Author Archives: L.P. Masters

L.P. Masters is the writer of over two hundred books...which have not been published yet. She is also the author of The Afterdeath series, the first book of which will be available November 2016. She draws anything from stick figures to artistic masterpieces, she gardens, (with likewise varying degrees of luck,) snowboards when she has enough money, and loves to spend time with family. (She also abhors the use of parenthetical comments but inexplicably cannot stop using them.)

Dear Dr. Stoddard

This month when I went to my Spokane Fiction Writer’s Group, we had the prompt to write something  epistolary, (Meaning in the form of a letter.) It’s always fun to hear what other people come up with. One of the members of the group wrote his story in the form of an email to a ghost specialist. Another person brought in a cute little story about a guy studying for his thesis, who gets a note in a thick research book that he always uses at the library. Someone wrote a note asking him to go to coffee with her, and then he responded all too logically. There was great humor in the piece, and I loved the ending.

My story was a collection of emails sent between two researchers, and I’ll share that with you.

 

Dear Dr Stoddard,

We tried out a new serum today. HV-451. The results were quite promising. I do hope you can take a moment to look over the data. I still have a few questions about how the RNA reacts in the third test subject. I’ve attached the findings for your review.

By the way, we’ve all been missing you terribly in the lab. The guys say it isn’t the same without you. I hope you’ll be able to come back to work soon.

-Dr. Martha Harward

Attch: HV-451 test subject results

 

Dear Dr Harward,

Good work on the serum. I ran a full diagnostic on the test results and have attached my findings. You missed a few things. But that’s okay. We’ll get there eventually, despite my absence.

-Dr. James W. Stoddard, PhD

Attch: HV-451 diagnostic findings

 

Dear Dr Stoddard,

Brilliant interpretation. I never would have thought to isolate the double helix. We tried that today and were rewarded with spectacular results!

The excitement in the lab was palpable. You would have loved to have been here.

-Dr Martha Harward

Attch: Isolated Double Helix Findings

 

Dear Dr Harward,

I’ve known for a while now that we needed to isolate the double helix. It’s a little disappointing that you and the guys haven’t tried that by now. Time is of the essence, you realize that. We’re not playing games here. This is life and death.

-Dr. James W. Stoddard, PhD

 

Dear Dr Stoddard

I do realize that. I’m sorry. We’re doing the best we can. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be enough. No findings of note to report today.

Dear Dr Stoddard,

Still nothing of interest.

 

Dear Dr Stoddard,

A few findings for you to look over.

-Dr. Martha Harward

Attch: HV-764 test subject results

 

Dear Dr Stoddard,

I haven’t heard back from you in several days. I do hope you are feeling well.

 

Dear Dr Harward,

I apologize for my absence. I haven’t been feeling well at all. Keep up the good work. Lives depend on this research.

 

Dear Dr Stoddard,

I’m sorry. It was inappropriate of me to show up at your home unannounced. I know you said you were fine, but I couldn’t help but notice the rash. How long have you been infected, and why have you told no one? We could have been helping you. You should be at the hospital! The world needs you, James, and you can’t be so careless. Go get admitted, this instant!

-Martha

 

Dear Dr Harward… Martha, how I’ve longed to tell you that I’m infected, but so are millions of other individuals. I knew it would only worry you, and you need your focus. My life, and the lives of so many others, rest in your beautiful hands now. All I can do is make every effort to crack this serum before it’s too late. Here at home I can help with that. I have the tools and resources I need here, but not at the hospital. I’ve been taking care of myself the best that I can, the best that anyone can. And you know as well as I that being at the hospital will do me no good. There is no cure. Not yet. Finding that is up to you and I.

Thank you for coming, Martha. Under happier circumstances, I would have invited you in out of the cold. I would have loved to let you stay. As it is, Please don’t come to my house again. I can’t risk you getting infected. I couldn’t bear it.

-James

 

Dear James,

We will find this cure, I promise you. How far along are you? How much time do you have left?

 

Dear Martha,

I believe in you. I don’t want to tell you how far along I am. All I can say is that it might be too late for me already. If not for me, find the cure for everyone else. This work is greater than just one man’s life.

 

Dear James,

No. For you. AND for everyone else. Here are today’s findings. We’re close, James. Just hold on. You MUST hold on.

Attch: HV-846

 

James? Did you receive the attachment?

 

James? Please respond.

 

Dear James,

We’ve found it. We’ve found the cure. It works.

I’m heading to your place right now.

 

Martha,

Don’t come. too fargone. no hopes for me. i’m sorry.

 

Dear Dr Brown,

Please keep me apprised of Dr Stoddard’s condition. I should very much like to know when I will be able to visit him.

-Dr Martha Harward

 

Dear Dr Harward,

The patient is no longer infectious. Visitation is possible at any time. But I must warn you, his condition is not very favorable. I’m sorry to say the prognosis is not good. I have contacted his next of kin about their wishes for him. They are not in favor of artificially prolonging his life.

-Dr. Frank Brown

 

Dear James,

This is the last day of your life. Even though I know there will never be a response to this email, I have to put it out there. I can’t help but feel that I’m responsible for all of this. If I had just worked harder, if I had seen those results sooner, you wouldn’t be in the hospital on life support, your family wouldn’t be gathering around you, ready to disconnect everything. They say it happens tomorrow. The world loses a brilliant scientist, but not only that, a good man. It’s so unfair! Everything is so unfair! I can’t stand this, James. The thought of them killing you tomorrow, taking you off of life support when there’s so much…

I loved you, James. I’ve loved you for years! And now they’ve taken you away from me.

I’m so sorry, James. Please forgive me!

Love, Martha

 

Dear Martha,

They tells me you kills yourself. you does it to soon. doesn’t wait for final answer. they taked me off life support and i breathed on my own. i never can be sciensist again. feel dumb as rocks, really. but will live, and now must live alone. say you loved me for years, but then go and do something like this?

so beautiful, dear Martha, and brilliant. but stupid. how very stupid.

suppose i shouldn’t be mad at you. just sad and angry that you took yourself away from me. Hurts, Martha. Hurts real bad.

Love Jim Stoddard

Update

It seems like I do a semi-annual update. Right around November, because NaNoWriMo,  and then halfway through the year I think, “Boy, it’s been six months.”

So this year, I won NaNoWriMo again. Somehow. I mean, take a look at those stats. I have NO idea how I won. Actually, I do. My husband essentially locked me in a closet for the last three days of the month and made me word war myself until my brains were fried.

NaNoMercyStatsGraph

But I won! That makes nine years in a row. Quite a few of them have crazy graphs like this year. But not very many made me write 20,000 words in three days. That’s what I did this year. I was really afraid I wouldn’t make it, and I’ve been trying to get a ten year streak, (And 10 for 10 at attempting NaNo).

I’ve got some good reasons, (really good reasons) for falling as far behind as I did this year. It’s my first year doing NaNo with 3 kids. We moved halfway through the month, (see that flatline right in the middle of the month? Yeah, that’s called Death by Moving) and then we had to clean up, (VERY clean) the house we were in so it could be put on the market, (which caused my second flatline, the Death by Cleaning one.)

Well, and then my dog had puppies.

And I agreed to do a cover for the Spokane Fiction Writer’s Group Anthology.

See? Isn't it pretty?

See? Isn’t it pretty?

Oh, and I decided to make Thanksgiving dinner, (a week after thanksgiving, because I was too busy cleaning.) Trust me. If you’re going to do Thanksgiving dinner late because you’ve been too busy to do it on the traditional day, just push it back to December. It’s going to make everyone so much happier.

So what did I fill my time up with when I was actually writing? My project this year was the second book of the Mercy McNary trilogy. The first book I wrote last year, second this year, so the plan is to do book three next year. I was happy how book two turned out, especially since I knew what I wanted for book one when I wrote it last year, and I know what I want for book three that I’m doing next year, but I had no idea what would happen in book two.  The characters apparently did. So that’s good. I got about 2/3rds done with the book, so still a little more work to do on it, most likely during Camp NaNo.

