Category: Published

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BEST NEWS EVERYONE!

It is with great pleasure that I announce I have a publisher for my novel Sleep Over!

My first published novel will be with Skyhorse Publishing.  They have placed 33 books on the New York Times bestseller list; I hope to add one more to that tally.

I am working closely with one of their editors to get the manuscript where they want it (for a larger audience, more commercial fiction than literary fiction) and I am 10000% on board with getting it to be the best that I possibly can, to reach as large and audience that I can!

I have about 1.5 tons of work to do.  How much writing is that?  Many.  Many writing to do.  Notes on just about every chapter.  Many new chapters to write.

I am so excited!

I have been waiting to tell everything this news for… let’s see, I submitted my first novel to a publisher in 2002, then wrote 5 more books, then, carry the 1… yes, ten thousand years.  But more specifically I had to keep this news about this publisher and this book under wraps for so long!  I am so glad to get to tell you finally.

Hurray for me!  I have a publisher!

I will keep you posted on things to come.

Expect to hear such exciting news like:

  • crumbling under the stress of revisions 
  • tackling tough revisions with gusto
  • getting the final draft approved by my editor
  • getting an author photo
  • getting a back blurb
  • getting cover quotes
  • getting a cover!
  • the book going to print
  • a release date
  • and much much more!

This process takes a crazy long time; don’t expect to see my book until 2017 (I think a January release was being tossed around- maybe I will get the best birthday present ever).

I will be sure to keep you posted.

Here’s a link to Skyhorse’s site.  Sleep Over will be under the Talos imprint, with their other great sci-fi, fantasy, and horror.  (For those that don’t know, publishing houses have “imprints” that handle the various genres they work with.)

I’d like to thank everyone who has checked in to see how things are going.  It’s a long process, and having your support has really made a difference to me.

Thanks for reading.  ❤

Heidi out.

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Getting Close! And Check Out This Podcast!

Hello Dear Readers!

I am extremely excited to keep you updated with my progress in the quest to get a book published.  I have had offers from more than one publisher!  Now it’s a matter of choosing which one will be the best one for the job.  It’s a tough decision to make.  I’ll let you know when I’ve signed on with the publisher I choose.

In the mean time, I got to be a guest on a film podcast that goes in depth into a movie.  I chose “Children of Men” (2006) and Doug Ferguson and I talk about it for an hour.  If you want to check it out, listen to it here.

I really love Children of Men; it’s one of my favourite films.  Nerding out with someone else who loves it was a real treat.  If you haven’t seen the film, there are spoilers in the podcast, but we do say “spoiler alert” before things get spoilery.

Here’s the trailer for the film if you are wondering if you are interested:


But after hearing Doug and I talk about it like we do, how could you not be interested in it!

I’ll keep you posted regarding upcoming publishing excitement.

Thanks for stopping by!

Heidi out.

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I Have An Agent

I am extremely pleased to announce that I have signed on with Beth Campbell over at BookEnds.  She will be representing my novel Sleep Over.

It has finally happened.  I have an agent.

I have been waiting to say those words for a long, long time.

Beth has just switched over to helming the representation of scifi and fantasy over at BookEnds.  She wants an author who isn’t just a flash in the pan.  She loves my manuscript, and my head is still swilling from all the gorgeous things she is saying about my writing.

And the writer’s head grew three sizes that day hahaha.

I won’t be able to share too much about the process of finding a publisher as it’s happening (super secret stuff), but you can bet your butt you’ll hear it loud and clear when I have signed with a publisher for Sleep Over.  My only hope is that it takes a bit of time, as that’s a good sign that more than one really, really wants it.

Meanwhile, I will keep on posting for you, my dear, dear readers.  I am so glad you could be here with me when I was finally able to give this good news!  Your support has meant so much to me over the years as I continue on this wonderful journey to authordom.

I will continue to share a great many and varied things with you. Including, if you’re interested in the details, How I Got a Literary Agent.

In addition to my fantastic announcement, here are some more things just! for! yooou!!!

Episode 7 AND episode 8 of my Oddcast, Forgotten, are up! Episode 8 took the longest of all of them and had so many outtakes.  I’m really pushing the form to the limit, and “the voices” really had a tough time of getting this one to work.  It’s getting better as it goes along, and I’m really happy with where it’s heading!

We’ve also got more videos from my husband’s Wild Gears Creations channel.  Are you ready to see something wild? This one is crazy!

And are you ready for parallel lines?

 

Something else fun: the tale of my Message in a Bottle which was answered by The X-Files (4 images in album- clicky).

Also, here’s a little comic I made about how I make coffee.

That’s all for now, dear readers.

I think we’ve entered into a new and exciting phase of my career here. I am one step closer to having a major work published, and hopefully soon I can share that with you too.

Cheers.

Heidi out.

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Zombies Galore, Oddly Satisfying, and Episode 5 of Forgotten

Well dear readers, today I have much to share with you!

Zombies Galore is live, and my piece “Monday Matinee Madness” opens and sets the tone for the collection.  You can actually read my contribution in its entirety for free!  Just “Look Inside”, and because mine is the opening story, you can check it out, which I’m quite pleased about.  🙂

Now onto the latest from my Mathematical Husband, who is persisting on creating these mesmerizing and oddly satisfying pieces of art with his laser cut Wild Gears.  This video shows him using a gear-in-a-gear-*in-a-gear*.  Pretty impressive.

And now for another thing you can check out.  Forgotten is my strange little audo project which I’m going to keep calling an Oddcast.  I’ve just put up episode 5 for you, and it’s called “Choices”.  We’re getting better at this.

I’ll leave it at that.  Thanks for stopping by.

Heidi out.

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“Luka and Iso”- Top 10% in The Nicholl Fellowship!

Hello wonderful blog readers!

I received an email from the Nicholl Fellowship today.

Every year, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences picks five writers and pay them, based on the strength of the script they submitted, to produce another feature length screenplay.

I didn’t make the cut for the Fellowship, but my script scored in the top ten percent!

7,251 entrants, and I’m in the top 10%?  Pretty awesome, but of course, disappointing not to advance.

Ah well, I’m hoping I can find someone out there as excited about the story of the first genetically engineered dragon as I am!  Perhaps this will help me along.  It will make a killer film.

Congratulations to everyone that is advancing.  I’m sure there are some amazing scripts, and how they’ll ever pick just five is completely beyond me!

In other news, I received my second ever royalty cheque!  Seems that A Quick Bite of Flesh is still selling.  Want some zombie flash fiction?  Then this book is forrr yoooouuuu!

I am waiting on an awesome agent for a new book I’d like to see in print.  Paranormal romance/urban fantasy here I come!  I’m well into the sequel already, and hitting short stories out of the park on a daily basis.

I’ll keep at it until- BWA HA HA YOU CAN’T STOP ME

Thanks for stopping by.

Oh what’s that?  This is my 100th post?

Hurrah!

Oh man, if I’ve been this into my small successes so far, when I get my first novel picked up I’m going to be happier than a kitten with a feather.  More excited than a porcupine with a banana.  You do know porcupines love bananas, right?

Anyway, thank you for stopping in and staying with me on this long, long journey to authordom.

Heidi out.

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I’m Still Here


Well, I’m still here.

I’m just keeping on keeping on.  Written another book.  Am having another go at finding an agent for “Luka and Iso”, the tale of the sentient genetically engineered dragon.  I really hope I can get that one represented; the time is right for the story, and it needs to be told.  All the fuforah about GMOs lately is wild.  There’s some great opportunity for marketing, and great potential for cross talk when stories about GMOs and advancements in genetics come up.

Glow in the dark monkeys, anyone?

Meanwhile, my new project is going over well with an army of anonymous beta readers.  It’s nice working with people I don’t know, and that don’t know me; they’re giving me good, honest feedback.  …And a lot of it is positive.  They already want the sequel!

But I’m sticking to my guns about not writing more than one book in a series until the first one gets published.

So I’m starting yet another one.  While I polish the new book, I’m outlining the next, which will be my fifth novel.  A fun sci-fi, inspired by a short story I wrote last year called “The First Gentlemen’s Galactic Scavenger Hunt”.

Short stories continue to be sent out, rejected, accepted.  The latest is in the upcoming “Zombies Gone Wild II”, for which the cover was just sent to me.  I think it’s hilarious.

So that’s me lately.  It’s been interesting trying to temper my least favourite part of the process (trying to find an agent) with my most favourite (writing); the new projects pull me along even as I drag my heels cold-emailing amazing agents who I would absolutely be ecstatic to work with.

Oh, and I’ve levelled up my procrastination skills.  Whenever I finish a major project, there’s a decompression that happens afterwards.  So far it’s been things like fill a sketch book or write a zillion short stories, and my latest: watch all of The Office.  Seriously, I’m almost done.  This has been the least productive of my come-downs, but man is it good.

Thank goodness for the Self Control app, which I use to block out every distraction, but leave the rest of the useful internet free for research.

So, onwards I go.  Book after book, I’m going to just keep ’em coming, until I find an agent that’s into one of them.  And then we’ll really see what I can do.

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Good News Everyone!

Yet another Good News post!  These are my favourite.  :3

The scariest short story I’ve ever written has been accepted!  “Dark Light 2”, sequel to the wildly successful “Dark Light” will feature my piece, “Duck”.  My name will even be on the cover (along with the other contributors; that’s pretty cool!).

Annie hears her mother call from downstairs.  As she rushes to go to her, her mother stops her.  “Don’t go; I heard it too.”

(Incomplete cover below.)

I’ll of course let you know when it’s out and link to it and everything.  I’m really excited to see this one in print, and really pleased that my attempt at writing something scary-pants actually worked.  So here’s to Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly, and to their anthology, “Dark Light 2”.

Thanks for reading.

Heidi out.

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Good News Everyone!

Hello all.  So glad to be able to share some more good news with you today: a short story of mine, “Mirror Twenty-Two” has been published!  It’s part of the online portion of the Haunted Waters Press ‘From the Depths’ magazine.

…And you can read it for free!  It’s a paranormal-military-action-horror.

“For our purposes, that little girl is no longer a little girl,” he said with measured calm.

I want to thank everyone that has subscribed to my blog.  It’s really nice to have a few people interested in my work.  I’m so, so grateful for your readership, and it’s nice that I can share some nifty things with you.  🙂

“Mirror Twenty-Two” by H.G. Bleackley

Hopefully I’ll have something more in this universe to share in the new year; I’m working with an artist to adapt another story into comic form.  I’m really excited about that one… And I really dig the world I’m building using short stories.  I think there might be something more there, something bigger.

Also, I’m adapting my latest novel into a screenplay, which I will start shopping around in January/February.  My screenplay chops are a little rusty, but it’s coming along.

So I’ll keep writing, and submitting, and sharing.

Thanks once again for reading.

Heidi out.

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A Quick Bite of Flesh: In Print!

This just in: A Quick Bite of Flesh is now in print! You can get it through Creatspace today, and Amazon soon (I’ll post that link when it’s up too).

Click the cover below to go to their page.

Cheers everyone!