Jamie Ferguson

In the past few days I’ve read five or six stories for the justice-themed story bundle I’m working on, and WOW have they been fantastic.

Here’s what I gave the authors as a guideline:

The theme is justice.

Stories should show why being just matters, and/or what the consequences are for individuals, groups, towns, countries, or humanity if justice is not expected, encouraged, or enforced legally.

Your story can be positive or negative, upbeat or dark – anything is fine as long as your story is meaningful. Send a message. Teach a lesson. Show consequences, bravery, courage.

The reader should finish each story feeling that they read something that matters.

The stories I’ve read so far have covered a much, much broader range than I anticipated, and some of them have totally blown me away. I read one yesterday where I became so engrossed in the story that when I finished it I had to remind myself that I was supposed to be making sure it fit the bundle’s theme. (Answer: yes!)

I’m actually a little nervous about my own story because it deals with topics that are outside of my demographic. Sure, as a woman I’ve dealt with plenty of issues over the years – but I’ve also been a white woman in the U.S., so my experience has been almost exclusively with sexism. But while this story is a little challenging, every time I write something out of my comfort zone I learn new things – so I’m looking forward to the learning!

My justice story is set in the American West in the mid-to-late 1800s, so there’s also the challenge of writing in a different time period. It’s a time period I love writing in, but these stories tend to go a little slower than others because I do research for every western I’ve written to make sure I get the facts and descriptions as accurate as I can. And the research is sometimes so fun I have to remind myself to stop and get back to writing. 🙂

I saw a bear on our hiking trail for the first time ever!!!

And yes, that photo was taken from pretty far away – but isn’t that where you too would like to be if there was a bear walking down the trail you had just been hiking up?

Here’s a close-up.

I do know bears live in the area – we are in Boulder, Colorado, after all. A year or two ago there was a bear hanging out in our neighbor’s tree for a while, and I’ve seen plenty of evidence of bears on our regular trail over the years. But it’s a little bit different when you’re hiking up the trail and someone runs toward you yelling “bear!”

Rosie and Jasper were so busy with their pine cones that they didn’t even notice, although they were confused about why we suddenly changed direction.

And now on to writing news! Although I confess I’m still pondering what to do on Tuesday when it’s my turn to take the dogs hiking… 🙂

My story “The Switch” appears in the Crimes, Capers, & Rule-Breakers bundle, which will be available for pre-order on July 4th. This bundle is curated by my good friend Rebecca M. Senese. (You may recognize her name from the bundles I’ve curated – she’s been in all five so far.) This bundle also has a Facebook page, where Rebecca will be posting “rap sheets” on each of the authors.

If you’re a BookBub fan, you can now follow me there!

I spruced up my BookBub author page while writing the latest how to post for authors in the series I’m writing for Blackbird Publishing. (Yes, Blackbird Publishing is my publishing company. 🙂 ) I decided to write this series back in the winter because I found myself sharing information with other authors, then I’d forget if I’d shared it via email, a mailing list, a Facebook group, etc., and I’d end up writing it again. Plus I didn’t know of anywhere that an author could go to read about the basic things you should do/set up. (There may well be such a place, but I have yet to find it.) So I decided I’d start writing simple, straightforward posts, and they’ve turned out to be really helpful for me as well as other authors. I chuckle every time I pull up one of my own posts because I’ve forgotten some key piece of information.

Here’s the first draft of the cover for one of the stories I’m working on. I’m going to play around with the cover for a bit – I’d like to add a blur effect and fiddle with the font a bit (that’s Cinzel, if you’re a font fan). But the artwork is staying.

This story is the second in a witch series I have planned; the first book was Bewitchery, which was released last fall. When I saw the photo with the mask – it’s the same model and photo series as I used for the cover for Bewitchery – I liked it so much I decided I had to come up with a story that fit it. This was much easier than I expected, although I suspect some new things will pop up once I start writing, especially as I feel like there should be another plot line and I don’t know what it is yet.

The only concern I have with these stories is that I decided that my witches would have Celtic names, and of course that means that those of us who aren’t familiar with the pronunciation (I’m included in this group) don’t know how to pronounce the names. Is this a problem? Not a problem? I have no idea! I’m considering adding a page at the beginning of Trickery explaining the pronunciation. I don’t care if people make up their own pronunciations – I’ve done that for plenty of books in my life. 🙂 But a guide might be helpful for those people who are interested in the ‘correct’ way to say the names.

I’m still pondering my witch cozy idea. I really like it, it just remains to be seen if I can stay within the cozy rules. I’m going to think through this a bit before writing any more, but I have five or six more short stories due this year – plus a recipe (there really is a reason for the recipe…) – so having a plan for what I write will hopefully help keep me on schedule. Hopefully…