My kids just finished a three month excursion in sports. To be more specific, they’ve been playing football on a team at the Y. This didn’t require a lot of our family. The price was right, that was for sure (roughly $50 bucks a kid). It was only an hour out of our busy week, and the kids had a lot of fun. It was a new experience, being the mother of a kid in sports.

I never played sports as a kid. I wanted to, even signed up to be on the volleyball team for my JR ROTC class. But there was always something standing in the way. Mom didn’t have time, or didn’t want to have time, to take me to practices. It was too expensive.  Those sorts of things. I think this was largely why I was so eager for the girls to play.

This, of course, means that my kids had never A. played on a team. B. Been expected to follow orders in a high pressure situation. C. Played foot ball at all. I honestly think this was the first time they’d held a football.

The first few practices were painful to watch. The other kids had experience. They were faster, taller, better at this than my girls. It was a co-ed class, too. At this age, that means my kids were bigger than their teammates. This meant that one of my kids at least was mortified at the thought of running into one of the smaller boys.

One of my daughters couldn’t catch. One couldn’t run.

But they got better. And I’ll be honest, not bragging at all, it didn’t take a lot for them to get better. Remember, this was just an hour a week, plus whatever practice we could squeeze into our weeks between dinner and the day job. There wasn’t a lot of that.

Even just that hour a week though, made a significant change in my girls. They got better at every aspect of the game, from running to tackling (pulling someone’s flag off). They run faster and farther now than they could at the start of the season. They’ve also lost some weight. Not a lot, but it’s noticeable. Maybe keep that in mind next time you think you don’t have time to commit to something like writing. It doesn’t take a lot to see results.

I was also surprised by them. I, like most parents, see both the best and worst of my children. My kids aren’t responsible, who is at 12? My kids lose stuff all the time, at important times the most! But they never once didn’t have their uniform ready to go on game day. Right down to their shoes.

My kids also fight. Duh, their twelve year old sisters. And they were playing for opposite teams! But they showed great sportsmanship, and didn’t bring resentments over winning or losing home. Nor did they bring any home bickering to the games. (Though, this did lead to some awkward moments. Like when one child’s first tackle of the season was on her sister.)

They were able to show this level of responsibility because they were part of a team. And that meant something to them.

At the end of the season, when all the kids got their medals of participation, I was sorry to see it go. And, despite my previous opinions of participation trophies, I was happy they got those. They didn’t say they excelled at what they did. They didn’t say they were the best, or that they were super amazing at football. It said they showed up, and they did their best every week.

Maybe if we didn’t focus so much on being the best or nothing, if we all just show up and do our best, we’ll start to see a change in our lives. Just a thought.

If you get a chance, be sure to download Days, and Other Stories. It’s a collection of short stories by me, and it’s totally free. Gumroad books download to the Google Play Book app.

Creating consistent content is probably the hardest part about maintaining a blog or author website. It’s something that we all struggle with.

And it is a struggle. I’m already spending as much time as possible writing fiction. This is more writing on top of it. You might say, and have a valid point, that writing is my job. Well, sometimes my brain feels like a wrung out sponge and I feel like I’m just repeating myself over and over, okay?

Even so, I do manage to come out with consistent content. At least, I think I do. You all might be better judges, to be honest. Here are some of the ways I do it.

Keep a notebook with you everywhere.

Really, though, you should be doing this anyway. So I guess I should say devote a page of your notebook to blog posts ideas. The same rules apply to this as all other writing. Yes, you should write that idea down. No, you’re not going to remember it later.

Have a set list of topics that you discuss.

Just keep a list of topics that interest your audience and that you like to write about. When you’re stuck, consider the list and see what you might not have covered yet. That way you’re not casting into the sky blue air for a topic.

Focus on what you’re good at.

I’m good with technology, I write charmingly realistic characters and am good at organization. I can help people with those three things. So I like to write about those three things. I kind of don’t feel like I’m going to run out of ideas with those three topics any time soon.

