Jennifer M. Zeiger's Blog, page 19

Never a Solo Project

I believe it was Stephen King who wrote about writing your first draft with the door shut. It’s a time to let all the messy imagination in your brain splatter onto the page. But there comes a time when you have to open the door because you can’t publish without the help of others. I’ve had people at conventions and signings say they plan to publish without an editor. That their work doesn’t need another set of eyes. To put this nicely, I believe those people are doing themselves a massive disservice. It’s hard to receive feedback on your writing, but there are so many things we just cannot see in our own work and an editor helps fill the gap between what we think we’re communicating and what readers are actually understanding.

After working with several editors, I have a great deal of respect for them. An editor has one of the hardest, and one of the most valuable, jobs in the publishing process. As an author, it’s heart wrenching to open your manuscript and see edit after edit after edit until the pages look like they’re bleeding. But more often than not, those edits make the story better. They help the words disappear and the story bloom in your reader’s minds.

For this reason, you have to trust your editor. If you don’t, the process is painful. If you do, you can watch the story grow, holding itself up like a sunflower toward the morning, supported by air and sunshine.

I’ve enjoyed working with my past editors and I learned so much from them, but they were not available due to various reasons for Discarded Dragons. Which means I had to start fresh at finding and then learning to work with a new editor. Needless to say, I was a bit nervous…but I hit on something I’ve not had in the past. An editor I clicked with. One who seems to understand how my brain works and who enjoys reading fantasy. I’ve heard horror stories, especially from traditional publishing, where you’re just assigned an editor and as you work with that editor you realize he or she just doesn’t have a passion for the project or your personalities don’t mesh. It makes a difference.

This is one of the bonuses of self-publishing. Although it can take extra leg work and several projects to find, you can keep searching until you find an editor you work well with.

[image error]I heard about Darren Thornberry through my sister, who’s a friend of Darren’s sister, I believe. (Never discount those random connections that come your way. We’re all connected somehow.) Anyway, I’d contacted him about Quaking Soul last year but found he was not available at the time for such a large project. However, he encouraged me to contact him again if I had any projects in the future. I contacted Darren early this year to see if he would be available for editing in April and this time it worked out.

Editing Discarded Dragons was the smoothest editing process I’ve had so far. After getting over the usual resistance to opening an editor’s comments – editing is one of the hardest things for me to motivate myself to do – I actually started to look forward to seeing how Darren’s feedback would make the story better.

So this post is both a thank you to Darren for helping to make Discarded Dragons shine and an encouragement to other writers to take the time and find an editor you click with. It can make a huge difference in the publishing process.

Thanks for stopping by to hear my ramblings this week. I’ll share next week where the inspiration came from for this particular adventure story.

Until then, blessings,

Jennifer

Darren Thornberry’s Website and Writing Portfolio

Discarded Dragons Cover Reveal!

What Do You Put on That Back Cover?!

Garden Mischief – Trip the Troll

Welcome back for the last post in the Garden Mischief adventure!

If you’re interested in reading the first three parts, you can find them here (one, two, and three) or here’s a quick recap:

You’re the house cat at a large estate. Something snuck into your girl’s room last night and stole her leather boots, so you slip out to figure out who’s responsible while avoiding the two large toms who patrol the outside garden of the property. You found a strange, squat creature chewing on one of your girl’s boots and decided to follow it.

When you followed, you ran into a group of the strange creatures that were led by a mini troll. You were captured by the troll and his minions hung you up in the garden shed while he decides what to do with you.

To escape, you spilled bird seed all over the minions, which made them smell like the seed and drew in the two guard toms, Titan and Titus. While the toms were freeing you, the troll walked in. He knocked Titus out and has Titan by the throat. Readers voted to trip the troll using the rope you were tied up with.

Let’s see how things end =)

Garden Mischief – Trip the Troll

Although your paws are still tingling, you know it’s now or never as Titan’s motions become weaker and weaker. He kicks his hind legs, trying to claw at the troll’s forearm, but at this point he’s not connecting.

With a grunt, you roll to your feet and dart for the rope where Titus cut it. It tastes of dirt and moss when you bite it, but you ignore your involuntary shudder and dash between the troll’s callused heels. He snorts, feeling your fur brush his skin, and takes a step, giving you more space between his feet. You run a figure eight, twinning the rope around and around each foot while the troll hunches over in an effort to see you.

He growls and tries to step just as you run out of length on the rope. It pulls taught, ripping the musty rope out of your teeth. It’s enough, however, to bring him to his knees with a heavy thud.

Titan swings in his grasp and your heart clenches, seeing his limp form. The troll still hasn’t let go! You look around, desperately trying to find something else to use against him.

Your eyes land on the full bucket of seed. You jump for it a moment before the troll swipes a heavy hand at your tail. The thump of his fist hitting the ground makes you cringe but he misses actually catching you.

Landing in the seed, you spin until your backside is facing the troll. Your skin crawls at having your back to him, but you know from the litter box that your kick is more powerful this way.

Just as the troll tracks you to the bucket, you start kicking seed at him, flinging it into his eyes. Both his hands fly up to protect his face and you see Titan fall from his hand, hitting the floor in a limp pile.

Come on, get up you crazy tom! You silently beg him, all the while flinging seed at the troll who is now swinging blindly in an effort to catch you.

A familiar gnome slides into your sight. His back is tight against the wall as he shuffles sideways toward the slumped feline. For once, he isn’t gnawing on a piece of leather. Instead, he’s hauling the end of a garden hose along by clutching it to his chest with both hands. The effort to pull the hose is enough that you pick up a faint grunt every time he slides his feet.

The gnome reaches Titan and gives a garbled holler out into the night beyond the shed. Then he braces himself, holding the hose toward the tom. A moment later, the hose bucks slightly in his hands and a torrent of water hits Titan. The feline screeches, jumping straight up into the air.

You’re so focused on the gnome and Titan that you hit the bottom of the seed bucket and scratch your claws into the wood before you realize what’s happening. You hear a dark chuckle as you run out of seed.

You bunch your muscles and jump, only to be swatted out of the air a second later. The wall of shovels rushes at you and you try to catch yourself on a nearby shelf but your claws catch the edge and scratch right past before you hit the wall with a thud. Pain radiates through your back hip as you slide to the ground.

There’s a roar behind you, galvanizing you to keep moving

You push to your feet only to have more pain flash through your hind leg. A whimper escapes as you drag yourself toward the opening of the door. You pause to catch a breath before attempting another step.

You don’t make it more than a few inches but surprisingly the troll hasn’t swatted at you again. You pause, mud squishing between your paws, and realize the shed’s quiet other than the trickle of water still running from the hose.

When you turn to asses things, it takes a moment to understand what you’re looking at. The large lump on the floor looks to be the troll. His large eyes shimmer with rage in the dim light but there’s a length of dirty cloth shoved into his mouth and he can’t voice his anger.

His arms are pinned to his sides by the garden hose and his ankles are still held together by the rope you spun in a figure eight.

Across his large form, you spot the glittering eyes of Titan and Titus. Both look like drowned rats but satisfaction shows in the smirk on their faces.

When Titus sees you looking at them, the smirk fades some. “Guess we can’t take all the glory,” he grumbles.

The gnome grunts his agreement. “Get girl, get girl,” he mutters, pointing at your back leg and shuffling out of the shed.

It’s then you see your hind leg doesn’t look right. The two toms join you where you lay against the shed wall, guarding you from the troll while you wait for the gnome to return with your girl.

Titus leans toward you while you all watch the beast. “You look like a swamp rat,” he teases.

You snort. “And you looked like a drowned rat.”

“Mud ball,” he returns.

“Rain spout,” you respond.

***

You lay in the sun on the front porch with your casted leg stretched out beside you. It’s awkward, but the cast should come off soon enough. You ignore the indignity in the mean time.

A gnome wanders by chewing on a piece of pine bark. He carries a small rake in his hand and pauses to clean up the mulch escaping from one of the flower beds, then he continues on.

A sound makes you swivel your head to find Titan and Titus on the railing behind you. Titan jumps down and wanders over. He takes a moment to clean a paw before he comments, “Did you know there’s a junk yard a few blocks north of here? Apparently the owner has recently taken a liking to using mini-trolls to help him keep the place clean. Who knew?”

Then, without waiting for a response, the tom stretches and wanders away. You rest your chin on your paws and smile, satisfied that your girl found a good solution to your troll problem.

The End

Yay, you survived with your dignity – kind of – intact! Thank you for joining this adventure. We’ll return next week to start a whole new one =)

Blessings,

Jennifer

(For more of my stories, check out either my multi-ending Adventure book, The Adventure, or my YA Fantasy novel, Quaking Soul, here on my Website or on Amazon.)

What Do You Put On That Back Cover?!

In the past, I’ve found the cover blurb for my books to be one of the hardest things to write. My brain always wants to cover sooo much, share sooo much, and there’s just not enough space to work with!

Many would argue the practice in being concise is good for me. I would—grudgingly—agree.

