Category Archives: Writing

In anticipation: Friday Update

20 Friday Dec 2024

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News:

My dark poem “Keeping Secrets” was included in the Breath and Shadow Fall 2024 issue. It’s free to read here. My inspiration for it was the fact that I’m pretty good at not telling secrets, but I absolutely cannot promise that I won’t tell under the most mild of interrogations. My secret integrity completely depends on the fact that people don’t ask me about them in the first place.

Undertaker Books announced their Table of Contents for Stories to Take to the Grave: High Seas Edition, and my story “Floaters” (referencing corpses) is included in the line-up. It’s quieter horror than I usually do, and with a little hope thrown in there. It’s one of my stories I submitted far and wide to a variety of publishers, but it kept getting rejected, and I really wanted a good home for it.

Works in Progress:

Since it includes some rewriting, the first-round edit of Masque is going more slowly than I would like. I’m sorry, crisis after crisis and anticipation of collapse is not conducive to creativity. Nevertheless, I’ve started, and honestly, it wasn’t as info-dumping as I thought it would be. Or maybe adding a character that needed context helped give the world-building info reason to exist.

But I’m not having trouble concentrating because I don’t enjoy it. When I’m working on it, I love Masque‘s lushness. The difference between the much sparer found-media transcription style of the Dracula reimagining and the Gothic embellishments in Masque is pretty stark. I like both.

By and large, my shorter creature features, Deep Down and Out of Curiosity and Hunger are both spare as well, Deep Down because of the protagonist’s numbed emotional state and in Out of Curiosity and Hunger because of both the protagonist’s detachment and sort of wanting to write found-footage style without actually doing so—very documentarian. Whereas my first book, Nocturne, and novella The Damp definitely leaned into the Gothic style as well. I think doing both allows me to enjoy them better, because I’m never locked into one way of writing and it keeps me interested.

I can also write somewhere in between. I would argue that, though the Thorns series books are long, they’re quite traditional in style, and so is Question Not My Salt. Drift and A Woman Alone are dreamy outliers, but probably fit in here, too, although I would argue they’re actually Gothic in elements rather than writing style.

I’m very much a believer of ‘form follows function.’ Sometimes you need a modular cottage and sometimes you need a big honking castle. One is not more intrinsically correct. I think I’ve once shared on here, though, that a more elaborate Gothic style of writing more closely resembles how my brain actually thinks. The denser, sparer writing, on the other hand, gives my head a bit of a rest.

Christmas to New Year’s is a weird time, even as a freelancer, so I’m not sure how much I’ll actually get done, but I’m still aiming to get Masque and the Dracula reimagining completed by end of January. At the very least, I’d like to get Masque done if the call I’m finishing it for is, in fact, open in January. If they’re open to novellas, I can submit The Damp if I don’t finish, though. The Dracula reimagining doesn’t really need to be finished. I’m just hoping to start subbing it out to agents as soon as possible. I’m also perfectly open to self-publishing it. I have two covers in my already-purchased folder that could fit the story.

Books I’m Reading:

The Fisherman by John Langan
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder

Things I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Die Hard (My verdict? I don’t understand how this isn’t a Christmas movie. Loved it.)
Krampus
Christmas Inheritance
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
Black Christmas (2006)
P2
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Holiday in the Wild
The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire (Sherlock Holmes)
The Christmas Cookie Showdown series
Holiday Baking Championship series (finished)
Holiday Wars series
The Great British Baking Show series (finished)
Elsbeth series
Matlock series
Ghosts (US) series
NCIS series
Longmire series
Columbo series
S.W.A.T. series

Winter is a time for ghosts: Friday Update

13 Friday Dec 2024

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News:

I was futzing around and stumbled upon a podcast review of Question Not My Salt that warmed the cockles of my cold, cold heart. Genre Junkies did their review for QNMS for their Thanksgiving episode and seemed to have a blast discussing all the disgusting elements (plus some talk about The Substance and Thanksgiving itself). The second half of the full episode is spoilery, so it might be better to listen to after you’ve read it yourself, or if you don’t want to read it and just want to listen to other people talk about the gross parts.

This review was completely unsolicited as part of Crystal Lake’s marketing campaign. They were recommended the book by word of mouth in extreme horror circles, which is the coolest thing, and they really seemed to enjoy it. They agree that, as extreme horror, it’s on the milder side and acts as a good gateway into the subgenre.

As evidenced in the last post, I finally went to see Wicked, which is such an important musical for me. It’s meant different things in every decade—it changes as I change—and as someone who grew up a belter and mezzo soprano, both Glinda and Elphaba’s songs have been formative in the development of my singing voice (which is just for my own enjoyment, which I feel ambivalent about on the best of days). I’m not the only musical theatre kid who was ridiculously pleased at how well the musical was adapted to screen. Everything we could want and more than we possibly could have expected. Approached with so much love from everyone involved.

I’m watching Die Hard tonight for the first time ever! I’m looking forward to experiencing a quippier Bruce Willis. I mostly know him through his more stoic phase. Not to mention a young Alan Rickman.

Works in Progress:

I’m nearly finished with the first round of edits for the Dracula reimagining. Then I’ll send it on to my alpha reader. She usually gets my first fruits to help me on the developmental end of things, so I’ll know how to approach first-round edits. But because I wrote the DRI out of order, I wanted to make sure the disparate parts flowed as a whole and there were no glaring consistency errors. So far, the part I needed to make the most changes to is the end, which I wrote first, so that makes sense. I should probably finish with the first round by the end of the weekend.

I had a nice lunch with my alpha reader this week, too, and we talked about her notes on Masque and how to approach some significant changes. I took additional notes, and although Masque will probably be my greatest challenge to rewrite since Nocturne (my issues with Meridian usually had me reworking the plot entirely rather than rewriting the plot I had, which is what I did with Nocturne and will do with Masque), I’m really excited to see what I can make with this story, which has good bones and some great scenes to work with. As gothic alt-history, it’s really demanding on a detail level, and that’s not necessarily where I shine (because I can’t just make shit up the same way I can with modern fantasy; even where I change history, it needs to be justified, and I need to understand the history to change it in the first place). But this story is so important to me and deserves my full loving care and attention. It’s been with me so long; I just want all the best for it now that it’s finally a manuscript.

I’d hoped to have Masque and the DRI edits finished by the end of the year, but now I’m aiming for the end of January, which is usually when early submission calls for novels close.

Books I’m Reading:

The Fisherman by John Langan
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder

Things I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Home Alone
A Cinderella Christmas
Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies
The Thing
Wicked
The Christmas Cookie Showdown series
Holiday Baking Championship series
Holiday Wars series
The Great British Baking Show series
The Irrational series
Elsbeth series
Ghosts series
NCIS series
Longmire series
Columbo series
S.W.A.T. series

The other side: Friday Update

22 Friday Nov 2024

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I lost track of the day, which is happening a lot, along with general forgetfulness. I understand why (hello, depression/grief as temporary brain damage), but it’s still disorienting.

I’ve managed to reach some form of equilibrium, but given that we haven’t even reached the inauguration and transition, that equilibrium is shaky as hell. I’m still not sure what to do outright, but I’ve done a few things to make me feel on a little more solid footing, even if I’m not particularly solid. I think I have options; the trouble is gauging timing, not to mention ability.

But this whole thing absolutely took the wind out of my sails for writing and makes me question the point of doing any of it at all, except if I’m not doing this, then I’m not doing anything. I’ve gotten some word count on Unhallow’d Guests, but it’s hard and feels lifeless, which is a shame, because I always liked the idea. I can’t concentrate during the day, so I distract, and by the time I’m finally in a place to write, it’s time to go to bed. Horror is usually comfort food, but that’s not working for me much, either. Procedurals are helping some, because they’re essentially competence porn.

I don’t think I’ve ever had less holiday spirit. I remember how happy I was around Halloween, in spite of things, and I look at where I am now, and it’s just…not good.

