What's happening lately

Finished my latest book.  I guess this one can be labeled "Mommy porn" although I'm not quite sure where that label comes from.  It should be up for sale by September 1, 2013.  It is a story about a girl's first time, about a deep love, mystery and tragedy and over coming the tragedy of loss.  I hope people like this one because it is by far, my best story yet.

Today:  The car is in the garage, yet again.  I'd buy a newer, less problematic car if I could.  But, for now, we have to limp this one along because, even used cars, are a small fortune.

Steve and I

Our anniversary was in July, spent it quietly, worked on my book so we didn't do anything especially memorable.  But quiet love has a lot going for it.  Kind of the inspiration behind my latest book.

We did go out last weekend though, to a couple local bars.  The first bar was pretty funny.  The bartender didn't know how to fix several mixed drinks, so we made it easy on her and asked for a seven, seven.  Such is life in small town America.  Something I found kind of crazy though, there are several 'kids' underage ones, working that bar.  Is that legal?  We ordered a pizza, which one of the '15 year old kids served us' but then the kid comes over to ask "would you like anything else?" and Steve said: "Maybe another seven seven" and, of course, 15 year old couldn't get it.  But couldn't the 'child' place the order?  We could pick it up ourselves at the bar.  So I think I'll walk in one night around midnight and see if the 'children' are still on duty.  Isn't there any child labor laws in NY?  I guess the bar is too cheap to hire adults?

Another thing about small towns, we went to a newer restaurant and it was only 9PM (everyone knows nothing fun happens before 9) and the waitress told us: "We close at 9."  No wonder that place is not seeing much business.  Ya gotta stay open later to get business, especially in a town like this that claims it wants tourist business.

Anyway, that's the latest.  Hopefully the old car will be done soon and not cost us too much more money this time.  So it goes.

A young soldier's journey

Walking home from school that day, my throat was dry, a sensation of strength washed over me.  I had really wanted to hurt that guy, to see blood.  Right now I figured my blood pressure was like 160 at least.  I was grateful for the eight miles between the school and my house.  I needed this long walk to help silence the blood pounding in my ears.  I knew my parents might be upset when they heard what I'd done but this showdown had been a long time coming.  Right now I didn't care about the possible consequences.  Besides, I felt like that guy had been just looking for a fight and he nearly got one from me.  

  Maybe my vision was clouded as I walked home from high school for the last time on that warm day in 1965, the year I turned 16 and knew I didn't have to take that mistreatment anymore.  Hell, it wasn’t like it was my first trip to the Principal’s office, I had gotten used to that, but on this day, I was determined it would be my last trip there.

I was sent to his office, this time, from shop class.  I had rigged a piece of lumber in the lathe so it would fling out at the shop teacher when he turned it on.  While that action had gotten a rousing laugh out of the class, the shop teacher was far from amused so it earned me a trip to the principal’s office, nothing new for me.  But this time it was different from the three days of detention I usually got. This time he told me he ‘would have to paddle me’ because it was such a ‘serious offense,’ and someone could have been hurt badly or even killed by the flying wood.  He then took a significantly sized paddle from behind his desk and came at me with it, a look of almost delight in his eyes, as if hitting students made his day.  I decided I wasn't going to make it easy for him either.   I had already decided that he wasn't going to lay a hand on me. 

As he approached me, I bit my lip, felt my hands clench and unclench as I moved slowly and deliberately towards him.  As soon as he entered my personal space, I planted my feet further apart to let him know I was standing my ground.  I defiantly said: “If you touch me with that damn paddle, I’ll break it over your f%*@king head.” 

Suddenly he stopped in his tracks, as his eyes widened he seemed to be doing a double take about the whole situation.  He was probably stunned by my language.  Back then, small town Indiana nice kids weren’t supposed to talk like that.   But I had always been a rebel in those days anyway, and I admit I had a definite problem with authority figures. 

Whatever the reason for his abrupt stop I will never fully know, but after lowering the paddle he looked at me through squinted eyes.  Finding his voice again, he asked: “What did you just say?”

 Infusing as much anger into my voice as I could, I answered: “You heard what I said."  Once I repeated myself he then pointed out I would have to be suspended for three days at the very least.  I lowered my head and mumbled something about how it was going to be the longest three days he would ever see.   With that having been said, I slammed out of his office, walked through the big glass doors, away from the building, never once looking back. 

That son of a bi&@h sure didn’t need to tell me twice.  I knew I was never going back to that school.   I really hated school anymore anyway.  For a long time now school seemed to hold little meaning for me.  I had grown restless and failed to see any reason for continuing high school.  

On any other day but today I would not have liked the eight mile walk home because it usually seemed so long.  But today I was grateful for the distance between the school and my house because it gave me a chance to think as I walked.  While walking the eight mile journey home, I mulled over in my head what I was going to say to my parents about my plans to never go back to high school.  I had been thinking of joining the Army for some time and I could think of no better time than now but I would need my parents to sign papers for me because I was only 16.  I would just need to convince them it was the right decision.  

Steve/Author

As a young soldier in Vietnam

More love

Available on:

Amazon.com

Barnes&Noble.com

I had never thought I’d like any military lifer,
much less fall in love with one. I never
believed in soul mates before either. But I
hadn’t counted on meeting Steve. I just could
never imagine, before now, living the military
life as an adult ever. But since meeting Steve at
the barbecue my father held for a group of
Army guys, I began to think maybe it was
possible to live this way forever. Steve is the
kind of guy I could very well imagine living my
entire life with, even if it means moving around
a lot, like I did as a kid. I could envision
myself doing anything so we could be together.
Together, as man and wife, talking about his life
in the military, maybe even raising a couple of
kids together.

I have learned though, that life can sometimes get in
the way of a person’s happiness. Right now my
dad is lying in a hospital bed hooked up to a
dialysis machine that cleans his blood.

He collapsed and was rushed to the hospital
when Marie and I got the call. His kidneys are
both failing him and without a kidney donor he
might not survive for very long. Marie and I
aren’t able to donate one for him. We both have
diabetes so we can't help him with one of our
kidneys so we’re both feeling pretty helpless at
the moment. Dad has always been so strong so
to see him this sick is very shocking to me right
now.

To make matters worse, Steve, hasn’t written to
me in months. He is in Afghanistan, working
as an interpreter for the United States Army
there. I’m feeling pretty lonely and sad right at
this moment. But I guess this story should start
at the beginning.

The traveling billboard

We are always wracking our brains for ideas to advertise our books.  We know people have to know the books are out there in order to sell any.  

We have created bumper stickers for our car and now we have magnetic signs for each door.  We have observed many businesses who do this and have the name of their businesses on the sides of trucks, vans and even small cars.    So here we are, making our vehicle a rolling billboard.  But, hey, it's advertising everywhere we go.

Wish us luck!  

Resurrection of a blog

I hadn't been writing on this shared blog as much as I could have been.  We breathed new life back into it recently so I'm continuing to write here once again.

I have been steadily making progress on my third Something in the Blood book.  This is the last and final episode of what happens to the heroine, Cheryl.  There are some interesting twists and turns in the final installment and I hope my readers will enjoy them.  If I am lucky, it will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

I want to take a brief moment to thank my good friend, Suzanne, for giving me at least one interesting idea and I am  weaving it into the story line. I get ideas from news feeds, the Internet, on the street, at the mall, my wonderful husband, at the grocery store and from friends. So my followers on Facebook had better watch out, you never know when you might be giving me ideas for a story.   I love keeping alert to anything that will give me a glimmer of something interesting to place in a book.  

This last one has taken me longer to write because between my computer dying to making sure it is the most interesting ending I can write, it has been a rather long journey.  But it is, as always, an interesting and fun journey.  I want this last one to be my best yet.  

Thanks to all my readers who remain loyal and I want you all to enjoy what happens to the band of vampires of Something in the Blood, the Turning. 



Excerpt: Something in the Blood, the Turning
 I stopped packing for a moment to look at the newspaper lying on the bed.

Visiting detective found dead, three area young women missing.

A detective, who had recently been called in to assist the local police, was found this morning, dead in his car. Police said that three area young women have been reported missing as well. Authorities think there may be a connection between the incidents. Police theory says that the visiting detective had been called in to assist with solving a series of strange murders and missing people in our area. They speculate the detective may have tried to rescue the three young women, confronted the killer and was shot for his heroic efforts. That was all the police report had to offer, we hope to keep you updated as the case unfolds.

Hero indeed, I couldn't help but be irritated by that line, but the part about 'three young women reported missing' did make me feel a twinge of sadness. Sadness for my mom and for Karla's mom too. Not ever knowing where your children went or what happened to them is something they'll have to live with the rest of their lives.

Yet, here we are, here I was, packing to take a trip to move to Transylvania. I figure the police will tire of looking for us, especially with few clues to help them and no bodies to ever confirm we were dead.

We are dead, at least by human standards, but not the lie down in your grave, staying dead, kind of dead. Not in the conventional sense as humans understand death anyway.

Indie authors some of the best people out there

We have posted a call to indie authors to be featured in interviews on our blog site and we have been receiving some great feedback from some of the nicest authors we've ever encountered.  Indie authors are smart, interesting, very creative and very generous. Some have offered us books to read and all have been quite nice in their interest in being interviewed.  


It's a big loss for those big guy publishing houses, the ones who turn down unknown authors left and right.  In our opinion those publishing places shoot themselves in the face by doing that.  I read about a blogger, who, got a book deal and now is an editor for some big publishing house.  Does one book deal make anyone an editor?  I have my doubts.


But indie authors are some of the best and smartest people we have met.  Hail to the indie authors!  If you haven't been reading many of them, maybe you should check them out. 


We welcome any indie authors who want to be interviewed.

What we've learned about Createspace publishing

We, as authors, decided to look for a good place to publish our books.  We inquired about several places offering, on the Internet, to publish your manuscript but when we really looked into it, they all wanted anywhere from $2,000 to$5,000.  Hell, I could or would, publish anyone's manuscript for $5,000 a pop too.

We finally decided to check out Createspace and have never regretted that choice.  We discovered you can pay $39.00 (far cry from $5,000) but you are not required to do that.  If you pay the $39.00 though you do get to buy your own books much cheaper and your book gets picked up by many distributors,which can help tremendously in sales.

We found Createspace very easy to use, my wife loves the OpenOffice program for writing her booksbecause it is as easy to use as Word and very easy to set up the correct dimensions and to convert to a PDF file for submission to Createspace.  She used InDesign before,but it is quite difficult to use and has no spell or grammar checks built into it.  If you are new to creating manuscripts, OpenOffice is probably the best program to use.  OpenOffice also makes it easier to submit your books to Kindle edition too.

Createspace is very self-explanatory and it is quite easy to use your own photos for your book creation too.  Createspace is designing and making it easier all the time for indie authors to create their own books.

We used to write on HubPages and would have normally shared this information there,but we have not been happy with that writing site for quite some time now.  Now we are offering our experiences here and also will share our experiences and tips for promoting your book sales as well.

We hope you enjoyed this blog post and if you have questions or would like us to cover a topic concerning creating your own indie books, please ask, post it here in comments and we will get back to you quickly.  Hey, no question is too small, and maybe other people might be burning to know the answer to your questions too.  We love comments, we love interacting with people and we love helping drive traffic here as well as maybe your web site too.  Rest assured, we are always glad when you stop by.