Not a damn thing. Wondering if I need to reassess strategies, goals, hopes, dreams, or maybe just expectations. Been doing this for twenty years. That’s a long time to spin my wheels. I might just be tired.
Works in Progress:
If I continue at my current pace, I should finish the first round of In the Dollhouse We All Wait edits tomorrow evening. Editing is less emotionally draining than writing, because I’m more immersed in the story when I’m writing, mentally living it more and for longer periods of time (because of course I write slower than I read). However, the more extreme parts of this story are still a bit rough to get through while editing, although it affects me in less obvious ways.
I’m really not sure how this book will be received or what place it can hold in my oeuvre, but the point now is just getting it in fighting shape.
During the second round, I’ll write the synopsis. Then I’ll put together the pitch after. I’m not positive I’ll finish before Texas Frightmare, but I should finish before PitDark.
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:
The Gray Man The Judge Mr. Bates vs the Post Office series CSI: Miami series CSI: NY series NCIS series NCIS: Hawai’i series American Idol series Spring Baking Championship series (finished) Murder, She Wrote series
Poem of the Week:
give me gold gild in a baroque style a grand chandelier crystallizing rainbows and champagne flutes stroked to make the phantom weep
My leg still isn’t back to normal. I don’t think it ever will be, or at least not for a long time. Can’t go to an orthopedist again until I have insurance, but I suspect that the original injury didn’t heal right and the chunk of muscle remains atrophied, while all the other muscles continue to overwork in compensation. However, I’m at a point where I really need to start doing some kind of aerobic exercise for health reasons, and the secondary injury seems to have finally calmed down. I’m going to try to get back on the elliptical at the absolute lowest resistance. It’s possible I just may not be able to walk around well without shoes. I guess I can live with that.
Two weeks ago, I said I’d include the link to the Citywide Blackout interview about Question Not My Salt, which was a great deal of fun, and I read an excerpt from the story, but I forgot to include it in last week’s update. So here it is.
My storm story “The Glitter of Bile” is featured in this month’s Cosmic Horror Monthly with Hailey Piper and Evelyn Freeling. It’s ultimately a COVID story, vile little cloud notwithstanding.
My piece “Second Chance” will be in this month’s Resurrection-themed Crystal Lake Shallow Waters flash fiction contest. There are twenty stories featured this month, so it should be a real treat. Barring complication, “Second Chance” should post on May 13.
In negative news, I think this month was the first since I started publishing with Totally Entwined under my other namein the previous decade that I received absolutely no royalties. So if you’re into spicier horror romance and dark urban fantasy, check out my Arcanium and Meridian series. Arcanium (series complete) brings together my two favorite horror tropes: ‘careful what you wish for’ and demonic circus/carnival. Meridian (series in progress, standalones) is in the vein of Supernatural and Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel, set in a fictional Texas city. Arcanium is darker, but Meridian should still be a lot of fun. Fourth Meridian novel is coming out later this year,
Works in Progress:
The Meridian Book 7 novel I thought I’d never be able to write, Tooth & Claw, is finally finished at 95,287 words total (which includes outline and more false starts, so remove about 5K for the real total). It’s such a relief to have that done and dusted and in my Meridian folder ready for editing when I come to it. I also wrote out the outline for the last book, Rack & Ruin, which I’ll tackle in November. That takes plotting off my plate when I get there, which is another relief, because I know I’ll have the story all ready.
I also had some intense inspiration for two separate anthology calls during one of my walks, so I decided to do an experiment where I wrote both short stories at the same time, kind of doing a section here and a section there, to see if that worked for me. It did not. I eventually had to focus on one to its conclusion, then work on the second. But I did get both of them written. And for now, I’m on track for my modest goal of one short story and one flash piece average for the year.
With all of these things out of the way, I’ve started my editing of In the Dollhouse We All Wait. Goal is to get it down from 116K words to under 90K by the end of the second edit, and to get it all done before Texas Frightmare on the weekend of May 17—the earlier the better, of course—because PitDark is on May 23 this year. I hope to be pitching In the Dollhouse (extreme horror), A Woman Alone (erotic horror), and We All Follow in the Dark (regular horror).
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:
FeardotCom I Spit on Your Grave (2010) Haunted Mansion (2023) Robin Hood (Disney) Yellowbrickroad CSI: Miami series CSI: NY series American Idol series Spring Baking Championship series Hometown series Murder, She Wrote series
Poem of the Week:
there is ecstasy in mourning violence in grief and a terrible endlessness to the numbness of absence
the heart does grow fonder but finds no purchase in what is no longer there unrequited love never found
My short story “Swallowed” was posted for this month’s Crystal Lake Shallow Waters flash fiction contest, themed Trick ‘r Treat. So if spooky season doesn’t last long enough for you, celebrate an extended Halloween all through November with this month’s stories. ($5 tier and up)
Under Her Eye: A Woman in Poetry Showcase Vol II came out this week. Under Her Eye is a charity anthology of domestic horror poetry. A portion of the sales goes to an international organization to end violence against women. I don’t sell a ton of poetry (it’s a really difficult market), but I’m honored to have my poem “A Woman Possessed” as a part of this anthology.
I also received news that Dear Human at the Edge of Time, a collection of poems about climate change, received the 2023 Best Book Award in the Poetry Anthology category. My poem “Displaced” was a part of this one.
Sad news to report, though. Quill & Crow Publishing’s gothic horror magazine The Crow’s Quill is ending after December. They really helped give me my start with shorter pieces, so it’s disappointing that they’re closing. The zines should remain available for at least another year for 2022 issues and two years for 2023 issues, and they’re free to read.
In more sad news, that portfolio of some of the best poems I’ve written didn’t get taken up, but I did get a personalized note on one them, so that was decent. I had to sit in my unhappiness for a while and wrote another poem to feel better.
On the leg injury front, I continue to have improvement by following all my exercises, and I can tell the lower part of my lower leg is stronger than the last time I reached this point in my healing, but I’m still struggling with my gait while barefoot. I’m a hair away from normal, though, when I’m wearing shoes. I have new exercises to do, and I’ve been cleared to use the elliptical machine again for up to fifteen minutes every other day, which I’m super excited about.
My PT always exclaims how hyperflexible my feet are when I go up on my toes, unusually so, like ballerina feet, and he asks me if I’m hyperflexible everywhere else. I have some double-jointed fingers, but no. I’m just ridiculously elated that I’m flexible in at least one area of my body. Going the other way, flexing my toes back toward my knees, the foot on my injured leg only reaches half as far as my left, but it’s an improvement. It didn’t used to bend past ninety degrees at all.
Works in Progress:
I finished In the Dollhouse We All Wait on November 5, total word count of 116,160 words. It was significantly longer than anticipated, given that I’d forecast about 70-80K words. I’ll have to cut it down significantly, I think—at least under 90K if I want to try to send it off to places that accept extreme horror. But as I opined last time, I’m not sure how I feel about this story and how ugly it is in a very specific way. I accomplished certain things that I set out to do, among which was writing an absolutely awful woman villain, because we need more of them. Even so, I’m not sure what place this story has. However, sometimes writing something hits as more extreme than the reading of it, because I’m more immersed in the world rather than with a barrier of a page. In any case, I’m shelving it for a while to get other writing projects done, like I usually do with projects to get some perspective for edits.
The next day, I immediately turned around and started Lost & Alone, intending it to be the sixth book in the Meridian series under my other name, but I’d already anticipated that it might end up too short for the series. It would need to be at least above 70K after edits, during which I usually make significant cuts to the word count, and I’m not sure it’s even going to cross 60K here. If that’s the case, I’ll reconfigure it as a standalone novella. It’s the least Meridian-y of the Meridian novels, since it’s a prequel set well before Meridian becomes a bustling urban center. Like, oh no, I have a stray novella to sell…say it ain’t so.
It does mean that I’ll probably have to add another Meridian novel to my writing line-up this year as I wrap up my writing sabbatical, which is not ideal. Really wish I had another year to work on the long things on my docket, but I just don’t know how. I’m also dreading heading back into the general workforce. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, I tend to not feel like a competent and capable human being, so I’m worried I’m going to screw things up, on multiple levels.
As far as general NaNoWriMo word counts go, I’m at 48K and heading for crossing the 50K line today after finishing this post, which puts me on schedule with a little cushion, if needed.