Take some time and write down all the things you know about and enjoy discussing. Be specific. Then think about how you can teach people about those things.

Discussing new entertainment is always a good bet.

If you write fiction, please don’t hesitate to write about other books in your genre. Write about movies and tv shows that you think might interest your readers. Not only is this interesting for your readers, it’s fun for you. I mean, who doesn’t want to talk about the movie they just saw?

Don’t discount your own life experience.

I’m always surprised that my most popular posts are often personal ones about my actual life. The same is true for the blogs I read. I love hearing real stories about real people.

Experience new things.

Finally, the best way to find new blog post material is to experience new things. Every new thing brings me new ideas. It’s the same as with any other sort of writing. The more you experience, the better your writing will be.

In Devon’s world, magical work is as common as turning a pot or fletching an arrow. What isn’t common is a man with thread magic. When Devon finds that he is a seer, weaving prophetic tapestries, his family tries to keep it a secret.

But the family can’t hide Devon’s visions after he predicts a devastating plague in the dragon lands of Coveline. He travels there to help the dragon queen save her people.

Meanwhile, Devon’s sister Lenore joins the Church of Singular Light. As Lenore learns to serve, and falls in love with her city, she discovers a dark underbelly to the church.

Lenore fights for her city, and Devon rushes to find a cure to the plague, while an unseen enemy raises an army to destroy Septa from within.

Buy it here.

Welcome to the Winter Blog Tour, week 7. I’m very happy to host KA Meng.

Finding the Time to Write with a Busy Schedule

Thank you for letting me take over your blog today. It’s been a great pleasure to be a part of the Solstice Author Winter Blog Tour. I want to talk today about finding the time to write with a busy schedule, but I’ll start by telling everyone about myself first. You can see how crazy my schedule it.

My name is K. A. Meng. I live in the frozen tundra of North Dakota with my teenage son and our two cats and two dogs. I write paranormal, urban fantasy, mysteries, and sci fi. Sometimes I add in a hint of romance to the stories. I work full time as an administrative assistant.

My job is from Monday thru Friday from 8 am to 5 pm. When I get off work, I have (if I’m lucky) thirty minutes to myself before my son is demanding food or the dogs want to go for a walk. Yes, my shelties want to walk until it reaches a certain temperature then they stop whining, usually way under zero degrees F. Between working, having a son, pets, owning a home, and trying to market my book, I don’t have a lot of time to write.

The first thing you need to do is squeeze your writing in whenever you can. One of the first books I wrote took me ten months to write. I won’t speak to much about it since I need to edit it. I’ll jump into my third novel, I’ve written which took about six months. It happens to be published.

My first published novel, Superior Species is though Solstice Publishing – Solstice Shadows. You can find it here:

Amazon: http://getbook.at/SuperiorSpecies

Superior Species is about a girl named Ivory Ames. She has caught the attention of four gorgeous guys. At Los Roshano University this isn’t normal, even when all the upperclassmen have perfect physiques, flawless complexions, and hypnotic looks. That’s not even the weirdest part. The town has a strict sunset curfew because of wild animals attacking.

To keep her friends and herself safe, Ivory must figure out the truth behind the town’s mysteries before it’s too late.

To find the time to write, you need to want to write. Find your motivation. The Superior Species book series sprang to life after I asked myself, “What would I do if I met a monster?” I asked this question after the sudden rise in popular vampire and werewolf novels in which they made the monsters into something not scary at all. I do enjoy those type of novels, but I grew up on where you shouldn’t befriend the beasts. They are scary and want to kill you. You should run away. Of course, I’m asked this a lot:

But the monsters are still good-looking in your novel how can they be scary?

My character Ivory Ames will explain it soon best. A white tiger is beautiful, but that doesn’t mean she wants to for a pet. They are dangerous and could kill you without warning.

I’m pleased to announce my second novel in the Superior Species world will be released this year by Solstice Publishing – Solstice Shadows. I wrote it in four months. I don’t have a release date since it is under editing. If you want to know when it will be released keep checking out my website, www.kamengauthor.com, and scroll down to the Books section where I’ll post anything coming out soon. I plan for a lot this year.

