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Amanda M. Blake

~ Of fairy tales and tentacles

Amanda M. Blake

Tag Archives: pick a card

A new window, a new view: Friday Update

28 Friday Aug 2026

Posted by amandamblake in A Few Thoughts, Essays/Creative Non-Fiction, Novels, Short Stories, Writing

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Tags

crystal lake shallow waters flash fiction, essay, horror novel, pick a card, poem, short story, we follow you in the dark, Writing

Photo by Huu1ef3nh u0110u1ea1t on Pexels.com

News:

“Pick a Card” was posted at Crystal Lake’s Patreon for the Shallow Waters theme Mad Magic. (For $5/month tiers and up)

Works in Progress:

I’m pet- and house-sitting for a while, so we’ll see how the new environment affects my productivity. The company, of course, is adorable.

I finished my essay on The Others and The Awakening, 4770 words total, which means three essays done and dusted. I have a few more I want to do this year, but with the new venue, I want to work on something that doesn’t have required viewing, so I’m going to at least start on my rewrite of We Follow You in the Dark to make it more sellable. I’m not sure how this is going to go, especially since the original was good, but I think it’s worth a try while I’m waiting for edits to come in.

It reminds me of Nocturne, in that what will change is almost solely on the character side. There will be whole swaths of the novel that stays the same, which will hopefully help me get through this in less than a month. I’d love to finish it during the house-sitting, but I’m terrible at gauging how long things will take and I’d rather not get my hopes up that I’ll finish it up that quickly, even with extra days off work. As I’ve resolved to continue, I plan to be gentle with myself rather than push toward word goals or a conclusion. I won’t return to word goals until I start The Twelfth Wife later this year, and they’ll be less demanding than in the past.

Books I’m Reading:

The Jackal Man by Russell C. Connor
Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman

Things I’m Listening To:

Fourth of July playlist
Let’s Hear It for the Girls playlist
Eurielle

Things I’m Watching:

Buddy
The Closer series
America’s Got Talent series
Hawaii Five-O series
The Rookie series
The Following series
Private Practice series
All Creatures Great and Small series (finished)

Poem of the Week:

from shadows,
light strikes angles, curves,
gleaming mouths, slavering ivory.
freeze like rabbit in the way of a hare,
little nose quivering against ordure
and offal dragging along the floor.
it shuffles, searching blind through
your shuddering beam,
then beyond.
brief relief.

Errands: Friday Update

07 Friday Aug 2026

Posted by amandamblake in A Few Thoughts, Essays/Creative Non-Fiction, Short Stories, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

crystal lake shallow waters flash fiction, essay, hannibal, pick a card, poem, vacation

Photo by Vlad Bagacian on Pexels.com

News:

“Pick a Card” was selected as a finalist for this month’s Shallow Waters at the Crystal Lake Patreon. It’ll post near the end of the month, since it’s number 16 of 20.

Works in Progress:

I was on vacation last week and enjoyed these hundred-degree days much better than usual while at a water park at our resort. It was a great time, but also exhausting. I really wanted to relax as much as possible; hence, the break.

I only had a short story to edit down for the Shallow Waters theme last month, which I did, so I submitted it and didn’t do anymore writing work until I returned home. Got a lot of reading done, although I didn’t finish the book.

I’d planned to write the first half of the mini Hannibal essay on Wednesday, but a few submission opportunities for longer works popped up, so I submitted a novella, then curated and submitted a short story collection. That wasn’t part of the plan for the day, but it took up most of it—not least because I must have made a saving error and lost all my work after a few hours and had to start over again. Fortunately, most of it was formatting, and I could speed-walk my way through doing it again, since I’d already made my choices and could just remember what I’d done.

I don’t anticipate that either piece will be selected, but I figured I might as well give it a shot.

After those pieces were submitted, I sat down to work on the mini Hannibal essay and discovered that it is not, in fact, going to be mini. It won’t be as long as the other one, sure, but it won’t be short. So it’s a good thing it’s still fun.

I had errands to run this morning, which means I need a short rest, but then I’ll resume the essay work. Not sure if I’m going to finish today, but I’ll certainly try.

Books I’m Reading:

The Jackal Man by Russell C. Connor
The Devil in the White City by Eric Larson
The Grove by Eric Butler (finished)

Things I’m Listening To:

Fourth of July playlist
Hannibal soundtracks
Blacklist playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Viral
Cruella
Wake Up Dead Man
Watson series
America’s Got Talent series
Criminal Minds series
Hawaii Five-O series
The Rookie series

Poem of the Week: (throwback to August 2022)

Saltwater everywhere
Surrounding sea
But not a drop to drink
And still I swallow
The rising sound
With tastes of desperation
Until swollen round
To fill the endless hollow
And weigh my live corpse down

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