Dear friends and followers,

It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, so for those of you who celebrate it, I wish you a happy Thanksgiving. For my part, I would like to give thanks for the progress "A Gentleman’s Murder" has made since its release back on 31 July.

• Firstly, that it was released at all. That in itself is a great gift.
  
• Great reviews, both by professional critics and by readers such as yourselves. I’m glad to be bringing some enjoyment into the world.
• Being optioned for TV. That’s rather like winning the lottery with a ticket bought with the winnings from another lottery.

I assume all of the above means, in the words of Sally Field, "You like me! Right now, you like me!" And I hope you like me well enough to consider backing "Cat’s Paw". Important as it is to give thanks for the past, it is as important to look to the future. With this second novel, I want to give you the same degree of enjoyment, if not more, that you and other readers seem to have derived from "A Gentleman’s Murder". Experience has shown that it can be done; all it needs now is your go-ahead.

Quite aside from this, of course, I must thank all of you who’ve expressed your confidence in me with regard to "A Gentleman’s Murder": those of you who backed it, who introduced the book to your friends, and who afterwards wrote reviews of it on Amazon and Goodreads. May you have as much and more to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season.

Just a quick reminder -  I’ve got a couple of author events coming up, October 6 and October 13, and I wanted to make sure to invite you - I’d love to see you!

FIRST. on October 6, I’ll be over at our favorite local craft brewery doing a signing! Here are the details: Date & Time: Saturday October 6, 4pm until 8pm or whenever we’re all tired! Place: No Clue Craft Brewery in Rancho Cucamonga in Southern California! (Support your local craft brewery! And your local author!) (They also have non-alcoholic beverages, if beer’s not your thing, and they are family and dog friendly!) Things: there will be, er, me! And my books! I will happily sign things, bring some spare paperback copies of Demon and Prophecy if people would like to buy them at some sort of discount (and maybe one or two of my other stories or academic books if I can get copies), and generally hang out with people and probably give you all hugs! (I can even attempt to do a reading if requested? Maybe? Is that a thing people would like, me reading my work? I mean, I do it with academic conference papers, so…) Also I hear there might be a food truck. I will update you on this.

SECOND, on October 13, I’ll be participating - with a signing table, and also on the Author Panel - in Anaheim Indie Author Day at the Anaheim Public Library! Date & Time: October 13, 1pm-4:30pm. Place: Anaheim Public Library (500 W Broadway, Anaheim, CA 92805) Things: here’s the event description: "Anaheim Public Library participates in the annual Indie Author Day celebration by hosting an event every October that is free and open to the public. This is an opportunity for the indie community to come together and help self-published and independent authors get discovered and for readers to find new books written by fellow community members. Each of the authors will have books available for purchase, and guests will have the opportunity to spend time with the writers and have their books signed." So of course you can come and chat with me and get things signed - and you can support and discover other independent, small press, and local (SoCal) writers as well! It’s an awesome event, and great for the writing community.

I hope to see you at one or both of these, and thanks again for all your support!

  Happy October everyone

I’m burrowing my way out from a mountain of unedited material,  so I’ve been away from Inkshares for a bit. I’m glad to see a lot of you that I’ve interacted with over the last few months here are having success with your projects, and are even funding right now. Congratulations to all of you, and I hope to join you soon. As always,  a great big thank you to everyone that has sent me feedback and advice. I appreciate all of it. 

Aside from writing, I’ve been creating a lot of amateur-status promotional posters and videos.

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Those either worked or they didn’t.
At any rate, thanks for following along, and I’m working towards changing that status from Draft to Funding very soon.

Happy October 1st, everyone!

Today begins the funding campaign for my biographical story We’re the Whiteheads. Please pre-order your copy at this site: www.inkshares.com/books/we-re-the-whiteheads. I’m going to make this campaign fun and give shout-outs to those who follow and/or pre-order every 20 follows/pre-orders (plus your stories if you’re an Inkshares author!). Let’s get it started. Thanks in advance!

Durena Burns

Dear friends and followers,

We are now one week into the campaign for "Cat’s Paw", and we’re standing at a somewhat precarious 2nd place in the Inkshares Mystery & Thriller Contest. Some of you have already got on board with that campaign, and I am grateful for your ongoing support. I hope more of you will consider doing the same. "A Gentleman’s Murder" has done quite well since its release, and I would like to think that it’s demonstrated my capabilities with a word processor; but one can’t just stop there. It doesn’t pay to be complacent.

Click here for the "Cat’s Paw" project page.

"Cat’s Paw" is somewhat darker than "A Gentleman’s Murder" was, having actually begun as an idea for a horror story. But then, I know mystery a lot better than I know horror, and so it’s classed as a mystery ... albeit one with its roots in a very dark place. But then again, some people would just call that "Noir".

In the meantime, I should like to draw your attention to a Facebook fundraiser a friend of mine started for the American Cancer Society. Cancer is a nasty business, to put it lightly, and these people are doing some very good work about it. I hope you’ll give this fundraiser some consideration.

Hey everyone! This will probably be the last email I send through Inkshares, and I have one last announcement! The Dare is live on Amazon! It will be free starting tomorrow and running through the 4th of October, after that it will be $0.99 for the ebook and as of right now I do not have a price set for the printed copies. Instagram and FB will have the updates and links to buy as well. Right now it’s all about exposure and downloads so if you know anyone who likes check-your-brain-at the door, action, suspense, escape from reality books, let them know about this one and the freebie promo! Thank you so much again for following me here and for the support on my first book! 

First off, apologies for taking so long between updates. I’ve been focusing most of my effort recently on Game Over because Uncharted Territory is its sequel. I figured I should polish the book, add a few more chapters, and start taking pre-orders. Before that, I had a long string of everyday-life stuff keeping me pretty thoroughly derailed, but that’s a whole other rant.

As part of the campaign, I’ve been posting a series of character profiles on my blog. Since these characters appear in both Game Over and Uncharted Territory, I thought it might be of interest to those who are following UT. So far I’ve posted profiles of Dylan Engstrom, Cora, and Grishnag, and the next one I’m planning is for Nishara.

Once I start making some progress on that, I’m hoping to get back to Uncharted Territory, give it a light polish, and then actually finish it and start its pre-order campaign. And after that, the plan is to start working on the sequel to Project Revenant.

So if you’ve been enjoying Uncharted Territory, please check out Game Over and consider pre-ordering a copy. :D