Truths, triumphs, and tragedies of an independent writer.
It was an incredibly up-and-down year, 2017 was. Tumultuous. Fraught. But with incredibly uplifting moments. For me, seeds that I successfully planted came to fruition. I had several short stories come out in 2017, some of them twice.
I’m excited and honored to have a story included in this is new anthology about justice in worlds gone off the rails. My story “Bones of Change,” which you may recall was also in the Halloween bundle, On Hallows Eve, is about the dead coming for some payback. All proceeds from this collection will be donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Human Rights Campaign.
Want to see something really scary? How about a specially curated bundle of Halloween-themed short stories? My story “Bones of Change” can be found in the On Hallow’s Eve bundle. The cool things about ebook bundles is that you can pay what you want, support indie authors, and support a great charity. Like scary stuff? Like many flavors of Halloween “candy”? Please give this one a look.
If you’re ready for summer thrills and chills (ones that don’t even require air conditioning), I’m delighted to show off the brand new “Bump in the Night Thrillers” storybundle, which just launched today. Sixteen suspenseful, fun, and entertaining reads. Just click the image above, or go to this URL –> https://storybundle.com/thriller
One of the cool things about being a writer is that sometimes other authors let me play in their sandbox. Aaron Michael Ritchey, author of the Juniper Wars series, a Young Adult story about a family of teenage sisters on a post-apocalyptic cattle-drive, invited me to contribute a story to his world and this was the result. I wouldn’t call this story YA (it’s more like The Hateful Eight meets The Crying Game), but it was a whole lotta fun to write. You can download the ebook and PDF files here.
I was attending an author event at the Tattered Cover bookstore a couple of months ago. Not even really browsing, I had in hand the book I had come for, but nevertheless my gaze wandered across one of the bookseller recommendation shelves. For no discernible reason, one cover caught my eye. It was a pen and ink drawing of an elder sister embracing the younger, and the book was We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.
Take a moment to think about the word “fitness.” What images pop into your head? First, you probably think about activities that really make you sweat. Maybe you imagine yourself running outdoors in the fresh air, doing bodyweight training, or taking a bike trip. Visit Thehealthmania to learn more about other healthy habits. But fitness is much more than just exercise: it’s a lifestyle – and this includes a healthy diet and healthy habits along with the right amount of exercise. Can fitness do more than just improve your health? Can it help you more effectively deal with daily stress? This
If you’re of a certain age in the U.S., you were raised with Westerns. John Ford and Sergio Leone filled cinemas and TV screens with John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, the dust of cattle drives, the thunder of cavalry, guns, and the war whoops of Indians. By the time of my childhood, Western films were in their declining years, covering ground so well-trodden the genre itself had become cliché, a collection of easily recognizable and increasingly tired tropes. However, the genre never quite made it to the grave. Since the Western film’s heyday, we’ve been graced with some spectacularly good
If you’ve read my “Cautionary Tales for Writers” over on the left hand page of this blog, you know a bit of history about my early forays into writing and publishing. The first novel I published was an epic fantasy called The Ivory Star, back in 1997. For almost twenty years, it languished on my hard drive, untouched. Then Wattpad came along, and it seemed like the perfect venue to introduce my early work to a new generation of readers. So I commissioned a snazzy new cover and put the book out there to see what would happen. Lo and
Losing weight is hard. And keeping it off? Even harder—almost to the point that shedding pounds for good can feel like a Sisyphean struggle. That’s probably why, according to recent research out of JAMA, that the amount of overweight people in the United States consistently rises while, at the same time, fewer people than ever are embarking on weight loss journeys of their own. But what these struggling souls may not know is that losing weight doesn’t have to be such an arduous slog. In fact, by deploying the right methods, weight loss can be effortless, entertaining, and, most importantly, effective. The first
Something new has appeared in the wondrous–and sometimes helpful–oddities of the internet. A means whereby creative folks like myself can gather their most ardent fans to chip in a few bucks every time the creator does something cool. It’s a new form of crowdfunding called Patreon. I’ve been hankering for a few months to try it, but first I had to do some soul-searching, get some life-changes squared away, and move to another country two hemispheres away from my old digs in Colorado. I’ll be living in New Zealand until mid-2016. I’ve done two successful Kickstarters for the last two
Sword of the Ronin meets nine other historical eras in this fabulous e-book bundle from Story Bundle: The Historical Fiction Bundle. From Story Bundle’s website: “History is made up of stories, and those stories are vast, and varied beyond compare. The Historical Fiction Bundle comprises a total of ten terrific titles by top-notch authors, together representing exactly this breadth and variety of experience. These stories blend real-world historical settings with romance, adventure, fantasy and mystery to bring you whole worlds of fun! You’ll visit ancient Egypt, the Americas, the Caribbean, Great Britain and Japan; you’ll meet pirates and warriors, witches and