Now that it’s December, I’ve gone back to revising Point of Death, which is the second book in the Afterdeath series, the first one has already been published, and everyone’s waiting for this one! Some people probably thought it was unfair of me to take a month off to write about Mercy McNary, but I think it was a good thing. It will really help out in the end. Sometimes taking a break from a project makes it go much faster.

So that’s what has been going on with me. I have a short story titled Landmark of Bones in the new SFWG anthology, which is actually available now. I also plan to publish a fun little short story I wrote this summer, as soon as I find the time to finish the edits and make a cover for it.

Sandemonium and Slavery’s Circle

So I attended my first Comic-con this last week. It was so much fun. I saw goat-people and cow-people. I saw superheroes and villains. Some very, very cool steampunk people, (I keep thinking I need to write steampunk, cause it’s SO cool). And, of course, I saw Darth Vader, (Maybe the coolest costume there.)

DarthVader

One thing the good people at Sandemonium got, was a first peek at my next publication, Slavery’s Circle. While I still am working on Point of Death–the second book in the Afterdeath series–things are going a little more slowly with the revisions than I’d like. Slavery’s Circle has been playing in my head like a movie, though, so I’ve been flying through it. Here’s a little blurb about Slavery’s Circle: Sylah Lessieg, is blissfully ignorant about her life in the frozen mines on Barren. After all, she was born for this kind of work. Genetically enhanced to withstand the most extreme conditions.

When a few dangerous accidents turn out to not be accidents at all, her blissful life in the mines might be nearing an end. And perhaps it’s not as perfect as she first thought. She’s starting to realize she’s nothing but a slave, and she can’t remember anything about her life or her past. That’s a problem, because Tiger–the man who wants her dead–is trying to kill her for something she used to know.

Escaping the mine is just the first step she must take in regaining her life, and figuring out what secrets she once held. If she can’t stop Tiger from carrying out his plans, then millions of people will be enslaved just like her.

I’m so excited to get this book done and ready for people to read. And, speaking of reading… the audiobook version of An Acceptable Future will be out next week. I love the way the narrator, Jack Voraces, read the book. I’ve taken a little break from all the publishing and things like that, (Let’s call it maternity leave,) but things are getting back on track now, so look forward to some exciting announcements in the upcoming weeks and months!

And above all else, have fun, and enjoy the writing.

NaNoWriMo… And A Bunch of Anthologies

It’s NaNo time! Time to get away from all the pressures and stresses of life, kick back, put your feet up on the coffee table and do nothing but write, all day and all night.

HAHAHA!

Never mind. I’m running around crazy and am lucky if I can get 20 minutes to work on my new novel. Not to mention I’ve got my hand in about every other pie I can stick it in. But, hey, that’s life, and that’s what makes it fun.

This year for NaNoWriMo, (Write 50,000 words in one month. Come on people, you should know this by now. :-P) I am taking a break from all the editing of my other works, and creating a brand new novel, the first in a trilogy. The novel is titled Mercy McNary, (And I have to tell you the names of the other two, because they’re so cool.) The second novel will be called No Mercy, and the third and final will be For Mercy’s Sake. It’s going to be a while before all three of them are done. They are likely to be my NaNo projects for the next 3 years, because it seems like November is the only time I ever get any actual Writing done anymore.

The trilogy, however, is about a woman named Mercy McNary, who happens to be a mercenary. One of the best, actually. When she gets sent to the rural world of Rostim to complete a long list of assassinations, she ends up meeting Jeremiah Justice… Who makes her start wondering if there’s a better life for her. But retiring from being the kind of mercenary that Mercy is, well, that’s not as simple as giving your two weeks notice.

The book is coming along well so far. I’m certainly having a lot of fun with it, and I’m looking forward to this month’s project. It’s not the only thing I’ve been involved with right now, though.

Saturday night I had the pleasure of attending a reading of the Spokane County Library’s anthology, Spokane Writes. My short story, “Tipson and the Wedding,” was included in the anthology, and I had a great time reading it to the group that was gathered there.

As my life normally goes, I can’t have only one thing happening at a time, so I’m also very involved in getting the Spokane Fiction Writer’s Group’s next anthology out. The title is “Get There,” and I’m involved in creating the cover again. That is due to come out later this month.

