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Amanda M. Blake

~ Of fairy tales and tentacles

Amanda M. Blake

Tag Archives: halloween

Our better angels: Friday Update

19 Friday Jun 2026

Posted by amandamblake in A Few Thoughts, Essays/Creative Non-Fiction, Novelettes/Novellas, Short Stories, Writing

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crystal lake shallow waters flash fiction, essay, halloween, hannibal, horror, may cooler heads prevail, novella, smell my feet

News:

Received my wonderful finalized cover from Don Noble of Rooster Republic Press, so I was able to finally upload the finished manuscript of May Cooler Heads Prevail to Amazon—ebook only, because it’s too short to justify a paperback, from my perspective. The story may eventually end up in a collection, if it feels appropriate to the thread. It’s too long for a short story or novelette but short for a novella, and it’s not horror but too grounded to be fully speculative… I just never knew what to do with it, so here it is, with the help of my editor to make it into something truly special.

“Is this a time for gods and monsters?”

A journalist who specializes in celebrity interviews finally gets the chance to meet the elusive Alice Proulx, who stands accused of allegedly setting public figures’ heads aflame. Together, they discuss her history, her philosophies, the responsibility of being a global citizen, and the contradiction of becoming an ethical vigilante.

From the author of DRIFT and DEEP DOWN comes an intimate examination of one woman’s choices in a world where checks and balances too often fail and the vile suffer no meaningful consequences.

Also, my weird Halloween story “Smell My Feet” for the Shallow Waters contest this month posted yesterday. You can read it at the Crystal Lake Patreon and vote for your favorite at the end of June in the $5/month tier.

Works in Progress:

I finished the 19th century horror story entry for next month’s Shallow Waters and cut it down under 1500 words. It was much more manageable than my first attempt for the theme, but still a challenge combining that gothic style with the brevity required for flash. I appreciated having to put in the extra effort to balance those two elements.

This means that I’m working on essays and creative non-fiction the rest of summer until I’m tired of it. I’m doing my Hannibal series essay first, which means I must rewatch Season One again, so soon after a recent rewatch. Oh no, what a terrible fate. (Haven’t even finished the Season Three rewatch yet, so I guess that’s happening after the Season One finale.)

I haven’t written an essay since college, for the very good reason that college burned me out writing them. That’s what happens when you’re an English Lit major with an affinity for the social sciences. You don’t write another proper essay-shaped thing until twenty years later, but only influenced by your favorite essays from your college era.

My mind is alight with ideas for this essay, though, and my notebook has things in it that I just had to jot down before I forgot them. I’m looking forward to coalescing those ideas into something more structured and formal, but still fun, because I’m not getting graded anymore.

Books I’m Reading:

It was All a Dream 2: Another Anthology of Bad Horror Tropes edited by Brandon Applegate
Cosmic Dyke Patrol by Lor Gislason

Things I’m Listening To:

Let’s Hear It for the Girls playlist
Kamelot

Things I’m Watching:

Clue
Midsommar
The Shining
Twisters

9-1-1 series
9-1-1: Nashville series
Hawaii Five-O series
Will Trent series
NCIS series
Home Town: Inn This Together series (finished)

Poem of the Week: (throwback to June 2022)

Somewhere in this world
A raven on a windowsill
Tilts its head
Turns its beak
And offers a crone
A shiny stone

Sparkly cowboy boots: Friday Update

05 Friday Jun 2026

Posted by amandamblake in A Few Thoughts, Novelettes/Novellas, Short Stories, Writing

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crystal lake shallow waters flash fiction, halloween, may cooler heads prevail, novella, poem, short story, smell my feet

Photo by Sama Bairamova on Pexels.com

News:

“Smell My Feet” made it into the Halloween-themed Shallow Waters finalists for this month. $5/month tiers and up can read all 20 stories and vote on their favorites at the end of the month.

Next month’s theme is 19th Century Horror, if you’re interested in submitting before the end of June (<1500 words flash fiction).

Works in Progress:

I think I’ve finished up with May Cooler Heads Prevail, but I’ve just discovered the text-to-speech option in Word (not AI), and I’m going to run through it one more time that way to try to catch anything I missed during the proofreading round. Then I’ll put it into Atticus and get it in shape to self-publish. As I wrote in my other social media, I’m so enamored of this little piece that doesn’t quite belong anywhere but is most comfortable among comic book heroes/villains and supernatural abilities. Almost too short to be a novella, not sure if it’s long enough to print.

It’s delightful, it’s raw, it’s too timely and just timely enough, sweet and cold and hot and harsh, frivolous, experimental, occasionally pretentious by design. It just means a lot to me, anxious though I am about putting it out into the world.

This weekend, my goal is to write two short stories (already have one taken care of) and try to put May Cooler Heads Prevail through its final paces.

Books I’m Reading:

Skeleton Crew by Stephen King
Queen Bitch Slay by Patrick C. Harrison III (finished)
It was All a Dream 2: Another Anthology of Bad Horror Tropes edited by Brandon Applegate

Things I’m Listening To:

Miranda Lambert
Let’s Hear It for the Girls playlist
Thorns playlists

Things I’m Watching:

Backrooms
House on Haunted Hill (1999)
Hawaii Five-O series
True Justice series
Elsbeth series
NCIS series
Prodigal Son series
Dirty Rotten Cleaners series (finished)

Poem of the Week: (throwback to June 2022)

jekyll in the streets
hyde in the sheets
stygian in the front
callipygian in the back
two-faced chaos parishioner
dichotomous mordrake

Dead man’s arms: Friday Update

10 Friday Oct 2025

Posted by amandamblake in A Few Thoughts, Novels, Series, Short Stories

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Tags

a coup of owls, glory to god, halloween, meridian, novel, poem, short story, wandering lights, Writing

Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Pexels.com

News:

My story “Wandering Lights,” about a small town’s post-trick-or-treat ritual, gets second life as a finalist for this month’s Dark Festivities theme at Crystal Lake’s Shallow Waters flash fiction contest. ($5/month tier and up). The original printing was in Halloween Horrors: 13 Tales of Terror, which is free on Kindle Unlimited.

A Coup of Owls Press is trying to drum up backers for their novelette anthologies, and they’re struggling in part because of the US tariffs and customs issues. In sharing what they’re aiming for, they provided some insight into my gritty, grimy, glorious goddess-at-a-gloryhole story Glory to God, which is part of their Dark Paths anthology. If you’d like to help the press out, check out their Kickstarter.

Works in Progress:

I’m at 55K words, aiming for 58K words by the end of the day. I keep upping the anticipated end word count. I’m at 110K now.

I wrote out single-word sections of the book before I started, my version of an outline. There are a total of eight. For some reason I’ve only completed two at this point, and that concerns me greatly. Sure, some of the sections are probably shorter than others, but I’m still worried. I always overwrite in the first draft because of how I warm up into writing. On working days, I’m writing 1K words, but it can take me 500 words to properly warm up, and then before you know it, I’m done for the day and have to do other things. (The warm-up words are not necessarily useless; I’m just more likely to meander while I figure out my direction. I get good stuff out of that sometimes, but not always.) But is the ambitiousness of the story going to take me to Thorns-level first-draft word counts? I feel like I don’t have time for this.

On the other hand, glad that I’m able to write at all in this madness, so… And the story has continued to entertain me, although I’m still afraid it’s too ambitious and won’t stick the landing. It took me years of rewrites to figure out Nocturne, years before I was confident enough to tackle Masque, years before the Dracula reimagining worked the second time around. I’m at the point in my writing career that I’m trying to take on the more complicated stories floating around my head, but I may still not quite be there for everything.

On the other other hand, though, I start to lose patience with not being close to the end of a novel by about this point, a month out. Over two months is pushing it. I wonder if I can get myself to push my daily word count on working days to 1.5-2K…

Books I’m Reading:

Raising Loki: A Memoir by Elliot Manarin
Rose Madder by Stephen King

Things I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Ready or Not
SWAT series
Hannibal series
Where Whatever the F You Want series (finished)
All Creatures Great and Small series
America’s Got Talent series
CSI series
CSI: NY series
Halloween Baking Championship series

Poem of the Week: (throwback to 2023)

i would never be accused of
wallowing in my own sorrow
but may i render this ground
unhallowed with dripping salt
seeping into the ground soil
downhill of the cursed gallows
from where the mortician carries
my son to grave upon the morrow

A single inch: Friday Update

01 Friday Nov 2024

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

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Tags

election day, found 2, found footage, halloween, meridian, nuisance notifications, poem

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

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

Waiting for autumn: Friday Update

11 Friday Oct 2024

Posted by amandamblake in A Few Thoughts, Novelettes/Novellas, Novels, Writing

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autumn, dracula reimagining, editing, found 2, halloween, novel, novella, poem, the damp

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

Posted by amandamblake in A Few Thoughts, Novels, Writing

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Tags

aurelia t. evans, dracula reimagining, halloween, job interview, meridian

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

“Halloween Parade”

31 Tuesday Oct 2023

Posted by amandamblake in Poetry

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Tags

a nightmare for all seasons, halloween, halloween parade, happy halloween, lyrics, poem, Poetry, poetry collection

For Halloween, enjoy this lyrical poem that will be included in my seasonal horror poetry collection, A Nightmare for All Seasons, which comes out next year.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

HALLOWEEN PARADE

Days growing shorter
Darker the skies
Harvest the fields
Cooler breeze nights
Pumpkin spice cider
Hot apple pies
Leaves tumble by
Flickering lights

What is that scent
That floats on the wind?
What is that rumble
over the road?
We’ve waited all year
For them to return
We’ve waited all year
As the fortune teller foretold

The time has come
For the Halloween Parade
Everyone gather round
For the Halloween Parade
Our town bearing signs
That our children have made
Three more cheers now
For the Halloween Parade

Dancing brown grass
Golden leaves awhirl
Honey-roasted caramel
Cherry-lime swirl
Jack-o’-lantern here
Candied orange curl
For every good boy
And every good girl

How we have waited
For this celebration day
How we have yearned
For innocent little joys
Whether that comes from
Dancing pantomime clowns
From dazzling sequins
Or dark wicked play

The time has come
For the Halloween Parade
Bring your family down
For the Halloween Parade
The corn has been mazed
The gravestones all laid
Three more cheers now
For the Halloween Parade

Ghostly ghouls
Spirit trails
Haunted houses
Werewolf tails
Vampire grins
Mourning veils
Creepy songs
Eerie wails

Haven’t we suffered
Enough in this town?
Haven’t we had enough
Grief, pain, and sorrow?
When they come here
With their glamor and lights
We can pretend that
There is no more tomorrow

The time has come
For the Halloween Parade
Angels and demons come round
For the Halloween Parade
The contracts are signed
And the debts are all paid
Three more cheers now
For the Halloween Parade

Yes, the time has come
For the Halloween Parade
All restraints come unbound
For the Halloween Parade
Remember the warnings
Your old friends have said
Three more cheers now
For the Halloween Parade

Get out while you can: Friday Update

20 Friday Oct 2023

Posted by amandamblake in A Few Thoughts, Novels, Poetry, Writing

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Tags

body horror, extreme horror, halloween, horror, in the dollhouse we all wait, plague, poem

Photo by Flora Westbrook on Pexels.com

News:

After the wealth of news last week, there’s not much this one. I received another really nice rejection and a few form rejections. I submitted some more poems, but sub calls are kind of quiet lately.

Brother and my niece are in town, so that’s fun!

Works in Progress:

I’m editing something that was accepted to an anthology with an as-yet-unannounced table of contents, and I continue writing extreme horror novel In the Dollhouse We All Wait. I should hit 40K words tonight. I think it’ll end up around 70-80K words in the end. I slowed down due to vaccinations, a bad period with really bad period cramps, and now with family in town, but I’ll be back to 5K a day starting Monday and should finish the novel by the end of the month. I’m alternating between loving it and hating it, which is pretty typical, and I think once I clean it up in edits in the new year, I’ll like it more.

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire
The First Five Minutes of the Apocalypse edited by Brandon Applegate
This World Belongs to Us edited by Michael W. Phillips, Jr.

Music I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Unfriended
Haunt
Oculus
Us
Get Out
Jennifer’s Body
Cello
Wishing Stairs

Halloween Wars series
Halloween Baking Championships series
Outrageous Pumpkins series
Buffy the Vampire Slayer series
Scream Queens series
Kitchen Nightmares series
America’s Got Talent series (caught up, WTF with that finale)
Good Bones series

Poem of the Week:

A plague came to the house on Sunday.
It started as fatigue, a slow puddling
faint on the linoleum tile, outstretched
arm reaching for the counter edge or
a phone, but the cat settled next to
the slow, kindling fever drooling from
open mold mouth and dribbling from
mucus-thick nose and eyes and ears.
Wake up from fever dream to fever dream,
condensation on windowpanes from sudden
change in temperature, your hot flashes
their own weather system. Cat left,
too hot and wrinkle-faced against the
smell of you, seeping through pores
and from orifice. Gag, retch, vomit,
shit, a new puddle on the floor.
Burning the wick and melting the fat
from the inside out, fever a fire,
and the day outside sunny and bright.
A plague came to the house on Sunday.

