I started my writing career as a ghostwriter. It was a great way to cut my teeth and hone my craft, but the pay was abysmal, and of course, other people took the credit for my work. So, last year I finally made the leap to writing for myself, and so far, the pay hasn’t been any better, but it’s been a blast! I’m back for another Boys Behaving Badly Anthology and have several more anthologies planned for the coming year. The most fascinating part of this journey has been developing my writing process and learning about that of other authors. It’s amazing how differently everyone approaches writing. Some authors meticulously plan out their work step by intricate step. It’s like a beautiful dance in colorful illustration before the first word is even put on the page. For others, they wade in with a vague notion or idea and just see where it goes. My process lies somewhere in the middle.

Typically, I have a rough outline of where the story will go with major plot points. How I get from point to point isn’t necessarily defined. Sometimes, the storyline drives the words, but more often, I find the characters and who they want to become influences the story the most. I’ve been astonished at how some of my stories have turned out!

No one was more surprised than me when I finished my latest short story, The Invisible Goddess, about Hestia, the Greek goddess of fire, hearth, and home. I call her the forgotten Olympian because she has almost no stories about her. She’s rarely mentioned at all in the myths. So, I reinvented her with the idea to make her bolder and write a bit of romance into her hum-drum life of keeping Zeus’s court at Olympus. What I ended up with was a fiery hot goddess who brings Olympus to the brink of war over her hand and in the middle of it all, a primordial god of darkness stirring the pot, and the heroine’s heart. The god of darkness wasn’t even in my original outline of the story! This is the coolest part of writing. I love it when my imagination gets churning, and suddenly, a story that I never even realized was there materializes on the page. I look back at this short story and wonder where the heck it came from!

Aside from how writers approach the structure of their stories, I also find the logistical aspect of how authors work intriguing. Some authors write every day, 8 hours a day. It’s their job, and they treat it as such. Of course, that whole time isn’t necessarily spent spinning words onto the page of their latest and greatest novel. A lot of it is spent working social media, responding to emails, editing, and updating their website and blog. Some authors have a particular place they like to write, or they have a prewriting routine they do. Other authors don’t touch their keyboard for days or weeks. Then, they sit down and binge write for days on end. Again, I find myself somewhere in the middle.

I’m not cool enough to write full time- yet! One of these days…. But for now, my writing must fit in with a full-time job as a nursing instructor, a 21-acre farm, and a family. I don’t have time for rituals or routines- other than coffee. There is always time for coffee! I fit writing in whenever and wherever. I often peck away at my keyboard at my daughter’s horse riding lessons and scribble ideas on the back of my grocery list while waiting in line at Costco. I wish I was one of those disciplined souls that would get up 2 hours early and write before work. Countless failed early morning exercise aspirations have proven that it isn’t a sound strategy for me! My main goal is to write a little bit every day. Sometimes, it’s literally a single sentence, and sometimes, when the writing gods smile upon me and the stars align, it’s pages. In the end, it always seems to come together.

Anthologies, like the latest Boys Behaving Badly with my gracious hostess, Delilah Devlin, attract me because I can write tons of different storylines, and they’re typically short story to novella lengths. I have several going at the same time. One of the other things I’ve discovered about my writing process is the stories and characters often need to marinate at different points along the way. Sometimes, we gotta give each other a bit of space! I also like to sleep on my stories. Seriously, I do my best writing as I am falling asleep. I’ll turn a particular point around and around in my head, and in that semi-dozing state, my mind forgets boundaries, conventions, and the distractions of daily life. Suddenly, the imagined world is possible and some of my best ideas have come from this technique (Ok… I’m not sure that falling asleep is a technique, but I’m going to go with it!). I’ve also utterly annihilated storylines and caused myself tons of extra rewrites because I came up with a scene that I just couldn’t live without. I guess that’s why they call it a process!

I will continue to hone my practice and do hope to transition to writing full time. I have dreams of writing full-length novels with glossy dust jackets adorned with my picture and having a fan base that stretches beyond blood relatives! For now, I’ll continue to grab the time as I can find it and inspiration where it is granted. I can’t wait to see where my journey takes me next. I hope that you’ll join me along the way!

My website and latest releases, including The Invisible Goddess coming this fall, can be found at acdawn.com or wander over to my Facebook page and follow me there!

As always, many thanks to Delilah for letting me pop in! Until next time…

Here’s a picture of my home base in north Georgia…

UPDATE: The winner is…Pansy Petal!
*~*~*

Psst! Just a quick reminder!
This offer is ending in just a couple of days!
Get your free read! Lily’s Last Stand

So, here we are in our third week of lockdown. It has been three weeks now, right? Hard to tell. The days blend together.

On the pro side of things (I don’t let myself think about any cons!)—I’m nearing the end of another book! Yay! My dd has been decorating/rearranging things in the house. It’s so pretty now! Her attention has now turned to the storage sheds. I’m not sure how that means multiple trips to the dump and the burn pile, but she has warned me not to look—so for my mental health, I have not! The kids have really liked their online classes and assignments. Sure, they miss their friends, but they’ve been hanging out on TikTok and FaceTime. They aren’t feeling horribly isolated. Not yet, anyway. And now, Arkansas has made the hard decision to close the schools through the end of the school year. What a relief!

Today, in addition to hopefully getting to the end of my book, I begin my #100dayproject art challenge! I’m stoked! I haven’t done anything to prepare, so I’ll be busy scrambling to do my first pieces. I’m sharing everything I do on Instagram. The good and the bad. (I’m sure there will be lots of horrific, too! 🙂 ) An artist, I am not, but I do love working with paints and color, so it feeds something inside me. Makes me happy. That’s the point.

So, three weeks in, how are you feeling? I saw something from Dr. Fauci saying that our return to normal will mean a “new normal.” Makes me sad that we will forever be hyper-aware of what we touch, who we stand next to, and that this disease will continue to be with us. I’m so very thankful that my family lives in a rural area, away from other people. I can’t imagine how paranoid people living in cities will become.

On a lighter note, I have another puzzle for you! It’s something fun! Solve the puzzle, then answer me this for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!

If you were to write a YA book using this picture as the cover,
what would the story be about?

2019 was not a good year for me.

After a long illness, my father passed away in March. His care, up to the time of his death, placed a pall over everyone. We knew what was coming. We took care of his needs—getting him to dialysis, cleaning the ulcers on his feet, the day to day of helping a mostly wheelchair-bound man get around… We didn’t mind any of that. We just wanted him comfortable and happy. After his death, personally, I felt drained of energy and creativity. Mourning is a malady, just like flu, and it also makes you susceptible to every bug going around. So, I barely wrote.

That’s why this list of releases for 2019 is so short. I’ve always been a prolific writer, but I couldn’t make myself sit at my computer and do the work. If you missed any of these releases—some new works and some re-worked previous releases—the links are embedded here:

1. 01/22/19 – ANIMAL, Montana Bounty Hunters series
2. 03/11/19 – ALONG CAME A SPIDER, Men in Uniform Anthology
3. 04/30/19 – STRANDED, A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology
4. 05/14/19 – GILDED CAGE, Femme Surnaturel series, reissue
5. 07/14/19 – NEW ORLEANS NIGHTS, SEALs in Paradise series
6. 07/30/19 – QUINCY DOWN UNDER, short story, reissue
7. 08/12/19 – BIG SKY WEDDING, Montana Bounty Hunters series/Brotherhood Protectors crossover
8. 08/30/19 – MAMBO’S DOOR, Femme Surnaturel series, reissue
9. 09/24/19 – QUINCY, Montana Bounty Hunters series
10. 11/05/19 – HARVEST MOON, Beaux Reve Coven series

My favorites projects to work on from the list were…

 

We lost my grandmother, who also lived with us, in 2018, after months and months of in-home 24/7 care. We lost dad in 2019. At the end of this year, my mother’s health has taken a hit. She’s spending the New Year holiday in the hospital, while we wait for the doctor’s to tell us what her future will be.

