Guest Post by Kathy Griffith, Author of The Ancient

Hi, thanks for this opportunity to touch base with everyone ! My subject for this post is fighting through what’s stopping your writing flow and being the best you can be for yourself.

My name is Kathy Griffith, and I came to this writing thing later in life; about five years ago to be exact. I’s wanted to write all my life but I kept burying it putting it off until it was barely there. Life took precedence as it often does, and all through my adult years, my years of raising children, watching them leave the nest, and dealing with periods of depression and feeling sorry for myself.

Five years ago, for my 60th birthday, my daughter gave me a present–an intro to a writing correspondence course. I bit the proverbial bullet and took the test. I must say, it helped to get myself out there and I did learn a lot, and I started searching out what I really loved and wanted to write about. Forget that old nugget about writing what you know–if all writers did that, we wouldn’t have Hogwarts, Narnia, or Westeros. I picked vampires. I’ve loved the whole vampire trope since I was a kid, so I did my research, then I read some of the stuff out there. I didn’t really care for most of the vampire fiction, so I decided to write something that I would read–and I did. But, knowing how I was, I buried it and added more and more to the slush pile, not doing anything with it, but I justified it because hey, I was writing, wasn’t I?

Then I lost my job and couldn’t find another.

I got tired, really tired of telling myself the same excuses so I dusted off one of my favorite pieces and kicked it around a little, hoping to submit it somewhere. I got to within a few chapters of finishing it–and decided it was utter crap. I’m sure some of you can relate. I took out some of my favorite parts, gutted the rest, and started over, adding a few items and tailoring it for my newfound favorite genre–LGBT paranormal romance. Seven months later, I had my vampire, Alasdair Connery, and his story The Ancient. I submitted it to agents, publishers, and–nothing. Utterly petrified, I tried KDP and did it myself in February of 2015. A little more than a year later, I have the sequel, another urban vampire tale, and a few other little interesting tales, including two short stories without a breath of vampires or LGBT issues in them.

All I’m saying here is, it’s never too late to try something. You might surprise yourself, but then again–you might have known you had it in you all along. Stay fresh, friends.

I’d like to showcase my crown jewel, so to speak:

The Ancient–A story of Alasdair Connery, the father of all vampires, and his beginning in the prehistory of Scotland (cover image attached). Here’s a little description of him from a wedding he attended, trolling for new blood so to speak: he finds more than he bargained for.

“Mr. Alasdair Connery.”

He stood at the patio entrance, drawing attention to himself without seeming to realize it. He was young, surprisingly so, appearing to be in his late twenties. His dark glittering Asian eyes scanned the crowd, seeming to suffer the greetings of his fellow employees with gentle good humor. As a sign of respect to the newly wedded couple, he wore a short tuxedo jacket, shirt, and tie, but instead of trousers, he wore a soft cashmere kilt in a dark blue and black plaid tartan wrapped around his lower body, seeming to embrace every curve. Soft soled leather shoes covered his feet and dark hose his lower legs. He was short of stature, barely five feet four inches, but his arms were long and his shoulders powerful, as if he were used to manual labor. He carried himself like a man a full foot taller. His ebony hair was so black it had a purple cast to it, and he wore it swept straight back from his high forehead, wrapped up in a thick braid that reached down the entire length of his back to the curve of his buttocks and tied with a red silk cord. His face, dusted with the lightest of dark stubble, was a pale mocha, like café au lait heavy on the milk, and he wore his high sculptured cheekbones and slim, aristocratic nose like a badge of honor. His small smile showed sensuous, molded lips.

Buy the Ancient from Amazon

And don’t forget the the sequel: