There are times when THE WOLVES ARE SILENT and

THE MOON HOWLS ... 

      

         especially when you are a werewolf!

Barnes & Noble:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/1128995919?ean=9781640635982

Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F6NGPL1/

You think your life is complicated?

The man Ayra loves left for Iceland.

Her father is forcing her into a loveless marriage for a  political alliance.

Her brother seems to have lost it in all the wrong ways.

AND 

her powers as a Reaper have awakened!

Who in their right mind wants to put down other werewolves for a living?

Oh, one other thing ...

Vidar, the man she loves is back from Iceland.

But only because she is becoming a Reaper.

Then, there's that pesky celibacy vow she took!

TWICE TURNED is available today for only $2.99.  

Heather McCorkle is a great writer.  

Find out just how great. Buy it today.

I did.

What will CARRY YOU THROUGH

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” 
― Martin Luther King, Jr.

What will carry you through as a writer?

1. A Wild And Mad Daemon of a Muse:


If you want to survive, you’ve got to have an imagination that won’t lay down and die. 

Your cat has exploded?  Use it. 

Zombies are pounding on the door.  Ignore them.  Think of it as the pulse of your muse murmuring ideas to you.


2. Discipline:


No amount of imagination will help you unless you sit your tush in the chair, pound the keyboard, and put prose on the blank screen.

Need Motivation?

Come up with your own item of visual motivation. It might be inspirational words taped to your computer

(“You get what you dare, baby, and if you want big, you dare big”—author Leonard Bishop)


 The primary way writers keep discipline going is through the weekly quota. Most successful fiction writers make a word goal and stick to it.


Discipline is helped by a healthy body.


The imagination is housed in the brain. The brain is housed in the body. The body is the temple of the soul. Treat it as such.

Your productivity and creativity depend on it.  Take that brisk walk!  Both your body and muse need it. 


3. A Schizophrenic Frame of Mind:


You must be a triad:

Optimistic enough to believe your work will eventually be bought/

Realistic enough to know it will not be overnight/

Pessimistic enough to question the purity of human motives when you finally are handed a contract to sign.


4. Inner Strength:


You have to be able to pound nail after nail into board after board to build your Ark under a cloudless sky to the sound of derisive laughter behind you.

You must believe in yourself before anyone else will.

Face the Harsh Law:

What You Are Inside Only Matters Because of What It Makes You Do

You may believe your talent is one in a million, but it is what you do with it that counts.

Make it an inner contract to finish what you start,

to wring that final chapter out of your imagination, and to brave rejection and put it out there either by self-publication or submitting to agents/editors.


5. Curiosity:
 

"The important thing is not to stop questioning.

 Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.

It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity."
- Albert Einstein

Most writers are curious by nature. We look at the world around us and wonder at it.

Who are these people? What are we all doing here?

Where are we heading? Why do we do the things we do? How will we achieve our goals?

Remember how curious you were as a child?

Everything you encountered spawned a series of questions

because you were trying to learn and understand the world around you.

Bring that childlike curiosity back, and you’ll never need to look far for now, inspiring writing ideas.

By fostering curiosity, we can create a fountain of ideas.

It doesn’t matter what form your writing takes or what genre you’re writing in.

By coming up with intriguing questions, you’ll soon find yourself overwhelmed with inspiration.

Take the basic questions and put a riveting spin to them:

Who?
Who does my main character trust? What does that say about them? About the trusted person?

What?
What motivates people to take drastic actions?

Where?
Where do these people want to be?

When?
When does a child become an adult?

Why?
Why does this story matter?

How?
How do you describe something that doesn’t really exist? 

Hope this helps in some small way. 

ON BEING A RENAISSANCE MAN

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, 

conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet,

 balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, 

take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, 

analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, 

fight efficiently, die gallantly. 

Specialization is for insects.”

 - Robert A. Heinlein 

I am privileged to have the multi-talented Robert Rossmann 

producing and narrating my latest audio book, The Not-So-Innocents Abroad.

But Robert is not only an actor, 

but also a talented stage director!

And Robert, being Robert, is having a "Pay What You Can" Performance for his play on July 19th!

How extraordinary, right?!

Almost as extraordinary as Robert himself.

So if you are close to Nevada City,

give his play a look!

"Life well spent is long." 

- Leonardo da Vinci

LOVE is a good place to BEGIN and a tragic place to END

{Image in Public Domain}

Khalil Gibran actually appears at the end of my soon-to-be released audiobook,  The Not-So-Innocents Abroad

 In my horror anthology,

Silhouettes in the Key of Scream,

 I use a quote of his to lead off one of the stories.  

I recently realized with a start that Khalil Gibran's thoughts 

on the uncertainties of love run through three of those tales of horror.

“Think not you can direct 

the course of love, for love, 

if it finds you worthy, 

directs your course.”