I’ll be glad to see the end of this year. I’m not very hopeful on the home front for 2020, but I do have a plan to do better on the writing front… More about that tomorrow.

I’d love to hear how you deal with sadness. Any advice would be appreciated.

FIRST RESPONSE: A BOYS BEHAVING BADLY ANTHOLOGY
Editor: Delilah Devlin
Deadline: November 15, 2019 December 10, 2019

FIRST RESPONSE is open to all authors.

Editor/Author Delilah Devlin is looking for stories for a romantic erotica anthology tentatively entitled FIRST RESPONSE: A BOYS BEHAVING BADLY ANTHOLOGY.

Why write a short story for this collection? Well, it’s certainly not about making a lot of money, so why do it at all? I’ve said this before, but here are my thoughts…

Writing a short story for a call for submissions is a chance to flex your writing muscle! It can be a chance to experiment with a genre you’ve never written. If you’ve never written a story in first person but don’t want to begin by writing an entire novel using it, start short! For myself, I’ve written stories in new genres or with fresh themes that ended up being so much fun to write they’ve spawned entire series.

You have a deadline! I don’t know about you, but I have trouble keeping my butt in the chair without one!

It’s a promotional opportunity! If selected, you’ll be joined by 12-15 other authors for the launch, sharing your audiences and, hopefully, picking up new readers along the way. Having your story in the collection is another chance to be “seen.”

And remember, you retain the rights to your story, so you can republish it for individual sale or give it away to attract subscribers to your newsletter. You might even decide there’s more story to tell and expand it into a novel!

Here’s what I’m looking for…

FIRST RESPONSE: A BOYS BEHAVING BADLY ANTHOLOGY will include stories that satisfy the reader who craves stories about those brave people who sweep into therescue, regardless of the dangers. Here are a few ideas…

When an alarm goes off in a high-rise apartment building, our heroine is trapped in an elevator while fire spreads in the floors above her. Who will provide her comfort until she can be rescued? An ex who’s a fireman with local FD? Perhaps the heroine is the pilot of a spaceship on the edge of the galaxy when her ship is attacked, and she’s forced to land on uninhabited planet. Who will come to her rescue? Will he be human? The vessel of a woman attempting a solo voyage around the world is sinking in the middle of the ocean. Will a pirate be her only hope?

Don’t limit your imagination to these ideas! Just remember, our “boys” have to behave badly—to give the rescuee just what they always secretly craved… Have fun with the concept.

I’m open to any subgenre of erotic romance you want to write. I’ll accept contemporary, historical, science fiction, or paranormal stories, and I won’t be picky about whether the stories are hetero, LGBT, ménage… Basically, you, the author, can go anywhere your imagination takes you so long as 1) a character is in jeopardy, and 2) the story is a romance, and 3) you have a bad boy somewhere in the pages!

The anthology will be sold at a low price—my intent is exposure for you and your writing. The more readers reached, the better! You will retain the rights to your story so that, at a later date, you can republish your stories individually.

I’m seeking hot and inventive stories from authors with unique voices, and above all, I’m looking to be seduced by tales filled with vivid imagery and passion.

Published authors with an established world may use that setting for their original short story.

This is erotic romance, so don’t hold back on the heat. Stories can be vanilla or filled with kink, but don’t miss describing the romantic connection between strong-willed individuals learning to trust and love one another. A deep sensuality should linger in every word. Keep in mind there must be a romantic element with a happy-for-now or happy-ever-after ending. Strong plots, engaging characters, and unique twists are the ultimate goal. Please no reprints. I want original stories.

How to submit: Prepare your 2,500 to 5,500 words story in a double-spaced, Arial, 12 point, black font, Word document (.doc or .docx) OR rich text format (.rtf), with pages numbered. Indent the first line of each paragraph half an inch, and double space (regular double spacing; do not add extra lines between paragraphs or do any other irregular spacing). U.S. grammar (double quotation marks around dialogue, etc.) is required.

In your document at the top left of the first page, include your legal name (and pseudonym, if applicable), mailing address, email address, and a 50-words or less bio, written in the third person, and send to boysbehavingbadlyfirstresponse@gmail.com. If you are using a pseudonym, please provide your real name and pseudonym and make it clear which one you’d like to be credited as. Authors may submit up to 2 stories. I will respond no later than January 30, 2020 with decisions.

Payment will be $25.00 USD, ninety days after publication at the end of that month.

Who am I?

Delilah Devlin is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of erotica and erotic romance. She has published nearly two hundred stories in multiple genres and lengths, and is published by Atria/Strebor, Avon, Berkley, Black Lace, Cleis Press, Ellora’s Cave, Entangled, Grand Central, Harlequin Spice, HarperCollins: Mischief, Kensington, Kindle, Montlake, Penthouse, Running Press, and Samhain Publishing.

Her short stories have appeared in multiple Cleis Press collections, including Lesbian Cowboys, Girl Crush, Fairy Tale Lust, Lesbian Lust, Passion, Lesbian Cops, Dream Lover, Carnal Machines, Best Erotic Romance (2012), Suite Encounters, Girl Fever, Girls Who Score, Duty and Desire, Best Lesbian Romance of 2013, and On Fire. For Cleis Press, she edited Girls Who Bite, She Shifters, Cowboy Lust, Smokin’ Hot Firemen, High Octane Heroes, Cowboy Heat, Hot Highlanders and Wild Warriors and Sex Objects. She also edited Conquests: An Anthology of Smoldering Viking Romance, Rogues: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology, Blue Collar: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology, Pirates: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology, and Stranded: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology.

Direct any questions you have regarding your story or the submission process to me at boysbehavingbadlyfirstresponse@gmail.com.

One Sunday in May, many years ago when I was in college, I got a call from my sister. Since it was Mother’s Day, I was expecting that she had called merely to remind me to call our mother, but it wasn’t that. She was calling to warn me that Mom was a mess because our father had just that morning left her. I found out later that after 28 years of marriage, Dad had learned that a woman he had known more than 10 years before, the wife a fellow naval officer, was now a widow. He had been to see her and had received enough encouragement that he had found an apartment and was leaving Mom.

A pretty crappy thing to do, no? And on Mother’s Day, too! Our family was in shock for years. Mom was especially hard hit because she had been a Navy wife for 20 years of her marriage. We had moved every two or three years. She had a college degree, but had never worked outside the home or had a chance for a career of her own. Even after he got out of the Navy, we moved twice for Dad’s job.

I spent a lot of time pondering whether my mother was better off knowing the truth about how Dad felt about her, or worse off because she had been so dependent on him for so long and was now alone. I could never decide. Neither alternative sounded good.

It was many years later, after I had started writing science fiction, that my parents’ divorce planted a seed in my brain. What would life be like if there was no such thing as divorce? What if finding a mate was a matter of biology and not feelings? And furthermore, what if a mated-for-life pair experienced total empathy with each other? They couldn’t then hide their true feelings. This was obviously not possible with humans, so I came up with a whole new species. I named their planet Wakanreo and the people Wakanreans.

Once I got going on the story, I had two main tasks. First, I had to decide how this quirk of biology would affect Wakanrean history and cultures. Second, I had to decide how it would affect individuals, more specifically my protagonists.

For the first task, I decided that one effect of uncontrolled life-long pairing off would be that Wakanrean society is less stratified than ours. Even if there was an aristocracy, arranging marriages only with other aristocrats wouldn’t be possible. Ergo, people could not be kept in their “place.” In modern time, a corporate CEO could step away from his or her desk and suddenly be mated to the office cleaner. Also, being good looking counts for a lot less. No one tries to alter their looks to attract a mate because that doesn’t work. Since biology does the deciding when it comes to mating, there would not be cultures with different family structures—no polygamy, as such, although I did allow for the rare instance when one person pairs off with two others simultaneously. And all cultures have to accept the results of biological mating. If you bond to someone of the same gender, or to two people instead of one, everyone knows it’s not a choice. Sex is in no way related to morality.

As for how this circumstance affects individuals— are Wakanreans better off than humans or worse— I decided that would vary. Luck is very much the decider; if you are a kind person and you bond to another kind person, then the chances are you will both be happy with each other and thus happy in life (Although you could make that case for human marriage, too, I think). But on Wakanreo, if you are a kind person and you bond to a selfish, cold-hearted person, you are truly out of luck. If they dislike you or hate you, you will feel it. And since you can’t divorce a biological process, you are stuck for life. In the end, I decided that Wakanreans are luckier than humans in that they can’t be deceived in a mate, but less lucky in that they have fewer options.

Of course, Wakanreans exist only in my head, and in my books. This is one of the few instances where I knew where a story idea came from. Usually a situation or a scene just pops into my head, but for Alien Bonds, I knew exactly what had planted the idea.

NOTE: the views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and not the SFR Brigade.

Alien Bonds

A story of two very different people from two very different cultures, a sort of AVATAR combined with PRIDE & PREJUDICE. In ALIEN BONDS, two lives are changed in an instant. Industrial chemist Dina Bellaire travels all the way to the planet Wakanreo to advance her career. Her carefully planned life goes up in flames the second she meets Kuaron Du, a Wakanrean who makes his living singing ancient songs in a dead language. Both of them know they can’t go back to the way they were before they met. They just have to convince the rest of the universe that what happened to them is real.

Get your copy here!

About the Author

A voracious reader since childhood, Carmen Webster Buxton spent her youth reading every book published by Ursula LeGuin, Robert Heinlein, and Georgette Heyer. As a result, her own books mix far-future worlds, alien cultures, and courting customs.

Carmen was born in Hawaii but had a peripatetic childhood, as her father was in the US Navy. Having raised two wonderful children, she now lives in Maryland with her husband and a beagle named Cosmo.

Carmen’s blog https://carmenspage.blogspot.com/
Carmen’s Amazon Page https://www.amazon.com/Carmen-Webster-Buxton/e/B004V8MM8U/
Carmen on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/carmenwebster.buxton
Carmen on Twitter https://twitter.com/CarmenWBuxton

UPDATE: The winner is…bn100!
*~*~*

It seems that every time I turn around someone I know is making the declaration, “I’m going to quit writing. I quit. I’m done with this.” The list goes on and on. Perhaps it is the humidity or that summer seemed to last about three weeks before schools went back in session. We didn’t get any lazy days or time to recover.

A week ago, I celebrated a birthday, and I try to use the night before “my” day to take stock and reflect. Over the last few years, I’ve been trying to purge blatant negativity from my world. No-I don’t have a magic wand but I can turn off, unfollow, and choose to not read things that a.) I cannot change b.) I can’t control c.) I don’t have the energy to engage in anymore.

These are small changes, and I have seen progress. I identify the negatives faster, and I am more decisive about dealing with them. I also am much better at using the stopper, where I ignore and don’t feel that I am missing out by not continuing.

If you follow any form of social media, I am sure that you have seen an author declare they are quitting the business. Some are tired of working and getting nowhere, or putting in the same effort and back-sliding. Others believe that their work is devalued for a variety of reasons, and they can no longer afford to publish. Some are tired of going unnoticed, of not being heard.

I understand their anguish. There have been many days I wonder if anybody cares if I produce another word. I see the lists, and sometimes wonder at those titles. I’ve looked at a royalty statement and felt disappointment. The lure of sitting on the porch and watching the clouds is strong, but I decided to pursue this dream. I decided to try writing romance because I had voices in my head. I would watch a TV show, and then, before I fell asleep, rewrite it. As I drove to work, names, places, and personalities popped into my head. I’d weave these ideas into stories to help me fall asleep at bedtime. I decided to make a concentrated effort to write a manuscript. Of course, that try was a disaster, but I enjoyed the process—the fulfillment of seeing a blank page become full of words that came from my soul, the thrill of finding the perfect adjective to describe an emotion, the joy of creating a scene and knowing that it will make someone smile or cry… I was addicted. I took classes, found mentors, made mistakes and learned from all of them. I rejoiced every time that I typed “The End,” and celebrated every small victory (and some were tiny). I do the same today, six years in.

There have been disasters, heartbreaks, and frustration. In order to succeed, many pieces of the puzzle have to fall together perfectly. I can produce a great story, design an eye-catching cover, and market the hell out of the book, but it might not catch on. Readers are very much like horses being led to water—you can’t make them do anything.

The other lesson I have absorbed is that life is not fair. The world of Publishing is a crapshoot. Readers can be fickle and unreliable. The hot trend today can be dead tomorrow. The editor that loved your book can be without a job overnight. What your Beta Readers praised in your last book doesn’t work for them in this one. It is a topsy-turvy world.

This career isn’t for the weak. I spend time outlining, writing, revising, and worrying about an early draft of a story. I then send it to my trusted editor, and although I know in my heart she is on my side…I dread reading her opinion. I know she is working with me to make this product the best it can be, but with sixteen stories published and four more in the pipeline, it still takes me hours and sometimes days to open up her e-mail. After two rounds of edits, three or four proofreads, plus my final read-through — the book is birthed and ready for public consumption. There are huge parts of my heart, soul and bank account attached to the baby, but now it belongs to the world, and it can be ignored, loved or hated.

And that is hard for writers. We pour so much time and self into each project that when we feel it isn’t getting the proper attention, a part of us wilts. Each time I hear another writer say they are done, a part of me hurts for them, but then I hear another voice that comes from deep inside of me saying, “Keep pushing, keep working… Don’t give up. You can do this. You are doing this.” The voice sounds a little like Vin Diesel. I like to think of it as my Dark Guide — the part of my soul that will keep me upright when my world crumbles, the gritty slice that will fight back until my last breath.

Every morning, I rely on it to make me settle into my chair, to focus on my manuscript, and to do so the next day and the next. Deciding to quit is not easy, but sticking with writing isn’t for the weak.

Contest

Comment for a chance to win a $10 Amazon gift card!

About Melanie Jayne/M. Jayne

M. Jayne/Melanie Jayne has the best life. She spends her days chatting with feisty females, waking up to sexy men, eating chocolate and wearing pajamas. Her books predominantly feature characters over the age of thirty-five, facing life head-on. They are woman-positive and advocate empowerment. She writes paranormal romance, The Novus Pack Series, and several contemporary series.

She lives a quiet life on a grain farm in central Indiana with her very patient husband and mastiff, Duncan Keith. She is grateful to all that have helped her with her writing career and in turn, is giving back to new and aspiring writers.

Learn more about Melanie Jayne:
https://www.facebook.com/MelanieJayneAuthor
www.ReadMelanieJayne
@1MelanieJayne on Twitter
https://www.bookbub.com/authors/m-jayne ReadMelanieJayne on Instagram

Thank you, Delilah, for inviting me to guest post on your blog today. I’m happy to be here.

When I began writing, romance seemed to be the most logical genre choice. I’m a sucker for happy endings, even if it’s rough going for the characters while getting there. And, as love can happen in any century, I tried my hand at both historical and contemporary, creating two full series and a collection of short stories in the romantic realm before deciding I needed a change. Or, more like, my writing was begging for one.

To this day, I’m not sure what caused me to land on cozy mysteries as a genre choice. I’d never read one; had never viewed an episode of Murder, She Wrote, either, but as with everything else I do in my life, I dove headfirst into the story, making the appropriate adjustments along the way to stay true to the trope. Now, other authors may not find this to be true, but I’ll admit it was difficult for me to alter my writing style, especially when it came to the romantic aspects of the tale. Not that cozies can’t have a little romance; the challenge was learning to keep it simmering in the background while bringing the mystery front and center — a lesson I aced (don’t you love my confidence?) in Finn-agled, my very first cozy.

As a huge proponent of writing “authentically” — letting the story flow with little regard to the rules, aside from good grammar, accurate spelling, and precise punctuation. (Excuse me for a moment while I collect myself . I’m laughing because no matter how thoroughly I comb through my manuscript after a dozen different pairs of eyes have read it, mistakes still slip through. Okay; I’m better now. Back to my point) Writing from your soul should be the goal of every author. The thing to remember is that readers have certain expectations when it comes to their favorite genres, and while it’s our job to meet them, we shouldn’t let that hold us back from taking the opportunity to write something different; something new and exciting.

Trust me, if I can do it, anyone can!

Finn-agled
(A Finn’s Finds Mystery)

A secret message hidden inside of an antique wooden box, an unidentified dead body, and a mother determined to marry her off to the high school crush whom she hasn’t seen since…well…high school. There’s no doubt about it; Finn Bartusiak’s life in the seaside town of Port New is about to get interesting.

Coming into possession of a 19th-century, bronze and mahogany writing box under somewhat suspicious circumstances, Finn’s accidental discovery of a coded note leads her and Spencer Dane, bestselling novelist and love of her life (though he doesn’t know it yet), on a quest to unravel the mystery behind the jumble of letters. But they’re not the only ones interested in the cryptic message. There’s a con man on their trail, and he’ll stop at nothing, including murder, to claim the ‘treasure’ for himself.

Buy link – https://books2read.com/finnagled

Excerpt from Finn-agled (A Finn’s Finds Mystery)

A slip of paper slightly larger than an index card fell from between the seams and floated ever so gently to the floor. Almost dropping the case in my elation (wouldn’t that just be my luck?), I set it gingerly on the table and retrieved the note.

Zubcd Yefemeby
Xlw k Wrlm no
Vpqre Upbpqee

Huh? What kind of crazy language is this?

I attempted to sound it out, tripping over my tongue because – let’s face it – it’s impossible to pronounce words that have no vowels. Thinking I’d stumbled onto either an ancient, and possibly forgotten, language, or a secret military code, I hopped back on the computer for some serious research. It wasn’t until the Gothic cathedral mantel clock perched on the shelf above a row of whiskey barrels chimed twelve that I realized I’d been staring at the screen for the better part of three hours. That would explain my grainy eyeballs.

“Time to call it a night. Come on, Garfunkel. Let’s go home.”

Shutting off the computer, I slipped the note into my pocket, leaving the writing case in my office for the time being. Who knew what other mysterious messages might be hidden inside? Turning off the light, plunging the room into darkness, I walked out front to collect my sleepy hound, dim lumens from the streetlamp outside filtering in through the plate-glass window, illuminating my way and casting shadows along the floor and walls. Headlights from a passing car briefly lit up the interior of the shop, glinting off the wind chimes that hung over the front door.

If only I’d had the forethought to hang a set of chimes over the back door as well. Then, perhaps, they would’ve warned me about the person who jimmied the lock, crept up behind me, and wrapped his fingers around my neck, squeezing until everything went black.

About the Author

Kristine Raymond didn’t figure out what she wanted to be when she grew up until later in life. Since writing and publishing her first book in 2013, she’s gone on to complete two romance series – one historical western and one contemporary; a humorous non-fiction story; a collection of seasonally-themed short stories; a contemporary erotic drama; and a cozy mystery. She also hosts a podcast called Word Play with Kristine Raymond.

When not writing, she’s navigating the publishing and promotional side of the business. When not doing that, she enjoys spending time with her husband and furry family, reading, gardening, and binge-watching shows on Netflix.

Social media links:
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