WordCrafter Press’ Spring Writer’s Sale

Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/u/3LnK8e

Eleven authors share writing tips and advice on writing, publishing and marketing.

Visit the Ask the Authors 2022 page here to learn more about this ultimate writing reference anthology.


WordCrafter News: Halloween Book Event and Looking Ahead to November

Halloween Book Event Party!

It’s Halloween! My favorite time of year. This year, you’re invited to come join WordCrafter and Sonoran Dawn Studios in the All Hallow’s Eve – The Web We Weave Autumn Cider Book Event on Facebook. It is today from 12 pm MST, so come join in the fun by clicking on the link below. There will be lots of treats and maybe even a few cool tricks.

All Hallow’s Eve – What Web We Weave Book Event

WordCrafter Press is offering several giveaways and you can vote on the best audio story or excerpt from stories featured in all three 2022 WordCrafter anthologies: Once Upon an Ever After, Refracted Reflections and Visions, each narrated by the story’s author. Pick up a copy of your favorite WordCrafter paranormal anthology for the special Halloween sale price of .99 cents. Find out how to get a copy of any of the 2022 WordCrafter releases and get a sneak peek at what’s in store for 2023.

With author takeovers by Robbie Cheadle, Joseph Carrabis and myself. And don’t forget to check out the offerings from our gracious host, Sonoran Dawn Studios. Plus lots of good music and other entertainment. It will be a hauntingly good time, so I hope you will join us. See you there!

New Release!

Visions

I don’t know how you coud have missed it, with the extensive blog tour we just ran, but in case you did…

Visions is available now!

18 talented authors share their Visions with you. Get your copy from your favorite distributor today: https://books2read.com/u/49Lk28

Valuable Writer’s Toolkit!

Ask the Authors 2022 will be available in the Writer’s Career Toolkit Bundle, currated by Kevin J. Anderson, throughout the month of November. The intitial 5 book bundle is $5, but for $20, you can get all 15 writing references, including Ask the Authors 2022. It’s a great deal for authors! just in time for NaNoWriMo this year. Pick up your bundle of valuable writing tools today.

Purchase Link: https://storybundle.com/writing

NaNoWriMo Challenge

Having Ask the Authors 2022 as a part of the writing tool bundle this year, just in time for National Novel Writing Month and being able to peruse all the other wonderful writing references which are included has given me the urge to try to do the NaNoWriMo thing once more. I tried this challenge once before, back when I still really had no idea how to write a novel, and I failed miserably.

Since then, I ‘ve learned a lot about writing and a lot about this writing challenge that I hadn’t yet realized back then. For one thing, this challenge isn’t inteneded to produce publishable novels, but rather very rough first drafts. For another, although the goal is 50,000 words, which is probably not a full novel anyway, you don’t have to start from square one. I know of writers who are right now plotting out their story, with no intention of writing by the seat of their pants. (Of course, back then, that was the only way I knew how to write.) When Tuesday, the 1st of November roles around, they will be locked and loaded and ready to write.

That one realization is what made me change my thinking, because I have a novel already started, which I hope to realease in 2023, and this writing challenge could be a good way to help that happen. So, with partial novel in hand, I prepare to take the NaNoWriMo writing challenge once again.

Can I do it this time? That’s left to be seen, but I think changing my goals a bit to adding 50,000 to what I already have, and by following some of the great time management strategies found in Aisley Oliphant’s Booked to the Gills, which is also included in the Writer’s Career Toolkit Bundle, (see my review here), I might be able to meet this challenge head on now. For this challenge, I plan to work on my Time Travel Romance, The Rockstar and the Outlaw, which is based on the music of The Pretty Reckless and has been sitting on a back burner while I worked out a few obstacles that I ran into with it. Any of you out there who are feeling the urge are, of course, welcome to join me, as I set goals, block out writing time, and probably drive myself crazy writing an awesome story, (or at least a bad first draft). If you do plan to participate in NaNoWriMo, let me know in the comments, so I won’t feel so all alone.

_________________________________________________

Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, as a sampling of her works just for joining.


Ask the Authors 2022 is featured in KJA’s Writing Tools Bundle

Ask the Authors 2022

Where can you find publishing industry experts willing to share their secrets? 

Ask the Authors 2022 is the ultimate writer’s reference, with tips and advice on craft, publishing and marketing. Eleven experienced and successful authors share what works for them and offer their keys to success in traditional publishing, hybrid, and indie. You’ll learn industry wisdom from Mark Leslie Lefebvre, Kevin Killiany, L. Jagi Lamplighter, Bobby Nash, Paul Kane, Nancy Oswald, Chris Barili, Jeff Bowles, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Mario Acevedo and Kaye Lynne Booth.

This book offers up-to-date and tried-and-true ways to improve your craft, explores current publishing and book marketing worlds. Take a peek inside and find out what works for you.

________________________________________________________________

Every year, Kevin J. Anderson curates a Writer’s Career Toolkit Bundle in coincidence with NaNoWriMo, because we all know that those crazy writers who knock themselves out at this time of year to produce 50,000 words in 30 days, need all the help they can get.

This year, Ask the Authors 2022 is one of those books to be included in this useful bundle of books for writers! We are in great company. L. Jagi Lamplighter has a book of her own in the bundle, The Art and Craft of Writing and Mark Leslie Lefebrve has a book co-authored with D.F. Hart, MBA, Accounting for Authors. Also included are books by big name authors such as Joshua Essoe, Joanna Penn, Kevin J. Anderson, and David Farland. There’s even a book by one of my cohorts, Aisley Oliphant, Booked to the Gills, which is aimed at writers of 30 day writing challenges, and will be helpful to those preparing to participate in NaNoWriMo. (You can see my “Review in Practice” for Booked to the Gills, here.)

The Writer’s Career Toolkit Bundle

The Writer’s Career Toolkit Bundle  – Curated by Kevin J. Anderson


This is the time of year when a lot of people turn their thoughts to writing. Challenges such as the National Novel Writing Month (November) and other writing groups and workshops encourage you to push your craft and productivity. So, each year I put together a big writing StoryBundle packed with insightful books on a wide range of topics relevant to writers, both newbies and old pros. I include craft books, basic advice, time management and productivity, careers planning, publishing, and marketing—the complete bag of tricks!


This year we have fifteen titles, enough to keep you busy planning your next project and your entire writing career.


For basics, I’ve included Kaye Lynne Booth’s comprehensive Ask the Authors 2022, the ultimate writing reference anthology, with writing tips and advice from eleven different authors on everything from pre-writing rituals, to character development and world building, editing and revision, publishing, book marketing and more.

L. Jagi Lamplighter’s sharply insightful The Art and Craft of Writing delves into the nature of storytelling itself to discover simple and practical steps that can bring our writing to the next level.

And if today’s most successful publishers, editors, and writers wanted to share the lessons they’ve learned, would you listen? Here’s your chance in Titans Rising: The Business of Writing Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror in the 21st Century by William Alan Webb and Chris Kennedy.

Next, if you’re ready to write that novel, Joanna Penn will get you started with How to Write a Novel, everything you need to write your book from idea to finished final draft.

David Farland’s Million Dollar Outlines is the seminal writing manual on outlining and structuring a book to make it reach the largest audience, written by well-known master and teacher.

And Kevin Ikenberry’s Mercenary Guide to Story Structure gives a great overview of your story: All stories have structure—learn the ins and outs of the most common modern structures and how they enhance your characters and thestories they inhabit.

And you can’t get anything done unless you learn how to find and organize your writing time. Booked to the Gills: How to Crush Thirty-Day Writing Challenges for Busy People teaches time management, workload distribution, and other skills for writers who feel they have no time to participate in writing challenges such as National Novel Writing Month. Now to more specific skills, depending on what you’re writing.

