For the A-to-Z Challenge 2017 I’m writing all about myself. Every post will be some random fact or bit of information about me that you may or may not have already known. Maybe you’ll learn something! Feel free to let me know! ^_^
Time for some self-promotion! 😀
“Nowhere to Hide” is the first book that I completed fully, revised, edited, and published. In those early days I even designed my own cover for it, although I later hired a professional cover artist to create a more attractive one. It’s the story of a girl named Nancy and the people she encounters as the world falls apart during a zombie outbreak. But the zombies aren’t the only monsters in this world…dum dum duuuuuuuuuuum. 🙂
This zombie apocalypse story began life after I read Stephen King’s “Cell”, which IÂ loved. After reading it – and having recently watched several zombie-related movies as well – I thought to myself, “I could do this”, and since National Novel Writing Month was just around the corner, I planned to write my first ever zombie story. It was tons of fun, but also posed it’s challenges as well. I struggled with deciding how to handle gore (too much, too little, too graphic), what kind of endgame I wanted the story to progress toward, and for the first time I really had to pay attention to things like the timeline so that I wouldn’t lose track of basic logic (for instance, a broken bone couldn’t heal in a 2-day time-span). By the time I had a completed first draft I also had a brain filled to the brim with doubts. As many authors before me have done, I tossed the story aside, confident that it was complete and utter drivel.
Luckily, I did convince myself to go back to it, and with the help of my beta-reader I was able to fix up the manuscript and convince myself that it was, in fact, actually a good story . It went through several rounds of edits and revisions, but eventually I actually managed to sit back, look at it, and think, “This is good! People will like this!” And so it was off to CreateSpace.com I went.
Some people have asked me why I didn’t attempt to traditionally publish, and believe me, I did think about it. However, in the end I decided that I was better off going the indie route. By the time my manuscript was ready interest in zombies had begun to wane, and querying traditional publishers can be a very long and arduous journey. I didn’t want to risk the time it would require, because by the time a publisher was willing to take a chance on me, it would be entirely possible that zombies had gone completely out of the limelight and no one would be interested in the book.
Was that choice for the best? I don’t know. Selling books as an indie author is extremely difficult, so maybe I would have been better off going traditional after all. Then again, if I’d attempted the traditional route I might still be querying, with no acceptance letter in sight.
In the end, I’m glad that I did things the way that I did because what’s most important to me is that the book is out there, ready and available for people to read. Of course, it would also be nice if people were actually buying and reading it, so here’s my puppy-dog-eyed plea: check it out! You never know, you might absolutely love it!
Have you checked out “Nowhere to Hide” yet? Let me know in the comments below!
So it’s the first Wednesday of the year, and hmm…seems like I’m still pretty insecure, so I guess I’ll keep making Insecure Writers Support Group posts.
I already wrote a Goals and Aspirations for 2017 post the other day, so I won’t repeat everything that I’ve said about my writing goals, but given what kind of post this is I will tell you how insecure I’m feeling about the whole thing.
For one thing, when I was going through all my numbers for 2016, I realized that despite actually putting forth some real, major effort (at least in the first half of the year), I actually wrote over 25,000 words fewer than I wrote in 2015. And this is in addition to the fact that I all but quite blogging in the second half of the year specifically so that I’d have more time and energy to focus on writing fiction. That is a worrying trend for me and it makes me wonder if – at this point in my life – I’m even capable of turning it around and moving in the other direction. Or will I just keep dwindling and dwindling until I’m basically writing nothing at all? It’s a thought that definitely troubles me.
Additionally we’ve got the whole self-promotion thing. I’ve never been good at it, but I seem to be getting worse, not to mention running out of methods to try. Changing the cover to “Nowhere to Hide” seemed to help a bit, for a short while, but that influx has long since died off and we’re back to being lucky to sell a book a month. I’ve tried giveaways, I’ve tried contacting reviewers, I’ve tried ads…none of them really did much of anything except for an extremely tiny boost during the actual event and then nothing afterwards. I’ve even sent books off to fellow YouTubers (which was more of a present thing than a self-promo thing, if I’m honest), but while their unboxing videos gave us a spike in subs to the YouTube channel, they did nothing for book sales.
I get that zombies aren’t for everyone, so you’re definitely going to get a lot of people who might look at the book and then just go, “Nah, not my bag,” but I have to be honest, I truly believed that I’d sell at least a few books a month instead of having stretches of months at a time of absolutely nothing, and it’s getting really old. I put a lot of effort into that book, I genuinely believe that it’s good, and I’ve had numerous people who don’t even like horror and zombies tell me that they enjoyed it.
But I just can’t get people to buy it. And it’s infuriating. And, justifiably, makes me pretty damn insecure.
I’ve considered sending it off for the Self-Published Book Awards (by Writer’s Digest) again, but I don’t think I want to waste the money. The last time my $75 entry fee got me a pathetic, four-sentence “feedback” e-mail that basically told me that my cover and summary were crap and didn’t really say a damn thing about the book itself at all. I’ve changed both the cover and summary since then, but the overall lameness of what they consider to be “feedback” doesn’t really put me in a mind to waste more money on them.
And so I sit here, thinking and frowning to myself and wondering what else there is I can try that’s not going to cost me money, because so far almost everything I’ve done has cost me money and I haven’t seen a return on it at all.
Also, just as a final note, I don’t know if this has even occurred to anyone who is reading this post, but if my thought process seems horribly disjointed, half-complete, and generally unfocused, I can confirm that it is, in fact, all of those things, because nothing has changed from 2016 and I’m still always doing fifteen things at once. While writing this post I’m also eating breakfast and trying to slam a bunch of coffee into me since I didn’t sleep well last night, chatting online with a friend who lives on the other side of the country so there’s only a few hours a day we can really catch each other, sending messages back and forth with a fellow YouTuber asking his advice on some things, and obsessing over the fact that I haven’t put away any of the Christmas stuff or cleaned up the basement to make way for all the videos we’re super behind on.
We were tagged by our good friend Dave from “Everyday Geek” to answer 10 Quirky Questions! Special appearance by one of Jason’s favorite most random things in our house…lol
We’re getting ever closer to the witching hour, my dear friends, and I thought that perhaps some of you might be looking for something creepy to read as we approach the spookiest of holidays. Until Halloween has passed us by, Â the “Nowhere to Hide” e-book is on sale for $0.99! You can’t beat a novel for a buck, right? Right. So be sure to pick it up before October ends!
The past month was all over the place for me, as far as writing is concerned anyway. So let’s take these subjects one at a time and make our way through them in an orderly fashion. 🙂
First off, while commiserating to a fellow writer that sales of “Nowhere to Hide” are abysmal (and that’s an understatement), she suggested that I rewrite the book’s summary (which is pretty boring) and change the cover (which was created by me and is thus significantly less than professional). I’ve known that I should consider these changes for a while, but I’ve continuously put it off because this book was my baby, designed 100% by me from cover to cover, and so I was loathe to change anything about it. In mid-July, however, I changed my mind. Myself and my closest friends and family all have copies of the original version of the book, so why not now do what I can to present a better face to the average paying customer? With that in mind I recently rewrote the back-cover blurb, while a talented cover artist has been working on the new imagery for me. When I get home from work this time around my father is going to take a professional photo of me for the back cover, and then we’ll be off to the races. There’s no guarantee that this will help sales, of course, but I figure it’s worth a try.
Secondly, and speaking of zombies, I had a really shift of work at the beginning of July. Why is that important? Well, it inspired me to start something that I’ve been getting questions about since the first few people read “Nowhere to Hide“: a sequel. Okay, technically it’s not a sequel, exactly – it’s more of a companion story that takes place at the same time as the first one, but in a different part of the country with different characters. While the first book started out in suburbia and moved mostly through residential areas, this new one takes place mainly in an oil sands facility. Do you see where this is going? I’ll give you a hint:Â I work at an oil sands facility.
