Monday, May 30, 2011

Made of Awesome Contest

Shelley Watters' blog, Is It Hot in Here Or Is It This Book?, is hosting an awesome contest which is going on right now.

My 1st page (250 words) for SEREN'S ANGEL is below. A big THANK YOU in advance for all comments and crits. GOOD LUCK to everyone!!!

TITLE: SEREN'S ANGEL
GENRE: Paranormal Romance
WORD COUNT: 85,000


Emma had always loved coming here. It was her refuge in a crazy world that couldn’t seem to accept her. Nobody judged or criticized her here. This place understood her. How many times had she ducked under the branches of the weeping willows as she wandered along the waters edge of the man-made lake? Lost in thoughts and daydreams she had traversed the many small paved roads, stopping every now and again to smell the flowers that had been planted along the paths.

With her back against the tree trunk Emma pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs and leaned her head against the tree. This used to be her place of solace; the quietness always stilled her mind. Not today. A heavy sadness filled her as her gaze took in the marbleized stones, granite monoliths and cement crosses. Lakeside Cemetery used to be beautiful, but not anymore. Nothing would ever be beautiful in her world again.

“Momma, are you here?” A soft wind blew, gently caressing her face. “I warned you. Why didn’t you listen?” Burying her head into her hands she whispered as the tears fell. “I need you momma. I can’t take it anymore.” Emma felt the wind lift her hair. She looked around and saw the shadows then she heard their whispers. She ignored them. All was dark in her world, now that momma was gone. There was no happy light left in her anymore and she couldn’t help them.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

FINAL ENTRY, after edits made

TITLE: SEREN'S ANGEL
GENRE: Paranormal Romance
WC: 61,000 (will be closer to 81,000 after more edits)

Emma had always loved coming here. It was her refuge in a crazy world that couldn’t seem to accept her. How many times had she ducked under the branches of the weeping willows as she wandered along the waters edge of the man-made lake? Lost in thoughts and daydreams she had traversed the many small paved roads stopping here and there to smell the pretty flowers. This place understood her.

With her back against the tree trunk Emma pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs, and leaned her head against the rough bark. This had been a place of solace; its quietness stilling her mind. Emma’s gaze took in the marbleized stones, granite monoliths and cement crosses. Lakeside Cemetery used to be beautiful, but not anymore. Nothing would ever be beautiful in her world again.

“Momma, are you here?” A soft wind blew, gently caressing her face. “I warned you. Why didn’t you listen?” Burying her head into her hands she whispered as the tears fell. “I need you Momma. I can’t take it anymore.” Emma felt the wind lift her hair. She looked around and saw the shadows then heard their whispers. She ignored them. All was dark in her world now that momma was gone. There was no happy light left in her anymore and she couldn’t help them. Emma sniffed. I can’t even help myself.

Emma swiped the tears from her face on her sleeve then stared at the small, granite heart that marked her mother’s new home.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Contest Entry

Shelley Watters' blog, Is It Hot in Here Or Is It This Book?, is hosting an amazing contest which is going on right now.

My twitter pitch/logline for REMEMBRANCE is below. A big THANK YOU in advance for all comments and crits. GOOD LUCK to everyone!!!

TITLE: REMEMBRANCE
GENRE: Paranormal

Three witches are reunited by magic and reincarnation, however their future is in the hands of fate, and the sinister man out to kill them.

POST NOTE: I was worried about "the future in the hands of fate..." being kind of cliche as well, after seeing some of the feedback from this morning, I've created a new pitch that hopefully gives more.

NEW PITCH:

Reunited by magic and reincarnation three witches must remember the past to save their futures from a sinister man hell-bent on vengeance.


FINAL PITCH:

Reunited by magic and reincarnation, three witches must rediscover the past to save their future from a sinister man hell-bent on vengeance.

Fear

“Never fear shadows. They simply mean there's a light shining somewhere nearby.” ~ Ruth E. Renkel


“Never fear shadows.” Hmmm, I’ve always kind of believed that (or I tell myself that anyways). In the darkest of hours I’ve always been able to find a shimmer of light; whether internally or externally, I can push the fear away, find the light and smile. Cool, right? So I ponder, do I have any fears? Well yeah I think we all do but what's the worst one. No, it's not my fear of heights. For me, I think it's my writing. How can it be my writing, as I’m writing right now? Well, it has to be that, it appears I have an aversion to editing and use any excuse for finishing my novels.

In my writing closet there are skeletons, ghosts, goblins, creatures, spirits and banshee’s; a cast of a thousand characters, and they are all tied, unequivocally, together with the writing process. From the very first creative spark, to actual writing, finding the muse, time allotment, chapter breakthroughs, editing, query letters, log lines, etc… It’s all the same. My muse is a banshee (sometimes), characters are ghosts, and I do like them, I don’t fear them or that part of the writing process. I do know how to find the light in the proverbial dark writing closet.

So what’s the fear? The fear is simply this - I don’t like the unknowable, the unexplained things that go bump in the night. Basically, I fear the resultant end; after I've typed finis and know I have to do edits and query. Shadows come in.

Fear is defined as: 1. a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. 2. a specific instance of or propensity for such a feeling: an abnormal fear of heights. 3. that which causes a feeling of being afraid; that of which a person is afraid 4. to regard with fear 5. to experience fear in (oneself).

For me, writing starts with that first “what if” moment – this is the brainstorm that starts the whole catalyst going. There are also “what if” moments in between – during the writing process where I realize the story is taking another direction but it’s all good. Then you reach the end and a whole new cast of “what if’s” come into play – these are the moments that I fear.


Every thought you think is contributing to the true power of love, or the illusion of fear. Choose your thoughts consciously and wisely. - Dorothy Mendoza Row


What if no one likes it? What if it's not any good? What if it truly bombs and I just wasted months on this for no reason? What if no one (agent/publisher) wants it? What if the agent/publisher thinks it's a pile of horse manure? So many what ifs... I think we creative folk are our own worst enemy. We believe no one. I mean “what if” they (beta readers) are just saying it’s good to be nice. What if they just don’t want to hurt my feelings.

My feared, lurking shadows are the nasty "what if's". It is because of these dark shadows that I sit with two books unedited, a third WIP started and two story ideas nestled and waiting for their time to shine. These creative sparks are my light - I know it. I judge myself to harshly and I shouldn’t. I should believe in myself more, in my light, and my right to shine. I am deserving. I am great. The fear rises up and I do battle with it. I believe in myself and my writing. Never fear the shadows I say.

There is never a need to fear the darkness, when you know the power of your own light. - Dorothy Mendoza Row

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Amazing Contest

Shelley Watters' blog, Is It Hot in Here Or Is It This Book?, is hosting an amazing blogfest/contest. The grand prize is a full manuscript request from Suzie Townsend of Fine Print Literary Management and I can tell you right now, this lady is awesome to follow online. All you have to do is come up with a log line and use no more than 140 characters to describe your story/ms. Sounds hard but worth it. The thought of winning and having Suzie read my story REMEMBRANCE - sigh - ok, I'm off to work on the log line.

The contest starts April 1st. Go to Shelley's blog and sign up.

Uh, why you still here...Shelly and Suzie are waiting.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Edits & New Avalon

Going to try and keep up with this blog and start posting more frequently; even it its a rehash of the days events. Today was uneventful. Like chewing bubblegum. Same ol, same ol. I did not edit on Remembrance yet, I say yet because I do intend on editing later on for at least an hour. I can do something with it in one hour.

In any event I slept in, did laundry, picked up lil chick from her dads, took the girls out for dinner, now having coffee and contemplating on which story to work on. Decisions, decisions. Anyways, decided to post the opener to New Avalon here. So when I mention it you'll have something to go oh yeah that story. Uh huh.

I think I'm going to go get another cuppa of joe and have a nice chat with Aiden, and if he doesn't want to talk, well I'll leave a gap in his story part and move forward. I still have to fix the dialog between Ari and Owen, Vaz and Ari. Hmmmm so I guess I've answered my own question --- I'm editing Remembrance tonight.

I think I have to set a goal. Let's see 21 days to remove 20,000 words and clean up the story. That's doable right? OK...Stop shaking your head no..it's doable, really. Well I'm going to try it.

Perhaps with a time-table Aiden "might" talk. Yeah right. I can hear his chuckle now, and see him rolling his eyes. Not boding well. Anyways, enjoy the excerpt. I'm off to edit. Wish me luck - Aiden's laughing and conspiring with Vaz - this is not good - really not good.



NEW AVALON
Excerpt
©2010 by S.A. Hussey
Not to be posted or reprinted without permission of the author.

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Journal Entry:
February 1994 ~ After Midnight - The Sphere


My radio had been blasting out Zeppelin music as I made the drive over the Salem/Beverly Bridge. I sang and my hands tapped the steering wheel in rhythm to the beat. My jeep chugged along as I neared the bottom of the bridge. I maneuvered the car into the right lane and travelled down route 1A, or as us locals call it, Bridge Street. Nearing my turn onto Winter Street, I had noticed the streetlight up ahead was green then it turned yellow then red then back to green, all within seconds. It did this twice more then stopped.

That’s when IT happened.

Everything around me had gone black. Immediately I had thought, power outage. A transformer must’ve blown somewhere. Shit! Thank you National Grid, now get the power back on. I continued to drive on but noticed no other cars and no people milling about, which was odd for a Friday night in Salem, Massachusetts. Right then I realized something else, the music had stopped playing. Every preset button I pushed on the radio had nothing but static coming over the air waves. It was eerie - scary eerie. The only thing moving in the dark was my car. And, of course IT; the massive, swirling white matter that hurtled up from out of nowhere, blanketing me and was reaching upward for the stars.

When it happened, I stopped and had parked the jeep smack dab right in the middle of Bridge Street. That’s also when I felt the vibration. At first I thought, holy shit earthquake. Then I realized it wasn’t the road shaking – it was me! I couldn’t stop. The vibration was internal. An intense, continuous energy coursed through every part of my body making me feel as if I could shoot to the moon and beyond. There was a buzzing sound in my ear too. You know the kind, like when a bee passes to close to your ear, or the sound a hummingbird makes as it whizzes past. That’s what was needling into my brain. Neither would stop, in fact it was getting worse.

Between the mind-numbing buzz and the adrenaline pushing energy, I thought my body was going to explode. IT was intense. I got out of the car and in the darkness I saw my body glowing. My aura was a myriad of shades ending with a blue tinged white. The glowing concerned me but I was shocked by the fact that I was buzzing and charged with much energy. Right then I was the epitome of a human lightning bolt. If I had touched something right then, they’d be electrified or burnt for sure.

The sensations running through my body at that moment were like none I’d ever felt. First, there had been the fire within me. A consuming heat so intense it threatened to set me aflame. Then there was the warm coolness of a turbulent wind, like an angry vortex was spiraling out of control inside me. It shook my body in an uncontrolled fit then immediately stopped to be replaced by an intense dryness and heaviness. I felt like dirt and sand was filling my body, as though I was an over-filled hourglass with my time running out. When it reached into my lungs I began to cough and sputter; I was suffocating, but on what? That sensation was immediately replaced by a sense of liquid rushing through my veins. My blood seemed to thin to water. When I moved I could hear the sloshing within. The fluid was pulsating through me like a shower head on high. I fell to my knees on the ground and begged for whatever it was to stop.

Oh, please. Someone, anyone…make it stop.

IT did.

Ask and you will receive. It was odd, I thought. I still felt the energy and vibratory hum, but it was soft now, tolerable. I looked myself over and found I was still intact but filled with immense peace. A sense of love, unity and oneness with the world enveloped me. I smiled. My senses became sharp and crisp. Right then, it seemed as if the universe had kissed me on my third eye, opening it to see the world in front of me but in a whole new way.

The tree on the corner was no longer just a tree but an entity. A living, breathing species that would tell you its tales if you stopped to listen, and I did. I heard its whispers. The majestic oak was happy, as was the elm, and the willow. They conversed. And, I could hear them!

“Welcome home,” they said in unison.

I paused. I wasn’t home yet. Unconcerned by my pause or thoughts they moved their wondrous branches to and fro as they giggled and laughed happily. I sniffed as the acrid smell of smoke and incense wafted through the air. Familiar smells to my awakening senses, but where was it coming from? I looked up to see if I could see the smoke, but instead what greeted my eyes was some kind of spectral field. Almost unperceivable to the eye but yet, I could see it. A clear film of sorts, that arched high and as far into the darkness of the night sky as I could see. It reminded me of a liquid bubble. Iridescent yet, around its outer edge was a white-blue that shimmered. An energy field. I felt its vibration and hum. Boy had I felt it. I gazed up in wonderment - I was baffled.

What was IT?

Saturday, March 19, 2011

I've got nothing

Well, not entirely nothing. I do have two books written waiting to be edited (3 if you count that story I wrote way back when). I also have the WIP of New Avalon. So, I do have something but...I have a whole of nothing going on.

I should be editing Remembrance, seriously since I gave up 2 years writing it - you'd think I'd be more motivated to get it done, out the door and into an agent's hands. It's not that I don't want that to happen, it's just that well...I got nothing. I pick up the printed version, read some, fix a couple of typo's then stare blankly. I have no idea what to do, well I do but I've got nothing. Aiden refuses to talk, and since I'm editing in linear fashion if he doesn't talk and tell me his story well... nothing happens.

So I put it aside, and go to my NaNo story, Seren's Angel. I love this story the way it is but know that I have to add wordage if I ever want to see it go anywhere, but every time I look at the printed or computerized story - I've got nothing, and it's disheartening.

I decided to write a new tale so when I had nothing on the others I could still write, use the creative noggin. I am so loving this new story and where it's going but I stopped on that as well. Oh I have creative ideas and words spinning in my head for New Avalon, but when I sit down...I get a case of the editing guilts, and it stilts the creative flow, crimps the mojo and makes my muse shake her head and run for the hills.

So lets recap. I have a character that won't speak, another story that needs more than I can give right now, and a WIP begging to be written but a case of the guilts shreds the desire. Hmmm yep that sums it up.

I spose I have to bite the bullet and kick Aiden's ass. Skip over him - maybe give more wordage to Tiernan - make Aiden jealous (and he's easily made jealous). I have to do something, anything...cuz I need more than what I have right now which is... nothing.

Monday, January 3, 2011

You Show Me Yours, I'll Show You Mine Blogfest

Feywriter posted about this Blogfest: You Show Me Yours I’ll Show You Mine on her Facebook. I thought it would be fun to join in. I haven't touched my NaNoWriMo Project since I finished it, it will be fun to read others excerpts. Thank you Summer Frey for doing this.

The following excerpt is James' rememberance of the night when Seren came; saving his miserable existence called life.



SEREN'S ANGEL
Excerpt: Chapter 6

James had been ten-years-old and hiding in the closet. The man, that piece of shit father of his, had come home drunk again. The yelling and screaming had started in the kitchen and ended with his mother crying. God how he hated to hear her cry. It made him sick. Sick and angry. Then he heard the footsteps coming up the stairs, and his momma crying out, ‘no don’t hurt him’. He heard a sickening thud then thumping, like something falling. He had squeezed his eyes shut, tightened his body harder in a ball and pushed himself as far as he could get into the dark recesses of the closet. But, that hadn’t stopped the man.

When he opened the closet, the light came in and exposed him. The man grabbed his foot and yanked him out of the closet screaming and crying. James hadn’t done anything to warrant the beating but it came anyways, like they always did, in one ferocious tidal wave. The man beat him for crying, for screaming, for kicking, for being a momma’s boy, a wimp, a pussy. Every pummel from the man made the world darker and scarier. When his foot connected with the man’s shin in a valiant attempt to stop him, the man picked him up and threw him across the room were he landed in a heap on top of the wide bureau. A mirror hung on the wall over it and his body had connected, shattering it. He had heard a loud snapping sound when his leg hit the hard wood. He lay there staring at his reflection in the mirror. Was that him; that bloodied, beaten, swollen-face, haunted-eyed boy?

He saw the man storming across the room but he couldn’t lift his arm to protect himself. When the man stood over him he glowered. “See now; look what you made me do?” James thought that a funny comment and had laughed. It was the most sickening sound; a gurgling wheeze then the blood had come out of his mouth. James closed his eyes. The man picked him up and threw him over to the bed. The last thing he remembered as he sailed in the air was of flying. He was flying, he felt free. There was no pain just a bright light which he desperately soared to reach, but something weird happened, the light disappeared, and he felt like he hit a brick wall. When he opened his eyes, he was on the bed and there were people working on him telling him he was going to be ok.

Then he heard the voice. A perfect voice if he had ever heard one. It was Seren’s voice inside him, telling him to fight, to live. He would help him. James believed him, and Seren had. He helped him get through every day, the courthouse, the foster homes, torments from the other kids, the fights. He got him this far. He owed Seren one free night of no booze and drugs. Well, at least until he heard what he had to say.