There’s nothing quite like finishing the first draft of a story.  The plot is there. The characters have made a home in my brain. The setting feels as real as the sand under my feet.

And so here’s a little preview:

From the upcoming Seasonal Shenanigans Halloween edition:

Angelina chuckled when she noticed. “Brady, you’re never like this at work.”
“Because I’m never like this at work,” he muttered. “Do you remember when you got the keys to the car for the first time and you sat in it for a good twenty minutes because you didn’t know where to go?”
“Yes?”
“This is like that.”
“I see. So if I, maybe, pointed you in a direction, you might be relieved?”
Brady bit his lip rather than answering, but he gave her a shrug and a smile.
Holding his gaze–and from this angle the setting sun lit up the flecks of bronze in her dark eyes–Angelina lifted his hand to press her lips to the back of it. Her breath electrified his skin.
“Oh.” He licked his lips. “Can I kiss you?”
“Yes.”

–From “Specter”

About The Author

Annika began writing in third grade: an illustrated fanfic of the Atari game “Defender.” After filling notebooks, utterly unaware that she was a writer at heart, she abandoned her stories somewhere around her third year of college, probably when the typewriter/word processor died and was replaced by the roommate’s new 386. A ridiculous number of years later, she stumbled across a fanfic site, put fingers to keyboard, and hasn’t stopped writing since.