to use in my next poetry book.  Now I have taken more photos this morning and it is interesting that at this time last year there were a lot more flowers around.  That was of course because we had a late spring this year.  But I like the temps where they are.  You can breath and not worry about getting dehydrated.

I was asked to join another online writer’s chat group and the title of the group just hit me with an story idea.  I have started it but we will have to see if it goes anywhere or not.  The nice thing about completing something yesterday is I have a sense of accomplishment and not quite the NEED to prove to myself I am working that the days leading up to it gave me.  When you are a writer you are a bit bipolar.  Not in the way of people who actual suffer with the disease but more in that you go back and forth on whether or not you should be writing, are any good at it and whether you should force the world to read you inner most imaginings.

Yeah we are a weird bunch.  Some of us have egos as big as taxes but most of us are nerdy little guys and gals who just want someone to enjoy our tales.   Or our poems or our essays, songs and blogs.  We just want to get our words out of our heads and hearts and into yours.  Now my words are mine obviously but they are odd little bits that I hope give someone some enjoyment.

I started a discussion about what inspires people to write.  Yesterday’s ghost story came out of the walk back from the grocery story and hearing the Doobie Brothers singing Cheating the Hangman.  Sitting down and writing the tale was as easy as breathing and it only needed a bit of tweaking here and there when I stopped.  That made me happy.  I am not the type of writer who is overly flowery and long as you might guess.  A lot of the times I have to do editing is to add in more.  I do seem to have a problem with incomplete sentences.  Or more what the editors dcall fragments.  I think of it that my thoughts are sharp and to the point when I write.  Like in the old days of when I wanted to be an artist and I would do complete to me pieces and the art teacher would tell me to add MORE…fill in the background, put in more foreground, just clutter up my nice clean and crisp images.  Drove me nuts and drove the teacher at the time as nuts I think.

No I am not an artist really.  Yes I can draw, I can copy an image pretty well or take something in front of me and put it down on paper but i will never be famous for it.  not that being famous is my goal in any way.  I want to leave something behind but not for the world.  No I want it for those who care and for those rare few who just might think like I do.  Nothing wrong with that.

Feeling like I have accomplished stuff is a good thing.  Ideas are flitting through my tired mind and that is a good thing.  Working out a title with the eidtor/writer to one of the anthologies I will be part of next month.  It is looking like i will be part of four that will come out in the Month of May.  Or so the editors are hoping for.   The PA anthology is almost all done, cover images and all.  The Boston charity one is rolling along rather quickly, this Horror/fantasy one is nearly ready and then the one for social networking will be done too.  I am waiting on notification on all of them and will of course let my wonderful readers know when they are out.

The weather has put me in a good mood.  What with the really good (if I say so myself) flower photos I took yesterday and the attempts at a decent shot of a lady bug I took today I am finding myself in the mood to work on my Seasons of My Mind poetry book.  This would be the second poetry collection and while the first hasn’t sold much it has had a nice review.

Once I get my mind working I think i will see what comes out.  Might be good might be bad but at least I will be getting things done.

If you want to see the lady bug photos they will be on the window of my mind page