Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Join me on Goodreads!

I've been accepted as a Goodreads author, you can view that page here. I'm not sure what I'm doing on there yet, but I would be happy if you joined me on that journey.

Friday, December 8, 2017

Relaunching my youtube channel.

Awhile back I would upload gaming videos on my old youtube channel, the content wasn't the best but I was planning to go back and actually work on the channel. I didn't have a mic at the time, but I planned to get one and have content that was actually decent. I was planning to do a colab with another youtuber, however, we had a fight and ended up unfollowing each other and he flagged my channel. My channel got banned, but I somehow got part of it back. I can watch movies and upload through twitch, but I can't make content the way that I want to. I've reached out to youtube, but have been ignored, so I decided to make a new channel where I will upload the new content that I work on. You can find the new channel here.

Sunday, November 5, 2017

The rejection that made me look into self publishing

I first tried to get published when I was 19 years old, and nowhere near ready. I had a story that I thought was pretty good, but probably wasn't. I was taking writing classes and my teacher loved the story, but I didn't stop to think about whether or not other people would. I can still remember going to PJ's coffee and sending queries because I didn't have internet in my apartment at the time. I would go at least once a week to see if any of the agents had written back, and I'd end up querying more. I was determined, even though I had heard about the dreaded slush pile. One day I opened one of the rejections, surprised to find that the agent hadn't even bothered to use my name. The agent called me by my character's name. Had she even read the summary attached? I stared at the screen for a few minutes, dumbfounded. I knew a lot of rejections were copy and pasted from a template, but I never thought someone would confuse me with my MC. I was hurt and disgusted, so I deleted all the rejections from my email. I know a lot of authors keep the rejections, but I have always seen them as negative and I felt like a weight was lifted from my shoulders when I deleted them. I knew my work needed work, but I didn't want to put myself through the stress of querying again. I heard about self publishing about a year or so later, but it took me a long time before I attempted to publish anything. It took me a longer time to feel proud of the words I had written (which I do with The Fortune Teller's Gift).

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Free Sample

I've decided to release the first chapter of The Fortune Teller's Gift on instafreebie. You can find the giveaway here.

Friday, October 20, 2017

Smashwords account and interview

Interviews are an important way to gain sales, and I've finally gotten myself an interview! I feel so grateful to be featured on the website. If you want to check out the interview be sure to check it out by clicking here.

Also, I realize that I will have to sell my book on more than one platform so that it can appeal to more people. I plan to publish with nook as well as smashwords. Here is my newly created smashwords account.

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Review: Black Flame novels

I love Halloween. I think it would probably be one of my favorite holidays, and I think it doesn't get enough time to shine. Christmas items usually make it to the store at the same time as Halloween items. Most of the time I just celebrate Halloween by watching scary movies, but sometimes I read scary books too. When I was younger I only read scary books. I seemed to devour every single Goosebumps book that I could get my hands on until I grew into Fear Street. I soon moved on to Stephen King, but my late teens lead me to a series of books that I would like to talk about today. I was fairly new to computers when I read an article about a series of books based on Final Destination, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and the Friday the 13th series. I managed to track down a few at my local Barnes and Noble and then I had to get the rest from eBay. I don't have them all, but I do have a small collection. The book novelizations added things that I found strange, like a relationship between Kevin and Wendy in Final Destination 3. Each book seemed to add unnecessary sex that added nothing to the plot, and then there were the typos. I had never found a typo in a book before reading these. Sometimes the plot didn't make much sense, or the characters were highly unlikable. I was young and figured that I could publish a book through them because they weren't known for the best quality. They actually denied my request, which did hurt me back then. I had even written a Final Destination fan fiction, but I have to admit that it wasn't very good. Despite all this, they never saw a writing sample. This was the first time that I'd ever sent out a query letter. I remember googling one of the authors (Natasha Rhodes), because I couldn't believe that she was a real author. I guess her books were the first books I'd ever quit reading because I disliked them. She was the first author I'd ever googled. I did enjoy one of the books, Looks could kill (my cover is different than the one pictured). It did have typos, but it was easier to overlook them because the story was interesting and took the Final Destination in a different place.

