Leah R. Cutter's Blog, page 33

TRATDT Finished!

I sent my latest novel, “The Raven and the Dancing Tiger” off to the copy editor yesterday.

After my first readers went through it, I ended up adding 2000+ words to it, bringing the grand total to about 66,000. I’m pleased with this novel. While doing the final read through, I came upon scenes that surprised me, in a good way, powerful scenes. I like the completeness of the secondary and tertiary characters as well.

So now, onto the next thing!

I’m planning on writing a short story a week, every week, from now until the end of the year. That should give me 10 new short stories.

This year, though, part of my practice is going to be writing SHORT. And by that, I mean focusing on stories that are 3-5000 words long.

The stories that I like, that have an obvious genre, I’ll send out to magazines first. If they get rejected after a few rounds, I’ll indie-pub them, put them up for free on my web site, etc.

The stories that aren’t an obvious fit for anywhere, or that end up being too long anyway, I’ll just immediately indie-publish. For example, “The Secrets of 9s” from last year — that’s a literary fantasy piece, experimental. Though it’s my absolute favorite story, I would never send it anywhere because no one would ever buy it. So I’d immediately indie-pub something like that. Or if I manage to write some more erotica, I’ll just indie-pub that as well.

I’m hoping to do a post on covers soon. I’ve replaced most of my existing covers, as well as chosen the right categories for my fiction. I was SO WRONG when I first started choosing categories. I’m surprised anyone found my short stories. All the categories should be right now, across the sites, with new covers and for many of them, new blurbs as well.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Shredded Veil Mysteries available as a paperback!

Woo hoo! Yes!

The Shredded Veil Mysteries is available as a paperback!

I’m really excited about this. For some reason, Createspace kept turning around my proofs in 2 days, instead of a week plus. So I was able to go through the process of looking at proofs much faster than usual, which means that, ta dah! The paperback version is available.

I decided not to go through extended distribution with this one, which is why it is less expensive. I may change my mind, which will raise the price from $7.99 to $9.99.

(Extended distribution puts the book on the Ingrams catalog, which means that anyone, anywhere in the world can walk into a bookstore and just order it. They don’t have to special order it.)

Why didn’t I put it through extended distribution?

–Value. It’s only 45k words. It’s a small book. $9.99 seemed a lot for that. But that’s what I would have to charge in order to make a profit from any extended distribution sales.

–It’s a collection. Historically, short story collections just don’t sell that well. We’ll see what happens with this one, and if it starts selling well in paperback I may go back and increase its availability.

I don’t have a lot of paperback sales, quite frankly. But the ones I do get make me wonder. For example, 4 copies of “Paper Mage” ordered at one time to somewhere in the UK. What do you want to bet that’s a bookstore? An individual doesn’t buy 4 copies of the same book at the same time, not generally speaking.

I’ve been updating my covers here and on my web site. I keep thinking I’ll make a general post about that soon as well.

In the meanwhile, I’m recovering, but am far from 100%. Hopefully by the weekend I’ll be back at 100%.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

So that’s what’s wrong!

I found I was starting to slow down a little. It was around dinner time, but I wasn’t hungry. In fact, once I stopped pushing myself, I realized I was exhausted.

And my throat hurt. And I was getting congested.

I think I’m sick. Or on the verge of being sick. I’m doing everything I can to hit this thing *hard* so maybe I don’t end up going down with it for long.

I just went back and checked. This is the first time I’ve been sick since March of this year. I’ve had days when I haven’t felt great, but those were related to hormones or allergies. This is the first time I’ve been actually sick in months and months.

Maybe I am doing something right.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Shredded Veil Mysteries Now Available!

The Shredded Veil Mysteries

All of the stories about Andy Collin, the private investigator who is also a ghost, are now gathered together into a single collection!

December 21st, 2012 hadn’t been the end of the world, but the Great Unraveling.

The veils between the Seen and Unseen worlds had shredded.

The living had suddenly learned they weren’t alone.

Andy had seen it all, done it all, as a detective working Vice when he’d be alive. Now, as a ghost, he works as a private investigator.

Come explore the mysteries of Heaven and Hell, of cameras with souls, and thieves with hearts.



Includes the short stories “Hell By Any Other Name,” “To Hell And Back,” “Hell For The Holidays,” “High Stakes Hell,” and “Postcards From Hell.”

Available at Amazon (Kindle)

Available at Barnes & Noble (Nook)

Available at Smashwords

Available at Kobo

This collection will also be available as a paperback in the next few weeks.

I am happy I was able to collect all these together. The collection is 45K words. I also like that I finally came up with a good title for these stories. “Hell Nation” just wasn’t cutting it.

I also like the last two covers I created. I keep thinking I should do a post on the progression of covers. The problem is that my time is even more limited than it used to be, and so it still remains just an idea.

