Submitted Short Story

Today I had a first. It was the first time that I submitted a short story for publishing. The idea ran around in my mind for about two years. It would bug me and I would start to write it, but it never took off for me so I never finished it. Word count is what I blame for this. I could never complete the story in the word counts people wanted for submission.

Just recently a journal called for submissions and offered a 4K word count for stories that this idea would fit into easily. It made me think. Then it made me write. The first draft was awful and came in just under 4K. I let the story sit for a few days then went back to it.

My program wouldn't open so I had no access to the story. That pissed me off, but didn't stop me. I opened Microsoft WORD and began typing what I remembered of the story and like most second drafts it was (in my opinion) far better than the first one.

So the story that rambled around in my brain for two years found a home. Now all I have to do is wait and see if it is accepted there. If not, it has been written and I will do another draft of it and resubmit it somewhere else. It wants to be read. It will be read. 

My Enneagram Type

This is my Enneagram Type...
Type Five
The Investigator
The perceptive, cerebral type. Fives are alert, insightful, and curious. They are able to concentrate and focus on developing complex ideas and skills. Independent, innovative, and inventive, they can also become preoccupied with their thoughts and imaginary constructs. They become detached, yet high-strung and intense. They typically have problems with eccentricity, nihilism, and isolation. At their Best: visionary pioneers, often ahead of their time, and able to see the world in an entirely new way.



free enneagram test

To find your type go here: http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/Tests_Battery.asp#FreeShortTests

Come back and let me know what type you are!  

It works!

It works™ I downloaded the app for this. Awesome.

Test

Testing Blogger on phone.

Blogging via phone

Over the next day or two hopefully you will see some test messages as I try to get my new phone to post messages to this blog. The old phone worked but the Verizon phone doesn't seem to connect. This makes for long periods between posts while I am on the road working at my day job-  over-the-the-road truck driver. 

Characterization

Claire Templeton moves into House on Butcher Harbor Book Two- Pirates Cove- with a new sense of self and feeling stronger in her ability to speak to the dead. What does that mean? Book Two will have to pour on the challenges so she can grow some more. Guess I better get to work making Pirates a thrill ride and a half for all you ghost lovers.  I loved in Messsengers when they flipped the sheet up on the bed and the legs were beneath the sheet. Way cool. What scares you most in a ghost story?What scares you most in a ghost story?

Updates for Pirate's Cove

Struggling with Pirates Cove the book just keeps me at arms length. I have enlisted some help researching and keeping up with the background stuff. For starters Sharon Cornell Keyes has agreed to be my writing assistant. Welcome aboard Sharon! I am looking forward to working with you.Sharon is a dear friend and we have agreed to not let the book come between us. So wish us luck on that, she is very important to me and I don't want anything to interfere with that.

Next I have asked three people I know that have particular backgrounds to assist me with some research. They will be acknowledged in the book and will receive signed copies of the book as well. I will tell you more about them soon.

One I have this research done the book should flow together better and I will hopefully see THE END in sight! Thanks to everyone that is helping out. I SO appreciate it.

The Changing Face of Writing

Being a writer isn't just about the writing anymore. Being an independent writer these days means having to wear a lot more hats. Yes the first hat that of author. The work has to be written and the content must be good to compete against the constant influx of novels being uploaded daily. Next the book must be formatted for all the devices people now read on as well as a different format for print. Each new device seems to have its own format that must be mastered. A cover must be designed and today more and more authors are taking this job upon themselves. Then the book must edited or a good editor hired to do the job for the author. Once the book is complete, it must be marketed; there is print media, radio, television, social media and so on. Writers can no longer just be writers. Writing is a new world now and it changes every day.Writers need to keep up with the latest technologies if they plan on running with the big dogs. 

From the Grave

I was doing some cleaning and found these old poems. Here is one of them-

From the Grave

The feel of death has touched me

However slight it may have been

It crept in ever so slowly

Trying to fill as much space as it can

I felt its dread and darkness

Its weight and ever searching loneliness

I felt its urgent need

My soul it must caress

I tried to shut it out

But none- the- less it stayed

Farther in it crept

From its path it never swayed

Until it filled my entire being

My body and my soul

Then it left so swiftly

What could have been its goal?

*Note: Written February 6, 1983 Dedicated to Harry A. Bradford. I awoke from a dream screaming. As occurs I knew it was one of those dreams. The dream was me trapped under the house trailer that we lived in. The space was small and tight. I didn’t like it. I felt claustrophobic. Then I looked around in the dark and noticed that underneath me were lots of bodies, dead bodies. I remember thinking “There is some sort of mistake. I do not belong here.” I started to scream and I smelled this thick carnation smell. It made me want to puke it was so strong.

That day I was a wreck worried about my family. Were they in danger? How could I save them? What was I supposed to save them from?

While on my way to work the next day I started to smell that sickly sweet carnation smell. I wanted to vomit. I was so nauseous. The more I drove the sicker I felt and that smell was so intense. Ahead of me I saw a vehicle with its lights on come around a bend in the road. This was before running with your lights on was recommended. There were many cars behind it with their lights on as well. It was a funeral. The smell intensified and I almost threw up.

I drove on allowing the funeral to pass. I knew where it was heading. There was a cemetery on my way to work. After the caravan passed, the smell drifted away. I still felt sick but I think it was mostly from the shock of the event and the strength of the smell.

After work I went to the cemetery and found the grave. It was close to my fathers, a newer section of the cemetery. That night I took a white carnation from the grave. It had that very same smelled that made me ill during the dream and earlier that day when the hearse came around the bend.

The next day I went back and inquired from the grounds keeper who the was buried the day before. The man said it was the preacher. I later found the obituary for Harry A. Bradford.

This event stuck with me for a very long time. 

For this printing I tried to look up the obit for Harry. It turns out that he was born on September 15, 1930, he was 52 years old. I was born in September on the 18th. Just an eerie coincidence. I did an online search to find his obituary but was not successful. I will keep looking. I did find his date of birth and death, his age at death. And his social security number. That should not be accessible. Just saying. 

http://www.faqs.org/people-search/harry-bradford/#b this is where I found his information.

Growing up in Haunted Houses

My childhood was spent moving from house to house as my parents struggled to find a home they could afford. This meant changing schools often and friends as well. But the one thing most of these houses had in common were the ghosts and the fact that most of them scared the crap out of me. 

Every house had its own unique ghost. Once we lived on a race track grounds. Our introduction to the ghost of this house was when we moved in. One we were settled all the kids went into my oldest brothers’ room to throw darts. My brother had hung the dart board on a door in his room. Little did the rest of us know that the door let to the attic. As we took turn throwing the darts, the darts in turn flew backwards out of the dart board and toward us. Being kids, we thought this was the coolest thing until we discovered why this might be happening. Apparently a man had hung himself on the stairway of the attic just behind that door. Night after night this lost soul clomped up and down the stairs sending chills up my spine while fear paralyzed me. I would draw my body close, tightening all my muscles and was unable to move. Could I have moved I would have crawled under my bed to hide from this ghost I was sure was going to stop walking up and down the stairs all night and instead turn into my room and get me. Instead I stayed in my bed, eyes the size of dinner plates and my ears working overtime trying to hear if his walking pattern might have changed and he was indeed coming for me. 

I will fill you in on other stories a little at a time as there are so many. For right now I am thrilled that my current house doesn't have stairs and my current ghost does not make me crap my pants. Perhaps it is because I am much older now, had so many experiences or maybe this one is just not that scary. *Happy dance*

What is the Limit of Your Attention Span?

I noticed lately I have less and less interest in longer posts whether it is a blog, facebook or e-mail. It seems that I want to get-in and get-out quickly; less truly is more for me right now. I have no tolerance for lengthy verbiage.

Yet I can sit for hours on fb reading hundreds of  little posts from anyone. But let one of those posts break into a sermon and I am gone. The information they want to share could be something I might want, or need to know, but I have a hard time clicking that "continue" button.

There is no doubt that I am missing out, but will I be able to force myself to have a longer attention span? I think it is necessary. (See, some readers have already clicked out of my blog- it has gone on too long) I can still read books and informational web pages so I know I can still do it. But it is a choice. I have to choose to  s l o w  down and pay more attention because I can only expect that as time goes by my attention span will wittle away to nothing- a tweet: 140 characters or less- or worse- a mini tweet (yet to be discovered by anyone but me): 70 characters or less.

