It's Too Damn Cold and Other Happenings

That's right it's too damn cold. I actually got excited the other night when the low temperature was mid twenties, I thought it was a heat wave. I don't really want to talk about the cold, you are already inundated with icy pictures from the east coast. 

Okay so it seems Blogger will be marking blogs with sexually explicit scenes, which means Suburban Vampires will have to removed or my blog will become private. I suppose I should have at least finished the series. I do have two options: I keep it and then be private or delete the series and stay public. Well since I want to be read and have people enjoy my work, I will do the first choice and move the series to Kindle, where I still have free reign to write to what I want. Normally, I would be going ape shit but since I am not paying to use Blogger and it is an effective tool to gain readers, I will play by the rules. I have until 3/23/15 to remove the story, so read what I have so far and if you want me to finish let me know and I will make it number one priority, finish it and publish it to Kindle. All you have to do is just clicky the comment button. To read it as of now, just click the page heading called "Suburban Vampires".

So onto other business, I am making progress on Gone Before Dawn. I have a couple of chapters to write and then insert within the novel and it will be ready for my beta readers. While they are reading the novel, I have a bunch of other projects that will come to fruition. The first thing is...

Blood on the Carpet, this will be a Kindle only short story collection where the stories are all  in the mystery genre. These stories are several years old and perhaps not my best stuff, but I think they are still worthy to be read. There will be one short story that reach over 6,000 words and the rest fall under 2,000 each. I have to work on a book cover and then assemble the book.

The second order of business is Moonswallow Gates. I am going to copyedit it once again. I gave away almost 60 copies of the book. And that one star review had two people say it was helpful which means, I have to look at it again with fresh eyes. I think since I have been back in school, my grammar has improved. So if you have a copy, check for updates in about a month or so. I may even add a QR code. I just got an app to make these bad boys and I can't wait to try it out.

And lastly, it has been awhile since I posted a short story on here (don't worry it won't have to be taken down) and I will be finishing a story I started in September, while I was camping. I will try to keep it around to 2,000-2,500 words but we will see. I have been wanting to get back to writing for at least the week or so. Maybe I am so inspired from reading lately.

Let's talk about school... this term is almost over, I am in the last week right now. Next week is my week break so I plan on working on writing next week. The next term I will be taking Anthropology and Screen Writing for the New Media.  I am looking forward to the screen writing class because eventually I want to do more freelance work in copywriting and advertising. 

And that's all for the day. Don't forget to check out Suburban Vampires before March 23, 2015. If you want more tell me and I will write for Kindle.

Till next time....

Snow

For some us, there is way too much snow. For some it might be a way of life. Most of us are already hoping for spring. And then you have that small population who want more snow. It's not that I hate the snow, it's just that I am tired of it. I am tired of the white all around me. But, at the same time, it is quite beautiful. I can look across a field of untouched snow and how the sun explodes over it  and it is radiant. Then there are other times I have this urge to run through the snow just to put my footprints in it.


Several years ago, I lived in New Hampshire. A blizzard- like storm came in and it snowed and the wind blew like crazy for hours. The only time I went was to take the dogs out and then went right back in. Sometime in the early evening, the wind stopped just like magic or if an unseen someone turned off the wind machine. I can't remember if I took my dog Buster out (he loved the snow whereas my other dog, Snoopy hated the snow) but I dressed in couple pairs of pants and put on my gloves and coat. At the time, I lived in a development but it was a rather dark neighborhood, there were no street lights. The only light was provided by outside lights at the garage or the front door. The snow came down in fat chunks which always me think of cloud crumbles. I flopped in the snow and it was deep and I could hide in the snow. Looking up to the sky it  was stained in pink. I could never figure out if this is normal or light pollution but even now, I live on a mountain and I still see the pink night sky especially before or after a winter storm. So I am laying in the snow and I can already feel the cold stinging my ass but it didn't bother me. The chunky snow fell on my face and the only sound was the distant plow truck. I was probably 15 or so but I can remember just laying in the cold snow and feeling peaceful.

A couple weeks ago, my husband and I were fixing an inner tie rod on my car. There was some snow on the ground and it was really cold. There is a sweet silence that filled the air. Even the crows found solace in roosting wherever it is they hang their hat. The only sounds were those from the highway which is about a mile away and the occasional sound from the main road only several hundred feet from my front door. No children, no birds, just a gentle breeze the creaked the large evergreen in my neighbor's yard. Although my toes were about ready to fall off, it was rather calming sitting in the cold snow.

Yesterday, my husband and I went to Denny's and then to Wal-Mart for a little shopping and seriously I need to get out and do something because all these storms have been putting a damper on any plans, except for  running to the grocery store or the Laundromat.  We stepped out of the nice warm Wal-Mart and a gust of wind rushed by and took my breath away. It picked up snow and swirled it around as if it were smoke or foggy climbing from the swamp at night. The snow swirled and raced across the highway and made snowy worms squiggly on the salt-stained blacktop. The sun was covered by the blowing snow, but to see it was mesmerizing. If I had a camera, that would be a perfect photo.

Tomorrow, NWS already issued a Winter Storm Warning which means another 6 inches of snow or more. I want to complain but there are other people who are way worse off. But I am going to say I am looking forward to muddy shoes and muddy floors because that means the snow is melting. 

You know what really blows my mind about snow? Why it is white... For the science people you know why it's white because it reflects white light and our brain sees white. You know, this is mind boggling, at least to me. If you catch a snowflake, one of those perfect little flakes that drift lazily out of the sky, and you look at it, it is clear. Which makes sense, a snowflake is a frozen water crystal. But then when you have tons of snow all you see is white. But if you scoot down in the snow and find one snowflake, which you can do especially when it's mostly powder snow, it's clear. Do you see how amazing and mind boggling this whole concept is? Imagine if snow reflected purple wavelength, wouldn't that be weird, the world covered in purple.

Looking forward to weed whacking and wasp fighting....

Mountain Fresh

From an aqua plastic bottle
with a picture of an ice laden mountain
spewing diamond water and vibrant meadows
that doesn’t smell like any mountain
that I’ve been on.

For the urban folk who don’t know any better
buried under multicolored mountains
of worn fabric, sipping a creamy coffee,
enjoying a Heidi fantasy
while mechanical birds hum from the dryer
and mechanical water churns from the washer.

Jade liquid offers
a moment of escape,
unspoiled daydreams,
a cloudless sky folded
in between clothes
and that feeling
there is always something
to be washed,
of undoness.


Hey all, it has been awhile since I posted a poem. Enjoy

The Afterlife of Tanya Madera by JM Scott FREE for a Limited Time

Hey all, I don't normally try run two promotions at the same time,  but the most beautiful thing is seeing those green spikes on my sales chart for Kindle and that makes me feel like a bestselling author (yes, I know I am giving them away- let me live in my fantasy world). The Afterlife of Tanya Madera is FREE for the next four days.  This book is one of my favorites. It is labeled as horror but that is because it is a ghost story, but really the gore is non- existent. There is some bad language (very little) and one sex scene without descriptions. I think I also have it labeled as young adult as well but don't worry adults will enjoy it. In addition to a ghost story, it is also a coming of age story as well.

This book was inspired on a walk with my husband in the state park that is near my house. In fact, the picture on the cover of the book was taken at the park.  I started it and then never looked at it again. Until, I was going through my journal, and there it was and it  needed to be finished.


The Afterlife of Tanya Madera in a nutshell- When Jackie and Bill Crocker discover the body of Tanya Madera in the woods, their lives are turned upside down as Jackie is put in a coma. It is up to Bill and a paranormal investigator to find out who Tanya Madera was and rescue Jackie from the ghost coma. 

A word about the book cover, this is one I made my own, believe it or not. The first step was to make the newspaper layout which I did with Word Perfect. Then I took a screen shot of the finished picture. After that I spent several hours working on the background in GIMP which was no easy task. Once that was completed, I superimposed my screen shot clicked some things and voila, book cover. I like it and if you were to see it in print,  it looks a lot better.

