Welcome, traveler! The authors of Story Empire (Staci Troilo, C.S. Boyack, Sandra Cox, Harmony Kent and I) have a huge Halloween giveaway kicking off today. There are multiple gift cards and ebooks up for grabs, plus lots of fun with several scavenger hunts.

You’ll find us hanging out at the Paranormal Bar & Grille, a spooky establishment with a questionable clientele. Well, questionable if you consider vampires, gargoyles, witches, creatures of urban legend and other supernatural beings unusual. Grab a tankard at the bar, sit down for a chat, and then embark on the scavenger hunts, collecting goodies along the way.

You can find the main page here with links at the bottom to each of the individual scavenger hunts we’re offering. Each hunt offers you the chance to win a $15.00 Amazon gift card, a $10.00 Amazon gift card and multiple ebooks. That’s fifteen, not…

It’s October, nearing Halloween, when things that go-bump-in-the-night push to the forefront of our minds. What an ideal time to curl up with a book designed to inspire shivers and goosebumps.

I invite you to explore MACABRE SANCTUARY, a FREE collection of ten short stories published by AIW Press. Yes, you heard correctly. MACABRE SANCTUARY is free for the taking from Amazon, Apple, Kobo and others.

Click HERE to download the anthology in the format of your choice

Blurb:
Thrills. Chills. Shadows and superstitions. Things that go bump in the night. Macabre Sanctuary boasts suspenseful fiction designed to elicit goosebumps and raise heartrates.

Learn the lore of a haunted island.
Grapple with the undead while robbing graves Halloween night.
Endure a hazing ritual unlike any other.
Deal with a demon at an All Souls’ Day celebration.
See what happens when you court death in the wild.
Battle zombies and cannibals…

Not a lot of people know this about me, but before I studied writing in college, I was an architecture major. I’ve always been interested in design and construction, even landscaping and interior decor. Starting from scratch and making a home excites me, especially when I get to make amendments to the blueprints. (That’s probably one of the reasons my husband and I have built three houses for ourselves in addition to a flip. And decorating… one of the only things that kept me sane on any of our moves was getting to decorate a new house, and we’re on home number six now, not counting apartments.) But my university, then number two in the country for studying architecture, had a stringent focus on commercial applications. That wasn’t for me. Sure, it would be sweet to have my name on a well-known building, but I wanted to make homes.

I should have realized writing a series wouldn’t be all wine and roses, but I didn’t expect to panic during the process.

There are several times I’ve had novels with characters I thought I could spin off into a series, but it never quite happened. Then I wrote a book and proposed a series to my publisher. That was something I’d never done before. Usually, I write a manuscript, and then submit it. This time I submitted one book and indicated I had ideas for two more. As a result I received my first three-book contract—complete with deadlines for two novels that were still in the “vague idea” stage.

Was I game? Uh, yeah—no-brainer. But, easy? Let’s just say I’ve been through a learning curve.

As an author, I normally start a book with character outlines for my main players, a sketchy outline of the primary plot and—in the case…

Well, hello there.

Funny to start this post with a greeting, given its topic. But this is our inaugural post, and I didn’t want to begin without saying hi.

“Hi.”

Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, we can get down to business. Specifically, the business of writing dialogue in fiction.

First, a list of what to do and what not to do.

Do’s and Don’ts

• Do listen to people speak in real life. This will give you a feel for speech patterns.
• Don’t repeat conversations verbatim. When people pause to think, they counter the silence with filler words and phrases (like, um, well). Unless you need to show a character pause (for example, to come up with a believable lie) omit the fillers.
• Do let readers know dialects may be heavy by certain speakers. (I considered hiring a translator to decode his southern accent.) Pepper in a phonetic…