Category Archives: A Few Thoughts

In anticipation of screams: Friday Update

12 Friday Jan 2024

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News:

Question Not My Salt is becoming more and more real. It has its own Goodreads home, with an enthusiastic early 5-star review from Horror Reads. I know reviews are for readers rather than writers, but it’s the first written review I’ve had from a stranger under this name, which is exciting.

Among the highlights: “I was not prepared. I read the synopsis, yet, I was NOT prepared! This book is like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Hannibal Lector on an episode of Master Chef. […] It doesn’t take long for weirdness to turn into outright horror though. I won’t be providing details because that’s a ‘pleasure’ you need to read about for yourself.”

QNMS is a short, vicious, relentless, hopefully fun ride. To endure it is to enjoy it. In the Dollhouse was easy to write but emotionally difficult, while QNMS was a blast to write and edit, and it’s received such good feedback so far.

As you probably know, preorders are an important part of determining a book’s success. Extreme horror isn’t for everyone, so if you’ve got squeams, check the Content Warnings, but if you liked Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original or spicy reboots), the Hannibal series, and The Menu, QNMS should be a delight.

Here’s the preorder link. I wrote QNMS in March and edited it in July and then finalized it for Christmas, so although it’s about a Thanksgiving feast, it can be read at any time. Or you can save it for Thanksgiving, if you want.

Works in Progress:

It was a struggle, but I finally got all the short fiction for this month done. I’ll edit them in dribs and drabs as the deadlines approach and between other projects. Don’t get me wrong. I wanted to write them. My brain is just tired and my attention span is shot due to burnout.

But now I’m in editing mode on the novelette Hear You Scream for an upcoming submission call. While I had to deal with some really bad cramps this week, that’s behind me, and I’m getting better at concentrating, at least on something that is Not Writing. Honestly, there aren’t a lot of edits in HYS. It was pretty tightly written from the start. I’ll decide at the end if I even need to give it another pass.

Once this is done, I’ll edit one of the short stories, then work on A Woman Alone edits for another submission call.

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire
Ending in Ashes by Rebecca Jones-Howe

Music I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist
Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Legion (late Christmas movie)
Frozen (first watch, finally)
Holidate
The Grinch
Holiday in the Wild
Meg 2: The Trench
Black Swan
Silent Hill
Great British Baking Show: Holiday Edition series (finished)
Hoarders series (finished)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer series (watchalong)
Angel series (watchalong)
White Collar series
Transplant series
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week:

a touch
caress
with painted lips

lines led by
the edge of a knife

leave me addicted
to the color
red

Waiting room: Friday Update

05 Friday Jan 2024

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News:

Handful of rejections for the new year. I suspect there won’t be much news until February.

Works in Progress:

Burn out is still in play right now, so I’m moving more slowly through my second short story, but I am moving. I think I’m going to get the next two short stories under my belt as well, since they’re both under 2K words. I’m in a bit of an ideas slump. It happens, and it’s not a problem in and of itself, since I have a surplus of ideas I’ve already written down that I can work on instead. But I managed to come up with two new things for a couple anthology calls.

Due to deadlines, I think I’ll tackle edits for novelette Hear You Scream and novella A Woman Alone next. Then the Meridian novel, Silver & Steel.

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
This World Belongs to Us edited by Michael W. Phillips, Jr. (finished)
Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire
Ending in Ashes by Rebecca Jones-Howe

Music I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist (It’s still the Christmas season. 12 days of Christmas, y’all. I’ve gone through the entire collection, and now I’m hitting my favorites. Then I’ll move on.)

Things I’m Watching:

Better Watch Out
The Mummy (2017)
30 Days of Night
Great British Baking Show: Holiday Edition series
Holiday Baking Championship series (finished)
Christmas Cookie Challenge series (finished)
Monk series (Season 5 finished. New Year’s tradition, we watch a new season every year.)
Hoarders series
Buffy the Vampire Slayer series (watchalong)
Angel series (watchalong)
Transplant series
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week:

waiting behind the
reservoir of damned disease
thick magma of mucus
in colors of a bruise
swollen face and
swollen lymph nodes
nymphs burst from
oothecae on a single cell
level a wet cough
and a dry mouth
rattling

Resolute (6)

01 Monday Jan 2024

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Novelettes/Novellas, Novels, Poetry, Series, Short Stories, Thorns, Writing

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TL;DR: It was a pretty good year, but I’m sad anyway.

