2023... when did you leave me behind?

 

I'm pretty sure there's some kind of time vortex that swallows up hours, days, months... There's gotta be. It can't possibly be anything else, right?

Anyway, there was another anthology last winter from the Dublin Creative Writers Cooperative: 

 

Lots of scary/spooky stories in this one! 

And there's another anthology coming out later this year as well from DCW. I'm so excited!

In real life news, everything has been a bit more hectic than usual, but I'm optimistic about getting back to a steady writing routine. We'll see how that goes.

Hi there, 2022. Please be kind to us.

 

Let's start with: Happy New Year! 

A lot has happened in 2021, hasn't it? And covid is hanging in there, going strong--unfortunately. 

But it's not all bad. It's not like our daily lives have been placed in a weird limbo alongside our vacation trip from May 2020.

As for me, I made some new friends, got engaged, finished a few stories... and got to see the finished anthology printed and looking great. 

 

  I'm not optimistic about us being rid of covid this year, but I'm hoping we do a better job collectively of slowing down its spread.

Please continue to be careful out there for yourselves and for everyone around you.

Stay safe.  

Final steps of an Anthology coming together

I hope this finds everyone well (and on their way to getting vaccinated). It's been a very long, weird year, but hopefully, we're coming to the other side of the curve (the declining side). 

On the story front, for the past few months, I've had the wonderful experience of participating in an anthology put together by the Dublin Creative Writers Cooperative. 

They're a wonderful group filled with such talented writers!

I can't recommend their first anthology enough (Broken Promises: An Anthology - you can find it on amazon). There's a little bit of everything there. 

Anyway, their second anthology is in the final editing stages now and I'm really excited to have my stories published alongside these awesome people!

Hugs to all! Stay safe!

Apparently prologues are "out"?!?

  I did not know writing was akin to the fashion industry where things went in and out of fashion, but apparently that happens. Recently, I heard some writers from my writing group talking about how the prologue was now seen as undesirable, and it got me thinking... Who decided that? 

 Was there really some huge reader outcry saying that the prologue was an annoying tool they'd rather live without? Were there lists with millions and billions of names added to it demanding the removal of this vile thing?

 As someone who writes stories, I like the prologue. I use it to tell a piece of the story that is either set in the past, the future, or that hints at something that I won't be able to go into for a while (looking at you, Shattered Dreams). 

 As a reader, I've never once read a prologue and thought: "I wish this scene wasn't in this book". 

That's about it for these random thoughts for today. 

Also, here's a shameless plug to the Dublin Creative Writers Cooperative website.

 

Take care out there!

And... time for a check in...

Hello all! (or random person who stumbled on this)

First, time flew by, again. It always does, doesn't it? And more and more as we get older. :)

I hope everyone is doing well in 2020. This has probably been the weirdest year in most of our lifetimes.

Some quick updates:

- Finished the first draft of Recurring Nightmares (Book II of In Dreams)

- Started thinking up things (aka, piecing random dreams together) to form another story about a girl and a labyrinth

- Joined an AWESOME writing group

- Finished a post-doc

- Got a new job

- Read a ton of random things including some manga/manhwa/manhua

 I've been working hard on editing Child of Moon, Daughter of Sun (when real life lets me), so hopefully I can get it to be as good as I wish it were. :)

 I decided to set Stargazer aside for a bit until I'm comfortable working on the sequels. There's a lot of backstory and plotting that gets interwoven along several books in the series, so I should probably work on it only when I can go back and review all my notes and get all the planning settled. 

Now let's see if I can update this within 5 years.

Stay safe out there! 

Yes, blogger had locked me out of posting...

But that's not why I haven't posted in over a year.

Time flew away again.
 Or rather, I fell into an interdimensional hole where the passage of time does not occur normally... Who else has had that happen to them?

Anyway, bulletin-style updates:

 -  I finished In Dreams - the first one
 - Back on KDP (at least for Grace and Cameras, still figuring out what to do with In Dreams)
 - Proofing Vanishing Act
 - Finishing up Sun & Moon
 - Trying to remember where I put the kindlegen instructions...


Okay, that's it for the month. :)
Hugs!

Quick warning - I'm getting kicked out of KDP, kinda...

I'm taking a break from reading about horse embryos - why on Earth am I reading about horse embryos, even I don't know - to tell anyone who might be interested that my books will no longer be available on KDP. I hope they'll still be allowed to remain on print form at amazon. I don't remember what the tax requirements were like for that one.

