![]() Autumn Still Life photo by Anita Austvika on Unsplash.com. News
* Reminder: This year's Halloween short story, "The Hellhound," is up, and you can read it for free here. If you've been following my blog and caught my last update, you'll know that I'm gearing up for this year's NaNoWriMo. I'll be writing the first draft of Fallen: Vendetta, the first book in the Fallen series. The outline is ready to go, so come November 1, I'll be ready to write it. In the meantime, I'm revising the outline for book 5, Vendetta. I plan to have it ready before NaNoWriMo begins on the first so I can focus on the book I'll be writing. It's finally cooling off here, and I'm starting to think of ways to add hygge to my home and daily routine. I found a really great article on the concept, and you can read it here (http://hyggehouse.com/hygge). I started getting ready for the season by ordering some Yogi tea and Oregon chai tea concentrate from Walmart, and I plan to pick up some more tealight candles, as well. And some chocolate covered coffee beans, if possible, though that's my reward during NaNoWriMo and really has little to do with hygge beyond old memories they bring. If I get my words in for the day, I have some. If not, I don't. I also have my white fluffy throw ready to go, and my yeti pjs, which I've yet to wear. Of course, I do intermittent fasting most weekdays (four-hour feeding window, 20 hours of fasting), so I'm not sure when I'd work in the chocobeans and chai. I'll figure it out, though. I've finally finished reading Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott . When I read this book years ago, I thought it was an awesome book. Now that I know a bit more about writing, I see all the purple prose, and it makes me cringe! It's still an awesome story. Just wish it didn't have all the flowery descriptions, explanations of every little thing, and so on. Now that I'm done with that, I've moved on to Black In the Box, by Russell Blake. It's a much faster read, and much more exciting!
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![]() Typewriter photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash.com. The News:
I've written a brand new short story for Halloween this year. You can find it here. It's called "The Hellhound," and it's from the Fallen series I've been planning (which I talk more about below). Zachariel and Archan make a bet that Archan can scare Zach. Zach says he's not afraid of anything. He says, "I've seen it all. Done it all. Had it all done to me. I'm still here, ain't I? Nothin' scares me anymore." Archan swears he can come up with something, and boy, does he ever! But is it enough to scare an angel who's spent nearly 13K years "down under?" You'll have to read it to find out! ;) I wasn't really going for scary with this one. I just wanted to give you an entertaining read that fits the Halloween theme. Hopefully, I've done my job. If you read it and enjoy it, would let me know in the comments below? I love getting constructive feedback, and even a simple "I liked it" would help. And feel free to share the page's link with other people you think might enjoy it. It would help me a lot! ![]() Typewriter photo courtesy of Unsplash.com, user Annie Spratt. Text is mine using the font Arial Narrow. Day One of Camp Nanowrimo, April 2019 is over for me. I've set a goal of 70,000 words for the month. If I take off one day per week, that's 26 days, and it works out to 2,693 words per day. I wrote 5,810 today! :D
It was a good scene, at least for a first draft. I had a lot of fun writing it. I struggle with adding description. I don't add enough. I also struggle with not explaining things that are happening. I've had a reader point this out on many occasions, yet I still struggle with it. I guess that's what editing is for. Right now, this month, I'm using a detailed summary and trying to get the story down fast. I'll worry about revising it and adding in more detail and explanation later. I've never been one to overwrite these things. Quite the opposite, I tend to underwrite them. But I'm trying to weave in more of it as I write this first draft. I'm hoping I'll get better at it. Only time will tell. So far, I'm really enjoying my return to Dakota McCabe's story. Granted, it's just the first chapter, but I'm enjoying it. That's what's important. In other news, I've published the first three pirate fantasy short stories in my Tales of the Red Falcon Shorts series. You can find them on my home page. They haven't published to all sites, but there are several sites that each one has published to, and you can find them on their respective pages:
And if you'd rather start with something free, let me point you to The Falcon's Treasure here on this site. It's completely free! A simple request: If you read any of these and like them, would you please consider leaving a positive review. While not mandatory, I would greatly appreciate it. :) Cheers! Lois ![]() Photo courtesy of Unsplash.com, user Ella Jardim. I'll be participating once again in Camp Nanowrimo, this time with a complete reboot of the first book in my McCabe Saga series, Dark Horses. I don't want to say too much, but in this version, both Dakota and his adopted son, Nate, are dealing with bullies. At least one of these is very dangerous. I can't wait to get started writing on April 1!
In other news, if you've visited the main page here in the past couple of days, you might see a bit of a change. I've taken my first short story down and plan to re-publish it soon. I needed to change some links, and the cover changed slightly, among other things, so I needed to take it down to fix these issues. I'll be posting two other stories, too. You can see the covers and a brief blurb for each on the home page (opens in new window...all links in this entry do). I also plan to turn my novelette from the Christian romance anthology into an e-Book. I don't generally write romance, but I'm fond of this story and its main characters. It's called "A Second Chance At Love." Eventually, I'd like to publish it as a paperback, but that will have to wait until I can learn the ins and outs of publishing it in that format. I've also taken down a bunch of the short stories I posted here that I didn't think were as good as I'd like them to be. I kept one, but removed some parts that are no longer relevant, and you can read that one here. It's in two parts, and I've linked you to the first of those. I'm in the slow process of getting my first two Relic Hunters novellas ready to publish, too. Not sure when the first one will be ready to go live, but I'm hoping to have it up by June. In the meantime, you can get an introduction to the main star of that series, Bane Asmodei, by reading this short story. It also introduces a rival of Bane's, Brett Holt. So these are the four projects I'm focused on right now:
I'll post updates as I progress. To your reading enjoyment, Lois ![]() Photo by David Menidrey on Unsplash. The new Halloween short story is up, and you can find it here.