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Nanowrimo

I'm thinking about doing Nanowrimo this year and possibly going to some of the local events. I've never completed Nanowrimo before, but this year I'd like to try this year. I want to meet other authors and I'd also like to get used of writing everyday. I think doing nanowrimo would be good for me, and help with some of the issues I've been having finishing novels.

Monday, September 25, 2017

Book reviews

I've noticed something about myself recently, something I'd rather not admit to, but something that is part of me nonetheless. The thing I'm referring to is the fact that I am more likely to leave a negative rating than a positive one. It isn't because I don't like books, I'm not the angry book nerd (like the angry Nintendo nerd but for books), I just feel like when I don't enjoy something I am more likely to write about it. Why? Partly because it's boring to write about how much I love a book. Also, I find that I have more to say about something that I DID NOT enjoy. I feel like there are things that I can put my finger on that I didn't enjoy. I just have more to say about something that I did not like. I think most people are like that. If you have a negative experience at a restaurant you are more likely to go on and on about how a waitress spilled a drink on you and how the manager failed to do something about it. I also must admit that I am not good at writing reviews. I'm better at talking about something that I liked in a group of people who also read/watched/played. I want to write more reviews in the future (honest ones, I won't give a positive or negative for no reason). I know authors need reviews to bring in readers so I will try to set aside time in the future to write reviews (and take notes while I am reading the book, like I used to do).

Thursday, September 7, 2017

My history with reading

I've written a lot about my history with writing, but I don't think I've ever said anything about my love for reading. I've talked about certain books that I've read, but I believe everyone has a story behind why they love reading. My story actually started before I learned to read. My parents used to read me the Bernstein Bears at night before I went to sleep. I don't remember those stories much, but I do hope one day that I'll have a child of my own to share those stories with. As I got older I noticed that the other children at my school didn't like to read. Reading was something the teacher told us to do, not something to do for fun. I ended up falling in love with the TV show Ghost Writer and reading even though it wasn't cool. The town soon built a brand new library and I got a library card, which was a big deal for me since it was my first one. I remember spending a lot of my time devouring the Goosebumps series and I moved on to Fear Street when I was a little older (I can't wait for the movie). In high school I read Carrie, which lead me to have a love/hate relationship with Stephan King's books. I also started spending my lunches in the library to read (I read things like Speak and Smack). The school gave us a 15 minute silent reading period where I ended up reading a lot of books. As a young adult I started going into the Barnes and Noble chat room and I ended up meeting an author who was not yet published but was about to release her first book. She went on to become one of my favorite authors (I'm scared to say her name because of recent events, but she's an awesome person). She was the first author I ever really followed and I still follow her to this day. She introduced me to the urban fantasy and paranormal romance world, which became my go to genre for a good book. In 2015 my reading life took a hit that it hasn't quite recovered from. I had access to a big library and I would go every week, but I also had a boyfriend who couldn't bare for me to be in the other room. I don't want to talk much about that time in my life, but it wasn't great. I ended up giving up both reading and writing, which caused my work to suffer. I'm currently trying to get back into reading and considering doing writing prompts every day to start my day. I've found that I have problems finishing a book now. I have finished a handful of books lately, but it's nothing compared to the way I used to read. I used to finish at least one book a week and now I barely read past the first chapter. Anyway, I hope to bring myself back to the place I had been before with my reading.

