Honesty is often the policy, so I will be honest here. I haven't posted in a while - this matters; here's why: I had trouble logging back into this blog.
Fact. Embarrassing, and true.
But behind a struggle is often a discovery of fascinating proportions. While trying to recover my login for this blog, I accidentally logged into the blog I had before this one.
And found something really neat.
I actually had forgotten about that previous blog. And forgotten about these old original posts from when I started out on my writing career. Now I have found them all; from late 2011 through mid 2012. For a trip down memory lane, spiraling back a decade, I will post them in order from oldest to newest.
Though... Again, being honest, who can call any post as old as these new?
I did not edit these in any way. They are as they appeared when originally published, even with embarrassing bits and blemishes.
Titles will be underlined and bolded, dates italicized and bolded.
Here we go :)
First Post - 12/29/11 - 3:33am
And so it is that I journey into the world of E-publishing with
nothing but hope in one hand and an astonishing amount of ignorance in the
other.
Wish me luck!
Sasha : )
E-Publishing in a Winter Wonderland - 1/12/12 - 12:21am
So I decided to
E-Publish my book.
Let me explain.
Up until nearly a month ago,
the plan was to get published via the traditional route.
Here’s a quick overview
of the traditional process:
1. Write the novel
2. Edit the novel
3. Edit the novel
again
4. Edit the novel
once more
5. Edit the novel
seriously this time
6. Find an Agent
7. Agent finds
publisher/editor
8. A deal is
secured
9. 18-24 months
pass
10. Your book
comes out in hardcover in bookstores
Hooray!
With this list in my
head, I embarked on the journey.
I wrote the novel.
I finished IN THE WAKE OF A DREAM at about 4am on Friday, June
3rd, 2011. When looking back over those two months of furious,
night and day writing, I tend to cringe. I have never been so consumed by
a project, any project, ever. I neglected everything and everybody
(including myself) in order to breathe life into this idea that I believed
in. And then I was done.
I needed a break.
Originally, I had planned on taking a two week break. Instead, I took
three months. Why such a long time? Because I needed such a long
time. Itwoad (as I call it) had taken everything out of me. There
had been blood, there had been sweat, and there had been tears. And so I
couldn’t look at it for three months.
Skip to mid
September. I began editing without further hesitation. It wasn’t
long before I realized just how many edits I needed to make! To begin
with, itwoad was 156,000 words by the time I had finished the rough
draft.
156,000 words = 600+
pages
That’s a lot of pages,
and way, way too many for my genre, paranormal young
adult. The average title in my genre has about 60,000 thousand words, and
from my research it appeared that agents/publishers were looking for even
shorter titles.
And so I cut and edited,
cut and edited, edited and cut, and cut and edited. I went through three
rounds of editing. Preliminary edits took about two months, secondary
edits took about two weeks, and final edits took about ten days. All in
all, I cut and edited and edited and cut for three months without a break.
By the end of those three months and final edits I had cut 75% of the
novel. 156,000 words had been reduced to 41,000 words. The dirt and
rocks had all been washed away, leaving diamonds in their wake.
In other words, it was
time to find an agent.
I subscribed to Writer’s
Market via an online subscription (coincidentally I just cancelled my account
there about three hours ago). Even though my attempts at finding an agent
were not successful, I still highly recommend Writer’s Market. For about
$6 a month you can view online what others pay $65+ for when they buy the book,
and the online information is more frequently updated than the book.
(Don’t bother looking for the book at the library, by the way. Their
editions are almost always outdated.)
Through Writer’s Market
I found the names of about sixty agents that might possibly be interested in
representing me. I took my time to engage in this process, mind.
They say that the process of finding an agent is an entirely separate one from
writing the book, and I couldn’t agree more. As a process, it deserves a
certain amount of your concentration and determined effort. And so I went
to each of these sixty agents’ websites and researched them all – thoroughly.
After choosing my twenty or so favorites, I began writing
letters. Even while most of the letters were pretty similar, I tried to
include a sentence or two (sometimes a paragraph) addressing the agent
specifically and detailing why I thought I would be a good fit for their list.
I should add that I had
been writing and editing my query letter for over seven months. I had
started on a whim in early May when I was only about halfway through writing
itwoad, but regardless had awoken one morning with a sales pitch in my head.
I began my query right then and I am glad that I did. Over the course of
seven months, my query went through about ten major revisions. The
importance of the query letter cannot be exaggerated. It is, simply, the
single page that will sell your book to a literary agency. It should only
be one page, short, sweet, and perfect. After seven months mine was
pretty good. I even used a portion of it (slightly reworked) for my
description of itwoad at Amazon.
On December 12th,
2011, I woke up earlier than usual and prepared to leave the house. Even
though it has been a mild winter, on that morning frost covered the
ground. I grabbed my plastic bag of twenty or so letters and plopped them
on the passenger seat of my Hyundai. Because many of the literary agents
had requested partial manuscripts, the bag was heavy and bulky. I then
proceeded to get a brush to clear the frost from my windshield while the
letters remained warm inside, cozy in their tidy wrappings. And then I went
to the post office and sent the letters all at once. I had planned a
sendoff en masse, and that’s exactly what I did.
Regardless, and after
all that, I was rejected by most of the agents. Some I have not heard
back from and I don’t expect to. More rejections – or perhaps even an
acceptance, may be on the way, but either way I have found something
else.
E-publishing – at last
I’m climbing aboard.
Skip to December 14th,
2011. The cover of the USA Today arts page features an article about
E-publishing and how it can be lucrative for even non-bestsellers. An odd
time to find such an article, I thought – only two days after I sent off twenty
query letters to literary agencies via snail mail. Regardless, I couldn’t
help but read the article. I still have the article, actually, and have
no plans to recycle it anytime soon. Perhaps in ten years I’ll be happy
to have a copy of the page that was the catalyst for my becoming an indie
writer, or perhaps I’ll just reread my rejection letters and give them the
credit (still have all of those, too).
So why am I
E-publishing? Well, it’s not just because I was rejected
by multiple literary agents, although I can’t pretend that element hasn’t
played a role. No – the real reason I decided to E-publish is because
it’s simply easier for the average writer to make a living at E-publishing then
it is by following the traditional route. Sure, many writers at the top
of the traditional publishing industry do just fine, but the average Chaucer
should get a chance.
If I have a better
chance of making a career out of E-publishing than traditional publishing, then
I am going to E-publish. There – that’s it, that’s my reason. It’s
not complicated.
And so I sent itwoad to
my friend Kye (who also happens to be my editor), and he began formatting the
novel early in the New Year. After playing with the programming for a
while, he sent me the finished epub file for Ipad and Barnes & Noble’s Nook
and the mobi file for Amazon. After doing some paperwork, going over some
copyright stuff, and choosing the price, I sent off the files for review.
