C. Dennis Moore's Blog, page 2

40

Today I turn 40. I'm not excited about it, but there it is.
However, I think an excellent birthday present would be if everyone reading this would buy one of my books. I'm not particular on which one, they're all pretty good, I think. But you've got plenty of options. I have a novel (http://www.cdennismoore.com/books/nov...), novellas (http://www.cdennismoore.com/books/nov...), short story collections (http://www.cdennismoore.com/books/col...) and short story chapbooks (http://www.cdennismoore.com/books/ebo...), all of which can be purchased in print form by clicking the links you see there. Or I have them all in ebook format as well. Kindle owner? Click here (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_...). Nook, Sony, Kobo reader? Click here. (https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...) Kindle readers can click there as well. Browse the selections, take your pick, and buy something already.

This is my "I'm 40" face.

Blue Moon blues

How much time have I spent the past two mornings trying to write the end of the blue moon story? Too damn much. Expository endings suck, but there is information about the logic of the story that needs to be conveyed before the final line. At least, I feel it needs to be conveyed. What if it doesn't? What if it's information that I need to trust the reader with? Because I know I have a problem of doing that, not trusting the reader. So how much of this info do I really need to explain?

Another problem I'm having is I don't know the last line. And I almost always have an idea where I'm going with that last line when I start a story, an impression, an image, something. But for this one I was only writing to the climax, not to the last line, and it's tripping me up. Normally I would say then just end on the climax, but, exposition or not, there needs to be something, some last thought, something that resonates when the story is over, a small echo in the back of the reader's mind. I just need to figure out what it is.

I'm trying like hell, though. Even now, I'm stopping between paragraphs of this entry and trying to shape that ending into something. I know it's just right there. I'll get it. I have to, right? It's what I do.

Meanwhile all of the short story chapbooks covers and links have been updated and you can order print copies of each for $4.99 just by clicking the covers found here: http://www.cdennismoore.com/books/ebo...

The C. Dennis Moore Horror Movie Guide, Vol. 1

Halloween is just a couple of weeks away, and that's the nigh a lot of folks like to set aside strictly for movie watching. Now that my kids have outgrown trick-or-treating, I know that's what I plan to do. But there are a ton of choices out there. How do you make the right one for a satisfying Halloween Night Movie Marathon?

The C. Dennis Moore Horror Movie Guide has reviews of so many horror movies, classics and (relatively) current titles, from obscure to well-known, from hard to find to you can't look at a DVD rack in a story without seeing it. This guide has reviews of the entire Hellraiser series, the Boogeyman movies, the Pulse franchise, plus stuff you never knew you wanted to see like Feast and Killjoy. It's even got the entire Leprechaun series reviewed in here. But sometimes you want serious, messed up horror, you want something with that nostalgic feel. This collection features reviews of Keep My Grave Open, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, Beast of the Yellow Night, The Vampire's Night Orgy, and dozens of other classics from the 60s and 70s.

And if cheap, micro budget, made on the weekends with a group of friends in tow is what you're after, this book also has my reviews of unknown movies like Manje, The Sorority, Bled, Crocodile, and Blood Surf.

After nearly 17 years of reviewing, I've finally put some of them together for this first volume, with more to come (after all, I have, as of today, about 1100 reviews written, and this book only contains about 65 of them), so I hope everyone enjoys the collection, and hopefully I can help you with deciding what to spend your Halloween night watching--or at the very least what to spend your Halloween night avoiding.

This nearly 300-page collection is available in print (https://www.createspace.com/4016967) and ebook formats, including Kobo, Nook, Sony (http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...) and Kindle (http://www.amazon.com/Dennis-Moore-Ho...). The paperback is $9.99, while the ebook is there for only $4.99. Follow one of the links to order and I hope you enjoy.

2036 and Currently Reading:

Last night, after cleaning my office and taking my daughter to tai kwon do, we finally sat down to the season premier of FRINGE. I forgot it was starting and hadn't set it to record so I had to wait until it was online. I'm glad the show is back, but I have to say if this entire season is going to be set in 2036, I'm gonna be pretty unhappy. Shark: jumped!

I think I've got the problem with the blue moon story figured out. It's the ending. It feels very rough and rushed, not subtle at all and that needs to be fixed before I can call this story done. But at least now I know, so I can work on it instead of just staring endlessly at the story wondering why my gut says it's not finished.

I am currently first reading/editing:



which you can pre-order at www.davidbainbooks.com

Now with actual writing, too.

Previously:
http://www.cdennismoore.com/news-and-...
http://www.cdennismoore.com/news-and-...

I think I have officially stalled as long as possible, made as many covers and I had in queue to make, and it's time to get back to work with words. I've still got the blue moon story and "The Room" re-writes to finish up before I go back to the serial story and try to finish that up. So this morning I read through blue moon twice, fixing a few more mistakes that slipped by me the first time, as well as shortening a few sentences here and there. I've got it down to 2845 words, which is, I think, about 100 less than when I started this morning.

