Blog Archives

What to Do about Time?

Posted on January 6, 2016 by cathleentownsend — 10 Comments

Ha. If I had a time machine, right now I wouldn’t go back in history or do anything amazingly cool with it. I’d just use it to catch up. It’s not exactly riveting narrative material. But the time crunch is…

Tagged with: Cathleen Townsend, time management
Posted in Reflections

I Won A Thinkerbeat Contest

Posted on January 4, 2016 by cathleentownsend — 8 Comments

The New Year is starting off well for me. Okay, I’m exhausted, and I burnt myself out writing Christmas stories. (I learned an important lesson about limits, though. A dozen shorts in under three weeks is too much for me.)…

Tagged with: Cathleen Townsend, Daniel White, Story Bites, Thinkerbeat
Posted in Reflections

Kelly’s Christmas

Posted on December 23, 2015 by cathleentownsend — 4 Comments

Kelly rested her head on her paws and groaned. Her hips hurt. She missed her packmate. She hadn’t seen Toby for over a week. She didn’t understand. Her people wept and spoke of putting Toby down. Why was Toby gone?…

Tagged with: Cathleen Townsend, christmas story, flash fiction, Kelly's Christmas
Posted in My Stories

Snowflake

Posted on December 22, 2015 by cathleentownsend — 10 Comments

Madelynn hesitated on the doorstep. “Come in, honey—you’re letting all the warm air out.” Grandma’s voice was kind, and it would be unthinkable to disobey. Dad had explained that this was Grandma’s last Christmas, and they all had to try…

Tagged with: Cathleen Townsend, flash fiction, Snowflake
Posted in My Stories

Tango

Posted on December 15, 2015 by cathleentownsend — 5 Comments

A glob of melting snow dropped from the tree above onto Donio’s head. He jumped up, stamping all four hooves in fury. “That does it! I’m sick of snow. I’m going someplace where it’s warm.” Jemmick shook his head, narrowly…

Tagged with: Cathleen Townsend, Christmas vacation, reindeer, Santa, short story
Posted in My Stories

Facing Fear

Posted on December 14, 2015 by cathleentownsend — 3 Comments

Fear. I hate it. My heart races, I feel queasy, my palms sweat, and I can’t sit still. I want to run and hide, and I feel like a coward. I don’t often struggle much with fear. I don’t have…

Tagged with: Cathleen Townsend, Fear, publishing
Posted in Publishing

Pirate Gold

Posted on December 8, 2015 by cathleentownsend — 8 Comments

A brick shifted, accompanied by muffled sounds of joy from outside. Fernando shifted his attention to the wall. Was someone finally breaking through his prison? He’d only taken a small purse–enough to cover immediate expenses. But his shipmates had caught…

Tagged with: Cathleen Townsend, drabble, microflash, pirate gold, short story
Posted in My Stories

My First Reviews

Posted on December 7, 2015 by cathleentownsend — 4 Comments

I haven’t yet undergone the baptism-by-fire of dealing with a trollish one-star review (although I’ve been assured this is an eventual certainty), but I have received four excellent reviews so far, two four-stars and two five. I was pretty much…

Tagged with: book reviews, Cathleen Townsend, Dragon Hoard and Other Tales of Faerie
Posted in My Books

The Story Behind Dragon Hoard

Posted on December 5, 2015 by cathleentownsend — Leave a comment

This is a reblog of a post by the lovely, helpful Suz Korb. Most books have a story-behind-the-story, and mine is no exception. This collection has its roots in an event that happened when I was a young girl. Read…

Tagged with: Cathleen Townsend, Dragon Hoard and Other Tales of Faerie
Posted in My Books

14 Stages of Self-Publishing

Posted on November 30, 2015 by cathleentownsend — 9 Comments

Decide you’re finally going to publish. Besides, Amazon says it’s easy. Spend a week trying to figure out how to get Scrivener to work so you can convert your files. Buy the Dummy book and discover you need one for…

Tagged with: Amazon, Cathleen Townsend, CreateSpace, formatting files, Goodreads, self-publishing, Smashwords
Posted in Publishing