Jamie Ferguson

My first ever goblin story is about a goblin named Bean. I have no idea where his name came from, but it’s clearly his name. 🙂 This kind of story is super fun to work on because it practically writes itself. It’s almost like reading a story even though I’m doing the writing.

“Clyde and the Ghost Cat,” which I wrote for J. A. Campbell‘s Ghost-Hunting Critters anthology, was like that as well. Or at least the first draft was. 🙂 Clyde is a cat who moves to a new house that turns out to be haunted by a ghost cat. I had a lot of fun writing from Clyde’s point of view! The anthology is available for pre-order on Amazon, and will be officially available on September 1st.

I have lots of other projects going on right now – the justice bundle is the next one that will come out. It’s currently scheduled for October, although I’m hoping to pull that date in a little bit. I’m working on planning several bundle series – they’ll all launch in 2018, except for the Faerie series that was inspired by The Faerie Summer, which is now officially the first volume in the series. And while it is August, and is not only hot but dusty at my house because we’re about halfway through our humongous landscaping project, I’m starting to get excited about the Christmas story I’m going to start on soon. I don’t know the plot yet, but I’d like to use some of the characters in “The Least Merry Elf” which I wrote for Rebecca M. Senese‘s Very Merry Christmas Bundle last year.

The biggest issue I have at the moment is that I’m trying to figure out how to improve my time management skills, which are already pretty good so it’s a bit of a challenge to figure out how to get even better. I love being busy, but I’ve not only got a lot of short story deadlines, plus the novel to finish, plus all the bundling planning work, plus a week at a writing workshop coming up…and on top of that is our landscaping project, my busy day job, and of course Jasper and Rosie need a lot of time. (They’re always at the top of the list, don’t worry!) Yesterday I realized I was thinking one of my deadlines was a few weeks further out than it actually is, and that was a great reminder that even my multitasking superpowers only go so far. I set up a weekly event on my calendar to remind me to look at my schedule even if I think I’m remembering everything correctly. I added lots of notifications to the calendar event to annoy me into paying attention! 🙂

The most important thing happening in my world right now is that we’re having our backyard landscaped.

And by ‘landscaped’ I mean we now have no grass, are down two trees, and by this time tomorrow the concrete patio that’s almost as old as I am will be ripped out. It’s both cool and alarming.

Writing-wise, I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time to do much, but here’s a sample. Just keep in mind it’s a first draft. 🙂

Selina sat down on one of the wrought-iron benches that were scattered around the little city park. The temperature was in the 80s even though it was almost October. Her grandmother would have called it Indian Summer, but that was only partly true. The world was getting warmer, just a little bit, year after year. Selina knew this because she researched climate change at the university, and the data backed it up.

But she also knew this because the wind had told her so.

She shrugged off her hoodie and jammed it into the bag that was slung around her left shoulder. She lifted her sneakered feet on to the bench and turned sideways, staring up at the brownish-red leaves that clung stubbornly to the mostly bare branches of the tree the bench sat under, as if they refused to accept the fact that winter was indeed on its way. If she looked up in just the right spot, she could see all the way to the top of the tree and see its branches reaching up to the sky, as if they were seeking a way up to the ether so that they could escape the city.

A tiny breeze rustled her hair, bringing with it a hint of the coolness that would come soon. Selina smiled and reached a hand out. The wind was full of secrets today, sharing tantalizing glimpses of far-off mountain peaks where the snow never melted, remembering being part of a storm out in the ocean – it was unclear which ocean.