Samuel M. Moss's Blog, page 5
April 27, 2020
Dim Shores Volume 1 Up on Goodreads
'Dim Shores Volume #1' which will include my story 'Gallaher Calls' is not up on goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...
March 2, 2020
'Dim Shores Presents #1' is up for presale!
The weird/horror anthology'Dim Shores Presents #1', which contains my weird/literary horror short story 'Gallaher Calls' is now available for pre-order!
Find it here!
Two reclusive siblings live in the shadow of the shadow of their family's wealth, creating art that no one sees. When the family lawyer Gallaher calls, and delivers some sorry news, everything they know, the world they have carefully curated, goes awry. What is real, what is imagined; what is dreamt and what is art all fall together.
Very excited to have a piece in this anthology
Find it here!
Two reclusive siblings live in the shadow of the shadow of their family's wealth, creating art that no one sees. When the family lawyer Gallaher calls, and delivers some sorry news, everything they know, the world they have carefully curated, goes awry. What is real, what is imagined; what is dreamt and what is art all fall together.
Very excited to have a piece in this anthology
October 1, 2019
'The Plague Victim' in Nightscript V
A short story I wrote called 'The Plague Victim' is included in this year's Nightscript.
Nightscript is an annual anthology of literary horror including well known and emerging writers. The quality of the writing is uniformly fantastic, and I'm really excited to me included in this year's volume.
Nightscript is an annual anthology of literary horror including well known and emerging writers. The quality of the writing is uniformly fantastic, and I'm really excited to me included in this year's volume.
September 15, 2019
Two short pieces published in decomP
I have two short pieces up in the July/August 2019 issue of decomP magazine. You can read them, for absolutely free, right here.
July 19, 2019
'The Sculptor' Accepted for Publication in Vastarien
A short story I wrote titled 'The Sculptor' has been accepted for publication in an upcoming issue of the literary and critical journal 'Vastarien'.
'The Sculptor' follows a journalist traveling to interview a reclusive Sculptor whose work has a strange effect on those who view it. During their interview the Journalist realizes that the Sculptor may have either lost has mind, or is in contact with something much greater than he had originally realized. As their meeting progresses the Journalist realizes that the latter may be true.
The story is concerned with the power of art, a malignant deity and the meagre space that separates dream from reality.
'The Sculptor' follows a journalist traveling to interview a reclusive Sculptor whose work has a strange effect on those who view it. During their interview the Journalist realizes that the Sculptor may have either lost has mind, or is in contact with something much greater than he had originally realized. As their meeting progresses the Journalist realizes that the latter may be true.
The story is concerned with the power of art, a malignant deity and the meagre space that separates dream from reality.
July 18, 2019
New Essay on Perfidiousscript
I wrote a short essay on my blog about a strange experience I had and the imminence of horror.
You can read it here: Perfidioussscript
You can read it here: Perfidioussscript
February 7, 2019
Piece in 'Nightscript V'
I'm excited to announce that my short story 'The Plague Victim' will be included in this year's volume of C.M. Muller's annual literary horror anthology 'Nightscript' coming out October 2019.
Previous volumes of 'Nightscript' can be found here.
Previous volumes of 'Nightscript' can be found here.
April 24, 2018
'Partial List of People to Bleach' Reading List
Please add books to this 'Partial List of People to Bleach' reading list that I started.
I want to gather books that are not only specifically mentioned by Lutz in his essay but other books that fit into the 'sentence driven' aesthetic.
I want to gather books that are not only specifically mentioned by Lutz in his essay but other books that fit into the 'sentence driven' aesthetic.
May 19, 2015
The problems of literature
It occurs to me that I enjoy solving the problems of literature. I really like those moments when I am trying to work something out and the pieces click. I guess the problems aren't that hard, and don't really work to much outside of themselves, but there is this reinforcing jolt that I get when I can make characters and plot and so on line up.
It reminds me of solving mathematical problems, though of course there is less rigor involved here, but a similar sort of satisfaction.
I guess there are a few different pleasures in writing novels, a few levels of problems that arise at different points and give different sorts of satisfaction. There is the one that I mentioned in the last post, hitting flow: lining up your mind and your fingers and the page (reminds me, though I might be far off here, of what I heard in Kendo about achieving a sort of oneness between your mind and your body and your sword) which is a very imminent and wild and messy pleasure and then this other, later pleasure of going back and taking these rough pieces and finding the ways they fit together and how they connect to form larger structures, and then how these structures for even grander structures and then how these structures move withing each other to form a cohesive, functioning object: the novel.
(As an aside it makes me wonder, when I read stuff, novel, that are sort of a mash, that don't have any larger structures, that are just a mess of words on the page, what sort of pleasure the author got out of writing it. Conceptual novels too, to a certain extent. These works that lack the obvious exercise of building structures is foreign to me.)
