Angella Graff's Blog

I may have just earned myself that title.  Author Behaving Badly.

Prior to yesterday, I believed the title was reserved for those authors who came after critics of their published works.  Those authors who decided they couldn’t handle that someone didn’t like what they’d put out there and so they took it upon themselves to defend their work.  And in turn, became an Author Behaving Badly.

Trust me, I’ve had my fair share of criticisms.  Due to the nature of my specific work in one of my series, I’ve had flack from people who identify as Christians and are mortally offended by my portrayal of their religious founder.  I.E. I used an old tradition that Jesus was trained in a Buddhist temple in India and after he was rescued from his crucifixion, escaped back to Kashmir where he lived, died, and is currently buried.  (Seriously look up Isa of Kashmir– you won’t be disappointed, I promise.)  But I don’t reply to those people critiquing my work because it’s their opinion on a book they (may or may not have) purchased with their own money.  You buy it, you earn your public opinion and I’m not going to feel one way or the other about it.

But I digress, because that’s not the issue here.

We’re talking about me, and how I earned my title yesterday during a giant facebook wank.

See, there’s a fine line you have to walk as an author.  You have a public face, and whether or not you’re famous, you’re still visible.  People may choose to read your work, or skip it based on certain things.  And I think the trouble comes with the assumption that people in a visible line of work are required then to abandon all personal morals and become completely neutral.  We reserve our opinions for private conversations with people we trust because we don’t want to alienate our audience.

I don’t buy that, and I don’t believe that.  The goddess J.K. Rowling herself has taken down sexist and horrible tweets without regret or remorse.  She’s not sorry.  She’s not playing respectability politics.  She’s being who she is as a person.

Just today I read this fantastic blog by Chuck Wendig taking down some homophobic dude who sent him hate mail for having a gay main character.  He’s unapologetic and he uses the phrase Fuckity Snacks which probably made my entire day.

But here’s the crux of it all, as authors we create worlds different from our own.  There, we DO represent different lifestyles and viewpoints, backgrounds, genders, etc.  But as people, which we are allowed to be, we don’t have to play nice.  We don’t have to be the fucking Switzerland of the writing world.  We are under no obligation to hide who we are.

Here is a screen cap of my status which earned me the title.

This status, which sums up my very real views on the world as it is, earned me threats.  I was mocked, ridiculed, had my writing career threatened, was told I was giving an “ultimatum” to people on my facebook.  I’ve been scolded that I’m not “playing nicely”, and told repeatedly that it’s my job as an author to be neutral on these things.

This like (copy-pasted, not screen-capped to protect their identity)

“This link that I saved may hurt your standing one day. Everything we say in life is, and can be, used against us.“

“Oh no, there is another Pooptard who wants to be a follower of mandates and unethical demands…”

“Well I agree with 10 and 11–two out of 15 isn’t all that bad for an ole white guy.“

“Everyone thinks that society is just going to give everyone what they want. Not everyone can have what they want. Therefore there will never be true equality. As for Bruce Jenner, he carries a Y chromosome which makes him a man regardless of how he mutulates himself.“

So here’s the thing… No.  It’s not my job to be neutral.  Just as it’s not my job to endure people wanting to debate me over the importance of black lives or the LGBTQ community.  It’s not my job to pretend like I don’t have an opinion on the racist shitbag Donald Trump running (and doing disgustingly well in the Republican polls) for POTUS.  It’s not my job to sit quietly and endure bigotry.  It’s not my job to allow people on my page who believe these things.  I am not obligated as a human being to “agree to disagree” on oppressed people’s right to live.

So if this means I’m an Author Behaving Badly, I’ll gladly wear that badge today.  Because I don’t want these people to interact with me.  I don’t want to cater to that audience.  If you sit in silence, you side with the oppressors.  And I won’t be that person.

One of the things my husband and I first bonded over was our love of both reading and writing.  We were both That Kid who spent summer breaks and vacations curled up surrounded by good stories and a TBR list that spanned over three miles long.

He took the path of reading, however, and I took the path of writing.  He always dabbled in stories, and he’s got a talent for it, I’ll give him that.  It wasn’t until I started pursuing my career of writing, though, that he took up the hobby with more serious intentions of actually pursuing the idea of having something published one day.

I think that’s pretty common in homes with writers.  Partners are inspired to create something, and I think it should be encouraged.  He’s been working on a story idea for a while now, and the other day he asked me a question.  “How much effort do you put into scene building?”

I had to think about that one for a while, because my process tends to be more organic–and by that I mean, I don’t usually put a lot of conscious thought into how the scene is being built.  I spend months, if not years, creating worlds and characters in my head, so by the time I sit down to write them, I know them all by heart.  I know their names, what time they were born and when.  I know their most embarrassing moment as a child, and what they wanted to be when they grew up.  I know about their first day of school, and about their last.  I know all their secrets, and I know what they dream about at night.

When I sit down to start a story, my brain splits in half.  There’s one part paying close attention to the technical details.  A part of my brain paying attention to spelling and grammar, when I need to break for paragraphs.  Am I using too many adverbs?  Dialogue tags?  Have I accurately set up everyone in the room with everything they need in order to advance to the next scene?

The second part is busy pulling from the vast well of knowledge I created about this singular universe.  It’s drawing on who the characters are as people, helping to create them as individuals so I know how they would react no matter what situation was presented to them.

The question my husband was asking, though, was on the technical side.  “How much effort do you put into scene building.”

I asked him to clarify because that question can be interpreted in a few ways.  But he did, and it got me thinking, I wonder how many authors worry about this.  “I’m currently writing a scene where my character has managed to break into a place, and now he’s trying to get out unnoticed.  He’s talking to a guard and walking through a room, and I’m not sure how much detail to put in to it.”

It made my ability to answer the question much easier.  How much do you put into it?

Exactly the amount the reader needs to know.  Authors have the entire world in their heads.  The entire past, present, and future.  But the reader doesn’t need that.  The reader only needs to know what’s important to that particular scene, and nothing else.  The color of the floor?  Unless it’s important to the plot or characters– the answer is no.  The reader is allowed to imagine the color of the floor any way they want.

The magazine the guard is reading?  Only if it’s important to further the scene.  Otherwise some people might imagine him reading Home and Garden.  Some people might imagine it’s TIME magazine.  Some people might envision vogue or Sports Illustrated, or People.

My advice to him– only write what matters.

That however, can be tricky for authors.  Because to us, all of it matters.  Every nuanced detail of the room and the people in it, and the motivations of their actions, and even the color of the damned tiles matter.  We know what the room looks like in our heads and sometimes we get caught up in trying to make the reader see what we see.

But it’s important not to get carried away, because–at least for me–a lot of the fun when I was reading was being able to imagine things the way I wanted to imagine them.  I always found myself extremely distracted by authors who go on and on for paragraphs about the way something looks.  If down the line it wasn’t necessary for me to have a detailed image of what the bedroom looks like, I would get frustrated I wasted so much time reading about the particular shade of burnt coffee the person had painted their walls.

And it’s the same for bigger details, too.

I reminded my husband that a lot of the sci-fi he read as a kid had been written when the genre wasn’t popular.  There weren’t hundreds of titles, movies, television shows, and web series featuring the insides of space ships and battle pods and alien worlds and space stations.  When those authors were describing the flight room of their massive Space Cruiser, it was because no one had seen one before, so the concept was unfamiliar.

Now it’s everywhere.  And some people might picture it Star Wars-esque.  Some people (like me–Trekkie forever!) might envision something more like the Enterprise.  But either way, we’ve been immersed in the sci-fi culture long enough to have our own versions of what these things look like.  Wasting time, again unless it’s necessary to the plot— writing out a detailed idea of what your space station looks like, is just taking time away from letting your story get moving, of letting it get good.

Everyone of course has a different style.  And everyone’s going to have a different opinion, and this just happens to be mine.  But although I haven’t been writing professionally for longer than a few years, I’ve been reading a lot longer than that, and it happens to be something I’ve always carried with me.  I’ve always loved the authors who leave just enough to the reader’s imagination to feel like you’ve crawled into your own private world.

So really, how much is too much?  That’s up to you to decide.

Rise of Apollo

Yesterday afternoon was bittersweet.  I was in my computer chair, shoulders aching, eyes beyond a state of tired, fingers cramping.  I was hungry, exhausted, my house was a mess, and I’d skipped the gym for the last four days because I had a goal and damn it, I was going to get there.

By about 3pm Arizona Time (which is sometimes PST and sometimes MST for all you Daylight-Savings-Having-States), I dotted the final i and crossed the final t on the last book of my Judas Curse series.  It was a moment where I said my final goodbyes to those characters (well mostly– but that’s a spoiler for a little later), finished my formatting, and hit submit.

I’ve done this enough times now where the uploading process holds far less stress than when I started.  I know all the tips and tricks.  I know what file  type to use, and on createspace, the bane of most self-pub author’s existence, I know how to put in my cover so it won’t get rejected, and which format to send my file in so there won’t be five thousand noted errors in the preview section.

