Category Archives: Writing

Editing, Goals, Thoughts, Writing

Looking Back at My 2015 Goals

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All rights reserved by Rhonda ParrishEvery year I set goals for myself, and then at the end of that year I look back at them to see how I’ve done. It helps with my productivity and gives me at least the illusion of some sort of focus 🙂 Now is the time for me to look at my 2015 goals and see how I did to help me determine what my 2016 goals will be.

My 2015 Goals:

Goals in italics are ones I’m saying I accomplished 🙂

Health

  • Weigh less at the end of the year than I do at the start
  • Run 5k
  • No working on weekends and minimal working on evenings.

Huh. Yeah. So… totally failed at those first two, but I think with some small exceptions I did pretty well at not working on weekends and evenings. It’s a thing I need to continue to focus on because I really want to have a bit of balance in my life, but I definitely did better in 2015 than 2014 so I’ll take it 🙂

Editing / Publishing

  • Publish the final three issues of Niteblade and then close down that aspect of the magazine
  • Complete Corvidae and market it to the best of my ability
  • Complete Scarecrow and market it to the best of my ability
  • Publish B is for Broken and market it to the best of my ability

I published B is for Broken (and it’s awesome) but I may have dropped the ball a bit in the marketing department. It has significantly fewer reviews than A is for Apocalypse and its sales numbers are also much lower. Part of the issue, I think, is that ‘Broken’ is a much more nebulous concept than ‘Apocalypse’ but some of it was definitely me. It’s been a learning experience though, especially in regard to choosing anthology subjects that are easier to market.

  • When Shadows is published market it to the best of my ability

N/A

  • Have the manuscript for C is for… polished and ready for publication

C is for Chimera is pretty spectacular. I’m going to reveal the cover and officially announce the release date here on my blog this Thursday. Meanwhile, I’ve already managed to garner a 1 star review for it on Goodreads despite the fact no one has read it but me. So that’s awesome. *sigh*

  • Have the manuscript for D is for… polished and ready for publication

I have the authors lined up for D is for [TOP SEKKRIT] but haven’t progressed further on this title yet.

  • Come up with a way to set actual concrete goals for promotion.

Yeah… I really should do this 😉

  • Make progress on sekkrit collab with CJD

Making slow progress… but progress 🙂

  • Open to submissions for Sirens

I’m currently trying to turn my shortlist into a table of contents. There were about 200 submissions sent my way and even many of the ones I didn’t shortlist were really, really good. There are some very difficult choices in my near future.

Writing

  • Write and submit at least one new short story a month*
    • The ‘submit’ part of this is important. I can’t just write a first draft and leave it to moulder indefinitely. The story needs to be ready for submission and, in fact, submitted, within the month to count.

LOL Well, it looked good on paper.

  • Begin querying agents about Hollow
  • Self-publish at least one collection of reprints
  • Complete work on collaborative project with Marge
  • Successfully participate in April Poem-A-Day
    • This means actually writing a poem a day or at least having thirty poems written by the end of the month
  • Participate in NaNoWriMo*
  • Either complete the first draft of a new novel, or revise one of the novel first drafts I’ve already written (this can be completed in conjunction with NaNoWriMo or separate from it)

Reading

  • Read at least 50 books
    • Slush doesn’t count, nor do books by friends I read to critique.
    • Have at least 20% be non-fiction

I read 46 books according to Goodreads, plus 13 which aren’t on Goodreads. And those 13 don’t count slush or books by friends I read to critique. So I really was successful even if Goodreads doesn’t know it 😉

Misc

  • Create a website at poiseandpen.com
  • Attend When Words Collide and Pure Spec
  • Blog at least once a week
  • When someone visits this blog and leaves a comment — reciprocate.

I’m still not awesome at this. I go to the blogs of people who visit and I read but very often I can’t think of anything intelligent to leave as a comment and ‘I was here, but now I’m gone…’ just doesn’t work for me, ya know?

Kobo

As of New Year’s Eve of 2014 I’d sold a total of one book via Kobo**. One. For a whopping $0.45 in royalties. One of my goals in 2015 is to improve that. I don’t have a super firm goal in mind but it shouldn’t be too difficult to top one sale and less than fifty cents in royalties, right?

Success! Partly on account of a BookBub deal, but I’d beaten my one sale for $0.45 in royalties even before that. There is still plenty of room for improvement here, but there’s always going to be, isn’t there?

*under this name or as a pen name project. Either counts.
**this doesn’t count books I didn’t self-publish like Fae, Metastasis etc.

 

Overall I feel like I had a successful year. I did plenty of things that aren’t reflected on this list of goals and even managed to accomplish more than I failed at. On paper it wasn’t a spectacular year but my reality was pretty amazeballs 🙂

Aphanasian Stories, Thoughts

Moving The #s

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A while back I put Aphanasian Stories on sale and asked my readers to help me move the numbers–meaning, help shift the book up the ranks of Amazon and Kobo. We were incredibly successful (helped in part by a Book Bub promotion going on at the same time) and I wanted to take a moment and share the results with everyone here. I’d meant to do it before now but with the Giftmas Tour, holidays and the like, it kind of got lost in the rush 🙂

This post is image intensive. The tl;dr version is YAY!

This is the graphic I whipped up on Canva to show where we were starting out rank-wise for the book:

BEFORE

If you click on the picture it should take you to a larger size so you can actually read it, but there’s no real need because I’m going to provide you with the numbers here too. Here are the Before and Afters 🙂 Starting with Amazon.ca.

Before:

Beforeca

After:

CA-After

For one brief moment in time, in one category on Amazon.ca I was even ranked higher than a Neil Gaiman title 😉

BeatingGaimanCA

And at another point I had books in both 1st and 5th place spots even though I wasn’t actively promoting Fae that weekend:

1and5Amazonca

 

I was feeling the love on Kobo too, which was extra sweet because prior to this sale I’d sold less than a dozen books on Kobo total.

Before:

BeforeKobo

After:

Kobo-1

 

Amazon.com didn’t love me quite as much as the other Amazons… but that makes sense, my Book Bub promotion didn’t include the USA (though the sale price did).

Before:

Beforecom

After:

COM-After

Amazon.Co.Uk took a bit of time to warm up to me, something I’m mostly blaming on time zones (because I can LOL).

Before:

Beforecouk

After:

CoUkAFTER

 

This is the ‘After’ image I created on Canva to sum up the success of our ‘Moving the #s’ attempt:

AFTER

 

In case you’re wondering what this looks like in sales, this line graph shows my KDP sales for Aphanasian Stories in the days leading up to the sale, the sale itself, and the days afterward:

Bleep

You may not be able to see it without going to the larger version of the picture but basically it’s a straight line with a blip or two now and then right up until the sale… which is that ginormous spike that slowly declines back to the straight line with an occasional blip.

What does this mean in the long term? Probably nothing LOL Mostly my career is built on those blips, the hope being that with enough books out there blipping along the trickles will eventually combine to be something more substantial but it was fun to watch my little blips turn into an explosion for a couple days. Thank you to everyone who picked up a copy of Aphanasian Stories and helped me move the #s. It was a lot of fun and I truly appreciate your support.

…and if you liked what you read, you’re in luck! I have an Aphanasian story (starring Bayne & Teyat) in the Women in Practical Armor anthology coming out this spring, and my novella, Shadows, which is also set in Aphanasia should also be out this year too 🙂

2015 Giftmas Blog Tour, Guest Blogger, Poetry

Night of Promises

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giftmas_rectangle

All month long I’m going to be hosting the posts of other people as part of my 2015 Giftmas Blog Tour. All the guest bloggers are welcome to write about anything they’d like so long as their post touched on a December holiday in some way, no matter how tangentially. The blog tour extends beyond my blog as well, and I will do my best to link to each external post from the here and share them on social media using the hashtag #GiftmasTour.

But wait! There’s more!

We’re also giving away a whole whack of prizes (check out the list here) which you can enter to win using the Rafflecoper code below. Whatever December holiday you celebrate (or don’t) winning a stack of books will make it better!

Night of Promises

by Fred Warren

Beneath soul-crushing darkness, a chill, silent shroud blankets the earth
We are alone, shivering, hungry, stalked by ravening despair among the barren trees
We glance upward and notice the stars, distant gems scattered across the inky abyss
One stands out, brighter than the rest—there, in the east!
And we remember an ancient promise that night will have its end

We hasten to fill our dwelling with brave little motes of light
Candles and lamps, shouting against the darkness, tiny echoes of the celestial vision
They flicker and dance, shimmer and shine
We feel a bit braver now, watching them
And we remember an ancient promise that winter’s death-grip will not endure

We wrestle a gnarled oaken burl from our meager woodpile and set it ablaze
Warmth overflows the hearth, searing cheeks, thawing fingers, toasting toes
Huddling around the fire, absorbing the heat of its growling, spitting defiance
We wonder why we ever feared the cold
And we remember an ancient promise that the frozen earth will live again

