From Writing Short Stories to Creating a Short Story Collection: Bad Girls: Five Tales of Twisted Teens is a YA Horror Collection of Murder and Macabre

 

I love writing challenges, and when I got the idea to take on a challenge to write a short story every week for one year, I jumped on that! It took a lot of patience and planning, but fortunately, I managed to write 52 short stories in 2016.

 

Now that I had over 50 short stories written, what was I going to do with them all?

 

Why, revise and submit them, of course! After all, I do try to get my short stories published, and having those extra credits would help boost the number of short stories I have published so far.

 

That was the plan, anyway.

 

In addition to being someone who likes to do writing challenges, I am also someone who notices patterns. And at some point, as I continued browsing my list of stories written in those 52 weeks, I noticed a pattern.

 

After I finished writing all those stories, I made a list of the stories including the title, word count and genre. And in browsing the list during the times I was ready to tackle another story for submitting somewhere, I noticed some common genres popping up.

 

Some of the stories had a whole “bad girl” vibe going for it. I saw that and thought, Why not take those stories and put them into a book with that particular theme?

 

That’s how the idea for Bad Girls: Five Tales of Twisted Teens was born. And since I was already self-publishing books, I decided to self-publish this book as well – even though I hadn’t yet self-published any horror!

 

With this goal in mind, I sent the stories off for edits. The person editing the stories happened to be one of the owners of one of my regular publishers. She edited the manuscript and sent it back to me with her comments and suggestions.

 

As I began working on revising and editing the stories per those comments and suggestions, that tiny idea I had for a book grew into a bigger idea for a whole ‘nother book: Why not combine these stories with other stories, too, and first publishing them as ebooks then combining them all into one big print collection of stories with different themes?

 

I pitched the idea to that same publisher and they liked it. I continued working on edits and revisions.

 

Unfortunately, that “big” idea did not pan out, because the book that Bad Girls turned out to be was not one this particular publisher would accept. They suggested that I self-publish the book and, with that suggestion, I got a new idea for how to combine Bad Girls with a different story collection idea for a print book sometime in the near future.

 

So, I was back to square one with my collection of YA horror stories. I am extremely grateful to the publishers’ extra help with edits on the manuscript. And thank you for help with the cover, as well. Thank you, Denise Bartlett and Charlotte Holley! You guys are amazing!

 

I also ran into one bit of a technical problem with one story, which Charlotte pointed out. I tried to research how to fix this problem, but my research didn’t turn up very much information. So I turned to my friend and fellow horror writer, Julie Fletcher, for help. We chatted about the issue and Julie figured out how I could fix that problem in the story. Thanks, Julie! You rock!

 

It's interesting the turn of events that happened with this book: This is my tenth year as a self-publisher, and I thought that self-publishing in a genre that I love to write in, horror, is a great way to celebrate my ten-year anniversary in self-publishing. So, in a way, it makes sense that this happened the way it did. I always say things happen for a reason. I didn’t even realize this was my tenth year as a self-publisher until after the book’s release! How appropriate for this lover of horror fiction. I'm taking it as a sign: Perhaps it is now time to self-publish horror story collections!

 

And as for that bigger book of story collections I had an idea for? It has been tabled, for now!

 

Thankfully, I managed to get the ebook of Bad Girls out in time for Halloween. I am still working on getting the print out, but the ebook is available in various formats through Smashwords, as well as for Kindle on Amazon an Nook through Barnes & Noble.

 

Here is the blurb:

 

The days of being tormented are over. Five girls find the power to fight back against those who thought it was okay to hurt them.

 

"The best kind of revenge is the kind that no one would expect."

 

Five girls have been tormented by people who thought it was okay to hurt them.

They never expected them to fight back.

 

The victim would never fight back.

The loser would never fight back.

The plain Jane would never fight back.

The freak would never fight back.

And the abandoned would never fight back.

 

But they do.

