My iPhone has been used in two daily photo challenges this year (one from April and the second is going on right now), and it gets a lot of use out on the hiking trails. One of my favorite things to do with my iPhone’s camera is use the Olloclip 4-IN-1 lens attachment and shoot macro. Spring and summer bring out the bugs, and while I prefer them to not be in my house, I do love taking extreme close-up photos of strange-looking bugs that I find outside. (Click here to view photos on my Flickr page: Bugs and iPhoneography.)

Not only do I love the built-in camera, but my iPhone is used to edit photos, read books, watch movies, listen to music and podcasts, and even, wait for it… write stories. I’m writing this blog on my iPhone right now. My latest book, “Zombie Boy: Press Start” was written almost entirely on my iPad. (See #2 in the “5 Things I Learned” Post.)

My MacBook Air fills in the gaps (which aren’t many), and is also used to compile and publish all my books. Which brings me to the point of this blog entry. Books. Specifically, iBooks.

Like many indie authors, I did a stint of time in Amazon Kindle exclusivity, but now the time has come to spread my wings and take that next step into my writing career’s future.

I’m happy to announce that not only is “Zombie Boy” now available on iBooks, but ALL my books are! It was a goal of mine to “go wide” to all the major book retailers this year, and I am beyond thrilled to have reached that goal! Being published in 51 countries is a pretty awesome feat! That’s 700 million potential customers who love their iPhones as much as I do.

To celebrate, “Zombie Boy” will be on sale for a limited time for $.99! (Links for each book are listed below.)

Be sure to let me know what you think by leaving a review on iBooks. It may seem small, but reviews help indie authors in a HUGE way.

Thank you!

Val O. Morris

Val O. Morris likes to pretend the monsters aren’t real. She is a filmmaker turned author who writes Urban Fantasy, Horror, and YA. A Monster Kid since birth, she loves all things ghosts, goblins, slashers, demons, monsters, zombies, madmen, werewolves, vampires, and freaky little kids who live in the corn. She invites you to come for the monsters and stay for the story.

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“Viki” by Victoria Skye Cleveland

I’m starting a new blog series on Verbs & Visuals called “BookEnds”. (Shout out to my friends who helped with the name!) Writing a book takes a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. Or maybe that’s makes a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. Either way, it’s hard work and I’m finding that I have a lot to say about writing endings specifically. The following is a little story about how the ending to “Monster Girl“ changed unexpectedly. Don’t worry, there are NO spoilers.

When it happens, it’s like being inside joy.* Like the high a runner gets (or so I’m told). It’s one of those moments that makes writing fun. And if it ain’t fun, why bother?

What’s this magical feeling I’m talking about? That moment when the character in the story takes on a life of her own – when she starts making her own decisions and demanding things be done her way.

I had a similar experience when writing “Monster Girl” and it caught me by surprise. Even though I do a lot of writing by-the-seat-of-my-pants, I do outline a little bit (mainly key events). Well, I was positive I knew how I wanted “Monster Girl” to end, but Viki, the main character, had other plans. If you’ve read “Monster Girl”, you’ll know that Viki likes to do what Viki likes to do and rarely listens to the grown ups around her. Including me!

I won’t spoil anything for you, but I had Viki walking down a path that was not in her best interest and she told me so. The lesson here is for us writers to listen to our characters. Sometimes, they know better what they want or how they should react than we do. By listening to Viki, the overall message of the book changed to one that not only makes much more sense for Viki’s character, but also one that I am much more proud of. I have my character’s hardheaded determination to thank for it!

I love hearing from you whether it’s about the subjects of my books or blog posts or writing in general! If you haven’t already, I personally invite you to join me on my literary journey. Some big news is coming soon and I’d love to share it with you directly! To start things off, I will send you a short story that I wrote that you can’t get anywhere else! Get it here!

*I recently watched Star Trek Generations again and for some reason that quote by Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) stood out.

Original “Viki” illustration by Victoria Skye Cleveland.

Val O. Morris

Val O. Morris likes to pretend the monsters aren’t real. She is a filmmaker turned author who writes Urban Fantasy, Horror, and YA. A Monster Kid since birth, she loves all things ghosts, goblins, slashers, demons, monsters, zombies, madmen, werewolves, vampires, and freaky little kids who live in the corn. She invites you to come for the monsters and stay for the story.

Get Your FREE Book!

Today is the last day to buy it on Kindle for $.99.

After today, it will continue its Kindle Countdown Deal increasing incrementally until Halloween. It will return to its full retail price of $2.99 on November 1st.

Don’t delay! Take advantage of the $.99 deal today!

Val O. Morris

Val O. Morris likes to pretend the monsters aren’t real. She is a filmmaker turned author who writes Urban Fantasy, Horror, and YA. A Monster Kid since birth, she loves all things ghosts, goblins, slashers, demons, monsters, zombies, madmen, werewolves, vampires, and freaky little kids who live in the corn. She invites you to come for the monsters and stay for the story.

Get Your FREE Book!

Imagine yourself back in the gym locker room at school when that bigger, older kid comes strutting in. You cringe. You know it’s coming. Will it be a simple wedgie? Or, perhaps he’ll rub your sweaty, stinky gym shorts in your face. Or, maybe today will be the day he will physically pick on you until things take a turn for the worse and poking and jabbing become punching and kicking, and blood and tears mix as the shower water washes your courage down the drain.

Imagine sitting in the cafeteria, the smell of food and happy conversation in the air. You’re perfectly content enjoying your homemade sandwich with your friends when she approaches. The last time she came around, she smushed your peanut butter sandwich to the point of the jelly smearing all over the table and then made you lick it up. Embarrassed and your eyes swimming in tears, you did it because you feared ultimate humiliation in front of the whole school if you didn’t.

Now let’s flip that question around. Have you ever done the things described above to someone else?

That may be a tough question to answer. Your answer may be “yes” even though your actions weren’t quiet that extreme. Maybe instead, they were insults to a fellow co-worker all in the name of “fun” to impress your colleagues. Beyond childhood and school halls, bullying can happen even in corporate America.

Perhaps the toughest question of all is: Have you ever witnessed this sort of behavior and did nothing to stop it in fear that the ridicule would then be pointed toward you? Standing by and letting it happen is a horrible thing. Even if we don’t throw the punch, we allow the punching to continue if we do nothing to stop it.

Say NO to bullying and YES to standing up for each other.

I’m hesitant to say too much about the story in “Monster Girl” because I don’t want to spoil anything for future readers, but I think it’s important to mention. I’m proud of how how Viki, the main character, handled her bullying situation within the story. As someone who gets furious at the thought of bullying, it would have been so easy to take the story down a dark path of revenge. Instead, I think Viki’s actions bring a positive message. And what’s really neat about that, is that the character told me – the writer – that was how she wanted to handle it.

I want to take a moment to say THANK YOU to everyone who has supported “Monster Girl”. Obviously, I can’t list everyone by name, but I’ve received some lovely stories from readers over the first month of the book’s release that I’d like to share.

I have a cousin whose 9 year old grandson read “Monster Girl” and it got him talking about a “mean kid” on his bus. Another reader thanked me for writing about bullying because it helps keep that topic fresh in young minds. Hearing stories like these pleases me because it means people are talking about it. I’m no authority on the subject of bullying, but I do know that most of us have experienced bullying at some point in our lives whether directly or indirectly. I feel it’s important to be brave and stand up for yourself and others when we see it happening.

Thank you again for reading and sharing your stories. Together we can stop bullying.

Val O. Morris

Val O. Morris likes to pretend the monsters aren’t real. She is a filmmaker turned author who writes Urban Fantasy, Horror, and YA. A Monster Kid since birth, she loves all things ghosts, goblins, slashers, demons, monsters, zombies, madmen, werewolves, vampires, and freaky little kids who live in the corn. She invites you to come for the monsters and stay for the story.

Get Your FREE Book!