Things I Am Irrationally Afraid Of

I was talking the other day to a close friend and telling her that I like to face my fears. I moved to the other side of the world to be with the Viking even though it scared me. I’ve enquired about donating blood because I’m afraid of needles (but I can’t give because my partner is English – he can’t donate in Australia either). I write about the most horrific things I can think about because it scares me, and in doing so I hope it horrifies and frightens my readers.

But there are a few things I am still irrationally afraid of and I can’t do anything about it.

One of them is spiders. I’m scared of them. Always have been. A few years ago I was the only person in my house late at night and a huntsman appeared on the wall. I talked myself into attempting to move it, got the broom and everything, preparing to take it outside; but in the end it moved about an inch and I nearly screamed. Then I tried to take a photo so I could tell my friends on Facebook how brave I was… and failed at that as well. I even tried to convince myself that she wasn’t ugly but her many eyes were in fact beautiful… I failed at that as well. In the end she ran into my room and I had to wait until my brother came home before I could go to bed.

I’m a wimp when it comes to insects as well. I don’t like wasps or millipedes or cockroaches. I hate bees and grasshoppers. I even avoid dislike moths. Just about the only insect I can stand is the butterfly, but even then I don’t want them touching me.

So that’s one irrational fear I have. I’d add a photo but I don’t even like looking at pictures of insects. I’ve thought about facing my fear of spiders by doing that ‘stick your hand into a tank full of spiders thing’ but I think I might faint if I did that.

I do have a second one. I’m not even sure where it started. I think it started one Halloween (which isn’t really celebrated in Australia) when I was quite young, about eight or nine, and someone told me that if you said ‘Candyman’ three times into a mirror in a dark room, a man akin to Freddie Krueger would appear over your shoulder. Or maybe try to kill you. That idea is possibly based on a film, possibly called ‘Candyman.’ I wouldn’t know because I don’t watch horror films.

I know I scared myself when I had glow in the dark braces at age fourteen and smiled at myself in a dark mirror. All I saw was a skull. I didn’t recognise myself.

I’ve been afraid of dark mirrors ever since. At night time, if I need to go into the bathroom I will always either turn on the light, or avoid looking at the mirror. This was particularly strange when we lived in the UK and had a big wardrobe with full-length mirrors on it.

I don’t know what’s going to happen if I glimpse myself in a dark mirror. Maybe I won’t recognise myself and I’ll scare myself. I seem to be good at doing that.

Do you have any irrational fears?

Do you have fears that you’ve faced and overcome?

Australia

Hi kittens.

Well it’s been a tumultuous month of finding my feet back in Australia. I have barely had time to catch my breath let alone write anything. My life has been full of catching up with friends I haven’t seen in two years, trying to find full-time work whilst working part-time, doing touristy things with the Viking and spending time with family.

I’ve had a glance at some of my stats, and to my surprise I found that I missed something in January. In the haste of packing the house and leaving the United Kingdom, I missed the fact that for a brief time, The Edge of Darkness made it into the top 100 bestseller’s chart in iTunes for Australian science fiction. So yay!

 

I’ve also had a look at my stats from when Storm Front was available for free on Kindle on KDP Select in February. There were hundreds of downloads, which resulted in new ratings on Goodreads and Amazon and new fans for the Facebook fan page. So thank you!

Surprise Unveiled!

There are two things I’m announcing today.

The first is that Storm Front is now available for FREE on Amazon.com for five days only. This is your chance to see what all the fuss is about Tina for. Storm Front is part of the Kindle lending library, so if you’ve got a .com account, don’t miss out!

The second is that something amazing happened to me. I’m just a little self-published author with only two books out, but a few weeks ago a mysterious person by the name of Cameo Anderson approached me and asked if she could paint one of my characters for me. After getting over my initial shock that my little stories had inspired someone’s artwork, Cameo and I agreed that she would paint Tina Storm, the very teenage electro-manipulative demon hunter from the short story collection Storm Front mentioned above, which was also a (very brief) Amazon.co.uk bestseller!

Here’s the result:

"Tina Storm" by Cameo Anderson

Isn’t she gorgeous?!

I don’t know a lot about art (words are more my thing) but I absolutely love the colour palette, the wistful expression on her face and the lightning outside. She’s absolutely beautiful. I’m so touched by the effort and clear love Cameo has put into this piece of art.

And I’m still pinching myself that my words can inspire someone like this.

And it’s perfect timing as well. Tina’s full-length novel, The Oncoming Storm, will be published this year. I’ve fallen behind on my self-imposed schedule because of the whole let’s-move-to-a-different-continent thing.

Please show your support by visiting Cameo’s websites:

http://www.wytheria.com/Cameo/ – Illustration portfolio
http://www.wytheria.com/sporepalace/ – writer’s blog/website

What I Learned About Taste From Serial Publishing

I published Storm Front as five separate short stories and a separate novella on Smashwords. The Storm Front short stories were free, so there’s no reason not to ‘buy’ them – except for personal taste. The stories can be distilled down to the basic following: the introduction story, the school play, the weird one that’s more like a character study, the vampire, and the serial killer.

I’ve been monitoring the ‘sales’ of these short stories over several different outlets (Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Diesel, Kobo etc) and some things stand out over and over again.

  • The Calm Before The Storm is the most popular at most outlets. It was the first one published, so that could explain why – it’s had more exposure than the later stories. It’s also the only story not from Tina’s point of view.
  • Take The Stage By Storm is the least popular – which is interesting, because it’s the one that builds off my personal experiences most closely. It’s my most obvious ‘write what you know’ because I was heavily involved in theatre when I was Tina’s age.
  • A Storm is Brewing is the second least popular – I guess people aren’t as intrigued by the Noah romance and the mystery of the story’s demon as they are by…
  • Lost in the Storm, which has that ultra important keyword ‘vampire’ in the description (we all know vampires are still incredibly popular). This story and Weather the Storm tussle it out for second spot after The Calm Before The Storm in most outlets, but sometimes they have more downloads than the first story. They’re by far the most popular stories overall, and I think that has something to do with vampires and serial killers appealing more than school plays and the mysterious third story demon.
  • Lost in the Storm and Weather the Storm are also my longest short stories clocking in at 3200 and 4300 words respectively. That could also have something to do with the download rates. Maybe people think they are getting more ‘value’ if they download a longer story – although each story is technically ultra-short because they fall under 5K, and they’re all free downloads in those outlets.