A Touch of Darkness

As authors we look for tons of avenues to exploit promote our work. We Facebook, Tweet, Linked In, Google+, Blog, Guest Blog, Host Blog, Conventioneer, Book Tour, Skywrite, trap people in grocery market checkout lines... ANYTHING to make sure the world knows about our works. Today's post is a shameless plug for myself. It's on my first paranormal mystery in the Abigail St. Michael Novels.

A Touch of Darkness, An Abigail St. Michael Novel
(Available in Print, Kindle, Nook, & Smashwords)

Abigail St. Michael, a former cop, has joined the recently growing ranks of metaphysicals, individuals with abilities outside that of normal human nature. When a murderer stalks her town killing children, Abbey uses her ability of touch clairvoyance to hunt him down. Her only roadblock is that her murderer seems to have his own unique talent, the ability to 'wipe' his victims and their surroundings of any metaphysical energy. With little physical evidence and no supernatural evidence, Abbey is forced to rely on instinct and luck to solve the case. However both Abbey's luck and instinct seem to have taken a permanent vacation as the victims keep piling up with the killer's escalating blood lust.

Reviews

"This evocative novel presents us with a unique way to see relationships, all the while giving us an innovative, candid eye on the seemingly normal world in which we live." - Bibliophile (Amazon Customer Review)

"Quite a good mystery . . . a little romance . . . good characters . . . good writing style!" - fhm513 (Amazon Customer Review)

Excerpt

Du-du-du-du: You are now entering a place, another dimension, known as The Twilight Zone…

The police had speculated that Irving Schleck had been mugged and then shoved down a flight of subway stairs not far from his home. These brilliant deductions by our fine men and women in uniform were made based on the fact that Mr. Schleck was located at the bottom of the stairwell and his wallet was missing.

Astonishing.

Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary.

It helped that, while the Schleck neighborhood was generally pretty tame, some unsavory elements had begun to creep into the once nice neighborhood a little more every year.

If it walks like a duck…

Davis didn’t think it was a duck, and he called me in. Of course, the quote-end-quote real police work had led the fine detectives to a dead end in the case. Davis only had permission to call me in on a case once all the real leads were exhausted.

No, that’s not sarcasm in my voice or anything?!

I’d gotten the call on my work cell. I actually have a second that I carried for just police work. For a while, my advisory jobs had become so hectic that the calls began to outnumber my personal ones. Davis had spoken to the police chief and gotten the force to foot the bill for a company phone.

Everyone referred to it as the “Bat Signal.”

I digress.

Davis called me in and, almost a week after the incident, I walked the crime scene for the first time. I was more than a little pissed. I was even more pissed when I arrived on the crime scene amidst a light drizzle.

Rain is a problem for individuals with my unique talents. Water washes away metaphysical energy as quickly as it washes away physical evidence. A violent event can get trapped for longer but eventually time and the elements fade the energy no matter how violent the event. I mean, I’m not still picking up shit from the Manson murders or anything.

Once I arrived on the crime scene, I was doubtful I’d pick up anything left over. I told Davis my doubts. He encouraged me to try, regardless; he always encouraged me to try. It was his special talent, I guess. So I slipped off my special-made gloves.

Clothing doesn’t always protect me from seeing impressions, but the gloves were a damned sight better than my walking around bare-skinned. That would land me back in the funny farm in no time. Trust me, I know, I’d been there once already. I had once brushed up against a woman who beat her two children on a twice-daily basis. I felt her glee as she did it; her happiness as she felt their little bones crunch under her/my hands…

Oh, God…

I digress.

Davis knew my doubts, but I did my job. I slipped off my sweet Italian, designer gloves and touched everything in sight. The railing, the stairs, the curb where he’d busted his damned head, and… nothing. Nada, zip, nein – no pun intended, Mr. Schleck. There was nothing left to see. I told my ex-boss as much, but I was wrong.

There was a cat.

 

 

Critter Alert

I love to edit. There, I've said it. More specific, I love to critique work. I enjoy reading through someone else's piece, finding places where I can tighten, streamline awkward choreography, fix continuity, and work on pesky word dilemmas like repetitive phrasing. Even with work that is already published, I find myself with mental red pen poised to "help" these writers fix their work. Admittedly, I also plain like seeing what other imaginative minds come up with way before it hits the book store digital or wooden shelves.

There is nothing more refreshing and sometimes very frustating than finding a truly well written piece of fiction months or possible years if ever before anyone else gets to see it.