{Self-Portrait in Public Domain}

He wrote of the precarious balance between intimacy and independence in healthy relationships.

(And how many of those have 

you seen in your own life?)

“Love one another but make not a bond of love: 

let it rather be a moving sea 

between the shores of your souls.”

HOW DO YOU DELINEATE 

LOVE AND INDEPENDENCE

IN YOUR STORIES?

The NUMBING DOWN of America

'He was so terrible that he was no longer terrible, only dehumanized.'

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Have the woes of others merely become our own private reality show,
our modern gladiator games?

Take American Idol or

any of the amateur talent shows.

It seems the audiences revel in the humiliation

of the less talented contestants.

I waited for what seemed an eternity at the DMV.

A mother with her 10 year old boy sat down beside me.

She busied herself with FB on her phone while her son pulled out an Ipad

and promptly started playing the latest CALL OF DUTY.

For an hour, he rocked back and forth as intently shot and maimed silicon enemies.


Was he becoming numb to the realities of violence and the finality of death?

Is Technology
numbing down America?

We view the world and one another through the filter of a smartphone screen ...

distancing us from directly experiencing emotions and ugly realities.

The Internet desensitizes us to shocking images and diminishes our empathic skills.


Videos of gruesome events that we view online for the figures are so tiny that the humans do not appear real.


The shock value of the loss of human life and the cries of misery have lessened.

Desensitization has become

the new normal.

Do we give up on tragedies and the people in them...

because the lack of action by politicians,

and little or no long-term coverage

by main media sources

gives a tacit message that

we are not like those suffering the tragedies.

There has been a shift in the way we communicate; rather than face-to-face ...

 Changes in the style and type of

interpersonal communication.

Young people use smartphones rather 

than interacting with the people around them,

to the detriment of being able even to make eye contact for more than a few seconds.

The Twitter and text bytes sent back and forth have reduced our ability to focus for any length of time

and have made it easier to be insensitive with impunity.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

HOW TO GET YOUR BOOK NOTICED

Not like this -- 

I think the SPCA might object.

But it could work!  

Don't look at me that way.

Just saying.

You can write the most beautiful novel ever crafted ...

     but it will die if you cannot draw internet attention to it.

Most self-published books sell fewer than 100 or 150 copies.

GETTING YOUR eBOOK NOTICED IS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT SELLING YOUR BOOK.

I. HOW DO YOU GET THAT ATTENTION?

1.) Book cover

You can choose a proper image for the book cover that will draw attention to your eBook.
     a.) You need to choose the proper thumbnail with a theme that reflects the contents of your
           eBook.

     b.) Many readers will be drawn to the book cover long before
          reading the description and the reviews.

     c.) It helps if you have a book cover that instantly draws attention.

     d.) Look at the image of THE NATIONAL LAMPOON memoir.


2.) Pricing

      a.)  it should neither be too cheap or too expensive
      b.) People value what costs them and hold to be inferior what they got cheaply.

3.) TITLE

      a.) Pick your title BEFORE you begin (you'll be with your novel for weeks so have a title that inspires you!

      b.) It's a marriage - LOVE YOUR TITLE

      C.) What a great title does:
            1.) Captures your audience’s attention
            2.) It communicates what your e-book is about
            3,) If it’s your style, it should include a little bit of a “What the Heck?” factor:
                      
Titles tell your audience a little something about you.
Look at these three sets of words:

• Epic; Awesome.
• Remarkable; Brilliant.
• Elegant; Erudite

Each pair of words has a unique flavor. You can almost begin to see the people that would use them in a title or a headline.

Which means that the words in your e-book title need to reflect your style.

       D.) WHO'S AN OXYMORON?~!

           i.) EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE was a great title to an older book because it linked two
                opposites.

           ii.) Startle your reader and snare his attention.

4.) YOUR BOOK DESCRIPTION

     a.)  Most people skim the content.

          1.) You’re also one of them (okay, including me)
          2.) This is where you need to write creatively
          3.) Use short paragraphs
          4.) Use short sentences like this.

     b.) Divide your content into three blocks

          1.)  Introduction (first two to three lines or really important. Tell them a story,
                make them scary, make them laugh, do anything but don’t make them bored.
               They must read your first two lines.

          2.) Middle of the content (this is where your actual MEAT of the content comes in)
          3.) Ending (end with either a surprise twist or question.)

II. HERE BE MONSTERS

   A.) It is the Old West once again.

   B.) Remember the Klondike Gold Madness (well not from actual memory, of course -- unless you're Sam McCord!)

   C.) Wild-eyed dreamers would race to Alaska where they would fall victim to prospectors
          selling fake maps to sure gold mines.

   D.) There are no GUARANTEED WAYS TO SUCCEED or 
 CERTAIN STEPS TO
          RICHES WITH YOUR EBOOK.

   E.) Once again, just write what you love, what fills your imagination with magic and delight.

Happy Friday the 13th from Midnight!