 

Not only do they fight back, but they delight in freeing their inner monsters on anyone who hurts them ---

 

The abusers

 

The bullies

 

The fake friends

 

Five girls find the power within themselves to fight back and get their revenge on all of them. And make sure their tormentors pay.

 

Bad Girls: Five Tales of Twisted Teens is available in ebook format through:

 

Amazon 

Barnes & Noble 

Smashwords 

Try a Writing Challenge

 

Are you dealing with writer’s block?

 

Struggling with a creativity block?

 

At a loss of what to write?

 

Then try a writing challenge!

 

There are so many different kinds of writing challenges out there for all kinds of writers. There are daily, weekly, monthly and yearly challenges that can get writers writing! Just search for “writing challenge” with your favorite search engine and you’ll see a lot of them turn up.

 

You can also use writing prompts to help you get writing. These can also be a part of your writing challenge.

 

I love doing writing challenges. I have been doing them for years and they are lots of fun. For the most part, they are not really “challenges” per se, because they usually give me something to write, which is what I enjoy doing. This blog post series is part of my writing challenge for September (to post about writing every day). And some of the books I have written were the products of writing challenges. I am also currently doing a year-long challenge: writing and publishing an ebook for every month of the year.

 

I love doing writing challenges so much that I even self-pubbed an ebook called The Big Book of Writing Challenges.

 

A writing challenge may not always help a writer get out of a creativity block, but they can certainly help to get the writer thinking about putting words onto the paper. Plus, it gives writers something to write every day, if writing every day is a goal they are trying to achieve.

In addition to a writing challenge, you can also throw in a challenge on top of a challenge! In addition to writing something you were challenged to write, make it an even better challenge by aiming for a particular word count. I often keep track of how many words I write for certain things, and if I’m not satisfied with that number of words, then I challenge myself to write more! I say to myself something like “I wonder if I can turn those 325 words into 500 words” and when I try to do just that, I often manage to go even higher than the word count goal I set for myself.

 

You don’t need to do this as well for your own writing challenges, but it is one way to make your writing challenge a little more interesting. Plus, you just might be surprised when discovering what else you manage to write when you push yourself to reach a certain word count, or even go beyond it.

 

The next time you are presented with a writing challenge, stick out your chest, hold your head high and say, “Challenge accepted!” No matter how intimidating, impossible or crazy a writing challenge may seem, give it a try and see where your creativity takes you.

 

The next time you struggle with trying to write, consider trying a writing challenge. You can focus your search on the type of writing challenge you want to take on or the kind that you need which can help you out with whatever you are stuck on in your work.

 

A writing challenge can be a fun diversion for writers and it just might inspire a writer to come up with a new idea for something else to write.

The Free Ebook Experiment: What I Have Learned So Far

 

Several years ago, a writer I knew gave herself the following challenge: Write and publish an ebook every month for one year. I followed her while she was on this journey and kept tabs on her progress (and I also enjoyed reading some of her free ebooks!). I was excited when she accomplished this goal and wondered if I could do it, too.

 

Before 2022 started, I decided that this would be the year to try my hand at this challenge.

 

And it’s definitely been quite a challenge!

 

I didn’t experience any challenges while writing the ebooks – a prepared list of books to write before beginning the challenge gave me the “book writing assignment” I needed to keep going – but I did face some challenges while going through this process.

 

After 6 months of this challenge, I have set aside a lot of time to think about this process and what I have learned from it so far.

 

Here are some of the challenges I faced while taking on this challenge:

 

·        Learning how to publish an ebook (I started with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) then moved to Smashwords)

·        Finding the right editor (I had one at the start of the year, but now she can no longer edit for me, and I’m venturing into other types of books she does not specialize in editing)

·        Getting an ebook cover (before the year, I created a bunch of covers for these ebooks, but now the service I used for the cover design is no longer working and one cover in particular will be more personal)

·        Finding reviewers (I have advertised free copies of these ebooks online and in my newsletter but so far, no reviews or review requests)

 

In reviewing these challenges, I can see how they are similar to what a lot of self-published authors have to deal with as well, whether or not they are giving their books away for free. In self-publishing, you have to go through the motions of picking a distributor, finding the right (and professional) editor for your work, selecting the right cover designer and deciding on which cover works best for your book, as well as finding people willing to review your book.