We raid the cellars, larders, and pantries for a feast–we will not stint!
Aromas fill the air, sweet and savory, cinnamon and nutmeg, sage and rosemary
They enfold us as we eat, drink, and laugh in fellowship generous and loud
We banish hunger from our midst this night
And, once more, we remember an ancient promise that we will not be abandoned

We gather close together–family, friends, and the wanderers among us
Sharing gifts of love, gaily wrapped, freely given, gratefully received
See here! Look at this! Thank you! How wonderful!
We feel our loneliness overwhelmed, melting away; we share a song of joy
And we wonder at promises made and promises kept

Afterward, tired and happy, we drift off into sleep
Caressed by candlelight’s soft glow, safe and warm, comforted, wrapped in love
Yes, on this night, of all nights, we will not despair
For we are here, all of us, together
And we remember

Fred Warren writes science fiction and fantasy, with over thirty published works of short fiction. His first novel, The Muse, debuted in November 2009 from Splashdown Books, followed by a collection of his short stories, Odd Little Miracles, in July 2011, and The Seer, a sequel to The Muse, in October 2011. He works as a military contractor in eastern Kansas, where he lives with his wife and three children. He’s probably shoveling snow by starlight right now. You can find him online at http://frederation.wordpress.com.
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a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Just Stuff, Writing

Advent Ghosts 2015

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For the past few years I have enjoyed participating in I Saw Lightning Fall’s Advent Ghosts. It used to be that ghost stories (or just creepy stories) were a part of the holiday tradition, and Advent Ghosts is just one way to re-embrace that tradition, if only in a small way. The rules are that you’re supposed to write a scary/creepy/unnerving drabble and share it on your blog on the 19th. A drabble, for anyone scratching their head right now, is a story that is exactly 100 words long.

As with every year that I’ve participated my story this year is not a drabble–though I think it’s the shortest one I’ve ever shared for this event so who knows, maybe someday I’ll hit the mark 😉

file8791263155114

Trying to be Brave

by Rhonda Parrish

Though she could no longer hear it, Wren knew the beast was still out there somewhere, somewhere near—skulking, still and silent, among the cedars. She pressed her back harder against the tree trunk, praying it was wide enough to hide her, and tried to be brave.

She slowed her breathing—in, hold, out—and exhaled through her woolen mittens—in, hold, out—to keep feeling in her fingers and diffuse the cloud of breath that would give away her position.

In…

Hold…

Out…

She was trying to be brave—trying so hard to be brave—but Jack’s screams lingered, echoing inside her like the ding, dong, dong of the church bell. It would be ringing soon—the bell—but there was a frozen lake between her and it, and the beast was near.

But help wouldn’t be coming. She’d sneaked away, tip-toeing past her parents door while they still slumbered. Danced from shadow to shadow through the village, across the lake, to meet her love beneath the treetops to steal kisses and play at magic. Help wasn’t coming, because it didn’t know it was necessary.

And now, even the sun was retreating, soundlessly creeping across the sky to hide behind the treeline. She could stay and wait for the end—the sneaky, silent, forever sleep offered by the cold, or the screaming, struggling, steaming death of the beast—or she could run.

Wren took a couple good deep breaths—in, hold, out. The village needed to be warned. Needed to know what waited in the woods, what she and Jack had awakened.

With a whispered prayer Wren leapt from her hiding place and tried to be brave.

 

You can also read my past attempts at Advent Ghosts stories:

Come In (2013)

A Million Pieces (2014)

or check out the rest of this year’s entries at I Saw Lightning Fall.

 

Aphanasian Stories

Aphanasian Stories on Sale

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Aphanasian Stories by Rhonda Parrish

Aphanasian Stories is on sale for $0.99!

Available now at:
Amazon
Kobo
Smashwords

“Rhonda Parrish’s descriptive and action-packed prose grabs you by the hands and doesn’t let go. This is the kind of story that’s so good you clutch right back because you don’t ever want it to end.” ~ Carrie Jones, New York Times Bestselling author of NEED

Call it a Black Friday sale.

Call it a Cyber Monday sale.

Call it whatever you want, but for a limited time only Aphanasian Stories is on sale for less than a dollar!

Three of Rhonda Parrish’s beloved Aphanasian stories brought together in one collection for the first time!

