Look fast! A guest flashes (fiction) by

Seriously, if you haven't checked out Kindle Boards, you need to. I don't care if you don't own any kind of e-reading device. I don't care if you're not an author. Kindle Boards is a forum where you can join in discussions about books and blogs and publishing and all kinds of topics that appeal to readers.

It's where I found Thea Atkinson, who writes psychological thrillers and historical fiction. This month, she's doing a fun sort of blog tour, where she streaks through 30 blogs in 30 days, posting flash fiction in each and linking them together so you can follow along. At the end of her piece here, you'll find the link from yesterday's post, and a link to tomorrow's blog.

Feel free to leave a comment to let her know if you enjoyed the streak, and you are welcome to tweet it or share it on Facebook. You can also follow the chain through Twitter with the hashtag #blogstreak.

And now, take it away, Thea:

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Elspeth

By Thea Atkinson



http://theaatkinson.wordpress.com/




Elspeth sat on the floor arranging and rearranging her cheesies. Tiger-orange in perfectly straight stripes against plush green carpet pleased the three-year-old no end. One after another, she popped them into her mouth and watched her mommy clean.

 By the time she was 15, Elspeth couldn't stand wrinkles in her sheets, or kinks in the elastic band of her panties. She wore gloves to school because the janitors were lax. Her best friend constantly sullied her room with paper when she came to visit, so Elspeth had to stop calling her.




Chris seemed perfect when she met him: clean cut, respectable. He even lined his french fries up like little soldiers before he ate them. Elspeth married him after only three weeks.




She shined his truck for him when he complained she wasn't good enough for him to shine his shoes, made his bed with toe corners because hospital tucks wouldn't do. She popped birth control pills for fear he'd hate the fat collecting on her midriff, but still it kept collecting there and she had to stop popping bread, and then meat, and then stale crackers, and then, finally, food altogether.




They invited guests for dinner parties and Elspeth did her best to cook calamari, crisp, like he wanted so he could be proud of her, of himself, and what a trophy he’d found in Elspeth.




Her friend Lise said, "You've outdone yourself."




"They taste like rubber bands," Chris said, throwing one to the dog.




Elspeth swallowed down the bit of calamari she'd managed to force into her mouth. She slipped into a polite smile the way she’d slipped into the silk cocktail dress earlier that evening, and then she excused herself to the restroom where the eyes that met hers in the mirror were strained and red.




She heard him through the door, laughing with his guests, his nasal snort a sound that made her stomach squeeze and her throat burn until she had purged every stale thing within her stomach.




For one moment, she felt clean. Blissfully clean. And no one could take that away from her.


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april 13 flash:
http://jpgwriter.com/

april 15 flash:
http://jarrettwrites.blogspot.com/

Thea's ebooks: http://www.amazon.com/Thea-Atkinson/e/B0046DIT0U/

It's NOT all about me!

This is a quick and dirty post today, because I believe in supporting my fellow authors, especially the good ones.

My friend and mentor, Gordon Kirkland, has released his first novel. He was a syndicated humor columnist for years, but this is first foray into fiction (according to him - his wife Diane might tell you something different). Described as a marriage between Fargo and darker parts of the Old Testament, Crossbow, is a mystery with funny overtones, or perhaps a comedy with mysterious undertones.

It is, at any rate, on sale NOW at Amazon, in both paperback and Kindle. To learn more about the book, go to Gordon's site.

To give you a little inkling as to Gordon and his sense of humor, I've included a snippet of him on a morning news show, promoting his last book, Holly Jolly Frivolity. Enjoy.



And tune in tomorrow for some flash fiction from a guest blogger!

Hit or Missus - It's all quite a process

When I decided to go ahead and use Createspace & Digital Platform services for my second Peri mystery, there was a little timeline in the back of my head that went:

1. Cover - one week
2. Format manuscript - one day
3. Publish - one day

Which sounded good, except that this timeline is totally bogus and an example of why I try not to schedule anything that doesn't involve my frontal lobe.

It took me a full day to just figure out how to make my manuscript's headers and footers look correct. Then I read the story again, and actually changed a couple of things in it. Joe has been working on the cover art, but to do a paperback, I also need a back cover, so I need to write a jacket blurb.

If you are an author, you understand how much I hate to write jacket blurbs. They are like query letters and synopses - you'd rather write a 110,000-word saga than that 250-word Reader's Digest version. Every time you think, "But that information is important," you have to ask yourself if it is needed. Will it tempt a buyer to pick up your book?

And more often than not, you don't know the answer to that question.

So I have two versions of the blurb. The first one was more or less what I used in my queries. For kicks, I submitted it to a website that likes to tear apart queries, where it was savaged. (I didn't have the heart to tell them it got me four requests for a full manuscript.) The second one is more like some of the blurbs I see on famous mystery authors' books (except for John Lescoart, whose jackets just have a picture of him surrounded by a bunch of glowing reviews).

Here are your assignments for the day:



1. Which blurb do you like best? (See below)
2. Should I try to get some reviews to quote? Or do you care, when you're cruising a bookstore, who liked the book you're holding?

