Prompt Time

What the what? Let's pretend my last post wasn't more than a week ago, mmmkay? I also won't regale you with tales of how much I did not write. That was then, this is now. And now here is my response to the prompt: The locked door fascinated and puzzled her.

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She was in a closet. That much she knew. The bottom of a musty coat brushed against her face and when she shifted, she heard metal hangers rattle over her head. Why she was in a closet and how she got there, Greta had no idea. The last thing she remembered was dropping her keys outside after she left the gym and bending over to pick them up. Touching her face, Greta felt a lump on her right temple and her mouth was filled with the coppery taste of pennies. Blood. A cut on the inside of her lower lip stung when she ran her tongue over it and her nose ached; she must have done a spectacular face plant in the parking lot.

Reaching out with her hands, Greta felt for the way out. There was no light, natural or otherwise, and so blinded, she groped around herself for the door. A bubble of panic rose from the pit of her stomach, but she tamped it down. There was time enough later for a meltdown- right now she had to get out of here. Her hands found the door. There was no door knob and for a brief moment, the locked door fascinated and puzzled her. Aren’t doors supposed to have knobs?

“Damn.” She released a pent-up breath. There was nothing fascinating about her situation. There was no door knob. There was no light and there was no door knob and there was no way out. The panic bubble broke free from its tether and began to rise even further.

Greta braced herself for a scream when a sound made her freeze in place, mouth open and feet placed against the door ready for a good kick. Heavy footsteps, coming closer.

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And with that, I commit once again to writing a weekly post. Next week I'll talk about the Draft That Isn't. Or maybe the Draft That Is Sort Of. We'll see.

What the Dickens

A few months back, Colleen sent me a link to the Scare The Dickens Out Of Us short story contest sponsored by the Clark Library in Lockhart, Texas. The rules: A ghost story of any strip, 5k words or less and entry deadline is October 1. The monetary prizes aren't too shabby either.

While my fellow bloggers are all old hand at writing contests, I have never entered one (too busy obsessing over my first few pages, remember) but I am going to enter this one. Not only is it a fun contest, but it also coincides with my number one goal of completing a short story to submit for publication. I won't receive any feedback from the judges, but then again that's what my crit group is for, so I think the ultimate satisfaction will be in knowing I finished something and sent it off into the world.

I know some of you are working on contests now; I hope you keep us updated on your progress!

And now, I write.

It's Like This

Now that we are five months (!!!) into the year, I think it's time to check in with my writing goals for the year and see where I'm at.

In one sense, I'm way ahead of the game: I've read a lot of short fiction. I've always been a fan of the short story, so it's not hard for me to read, read and read some more. Over the past five months, I've focused mostly on horror fiction- and horror doesn't automatically translate into blood and gore, a subject for a future post, eh?- and it's been an eye-opener to see the myriad ways in which horror can be defined. I've also revisited the work of Shirley Jackson and Roald Dahl, two of the absolute best BEST short story writers ever published. Just brilliant, those two. Harlan Ellison is another master. Oh, there are so many! It's beyond humbling to read all of these wonderful stories- and even the occasional clunker or two- and wonder if I have a snowball's chance in hell of ever writing something good, something that will stick in a reader's mind long after they read the last sentence. And that, right there, leads to the part where I suck.

My goal is three submissions. Doable, yes? Yes. But. One must have something to submit and therein lies my dark secret: I have no finished story. Not even a half-written one. Nada. So I clearly have work to do. Ideas are percolating and I am constantly reminding myself that the goal is to get something written, not necessarily perfectly from the get-go, but just down on paper. The perfectionist in me has a hard time with that, hence my obsession with getting the first paragraph just right before moving on, but I will never make it if I don't tamp that fear of failure down.

I plan on checking back in with this goal in two months. The year will be more than half over by then; I want to have a workable first draft by then.

To all of you, how are you doing with your own writing goals?

