Flash Fiction Contest

Hello, my lovelies! I know many of you write, whether to publish or just for fun right now. Why not get your feet wet with a Flash Fiction Contest, sponsored by Mocha Memoirs Press? It’s for Women in Horror Month, but it is open to all writers. Information on the contest and rules are below.

Hope to see your work soon!

Good luck!!

 

Women in horror month:

February Flash Fiction Contest

February is Women in Horror Month, and we here at Mocha Memoirs Press love our ladies of horror! In celebration of “Ghoul Power,” MMP is hosting a February Flash Fiction contest! Flash fiction is quickly becoming popular on the eBook scene. They’re super short pieces (usually less than 1000 words) that you can read on your phone, tablet, or eReader while you’re waiting your turn at the salon, stuck in traffic, or right before bed. So here’s how it works:

1. Write a short horror story with a female POV character that’s 1000 words or less.
2. Submit your story to mochamemoirs.marketing@gmail.com with WIH FLASH FICTION_Title_YourName in the subject line (Example: Re: WIH FLASH FICTION_BathtubOfDestiny_AlexandraChristian) by February 15, 2016. Please take note that all stories must be submitted as a Word document attachment!
3. All stories will be posted on the Mocha Memoirs Press blog**:  http://mochamemoirspress.blogspot.com/  by Feb. 17th.
4. Our panel of judges will choose the top ten finalists’ stories by Feb. 22nd. Voting will open on Feb. 23rd, allowing readers to vote for their favorite finalists.
5. Grand Prize Winner: $20 Amazon Gift Card.
6. All TOP TEN FINALISTS will have their stories featured in a promotional mini-anthology used to promote Mocha Memoirs Press.

Even though it is Women in Horror month, authors of all genders may submit. Just remember:  FEMALE PROTAGONISTS! So there, that’s not so complicated! Now, the submission window is narrow, so get to work on those stories!

** Please note that all standard MMP guidelines concerning content apply.  While this is horror, stories that feature explicit descriptions of rape, bestiality or abuse will not be accepted. Also stories that glorify violence, racism, or misogyny will not be accepted. Violence and sex are acceptable but make them integral to the plot. Remember, these stories are for Women in Horror Month and therefore we are all about empowering women!

About our “Ladies of Horror” Panelists…

Eden Royce: Eden Royce is descended from women who practiced root, a type of conjure magic in her native Charleston, South Carolina. She now lives in Kent, The Garden of England, and writes stories loosely based on her childhood. She has had over a dozen short stories published in various anthologies and her current release, Spook Lights: Southern Gothic Horror was on the Horror Writers’ Association’s recommended reading list for 2015. Eden is one of the writers for The 7 Magpies project, a first of its kind: a short horror film anthology written and directed entirely by black women.

 

She is also the horror submissions editor for Mocha Memoirs Press where she conceived and edited several anthologies, one of which is The Grotesquerie, twenty-one horror short stories written by women. She also writes a regular feature for Graveyard Shift Sisters, a site dedicated to purging the black female horror fan from the margins, where she interviews female authors and reviews their latest work.

 

In her dwindling free time, she is a proofreader, book reviewer, and ice cream connoisseur. Learn more about her at edenroyce.com.

Selah Janel: Selah Janel has been blessed with a giant imagination since she was little and convinced that fairies lived in the nearby state park or vampires hid in the abandoned barns outside of town. The many people around her that supported her love of reading and curiosity probably made it worse. Her e-books The Other Man, Holly and Ivy, and Mooner are published through Mocha Memoirs Press. Lost in the Shadows, a collection of short stories celebrating the edges of ideas and the spaces between genres was co-written with S.H. Roddey. Her work has also been included in The MacGuffin, The Realm Beyond, Stories for Children Magazine, The Big Bad: an Anthology of Evil, The Big Bad 2, The Grotesquerie, and Thunder on the Battlefield: Sorcery. Olde School is the first book in her series, The Kingdom City Chronicles, published through Seventh Star Press. She likes her music to rock, her vampires lethal, her fairies to play mind games, and her princesses to hold their own. Catch up with Selah at http://www.selahjanel.wordpress.com

S.H. Roddey:  South Carolina native S.H. Roddey has been writing for fun since she was a child and still enjoys building worlds across the speculative fiction spectrum filled with mystery and intrigue.  She brings to the literary world a unique blend of humor, emotion, and wild ideas filled with dark themes and strong characters. She is a voracious reader, wannabe chef, and video game addict with two full-time jobs: administrative professional and mom to a cat, teenager, and pair of precocious little girls. She also enjoys being married to her best friend and full-time muse and moonlighting as romance author Siobhan Kinkade. Visit her at http://www.shroddey.com.