This is what happened:
 I got an email saying I had to fill out some form to figure out which type of tax forms I needed to fill out for the IRS. Since I have never dealt with the IRS and have watched enough series and movies to be scared of them, I'd rather not fill any forms I do not comprehend. Especially not when I'm focusing on a dozen other university-related things...
  Maybe in the near future - or in 2015 - I'll manage to get all that sorted out and I'll be able to get back to KDP. I also plan on looking for alternatives as soon as I get enough time to think.
Maybe freebies don't require tax forms? That would be an alternative, I guess...

Anyway, ebooks won't be there starting on Dec 4. If you wanna read it after that, email me and I'll send you a copy. How's that sound?

I'm still struggling with getting In Dreams finished by the end of the year, but real life is really not helping.
If you don't hear from me by the holidays, have a nice Christmas and may the next year be always better than the one before.

Hugs to all!

Time goes by very quickly... whether you're having fun or not

What do you mean it's August already?

Okay, so I've been slow with my stories... and most of everything else. Some time in June I decided I'd wait until I got my computer fixed before continuing this blog-thing, but then the computer was declared KIA and I just decided not to think about it in fear of realizing what files and photos I might lose.

I'm still not sure if they're lost or not, but now I've started to actually miss the files... One thing I'm sure I had no backup of was the initial draft of the cover for In Dreams. I don't even have the photograph I was using for background. The draft for the cover of Vanishing Act is also somewhere in the dead computer, but I think I sent a jpg of it to a friend to get her opinion so I might still have that at least.

Anyways, finished reading a book, started reading another one, should probably be studying, and haven't gone to the university for more than a week in the last 3 months for several reasons ranging from bus strikes to illnesses. That's pretty much what's been going on with me since I last wrote anything here. :) 

I just figured I should stop by the blog and see if I still remembered my password. Glad to say I only needed two tries this time to get it right. Better than the manuscript submission page (five tries!).

Hopefully, I'll have some real news soon if I ever get to sit down and finish either story I'm currently working on.

Hugs to all!

So close to the end... and I'm having second thoughts...

Don't you just hate it when you have a jumbled up ball of yarn-looking story pieces, redundant conversations and multiple possible outcomes that you have to sort through and figure out how the story will go?

What? You don't? It's just me? Really? Huh... didn't see that one coming. ;)

Anyways, I spent an hour waiting for a professor to sign a paper for me... he didn't show... I wasted an hour of my life, right? Wrong! Because that hour allowed me to finish up a conversation between Sarah and Pegasus that I was stuck on... Yes, I do have a character named Pegasus... No, that's not his real name...

I think I'm only a couple of chapters away from the epilogue... The aforementioned ball of yarn is the pieces I've written down leading to the epilogue and the conclusion of the first part in this series. Ooops, forgot to say which story I'm talking about: In Dreams.

There's this girl called Sarah, and she gets mixed up in some complicated secret stuff when her parents are assassinated... and I'll wait until I come up with a proper blurb before I try to explain this to anyone without giving away too many spoilers. :)

I am wondering how much of an explanation of what's going on I should put into the epilogue. I don't want it to just be a long list of "and this is what happened" or "so that's why they said that" or whatever. But I also want to have things explained enough in case someone falls asleep while reading. I know I could have used a recap during the last mystery book I read over a few months. When I got to the end, there was a character I could not remember for the life of me...


So, I had to change my counter thinguie for In Dreams over there (look right) because I had gotten past 200 pages already with the draft. I have to confess that I didn't calculate the percentage, I just guessed, but since my guesses are usually more accurate that my actual calculations except when a calculator is involved, I'd say we're okay.

I think I mentioned that I thought I lied about my age, turns out I didn't. I calculated wrong how old I was because I forgot what year we were in... And no, I didn't use 2012 for the calculations. It was worse than that. 2014. :) It sounds so ridiculous when I say it, but it really was funny...
Here's the transcript of the conversation between me and my friend Cassia when I found out I had miscalculated:

Me: How old am I? Because I thought the last candles on my cake said 30, but last night I was counting and I think I might've missed a birthday somewhere along the line...
Slightly-less-insane-friend Cassia: You're 30.
Me: Are you sure?
Cassia: Yeah. 1983 to 2013 is 30.
Me (laughing now): Wait... we're in 2013?

Needless to say I was not asleep at the time. I am just naturally insane. I blame my dad. He started it.
But now it is time to sleep. I hope I got at least a smile out of someone out there. I know I've already laughed myself silly because of this.


Oh, and in real life news, I'll be away from my computer for a month in May, which will probably change nothing for this blog because I rarely post more than once a month anyway. ;)

Hugs to all!

Posted my review for Kathy Garlock's Gone for a Soldier on goodreads and amazon.com... finally

It too me a while... Actually, it took me a very long time, I think...
I read it fairly quickly, mainly because I couldn't stop reading. Couple that with my natural insomnia, and a saw the sun come up a few nights while reading about Lucy's adventures with the First Minnesota.

Gone for a Soldier is a historical fiction, but even if that makes you look at the book with skepticism, I'd suggest you give it a try. I know I really enjoyed it, right down to the seemingly random details that to me added so much color to the whole ensemble...

I know I sound like I'm talking nonsense, but I'm trying to explain how I liked it without describing the stuff I really liked. That's hard.

Here's the goodreads review:

                                     http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/590167652

On another note, real life is mean...
... I stopped staring at the VM KS counter - and if you don't know what that is, you don't watch as much TV as you think you do. :)

And there's less than a month before the family trip...

... and I may have lied without my age without realizing it. Someone asked me my age, I told them, and now I'm thinking I told them the wrong age... Yes, that's totally possible. But in my defense, it was only off by one year and last month I was writing down the date as being Dec 2012, so a little lunacy will be expected, right?

Anyways, I just decided to make sure the blog still let me on here, it's been so long. And what are you doing online? Go read a book. j/k :P

Hugs to all,

I made a form for people who want to hear about promotions!

Well, this has been a weirdly productive week. I say productive because: 

 I got my contact form ready and waiting!! 

It  has a section for getting notified if you want to hear about free promotions, giveaways, new books or just one book in particular... And you can also click on no to everything, because I'm just wacky that way. 

 I showed a friend of mine the form and she said it was clearly written in my own voice... which means I sound like a teenager on a sugar high... But I've known that ever since I actually was a teenager on a sugar high.

It's a little long, but it's the short version. :)

I'm thinking of making a second form just because I feel this one won't annoy people enough... or maybe I'm just hoping I can get a smile out of someone.

As I was saying, productive:

I got Cameras on kindle!!

It looks really nice now that I fixed the chapters. I used the "template" John (thank you sooo much! - again) made me and I got it done in a day after I figured it out. 

I even went back to Grace and added a link or two at the end as well... I'm lying, it was 3 links, but who's counting? :)

Now for the weirdly...

My doors are closed, the windows that are open have screens on them, I haven't been out of the apartment in two days... how do these insects keep getting in?!?

I'm thinking there's some sort of magical vortex in the kitchen, or maybe the insects have evolved into beings capable of passing through walls.... Hey, if my cat could do it, why can't a fly or a mosquito?

Non sequitur moment: I hate non-productive insomnia... Oh well... 

Okay, done with the "weirdly"

Oh, and just because I can ask, what's your opinion on changing arrangements at the last possible moment? Fair, unfair, or just plain mean? Why wait until the last moment? It's like waiting for someone to organize three dozen roses and then saying you should change them to lilies.

No, I'm not saying what I'm talking about, but if you're reading this, it's probably not about you... unless you spy, in which case: shame on you! 

Just kidding about the last part...

Well, the weekend is practically done and tomorrow I get back to my normal schedule, let's see how that goes. :)

Hugs!!

Back to "normal"? So many lists my lists have lists...

Hi there!!

How did February treat everyone? Hopefully it was kinder to you than it was to me. :) Just kidding, a little bit.
 My head's been pounding intermittently for the last two, maybe three weeks. I figure that's not a good thing, I also don't really know how to make it stop unless maybe I stop a bit... Can I sleep now? hehe


Last steps of the things with immediate deadlines. Took my dissertation to be printed and made into a pretty little green thing with golden letters.... and my mind just went to a dragon... hm... I would rather have a dragon than ten copies of my dissertation... The dragon would be cuter. :)

Anyways, I figured I should probably see where I left off on my imaginary worlds. I'm doing some corrections to Cameras - though it is kind of officially done. But I decided to fix the commas (anyone who read Grace knows I have issues with commas) and found a few more repeated words to fix... You know, when you use the same word in consecutive sentences and you don't notice it when you read the thing for the second, third, or even eleventh time? Well, twelve, combined with reading aloud seems to be helping.

