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.

The Elusive Amazon Review

I wish this was  a helpful post on how to get those precious Amazon reviews but it is not. I did read some ebook that said you can get Amazon reviews for an ebook if you made it into a contest where the person buys the book, leaves a review and then  is entered into a contest to win a Kindle Fire. I don't know who has the kind of money to invest in a brand new Kindle Fire to give away. Of course, I suppose you could always write it off on your taxes.

As many of you know, I struggle with getting reviews probably like most independent writers. I am grateful for the couple 4 and 5 star reviews on my two Christmas books, Nickolaus and Santa's Shorts and I am even sort of grateful for the one star review on my novel. I also have a review in the UK market for my book, The Wolf's Red Rose. What prompted this query is a horrible poetry book I read the other day.

When I am bored, I will root through the Kindle store and find all the ebooks that are free and  sound good. Since I have a love affair with poetry, I got a free poetry book. I don't always get poetry books for free. I do read my free books especially when I want something quick to read and I have nothing else better to do and I have read some really stellar stories. This poetry book was horrible. It was horrible in almost every possible way. So to be nosey, I went to the Kindle store and this poet had 5 star reviews with glowing sentiments such as "this was so beautiful". Well, I guess you know the saying, one man's trash is another's treasure.  This book got a three star review just for effort. I did not leave a review. I don't know;  I just  couldn't do it, I couldn't just rip this person to shreds although I really wanted to. 

And this brings me to the topic of the day.... WHAT PROMPTS YOU TO LEAVE A REVIEW WHEN YOU READ A KINDLE BOOK?

So I mentioned before, I don't review the books I read and some of them deserve reviews. I don't leave reviews and I don't know why. I thought about reviewing books this year as a part of some karma thing where I review books and then the universe will give me reviews. But, what if I read something horrible like the aforementioned poetry book? I know reviews mean a lot to an author and in this business you need to have a skin made of granite, but could I be mean?

Sometimes, the book sounds good but it is boring when I get into it. I wonder how many people are like me. How many people in the Kindle universe get free books and never read them? Or just read some of the book? How many people in the Kindle universe are independent writers  and don't want to hurt other author's feelings because we kind of to have each other's backs (like we are in the same team or something).

Here I am stuck between thinking my work is worthy and thinking that my work sucks.  Is it egotistical to think my poetry book is much better than the bad poetry book I read? Or is it confidence? I am left wondering, if my writing is boring, did I bore the fuck out of you as you read this post? (Side note- if you made it this far, I couldn't have bored you too much).

Honestly, sometimes it is nice to hear someone enjoyed my work. There is a special warm fuzzy feeling I get  when someone tells me they like something I wrote or created. It is a feeling that lasts for a moment but I never get tired of it. It's that atta boy that we all love hearing for a job well done.

Tell me what you think.

Until next time....

Thinking About Gone Before Dawn

As some of you know, I participated in Nanowrimo once again. I did make it to the 50K mark then I stopped writing for no good reason.

If  it would make you feel better, I can make up some stupid reason on why I wasn't writing. Bottom line is I didn't put in the effort. I thought I would blame it on the end of the term for school because I had a lot of stuff due. When the week long break started, I had plenty of time to write but I chose to do who the hell knows what. Anyway long story short, this novel, this story has been creeping up on me in the oddest of places and I started working on it so I can finish the rough draft.

Remember last year, I was like "I am so awesome. I finished the novel the first week of December." Suck-a-duck, I had it 90% edited and revised by this time last year so I can enter it into a contest. This year, I just got lazy and unmotivated.

So another term starts in school and I am taking Nature Writers and Intro to Info Tech. The second class fulfills a requirement and I find it a little boring but that is not important. What is important is how Gone Before Dawn creeps up in  the weirdest places. In Nature Writers we are supposed to pick a nature writer and a specific piece of work. I chose Henry David Thoreau and his essay called Walking. As I read the essay, I am thinking about my missing kids in my novel and how they have to walk a lot of miles to reach a portal. My mind is overwhelmed with thoughts about  looking at maps and figuring out how much a typical person can walk in like 12 hours. In the other class, we were talking about the mighty influence of Google. As I am writing my discussion board post for the week, I went off on this wild tangent and it revolved around my novel. The one that pretty much sat untouched for an entire month.

What does that tell you? It tells me, this story needs to be finished. I need to finish it. The sad part is, it is near the end. Currently, the novel is approximately 58 K words and I figuret the first draft will end right around 70K. That is only 12,000 words. 12,000 words isn't a lot. I used to think it was a lot but now it's nothing.

Here is the strange part, I am looking forward to reworking the novel. The story itself is interesting and exciting but I have to get my facts straight since I am not the kind of writer who outlines. In fact, I have no idea how a story will turn out. Some writers swear by outlining and when I write papers for school, an outline is essential. I tried using outlines in fiction and you know what happens? Everything changes. Anyway, it is more fun to write what comes to my head then really thinking about it. The best writing days is when I can write 4,000 words in 2 hours and I have no idea where time went. And the only reason I stop writing is because my ass is numb.

In fact, I should be working on  it right now.  Just to let you know, my first novel will be free next week and I am hoping for reviews that is why it will be free. I will post when the novel is free and I would love to hear your opinions. I promise I will not publicly degrade you.

Till next time...

Into the Garden by Jm Scott FREE for a Limited Time

Hello all, in an effort for book reviews, I have been offering my books for FREE in all markets. This week it is Into the Garden: Acrostic Poetry Collection. It will remain free until this Tuesday or Wednesday. I can't remember the day. That link is for the US market but invite all people to pick up a copy. Please, please leave a review. Not only it may help sell more books but it will help me a better writer. Please (just imagine puppy dog eyes right here.)

I would like to share a sample poem from the book. If you enjoy this poem, you might enjoy the rest of the book.

Black-Eyed Susan

Be wary of the saints and their

Lewd ways of moving,

Always in the light while

Chalky clouds sink into the horizon.

Keep the soul in a box with

Elephants dancing to

Yesterday’s tune
Ethereal litanies flourish across the

 Desert. Sweet Solomon whispers.

Someone calls my name, I
Up and run to the
Sanguine valleys,
A ditty in dusk and a
Noxious night feeding.

 

Till next time...