Ride ‘Em Tough – New Free Short Story

Another new short story has been added to the Downloads page.

Ride ‘Em Tough is a story I did as part of the short story course I took years ago. It’s been sitting on my hard drive for years, so I decided to dust it off, polish it up, add a little to it, and here it is!

A little rodeo action!

 

 

 

Free Short Story Added!

Just added Thanks to Eustace to my downloadables. It’s a free short story I did for one of my lessons back in the day. Got high marks for it then, and I’ve rewritten it to expand it. It’s also being offered free on a bunch of online stores, or will be once it’s uploaded to them all. That will probably happen sometime next week.

In the meantime, I’ve posted it to Amazon through KDP. There I had to charge .99 for it as Amazon doesn’t let you do free unless you enroll in their Kindle Select program. And I have no desire to be exclusive to that. I want to offer my stuff in as many places as I can find to do it. Once the other books show up in the other stores, I’ll try to get Amazon to offer it free there as well.

Just a reminder that I have re-edited and rewritten my novels. The stories are much improved. Please do check them out.

 

Some rambling thoughts on projects, ideas and . . .

Sometimes I wish I were twins or triplets so that I could work on more than one book at a time.  I have more ideas than I’ll ever be able to write in my lifetime. Of course, if I could write them in a day or a week, I might be able to do it.

But–I don’t write little books. And I don’t follow a simple plot. I have to have a cast of a dozen or more. I can’t plan a story around a cast of two or three. Maybe a half dozen, but that’s stretching it. I need to people my stories with people–lots of ’em.

Which is why I finally chose to self publish my books. I didn’t want to be tied down to someone else’s formula for how stories should be written for a particular genre. I want to write what I want to write. How I want to write it.

Now,  having said that, I have written stories from prompts given to me by the instructors of courses I’ve taken or from those at workshops I’ve attended. I whined about some of them for a few days before starting them. At workshops, I obsessed for a few minutes since I hadn’t time to obsess longer than that there. But with one of my writing courses, I procrastinated for a month or more before giving in and doing the assignment. I have it posted at AuthorsDen and I’m going to update it and offer it for free at other online sites. It turned out better than I expected and my instructor was impressed. Always gratifying!

I guess the thing is to just free the mind up and let it think it wants to write this story as much as it would one that just comes to me on its own. Pretend I thought of it.

Ideas are everywhere. I guess I feel I don’t need to be overwhelmed with more from another source. I am probably wrong. Maybe a better idea is in that other source. I ought to be more open minded. I’ll work on it.

This is rather a rambling post, but then it is 1 am. I’m going to end this here and take it up again later.

Good night all! Sweet dreams!

My books are now available . . .

At These Online Retailers:

Amazon.com

All For The Love Of Thomi

The Resurrection Of Joleigh-Anna Kelmann

Barnes & Noble

All For The Love Of Thomi

The Resurrection Of Joleigh-Anna Kelmann

Kobo

All For The Love Of Thomi

The Resurrection Of Joleigh-Anna Kelmann

iBooks

All For The Love Of Thomi

The Resurrection Of Joleigh-Anna Kelmann

Inktera

All For The Love Of Thomi

The Resurrection Of Joleigh-Anna Kelmann

24Symbols

All For The Love Of Thomi

The Resurrection Of Joleigh-Anna Kelmann

Scribd

All For The Love Of Thomi

The Resurrection Of Joleigh-Anna Kelmann

Tolino Network of Distributors

Tolino is a German-based network that distributes ebooks to various other distributors in Germany and Europe. Right now there are 18 outlets within this network with 15 carrying DreamWynd titles. Below is the list of those distributors.

Weltbild.de

Books by Neenah Davis-Wilson

Weltbild.at

Books by Neenah Davis-Wilson

Weltbild.ch – Swiss Francs

Books by Neenah Davis-Wilson

Hugendubel.de

Books by Neenah Davis-Wilson

Thalia.de

Books by Neenah Davis-Wilson

Thalia.at

Books by Neenah Davis-Wilson

Thalia.ch – Swiss Francs

Books by Neenah Davis-Wilson

Bucher.de

All For The Love Of Thomi

The Resurrection Of Joleigh-Anna Kelmann

Dalton’s Last Stand

Buch.de

Books by Neenah Davis-Wilson

Ebook.de

Books by Neenah Davis-Wilson

Bol.de

Books by Neenah Davis-Wilson

Mayersche.de

Books by Neenah Davis-Wilson

Osiander.de

All For The Love Of Thomi

The Resurrection Of Joleigh-Anna Kelmann

Book.ch – Swiss Francs

Books by Neenah Davis-Wilson

Libris.nl – Dutch translations only

All For The Love Of Thomi

The Resurrection Of Joleigh-Anna Kelmann

 

Getting Published . . .

Back when I was was a young writer, I dreamed of being a published author. Didn’t realize that I already was.

My first “published” work was a red construction paper covered anthology of all I’d written in the fifth grade–which I proudly presented to my teacher, Mrs. Miller.

When I was fourteen, I tried to get my western Captive Tomboy published. An aunt gave me the name and address of a publisher that turned out to be a vanity publisher. For $1776 they would happily do so.

