Tag Archives: poem

Snowed in: Friday Update

10 Friday Jan 2025

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Novels, Poetry, Short Stories, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Oh yeah, it’s Friday. Sorry, been snowed in since yesterday, so time has no meaning. And this is Texas, so snowed in pretty much means that there is snow or ice and it’s sticking, so Amanda doesn’t go outside in it. Amanda doesn’t do wet cold.

News:

I’m back in the Shallow Waters contest at the Crystal Lake Patreon ($5/month tiers and up). This month’s theme is Liminal Spaces, and my story, “Delirium,” comes out around January 29, the second to the last in a group of 20 pieces of flash fiction. Join us if you like bite-sized themed horror fiction.

Preorders for WriteHive’s cozy speculative anthology Rescuing Curiosity are open now, coming out March 6. My story, “Marginalia,” is part of this one. I rarely write cozy or stories set in the future, so this was out of my comfort zone twice.

Works in Progress:

I finished the first edit/rewrite round of Masque two days ago, taking the story from 110,972 words (including about 4K words of notes and outline) to 97,811 words, which is a perfectly respectable number. So that’s the first rounds of the Dracula reimagining and Masque done and dusted. I’m taking a few days off to do a few smaller things before diving back in. The submission call I anticipated isn’t open, so I’m not in a hurry to meet a hard deadline by end of the month.

The last two days, I’ve been furiously working on getting A Nightmare for All Seasons for publication, including purchasing an affordable cover, reading the poems out loud to make sure they’re right, writing the introduction and the back cover copy, creating graphics for the main title page and section title pages (which I’ve never done before, and I’m really proud of myself for doing through Canva for free, even though they’re basic; it takes the book to the next level and emphasizes that these are five discrete sections), and meticulously formatting the uploaded document in Atticus (which had already paid for itself before this). Atticus is set up for prose, not poetry, so it’s fiddly, but I’m really happy with the end result.

I’m waiting on getting the cover back, and I have to also wait on some outstanding poems on sub, because I didn’t know I was going to include Lullabies for an Apocalypse in the collection when I sent those poems out. At this point, I’m hoping I can self-publish this sometime in February if I receive rejections. Longer, though, if something’s accepted and I have to account for exclusive rights. Yes, if someone’s willing to pay me for poetry, damn right I’m delaying for a pet project few people are going to read. Either way, it’ll be ready. I should set it up in the Poetry/Short Story page tomorrow.

Through the weekend, I think I’ll work on a few flash fiction pieces on the docket. Then I should be able to start on second-round edits for the Dracula reimagining.

Books I’m Reading:

The Fisherman by John Langan
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder

Things I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist (finally got through the whole collection, which is a lot, and now I’ve got it on random until I start working on the Dracula reimagining again)

Things I’m Watching:

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Jumanji
I Saw the TV Glow
The Holiday
Barbie
Murder, She Wrote: The Celtic Riddle
Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell
Glass Onion
Wishmaster 4: The Prophecy Fulfilled
Prince of Darkness
Brilliant Minds series
Found series
The Irrational series
Abbott Elementary series
Home Town series
Longmire series (finished)
Great British Baking Show: Holiday Edition series (finished)
Monk series (Season 6 finished for New Year’s binge watch)
Columbo series
CSI: NY series
S.W.A.T. series

Poem of the Week:

take care not to offend
your friendly neighborhood
coven of witches
lest your foolishness
burst from you like stuffing
and leave you in stitches

The Trial

28 Saturday Dec 2024

Posted by in Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Photo by Renato Mu on Pexels.com

(Here’s a poetry gift for you at the end of 2024.)

You stand before God.
You stand before man.
And we ask you
to make us understand
how a sweet little girl
could derail the divine plan
with a smile, as only
a good little girl can.

You put me on trial
for such slight indiscretion.
Have a little fun,
They call it demonic possession,
set a trial, and demand
an instant confession.
Snuff it out,
a good girl’s unseemly aggression,
at least until good girl
has learned her sweet lesson.

Pinafore days
and petticoat nights,
you skipped and you sang,
a good child’s delights.
When darkness falls
a good child sleeps tight,
succumbs not to the shadows.
There’s something not right.

You act as though
you’ve never squinted before
against light breaking through
that you cannot ignore.
But there’s more in
bad light for good men to deplore,
and there’s more than
bad faith for a child to explore.
I don’t want to be blinded
by your light anymore.