And speaking of such, it’s time to get back to writing.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Postcards from Hell now available!

Postcards from Hell is now available!

December 21st, 2012 hadn’t been the end of the world, only the Great Unraveling. The veils between the Seen and Unseen worlds shredded and the living learned they weren’t alone.

Andy had seen it all, done it all as a detective working Vice when he’d be alive. Now, as a ghost, he works as a private investigator. This time, he’s dealing with the ferrymen, who smuggle souls.

This story In the last in the series that started with “Hell By Any Other Name,” followed by, “To Hell And Back,” “Hell For The Holidays,” and “High Stakes Hell.”

I know, never say never. But I do think this is the last story. The character arc feels complete to me. Possibly there will be other stories, maybe something from Toni’s perspective sometime. Who knows? But I don’t anticipate more.

This story ended up being 11,500 words. Almost exactly. I’ve switched over to updating the novel (TRATDT) but once I finish that, I’m going to go back to writing short stories. With the emphasis on short. I’m going to challenge myself to write 3000 word stories for a while. We’ll see how it goes.

“Postcards from Hell” is available at all the usual places (and it didn’t get stuck in the Kobo store this time!)

Available at Amazon (Kindle)

Available at Barnes & Noble (Nook)

Available at Smashwords

Available at Kobo

Mrs. Lorenzo wasn’t like any ghost I’d ever met.

She looked as we all did, slightly pale with her own slight glow, wearing the clothes she’d been buried in: a three-quarter sleeve hand-knit white sweater over what must have been an eye-searing tropical print dress, pearls the size of jawbreakers strung tightly around her ample neck, and cheap white sandals that wouldn’t have lasted a week if she’d been living.

Because she was a ghost, none of her clothes moved or grew old. When she sat down in the guest chair in my office, her hands smoothed her skirt out of habit, not because if had climbed up.

So it wasn’t her clothes that made her different. Or her looks: A Hispanic woman in her late 50s, with salt and pepper curls, hard features, stubbornly fat, and perpetually tired.

No, it was her energy, her very soul, that made her stand out.

She cared.

It wasn’t that ghosts couldn’t feel as intensely as the living. But things didn’t matter like they used to, once you were dead. We tended to drift, not to drive.

Mrs. Lorenzo had never let her foot off the gas for a second.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Progress

I figured I wrote about 2500 words tonight, which, yay!

This makes the current story over 10,000 words long. Uhm, yay?

I still have at least one scene left to write. No, probably two. Hopefully they’ll both be shortish. So maybe I’ll finish this in less than 12,000 words.

My goal for the next set of short stories is to make them all SHORT. Seriously. My goal is to write a bunch of 3000 word short stories. It’s practice. And they’ll possibly be salable. I can do it. I can write to market. I just generally don’t.

I’ll finish this short story this weekend, then flip over to the novel (TRATDT) to get it ready for the editor by mid-October.

I am pleased that I’ve written this much tonight. I have a bunch of things to do this weekend, but I will also find time to write.

I should also do some work for the day job. It already takes up so much of my brain, though. sigh But I do love the new position so much. There’s just so much to do for it. I’ll write a separate post on it at some point.

Now, it’s back to the pirate music and possibly more words.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

LHT workout

Since people asked, here’s what I do for a lift heavy things (LHT) workout from home, without a gym. It’s all done with bodyweight.

Cut for talk of weight and image and health. Read, or don’t, with your own self-care in mind.

One of my big issues is that despite what I can do physically, I never think of myself as being in good shape. (This is not asking for other people to tell me that I am. This is an honest admission of truth and something I’m seriously working on.)

My friend M helped me considerably along this thought process by breaking off the strength part from the aerobic conditioning part.

I am strong. I’m proud of that. I can walk a long, long time. Also proud of that.

But I don’t have great aerobic conditioning, and running isn’t the answer for me. And because I don’t have good aerobic conditioning, and I hate trying to do it, I never think of myself as being in good shape.

So I’ve finally found something that I think is helping. I’m going dancing twice a week–lindy hop and swing. I started out only being able to dance 1-2 dances, then was totally winded. Now, I can dance 2-3 songs before I get completely winded. My goal is to be able to dance 6 songs without being completely winded. Just one step at a time. Since it’s something I love doing, I’ve been much more successful at it.

I follow something called the Primal Blueprint diet (high fat, medium protein, low carb diet. No grains or sugar, mainly meat with lots and lots of veggies.) They have something called the Primal Fitness Guide, which is what I’m using, along with stuff from the Nerdfitness beginners workout.

One of the reasons why I love the Primal Fitness Guide is because it says that if you can gain mastery in the 5 areas he’s laid out in the lift heavy things (LHT) area, plus what exactly that mastery means, you’re fit.