Itwoad should be available for sale on Amazon tomorrow. The reviewing
process for the epub file (for the Nook) will probably take longer.
I did, unsurprisingly,
make a huge and embarrassing mistake on both of the files. You will not
believe this.
I forgot to add myself as a contributor!
Wow, Sasha, wow. There are no words. After having lived an entire
year dedicated to this novel, after conceptualizing it in the winter, writing
it in the spring, researching agents in the summer, and editing in the fall –
after spending hours and hours every day on this project, AND after remembering
to add my editor as a contributor, I somehow forgot to add my name to the file
as the author. Wow, Sasha, wow.
Wow.
And that will always be
how I began my indie publishing career.
Ah well – it’s a
learning process, I guess.
I already fixed the
Amazon file and I need to wait for the Nook file to get processed before I can
make edits…….and add my name.
Despite that kerfuffle
(because what can it be called, really?), I’m feeling good about this whole
thing. It’s new, it’s exciting, and I’m ready to do what I love and love
what I do. I feel like playing a certain Nina Simone song right now, but
I’ll put that off. Instead, I think I’ll go downstairs and double check
the mail for rejection letters.
Dreamdrifter
Update - 1/19/12 - 12:30am
So as of about thirty
minutes ago (and finishing chapter eight), I am at the halfway point of
writing DREAMDRIFTER.
The first thought that
comes to me is that I’m glad to be writing again after having lain dormant for
half a year. Sure, I edited (oh did I edit) during those months and I was
writing articles for this and that, but in my mind writing means
working on my fiction. And my fiction, at the moment, is the Dreamdrifter
series.
DREAMDRIFTER has been a release, and a furious one at
that as so much creative energy has been building inside of me, waiting for the
day when I could say that itwoad is finished and I can move on to number
two.
However, DREAMDRIFTER was
largely started on a whim. I had known that I would write several
sequels, but I hadn’t planned on starting for a while – perhaps even for a year
or so. What spurred me was the move to E-publish my book, because all of
a sudden I didn’t have that year and a half to two years that I had expected I
would have after being signed to a literary agency. Nope – that was gone,
and my book was already out there and needing a buddy.
So that’s why I dove
into this endeavor so suddenly. What may have been difficult, however,
has turned out to be enjoyable. Turns out I had been playing this novel
in my head for nearly the entire fall, but on a subconscious level. I’m finding
that the plot, the old conflicts with the old characters, and the new conflicts
with the new characters, are all coming to me without having to push too
hard.
I’m a fast writer when I
get going. What really slows me down, however, is that I need long breaks
in between the get goings. The breaks can be (and are) used for
promotion, editing, editing, more editing, editing because I was really just
reading last time, and editing – that kind of thing, so those spans of time are productive.
Either way, though, I just need a break to drink some creative juice so long as
it’s not cranberry : (
Editing will take a
month at the very least, and no that does not include formatting.
Formatting is a whole
different animal where I get to look at the demo files, complain about them,
look at the demo files, complain about them, glance at the demo files, complain
about them, and look at the demo files, and complain about them – repeat, repeat,
repeat, repeat, repeat, do over, repeat, repeat x 65. And yes, I
have let on to my formatter that I’m lucky that he tolerates me.
So all things included,
my self-imposed May 1st deadline is a good one. It’s a week or so
more than I need if everything goes right, and that’s as it should be. If
all heckfire breaks loose, then I can always edit my deadline up by my CURRENT
PROJECTS headline, and so long as you all (YOU ALL, definition:
the two people following this blog) don’t have good memories it’s safe to say
that I’ll be able to get away with it : )
On a side note I’m
planning on releasing a Dreamdrifter series short. It’s a story that will
take place in the Dreamdrifter world but won’t be connected to what is
happening in the books. You know, to add some interest. The idea
hit me yesterday morning along with a fun plot and a couple of goofy
characters. So I’m looking forward to that, and I’ll probably start
writing it after this second novel is a wrap.
Now I’m thinking about
all the stuff I have to do. There’s no end to the list, not that there
should be, but regardless there is no end. Now I feel like making a to-do
list. And what, really, is the point of having a blog if you can’t bore people
with your to-do lists? Hey, I had a list in my last post. Perhaps I
should make it a goal to have a list in each post. Ugh! Another
thing to add to the list: add lists!
Sasha’s
to do list:
1. Actually sell books
2. Finish DREAMDRIFTER
3. Try some new advert
strategies
4. Sell a couple books
5. Write Dreamdrifter series
short
6. Books…sell…now!
7. Upload stuff to smashwords
8. Sell some books
9. Conceptualize new stories
10 Think I could scare the people at Amazon into buying my books?
!!!Boogey
Woogey!!!
The Decision - 1/23/12 - 2:38am
So I decided to lower
the price of my eBook.
Let me explain.
First of all I want to
give a shout out to those four people who bought my book for $4.99.
Thank you so much for
that support. Your money was not wasted because I take it to heart.
You guys really spurred my belief in this project, you really did. (As a
side note, I changed the epub file before uploading it to Barnes and Noble
again, and so you four have the original, untampered with version. I
shortened some titles to say the least, but you four alone will know what my
original titles were ; )
But to make a short
story shorter, I lowered the price because I had only sold four books. I
sold two on 1/13, one on 1/15, and one on 1/16, and after five straight days of
no sales I had to do something. A good blurb and word of mouth wasn’t doing
enough, because in order to get the kind of grassroots sales that word of mouth
can generate you actually need to sell some books! And that’s where I’ve
been running into problems.
There’s something I have
to say. Perhaps it belongs to the realm of the total obvious but I’m
going to say it anyway.
I did not lower the
price of this eBook because I don’t think it’s a good book.
On the contrary, I
lowered the price because I think it IS a good book.
The price is now $0.99,
down from $4.95. What that means is that I have to sell about nine books
to make the same amount I made with the sale of one book at $4.95. I’m
basically counting on people who like the book to tell their family and friends
about it – I’m really hoping for that kind of support, because I will need
those numbers to be make anything at $0.99.
To reiterate, though, my
goal is to be able to make a living at writing, and a living – for me at least,
isn’t much. I don’t need fancy stuff all over the place. I don’t
feel that pang of dissonance when I see that crooked H in the middle of my
steering wheel like I do every single day. That’s fine, that’s the life I
expect to live as a writer and I’m fine with that. I’m not out to make
millions like Amanda Hocking and who knows who else. I just want to
make something. Food would be nice…heating in winter too – I
hate the cold.
So that’s where I’m
coming from with this whole thing.
