News:

So I got my dates mixed up for The Devil Take You from Sentinel Creatives, which includes my short story “The Plank in Thine Own.” The Kickstarter opened on Monday, so you can get your book through that, plus some great perks if they reach their stretch goals. Sentinel Creatives go out of their way to create immersive experiences, so they do audiobooks and soundtracks, and it’s really pretty neat.

Last month was my first time properly on sub with a novel since my early twenties. I received my first novel rejection this week. It’s not exciting, but it’s all part of the process, and being a part of that process is exciting. I’ll continue to try to shop around with it to appropriate novel/novella calls (there’s a new imprint that looks like a good fit), but because it’s a weird length—novella by some standards and very short novel by others—I don’t know whether it’s a great piece to sub to agents. At the very least, I have it there in my trunk, as needed.

Otherwise, things are pretty quiet on this particular front. I have handfuls of short stories on sub but probably won’t hear back on them until September and October.

Works in Progress:

I finished Crooked House (Thorns 5) edits and sent the most recent draft out to my editors and beta readers.

The next thing on my docket was editing We Follow You in the Dark, a short horror novel set in a haunt experience, but I got spooked (no pun intended), so I edited down a few short stories to gather my courage. But I’m working on We Follow now and about a quarter of the way through.

It’s a more difficult draft. Usually, I’m just paring and cleaning up what’s there in the rough, but for We Follow, I knew by the end of writing it that I needed to move whole sections around, which fudges with my transition bridges. I’ll probably have to fix more in the second round of edits. This book, however, is definitely novel-length by multiple house standards, so it might be in a better position to sub to agents if I can tidy the manuscript changes.

If you’d like to support a writer through a rough edit, buy me a coffee?

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire
Cruel Summer by Wesley Southard
The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss

Music I’m Listening To:

Billie Eilish
Fleurie
Svrcina
Jordin Sparks debut album
The Silent Force by Within Temptation
Hide and Seek by The Birthday Massacre
Joanne by Lady Gaga
Live Around the World by Queen with Adam Lambert
Crooked House playlist

Things I’m Watching:

America’s Got Talent series
CSI series
CSI:Miami series
Murder, She Wrote series
White Collar series
The Great British Baking Show: The Professionals series
The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt series
Locke & Key series
The Pope’s Exorcist movie (didn’t like)
M3GAN movie (loved)
Star Trek (2009) movie
The Black Demon movie (didn’t like)

Poem of the Week:

every night I leave the flame
flickering on the porch
there’s nowhere and
no one for miles
i light the lantern
so anyone and anything
may find a way home