Joshua Essoe continues his series of Guides with Worldbuilding, written by an editor from the perspective of tackling all the most-common issues writers struggle with when creating worlds. 

On Writing (and Reading!) Short by Ron Collins is a celebration of writing, reading, and living short fiction.

Interested in writing scripts? My own book of Clockwork Angels: The Comic Scripts contains nitty-gritty inside examples of how to write a comic script, all six complete scripts for the BOOM! Studios comic series from bestelling author and award-winning comic writer.

In The Non-User-Friendly Guide for Aspiring TV Writers by Steven L. Sears, a veteran successful TV writer shares tips and inside knowledge on how to break in to writing for TV.

Once you have your masterpiece completed, you need to turn your mind to the business. If you decide to go the indie publishing route, a vital guidebook is Chris Kennedy’s Indie Publishing for Profit: How to Get Your Book Out of Your Head and Into the Stores, which teaches both the craftand business of writing.

Sarah Painter’s Stop Worrying; Start Selling:The Introvert Author’s Guide to Marketing shows you how to take control of your success as an author and build your readership through authentic, low-stress marketing.

Christopher D. Schmitz sells thousands of paperbacks every year by identifying his fanbase and targeting where those folks go… and he shows you how to replicate his success in Sell More Books at Live Events.

And finally, you can’t forget about the numbers. Read Accounting for Authors by D.F. Hart and Mark Leslie Lefebvre. Regardless of how you are publishing, having a solid understanding of basic accounting principles allows you to make the most out of your author earnings and calculate your
pathways to success. With this StoryBundle, you’ll be well equipped for your writing and
publishing journey. – Kevin J. Anderson


For StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you’re feeling generous), you’ll get the basic bundle of five books in any ebook format—WORLDWIDE.


On Writing (and Reading!) Short by Ron Collins
The Art and Craft of Writing by L. Jagi Lamplighter
Essoe’s Guides to Writing: Worldbuilding by Joshua Essoe
Indie Publishing for Profit by Chris Kennedy
Booked to the Gills by Aisley Oliphant


If you pay at least the bonus price of just $20, you get all five of the regular books, plus ten more books for a total of 15!


Million Dollar Outlines by David Farland
Clockwork Angels – The Comic Scripts by Kevin J. Anderson
The Non-User-Friendly Guide for Aspiring TV Writers by Steven L. Sears
Stop Worrying; Start Selling by Sarah Painter
Accounting for Authors by D.F. Hart, MBA and Mark Leslie Lefebvre
The Mercenary Guide to Story Structure by Kevin Ikenberry
Ask the Authors 2022 edited by Kaye Lynne Booth
How to Write a Novel – From Idea to Book by Joanna Penn
Sell More Books at Live Events by Christopher D. Schmitz
Titans Rising edited by William Alan Webb and Chris Kennedy

This bundle is available only for a limited time via  http://www.storybundle.com .

It allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other ereaders via file
transfer, email, and other methods. You get multiple DRM-free formats (.epub, .mobi) for all books! It’s also super easy to give the gift of reading with StoryBundle, thanks to our gift cards – which allow you to send someone a code that they can redeem for any future StoryBundle bundle – and timed delivery, which allows you to control exactly when your recipient will get the gift of StoryBundle.


Why StoryBundle? Here are just a few benefits StoryBundle provides.


• Get quality reads: We’ve chosen works from excellent authors to bundle together in one convenient package.

• Pay what you want (minimum $5): You decide how much these fantastic books are worth. If you can only spare a little, that’s fine! You’ll still get access to a batch of exceptional titles.
• Support authors who support DRM-free books: StoryBundle is a platform for authors to get exposure for their works, both for the titles featured in the bundle and for the rest of their catalog. Supporting
authors who let you read their books on any device you want—restriction free—will show everyone there’s nothing wrong with ditching DRM.
• Give to worthy causes: Bundle buyers have a chance to donate a portion of their proceeds to the Challenger Center for Space Education!
• Receive extra books: If you beat the bonus price, you’ll get the bonus books!

StoryBundle was created to give a platform for independent authors to showcase their work, and a source of quality titles for thirsty readers. StoryBundle works with authors to create bundles of ebooks that can be purchased by readers at their desired price. Before starting StoryBundle, Founder Jason Chen covered technology and software as an editor for Gizmodo.com and Lifehacker.com.


For more information, visit our website at storybundle.com, tweet us
at  @storybundle  and like us on  Facebook . For press inquiries, please
email  press@storybundle.com .

_________________________________________________________

The 2022 Writer’s Career Toolkit Bundle launched on September 29th and will be available thorugh the end of November. So, before you sharpen your pencils and limber up your fingers for the upcoming writing challenge, grab you bundle and warm up your brain cells to do your best writing ever!

_________________________________________________________

In celebration of this momentus event, eight of the contributing authors to Ask the Authors 2022 are getting together to tell us more about this great bundle and offer more writing tips and advice. Contributing author Mark Leslie LeFebrve will host myself, Bobby Nash, L. Jagi Lamplighter, Kevin Killiany, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Nancy Oswald, and Mario Acevedo, on his Stark Reflections podcast. I’ll keep you posted as to when that podcast session will air.


Ask the Authors 2022 contributor Kevin Killiany shares more writing expertise on Authorsphere with Dan Alatorre

Ask the Authors 2022

Hey! One of the contributing authors for Ask the Authors 2022, Kevin Killiany is sharing his expertise and discussing writing life with Dan Alatorre on the Authorsphere podcast. They even talk about me. Drop by and give a listen. You might learn something. I did.


Ask the Authors 2022 Book & Blog Series: Writing Life

Ask the Authors 2022

Welcome to Writing to be Read, where we’re celebrating the release of Ask the Authors 2022, the writing reference anthology that features essays by ten wonderful authors who have agreed to share their writing wisdom with us, along with an extensive Q & A, divided by topics. Contributing authors are myself – Kaye Lynne Booth, Bobby Nash, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Chris Barili, L. Jagi Lamplighter Wright, Nancy Oswald, Mario Acevedo, Jeff Bowles, Mark Leslie Lefebvre, Paul Kane, and Kevin Killiany.

“Ask the Authors is an up-to-date and broad-based compendium of advice from today’s working writers, to help you with understanding your own writing career. Great information!”

—Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of Spine of the Dragon

Every Saturday, this blog series will introduce you to one contributing author and share a portion of the Q & A session. Today you will meet myself and Kevin Killiany and the Q & A topic is “Writing Life”. To gain access to all of the writing wisdom contained within the book, you can get it at the special price of 3.99, (regularly 4.99) from your favorite book distributor through the Books2Read universal book link (UBL) for the duration of the blog series: https://books2read.com/u/3LnK8e

Here is the schedule for this Saturday series:

Segment 1: You are here. Introductions for me, multi-genre author, Kaye Lynne Booth & media tie-in and science fiction author Kevin Killiany/Q & A on Writing Life

Segment 2: An introduction to award winning author & media tie-in writer, Bobby Nash/Q & A on Pre-writing Rituals.

Segment 3: An introduction to multi-genre author & poet, Roberta Eaton Cheadle/Q & A on Plot/Storyline.

Segment 4: An introduction to best selling horror author, Paul Kane/Q & A on Character Development.

Segment 5: An introduction to multi-genre author, Mario Acevedo/Q & A on Action, Pacing & Dialog

Segment 6: An introduction to award winning middle grade author Nancy Oswald/Q & A on Tone: Voice, Person, Tense, & POV

Segment 7: An introduction to multi-genre author Chris Barili/Q & A on Setting & Worldbuilding

Segment 8: An introduction to speculative and horror author Jeff Bowles/Q & A on Editing & Revision

Segment 9: An introduction to award winning author and publishing industry expert Mark Leslie Lefebvre/Q & A on Publishing

Segment 10: An introduction to Y.A. & middle grade author L. Jagi Lamplighter/Q & A on Book Marketing

*Note: The Q & As include answers from several authors on each question and they may run rather long, but they are packed full of useful information, so I hope you will stick with us until the end of the series.