Negative Reviews

Recently I wrote a post about someone using the hurricane to sell books. I also posted a negative review of that book, which I shouldn't have since I hadn't read the book. I admit that I was wrong by doing so, but I am not wrong for thinking it was insensitive to use the hurricane to promote the book. What was wrong with just saying something like: check out this cool book by my buddy? Recently, the author has made several posts firing up her fans and sending them in my direction. They have sent me insulting messages and comments (very few of which I have read, I mostly just delete them). I have responded to a few, the ones who did not leave insults. Her fans (mostly women in their fifties and sixties who don't seem to have jobs or things to do other than comment all day) started by leaving me comments bashing me for anything and everything they could. They moved on to visiting my other social media, my author page, my twitter, blog, etc. Recently they have started leaving negative reviews for my book, Zombie Bite (which is a horror and not an urban fantasy). One person out of all of those negative reviews read the book and said that there is a passage in the book where the main character talks about how she is reminded of driving through New Orleans after Katrina. The reader claims that she believes I used the hurricane to sell books. I never used the hurricane to sell a book, I simply gave the character a backstory. She had survived Katrina, which did not cause zombies to roam the earth. I'm sure there are tons of books that mention Katrina. Characters are like people and each person goes through different things. I will admit that I am not a fan of Zombie Bite, and was considering taking it down and maybe reworking it. I wrote that book, short story or whatever you want to call it when I was going through a rough time in my life and I don't think that it portrays my best work. I actually hadn't written for a long time when I started working on Zombie Bite again and I rushed it out. I needed something to do to busy myself at the time I wrote that and it was kind of my crutch. Zombie Bite helped me feel better, but I do regret releasing it. It wasn't ready and maybe it never would have been. I stopped working on Hair of The Wolf for that reason. I hadn't outlined it and I felt that it deserved better. I put some distance between myself and it but I will be going back to it. I'm almost ready to release The Fortune Teller's Gift, something I actually worked very hard on. I outlined and edited it. It's something I'm actually proud of, which I couldn't say for Zombie Bite. I have expressed my feelings about Zombie Bite in the past, and I'm still not sure what to do with it. I just don't want my future novels to get hatred because of something that was just a misunderstanding. I never wanted tons of comments and negative reviews, I never wanted people trying to ruin my future career. I have wanted to be a writer for as long as I could write and these people think it's okay to ruin that. I want to make it very clear that I have never bashed the author, the only thing I had an issue with was her promotion and the fact that she is sending her fans after me. I tend not to review things, unless I do not like them, but I will be making a point to write a few reviews today on books that I have truly enjoyed. I also want to note that most of these people probably wouldn't have picked up The Fortune Teller's Gift anyway.

Sunday, September 3, 2017

The Retail Client Handbook

Writing fiction is my goal in life, it's something I've wanted to do since I could hold a pencil, but right now I am working in commissioned retail sales. The place where I work doesn't provide client books or online tools to help us. I decided it would be best to create my own to bring in returning customers, but I knew that I couldn't be the only one who felt the need for this item, so I made a book that I think could help a lot of people with their sales and bringing in returning customers. You can purchase it by clicking here!

Monday, August 28, 2017

I've decided to partner with audible



I've decided that it would be a wise idea for me as an author to partner with audible. While my books are not featured on the site, I hope that one day they are. I think audible is a great tool for busy people and I will be checking it out myself (I really want to read Final Girls, but I'm short on time and money). Please click the banner above and get your two free audiobooks!


Also, if you don't have the kindle app for some reason:

Friday, August 25, 2017

Weekend Review: Netflix's Death Note [[SPOILERS]]

To say I’m a fan of Death Note may be an understatement (I’ve even named my dogs after two of the characters who are missing in the American adaptation). I’ve seen most of the Death Note media that I could find, so I feel like I’m in a good position to write this review. I wish I could say that I enjoyed this adaption, but I’m going to be joining the pretty much every other reviewer on the internet in hating it. I’ve read somewhere that this adaption of Death Note is supposed to focus more on the notebook and less on the characters so I will start there. The notebook is barely used. It is shown that there are a ton of rules, most of which don’t exist in the anime, but no one ever goes into detail about any of them. Light is shown reading the rules but he doesn’t bother to explain anything (even when he tells Mia that there are a lot of rules). In the anime there is a scene where Light explains that he wrote his own rules in the notebook to benefit him when the police obtained it, but nothing of that nature happened here. In fact, some of the original rules were ignored, like the cause of death not being written became ‘dealer’s choice’. There were entries from past owners, and the more I watched the more I wished that I was watching some of their stories instead. Now I will move on to the rest of what I had issues with. First, Light had to be forced to use the Death Note. Why was he given a Death Note in the first place? It was clear that he was only using it to please Mia. He also decided that he wanted to be called Kira, and that’s why he drew police attention. No one gave a second thought to his crimes before he used the name Kira. That’s another problem I had with the movie, no one figured things out the way they were supposed to. L seemed to figure out that Light was the killer after doing almost no research. The characters weren’t believable and did not behave in ways they should have, like L exposing himself to Light as soon as he met him, Mia got in a relationship with Light because he used to stare at her creepily when she was at cheerleader practice, etc. Ryuk may have only been on screen for a total of five minutes, which annoyed me. He told Light that he wasn’t like his dog, which was practically the only thing similar to the anime. Ryuk wasn’t Light’s friend, he wasn’t there to help him, and he was only along for the ride. This time he didn’t seem to have a notebook of his own and barely anything was explained about him. There was a scene where Light was looking at a book that had a picture of Ryuk, but he closed it without letting us learn anything about him. L was also a big problem for me. He acted more like an emotional breakdown than a character. He was always let his feelings guide him, even if it meant putting himself/his job in danger. He wasn’t the intelligent character for the anime, and it was hard to watch him eat candy. The movie basically ignored everything about Death Note and tried to make something similar to the Suicide Squad. The closest thing this resembles is the Death Note tv series, but even that isn’t close to what this mess is.   