So, long story short: I don’t know how this new story – which I’ve tentatively named “Nowhere to Run” – will end up going anywhere, but for now it’s an extremely cathartic exercise. I plan to do a great deal of damage to my “fictional” site and work camp, and while several of my coworkers are bound to be heroes in one way or another, there are also a few people who are slated to meet an extremely messy end. Does that make me sound like a ghoul? Perhaps. But I justify it in saying, screw it! I’m writing, and that’s a good thing…right? Right.
Finally, if you read my previous IWSG post, you might be wondering about the release of the erotic fairy tale. For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been writing a series of short erotic fairy tales, partly just for the fun of trying something new and (extremely) different, but also partly for the curiosity of how such stories would sell as compared to the (again, abysmal) sales of my zombie novel. Last month I mentioned that I had officially self-published the first story in this erotic series under a psudonym, so the experiment was on.
Well I won’t say that the first month was a failure, but it definitely wasn’t a success either, due to some unforeseen road blocks in the promotional department. The main problem is that the story is obviously public domain, being based on a well-known fairy tale, and what I didn’t know was that this means it is not eligible for any of the Kindle/Amazon marketing and promotion options. I can’t do a free book promo, a Kindle Countdown Deal, or even purchase an ad package to promote the book in its category. So that right there pretty much destroyed my ability to get the story out there.
So now it had become a game of “how the hell do I let people know that this thing exists?” I started the only way I could think to: by setting up a Facebook and Twitter account for my pseudonym, and joining a bunch of groups and lists that allow self-advertising. While doing this I found two Facebook groups who specialize in sharing erotic and romance novels. I got each of those pages to share mine, and as a result I saw a whopping four sales over eight days…and that’s all there’s been so far.
Now, granted I haven’t spent much time marketing the story since then – I’ve kinda got a lot on my plate to be spending too much time on the internet pretending to be my pseudonym – but it is a little frustrating that the first release didn’t go as planned. My original intention had been to have a free book promo to get those download numbers going, and then release the second story to spark more interest, but now I feel that releasing the second one would be a bit pointless because no one even knows there’s a first one yet. I need a strategy that doesn’t rely on the usual methods of promotion, and I just don’t know exactly how I’m going to go about that yet…
***EDIT: Turns out I was wrong about this; see the comments if you’re interested in the details. 🙂
So that was my month for writing. A little bit of fun, a little bit of work, and a little bit of disappointment. I’m all over the place in a sea of emotions, and “insecure” is definitely one of them!
So, as I mentioned in my Nerd Block unboxing, in addition to my resubscribing to Nerd Block for a month for the vinyl figures, my husband thought it would be a good idea to resubscribe to Horror Block for a month because they were advertising a “Friday the 13th” item. My husband is an enormous horror nerd and “Friday the 13th” is one of his absolute favorite franchises, so I thought, “Why not?” and we gave it a try.
Check out the (not-so-)spooky unboxing video:
So was he happy with the “Friday the 13th” item, and was the rest of the box worth getting? Let’s go to the breakdown:
“Jason Voorhees/Camp Crystal Lake” t-shirt: Unsurprisingly (call me jaded) the item that my husband was looking for turned out to be the t-shirt. I don’t think he was necessarily disappointed because it does happen to be a half-decent shirt, but I’m pretty sure he was hoping it would be a collectible of some kind. Still, the design is pretty cool, so it’s not like it’s a loss, and I’m pretty certain that he’ll wear it. Approximate value: $15
“Chucky” plush doll: Though they’re not as cool as vinyls (call me biased), but plush character collectibles are pretty cool too. This “Chucky” one kinda freaks me out a little, but I guess that’s actually the point, right? I’m sure that my husband, being the horror nerd, won’t mind having this little guy sitting up on the shelves with his other horror figures. Or maybe I’ll steal him and sit him next to my Chucky Funko Pop. Bwa ha ha. Approximate value: $20
Argento’s “Dracula” on DVD: As I mentioned in the video, I’m not against putting movies in these boxes, but I’m just a bit against DVDs. I’m sure lots of people who got this in their Horror Block will probably be quite happy with it, but I would have been much happy with a Blu-ray, simply because that’s what we watch, when we watch physical media at all. I suppose it can go on the shelf with all the other horror movies (we do have a rather large collection of both crap and not crap), but I just wasn’t particularly impressed with this item, sorry! Approximate value: it depends on where you look, but I found it as low as $10
“Ouija Board” mouse pad: My feelings are mixed on this because on the one hand it’s a pretty cute idea, but on the other hand it’s a mouse pad. As I mentioned in the video my husband and I both have laptops and neither of us use anything other than the pad right on those laptops, so we have absolutely no use for a mouse pad, and this is not the first one we’ve gotten in a subscription box. Meh, maybe I’ll stick it to the wall above my horror Pops or something. Approximate value: the prices I’ve seen vary wildly, so I’m averaging it out at about $5.