Sumiko Saulson: Born to African-American and Russian-Jewish parents, she is a native Californian, and has spent most of her adult life in the Bay Area. She is a horror blogger and journalist, graphic novelist, horror, sci-fi and dark fantasy writer. Her works include “60 Black Women in Horror,”“Death’s Cafe: Ashes and Coffee,” “Solitude,” “Warmth”, “Happiness and Other Diseases,” “Somnalia,” “Insatiable,”  the Young Adult horror novella series “The Moon Cried Blood”, and the short story anthology “Things That Go Bump in My Head.” Visit her at http://www.SumikoSaulson.com

Get your pens ready: Submission call

I promised to get this to you this weekend and am scraping in by the skin of my teeth! I love Mocha Memoirs Press, and they currently have a Steampunk Anthology call out. Go check it out here   You’ll notice that they are also looking for a couple of types of romances… I don’t write those, so all I can tell you is this: I love my publisher and they are great to work with!

I actually finally got a beginning that I like for my story for the anthology. Sweet! The Golden Apple‘s book birthday on Friday was wonderful. Thank you all! The best compliment I’ve gotten on it has to do with one of the interludes, and I think I’ll discuss that in it’s own post. The subject matter kind of dictates that. So. I have one just published. One in with the publisher. One being written, and then next perking around on a back burner.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

I love my life!

Seriously, if you write romance or Steampunk, go check out the guidelines. That is what they are currently looking for, but check back lots. We also do Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy… Lots of stuff!

Love you all!

Raising a Writer

My son, 8 years old, helps me with my writing. Since he was about 4, he would dictate stories to me, pacing back and forth, waving his hands madly. He doesn’t do it quite so often any more, but he does like to help me with the stories I write. Especially with Broken.

Now, however, I’ve been in edits. And then came the updated author bio. I hate writing about myself. I dread it. It’s looped in with how I suck at interviews.

My hero, to the rescue. I started, and then he took over—

Wynelda Ann Deaver has been writing stories since she learned to read in first grade. Her son says the writing helps her calm down, and the good part of it is the support she gets from MMP. It’s nice of you guys to buy her books because we like money. Well thanks.My mom will probably write many more books for you.She told me that she will. Have a nice time reading our books!

You notice how it went from “her” books to “our books”? Writing is a team sport. I know many people who will tell you that it is a solitary, lonely road… but I’m here to tell you that you can have a team, too. Maybe in the grand scheme of things they are supporting players (beta readers, coffee makers, those who shove us in the shower with a cup of coffee), but you know what? That’s ok. Still part of the team. Because we couldn’t do what we do with out them.

Without my son to egg me on, I’m not sure I would have finished my story collection (coming out in December! woohoo!). Oh, i probably would have had more time to write without him hanging around… but when he was gone on break for two weeks I crumbled. Could. Not. Write.  I did get caught up on my sleep 🙂 And as I mentioned before, he did actually help with Broken.

But dang, my little boy got ideas!

Now, we’re getting ready to get our new stories out into the world, and as soon as I have more information I’ll get that out to you.

Ta for now, my lovelies!

Writer’s Brain

Hello, my lovelies. I have a post up on the MMP blog today, which can be found here. In it, I tried to show how my writer’s brain works… the way we start with “What if” and keep it going, hopefully all the way through a story.

But Writer’s Brain can also get us into weird situations. Like, for instance, when I’m having a perfectly lovely conversation with my self, or my character, and it happens that I’m saying it out loud, in line at Walmart. Or while pumping gas.

Sometimes we look at the world differently. There’s a tree that grows over the road near here, and to me it looks exactly like a dragon head, ready to snatch up a car and chomp on it. While driving down another road, a common sight is great big stacks of hay, partially covered with a blue tarp. A giant’s bed? Yes, I believe so.

Writer’s brain rears its head in the most fascinating ways. What’s your favorite?

Oh, and go read that blog post! Tell me what you think of it 🙂

I’ll be back tomorrow with a review on Brandy Purdy’s latest historical.

Writing courses, prompts & kick starting your muse…

I’m taking a fiction writing course at the moment (F2K by Writer’s Village University). I’m really enjoying it, even if some of the lessons drive me a little nuts. The point is, I’m writing something, to specs, every week. As the course mentor pointed out to a couple of students: the word count and directions matter. When you go to submit your work, you need to be aware of those things.

But even more than following guidelines, this has gotten me writing on the edge of sanity again. You know, where you do something wildly different from the norm, love it completely, then stress until you get a response? That’s what happened to me this week.

Do an interview/conversation with 2 characters. All dialog, no tags, no directions… just go with it. You can be as creative as you want, but you have to hit the word limit and the other restrictions.