Looking back at other Resolute posts, I’ve determined that, like birthdays, new years are not good for me. I assign too much significance to the passing of the guard, to what the transitions portend, when they portend nothing.

If I saw a cockroach in the tub, it’s an unpleasant surprise, but it’s not a harbinger of infestations to come. If I missed a writing deadline by thirty minutes because I didn’t check the time zone, that’s unfortunate and eminently disappointing, but it’s not a prophecy of missed deadlines and dropping sub call balls to come. I know this intellectually, but emotionally, these transitions weigh heavy on my already heavy frame.

Last year’s Resolute had me hopeless because I was quitting a job that had become problematic for me (loved my coworkers, but the job itself was hurting me). This year, I’m at the end of a writing sabbatical, which was a much more peaceful year, and I’m the same kind of hopeless, which suggests my own personal form of holiday blues, because it was a nice year. I could work for myself, work my way, work my time, in a way that was most effective for me. I worked almost seven days a week, achieving goal word counts in bursts of ideal productivity times throughout the day, and that was good for me. I could carry my work with me, which meant that I could join my parents in visiting my brother, sister-in-law, my now three-year-old niece, and my now six-month-old nephew, who arrived summer of this year. My niblings very much bring me back to my brother and me when we were young, and it’s delightful to watch them grow up and anticipate what they’ll become. I had a lot more flexibility to travel and spend more time with family at our home and theirs. Also, because of the leg injury in June that left me considerably unhealthier than the beginning of the year, I had even more time and flexibility on my hands than usual.

I got a lot done, but I can’t say that the financial income has matched the output, which was disappointing. I’ve been doing this for years now, and I understand that most writing work is done on spec, and as a result, income is unpredictable and gains can come years later or not at all. Long works, in particular, take time to write, to edit, to query, and to publish, and then it’s still no guarantee. However, I went from spotty part-time writing to intensive full-time writing, and though last year I made just over $1000, this year I only made just over $1200, and in neither case did I make a profit, due to self-publishing costs.

I share the financial information because people tend to have a distorted idea of what writers make. By output, I’m doing wonderfully. By publishing, I’m emerging. By income, I’ve yet to escape the red since I started self-publishing back in…2014? This may change, with a greater push toward traditional publishing in the years to come, but there’s no guarantee.

A while back, discouraged, I asked myself whether, if I never made another cent, I’d stop writing. The answer is no. I do this because it’s what my brain was made for. I’ve been telling myself stories since childhood, and I sleep much better when I let the stories out. Without traditional publication, I’ll still self-publish as financially able, because I enjoy it.

I can’t support myself with my writing at this juncture, though, which means I have to forage for productive writing hours when I can while renting out my body, mind, and time to someone else once more, because I’ve exhausted the extra savings that I was extremely privileged to have. I’d hoped that writing income would mitigate some of that, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, and I had to pay my medical expenses out of pocket.

I don’t know what the new year will bring, but once I finish the next Meridian novel, I’ll venture out into the unknown, and I historically don’t like not knowing what’s around the corner. It unsettles me, steals the foundation from under my feet, and I tend not to believe in my competence, even though I objectively know that I’m an intelligent and capable person. I guess we’ll just have to see what the new year brings in that respect.

As for the old year, I have stats. Collecting stats is like counting change when I was a kid. It’s satisfying.

Because of the writing sabbatical, it was a big year for me in terms of production and publication. I’d planned for more long-form writing, and I did do some good long-form, but I ended up working more on short-form than anticipated.

I wrote 55 short stories ranging from microfiction to novelette and so averaging at roughly short-story size (I’m counting one I started yesterday and plan to finish today or tomorrow). I wrote three Meridian novels for my other name and three standalone novels: Question Not My Salt (extreme horror), A Woman Alone (erotic horror), and In the Dollhouse We All Wait (extreme horror). I compiled the Bathroom Omens short story/poetry collection, most of which was written specifically for the collection rather than other publications. I also wrote poetry almost every day, some of which has been compiled into the full collection Dead Ends and the chapbook What Witchcraft We Wrought, which I might expand into a full collection.

In the publication arena, as of the end of the year, I sent out a total of 208 submissions (long and short). I received 170 rejections and 26 acceptances (7 unpaid, 4 at pro-rate). There are 28 still on sub waiting for a response. Based on my previous stats and those of other writers who share theirs, 10% acceptance rate isn’t unusual or bad at all. I got really close on some publications, with stories on the short lists and even final rounds. By that point, it’s usually a matter of curation rather than quality, which is why you can’t take rejection personally. Sometimes I get down about a rejection, but I usually just give myself thirty minutes to be upset and send out the rejected piece or another piece to make myself feel better.

Published Novels/Collections:

Dead Ends: A Dark Poetry Collection
Fever & Fray (Meridian Book 2) (other name)
Out of Curiosity and Hunger
Puppeteer (Thorns 4)

Published Poetry:

“Desire,” The Vampiricon, Mind’s Eye Publications, January 31, 2023
“Sacristy,” Crow Calls: Volume 5, Quill & Crow Publishing House, February 14, 2023
“Comorbid,” Crow Calls: Volume 5, Quill & Crow Publishing House, February 14, 2023
“Displaced,” Dear Human at the Edge of Time, Paloma Press, September 27, 2023
“A Woman Possessed,” Under Her Eye: A Women in Horror Poetry Showcase, Black Spot Press, November 7, 2023

Published Short Stories:

“The Warmth of Many Skins,” Bleak Midwinter: Solstice Light, Quill & Crow Publishing House, January 17, 2023
“Courtship,” The Crow’s Quill, Quill & Crow Publishing House, February 2023 issue
“Dissolution,” Ooze, Ruth Anna Evans, March 1, 2023
“Blood Mother,” The Sacrament, DarkLit Press, March 2, 2023
“The Cut,” Shallow Waters Flash Fiction 1st place winner, Crystal Lake Publishing, March 30, 2023
“Blackberry Wine,” The Crow’s Quill, Quill & Crow Publishing House, April 2023 issue
“Show Me,” Bound in Flesh, Ghoulish Books, April 18, 2023
“Eat His Heart,” The Crow’s Quill, Quill & Crow Publishing House, June 2023 issues
“The Thing That Crawls,” Unspeakable Horror 3: Dark Rainbow Rising, Crystal Lake Publishing, June 30, 2023
“A Bladder Full,” Shallow Waters Flash Fiction 3rd place winner, Crystal Lake Publishing, July 5, 2023
“Drip,” That Old House: The Bathroom, Voices of the Mausoleum, July 28, 2023
“Birth,” Deadly Drabble Tuesdays, Hungry Shadows Press, August 1, 2023
“A Bug in the Design,” Shallow Waters Flash Fiction finalist, Crystal Lake Publishing, August 17, 2023
“The Cut,” Shallow Waters Vol. 9: A Flash Fiction Anthology, Crystal Lake Publishing, August 17, 2023 (reprint)
“The Plank in Thine Own,” The Devil Take You, Sentinel Creatives, August 21, 2023
“Of the Many Faces,” The Crow’s Quill, Quill & Crow Publishing House, September 1, 2023
“The Cut,” Shallow Waters: Horror Flash Fiction Anthology, Crystal Lake Publishing, September 29, 2023 (reprint, paperback)
“The Last Ride of Sutton Purnell,” Flame Tree Fiction, October 4, 2023
“Sight Unseen,” Novus Monstrum, Dragon’s Roost Press, October 6, 2023
“Arms Race,” Shallow Waters Flash Fiction finalist, Crystal Lake Publishing, October 11, 2023
“Caregiver,” The Book of Queer Saints Volume II, Medusa Publishing Haus, October 31, 2023
“Swallowed,” Shallow Waters Flash Fiction finalist, Crystal Lake Entertainment, November 8, 2023
“Footprints,” The Other Stories podcast, November 20, 2023
“The Behavioral Patterns of the Displaced Siberian Siren,” Dead Letters: Episodes of Epistolary Horror, Crystal Lake Publishing, December 1, 2023
“The Sisters of Our Perpetual Wounds,” The Crow’s Quill, Quill & Crow Publishing House, December 1, 2023
“The Green Room,” Shallow Waters Flash Fiction finalist, Crystal Lake Entertainment, December 20, 2023

In the year to come…

Question Not My Salt is my first novel under this name being traditionally published, through small press Crystal Lake extreme horror imprint Torrid Waters. In addition, Strange & Familiar (Meridian 3) under my other name comes out this month, and Avarice & Creed (Meridian 4) is presently set to come out in October.

