Update | Change of Plans

May 2, 2022May 2, 2022 ~ Ofelia Gränd ~ Leave a comment

“Success in life is not how well we execute Plan A; it’s how smoothly we cope with Plan B.”

– Sarah Ban Breathnach

typewriter-3711589_640

It’s update time and my plan has gone to hell LOL Part of me is relieved. I was supposed to have submitted a Hugs or Kisses story by the end of last month, but… I was writing, and I was in a great flow, and then I hit 11k and the either-or stories have a max limit of 12k and I was nowhere near the end. So I emailed JM and said I won’t be able to do it.

I would’ve loved to continue on that story but since I still have other deadlines, I put it aside for now. I’ll get back to it later because I really liked writing it, and I’m 11.322 words in, so…

I haven’t decided if this means I won’t do the either-or stories or not. Since I’ve written them all as a series it would feel weird to jump ahead, though they are pretty much standalone so I guess I could. We’ll see.

Right now, I’m writing on a Dozen story. It doesn’t have a title yet – I hate when stories don’t have a title, there will always be some panicked moments right before it’s time to submit it when I desperately try to come up with something. Anyway, JMS Books is turning 12 in July, so there will be a lot of stories that have something to do with 12, much like we did when JMS Books turned 9. I wrote Nine Stones then 😄

And after that, I’ll tackle Holly’s August story. We’re moving forward, people!

Since the last update post, I’ve written 25 092 words, which brings me up to 111 988 words so far this year. I’m 42.95% done, though we’ll see about that. I think I’ll need more than the 250 000 words I’ve written as my goal to get all the stories done. Time will tell. If I keep the same speed I have now, I’ll have written 250 000 words by November 25 – I think I’ll need them sooner than that LOL

Giveaway | May

May 1, 2022April 29, 2022 ~ Ofelia Gränd ~ Leave a comment

Book Giveaway

Right, peeps, I’m sad to say we’re going dystopic this month – just what we need, right? Sigh. Months ago, I pulled The Maddest of Men and The Lords of Lettuce from Amazon. I meant to put them up again as one book instead of two. Lords starts right where Maddest ends, and when I wrote them, I meant for them to be a series, but I never wrote more books, so it felt silly to have stories up that just as easily could be one. Then I decided I’d do these giveaways that matched Holly’s previous releases and told myself I didn’t need to fix that book until May 1st because that was when Holly had her dystopian story… And here we are! Have I fixed the book? No. Sigh.

This month last year, Holly released The Hunger Gap which is a dystopic story about a society where everyone living outside of the city limits has to provide food for those living in the city. George lives outside the city, and it’s Axel’s job to make sure he pays what he’s due.

In The Maddest of Men, it’s not really that organised, and it’s a paranormal story. The military did some weird experiments, and part of the population ended up with psychic abilities. They’re called metas. It’s Creed’s job to find the metas and take them to facilities. Grayham is a meta, he’s also a drug lord’s right-hand man, and not an easy person to sneak up on.

If you’ve been around for some time, you know the deal. Hop on over to Kingsumo and type in your email address. You’re not subscribing to anything, and make sure you use an address you check since it’s the one I’ll contact you on if you’re the winner.

Join the draw!

thehungergap

After years of the government taking everything he grows, homesteader George Vega has had enough. Food is scarce and people are starving. To provide for himself, he’ll need to break the law. Together with his next-door neighbor June, he sets up a system to hide food from the controller during his weekly collecting visits.

Axel Rowe won’t survive much longer. Every scrap of food he can get his hands on, he gives to his six-year-old daughter, but it isn’t nearly enough. Luck is on his side when he secures a job as a controller. He realizes taking the job will make people dislike him, but he has to eat.

George understands the danger he’s in when his old, lazy controller is replaced with a new, more observant one. Axel suspects there is something George is withholding, but when George takes care of him after nearly collapsing from hunger, Axel is more curious about how he’s able to keep food for himself than he’s interested in reporting him. George knows the risk, but after having looked into Axel’s desperate eyes, he’s compelled to take care of him. But can an outlaw homesteader have a relationship with the man who’s supposed to make sure he follows the law?

23,976 words

Read an excerpt

The Maddest of Men

To prove his loyalty to Cham, Grayham is willing to do anything, and he does. He helps Cham run his empire by finding out the truth by any possible means. It’s not as hard as it may seem, all he has to do is ask the right questions, and his internal polygraph will tell him if someone is lying or not. And when they lie—well he deals with that too. Life as an executioner can get quite lonely, not that Grayham plans on doing anything about it. It would kill him to have to off a lover.

Creed is a retrieving agent on a mission. He is to infiltrate one of Carona’s drug organisations to get to the inquisitor. Rumour states the man with the fiery red curls has supernatural powers; it also says anyone coming close to him disappears. Creed has no idea how he’s going to make it out alive or why his supervisor sent him in without backup. But, when an opening to work as a waiter at one of the drug lord’s parties presents itself Creed sets to work.

In a world where people compensate for the years of bombings and starvation with clinic bought physical perfection a man with crooked teeth and mismatching eyes stands out. Grayham notices the waiter watching him straight away. If he’s there to harm Cham, he’ll deal with it. Creed knows he must get his hands on the inquisitor so when he is invited to the man’s flat he agrees to come even though he knows it might be the last thing he’ll ever do.

30,910 words

Read an excerpt

Read Around the Rainbow | Weird Internet Searches

April 29, 2022April 29, 2022 ~ Ofelia Gränd ~ 24 Comments

ReadAroundTheRainbow

It’s time for the second Read Around the Rainbow post! The theme this time is internet searches. Countless times, I’ve been chatting with author friends, and we’ve all been muttering about how we hope the police won’t ever check our search history, so I know I’m not alone in thinking that LOL Shall we dive in?

Weird Internet Searches

Everyone googles… I bet those who write historical stories google a lot of legit things. I’m so in awe of those authors because I would never have the patience to fact check. And I’ll let you in on a little secret. The reason I often write paranormal is that I make the rules. I create a world; I set the rules, and no one can tell me I’ve got my facts wrong. The main reason is of course that I like it, but I would lie if I said the freedom and the minimal research weren’t part of it.

But, when you have rampant werewolves running around, strewing bodies left and right, you need to know a little about what’s happening to those bodies. Even when werewolves rule the story, some things have to match our world or the reader would feel lost.

Death Some time back, A.L. Lester and I were talking about bodies, so I sent her the link to a blog post I wrote many years ago. I had a quick glance at it now, and I was a little confused because I researched how long someone would survive in an air-tight room, the signs of suffocation and so on, but I don’t mention that in the blog post, so it must’ve been at another occasion.

Anyway, the internet searches… Have you ever looked at body farms?? They bury bodies or parts of bodies and research what happens. Some are left in the open, some a buried, and the scientists dig them up at different stages of death to have a look.

I’m so glad that’s not my job!

The blog post I wrote is a cheat sheet of the different stages of death. It took me to several weird sites around the internet. Several.

Last summer, there was a run-over magpie on the road outside the church in the village. It was a sweltering day and the smell… I walked past and thought to myself that I should memorise it so I could add it to a story if I’ll ever need the stench of a dead magpie – weird writer brain, I know – but it’s impossible to put words on. I hurried along, holding my breath because yuck! Also, where are the foxes when you need them? They hunt my hens, so why can’t they clean up the dead birds? Normally, they do a pretty good job of that, so it must’ve been that there had been too many people around for them to get close.

Anyway, let’s leave death behind us and see what the others have been googling: