Turning Rejection into A Good Thing

I've been enjoying my first week of a 2 weeks vacation. There were a number of things I wanted to accomplish during this two weeks. The first of which was to RELAX. And I am. I've also been into my flower garden this year. It would be the year we are into a drought. But no biggie. We didn't plant a vegetable garden.

I've worked on a number of projects this year so far. One was getting my third book off to my publisher. The other projects were two short stories which I sent off to an anthology. I didn't come up with the idea for one until mere weeks before the deadline. They wanted alternate history horror. Possibly the story wasn't horrific enough, or maybe they had enough vampires running around again. But it was rejected.

I was not upset by this rejection. Not at all. Actually, if the truth be told, I had hoped so, because I wanted to try my hand at getting something of mine self-published. It would have taken me a hell of a lot longer than a few days time to do this, if I hadn't had a lot of help with the formatting and then actually loading up the document too. But my short story, Holy Devil, went up for sale the end of last week, and it's now available world wide! I can't show you a picture of the cover (been having trouble uploading pictures on a post), but it's on my sidebar, and you can go click on it to see a 5-star review of it!

Holy Devil was a story that I had written almost 10 years ago and was also rejected back then. It's about Rasputin, who is renown for his mesmerizing gaze and the fact that he could heal the sick, and was credited for saving the Tsar's son from dying from hemophilia, when all others failed.

But my story concentrates on his mystical ways, and possibly some other surprises about him that only in my convoluted brain could conjure. He did have quite the night life and also was difficult to kill, and he had a way with women. Women flocked to his home for his "blessings".

I've also been working on the fourth book. It's been a sort of patchwork quilt, as I add certain scenes to it when they finally come. I've been working on Vasyl's background, or backstory. I just wrote it yesterday and it will be included in the fourth book. Plus, I may just offer it as a free book, later on as a tease for the fourth book.

I hope to get a few more things done, have some more relaxation, before I return to the grind.

Working on WIP & Short Story Out

I was actually able to write chapter two today and on into chapter 3.  I don't try to work toward a word goal. I think too many times a writer can get too trapped by a word count. If you progress in a natural way, I think you will find that you will see the blank pages fill up. I have found that trying to hit a word count, at least for me, actually frustrates me and I'm unable to write anything.

I found out that Dark Moon released the book in which my short story appears. And I'm sorry, but I've tried to enter the site where this is, and couldn't--it's very long and I just gave up. Suffice it to say you can find it on Amazon. And if you wish you can find the link on my facebook, should you really, really want to go and check it out.

Here is the cover.

This was the story I worked on through October and maybe into November. An all-call was given for vampire fiction--short stories. I knew I had a few older stories I could re-write. I chose something written about 10 years ago called "The Spy Who Bit Me". I was actually taking the title from a James Bond movie that may have been out around that time "The Spy Who Loved Me". So a play on words har-har.

Another short story I had worked on did not make the cut, but I was not expecting it too. It wasn't quite what they wanted. But, I've made contact with this publisher, and I know that I might be able to approach them again, perhaps with my mystery novel--which I hope to work on after I get this novella done. I've got some projects lined up next year and hope to find these published eventually.

I've thought about doing the Indi thing, but I'm not convinced I have the time, patients or even the know-how to do it at this time. Possibly in some future time, I might try and get Spell of the Black Unicorn into an ebook format and do that one myself.