As far as self-publishing goes, I want to try to do more traditional and small-press indie publishing, if just to have money coming in rather than going out, but I don’t want to phase self-publishing out completely. I’m scheduled to put Crooked House (Thorns 5) out in May and poetry collection A Nightmare for All Seasons in September.

I have some of what I’ve written last year to edit, but I also want to revisit my super-secret UA story and determine how to write the next one or two books. I have two standalone novels I want to strike off my list early in the year so I can have a few more trunk stories ready to turn and shop around (although one might end up self-published).

I’m already set to write the next Meridian novel this month, and now that I’ve decided to merge two novel concepts, I’ll only have one more Meridian novel left to write. That will be for 2024’s NaNoWriMo. I also want to write the next Thorns novel, Hearts and Heads. I anticipate writing some short stories for calls and flash fiction contests, but not as much as last year. If I still have time between writing and editing what I’ve already delineated, I have the option of working on one of three standalones on my list for the 2024 year, but it seems unlikely.

Here’s hoping I find a soft place to land, but I just don’t know. I’m beginning to think most people don’t get that, and I already have enough of other soft places. Maybe asking for more is asking too much.

A problem child: Friday Update

29 Friday Dec 2023

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News:

No writing news, unless you count voting being open for the Crystal Lake Shallow Waters flash fiction contest, of which my story “The Green Room” is a finalist.

In personal news, my injury kept me from maintaining my heavy aerobic exercise regimen, which is necessary to combat a multitude of issues that have come roaring back these last few months. I’m up to 25 minutes on the elliptical, and I may try doing two days at a time instead of every other day, because I didn’t have any problems with that yesterday. However, it’s slow going bringing that exercise back up, and it looks like I have to get back on metformin in the meantime. We’ll see what the real damage is when the rest of my blood work comes in. It’s not unexpected. Just really disappointing to lose all my health gains.

Works in Progress:

Family time and what I’ve officially diagnosed as untimely burn out have minimized my progress this last week. I’ve written most of a short story and I may manage one more before the end of the year. Then I’ll try to write another Meridian novel, but I’m off by a month, and I’m not used to that while on sabbatical. (It was de rigueur while working.) Depending on submission call deadlines, I might edit erotic horror novella A Woman Alone first, which would help with the burn out. But I would still need to finish the next Meridian novel mid-January, which is when I need to pivot to work for which I’m actually paid. I’m really anxious about that, not least because I don’t fit into clothes right now and I donated all my clothes from when I was last this shape.

I’ll do an end-of-year retrospective with stats on New Year’s Eve. That’s where I’ll be.

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
This World Belongs to Us edited by Michael W. Phillips, Jr.
Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire

Music I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Violent Night
Evil Dead Rise
Black Christmas (1974)
Black Christmas (2006)
It’s a Wonderful Life
A Muppet Christmas Carol
The Christmas Calendar
Holiday Baking Championship series
Holiday Wars series (finished)
Elf on the Shelf: Sweet Showdown series (finished)
Christmas Cookie Challenge series
Great American Baking Show: Holiday Edition series (finished)
Hoarders series
Buffy the Vampire Slayer series
Angel series
Transplant series
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week:

i cannot believe
there was a time
when i thought
the world made
some kind of sense

because as bad as
things have become
i know it’s just
a matter of place
of context and access

perspective through
twisting kaleidoscope
geometric glass in
mirror but hard to
see beauty in smoke

Blue Christmas: Friday Update

22 Friday Dec 2023

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News:

My flash fiction “The Green Room,” a rare-for-me historical story about an early haunted house attraction, is posted for $5 and up tiers at Crystal Lake for the Shallow Waters flash fiction contest. I’m going to be honest, the fact I wrote and edited it while overwhelmed in November is evident to me, but I still like it, and I wrote it to explore an idea that I might end up running with in a novella or novel later. The theme for this month was Reflections for the end of the year.

In other news, we’ve finalized the back cover copy for Question Not My Salt:

Come for Thanksgiving Dinner. Stay for the Feast.

