New Contemporary Fantasy from Loren Rhoads!

Check out this new collection from Loren Rhoads. A few weeks ago, I got to ask her questions about her stories. Read the interview below!

Alondra DeCourval travels from San Francisco to Prague to Olso, encountering magical creatures and searching for the limits she will go to for love.

Alondra's Experiments

 So, how long have you been writing your Alondra stories. I've been a fan forever.

Loren Rhoads: I wrote the very first story in high school. Thank god it's still unpublished. The first story that was published appeared in Not One of Us in 2008. That story -- about a fox spirit in Tokyo -- made the long list for the British Fantasy Award that year.

I remember that! It's a beautiful story. Alondra is such a great character, and you've been carrying her with you for a long time. Where did she come from?

Loren Rhoads: To be honest, I wanted to write a story about a red-haired witch. I had the hubris to think I could spin the trope and add something new to it. Actually, she's one of my favorite characters to write for.

The magic in her stories is so great too. I always learn something that I didn't know about magic.

Loren Rhoads: Wow, that is the nicest thing anyone's said to me all day!

I’m glad. It's true. What are your favorite monsters? What are Alondra's?

Loren Rhoads: Alondra has a thing for older men, so she's not sensible when it comes to the tragic backstory. She keeps getting tangled up with vampires and other immortals.

I mean, I like tragic. Also it keeps your commitment down.

Loren Rhoads: This is true.

I also like that the stories take place all over the world. You're very good at setting the scene. Where do these three stories take place?

Loren Rhoads:  The three in this book are set in Golden Gate Park, Prague -- including a visit to Franz Kafka's grave, and Olso. Olso is the one I haven't been to, so it took a lot of research

Which I know you love. I can't wait to read them. Do you see a more collections in Alondra's future?

Loren Rhoads: Thank you so much for asking that. I will have another collection of stories out sometime in April. It will be called Alondra’s Adventures.

Aha! I'm so glad to hear this. Something to look forward to.  I'm so envious of everyone who gets to read these stories for the first time!

The Alondra stories have appeared in Best New Horror #27, Strange California, Sins of the Sirens, Fright Mare: Women Write Horror, The Haunted Mansion Project: Year One, The Ghostbreakers: New Horrors and more.

Loren Rhoads is the author of 199 Cemeteries to See Before You Die and Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel. She blogs about graveyards as travel destinations at CemeteryTravel.com.
Loren is also the author of The Dangerous Type, Kill By Numbers, and No More Heroes, a space opera trilogy set after a galactic war has wiped out much of humanity.
She is the co-author (with Brian Thomas) of the novel Lost Angels about a succubus who sets her sights on an angel and ends up possessed by a mortal girl's soul. 
Loren likes long walks in the moonlight and old graveyards. She remembers when men walked on the moon.

Cover Reveal Day! When Knowing Comes, By Valarie Savage Kinney

Today is a very special day. It's COVER REVEAL DAY for Valarie Savage Kinney's newest book, When Knowing comes. This is the second in Valarie's Secrets  of Windy Springs series. The first, In the Presence of Knowing is a lovely book, full of  darkness, magic, and love. My three favorite things. I can't wait for number two! The preorder link is right below. and the good thing about waiting for it is if you In the Presence of Knowing yet, there's still time. 

For now, please enjoy this beautiful cover. And hit that preorder.

Preorder link https://tinyurl.com/ybvwk55f

Release date: March 10th

Twisted magic pervades the enchanted forest at Windy Springs Renaissance Festival. Strange physical symptoms plague Keisha as her second season of vending at Windy Springs begins.

Violence and destruction bring fear to the festival as long-harbored secrets threaten to emerge. When stunning truths are unveiled, Keisha struggles to come to grips with a new reality. Will her relationship with Rogan withstand the coming changes or will the darkness he reveals about his past destroy the promise of their future?

When Knowing Comes is the second book in the Secrets of Windy Springs series. Grab your copy today and find out what mysteries await within the magical forest at Windy Springs.

Here are all the link to lead you to Valarie's online presence:

My website

Join my FB readers group 

My books

At the End of Things.

I am dangerously close to finishing a short story that has been on the back burner for a while. I write slowly. And that's also dangerous. Last year when Black Light, my novel, was published, it was the end of three decades of work. It's a rare thing when I come to an end. It's hard, I find to let go.
This story, as it turns out, is a prequel to Black Light. It's about Albrecht Christian as a young man, far, far before he meets Trace. It's set between WWI and WWII, when Albrecht is still adjusting to his new life as a psychic vampire, feeding off the misery and decay of Europe of the time.
I should have finished it months ago, but something has been holding me back.
After the election I could barely concentrate. I was lucky to get six paragraphs a day. I didn't expect that. I didn't expect to feel so afraid.
Awhile before all that a friend said to me, "I don't think your writing is holding you back. I just think that your characters are gay."
I know how that sounds, but she wasn't criticizing my choices, she was commenting on a fact.  Queer stories have a smaller audience than straight. I knew that, but, last year when Black Light came out, I thought the gap was closing. I mean, I read books about straight people, right? And I met a bunch of the people who bought the book.They seemed to be everybody.
But then November came, and you all know that story. So, I spent a while thinking about why I write, and who I write. Because suddenly I became afraid. Afraid that even less people would read my stories.  Afraid that it exposed me in a way that felt new to me. And I forgot that the best fiction is about what scares you. And that good words are dangerous.
So soon I will have completed a story about Albrecht Christian,gay  psychic vampire and his first true love, a powerful black magician and the Loch Ness monster. Yep, you read that right. It turns out that I like the story. iIt might find a home, it might now. But that doesn't matter, really. the finishing of it reminded me to write the story that I have. No matter what.
I think I've got my faith back now.

So I won this year......

 As if you had to ask won what? Won Nanowrimo, of course. November is the month that everything explodes for me, working retail. That, my friends is the worst time to promise to write 50000 words. Like, if I get to work and my underpants aren't on my head its a win. Plus this year my computer died, and, well,  we accidentally elected a Nazi thug to the White House. I mean, this year November was just like living all the other months of this year in four weeks. Right? I know I'm not the only one that felt like.

Yet, it turns out, in spite off all these things, I made my word count. I wrote in my notebook, because my computer was out of commission--though it's fixed now, thank gods. And Brian. But for a couple of weeks there, I was scribbling fragments of things. Just a little bit here and there. I couldn't see my novel,because it wasn't backed up---stop yelling at me! It is now, for sure. But since I couldn't refer back to what I'd done, I think it forced me to think in different directions. It led me places I hadn't planned on going. This was amazing. I began to see the characters as new people. I got interested in what would happen next again. 

I started to type in all the bits the last week, and I was amazed at how many words I had. I realized not only could I make it this year for the first time in years, that I had more things to say now that I had more things down on paper. I had a whole middle part of the novel. 

So I made it. The novel isn't finished, but it's on the path. And while the last month of this year doesn't look like much fun, I have this one small piece of life that is moving forward. And it's headed somewhere that I'm looking forward to going. The bad guys will be punished, the good guys will live happy. I can see it coming, and it's something I can look forward to. The world's still a mess, but my world, the one that lives behind my eyes? It's keeping me okay again. Giving me a reason to get through work, and get to the notebook. I'm grateful for that. 

So what happened with your Nano's? Even if you didn't make your word count, what's the thing you're most happy with? Wanna talk about novels? 

Without You I'm Nothing

I've been working on non fiction for the last few weeks, which is strange for me. I'm not sure how to do it. One the things I depend on when I'm writing fiction is music. Lots of music. There are soundtracks for all the stories I write. Sometimes I make them, sometimes I use actual soundtracks. The neo-Victorian novel I'm working on now is in turns Pan's Labyrinth and Cowboy Bebop. Yes, jarring, I know. But it works for me. Black Light was full of David Bowie music, especially live recordings, but also it boiled down to two of his songs in particular: The Bewlay Brothers, from the Hunky Dory album, and Lady Stardust--not the version on the album, but a demo that I heard much later.

Many writers I know don't work well with other peoples words in their ears, in fact, I think I'm in the minority. Writing is lonely, and I do better with voices around me.

Which leads me to my point. I just finished a novella called, "Speak My Name." It's the story of a demon, who tends bar. He falls in love one night with a man who can see him in all his aspects. It's out in the world, looking for a home now, so it's been on my mind. This morning, in my facebook feed someone shared a video of Frank's(demon) and Mica's(not demon) song.

What music do you need to finish your stories? Does the music you listen to shape what you write in any way?

September already.

Well, so I owe a few page a day posts from last month stillI . Oh, I've written them, I just haven't posted. Why? Well, I got a little distracted in the last week and a half. Not from writing, but from the novel. My plot to have Adella meet a vampire and come up with a master plan hasn't turned out exactly the way I exspected, because, of course, being Adella, she befriends the vampire and suddenly he's gotta be part of the master plan too. Thanks, Adella.

So I left that alone and decided to pull out a couple of half finished novellas. How many half finished novellas do you have in that virtual drawer, you might ask? Well. Two. Okay, three, if you wanna count Drifter. So, my friend Loren Rhoads is doing this thing where her goal is to have one hundred rejections in a year. I am in awe of that. I haven't sent anything out in forever. So last week I pulled out one the the novellas, and found that instead of half finished, it's really NEARLY finished. I spent a while poking around the ending, and then sent it off.  Then I found a place to send the second one to. But, of course instead of NEARLY finished, this one really is half done with moments of the complete SUCKAGE. And the call's deadline is September 20. O....kay. I've been sneaking up on is sideways. But I think I can have it finished in the next couple of weeks.

I don't know if I'll post pages from this, because mostly they will be rewrites and not rough draft stuff. But as soon as Adella tells me the plan.......

Dispatches from the porch: Did you miss me? Day 21

So, you may have noticed that I silent last week. It was a matter of real life overwhelming me. Yes, II know. I keep saying I won't let it happen, don't I?  but it does, and so the writing suffered. But it really was me that suffered. Why can't I remember that I feel so much better when I'm writing? Can you guys remind me?

