Lindsay Klug

So, I've had this book sitting on my desktop for about...oh...Six months?

Yeah. I know. *bad Lindsay*

But - good news! I finally revised and polished her up enough for submission! Charlie is now a complete story, all finished, all edited, all re-edited, and all edited a third time. I even have a blurb written:

Charlie Stonewall thinks the most devastating thing she’ll ever have to endure is her husband’s murder. After all, she didn’t even get to say, “I love you,” after their fight before his disappearance.

But when she is an unwilling witness to a double homicide in front of her house at the hands of a new neighbor, Charlie quickly discovers there are far worse things in life to contend with. And as her life unravels right before her eyes despite her efforts to control it, can Charlie find a way out of the mess her husband left for her before it’s too late?

And a friend of mine (bless her heart, she is such an angel) is going to help me proof the synopsis this weekend to ready Charlie for submission at some point next week. This will be the second horror/thriller novella I'm shopping this year. They wound up clocking in at just under 50k words, so most pubs count those as novellas. Oh, well. I'm all about quality, not quantity. If the story can be told sufficiently and well in 46k words, then so be it.

I'm waiting on pins and needles for word on Mel's story. Here's her blurb:

Mel McIntyre thought she was all set in life: a fabulous job, a cute apartment, and a cat. But when her sister dies and her last living relative, nephew Joey, disappears she finds everything she knew in upheaval.

Now she’s unwillingly thrown into a world she never thought existed. Thanks to an almost fatal mistake made by Joey, Mel finds herself suddenly intertwined with a vampire named Levi. She quickly discovers this isn’t the good thing she thought it to be.

Mel becomes a shell of her former self. Can she find the strength to battle back? Or will she let the vampires win?

Gah! More news to come when I can finally remember to update this thing. lol, happy reading!

Today, I'm happy to have guest blogger S.L. Danielson here. Thanks for dropping by, and best of luck with your books! She can be found here or here or here! Enjoy! I sure did.

Thank you for hosting me today, Lindsay! I appreciate it!

Hello, this is S. L. Danielson, multi-published author of m/m romantic fiction.

I was wracking the 'ol gray matter trying to think of a topic for this blog and I have only 1 four-letter word, snow!

Where I live, and most of the country will soon see, we're expecting a massive winter storm to hit our area beginning tomorrow; not looking forward to it! LOL

It got me to thinking about the cruel, hard winter of 2006, the winter that changed everything in our lives.

Imagine this scenario: my mother-in-law was dying, the house we were in had a limb torn from the tree, which fell, taking the power line with it, thereby ripping the siding off the back of the house! It got so cold on the inside, down to 42 degrees! Now try to imagine two cat cooped in there with us (which after it got below 50 we put them into a shelter, and ourselves into a hotel)! We lost the food in the refrigerator and freezer, and didn't have full power restored until I begged the electricians to come out and reattach the line on a Saturday (which they did)!

To add a somber note, the night the power came back on, my mother-in-law lost her battle with cancer at 68 yrs young.

What's most awful is that it happened twice! Once for a week, the next for a few days. What's most ironic? In the year 2001, just months after buying that shanty...we had the ancient woodstove torn out, as well as the flue, due to a roof replacement, because of the world's worst hailstorm!

Shortly after these incredibly inconvenient and painful incidents, any liking I had for the house was gone. My husband didn't share in my disliking of it, but agreed we needed to sell. In doing so, the prep work that is, he ruptured two discs in his neck and has undergone two spinal surgeries, which still have not corrected the problem/pain issues. To this day he cannot work his left arm as he once did, and the pain meds wreaked havoc with his memory.

So...to end this all on a cheery note...LOL...two little ice storms wreaked more havoc than we could've ever imagined! Be safe, careful, and don't go out unless it's an emergency!

Now....about my book...my new release will be out March 26th, a sequel to "Love by the Numbers", AND I'm waiting on word of acceptance for a sequel to last year's major hit, "Ranch Hands"! Now it has it's own sequel entitled "Ranch Hands 2; Jerry's Season", following the all-too-infamous town drunk in his quest for love of his own.

