News:

Not a lot going on this week.

If you’re part of the Crystal Lake Patreon, voting for Workplace Horror flash fiction is open until tomorrow morning. You have fifteen interesting interpretations of the theme to read and choose from.

Someone on the Books of Horror Facebook page was kind enough to leave a review of Out of Curiosity and Hunger. I’m not going to link to it here, because she posted it on Amazon and Goodreads as well, but the way she described the whole vibe of OOCAH was just so perfect: “I love National Geographic, especially when the animals eat each other, and sometimes maybe humans too.”

I really do love creature features. You want creature features? I’ve got two! Out of Curiosity and Hunger (urban jungle) and Deep Down (cave monsters).

Works in Progress:

I’m still working on Tooth & Claw (Meridian 7). Barreling forward, in fact, 5K+ words a day. For reference, I started April 6, and by the end of the day, I’ll have written over 85K in twenty days. Based on where I am in the story, I think I’ll be able to finish by the end of the weekend, maybe Monday, although my period’s coming, and depending on severity, it may slow me down. I have a cushion of a few thousand words to keep up my 5K/day average lately, though.

Once I’m finished with that, I’m going to edit extreme horror novel In the Dollhouse We All Wait, because I want it to be ready in time for PitDark after Texas Frightmare in May. I ideally need to cut over 20K words, but I think that’s doable. That means I might have to push back Crooked House (Thorns 5) publication to June, but I might have to do that anyway if formatting is out of my financial reach. Depends on what I can sell between now and then and whether I’m employed.

I would categorize Question Not My Salt as on the milder side of extreme, but In the Dollhouse definitely fits into the subgenre, so much so that it might be hard to place instead of self-publish, but I’m going to try.

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:

Love of My Life (2013)
The Others
Army of the Dead (2021)
Alien vs. Predator: Requiem
Abigail (a fun, bloody flick)
NCIS series
NCIS: Hawai’i series
CSI series
CSI: Miami series
American Idol series
Spring Baking Championship series
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week: (throwback to April 2023)

haydust gold winds
round rustic spindle.
he does the work.
she reaps the spoils
of rotten wheat to
a marriage bed.
and does she ever
say thank you
or give freely
what she offered,
what she owes
for his labor?