I'm thinking of creating a form over at the website for people who'd like to be contacted when another book comes out or there are any promotions or giveaways... I think that would be something some people would like. I know I would. Still thinking that over, and how to let people know that exists would be a problem... Can't really message all of them, can I? No, probably not... I actually stopped to consider it for 3.4 seconds.


Oh! And I got a third review on Amazon!!

  Here it is... 

Also, planning are finally being set in motion for the official launch of Cameras Tell No Lies... I should start to keep track of the gaps in time between my finishing the books and having an actual "launch" party. :) 

Tick tock... Mestre, kkk

Is life really just an infinite number of countdowns? That's what it feels like sometimes....

Anyways,
 Finished my master's, sort of... I can relax now, sort of... I feel a little relieved, but I feel like I shouldn't feel relieved... There's still corrections and printing, and getting everything done by the end of this month so I can get the doctorate started... Can I sleep now?

I was watching Doctor who the other day, an episode where the Master was trying to rule the world - again - and I started laughing every time he said his name was Master... I know, I'm silly that way. :)

Apresentei minha dissertação e mestrado nessa quinta depois do carnaval...

Então, eu tenho 11 dias, aproximadamente, com uma margem de segurança de uns dias pra terminar as correções e entregar as versões finais... Mas realmente me sinto aliviada de ter apresentado, mas não tanto. É uma sensação estranha, e não sei se as outras pessoas se sentem assim também quando chegam nessa etapa (ou qualquer etapa onde se tem um evento de transição de um ponto para o outro). Eu lembro que na apresentação do ESO fiquei mais nervosa, na apresentação da especialização fiquei mais nervosa ainda. Tão nervosa que meu orientador mandou eu ir tomar água e depois voltar... E no mestrado pareceu tudo tão normal, tão automático... Claro, fiquei nervosa, mas não como antes. Será que tô criando resistência? Ou a diferença está no conteúdo? É muito mais fácil falar sobre um assunto que se conhece do que um assunto que se sabe mais ou menos, né?

Bem, eu não queria passar muito tempo sem deixar algo por aqui, mas a parte das histórias anda caminhando meio lentamente nos últimos dias. Também não teria como me dedicar a escrever coisas reais e imaginárias com o mesmo zelo ao mesmo tempo... E por enquanto, a urgência está com as coisas reais.
Por enquanto... ;)

Obrigada a todos que me ajudaram e me aturaram nesse período, e até breve... Afinal, ainda tem o lançamento de Cameras Tell No Lies por vir.

Esta foto foi embaçada pra proteger a identidade dos envolvidos... Brincadeira, painho que não checa o foco, haha

Povos comendo...

Eu e Tortinha, a coisa mais fofa a circular pelos corredores do hospital...

Galera do Labhum (nota-se que Nadyne já tinha saído e Cássia se recusou a vir, kkk)

Interview went up on BookGoodies! And another review on amazon...

  Filled out an interview in BookGoodies last month when I was promoting Grace's free days, and found out the interview went up a few days ago! And I missed it, because, of course, this is when I chose to try and stay away from the internet for a while... Because sleep is needed at some point, you know. Just kidding about the sleep.

Here's the link:

Interview - Marília Bonelli

Also, another review came up on amazon.com. I'm really happy with it, and determined to work on my weaknesses. :) Constructive criticism is always good, especially when it comes coupled with positive impressions and having your book called "unputdownable".

Check out my reviews!

Have a nice weekend - or last hours thereof - and a nice week!

Thanks, everyone!

The second promotion for Grace ended a few days ago over at amazon.com, and I gotta say there were almost 10 times the amount of downloads from the first time.

A belated, but most heartfelt thank you to everyone who downloaded and helped spread the word. And those who clicked on the "like" button as well. :)

I hope at least one person finds it a good read.

Hugs!

Free days... and the lack of days, period...

So Grace is having its second free promotion over at Amazon.com...

See previous post for details and link

I just found out the data you input into one amazon page does nt translate to the others, which is kind of silly if you ask me, but of course no one did...

And I have a splitting headache today. :)

Wait, January is almost done? What happened to half of it? Where did it go?

