By Tina R. McSwain
I am very serious about the paranormal and what I do. Sometimes, however, things happen where you just have to laugh. This is one of those times.
The names have been changed to protect the innocent, and especially, the guilty.
By Tina R. McSwain
I am very serious about the paranormal and what I do. Sometimes, however, things happen where you just have to laugh. This is one of those times.
The names have been changed to protect the innocent, and especially, the guilty.
Filed under Tina R. McSwain, Uncategorized
Crymsyn Hart
Over the years, I’ve had some really good experiences with different e-publishers and I’ve had some really bad ones. Some have gone under and left me high and dry. Some have stumbled into ambiguity with the higher ups not getting back to me. And then others I would stay with until the world burns up. I’m not going into any specifics, but I am sure that others have had the same experience with e-publishers, but I’m speaking from personal experience.
It’s hard for a first time author to figure out who they should go with. You definitely want to speak with other authors and see who they are with. Check out the Predators and Editors website to see if there are any warnings or notes on a particular publisher. But then again, you can get involved and then something happens and boom there goes the publisher. Obviously, if you hear about a publisher who is not paying royalties you want to avoid them.
But if you find a place where everything looks good, you have talked to authors and things are great, then you gotta go with your gut feeling. Say you find two or three different places where you want to submit a novel and one feels better than the other or you like the cover art better than the other then you follow the publishers guidelines and see what happens. I’ve done that very thing, picked a publisher based on their cover art just because I didn’t find their covers appealing to me. But hey that is just my two sense on how I picked and looked at publishers. I wish any luck trying to pick a publisher because there are so many out there and new ones popping up every day so you have to be careful.
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By Tina R. McSwain
As some of you may remember, a young man lost his life one year ago while attempting to see the infamous ghost train of Bostian Bridge.
CAPS takes its responsibility as stewards of the paranormal community very seriously. In that vein, it is our advice and admonishment to any would-be train seekers, to stay home. Norfolk Southern Security as well as Iredell County Sheriff Department officers will be patrolling the tracks and area of the tracks. This is private property belonging to the railroad and YOU WILL BE ARRESTED FOR TRESPASSING!!
AND, MOST IMPORTANTLY, THIS IS AN URBAN LEGEND. THERE IS NOTHING TO SEE, THERE IS NO GHOST TRAIN.
The last reported “sighting” was well over 50 years ago (supposedly on the 50 year anniversary of the crash) by a local woman whose story of course cannot be substantiated. This would have been the year 1941.
There have been no sightings since, nor will there ever be. Hundreds of people have come out over the years in an effort to see this supposed phenomena.
THERE HAVE BEEN NO REPORTS OF ANY ACTIVITY IN ALL THESE YEARS NOR EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS BY ANY OF THE HUNDREDS WHO HAVE MADE THIS USELESS JOURNEY AND STAYED UP ALL NIGHT FOR NAUGHT.
On the 100 Year Anniversary, the site took on a carnival atmosphere, complete with T-shirts! Again, it is only a local legend, much like The Mothman Festival being celebrated in Pt. Pleasant, WV, and nothing more!! Stay safe…stay home, and stay out of jail!!
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By Tina R. McSwain
My apologies to the readers for my post being late. I will strive to do a better job going forward.
Plan B
Sometimes the “B” stands for Best. We had to cancel a recent private investigation due to weather as some of our activity was to be outside. There was a strong thunderstorm in the area, so we went out to dinner as a group. After dinner was over, it was around 9:45pm and we suddenly found ourselves with nothing to do, and a whole night ahead of us.
One of our colleagues suggested we go to a favorite haunted spot of ours, an old abandoned cemetery. So, off we went. It had quit raining, the clouds were gone and the full moon was shinning brightly. We started our investigation around 11:00pm. Over the course of the next three hours, we experienced one of the best investigations we have ever had at this location.
Four of us heard footsteps, two of us got pinched, two of us heard moaning, and one of us had a black shadow person standing behind them. We caught an entity on a photo and even got an EVP that told us to “Get Out”. What a great night!! So, at least in this case, Plan B turned out to the the best plan!
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By Tina R. McSwain
Every Paranormal Investigator’s Nightmare…
Evidence review. Our team normally sets at least 10 stationery cameras, along with 2 or 3 roving cameras. Couple this with audio recorders carried by everyone, you have quite the load of video and audio to go through.
