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Blurbs, pitches, loglines, and other book marketing necessities I suck at (#IWSG)
For those of you who aren’t masochists don’t write fiction, here’s something about the writing world that you may not know: authors have to be marketers. Yes, even traditionally-published authors, because apparently even the big publishers don’t invest a lot in marketing authors unless they are big names. I’m going to admit 2 things up front that will color the rest of this post: I find this fact frustrating. With a family and a day job, I barely have enough time to write, let alone learn how to market my writing. When I first started writing, I thought that’s what publishers got paid to do, seeing as how they have…
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Lock up your chocolate, I’ve been left unsupervised (Weekend Coffee Share #12)
My long-suffering husband is camping in the desert this week, and I’m taking a few days off to enjoy having the house to myself. In other words–I’m entirely unsupervised. Unmonitored. Responsible to no one. Free as a bird, baby. Let the debauchery begin! But before we get to the debauchery, good afternoon, and happy Friday! Welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share, graciously hosted by Natalie the Explorer. Come on in, grab a treat, have a seat, and let’s party! Now, where were we? Oh, yeah–debauchery. Those of you who read my last attempt to portray myself as cool already know the sad truth: I’m boring as hell. I’ve been on…
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The desert is in the details: Tucson Mountain Park (Weekend Coffee Share #11)
Good morning, and happy Saturday! Welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer. Today we’ll visit the rough, rugged, and prickly scenery of Tucson Mountain Park. I wish we could have coffee in person, maybe sit out on the patio (it’s cool–55F–and sunny this morning) and talk and share and laugh. Dang, I miss doing that. But, as with so many other activities in these plague times, virtual will have to do. So pull up a seat, and let’s share our weeks with each other. As I mentioned in last week’s post, husband and I drove to Flagstaff last weekend. We weren’t there long, just a night…
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Camille Pissarro Rose (#FOTD)
Cee’s Flower of the Day post today is a lovely portrait of fall leaves. We don’t really have fall leaves here in Tucson. I vaguely remember one neighbor’s tree providing a bit of fall color last year–in December. Right now, my garden is full of flowers, bigger and brighter now that the weather isn’t so hot. I think I’ve mentioned on here before that my husband and I have a thing for striped roses. We bought this one last spring at Lowe’s, and it bloomed all through a Tucson summer. Want to see more flowers? Take a look at my Flower of the Day archive and Cee’s wonderful blog.
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Bisbee pics and saying goodbye (Weekend Coffee Share #10)
Good morning and happy Friday! Welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer. Grab a drink and a nibble, and let’s chat. When this post goes live, I’ll be in Flagstaff, a town in the Arizona mountains where I used to live. My husband is seeing his knee surgeon up there for a final post-operative visit, and I’m tagging along. Flagstaff is not what people think of when they think of Arizona. It’s almost 7000 feet above sea level, and it gets *cold*. I enjoyed the six years I lived there, but I so don’t miss shoveling snow. They got their first snow of the year this…
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Gratitude, wins and losses, and weird Bisbee (Weekend Coffee Share #9)
*Yawn* Good morning, and welcome to the weekend coffee share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer! It’s Sunday morning, and I’m only half-caffed, so come on in, pull up a seat, and let’s finish caffeinating. I’m still scrambling to finish a Christmas horror story to submit for an anthology, so I’m going to keep things short today. Why losses seem to outweigh wins First, let’s talk about wins and losses–in writing and in life. Jenny Hansen on the wonderful Writers in the Storm blog has a great post called Writing and the Law of Loss Aversion. I’d never heard of the law of loss aversion before, but once she explained it,…
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Where do I draw the line? (#IWSG)
It seems like everyone has an opinion these days about what writers should and shouldn’t do: Show me all the sex! Keep the sex behind closed doors. Write about diverse characters! Don’t write about identities you don’t share. Write honestly about difficult topics. Stop writing about rape. And on and on. Yeah, those are oversimplifications, but sometimes the discourse about what writers should write isn’t very nuanced. So today I’m going to piss off everyone by wading into these controversial waters. I’ve written about this topic before, but I’m going to get into it in a bit more depth in this post. But first: This post is part of the Insecure…
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Snippet from “Open House,” my newly-published short story
Good morning, and welcome to this week’s Weekend Writing Warriors post! Today’s snippet is the first 10 sentences of “Open House,” my 80s haunted house story that JUST GOT PUBLISHED on the Storyteller Series podcast! Why yes, I am just a wee bit excited. Yes, I did squee all over this blog announcing it. Those of you who are veterans may shrug, but this is a big ol’ deal for little ol’ me. OK, on to the snippet: The woman in the Nike jacket was staring at Kim Idlewood’s husband. Oh, she was trying to be discreet about it—they usually tried to be discreet, unless they were young, hot, and…
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Looking back at September (Weekend Coffee Share #8)
Good morning, happy Friday, and welcome to the weekend coffee share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer. Grab a drink and pull up a seat. I’m going to shamelessly steal Natalie’s review-of-September format, but first I’m going to engage in some shameless self-promotion. Published short story–as an audio drama! My short story, “Open House,” was just published on The Storyteller Series podcast! I’ve published a couple of short stories in the Arizona Authors Association annual literary magazine, but this is the first time I’ve had one available free online and definitely the first time I’ve had one produced as an audio drama! Something I wrote is available on Spotify, y’all! (and…
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Open House is published on the Storyteller Series podcast!
It’s up! It’s up! It’s up! SQUEE!! Ahem. Let’s try that again. I’m delighted to announce that my short story, “Open House,” is published on Night Shift Radio‘s The Storyteller Series podcast. The Storyteller Series presents original short stories (like mine! SQUEE!) as audio dramas with a full cast of voice actors. Check it out on Spotify (use the player above) or your favorite podcast player (and while you’re there, check out the other great stories on the podcast. I especially liked Tom Witkowski‘s, “The Guardian Devil”). So why am I squeeing all over the place? Because I’m a teenager trapped in a 50-something body (Get me out of this…
Janet Alcorn
Suspense | Horror | Romance
