News:

My flash fiction “The Green Room,” a rare-for-me historical story about an early haunted house attraction, is posted for $5 and up tiers at Crystal Lake for the Shallow Waters flash fiction contest. I’m going to be honest, the fact I wrote and edited it while overwhelmed in November is evident to me, but I still like it, and I wrote it to explore an idea that I might end up running with in a novella or novel later. The theme for this month was Reflections for the end of the year.

In other news, we’ve finalized the back cover copy for Question Not My Salt:

Come for Thanksgiving Dinner. Stay for the Feast.

Sierra’s first American Thanksgiving promises to be unforgettable when her college roommate, Zoe, invites her to the Samuels family feast. But as the ten-hour banquet unfolds, it becomes clear this is no ordinary holiday gathering.

With everyone bound by a chilling rule—eat and drink exactly as served, and enjoy it, or face dire consequences—the traditional celebration quickly takes a dark and macabre turn. Will Sierra survive the Samuels’ sinister hospitality or become part of a feast far more horrifying than she could have ever imagined?

Question Not My Salt is a gripping tale blending the terror of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with the culinary horror of Hannibal and The Menu.

I don’t have a hard date for pre-orders and release, but we’re aiming for February 2024. I’ve also updated my Content Warnings page with the extensive warnings for QNMS. It’s a short novel, but it’s pretty packed. Great fun, though.

Works in Progress:

I finished other name‘s Tattered & Torn (Meridian 6) at 118,394 words. About 8K of those words were cut when I starting rewriting the beginning, but I kept them in the file to continue measuring total word count. It’s an average-sized Meridian novel, but man, this last week was not fun at all. I couldn’t accomplish the 5K/day that I’ve been doing before because my attention span was completely shot. I think I overdid it by working at that pace, plus editing, since mid-October. It’s hard for me to tell myself that this is work when I’m essentially not paid and I generally enjoy myself. I continually have to remind myself that I am, in fact, working and I can, in fact, burn out. I also have a mild sinus infection. However, this puts me much later in the month than I wanted to finish the novel, which creates a dilemma.

Over the next few days through Christmas, I’ll be working on less demanding short fiction. Then I have to start the next Meridian novel and try to be finished by mid-January, which will demand a return to the 5K/day word count. I’ll take New Year’s off, and probably most of Christmas, too. Let’s see if I can make this last push to get this writing sabbatical closed out.

Of course, I’m still writing plenty in the new year, but once I get a job, I’ll have to return to grabbing time as I can find it, and I won’t be doing as much short fiction.

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:

Godzilla Minus One (so good)
Alien: Covenant
A Castle for Christmas
Where Are You, Christmas?
Christmas Inheritance
A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby
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
Hoarders series
White Collar series
Buffy the Vampire Slayer series
Found series
Transplant series
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week:

Is that thought mine?

Does it belong to me or
arise from the sticky muck
of memory of someone else’s
voice and motivation?

Let those with eyes say aye
Let those with ears hear through
the canal and from within
Do you seek? Do ye find?
Do you have another glass of wine?

Disassociation with a demon
paint by numbers Did I mean
to make this picture was this
on the front of the box?

I swear I didn’t do that
I wouldn’t do that
How can you think I would do that?
What kind of person do you take me for?

And which one?