Anyway, today it's 70 degrees, and rainy, and my cat and I are sitting on the front porch, and it doesn't even feel like I'm on the surface of the sun!. I'm wearing a sweater! Weird, right? But it's all very pleasant, and I'm going to try to catch up. To prove I'm serious, here's a bit more with Adella and the vampire. I thought he was going to be awful, but maybe not. Maybe Adella can reform him......

"You were as much an oddity then as I am. A woman with that pack of thug medical students. You didn’t notice me, because there iron bars between us.” He move from behind the counter in a flash, to stand inches from her. He reached out to trail a blacken fingernail down the side of her face, scraping it over the crow’s feet at the corner of her eye. “You’re older now, of course. Same brassy girl in there somewhere, though, I expect.”

He inhaled again, and seemed to savor. Adella gave an involuntary flinch.

“You are not here to inquire after our wares, Missus.” His eyes narrowed. “No. You are not here to buy. You weren’t then, and you’re not now.”

Adella jerked out of the creature’s gasp. She pulled her pistol free and leveled at the vampire’s face. “Did you divine all that from my perfume? You’d be shocked what I’d do, for the sake of science. Of curiousity. For example, I know this shot wouldn’t kill you, but I’m not clear on how painful it would be, if I say, hit an eye. How long would it take to heal?”

She saw a break in his expression, a flicker. He said, “It would be horrible painful. And it would likely disfigure me.”

Beneath the menace he wore, Adella saw a flash of a creature caged.  She eased the gun back. “You’ve obviously won your freedom.” She said. “Why do you allow this all to continue?”

He laughed at her. “It is put others on the block or suffer it myself. That is how this world works.”

Adella took her finger from the trigger. She shook her head. “If you’re alone, that is how it is.”

He only laughed again.  “We live in two very different ones, Missis.”

Not anymore, she thought. Not for the moment. “Tell me, does the man Vicktor Lemnus have a stake in the auction? Or do you simply pay him your protection like all the other shops?”

“What business it is of yours?”

Day 11: a tiny bit more of Drifter. It's the pages that matter!

So here's more of my Page a Day Challenge. I have another scene from Drifter. Remember people, this a rough draft. You'll notice that I've left big holes for the things I can't figure out, because, let's face it, if I didn't I'd never get to the end of anything.

So again, this starts at the tail end of another scene. It's really about three pages, but who's counting.... It starts off with Skylar and Tarik talking about Raena. This happens before the scene you read previously. Skylar isn't human, and he's worried about Raena's xenophobic up-bringing. He's also worried that the ship is effectively dead in the water. There might be three different scene changes in this--the double drops. And also the POV changes as many times as well..... So...Welcome to my Brain. Um, don't touch anything. You don't know what it attached to.

               

Finally when he couldn’t stand the feeling of Tarik’s disappointment sting the air around him, Skylar said, “Why doncha get something to eat? I got the rest of this.”

The kid left with no further comment. How, after everything this galaxy had thrown at him, could Tarik still be so young? Skylar sighed. He hated that he might have to be the one to break all that. But he would do what he had to. Better Terik be disillusioned than dead.

Skylar tried to let the work ease his mind. The Panacea was a rust bucket that barely limped at the best of times. But Skylar loved her.  Almost as much as Doc and Tarik.

But she wasn’t co-operating just now. Skylar knew the only way they would be safe was to put a jump between them and the Noose’s debris field. If he couldn’t get the Panacea moving again they were dead.

The bypass wiring was easy. Skylar finished what Tarik had started, and within minutes had the atmo cycling at one hundred percent again, and rerouted power to the com. But the jump drive was the real problem. He turned away from the circuit panel and scrunched himself farther into the engine compartment. Fixing the drive was hands on, and everything down here was made for much smaller hands.

He squirmed his way passed the (repulsor thingie, or something) to the cradle the drive sat in. Skylar felt dread creep along the ridge of his spine. The smell of metal that was too hot to touch separated itself from the sharp of the burnt wiring. This was bad. (I need some help with the hardware here!) This was damage that he couldn’t fix or patch with his spanner. They needed replacement parts, and even a short detour was going to take too long now. Skylar stayed where he was, looking at the melted hunk of junk that was had been the thing that was going to save them, until he heard Doc’s boots on the deck above him.

“So.” She began. “Is this a good news/bad news situation?”

Skylar untangled himself from the machinery and ducked his head up from the hole. She looked down with a faint half smile on her face. She held a bottle of ambersi in one hand and two plasteel tumblers in the other. He tilted his head and flashed one fang to return the expression. Doc had been a spacer for too long to hope for the good, and he knew it. “Nope.”

She laughed, “Drink, then?”

“We must be desperate, if you’re sharin’.” Skylar levered himself up onto the deck to join her. “The jump’s fried.” And so are we, he thought.

She nodded. “How far are we to help?”

He gave a shrug and sat in the pilot’s seat, swiveling in so he could face her when she took the passenger’s. “There’s Gallherger brother’s, on (one of the planets). They maybe got what we need. At real time, that’s….”  The rough calculation clicked in his head. “Thirty hours?”

“Not bad.” Doc handed him the tumblers and cracked the seal on the bottle. “Then we’re not desperate at all. Just movin’ at cruise speed for a day or so, yeah?”