Sierra’s first American Thanksgiving promises to be unforgettable when her college roommate, Zoe, invites her to the Samuels family feast. But as the ten-hour banquet unfolds, it becomes clear this is no ordinary holiday gathering.

With everyone bound by a chilling rule—eat and drink exactly as served, and enjoy it, or face dire consequences—the traditional celebration quickly takes a dark and macabre turn. Will Sierra survive the Samuels’ sinister hospitality or become part of a feast far more horrifying than she could have ever imagined?

Question Not My Salt is a gripping tale blending the terror of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with the culinary horror of Hannibal and The Menu.

I don’t have a hard date for pre-orders and release, but we’re aiming for February 2024. I’ve also updated my Content Warnings page with the extensive warnings for QNMS. It’s a short novel, but it’s pretty packed. Great fun, though.

Works in Progress:

I finished other name‘s Tattered & Torn (Meridian 6) at 118,394 words. About 8K of those words were cut when I starting rewriting the beginning, but I kept them in the file to continue measuring total word count. It’s an average-sized Meridian novel, but man, this last week was not fun at all. I couldn’t accomplish the 5K/day that I’ve been doing before because my attention span was completely shot. I think I overdid it by working at that pace, plus editing, since mid-October. It’s hard for me to tell myself that this is work when I’m essentially not paid and I generally enjoy myself. I continually have to remind myself that I am, in fact, working and I can, in fact, burn out. I also have a mild sinus infection. However, this puts me much later in the month than I wanted to finish the novel, which creates a dilemma.

Over the next few days through Christmas, I’ll be working on less demanding short fiction. Then I have to start the next Meridian novel and try to be finished by mid-January, which will demand a return to the 5K/day word count. I’ll take New Year’s off, and probably most of Christmas, too. Let’s see if I can make this last push to get this writing sabbatical closed out.

Of course, I’m still writing plenty in the new year, but once I get a job, I’ll have to return to grabbing time as I can find it, and I won’t be doing as much short fiction.

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
This World Belongs to Us edited by Michael W. Phillips, Jr.
Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire

Music I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Godzilla Minus One (so good)
Alien: Covenant
A Castle for Christmas
Where Are You, Christmas?
Christmas Inheritance
A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby
Holiday Baking Championship series
Holiday Wars series
Elf on the Shelf: Sweet Showdown series
Christmas Cookie Challenge series
Great American Baking Show: Holiday Edition series
Hoarders series
White Collar series
Buffy the Vampire Slayer series
Found series
Transplant series
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week:

Is that thought mine?

Does it belong to me or
arise from the sticky muck
of memory of someone else’s
voice and motivation?

Let those with eyes say aye
Let those with ears hear through
the canal and from within
Do you seek? Do ye find?
Do you have another glass of wine?

Disassociation with a demon
paint by numbers Did I mean
to make this picture was this
on the front of the box?

I swear I didn’t do that
I wouldn’t do that
How can you think I would do that?
What kind of person do you take me for?

And which one?

In the bleak: Friday Update

15 Friday Dec 2023

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News:

No news this week. Quiet end of year.

Works in Progress:

Got my proofreading edit of Question Not My Salt in last weekend and finished it on Wednesday, so that’s all done and ready for when ARCs are offered out. While I was reading through it, I was really surprised that I managed to get some really interesting word choices into such a pulpy story. Don’t have to sacrifice quality in pulp. You can make extreme horror beautiful, too.

That means that I wasn’t able to get Tattered & Torn (Meridian 6) finished when I wanted to (today), and I wasn’t able to work at all yesterday, but I’ll be shooting for finishing on Monday or Tuesday now. I’m not sure how I feel about the ending, not least because I’m improvising, so it might need a rewrite at some point, but I’d like to have the structure in place to work with. Because this has taken me farther into December than I thought, I’ll push some of my short stories to later and just write the one due before the end of the month after I finish Tattered & Torn. Then I need to write the next Meridian novel, but I don’t think I’ll finish before the end of the year.

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
This World Belongs to Us edited by Michael W. Phillips, Jr.
Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire

Music I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist

Things I’m Watching:

A Christmas Prince: Royal Wedding
Christmas Wedding Planner
A Biltmore Christmas
A Cinderella Christmas
Christmas with a View
Krampus
Black Christmas (2019)
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Holiday Baking Championship series
Holiday Wars series
Elf on the Shelf: Sweet Showdown series
Christmas Cookie Challenge series
Great American Baking Show: Holiday Edition series
Celebrity Jeopardy series
Hoarders series
The Mentalist series
White Collar series
Buffy the Vampire Slayer series
Found series
Transplant series
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week:

so desperately want
to imagine another sentence
after the period because
we cannot imagine the space
before the sentence,
to believe in ghosts,
finish unfinished business.
we all love closure,
but sometimes the period
is at the end of an ellipsis.

If the Fates allow: Friday Update

08 Friday Dec 2023

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SONY DSC

News:

I forgot it was Friday there for a bit.

There actually isn’t a lot of news. A handful of rejections. The only thing is that I’m a finalist in Crystal Lake Shallow Waters for this month, themed Reflections for the end of the year. My story “The Green Room” will be popping up later this month—on December 19, if I’m counting right. Y’all know I love reading other people’s flash fiction and that it’s like having a new themed anthology every month for a minimum of $5 a month, and the reading, commenting, and voting is so interactive. Reminds me of Livejournal fanfiction.

In real life news, I had what is probably my last physical therapy session. I still have a little way left to go, but I have my exercises and instructions and, barring reinjury, should be able to manage my own PT. My bank account thanks me. My elliptical machine thanks me, too, since I can start slowly building up my time on it again (in about five-minute increments a week, unless I start experiencing problems). It’s been almost six months to the day that I tore my muscle on the stairs. I know now that I probably have to be mindful of my calves, Achilles tendons, and ankles, that they’re prone to stiffness. But I’m almost back to my normal.

Works in Progress:

I received my edits back from Ken for Question Not My Salt right at the end of NaNo2023, so I was able to take a needed break by editing. It actually wasn’t much, so I still seem to be doing pretty well cleaning things up in my pre-sub edits. Go me! I sent those back three days later, requested blurbs from some people (so hard to ask), and now I wait. I don’t know whether there’s a proofreading round. We’ll see.

Now I’m back to writing Tattered & Torn (Meridian 6) for the other name. Taking that break in the middle of writing it makes it hard to jump back in. My brain is telling me, ‘But it was done, no, it’s done, no more.’ And I’m telling my brain, ‘No, you have about 25-30K more words to write.’ And my brain is telling me, ‘Done! Done! Done!’ It’s a really fun game we play.

Hopefully, by next Friday, I’ll be done and starting the small number of short stories I’m scheduled for before tackling the next Meridian novel to close out the year.

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
This World Belongs to Us edited by Michael W. Phillips, Jr.
Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire

Music I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist

Things I’m Watching:

The Ultimate Gift
A Christmas Prince
Single All the Way
Contagion
Outbreak
The Silencing
Prometheus (stealth Christmas movie)
Primal
Holiday Baking Championship series
Holiday Wars series
Elf on the Shelf: Sweet Showdown series
Christmas Cookie Challenge series
Great American Baking Show: Holiday Edition series
Celebrity Jeopardy series
Great British Baking Show series (finished)
Hoarders series
NCIS series
Dancing with the Stars series
The Mentalist series
White Collar series
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week:

was that my sin, a flaw?
for the thermals to drive
my feathers up in a swell
until i fell in a dive
for a final swan song
about the evils of ambition?
how dare i enjoy the
thrill of flight
instead of succumbing
to fate? how dare i fight?

This is the end: Friday Update

01 Friday Dec 2023

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News:

It’s the last issue of The Crow’s Quill, which I’m so disappointed about, but I’m honored to help close out this gothic zine with my weird apocalyptic slice-of-life story “The Sisters of Our Perpetual Wounds.” As always, it’s free to read. Usher in the end with us.

In addition, my climate horror story “The Behavioral Patterns of the Displaced Siberian Siren” comes out today with the highly anticipated Dead Letters: Episodes of Epistolary Horror from Crystal Lake Entertainment, edited by Jacob Steven Bohr. We had a beautiful review from Vogue Horror in which my story was given an amazing call-out. I made a funny sound when I read it.

Works in Progress:

I finished NaNo2023 by reaching my 150K-word goal exactly. Like, I finished the sentence and hit the mark around eleven last night. Then I finished the final edit of Avarice & Creed (Meridian 4), because I’ve been doing double-duty writing and editing again this last week. I am exhausted, my sleep schedule and tea schedule are off, but NaNoWriMo is over, I’ve written 150K words, and A&C is finished, so I can relax a bit. I’ll still be aiming for 5K a day when I’m writing, but I no longer have to do both.

Over the course of November, I finished the last 28K or so words of extreme horror novel In the Dollhouse We All Wait, wrote the entirety of erotic horror novella A Woman Alone, wrote a short story that I edited down to flash fiction, then wrote about three-fourths of erotic urban fantasy romance novel Tattered & Torn (Meridian 6) (order may end up changing). That was the aim for this month, to get a big chunk of work done. I plan to get another big chunk of work done this month as well, with a little grace. My hope is to finish Tattered & Torn, write about two to three short stories for calls, then write the next Meridian novel (I haven’t decided which yet). If I have time, I have some novelettes or long short stories that I want to write.

Then I’m just not sure what next year is going to look like. Unless someone leaves me a mysterious inheritance of a vast sum of money and a haunted estate, I’ll have to figure out something.

In the meantime, I received the first round of edits for Question Not My Salt, which is really exciting. Kenneth E. Cain and I have finalized the cover and everything, so I have at least one thing to be excited about in 2024. I can take a short break from writing while I apply myself to these edits, then dive back in until the next round.

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
The First Five Minutes of the Apocalypse edited by Brandon Applegate (finished)
This World Belongs to Us edited by Michael W. Phillips, Jr.
Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire

Music I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist, of course. I have a vast and incredibly varied playlist full of old, new, traditional, original, all different shades of genre, which I think is the key to enjoying Christmas music. I think most people are sick of Christmas music because the same forty songs by the same people are played ad nauseum. You get a little more variety on Christian stations, but otherwise, no wonder some people dread the holidays.

Things I’m Watching:

A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish
Holiday Baking Championship series
Holiday Wars series
Celebrity Jeopardy series
Irrational series (caught up)
Queer Eye series (finished)
Great British Baking Show series
Kitchen Nightmares series
Hoarders series
NCIS series
CSI series
Dancing with the Stars series
The Mentalist series

Poem of the Week:

feelings turn
colors after
a trauma

waiting for
the mind to
reabsorb
and pressing
on the bruise

Praying for rain: Friday Update

24 Friday Nov 2023

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Novels, Poetry, Series, Short Stories, Writing

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Photo by Daria Shevtsova on Pexels.com

News:

The Shallow Waters Flash Fiction contest voting is underway. If you needed Halloween to last longer, the Trick ‘r Treat theme will ease the transition into the winter holidays. Voting ends Monday.

And speaking of winter holidays: If you like to listen to your fiction, my cryptid story “Footprints” is officially up on The Other Stories podcast (free). It was inspired by Christmas in the Ozarks, so it’s perfect to ring in the new spooky season.

Works in Progress:

Starting tomorrow, I have to return to double duty by doing the last-look edit for Avarice & Creed (Meridian 4) for my other name. First-round edits were relatively easy, and the last look should be even easier, but maintaining the 5K-word-per-day goal is hard enough without adding onto it, and I’m already exhausted, my routine thoroughly off. I pushed the 150K-word goal to be stressful on purpose so that it was the equivalent of difficulty that other people have with the typical 50K-word goal, and with the expectation I’d have to do some editing, too. But I’m running out of oomph.

However, after a few days of pulling teeth to determine how I liked this newest Meridian novel that I’m working on for the 150K goal, Tattered & Torn (Meridian 6), I started over from a different perspective and at a different point in the story, and all of a sudden it started flowing better. It’s still not necessarily my favorite of the Meridian novels, but I’m enjoying myself a lot more. I’m presently at 39,014 words for the novel and 115,094 words for the whole month.

I can make it to 150K words. I can do it. Then, although I’ll keep with the 5K/day goal, I can stop writing if I have to edit. Which is good, because Question Not My Salt first-round edits are swiftly approaching.

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
The First Five Minutes of the Apocalypse edited by Brandon Applegate
This World Belongs to Us edited by Michael W. Phillips, Jr.
Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire

Music I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist
Fleurie
Maury Yeston’s Phantom
Carter Cathcart’s Possessed – The Dracula Musical
Dracula: Swing of Death by Jorn Lande & Trond Holter
Moulin Rouge! movie soundtracks
Reanimate covers by Halestorm
Prince of Egypt soundtrack
Piece by Piece by Kelly Clarkson
Dreaming Through the Noise by Vienne Teng
Enchant by Emilie Autumn
Enchantment by Charlotte Church
Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway by Barbra Streisand
Closer by Josh Groban
dont smile at me by Billie Eilish
Dream With Me by Jackie Evancho
Mother Earth by Within Temptation

Things I’m Watching:

The Wolfman
The Messengers
Solace
Holiday Baking Championship series
Great British Baking Show series
Buffy the Vampire Slayer series
Scream Queens series
Kitchen Nightmares series
Good Bones series (finished)
Hoarders series
NCIS series
CSI series
Dancing with the Stars series
White Collar series
The Mentalist series

Poem of the Week:

I know your face.
I know your name.
I know the tread of your shoes
and your awkward gait.
I know the shape of
your spine when you finish.
I know the scritch scritch scritch
of your nails on my shoulders.
I know where you walk, eat, breathe,
sleep. I am the monster under your bed,
reaching for your hand, your face,
scritch scritch scritching your floorboards.
Look over your shoulder
and stumble into an open grave.
How wide are my eyes now, killer?

Falling, falling: Friday Update

17 Friday Nov 2023

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Novels, Poetry, Writing

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News:

Dead Letters: Episodes of Epistolary Horror is open for pre-orders, to be released December 1! I love epistolary horror—it’s the found footage of the written media world—and I’m thrilled to be part of the Table of Contents with these authors with my creature feature “The Behavioral Patterns of the Displaced Siberian Siren.” (I love how dang long the title is.)

That’s really all that’s going on this week, although the Trick ‘r Treat stories are still going strong at Crystal Lake Shallow Waters. There are some really solid stories this month. “Swallowed” was posted on Day 3, and we’re on Day 11 of 15 now before voting.

Works in Progress:

I’ve been pulling double duty this week, since I received first-round edits for Avarice & Creed (Meridian 4) for my other name. It was a really easy edit, because halfway through my third series with them, I’ve gotten really good at getting most of the substantial edits in before I send the draft in. I just finished first-round edits a few minutes ago.

However, I’ve also been trying to keep up with NaNoWriMo word count of 5K words a day, and doing both has strained my energy resources quite a bit, I’m afraid. I didn’t quite make it, 1500 words behind as of now. And I’m really grumpy on top of it, because I’m mentally tired and I’m not enjoying the Meridian novel that I’m working on right now. I finished A Woman Alone on Wednesday at 48,182 words, so it’s definitely a novella and will be edited as a separate work rather than part of the Meridian series. I’m trying to make Tattered & Torn (Meridian 6) something that I want to write, and I think I have some good ideas. I don’t know how much of this sullenness is simply that I’m tired, but since I only have a month and a half before the end of the year, I don’t feel like I have the time to take a break?

I did a flash piece as a palate cleanser, and it was a fun slice-of-life story from a bigger concept I’d like to expand on in a novel later, but that might not have been enough. But I really just think I don’t have adequate motivation to enjoy the story. Dollhouse and Woman Alone were flowing so well, even when I was tired. I’m still turning it in different directions to see what might work, and I’ll keep going for a while. If it just refuses to be pleasant, I might have to set it aside and try one of the other slated novels. I’m hoping some better nights of sleep will help give me perspective.

As of now, I’m at 78,599/150,000 words for the month.

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire (finished)
The First Five Minutes of the Apocalypse edited by Brandon Applegate
This World Belongs to Us edited by Michael W. Phillips, Jr.
Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire

Music I’m Listening To:

Witchy/pagan/villain playlists on YT
Agnes Obel
Svrcina
Lily Kershaw

Things I’m Watching:

A Haunting in Venice
The Curse of Bridge Hollow
Underworld: Evolution
Holiday Baking Championship series
Great British Baking Show series
Buffy the Vampire Slayer series
Scream Queens series
Kitchen Nightmares series
Good Bones series
Hoarders series
NCIS series
CSI series

Poem of the Week:

better to bring a gun
to a knife fight
the madman prophet
is usually right
always declare
a zombie bite
never let the killer
out of your sight