Category Archives: #amwriting

#amwriting, Authors, Book Titles, Books, Contests, haunted houses, King Park Press

And the #CONTEST winner is!!!

April 3, 2016 Melanie 6 Comments

And the Winner is…

Before I announce the winning title, I want to thank everyone who entered. In the end, I received over 100 submissions! WOW!!! Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would get such a fantastic response.

Here are the suggestions I received from the 26 contest entrants…

The Mystery of Hillcrest House

The Angel Falls Mystery

The Haunting of Hillcrest House

The Haunting Hargraves

Hand of The Hargraves

Caveat Emptor

Visions at the Hillcrest House

Haunted Hillcrest House

Haunted House— Hillcrest

Haunted Angel Falls– Mystery of Hillcrest House

A Walk with the dead

Shadows in the Hillcrest House

Gates of Hell

Screaming Souls

Screaming Souls at Hillcrest House

Midnight Mist

Fallen Angels

Silent Screams

Hargraves on the Hill

Haunted Souls Angel Falls

Mystery of Angel Falls

Angel Falls Haunting

Hillcrest Haunting

Hillcreast haunting

Scotland’s Eerie Hillcreast mansion

Hillcreast, help my kilt!

Echoes from the Past

Secrets of Hillcrest House

Beware of Hillcrest House

Devils at Angel Falls

Demons at Angel Falls

Secrets of Hillcrest House

Shadows at Hillcrest House

The Taming of Hillcrest House

Imprisoned at Hillcrest

The Souls of Hillcrest

The Lost Souls of Hillcrest

Lost Souls at Hillcrest

Unspoken Secrets of/at Hillcrest House

Unspoken Secrets

The Lingering’s

All that Remains or The Remains

The secret of Hillcrest House

Mystery in Angel Falls

Secrets of (from) the past

Whispers from the past

Lost in the future

Alone in the past

Victorian’s Secret

When Angels Fall

The Moon in Hillcrest House

The Deafening Silence of Angel Falls

Haunting Horrors of the House on the Hill

Hillcrest House of Horror

Portal to the Spirit World

Horror Halls

Look Over Your Shoulder

The Haunting Beauty of Hillcrest House

The House of Fear and Beauty

The Hillcrest House Haunting

The Haunting of Hillcrest House

The Haunted House of Angel Falls

Full Moon Gothic

A Rose for Jessica

What Lies Unknown

The Secret of Hillcrest House

The Mystery of Hillcrest House

The Haunting of Hillcrest House

Souls in Waiting

A Past Unearthed

A Past Reclaimed

Jessica’s Folly

The Hargrave Factor

The Haunting of Jessica Maitland

The Hargraves of Hillcrest House

Cliffside Manor

House of the Silver Moon

Jessica’s Dream/Nightmare House

Ghosts of Hillcrest Mansion

A Home Forever

Passage Way of Secrets

Unknown Messages

Hargrave Affair

Hargrave Encounter

Hillcrest Encounter

Fallen Angels Trapped on a Cliff

Fallen Angels in Hillcrest House

Maitland; The Reckoner

Cliff Dwelling Interlopers

Jessica’s Jaunt with Hillcrest

Unwilling Tenants of Hillcrest House

Unholy Occupation of Hillcrest

Unwilling Entrapment at Hillcrest

Hillcrest Manor

The Haunting of Hillcrest

Haunted Hillcrest

We Will Never Leave!

Beyond these Walls

The Ominous Fortress of Hillcrest House

The Ominous Fortress

An Ominous Dynasty

The Chronicles of Hillcrest Place

Unnerving Truth of Hillcrest House

The Unnerving Truth

Here Forever

Moonlight Seduction

Moonlight Desires

Haunted Desires of Hillcrest House

The Seduction of Hillcrest House

And now without any further delay … the grand prize winner (selected by titles received in chronological order) is Greta Krasteva with her title The Secret of Hillcrest House. Congratulations, Greta!

And the random winner among the remaining entrants is Jennifer Rogers!

I will contact you to find out your preferred e-book format (mobi for Kindle, epub for other ereaders, or .pdf).

#amwriting, Authors, Book Titles, Books, Contests, haunted houses, King Park Press

There’s still time to enter! #CONTEST ~ Help me choose a title… you could win…

March 27, 2016 Melanie 6 Comments

My Title #Contest

There’s still time to enter in the Help me choose a title #Contest. Don’t be disappointed. Enter between now and midnight March 31, 2016, Eastern Time.

Fancy your title on the cover of a book, your name mentioned in the acknowledgements? It could happen! For the month of March, I’m running a book title cover contest.

Not to worry, I am giving you some help starting with the image that will grace the cover. Are the creative juices starting to flow?

Here’s what the book is about…

Sometimes there’s more to a house than bricks and mortar.

Hillcrest House is one such place. Perched on a cliff in the picturesque town of Angel Falls, there is more to this Victorian mansion than meets the eye. When referring to the house, the locals use the word haunted on a regular basis. Strange visions appear in the windows, especially the second-floor ones over the side porch. Even stranger events take place within its four walls.

Rumour has it, the original owners, Asher and Maggie Hargrave, never left their beloved home. They claim the couple and their family are responsible for driving people away. Over the years, Hillcrest House has changed hands numerous times. No one stays long. Renovations begin then stop and the house is once more abandoned. The latest in this long line of owners is Jessica Maitland.

Will Jessica be the next one to succumb or will she unravel the mystery of the haunting of Hillcrest House?

How about now?

How does it all work, I hear you ask.

Contest details…

Contest opens March 1, 2016 and runs until March 31, 2016.

Come up with a title and leave your idea in the comments. And for those of you who would like to take your chances but aren’t comfortable leaving a comment on a blog, send an email to Title Contest.

At the end of the contest, one lucky entrant’s title will be chosen. He/she will receive an e-copy of the book (Mobi, epub or pdf – their choice) and their name included in the acknowledgements.

Another winner will be chosen at random from the non-winning titles.

Enter as many times as you like but be sure you do before the deadline for your chance to win.

Good luck!

#amwriting, Authors, Book Titles, Books, Contests, haunted houses, King Park Press

#CONTEST ~ Help me choose a title for your chance to win…

March 1, 2016 Melanie 39 Comments

Fancy your title on the cover of a book, your name mentioned in the acknowledgements? It could happen! For the month of March, I’m running a book title cover contest.

Not to worry, I am giving you some help starting with the image that will grace the cover. Are the creative juices starting to flow?

Here’s what the book is about…

Sometimes there’s more to a house than bricks and mortar.

Will Jessica be the next one to succumb or will she unravel the mystery of the haunting of Hillcrest House?

How about now?

How does it all work, I hear you ask.

Contest details…

Contest opens March 1, 2016 and runs until March 31, 2016.

At the end of the contest, one lucky entrant’s title will be chosen. He/she will receive an e-copy of the book (Mobi, epub or pdf – their choice) and their name included in the acknowledgements.

Another winner will be chosen at random from the non-winning titles.

Enter as many times as you like but be sure you do before the deadline for your chance to win.

Good luck!

#amwriting, A Shadow in the Past, Aberdeenshire, Books, Novel covers, Novels, readers, Reading, Writing

It’s Read in the Bathtub Day!

February 9, 2016 Melanie 3 Comments

Do you like to read in the bathtub?

Visitor7 [CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

A Shadow in the Past…

When a contemporary teen is catapulted back in time to the Victorian era, she becomes A Shadow in the Past…

Nineteen-year-old Sarah Shand finds herself in Victorian Era Aberdeenshire, Scotland and has no idea how she got there. Her last memory is of being at the stone circle on the family farm in the year 2010.

Despite having difficulty coming to terms with her situation, Sarah quickly learns she must keep her true identity a secret. Still, she feels stifled by the Victorians’ confining social practices, including arranged marriages between wealthy and influential families, and confronts them head-on then suffers the consequences.

When Sarah realizes she has fallen in love with the handsome Laird of Weetshill, she faces an agonizing decision. Does she try to find her way back to 2010 or remain in the past with the man she loves?

BUY LINKS

amazon

kobo

Books a Million

Barnes & Noble

Diesel

So why not buy yourself a book (preferably one of mine), run a bubble bath and pour yourself a glass of wine (or your tipple of choice) and escape for some self-indulgence.

bathtub — Bathtub caddy with reading rack from Oh the Things You Can Buy

Just don’t fall asleep in the tub. And if you’re going to read using your kindle, kobo, nook, iPad or another electronic e-reader, put it in a sealable plastic bag to protect it if you don’t have a caddy with a book rest. Water and electronic devices don’t mix.

#amwriting, anger, anguish, backup, blog, frustration, NaNoWriMo, normal service

Start as you mean to go on…

February 4, 2016 Melanie 4 Comments

This year started out well. I’ve been working like a fiend on the project I started for #NaNoWriMo. I had plenty of these moments…

And a few of these ones, too…

I eased my way back into the blogosphere slowly with the plan of picking up the pace as the month went on.

Then disaster struck!

I turned on my computer and went to my blog to delete spam comments, reply to legitimate comments, check my site stats, like I do every morning. Only the sidebars (not entirely I came to discover later) and header image were there!

Instead of my most recent blog post filling the section in the middle of the screen, the two words that were there in large bold print “Nothing Found” haunted me. I didn’t notice it immediately but all my pages were missing, too.

Thankfully, my hosting company dotCanada.ca were able to restore my blog’s database back to prior to my disappearance. I figured if I had to re-write one post, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

They restored me. I crashed me. They restored me again. Some of the content still didn’t work. Third time was a charm and normal service has been resumed.

I digress for a moment, do you cross your fingers middle over index or index over middle. I tried the way it’s shown in the clip art and I find it extremely awkward.

The week of January 17-23 was the week from hell at The House of King. I was frustrated, angry, angry at myself, and generally not a nice person to be around. Trust me, my husband agrees totally with that statement.

I keep my fingers crossed that normal service will continue as I have lots of exciting things happening in 2016 that I want to be able to share with you, my lovely followers.

This is for you, my peep! Mwah!

#amwriting, NaNoWriMo

#NaNoWriMo is over! Are you relieved?

December 1, 2015 Melanie 6 Comments

#NaNoWriMo is over! It started like this… with an idea. If you were really organized, you had an outline done ahead of time.

and you worked like this… getting all those lovely words down ‘on paper’.

had moments like this… when your imaginary friends quit talking to you.

overcame them and wrote like this… when the voices got over their snit and started talking again.

and at the end of it all, you look like this… frazzled, feeling punchy and starving!

I didn’t set out at the beginning of November to complete 50,000 words in the month. What I wanted to do was write every day (something that I’ve not always made time for).

I might not have a ‘winner’ badge for having my numbers crunched by the #NaNo algorithm and having the minimum number of 50,000 but I consider myself a winner because I achieved everything I wanted to in the month.

At 3:39 yesterday afternoon, I had completed 21,813 words… I’ve got my beginning and my middle, but I still don’t know how my magnum opus is going to end. That is really unusual for me. Under normal circumstances I know the ending and write it first. Then I have the fun of getting there. I’m in uncharted waters here and I’m not sure I’m liking it.

I didn’t outline and as I wrote merrily away, I discovered major flaws in my logic. Oh well, scenes can be cut and pasted and new transitions between them written, not to mention returning the array of plot bunnies that will undoubtedly be released to run amok safely to their warren.

So, how did your #NaNoWriMo month go?

#amwriting, 4RV Publishing, A Shadow in the Past, Bath, King Park Press, middle grade, Novels, short stories, The Consequences Collection, Tim's Magic Christmas

Bath time! and not in the tub

November 22, 2015 Melanie 2 Comments

Ho Ho Ho! Yesterday was the Christmas Bazaar and Silent Auction at the Bath Public School

**********

It was a great day in Bath yesterday. Cozy in the primary hall but lots of foot traffic nonetheless. Because of the width of the hall, it was difficult to get a good picture of my display. Some of the things that are visible in this photo are usually hidden by the magic of camera angles.

Another thing with it being so cozy was anything close to the edge of the table had to be constantly straightened up. But that’s a minor detail. I did get lots of compliments on my display which is always music to my ears.

So how did I do, I hear you ask. Could I have a drum roll please…

I sold 7 copies of A Shadow in the Past and 7 copies of Tim’s Magic Christmas! One of the sales of Tim was using my Square credit card reader.

We weren’t to pack up until after 3:00 and if we did, we wouldn’t be invited back next year. I couldn’t have packed up at that time if I tried. I still had customers at 3:00. One was a young man who stood quietly in front of the table so as not to interrupt the woman who was buying a copy of A Shadow in the Past at the time. He was very polite and asked a lot of questions about writing and publishing a book and wanted to know if he could buy a copy of Tim’s Magic Christmas. This young man was in the target age group for the book (his mum was at the table beside me) so with money he got from his parents and grandparents, he bought the book which I gladly signed for him.

I’ll be back in Bath next year and I hope I run into this polite young man again. I’d love to know what he thought of Tim’s Magic Christmas.

Oh, and I even managed to stay on track writing every day for #NaNoWriMo. It was longhand and I didn’t get it typed up until this morning but I managed 316 words.

#amwriting, NaNoWriMo

#NaNoWriMo ~ Ten Days to Go… are you still on track? #amwriting

November 21, 2015 Melanie Leave a comment

Ten Days to Go in #NaNoWriMo 2015

With only ten days remaining in the month, are you still on track? Achieving your writing goals?

If you’re striving for 50,000 words you should be sitting around 33,340 now.

Not quite that ambitious but wanted to write every day? So far I’ve managed to do that although with travel earlier this month it made a few days difficult. Still, I’ve managed to get a few words into my WIP each and every day.

Sometimes the words flow? Sometimes not so much? I’ve had a few of those days this month. Usually a quick read over the last day’s work and I’m off and running once again.

I can see a huge re-write coming for my WIP. Scenes that need to be rearranged. That’s the joy of pantsing. The logic doesn’t always work, but then this is something that can always be fixed after the end of the month.

Is your #NaNoWriMo project still flowing smoothly? Have you run into difficulty?

#amwriting, NaNoWriMo

Opening Scene of my NaNoWriMo project

November 17, 2015 Melanie 6 Comments

Here it is. The opening scene of my #NaNoWriMo project. It’s only a first draft (and mine are usually horrendous), subject to change, the cutting room floor, or the dust bin never to see the light of day…

~ 1 ~

Jessica leaned forward in the driver’s seat as she eased her Chevy Aveo around the corner on the crest of the hill. Not only was it a blind summit, but a blind summit on a curve. Once moving straight again, she glanced down to the passenger seat and the picture of the house – her house – she’d printed before leaving home. A cursory glance at the GPS showed she was within a block of her new-to-her home.

From the time she first saw the real estate listing for Hillcrest House on the Internet, she knew she had to have it. The entire transaction took place online via websites, emails, scans and e-transfers.

She knew the house would be on her right so she slowed to a crawl and watched out the passenger window.

“You have reached your destination,” the female voice with a British accent said.

Engrossed in looking for her new home, the noise startled her causing her to jump.

When Jessica set up the GPS unit, she chose a woman’s voice over a man’s. She’d never taken orders from a man before and wasn’t about to start now. Besides, this voice was the least abrasive of the available selections.

Flipping on her right signal light, she pulled her car over to the curb and shut off the engine. Climbing out from behind the wheel, Jessica stretched. It had taken her about five hours to get here and her body knew it. She raked her fingers through her short, auburn hair then turned and leaned on folded arms on the roof of the car.

The granite, Victorian mansion stood to one side of the lot. A wrought iron fence mounted on a stone wall surrounded the property. Patches of bare metal showed through the aqua green roof. Weathered plywood replaced glass in some of the upper windows. Others had gaping holes in the panes.

Paint peeled from the pillars and balusters of the sweeping verandah. Sections of the railing were missing. This once elegant home had fallen into a serious state of disrepair.

The blip of a siren startled her. She whipped around in time to see a police cruiser come to a stop behind her car. The officer emerged donning his Stetson as he approached. He was well over six feet tall and fit. Why did she have to notice his physique? She swore off men when her marriage fell apart. Now she was ogling a cop? She needed to get a grip.

“You can’t park here. Didn’t you see the no parking signs?” He pointed to one near her car.

“No. sorry, I didn’t.”

“Pull around the corner and park on the far side of the street.”

Jessica climbed back in her car. She didn’t intend on taking orders from a man but this one wore a uniform and carried a gun. She drove around the corner and pulled into the driveway. A chain stretched between two stone pillars prevented her from going any further.

Parked on the property, there would be no reason for the cop to hang around. But when she exited her vehicle, the cruiser was across the foot of her driveway.

“What’s your interest in this place?” he asked, standing with his hands on his hips.

“I own it,” she announced with pride. If he was trying to intimidate her, it wouldn’t work. She’d been through far worse. This guy, arrogant as he was, didn’t frighten her at all.

“Really. Got any proof?” he asked, folding his muscular arms across his chest.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” she shot back and leaned in the window. Jessica grabbed the strap on her enormous, suede handbag and pulled it towards her and out the window. Placing it on the hood of her car, she rummaged through it until she found the envelope from the lawyer. “Here,” she bragged thrusting the envelope in his face.

He removed the papers and looked them over. “Everything seems to be in order,” the officer said handing the paperwork back.

The wind picked up making it difficult for Jessica to return the contents to the pouch. As she turned to place them in her purse, a face and hands appeared in the window over the side porch. “There’s someone in there,” she gasped pointing to the location.

So there you have it. Potential? Maybe. Time will tell. For now it’s keep NaNoWriMo-ing. Plenty of time for improvement in the coming months.

#amwriting, NaNoWriMo

Week 2 of NaNoWriMo is over… is your enthusiasm waning?

November 15, 2015 Melanie Leave a comment

Still feeling the enthusiasm? Or is writing your magnum opus becoming more of a chore?

Are you vomiting words onto the page on a daily basis? That’s a good way to put it since to succeed at getting 50K words at the end of November, you have to write 1667 words per day.

If your project was outlined in advance, this second week may have flowed as easily as the first one. Or maybe not.

My NaNo project wasn’t outlined and for the most part the words have flowed well throughout these past fourteen days.

At the end of week 1, I had 7207 words (less the 1301 I started the month with).

Yesterday after finishing week 2, my count was up to 15,010. So I’ve added another 7803 words!

Okay, I’m not going to set any great records with my writing speed but the project I’m working on is a novella and according to word length charts, they’re between 17,500 and 40,000 words.

Yesterday, I found myself editing some of my previous work. I hear you gasp since editing isn’t supposed to happen until December 1st at the earliest. Most of said editing was cutting and pasting so the only thing that was affected was the length of time I could actually spend writing.

How are you managing at the end of a full two weeks of NaNoWriMo? Are you still ‘feeling the love’? What are your tricks for staying motivated?