Viability

Well, my mother is floating eggs. Worse yet, she’s content floating eggs.

Having accompanied me down to my place for a holiday from housework, paperwork and all other kinds of work, she is spending her first morning in Florida floating eggs around a dishpan to test if there’s still “viable.”

Two points should be taken from this: 1.) My oddity is not a fluke but a matter of genetics, and 2.) If ever dunked in a dishpan, I’d sink like a rock.

I’m ready for 2017, my friends.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Crow upon my Shoulder

Like most, the coming of a new year arouses my “Go get ‘em!” attitude. A fine and dandy mindset to have… that is, if you don’t have a starving scavenger beast by the name of Anxiety perched and twitchy upon your shoulder.

Nevertheless, I will scatter the fertile plains of 2017 with all the writing seeds I can scoop out of my pockets and hope childishly for the best. After all, the carrion fowl upon my shoulder will eat no matter what. Might as well feed the monster well.

Until Saturday (travel day tomorrow)…

Chloe

Anticipatory Thrill

The anticipation of writing can be as intoxicating as the actual writing. At least that’s the case for me, whose OCD tendencies giggle heavenly at the weight of a freshly minted planner in my hand.

Deadlines, reasonable goals, foolish goals, word counts and progress counters… ooh, the prospect of these tickle my medicated authorial soul!

Bottom line: Feel free to give a harmless foible a thrill.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Stuck in the Clickety-Clack

Unfortunately one does not just hop back on the Writing Express. Oh, no. When there’s been a prolonged break for whatever reason, jumping back into the storytelling game is not so easily done.

I find it’s more like riding an old wooden rollercoaster. Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack. A long, agonizingly slow journey back up the monster hill is necessary before jolly-fun speed can be found once again. Currently, I’m clickety-clacking.

I enjoy neither a clickety nor a clack. Enough said.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

A Different View

Seldom can a person claim their profession is also their guilty pleasure. But writing is mine, and now that Christmas is over I can return to it with a silly grin upon my face and an eager muse at the ready!

Whenever the heft of my truly odd world gets a little too weighty on my shoulders, I remember this even odder blessing and embrace it wholeheartedly.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Post-note: Santa arrived a day early for me this year when I was notified Saturday that the reprint of “Forever Bound with Tinsel” had made the Best Sellers List at All Romance Ebooks! Have a peek… https://www.allromanceebooks.com/bestsellers.html

Take to the Sieve

When “real life” prohibits me from writing, my brain dumps all its imaginative fervor into my dreams. This is patently not good.

However, being a professional scribbler and all, I do try to filter out whatever good I can find from the mess.

So, I take to my sieve and press out the tortured and tangled tales to see if anything of use pops out the other side. The result? An unholy mess more times than not, but I do always try.

Until Monday (tomorrow is Christmas!!)…

Chloe

Riverdale Avenue Books Blog: Holiday Classics and Republishing Favorites

Riverdale Avenue Books Blog: Holiday Classics and Republishing Favorites: by Lori Perkins, Publisher I've been creating books in epublishing for close to a decade now, and as an editor and publisher, I'&#...

Fill Thy Pockets

Even though my writing has sat in a corner gathering dust these last few hectic days, I am constantly thinking on how to improve my work.

While wrapping packages or baking breads, I try to dig up words out of my memory I never seem to use in my projects. I tuck these unvarnished gems away in a pocket to pull out when the writing frenzies return.

Bottom line: a writer never stops writing.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Out of the Old Rut

Whenever my writing cogs on a particular story are stalled, I jumpstart them with a holiday. Tossing the whole lot of lead characters under a Christmas tree, beneath a sparkling sky of fireworks or beside a carved pumpkin always gets the old imagination ticking again.

Even if the scenes never make the novel’s final cut, you will be out of your rut and your characters will get an unexpected thrill.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe 

The Gift of Patience

Dear Santa,

I’ve been a very good girl this year (frankly, with my mental screwiness, living the life of a monk is pretty much a given, but I digress.)

And since I can no longer ask for a World Series Game 7 win for my Cubbies under the tree, and the idea of a significant other ever willingly lashing a wagon to my crippled star is growing more absurd by the day, I’d like to request just a smidgeon more of Patience this year. My supply is running painfully thin.

