allison

Author Archives: allison

Jan

Of Mice…and Memories

Posted in blog | Tagged fucking mice, i hate fucking mice, mice, salt the earth | 8 Comments

So the last few weeks have been a bit of a cluster – as I mentioned last post, when it comes to resolutions or intentions or whatever, my best laid plans tend to get easily derailed. And so they have. I mean, some of these things were scheduled – sleep tests, house painting and the like – I had still scheduled time for writing or creative endeavors – (like that little giveaway I set up a few weeks ago – winners announced at the bottom of this post, yo). In a truly odd bit of irony I picked up this Breathe magazine on a whim while in line at the grocery store a few days ago. I don’t know why – I just thought the cover was pretty, though if I’d realized it was $14 I probably would have walked on by. It’s a nice magazine, but I don’t think… Read more

Jan

New Year…Win a Thing

Posted in blog | Tagged 2018, contest, cross-stitch, editing, help me, new year, projects, rambling, so bad at time management, writing | 12 Comments

I don’t make resolutions for New Years. I’ve never really had much success with that sort of thing – coming up with an arbitrary day to start something – a new process or a dietary regimen or whathaveyou. I mean, the concept is fine – whatever it is you want to do, you have to start somewhere, so the first day of the new year is as good a time to start as any, I suppose. And I’m looking back over the past year with a curious eye – what I did manage to do, what I could have done better – what I want to do this upcoming year. I’m terrible at managing time – no matter how many planners I try to work with, I’m good for a week or so and then it’s like I decide they’re merely guidelines anyway. Not that I won’t continue to try… Read more

Dec

Schrodinger’s Genre

Posted in blog | Tagged a dream most ancient and alone, crystal lake publishing, edits, magpie's fall, magpie's flight, magpie's song, mermaid, short story | Leave a comment

So I sold a short story last week. It’s a mermaid story. Or, more to the point, a lake mermaid story. Where the mermaid eats children. I had actually written this particular story several years ago while waiting for my son’s Science Fair project to be judged (parents weren’t allowed in and it took several hours.) So I cranked this little nugget out and subbed it to an anthology, where it made it to the top 20 out of 500 or so entries…and then was rejected. Alas. So I tried off and on again over the last few years, but as is my usual problem, it doesn’t really fit a specific genre. It takes place in the modern world, but it’s not an Urban Fantasy. It definitely isn’t a romance. It’s a bit dark for fantasy maybe, but not dark enough for your usual horror. I don’t know what you’d… Read more

Oct

Breathing Room

Posted in blog | Tagged breaktime, editing, magpie's fall | 1 Comment

*thuds* Apologies for the longer radio silence, things have been rather hectic. And it’s not officially done, but here’s a sneak peek at part of the cover for Magpie’s Fall – I’ll be giving my newsletter peeps a more complete version in a bit once it’s done, but it’s exciting to have things moving on it. That said, part of my lack of posts and whatnot is because I’ve been busy editing and rewriting the aforementioned book. I was actually fairly unsatisfied with my original draft and after I got my notes back from my editor I ended up reworking the first 150 pages or so and then adding an additional 50. Word count ended up increasing by about 20k initially, but I’ve pared it down some by getting rid of a lot extraneous filler sentences. I always end up with a particular phrase or word and use it to… Read more

Aug

The Cost of Doing Business

Posted in blog | Tagged magpie's fall, magpie's song, money, pirating, ranty mcrantypants | 7 Comments

Just a quick PSA rant on book piracy and how it affects indie authors: It sucks. Actually it sucks for traditionally published authors too – the main difference is that with my traditionally published books, I got paid up front, so at least I got SOMETHING out of it. Plus most of the larger publishers now have nice and handy take-down portal sites where I can simply upload an offending link and let them do the grunt work. In other words, it still sucks but it’s way less time and money out of my pocket. This is my first go round with the whole indie-pub thing so I’m sure I’m going to make some mistakes and whatnot, especially when it comes to marketing and publicity and just overall trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Which means everything comes out of my pocket and I don’t get paid… Read more