Have just changed the cover for my "Love at First Bite" short story a little and tinkered around with the blurb. It's looking a bit better, more blood-soaked now. Just in time for Halloween. The writing contest at the Vampir Buecher und Autoren Group closes on 15th October, by the way, in case you want to churn out a quick vampire dating story of your own. Here's the link for the free download:

http://www.bookrix.com/_ebook-maria-thermann-love-at-first-bite/

I uploaded my entry to the "Vampire Date" writing contest yesterday as a bit of fun. This is NOT a Willow the vampire story, I hasten to add, hence the 16+ age bracket. The contest is still running until 15th October in the German Group Vampir Buecher und Autoren. I had to do the cover in a hurry, because my laptop battery was about to run out of juice, so yes, it does require more thought and definitely more work! The story's in English, by the way.

There are three poems I've written...one is called the lying mirror.
http://www.bookrix.com/_ebook-lazarus-t-k-a-door-open-your-eyes-and-the-lying-mirror/

After proofreading Linus & The Leprechauns yet again this morning, I decided to make the book available to more than "just" Bookrix readers. It's currently going through their checking process, I think. Thought I let those of you know who have expressed an interest - in case it's not coming up for download at present. It will remain free to download, when it's been approved by Bookrix, but it means more of my friends and writing circle can download it.

Thank you for adding When A Southern Woman Rambles (Laughing at Life One Mint Julep at a Time) to your favorites list! Sort of made my day...

sometimes I wonder if anyone ever reads what I write but you've revived my faith in folks!

Thanks for adding my book - I look forward to your comments. ')

Phew, finally managed to upload "Linus & The Leprechauns" here on Bookrix. It's free to read for all and I hope you'll enjoy it. Written for readers aged 8 and upwards and all those who love bawdy farting jokes, leprechauns, talking scarecrows and school bullies who get what they deserve in the end.

Have just deleted my "Wanderlust" competition entry on Inkitt. Honestly, the site is taken the proverbial...a word starting with pee!

After I and doubtless countless others pointed out to them that their Terms & Conditions told us authors retained full copyrights to their stories, but qualified this with "But competition entries might be different" they haven't done anything to rectify this by clarifying what exactly they intend to do with the winning entry. We are told, winners can look forward to a pretty "badge". Right. For how long will the badge last, will the story be visible on the site etc....This morning I discover that they have seemingly changed the judging terms: they are now only going to consider judging the top 10% voted for entries, presumably because there are so many entries now, they cannot read through them with the staff they have

This means that anyone uploading just before or on deadline day 24th Sept won't get in front of the judges at all, since there will be no time for people to read the story and vote on it. Since site doesn't allow writers to put up a proper profile or blurb to describe the story either (you only get 200 characters!), there's nowhere on the profile page to give picture credits and any relevant information or credits for the uploaded stories. That means fan fiction, which is dominating the site, cannot be credited to the original works, nor can artwork or photos used as covers be credited to their originators by anyone uploading stuff. Copyright infringement galore.

In other words, if you were thinking of uploading anything now, you'd be wasting your time...or would have to recruit a horde of readers and crack the whip for them to vote right away.

What a waste of time's this has been, and I got invited to publish on the site...when they don't even have a children's writer section and all their ratings start from age 13+ onwards, as I had to point out to them. But one only discovers this during uploading. This isn't really a Beta-site, but an experiment to see if all the claims they made to the media about their "stickiness proof" software can be substantiated. There's clearly nobody at that site with any book publishing experience whatsoever. It may look pretty, but it's really just another Wattpad in disguise, and one in its badly planned infancy at that.

But hey, that leaves me to get my story ready for publishing in ebook format right here. Yay!

A slow start to voting on Inkitt's Wanderlust Fantasy genre writing contest. But then my entry was no. 200-something, so it takes fantasy fans on the site a while to read their way through all those entries before they reach mine utterly exhausted...

Since this children's author is competing with the Love-Justin-Bieber-Knight-In-Charming-Armour brigade that write either fan fiction or adolescent fantasies about their favourite pop star, I'm not expecting to win so much as a virtual pat on the back. Still, three people have liked my story so far, one has even written a 4-star review and none of these people is my Gran. Things are looking up.