This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Shelly Campbell will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
It’s okay. Feel free to laugh it up. Honestly though, that imposter syndrome, it’s a tricky beast. Every single time I start penning a first draft, my brain chugs to a stop and insists quite loudly that actually I don’t know how to write books anymore. What’s more I never knew how to do it. Somehow, the last bunch of times I wrote and published books, I fooled everyone into believing I knew what I was doing, but I didn’t, and even if I did, I’ll never be able to do it again.
Ridiculous, I know. But it’s also ridiculously convincing.
I don’t think us creatives ever quite shake that imposter syndrome. It comes with the territory of simultaneously pouring your soul into your work while maintaining some awfully thick skin because rejection is part of the business of writing and publishing. And no matter how we try to not take the rejection of our art personally, it always feels a bit personal because there are pieces of us in our creations. That kind of thing feeds imposter syndrome, I think.
The good news is, that doubtful little voice in my head can go suck it because it’s wrong.
I can write.
There are readers out there who take time to tell me that they really enjoy my work—which is incredibly uplifting to hear. I enjoy writing. Once I get going, it’s damned addictive. I get to make up whole worlds that other people get to re-imagine in their heads. I get to make readers cry—Is it wrong that I’m happy when readers tell me my books make them cry? I get to meet other creatives who inspire me on a daily basis. I get to hold beautiful books in my hands and know that myself and my beta readers, publisher, editor, formatter, and book cover designer worked hard to bring those books to completion. It’s an incredibly cool feeling.
First though, I have to stare at a blank page in a Word document and push myself to write said book. And it’s scary each and every time.
But, man alive, it’s the best kind of scary.
Thanks so much for having me on the blog as a guest. Really appreciate it!
Glitching between dimensions wasn’t supposed to be my life, but sometimes you have to dance with the darkness.
I should be dead. Shot twice through the chest. But the Embassy saved me because I’m a one-of-a-kind freak who blips to worlds they can’t reach. Now I’m their personal mule, raiding collapsing planets to fatten their coffers. Lucky me.
And things have gone from bad to worse. My old team is being held hostage, my family’s in danger, and the darkness hunts me across realities. My one shot to end this living hell? Take down the Embassy, save Charlie, and torch the whole rotten system. Simple, right? One misstep though, and we’re toast. Alien breach. Apocalypse. End scene.
If I fail, the darkness won’t stop until it swallows us whole.
Enjoy an Excerpt
I used to be David.
David had a big family. Wanted to join the army. Always got stuck cleaning out the soft serve machine at his after-school job because everyone else despised the chore. But now he’s gone and I’m all that’s left. A dead animal under glass, gutted and hastily stitched together—you know the kind where the taxidermist didn’t get the eyes quite right? That’s me. Sad display in an Embassy trophy case.
But I’m not just for show. My captors use me well.
About the Author: 
At a young age, Shelly Campbell wanted to be an air show pilot or a pirate, possibly a dragon and definitely a writer and artist. She’s piloted a Cessna 172 through spins and stalls, and sailed up the east coast on a tall ship barque—mostly without projectile vomiting. In the end, Shelly found writing and drawing dragons to be so much easier on the stomach. Shelly writes speculative fiction ranging from grimdark fantasy, to sci-fi and horror. She’d love to hear from you.
Can a novel about an American couple’s quest to adopt a Russian baby be called a Multi-Award-Winning Suspense Thriller? Yes.
They kept to the shadows so no one would know they existed, and preyed on the nameless who no one would miss. Where did they come from, and who was protecting them? In a city that had seen every kind of savagery, they were something new, something more than murderous. And one woman who had thought she had lost everything there was to lose in life would soon find that nothing could possibly prepare her for what would come when she entered their world.
A retired high-school teacher and former college instructor, Kevin R. Doyle is the author of four novels in the Sam Quinton mystery series, all published by Camel Press. He’s also written four crime thrillers, including And the Devil Walks Away and The Anchor, and one horror novel, The Litter, along with numerous short horror stories published in small magazines over the years. The first Quinton book, Squatter’s Rights, was nominated for the 2021 Shamus award for Best First PI Novel. A lifelong Midwesterner, Doyle currently resides in Missouri and has loosely based the city of Providence in the Quinton books on Columbia. 
At eighty-four years old, widower and award-winning geneticist Bernie Crenshaw has reached the end of his life. Bernie gifts his only grandson, eighteen-year-old Inglewood high school senior Nova, his multimillion-dollar property located in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills.
Ross Victory is an award-winning author and singer/songwriter from Southern California. After the loss of his father and brother, Ross dove into self-discovery, reigniting his childhood passion for creative writing and music production, launching an independent writing career. Victory has dedicated his life to empowering his community while entertaining listeners and readers. Victory provides a multi-format creative experience in Urban Adult Contemporary music and literature, with a focus on creative non-fiction and thematic novellas. Topics include: adventure, family, religion and philosophy, and identity.