I’ll start things off today by introducing myself.

My name is Kaye Lynne Booth, and I live, work, and play in the mountains of Colorado. With a dual emphasis M.F.A. in Creative Writing, writing is more than a passion. It’s a way of life. I’m a multi-genre author, who finds inspiration from the nature around her, and her love of the old west, and other odd and quirky things which might surprise you. My first novel, Delilah, found a home with a small independent press, but I’ve published all of my other work independently.

For more than a decade, I’ve kept up my authors’ blog, Writing to be Read, where I post reflections on my own writing, author interviews and book reviews, along with writing tips and inspirational posts from fellow writers. In addition to creating my own imprint in WordCrafter Press, I offer quality author services, such as editing and social media book promotion, through WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services. When not writing or editing, I am bird watching, or hiking, or just soaking up some of that Colorado sunshine.

Oh yeah, and I am the editor and contributor to Ask the Authors 2022 and your blog series host, which means I’m the one asking the questions. And now that is out of the way, let’s move on to the Q & A and see what the contributing authors have to say about…

Writing Life

Please tell us your top 5 rules for writing success.

Mario Acevedo: I’ll give you one. From W Somerset Maugham: “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

Paul Kane: I only really have three, and it boils down to the three P’s which I used to teach in my Creative Writing classes when I still did them. Patience, Persistence, Perspiration. Patience, because basically if you’re going to be a writer you need to be in it for the long haul. Some people are lucky, they get success really early on in their careers, but most have to work at it for a long time, winning little battles as they go.

This of course feeds into the second and third P’s, in that you’ll need to be prepared for knockbacks and rejections. You’re going to have to pick yourself up when you get a no, dust yourself off and get back on the horse. I’ve had countless rejections from publishers and editors in the past, but you just have to keep going, and remember that it’s all subjective. What one person hates another might love. Take on board any advice or feedback that makes sense to you, but don’t change anything you’ve written if it doesn’t because it’s your writing ultimately. Only you can write like you, with your background and experience and voice. If the advice you’re getting messes with that too much, then don’t do it.

And finally, Perspiration, because you’re not going to get anywhere unless you work for it. You should always strive to be better, even if you’ve been writing all your life. You’re never too long in the tooth to learn new things, to try new writing techniques or whatever, and the only way to be a good writer is to write, write and write. Oh, and to read a lot too.  

Chris Barili:

  • Write.
  • Keep writing.
  • Write more.
  • Write daily.
  • And write whenever you can.

Bobby Nash: I wish I had a list of rules to share here. I have never thought of it in those kinds of terms. Certainly, treating it like a job has been invaluable in keeping on track. Writing daily is probably good advice. Learn to market your work is also a good one.

Robbie Cheadle:

  • Write as much as possible given your personal circumstances.
  • Seize opportunities to participate in writing and poetry challenges.
  • Seize opportunities to participate in writing competitions and anthologies.
  • Take advice that is given to you by more experienced writers, and I mean really embrace it and incorporate it into your writing going forward.
  • Enjoy your writing.

Nancy Oswald: Sit down, write, rinse, and repeat.

Kevin Killiany: I don’t have 5 writing rules, but I do have one reading rule: read as much as your write; some weeks read more. And I highly recommend these guidelines to your reading:
A. Whenever possible read authors who will stretch your horizons. By that I mean authors who have histories, ethnicities, worldviews, cultures, gender identities, etc., different from your own. This is particularly important for white, cis-male, American writers such as myself, because we’ve been programmed from birth to see our culture as universal. [A codicil for writers who are of colors other than beige or whose identities otherwise differ from my own: read strong writers who share your identity or heritage in addition to (and maybe even before) seeking out others who could expand your perceptions.]
B. Do NOT “read like a writer” as some guides suggest, with a highlighter and notebook at your elbow and underlining “important” passages. Read like a reader. Enjoy the story, lose yourself, don’t think about the writing. If, and only if, six months later you find yourself being haunted by a passage you can’t forget (scene, setting, dialog, etc.) go back and deconstruct how the writer pulled that off. Look for how the writer prepared the reader for the scene, the structure of the scene itself, etc.—learn how the writer did it so you can give your readers the same experience.
C. Don’t read books you don’t like. If the story isn’t working for you—if the characters don’t work, the story doesn’t interest you, if the writing is dull—you are not going to learn anything. Time spent finishing a poorly written book is time wasted. [HOWEVER: If you hate the book because the writing is so powerful and evocative, it may well be worth reading. An example from my past: I hate The Bluest Eye. The hopelessness is so deep that every time I read it, I want to slit my wrists. But I’ve read it more than once because it is a master class in characterization and worldbuilding.]

Describe your personal writing space.

Mario Acevedo: Some writers claim their writing space as a sacred sanctuary that invites the Muse to drift in. My writing space is a sausage machine. I sit down on a schedule, flip a switch, and get to writing. The Muse is expected to clock in while wearing work clothes.

Paul Kane: We recently moved, so I have my pick of where to work at the moment. But I’m actually writing on my laptop on the couch, because it’s comfortable. I’ve done most of my work on there in the last few months and enjoyed it. For a while back there, whether it was to do with lockdown or whatever, I felt like I’d lost my writing mojo, but it’s slowly returning. Maybe I just got burned out as I did a lot of writing in the months after COVID hit big time – a crime novel and most of a collection called The Naked Eye for Encyclopocaplyse – and this change of scenery now has really boosted my fiction, as well as giving me the opportunity of working on a few new projects I hadn’t expected.

Chris Barili: Nothing special. Just a small home office on the first floor of my home. I also have a desk beside my bed (next to the fireplace) for those wake-up moments.

Bobby Nash: I have a very cluttered desk in an equally as cluttered office. I clean and straighten it on occasion, but the clutter always returns.

Nancy Oswald: Really? It’s my grown son’s old bedroom. No bed, but my mom’s sewing machine occupies one corner, my husband’s mom’s antique writing desk occupies another. There’s a dying plant, a small Navajo blanket, a horse painted on a plate, painted by my great grandmother is above the file cabinets, my son’s dusty karate belts on a hangar and several maps related to my research are on the wall next to that. The doors of the closet are also covered with maps—at the moment, these are insurance maps from 1896 Colorado Springs. There’s a chair with toppling books, book piles underneath the wrap around desk I purchased when I retired. You don’t even want to know what’s on top of the desk or what’s on the rest of the floor. Right now, it’s boxes and bags in various states of readiness for the marketing at crafts fairs I’m doing between now and Christmas. I’m looking forward to being able to walk in it again.

Kevin Killiany: Where I am now—wherever that is whenever ‘now’ happens.

Which of your books would you like to see turned into a movie? Who do you see playing the lead? Why?

Paul Kane: I’m lucky in that a few of my stories have been turned into TV episodes, short films and even a feature in 2021 called Sacrifice, starring Re-Animator’s Barbara Crampton. So that’s sort of happened for me anyway… There was talk a while back of turning my post-apocalyptic Robin Hood novels – gathered together in Hooded Man – into a movie, and we were hoping to interest someone like Michael Fassbender or Dominic West. But I’m not sure that’ll happen anyway now because the jumping off point is that 90% of the world’s population dies from a deadly disease. Of the books that haven’t been adapted yet, I’d love to see Before as an American Gods type TV streaming show for somewhere like Amazon, Netflix or Apple. I think the scope of that one, dealing as it does with past lives, is so massive it would be hard to fit it all into a movie. Arcana would make a great film, though, because of the mix of magic and crime; action and adventure. Leads for that one? I think someone like Charlie Hunnam and Emily Blunt as Callum and Ferne. The one people always ask me about is Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell, which pitted Hellraiser’s Cenobites against the world’s greatest detective. That would be a rights nightmare film-wise, plus would take a budget in excess of most of the Marvel movies, so I wouldn’t hold your breath folks. That being said, never say never, and stranger things have happened.

Chris Barili: Guilty, with Frank Butcher played by either clint Eastwood or John Wayne (in their primes).

Bobby Nash: I think Evil Ways, Deadly Games!, or Suicide Bomb would make great movies. Snow and Sheriff Myers respective series would work better as a TV series, I think. As for who would play who, I don’t know. I try not to play that game because if it happens, I don’t want to be disappointed if the actor I had my heart set on is unavailable.

Robbie Cheadle: I think my Sir Chocolate stories would make a lovely TV series for small children. There could be a baking element to the show, where children learn how to make one of the recipes.

Nancy Oswald: I’d like to see the Ruby and Maude Adventures made into a movie. I’d like my donkey, Daisy, to play Maude. 

Kevin Killiany: I have a young adult science fiction series, Dirt and Stars, that I would love to see become a TV series. The stories are set in an alternate history where most of the gee-whiz predictions Golden Age sci-fi of the 30s and 40s made about America in the year 2000 came true—fusion rockets, giant space stations, colonies on the moon, etc.—but the US is fiercely isolationist, cut off from the rest of the world. With the 21st century came the Civil Rights movement and the growing realization that America cannot sustain its monopoly on space. The Dirt and Stars series is set in the 2020s and follows several young people (15-18) coming of age even as the world around them is reinventing itself. Down to Dirt introduces Mara, a spacer—born and raised on Tombaugh Station—who’s been conditioned from birth to believe dirt (Earth) is little more than a prison for the diseased, criminal, unstable, or otherwise unfit for life in space; Beth, Mara’s Earth-born cousin, who believes in the fundamental goodness of everyone and is horrified by Mara’s racist elitism; and Jael, Beth’s best friend, grimly determined to be the first Black person to break the Space Service’s color barrier. Life on Dirt continues their stories and introduces Lije, first generation Ukrainian American whose father is spearheading a legal battle to break America’s control of access to space; and Fatima, a spacer of exceptional intelligence struggling to overcome a social communication disorder that makes interacting with others difficult, confusing, and sometimes painful. Rise from Dirt follows all five of them, but focuses on Jael’s fight to qualify for the Space Service training program. Book four (a work in progress that has gone through a few working titles) will introduce two new high school age spacers—one on Brahe Station, the other on Luna—as they deal with the unimaginable addition of “earthers” to their world.

Who do you see playing the lead? Why?
Talented young actors that no one knows about. For every TV/movie star there are dozens of equally talented people who weren’t in the right place at the right time. I’d really like to play some small part in helping some of those young actors get their shot.

Is there anything unique or unusual about your writing process?

Paul Kane: Personally, I don’t think there is. I don’t have to sacrifice a chicken or something before I start or write upside down or anything; it’s all pretty normal stuff. I think that comes from my previous career as a journalist, just sitting at a desk getting the words down. I also had to do that for my BA and MA when I was writing essays, so all that was a good training ground for penning fiction too. It makes you disciplined about the craft. I am quite a superstitious person, so I suppose I do have little rituals I’ve developed over the years. I used to only be able to write novels on a laptop, and shorts on a desktop – when I still had one – but I’ve learned to adapt to circumstances. And I’m very reluctant to show my work to anyone too early, except perhaps my better half Marie (O’Regan), who’s also a writer and editor herself. Or to discuss my ideas with anyone other than her, unless it’s an editor or publisher I’m pitching to, so they’ll buy the work. 

Chris Barili: I outline a bit differently than most people. I outline just a third of the story at a time, which allows me to make changes early in the story line much more easily.

Bobby Nash: I don’t think so. I sit down and write. Sure, I sometimes go over story points, scenes, etc. in my head before I start typing, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Robbie Cheadle: I think all writers have an individual writing process. I always write my endings first so that I know the direction my story must take and where I am heading. The endings never change. I also outline the bones of my stories before I start. I do this in my head and rarely write much down. People ask me if I don’t forget my outlines, but I don’t. I have a very good memory which is why I rarely re-read books; I can nearly always remember the characters and plot of books I’ve read, even when I read them many years ago.

Nancy Oswald: Unfortunately, when I was working full time, my motto was to find any scrap of spare time and move forward on whatever the project was. This led to some bad habits, because even though I’m retired, I have never let go of the idea that I have to fit writing in around other things. I’ve never been able to schedule writing time and stick to it. However, my husband did buy me a “ships” hour glass, and sometimes when I’m stuck or reluctant to write, I tell myself I can do one hour. Once I start, it usually goes beyond that, and once I’m into a project, I find I don’t need the hourglass at all.

Kevin Killiany: My first time through college (in the early 70s) I was a theatre major—an aspiring actor with the acting skills of a stage techie. I saw many, many plays in college, repertory, dinner, and community theaters from light booths, sound boards, and prop tables. As a result, I see stories as narratives built from discrete scenes, and frequently storyboard on graph paper: scenes are circles, boxes, or triangles linked by arrows denoting possible paths. When brainstorming a scene, I always start with dialog, spoken words without attributions, because a play begins as dialog, the script providing only broad suggestions for blocking and business, and comes alive as the directors and actors become familiar with the characters and the reasons for the words.
Oh, and the scenes are never written in order. I write each part as it occurs to me.

What is the function of a story?

Mario Acevedo: To tell that story. Beyond that, to entertain, to educate, and if you’re like me, because you’re a constant day dreamer.

Paul Kane: I believe, first and foremost, that a story should entertain. You should get some enjoyment out of reading it, even if it’s a sad tale – in a sort of masochistic way, we think to ourselves at least that’s not happening to me.

It should be believable, and I don’t mean that it can’t be fantastical, just that the reader needs to believe in what you’re telling them. A lot of this comes from good description and characterization, because if you don’t believe in a sense of place or your characters then everything falls apart. If characters are just cardboard cutouts, you’re not going to care what happens to them or why.

So, the entertainment value first and foremost, because remember people are parting with their hard-earned cash to buy your story or book. If it can say something important as well, then all the better. I like to try and have a message or theme, like for example in my novel Before I was trying to say something I thought was important about the human condition. About what it means to be human, about life, love, the nature of good and evil, and everything in-between. Heady stuff. It doesn’t always have to, but if a story is educating and saying something you feel is worth saying, then all the better.

Bobby Nash: My first and foremost goal with my stories is to entertain. That’s what I’m here to do so that’s where I put my focus. I want the reader to enjoy the experience.

Robbie Cheadle: The function of my stories is to entertain while reminding readers of history and historical events. I believe strongly that we must remember our history and the terrible things that have affected humanity in the past so that we can make a good attempt to avoid reoccurrences.

Kevin Killiany: To entertain and through entertaining inspire thought.

What is your biggest writing challenge? Your biggest reward?

Paul Kane: The hardest thing I find, the hardest challenge, is to get started. Ideas come to me all the time, I write them down in little notebooks. In fact, I have different sized books for different things: small for just ideas, or snatches of dialogue; medium-sized for novellas and the like; and A4 ones for novels, because I work up chapter breakdowns and do research in those. For each novel I’ve written there’s an A4 notebook to go along with it. So, you have your idea and all your working out. No matter how prepared you are – and some people do more prep than others… I’m a big planner personally – just looking at that blank screen before you start is the most daunting thing in the world sometimes. It might not even be at the beginning of a project, either; just getting up every day and starting, even if you’re halfway through, can be hard. You have to force yourself to do it, push through those pain barriers – and if you look for distractions, you’ll find them, so try to keep focused on the task at hand. The flip side of that, of course, is when you’ve got your first draft done. You have a chunk of words you can play with, then refine and make better. That’s the most rewarding part for me, when you’ve done all that, or maybe even when the story’s finished – or as finished as it can be, because nothing’s ever truly done; you could fiddle with things forever. When you see it in print and people enjoy your work, that’s something truly special. 

Chris Barili: Self-confidence followed closely by Parkinson’s Disease. One hits me psychologically, the other physically

Bobby Nash: My biggest writing challenge is me. Sad, but true. I am my own worst enemy. Once I get out of my own way, push distractions aside, and actually sit down and get started, I’m okay. Getting started is a big hurdle.

Robbie Cheadle: My biggest writing challenge is finding a stretch of about 2 ½ hours undisturbed time to write. I can write for a shorter time, but I usually find it takes me about 30 to 40 minutes to get back into the mindset of the story so shorter writing periods are not very efficient for me. I usually write on weekend days from 6 am to 8.30 am. Sometimes I write for an hour in the afternoon during the week but that depends on work. I am supposed to work from 9am until 3pm but that rarely happens and if I don’t start writing by 4pm, the day is lost to me from a writing perspective. I don’t write in the evening as I am tired. I do sometimes edit later in the day though.

Jeff Bowles: For me the challenge is always the sheer amount of time and work required to bring a new book to market. At the moment, I’m favoring indie publishing, which means everything from editing to production is riding on my shoulders. It takes a lot of effort to bang a fresh manuscript into shape. Luckily, I’ve got a lot of support from family, friends, and other professionals, so it’s always worth it in the end. The reward, as always, is seeing your book in the hands of others. It never really gets old.

Nancy Oswald: Getting started on a new project. Biggest reward, well, of course, finishing. Beyond that, I love holding the first printed copy of a new book.

Kevin Killiany: My biggest challenge is stopping. I write 500-word postcards, and I would have a wonderful time extending my narrative, exploring my characters, expanding my world. My biggest reward is having stopped. Because then I have a story to give people.

What is the single most important story element? Why?

Paul Kane: Probably characters, like I say. If you don’t believe in those then there’s no point to the story in the first place. I’m a big one for character studies – actually I have to rein it in sometimes because I get carried away. I’ll include various details about a person’s life when I’m only writing a prologue sometimes and people just want to cut to the chase and get to the meat of a story. I had to chop a lot of that at the start of my PL Kane crime novels Her Husband’s Grave and The Family Lie. All interesting stuff, but not the right time or the place. One of my Controllers stories ‘Eye of the Beholder’ was basically a character study of a woman called Lucy, taking you through her life, and at the end you realise these god-like creatures have been manipulating events for their own satisfaction. In a case like that, it’s actually working to help tell the story. 

Chris Barili: Character. Without a dynamic, well-developed, and relatable character the story stops mattering.

Bobby Nash: I firmly believe that it all starts with characters, so that’s where I put my focus first. Telling a cohesive story is important.

Nancy Oswald: I think it’s character. As a reader, if I can’t latch onto or relate to a character, the reading is tedious.

Kevin Killiany: Character. People care about people.

Are you a plotter or a pantser (I believe ‘discovery writer’ is the trending term or as Dean Wesley Smith refers to it: “Writing into the Dark”)?

Mario Acevedo: I’m in between. I started as a panster and then after writing myself into a corner, I became a plotter. My plot outlines are brief chapter summaries—two-three sentences. I’ve learned however to keep the doors open for the Muse to suggest changes.

Chris Barili: Seriously addicted to outlining.

Bobby Nash: I’m somewhere in the middle. I have loose plots, but I leave open the possibility of the characters taking me to unexpected places, so sometimes the plot has to be adjusted. I’ve heard the term plantser used, but I don’t really like that term.

Robbie Cheadle: I am a plotter. I always have the ending of my stories in mind before I start, and I write towards that ending. As I write historical fiction, I usually follow the real path of the events that occurred heading in the direction of the ending. I often discover new and interesting information while I am researching for my stories, but that doesn’t ever knock me off my chosen storyline, it just adds to some of the ‘meat’ in the middle of the story.

Kevin Killiany: A bit of both. I work out what needs to happen when at the outset (storyboarding) but beyond that I usually don’t know how the narrative will get from point to point until I’m on the journey.

What is your best piece of advice for aspiring authors?

Mario Acevedo: Have faith in yourself. Keep learning and improving. Read a lot in every genre. You’ll be surprised how much blends from one category to another. And nothing happens until you sit down and write.

Paul Kane: Just to never give up. It always makes me sad when I see a talented writer walk away from the business or become so discouraged that they never send anything to editors, agents or publishers. It always makes me think ‘what great writing have we missed out on’? If Stephen King’s wife, Tabitha, hadn’t fished Carrie out of the bin, we’d have been missing out on all his excellent writing from that point onwards. No Shining, Salem’s LotNo Stand. Heartbreaking. So keep going, keep fighting, because you never know where it might all lead.

Chris Barili: Don’t quit your day job until writing IS your day job. Then, really don’t quit your day job.

Bobby Nash: Determine where you want your writing to take you and set attainable goals to help get you there. Not every writer has the same goal, so you have to decide what success looks like for you, so you know what to aim toward. Then, once you do that, work to achieve those goals. Also, don’t forget to celebrate when you attain the goals. That’s important too.

Robbie Cheadle: Keep writing as much as possible. Practice makes perfect. I can’t believe how much I have learned between the launch of my first Sir Chocolate book in August 2016 and now. It’s been an amazing journey.

Kevin Killiany: I submitted my first short story in 1967. I sold my first story in 2000. I would have sold one sooner, but I kept giving up. Don’t keep giving up. Just as a musician perfects their craft through practice, we perfect our writing through writing. Approach everything you write as something you are creating for your own satisfaction, no one outside your head matters. Then do your best, because it is through doing your best every time that your best will steadily improve.

_________________________________________________________________

Before we end this first segment, I’d also like to introduce you to contributing author, Kevin Killiany. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic we’ve all been experiencing, he was unable to submit an essay to the work, but I want to introduce him here, so you’ll know who he is when you see his responses throughout this series in the Q & A portions. He’s a multi- genre and media tie-in writer and a generally all around good guy.

Meet Kevin Killiany

Growing up in Florida, Kevin was fascinated with space—he witnessed every manned launch from Cape Canaveral in the 60s, and never fully recovered from the discovery there were no rainforests on Venus for him to explore. Forced to stay on Earth, he eventually became a teacher, working with students at all grade levels before moving on to community support services, where he was a crisis intervention counselor and case manager for mental health and family preservation programs.

Kevin wrote his first story in 1967 and, after only thirty-three years of writing and submitting, became an immediate success with his first sale in 2000. In the years since he has written fiction for both Star Trek and Doctor Who and written web content, campaign books, stories, novels for various role playing games. Down to Dirt, book one of his original YA science-fiction series Dirt and Stars, was published in 2016.

The “Ask the Authors 2022” blog series is a 10 week Saturday series, so be sure to drop by next Saturday for an introduction to contributing author, Bobby Nash and a Q & A on Pre-Writing Rituals. If you grab a copy of Ask the Authors 2022 writing reference anthology while this blog series runs, from now until July 9th, you can get it at the special send-off price of 3.99, from your favorite book distributor through the Books2Read UBL here: https://books2read.com/u/3LnK8e

Ask the Authors 2022

___________________________________________________________________________

Sign up for the Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Newsletter for and book event news for WordCrafter Press books, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. Get a free digital copy of Kaye Lynne Booth’s paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets, just for subscribing.


Ask the Authors 2022 is here!

Ask the Authors 2022

That’s right. The writing reference you’ve all been waiting for has arrived. Ten talented authors and industry experts have gathered together with me to share their writing tips and advice in essay and Q&A, creating a writing reference anthology like no other.

