Blood Magick Is Free!

In a special one-time deal, I'm offering Blood Magick free on Amazon from now until December 10th.

Blood Magick at Amazon

In the meantime, Zombie Goddess is still $0.99 until Saturday, too.

On Sunday, they both go back to their regular price of $4.99.

Zombie Goddess Is Live!

After three-years, one-month, and four days, the latest episode of the Bloodlines saga is live! And it's only $0.99 until December 10th!

Blurb
Sam Ridgeway really thought her little family was settling into their new lives in Las Vegas.

Except her vampire fiancé turns into a jealous rage-monster every time Ares, the Greek god of war, tutors her in using her new powers. The daughter of one of her baby zombies sues Sam for desecrating her mother’s memory. And to top it off, Baron Samedi kidnaps her brother Max in exchange for a certain basketball-playing necromancer’s soul.

Which, by the way, she doesn’t have.

What’s a zombie goddess going to do? Because this time, Sam’s snarkalicious attitude won’t stop Armageddon.

Amazon

NaNoWriMo Has Finished...

...and no, I didn't win. I reached 32,202 new words on Sacrificed. Which was good, but I kept losing focus because I got caught up in fixing some production problems with Zombie Goddess. Which needed to be done for the release, but now I'm a little more than a month behind on everything, i.e. my self-imposed schedule.

I'm not sure what the problem is. Is it SAD or not enough caffeine or too many people at my favorite writing spot or that the local stores have stopped carrying my favorite wine?

Is it the nastiness that seems to have infected the entire country? I've never gotten into a shouting match with another mother at a school before, but damn, I'm tired of people trying to bully me in everyday life. (She was trying to cut in line with her super-size SUV.) A few days later, a high school administrator got bitchy with me because I parked my car exactly where I was supposed to in order to pick up my kid.

Maybe it's dealing with the vagaries of teen hormones. One minute, I'm the greatest mom in the world. The next, I'm the Satan who's trying to destroy his life.

Or maybe it's simply that a project I've been working on since October of 2004 is coming to a close. Twelve years is a long time to be working on one story. And that's what the Bloodlines series is--one gigantic story.

I always get sad when something is over.

Status Report - October 2016

It's hard to believe October is almost over! So what are the project priorities?

Priority #1
I sent the master files for Zombie Goddess to my formatter Saturday morning. I'm probably not going to have it out by my arbitrary deadline, which is the third anniversary of the release of Blood Sacrifice, aka the last new release in the Bloodlines series. So I'm shooting for Halloween provided my formatter isn't backlogged.

Priority #2
Finish writing Ravaged by Halloween. This has been a difficult story to complete because it deals with a lot of uncomfortable subjects. It doesn't help that the storyline mirrors some elements of the current U.S. political climate. I can honestly say this story was outlined well before the recent bullshit. I'm hoping to have it edited in time for a Thanksgiving release.

Priority #3
Finishing Sacrificed will be my National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo, NaNo or November) project. Frankly I lost a day when I accidentally deleted Chapter Nine of this book without a backup. *facepalm* If I can stay on schedule, I hoping for a Christmas release.

Priority #4
I'll spend the holidays finishing Resurrected. It won't be out until late January/early February because both my formatter and my cover artist take time off to spend with their children--as they should!

Not a Priority, but You're Going to Hear About It Soon
I started a new project called The Four Soccer Moms of the Apocalypse. As a soccer mom myself, I said the only way I'd ever get a fucking mini-van is when the Four Horsemen arrive to announce the end of the world. Well, my heroine Danielle feels the same way. When a drunk driver totals her beloved pick-up, nearly killing her and her son, what does her hubby bring home as a replacement? Unfortunately in Danielle's case, it really does trigger Armageddon!

Starting the first chapter was my consolation the day I accidentally erased a chapter of Sacrificed because I was out of chocolate. (By the way, my huge order from Lindt arrived last Thursday.)

THE DEFINITE RELEASE!
Sword and Sorceress 31 with my story "Pig-Headed" will be out on November 2nd. In fact, Amazon is already taking pre-orders. So is Barnes & Noble. This is an independent tale and doesn't take place in any of my pre-existing worlds. All I can say is Talis, a sorceress wannabe, is having a very bad day, starting with accidentally turning her brother into a farm animal and ending with an ogre threatening to eat her best friend.

All righty, then! Time for me to get back to work!

