Chapter 1: A.R.S.A.

1| A.R.S.A. “ID, please,” a voice said from behind me. Of course. I knew better than to loiter. Ordinarily I would have noticed someone approaching. But today my nerves were on edge. My situational awareness lagged because I let the anxiety of what I was about to do take the lead. My name is Treya. […]

“No More Rachaels”: Chapter 20 from 2nd Hit

This is an excerpt from my wip (work-in-progress) 2nd Hit, the second book in the Renegade Agents of A.R.S.A. series. It’s first pass rough draft, so be kind. The first book in this series is available now at Amazon and on pre-order until April 1 everywhere else. 2nd Hit should be ready to publish before […]

What Am I Doing? Not Writing. But I Am Sculpting.

It’s not fair to say I’m not writing, but I didn’t today. Yesterday (or was it the day before?) I finished chapter 11 in 2nd Hit. By the way, I want to come up with a better name for each of the titles, including the series name. “Bounty Hunter” doesn’t say much about the genre […]

Rural Fantasy Art

Usually I draw pictures of plants and other nature things. I’ve never tried my hand at drawing images from my imagination, but I wanted to do a “Rural Fantasy” series. So I needed to get over the need for realism and let more creativity flow to do it. Once the images began to take form […]

Grapevine

If I had given more thought to the matter, to the infrastructure of this … arrangement … I might have avoided my current predicament. The insidious creep disguised himself in the seductive beauty of light and form. Then began the slow displacing of my own welfare, exchanged for the needs of another. It seemed symbiotic initially. […]

At the Gate

I realize what I’m telling you is hard to believe. But it all came together last night, while I was closing the gate, telling the trees goodbye. Everything made perfect sense. Not that I like it, you know, but it fits. The land is sentient. It knows. It plans. It executes. That’s the scary part. […]

What are Farkleberries? Or did I just make that up?

If you’ve read First Hunt, you might have noticed the part where Treya is tasked with gathering farkleberries. Are They Real? You might have wondered if such a berry is a real thing, or if I just made it up along with all the other made up things in that story. So there you have […]

The Taste of Witch Hazel

Here’s an excerpt from yesterday’s word count: While I’d learned the names of many plants by helping my parents on cataloging expeditions, I didn’t know much about using them. DRSS said chewing twigs of witch hazel would help with any ill effects of the spring water … or did he say spicebush twigs? I pushed […]

Little Spells

Little Spells His hand trembled as he held the sealed vial to the window. I watched his face pale in the filtered sunlight as it illuminated the words on the tiny scroll. ”What is this?” he asked, handing it to me. He wanted me to lie. My little spells always made him nervous. His slight tremor […]

In the Blink of an Eye

I set out to write a new first sentence, maybe two or three, for The First Hunt. 500 words later I realized I’d rewritten the entire first chapter. And so it turns out that in the blink of an eye my story has a new beginning that better sets the tone and introduces the protagonist, […]