And is it true that Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is accepting submissions from Brazil, now? One of my frustrations was not being able to compete, haha. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'd have a shot at winning, but the chance to compete is everything... It's like clicking on a giveaway and finding it's not available for your region.
Well, I only found this yesterday, so I'm not sure I can get anything ready to enter, but I'd like to try... ;)

Free ebook coming in a few days! Jan 10-12

Keep an eye out for the free ebook promotion over at amazon KDP for Grace.

Promotion date:

January 10-12, 2013

All you have to do is download it free from amazon (either to your kindle or directly to your PC).

Click on the image to go to the amazon site: 

Oh, and I got my first amazon review! I'm really happy about that. :)

Well, still have to get everything with Cameras Tell No Lies organized, and as soon as I can get my hands on another html editor, I'll try and get the kindle version done as well.

 O lançamento provavelmente vai ser no mesmo estilo do de Grace - mas talvez só lá pra março... Estou decidindo ainda.

Cameras Tell No Lies is on Amazon!! And Happy Holidays!?!

Cameras Tell No Lies is out!! 

Done and on amazon!!

Check it out!

 

Also, I'm gonna try and do a promotion for Grace at kindle... If that works out, I'll be letting everyone know around New Year's. 

.........................................................

 

A random thing:

 I was writing an email today, and at the end I was going to put Merry Christmas, which is only customary this time of year - at least where I live. And then I remembered watching some stuff on TV and various instances of people replying: "I don't celebrate xmas" for this or that religious reason. Personally, I have no religious ties to xmas, whatsoever, so to me, it's a holiday and time spent with family and even getting and giving presents, and yes, I say Merry Christmas to people all the time. So it struck me as odd that that might be considered insensitive or whatever would make people have to point out they don't celebrate xmas... But I suppose that happens in real life to some degree. Never seen it happen, though.

Let's just add this to the list of human behaviors I don't understand.

So for now, happy holidays...

Anyone uses Yahoo mail?

We interrupted this regularly *cough* scheduled *cough* blog for a rant on not being able to compose messages on yahoo for the last couple of days... since their new and improved, faster and better version, to be exact...

If you're using yahoo as a mail provider, you've probably noticed that it's gotten everything that's wrong with gmail, and made it worse!

Some people are saying it started off that way and now it works... Hasn't worked for me and about countless other users since friday, though, and yahoo stopped answering their customer service thinguie as far as I'm concerned ... maybe they don't know what's wrong, either??

So, here's a few of my personal conspiracy theories on that:

- Conspiracy theory # 1:

    Yahoo got word that skynet is coming and is waging a private war against all computers - and consequently, all computer users....


- Cospiracy theory #2:
    
     You may have noticed that you're still able to send out messages from your phones, but not from your computers, so that would indicate that some major phone making company is bribing the folks over at yahoo to make it so we can't use our emails from our computers and we have to use it from our phones, consequently, we need the modern phones that have all those cool apps and whatnot... Thus: sales increase. ;)


- Conspiracy theory #3:

     Maybe yahoo is in cahoots with some specific browser design people, and thus their email only works with that specific browser... All I can say is it's not firefox and it's not the latest google chrome, bc I tried both and the email still won't work. :) Maybe it's supposed to send us back to iexplorer? That would be a plot to take over the world right there, I guess...


- Conspiracy theory # 4:

   Someone from a rival email service took over yahoo mail on friday and started a hate yahoo campaign by making it so incredibly difficult and frustrating to use our emails... Next step: they'll "accidentally" lose all our saved emails. You have been warned.

-Conspiracy theory # 5:

     They're selectively cutting off some of us users by some sort of standard... Maybe those of us who never accessed their emails on their phones?? I don't know... Whatever it is, I'm on the out group... Maybe they're cutting off anyone who's used it since the last century. :)


... You know, I love conspiracy theories. Like a lot of the stuff I love, like dragons and magic, doesn't mean I believe them, but I still love 'em, hahaha.
 Have you got any conspiracy theories?

Which do you think would be the best one?

A short story for Christmas

Hey, guys.
 How's the xmas shopping going? Lots of crowded streets and racing people? Hehe, hope not.

Anyways, Mysti Parker is having a Christmas Flash Fiction Contest over at her blog: Unwritten.

There are various cool stories, with different themes.

Here's my entry:

A not-so-ghastly ghostly Christmas

 Hope you enjoy!

Also, take a look at the other entries, there are some really great ones.

Hugs!