And I published my own little anthology of my own work. (I guess that’s called a collection, but hey, we’re on the topic of anthologies here.) It’s called What You Want To See, and it’s a collection of kind of creepy short stories that I put out for Halloween this year. I think it’s a great read. I’m too much of a chicken to get into anything really horror-genre, but I do love something a little creepy, so if you’re like me and don’t want blood and guts, it’s a good collection to read, (Says the Author. :D)

And that’s about it, other than being neck deep in projects, cleaning, kids lives, appointments, Snow, (yes, neck deep) and paid work, that’s all I’ve really been up to! LOL

So Have fun, and enjoy the writing.

Another thought on “perfection”

I should have a “perfection” category on my blog. I’ve had a lot of posts related to those. The reason is that I want things to be perfect in my writing, but I know I can’t have that.

I go to a monthly writer’s group where we often will write a short piece and share it with the group, get feedback on it, etc. We keep the writing under 2,000 words, so it’s a nice easy writing exercise, at least for me. I love short pieces. But in the month between when we decide what we’re going to write, and when I actually share it with the group, I probably read and edit it at least three or four times. I go to the group and share it, hoping to get lots of good feedback and suggestions on how to improve it and most often what I get is this kind of stunned silence and a general, “That’s really good” comment. It sometimes frustrates me because I look at it and see all the problems. That’s my biggest stumbling block when it comes to publishing stories. I keep reworking them because I never feel like they’re perfect.

nobody-is-perfect-688365_640

I recently had an incredible experience in regards to this. One of my writing friends, Julia Ward, just published her first book. Every writer talks about how their novel is their baby. Well if Julia’s novel was her baby, I was the novel’s Auntie. I was there through the writing stage of the book, the editing stage of the book, the “why did I write this? It’s awful!” stage of the book, the “Oh wait, there are a few funny parts. Actually, this is pretty good,” stage of the book and finally the, “Holy crap, I’m just about to hit the publish button!” stage of the book. Through the whole thing, I saw that endless struggle for perfection, that endless self-doubt that she would ever be able to reach it. It was the same kind of feeling I had when working on my first novel, the same kind of doubt that it would be any good.

When the novel came out, I picked up my copy and started reading. It was cute, it was fun, it was funny. It wasn’t perfect, but I really didn’t care. I enjoyed it, and I was glad I had it to read. And it made me realize that, yes, I strive to make my novel the best it can be, and that struggle makes it such a much more enjoyable read to someone else, but I will never get it perfect, and I don’t need to, because people want to be transported to some other world, some other life, and as long as the imperfections aren’t extremely distracting, they’re happy to read what has been written.

If you’re interested in Julia’s debut novel, go check it out It really is a great read. (And I’m not biased, being the novel’s Auntie.)

Have fun, and enjoy the writing.

Inside “It Gets Darker”

Guest Blog Post

Today is kind of a special day. I get to post my first guest blog post! My post last month was all about how I designed the cover for It Gets Darker. This month, Lorna M. Hartman is talking about how she laid out the book interior. It’s a great post, and I definitely learned a thing or two just from reading it. Here are a couple pictures I took of the interior layout of the book. (I was not at all biased in which story I decided to post a picture of… hint, hint, L.P. Masters is the best.)

ItGetsDarker

Front page of a story

ItGetsDarker2

Author Bio of one story, and front page of another

So now that you know what the inside looks like, and without further distractions from me, I’ll let you get to Lorna’s post.

Inside It Gets Darker: Laying Out the Book Interior

Lorna M. Hartman (www.LornaHartman.com)

To lay out the interior of a book appears straightforward. Drop in the text, some page numbers, add chapter titles and a table of contents. Piece of cake.

Here’s where I (obviously) say it’s not as easy as it looks. This shortened version of the process gives you a bird’s-eye view of a book layout project.

To prepare for It Gets Darker’s print layout, I read the entire book. There’s no other way to get the feel and flavor of the book, and the layout must reflect that as well as harmonize with the book’s cover. Emails flew back and forth as the group decided on their story order and sent me their author bios.

I’d originally received the chapters in separate Word files from the members of Spokane Fiction Writers Group who wrote for this anthology, but It Gets Darker author Erik Schubach (www.ErikSchubach.com) later sent me a single long text file he’d created to use in his design of the e-book.

Since e-books start with a fully stripped-down file, this was helpful. When starting the print book layout with this file, I didn’t have to deal with variations in font sizes, random indents, and other surprises.

While the others worked on their parts of the book, I laid out a single chapter in Adobe InDesign and tried out different fonts and artwork. I chose to use spiky artwork to go with the book cover font, which is called Dark11 (find it at UrbanFonts). The spiky circular swirl art at the beginning of each chapter worked better than any other option.

After I landed on a good visual look for the chapter, I used the pieces of that chapter to set up Styles for the whole book. A single Style is a set of formatting details used for a specific recurring piece of the book, such as a chapter title: the font, font size, alignment, and so on.

For example, the Body Text style for It Gets Darker is 12-point Minion Pro, left-aligned, with a first-line indent of 1p6, and so on. Readers of the book will remember that there are sections of radio commentary in one chapter, and the Radio Dialogue style was 12-point Corbel with indents on both left and right to set it off visually from the body text.

Want to know what’s fun? Getting your drop cap (that big first letter) at the beginning of each chapter to left-align, which ignores your first-line indent—but keeping the indent for the rest of the chapter. I’ve long ago learned this trick, but I haven’t forgotten the entertaining experience of figuring it out for the first time. Good thing no one was around to overhear that.

Even a straightforward book like It Gets Darker, with no footnotes, illustrations, or index, took well over a dozen styles to lay out.

I also created Master Pages. Each chapter’s first page contains the chapter title plus the swirl art, the author’s name, and the beginning of the body text for that chapter. To make sure each such page was laid out identically, I created a Master Page with alignment guides. These guides show up in the on-screen layout but don’t print.

Chapter titles and automatic page numbers can also be added to Master Pages, which saves considerable wear and tear on the layout editor.

(“Wear and tear” is a technical term. “Wear” refers to the way the seat of the pants wears thin over a long project; and “tear,” of course, refers to the customary tearing out of hair as part of the layout process. Possibly “tear” also refers to the tearing of clothes in frustration, but I couldn’t verify that. It is lost to history.)

I applied this Master Page to each chapter’s first page so the guides would show up on that page. I used a different Master Page with different guides for each different type of page.

I also added the spiky swirl art to my Library tab in InDesign because it appears in two different sizes in each chapter. With both sizes available in the Library, I was able to easily drop the right swirl in the right place.

InDesign has a Table of Contents tool that uses Styles to pull out chapter titles and whatever else is to be included in the TOC. It’s not the easiest tool in the toolbox, and it doesn’t cover all the bases, but once you learn it, it does save time for straightforward TOCs.

After completing the full book layout I sent it to several sharp-eyed editor types. They sent their feedback and I incorporated it into the book–there’s no such thing as too many eyes on a book when it comes to proofreading.

Finally, I saved the file in the proper format for the publisher and submitted it. The publisher ran it through an analysis to make sure it would print properly, checking for common layout problems. Last, it went to print, and now you can buy it in paperback as well as e-book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other outlets.

To keep in touch with Spokane Fiction Writers Group, follow @It_Gets_Darker on Twitter, check us out on Meetup, or visit the It Gets Darker landing page. We’ve got someone working on a new website right now, and we’re in process of setting up a new Facebook Page.

Our Twitter account is active, so if you would like to be notified when the Facebook Page is up, message us there.

Most importantly, if you write or want to write, we welcome you to a monthly Meetup group meeting. We don’t just talk about writing—we write. Thanks for your interest.

What a great post from Lorna M. Hartman.

Here’s a little more about Lorna, she writes fiction from the scenic Pacific Northwest. She’s two-thirds done writing a feature-length action/adventure screenplay. See more of her varied careers at http://www.LornaHartman.com and connect with her on Twitter (@Maro_Virino).

LornaHartman

Lorna M. Hartman

 

Sometimes… You just have to do it your way.

I think there’s a saying in the bible I need to use.

“I shall repent myself.”

About a year ago, I wrote a blog post all about staying focused as an author. I went on and on about how the difference between being a writer and an author was about caring enough about getting stuff finished that you actually worked on something until… it was finished. And just one something.

I was guilty of the opposite a lot before that blog post. In fact, as a kid I used to open five or six documents and work on multiple stories at one time.

The post I wrote was timely for me, and an important step in my progress as a writer. The truth is, I really hadn’t been focusing. I had wanted for a long time to be able to get something published, but I’d work on something for a while, get bored, then go do something else and never come back to the first thing.

Lately I’ve been letting myself feel guilty. As most of you know, I was part of this “It Gets Darker As You Go” anthology. So I focused on writing and editing the short story for that. And then thanks to that I remembered what fun it is to write short stories, so I crafted one titled “The Life of Miranda Chance” and edited one called “An Acceptable Future,” both of which will be coming out shortly. Then I started thinking about “Slavery’s Circle,” the first novel in my next trilogy that I’ll be releasing when I’m done with the Afterdeath series.

But with all of this focus going in all these different directions, I wasn’t working on Turning Point, which is book two in my Afterdeath series. There was kind of a dual reason why my attention wasn’t on the novel. The first was because I just don’t really know where to take it. I’ve written the entire novel already, and the revisions are going hard and slow. The second was because it was just fun to slip back into my old routine of multiple projects at once.

It was last night that I had a moment of genius, and I realized that even though picking one work and focusing on it is a good tactic, and it was certainly a great thing for me to do when I wrote Love is Death, that it’s not necessarily “required” of being an author.

Last night I opened up two documents. I opened Turning Point, and I opened Slavery’s Circle. I got one chapter revised on the Turning Point, and three chapters done on Slavery’s Circle. Now I realize, there’s a greater focus on the book that I’m not planning to put out right away, but it was time well spent, because otherwise I would have been surfing the internet or wasting my time creating a cover for some book I probably won’t publish for a few more months. Last night, though, when my mind hit its usual brick wall on Turning Point, I simply turned to my other novel. My productivity skyrocketed. Even if not all my time was spent on the one I’m supposed to “focus” on, I spent all my time writing, and the other book I was focusing on was one that will need to be finished eventually.

It’s great to pick one thing and focus, and there is definitely a time when that’s appropriate. In my opinion, NaNoWriMo is great for doing this. But at the same time, there’s nothing wrong with doing it your own way, doing what you’re most comfortable with. Even if that means writing two books at one time. With Camp NaNoWriMo coming up in July, I actually plan to work on both novels. I’ll be setting word count goals that I want to achieve for both Turning Point and Slavery’s Circle. I’ll be focusing. I’ll just be focusing on two things at once. Which, honestly, is something I do really well.

Have fun. And enjoy the writing.

The Story of A Cover

I’ve mentioned a few times my involvement in the Spokane Fiction Writer’s Group anthology, “It Gets Darker As You Go,” but most of my mentions have been about my story, and my excitement for our upcoming readings and signings in Spokane.

What I haven’t really mentioned is how I was involved in the cover creation.

This anthology has been a great collaboration between the authors involved. Everyone simply offered to throw in their help with whatever they were good at. When we started talking about covers, the leader of our group, Charles R. Oliver, said that anyone who wanted to try their hand at creating a cover could pick a photo from one of two stock photo sites he had an account at, and he would purchase the photos.

I love creating covers. My first couple of covers I hired someone to do for me, and after that I realized that I wasn’t bad at it myself, so since then I’ve been doing them on my own. At this chance to work on the anthology’s cover, I was pretty excited.

We didn’t have a title, didn’t really even have a theme other than we knew we wanted all the stories to have some kind of paranormal element to them, and we wanted them set in the Northwest. With that, and the few snippets I’d heard of the other people’s stories to that point, I thought, “Well, what about a nice woodsy-feeling cover with just a little bit of creep?” So here was my first submission:

Woods

I combined two images–the cabin in the woods, and the lady in the red jacket–and came up with the title, picking up the red from her jacket and the brown from the trees to create my font colors. I showed it to the group and a lot of them really liked it. Erik Schubach also created a nice looking cover idea for the story as well. To be honest, I liked his cover better than this original cover I submitted. We weren’t ready to decide on covers yet, so we kept working on the stories, swapping with each other and giving feedback.