The third novel in Superior Species, I wrote it in two and a half months. As you can see, I’ve been getting faster and faster at completing novels sooner. I wrote this one during NaNoWriMo in November 2016. For those who don’t know, its National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write 50,000 words in one month. You should check it out. I pushed myself to write 60,000 words this time and will from now on. My novels tend to be longer so I set a bigger goal. You should join and find people on there to talk to. Support helps when you want to write. I tell everyone I am not available for the month of November. If I’m lucky, people will listen.

Another good way to gain words is doing word sprints. They are easy to do. Set a time frame with someone and write. It’s a good way to challenge yourself to get more words done. You can find people on twitter under #wordsprints. You can ask your writing friends or find me on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100012856366750&fref=ts and send me a message. I’ll let you know if I can or not. I will be on in November to write again. July is camp NaNoWriMo. I may be writing then I don’ know. My plan is to be on for June doing my own NaNoWriMo.

One big thing that has helped me write more is set a goal. My current one is small, 1,000 words a day. I do this by writing at my break for work, one hour a day Monday thru Friday. And at night. I write in 250 word sprints. I start supper or help my kid by telling him what to cook while I write. Eat. Write. Do a chore. Write. Do another chore. Write. And before I know it my goal is met. Most nights I write more and on the weekends a heck of a lot more. Think of it like this in 20 days, I have a short story done.

I hope some of these tips will help you. If you want to know more about me, you can find me on here:

Website – www.kamengauthor.com

Facebook Author Page – https://www.facebook.com/KAMengAuthor/

Twitter – https://twitter.com/KAMengAuthor

Blog – https://kamengauthor.com/blog

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/kamengauthor/

Thank you for having me. -K.A.

Welcome to this week’s Winter Blog Tour post. This week we’re hosting Geoff Nelder. As an added bonus, he’s included a sample of his work.

Oops, there I go again, barging in on someone else’s blog, grasping for an unsuspecting new audience. No one is more demanding than Mrs N in more ways than two and this piece is inspired by one of her more painful questions.

Writers’ Delusions by Geoff Nelder

This is the question Mrs Nelder stabbed me with when she once peeped over my shoulder at my list of story rejections being three times longer than the acceptances.

“What on Earth made you think you could be a writer?”

Answer: I didn’t know I was okay at writing until a teacher made me stand in front of the class and stumble through an essay I’d scribbled. A silly tale about a red squirrel scrambling on the gnarled boughs of the village’s oldest oak tree, stealing an acorn from a tree spirit to bury under a pupil’s desk. Imagine my surprise when every kid sneaked a peep under their desk.

Yes, those words held power and I liked it. Through my teens I wrote jokes. Sold some to British comedians and my first was published in a magazine in 1969. At university I became a co-editor of the rag-mag, a dreadful collection of very funny, awful smutty and politically-incorrect gags. We’d gather in the bar and brainstorm until the beer ran out. That was nearly half a century ago and I still see those jokes. Uncredited, no royalties. It was for charities then, still is. During that time I studied geography, mathematics and literature. Struck dumb, me, when the lecturer read out loud William Langland’s Vision of a Fair Field full of Folk. This is a wondrous sample of that early medieval poem:

‘In a somer sesoun, whan softe was the sonne,
I shope me into shroudes, as I a shep were,
In abite as an heremite, unholy of werkes,
Wente forth in the world wondres to here,
And saw many selles and selcouthe thynges.
Ac on a May mornyng on Malverne hulles
Me biful for to slepe, for werynesse of walkyng;’

I learnt it by heart, while hiking on those actual Malvern Hills, a short bike ride from my house. I took my son on those hills a few years ago and the ‘sonne’ softly warmed our backs. I learnt the energy in words of sensual Show. Engaging the reader via all their five senses in every story. I read the great writers and they all do it. Even those science fiction and thriller books that the literati often overlook. Consider these two words from Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle: ‘She gave him a perfumed hug.’ You know which two words. Did you experience that hug? You were there, right?

