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The great American road trip from house to home: Friday Update

04 Friday Sep 2026

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This is a year of milestones. Because of working the grocery shopping gig and trekking back and forth from home to where I’m house-sitting (a little farther than the last place where I house-sat), I crossed 100K miles on my car. Miss Emma may be getting up there in car years, but she’s doing well, all things considered. Can’t say the same for the one driving her and the milestone quickly catching up to her in the next few months. I feel like I’m starting to fall apart; human body maintenance is even more demanding than car body maintenance.

News:

Nothing this week. I’m taking a few months off from working the Shallow Waters themes. I wasn’t happy with the last story. It was fine. Fine. But it didn’t excite me or make me proud. That tells me to step away for a bit. Still reading the finalists every month, though. It’s a lot of fun.

Works in Progress:

I started the We Follow You in the Dark rewrite. Although things were a little shaky to start out with, because there were still some questions I hadn’t answered yet in my head, I think I’ve ironed those things out. I’m looking forward to how the character changes will alter the story, which is a good sign. I think any clumsiness in this rewrite can be fixed in the edit.

Got a rejection on that short story collection. That kind of hurt, even though I was expecting it. The longer works always hurt a little more. I’ve been getting a lot of rejections lately in general. Doesn’t help that the horror short story market has contracted, which means more people are fighting for fewer anthology spots.

Books I’m Reading:

The Jackal Man by Russell C. Connor
Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman (finished)
The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson

Things I’m Listening To:

Let’s Hear It for the Girls playlist
Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

The Whisper Man
Nope
Ready or Not
The Closer series
America’s Got Talent series
Hawaii Five-O series
The Rookie series
The Following series

Poem of the Week: (throwback to Sept 2022)

i cannot emphasize too strongly
the catastrophic slide of civilization
that was always a tenuous veneer
and now slips down the face of it
like wax in a climate crisis
a collective effort undercut
by an individualistic myopia
and a sense that freedom
never meant sacrifice
on every level but rather
from the undesirables
of which there should be none
in no world is the eagle
more important than the ant

Where’s the love: Friday Update

17 Friday Apr 2026

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After a lot more time at the car place than I would have liked and eventually having to get a loaner car, and after way more money than I wanted to spend, my car has working a/c again and safety elements have been fixed. That’s still been my stress landscape for this last week, but hopefully I’m over that hill and I can start replenishing my coffers.

News:

I did an interview with Don Anelli for In the Dollhouse We All Wait at his blog Don’s Horror Reads. He also wrote a solid review for Dollhouse.

Ian Gielen also reviewed Dollhouse for Memento Mori Ink Magazine.

By and large, the review response seems to be that it’s definitely extreme and harsh to get through, but it’s more than gruesome gore and torture; there’s a psychological horror element and attention to characterization that keeps readers going. Which is what I was going for, so I’m thrilled.

“Changing Room,” a story set in my nineties era and mall life, was included in Squirm Books’ queer anthology Skin Deep, which came out on the 13th.

Works in Progress:

I spent Monday and Wednesday cleaning out my closet and setting up my new shelving unit for books. I’ve never assembled furniture before, and I’m surprised and proud of how well it went. I have more cleaning to do, but my walk-in closet is now a walk-in again, and I get to look at my pretty books and know exactly what I have. I also found my sixth grade(!) copy of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which I need for an essay I want to write and I wasn’t able to find before (which is part of the reason why I wanted to get my books out of the closet; other reason is that the shelving in there was made for storage, not books).

I watched the latest season of Hoarders to ready myself for the process. It’s not only motivating, but it prepared me for throwing out a bin of clothes from the attic that appeared (and smelled) to have been peed on by a rodent or two. I saved one shirt that didn’t have any pee stains, and it seems to be okay after washing, but the rest really needed to go. Not one likes waste, but I’m not comfortable donating things that have been peed on, even after a wash.

I’m genetically predisposed to some hoarding behavior, fighting that all the time. Sometimes, however, it gets out of my control, and it’s hard to find time to fix it that I wouldn’t rather devote to writing. I managed to keep the mess mostly out of sight this time, but it made getting things from my closet difficult. Without a writing project, I have no other excuse but to tidy.

Yesterday I received the final line edits for Never & Forever (Meridian Book 8), so I’ll be working on that for the next week and finish out the closet cleaning afterward. Then I’ll apply myself to May Cooler Heads Prevail edits.

Books I’m Reading:

I’m Sorry If I Scared You by Mae Murray (finished)
Skeleton Crew by Stephen King

Things I’m Listening To:

Singalong playlist
Lily Kershaw

Things I’m Watching: (I am a multi-faceted weirdo)

Frankenstein (2025)
Spiral
Hostel: Part III
Cinderella (Brandy)
Cinderella (Disney 1950)
Longlegs
Sinners
Under Paris
Power Rangers: Reignition series
Goosebumps (1995) series
Ghosts (US) series
Elsbeth series
True Haunting series
Prodigal Son series

Poem of the Week: (throwback to April 2022)

The placid white clouds
have all turned gray.
The streets of pearl
have shattered away.
What happened to
these Elysian fields
to fade to brown
from the final seals?
Feathers floating
down from above.
Send in the crows
instead of the dove.

White noise: Friday Update

27 Friday Mar 2026

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I’ve had some pretty alarming symptoms of incipient burnout, including crashing out at least once, between personal and global concerns. As though in sympathy, one of my tires burst just a few months after fixing another wheel issue. Instead of medical fees, my bank account is suffering from tire and wheel replacements.

Writing work is like pulling teeth. No sleep is enough. I haven’t worked out in over a month, if you don’t count playing pickleball. I do know that I have to take a rest and soon, or else something in my brain or body is going to break instead.

News:

In the Dollhouse We All Wait has been doing pretty well in Amazon ratings and in preliminary reviews, considering the subject matter.

Works in Progress:

Just finished the first round of edits from my publisher for Never & Forever (Meridian Book 8). Last week, we had family in town, which is wonderful but exhausting, and it made finishing the work really difficult. I promised it by this week, though, and delivered. I have the proofreading round left to go. Then I’ll be done with the book and the series. I’m ready to be done, but I’m not ready for the Meridian-verse to be over, which means I can’t win.

Probably from now until I get the proofreading back, I’ll mostly read and get A Nightmare for All Seasons out there once I have the cover/paperback wrap. Maybe run through the Dracula reimagining one more time to tweak a few things that crossed my mind. Only when Meridian is over will I head into May Cooler Heads Prevail.

But seriously, though, post-Meridian, I need to have no deadlines for a while. Just everything in its own time, if at all.

Books I’m Reading:

Raising Loki: A Memoir by Elliot Manarin
The Shining by Stephen King
Skeleton Crew by Stephen King

Things I’m Listening To:

GEMS
Sea Stars
Cajsa Silk
Meridian playlist
Let’s Hear It for the Girls playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Pig
Abigail
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come
Celebrity Jeopardy series
Matlock (new) series
Queer Eye series
Watson series
Tracker series
Prodigal Son series
Home Town series

Poem of the Week:

The soil has opinions on the fertilizer,
the buds an argument over optimal sunlight,
while the wasps and bees do battle for
pollination rights and the aphids object to marigolds.
Rats wait in the wings for dead of night,
while hornworms munch through screaming fruit.

Melting: Saturday Update

31 Saturday Jan 2026

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I’m late again this week, but in my defense, I had no idea yesterday was Friday until after midnight today. Had the whole week off from work because most of that white in the picture above isn’t snow. It’s sleet. Ice takes a lot longer to melt down than snow, because the snow melts and solidifies to ice on top of the existing ice… I didn’t feel safe leaving the house until Friday, which is usually a day off for me, and even then, I worked during the day instead of afternoon/evening. All my schedules are off. I should be back to normal by next week.

News:

I can finally share the cover for In the Dollhouse We All Wait, and it’s freaking amazing. The artwork is by David Kozlovsky, and I got to get a glimpse of his sketches as he worked. I’m blessed beyond measure, as they say, to have indie horror art for Dollhouse.

I finished the final proofreading round of edits, thanks to the Icepocalypse, and I’ve been given an official release date of April 10, 2026.

