Looking for a Halloween Treat?

It looks like the release date for my new book of dark and disturbing tales will be close to October 31. This one would make a great gift for dark tale lovers. The current working title is "Dark and Disturbing Tales: The Hunter, and 15 more bone chilling short stories", but it's subject to change. We discussed calling them horror stories, but horror didn't quite fit. And many of the stories labeled horror seem different than these tales. But horror definitely enters into them.
All these tales were early morning wake up thoughts. The stories came almost complete, although they required some editing...a lot of editing...okay, some had to be almost completely rewritten so they made sense and had some continuity and felt whole. But then, that's what writing is really about, rewriting.
And even though the title is Dark and Disturbing Tales, they aren't about politics or politicians...well most of them aren't, maybe one is. And it's been rated one of the two most disturbing of the sixteen tales. These tales are not for the young or faint of heart.

Do you enjoy dark and disturbing short stories

If you do, you're in luck. I am putting the finishing touches and preparing a cover for my next YA book. It will include 16 short stories, including; It's Always Better With Roses, Body Grabber, The Dowser, The Hunter, and Bigger.
Disturbing stories that don't require you to leave the lights on when you go to sleep, but when you wake up in the dark, you'll wish you had.
The scheduled release is mid-October, just in time for Halloween.
P.S. It's fiction no animals, plants, or humans were injured during the research or writing.

Bigfoot footprint cast photo, as promised

The cast of the bigfoot footprint from the garden is hardened. It's coming to life right out of my YA fiction book, Revelation.
Here is a photo of it. I will have it on display at my table during the St George Book Festival on October 20 at Barnes and Nobel in St George, and again at the book event on October 25 at the Children's Museum in St George.
Doesn't look that big?
Here's a comparison photo with my foot next to the cast. I wear an 11.5-12.5 depending on type of shoe (really sandal, I don't wear real shoes unless I must, but let's not get too technical)

Now that's a big foot! Not mine, the other one. And yes, I know the grass needs to be mowed. I am working on the second book in my Almost Human trilogy, Retaliation. It is scheduled to come out in Fall 2015, if I can just keep these pests out of the garden. On the upside, whatever left this print seems to get along with my chickens. None of them are missing, and Ala King, the Black Austrolorp appears to have accepted it, she hangs around the area of the footprints and clucks softly.

Pests in the Garden aka Bigfoot sighting

  And I thought I had seen most of the local pests before. I am definitely going to have to get a larger Hav-a-Hart trap if this one keeps invading. Imagine my surprise, going out to check for eggs, and finding this guy hiding out in the shed. I'm six-three, and he was looking down on me.
  Even though he gave me the heebeejeebees, he turned out to be not such a bad guy. Did have a chat with him about staying out of the grow boxes though, he left two bigfoot tracks as he strode across one of my square foot garden boxes.
  Once he left I thought, hey why not make the most out of a bigfoot compressing my garden box, so I made up some Plaster of Paris and scooped it into his tracks. I should have  photo of the cast in a day or two.

New Tribe Appears. It's right out of the pages of REVELATION!

Wow! I saw this story on abc news. It so reminded me of a similar account in my book Revelation, I wanted to share it. The story is like watching part of my book coming to life. (I'm sure that's what abc had in mind)

Tribe Emerges From Brazilian Jungle Possibly for First Time

abc News, Jul 31, 2014, 2:53 PM ET  By MEGHAN KENEALLY

A remarkable video shows a group of indigenous people seen for the first time by the outside world as they emerged from a Brazilian jungle while fleeing illegal loggers and drug traffickers, according a Brazilian group that tracks such jungle tribes.

The group of men are believed to be natives of Peru but they were filmed in northern Brazil on the banks of the Envira River which runs near the Peruvian border. The encounter took place within the last two weeks, but the video was released today by the Brazilian indigenous authority FUNAI.

The tribal men are naked except for belts and loincloths and carry different weapons, including bows and arrows and spears in the 8-minute video.

A few of the tribal men are seen with markings on their faces and they all have styled their dark black hair in a similar bowl-cut fashion.

I'm excited - Revelation published

It's been a long time coming, but I finally published my Young Adult novel, REVELATION. It's available on Amazon. Way excited about it.
Now it's time to get serious about the second book in the Almost Human series, RETALIATION.
In the meantime, I am building two Square Foot Gardening boxes in an area of my garden that nothing seems to be able to survive in. Since these boxes don't use the existing soil, I hope the plants will survive.
I spend an hour or two working in the yard/garden in the morning, then head to my corner in the secret underground writer's lair to write, or think about writing, or researching, or trying out new ideas, or listening to my characters tell me about their day.

Faerie, Almost Human, and Gardening?

Wow, I'm not usually a faerie kind of reader, but I enjoyed Ballad immensely. Maggie Stiefvater imbued her mythical creatures with so much depth. One of the reasons I don't often enjoy woodland characters is they seem to have no real personality, but in Ballad, the creatures are so lifelike and rich with traits I could suspend disbelief and enjoy them. The author did a seamless job of weaving make-believe and the real world into a story that blurred the boundaries between the two and blended them into a single story of... naw, that would be too revealing. Suffice it to say, this book has a wide range of emotional appeal, intimate but not offensive, violent but not gross, and tender in a "I'll rip off your face if you tell anyone about my soft side" kind of way.

On a personal writing note, it has been a great week. Almost half-way through what I hope will be a final (?) edit and rewrite of my first YA novel, Almost Human, Revelation.

My garden is flourishing now that I have dissuaded the varmints who had been ravaging it to stay away. I have already harvested spinach, strawberries, and turnip greens. I had to transplant one of my artichoke plants. Apparently I had the audacity to plant it on top of a gopher/mole superhighway and they managed to construct enough holes under it that the roots were hanging in mid air. I went out on Sunday and the plant was wilted. The one next to it looks great. So I moved the wilted one a few feet to the west. On a side street that hopefully the burrowers won't develop anytime soon.

We are awaiting the arrival of baby hawks from the couple who have made a nest in our 25 year old cottonwood. We're hoping this year the babies stay in the nest until they at least have feathers.