Please help me. Otherwise, I shall be left to choose by myself, and I'm afraid the back of my brain will keep my frontal lobe out of the loop. We've seen how that turns out.

Jacket Blurb #1:

Peri Minneopa thinks she's taking a typical case: a rich businessman suspects his wife of cheating. Snapping pictures and collecting hotel receipts should be easy money. So color her surprised when she is suddenly being threatened, possibly by the woman herself, along with her gang of wealthy BFFs.



Her boyfriend, Skip, is worried, but as a detective in the Placentia Police Department, he has his own case to handle. Peri's elderly neighbor died of a heart attack, which wouldn't be unusual if her husband hadn't died of the same thing two weeks earlier. Skip doesn't believe in coincidences, and his suspicions prove correct.


Peri's cheating wife case soon collides with his murder case, and Peri finds it hard to keep her nose out of everything. The deeper she investigates, the more dangers she encounters. She's willing to ignore the threats on her life to get to the truth, until the bodies start piling up…


Skip's concern for her safety has led to constant fighting, leaving Peri feeling insecure about their relationship. Her self-doubts couldn't have come at a worse time, as a younger female officer is pursuing the handsome detective.


And in the middle of completing her case, defending herself against the vengeful wife and her friends, and protecting her relationship turf, her former client Benny Needles comes to her, needing a job.


Peri must decide what's worth keeping, her boyfriend, her career, or her sanity. Can't she have it all, with a dirty martini on the side?


Jacket Blurb #2:
 
COINCIDENCES HAPPEN…



Private investigations may be a new career for former housecleaner Peri Minneopa, but she's done a few surveillance assignments already. They're low stress - take some pictures, write a nice report and collect the fee. Her new case is a routine one, a rich husband suspects his wife of infidelity. Just because bad things start happening to her when she takes the job doesn't mean anything. It could be a coincidence.


Peri's boyfriend, Detective Skip Carlton, is investigating the death of Peri's elderly neighbor. It looks like a heart attack, which is how her husband died two weeks ago. It's not unusual for an elderly couple to die within a short time of each other. It could be a coincidence.


Skip's elderly couple had left legal papers lying out on the table, involving a year-old real estate purchase. An attached note from Peri's client, a real estate developer, doesn't mean anything. It could be a coincidence.


BUT IF IT WALKS LIKE A DUCK AND TALKS LIKE A DUCK…


Peri doesn't believe in coincidences, any more than Skip does. When their cases collide, she begins poking her nose into police business and immediately butts heads with her boyfriend. She wants to know who is harassing her, and what happened to her neighbor. Skip wants to keep her out of danger and keep his case from being compromised.


Getting to the truth will require help, and Peri gets it from an unlikely partner, an annoying little man who is obsessed with Dean Martin.


If she can keep her sanity and her life -


SHE MIGHT JUST SOLVE THIS CASE.

Wow, there's someone else at the door

In the spirit of making new friends in the writing community, I've been hanging out on Kindle Boards. Even if you don't own a Kindle, you'll find a lot of discussions about books and by authors. I encourage you to wander around.

One of the authors I met is Steve Drennon, a writer of both fantasy and poetry. Like most of us, he's been writing forever, and has three volumes of poetry as Steven R. Drennon, as well as a fantasy novel under the pen name Scott Dennisen.

When I saw he was looking for authors to guest on his blog AND he was a poet, I thought, how fortuitous. I need to get around more and guest on blogs, and it's National Poetry Month. Who better to have on my blog than a poet?

So here are Steve's thoughts about poetry and its celebration. I think you'll find him quite exuberant.

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Okay, a quick show of hands! How many people knew that April is National Poetry Month? Two people, just as I expected! Talk about an image problem!


So why is it that so few of us read poetry these days? Are we still traumatized by the required reading in high school? Is it because we associate poetry with stale, old-fashioned literature that has fallen out of fashion? Is it because we view poets as these elitist isolationists who expound on ideals that most of us don’t care about? Or maybe we just don’t get it? Seriously now, when was the last time you read a poem, or checked out a poetry book from the library, or even more importantly, actually bought a book of poems? Yeah, that’s what I thought!


Poetry has long been considered an art form. Personally, I think that was something drummed up by a bunch of poets who were trying to get people interested enough to buy their work! It really doesn’t matter if it is an art form, because people just aren’t buying poetry these days.


What would it take to get you to read a poem? Would it have to feature young vampire lovers, or maybe a scintillating murder mystery? What if it was all about faeries and other magical, mythical creatures that only existed in some far off fantasy world? Or maybe alien life forms that are trying to colonize the farthest reaches of space?


I think that is exactly part of the problem. I believe most people tend to focus on a specific genre and then follow authors who write in that genre. When you go looking for something to read pertaining to the paranormal, you don’t think about a poem. Maybe there are a lot of great paranormal poets out there, but I suspect not. As a writer we just don’t generally put our poetry into a clearly defined genre.


I think another part of the problem is that none of us really tend to speak or think in rhyme. That’ s not to say that all poetry rhymes, but admit it, the first thing that usually comes to mind when it comes to poetry is “does it rhyme”? If not, then isn’t it “just” prose? Even then, does it really matter?


Okay, so what can we do about this under-appreciation of poetry? Well, did I mention that April is National Poetry Month? Oh good, you were paying attention! In recognition of that fact, I’d like to encourage everyone to read at least one poem this month. Heck, if you like it, you might even end up reading two! More importantly, if you find a poem or a poet that you do like, tell somebody about it! Send an e-mail, send a tweet, or even blog about it! Spread the word: poetry lives!




* * * * *

Just so Steve doesn't think we're all Philistines over here, I follow Ruth's Synch-ro-ni-zing blog just because of its beautiful poetry, and I have dabbled in verse my own darn self. But I agree with Steve - if you haven't visited a poet's land in awhile, or even ever, this is the month to try out the wonders of Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, or, hey - Steven Drennon.

His books are available on the Amazon Kindle, as follows:
http://www.amazon.com/Beginnings-Selected-Steven-Drennon-ebook/dp/B004URS84O

http://www.amazon.com/Reflections-Selected-Steven-Drennon-ebook/dp/B004USPA3U
http://www.amazon.com/Enduring-Selected-Steven-Drennon-ebook/dp/B004UW00DG

Thanks for stopping by, Steve, and good luck with your writing.

Out of the frying pan...

I don't know what kind of fire I'm leaping into, but it can't be worse than the dance I've been doing in the Teflon.

For months now, I've been shopping my second Peri Minneopa Mystery book around to agents. Several asked for a full manuscript, which was heartening. Knowing agents (from other author tales), I knew I could have a long wait before they responded.

In the meantime, the publishing world has gone - wild? off-kilter? broken the chains of its corporate oppressors? I don't know how to describe it. If you live under a rock, you haven't heard that Borders declared bankruptcy and will probably pay pennies on the dollars they owe publishing houses. Barry Eisler, thriller-writer-extraordinaire, turned down a $500,000 advance in order to self-publish. Amanda Hocking, self-published-wonder-kid, who sold over a million books, was offered a $2 million deal from a publisher.

It's a crazy time to be a writer, with lots of columns on the menu of publishing choices.

I self-pubbed What Would Erma Do? because the agents/publishers I approached didn't think they could sell it, due to my lack of fame. I knew I had a platform, and an inkling of how to get the word out on the internet, so I thought I could just do it on my own. I hired the wonderful Joe Felipe to design my cover, worked with Createspace and Amazon's Digital Platform services, figured out how to upload to Smashwords, and started working the Inter-Network. Facebook, Twitter, Amazon discussion boards, Kindle Boards, other blogger's blogs, you name it.

The worst part of self-publishing is watching your book languish, and fall, in the Amazon rankings because no one is buying it. I swear, I could hear crickets chirping every time I logged into my account. But Michele Scott told me it takes time, so I'm attempting patience.

Now I'm starting to see one Erma e-book sale a day. No, it's not an avalanche. But it's one more than yesterday. Color me optimistic.

Back to the subject at hand: my second Peri book. While waiting for agents and listening to more than one person ask when the second book will be out, I began thinking. I have a cover artist. I know how to use the tools. Why not self-pub the second one?

As you can imagine, the entrepreneur angel and the traditional-book-deal angel started an argument of epic proportions in my head. My little traditional heart wanted to be able to say, "Why, yes, it will be released by Penguin next February," in that smugly humble way of authors. My desire to keep the Peri stories going said, "Screw that. Michele Scott's not afraid of being self-pubbed. Neither is Eisler, or Konrath, or a host of other really good writers. Get your work out there."

I was almost convinced to go ahead and self-publish, but there was one more avenue I wanted to try. There is a boutique publishing company that I admire a lot. I decided to submit to them. If they said no, I'd go it alone, and forget about the agents.

They said no. Not because of my writing. They really liked my writing, and thought the book could do well. They're just booked for the next 18 months or so and didn't think I'd want to wait until 2013 for a release, which is true. They've been nothing but kind and I'll continue to support them.

So right now, I'm working with Joe on cover art and giving the manuscript yet another scrutiny, mostly because I always think I can do better. I will keep everyone in the loop about when Hit or Missus will be available, and yes, I'll make it available in paperback and e-book format.

In the meantime, got any opinions about the cover? I like these two samples, for different reasons (forgive the horrible quality of the pictures - Joe and I work from pdf versions first, and the only way I can get them into the post is to scan a printout - lame, I know).

I like the block color format of this one, and the title in red. My only issue with it is the crack in the martini glass isn't AS vivid as the cover below.

I like the dark, edgy quality to this, and the way the crack in the glass is easy to see. I think my name needs to be smaller, and one of my friends thought the red slash was a red carpet and it didn't make sense to her.

Would anyone like to give me their opinion? About the covers, I mean. Actually, I guess you can give me your opinion about anything. But I could use some advice about the covers.

Is it warm in here, or is it just me?