We also take hundreds of digital and full spectrum photographs that must be reviewed for any anomalies. More often than not, you watch these videos for 4 hours straight and find nothing. There are times when ou are begging for a bug to fly by just to break up the monotany. Can you imagine staring at a staircase for hours upon hours, looking for any glimpse of the “lady” that the homeowner says they see?
Most of the time, you are disappointed. The ghosties don’t appear on commant. I wish they did. It sure would make my life easier
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By J. F. Lewis
Yesterday, I had my first chat with a book club via Chatzy as part of their examination of the differences between male and female authors in urban fantasy. It was a very interesting experience and I hope fun for everyone involved. We discussed female authors who write male first person POV well (Rob Thurman was my pick) and authors who don’t do it well (I won’t name names there). As a guy, I can say that I tend to notice a gender simulation error when men who shouldn’t be all that in touch with their emotions start having thoughts that clearly aren’t “guy” thoughts.
I was told that I write women well (which was very flattering) and answered some questions about the series.
But one of my favorite points of the conversation came with the end when the club shared the differences they saw between male and female urban fantasy authors. They said that in general they thought men tends to move the story along more quickly than women and had more detailed fight scenes, while women seemed to focus more on relationship and give more detailed sex scenes and to examine what is going on more in the plot before moving on.
Given that half of many of my books is dedicated to a female point of view (Tabitha is STAKED and ReVAMPED, Greta, Rahcel, and Tabihta in CROSSED), I’m always intensely interested in the female perspective. One of the hardest things for me to remember when writing a female POV is how busy the inside of many women’s heads often is. Guys tend to be more single-minded and may make wild turns in thought, but general they have one central preoccupation at a time. Women seem to be like airplane controller managing many simultaneous topics, goals, and aims at once.
That, and women don’t tend to wear the same clothes on multiple days. 😉
How about you? What do you see as the major difference between male and female points of view?
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You place your fingers on the keys, focus on the screen, and then let the world fall away. You get lost inside of your own mind and are transported to another reality that you are in control of. Or at least you think you’re in control of. That is what the characters inside of your head want you to believe. They want you to think that you are the one controlling their lives when in trust they are the ones who are controlling your hand and hacking into your thoughts to dictate which way they want their lives to go. It’s all their plan to make you forget that you are the instrument. Sometimes it makes me wonder who is really writing the books. Then again it almost feels like playing a video game going around killing people off and hooking them up.
At the moment, I have three books going on right now, each characters warring in their own landscapes. Each of them are squared away in their own boxes. But the walls between them are growing thin and each want a chance to take over my hands and start playing. But of course, I shouldn’t be writing but getting ready to go to the convention I’m heading to this week. Maybe it’s really the characters telling me to go and I’m just the puppet. Or there is someone else pulling my strings.
Cons seem to be the thing to do in the summertime. When all I want to do is write, other things are pulling me away from that. But that is a good thing because us authors have to get out from behind the computer and meet with people. I’m not exactly the social type, but anything that can get me out of the house is a good thing. This is the first con, I’m heading to by myself and the furthest so far. Heading to Fandom Fest in Louisville, KY. Then in August I’m heading to Philadelphia to another convention.
Hope to see you all there. Should be exciting.
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One of the most important things for marketing a book is the cover. I particularly love what’s between the book jacket, but the first thing a reader sees is the picture on the front cover. Hopefully that cover can give you some idea of what you might be getting yourself into. Then again, a person might read a book, look at the cover and wonder what in the world had they read. I’ve done that a few times. I’ve grabbed a book that looked like something I had wanted to read and the blurb was pretty good, but after reading the book it had nothing to do with the cover. I’m sure that everyone’s done that.
One thing about working mostly with small e-publishers, I am lucky I can browse the various stock art sites and choose who or what I would like to be on the cover. I recently had a conversation with one of my cover artists. She did a wonderful cover for me, but I needed the model added to the cover to show it was an Interracial Romance. She countered that it would be shown as an IR from the blurb and the page it was one. However, my response was that I look at covers first before I read the blurbs especially when shopping online. I’m sure there are others who do the same thing. But it’s nice to have an input. I spend hours looking over different models who I think are a good representation of what my characters look like. Then that goes to the cover artist and they perform miracles with the stock art.