It feels like the election killed any hope for a better future. Mostly dead, for now, rather than all dead, but resurrection is far from a foregone conclusion. Meanwhile, A.I. is killing my dream and my jobs—badly and energy-inefficiently, but who cares as long as it saves a buck? I wasn’t trained for a world in which I don’t matter, even if I should, nor a world which is actively hostile toward me, even though I’m harmless. I might have made different decisions, had I known, starting with how to be less harmless and spread the misery around with more than a dark, disgusting tale.

Blah-blah, things will get better, blah-blah, everything’s cyclical. But although human time is much quicker than geologic time, our cycles can be long in comparison to human life span. I may never see better days. And some have never seen any.

I reread Jurassic Park and The Lost World by Michael Crichton, and it hit differently than previous reads. Maybe because it feels eerily applicable, and it’s a reminder that we simply do not learn. And it makes me sad that literacy, especially media literacy, is dying—aided by the increasing prevalence of AI, which helps people get to the other side of an assignment (badly) but misses the point of the assignment entirely. It is stunning how many people love various media but don’t seem to understand what those stories mean. This is why we insist (fruitlessly) that the humanities are still important. This is why English majors used to be valuable for business and law.

I do like the books, though. I feel Spielberg’s Jurassic Park is a near-perfect movie (and The Lost World an uncharacteristic, if fun misstep), and among a whole shelf of greats, is probably one of his best commercial films. The books, however, are drier and meaner.

News:

Nothing much to report. More rejects, but personalized.

However, Question Not My Salt feels more and more representative of the state of horror we’re in (I wrote it as extreme horror, but surprise! it’s splatterpunk). So if you have a taste for a family Thanksgiving dinner going from awkward to outright awful and you have a strong stomach for extreme horror, Question Not My Salt might just be the Thanksgiving horror we deserve. At least it’s short.

Works in Progress:

On a good week, I can write 25-35K words. I managed *checks notes* 8K words on Unhallow’d Guests. I’ll see what I can manage in the next week.

Things I’m Reading:

The Apocalypse and Satan’s Glory Hole by Timothy W. Long and Jonathan Moon
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (finished)
The Lost World by Michael Crichton (finished)
The Fisherman by John Langan

Things I’m Listening To:

Nightwish

Things I’m Watching:

Murder, She Wrote: A Story to Die For
Thanksgiving
The Christmas Cookie Showdown series
Ghosts (US) series
Brilliant Mind series
The Irrational series
Elsbeth series
Matlock (new) series
Broadchurch series
CSI: NY series
NCIS series
Columbo series
9-1-1 series
Doctor Odyssey series

A single inch: Friday Update

01 Friday Nov 2024

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I want to write a big thing here about what’s coming up, but I’m temperamentally incapable of writing about things that matter, at least directly. I can’t contain a single matter to a single post. There’s too many variables that feed into it and too many lives at stake. I’ve never been good at debate or argument. I see every side and try to address them to the point that I neglect my own.

I’m angry and I’m scared because my own personal life is at stake according to certain policies that certain politicians wish to implement, have already implemented, and will continue to make every effort to implement (and will likely succeed, regardless of who wins, due to keen long-game strategy). I’m angry and scared because my life is just one of billions at stake due to climate change (trillions, if you count the mass extinctions of other animals than humans). I’m angry and scared because I’m watching a slaughter in real time and people in power seem to have declared them not only expendable but vermin worthy of extermination. I could keep going, but what’s the use?

I don’t know how I’m going to get through these next few days and possibly these next few years. My only solution is to get through a day at a time and just be who I am for as long as I can. After all, who am I to have anything to say, other than someone who lives here, same as you?

I voted. There is a difference between a shit sandwich and a shit sandwich with a side of vomit and a glass of toxic waste. Please vote.

News:

Moved over to a new computer. Still fixing some glitches from the moving over of files, but I think I’ll have that finished by this weekend. I’ve gotten used to the new keyboard, and I’ve christened it with stickers, so I think she and I are in a good place now.

FOUND 2: More stories of found footage is out and available to all. My story “Nuisance Notifications” is part of it. All those notifications you get on the phone and can’t do anything about… All here, with all the other cursed media.

