Insecure Writer’s Support Group, May Movie Preview, Series Influencer, Star One Answers, and Ninja News

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world – or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post the first Wednesday of every month. I encourage everyone to visit at least a dozen new blogs and leave a comment. Your words might be the encouragement someone needs.

The awesome co-hosts for the May 4 posting of the IWSG are Kim Elliott, Melissa Maygrove, Chemist Ken, Lee Lowery, and Nancy Gideon!

Big news today! We are welcoming a new IWSG Admin to the team - Sandra Cox!
She will take on the Publications/Conferences page.
Please stop by her site and thank her for donating her time to this awesome group!

May 4 question - It's the best of times; it's the worst of times. What are your writer highs (the good times)? And what are your writer lows (the crappy times)?

Writer highs include the first draft done, cruising through edits and hearing from readers who enjoyed my books. Lows are when I a out of story ideas or slogging through the first draft.

CassaDark tour continues! Today I am visiting Damyanti Biswas and Christine Rains
On May 11, I’m visiting Shannon Lawrence

A Series Influencer by Sandra Cox

I’ll watch nearly any series, any genre, if the characters pull me in. Three of my favorites that have strong characters are: Black List, Reacher and Longmire. All different but all with protagonists that stick around a long time after the television is flicked off. Since I write Westerns, Longmire particularly stuck with me. The two main characters, Walt Longmire performed by Robert Taylor and ‘Vic’ Moretti performed by Katie Sackhoff, played well off each other. Their amazing chemistry strengthened the acting of the other in this modern-day police thriller set in the wilds of Wyoming.

Those two personas influenced two of my main characters in the Mateo series. One of the primary differences between Mateo and Walt: Mateo is a shifter. Somehow, I don’t see Walt Longmire shifting, do you? 😊

MATEO’S BLOOD BROTHER by Sandra Cox
Behind the amicable façade is a man who’s tough and determined. He’s Mateo’s Blood Brother.
They were friends, close as brothers. Then they weren’t.
Mateo and Jesse are cautiously working their way back to friendship when Jesse discovers the unthinkable. Delilah, the sultry shifter who’d had affairs with both men, is still alive. The tumble she took over a mountain ridge—a fall that nearly killed Mateo—should have finished her.
Now, there’s no choice but for the two men to work together to take down a she-devil straight from hell. As the stakes escalate and the hunt becomes more intense, another wolf appears on the scene. Always where Jesse’s at. Always when he’s in trouble. Jesse is divided between ending Delilah, a new love interest, discovering the identity of a certain brown wolf and staying alive.

Available at Amazon

A funky little giveaway:
Commenters names will go into the proverbial hat and one name will be drawn to win an I Heart Books stretch bracelet.

And happy to say I was the winner on another site and soon my wife will be enjoying the bracelet. Thanks, Sandra!

Ninja News

New release:

Revenge of the Space-Surfing Butt Monkeys (Gale Harbour Book Two) by C.D. Gallant-King
Newfoundland, Canada, 1993.
It's been a year since a handful of kids defeated the Psycho Hose Beast in the sleepy town of Gale Harbour, Newfoundland. Our heroes have entered into the era of rollerblades, Super Nintendo and oversized plaid shirts… unless you’re a goth, then it’s the era of Maybelline eyeliner, boots with too many buckles, and infected safety-pin piercings.
Thirteen-year-old Niall O'Neil is navigating a blossoming relationship with his crush, Harper Jeddore. Unfortunately, the power that allowed them to defeat the monster from the deep is still within them, and they are no closer to understanding or controlling it. When just touching your girlfriend can kill innocent bystanders, it complicates the already precarious practice of teenage dating.
But lurking in the backdrop of teenage romance, a sinister power is growing in Gale Harbour, and dangerous people are turning up in the small town with possibly deadly intentions.
Will the kids defeat this new threat? What did the US Air Force leave in the abandoned Hansen Air Force base? What is a space-surfing butt monkey? And most importantly—will anyone get to touch a boob?
Horror / Science fiction / Comedy
Print ISBN 9798542434674 $13.99 USD
eBook ASIN B09RKG6772 $3.99 USD
Find it on Amazon, Amazon CA, and Amazon UK

C.D. Gallant-King is a comic fantasy and horror writer currently based in Ottawa, Ontario, though he was born and raised in Newfoundland, in a town eerily similar to Gale Harbour. He has self-published four novels, including HELL COMES TO HOGTOWN, which was a semi-finalist in Mark Lawrence’s 2018 Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. His short fiction has appeared in multiple anthologies by Mystery & Horror LLC and Dancing Lemur Press, as well as in The Weird and Whatnot magazine.
Find CD here - website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, and Goodreads

Star One Lyric Answers

Knowing no fear, feeling no pain
No grief, no compassion, no guilt and no shame
The Terminator, song title – Fate of Man.

He lost his aim, each day the same
He's had enough of this boring game
Groundhog Day, song title – Today is Yesterday.

May Movie Preview

Here are the theatrical releases for May. Descriptions courtesy of the IMDB. Snark provided by me.

6 –

Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness
Dr. Stephen Strange casts a forbidden spell that opens the doorway to the multiverse, including alternate versions of himself, whose threat to humanity is too great for the combined forces of Strange, Wong, and Wanda Maximoff.
Director: Sam Raimi
Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Rachel McAdams, Elizabeth Olsen, Michael Stuhlbarg
Multiverse of Madness – sure it’s Dr. Strange and not Dr. Fauci?

13 –

Firestarter
A young girl tries to understand how she mysteriously gained the power to set things on fire with her mind.
Director: Keith Thomas
Stars: Zac Efron, Kurtwood Smith, Gloria Reuben, Ryan Kiera Armstrong
A remake because fire has come such a long way since 1984…

27 –

Top Gun: Maverick
After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy's top aviators, Pete Mitchell is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him.
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Stars: Tom Cruise, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller, Val Kilmer
Who does Maverick fight this time? His age.

What are your writer highs and lows? Your writing influences? Get the Star One songs right? And what movies interest you this month?
Be sure to visit Damyanti Biswas and Christine Rains!