News:

The Pleasure in Pain Queer Horrotica Kickstarter is still taking pre-orders and other perks, although it’s met its base goal. If they meet the stretch goal, Pleasure in Pain gets an audiobook.

Post-apocalyptic “Full” won 2nd place in the Shallow Waters flash fiction contest for the Murder of Crows theme!

Works in Progress:

Once again, I hit a creative wall with Shadow & Song, this time around 25K words, so I think this particular storyline is a bust. I’m scrapping it in favor of my next effort, Tooth & Claw, which I’d originally thrown out of the Meridian line-up because it was purely sapphic, which can’t go into the Meridian series (has to do with which Totally Entwined imprint it’s under, can be some queerness but primary needs to be female/male). However, one character going male doesn’t make the story suffer at all, so that’s what I’m going to do, and I can take two good characters from Shadow & Song and integrate them into the new story. It’s possible Lis just wasn’t meant to be a main character. I’m incredibly discouraged by two failures in the novel arena, and I’d like a win. I’d like a book Xed off my list.

Just to make sure I had a story, I outlined Tooth & Claw. I’m not an outliner, because it makes me feel like I’ve already written the story, but on certain occasions, they’ve just been necessary. And yes, I have a story, and there are scenes I’m really looking forward to, which wasn’t the case with the other two attempts. All I could see was the beginning, and as I went, the rest of it didn’t become any clearer like it usually does.

In the meantime, I put together another poetry chapbook. This has been an unexpectedly productive horror poetry year, for how ineffective I’ve been in other mediums. I’ve done enough substantial poetry and mined, expanded, or stitched together things from flash poetry to put together two impromptu chapbooks (for a total of three) and complete a collection.

We have family over for the holiday, so I’ll work on the second edit of a novelette for a sub call in April. Then I’ll start Tooth & Claw in the new month after I do necessary car things.

Health is doing better. I suspect I had a case of post-infection visceral hypersensitivity, which has a tendency to make me think I’m dying, and it gets worse with stress. Leg injury, however, is still reinjuring. I need to see the orthopedist, but I’m trying to wait until I have health insurance again, because MRIs are expensive. Job search is not going so well. I’ll have to eventually go with a temp agency again if I can’t get direct-hired.

Books I’m Reading:

Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire (finished)
Killing Time by Russell C. Connor
Half-Off Ragnarok by Seanan McGuire

Things I’m Listening To:

Leonard Cohen
YouTube playlists
Singer-songwriter playlists

Things I’m Watching: (I finally got Tubi and wanted to watch a bunch of things before they expired)

Poor Things
The Shrine
The Possession of Michael King
Clown
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
Madhouse
Catacombs
The Evil in Us
Raze
Extraterrestrial
Angel series (watchalong)
CSI: Miami series
Spring Baking Championship series

Poem of the Week: (throwback from March 2022)

you try so hard
to seem sinister
but my dear
mister mister
save the spooking
for my sister
your filed teeth
and damask swagger
won’t sink
underneath
my moonpale skin
stand back
cheekbones
no spine-chilling
i like your style