While it’s possible to go to the next level, you don’t have to.

This is so, so very important for me and my definition of being in good shape. So many fitness books and sites are always talking about doing more; more reps, more difficult exercises, longer runs, etc. To me, it means I can never be in shape, I can never be healthy, because there’s always so much more I could be doing. It’s been really disheartening, quite frankly. So having a level that I can mostly do, and feeling like since I can do it, I’m mostly fit, has helped me.

One of the other things I really like with the Primal Fitness is that there are so many levels to get to the “master” level, with additional levels beyond. For example, pushups. Start with wall pushups. Move to knee, then inclined, then try for the full pushup. Beyond that, do declined (feet above you), uneven (one hand on a medicine ball or something), alternating wide and close grip, etc.

All you have to master is the primary pushup form. But there are levels to get you there, and levels for you to go beyond, if you so choose.

Another thing — you’ll see that all of these are body weight exercises — merely supporting your body weight. While I will go to a gym for a while, it isn’t a long term solution for me. Being able to have this type of workout at home, with almost no equipment, means I’ll stick to it. Plus, I can do this workout in a hotel room. And it doesn’t take me very long. I attack it, can finish in 20 minutes or so, and I feel as though I’e had a workout.

The following list is from Primal Fitness. I’ll list what the “master” levels are, the number of reps to obtain that, and where I am. NOTE: these are the number of reps per one cycle. You’re supposed to do two cycles.

Pushup: 20 reps for mastery

These are full pushups, on toes and hands. I can do 20 reps, first cycle, no problem. It really depends on the day whether I can do 20 for the second cycle or not. Frequently it’s only 15, though. I will get this up to 40 total, consistently.

Pullup: 5 reps for mastery. For the two cycles, 5 pullups and 5 chinups.

I don’t have a pullup bar, so this is impossible to judge. I bought one that won’t hang on my door frames properly, so am still trying to figure out what to do. I can probably do 1. Maybe 2.

Instead, I do table rows. Make sure you have a good, strong table. Lay your feet under the table, grip the edge of it. Stiffen your entire body and pull yourself up. I can do 10 of these. You can also grab the table overhand, with your feet sticking out. These can also be done in a hotel room, if you have a desk attached to the wall.

Squat: 50 reps for mastery.

I always feel these the next day. But I can do them. 50 reps per cycle, 100 total. Full body squats, where your thighs go down parallel to the ground. Be sure to stick your butt out.

Press: 7 reps for mastery

Make your legs parallel to the ground by placing your feet on a table or chair. Make your torso perpendicular to the ground, your weight on your hands, staring backwards toward your toes. Your hips should form a 90 degree angle between your torso and your legs. Now, lower yourself with your arms, then push back up. I can easily do 7 of these each cycle.

The next step is handstand, and at one point I was doing 60 second handstands. I want to work back up to that, then the next step, which is handstand press.

Plank: 90/45/45 seconds for full plank, side plank, other side plank.

Do these on forearms and toes. I can 60 full plank, then 45/45, and do that for two cycles. I’m working on getting back to a 90 second plank. I can do a 90 second full plank, it’s just that this comes at the end of everything else, so I’m not there consistently.

So there you have it — my body weight routine. I do it twice a week. It doesn’t take me a long while, I end up sweating and a bit sore, but I know I’ve done something when I’ve finished.

Some links:

To get a free copy of the primal blueprint fitness ebook, you have to sign up for the newsletter. Up to you if you think it’s worth it or not.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/subscr...

Nerdfitness beginner’s workout:

Also a body weight workout. Three reps instead of two. No press or pullup.

http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/...

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Travel and health

The day job approved all of my travel through the end of the year. This means a lot more traveling in my future, one or two trips per month, probably for the next six months.

My original plan was to go back to writing novels come January. That may or may not work. I may instead keep doing short fiction until my life calms down again, which may not be until March.

I feel okay about that, not great, but okay. That just might be the way life is. I haven’t had the brain or energy to write this week, not since Sunday. I might not have the brain to write again until this coming Sunday. Every once in a while an idea pops up and nibbles at my back brain, and I want to write. But I just can’t right now.

In addition, I’ve let some other things slide this summer. I wasn’t really working out, and I let my diet and weight slide a bit as well.

However, I can’t continue to let things slide, especially not due to travel. I’m going to have to get more disciplined about things. I have a “lift heavy things” routine (all body weight) that I can do in a hotel room. That is, when I’m not exhausted, which is going to be a challenge sometimes during the weeks I travel. I don’t want to not work out the weeks I’m traveling, but I’m also not sure how much I’ll be able to work those weeks. As I said, I’ll just have to get more disciplined about it.

