#Sample Sunday: "Liar", Prologue

Prologue - Bad Men

Marcus Tiller did not think of himself as a Bad Man. Bad Men were the people who took your money, knowing you would lose. Then, when you had no money left, They would offer to let you borrow, so you could keep playing. Once you lost the borrowed capital, those same Men would tell you They would break your legs next Tuesday... unless you came up with what you owed. Those were Bad Men.

Marcus was just a man in a pinch. His cards were perpetually bad, his mojo gone on the wind. Sometimes, when you were down, you stayed down. Sometimes the world would not let you stand up. But sometimes... an angel watched over your shoulder.

He stared hard at the newspaper in his hands. Did an angel smile, even now, at his disbelief? Surely the words would crawl from the recycled pulp and escape his notice.

Make 100k,
become rich from
very little work.
No selling necessary!

The advertisement was followed by a phone number and a name: Ollie Parsons. He dialed immediately.

Icarus Consulting was squeezed between the Mane Street Salon and the corner convenience store, Reuger's. Though the three stores shared the same brick face, the dark lines on Icarus' sign made it appear to draw back from the street. He checked his watch - seven minutes early for his interview.

The door swung open with a gentle noise of vacuumed air. The atmosphere in the office was charged - an ionized air purifier humming gently against the wall. The AC pumped cool air over his face. He felt energized after a few moments in the room.

Foldable cubicle walls neatly marked the territories of the building. Cut off from the noise of the outside, he could only hear the purring of electronics and the tapping of a keyboard. The typist stopped and after a moment's pause, a head popped up over the wall.

The woman flashed him a brilliant smile, unruly curls waving about her face as she hurried to greet him. Her business suit was tailored very fine and she moved with indisputable grace. Though she was shorter than Marcus, she stared confidently into his eyes.

"May I help you?"

"I'm Marcus. I'm here for an interview." Why did his voice catch like that?

"Marcus... Tiller?"

"That's me."

"Mr. Tiller!" she exclaimed, grabbing his hand and pumping it enthusiastically. "I'm Ollie... Ollie Parsons. We spoke on the phone?"

"Oh, yes, right. I'm going to meet with you? I'm sorry, I didn't realize..."

"No, no," she answered, waving a dismissive hand. "No one does. I'm the only one here. Just little old Ollie all alone in the office." Her teeth flashed again in a smile. "But I'm looking for a very specific candidate, so, really, I have to be the one to take care of it! Right?"

"Er, right."

She ushered him back into the recesses of the office, deeper than the small storefront appeared from the street. They sat at a round table with plush chairs. She folded her hands and looked at him expectantly.

"Did you bring a résumé for me to look over?"

"Right, here it is." He fumbled the paper out of his bag, handing it across the frigid surface of the table. He laid his arms down and the cold seeped through his jacket to chill his bones.

Her eyebrows quirked unexpectedly. "St. Mercy Four Cities Hospital? I see you've worked there for quite some time. I would think a position of that institution would pay a decent salary. Could you tell me the nature of your work?"

"I'm a neonatal attendant. I help care for the newborns in the ward, before the parents are sent home. I'm a babysitter in the best sense of the term - medically and physically."

A small smile played across Ollie's mouth. "Indeed. Please describe the care you give to the infants."

"I watch over them through the night, change and feed them, I write a lot of charts about their condition and take 'Apart Time' shifts."

"What is an 'Apart Time' shift?"

"Each baby needs individual care apart from the other babies. We usually have them from 2-4 hours, in which we give them attention, cuddles, soft things to see and touch, feed and change them. We may also listen to music or read stories so they hear and respond to sound or a human voice."

"Interesting. So you are left alone with someone else's baby for a few hours at a time? Sort of like a nanny?"

"Yes, I suppose you could look at it like that. We also monitor their vitals, though, especially infants in the ICU. I write and interpret a lot of medical jargon."

"Tell me, Mr. Tiller," Ollie said, giving him a hard stare directly into his eyes. "Do you like your job?"

He hesitated. There was not necessarily a reason to lie or be truthful. Should he say what she wanted to hear? He thought it might be best to speak what he felt.

"They are not my children. Of course I care about them, in a professional capacity, but once they leave the hospital, they are out of my life, essentially. I generally won't see them ever again, or recognize them if I do."

"I see. And, could you explain to me why you could possibly need $100,000?"

Images of the Bad Men flashed through his mind and he flinched. His hands clenched on the table. "I owe some people some money," he said, horrified at his own admission. What use hiding it now? "There is no option to not pay... not that I'm trying to get out of it," he amended quickly. "Just, I don't have the money I need."

"Well, we can touch on that particular circumstance later..." she offered. "What I want to know is, how far would you go for the money?" He looked askance at her, but she was smiling without a hint of indiscretion.

I'm 100 Posts Old!

That's like 2 minutes in internet time!

So that's a monumental milestone, I believe :) In honor of this frivolously grand occasion, I think a give-away is in order!

Here's the rules:
In the comments section, in 100 words (or less) explain why YOU deserve to win!

I'll make 3 picks of my favorite reasons.

Comments must be on THIS post.

You do NOT need to be a follower of the blog, but it is greatly appreciated :) (And you will have to come back in June, to see if you won!)

