Life in progress

Author Archives: Linda G. Hill


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Coming soon! “Blood Phoenix: Imprinted” by Alisha Costanzo

With an old war raging between vampires and shifters, Ria must learn to refocus her life if she’s going to survive.

Her renegade fight was just the beginning. The queen is recruiting new soldiers. Ria’s going on vicious missions with her battle buddy. And her explosive abilities are malfunctioning at inopportune moments.

So now, Ria must forgo her selfish desires to compartmentalize her life, but what’s she to do when she can’t save everyone she wants to? One girl may not be capable of taking down an empire. Good thing Ria’s got help.

Coming May 9, 2017!

An Excerpt from Chapter Eleven:

Tahe whimpered beside me as I came awake with the hot fumes of barbequed meat and blood clogging my sense of smell. Her breath fast and shallow, her nails dipped into my forearm. “You awake, red.”
“Yeah.” A mallet pounded on my temples in a steady staccato, and I rubbed them as the cracked windshield came into view.
“Good.” Her breath caught. “Need some help.”
Terror strangled me when I turned to her. A piece of metal pinned her to the seat through her abdomen. I jumped back, hitting the door handle with my shoulder blades.
“Oh shit.”
Harris blinked at me from the passenger seat, dagger handle jutting out of his chest and blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. “You bitch.”
“Red.”
I jerked back to reality and the blood spreading through her top. I peered around quick, looking for the phantoms of Harris. Nothing but woods.
“Ain’t nothing to go off the deep end about. At least it ain’t wood.” Tahe took another shaky breath. “How far out the back is it?”
The metal came out clean on the other side. “A few inches.”
“Doable.” Wetness garbled her words.
“Okay. You need to stop talking unless it’s necessary. Let me see if I can pull it out the front.” A single hole of a few inches in diameter punctured the windshield on her side, and the metal looked like one of the posts off the guardrail. The end still had a flat wire where it connected to rail and left Tahe enough room to grab hold of it with one hand. I hoped there were no jagged pieces inside that would tear her further when I pulled it out, but if it did, I’d need something to stop the bleeding.
My door was crushed shut. “I’m going to see if there’s anything in the trunk to tend the wound once you’re free, but I have to break my window. Turn away so I don’t spray you.”
Pulling my sleeve taut against my elbow, I hit the glass three times before it shattered. A small chunk fell inside, but the rest remained intact with spider-line fractures that I pushed out.
The trunk didn’t have a whole lot of useful junk: just fluids, a jack, and a spare tire. Crap. I needed to call for help. My phone proved useless with its smashed screen. Double crap.
My giant savior it was then.

Bio: Alisha Costanzo is from a Syracuse suburb. She earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of Central Oklahoma, where she currently teaches English. She’s the author of BLOOD PHOENIX: REBIRTH, BLOOD PHOENIX: CLAIMED, BLOOD PHOENIX: IMPRINTED, and LOVING RED, and co-editor of DISTORTED. UNDERWATER, and AFTER THE HAPPILY EVER AFTER. She’s currently editing her new 2017 fire-themed anthology, writing about Ria’s father, and crafting her new YA novel for its 2018 release. In the meantime, she will continue to corrupt young minds, rant about the government, and daydream about her all around nasty creatures.


Follow Alisha at these sites:

Website: http://www.alishacostanzo.weebly.com

Blog: http://www.alishamcostanzo.wordpress.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/brokenworldauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlishaCostanzo

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/alishacostanzo/

Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.com/alishacostanzo/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4618491.Alisha_Costanzo

To enter to win an e-copy of Blood Phoenix: Imprinted, click the following link:

Rafflecopter giveaway


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Self-published Books – You Get What You Pay For?

Warning: rant ahead.

There’s a discussion going on in one of my Facebook groups and I’m having a very hard time staying out of it. So lucky you, you get to hear the side that’s going on in my head.

The complaint was a misused word. The sentence they are “Ugh!”ing over included the phrase, “something worst.” The original complainer called it a grammatical error. I pointed out it could have been a typo, and asked if it was one of many. She said it was the only one she’d found, so I said it was understandable: even a spellchecker wouldn’t have picked it up, to which she replied, “True probably self published.” Note the total lack of grammatical issues with her reply. (Sorry, I get sarcastic when I’m pissed off.) What I wanted to say was that even had it been edited and proofread professionally by a traditional publisher’s editing department, they hire humans. And humans are fallible.

Oh, but this isn’t the worst of it all. Someone in the group actually had the gall to say that with cheap, self-published books, you get what you pay for. First let me say that we self-published authors, no matter how much effort we put into a book, have to stay competitive. That means charging less than the big publishers do, because we don’t have the fan base who will buy anything as long as it has our name on it. That means, yes, undervaluing our work much of the time. But even so.

Name one profession other than writing where you can pay the person producing the work under five dollars for five thousand hours of work. Think about it. How long does it take you to read a three hundred page book? Do you think the writer wrote and edited it faster than you read it? Did you pay minimum wage for the number of hours it took you to read it? I don’t care who you’re reading, you’re getting much more than you paid for, and chances are if it’s a self-published author, you’re getting a lot more of their blood, sweat, and tears than you are of an author with a team of editors and marketers behind them.

End rant.


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#SoCS – Giddiness – #AtoZChallenge

Give me a glass of wine, and I’ll show you one light-headed lady.

I admit it – I cheated. I said I was going to write a post on whatever word showed up on the right-hand page, second from the bottom in my thesaurus, no matter what, but the word I found today was “genocide.” I’m not going to apologize for turning the page. So what did I get instead? “Giddiness.” Couldn’t be more opposite.

Anyway, welcome to the Stream of Consciousness version of the A to Z Challenge, where nothing is deleted and nothing is planned. Also, nothing but typos are edited. Yeah, yeah, sometimes I go back and fix the punctuation. But that’s mostly for your sake. If I didn’t, you might not be able to figure out what I’m trying to say. …or maybe you can’t anyway…

It’s been a less-than-giddy-inspiring day today. My darling son is up to his antics, whining over a game he’s been playing all day. Oh, he’s as good as gold for ten minutes if I threaten to take it away. But every time I walk away, he’s at it again. He’s sitting beside me now, leaning on me, “singing” in his own way – he’s Deaf, so it’s more like a one-note elongated scream – knowing there’s nothing I’m going to do about it because I’m typing. If I don’t do it (post this) now, it’s going to be so late that I won’t feel like doing it. All freakin’ day it’s been like this.

So after he goes to bed, I think I may open a bottle of wine and get… let’s look in the thesaurus… (I’ll take all the “-ness”es off the words, since the original has it.) Dizzy, faint, light-headed, nauseous, vertigo, wobbly, or woozy. I see a few there I definitely don’t want to become. Wobbly sounds good. I remember when I was younger someone calling beer “wobbly-pop” on a regular basis. It fits.

Okay, the kid’s getting overwhelming again. Wish me luck. And wine.

This wobbly post is brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the link and learn how you, too, can join in the fun! https://lindaghill.com/2017/04/07/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-apr-817/


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Fen – #AtoZChallenge

I refuse to be bogged down by semantics.

I opened my thesaurus to find my random word of the day, and lo and behold, I’ve learned something new! A “fen” is, apparently, a “bog, marsh, morass, muskeg quagmire, slough, swamp.” And I can’t for the life of me figure out why I would want to call any of those things a “fen.” Or at least I couldn’t, until I looked up the definition. According to Google, a fen is not only characterized as marshy land that’s frequently flooded and has an “alkaline, neutral, or only slightly acid peaty soil,” but it’s also a particular area, described as, “flat low-lying areas of eastern England, formerly marshland but largely drained for agriculture since the 17th century,” known as the Fens.

Giggidy, as Quagmire would say.

***

Wanna read a fen-tastic book? Check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.

“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review

“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars

Click the picture to find it on Kindle, or get it on Kobo here: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-good-stories


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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Apr. 8/17

It’s Friday today and that means it’s time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. The month of April, as you might have heard, is time for many of us to participate in the A to Z Challenge. With this taken into consideration, I’ll start the prompt with the letter of the day, just to potentially help people along. Here’s your prompt for this week:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “give/given/giving.” Begin your post with one of those words. Bonus points if you end your post with one as well. Enjoy!

After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!

To make your post more visible, use our SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!


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Emissary – #AtoZChallenge

My mission today is to stay away from politics.

My thesaurus was bound to give me at least one difficult word to deal with. The definition of “emissary,” according to Google, is “a person sent on a special mission, usually as a diplomatic representative.” This screams of politics of course, and I really don’t want to talk about politics.

