Amber Foxx's Blog, page 8

Writers Don’t Work Alone

My first completed manuscript was awful. I’ve saved it, but shared it with no one. It was an exercise is completing a plot and proving to myself I could do it. My second completed manuscript was awful, too, but I thought it was better, and I shared it with my first writing critique partners, fellow members of the Guppies (Great Unpublished) subgroup of Sisters in Crime.

I was so lucky. One person hated it and didn’t finish it, and her harsh critique was pretty accurate. The other found the stre...

Review: Born and Raised in Space; the Legacy of Two Copper Mining Towns : Two Towns That Disappeared, Santa Rita NM and Morenci AZ

This memoir, told in short vignettes with often humorous lessons at the end of each, is an adventure as well as an intimate exploration of a man’s life from childhood to his elder years. The author portrays the mining towns where he grew up, Santa Rita NM and Morenci AZ, vividly. History is made up the lives of ordinary people, and such a close look at one life makes it clear that no one, really, is ordinary. Regular folks are colorful, original, and unique. This personal history also reminded ...

Flimflam, Thimblerig, and Bunko—Don’t Let Them Happen to You.

Every unpublished author wants to be published. Smart people can be persuaded by schemes designed to exploit that desire when they don’t know what to look out for in order to protect themselves,

The first and most important step in avoiding such missteps is to join a professional organization for writers, preferably one for your genre. I joined Sisters in Crime, an organization for mystery writers, before I finished my first book. I spent five years working on it while getting acquainted (onlin...

Pirate Flags in the Book World

A member of my book club asked how she could tell if a web site was offering pirated books. If such an avid reader didn’t know, it’s likely that she’s not alone. So here’s a brief summary of eBook pirate flags. For your safety, steer clear when you see them.

If you find a site that offers eBooks and PDFs of books free, and nothing but free, you have probably found a pirate site. If they offer best sellers and new releases free, you can be sure it’s not legit. If they have only a few of the book...

Avoiding and Connecting

There are two kinds of social interactions I find easy. One: conversations with special friends, people with whom I have a relationship so close and genuine that I know we’re not judging each other. Two: spontaneous chats with strangers. It’s the in-between situations that are complicated. Parties—which I leave as soon as I politely can—and large meetings. Dreading the tedium of one of those meetings, I opted to attend it by Zoom even though I could have walked to it. I was rewarded for my avoid...

The Annual Whole Series Sale

All books in the Mae Martin Series are discounted through the end of January, on sale for $3.99 each .  Book one, The Calling, is free. The prequel, The Outlaw Women, is 99 cents, and book 7.5, the short story suite Gifts and Thefts, is $2.99. No murder, just mystery. No inflation, either. Available through all major eBook stores.

 

 

 

Listening and Light

Listening silences my inner noise. Running on a winter afternoon, I hear my feet. The sound- textures change from hard slapping on dried-mud clay to near-inaudible thudding on soft dust and sand to crunching on gravel and pebbles. A crow caws in flight. A flock of doves rises from the desert brush with alarm calls as fluttery as the rush of their wings. Hikers converse in amiable tones, too distant for me to make out their words. Rather, I receive their voices as part of the music, harmonizing w...

The Rainbow of My Dream

I dreamed bright colors. Bands of yellow and green. No story, just colors and a feeling of joy. The following day was sunny and sixty-six degrees. Excited for such a perfect December day, I hit the trail in Elephant Butte Lake State Park. I knew it would be a little windy, but the sand was still damp from two days of steady rain, so it wouldn’t be flying in my face.

After I’d run less than a mile, the wind grew chilly and blew in clouds to cover the sun, and the temperature dropped. I wished I’...

The Smashwords Sale

In addition to all the other e-book stores, my books are now available in the Smashwords store, the largest indie bookstore on the internet, and they will all be half price (or free!) as part of the Smashwords 2022 End of Year Sale.

You’ll find big discounts on thousands of indie titles throughout December. Discover your next favorite book at https://smashwords.com/shelves/promos

#SmashwordsEOYSale #smashwords #ebook #sale #books2read #indiebooks

The Neighbors, Now Gone

Though I was accustomed to the lack of choice, I still resented it. Taking an afternoon walk on Tuesday November 8th, I turned south at the corner where my apartment building sits. North, south, and west were options, but I missed going east, walking down my block. I know almost everyone there, and I used to enjoy spontaneous chats with whoever was on their porch or getting out of their car. But for a year or more, I’d been afraid to do that.

In the middle of the block, in a brown-and-white tra...