ShapeShifter: The Demo Tapes (Year 1)” width=”270″ height=”400″ class=”alignnone size-medium wp-image-113″ />There’s a flash piece in here that’s all about a rainy night.

Of course, if you’d prefer the Complete Demo Tapes so you have all the flash and short pieces I refer to, have at it!

We’ve gone from having a real winter to a super rainy spring, and today’s looking to be gray and wet again. It actually started while the kid and I were out doing some shopping before the big move.

At any rate, I think all the dust and hay are finally off the kid’s car.

editing

I finished the first readthrough of my edit yesterday and was able to say to the author that their greatest fears — that it is a dumpster fire, of course — weren’t realized.

In fact, I haven’t stopped thinking about this ending. It’s not a twist so much as it’s an escalation of what we know is coming, and it’s so deep and multi-layered and really complex. It goes well beyond the usual, even as the story hits all the right beats (and yet it never feels like formula when reading, only when you look back and think about it).

This is some masterful stuff, friends. I can’t wait for you to read it.

writing

There’s actually a lot to say today! I didn’t get a lot of writing done, between shopping and my monthly group who meets in the evening, which is prime writing time.

BUT after looking at what will be my 2026 newsletter freebie (also called a magnet), I’ve decided that yes, I need a sensitivity reader, as the main character is a young Black woman. So I started asking around for recs. If you know someone, drop their name! And once that’s done, I’ll probably send it out to my betas and see what input they have.

This is going to be a very expensive freebie! But I think you’ll really like it, so be sure you’re on my newsletter now, in order to catch the story’s debut in January. Don’t wait, so you don’t forget.

And, of course, catch me and Mary Walsh and Maryann Parfitt and Doug Solter under the West of Mars tent at the Greensburg (PA) Night Market tomorrow night! Hopefully the rainy skies will have passed us by.

Book of the Day

Sorcerer to the Crown, by Zen Cho
(affiliate link; as always, funds raised via affiliate links will go to operational costs here at West of Mars. Business insurance, professional subscriptions; that sort of thing… if you ever wondered what an editor’s overhead is like.)

And now for your daily reminder that I chose not to paywall this content via Patreon or a paid Substack, but that doesn’t mean your support isn’t appreciated and needed! We totally live in a world of mutual aid these days, don’t we?

Best of all, there are lots of ways to support me instead of a subscription. Buy my books! That’s a great way! If you have, and you’ve read them, feel free to leave an online review wherever you’re so moved to do so. There are so many places; wouldn’t it be great if readers had one central hub for reviews, that were then picked up by all the different review places?

If you’re a writer, booking my editorial services is another awesome means of supporting the cause — and getting an experienced eye on your books. This is my 14th year of professional freelance editing for authors of fiction (before, I didn’t do it for money), and I have a nice client list of writers who’ve quit their day jobs and are making six figures a year… and more. My authors do the hard work, sure, but I give ’em an extra push. It pays off.

And, of course, there’s my ko-fi. Feel free to stuff that one with whatever spare change you’ve got, and of course, help yourself to the goodies in the shop for it, too. The Beta Reader’s Guide and/or the Writer’s Guide to Library Events.

That’s it from over here… hope your skies aren’t rainy, but if they are, I hope you can curl up with a good book — feel free to let me know what you’re reading. Maybe it’ll be a former Book of the Day? A future one?

A long time ago, in what feels like a second lifetime, I wrote a bunch of short stories. Like, a ton. And I saved them on my hard drive.

Last summer, after I had to unpublish Mannequin, the girl rehomed that little short story of mine onto Wattpad. And then she took a stroll through my hard drive and my archives. She handed me a bunch of stories to edit and polish up, chose a few to publish immediately, and then… got involved in her own Wattpad activities. (No, you can’t have her names.)

Yesterday, she decided it was time to take one of the stories and get it up on Wattpad. And so New Management is now alive for your reading pleasure.

It’s a story of the Trevolution, and you long-time fans will recognize the characters. Maybe even the situation, although if you need a prompt, here are the two stories this builds on: Twirling and Game On. Neither are in a Demo Tapes collection yet… they’d be in #5, which if you’d like, you should speak up!

So here it is. New Management.

It’s Read an E-Book Week! And, as I do every year, to celebrate, I’ve discounted all my books so you’ll be extra tempted to pick them up and join the Trevolution.

My catalog is getting bigger, deeper, even though I’m doing more editing than writing these days.

The best part of this new age of publishing, I think, is that your books can be on sale forever. They never go out of print. And weeks like this are perfect for reminding you of that.

Older, newer, it doesn’t matter. You can pick them all up at Smashwords and whoa, Nelly! Look at that discount!!

Yes, even my newest release, not even six months old yet. Broken, the short story you just gotta read.

So what are you waiting for? Go get some copies and read an e-book this week!

I’ve been watching more and more new folk stop by and check me and my fictional friends out lately, so I thought this would be a good time to remind all of you, faithful groupies that you either are or are about to become, that most everything you read here is fiction. Mitchell, Kerri, Trevor, and company exist solely in my head. For better, worse, or a much-needed diagnosis.

Search the archives or the recent links. You’ll find small character sketches, outtakes from novels-in-progress (or even the one I’m shopping to literary agents, Trevor’s Song), and my own musings on what shapes the characters into the people that they are.

My hope is that you’ll come to see them as living, breathing people (as I often do, much to the chagrin of my friends and family). That you’ll use this site to whet your appetite for Trevor’s Song, and that by becoming my groupie, you’ll let these fictional folk touch your lives as they’ve touched mine.

Stay awhile. Enjoy.