The DiVacci Curse: An Old-Fashioned Ghost Short Story

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Chills, Creepy, Frightening, Ghost Story, Halloween, Halloween Reading, haunted house, haunted mansion, Horror, Insomnia, New Hampshire, Night-light, spooky, Thrills

Perfect for Halloween…

It’s so frightening that you’ll have to sleep with a night-light weeks after reading it!

Feel free to share this post…if you’re brave enough! (Insert sinister laughter here)

Have a safe and healthy Halloween.

Updates Available…

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A Day of Horror: The March 11, 2011 Japan Earthquake-A Foreigner's Perspective, authors, Horror, humanity, Manage your content and devices, nonfiction, novel, photos, Short stories, The DiVacci Curse, To Sleep in the Ground, updates

First things first…

I hope that everyone is coping with the pandemic and that lives are being saved by compliance to the worldwide lockdowns.

No offense or disrespect is intended, but I thought that since things seem to be settling down a bit in some areas of the world, and some countries are over their peaks of mass infection, that maybe it was acceptable to post some new info about my books.

Amazon.com has informed me that free updates are available for all three of my e-books.  In order to access the updates, readers who purchased my books in the past can go to their “Manage Your Content and Devices” page in their Amazon account to download the updated and most recent version.  I assume (you know what happens when we do that) that the updates will translate to all Amazon versions of my books no matter what country they were purchased from.  If you have information to the contrary, or would like to chime in with any comments about the updates, then I would be more than grateful and open to them.  Unfortunately, as of the date of this post, the updates are not available for anyone who purchased my books from Amazon.jp here in Japan where I live.  Sorry about that.  I hope it changes.  Perhaps it just takes time for word to spread throughout the entire Amazon kingdom.  That is completely understandable considering the current situation.

As mentioned in previous posts, after I published my first novel, I revisited both my nonfiction book and my short story.  Basic technical changes were made, but I made no changes to the stories.  I just updated and improved the appearance, format and user-friendliness of the books.  I changed some of the front matter to back matter, and made the layout and flow more consistent across all three books.  I also reformatted the photos in my March 11, 2011 nonfiction book among other changes.  I feel that the changes make for a much better reading experience overall.

The free updates are my gift to the readers of my books.  Thank you all very much.  I hope that you will enjoy the improvements.  For those of you who have not yet read my books, then be assured that you will be getting the most current editions and the best possible reading experience that I can offer at this time.  Thank you for your future patronage.

Again, please forgive my selfish post at such a difficult time as this.

I ask your continued prayers for the world.  We are all in this together regardless of gender, race, religion, creed, political ideology, socioeconomic status or income.  Hang in there, everybody.

 

 

 

 

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The DiVacci Curse…Now Revised and Republished!

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Creepy, Ghost Story, Ghosts, gothic, haunted house, haunted mansion, Horror, new edition, revised story, Scary, short story, spooky, The DiVacci Curse, vengeful ghosts, writing

I’m happy to announce that my story The DiVacci Curse has been revised.  The latest edition is available on Amazon.  As mentioned in last week’s post, I had some spare time after publishing my first novel and decided to revisit my short story (the first bit of fiction that I published).

The plot remains intact, but I cleaned up aspects of the narrative and got rid of many unnecessary adverbs and repetitive words.  The story is polished and the pacing flows more smoothly.  I think that the overall readability is better, too.  I hope that readers find it scarier, darker and more enjoyable.

Thanks for reading and please check out the link below!

To Revise or Not to Revise?

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gothic, Horror, novel, revise, revising your published story, revision, self-publishing, Short stories, The DiVacci Curse, writing advice

Now that my first novel is self-published, I’ve had a little free time to contemplate other things.  While editing it, I realized that I had made errors with the short story that I published in 2016.  The DiVacci Curse was the first work of fiction that I self-published.  The errors ranged from spelling issues to overused words and unnecessary adverbs; common mistakes that many first-time writers make.  I’m now in the process of revisiting my short story and making appropriate revisions that I think will improve its pace and overall readability.

Some authors do not like the idea of editing and republishing their work.  Once it’s done and published, then they wish it be left alone and judged as is.  After all, would you change the Mona Lisa or rewrite the Bible?  Of course not.  As we’ve seen, Hollywood has a penchant for changing the classics, and not always with positive results.  But I’m not talking about writing screenplays (although I have dabbled in that area).  I am talking about crafting novels and stories, a different beast altogether.

I suppose if you are fortunate enough to be published with a major publishing house that has taken the time and money to promote your work successfully, then it may seem unnecessary to revise your story.  But the wonderful world of self-publishing is changing the dynamics of the publishing system, bucking the ingrained trends and creating its own rules and standards.

I am not tinkering with the plot of The DiVacci Curse.  That will remain as is, so no worries there.  My intention is to revise and republish…and to not revisit the story again unless I make further catastrophic errors with spelling and grammar, etc.  I don’t expect that to happen the second time around though.  I wouldn’t want to edit and revise any story indefinitely.  That’s counterproductive and not logical.

I like the idea that I can go back and change aspects of the story to make it more entertaining (or not).  Of course, whether those changes will indeed improve the story is not ultimately up to me but in the minds of the readers.  I’ll let them be the judge.

I learned a great deal from writing my first novel.  I hope that it has made me a better writer.  I hope that I continue learning and improving and finding my voice as they say.

I will post an update when my short story is revised and republished, so be sure to check back.  Thanks for reading.