I don’t normally reference Amazon reviews because they’re easily accessible, but my Meridian series doesn’t get a lot of love, and I appreciated the review from Jennifer Hines (The Literary Tryst) for Avarice & Creed (Meridian Book 4):

Let me start off by saying this is the best book I have read in a while. It is also my first by Aurelia Evans. I have to say that now not only do I want to read the first three books in this series, but also see what else she may have written.

Works in Progress:

I had an outline in place for Rack & Ruin (Meridian Book 8) from after I finished Tooth & Claw (Meridian Book 7), so I’d know I had a story and because I seem to need outlines more often than I used to. Well, I opened up the R&R document and approached it with dread instead of excitement, and I was almost immediately bored. I wasn’t months ago when I came up with the story, but I think I need to do something different, so I’ve altered the main character, which makes certain elements of the story more interesting to me and less repetitive with other stories in the series. There will be some unanticipated challenges in working off the outline with this new main character, but I think I have more to look forward to with these changes. I certainly don’t want to finish up the Meridian series with a book I don’t like.

If it doesn’t work, I’ll do what I did for Tooth & Claw and set it aside for a while. I just hope I don’t have to. I’m ready to be done with the development of this series and down only to editing. I finished my first round of edits for Book & Candle (Meridian Book 5), and I’m just waiting for the final proofreading copy.

However, I think I’m generally tired from the work this year and from *waves at everything*. I’m looking forward to doing edits after R&R is through. Masque and the DRI were so much fun to write, and though Masque will need some extensive reworking, I’m looking forward to it. I may also need to find a developmental editor for the DRI to make sure I’m on the right track and get some feedback, because I’m too enamored with it. There’s so much Dracula stuff (for good reason, because it’s a blast), I don’t want to necessarily get lost under all the noise.

Things I’m Reading:

The Apocalypse and Satan’s Gloryhole by Timothy W. Long and Jonathan Moon
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Things I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Hell Fest
The Curse of Bridge Hollow
Murder, She Wrote: South by Southwest
Grave Encounters
As Above, So Below
Sleepy Hollow
Hocus Pocus
Trick ‘r’ Treat
Muppet Haunted Mansion
Rose Red series (finished)
Unsolved Mysteries series (finished)
Halloween Wars series (finished)
Halloween Baking Championship series (finished)
The Last Bite series (finished)
Outrageous Pumpkins series (finished)
Columbo series
S.W.A.T. series

Poem of the Week:

sagrado corazón
dead center bleeding
sanguinary transfusion
the blood of three
killing her sweetly
but blood of el maldito
brings vida eterna
la sangre es la vida

One-track mind: Friday Update

25 Friday Oct 2024

Posted by in Novelettes/Novellas, Series, Writing

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News:

No writing news to report.

I went to Grapevine’s Historic District last Saturday to make glass pumpkins and have a nice lunch with my mom. We passed by the marquee, where I just had to take a picture. I ended up seeing Dracula on my own last night, too.

Works in Progress:

I finished editing The Damp and got it under 40K from 48K by roughly a hundred words. I wanted to get it done in time for PitDark yesterday, because I wasn’t able to get to my other two dark novels in time and I wanted to pitch at least one new piece.

However, based on the last few PitDarks, I don’t think I’ll do another one, as fun as it is. It’s just not effective, and I hit the same problem I hit everywhere, which is that I can’t seem to get any kind of momentum. With Twitter in general death throes (honestly, Threads is more peaceful, although that won’t last once they implement ads or boosted posts, which is inevitable, because we can’t have nice things), no one has the reach they had and I don’t know how many editors or agents were even participating.

I’m discouraged, because I can’t afford indie editing in order to self-publish, but I think that’s my only option with In the Dollhouse We All Wait, A Woman Alone, poetry collections, and the May Cooler Heads Prevail novella. It’s a dilemma, all right, determining whether anything can afford to go out without external edits. I don’t have a lot of notes from my editors, but there’s a reason I have them.

The poetry can probably go out without second eyes. Maybe I can also manage May Cooler Heads Prevail, but I think the subject matter is still too raw and needs to wait until after the election to gauge if it’s right. However, like the poetry, I don’t know whether MCHP has much in the way of an audience.

However, Twitter pitches or not, I’ll have proper novels Masque and the DRI edited and ready to send to agents and presses by next year, so I guess that’s something.

I was sent my edits for Book & Candle (Meridian Book 5), so I’ve been working on them this week, and they’ve been pretty easy. If I don’t finish them today, I’ll finish fairly early tomorrow. Once it’s done, I’ll probably take a day to switch laptops, because the one I’ve been working on is breaking apart on the outside, and it’s only a matter of time before it cracks something essential on the inside.

Then I’ll start on Rack & Ruin (Meridian Book 8), the last Meridian novel. It’s nuts that I’ve almost written two full novel series.

Things I’m Reading:

The Apocalypse and Satan’s Gloryhole by Timothy W. Long and Jonathan Moon

Things I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

The Haunted Mansion (2003)
Twisted
Fright Night (2011)
Late Night with the Devil
Dracula (1931)
Rose Red series
Unsolved Mysteries series
Halloween Wars series
Halloween Baking Championship series
The Last Bite series
Outrageous Pumpkins series
Columbo series
Shogun series (finished)
S.W.A.T. series

Poem of the Week:

run home children run home soon
for the evening is dark and cold and long
and the monsters roam and the dead head home
as long as the lantern is still flickering
you will remain safe all the night
watched over by the harvest moon
low and large on the horizon screaming

Blessed cold: Friday Update

18 Friday Oct 2024

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Novelettes/Novellas, Poetry, Writing

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News:

Nothing to share, except the cool front arrived. I don’t even care if I shiver. It’s been such a long, hot summer.

Works in Progress:

I finished the first edit of The Damp, and there almost isn’t anything to say because it was so easy. Past Amanda did me a solid and wrote a clean first draft that didn’t need any major changes, just little things all the way through and one bigger chunk I’d already separated out to cut.

I’m on the second round of edits now, which are always difficult, even though it’s usually just a polish. My brain resists reading the same thing back to back. I do it anyway because that grumpiness makes me less precious about what I keep.

The first edit brought the word count down from about 48K to 41K words. I’m hoping to bring it under 40K in this second round so that it’ll fit into novella calls.

It occurred to me a little bit ago that, if I can’t find a home for it, The Damp might make a nice novella double feature with A Woman Alone. They’re both period gothic novellas (A Woman Alone set during the Depression and The Damp vaguely set in the sixties) with body horror and erotic elements (in AWA’s case, outright horror erotica), but they’re not overly similar despite that at all. It’s a thought.

As a palate cleanser between edits, I updated my poetry collections with the new things I’ve written that fit them. What Witchcraft We Wrought looks more and more like it’ll be the first to reach a full collection after A Nightmare for All Seasons.

I’m still missing the Dracula reimagining. I have a sickness. Christmas, love. Just wait until Christmas.

Things I’m Reading:

The Apocalypse and Satan’s Gloryhole by Timothy W. Long and Jonathan Moon

Things I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Young Frankenstein
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
Haunted Wedding
Halloween Kills
Halloween Ends
Worst Ex Ever series (finished)
Good Bones series (finished)
Halloween Wars series
Halloween Baking Championship series
The Last Bite series
Outrageous Pumpkins series
Columbo series
Shogun series
S.W.A.T. series

Poem of the Week:

leave chants unsung
silence your pleas
there is no solace
lie with me among
the autumn leaves
there is only us

Waiting for autumn: Friday Update

11 Friday Oct 2024

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News:

Halloween and autumn decorations are up in the house, but a proper Texas autumn should be coming next week. In autumn and winter, we too often have to get by on vibes rather than weather, but I’m not complaining about the milder late summer or what autumn and winter we do get.

In Found 2 news, they’re pushing the release date back a week to the 25th.

Works in Progress:

I finished the Dracula reimagining on Saturday, which was a total of 26 days’ work. By the end, I had 103,246 words, which was less than I thought I’d have. So the final word count is actually quite manageable, because I should be able to cut it under 100K words without trouble. To give you an idea of novel size, the original Dracula is around 160K words (about the length of an average Thorns novel).

The 103K was prior to stitching everything together, removing the outline (which I always include as word count so that it feels productive), and writing a new scene a few days later. After writing the new scene, I had 46 separate files, most of them composed of only one scene and averaging about 2-3K words.

Once I stitched everything together, removed any parts already marked to cut, and added the new scene, my official first draft word count is 99,222 words. Yet, even a few days later, I’m still missing being in that world and wanting more, which I think is a good thing, that I was able to enjoy it so much for so long. I’m slated to edit the DRI sometime in December, depending on when I finish Masque edits, and those are going to be more involved.

However, I get the feeling that something’s missing from the DRI, like I either need to add significantly more or, paradoxically, cut down some things I like to make it even more streamlined than I tried to write it, closer to the original conception. I think I’ll do one editing pass for consistency, since I wrote it out of order, before sending it to my alpha reader to see if she can pinpoint what might be missing or if I’m just perpetually unsatisfied in the Dracula world, which explains the plethora of adaptations, retellings, and reimaginings in my collection.

With the DRI done and dusted, I’ve moved on to editing The Damp, which is the only thing I can fit in before PitDark. I don’t think anything will come of it, but it’s worth a shot. I’ll shop it around a bit, but in the absence of interest, I think it would actually make a good double novella feature with A Woman Alone one day. I think I can finish with the first round of edits by Tuesday. Honestly, the first draft is pretty solid. Most of these edits are minor. Maybe, just maybe, I can have it done by next weekend at the latest?

Cleaned up some poetry from September and early October. From some recurring themes, I might have an idea for another mini-collection/chapbook (because those have been so successful /s). A few of the pieces were really solid, however, even though I had some trouble getting into the long-poem groove.

Things I’m Reading:

Found edited by Gabino Iglesias and Andrew Cull (finished)
The Apocalypse and Satan’s Gloryhole by Timothy W. Long and Jonathan Moon (bizarro horror picked up at Texas Frightmare, and it is weird)

Things I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

The Craft
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Halloween (2018)
Thir13en Ghosts
The Order (2003)
Halloween Wars series
Halloween Baking Championship series
The Last Bite series
Outrageous Pumpkins series
Columbo series
Abbott Elementary series
Shogun series
S.W.A.T. series
Supernatural series

Poem of the Week:

you won’t hear it
until it is upon you
with smothering wings
talon to pierce flesh
and wide lantern eye
an owl sure an owl
let’s go with that

Mad for greed: Friday Update

04 Friday Oct 2024

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News:

She’s a young woman who rebelled against her family by becoming evangelical; he’s the avarice demon that accepts her family’s virgin ‘sacrifice’ as his bride. Resolute innocence vs. intriguing corruption in the fourth Meridian novel (standalone, spicy), AVARICE & CREED, under my other name. It should be available on Amazon in about a week, but here’s the link to the Entwined Publishing page.

I’m kind of disappointed that Meridian (dark urban fantasy) hasn’t had the same love that Arcanium (demonic circus, horror romance) did, because I think they’re both great fun. But I’ll continue putting them out there until Entwined tells me to stop. I’ll be working on writing the last one this November.

When it doesn’t rain, it pours: I had another job interview this week. Not sure how it went, since it was a preliminary phone interview and it’s sometimes hard to hear tone beyond customer-service voice, but I thought it went all right.

We also put up Halloween in the house, which gives me a whole bunch of pieces of joy to look at all October. Most spooky Halloween decor is kind of just decor for me, but an abundance of pumpkins and orange mark my Halloween season and keep it special.

Works in Progress:

I’m at about 96K words on the DRI and have only five more scenes to do, so there’s finally an end in sight and I’m not struggling as much as was earlier this week. Life things personal and global made the flow slow down significantly. So, instead of writing, I watched Silent Hill on Tuesday in a mostly successful attempt to reset. I should almost certainly finish by the end of the weekend, which would mean I wrote it in less than a month, even though I wasn’t enforcing word count goals for this project. Pretty awesome. I’ll do a stat rundown next week after everything is finished, stitched together, and put away.

Once the DRI is done, it’s time to put on my editing pants. I’m not going to get everything done by PitDark on October 24, unfortunately, but I’ll get done what I can.

Things I’m Reading:

Found edited by Gabino Iglesias and Andrew Cull

Things I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

1408
Silent Hill
Halloween Wars series
Halloween Baking Championship series
Columbo series
Abbott Elementary series
Shogun series
American Horror Story: Cult series
Worst Ex Ever series
S.W.A.T. series
Good Bones series
Supernatural series
Grey’s Anatomy series

Poem of the Week:

hang up dead garlands
arrange invertebrate bones
ration our temptations
to make it through
without a trick
call upon the dead
and expect an answer
light the lanterns
pumpkin glow
cut the cords
to make them bleed
knock knock
who’s there
who indeed
just give us
what we need

Show me your teeth: Friday Update

27 Friday Sep 2024

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

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News:

Another break in the dry spell of short story acceptances: My story “Six,” about being haunted by a number (inspired by my obsession with maths while in fever dreamstate, not even kidding, it’s a recurring thing), is going to be part of Screams, edited by Judith Sonnet. I’ve been wanting to work with her since we were both in Ruth Anna Evans’ Ooze, so this is a real treat. It’s not a themed anthology but is meant to be a throwback to classic horror, from gory and pulpy to quiet—just downright spooky or scary. It’s slated to come out on Christmas.

Somewhat eerily, “Six” was finally accepted after six rejections. *Twilight Zone theme song*

I also had another job interview today, and I think it went really well. Crossing my fingers.

In leg injury news, my legs are almost completely back to normal except that the original injury isn’t recovering. It’s healed. There’s no pain, no tugging, but it must have healed with too much tangled fibers or scar tissue, because the muscle remains atrophied. The muscle isn’t working, so the other muscles continue to overwork, and the whole leg is weaker. I can’t up the resistance on the elliptical machine, but I can do a whole hour now without reinjuring. I can play pickleball with more vim and vigor. I can walk without pain, although I still start out stiff and sometimes limp a bit. So I still have to be careful going forward, because all these injuries have made me more susceptible to reinjury, but I think I can fairly say that this is as good as it’s going to get, and since that’s without pain, I’ll take it, even it isn’t the ideal outcome.

Works in Progress:

I’m still working on the Dracula retelling. I don’t think I’ll finish by the end of the month, but maybe by next Friday or the end of that weekend? I’ve got to say, the way this book is flowing for me is quite amazing, and it’s so much fun. And I’m incredibly thankful for the outline; it keeps me on task. I have detail for every scene regarding what elements are most relevant and why they’re important. A lot of the verbiage is dialogue, which I like to keep naturalistic, occasional tangents and all, so I sometimes forget what the point of a scene is. So it’s nice having something I can reference to remember where I’m going.

I’m at around 70,000 words and still have three pages’ worth of outline to tackle. I did skip forward earlier this week to do one of the really important scenes, then jumped back to fill in the undone bits (not quite caught up, but close). Otherwise, I’ve actually been working chronologically, to develop the character and conflicts set forth by future scenes already written.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this ended up hitting 110-120K words. To be clear, I envisioned this as a taut, modern reimagining at about 60-80K. The way I viewed it, the shorter size would justify the changes to the story and the found media (new epistolary) format.

I’m not disappointed, per se. As I said above, I’m having a blast, because this has been a dream project, and it’s going so much better than the last time I tried to write it. But it’s not what I wanted it to be, I’m not sure it’s justified as anything but a novelty pet project, not sure if I’ll be able to get it short enough to effectively go on sub. I’m not sure what it is or what to do with it now that it isn’t what I set out to write. Are the formatting and changes enough to keep it interesting to other people who love a good Dracula reimagining as much as me? I guess we’ll know the answer to that eventually.

Things I’m Reading:

Found edited by Gabino Iglesias and Andrew Cull

Things I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist
Dracula collection playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid
Columbo series
Abbott Elementary series
Shogun series
America’s Got Talent series (finished)
American Horror Story: Cult series
Worst Ex Ever series
S.W.A.T. series
Supernatural series
Grey’s Anatomy series

Poem of the Week: (from September 2021)

I bring with me
A harvest of sour apples
And slices of honeycomb
Cut with soft cheese
Drizzle with honey
This must have been
What the serpent offered
I too would have fallen
For a cool breeze
And a sharp feast
Served on scales.

Notes: Friday Update

20 Friday Sep 2024

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

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News:

I’ve had a brief break in the drought with “Nuisance Notifications,” a short story that was accepted by Gabino Iglesias and Andrew Cull for Found 2: More Stories of Found Footage Horror. I’m really honored to be a part of it, and it’s HWA pro-rate, so that’s a bit of a relief, too. It’ll cover one month’s medications, thank goodness.

I make no bones about how much I love epistolary and its progeny, found footage. Found media in general is such a great way to write spare, tight horror. The first Found is amazing so far, and Found 2 is available for pre-order and is coming out October 18.

Works in Progress:

This is my second week working on the Dracula reimagining, and I think I figured out why I’m having such a good time with it. I mean, sure, I’m living the dream of writing a DRI, which has been on my bucket list for a long time, and especially since the last effort was such a disaster, having it work makes a helluva difference.

The reason why it’s consistently fun, though, in spite of the fact that I’m doing everything differently than usual, is because it doesn’t feel like I’m writing a novel. Because it’s modern epistolary/found media and I have discrete documents for each piece, it feels more like I’m writing a bunch of themed short pieces, even though I know I’m writing a novel. Every few thousand words (give or take), I close a document and cross it off my outline, and it hits my brain with endorphins like I’ve finished. So instead of having to wait a month to get that little high, I get one or a few a day. It’s nice.

It wouldn’t work for just any project. This epistolary novel really is like making different-sized granny squares for a throw blanket rather than do a continuous series of crochet stitches. Sure, I have a pattern. I’m not just stitching willy-nilly. And both kinds end up the same size one way or another. But each granny square has its own end, to eventually be stitched together when they’re all done, rather than building a single giant throw on my lap. I couldn’t separate out chapters this way, because it all still feels connected. It’s a unique project, with a unique process, and I’m really enjoying the novelty of both.

Right now, I’m at about 37,000 words of a projected 90,000, but I’m still concerned this is going to cross over 100K, maybe even up to 120K, because I have an awful lot of my outline left to cross out (although some scenes have more notes than others, so it’s a little deceiving). In edits, I’ll probably remove a lot of editorializing; it’s there for me more than the story right now, despite some intended subjectivity. But it’s definitely bigger in scope than I thought. I’d originally conceived DRI to be minimalistic, kind of a counterpoint to the original Dracula tome. Maybe some of the things I’ve written simply won’t be included? But I love relevant detritus and effluvia. It’s like the pumpkin spice of a novel. I guess, as usual, we’ll see.

Definitely throws me even more off-schedule, though. I probably won’t get as much edited by next PitDark as I’d planned, especially if I get the edits for Book & Candle (Meridian 5) back within the next month.

Nevertheless, I’ll aim for crossing off as much of DRI as possible this month, finishing as soon as possible in October, and editing Masque and The Damp before PitDark. Masque will be the wild card, because I already know I need to rewrite the end, and I’ll hear from my alpha reader if there’s anything else I need to reconfigure. Maybe I’ll get The Damp out of the way first, because it feels like all it needs is a standard double edit, and it’s shorter.

Things I’m Reading:

Needful Things by Stephen King (finished)
Found edited by Gabino Iglesias and Andrew Cull

Things I’m Listening To:

Hannibal series soundtracks
DRI playlist
Dracula collection playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Hannibal
Aliens
Nosferatu (1979)
Columbo series
America’s Got Talent series
American Horror Story: Cult series
Unsolved Mysteries (Netflix) series (finished)
Worst Ex Ever series
Supernatural series
Grey’s Anatomy series
Murder, She Wrote series (finished!)

Poem of the Week: (from September 2021)

The nexus of our roads
Holds the power of convergence
Within this taut place,
This knot of paths taken
And paths not taken
And paths yet to take.
We call upon the dervish wind
For all curses and hexes
Under a dust-cloud sun.