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Allure Magazine is one of the many magazines that only consist of ads



Allure magazine is basically just one big assortment of ads, or at least that’s the conclusion I’ve come to after receiving multiple magazines from them. I recently started getting the magazines in the mail (I didn’t sign up for them, I think an ex somehow sent them to me), but I only recently got the chance to flip through them. I was expecting to find articles on beauty, but I wasn’t prepared for a magazine that blurred the line between ads and articles so much that I couldn’t tell which was which. I had seen a video online last year that pointed out the insane amount of ads in a normal women’s magazine, but it didn’t say anything about the content inside. Basically, the articles were all things such as ‘insert celebrity’s’ makeup bag, or the top ten best beauty products for fall. I understand that Allure is a beauty magazine and the main reason for its existence is to sell beauty products, but there are better beauty stores out there that can be shared. I even have a beauty story of my own that I would love to share with the magazine (How my now ex-boyfriend changed my relationship with beauty), but I doubt the magazine will ever run stories that go beyond the products they are paid to promote. To me, beauty has always been something personal and I believe every woman has a beauty story. There are women in this world who aren’t allowed to express themselves through beauty, so don’t you owe the people who actually buy your magazine stories that actually have some substance to them? I looked around on your website and found a few articles that I would have loved to see in the magazine that was delivered to my door, so I can’t help but wonder why you had to hide them away on your website? I haven’t really read many women’s magazines in the last few years, but the ones I have read have all been the same. I honestly wish that I could create my own magazine full of unedited voiced from around the world. I feel like there’s so much we can learn from each other, even when it comes to beauty. Allure, please look at the content you put out and considering adding new authors to your publication. 

Monday, July 17, 2017

I'm a writer...in progress

I'm an author, a writer, a person who sits at the keyboard and bleeds words all over a document. It feels so good to admit it, but haven't I always admitted it? I have a blog where I write about my adventures in self publishing. I share my many set backs and my accomplishments. I have a book for sale on amazon (Zombie Bite) and I'm about to have another book available soon, but I don't introduce myself to others as an author. I don't hand out my business cards, or do anything to bring attention to me. It's almost like I'm ashamed to admit that I'm a writer. Why? Do I feel like people will judge me or my work? Well, yes, I do feel like that. Whenever I tell people that I'm a writer I feel like I have to live up to a certain standard. I feel like I can't make mistakes and even my blog has to be 100 percent error free. At work I throw away papers that I've written on if I feel like I may have misspelled a word or that the word doesn't look right written out. I hold myself to such a high standard that I end up hiding this part of myself. Why do I do that? Is it because I get negative comments about the amount of money authors make? Maybe because I had a coworker tell me that there were plenty of writers and there was no way that I could stand out and make a living. Maybe it's because the ex that I thought I would marry showed no interest in my writing. He never once asked to read my writing, and he also never encouraged me (even after I said we should write children's books together based on my dogs). It could also be because I don't think Zombie Bite is very good. I wrote everything but the opening when I was in a dark place. I had just been through a break up and wanted to get it out there because I needed to be successful at something. I regret the way I ended Zombie Bite, but that doesn't mean that I regret writing it. I need to own the fact that I'm a writer, an author, and push myself outside of my comfort zone. I need to pass out business cards in my spare time and promote my books on social media. There will always be people who don't like me or my writing, but that doesn't change the fact that I am a writer and a published author.