We have doctors for you,
and family and priests.
The healing must begin.
Grant us that much at least.
There’s teaching to be done,
prayers never ceased.
Would you serve angels
or the wilder Beast?

Show me the wild,
and I’ll show you a heart.
I’ll fight tooth and nail,
tear my sweet life apart.
I know I’m too cruel,
and I know I’m too smart.
A blood smear’s a painting,
and good dying’s an art.
Afterlife’s for the dead.
Let me live, for a start.

They held me back.
I had no other choice.
If they could, they would have
stolen my eyes and my voice,
dressed me up in doll clothes
like a toddler’s toys—
no escape, not a whisper,
not the slightest little noise,
hobbled feet and bound hands.
Would you do that to boys?

Say I’m a beast. Shut me down.
Call me to grave submission.
But I offer you now
this bad girl’s admonition:
If I plead my fair guilt
of my own bald admission,
I’ll show none of your
recommended contrition
but condemn you in your
own hysterical condition.

Two braids and a curl
do not need your branded permission.
Shut your mouth, bend your knees
to this pinafore perdition.

For a woman never forgets,
and a girl is never forgiven.

In anticipation: Friday Update

20 Friday Dec 2024

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Novels, Poetry, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

SONY DSC

News:

My dark poem “Keeping Secrets” was included in the Breath and Shadow Fall 2024 issue. It’s free to read here. My inspiration for it was the fact that I’m pretty good at not telling secrets, but I absolutely cannot promise that I won’t tell under the most mild of interrogations. My secret integrity completely depends on the fact that people don’t ask me about them in the first place.

Undertaker Books announced their Table of Contents for Stories to Take to the Grave: High Seas Edition, and my story “Floaters” (referencing corpses) is included in the line-up. It’s quieter horror than I usually do, and with a little hope thrown in there. It’s one of my stories I submitted far and wide to a variety of publishers, but it kept getting rejected, and I really wanted a good home for it.

Works in Progress:

Since it includes some rewriting, the first-round edit of Masque is going more slowly than I would like. I’m sorry, crisis after crisis and anticipation of collapse is not conducive to creativity. Nevertheless, I’ve started, and honestly, it wasn’t as info-dumping as I thought it would be. Or maybe adding a character that needed context helped give the world-building info reason to exist.

But I’m not having trouble concentrating because I don’t enjoy it. When I’m working on it, I love Masque‘s lushness. The difference between the much sparer found-media transcription style of the Dracula reimagining and the Gothic embellishments in Masque is pretty stark. I like both.

By and large, my shorter creature features, Deep Down and Out of Curiosity and Hunger are both spare as well, Deep Down because of the protagonist’s numbed emotional state and in Out of Curiosity and Hunger because of both the protagonist’s detachment and sort of wanting to write found-footage style without actually doing so—very documentarian. Whereas my first book, Nocturne, and novella The Damp definitely leaned into the Gothic style as well. I think doing both allows me to enjoy them better, because I’m never locked into one way of writing and it keeps me interested.

I can also write somewhere in between. I would argue that, though the Thorns series books are long, they’re quite traditional in style, and so is Question Not My Salt. Drift and A Woman Alone are dreamy outliers, but probably fit in here, too, although I would argue they’re actually Gothic in elements rather than writing style.

I’m very much a believer of ‘form follows function.’ Sometimes you need a modular cottage and sometimes you need a big honking castle. One is not more intrinsically correct. I think I’ve once shared on here, though, that a more elaborate Gothic style of writing more closely resembles how my brain actually thinks. The denser, sparer writing, on the other hand, gives my head a bit of a rest.

Christmas to New Year’s is a weird time, even as a freelancer, so I’m not sure how much I’ll actually get done, but I’m still aiming to get Masque and the Dracula reimagining completed by end of January. At the very least, I’d like to get Masque done if the call I’m finishing it for is, in fact, open in January. If they’re open to novellas, I can submit The Damp if I don’t finish, though. The Dracula reimagining doesn’t really need to be finished. I’m just hoping to start subbing it out to agents as soon as possible. I’m also perfectly open to self-publishing it. I have two covers in my already-purchased folder that could fit the story.

Books I’m Reading:

The Fisherman by John Langan
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder

Things I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Die Hard (My verdict? I don’t understand how this isn’t a Christmas movie. Loved it.)
Krampus
Christmas Inheritance
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
Black Christmas (2006)
P2
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Holiday in the Wild
The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire (Sherlock Holmes)
The Christmas Cookie Showdown series
Holiday Baking Championship series (finished)
Holiday Wars series
The Great British Baking Show series (finished)
Elsbeth series
Matlock series
Ghosts (US) series
NCIS series
Longmire series
Columbo series
S.W.A.T. series

The tree is dead

08 Friday Nov 2024

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

Photo by icon0 com on Pexels.com

I don’t have much to say. I woke up into a world much more antagonistic to me, with the knowledge that friends and family decided that I was expendable and that what they probably wanted is not something they’re going to get anyway—unless the cruelty was the point, in which case, congratulations, you won.

For those saying it isn’t that bad: Yes. Yes, it is. This isn’t like last time at all, which was bad enough.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME

there’s a trail of tears east to west
tracks of tears dusted with fine white powder
roads of silk and spice fallow with salt
paths from multitudinous veins
hearts beaten under vile souls
held up on broken backs of burden
so we would not dampen our slippers
or soil our gloves on rivers run red

sick sickened sickening
we cast out to claim
leave mile markers of smallpox
wash our hands of dysentery and cholera
of hundreds of miles of skin slough
burning and bubbling with boils
gasping in yellow mist screaming
i can’t breathe

all not exchanged in profit
burned for incense to please petit gods
at the top of a heap of hoarded gold
surrounded by guns for hire
and fire extinguishers
while children clutch stomachs screaming
i’m hungry

services render to business
like fat from meat charred to charcoal
ashes compressed to diamonds
worth more cremated than alive
just another river cursed
gold vein and gemstones panned
earth enslaved to artificial
the clamoring of sociopaths who
build blocks and knock them down
and refuse to share

we are what we prize
we put on pedestals such pedestrian shit
elevate the cruel
reward the heartless
ruthless brutal is in season in all these hotter months
neither saint nor sinner but trending says it’s so
compensate for attention
expose moments unmeant for mass consumption
all eyes on the movement
for a clever quip
my kingdom for a click

A single inch: Friday Update

01 Friday Nov 2024

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Novels, Series, Short Stories, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I want to write a big thing here about what’s coming up, but I’m temperamentally incapable of writing about things that matter, at least directly. I can’t contain a single matter to a single post. There’s too many variables that feed into it and too many lives at stake. I’ve never been good at debate or argument. I see every side and try to address them to the point that I neglect my own.

I’m angry and I’m scared because my own personal life is at stake according to certain policies that certain politicians wish to implement, have already implemented, and will continue to make every effort to implement (and will likely succeed, regardless of who wins, due to keen long-game strategy). I’m angry and scared because my life is just one of billions at stake due to climate change (trillions, if you count the mass extinctions of other animals than humans). I’m angry and scared because I’m watching a slaughter in real time and people in power seem to have declared them not only expendable but vermin worthy of extermination. I could keep going, but what’s the use?

I don’t know how I’m going to get through these next few days and possibly these next few years. My only solution is to get through a day at a time and just be who I am for as long as I can. After all, who am I to have anything to say, other than someone who lives here, same as you?

I voted. There is a difference between a shit sandwich and a shit sandwich with a side of vomit and a glass of toxic waste. Please vote.

News:

Moved over to a new computer. Still fixing some glitches from the moving over of files, but I think I’ll have that finished by this weekend. I’ve gotten used to the new keyboard, and I’ve christened it with stickers, so I think she and I are in a good place now.

FOUND 2: More stories of found footage is out and available to all. My story “Nuisance Notifications” is part of it. All those notifications you get on the phone and can’t do anything about… All here, with all the other cursed media.

I don’t normally reference Amazon reviews because they’re easily accessible, but my Meridian series doesn’t get a lot of love, and I appreciated the review from Jennifer Hines (The Literary Tryst) for Avarice & Creed (Meridian Book 4):

Let me start off by saying this is the best book I have read in a while. It is also my first by Aurelia Evans. I have to say that now not only do I want to read the first three books in this series, but also see what else she may have written.

