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Cutting Thorns Off Roses: Friday Update

11 Friday Aug 2023

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Poetry, Series, Thorns, Writing

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News:

Actually not a lot of news to report this week. I’m in waiting mode for rejections/acceptances, and there’s been some behind the scenes stuff, plus a few things coming out this week, like “A Bug in the Design” at Crystal Lake Shallow Waters, if you want to get in on that Patreon for some exciting new flash every month.

I had a comment to a Twitter post that’s doing some real numbers (for me), and it amuses me that a throwaway comment seems to have resonated like that.

I had my annual-ish ear cleaning, so now I can hear and I’m not stuck in my own head, which is nice.

I also saw Talk to Me, which I thought was amazing, a throat-punch for the first three parts. I agree with some people that it whiffed the ending and pulled the last few punches, but not in a way that negated the excellence that came before. It felt viral and modern without feeling too much on the phone; it felt like an authentic teen scream without watering itself down. It’s what the movie Slender Man aspired to and was too afraid to let itself be.

Works in Progress:

I finished the first round of edits on Crooked House (Thorns 5). I made a few small additions, but not what I was expecting. I think I’ll ask my beta readers and editors if they think I should add more, but for now it feels pretty solid as is, and I really, really like it.

As a Thorns novel, it’s as short as Puppeteer (Thorns 4) is long. It started at 158K words, and I cut it down to a bare 133K words. Still more than Nocturne, which is my longer gothic-style supernatural horror novel, but generally the Thorns novels average about 150-155K words.

I’m letting the edits breathe and doing another patch of short fiction. I’ve written two shorts and plan to write three more in the flash range. Then I’ll do the second editing round.

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder (finished)
Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire

Music I’m Listening To:

Ambient dark music
Dracula musical (Orton/Evans)
Kamelot
Halestorm

Things I’m Watching:

CSI series
CSI:Miami series
Great British Baking Show: Junior Bake-Off series (caught up)
Not Dead Yet series
Murder She Wrote series
Red Notice movie
NOPE movie
Fright Night (1985) movie – Why did no one tell me how delectably queer this movie is?

Poem of the Week:

should you sleepwalk
within the halls
please don’t hesitate
to ring a bell or call
but be extra careful
these darker nights
not to kindle candles
of strangers alight
you never know what
roams there with you
or, if it knows you know
it’s there, what it will do

Haunting the Monitor: Friday Update

04 Friday Aug 2023

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Poetry, Series, Short Stories, Thorns, Writing

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Bloody Ghost wants you to have a boo-tiful day.

News:

In case you missed it, pregnancy horror drabble (100-word micro fiction) “Birth” was posted for Hungry Shadows’ Deadly Drabble Tuesday earlier this week. This one started its life as a poem but was actually shortened for the drabble call.

“A Bladder Full” actually won 3rd place for the July Crystal Lake Shallow Waters flash fiction contest (theme: Time Anomaly), which really surprised me. This month, creature feature “A Bug in the Design” is a finalist for the theme Small Town Strange. I see a lot of new-to-me names on the list of finalists, so I’m looking forward to the contest introducing me to different writers. You can only read them under the $5/month tier, but it’s totally worth it to have what amounts to an anthology of flash every month, and it’s a lot of fun.

Jacob Steven Mohr announced the Table of Contents for Dead Letters: Episodes of Epistolary Horror, an anthology of found media (also from Crystal Lake Publishing), and my moreishly titled “The Behavioral Patterns of the Displaced Siberian Siren” is a part of it. I’ve been trying to sell this story for a bit, and I’m really excited for this anthology in general. Some of the titles are really funny and intriguing. Check out the TOC for some of the other contributors.

In addition, it was announced through their Facebook page, so I assume it’s okay to share that my flash piece “Sight Unseen” about a monster in a fixer-upper is part of Dragon’s Roost Press’s Novus Monstrum anthology.

Look at that, though. A lot of announcements this week of things to come, mostly in the very smol fiction range, but it’s nice to have some momentum.

Also, I’ll periodically let you know that I now have a Ko-Fi page, if you want to caffeinate an indie writer. A chai latte or iced mocha is one of my only vices.

Works in Progress:

I’m still working through the first round of edits on Crooked House (T5), and it’s a little more involved than I anticipated. The first quarter involved a lot of cuts, but I haven’t needed as many in the second and third quarter. If I add anything significant, it’ll be in this third quarter or the fourth. I’m still weighing whether it’s necessary. I might just finish out this edit, then come back to add as needed.

I have one small short story to write between editing rounds. Then I’ll dive back in for the polishing pre-professional edit, which I hope moves a little more quickly.

