Guest blogging: An interview with Gabriel

My second Saving Gabriel guest post at Nerine Dorman’s blog is up now, and it’s an interview with the fallen angel himself, Gabriel. With surprisingly little prodding, Gabriel talks about his current ward, his job, and his estranged relationship with the archangel Michael.
So, go check out the interview, and if you haven’t already, check out the excerpt blog post from last week.

Since this is a really short post, I’ll also include a writing update. I’ve been cranking out some good word counts all this week, and I’m just about to wrap up the rough draft of Sandy Morrison and the Pixie Prohibition. No clue when I’ll have this one ready for prime time, but I’m sure you can expect it in the later part of this year.

So, that’s it for now. Hope y’all enjoy my interview with Gabriel.

Guest blogging for Gabriel…

For a change of pace, I have guest blogs out. I’m trying to spread the word about Saving Gabriel, and Rob at Reynard City and Nerine Dorman were both kind enough to invite me to their blogs. On Reynard City, I have an interview, and on Nerine’s blog, I have a short excerpt from Saving Gabriel. I believe this will soon be followed by another guest post on Nerine’s blog, in which I interview Gabriel a bit about his history.

You can find Saving Gabriel on Amazon, Amazon UK, Kobo, and on my blog bookstore. And if you wanted to add the book to your Goodreads to-read shelf, it’s already listed there too.

This is a little short, isn’t it? Good thing I also have an early review to show you over on Amazon, a five star review from one of the Wattpad beta readers. It’s a good review, and starting off with a 5 isn’t too shabby.

And speaking of Wattpad betas, the final two chapters go up on A Boy and His Dawg tonight. After this, I’ll leave up all the chapters for one month to let everyone who started it finish in a reasonable amount of time. It will be coming out in the latter half of February, but for sure, I’m getting enough typo hunters to comment that I’ll find most of my persnickety mistakes. I’m nowhere near the numbers of viewers I got with Saving Gabriel, but still sitting slightly above where I finished posting Sandy Morrison and the Pack of Pussies. (It’s since picked up a thousand more viewers thanks to people who showed up for my betas.)

What do I take away from this? That’s it’s damned hard to sell stories with furries. My gay zombies did better than my werecats or the werekin in Blind Rage. My bisexual vampires were a hit both times, and yet none of my werewolf stories seems to find an audience. The sexuality or lack thereof of my characters has little to do with it. Clearly, people are just anti-furry. *Sniffles*

Well, anyhow, maybe I’ll have better luck with fallen angels.

Sarcasm aside, I want to thank Rob and Nerine for hosting me, and thanks to my beta reader for posting an early review. It’s a good start to already have a review in the opening week. =^)

Guest post on Levi Pine…

I was invited to send in a guest post to Planetransgender about the discrimination case of Levi Pine against his gym. If you’d like to get my take on the issue, head on over and give it a read.

Um…this is a short post, innit? Yeas.

Guest Post: James N. Cook

Hello everyone, this is James N. Cook, author of the Surviving the Dead zombie series, and the upcoming Jeremiah Cain: Vampire Hunter novels.

My most recent novel is This Shattered Land, the second installment of Surviving the Dead. If you’re into the zombie apocalypse genre, TEOTWAWKI, or just plain action-adventure/horror/thrillers, then I think you will like this story.

If you haven’t checked it out already, also be on the lookout for No Easy Hope: Surviving the Dead Volume I.

Guest Post: Carrie Clevenger – The Bad Side of Writing

I’ve got a book coming out that I’ve been working on for almost a year. Champagne time, right? Cake and ice cream? No.

Time to write another book, because that’s what we do. Once you write your first book, it never stops. The ideas flow like water and sometimes you’re straddling two worlds. Frying bacon while getting hit with a sudden plot revelation equals burnt bacon. A night planned out with friends coinciding with a deadline or a character really laying into me about a story equals me staying home.

I can express disgruntlement with writing. A few, really.