The Prompt that wasn't...er...prompt

Well, you know what they say, right? Don't Wait: Postpone Now. That seems to be my MO lately. Lately, ha! I mean my MO in general. Baby steps, though...yes? Here is my response to Samantha's prompt of last week: Late into the night, the snow fell and fell.

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My parents are dead, I say to anyone who asks. No, I have no siblings…my brother died with them. Shock usually keeps them from pressing for more details, but I just mutter the words “stuck on the train tracks, no time to get out” and that tends to shut even the nosier ones up.

After a while, no one asks anything else. I’m okay with that. After many tellings, the lie becomes its own truth and I start to believe it myself. I have to: the truth is worse than any story I can come up with and no one, least of all me, wants to hear the real tale. It’s only in my nightmares that I can’t lie, can’t forget about the night the snow fell and fell and the monsters that came with it.

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The thing I love about these prompts and the little bits of inspired writing that come of them is that I let myself write without restraint and without wondering what I’m doing. I just let the words present themselves, even if they don’t make much sense. In my snippet above, even I don’t know what the real story is but now the wheels are turning in my head and I’m curious to see if there is anything more I can make of this. Maybe there isn’t anything else, but now my creative juices are flowing a little more; maybe I can take this exercise and go back to my current novel in progress and make some headway.

Getting Back in the Saddle

Hello! Why yes, it has been a long time since my last post. I was off battling computer viruses and then some physical ones, and when you toss in some general writerly apathy, it leads...well, not to this place.

But that was then, this is now. I'm regrouping and getting back into the writing mindset. This week I'm setting myself a nightly goal of writing for 15 minutes nonstop. No, that's not very long, but right now 15 minutes feels like 15 hours. Baby steps, you know? I'm scared to start writing again because I'm scared I won't find the words. They're in me, though. I just have to hunker down and dig them out.

Over the next few weeks I think all of us here at the Melt-Ink Pot are going to try something new and pick a weekly topic on which we'll each share our own thoughts. I, for one, am looking forward to this experiment; I hope you are too!

What I Want

I am loving reading everyone's writing goals for the new year. I think you all have some solid plans and I look forward to reading your progress reports.

My main goal this year? To end the year on track for membership in the Horror Writers Association.

From the site:

"AFFILIATE MEMBERS
Beginning horror writers with a demonstrated intention of establishing a professional writing career. Minimal publication is required, and only works of Horror or Dark Fantasy can be used as qualifying material.

-Sell one short story of at least 500 words, for payment of at least $25.

-Sell one non-fiction article, role-playing supplement, comic book script, computer gaming script, or theatrical play for payment of at least $50.

-Sell one book-length manuscript (40,000 words or more) for payment of at least $200.

-Sell a screenplay or an option on your existing screenplay for payment of at least $200.

-Sell three poems for total payment of at least $15."

I want to- I WILL- sell one short story. To start. That is my goal. I am going to focus on this; I am reading lots of short story collections and essays on horror writing. This is going to be a lot of hard work but I am up for it. It's not easy to get published in the short story market, but I want to have a finished, polished story and by year's end I want to have at least three submissions under my belt.

I've been MIA here. No posting, no commenting. I have a lot of both to make up for, so give me some time and I shall do.

There are lots of good books on my nightstand these days, some new and some old favorites. Vampire$ by John Steakley (please, please read this one- so riotous and nothing like the crap movie with James Woods), which is from the latter group, and The Gates by John Connolly, which is a new favorite. I read those over the weekend and now I'm finishing up Robert Parker's I.O.U, one of my favorite Spenser novels, and a short story collection by Richard Matheson and Under the Dome by Stephen King are waiting in the wings.

My writing has stalled, but all of the reading I've been doing has sparked ideas and I have some interesting ones percolating. Just first lines for now, but that's all I really need to start writing, isn't it? Just that first line...

I'm looking forward to being more active here. I hope we all are!

