New Urban Fantasy Releases

While working on Rogue (which is still not finished), I realized there was too much that happened in the month-or-thereabouts gap between Rogue and Tough Choices. That meant I needed to write about what had happened in that gap, rather than trying to summarize it in the opening of Rogue. THEN, I realized the story that resulted wasn't quite finished and needed one more "scene", so to speak, which didn't fit into the first story. Thus came my two newest urban fantasy releases.




A Missing Child, Unexpected Complications, and a Father Behaving Suspiciously.

Private Investigator Max Johnson is contacted by the parents of a girl who has disappeared without a trace. Routine missing person case, or so he believes at first. It doesn't take long for him to realize there's more going on than the couple knows, or admits, and he's even more driven to find the promising young artist.

To complicate matters, Max is struggling in a way he can't begin to define or explain to himself, much less to his new wife, but he fears she might be the cause.




A Child with Much to Learn

As twelve-year-old Chelsea settles into the Campbell Wildlife Preserve werewolf pack, she has much to learn. Some lessons are harsher than others, for both daughter and mother.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Also released in May, Missing and Tough Love are now available in paperback as part of the Bridging the Gap anthology, which also includes the short stories Change and The Prisoner and the novelette Restoration.



Anthology of 5 short fiction stories previously published only in e-book

CHANGE, a short story
Pack alphas Ian and Sophia Campbell have been married less than a month, and already the responsibilities of leadership are distracting him from her. She's trying not to resent it but knows something has to give. Now he has no choice.

THE PRISONER, a short story
Michael Phillips was held prisoner by a werewolf alpha who encouraged his pack to abuse the new Turn. Now he's living in a cage in another alpha's basement. Not because Ian Campbell ordered it. Fear holds him there. A prison of his own making.

RESTORATION, a novelette
Though he'd known the risks when he joined the Marines to fight in Korea, Lance Corporal Max Johnson had never expected his life to end so soon. He certainly hadn't thought the end would come in enemy hands and a dark hole. Injured, half-frozen, and feverish with infection, he finds himself rescued by a familiar ally who makes him a very unusual offer.

MISSING, a novella
Private Investigator Max Johnson is contacted by the parents of a girl who has disappeared without a trace. Routine missing person case, or so he believes at first. It doesn't take long for him to realize there's more going on than the couple knows, or admits, and he's even more driven to find the promising young artist. To complicate matters, Max is struggling in a way he can't begin to define or explain to himself, much less to his new wife, but he fears she might be the cause.

TOUGH LOVE, a short story
As twelve-year-old Chelsea settles into the Campbell Wildlife Preserve werewolf pack, she has much to learn. Some lessons are harsher than others, for both daughter and mother.

Story Length

Ask any writer how they determine whether their story is a short story, novella, or short or long novel, and you'll get as many different answers as there are authors. I found the same thing when I researched publishers and writing competitions, to see if I could get a standard word count for different breaking points. No consistency anywhere in the publishing industry.

So, what's a writer to do when nobody agrees? Create their own! What else? I took the huge variations I found and formulated a standard I use for my own work, so I can be consistent in what I classify a story as. For anyone who is interested in knowing what to expect from my work, here goes:

Under 1,000 words - super short (I only have one of these and it's posted for free on this blog)
1-2K - short short story
2-13K - short story
13-20K - novelette
20-41K - novella
41-65K - short novel
65-85K - novel (I don't have anything this length yet)
85K+ - long novel

I use this standard, regardless of genre. I don't use different standards for different genres, to keep my life as simple as possible. Life's challenging enough without my complicating it unnecessarily.

I publish most of my stories in e-book format, individually as well as in collections where applicable. Everything is also published in paperback, though short stories are always grouped into collections since they are too short to warrant paperbacks of their own.

2016 Update

This year has been crazy. We continued work on the new house in January, moved in February, and have continued work on the old house ever since. That's still ongoing.

On top of that, I dealt with an illness in early April that knocked me out of commission for a few days in addition to a back injury that took a serious toll through late February, March, and into April. My old chiropractor switched to using bleach products in the office - something I'm highly allergic to, both contact and fumes. That meant finding a new one. I thought I'd found one, only for him to make matters worse (and tick off my husband by treating me like I was stupid). Took a couple of weeks to find another new one. Thankfully, she's reversed the damage the other chiropractor did AND taken care of the original issue.

I'm sort of on track to meet my writing and publishing goals for this year. As a reminder, my goals for 2016:

• 400,000 new words written
• publish 5 paperbacks
• complete 3 old projects

To date, I've accomplished:

• 80,253 new words written
• 1 paperback published
• 12 short story e-books published and counting (9 are live; 3 on pre-order status for release in May & June; more coming this summer - will be compiled & published in p-back when series complete)
• 1 old project completed
• 1 new project written start-to-finish

Not where I need to be to meet my writing goal, but I'm not worried at this point. Given a couple of really good writing months, I can easily make up the difference.

I have 3 paperbacks approaching publication, with a fourth due out toward the end of the year. If those publish as expected, I'll have 5 out by the end of the year.

For old projects, I need to finish 2 more. I started working on one before Camp NaNoWriMo started on April 1st, but put it aside to do Camp. I hope to get back to it later this year.

May is shaping up to be a busy month in my personal life, but I hope to get a good chunk of writing done despite that. June should be a little less busy. July is the next Camp NaNo, and there are some big changes coming that month. I don't know what August through December will hold yet, but there are still unresolved things hanging out there, so they could be quiet or nuts. Only time will tell.

I'm still moving forward. Slower than I hoped, but it's still progress, so I'm content.

Large Print, Anyone?

I've noticed something that struck me as odd. Many, if not most, authors don't put out books in large print for those who are visually impaired. I realize many people are using e-readers, which allow control over text size. But I also realize I'm not the only reader who prefers a "real" book in my hands, and I have to wonder how many authors are missing out on readership because their books aren't available in large print format as well as standard fonts.

I recognize that traditionally published authors don't necessarily have a say in what formats their books are produced, but we indies DO. Advice I received recently during a seminar on self-publishing stated it simplest - get your books out there in as many formats and to as many venues as you can. Better to sell more copies.

I'm making my books available in both standard and large print paperback. I use Times New Roman-12 pt for my standard format paperback books (also makes it easier to format for e-books), using 6x9 size trade paperbacks. For large print, I use Times New Roman-16 pt. My novella was fine in the same size paperback with Times New Roman-16, but novels get monstrously thick, so I use 7x10 size paperbacks for large print books.

If you use a print-on-demand venue such as Create Space, it doesn't cost you anything but the time needed to change format/font to make your book available in both standard and large print. So why not do it and make your book available to even more people?