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“Keeping Her” Augur Magazine Issue 3.1

Of grief, giving and gateways…

http://www.augurmag.com/augur-issue-3-1/

My dark and sweet fantasy horror piece about the ghost of child who lingers … waiting for a chance to live.

I am thrilled this story found a home in this beautiful issue of Augur Magazine. The issue is themed around loss and grief. The stories are gorgeous.

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Not So Soon After All

I’ve run into a little glitch.  Storytelling may be a creative art, driven by passion and the strange thoughts bouncing around in my head and wanting to be let out, but publishing is a business.  And in business, you sometimes run into little problems which just take time and energy to deal with.

I had hoped to have some of my romance stories and other oddities available to self-publish.  But that is where the glitch comes in.  Its complicated, having to do with my dual Canada/US citizenship.  I’m working on it, but it may take a while.

The good news is that I am writing.  I am creating short stories, and working on a triad of novels.  Most of these will be submitted to traditional publishers and magazines, and I’ll be sure to post here when I have a new story coming out.

For those who are reading this, thank you for seeking me out as I try to get all this off the ground.  If you want to be the first to know where you can find any of my new stories, sign up to receive notifications.

Hoping you are surrounded by good stories, some of them mine,

Sheila

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No Pants This NaNo

This is my second year doing NaNoWriMo.  I’m a little bit behind.  Like 6,000 words behind. Yikes.

I blame the pantsing.  This year, I tried to pants it.  Or, as my mentor/teacher/challenge master calls it, “writing into the dark”.   Turns out I don’t like pants and I’m afraid of the dark.

While I have no trouble creating setting and character in the dark — and indeed, fall hopelessly in love with both while bumbling around clueless  — plot and theme become a quagmire of impossible choices.

Plot is essentially what-happens-next.  Seems ridiculously easy on the surface.  But I am the creator of my world.  Literally ANYTHING can happen next — a ghostly visitation, a world-ending meteor, a love affair, a forbidden act of magic, a murder.  Anything.  Anything.  A character can go left, or go right or be soft, or be violent or back away or move forward or do anything.  Anything.

I try to use theme to corral my endless plot choices.  What is the story about?  But it could be about ANYTHING.   Oppression.  Isolation.  Ugly things we do to each other as people.  Anything.  Anything.

Sigh.

But I’m pushing through it.  I have a beginning and an end now.  And most of a middle.  Onward.