Thank you, my dear old elf… And, of course, if you’d like to try to squeeze Benedict Cumberbatch into my stocking, please, have a go.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Someday Tally

Squeezed in an hour last night to write. Ended up just flinging words at the screen seeing what would stick.

Very little did.

But the effort was made. Hopefully that will count in somebody’s tally of me someday.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Always Count to Three

“Jack” is rather ho-hum. “Jill” is nothing but a yawn. But “Jack & Jill” are magic… admittedly, tragic magic but that’s a whole other post.

The pairing becomes a character, an entity all its own. It exists separate and apart from its halves. It becomes more than its pieces. So, in my opinion, a successful romance novel will always have 3 leads: Character A, Character B and Character AB.

Bottom line: The story’s not done until you can count to 3.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe 

The Brilliance in a Stolen Hour

Despite only having a stolen hour or two to write this Christmas season, I was rather stunned to find my second leading man’s voice last night.  

3.5k words into Twisted Intent and I had developed a strong kinship with Derrick, deciding to save any exploration of Graeme until after the holiday buzz. But, out of nowhere, my dear Oklahoma rancher leapt upon the page yesterday and charmed the stuffing right out of me.

I sometimes forget what a brilliant surprise writing can be!

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

No Skimping Here

When streamlining a writing project, keep all shears, pruners, hatchets, and chisels away from your protagonists. They are the story.

Make the main characters real. Make them quirky. Make them funny and sad, wry and dry, silly and oh-so not silly.

The words and effort you’ve saved from all that honing of plot, pile enthusiastically onto your lead actors.  Never skimp here, my friends. Never.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe    

Beware the Aged & Kind

Beware of plump, grandmotherly characters! All warm and welcoming like butter rolls fresh out of the oven, they will singlehandedly destroy the lean and mean of a streamlined storyline.

Yesterday, Lydia Cross poked her sugary smile into Twisted Intent and promptly threw my plot diet right out the window.

As a result, Lydia has been locked in a closet until further notice.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Feeding of Foibles

Location. Location. Location.

In a further attempt to streamline my next novel, I am anchoring 99 percent of its storyline to one locale. Instead of puddle-jumping around the globe as my plots normally do, Twisted Intent’s story will only call Cimarron County, Oklahoma home.

This should somewhat limit the research bug (a dastardly creature who would eat me out of years if allowed).

Yes, all foibles will be kept to a strict diet this go-around.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Weapon of Choice

Streamlining a plot into a razor-thin weapon of efficiency and movement has never been me. Instead, I tend to bludgeon a reader over the head with bulky, unwieldy knots of storyline. This works, but it can work better.

So, my next effort will be a love child of both plot philosophies. I expect the labor pains to be grotesque at times, but the result, I hope, will be endearing… Now, I’ve just got to puzzle out how a sword and a mace have sex.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Discipline

Chain yourself to your storyline. By wrist, by ankle, by neck, by heart. Whatever it takes don’t let the author inside of you stray from the straight and narrow of a well-planned tale.

Admittedly, this bit of advice is a bit of a bummer.

Admittedly, I fail to follow it 98 percent of the time.

But there is a time and place for such discipline. Twisted Intent, the working title for my next novel, is just such a place. So when I rail against the rope burns and the rattle of chains in the next three months, please forgive me. I will try to keep my moans brief.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe 

Coming In from the Cold

The muse has come in from the cold!

Seeing as how my muse happens to be furry and four-footed, however, I will have to dry all said-feet, under-belly and top-knot before the enjoying of the warmth can begin.

In other words, I have real projects with real due dates all stacked up through the first half of 2017! It is utterly delightful to be back on the clock. Once Christmas jollies are through, I will finally return to work with two new novels for Dreamspinner Press!

It is time, indeed, to scrape the icicles off the muse’s nose.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Intrusive Thought

I don’t live well with people. Case in point: intrusive thoughts.

My OCD lends itself more to intrusive worries than intrusive one-liners. Stub my toe and I’ll obsessively check my foot for signs of gangrene for a week. Seriously. And this is when I’m all cuddled up safely in my hermit lodge.

Put me in a “living with people” situation and my mind turns to intrusive clusters of words. Yesterday’s was “Voice Over Internet Protocol.”

??? 

Yeah. And this bad boy didn’t just play in the background like a song that gets stuck in your head. It arrived plastered on the side of a semi-truck that parked itself just beyond my nose. It then refused to move for hours. I must have repeated that stupid phrase thousands of times.

Over and over and over.

Again and again and again.

Give me gangrene over VOIP any day… and, wow, doesn’t that sentence right there put a pretty red bow on my lunacy?

I am so ridiculous.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

New Release!

New Release!

“Forever Bound with Tinsel,” my 2010 novella originally published as part of a Christmas anthology has now been released as a standalone by Riverdale Avenue Books!

In 2010, still bound by the restraints of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Air Force pilot Aaron Chambers must continue to hide his ever-evolving, ever-sizzling love for Dr. John Castle. After surviving a near fatal shooting, Aaron and John are in no mood to bow to DADT idiocy. So, when the annual Christmas Ball at Tyndall Air Force Base arrives, the two men find a way to spend the evening together. However, an unknown threat lurks in the background… one that vows to make his move before the night is through.

Available directly through Riverdale Ave. Books but also through all the usual suspects (Amazon, AllRomance, etc.), I’d love for you to take a peek and maybe tuck this piece of naughty and nice under your tree this year!

Merry Christmas!

Chloe Stowe

www.chloestowe.com (updated last night)

Dear Marcus Aurelius...

“How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life” -Marcus Aurelius

Well, my dear Marcus, I must then be a ridiculously strange human being… (Admittedly that’s a statement already well-proven in fact, but I digress for the purpose of this one post)... for a surprise slapped me stupid yesterday.

I found out completely by accident that on December 7 my novella “Forever Bound with Tinsel” was released by Riverdale Ave. Books.

First reaction: “What?”

Second reaction: “Yeah!”

We’re going with the second reaction this morning. So, please expect a special edition post today given you all the shiny particulars. If this kind of thing interests you, please enjoy and pass the word along. If you could care less, please ignore and know tomorrow this blog will return to its usual particularities.

Hopefully, dear Marcus, you and your surprises have had enough and will now leave me alone for a bit.

Until tomorrow (or later today, if you’re of the mind)…

Chloe

Post-note: OCD, anxiety and panic disorders do NOT enjoy surprises. At all. 

The Typewriter & the Doomsday Prepper

Trying to fit my writing into the next two weeks of family festivities will be akin to cramming a typewriter into a doomsday prepper’s over-stuffed pantry of canned goods…

The fact that the preceding sentence took me 15 minutes to clunkily piece together is testament to the problem I face.

*sighs*

Want a bet which pops first? My patience or the hold on my flimsy slip of sanity?

Until tomorrow…

Chloe 

Hope in Yesterday

When one path doesn’t lead you quite where you had hoped, there is no shame in returning to the well-trod lane that you know.

The key is not to give up looking for new trails to follow. Who knows? That yellow brick road for which you’ve always searched might lie right beneath that well-trod lane of yesterday.

Until Friday (travel day tomorrow)…

Chloe

Post-note: In 2017 I will be returning the bulk of my writing attention to the M/M Romance genre that has blessed me with 17 novels in the past. Who knows what will be found while writing the 18^th?

Surviving the Bluster

Problem identified.

If life is standing on a hill in a blustery gale then the majority of humanity holds their “stuff” together in a sturdy 3-ring binder.

Some have to fashion a spiral notebook out of chicken wire to keep their issues from flying away from them.

A few get nothing but a staple. Doable but tenuous.

I seem to have been blessed with only a paper clip.  The old kind. A short, screwy piece of metal wrapped around itself in an absurd manner.

Enough said.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Finally!

A piece of poorly crisped toast could have moved faster than my career this year. However, the end of 2016 is looking up and I just might outpace that slice of rye yet.

My short, short story “The Go Away Bird” has just been accepted into Centum Press’s anthology One Hundred Voices Volume Three! This itty bitty (only 640 words) Mainstream Fiction gem will appear under a new pen name: Anna Reichert. *squeals excitedly*

Take that, you lazy piece of rye!

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Stability

Question: Is having a stable of pennames normal or should I see someone about this pseudonym excess?

Since I’ve already got a psychiatrist on the payroll maybe I should toss this issue his way? Or is that just begging for a schizophrenia page to be added to the tome of a medical binder he’s already got on me?

Well, no matter the answer another horse is about to be squeezed into the old barn. Details tomorrow.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe, lead horse

Post-note… Pardon the cliffhanger. I couldn’t resist. How often does a blogger get to play such a delicious card?

The Selfish Croak

I’m a selfish little toad.