Where can you find publishing industry experts willing to share their secrets? 

Ask the Authors 2022 is the ultimate writer’s reference, with tips and advice on craft, publishing and marketing. Eleven experienced and successful authors share what works for them and offer their keys to success in traditional publishing, hybrid, and indie. You’ll learn industry wisdom from Mark Leslie Lefebvre, Kevin Killiany, L. Jagi Lamplighter, Bobby Nash, Paul Kane, Nancy Oswald, Chris Barili, Jeff Bowles, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Mario Acevedo and Kaye Lynne Booth.

This book offers up-to-date and tried-and-true ways to improve your craft, explores current publishing and book marketing worlds. Take a peek inside and find out what works for you.

Praise for Ask the Authors 2022

“Ask the Authors is an up-to-date and broad-based compendium of advice from today’s working writers, to help you with understanding your own writing career. Great information!”
—Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of Spine of the Dragon

Ask the Authors 2022

Ask the Authors 2022 is available in both digital and print. You can get your copy from your favorite book retailer through the Books2Read universal book link (UBL) here: https://books2read.com/u/3LnK8e

______________________________________________________________________________

Sign up for the Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Newsletter for and book event news for WordCrafter Press books, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. Get a free digital copy of Kaye Lynne Booth’s paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets, just for subscribing.


Words To Live By – Boredom, Star Wars, and the Unavoidable Lull

The first Wednesday of the month, writer Jeff Bowles muses on life, creativity, and our collective destinies as makers of cool stuff. You’re a writer, but have you ever thought about how or why? Here are some words to live by.

Boredom, Star Wars, and the Unavoidable Lull

So I’ve been away from my writing duties here at WtbR for a few months. Heck, I’ve been away from most of my creative obligations, not just blogging, which might be the reason I’ve been so bored sitting at home, knocking my tin cup against prison bars of digital entertainment, paperback novels, and maybe a household chore or two. Read that book you’ve read a half dozen times before? Watch the same old movie series you’ve been watching since you were a kid? Do I even have to ask?

Okay, what are we up to today? Star Wars or Star Trek? Star Wars or Star Trek? Maybe Indiana Jones? Hmm…

The reality is that some lucky beings on planet Earth are built like machines, incredibly industrious, real honest to god workhorses. Boy do I envy the workhorses among us. I’m just not one of them. I can admit that to myself now.

Unfortunately, and it took me far too many years to discover this about myself, I’m more of a work-in-exhausting-spurts-and-then-crash kind of guy. I’ve always been like this, even when I was in school. Sooner or later, mental and emotional exhaustion would get the better of me, and it’d be hell just to turn in assignments on time, keep a steady workflow going.

I’ve previously written about my experiences with schizoaffective disorder, at last diagnosed five years ago, so I won’t bore you with the details again. Suffice it to say, there are reasons—real and concrete medical and psychological reasons—that I can’t compete with so many avid worker bees out there. My mind and personality just don’t keep up; the flesh is willing, but the spirit is weak.

My family lost someone dear to us back in March, my wife’s mom, who was a wonderful person and a key figure in our lives. At that time I’d been running pretty hot as far as creative output went, having kept up with a reasonable workload, more or less, for a year or so on end. But her passing stopped me in my tracks, and I’ve sort of been floundering all summer long.

Didn’t write anything new. Didn’t even edit anything old, and I’ve got a whole unpublished novel sitting on my computer’s hard drive, an odd and hopefully entertaining piece of work I finished up at the tail end of last winter, the COVID winter, the one when we were all locked indoors anyway.

All this incompletion frazzles me. Our society tells us we’re not complete if we’re not working, and at that notion I’ve always thumbed my nose. Not because I’m a rebel or even a lazy slug (I mean, arguments could be made), but because for me, constant work has never been desirable or even possible. It hurts me that I need so much downtime. I’d like to be as dependable as a racehorse, constant as the northern star (God bless Will Shakespeare, had a phrase for everything). It’s just not how I’m built, I’m afraid. I need recuperation time, rest and relaxation that lasts however long it needs to last. There’s no way around it, at least not any I’ve found.

So does that make me an ineffective person? Worse yet, does it make me a failure in the professional sense? I feel like some people might say yes, but honestly, I’ve tried to take the bull by the horns, and well, the bull almost always has its way with me.

Schizoaffective Disorder is no joke, man. Very often I can’t trust my own conscious experience, and that’s lame, because consciousness is all human beings have. It’s the only thing given to us by default, our birthright, our entire universe. Never mind school assignments or projects that never get off the ground. What about the amazing feeling you get when you’ve completed something grand? I love that feeling. Don’t take that feeling away! I’m not done with it yet!

I’m glad to be back at Writing to be Read, but the truth is I don’t feel 100% yet. Yes, I’ve been playing video games and watching old movies and generally feeling bored out of my mind. But that’s what recuperation looks like for me. Read ‘em and weep. Or don’t.

I like to write about my everyday experience. It helps me parse through things that need careful consideration. You can’t fight your own mind. I mean, you can try, but it’s sure to cause literal raging headaches. I’m interested in learning about other long-term work habits people employ out there. Leave a note in the comments section below if you’re so inclined. How do you get your work done? Is it a struggle in the long term, or is it the easiest thing in the world for you?

Look for another Words To Live By next month. Count on it. Just don’t expect me to show up for dinner. I’ve got some more recuperation to get through. Star Wars or Star Trek again? Star Wars or Star Trek? Maybe Battlestar Galactica? Hmm…

Boredom never looked so … unavoidable. Until next time, folks.


Jeff Bowles is a science fiction and horror writer from the mountains of Colorado. The best of his outrageous and imaginative work can be found in God’s Body: Book One – The Fall, Godling and Other Paint Stories, Fear and Loathing in Las Cruces, and Brave New Multiverse. He has published work in magazines and anthologies like PodCastle, Tales from the Canyons of the Damned, the Threepenny Review, and Dark Moon Digest. Jeff earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at Western State Colorado University. He currently lives in the high-altitude Pikes Peak region, where he dreams strange dreams and spends far too much time under the stars. Jeff’s new novel, Love/Madness/Demon, is available on Amazon now!

Love Madness Demon Cover Final

Check out Jeff Bowles Central on YouTube – Movies – Video Games – Music – So Much More!

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Want to be sure not to miss any of “Words To Live By” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress. If you found it useful or entertaining, please share.


Words to Live By – For Dora

For Dora

It’s been tough around the house this month. My mother-in-law passed away after a long battle with liver disease. She’d been having severe problems for months, but as my wife said a few nights ago, we always thought we had more time with her.

I haven’t felt like writing. Even typing up a blog post like this is draining. Writing is a bit of a safe haven for me. Easily tumbling down the rabbit hole, so to speak, laying aside my heartaches and disappointments, entering worlds of my own design, inhabiting people who don’t really exist.

Dora was a writer herself, and a voracious reader, too. I stayed with my wife and her family a lot in the days I was first starting to tinker with short stories. Because Dora was enthusiastic and willing, I often asked her to read my fist drafts. Her comments were always complimentary, because it wasn’t in her nature to poke holes in something her kids had poured their hearts and souls into.

Her kid, that’s what I was. The family has two daughters, and both were married within a year of each other. Dora never differentiated between the four of us, or at least, she tried her best not to. If everyone was gathering in the same place, it was about the kids and whether or not we’d eaten, her kids and how we were getting along in life, the importance of the kids’ enjoyment of holidays, birthdays, work promotions, collegiate successes.

I have no bad memories of her. Truly, anything contentious between us didn’t live long enough to become an issue. She was always patient and friendly with me. I loved reading her yearly Christmas poems, which she sent to the entire extended family. Never missed a year or an opportunity to fret over one or two words. I liked that about her, a certain willingness to own what she’d created. She never tried to publish anything professionally, but the rest of the family agrees she should have.

Marriage, as it turns out, can be one hell of a rollercoaster ride. My wife and I will be celebrating our twelfth anniversary in September. Most of our friends have been married a far shorter time, which means we can dispense wisdom without pretense. Our marriage has been anything but perfect. Thwarted expectations, mental health issues, a lost house, lost job, grad school, which was pretty tough for me, because I do tend to have a sensitive mindset, things can set me off easily.

I have guilt over whether Dora knew how much I appreciated her, because I doubt I ever communicated it properly. I know my wife and father-in-law are suffering, but the truth is they’re both stronger than I am. There’s been so much in the last year to cause us all grief and misery. No shame shaking your fist at the bumpy ride behind and ahead of us. There’s nowhere else for me to be, nothing else I’d rather be doing. Dora was a presence in this house, this family. She was a pillar, holding things up in that matronly way that looks easy but can’t possibly be effortless. Life will be different now. Better or worse, I don’t know, but different for sure.

I can help my wife by making calls, figuring out logistics, being a shoulder to cry on. I’m not perfect, but then neither was Dora. Sometimes I expect her still to be here, watching movies or making dinner, reading, chatting, clipping digital coupons. One of the last things she did for me was to read the first novel I self-published. She loved it, told my wife I was talented and that I was never to give up.

She would’ve said that regardless of whether she enjoyed reading it or not, but I believed her wholeheartedly anyway. That’s what she meant to me. I was proud to be one of her kids. I’m still proud.

I’ll see you next month in Words to Live By. In the meantime, give someone important a hug. If they’re not a hugger, hug them even harder. Tell them you have my permission.


Jeff Bowles is a science fiction and horror writer from the mountains of Colorado. The best of his outrageous and imaginative work can be found in God’s Body: Book One – The Fall, Godling and Other Paint Stories, Fear and Loathing in Las Cruces, and Brave New Multiverse. He has published work in magazines and anthologies like PodCastle, Tales from the Canyons of the Damned, the Threepenny Review, and Dark Moon Digest. Jeff earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at Western State Colorado University. He currently lives in the high-altitude Pikes Peak region, where he dreams strange dreams and spends far too much time under the stars. Jeff’s new novel, Love/Madness/Demon, is available on Amazon now!

Love Madness Demon Cover Final

Check out Jeff Bowles Central on YouTube – Movies – Video Games – Music – So Much More!


Mind Fields – My Pandemic Peace

Mind Fields

I am a janitor. I have worked at the same medium sized commercial property for thirty years. It is a job made in heaven! The pay is good, and I set my own hours. I never see my boss. We exchange emails and a check arrives monthly. The pandemic has done little to change my lifestyle. Properties tend to fall apart without the basic services supplied by cleaners and contractors. I work part time as a janitor and the other part time I stay home and practice the piano and write. My janitorial work includes maintaining two public restrooms. This requires a maximum of personal protection gear. Mask and gloves combined with frequent washing are keeping me (I hope) safe from infection. 

My spouse is disabled and spends most of her day in bed. I care for her and keep supplies flowing. She suffers from COPD and Rheumatoid Arthritis. My life is not much different from the time before Covid-19. I go out less and I buy at least a week’s supplies so that I don’t have to return to the store and its dangers of exposure. Judging by the basket loads being checked out by my fellow shoppers, we are feeling much the same.

The adaptations to Covid-19 quickly normalize. I see my therapist via Skype or Doxy.me.com.  I would rather see her in person, but seeing her on my computer screen offers a strange and intangible compensation. I can only call it “looseness”, i.e. I am more likely to say something awkward, which, as you may know, is the good stuff when it comes to psychotherapy.  I must speak the uncomfortable truth. In this way, Covid has presented a weird therapeutic gain.

I communicate via computer and attend my weekly Senior Peer Counseling groups via Zoom.  I don’t have to drive! No gasoline, no oil changes, no flat tires. No traffic! I acknowledge the vast suffering that attends this pandemic. I can’t allow my compassion to be blunted by my relative comfort. The plain truth is that Covid-19 has made my life easier.

I have been a Certified Senior Peer Counselor for three years. This effort offers support to those who are over 55 years of age. I now see my clients via all means possible, be they phone, computer, tablet, holograph, astral projection, quantum entanglement, ubiquitous electron transfer, psychic channeling or yelling out the window. Somehow, the process seems to be effective.

A couple of times a week I make my way up and down Highway 101. It’s a fifty mile round trip and sometimes the highways are virtually deserted. It’s kinda spooky! So far, my personal pandemic has been more of a windfall.

I’m 73 years old. Officially, that makes me a senior citizen. I’m active, creative, mobile, flexible, and in good health. If I tell you that this is due to my excellent personal hygiene, I would be gaslighting you with a heavy frosting of irony. I’ve been addicted to heroin, cocaine, alcohol, tobacco and other bad behaviors. I am a paradox. I have faithfully practiced yoga since the age of eighteen. There have been times when I would inject myself with a speedball, smoke several cigarettes and do a sequence of yoga postures within the same hour. I’m not like that anymore. I’ve worn out my addictions through a steady incremental process, aided by psychotherapy. There was no sudden cure, no breakthrough, just years of steady work. I AM, at last, closer to where I want to be. All I have to do is avoid suddenly dropping dead. 

Count to three. I haven’t dropped dead. This means that I have a responsibility to continue writing. My mentor, the incredible KL Booth, urges me to supply essays, poems, and other material to the ongoing work of the web platform Writing To Be Read. This site is a forum for writers and provides essential exposure for those of us who don’t have the proper connections to achieve big time literary fame. 

There is truth to the maxim that “You have to know someone.” There was a time when I did indeed know someone. I knew the fiction editor at Playboy Magazine. Her name was Vicki Chung. I got to know her through a series of flukes that led to my winning Playboy’s award for Best Story Of The Year. After winning that award, I was invited to Playboy’s 25th anniversary banquet in New York City, all expenses paid. A room at the Waldorf was booked for me. The banquet guest list was loaded with influential writers, editors, agents and publishers. I had gone to Nirvana. They had a wall-sized poster illustration of my award winning short story. I was courted by everyone. I returned from New York City with my pockets full of business cards. “Call me when your manuscript is ready.” They all said that. 

A few months later there was a plane crash near Chicago’s Ohare airport. Most of Playboy Magazine’s literary staff was on that plane. My friend Vicki was gone. My connections were gone.

Later that year my manuscript was stolen. It was the only copy because I was making corrections. At the time I was devastated, but I now know that it was a shit novel, that it was juvenile, pretentious and hopeless. The thief saved me from gruesome embarrassment.

Pandemic? Are we in a pandemic? I think it’s more like a correction, the way the theft of my manuscript was a correction. That sounds cold, but nature doesn’t consider the will of individuals as it operates our planet. Nature does what is best for itself. Covid-19 may be nature’s response to massive overpopulation and utterly depraved management of this stately orb. 

That’s my theory, anyway.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Feral Tenderness

A Midwesterner by birth, Arthur Rosch migrated to the West Coast just in time to be a hippie but discovered that he was more connected to the Beatnik generation. He harkened back to an Old School world of jazz, poetry, painting and photography. In the Eighties he received Playboy Magazine’s Best Short Story Award for a comic view of a planet where there are six genders. The timing was not good.  His life was falling apart as he struggled with addiction and depression. He experienced the reality of the streets for more than a decade. Putting himself back together was the defining experience of his life. It wasn’t easy. It did, however, nurture his literary soul. He has a passion for astronomy, photography, history, psychology and the weird puzzle of human experience. He is currently a certified Seniors Peer Counselor in Sonoma County, California. Come visit his blogs and photo sites. www.artrosch.com and http://bit.ly/2uyxZbv

Arthur’s books include The Road Has Eyes, The Gods of the Gift, and Confessions of an Honest Man. His lifetime collection of poetry and photography, Feral Tenderness, is soon to be released by WordCrafter Press.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Want to be sure not to miss any of Art’s “Mind Fields” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress. If you find it interesting or just entertaining, please share.