“We’re…..” He paused as she poured. “We’re as good as drifting until we get patched up. Anyone can find us out here.”

Doc took a drink and said, “Not much different from any other day, now is it?”

“Except…” Skylar didn’t finish.

“There’s something else, isn’t there? Besides the diplomat. It’s the girl herself.” Doc narrowed her eyes. “What are you not telling me?”

A soft growl escaped him. He looked down at the ambersi but didn’t drink it.

“You can’t think she’s still working for him.” Doc protested. “She’s been running from him all across the Border Worlds. It’d be hard to believe how many times she’s escaped, if for the damage recorded on her body. She’s serious about not wanting to be put back in his hands.”

Skylar didn’t dispute that. Instead he pulled the medallion from his vest pocket. He held it out for Doc to see.

“Human’s First?” She lifted her lip in her version of a snarl. “You don’t know it’s hers.”

“It’s got a recording on it, calls her by name.”

That seemed to slow Doc’s defense. She took a drink. “Sky, she’s so young. Maybe she started with them, but she’s seen enough of the rest of the galaxy to know how misguided they are.”

“They’re terrorisst.” He countered flatly. “And where’d she learn any different? From Thallian? Because he’s such a proponent of live and let live?”

“If you’re afraid of her--”

“It’s not that.” He growled. “It’s Tarik. He doesn’t need her puttin’ that poison in his head.”

Doc laughed. “I don’t think you gotta worry about that. Maybe you don’t remember being fifteen, but I’m pretty sure Raena’s the first girl Terik’s never even seen sleeping. It’s possible he hasn’t heard anything she’s said to him yet.”

Skylar looked at his drink. Wasted on him. It didn’t do a damn bit of good. “I don’t want her talkin’ to him.”

He took the bottle from where Doc had set it on the com, uncapped it again and carefully pored his back in. “You need to save that. We got parts to buy, so the budget’s gonna be tight around here.”

“You don’t think Tarik would listen to any of that shit.” Doc said. “You know that boy thinks of you as his father. You’re lookin’ at this wrong. Maybe he can take some of the poison out of her head.”

“Just keep an eye on him, then.” Skylar pushed to his feet. “I’m going to gonna grab some sleep.  Wake me for lunch.”

Doc watched him leave. Chaperoning teenagers. Sure, cuz that never went sideways. Still, she had to admit, if only to herself, that Sky was not wrong to be freaked out. Humans First! Weren’t just a boatload of crazy xenophobs, they were a well-armed and moderately organized boatload of crazy that weren’t interested in keeping up sane appearances. 

Day Eight: Two. More. Pages. Of something completely different.

So, here's this week's first page. Well, it's two pages, but you know.... So it's from a space opera I've been working on... Sorta, with Loren Rhoads, who is the Queen Of Getting Me In Trouble.

So the story is called Drifter, and it's about the crew of the Panacea, who come across a derelict ship, just floating along in space, the middle of relative night. Well, the crew are pretty honest when they can be, but how can you just let all those perfectly good parts go? Of course they find more on the ship than parts..... And new boots.

This scene is towards the end. Tarik is a member of the crew and Raena is on the run from the Empire. You may remember Tarik, and certainly Raena from Loren's trilogy, In the Wake of the Templars. (If you don't, start with the first one, The Dangerous Type. they're awesome and you won't regret it!)  Here they are teenagers, having just met. Poor Tarik is younger, and has barely spoken to a girl before.....

“I gotta a buncha brothers and sisters.” Tarik said before he thought it through.

Raena gave him a half smile. “A bunch? Where are they now?”

Tarik looked out the port, habit from left over from home, when he could tell time by the slant of the sun. It was the only thing he missed. Almost. He’d been on the Plague for only a year, but he already knew he never wanted dirt under his boots again. “There…. Were seven of us. All working the Coalition base on APLANET . We were loading the Panacea when the Imps hit the port.” He rubbed his eyes. “My sister gave me her blaster and sealed me into the hold with the supplies. She said one of them would find me.”

He left off the rest.

“I have a sister.” Raena said. “She would have done that for me too.”

“Yeah.” Tarik stuck a smile on his face and put his siblings to the back of his brain. “Even if you wished she didn’t.”

“Defiantly.”

Then they were both silent. Tarik wanted to apologize. Instead he said, “So do you play-----?”

Raena snorted. “Can I win credit off you?”

“Shaa.” Tarik scoffed. “You c’n try. Like I have any credit.”

The game they play here, and then:

“Do you think your sister survived?”

That caught him off guard. Sky and Doc didn’t talk about the past much. Not theirs, not his. Tarik had picked up the trick. Somehow Raena made him want to feel like he’d come from somewhere again. He shrugged. “Well, she didn’t have a blaster.”

There was a pause. Tarik really hoped Raena wouldn’t tell him the odds or worse, call Taryn a traitor to the Empire. Tarik knew that Raena might think it, but saying it would ruin his chance of making her into a friend. “No. I don’t think any of them survived the attack.”

