A to Z Reflections 2016

Another April A to Z has come to a close. (Thank goodness)

I picked the least graphic photo.

You're welcome. And yes,

it really did hurt like hell,

but I turn into a comedian

when bad things happen. Don't

sit next to me at funerals.

April brought all sorts of interruptions to my intended writing productiveness. The first of which, on the eve of A to Z, was accidentally slicing off the tip of my index finger while making dinner. Not the best thing to do with a month of off the cuff blogging ahead of me. Mashing the keys with my giant gauze-wrapped finger didn't go so well and, for the first week or so, put be behind as far as visiting other blogs because it was just frustrating and painful to type.

While that was healing, the machine that is one of my primary income sources for my business decided to act up and behave like a two year old being force-fed an all vegetable dinner. For three long days I was covered in blue ink - no, seriously, my hands and arms looked like I'd violently murdered every single smurf that may have ever existed - while I played equipment tech and finally tracked down the faulty part and replaced it.

Which put me three full days behind on production, meaning I was working a lot of overtime trying to catch back up during one of our busiest months. One the whole, the work aspect of April was incredibly stressful and didn't allow me the time and energy I'd hoped for as far as spending time writing story starts. I still managed to do them all, just not as in depth or on time as I had wanted to.

On the more exciting side of things that distracted me from A to Z this year, was emailing back and forth to discuss a deal with my publisher that resulted in a three book contract for my space opera series, The Narvan.

But I made it through and wrote 26 short story starts, one of which became a full story. I visited blogs, made blog friends, and had a lot of laughs while reading some hilarious posts in a month that I really needed some stress relief.

What would I do differently next year? Write half the posts in advance. Having done posts both ways, each for two years, I'm ready to go with a combination and give myself a little slack. I'd love to continue with the short stories based on words visitors provide, but I'd also probably do some posts on random things to break them up, maybe every other day.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to stop by, some of you each and every day, and for all the words you so generously offered to inspire me. I hope you'll continue to hang around.

Guest Post by Author Susan A Royal

Today I welcome, Susan A Royal, author of the newly released, Xander's Tangled Web.

I've read Susan's Not Long Ago, and greatly enjoyed her time travel tale. I hope you'll enjoy her books too.

                                                  ~ • ~
When Princess Mena vanishes without a trace, Xander must deal with gypsies, love potions and half-truths before unraveling the mystery.
                                                  ~ • ~

After a late night visit to Battington’s marketplace, Princess Mena vanishes without a trace. Merchants are frantic, because King Leander has called for a curfew and postponed the Spring Festival
until further notice. Certain his former constable is the man for the job, the mayor hires Xander to investigate, hoping he can solve the mystery in a hurry so things can go back to normal. But Xander’s not so sure that’s possible, because there’s romance involved, and he knows when that happens folks who are normally very sensible seem to lose all reason. In addition to sorting out truths, half-truths and outright lies, he must deal with gypsies, love potions and an illegal moonshine operation before he gets to the bottom of things.

Find more about Susan and her books:
Xander’s Tangled Web (fantasy, mystery)

In My Own Shadow (fantasy, adventure, romance)

Not Long Ago (time travel, adventure, romance)
Not Long Ago book trailer

All books available at MuseItUp, Amazon, B&N, Goodreads
And you can find more about Susan at her website or her blog.

Born in west Texas and raised in south Texas, Susan makes her home in a 100-year-old farmhouse in a small east Texas town. She shares it with a ghost who likes to harmonize with her son when he plays guitar.
She is married and the mother of six (she counts her children’s spouses as her own) and five grandchildren who are all unique and very special. Her family is rich with characters, both past and present. Her grandmother shared stories of living on a farm in Oklahoma Territory with three sisters and three brothers and working as a telephone
operator in the early 20 th century. Her father told her about growing up in San Antonio in the depression, and she experienced being a teenager during WWII through her mother’s eyes.

When she isn’t writing, she works as a secretary in education and does her best to keep up with her grandchildren. Music and painting are two of her passions. She is a firm believer in getting what you want without breaking the bank. She loves to bargain shop anywhere there’s a sale and began repurposing long before it was popular. She paints,
crafts and sews. Her office/craft/sewing room is littered with her latest projects.

Susan loves to take her readers through all kinds of adventures with liberal doses of
romance. So far, she’s written two books in her It’s About Time series, Not Long Ago and
From Now On. They are time travel adventures with romance about two people who fall
in love despite the fact they come from very different worlds. In My Own Shadow is a
Fantasy adventure/romance. Out this fall is her YA fantasy, Xander’s Tangled Web.
Look for her books at MuseItUp/Amazon/B&N. You can also find Odin’s Spear, one of
her short stories featured in a Quests, Curses, and Vengeance anthology, Martinus
Publishing, available on Amazon.

Want to know more? Visit susanaroyal.wordpress.com or susanaroyal.moonfruit.com
for a peek inside this writer’s mind and see what she’s up to. You never know what new
world she’s going to visit next.

May IWSG and a Happy Annoucement

Is it really the first Wednesday of the month again? Where did April go? Oh yes, it was a blur of A to Z blogging.

Which would typically bring me to A Story a Day in May, my annual attempt to refill my short story file with rough drafts. However, after a month of exchanging emails with my publisher, the contract I'd been waiting for finally arrived in my inbox. What contract you might ask?

I'm happy to announce that the first three books in my space opera series, The Narvan, will be published with Caffeinated Press.

I don't have a publishing schedule yet, but I will share that information when it becomes available. First up will be Trust, which has had a very long journey. I'm excited to finally share this story with a wider audience than my critique group.

So what happened to my short story effort? Well, I'm busy learning Markdown, which is what my publisher is now using for edits. What better way to learn it than my doing a quick revision of the drafts of the second and third books? The formatting is pretty straightforward and things are plugging right along. Which means I should soon be back to revising Sipper - which is a short story, albeit a long short story, for an end of the month anthology submission deadline. Once that's out of the way, I'm hoping to get back into the spirit of things and either churn out some new drafts or revisit some of the many drafts I have in my folder from the past two years that I still haven't gotten to.

While I revise and celebrate, I invite you to stop back on the 6th for an interview with author
Susan Royal about her newest book.

A to Z: The final story start

After a long two days at a science tournament with my daughter, I'm finally back with the final entry for the A to Z short story beginning.

I spent a good portion of our school bus ride full of young science kids with my partner in snark and fellow team mom, Debra. We passed the miles by chatting while the kids and other parents did their best not to annoy the slightly retentive bus driver, who while a sweet woman, may have benefited from a valium before we set out across the state. One of conversations we had was about names and the perils of autocorrect. What follows is a partially true story.

Z story:

Debra finished the last two sentences of her scathing resignation letter, signed it and hit send. She'd been the victim of one of many of her bosses zingers. He thought they were the funniest things on earth, just the byproduct of his zany humor, but no one in the office found being the butt of his jokes funny. Especially not her, and yesterday's comment about her zipper in front of the entire office was the last straw.

If that guy was a zombie, she'd be first in line to knife him in the eye, but good references were hard to come by so she had to do this the right way, and he wasn't undead, and the police frowned upon stabbing co-workers. Maybe she'd finish up her two weeks and go work at her sister's zip-line business. Strapping in tourists willing to drop a hundred bucks for half an hour of treetop thrills didn't sound so bad. Sure beat sitting at a desk all day, checking email and generating reports.

Her inbox chimed. She opened the speedy reply to her letter only to find a row of laughing emoticons. Confused she skimmed her email only to have her stomach drop when she reached the bottom. For a moment she seriously considered crawling under her desk. In haste to send off her letter, she hadn't noticed her name being autocorrected. Who on earth was going to anything Zebra Jones said seriously? No one. All the pent up frustration she'd channeled into her letter had been wasted, and now she'd never live down a barrage of zebra memes sure to come her way any second.

A to Z: Short Beginnings Z

2016 THEME: Short Stories - at least the beginnings thereof.

YOUR PART: Throw out names, themes, random words or situations using the letter of the day and I'll pick some of them to include in the opening paragraphs of a short story.
WHY: I'm most inspired when there's a challenge involved. Usually that means an opening line or a theme. This month: your words.

My creative blender awaits your Z word suggestions in the comments section. Stop by tomorrow's post to read the story you inspired.

Looking for more great blogs? Check out the massive list of A to Z Challenge participants.

And thank you all who stopped by throughout the month. Z story will be posted tomorrow and don't forget to stop by during May to check in on my short story month progress and, of course, the A to Z wrap up post.

Y Story:

The first rays of light shown over the desert, revealing that Yvonne really was still in the middle of nowhere. She groaned, holding her hand over the gash in her side and again cursed the sign she'd missed about the hairpin turn, she'd also missed. The light of the morning did nothing to improve the sight of her crumpled car. Or the blood, both dried and fresh, on her shirt.

Nothing but empty road, yuccas and prickly bushes bearing yellow flowers in all directions. She wanted to scream, but it would probably just attract those yucky vultures. Instead, she stuffed the bottle of water she'd picked up the night before at a gas station into her purse along with the flashlight and lighter she kept in her glove box and struck out along the road the way she'd come.