My mother gave me money for amusement rides while she rested on a bench, watching me. A sign caught my eye: 1000 year-old Preserved Woman. Because I’m a literal thinker, I believed someone had actually kept a woman alive and in good health for 1000 years. A crowd of people queued up before a pavilion with black curtains, and I followed them. Inside, the line formed a C-shaped curve around an ornate gold bathtub. A black-haired woman sat in the tub, smiling, but she didn’t look so healthy. Black circles surrounded her sunken eyes, and tight leathery skin rode like a blanket over her bones. She was a skeletal thing with hair and eyes. Later on, I learned she was a mummy sitting in a sarcophagus, but at the time I knew nothing about such things.

I shuffled along, rubbing my arms and shivering because her eyes stared at me. Then she raised her arm and pointed. I tore out of the line, screaming. On the boardwalk, I barreled into my mother’s safe arms. She took me to a comedy movie so I’d forget about it.

The movie made me laugh, but I didn’t forget what I saw. Afterwards, when I watched horror movies, I dreamed about skeletons. Movies like The Mummy were tough. When skeletons danced across the screen, I covered my eyes. Twice, I left a theater before the movie was over, admission cost be damned.

My skeleton phobia accompanied me to the doctor’s office when I had my knee surgeries in 1984. Every orthopedic surgeon has an adult-sized skeleton in his or her office. Dr. Porter’s bone man sent chills up my spine. During the wintertime, I covered his skeleton with my coat so I wouldn’t have to look. Sometimes I draped it with a sheet. Although Mike came with me, the skeleton gave me the creeps. On a particularly bad day, I got so upset that I threw my winter coat and sweater over its head and shoulders. The weight of the clothing wobbled it. The skull snapped off, bounced on the floor, and rolled out into the hall.

Upon seeing the skull, Porter stared at me, dumbfounded. “What the hell happened here?” he asked.

I looked over at Mike, who sat beside me, grinning behind his sports magazine, and then back at Porter. “Well, you see, Dr. Porter, it’s like this. I had a little accident.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Not at all,” I said quickly. “That skeleton spooked me, so I tried to cover it. The head broke off when I put my coat on it.”

Porter roared for laughter. He tried to comment and then burst into more gales of laughter. After he composed himself, he asked his nurses to put me in an examination room without a skeleton for the remainder of my care.

My fear of skeletons haunted me when I returned to college. At college, my English instructor Kelly taught in a room used for anatomy classes. A skeleton perched on a stand near the back door. That was awful. In my mind, that thing was watching and waiting for the right moment to creep up on me. What if, when I left class, that thing grabbed me with its bony fingers? So even in ninety-degree weather, I brought a coat and scarf to drape over the bones.

Kelly took me aside and suggested that I journal about my fear of skeletons. That spring, my mother died, and when I went back to college, I studied with Kelly again. She gave me writing assignments, and I found myself leaning toward horror. Many of my stories evolved around skeletons, and some of them are in my anthology, City of Brotherly Death.

Funny thing, I tried reading someone’s blog that addressed writers’ fears. I couldn’t read one word because the author included grotesque illustrations of skeletons. I snapped off the computer straightaway. Guess I’m not over my fear yet. Better write another story.

So what motivated you to write horror? I’d love to hear about your experiences.

But this ship hadn’t left harbor yet. “One Last Favor” is a novella. Because of its length and its army of walking dead, it’s the last story in the City of Brotherly Death anthology. The zombies and revenants are chasing after Tara, the protagonist. All up, a delightfully creepy tale, but with an unsatisfying ending. It’s like someone handed me a red silk gown studded with gemstones, and telling me, “Here’s your present, Barbara. The dress is yours to keep on one condition: you can’t wear it.”

Very frustrating.

Toni and I discussed the ending by email. I asked her what she thought of the ending. She couldn’t give me a direct answer, but she asked me if I was striving for a happy or unhappy ending. She also asked me how I ended it originally. Well, at first I had Tara joining Kraven and the undead, and that ending didn’t wash. Tara was too dedicated a nurse, and most people in their right minds wouldn’t give up their humanity to join a race of flesh-eating monsters. She then suggested that I rework the ending but with Tara and her lover together. This I did and I’ve also gotten feedback from my writers’ group. One of them mentioned Jonathan Maberry’s Write and Sell Short Stories class and his discussion on information dumping.

You may wonder why I’m bringing up information dumping. Information dumping is one of the worst sins a writer can commit, and that’s precisely what I did with the ending I’d sent Toni. I wrote a paragraph summarizing Chris (Tara’s lover) proposing to her, moving her to a new apartment, and then fading into the sunset while she deals with the horrors alone. Capital mistake. A marriage proposal is a life-changing event and not something to be tucked in a laundry list of back-story. Not only that. Chris has become an important figure in Tara’s life, and a gentleman like him wouldn’t let her face those monsters alone.