Sunday, June 25, 2017

So what's up with Hair of The Wolf?

I meant to post this earlier, but I've been busy. I recently posted an image and blurb for a new book after insisting Hair of the Wolf was coming soon for about a year. The book is still coming, but during the editing process I found that it lacks structure. It's longer than anything I've ever written, but it's all over the place. I use word when I write and I write each chapter in a different word document before putting them all together. While constructing the final project I noticed that a bunch of things were out of order and I need to fix those errors. Basically, the novel is still coming, but will take longer to edit.

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Coming Soon!

“What did you think, that I could just look into a crystal ball and give you the winning lotto numbers? No, sorry, I’m not magic.”


Ever wonder what your life would be like if you could see ghosts? At just five years old Kenzie was forced to see them. As she grows older, the cruel gift haunts every aspect of her life, especially her social life. She is just learning to cope with her ability a former friend comes back into her life, demanding her help.    

Friday, June 9, 2017

Website

I have decided that I need a website. As much as I love my blog, I don't update it daily. I will be looking into building a website within the next few months. Also, I will address that new book cover and what's going on with Hair Of The Wolf soon.

Friday, May 26, 2017

What Charmed has taught me about storytelling

I want to start by saying that I have a love/hate relationship with the show Charmed. I never watched it when it was in its original run, but I caught reruns on TNT when waiting for Supernatural to come on. I remember thinking that the show was cool at first and then quickly growing bored with it. I can even remember a conversation that I had with one of my coworkers about it. They asked me why I didn't like the show and I thought it was more of a 'monster of the episode' show where the same thing happens every episode. It was one of those shows that were just entertaining enough for me to watch on a day when I didn't feel like thinking about much. I always wanted to like the show (since it clearly wanted to showcase strong women). I recently saw that Charmed was on netflix and thought to myself 'what the heck, I'll give it another chance'. I'm kind of glad that I did give it another chance because it taught me a lot about storytelling. One of the things I struggled with while writing Zombie Bite was character development and just development over time. Charmed has development, witches struggling to balance their personal wants and needs with what is expected of them. In almost every episode one of the sisters gets a new power or something happens to them that they have to explore. I really enjoyed seeing how that was handled. It wasn't like 'Prue got a new power and suddenly she knows what to do with it', it was more like Prue got a new power and she's struggling to control it. Anyway, Charmed has taught me a lot more than I would have thought it would upon the second viewing.

Friday, May 12, 2017

Zombie Bite is now in paperback!

Zombie Bite is now in paperback! You can check it out here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521084637

Sunday, May 7, 2017

I finally did it!

I have been posting about how much I wanted to change the look of my blog and I finally did. I got a new logo, which I feel does my blog justice (I also love it). I'm going to try to start posting on here more normally again, but I can't make any promises. I have been busy working to get Hair of the Wolf out and working on something new. I feel like one of my biggest struggles has been word count. I feel like I had been holding the word count against myself too much. I hate feeling like I had to reach a certain amount of words to have a complete story and I think it holds me back. I'm just going to have to let stories flow for as long as their meant to now.

Friday, April 28, 2017

Hiring an editor

To say that I wasn't happy with Zombie Bite is an understatement. I was emotional when I finished writing it, and it was far from the best as a result. Hair of The Wolf is what I have been working on for over a year. The story is 'my baby', and as a result I am having trouble finding the flaws in it. I have decided to look into getting an editor. I want someone that I can use in the future as well (I am already kind of working on something else). I know that I will have many projects and I really need to start taking this more seriously. I love to write, but I have no passion for editing.

