Nailpolish Stories: a Tiny and Colorful Literary Journal

I have three pieces up today at Nailpolish Stories: a Tiny and Colorful Literary Journal. Editor, writer, and creator, Nicole Monaghan, has taken micro fiction to the next level. I'll let her explain: "I had this idea a while back that stories should be made of the flashy names of nailpolish colors. I think the seed for this was planted when I was old enough to paint my nails. As a little girl, I remember thinking, Whose job is it to make up nailpolish color names? I was aware, on some level, of all the possible stories each one suggested."

Full guidelines can be found here, but the bare basics are:

• Use a nailpolish color as the title.


• Stories should be exactly 25 words, title not included.

I was amazed at just how original and fun nail polish names can be: Fuchsia Fever, Hot for Chocolate, and the aptly named Endless Possibilities.

Stop by, read my stories Emerald City, Cherries in the Snow, Don't Feed the Hand Models, and the fantastic work of many other talented writers.

Huge thanks to Nicole Monaghan!

Why Liking the ‘Like’ Button Sometimes Scares Me

As most of you are aware, a ‘Like’ button can been found on almost every personal blog, social and business site. Hell, there’s one right above this post. I’ve read countless articles on the power of the ‘Like’ button. It’s a great tool that provides an opportunity for you to stay connected to your target audience. It also grants you exposure in newsfeeds which may in fact generate a more “viral” traffic to your site or page and possibly increase the sales and/or recognition of your specific product or service.

Important? Yes, I think so. But that’s not what I’m leading to here.

When someone ‘Likes’ your page, what exactly are they ‘Liking’? Is it the overall design of the page? Is it the product(s) you’re offering? Is it sweet, wonderful you? Is it an addiction to clicking buttons?

I’ve heard women speaking with each other about men they’re dating.

“I like him,” Woman #1 says to Woman #2. “But I don’t ‘like him’ like him.”

You see, it can become so complicated. And the answers to these questions are still not what I really want to talk about. My actual focus is on ‘Liking’ the books of authors whose work we haven’t read. That’s right, books we have not opened and read. Yet because they ask us to, we click ‘Like’. Like a favor. Like somewhat of a… lie.

It’s one thing to ‘Like’ an author’s page, but to say we ‘Like’ the book they wrote, but haven’t read seems quite misleading. Would you ever say you ‘Like’ the food at a restaurant you’ve never dined in?

Let’s face it, as a writer my main objective is to be read. After that, I want to know the reader enjoyed what he or she read. I want to know if they ‘Liked’ it. I want to know if they hated it. Okay, I really want to hear them say they ‘Loved’ it, but I don’t know if that button exists yet.

In truth, I worry that my desire to get my books ‘out there’ will lead me to only look at the numbers (i.e. # of books sold, income earned, sales ranking, etc.) and not on the satisfaction of my reader. I worry that fishing for “Likes’ will ultimately override the honesty of reader feedback I receive. And I’m starting to see that from other writers. I don’t want it to appear I’m judging or bad-mouthing any writers. We all want success and follow different roads there. I do my upmost to help the writers around me achieve success too. And I want success as much as the next guy, but for me, I don’t want people clicking the ‘Like’ button for my book unless they read it and truly ‘Like’ it.

I mean, are eight million ‘Likes’ worth more than the genuine joy one reader feels about your words?

Well, is it?

Birthright: a new poem up at Every Day Poets

I have a poem up today at Every Day Poets. It's called Birthright. It's about a father holding his newborn son for the first time. Of course, this joyful moment does have a bit of a shock...

Angel Zapata live tonight! on Flashes in the Dark Radio

Horror writers and blog talk radio hosts, Lori Titus and Tonia Brown interview me tonight live on Flashes in the Dark Radio at 6pm EST. We'll be yakking about horror, The Man of Shadows, and 5x5 Fiction.

Join us on Blog Talk Radio here.

ADDENDUM:

If you missed it, you can listen to the interview by clicking play in the Blog Talk Radio link in the right hand column of this page.

-Angel

New Online Fiction Recommendations: Jodi MacArthur and Chris Allinotte

There’s a slew of awesome new fiction available from two very talented writers, Jodi MacArthur and Chris Allinotte. Don’t ask me how they pump out this much quality stuff. My guess is these two maniacs never sleep. Anyway, I wanna make sure you haven’t missed any of it. So get to clicking the links.

JODI MACARTHUR
This Texas-dwelling chick is all teeth and nails. She knows the flavor of your skin. Her words have sharp points and she’s not afraid to stab you in the face with them. I’m still wiping away blood and stitching myself up.