Some of you may be
wondering why I didn’t lower the price to $2.99 or something in between $4.95
and $0.99. I do have a reason. The truth is that I really want a
lot of people to read this book. This novel means a lot to me. I
gave everything I had to give to its creation. I think it’s a good book
and I think there are qualities it possesses that could really benefit any
reader. It’s a fun read, it’s an engrossing read, and it’s a deep
read. There are some seriously dark elements mixed in with the paranormal
excitement.
And so I want people to
read it. Many people – like LOTS. I really want their opinions, I
want to read their comments, and those things are hard to gather to your side
when you have so few readers. So in the end the money is important
because I want to try and make a living at this, but of course the writing is
even MORE important. And that is why I priced it at the
lowest possible price.
I wasn’t planning on
posting tonight. But I really wanted to give those people that had
already bought my novel at the more expensive price an explanation for this
decision, and – of course, to remind them that I deeply appreciate their
initial support. Not to mention that they alone – those four people, have
my original, special file : )
Thanks you guys.
And I hope this won’t be in vain.
In other words…
The rest of you buy my book!
Dreamdrifter is
finished! - 1/29/12 - 5:56pm
And not only is the new
book finished, but I actually LIKE it. Liking my own work is never a sure
thing and so I don't take it for granted. A week or two break to defuse
from this high and then I will begin editing. There's always more to do,
but I get a breather for the time being. Later in the week I'll do a post
about how the writing process was different for DREAMDRIFTER than
itwoad, because it certainly was a different experience.
I can't wait for you to read my new book!
And thank you for following my blog : )
Exciting News! - 1/31/12 - 9:23pm
IN THE WAKE OF A DREAM will very shortly be
available in paperback through Lulu! Thank you for all your help, Kye.
A round of applause for my editor! Now all I have to do is review
the demo copy which has only just shipped, offer my approval if it's in order
and my changes if it's not, and then we're all set! I’ll post a status
update when it's available : )
Also, I've just uploaded the novel to Smashwords. So it's now available
for Sony as well as Apple products such as the iPad and iPhone.
A Different Kind of Perfect - 2/5/12 - 11:41am
I have enjoyed a full
week since finishing DREAMDRIFTER. While many
revelations about this work have yet to come to me, a few have already
arrived. Earlier in the week I promised a post comparing DREAMDRIFTER to IN
THE WAKE OF A DREAM, and I’m going to take some time now and do just that.
I’m just going to say it
as I see things.
I wrote IN THE
WAKE OF A DREAM for New York.
Each word, sentence,
paragraph, page, and chapter manifested within me with the knowledge that they
would – together as a whole, be faced with the most critical eyes the written
word has ever had to confront in the history of our world.
I’m not exaggerating
when I say that, for it is harder now to get published then it has ever
been. The average literacy agency in New York City accepts less than 1%
of the material that is submitted to their agents. It’s TOUGH to get
published. The fallback is to reject almost everything, and my own novel
– despite my independent endeavors toward perfection, found itself without a
home. And so I gave it one. But I’ve already talked about
that
(see E-Publishing in a Winter Wonderland).
My point is that I was
striving for perfection with itwoad. Here’s the thing though: I
wasn’t striving for perfection in my eyes, but theirs – the
eyes of the lit agencies and in doing so I to some extent voluntarily endorsed
the derailing of my own style. Don’t misunderstand though – itwoad is all
me and my heart remains in those pages, but the overall style of the novel is
more preened and clipped than is my usual splash of words.
Itwoad may very well be
a better novel for the concessions I made to please others. I have never
been a successful judge of my own work, and I’m not about to succeed in
attempting what will probably be another failure. I can’t know if itwoad
is better, but I know that I wrote it differently than the new book.
DREAMDRIFTER, on the other hand, is a liberated novel.
While itwoad was constrained because I wrote it (and edited it, for that
matter) with the knowledge that agencies would be viewing the material, DREAMDRIFTER was
reversibly unconstrained because I knew those same agencies would not be
viewing the material. I had found E-publishing by the time – actually
immediately before, I wrote the new book and so I was free.
The style could flow
without the inhibition of the harshest of eyes upon the ink of its words,
flattening its grace.
I didn’t have to worry
about my editor or agent saying things like “Oh…Annie and Ash fight a lot in
this book? I’m not sure that’s the best idea – sales, you know.
People want tulips and roses. More tulips and roses, Sasha, and we’re
golden! Nip along now and make those changes, please and thank you!
I’m so glad we could meet today to have this pleasant discourse and exchange of
good ideas. Tulips and roses! OK, bye now!”
I in no way regret not
having that conversation.
DREAMDRIFTER is perhaps a tad darker than itwoad.
And despite the hormone injections of its teenaged beginning itwoad – in
my opinion at least, is not a novel for the faint of heart. The conscious
mind is forced into the subconscious world, and what it witnesses there is
disturbing even to the more adventurous of souls. There’s even more
Dreamdrifting in DREAMDRIFTER as might be expected, and the
subconscious minds of new people will take some darkly devious turns.
I should take a moment
to talk up E-publishing again, because that truly is one of the best things
about it. You’re your own agent, editor, marketer, and publisher.
All of those titles alongside author may be too many sometimes – especially
marketer L, but at the same time you’re unencumbered by the limitations of
others. It’s amazing how many authors who do have representation are not
pleased with it, or perhaps they have a good agent but a horrible marketing
team. Few of us have it perfect. But at least this way I get to
mean what I say and say what I mean. I refuse to pull a punch.
DREAMDRIFTER remains injected with every whim I
manifested during its creation. There was no dark corridor which – once
confronted with its looming threshold, I did not enter to find the illumination
of darkness. I did not cower in the daylight of the pre-approved prose,
nor did I worry too much about my readers. I am very grateful for all and
any who are either reading this post or my book or both, but I can only
consider so many objectives at once. The satisfaction of the novel with
itself is the most important objective, followed with my own and everyone
else’s satisfaction with it.
In short, DREAMDRIFTER is
my style liberated.
The style of my writing,
however, was not the only element to separate the novel from its sequel. There
were many factors that changed, and I’m glad to say that most of them were
positive.
Perhaps the largest and
best change was that I able to breathe while writing. To not fear that
the project you’ve worked on for a year will be rejected in a half second
really relaxes a writer, and that much I enjoyed immensely. While I wrote
itwoad with the possibility in the back of my brain that nobody would read it,
I wrote DREAMDRIFTER with the knowledge that people would read
it. At least a couple. I’m not kidding myself – I’m no Amanda
Hocking J. So that knowledge really spurred me in a good way.
I was bolstered by the fact that my work would not become a complete waste of
energy should every agency reject it outright.