 

In other words, those challenges I dealt with are pretty much the norm for self-publishing! When I started out in self-publishing, I had to learn how to format the manuscript and use a publishing service like KDP in order to publish my book.

 

These ebooks in and of themselves have certainly not been difficult to write or come up with ideas for. Most of the ebooks are original content – meaning, I wrote and published them for the very first time – but some of them are also revised or rewritten content. The Christian poetry book I am offering this month, for example, is revised content. I wrote that book back in the early 90s but, when typing it up this month, I revised the poems. A novel I plan to release will be a rewrite of an incomplete novel I started writing in the early 2000s.

 

Aside from this, however, the topics I write are very easy to write. One ebook was a book of writing challenges, and I had no difficulty in writing it. Another was a book about mental health tips and it was a breeze to write. So, they are not really a whole lot of work. I would probably still be writing them even if I was not self-publishing them.

 

The topics I chose to write for nonfiction were ones which I knew I would have difficulty getting into print should I have elected to find a small, independent or traditional publisher for these books. For one thing, I am not an expert. I do not have a platform as an author on this topic, I do not have educational training (although my vocational training did come in handy while I was writing two of the ebooks), and I am not well-known as an authority on those topics. I did have material to write those books, however, and I WANTED to write those books. I did consider acting as a ghostwriter instead and hoping someone more established would buy the rights of the book from me, but I decided not to go in that direction. It would probably take too long to find a buyer, anyway.

 

The novels I will be writing, however, might have some difficulty. Writing novels is hard work and trying to write and publish one in a month will be harder, but I’m looking forward to giving it a try because I just want to see if it is possible.

 

Another thing I have learned from this experience is that the free ebooks are a chance for me to try my hand at writing in different genres. Two of my novels are paranormal and the other one is romantic suspense, and while one of my other planned free ebooks is a paranormal story, I’m trying my hand at writing other things too. I did this when I challenged myself to write a short story for every week of the year (done!) and now I want to do this again with the free ebooks. One of them is a chick lit story and another one will be horror. I HAVE had horror stories published and I hope to get horror poetry published too (if I can find a publisher of horror poetry chapbooks!). But I am not established as an author of horror novels. (My publisher originally categorized my novel Shadow of Samhain as horror, but it is more paranormal than horror). I do plan to try to establish myself as a horror novelist at some point (I even have a horror novel in progress!), but right now, when it comes to novels, I write mostly paranormal stories. I want to give the horror novel writing thing a shot and see how it does.

 

I guess this experiment will let me know if I can be a good horror novelist or not! It’s a test, I suppose.

 

Finally, I have learned that these free ebooks are not exactly a waste of effort. They can be used as promotional materials. I put one up on BookFunnel, hoping to get subscribers for my newsletter. (Sadly, it hasn’t happened.) I also include information about my other books in some of them. Finally, the free ebooks can also act as freebies in the event I need to award a writer a “bonus” for some thing or another.

 

So, the free ebooks do serve a purpose. They are not a waste of my time (as I’d probably still write them anyway!), they are not a waste of my effort, and they take nothing away from all of the other books which I have out there that are not available for free.

 

I kinda like having ebooks available for people to read for free. People just can’t afford to buy books as much as they used to, especially now with high gas prices and the current inflation. As a booklover who is on a very tight income and can’t afford to buy as many books as I would like to, a free ebook to read (or even free books!) is definitely a nice thing to have. I am grateful for free books and free ebooks to read, and grateful to the authors who put them out there.