short stories

I’m Considering Eating the Groundhog

By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

Last week the pipes in my house froze for the third time this winter.

When I looked in the mirror, I had crazy “is winter over yet?” eyes. Unless I did something fast, I was going to end up like this…

Wolf Ate Groundhog with Words

So I decided I needed to do something fun. Since my ebook of suspense short stories is called Frozen, it seemed fitting for me to put it on sale.

For this week only, you can get Frozen for 99 cents. If you haven’t yet read it, now’s the time!

Frozen: Two Suspense Short StoriesHere are a few more details for you about Frozen.

Twisted sleepwalking.
A frozen goldfish in a plastic bag.
And a woman afraid she’s losing her grip on reality.
“A Purple Elephant” is a 2,900-word suspense short story about grief and betrayal.

In “The Replacements,” a prodigal returns home to find that her parents have started a new family, one with no room for her. This disturbing 3,600-word suspense short story is about the lengths to which we’ll go to feel like we’re wanted, and how we don’t always see things the way they really are.

Grab your copy of Frozen here.

Hopefully it will help you forget about winter for a little while at least 😀

(The sale is Amazon only, but if you want a version for a different ereader, buy a copy from Amazon, send me an email, and I’ll send you a version compatible with whatever your preferred e-reading device is.)

Please help me spread the word about the sale on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

If you’d like to use some pre-made tweets, here they are.

Twisted sleepwalking. A frozen goldfish in a plastic bag. A woman losing her grip on reality. FROZEN on sale for 0.99 (Click to tweet)

Prodigal returns to find her parents have started new family with no room for her~Suspense story FROZEN 0.99 til Fri (Click to tweet)

Two disturbing suspense stories in one book ~ FROZEN on sale for 99 cents til Fri (Click to tweet)

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Image Credit: Asia Jones

How Far Would You Go to Be Accepted?

Misfits

Image Credit: Peter Sorensen (sxc.hu)

By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

Sorry for the silence last week everyone. My husband ended up at the emergency room and was home sick for a few days. But I’m back this week to fulfill my promise!

Two weeks ago. I told you about my struggle to forgive the man who killed my best friend and how that influenced “A Purple Elephant,” one of the short stories in my ebook Frozen.

This week I wanted to talk about my inspiration for the other story, “The Replacements.”

I’ve heard that the best writers have had horrible childhoods or traumatic pasts. I think that’s untrue, a myth perpetuated by a small minority who talk openly about their tragic pasts and the sensitive nature of creatives that makes us more prone to addictions.

I had a happy childhood. In fact, I’d say that, overall, my life has been a good one.

That doesn’t mean I can’t write about tragedy, unbalanced characters, or the darker sides of life.

What it does mean is that I have to find something, some emotion, that I share with that character, no matter how small the connection. (If you’re a writer and want to see what I mean, check out my post on Three Steps to Creating Believable Character Emotions.)

With Natalie, the point of view character in “The Replacements,” that emotion was an overwhelming desire to be loved, accepted, and wanted. (You can read about my struggle with this in my posts My Life As A Three-Headed Chimera and Do You Ever Feel Like You Don’t Fit In?)

I chose a very different path from the one I gave to Natalie, but that was part of what I wanted to explore in this story—a different path. I wanted to take that deep-seated need to be loved and I wanted and put it in a situation where I could create a character who would take it to an extreme that I never would have. I wanted to explore how far a person might go to feel like she had a place to belong.

In “The Replacements,” Natalie is a prodigal daughter who ran away from home and cut off contact with her parents years before. As the story opens, she’s fresh out of an abusive relationship and she’s tired of living on the streets. The only thing she wants, the only thing that matters to her, is to be able to return home to her parents, to know they still want her and love her. 

Except when she arrives home, she finds out her parents have “replaced” her by having more children. In Natalie’s broken mind, the only way she can be welcomed home is by first getting rid of her replacements.

Frozen: Two Suspense Short StoriesHere are a few more details for you about Frozen.

Twisted sleepwalking.
A frozen goldfish in a plastic bag.
And a woman afraid she’s losing her grip on reality.
“A Purple Elephant” is a 2,900-word suspense short story about grief and betrayal.

In “The Replacements,” a prodigal returns home to find that her parents have started a new family, one with no room for her. This disturbing 3,600-word suspense short story is about the lengths to which we’ll go to feel like we’re wanted, and how we don’t always see things the way they really are.

Frozen is currently available at Amazon, Kobo, and Smashwords. More venues coming soon!

I’d love to have you sign up to receive my posts by email. All you need to do is enter your email address below and hit the “Follow” botton.

Enter your email address to follow this blog:

I’m Giving Away a Short Story

Purple Cover

Twisted sleepwalking.
A frozen goldfish in a plastic bag.
And a woman afraid she’s losing her grip on reality.

That’s a peek at “Purple,” the short story I’m giving away starting today as a thank you to anyone who signs up for my brand new newsletter (which I’ll tell you about in just a minute).

“Purple” is a suspense, not the fantasy you might have expected from me, but I’ve chosen to use it as my thank-you gift for one very important reason. I wanted to give you the best I had.

Even though I wrote “Purple” back in 2008, it’s still my favorite piece of work. It’s also the story that I won the Writer’s Digest Popular Fiction Competition with that year. Because I wanted to be certain I was giving you something I was proud of, it became the obvious choice. I won’t be making it available any other way.

So let’s get the obvious questions out of the way about the newsletter.

If I’m already subscribed to your blog, am I also subscribed to your newsletter?

You’re not. The newsletter and the blog are separate, and I would never violate your trust by signing you up for the newsletter without your permission. If you want to be on my newsletter list, you’ll need to sign up separately.

So what’s the difference between the blog and your newsletter? Why should I sign up for both?

Well, my blog is what you’re used to. I post two to three times a week on science fiction, fantasy, and writing. Everything remains the same for blog subscribers. You’ll continue to receive my blog posts as always. No extra action necessary.

My newsletter will only go out when I have news about new releases (in other words, novels, non-fiction books, and short stories—and you will be seeing all three from me this year if all goes as planned), upcoming courses I’m teaching for writers, exclusive discounts for newsletter subscribers, and freebies. I expect it’ll only go out about once a month. If you want the newsletter too, you need to sign up.

Along with my new newsletter, you may have noticed that things look a little different around here. I want to thank the talented Laird Sapir of Memphis McKay who has been working hard behind the scenes to design this new site for me. I’m very excited to finally be able to show it off. Please bear with me as I finish unpacking. But if you’d like to poke around a little, I have already updated my online courses and editing services pages.

So there you have it. I’d love it if you’d sign up for my newsletter by putting your email in the box below and then share this post. If you enjoy the story, let me know 🙂