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Snowed in: Friday Update

10 Friday Jan 2025

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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

Show me your teeth: Friday Update

27 Friday Sep 2024

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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.

Notes: Friday Update

20 Friday Sep 2024

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News:

I’ve had a brief break in the drought with “Nuisance Notifications,” a short story that was accepted by Gabino Iglesias and Andrew Cull for Found 2: More Stories of Found Footage Horror. I’m really honored to be a part of it, and it’s HWA pro-rate, so that’s a bit of a relief, too. It’ll cover one month’s medications, thank goodness.

I make no bones about how much I love epistolary and its progeny, found footage. Found media in general is such a great way to write spare, tight horror. The first Found is amazing so far, and Found 2 is available for pre-order and is coming out October 18.

Works in Progress:

This is my second week working on the Dracula reimagining, and I think I figured out why I’m having such a good time with it. I mean, sure, I’m living the dream of writing a DRI, which has been on my bucket list for a long time, and especially since the last effort was such a disaster, having it work makes a helluva difference.

The reason why it’s consistently fun, though, in spite of the fact that I’m doing everything differently than usual, is because it doesn’t feel like I’m writing a novel. Because it’s modern epistolary/found media and I have discrete documents for each piece, it feels more like I’m writing a bunch of themed short pieces, even though I know I’m writing a novel. Every few thousand words (give or take), I close a document and cross it off my outline, and it hits my brain with endorphins like I’ve finished. So instead of having to wait a month to get that little high, I get one or a few a day. It’s nice.

It wouldn’t work for just any project. This epistolary novel really is like making different-sized granny squares for a throw blanket rather than do a continuous series of crochet stitches. Sure, I have a pattern. I’m not just stitching willy-nilly. And both kinds end up the same size one way or another. But each granny square has its own end, to eventually be stitched together when they’re all done, rather than building a single giant throw on my lap. I couldn’t separate out chapters this way, because it all still feels connected. It’s a unique project, with a unique process, and I’m really enjoying the novelty of both.

Right now, I’m at about 37,000 words of a projected 90,000, but I’m still concerned this is going to cross over 100K, maybe even up to 120K, because I have an awful lot of my outline left to cross out (although some scenes have more notes than others, so it’s a little deceiving). In edits, I’ll probably remove a lot of editorializing; it’s there for me more than the story right now, despite some intended subjectivity. But it’s definitely bigger in scope than I thought. I’d originally conceived DRI to be minimalistic, kind of a counterpoint to the original Dracula tome. Maybe some of the things I’ve written simply won’t be included? But I love relevant detritus and effluvia. It’s like the pumpkin spice of a novel. I guess, as usual, we’ll see.

Definitely throws me even more off-schedule, though. I probably won’t get as much edited by next PitDark as I’d planned, especially if I get the edits for Book & Candle (Meridian 5) back within the next month.

Nevertheless, I’ll aim for crossing off as much of DRI as possible this month, finishing as soon as possible in October, and editing Masque and The Damp before PitDark. Masque will be the wild card, because I already know I need to rewrite the end, and I’ll hear from my alpha reader if there’s anything else I need to reconfigure. Maybe I’ll get The Damp out of the way first, because it feels like all it needs is a standard double edit, and it’s shorter.

Things I’m Reading:

Needful Things by Stephen King (finished)
Found edited by Gabino Iglesias and Andrew Cull

Things I’m Listening To:

Hannibal series soundtracks
DRI playlist
Dracula collection playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Hannibal
Aliens
Nosferatu (1979)
Columbo series
America’s Got Talent series
American Horror Story: Cult series
Unsolved Mysteries (Netflix) series (finished)
Worst Ex Ever series
Supernatural series
Grey’s Anatomy series
Murder, She Wrote series (finished!)

Poem of the Week: (from September 2021)

The nexus of our roads
Holds the power of convergence
Within this taut place,
This knot of paths taken
And paths not taken
And paths yet to take.
We call upon the dervish wind
For all curses and hexes
Under a dust-cloud sun.

Summer break: Friday Update

23 Friday Aug 2024

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News:

There are a few things I really do not like to write and perspectives I don’t want to linger in long. “Predatory” covers one of those, so I’m just really glad it’s only flash fiction. As a horror writer, though, I always find a way to bother a pressure point, poking through all those hard limits. “Predatory” is my entry for the Camp Horror theme of Crystal Lake’s Shallow Waters contest, posting this month. We’re almost at the end, if you’re interested in one last slash at summer camp.

