And boo to you, too: Friday Update

09 Friday Oct 2026

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News:

Nothing this week.

Works in Progress:

I finished reading one of the short books that I’m blurbing this season. I’ll start on the next one today.

I also watched Mary Reilly in preparation for the creative non-fiction piece I want to write about it. Still building it in my mind after all these years. Sometimes I think I have too many feelings about it to put into words. I’ll probably have to write it in pieces, then stitch it together into something cohesive.

Did some walking this week because I wasn’t able to elliptical. Walking tends to make my brain go about twice as fast as my feet, and I get so many ideas about things to do and how to go about it, and then I get home and I slow down to reality where I have obligations and a long list of things I already need to do and it’s kind of a disappointment, to be honest.

However, I think I’d like to try to figure out how to put out my long Hannibal essay as a chapbook that can be bought as an ebook through Amazon but also as a physical book bought from here, if I can figure out how to do that. This requires 1) drawing, 2) printing my own books, 3) adding flare, and 4) shipping. It’s a lot, unless I can find something to do the printing for me.

That’s a 2027 problem, though. I haven’t even edited the essay.

I also think I want to do a companion book of bathroom horror essays to go with my bathroom horror short story/poetry collection that’s waiting for all the rights to revert to me before I publish.

And that’s a 2028 problem.

You see my issue with walking?

I guess I know what I need to do if I’ve hit a plot issue while writing, though.

Books I’m Reading:

The Jackal Man by Russell C. Connor
The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson
The Isochron Treatment by Gregg Stewart (finished)

Things I’m Listening To:

Let’s Hear It for the Girls playlist
Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Mary Reilly
The Ring
American Horror Story: Cult series
Halloween Wars series
Halloween Baking Championship series
Kitchen Nightmare (reboot) series
Brilliant Minds series
The Closer series

Poem of the Week:

what do we do
with all this corn?
an abundance of corn
an embarrassment of corn
silos and barns and bins of corn
all contorted with blue gray in the gold
monster mash kernels
tasty with tortillas
but my kernel keratin
of fingernails and toenails
bulb and bulge
am i tasty too?

What is rain?: Saturday Update

03 Saturday Oct 2026

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We got a solid few inches of rain over the last few days. All our trees are tired and turning, a lot of grass is brown, but you could practically hear the collective sigh from all the plants. I fortunately didn’t have to work through the worst of it.

News:

Nothing this week.

Works in Progress:

I didn’t update yesterday because I really wanted to double down on finishing We Follow You in the Dark rewrites on Friday (it’s my last weekend day this week, and I’m working out more now that this cold has finally subsided, and that means less night time available for writing). I got so close to finishing, 5K unique words, because the ending of the novel really had to change for the new concept. Then after my workout my mind was still spinning, so I took advantage of it and finished the novel late in the night.

It ended up a little under 73K words, which is about 18K more than the original version. I think edits will cut it down to about 65-68K, but I need a break before diving into those. Much of the novel is functionally transcription from the original, so I don’t think edits will take as long, but I already know there’s some smoothing out that needs to happen.

I’ll be reading two books for blurbs this week, then maybe trying another essay. If I can, I’ll start on WFYITD edits until I get the Masque edits in. Hard to know what October looks like until those come in.

Books I’m Reading:

The Jackal Man by Russell C. Connor
The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson
The Deep by Nick Cutter (finished, added to the tiny list of books that made me cry)

Things I’m Listening To:

Let’s Hear It for the Girls playlist
Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Oculus
Garage Sale Mysteries: Murder Takes the Stage
The Mothman Prophecies
American Horror Story: Cult series
Halloween Baking Championship series
Kitchen Nightmare (reboot) series
Best Medicine series (finished)
Brilliant Minds series
Ghosts (US) series
Criminal Minds series
The Closer series
The Hunting Party series
America’s Got Talent series (finished)
The Following series

Poem of the Week: (throwback from Oct 2022)

a dripping cryptic sign
in a decrepit crypt
decrypt the claw marks
livid inscription
to determine the cryptid

Break in the heat: Friday Update

25 Friday Sep 2026

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You’ve got to understand, it’s been SO HOT, y’all. So hot that normal late summer weather seems cool and refreshingly beautiful. This morning has been near perfect. Woke up early for pickleball (not crazy about the early, but it’s not terrible) during which the breeze seemed autumnal in comparison to the hot barely-breezes of the last few months, and I played pretty decently (last time a few weeks ago, I didn’t play well at all). Came home to dip in the cold water of the spa; it wasn’t even eighty outside yet. But after all this hot, being cold feels amazing, so I didn’t even mind. I read out there for an hour and could have stayed longer. Then straight into a hot shower that felt so good after the cold dip.

My cold has kicked my butt, but I’ve finally reached the tail end of it. I don’t sound good after all the coughing, but I feel so much better, so now the symptoms are just a nuisance and I can properly enjoy things again. Like the extra day off I took yesterday to help me get ahead on my writing, since I was going to be on vacation this week anyway. (We had to cancel.)

It’s been a while since I had a really good day. I’m probably going to crash here soon and need a nap, because I’m middle-aged, but damn, it’s been a good day so far.

News:

I got notice that my editor at Quill & Crow was going to start working on Masque soon, which is another reason I want to get ahead on this rewrite project. Once she’s finished with it, I’ll get to work. I’ll probably be working on it over my birthday. I can’t think of anything better. It’s slated to come out in 2027. Exciting, y’all!

Works in Progress:

The We Follow You in the Dark rewrite is galloping along at a terrific pace these last few days off, which has brought me to 48K words. I’m aiming for 53K by the end of the day. About seventy-five percent of it is adjusted transcription, following my new characters’ impulses and making small adjustments off the original text. But I’ve added about 10K of fully new text. If my patterns persist, I’ll probably cut about twenty percent of that off in edits. That means my final product will probably be longer than 60K words, which makes it a better length for a short novel than it started.

I’m expecting to finish the rewrite at about 65-70K words, though, which means I probably won’t finish by the end of the month, but the point of the extra day off yesterday was to get that completion date as close to the beginning of October as possible. I have two works to read in order to give some blurbs (the first time they’ve ever been requested from me) and want to get those done before the Masque edits begin.

Based on timing, I will probably not get to start The Twelfth Wife, which means that’ll be a 2027 project, along with an edit that I’m not talking about yet (even though I signed the contract), the rest of the Masque edits, and the next Thorns novel, which makes 2027 pretty dang heavy. I promised Totally Entwined a trilogy of short supernatural novels under my other name, and I need to get started on that probably after finishing the Masque edit, which adds more contractual edits to next year. Writing those novels should take me through the rest of this year, although I’m hoping to do a few short things in between. Still got some essays to knock off my list.

Books I’m Reading:

The Jackal Man by Russell C. Connor
The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson
The Deep by Nick Cutter

Things I’m Listening To:

Let’s Hear It for the Girls playlist
Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Pulse (2005)
Weapons
Monster Squad
Glass Onion
Halloween Baking Championship series
Best Medicine series
Criminal Minds series
The Closer series
America’s Got Talent series
Hawaii Five-O series
The Following series

Poem of the Week: (throwback from Sept 2022)

necromantic sighs under stormy skies
a bloody rose for the soulless
and shelley stones to roll over
if you need a helping hand
there are plenty to choose from
and diamonds to spare
for a pair of ghoulish hearts

Wearing jack-o’-lanterns: Friday Update

18 Friday Sep 2026

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News:

Nothing this week.

Works in Progress:

This cold has been kicking my butt, for some reason, but I have made it to 33K on the We Follow You in the Dark rewrite, hope to make it to 35K by the end of the day if I can avoid napping for too long. I’ve been getting a lot of sleep and reading plenty, which is uncommon for me. I hope I can sustain it when I can actually add cardio back into my routine.

I’m not sure if I’ll meet my goal of finishing by the end of the month. That disappoints me. But I don’t think it’ll take me much longer than that.

Books I’m Reading:

The Jackal Man by Russell C. Connor
The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson
The Deep by Nick Cutter

Things I’m Listening To:

Let’s Hear It for the Girls playlist
Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Enola Holmes 3
The First Omen
Gone Girl
Falling into Place
The Blackening
Best Medicine series
Criminal Minds series
The Closer series
America’s Got Talent series
Hawaii Five-O series
The Following series

Poem of the Week: (throwback from Sept 2022)

do not concern yourself
with enigmatic words
of high-styled prescience
too often only understood
in hindsight or used
as a bludgeon by those
who fear what comes
or who would bring
what comes sooner
useless prognostication
or self-fulfilling prophecy

Manufacturing fall: Friday Update

11 Friday Sep 2026

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The pool spa is shaded in the mornings, and it was actually quite cool to dip in for the whole hour I was reading. When you get out and feel a breeze, it’s like having a little dose of fall in summer.

Plus, I’m writing a haunted experience novel and listening to Halloween. So it may be hot as hell here in Satan’s fajita skillet, but I try to make fall moments where I can. The brown leaves make me sad, though; that’s not fall, that’s tree exhaustion, and their distress distresses me.

News:

Nothing this week.

Works in Progress:

My body decided to catch another cold this week (I tested negative on all basic baddies). That’s two colds in four months, when I hadn’t otherwise gotten so much as a sniffle since starting the grocery gig. Still in the ‘feeling not quite like myself’ phase of it. Once I feel more like myself, despite persisting symptoms, I’ll probably be in a better place to push a little harder on the We Follow You in the Dark rewrite. For now, I’m being as gentle as possible, because I’m only sleeping properly every other night.

I’ve made it to about 21K words, which I would say is about a third of the way through. If I had wanted to get through the whole thing by the end of house/pet-sitting, I would be disappointed. I still think I’ll be able to get it done before the end of the month.

Books I’m Reading:

The Jackal Man by Russell C. Connor
The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson
The Deep by Nick Cutter

Things I’m Listening To:

Let’s Hear It for the Girls playlist
Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Valentine
Immaculate
The Rite
The Long Walk
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Haunted Harmony Mysteries: Prelude to a Wedding
Ghosts (US) series
The Closer series
America’s Got Talent series
Hawaii Five-O series
Prodigal Son series (finished)
The Rookie series (finished)
The Following series

Poem of the Week:

squishy little yellow elephant
i thought i forgot you
left in a box in the burning attic
with the other memories
crinkle crinkle little star
your soft yellow legs took you so far
i don’t remember did i take you out?
did i leave the door open?
what else came through the door?

The great American road trip from house to home: Friday Update

04 Friday Sep 2026

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This is a year of milestones. Because of working the grocery shopping gig and trekking back and forth from home to where I’m house-sitting (a little farther than the last place where I house-sat), I crossed 100K miles on my car. Miss Emma may be getting up there in car years, but she’s doing well, all things considered. Can’t say the same for the one driving her and the milestone quickly catching up to her in the next few months. I feel like I’m starting to fall apart; human body maintenance is even more demanding than car body maintenance.

News:

Nothing this week. I’m taking a few months off from working the Shallow Waters themes. I wasn’t happy with the last story. It was fine. Fine. But it didn’t excite me or make me proud. That tells me to step away for a bit. Still reading the finalists every month, though. It’s a lot of fun.

Works in Progress:

I started the We Follow You in the Dark rewrite. Although things were a little shaky to start out with, because there were still some questions I hadn’t answered yet in my head, I think I’ve ironed those things out. I’m looking forward to how the character changes will alter the story, which is a good sign. I think any clumsiness in this rewrite can be fixed in the edit.

Got a rejection on that short story collection. That kind of hurt, even though I was expecting it. The longer works always hurt a little more. I’ve been getting a lot of rejections lately in general. Doesn’t help that the horror short story market has contracted, which means more people are fighting for fewer anthology spots.

