Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Internet Troll V6.0-A Short Story


Troll V6.0

I’m not your typical internet troll. I don’t wait for you to post photos of yourself, then creep on you. I don’t try to be your racist high school friend. I don’t start huge flame wars, then sit back and watch them play out. No, I’m a 2016 internet troll. The new troll. I have it down to an art.

You see, I have about 50 different blogs and at least double the Facebook profiles. I have a few Twitter accounts for each blog. I post on one of my blogs, link it one of my Facebook profiles, tweet it, then sit back and wait for the fear to set in.

I sit back and read what is popular. That breakfast cereal you feed your kids? That new coffee machine everyone is going nuts over? A new popular water bottle? The latest superfood? I’ve blogged about it. But I don’t just blog about it. That breakfast cereal your kids eat? It’s got drywall compound in it and several neurotoxins. That new coffee machine? It’s got fecal matter in it even though most people have never brewed coffee in the bathroom. That water bottle? It’s made out of plastic that causes anxiety.

There’s no science behind anything I blog. Most of the time, I just make it up. If you can claim it has formaldehyde and causes cancer, the better. I never clarify that your body converts formaldehyde into formic acid and gets rid of it. I never say that formaldehyde is naturally occurring in several fruits and vegetables. I never say it’s only a danger if you work in a lab. Nope, it’s in that thing you just bought and it’s going to give you cancer.

You can pick any big word off the back of a cereal box or ingredient list and claim it’s a neurotoxin. You don’t have to define neurotoxin or what happens if you really do ingest a neurotoxin, you just need a big word and neurotoxin in bold, or better, red font. No one will Google the big word you chose and fact check you, they will go to their cabinets and look for the big word and the neurotoxin.

Another good one is blaming the plastic. The plastic something is in could trap fecal matter, cause depression. Just think up something bad and blame the plastic. It doesn’t matter if it’s a kitchen item and has never once been in the bathroom, you can claim there’s poop trapped in there.

Once I’ve written a good blog with no science, just a bunch of scary claims I’ve made up off the top of my head, sometimes with the help of Dr. Google, I change up the wording and put it on a few of my other blogs. Then I post a few links on my random Facebook profiles. I might tweet a link.

Then I just sit back and watch the links get shared with all kinds of comments like “OMG Scary!” or there will be someone who sells something similar who uses my blog to push their products. Facebook blows up for a few days with links to my blog about how the FDA is evil for allowing these things in our products while I just sit back and admire my work. When it starts to die down, I start finding a new product and thinking up new ways to scare people.

Monday, January 18, 2016

Midnight's Sonata-Free Promo 1/18-1/22/2016

My first novel, Midnight's Sonata is available for free this week in the Kindle store. Get your copy this week if you're interested.

The promotion ends on 1/22/2016 and it will go back to normal price on 1/23/2016. There will be a few more promotions this year

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Lincoln Cole-Schism A Collection of Short Stories-A Review

I recently had a chance to read Schism-A Collection of Short Stories by Lincoln Cole so I'm posting me review since this blog is not just about me and my writings.

This collection of short stories is a short read, but well written. The stories are varied and fleshed out. I'm not very good at writing short stories, so I respect people who can. Everything in the stories are described well enough that I had a mini movie playing in my head while I was reading.

Three stories that stood out to me the most in this collection are "Help Line", "Life or Death", and one about a hero.

"Help Line" had me rolling with laughter as I'm the resident family tech geek and while not one of my family members, I could see someone calling in and having this conversation. I could also imagine in my head, this is not really a help line, but the government talking to you and recording and waiting to arrest you.

"Life and Death" is about the end of the world. It's very sad and bleak. With this one, I wish the author would take the story and write a longer novel or novella. Reading it made me sad and I could picture the two officers having the conversation, but I was also left wondering what lead up to this? What happened after the list is released? I think it would make a excellent longer novel.

The story about the hero, which I'm sorry, I do not have the name on that story, has a huge twist, which I'm not going to reveal. It's hard to surprise me when I'm reading or watching a movie, and this surprised me in a short story, no less. It's essentially about two men, one who saves people from a train bomb and one who witnesses him doing it and finds his wallet.

