Category Archives: Jana Blogs

Jana Blogs

Rainbow Snippets

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An upfront warning: I’ll probably be slow commenting this week. My new landlord decided to replumb the whole apartment complex which I knew and spent the last week moving things from the kitchen and bathroom cabinets and the contents of the 2 utilities closets into the computer room. Last night they called me and said oh by the way we need in the bedroom (i.e. the computer room) to bust through the wall into the bathroom to make a utility panel) and we’ll be there 8 am monday. So now I have a weekend to move everything including furniture so I can’t go to either the winter hike/frozen festival or the woman’s march. I’m most unpleased.

But on to the snippet. I’m continuing with These Haunted Hills (one day this WIP will get a blurb). Josh (ghost hunter) and Brendan (popular author) have driven up to the haunted hotel in the last couple of snippets. I skipped over the description of the hotel. All we need to know here is that it was built in the 1900’s (maybe 1910) and was a couple stories high and is now very much falling down. Josh is telling Brendan the history of the hotel.

Anyhow she had this built with secret rooms and trap doors and others were outfitted like gas chambers. How she convinced her husband of the need, no one knows. It might be possible he shared in her desire to kill. At first it was mostly maids and handymen who went missing, most of them orphans or runaways from the city who were grateful for the job and had no one to come looking for them once they disappeared.

Brendan got out of the truck and studied the hotel again, even more unsure about it now than he was a few moments before. “How much trouble am I going to get into with this venture?”

Joshua turned to him, his bright blue eyes dancing. “I guess that boils down to how mad I still am about you killing off John’s best friend.”

If you’d like to play along, Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook community where we post up 6 sentences of one of our LGBT stories every Saturday. It’s been fun and you can find it here. Be sure to check out all the offers! It’s been a great supportive group!

Jana Blogs

Rainbow Snippets

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I’m ice and snowed in for the three-day weekend so here’s hoping I get some writing done!

I’m continuing with These Haunted Hills. Last time, on the way to the haunted hotel, Brendan asked Josh if he’d ever been attacked by a ghost given the history.”

“It happens. Usually you get hit, shoved or scratched. I expect it to happen at the hotel.” Joshua shrugged.

Brendan swallowed down those pesky second thoughts. “Really?”

“How much research did you put into this hotel?”

“I’ve just started. I’ve been doing more character creation exercises for my protagonists. Researching the hotel is up next. I know there were murders taking place there.”

If you’d like to play along, Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook community where we post up 6 sentences of one of our LGBT stories every Saturday. It’s been fun and you can find it here. Be sure to check out all the offers! It’s been a great supportive group!

Jana Blogs

Rainbow Snippets

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I’m struggling to get everything ready for classes on Monday but I think I’m trying to catch something because I’m completely exhausted. I can’t believe the spring semester is already starting. Here’s hoping it’s better than my last.

I’m continuing with These Haunted Hills. Last week Josh has driven Brendan out to the site of the haunted murder hotel (I’m thinking a smaller scale version of H.H. Holmes’s murder castle.).

“Nothing about this is safe. Though, the building is in remarkable shape for being abandoned. It has a slate roof and they’re usually good for a century. If a roof is intact, a building can stay in decent shape. I do suggest if you feel any sponginess to any of the floorboards, tread lightly if at all.”

Brendan grunted. “Hadn’t even though about that part.”

“Structural integrity is almost always more dangerous than ghosts.”

Brendan tore his gaze away from the tree branches swatting the vehicle to stare at Joshua who beamed brighter than the sun. “Have you ever honestly been attacked by a ghost?”

If you’d like to play along, Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook community where we post up 6 sentences of one of our LGBT stories every Saturday. It’s been fun and you can find it here. Be sure to check out all the offers! It’s been a great supportive group!

Jana Blogs

2017 is winding down.

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happy-new-year-sms

It was a complete dumpster fire of a year. The second half of 2016 and all of 2017 has been one long depressive episode and my health has crashed badly. Arthritis requiring injections, diabetes worsening, & heart issues requiring echo cardiograms (still don’t know what’s going on there).

But there have been good things too, the facebook communities, Rainbow Snippets and Queer Sci-Fi have been interesting, supportive and really a highlight of my year. Another brilliant spot was getting a toe in the door with Nine Star Press. Elisabetta and Raevyn were very welcoming.

The downside of this year was I hardly wrote. I sold only two short stories, an old one, Conned to MLR press (also new to me) and The Glow of Lumniferous Aether on Tinsel to Nine Star. I’m pretty proud of them, especially the latter which is averaging 4 stars.

But I need to write more. I have started my paranormal romance in the Hocking Hills These Haunted Hills and I really like how it’s going. It was my nano and thanks to Lex Chase challenging me to word sprints, I won. I doubted I would have otherwise so thanks, Lex!

So my plans such as I make them for 2018 are as follows:

1. Finish These Haunted Hills
2. Keep trying to place Blood Red Roulette if it gets rejected from where it is now
3. Work on expanding Sacred Kin from short story to novella for Nine Star’s Lost open call (this will probably be the priority as it has a deadline)
4. Fix the ending of Cassadaga Nights as it’s almost ready which is good.
5. Dust off my bear shifter story and see if I can remedy it.
6. Work on Kaleo and Aneirin’s story
7. Check out any short story open calls just to keep the name out there.

Wish me luck. Happy and creative new year to you all. To all my friends, fellow authors and readers, thank you for joining me in this journey. You make it worth it.

Jana Blogs

The Belsnickle of Deutschtown

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The Belsnickle of Deutschtown
By Jana Denardo
Author’s Note: This was written for the 12 days of fic mas 2017. It’s set in the Soldiers of the Sun series and you can find the longer works in this series here
XXX

“Check down that way.” Caleb pointed toward a block of houses. He scowled as the wind picked up. The calls the Soldiers of the Sun had received from the people living in the City of Allegheny’s German community known as Deutschtown. They had gotten reports of a man dressed in furs chasing and hurting children. It was nearly Christmas, and they were running around freezing their backsides off because no one wanted let kids get hurt. Caleb knew this had to be bringing back bad memories for Temple in particular who had been traumatized a couple Christmases ago when they faced down Pere Fouettard, the Whipping Father. Li was with them then. This was the first Christmas with Temple’s new partner, Jo. She looked particularly unhappy to be out late night with frigid wind blowing up her skirt, even if she did wear pants under it.

“Did you see something?” she asked, drumming her fingers on the butt of her pistol.

“Maybe. The snow is making it pretty impossible to see anything,” Caleb replied. He hated feeling like he was leading the team blind.

“Do you really think it’s the Belsnickel?” Temple scowled, barely visible in the pale street light.

“From what we’ve been told and researched, it seems likely,” Caleb said, flexing his fingers. Even inside his gloves, they were cold and stiff, poorly suited to drawing his sword if need be.

Agni shuffled down the street, hunched up under his uniform jacket. “May I ask something, and I don’t mean to be critical of Christianity?”

“You put up with our questions about Hinduism,” Temple replied.

“Why are there so many evil spirits associated with Christmasn and why are all of them revolving around hurting children?” Agni skidded on the icy bricks. “You have Pere Fouettard whipping and killing children. This Belsnickle is just as bad, and then the Krampus looks like any demon in our reference library. I don’t understand why Christians want to set such monstrous creatures on their children.”

“Not all Christians,” Caleb replied. “We Welsh had the Mari Lwyd who engages in witty banter and then we party.”

“The Italian prefer to party as well, if you call the Esta dei Sette Pesci, the feast of seven fishes a party. Dinner lasts for hours all the way up to when we need to go to Midnight mass,” Jo said, peering between two houses. “We do have La Befana, the Christmas witch but she’s more like Santa Claus, not some crazed whipping demon who punishes kids for Santa.”

“All right, we French have Pere Fouettard as you know. The wicked Christmas spirits seem to be more in France and Germany and through the cold northern countries. I don’t know why,” Temple said. “You know how I am on research. Honestly, I think it all started as a way to get children to behave but you know how demons can be. If enough people invoke them, they’ll take the shape that is expected, the one called upon. And that leaves us freezing off our family jewels – forgive that, Jo – chasing down a Belsnickle days before Christmas.”

“Forgive what? If I had jewels, they’d be gone by now.” Jo grinned.

“I think I’m beyond annoyed as a large segment of Christian society at this point,” Agni huffed, rubbing his arms.

“There!” Temple leveled his Tommy gun at the unkempt looking man clothed in furs under a street lamp at the end of the block. “First one who gets him, gets the first cup of coffee when we get home.”

Caleb didn’t need to direct them to battle, and if Temple could be motivated by coffee – and he always could – Caleb had no complaints. Within in seconds, there was one less demon in the world, and they were in the car heading back to Oakland, another Christmas saved.