Obligatory self-indulgent welcome post

I knew it was coming. You knew it was coming. Or maybe you didn't, because maybe, you have no idea who the hell I am. Which, as luck would have it, is the entire point of this post!

I'm J.A. Shieldsmith. I write fiction, primarily the spooky kind, and have been a professional ghostwriter since 2013. (I don't plan on sharing my ghostwriting work here, but I welcome any and all paranormal investigations if you want to find it yourself.)

I'm a parent, which is about as scary as horror comes. It's also a journey filled with the occasional tears, which are far outweighed by the plentiful laughs we all share. Wait, this sounds a lot like my brand of horror! (I'd have a clever plug for my books below this, but none of them are published yet.)

My family and I live in Texas, which is also great territory for horror. It's been a journey filled with the occasional tears, which are far outweighed-wait, I've heard this one before.

I've been spinning stories for as long as I can remember. Well, almost. The era of what I can remember and not remember is in a constant state of revisions, the draft never really growing shorter but the earlier page numbers getting higher and higher.

I was five and I had a pencil in my hand and a notebook on the floor of our big, spooky house nestled away in the woods. Hours later and I'd laid the foundation:

• Heroic knight
• The lovely princess
• A real asshole of a dragon

I wasn't redefining fantasy, and I probably wasn't spelling everything properly, but it was fun and I made something and I never stopped.

Like the mental draft of my life, with its climbing page numbers and ethereal read time, I'm sure this post will change. I'll come back and edit it, add in new examples as I have them or as time allows. (Which currently, this morning, it allows little.) In the meantime, thanks for stopping by. I hope my words can make you laugh, cry, and maybe scream.

But only just a little.