The other piece is diet, as in, what I eat. It isn’t impossible for me to eat in a healthy manner when I’m traveling. I do frequently overeat when I’m traveling. What happens is that I get a somewhat good breakfast, skip lunch, then pigout during dinner. In addition, I frequently run out of food just before I travel, which means I’m not eating healthy.

I need to recommit to sticking to a healthy diet even while I’m traveling, before, during, and after. This also means traveling with more healthy snacks.

As for the weight, well, that I might continue to let slide. It feels like too much on top of everything else right now. But lifting things and feeling strong will help with the weight, I know.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

New Fiction! The Piano Time Rag!

The Piano Time Rag

Sadie Louise restores wooden furniture, returning it to its former glory. With just a touch, she finds the strength flowing along the grain or where a joint will shatter with the right pressure.

She also frees the spirits she discovers in the wood, trapped there by accident or design.

The spirit Sadie finds in an old player piano is unlike any other she’s ever encountered.

Maybe not all spirits should be freed.

This story came about a strange way. One of the assignments we had for the short story workshop was to write dialogue that came about while a character was doing something else, some other action.

The original assignment was only about 700 words. I had a woman sanding a piece of furniture, about to apply the second coat of varnish to it, while a detective was in her workshop, asking her about a recent murder.

I knew, by the time I finished the exercise, that I had a novel on my hands. (Touch is the name of it.)

The Piano Time Rag is the ‘origin’ story for the novel. The supernatural element in the novel is created in this short story.

While I was writing this story, lots of other stories were born with these characters, like the first time Sadie frees a spirit (and how that compels her to free herself from her current situation) or the time Sadie frees a pair of spirits that are stuck in the wood of a house, and so are haunting it, etc.

So this story may feel like it’s just the start — and it kind of is. However, I plan on writing the other stories over the next year. And maybe the novel as well.

The story is available at the usual places:

Available at Amazon (Kindle)

Available at Barnes & Nobel (Nook)

Available at Smashwords

I published the story separately on Kobo. While it has already made it through the process everywhere else, it still hasn’t been published on Kobo. Last time it took more than a week. I really hope this story isn’t stuck as well.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Keep on rolling

One of the smarter decisions I’ve made recently was to switch to writing short stories. I knew that while changing to the new position would be awesome, it would also be a “life roll” — basically, something that happens in your life that will prevent or slow down your writing.

I haven’t stopped writing. But I’m not writing consistently, not publishing a short story a week. Tomorrow or the next day I will put up the links for “The Piano Time Rag,” a short story I finished recently. (It’s only up at Smashwords currently. And I’m labeling it as a short story, but it’s 9600 words long.) I’m 3000+ words into the next Hell ‘verse story (“Postcards From Hell” which will also probably end up being between 8-9000 words long.)

I’m also traveling next week, and this year, I don’t have to finish a short story the weeks I’m traveling. I may finish it anyway — we’ll see. And then I’ll write the next one. I’m kind of excited about the open possibilities, and I want to take advantage of this time, and write some cool stuff. I have so many ideas!

So even though this is a life roll, I’m still going to keep writing as much as I can, while at the same time, not stressing myself out about it or making myself crazy.

I understand why Nigel said what he did, how he was going to vote for Chehon because he’s a better dancer.

I know Nigel was trying to be honest, but it came off as mean, to tell Cyrus after he’d just blown the doors out in his routine with tWitch that Nigel wasn’t going to vote for him.

Plus it brought up the other thing I continue to think about in regards to this season: privilege. One of the reasons why Chehon and the others are such good dancers is because they came from privilege. They grew up in households that could afford to send them to ballet school or dance classes.

Cyrus didn’t. I don’t know if he has siblings but he was raised by a single mom. The impression I have (and I could be wrong) was that he was on the edge of trouble? Starting to get into trouble? And dance was a way out, something he could do. He didn’t start until he was 16.

He’s never had the money for dance classes. Probably has never had the time or ability to take them, either. He’s coming from a place that I’m not sure Nigel understands. And so Nigel’s voting for Chehon, and the way he phrased it, also sounded like he was voting for privilege, for people who could afford classes and such. I don’t think Nigel meant it that way, but I keep thinking about it.

It’s also why I want Cyrus to win. Not because he’s the best dancer. No one would say that. But because of the opportunities and doors it would open for him. He needs the win more than any of the other dancers.

Even if he doesn’t win, I really, truly hope that he gets to do what he wants to do now, in his life. I want him to be happy. Money and fame won’t buy him happiness, but they’ll give him opportunities he has never even thought of before. Honestly, just being on the show and getting this far has done that for him.

I really wish him well, and am excited to see who wins next week!

(Oh, and I just checked — tWitch studied dance in college before he tried out for the show. There’s a reason why he was considered a better dancer: he’d had opportunity that Cyrus didn’t.)

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.