Don't misconstrue me here. I suck at editing my own work. I'm also not a professional editor. I miss things, and there are still many many many many things about grammatical and literary structure that I don't know and/or understand. The process of critting however has taught me two ways since I began writing.

1. To better my writing by having constructive criticism and instruction from those with a more critical eye and  who are perhaps better educated than myself.
2. To better my writing by having a more critical eye toward others' writing and finding commonalities with my own writing that I didn't notice because I was too caught up in the story to see the skill deficiency.

As writers we talk about our art and the talent required to become great at it. We do sometimes forget to talk about the skill necessary to obtain that greatness however. With critique work (and I've only recently become very active in critique work - enough to really learn from it) I've started noticing trends mirrored in my writing from others, and it has been quite... liberating. So much so that I want to tear through everything older I've written with a fine tooth comb and eliminate all those annoyances.

But critique work is like walking a balance beam. If you maintain your balance, you stay in place where you should be (for the writer this would be critting others' work and still finding time to write your own, with newly learned information from critique work). If you lean too far to the left or right however, you loose your balance (choosing to go back through all your old work and "fix" all the problems you never noticed/knew about before) and topple to the ground (no more new words = no more greatness-to-come). And no one ever received a perfect score from falling off the balance beam.

When used properly, critique work can be a wonderful catalyst for a person's writing. Inspired by the imagination of others and armed with new rules never before known, a writer can feel rejuvenated enough to kickstart their own possibly flacid writing schedule.

Being a critter is somewhat like having critters. One or two, or even three, fuzzies in the home are great. Four, five, six...and the list goes on...becomes overwhelming, taxing, and too much. And critting, much like critters, when maintained, can help lift a person's mood and brighten their spirits; the infusion of different perspectives/visions/styles can make a writer step back and look more critically at their own work. It can also inspire friendly competition.

But one of the most important things I've learned about being a writer and critting other people's work over the years is this:

-b

Randon Rant 6734

Naturally I said, two months ago, I'd remember to blog on a more regular basis. And, par for the course, I haven't followed through. Don't think, little darlings, that I haven't been thinking about you; I have. My schedule however has been something of a nightmare.

As many people know, on a personal note, the Doctor and I are planning to move soon to the glorious sun-baked sands of Arizona. Yes, I will be depriving the Midwest of my venerable talents and presence. And, yes, I am aware that many of you are shedding crocodile tears for the loss - right this moment. Go on; I'll wait until the emotion passes.

All done? Good.

With our impending move, and with the TARDIS still in repair, we will have to go about traveling the old, 21st Earth Century way - Ford Focus. Leading up to that venture, we're breaking out the monastic on ourselves and eliminating everything except the barest basics - dogs, car, bicycles, clothing, and recording equipment, plus laptops. This has left us with emptying out a two-bedroom apartment with full basement and garage and enough belongings to easily fill a place two- to three-times as large. Not an easy feat.

Thus a schedule already jammed with writing schedule, recording schedule, two jobs with overtime, plus second jobs for extra money, and all the personal stuff that seems to creap up day to day is being taxed by more planning, organization, and execution.

So what gets left by the wayside? *holds up a mirror to you* Um, you should probably brush your hair already by the way. Teeth too.

Admittedly my blogging duties are one of the first things I trim when I have an excess of work to perform and never enough hours in the day to do it. The Doctor refuses to let me use the TARDIS for personal work gain. He is so persnickety at times! The good news is that, when I am forced to take a break when I hadn't truly wanted to, my brain is in overtime to come up with interesting articles to put out later  - thus the beauteous beginning of a burgeoning backlog are born! Trust me, a backlog for a writer is ALWAYS a fantastic thing. And a sun-baked writer lounging on the sands of new soils in new places on new horizons...?  FANTASTICO!!!

So now that you know the particulars of why I've been lapse in my blogging duties, I hope you will forgive me my little sabbatical after sabbatical's end. And if not...?

-b

Sabbatical's End

Hello, lovies. Oops, I did it again. And not in the infamous Spears's way. I done went and R-U-N-O-F-T with nary a word of warning or explanation. I promise, I have a good excuse. At every point in a writer's author life, they reach a certain point of burn out-
     Flaming big burn, baby!
-and need to recharge. For most of this, this period of time includes a sudden I've-fallen-off-the-face-off-the-planet-ness. And when that occurs we rarely lend a thought towards updating, notifying, or Tweet-screaming we're on the verge of collapse before we do it.

As you might be able to tell, recently I went through a little Somebody-just-kill-me-now-ness of my own. I tossed my manuscripts into the "Abandoned" folder, threw the books I was reading onto the "Don't Care" shelf, and immersed myself into a digitally fed haze of Youtube, Netflix, and VHS.

These fugues are not frequent for me. Generally, when I ditch my blogging responsibilities it is for the good of my writing - deadlines, editing, or full-on balls-to-the-wall creation periods. But, as I've reported in the past, I do, at times, experience droughts of inspiration, creativity, and motivation - all at the same time. This was one such time.

As often happens, mostly during the hibernation months of winter, I seem to lose sense of myself, forgetting who I am and what I love. A great quote from a fantastic show went something like (and I'm paraphrasing) "On the ship, they forgot how to be cows. But now they see blue skies and remember what they are." (Name me the show for a cookie!) It's kind of been like that for me the last couple of months. I'd forgotten, and now I've remembered.

So, with that said, I've returned to include blogging in my writing schedule. I'm sure the masses are leaping with joyous racket over the fact, too! lol But to those who do occassionally check out my blog to see what's new in my life, this note is for you. You were not forgotten, you were not dismissed, you were simply the lost ones in a line of lost ones. However, with the exception of logging fresh word count immediately, you are the first to be notified of my re-emergence. Feel special, sweeties. ;)

Random Rant 384

I pride myself on my geek stature. I am, unabashedly, in love with dice-chucking, card-flipping, miniature-pushing, sci-fi/fantasy con-ing geekiness. I can quote Trek and Wars; understand and recognize Klingon and Elvish and have learned Chinese slang from Firefly; own at least two costumes from at least 2 different sci-fi or fantasy series; can name every Doctor and subsequent cooresponding Companions; know original and remake Battlestar; and Buffy, Torchwood, X-Men, Avengers, Stargate, Farscape... and the list goes on. I have half a guy brain and react to weaponry with the same oohing and aahing that most males do. The only thing I don't soak up as absolute nerd porn? Video games.

Vijee gaming has never caught my attention. I grew up with Atari, Nintendo, Sega, and so on and so forth. But, no matter which system I've picked, I haven't found a system with games that made me want to continue playing for more than a session. Then I'm bored.

Well, not bored really. More like frustrated beyond belief.

I'm pretty sure it has more to do with my total lack of hand-eye coordination. Could possibly be the fact that my sense of direction is thrown completely out of whack by the VR I'm playing in. Another part of it could be because I generally prefer to spend my time reading, writing, or watching movies. Why would I care to invest that same valuable time in vijee gaming when there are so many other forms of geek-dom to pursue?

Nerd cred.

That's right. True female geeks are rare. Especially those that still know how to be a girl and balance that with being a nerd. Nerd cred is important as a female geek. We're are always being challenged for our cred. If we skip the latest Warhammer 40K tournament to spend a day with the girls getting manis/pedis, our cred is dinged. Suddenly can't remember what episode of TNG a Trill first made an appearance, dinged again. Forget for a second that The Doctor first revealed himself to humans via BBC on the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated... big ol' ding. After a time, your nerd cred, or geek points, become diminshed.

My own geek points were challenged recently. Why? Because I don't vijee game. For some reason, this really pisses me off bothers me. In the space of two seconds my entire geeky stature was disputed. Somehow I felt less... nerd than before. All because I'm not terribly interested in following the points in a subprogram.

I realize that I may not be being fair to all vijee games. Some, from what I understand, are masterpieces of entertainment, ingenuity, and creativity. They are stunning works of art.

I'm still bored by them. The idea of a visually and artistically stunning work of video game entertainment does not get my Starbuck-autographed knickers moist. But a direct challenge to my nerd status does manage to make me hot and bothered. Just not precisely in the best sense of that phrase.

The gauntlet was thrown; the glove removed and face slapped. What the hell is it about these vijee games that adds so much to a geek's cred? Like with the first inkling of curiosity that tempts a woman to plunge into the male-dominated world of NERD, a further study and better understanding of vijee gaming must be had. My theory is, at the end of the day, I'll learn that video games, or their lack of inclusion, are not enough to tarnish my nerd cred. But I'm willing to proceed with the experiment.

Feeling less nerd is simply not acceptable.