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WIP Updates

Happy I Love to Write Day!

The Path

I always thought that when good people died, they turned into angels and went to Heaven, while bad people became demons and went to Hell. I was wrong. When people die, they don’t become angels or demons, they just become the remnants of what they used to be. They are just the spirits of the humans they once were, but where they go, is an entirely different matter.

Righteous people’s spirits are lifted up to heaven, so far off and high beyond the relativity that humans think of as the sky, that other spirits can’t even see how far they’ve gone…and they definitely can’t see the pearly gates, if they even exist. There is much debate about what makes a person righteous by those of us who weren’t granted the title, but it pretty much boils down to anyone who was a pretty decent person and actually whole heartily believed in something greater than themselves.

Can’t believe I spent all my mortal life making fun of people who “believed” and that I publicly proclaimed on multiple occasions that if Heaven exists, it would probably be open to any good person. I honestly thought that as long as I wasn’t a rapist or serial killer, I’d be ok. I was, at least for the moment, better off than the rapists and killers. They were all dragged, by their bleeding eye sockets that had been gouged out by their soon to be hellish neighbors, straight down into a boiling pit of fire, which I took to be entrance into Hell.

I wish there was a way to keep track of time here. I just want to know how long I’ve been on this path. Everyone who didn’t making it straight into Heaven or Hell, was given a path to follow to decide where they’d spend eternity. Based on the way you lived your life, whether you were good or bad and to what extent, your path was either wide or narrow in varying degrees, smooth or rock, lit or dim, and so on.

My path was relatively wide, dimly lit, and bumpy. I was actually one of the more fortunate ones. Very few people were given wide, smooth, well lit paths with very few obstacles along the way; as far as I could tell. It’s seems like I’ve been traveling this road for ages, but there really is no way to tell. I haven’t encountered any obstacles at the moment other than navigating the bumpy path. A few days ago or weeks, who knows, I stumbled across this journal square in the center of my path. I knew the journal was meant for me and that I should take it and write in it.

It took me a few days or weeks, I don’t really know, before I was ready to start writing. As I continued to walk along the path, I discovered pencils and erasers, and sticky notes, and paper clips. I was very leery of the odd and eerie gifts. I thought for sure I was headed down a path leading me straight to Hell and that these gifts were just tokens of false hope meant to build me up for a huge let down. The more I thought about this horrible possibility the less and less gifts I received and the harsher my path grew.

One day, I think it was early, but really had no way of telling, I grew tired. For however long I had been traveling this path, I’d never needed to stop for rest, eat, drink, or use the bathroom. When I sat down to rest, I finally pulled out my journal and began to write in it…

Well that’s all I have for the moment. This is officially a new WIP. Since today is I Love to Write Day, I decided to just sit down and write whatever came into my head until it stopped coming. This is the result. I will probably leave it like this for a couple of days before going back to what happens next in the story.

I’ve been a busy bee as usual networking, reading, writing, and as always learning. I am eight chapters into my romance now. My adventure has been taking a long nap; maybe I’ll try to wake it up this weekend. Still beta testing the sequel to my currently book before committing it to a professional edit.  

This week over at the Eternal Curse Series, I was visited by author Paula Stiles. She has some really great stories to share and tomorrow I’ll post the lovely interview we conducted. That’s all for now. Have a wonderful rest of the week.

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Author Insights

Have you been following #ECGA?

I have been giving little nuggets, insights, and chapter previews of my current book twitter campaign1release. I’m trying to build up interest. I honestly don’t know if it has made any impact, but I’m proud that I’ve been persistent with it and actually have something to show for it.

If anyone should ever get the notion to look up the initials of my first book and add a hash tag to it, they will find quite a bit to keep them busy, and I’m still adding to the list. I’ve posted one-liners, questions, articles, and excerpts. Surely, there is something there to peak someone’s interest.

#ECGA is easy sometimes, but sometimes it’s hard. I don’t have as much time to put into as I wish I did. Sometimes I feel like I’m not sharing enough or that I’m sharing the wrong stuff. I feel like I’m just picking and choosing random lines from the book to post, even though I know, I am actually trying to pick relevant stuff to post.

In any case, I know I’m making the effort. Maybe one day all this will amount to something more, but for now, #ECGA is keeping me alert and in the game.

This is an unofficial Author Insights post. The new official Eternal Curse Series hashtag is #cursescanbebroken. 

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Author Insights

Titles Make Me Crazy

I don’t like coming up with titles, but not nearly as much I as I don’t like writing a synopsis; that’s a topic for another day. Titles are very important in many ways, but are also not import in many ways. As much as it seems to be the way to go these days, I just can’t make myself into one of those authors who comes up with the perfect title to either shock or entice an audience.

So many people have told me about the misconception they believe the title of my current book gives. Eternal Curse: Giovanni’s Angel has been perceived as a dark horror story by so many that I often regret the title, though in retrospect, the title is very fitting to the actual story. I have nothing against horror, but so many people haven’t bothered to learn more about the book, simply because they think they know what it’s about already. They only reason a few people have moved beyond this is because of my tiny web presence on multiple social media channels.

I have received several emails from people who have read my bio, seen interviews, and read samples of my work who stated that they’d seen my book before and overlooked it, simply because they weren’t in the mood for horror at the time. To their surprise, while my book isn’t a light hearted fairy tale targeted at children, it’s also not a horror tale. The thing that worries me now, is that the people who’ve picked up my book expecting it to be horror, maybe disappointed, but at least they are getting a fair share of demons and nightmares.

It’s so hard to tell what it is people expect from a book these days. Several people have told me that they liked the premise of my book, but that they are avid YA readers. So, my book isn’t written as a YA novel, that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t like it…And on top of all this, I have to start thinking of titles for my next few releases. At least the companion guide for ECGA already had a title that I’m not about to change. It will be a free ebook anyway. I don’t know that the title will be much of an issue for it.

Then there is the collection of short stories I’m working on and my new romance. I have no idea what I’m going to call them. My mind is so twisted with the notation of coming up with new titles, I’ve even started to question the use of titled chapters in my book, but again, that’s a topic for another day.  It’s just too bad that ideas can’t serve as titles. A gray man meets a woman online who helps him discover his true purpose in the world, only to realize that he’s not of this world, doesn’t really make for an easily searchable title.

This is an unofficial Author Insights post.