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Internet trolls and Zombie Bite conclusion

My last post was about an internet troll who attacked my novel: Zombie Bite. I will admit that Zombie Bite was not my best work. I wrote it when I was dealing with a lot of different things, and I think it suffered as a result. I decided to write a short conclusion to the story (which I will be posting here, divided into two parts). So here's the first part, in all its unedited glory:


I forced my heavy eyelids open, taking in harsh lab lights. I tried to sit up, but something was across my chest, restraining me. Pain suddenly flooded my body, causing a single tear to escape my eye. Where the hell was I, and what had happened to me? I looked down to find that my arms and legs where covered in mud, and I remembered that I had been shot and left to die in the mud.
I heard a door open and close and suddenly the room was filled with sound. I couldn’t escape it. A chair slid across the room, a woman was gossiping about another doctor, and someone was chewing gum loudly. Every sound felt as if someone were playing the drums inside of my ears.
“Who are you people?” I asked.
Everything seemed to stop. It was like they hadn’t expected me to speak. I heard the loud clicking of heels as someone walked over to me, but my vision was too blurry to make out who it was. “I’m sorry for your loss,” said a female voice.
“My loss….” My voice trailed off as I realized she meant Eli. Eli had been everything to me and now he was gone. I wanted to feel something, but I just felt numb and exhausted. Maybe it was because I knew what Eli and I had was over long before he’d been infected. Did I even love him anymore? I thought I did, but I had left him when he needed me.
Suddenly, the table I was lying on moved forward. “Where are we going?” I asked as shapes and forms moved past me in such a hurry that I couldn’t make out what any of them where.
“We weren’t sure you were going to wake up so we had you in the morgue, but now I think it’s more appropriate for you to be in a guest room,” she said, her words echoing in my ears.
“I’m not your guest. I want to leave,” I said, as if it would do me any good. I knew I was at her mercy, but what did she want from me? Was she working for Dr. Haines, the woman who claimed to have a cure for ‘zombie’ infections or was she working of her own accord?
There was a loud buzzing sound and then everything became clear. I could see the pretty brunette woman who was pushing my bed into a large elevator. “What is this place?” I asked her as she pressed one of the buttons.
“It was an old women’s hospital. We’ve turned it into a medical center to help those taken by the late Dr. Haines,” she said the last few words with a smug smile.
“If you wanted to help me you wouldn’t have tied me to this table,” I said, nodding towards the thick ropes that bond me to the table.
“The ropes are for your own protection. We weren’t sure how you would react to being here,” she said.
The elevator doors opened with a low humming sound that seemed to crawl inside my ears. Everything was loud again, it was as if voices and sounds were magnified. I heard everything, from the whispers of a nurse, to a chair scraping the floor in the cafeteria. I barely had time to wonder what was wrong with me as people rushed past us in lab coats and scrubs, it was as if I were in a real hospital. Was there such a thing as a real hospital anymore? I thought the world had ended three years ago when the dead stopped being dead and started eating the living.
A young man wearing a lab coat joined us. “I’m glad to see you’re awake. May I ask your name?” He said as he flipped through some papers on a clipboard.
“Zoey.”
I felt the ropes that bound me go limp and I realized that he had cut them away. I sat up, but the room seemed to spin. I was dizzy and I felt nausea overtake me. I struggled to regain my composer as I was wheeled into a quiet room. The young man closed the door behind us, just as my surroundings settled. I wanted to stand, but I knew that I wasn’t well enough. “What the hell is wrong with me?” I asked.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, but you’re healing,” he said, pointing to my arm.

There was a bandage on my arm, right over where my bite mark had been. I slowly pulled the cloth from my arm, surprised to find undamaged skin beneath it. What did that mean? Was the wound killing me, or was it actually healing me?

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Internet Trolls and Book Reviews

Today I got my first internet troll book review. How do I know Ms. Calinda Rosson is a troll? Because she her purchase isn't verified, she hasn't said a single thing about the book itself (which many reviews often do), she has just been negative. There was no value in anything she said. She also doesn't have any other book reviews up. I do have another book review up that's not verified, but that's because I gave away a handful of books. When I was first looking into the online publishing business I did look into negative reviews (to see the kind of feedback other authors were getting). It was clear that those reviews came from people who actually read the book, this one did not. It's easy to compare every zombie novel/tv show to the walking dead (which is what the poster did). I would have loved real, honest feedback. Even negative feedback. Anyway, not sure what the troll has against me, just thought that I should address it. Also, I did want to say that I know Zombie Bite isn't my best work. I wrote it while going through a very hard time. This is part of the reason it's taking me so long to get Hair of The Wolf out there. I want to make sure it's perfect. I want to make sure the grammar and spelling are decent and the story is amazing. Hair of The Wolf isn't even in the same genre as Zombie Bite. To be honest, I probably won't write any other horror stories. It's not the genre I set out to write and the only reason it's still in the Kindle store is because I think there will be some value in seeing how far I've come one day.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

