For a start, I will see if I can go a whole week without complaining, as I seem to have done a lot of that lately.
I cannot do it indoors, so why do I think it’s okay here?
Of course, I shouldn’t moan about anything, as my life isn’t that bad at the moment. Some parts could be a little better, but to be honest, I don’t think that is possible, all things considered.
On a positive note, the writing is going well. I am enjoying the latest book I am reviewing, and I am actually sticking to my diet. My knees will thank me later!
I have also changed the cover of Nine Lives. I hated the old one so much I used to cringe every time I saw it.
I am not going to mention the trouble I have trying to change our email management. We were not getting anywhere with Mailchimp, but not sure which one will replace it. I will get it right eventually, so I’m not too worried or dismayed. I am also determined to tackle my to-do list, one job at a time.
Whether I choose them in the right order remains to be seen, but as long as they are removed from the list, everything should be hunky dory…
A ghost hell-bent on stopping him from rebuilding his life…
Excerpt… Showdown…
The faint whisper of flowers greeted me when I opened the front door, but I thought nothing of it at the time. Jane’s perfume still lingered, even after her departure.
My mind was busy, wanting to check out some estate agents. I decided to make coffee before switching on my iPad. I filled the kettle and noticed somebody had moved the rubbish bin. I lifted the lid and found it empty but I didn’t recall doing it. I probably had, but my brain was nothing like reliable these days.
Back in the living room, I was about to sit down when I thought I heard a noise upstairs. It sounded like someone closing the wardrobe door.
My inner detective alarm system had been dormant for so long, and for a moment, I didn’t know what to do. Was there someone upstairs, or did I imagine it? Perhaps it was coming from next door?
Then a floorboard creaked. It was the one by the bedroom door, and I knew I had a visitor.
I made my way to the bottom of the stairs and listened. The silence was deafening, made more so by my straining to hear something. I heard nothing to suggest there was anyone up there. I made my way up the stairs, pausing on the landing. Which room should I check first?
Seconds before I made that decision, the spare room door opened. My breathing slowed as I waited to see what would happen next. It did occur to me that I should have just stormed in, the element of surprise on my side. But it turned out to be me who was surprised.
The look on my wife’s face was a picture when she walked through the door and found me standing there with my mouth hanging open.
‘What are you doing here, David?’
I thought it was not a terrific way to start, annoyance raising its head at the sheer affrontery. ‘I do still live here, you know. More to the point, what are you doing here?’
We stood on the landing, several feet apart. Neither of us was happy to see the remains of our once-beautiful relationship.
‘None of your business…’ she said, passing me on the way to the stairs.
I watched as she tried her best to stomp down the stairs with attitude, but the large suitcase she dragged behind her spoiled the effect.
I wanted to say so much, so what do you think came out of my mouth?
Mr Nasty, that’s who.
‘Before you go, Jane, leave your keys on the hall table; I am selling this place.’
She looked up at me, an unreadable expression on her face. ‘You enjoyed that, didn’t you?’
I had already regretted it, so I decided to be honest. It wouldn’t hurt, especially now. ‘No, actually, I didn’t.’
‘Then why say it? Or were you trying to hurt me?’
So, it had hurt. I had given up trying to reason with Ms Hard as Nails, convinced she couldn’t care less about anything, especially me.
‘In a way, I suppose I was trying to hurt you. A vain attempt to make you feel as bad as I do.’
Neither of us spoke. We stared at each other with a mixture of frustration and desperation (mine)
‘Get down here, David and put the kettle on. We need to talk…’
Review
Dark crime fiction with a splash of the supernatural
Although this book is a continuation in a series, the author did a good job of establishing characters and their past relationships. As a reader I felt on firm footing. The story is told from alternating POVs, all in third person, with the exception of the MC, David Snow, a former DI, who has suffered a debilitating injury that has changed his career path. We get his POV in first person.
While the story itself is gritty, the writing is polished, and the pacing strong. The writer has a deft hand with dark investigative crime. A splash of the supernatural adds an intriguing element to this hard-hitting tale that explores the bleaker side of human nature and relationships.
My huge thanks to Mae Clair for this lovely review!
Note from the author
We have decided to feature a different story each week. More to inspire us to keep writing, I think.
Ghost was supposed to be David Snow’s swansong, but I already have a new plot for him. He really hates waiting for me, but my new mystery isn’t finished yet…
Annie’s life in Virginia at the turn of the century was perfect until she discovers a nasty family secret. Something her parents have been doing for years.
Now she knows, she cannot continue to live like this, but her protests fall on deaf ears. How can she hope to change what has become a way of life for her family?
Her struggle to change everything only makes her life so much worse, forcing her to try to escape. How far must she run to escape the truth?
Can Annie make a new life for herself, or will they hunt her down and bring her back?
The writing of Bad Moon
(An informal interview with Anita Dawes)
Today I have dragged Anita away from her writing desk and forced her to sit and talk to me about my favourite book (and I suspect, hers too)
Good morning Anita, make yourself comfortable and tell us how you came to write Bad Moon?
Hello Jaye, this is all a bit strange for me. I haven’t done anything like this before. I began to write when I couldn’t stand all the voices in my head. They would not let me rest until I told their story, and once I started, I couldn’t stop!
I just love the people from West Virginia in America, their philosophy and their way of thinking.
What decided the plot of Bad Moon? Was it just your imagination, or did something trigger it?
I was in a bad place at that time in my life, and I think escaping into another world, even one that was not sweetness and light, helped me a lot. There was a song that caught my interest, from Credence Clearwater Revival, about a ‘Bad Moon Rising’. You could say that that was my inspiration right there. I think song lyrics are very emotive. You can usually come up with a good story to go with them. My book turned out to be the usual story of good and evil; you cannot get away from it in nature or human beings. Maybe knowing what I was writing was not real helped me. It is possible.
Is Annie a biographical character? Did you see yourself in her at all?
No, I don’t think so. She turned out to be stronger than I could ever be.
She seems a lot like you, somehow.
Does she? It was not intentional. My mother inspired the creation of Annie’s mother, and Annie’s father reminds me of one of my stepfathers. A long-suffering doormat. And Annie’s relatives remind me of crows at a funeral.
But in the book, Annie’s father seems like a nice chap?
Yes, but he is weak, and unable to control his wife or her relatives.
Why did the title lose the word ‘rising’? And where did the idea for Pa’s grotesque carvings come from? They do sound fascinating…
I had to change the title because there were just too many books with the same title. The idea for the carvings came from my imagination, although I loved the film ‘The Guardian’ with Jenny Agutter. There was an interesting tree in the storyline that could have sparked something.
I have always loved the macabre, like the ‘Tooth Fairy’ in The Silence of The Lambs. Making things out of human skin is fascinatingly disgusting, but people have been doing it for centuries.
Despite all her good intentions, Annie has an incestuous relationship with her brother Nathan before she falls in love with Josh. Did the thought of writing about incest bother you?
No, there is more of that going on than most of us realise. It can be a natural occurrence, as your love for someone – brother or not – can become so strong and overwhelming. It is possible to love more than one person, too. We do it all the time.
Your next book, ‘Simple’, is very similar to ‘Bad Moon’. Is that what you intended?
Yes, because I feel it is a part of who I am, and I love writing them.
Will you ever write another story like these two?
Maybe, although I cannot rule it out as I may not be able to stop myself!
If anyone has any questions or comments, we would be pleased to hear from you!
After reading the book’s blurb, I picked Bad Moon by Anita Dawes. The part that got me was. “Young Annie’s life was perfect until she uncovers a nasty family secret, something her parents have been doing for years.” I was intrigued by the idea of a story about someone coming of age in a family with some dark secrets. I expected maybe some unusual sexual activities or maybe abuse. These would be bad enough, but it turned out undoubtedly mild compared to what Annie had to discover and overcome. The story is told in the first person by Annie herself. Although not unique in point of view, the author crafts the narrative so the reader not only sees the world from Annie’s perspective but identifies with the struggles Annie must overcome. Even when Annie is at her worst, I was always rooting that she would find her way to happiness. Although the setting is the backcountry, the emotional turmoil and the depth of character development give the reader the feeling that this story could have taken place anywhere. This fact is where the quality of the author’s storytelling skills shines. Using the backcountry setting as an excuse for what transpires in the plot would be easy. However, that would be a disservice to the story since the action gets down to fundamental human issues and predispositions that are not necessarily only the purview of uneducated backcountry folks. There are examples that I would like to cite, but each would be a spoiler. So I guess I will leave it at this. Once you start reading Bad Moon, you won’t be able to stop. The story is well-crafted and moves at just the right pace. If you like well-written human drama stories with a lot of action, this one is for you.
Do you wish you could write like your favorite authors? Do you want to improve your writing? If you want to power up your stories, write with your readers in mind, and deliver what the market wants, this book is for you.
In The Anatomy of a Best Seller, you’ll discover:
A step-by-step guide to deconstructing your favorite books so you can utilize the tools of winning authors.
Tips and tricks for breaking down everything from sentence level prose to plot, pacing, characters, story arcs, and more.
A comprehensive guide to understanding your market and what readers want.
Tactics for turning the lessons and tools you find into practical prose and stories.
The Anatomy of a Best Seller is a comprehensive guide that will help you break down the best books in your genre, understand how and why they work, and then learn how to do it yourself.
By the end of the book, you’ll be armed with the methods you need to deconstruct best sellers, understand the tools those authors are using, and how to implement them in your own work.
If you like dark humor and learning through examples, then you’ll love Sacha Black’s guide to deconstructing winning books. Read The Anatomy of a Best Seller today and start writing your best seller.
Our Review
I have always wanted to know why some books become best sellers and some don’t. So when I saw The Anatomy of a Best Seller by my friend and excellent writer, Sacha Blake, I knew I was about to find out.
Sacha is a wonderful writer, and her helpful, well-written books for writers everywhere should be gold-plated, as I have always found them easy to understand, totally absorbing and exceedingly helpful.
I have learned so much from Anatomy of a Best Seller, and I am convinced it will help me to get further up the ladder!
Amazon Review
“If you’ve ever wondered what catapults a title to bestseller status, then this book is for you. The Anatomy of a Bestseller had me both laughing out loud and tearfully wishing it had existed sooner. With her trademark humour, let Sacha Black take you through her step-by-step process for identifying what makes a book truly sing. A must-read for all authors who are serious about success and shaping their work into list-worthy stories from the get-go.” Helen Scheuerer, bestselling fantasy author.
I thought I would get to the end of my current WIP, Ghost of a Chance, yesterday…
BUT…
I expect many of you have reached this point, only to have the same thing happen to you.
In my head, one by one, each character had a but, and to be fair, they were legitimate buts.
Consequently, I spent the evening reviewing their ideas. I realised the story was nowhere near finished.
I eventually switched off my brain and went to bed after scribbling several pages of notes and detailed plans for at least three more chapters. As I fell asleep, I knew why this had happened. It had happened before with one of my earlier books. After staring at the story, day after day, I had become obsessed with coming to the end, as if this would magically be the answer. Of course, it never is. On that earlier occasion, the ending I came up with was rushed, and it showed. Badly…
Endings are so essential to get right. It’s a shame they came at a time when we wish we hadn’t started…
Is this bad habit just me, or have any of you had this problem?
I seem to be taking one step forward and two back…
The recent productivity is having a knock-on effect on everything, and although I welcome this, I am having trouble understanding why I end up with so many more plans than those I started with. Usually, having nothing to do with what I am doing at the time.
Finishing one job lands me among all those ghosts of other projects I either made a mess of, or completely forgot about.
My mind does try, bless it, to think along dual idea lines, and I have had serious talks with the muse to stop cramming my head with so many ideas, to at least wait until I finish one!
Eventually, of course, my enthusiasm fades, leaving me to struggle on, stubborn to the last. I could do without the never-ending tooth and earache, as they seem to have addled quite a few of my struggling grey cells!
I mean, how long does it take an extraction to heal?
I was going to ring the doctor today, but somehow I can’t make myself pick up the phone, mainly because I know she will fob me off with the same pills as last time, and also because I’m not sure if the toothache is making the ear problem worse, or the other way around.
I have the sneaky feeling that once you approach 80, they start to edge you towards the compost heap, as there has been a noticeable lack of enthusiasm whenever I mention one of my many long-standing problems.
This state of affairs leaves me unwilling to bother, preferring to wait and see what happens while continuing with salt rinses and painkillers. I am also experimenting with CBD drops as they are supposed to help with arthritis and the accompanying depression of everything else.
So far, I am managing to write and run the office…
Every morning, without fail, I switch on the computer and systematically clear my emails, mostly spam. My day would not be right if I didn’t do this. Usually, I don’t have loads of rules, preferring to do what I like, when I want, but this one thing is a must-do job.
Then I log in to our website on WordPress.
I read and answer any comments and then turn to the Reader List. It can sometimes take me over an hour to read them all, but I love every minute. On any particular day, I can communicate with many people, new conversations or ongoing ones—so many discussions about such varied subjects from people all over the world.
When we began blogging over ten years ago, we never knew that it would grow into this huge, wonderful club where we can smile, sigh, laugh and cry, all in the space of an hour.
We marvel at the fantastic images and artwork, share in the joy of writers finally getting a break, share the sadness of losing either people, pets, or sometimes their minds (more common than you might think) and laugh at children’s antics and animals alike.
These lovely people have become our extended family, a family that shares their lives, loves, and sometimes, even their limitations.
We began blogging to help further our writing careers, but somewhere along the way, it has become so much more than that…
We have been trying hard lately to be more organised, to find ways to stop life from getting in the way of everything, but it continues to beat us or find ways to slow us down.
There are days when I wish I could say okay, you win, and crawl away like a sensible old lady. Not happening. There is still so much I want to do; in fact, the list seems to get longer every day.
I hope it’s just my imagination, but I seem to be getting slower and shock horror! I am making more mistakes than usual. There have been serious errors on the WIP, bad enough for me to want to scrap it and start over. But I didn’t.
Being stubborn usually saves me so much work in the long run, not that it helps me much these days. Now that I am a part-time carer and head cook and bottle washer, and apparently, the only one who knows where the saucepans live, time is getting a lot harder to stretch.
I will continue to stretch it until it screams, for I thoroughly enjoyed my recent weekend writing retreat. Apart from writing up a storm, the sense of calm and purpose was very welcome. I must do it again, and soon!
