During the Covid 19 Pandemic, I've been lucky enough to have been able to work with Abbynormal Productions in a series of Facebook plays. As part of that, I got to work with the awesome Leila Toba on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Dracula (I got to respectively play two cool original characters, the indominable Sr. Agatha and quirky, flirty Bridget Stone, aka The Curator). Abbynormal is creating a new monsterverse, so if you're a horror fan and you haven't checked out their Facebook page, do yourself a favor and check it out here.

Leila and I were interviewed by Andrew Morris on his What the Niche podcast about being women in horror, why the horror genre is ultimately hopeful, and why Morticia Addams is Boss. (I also learned, on relistening, that I giggle a LOT!) Many thanks to Andrew and Leila for such a fun and informative chat!

Check it out here - our interview starts at the 40 minute mark!

Being the organized mess that I normally am, I totally spaced (see what I did there?) that Universal Threat is free on Amazon this week! Be sure to check it out here! Also, check out the trailer below!
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In this sneak peek from Jenny Goodnight, Jenny, a burnt-out missionary, has just arrived in the small town of Legacy, where her Uncle Matthew has started a small but controversial newspaper. As Jenny waits in her uncle's print shop to greet her uncle for the first time in a long while, something happens to disturb the peaceable reunion:

     How long I waited, I can’t say. Time stretched out until I lost track of it. My head grew lighter until it seemed ready to float away. My legs were heavy, like blocks of wood, and there was a general fogginess about my ears that blurred what few sounds there were. I was slipping away again – dreams beckoned with dark arms.
     Then, just I was on the verge of falling asleep properly, an explosion occurred.
     I exaggerate, of course. It was merely the front door bursting open under someone’s impatient shove – but it might as well have been an explosion from the way it made my heart skip a beat and shook me out of my reverie.
     The door slammed back against the wall, making the windows rattle. A big, bulky man stormed past me. His boots hit the floorboards like weights, and when he slammed his large fist down on the counter, everything on it shook and danced the jig.
     “Goodnight!” the man roared. “Goodnight, where are you?”
     I caught my breath.
     The man’s voice was as big as his presence. He was dressed in the usual cowboy gear – blue jeans, a faded button down, boots curiously spur-less, and a hat which he pulled off to reveal a head full of dark hair. He was coated in dust and grime and might have been just any no-account worker, except for his good quality leather vest and the hand-tooled leather belt carrying his six-gun – both too expensive for the ordinary ranch hand.
     I jumped when his fist struck the counter again.
     “Dammit, Goodnight, don’t make me come in there after you!”
     He tossed his hat on to the counter, freeing his gun hand. It was then that I saw the newspaper, clutched tight in his fist. The white knuckle grasp on the newspaper, the rigid clench of his jaw, and the tension of his big shoulders radiated not only outrage, but the ability to act on it. This was a very dangerous man.
     Slowly, lest he catch sight of me, I bent down towards my carpet bag.
     “John Henry!”
     The call came, not from my uncle’s office, but from the open doorway behind me.  A slim man stood there, also dusty and breathing heavily.
     The big man at the counter whirled around and pointed at the new figure.
     “Stay out of this, Olsen,” he threatened. He saw me then and I froze, bent at the waist over my carpetbag. His eyes raked over me, a brief but penetrating evaluation. Then he looked back at Olsen. “I’m just going to have a friendly chat with Mister Newspaperman here.” He turned and pounded the counter once more. “Goodnight!”
     “This ain’t no way to do it,” Olsen said. He pushed the hat back from his sun-weathered face and stepped cautiously into the room. “Let Schuyler handle it – that’s what you pay him for.”
     That only seemed to enrage the big man more. He slammed his palm into the counter (I was surprised that the board withstood such punishment) and roared, “This is a family matter and I’m not paying any lawyer to do what I can do myself. Goodnight, are you coming out here or am I coming in there?”
     I fumbled with the catch on the carpetbag.
     Then the office door opened and Matthew Goodnight emerged.
     A decade had passed since I had seen my uncle, but I would have known him anywhere. The fearless smile, the sharp blue eyes, the almost military carriage were all so reminiscent of my father that, under other circumstances, I might have had a misty moment.
     But Uncle Matthew was not my father and he had changed with the passage of time. Though his good looks remained, his features had softened and his face showed shades of cream and pink beneath the ever-present tan. There was something disheveled about his person, as though he no longer cared so much for appearances. He and my father shared the same feckless courage in the face of danger and he displayed it now, stepping out of his office as casually as if this were a social call.
     “Ah,” he said, carefully shutting the office door behind him. “Mr. Evans – to what do I owe the pleasure?”
     Evans?
     I did a double take. So the big man beating the counter was John Henry Evans, a member of the Evans clan I’d heard so much about. It explained the swagger, Olsen’s deferential manner, and Evans’s air of outraged dignity. It was his brother, Ben, who was running for office and it was their mother who was running the campaign. His family had founded this town and they weren’t accustomed to be being argued with or challenged. They were, in short, precisely the kind of people most likely to provoke my uncle’s ire.
     “You know what a firebrand crusader your uncle can be…”
     Aunt Alice always said that Uncle Matthew had the looks of a politician and the manner of an Irish pugilist with a sense of justice that would have impressed Solomon himself. It looked as though that moral courage was about to be reckoned with.
     Matthew Goodnight didn’t act like a man afraid. His voice was the same as I remembered from childhood – a blend of formality and superiority – and he smiled up at the big man as though he wasn’t concerned in the least. It was not calculated to be conciliatory and it had the expected effect.
     The big man slapped the newspaper down on the counter with such force that even Uncle Matthew jumped and Olsen took a half step forward.
     Evans pointed at the open page.
     “What do you mean by this, Goodnight?” he demanded, through gritted teeth.
     Uncle Matthew leaned over to look.
     “That,” he said, “is an editorial, an opinion piece. It is common in all papers, and it is usually meant to stir thought and to comment on recent events.” He flicked some dust from his jacket.
     “It’s a pack of lies, is what it is,” Evans said. “You came just short of calling my father a murderer!”
     Olsen took another cautious step forward.
     Uncle Matthew grinned.
     “I stopped short enough so that you won’t have a case if you try to sue this paper for libel. Not that you would or could, anyhow. Neither you nor your mother or your brother or his pretty little wife want to risk any of this going to court, do you?”
     He had barely finished when Evans grasped him by the shirtfront and drew him half-way across the counter until they were nose to nose. Olsen squawked, but didn’t try to interfere. I gasped and rose before I remembered what I was doing.
     “Now, you listen here.” Evans’ voice was low and dangerous. “You leave my mother and brother alone. If you’ve got a problem with the Evans family, you go through the court system, when and if you ever get the evidence. Do you understand me, Goodnight?”
     Matthew was as helpless as a rag doll in his grasp, but he eyed the big man with a steely gaze.
     “You couldn’t be more clear, Evans,” he said.
     Evans dropped him. Uncle Matthew recovered quickly, straightening his shirt front. Olsen relaxed, until Evans asked, “You’ll print a retraction, then?”
     Uncle Matthew laughed.
     “Retraction? You listen here, Evans, this paper doesn’t apologize for its opinions. We apologize for errors in facts, but never for our interpretation of them. No one asked your brother to make this foolish attempt at public office and someone should have warned him that all candidates are subject to scrutiny. If the precious Evans name doesn’t hold up under it, that’s not my fault. Tell your mother, the grand lady herself, to keep a tighter leash on Ben – better yet, make him drop this whole run.”
     “Not on your life,” Evans said. “The Evans family has nothing to be ashamed of, Benjamin the least of all.”
     “Oh, he’s too young to have done too much harm,” Uncle Matthew agreed. “But you might want to warn your mother that all good investigative reporters dig into the backgrounds of candidates and their families. I’m famous for my excavations, you know. The skeletons in your family closet had better be buried pretty deep if you don’t want me to find them.”
     “You’re a damned fool, Goodnight,” Evans said. His hands were balled into fists, his knuckles white under the pressure.
     “I’m just repeating what everyone else is already thinking. Twenty-two years ago, your father, Jacob Evans, and Ezra Jones, his partner, rode into this valley to look for gold. Five months into the search, up in the hills, Jones was bitten by a snake and your father was just a little too slow getting him to the doc – something about his horse stumbling and dying on the way. A month later, he finds ore in those same hills and is suddenly the biggest man this side of the Mississippi. And he doesn’t have to share it with anybody. All I’m suggesting here,” he laid his hand on the offending paper, “is that it was awful lucky for your old man: that snake bite and that accident with the horse.”
     Olsen whistled and half turned.
     My hand found what it was looking for. Buried under layer of calico, the smooth heft of the pistol grip filled me with reassurance and a trickle of fear. I always kept my revolver loaded with one empty chamber so it wouldn’t go off by accident.     Wrapping my hand around it, I pulled myself back into an upright position, careful to keep my hands hidden in my skirts.
     Evans put both hands on the counter and leaned in.
     “You’ve got an accusation to make, newspaperman?” he asked. His voice was low, slow, and dangerous, and my pulse jumped. “Why don’t you just make it to my face and quit hiding behind that paper of yours?”
     “I’m just asking questions, John Henry…”
     “You call me Evans, Goodnight. Mister Evans.”
     “…and I’m not the only one who’s asking these questions.”
     Uncle Matthew leaned forward and even from that distance, I could see the dangerous glitter in his eyes. My hands began to sweat, slicking up the grip.
     My uncle said, “Now, folks around here have been asking a very logical question: Was it just luck that caused that snake bite and that horse to stumble? Maybe it was. But if you, the great John Henry Evans of the Evans Empire, are so sure this is the truth, why would a little thing like this opinion piece bother you, eh? If your father was the man you claim he is, if there isn’t a shadow of a doubt that he did all he could to get his partner to the doctor, that he had no idea of the ore up in those hills, if this was just one huge lucky break, why would you take time out of your busy day to come down here and threaten me?”
     “Goodnight, I’m a patient man…” Evans said warningly, but Uncle Matthew didn’t let him finish – he just leaned in further.
     “The only reason I can think of, John Henry, is that you yourself aren’t all that sure. You have doubts too. Did the horse really die of an accident? Was Jones even bitten in the first place? Or did your father decide that he didn’t want to share the ore up in those hills, so he killed his partner to keep it all for himself? Does your mother know-?”
     He never finished the sentence.
     Evans’ fist flashed and Uncle Matthew’s head snapped back with a sickening crack. Olsen cried out and jumped forward as the newspaperman dropped behind the counter. Evans was half-way across the counter when I found my feet and made my voice ring out across the room.
     “Now, you just hold it right there, Mr. Evans.”
     ​I doubt he would have stopped had I not accompanied my words with the ominous sound of the hammer of a Remington New Model Army .44 being drawn back...

      ​Of all the dives in Tortuga, the Silver Ladle had to be the lowest. Its low, heavily timbered ceilings resonated with the sound of raucous laughter and the jibbing of gambling men. And yet it was here that they found the man they were looking for.
      Frantiesco Dias Evaristo would have happily challenged anyone who called him a pirate. He was, as he avowed, a privateer, a buccaneer, if that made things clearer to his audience, and proudly boasted that he had the fastest ship and the most loyal crew, a claim that held up under scrutiny. He was a big man, with a dangerous charming smile, and a deceptively quiet manner. He spoke Portuguese and English like a native and listened quietly as Jonathan explained the situation to him. Only when the story was finished, did the buccaneer speak.
       “So, Captain Levasseur kidnapped your sister and you would hire me and my crew to rescue her,” Dias said, slowly, deliberately. He had a tall tankard of rum and a small ornate dagger, which he played with as he spoke. “Why wouldn’t you pay the ransom demand to Levasseur?”
        “I don’t reward pirates or kidnappers,” Jonathan said, nervously rubbing his hands together. “And I was told that you had a history with this Levasseur.”
        Dias smiled, a dangerous smile.
      “Oh, yes,” he said. “I have some unfinished business with Levasseur. I even learned a few choice words in French for the day I should meet him again.”
      He stood, took the dagger by the point and threw it, scoring a bullseye in the dart board across the room. Then he turned, smiling broadly at Jonathan and his companion.
       “Very well, sir, I accept your commission. We sail at dawn. And I promise you, senhor: we will get your sister back.”

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Set in Timothy Zahn’s universe)

     Zarah was trapped. The clone stormtroopers were closing in on her, stalking down the narrow ravine, heavy boots pounding against the forest flooring. To her back was a solid wall of earth, too slippery to climb. Her lightsaber was gone, lost several yards away when the stray blast had knocked it from her hand and what was worse, she could no longer feel the Force. It was as though someone had dropped and iron curtain between her and it and the loss was as keen as parting with a limb. Only one thing could cause that sensation and a specimen of it was inching along a branch a yard out of her reach – Ysalami.
     The troops came into view.
      “There she is!”
    Four blasters raised, their barrels glinting dully in the light. Zarah stopped and turned. If she died today, so be it – but she would not die a coward, trying to run away from – 
     “Hey, you guys!”
     The shout came from above. Heads turned, Zarah’s included. She just had time to make out a stocky man, dressed in a green leather jacket and wearing a heavy pack on his back. He waved to them and suddenly Zarah realized that he was holding her lightsaber. 
     “What the…?”
     But she never got a chance to finish. The man jumped off the cliff. His pack ignited at the same time as the lightsaber. The troop commander shouted a warning, but he wasn’t fast enough. The man was nimble and quick and the lightsaber flashed. In a second, the troopers were on the ground and the man was landing in front of her, grinning like he’d just won first place in a speeder race.
      “I think this is yours,” he said, handing the lightsaber over with a flourish.
    She took it, stunned, and looked up into a pair of laughing brown eyes. “Who are you?” she asked.
    “Graham,” he said, as though she should already know the name. “Dan Graham. And it looks like someone needs a lift out of here.”

To quote Magnum, PI: "Now, I know what you're thinking. And you'd be right! Only..."

One of the most common pieces of writing advice I've heard is this: You need a Killer First Line, one that will hook the reader, be he/she an editor, an agent, your best friend, a stranger in Barnes and Noble, or even your mom. A Killer First Line grabs the reader's attention and pulls them, helplessly into your story, ensuring that they will read the second line. A Killer First Line sets up the rest of your book. And there's always the hope that if you nail that Killer First Line, it's going to be gracing blog posts and articles about writing from here until the end of time.

Needless to say, there is a TON riding on your first line. So much so, that you can spend hours, days, sometimes even weeks tinkering with the line, loving the line, hating the line, re-writing the line again and again, getting caught like a fish on a... line (see what I did there? :) ). It's daunting, that Killer First Line. It can even be debilitating. Which is why I recommend that you completely ignore the Killer First Line.

"WHAT?!" You exclaim. "Ignore the first line and lose out on fame and fortune and retweets? Are you insane?"

No, I'm not (or at least this isn't proof of it). I'm not saying never address the Killer First Line. I'm saying ignore it for your first draft. Maybe even your second or your third draft. Leave it alone - write a place-holder line and then ignore the stupid thing. Write the book first. Then write the first line.

​Star Trek – TOS:
 
Captain’s Log, supplemental:
 
On a mission from Star Fleet to bring back a piece of stolen technology, Mr. Spock and I find ourselves trapped behind the Neutral Zone in a small Romulan frontier town called Sargon’s Waste. We have the technology, but our ship has been destroyed. Thanks to Spock’s quick thinking and Vulcan resemblance to Romulans, we’ve not been discovered yet. Time is running out and we find ourselves in need of a ship and a pilot. We’ve been directed to Garak’s Tavern and told to ask for a man named Foley, who won’t ask too many questions…
 
      Garak’s was like any other tavern on the outskirts of any other civilization: run-down and tense, with representatives from every corner of the galaxy. The people who congregated at these places only had two things in common: a love for alcohol and the desire to be anywhere but home.
     The Vulcan was adapt at many forms of communication, but the tavern was clearly out of his depth. He hesitated in the doorway and Kirk, breathing easier in an atmosphere he understood, nudged him gently.
     “In the corner,” he murmured.
      They weren’t the only anomaly in the bar that night. A human stood bent over a game table, a game that reminded Kirk strongly of pool, though this one was played with holographic tribbles that were hit into the mouths of crocodile-like creatures. As they approached, the human sunk a shot and, looking pleased, stepped around to set up his next move.
      “Are you Foley?” Spock asked.
      The human glanced up at him. He was sturdily built, with short cropped hair, and, unlike most of Garak’s patrons, clean shaven.
     “Depends on who’s asking,” Foley said, and turned back to the table. His cue stick struck with practiced efficiency and the hologram tribble squealed as it disappeared into the crocodile’s maw. Foley grunted with satisfaction and straightened up. “If you’re looking for a pilot, I might be available.”
      “Nice shot,” Kirk said.
       Foley glanced at him and grinned a lopsided grin.
       “I hate tribbles,” he said with simple sincerity.
       In that instant, Kirk knew that they’d found their man.