Another positive change
was that I wrote in a healthier manner. I paced myself through the
pages. I didn’t hurry or rush, although I didn’t let the slack run through
my hands either. My schedule was more flexible than it had been when
writing itwoad, and on random days I would just decide I needed a break and
clock out. A big part of being a writer is knowing when to take
breaks. If you’re on a roll than don’t stop, because your momentum may
never find itself again, but if you’re stalled than a break is a good
idea. Perhaps this is all common sense, but I’ve surprised myself at
times, and that’s not to mention how often the world surprises me in illustrating
that words and phrases are also casual jokers. Common sense is not
common, and neither is common law (fun fact: civil law is the most common
legal system in the world).
In conclusion, I like my
new novel.
It’s unconventionally
dark and darkly unconventional, visceral in its attempts to capture the ongoing
experiences of my characters, and eclectic in the shimmering possibilities of
the subconscious mind. I was glad to write freely once again.
Itwoad had to be what it was – I had to try to get published via the
traditional route, but this new course is better and finding a happier place
within me.
I had to understand what
perfection meant to literary agencies before I could understand my own,
different kind of perfection. My perfection is realized in not needing to
realize perfection. I at last understand that concept, because so often
it’s the kinks we’ll remember.
Today is a Special Day - 2/12/12 - 10:14pm
So today is a special
day.
Let me explain.
It has been exactly two
months since my fateful journey to the post office to deliver my twenty or so
query letters to their messenger. On that day, December 12th of
last year, I surprised myself by not being wracked with the nerves
that I've read so much about – the kind that trespass upon your
consciousness as you approach the post office to send off your tireless work.
In fact, I was in a very calm place that day.
After I sent off the
letters, I drove to the local Barnes and Noble (used to work there, actually)
and browsed the shelves of books, seeking the section where I hoped my own
would find itself before long. I wasn’t late on my research – I had been
to the bookstore to investigate my genre many times before, but that time it
was more of an honorary enterprise. I allowed myself a breather in the
same place I soon hoped to occupy.
This is neither an
assault on modesty nor an exaggeration of truth, but to be entirely frank I
really believed that the literary agencies would want to publish IN THE
WAKE OF A DREAM. In my last post I detailed some of the ways in which
I tried to ensure their interest in my work (see A Different Kind of Perfection), but those
weren’t the sole reasons I believed I would make it. I had fallen in love
with my own story – a rare occurrence, for my heart hasn’t always found a home
amid the stacks of my own pages. Itwoad (my pet name for IN THE
WAKE OF A DREAM) was and is quite simply the most realized story I have
ever created.
As writers, we have
visions. That – I’m afraid, is the easy part. The hard part is
trying to capture those visions on the page, curving the ink of our letters
into words and sentences until meaning splashes the eyes of a vagabond
reader. Sometimes we do a great job of capturing a vision.
Sometimes we don’t. Only the writer can truly know, and perhaps not all
are truthful in saying whether they have done so or not.
I did it with itwoad.
I truly did, and I – in my only mildly veiled naivety, thought an agent may
have picked up on that fact while reading my synopsis and sample pages. For the
record, I worked like a dog on both, and don’t even get me started on the query
letter (worked on that for seven months).
I’m not proud to say
this, but I was waiting for the phone call.
For you folks who are
lucky enough to have had the power to wrestle your orientations away from the
publishing industry, a simple way to put it would be that if you get a phone
call you’re golden. You have an agent if they call you – you just do.
Lucky bastard : ) I was hoping that I – like Lisa McMann and
Karsten Knight before me, would get a call within the week or two following my
query sendoff only to be informed that I had landed a literary agent.
Well, you know what
happened. And if you don’t, see E-Publishing in a Winter Wonderland.
I can’t believe it’s
been two months since that day. So much has happened, and most of it –
I’m glad to say, has been pretty awesome. For one thing, for all
intensive purposes I am published. True, there’s no massive advance when
you E-Publish, but as those who are keeping up with the traditional publishing
industry know, there wouldn’t have been a massive advance the other way
either.
Now my only goal is to
reach readers. Some will love the book, some will hate it, and hopefully
those who hate it will leave their tomato guns at home. But no matter
whether people like itwoad or not, people will be reading it and that was my
objective all along. You’re a writer out there if you believe this is
true: the worst fear of the writer isn’t that we won’t make money, but that
nobody will ever read our work.
It’s as simple as that.
And people are reading
my work! Yay!
I realized the other day
that I’m only checking my sales out of habit. As of right now, the series
will be unaffected by massive sales or none – either way I WILL finish the
series. That revelation belongs to the realm of fact. The
Dreamdrifter series will be finished, and no dissonant editor or wayward
publisher can stop me now.
Two months doesn’t seem
like a long time, but oh it has been. So much has happened since December
12th, for back then my ignorance of the E-Publishing world was
nothing less than complete. To illustrate how little I knew about the
world of online publishing, if somebody had told me on the 12th that
I’d be published in two months I’d have guessed they meant traditionally
published. No alternative would have occurred to me.
Since then I’ve learned
a lot and self published. Stuff’s good, and while sales aren’t crazy
right now I’m still selling books at a trickle, and I don’t take that for
granted. If you’re reading this and you read my book, I would like to
thank you. I really hope you liked it, and number two is even better.
Besides its having been
two months since my menagerie of query letters was released, another milestone
will soon be met. And no, I don’t mean my birthday this Tuesday
(Valentine’s Day!). Here’s the thing: most agencies give you a window of
anywhere from two weeks to two months where you can expect a response. So
– as it happens, I should really not be expecting any more query letter
replies. That doesn’t mean they won’t come, of course, but I shouldn’t
expect any. That is significant to me. The death knell of my
traditional publishing career has been sounded, it seems.
Regardless, I feel very
calm. The fact is that I have had occasion to wonder whether I leapt into
E-Publishing too fast. I first uploaded itwoad onto Amazon around January
12th – only a month after sending my letters. Now,
however, another month has passed and it seems that my actions toward haste
were not misled.
There is only one more
twist in this story…I think.
Of the twenty or so
letters I sent out, I – like many would be authors – had a few high
hopes. One was Jodi Reamer at Writer’s House (the agency that worked
on Twilight), and another was Mary Kole at Kidlit (the agency that
worked on Wildefire), but they both turned down itwoad. As a
side note, let me say that I truly deserved the rejection from Mary Kole.
Again, the ‘replace’ button screwed me over, leaving my query rife with
typos.
So no hard feelings,
Mary, honest.
But the agent and agency
I wanted most I have yet to hear back from!
Rachel Stout at Dystel
& Goderich has yet to respond with a rejection.
True, query letters
often get lost and discarded. I said in a previous post that the average
agency accepts less than 1% of the submissions they receive, and honestly I
think I was rounding up there – like, a lot. So we’ll see – maybe I’ll
get a rejection, maybe I won’t. I don’t mean to ramble on about this, but
– to put it most simply, I’ve kind of been waiting for a response from Rachel.
And here’s why:
I had set up a mental
roadblock. The rejection from Dystel was going to signal the end of my
traditional publishing career.
But here I am – still
waiting. And it’s been two months. I recall that Rachel’s packet
was one of the larger ones. It definitely had the synopsis, and – if my
memory serves me, at least one sample chapter along with the query letter and
maybe the author biography, too.
I will keep you
updated. Don’t worry – if she responds you’ll know.
I still have all of my
rejections as it happens. I don’t ever want to lose them. I’m
thinking I might someday do some kind of collage or something. Nothing
with papier-mâché though. I hate papier-mâché!
Published in Paperback! - 2/27/12 - 7:03pm
As of a millisecond
ago IN THE WAKE OF A DREAM is available in paperback!
You can buy it right now at Lulu or wait for it to appear at Amazon which
might take a day or two. A shout out to my editor, Kye - thank you!
I'd be upriver without a boat if I didn't have you : )
Buy IN THE WAKE
OF A DREAM in paperback at Lulu.
My Traditional Publishing Career is Over - 3/16/12 - 12:15pm
So it appears that my traditional publishing
career is over.
As of today is has been exactly
three months and four days since my journey to the post office to deliver my
query letters. A month or so ago, I did a
post about those letters and the agents that had rejected me as well as those I
had yet to hear back from. I talked
about how I was still waiting for a response from Rachel Stout at Dystel and
Goderich. Well, after three months and
four days I’m willing to write that off as a no go. I’m an inde now, and I couldn’t ask for better
:)
Reference: Today is a Special Day
Well of Course it
Happened Now That I Said it Wouldn't - 3/26/12 - 11:42pm
Guess what I got in the
mail today?
Yup, a much belated
reply from Rachel Stout at Dystel and Goderich. You’ve probably already
guessed it – they passed on the project. I wasn’t that surprised.
More relieved, really – glad to have finally received a response from
them. Beforehand I had been able to entertain the notion that perhaps my
letter had gotten lost – trapped in the postal cycle, fallen like a leaf
beneath the mail truck only to find the flame of obscurity.
None of that
happened.
How bizarre to get a
response three months and fifteen days after sending off the query. None
of the agency websites and/or magazines I perused hinted that the wait would or
could be so long. But I am glad to have been rejected, in a strange
way. What I said in my last post holds true. My traditional
publishing career, for better or worse, does seem finished now. This
sense of finality is simultaneously confirming and devastating. Perhaps,
subconsciously of course, I was holding onto that string of hope that was that
last letter. Well, it has arrived and so has my realization that I am
truly an inde writer now.
Soon (after a bit more
processing of all of this) I’ll do a post on rejections – on getting rejections
and not getting down because of rejections. I’ll keep ya posted.
If this is all crazy confusing check out My Traditional Publishing Career is Over.
On Rejections - 4/13/12 - 3:06pm
So I’ve been rejected –
like, a lot.
Let me explain.
Well, it all started
about four months ago (four months ago yesterday, to be exact) when I got out
of bed and readied myself to depart the house. Off I went to the post
office to deliver my twenty some query letters to their proper homes, namely
the mail slots of publishers and agencies the nation over who might have found
my manuscript a diamond of interest among the avalanche of debris they normally
have to fight through on a daily basis, shield in hand. It’s fair to say
that in regard to accumulating my respectable pile of rejection letters,
submitting anything at all to anybody was my first enormous blunder.
Indeed, a great way to not be rejected is to never submit anything in the first
place. It feels great to not be rejected. Well – that’s what I’m
told, anyway. I wouldn’t know.
In fact – to go back
even further, my first in a long series of mistakes that led to my many
rejections was to write anything in the first place. Had I never written
my novel I would never have had the supreme audacity of living consciousness to
think that it’s many, worn pages – from all the editing, see – deserved the
flickering grace of another’s eyes over its existence. But I did write
the novel. So…my bad.
And that brings me to
the more recent present.
To make a long story
only slightly less long, they rejected IN THE WAKE OF A DREAM.
By they I mean ALL of them. ALL of the literary
agencies. To illustrate the concept in mathematical terms, imagine if
everybody except one person rejected the book. And then that one person
also rejected it. That’s about as arithmetic oriented as I am capable of
becoming on a Friday morning.
In conclusion, they ALL
rejected the novel.
As taxingly redundant as
I’m sure that last sentence seems, it is very crucial regardless. Many writers
would have said it differently. Speaking or writing the sentence “They
all rejected the novel” differently can have disastrous consequences.
Many writers would have written it as follows: “They all rejected me.”
No matter the writer in
question, the last word in each of the two sentences is immediately telling and
revealing of the author’s psyche. Writing that they “rejected the novel”
over “they rejected me” illustrates a patient wisdom on the part of the
writer. Consequently, writing that “they rejected me” over “they rejected
the novel” illustrates an amateur’s approach on the part of the writer,
unfortunately.
We live in a cruel
world.
There – it’s said.
I didn’t really want to say that, but this is a post about rejections so all of
a sudden I got this lingering feeling that if I didn’t write it the blog police
would come around to my doorstep and prove the fact.
The takeaway here is to
understand that when you get a rejection, they are rejecting your work –
not you. The distinction is at once unabashedly simple and
simultaneously devastating to those writers who traverse the waters of the
literary world unaware of its truthful syllables. Many writers fall into
the trap of confusing their work with themselves. True, the mistake is
easy to make. After all – after you’ve poured your heart and soul into
your work, after you’ve sweated for it, after you’ve cried for it, and after
you’ve bled precious blood for it, how can you not see yourself within the inky
loops of its bound pages?
The quicksand of this
illusion is both fast and invisible to the casual observer.
The trick is to develop
what amounts to a duality of self. Yes, you are a writer and yes –
undeniably, you live within your work. That immortality mustn’t fade to
brace the rainy storms of practically. Regardless, you must set your work
free – and doing that, equally undeniably, requires a certain detachment.
Do not view your writing
as yourself. Rather, view your writing as your child.
Where lies the
difference, you ask? Well that’s a fine question and a fine question is
deserving of a fine answer. Whereas the self is always attached (no
offense meant to my schizophrenic readers), the child –once cared for equally
as much and indeed more so than the self at certain times during its life, is
eventually set free. The child – your child, will wonder the world of
experience as a separate consciousness. He will find the love and beauty
of life along with the darker aspects, including hate and – yes, you guessed it
– rejection. You cannot protect your child from this fate. You
cannot shield him forever. The same goes for your novel. Once
released, it is a separate being that must find its own way. Your child,
your novel – both must go free.
When your child gets
rejected, do you cry? Well, maybe you do the first time. But the
second time around you give him tough love – you tell him to keep trying, you
tell him that persistence counts even in the screwed up mess that amounts to
our world. Likewise, you should have the same conversation with yourself
when rejections come your way. Enough tears, buck up for the grace of
your coming dawns.