Within 4 hours, The Rise of Apollo was live on Amazon.  I woke up this morning to an email asking me to approve my copy on createspace.  I went through the copy, checked out my 3D view of the cover, made sure my formatting was in line, then it was approved.

The Rise of Apollo came at a difficult time for me.  Everyone has those years, I’m sure.  The type of year where everything that can go wrong, will go wrong.  Right after Empty Vessel was published, I developed a medical issue which resulted in two surgeries over the course of the next year.  On top of that my mother’s health took a turn for the worse, and a series of personal family issues kept us on our toes.

I tried to write.  I got over 60,000 words into Rise of Apollo before my first surgery.  During my recovery, though, I went back to read what I’d written, and it was horrible (at least by my own standards).  My head and heart weren’t in it.  So I did what I felt was best for the series, hit ctrl-A- DEL and the document was gone.  The book needed a fresh start.  It deserved a fresh start.

I think the book is better for it.  I don’t regret for a moment starting from scratch.  Even though the pain of deleting 60,000 words was almost physical, it was necessary.

And I am now, officially, the author of a complete series.  I have told a story from start to finish about a series of characters, a plot woven through their lives, tense beginnings, climactic endings.  I’ve birthed, raised, and watched characters I care about meet their untimely deaths in some cases.

Finishing a series leaves behind a strange sense of emptiness, I’ve noticed.  A moment of disbelief.  Am I really done with all of them?  Is this truly over?  Am I never going to sit down and tell their story again?

I feel accomplished in a way I thought I never would.  I think back to when I first started the Judas Curse concept.  Almost ten years ago, sitting at my computer desk with my notes from my Christology class sitting next to me.  I had a few books on the Gnostic traditions sitting on top of them, and I was brain storming.

At the time I was a fresh writer with hundreds of ideas, about twenty first chapters of various novels started and abandoned on my word program.  I wondered if I would ever have the drive to finish anything.  Now here I am, one decade and eight full novels published later, and the possibilities seem endless.  Where I would once be intimidated by my document full of book and series concepts, I now feel confident that my Amazon author page will some day extend several pages long with everything I’ve done.

For everyone who might miss this series, I’m taking the time now to announce it’s not “officially over”.  The Judas Curse series is, yes.  But every story hasn’t been told, and I think each one of them deserves their fifteen minutes.

I’m planning a stand-alone sequel to the series called Genesis.  Thirty-four years in the future, we’ll see what happened to the world after The Rise of Apollo.

And there will be a companion series to the Judas Curse called Origin of the Gods.  Each stand-alone novel will tell the origin story of various characters readers have fallen in love with.  We’ll see what happened when Apollo first joined the Greek Gods, what was going on in Egypt when Persephone met Hades, and the Egyptian Gods were still the Portal Guardians.  We’ll get a glimpse of Valhalla and discover the tense family dynamics of the Norse Gods and see how Thor became so enamored with the humans.  There will be the story of Mark and Hypatia, and his time in the Library of Alexandra.  And we’ll hit the road with Judas as he made his way into Renaissance Italy and formed a relationship with one of the most famous artists of all time.

I’m currently working on a new series, too.  The Reaping is the story of a young girl who finds herself dragged into the supernatural world of Demons, Reapers, and Exorcists.  I’m about 2/3rds away from my completed first draft, The Language of the Liar, and hope to have that finished by the end of the year.

Today, I’m taking a day off.  Apart from this blog, I plan to spend the day hanging with my kids who are on summer break, maybe do a little cleaning, take the dogs for a walk, work on obedience training with my sprightly little pug.  I might do a little packing for our vacation in a few days.  Maybe I’ll have a netflix marathon and stuff my face with chocolate chip banana bread my husband baked up yesterday.

Either way, I’m walking into this morning, coffee in hand, puppy nibbling on my toes, feeling accomplished and proud.  I finished a book series.  Through blood, sweat, and tears, my words are now all over the world, and it’s one of the best feelings a writer can have.

Have a great day, from me and the Fitz-Monster

(also he was making that face because he was scared of the vacuum. ha.)

I opened up my amazon page to Alexandra Fry today and saw it sitting at number one in its respective fantasy and detective categories.  Cracking the top 100 regardless of a sale is difficult, and getting to and holding number one for an entire week takes a near miracle.

But my book did it.

12,000 people and counting now own a copy of my book.  That’s 12,000 potential new readers for my series.  It’s 12,000 potential new fans and 12,000 potential secondary sales of any further books I publish in that universe.  The thought is exciting.  It’s motivating.

This week I’ve been swamped with a to-do list.  Working on a new co-authored novel with my editor (and favorite author- Delena Silverfox), finishing up edits on Rise of Apollo and Single Mom Dating.  Getting outlines done on my Daniel Webster series, working on my first chapter of my new series Reapers, and finishing my final listen in on my audiobook The Awakening– which spoiler alert, sounds glorious.

Some days I feel stressed and overwhelmed.  I have a massive pile of work, and between that I have to find time to spend with my children, my husband, and myself.  My career choice isn’t easy.  Things didn’t get easier when I left editing.

But it is hard to complain.  This was my dream, after all.  Recently I attended a family gathering where a bunch of my family members flew in, and so many of them remarked on my career.  “I can’t believe you actually did it.  Your entire life, ever since you were a little kid, you always told us you wanted to be an author.  And here you are and look how well you’re doing!”

I had a moment the other day when I was sitting at my desk listening to my audiobook and talking to a couple of my best friends.  Here was this award-winning narrator, someone who has hundreds of titles under his belt–many of the NY Times Bestsellers– and he was reading my words.  Mine.  It was a very surreal moment for me.  I used to listen to audiobooks all the time, and there was something about the moment when I realized that I’d reached that point in my career where it was my turn– where it was my book being read, that I felt like yeah.  I made it.  I’m official.

I mentioned it to my friends and one of them said very pointedly, “You are the reason I refuse to give up on my dreams.  Because you realized yours.”

And it’s true, I had.  My dream was never to be the next Stephen King.  I wasn’t asking for fame and fortune.  To make enough to pay my mortgage every month is plenty for me.  To get fan mail a few times a week from eager readers clamoring for my next book is all I could possibly hope to ask for.

I know I probably sound like one of those uplifting memes you see shared around facebook, and I know most of you are shaking your head going, gross Angella.  Stop being all nice and sweet.  Weren’t you just raging out at the patriarchal nerd market for refusing to include Black Widow and saying the word fuck a lot?  Doesn’t your facebook cover photo say Go Fuck Yourself over a picture of Castiel?

Yep.  But I’m happy.  I can’t deny that.  I’m about to break into the Lego Movie Everything is Awesome song.  Seriously.

Hello everyone!  So some fantastic news before we get on to the sample chapter.  A most fantastic narrator has accepted my offer to work on The Awakening Audiobook.  My book was also picked up for a stipend by Amazon, which was a wonderful surprise, something I didn’t notice until my inbox was suddenly flooded by auditions from skilled narrators.  It was almost impossible to choose one, but being there was a time limit, and no shortage of talent, I was able to select the best voice for the book.  We’re working on a time-table as we speak, so as soon as the book becomes available, I plan to let everyone know where they can pick up a copy.  My hope is to have every one of the series books available in audiobook version by the end of the year.  So crossing my fingers.

Second note of happy here today, I was able to type The End on book five.  Tears were shed, I’m not gonna lie.  The moment I finished one of the most climatic scenes in the entire series, I paused, a little overwhelmed with emotion.  Closing up this series (though possibly not a forever end) was tougher than I had imagined it would be.  But I’m grateful for the opportunity and success it’s had over the last two years.  I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but I don’t think I ever dreamed I’d be sitting here talking about my first finished series of books.  That in itself is something to celebrate.

Bring on the giant vat of wine!

So without further ado, here’s a sample chapter of the upcoming finale of the Judas Curse series: The Rise of Apollo.

(please note this hasn’t been read and/or even breathed on by my amazing editor so any mistakes are mine and I own them.  Rough draft, people.  Rough draft!)

Chapter Two:

He would be a liar if he said the moment the winged god stepped into the room he wasn’t filled with an abject fear. Perhaps not before. Perhaps even just a year ago when Apollo was nothing more than a creature to envy. Graced with his corporeal form like none of the other gods had been, the Greeks envied him and his brothers. But to fear them? Asclepius had only ever known immortality. He’d been birthed into the world of humans fully formed and worshiped. They were born squalling infants. Growing, living, and dying in the blink of an eye. Asclepius remained always.

Death never mattered to the gods. Even when Hades shouted from the top of Olympus before he was cast out that the gods should fear the humans, they laughed at him. Even when the humans forgot them all and they faded into nothing, they weren’t dead.

But now Asclepius could taste death. It hung over him like a swinging pendulum and it terrified him. He’d seen gods succumb to the madness of immortality, watched as they flung themselves into the portals. The portal he so jealously guarded for years in the body of his descendant, he watched the gods come to him, begging for death. He watched as the portal swallowed them whole and somewhere in his mind, he knew he couldn’t ever choose that fate.

He was immortal. Death only existed for those who wanted it.

Asclepius wanted to live.