Works in Progress:

Circumstances forced a more extended break on me, between period cramps, burnout, and existential despair (received a rejection for In the Dollhouse… and don’t know what to do with it). I’m still not sure if my brain’s quite done resting. I think I might start back up tomorrow, because my creativity is tired but starting to get restless anyway. I’ll write the oozy novelette, then take another short break before diving into the Dracula reimagining.

I did get a little work done this week, though. I got my Crooked House (Thorns 5) files back from the formatter, so now I just have to send the specs and back cover copy to my cover artist. When she’s finished, I should be able to get CH uploaded. I’ll be doing some of that today.

Also, I’ve been meaning to get into creative nonfiction, and I started that yesterday with a flash piece for a sub call. My fiction is much more interesting than I am, so CNF hasn’t been much on my radar, but I have a few articles knocking around that I’d like to try. It’s good to do new things now and then.

Things I’m Reading:

The Tommyknockers by Stephen King (finished; still not great but more enjoyable than first read, and I had an entirely false memory about a scene in it, which is weird)
Why Didn’t You Just Leave edited by Nadia Bulkin and Julia Rios
Needful Things by Stephen King (comfort read before trying something new)

Things I’m Listening To:

YouTube ambient playlists

Things I’m Watching:

Chariots of Fire
The Beekeeper
The Day After Tomorrow
Monolith
Immaculate
The Ritual Killer
Matilda
Sleepaway Camp
CSI: Miami series
CSI: NY series
Abbott Elementary series
Great British Baking Show series
Hoarders series (finished)
Resident Alien series (finished)
White Collar series
Supernatural series
S.W.A.T. series
Grey’s Anatomy series
Kitchen Nightmares series
America’s Got Talent series
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week:

wrenched into a scream,
limbs tangled under sheets
into an unsolvable knot.
no sword to self-slice,
though with concentration
i may fall off the bed
and, whimpering, roll away.

Basket case: Friday Update

24 Friday May 2024

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News:

Attended Texas Frightmare Weekend last weekend with a horror/writing friend and had a great time. I like the Irving Convention Center over the DFW Airport Hyatt, which we’d outgrown two years ago. The building is better set up for a pleasant ambient temperature and doesn’t have that humid feeling of a hotel. The subterranean element of the Hyatt did feel more horror-like, and the C Terminal parking was a horrifying maze, but the Irving Convention Center is generally a much more pleasant experience. We can make our own horror atmosphere.

Highlights were the Queens of Scream panel with Jordan Ladd, Jane Levy, Marley Shelton, Cerina Vincent, and Dee Wallace and the solo panels with personal favorites Kevin Durand and Doug Jones, who seemed like the most delightful people. You’re always afraid to meet the actors you like, out of fear they’ll disappoint you by being arrogant (although sometimes that’s delightful, too, like Malcolm McDowell) or dismissive of fans, but I’m regularly more relieved than not when we meet them. (Other highlights from previous years include Alice Krige and the soon late Julian Sands.)

As far as PitDark yesterday, which I’d been looking forward to and prepping for, I received a significant amount of support from followers, but it unfortunately yielded no fruit, which took the wind out of my sails for the rest of the evening and will probably last through today. From what I could tell, a lot of us got more interest from porn bots than agents or publishers. Might have been a slow month, might just not have been intriguing enough, or maybe the earlier effectiveness of the event has run its course post-Elon.

That means In the Dollhouse We All Wait doesn’t have a home, and I’m not sure where it can find one. There’s one sub call opening in August that might be open to extreme. We’ll see. I don’t like finished works just sitting there, doing nothing, but extreme is a difficult sell. Usually, the stuff that’s in it is also in the ‘we don’t want’ section of submission guidelines.

In real life news, we are battling paper wasps building nests under our porch roof. They’re classified as aggressive, but in my experience, they’re fairly unaggressive. They just have no fear. So they’ll fly right up to your face, and they sting like the dickens if provoked. Since I’ve been spending most mornings and milder days working on the porch, I have to share space with them and point out the nests so Dad can knock ’em down. Wasps are good garden insects, but when the niblings are out here, you don’t want so many wasps at the same time, and this is the time of year they’re most industrious, trying to establish a home. Wasps are good, but not right here.

