Renée Harrell's Blog, page 17

For no reason at all...

...we were thinking of Mother Teresa the other day. We have friends who were raised Catholic, one of 'em mentioned her, and we got to wondering: Was Mother Teresa, herself, ever a mother of children? She was not and, in fact, never saw her own mother again after she became a missionary. Did she have a middle name? She did. Her birth name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, according to Wikipedia. One thought led to another, we started interneting for quotes from the good Mother, and we found a website with a pleasant saying from M.T. at the top of the opening page.
 
We noticed the author misspelled 'Teresa', something we might do ourselves. We also noticed the author was selling a self-help book she'd written, 300+ pages dedicated to fostering a positive attitude. Having a very positive attitude herself, she was asking over fifty dollars for each copy of her book. Plus shipping. A price we found, perhaps, a tad high.
 
So we laughed about it but then half of our writing team said to the other half: "Here's something almost as crazy. Somebody wants over forty bucks for a used copy of Jessie Harrell's new novel."
 
Here's why this is nuts: Jessie's novel, Destined, just came out a few days ago. You can buy a new copy for $9.99, paper, or $3.99 Kindle. It's 300+ pages of love and jealousy and, if you're into young adult/Greek mythology/romance, this is gonna be sweet tea for you.
 
We know what you're thinking: "Dare we purchase any piece of fiction written by a romance-loving appellate lawyer who enjoys scrapbooking?" and we're telling you, yes, yes, you can. Despite appearances, Jessie Gonxha Harrell is not Satan's spawn. She is good people and a good writer. We wish her well.
 
Speaking of her book ('cause this made us giggle), the novel received a wonderful review, the reader saying, "Even as I think of it now, I just want to read it again. If you're looking for the world's most heartwarming and heart-achingly romantic love story, do yourself a favor and read Destined." Fairly glorious, right? Then the reviewer rated the story, 4.5 stars. Because the most heartwarming, romantic love story in the WORLD is clearly still missing something.
 
We're thinking, werewolf sex.
 

We had MALICE in our hearts...

_  ...or so we thought, once we started reading about Griffin Hayes' new horror novel. It's self-pubbed (you know, we love us the indie writers), it's got a fun cover, and it's already collected a number of lovely reviews. You can check them out yourselves, here.

All was good until we dug a little deeper. On his blogspot, GF claims, " Malice was born from a nightmare" – pretty convenient, eh?, him sharing this after we told the world that The Atheist's Daughter was inspired by one of Renée's more disturbing dreams.  In his storyline, per the Grifster, "Something unspeakable is murdering the townspeople of Millingham"...while, in T.A.D., we have something unspeakable murdering the townspeople of Winterhaven.  In his book, only his teenaged hero knows what is doing the killing – while, in our novel, only the teenaged heroine knows what is doing the killing. Finally, both in Malice and in T.A.D., when friends and neighbors start to die, the main character has to act.

So we contacted this so-called Griffin Hayes and asked what was up. Specifically, we asked if he had bunches of money. We wanted to know if he'd like to settle the lawsuit NOW, rather than spend the next decade in court.  "Geez," he told us, "right out of the gate and we're already in litigation? Before you start counting your settlement, know that the first draft of Malice was completed back in 2002. It sat on a computer hard drive for a long time before I finally decided to bring it back from the dead. So I might have a pretty strong counter claim, but I'll only agree to sue you if we can appear on Judge Judy. I love Judge Judy!"
 
And that's how he won our hearts: We, too, are fond of Judge Judy. Also, we worry that society has grown too litigious, especially since his novel was written years before our story. We knew his manuscript had found him an agent and almost found him a publisher – a TOR editor held his pages close to her breast for quite some time – but he still published the book himself. "Interest from TOR should only have wetted my appetite," he said, "but I'd already been kicking the book up and down the street for months by then. I knew the book was good. My agent knew it was good. TOR liked it, they only worried because it was too cross genre for them."

"My two biggest hesitations with self-publishing was that I didn't want a crappy cover to make me look like an amateur. I also didn't want a garage jammed with books waiting to be dropped off at the local bookstore.  Once I discovered Amazon's KDP service and realized those two concerns weren't going to be an issue, I jumped at the chance. Frankly, I don't care one bit for awards or trophies." Which is exactly what Harrell said back in the sixth grade, when Josh Moretz beat him in the 50-yard dash. Then Harrell kicked Josh in the leg and ran off but, again, Josh was faster, caught Harrell and kicked him back. It was not a proud day in the Turner household. Griff continues, "I want a readership. Fans who are dying to gobble up everything I write. For me, that's the payoff."
 
When it came time to publish, he kinda followed our strategy: Hire a pro! "I wanted Malice to stand toe to toe with any traditionally published book sitting on the shelf at your local Barnes and Noble," he tells us. "I probably paid about 300 clams for formatting, cover art and a final proofread. The cover itself went through about 10 or more iterations before I was finally happy. I wanted on paper exactly the image I saw in my head and my designer, Kit Foster, was a dream to work with."
 
We like people who use the term, "clams", when they mean dollars. We really do. (Unless GH truly did pay these people in clams, which would make their work quite a bargain if you live near the coast.) Still, we know that self-pub takes time to pay off. Was it worth it, going out of pocket this early in the game?

He said, "The way I look at it, traditionally published books have the benefit of launch parties and lots of advertising. Building momentum with an indie book is a long, hard slog. Trying to convince people to lay their hard-earned cash on a new author also isn't easy, especially an indie writer. The first few months are about building awareness. Once a reader discovers and enjoys your books, they're more likely to seek out your other work."

He's doing other work, too. There are some shorter pieces at a lower price (here for example)...and more: "I'm planning to publish an adult horror novel, tentatively called Nocturnal, in early 2012. I'm just bringing it through a few more edits until it's ready for prime time. In addition, I'm working on a post-apocalyptic zombie novella set a few hundred years after the world's been overrun. If it catches on, it'll act as the prologue to a series."
 
The bottom line, as we see it: Griffin Hayes is a hardworking guy, he's mapped out a career path for  his writing, he knows his stuff and we like him...and there's no denying, he's some serious competition to the other writers in the Indie Pond. But you know what?

It's a big pond. There's room for all of us....

Suddenly, we look up...

...and it's time to do another post for the B-O-Rama. It's our fault, absolutely, but we've been busy on another writing project....
 
About that writing project: y'see, we were wandering through Amazon's Kindle listings, when we saw a self-published novel that, on the surface, didn't appear to be a winner. It was fiction, we like that in a novel, with an uninspiring title and a not particularly interesting storyline. The sample we downloaded was fairly bleh. And, yet, when we checked the book's sales rating -- well, it was waaaaay above anything we've written. So what did this particular author did to boost his readership?
 
He put a sexy woman on the cover of his book. As far as we can tell, that was the winning move.
 
The woman above? We collected her picture from Free Random Wallpapers and they say this shot of Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas is in public domain. Which is good because, otherwise, we've got to have Harrell pose in a bikini and nobody is gonna want that image in their head.
 
It could well be that this particular author has a rabid fan base or that his particular novel just rings all kinds of bells for the right kind of readers (and we're not the right kind of readers) or, maybe, the book is getting all kind of buzz and we missed it. Living in the Arizona mountains, we miss most of the buzz about everything.
 
Or, again, it could be because the author put a sexy woman on the cover of his book.
 
It so happens that we rarely create stories featuring sexy people. Even the pets in our stories tend to be strays or mutts. But, years back, we did write this one detective story, a novella really, narrated by a terribly corrupt, wonderfully gorgeous woman...and, suddenly, we had a desire to find out if image is everything. It isn't a money thing, truly. It's a curiosity thing.
 
We pulled out the detective story and updated it, which, for some reason, took pieces of an entire week. After editing the piece, we shipped the story off to a couple of beta readers. While they beta-read, Renée collected the pieces she needed to create a cover for the piece. She made the cover, sexy girl front and center, and shipped the thing off to our beta viewer -- yes, we have beta viewers, everyone should be so lucky -- and she discovered she needed to rework the cover. Which is okay because, it turns out, we need to rework the story, too.

At this moment, we think we'll have everything done soon and should be able to publish the novella in December, just in case people want a hot and steamy girl in their electronic stocking. Will anyone buy it?
 
Ah, that's what we want to know, too.

We've been feeling a little funny lately...

...or, maybe, we're just finding things funny. We thought the idea of a $5 book trailer was funny. Then one of us had a birthday oh, and your present hasn't arrived yet, so now it's better if you just send cash and the amazing Rachel sent us this wonderfully silly, profane coffee mug. Since she bought it from an outfit that personalizes items for business clients, we asked how she managed to create this beauty.  She said, "I told them my company name was 'Holy shit, a unicorn!' and they didn't ask any questions after that."

We think Rachel is one of the funniest people we know. Another funny person is Cassandra Parkins, and we've followed her after she gave T.A.D. a spot in her Adventures in Trash. She gave a terrific review of the best-selling The Land of Painted Caves and you really ought to give it a gander unless, of course, you're offended by a discussion of Jondalar the Caveman and his gigantic manhood. Quoting C.P. from her review, "Several episodes are devoted entirely to the enormous enormity of Jondalar's enormous knob, and how he somehow feels the sex he has is never quite as good as it might be if he could get it all the way in (I'm not making this up, I swear), and how he wonders if one day he will find a woman who can take all of him that's on offer."
 
This made us laugh. It didn't make us want to buy The Land of Painted Caves but, for the first time, we considered getting the book at the library.

Then, somehow, we came across an episode of SuperFriends– hmmm, actually, The Challenge of the SuperFriends, the 1978 cartoon series with Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Company…and discovered this joyous passage:
Batman: Quick, Robin, the Bat-cables!
Robin: He's got us, Batman!
Batman: But not for long, Robin. Use your Bat-lube!
And, then, our heroes spray a disgusting brown goo down on the bad guy. We don't actually know if the goo is Bat-lube -- it looks like something else entirely -- but we found it funny that B & R carried such tools on their hunt for the villainous Solomon Grundy and, presumably, his enormous knob. See for yourselves if you'd like.

Got a fin? Buy a trailer. A book trailer...

...that is.
See, neither one of us thinks that book trailers make much sense. Oh, they're kinda fun, it's probably a kick to see a trailer for your very own book, but do they work? Essentially, do people see book trailers and decide, at that moment, they need to buy the book?
 
There are good trailers (we like this one), there are bad ones (too many to count) and we've never, ever, bought a book because of its trailer. Over on Absolute Write, various writers are debating the subject -- right here -- and the feeling seems to be, while the occasional trailer sells the occasional book, a bad book trailer actually kills any potential interest in a novel.
 
We decided we'd, maybe, like a book trailer but we didn't have an interest in making it ourselves. Price shopping, we discovered that the pros at CreateSpace will make a 30-second, text only, trailer for the low, low price of $1,199.00. We like CreateSpace, we have two of our novels available through CreateSpace, and we laughed like crazy when we saw how much they were charging for their product.
 
$1200 for a half-minute block of words? Really?

So we did what we often do when we think things are ridiculous. We got even more ridiculous-er. We went to fiverr.com and tried to find someone who would make us a 30-second trailer, text only, trailer for a tiny amount of cash. And we got lucky. Rey from Virtual Solution said he could provide the very thing for five bucks...with some pretty severe limitations.
 
We'd have to use an existing template, one that Rey has provided to other fiverr fans. The music, the images, these were pretty much all the same from one project to the next. While we'd be able to provide six lines of text, each line of text could be no longer than three words. So, if we hoped to be startlingly original, if we hoped to sell multiple copies of book from this trailer, we were pretty much out of luck.
 
On the other hand: $5. How could we not? Rey said the HD version (yep, he sent us two version for our fiver) would load faster if we slapped it on YouTube first so there you go.

Questions, we get questions...

... …and, lately, many of those questions have been about money. How many copies of our novels are we selling and, if we don't mind sharing, how much is our take-home pay? And, really, if we had to do it all over again – would we still self-publish?

Them's some good questions. Most of the time, we simply smile, imply we're taking it to the bank in a wheelbarrow, and then go home and wait for Taco Barn Tuesday, when the tacos are two-for-a-buck and, if we skip a carbonated beverage, we won't quite spend all of last month's royalty check.

We think there's been a bit more interest in the $ question of late because T.A.D. has finally gone into print. The Atheist's Daughter is doing okay. Since the novel's publication, our itsy bitsy income has taken a leap. Once we figured out how to read individual sales numbers – on Amazon, in particular, it's quite a stumper;  you have to push the right button – we learned a few things.

F'rinstance, After Things Went Bad, our three-set for under a buck, continues to lead our sales overall. This is happening without any real promotion. Meanwhile, T.A.D. is close behind and, because of its higher price tag, it's our most profitable title. Coming along in third? Cobblestone Press just sent us the monthly numbers for Wicked Games and it continues to do okay...especially since, again, we're doing no promotion of the story. (Werewolf + sex = sales.) To our surprise, we're even moving a few copies of Bill Shakespeare's Next Big Mistake. No, 'surprise' is not a strong enough word. We're amazed. BSNBM is a television pilot we couldn't afford to film, no one has ever reviewed the piece, and we've made no mention of it anywhere except here. Maybe people are sampling it and liking the sample (we think it's funny), maybe it's the 99-cent price tag, maybe it's the title, maybe...hell, we don't know. You got any ideas, share 'em. We'd like to know.

But, in the last 45 days, one of our books hasn't sold a single copy. Something Wicked had a couple of decent reviews, we guest posted here and there, we gave the promo thing an effort. There was a burp of initial interest, back in April, but it quickly passed as burps will do. The novel has a strong cover but it was written for a younger audience...if you're of Nancy Drew age, you're our target audience...and we always knew the age thing would present a bit of challenge. Frankly, not enough e-book owners are twelve years old. We considered sparking up the story, heating up the romance, bumping up the violence. Finally, we decided to try an experiment, instead. Since ATWB is going out the door at less than a buck, since BSNBM is finding an audience at the same price, we'll drop the SW price (here) for the next quarter and see what happens.
 
If this doesn't work, werewolf sex gets added to everything in 2012....

V.J. Chambers knows sequels...

…and we know V.J. Chambers so, it seemed to us, we had access to a pretty good resource before we started our very first sequel ever. Seems like we're gonna need one, too.
 
We've always known we wanted to see a follow-up to The Atheist's Daughter –and since you and you weren't gonna write it, we figured we'd better get to work. We knew some of the points to hit -- Kristin and Liz, on the road; Hawkins, struggling with his place in the world and his growing romantic feelings for Kristin; Mrs. Norton feeling threatened and vulnerable for the first time in quite a long time; Mr. Locke, in a very bad place -- and we knew how the book started, we knew how the book ended. But we'd not even attempted the sequel thing before, and, honestly, it's a struggle.