Working on the Weekend

I didn't release Justice: The Beginning yesterday as I'd hoped since it isn't quite ready. No worries though. The revision file is with my formatter, and the cover's ready. It just will take a few extra days with the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

So what am I doing in the meantime?

- Trying to finish an Alter Ego short story.

- Reviewing the paperback proofs for A Question of Balance and Blood Magick in order to get them up of retailer websites.

- Working on the edits for Zombie Goddess.

- Attending Camp NaNoWriMo for the month of July in an effort to complete the first draft of Ravaged.

It's so good to be productive again!

Status Update - June 2016

After I got over the Flu from Hell, May turned into an amazing and productive month! Here's the highlights:

- A short story called "Pig-Headed" will appear in Sword and Sorceress 31, which tentatively will be released in early November. This involves brand-new characters.

- The characters of my previous Sword and Sorceress stories now star in their first full-length novel, A Question of Balance. I'm planning on releasing it June 20th.

- Justice Anthea and Brother Luc's first stories are collected in a new volume, Justice: The Beginning. It also contains a brand new story about their first year together. Unless Murphy completely screws me, it should be out around June 30th.

- The first draft of Zombie Goddess is done! I hope to release it next month, depending on my Murphy-cursed life. I'll give everyone a specific date in July.

- For the rest of the summer, I'll hopefully get out the rest of the Bloodlines series with their new covers and in paperback format. If that goes well, the Seasons of Magick series will also get a facelift and a paperback version.

And then?

Well, I'll try to buckle down and finish writing the last three Bloodlines books. Next up will be Ravaged (it's currently sitting at 18,000 words).

It's NaNoWriMo Time!

Yesterday started National Novel Writing Month, a crazy, fun-filled thirty days where writers, from newbies to multi-decade vets, plan to write a 50,000-word novel. Some succeed; some don't. In the end, it's really a question of learning to push your limits.

In my case, it's a question of learning how to pants. In other words, trusting my subconscious instead of planning every minute detail. (In case, you haven't figured it out, I'm an A++ personality. LOL)

On top of practicing my pantsing, I'm working on juggling  the various elements of being a publisher. To that end, I need to get my daily word count in for Ravaged, which is Book 7 of the Bloodlines series and my NaNo project for 2015.

On top of that, I'm still proofing the print copies of Blood Magick and Zombie Love, waiting for my beta reader to get back to me about A Question of Balance, approving the e-book cover of A Question of Balance, send out prizes for a blog contest for Alter Ego, work on Zombie Goddess (which is worked on AFTER the daily word count of Ravaged) because it needs to released first, and squeeze in a few words on Sacrificed while waiting in line to pick up Genius Kid from school.

And that last one brings me to another observation. Some writers think they can only write in the perfect room at the perfect temperature, wearing the perfect clothes, sipping the perfect drink and nibbling the perfect chocolate.

Um, no. That's actually a good way to fuck yourself up as a writer.

I'm currently writing Sacrificed on the note function of my ancient iPhone 4 during the five to ten minutes I'm sitting in the car pick-line of the local high school. I can't focus for two hours with my tea like I prefer. Yet, I've written around 5K in those few minutes four-five days a week since school started around August 15th.

So even if the idea of writing 50K in thirty days freaks you out, remember there are other ways of working toward your goal.

Back in the Saddle!

Things on the home front finally settled down last weekend. Our impromptu houseguest moved out ten days ago, and as of Monday, September 20, I'm back to working full-time.

Hallelujah!

Or it was. On Friday, we found out my father-in-law needed to go in Monday to have a pacemaker surgically implanted. Then Genius Kid came down with some bug Saturday night that required a trip to our doctor.

On the plus side, I got a lot done last week. I've prepped Amish, Vamp & Thieves for my formatter, entered the data for the paperback's ISBN, finished the front matter and delivered everything to her. Bless her, she had everything back to me on Sunday for review.

Next up is getting Blood Sacrifice ready for paper printing.

A Question of Balance is done, and is in what I call it's resting phase. That means I write something else before I start editing. Sort of like a palate cleansing. While I hope to have it ready around Sword and Sorceress 30's release date, I won't make any promise because I'll jinx the process. *smile*

So what am I doing to cleanse my palate? Zombie Goddess hit 27K last week. I'll work on it for the rest of September and October, keeping my fingers crossed that I get it done before NaNoWriMo starts. For this year's NaNo, I want to get the bulk of Ravaged, Bloodlines #7, done.

The Nnnnnnnnnnnn series is currently on hold. My co-writer Xxxxx Yyyyyy bowed out for personal reasons, but she released her rights to the story and characters and gave me her blessing for finishing the project. If I can get the other three books mentioned above written, edited and published by the end of the year, I'm hoping to pick it up again in January.

It'll be a busy last three months of the year, but it really feels good to be working again. Now, if I can only keep everyone healthy and out of my hair...

Happy Mabon!

It's the Autumn Equinox! The second harvest festival of the Wiccan calendar.

And boy, are the farmers harvesting! With the recent dry weather, they are pulling in soybeans as fast as they can in the fields surrounding our neighborhood.

Unfortunately, that means allergies. But give me drugs and Kleenex, and I'll keep working on Zombie Goddess!

Our Last Acts

Eleven years ago, I started what would become the Bloodlines series. Most people don't get the underlying emotions that I poured into the books. Some do.

Babies and death are prominent in those books because I almost died on the operating table giving birth to Genius Kid. Zombie Love started as my way of dealing with the myriad of emotions of that experience. The stories grew and expanded as other gains and losses happened in my life.

And the emotions overwhelm me again whenever we deal some aspect of DH's cancer. He wanted me to come with him to the local cancer walk on Saturday. We met another couple, Dan and Nida, just a few years older than us. Like DH, Dan started with colon cancer, but he's in Stage Four with experimental treatments the only thing keeping on this side of the gate. He's a marathon runner who's had to change his life radically to deal with the disease.

One of my great-grandfathers said the only constant in life was change. And that's what both birth and death are. A change between one state of being and another.

Ironically, I'm reminded of his words and my own beginnings and endings today as I clean up the seminal scene of Zombie Goddess. It's the beginning of the end of the Sam both I and the readers know and love. Then Neil Gaiman wrote a very personal post about a friend who is dying even as Neil and his wife re expecting their first baby.

Neil put it far more eloquently than I could. He called it existing in the pause.

That's what I feel like right now. That moment between breaths. Between heartbeats. Between reading/writing the first page and the last. Between life and death.

It's all the same pause. And after it's done, thing will never be the same.

Emerging Markets and Other Publishing Ephemera

I really shouldn't have stayed up until two a.m. to work on Blood Sacrifice. The problem is that the book's done in my head, but since I can't beam images directly to readers' brains, I have to actually write down what happens.

And I really want to work Zombie Goddess, which isn't quite done in my head. I'm already fifteen pages into that novel, so hopefully it won't take over a year to finish the f***ing thing. Keep your fingers crossed. I might have it done by Christmas.

Ah, such is the life of a writer!

Several odds and ends have happened over the last week that don't require a full post, but are worth a mention.

Amazon has started a new program called Kindle Matchbook. Basically, it offers your print book and the same e-book for one low price. It shows that Amazon is thinking of the customer first, something the BPHs and other retailers just aren't getting. I generally buy the Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital packages for movies (if they're available), so it makes perfect sense to me. I just need to get my act together and release print versions of my books.

Over at Smashwords, Mark Coker has introduced two new markets, FlipKart and Oyster.

Flipkart is an Indian online bookseller. I don't know about anyone else, but my Asian sales have sucked. I understand that India has the largest English-speaking population in Asia, but I'm not sure my style of books will fly there due to language, violence and sex. This one of those "we'll see" things.

Oyster is a booklending service on par with Netflix for TV shows and movies, i.e. unlimited consumption for one low price per month. On the consumer side, I LOVE the idea. From the provider side, I have a lot of concerns, especially when Smashwords arbitrarily signs everyone up for the service without detailing how we are to be compensated. If you don't believe me, go check out your Channel Manager. I've opted out of the program until I get more details.

Writer Paul Cook tried to stir the bigotry fire in sci-fi/fantasy once again with a misogynistic opinion piece at Amazing Stories, then got pissed off when the heat fried his ass. Here's my take:

1) "There's girl cooties on my sci-fi" was old back in the '70's when I started reading SF as a kid. Get over yourself, Paul.

2) He didn't even compare hard sf to hard sf. He pulled science fantasy and steampunk out of his ass to compare to Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series, which is military SF, not romance as he claims. WTF?

The scary part is that this guy teaches literature, but can't tell the difference between subgenres in his field.

Okays, folks, I'm off to get a pizza to munch on while I try to tie up this novel. Hang loose and have a great weekend!