As far as the leg injury, I think the secondary injuries have calmed down, but I still have to be careful. I’m on the elliptical machine again, lower resistance and less time than when I started six years ago, but it’s so nice having anything, and I seem to be doing okay, with some adjustment to my stance. However, the originally injured muscles are still weak and atrophied a year later, no matter what I do, so I suspect that’s just my life now. Even if I can’t up the resistance or do high-intensity interval training, I’ll work on endurance instead. I’m just glad to have some decent aerobic exercise happening. It makes my cardiovascular system much happier.

Works in Progress:

After completing the long and short pitches for In the Dollhouse, I started working on a short story that’s been knocking around my head and that I’m trying to do justice to. It’s kind of turning into a novelette, which is fine. At its length, it’s not going to fit the sub call I was writing it for anyway. Just for myself at this point. Next, I’ll be writing for another sub call, borrowing from my Thorns universe to try to make a standalone short story. Then I’ll tackle the pro edits of Crooked House (Thorns 5).

Books I’m Reading:

Killing Time by Russell C. Connor (finished)
Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire (finished)
100% Match by Patrick C. Harrison III (finished)
Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin (I love the movie and have wanted to read the book for a while now)
The Tommyknockers by Stephen King (Hated it in my first reading, so I’m giving it another try)

Things I’m Listening To:

RAIGN
Fifty Shades trilogy soundtracks (never read the books or watched the movies, love the soundtracks)
Abyss/Ascent playlist
YouTube ambient tracks

Things I’m Watching:

Pandemonium (Texas Frightmare)
Basket Case (Texas Frightmare)
Brain Tumor (Texas Frightmare)
The Black Quarry (Texas Frightmare)
The Equalizer
The Equalizer 2
The Equalizer 3
Summer Baking Championship series
Under the Banner of Heaven series
CSI: Vegas series (finished)
CSI: NY series
American Idol series (finished)
9-1-1 series
NCIS series (finished)
NCIS: Hawai’i series (finished)
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week:

i don’t even know what to be angry about,
memories slipping away like ferrous sand,
leech slime through my teeth the mucus of tears.
is what i remember real or am i an amalgamation
of traumas and joys only occurred in dreams?

If the Fates allow: Friday Update

08 Friday Dec 2023

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SONY DSC

News:

I forgot it was Friday there for a bit.

There actually isn’t a lot of news. A handful of rejections. The only thing is that I’m a finalist in Crystal Lake Shallow Waters for this month, themed Reflections for the end of the year. My story “The Green Room” will be popping up later this month—on December 19, if I’m counting right. Y’all know I love reading other people’s flash fiction and that it’s like having a new themed anthology every month for a minimum of $5 a month, and the reading, commenting, and voting is so interactive. Reminds me of Livejournal fanfiction.

In real life news, I had what is probably my last physical therapy session. I still have a little way left to go, but I have my exercises and instructions and, barring reinjury, should be able to manage my own PT. My bank account thanks me. My elliptical machine thanks me, too, since I can start slowly building up my time on it again (in about five-minute increments a week, unless I start experiencing problems). It’s been almost six months to the day that I tore my muscle on the stairs. I know now that I probably have to be mindful of my calves, Achilles tendons, and ankles, that they’re prone to stiffness. But I’m almost back to my normal.

Works in Progress:

I received my edits back from Ken for Question Not My Salt right at the end of NaNo2023, so I was able to take a needed break by editing. It actually wasn’t much, so I still seem to be doing pretty well cleaning things up in my pre-sub edits. Go me! I sent those back three days later, requested blurbs from some people (so hard to ask), and now I wait. I don’t know whether there’s a proofreading round. We’ll see.

Now I’m back to writing Tattered & Torn (Meridian 6) for the other name. Taking that break in the middle of writing it makes it hard to jump back in. My brain is telling me, ‘But it was done, no, it’s done, no more.’ And I’m telling my brain, ‘No, you have about 25-30K more words to write.’ And my brain is telling me, ‘Done! Done! Done!’ It’s a really fun game we play.

Hopefully, by next Friday, I’ll be done and starting the small number of short stories I’m scheduled for before tackling the next Meridian novel to close out the year.

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
This World Belongs to Us edited by Michael W. Phillips, Jr.
Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire

Music I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist

Things I’m Watching:

The Ultimate Gift
A Christmas Prince
Single All the Way
Contagion
Outbreak
The Silencing
Prometheus (stealth Christmas movie)
Primal
Holiday Baking Championship series
Holiday Wars series
Elf on the Shelf: Sweet Showdown series
Christmas Cookie Challenge series
Great American Baking Show: Holiday Edition series
Celebrity Jeopardy series
Great British Baking Show series (finished)
Hoarders series
NCIS series
Dancing with the Stars series
The Mentalist series
White Collar series
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week:

was that my sin, a flaw?
for the thermals to drive
my feathers up in a swell
until i fell in a dive
for a final swan song
about the evils of ambition?
how dare i enjoy the
thrill of flight
instead of succumbing
to fate? how dare i fight?

“Of the Many Faces”

01 Friday Sep 2023

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I can’t believe I forgot that my short story about a demon exchanging faces and skins to overcome heartache was coming out in this month’s Crow’s Quill, themed Shapeshifters. It’s so gruesome and gross and gothic and free to read here. I’ll also try to remember to put it on my news update next week.

Friday Update

21 Friday Jul 2023

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News:

I’ve been trying to figure out how to use this site, since I’m not much for writing articles unless inspiration hits me over the head with a mace, and I’ve set aside lyrics for poetry lately. I think I’ll try this weekly round-up so that it doesn’t just feel like a promotional machine.

This week, I received two eagerly anticipated acceptances, but I won’t be able to talk about them until the table of contents is officially released. After a rash of rejections, it’s been a real ego boost to get some good news. I’ve actually had some good rejections, too—short-listed but not quite right, personalized notes. A lot of ‘always the bridesmaid, but never the bride.’ It’s nice to blush.

However, what I can tell you is that I’ve been accepted in a dream market, Medusa Publishing Haus’s Queer Saints Volume II. The idea behind the anthologies is that queer people are allowed to be messy, unpleasant, and downright villains, instead of having to be the Good Queer with healthy, idealized (read: unrealistic) relationships.

I submitted to the first volume with no luck, but I’m thrilled to be part of the second volume. The story, “Caregiver,” centers an estranged adult child returning home to take care of their aging parent. It was a really rough one to write, with nothing supernatural to filter the bad feelings, so you probably won’t enjoy it, but perhaps you’ll be moved. QSII comes out on Halloween 2023. If you go to the link above, you’ll see the rest of the TOC and story descriptions. I think this is going to be a helluvan anthology.

In addition, my short story, “A Bladder Full,” is part of the Crystal Lake Publishing Shallow Waters flash fiction contest, with the theme of Time Anomaly. So I wrote my absolute worst nightmare of not being able to find a bathroom when I need to pee, then made it worse. I share it now instead of next week because I think voting starts next week and ends Friday morning. The stories aren’t free to read, but I consider the $5/month tier worth reading a short anthology of horror flash every month.

Works in Progress:

Earlier this week, I finished the arrangement and editing of the horror short story/poetry collection that I’ve been working on since Fall 2021 (but mostly the last six months). The indie press call I finished it for isn’t until October, but it’s good to get it done early, since I don’t know when I’m going back to work. And before that, I finished the edits on a very short horror novel, so I’ve got two manuscripts prepped and ready to go for any potentially appropriate calls.

If I have no luck with the collection after a year, I might try selling the pieces individually, then, once all exclusive rights expire, put out the collection on my own. Same with the short novel. They’re really short enough that doing it myself doesn’t break the bank quite like my Thorns novels do.

Right now, I’m writing another patch of short stories, some for submission calls, some just to have on hand for future calls.

After that, it’ll be time to tackle the double edit of Crooked House (Thorns 5), since my editors are expecting it in August.

Poem of the Week:

(In the absence of lyrics, I’m going to start sharing my favorite flash poem posted to Twitter/Tumblr within the last week.)

There is no witch in 313.
She’s just an eccentric old woman,
no hen nights or pagan coven.
There is no witch in 313.

Kids here can be so mean.
So she doesn’t say hi
or look you in the eye.
There is no witch in 313.

I couldn’t recall when I’d seen
Aggie last but kids get sick
or move to New Brunswick.
There is no witch in 313.

She didn’t do anything to Janine.
Forked fingers don’t cast a curse
or compel ravens to disperse.
There is no witch in 313.

Yes, I promise I’ve been
to her apartment by myself.
Only weird knickknacks on the shelf.
There is no witch in 313.

And if you see a reddish gleam
in my eye whenever I pay her a visit,
it’s just a trick of light, isn’t it?
There is no witch in 313.