So we knocked on VJC's door since she's written a successful series, the Jason and Azazel Trilogy, and we had two questions we wanted to ask. First of all, we wanted to know what was the best, most rewarding, thing about writing a sequel – and she told us, "Knowing I have an audience for it. It makes writing exciting, because I think of what my current readers will think about certain elements, and I know people are actually going to read and buy it."

Okay, sure, makes sense. But then we asked, what was the worst thing about writing a sequel? She was willing to step up to that one, too: "Being worried I'm a sellout, and that I'd be having more fun writing about something new and exciting, but instead I might be making a choice to write about the same characters mostly because I know my readers want it."

So there was an important tip right there: Write what your readers want. Might be a little useful in the future. (Another important tip? For a short time, you can read Breathless, the first novel in the J&A Trilogy, for free – just go here.)

We've decided, there are certain rules we need to follow to get a sequel just right. First of all, we've always believed a sequel must be complete in and of itself. Which means, the story must make complete sense, even if you've not read the book leading into this new tale. It's a little tricky, trying to bring newcomers up to speed while not boring those folks who've already read Book #1, but it must be done and done well. P.G. Wodehouse was a master at this kind of thing. We've read P.G. Wodehouse, we love P.G. Wodehouse, and, frankly, we're no P.G. Wodehouse.

There's also this: This new story has to reflect the style and sensibility of the first (it is a sequel), but if a devoted reader can guess where things are going, it needs more work. Life brings surprises and so should a well-written novel. But nothing cheap -- the cat springs out of the closet! -- nothing untrue or unfair -- "And being an amateur astronomer," Detective Blackon said, "I realized that Saturn's magnetic field was a fraction the strength of Jupiter's. When Professor Rucka claimed otherwise, I knew he was the murderer!" -- and such moves aren't always easy. Good thing that Renée is the plotter, eh?
 
Finally, as the story advances, the characters have to grow. Just as in T.A.D., Kristin at the beginning of the book can't be the same Kristin we meet at the second tale. In our book, even the monsters have to undergo change. Except, y'know, they remain MONSTERS, which provides a certain limitation on personal growth. Plus, some sweet day, we just might want to write a sequel to this sequel – which will bring a whole new set of problems to the word processor.
 
We'll let you know how things work out.

As Halloween approaches...

...these are a few of the things we've learned recently.

This Blake M. Petit guy is more popular than we are. After we chatted with him (here), traffic to the Blog-O-Rama jumped by a factor of three. So, Blake, big guy? Next time you need a plug, you just let us know, you Louisiana wildcat. We've got your back.

To our surprise, After Things Went Bad floats in and out of the top 100 of Amazon's paid s-f short stories section.  For the last couple of weeks, it's been ranked just below an Arthur C. Clarke collection and somewhat higher than H.P. Lovecraft's 99-center, At the Mountains of Madness.  We're surprised because, like Arthur and Howard Phillip, we haven't done any marketing on the title in a long time. 

The price of an Atheist's Daughter e-book on the Zimbabwe black market? It's $100,000,000,000,000 – or, with less zeroes, 100 trillion dollars (plus shipping).  Zimbabwe has struggled with mega-inflation for years and, in 2006, the country's Reserve Bank flooded the country with money. If you, too, would like to be a 100 trillionaire, hit eBay, where you'll find the currency going for a sweet $2.99. But you've gotta shop. Some of those sellers are asking $3.99 and $4.99, and that's simply too much for 100 trillion dollars.

It ain't easy to get a Candy Butler. After our recent family reunion, Renee stopped at a California pharmacy and discovered the fellow on your left, whom she immediately named, 'Buntley'. When her writing partner expressed some concern that (1) the airlines would charge greatly to carry a Buntley-sized box in cargo; and (2) $50 was too much to pay for a Candy Butler, she left her prize behind. Upon returning home, she discovered that Arizona is bereft of Candy Butlers – although a few enterprising internet marketers did offer this 36" marvel for the bargain price of $100 and up.  Relatives were called, a box was shipped at no small expense, and if you ring our bell on Hallow's Eve, Buntley will greet you at the door. Yes, he will, because Buntley is a

Feeling a little bored? Might we suggest...

...the Plotting Game™?
 
We came up with the idea while reading about a pair of our favorite writers, Donald E. Westlake and Lawrence Block. Westlake and Block were friends and had worked together on a few writing projects.  On most of their shared writing projects, one of 'em would write the first chapter, the second would write the next, and so on. On one book, feeling playful, they ended each chapter on a cliffhanger, daring the other writer to carry on. Carry on they did, having great fun as they did it.

Ready for a little fun of our own, Harrell took a yellow legal pad, Harrell wrote across its top line: Ashes & Ink.

"What's this?"

"The Plotting Game™," he said. "Let's try it, okay? I write a line, then you write a line. Bit by bit, we'll plot a short story, see if it works, play with it."

"So, 'Ashes & Ink'?"

