News:

Nothing to see here, other than fact that it seems appropriate that I’m finally watching all the Omen movies around the time of Damien’s birthday (which my nephew shares). I’d only ever seen the 2006 remake prior to this (it’s largely faithful to the original and I actually appreciate it more after watching the original), but I wanted to watch the rest of the franchise before tackling The First Omen, which I hear good things about.

Works in Progress:

I finished May Cooler Heads Prevail at 21,633 words. I still can’t say whether it’s a novelette or novella, since it could go either way in edits. I’m really pleased to have that concept story written and waiting for me when I’m ready to work on it again.

I then proceeded to throw my previous schedule out the window to attempt writing and editing a full alternative-history gothic novel, Masque, before the end of the month. I’m doing it to try to make a novel submission call, but also for myself. This story has been with me for years, probably since the mid-2010s. I’ve put off writing it all these years because it was one of those ideas where I would think, I’m not ready for this one yet. I need to cook more as a writer before I even try. I still have stories like that, and I’ve had stories that I tried to write before I gave myself time to cook.

I’m not sure whether I’m ready, but I’m 25K words in and still going strong. It helps that I wrote a comprehensive outline, which I think I will do for every story going forward so I can see where I’m going without having to hold the whole story in my head at all times. I just don’t have the attention bandwidth for that anymore, so my methods have to change. But the timing couldn’t be better, because it occurred to me while I was writing that I would not have been in the best position to write a plague story prior to COVID. I can and have read about plagues, but going through a pandemic answers questions you don’t think to ask and don’t always know where to find the answers.

The other wonderful thing about this story is that I’m going full-out gothic prose, with long sentences and giant paragraph blocks, whatever my heart desires. I cut my teeth on 18th and 19th century literature, and even Stephen King was of a more elaborate and gothic style for his time. The way I think very much resembles how these stories’ syntax was structured. I’ll clean and tighten it up in edits, of course, but it’s been fun letting the style run wild for now.

I’m going for my usual 5K words per day that I try to do for a novel. In theory, banging this novel out is entirely doable, depending on how much longer it is than my initial estimate of 100K words. As usual, we’ll just have to see.

Part of the reason for writing the novel instead of editing Crooked House (Thorns 5) is the frustration that I am still not employed and cannot yet spare the formatting costs. But as soon as Masque is completed, I’ll start Crooked House‘s final edits anyway. I may or may not be able to tackle a short story before the conclusion of a June call, but I can’t promise anything, and the story for it is more undefined than I’d like.

Books I’m Reading:

Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin
The Tommyknockers by Stephen King

Things I’m Listening To:

Pop playlist
The Village soundtrack
Knowing soundtrack
Sacrificium Instrumental Versions by Xandria
Nightwish

Things I’m Watching:

The Omen (1976)
The Exorcist: Believer
Pearl
Five Nights at Freddy’s
Damien: Omen II
Omen III: The Final Conflict
Omen IV: The Awakening
Summer Baking Championship series
The Amazing Race series
CSI series
CSI: Miami series
CSI: NY series
9-1-1 series

Poem of the Week:

no matter what you do
whether you spin the world
off axis
untether sky
from earth
steal worth
from paper and precious metals
stain great lakes red
marry the newly freshly dead
you can always count
on family
to stand with you
at the altar