When it came to Discarded Dragons things were different somehow. There was a spot in the text that simply worked for the cover text. It’s a little shortened for the cover, but not by much, yet it still gives enough, in my opinion, to draw a reader in.

You can make your own opinion. Check it out:

Not all dragons are created equal, as you well know. Some have wings intricately designed so their metal plates fold smoothly against their ribs. Others boast jeweled eyes that sparkle in the night. And still others possess needle-sharp claws that help them perch on the edges of shelves like birds of prey. All these dragons are useful, beautiful, and graceful.

You are not one of these, however. You hide in a pile of discarded metal parts on the floor and watch the others through a single, murky glass eye. The Maker tossed you aside when he found your thin wings were too weak to carry your body. Months have passed since that day and other discarded bits press down upon your frame, sharing their rust with you right along with their weight.

The Maker’s current project holds a lot of hope for you, though. She’s small, like you, and many of the parts not deemed worthy of her perfect shape might fit you. One in particular caught your eye while the Maker worked today.

As night sets, you see your chance to sneak out and complete your design, to be a finished creation, but choose wisely, Dear Dragon, for success or failure depends on your next move.

***

Thanks for stopping by! We’ll return with more on the creation of Discarded Dragons next week =)

Blessings,

Jennifer

(To check out my other published books, check out either The Adventure, a multi-ending adventure book like Discarded Dragons, or Quaking Soul, my urban fantasy novel, here on my Website or on Amazon.)

Garden Mischief – Use the Bird Seed

Welcome back for the third post in our adventure =)

If you’re interested, you can read part one and two, or here’s a quick recap:

You’re the house cat at a large estate. Something snuck into your girl’s room last night and stole her leather boots, so you slip out to figure out who’s responsible while avoiding the two large toms who patrol the outside garden of the property. You found a strange, squat creature chewing on one of your girl’s boots and decided to follow it.

When you followed, you ran into a group of the strange creatures and they were led by a mini troll. You were captured by the troll and his minions hung you up in the garden shed while he decides what to do with you. Readers voted to use the bird seed in the shed in order to escape.

Let’s see if it works =)

Garden Mischief – Use the Bird Seed

You wait, watching the boot chewing minion until he huffs, glances at the spilled bird seed, and wanders away. Not long after, a group wanders in and collects shovels off the wall to clean up.

You hold in a grin and wait until all of them are focused on their work. Then you swing hard, bumping the shelf and knocking over a few more bags of seed onto the workers. It cascades onto them in a torrent, pulling muffled grunts of surprise from the group.

Seed slides over their shoulders, flowing into the collar of their shirts and the gaping openings of their pockets until they’re almost buried. Even if they dust themselves off, they’ll smell like bird feeders.

“Oops,” you mutter.

They don’t hear you as they climb their way out of the mountain of seed, grumbling the whole time.

“Hey,” the troll growls from outside, “pipe down.”

They quiet to a dull mutter but you still catch their mocking, “Pipe down,” as they grumble. You watch as they finish up, shoveling seed into an empty bucket, and then they wander away.

It grows quiet in the shed and your paws start to go numb. You realize the problem with your plan is that it could take far too long for your liking. Sunset passes, highlighting the walls of the shed through the cracked door, and then darkness sets in and you’re still hanging upside down.

Finally, you heard the faint whisper of paws and a shadow passes by the door. Then two shapes slip inside and the low rumble of laughter reaches your ears just before the scent of the toms.

You knew the smell of seed would draw them. Ever since you scattered it for the squirrels, they investigate spilled seed like it’s poison.

“Should have known we’d find you. Got yourself into a bind,” Titus taunts.

“Wouldn’t be a problem if you kept the property free of intruders,” you grumble back.

“The gnomes? The girl placed them two weeks ago in her flower garden. They’re not our problem.”

What? But then why would they steal from her? “Did she also place the ugly mini-troll?”

Silence greets you. In the quiet, there’s a snick and you realize too late one of the toms sliced the rope holding you upside down. You twist, trying to flip over, but only make it halfway before you smack against the dirt with an umph.

Titus snorts. “Can’t even land on your feet. Not sure you qualify as a cat.”

You hiss. “You try landing straight with a rubber band around your paws.”

A grunt startles you and the toms. Your hackles go up despite the fact that you’re lying on your side with a rubber band still binding your paws.In the doorway stands the gnome that originally stole your girl’s boot. He’s only got a chunk of leather now, but he’s studiously gnawing away while he watches the three of you.

Titan huffs and relaxes, his hackles smoothing out. “It’s only—” 

The door swings fully open, revealing a hulking shape backlit by the moon. The gnome gives a squeak and darts past the toms to escape the feet of the troll as he steps inside.The troll chuckles.

“New slippers trapped in a corner.” He grins, his eyes shinning at the orange toms.

They hiss and spit. Titus darts in, dodges a swipe of the troll’s thick hand, and slashes his long claws across the troll’s Achilles.

The troll snorts and kicks, barely noticing the scratches from the tom as his toes smack into Titus’ side and sends him sailing into the shed’s wall.

Titan howls and launches himself at the troll.

You don’t see if he lands because the gnome steps into your line of sight, still chewing on his piece of leather, but there’s a look in his large eyes you’ve never seen before. He glances over his shoulder, then takes a step closer to you, glances and steps, glances and steps, until he’s right in front of you.

Uncertainty starts to raise your hackles. You don’t know whether to hiss or try inching away but you don’t like being so helpless with your paws still tied.

The gnome pulls a small pair of clippers from his overalls.

A growl builds in your throat.

The gnome glances over his shoulder again. Then his hand darts out and snips the rubber band. Just as quickly, the clippers disappear back into his overalls and he waddles away, gnawing at the leather and grunting.

Stuck on the floor with numb paws, you have a moment to see the predicament of the toms.

The troll’s blunt fingers are wrapped around Titan’s neck. Titus still lays slumped on the floor against the shed wall, unmoving. Titan’s claws scrape against the troll’s forearm but he’s not inflicting enough damage to force the troll to let go.

Since Titan’s claws are having no effect, you scramble to figure out the troll’s weakness.

Tingles of sensation shoot through your paws, letting you know you’ll be able to move momentarily. The rope’s not far away and it occurs to you that the troll might not be too stable on his feet. You might be able to trip him, giving Titan the chance to escape. The only other idea that comes to you is going for the troll’s eyes. He’s so focused on Titan, he might not realize you’re after him until you’re wrapped around his bald head.

Do you…

Trip the Troll?

or

Attach the Troll’s Eyes?

Thanks for joining in the adventure this week! Leave your vote in the comments below and we’ll return next Thursday to see how this adventure ends.

Until then, blessings,

Jennifer

(For more of my stories, check out either my multi-ending Adventure book, The Adventure, or my YA Fantasy novel, Quaking Soul, here on my Website or on Amazon.)

Discarded Dragons Cover Reveal!

Let’s start this shindig with a fun, totally amazing cover reveal.

I can’t post this without a shout out to the cover designer and artist, Justin Allen.

Seeing the finalized cover for a book might be one of the coolest parts of self-publishing, but getting to that cover requires a lot of communication. When I started working with various artists for The Adventure, I learned really quick that no matter what I had in my head, I couldn’t perfectly translate that into the artist’s head. I had to trust the artist to both listen to my desires and come up with a piece that was all his/her own.

Thankfully, I trust Justin’s work. In fact, there are many times I trust his artistic eye more than the “picture” I get in my head.

Here’s how it works. I give Justin a description of the cover and a section of the book, if not the whole draft, so that he can check out the feel of the story for himself.

Then he sends me a rough sketch of the cover. Many times what he sends back does not exactly match what I described and I’ll be honest, at this stage, my brain does not compute what he’ll give me for a finished cover. I can see the idea and say “yes” or “no” to the general design, but the colors and details and overall feel I can’t really grasp. I trust Justin for this. As long as the design sparks for me, I’m game. (You’ll see in the progression below what I’m talking about.)

The dragon’s position for Discarded Dragons was one of those things. I originally described a dragon taking off in flight, lifting the title on its back. As you can see, that’s not what we ultimately ended up with. And I couldn’t be happier with the end product. Perhaps my original idea would have worked, but I don’t think it would have stood out quite like this one does.

So without further ado. Here’s the cover for my next adventure book, Discarded Dragons.

Beginning sketches when Justin and I first started talking about the project.Filling in details and then discussing steampunk dragon, not flesh dragon.Shift to steampunk dragonInitial cover layout – this is where I really trust Justin with the cool final details and simply say yes or no to the overall layout.Filling in the cool details =)Final Cover! Yay!

Garden Mischief – Follow the Intruder

Welcome to the second post in this adventure!

If you’d like to read the first post before proceeding, click here. Or, here’s a quick recap:

You’re the house cat at a large estate. Something snuck into your girl’s room last night and stole her leather boots, so you slip out to figure out what while avoiding the two large toms who patrol the outside garden of the property. You found a strange, squat creature chewing on one of your girl’s boots and decided to follow it.

