Tag Archives: short stories

Imagination is sometimes scarier than reality.

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I always loved stories about the things that go bump in the night. That gurgling noise, or the tapping in the darkness that your imagination makes much worse than reality.

This weekend I have two short stories out for free. Both with that spooky feel.

Footprints: The demons inside are sometimes worse than those outside.
The Camera: This cursed item has blood in its gears. A Tales from the Crypt style short.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And if you love fantasy adventure, and or RPG games, don’t forget to check out The Hub World series.

 

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Adventures Await!

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The next book in The Hub World series is out!

The virtual world holds many dangers, and secrets.

Ever since that faithful day Jupiter was left standing alone on the beach, he’s been avoiding the virtual world. Staying away hasn’t been easy. When reality is nothing but a cell and powdered food, how could he resist the siren call of freedom and a chance to make amends with his best friend?

In order to find Cas, Jupiter must travel to The Hub, the center of all virtual worlds.

There are new opportunities, new people, and new AI’s just dying to meet him. If he can manage to find Cas, then maybe they can find out just how far the rabbit hole goes and just what troubles been waiting for them below the surface.

 

I also have two short stories that are free this weekend. Now is your time to grab them.

Footsteps– a man who takes a trip out to the woods to deal with his fathers death and ends up dealing with something else entirely.
The Ring – a thief finds a ring with some interesting properties….

FINISHED! Book 2 done!

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I just finished the first draft of Steel Heart, book two in my litRPG series.

I finished the first book, Steel Soul, in June, and the second book today. That’s two months of writing. I’m getting a little faster.

Both books would be in the novella category at the moment, about 100 pages I think. Each is a full story on its own, but part of a bigger story. I’m going to go over them one more time, add in some details, some foreshadowing, and other plot things that I can add now (since I haven’t published them yet) which will add a few thousand more words to them both. I expect they will both still fall in the novella range, but I’m okay with that. A story should be as long as a story wants to be, and each of theses has a definite end point.

I’ve already started book three, which I might be calling “Steel Trap”, I haven’t decided yet. I also know this isn’t the final episode in the story. They are finally going to meet someone pulling all the strings, but it won’t be the end of the matter by any means. In fact…the game might start falling out into the real world. We’ll have to see. I’m still discovering the plot as I go as well.

Also, I wanted to let you know that The Ring is free this weekend. I won’t be putting short stories, or any litRPG into KU anymore, I’ll be taking them wide, so this will be he last time this particular story is available for free for a while. I will probably make a few of my short stories perma-free just because it might a few more eyes on my books, but for now I’m just writing more, and saving releasing them all at the end of the year. Look for that!

Currently ready to be edited:
Steel Soul
Steel Heart
Costume Shop

Working on:
Half Blood Sorceress book 2
Steel Trap

If I can get everything done….I’m working on it! I know that Costume Shop needs to come out on October 1st since it’s a Halloween story. I would like to release a book a month every month after that. I’ve got three so far!

Potions and Rings

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I’m slowly pulling all of my short stories out of KU. I have a few reasons for that. First, the people using KU seem to like my novels more than my short stories. The biggest reason I used KU was for the free days so that I could advertise the free books and sometimes people would also pick up my other books. Secondly, I am getting closer to releasing my litRPG books. I think I’m going to be going wide with those books because it makes more sense, and I’m also worried about all the authors who have been having their accounts banned for “out of the ordinary activity.” I’d rather just not have that problem, and since it seems to be hitting litRPG authors the hardest I’m not willing to risk it with a brand new series, especially one I love this much.

Maybe I’m being a little paranoid, but that’s okay. The lovely thing about self publishing is that I can change my mind later down the road and try something different.

So, for now, I am using up all the free days available for my short stories. Here they are for this weekend:

The Ring: Illicit Gains Book 2
Potion Shop

Almost time….

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It’s almost time to publish the next book, a novella. It’s an adventure in a haunted house. A little horror-esk, a little fantasy, with pleanty of magic and a lot of character exploration. It’s also open for more stories later on down the road. It was a good one to write while I’m still working on the next one in the Half Blood Sorceress series.

 

 

Also, for this weekend you can get The Ring and Potion Shop for free. Both are short stories, both about the misuse of magic. One is about a thief, and the other about a girl and a potion.

 

I also added another page above specifically for artwork. I’ve been doing a bit more of it, and I’m rather happy with what I’ve been doing. You can always check out what I’ve been up to on instagram. Gregg is even convincing me to put together a coloring book.

All the arts everywhere!

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Just a quick update,

Small Bites and The Ring are both free this weekend. And Dragon’s Flame, the first novel in my new series, is finally out. It’s currently 99 cents, but it will go up to 2.99 in a week. If you want to grab it before the price goes up make sure to order it now.

If you read any of these books I would love to hear your thoughts. Write a review, or send me an email at crissymoss AT hotmail DOT com. I love getting reader feedback.

I’d also like to let you know that I’ll be streaming once a week (most weeks) on my twitch. I’ll be drawing, doing small projects, writing sometimes, or just chatting. Depends on what happens. I’d love to have people stop in and say hi, or shout me out on twitter. Schedule at the moment is Wednesdays, 3pm to 5pm PST.

On my first stream I took an old sketch and redid it into something completely cute. My first cosplay! You can watch the time-lapse version HERE, or the full VOD over here.

 

5min- Publishing

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It’s been a wild ride this year. I’m getting ready to publish my fourth real book. When I say “real” I just mean that it has more than 50k words in it and qualifies as a full novel. Most of the books I have up are short stories and novellas with the three main books that are full novels.

But I looked today and I have actually published 40 short stories. Not all separately, some are in anthologies. But, dang, that’s a lot of short stories.

Trying to figure out what I should be doing with those short stories. They don’t sell a lot of copies, but I give them away a lot. I get some reviews, and a lot of comments from people that read them. I am considering giving them away as a Patreon reward, or a reward for subscribers to my newsletters. Or both, maybe?

It’s the little things, though. Setting up the publishing details. Starting to do the print book set up. Considering where/how I might advertise it when I finally get it done. But! it’s at the editors now and I’m all set to go from here.

Of all 46 stories I’ve written over the years, and publishing so many books, I am so happy that I’ve continued on this journey. It isn’t always easy, it’s a lot of time, energy, and sometimes tears getting out all of those words. But the stories are worth it. Having the books on my shelf, or having something to show to others, or even the audio books, are all worth the trouble it took to get here.

And that’s my five.

5 Min – Day 6 – What’s free?

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Last night I finished editing two more chapters for Dragons Flame, and wrote the last chapter. That last chapter had gone incomplete for a while. But this get’s me even closer to the end of the writing.

I also did a bunch of newsletters to let people know about the free short stories this weekend. If you’re interested you can find them here:  Small Bites 1 and Hidden Treasures for free this weekend, and  Witch’s Sacrifice is back on sale for 99 cents, along with most of my short stories being 99 cents.

 

 

 

But no progress on the declutter front yesterday. Life is about balance, trying to find that sweet spot of work, chores, family and everything else you have going on in  your life. And so I’m trying to do that. I know I work from 12:30 to 10:30 five days a week, including the commute to and from. I know that I have some time in the evenings with Gregg. And I know that in the morning I am carving out five minutes for this blog post. The other things, like writing and reading, and playing a game, or decluttering my life…those all take second fiddle to the facts of keeping a roof over our head, and spending time with my boyfriend so we don’t feel like we’re ignoring one another.

Some days I wish I could go back to being a house wife. I had a lot more time then, and would sometimes spend weeks just doing spring cleaning. Sometimes you  have to spend a lot of time to find all those little nooks and crannies where soup or spaghetti found their way. Especially when you have toddlers.

Maybe I don’t have toddlers anymore, but I do have a house filled with stuff.

And that’s my five.

Finally doing something… 

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I’ve been a bit mopy lately and I  finally figured out what will take me right out of that: publishing something! 

I went through my files and discovered twelve finished short stories that I had yet to publish. So I think it’s about time I do something with all of them. 

The first one is up for pre-order here. Hidden Treasures is about a young boy trying to find the excitement of the past. It’s nostalgia for the good old days from a 2100 AD perspective. No matter what time period you’re in there  is always someone thinking the old days were better.That will be available on May 5th

Then on May 19th I’ll have the next book out. A short story collection with four short stories about angels and demons. This one’s a bit harder for me to put out because the stories are based incredibly loosely on biblical references. But I love the stories and iI want to share them. 

I am hoping to have minotaur out by the end of May as well but there may be done complications  only time will tell. 

Free Books

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Just a quick note to let you know that I have two free short stories this weekend.

Twilight Tales has three short stories, and The Camera is about a  young boy that finds a camera with an unusual ability. It’s inspired from an old Stephen King short story.

There will be two more short stories available for free each weekend for the rest of April.