Indie Chicks: 25 Women 25 Personal Stories
Page 1
Table of Chicks
Title Page
Foreword—Karen McQuestion
Paranormal Romance
Shéa MacLeod—Knight In Shining Armor
—Excerpt: Dragon Warrior
Latchkey Kid—Heather Marie Adkins
—Excerpt: Abigail
Danielle Blanchard—Write or Die
—Excerpt: Forever 27
Lizzy Ford—The Phoenix and the Darkness
—Excerpt: Damian’s Oracle
Linda Welch—Never Too Late
—Excerpt: Along Came a Demon
Contemporary Fiction
Donna Fasano—Stepping Into the Light
—Excerpt: The Merry-Go-Round
Katherine Owen—One Fictionista’s Literary Bliss
—Excerpt: Seeing Julia
Cheryl Shireman—I Burned My Bra for This?
—Excerpt: Life Is But a Dream: On the Lake
Fantasy
Prue Batten—Mrs. So Got It Wrong Agent
—Excerpt: A Thousand Glass Flowers
Historical Fiction
Suzanne Tyrpak—Holes
—Excerpt: Vestal Virgin
Sarah Woodbury—Turning Medieval
—Excerpt: The Good Knight
Mystery
Anne R. Allen—A Kinky Adventure in Anglophilia
—Excerpt: Food of Love
Dani Amore—Writing From a Flour Sack
—Excerpt: Death by Sarcasm
Cheryl Bradshaw—Just Me and James Dean…
—Excerpt: Sinnerman
Christine DeMaio-Rice—How A Big Yellow Truck Changed My Life
—Excerpt: Dead Is the New Black
Sibel Hodge—From 200 Rejections to Amazon Top 200!
—Excerpt: The Fashion Police
Barbara Silkstone—Have You Ever Lost a Hat?
—Excerpt: The Secret Diary of Alice in Wonderland Age 42 and Three-Quarters
Romance
Mel Comley—French Fancies!
—Excerpt: A Time for Change
Suspense
Melissa Foster—Life’s Little Gifts
—Excerpt: Chasing Amanda
Christine Kersey—Never Give Up On Your Dreams
—Excerpt: No Way Out
Carol Davis Luce—Self-taught Late Bloomer
—Excerpt: Night Widow
Young Adult
Julia Crane—Moving to the Middle East
—Excerpt: Coexist
Talia Jager—Paper, Pen, and Chocolate
—Excerpt: Damaged
Michelle Muto—The Magic Within and The Little Book That Could
—Excerpt: The Book of Lost Souls
Melissa Smith—Write Out of Grief
—Excerpt: Cloud Nine
Afterword
Beth Elisa Harris
—Cancer Interruptus
Indie Chicks
25 Independent Women
25 Personal Stories
Edited by
Cheryl Shireman
Formatted by
Heather Marie Adkins
Copyright © 2011 by Stillwaters Publishing, LLC
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.
The 25 authors in this collection retain and hold their individual and respective rights to their pieces.
This book was formatted by CyberWitch Press
Foreword
Karen McQuestion
My journey was not much different than a lot of the women writers included in this anthology. Pursuing one’s creative passion is always a challenge, but more so when life interferes. As it always does.
When my husband and I started a family it was decided (mostly by me, now that I think back) that I would stay home with the kids and he would be the wage earner. This was not the easy way out for either of us. Greg had the stress of being the sole provider and he also had to come home to a wife eager for adult conversation, just when he wanted to quietly decompress. And I had my own troubles being home with one, then two, then three little kids, all needy, messy little jumping beans, more adorable in photos than I remember them being at the time.
I loved being home with my children, and wouldn’t have had it any other way, but it left little free time for either of us.
Throughout the baby and toddler years, I thought about writing. I thought about it a lot, actually, but I never did it. Not once. It seemed that if I had a child age three or younger in the house I couldn’t write.
Around this time I remember reading that John Grisham used to work his crazy attorney schedule and got up at dawn to write for two hours before work. Later, I read about Stephen King’s writing routine in his book, On Writing. He’s extremely disciplined and writes 2,000 words a day, no matter what. Both John and Steve made me feel like a complete loser. I had more free time than either of them, and yet, I couldn’t manage to do one tenth of what they were doing.
But then I realized that neither of them was doing what I was doing either.
Time, energy, and money. All three are finite resources. Kids are notorious time suckers, and they do a number on their parents’ money and energy too. If you’ve got kids, you don’t need a hobby—you’re covered.
When my youngest was in preschool, I finally made the time to write. I took a non-credit class at the local tech college one night a week, and I also joined a critique group that met two evenings a month at the local community center. It kept me on track with my writing, because I knew I had to bring pages to the next meeting. I still felt a little guilty spending money and taking time away from my family, but I felt, selfishly maybe, that I needed to do this, so I did it anyway.
Later, when I began freelance writing, especially during the time I got regular assignments from the community newspaper, I was able to justify my writing time because I was getting paid. I couldn’t say the same for my novel writing, but I snuck it in anyway—it was my heart’s desire. I’d always thought of myself as a writer, even during those long years when I wasn’t writing a word. Now that I had a chance, I was going to do it every second I could.
I can only speak for myself, a mom of three who was home full time and whose husband worked long hours. Writing under those circumstances was difficult if not impossible. Personally, I need balance in my life to write. And silence. To work on a novel I need to immerse myself in that fictional world and I’m not able to do that if I’m sleep deprived or my kids are in crisis. And when your kids are little that describes most of the time. Seems like someone is always teething, or needs to be quizzed on their multiplication tables, or is sad because they weren’t invited to a birthday party, or whatever. Shoes get misplaced and field trip permission slips vaporize and a person can spend hours trying to get caught up. Added to that, if you’re a writer of fiction, you probably have an acute sense of empathy. Taking on the joys and sorrows of your kids can be both emotionally draining and energizing. And that wreaks havoc on the balance I was talking about earlier.
When I first started writing on this topic, I thought it was going to be about the importance of carving out writing time for yourself. I was going to say that I should have been more selfish in those early years. I should have just told my husband that I just needed every Saturday morning for writing, but you know what? The more I think about it, I’m not sure that’s right. Even if I could go back in time and change my sense of entitlement, my circumstances would have be
en the same. It wasn’t uncommon for Greg to have to work into the evening or on the weekends. Some years we only had one car. And frankly, by the time the kids went to bed, I was spent. That’s just the way it was.
Even now that my kids are ages 16, 19, and 23, I still have to set time aside for them on occasion. This past spring, my daughter Maria had her wisdom teeth removed. She’s legally an adult and her boyfriend Sam took off work to go with her. In theory, I could have handed her the insurance card, wished her luck, then headed out to the library with my laptop. I never would have done that though. It’s a mom thing. It doesn’t matter how old your babies are, when they’re going through something, especially a medical something, you want to be there.
(It went fine, by the way, and it was nice to have both Sam and me there—afterward he kept Maria propped up by the exit, while I went to get the car. On they way home, through her gauze-filled mouth, she told us, rather loopily, that she hadn’t been to the zoo in a really long time. She was quite sad about it. “The last time I went to the zoo, the bats weren’t there. We couldn’t see the bats at all…” Later, she had no recollection of this conversation, but she did confirm the part about the bats.)
This struggle to find time to write when you’re raising kids is an age-old problem. And if you work outside of the home, it’s far worse. Writer friends who have other, non-writing jobs have the stress of their career on top of everything else.
And don’t even get me started on health problems, either your own, or those of close family members or dear friends.
Sometimes it seems the world is conspiring against you.
But if you wait, it gets better.
Unless it doesn’t because something else happens.
I know, I’m not much help. What I can tell you is that all of these challenges add another emotional layer to your real life, one you can tap into and use in your writing.
I’ve learned that it’s okay to say no to other non-family, non-writing related requests. This may seem obvious, but as a people-pleaser it took me a long time to get to that place. It’s true that if you don’t plan your time, other people will be happy to do it for you. So, take it from me, life gets easier when you just say no! And if that’s too difficult, you can always use my mom’s classic line for taking a pass, “Sorry, that won’t work out for me.”
And most importantly, if you want to write, set aside time to write. But if life truly interferes, don’t beat yourself up for it. Stephen King may write 2000 words a day, no matter what, but his wife, Tabitha, is also a writer and I’m willing to bet she has a different story.
Karen McQuestion
October 2011
Karen McQuestion is the bestselling author of Favorite, Life on Hold, A Scattered Life, Easily Amused, and Celia and the Fairies. Her latest novel is entitled Secrets of the Magic Ring.
Shéa MacLeod
Knight in Shining Armor
It’s strange how long a bruise can last.
Long after the physical evidence is gone, the muscles remember. A raised hand or an angry voice, and the body flinches away. The mind tries to forget, bury the pain deep … but the scars are forever.
It didn’t start that way, of course. He said all the right things. Did all the right things. When I was sick he took care of me. When my car broke down he fixed it. I thought I’d finally found my knight in shining armor.
What I’d found was a nightmare. The minute I was hooked, everything changed. It started with the name calling, the blame, the bouts of rage. As time passed, he turned increasingly violent. It was always my fault. I was useless. I’d never be anything. Do anything. Accomplish anything.
If I tried to fight him, he threatened to destroy everyone I loved. To ruin their lives. Stupidly, I believed him.
He was always sorry after.
You might ask why I didn’t leave. It’s a fair question. But until you’ve been there, until you’ve lived through that, you have no idea how messed up a woman’s head gets when she has to live through that day after day. There is no such thing as confidence, self-esteem. You learn to live with the overwhelming conviction that this is all there is. You have nowhere else to go.
That’s the very worst part of abuse. Beyond the bruises and the emotional scars. The absolute knowledge that this is the way you will live. And most likely the way you will die. You don’t deserve anything else.