No Friends

I have a couple of friends, but nothing solid and steady locally. My friends are instead in other states or even countries. Since I work at night for my real job, most are on the other side of the world. I flake on plans because instead of going to see a movie, I know I could do two to three thousand words. I’m inaccessible at times by my family that lives with me because I must write. My head will explode if I don’t, and brains don’t come out of carpet easily.

I have to leave the house at times because I get cabin fever. Since I work at home, I see a lot of the inside of my house.

No Spare Time

Every minute is accounted for and any event out of the ordinary has to be categorized and color-coded on my calendar, or I’ll totally forget about it. I’d love to sit and veg in front of the TV or level a toon on a game, any game, but I have to choose my priorities. I think that’s why music has become such an obsessive crutch for me. It’s the one thing I can do while doing something else.

No Peace

My characters are always pacing like tigers in a cage, anxious to tell me this or that. Some days it’s fine, but I wish there was an ‘off’ switch that could let me think about menial stuff, like planning a dinner party or remembering to change the oil in the car. Stamps at the grocery store. I have apparently bought rice and pasta seven times because I don’t remember that I bought them already. Yet I run out of bread.

Last week I had a driver honk me out of a plot stupor when a red light turned green. I was that dumb guy that didn’t know when the light changed. It makes me wonder if I’m behind another writer when the driver ahead of me doesn’t react immediately.

I Love It

But what can I say? I love writing. I love the power and freedom to create or destroy worlds in words. I can have anything I want in words. I can take you places you’ve never been.

This time around, let me take you to Pinecliffe, Colorado and down into New Mexico in Crooked Fang:

Sometimes a vampire’s past can bite him in the ass.

Xan Marcelles–bassist for Crooked Fang, vampire and full-time asshole, is content with his quiet existence in the backwoods of Pinecliffe, Colorado. But life at the Pale Rider tavern is set to become a little more complicated when he gets entangled with a feisty, blue-haired damsel and her abusive soon-to-be ex boyfriend.

To add to his woes, he’s gone from hunter to hunted, and his past returns to haunt him when a phone call draws him back to New Mexico. With the help of friends from his living past, he must get to the bottom of a murder, and figure out where he stands with his lover and his band, all while keeping one step ahead of his enemies. Hiding won’t be easy for him, especially with a mysterious woman dogging him every step of the way.

WARNING: Cussing, smoking, drinking and hot sex.

Main site: crookedfang.com

Lyrical Press, ebook format (all formats) to be published August 20.

http://www.lyricalpress.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=535

Amazon:

US: http://www.amazon.com/Crooked-Fang-Volume-Carrie-Clevenger/dp/0615668135/
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crooked-Fang-1-Carrie-Clevenger/dp/0615668135/

Katarr Kanticles also, print version releasing August 1.

https://www.createspace.com/3930335

Goodreads link: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15705395-crooked-fang

Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/CrookedFang

Guest Post: Becka Sutton

Regular readers will recognize Becka’s name, as I’ve often mentioned her helping me with promotion ideas. Becka is also a WebLit author, and has converted the first arc of her series, Dragon Wars, into an ebook and a print edition. She’s going on a blog tour to promote the book’s release, and today, she’s coming to my blog with some handy dragon survival tips. Since I’ve already talked about surviving zombie and werewolf attacks in my own quirky way, this post should fit right in here.

So, without further ado, here’s Becka…

Thank you, Zoe, for hosting me today.

You know, I was sitting here thinking about what should I write about and drawing a blank. Then it came to me: dragon attack survival tactics! I mean by now everyone knows how to survive the coming zombie apocalypse but what do you do if you’re going about your daily business and suddenly dragons attack? It’s every bit as likely but no one seems to be planning for a dragon invasion.

Here’s the best advice I can give you.