My thoughts on 13 reasons why

As a writer I find myself drawn to stories. It doesn't matter if they are my own or other people's stories. If I can find something to relate to in the story I end up getting hooked until the end. A few years ago I was lucky enough to have a job where I could read during my long and boring shifts. It was so dead that I averaged about a book and a half per day. I picked up 13 reasons why during that time. I remember it being a book that made me think back to my high school days. I couldn't help wondering if one or two things had gone differently.... That's the thing about 13 reasons why. The book makes you think. It's the type of thing that could happen to anyone and is already happening in this digital world that we live in. I remember how excited I was when I heard about the netflix series and I ended up watching a few episodes everyday after work. I was drawn in. The characters seemed real to me, each one flawed. Needless to say, I enjoyed the show. A few days later I saw an article saying something about schools warning kids about the show. The show supposedly glories suicide, but I don't agree with that. The after effects of her suicide are showcased, from her parent's grieving to the jerks at school who only seem to be worried about making sure they don't get in trouble. Each person reacts differently, and if maybe if someone had reached to help her she would still be alive. Now I'm not saying that the other people were responsible for her mental state, but I know first hand that other people's actions can hurt. Hannah should have sought help much sooner than she did, and maybe this tv show can urge someone in the same situation to reach out when they need help.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Writing Couples

Happy Valentine's Day! Today is the day that a lot of people will be bringing their loved ones out for dinner, or surprising them with jewelry and oversized teddy bears. Valentine's day is a day where I normally think about couples, and today I'm thinking of couples in books. I'm currently editing Hair Of The Wolf, an urban fantasy with an element of romance. The main character, Anyssa, is still recovering from an abusive relationship (inspired by the one I was in). Writing Anyssa was hard because it sometimes brought up memories or things that I was struggling with (such as the idea of dating after being in such a relationship). Anyssa has a love interest, which may or may not turn into a relationship, and I found myself writing that plot line with care. He knew about what happened to Anyssa, but some elements were the same as writing the start of a new relationship. I don't think I'll ever write about an abusive relationship again, but I'm sure that I will write about the start of new relationships again. With the character of Anyssa it made sense for her to go through that and come out as the person she is in the book.

Monday, February 6, 2017

Logo

I mentioned that I would like to change my website around, and I've been thinking about how to do that. I think that I would like to get some type of logo. Right now I am using a picture of me reading a book, but that's old and outdated. I've seen lots of cute, cartoonish pictures that other authors have and I think it might do me some good to get me a new logo, which will look great when I finally get new business cards. I still have most of the old business cards, but I don't feel that they capture who I am as an author. I also would like to somehow make the overall look of my blog more appealing, I'm just not sure how to do that.

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

No ads please

I am currently working hard to edit Hair of The Wolf (which I hope to get out soon), so I haven't been posting on social media much. I am still planning to make all those changes to my blog and social media that I talked about, but there is something that has come to my attention and I feel that I need to address it now. Earlier today I posted on facebook under a like for like post. I shared my page and this man wrote a long ad for his book (while assumptions about my book that he'd never read). He wasn't a fan of my page, just as passerby who wanted a free ad for his own book. I'm sorry, but as an author I am working hard to edit my next book and make it better than the last. I will be struggling to find new ways to promote myself and my work, which means that I can't always promote everyone else's. My facebook and twitter pages should not be seen as free ad space. Although I am open to promoting authors after I have read their books, I don't want to promote a book that I haven't read. I don't mind people tweeting me a link to their book or sending me a message, but I don't want ads on my facebook page. Sorry, I just felt that I had to address this.


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Thursday, January 12, 2017

Why did I decide to write about an abusive relationship?