"That's the title. I get off easy 'cause I was smart enough to go first. You decide where we go next."

Over the next few days, we did exactly that. The legal pad was covered with lines, added at each writer's leisure. The text ran something like this:
 
    "Two girls, Megan and Stephanie. Megan thinks of herself as a boring 'good girl', Stephanie fancies herself a wild child, but they're best friends."
 
    "Stephanie lures Megan to the wrong side of town – and it's even wrong-er than she thinks because some of the people there aren't necessarily people."
 
    "Not that Stephanie notices. She's taking Megan to a hole-in-the-wall Piercing Parlor, staffed by the most attractive man alive."
 
    "The most attractive man alive isn't attracted to either of the girls – well, Stephanie, a little -- but being the most attractive man alive, he flirts with them."
 
    "The most attractive man alive is named...Gage.  Because I'm not going to keep writing, 'the most attractive man alive', that's why. Anyway, Stephanie wants to get her nipples pierced 'cause that's what a wild child would do."
 
    "But she's under the legal nipple-piercing age (is there a legal age for this? Research), so Gage suggests a tattoo, instead (there has to be a legal age for this, too. Doesn't there? Would a parental permission slip work?) -- and a tattoo qualifies as 'ink'. He wants the girls to look through his design book."
 
    "His magical design book. If the average person opens it, they find flowers and butterflies. Maybe a skull or two. If the right person opens it, they see a magical design." 
 
    "Like a hex or a religious symbol or a sigil. And, if this marking is pressed into the skin of this one, right person, in the form of a tattoo, then this person is now empowered."
 
    "Empowered to work for the bad things of this universe. Because Megan narrates the story, she's a good girl, and we'd assume she was going to be battling for the forces of good."
 
    "Gage had spread ash, looking for a sign that the right person would come through his door soon. (Plus, ash qualifies as 'ash'.) When Stephanie arrived, he thought he'd found the woman he needed. To his surprise, Steph can't see the magical design but Megan CAN."
 
    "For the first time, Gage is aware of Megan. Intensely aware. But he's obviously lost all interest in Stephanie and she knows it. Pissed, she angrily pulls her friend out of the Piercing/Tattoo place and away the most attractive man alive."
 
    "This isn't going to really be a short story, is it?"
 
At which point we stopped the Plotting Game™. Because, really, we're new at the process and the thing was taking FOREVER. If you'd like to see what we got out of TPG™, take a glance below and then we'll talk....           