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire

Music I’m Listening To:

Sara Bareilles randomizer
Apocalypse and Chill by Delain
Arcadia by Eurielle
Arcadia by Lily Kershaw
Arrival soundtrack
Beauty and the Beast Broadway soundtrack
A Bit o’ This & That by Emilie Autumn
The Black Halo by Kamelot
Born This Way by Lady Gaga
Bram Stoker’s Dracula soundtrack
Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson

Things I’m Watching:

Scream series (finished)
CSI series
CSI:Miami series
Great British Baking Show: Junior Bake-Off series
Blacklist series (finished)
Black Butler series (finished)
Young Sheldon series (caught up)
Not Dead Yet series
The Huntsman: Winter War movie
Disenchanted movie
Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie

Poem of the Week:

hysteria
from the same root
as hysterectomy
defect of the uterus
emotional fit
of a tilted fist
abdominal dissension
no more trustworthy
than upset stomach
irrational these
emotional outbursts
with raised fists
and defections
vestigial as
appendices
post-appendectomy
can’t live with them
can’t live without them
and they can’t live without us
am I right
one root to another
what lunacy to need
lunatics
or leave them
to tidal devices
varied and variable
ephemeral as moonbeams
do what we can
as rational men
to ignore

“Wives”

17 Wednesday May 2023

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Photo by Flora Westbrook on Pexels.com

Apparently, today was the day that Jonathan Harker was seduced by Dracula’s wives in his castle. To celebrate, here’s the song I wrote for the for-fun Dracula musical that I’m working on.

I.

I was not the first,
But I’m the eldest of wives.
We did not come on our own.
We were torn from our lives.

He’s a nobleman born.
Under chaos he thrives.
I was a peasant girl lost,
and under pale moon revives.

All I can remember
Are the palest of knives,
And under his firm palm
how a peasant girl thrives.

We are Dracula’s wives,
His three women scorned.
With him we have yearned.
With him we have mourned.

Soon you will see,
As all his wives do,
How he stirs in your blood
When you’re his wife, too.

II.

I he stole from my bed
As his empire fell.
He brought me to heaven,
and saved me from hell.

All the warriors he killed,
All the fires he’d quell.
While his enemies would bleed,
Our desires would swell.

I’m more from his world
Than my sisters could tell.
I know it pains him to see
His grand home now a shell.

We are Dracula’s wives,
His three women saved.
With him we have danced.
We him we have craved.

Soon you will see,
As all his wives do,
How he conquers a will
When you’re his wife, too.

III.

He left his home once north
To find me fairer-skinned
And encircled me close
In his frigid cold wind.

Though I prayed to the saints
Under him I have sinned.
Though I searched for the light,
Beneath him it has dimmed.

I begged him to stop,
But my lord simply grinned.
So my pleas have gone quiet,
My denials I rescind.

We are Dracula’s wives,
His three women kept.
With him we have dined.
With him we have slept.

Soon you will see,
As all his wives do,
How he shackles a heart
When you’re his wife, too.

To the River

27 Thursday Apr 2023

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

come on down to the river
the current runs red and the algae blooms sweet
come on down to the river
nothing more refreshing in the sweltering heat

come on down to the fresh mountain spring
just a trickle left but the last one clean
come on down to the fresh mountain spring
the clearest damn water that you’ve ever seen

come on down to the old deep well
a drought’s piercing through the dry cracked fields
come on down to the old deep well
the trumpets all sound and the scroll’s unsealed

come on down to the dark gutter drain
the bodies sink low and the corpse fluids rise
come on down to the dark gutter drain
where waste-streaked gods swallow all of our lies

come on down to the river
for an old-time spiritual revival song
come on down to the river
the end times are coming and it won’t be long

New Normal

28 Saturday Jan 2023

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

We need to let go
of this idea of normal
as something we’ve lost.
There is no normal.
It’s true monthly, yearly,
five years, a decade,
but easier to see if
you look back twenty years,
then another twenty years
then another twenty.
There is no normal.
There is your childhood,
and then there is now.
Sometimes, normal just changes
faster than usual
with a cruel snap
like whiplash,
but the disaster
is just as normal
as the calm before.
We always live in
unprecedented times.

the sea is boiling today

17 Sunday Jul 2022

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The sea is boiling today
But that’s okay
We can clear the burning black
From the smoldering bay

The sea is boiling today
But that’s okay
Dead fish are swimming
Belly up to play

The sea is boiling today
But that’s okay
The coral’s gone white
The seaweed’s gone gray

The sea is boiling today
But that’s okay
It’ll only last an hour
Or at most a day

The sea is boiling today
But that’s okay
No need to point fingers
We can afford to delay

The sea is boiling today
But that’s okay
Sure it looks bad here
But not as bad as they

The sea is boiling today
But that’s okay
We promise it gets better
No need not to stay

The sea is boiling today
But that’s okay
We’ll keep our thoughts pure
On our knees to pray

The sea is boiling today
But that’s okay
By the time it’s all gone
We’ll all be away

Rattlin Bones

05 Sunday Sep 2021

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I’d been holding onto a few lines of this for ages and only came up with a song to go with it today.

Loosely inspired by Ezekiel 37, the Valley of Dry Bones, should have a lovely, rough folk beat, like Bishop Briggs’ “River.”

–

RATTLIN BONES (EZEKIEL 37)

Rattlin bones
Rattlin bones
Get up and dance
You rattlin bones
Can bones yet live?
You rattlin bones
Rise up in the name of the Lord

Skeleton fingers
On skeleton hands
Counting the time
For the skeleton band
Skeleton feet
With skeleton toes
Tapping along
To the feast of the crows

Rattlin bones
Rattlin bones
Get up and dance
You rattlin bones
Can bones yet live?
You rattlin bones
Rise up in the name of the Lord

Tendons on bone
Muscle to skin
Build up the bodies
To the flesh that they’re in
The breath of life
A song in the air
To dance in the dust
Of the flesh that they bear

Rattlin bones
Rattlin bones
Get up and dance
You rattlin bones
Can bones yet live?
You rattlin bones
Rise up in the name of the Lord

The graves are all open
The souls are all free
Teeming the valley
For all souls to see
The multitude sings
Stomps thousands of feet
Unsettling the dust
To the living hearts’ beat

Rattlin bones
Rattlin bones
Get up and dance
You rattlin bones
Can bones yet live?
You rattlin bones
Rise up in the name of the Lord

We are the Enemy 2.0

17 Monday May 2021

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I posted a simpler, cleaner version of WE ARE THE ENEMY last year, but I’ve revisited the first version and decided that, though it has some similar lines, it has a few different kinds of things to say. I’m battling a lot of feelings that are bigger than me, so big I can barely put them into words. I decided to borrow, for now.

WE ARE THE ENEMY 2.0

Truth, justice, and the American way
Heroes fly with stars and stripes, red and blue and white
It’s all okay at the end of an American day
How we do it doesn’t matter if we’re right.

God bless America, we’re right, so we must be good
And if we’re good, we can’t be wrong
And if we can’t be wrong, we do what we should
We do what we should, with an oath and a song.

We are the villains in too many stories
And not just those of those we condemn
We think power makes us strong
And strength gives us the right to win.

That because we are strong, we must be good
That because we are good, we must be free
But look at what we do, look at what we’ve made of you and me
We are the enemy.

Holding the unfinished in steel claws
While buildings crumble to the ground
Our words are sacred, absolute oaths
Never to be torn, burned, or bound.

All without words spoken, without the mark
Can fall to the conviction of our words
Our deeds are counted by the cruelties dealt
Cards we call good, the right of the sword.

I never thought I’d see the day
I never thought I’d see the day
When there were people we didn’t need to save
Sacrificed because they had the wrong name
Because they didn’t play the right game
Or didn’t resist wrong the right way.

I never thought I’d see the day
Until the day I knew it had been here all along
Trails of tears, trails of blood
Stepping on the bodies of innocents
To climb to the top and tell ourselves
It’s our day, our sun
Because we’re the ones casting the shadow
We never put down the sword or the word
There was never depth too low for us to go
As we cursed those casting shade in the shadow we made.

Because here I thought we were trying
Instead of lying and calling it truth
Instead of executions called justice out of court
Instead of pride for an American way
That’s always been the American way.

I knew we were bad. I thought we were better.

We are the villains in too many stories
And not just those of those we condemn
We think power makes us strong
And strength gives us the right to win.

That because we are strong, we must be good
That because we are good, we must be free
But look at what we do, look at what we’ve made of you and me
We are the enemy.

We are the Enemy

30 Wednesday Dec 2020

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I haven’t gotten many songs written this year, because I’ve felt too strongly for anything to coalesce into something substantial. But I managed to put something into words, things I’m afraid of saying, but it’s done. The sickness hasn’t quite left my chest yet, but it’s done.

WE ARE THE ENEMY

We thought we were heroes
We tried to be
We wanted to be
We said we were good
We said we were free
Free to be good
Free to be bad
We could choose the we that we wanted to be
We made the choice
We decided not to see
We made it from the start
We were and are and ever will be
We thought we were heroes
We are the enemy.

We’re the heroes of our story
The greatest country
In the smallest world
Built with blood money
Grown from flesh seeds
Of brown cocoa
And black coffee
Of corn and cotton under a chopped cherry tree
We deny responsibility
If it wasn’t personally
When under other names
Still degradation of humanity
We thought we were heroes
We are the enemy.

Never villains of our story
Inconceivable that we’d ever be
Treason to even claim
Unpatriotic, unthinkable treachery
That means we won’t listen
No longer have to hear
No longer have to see
We’re villains if our villains do the same things
We condemn the evil deeds
In a mirror, cry deniability
If we say it enough times
We think everyone will believe
We thought we were heroes
We are the enemy.

Stab a knife in the high ground
And dig two graves
One the bed we made
The other the dead we laid
Layers and layers tall
We say they make us feel small
And that the bed we made
Isn’t comfortable at all
There’s only so many times
To deny that we fall
And to pretend that we would never
Have been a villain, too, through it all.

If we say it enough times
We think everyone will believe
In what we say
Instead of what they see
We thought we were heroes
We are the enemy.