So what am I working on? Will there be a new ebook in the future? YES!! I have plans for creating at least 2 ebooks for 2015 (perhaps more). The first one will be Blood on the Carpet. It is a short story and flash fiction collection of mystery stories. These are stories I wrote years ago and I think they are still decent stories. I have revised all the stories that made the collection now I just need to start working on the book cover. Not sure of when I will have it up, perhaps early March. I have more old short stories to put into collections. After Blood on the Carpet, I will be working on Seaspring Briar, a very haunted house story but that will not be for months.

In addition to preparing Blood on the Carpet, I will start revising my latest novel Gone Before Dawn. I have some read Beta readers lined up and I want to get the novel to them in the beginning of March. This is the one I am going to try and find a real publisher because there are more publisher that publish this type of book.

And that's about all for right now. I hope you enjoy The Afterlife of Tanya Madera.

Till next time...

What Makes a Good Writer?

Ha, if you thought I would know the answer, you are mistaken. I have no idea what makes a good writer. I know what I consider to be good writers and bad writers but my opinion is subjective just like every literary critic or normal person. If you think about how novels/stories/poems change in the hundreds of years since we put words down on paper or parchment then what really makes a good writer?

I suppose endurance through the ages like  Shakespeare, Homer and the likes that we read in school.  Hemingway is another popular fellow. And there are other writers that won awards and have some kind of prestige but is that really enough?  I am thinking about Harper Lee (don't worry I really like To Kill a Mockingbird), Thoreau, Hawthrone, John Fowles, Emily Dickinson, and Jack London which is all people I have been studying about some lately each has their own style and their own thing and I wonder if some of these people tried to publish today would they be received as literary geniuses by today's critics who also seem to make the rules about good writing?

Doesn't it seem like there are so many rules to writing, aside from the basic grammar rules? I don't know even know who comes up with these rules. And it is my guess, that following the rules makes or breaks you, as a writer. I am trying to figure out who "they" are. You know the folks that say something is good or bad and what is good writing or what is bad writing. I think good writing at the very least is readable and bad writing is the garbage you see on Facebook posted from people who either don't know how to use spell check or just want to sound like idiots. <Rambling injection here> Honestly, I think people should spend a whole thirty seconds using their damn smart phones to spell right at the very least. Hey I know I am not perfect when it comes to Facebook posts, but I would like to think most people can understand what the hell I am writing.<end>.

I would also like to think good writing as in creative writing, would encompass originality and imagination. Doesn't it seem like critics and reviewers head right for structure and inner meanings of the written and forget about the imagination behind the work. Imagination is often overlooked in this day and age.  Does it matter, if your writing doesn't follow a formula but it is unique and interesting? I would rather read an imaginative book then one that is structurally sound.

I think about my own path as a writer and regardless if I think I am a good writer (which by the way on certain days I do think I am a good writer and other days I just want to quit. Of course, I am not alone in this thought) and I think about all the writers before me and the ones that are writing right now and instead of wondering where I fall in the spectrum, I find myself thinking about why I am a writer.

I have always been a writer, as always as someone can be. There is something I love about  writing- making poems, making new worlds. And the rules of writing can kiss my ass. I didn't start writing because I want to be great (that would be nice, I think we can relate to that) but I started to write because there is something inside that was driving me to write. Even now, as I am writing this I know I am writing this just because I want to write something. And that is something I lost over the years. I am writer because I am, not to be famous or make a lot of money,  just because I am one of the special people who get to be a writer.

Till next time...

Moonswallow Gates by JM Scott ON SALE

Hey all,  This is a just a quick post to let you know my first novel, Moonswallow Gates is FREE for the next 5 days. This is the first time this will be free and I am hoping it pays off with some good reviews.  So what the hell is book about? There are witches, there is mass murders, there is a giant stone tower in Pennsylvania that amplifies the power of the Ravensquire. There is a lot of sex  and  ghosts. This novel has everything you could want, gore and sex and woven tale of  the Ravensquire family. So come on by and grab your free Kindle copy and take a read into the demented.

*The novel is free in all markets, that link is for the US market*

Till next time.