In a sentence, reject
the rejections.
I am about to completely
contradict myself. This is a fact because, well – I actually didn’t do
any of that. After my mail truck full of rejections from literary
agencies arrived only to dump its entire contents on my living room floor, I
actually just said %#$@ it and went independent on their asses. So rather
than take the persistence route – which would have meant many, many more query
letters, I retreated to the shade of solace in the inde publishing world.
Instead of retrenching to fight the poison gas of their rejection letters (no
bug mask, mind), I left entirely to sprout elsewhere like a prickly and
tenacious shrub.
So things are going
well.
Although sales are not
great.
Perhaps I should add a
few bullet points to the blank page that is my current marketing
strategy.
In conclusion, rejection
letters suck. If you’re a writer with any ambition whatsoever, chances
are you’ll be getting a few. The key to success doesn’t lie in not
getting rejection letters, but rather in not getting down because of rejection
letters. Always remember that they are rejecting your work, not
you! Your novel is your child, not you. And you can’t protect
either from a few rejections.
Don’t believe me?
Wait for the prom.
Excerpt: COLOR MY CATCHER - 4/24/12 - 11:11pm
Here's an excerpt from my upcoming Dreamdrifter series short COLOR MY CATCHER.
It has gone through one round of edits and has three to go, so don't mind
the odd typo. Better yet tell me about it. My email address is
lower on the page on the right side. COLOR MY CATCHER will be available
(for free) on May 1st.
Excerpt: COLOR MY
CATCHER
They turned onto Roland
Avenue. Here streetlamps sprouted from the pavement like trees and eyes
were besieged by shop windows, their interior menageries aflutter with still
objects. The chairs and stilt legged menus of outdoor cafés created the
necessity for detours here and there. Mail boxes and tied up bikes
cluttered the sidewalk still further, inspiring the two girls to cross the
street.
“We’re getting close, aren’t we?” Mary asked.
Sarah nodded.
“I love Hampden in the summer,” Mary remarked. “It’s so distracting.”
Sarah didn’t respond. Nerves were beginning to eat away at her resolve,
casting her decisiveness into the wind. She swallowed loudly and then
slowed her pace beside her friend, her thoughts clawing at excuses. Mary,
however, was walking downwind of her and knew exactly what was happening.
“Relax,” Mary instructed. “This will go fine.”
“What if it doesn’t, though?” Sarah asked. “Huh? What
then?”
Mary shrugged. “Tomorrow is another day, and rumor has it another one
will follow after that. For once just let it go. Just let him go.
I can’t even begin to imagine how exhausted you must be all the time. It
has got to be tiring to be bound to your emotions twenty four seven. You
seriously need to have a laugh. And that’s why we’re here.”
A block later Mary stopped to buy a newspaper from a
street vendor, and a block after that they slowed their pace as four eyes
traversed the surroundings before meeting the dirty windows of a shop across
the street. A neon sign glowed intact and alive high in the window, but
the O had burnt out so that it read PEN. No other signs of life stirred
therein, no vagabond soul came in or out. All remained unknown.
“I can’t,” Sarah blurted. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can,” Mary propped. “Get a hold of yourself.”
“It’s been two months,” Sarah continued. “I can’t face him again –
not now.”
Mary nodded. “Exactly – it’s been two months and you still have no clue
what you did wrong. Here’s your chance to find out. And you’ll get
some revenge while you’re at it. Come on, Sarah – I should be studying
for my Native Initiatives exam. Don’t bag on me now – now that
we’re here!”
“Crazy,” Sarah said. “This is crazy, but I guess I don’t have a choice.”
“No choice,” Mary said. “This is peer pressure and no mistake.”
“Ugh!” Sarah exclaimed.
And
she crossed the street first, leaving Mary to hurry in her wake. Mary,
the burgundy polish of her nails finding the top of her spandex mini skirt,
hoisted it higher as she jaywalked behind her friend. Sarah, her courage
fit to snap, was about to charge into the shop when Mary pulled her off to one
side, her movements swift.
“Wait!”
Mary said hurriedly. “Let’s spy on him first.”
“You
and your games,” Sarah snorted, but she waited patiently as Mary unfolded the
newspaper only to hide behind it as she proceeded to peek through the
window. Sarah tried to copy her technique, but quickly gave up as soon as
she realized what amateurs they truly were. Rolling her eyes before
allowing them to fall to the headline, Sarah clucked her tongue. “How is
Glasnost coming, anyway?”
“Shut
up!” Mary hissed. “I’m trying to see in. There’s too much
glare on the window!”
“Let’s
just go in,” Sarah begged. “This is painful enough without prolonging
it.”
To
Sarah’s surprise, Mary obliged immediately. “Okay then, but you better
play along like we discussed before. Have the script down?”
“Yeah,
yeah – I got it down,” Sarah said, annoyed.
Tossing
the newspaper into a nearby receptacle, Mary made for the door of the
shop. Sarah followed closely behind, her dread entire. Just when
she was about to push open the door, however, Mary swiped her sunglasses from
her face before turning around to meet her friend’s gaze with naked eyes.
“Are
we bad?” Mary asked.
“Oh
Mary,” Sarah said. “Not here.”
“I said,”
Mary said. “Are we bad?”
Sarah
sighed. “Yes.”
“How
bad?” Mary pushed.
“We’re
just bad, okay?” Sarah said.
Mary
shook her head. “How bad?”
“Fine!”
Sarah exclaimed. “We’re really bad.”
“Sorry,”
Mary said. “I didn’t hear you. How bad?”
Finally,
Sarah allowed herself a small smile. “Really, really bad.”
Mary
returned her smile. And then she turned around and pushed the shop door
open. The space of the parlor’s interior was lit by the window that
peered onto the street from inside, its wide frame yielding to the sun.
Apart from what came in from out, however, very little color permeated the
room. The walls were depressingly bare and the furniture, pretentiously
square and painfully bland, wasn’t helping either.
Regardless,
Sarah’s eyes were not finding distraction in the surrounding austerity.
Rather, they were already fastened on the man that had just arisen from his own
tattoo chair, his small eyes darting from defiant to nervous face. Sarah
felt disconcerted, for despite her passionate months with him she could not
tell whether surprise was among the emotions dripping from his pores as his
features twisted from a sneer to a smile.
Color My Catcher - 5/2/12 - 12:25am
COLOR MY CATCHER is available at Smashwords. It
is free and will remain free. I’m hoping people will read it and get
acquainted with my writing style. A bit later the short story should
appear in the Barnes & Noble store for the Nook, at Amazon for the Kindle,
and at iTunes for the iPad. My apologies for those delays – none
should take more than a couple days. I didn’t realize before today
that you actually can’t make a story (or novel) free through Barnes & Noble
or Amazon directly. They require the minimum price to get the
minimum royalty. So the only way to get a free story into those
stores is to diffuse it through the Smashwords store, because you CAN make a
story free there. It’s silly – I know, as well as annoying from my
angle. Just to be clear, the story IS immediately available through
Smashwords and you can get it in any format you like, whether it be PDF, RTF,
epub, mobi, or doc/docx. It’s just taking longer to actually appear
in those select stores.
In any case, I hope you
like it : )
Here's a short description:
Sarah is ready for
revenge. Her ex-boyfriend is a tattoo artist and a real rear end.
Teaming up with Mary, her Dreamdrifter friend, Sarah embarks on a journey to
reclaim herself in this 5,000 word short story.
DREAMDRIFTER IS HERE!
(and except) - 5/6/12 - 8:06pm
DREAMDRIFTER is here at last! It’s available at
Smashwords as of about thirty seconds ago. The epub for Barnes & Noble
and the mobi file for Amazon will be available later tonight. For now
here’s an excerpt. Enjoy!
Excerpt: DREAMDRIFTER
Adia Arrowheart stared
me down from across the table, her long nails turning a napkin to mush in the
hand not grasping a coffee mug. Adia’s body was tensed, but not in
fear. Instead, she was poised to strike me down.
“You’re the Newcomer,” Adia said.
I nodded. “I know that.”
“No,” Adia replied. “You don’t. You have no idea, Annie McGallagher.”
Frustration was boiling in Adia, turning her usually gorgeous features into a
collage of tinted dissonance. “You are running from yourself!”
My hair was long now. The pixie cut of my teenage self was lost to the
fog of years while my longer, styled self shone through like a lighthouse
reeling in a ship from a dark and wintry sea. But my hair was not the
only thing that had changed. In my early twenties I had belatedly began
to wear makeup and around the same time I had started wearing fashionable
clothes. I was older, more confident, fatter, and happier than I had ever
been in my life.
“You see this,” I said, gesturing to the dreamcatcher earth tattooed on my
chest. “This means that I don’t have to listen to you anymore,
Adia. You aren’t my teacher anymore. I’m a Dreamdrifter now.
Too many unhappy years led to these happy ones and you won’t disrupt my path.”
“I am trying to illuminate your path!” Adia hissed.
I shook my head. “You don’t care about me, Adia. If you did care,
then you would never have helped Ash to infiltrate my subconscious mind.
Why should I listen to you at all? If you were at least being honest then
I could –”
“I am being honest!” Adia said. “Your success is mine!”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “But not for the reasons you think. This
has nothing to do with me, Adia. It has only to do with you. You
want your prophecy to not be a failure. You want that success only for
yourself!”
She leaned back in her chair, her eyes never leaving mine. We stared at
each other for a moment. And then, at the exact same moment, we both
sampled our drinks. My medium blend coffee was only lukewarm. On
top of that, the café had been out of my favored dark roast – as if my day
needed any more tension.
“You’re right,” Adia admitted. “But not completely. I want you to
succeed so that my prophecy will succeed – you’re right about that. But
this is not just about me. It’s about my parents and the Wildecore
parents, and the others that gave their lives so that the Newcomer would
survive. This is for the heroes of the Second Great Manifestation, Annie,
and nobody else.”
Our eyes met over our drinks. “You were wrong in the beginning,” I said,
the accusatory note leaving my voice at exactly the wrong moment. “You
said my brother was the Newcomer. He is not the Newcomer. I am the
Newcomer.”
“I know that!” Adia defended. “Or – now, I know
that. So I misinterpreted a prophecy. I was positive, at the time,
that your brother had been the Newcomer. Fine, I was wrong. That
hardly casts the entire thing into irrelevance, Annie. You still have
that destiny to live up to as far as I’m concerned.”
“Maybe,” I allowed. “But the question now isn’t about what I have to live
up to. The question now is whether I even want to be the Newcomer, and,
more importantly, why I should give a damn about your concerns.”
Adia held her breath. I could see what was happening. It was all
too obvious. My words had inflated her and now she was trying very hard
not to burst.
People
like Adia and my parents – academic types, hate more than anything to have
their opinions disregarded. And so it was amusing to see Dr. Adia
Arrowheart, the psychologist with expertise in clinical depression, on the cusp
of reverie and yet smacked down by the weight of my mature, unflinching
confidence.
“You
will not tell me where to go,” I said quietly, leaning forward in my chair as I
did. “You will not tell me what to do. Those days are gone,
dispatched like history not worth remembering.”
“But
–” Adia began.
“But you
can’t,” I hijacked. “You can’t ruin my happiness, Adia. You already
tried once, remember? You chose me – you targeted me,
and attempted to force the love of my life into my subconscious mind
involuntarily. And oh how you wish he had succeeded,” I continued
devilishly, pressing further. “How you wish Ash hadn’t failed, how you
wish we hadn’t fallen in love. He did, however, succeed in making you a
failure!”
Was I being a bitch? Probably. But then again I hadn’t seen Adia in
twelve years. Along with the years disgust had grown inside of me,
disgust for everything Adia was and had been. Given the treatment I had
received from her in my formative years, it was fair to say that I was going
easy on her. And, in true fashion, here she was calling me a
failure.
“You’re a failure,” Adia said. “You carry within your soul a gift of the
ages – the ability to bring peace to our world as the Newcomer, and yet you
choose to cast your gift into the sea of indifference like the hopes of so many
saints.”
“I –” I began.
“I get to talk now,” Adia hijacked. “You’ve had your turn.”
“Fine,” I quickly allowed. If she was going to insist on steering the
conversation, she would at least have to drive under my green light.
Adia gazed out of the window by our table, her eyes hovering for a moment on
the illuminated café sign. “You attack me unprovoked,” she began, her
eyes still dislodged. “You say I chose you, but you are
choosing to blame me for every hardship you have ever encountered. That
is your choice, not a fact. True, my actions have played an enormous role
in your life, but if you began taking a larger role in your own life then maybe
mine would seem less significant. Annie, I have never wanted anything but
good things for you.”
I shook my head. “You mean you have never wanted anything but good things
for you, only in this case it’s the same difference.”
We engaged in a standoff, choosing to sip our drinks. My coffee had gone
cold. The café surrounding our spot was buzzing with activity.
Luckily my eyes could easily find distraction amid the passersby.
“Why do you hate me, Annie?” Adia asked.
I replaced my mug on the table. “Because you’ve attempted over and over
to ruin everything good in my life.”
“You’re lying,” Adia said. “And I know you’re lying. That’s not the
real reason.”
I crossed my arms. “How do you know?”
“Because you were once my student,” Adia began. “Remember? All
those years ago. Before life got serious.”
“You’re already wrong,” I cut across. “I was miserable then.
Life was serious.”
“Beside the point,” Adia deemed. “The point is that you’ve hated me from
the very first class onward. You even called me out in that second class,
remember? I wasn’t expecting you to retort. I wasn’t expecting a
wildcard of a Newcomer.”
A very involuntary smile broke across my features. “I remember. I
even surprised myself that day. And Ash was skipping, making it
pointless.”
“Not quite pointless,” Adia said. “We’re talking about it now, aren’t
we?”
The smile died on my face. “No, we’re talking about why I hate you.”
“Not why but when,” Adia corrected. “And the
answer is always. You have always hated me, and therefore
your hate is perhaps questionable at best as no single event stands behind
it. This isn’t personal, Annie – this about universal
salvation. How can you be so selfish? How can you?”
For the first time since sitting down with Adia, real anger was starting to
pulse in my veins. Up until this moment Adia had been annoying me, but it
had been an almost fond kind of annoyance as I remembered my former self while
simultaneously dissing Adia into oblivion as I had promised myself I
would. Now, however, she was crossing lines. Calling me selfish was
the catalyst.
“And where, exactly,” I began, cutting from a different
angle. “Have you been for the last twelve years? Waiting for your
moral compass to reboot so that you might perhaps remember your own overly
important role in universal salvation? Or were you too embarrassed after
having screwed up the prophecy?”
“You –” Adia began.
“I’m glad,” I interrupted. “That you and your brother never
returned to the Holurn after that night – glad that both of you never came
back. My life has improved tremendously since you’ve left it. I’m
glad –”
“He’s Holan,” Adia interrupted, brushing her long, braided hair back over her
shoulder. “Todd’s Holan. He’s founded a new Holurn.”
“I –” But the words stalled in my throat, caught as they were by surprise.
Todd Arrowheart, the sweet boy from my youth, a Holan? It just didn’t
seem right somehow. He had always been so…not a Holan.
“Todd and I have grown apart,” Adia admitted quietly, her tone lilting for the
first time. “He was furious after that night. Furious at the Holan
and Ash for allowing what he sees as your abuse, and even more furious at me
for sponsoring it. We still talk, occasionally. But his days of
looking up to me, like yours, Annie, are apparently over.”
For a second I hesitated, but only for a second. “You’re a psychologist,”
I said dismissively. “What does Freud say about karma?”
Adia buried her head in her hands. Soon, however, I realized that her
movements were born of exasperation rather than sorrow. “Will you ever
stop pretending?” Adia began, freeing her face. “That you have
anything to lose!”
“I have everything to lose!” I exclaimed, gesturing
outward. “Everything! I have Ash! I have Alexi! I have
my work and my happiness! You, Adia, are the one who has
nothing to lose! You’re estranged from your brother, your husband, your
former student, and your entire Holurn,” I added
cruelly. “You’re at the end of the line, Adia. You go
off and save the world if you want to so badly.”
Adia stared at me, my words barely touching her features, still stunning even
as they fought against the years. Her expression was blank. “You’re
right,” Adia said. “You’re right, Annie. Except where you’re
wrong!”
“And where’s that?” I asked. “That is, if you care to be so
candid?”
Adia’s eyes
receded in surrender. “You’re right,” she said. “I haven’t much to
lose. And you’re right that those things in my life have passed me
by. But I’m not finished. I’m not dead yet. I have one thing
left. Know what it is?”
I shook my head.
“You,” Adia murmured. “I have you along with my last prophecy, the
Newcomer prophecy. Together they are salvation – salvation for the world,
and salvation for me. My only hope is you. Join me like you were
meant to, Annie, and you will make Alexi proud to have been your
brother.”
“How dare you!” I yelled. My temples were aflame. “How dare
you use Alexi as a tool for your own gain! How dare you speak of him like
that! I will never help you, Adia. So there! You
have nothing to live for now! Die like the deaths you’ve caused!”
“You don’t mean that,” Adia interpreted quickly. “You will help
me, Annie. And you know perfectly well that the Second Great
Manifestation was supposed to protect Alexi! Not harm him or anybody
else, including my own parents!”
I
held up my hand. “It doesn’t matter. The Second Great Manifestation
failed, and you’re to blame. Was it supposed to protect Alexi? Yes,
but it didn’t. Not only are you responsible for those deaths, but you
also gave your Dreamtrapper of a husband the Newcomer’s identity. You’re
responsible for Alexi’s death!”
Adia
tried to protest, but I went on despite her. “All of your attempts to do
anything and everything have failed, Adia. Now it’s up to me, and me
alone, to keep Alexi safe. How can I make my brother proud, you
wonder? By keeping him safe, that’s how! And safe means away from
you and your dangerous, selfish, cowardice!”
Leaning
back in my chair, I sipped my coffee. Though I wouldn’t have thought it
impossible, my beverage had become even colder. Placing the mug on the
table, I found my feet. “Goodbye,” I said with finality. “I never want
to see you again.”
Passing
Adia, my arm was suddenly seized in her grip. Our eyes met. Hers
were pleading. “I consider you my child, Annie,” she said. “You’re
my baby. Don’t leave me with nothing, Annie! I need you!”
My
gaze was fastened to hers and unflinching. “Yes,” I replied. “You
do need me, but I don’t need you. And unfortunately for you I already
have a mother. Now, if you’ll let go of me, I’m going home to look
after my baby. You know – the one whose death you’re not
responsible for.”
Adia
was breathing fire. How quickly her features had gone from pitiful to
terrifying. “Happy birthday,” she spat, her hand still grasping my
arm. “You said it was the big three zero tomorrow, didn’t you?”
“Yup!”
I said.
Adia
smiled. “It’s all downhill from there, Annie. Your happiness
already has a timer attached.”
I
stared at her for second.
Then
I wrenched my arm free.
And
I walked from the room.
On Hiatus - 7/14/12 - 8:49pm
The Dreamdrifter series
books IN THE WAKE OF A DREAM and DREAMDRIFTER are
temporarily unavailable as of right now in either eBook or paperback
format. I’m editing and retooling a tad to make them better, sexier
books! Nothing smutty, though, don’t worry. Dreamdrifters exist to
help the subconscious well being of others, not the conscious carnal well being
of others ; )
Both books will be
available again in the autumn, and when they are re-released as eBooks the
paperback version of DREAMDRIFTER will also finally be
released…at last!
In the meantime the
Dreamdrifter series short story COLOR MY CATCHER will remain
available and FREE at Smashwords. If you haven't read it yet READ IT.
Download it like right now...I'm serious, RIGHT NOW!
Thank you for your patience while I edit.
And have a good summer : )