Many people don’t realize that e-books do have covers. But they do, and like their print counterparts, they turn people on or off.
What do you think about covers? Do you judge a book by it?
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By J. F. Lewis
Time travel for the average vampire presents certain obvious problems, depending on how the vampire actually accomplishes the task. With minute and effective control over the exact time (ie. via some sort of H. G. Wells-style apparatus or even Doc Brown’s DeLorean) the vampire’s time travel issues are minimized, but even then, there are problems.
When are sunrise and sunset?
A simple Internet search could provide that information, but if I have my druthers, the idea of a Victorian or Edwardian era time traveling vampire is far more appealing. Picture him:
—
The pale gentleman looked up from his charts, and made a note in his personal journal, the bright red leather of the book standing out in a contrast to the vampire’s otherwise darker toned hues. Garret preferred to dress in grey. It matched his eyes and his moral compass. Garret could recall a time when the idea on feeding upon another person, draining their vitae (even in the limited capacity he currently allowed himself), would have been unthinkable. Still, the future was populated with so many who found the prospect alluring and, even if Garret himself could not stand to dwell overlong in their presence, it was a necessity.
“Mrs. Garret,” he said to his wife, “I’m afraid I must sojourn once more.”
“Be safe, Mr. Garret,” answered the woman in blue.
Eyes softening, he touched his mustache absently as he stood.
—
Of course a more modern time traveling vampire might be interesting, too. A vampire with high tech and flashy gizmos, but I’m still drawn to the idea of a well-meaning vampire who leaves his wife behind to feed only to encounter his wife in the present: as something supernatural herself.
And maybe one day I’ll write more about Mr. Garret.
So why talk about time traveling vampires?
Why not?
And why not is a very important question for a writer… Almost as important as why or who or how. It’s about not limiting yourself and your ideas. If you want to have a flesh eating car or a time traveling vampire and they fit in your world and iyour rules and in your setting… Then do it. Write them!
Make your stories vividly different. If that means your vampires time travel or are alien space fish who live in Venice, then so be it.
Filed under J.F. Lewis, Uncategorized
by Crymsyn Hart
This past weekend I took the day and drove up to
ConCarolinas here in Charlotte to say hello to my fellow bloggers, Tina,
Jeremy, and Gail. It was great to see them. I was also there to hang out with fellow author and film maker, Stephen Zimmer. I’ll also be hanging with him in July at FandomFest in Louisville, KY.
Hanging out with the other authors is also great and makes
me feel right at home, but it was something that Stephen said that got me to
thinking. As an author, I write because it’s my passion, just like all authors
write because they love to do it. You want to reach the fans and hope they like
your books. But when I came home and looked over what I have available, it got
me to realize that I write. A lot. I’m currently hanging around fifty books published. Some are large and some are small. But over the past decade that is a lot of word count. The first book I published was based on my senior project I had written for college. Then I took it and rearranged it, added a few more characters based on friends, and over time it became the work that got me started.
Even after writing seriously for the past decade, I wasn’t picked up for publication until five years ago with a small, now defunct, e-publisher that accepted four of the books I had at the time. From there, I also worked with three other presses that have now disbanded. For each, I would write something new and I’ve met a wonderful group of people that from five years ago has grown into authors now owning their own small presses. I’ve found a home among them and feel more comfortable there then with the big e-publishers.
Taking into account everything, that still doesn’t make me get to a
point where I just want to throw in the towel and quit writing all together.
There have been many times over the years, frustration has set in and damn my
characters or not, I’m going to stop listening to them and take up another
hobby.
The longest I’ve stopped writing for is three months, by far the worst
period I had. But then something clicks and I get back on the horse. So
far, I’ve had one episode this year that I wanted nothing to do with any of it.
It’s a different feeling than writer’s block, being frustrated with characters,
or the world in general. For that short period of time, something inside of me
dies and I’m ready to bury it. However, something reminds me that I’m not
writing for money, or to keep pumping out stuff because there is a demand for
it. Heck, there are thousands of books coming out every year. That something is the Writer’s Soul in me that wants to be revived and spin new stories. It’s friends and others who give me encouragement. Loved ones who read stuff that they can’t stand, but do it anyway because they support me.
So no matter how much you might want to bury the writer in
you, just remember it will come back from the dead. I’ve learned that from experience. I guess
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