In a way, I was lucky. I had something else. A secret weapon, if you will. I just had no idea back then how powerful that weapon was.
I could write.
All through those nightmare years I wrote. Not about what I was living through, but about something else. An imaginary world where I would escape, where I was strong. A place where I kicked bad guy ass. A place where I was my own hero.
Prophetic? Perhaps.
The writing kept a spark of something alive in me. My soul? Hope? Who knows. But one day, that tiny spark of something flared up. I couldn’t take another minute.
I had nothing. No money. Nowhere to go. But I walked out that door and never looked back.
Nobody rode in on a white horse to save me. I saved myself.
It was a very long uphill struggle to get healthy again, but through it all I kept writing. Writing had always been my passion, now it was my salvation, too.
Through writing I regained my sense of self. I grew strong. Stronger than I ever had been before. Words poured from me as my mind and body healed itself. Slowly but surely I recovered.
It’s nine years later and that life seems like a distant nightmare. The woman I was then could never have dreamed of the life I am living today.
The writing has never stopped. It just moved with me, changing zip codes. I now write in a sunny room in a Georgian townhouse in London, England. I have self published two novels and am about to publish the third. My stories, while sometimes holding a dark edge, are still full of hope and my readers love them. I am now selling enough that I can stay at home and write full time. I made my dreams a reality.
Guess what?
You can, too.
The day I walked out of that abusive relationship was the day I became my own hero. That one action changed everything.
If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, please visit the Hot Peach Pages for a list of agencies all over the world who help women living in domestic violence.
http://www.hotpeachpages.net/
No woman deserves to be abused and mistreated. It’s time to say NO to violence.
It’s time to be your own hero.
About the Chick
Shéa MacLeod writes urban fantasy post-apocalyptic sci-fi paranormal romances with a twist of steampunk. Mostly because she can’t make up her mind which genre she likes best.
After living in Portland, Oregon most of her life, she now makes her home in an Edwardian town house in London just a stone’s throw from the local cemetery. Which probably explains a lot. Fortunately, the neighbors are quiet.
In addition to Dragon Warrior, Shéa is also the author Kissed by Darkness and Kissed by Fire, the first two books in the Sunwalker Saga.
Find Shéa Online!
Blog
Facebook
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Amazon Author Page
Smashwords Profile
Dragon Warrior
Shéa MacLeod
An Excerpt
One
“It’s coming around for another pass!”
Lieutenant Micah Caine’s voice bellowed through the bunker. Even with his dark hair covered in dust, fatigues bloodied and torn, eyes bloodshot and circled with exhaustion, his charisma was undiminished. It gave them hope, and they needed all the hope they could get. This was the fourth pass and out of sixteen people, there were only three of them left.
The Lieutenant stood in front of the narrow window of the bunker, peering through his night vision binoculars. “All right, ready now.” He raised his arm for a moment then dropped it. “Give ‘em hell Harriet!”
Audr
ey Harrison had been a civilian back when things were normal. Her only experience with guns had been target shooting with her dad’s hunting rifles. Now she sat behind an enormous rail gun that shot bullets the size of thermos bottles, her pale blonde hair scraped back in a tail, her fingernails chewed to stubs from the stress.
Nothing was normal anymore. Not since the day all hell had broken loose.
Audrey focused through the night scope, trying to ignore the zing of happy hormones thrumming through her system every time Micah got within five feet of her. It just wasn’t going to happen. Not unless they won this war. Maybe not even then. She was pretty sure the attraction was completely one-sided.
The monster came into view. It was a big one. Its wingspan, barely visible against the night sky, must have been thirty-five feet, at least. Fire shot from its mouth, strafing the walls of the bunker. Concrete cracked under the intense heat.
Audrey swiped damp palms against her jeans before wrapping her hands carefully around the grips of the rail gun and squinting through the sights. Her blood ran cold as the creature hovered into view: Dragon. It was a horror beyond belief, a living nightmare. Ever so gently she squeezed the trigger.
Her shot ripped through the air, slamming into the winged creature. The thing screamed as it dipped slightly in the sky, but it was a scream of rage, not pain. The shell hadn’t done a damn thing. She swore slightly and fired again.
Shell after shell tore through the night and shell after shell pulverized to dust against the monster’s impenetrable hide. The lieutenant waved at her to stop.
“Foster! Grenade.”
Foster scrambled toward the lieutenant, grenade launcher cradled against his chest. Audrey wasn’t sure what Foster’s first name was. Like the lieutenant, he was army. Unlike the Lieutenant, Foster had never seen action until the day the monsters got loose. He’d never even graduated from boot camp and now he was fighting for his life against creatures that shouldn’t exist outside a horror film. Audrey would have felt sorry for him, but she had no time to feel sorry for anyone, not even herself.
Foster stumbled over fallen rubble, face pale under streaks of dust and soot. When he nearly dropped the launcher, Micah grabbed it out of his hands and hefted it onto his own shoulder. For just a minute he paused, silhouetted against the night. Then he fired.
The world exploded.