Well, who knew it would be another year before I would come back to the blog log? Just one more avenue to have my words heard, my voice spread. What’s been happening? Me I’ve been working a lot on stories, queries, and looking for a book agent. Thanks to the writing community I found called Pitched to Published. In this group I have learned so many valuable things. How to query, what agents want, what a Query needs. May things I just plain didn’t know about. So, while I haven’t gotten a nibble from an agent, yet I am extremely hopeful that it will happen soon.

Life hasn’t changed much. Still working at the airlines, thinking that I’ve got about 4 more years of the grind then sweet retirement. My own place, a beer in hand and a book deal pending. Writing a book is the easy part. There is so much else involved in getting to that point, if you don’t know you can’t imagine. I found out that agents are humans with likes and dislikes. As a writer it is up to you to find one that likes what you have to offer.

I recently got a short story published in an online magazine…https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCVLMCSV?ref_=pe_93986420_774957520 and an offer to do a Podcast. It’s the little things that add up. And in the words of “Bobby Brown”. Every little step I take. I will get there. Every step is a work in progress.

Tata for now

Happy Horror

It’s been almost a year since my last blog. Not sure why that is, except that I have been busy. Reading, learning and sending out query letters to snag me a book agent. A lot has happened in the year. I have lost family, friends I have gained new people. I joined a group called Pitched to Publish. P2P for short to help me in my book agent quest. It’s been a good ride so far. As a writer I know that words are like gold. They can heal a heart, or they can bring pain. I discovered that words when used recklessly can also get you in trouble.

On Facebook I said that I would do something not so nice to someone who did something not so nice to a friend. Well, my “words” got me put in Facebook jail for 6 days. I thought about it and at first, I was a little angry.

“How dare they put me in Facebook jail, I was only kidding.”

Well, was I? Yes, I actually was but when reading the post back to myself I saw how my statement read. It was mean, intimidating and frightening. I didn’t even know the person that I said it about. And them not knowing me, they could have been frightened, or angry or ready to come and get me. And Lord knows I’m too old to be trying to fight somebody. But by my “words” I could have been in some real trouble. My point of this quick post, your words count. Be aware of what you say, how you say them, and what your true meaning of them is. Not being able to post for 6 days, I missed out on a day of having my peers read over my query, which in turn slowed my progress down by a week. This could have been the moment that my query could have been made perfect and ready to send out to agents. Life is all about time and timing. Beware of your words. Use them wisely and use them kindly.

“So back in the time when dinosaurs roamed the land”, borrowed that line from a friend. Let’s just say that when I started this writing journey it was sonly to see if I could do it. I stared out in horror. I wrote a few, I self-published a few. Then I found a new publisher. Lord a mighty I thought I was in the big time. Well not so fast. The new publisher I found was not able to continue and here I was with about 150 books sitting in my basement. Still there. I’ve sold some here and there. I discovered that books don’t write themselves and they don’t sell themselves, especially when you’re just starting out. I found myself wondering weather or mot it was me. You know maybe I wasn’t good enough. Maybe I couldn’t write. Or maybe just maybe horror wasn’t my thing. I asked a good writer and mentor friend of mine if she thought I could write romance. How hard can romance be. Girl meets boy. Boy meets girl. They fall in love yaw, yaw, yaw. So, I gave it a shot. Not as easy as I thought. I did come up with three romance stories and a erotic one. Spicey. I found a really great romance housing site that caters to interracial romance. Again I waited for the cash to roll in. Alas cash does not come without work. Then I got to thinking again, what if I had put on the work. Not even extra work just the work in general. So I got busy. I updated my website, no easy task. I check to make sure that all of my social media accounts address were still good. I found some new ways to get the word out. My friend gave me a website to check out and I tell you what. I can feel the juices of creativity flowing again. Oh and yes, I can write between two genres. They almost overlap. Paranormal romance, romance that has danger, and horror with a love story in the middle. Now what I’m working on is looking for a publisher for my horror. That means new stories, new horror and new screams. Writing is only a part of writing. There is so much more and if you look there are tools and people who will help you along the way. I’ve come across some of the nicest people and groups. All overflowing with information and willing to share and give you a hand. Doubt will come. People who don’t write will either admire you or criticize you. If you are serious, if you really want to write, if you want to see people enjoy what you produce do it. Do it. Do it. When the break comes you will be ready, humble and able. Nothing brings about elf realization better than believing in yourself. Until my next blog Happy Horror and Racey Romance. Yeah, I’m writing both. Have a little faith, in yourself, God (or whoever you believe) and yourself because you can do it.