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:
Nocturne playlist Taylor Swift Joanne by Lady Gaga Jordin Sparks debut Kerosene by Miranda Lambert Kill the One You Love by GEMS Kill the Sun by Xandria Laced/Unlaced by Emilie Autumn Princess Pepper playlists on YT Don’t Panic! playlists on YT My Witchy Diary playlists on YT
Things I’m Watching:
Exorcist: The Beginning Alien vs. Predator Blade Blade II Blade: Trinity Halloween Wars series (completed) Halloween Cookie Challenge series (completed) Halloween Baking Championships series (completed) Outrageous Pumpkins series (completed) Great British Baking Show series Buffy the Vampire Slayer series Scream Queens series Kitchen Nightmares series Good Bones series Hoarders series Helix series NCIS series
Poem of the Week:
sometimes i see her the daughter that never will be sometimes i argue with her despair of what a bad mother i am sometimes i hold her in my arms after reading a book to her that i always wanted to share sometimes i want space from her but then i remember that she never was and never will be and i’m sad i’ll never know her she’ll always just be a voice a baby a child a teenager an adult that could have been
The Book of Queer Saints Volume II is officially out, as of Halloween. “Caregiver” is getting some great shout-outs in the reviews so far.
The release party was the day before, and because one of the readers wasn’t able to join us, I stepped in as alternate to do my first full reading, which was really exciting and a bit nerve-wracking, but it reminded me a lot of doing monologues back in theater, and I love reading stories out loud in general. It’s an intense, seething story, but the other four readers had funny stories full of delightful slash and splatter, so I didn’t bring down the mood too much. It was wonderful to see everyone and was surprisingly social, so I was exhausted afterward, but in a good way.
In addition, Dragon’s Roost Press released the table of contents for The Pleasure in Pain: A Queer Horrotica Anthology, edited by Roxie Voorhees, which has my story “Graphite,” about a transient graffiti artist and illustrator adding her work to an urban legend legacy. It will be coming out, rather appropriately, on February 13, 2024. I love that erotic horror is having another moment. Sex and death have often been paired in the genre, but there’s a difference between erotic horror and just sex in horror. There’s been an abundance of the latter and not a lot of the former since Clive Barker and Poppy Z. Brite. But now we have many emergent voices merging horror with sex. More sexy body horror, please! There’s a reason I write erotic horror romance under my other name. (Different monster than erotic horror, but it’s in the same family if you do it right.)
Works in Progress:
We’re in National Novel Writing Month 2023! I don’t limit myself to one work during NaNo. I combine all word counts of however many long projects I’m working on. In this case, I didn’t finished In the Dollhouse We All Wait by the end of October, which makes me sad, because I didn’t get a reading break. It’s ended up about 30K words more than predicted, which means I don’t really know what I’m going to do with it. I still haven’t finished at over 100K words. To be fair, I hadn’t figured out how to properly end it until the literal eleventh hour last night, right when I had to make that decision. So now, at least I have a direction to write.
After Dollhouse, I have two novels intended for my other name, because erotic horror romance flows really well and suits the word count needs of NaNo. Ideally, I’d finish one (that might end up a novella and reconfigured for this name’s use) and get a lot done on the other, if not all. My goal word count is 150K words, which is 5K words a day. It’s already beginning to wear on me, because I started at that daily word count for Dollhouse, but my brain, while tired, also feels kind of good with it.
We’ll see if I can manage this pace all through November and possibly December, because unless I win some kind of lottery, my working sabbatical runs out at the end of the year. Ideally, I’d have another year to work on long projects, since this year has been all about short works, but I don’t have the finances to support that, and the writing world is glutted with crowdfunding, so without something concrete to offer, that’s not an option.
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 Nocturne playlist
Things I’m Watching:
Sleepy Hollow Goosebumps: The Haunted Mask Hocus Pocus Trick ‘r Treat Deliver Us From Evil Goosebumps (2015) Halloween Wars series Halloween Cookie Challenge series Halloween Baking Championships series Outrageous Pumpkins series Buffy the Vampire Slayer series Scream Queens series Kitchen Nightmares series Good Bones series Helix series
Poem of the Week:
slaughter whole lines of words fell trees to populate your lies, but screams and cries and tumbling roof and walls, burning smoke choking and stripping to raw nerve are a greater testimony than your desperate diplomatic spin. More than that, the more careful calls from inside the house, and the voices abruptly silenced.
Finally got the paperback for Puppeteer (Thorns 4) up on Amazon, so I should be able to share my Puppeteer playlist here soon when I get a minute.
My very short story “Sight Unseen” is out now in Novus Monstrum from Dragon’s Roost Press. I’ve written some pretty nasty things in my time, but “Sight Unseen” is what one might call ‘cozy horror.’ The editor’s eleven-year-old niece was a big fan, and I told my parents that this was one they could read. Sometimes I just like to write a nice spooky story. I think a lot of people of my generation who just want to be able to afford a house will really appreciate this one.
“Caregiver” seems to be doing well in advanced reviews for The Book of Queer Saints Volume II, including in this review in Ghouls Magazine. The QS2 ebook is actually available for pre-order now, to be delivered to your Kindle on October 31 for Halloween.
Yesterday, I took part in my first Twitter pitch party, PitDark, which is specifically for horror and horror-adjacent works. I’d witnessed them in the past but hadn’t had a finished project to pitch. It’s not ideal with Twitter as it is now, and due to the fact that it mines tweets for AI use, but I really wanted to give it a shot. Honestly, pitches in general are very similar in structure even when people do them, and I’m not too fussed about AI knowing how to do it, too. It’s the flash poetry I share that’s more of a problem. I don’t know what I’m going to do about that. If I put them in an image, it’s common courtesy to include ALT text, but then the ALT text can be mined… What a minefield.
However, as far as the pitch party goes, I did end up getting some like-requests for both things that I pitched. It’s no guarantee of anything, but it’s still pretty cool to have interest.
In real-life news, I’ve had two physical therapy sessions, and my therapist gave me exercises to do at home to help between sessions. The first session, I had a lot of weakness and resultant pain, but just a week later with the exercises, my strength has improved a lot, and differently than healing without the exercises. I’m out of the boot again and can walk almost normally in shoes. Still struggling barefoot, especially on hard floors, but my legs are definitely in a better state to support the injured muscle, and my gait is a little smoother than it was pre-reinjury. I’ll be back to PT in two weeks, and I have new exercises to do, so we’ll see where we are then.
I also finished another trip around the sun, and I’m closer to forty than I feel I should be. I don’t particularly like birthdays or New Year’s. I’m always so disappointed with where I am. My writing is about all I have to be proud of at any given time. However, regardless of how I feel, I can still enjoy the best doughnuts in the DFW area, have a wonderful birthday dinner and eclair cake, and plan for a pedicure next month (so a broken toenail can heal, no relation to the leg injury).
Works in Progress:
I’m still working on In the Dollhouse We All Wait, hoping to hit 70K tonight. I entered in my last few chapter names, so the end is actually in sight, although I’m still not positive how the last chapter is going to go. I have options, but I’ll probably decide when I get there. I’m still hoping to finish before the end of the month. Before Halloween would be even better, so I can have a short break before hitting NaNoWriMo, when I’m planning to finish two novels, even though I’ll probably have some edits to do in between meeting word counts.
Two novels in November for other name, and maybe two novels in December, for other name and mine? It’ll all depend on the editing demands, really.
However, although I went into it knowing that it would be very extreme horror, I think I’ve decided that ITDWAW is a very ugly story. There’s not even much in the way of humor. I think Question Not My Salt has a little delight to be found, but not Dollhouse. And maybe there’s a place for very ugly stories, but I don’t know how I feel about writing it right now. I want to finish it, no question, especially when I’m so close and the writing is moving smoothly, but I don’t know when I’ll get back to it for edits.
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 Thorns series playlists Hannibal playlist
Things I’m Watching:
The Menu The Exorcist The Great British Baking Show series Halloween Wars series Halloween Baking Championships series Outrageous Pumpkins series Buffy the Vampire Slayer series Scream Queens series Kitchen Nightmares series Good Bones series Helix series
Poem of the Week:
Submerge in slime, surrounded by gross. A person can get used to anything. A rhyming verse stripped of its second, taboo of the perverse becoming normal when no longer forbidden fruit— cruelty easier than you might believe of yourself.
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.
Amanda M. Blake 