“Zombies” mini-poster: First, I’ll say that I appreciate that this is a poster-board poster rather than a loose paper one. Just throwing that out there; I prefer the board posters. Secondly, this is a fairly neat one, full of all kinds of pop-culture zombie figures from many different walks of…after-life. Was that too silly? Anyway, moving on. This isn’t a bad little poster. It doesn’t add much to the value of the box, of course, but it’s definitely an interesting idea. Approximate value: it’s hard to put a value on these prints, and I’ve seen people value them much higher, but I feel like the absolute best I can do is $5 since it’s just a printed sheet of 8×10 poster board.
Rue Morgue’s “Cryptic Collectibles” book: Even though I’m not into the magazines, I actually rather enjoy these Rue Morgue books that we’ve gotten in a number of Horror Blocks. They’re always full of interesting facts, stories, and so on, and this one is really quite amusing because it’s full of horror collectibles. I’m sure my husband will probably take a good look through it and come up with a list of things he wants, although I don’t know if the collectibles in this book are really attainable. Either way, it should be an interesting read! Approximate value: $15
Approximate value of box:Â $70 Approximate cost to me:Â $40
So what’s interesting right off the bat is that even with me low-balling the mouse pad, taking the lowest value I saw for the DVD, and valuing the mini-poster much lower than most people I’ve seen, this box still had the highest overall value of any other Horror Block I’ve gotten. I’m not 100% positive, but I think it may have been the highest value for any Nerd Block family box I’ve ever gotten. That’s pretty interesting. Mind you, I do feel like some of the items aren’t worth what their market value is…the Chucky doll, for instance, is cool, but given the size of it I don’t feel that it’s worth $20. That said, it’s definitely nice to see that number be so high, because it makes me feel a heck of a lot better about what I’m spending on the box.
All in all, it’s a pretty decent box, and I’m not upset that my husband decided to get it. Between the shirt, the Chucky doll, and the Rue Morgue book I definitely think the box was worth the price, with the other items just being interesting little add-ins. I’ve no major complaints, although I do still wish the DVD had been a Blu-ray, but that’s a picky thing I think. I guess I have to admit that Horror Block did a good job on the October box. If I sound hesitant to say that, it’s because I am…because when they actually do a good job it makes me sad that I’ve decided not to subscribe full-time anymore. 😛
And that’s that. What did you guys think? Did you pick up a Horror Block for October? What did you think of the Chucky doll…pretty creepy, right? Is there anything in the book that you’d love to have? Where are you going to hang your zombie poster? Please share!
The problem with cancelling subscription box services like Nerd Block is that they’re constantly sending out hints about what’s going to be in next month’s box. Though I’d previously cancelled Nerd Block I decided to resubscribe for one month because the promotional emails were promising two vinyl figures for the October “Tricks and Treats” box. Additionally, the Nerd Block family of subscription boxes recently began this “Welcome Block” idea, where upon signing up they send you a smaller version of the boxes with random items from previous boxes. So my husband and I thought, okay, we’ll sign up for the Nerd Block for one month under his name, and get the free Welcome Block as well.
And so we come to the first unboxing of the month. This is the Nerd Block for October, along with one of the random Welcome Block boxes. To the video!
