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Cutting Thorns Off Roses: Friday Update

11 Friday Aug 2023

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Poetry, Series, Thorns, Writing

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News:

Actually not a lot of news to report this week. I’m in waiting mode for rejections/acceptances, and there’s been some behind the scenes stuff, plus a few things coming out this week, like “A Bug in the Design” at Crystal Lake Shallow Waters, if you want to get in on that Patreon for some exciting new flash every month.

I had a comment to a Twitter post that’s doing some real numbers (for me), and it amuses me that a throwaway comment seems to have resonated like that.

I had my annual-ish ear cleaning, so now I can hear and I’m not stuck in my own head, which is nice.

I also saw Talk to Me, which I thought was amazing, a throat-punch for the first three parts. I agree with some people that it whiffed the ending and pulled the last few punches, but not in a way that negated the excellence that came before. It felt viral and modern without feeling too much on the phone; it felt like an authentic teen scream without watering itself down. It’s what the movie Slender Man aspired to and was too afraid to let itself be.

Works in Progress:

I finished the first round of edits on Crooked House (Thorns 5). I made a few small additions, but not what I was expecting. I think I’ll ask my beta readers and editors if they think I should add more, but for now it feels pretty solid as is, and I really, really like it.

As a Thorns novel, it’s as short as Puppeteer (Thorns 4) is long. It started at 158K words, and I cut it down to a bare 133K words. Still more than Nocturne, which is my longer gothic-style supernatural horror novel, but generally the Thorns novels average about 150-155K words.

I’m letting the edits breathe and doing another patch of short fiction. I’ve written two shorts and plan to write three more in the flash range. Then I’ll do the second editing round.

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder (finished)
Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire

Music I’m Listening To:

Ambient dark music
Dracula musical (Orton/Evans)
Kamelot
Halestorm

Things I’m Watching:

CSI series
CSI:Miami series
Great British Baking Show: Junior Bake-Off series (caught up)
Not Dead Yet series
Murder She Wrote series
Red Notice movie
NOPE movie
Fright Night (1985) movie – Why did no one tell me how delectably queer this movie is?

Poem of the Week:

should you sleepwalk
within the halls
please don’t hesitate
to ring a bell or call
but be extra careful
these darker nights
not to kindle candles
of strangers alight
you never know what
roams there with you
or, if it knows you know
it’s there, what it will do

Haunting the Monitor: Friday Update

04 Friday Aug 2023

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

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Bloody Ghost wants you to have a boo-tiful day.

News:

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

Friday Update

21 Friday Jul 2023

Posted by in Uncategorized, Writing

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

News:

I’ve been trying to figure out how to use this site, since I’m not much for writing articles unless inspiration hits me over the head with a mace, and I’ve set aside lyrics for poetry lately. I think I’ll try this weekly round-up so that it doesn’t just feel like a promotional machine.

This week, I received two eagerly anticipated acceptances, but I won’t be able to talk about them until the table of contents is officially released. After a rash of rejections, it’s been a real ego boost to get some good news. I’ve actually had some good rejections, too—short-listed but not quite right, personalized notes. A lot of ‘always the bridesmaid, but never the bride.’ It’s nice to blush.

However, what I can tell you is that I’ve been accepted in a dream market, Medusa Publishing Haus’s Queer Saints Volume II. The idea behind the anthologies is that queer people are allowed to be messy, unpleasant, and downright villains, instead of having to be the Good Queer with healthy, idealized (read: unrealistic) relationships.

I submitted to the first volume with no luck, but I’m thrilled to be part of the second volume. The story, “Caregiver,” centers an estranged adult child returning home to take care of their aging parent. It was a really rough one to write, with nothing supernatural to filter the bad feelings, so you probably won’t enjoy it, but perhaps you’ll be moved. QSII comes out on Halloween 2023. If you go to the link above, you’ll see the rest of the TOC and story descriptions. I think this is going to be a helluvan anthology.

In addition, my short story, “A Bladder Full,” is part of the Crystal Lake Publishing Shallow Waters flash fiction contest, with the theme of Time Anomaly. So I wrote my absolute worst nightmare of not being able to find a bathroom when I need to pee, then made it worse. I share it now instead of next week because I think voting starts next week and ends Friday morning. The stories aren’t free to read, but I consider the $5/month tier worth reading a short anthology of horror flash every month.

Works in Progress:

Earlier this week, I finished the arrangement and editing of the horror short story/poetry collection that I’ve been working on since Fall 2021 (but mostly the last six months). The indie press call I finished it for isn’t until October, but it’s good to get it done early, since I don’t know when I’m going back to work. And before that, I finished the edits on a very short horror novel, so I’ve got two manuscripts prepped and ready to go for any potentially appropriate calls.

If I have no luck with the collection after a year, I might try selling the pieces individually, then, once all exclusive rights expire, put out the collection on my own. Same with the short novel. They’re really short enough that doing it myself doesn’t break the bank quite like my Thorns novels do.

Right now, I’m writing another patch of short stories, some for submission calls, some just to have on hand for future calls.

After that, it’ll be time to tackle the double edit of Crooked House (Thorns 5), since my editors are expecting it in August.

Poem of the Week:

(In the absence of lyrics, I’m going to start sharing my favorite flash poem posted to Twitter/Tumblr within the last week.)

There is no witch in 313.
She’s just an eccentric old woman,
no hen nights or pagan coven.
There is no witch in 313.

Kids here can be so mean.
So she doesn’t say hi
or look you in the eye.
There is no witch in 313.

I couldn’t recall when I’d seen
Aggie last but kids get sick
or move to New Brunswick.
There is no witch in 313.

She didn’t do anything to Janine.
Forked fingers don’t cast a curse
or compel ravens to disperse.
There is no witch in 313.

Yes, I promise I’ve been
to her apartment by myself.
Only weird knickknacks on the shelf.
There is no witch in 313.

And if you see a reddish gleam
in my eye whenever I pay her a visit,
it’s just a trick of light, isn’t it?
There is no witch in 313.

Resolute

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Writing

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Looking back on 2018, I managed to reach several, if not all creative goals. I didn’t get to write my short horror novels. I made that resolution when work had a lot more downtime, but around May, that downtime disappeared, so they didn’t happen. I also didn’t manage to reboot my jewelry-making. When I had breaks at home, I generally wanted to rest rather than work.

But I did write an average of one horror review a month. Got the last one in just under the wire:

1. “The Lazarus Effect”
2. “Would You Rather”
3. “Gothika”
4. “Teeth”
5. “The Awakening”
6. “Contracted”
7. “Starry Eyes”
8. “As Above, So Below”
9. “Slender Man”
10. “The ReZort”
11. “Silent Hill”
12. “The Wolfman”

And I did write an average of one song a month. Almost an average of two:

1. “Vultures”
2. “Anything but a Diamond”
3. “Standing Water”
4. “Fools”
5. “The Valley of the Shadow”
6. “City on the Hill”
7. “Plenty of Fish”
8. “Devil in the Details”
9. “Trypophobia”
10. “Without You”
11. “Svrcina”
12. “My Captain”
13. “Sleepwalker (Anthony’s Song)”
14. “Music Box”
15. “Rest of Your Life”
16. “Red”
17. “The Rose Less Traveled”
18. “Tattoo”
19. “What Happened”
20. “For the Last Time”
21. “Floodwaters”
22. “Choice”
23. “Would You Rather”

Most importantly, I managed to publish THORNS, the first book in the series of the same name. I’d done edits in previous years and made a number of changes then, but this required an intensive double edit (with the help of my beta readers), then doing the two indie pro edits in tandem, then proofreading. It basically took all year, piece by piece. But I’m really happy with the end product, and I hope you are as well.

I plan for the same marathon in 2019 with ROSE RED, the second book in the Thorns series, to be published around the same time. Hopefully in October, because doing anything other than NaNoWriMo in November is hellish. I’ll also do a single pass through BLUEBIRDS, the third book, though it’ll go through the more intensive phase of preparation in 2020.

I don’t really do resolutions. I have goals, and most of them are ambitious but doable, and I don’t hate myself for not accomplishing them. I focus on the creative, because that’s the meaning of life to me. My writing schedule for 2019 is all set up, and while I foresee some changes, it would be awesome if I could keep to it. 2020 will have a lot more room for writing new things, but I want to get a good set done this year, too.

In addition to ROSE RED, I’m putting those two short novels back on the docket, and I hope to do a rewrite of WAR HOUSE, because it’s also a fairly short (for me) novel, but odds are that these will be the first to be sacrificed if time becomes an issue.

What’s not optional is the fourth Thorns book, PUPPETEER. I haven’t written a new Thorns novel since 2015, and I really want to get the next three tackled. But considering their lengths, that can sometimes be like climbing Everest. I enjoy it, but it’s a lot of time required. I predict three months, but it may end up being three and a half or four. Yikes.

I really would like to reboot my jewelry making. I have pendant components ready to be put together, but I just need to commit to the time to create and take pictures (because I have an actual camera, not a smartphone, it’s a longer process.

This year I’m not going to be as focused on writing songs, but I’d still like to write an average of one a month. I may or may not try to write the music to one.

I’m also continuing my goal of an average of one full horror review a month. It’s a good amount to commit to.

I’d also like to engage in one new creative thing. I keep going from calligraphy to sketching to painting. I’ve done all at one time, calligraphy least of all, but they all intimidate me.

On the non-creative side of life, a few things changed in 2018. I took on more responsibility at work, which filled up that time I used to have too much of. Of course, the business itself had major changes as well that challenged my writing schedule mightily, but I don’t like talking about dayjob work.

Our house underwent drastic renovation, and I basically got rid of my old bedroom and replaced it with furniture fully of my choosing and funding. It was the first time I really got to do that. My old furniture was perfectly respectable and not young-looking or anything (antiques and a sweet daybed), but it was the same furniture I’d had all my life, and it wasn’t stuff I chose. I’m really happy with the furniture I chose, built around a completely awesome drawer unit. And I and the cat love my new bed (I think she’s convinced it’s the best cat bed in the world). I’m still in the process of making my room my own, and for all the clutter I cleared out, there’s more left to get rid of.

I also started improving my diet, although I still have an unhealthy attachment to bottled Frappuccinos and tortillas. I’ve lost some weight and hope to lose some more, but I don’t expect too much.

The real accomplishments are in the realm of my writing. That’s the life I chose, and I’m mostly happy with that. It’s my favorite thing to do, spending time with all these amazing people and having adventures with them. Looking forward to doing so much more of that in 2019, even if the rest of the world seems to be falling apart. This much I can do.