Books I’m Reading:

The Jackal Man by Russell C. Connor
Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman (finished)
The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson

Things I’m Listening To:

Let’s Hear It for the Girls playlist
Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

The Whisper Man
Nope
Ready or Not
The Closer series
America’s Got Talent series
Hawaii Five-O series
The Rookie series
The Following series

Poem of the Week: (throwback to Sept 2022)

i cannot emphasize too strongly
the catastrophic slide of civilization
that was always a tenuous veneer
and now slips down the face of it
like wax in a climate crisis
a collective effort undercut
by an individualistic myopia
and a sense that freedom
never meant sacrifice
on every level but rather
from the undesirables
of which there should be none
in no world is the eagle
more important than the ant

A new window, a new view: Friday Update

28 Friday Aug 2026

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News:

“Pick a Card” was posted at Crystal Lake’s Patreon for the Shallow Waters theme Mad Magic. (For $5/month tiers and up)

Works in Progress:

I’m pet- and house-sitting for a while, so we’ll see how the new environment affects my productivity. The company, of course, is adorable.

I finished my essay on The Others and The Awakening, 4770 words total, which means three essays done and dusted. I have a few more I want to do this year, but with the new venue, I want to work on something that doesn’t have required viewing, so I’m going to at least start on my rewrite of We Follow You in the Dark to make it more sellable. I’m not sure how this is going to go, especially since the original was good, but I think it’s worth a try while I’m waiting for edits to come in.

It reminds me of Nocturne, in that what will change is almost solely on the character side. There will be whole swaths of the novel that stays the same, which will hopefully help me get through this in less than a month. I’d love to finish it during the house-sitting, but I’m terrible at gauging how long things will take and I’d rather not get my hopes up that I’ll finish it up that quickly, even with extra days off work. As I’ve resolved to continue, I plan to be gentle with myself rather than push toward word goals or a conclusion. I won’t return to word goals until I start The Twelfth Wife later this year, and they’ll be less demanding than in the past.

Books I’m Reading:

The Jackal Man by Russell C. Connor
Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman

Things I’m Listening To:

Fourth of July playlist
Let’s Hear It for the Girls playlist
Eurielle

Things I’m Watching:

Buddy
The Closer series
America’s Got Talent series
Hawaii Five-O series
The Rookie series
The Following series
Private Practice series
All Creatures Great and Small series (finished)

Poem of the Week:

from shadows,
light strikes angles, curves,
gleaming mouths, slavering ivory.
freeze like rabbit in the way of a hare,
little nose quivering against ordure
and offal dragging along the floor.
it shuffles, searching blind through
your shuddering beam,
then beyond.
brief relief.

Bring back Enya: Friday Update

21 Friday Aug 2026

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There is a particular way that my mind can get entrenched in a certain way of thinking. It took me until my twenties to realize that I was allowed to ask for substitutions and customizations from menu items. And it wasn’t until earlier this week that I realized I could use our pool without swimming in it. I can just sit in the spa and read a book. No one is policing this.

The backyard is shaded in the morning, and what would be intolerable temperatures become really pleasant when you’re submerged. This may get me through the summer, even though it’s a bit of a production to do. I’ll continue doing this on my days off, I think, until late October, or whenever the first real cool front comes through. It’ll also help me get my reading done, with committed time during which I can’t use my computer. Can’t do hardbacks, too heavy to trust myself to hold them over water for extended periods of time, but I have plenty of paperbacks on my TBR list.

News:

Nothing this week.

Works in Progress:

I’ve watched both The Awakening and The Others, and now I’m working on my Awakening/Others essay, which has proven a little harder than the Hannibal essays, but that’s okay.

When I hit a block because I felt like I couldn’t structure things properly, I reminded myself that I’m not doing this for anyone, just for fun, and I can write it as messily as I like. I’m not being graded, nor am I writing it for any particular call. After I finish this one, I’ll tackle the Mary Reilly retrospective, which will be more creative non-fiction, I think.

Books I’m Reading:

The Jackal Man by Russell C. Connor
The Devil in the White City by Eric Larson (finished)

Things I’m Listening To:

Fourth of July playlist
Blacklist playlist
Eurielle

Things I’m Watching:

The Awakening
The Others
The Kid Detective
Furious series
The Closer series
America’s Got Talent series
Criminal Minds series
Hawaii Five-O series
The Rookie series
The Following series
Private Practice series
All Creatures Great and Small series

Poem of the Week:

in each hand
red threads
a thousand strands
of memory
stretching to no end
back and behind
my bloodline stops here
no further
perhaps a mercy
to frailer inheritors
of threads than me
i shall hoard
the children
languishing
uneaten eggs
unsown unseen
if i fall ill
burn the roots

Running in the dark: Friday Update

14 Friday Aug 2026

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News:

None this week.

Works in Progress:

I just finished the Hannibal essay. It’s a proper essay rather than as long as the last, about 6700 words and 22 pages long when double-spaced. I’m afraid my mood has taken a turn for the worse, but I’m happy to have finished the piece, and it’s in a better state (aka length) to be submitted than the other.

I’m done with Hannibal essays for a while now, but not done with horror essays yet.

The next one will be on the wonderful gothic ghost stories The Others and The Awakening, which I’ll need to rewatch and take notes on before tackling, likely next Wednesday.

Books I’m Reading:

The Jackal Man by Russell C. Connor
The Devil in the White City by Eric Larson

Things I’m Listening To:

Fourth of July playlist
Blacklist playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Maternal Instinct
Hannibal Rising
Riddick
Silence of the Lambs
2012
Hannibal, Hopkins, and Sir Anthony
The Railway Children (2000)
Furious series
The Closer series
Watson series (finished, incensed that it’s canceled)
America’s Got Talent series
Criminal Minds series
Hawaii Five-O series
The Rookie series

Poem of the Week:

moon-blooming flowers flourished
while the rest languished closed,
sleeping beauties mummifying in their beds.
birds forgot to sing in extended night,
collapsed from branches in vulnerable coma.
the day the dark stood still, we held our breath
for a beginning that never returned.

Errands: Friday Update

07 Friday Aug 2026

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News:

“Pick a Card” was selected as a finalist for this month’s Shallow Waters at the Crystal Lake Patreon. It’ll post near the end of the month, since it’s number 16 of 20.

Works in Progress:

I was on vacation last week and enjoyed these hundred-degree days much better than usual while at a water park at our resort. It was a great time, but also exhausting. I really wanted to relax as much as possible; hence, the break.

I only had a short story to edit down for the Shallow Waters theme last month, which I did, so I submitted it and didn’t do anymore writing work until I returned home. Got a lot of reading done, although I didn’t finish the book.

I’d planned to write the first half of the mini Hannibal essay on Wednesday, but a few submission opportunities for longer works popped up, so I submitted a novella, then curated and submitted a short story collection. That wasn’t part of the plan for the day, but it took up most of it—not least because I must have made a saving error and lost all my work after a few hours and had to start over again. Fortunately, most of it was formatting, and I could speed-walk my way through doing it again, since I’d already made my choices and could just remember what I’d done.

I don’t anticipate that either piece will be selected, but I figured I might as well give it a shot.

After those pieces were submitted, I sat down to work on the mini Hannibal essay and discovered that it is not, in fact, going to be mini. It won’t be as long as the other one, sure, but it won’t be short. So it’s a good thing it’s still fun.

I had errands to run this morning, which means I need a short rest, but then I’ll resume the essay work. Not sure if I’m going to finish today, but I’ll certainly try.

Books I’m Reading:

The Jackal Man by Russell C. Connor
The Devil in the White City by Eric Larson
The Grove by Eric Butler (finished)

Things I’m Listening To:

Fourth of July playlist
Hannibal soundtracks
Blacklist playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Viral
Cruella
Wake Up Dead Man
Watson series
America’s Got Talent series
Criminal Minds series
Hawaii Five-O series
The Rookie series

Poem of the Week: (throwback to August 2022)

Saltwater everywhere
Surrounding sea
But not a drop to drink
And still I swallow
The rising sound
With tastes of desperation
Until swollen round
To fill the endless hollow
And weigh my live corpse down