Please spread the word!

Prizes will be gifted in June, through Amazon's gift system.

Submissions end May 31st, 11:59pm.

Here's the prizes:
3 copies (1 to each winner) of any (current) episode of the Icarus Helix series!

Want to start reading it? Ask for "Cheat"!

Just haven't picked up "Liar" yet? Ask for that!

Already read all the available episodes? Yes, I will award "Thief" (when it releases).

Don't want it for yourself but think someone else might like it? You can gift away your copy!

Here's some links so you can have an idea of the prizes:

Cheat

Liar

Coward



So get to crackin' on why YOU think you deserve MY hard work, for Freeeeeeee! Good luck!

Chart, Canyon-Style!

Hey all! I know I said I'd post some fun sales number, etc for you yesterday, but joke was on me! I was home from work with a wicked case of creeping crud. Sleep + Mucinex + water + video games = I feel better today! (Less coughy, too. I stayed home in large part because I didn't want to hack all over my deliveries :P)

The fiance is out of town visiting some friends, which means I have the house all to myself (plus the dog and the cat)! So, I can dance around and sing and generally be the biggest idiot I can be when no one else is watching :) Though, my shenanigans are a little culled by the fact that I'm still hack-y. It also gives me a lot of time to write in peace, though, and THAT is the gift I appreciate most about time alone :)

Just some news, before we get to the fancy-schmancy chart - Twelve Worlds releases this month! Looks like we're just waiting on the Foreward and it will be hitting e-Shelves! "Liar" also drops on the 15th, so if you haven't picked up "Cheat" yet, please do! There is a convenient IH widget in the upper right-hand corner, plus the link I just provided :)

As authors, we have different goals we want to reach with our work. Some want to inspire, some want just to write and have it read, and others want money, among other reasons. I want a comfortable life doing what I enjoy the absolute most. That is writing. I'm in it for personal satisfaction, and money. No reason to lie about it, it's not a shame to want money or a comfortable life (just don't get greedy!) So I write and write and write, tappa tappa tappa and hope I sell better a little each day.

I'm nowhere near self-sufficient for writing, yet. Yet. As I said, a little more each day... and maybe this whole thing can work out for me :) I have two works out, "Shackled" and "Cheat". Will I see additional sales of one from the other? I'm not sure. They are radically different genres/age-groups, etc.

But, without further delay, I'll share my chart with you, inspired by the wonderful Derek J. Canyon. (One of the coolest names EVER.)

I don't have a lot of data yet - my journey only began on February 17th.

I can tell you a few things, however:
1. "Shackled" is holding its own at $2.99. It's not moving truckloads of copies, but it IS getting read. Especially the sample, judging by my Smashwords download count ;)

2. "Cheat" is $.99 and is obviously moving faster. No surprise there, it's so cheap! I'm glad a few people have picked up copies. Hopefully they'll stay interested enough to pick up Episode 2 when it hits in less than a week! And the news will spread...

3. In March, in terms of units, I sold 225% of units in February! Amazing! That's a big number. To continue that momentum, I need to sell 20.25 units in April (let's say that's just 20 for argument's sake!) My April goal is now 20 sales (across all titles). With "Liar" being released, plus "Twelve Worlds" dropping, I think there will be enough buzz to do that! Though, I won't count "Twelve Worlds" in my personal sales count, I will mention it as much as possible :)

So that's my fun chart information. I'm also hoping to do a bundle of short stories sometime this month, but realistically next month. I'd like to write one short a week, time permitting. My goal is to bundle 20k words or 5 stories, whichever comes first. I am also interested in excerpt trading, for anyone who might be considering something similar.

I've had one sale so far this month, so here's to hoping (hopping? HAH) the Easter Bunny brings me the other 19 ;)

Cheers!

Tomorrow, TrAuSt Returns!

So make sure you stop by to see K. Gorman's answers to my insidious questions!

Amphibious questions?

Sequestered questions!

My questions. :)

I'm also having a blast with my editors using Google docs. I wish they had a track changes feature (or at least, I've not seen it yet), so we're making do with comments and highlights for now. But it is VERY bizarre to see someone typing in the same document in which I am ALSO typing. I'm sure they agree, plus they can see me type my story in real time. (It makes it a little nerve-wracking when I'm searching for that perfect word and they are watching my cursor blink along with me, and I know they're WATCHING MEEEEEE) It's an interesting twist to a solitary sport like writing.

Other than that, I've still a case of the Creeping Crud. Hoping to finish THAT up and feel better. Liar drops on April 15th, as well as the Twelve Worlds Anthology sometime this month :)

I'll probably also post some sales updates on Friday, since I haven't gone about doing that in any formal way. So, look forward to that. But first, look forward to K. Gorman, here, tomorrow!

Good time to be me, I'm thinking!

"Cheat" Processing

I suppose the title says it all :)

That will increase my virtual shelf space to 2... let's see what happens!

I have until April 15th to finish "Liar".

Dare I name Episode 3?

I daren't.

Yet.

But it is named.

Sneak Peek for Episode 2...

I know there is a lot of concern that the Icarus Helix series scream "Booooooooooy! Boy Boy Boy Boy!" So, here's a sneak peek at the cover for Episode 2... Any thoughts? :)