Let’s see what I can pull out of the synonyms to talk about instead: “agent,” “messenger,” oooh “spy,” and  what’s this? “Plenipotentiary” – what’s one of those? Damn. “A person, especially a diplomat, invested with the full power of independent action on behalf of their government, typically in a foreign country.” Okay, so all those are out.

You know what I want an emissary to be? Me. I want to go on a mission to guide you, as a narrator, through my stories. I want to be the messenger for my characters. I want to be their representative. And in a way, that’s what an author is. The agent who relates the tale. The spy who knows all the players’ deepest, darkest secrets.

So there you have it. I hereby rename authors as emissaries. This is my plenipotentiary decree!

Yeah, I’m full of shit.

***

Allow me to take you on a guided tour through the lives of my characters. It doesn’t cost much – only 99¢! Check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.

“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review

“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars

Click the picture to find it on Kindle, or get it on Kobo here: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-good-stories

 


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Diversion – #AtoZChallenge

May I divert your attention here for a moment?

The first thing that springs to mind when I see the word “diversion” is magic. Which isn’t surprising, since I’ve been writing and editing a novel (or three) about a magician called “The Great Dagmaru” for the past five and a half years. Making someone look the other way is an art, whether it’s in order to perform a trick behind their back or whether it’s to cause them to pay more attention to you.

Yet some might say it’s easier now to create a diversion: our attention spans are shortening with so much going on around us and in our own living rooms, on our screens where everything is the next biggest or cutest spectacle.  For as far as entertainment goes, it seems to me that those of us who still read novels are the last holdouts of the ability to concentrate. And still, so many books, so little time. A novel must capture the reader’s attention in the space of a few sentences or it will be passed over. And authors wonder why the blurb is so much harder to write than the book itself.

Oh look! It’s a chipmunk.

But I digress.

All this talk about diversions and how they entertain has led me to seek the difference between a diversion and a distraction. According to my trusty thesaurus, it seems diversions are happy things and distractions are less-than-desirable things. Somewhat. The synonyms for distraction range from “delirium” to “relief.”

One way or another, diversions and distractions add up to procrastination.

***

Looking for a fun diversion? Look no further. Please check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.

“Delightful, Light-hearted tale with great twists!” ~ Lori Carleson, 5 stars, Amazon review

“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars

Click the picture to find it on Kindle, or get it on Kobo here: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-good-stories

 


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One-Liner Wednesday – Elvis has left the … ladies’ restroom?

Possibly the funniest thing about this picture is the looks I got when I came out of the bathroom stall: I couldn’t turn the shutter sound off on my phone camera.

Care to attempt a caption… or five?

PLEASE click the picture to read the note on the sign.

_____________________________________________________________________________

If you would like to participate, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do,
you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post, and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.

NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, like Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”

The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.

3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.

4. Add our very cool badge to your post for extra exposure!

5. Have fun!

#1linerWeds badge by nearlywes.com

#1linerWeds badge by nearlywes.com


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Chide – #AtoZChallenge

I’d have to give myself what for, if I didn’t write my A to Z blog post today.

“Chide” is my thesaurus word for this third day of the A to Z Challenge. It’s a word I know but that I don’t think I’ve ever actually used out loud. When I’m reprimanding someone (usually my kids – who else am I going to chew out?), I’m more likely to use the term “telling off.” But according to my trusty old synonym-finder, “chide” has a bunch of different meanings I’d never put in the same category. It can also mean “blame” and “criticize.”

When I blame someone for something I don’t necessarily scold them, and when I criticize someone it doesn’t mean I berate them. So it seems “chide” is a bit of an all-purpose word for anything we don’t like.

“Admit it. It was you who took my bone,” Winston chided.

Okay. I guess that works.

***

If you’re stopping by my blog for the first time or you haven’t picked it up yet, please check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.

“Delightful, Light-hearted tale with great twists!” ~ Lori Carleson, 5 stars, Amazon review

“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars

Click the picture to find it on Kindle, or get it on Kobo here: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-good-stories


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Bananas – an #AtoZChallenge Bonus

I’m bursting to boast about my Beauty and the Beast bananas. I couldn’t bear not to.

Behold my beautiful Beauty and the Beast bananas!