I also needed to resolve the central conflict, that is, the dead overrunning the state and eating people. I can’t go into details lest I give away the story but I addressed this with my last rewrites.

Once I addressed the central conflict and wrote the marriage proposal scene out, the ending began to make sense. I’ve gone through two rewrites since Toni’s seen the ending, and now I’m letting it sit while I work on other parts of the project. I will want to show it to my writer’s group once more.

Sometimes you need information dumping in your first drafts just to get your story down, but then ditch it in your rewrites. My WOP, Blood Moon Rising, a sequel to Steel Rose, has plenty of information dumps, and I’ve got my work cut out for me once I finish edits on City of Brotherly Death and Steel Rose.

Has information dumping been a struggle for you, and if it has, how do you deal with it? I look forward to hearing about your experiences.

One of my major weaknesses was inconsistency. Example: Laurel is my villain, and her negligence causes a patient’s death. The boss fires her and orders two security officers to walk her to her car. All well and good, but two pages later, when Laurel muttered a plan to kill people and dented a car on her way out of the garage, I failed to mention the guards. “What happened to the guards?” asked my editor in her thought balloon. “Surely, they would be watching Laurel.”

So I revised that scene, and upon further thought, I realized that several chapters later, when the police interview the protagonist Alexis about Laurel, they might mention that Laurel is wanted for fleeing the scene of an accident. So I will revise that section also.

It’s not enough that Laurel got fired. When negligence results in a patient’s death in a hospital, the employer is required to report this to the state license board. I know this full well, being a registered respiratory therapist. Alas, I did not include this in the scene where the boss fires Laurel, and the editor called me on it. I might have called my writers for NTD on similar issues. But like many writers, I find it hard to see my own mistakes.

Another area I struggle with is the need to kill my darlings. No, seriously. I love “cute” expressions, but I had to ditch a lot of them because they confused the reader. Example, I typed, “The essence of Laurel wafted her way.” The editor crossed out “essence of Laurel” and replaced it with “Laurel’s smell.” Toni and other editors have called me on my tendency to use too many metaphors, too. I had Yeron, Alexis’ alien lover, thinking the zombies were “wearing death like an overcoat in February.” Us humans might think that way, but not aliens. Hereafter I will save the “cuteness” for my Mylar balloons.

One thing Maura recommended was a timeline, and this advice ties in with a suggestion that author / agent Marie Lamba gave at the Writer’s Coffeehouse meeting about using a calendar to keep track of seasons and important dates for your protagonist. Hereafter I will consider outlining chapters.

I’d like to hear about your struggles with the writing process? Do you outline, and if you do, how has it worked for you? Do you find it hard to kill your darlings? Any other struggles? I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

I first became aware of JoAnna Senger through her short stories for Barbara Custer’s Night To Dawn magazine. Her writing style easily pulled me into the stories. Recently, I read her first published novel, “Betrothal, Betrayal, And Blood”, and was blown away by her writing technique and storytelling ability.

Tom: JoAnna, thank you for sitting down with me for this interview. First, how about telling your fans a little about yourself, your family, and where you live?

 JoAnna: I still consider myself a Midwestern girl despite decades in California and now Arizona, still root for the Kansas City Chiefs even though I can’t remember the last time I saw them play in a stadium.  My family consisted of a mom, dad, little brother and a half-sister.  Only my brother and I are left. Although I still own my home in California, I have to say that I much prefer living in Arizona in the City of Surprise, a small city around 120,000 in the Phoenix metropolitan area. 

I went to Stephens College, a girls’ college in Columbia, Missouri, where I received a Bachelors in a double major, French and Economics.  I attended graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley and earned a master’s degree in economics.

The world of words and the world of numbers are equally comfortable for me. 

 Tom: From reading your short stories, and now your novel, it is easy to tell you are an experienced writer, how did you get your start, and what is your background?

 JoAnna:  You’re really taking me back.  When I was in the fourth grade, we had a choice about a project, and writing a story was one of the choices.  I wrote and illustrated (Lord help us) my first story:  Roo-lah and the Elephant Herd.  No doubt influenced by my thorough attention to Tarzan comics.  I have worked as a financial analyst, a computer programmer and systems analyst, a compensation specialist, a Human Resources consultant, and recently earned a paralegal certificate.  SO…I’ve written just about everything from technical documentation through legal briefs into fantasy.

Or, maybe it’s all a fantasy.

Tom: What writers influenced you, if any, and whom would you say your writing style most resembles? And are your stories more plot driven or character driven, do you think?

 JoAnna:  When I was seven, my parents gave me my first book that I could read myself: “The Tin Woodman of Oz” for Christmas.  Smitten with the Land of Oz.  I went on to buy all the books in the series, and I still have them.  L. Frank Baum was followed by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (The Yearling), William Faulkner, Ann Rice, Agatha Christie, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King and many others. 

I strive for a style similar to Faulkner’s with respect to the abrupt pace change and like Christie’s for subtlety.  With respect to mysteries, I particularly like those where “who-dun-it” becomes almost beside the point, given the extraordinary discoveries made along the way. 

As for plot versus character, I suppose I would put character first.  It seems to me that the characters act according to their nature, and their actions become the plot.  Yet, I usually think of a broad plot outline before I refine the characters.  Once refined, the characters become real to me and, often, I can’t give them up.

Tom: Tell us about your short stories, and a bit about your recent novel, and which do you prefer writing, novels or short stories? Or do you have a preference either way?

JoAnna:  The novel is most natural to me.  A few of my short stories are standalones, and in the future, I will submit only standalones to magazines such as Night To Dawn and save the continuous stories for a novel.  I think of writing a novel as similar to making a quilt, which I also do.  Sometimes you need to take a break, and the short story or a table runner does the trick.

Tom: You point out that the human monster is worse than any imaginary creature, and I agree. There is a touch of horror in your recent mystery novel involving a human monster. But besides horror and mystery, do you consider writing other genres down the road, and if so, what would they be?

 JoAnna:  I have written a few children’s stories, as yet unpublished, as sometimes wonder what it would be like to write a column for a newspaper.  So many challenges ahead!

 Tom: In your novel, “Betrothal, Betrayal, And Blood”, you have some very interesting characters, in particular the police investigators and a certain female P.I., are these based on anyone you know (lol)? As you know, I’m already a fan of your lady P.I., and hope to see more of her!

 JoAnna:  In truth, I see myself, family, friends, and acquaintances in every character I write.  I’ve heard it said that writers just write about themselves and use different disguises.  A former colleague read a very early version of Betrothal, Betrayal, and Blood and saw me clearly in the lady P.I.  I was so flattered! 

When I have strong feelings about someone, that person will definitely wind up in my writing.

Tom: What do you find to be the most exciting part of the creating process to either novels or short stories?

 JoAnna:  Ideas come over me and demand my attention, nag at me, give me no peace until I start writing.  The flow of words and the images in my mind invite me into another world, the world I am putting down on paper and yes, I often do write my very first drafts in long hand, a chapter at a time.  This first act of writing, the very beginning of a novel, transports me to another world where I am all-powerful and everything will be as I have said.  Then, I discover myself writing something completely different from what I was thinking, and we’re off to the races.  If I’m using my laptop, I don’t even look at the screen and just write what I see in my mind’s eye.

Weird?  You bet.

Tom: Along the same subject as above, what do you find to be the most difficult area in the creating process?

JoAnna:  Making sure that what I see so clearly in my mind’s eye actually becomes words on the page. I have absorbed the characters and events so thoroughly that I sometimes forget that the reader has not. 

Tom: Are you working on anything special right now, perhaps a sequel (I hope) to “Betrothal, Betrayal, And Blood”?

 JoAnna:  I have completed the first draft of the next book in the San Tobino series: Holistic Death.  I can guarantee you that you’ll see some folks you know.

 Tom: Besides family and writing, tell us about any hobbies or community services you may be involved in, and any other activity you would like to mention.

 JoAnna:  I am currently volunteering in the Prosecutor’s Office in the City of Surprise.  The Chief Prosecutor is similar to a District Attorney. 

I love to quilt and embroider, maintaining the traditions of the women in my family.  I am the first to be raised in suburbia rather than on a farm or ranch. 

 Tom: What advice would you give other aspiring authors hoping to break into the writing field today?

 JoAnna:  Remain open to all opportunities.  There are so many how-tos, and each of them worked for somebody.  It’s all so easy once it happens, and so seemingly hopeless before it happens.  The activities I thought would lead somewhere usually didn’t, and then a casual note led me to a bit of success. 

And throughout it all was the writing, the world of the imagination, and that is an incomparable experience.  When you realize that you would rather fail at writing than be successful at anything else, you know you’re in the right place.

 Tom: Where can fans find – and buy – your stories, and do you keep copies on hand for autographs? Please include website and Blogs.

 JoAnna:  My novel and short stories can currently be found in Night To Dawn magazine at www.bloodredshadow.com/ My novel is also available at Amazon and B&N.

 Tom:  And now a question from left field.  If you could, would you choose to live in a parallel universe as one of the people in the places you create?

 JoAnna:  In a heartbeat.  I would go to San Tobino and live forever having safe adventures with Emma, Hermione, Karl and Vito.  Writing about them is the next best thing.

 Tom: JoAnna, thank you very much for consenting to this interview.

 JoAnna:  It’s been a real pleasure. 

At the time, I thought “I gotta” was a cool expression. I gave it no more thought until I came down with the bug.

These past weeks, I’ve been revising “One Last Favor,” a tale earmarked for my anthology, City of Brotherly Death. A small press magazine published “One Last Favor” years ago. The story opens with a horde of revenants, people returning from the dead to harm the living, invading Hartland Clinic. My protagonist Tara survives by trading sex for her life. As the story advances, the dead continue their invasion, destroying entire cities. A registered nurse, Tara continues treating the sick until the monsters who bargained with her years before return for another visit. In the original version, Tara (different name in first version) joins the dead because she hates being alone.

When I evaluated the story for revisions, I thought, how trite. Most people in their right minds wouldn’t give up humanity to join a bunch of flesh-eating monsters. Tara enjoys patient care, respect, a decent income, and a comfortable apartment. Why would she give those things up?

I kept the first half of the story, revised the second, and ditched the original ending. It never occurred to me, until I was deep into my work, that I should have outlined my revision. So I got stuck. I sat before a blank screen trying to come up with a brilliant ending. If not that – you can’t win the jackpot every time – an ending that would satisfy the reader.

The thought crossed my mind to scrap the tale and move on to something else. I couldn’t do that, not with all those zombies threatening my protagonist’s life. One of my friends suggested I put the story on the back burner and go with other activities. I tried doing that, but after a couple of hours, that story called to me, demanding that I finish it. If I told you that only the prospect of sales and a contract motivated me, I’d be lying. Diggity-damn, those zombies found a way into Tara’s house, and what was she going to do about it?

My balloons need helium. Forget that. I gotta find out if Tara will live. Will the cavalry arrive in time to save her? Two editing projects are sitting in my queue. They’ll have to wait. I gotta see where Tara will finish up if she survives. I gotta know who will mourn her if she dies. I gotta find out if she manages to destroy the zombies.

Like a pearl necklace that motivates me to save until I have enough money to buy it, the I Gotta holds the promise of a brilliant ending. Chores be damned, I’ll keep going until I find that ending.

It took three trees to get a workable ending. Raising the stakes in the middle opened things up a bit, especially when Tara finds love. However, the ending is subject to change. The tale has gone to the editor. Toni of The Unbridled Editor has edited most of my tales for City of Brotherly Love. I highly recommend her.

While I wait for the edits, I shall fill my balloons and work on the other Night to Dawn projects. Because when the edits come back, I suspect there will be another go-round with the “I gotta” bug.

Has any of you been bitten by the “I gotta” bug? How did it affect your writing? Were you satisfied with the results?

Coming soon!

A lot of people ask me about eBooks – how do I go from Word to eBook. The first time out, my eBooks were a disaster. So I started reading articles and found at least fifty ways to make an eBook, as the Paul Simon lyric goes. The Smashwords Style Guide has been a great help. At this time I distribute through Smashwords, Kindle, Nook, All Romance EBooks, and through my website. Because each distributor has different requirements, I try to work with a file that I can use with all of them.

Before tackling the eBook or any other project I head to the market and buy myself a Mylar balloon. The eBook isn’t difficult, but it is tedious.

A writer/publisher needs fortification before embarking on a big project.

Let’s start with ISBN’s – you don’t need one for Nook or Kindle. Amazon will provide you an ASIN number and Barnes & Noble will provide a BIN ID number. But you’ll need one to take advantage of Smashwords’ distribution to Apple and other eBook companies. You can’t use the one assigned to your print book. If you use two different distributors for your print book, such as Lulu and CreateSpace, you need separate ISBN’s. Smashwords will provide you an ISBN for free, but then your book will be billed as “published by Smashwords.” If that works for you, fine. I want my books to be billed as “published by NTD Magazine & Books,” so I use a NTD ISBN. You can get your ISBNs through Bowker Identifier Services. Buying in lots of ten or a hundred will bring down the price. I could assign an ISBN to my Kindle and Nook eBooks, but then I’d need a separate ISBN for each distributor. Once you purchase an ISBN, they’re yours, and you can’t give them away to your friends. And once you’ve put your eBook together, you’ll need to register it with Bowker.

First thing you do is, ditch the formatting in the Word file. No page numbers, no page headers, no large spaces between chapters. You could type in your table of contents, listing each story or title of the chapter, but you can’t assign a page number. Why? Because every reader gives you the option of making the print larger or smaller, so a page number would be meaningless. And if you have any wide spaces between the chapters, they will become three times as large and look gross in your eBook—and piss off your readers.

Smashwords Style Guide recommends a nuclear method of ditching the formatting. If you changed formats and styles on your document, it may cause such problems as uneven print size in your eBook. So I copy everything on my Word file by hitting “select all,” and “copy.” Then I open up a Notepad, and hit “paste.” This will erase all the formatting. I then copy everything on my notepad file onto a new Word file (I try to label it with the book title and “eBook.” Now I’m ready to format carefully.

On the title page, I recommend Times New Roman or Garamond, and no font larger than 16. So I make my title and author size 16 and bold it. The rest of the masthead might be size 14. Each chapter number might be size 14 or 12, bold. The text will be size 12.

As far as paragraph formatting, you can indent, but the indents should be smaller than they would be in a print book. Maybe about 0.3. But they should be consistent – indent every paragraph. If you don’t indent, then you should have a 6 point leading between paragraphs, and maybe 18 point between scene breaks, and extra leading between chapters. I chose not to indent and have the extra leading. I use a left alignment for the file, except on the title page, where I use center alignment. Why left alignment and not justified? Because when the reader adjusts the print size, justified will give him gaping spaces between the words.

Kindle and Nook require HTML files, and these get converted to eBooks compatible with their readers. So I keep my document open and hit “save as.” Word gives you many options for types when you save your file. Save it as “Web page, filtered.” Not “web page.” It has to say “web page, filtered.” Your eBook will look much better for it.

For your Nook go to www.pubit.com. For the Kindle, you want https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin. The instructions for both companies are pretty user-friendly.

As for the Word file that I formatted for the eBook, I paste in the front cover up top above the title page. I then save it as a PDF. Word 2007 and 2010 give you the option of saving your file as a PDF. You’ll need your PDF to convert it into the nice eBook formats. Epub and MOBI are popular eBook formats. http://www.epub2go.com does a decent job of converting your PDF to Epub. For MOBI, PDB, and LIT, I use  http://ebook.online-convert.com.

I heard that http://calibre-ebook.com is another good site to format eBooks. That left me darned curious about how this process works, so I’ve just downloaded Calibre. Whether it’s user-friendly remains to be seen. I will share my experiences with it in a future blog.

After all of that is done, I make a few changes in the Word file, referring to the Style Guide, to ready it for Smashwords.

There’s no more formatting involved to upload my books to All Romance EBooks. Basically, the challenge is to get my covers two different sizes (two more files) to meet ARE’s requirements and upload all the mediums of my eBook.

The one thing I haven’t mastered is getting art into the books. Most of my NTD books don’t have interior art, but the magazine does. I’ve got Walter Mitty dreams of getting NTD Magazine on Kindle.

Have you used Calibre? Have you worked with Smashwords?  I look forward to hearing about your experiences.

I'd love to see this magazine on Kindle and the Nook.

Illustrated by Teresa Tunaley

I first became aware of Teresa Tunaley’s illustrations in Barbara Custer’s Night To Dawn magazine a few years back. In fact, I was so taken with Teresa’s art I went to her website and looked at the many pages of fine illustrations she had already done for book covers and magazines. It was no surprise to see the many Awards she has received for her art and website design. When it came time for a new edition of “Jur: A Story of Pre Dawn Earth,” I naturally thought of her for the cover. The previous three editions of my book sported some pretty horrible covers, I assure you. But I felt Teresa had the right technique to capture the scene I wanted. She did!  Let me now introduce you to a very fine lady who has been fun to work with on several projects so far.

Tom: Teresa, to begin, please tell the readers a little about yourself, where you are from, and where you are now living.

Teresa: Many moons ago, I was born in the United Kingdom in a small village called Wigston, in Leicestershire.  In my mid 20’s I had the opportunity to holiday in Tenerife, one of seven small islands off the West coast of Africa (governed by Spain).  I fell in love with the tranquil way of life and found myself spending every summer here…so, after dozens of holidays, I decided in 2002 to move and make it permanent.  So much easier having your Mum, sister and cousins already out here!  They had made the decision to move much earlier than I had.

Tom: How did you become involved in art creations, and has this always been your life’s dream?

Teresa:  I recall painting quite early before my teens, but didn’t take it up as a hobby until much later.  I worked initially in Watercolors and felt quite proud as I sold a few of my paintings to co-workers.  Monet’s works adorned my lounge walls at this time.