I've been writing every day. Sometimes not much more than a couple of sentences, but I'm writing. I've been bouncing between a couple of stories too, when what I need to do is pick one and buckle down to finish that story, but at least I'm writing. It feels good to write without the pressure of Nanowrimo. My "win" the first year aside, Nanowrimo and I do not have a history of getting along well.

So, my stories. One of the things I'm struggling with, other than not having the attention span or discipline to stick to one story, is knowing in which direction each story needs go. I have written some great scenes, but that's all they are, just scenes. I write one and then I write another and then maybe a third, but none of them are really connected. Right now my plan is to keep writing those scenes until the connection is clear. And if that doesn't happen, then I will split off what I have added to save for something else, and then I will try again.

It's not pretty, this slogging through the words. It's not pretty and it's not always easy, but it feels right.

Onward

Just a quick one tonight before last night's lack of sleep completely overtakes me and I fall asleep where I sit.

Today marks the end of Nanowrimo 2009. Did I win? Nope. Did I come close? Ha! Not even. My final word count is less than 2,000. I hit a massive wall right from the outset and chose to let it rule me. I'm disappointed in myself. Not that I didn't "win" but that I let my anxiety and frustration and unwillingness to fight the block consume me and keep me from telling a story I think has potential to be a great one. My preconceived notions of title and characters and plot never meshed and instead of changing one or the other, I kept trying to force everything into a neat package.

So another Nanowrimo is over and with it, another unfulfilled idea. The good thing about challenges, however, is that they can happen at any time. With that in mind, I'm going to take December to rework my Nano idea into something I feel comfortable with and I'm going to move forward and- hopefully- keep in mind the lessons I learned in November. My challenge to myself is to write every day. Every. Damn. Day. Even if what I end up writing are throwaway words, I will write. No more excuses, really. I'm all out of them; it's time I just write.

Insert Title Here

In her most recent post, Colleen talks about titles and how they matter to her as both a reader and a writer. It's a great entry and it got me to thinking about how I view titles from both standpoints as well. She briefly mentions covers too; because I am lame-o and skipped my turn last week, I'm going to subject you all to another post this week, on covers this time (probably on Wednesday).

As a reader, the title is usually the first thing that draws me to a book, especially when I am wandering around the bookshop without a game plan in mind (game plan when bookshopping? oh yes, sometimes I come up with one). Like Colleen says, titles can convey a lot in a few words. I tend to spend most of my browsing in the mystery section, horror too if there is one. Because there are always more books than there is time to look through them, titles help me sort through the stacks and skip over the books I am not interested in checking out. For example, while I enjoy them on occasion, so-called 'cozy" mysteries are not my thing so when I see titles with obvious puns such as Crime Brulee or Pointe and Shoot, I know to keep on moving down the shelf. I do love a good, grim mystery, however, so titles such as River of Darkness and Blood on the Tongue are going to stop me in my tracks. Sometimes a title is misleading, which can be an exciting thing for me as a reader (i.e. The Doll who Ate his Mother by Ramsey Campbell is actually not about an evil doll who comes to life) or it can be an utter disappointment (Fangland by John Marks springs to mind).

As a writer, I understand that while the title I choose will most likely change down the line- whether by me or (pleasepleaseplease) my publisher-I need to come up with one that I feel conveys the heart of my story. Sometimes they come easily and sometimes they don't, but I like to have a title when I begin to write. That doesn't mean it's always the right title. For this year's nanowrimo project, I selected a title that came to me so effortlessly, I just had to use it. Unfortunately, it goes with my story as well as oil does with water and to be honest, I think that's one of the reasons why I've failed so horribly at the challenge this year. I kept trying to make the two mesh when they so clearly did not. No matter how I changed my plot, I could not disconnect it from the title. Bottom line is that that particular title is meant for another story, one that is slowly percolating in my brain, and I just need to save it for when the time is right.

I'm going to echo Colleen's words in her entry: what do you think about titles?

You put one foot in front of the other

I'm still fighting the blahs that struck me last week and my writing has suffered for it. It's never too late to start over, however, so that is what I am doing. I've reworked my opening at least three times and I've finally hit it to where I can continue. 50k words at this point is a mighty big stretch. Okay, it's not gonna happen, but the whole point is to write so I that's what I'm doing.

About that opening...I know, I KNOW, I'm not supposed to rewrite during Nanowrimo. However, I don't know how it is for you, but I cannot get into my story's groove if I am not comfortable with the opening (not that that means I finish what I write if I do happen to like my opening- just ask Sam, who's read many of my first paragraphs but has yet to read the last one). If the first couple of paragraphs don't jive with the tone I'm trying to set, I'm dead in the water. There is no skipping ahead, either: it has to work from the beginning or it doesn't work at all.

I guess that's one of my writerly quirks. Maybe it's something I'll grow out of, or maybe not. How do you approach your beginnings? Can you bust through a block right from the get-go and carry on without stress? Or do you sit and ponder and rewrite until the story starts just the way you want it to? I'm not saying that I never go back and edit the openings I do like from the start, because I surely do.

The interesting thing (to me, at least) is that my Nanowrimo story starts out in the same place in each revision; it's just the wording that keeps changing. I went from third-person to first-person back to third-person. And as I sit here and type this out, it's dawning on me that a lot of my issues with my story stem from a very basic problem: I do not know enough about my main character (and this ties in well with Colleen's recent entry). Once I pin her down, I think the rest will come much easier.

At the rate I'm going, I don't expect to "win" Nanowrimo this year. As cornball as this sounds, though, I am winning in other ways. I'm pushing myself past my usual comfort zones and I'm writing. It's crap and it's slow going, but I'm writing. And that's what it's all about.

Write Now

Sometimes the words won’t come. Sometimes life’s lovely little curve balls overwhelm everything else. Sometimes you just stare at the screen for a while and then walk away without a second thought.

This is me tonight. It’s been a day. You know, one of those days. I need to recover physically and I need to recharge mentally. I am drained. The last thing I want to do tonight is write, especially considering my Nanowrimo struggle yesterday (only 207 words and believe me when I say they are baaaad). What I really want to do- after eating a bag of peanut butter cups and having a good cry- is crawl under the covers with a book by an author who actually knows a thing or two about plot and pace and characterization.

But. BUT.

I won’t. I need to write. I need to persevere and carry on. My story is not going to write itself (although I rather wish it would) and I am not going to feel better when I am even farther behind than I am already. 50 words will be a triumph, given my state of mind, but I am not letting myself off of the hook that easily. If I want to be a writer, I need to write regardless of what is going on around me, especially when I am just starting out and still trying to find my footing. I have to. No ifs, ands or buts. Not any more.

Writing is not always easy, but neither is life. Sometimes you just gotta roll with the punches and find the words no matter how well they are hiding.

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How is Nanowrimo going for the rest of you? I know we're all setting different challenges for ourselves and not all of us are gunning for 50k. Has your story started out like you imagined or have you already switched things up? I'm still writing about a haunted house but the particulars, especially my main character's background and ties to the house, have changed drastically. I've also decided to switch from third-person POV to first-person and I think this will make a huge difference for the better. If something about your story isn't working, what are you doing to fix it?

Points of Interest

Shiloh Chapel, Durham ME

Rumour has it that Stephen King based the Marsten House in 'Salem's Lot on Shiloh Chapel. Being a King fan, I've long been interested in the places that pop up in his books (even moreso now that I live in Maine). Recently I decided I wanted a closer look at what inspired one of my all-time favorite reads.

Built in 1897, the chapel has a long and controversial history as home to a religious sect/cult known as The Kingdom. Murder, abuse, neglect...it all happened in The Kingdom. There was once a massive complex around the chapel which included schools and a hospital. Hundreds of people once called Shiloh home. The only original building still standing (as far as I know) is the chapel. It sits on a hill, at the end of a long driveway, and the view from the top is incredible. Miles of rolling hills, as far as the eye can see.

As soon as I took this picture, Brian and I were approached by an elderly couple who had been laying flowers in the cemetery at the base of the hill. They asked us if we wanted to go inside. My head exploded and then I remembered my manners and said yes, please. YES.

It turned out that our guides, the Parkers (married for 66 years), have been parishioners of the church for over 70 years. Amazing. They took us inside and led us around, pointing out the lamps that were once fired by oil and the chairs that were at least 80 years old. The church is still active today, although they have broken with the more controversial elements. In what was the capper of such a random encounter, Mr. Parker told us that his father "pounded some nails in" when the chapel was first built and his nephew is the current pastor. Out of respect, I kept my camera in my pocket, but I wish I could share what we saw inside; the place reeks of history.

Every so often during our time inside, scenes from 'Salem's Lot popped into my head. Susan hiding in the woods next to the Marsten House, young Ben creeping up the stairs to steal a relic on a dare, Barlow's voice coming up from the basement... Was I scared at all? Did I get a sense of anything strange or eerie around me? No, I can't say I did. However, it was early afternoon on a bright sunny day and I wasn't alone. Put me there in the middle of a rainy night and I would probably tell you something different.

As we took our leave, the Parkers extended another invitation, this time to Sunday morning services. "At 10 am, and the pastor is a quiet talker...not one a'them loud ones." You know, it was tempting. I've spent a lot of time tonight since then researching the history of Shiloh Chapel and The Kingdom; I'm fascinated by the story and sense I'll be getting my hands on anything and everything to do with Shiloh that I can.

What an unexpected- and amazing- adventure. All I wanted was to take a picture, which I got, and I walked away with a head full of stories and a drive to take what I saw and turn it into my own tale of terror. Not for Nanowrimo as I've got another scary story bubbling away in my cauldron, but soon. Inspiration is everywhere, but to find it in some of the same places as one of my favorite authors is pretty damn cool. This is the first time I've had an idea hit me so squarely on the head. I can't wait to explore more.

Fun with Frights

While I am still nailing down the particulars, I have decided my Nanowrimo story will focus on a haunted house. No, it's not original, but it's something that freaks me out and I know I'll stay interested and stay focused on my writing. I've taken Nanowrimo too seriously in the past with minimal success so I want to have fun this time around. I'm not planning on writing a cliche-ridden story, but if it happens, it happens. The goal is to write freely with minimum constraints and for me that includes not caring too much about being clever and original (in the first draft, anyway).

This might sound silly, but deciding what to write and not overly worrying about theme and construction is incredibly freeing (and apparently so is not wondering how many adverbs in one sentence is one- or two- too many). A rough outline and some character sketches are in the works; as I've mentioned in previous posts, I just can't fly blindly any longer- I need some guidance. I'm loosening the binds, though, and not putting pressure on myself to invent a new twist in the Haunted House subgenre. It's liberating, I tell ya, it surely is!

Have Fun is my personal motto for this year's challenge and for me, fun involves a house with a horrific past and a new owner who refuses to let that past die. Lots of little things have tripped this particular idea in my brain and next week I'll share a recent experience that only cemented my desire to write something spooky.

In the meantime, I'm rereading an essay by Stephen King about haunted houses and there is a book on haunted house fiction I can't wait to order. I probably won't get it until after November, so I've also picked up my copy of Shirley Jackon's The Haunting of Hill House to read yet again. Learn from the masters, right?

I hope the rest of you are having just as much fun planning your own Nanowrimo stories.

Here and There

Isn't the view from these windows fantastic? Even when the branches are bare, I still love to look out and dream about being up in a tree house. This is the room I want to tranform into our writers' room. I say our and not my because I will be sharing the space with my husband. He's the one who is actually making money off of his writing these days so I will play nice and not lock him out.

Right now we're using the room as a temporary guest room while we redo the other bedroom. It's not large, but there is plenty of space for more bookshelves, a long table (to go under the windows) and some comfy chairs. The blinds will be replaced by something softer, either Roman blinds or sheer panels. Or maybe nothing at all? The walls will be painted a soft color and I already know what prints I want on the wall.

The landing...I love how the room is tucked away by itself. Really, I don't think there could be a better spot in my home in which to work.

My hope is that by thinking about how I want this room to look and function, I will start taking myself seriously as a writer, as someone who is good with words and who deserves a dedicated space to create and grow. I know good writing can and does happen everywhere, from a crowded train to a small coffee shop, but I also know that I need a hidey hole in which to find my voice.

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In other news, I am still brainstorming ideas for Nanowrimo and am not coming up with much other than the genre, which I will reveal in a future post (hey, gotta get you to come back here somehow). Despite not having a plot just yet, I am looking forward to Nano more this year than possibly every other year other than my first. I might end up something so atrocious with which I wouldn't let line the litter box with, but no matter, I am going to have a lot fun with it.

How are the rest of you coming along with your Nano plotting? Are you going to share your ideas or keep them close to your chests until November?

A Room of Your Own

"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." - Virginia Woolf

I'm not a big fan of Virginia Woolf (don't hate!) but this quote of hers rings true. Money- or some semblance of financial security- is important, yes, but I’m more focused on the room. Carving out a proper writing space is crucial to the creative process, for me anyway, and it is something I’ve neglected to my detriment.

For example: Right now I’m sitting on the loveseat in my living room. My laptop is resting somewhat awkwardly on my lap (my legs are crossed), while a pen and pad of paper sit just out of reach on the coffee table. An old episode of Cops is playing on the television and even though it’s one I’ve seen at least half a dozen times already, I stop every couple of minutes to check out the latest train wreck. My husband, who is crashed out on the other couch, comes over a couple of times to show me something on his own laptop. Nellie the cat is sitting next to me, swiping at the battery cord when she is not trying to climb onto me. This is where I can be found most nights and this is how it usually goes. Guess how many times I’ve started and stopped this entry since Monday. Too many to count. I’m sure that’s not at all surprising considering the atmosphere I just described. If I’m having this much trouble with a blog entry, imagine how productive I am with my novels.

I need a room of my own. Clearly the living room is out. The dining room is nice, but the table is a shade too high for comfortable writing. There is a bedroom just off of the living room and there is even a desk and a couch in there. Not too bad. It doesn’t feel right, though. While not large, the room feels too big. Upstairs, however…upstairs there is a little room that might be just right. I am like Goldilocks in the three bears’ cottage, trying out this space and that one. This room is just the right size for a writing table, a couple of bookshelves and a comfortable chair. The light is bright, but not too harsh. The three windows look out into the trees, making the room feel sort of like a tree house. Perfect. I’ve had my eye on this space for about as long as we’ve owned this house. The room is being used for other purposes but it won’t take much to reclaim it for my own. My own room. No more distractions and no more excuses. If I want to be serious about my writing, I need to be serious about the space in which I write.

Do you have a room- or space- of your own? Does it matter what is around you as you work? How important is it to you to have a special place for writing? What does your space look like?

November

It's almost October and you know what that means: National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner. Are you up for writing a complete novel with a minimum 50k words in the month of November? Of course you are!

I first signed up for Nanowrimo in 2005. As I mentioned in my previous post, I "won" that first year but barely. 50,018 was my final word count, if I remember correctly, and the story is all but unreadable. Imagine lots of flashbacks, inner monologues while the MC is driving (in the rain, natch) and endless conversations on couches and in bars. Yeah, I was all about the info dump. And the avoiding of coming up with a workable story line. One of these days I'll fix it...

In the meantime, I am gearing up for this year's challenge. I've not finished a novel since my first try and I'm ready to end my losing streak. This time I am not going to wait until the last minute to come up with my plot. No, this time I am going to try that little thing called "planning" and maybe even some of that crazy "outlining" stuff too. No more waiting until 11/1 to jump into a story; I want to have a plot with a beginning, middle and end roughly sketched out. This outline and this one are the frontrunners; I'll let you know which one I end up using and maybe I'll share some of it here.

