Category Archives: Thorns

From the pollution: Friday Update

14 Friday Mar 2025

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News:

I’ll be reading a narrative poem from the Verdant with Splinter and Thorn section of poetry collection A Nightmare for All Seasons, “Venus,” for the Horror Talent Showcase put on by Mae Murray on March 29, 8-10 PM EST. You can purchase your free ticket for this event here.

Undertaker Books has posted their Table of Contents for the Carnival of Horror anthology coming out April 4. My story “Exile,” a sweet-sour tale about a clown who has grown too big for his circus, is part of this one. I was so happy to come up with a story idea for this sub call, so I’m thrilled to be part of the anthology.

I can’t find an article about it, but I’m tentatively happy that Dusty Deevers’ incredibly broad ‘pornography’ bill looks to have not made it out of committee, per Authors Against Book Banning. There’s still the SCREEN Act in the Senate and a few Texas bills that I have an eye on as far as what’s dangerous and paves the way for book banning/book burning, but that it didn’t get far in Oklahoma is a good thing in a sea of bad.

Works in Progress:

I finished the first round of edits for Tattered & Torn (Meridian Book 6) a few days. As anticipated, I cut a lot of words due to overwriting while trying to figure out where the story would go and how to get from one side of dialogue to the other. I cut 25K words from about 111K to 86K words, which is a substantial chunk.

I’m a little less than halfway through the second round, and it’s definitely moving a lot faster, which speaks to my ability to make really good changes, not just cuts, in the first round. I hope to finish by the end of the weekend—by end of Saturday would be ideal, but I’m on my period, and that makes things less certain.

Once I finish, I’ll send it in to my editor, then try to write a few short things before tackling Tooth & Claw (Meridian Book 7) edits.

Books I’m Reading:

The Fisherman by John Langan
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Alien Secrets by Annette Curtis Klause

Things I’m Listening To:

Singer-songwriter playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Twisters
Warlock
Power Rangers (2017)
Thinner
Nosferatu (2024)
CSI: NY series
CSI series
Criminal Minds series
Spring Baking Championship series
Slasher: The Executioner series
Reacher series
Grey’s Anatomy series
The Equalizer series
S.W.A.T. series

Resolute (7)

31 Tuesday Dec 2024

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

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I think I’ve figured out that I just don’t like birthdays and the end of the year for the same reason. I don’t like looking back and feeling like I’m not where I want to be, nor do I like looking forward and not seeing much better there either. Although I have reverse SAD rather than regular SAD, I am a little affected by the extra darkness, especially when we’ve had gloomy weather, too. Maybe less light makes me less optimistic in general. Of course, there are other reasons why I feel like I’m holding my breath when I look ahead. Not going to go into it. I’m doing my best to cope, although my best still isn’t great.

(CW for this paragraph: Weight issues) I feel like, although I’ve been able to get back into movement and exercise, which is good, I’m in a losing war with my weight. I had to do insane amounts of high-resistance elliptical to even make a dent before, but prior to the leg injury in 2023, weight was already starting to creep back up. Since college, I’ve gained and lost significant amounts of weight four times, and this most recent weight gain is fifth. My brain is tired of self-denial and categorically refuses to give up certain things when it’s already given up so much; plus, FOMO when I worry that certain things aren’t going to be available to the same degree in the future. And I am tired of being at constant odds with my body. Before the injury, I feel like my body and I had reached a kind of detente, because I could say that at least I was strong and my blood tests said I was healthy. Detente ended around this time last year when I had gained back all the weight from not being able to exercise. It’s been a long struggle, frustrating because you can never just go back to the way you were eating before. You always have to give up more and more and more, and the goalposts of what you can achieve always move.

However, this time last year, I was still injured and healing, still limping, still in pain. Today, I’m walking mostly normal, if a little chaotically when I’m stiff. Still a slight limp sometimes, but no more pain. The main injury has (perhaps irreparably) weakened the leg, though, so I can’t up the resistance on the elliptical without causing strain in the compensating muscles. Even so, walking without pain and able to do cardio and play a full-movement game like pickle ball (which I started with neighbors this year) are all improvements.

My writing sabbatical was only supposed to last one year, but inability to find a new job made it last another. Election Day took some serious wind out of my ability to write, so I had to scrap a few end-of-year plans, and the stress of not finding a job at the beginning of the year surely contributed to my issues with writing what eventually became Tooth & Claw (Meridian Book 7). Naive little me really thought that, because I knew I was capable, I would be able to find a job in a few months, and it’s tremendously humbling and somewhat humiliating to not be able to. In the new year, I’ll probably have to join the gig economy, but I really need money flowing in, and after twenty years in the writing business, it’s still really not coming from that quarter.