Perish the thought. I will be working on increasing my attention span daily. I cannot live in a 70 character or less world. I refuse. How about you?

Read an Ebook Week!

Smashwords ebook House on Butcher HarborYippie, it is that time again. Smashwords is promoting Read an Ebook Week. My book is one of many FREE ebooks on smashwords throughout this week. Go to the link below. There will be a coupon listed under the price of the book. Please if you haven't had the chance to read my book get a copy now. Smashwords lets you download a copy in any form including PDF for reading on your computer or phone if you do not own an ereader! Please stop by and get your copy today. If you purchased the paperback book go ahead and get an ebook copy for yourself.

Please spread the link around and help me to be the most downloaded author this week. It is not a competition, but it would make me VERY happy.

Remember- Free this week:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/28921

My fans...stolen from fb

Translation Please

I have just been contacted by Monica Ocana  who lives in Mostoles, Madrid, Spain! She wants to translate my book into Spanish. I have wanted to do this because we spent so much time in Phoenix, AZ and I feel like I am missing a market, not so much for the money as I want Spanish readers to have more choices and would love my book to be one of them. You will hear more about her in an upcoming blog interview I hope she is game for. This is a very exciting adventure. Thank you Monica.

Besides translating Monica is the personal assistant to author Rachel Carrington! Maybe I need one of those. An assistant could put her foot up my rear and make me get this second book done. Hmm. (I know someone locally and I bet she knows who I am thinking of. Wonder if she is up for it? )

Meanwhile not to take away from Monica, Welcome aboard and I hope you are ready for the ride. It will be a five ticket one for sure. ¡Muchas gracias for contacting me Monica!

JobCrusher 6-Week Customer Appreciation Webinar Series & Contest

JobCrusher 6-Week Customer Appreciation Webinar Series & Contest

Great information and you can win some really cool marketing tools!

Be a Provocateur!

Word of the Day
provocateur\proh-vah-kuh-TER\noun

: one who incites or stimulates another to action

I want to be a provocateur for new authors. My biggest desire in life is to *cause* someone to pick up their pen, laptop, computer, whatever means they prefer to use to write and to start writing. But it is not enough to write something as it is to own the writing. BE THE WRITER. Accept the title of AUTHOR and live that life style. 

It doesn't mean that you get to quit your day job. It just means that your day job isn't all that you are. You are a writer. You might work as a clerk or whatever to put food on the table until the writing does that for you.  This was the hardest thing I ever did was to embrace the title of Author and it never occurred to me to do so until one day I was asked "Oh so you are an author?" I stood their dumbfounded until the customer at my register who had read my unpublished work turned around to the gentleman and said "Oh yes, she is a an author!" 

From that day on I embraced that title and it changed my life. That customer was a dear friend Mary Angel and she was my provocateur. She stimulated me into action. I started to live like an author. My laptop was my tool. My words were my art. I am an author! 

If you have always wanted to be an author but let life get in the way, stop now and embrace your passion. Say it: I am an author! Live it: Be the author you have always wanted to be! Feel it: Let the word author seep through your body. Speak it: Tell people you are an author. Scream it out loud. Put it on your email and phone signature: Author.

Then go write something short and sweet. Something you can finish in one setting and post it for everyone to see. It can be one line, four lines, a paragraph or an entire story, just be sure you can finish it in one sitting. And don't forget to post it or be too embarrassed to post it. I want to read it! All kinds of people will want to read it. Take a chance. 

Then go out and be a Provocateur and inspire someone else to do the same!

 

Sometimes you have to stop and rewrite the story

Lately I have hated opening my manuscript and writing. The book is almost finished and I should be in push mode. You know, that time when the itch to write is so strong you cannot NOT write. Well I can so not write right now. I realize that I need to back peddle and rethink my story. I still need to head in the direction I have been working toward. It is "how" I get there that I am having trouble with. It is boring me to tears. This is not writers block. I can still write. I just don't like what I am writing lately. It needs more spicy, more action.
I have been bashing myself for not finishing the book, but now I am glad that I have held off instead of just writing crap to get the book done. I know I will appreciate this when the book is done, but right now it just sucks.
Perhaps I should work on something else for a few days. Get away from it all together. I will keep you posted.
#thewriterslife