Have you ever been writing a story and the further along you get the more it doesn’t feel right? That happened to me recently. I was writing this horror novel and I got it all the way to the end. After a sigh of thanksgivng for putting another one to rest. I set it aside. A few days later I re-read through it. This is a common practice for me and maybe some of you. Anyway, as I get to the end of it, I think to myself. “there’s something missing”, so I set it aside to wait for lightening to strike. I’m at a friends house when it strikes. I jump out of bed at four a.m. and in a fever pitch I write it out. And when I say write, I don’t mean tapping away quickly on my laptop, with pen and paper in hand, I write.

So now it’s complete a second time. The manuscript is ready for me to go to the next step. I set it aside again and begin planning for it’s next phase. Somewhere, someplace in the middle of my next step preperations, I begin to get a nagging feeling. I’m not sure. Something about the story is bothering me. Here is where belonging to writing group comes in handy. There are many journey’s in life where you go it alone. Fortunately for me and you writing is not one of them. When you open yourself up to others who are like minded as you, you give yourself a great gift.

Just when I thought I had moved on, was on solid ground, didn’t have anything to say, something else comes to mind. As a lot of us are, I am huge on family. My family is my world. Now that includes many people who are not blood related family. Family is the people that you love and that love you. You surround yourself with them and them with you.

November is a tough month for my family. We lost are family corner stone. My Mom. It was 2015 so for us the wound is still fresh. My Mom was my best friend, a great person and a loving giver. My Mom was also the ultimate horror fan. Oh my goodness how she loved the old black and white horror films. She devoured Stephen King, John Saul, Dean Knoontz, John Grisham and the likes. She came up with this awesome story idea for a book. I encouraged her to write it down. Somewhere in the home that we shared I’m sure lays that manuscript. In trying to get her to write it down, I started my writing journey.

She read many of my stories before she lefts us. She actually liked many of my stories. I planned to become this world wide famous writer to please her and make her proud of me. Of course silly me, she was proud. She was proud of me, my two sisters and my two nephews. My proudest momnet came and sealed my fate as a writer when I wrote my book. In The Footsteps of a Killer. I told her about it before I started it and she said “go for it”. I did.

Once my first draft was done I gave it to her to read. She read it in one day. That was the type of reader she was. She could take a 500 page book and would have to force herself to put it down so that she could make the read last longer. She also had a nack for figuring out “who did it”. Wether it was a book she was reading or a television show that she was watching. We would watch with her and she woud say, “He did it” and we would all groan. “Ma, don’t tell us,” The movie would end and she would be right. It became a family joke. I was in the basement when I heard a thump on the floor. Her signal for whoever was in the basement to come up to her room. Answearing the thump I went to her room. She says that she’s finished my book. No surprise to me. So I asked her, “What did she think? Did she like it?” Her response was the catlyist that moves me still to this day.

Mom sets the manuscript down on her lap. She looks up at me with a smile on her face then says, “First, let me ask you something? Did I do this to you?” I looked at her and smiled, “Umm, yeah Blanche, ya did.” Mom’s name was Gwen.” We laughed. She said through tears of laughter, “I loved the shit out of it. I thought I had it figured out but that was not the ending I was expecting. You got me with that. Yeah this is good.” That was it for me. Having her see me published was now my lifes priority. I found a publisher and Mom was able to see my book as a published novel before she left us. I dedicated that book to her.

Mom, we miss you so much but we know that your heart and love is always with us. as I type this now my tears flow. I stop typing for a moment to breathe and catch myself. It’s been 6 years and I’m 60 years old and yes I still miss and cry. Just when I thought I had my shit together, my head in the right direction, had moved on. You don’t move on but you do move. I move in the direction that she has steered me. Mom always knows best for her children and I am her child. To my sisters and nephews, you know her spirit lives on in each of us. You know that she wants you happy. You know that you are her children and that she is proud of the adults that you all are. We never move on past the hurt but you do move. Move and love and remember her with a smile.

Well folks since my last blog in May 2020 right at the start of Covid -19 a lot has happened. I was hell bent to becone a better blogger, I planned to have a new publisher, I planned for many things. So guess what has actually happened? None of the things I set out to do. I have to laugh. What happened? I guess I’m not really sure.

When Covid hit, I took about three months medical leave off from my job, then I took another couple of months of unpaid leave. Me and my little family all worked together to survive through the stay at home orders, the lock down, the jobs that stopped. It wasn’t easy and we are all right now in pretty good shape.

I focused on finding a new publisher after mine old one (she’s not old) refoucused her business attentions. She returned my work to me, completely edited. Then the hunt began. Quite frankly it’s still going on. Oh the query letters, oh the query letters I have sent. I keep sending.

I finally went back to work only to hurt my back and go out on a medical again. Six weeks or so and then I went back. Then I hurt my shoulder and off again I went for another six weeks or so. Lordy, Lordy. Then it was back to work. I managed to stay for a few months only to have a car accident in April of this year, 2021. Five car smash up. No one was killed or very seriously hurt to the best of my knowledge. I however, did suffer some weird hand injury. My mechanic, (Mr. Mechanic on 9 mile road and telegragph Southfield Mi) said it was a race car driver type of injury. Here I go again off of work. When I tell you that before any of these things happened I did not believe I would have survived being off work for a longtime, I tell you I thought for sure I would be homeless and broke. GOD will provide. He made my way and it seemed easy. It took some budgeting but without having God in my life I would not be where I am right now (writing this blog from Souel Korea, I’m a flight attendant).

So back to the publisher search. With all the things that have happend this year I am strong and confident that my search is nearing it’s end. I did find out however that if you are querying agents or publishers they really are not interested in previously published or even self published stories. Ok so I have been busy writing new stories. Practice up on your 30 second pitch, your tag line and oh crap I forgot the third thing. Well when I remember what it was, I will blog it to you. My point to this rather long blog, life will throw you curve balls and expect you to strike out. Keep swinging, keep going after that home run and you will get that puck in the goal net and win.

I’m not a great blogger, never have been. I never seem to have enough to say where I can say it every day, or week or month. But that is changing. I’m thinking that the times they are  changing…right?

It’s 2020 and unless you’ve been alone in a box, under a rock, you know what’s going on. Our lives have been hijacked by this virus, This every 100 year monster that has sidelined our entire world. Lives are being lost, jobs are no more, people are acting and reacting as if they were in the Twilight Zone. How does this relate to me and my writing? You may ask? I have been off work for 2 months and will be off for 2 more. Have I taken this time to write? Have I taken this time to develop a new story? No! Actually, hell no? I had to sit and think about this for a minute. I was stunned. I was shocked. Never in my 59 years of life have I ever experienced something so unreal yet so deadly real. I was asked, will you write about this virus later?

Writing about this is not my idea of fun, yet I’m sure at some point it will appear in one of my Horror novels. I can only imagine. I will tell you that it has sparked me to update and re-release my other stories. It’s almost as if I need to get them out so that if something happens my stories will not go unread, unheard, undiscovered. As a writer, what good is writing if you don’t get it out for people to read. So now on the second 2 months of my time at home I WILL write. I will get my stories told. I’ve  never experienced writers block (thankfully) but I experienced virus fright. Yes I was too afraid to make my move. I was too afraid to write my story. At this point I don’t know why. But these next 2 months off work will not be wasted.

amazon.com/author/oneblackrose.webstarts.com follow this link to see what I have ready for your reading pleasure. Or check me out at oneblackrose.webstarts.com I guarantee before these next 2 months are done there will be more and I will not go quietly into that dark night. I will go kicking and screaming….. Happy Horror

A new release is coming soon. Through The Eye’s of a Killer, is my sequel to In The Footsteps of a Killer. My first book took me only 9 months to write. The sequel was a different story. I was excited to start it. but quickly found out that writing a sequel is quite a different beast. There were so many ways it wanted to go. I had to narrow it down and put a pace to it. My characters wanted to do things other than what I wanted them to do. Sound familiar? We had to come to a compromise and it all worked out.

From the beginning of the first book I was asked was there going to be a sequel. My first response was “well no not really” I quickly learned that when you let other people read your writings they too have a vested interest in your characters. The first person was my Mom who said, “I know you’re going to write a sequel?” which from Mom was more of an order then a question…lol.  Then later, after I sold a few copies and the reviews started coming in that question became. “Hey I can’t wait for the sequel” Ok I thought, “everybody wants a sequel, so I guess I’ll write a sequel.”

So I started writing the sequel and was introduced to new characters whom I hadn’t thought of when I wrote the first one. But as they started talking to me about who they were and what they wanted out of this sequel it became clear, this was meant to be. So as I listen to them talking to me, of course they were talking, the story began to be come to life. The sequel took me a little longer to write then the first but after we ( me and my characters) came to our agreement the rest as they say is history. The story grew and my anticipation for it’s conclusion grew. I even closed my eyes and saw things happening before I put it on paper. I can’t tell you if this came more from the characters or from me but I can tell you that it is as suspense filled and scary as the first, if not more.

The sequel Through The Eyes of a Killer is complete and will soon be released and I couldn’t be more excited. The sequel came with a different set of challenges but in the end it worked out. I am even more excited for this one since it also showed me that I can write a sequel and still have the same fire as I did for the first.