After graduating, twice, I taught high school where writing lies takes over. Not really, but all teachers have to write masses of words. We talk about a target of 2000 words a day on our novels but teachers often achieve that when writing lesson notes, worksheets and above all, end-of-term reports. Most teachers hate that but writerly ones love it. It gives us the opportunity to be creative with an otherwise tedious activity. (assuming the school isn’t using computerized multi-guess reporting). One of my favourites: ‘The dawn of legibility in John’s writing revealed his utter incapacity to spell.’ Such chores honed my writing decades ago.

Not that I’ve stopped learning the craft. I’m with Pablo Casals – the famous cellist on why he continued to practise at 90: ‘Because I think I’m making progress.’

I remain fascinated enough by gnarled oak trees and squirrels to write them into my stories. This 2017 year sees publication of my ‘Girl in a Wandering Wood’ in The Horror Zine. I’d overheard the phrase wandering wood and thought what if a wood actually wandered? So, a botanist is trapped in a copse, animated by a spirit trying to stop her escaping. A squirrel helps her out, kind of. The same squirrel I wrote about in 1957.

A sample flash story. First published in Bobbing Around: (2004)Vol 3 No.6 A newsletter by psychiatrist Dr Bob Rich.

Nothing Upstairs

By Geoff Nelder

He should take advantage of the perspective from the top floor of a bus. Forrister’s car lingered in Foley’s Vehicular Care Centre for its annual medical but he had to put in a work appearance.

Green vinyl seats as opposed to his red leather but not bad. His nose expected sour milk odours—a foolish bias, so his eyebrows arched with surprise as fresh air slapped his face from the open top windows. Even so, those reasons for individual travel, cocooned in his Ford, came to him—personal space, sublime solitude listening to opera. He sought the least offensive fellow traveller. The beard looked normal enough: its owner gazing through a demisted circle on the window as London glided past.

An uncomfortable moment passed as Forrister obliged the window-side occupant to move a corner of his coat and shuffle up. In his car, Forrister would by now have tuned in to Classic FM talking back, unheard, to the presenter, so he turned to his companion.

“Cold, today.”

No response. Could be his new friend had defective hearing but more likely incredulous anyone had the temerity to strike up a conversation. Twenty minutes before disembarking—he had to give it another shot.

“Hey, there’s Putney Cinema. Don’t go in Screen Three, it’s squeezed in between One and Two—you only hear the other two films and at the same time!”

“Grooten!”

“Pardon?”

“For—is that all?” Beard conversed all right but in gibberish and to the window. Suddenly, Forrister’s head received a blow from behind as a robust woman thrust her elbow over the seat.

She treated Forrister to a cloud of gardenia fragrance.

“Grooten?” She barked. Beard turned, looked at her and nodded.

What? He hadn’t appreciated the rapidity of language development since he last used public transport. Contorted out of recognition. Forrister couldn’t participate. The woman had slumped back into her seat and the beard brushed again at the condensation. Forrister had to try again.

“Full today then,” Forrister said, sketching a wave at the one empty seat.

Nothing.

Then: “Jaffa. Man…”

“I have an orange. Would you like a piece?”

Before the Beard could reply, the elbow dented Forrister’s head again.

“Grooten?” she asked. He shook. She re-slumped.

Dejected, Forrister re-bagged the orange, stood and weaved his way to the winding stairs, three stops early. Before the descent he glanced back.

The woman took Forrister’s seat. Beard took an ear-piece out of his left ear.

And shared the cricket.

+++

About the Author

Geoff Nelder is a professional liar, badass editor, and fiction competition judge. He was awarded Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society for his research into air pollution and microclimates and used his students as unpaid researchers to discover urban heat islands in Yorkshire towns and villages. He taught now-out-of-date Geography and IT to the ungrateful alive but escaped on his bike to write.

His publications include science fiction novels Exit, Pursued by Bee and the ARIA trilogy; and thrillers: Escaping Reality, and Hot Air. Many of his short stories have found homes in mags such as The Horror Zine, Perihelion, Ether Books, Encounters, Jimston Journal, Delivered, Screaming Dreams and many anthologies such as Monk Punk, Science Fiction Writers’ Sampler (with Gregory Benford and David Brin), Twisted Tails, and Zombified.

His non-fiction include books on climate and he co-wrote How to Win Short Story Competitions.

Latest is an experimental science fiction short story, The Chaos of Mokii, published as an ebook by Solstice Publishing at http://mybook.to/ChaosOM

Links:

Where can we buy the books?

Geoff’s UK Amazon author page http://www.amazon.co.uk/Geoff-Nelder/e/B002BMB2XY

And for US readers http://www.amazon.com/Geoff-Nelder/e/B002BMB2XY

How can we follow you on Facebook?

http://www.facebook.com/geoffnelder

http://www.facebook.com/AriaTrilogy

Twitter Handle? @geoffnelder

GoodReads? As Geoff Nelder

Website: http://geoffnelder.com

Are there any other sites we should know about?

http://nelderaria.wikia.com/wiki/NelderAria_Wiki

http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/nelder_geoff

That’s it, thanks for reaching this far, if you did. May the rest of your life be deliriously wicked in the best possible way.

Thanks again for joining us. Have a great day, guys.

Welcome to week five of the Solstice Winter Blog tour. This week we’re hosting Christopher Davis.

Good Morning and thank you for having me.

I’ve two novels on tap so far for 2017—one short and one full length—and both will be published by the good folks at Solstice publishing.

Walking to Babylon—the first up and released February 2nd—is the longer version of a story that I wrote for the Multiple Myeloma Research charity anthology Paladins. My story in the anthology was titled Low and Outside and as you could guess takes both its title and story line from the game of baseball, as the story is told over a couple of beers at a farm team game in Las Vegas.

The collection was published in England and is stocked with some of the best indie crime writers on the scene today from both sides of the pond. Paladins was put together for a crime writer friend—Craig Furchtenicht and his wife—Henrietta—who at the time—was fighting a valiant battle against Multiple Myeloma. She has since lost that battle and writing the longer story was my way of remembering the smiles posted from a hospital room on Facebook as she struggled to keep those of us writers participating, in the game.

Walking to Babylon is not for the faint of heart as it follows a pair of unlikely Vegas mob types—Sammy Soriano and Tommy Two Guns Viglierchio—as they grow up busting balls for the old man.

Vigleirchio has cancer and Soriano knows it, but there is really nothing that he can do except be a friend. After a hard life of drug use, fast living and even faster women, Viglierchio chooses to end it all one night in the desert outside of Las Vegas under a silver summer moon.

Ain’t No Law in California is a much longer post-apocalyptic, western that has lived on the hard drive of my computer for six or seven years. The original story was slated to be a traditional western and written as three stories, in the hope of gaining the attention of the shorter e-book publishers of the time.

After two complete re-writes and another in first person, I scrapped the idea and the story took on a more SCI-FI, Steam-Punk, Dystopian feel. A couple of folks read through it—after having read the original version—and it seemed that the Dan Bardwell series of odd westerns would get off the ground.

An untitled follow up is nearly complete and both are written as traditional as can be with the exception that they take place a hundred and fifty years in the future after a nuclear war has nearly wiped humanity out.

Walking to Babylon was just released on the 2^nd of February and Ain’t No Law in California is making the various rounds of editing and should be out before spring and available through Amazon or Solstice Publishing?

***

Christopher Davis is a central California native and grandfather of three rambunctious little ones. When not tending herd, he can be found trying his hand at writing Crime, Western and Horror fiction. Chris lives with his wife and a little dog that has nearly lost his mind.

Find out more at www.christopherdaviswrites.com

By the way, don’t forget to check out my Solstice book, Broken Patterns. Available on Amazon.