As I started reading more and more of the stories, I realized that the couple I’d been exposed to early on were some of the lighter stories in the anthology. A few of them had a bit darker feel to them, and some were downright scary. (For me. I’m a chicken.)

I started reconsidering my design. This anthology didn’t feel like a bright woodsy with red-jacket cover type thing. I came up with the idea (and hence title) of making the stories go from lighthearted to darker, and I started looking for images that would match that up. I was so lucky to find the beautiful image I did on one of the stock websites that Charles had an account with. I wanted a great font to go with the image and theme of the story, so I went to this incredible page that shows all sorts of fonts, how they look, what genres they go well with, and so on. Funny enough, the font I chose was called DarkII. A perfect dark font for a dark cover.

From all of that came my cover design for It Gets Darker as You Go.

A woman walks in the forest at night with a lantern.

I loved the composition of the original artwork, the great lights and shadows, the kind of creepy, but kind of hopeful feel it gave. The feeling of being watched, and also being the watcher. Everything about it was spectacular, and the group apparently thought so as well. They picked it out right away, then asked me to organize the stories according to their level of “darkness.” So hopefully I did a good job, that way if you’re like me and they get “too scary” you know where to stop. (although truth be told, even though I knew I should stop, I ended up reading all of them because they were engaging and exciting. I just dealt with the nightmares later… You think I’m kidding?)

This wasn’t my first time creating a cover for a story, but it was my first time where other people had to decide between a few covers, some of my own creation, some from other people. It was exciting and gratifying to see how well-received the cover was, and how the people in the group really loved it. It’s certainly a fun thing for me to do and, I must admit, a good excuse to get distracted from the writing I really should be doing.

Speaking of which, I need to go back to pounding out my revisions on my next novel. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll let you all… Have fun, and enjoy the writing.

It Gets Darker As You Go

I’m excited to announce that the Spokane Fiction Writer’s Group Paranormal Anthology is just about to hit the shelves (Virtually, and literally.)

Let me tell you a little about it, then we’ll come back to that.

A woman walks in the forest at night with a lantern.

It Gets Darker As You Go Cover

There’s nothing to fear…

This anthology features paranormal stories by the award-winning authors of the Spokane Fiction Writer’s Group.

Erik Schubach
O.C. Calhoun
L.P. Masters
Lorna M. Hartman
David Jewett
Jerry Schellhammer
Patti L. Dikes
Charles R. Oliver
and R.N. Vick

As you journey into the new realities held within this anthology, you will encounter the snaggle-toothed monster under the bed. Meet a sweet, cookie-baking grandma, and discover a ghost who may not be as scary as he seems.

But don’t let that fool you into thinking there is nothing to fear because…

It gets darker as you go.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

The stories are incredible. Some of them fun and lighthearted, and some of them extremely dark. That’s what I love about the layout, though, is that if you’re a scaredy-cat like me, you can decide when it’s getting too scary. (I’m probably the only one scared enough to stop partway through an anthology.)

I did swallow my fear and read the last few stories, though, and I can attest that they really are wonderful, albeit frightening.

Now, about those virtual and literal shelves…

Find the print version here, or get an ebook and read it anywhere.

But those are both virtual shelves. Didn’t I say something about literal shelves?

The Barnes and Noble at Northtown Mall in Spokane will be hosting a signing for It Gets Darker on Saturday, June 3 from 1 to 5 PM. They’ll have a big box of the books there, so come support us, come watch me at my very first signing, and come learn a little more about the anthology. UPDATE: The signing is currently up in the air and sounds like it may be pushed back a little. I’ll keep everyone posted on the date.

Okay. Plug your ears now cause I’m about to scream.

I’M SOOO EXCITED!

Whew. Thanks. I needed to let that out!

Have fun and enjoy the writing.