I was crushed. Just devastated!

Really, the piece wasn’t ready for publication anyway. Needed edits and to be typed up. But that outfit didn’t seem to care. They’d’ve worked from my handwritten copy. Now the cost of vanity publishing is much, much higher.

Self-publishing is different. But there are costs. Depending on the route you go, it can be done on a shoestring or it can cost thousands. I’m doing it on that shoestring. But I digress . . .

The next published piece showed up in True Experience. Gotta laugh about that–doubt many of those stories were actually true. Mine sure wasn’t! I netted $125 for the story about a young (19) woman, minding her own business in a store, is pointed out by a lost child as her mother. Had fun with that one. Some improbable things occur which the editor

Some improbable things occurred in the tale which the editor requested to be changed–wasn’t a command, just a suggestion. I might have been offered more for the story had I wanted to edit it. But I decided that I liked it and told them to publish as is. Today, I would probably do the edits.

Had an article I’d submitted to Horse, Of Course accepted. But by the time it was supposed to come out, the magazine folded. Was supposed to get $150.

Vermont Ink published a short story I’d done for a lesson in short fiction for NRI–not to be confused with NRA . . . I’m thinking of revamping that story into a novel. For the short version, I got $25.

Then in 2011, I worked with another author to put out a novel about a woman who worked for the government on secret formulas for biochemical warfare. I’d never done a novel like this before and likely never would have on my own. The story was my partner’s and I wrote it from the notes and outline he had for it. It came out right around the time of 9-11 . . . and I had a stroke of conscience for writing it. Wasn’t a thing like what happened then, but–I found I couldn’t promote it. Didn’t know how to in the first place, but–I’d lost the will at that point.

The only money I made from that was from any copies I sold myself. We got one royalty check that I know of. $250. Which went to my partner because he footed all the expense of the so-called edits and whatnot. I kicked in a bit, but he was able to afford it while I wasn’t. The edits were unreal. So badly done, that I couldn’t believe the publisher thought them better than what I’d written in the first place!

The next novel was written for my youngest son’s fifth-grade class. Another teacher who was inspiring his students to write! How could I not agree to come read my stuff to them and help encourage them? Or refuse their request that I write a story with all of them in it?

Mr. Smith thought they were asking for a short story, but I knew better. Took me all year to write that novel. A time travel in which I did managed to mention each and every kid in that classroom and their teacher too. I never got to read it to them since it did take that long to write. So I bought a boatload of paper and some more ink, and I printed out twenty-six copies of the story and passed them around to the kids a day or so before classes ended that summer. Somewhere I still have all the letters the kids wrote me. There might have been one from Mr. Smith himself–Yes, I think there was. I’ll have to hunt those up.

Those copies had no covers of any kind. I have seen some of the kids since, all grown up now. Some with kids of their own. They still remember me and the story. Some still have the story. They all want me to publish it for real and keep their names in it. Warms a writer’s heart to hear all this!

That takes me to the present. Where I’ve dropped the idea of becoming traditionally published. My experience with being “traditionally” published soured me on that idea. Of course, the publisher my partner elected to go with was a small press publisher who was in it for the money he made selling edits and extras of the sort. Not saying we didn’t need those, but they weren’t professionally done. For the price my partner paid–several thousand dollars–a high school English major would’ve done far better!

I stopped poo-pooing ebooks and self-publishing and stopped sending my work out to agents and publishers. Started learning more about it and the business end of the business and in 2010, I hopped aboard the Kindle platform. That was the easy part.

The harder part for me to wrap my head around is the promotion and the marketing. I don’t toot my own horn very loudly. I’m told I should. So, I’m going to learn to set my humbleness aside for this and blow it vigorously.

Maybe . . .

All right, I’ll try!

This month I’ve widened out from Amazon and signed up with a site that works with other online retailers, including iBooks, Nook, Barnes and Noble, and others.

I also learned that it’s not a vanity to form your own publishing company to publish your books from. It’s a part of doing business in the book world. Some people diss others for doing it, saying it’s not necessary and it’s pure vanity–but I know of a good many authors who’ve gone this route and are doing well. I’ve stopped letting the naysayers mess up my head, and I proudly attached my own ISBNs to my novels this month. I do wish those all important numbers weren’t so stinking expensive–but it’s another part of doing business in this business, so I’ll suck it up and get another block of ’em.

Now I have to learn the promotion part of this business. I have mentors, so hopefully they can impart their wisdom to me in a way I can wrap my sometimes empty head around it. Time will tell. I just pray it won’t be too much time!

In the meantime, this site will likely undergo a few changes as I search for my brand; my special look. What will help make me a published author making a living off the work she loves!

 

 

New host . . . new site . . .

So I decided to move all my sites to a new host. And that’s how I learned my old account had been hacked. I had to purge everything and start over. Couldn’t save anything as I couldn’t access the sites.

Some things I have on the laptop, so it shouldn’t be too horrible an experience. I hope. So if you’ve stumbled upon the place and see it’s a bit empty, there’s the reason. Please don’t let it put you off. Bookmark me and come back!!! Don’t make me beg now!

Okay, I’m on my knees here! COME BACK!!! 🙂