Steve McHugh's Blog: Steve McHugh - Writer, page 29

Interview with Krista Walsh

Next up in my list of incredibly talented people to have on my blog is Krista Walsh, author of The Serpent’s Kiss, a story in the Day of Demons anthology.

I think it’s an excellent book and Krista’s story is one of my favourites in it, but here’s a little more about the anthology.

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Day of Demons is a collection of powerful stories featuring the conflict of demons and humans over the course of a day.

Read how one woman’s inner-self awakens to unexpected and frightening consequences, or how a charismatic half-breed thief is forced to strike a deal with a pen-stealing imp. Read about a mother as she struggles to cope with a deadly, satanic bargain, and a sword-wielding anti-hero as he returns out of exile to face his demonic fate.

Nine stories, nine demons, nine authors. From fantasy, to horror, to contemporary fiction, this anthology will fright, delight and grip you with tales of daring-do, danger and of course — demons.

 Oh yeah, and it has an incredible cover. 

Here’s a short excerpt from Krista’s story.

The Serpent’s Kiss

Becca stared blankly at the shimmering letters of the house warming invitation that danced on her computer screen. The cursor hovered uncertainly over the “Delete” button.

“Still haven’t made up your mind if you’re going to Seth’s party?” Natalie’s short curly-haired head popped over Becca’s shoulder.

“I don’t know,” she answered with a grimace, and wiped her hands over eyes weighed down with fatigue. The whispers had been bad again lately, preventing what would otherwise have been a good night’s sleep. She made a note to ask her doctor for a better sleep aid at her next appointment. And maybe she’d see about bumping up the appointment.

“Oh come on,” her friend urged, giving Becca’s shoulder a shove. It jostled her awake again. “It’ll probably be lame and boring and full of work people you don’t want to spend your days with let alone your evenings…but I’ll be there.” She ended with a white smile and Becca had to laugh. It was hard not to smile at Nat’s indefatigable cheerfulness. “And who knows,” she added, “Rob might be there, too.”

A smile touched on Becca’s lips and her eyes dropped to the keyboard.

—-

And now, on with the interview:

1. Can you tell us a bit more about your book? Where did the idea come from? How long did it take to write?

I can’t take credit for the concept of the Day of Demons anthology – that belongs with Colin F Barnes – but it really is something worth checking out. It’s a collection of 9 dark fantasy stories:  epic, contemporary, horror, steampunk, religious – basically any sub-genre of the sub-genre one might think of. My own contribution, “The Serpent’s Kiss”, stemmed from an idea I had for the monthly flash fiction contest at Devin O’Branagan’s forum (forum.devinwrites.com). . Unfortunately (at the time, but later it seemed pretty lucky), I wasn’t able to fit my whole concept into 1000 words, or make it geared towards the right age group, so I jumped at the chance to elaborate on it.

2. Do you have a favourite book or author? What are they?

It may be a cliché answer for an English major, but I’d have to say Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice in particular. Not only because of the sweet storyline, but I adore Austen’s humour. It’s so sly and satirical that no matter how many times I read it, I get something out of it. I’ll also say L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle. It’s probably one of most underrated additions to classic Canadiana, so I like to talk it up whenever I can. Sweet, funny, and relatable to anyone with a family. I grew up with these books and authors and without a doubt they’ve influenced my writing style.

3. Do you have any other projects in the pipeline?

Perhaps a better question is how do I keep them all straight. The answer? I haven’t figured that out yet. I have a novel in the querying process, another in the rough edit stages, an online serial that will be ending in a month’s time, and another short story anthology I’m involved with that should be revealed sometime in the fall. That doesn’t include the other ideas scrambling for priority in my head. So a very busy time, but a lot of fun, too!

4. Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? If so, what do you do about it?

Absolutely. Always. Amazed I’m able to write anything at all. For me the problem is rarely that I have no ideas, but just that I’m not sure how to get them on paper. I have two ways to work around it. The first is to ignore myself and write anyway, but often the result is unpleasant and the writing isn’t fun. What I do more often is go back to the brainstorming phase. If my problem is the writing and not the ideas, then it’s really easy just to sit down and type, or sometimes voice record, plot points, character development, etc. It makes it really easy then to go back and use those ideas once the mood strikes me to narrate.

5. What’s your favourite genre to write in?

Hard to say just yet – I feel like I’m just getting started. So far though I seem to be leaning towards the fantasy side. World building isn’t really my strength, however, so contemporary or urban fantasy takes up most of my time. From there it’s kind of easy to remove the fantasy element, which is sort of what my online serial Greylands does. I honestly never saw myself writing dystopian fiction, but that idea took hold and I ran with it. So glad that I did, too; the quality of the work I’ve received has left me astounded!

6. What was the hardest part of writing your book?

Getting up the courage to write it, I think. I was writing with a  particular project in mind (one I knew was going forward and would be available for anyone to read), so it became a bit of a challenge to remember why I was writing in the first place. Which was, of course, to please myself. If you’re not writing for yourself, then where’s the enjoyment in it? As soon as you factor in readers/editors/critics and your brain starts going “Will they think this is stupid? Will they like this? Is the whole idea inane?” it’s hard to focus on the story. I had to stop a few times to get centred again on what my point was and what I was aiming for.

7. If you found a time machine, where would you go, and when?  (What time period)

Easy-peasy. Early 19th century. Of course I’d bring the money I have now, so I could be wealthy in the early 19th century, but I wouldn’t hesitate. People who know me best often tell me I was born in the wrong era.

8. Wile E. Coyote or Road Runner?

Wile E. Coyote!!! I hated that damned bird. I always wished that just ONCE the coyote would win. Still hope it. Hmm…maybe it’s a good thing I’m a writer.

9. What’s your favourite Monty Python film/sketch?

The Killer Joke! Or the Dead Parrot….or The Spanish Inquisition…or the Argument Clinic. Never mind. Next question.

10. What is your favourite band?

This is a tough question. I have everything from Renaissance Dance music to Eminem to AFI on my mp3 player, so I guess it just depends on my mood and what sort of project I’m working on. Greylands has a more Massive Attack feel, whereas my novel Playing with Fire is more E.S. Posthumus and Florence and the Machine.

 

And that’s the end. I’d like to thank, Krista for taking part and for picking Wile E. Coyote, who is clearly the better character.  I hope everyone fun reading it. And if you want to learn more about Krista, and why wouldn’t you? You can click on the links below.

Links:

http://www.anachronpress.com/books/dayofdemons/

www.theravensquill.com

Interview with Michelle Muto

 

As I mentioned last week, for the next few weeks my blog will be taken over by a variety of very talented individuals. First up is the fantastic Michelle Muto, author of Don’t Fear the Reaper and The Book of Lost Souls, both of which are excellent and judging from the reviews she’s received, I’m not the only one who thinks so. She also happens to be one of my excellent crit partners and I couldn’t be happier for her.

Here’s the blurb for Don’t Fear the Reaper:

Haunted by memories of her murdered twin, Keely Morrison is convinced suicide is her only ticket to eternal peace. But in death, she discovers the afterlife is nothing like she expected. Instead of peaceful oblivion or a joyful reunion with her sister, Keely is trapped in a netherworld on Earth with only a bounty-hunting reaper and a sarcastic demon to show her the ropes.

When the demon offers Keely her ultimate temptation–revenge on her sister’s killer–she must determine who she can trust. Because, as Keely soon learns, the reaper and demon have been keeping secrets and she fears the worst is true–that her every decision changes how, and with whom, she spends eternity.

And here’s a fantastic excerpt:

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for they are with me.

I repeated my version of the psalm as I watched the ribbon of blood drift from my wrist. I’d hoped it would be a distraction—something to stop me from wondering what my sister’s dying thoughts had been. Exhaling slowly, I let the emptiness consume me.

Jordan had kept my secrets and I had kept hers. In the end, it came down to just one secret between us that took her life. Now, it would take mine. I should have said something, but nothing I said or did now could bring her back or make anyone understand what she meant to me.