I did it as a story. Almost as if you’re just waiting for the details to be filled in, the actions, the descriptions, none of it is there except as in the conversation. I love it. I could go back and write it as a traditional story, but I think I’d loose to much of what I love about it. The raw emotion.

So. This weeks lesson blew my writing doors wide open. What do you do to get your creative juices flowing? When your muse has high tailed it out of state, gone on vacation, entered the witness protection program, what do you do to get her back to work?

I recently gave another MMP writer a story starter (prompt). I love what she did with it. You can check it out over here.

The prompt itself was: a zombie, a vampire, a druid and a werewolf walk into a bar…

It’s interesting to see where other people go with what you throw at them. All of us could sit down with the same prompt, or the same first sentence, and get something so completely different.

That’s pretty cool.

What do you do to kick start your writing?

Steampunk-a-pallooza

In honor of my very good friend, Rie Rose’s release of The Marvelous Mechanical Man, we’re gonna look at steampunk. It’s surprisingly appropriate, since she is the one who first turned my attention to the sub-genre.

 The Marvelous Mechanical Man By Rie Rose.

Ohhh… I am so happy to finally be able to talk about this title. I had the privilege of being a Beta Reader for this story. (A Beta Reader, for those who don’t know, is among the first people to read the story after the author thinks it’s ready. It may go through a couple of rounds, but it gives invaluable insight into the reader’s experience to the author.)

I love the heroine, Jo Mann. Jo is resourceful, bright and has sass to spare. Professor Conn is the classic absent minded variety, except… Except when he isn’t. Like when he agrees to hire Jo as his assistant J This book hooked me from page one and kept me there until the very end. Can’t wait for the next book! Hey Rie Sheridan Rose! We want more Conn-Mann!

A note about this book. The book is set in New York City. It’s one of the very few steampunk novels set in America that I like. Mostly, I like the Victorian England ones, although I can’t put my finger on why. It could be that since I already live in the US, I enjoy living vicariously through my heroines. However, this one was done so well, that I really didn’t miss tea time much at all LOL.

And just so you know, Rie Reccomended to me:

Gail Carriger, the Parasol Protectorate series (incl. Soulless, Timeless, Heartless, etc.). Alpha werewolves? A No-nonsense heroine? Check and check. Great series, I devoured them all.

And then I found on my own:

Cindy Spencer Pape,  Moonlight and Mechanicals and also Kilts & Kraken (what is it with Kraken’s lately?)

If you like steampunk, with a shot of feisty heroines and sometimes, a romance… Give any of these authors a try. It’s well worth it.

 

And if you want to go catch my short, short mood vampire piece, you can grab it over at the MMP blog today. Pop back in and let me know what you think.

Have you read any of the above titles or authors? Do you like steampunk? What authors/titles do you recommend? What do you like about the genre, and what drives you batty?

Beautiful Days

So the trip to Disney was great. Much needed break from everyday life~ a chance to recharge the batteries. I’m sorry I didn’t post last weekend as promised, but I was a little stressed trying to make sure that I had everything packed.

Now that the tiredness from the traveling has faded, it was time to set down to work. Writing work. Specifically, I wrote a poem based on the ride “Haunted Mansion.” It is exactly 10 lines, so it will be going up for my 10×10 post for the Mocha Memoirs Press Blog. I’ll make sure to post the linkage for you as soon as it goes live.

I’ll be having a guest post soon on Rie Sheridan Rose’s blog as well. About not my first sale, but the first time I felt like an actual writer.

I’ve subscribed to the digital edition of Writer’s Digest Magazine.

I’ve started a novel.

I’m keeping a running log of ideas….

In general, folks, I have to say…. I think I’m going all writerly again. However, I’m still a voracious reader, so I’ll do a couple of reviews a week and a couple of writing posts. How does that sound to you?  

I know i’m behind on posting some of my reviews… I’ll get them up this week.

So. How’s your writing going? Read any good books lately? If not, go look up Wynelda Deaver on Amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com…. I hear she’s pretty good (cheeky grin).

Oh! and always, always remember…..

IT’S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL!

The Plot thickens

Shake em, stir em, rattle them babies around. It’s kind of nice seeing the stregnth anf vulnerabilities of your characters start to pop through. I had no idea that the tentatively titled “Garden” would have so much of a romantic subplot.

Yes. Subplot.

Because there’s a lot going on underneath that. A lot of healing that has to be done, by the heroine, before she’s going to be ready to trust someone again. And yes, she must heal herself. No one can drag you through it, but they can definately help you through it.

Yes, this one is going to have some my life in it. A lot of it. The thing is, I really really want to write this the way it deserves to be written. I love Sarah Addison Allen, and I’ve devoured all of her books. I like the magic weaving through “real” life, the characters are slightly off beat…

But they don’t have the asinine humor that I somtime’s deploy.

Yah. I said it.

When my son was a wee little babe I called him, among other things, Melon Head. I even wrote a poem about him at ten months, calling him “Beloved Melon Head”. It’s right there on the top of the page— click on it and take a look. I can wait a moment.

Waiting

Waiting

Yah. See? I can be a bit asanine. But even though there are things in there that aren’t quite right, you can tell through every line of the poem that I adore that baby.

And that’s the kind of book I want to write.

A little bit asanine, but with the beauty of possiblity woven through out.

I’m game. are you?

Note:

If you’re up to it, I’m appearing on the Mocha Memoirs Press Blog for 4/10. Another 10×10, but this time I did top ten movies. Which is harder than it looks, by the way! By the end I had to think really hard about the movies. But they are a great cross section to know the kind of person I’m like 🙂  Go find me at the MMP Blog at http://mochamemoirspress.blogspot.com/ My post should go live at midnight tonight, or you know, tomorrow as that’s the date I’m set for over there (4/10). Even if you don’t see me, poke around— there are several great authors over there blogging on a regular basis.  Oh, and Rie’s blog post back on the fifth has a snippet of ME! yes, me! They Love me! They really do! (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!)

Ta, my lovelies! I’m planning on blogging again tomorrow, as I will be gone all next week starting on Sunday. We’re going to Disney Land!

Cover Art

So… my short story comes out on Sunday, December 9th. I thought I’d share the cover with you ~

 

Cover Art for Dragon’s Champion

 

If you peer closely, you can see how well the artist did with depicting this as one ticked off… FEMALE dragon. At least, I got it right away. And I have to tell you, I kind of got tears in my eyes, seeing it for the first time. It’s been a long time coming.

Aint life grand?

As for the blurb:

Bright, funny Constance sets off to rescue herself when she first sets foot on the Dragon’s Path. Along the way, she’ll encounter a merry band of brigands, a shop full of dresses (and temptation) and a Golden Dragon. Constance will find out that by taking that first step… she just might find her destiny.

 

Constance has a very special place in my heart. She isn’t the first story I wrote to completion, but I believe I have mentioned that she was the one that brought me back from the drought. Once I started her story, I had to keep finding out what happened because that girl is a handfull. (Remember it’s Chick Lit Fantasy LOL.) I threw all sorts of stuff at her and she handled it all. Not always well… but she did handle it in her own way.

So. Busy, busy weekend this weekend both with the family and with this. I’m finally feeling like myself again– a month and a half of an upper resp infection can get a girl down. But now? Well…

I got the fire, baby!

 

News, Notes and Nook’s

Next month, I go into editing for my short story, to be published by Mocho Memoirs Press. It’ll go live in December… so if you’d love to unwrap a dragon tale for christmas, let me know…. hehehehe. At first, I really didn’t think that they’d accept it. I have to admit it…  I write a little bit different. Kind of chick lit – romance- high fantasy. There’s not a whole lot of homes for it. I’m a strange bird 😀

But I love this community of writers. You should check them out at the Yahoo Group Mocho Memoirs Press Cafe. They are a lively and welcoming group.  While some  of their stuff is decidedly adult (as is witnessed by the disclaimer that you need to be 18 or above to enter the site), it also has a wide variety— otherwise why would my dragon story be hatching? I believe the title will be “Dragon’s Path”, but who knows? It started out untitled, then became (in my mind and at least one file name) Reason Number 39. It will be strictly digital– Kindle, Nook, etc…

Speaking of digital books, I finally picked my Nook back up. I had put it down in February or so for several reasons: I didn’t like having to turn on a book, the books i was reading weren’t very good (free books, and for some odd reason I felt I had to stick them out). I couldn’t get it unlocked, and so on and so forth.

What changed?

2 things. First, I got an Anrdoid. I now swipe, play Words with Friends, text, lots of thing on my phone. Transistioning from the phone back over to the Nook was a lot simpler than I had feared.

Secondly– I stopped reading stuff I didn’t like. I’m not saying that all stories you can get for free are bad– not at all. There were quite a few that I will be looking up the authors to see what else I can delve into. And yes, I will pay for those works. But if I don’t like it? Why keep reading? I don’t do it for books that I pay for, and quite frankly I don’t know the author and doubt any criticism I give them at this point would be welcome.

I found a few freebies, and also a few things by Eloisa James and Victoria Alexander that I wanted to read— so I paid for those. They aren’t available in the books stores, so… All in all, I think I might like this digital age.

Although I still don’t get Twitter.

I’m trying tho…..

Hopefully it won’t take me eight months to get it LOL.