My Short Story Adventure

Hello lovely readers! I was just sitting here getting over the flu and thought I'd get a little work done. So, here's a bit from my writing life.

2018 has started out with some big goals. One of the big things I want to tackle this year are my short stories. I normally focus on my novels, but in between stories I work on shorts that don't normally ever see the light of day. Wanting to find a home for these lovelies I started looking around and found a website that not only offers a place to showcase my shorts, but it also pays a little bit for each read.

Penpee.com is a UK website that brings readers to authors. Short stories are featured on the site and readers "pay" 3 credits for each chapter of the story they read. Credits can be earned by logging in everyday and by inviting friends to join. 16 credits are also earned just for signing up.

Authors, you can sign up and post shot stories for readers to find. After signing up as a reader, authors can choose between three plans. Starter, Basic and Premium. As you can see from the image the Basic and Premium plans cost money. (Roughly $10 for the Premium) The nice things is this covers 6 months. The free choice, Starter allows you to only post one story a month and authors earn less per read.

For the first six months I gambled with $10 and gave it a try. The Premium plan allows me to submit as many stories as I want and I am able to qualify for the leaderboard bonuses. If it doesn't pay off I can let it expire and I'll end up with a Starter plan where I'll still earn at least a little bit for every read the stories get.

So, you might be asking how quality is controlled if authors can just post whatever they want. Well, that's answered with a rating system. I've pulled this from the sites "How it Works" page:

"We classify works based on standard and grammatical context. We will apply quality standard filter to every work from A, A+ to D. With an A+ rating indicating the top most level of professionalism and quality of the writer’s work. So if you are not comfortable reading works of a C or D rated writer, you can use the filter. We rate each story and not each writer."

And so you have it. Penpee.com seems to have their bases covered and I've given them a try.


I've already posted a short story I've been holding onto for a while. A Lord for the Duchess, a sweet contemporary romance.

Simone Noir is a romance novelist who just wants to finish her latest story before her deadline is up. Her eccentric aunt, however, has other plans. Invited to a murder mystery weekend getaway, Simone learns that not everyone is who they seem to be.

This story is 5 chapters long, which can be covered by those 16 free credits you get for signing up ;).



So, this year I'm giving Penpee a try and I'll be adding short stories there and I'll be sharing them here and on my social networks, if I can remember to keep up with them. If you decide to give it a try feel free to friend me on the site and comment here and let me know how its going for you.

Peace and Love!

Life is a Little Crazy

Crazy, like leaving me standing alone with an armful of colorful stuff. Crazy, like falling back onto a mountain of blankets and pillows laughing for no reason. Life is a little crazy, but that's why we love it so much. I've been a bit blocked lately and so I started thinking about all the other projects I've got sitting on the sidelines, waiting for me to get to them. I have to admit, those poor stories have been neglected lately. So I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to set some time aside just for those wacky fun little short stories.

Here's a touch of what I've got going on in the short story department:


West Lakes: Stories of Chaos
This set of short stories combine to make up the story of West Lakes and it's Earth Angel. Each short deals with something that has happen to either the Earth Angel or someone who affects the way things are run in West Lakes' supernatural society. Most of the residents are normal humans, but a few handfuls of people are supernatural; whether they are demigods, servants of gods or just pure supernatural beings like elves. This is a project I have been working on for years, but have very little honestly written out.





Sci Fi
I have several sci fi shorts that I want to get onto paper. Each story is a story about side characters in a novel I have on the back burner. The goal for these was to inspire a little more work on the main story itself and to gain interest from readers. In these stories we have clones, bio androids, one sleep deprived ship captain and one great fire fight that I'm hoping rivals the OK Coral.

Well, those are the two project shorts I plan on devoting a little more time to. With my main novel on the table right now it can be hard to find time for these and my more traditional writing work, but what makes life more crazy than a little challenge?


Peace and love my faithful readers.