Then came Apollo. Then came Apollo and his endless appetite for souls. He started with the humans. Asclepius had seen it eons ago when Apollo and Artemis ruled the world, clothed as angels with their flaming swords—so to speak. He watched Apollo touch humans and stood back to consume their energy as they flared bright and burned out.

But to watch it happen to his kind…

Taking a deep breath, Asclepius stepped into the room. It was nothing special. It was an office. A large desk against the south wall, positioned in the center so the god could keep an eye of anything coming or going. There was a comfortable couch, bookshelves, a television, a well stocked bar. The window overlooked the complex which was currently being built.  So much like the compound Nike created to control her masses.

Apollo had been there too. Asclepius hadn’t seen him then, not at that time. But he couldn’t remember when Apollo wasn’t at Nike’s side. Of course now that she was gone, thrown through the portal to god knows where…

“How many?” Apollo’s voice was never harsh. It was always calm and soothing, even to the gods. Even to this god who knew one misstep could be the end of him.

Asclepius took several deep breaths to even out his hammering heart. The twenty-something year old man he was sitting in wasn’t going to last. The god gene in him wasn’t very strong. In fact, those humans were becoming increasingly hard to find these days. “Last count by the front desk was four hundred and six with another two hundred reserved. The requests are what’s taking the most time for booking.” Asclepius had the clipboard with the human attendees printed out on sheets of paper, but he didn’t need to look down for the numbers.

One foot propped up on the edge of his desk, Apollo put his hands behind his head. Though Asclepius couldn’t see the wings currently, he could hear them rustling. Like paper in a breeze almost. They existed half in and half out of this reality.

“And our guest? Is he conscious?”

Asclepius pursed his lips and hated his answer. “Not presently.”

“See to it he’s awake and his strength is up before tomorrow. I need a boost.” Apollo ran a hand over his mouth and looked at the door. One of the human workers, no one Asclepius knew by name, appeared in the doorway. He could feel Apollo’s hunger raging and he took an involuntary step back.

“Can we help you?” Asclepius snapped.

“I was um…” The kid was no more than eighteen, tall and gangly with short hair and very low muscle tone. He looked between Apollo and Asclepius, fingers quaking at his sides. “I was sent here…”

“Never mind,” Asclepius said in a hurry. It felt pathetic, but he was overwhelmed with a desire to save them now. Watching them picked off one by one, the way the other gods had been. He was filled with an empathy for the humans like he’d never experienced before. In fact, it was his idea the humans be congregated, like farm animals, though instead of sent to slaughter, they would be made to worship. A vain attempt to fulfill Nike’s plan to restore power to the gods. Her plan sans opening a portal because they’d all seen the tragic ending to that story.

Rising, Apollo put his hands splayed flat on the top of the desk and smiled over at the young man. “Come back in ten minutes, won’t you? We’ll have a quick chat.”

As though he could sense what danger he might be in, the kid nodded and hurried out the door, reeking of terror. Asclepius shut the door behind him and rounded on Apollo. “Don’t.”

Apollo’s grin spread, wolfish with gleaming teeth. “Why not? He’s just some kid.”

“Because the more you do this, the more they’re going to notice a little more than healing goes on here. The last thing you want on your hands is a human riot.” His voice belied his abject fear.

Apollo rolled his eyes, a childish gesture as he flopped back into his plush leather chair, and he crossed his arms. “One human. They won’t miss him.”

“He has family here, and they will. And one family will talk to another who will talk to another. They’ll riot.”

“And they’ll die.”

“And you’ll be left with nothing,” Asclepius reminded him. “Your power source from the gods is nearly dried up, and the humans well… only so many exist. If you destroy them, what’s left for you?”

Apollo’s jaw clenched, his face a mask of fury, but he said nothing. After a few seconds, he relaxed and waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Go and get him ready. Make sure he’s eaten. I don’t want him unconscious for days.”

He was excused without another word, and any reason to be in any other room than the one Apollo occupied, Asclepius would jump on that chance. Even if it meant tending to him.

Hurrying down the hall, Asclepius wrenched open the heavy metal door. The dim hallway, barely wide enough to accommodate his human form, led directly down.

He’d never felt like this before, the impending doom hovering above the earth. Nike had been insane, but never a real threat. Never a threat to anyone but herself, anyway. Humans had died along the way but what were a few compared to the billions left. His kind was all-but extinct now.

Ben, the great savior, the man who had no idea who he was or where he came from. The savoir had done little to stop this avalanche. In fact, it seemed he’d only made things worse. Nike they could handle. The incorporeal ones were always limited. Always.

Asclepius didn’t think anyone knew what terror they were unleashing when they broke Apollo’s heart, killing the love of his life. For all the frantic infatuation he cursed the humans with, he’d never been able to escape his own when it came to Nike.

Coming to a stop just outside the door, Asclepius put his hand to the wood and stood there.  He’d been so content and happy before this. Safely ensconced in a doctor who actively worked to keep him comfortable in his vessel. One who was researching the god gene and drugs that would allow the gods to come and go as they pleased.

A symbiotic relationship, one that would give both god and human power. It was a beautiful thing. He worked the good doctor’s way through med school, and the good doctor rewarded him with strippers and booze and money and anything his heart could possibly desire.

That was destroyed. In a violent rage, the body was destroyed and everything Asclepius had known was taken from him. He was so sure Ben was going to be the savior they all promised he would be.

Now they were dead, Judas was lying unconscious and trapped, and Ben was… well Asclepius couldn’t be sure. It was too risky to find him. Apollo would know, and then he would kill the god. At this point only his own life mattered. If that meant making a deal with the devil, so be it.

Pushing the door open, Asclepius turned on the light. The place itself wasn’t as much of a dungeon as it could have been. Apollo needed the immortal conscious most of the time, powerful and strong. It was only the thrall which Apollo had over him that kept him at bay and docile.

He was lying on the bed in the corner, covered up to the chin with a heavy blanket. Asclepius glanced at the wall and saw the temperature was well below sixty. He turned up the dial on the heater and felt a hot blast rushing from the vents in the ceiling. This almost always worked, and sure enough within minutes, Judas began to stir.

He was thin, most of the time refusing to eat except when he was too beaten down to refuse the food. He looked unkempt, almost as pathetic as he looked when Ben first found him. Currently his face was covered in bruises, a few spots swollen where the bones had been shattered, but he was healing.

Not as fast though. Not as fast as he had been, and the god knew it was worrying Apollo more than anything. It was no longer about killing Judas, no longer about consuming him. The powers Apollo was able to draw from the gods he killed were temporary. Some had lasting effects, but for the most part, it was a fleeting thing.

Apollo needed Judas as much as Judas needed Apollo. Or thought he did, anyway. His constantly weakened state was concerning. It was probably why Asclepius was one of the few survivors left. The god of medicine, of healing. Nothing close to what Apollo had been, but once up on a time Asclepius learned to focus his power thanks to the winged god. Long before he became a monster. Once upon a time the sun god had been able to heal humans, before his power grew and he began to feed off their deaths.

Asclepius was the only healer left. That wasn’t counting the detective, of course, but that was still one last egg in Asclepius’ basket. Apollo didn’t know what Ben was capable of. Not all of it, and the god intended on keeping it that way as long as he could manage it.

Walking to the corner of the room, he pulled open the door to the small freezer and brought out an ice pack. The temperature in the room was tolerable now, so he shed his coat and dropped it on the back of the chair. Peering into the fridge, he saw a covered pot with some of the lamb stew he’d brought down a few days ago. A quick sniff said it was still good, so he poured it into a bowl to nuke it.

Wetting a wash cloth, Asclepius crossed the room and lowered himself on the edge of the bed. Jude stirred, letting out a small moan. His eyes were moving behind the lids, but he didn’t show any signs he was close to consciousness. With a sigh, Asclepius ran the warm cloth over the dried blood and watched it flake off, falling onto the white pillow case.

Jude smelled. He needed a hot shower and several good meals and at least a week before he could endure any more beatings. It wasn’t really intentional either. Apollo couldn’t control his temper. He was a raging two year old with the power of the Old Ones and Jude wasn’t giving him what he wanted.

The microwaved dinged, and Asclepius looked over. The room smelled like old soup now. His stomach churned and he felt a rabid craving for a hard drink. There was nothing like that in the complex, though. Apollo was setting up an image for his followers. No drugs, no alcohol, no medicine.

A murmur drew Asclepius’ gaze back down to the unconscious immortal, and he saw Jude’s jaw working. His hand lifted, then flopped back down on the sheet and Asclepius could see the wrist was still broken. He pressed down on the bone and felt it pop beneath his fingers, ignoring Jude’s pained cry.

“Don’t be such a baby,” Asclepius scolded. He pushed on the bones again and they rebroke as they set properly. He had a feeling it would heal faster now. “You need to get up. Need you up and walking by tomorrow.”

Jude took in a shaking breath before he cracked open one eye. It fixed on Asclepius’ face, sending a wave of guilt and empathy crashing through the god. He still wasn’t used to caring about anything, so it hurt to feel it.

“I’m hungry.” Jude’s voice was deep and raspy from screaming. He cleared his throat, then attempted to sit up, but he fell back down against the pillow.

“Hang tight, I’ve got soup.” Pulling away from the battered thing on the bed, Asclepius went to the microwave and grabbed the bowl between his hands. It was searing hot, but the pain in his hands distracted him from the horrible feeling settling in his stomach. He’d spent the last several weeks doing everything he could to stop feeling these things, but it was futile. Whatever this ragtag band of supernatural misfits had done to him, there was no going back. He was altered.

He felt a small rush of hate toward all of them, and fought back a sudden urge to pour the scalding hot liquid on Jude’s face. He was one of them, after all. This was partially his fault. Instead, he dropped back down onto the bed and with one hand, grabbed the front of Jude’s shirt, yanking him into a sitting position.

Still weak, Jude shuffled back against the wall to prop himself up and let Asclepius spoon-feed him broth. He winced as he tried to chew some of the meat, but nodded for more. The color was already returning to his face, and the heavy, pained feeling of guilt was starting to float away.

It would be back, when Jude was again drained of his power and beaten unrecognizable, but for now it was a little relief. He continued to feed the immortal until Jude’s strength in his hands returned and he took the bowl over for himself.

Getting up, Asclepius walked to the bathroom, making a face at the freezing cold waves of air coming from the vent. He stood up on the toilet to close the slats, then turned the knob on the shower as hot as it would go.

“How many?” Jude’s voice was stronger now, and when Asclepius peered around the door, he saw Jude taking a tentative step away from the bed.

“Double.” Asclepius stepped back into the bathroom to make sure there were fresh towels and plenty of soap. The guy was going to need several rounds of scrubbing to remove the caked gore from his hair and skin. “You know if you don’t fight him, you can get through this round without having to heal.”

The harsh laugh ripped through Jude’s throat, sounding wet and painful. “You and I both know that’s not true. He feeds on it.”

“He feeds on what you’ll give him,” Asclepius corrected. “Fighting him just makes it worse for you.”

“And you think I could live with myself if I just gave that monster what he was asking for?” Jude was now stripped naked, standing in the ugly yellow glow of the old light bulb in the center of the room. Every bone was protruding against his skin, and if Asclepius didn’t know Jude could survive in a state like this, he might start preparing him his last rites.

“I don’t think you have a choice, immortal.” Asclepius stepped aside, and when Jude stepped behind the old, moldy shower curtain, he went to the dresser and found a pair of sweats. Nothing Apollo provided was in any way aesthetically pleasing. Just old, grey, tattered jogging outfits and god only knows where Apollo found them. But they fit and Judas never complained. He wasn’t like Mark and his endless foreign bank accounts and posh hotel rooms and expensive cars.

The shower seemed to take an eternity. Asclepius turned on the small fan in the corner of the room. It was one of those fancy deals that pulled all the negative ions or whatever out of the room. Something from an as-seen-on-tv advertisement. Either way, it did help with the smell.

He felt a little like a nurse as he ripped the sheets from the bed, flipped the mattress, and redressed everything. But he could breathe again, and once Jude’s soiled clothes were in a pile just outside the door, the room was less suffocating.

Jude stepped out a half hour later, hair dripping, but the bloody mats were gone. He smelled clean, if not a little sour from the old perfume in the soaps. But it was better than death. Jude glanced at the sweats before toweling himself off, spending the most amount of time on his long curls.

Asclepius took a moment to appreciate the view. He’d never really had a particular preference for human bodies. He loved the way women curved in so many places. He especially loved the curves of large breasts and asses. But there was something to be said about the thin definition of men. The way the hips seemed to be carved out of skin and bone. Even his flaccid dick just hanging there in his nest of dark hair had its own appeal.

For a moment he wondered why Mark bothered to resist Jude for so long. Why let a hang-up over gender stretch on for two thousand years? It was such a human thing to do.

With Judas now dressing, Asclepius turned away, back to the fridge to look for something with more substance. The shelves were bare though. Some moldy cheese, an open can of olives which had gone bad, and in the very back a swollen tub of yogurt that looked like one wrong move and it would burst. He couldn’t remember the last time the place was stocked. Even the soup was something he brought from upstairs, at Apollo’s request of course.

The cupboards were dusty and empty, and he felt frustrated. What’s the point of needing this man alive and strong if Apollo was so intent on stripping Jude’s humanity? What strength would be left in a man who no longer saw himself as a man?

A hand fell on his shoulder and as he turned, he saw the look in Jude’s eyes. It was pity. The beaten, tortured immortal pitied him. He almost laughed, but the warmth in Jude’s touch was almost overwhelming and he lost his breath.

“I get it. But I haven’t thought of myself as human in so long, I’ve lost count of the years. This isn’t Apollo’s doing. I don’t have a lot left, but I still have the ability to fight him and until he breaks that, I can’t give in. I know you’re tired of patching me up, but he’s either going to win or lose, and whatever side he ends up on, I want to be able to say I did my job. I’m immortal for a reason, after all. He might be able to kill me one day, but he can’t erase what I was brought here to do.”

I’m doing several things right now, as far as author’ing goes.  I’m finishing up book five.  The finish line is rapidly approaching.  I have to say it is taking a serious emotional toll on me.  I’ve known what was going to happen to these characters from the first word of The Awakening, but it doesn’t make it any easier for me to draw this series to a close.  However a part of me feels some tiny, itty bitty baby sense of relief.

I love this series, I do.  But I’m ready to move on to other things.

I’m currently ramping up for a 2 day appearance at the Tucson Festival of Books with the BookGoodies blog.  I’ve been a long-time follower and frequent subscriber to their advertising services with great results.  Today I found a massive stack of bookmarks which excited me because it saved me a metric ton on re-printing (and by metric-ton I mean like fifty bucks, which is not small change here).  One of my kids pointed out I had a bag of them in my sea of junk that is my garage.

I’ve also struggled with a decision and have finally made it, which may disappoint some of you, but I think it’s for the best.  Come mid-March, I will be unpublishing the Alexandra Fry series.  The truth is, for all the hundreds of dollars in marketing I’ve put into this book the last three months, my sales are dismal.  I mean I can count them on two hands dismal.  Because I’m an indie author, my main source of income stems from ebooks.  I can utilize amazon sales and marketing techniques which really gets the book going.  However even with some high-traffic blogs and websites and advertising, I just cannot get this series off the ground.  The sad part is, it’s very well received.  Better than any of my other books.  I’ve had emails and queries about the series and people excited for more.

But not enough.

I’m not abandoning the series, but I think it’s time to pursue an agent and see about getting the book aligned with a publisher who may be able to do it justice in print form.  I’m sad to put it on hold, but I’m confident I can find a home for this series where it will find its way into the hands of interested young readers.

Lastly I just wanted to give an update on some of my upcoming projects, since I have several.

Right now I’m fleshing out two new series.  The first is a mystical, supernatural series called Cirque Mystique featuring a variety of my favorite supernatural beasties.  I’m not sure how many books, but it will have a central story arc.  So far I have outlines for three books, and I’m working on character bio-sheets and bullet-point plot lists for the first book.

The second is a supernatural satire (noticing a theme here?  hah) called the Daniel Webster chronicles.  It details out the life of a young man who, as it turns out, happens to be the half-human son of the Devil.  The series will follow Daniel though his adventures in Law School as he prepares to take over Hell’s law firm.  My notes for this series are still small, but they are so far very fun, and the small samples I’ve written out to share with a few people in my writing circle have been very well received.

Lastly (for the moment) I’m working on a coffee-table memoir style book called Single Mom Dating.  A lot of times I’ll get caught up sharing stories about my adventures dating just after my divorce, and I realize most of my stories are anecdotal.  Some unintentionally hilarious, many with a decent lesson I’d like to share, and all of them I know other single moms will understand and the rest of the world will enjoy laughing at.  I think this one will probably be my next book out, and there will be a massive disclaimer for any of my family members to take caution, lest they want to find out more information about my dating life than they ever wanted to know.  Ha!

So I’m off to work again, using this beautiful Saturday curled up at my computer trying to get through these last pages.  Thanks for sticking with me so far.  And since it’s a thing– Happy Valentine’s Day.  And Happy Belated Galentine’s Day from yesterday.

Edit:  The other day I had an email asking me about other social media I use.  And apart from my Facebook page, the only other thing I use is Instagram.  Which you can find me on @btchsprinkles .  It’s mostly just random photos of really random stuff, and a lot of kid stuff.  And Ipsy bags and crochet and knitted stuff.  But if you want a very haphazard peek into my day, feel free to follow me :)

So in the spirit of a Hobbit, today being my birthday I’m giving the gift of a Sample Chapter to everyone who’s been asking me for book 5.  And I know, it’s taking forever.  2014 was a tough year for me and my family.  I had disappointing test results come back from a doctor’s appointment which led to two surgeries, my house was robbed, and a host of other small incidents which set my writing back to the point I wasn’t sure when I was going to pick it back up.  Luckily by the end of the year, things took an up-turn.  My books are selling great, things are put back in order, house is secure, and health issues are being managed.  Which means time to put the focus back on finishing the book.

