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First of all, I
want to welcome new subscribers to BlueMusings and remind you that this
is an opt-in-only newsletter where you have my promise never (ever!) to
release your email or spam you. What you will receive with your
subscription is approximately 6 issues of BlueMusings a year, along
with free, drm-free original short fiction.
If you enjoy the work, I would be grateful if you would forward the
newsletter to any of your reading friends who might appreciate it. In
addition, if
you have any suggestions as to improvements I can make to these
mailings, please do let me know.
Second,
I want to wish you all the best in the turning of the year and to offer
you a holiday discount on purchases of my YA novel, THE BETWEEN. From
now until December 31st, 2012, please enjoy 25% off the eBook and 15%
off the trade paperback (includes free domestic US shipping) of THE
BETWEEN.
Sale prices:
eBook (mobi or epub) $2.24
Trade paperback (signed) $7.60
You can access this savings in 2 ways:
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What's
New
I'm close to the finish
line on DERELICT, my SF novel in progress.
This has been an experiment in public accountability for my writing. At
the outset, I was worried that I'd have difficulty in keeping to a
posting schedule, or lose readers because it was a first draft, or even
get frustrated with the story, since we writers are a superstitious
bunch and sharing something in progress is a scary thing.
I'm happy to report that none of those things happened. And along the
way, I've gotten the chance to interact with some wonderful folks on
Wattpad, FB, and G+.
If you would like to read along, you can follow the story either on Wattpad or on its own story
blog.
Now that I'm within a few weeks of completing the manuscript, I'm going
to start to post 2 chapters a week for those of you who are impatient
readers. :)
***
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of page)
This
Issue's Story
The Road to Redemption
was sparked from the lyrics of the Stealers Wheels song, Stuck in the Middle with You. The
refrain has the line: "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right,
here I am stuck in the middle with you." At our family's dinner table
(which can be a bizarre place), that got warped to 'Zombies to the left
of me, vampires to the right. . . ' And then my odd brain was off and
running.
As most creative processes do, this one evolved into the story included
here, which does not,
in fact, contain any zombies.
***
The
Road to Redemption
Jayce
thumbed through the sheaf of well
worn bills, keeping Reverend Larkin in her peripheral vision. He
didn't look like the picture on the back of his books or the ones on
his website, but sleeping in the same clothes for a night or two can
do that to you.
"It's
all there," he said. As
haggard as he looked, his voice was still better suited to the stage
or the camera than to the front seat of her pick-up. Easy to see how
he persuaded the faithful to empty their pockets into his personal
ministry. He was fully Human, though, despite the seductive voice.
Jayce had been surprised.
She
frowned, staring out the windshield
at the rain damp street. He made it sound like a routine job. Point A
to point B. All the money up front. But he was entirely too confident
for her typical client. What what he doing here? People like him had
limousines and entourages, not one Sensitive in a tired truck.
Larkin's
money felt like it had passed
through too many hands. Jayce wanted to wash hers, though that never
prevented the emotional assault. She slipped the bills back in the
envelope and shook her head. So many desperate people. As tough as
things were around town, Larkin's revival meetings had been SRO. Hard
times always seemed to swell church coffers. Something they had in
common--both their jobs seemed to be recession-proof.
Continue reading The Road to Redemption
in the attached pdf, or follow the link to my downloads
page for mobi (kindle), epub, and pdf versions.
If
you are looking for any of the previous short stories from older
editions of BlueMusings, head to this downloads
page. All formats of the prior offerings are there along with
information on how to download the stories for your preferred
reading device.
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This work
is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
(This
means you can share the newsletter and/or the story with a link back
to http://www.ljcohen.net, Lisa Janice (LJ) Cohen, but please
do not place it for sale or change it.)
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