I could spend hours in Art Museums; I was fascinated by art especially large pieces painted by the Masters.  The detail even in the background was stunning, fine lace, jewellery and clothing painted so well, every fold was real to me.

I experimented in Oils, Acrylics and left behind watercolors.  Oils became my favorite as it allowed me more time to add and blend.

Tom: Were there any inspirations or artistic influences early on, or later in life. I’m sure you have grown in your fantastic talent over the years. Did you attend art schools, or are you self-taught?

Teresa: No one person inspired me to paint…it was the creation of something new, something entirely familiar or even alien.  To put paint to paper meant you could imagine a scene, in any time, another reality or planet…put yourself and the onlooker right there.  There are no boundaries.

Tom: I’m sure that art is a big part of your life, but do you have other interests? Family and associates, or hobbies that you would like to talk about?

Teresa: Art is a big part of my life because I need to do it.  I have images going around in my head all the time and need to get this on paper…some of my best paintings have been conjured up late at night between wake and sleep and I must say, most of these would be best placed in the Horror Genre lol.

Besides art, I do the normal day to day things around the house…cook, sew and clean.  I don’t dislike any of this but sometime find it difficult to pull myself away from my art.  I could sit at my easel at 9.00am just to touch up one section or fine tune another…before I know it literally hours have gone by.

Weekends I try to spend with friends and family.  My partner Stefano is Italian and paints as much as I do but only in Acrylic.  The lounge is mainly our studio with easels for each of us.  There are canvasses leaning everywhere, the walls are strewn with art.  We sit in the early evening talking about our work and commenting on each others. (Gently, as we are both sensitive to negativity) each to their own we say…we have differing styles but lovely all the same.

Tom: I noticed several Preditors & Editors Awards, as well as other awards listed on your website. Please tell us about them, and how they came about.

Teresa: I had forgotten about these until you mentioned them as they are quite a few years ago… Some have been won for my work appearing in certain publications. Others for the art website that I have www.artstopper.com

My most recent award was July last year here in Tenerife.  I entered a competition along with hundreds of other artists from all over the world.  I produced a lady on a large 1.5 m sq canvas. I painted the contours of her body in various colors which represented the heat source.

Well, I was both surprised and overwhelmed to win the Public Vote award. The certificate hangs in my office, its very special…being recognized as an actual Artist makes me feel special.

Tom: What do you find is the most enjoyable aspect of creating art/covers?

Teresa: The fact that others can enjoy my work as much as me gives me the inspiration to create on a daily basis.

Tom: Would you say there is anything you find difficult with creating art, or working with authors/publishers?

Teresa:  I can’t really say that I have worked with any difficult authors or publishers.  I have worked with the same people time and time again…after 10 yrs of working with dozens of publishers, I have made many friends.  Perhaps, I have found it easy…I try to paint a cover or design that the Author/Publisher actually wants, not what I want.  I haven’t written the book, the author has.  They want a cover that depicts a scene and I create it.

There are times I get a full script to read but there are also times I only get notes from authors, one or two phrases to explain their needs.  Either way, I’m neither, happy or done, until the client is happy!

Tom: Is there any advice you would like to give aspiring artists and creators who are just starting out, or on their way up?

Teresa: My advice would be…never lose your own style, although you may have to tweak and vary it a little for particular assignments.  Don’t get put off by rejections because they will come thick and fast (they never stop)…It’s only the acceptances that count and when you get one…put your heart into getting it right!

Tom: Are you working on anything special at the moment? And most important, where can viewers find your website, and contact information?

Teresa: I have just completed ‘Eden’s Planet’ for you Tom, which is always a pleasure.  I have constant assignments from SamDotsPublishing. I am currently creating a piece that features strange planets and aliens for Tyree Campbell, scheduled to appear in the next Drabble issue.

I enjoy receiving copies of each and every book or magazine I illustrate. Especially as I live on a Spanish island with little or no reading matter available in English.  I have a huge collection over the years and love to go to my book shelf and pick one up at random, read through the wonderful stories that take me to places afar.

Tom: Teresa, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Your art has really impressed me, and I know it will others. I love the work you’ve done for my books, and I look forward to working with you again in the future.

Teresa: Tom thank you.  I am proud to have been a part of your venture…I still get a buzz when a piece is complete, the author loves it and its ready for print even after creating art for the last 30 years.

Night to Dawn's upcoming release

Recently, CS did away with their Pro plan. They now offer you the option of extended distribution for $25.00. The royalties for Amazon based books are far better – about $5.00 per book and that’s without charging exorbitant fees for your books. CS charges a reasonable price for contributor copies too. Contributor copies cost more through Lulu. With retail sales, I’d get a dollar something per book, and when you’re splitting royalties between two or three people, it comes out to pennies per book. Caveat: you do not get discounts by ordering extra contributor copies through CS. Lulu will discount the contributor copy if you order five or more books, plus they offer frequent specials.

Also, with CS, your book will go up on Amazon straight away, whereas you have to wait six to eight weeks (longer if there is a backup) for Lulu distribution. Promotion and book releases won’t do any good if your book isn’t showing on Amazon and other retailers. Another caveat: CS will format any eBook version for you but there is a hefty charge. I format NTD eBooks myself and get the ISBN from Bowker.

Does this mean I will publish all future NTD material through CS and kick Lulu to the curb? Absolutely not. Lulu does a superior job on the magazine. NTD magazine comes in 88 pages, which results in a narrow spine. Lulu allows you to resize the print so you can read the label off the spine. CS does not allow any print on the NTD spine because in their opinion, the spine is too narrow. Another issue: when I print reviews, I must list three retailers that carry the respective book. I did that with NTD 20, and the magazine is available on Amazon. I don’t mind listing retailers but putting NTD out there with a bare spine gives me the creeps. Especially with the upcoming issue, as I’ve gotten a lot of compliments on NTD 21’s cover. Kudos goes to Marge Simon and Teresa Tunaley for their brilliant artwork.  

The magazine has a lot of illustrations, and I’ve had limited success with putting illustrations in the eBooks. Smashwords does not recommend illustrations at all, and most eBooks look best if you stick to B&W illustrations and one font. NTD has about three different fonts, so I offer the eBook version in PDF format. Lulu carries the magazines and the other NTD books in eBook format for no charge. I just ordered the print run for NTD 21 and got a generous discount from Lulu.  

Some overseas authors prefer Lulu because Lulu will market your book to other countries besides theUSA, where said authors will realize their best sales.  CS does not have a global distribution plan.

This past week, I released two books. Tales of Masks & Mayhem V4, edited by Ginger Johnson and Night to Dawn 21.  One through CreateSpace and the other through Lulu. Which company is better? For magazines, Lulu; for paperbacks, CreateSpace. It all depends on your market and publication.  

The time is coming for me to step up to the plate: either submit my next novel or publish it through Night to Dawn. A lot more authors are turning to independent publishing, but I’m hearing complaints about the spotty editing found in self-published books. The books on the table are Steel Rose, the novel following Dark Side of the Moon, and Dead Folks Stalking, a short story collection. The child in me insists that since I edit Night to Dawn material, I should be able to edit these books myself, right?

The adult in me hollers, “Wrong!”

After looking at comments workshop leaders made about so-called “ready” material, I decided to send Steel Rose off to an editor. This will include content editing. Editing any book is a big job, and takes time, so I proceeded with work on a sequel and the short stories.

I went through the short stories that had seen publication in small press magazines. There’s a lot to be said for putting one’s work aside and then reviewing it weeks later. When I looked at the tales with a fresh pair of eyes, I saw areas that needed rewriting. Perhaps a paragraph had too much tell and not enough show. So I did some rewriting and sent these off to an editor for polishing.

Good thing I did. The content in these stories was addressed by the editors who published them, but there were quite a few typos. Had I sent these tales to press, the errors would make them look less than professional. Mind you, typos make it to print in a lot of books. Two or three errors in a book may not harm sales, but two or three typos on a page will. “Sunset Kill,” a tale featuring dead nursing home residents who resurrect and feed on their caregivers, had that many on some of the pages. Not any more.

So why couldn’t I see my own mistakes? I think because I consider my stories like family members, and I’m too close to them to edit them effectively. At most hospitals, policy dictates that health care workers not treat family members because they’re too close to their situation. Perhaps the same policy should apply to writers and editors with their own stories.

 A few weeks ago, Julia Jansen offered me the pleasure of reading Dark Moon Presents Zombies. I can’t resist zombie tales any more than I can balloons, and will always make time to read one no matter how many other projects I have cooking. All up, this one was a real treat for zombie aficionados like me. A short story collection, it provides quick reads you can enjoy at the doctor’s office or on a train. Each author offers a unique twist, and I feel compelled to comment on all the stories.

Shannon Farrell tells “Bouvier des Mort” from a dog’s point of view. The dog stands by his ailing mistress and never leaves her, even when she dies and starts to decay. After she reanimates as a zombie, her dog follows her everywhere she goes. When she feeds on people, the dog feeds too. This one sent chills up my spine.