Works in Progress:

After finishing the proofreading round for Dollhouse, I edited and submitted my flash fiction to Shallow Waters, then got hit with a short story idea for something with a deadline mid-February. I think the concept is better than the execution right now, but I’m still striving to finish, because maybe the execution can be fixed in edits. I would have liked to use the Icepocalypse to work on my double edit of Never & Forever (Meridian Book 8), but the timing just wasn’t right, sadly. The deadline for Dollhouse was much harder than the tentative deadline for the N&F edits. I’ll really have to buckle down when I finish this short story, though.

Books I’m Reading:

Raising Loki: A Memoir by Elliot Manarin
The Shining by Stephen King
Skeleton Crew by Stephen King

Things I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist

Things I’m Watching:

My Norwegian Holiday
Bugonia
What Lies Beneath
The Bone Collector
Dante’s Peak
Truth or Dare (2017)
9-1-1 series
9-1-1: Nashville series
Stranger Things series (finished)
Elsbeth series
Resident Alien series

Poem of the Week:

It is relief
not to feel
relief
I love
not to feel
love
a monstrous sensation
to feel monstrous
and not recoil
from my coils
give me cold blood
and armored scales
steal feeling
’til heart beats
still

Two turtledoves: Friday Update

26 Friday Dec 2025

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News:

Question Not My Salt has received its 100th rating on Goodreads. I’ve never cracked forty on anything solo I’ve ever written, so that’s a big deal for me. I’m so grateful for everyone who’s helped make QNMS the gross little wonder that it is.

I just signed the contract for a spot in the spring edition of Ghoulish Magazine, which is one of my dream publications still left, with a weird short story, “For a Good Time,” that I think pretty much started my short story run in 2021 and triggered all the work I’ve done for Bathroom Omens, my bathroom horror collection that will come out as soon as “Glory to God” rights revert back to me in a few years.

Works in Progress:

I had to work really hard on the grocery shopping front to meet a promotion designed to have shoppers working as much as possible through Christmas Eve. I was able to stop after a batch of three orders on Christmas Eve, but prior to that, I busted my butt, and now I am tired. The promotion has allowed me to take the rest of the week off, if I want.

I haven’t done any writing work, although the Dracula reimagining is sitting open on my desktop. I’ll probably wait until Monday to start, honestly. I’m in dire need of a break, and I’m reading The Shining for the season. Still Christmas in my eyes; twelve days of it, after all.

I’ll have another break New Year’s Eve through January 2. Maybe I’ll knuckle down on it then. The way I’m planning it, 2026 is going to be a calmer writing year, because I’ve been going pretty hard for twenty-five years now. Between my two names, I have over thirty published novels and lots of short stories. Like I said, I’m tired.

I’ll do my usual retrospective on New Year’s Eve or Day.

Books I’m Reading:

Raising Loki: A Memoir by Elliot Manarin
Rose Madder by Stephen King (finished)
The Shining by Stephen King

Things I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Holiday in the Wild
Santa Girl
Krampus
It’s a Wonderful Life
A Castle for Christmas
The Santa Clause
9-1-1: Nashville series
Ghosts (US) series
Transplant series
CSI: NY series (finished)
Twelve Dates ’til Christmas series
Holiday Baking Championship series
Sweet Empire: Winter Wars series (finished)
Great British Baking Show series

Poem of the Week: (throwback to 2023)

not looking for
truth or beauty
tonight
turn off the light
i’ll take a
pregnant silence
to spoken violence
if i don’t have
to see
we don’t have
to know
let’s go

With bells on: Friday Update

12 Friday Dec 2025

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This week has been chaotic, car-wise. My car radio hasn’t worked since October, when my car battery died and I had to have a new one put in. I didn’t know how to fix it, so I’ve been listening to iHeartRadio here and there, but mostly nothing. Car people told me how to put in the code to get the radio back. Damn, I’ve missed having music in the car when it turned on.

But I mainly brought the car in to get my headlights replaced. I drive four to five hours in the dark on working days, so it’s really important to have working headlights. They actually tried to get me to believe that my daytime running lights were the headlights and they were very convincing. If they hadn’t known about cars, the logic would have totally made sense. But they do know about cars, so I don’t know how they couldn’t see that the daytime running lights and the brights weren’t headlights.

Had to go to another service center, which I’m pretty sure overcharged (which is why I like my usual one), but now I have headlights, and it makes such a difference. I feel much better. I have pretty good night vision (mild astigmatism notwithstanding), but side street and neighborhood driving was way too dark, even for me.

Anyway, going to a service center is hard enough to do one time. Two really took it out of me.

News:

Char’s Horror Corner reviewed Question Not My Salt. They have the review on Goodreads and Amazon, too, but I’m just really excited that she took on the story of her own accord and that she enjoyed it.

Works in Progress:

As promised, I finished Never & Forever (Meridian Book 8) on Friday night, pushing through 5K words to hit 141,538 words total. I was exhausted and collapsed to bed afterward. Then I got myself some chocolate chocolate-chip muffins, because that was hard and I’m proud I accomplished it. I’ll be taking on my usual double edits in January, as soon as I finished a few other things.

Took some time off to work and rest and do my car things, then dove right into edits of In the Dollhouse We All Wait. I have my weaknesses that the editor pointed out, but otherwise, it’s been a pretty smooth edit. I’m trying to take care of my mental health while working on it, because I can take on the despair of my character, but so far, it’s been manageable.

I keep telling myself that, however bad I write something, what actual people do with state-sanctioned blessings are worse. That doesn’t make me feel better, but it gives me some perspective. Very depressing perspective. What these last ten years and especially this last year have shown us about the worst people with too much power…

I’m aiming for reaching halfway through edits today or tomorrow.

Books I’m Reading:

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

Things I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)
A Cinderella Christmas
Christmas at the Catnip Cafe
Is It Cake? Holiday series
9-1-1: Nashville series
Ghosts (US) series
CSI: NY series
Holiday Baking Championship series
Great British Baking Show series

Poem of the Week:

you will find me under the color-fading oak
food for roots and food for thought
a cautionary tale untold until uncovered
but perhaps it is best i remain remains
unspoken and forgotten except in whispers
wondering what my ghost wants
and that we let the tree thrive where
i fell before the fall and rest
undisturbed by the turning of leaves

Fuzzy pink socks: Friday Update

05 Friday Dec 2025

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News:

Nothing to share today.

Works in Progress:

I’m going to just sit down today and try my absolute best to finish Never & Forever (Meridian Book 8). I’m at 136K words now, and I’ll probably cross 140K by the time it’s done. Anything over 110K is just exhausting, and it certainly pushed back all my plans.

I won’t be able to get May Cooler Heads Prevail out before the end of the year, because I’ve received my edits for In the Dollhouse We All Wait, which takes precedence. I’ve promised to get it back to my editor by the end of the year or a little after, and I always overestimate how fast I can do edits these days while working full time, although editing is much less mentally strenuous than writing, thank goodness, and I become less forgetful and absent-minded. On top of that, I’m in real need of rest and holidays demand that I slow down a little, for the good of myself and my family, so I have to balance everything properly. (And the week before Christmas is probably going to be just as stressful for grocery shopping work as the week before Thanksgiving.)

I’m simultaneously looking forward to working on Dollhouse and bracing myself for the way it’ll make me feel. A sensitive soul and extreme horror don’t always mix, and Dollhouse doesn’t have the same relief points that Question Not My Salt did; it’s not funny or flirty. I’ve had sympathetic reactions to a number of my other stories that are designed to be upsetting, like Puppeteer and Crooked House. Dollhouse is no different. Maybe listening to Christmas music while working on it will help, although it’ll be quite the contradiction in tone. Even I realize that listening to music of hope while editing torture is kind of weird.

Books I’m Reading:

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

Things I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist
Instrumental horror movie soundtracks

Things I’m Watching:

Ghosts (US) series
Matlock series (finished)
CSI: NY series
SWAT series (finished)
Great British Baking Show series

Poem of the Week:

what warns the witch?
a light in the unlit lantern
a twitch of the familiar’s tail
in silhouette to the cauldron fire
the broom falls from ensconced in the corner
the book parts to a cautionary spell
what warns the witch?
what warns the stranger?

Waking up tired: Friday Update

28 Friday Nov 2025

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News:

Good things happened, but nothing to share yet.

Thanksgiving went well. We had tacos, but I still made my sweet potato casserole, as is required of me. It came out really well, not quite as sweet as usual.

Works in Progress:

I’m in the penultimate section of Never & Forever (Meridian Book 8) and slowing down in general, really ready to be done. I think if I can get through this section, the rest will be gravy. I haven’t planned this section very well, but the hard part is just convincing myself to work on it. I wanted to be finished by today, which isn’t happening, in part because the novel definitely turned out much longer than anticipated.