I had a fellow author friend read it and he loved it! Here's what he said:

Ranch Hands Two: Jerry's Season, by S.L. Danielson, is one of those fast moving, well written works of m/m fiction that brings the reader as close to the characters as the characters are to themselves, which isn't an easy thing to do. Jerry is likeable, and yet layered with complicity. But S.L. Danielson makes it all look so effortless. With a neat, compact, smart writing style that I personally love, the story moves forward with a nice even pace. And once the reader becomes involved it's difficult to put this book down.

--Ryan Field

Here's Abby again:

The man’s eyebrows lifted.

“I like a woman who reads every day,” he commented as though I would care what he thought. (I did.) “Do you work or go to school or…?”

Ah, the million dollar question. “I’m a masseuse,” I said, and it was a half truth. My hands were marvelous and I had taken a free class or three on massage techniques. “I work off and on.”

Here's one derived from a story in progress:

Sweaty, tangled limbs; soft kisses; rough hands. These are the images that haunt Mel as she snaps out of sleep at three in the morning. Chest heaving, she runs a hand through her tangled hair as her mind orients itself to the chilling silence in the hour of the dead.

Mel sighs and lets her feet hit the cold hardwood floor. Who is she kidding? Ben is gone, and she’s sure he has long forgotten her. Their last fight was a real doozy. Mel was irrational and angry because he said he had to leave. Mel cracks open a beer as the memories flood back. It was right there in her living room where it started.

Ben came in, shut the door softly. Said he had something to talk about. Mel already knew it was coming. He had to “move on”, needed to find the next big thing. The words cut into her like a razor blade. Mel immediately fell into an emotional train wreck, and all Ben did was stand there listening. She wanted him to yell, to fight back, but he just stood there stoically.

When she collapsed onto the floor a sobbing mess, he simply knelt in front of her and slid a chain around her neck. “I’ll never be far,” he whispered and left her with a kiss to the forehead.

No, Mel thinks bitterly, he’s not ever far. He won’t leave her be. He haunts her. Mel tries day after day to wrap her head around it. Why did he leave if he wasn’t going to actually leave? Of course, their relationship was never normal. Mel came out of a bad one and fell into Ben’s open arms. He was always there for her.

Not anymore. Mel changed after that night. She is now a jaded, bitter woman with nothing to show for three years of her life but a stupid chain. It doesn’t even have a locket. Just a single amulet at the end, one single Ankh.

Oh, how Mel researched that. She pored over it for hours, looking for a hidden meaning. But all it means is eternal life. She snorts and opens another beer. It’s her day off, damn it. And if inhaling beers makes her feel better, then so be it.

After the third beer, Mel collapses on the couch and falls into a deep sleep. When she finally awakens, it’s already the next evening. Her curtains are closed and blinds drawn. She frowns and sits up, rubbing the sleepy haze from her eyes. “The hell,” she mutters. “I left those open.”

A bang from the bedroom makes Mel’s head whip around. She tentatively leans over the couch to look down the hall. There’s a flickering light in the bedroom. Holding her breath, Mel grabs a lamp and tiptoes to the edge of the hall. With the lamp light, she notices a trail of rose petals. Mel creeps along the wall to the doorway and sees a figure in the bedroom among two candles and roses. He’s folding the bed back and straightening it out in the relative darkness. “Ben?”

The man stiffens and looks over his shoulder. He says nothing but moves to the other side of the bed to face the doorway. Mel abandons the lamp in one shattering motion and steps over the threshold. His face is shrouded in shadow, but Mel knows the body. She doesn’t even care that he left anymore, only that he’s there with her. “Ben?” she repeats, hoping for an answer.

“Mel.” His voice is gruff and thick. “I made a mistake.”

“I know, Ben.” She stands on the opposite side of the bed awkwardly. “Are you back now?”

“Yes, Mel.” He extends a hand across the bed, and Mel takes it. She crawls onto the bed and his hand falls limply away. Mel kneels in the middle of the bed and spreads her hands in a welcoming motion.

“Forever?” He shifts and grabs her arms to pull her closer. Mel’s breath quickens feeling his body against hers. He kisses her hard before laying softer ones along her cheek, temple, jaw. His hands roaming freely across her body make her moan with pleasure.

