The Sparrow's Nest

Twitter. Yuck. Bleah. The place has become a toxic mire. In 2012, I joined Twitter, because I was told it was a good place to promote myself. I gained over 10,000 followers and was heading for 11,000. The rules when I signed up said, "Always be kind and courteous." So I was. In the last few years, there have been droves of people being absolute trolls, jerks, and taking offense at every tiny thing, to the point that everyone had to mince their words. Twitter didn't kick these scumbags off. I began to realize that after every session on Twitter, I came off upset and frustrated. There is a writing community there who lauds itself as extremely supportive. It's filled with self-proclaimed authors who laugh at procrastinating their writing. They have memes stating, "If you're a writer, you're on Twitter right now and thinking you should be writing." Another one was, "If you SAY you're a writer, then you're a writer."

I've been gone for a while, because I went to Amazon Ad School hosted by Bryan Cohen. He taught me how to do ads and scale them, turn out marvelous blurbs and create hooks. I know what a conversion rate is and how to find it. If you heard thunder in the distance back in April, it was my mind exploding. That said, I have made a discovery that I would not have otherwise made. My cover and my blurb needed help. So I may put a hold on "Embers" until I can fix the issues with "Pariahs." I may even change the title. The cover itself is going to a mega professional and I'm fixing the blurb. In fact, I've been doing that all day. The original cover will still be up, with its confusing description, until its makeover is complete. The whole process is freaking me out, but it's got to be done. After that, I feel I'll be standing on a new threshold, and "Pariahs" will definitely be on another level. "Embers" will meet it ther

Last week, I got one of the most awesome e-mails of the year. Alex Schiffer from the Sonic Dawn podcast told me he had read my story "Offering" in The Horror Zine and loved it so much that he wanted to read it in his podcast. Know what this means for you? It means you get to listen to "Offering," equipped with some seriously good sound effects and superb reading. Come on over and listen to it right  here . Episode 12. And while you're at it, listen to the other stories!