That wasn’t what he told Doc. Not ever. Doc would never forgive herself for not saving all of them. She needed him to be hopeful, but Tarik wasn’t stupid. His family was dead. The Empire didn’t take grunts prisoner, why would they? No. Tarik knew that they were just extra weight.

“I’m sorry,” Raena said.

Again, he shrugged. “We grew up in the cause. We knew the risks. I just never thought I’d be the only one left.”

She smiled at him, and Tarik wondered if she understood. Who had she lost? Her sister? What about her parents? He hoped, if he talked, she might tell him something about herself. But she revealed nothing at all. So he smiled back. “I guess I just think now that I’m living on borrowed time. I should dead, like they are.”

“Then I’d be dead too.”

His smile widened. “Hope you don’t hold that against me too much.”

Day four: Now it's all out of order.... Sigh.

Okay, same story, but the scene before the previous ones. Yep, that's right. Just how it comes out. This is Adella. She's a Doctor, and Leslie's companion. She does not approve of his new job, and they've been arguing about it. And then this happens. Hopefully at some point I can put some description and stuff in there to make it less..... Well, less like this.... Also this one's a bit more like two pages... So, yay. I'm ahead of the deal!

“In the meantime you’re Vicktor’s attack dog.”  She folded her arms around herself and turned away from him.

Les swallowed. Taking credit off people for “protection” was despicable and he knew it. It was who he used to be. He had no defense against her argument. He could tell her that Vicktor had threatened her life, and that made it different this time. But he knew that would only make her angrier.

“I’m going out.” Adella announced in his silent.

“Let me go with.”

“No.” Her voice was flat. “If we are to stay here I need to learn the lay of the place. And I shan’t need you to protect me.”

Les sighed, watching her open her meds bag to draw her derringer out and then tuck it into the hidden pocket in her skirt. No. She didn’t need him, he thought as she settled her hat onto her hair and drew a shimmery silver shawl around her shoulders. Adella had never needed him. It was him that needed her.

Adella made her way down the stairs of the clapboard office/jail/living quarters that she would share with Leslie for as long as it took. She stepped onto the passwalk that twisted through the warren of other such shopfronts and dwellings that made up the Tembrous market. Would it shock Leslie to know that this was far from her first trip into this place? She smiled. He was so ashamed of his past that he never stopped to think that she might also have one that she wasn’t proud of.

What would he think of her, if he knew the things she had done in the name of medicine while she was at university? Back then, she’d been young, and the only woman in a sea of men. She’d been eager to prove herself equal.

She pushed the regret aside. With all of Leslie’s, there was hardly room for Adella’s too. She turned off the main path onto a narrow crowded row where the air was closer, filled with the calls of caged birds and small animals. This was the heart of Tembrous. And Adella knew she was looking or a shop with no cages at all.

It wasn’t hard to find. It hulked at the dead end of the run, it was a full structure, like Leslie’s office. It was a somber black, with curtained windows. There was no sign it indicate what went on within, but Adella already knew.

Inside was shadowy as well. No surprise there. This was surely the darkest part of the market. As Adella stepped over the threshold she caught the faint sweet scent of copper pennies. She paused to let her eyes adjust and found the front room empty. It looked like a parlor, or she thought, a waiting room. There was thick carpet beneath her feet and wingback chairs gathered around a little table.

She sunk one hand into her pocket to find the comforting shape of her pistol and reached for the bell on the counter. Its chime cut the silence and triggered movement in the room beyond.

“Hello.” She made her voice cheerful, but didn’t take her hand off the grip of her pistol.

The curtain drew back and a young man stepped through. He had a smooth, luminous face. As he drew closer she notices that his eyes were red.

Not as young as he looked then, she corrected herself. It also accounted for the faint smell of blood about the place. “Pardon, Missus.” His voice was deep, velvety. “I was caught up in work.”

“Doctor.” She corrected him, lifting her chin to meet the hellfire eyes. “Doctor Adella Fordham.” She did not offer her hand. “I’ve come to inquire about the auction.”                            

He settled behind the counter and smiled, teeth white and stark in the murk. “Forgive me, but I don’t know what auction you’re referring to. This is simply a supply company.”

Day Three. Don't Look!!

Here's how much I trust you guys. This is page two. Yep. This , his where I reveal myself as a true.... What do the kids call it now? Pantser. It should be evident that I:  A, have no idea what's going to happen as I'm writing this thing, and B  Have absolutely no qualms about breaking the precarious PLOT that I do have floating around in there. I promise that when I figure out how this all works out, it'll make so much more sense..... Oh. when Les thinks about the beast, it's his werewolf. There, you go......    

Leslie felt the crack of his nose breaking on contact. Pain flashed across his vision and he returned the blow on instinct. Cabbot staggered back, but didn’t go down. He shook his head and spit a mouthful of blood out on the floor. Then he charged Les, catching him low. The force sent the both crashing through the thin wall of the shack.

They exploded in a heap, Les on the bottom. He tasted copper at the back of his throat, but the beast made the pain fleeting. He was already healing. He flung Cabbot off and got to his feet. Then he hauled the other man up too. There was a thin crowd gathering, and Les knew he had to end this before they decided to join in.  “I’d prefer to come to a civil solution. However, if you insist on continuing this violence, I will oblige you. But you should consider that you’ve already got all the licks in you’re going to.”

