October Weeks's Blog

Today, I’m sharing another piece of flash fiction I wrote years ago, and it was inspired by a prompt someone gave me. I can’t remember the exact prompt, but it had to do with realizing that the person calling your name wasn’t the actual person. I had a lot of fun writing it, and this is actually the story that made me begin to realize that not every story I wrote had to be a short story, novella, or novel. Some stories can be short and sweet…and even just one sentence long.

You’d always been a light sleeper, so waking up in the middle of the night was a common occurrence. At times, you had no idea what actually woke you. Tonight, however, that was not the case.

“I need you downstairs, sweetie!” your mother called for the third time.

You groggily rolled out of bed and shuffled into the hallway, pausing to make certain you weren’t having some weird dream about being beckoned. After all, your single mother worked the night shift and normally was asleep by three o’clock in the morning, not calling out to her fifteen year old daughter.

“It’ll just take a moment!” she assured.

Tired as you were, you still picked up on the hint of breathlessness as if she was in the middle of doing something, which only served to hasten your steps toward the stairs.

Suddenly, hands grabbed you from behind and yanked you into a bedroom just before the stairs. You gasped, and then your breath caught in your throat as you met the worried but protective gaze of your mother.

I wrote this story back in 2021, after an autumn hike with friends. I returned home and wrote it in about fifteen minutes. I posted it on my original Tumblr (which I just restarted) and had the desire to post it once again. Enjoy!

Copyright@OctoberWeeks

The vibrant red leaves cascaded down, surrounding her as she stood at the bottom of the path. Her world narrowed and slowed as she turned and looked up the stone pathway, which led to the top of the mountain.

A chill ran up her spine that had nothing to do with the cool breeze.

She forced her gaze to the Polaroid picture she’d taken of herself the previous day. A picture of her standing in the exact spot and in the same clothes she was in now, the red leaves swirling around her and still lightly cascading down.

Just as they are now.

Her hand shook slightly as she watched a leaf land at her feet: the picture mirrored that exact position, her staring at the leaf.

Foreboding sank into every fiber of her being as the red leaves continued to gather around her.

She’d taken the picture as she stood in front of her mirror, in a brand-new dress.

In her apartment in the center of town.

Last night I worked on the revisions for The Scrying House and Shards. Both of these books are shaping up nicely, and I expect to have the revisions for them complete by the end of the month. Then, just as with the dark academia, they will need just one more read-through before going to the editor.

These two books will be self-published since I self-published the first books…though Salt & Iron was originally published through Evernight Teen. Both books have covers, so it’s just a matter of going through edits with the editor then formatting. I’m hoping to have both out next year.

I’ve made notes for book three in the Eden Hollow series—The Beast of Eden Hollow—and am excited to start writing! I already have the cover, and will be sharing that soon, once I’ve completed my editing/revisions on The Scrying House.

On the romance side of things, I’ve just released my Revenant Investigations series back into the wild. The series is paranormal mystery mixed with romance (nothing explicit), and it’s one of my favorite series I’ve written. It has all four novellas, and if you’d like to give the book a go, click on the cover below. Happy Reading!

I have restarted the podcast! The only difference is that along with my the paranormal and my author updates, I will also be including my spiritual work as well. If you want to follow the podcast, click the link below.

HAUNTED OCTOBER’S PARANORMAL PODCAST

I’ve spoken of this before, but I love notebooks. I have them in multiple places in case an idea pops into my head or when I feel stuck in a story. I was drawn to the fourth Tuck Houston book today, and felt stuck on where to go mid-scene. So, I grabbed a notebook and a pen and started to write the scene out…and I ended up with almost 17 pages. The words flowed the moment pen touched the paper.

And that is the true beauty of the handwritten word for me as a writer, and many writers that I know. When you can’t look at a computer screen anymore, when you feel blocked or unmotivated, you reached for pen and paper and magic happens.

I’ve been drawn back to typewriters as well, and am considering purchasing one. I miss that sound and the feel of the keys. I know they make keyboards that create the vibe of a typewriter, and you can set your writing space up as if you are using one, but it’s not the same. Don’t get me wrong, I love my computer and am grateful for the ease it brings, but sometimes, for me, stepping away from the screen helps my inspiration catch fire. I’m noticing that more often than not, my new stories, especially short stories, start in a notebook.

Just finished a morning writing session, and got in a little over 600 words, which makes me happy. I greatly dislike interrupting the flow, but I’m pleased with how the new chapter opened and I know I’ll be making notes the rest of the day. I was working on Sera’s second book.

I also have a cover for the the third Eden Hollow book, and will share that soon. I have the summary written for what the book will be focused on as well, and will share that it is told through Harlow’s point of view. Book Two, The Scrying House, is almost through revisions then it will go to the editor.

Lots of movement in my writing this year, and I’m so glad to have gotten words in this morning!

A short post to share that I am on my last pass edits for the dark academia/dark fantasy YA. I am hoping to start submitting to publishers at the of June, and will keep everyone updated on the progress!

Gah! I’m so excited!

And sometimes, you sit down to do 9 to 12 chapters of revisions and end up finishing the whole book…which is what happened yesterday.

I sat down in the morning to work on the revisions for the dark academia/dark fantasy upper YA~ moving the revisions from paper to laptop~ and I finished the whole book. At the end, I was still in the creative flow state and I wanted to continue on to do some of the smaller edits but chose (wisely) to stop and enjoy the win. I ended up adding about five or six pages, but this book is almost ready to submit. I just have to do one more round of small edits/a read-through to make certain I didn’t miss anything.

There is such a thing as over-editing, and I can tell when I’m getting to that stage. So, one more round/read-through and this book will be ready. So exciting!

I’ve made a lot of progress on Tuck 4 as well as Sera’s second book: quite happy with the new words for both! I am still making progress on adding the changes for the dark academia and the second Eden Hollow book to the computer, but I’m moving at a slower pace. I still expect to be finished by the end of the month for those, and then I will be printing out the second Saint McGuinness book to do a round of revisions on that.

Progress is also happening on my romance writing as well, and if you want to keep up with that, you can head over to my Libby Bishop blog.

On top of writing, I’ve also been purging through my belongings again, and that’s what I was doing most of yesterday. The apartment feels much lighter now, which helps the creative flow. Some of you may be aware that I also have a spiritual website, and that I do intuition and astrology readings, and have been trying to find a good social media balance with the three sites. I did restart my author Facebook page, but consolidated my two pen names so I only have one Facebook and one Instagram for my writing. Then, I have one Instagram and Facebook page for my spiritual stuff. I also just started a TikTok for my spiritual/author stuff as well.

Admittedly, I already feel like this may be too much, but in trying to find what works best, I need to experiment. The social media burnout has healed a great deal, but the balance still doesn’t feel right. So if you see me moving stuff around, or adding things/links, that is why.

I’m just trying to find the best way to communicate with all of you

The creativity started with a spark this morning…and is still going, though it is cooling down to embers now. I began the day creating new icons for my spiritual/energy healing offerings, and spent a good chunk of time working on that website with some redesign. Then, I opened my laptop and wrote another chapter on Sera’s second book, which was wonderful! The words were flowing.

There is nothing quite like the flow state when I’m writing~ pure magic, that is.

I woke around 5am today, and now, at 6:12pm, I am finally starting to wind down. Having just had dinner and now going to make some tea. But what a wonderful, creative day it was! I may end up writing a bit more before the night is done, since the energy is still warm, but my intuition is telling me that I’m done for the day.