Let’s see where he goes.

Garden Mischief – Follow the Intruder

“Not good, not good,” the strange creature grunts as he moves away down the path, still gnawing on the toe of your girl’s boot. The shoe is beyond saving at this point. A low growl grows in your chest and you drop out of the foliage of the myrtle to follow the creature.

He ambles along, chewing and grumbling, until he finally disappears behind the tool shed at the far corner of the garden.

You slink around the corner and come nose-to-nose with the thing, who is still chewing on the boot.

It’s dark eyes grow huge and it swings the boot across your face. You duck but not fast enough to avoid the sole, which slams against your nose with enough force to tumble you sideways. You fetch up against the wooden wall of the shed, blinking furiously to clear your eyes from the blur of impact.

Your sight clears just in time to realize the boot thief isn’t alone. A dozen similar creatures now stand around him, all dressed in bright clothing and holding any number of weird implements. One holds a small hoe, another a rake, and yet another seems to be hugging a familiar pink shirt.

Your fur spikes along your spin and you spit a hiss. When one creature thrusts a hoe at you, you swat it aside and rake claws down its arm, tearing the sleeve of its purple shirt to shreds but cringing as your claws hit hard skin. It feels like digging into rock. The thing draws back, holding up its arm in surprise and you see your claws left tiny white scratches down its forearm.

Another creature darts in and you twist, smacking both hind paws into its chest to drive it away. At this, they all share a glance. Your stomach sinks. Although no words are spoken, you catch their silent communication. A second before they all dog-pile on you, you jump straight into the air, catching the edge of the shed roof and narrowly avoiding getting buried.

Just before you haul yourself up and over the roof to escape, something latches onto your scruff so tightly that a wheeze escapes your throat.

“What, eh? What have we here?”

You’re swung around and brought nose-to-nose with a bald, broad faced creature that’s bigger than the others. His breath reeks of onions from the garden next to the house and you swallow. It’s a mini-troll. You’ve heard the toms grousing about them thieving the onions before.

“Ahh,” the troll breaths against your face as he eyes you. “A spy?”

“A spy, a spy.” The group collected around the troll’s feet grunt out a chorus as they climb over each other to get a better look at you.

“A wh-what!?” you about gag at the onslaught of onion breath but you manage to stutter your objection. “I’m not the one stealing from my girl’s room!”

The troll chuckles. “House cat. You’d make soft slippers.”

You snort, swatting his blunt nose. “I’m too small for slippers.”

Your swat barely registers beyond making him blink. He “hums” as he rubs his chin. Suddenly he has the audacity to grab your four paws in one hand and flip you over. The next thing you know, he’s got a thick rubber band around your ankles, hog-tying you upside-down.

“Too small,” he grumbles.

“Too small, too small,” the smaller creatures echo.

He hands you off to four of his minions, who harrumph under your weight. “Shed,” he orders, “I need think time.”

They haul you around the shed and into the dark interior where they hang you, still upside-down, from one of the wooden rafters. Then, using the rope over the rafter, they haul you up until you’re even with the top shelf of the shed.

“Slippers,” you hear the troll grumbling outside. “I’d dearly love slippers.”

“Small, too small,” grunts a second voice.

You hear a smack and then a snotty huff. “I know,” says the troll.

A moment later, the original creature you followed ambles into the shed still chewing on the boot. He’s now moved from the toe to the instep leather. He stares up at you curiously.

You spit at him, which only succeeds in making you swing and bumps you into the shelf. Something shifts and thuds and you hear a hissing sound.

The creature pauses to watch the bird seed you knocked over cascade onto the shed floor. It sniffs and then returns to chewing leather.

“Want slippers,” the troll continues to grumble outside.

Boots and slippers. Does the troll have a thing for footwear?

A couple ideas start to glimmer in your head, both of which would divide the troll’s group.

One idea would involve boasting about the “perfect” slippers for him back at the house. If you play it right, he’ll send you with his minions to retrieve them since they obviously failed once already to find what he wanted, which would give you the chance to expose them.

The second option would be more tricky because it would draw in the toms but wouldn’t involved the house and your girl. It involves getting bird seed onto all the minions.

Do you…

Boast about Slippers?

Of

Use the Bird Seed?

Thanks for stopping by today! Leave a comment below with your vote and we’ll return next Thursday to continue this adventure.

Blessings,

Jennifer

(For more of my stories, check out either my multi-ending Adventure book, The Adventure, or my YA Fantasy novel, Quaking Soul, here on my Website or on Amazon.)

Time to Catch Up

As you all know, I posted lots of updates while I was working on Quaking Soul. I love to share the writing journey with everyone because, despite the stereotype that writers are solitary people, publishing isn’t and I like to include everyone along the way.

Yet somehow, I haven’t posted updates about my current publishing project—erm—I honestly can’t say why besides the fact that it’s come together amazingly smoothly and I didn’t anticipate it. (Quaking Soul spanned a couple years. This book’s come together in less than one.)

So it’s time for some catch up. It was my hope even before The Adventure was published that the adventures posted on the blog could be turned into a series of books. This desire’s been strengthened by readers asking when the next adventure will be available. For this reason, I try to keep an eye out for what readers seem to really like and one in particular stood out. It was an adventure where the reader got to be a steampunk dragon trying to finish his or her design.

Even as the writer of these adventures, there are few that stick in my memory long after they’re posted. For some reason this one did and when I’d mention it, others remembered it as well. All good indicators that this should be my next book project.

So let me introduce you to Discarded Dragons.

I’m beyond excited to announce that, if everything finishes smoothly, this next adventure book will be available in September. Over the upcoming weeks, I’ll be sharing more details. If you know me, you’re aware these posts will include everything from the more technical – formatting crazy and such for those interested in self-publishing stuff – to the just plain fun such as the cover reveal and story excerpts for the readers out there.

Stay tuned and thanks for joining me in the adventure of writing and publishing. =)

Blessings,

Jennifer

Garden Mischief

After our last adventure, I wanted to go with a lighter story. So for this month, you get to be a cat =)

Let’s jump in with all four paws.

Garden Mischief

The earth of the garden smells damp amidst the pungent fragrances of roses, azaleas, and late blooming camellias. Dirt presses between the pads of your paws as you pass between the bushes.

It’s not your job to patrol the perimeter. That job technically falls to Titus and Titan, two thirty pound, outdoor toms who would swat your nose if they found you wandering their track. But they have all the sensitivity of a chattering squirrel and for the task ahead, you can’t trust their thick heads not to drop mice carcasses on your little girl’s pillow.

They did that once, so you sprinkled bird seed from the shed all around the perimeter wall in retribution, drawing the annoying squirrels by the dozens until your girl’s father threatened to replace the toms if they couldn’t do their job well enough. Titus and Titan slept for a week after clearing away all the rodents once the seed dissipated.

But now you’ve got more on your mind than the toms and their squirrel problems. Something snuck into your girl’s room last night and rearranged her shoes, leaving behind the faint scent of dirty feet—not your girl’s—and the smudging from toad slime. As far as you can tell, they took nothing, but the afront to your territory and your girl’s space cannot go unanswered.

The garden’s full of toads, so the slime isn’t totally helpful unless you can find prints or some other evidence of where the intruder’s picked up the slime. The dirty feet odor, however, gives you something to work with. Even now, the faint residue of it haunts your nose and makes your whiskers shudder.

There’s the whisper of familiar movement ahead. You duck into a thick azalea and crouch down, trusting your dark fur to blend into the dim interior of the bush.

A moment later, two large orange felines race past in a headlong rush toward something unknown. They’re mangy beasts with dirty fur but they’re also thick with muscle from being well fed, active hunters. As they fly by, one skids to a halt, kicking up clumps of the damp earth in the path. His nose flares as he scents the air.

“Titus,” the other calls from farther down the path. “Let’s go.”

Your muscles tense as Titus continues to sniff around, his nose searching.

“Titus!” the call comes again.

“That housecat,” Titus grumbles, “has been here.”

The second tabby re-appears. He scents the air as well and then shrugs. “Not here now. Let’s go.”

You relax when they turn and disappear. Bless Titan. Titus is a tenacious beast, but Titan only cares as long as he can see you in his territory. He takes his guard duties seriously and, to him, you’re only a distraction most of the time.

You wait a little longer, just in case Titus is playing a game and waiting, just unseen, farther down the path. Between the two, he’s the more dangerous hunter. But nothing stirs and you finally feel comfortable emerging from the azalea.

A light breeze ruffles your fur and you freeze. There’s a distinct odor. You sniff, much like Titus, with your nose high in the air.

There.

Spinning on your haunches, you head back the same way Titus and Titan went until the odor leads you down a small side path that opens up into a crepe myrtle grove. The top of the trees are just starting to sprout new leaves from being trimmed in the fall and the grove is flooded with afternoon sunlight.

A new sound raises your hackles in a ridge before you realize it. You leap, hit the smooth bark of a myrtle, and scramble up into the new growth just as something waddles its way into the sunlight below.

“Not good. Not good leather,” the creature grunts to himself. His voice reminds you of the pet pig your girl tried to keep for awhile. It would root around in the dirt, snorting to itself. This thing’s voice sounds like that.

Your eyes narrow. The thing looks like a squat, round little human dressed in an orange shirt with blue overalls. It’s no bigger than you are! The breeze brushes your whiskers again and you about gag. Dirty feet, uck!

“Not good, not good,” the thing grunts again while it chews on something. As it comes closer, a growl rumbles low in your chest.

You were wrong. The intruder did take something from your girl’s room. It’s gnawing on the leather of one of her boots, having already warn a hole in the toe with its stubby teeth.

“Not good!” It huffs, grabs a rock, and throws it against a tree with enough force that the rock gouges out a chunk of the bark where it hits. With a satisfied grunt, it returns to chewing and heading down the path.

You refrain from pouncing on the thing. After seeing the tree’s damage, that might not be the best move. After numerous altercations with Titan and Titus, you’re more than use to winning bouts off of wits instead of brawn.

Maybe you should involve the two toms. They’re capable of taking the intruder out, but then, they’re also likely to shred the thing and that wouldn’t answer why it took your girl’s boot.

You could also follow the thing. That might give you other ways to take care of the creature and answer the why.

Do you…

Involve the Toms?

Or

Follow the Intruder?

Thanks for joining in this new adventure! Leave your vote in the comments below and we’ll return next Thursday to continue in the garden.

Blessings,

Jennifer

(For more of my stories, check out either my multi-ending Adventure book, The Adventure, or my YA Fantasy novel, Quaking Soul, here on my Website or on Amazon.)

Bookish Beyond’s Review of Quaking Soul!

There’s something strange and cool about seeing your own story through another person’s eyes.

Ellie at Bookish Beyond posted her review on Quaking Soul today!

Check it out at the link below:

Bookish Beyond Quaking Soul Review

Thank you Ellie!

Golden Shells Mystery – The Drunkard’s Shell

Welcome to the Golden Shells Mystery Adventure. It’s time to see how this adventure ends!

There have been three posts before this one, so if you missed them, you can read them (Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3) or here’s a quick recap:

You’re a ranger who hunts down dangerous beasts for the king. You were pulled from home by the King’s Hand and taken to an island where you met five other people also pulled from their lives. You were told you have three days to find three golden shells. Whoever succeeds will earn the island from the King, but not everything is as it initially appears.

When you got the opportunity, you searched the walls and paintings in a bamboo hut on the island. You found three things: a map indicating there are three huts total on the island, a small etching left by the King’s Hand indicating you’re hunting for a poisonous beast, and a hidden passageway under a trapdoor. Readers voted to investigate the passageway instead of following Allen, another of the occupants of the island, to a different hut.

When you took the passageway, it turned out to be a portal to a second hut where you found one of the others, Patricia, dying of some sort of poison. She reveals what she knows about the island and you’re able to find one of the golden shells, which happens to be a magical cure. After saving her, she tells you her theory that one of the others must have poisoned someone close to the king. You focus on finding another shell in hopes of helping whoever was poisoned. Readers voted to look for the Drunkard’s shell back at the hut with the paintings.

Let’s see if you find it!

Golden Shells Mystery – The Drunkard’s Shell

You leave Patricia beside the pool, still weak but steadily showing more color in her dirty face.

Now that you know what to expect, going through the portal doesn’t disorient you quite as bad as it did the first time, but you still emerge into darkness and have to remind yourself, the portal comes out into the underground tunnel below the hut.

After a moment of adjusting, you notice a thin sliver of light peeking past the trap door. Something slides off the door when you lift it, clattering across the bamboo floor.

You pause on the wooden stairs with your head sticking through the hole, startled by the scene in the hut.

All of the paintings are now destroyed with their frames and canvases strewn about in pieces. The smell of alcohol burns in your nose and glass sparkles on the floor along with sticky pools of liquid.

Besides the mess, the hut’s empty. You breathe a sigh and emerge from the trap door.

Perhaps Allen came back angry and, when he found you gone, he ransacked the place. Or perhaps one of the others decided to search the hut in a more—thorough way.

Did they find anything?

It’s a possibility, but whoever it was probably doesn’t know as much about the island and its shells as Patricia.

One lies with the drunkards and their glasses. For the drunkards, cross your eyes.

You tiptoe through the maze of shattered glass and spilled alcohol until you’re standing behind the bar. The ransacker aimed for the bottles of liquor. There’s not a one left on the shelf. But there are a number of glasses, still turned upside down in neat rows, ready for use. The only odd thing is they’re on the very bottom shelf. You kneel until you can look all the way to the back wall of the bar and see the entire collection of glasses, and then you cross your eyes. They blur into a collage of white-clear glass and green bamboo shelf, but you don’t see any gold in the mix.

With the drunkards and their glasses.

A memory floats through your mind of the town drunkard, the one man who can always be found at the bar no matter the time of day. He happens to be a great informant about creatures bothering the kingdom, but if you want a conversation with him, you have to catch him before he passes out and slides beneath whatever table he’s sitting at.

With the drunkards.

Since the ransacker cleared most of the shelving, you don’t have to move anything to stick your head into the shelf beside the upside down glasses. The position’s awkward and instantly puts a crick in your neck, but you turn your head sideways and cross your eyes again.

Your stomach rolls as the world blurs again, but it’s not the glass and bamboo collage you saw the first time. There’s a circular, wavering distortion just above the neatly placed glasses. When you blink and look without your eyes crossed, there’s no such warping. Crossing your eyes again, you reach a hand out and your fingers sink into the hazy circle, disappearing.

You sincerely hope nothing bites you on the other side as you feel the cool ridges of something touch your fingertips. There seems to be numerous rough textured objects. It’s like you’re reaching into a bag of shells.

Grasping a handful, you pull your hand out and blink to see straight again. Black, white, yellow, and red shells fill your palm. No gold. You dump the collection onto the shelf and try again. On the fourth try, a tiny golden shell peeks out of the group in your hand.

The scuff of a boot almost makes you hit your head on the shelf. You clutch the handful of shells and back out of the bar, staying crouched behind it.

“You gave us three days!” Allen complains.

“Things have changed,” answers a voice you recognize as the Hand’s.

“PA!” Allen scoffs. “I should’ve known we never really had a chance.” There’s the thumping of footsteps and you guess Allen stomped away.

You give it to the count of ten before standing up and rolling your shoulders and neck to relieve the crick there.

The Hand, an older man with more white than black in his beard, jumps at your sudden appearance.

He smiles ruefully at his own expense but you see the anxiety adding lines around his eyes. “Did you find anything?” he asks, hope easing some of that tension.

“Haven’t pinpointed the poisonous beast yet,” you admit, “but—” and you hold out your hand, opening it to show the collection of shells there, including one tiny speck of gold.

A true smile touches his lips. “We’ll worry about the beast later.” He beckons you, wrinkling his nose as you bring the smell of alcohol with you since it soaked into your knees.

***

The Hand finds you sitting against the wall just outside the queen’s chambers, waiting to hear if the shell worked. The poison had more time to weaken the queen than it had Patricia and the physician expressed doubt that even a magical cure would help now.

From the relief on the Hand’s face, the physician was wrong. He groans as he lowers himself to sit beside you. You both stare at your feet stretched out on the floor. It’s a strange sight, your well-worn boots beside his polished black ones. His show the dull shine of recent oiling, reminding you you need to clean and oil your own before the alcohol that soaked into them destroys the leather.

“I never value your work enough,” he says softly. “Those shells have eluded us for years.”

“You gave me all the tools needed.” You shrug.

He chuckles wryly. “Patricia wants to hire you to protect her in her travels.”

You shudder, thinking of the woman’s sharp tongue.

“I told her you’re not for hire. The soldiers who retrieved Patricia searched for the other four as well. Marius Jack was found shivering against a tree in full sunlight. He’s recovering now. The other three are nowhere to be found.”

Finally you look over at the Hand. “You want me to find them?”

“I do,” he says.

You simply nod and push off the floor to stand, not asking about who will cover your stretch of the mountains while you’re gone. The Hand takes care of those things. For now, you need to go clean and oil your boots. You’ve got some traveling to do.

The End

Thank you for joining in this adventure and putting up with slightly longer posts. This one could easily be twice as long as any of my usual adventures here on the blog.

I’m taking a short break for the next couple weeks because my editor and I are in the middle of finishing up the edit on my current Work-In-Progress and I need to focus whole heartedly on it. I’ll be sharing more about that book soon. It’s an adventure like The Adventure, but I’ve learned a lot in the last four years and am really excited by how this book it turning out. =)

Until then, blessings,

Jennifer

(For more of my stories, check out either my Choose Your Own Adventure book, The Adventure, or my YA Fantasy novel, Quaking Soul, here on my Website or on Amazon.)