A few years ago I got the idea for this character that I thought was awesome. She was someone who had been through a lot and been forced into a life she'd never imagined possible, a life in captivity. I also decided to make this character an FBI agent which made it able for her to get out and investigate crimes. The first crime I wanted her to solve was the murder of one of her ex-boyfriends. I wanted their relationship to have ended badly, but I couldn't figure out what would make her feel so conflicted about working on his case. I tried making her ex a cheater, but something about that didn't feel right. I decided to put the project away for awhile, and moved on with my life. I met the man I thought that I would spend my life with, but in reality I was in a very abusive relationship. I don't think most people realize how easy it is to get suckered into an abusive relationship. It started out with little things (like him telling me that I couldn't put that we were in a relationship until I changed my facebook picture to the one he liked), and grew into something bigger. It got to the point where I was afraid to tell him no whenever he wanted something and I couldn't eat in the same room with him. He would yell at me until I was in tears when I didn't give him his way and do other things that I'm not posting here because it feels too personal. I wasn't happy in the relationship, but I felt trapped. He took away every resource I had to get away from him. When things ended I didn't think of myself as having been abused by him. It took months before I finally saw that the way he was treating me was wrong. I found Hair of the Wolf on my laptop not long after and it just clicked. It made sense for my main character, Anyssa, to have been in an abusive relationship. With every word I wrote she became more real, someone that I could relate to because I had been there.

Saturday, January 7, 2017

How writing helped me heal

I have always found writing to be something that helped me to feel better. As a teenager and young adult I found myself keeping journals or letting my life experiences shape my short stories and other works of fiction, but in 2015 I stopped journaling and almost stopped writing all together. In January of 2016 I found myself going through the roughest break up of my life. I thought that I had lost the love of my life, but I had really lost an abusive jerk who was the reason for my lack of writing. It seems kind of funny that the man who drove me away from writing was the same man who drove me back to it. He left me in a state where I felt worthless, a state that reminded me of my teenage years where I used to write songs and poems to make myself feel better and so I dug up one of my empty journals and began to write again.  I began writing daily, but I still didn't feel so great. I was still detached from the person I used to be before I met him, a person with goals and ideas for the future. I started to revisit old projects, first was something I'd written a few pages of called Reaper's Quest. It was a mess of a novel, but I still published it. I took it down about a month later, and I was grateful that no one had bought it. I came across the file for Zombie Bite about this time, surprised to find it had a backbone and could make a great story with a little editing. I began to spend all of my free time typing up new scenes or editing old ones and soon became so engrossed in the novel that I was no longer thinking about how much of a failure I might be or how bad the jerk I'd dated made me feel. I was engrossed in the rather depressing world of Zoey and Eli. Would they find the cure? Would they die trying? I wasn't even sure yet. It seemed to take me forever to come up with an ending to the short story. I wrote and rewrote, scraped an entire ending that had to do with new characters. Although Zombie Bite is far from my best work (I may go back over it someday and make it longer so I can release it in book form), I do feel like it shows where I was at during the time that I wrote it. It's not a happy tail, and I wasn't a happy person at the time. I owe a lot to Zombie Bite, and although it will never be my favorite work, it is the book that made me a better person.

Thursday, January 5, 2017

What is Hair of The Wolf About?

Recently I have been editing Hair of The Wolf. I hope to publish it soon, but it seems like I never have enough time to sit down with it and edit. I'm grateful when I have the time to go over a few pages, but when I don't I seem to be beyond disappointed. I need to find some kind of balance, like getting up earlier or going to sleep later. Maybe I should cut out watching YouTube videos, but I need to find a way to manage my time better. With that being said I wanted to move onto another subject. I realized that I plan to release Hair of the Wolf soon and there is pretty much no information out there on it. Sure, I've realized the first two paragraphs ages ago (before they were in final form), but I've never really said what it was about. Parts of Hair of the Wolf were based on my own experiences with an ex-boyfriend who wasn't very kind to me. He used to do things to me like make me ashamed to eat, steal my phone when I slept and send messages to people that I cared about, and sometimes he would do physical things to me like slap me or drag me down the hall. All of those things had an impact on me, an impact that I carried over to my main character (Anyssa Marshall). Anyssa is literally a caged animal. She's a werewolf and a former FBI agent, but now she's more like a consultant. She gets locked away after a video of her transforming into a werewolf goes viral and she is only allowed out of her cell whenever the FBI needs her help.