Last year's story was about my hunter brothers, Jonas and Jesse, one of whom is a marshal who hunts down paranormal criminals and wanted beings. The Butcher of Hillbrook Forest is about two young teens who...well, I'll let you read it for yourself. Let's just say that they get into a bit of trouble they really would have preferred to avoid, and they may not sleep without the lights on for a week or two. ;) I plan to make this a yearly thing. I'd like to start doing a harvest type story, too...or Thanksgiving. And Christmas. But we'll see. November's kind of tricky because of Nanowrimo, but I don't see why I couldn't do it. Just have to come up with an idea, right? Also, don't forget that you can pick up "War of the Gods," a Tales of the Red Falcon short story on Amazon. It's only $1.99, and I think you'll enjoy it. Check it out here. Cheers! Lois ![]() user kgreggain. I've been hard at work on this website. There's still a lot of work for me to do, but you can now find some freewriting and short stories here. My personal favorites are the short stories, "The Cellar Dwellers (A Hawkins Short Story)" and "The Gallant Ones (An Of Blood & Magic Short Story, Part I" and "The Gallant Ones (An Of Blood & Magic Short Story, Part II)". However, if you read the Of Blood & Magic short stories, you really should start at the beginning. They tell a larger overall story, and the first two stories, which are the longest, actually give some background that sets the stage for what is to come. "The Gallant Ones" is the most "fantasy-like" story of the bunch, but it does fit in with the rest. "The Cellar Dwellers" was inspired by Halloween. I'd planned to have it posted this past Halloween, but I was too late getting it up. It's actually my top favorite at the moment. To give you some background on this story, and the Hawkins storyverse, in general, Jonas Hawkins is a young deputy marshal from Arcona (on my fantasy world, Illdirin). He's hunted more paranormal beings than most on his world have ever dreaded encountering. He comes from a family of hunters, but he never wanted to get into it full-time. His brother, Jesse, on the other hand, will hunt anything with even the slightest paranormal gift because it's what he loves to do, and he'll break the rules to do it, which irritates Jonas to no end. The closest Jonas has come to hunting paranormal beings is hunting paranormal fugitives as a deputy marshal in the Arconian Marshal Service's Paranormal Division. He has a team of people he trusts backing him up, and they obey the law, as he does. Unfortunately, in "The Cellar Dwellers," Jonas finds himself at a haunted house out in the middle of nowhere with the one person he'd rather not encounter: his brother. But his brother isn't the only one giving Jonas a hard time in this old house. ;) As for the Of Blood & Magic stories, I'll explain what the lead character and his trusty sidekick are. Lukas Walker and Vaughn Gallant are sentinels, people born with an immortality gene that becomes activated when they die a violent death. The original purpose of sentinels was to record history, but somewhere along the line it become more about protecting mortals from the forces of darkness, though they still maintain their original purpose, as well. This series is kind of a The Walking Dead meets Highlander mashup, although the flesh eating beasties come later, as does my own version of a Six Million Dollar Man type character. Adam, the main hunter in the first twelve stories, has always been taught -- usually by having it beat into him by his hunter dad -- that people with magic or paranormal abilities are evil, that they need to be eradicated. He's never questioned it, at least not until he meets Lukas and Vaughn. Meeting them changes everything, but to know how, you'll have to read the stories! The current plan is to post two stories per week for the next three weeks. After that, it will be one per week. This is just for the Of Blood & Magic series. I have another modern treasure hunting fantasy short story I'm working on, and when it's finished, I'll post that, as well. And I'll always post a blog entry to let y'all know when something new is up, so keep watching your Facebook feeds, because that's most likely where I'll be posting them. I'm also working on another possible series of short stories involving a fallen angel (Samandriel, mentioned in the previous blog entry) and an immortal. I'm looking forward to planning out their short stories, as well. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below. If you read any of the short stories, let me know below how you liked (or didn't like) them. I'm eager to know what you think! And for curiosity's sake, what do you think of the concept of paranormals/psychics/celestials being hunted by mortals? What do you like or dislike about it? What intrigues you about the idea? I'm curious to know! Until later, Lois |
AuthorLois Eighmy (pronounced like Amy) is a full-time fantasy and thriller writer. She's also an artist and fledgling photographer. You can see some of her writing and other creative works here on her website. She lives in Missouri with her husband, Jeff, her white calico cat, Chloe, and her brindle mutt, Nikita. She dreams of moving anywhere she can experience an annual White Christmas, but is happily working on being content with where she's at in the present. Archives
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