A Love Story: Z’thandra, a swamp elf living with the Reptar, discovers a human near the village. When she falls in love with him, she faces the most difficult choice of her life, one that will change the Reptar for generations.

Lost and Found: Xavier, the escaped subject of a madman’s experiments, and Colby, a young lady on a mission to save her brother, must combine their efforts to elude capture and recover the magical artifact that will save Colby’s brother before it’s too late.

Sister Margaret: A vampire hunter and a half-incubus swordsman are hired by a priestess to kill the undead pimp that is extorting, torturing and murdering vulnerable girls.

On Sale Now!

Amazon
Kobo
Smashwords

2015 Giftmas Blog Tour, A is for Apocalypse, Aphanasian Stories, B is for Broken, Books, Corvidae, Fae, Giveaway, Metastasis, Scarecrow, White Noise

Giftmas Giveaway Prize List

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giftmas_rectangle

This year’s Giftmas Blog Tour contains a giveaway. A pretty freaking big giveaway. We’ll be using Rafflecopter to get entries into the draw and choose our winners, but there are so many prizes I didn’t want to have to try and list them on the Rafflecopter widget. That’s where this post comes into play–it gives me a single URL I can use to link to and list all the prizes 🙂

2015 Giftmas Giveaway Prizes

 

Grand Prize (shipped anywhere)

Slay Ride* by Simon Kewin
Seeing The Light by E.C. Bell
Language of the Bear by Nathanael Green
Through the Narrows by Nathanael Green
ARC of The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller* by Manda Pepper
The K-Pro by Manda Pepper
Odd Little Miracles by Fred Warren
Knitted Coffee Cup Cozy from Brenda Stokes Barron
Grim Crush* by S.L. Bynum
Dream Vision* by S.L. Bynum
Vitality Magazine subscription* from Jaylee James
Choosing You* by Jaylee James
The Naughty List edited by Cori Vidae
I Heart Robot by Suzanne van Rooyen
Touching Spirits by Kevin R. Hill
Art Print from Barbara Tomporowski
So To Honor Him* by Laura VanArendonk Baugh
Con Job* by Laura VanArendonk Baugh
Guarding Angel* by S.L. Saboviec
Set of 4 Bookmarks from Joselyn
Fossil Lake (featuring Doug Blakeslee)
Fossil Lake 2: The Refossiling (featuring Doug Blakeslee)
Signed copy of Fae edited by Rhonda Parrish
Signed copy of Corvidae edited by Rhonda Parrish
Signed copy of Scarecrow edited by Rhonda Parrish

Second Prize (shipped anywhere)

Slay Ride* by Simon Kewin
Seeing the Light by E.C. Bell
Touching Spirits by Kevin R. Hill
Guarding Angel* by S.L. Saboviec
Aphanasian Stories by Rhonda Parrish
Signed copy of Metastasis edited by Rhonda Parrish
A is for Apocalypse edited by Rhonda Parrish
B is for Broken edited by Rhonda Parrish

Third Prize (shipped to US)

Slay Ride* by Simon Kewin
Guarding Angel* by S.L. Saboviec
The First Bite of the Apple by Jennifer Crow
Touching Spirits by Kevin R. Hill
Book 1 of the Dead Song series by Jay Wilburn
White Noise* by Rhonda Parrish
Waste Not* by Rhonda Parrish

*these are electronic copies

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Opens to entries December 1st!

Books, Waste Not (And Other Funny...)

#99CentNovember

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99centnovember

Milo James Fowler is hosting an event called #99CentNovember — it’ll be like Cyber Monday all month long 🙂 In the spirit of (American) Thanksgiving season myself and several of Milo’s other friends will be knocking the prices on one or more of our books down to $0.99. Check out the full list of participants and titles here.

For my part I will be discounting Waste Not (And Other Funny Zombie Stories):

Waste Not (And Other Funny Zombie Stories)

“Hit-you-in-the-gut dark humour will have you howling.” –Vanessa Ricci-Thode, Author of The Dragon Whisperer

Although completely discordant on the surface, zombies and comedy complement one another immensely and have a long history of doing so. This collection of three funny zombie stories nods to that tradition and continues it.

Waste Not – The coming of zombies forces humankind back to the land, to a simple lifestyle where ‘Waste Not, Want Not’ becomes more than a motto, it becomes the key to survival. And revenge.

Feeders – The zombie apocalypse will affect more than just humans, explore the repercussions of walking dead through the eyes of a cat in this story guaranteed to make you smile.

…Oh My! – What if the Wicked Witch of the West wasn’t killed by Dorothy’s house? What if she couldn’t be, because she was a zombie. Dun dun dun!

Available now for less than a dollar at:

Amazon
Smashwords
Kobo
And also on Goodreads

Aphanasian Stories, Books, Sale, Writing

Women in Practical Armor

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WomenInPracticalArmor

I have a story in this anthology!!!

Dudes.

I’m so excited I can barely speak in sentences, forget about paragraphs. So. To elaborate:

It’s an Aphanasian story featuring Bayne.

It’s my first pro-rate story.

I’m sharing a table of contents with amazing people.

It’s got that a-freaking-mazing cover.

And it’s edited by Ed Greenwood and Gabrielle Harbowy.

!!!

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Gabrielle before, and she’s awesome and I adore her. And Ed Freaking Greenwood?

Guys. C’mon. That’s just freaking nuts.

Playing D&D in the Forgotten Realms setting has consumed years of my life and Ed Freaking Greenwood read and liked my story.

I could just die.

In the meantime, while I flail and squee you should pop over to the Kickstarter, take a look at the perks and see if there’s anything there that tickles your fancy because I’m 1000% sure this anthology is gonna kick ass.

*flails*

Poetry, Sale

Imaginarium 4: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing

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Imaginarium 4OMG!

I have been DYING to share this news and now I can–I have a poem in Imaginarium 4: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing!!

I’m so excited. Firstly to have my work, Hereditary Delusions, included in this collection at all. It means an awful lot to me to share a table of contents with the mind-blowingly talented authors whose work is included here, it means a lot to have my poem chosen for inclusion in any anthology by two awesome editors and possibly most of all, it means a lot to have my poetry under a cover that says ‘Best Canadian Speculative Writing‘*.

I left this announcement off for two days in the hopes I’d be beyond gushing by now and able to post a nice, professional announcement, but it seems that isn’t going to happen–I’m still too full of squee–so just check out this amazing TOC:

Introduction
Margaret Atwood

Bamboozled
Kelley Armstrong

Witch I
Courtney Bates-Hardy

Witch II
Courney Bates-Hardy

The Smut Story
Greg Bechtel

Kafka’s Notebooks
Jocko Benoit

The Full Lazenby
Jeremy Butler

Wendigo Nights
Siobhan Carroll

A Spell for Rebuilding Your Lover Out of Snow
Peter Chiykowski

Túshūguăn
Eric Choi

Jelly and the D-Machine
Suzanne Church

The Perfect Library
David Clink

The Colour of Paradox
A.M. Dellamonica

The Man Who Sold the Moon
Cory Doctorow

Brains, Brains, Brains
Puneet Dutt

The Lonely Sea in the Sky
Amal El-Mohtar

A Wish from a Bone
Gemma Files

We Be Naked
Zsuzsi Gartner

The God of Lost Things
Neile Graham

The Lark, The Peat The Star, and Our Time
Neile Graham

Chant for Summer Darkness in Northwest Climes
Neile Graham

The Beat that Billie Bore
Lisa L. Hannett

The Trial of the Beekeeper
Shivaun Hoad

Self-Portrait as Bilbo Baggins
Ada Hoffmann

The Parable of the Supervillain
Ada Hoffmann

The Mermaid at Seaworld
Ada Hoffmann

Left Foot, Right
Nalo Hopkinson

Return to Bear Creek
Louisa Howerow

The Inn of the Seven Blessings
Matthew Hughes

What You Couldn’t Leave Behind
Matthew Johnson

Hollywood North
Michael Libling

Sideshow
Catherine MacLeod

Aversions
Helen Marshall

Death and the Girl from Pi Delta Zeta
Helen Marshall

You’re a Winner
Matt Moore

Man in Blue Overcoat
Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Exorcist: A Love Story
David Nickle

Hereditary Delusions
Rhonda Parrish

The Marotte
Tony Pi

Charlemagne and Florent
Ranylt Richildis

Standard Deviant
Holly Schofield

The Tun
Trevor Shikaze

Demoted
Kate Story

The Snows of Yesteryear
Jean-Louis Trudel

Giants
Peter Watts

From Stone and Bone, From Earth and Sky
A.C. Wise

Outside Heavenly
Rio Youers

Release Date: Aug 18, 2015

Pre-Order Now:

Amazon Canada
Amazon U.K.
Amazon U.S.
Barnes & Noble
Book Depository
Books-a-Million
Chapters-Indigo
IndieBound
Powell’s

*Again. I had a poem in the first one too