The authors Amazon page states these are his earlier writings and his style has changed since then. I have his other works downloaded and look forwards to reading it soon

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Midnight's Sonata is now live

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My first novel, Midnight's Sonata is now live on Amazon in both print and Ebook.

If you had told me it would take this long to get it published when I finished it when I was sixteen, I would have laughed, but it's really a totally different novel now, as I changed so much. I'm obviously not fourteen-sixteen anymore and don't think that way anymore, though I did have to channel it for the first half of the novel when I was writing the sixteen year old narrator. I had to go to a few dark places even when I switched narrators to her mother.

I finished and edited in a whirlwind of 4AM nights when there was a word shortage and edited it again before I uploaded everything. It's a hefty 508 pages in print and I've been told I could have gotten 4 novels out of that, but for the most part, I haven't really picked up reading serials. Most of the series I read and enjoy are all at least that long or slightly shorter for each installment.

I remember a few years ago, when the last Wheel of Time novel came out. My husband was so excited as he essentially grew up with these characters and now it was ending. He asked me to read it and if you tell me a book is good, I will generally read it. I've also been bored and read books because I've been told they are bad. That's why I read the Twilight series. I haven't gotten to that point with 50 shades, but did break down and watch the movie two days ago.

I was maybe 20 pages away from finishing the 6th book. My husband would answer questions, but refused to give me any spoilers. I used to leave the kindle on the nightstand before turning the lights off and going to bed. Right around this time, the pit bull came into our lives. She slept in a crate till she was potty trained, and now that she is, she sleeps in bed next to me. The night I was 20 pages away from finishing the 6th book, the pit bull apparently couldn't sleep and decided the kindle might taste good and took a huge bite out of it and cracked the screen, making it unusable.

I had to order a new kindle, wait for it to come in the mail, get my books back on the kindle and try to find my place again. My husband refused to spoil the end for me and pretty much teased me horribly about my nerd reader predicament.

I got him back though because when he asked me to read that, he wanted to know what I was reading, and I just got done reading the last Shadow hunter book and refused to answer any of his questions.

I will acknowledge that the both of us are huge geeks.

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Done!

There was not much work loaded last week, so last week was a whirlwind of 4am nights writing, then finishing, then editing. I'm totally done with Midnight's Sonata and have everything uploaded and a proof on the way. They didn't give me a tracking number and my postman doesn't always knock, so I supposed this week will be spent putting pants on, which I hate, and checking the mail in a paranoid frenzy.

When I finally got everything uploaded and approved, I finally fell into bed around 5am with my kindle and a celebratory ice cream bar. This proved too much for my pit bull. Normally, I have a blocky head on the side of the bed demanding pets, but this time, she went too far and tried to steal my ice cream in the short time it took for me to unwrap it and move it to my mouth. It was covered in chocolate and my vet isn't open at 5am for paranoid phone calls like the time I was late for a birthday party because she hoovered a banana peel before I could get it out her mouth.

While I'm waiting, there was another novel I worked on if I was ever stuck on Midnight's Sonata and it's about 75 pages so far. I'm writing on that now while I wait for my proof. I've gotten some much needed sleep, finally shaved my legs, and watched a lot of cartoons.

My dogs get into all sorts of mischief, so while I was writing last night, I had to get up and turn the radio off that my little dog had turned off. He can't jump on the bed, so he jumps on the nightstand and slides across. Sometimes he knocks my alarm clock behind the bed. Sometimes he sets my alarm clock at random times, which really, explaining to your manager that you were late because your dog messed with your alarm clock is like eaten homework. Sometimes he turns the radio on full blast and wakes me up.

I bought doggy stairs off Groupon because I think I'm giving him self esteem issues every time I point and laugh when he tries to jump and misses, but they came in and there are no instructions and none of the screws and screw holes make any type of logical sense so they aren't put together.

Hopefully, I'll be able to update with links to purchase and post a sample chapter, but for now, I'm just back to writing.