Winter Blog Tour, Week Seven

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 profile1first 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.

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My Updated Monthly Planning and Review Day

Last week I talked about my weekly routines that are keeping my life in order right now. But I feel like I’m overlooking my major planning for my micro planning. I know that I have shared my monthly chores list before, but it has changed a lot.

I’m going to give you two lists. One is for the last day of the month and one is for the first. That’s right, I do two whole days of planning and prep every single month. I’m crazy pants.

Last Day of The Month

On the last day of the month I start by reviewing what I’ve done in a month. Lisa Jacob’s Your Best Year planner is a huge help for this, if you haven’t gotten a copy yet. (Not affiliated, I just live in this planner.)

  • I look at my monthly goal list and check out what didn’t get done. Everything that’s still not done falls into two categories. Either it was an important thing to do but I didn’t have the time or it really didn’t need done and I’m going to just not do it. Anything from category one moves onto the next month. The second category gets forgotten.
  • Next I take a look at my goals for the quarter and see what I need to do this month. What projects am I finishing, making progress on and starting? (Again, thank you YBY planner!)
  • Then I check for deadlines to make sure I’m not making anything.
  • Now it’s time to bust out my YBY planner and fill out my monthly page. This includes things like financial goals for the month, my main focuses for the month, and my major projects broken down by the week.
  • Next I grab my bullet journal and set up my new month. I don’t do anything crazy here that no one else does. I have a monthly calendar page, then my monthly goals, then my habit tracker, then a quick overview of what’s coming up the next two months. Then I spend some time making that pretty with stickers and washi tape.

The first day of the month

I hate when my first day list and my Home Blessing day list fall on the same day because I feel like all I do is clean!

  • I start by tracking my finances. How much money did I make and how much did I spend?
  • Next, I make sure I’ve collected and properly cataloged my receipts. I keep a physical folder and an online folder, since I don’t have all of these in my hand. I do take this time to take pictures of my paper receipts and keep everything in Evernote.
  • I then track all my stats. Followers, views, all that good stuff.
  • Next I run a virus scan on all of my devices. Big red letter note here! I work tech support and it kills me when people don’t have a virus block on their smart devices! Tablets and phones get hacked too, you guys. Get one in whatever store you use for your aps, download it and run a scan once a month. Keep yourself safe, please!
  • Now, sigh, we get to the house. I start by cleaning out my fridge. I hate this.
  • Next I clean out my coffee pot by running a half vinegar half water combo through it, followed by a whole water session. If you’ve never done this before, you’ll be amazed how much better your coffee tastes after that.
  • I like to run my bed stuff through the wash once a month. So I get to do three sets of bedding, yay!
  • After that mess my washing machine needs some tlc, so I run an auto wash on it. If you don’t have an auto wash, you can do the same effect by pouring a cup of vinegar into your washing machine and run a normal wash cycle.

What do you do at the start or end of the month to keep your life in order? Let me know in the comments below.

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Boss Author Page, Part Two. What’s in A Name?

This is going to be a shorter post, so I’m going to take a minute to explain to you why I’m not going to do a post about blog hosting.

I’m not doing it because I’ve only ever used WordPress. If I were to review other sites it wouldn’t be my own experience. I would only be repeating what other people said. I’m not all about that. If you want to learn about this, By Regina has a great post about it. I will tell you that I love WordPress and have never had a problem with it. There’s a reason I’ve never had experience with any other hosting site. I’ve never needed to.

Now, onto our actual topic for today. Naming your author page. I’m assuming that you don’t need a lecture about how important a solid website name is.

There is an argument for naming your page after yourself.

I wanted to talk about this first, because it’s not something I went with. I do get the logic behind this. If you are trying to promote yourself and make your name a household name than this is a decent way to go. It’s easy, too. You can also do a spin on your name, like ByRegina who you all know I love.

But I also love Lisa Jacobs from Marketing Creatively. And Kara from BohoBerry. I didn’t have any trouble learning their names.

Selecting something that matters to you.

If you want to know why I chose Paper Beats World, please go read the page I wrote above explaining why. Paper matters to me. It’s symbolic to me.

Think about what matters to you, and what matters to the message you’re trying to share. The best thing I can suggest here is to write down ten to twenty that you like and are personal for you. In fact, write down as many as you can think of. Don’t judge, just write! Then we’ll go onto step two.

Creating a unique name.

Now we’re going to judge. Go through every name on your list and Google them. Many of them will likely have similar site names somewhere. Just kind of similar is fine, but anything that’s too spot on needs to get off of your list.

Finding something that’s easy to search for.

Next, take off anything that’s longer than five syllables, can’t say in one comfortable breath or can’t write down in twenty seconds. As you start introducing people to your site you’ll be introducing it to people over and over and over. You’ll often have about thirty seconds to talk to people. Make the name fast and easy to get to people. Shorter names also make them twitter friendly.

Selecting a name that can become a brand.

Finally, take whatever’s left on your list and add Publishing to the end of it. Just in case you decide to self publish or do something further with your site. For instance, I published all of my self published books under Paper Beats World Publishing. That is my publishing company. I might do things with that beyond publishing my own books in the future. I might not! Either way, I feel comfortable branding Paper Beats World.

By now your list is probably way shorter, which is what you wanted. There’s probably a shining winner by this point, which is what you want.

If you have an author page, how did you name yours? Let us know in the comments below.

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Solstice Winter Blog Tour, Week Six

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 boughschaos-of-mokii-001 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.

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Four Lists and How They’re Saving My Damn Life

As I am always and forever trying to be a better version of myself, I often change up my routines. I find that some thing don’t work, or don’t work as well as new things. Sometimes I just find something new and awesome that I have to at least try to incorporate into my life. My routine also changes as my life ebbs and flows. My day job schedule changes three to four times a year. My energy waxes and wanes with the moon and season. My children’s schedules also influence mine, of course. And I’m a damn fool who signed up to assistant coach my kids volleyball team for three months.

So here are my current routines that are keeping me grounded, sane and productive. Maybe these will help you, too.

Daily when I get home list-

I think I’ve mentioned before that if I sit down after work I’m done for the day. I will lay back on the couch and fall into a black hole of tv. So I don’t let myself do this!

  • I start by cleaning for 15 minutes, in whatever room needs it most. (Thank you, FlyLady.)
  • Then I grab my computer and head to my office. My kids are usually busy when I first get home, so I can do a writing power hour. A big note is that I don’t do any office maintenance stuff at this time! This is a full hour on my current wip.
  • After my power hour I collect my outfit for the next day, set up my coffee pot and go over my to do list. Anything not done at that point isn’t getting done until tomorrow.
  • Then I park myself on my couch and do social media stuff while watching tv with my kids. The darling husband is usually making dinner around this time. Social media takes me about half an hour, and then it’s all about dinner and my family until bed.

Home Blessing Day and Office Day-

If you’re familiar with the FlyLady you know what a Home Blessing Day looks like. And if you’re not familiar with Fly Lady, Google her. Do it now, thank me later. But my list looks a little different, because I am not the homemaker in my house.

  • I start out with a quick pick up of each room in my house. I find that I create specific pockets of mess. Like piling make up remover clothes on the sink. Or piling coke cans next to my seat on the couch. I take care of all of that.
  • I also run a couple loads of laundry, fold them and put them away.
  • Next I wash my bras and makeup brushes by hand. I, um, have large bras and they’re expensive. I do not intend to wreck them by putting them in the wash.
  • One chore the darling husband hates is cleaning out the trash can. So I take it on myself to give it a quick bleach swipe every week.
  • Finally I go through my morning makeup bag and freshen it. I like to change my blush and eyeliners out because I get bored with the same routine and colors.