November is coming: are you ready?

Where I'm At

Not including the many story tidbits- basically a line or two here and a paragraph there- filed away on my computer, I have one “finished” novel (from National Novel Writing Month 2005) and three in the works. The completed novel is a stinker. I mean, it’s bad. I wrote and wrote and wrote in order to hit the 50,000 word mark and the end product is hot, incoherent mess. I still love the basic premise and while I intend to beat the story with a serious editing stick at some point, my writing these days is focused on my works in progress.

Because I am not under contract (yet), I tend to flit between the three stories I have going. I will work on one until I hit a stumbling block and then I will open up another one, work on that a while, move on to the third and then it’s back to the first. That’s clearly the most efficient and productive way to write, right? Right?? For those of you with multiple stories in progress, how do you pick and choose which one you work on?

What it boils down to is that I let myself off the hook too easily when I get blocked or frustrated. I know this, yet I still do it, still walk away when I need to stay and concentrate and bust through whatever it is that is holding me back. Because I will never finish if I don’t change how I work. I’m pinning the blame on my inner editor and lack of substantive story planning. For now, I’m going to focus on the latter.

How do you come up with your beginnings, middles and endings? Do you just let the story flow out of your head as you write or do you prepare a detailed outline complete with chapter descriptions? When I get an idea in my head, it’s usually just the beginning of the story. For the three that I have going right now I do not know what will happen next. While that can lead to interesting twists and turns, in my case it is leading to a lot of nothing. I know now that I need more structure to be productive. I don’t know that I want- or need- a very detailed outline, but at the very least I need to start thinking more about the story I am telling and how it needs to flow. So my goal for this week is to choose one of my stories and give serious thought as to an outline. If you have sites or templates you like, please share; I am a blank slate (kind of like my stories) and want to soak up as much as I can.

For Starters

Welcome to the Melt-Ink Pot! We’re a diverse group of writers coming together to discuss anything and everything from favorite authors to writing meltdowns to what turns us off in a story to where we find inspiration. You name it, one of us will probably write about it. Science fiction, mystery, fantasy, horror, romance (all kinds), suspense, erotica and contemporary fiction: we’ve got it covered and we’re looking forward to sharing our perspectives with you.

So! Let’s get started, shall we? I’ll try to keep this from sounding too much like a personal ad, but no promises. I’m Andrea. I’m a former Seattleite who now lives in the gorgeous state of Maine with her husband, a native Mainah. The rocky coasts, Downeast accents, fall colors, local microbrews, plentiful lobster and ice cream shacks every 50 feet make up (mostly) for the nasty winters. When I’m not reading, I am gamely knitting and cleaning up the copious amounts of cat hair around my house. I was born in 1972. I am left-handed. And as far as that saying “I’m not deaf, I’m ignoring you” goes? I really am deaf (in my right ear), but I probably don’t pay as much attention as I should.

I read a lot. Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Minette Walters, John Connolly, Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Peter Straub, Alison G. Taylor, John Harvey, Tad Williams, Josephine Tey and Caroline Graham, Roald Dahl and Ramsey Campbell are some of my favorite authors. There are more, of course, there are always more. As soon as I post this, I’ll think of ten more that I should have added to the list.

I also write, mostly in the mystery/suspense genre. Nothing you’ve ever read- I’m not published anywhere but in my own mind. Do I want to be? Of course! However, I need to focus on finishing the stories I start (a minor issue) and I need to find my true writing voice (a major one). Finding a greater confidence in my story-telling comes before everything. I am the kind of person who will obsess over three lines for an hour versus just writing whatever comes out and dealing with the results later. All of these are topics I plan on addressing in future posts (as well as my someday goal to run into Stephen King, or at least drive by his house).

This is the start of a great new adventure for all of us. I’m excited to see what my co-conspirators come up and I am eager to learn more about genres I am not as familiar with. Thanks for coming along on the journey with us!