I also can’t watch anything new or listen to Christmas music until I get this done, because I’m in an established pattern I don’t want to break (semi superstitious, related to sensory associations). I think a stressful week of grocery shopping for other people during the holiday rush (which I expected on Wednesday but not Monday and Tuesday) hasn’t helped. Before working for IC, I rarely went anywhere near retail during peak holiday shopping days. I don’t think I anticipated how it would affect me. The weekend shopping starting tomorrow should be calmer, even though I’m still bracing for impact as though it’ll still be as bad. It’s usually the busiest time of the week, but the pressure not to ruin people’s holidays won’t be there anymore.

Books I’m Reading:

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

Things I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist
Instrumental horror movie soundtracks

Things I’m Watching:

Thanksgiving
Matlock series
CSI: NY series
CSI series
SWAT series
America’s Got Talent series (finished)
Great British Baking Show series

Poem of the Week:

staggering the streets
no one comes out at night
maybe it’s the screams
crackling like dead skin
from my deteriorated throat
they lock their doors
against the dead
walking famished
in the dark

Like a normal human being: Friday Update

24 Friday Oct 2025

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To the tune of “This is Halloween”: This is 39. This is 39. 39. 39. 39. 39.

Let us not speak of it again. I’m not entirely sure what happens after 40.

News:

Tooth & Claw (Meridian Book 7) came out on October 18. A demon hunter from childhood meets a vampire and a werewolf who don’t kill, and they introduce her to a different world than the short, bleak life that she’s been raised in. This particular story was originally supposed to be a standalone, but the first two attempts to write the seventh Meridian novel didn’t work, and it shared some features with the standalone idea, so so I pulled them together to fix the problems. I’m really pleased with the result. Sort of like Skeletons (Arcanium Book 8), it’s a bit of a subversion of the usual themes in Meridian, which keeps things interesting for me.

Works in Progress:

I should reach 82K on Never & Forever (Meridian Book 8) by the end of the day. Definitely at a difficult point, but I think as long as I get it on the page, I can fix it in edits. I’m actually having a really good time, during both the spicy scenes and the regular scenes. That happens when you have characters you like hanging out with.

I need to cut down a short story this weekend, but then I should get back into N&F.

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:

Sleepy Hollow
The Haunted Mansion (2023)
Black Phone 2
SWAT series
Hannibal series
Matlock series
All Creatures Great and Small series (finished)
Is It Cake? Halloween Edition series (finished)
CSI: NY series
Halloween Wars series
Halloween Baking Championship series

Poem of the Week: (throwback to October 2023)

don’t mistake my
calm solitude and
solemn attitude
with local witch
in a moment
I can make
an abrupt and
wicked switch

Waiting for you: Friday Update

17 Friday Oct 2025

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News:

Nothing to share this week.

Works in Progress:

Never & Forever (Meridian Book 8) is definitely looking long. I wouldn’t be surprised if it went past 120K in the first draft. Nothing wrong with an ambitious novel, but it definitely tests my patience.

Taking an extra day off a week is helping, though. Usually I only take one day off a week, but October is complicated anyway, and I needed the extra 3K-word days to help me feel like I’m moving forward more. Of course, it makes me crave the days I did nothing but write and could get 21K words a week instead of 11K. I’ll survive. I’ll hit 69K by tonight. In my list of nine story beats, I’ve crossed out four, and I’m almost through five.

Can’t believe that when this novel is done, I’ll have finished writing the Meridian series. Feels like a whirlwind. That’s taken years.

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:

The Witches (1990)
The Craft: Legacy
Haunted Harmony Mysteries: Buried at C
Dracula Untold
SWAT series
Hannibal series
All Creatures Great and Small series
CSI series
CSI: NY series
Halloween Baking Championship series

Poem of the Week: (throwback to 2023)

i don’t understand
why the celebration
as we creep ever nearer
to your cruel revelation

why would you encourage
unnecessary acceleration?
long as you’re spared damn
the rest of the population

i cannot condone the
vacuous participation
in widespread violence
and genocidal devastation

all in the name of
joyful damnation
by a merciful God
of glorious creation