In 2024, I made a little more than half what I made writing in 2023. It was a three-figure year. Some of that isn’t on me. The indie horror scene contracted significantly, thanks to billionaires behaving badly: Amazon removed its zine subscription service, which killed all but the biggest zines that were able to cobble together subscriptions in other ways; Musk bought and tanked Twitter; and gen AI overwhelmed submission calls (and their slush readers) with unsolicited slop. (I imagine the banning of TikTok will also have a significant market effect, because BookTok was a big viral push for word-of-mouth marketing, but I don’t hang out there personally.) There were also generally fewer calls from shuttering indie presses. Too many hungry writers (layoffs and post-lockdown changes likely played a role), and not enough well-paid opportunities. Like the job market in general. The indie horror boom is probably over, for now.

Some of it was on me, though, because I focused on writing long-form this year rather than producing new short-form stories, including writing for specific calls. Variety is good for me, so that wasn’t really my fault so much as a consequence of my 2024 plan. However, I did publish the following short stories:

“Hell Come Home,” Shallow Waters Flash Fiction 2nd place winner, Crystal Lake Entertainment, February 9, 2024
“Full,” Shallow Waters Flash Fiction 2nd place winner, Crystal Lake Entertainment, March 19, 2024
“Indigestion,” The Last Girls Club Spring Equinox 2024 issue, March 21, 2024
“Graphite,” The Pleasure in Pain: A Queer Horrotica Anthology, Dragon’s Roost Press, March 31, 2024
“Eye Spy,” Shallow Waters Flash Fiction finalist, Crystal Lake Entertainment, April 13, 2024
“The Glitter of Bile,” Cosmic Horror Monthly Issue 47, May 1, 2024
“Second Chance,” Shallow Waters Flash Fiction finalist, Crystal Lake Entertainment, May 12, 2024
“Snot,” Shallow Waters Flash Fiction 3rd place winner, Crystal Lake Entertainment, July 22, 2024 (as “Sea Snot”)
“Predatory,” Shallow Waters Flash Fiction finalist, Crystal Lake Entertainment, August 22, 2024
“Nuisance Notifications,” Found 2: More Stories of Found Footage Horror, edited by Gabino Iglesias and Andrew Cull, October 25, 2024
“Six,” Screams, edited by Judith Sonnet, December 1, 2024
“Hell Come Home,” Hotel Macabre, Vol. 1, Crystal Lake Entertainment, December 13, 2024

I would say that “Hell Come Home” is probably my best received short story this year, although “Graphite” and “Six” also got some attention.

I also sold some great poetry this year:

“Cleanse,” Querencia Press Winter 2024 issue, January 31, 2024
“All of Us Witches,” Small Wonders Magazine Issue 12, June 19, 2024
“Vernal,” Renascentum: Crow Calls Volume VI, July 15, 2024
“Keeping Secrets,” Breath & Shadow Volume 21, Issue 2, December 13, 2024

“All of Us Witches” is probably the best received, and I was really happy that it found a place. For the volume submitted, poetry is probably the hardest to sell.

In addition, the following novels came out in 2024:

Strange & Familiar, Meridian Book 3, Totally Bound Publishing, January 16, 2024 (as Aurelia T. Evans)
Question Not My Salt, Crystal Lake Entertainment, February 16, 2024
Crooked House, Thorns Book 5, self-published, September 7, 2024
Avarice & Creed, Meridian Book 4, Totally Bound Publishing, October 1, 2024 (as Aurelia T. Evans)

Question Not My Salt was my first traditionally published novel under this name, and it’s been more reviewed than anything else I’ve done. Despite the fact that it’s extreme horror (mild for extreme, but extreme for regular horror), it’s also been mostly well reviewed; it seems like people have had gross fun with it.

Crooked House was the soft ending for Thorns, in that, if I died without putting out another book, the series would end with a satisfying resolution. Thorns has been an amazing series for me, allows me to go to the dark places and do the kinds of stories I’ve always wanted to do, and to play around within the fairy tale sandbox. I had planned to resume the Thorns series in 2025, but that will depend on my ability to, you know, write. Even so, I’m looking forward to the Thorns still to come.

