Skye Callahan's Blog, page 7

Teaser Tuesday: I could think of better ways to put you to use.

I remained distracted, looking around the room. A few of Charlie’s drawings hung taped to the fridge, but there weren’t any other pictures or decorations. I was used to living bare—since Ollie and I didn’t decorate our rental house either—but this house had a strange coldness to it. “You need any help putting everything away?”

“I could think of better ways to put you to use.”

“Eric,” I screeched, turning on my heel. I never thought he’d do anything in front of Charlie, but that didn’t make it any less awkward. Charlie was a student. A kid. My work and personal life had never collided, and I didn’t understand how to approach the situation.

Putting away a box of cereal in one of the cabinets, he shook his head. “Why do you assume everything I say is dirty?”

“Tell me it isn’t.”

I expected an attempt to deny it—a deflection at the very least. Instead I got a lop-sided and devilish grin.

Charlie paused as he entered the room again, carrying a small, clear tote full of art supplies. Then he lifted his tote toward me.

“You trying to steal my girl?” Eric asked with a slight smile, but his eyes were a little less sold on it.

I scowled over my shoulder at him. “You said you don’t need my help and coloring sounds fun.”

 

He scoffed and backed into the counter, rubbing the shadow of stubble along his jawline. “That’s not exactly what I said.” 

99 cents

Trust FallClub Obsidian 2

eBook

Coming soon.

Posting Schedule

Tuesday Update: FINALLY! 6/23

Hey y’all!

So, I’ve been writing and working like crazy the last few weeks alongside dealing with the anxiety that is pretty consuming these days, thanks to everything going on in our country. I have some insane deadlines coming up, so I will try to continue with bi-weekly updates again, but I will likely be staggering other content so there will only be one or two posts going up per week. It’s difficult for me to switch gears when I’m focused on a big editing or writing assignment to stop working on that long enough to put blog posts together. 

This week, I’m bringing you a few reflections on the current situations nationwide and at home, and some fan-fucking-tastic writing news. 

Current Events

The last several days have been difficult. It’s a new kind of chaos in our country, that isn’t truly new at all. On top of the virus, we’re dealing with a problem that has been festering for decades upon decades. It hasn’t just been an elephant in the room, more like a plague-infested creature that has finally stripped away the curtain and allowed some to finally see it for what it is. Systematic racism is as big a threat to the overall health of our country as anything. We’ve gone from quarantine to mass protests. Our country is hurting, but we’ve silenced this problem far too long.

As a kid, the most exposure I got to different cultures was through television. I didn’t have a black teacher until graduate school. I can only remember one black student from my primary or secondary schools. I was made to feel wrong for watching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, but as a kid, I still didn’t believe skin color could make us so different. It certainly couldn’t legitimize the hate I saw. Growing up in a conservative, racist, area, with a conservative and sometimes racist family, I clashed with a lot of people. I honestly don’t know how I ended up having such different views from those around me. Part of me attributes my world view to M*A*S*H and Hawkeye’s defense of other races and lifestyles. Was the show perfect? Probably not (I mean, just off the top of my head, Hawkeye was a womanizer and there was plenty of adultery to be had, but Alan Alda has been a staunch supporter of feminism for many years) but watching someone I looked up to stand up to bigotry and show we all bleed the same shaped many of my views.

While we do all bleed the same, there are those among us whose experience has been much different. Racism should have no part in our world. It makes no sense to me. Race makes us different, it makes us unique, it shows the resiliency of our species to adapt and thrive in different circumstances. These differences should be celebrated, not feared or condemned. I can not speak to the black experience, it’s not something I can even begin to fully understand, but I empathize, I hurt with them, I cry when I see the news–good and bad. I want to show my respect and support by speaking out. I want to encourage people to listen. We all need to work to overcome this blight on our society, but many of us really need to take a step back, step out of the spotlight, step away from the microphone, and follow the lead of those who have been begging to have their voices heard for decades.

And, you know, it isn’t as if we can deal with one problem at a time this year. We also have a certain author–in the middle of Pride Month–once again being transphobic. Can we just stop?