Are you here, Jordan? Are you with me? Tell me about heaven…

I told myself Jordan was gone, never coming back, but her memories continued to haunt me. I had no idea if there even was an afterlife. If God existed, I was convinced he had given up on me. Not once did I sense he’d heard a single one of my prayers. I wasn’t asking for the world—I only wanted to know if my sister was safe and at peace. What was so hard about that?

She should still be here. It wasn’t fair.

I’d been the difficult one—much more than Jordan. For a while, I’d even gotten into drugs. Mom and Dad had worried I’d get Jordan into drugs, too. But I wouldn’t. Not ever. Besides, that part of my life had been over long before Jordan’s death. A small gargoyle tattoo on my left shoulder was all that remained of my previous lifestyle.

Mom and Dad started treating me differently after Jordan’s funeral two months ago. She and I were twins, so I understood how hard it was for them to look at me and not see her. Sometimes, they wouldn’t look at me at all. Mom went to the psychiatrist, but no one asked if I needed to talk to someone about what happened. No one asked if I needed sleeping pills or antidepressants. Yeah, sure. Don’t give the former addict pills of any sort.

Not one person saw the all-consuming suffering that gnawed at my soul. Why couldn’t anyone see? Jordan had been more than my sister—she’d been my Samson, my strength. I would have done anything for her, and yet, I’d failed her. I wasn’t the one who’d killed her, but I might as well have been. How could I ever live with that? My heart had a stillness to it since her death.

I shall fear no evil.

I couldn’t very well recite the first part of Psalm 23 because it said I shall not want, and I did want. I wanted to go back in time. I wanted my sister back. Clearly, goodness and mercy were never going to be part of my life ever again. In my mind, I saw myself walking through the iron gates of hell with demons cackling gleefully all around.

I didn’t want to die. Not really. I was just tired and didn’t know of another way to stop the pain. Doctors removed a bad appendix. Dentists pulled rotten teeth. What was I supposed to do when my very essence hurt, when the cancer I’d come to call depression made every decent memory agonizingly unbearable?

—-

I told you it was good, and it only gets better from there.

And now onto the Interview:

1. Do you have any other projects in the pipeline?

I do! I’m finishing up another young adult novel intended for older teens. It’s set in Savannah, Georgia, in a very haunted house.

2. What has been the best compliment you’ve received as an author?

I’ve had readers and even some agents tell me that the first couple of chapters of DON’T FEAR THE REAPER are some of the best they’ve read.

3. What’s your favourite genre to write in?

Paranormal.

4. Do you see writing as a career?

I’d love for it to be my career. We’ll see. It needs to pay a few more bills first before I can say that, though.

5. What was the hardest part of writing your book?

The length of time it take to actually finish a good, solid draft.

6. Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?

Thank you. Sincerely. Because every author with a story to tell writes with you in mind.

7. When did you first consider yourself a writer?

For me, it was seeing the first payment in the bank.

  8. If you could work with any author who would it be?

Stephen King.

9. What TV shows do you enjoy?

Supernatural, Vampire Diaries, Castle, The Mentalist, Person of Interest

10. Wile E. Coyote or Road Runner?

Wile E. Coyote. He’s funnier, and I can totally relate to his luck.

11. What’s your favourite Monty Python film/sketch?

I LOVE the argument sketch!

Thanks very much for taking part, Michelle. And for anyone who wants to learn more about Michelle or her books there’s some links just below that I recommend you click on.

LINKS:

Blog

Twitter

FaceBook

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Smashwords

B&N

iTunes

Super Heroes and Intermissions

I turned 33 years old yesterday. It’s weird to think that in the last year, I’ve gone from wondering if anyone ever was going to pick up Crimes Against Magic, to being a published author with a some-what successful first book published. It’s funny how fast things happen once the ball starts rolling.

I didn’t do much yesterday, it was far too hot to be outside for any length of time. So, I went to watch The Dark Knight Rises at the cinema. I don’t get to go very often, but I was never going to miss watching the last movie in the Batman trilogy. So how was it? Ummm, I’m undecided. It was a very good film. Let’s get out of the way first. I really enjoyed it. Everyone was excellent in it, especially the new members of the cast. Catwoman is a wonderful character and Anne Hathaway goes some way to show everyone else what comic book readers have known for years. Catwoman kicks ass.