Ashes & Ink

    Stephanie's text read, Want to do something crazy?
    Again?
    What's it going to be this time, Steph? Are we going to sneak smokes from your Mom's purse, like we did when we were thirteen? Or, maybe, steal a bottle from Evil Ernie's liquor cabinet again, like two summers ago?
    Or is this going to be like the weekend before last, when we both used those crap ass fake IDs that got us bounced from Turks? The doorman laughed when he saw the IDs. Not that I should have been surprised. Even I could tell the driver licenses were bogus and I'd never seen a phony driver license before.
    You thought, if we pushed our boobs in the doorman's face, he wouldn't even notice the smeared print on the cards or the fuzzy photos. What he didn't notice was your push-up bra. God, I've never been so embarrassed.
    So did I want to do something crazy at this particular moment? Not really. Give me another six months, let me live long enough to escape high school, semi-sane and mostly intact. Let me grow old enough to get a real ID, let me – I don't know what.  Go to college, get a job, find true love? 
    I've had my fill of crazy for awhile but Stephanie is my best friend so I texted back, Sure.
    Which is how we both ended up in east Dreyer, on the 'wrong side of the tracks', as my mother says. A town of about 60,000, Dreyer is pretty much an asphalt splash in the middle of the desert. If it wasn't for the giant Sirus Bros Water Reclamation Facility, the place wouldn't even exist. During the winter months, when the rest of the world goes cold, the area attracts more than its share of transients and drifters so its bad side ought to be really bad. It isn't, though. It's mostly pitiful. 
    Boarded up stores line the sidewalks of Poorville and the whole area has a stink of sad over it. Most nights, there's a line of people waiting outside of the Shepherd's Shelter, needing a place to sleep. The only place that does any business is Gene's Liquor. It used to be a 7-Eleven convenience store but, in this part of the city, even a dash-and-grab is a little too upscale, I guess. If you want something to eat, you can go with the Red Twizzlers at Gene's front counter or join the homeless at the Dreyer Food Bank.
    "You're not dressed for this neighborhood," I told Steph.
    "I'm bringing a little bling to the less fortunate."
    "So where are we going?" 
    "Secret," she said.
    "Oh, no, not this time. Tell me or I'm going home."
    "Gonna walk? We took my car, remember?" We left her silver Tercel six blocks back, in the chain-linked tar pit that passes for the city's only parking lot.
    "You'd make me walk?" I said. "Some friend. Tell me."
    "Secret."
    She's such a pain in the ass, sometimes. I told her so, too.
    Steph laughed. Seeing a bag lady perched on the pavement ahead of us, she grabbed my hand and pulled me across the street.
    "It was an old woman," I protested. "What was she going to do, mug us?"
    "Exactly. She might be old but she's still female. She knows fashion."
    "She was wearing a sleeping bag as a jacket."
    "She wanted my Couch purse," my friend said with certainty.
    An alleyway extended into the sidewalk at its center. When Steph entered the alley, I followed. 
    "It isn't a Couch bag," I told her. "I was there when you picked it up at the import place over in Lincoln."
    "You're just jealous."
    "It costs thirty dollars. How do they make a profit, selling top label stuff at less than wholesale?"
    She looked at me and, together, we said, "Volume!"
    It was an old joke, stolen from an online video site, and we used it a little too often. I noticed a doorway at the end of the alley, a sign over its entrance. The sign wasn't lit and, in the gloom of the corridor, I couldn't read it.
    I opened the clasp on my purse. From out of the shadows, a voice rasped, 'Got any spare change?'
    Crouched beside a big metal dumpster, a homeless old woman glared up at us. Steph reached out like she was going to stop me, saying, "Megan, don't."
    She didn't want to look at the bag lady, didn't want to acknowledge her existence, as if she might come down with some kind of Poverty Virus. I wished I hadn't looked at her, either. I could have sworn this was the same bag lady we'd ducked just a few minutes ago. She had the same tan and wrinkled face, with stringy white hair draping onto her shoulders. She carried the same stained-blue sleeping bag, hunched over her body.        
    "Spare change?" the woman said again. Her brown eyes suddenly brightened and turned yellow. They became elongated and she stared at me through lizard eyes.
    Wanting to freak, I shoved three wrinkled dollars into her hand.
    "Thank you, Megan," she said.
    She knows me? I thought, only to remember, almost at the same time, that Steph had used my name. The ancient … creature … curled the bills inside her arthritic claw and shoved them away beneath the sleeping bag. She smiled up at me, with a mouth nearly empty of teeth, and I saw her eyes were normal.
    They'd always been normal. Of course, they had. Even in Poorville, people didn't have lizard eyes.
    Steph gave an exasperated snort and brought me further down the alley. "Now, look what you've done."
    Her words seemed to ricochet inside my confused thoughts. Finally, I reacted. "What did I do this time?"
    "You give them money, those people can sense it. They know you're an easy touch."
    "Those people?" I asked.
    "The next time we come here, they'll be thick around us. All of them with their hands out, wanting, wanting, wanting."
    "Wanting …?"
    "Whatever we have and they don't. Or don't you agree, Saint Megan?"
    Even if I did, I'd never let her know.
    "Sometimes," I said, sounding a little sanctimonious, "it's good to share with the less fortunate."
    Right then, God should have struck me dead because, honestly, there are times I suck as a person. When the old woman asked for spare change, my purse was open – but not to give her anything. The alleyway made me nervous and I'd been licking my lips. I was reaching for my lip gloss.
    I wanted to avoid the street people just as much as Stephanie did. I didn't plan to share my money with anybody and I wouldn't have, if I hadn't seen the bag lady's bizarre eyes and gotten scared.
    "Okay, we're here." Steph stood in the doorway at the alley's end. Above the door, there was a carved, wooden sign, reading, Pym's Tattoos and Piercings.
    A bell jingled as we entered the long and narrow shop. A pair of glass-fronted counters ran alongside one wall of the business, filled with assorted paraphernalia. On the opposite wall were some decorations, if samurai swords and fighting stars can be considered decorative.
    I wondered if Mr. Pym, whoever he was, had some kind of ninja complex. Whatever his issues, he wasn't in the showroom. Except for us, the shop was empty. The spring-loaded door wheezed to a close behind us. When it did, a voice softly said, "Get out while you still can."
    I jumped. Steph said, "Isn't it great?"
    "Maybe during Halloween." I thought the mechanical voice sounded creepy and was a little bit infantile. I was ready to leave when the curtain at the back of the room parted and a guy walked out.
    "Gage Brogan," Steph whispered to me. "What do you think?"
    Gage was older than we were, tall and slender, black-haired and dark-eyed. His t-shirt fit well enough to hint at the muscles in his arms and chest. He came toward us, easy and confident, as if he knew he was good-looking but wasn't too impressed by himself or the world around him.
    He was the hottest-looking guy I've ever seen in my life.
    He considered me briefly before focusing on Stephanie. And that, sadly, is the story of our friendship.
    Steph is shorter than me ("Fun-sized," she says), curvier –  by which I mean, breast-ier – with full lips and long, thick hair. The shape of her eyes and the cocoa color of her skin combine to give her an exotic appearance. When she wears something low-cut, her cleavage magically clouds men's minds and make them stupid.
    Today she was in full shock-and-awe, dressed to conquer. It worked, too, grabbing Gage's full attention and rendering me nearly invisible.
    "Stephanie Buffett," he said, in a voice deep and sweet as honey. 
    "And friend," Steph said, moving slightly backwards so that I'd come onto his radar. "This is Megan Kessler."
    He dipped his head at me, briefly, forced to acknowledge my presence. I nodded at him, worried that I'd blurt something awkward or idiotic if I tried to speak.
    His focus returned, laser-like, to my companion. "You came back."
    "Told you I would." She took a slip of paper from the faux-Couch purse, unfolded it, and gave it to him.
    He considered it. "So your folks are cool with this?"
    "My mother is."
    "Nice." He went behind one of the counters and pulled out a log book. "Got a driver's license?"
    "You want to find out where I live, don't you?" Stephanie flirted.
    "If you were a year older…."
    "You're only twenty-one."
    "And you're only seventeen." She pouted prettily and he pretended not to notice. She gave him her license and she copied its number into his book. "State regs. I have to record an identification number and date of birth whenever I do a piercing."
    "Piercing?" I said.
    "You saw the name of the shop, right?" he asked me. "Don't worry, it's totally safe. I only use packaged, sterile equipment."
    Oh my God. Stephanie is getting something PIERCED and she wants me here to watch?
    Please let it be her belly button.
    "Funny," he told Stephanie. "Your signature and your Mom's signature look almost exactly the same."
    "Is that a problem?"
    "Can be." For the first time, I noticed a faint accent beneath his words. Irish? "I can be flexible when it comes to paperwork. Depends on whether Mum is the litigious type. A sweet little ankle tatt, well, girls will be girls, as far as most parents are concerned. Things are viewed differently when the bad man puts a stainless steel rod through her angel's nipple."
    Nipple?
    "Are you a bad man?" Stephanie asked him.
    I can't stand here and watch Steph get her breast punctured.
    Cannot.
    Will not.
    I'll pass out.
    "Never judge someone by their reputation, girl," Gage said. "I"ll tell you this, hand to heart: I'm no angel."
    "You're getting your nipples pierced?" I told Steph.
    "Only the left one."
    "Are you crazy?"
    "Sometimes," she said, speaking more to the person in front of her than to me.
    "A lot of people do it," he said. "Especially the ones who are a little … ill-behaved. One quick burst of pain and the pin's in place."
    The seductive expression melted from Steph's face. "How much pain?"
    "Nothing you can't handle."
    The comment didn't reassure her. "How much pain?" she repeated. "Don't you use some kind of numbing spray?"
    "I have a nebulizer," he said. "Doesn't really help. Keep a bag of ice on the boo-boo and the burning sensation passes in a couple of days."
    I wondered if he was telling the truth. For some reason, I had the feeling he wanted to scare her away from the procedure. As if to prove my suspicions, he placed a stainless steel pole on the countertop.
    "You use that?" I asked. I hate needles and the sharpened end at the tip of the pole appeared bigger than King Kong's hypodermic.
    "It's huge," Steph said. "It's way too big."
    "You'd be surprised how much nipples stretch."
    At those words, Steph's wild child attitude vanished. Gage realized it and took pity on her.  "The point is, without a legit okay, I can't work on you, anyway. Pym would fire my ass."
    He smiled, as if to soften the verbal blow. Gorgeous.
    Really good-looking men give me brain freeze, reminding me that I'm incapable of staring and talking to someone at the same time. I sensed he was ready for us to leave and I knew I'd never return to this part of town. If that was the case, I wanted him to look at me, just one more time.
    Yeah, I know. Dork.
    "So this was a waste of time?" I asked.
    Annnnd … nothing. He couldn't be bothered to face me. Instead, he asked Stephanie, "Do you think this was a waste?"
    "Nope," she said, thrusting her chest not-so-subtly forward. "Not if I get an ankle tattoo."
    "Today?"
    "If it won't get you in trouble with your boss." She emphasized 'boss', to tease him and to put him in his place. It's one of the things she does that drives me mad: Once a boy notices her, she'll play with him, reeling him in. 
    Older or not, Gage was being treated the same way. I think Steph was in for a surprise. He wasn't anything like the boys at our high school.
    "I'll risk it," he said, placing a three-ringed binder on the countertop.
    The binder looked brand new, all white and shiny, and Steph flipped it open. The first page was white, like the binder, but the paper was thick and much older, as if it belonged in an ancient manuscript. There was a single drawing on the page, a glorious red rose, its stalk infested with wicked thorns.
    Steph loves roses but she wrinkled her nose and turned the page. There was another heavy sheet of paper and, again, it held a single image: A withered red tulip, its petals twisted and brittle.
    "Another flower? Is that all you have, flowers?"
    "I thought girls liked flowers," he said.
    "This paper doesn't look right. Maybe it's the red ink."
    "It's vellum, not paper. And that's not ink."
    "Right," I told him, jokingly. "It's blood."
    He smiled. "How did you know?"
    She flipped past the first section and the flowers disappeared. Orchids were replaced by tigers, tigers were replaced by dragons and griffins, and then abstract designs took over the catalog. Gage's interest grew sharp as Stephanie neared the back of the book. She considered the last image before returning to the first page.
    "I'll have the rose," Steph said.
    "Of course," he said, as warm and charming as ever, but an undercurrent of emotion lay beneath his words. Disappointment? If so, I didn't know why. The rose was beautiful.
    "Come into my parlor," he reached a hand out to my friend, "said the spider to the fly." Steph folded her fingers into his palm and the two of them walked out of the front and past the back curtain.
    Neither one of them gave me a glance. Gage still didn't know I existed; and Steph just assumed I'd sit on my butt and wait as long as she needed. She was right but only because she'd driven us here. If I had my car, I'd have abandoned her in a heartbeat and gone someplace fun.
    I sent an emergency text to Cheyenne Holguin, begging for a ride. I didn't have much hope: Cheyenne is perpetually broke, even worse than me. She uses one of the by-the-minute cell services and she's always out of minutes. Carrying the design book, I went to a three-set of plastic chairs and sat down. 
    I'd never given it much thought but I always assumed these kinds of shops had some kind of standard tattoo book. I remember seeing the same kinds of tattoos, anyway: Sun designs, some vaguely-Oriental lettering, a hummingbird, those kinds of things.  These illustrations weren't the usual fare. If Gage drew them – or the mysterious Mr. Pym – then the artist deserved to be proud of his work. These illustrations were really good.
    I leafed through the pages casually, wondering if I might want a tattoo someday. Maybe on the small of my back, I decided. Something I could show if I was in the mood or with the right people, something I could hide if my future employer hated ink on his wage slaves.
    At the very back of the binder, behind the abstract line work, were three pages that Steph had missed. They were the only drawings not in red; the only ones that looked as if they'd been created by a different artist. The paper, too, was different. White, like the vellum, its texture reminded me of the expensive calfskin wallet my Grandfather used to carry.
    Each page held a single illustration, just like the rest of the book. The next-to-last picture, done with a fine line and colored a rich, deep brown, made me catch my breath. I put my left index finger to the plastic sheet protecting the image. In my imagination, the page felt warm to my touch. 
    From the back of the store, I heard Steph cry out: "How much?"
    She came into the front area, snapping her wallet closed. Casually, Gage followed after her. "Good tattoos aren't cheap and cheap tattoos aren't good."
    "What's that, the company slogan?" Steph swept past me. "Let's get out of here."
    "Wait," I said.
    My request slowed her long enough so that she didn't go out the door. She faced Gage, still steaming. "You said you'd do the piercing for a hundred bucks."
    "You want the rose," he said, "and it's a three hour job, easy, to get it tight."
    "But the piercing – "
    "I was never going to pierce you."
    His statement shut her down. She literally didn't know what to say.
    "You thought I'd take a permission slip to put metal through skin? No chance. The state inspector would shutter us in seconds," Gage said, "I wanted you to come back, true enough. I wanted you to see the flash on the wall, go through the design book. It was worth a shot."
    Steph looked at me: What the hell?
      "That what I get for spreading ash on a Thursday." He shrugged. "Half-truths. Someone like you...I should have known it wouldn't happen." He turned away. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out."
    He couldn't have been more obvious: He was totally over Steph.
    "I want a tatt," I told him, the decision washing over me. I pushed the binder into his hands. "How much?"
    "Hey, I didn't see that page," Steph said.
    Gage reacted then, looking down at the book.
    "Ugh," my always-sensitive friend stated. "What kind of drawing is that?"
    "It's a sigil." His nearly-black eyes met mine. "You?"
    As he looked at me, I felt a charge go through my body. I'd heard of such things before but I'd never believed in them, never actually knew the sensation. I did, now: An electrical current surged through me, from head to toes.
    "Friends don't let friends get ugly ink," Steph pronounced. "Screw you, Gage."
    She grabbed me, pulling me from Pym's Tattoos and Piercings. Gage remained in the center of the store, staring out at me as we left.

* * * *
Whew. Definitely not a short story but, possibly, the first chapter of a new novel. Don't know if the title works, though.
 
Ashes & Ink? We gotta do better than that.
 

She called herself a 'book cover whore'...

...and this brought to mind all kinds of interesting possibilities. Turned out, none of those possibilities were going to come to fruition since our b.c.w. wasn't interested in making new friends. She was just letting us know, because of her T.A.D. cover-love, she was going to read and review our novel on her website. This made us very happy.
 
This image? We've never read this book but its cover seemed appropriate for today's discussion.
 
Since we've mentioned our struggle to find reviewers for our YA horror story, we thought we'd offer an update on our efforts. Thanks to a Facebook shout-out from the lovely Steve Haynes, 'Daughter' was given a wonderful review by the even-lovelier Cassandra Parkin. Her review led to another review and then another popped up and, then, yet another -- and, now, the b.c.w. has wandered past this website, to our complete and utter amazement (until now, we've never had a reviewer knock on OUR door) -- and a couple of people even stopped at Amazon to say nice things about the book.

So, for now, we're content. Instead of knocking on new doors, we're going to hope that T.A.D. builds an audience over time and that the audience follows us when we publish its sequel. Which is still a few hundred pages from complete.
 
So it's back to the word processor for us....