To my black friends, I see you. To my LGBTQIA+ community, I see you, too. You’re all beautiful and valid, and I appreciate that your experiences are different from mine. I appreciate the diversity you bring to our world. We have a lot to learn from you. I’m sorry that our society hasn’t listened and that you’ve had to live with a fear we can never imagine. Black lives matter. Trans men are men. Trans women are women. However you identify, whoever you love, you have my respect.

Personal reflections

My husband and I have been together fifteen years. That in itself is crazy shit. But the last several months have probably been the hardest he has ever experienced. Since losing his Mom at the end of last year, we’ve basically cut off all communications with his father (because he’s a pathological liar and I legitimately believe he’s a sociopath) after a huge argument over the funeral, headstone, and his spending his the insurance money on a new motorcycle, guns, and poker supplies rather than paying for any of the burial costs. As if all that wasn’t an absolute shit-show Sir’s grandmother has stage 4 Alzheimer’s disease. Some days she doesn’t even remember that her daughter passed away, and last time I saw her, she didn’t recognize me. She fell several weeks ago and fractured multiple bones, so Sir has been staying with her during the day when the rest of the family is at work. We also recently found out that she might have a failing heart valve, and after fracturing her foot last week, likely needs to go into a rehab facility. 2020 is certainly becoming a year for the history books in every way imaginable.  

Oh, and I broke my computer…. again. AGAIN! The second time this friggin year. The first time I fractured my screen and had to replace it. The second time a cat caused it to fall and ruptured the charging port, which I didn’t realize until the battery warning light came on and I went to plug it in. So, it’s dead, but Sir decided to surprise me with a new one that’s faster and better, since we were actually getting to the point that multiple things on the other one were having trouble that weren’t just associated with the beating it took this year. The mouse didn’t work, the motherboard had problems a couple of years ago, the memory had to be replaced… and I was always having to do a full reset a couple of times a year to keep it going. The new one is a huge improvement over that hassle, but there are still some files that I neglected to save in the cloud and can’t access from the old computer right now. 

Writing news

I just finished a long, tedious haul of editing after rewriting the third act of Trust Fall for the third time (at least). I actually kept a record of all the scenes I ended up deleting and there are over 25k words in there. The book is FINALLY done! It’s edited, formatted, and uploaded and will be available when you’re reading this. 

At the same time, I’ve been working on the She-Devil rewrite and I’m 35k words deep in that project with an ending that finally makes sense and brings everything together to launch the next installment, Irreverent (A Salvation Series Crossover). 

Am I the only one sensing a trend that I have trouble with endings lately? Yeah? Great…

While I’m finishing up She-Devil, I’ll also be doing my zero draft of Irreverent and then a zero draft of a Cocky Heroes book. So… Summer is going to be insane! But, at least I don’t have anything else to do since I can’t leave my house. 

Last month I wrote over 60k words, and this month I’ve already passed 56k and if I finish this She-Devil rewrite by the end of the month….I’ll be around 100k for the month and 50k this week alone. Let’s see what my mental health looks like at the end of the week, but so far it’s going smoothly and I hit 16k in 12 hours recently. Part of the large increase in my output is also due to the handy dandy new keyboard I got that hardly aggravates my carpal tunnel syndrome at all. It’s friggin amazing. I’m also going to be trying out some new plotting methods and deviating from my pantsing ways somewhat to see if it’ll get me to the finish line faster.

It’s hard to look on the bright side this year and make big plans because it seems like there’s always something to get in the way or a crazy new development that derails everything, but let’s hope for the best. 

Friday Fives: Video Games

I thought it would be fun, now that I have my blog up and running, to share some of my favorite things. Every week, I’ll be back with a new top 5 list with everything from books to snacks. 

I rarely pick up a game controller anymore, but when I do (or maybe because when I do) I tend to get so immersed I don’t put it down for days. I also tend to play a lot of older games and don’t really keep up to date on systems. I’ve had a PS3 since I was an undergrad and it’s not going anywhere in the near future. I love that you can go to the online store and get a lot of the older games on the new system, and I also have a PlayStation Vita that has been great for downloading and playing older games. 

Metal Gear

Metal Gear for PSOne was my favorite game. At the time, it had some of the most advanced graphics and gameplay I had ever experienced and it was unique in its gaming style. There was one battle in particular where the tactic to beat the boss was to use controller 2 instead of controller 1 so the psychic boss couldn’t predict your moves. MG challenged players to think outside of the box. I also loved that the game was more about tactics than the usual shoot-em-up soldier games. MG is about not being seen, making it through the game with as few kills as possible, and finding creative ways to get around obstacles. I’ve played all of the games up to Metal Gear 4 and beaten them all multiple times. The best games of the series are probably 1, 3, and 4. After 4, the producers decided to replace the long-time voice actor of snake, without really telling him, and being that David Hayter made the whole snake experience for me, I felt betrayed by the move and haven’t picked up a new game since, but I still play all of the old games from time to time. 

Resident Evil

This was the first game I ever played on a PlayStation. Before Resident Evil, my gaming experience had been the Atari with PacMan, Asteroids, and I even had a copy of the illustrious ET game that sucked so bad the company basically dumped most of the games. And then, my mom got a PSOne and it was mind-blowing. The following Christmas I got my own PSOne and the Director’s Cut of Resident Evil (I didn’t live with my mom, so before that playing was limited to when I went to visit for a while). I think it took me a year to finally beat the game, because I kept ending up in situations where I couldn’t progress because I’d already used all of my weapons or I’d spend weeks trying to figure out one of the puzzles. The game came out in ’96 so I was in sixth grade at the time, and it went a little over my head sometimes. I also loved this game for the challenge of the puzzles, and the suspenseful atmosphere, and I miss that old style of RE games. I’ve tried to get into the newer games but the focus on shooting your way through the new games, just isn’t the same. 

Mass Effect

Sir got me interested in Mass Effect when he got the trilogy last year. I’ve watched him play the second game for a while now. He enjoys replaying to take different tactics and make different choices, but I never really connected with it. While I was home alone one day, I decided to try out ME1 and found that it’s actually pretty fun and less focused on shooting than I thought. There are a lot of choices you can make in the dialogues that lead to some pretty interesting conversations and impact the final outcome of the game–and all subsequent games. 

Crash Bandicoot

Crash was my jam! My sister and I used to play it for hours on end, and it’s a goo d break from monotony every now and then. Crash is just good entertainment, without a lot of seriousness. I have some of the retro games on PS4 and cue one up every now and then when I’m feeling like having a mental break. However, I also tend to underestimate and forget how frustrating the game can get sometimes. 

Evil Dead

It’s EVIL DEAD! I always feel like anything associated with Bruce Campbell goes without saying for me. He is the King after all. The Evil Dead games were fun. I particularly remember playing the first one for PSOne, I borrowed it form my mom after she tried numerous times to beat it and couldn’t. It’s snarky as hell, of course, but keeping enough gasoline for that damn chainsaw was a challenge. I think I had to restart the game three or four times in order to beat it because I kept running out of gasoline and ammo, making it impossible to continue. 

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Write it Wednesday: JuNoWriMo begins soon!

If you’re ready to embark on a writing challenge with a group of supportive authors and can’t wait for CampNaNo, JuNoWriMo is here for you!

I participated in JuNoWriMo for a few years when it first started. Now it’s going into its 9th year, and I’m returning to not only write 50,000 words, but I’ll also be leading sprints on Twitter a few days a week from the JuNoWriMo account! We’re going to have a lot of fun next month, and most importantly, we’re going to get some serious work done. 

Writing events like NaNoWriMo and JuNoWriMo help exercise that creative muscle by setting a goal and sitting down every day to make it happen. As I’ve written before, sometimes the hardest part is getting started, but getting that flow going is the important part. 

If you’d love to join us, the rules are quite simple. 

Rule 1: Write 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s an average of 1667/day.