His next blow was lower, and he caught Cabbot as he doubled over.

Now that his face was on the mend, Leslie remembered to hold back. It still wasn’t close to a fair fight, but Les didn’t want to kill Cabbot.

In fact, he realized as he turned loose of the man, he’d make a fair ally against Vic. And as thought came to him, Cabbot clocked him again, hard.  “Wait,” He put his hands up, open. “This is no way to negotiate.”

“That’s not what this is, son,” Cabbot laughed. “This is me beating you down.”

Les felt the eyes of the crowd on him, and he knew he couldn’t be seen backing down on his first day. “You’re mistaken.” He said, pulling his pistol clear of the holster. “This is me, getting what I came for. One way or another. Now. Don’t be a fool.”

Day Two of the Page a Day Challenge. 300 wordsish makes up a page.

I promised to stick three pages up a week. Oh, I'll write seven, but c'mon. Even I don't want to read some of that. I don't know what all the pages will be, since I'm working on a couple of different things, but here's one from the Neo-Victorian novel that I'm middling my way through. It's near the end of the middle, and it's the prelude to a fist fight. It is almost entirely as it is from my notebook. So, um.... Well, here it is.......

Les was not pleased at the number of names on his list. Twelve shopkeeps this week would need convincing. Twelve.

He hoped that his size would be all the convincing they would need to pay up.

He wondered what Adella was doing. It was just as well she wasn’t here to see him set off to begin his duties. She wanted to believe he was better than Vicktor—so did Les, but the truth was they had been the same once, and the bad man still lived in Leslie, no matter how deeply buried. He wanted to leave it buried, but he knew if he wanted to kill Vicktor, he couldn’t.

So he set out to find his the first name on his list.

“Afternoon, Mr….” Les paused to consult is list. “Cabbot, is it?”

The man rose from is chair and stood eye to eye with Les. “It is.” He answered. “Who’s askin’”

“You can call me Mr Fordham. I’m here on behalf of our mutual friend, Mr. Ketchem.”

“No friend o’ mine.” The other man’s eyes narrowed to slit.  “And neither are you, if you’re his man. I’ve no interest in what he’s sellin’.”

Les smiled sharp and said, “You’ve already bought it. Now Mr Ketchem needs his cred.”

Cabbot looked Leslie up and down and laughed. “Or what?”

Leslie stepped closer to Cabbot. He widened his smile to show teeth. He did not what to be this man again, yet he was slipping into the role quick. “Or I go to work. And then you pay.”

“I don’t need protection from the likes of you or him.” Cabbot told him. As he spoke, he caught hold of Leslie’s right forearm, gripping hard enough to prevent him from side-stepping the punch.

So here's the thing: I might be crazy.....

My friend Melodie Bolt posted a thing on Facebook about how she was going to write at least one page a day in August. That seems okay. I mean, it's a page. It doesn't have to be good, right?
As it happens, I'm having a little bit of a problem getting stuff on paper lately. I mean, the summer's been great, and I've been selling books--no, I know I ALWAYS sell books, at the book store, but this time I'm selling my book. That's weirder than I had anticipated. Great, but weird.
But I've had problems concentrating lately. After Black Light, I couldn't find my way back into my actual work in progress.
This week, though, was my annual trip to Gilchrist Retreat Center with my oldest best friend, Loren Rhoads.  I was really looking forward to it, but....  I was really scared that I wouldn't write  anything. The first day went badly. I couldn't stop thinking about bills that waited at home, about work, and general crap that was stacking up. I was so stressed that when I sat in my little cedar back porch with my notebook  I kept falling asleep mid-word. Maybe I was starting to get Alzheimer's?  I couldn't keep any thoughts in my head. I went out, took pictures of butterflies and decided that I was done with writing.
Luckily, Loren brought a bottle of wine over, and talked me out of that. And told me where to go next in the book. Thank Goodness.
I'm not done. And of course, Gilchrist is my favorite place to write, it's so beautiful and peaceful. I feel like I can breath there when sometimes it's hard to in the world.
So.... Remember what I was saying about Melodie and the page-a-day challenge? I said, hey, me too, almost without thinking. I mean, the pages in my notebook are pretty little. How hard could it be?
I better make it harder. Well, not for me, exactly.
So here's what gonna happen. I'm going to write a page a day.... Well hopefully more than that. And I'm going to pick out three of them a week and stick them up here, as well as into the book. No, not every one of them. That would be crazy.
But I can do three.
So I'll see you next week.

What is goin' on?

One the the weird/cool things that has happened since the book came out is that people have asked me a whole bunch of questions that I don't usually get. Okay, I'll be honest, nobody's ever asked me anything about what  write before. I did, over the last month, a series of interviews about  Black Light, and about writing in general.  I thought I'd put the links in below.

Shels Walter asked me about nail polish, and music. Coreena McBurnie wanted to know, pants or plot. I bet you know which one I chose, right?  Fiona McVie let me talk about religious experiences. And Terrie Leigh asked me about the nature of writing. 

Also I was interviewed by the Flushing View, which is my home town newspaper. This, out of anything else I've done in my life would have made my mother proud. 

Oh, hey, and my writing group, Flint Area Writers, has a swank new website, created by the amazing Melodie Bolt. You should totally go look at it and find out what the rest o FAW is up to.

So that was my June. July started with the signing, which I may have mentioned, at my B&N, and it's going to end with a trip to Gilchrist with my oldest best friend, Loren Rhoads, for writing and wine an lots and lots of quiet. I can't wait for that. 

Black Light: Loren Rhoads, David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust.

I didn’t begin this story alone. In 1983, Loren Rhoads was my best friend. She still is, though we’re separated now by the width of the country. But back then our world was MTV. It was Adam Ant and the Police. It was used records from Saturday trips to Ann Arbor. And most of all it was David Bowie. It was the year of “Let’s Dance.”

With his bleached white hair, asymmetrical smile and deceptively bouncy pop music, this was a vastly different Bowie than I’d met years before in the middle of the night. That shrill and jagged Bowie that had been there no one else was. Still, since I was aspiring punk rocker, I might have given Let’s Dance a pass. But it was inescapable, spilling out of every car window that passed my open bedroom window that summer. And what it did for both Loren and I was lead us to the past. I remember that Loren bought albums. She bought all the Bowie she could.  We listened to Diamond Dogs on her stereo in her bedroom, puzzled over the lyrics, let the imagery color our imaginations. For Loren, Diamond Dogs was a starting point for short stories. For me, it was farther back. For me it was Ziggy. “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”. Trace, Asia, Weird and Tommy were all born from that album. But the story, Trace and Asia’s story, began with one song.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UQvBzo_rJA

In the words of “Lady Stardust," I saw Asia, standing in that sweaty, hungry crowd, listening. I watched him feel what he could never say aloud, and I felt him lose the chance to ever speak up. Asia became the unnamed character in Bowie’s story for me. And then it became a different story. The membes of Black Light are from Michigan, because we were from Michigan, they are from the ‘80’s because so were we. Asia became a place to hold all my feelings of Midwestern repression. Ziggy became Trace; beautiful, and human, but completely unattainable. Even now when I listen to the Ziggy Stardust album it's full of energy and bravado, still a candle against the night.

Eventually, Loren's writing and mine took different paths. She has gone on to write more than anyone I know, and you can check out her blog here: httpp//:lorenrhoads.com/  

In fact, go look at her newest novel, Lost Angels, co-written with Brian Thomas: http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Angels-Above-Below-Book/dp/0963679422  It's an amazing book, and you need a copy, believe me. 

She's still the only person in the world who I can spend five hour in the same room with, just writing....with occasional tea breaks. And I don't think I'll ever be able to thank her enough for that first copy of Ziggy..... 

I have a book coming out!!! It's called Black Light)

I don't know if you have noticed or not, but..... I have a book coming out!! Black Light is coming out in May, which is terrifyingly close. To say I'm excited is just a huge understatement. I'm in shock, that the day is almost here.  I have lived with these characters for so long in my head that they've seeped into my bones. Once the book was finished, I missed not spending every waking second with them, but now they're front in center again. And the best part is that I can share them with you. I can't wait for you to meet Trace and Asia, and the rest of the members of the band.

Here the link to add it to your Goodreads list!

First lines in the dying days of January

So my friend Loren Rhoads tagged me. She recently wrote a blog that included the first lines of everything she is working on now. Whoa, she is way amore ambitious than me!  Go take a look. But anyway, she tagged the rest of us to do that same. So, here goes my stuff:

The book I'm revising about a rock and roll band in 1983 and a psychic vampire is called The Black Light: Trace stands in the wings backstage at the Refugee Club, a narrow shadow.

So, then there's the short story about same psychic vampire's youth, called Knives: I light a fresh cigarette off the butt of the dying one before crushing it into the tray set in the door of the car.

And of course there's The Night Was Not, which is the NeoVictorian third gender romance that I'm stuck in the middle of: Kerry Hazard slid into the pilot's seat of the Starshine as he toggled the print switch on the com console. 

Yep. There you have it. Or at least there you have some of it. I'm not a very fast writer, and some of these things I've  been working on for quite a while. I'm trying to write more every day, and faster too. I'll never be one of those writers who can write ten thousand words a day. But  I think I'm ready to get to the ends of at least these things. Wish me luck.

So, I'll ask the question of the other writers I know: What are your first lines? 

The things I (would have) left behind

My best friend and I have always written. We've known each other and have shared our stories for over thirty years. We have lived on opposite sides of the country for almost two thirds of that time, and of course become different people than we were as kids. We've had different lives, but writing has always been the constant.

She asked me, a while ago if she could use a character of mine in a new story she was writing. She would change his name, and the setting, of course, but she wanted to know if it was alright with me if he made an appearance.

I didn't know what to say. I was more than happy to let her have him. I wasn't doing anything with him, that was for sure.  When she began to talk about what role he would play in this new story of hers, I was hit with a wave of uncertainty, as though I was falling back into who I was all those years ago. I was jealous of her new idea, of the writer she was. I felt awful. She had improved her writing so much since then, why was I still struggling with every word?

I wanted to protect what was mine, but I also wanted to let him go. I wanted to see what she did with him. Of the two of us, I had more faith in her than I did in me, to complete the story.

So I gave up my seventeen year old self who felt inferior, and angry about being inferior. That was the first thing, and it wasn't easy. Then I decided to try to be as much help as I could. Not only because she is my best friend, but because I knew I would learn things along the way.

She did finish the book, and my character, who is a relatively minor one, is also one of the heroes. He comes across as a guy who is just doing the best he can while trying to stay as deceit as he can. He's perfect, but he's also not mine anymore. He's one facet of my character, as seen through her eyes, so reading him was so much more fun than I ever expected.

There was another unexpected bonus. She got me thinking about those stories we wrote back then. I decided it might be time for me to start telling my version. I could write that character from the present, with all the things I've learned since we were kids added in. I haven't stayed in the same place, I've moved forward, I've just moved differently. I wanted a story that reflected that, even if only to myself.

The result is the novel I'm working on now, called “The Night Was Not.” It's a neo-Victorian story. This incarnation of the character is called Kerry Hazard. He flies an airship, and is called back to the city of his childhood by an ominous message from a friend. It's a very different story from my friend's novel, which is a space opera (yay!), but the character came from the same place. He was born in the back of a notebook, scribbled in while lying on either of our bedroom floors in the middle of the night. It's where he would have stayed if she hadn't picked him up again. 

Stuff That's Happening (and a little tiny rant)

This is usually where I share stuff that my other writer friends have going on. And there's a bunch of stuff going on. My friend Kacey Vanderkarr's first book in her trilogy, Reflection Pond is FREE on Kindle right now. If you don't already have it, go here:http://www.amazon.com/Reflection-Pond-Kacey-Vanderkarr-ebook/dp/B00JCZ8V8M 

I'm not kidding you should read this book. And then leave a review. 

And my friend Loren Rhoads is having a goodreads give-a-way for the book she wrote with Brian Thomas, As Above, So Below. You should enter to win here : https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/123716-as-above-so-below And then you know, if you win, read it and leave a review. 

And always, there's Out of the Green, Yep, it's right over the the right of you. If you haven't gotten your copy, seriously what are you waiting for? Not only does it include stories by the aforementioned  authors, but also a story by me, and ten others, all with their unique view of fairy. If you're around my area, I can fix you up with a copy,  no need to wait. If not, well you know where it's available. And once you've read it..... You know what I'm going to say, right? Yep. Leave a review......

Maybe you're sensing a common theme here. The "leave a review" part? yeah. Stephen King once said something like, the writer and the reader are in partnership. One doesn't exist without the other. I'm paraphrasing, but I believe it's true. When you write a story, a novel, a poem, it's not meant to sit on your desk, or in a drawer. It needs a reader. Or, to be honest, it needs a bunch of readers. I write so that I can find out what happens in the end. I hope that people read my stories for the same reason, to find out what happens in the end. To be relieved, or heartbroken at how it plays out. 

This is what makes the Internet a wonderful and terrible place. Now readers are more accessible than ever. And that's fantastic. But it there's no feedback, the words you put out may as well be sitting in that drawer..... 

The truth is that putting books out online, whether electronically or as traditional books, is a word-of-mouth game of selling. Kindle rates books on their reader reviews and that can make or break an indie author. So if you enjoy an author, and leave a review, it does two things. One: it puts another of their books into your hands(kindle ranking and all that). Two: you tell that author that it's working, that yes, the novel you sweated over worked for me. It touched me and I identified with it. Believe me, to a writer, sitting in some cafe somewhere alone with their computer, that's huge. 

Oh! And before I forget, I have a new short story up on Wattpad that you can read for free! (@MarthaAllard). It's my lesbian genie story. I actually really like it..... If you like it.....um.... feel free to leave a comment....... 

The New Year (viewed with dread and glitter)

I'm a little late with the "Last Year In Writing" post, aren't I? Well, actually, this might be my first one.
Last year was..... Complicated. It wasn't all bad. I got to go to Gilchrist twice. That was great. My nephew graduated from High School without giving his mother or me a fatal heart attack.  That was fantastic. My Dad is still hanging on with us, and I'm grateful for that.
Also, we published Out Of the Green (available on bn.com and Amazon.com), and I'm fond of the stories in it. I had a great time writing mine. I wrote two other short stories that have yet to find a home. One's a post-apocalyptic lesbian djin story. Yeah, okay, that one might be hard to find a market for.... And the other... Well the other is an Asia story. I haven't decided what to do with that one yet.
I know I promised to have a book out by late fall last year, didn't I? Well, it's a little late too, (cover issues plus just plain too much life-intrusion) but don't forget about it! It's still coming.
The first two weeks of the new year, though, are for the novel I'm working on right now.  I'm working that subplot.
So, while life isn't perfect (I work in a hell hole, still, and home is really prickly at the moment), I'm working on it. I wish I could be the kind of writer that had big lovely announcements at year's end, but for me, this works for right now.

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