In a move to ensure I keep at least a wee hold on sanity, I have just begun one week of writer/me time. Yes, it is the holidays. Yes, I should be tucked cozily into my family. I know this.

However, I also know that an extended period of time in a world where everything I’m not smothers out everything that I am, is not good for my mental *cough, cough* stability.

So, do I croak or do I ribbet when Guilt comes knocking at my door?

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Carnality Reborn

Lately, my writing has turned labored. Like every sentence that makes it out of me has suffered through 36 hours of hard labor with no drugs. At the end of the process, we are both alive and kicking but, ooh, are we filthy and pissed at the world.

This changes now.

Time to rediscover the carnality back in this relationship!

Until tomorrow (or Saturday, possible travel day tomorrow)…

Chloe

Divergence

I am angry.

What, may I ask, is the point of NOAA weather radios if at the first hiccup of thunder they lose power and go off the air all freaking night?  A night, I may add, of supercell tornadoes which ended up killing at least 3 people in the area?

Not only that, the tornado sirens were also kicked off line and completely silent during a truly dangerous night of weather.

Furthermore, the local television folks did not bother to mention this outage during their long hours of non-stop coverage of the event. People went to bed relying on NOAA to wake them in time to find shelter to save their lives. These people, my parents included, could have died because of this unreported “glitch in the system.”

Yes, I am angry.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Post-note: Regular blogging subject matter will return tomorrow when the steam has cleared from my head. Apologies for the divergence. 

No Holds Barred

After cleaning out the gutters at my parents’ house and then surviving the majority of the day without the four-legged, furry muse who was off to the groomer’s, I got zero writing done until after dinner.

That would have been all fine and good if I hadn’t had to drag, yank, cajole, and breathlessly heave every freaking word out of my head and onto the silly paper.

Seriously, can’t a single part of my brain behave?

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

To Gather Speed

Leap forwards often require steps back to gather speed.

I’m in the midst of a backwards sashay right now with my writing career. I accept this. I will even embrace it…

After all, practice makes perfect and my OCD goes all googly-eyed and pant-y over that.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Rabidity

So, I scurried back into my writing yesterday and went a little rabid in my short story. Snarling and snapping, spitting and growling, words were flying everywhere. Despite upping the word count appropriately, I think I did more damage than good.

Oh well, such is my existence. I’m either absent or a terror.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe 

Strategical Retreat

Having grown tired of babying my mind through holiday affairs, I am retreating back into words today.

This is not surrender. This is strategy.

Naysayers, go gnaw on a turkey bone. I’ve got a story to write.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Victory Declared

After limping through Thanksgiving with my usual lack of grace and social skill, I have emerged on the other side ragged but whole. I will take that as a win and celebrate appropriately… i.e. throwing myself into the lions’ den of Black Friday shopping.

Why, oh why, do I do this to myself year after year?

Masochism must reside in my marrow… I do hope the lions find it tasty.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Surviving the Day

My myriad of cracks shine particularly bright on Thanksgiving.

Each fissure is impossible to hide with family swarming about, so the whole day becomes a series of strategical maneuvers intended to ensure survival while alienating the least amount of relatives.

I’m quite sure this is NOT what the pilgrims had in mind.

Here’s to survival, everyone, and seeing you on the other side of the turkey.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Challenge Accepted

Sanity will be challenged this week.

Having a lead on a new literary agent, I will be spending any spare time I can squeeze out of the Thanksgiving monster on tweaking The Hushing Days manuscript. I want it nice and shiny for Monday’s trip to new eyes.

I also have a short story due December 1 that is begging to be written. We’ll see if I can swat that down or fold under its relentless whispers.

As surviving Thanksgiving is always iffy for me, this could indeed get ugly.

Take cover.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Fleck & Fowl

A tee-tiny fleck of a story is on its merry way to an anthology! I’ve never written flash fiction before but I figured why not give it a whirl? It’s a tragicomedy of just over 500 words that if accepted would get my name out into the big pool of general fiction. So, please, cross a finger or toe for “The Go-away Bird.”

Remember: Pepper the world with your words until someone takes notice and smiles.

Until Wednesday…

Chloe

Post-note: Travel day tomorrow. I’ll see you on Wednesday!

Beauty in the Bizarre

Something resembling an actual story crawled out of my mind yesterday.

I nearly fainted.