This series will not mark the end of my writing career, either.  I have two other book series ideas I’m currently fleshing out, and a fun little coffee-table memoir called Single Mom Dating (hilarious stories of my dating discoveries before I met my awesome husband), all currently in the “working” pile.

Today I turn 33, and feel like I’ve accomplished more in these last 3 years than I did in the previous 29.  So without further ado, here’s the first chapter to Rise of Apollo, due out before summer (I swear it!).  Please be warned my editor hasn’t even seen a sneak-preview of my book yet, meaning it hasn’t been touched or re-written.  Any mistakes, adverbs, passive language, and other hideous writing mistakes are all mine and will be as such corrected and penance shall be performed as my editor sees fit.

***

Rise of Apollo

Chapter One

~*~

“Sir?”

Ben kept walking, his fingers wrapped around his paper cup of coffee so tight it was starting to bow. The toe of his shoe caught in a groove of the sidewalk and he stumbled, hissing when the hot liquid spilled onto his hand. He swore, wiping the coffee on the side of his coat and tried to pretend he didn’t see the man following in his periphery.

“Please, it’ll only take a second.”

Ben’s jaw clenched. The apartment was two blocks away. He knew taking a stroll on the University campus was going to be risky. Solicitors, religious tracts, polls, voting registry, donations, frat party flyers. School was just getting started and though it had been many years since Ben was in college, he remembered. His abject hatred of his fellow students and teachers followed him well into adulthood.

He loved his education, but hated getting it.  Pretentious fuckers surrounding him at every turn. Philosophy students analyzing everything he said, psychology students trying to figure him out. Vapid women who were taught by their shitty families that all they needed was to marry a guy on the path to riches, and on the flip side women who were independent and wonderful and already knew they were too good for him.

His single long-term relationship crashed and burned in college. It was not a fun reminder. And this guy following him waving some paper in the side of his eye was really asking for a beating. Ben wasn’t a cop here. There wouldn’t be a scandal. Probably.

Making it the second to last block away from the apartment, he stopped. Turning, he raked his gaze up and down this kid. He was wearing an ill-fitted suit, scuffed shoes, and just under the sleeves Ben could make out faded, ugly prison tattoos on his pale skin. He didn’t need Sherlockian genius to deduce this guy. It was obvious. A few years in prison for a minor felony. Probably drugs, maybe domestic violence. He was terrified in lock-up and aligned himself with the only gang who’d take him, likely white supremacists, who were the first ones to introduce him to the idea of White Jesus. It escalated from there. One of the notorious religious, rehabilitation programs sent someone in to pick off the weak ones. Offer them sanctuary, work, a roof over their heads. All for the small price of your soul.

But eternal happiness in mansions set along streets made of gold just beyond the pearly gates made it all worth it. Made the dealings on the day-to-day, with people growing increasingly agitated by soul solicitors, all worth it.

“I’m not interested.” His voice came out gruff and tired. It wasn’t even this kid who was bothering him. It was the slew of immortals, gods, and a pregnant woman who, allegedly, was carrying his spawn that was setting him on edge. Had he not carried the weight of the world, the literal world, on his shoulders, he probably would have engaged this kid.

“Neither was I.” The voice called out just as he picked up his pace again.

With a sigh, Ben turned. “Look, I know you get points or whatever for every person you can goad into coming to your meeting, but I don’t have the time.”

“There’s always time for the Lord.”

Ben almost laughed. The forever emblazoned image of Yeshua flared to life in his head. The crazed, nearly-dead “messiah” who almost succumbed and lost his life to the psychotic power of the gods. The message twisted and turned and deformed by Mark’s curse, now laying plain on the faded yellow pamphlet this poor guy was touting. If only he knew. “Listen, the Lord and I have an understanding, okay? You take care, now.” Ben started to move, but the guy’s hand shot out and grabbed his arm. Ben’s eyes narrowed, his glare murderous, and the kid snatched his hand back.

“Look, I’ve been where you are, man.”

Ben almost laughed. “Where I am?”

“Downtrodden. Lost. I can see it all over your face. You might have a good job, money, love, but without God in your life, you’ll never be fulfilled.”

“I have enough god, trust me.” Ben straightened the sleeve of his jacket out of habit and sighed. “I get you, kid. I’m a homicide detective, I’ve seen a hundred yous cross my path in interrogation rooms. Lost, downtrodden, thinking crime’s the only answer. Then the creep with the big eyes and soft voice and a hundred bible stories about how you can save yourself and live happily ever after once you rid yourself of the shitty, satan-corrupted world sells it to you. And you believe him because what else is there to believe, right? Even if there’s never proof, never evidence that the afterlife isn’t just as bad, maybe worse, than this place. If you don’t believe it, what’s the point, right? Why pull yourself up out of the mud.” Ben sighed as the kid’s eyes fixed on his face. “Life your life for you. Enough of this god shit.”

Before he could leave, the kid shoved the paper at him. “There’s where you’re wrong. There is help. There is proof. There’s hope for us all. Even for you.”

Tired of the conversation, Ben crumpled up the tract and shoved it into his pocket. Giving the kid a goodbye nod, Ben backed away, turning on his heel after a few steps and hurried toward the direction of the apartment. He heard the kid shout something, a muffled warning of some kind. Not that it mattered. God or no, unless they could find Apollo and put a stop to him, the world was coming to an end anyway.

The thought almost made him laugh as his hand curled around the front door to the apartment. It was luxury condo of sorts, something Mark picked out. Several bedrooms, the appearance small, but large enough to accommodate them. The gods who came and went, Mark who didn’t seem to have it in him to leave the apartment anymore, the only human, Olivia, and he could barely look her in the eye considering the last time they met.

Feet making a gentle tapping noise on the polished lobby floor, Ben nodded to the door man and made his way toward the elevator. The idea of a door man seemed a little too posh for the sort of hippy-dippy, granola munching energy surrounding Denver, Colorado, but leave it to Mark to find that one place. The one place celebrities rented when they were in town, assuming they weren’t in some chalet in Aspen. No one in the building questioned the inhabitants of apartment 531, but it didn’t mean Ben couldn’t see the looks that passed him in the hall.

They didn’t belong there. Humans—and since when had he stopped referring to himself as a human—could tell there was something different about them. Something off. Ben could feel it in himself, and years ago when he was still in full-blown denial about what the gods really were, he knew. It was different now, though.

Most of the portals were dead, and so were the gods. Just a handful remained. Ben could feel it, like a gaping hole in the center of the universe. Things were off balance and he didn’t need to be part of the grand, supernatural scheme to tell that something big was about to tip the scales completely. It was disconcerting, to say the least.

He was damn tired, and right now his only real hope is that he will manage to take down that festering douchebag of a god before he bids fare-thee-well to his own mortal coil.

Pausing at his door, he looked over to see their only neighbor on this floor coming out of his apartment. He was an older guy, a teacher at the university which was fitting since it was only a few blocks away. He was the sort of tweed-and-glasses type of professor. Probably history by the looks of him. He had that soft, droning kind of voice that put you to sleep. So maybe a professor of Chaucer?

He gave Ben the side-eye, but returned the friendly nod of hello as he passed by. Ben waited until he heard the elevator door ding, then slide shut before he turned the key in his own lock. The door swung open with an almost horror-movie like groan, the hinges probably older than the building itself. The first thing he smelled was coffee, and despite having already picked up a cup from the campus, he craved more.

Someone was also cooking something. Probably Olivia since she was the only one in the apartment who ever remembered to eat. In spite of Mark’s curse on her, she seemed to be doing okay.   She didn’t say much for the most part.  Sometimes she went into trembling fits and began to rock back and forth and mumble, but most days she was completely normal.

Every now and again Mark would stop her scrambling for paper and a pen which Ben knew was a symptom of the curse. If she couldn’t talk about it, she’d transfer the power into the written word. If that got out you’d have another cult on your hands.

“How do you think that ridiculous Book of Mormon was birthed?” Mark snapped a few days prior when Ben asked if Olivia’s desire to write was really that big of a deal.

Ben’s eyebrows shot up. “I figured it was some sort of parody of the Bible? Some raving lunatic who wanted to start a cult and justify why he thought Americans were the chosen people.” Ben meant it as a joke, but Mark’s narrowed eyes shut him up.

“We have enough to deal with trying to shut down the portals and stop Apollo without her running off to start another blood-thirsty Christian faction,” Mark said, throwing the paper with her illegible scribbles into the sink. He splashed a little bit of whatever Hades had been drinking the night before, and dropped a match on it. It fizzled for a second, like it was going to go out, then flames erupted, turning the paper into ash.

Things had been tense for a while. It wasn’t just Olivia’s curse, or Mark’s sudden desire to hide away for the rest of eternity. It wasn’t even so much that the gods, while present, were saying next to nothing. There was something else. Ben could tell they were keeping something from him. At first he thought he was being paranoid, but he’d catch them whispering to each other. And there was something about Olivia. It wasn’t the way Eman stuck to her, Mark had already explained she was keeping the curse in check. It was something else. He just couldn’t put his finger on it.

Not that it really mattered in the end. Ben figured Olivia was going to die and if that’s what they were worried about well, he’d come to terms with it. They’d fucked. By some supernatural goading, he and Olivia had gotten together and copulated. Both of them seemed to regret it, and it wasn’t his proudest moment, but he wasn’t in love with her. This wasn’t some star-crossed lover’s tale about two people finding each other during the end times.

Ben had long since come to terms with the fact he wasn’t a normal guy. Not in the wife and kids and four bedroom house with a dog sort of normal. And the more he knew about the state of humanity, and the state of the universe along with it, the less he wanted to participate in any of it.

Sauntering into the kitchen, Ben was surprised to see Alex at the stove, frying a couple of eggs. He had a plate with a small pile of fruit and a piece of toast. His Bluetooth was shoved in his ear and he was nodding at the voice on the other line. He caught Ben’s eye and made a gesturing offer to share the eggs.

“No thanks,” Ben said, and reached for a coffee mug. His fingers were trembling from the amount of caffeine he’d already ingested, but he wasn’t sleeping much and he had to function somehow.

Alex tipped his eggs onto his plate and plops down at the table. “No I told you to postpone… No. Goddamn it, are you listening. I don’t care. No I literally do not care. At this point they can convene and have me displaced and I wouldn’t not care. I… I…” He went silent for a full minute while Ben was pouring cream and sugar into his coffee. “Yep. Yeah.”

As Alex ripped the device from his ear, Ben raised an eyebrow at the god. “Bad day at the office?”

“Oh you know, when it rains…”

Ben didn’t really know what to say. He didn’t give two shits if Alex’s company was falling apart, and he had a feeling the god didn’t either. Alex knew he’d be lucky to survive this whole mess. Over the last few weeks, information had been pouring in of gods all over the globe disappearing. And not through portals, either. Apollo was on a genocidal rampage, and it wasn’t just humans this time. His insatiable appetite had now extended to gods.

The rumor was, killing gods was increasing his powers. He was able to consume the gods and take their abilities into himself. Ben had to figure that was the reason he wanted Judas and Mark. They were the final missing piece to that puzzle. The last remaining link to the Old God who gave birth to this festering little planet spinning on its axis.

Joining his friend at the table, Ben cocked one leg up on the chair and sipped the coffee. It was bitter, over brewed, and he contemplated going out again for something worth consuming. “Any news?”

Alex swallowed a mouthful of melon. “About what?”

“Anything? Apollo, gods, portals. We’ve been sitting on our fucking thumbs for two weeks now.”

“Eman’s working on the portal location. Last night she pinned one, but lost it.”

“God damn it.  How the fuck did she lose it?” Rubbing his hand down his face, Ben let out a frustrated groan. He looked down at the coffee, contemplating having another drink, but it wasn’t worth the assault on his taste buds. “Seriously, what’s the point of having an actual portal guardian on our side if she can’t even track the damn things?”

“I think she’s as confused as any of us. The portals weren’t a fixed object, but they were geographically centered. At least, they had been before.” Alex speared a chunk of scrambled egg and chewed, his brows furrowed in thought. “She thinks it might have something to do with Apollo.”

“What, like he can manipulate them now? Because that’s all we goddamn need.”

“Or perhaps the more gods he kills, the less the portals are linked to anything.”

Ben let out a breath and thought that over. It made logical sense, though that wasn’t a comfort. Most of the time logic was right out the damn window when it came to the gods. But if the portals ran off of their power, and their power was either being consumed by a single creature or it was diminishing completely, he supposed that could be why Eman was having trouble.

Or she wasn’t actually trying to help them at all and she was using them to serve up to Apollo on a damn silver platter. At this point, he thought, anything goes.

“She’s going to try and locate the portal within the next few days. Time’s pretty sensitive right now.” Alex took a swig of his coffee and grimaced.

“How many are we down to? Three?”

Alex shrugged one shoulder up then down. “Something like that. I know the ones overseas took their toll on Olivia and that’s troubling. Mark’s pretty sure if we lose her before we’re finished, we won’t have time to build up enough strength in another human to take down the remaining ones.”

Ben sat back. He’d heard that lecture first hand from Mark anyway, so it wasn’t new information. Honestly none of this was. He felt like he’d been going over the same topics with obnoxious repetition. He wanted action, not theory, but everyone seemed to be walking around on eggshells.

Shifting on his chair, Ben felt a lump in his pocket and remembered the religious tract. He yanked it out, smoothed it down on the top of the table, and sighed. “The crazies are ramping up, Olivia’s power is winding down, the gods are all dying, and Mark’s losing faith. Where does that leave us?”

Alex pushed his plate away and let out a satisfied sigh. “Oh who knows. Maybe we’re just sitting around waiting for the second coming.”

Ben snorted and rolled his eyes. “Let’s be realistic here. If Jesus pops down and sees the epic crap being carried out in his name, he’s going to turn tail and let Apollo devour us all.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Alex challenged.

“It’s tempting enough already,” Ben said. He stood up and started to back away from the table, but something caught his eye. The print on the tract, a word to be more specific. Miracle healings. With a frown, he smoothed out more of the wrinkles and bent forward to read the paragraph.

   ‘Life is difficult. There’s war, famine, poverty, death. The horsemen are among us now, in the form of the non believers. But don’t lose faith. The chosen one walks among us now. A gift from God, his only begotten Son, and he has returned. Come now and let us show you what the Lord is capable of. Lay all of your troubles on him, and let him heal you. You don’t have to be a believer, the Lord will make one out of you.’

There was an address, a time for the meetings, and a phone number to pre-register. Spaces were limited, it said. It offered a guarantee that you would witness a true miracle healing. No money required. Ben stood up straight and looked over at Alex who was washing dishes.

His mouth opened to say something, but something stopped him. There was something about this tract that gave him shivers. This had the work of Apollo all over it. Folding it into a neat square, Ben shoved the tract back into his pocket and reached for his coat.

“I’m out again. My phone’s on if you need me. And call me if you hear anything.”

Alex hummed as Ben headed for the door. No one tried to stop him anymore. In fact, they all seemed relieved when he chose to be out of the apartment. Yet another thing in the column of something wasn’t right. But at the present time he had other things to worry about. This little gathering of miracle healings meant something. He wasn’t sure yet, but with Judas in the hands of Apollo, it wasn’t hard to guess.

Two posts in two days!  It’s a miracle.  I realize I’m a little behind in keeping my blog updated, but in my defense, life has been well… life over 2014.  I’m back to the grind, and with keeping my editing queue to the bare minimum, I’ve put my focus back on writing.  I might do other things like editing, crocheting, a recent foray into sewing, things like that, but ultimately I’m a writer.  When people ask me what I do for a living, they get that one answer.

I’ve decided to put my focus not just on writing this year, but heavily on marketing.  I’ve joined a group on facebook, a network of authors where the main rule in the group is no spamming with your books.  With a ban on the dredge which usually takes up most author groups, I’m able to network and see what works with some authors, and what doesn’t.

My first ad of the year, aside from my usual Author Marketing Club freebie announcements, was a Bookbub ad.  Now, I realize Bookbub isn’t attainable for everyone.  Not just their rigorous standards of the book itself, but the ads are expensive.  The more popular your genre, the more the ad is going to cost.  Dropping upwards of five hundred bucks for a single-day ad on a book which you’re not charging any money for may seem like a bad deal.

I was skeptical myself.  Luckily my genre (which according to Bookbub is paranormal suspense– it was the closest I could find on their list) isn’t on the highest subscriber list, so it wasn’t expensive. They average around 12,000 free downloads.  To some in the romance category where their averages are 35,000 to around 50,000 downloads, it might seem like small fish.

To me, however, whose greatest freebie feat was getting almost 5,000 downloads, the 12k sounded pretty dang sweet.  And the price was do-able.  Just a little over a hundred bucks.

I had submitted to Bookbub a couple of years ago when I had my original book covers and just a handful of reviews, and I was almost instantly rejected.  My tips are to make sure you have a catchy blurb, well-formatted book when they check your look-inside feature, and at least 30 positive reviews.

That first rejection was disheartening and I didn’t consider trying them again until an author friend of mine posted her stats.  She has a more popular genre than I do, in a romance category.  She was sharing her download and sales status and when I saw her numbers, I knew I had to try.

It’s all well and good to sell a hundred books a month.  Some authors barely do that.  In fact, a lot of authors barely do that.  But it’s not enough to get you picked up by the amazon algorithms and really you’re only hurting yourself.  The truth is, being an author is a buyer’s market and unless you can get your book into the hands of thousands of readers, you’ll remain hovering just beneath the surface of discoverability (and yes I know that’s not a real word).

Needless to say, I decided to give it a try.  I made sure everything looked tidy.  I had my new, shiny covers, over fifty reviews, my blurb looked good, inside looked good.  I was ready to go.  So I filled out the form, hit submit, and I waited.

Five days passed, then I got that email.  I was holding my breath, preparing for the rejection, and when I saw that congratulations opening line, I actually screamed.  I was in the parking lot of my daughter’s school and I let out the biggest shout and called my husband.  You’d have thought I had just gotten picked up by one of the big 6 or something.  And the truth is, Bookbub is like that for the indie market.  It’s one of the few tried and true websites that CAN get your book into the hands of readers at almost the same level as one of the bigger publishing houses.

It’s no guarantee, of course.  They rely on their mailing list and either people pick up your book, or they don’t.  I have a decent advantage over some with three other books in my series apart from the book I had chosen to list as free.  It sets me up for a flood of secondary sales from people who might be interested in purchasing a decently priced series of books.

My second advantage was being able to price my second book at $0.99 with the kindle countdown option.  It retained my royalty rate of 70% but provided an incentive for them to invest in the rest of the series.

Bookbub gives you a date, so my biggest piece of advice is to not schedule your freebie until you hear from them.  The stricter your dates are for your freebie, the more difficult it is to get picked up for an ad.

I priced my book for free the day before the ad was set to go live.  I did my usual Author Marketing Club work, submitting to their list of blogs which take free books.  I spent about thirty bucks in guaranteed ads and those usually net me around 3,000-4,000 downloads.

I woke up the morning of my Bookbub ad and saw a few hundred downloads, a little less than my usual, but luckily I had already gone through a blog which let me know the Bookbub ad doesn’t go out to the subscribers until sometime around noon.

So I waited.

Suddenly it hit.  I opened my KDP stats and the books were being downloaded by the thousands per minute.  Amazon couldn’t keep up, and my rating on amazon.com didn’t update until almost 7 hours later when over 10,000 books had been downloaded.

I hit the number 3 spot in all of amazon’s freebie store.  People were also picking up my second book so quickly at one point I was number 19 in all of amazon’s paid store and had beat out (for about ten minutes) George RR Martin.  It was exciting.

Over the next four days I watched my sales and downloads climb.  The freebie went from January 30th to February 3rd, and between that time I got 31,546 free downloads.  It well surpassed the range of average downloads for my category, and the biggest bonus, the sales continued to trickle in.

Normally I’m lucky to sell one to two books per day in a month, now I’m averaging around a hundred.  It’s not best seller numbers, no, but I’m at the point where I’ve made almost 10 times the amount I spent on the ad.

I will say that paying for all three (Bookbub has them broken up to where you can purchase ads by region– US, Canada, and Australia) which is the ad I paid for.  It’s a few dollars more, but worth it.  I didn’t much from Australia but between the US and the UK, my books are in the hands of thousands of people.

Another thing I didn’t expect was the borrows.  Because I’m KDP select, my books are enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited program.  If someone borrows and reads at least 10% of my book, I get paid for it.  During the freebie, I was getting KU units in droves.  In fact, my borrows are still coming in almost as often as my sales, and for my first book which is always priced at $0.99, most of the time I’m making more on borrows than I am on royalties.

It’s only a week into February and I think I’ve come close to beating my sales for ALL of 2014.

I plan to try again with my second book as well.  I realize that with a lot of indies, it’s a struggle to come up with enough money for a $5 let alone several hundred dollars, but if you can save, do it.

There are a few other ads I’m putting out there soon.  I have another one for The Awakening February 28th for a bargain book promo, and a list of other websites I’m trying to get into, so I’ll be keeping the blog as updated as I can.

For now, I’m happy.  Even with the angry reviews from religious people, I can’t stop feeling like I finally accomplished what I set out to accomplish 3 years ago when I first hit publish on my amazon account.

Note:

I’ve decided to include screen caps of my current sales so you have some idea of where my books stand eight days after my ad went live.  The photos are as follows: The Awakening, The Judas Kiss, Cry, Nike, The Empty Vessel.  These are what’s showing up on Amazon as of 2/8/2015 around 9 AM

I’m getting ready to head off to a tattoo appointment, but I wanted to sit down before I head out and jot down a little story for you all.  I realize most of you reading this blog will either be fans or followers, but I’m hoping a few people who recently picked up my book, The Awakening, will take a few minutes to sit and read my little ditty.

I just finished a, what I’d consider, very successful Bookbub campaign.  About 31,000 books were downloaded, hundreds more sold, and for the first time since I’ve been published, my book has launched itself into the hands of a slightly main-stream public.  That’s not to say I’m best-selling like crazy, but I hit the top 20 on the amazon paid list, and with it came the risk of my genre.

Theological fiction.

Ten years ago I sat down in a creative writing class, hoping for inspiration.  I was smack in the middle of earning my Theology degree, and I was eyeballs deep in classes like Christology- The Nature of Christ, and the History of the Septuagint.  My schedule was packed full of history and theology theory classes, so taking this creative writing class was bringing me back to my roots.

The purpose of the class was to spend the semester writing and perfecting a novel.  It had to be over 50,000 words long, and it had to follow a basic formula– whether it was romance or horror or sci-fi, etc.

The trouble with my idea, though, was it didn’t fit into a specific genre.  You see, the month I started this creative writing class, I began a class discussing the nature of Christ.  We were picking apart different theories which have been presented over the many many years people have been studying the very nature of one of the longest worshiped demi-gods in history.

I remember reading one particular passage in the Gospel of Mark, where Jesus, for all intents and purposes, loses his ever-loving mind at a fig tree.  Many scholars over the years have discussed the meaning of that passage, psychologically and theologically picking it apart.  My mind, being that even in my scholar days I was still a creative writer, went another direction.  What if, I thought, Jesus’ powers were slowly driving him mad?  What if he was losing touch with reality?  What if any time someone approached him and touched him and pulled the power out of him, it drove him further and further from reality?  What if when he gave his powers to the disciples it cracked something inside of him?

Needless to say, it went from there.  There’s this long-dead myth of Judas Thomas (the twin), and I thought to myself, what if Jesus had a twin brother?  What if?

Then came Isa of Kashmir.  The version of the Jesus gospels where he wasn’t present from 12 to 30 years old because he was taken by Buddhist monks and given training in India.  Then he returned to share his message– which is very much like the message Jesus preached in the Bible– with the whole of Jerusalem.  There’s not a lot of text on this particular version of Jesus, although there is a gravesite where the body of Isa supposedly lies.  Buried in the Hebrew tradition, with his plaque showing crucifixion marks on his hands and feet.  This particular savior and teacher was rescued from the cross and spirited away to Kashmir where he lived out the rest of his days.

At this point my head was spinning with ideas.  In that semester I sat down and wrote a story about a brother and sister who befriended a man named Mark.  Mark lived in an old, dilapidated, abandoned Church with his not-quite-there friend, Jude.  One day Jude snaps and disappears and the brother and sister help Mark track him down where they find him in a chapel bleeding from stigmata wounds and babbling in Aramaic.

At this point they get him home but Mark is forced to tell them his story.  However, it comes with a price.  The story of the real beginning of Christianity comes with a curse.  Every time Mark has shared his story, someone is corrupted and a new off-set of Christianity forms.  Mark had spent hundreds of years living in isolation, and now he’s telling his story again.

The book ended with the sister succumbing to the curse and the brother being forced to try and contain her.

It was well received.  In my class, we were given the opportunity to submit a sample chapter to a group of agents who visited the University.  I was one of four classmates who got a call back asking for the full manuscript.  Three weeks passed after I delivered it, and I was called in for a meeting.

They loved it, they told me.  It was edgy and interesting.  It grabbed you in all the right places, it kept you hooked, wondering what was going to happen next.

“But it’s never going to get published.  You can’t change the nature of Jesus like that.  Not with mainstream Christianity.  You’ll be crucified.”

At that point I put my book away and threw myself into my studies.

Eight years later, I was telling my husband about my book and he started asking questions.  We kicked around some ideas, and in a massive light bulb moment, The Awakening was born.  I spent about a month coming up with the complex idea of my five book story arc which now included Greek, Norse, and Egyptian gods, immortals, and the single stand-alone human character.

Now that my book has been given to a mainstream audience, it’s receiving the criticism the agents warned me about.  Angry Christians claiming I’m defiling their religion.  Claiming I don’t know my history, I don’t know what I’m talking about.  The idea of Jesus as a Buddhist is absurd.

I understand where they’re coming from.  As a child, I grew up in a fundamental religious household and I was deeply discouraged from looking outside our mainstream beliefs.  When I took on the mantle of becoming a Theologian, an entire world of history and myth and theory opened up to me and cracked my faith.

I don’t regret it.  I understand why people are insulted.

All I need to do is remind them that although there is some historical accuracy to the theory and myth I’ve presented in regards to their demi-god, it’s fantasy.  It’s all in good fun.  And to those of you who recently picked up my book, I do hope you enjoy it!

Now, off to my tattoo appointment!

Note: I’m addressing this to authors who are struggling in marketing and not getting more than a handful of sales per month or maybe even per quarter.  When I use the term “Authors” it’s meant in the general sense but directed to those who are struggling.  If you are a successful author with a decent, steady stream of sales, please feel free to share any tips or hints you’ve discovered in your marketing journey in the comments below!

So advertising is always a difficult subject to tackle.  Once upon a time if you were an author with a publishing company, you would travel around to book stores and conventions and universities.  You would give book talks, read chapters, do signings.  Sometimes you’d have an advertisement in the paper, like USA Today or the NY Times.  Your publishing company or agent would handle most of it.

Now with the advent of such wide spread digital technology, more authors are becoming responsible for more and more of their own marketing.  Which is both good and bad.  There are wider platforms for authors to make their work known to the world.  But with that advent comes the flooding of advertising in those venues.  Particularly social media.

I have two facebooks.  Well actually I have three, if you want to count my fan page.  But for the sake of talking about audiences, let’s skip the fan page since facebook has taken it upon themselves to throttle fan page views unless you have a lot of likes or a lot of money (and let’s face it, unless you pay them a lot of money you won’t get a lot of likes.)

The first facebook is reserved solely for people I know on a personal level.  Family and friends, maybe a writing colleague or two.  People who were initially fans of my series and became some of my closest confidants in both life and writing.  I generally keep my friend’s list under 200 people.  I share a lot on there about my life, my kids, my hobbies, my current moods.  I do little to no advertising on that page.  Occasionally I’ll call upon my loved ones to go on a sharing spree using guilt and disapproving emoticons if they don’t (mostly kidding.  mostly) but for the most part, it’s just life stuff.

On my second page I have many friends.  Many many friends.  So many I can’t keep up.  So many only a fraction of their posts cross my timeline if and when I decide to log-on that day.  Sometimes I’ll post a picture or two, write a status related to writing or publishing, or social media etiquette.  I’ll run ads on there if I feel like paying facebook money (which is hardly ever).  There are, I think, possibly over 3,000 people on my friend list there.

And to tell you the truth, even with that many people, I have little to no interaction.  Mostly because the people I’m networking with are doing the same thing I am.  Collect mass amounts of friends and attempt to be noticed.  Which is hard when you’re swimming in a sea of 10,000 statuses.  And let’s be honest, you’re less likely to take a look at something if there’s a link attached because the first thing that crosses your mind is uhg, self-promo.

The same thing happens with twitter.  How many of you honestly click on links when you see them on twitter?  I can tell you how many times I do.  Zero.  I never open twitter links.  Heck, I’m on there relatively never ever and only utilize it when it’s part of a marketing package I’m paying for.

Which brings me to my next point here- paid marketing.

Once upon a time this was all included in your publishing contract, but as I said above, fewer and fewer publishing contracts are coming with marketing attached.  That in itself is a little bit of a travesty because from what I’ve seen, publishing companies are still taking a huge chunk of royalties from authors, but they’re providing less and less services.

I remember being a kid and saying I wanted to be a writer.  At the time I was told that authors only make pennies per book.  But when I calculated out the authors who were selling millions of copies, I thought yeah I would be okay with pennies per book.

But those pennies were gathered up from books that were being advertised everywhere from radio to television to book stores, and that’s not happening much anymore.  Authors are setting up their own works, their own signings, trying to market themselves to a flooded market and it’s hard.

Indie authors at least have the control over their royalty percentage along with knowing they aren’t shelling out 70% of their royalties to a company doing little to nothing to help them become a best seller.  I’m not saying it’s a better way to go because we all know the Indie Market is rough terrain in itself, however there are benefits when it comes to marketing.

I’m not a best seller, depending on how you look at Best Seller.  Definitely not New York Times and often not Amazon.  Once or twice a month one of my books will pop up in the top 100 in the specific category my book belongs to.  Like Detective Fiction for my Alexandra Fry series, or Metaphysical and Visionary Fantasy for my Judas Curse series.

I’ll often run a freebie and market myself to a mass amount of blogs who advertise free books and get a couple thousand downloads and a couple hundred secondary sales on the rest of my books and it’s money worth spent.  Usually those advertisements cost me anywhere from $30 to $50 collectively.  It’s not a lot to shell out when it allows me to collect a sizable pay-out from amazon two months later.

One thing I’ve noticed though is the only real way to get decent exposure is to pay for it.  Posting links on your timeline, spamming your poor facebook friends with advertisements on their wall (which is a massive pet peeve of mine) is not the way to go.  Your links are getting lost in the sea of book links of other desperate authors just trying to be noticed.  Unless you already have your fan base, unless you have your fans lining up and waiting for your next book, no one is going to be reading those posts.

Not unless you’re willing to pay for it.

And there are affordable sites.  You might have to give up a few things in the meantime.  You might have to shave off a few trips out for coffee or sushi (nooooooo!) or maybe skip on that order of nail polish or put those shoes back on the rack this month, but it’s worth it.  Because 10 bucks here, 20 bucks there might be all the difference.  It might be that one advert which lands you a couple thousand hits which results in a couple thousand sales which gets you up on that best seller’s list where people are statistically more willing to drop a few bucks on a book by an author they’ve never heard of.  More people will be leaving those stars and those words which will encourage amazon to email your book out more frequently to users and people will be browsing and thinking yeah this sounds pretty good to me.

It’s a tough market.  You never know what paid advertising is going to get you.  I’ve dropped more money than I care to say on book tours which in spite of how little or how much I’ve advertised and networked, have gotten me zero sales.  And I’ve also purchased a day-long book ad for 30 bucks which yielded a ton of sales.  It’s always hit or miss.  You never know what you’re buying into until you do it.

But it’s worth it.

I can’t stress enough that people who want to make it need to reach far beyond social media, because facebook is not going to make you famous.  They want you to spend your money on them and sink into the sea of millions who are also trying to do the same thing as you are.  Same with twitter.  Until your being followed list is thousands above your follow list, no one is listening to you there.  No one is checking your links.

Too many people get into this business and don’t have the money to spend and the worst part is, it does take money to be noticed.  That’s the way of the world.  He who controls the spice controls the universe.

I think marketing tends to tie into and become confused with networking which is part of the problem and why so many authors, especially Indie authors, get so locked into media like facebook and twitter.  I remember seeing a comment once on a blog where someone described the Indie market as a market cannibalizing itself.  Only Indie authors were willing to read indie authors.

As an Indie author I can tell you this is mostly true.  Mostly.  And that caveat is important because it’s the sole existing thing which can pull an Indie author out of the dredges and into a decently selling novel.

I feel a little weird even talking about this being that I’m not really selling books hand over fist every month, but I’ve spoken to authors recently who are signed with a publisher and even looking at my pathetic sales where I’m lucky to do three or four books a day, they’re selling that much in a quarter.  I didn’t realize I could sell rings around authors signed on to a publisher, tripling or quadrupling their quarterly sales in a single month.  Sometimes more.  Sometimes a lot more.  Sometimes so much more that it’s barely a percentage.

I had to think about it.  I had to research and I realized it’s the marketing.  It’s the months when I decide fine, no pedicure, no purchases from amazon of things I don’t really need.  Gonna skip that splurging restaurant tab over the next few weeks and I’m going to sink money into my book.

On one hand I understand the term starving artist because if my family suddenly became dependent on my book sales to pay our mortgage, we’d be in real trouble.  But on the other hand if my family were dependent on my book sales I wouldn’t make that my sole income.  One thing authors need to realize, publisher or not, choosing to be an author and make a career out of it is a full time job.  And it takes money.  I would reconsider writing outside of a hobby if you don’t have the money to sink into it because in that case, there’s not a lot of point.

Once up on a time you could get discovered and make it big after writing the second half of Harry Potter on the back of napkins and hounding publishing houses, but these days not so much.  One in a billion (who also happened to have a ridiculously large fanfiction readership) can crap out a literal fanfiction of Twilight and make Fifty Shades of Grey and find themselves a billionaire, but more than likely, that’s not going to be you.

But if you want that glimmer of hope, marketing is your tool, and marketing costs money.  I wish it weren’t so.  I wish I could tell all the indies struggling to get noticed and somehow scraping their way into random conventions on their createspace book covers and $200 tables that it’s going to make a difference, that you’re going to be noticed by some random agent who’s browsing through Artist Alley, but unless you show up to those conventions with an already dedicated fanbase looking to buy your books, you’re not going to get much.

I’m speaking from experience.  My first book fair I sold ten books.  My first book signing event at an elementary school I sold four.  It just doesn’t happen like that anymore.

My marketing strategy this month is utilizing amazon’s freebies, running constant sales, spending money on promoting my free books for those secondary sales.  I sank money into having my book listed in a holiday guide, I bought a 2 week front page feature on another website.  I’ll be paying for a 2 day advertising blast over seven high-traffic blogs, and I’m going to continue to keep my eye open because I want those sales.  Those superficial financial sacrifices are worth it to me.

I realize this blog might seem all over the place, party due to me having to leave half-way through, but I felt like I should say it.  I see a lot of authors who are struggling and confused and drowning in the sea of so many trying to be heard over the rest.  We’re in this because we feel like we have a story to tell that people will enjoy, but the harsh truth is, the world doesn’t really care about your story.  The universe isn’t going to rip a hole in itself to make you famous.  So you have to sacrifice and try and get yourself out there.  And if you just don’t want to put in the effort and money well, you’re only hurting yourself.