So first we have the Welcome Block. I wasn’t expecting much from this box because it hadn’t been very long since I’d actually been a full-time subscriber of Nerd Block, so I was very confident that everything in the Welcome Block would be something I’d already previously gotten. I was 100% correct, but actually even more disappointed in the box because of the particular items I received…
“Saul Goodman” Titan vinyl figure: Normally I wouldn’t be too upset with any vinyl figure, even if it’s from a show that I never finished (don’t kill me!) but this one definitely made me twitch a little because it is not only the second one of these figures I’ve gotten…it’s the third. I received one in the Vinylpalooza box as well, which makes me seriously wonder, how damn many of these did Nerd Block buy?! They’re still trying to get rid of them a year later and in multiple boxes! What the hell?! Approximate value: $10
“Cliccors” desk toy: We received two of this little bracelet-esque desk toys several months back, and though my daughter enjoys them I wasn’t terribly impressed to see another one because they’re probably one of the cheaper things Nerd Block could have chosen to put in the Welcome Block. Approximate value: $3
“Ghostbusters” wallet: This one is, at least, a decent item; it’s just unfortunately that it’s both something I’ve gotten before and something that I would never have use for two of. In fact, I haven’t even used the first one because it’s just too small of a wallet for me. But there you have it. Approximate value: $10
“Coin Op Crush” CD: And this one just made me vibrate. You guys know how I feel about CDs in my subscription boxes, so the fact that I now have two copies of this disk of video game music is just…flabbergasting. Approximate value: $5
Total approximate value of box:Â $28 Total cost to me:Â $0
So here’s the thing about the Welcome Block: I can’t really complain about it because it was free. So, considering that I paid exactly $0 for it, I have to admit that $28 worth of stuff is pretty good. It’s just unfortunate that one of the items is my THIRD copy, and another of the items is a copy of one of the worst items I’ve ever gotten (in my opinion).
So now on to the actual Nerd Block, which had a “Tricks and Treats” theme for the month of October. I subscribed specifically for the “two vinyl figures”, but I was keeping my fingers crossed for a good box overall.
“Gremlins” t-shirt: I have found Nerd Block’s t-shirts to be hit or miss, but this is one that was a hit for me. This Gremlins shirt features a happy-looking Gizmo, who transforms into an angry-looking Spike in the dark via glow-in-the-dark paint. It’s pretty cute, if not very colorful, and definitely something I’ll be willing to wear because Gremlins is an awesome movie (which I totally have to watch again sometime soon…). Approximate value: $15
“Moe” coaster: In my personal opinion, way too many of these boxes end up having coasters in them. I mean, how many coasters can a person use? That said, at least this one is actually a well-made coaster. Usually we get these cardboard-like things that seem like they would melt with a little moisture, but this is actually a tin-topped coaster with a cork bottom, like something you might actually find in a bar. It also commands you to “Put your mug on my mug”, which is pretty amusing. I’m not into collecting Simpsons stuff, but at least this is actually a usable item. Approximate value: this seems to be an exclusive to the box, but based on similar items I’d say it’s worth about $5
“Zombie Hunter” dog tags: Unattached to any particular fandom, these dog tags are designed to look like they’re for a tactical zombie-fighting team. They’re pretty neat and actually seem to be quite well made. Although not really for me I can definitely appreciate them, and they won’t look too shabby hanging up with some of my other horror-and-zombie items. Approximate value: $10
“Bob’s Burgers” mad libs: It’s been a while, so you guys might not know exactly how I feel about books of mad libs, but I’ll give you a hint: they suck. Okay, that was a bit more than a hint. Let me rephrase slightly: they don’t totally suck, but they are absolutely not the kind of thing that I want showing up in my subscription boxes. Even if they’re fandom-based, they’re still cheap little books of nonsense that seem like something you would find tons of at the Dollar Store. Approximate value: $4 (although I personally think they’re worth $1, tops)
“Jem and the Holograms” comic book: Okay, I said this in the video, but I’ll say it again now: totally not the item I was expecting. I don’t know what I was expecting when I heard there was going to be a Jem item in this box, but it definitely wasn’t a comic. Honestly, it didn’t really matter what the item was because Jem is one of those things that was awesome in my childhood but holds little sway for me now, but regardless I will still totally wind up reading this some night. Approximate value: the regular comics are $4 each, but this seems to be one of those thicker volumes that includes a couple of issues, so we’ll say about $10.
“Alien and Ripley” vinyl figures two-pack: Now, my feelings on this item are conflicted. One the one hand, this is an awesome little set. I LOVE the Alien, and Ripley isn’t too bad herself. They’re super-cute and the Alien in particular is really well done, plus I love that they come together as a set. However, I’m pretty annoyed with the fact that Nerd Block pumped up this box by telling us that there would be “two vinyl figures” in it. Yeah, technically these are two vinyl figures…but they’re one item, since they’re packaged together, and they’re also the miniature Titan figures rather than the full-sized ones. So, basically, it just feels like they tricked us. That said, I do still love these little guys so I’m kinda willing to overlook it, but I’m going to do so with a stern glare in Nerd Block’s general direction. Approximate value: these little guys normally go for about $10 each, so although I feel they’re not worth that for their size, I have to suck it up and say the two-pack is worth about $20
Total approximate value of box:Â $64 Total approximate cost to me:Â $40
So, as I’ve mentioned many times before, one of the big reasons that I stopped getting Nerd Block is that the value just hasn’t been worth it for what it’s been costing me since the Canadian dollar has been down. Luckily this particular box had a pretty decent value, so that wasn’t a huge issue, but I have to keep mentioning it because it does make a huge difference in whether or not it’s worthwhile to subscribe to these boxes.
For this box I was fairly happy overall. I LOVE the two little vinyl figures, even if I feel that we were tricked into expecting bigger items, and I’m quite happy with the Gremlins t-shirt as well. The other items are not big things, but they do flesh out the box a bit, and if I’m honest the only item that I genuinely do not like at all is the book of mad libs because I feel they’re silly and cheap. All around I felt that it wasn’t the greatest box, but it was decent, and good enough that I’m not disappointed that I subscribed to get it.
I will be holding on to the subscription for this coming month because literally everything that’s supposed to be in it is from a fandom that I love (yeah, yeah, they hooked me again), but after that I do plan to cancel again, based solely on the fact that it just costs way too much with the state of the dollar right now…plus I have way too many subscription boxes right now and I’ve recently subscribed to another. >.>
So there you go: that was the Nerd Block for October 2015. What did you guys think? Did you get a box for October? Did you enjoy what you got? How did you feel about the “two vinyl figures”? Will you wear those dog tags? Please share!
It’s been just over a year since I self-published my zombie novel, “Nowhere to Hide”. I don’t do a whole lot of self-promotion around this novel, being that self-promotion is just another time-intensive thing to add to a long list of time-intensive things that need doing. However, you may have noticed that it’s almost Halloween, so I thought I’d remind you all that my creepy tale of the walking dead does, in fact, exist. ^_~
The only thing that Nancy King has worried about since her grandmother passed away is figuring out what to do with the rest of her life. That decision is forcibly made for her the day one of the residents of her apartment building dies…and immediately rises to tear open the flesh of anyone within reach of her cold, dead fingers. Now Nancy has found herself in a deadly game of survival against an army of zombies. She may have the will to keep running for a little while…but how long can she push forward when there is simply nowhere to hide?
“Nowhere to Hide” is available on all Amazon platforms as a paperback for $9.99, as well as a Kindle e-book for $2.99, and don’t forget that you don’t need a Kindle device to read it…you can download the FREE Kindle app on any iOS or Android device. If you’re a subscriber to Kindle Unlimited you can even get the e-book completely free, so why wouldn’t you give it a try?
“Nowhere to Hide” currently has an average rating of 4.5 stars on Amazon.com, 5 stars on Amazon.ca, 5 stars on Amazon.co.uk (albeit with only one review), and 4 stars on Goodreads.com. Check it out today and enjoy Halloween with an extra serving of zombies!
The gas ran out somewhere around the 157 km marker on… Which highway was this again? I really couldn’t remember. I thought that I’d crossed the border somewhere around New Brunswick, but I’d been driving so long that I wasn’t sure where I was anymore. It really didn’t matter. All that really mattered was that it was time to walk.
“Time to go, buddy,” I whispered to the sleeping child in the back of the SUV. As I undid the straps from around the little boy’s chest and legs I lamented that I was going to have to leave the baby seat behind. It was just too heavy to drag along, so I strapped the baby into the carrier that barely fit around my chest (Do they even design these things for men?) and snatched up the blood-spattered diaper bag before I went.
It was hours before I finally came upon a town again, and with the town came the dead. I glared warily at the bodies that lay strewn throughout, rotting in the sun. It had been almost a month and a half since the undead had suddenly collapsed and finally become dead dead, but I still felt like they were going to jump up and tear into me at any moment. I didn’t think I would ever be able to trust a dead body ever again.
The baby was starting to squirm and squeal so I quickly mixed up the last of the formula and placed the bottle in his tiny hands. He sucked away greedily, and I sincerely prayed that I would be able to find more formula in this town before he got hungry again. This little guy had been through enough. I still had nightmares about the moment I snatched him from his stroller, mere seconds before his bloody-eyed mother had snapped her fleshy jaw down on top of him. I didn’t think I would have been able to go on if I hadn’t made it in time. And so now he was mine, for better or worse, though I hadn’t been able to bring myself to name him yet.
I was pondering this, this most simple of parental decisions, when I saw her: a woman walking toward me in the street. My heart stopped as quickly as my feet as visions of torn flesh and missing limbs flashed in front of my eyes. But in that second moment I realized that she had stopped and was staring at me as well. She was very clutching a young child in her arms and was very clearly pregnant, and I honestly didn’t think I’d ever seen anyone so beautiful in all my life.
We moved slowly toward each other at first, then more quickly, and though we hadn’t moved enough distance to be out of breath we were both breathing hard.
“You’re a survivor,” I said foolishly, my heart hammering.
“You too,” she replied, grinning ear to ear.
And that was the first time that I genuinely believed that, somehow, some way, it was going to be okay.
Since the “Nowhere to Hide” e-book is on sale for $0.99 this month (go get it now!) I thought that I’d spend this week sharing excerpts from the book to entice you to buy it amuse you. 😀
Today is the last excerpt, #5: in this scene Nancy is having a feverish dream…
————————————————
Gramma Sarah shook her head and sighed a sad sigh. “I’m so sorry, my little baby girl.” Her voice was full of sorrow. “I’m so sorry that you’ve had to go through all this.”
The sky began to turn gray as the sun disappeared behind a wall of clouds. Gramma Sarah’s eyes seemed to go glassy and her skin became pale.
“Gramma?” Nancy cried. “Gramma, what’s going on?”
“I’m sorry, Nancy. I’m so sorry.”
Nancy jumped back in alarm as Gramma Sarah’s arms began to shrink and shrivel. Her hair dried and cracked and the sun dress turned black and moldy. “Gramma!” Nancy screamed. “Gramma, don’t leave me! Don’t leave me here in this world!”
The sky was red. The world lit up under and enormous bolt of lightning and a crash of thunder shook the ground. Nancy screamed and dropped to her knees. She threw her arms over her head but she couldn’t escape the light or the noise. A hand touched her shoulder and she looked up with tear-filled eyes. Gramma Sarah, shriveled and crawling with all manner of insects, set a pair of blood-filled eyes toward her, and opened her mount in a blood-curdling shriek.
————————————————
What? I’m going to end it there? Yup! If you want to find out what happens next, you’ll have to head on over to the “Nowhere to Hide” Amazon page, where you can, if you so choose, support your favorite new indie author by picking up the e-book for only $0.99! 😀
No Page Left Blank 