Tasting Salt: Friday Update

13 Friday Oct 2023

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

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Tags

arms race, crystal lake entertainment, crystal lake shallow waters, extreme horror, feast, girl dinner, halloween, injury, novel, poem, Poetry, published, puppeteer, question not my salt, thanksgiving, the thorns series, torrid waters

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

News:

So I have absolutely wonderful news that I’ve been sitting on until we finalized the contract, but my short novel Question Not My Salt is going to be published in 2024 through the new Crystal Lake Entertainment extreme horror imprint Torrid Waters.

Texas Chain Saw Massacre + Hannibal by way of The Menu, this isn’t just girl dinner—it’s family dinner. Come for Thanksgiving. Stay for the Feast.

Now, this is unflinchingly extreme horror, which means blood, guts, sex, gore, and a bucket full of content warnings, so it’s not for the squeamish. I’ll provide more details as we get closer to the release. But this is my first non-self-published novel through this name (erotic romance is a different kind of business, so what’s written under my other name is not comparable). It still feels surreal that I can say that someone else is publishing my book.

My dense submerged horror story “Arms Race,” finalist in the Crystal Lake Shallow Waters flash fiction contest, was posted on Wednesday. The contest is still going with Boat/Ship/Sub horror, and reading and voting is a lot of fun, worth the $5 tier.

There’s a release party for The Book of Queer Saints Vol 2 on October 30, with live readings. (I’m an alternate.) If you’d like a pre-Halloween celebration, this is a great place to listen to some excellent queer horror.

And of course, as shared in the previous post, Puppeteer (Thorns Book 4), is officially out as an e-book (Amazon, all other vendors). Now’s a great time to get into the Thorns series, because book five is off to its editors and will be coming out May next year for a mid-series conclusion.

No luck with the short story collection or a short story that was shortlisted and rejected right on the margin, both which were really disappointing. I’m still not entirely sure whether I should break up the collection and sell piecemeal or hold it together until the new year. I just submitted one of the poems to a call, so I guess I’ll see. (On a side note, the portfolio I sent has some of the best poems I’ve written, and it’s striking how I’ve improved as a poet. It’s going to be deflating when they’re likely rejected, but *shrugs* such is the job.)

In personal news, I selected a physical therapist, so I’m headed to PT next Monday. I’ve never done PT before—new experience. I’m worried about pain, but hopefully they can help me with my gait once I get out of the support boot again, and I’ll have some real guidance on how to take care of myself, even though I’d hoped to heal on my own (much cheaper). The muscle pain in both legs from a few weeks ago has calmed down. I’m still careful, but at least I’m not despairing. I didn’t realize how bad it was until things got better.

My personal goal of finishing unfinished TV shows continues. I knocked Under the Banner of Heaven and season 1 of Interview with the Vampire off my list, and I’ll continue AHS: Cult next.

Works in Progress:

No rest for the wicked. I finished the Meridian Book 4 edits and submitted it to the publishing house (accepted, since it was part of a series and they get first refusal, but they haven’t refused me yet).

I wrote two short pieces and polished them for submissions.

Now I’m working on my next horror novel, which is even more extreme than QNMS, so I’m intimidated by it and prone to procrastination. Still, I’d like to reach 20K words on In the Dollhouse We All Wait by the end of the weekend. Not sure at this point how long it’s going to be. I’m estimating somewhere in the 70K-word region, but it really could go either way.

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire
The First Five Minutes of the Apocalypse edited by Brandon Applegate
This World Belongs to Us edited by Michael W. Phillips, Jr.

Music I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist
Haunted Mansion ambience music

Things I’m Watching:

Muppet Haunted Mansion
Rob Zombie’s Halloween
The Haunted Mansion (2003)
Interview with the Vampire series (caught up)
Halloween Wars series
Halloween Baking Championships series
Outrageous Pumpkins series
Buffy the Vampire Slayer series
Scream Queens series
Under the Banner of Heaven series (finished)
Kitchen Nightmares series

Poem of the Week:

say you want the healing to begin
but you offer no salve
no salvation
no service administration
you don’t want peace
doesn’t matter if
people are in pieces
as long as it’s
quiet

“Lullaby”

02 Sunday Oct 2022

Posted by amandamblake in Short Stories

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

cemetery, crow's quill, cryptkeepers, halloween, horror, lullaby, lyrics, quill and crow, short story, slice of life

My slice-of-horror-life short story “Lullaby,” about a cemetery groundskeeper who tends the returning dead, is in this month’s Cryptkeeper issue of THE CROW’S QUILL. For a quiet Halloween read, go here.

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