On my Home Blessing Days I also run errands with the family. I still pick out my ‘after work’ routine, usually at about 6:00.

Finally, I have an Office Day. The problem is that my Office Days are sporadic right now. Here’s a list of things that might be on my list.

  • Running to the post office to ship books.
  • Making a book order.
  • Scheduling, prepping for and attending book signings.
  • Doing PBW batch days, which means writing a s*&$ ton of blog posts on one day.
  • Building e-books.
  • Sending my books to reviewers and begging polity asking them to review them.
  • Catching up on writing book keeping.
  • Any upkeeping I need to do on my PBW site.
  • Really any random thing I’ve decided is my new way I’m going to reach new readers.

This is the only day of the week I don’t make progress on my wip. Because by the time I’ve done all that other office stuff I need some non computer time.

Planning Day List-

My planning day is usually Saturday afternoon after work. It doesn’t matter what day you do this, but I highly suggest you do all of these things once a week. Seriously, all my other things are great for me but maybe not for everyone. Everyone should do these things.

  • I start out with my planner. I plan for the current week, then three weeks in advance. So, the first thing I do is decorate my planner three weeks out. I’m a big fan of stickers, washi tape and doodles. So all of that goes in my planner.
  • Next I make my schedule for the week. I start with my day job schedule. Then I schedule in my kids plans. Next I plan my Home Blessing and Office Days.
  • After I do that I make my to do list for the week. This is pretty self explanatory. I write it into my bullet journal, notating if I need to do a certain thing on a certain day.
  • Then I sync my paper planner to my Google planner to my day job planner. I’m sure you know that sometimes an event gets in one place and not on the other.
  • The next thing I do is set all of my alarms for the week. I like doing it all in one go so that I don’t have to remember that for the rest of the week.
  • I also go through any mail that’s been sitting on my desk all damn week.
  • Finally, I back up all of my writing for the week on Drop Box. Listen to me, Do This! Do this because you don’t want to have your computer crash and lose your project! You will want to die.

My ‘kind of’ morning routine-

I will admit that I don’t have a proper morning routine. I have to be at my day job really freaking early, so I just don’t have a lot of time.

  • I start when my alarm goes off by playing my little time management game for ten minutes. The light of my tablet wakes me up in the winter when it’s still dark and makes me not dread being awake.
  • After that I dress, do the whole hair and teeth brushing thing and put on my makeup. All together this takes about half an hour.
  • If it’s a school day I wake the child who has an early class. Then I head downstairs, start my coffee, feed the cat and walk the dog. (The awake kid will feed the dog when she’s up.)
  • I then pour my coffee in a travel mug, throw on my boots and coat and head out the door.

Of course, this whole routine depends on a solid after work routine that I shared above.

So that’s what I’m doing to stay sane during the crazy as hell season of my life right now. What are you doing to keep your mind?

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Building a Boss Author Website, Part One

We all know I am super proud of Paper Beats World. I love it to pieces and it is my home online.

I put a lot of work into making and maintaining PBW. I’ve been running it for about two and a half years now. It is, very much, the public face of my writing.

I’d like to take some time over the next few weeks to talk to you about creating your own author website. I hope it inspires you to make something you’re excited to share with the world.

Today, we’ll start with what to include on your Author’s website. This is going to depend entirely on what you want your site to do. But I think most of you want your site to do the same thing I want my site to do. Introduce people to my writing and show them where they can buy my books. Assuming you want the same, here are some things you should definitely include.

Blog

Yes, a large part of PBW is my blog. But it’s not the only part. It’s a place to begin, though. Posting blog posts does a ton of good for your writing. It introduces people to your voice, allows you to share part of you and maybe even teach people something. There’s no end to creative and awesome blog post ideas, which we’ll discuss further in a later post.

News about your writing

This is kind of a big one, obviously. You should be the first source of news for your writing. So readers should be able to find out about sales, new releases and events on your site.

Extra goodies

I post short stories, extra content from books and behind the scenes information about my books. People who just read my books don’t get that content, only PBW followers. That gives your site value to fans who want more of your writing. (Yes, you should totally give some writing away for free on your site. More on that later.)

Contact info

You don’t need to put your home address on here. I would highly advise against that, in fact. People are crazy as hell, you know. But you can put up your public social media links, or an email you don’t mind getting fan mail from. This helps readers who want to connect with you.

Links to buy books

This should be the biggest ‘well duh’ on the planet. If you have a book to sell, sell it on your Author Website! You don’t have to have a buy button if you don’t want. I just have a link to the Amazon page.

Check me out next week, when we’ll go a little further into creating your own author website.

Feel like I missed something that every author website should have? Let us know in the comments below.

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Solstice Blog Tour, Week Five

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 41oqgurj9ql-2that 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 2nd 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?

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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.

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What’s on My Reading List?

I have a reading list that I keep in my Bullet Journal. Every time I hear about a book I want to read, I write it down so that I don’t forget. Since books are written at a far quicker speed than I can read them, the list gets bigger not smaller, all the time.

This is not my whole reading list, because damn is that long. I thought I’d just share the next six books I’m reading. Since there’s a whole series on the list, I’ll include them as one book. So this is actually the next nine books I’m going to read. If you guys like this, let me know and I’ll make a new reading list when I’m done with this one.

Clockwork Princess, by Cassandra Clare

I’m almost done with Clockwork Prince right now. I have to say, the writing leaves something to be desired. But the story is boss! I definitely recommend the whole Infernal Devices series to you.

All The Wrong Questions, by Lemony Snicket

I loved Series of Unfortunate Events. I read all the books, then read them to my children, then read them again just because. I loved the first season on Netflix, by the way. Check it out if you get a chance.

That being said, I don’t know how it took me so long to find out that there was a prequel series! I just got the first two, cannot wait to dig into them.

The Screwtape Letters, by C.S Lewis

I don’t often talk about my faith, but yes I am a Christian. I have always wanted to read this, so when I saw it second hand I grabbed it like a rat grabs pizza.

Falling Kingdoms, by Morgan Rhodes

I found this while shuffling through the fantasy section, and just couldn’t set it back down. I haven’t started reading it yet, but I keep stopping myself from starting it. I let myself get into a bad habit of starting books when I’m not done with the last one. Bonus, it’s the start of a series.

The Name Of The Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss

Confession, time, I’m a bad friend. You know how I just explained that I haven’t started Falling Kingdoms because I don’ want to get distracted and stop reading the book I’m in? That’s what happened with Name of The Wind. I was given this book as a wonderful gift by my friend and her husband in Christmas 2015! I got halfway through, loved it, then I don’t even remember what happened. But I obviously got distracted and now it’s 2017. If you’re reading this book, beloved but unnamed friend, I’m sorry. I’m getting to it, I promise.

The White Dragon, by Ann McCaffrey

I read the first two Dragonriders of Pern books and really enjoyed them. The problem is that I read most books on my tablet, and I had this in this big huge three book hard cover monstrosity that is A. hard to carry around and B. impossible to read while walking. It’s just not a convenient book to read, is what I’m saying.

I’ll go ahead and start these books so that they are the next six that I read on my list.

What’s on your reading list right now? I’d love to know. Please tell us in the comments section. And if you want to read along with me, check out my social media links. I always share what I’m reading there.

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Have to reblog as a great example of microfiction

It hadn’t dawned on me to warn landlords that we were Black but I guess that I should have… https://pixabay.com/en/stop-enough-it-is-enough-policy-1001080/ Inspired by a true event… Montreal, 1963. “Sorry, we do have apartments for rent but we can’t risk having other tenants move out if you move in.” I stood there with the baby sleeping in […]

via “If They Take Dogs and Jews, They’ll Probably Take You…” #racism #black — Simply Marquessa

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