Trick or Treat

Hello Halloween blog hoppers and thank you Jeremy Bates for hosting such a fabulous event. I hope you enjoy my blog and give me a follow, I shall follow you back.

I like to write about things that go bump in the night, so naturally I LOVE Halloween! It's a rule in my house that we must watch Night of the Living Dead. In fact I was a zombie for Halloween last year *cue the girl who screams running into the cemetery*.

 

Also, Sleepy Hollow (1999 film directed by Tim Burton). The Headless Horseman storyline was done extremely well.

You have to watch (or read) The Amityville Horror for the ultimate creep and sleep with the blanket over your head experience.

and some notable mentions...

Rosemary's Baby

Carrie

Bram Stoker's Dracula

The Wolfman

The Vampire's Assistant

Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice...don't say it)

An American Werewolf in London

For a spooky Halloween read go visit my blogger buddy, Crystal Collier, An Interview with Death.

Be sure to take some candy before you leave!

 

What is on your Halloween movie or book list? And what are you going to be for Halloween?

Ahoy! Sea Serpent?!?! The Choose Your Own Adventure Bloghop Starts Here

Ahoy Matey! Welcome to your adventure, but beware of what lurks under the water.

It all started with Rachael Harrie's Platform Building Campaign last May. The Campaigner's in my group went on a bloghop expedition to find the Abominable Snowman. Now, the Choose Your Own Adventure Bloghop is back again. This time I invited ALL of the Campaigners to take part. 17 writers answered the call! This bloghop is a collaboration with those fabulous Campaigners. We each wrote a snippet that will take you through an adventure, forcing you to make a choice that will send you around bloggerville. As you make your way through the adventure please follow and leave a comment for these fantastic writers.

Crystal Collier

Jessica Aspen

Cheryl Reifsnyder

Randy Lindsay

Susanna Hill

Deana Barnhart

Kelda Crich

Claire Hennessy

Cheree Smith

Mildred Holmes

Ms. Saba

Cathy Von Hassal-Davies

Angela Perry

Mel Corbett (Mel also did all of our badge artwork)

C. Janelle Tuma

Katharina Gerlach

Madeline Baratos

and me

Kerri Cuevas

Look for sign-ups in January if you would like to participate!

Now let your adventure begin.

Ahoy! Sea Serpent?!?!

Something in the water catches your attention. You lean over the railing and a giant creature with shimmering green scales seems to be swimming toward the boat. Your jaw drops open and you’re frozen in place. Never in your life have you seen anything so massive before.
Whales are big, but not as huge as the creature you are about to encounter. You try to scream and alert someone, but no sound comes out of your mouth. You are too mesmerized by the scales on the beast, each the size of a human hand and shiny. Its body moves with accuracy toward the bow of the ship.

Your trip to the Bermuda Triangle was not one of your brightest ideas after all!

Your knuckles turn white from clutching onto the railing, and you close your eyes bracing for impact. You wait

And wait.

And wait, but there is no impact.

You open one eye and then the other. You look down into a pair of glowing green eyeballs that are staring up at you.

Click on your option.

Do you: Arm yourself and prepare to fight?

Or

Do you: Stay where you are and hope it’s friendly

Do You Listen to the Voice Urging You to Go Up?

                                  You Listen to the Voice Urging You Up

The voice in your head nags at your subconscious and the water starts to numb your limbs. The light is fading and so does the image of your beloved. The voice in your head gets louder and becomes clearer. It snaps you out of a lull.

Go up, or you’ll die!

You listen to the voice because you won’t die like this. You kick your feet and move your arms frantic to go upward where you see a sliver of light. Your brain is telling you to take a breath, but to do so now would be a mistake. So you fight the urge and focus on the voice.

You can do it! Faster!

The muscles in your legs begin to burn and your lungs might burst, but you continue up toward the surface. The sliver of light is expanding , getting brighter. The dark water turns into warm aqua swirls, but pieces of the ship are falling around you making their way to the bottom of the sea. The light reflects off of something shiny plunging down past you. You say goodbye to Captain Contemptuous’s blade.

Keep going and swim to the right!

Yes, swim to the right, because the last thing you remember before plunging into the water was the sea serpent. You look in the direction you think the ship was in and you don’t see its dark shadow on the surface anymore, or the sea serpent. Maybe it swam away.

Hurry!

You look up and can see the blue sky through the water. You gain one last surge of energy and kick your legs breaking through to the surface. Warm sea air enters your lungs and circulates through the deprived cells of your body. The voice disappears and the fuzzy mist in your mind goes away.

Your eyes adjust to the sun and you look around to nothing. There is no ship. There is no sea serpent. There is no captain and there is no crew. But there is a piece of wood. Your fatigued muscles manage to lift yourself onto the wood, and you close your eyes hoping another ship will find you.

                                                                   * * * *
“Ninety- nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety- nine bottles of beer. You kick one down and smash it around ninety-“

You stop muttering because the piece of wood you’ve been floating on, for what feels like an eternity, stops with a jerky thud against a rock. You put your hand over the edge, but instead of water you feel rocks and sand.

Your body is stiff, your skin is stretched and burning from the sun, but you roll off of the wood. You squint and if your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you, you see a lush tropical forest in the middle of an island . You smile and stand on shaky legs.

Animals that were drinking from a stream scatter from your presence. You start to run toward the fresh water, imagining it going down your dry throat. Finally there, you walk into the cold water splashing it onto your body. You cup your hands to let the liquid pool in your hand and bring it to your mouth.

If you never get rescued at least you have food and water.

With your belly full of water you start to exit from the stream. You notice shiny blue and green, oval shaped rocks at the bottom. You reach down and pick one up , admiring its unusual texture.

The rock begins to shakes. You watch wide eyed as the surface begins to crack. You lean in close to peer into the hole. Two green orbs look back at you. Great, it looks like you found the sea serpent’s nesting ground.

The End

Do you go back: And still go 

Do you go back: Stay with the boat

Or

Start over

It's a Book Birthday for The Chain of Souls--Also a Contest

 

Congrats to my blogger buddy Maria Zannini on her book Chain of Souls.

Here is a blurb from Amazon. Click here.

Book Two of the Second Chances series.

Banished from Heaven for refusing to harvest an unwilling soul, Liam Chase drinks to forget night after night until the Angel of Death pays him a visit.

For the price of a few humans souls, Ziva promises to get him reinstated into Heaven. Liam doesn’t doubt her influence, but milking humans of their light is an unspeakable crime, punishable by eternal oblivion.

He’d rather rot on Earth than commit such a heinous sin. But the Angel of Death didn’t get where she was by taking no for an answer. Ziva is a huntress of extraordinary skill and cruelty. If he refuses, his loved ones will be her next targets. And Ziva never misses

Ziva has already set her sights on Shannon, the soul he once refused to harvest, and his beloved servant, Evie. He’ll do anything to keep them safe, even if it means his death.

But something goes wrong just as he concedes, and the chain of souls picks a new mistress before he has a chance to deliver.

Brought before the most feared angel of Heaven and Hell, Liam discovers he has failed to protect those he loves, and now they too could share his fate.

I look forward to reading this!

Also, you can visit my other blogger buddy Meradeth at Write Stuff for a book giveaway contest!

Announcment

I've always wondered how this moment would go down, what it would feel like, and what I would say. I cheered for so many wonderful bloggers out there who have made their special announcement. I waited anxiously for their (amazing) books and followed them through their journey imagining it would one day be me.

Well....

I'm still on cloud 9 and I'm just going to spit it out. When it sinks in and I stop pinching myself, I'll tell you more about my journey. But here goes.

My story, Deadly Kisses, will be published by WiDo Publishing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I try really hard to contain myself from using multiple exclamation points for one sentence, but I think this might be an exception.

                                  To celebrate I'm passing out cupcakes.

      And some drinks, a fresh cup o' Joe. Enjoy and thanks for celebrating with me!!

I will have to think of a contest to celebrate even more! And DON'T FORGET TO STOP BY MONDAY FOR THE EPIC CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE BLOGHOP!

For those of you who are looking to participate, I will set up another one after the holidays. Sign ups will be here, at this blog, in January!

A Story of Epicness!

October 24th is fast approaching and I'm totally excited to bring you another Choose Your Own Adventure Bloghop for your reading entertainment! Get ready for total epicness! Ahoy! Sea Serpent?!?!

There are 17 writers and ONE HUGE ADVENTURE! So, take your Dramamine and don't forget a life jacket. As you go through your adventure, look for the picture below.

I'll see you next week--as long as the sea serpent doesn't get me first *grins*!

In the Background of a Writers Life—On Blogging

I have no problem embarrassing myself telling you some of the crap things I used to do blogging. Really, It’s okay and I love my blogger buddies, so entertaining you is my top priority *grins*.

So, I really sucked when I first started blogging—I’m a work in progress.

I actually used to shout out my peeps in a Lady Ga Ga type way. Thank goodness Bloggerville intervened and someone did a blog post on what NOT to blog about. Now, I make it more subtle and if I write in tiny print no one will really notice, right? Can you see this now? Good you can't see it! Thank you Elana Johnson for showing me the ropes! Click here for her blog posts on building a better blog.

I once wrote a ballard from Mr. Schuester. If you dare to go back and read my pathetic posts. I apologize in advance for the missing pictures. It is Google+ fault.

I also debated having a contest on how many spelling errors followers could find in one post. Yeah, I now edit.

But, I blogged and  I blogged some more. I visited blogs and read a lot of blogs and sooner than later it sunk in.

You can do it. Keep working at it and blog happy!

What crazy things have you done or learned from blogging?