AE Stueve’s “I, Zombie” portrays a meeting between “reformed” zombies – people who have taken an injection to eradicate the virus from their bodies. This makes an interesting premise, and as I read, I kept wondering if someone would attack Dr. Yvonne, the pompous speaker who talks down to the “cured” zombies.

“Thicker Than Law” kept me turning the pages. Author John McMullen brings us into the horrific action from the first page with the threat of the “billies.” ProtagElizabethdiscovers her brother is one of them. Worse, her parents have turned their home into a slaughterhouse, with her as an intended meal. Brrrrrr!

Dennis McDonald’s “Black Friday” gives shopping after Thanksgiving a horrific meaning after multiple people die in a train wreck. Protags Cameron and Scott start the evening dreading a write-up from their boss. Their boss wants everyone ready for the hordes of customers, but the unspeakable greets the salespeople when the store finally opens. Definitely a page-turner.

GK Hayes’ tells “Papa Doc’s Zombie” in the first person by an elderly grandmother who assures her grandchild that her voodoo will protect them from zombies. It left me with a nostalgic feeling as I read about the grandmother’s youth and how she stood up to a voodoo priest. A worthy read.

Kate Putnam’s “The Five Rules” is the diary of Vodoun living in a world overrun by zombies. He talks about the everyday hardships of getting supplies, and that made me care about him as a character. Aside the horrors of becoming a Blue Plate Special for the zombie, I got a sense of Voduon’s depression and loneliness. 

CW LaSart’s “All The Rage” is another tale that takes us into the everyday hardships of a group trying to survive a post-zombie apocalypse. Food is scarce, malnutrition has set in, and as for medical care…well there isn’t any, unless you can get your hands on antibiotics. LaSart turns up the heat by introducing a pregnant character, raising a new problem – how can someone survive with a newborn in tow? Another member of the group, Zak, bullies the other members. His insanity and strength makes him more dangerous than the zombies.

“Gingerbread Man” is a nickname for an ex-football player whose would-be career was cut short by an accident that severed his spinal cord. Now a quadriplegic, Andre “Gingerbread” is trying to escape in his motorized wheelchair, with a zombie in pursuit. Will he make it? Author Barrett Shumaker teases the reader with the zombie at first touching, then grabbing, and the suspense builds. 

“Legio Mortuus” features zombies of the early Roman times. Severus, the prefect, makes an effective fighter with his sword, except the enemies he fights are all dead – walking dead. These men are hungry as they show when they fall on a lone person. Beggar and noble alike become fodder for these monsters. Jason Shayer demonstrates great characterization skills, making me hope that Severus escapes. Does he? That’s for you, gentle reader, to find out.

The protag in “Death on the Newsfeed” is addicted to Facebook and his laptop, so engrossed in reading the “shares,” that he ignores the destruction going on around him. CD Carter paints him as a cyber-stalker who cares only about his Facebook characters. I found Kevin somewhat pathetic – he doesn’t lift a finger to get himself out of danger. When the zombies outside break into his home, he ignores them too….

“Sound Set Off” is one of my favorites – David AET takes me into the action from the first sentence. His protag has the same first name, and he is up against it, locked in his house, little food, no water, and a hoard of zombies breaking through his windows. I followed him as he thought of ways to distract them so he could escape, even get away. He makes a great hero, and I kept rooting for him to escape.

“I am a Candle” is told from a zombie’s point a view. This was the first time I read a zombie tale like this, and Roberta Kowald crafted hers well. The narrator portrays herself as lonely, not one of the popular girls, and is dismayed that she can walk the earth. Her so-called friends hold a rite to bring her back to life, but other not-so-friendly zombies come back too. This zombie can think, and I found myself almost hoping she can “bite back” the people laughing at her. 

Kendra Lisum’s “Broken Down Lives” portrays two young children who are seriously hurt…appearing dead, but they come around. As they get older, they start feeding on dead animals and remain four and six forever. Kathryn the mother is newly widowed and struggling to make ends meet, and she deals with the behavior by pretending this would go away. Denial only anesthetizes so long, and Kathryn deals with the budding horror in her own way.

Rebecca Snow’s “Step Right Up” features two monsters – the flesh-eating zombies and the greedy salesman who uses high pressure tactics to get people to buy his “zombie repellent.” As I read through the story, the salesman chilled me to the bones more than the zombies did. By far.

Stan Swanson’s “Hail to the Chief,” the last tale in the collection, makes a great political satire. Zombies invade the White House, and I can imagine having a zombie in the Presidential chair. Not too much blood and guts here, and drugs keep the zombies peaceful, but the satire makes this tale a delightful read. As an aside, I think we already have zombies in the White House.