KG Finfrock

House of Redemption

Kathy Finfrock

Genres: Thriller, Horror

Eight unscrupulous guests have have been invited to the centuries old Blackstone Resorts. Each patron has his or her own reason for needing an escape from unpleasant circumstances. Tensions mount quickly as, one-by-one, they come to face their worse nightmare. Will they repent their evil ways or remain in Blackstone for the rest of their lives?

Amazon Kindle  99 cents    Amazon Paperback $9.99

Reviewed by Patricia Reding for Readers’ Favorite Sometimes a person has a matter of minutes for reading and wants to be able to experience a full story in that time. Such can be done with the stories set out in Bubble Off Plumb, edited by KG Finfrock, Sarah Kalin, and Dan M. Kalin. This book offers a variety of short stories from a number of authors. As the editors tell it, the idea was to publish a number of non genre specific stories that shared a single thing in common. That thing, quite simply, is that each story is somehow “off-beat.” The result is a publication of over 20 stories, all of which are sure to have satisfied the editors as each is unusual, and all of which are likely to satisfy readers for that same reason. In Bubble Off Plumb, I went on a variety of short adventures. As a consequence of Buzz Dixon’s story entitled, “Barn Raising,” I may never think the same of the friendly Amish tradition of helping another party raise a barn. I might even suspect something a bit more sinister. Likewise, KG Finfrock’s “Good Thoughts” made me consider how retribution might look if it was the sole purpose for imprisoning those who’d engaged in criminal behavior. Then with “The Way it Was” with Jonah, Arthur Weil gave me interesting insight into what it would be like to befriend someone who is accident prone—when the accidents happen to those around that person. These are just a few of the many stories in this anthology. Grab a copy to download and engage yourself the next time you have to sit in a waiting room or stand in a line. The minutes are likely to fly by as you enjoy some good storytelling, while your outlook on some rather ordinary things in life might never be the same thereafter.

Available at Amazon

The Daily Ten-Minute Writing Prompt (Volume 1)

KG Finfrock

Imagine a room with ten people sitting at a table. One sentence is scrawled across a whiteboard hanging on the wall. A large clock is counting down. The people at the table are focused on the paper or whatever writing implement they have chosen. The minutes go by. The scribbling pen picks up speed. Fingers tapping on keyboards are consistent. The ending alarm chimes. Ten fresh storylines are born.This is the Ten-Minute Writing Prompt. One simple statement or a piece of dialog igniting the creative flame for fiction writers. Take ten minutes of your day to stir the embers and keep the muse strong and alive.

Amazon Paperback $8.99  Amazon Kindle $2.99

 

 

 

 

I have joined the Typosphere World

As I uploaded the following jpgs of my essay, my typing error glares in my face. So for future reference, when it comes to typing on the typewriter, I do not correct my typos or misspellings for the most part. My bad. Moving forward.

 

 

Top Five Favorite Stories in Bubble Off-Plumb

What do stories about ephemeral Martian settlers, fascinating dimensional rifts, Spanish-speaking hummingbirds, Loki’s children, WWII twins, hitchhiking swamp cats, a steam-punk octopus, Arkham card-games, using bad luck for fun and profit, demon home security systems, alternative criminal justice, workplace time travel, marketing to body-snatchers, alien attraction, and way too many barns all have in common? Simple: in one way or another they are all Bubble Off Plumb.

 

These are my top five favorite stories in the anthology.  Each of these stories stayed with me long after I finished reading them. Each invoked a feeling of happiness, tears, or terror.

#1 The Hole by Tim Jeffreys

Josh and Marion had found the perfect starter house at a price too good to be true.The owners explained they wanted a quick sale as they wanted to start fresh. Josh skipped the full survey. He figured they would be able to pay for any repairs needed.

Maybe things would have turned out differently if the inspection had been made but I  doubt it.

This story stayed with me months after reading it.

#2 I am Bridget by Mariah Southworth

A scientist recreates his oldest teen daughter in a robot. She is perfect and no one knows she has replaced the deceased daughter, Bridgett. She is perfect. Maybe too perfect.

IA at it’s best. 

#3 The Prisoner by Valerie Manwill

Finn is young and passionate and he is not ready to throw away the best years of his life behind bars. He is determined to escape.

I did not expect the twist at the end of this thriller. I laughed … a lot.

#4 Harold’s Not Imaginary Friend

Harold’s new bride, Barbara, is questioning Harold’s friend Marshal who only seems to drop in when Harold is home alone. He never writes or call. Is he even real?

I enjoyed everything in this story, the friendships, the love shared between all and the adventure they went on.

#5 The Time Before Dreams by E.E King

Here lived all things fantastic, forgotten imaginings, and recollected from lives never lived.

Being an avid dreamer, this story brought me to tears. I did not want to leave this magical place.

Available at Amazon

Vibe Festival of Wellness 2019

Beth Winokur

Guess where I’ll be this coming Sunday, April 14th! I’ll be sharing a table with Beth Winokur, author of Sunshine in Darkness and Three Stories: Itch. Drop by the Orton Center Lawn at the University of Redlands and say hello.

Signed copies of our books will be available.

Conversations with KG Finfrock

Such a pleasure doing this interview. Thank you for inviting me.

Rami Ungar The Writer

Hello, and welcome back to another interview. I’m so glad I’m able to spotlight so many different authors lately. Really livens things up a bit, and it’s a great way to connect with new friends and new readers. And today’s interview is with a new acquaintance whom I met through the Horror Writers Association. She’s a writer, editor, and she’s hear to talk about her work.

Please welcome KG Finfrock.

Rami Ungar: Welcome KG. Tell us about yourself and your novel House of Redemption.

KG Finfrock: I love to listen to people’s stories. I had a friend in high school who was a pathological liar and I didn’t care. I loved to hear the stories she would weave as truth. I love to get people to open up about what’s going in their lives and where they’ve gone. Being a homebody, I’m happy to live vicariously through their experiences…

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Writers Expo. Will You Be There?

Hey Fellow writers and readers. There will be a writer’s expo in Moreno Valley this March.  Author readings, Book signings and more. I hope to be there. I plan to be there. I’d love to do a reading. I’m going to start practicing now. First thing to do is find the right passage.

SUBMISSION CALL: Dark Divinations

 

via SUBMISSION CALL: Dark Divinations

Hey fellow writers, there’s a new horror anthology on the horizon and you can be part of it.

The meat of the submission is the story is placed in the Victorian era 1837-1901, must be a horror story (emotionally, physical, and or mental) and must involve a form of divination. Click the link for the details.  Deadline is Oct 31, 2019. Good luck.

Side note: The editor for this anthology is author Naching T. Kassa. I had the privilege of reading her short story on my podcast, one of my favorites, you can listen to Carrion Man here.

No More Excuses

I am amazed at what I can accomplish when I stop making excuses.  I’ve also been fabulous at making excuses as to why my second novel hasn’t been completed. However, excuses get boring and are empty words when I keep repeating them and yet do nothing to change it. Quite frankly, making excuses is now what I want to put on my list of accomplishments.

First thing I did was decide what I wanted to complete to feel successful in the year 2019.  I want to finish a sequel to House Of Redemption. I also wanted to complete the next two writing prompt books.

Plan of action was second on the list to do. I set a minimum attainable daily word count.

As though I haven’t done that before. I had to identify why I have failed. Simply put, I never allowed myself a day off. If I wasn’t writing, I was feeling guilty and focused on cleaning house, chasing kids, and what not. If I was doing something else, I was feeling guilty for not writing. A vicious non-productive cycle.

I gave myself two days off from writing. Guilt free days to do whatever I wanted.

The last item that goes with the Plan of Action is accountability. Being a great supporter of others in their ventures, I gathered a few of my fellow writers where we set our monthly word count goals and on a shared worksheet, we track our writing, We can see what we are and what we aren’t doing.

So far, the sequel to House of Redemption is coming along. Burn Down the House Volume II and From The Ashes Volume III (ten-minute writing prompts) should be released in a few months. (Accountability. See what I did right there?)

How about you? What is it you want to accomplish in 2019? What is your plan?

Bubble Off-Plumb

So excited have participated in bringing this anthology together. I think my contribution, Good Thoughts, is one of the best stories I’ve written.

What do stories about ephemeral Martian settlers, fascinating dimensional rifts, Spanish-speaking hummingbirds, Loki’s children, WWII twins, hitchhiking swamp cats, a steam-punk octopus, Arkham card-games, using bad luck for fun and profit, demon home security systems, alternative criminal justice, workplace time travel, marketing to body-snatchers, alien attraction, and way too many barns all have in common? Simple: in one way or another they are all Bubble Off Plumb.

This genre-busting collection is meant for readers who prefer an odd story with their tea and biscuits. So sit back and let these 26 tales delight, confuse, and surprise you!

Featuring original stories by Marie Brennan, David Tallerman, E.E. King, Art Weil, Sarah M. Lewis, Pepper Hume, Karen Ovér, Liz Schriftsteller, Mariah Southworth, Mickey Kulp, Robert Millet, Valerie Manwill, Beth Winokur, Simone LW Mounsamy, Buzz Dixon, James Campbell, Frank Kozusko, Ellen Denton, Jill Hand, Veronica Brush, and Tim Jeffreys. Joining this stellar group are in-house authors KG Finfrock, Sarah Kalin, and Dan M. Kalin.

Available for Pre-Order Now at Amazon

On Sale December 14th

 

Top 5 Reasons Why I Rejected a Story

It was a pleasure and an honor to be on the committee that selected the stories for the new anthology Bubble Off-Plumb. Congratulations to the twenty-six authors whose stories were accepted. Competition was high as  921 stories were submitted. Kudos to all the authors who pulled up their boot straps and sent their stories in. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It takes courage to submit your story knowing full well that it may be rejected. Until you develop the scar tissue over thicken skin, that rejection hurts like hell. As Kim Dickens once said, “It’s like a kick in the cooch.”  So yay, to those authors who stood tall and tough and took the kick.

But why did the story not get accepted?

Here’s my five top reasons why  I did not nominate a story.  There was a committee of three that nominated a story. Please note that this list reflects only my thoughts on the subject and are not the opinions of the other members.

#5   Did the story meet the theme requirements?

Bubble Off-Plum theme was original fiction short stories of such a nature; odd, unsettling, full of twists, etc.  A story submitted fell under the romance genre. It was a good story. It was sweet and loving. That’s a big compliment coming from me because I do not care for romance and love stories and this story still moved me. BUT it did not meet the requirement in my opinion. There was no twist or oddness to the story.

#4  This and That and Very

How clean was the story you submitted? By clean, I mean did you edit it first by removing the filler words and removing redundant words? I would be lying if I didn’t say to myself, This is going to be a pain in the ass to edit. I don’t want to.  Two stories could have equal value story-wise; the cleaner version is going to get the extra point.

#3  Did the story ramble or do multiple time jumps?

How long before you got to the point of the story? Did you fill it with backstory or flip between present and history multiple times? When faced with the job of reading hundreds of stories in a short period of time, Multiple characters and time jumps are going to task the reader. One story comes to mind and, it had a kick ass ending that I loved, but it took too long to get there.

#2 Three Act Requirements

A story needs to have three simple parts. Beginning, middle, and end. And I’m still pissed at one story specifically. Act one. The Beginning was awesome. Fabulous exciting build up. I couldn’t put it down. I was excited for this story. And then it was over. First Act only. No middle. No end. Just done. WTF??

I suppose it’s possible the wrong file was sent by the author, the incomplete file. But we aren’t going to follow up and ask where’s the rest of the story.

#1 Weak or Flat Ending

I’m sorry to say that a lot of stories had flat or weak endings. A shame really because the beginning and middle were excellent. It felt like the author either got tired or didn’t know how to bring it to a close. Story was just done and I felt blah afterward or I had questions about what just happened. I liked the endings that had a twist at the end or made me gasp in awe or surprise. I liked the endings that made me laugh.

All in all, the stories submitted  were good. With a few tweaks here and there, I hope the authors continue to submit their stories. They will find a home.

 

 

 

 

 

On Writing: Being Brave

I finished the second draft of my short story Good Thoughts. I won’t lie. I loved it. It’s fabulous. It’s all that I hoped it would be. Good hook, strong ending. I don’t mind saying the middle’s pretty good too. Time to press the send button to my buddies … my buddies who will find what I missed, and possibly rip it to shreds. All the doubt that lingers outside the door rushes in. Why did I press send? I should have added more to the ending. Was more detail needed? Should I have gotten more technical? The publisher’s going to hate it. What was I thinking?

Perhaps the better question is why do I doubt myself? Why do writers go through this act of self-depreciation? If I liked the story I sent out, I already know it’s a good story. It might need a little fixing (and it did) and that’s just it, it’s fixable. Why go through the act of a whining puppy pissing on the floor begging for approval? The only answer I have to the question is  it’s human nature. I’d like to say it gets easier with more writing, more critiquing, more experience, but I’d be telling a big fat lie. It is what it is. Face the fear of rejection and fix what needs fixing.

But the most important message is to give people the opportunity to say that they love your story. Give them the opportunity to read it. Don’t write and hide it. Don’t write and be afraid someone won’t like it. You can’t please everyone. Your story won’t be for everyone. You could write a classic beautiful romance story that sells to a million and I would still puke because no matter how good you are, I don’t care for romance novels. I give my horror novel to a romance novel lover and guess what? Guess where that one star review came from. Someone who reads mostly romance. You won’t find romance in House of Redemption (maybe a little lust). Ultimately, did I get butthurt over that one star review? Not at all. It wasn’t applicable to my novel as this person was not my reader (aka a person who reads horror).

You cannot enjoy the perks, the endorphins that flood your body, when someone says they loved your story if you do not give them the opportunity to read.

 

A lesson in Life

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bh8-0-jAEWI/?taken-by=maddielineanthony

Open Call. Paid Writing Gig.

I am honored and excited to announce that I have been chosen for Lead Editor of Feral Cat Publisher’s  upcoming anthology titled Bubble Off Plumb.  If you aren’t familiar with the term, it means things being not quite right. 

Open call for submissions is on going. They are looking for original short stories that are odd, twisted, or unsettling.  Maximum word count is 5,000.  Deadline is September 30, 2018.

Did I mention this is a paying gig? Yes,  I did.

Selected authors will receive an advance of $0.03/word of final, edited version of their story, plus a pro rata share of downstream royalties less up-front expenses, plus one paperback proof copy, and wholesale unit rates when purchasing extra paperbacks.

Enough chat from this blog. Head on over to Feral Cat Publisher and get the details you need.

One more thing, and I only mention it because it threw me, the email for the submissions is  submissions @ feralcatpublishers.com  You need to remove the spaces.

Of course, read the submission process before submitting your story.

Happy writing and good luck.

When It’s More Than You Think

Way back in time in my early twenties, I was at an open market and found a beautiful tapestry. A forest scene with bears would go perfect with the saloon style bar or so I thought. I lost the bar, but I kept the tapestry all these years. It still hangs on my wall. I didn’t ever think of the artist or the history behind it until my daughter sent me this picture from Masha and the Bears. The grandkids were so excited to see Grandma’s tapestry on the video. I had no idea there was a puzzle. I had to know more. 

Took forever to get a freeze frame that would show me the title.

Turns out to be a famous painting.   Morning in a Pine Forest was painted in 1886. It was painted by two Russian artists, Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitskiy. Ivan painted everything except the bears. Both artists signed the painting, but Savitskiy’s name was erased by an art collect, Pavel Tretyakov.  (According to my internet research.)

The photo doesn’t do the tapestry justice. The colors are richer. The funny thing is that both my daughters found it to be terrifying. Maybe they were concerned I would take them to the forest and leave them there. Probably shouldn’t have read them Hansel and Gretel with so much glee.

Crash and Burn and Emerge Again

God and a writer have something in common. They both create worlds. They both create people. They both intervene on individual’s lives, both blessing and cursing them.

My first story that I began a gazillion years ago had a working title of House. I fell in-love with my character Victoria. She was gorgeous with flowing auburn hair, smart, compassionate, and brave. The story placed Victoria leaving the library when the limousine cut in front of her blocking her way. Two men headed toward her. And this is where the story stopped for all time. I would not continue because I know what was in store for Victoria. I couldn’t let the scene happen. I wouldn’t hurt/kill her.

Some would say that as the author I have the ability to change the trajectory of Victoria’s path. I could. However, it wouldn’t be true to the story. The readers might not know, but I would.

I find myself in this position once again while writing the sequel to House of Redemption. The words were flowing. I was getting to know the characters. Everything was working the way it was intended.

And then came the dilemma and I chose to be selfish.

You see writing House of Redemption was a bit of therapy for me. The sad fact is that you can’t flay a pedophile in the real world and not go to prison for it, but you can do a lot worse to the kiddie fiddler when you are writing fiction. I enjoyed the scenes of Tom getting his ass kicked more than I should. And here comes the dilemma.

It was my intention that the souls would remain in Blackstone Resort. Now ghosts, they would relive their vision of Hell. The remaining survivor (no spoilers here) would find a way to free the trapped souls.

And then I came upon the conundrum. If I free the souls, that would mean I also release the pedophile from his hell. I’m not ever going to be ready to let bygones be bygones. He will suffer forever in my fictional hell because I know the (long list of profane name calling) POS isn’t suffering from his crimes even if he is serving in prison for the rest of his life .

The alternate ending is the souls are not released. It’s all or nothing and if I choose that ending, the survivor is now damned. What Hell does this character inherit during the remaining years and worse after death?

As in my first story, I love my character. I cannot , I will not, damn my character’s soul. I will not free the pedophile.

The characters that haunt me will join Victoria and remain frozen in time.

On the day I decided to stop writing the sequel, a message popped up on my phone screen. It said.

Don’t look back. You’re not going that way.

 

When I wrote House of Redemption, I wrote it as a stand alone story. It was never my intention to write a sequel and considering how much time has passed since the novel was published, I don’t think I was meant to continue the storyline. Best to leave it to the reader’s imagination as to what comes next.

I’m ready to stop looking back. I ‘m ready to start fresh. Ready to begin a new adventure.