So dern busy lately…

Yes i know I should do this every day but between my poetry collections, getting Harry’s book together and helping on getting Reflections up and out I lost track of time.   Thanks to all that work though I now have a number of new releasing showing up all over.

Twist of Fate is the most recent charity collection.  Stephen Wilson is the man behind this one and it came out really exceptional.  There are a lot of talented writers/poets/photographers and other people inside this book.  I am very proud that I have two poems inside.  The money from this book goes to those effected by the Tornadoes that destroyed so many homes in Oklahoma.

Reflections of the End is a facebook group anthology about what else?  The end of the world.  I submitted one piece to that one and hopefully it will be well received by the reading public.  It just went up life this morning after all lot of shuffling around.  I got added as an admin to this group so I could help push it through.  These folks are another group of highly talented indie authors.  We will now work on the second book..all kinds of stories about secrets.

The Writers stuff group is closing up submissions for their anthology and I have a tale in that one too.  Plus we have been doing a bunch of drabbles to help fill pages.  I have quite a few I have done but I am not sure if all of them will make it into the book.  Drabbles are a lot of fun.  Exactly 100 words written about an image.  Good practice for sure.

Guardians of the Gate City is live on Barnes and Nobel, Kobo and Apple but for some reason not yet on Amazon.  I put through the paperback version this morning on Createspace so it will be available to those who prefer a real book in their hands.   I really hope people will buy the collection.  That is a lot of Harry stories all in one place and I basically tossed in Sudden Disappearances for free!

The two poetry collections are out and available and I will work on finishing the third one next month.  I needed to step away from that one.  Just too intense.  I plan on finishing up a few short stories this month instead.  Blackbird is two thirds done and then I can dive into a few other projects.

My sales might have been slow in June but at least I had some.   Not as many as in May but I am told things go like that.  I got one review of my own work and a few of the anthologies.  Funny thing about anthologies some people just don’t get them.  I know we got dinged on one of the collections because of all things that the stories were not all set in the US by American authors…really?  I mean anthologies are so you can try out a new author, see if you want to read more of there work.  No where in the description did it say the book was US or American based.  Now I can understand wanting to read stuff like that but dont expect it to be there if it isn’t listed in the blurb…

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

What a Week!

I had planned so much.  I wa going to finish up a short story for the second anthology of selected authors over on facebook.  I was going to finish up Sudden Disappearances, edit it, make a cover, post it and then work on the omnibus of the six stories in paperback and take a ton of photos.

Well we all know the week did not go the way we expected.  Nature in her infinite wisdom decided that spring will be delayed a bit longer, so nothing really to photograph over than a few buds I found.  I will post those soon.

What really derailed me was the tragedies this week.  The bombing in Boston, so close to my hometown had me in tears and shock for days.  I watched the news, trying to stay up to date on the poor victims and the men who caused that whole mess.  I was scared for my daughter and my nieces who live in the Boston/Nashua area.  Yes i know they were safe but who would not be worried about men who drive around tossing bombs out of their cars.  NH was fully safe but at only 40 miles from Boston I was concerned.  The mom in me.

I got out my feelings with a couple of poems that I am submitting to a charity collection that a few of us have decided needs to be done.  While one four died ( four too many! ) there are over 100 people who lost limbs.  So expensive for them and the US just wont pay for prosthetics.

Then we hear about the explosion in West, Texas.  I didn’t even know there was a town with that name and it was terrifying.  A fertilizer plant, a fire and an explosion.  14 First responders dead and they still haven’t said what started the fire.  Could it be more terrorists?  Who knows?  I sat down and wrote more poetry, hoping to get the tight feeling to let go of my throat.  such a tiny place and such a huge tragedy.  Again I want to do something but what I have no idea.

Yesterday finally saw things calming down and I sat and realized that putting together anthologies is hard work.  There are so many people who need help and only so much one person can do.  I will submit when i find them and I will promote those books and thankfully I will not be in charge of the editing and putting together of the whole things.

But it did get me started on sorting out my poetry.  I came up with three titles for future books all ready.  Yes I said I came up with titles!  You readers know the hardest thing for me to to come up with names and titles but these hit me in between the eyes.  The first one will be Seasons of my Mind.  That will be a collection of seasonal based poems.  Pieces about the seasons and of course the emotions of the seasons.  So far I have 16 sorted but I have to have a minimum of 50 right?  I may have to start writing poems again.

The next is Generations of love.  Poems about being a mother, a wife, a daughter in law and about children.  Again I have 16 of those finished.  Not sure if I will do imagery on these like i did on Love, Loss and Loneliness.  I think i can do some good images that don’t include faces so much.  It will be interesting to work out.

The third one is Poems and Promises. More of my emotional riffs on love and loneliness.  More the love and betrayal that you feel.  Darker but still something I want to get out there.  I might do this one a bit different with the poems on the images instead of below them.  Not sure. Something I will play with as the season develops.

I have other poems that I should group together.  Stuff on natures and music and other odd little bits.  Not sure what i should do with them but I will figure it out.  I could probably makes 7 or 8 collections over the year.  I might not be selling like a madwoman but as long as one or more rad it can I complain?

Sales picked up this week finally so I am happy.  Looks like I cracked my way into Barnes and Noble, even if it was just with some erotic shorts.  It is a start.  Now if I can get my reports from Juicier Erotica and Just Fiction I can see if I have broke into places like Apple or Sony.  Would be nice to know.  I am going to start using places like Goodreads and LinkedIn to post my amazon canada, brazil and other countries to see if I can get a following over there.  You never know.

Pay attention to the web

You know when you plan on being a writer you need to keep an eye out for comments on your work.  Just checking one site will not give you everything that is being said.  Now I don’t have a lot of talk on my work yet but finding a review on Goodreads that didnt come from Amazon was very nice.

I have been lazy as heck on the writing front the past week.  Now this is not at all a wonder what with Christmas shopping, baking, making etc.  Too much to do and not enough time right?

I have two things in process.  One for an anthology about the end of the world and one a flash fiction I will toss up on my website.  Something quick and fun for New Year’s eve.  If I can get myself in gear.

With a sick kid I might not get these done but we will see.

I added a poem to a collection that a bunch of us author types did for the Family of Sandy Hook Elementary.  The collection has gone live and anyone interested to picking up a copy you can go here:

This is a collection of poetry, short stories, artwork and commentary.  All proceeds are going to the charity, which you can also find online.

Next up after the two stories above that I need to work on is a short story/poem for a valentines day contest on the Starship.  Can I do a new one or should I send over some of my poetry?

Now I was thinking last night/this morning about how to do the poetry book that a few people have asked me about.  Again we will see.  That will take a lot of work to get together but we will see.