Works in Progress:

I had an outline in place for Rack & Ruin (Meridian Book 8) from after I finished Tooth & Claw (Meridian Book 7), so I’d know I had a story and because I seem to need outlines more often than I used to. Well, I opened up the R&R document and approached it with dread instead of excitement, and I was almost immediately bored. I wasn’t months ago when I came up with the story, but I think I need to do something different, so I’ve altered the main character, which makes certain elements of the story more interesting to me and less repetitive with other stories in the series. There will be some unanticipated challenges in working off the outline with this new main character, but I think I have more to look forward to with these changes. I certainly don’t want to finish up the Meridian series with a book I don’t like.

If it doesn’t work, I’ll do what I did for Tooth & Claw and set it aside for a while. I just hope I don’t have to. I’m ready to be done with the development of this series and down only to editing. I finished my first round of edits for Book & Candle (Meridian Book 5), and I’m just waiting for the final proofreading copy.

However, I think I’m generally tired from the work this year and from *waves at everything*. I’m looking forward to doing edits after R&R is through. Masque and the DRI were so much fun to write, and though Masque will need some extensive reworking, I’m looking forward to it. I may also need to find a developmental editor for the DRI to make sure I’m on the right track and get some feedback, because I’m too enamored with it. There’s so much Dracula stuff (for good reason, because it’s a blast), I don’t want to necessarily get lost under all the noise.

Things I’m Reading:

The Apocalypse and Satan’s Gloryhole by Timothy W. Long and Jonathan Moon
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Things I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Hell Fest
The Curse of Bridge Hollow
Murder, She Wrote: South by Southwest
Grave Encounters
As Above, So Below
Sleepy Hollow
Hocus Pocus
Trick ‘r’ Treat
Muppet Haunted Mansion
Rose Red series (finished)
Unsolved Mysteries series (finished)
Halloween Wars series (finished)
Halloween Baking Championship series (finished)
The Last Bite series (finished)
Outrageous Pumpkins series (finished)
Columbo series
S.W.A.T. series

Poem of the Week:

sagrado corazón
dead center bleeding
sanguinary transfusion
the blood of three
killing her sweetly
but blood of el maldito
brings vida eterna
la sangre es la vida

One-track mind: Friday Update

25 Friday Oct 2024

Posted by in Novelettes/Novellas, Series, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

News:

No writing news to report.

I went to Grapevine’s Historic District last Saturday to make glass pumpkins and have a nice lunch with my mom. We passed by the marquee, where I just had to take a picture. I ended up seeing Dracula on my own last night, too.

Works in Progress:

I finished editing The Damp and got it under 40K from 48K by roughly a hundred words. I wanted to get it done in time for PitDark yesterday, because I wasn’t able to get to my other two dark novels in time and I wanted to pitch at least one new piece.

However, based on the last few PitDarks, I don’t think I’ll do another one, as fun as it is. It’s just not effective, and I hit the same problem I hit everywhere, which is that I can’t seem to get any kind of momentum. With Twitter in general death throes (honestly, Threads is more peaceful, although that won’t last once they implement ads or boosted posts, which is inevitable, because we can’t have nice things), no one has the reach they had and I don’t know how many editors or agents were even participating.

I’m discouraged, because I can’t afford indie editing in order to self-publish, but I think that’s my only option with In the Dollhouse We All Wait, A Woman Alone, poetry collections, and the May Cooler Heads Prevail novella. It’s a dilemma, all right, determining whether anything can afford to go out without external edits. I don’t have a lot of notes from my editors, but there’s a reason I have them.

The poetry can probably go out without second eyes. Maybe I can also manage May Cooler Heads Prevail, but I think the subject matter is still too raw and needs to wait until after the election to gauge if it’s right. However, like the poetry, I don’t know whether MCHP has much in the way of an audience.

However, Twitter pitches or not, I’ll have proper novels Masque and the DRI edited and ready to send to agents and presses by next year, so I guess that’s something.

I was sent my edits for Book & Candle (Meridian Book 5), so I’ve been working on them this week, and they’ve been pretty easy. If I don’t finish them today, I’ll finish fairly early tomorrow. Once it’s done, I’ll probably take a day to switch laptops, because the one I’ve been working on is breaking apart on the outside, and it’s only a matter of time before it cracks something essential on the inside.

Then I’ll start on Rack & Ruin (Meridian Book 8), the last Meridian novel. It’s nuts that I’ve almost written two full novel series.