His languid journey to her throat has Mel melting in his arms and she lets her head hang limply back. “Forever,” he says softly, and Mel feels a sharp pain as teeth sink into her skin. She gasps and pushes against him, but Ben isn’t moving.

When she stops struggling and goes limp Ben raises his face in the candlelight, blood dripping from his chin and fangs, and whispers, “Forever.”

Here's a random Tuesday creepy story.

drip The singular sound reached the young girl’s ears as she came out of a sleepy haze with her head spinning. drip She blinked hard, trying to bring her surroundings into focus. drip The vague memories of the night before tried to filter through the pounding hammer tapping on her skull. drip

She struggled to sit up, but suddenly realized her hands were bound behind her back with some sort of hard, rough plastic. drip As the panic set in, she struggled against the bonds and rolled off the hard metal bench jutting from the wall. thud The floor met her face and she whipped her head into the air. drip drip drip drip drip Her face was coated in a slimy substance that reeked of urine and cow shit. It fell from her chin in a steady stream as she struggled to spit it from her mouth. drip

The girl steadied her breathing to allay the offensive odor and thought intently for a moment. Her forehead hit the floor, intentionally this time, to give her leverage and force her to her knees. drip Her eyes adjusted to the dark room slowly. The bench was to her back in the windowless space and straight ahead was a door with a tiny barred window, providing only the smallest strip of flickering light. drip She struggled to her feet and looked out of the window. “Hello?” she called tentatively. The only reply was the steady drip and a moth that fluttered out of sight.

“Shit,” she whispered and turned back towards the room. A figure standing in the far corner watched as she gasped and fell backwards against the door in shock. She screamed loudly, but still no one came from the outside.

The tall and bulky figure approached slowly and murmured a quiet, “Shut up, bitch,” before he stuffed a ball gag into her open mouth and sealed it quickly behind her head. The girl stumbled away along the damp wall towards the bench again. She had no idea what was going on, but she knew she had to distance herself from this man-beast, or create a diversion to make a possible escape.

But there was no way out. drip The water drop landed on her hair and streamed down her forehead as the man approached again. A glint of silver reflected off a long sword as he unsheathed it from a cover attached to his belt. He turned to look at it, and she caught his profile just long enough to make a connection. drip An image flashed into her mind: Her car, careening madly on black ice, and a man staring down at his dead dog under her tire.

Fear struck through her, a long chord of black and grey and everything that goes drip in the night. He chuckled softly, as though sensing the change in her. drip “You remember, don’t you?” The girl could do nothing but shake fearfully and slide down the wall in an effort to protect herself. “That was my dog you hit,” he said softly, and twirled the sword in the light. “He was my friend, my only friend, and you killed him.” The man knelt down close to her and ran the sharp blade along her cheek. drip She felt a trickle of hot red blood make a free fall onto her shoulder.

He laughed, a soft and maniacal sound from deep in his stomach. “Since you killed my only friend, it’s only appropriate that you pay.” The sword drove deep into her thigh and the girl made an attempt to scream. drip The pitiful sound was blocked by the ball gag.

drip He turned and walked to the door quietly. “Welcome home, Fido.”

Well, it's after the holidays, and that time of week again! This one features Abby, who I'm currently revising. Here we go:

About three weeks into 1999, I was standing in Barnes and Noble and browsing through the History section to find a book on Greek Gods and Kings of Britain and France, and history of the Anglo-Saxons, when I realized there was a young man edging closer to me by the minute. He kept glancing sideways at me while “browsing” the books and I couldn’t suppress the small smile that escaped my lips. He was cute and innocent and everything I should have been at 18 or 20 or however old he was.

He finally made it to where I standing reading the flap of a book on King Henry the VIII and made a big deal out of reaching for the same book. He flipped it open and looked at me as though he hadn’t known I’d been looking at the (freaking) book and said:

“I wonder if this is any good?”

P.S. This story is laden with language. Abby is very...succinct. Any bad language has been edited for the purposes of these posts.

I wonder if I can import my blog to this one.