The fact that she’s incredibly sexy is neither here nor there, obviously.

Bane was an interesting and pretty impressive villain and I loved the little nods to the comics as the movie continued.

So, why the ‘ummm’?

Well, first of all, it’s the weakest of the three movies. Easily the weakest. I don’t mean Godfather 3 territory, but more like Back to the Future 2. But while it may be the weakest movie of the trilogy, it’s still better than most films that get put out there. My main problem contains a small spoiler.

…

Mild Spoiler -
Batman looks like an idiot by the end of the movie. Over and over again things happen that as the ‘World’s Greatest Detective’, he should have seen them coming a mile off. In fact one of the ‘twists’ is so obvious that they may as well have just done it a few seconds into the movie, just to save time.
Also, while I’m doing Spoilers. Cillian Murphy’s cameo was fantastic.
Spoiler End

…

So it was good, but not Avengers good. Nothing I’ve seen this year has been that good. Over all it was a good end to the Nolan trilogy, but not necessary the best end it could have been.

It also lacked any Hulk smashing. An oversight on WB’s part, I feel.

…..

This is going to be my last post for a few weeks. What with the new baby imminent in a few days I felt it best not to write any more blogs until I’m actually able of coherent thought, which admittedly could be a while. But all is not lost. Because I’ve lined up some fantastic writers with interviews and guest blogs to take my place starting next week.

I’d like to leave you with one final thought. A picture of my eldest daughter, Keira on her dress up for school day. My daughter doesn’t do pink or girlie.

….

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To save time, you should probably just start fearing her now.

Sex and Tattoos

A few months ago I wrote a post about sex scenes for my good friend, the fantastic author Angela Addams.

As I’ve been very busy getting tattooed today, I haven’t had time to write a whole new blog, so I thought I’d re-post my thoughts on writing sex scenes.

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Although a massive generalisation, it’s very quickly become apparent to me that women write better sex scenes then men. I can think of, at a push, three male writers who write excellent sex scenes in their books. I can think of at least a dozen women, right off the top of my head who do the same.

Now, of course there are women who can’t write sex scenes either, but even so, the odds are firmly in the female court.

So, it was with a little trepidation that it became apparent that my first book, Crimes Against Magic, was going to have sex in it. This was a problem for one reason. My sex scenes were dreadful. They read a little bit like an educational sex talk given by a teacher for whom the word ‘sex’ should never leave their mouth. They were dry, dull and quite frankly about as sexy as wet cardboard.

So, I tried spicing them up a bit and found a new problem. They now sounded like a porn film. All I needed to do was add a handlebar moustache and have the main character come to check on the woman’s boiler, fridge, cooker, pluming and I’d have had a career in writing truly terrible sex scenes. It’s something to think about if this whole ‘published author’ thing doesn’t work out.

So I needed to re-work it again. And this time I found some good advice. Apparently, I’m pretty good at writing action scenes. So, why not try writing a sex scene in the same way? Everyone writes action scenes in their own way, but I tend to map out where everyone is and what they’re doing, or going to be doing.

Applying it to a sex scene was actually straight forward. Instead of several people all in the same place I only had to deal with two (although, your mileage may vary). So, I wrote it as if it were an action scene, or a fight. Once I had the backbone for it, I found it much easier to go through it and make it ‘sexier’, but having that base was necessary for me.

Since that first time, I’ve found it much easier to switch into ‘sex scene mode’ for writing and can usually manage it without the need for the clinical part first. I’m never going to write the greatest sex scenes of all time, but I hope I’m no longer in the same bracket as some of the truly terrible ones.

*****

I hope you enjoyed it. And to finish this week off, here’s a pic of my new tattoo.


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It is both incredibly awesome and incredibly sore.

Painful Art

When I was 21 years old I was dating a complete nutcase. We’ve all had one relationship with someone who, as it turned out, was an utter dick, and that was mine. And if you haven’t had one of those… well that could be because you’re that person for everyone else.

To celebrate the fact that I not only broke up with her crazy ass, but I also left my soul-sucking job, I decided to get my first tattoo.

This tattoo in fact

I wanted to get something special and something that was meaningful to me, so i picked something I loved (comics) and a character from it I enjoyed reading about (Daredevil). It wasn’t a terribly painful experience, although it wasn’t without it’s moments, but it was nice enough that I didn’t once think about stopping there.

You see there’s something no one really told me before I got the Daredevil tattoo. They’re really addictive. Not for the most part I’ve restrained myself from having too many done and only get one when I find something worthwhile having done. So over the years I got a tattoo of my daughter, Keira’s name wrapped around my arm in Japanese. A Samurai when Keira was born.

It looks a little like this, but not like this. Which I’m aware is a dreadful way of describing something.

And two anime wolves next to one another when my second daughter was born.

Imagine two of them, sleeping together with small amounts of colour on their head and without the leg irons.

So, when my wife and I discovered she was pregnant, I knew I was going to get another tattoo. It was just a question of what. After getting the wolves, I knew it had to be something just about the new baby. But it wasn’t until we settled on the name Harley that I knew with a hundred percent certainty what I wanted.

Ignore all the little bits around the outside.

So, next thursday I’m off to get a new tattoo on my forearm and I can’t wait.

Now there are a few things that people should know before they get a tattoo.

1. Yes, of course it bloody well hurts. How much depends on where you get it done and what you get done, along with who is doing the work.

2. If you get something done, try and make it personal to you. Just because everyone else has tribal tattoos on their arms, doesn’t mean you have to.

3. Don’t go with a tattooist just because it’s cheap. Cheap and tattoos are not good friends. Research the tattooist and find out how his/her work looks.

4. Eat before you go. Seriously this is incredibly important unless you like the idea of passing out. At least drink something sugary.

5. Research. Not only the pic you want, but also where you want it and how big. If you go to a tattoo parlour with a copy of a picture you’ve already found, it’ll make everything much easier.

So if you’re thinking of getting a tattoo done, just try to be original and above all enjoy the experience, it really isn’t all that scary.

And now for a Born of Hatred update:

It’s still almost done. Seriously, I’ve got about 2 chapters to write.

As for Crimes Against Magic. Well, this week has been insane. In a good way. I sold 104 copies on Monday and averaged about 70ish books for the other days (so far only 57 today, but you can’t knock 57). I also now have 23, 5 star reviews, which is incredible.

At the moment this is where it sits.

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,562 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

#8 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy >  Magic & Wizards
#30 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy >  Contemporary
#31 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Fantasy >  Contemporary

Once again it’s been a superb week and I wouldn’t change it for anything. I’ll do a post about full sales when I’m back after my Aug break once Harley is born. So, until next week, have a great weekend.

A Brief Interlude

Normally when I write a post, I have a set aim in mind and write the blog about that idea. This week I have no idea, so I thought I’d just wing it and talk about stuff that has interested me recently, along with some awards I’ve received and how my writing is going.

…

Firstly videogames. I’m a big fan of videogames and anime, and when someone merges those things together I get all giddy.

So when someone takes the developer Level-5 (Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Jeanne d’Arc) and put them together with Studio Ghibli (Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, The Secret World of Arrietty), well there’s a good possibility that I may be purchasing whatever it is they’re doing.

As it turns out, what they’re doing is called Ni no Kuni for the PS3 and it looks like this:

And this week they announced what the Special Edition of this game was going to be:

I’m not a big fan of special editions, they’re usually a bit crap. But the above one has a 300 page hardcover of Studio Ghibli art. There is only one way in which to describe how I feel about that.

…

Yep, that about says it all.

I have no doubt that this game is going to be sensational and next January can’t come soon enough.

…

To move on from my geeky pass times, Crimes Against Magic won the Indie Book of the Day Award on Monday, and they gave me a nice certificate and a badge. You can find the website here, and I recommend going and taking a look, they have a lot of great books getting some much needed promotion.

And here’s my winners badge.

If it were an actual badge, I’m pretty certain it would be polished to within an inch of its life by now.

…

Speaking of Crimes Against Magic, it’s now sitting at number 18 in the top 100 Fantasy Magic charts on Amazon, which is just incredible. I also now have 18, 5 star reviews and 5, 4 star reviews across both Amazon.com and .co.uk. It’s achieved more than I’d ever dreamed it would. So thank you to everyone who purchased a copy.

Now onto the sequel, Born of Hatred. It’s moving along nicely. The draft is nearly done and then it’ll fly off to my crit partners, D.B. Reynolds and Michelle Muto, who will go through it with a big red pen. I’m hoping for an October launch, but I’ll post more details about it closer to the time.

And finally for this week, the very talented K.L. Schwengel gave me a Beautiful Blogger award. Which, after you clicked on the link to go see Kathi’s fantastic blog, you can see below.

I like awards. I wish for more.

After thanking Kathi for the superb award, it’s my turn to nominate 7 blogs which I love to read. So here they are.

D.B. Reynolds       Michelle Muto      

Angela Addams      T.James      Tom Harris

Susan Mann     Keri Lake

All 7 of them deserve your time and attention.

And that’s it for the week. I’m off to do some more writing and get that draft finished before I go to watch Spider-man tomorrow. In the meantime, have a great weekend and I’ll see you all again next week.

Today I am a Professional Author (and a piece of advice)

On April 29th, I wrote a piece titled ‘Today I am a Published Author‘, it was to signify the day that my first ever book was published.

That was two months ago, and since that day, it’s been a roller-coster ride of highs and lows. If there’s one thing I can say about being an Indie author, it’s never dull. It’s depressing,  heart-breaking and incredible, but never dull.

So, two months after that book went live, I got my first ever payment. My first one. Okay, it was for £22 (about $35), but I don’t care, it was for 1 day’s worth of book sales in the UK and I got paid. So today I move from being an author, to being a professional author. I now get paid for something I love doing (I promise not to go around calling myself a professional author, that’s just being a bit of a tit).

I think I’ll have to buy my first boat on an instalment plan.

That was not the only thing that happened this week that I felt a need to share with you all. If you’re a UK writer and you’re an Indie, you have to get a Tax number from the IRS otherwise Amazon send the lovely fellows over there 30% of your earnings. This is something I learnt a few days ago and immediately set about trying to get hold of the IRS.

My only real problem (apart from being on hold for an hour) was the awful music. You make enough money, get a bit of something interesting on there.

As it turns out it was quite easy. There’s a number to call on the Amazon FAQ’s about tax. You call it, ask for an EIN (if your a company) and there you go. Unfortunately it takes about an hour to get through to them, and about 5 minutes to complete the call. And the number is in the US. Which means your phone bill is going to take a kicking. So, here’s my advice. Get Skype. It cost me about 85p to use it to call them. I can’t believe how much easier it was.

So, yes, this week was a bit of a learning experience. But the fact that I can now state that I get paid to write, is one of those things I’d always dreamt of. Yeah, I’m not making Stephen King money. But right now, right here, all that matters is that people have bought my book and enjoyed it enough to keep it. I won’t go into sales figures (I want a few months of data before I do), but this is where Crimes Against Magic is currently sitting (as of 20:30 on 27/June/12).

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,981 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

#29 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy >  Magic & Wizards
#85 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Fantasy >  Contemporary
#91 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy >  Contemporary

And you know what, that looks damn good to me. And, touch wood, long may it continue.

This much wood.

Wednesday Wippet #4

Welcome back to the 4th Wednesday Wippet, where I post a snippet of my WiP, Born of Hatred, the sequel to Crimes Against Magic. As per usual they may be some spelling or grammar issues.

 

 

This week as it’s the 27th and as much as I’d like to post something from chapter 27, it’s basically one massive spoiler, so that’s not really possible. Instead, you get something from chapter 7.

When you’re done reading this head over to read Wippets by Krista Walsh , Sarah L Fox and  Kathi L Schwengel.

——-

The clearing ended fifty feet in front of where we stood, replaced with a sheer drop that went down for a few hundred feet into the New Forest below. From our vantage point, we could see for miles and all of it green and peaceful. Very few people knew of the spot, so thankfully there was no fence protecting idiots from falling down the slope, spoiling what was a spectacular view.

“It’s so quiet,” she said as she walked toward the edge, stopping a few feet back and peering down the slope. “Bloody hell.”

“Yeah, I don’t advise jumping down there,” I said as I joined her. “You could probably survive as it’s not a sheer drop, but you’d know about it once you hit the bottom.”

“How do you know about this place?”

“I used to come here, a long time ago. When the only way to get up here was to climb that slope, or walk the ten miles to get around it.”

“You climbed that?”

I nodded. “A few times, it was good exercise.” I made my way back to the truck. “I picked here as we’re unlikely to be disturbed, you can ask whatever you want. I won’t dodge anything, I promise.  No subject off limits. You got into a fight today, how are you feeling about it?”

Sara continued to stare down into the forest below, her back facing me. She rubbed her neck and turned. “I wanted to hurt him,” she said. “He threatened to… well, you know. When I hit him, I just lost it.”

“You handled yourself well. I’m proud of you for doing that, you should be too. Next time, maintain composure, loosing your temper will get you in trouble one day. Trust me on this.”

“You were so calm. You could have killed them all, couldn’t you?”

I nodded. “A day not too long ago, I would have too. But, that’s not me anymore, I try not to kill those too stupid to know better.”

“Why doesn’t that scare me?”

“Because I’m awesome,” I said with a laugh, which Sara quickly joined.

_____

And the Winner is?

As you may know, last week I had a competition to win a signed paperback copy of Crimes Against Magic.

Before we get to the winner, I’d just like to thank everyone who took part. There were a lot of entries, so either people really wanted a copy of my book or they just really wanted something for free. Either way thank you for taking the time to follow, re-tweet and take an interest.

The names of everyone who took part were put into a bag for the independent judge to pick the lucky winner.

My eldest daughter, Keira, looking as scruffy as only a 7 year old can.

And the winner is: Tammy Stevens

Tammy you now have 7 days to send me your address and any message you’d like me to sign. I hope you enjoy your prize.

For everyone who didn’t win, I’m sure my daughter can be bribed for future competitions. She likes Super Heroes (Batman and Spider-man especially), Studio Ghibli films and chocolate. Any of those things pretty much guaranteed you a win.

While I have your attention, I can recommend you to go read my most recent interview with Dianne Waye, here.

Wednesday Wippet #3

Welcome back to the 3rd Wednesday Wippet, where I post a snippet of my WiP, Born of Hatred, the sequel to Crimes Against Magic.

 

This week as it’s the 20th, you get something from chapter 20, which happens to be a flashback chapter.

 

When you’re done reading this head over to read Wippets by Krista Walsh , Sarah L Fox and  Kathi L Schwengel, all of them are excellent, so you’ll enjoy it.

And now the here’s part of chapter 20. As before, these wippets are not from a finished draft, so may contain spelling/or grammar issues (although I’ve tried to remove any).

——————

“What needs to be done,” I said absentmindedly. “Goddamn it. Get out of the tub.”

“What?” she asked, but I was in no mood to ask again. I grabbed her arm and removed her from the tub with one pull, dropping her onto the floor with a splat as her wet flesh hit the wooden floorboards.

“Get your ass in that chair,” I snapped.

She dragged herself into the wooden rocking chair, her arm was red where I’d grabbed it. As far as I was concerned, she was lucky to still have both arms.

I removed the ropes from the window, usually used to tie the curtains back, and tied Stephanie’s arms behind the chair, making sure that she couldn’t get up. I took second rope and attached one end to the first, using the other end to tie it to the handles on the chest of drawers. If she started yanking at the rope, she’d get out, but it would take a while.

“You want me still so you can kill me,” she said and spat at me, missing by a few feet.

I stood in front of her and rolled up the sleeves on my shirt, letting her watch the orange glyphs that lit up on my arms. “If I wanted to kill you.” A small sphere of flame appeared in the palm of my hand, Stephanie’s eyes opened as wide as possible. “You’d already be dead.”

The flame vanished and I put on my coat. “You’re going to give your friends in this town a message. They have forty-eight hours to leave. To run as far away as they can. Because in two days I’m going to come back, burn this entire fucking town to the ground and piss on the ashes.”