The work on this story still amazes me, though, when I think back to how long the original version was for well over a decade, and I never could sell the damn thing. I was never that surprised when the rejections for it came in; I knew the story wasn't the best it could be, I just didn't know how to tell it properly. This latest version, though, is, I think, pretty cool and, unlike the previous version, not a word is wasted. At least, I don't think it is. But that's why I'm still working at it, getting it down to the bare essential minimum words. I'm almost there.

After that, I finished formatting the "Obsessive Compulsive Dismemberment" file for the chapbook version, which I had been letting slide for way too long and just avoiding working on. But that's done. It's a very short story, so I'm pairing it with "...fruit, unpunctured." and "Mr. Grin, the Glistener". And even with three stories in the book, it still only comes to 28 pages. They're all very short stories.

Yesterday after work I worked on a few more covers, but I don't think I'm ready to post those just yet. I will soon.

After blue moon and OCD this morning I did yet another version of the "Coming Down the Mountain" cover. It was one of the ones I worked on last night too, but I hadn't placed the back cover text properly and CreateSpace wouldn't let it through. So once more this morning, with feeling. I altered the texture of the photo and made it wrap around the cover, then changed the color of the fonts. If it doesn't look too pixellated in print, I think I'll like it. However, I liked how the "Epoch Winter" wraparound cover looked too until I saw the physical version. I could barely make out what the wraparound image was supposed to be, so I changed it back. Hopefully I won't have to mess with this one anymore, though:

Anthology update, etc.

The Into the Darkness anthology is coming together nicely. We have some excellent stories in there. I spent the morning sending out more rejections, which sucks, but I knew it was part of the job when I took it.

On the bright side I got a package in the mail yesterday with the updated Five Fates chapbooks with the new covers. I still love the uniformity of those original covers, but I think when taking these books one by one, they need to have individual covers, and I think these look great:

Welcome to the Trust, print copies

In the mail yesterday. The ebook is still--and always will be--free at Smashwords.com (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...) for all the major ereaders, Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Sony reader. Even the PDF is downloadable there. Or you can get a print copy for only $3.99 (plus shipping), from CreateSpace (https://www.createspace.com/3999091). As you can see, the print copy is awesome.

This collection contains the stories "The Strange Thing That Happened At the SpinCycle Laundry" as well as "The Salvation of Victor" and "The Flesh-Method & Myriad", which all lead into the novel Revelations, the first chapter of which is also included here. So if you haven't yet bought the novel, you can check out this collection for free to test the waters and see if it's something you'd dig.

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Blue Moon Story, covers, and Currently Reading:

Still working on finishing up revised works (I had four in queue: "The League of Liars"--now published--"Blue Moon Story", "The Insanity Dance"--submitted--and "The Room") this morning with a read-through of the "Blue Moon Story" rewrite. I cleaned up a few inconsistencies and typos, added a few important details earlier on, and made sure the story reads as I want it to. It's almost there. I'll print it and give it another read in a day or so.

After that, I spent the rest of the morning loading the new Five Fates stories covers to CreateSpace and Smashwords--I'll get to the Kindle pages later, and I still need to add them here, too. I think FIVE FATES itself is the only one not getting changed, but I did try a few alternatives this morning. I just wasn't happy with any of them, plus I still want the mini collections to have a unified look. I don't know, I'm still wrestling with myself over the perfect look. We'll see.

Last night after work I finished the Apes comics, then read



Today, in anticipation of reading Death Sight (http://www.davidbainbooks.com/), I'm going to read:

League of Liars, and Currently Reading:

Last night after work, I spent way too long still looking for proper "The League of Liars" cover images, when I finally decided to look in my photos file and see if I already had something usable. I found I still had the original image I used for the "Illusion is a Synonnym for Dream" cover. It's a wide photo and I thought about using it as a wraparound cover, which would have been cool, too, but then I remembered there's a CreateSpace template that repeats images and I thought that would play cool with the idea of the three antagonists in "The League of Liars", so I tried it out and I liked it. I'm eager to see the finished book and how it looks.

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Last night at my daughter's tai kwon do class I read:



and this morning I did the review (http://www.amazon.com/review/R3FZJ5FH...).

Today I'm reading:

Currently Reading:

I woke up basically on time this morning, so had plans for doing all the things I didn't get done yesterday. Having spent so much of the past few months working on first drafts and revisions and reading anthology submissions, I let a few things fall to the wayside. Like submitting my own work. Like checking on past submissions. Like publishing.

So I looked at my list of current stories that are out to various markets and realized I don't have as many out as I'd thought, and that about half of those that are out are WAY past when I should have heard back. So I looked up a few online and saw their pages are gone--I'm guessing that counts as a no?

Next was to do something with "League of Liars", one of the old stories I revised recently. Considering how many submissions I simply never heard back on--a few of them sent over a year ago--I decided to forego submitting "League" and just publish it myself. So I spent quite a bit of time looking for a good cover image. I spent way too long on that and came up empty-handed. I don't know exactly what I'm looking for, but I know I'll know it when I see it. And so far today nothing I found was even close.

Still reading comics for the next few days, and then it's back to editing. I've got two short stories, a novel and a small 5-person anthology in queue to edit. My eyes are hating me lately.

Anyway, today's reading is: