Helpless by Michelle Hartz - Puchasing Information

The official release date for Helpless is March 26, 2010.

Since the most frequent response I get is, "I want a signed copy!" here's how you can get one.

Come see me at HorrorHound Weekend
The first 75 copies are for exclusive sale at HorrorHound Weekend, March 26th through 28th at the Marriot in Indianapolis. Tickets are $17.50 per day or $30 for the whole weekend. I'll have a vendor table and be signing copies. The books will be $8.55 each including tax.

Come up to me and demand an autographed copy
If I have books left over from HorrorHound Weekend, those will be available to purchase from me in person as soon as I get home from HorrorHound. If not, I'll order more, and they'll take a week or two to get in and you can buy them from me then. They'll also be $8.55 each including tax.

Order an autographed copy here
If seeing me in person isn't an option, you can click on the button below to order a copy. The $12.89 cost includes an autographed book shipped by Priority Mail. If you're in Indiana, there will be tax on top of that. When you order, let me know if you would like the book personalized. If I don't hear different, I'll send you a book with an autograph only. Depending on my stock, it could take up to 3 weeks to receive your book (if I'm out of books, it takes about 2 weeks for me to get in more, and then 2-3 days shipping by Priority Mail to get to you).


Send me a check for an autographed copy
The same specs as above, but add time for the check to get to me and cleared. It's $12.89 for books shipping out of state, $13.79 with tax for books shipping to Indiana. If you don't have it, contact me for my address.

Order a not-signed copy
Finally, you can order a copy direct from CreateSpace. The base price is $7.99 each, plus shipping depending on the shipping method you choose, and tax where applicable. It'll be printed and shipped straight to you, so obviously, it won't be autographed. You can still give it to me to be signed, but if you want it shipped back to you, include $4.90 for shipping. (To make it easier on me, everything is being shipped out Priority Mail.)

Thank you Moms.

I love my moms.

This post was inspired by my step-mom's Facebook status:

DAUGHTER WEEK!!!!!!! If you have a daughter who makes your life interesting and fun, has been a blessing in your life and generally makes life worth living by being around, copy and paste this to your status. The world would not be the same without daughters! Couldn't be prouder of my lovely daughters!

I thought about putting out my own Facebook status, but there just wouldn't be enough room.

More about my moms:

My mom and dad divorced when I was 5. I don't think anyone was in the wrong, I think they just married before they were ready. I'll save my dad's post for another day. For now I'll just say I have the best dad ever. So I lived with my mom growing up.

My mom is usually quiet and reserved, but inside, she's a very strong woman. She's young, and we look very much alike, so often we're mistaken as sisters. In fact, once we were even asked if we were twins.

She had a different parenting style. She's straightforward and realistic, not the type of mom to keep her kids protected from the real world. For example, when I was a teenager, her lessons about the typical teenage stuff basically boiled down to: "Smoking is stupid and a waste of money. If you smoke, don't smoke in the house. Drugs are stupid, dangerous, and a waste of money. No drugs allowed in the house. If you drink, don't drive, but you're still expected home by curfew. And if you're picked up by the police for underage drinking, don't expect to be bailed out in the middle of the night." At no point did she ever say not to do something because she said so, instead she advised me not to do it and explained why.

Now that I'm grown up and moved out, my mom is one of my best friends. Whenever I call her, I have to set aside at least an hour to dedicate to the call. My mom is definitely not the gushy type, she'd never write a post like this, but I know how much she loves me and is proud of me.

Speaking of best friends, my dad is now married to a wonderful woman. She keeps him going and keeps him young. I can tell that he's having the time of his life. It's hard to call her my step-mom, because she has always felt more like a friend. I know that she will always be there for me. She cheers me up when I'm feeling down, gives me encouragement when I need it, and has conditioned me to kick butt in Scrabble.

I mean, come on, just take another look at the quote up there. I've always liked her, from the moment I met her. She was never just my dad's wife. I never felt nervous around her. She's always made me feel welcome, yet not in that motherly domineering way. Like I said, she feels more like a friend than a mom. I thank my dad for bringing her into my life.

Moms, I love you.

Gushing about my DH

I love my husband.

I know this isn't news, but I feel the need to do one of these posts about once a year.

Frequently, I take on more than I can handle. Right now, I work at least 40 hours a week, usually more. I'm publishing my book. I'm redesigning my website. I'm designing a camouflage pattern for my stepdad. I'm heading up our local Nanowrimo group. I'm studying to start school in the fall.

And my husband is so supportive through all of this. When I was writing, and then editing, he would push me out of the house to go work on my book. When I try to procrastinate, he gently pushes me in the direction I need to go.

Today, I said I was going to work on some of these projects. When I started playing a game, he reminded me that I was going to work on something. He doesn't force me to do it if I really don't want to, but he gives me the extra boost when I need it.

And he takes obstacles out of my way. He's been cleaning the house. He doesn't expect me to be home all the time, and he doesn't pout when I'm away more than I see him. He helps cook. In fact, he encourages me to do these things, and he's proud of me for it.

I'm not an awesome cook. I suck at cleaning house. I'm so far removed from a domestic goddess, I'm more like a domestic demon. I don't have most of the qualities that usually define a "good wife."

And he loves me anyway. He does little things for me. He picks on me to make me smile.

We are two parts of a hole, but in no way is our heart cut cleanly down the middle. Instead, the line curves and zigs and zags, but ultimately, we are two equal halves that could only fit together.

Getting to Know You

Thanks again to Megan and Keely for this meme.

1. Would you rather bungee jump or sky dive?
I really want to sky dive. I think that would be the ultimate feeling of freedom, just falling with nothing holding me back. Well, except the ground, I'd have to be aware of that. But when I sky dive, I don't just want to do tandem. Of course I'd have to do that when I learn, but I'd want to get certified to do it all on my own.

2. When using a public restroom to you squat over the seat or sit?
I wipe the seat off with toilet paper, then sit. (Plus, that helps to ensure there's paper in the stall.) I'm not afraid of germs, it's not like I'm licking the seat. (Beyond eww.) As long as I'm not sitting in someone's excrement, I'll take my chances.

3. Favorite flower?
Red roses. I can be a hopeless romantic (as you'll see in the post I plan to write after this), and I just love the idea of roses. The petals are so soft, they smell good, they're big and bold, and I love all the colors they come in, but especially red.

4. Pedicure or manicure?
Manicure, because it's easier to give myself a pedicure. A manicure is much more visible, so any screw up can easily be noticed. But if I screw up a pedicure, I can always wear shoes. Or, my toes are likely at least 5 feet away from anyone's eyes, so no one will notice a smudge or overpaint. That's the same reason I'll do bright bold colors on my toes, but usually stick to subtle colors or a french manicure on my fingers. The irony is, I don't really take care of my nails, so they're usually not pretty enough that I want to get a manicure.

5. How many siblings do you have?
No direct siblings. I have an ex-step-brother named Casey (my dad's ex-wife's son) who I spent a lot of time with when I visited my dad when he was still married to his mom. Me and Casey share a half-sister named Nicole. I don't really know her that well, and usually go years between seeing her. I have another step-sister named Rochelle, who I think I've seen twice. She's really shy and usually doesn't come out when we visit my dad and stepmom. And then there's my "sister" named Elizabeth who's really my half sister. But since we lived together, and we have a special bond, we just consider each other sisters. She's one of my best friends; I love spending time with her and am so proud of her. And I'll bet she's reading this. Love ya, Sis!

6. Do you pee in the shower? (gasp!)
Not really. I'm sure I have at some point. But my typical morning routine is to get up and sit on the toilet for a few minutes until I'm awake enough to actually focus on washing my body.

7. Bikini, tankini, or one piece?
Tankini, because I'm fat, or at least I feel fat. A tankini hides a multitude of sins that a bikini or one piece can't hide.

8. Where do you hate to shop at, but go there anyway?
I'm anti Wal-Mart. I hate dealing with the crowds and the type of people who shop and work there. I hate the way they run their company. But when I've searched all over town for a specific item without luck, I can usually find it at Wal-Mart, which pisses me off even more.

My life according to my playlist

Yes friends, this is a cop out. Tough, live with it.

Put on your playlist, click the next button, and write down your answers. No cheating!


1. How does the world see me? Strange Apparition (Well, I knew I was weird.)


2. Will I have a happy life? Both Sides Now (What a Taoist answer)


3. What do my friends really think of me? Holiday (That's a good thing, right?)


4. Do people secretly lust after me? Jamaica Farewell (Is that a yes or a no?)


5. How can I make myself happy? Little Liar (Yes, I am in denial.)


6. What should I do with my life? We Belong (That makes no sense.)


7. Why should life be full of so much pain? The Last Call (So bars should be open 24-7? Heh, okay)


8. What song will be played at my wedding reception? Welcome to the Machine (OK, that's scary)


9. Will I ever have children? Jump (As in, I'd rather jump off a bridge)


10. Will I die happy? Future in the Past (I'll time travel instead? OK, may I borrow a TARDIS?)


11. What is some good advice for me? Frogs (I have a turtle, close enough?)


12. What is happiness? one by one


13. What is my favorite fetish? Evil Eye (Um, not really)


14. How will I be remembered? Old Mr. Heffer (Great.)


15.How will the rest of my life go? The Playboy Mansion (Well that doesn't sound too bad)


16.Where am I going in life? Hot Poop (I'm fucked.)


17. What do I like to say about Everything? Mystery Man


18. How will my career Go? Pretty Good (hey, that fits!)


19.Where Will I Be in a week? I Did My Best (that's all I can ask for)


20.Whats the story of my life? Another Brick In the Wall (Well, on that pleasant note... [/sarcasm])

Improv'd Cookies

It's cold. It's snowy. There's about 7 inches of snow on the ground from our several "winter storms" over the past week.

I'm sorry, I just broke one of my own rules. Sn*w is a 4 letter 's' word, and should be spelled as such.

If you can't tell, I hate snow. So tonight, there was no way in hell I was stepping foot outside that door.

Which also means it was a good night to bake some chocolate chip cookies.

I quickly realized the flaw in my plan: I didn't have a full bag of chocolate chips. I had a partial bag of milk chocolate chips, and another partial of white chocolate chips, but it was still no where near enough for chocolate chip cookies. While scrounging through the cupboard hoping to find another partial, I found a pack of Abuelita Mexican Chocolate. I decided to chop it up and make it work.

Soon I was doubting my idea. As I was chopping up the chocolate, I got pieces ranging from huge chunks to lots and lots of chocolate dust. I shrugged, put it all in a cup, and decided to just run with it.

Then, after I got all my wet ingredients mixed together, I realized that we were all out of baking soda. And we had less than a teaspoon of baking powder. Also, I'm allergic to egg whites. Unless I thought of something, we were going to have some strange shortbread. Or I could go to the grocery store, or ask a neighbor, but that meant stepping out of my nice warm house into the evil white stuff. I don't think so, I'd make it work. I added what baking powder I had, a touch of cream of tartar, egg yolks, milk and egg replacer.

The verdict? I've actually got some pretty decent cookies. So if you'd like to try my experiment, here's the recipe for my as-yet-unnamed cookies:

2 sticks of butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbs milk
2 egg yolks

Beat together wet ingredients. Then mix in:

3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tbs egg replacer
2 1/2 cups flour

Finally, add the 2 cups of broken up Abuelita Mexican Chocolate.

Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for... Um well, until they're done. I didn't exactly time them, I just kept checking every 3 minutes. I guess it probably took somewhere around 9 minutes.

Let sit on the cookie sheet for about 3 minutes, then move to cooling rack.

Helpless by Michelle Hartz

After a car accident lands them in the field of a wind farm, 6 strangers split up to look for help. More than willing to help, what the Helper is offering is not the type of help they are looking for.

Excerpt:

The man awoke in complete darkness to a pounding sound, like fists on a metal door. He blinked to make sure he had in fact opened his eyes, but the world remained pitch black. Intending to wave his hand in front of his face, he found that he couldn't move. Struggling against his bonds, which held him tight but didn't feel like rope, he realized he was completely incapacitated. His upper arms were bound around his torso. His lower arms were crossed at his chest and bound so secure that he was losing circulation. He couldn't feel his fingers. His legs were bound similarly, in an extra severe cross-legged or yoga position. His feet were also completely asleep. He tried to call out, but it was muffled with something on his face. He moved his cheeks and felt tape. The tape covered his entire face from the nose down. A clear but futile thought came through his mounting panic: he hadn't shaved in a week, when that tape came off, it was going to hurt like hell. He tried to lurch his bound body forward, but found one strip of tape was wound around his neck and secured to something behind him which clanked like metal on metal. He choked and tried to cough through the bindings.

Forced to sit and wait in the darkness, he took an assessment of his situation. He had a headache, and the pounding seemed to come from the back of his head. Resigned to lean his head back against the unknown metal, he found the spot that the headache seemed to emanate from was tender. He was cold, his skin was covered in goosebumps, and he realized he was completely naked. The rest of his bindings were tape as well, a stiff tape that was cutting into his skin. His back and head were leaning against cold metal, and his butt, legs, and his testicles rested uncomfortably on a cold cement floor.

He tried to remember what had happened. First, what was his name? He was frustrated with the amnesia. He felt the memories right there. How had he got in here? There had been a girl. She was frightened. But she wasn't a child, she was a grown woman, although young. He remembered blonde hair. She had been clutching his hand, and she had said... his name. What had she said? Something about a door and a bag. A padlock. She had said, "Bill, I'm frightened. There wasn't a padlock on the door when we left it."

Bill, his name was Bill. The girl was Susan. "We were going back for the medicine bag," he would have said out loud to the presumably empty dark room if he had the ability to talk. They had left her father in the field, which he regretted, and were going back to the building. The medicine bag lay on the ground when they arrived. She had pointed out the door, but when he went in for a closer look, he heard a commotion behind him. When he turned around, he realized the clank he had heard was the rusty shovel - no wait, that wasn't rust on the blade, it had been dried blood. Someone had hit Susan in the back of the head with the shovel so hard that her head broke open. Blood spilled out of the wound and covered the ground. Her had was reduced to a mass of blood and now oozing brains. "Susan!" he had cried. He automatically felt guilty, he had come with her for her safety, and he had failed. He might as well have killed her himself.

He had looked around to identify her attacker, but saw nothing. Looking helplessly at her body, he noticed footprints leading away from the growing pool of blood. There was something unusual about them, they were the prints of large boots, yet were strangely smooth with ridges. He knew he should know what type of footwear made that imprint, something that he had seen recently. He followed the footprints with his eyes, and looked back at the padlock when he discovered they led to the door. Before he had time to react, he was knocked out cold by an unknown object.

He could only assume that whoever had attacked him had put him here. Why?

This Snowglobe is Messing With My Mind

This is going to be a depressing, whiny post. It'll be a downer compared to my other posts, and not what I want to advertise my blog being about. But I need an outlet to talk about this stuff, and this is my little corner of the web, so I'm going to do it here.

I know I should be grateful. I have a wonderful husband, a good and steady job, a fairly nice home, good friends, and a loving family. I feel like I have no right to be as stressed out, and even a little depressed, as I am. Which makes it worse, and makes me feel like a bad person. At this point, I'm exhausted from just trying to get through life.

Like I said, I have great friends who love me and stick up for me. I think in general, I'm liked by most people I meet. But when someone, usually a stranger, says something bad about me, it really gets me down. I can't help but dwell on it.

A few years ago, I was on the hunt for music to listen to during the day (this was before Pandora), and I came upon Freeze Frame Radio. I ended up joining the forum and becoming very involved with the station. I consider the forum to be a great group of friends. We've had some heated discussions at times, but it's a group that can agree to disagree and move on. Again, I think most people there like me. We've gained a lot of new members over the years, and there's some that we haven't heard from for a while. We've only had 2 instances of abusive members, which is a pretty good track record. As long as people are friendly, we welcome anyone and everyone.

Recently we got a new member. He says he doesn't feel welcomed, and at one point, he tagged me specifically as someone who was not welcoming. I'm offended, but moreso, I'm hurt. I shouldn't be, I know. I don't even know this person, and obviously he doesn't know me. But being accused of not being nice and friendly is really messing with my psyche. I've been trying to be nice this whole time, what if I'm not a nice person? Anybody who knows me has said that I am nice, and not to pay any attention to this guy. But now the doubt is in my head.

Expounded upon that, we have a friend on the forum that has had a rough time lately. She's experiencing some problems with her family, but she posted yesterday that she did some things that's making it better. I didn't reply to that post until this morning. I read it yesterday, and said to myself, "Oh, good," but I didn't know how to reply to her. Then the guy I mentioned above said that we were uncaring people because we hadn't replied. Then after she read that, she agreed and decided to not post to the forum anymore. I feel like I just lost a friend because I didn't reply fast enough. Again, I know it's not true, but it puts that doubt in my head again. Maybe I'm not a good friend.

But there's more. I've been very busy the past couple weeks at work. All my customers are used to me responding right away, and now they're complaining that I'm not. It's to the point that I end up having to put the people who are complaining the loudest in front of people who really should be done first. I have a couple that I'm doing a letter for that I really should have had it to them last week. But since their project takes more time, it ends up getting pushed back in favor of the quicker stuff that people think should be done first because it only takes 5 minutes. That gives me only 96 five minute periods in a day, and when you add up the phone calls, the internal favors, the "will you help me with this?"s, and my current workload, I just can't get it all done. By trying to make everybody happy, I'm not making anybody happy. It's driving me nuts trying to prioritize all of this. Do I base it on who deserves it the most? Who has the tightest deadline? Who has the potential to make us the most money? First in, first out? Who's complaining the most? Everyone thinks it should be whatever situation puts their job up front, including coworkers. It adds to the stress.

And then there's all the little stuff that I'm supposed to be doing at home. The kitchen needs cleaned, my book needs edited, I have tai chi class twice a week, I need to work on my website, there's dinners to cook, I should be applying to scholarships and preparing for school next fall, there's a Caps for Cancer meeting on Saturday, which I'll have to leave early from to go to the Nanowrimo meeting.

Added to that, I haven't settled down into our new lifestyle yet. Our roomie is a good guy and is doing his part, I have nothing against him. But I don't feel like I can come home and cry on my husband's shoulder when I need to. Or there used to be some days when Brian would go visit a friend and I would have the house to myself. These aren't big things, but they're things I've taken for granted. If I weren't so stressed about everything else, this would be no big deal. And I don't want to make our friend feel like he's not welcome or we want him out, I want him to feel like he can stay there as long as he needs to. It's just something I need to adjust to.

I wish my sister lived closer. I have people that I feel like I can talk about some of these things to, but not one person that I can unleash the whole thing to. I feel like if she were here, my sister would just let me vent to her. At the very least, she lets me vent to her over chat, and sends me virtual hugs. Yeah, sure, I could vent to Brian, but as a husband, he wants to do something about anything that's making me sad. That's what husbands are for, and I love him for it. I really just need someone to listen. That's what sisters are for. Love ya sis!