Writing

Creative Wednesday: A Great Review

Thank you so much to award-winning writer and blogger D. Wallace Peach for a wonderful review of Feasting Upon The Bones! Diana is incredibly supportive of authors and the blogging community and if you’re not following her, you should be! You can read all of her reviews here: Myths of the Mirror August Book Reviews: Part 2 , or the one specific to Feasting below:

Creative Wednesday: The Seventh Devil is here!

You may or may not have seen on my social media that my latest novel, The Seventh Devil, has finally been released after several delays due to Covid backlog at the printing plant. I’m really excited about it, except for the fact that Amazon has been causing so many issues with making it available. My publisher reached out to them, and this is what they said: “Last Summer, Amazon ordered as normal throughout and we heard reports that processing delays resulted in trucks sitting unreceived for up to 2 weeks at Amazon facilities. This summer, Amazon is aggressively triaging their stock orders to manage what is moving through the warehouses. This is resulting in gaps between when Amazon runs out of stock, and when they reorder a book, because books, barring the best sellers, are still deprioritized.”

“Barring the best sellers”?! Well, maybe it would BE a best seller if Amazon bothered prioritizing books instead of socks, which I can get the very next day after I order them. The Dome has been suffering the same fate, showing up as unavailable or out of stock at various times as well. But here’s the great news–if you want a copy of The Seventh Devil, or my other Bookland Press books, Smile and The Dome, you can order them through All Lit Up, (click the link and it will take you right there) a much better distributor who ships to anywhere in Canada AND the United States. Otherwise, for my friends outside of North America, let’s hope Amazon gets its act together soon.

And just to refresh your memory, here’s the synopsis for The Seventh Devil:

“When nineteen-year-old runaway Verity Darkwood, homeless and devastated by guilt, takes refuge in a bar to escape the unwanted attention of a stranger, she doesn’t expect to meet Gareth Winter, let alone become business partners with him. They discover that they each possess the ability to interact with the world beyond the veil and, with the help of Horace Greeley III, editor of the fantastical online journal The Echo, Verity and Gareth spend the next two years on the road, successfully crossing over the ghosts who haunt their clients, or getting rid of the demons that plague them. But when they stumble upon a series of unsolved child abductions spanning decades which are eerily similar to the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Verity’s younger sister, they embark on a pursuit that will take them across Canada in their quest to find The Seventh Devil, the dangerous and mysterious figure who may be behind it all.”

Thursday Surprise: The Recording From My Reading: Feasting Upon The Bones

For anyone who wasn’t able to attend my live reading last night, here’s the recording:

I hope you enjoy it. It didn’t work right away and I had a moment where I thought I would cry, but Kate and Ken were there troubleshooting and it all worked out in the end, with almost 30 people joining in. And there was wine.

Live Reading Tonight!

Do you have 45 minutes to spare tonight? Just a reminder that I’ll be doing a live reading from Feasting Upon The Bones on Facebook from 7:00 to 7:45 pm Eastern Time. I’ll be reading 4 pieces from the collection and discussing a little bit about the stories and what inspired them, and then, if there’s time, I might read a piece from the new collection I’m currently working on, Night Terrors. I hope you can join me. Here’s the link: https://www.facebook.com/108877348159254/live_videos/

It’s All About The Attitude

Well, it’s been an exciting week at the mydangblog household. First, I got it into my head suddenly, and I mean VERY suddenly, that it would be an amazing idea if I did a live reading for my new short story collection in August. And if you know anything at all about me, you’ll know that like most things I do (e.g. the quilt), I went into it with a lot of determination but without a single clue about how it should be done. I messaged a couple of friends (thanks Susan and Cecilia!) and got some advice, but still ended up spamming all my friends, not once but twice, with Facebook invites. I really have no idea what I’m doing and whether or not it will work, but if you’d like to join me on Wednesday, August 11 at 7 pm Eastern Time, you can access the reading by either going to the Feasting Upon The Bones Live Reading Facebook page or join via this link even if you don’t have Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/108877348159254/live_videos/

I hope some of you will come, either to see me read some stories and drink wine or watch dead air and imagine me frantically trying to figure out how to get the live stream going whilst simultaneously drinking wine. Either way, there will be wine.

And I’ve been getting great feedback on the short story collection, so again, I’d super-appreciate if anyone could leave even a short review on Amazon or Goodreads or whatnot, or even just some stars. I know a couple of you have already and it totally made my day.

In other news, we took down the old side porch on our house last week because the columns were rotting and discovered that most of the old side porch structure was also rotting, so it was extremely fortunate that we’d embarked upon this particular reno project before one of us fell through the balcony. As Ken was dismantling the roof, he found a champagne cork sliced open with a penny stuck in it tucked next to one of the rafters:

Ken: What do you think this is for?
Me: Some kind of weird superstition? A sacrifice to Dionysus?
Ken: I’ve never heard of that. Let me google…champagne cork with—oh, it autofilled. Guess it’s a thing after all.
Me: Well, we have to keep it and put it back once we’re done. Ooh, we could pop another bottle and do it with a second champagne cork for double the luck!
Ken: And drink the champagne.
Me: Obviously drink the champagne, KEN.

Photo of a cork with a penny in it.

And in honour of our rotten porch, I present to you three other inanimate objects that have attitudes of their own, according to these ads:

Photo of a very nice bird house with the description Obnoxious bird house - make an offer

1) This birdhouse looks really cute and rustic but apparently appearances can be deceiving:

Me: Ooh, I love your birdhouse. Could I offer you twenty-five dollars for it?
Birdhouse: Twenty-five dollars?! F*ck off, lady.
Owner: I’m so sorry. My birdhouse is a bit of a dick.
Birdhouse: You can f*ck right off too, JANICE.
Me: What an obnoxious bird house.
Owner: Hence the ad.

Photo of a child's bicycle with the description Huffy bike

2) In the same vein, this little bike is adorable but…

Buyer: What a lovely little bike. And only ten dollars!
Bike: Hmph.
Buyer: What’s wrong?
Seller: Oh, don’t mind the bike. He’s in one of “his moods”, that’s all.
Bike: HMPH.
Buyer: Does he get like that a lot?
Seller: He’s just a little huffy because I wouldn’t take his training wheels off for the ad.
Bike: I don’t NEED THEM, STANLEY.
Seller: Yes, but they make you MORE MARKETABLE, BRIAN.
Bike: HMPH!

Photo of a sign that says "Please inform one of our staff if this room is in need of some attention."

3) And finally—I’ve seen warehouses with self-esteem issues but this bathroom is a bit of a drama queen:

Customer: Excuse me, but I think your bathroom needs some attention.
Staff person: Good lord, what’s it doing now?
Customer: It’s a little weepy. But when I asked what was wrong, it said, “Oh, nothing. Don’t worry about ME. Obviously I’m JUST FINE”.
Staff: Sigh. Yes, it can be quite passive-aggressive when it’s unhappy. Look, I hate to pry, but were you in there for a…(whispers) poo?
Customer: I—uh—well, yes. But it was just a small one.
Staff: That explains it. Time for the lavender air freshener. That usually does the trick.

Creative Wednesday: Where I Write

I had the great pleasure of being featured on author Gabi Coatsworth’s official website as part of her series on authors and where they write. My writing space is really precious to me, and I appreciate having the chance to share it with you. If you want to see it and find out more about the place where I wrote Smile, The Dome, Feasting Upon The Bones, and The Seventh Devil, you can read about it here: Where I Write

Creative Wednesday: Feasting Upon The Bones

I’m really excited to share the news that my first short story collection Feasting Upon The Bones is now available for pre-order! You can find it on the following websites:

Potters Grove Press (Paperback, Kindle, ePUB, PDF)

Amazon.com

Amazon.ca (also available on Amazon UK and others)

The Stories In Between (website of Potters Grove Press editor, River Dixon)

And if you buy it, read it, and like it, I’d love if you could give it a review! And for those of you who’ve voted for me for various things over the last couple of years, you might just find your name in one of the stories as promised!

Creative Wednesday – Titles, Talk and Tipples Part 2

Here’s the second part of my incredibly fun interview with Jude Matulich-Hall. Don’t know why it took me so long to post this, but you can watch me get slightly tipsy as we talk about my upcoming short story collection Feasting Upon The Bones (Potters Grove Press), cassette tapes, and meeting my idol Gary Numan. You can watch it here.

Weekend Update

Well, Happy Easter Weekend to all of those who celebrate it and Happy Weekend to those who don’t. The mydangblog household doesn’t observe Easter particularly, but we do give each other chocolate according to pagan tradition, and chocolate is one of the few life’s pleasures left to us as we’re currently under yet another “lockdown that’s not really a lockdown”. As someone on the interweb succinctly put it: “I can go to Costco, but I can’t go to my barber. My barber can go to Costco but can’t give me a haircut. We can both be in Costco at the same time—maybe he can cut my hair in Costco.” People aren’t allowed to gather in groups of more than 5 people, but come Tuesday, classrooms will be full of 30 kids per room. Ultimately, I’m never sure if this is a pandemic or just a really bad Monty Python sketch.

At any rate, before I begin, I have three updates. First, an update on the quilt. I have, as of this day’s reckoning, cut 121 squares of denim with about 300 to go. I will be attempting to purchase a rotary cutter today on the advice of my many quilting friends (you never know how many you have until you tell people you’re making a quilt), if I can find a store that’s open.

Second, thanks to all of you, I did indeed win Spillwords Press Publication of the Month, and I am very thrilled and grateful to everyone who voted or tried to vote (that site is super-finicky) or even just clicked on it to read it because that counts too.

Third, and this ties into number 2, I’ve begun the sequel to The Seventh Devil. It’s called The Devil You Know, and now I have lots of names for the characters thanks to my promise to name them after anyone who voted for me.

And off we go on another foray into the strange world of Facebook Marketplace.

1) Drama: Free

You can just tell by the photo that Amanda is a very dramatic girl. It’s amazing to me that she isn’t charging more for her drama but maybe the lockdown is getting the better of her and she’s so bored she’s just willing to give it away. So I contacted her and asked about a sample:

Me: What kind of drama are you offering?
Amanda: Low level best friend drama, mid-range passive aggressive wife, and crazy ex-girlfriend.
Me: Can I try the crazy ex-girlfriend?
Amanda; I WILL SLASH YOUR TIRES, YOU BASTARD!!
Me: Wow, that IS intense. I think I’m good.
Amanda (sobbing): So that’s it? You’re just going to leave? WHY??!! I LOVE YOU!!
Me: Okay, have a good weekend.
Amanda: You too!

2) Bookshelf: It is issued.

It wasn’t so much the bookshelf in this ad but the description, which reads “Good bookshelf. We are moving. It is issued. Has a lot of place. It is useful.” So, these people are moving due to some kind of decree? Is there a dude whose job it is to randomly evict people with bookshelves, like, “I see you have a good, useful bookshelf. I must demand that you move immediately. Leave the bookshelf behind in this place. I have spoken.” I hope he doesn’t find out how many bookshelves I have—I have no intention of moving.

3) Self-portrait: 5 dollars

This is an excellent example of a post-modern charcoal sketch in the style of a young Matisse. Personally, I would title it “Artist Holding Boom Box”, but those could be boobs. And that’s the joy of art.

4) Custom Handmade Boat: $100

What a lovely, idyllic scene: A peaceful living room with birds merrily chirping in their cage, a puppy snoozing on his pillow, the sunlight spilling in through the cracks in the boat—wait, what? I’m guessing that the genius who handcrafted this boat has never actually been in one and is unaware that the key to building a seaworthy vessel is to ensure that the water STAYS ON THE OUTSIDE. Now, you may be thinking that the person meant a good bookshelf SHAPED like a boat, but the description below simply reiterates “Custom handmade boat”. This is the stuff for which relocation decrees are issued, my friends.

Enjoy the weekend, everyone—now I’m off to cut some denim.

Creative Wednesdays – Spillwords Press Author Spotlight

For today’s Creative Wednesday, I’m very grateful to the wonderful people at Spillwords Press, who contacted me in February to ask if they could do an author spotlight on me. Here’s the link to the article, which includes a poem I wrote for my daughter–I hope you enjoy finding out more about me:

https://spillwords.com/spotlight-on-writers-suzanne-craig-whytock/