Rule 2: It has to be your own original work. That’s it. That means you can continue a novel, or write creative non-fiction, we’re all about helping writers write. Period.

Optional: participate in our Facebook group and our Twitter word sprints! See how your story flows when you don’t give your inner editor time to hijack you. 

And don’t worry, you can be a rebel too. If you’re editing or working on your book in any other way, you’re still welcome to join us for some structured book time. 

Be sure to register on JuNoWriMo.com to join us! Once you’ve signed up, you’ll get an invite to the Facebook group where we can all chat about our writing quest.   

 

And if you want to have a little more fun during the month, I invite you to write with me on 4thewords.com.

4thewords is a game-based writing site where you can defeat monsters, take on epic quests and level up your character while telling your story!

If you sign up and use my referral code: ZZVAL85287, I’ll send you an in-game care package to make your writing quest a little easier.

“And what is it you think I need?”

“And what is it you think I need?” he asks casually, handing the dog a slice of cheese that makes my mouth water again. 

“Leverage… information…” 

“To get what?” he asks.

“How the hell am I supposed to know?” Yelling aggravates that damn spot between my shoulder blades again. We haven’t hit excruciating yet, but it’s getting there. 

Galeno puts the sandwich down, making a sound to Rafe so he immediately sits and waits. Then, he picks up the bag next to his feet, pulling out a bottle of water and something wrapped up in a napkin. He unfolds it in his hand and offers me the two white pills again, sitting the water bottle next to my hip. “I assure you, I have no need for whatever you learned on your exploits for Jorge.” 

The twinge in my back causes me to wince. Jorge? Who doesn’t fucking know who I am?

“And if I needed leverage, I could find less exhausting ways to get it.” 

SerafinaBlaire's World

eBook

Amazon Books-a-Million

Club Obsidian

Books: Obsidian Series

First Appearance: Trust Fall

Location: Near Morrow Falls, Ohio (fictionalized town)

Owner: Adrienne Lockley

Mission Statement: The Mission of Club Obsidian is to be a social organization and education resource for all who practice bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism, masochism, and fetish lifestyles in the Morrow Falls area. The Club encourages fellowship, mentoring, and safe practices among members. Participation in all activities is strictly voluntary and should be agreed upon by all parties involved.

The club is located in a former warehouse. The massive brick structure was redesigned by Adrienne and her husband’s construction company handled all of the major remodeling. Upon entering the building members and visitors will be greeted in the security room. All members must provide the security guards with their membership ID for verification, prior to admittance. Non-members may pick up a application packet for membership consideration. Non-member visitors are not allowed except for specified educational events open to the public.

The main area includes an open lower tier, bar, six partitioned play areas, and provides access to the dressing rooms, Adrienne’s loft office, and a stairway to the private play rooms above. Just to the right of the entryway, the bar provides snacks and beverages to members, all alcoholic beverages are limited to two per member, and a membership ID must be scanned with each order. Water is also available freely to all members. There is plenty of seating around the bar area for socializing during events.

To the left of the main entrance, members will find the changing rooms with assigned lockers to store all personal belongings. Members are issued a key with their Membership card.

The larger public equipment is available in the lower tier, which is framed by black seating along the back corner. Some of the equipment found here includes bondage benches and frames, bondage couches, spanking horses, and a Saint Andres’s Cross,

The partitioned rooms along the left wall and back of the building each include specialty equipment for medical play, whipping, sex swings, stockades, cages, and more! These rooms are designed for those who want a little more privacy or fewer distractions during a scene while leaving room for a few voyeurs.

Members can utilize the eight private rooms upstairs by visiting the bartender and having access enabled on their membership ID. Two of these rooms include a bedroom setup, while others allow members to utilize many of the specialty furniture available downstairs in a private setting.

The entire club is monitored by DMs at all times while play is in session. DMs can be identified by the red badges they wear while on duty. Any problems, concerns, or conflicts can be handled by the DMs, and they will always step in if someone’s safety is at risk.

Membership at Club Obsidian is strictly confidential. Anyone found to be violating another member in any way, including their personal privacy, will be barred from club activities. The security guards who work at the front door are independent from the club, but are bound by the same confidentiality agreement as members.

99 cents

EntrustClub Obsidian 1

eBook

Coming soon.

Friday Fives: Girl Crushes

I thought it would be fun, now that I have my blog up and running, to share some of my favorite things. Every week, I’ll be back with a new top 5 list with everything from books to snacks. 

This week, I’m flipping the switch from last week’s Friday Fives and presenting my top 5 girl-crushes! 

Ksenia Solo

Favorite Role: Kenzi, Lost Girl

Gal Gadot

Favorite Role: Wonder Woman

Lesley-Ann Brandt

Favorite role: Maze, Lucifer

Diana Prince

Favorite role: Darcy the Mail Girl, The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs

Karen Gillan

Favorite role: Amy Pond, Doctor Who

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Preparing Your Book for Formatting

Whether you’re formatting yourself, uploading through Draft2Digital and using their autoformatting, or hiring a professional formatter, there are a few things you can do to make formatting a quick and easy process.

Formatting 101

Just like a website, ebook formatting is based in HTML. Chapter headings, line breaks, page breaks, and font styles are all encoded into the file to ensure that it can be manipulated to fit any screen without losing the core features. On the bright side, Word actually incorporates much of this HTML naturally, if you utilize it correctly. Plus, the same steps you follow while setting up this preliminary foundation for your ebook will come in handy when formatting for paperback as well, because the structure is already present.

There is also a limit to the amount of formatting that will be preserved when you convert your text to an ebook. Things like headings, italics, bold, and margin settings will be preserved, but in a limited fashion.  Most fonts will be stripped away and replaced with the basic font used on the ereader so that the reader can select a font and size they prefer.

Chapter Headings

For the quickest and easiest formatting experience, it is best to utilize the header styles available in word. 

You can edit each of the styles to look however you’d like while you’re working, but most fonts will not be integrated when you upload your book to ereaders, so why the importance of using these styles rather than formatting each chapter title manually?

These styles actually change the HTML of your document to give it a working structure that will make formatting easier. If you’re uploading to Draft2Digital, their system scans your documents for headings in order to break up chapters. It also allows you and your formatter to easily navigate the individual sections of your book. Manual formatting like using centered, bold, or a larger font, without utilizing a style, does not create headers within the HTML of your document. 

I recommend always using Header 1 for chapter titles and Header 2 for subtitles or to indicate the POV character. This will also make creating a table of contents easier. 

Body Style

The body of your text should be in Normal style, and you can utilize bold and italic fonts as necessary throughout. These settings will also carry over to the  HTML of your document.

If you want to get a bit more advanced and have large portions of text that require unique formatting, you can customize a style to quickly and easily apply this formatting.

For instance, if you want text messages to be indented more than a typical paragraph, and always appear in bold in italics, you can create a new style.

Click the more button next to the heading styles to expand the menu and select “create a style.” When the next window opens you can name and modify your new style to appear however you want.

 

Additional requirements



Never use tab or multiple spaces to indent your paragraphs. If you’ve used tab, you will have to delete every instance before converting to an ebook. The easiest way to do this is to use the search and replace function in word. 
Run a search for all instances of ^t and leave the replace option empty. When you run search and replace, it will delete all of the tabs in your document. 
You should also run a search for all instances of a double space, and put one space in the replace function. This will replace all double spaces with a single space. Repeat this until you have deleted all instances of a double space in your manuscript. Never use multiple returns between chapters. Using hard returns  instead of formatting options to specify the spacing between paragraphs or lines of text will create problems. You should use a page break at the end of each chapter to start the next chapter on a new page. You can do this by pressing CTRL+Enter at the end of a chapter (or follow the even easier method below). You should use the search and replace function to delete all empty paragraphs. 
Run a search for all instances of ^p^p and type ^p in the replace function and run this search and replace until no more instances of multiple returns are found. 
If you haven’t used a page break before each new chapter, you can also do this easily by right clicking on Header 1 in your style menu. Click “Modify” and in the new window, select “Format” in the lower left corner. Select “Paragraph” and then open the “Line and Page Breaks” tab. Click the box to check “Page break before” and click okay. After that window closes, ensure that “Automatically update” is selected and click okay. You’ll now have a page break before each chapter heading. Don’t use font colors, or limit font colors. Some readers may prefer changing their ereader settings to read on a darker screen, if you use font colors, the ereader program loses the ability to invert the colors. Instead, you should ensure that your text color is set to “Automatic.” This is the default setting for word, so unless you change font colors, there won’t be a problem. If you think you may have changed the font color, that’s easy to fix as well. Use CTRL+A to select all of the text in your document then, open the text color menu, and select “automatic.”




Final Check

It’s a good idea to run one final check before the book goes into the formatting process. In Word, open the “File” menu, click “Info,” then “Check for Issues,” and select “Inspect Document.” 

This will show you any hidden or personal information that’s embedded in the document. Removing this additional information will ensure that nothing, like tracked changes or comments, is carried over to the final ebook. It also reduces the amount of HTML clutter that might be stored in your ebook, this clutter can increase the file size on your document which is something you want to avoid on Amazon. 

I hope these tips will come in handy if you’re unsure about the formatting process. A professional formatter would know how to clean up and check for all of these details, but following these guidelines will give you an advantage, especially if you plan to format yourself, or use a program or automated service for formatting. 

I’m proud to be a team member and editor at Write Your Best Book. 

If you need more help with your manuscript or you’re ready for a professional edit, we’d love to help. You can email Write Your Best Book, info@writeyourbestbook.com, and be sure to follow us on social media and we’ll follow you back!

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Write It Wednesday: Getting Started

Tuesday Update 5/19

Hope you all are doing well! This should be a quick update since I was down all day yesterday with a migraine.

I can’t believe it’s the end of May and I haven’t left the house, aside from a handful of shopping trips, for 2 months. If I didn’t have agoraphobia before, pretty sure I will by the end of this. I still haven’t gotten a garden out because that involves going to town to get the plants but I did order an air conditioner that (thank goodness!) arrived yesterday and made dealing with the migraine a bit more tolerable since I wasn’t sweltering.

I don’t think I have ever been able to maintain the consistency I’ve achieved over the last few weeks. I’ve settled into my own schedule which usually involves working until about 4 or 5 in the morning, getting up the following afternoon and having some coffee while watching some TV, taking care of administrative stuff, and writing and editing through the evening and early morning.

I kind of envy the people who can get up and get straight to work, but I have never been a morning person. My brain just doesn’t function before noon. In a way, the lockdown has given me the opportunity to develop a schedule for myself because when I can’t leave the house, there isn’t anything else dictating my schedule. I still hate the situation we’re in now and it took a while just to cope with the general anxiety of it all, every time I sneeze or cough, I’m paranoid. I’m scared for everyone out there who may get exposed. And it seems that social media has gone even wilder in the last few weeks—another reason to just stay in my bubble and write.

I’ve been whittling away at Trust Fall, but during my read through, I wasn’t happy with the pacing of “Act 3”. I spent the weekend moving scenes to a flow that works better, but now I have to go back and tweak the transitions and make sure the changes haven’t created other problems. I’m pretty excited to be sending it to my first readers soon and getting the final pass of edits and proofreading done later this week. I’m ready to be done and get it out to readers!

Next up, I’m drafting Irreverent while going back to She-Devil. If I can maintain the momentum and consistency of the last few weeks, I’m hoping to have She-Devil out by the end of June, and Irreverent off to the publisher shortly after.

Then, I’ll be focusing on my Cocky Hero World book, title yet to be announced, and the next duet in the Obsidian series.

If anyone wants to join me on the writing quest, I just started using 4thewords as a fun way to stay motivated and hit my goals. You can send me a friend request: SCallahan, and if you’re new, you can use my referral code: ZZVAL85287.