I’ve been reading Jodi’s work for over three years and she never disappoints. She’s able to transport the reader to whatever insane world she’s living in at the time. Mark my words, one day she’s gonna be sipping a hot cup of blood beside Stephen King himself. Besides the links below, you can find more of her work here at the cauldron of evil she calls a blog.

MANTRA at All Due Respect, Issue #16

BLACK, WHITE AND RED ALL OVER at In Between Altered States

FREE MERCURY at Beat to a Pulp

CHRIS ALLINOTTE
Chipping away at the frozen tundra in Toronto, Chris slowly inserts splinters of ice under the reader’s fingernails. I, for one, am grateful for the pain. In addition to penning stories about hellfire pie and sewer-dwelling, man-eating creatures, he is also editor of the anthology, Eight Days of Madness. It happens to be a free anthology you can download here.

You can read all about the Canadian creator himself and his work at his blog, The Leaky Pencil. I’ve often wondered exactly what was seeping out of that Leaky Pencil of his. Now I know. It’s blood.

PICK YOUR OWN PUMPKIN at Thrillers, Killers ‘n Chillers

MONKEYFISH at MicroHorror

SEX AND BEER at the Flash Fiction Offensive

TEMPTING MORSELS at Lily Childs’ Feardom

New Poetry and Micro Fiction up at Cavalcade of Stars

I have a series of brand new poems and micro fiction up at Jeanette Cheezum's Cavalcade of Stars. In Jeanette's own words, the Cavalcade is "A place to read fiction and poetry from some of your favorite online writers. Don't be surprised if you see some of mine sprinkled here and there."

Each week, The Cavalcade offers a platform for writers to share their words. Today, it's my turn. You can find my poems, Taffy and Labor, and my micro fiction, Other and I Don't Care if We Ever Do Laundry Again here.


You can find Jeanette Cheezum's work at Hampton Road Writers and at Six Sentences.

Jeanette, you're a gifted writer and a lovely woman. Thank you for printing these works!

Trestle Press Author, McDroll talks about her crime fiction book, Kick It!

It's been a long while since I've featured a writer here at A Rage. Having recently joined the Trestle Press family myself, it is my pleasure to have fellow Trestle Press short story writer, McDroll stop by and provide you all with the lowdown on her crime collection, Kick It. McDroll is quite obviously excited by this publication and shares with us, "To have a book published is a magical experience that very few people ever get to achieve, but thanks to TRESTLE PRESS and their amazing outlook on the revolution of digital publishing which is about to hit readers around the world like a literary tsunami, more amazing writers will be able to get their writing out there to an ever increasing digital audience.

My first collection of short stories, KICK IT has just been published this week and my goodness, I certainly did get a kick from seeing my book up there for sale on Amazon. KICK IT is a collection of 5 short noir / crime stories with a little twist of Scottish humour thrown into the mix.

Three of the stories have my favourite character, DC Gemma Dixon, strutting her stuff around the crime scene of Glasgow. New to CID, Gemma has to learn very quickly to stand up for herself in male dominated environments where as the newbie she gets some of the roughest assignments on offer.

I love having fun with Gemma as she banters with her fellow officers, making sure that she asserts herself and doesn’t take any of their cheek.

My other two stories deal with our perceptions of people and I attempt to show how far off the mark we can be when we don’t take the time to dig a bit deeper into ‘hidden stories;’ the secrets that people keep close to their chests as they go about their daily lives. So much can be going on beneath a person’s outward shell and I try to uncover some of these tales.

So I hope you check out my first ever e-Book and please let me know what you think!"
Let's get to know a bit more about the mysterious McDroll (aka. Fiona Grace), shall we?
1. Who is McDroll?

To begin with, going back about three years; McDroll was the silly name I came up with when I started tweeting. I wanted a name that would combine the fact that I am proud to be Scottish and indicate that my tweets would contain a certain amount of ‘tongue in cheek’ humour. Like most nicknames it kind of stuck and now that’s how most people on-line know me.

I think it’s quite memorable and a bit different so perhaps it will help me to get noticed!

When I’m not writing / reviewing, I teach and have been a primary school head teacher for the past 23 years, I know, I don’t look old enough! Cough

I live in Argyll, Scotland which is easily one of the most beautiful places in the world, steeped in history from prehistoric standing stones to Celtic crosses and castles and countless lochs and glens.

I sit at night, laptop on knees and write about murders…well, what else would I do?

2. Why crime writing?
I’ve always wanted to write as far back as I can remember and over the years I’ve had various disastrous attempts that just didn’t work. My writing was boring, bland and twee. I had come to the conclusion that I just didn’t have what it takes.

Then I joined Twitter and quickly discovered that there were lots of writers around the world tweeting about their writing. They would discuss their difficulties, the characters they wrote about and the struggle to get published.

Slowly I crept into this circle of talented people and as I have always been a rabid reader of crime fiction, I thought that if I couldn’t write then at least I could review and be a little help to those with talent struggling to get noticed.

Eventually some very kind people asked if I wrote. After the initial, ‘no, no, no,’ I decided to give the writing lark another go but this time try to write within the crime genre….and that’s all it took. My years of reading crime have somehow helped me understand how to write the type of story that people seem to get a lot of fun out of reading.

3. Who do you read?
I’ve really enjoyed reading No One To Hear You Scream by Julia Madeleine, another Trestle author. She takes you on a trip to a beautiful house in the remote countryside, the most beautiful spot imaginable and in this amazing setting creates the home to die for. If you love browsing through House and Home magazine then you'll pretty much have seen the type of house she creates. What more could anyone ask for? Oh yeah...the owner murders his girlfriend and buries her body in the woods at the back and he’s built the house on the back of his drugs money. He's one of those Irish guys that (WARNING) women, don’t ever go near because he's got a twinkle in his eye, he can soft soap the pants off you and then he'll garrote you when he's bored and toss your body aside. And he's gorgeous (I was thinking Patrick Dempsey with an Irish accent and a couple of days' stubble.)

Anyway, twists of fortune and all that, Rory Madden (that's the Patrick Dempsey guy) ends up in jail and loses all his money and his house that he loves more than anything in the world gets sold from under his feet and Rory vows to get it back come hell or high water. Pity the family who bought it and my, do they have their own troubles!

I love Julia’s ability to weave a wonderful story that just doesn’t allow me to put down from start to finish.

4. What’s next?
I’m hoping to have another collection of short stories KICK IT AGAIN out soon and then move onto a serialization of a novella that I’ve been working on for some time. More ‘Gemma’ stories are in the pipeline and you will be able to meet Gemma again in BRIT GRIT TOO, soon to be published by TRESTLE.

Many thanks to McDroll for making the time to be here with us. It's been a true pleasure!

You can visit McDroll at her blog site here, and for .99 cents you can purchase Kick It for your Kindle on Amazon. You can also follow her Twitter tweets @McDroll.

Why You Shouldn’t Buy My Book

In the advent of my publisher, Panic Press suddenly calling it quits, there are some unresolved issues. For one thing, my book, The Man of Shadows is still available in certain markets. If you purchase the print and/or the Kindle version, I won’t receive any compensation for it. Translation: At this time, please don’t buy my book in print or e-pub form from anywhere or anyone. Secondly, there are a lot of angry writers from the Panic Press line who are battling for reimbursement of unfulfilled orders and unseen royalties, so I can easily feel my rage beginning to froth at the surface again, and I’m trying to remain moderately professional about the entire ordeal.

The small press is a wonderful resource for aspiring authors to see their work published, but if you’re not careful it can also turn and bite you on the ass. As I still retain all rights to my work, my hope is to have another publisher pick my book up, dust it off, and make it available on their shelves. Yes, I know I can self-publish, but it just won’t feel the same to me… you know what I’m saying?

In general, and this is cumulative to this situation and my growing weariness with publications, I feel a bit like a home in need of a makeover. Maybe I’ve reached a crossroads. There are definitive choices to be made. Either way, The Man of Shadows will be slipping back into the darkness for awhile.

-Angel

5x5 Fiction ISSUE THREE: Avoidance, Allowance, and Animosity is live!

5x5 Fiction ISSUE THREE is live!

ISSUE THREE: Avoidance, Allowance, and Animosity.

A.A. 1998 (a poem)

1.
It’s awful this morning. The windows are gray,
air pinpricks skin with cactus familiarity.
I do not recognize the disease.
The mattress is torn and the gods of love
are nervous. I cannot sleep here.
You left me huddled between pillows,
soaked in liquid thoughts.
These aren’t notes I dare sing.
I’m typing this far from the wagon’s table.
The coffee is tepid in the mug,
your lipstick still smeared red on the rim.

2.
My fingers strum the aluminum can
of an imaginary beer. This is the melancholy
of poets, balancing bar stools
on the tips of our noses, clowns
packed into Volkswagens
twelve to a case.

3.
The greeting card would say, I miss you.
Blake would ask, Did He who made
the Lamb make thee?
I just need to know
where you hid the keys
to my car.


Copyright ©1998, Angel Zapata