Things I’m Reading:

The Apocalypse and Satan’s Gloryhole by Timothy W. Long and Jonathan Moon

Things I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

The Haunted Mansion (2003)
Twisted
Fright Night (2011)
Late Night with the Devil
Dracula (1931)
Rose Red series
Unsolved Mysteries series
Halloween Wars series
Halloween Baking Championship series
The Last Bite series
Outrageous Pumpkins series
Columbo series
Shogun series (finished)
S.W.A.T. series

Poem of the Week:

run home children run home soon
for the evening is dark and cold and long
and the monsters roam and the dead head home
as long as the lantern is still flickering
you will remain safe all the night
watched over by the harvest moon
low and large on the horizon screaming

Blessed cold: Friday Update

18 Friday Oct 2024

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Novelettes/Novellas, Poetry, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Photo by Flora Westbrook on Pexels.com

News:

Nothing to share, except the cool front arrived. I don’t even care if I shiver. It’s been such a long, hot summer.

Works in Progress:

I finished the first edit of The Damp, and there almost isn’t anything to say because it was so easy. Past Amanda did me a solid and wrote a clean first draft that didn’t need any major changes, just little things all the way through and one bigger chunk I’d already separated out to cut.

I’m on the second round of edits now, which are always difficult, even though it’s usually just a polish. My brain resists reading the same thing back to back. I do it anyway because that grumpiness makes me less precious about what I keep.

The first edit brought the word count down from about 48K to 41K words. I’m hoping to bring it under 40K in this second round so that it’ll fit into novella calls.

It occurred to me a little bit ago that, if I can’t find a home for it, The Damp might make a nice novella double feature with A Woman Alone. They’re both period gothic novellas (A Woman Alone set during the Depression and The Damp vaguely set in the sixties) with body horror and erotic elements (in AWA’s case, outright horror erotica), but they’re not overly similar despite that at all. It’s a thought.

As a palate cleanser between edits, I updated my poetry collections with the new things I’ve written that fit them. What Witchcraft We Wrought looks more and more like it’ll be the first to reach a full collection after A Nightmare for All Seasons.

I’m still missing the Dracula reimagining. I have a sickness. Christmas, love. Just wait until Christmas.

Things I’m Reading:

The Apocalypse and Satan’s Gloryhole by Timothy W. Long and Jonathan Moon

Things I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Young Frankenstein
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
Haunted Wedding
Halloween Kills
Halloween Ends
Worst Ex Ever series (finished)
Good Bones series (finished)
Halloween Wars series
Halloween Baking Championship series
The Last Bite series
Outrageous Pumpkins series
Columbo series
Shogun series
S.W.A.T. series

Poem of the Week:

leave chants unsung
silence your pleas
there is no solace
lie with me among
the autumn leaves
there is only us

Waiting for autumn: Friday Update

11 Friday Oct 2024

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Novelettes/Novellas, Novels, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

News:

Halloween and autumn decorations are up in the house, but a proper Texas autumn should be coming next week. In autumn and winter, we too often have to get by on vibes rather than weather, but I’m not complaining about the milder late summer or what autumn and winter we do get.

In Found 2 news, they’re pushing the release date back a week to the 25th.

Works in Progress:

I finished the Dracula reimagining on Saturday, which was a total of 26 days’ work. By the end, I had 103,246 words, which was less than I thought I’d have. So the final word count is actually quite manageable, because I should be able to cut it under 100K words without trouble. To give you an idea of novel size, the original Dracula is around 160K words (about the length of an average Thorns novel).

The 103K was prior to stitching everything together, removing the outline (which I always include as word count so that it feels productive), and writing a new scene a few days later. After writing the new scene, I had 46 separate files, most of them composed of only one scene and averaging about 2-3K words.

Once I stitched everything together, removed any parts already marked to cut, and added the new scene, my official first draft word count is 99,222 words. Yet, even a few days later, I’m still missing being in that world and wanting more, which I think is a good thing, that I was able to enjoy it so much for so long. I’m slated to edit the DRI sometime in December, depending on when I finish Masque edits, and those are going to be more involved.

However, I get the feeling that something’s missing from the DRI, like I either need to add significantly more or, paradoxically, cut down some things I like to make it even more streamlined than I tried to write it, closer to the original conception. I think I’ll do one editing pass for consistency, since I wrote it out of order, before sending it to my alpha reader to see if she can pinpoint what might be missing or if I’m just perpetually unsatisfied in the Dracula world, which explains the plethora of adaptations, retellings, and reimaginings in my collection.

With the DRI done and dusted, I’ve moved on to editing The Damp, which is the only thing I can fit in before PitDark. I don’t think anything will come of it, but it’s worth a shot. I’ll shop it around a bit, but in the absence of interest, I think it would actually make a good double novella feature with A Woman Alone one day. I think I can finish with the first round of edits by Tuesday. Honestly, the first draft is pretty solid. Most of these edits are minor. Maybe, just maybe, I can have it done by next weekend at the latest?

Cleaned up some poetry from September and early October. From some recurring themes, I might have an idea for another mini-collection/chapbook (because those have been so successful /s). A few of the pieces were really solid, however, even though I had some trouble getting into the long-poem groove.

Things I’m Reading:

Found edited by Gabino Iglesias and Andrew Cull (finished)
The Apocalypse and Satan’s Gloryhole by Timothy W. Long and Jonathan Moon (bizarro horror picked up at Texas Frightmare, and it is weird)

Things I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

The Craft
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Halloween (2018)
Thir13en Ghosts
The Order (2003)
Halloween Wars series
Halloween Baking Championship series
The Last Bite series
Outrageous Pumpkins series
Columbo series
Abbott Elementary series
Shogun series
S.W.A.T. series
Supernatural series

Poem of the Week:

you won’t hear it
until it is upon you
with smothering wings
talon to pierce flesh
and wide lantern eye
an owl sure an owl
let’s go with that

Show me your teeth: Friday Update

27 Friday Sep 2024

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Writing, Novels, Short Stories

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

News:

Another break in the dry spell of short story acceptances: My story “Six,” about being haunted by a number (inspired by my obsession with maths while in fever dreamstate, not even kidding, it’s a recurring thing), is going to be part of Screams, edited by Judith Sonnet. I’ve been wanting to work with her since we were both in Ruth Anna Evans’ Ooze, so this is a real treat. It’s not a themed anthology but is meant to be a throwback to classic horror, from gory and pulpy to quiet—just downright spooky or scary. It’s slated to come out on Christmas.

Somewhat eerily, “Six” was finally accepted after six rejections. *Twilight Zone theme song*

I also had another job interview today, and I think it went really well. Crossing my fingers.

In leg injury news, my legs are almost completely back to normal except that the original injury isn’t recovering. It’s healed. There’s no pain, no tugging, but it must have healed with too much tangled fibers or scar tissue, because the muscle remains atrophied. The muscle isn’t working, so the other muscles continue to overwork, and the whole leg is weaker. I can’t up the resistance on the elliptical machine, but I can do a whole hour now without reinjuring. I can play pickleball with more vim and vigor. I can walk without pain, although I still start out stiff and sometimes limp a bit. So I still have to be careful going forward, because all these injuries have made me more susceptible to reinjury, but I think I can fairly say that this is as good as it’s going to get, and since that’s without pain, I’ll take it, even it isn’t the ideal outcome.

Works in Progress:

I’m still working on the Dracula retelling. I don’t think I’ll finish by the end of the month, but maybe by next Friday or the end of that weekend? I’ve got to say, the way this book is flowing for me is quite amazing, and it’s so much fun. And I’m incredibly thankful for the outline; it keeps me on task. I have detail for every scene regarding what elements are most relevant and why they’re important. A lot of the verbiage is dialogue, which I like to keep naturalistic, occasional tangents and all, so I sometimes forget what the point of a scene is. So it’s nice having something I can reference to remember where I’m going.

I’m at around 70,000 words and still have three pages’ worth of outline to tackle. I did skip forward earlier this week to do one of the really important scenes, then jumped back to fill in the undone bits (not quite caught up, but close). Otherwise, I’ve actually been working chronologically, to develop the character and conflicts set forth by future scenes already written.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this ended up hitting 110-120K words. To be clear, I envisioned this as a taut, modern reimagining at about 60-80K. The way I viewed it, the shorter size would justify the changes to the story and the found media (new epistolary) format.

I’m not disappointed, per se. As I said above, I’m having a blast, because this has been a dream project, and it’s going so much better than the last time I tried to write it. But it’s not what I wanted it to be, I’m not sure it’s justified as anything but a novelty pet project, not sure if I’ll be able to get it short enough to effectively go on sub. I’m not sure what it is or what to do with it now that it isn’t what I set out to write. Are the formatting and changes enough to keep it interesting to other people who love a good Dracula reimagining as much as me? I guess we’ll know the answer to that eventually.

Things I’m Reading:

Found edited by Gabino Iglesias and Andrew Cull

Things I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist
Dracula collection playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid
Columbo series
Abbott Elementary series
Shogun series
America’s Got Talent series (finished)
American Horror Story: Cult series
Worst Ex Ever series
S.W.A.T. series
Supernatural series
Grey’s Anatomy series

Poem of the Week: (from September 2021)

I bring with me
A harvest of sour apples
And slices of honeycomb
Cut with soft cheese
Drizzle with honey
This must have been
What the serpent offered
I too would have fallen
For a cool breeze
And a sharp feast
Served on scales.

Hourglass sand: Friday Update

06 Friday Sep 2024

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Novelettes/Novellas, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

Photo by Jordan Benton on Pexels.com

(ETA: Things I’m Reading, Listening To, and Watching, slipped my mind)

News:

Nothing much this week to share. I did forget to write last week that in addition to what I worked on then, I also put together some promotional material for Question Not My Salt that I’ll be sharing on social media in October and November, since QNMS is a holiday-specific story. I, for one, love watching holiday-specific horror at certain times of the year.

I was trying to create deliberately dated graphics for some cheesy material, like old Thanksgiving newsletters in elementary school or Sunday school bulletin boards. Even so, I probably shouldn’t quit my dayjob. Oh, wait…

In that respect, I have nothing to report, and this fills me with simultaneous dread and despair. The job market is the worst it’s been for a while, so I know it’s not entirely my fault, but I’m not sure exactly when I need to lower my standards, and when I do, how much worse will I feel when they don’t want me either.

I write so that I’m doing something, working hard every day, but I know I’m not the only one experiencing a publication slump as well while the anthology and magazine markets dry up, and I ran through all my self-publication budget.

I have a great support system that other people don’t have. As long as I don’t get seriously sick (which is what I’m afraid of), I should be okay. But it’s still scary. I had a plan, but I always have a plan, and you know what they say about hindsight.

I have also killed two large cockroaches in the last two days without completely losing my shit. Please clap.

Works in Progress:

I think I’ll be able to finish The Damp either tonight or by early afternoon tomorrow. Rather than a novelette, I’m a little over 40K and approaching 50K words—much longer than I thought it would be and planned for—but I don’t think I’ll go over. During edits, I’ll probably shoot to get word count under 40K so that it’s a long novella rather than a very short novel. I might have a market or two to submit it to later. I’m happy with its weirdness. I sometimes feel like I’m not weird enough, but I’ll occasionally hit a good minor chord.

After The Damp is done, I’ll take the weekend off to rest, then proceed to work on the Dracula reimagining (henceforth DRI, because I feel like the title is a bit of a spoiler that I’m not ready to give). I’m nervous about writing in a different way, but I don’t anticipate it’ll be a long novel. I’m aiming for finishing before the end of the September, which will hopefully give me enough time to edit The Damp and Masque before end of October, although if I’m given Book & Candle (Meridian 5) first edits, that’ll require an adjustment to the schedule.

However, after NaNoWriMo’s massive missteps over the last year, I will not officially be doing NNWM this year, so it’s not like I have to block off November like usual, as long as I finish a novel in that month, which I can still do with a dayjob and even more easily without.

Things I’m Reading:

Why Didn’t You Just Leave edited by Nadia Bulkin and Julia Rios
Needful Things by Stephen King

Things I’m Listening To:

Haley Reinhart
Hollywood’s Greatest Themes by Tina Guo
Silent Hill: Revelation soundtrack
Stigmata soundtrack
Nightwish instrumentals

Things I’m Watching:

Jumanji
The Nun II
Pandorum
Crossword Mysteries series
Curious Caterer series
Unsolved Mysteries (Netflix) series
Abbott Elementary series
White Collar series
Supernatural series
Grey’s Anatomy series
Kitchen Nightmares series
America’s Got Talent series
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week: (after today, I’ll be using a previous year’s flash poems, since I’ll be working on longer poems this month)

i see through your eyes
the silent witness pulling strings
an alternative perspective
clearer sight parasite
whispering truths from the other side
of your convenient entrance ear