Familiar – now available

I’m happy to announce that FAMILIAR, the young adult short story I wrote for the Kiss Me Deadly anthology last year, is now available as a stand alone download from Kindle and Smashwords.

When reluctant teen witch Brenda Collins is sent by her mother to a magical pet shop to pick out her animal familiar, she settles on a small tawny-striped kitten not realizing it’s a shapeshifter currently in hiding. Discovering the gorgeous but troubled Owen’s secret plunges the witch-in-training into a dangerous and romantic adventure that will test her magical abilities like never before.

I did the cover art myself as well as the formatting. It was an interesting — and surprisingly difficult — challenge. Well, the formatting was difficult. I’m a graphic designer by trade, so the cover was a breeze. I’ve already designed the covers for all the potential books I’m considering epubbing. For me, Photoshop = fun fun fun.

This short story is a little experiment into the wide world of self-publishing that seems to be The Big Thing right now. I’ve been busy with my contracted work, but didn’t want to drag my heels on this exciting new way to get my work to readers. I have two other short stories I will likely put up in the next little while that I wrote for Mammoth anthologies — a light vampire romance and a time travel thriller romance. Beyond that, if I have time, I have a YA trilogy about ghosts, the first books I ever finished writing, which I would love to self-pub. I just read it over the other day and it needs a great deal of rewriting to bring it up to par with my other books (my writing, as well as my editorial eye for faulty prose, has definitely improved over the last eight years!), but it’s definitely possible.

I’m writing my Blaze novella right now which seems to have developed a retro-esque Hugh-Grant-like hero (if that makes any sense to you) whom I’m enjoying very much. I’m also easing into the waters of writing Blood Bath & Beyond. I haven’t written from Sarah’s POV for a couple of years, so it’s taking a bit of extra time to reacquaint myself with her particular way of looking at the world. I just found out that the release date on BB&B is set (right now) at August 2012. And, for anyone wondering, there will definitely be two books about Sarah and Thierry’s new adventures together. And hopefully more after that.

It looks like a foggy, dreary May day outside my balcony window. Which is fine, since this is a writing day for me (what day isn’t??). I’m looking forward to the RWA National Conference in NYC the last week of June. I love New York! This will be my second time in the city and this time I definitely want to get to Central Park and Ground Zero.

Okay, I guess I should get back to my writing. I’m spending the weekend working on the Blaze, then as of Monday, it’s all Sarah all the time. She should be very happy about that.