1. Do not be tempted to try and placate them. Sure it starts with livestock but next thing you know, you’re tying virgins to poles in your garden pretty much every day.
2. If caught in the open, run away and seek shelter. That’s right: run away as fast as you can unless your day job involves heavy artillery. Dragons are huge flying lizards with tough hides so unless you have a surface to air missile up your sleeve (and if you do, how big are your sleeves?) getting somewhere the dragon can’t get to you is your best chance.
3. Do not shoot at a dragon with a bow and arrow or a normal gun unless you’re a) a superb shot and b) can clearly see the weak spot they supposedly have. You’ll only annoy them otherwise and annoying the giant flying lizard is not the path of wisdom.
4. Obtain heavy weaponry – and people who can use it – as quickly and expediently as you can.
5. Avoid hiding places that could act like wind tunnels or chimneys. Dragons are highly intelligent and breath fire so such places can easily become killing zones if they scent you out, even when they can’t get inside.
6. By the same token, make sure your dragon apocalypse hideout is fireproof. Hydroponics in the basement is also recommended so you can avoid going out.

So that’s my dragon survival tips. What would yours be?

(Editor’s note: Comments are open for those who wish to chat with Becka.)
___

Becka Sutton is a self-described crazy cat lady, but she’s not very good at it: while she is crazy she only has one cat. She was born in Britain in 1972 and has lived there her entire life. In her early teens she started scrawling fantasy stories in exercise books her mother bought her to stop her scribbling in her school books. She hasn’t stopped writing since, and she credits writing as the outlet that allowed her to recover from the nervous breakdown she had after her parents died.

Her other interests include reading, listening to music, attempting to draw, growing her own vegetables and looking after the aforementioned Pumpkin cat.

No, you can’t read the novel she scrawled as a teen – she burned it long ago because it was awful.

Guest post: The Inner Animal

I have a guest post up for a Halloween Monster Movie Marathon at Wag The Fox, where I talk about my two favorite werewolf movies, An American Werewolf in London and Dog Soldiers. I’d completely forgotten I had this assignment due. In all the chaos of the month I lost the original, and had to write up this replacement on a moment’s notice. So, apologies for it being a little rough with the occasional typo or swapped word. But I hope you’ll check out one or both films as part of your Halloween viewing. American Werewolf is a classic and should be required viewing for anyone looking into the history of film horror. And Dog Soldiers should be a classic if not for being a newer film. I love both, so I hope you’ll try one or the other out.

I should have one more All Maid Up episode done before the weekend silence, but I won’t be posting that here. So this being the last last post before the holiday, happy Halloween, and y’all be safe.

Guest posts: vvb32 Reads

I have not one, but TWO guest posts on vvb32 reads, and a giveaway of both Zombie Era books. You can check out excepts of Zombie Punter or Confessions of a Zombie Lover. And the giveaway for both books is really easy. The drawing is on April 10th, so you might want to head over and see about entering if you’d like to win free copies of G’s story.

Guest post: Kait Nolan

Today I have a guest post on the blog of Kait Nolan, author of Forsaken By Shadow, Devil’s Eye, and Blindsight. My topic of choice this time is paranormal couples that I’d like to read about. (preferably from other authors.) I’m trying to be inspirational and toss out some ideas for mixed couples who will give a strong storyline and realistic characters. So I hope you’ll check it out and offer your thoughts on couples you’d like to see in the comments.

Guest post: Louise Bohmer on Sex In Horror

Today you get a guest post from the lovely Louise Bohmer, author of The Black Act and an editor of considerable skill. Today, Louise would like to talk to you about sex, in horror. No, don’t shy away, please. In fact, that’s part of what Louise wants to talk about, the aversion to sex in any writing besides erotica. And on that note, I’ll turn the floor over to Louise:
___

The first sex scene I read in horror that I remember would be the scene near the end of It. I think we all know the one I’m talking about. I was sixteen, and to say it impacted me, shocked me, would be a fair assessment. But, to be honest, I never once thought of King as a pervert, or a misogynist, for the scene he wrote between Beverly and the boys. Did it make me uncomfortable? To some extent, yes, but it didn’t color my perceptions of King. Fiction, after all, is fiction, and let’s face it—sometimes we can’t control what the muse shoots out of our head. His editor ultimately passed it, and, today, millions of people have read the controversial scene between Beverly and the boys at the end of It.