Words to Live By – Losing My Mind (in Real Life)

Jeff Version_Words to Live By 2

The first Wednesday of every month, writer Jeff Bowles muses on life, creativity, and our collective destinies as makers of cool stuff. You’re a writer, but have you ever thought about how or why? Here are some words to live by.

Losing My Mind (in Real Life)

At three-thirty in the morning, I’m screaming at demons. There’s something inside me, something over which I have very little control, and it’s been at my throat for months. Somehow I’ve convinced myself the voice in my head belongs to a friend from graduate school, that she’s speaking to me telepathically over a great distance. She’s crueler than the person I remember, always mocking and deceiving me, but I don’t do the simple mental math. The voice tells me all sorts of things, and this is the first time I’ve ever been crazy, so I don’t necessarily understand I’m not supposed to listen.

Though I sleep dismally, I call her the very next morning. The real person I mean. I say crazy things, most of which I don’t remember now. A few days later, something even worse happens. An incident with the car in our driveway. My wife, she gets hurt. The voice told me she was trying to kill me, and I believed every word, so I attempted to flee the house and she ended up with six fractured ribs. God, some days are made in Hell. If I close my eyes, even five years later, it’s an easy vision to conjure, and it lays me low every time. This happened, it was real, and I was crazy, crazy, crazy, an animal, a lunatic, someone completely undeserving of justice or fairness or something simple and clean like compassion.

I made a mess of my life, ended up in jail, in court, on a psychiatric ward, and I have had to cope with a version of myself from that time I cannot excuse, someone vulgar and unhinged, someone barely hanging on. I won’t go into details that are still too painful to write in blunt, unadulterated language. The pressures of life had gotten to me, an unexpected barrage of one thing after another, as life is known to dish out. Unexpected health issues, loss of a job, unable to pay the mortgage. No, I’d never heard voices before, but that doesn’t mean I’m worthy of forgiveness. My loved ones keep telling me I should finally let go, be kind to myself on this front, realize people make mistakes, that these things can and do happen and that none of it makes me a bad or dangerous person. I find it difficult to believe what they say. Scratch that, I find it impossible. It’s a miracle no one was killed.

Many prominent creative voices throughout history have commented on the clear and seemingly causal link between mental illness and creative genius, but not every dork with a science fiction and fantasy fetish and a couple of short story sales goes full tilt into lunacy. It’s not in my nature to describe myself in lofty terms. It’s not in my nature to think of myself very fondly at all, and that’s perhaps where dark things like this take root. Whatever creative abilities I’ve been granted and have spent years honing seem to have come at a cost. I knew I had depression at a very young age, but schizophrenia, I didn’t even know what that was.

It’s like this: you can’t trust your thoughts, your senses, your worldly experience. You will hear voices and smell phantom aromas and see things that aren’t there. You’ll think delusional thoughts every once in a while, strange ruminations and lines of logic that make perfect sense at the time they occur. If you’re lucky, medication will help, and counseling will teach you skills you can lean on that boil down to keeping it real, keeping it present, leaning on others if you’re having a truly difficult time distinguishing fantasy from reality. Don’t listen when you think you hear your friend from school. Don’t listen when you think you hear your friend from school. Don’t listen when you think you hear your friend from school.

There were nights I was so terrified I couldn’t imagine surviving till morning. These voices, they torture you in all sorts of creative and intimate ways. They make fun of you in the toilet, in the shower, when you’re dressing in the morning. They con you into driving recklessly in city traffic, convince you your counseling appointment has been canceled, and that in fact, you don’t really need counseling anyway. At some point, the ruse couldn’t sustain, and I finally realized I wasn’t speaking with my friend. Sensibly, tardy as usual, I asked to whom or what I was in fact speaking, in my head, in the room, just out of sight.

It said it wanted to be called Dave. Just Dave. And the more my wife and I used the name as shorthand, the more it seemed appropriate. Dave, like some faceless person who could be anyone or anything at any time. Dave, a personality that might be normal or might be abnormal, just depended on the day. And now when I write, even a simple essay like this one, I feel as though Dave is guiding my fingers over my laptop keyboard.

I can feel him looking out my eyes sometimes. He wiggles my toes and fidgets when I’m barely paying attention. He’s in me, he is me, yet they say he’s not the conscious, aware me. If my id expresses itself thusly, what the hell is wrong with me? Is it any wonder the book I wrote about that insane, scary time depicts Dave as a full-stop demon? Not a biproduct of janky biochemistry or a brain or emotional disorder, but rather something separate and inhuman? Took me two years to write that book. I still can’t stand to read a single word of it.

I wasn’t myself. It must be a constant reminder, or the truth is the person I am today, the person I’ve always believed myself to be, he’s a lie. And this is something I can’t accept. You must take action when your own wounding wounds others. It’s a teaching moment, a failing you can catch like a falling aspen leaf. It was a shot across the bow, an opportunity to reorient myself, look at my life and everything I’ve created and done not as the end-all-be-all, but as a small component of who I am in full. Each and every time Dave speaks to me, I can silently rebuke or ignore him and remind myself what real humility and humanity look like.

They look like the patients at the psych hospital who’d just survived suicide attempts and psychotic episodes. How gentle and caring they seemed. Not like me, strapped to a hospital bed, screaming my head off, trying to cut my wrists in a pretty useless fashion, thinking the Velcro ties would do the trick. Humility and humanity look like the caregivers—yes, even the guards at the county jail—who could’ve condemned me but instead took pity on me, tried to protect and treat me.

Even five years later, I awake sometimes from nightmares. He’s always there, but thankfully, so am I. Watchful, careful, repentant. Honestly, not at all interested in returning to that place ever again. I could’ve lost so much. It all could’ve ended so much worse. My blessings, I do my best to count them, but I know I could do far more. Recovery is a long process, or at least it can be, and it’s a bumpier ride than most people give it credit for being. But I have to go through it. It’s an imperative. Being better to people, hoping one day to learn to be better to myself. Leave the creative stuff aside. In fact, leave everything aside that is surface-level and cheap. Maybe it’s what I came here to do. Maybe it’s what we all came here to do.

If you or anyone you know is suffering severe mental health issues right now, I urge you to seek help. Especially in the middle of this pandemic, it’s a huge issue for many, and we owe it to ourselves, our friends, and our family to treat it with respect. There’s hope, there’s survival, and there is recovery. I’m proof of that. We all deserve to be the best versions of ourselves. All of us. I pray and hope for the best life has to offer, and I pray and hope the same for you as well. Safety, happiness, generosity, and love. Sanity most of all, my friends. Until next month.


Jeff Bowles is a science fiction and horror writer from the mountains of Colorado. The best of his outrageous and imaginative work can be found in God’s Body: Book One – The Fall, Godling and Other Paint Stories, Fear and Loathing in Las Cruces, and Brave New Multiverse. He has published work in magazines and anthologies like PodCastle, Tales from the Canyons of the Damned, the Threepenny Review, and Dark Moon Digest. Jeff earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at Western State Colorado University. He currently lives in the high-altitude Pikes Peak region, where he dreams strange dreams and spends far too much time under the stars. Jeff’s new novel, Love/Madness/Demon, is available on Amazon now!

Love Madness Demon Cover Final

Check out Jeff Bowles Central on YouTube – Movies – Video Games – Music – So Much More!


Want to be sure not to miss any of Jeff’s “Words to Live By” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress. If you found this useful or just entertaining, please share.