Strange & Familiar and Avarice & Creed brought my gothic urban fantasy series Meridian to its halfway point. There’s something about my green-colored books under my Aurelia T. Evans name. Avarice & Creed, Skeletons, Cry Wolf… They’re kind of my low-key favorites, although my red-colored books (Fortune, Ringmaster, Strange & Familiar) are more obviously so.

I’m not going to do an analysis of my short-form acceptance rate this year, because when I checked in July, acceptance rate was about 1-2%, compared to 7-8% in 2023, and it didn’t really improve through the rest of the year. You can hope for improvement, but you can’t really set goals to be published more, because you actually have no control on the traditional publication side of things, only in what you finish. But like I said earlier, I also mostly worked on long-form, which is often a lot of work for less likely reward, and the whole process from creation to publication (if it even happens) takes such a long time—the very definition of working on spec.

This year, I wrote 14 short stories, and of course, I wrote a ton of poetry until November, when I had no more poetry left in me, and that still hasn’t come back. I may return to flash poetry in January 2025 to test those waters.

I also finished the following long-form stories/collections:

Tooth & Claw, Meridian Book 7, erotic gothic urban fantasy novel (possibly end of series)
May Cooler Heads Prevail, supernatural novella
A Nightmare for All Seasons, seasonal horror poetry collection
Masque, gothic alt-history novel
The Damp, gothic horror novella
The Dracula reimagining, found-footage/modern epistolary horror novel

(I’m not being coy by not sharing the DRI title. It’s just a bit spoilery about the concept, so I don’t want to share it until it’s going to be published, traditionally or on my own.)

Writing Masque and the Dracula reimagining were serious bucket-list novels, things I had played with the idea of for over a decade, so the fact I wrote them because I was finally ready, and I like what came out, is really an achievement. I really wanted to write one more long thing this year, like I said, but that ended up a bust. I edited a good number of my long-form pieces, though. Some of them are on sub; some are waiting for the right call.

For now, I have plenty of things to edit before I absolutely need to attempt writing something new in 2025. In January, my primary goal is to finish the edits of Masque and the Dracula reimagining. As soon as that’s done, I’ll self-publish my seasonal horror poetry collection, A Nightmare for All Seasons, to which I’m adding a new season: the last, with my short collection Lullabies for an Apocalypse. Then I’ll edit Tattered & Torn (Meridian Book 6) and probably fix and proof May Cooler Heads Prevail for self-publishing.

At that point, I have a number of things I can do, depending on ability and finances. There’s more edits, there’s short-form writing, there’s shorter long-form, and there are any number of sequels to tackle (for Thorns, UA, possibly Meridian), not to mention the rewrite of War House that I keep putting off. I have a general schedule set, but it’s flexible, as always. I could also do other creative endeavors, like drawing, piano, or cross-stitch.

All of this presuming that things don’t blow up as much as I’m worried they will. I’m bracing for impact; just because I can’t sustain paralyzing fear indefinitely doesn’t mean the fear isn’t there, and bad. Hope is certainly in short supply.

False fall: Friday Update

13 Friday Sep 2024

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News:

As I posted earlier this week, Crooked House (Thorns 5) is out in e-book and now trade paperback.

Kindle e-book
Trade paperback
Universal link to all other vendors

I’ll probably put out the playlist as soon as I’m finished with DRI.

It’s mind-blowing to me that a series I’ve worked on and scenes I’ve envisioned since 2012 have been put to page. There are more stories planted in the first five books that seed the way for the next four or five, but the completion of the fifth book is the culmination of everything started from the very beginning. It’s a glorious soft conclusion, although I’m looking forward to the next era of Thorns novels that starts next year with Heart and Heads (Thorns 6).

If you enjoy shows such as Grimm and Once Upon a Time, novels like the Splintered series, the Magic Shop series, and the Lunar Chronicles, and authors like Robin McKinley, Gail Carson Levine, and Donna Jo Napoli, I think you’ll really enjoy the Thorns series. If you’ve been waiting until the series is finished, that might take a while, but the soft conclusion should satisfy you while you wait for the rest.

Works in Progress:

I finished The Damp when I thought I would, on Saturday morning, when I jotted down less than a thousand more words to finish the thing. As a story that’s been knocking about my head for longer than I care to admit and had one failed effort to write it in the previous decade, I’m so immensely relieved that 1) I wrote it and 2) I think it’s good.

It threw me off schedule a bit. I certainly didn’t plan on writing a novella, because it means I have nothing to offer several novelette calls, which are rare and I usually try to take advantage of them when they happen. I had planned on a novelette that took me four to five days to write; I ended up with a novella that took a week and a half. Technically, at 48,202 words (amended from what I reported on social media after some last-minute adjustments), it’s more a short novel by some standards, but I’ll likely cut it down under 40K during edits.

It’s just as gothic as I wanted it, with more body horror than I thought I was going to manage, and more erotic content than I planned, but it was relevant to the story, and I wouldn’t quite call it erotic horror so much as horror with erotic elements.

I took the weekend off, then outlined DRI on Monday. At this point, my perimenopausal uterus decided to give me a heavier period a little over two weeks after my last one (why?!), so Tuesday was tough and I didn’t get much writing done. However, although I usually dislike outlining, I had real fun coming up with all the epistolary pieces for DRI on Monday. This novel is going to be unusual for me in every way, I can tell, not least in that I’m writing it out of order.

I’m normally an Alpha and Omega writer; I write beginning to end, with very little variation. But I tried that the last time I wrote DRI, and I finally had to stop at 75K words (why?!) because the characters became quite different than intended and ruined the trajectory of the story, even though the writing was still flowing. There were some intriguing developments, and I’m not averse to letting characters alter things or making adjustments, but the writing plodded to a halt because it stopped working. So I wrote some notes and put it aside to try again later, as the Magic 8 Ball advises.

I never write out of order, but because this is an epistolary of disparate media, it might be the best format to try, and maybe by writing the destination first, I’ll be better equipped to set up the journey. And that’s exactly what I’ve done this week: I’m writing the end (all but the final final scene, which I’ll save for last). These scenes have been strongest and so significant in my head over the years, and they’re the most important pieces to the puzzle that I wouldn’t have been able to reach in the original effort. Already, I’m more confident with my ability to go backward, knowing what everything should be aiming at.

I’m also not writing to a word count, although I’m trying to write as much as I can. Everything’s being worked on in different documents to put together at the very end. This is a situation when Scrivener might actually serve me, but because this is so atypical for me and I’ve worked in similar ways with poetry collections, I think I’ll be okay. I’m keeping an informal word count in my spreadsheet and update it every time I close a finished document, because that helps me feel like I’ve made Progress (like crossing things off my outline), but I don’t have a word goal per day, which is also new.

I have a good feeling about writing DRI all ‘wrong.’ I’m only at the beginning—the honeymoon—but it’s feeling good, right. I’m concerned it’ll actually be longer than I planned (what a surprise). My original and preferred projection was 60-80K words, but given the length of the outline, I’m wondering if it might push 100K or more. Of course, some of these sections will be so short, I may not have to worry. I’m still aiming for finishing by the end of the month, if possible.

Things I’m Reading:

Needful Things by Stephen King
Why Didn’t You Just Leave edited by Nadia Bulkin and Julia Rios (finished)
Found edited by Gabino Iglesias and Andrew Cull

Things I’m Listening To:

Fleurie
DRI playlist
Dracula collection playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Damaged (2024)
Tamara
Warriors of Virtue
The Blob (1988)
The Ward
Hatchet
The Bone Collector
Twilight
New Moon
Eclipse
American Horror Story: Cult series
Unsolved Mysteries (Netflix) series
Supernatural series
Grey’s Anatomy series

Poem of the Week: (from September 2021)

Sultry the evening
Heavy hanging
In low dark clouds,
In creeping mist
Through the maze
Of verdant weeds
And tall grass
Concealing indolent serpents,
While wheeling above,
Crows call like ravens,
Framed by flashes
Of blue light
In the hungry belly
Of an impending storm.

CROOKED HOUSE is out!

09 Monday Sep 2024

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CROOKED HOUSE, the fifth book in the Thorns fairy tale mashup series, is officially out (paperback TBA; universal link to non-Zon vendors here)! This is a soft conclusion for the series, in the sense that if I die tomorrow, it’s a satisfactory ending, although there are more books to come, and I start working on Book 6 in 2025.

Shoving dirt: Friday Update

16 Friday Aug 2024

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News:

Nothing this week.

Works in Progress:

Proofreading Crooked House (Thorns 5) took longer than anticipated, because for the life of me, I could not focus for long stretches of time. However, I got it done, and it’s now with my formatter. I’ll have to get the cover updated after that, but then it should be good to go.

It’s a soft ending for the series, with more books to come, but it’s wild that I’ve managed to get this far and that scenes that have been with me since the beginning have been put to the page. I’ve spent so much time with these characters that they’ve become like friends, and I’m looking forward to having more adventures with them.

I also just finished a first-chapter edit for Book & Candle (Meridian 5) so it can be included as a preview in Avarice & Creed (Meridian 4), coming out in October. (Preorder here.)

I’m going to take a short break to wallow in self-pity and get through the worst of my period. On the other side of it, I’ll work on a body horror novelette that I’ve had on my to-write list for over ten years, tentatively titled Ooze for now.

Things I’m Reading:

The Tommyknockers by Stephen King
Why Didn’t You Just Leave edited by Nadia Bulkin and Julia Rios

Things I’m Listening To:

Thorns playlists
Snow White & the Huntsman soundtrack
The Huntsman: Winter’s War soundtrack
The Village soundtrack

Things I’m Watching:

Truth or Die
Supercell
Not Dead Yet series (finished)
Abbott Elementary series
Resident Alien series (seriously, some of the best comedy on TV right now)
S.W.A.T. series
Grey’s Anatomy series
Kitchen Nightmares series
America’s Got Talent series
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week:

if it does not
consume me
from toes
to teeth

let it starve
beneath my
bed sheets

we will not
be alone
at least

Expected inquisition: Friday Update

09 Friday Aug 2024

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News:

I had an interview with the Merry Writer Podcast yesterday. I think it went really well and lasted longer than I thought it would. We covered the writing process, the benefits of self-publishing vs. traditional publishing, long form vs. short form, and how horror movies address and face emotional distress. It won’t be available for a while (April 2025), but it was a lot of fun! I don’t usually like talking about process, but since I’ve had some changes, it’s a little more interesting than before.

Of course, thanks to social anxiety, I was completely useless until the interview happened, but I got back on the proofreading horse afterward.

Works in Progress:

I finished the double edit of Book & Candle (Meridian 5) and started on the proofreading of Crooked House (Thorns 5). It’s going slower than I’d like because I’m having trouble focusing. When I can keep my attention, it moves so fast, though. I think I just need to put my computer on airplane mode and force the focus.

After the proofreading and the Olympics, I’m taking a pity party. I’ve been feeling in need of one. Still getting a plethora of rejections, and they don’t bother me on an individual basis, but when I think about all of them sitting there clustered in my rejection folder… Just makes me feel heavy and tired. I just want to lie down, watch The Day After Tomorrow, and catastrophize and get angry at my brain and body for not doing what I want it to do.

Things I’m Reading:

The Tommyknockers by Stephen King
Why Didn’t You Just Leave edited by Nadia Bulkin and Julia Rios

Things I’m Listening To:

American Idol singles
Amidst the Chaos by Sara Bareilles
Amidst the Chaos: Live From the Hollywood Bowl by Sara Bareilles
Anastasia soundtrack
And So Much More by Linda Eder
Thorns playlists

Things I’m Watching:

Tarot
The Outwaters
Horsemen
Young Sheldon series (finished)
Not Dead Yet series
S.W.A.T. series
Grey’s Anatomy series
Kitchen Nightmares series
America’s Got Talent series
CSI: Miami series
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week:

staggering through the crooked mile
with all my things strewn behind me
roadkill broken smashed discarded
on the hissing simmering asphalt
i am unladen more burdened than ever
soles worn through with no finish
line in my squinting sunburnt sight

By the sea: Friday Update

26 Friday Jul 2024

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News:

“Snot” was posted on Monday, and the voting continues through today. Enjoy 15 stories of seaside terrors!

In personal news, I got my first new smartphone (last one was secondhand and the last new phone wasn’t smart). It’s really nice having a battery that lasts and an operating system that supports my apps. I’m learning new ways of doing things, but the whole set-up process and applying the protective screen and case reminded me that I am, in fact, capable. Because I don’t often adopt new technology for the sake of mere novelty, I sometimes forget that I tend to be quite technologically adaptable.

Works in Progress:

I finished editing Crooked House (Thorns 5). The only thing left to do is the final read-through for proofreading. Then I’ll send it off for formatting. Can I afford it? Not really, but I’m doing it anyway. If I can’t publish anything else this year, I’d like to get Crooked House out so Thorns can have its soft ending. (There are more books to write, but if I died after Book 5, the series could stand as is.)

However, first I’m tackling the double edit of Book & Candle (Meridian 5) to give me some distance so I can come back with fresh eyes, important for proofreading. I’m having trouble getting into B&C due to some attention issues (there’s kind of a lot going on in the world right now), so I’ll have to do that thing where I turn off the wireless to minimize distractions.

Books I’m Reading:

The Tommyknockers by Stephen King
Why Didn’t You Just Leave edited by Nadia Bulkin and Julia Rios

Things I’m Listening To:

Crooked House playlist
Fourth of July playlist
Drift playlist

Things I’m Watching:

6 Souls
NCIS series
S.W.A.T. series
So Help Me Todd series (finished)
Kitchen Nightmares series
Hoarders series
America’s Got Talent series
CSI: Miami series
CSI: NY series
CSI series
Supernatural series
White Collar series
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week:

you thought if you cast down the dissident
the dissonance would correct itself
into the mellifluous harmony you designed,
but the clang of the pandemonium gate
is my clarion call overture to a chorus
murmuring off-key, dissatisfied legions.
would you throw out a third of your angels
to keep the illusion of peace?

Fiddling: Friday Update

19 Friday Jul 2024

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News:

She’s a saint. He is sin. Under my other name, Avarice & Creed is available for pre-order! There was a prompt somewhere at some point suggesting a subversion of Hallmark Christmas movie tropes by having a sweet young woman teach a cruel demon CEO the meaning of Christmas. In this case, we have a ‘virgin sacrifice’ of forced marriage to a billionaire avarice demon. I love all my stories for all sorts of different reasons, but I’ve noticed that my green-cover novels linger with particular fondness in my mind. (See also, Skeletons (Arcanium Book 9), which received less love than I have for it.)

My violent spring poem “Vernal” is featured in Renascentum, Quill & Crow’s Crow Calls Volume VI, which you can buy here.

“Snot,” my sea horror flash fiction, should post tomorrow at the Crystal Lake Patreon for the Shallow Waters flash fiction contest.

Works in Progress:

I’m a little less than halfway through the professional edits of Crooked House (Thorns 5). I’m still enjoying little special surprises I forgot I wrote. Period cramps hit yesterday, so I’ve been struggling, but I should be back to form tomorrow.

Books I’m Reading:

The Tommyknockers by Stephen King
Why Didn’t You Just Leave edited by Nadia Bulkin and Julia Rios

Things I’m Listening To:

Agnes Obel
Lily Kershaw
Abyss/Ascent playlist

Things I’m Watching:

The Ruins
NCIS series
So Help Me Todd series
Kitchen Nightmares series
Hoarders series
The Amazing Race series (finished)
America’s Got Talent series
CSI: Miami series
CSI: NY series
CSI series
Supernatural series
White Collar series
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week:

i will rise from the pandemonium
you cast me into as though the chaos
of angels singing is not cacophony
our wings the mechanism of angelic demise
if we cannot bear flight or halo in our own name
then we will rise on cloven hooves
and balance wreaths on our horns
we will ascend anew and walk our way
not to paradise but a garden of earthly delights

PUPPETEER Playlist

30 Tuesday Jan 2024

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I absolutely love making playlists for the more substantial stories I write. If you want a collection of songs that encapsulates how I conceptualize Puppeteer (Thorns 4) for your own enjoyment while you read it or after, the list in order is below. It’s longer than the others because so is the book. I should still have followed the same rules of using an artist or band only twice per playlist.

“Real Men” – Tori Amos
“Habits (Stay High)” – Tove Lo
“There’s a Wall” – Miranda Lambert
“Include Me” – Sara Em
“Party Meds” – Lily Kershaw
“In the Dark” – DEV
“Creep” – Radiohead
“Who Are You?” – Svrcina
“Slow, Love, Slow” – Nightwish
“Fire with Fire” – Delain
“Sirens” – Soren Bryce
“War of Hearts” – Ruelle
“Disease” – Phillip Phillips
“Who Are You, Really?” – Mikky Ekko
“Throwing Stones” – Paula Cole
“Dodged a Bullet” – Greg Laswell
“my boy” – Billie Eilish
“All I Need” – Within Temptation
“It Will Come Back” – Hozier
“Sodom” – Wendy Colonna
“Judas” – Lady Gaga
“Man or a Monster (feat. Zayde Wolf)” – Sam Tinnesz
“Who are You?” – RAIGN
“Sex and Candy” – Unions
“Hey Pretty” – Poe
“Sour Cherry” – The Kills
“Citizen Zero” – Kamelot
“I Am the Fire” – Halestorm
“Wild” – Bishop Briggs
“Static” – Kamelot
“The Last Song I’m Wasting on You” – Evanescence
“Clarity (feat. Foxes)” – Zedd
“We are the Others (Ballad Version)” – Delain
“War of Hearts (Acoustic)” – Ruelle

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.