Before it scurried away into the shadows of my funk, I scooped it up, laid it down on paper and rubbed its soft, little belly for hours.

Oh, what a beautifully bizarre thing the creative process is!

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Flailing Muse

An absurd amount of flailing went on yesterday.  Little of it was pretty. None of it was productive.

Being agentless for the first time in several years has left my cracked, little writer’s soul scrambling for purchase anywhere. You should see the few words I did manage to string together… No, on second thought, never mind. Nobody need suffer that.

Today must be a better day.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Fearing the Wind

The divorce is final.

I am now a free agent, so to speak. Although, a free writer would more accurate, I suppose.

My literary agent and I have officially called things off.  I initiated the process that has been going on for weeks now, so I should feel energized, liberated or some other fool thing. I don’t. Naked and blowing in the wind is more like it.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe 

Determination

Well, at least rejections are coming swifter these days.

Another one yesterday, but I countered boldly with two more submissions. I’ll get it done yet.

Five more days before my workdays vanish. Familial blessings and obligations will then take center stage for 2 to 3 weeks. Let’s see how many publishing heads this ol’ scribbler can turn before then.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Shot in the Dark

One shot in the dark launched.

Yesterday, I sent off a proposal for a writing project I have a snowball’s chance in Hades of getting. It’s probably already lying in a steaming puddle of its own false hope somewhere…

Well, hasn’t this gotten dark?

Enough of that. Lights on! I’ve got another snowball to ready for a trip south.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Look Twice

There is a woman inside of me who exists separate from the panic-stricken child.

There is a person inside of me who is apart from the pandering author, the dutiful family member, the awkward shadow trailing behind the world.

She is beautifully independent and oh-so joyous of heart. She is a wide-eyed wanderer with a daredevil’s soul. She is the brightest part of me.

I am trying very hard to embrace this woman-child, hold her tight to my chest… for she needs not be trampled by the rest.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Once Again Folly

So, I have once again thrown all my attention into something that will inevitably be revealed as folly.

I have given myself one week to finish this little escapade into foolishness, promising myself to have it sent off to its publisher before Thanksgiving barrels into town.

The chance of this getting accepted teeters between absurdity and big, fat joke. But I persist, as always. The tailless dog chasing its stump.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Rhizome Self

I may, in fact, be a rhizome.

Consider this Oxford Dictionary definition… “a continuously growing horizontal underground stem that puts out lateral shoots and adventitious roots at intervals.”

When God digs me up and take me home, people will be amazed at the hundreds of still born roots sticking out of this odd and quirky, little writing bulb.

I do so try to find a place to blossom in this profession.

A rhizome? So be it.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Out the Blowhole

I tend to lose myself in others. My empathy devours me. Swallows me whole, digesting me with every person’s unkind thought and every stranger’s cold dismissal. Whenever I manage to claw myself out of its belly, I find a bit of me is missing.

This has got to stop. I am not Jonah. My heart is not a whale.  As silly as it sounds, this is my current battle… and I am exhausted from it.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

She Huddles

Amidst my tiny maelstrom of literary agent chaos, I am sharpening up the finished manuscript The Hushing Days a bit. Seeing as it might be headed to fresh eyes soon, I’ve picked apart the Prologue (which I was never completely happy with) and am rearranging its remains.

A prologue should sing, mine merely hummed.

Waste of time? Oh, who bloody knows.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Courage Begets Circles

Holding patterns suck.

I’m in one now, professionally speaking. Around, around I go, waiting on some disembodied voice to tell me when and where I can land.

My thumbs are all twiddled out, people. I’m starting to doodle on plane windows and calling it art. This is far from encouraging. *sighs heftily*

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Emergency Tactics

You know those massive metal doors that slam down from the ceiling in the bowels of nuclear plants when a WTF? happens upstairs in the reactor? Well, after last night’s WTF? at the polls my emergency doors are down, locked in place, air supply ticking down.

Time to crush faith and dog to chest, close eyes and just keep breathing.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

When the Firefly Hiccups

A hiccupping firefly.

A creature whose internal light only spastically twinkles in the world. Where others shine brightly, constantly, warmly, I stutter radiance.

Yet, I too have a place in this world. People often forget that. So occasionally I must sit upon the end of their noses and hiccup brilliance in their eyes until they either swat me away or smile.

Yesterday, I hiccuped on a lot of noses. Just saying.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe