Let’s Start at the Ending

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The End Tanisha

Please welcome Tanisha D. Jones, an author of Urban Theological Mythological Slightly Erotic Romance (Paranormal romance if that confused you).  Tanisha shares with us her thought process behind the main character in her short story, Serenity.  It’s dark, imaginative, and you can find it on her site here.

“She was worth every penny.”

I have developed a fascination with endings.  I can see the end of a movie without watching any other part to decide if that’s something I want to see. Whenever I buy a new book, I read the last line first it just makes me curious as to what happened before to get to this particular line. What happened to get to this very definitive sentence? It’s also the way I write.   I like to believe that what I write is an amalgam of O’Henry and Flannary O’Connor with a hint of Anne Rice,  confusing but beautifully weird.

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Guest Blogging with Author D.B. Sieders

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Stuart Miles - DepositPhotos.com

Stuart Miles – DepositPhotos.com

Author D.B. Sieders is hosting me on her site this week. D.B. and I share a similar educational background in biology.  She stayed the course through graduate school to become a working scientist.  My road to a biology degree took a few detours. Join me as I muddle through the tricky wicket of advice on the writing craft.

Read More of: “I’m Confused Enough Already”

DB Sieders

D.B. Sieders – Musings from the Music City Writer

Welcome Author, Ariel Swan – Purveyor of Paranormal Fiction

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The Floater - By Lori Nix

Floater – By Lori Nix

Please welcome author Ariel Swan. We share a similar taste for old Victorian homes, rural New England settings, art by Lori Nix, and a make-believe world in our heads that would make Walter Mitty proud. A high school English teacher by day, Ariel loves nothing better than to find a quiet corner or shaded tree and dream up a new story.  I’ve asked her to tell us about the last two books she completed, what inspired her to write, and how she found the time between grading papers and coaching teens how to embrace the inner writer within.

Take it away Ariel.

DISTILLATION is the story of Alice Towne, who has been trying to get pregnant and to be a good wife, but the smell of the dead is getting in the way. She smells their memories, sweet and sour, essences of life hanging on with the soul. When her husband can’t accept her for who she is and his disdain borders on abuse, Alice finds the strength to leave. With few options, she agrees to do a favor for her mother, caretaking a house in the hills of western, Massachusetts, where she hopes to exorcise her demons and come to terms with her curse in solitude.

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Guest Blogging This Week with Ariel Swan

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Photopin-Flickr Charlie Reynolds

Photopin-Flickr Charlie Reynolds

This week, I’m guest blogging with author, Ariel Swan.  

Ariel and I share a similar taste for old Victorian homes, rural New England settings, art by Lori Nix, and a make-believe world in our heads that would make Walter Mitty proud. In a departure from my usual postings, I’ve decided to share a sneak peak of my current story: Lasty, a dystopian tale of mankind’s date with extinction, and a young couple’s reluctant journey to prevent it.

Ariel Swan

“As a novelist, by definition I live in a world of make-believe.”

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Happy Valentine’s Day – I Bought You a Shovel

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Out the Kitchen Door - Feb 14, 2014

DT Krippene:  Out the Kitchen Door – Feb 14, 2014

Ah … L-Amour.  Let me measure the depth of my love for you.  TWO FEET.  I’d use inches, but you’d get the wrong idea.

I know you wanted chocolates, my dear, but I bought two shovels  instead.  Aren’t they cute?  His and hers, and I made sure to get bright red, the color of love.  It’s easy to find if you drop it in a snow drift.  Think of the fun we’ll have, side by side like the pioneers of yesteryear.  Afterwards, we can build a snowman, or snowwoman, laugh at our icy Michelangelo sculpture with anatomically correct parts. I didn’t realize all you have is flat tops for shoes.  Maybe an extra pair of socks will help.

I know we had reservations at Maxim’s, but I think they’re closed.  I forgot to hit the store yesterday, but I have some Vienna sausage and a can of cream of celery soup.  Might have some jerky left over from my last hunting trip. We can warm our toes by the fire in our long johns, drink the airline miniature liquor samples I’ve been hoarding for days like this, maybe watch Groundhog Day. Yeah, we’ve seen it, but 14th time’s a charm.  Oh, forgot to mention the weather forecast.  They’re calling for another 4-6 inches tomorrow.  Won’t that be fun?  We can sing the holiday classic – “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow?”

What’s that, my dear?  Go what myself ….?

Hey, come on now.  Isn’t my fault that Punxsutawney gopher got all transgender on us, changed his name to Phyllis and said she wasn’t coming out until May.  No, dear, that was caused by something called a polar vortex.  The arctic Inuit natives put a whammy on us southerners for causing global warming and melting the ice packs, messing up a lifestyle that goes back thousands of years. I think those rascally Canadians caused this storm.  They got it out for us … something about wanting to share the love … of winter.  Sure, we can pack up and visit your sister in South Carolina, but the car has been buried in a snowdrift by the road plow.  They charge a fine for parking in a snow emergency route?  I didn’t know it was going to be an emergency.  Besides, your sister got a foot of snow as well and her town doesn’t have road plows like ours, so consider ourselves lucky.

Should have gone to the Olympics in Sochi, I hear the weather is balmy.  What?   I thought it was funny.  Gee whiz, what a grumpy pants.

Hey, look what I found … a couple of Hershey kisses left over from Christmas.  Looks like you’ll get chocolate after all.  Give me a hug.

Oh, babe … you kiss your mother with that mouth?

MV Freeman – Best Selling Author of Urban Fantasy and Romance

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MVFreeman

Please welcome MV Freeman, bestselling author with a penchant for anti-heroes and determined heroines.  We share a common interest with stories that search for light in the dark, and it’s an honor to have her guest blogging this week.

The Draw of the Bad Guy.

Thank you D.T. for letting me visit your blog!

I am a cross-genre writer.  I write Urban Fantasy with a high dose of romance. I’m an action adventure person with a love of morally conflicted characters which means:

Yes, I tend to like the bad guy.

Let me clarify—I enjoy the bad guy in movies and books—not in real life.  Reality is filled with bad, we know it, it’s in the news; watch it every day with our interactions.  Which is why I’ll stick to fiction—perfect place to explore this attraction, because in truth I’d run the other way!

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Guest Blogging This Week with Tanisha Jones

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Konradbak - Depositphotos.com

Konradbak – Depositphotos.com

This week, I’m guest blogging at author Tanisha Jones site, with an article on, A Fascination with Post Apocalyptic Stories.   Click the linked title and get beamed directly to the article on her site.  

There is no safety this side of the grave.”

Robert A. Heinlein – Stranger in a Strange Land

Whether you write divinely dark romance like Tanisha, or dark dystopian tales like me, Heinlein’s quote relates to us both.  If you haven’t read Serenity, Tanisha’s short story posted on her site, be prepared for the forebodingly exotic.

Stop on by at Tanisha D. Jones, Author of Divinely Dark Romance. Tell me what fascinates you in a post-apocalyptic tale.  Then check out Serenity …… if you dare.

Never Too Old to Wii

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From: Photobucket.com

From: Photobucket.com

Now before you go and think this an advertisement for adult pampers, check the spelling.  It’s called “Wii”, that home game craze every family owns for entertainment (except mine of course).  I remember a time in my life when video games held my attention.  I was obsessed with the game, Doom, and subsequent upgrades.  Then life came along, kids, a little thing called responsibility, and gaming took whatever form entertained the kids.  Doom was not on the approved list.  Now that the kids have flown the coop, I haven’t touched a game pad of any kind for two decades, and never felt a need to rediscover anything that keeps me from writing.

While together with my daughters over the holidays, they introduced me to Wii. My first reaction was … it’s a kid’s thing?  I mean, really, it lacked serious graphics popular in today’s gaming community, it’s character icons a throwback to Weebleville. Doom had better resolution in the nineties.  And what a creative name for it … weesomething toddlers scream when riding the plastic horsey at grocery stores.

You know where this is going.

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Twilight Zoning – An Unusual Source of Story Imagination

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From: DepositPhotos.com

From: DepositPhotos.com

People ask me where I get my story ideas.  Like everyone else, I answer, seeing something, hearing something, being somewhere.  To be honest, though, my best ideas come at that brief, predawn moment between sleep and consciousness.  I like to call it Twilight Zoning, a cooler name for Stage 5 or REM sleep.

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Til We See the Light

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From: Flickr - Olli Kekalainene

From: Flickr – Olli Kekalainene

It is that time of year when I become reflective, enter that quiet space of the calendar where I crave a moment to be still, take stock on the last year’s events, and think about where I’m headed when old man 2013 fades to the ages.  What will Baby 2014 bring into the world? Will he be precocious and playful, or disruptive and colicky? When I finally take down twinkling strings that symbolize the happiest time of the year, what will take its place when the dark of winter nights close around me?

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