Today’s theme is creature features and monsters, so this is where the horror movie monsters that don’t have their own category hang out and monster mash.
Creature Feature/Monsters:
“Venus Fly Trap” – MARINA
“Bloody Mary” – Lady Gaga
“The Invisible Man” – Queen
“Hide and Seek” – Lerion & Lauren Paley
“Black Widow” – Iggy Azalea (feat. Rita Ora)
“Spiderweb” – Haley Reinhart
“Poetry for the Poisoned, Pt. 1: Incubus” – Kamelot
If you’re part of the Crystal Lake Patreon, voting for Workplace Horror flash fiction is open until tomorrow morning. You have fifteen interesting interpretations of the theme to read and choose from.
Someone on the Books of Horror Facebook page was kind enough to leave a review of Out of Curiosity and Hunger. I’m not going to link to it here, because she posted it on Amazon and Goodreads as well, but the way she described the whole vibe of OOCAH was just so perfect: “I love National Geographic, especially when the animals eat each other, and sometimes maybe humans too.”
I really do love creature features. You want creature features? I’ve got two! Out of Curiosity and Hunger (urban jungle) and Deep Down (cave monsters).
Works in Progress:
I’m still working on Tooth & Claw (Meridian 7). Barreling forward, in fact, 5K+ words a day. For reference, I started April 6, and by the end of the day, I’ll have written over 85K in twenty days. Based on where I am in the story, I think I’ll be able to finish by the end of the weekend, maybe Monday, although my period’s coming, and depending on severity, it may slow me down. I have a cushion of a few thousand words to keep up my 5K/day average lately, though.
Once I’m finished with that, I’m going to edit extreme horror novel In the Dollhouse We All Wait, because I want it to be ready in time for PitDark after Texas Frightmare in May. I ideally need to cut over 20K words, but I think that’s doable. That means I might have to push back Crooked House (Thorns 5) publication to June, but I might have to do that anyway if formatting is out of my financial reach. Depends on what I can sell between now and then and whether I’m employed.
I would categorize Question Not My Salt as on the milder side of extreme, but In the Dollhouse definitely fits into the subgenre, so much so that it might be hard to place instead of self-publish, but I’m going to try.
Books I’m Reading:
Killing Time by Russell C. Connor Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire
Things I’m Listening To:
YouTube playlists Metal playlists
Things I’m Watching:
Love of My Life (2013) The Others Army of the Dead (2021) Alien vs. Predator: Requiem Abigail (a fun, bloody flick) NCIS series NCIS: Hawai’i series CSI series CSI: Miami series American Idol series Spring Baking Championship series Murder, She Wrote series
Poem of the Week: (throwback to April 2023)
haydust gold winds round rustic spindle. he does the work. she reaps the spoils of rotten wheat to a marriage bed. and does she ever say thank you or give freely what she offered, what she owes for his labor?
In case you missed it, pregnancy horror drabble (100-word micro fiction) “Birth” was posted for Hungry Shadows’ Deadly Drabble Tuesday earlier this week. This one started its life as a poem but was actually shortened for the drabble call.
“A Bladder Full” actually won 3rd place for the July Crystal Lake Shallow Waters flash fiction contest (theme: Time Anomaly), which really surprised me. This month, creature feature “A Bug in the Design” is a finalist for the theme Small Town Strange. I see a lot of new-to-me names on the list of finalists, so I’m looking forward to the contest introducing me to different writers. You can only read them under the $5/month tier, but it’s totally worth it to have what amounts to an anthology of flash every month, and it’s a lot of fun.
Jacob Steven Mohr announced the Table of Contents for Dead Letters: Episodes of Epistolary Horror, an anthology of found media (also from Crystal Lake Publishing), and my moreishly titled “The Behavioral Patterns of the Displaced Siberian Siren” is a part of it. I’ve been trying to sell this story for a bit, and I’m really excited for this anthology in general. Some of the titles are really funny and intriguing. Check out the TOC for some of the other contributors.
In addition, it was announced through their Facebook page, so I assume it’s okay to share that my flash piece “Sight Unseen” about a monster in a fixer-upper is part of Dragon’s Roost Press’s Novus Monstrum anthology.
Look at that, though. A lot of announcements this week of things to come, mostly in the very smol fiction range, but it’s nice to have some momentum.
Also, I’ll periodically let you know that I now have a Ko-Fi page, if you want to caffeinate an indie writer. A chai latte or iced mocha is one of my only vices.
Works in Progress:
I’m still working through the first round of edits on Crooked House (T5), and it’s a little more involved than I anticipated. The first quarter involved a lot of cuts, but I haven’t needed as many in the second and third quarter. If I add anything significant, it’ll be in this third quarter or the fourth. I’m still weighing whether it’s necessary. I might just finish out this edit, then come back to add as needed.
I have one small short story to write between editing rounds. Then I’ll dive back in for the polishing pre-professional edit, which I hope moves a little more quickly.
Books I’m Reading:
IT by Stephen King Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire
Music I’m Listening To:
Sara Bareilles randomizer Apocalypse and Chill by Delain Arcadia by Eurielle Arcadia by Lily Kershaw Arrival soundtrack Beauty and the Beast Broadway soundtrack A Bit o’ This & That by Emilie Autumn The Black Halo by Kamelot Born This Way by Lady Gaga Bram Stoker’s Dracula soundtrack Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson
Things I’m Watching:
Scream series (finished) CSI series CSI:Miami series Great British Baking Show: Junior Bake-Off series Blacklist series (finished) Black Butler series (finished) Young Sheldon series (caught up) Not Dead Yet series The Huntsman: Winter War movie Disenchanted movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie
Poem of the Week:
hysteria from the same root as hysterectomy defect of the uterus emotional fit of a tilted fist abdominal dissension no more trustworthy than upset stomach irrational these emotional outbursts with raised fists and defections vestigial as appendices post-appendectomy can’t live with them can’t live without them and they can’t live without us am I right one root to another what lunacy to need lunatics or leave them to tidal devices varied and variable ephemeral as moonbeams do what we can as rational men to ignore
My SPLICE x VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR creature feature is loose upon the world. Still working on getting the paperback ready, but as for all my short novels, it’s 99c for the e-book.
Here’s my beautiful cover for OOCAH, from the premade collection at roosterrepublicpress.com. It doesn’t represent the featured creature itself, but I wanted something both naturalistic (like old anatomy drawings) and distorted. I was enchanted by the many legs and the weirdness of the mouth parts.
Amanda M. Blake 