You may not have heard from me over the past few months, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working hard. We’ve gone through an evaluation process with our daughter, and I took a part-time job, both of which left little time for social activities, especially when you add my writing time to the equation. Nevertheless, within the last couple of months I’ve written two more short stories, come five chapters closer to a finished sequel, and sold a few poems. Told you I’ve been busy ;).
Today I’m here to post an official announcement for the publication of my science-fiction short story, “Bug Out”. If you’ll recall, the story was published last autumn in Perihelion Science Fiction Magazine. After six months the rights reverted back to me and I decided to go ahead and publish it as a short story on Amazon.
It’s always fun to me how things come together. When I first sat down with this story, all I had was a first line. In fact, the germination of the story came from a writing exercise where we had to come up with first lines. I ended up submitting ten first lines and from those, I’ve completed two short stories and have three more floating around the edge of my consciousness, with a few paragraphs of ink for each to prove it. Just goes to show how coming up with first lines can be a great exercise if you’re struggling with writer’s block.
Once I decided to publish the story on Amazon, I needed a cover. Wait. I think I need to backtrack. I talked it over with my husband and, the truth is, I didn’t know if I was going to publish it on Amazon. My husband suggested a graphic novel, or a print only option. The challenge, of course, would be to find artwork or an artist for that project. So we shelved the idea. And then he chatted with a tattoo artist friend who runs a local tattoo shop, Gallon Tattoo.
I sent Henrik the story around dinner time and before the night was over, he was already sketching. The next day, I had a cover. And I loved it! Not only that, but it launched me forward. It took about a week to tweak it, find the right font and format the eBook, but now it’s available!
Click the picture to order your copy. Remember to leave a rating or review to let me know what you think of it =). Next step is to format it for print.
And if you want to see more of Henrik Gallon’s work, check out his blog Gallon Tattoo.
Cas Blomberg Communications 