Stories of the Week for October 16, 2013

Unfortunately, writing time this week has been difficult to come by, due to all the promotion I've had to do for Try Not to Burn.  Between author fairs I've attended, a book reading I've gone to, a tour of local libraries I've gone on, and countless emails I've been sending out, this week has been fun and busy, but not particularly creative. 

Thankfully, though, I did manage to squeeze in enough writing time to finish a new flash fiction story, "Mausoleum Monster," which explains the photo I used for this week's edition of SOTW.  I'm really happy with how it turned out.  Like most of my stuff, it mixes a bit of humor in with the horror. 

I've also gone back to my spooky Middle Grade story, which I'm still on the last chapter of.  The chapter had been giving me some trouble, which was why I took a break from it and finished polishing up the sequel to TNTB.  I usually find that working on another story or a book can be a good way to get out of a writing funk. It can also give you a fresh perspective on the old project, as you force yourself to step away for a few days. 


[Photo credit: "Manston Mausoleum" by Marilyn Peddle, MarilynJane on Flickr]

Author Fair!

 I was at the Joliet Authorfair yesterday, signing copies of Try Not to Burn and hanging out with some great local authors. Here's a picture from outside the event:

 And here are a couple of pictures from inside, when I was setting up my table. They gave each of the authors a nice little swag bag, with pens, a chocolate bar, and some other fun stuff.  I handed out Red Hots again at this event, and almost every time a kid ran past the table, I could hear the red hots rattling around in their pocket like maracas. 

 I forgot to take many pictures after setup, as the day went by pretty fast for me, but I did manage to make a tour of some of the other tables, and here's one of the authors I met: G.P.A. (aka Greatest Poet Alive). Best name in all of authordom?  Possibly.

Stories of the Week for October 9, 2013

I finished writing the sequel to my paranormal “escape from Hell” thriller, Try Not to Burn, recently. I'd written the first two drafts a while ago, but the beginning had been giving me some trouble. Specifically, the part where I brought readers up to speed on what had happened during the first book.

It was a doozy of a task, considering how much happened in the first book. The main issue I was having was that I didn't want to just mention what happened in a fusty, narrator-esque way. I wanted it to be in the main character's voice, but not in a gimmicky “Look at me, I'm being clever” sort of way. So it was a difficult balance to strike.

And not to toot my own horn too much, but the first book was a lot to live up to, and I didn't want people to be let down when they read the sequel, so I didn't want to rush the final draft. It's too early to guess if fans of the first one will like everything about the second, as I go in some directions people might not be expecting (I like to keep the reader on their toes), but so far, I'm cautiously optimistic.

Both books takes place in Hell, but they're pretty much all about the characters, their struggles and their interactions with one another. The deeper into the levels they go, the more they have to rely on each other for support and protection, and the more impossible the odds seem.

In the first book, they're struggling against other inmates and the monsters that serve the demons. In the second book, well...they have a number of real-live demons to contend with, in addition to the personal demons they'll have to face.