On a totally different problem of literature I wanted to relate the reactions I have gotten from others when I mention that I am working on a novel, full time. It is something that I tried not to do for a long time, and now that I am doing it, little by little, I think I might just go back to it. The reactions, even from people close to me, run between a few extremes of disinterest, disdain, disgust and pity. I think once or twice I have even lost some respect from some people. Seriously. I understand how most people would not be that interested in writing novels (that's fine, I'm not that interested in the finer points of pig farming and we can agree not to bore each other with these conversations) but there are people who seem actively against this, or seem sort of sorry for me for devoting so much time to sitting in a chair and writing about imaginary people.
I guess on the one hand I want to imagine that this is part of the 'heroic artist tempering process', that all the disdain will beef me up for the inevitable onslaught of rejections, critical maulings and poor sales. I'm surely making too much of this though. Regardless I'm excited to meet someone, one day, who, when I mention i devote a lot of time to writing, says something like 'oh cool, what topics are you interested in writing about' rather than 'is it science fiction?' and then a vague grimace when I say (restraining every violent fiber in my body) 'No it is not, actually'.
It's not really a problem, just strange, just unexpected. I want to think that there was a time where a young person could say, with self assurance, 'I'm devoting a great deal of my time to writing fiction right now, and have done this before, so I think I know what I am doing." and people would react, at least, with a knowing frown or an honest nod or a polite 'who do you read'? Maybe this is just a romantic notion, a detached, hopeless wish for an impossible past, but it seems like the situation now is even pretty sore.
It reminds me of solving mathematical problems, though of course there is less rigor involved here, but a similar sort of satisfaction.
I guess there are a few different pleasures in writing novels, a few levels of problems that arise at different points and give different sorts of satisfaction. There is the one that I mentioned in the last post, hitting flow: lining up your mind and your fingers and the page (reminds me, though I might be far off here, of what I heard in Kendo about achieving a sort of oneness between your mind and your body and your sword) which is a very imminent and wild and messy pleasure and then this other, later pleasure of going back and taking these rough pieces and finding the ways they fit together and how they connect to form larger structures, and then how these structures for even grander structures and then how these structures move withing each other to form a cohesive, functioning object: the novel.
(As an aside it makes me wonder, when I read stuff, novel, that are sort of a mash, that don't have any larger structures, that are just a mess of words on the page, what sort of pleasure the author got out of writing it. Conceptual novels too, to a certain extent. These works that lack the obvious exercise of building structures is foreign to me.)
On a totally different problem of literature I wanted to relate the reactions I have gotten from others when I mention that I am working on a novel, full time. It is something that I tried not to do for a long time, and now that I am doing it, little by little, I think I might just go back to it. The reactions, even from people close to me, run between a few extremes of disinterest, disdain, disgust and pity. I think once or twice I have even lost some respect from some people. Seriously. I understand how most people would not be that interested in writing novels (that's fine, I'm not that interested in the finer points of pig farming and we can agree not to bore each other with these conversations) but there are people who seem actively against this, or seem sort of sorry for me for devoting so much time to sitting in a chair and writing about imaginary people.
I guess on the one hand I want to imagine that this is part of the 'heroic artist tempering process', that all the disdain will beef me up for the inevitable onslaught of rejections, critical maulings and poor sales. I'm surely making too much of this though. Regardless I'm excited to meet someone, one day, who, when I mention i devote a lot of time to writing, says something like 'oh cool, what topics are you interested in writing about' rather than 'is it science fiction?' and then a vague grimace when I say (restraining every violent fiber in my body) 'No it is not, actually'.
It's not really a problem, just strange, just unexpected. I want to think that there was a time where a young person could say, with self assurance, 'I'm devoting a great deal of my time to writing fiction right now, and have done this before, so I think I know what I am doing." and people would react, at least, with a knowing frown or an honest nod or a polite 'who do you read'? Maybe this is just a romantic notion, a detached, hopeless wish for an impossible past, but it seems like the situation now is even pretty sore.
May 18, 2015
One thing
I sort of wanted to record my feelings right now about my time spent writing full time.
Right now (May 2015) I have spent the last four months working full time on me novel. Full time meaning: five days a week, three to six hours a day. In all honesty most days I only spent three or four hours working, but it was a solid three or four hours. There were a few days where I got up to six or eight solid hours, but those were rare.
I've been working in this novel since about Sept. 2013. I started it around the same time I submitted my last novel to publishers (it was not published). For the first year I was mostly just feeling out scenes, trying to get the plot together et c. I started with a few ideas in mind: a secretive and hypocritical Federal morality bureau, a teen pop star that is destroyed by here fame, a character that sinks into madness and worships the pop singer and believes she is a goddess and the immolation of the pop star. There were a number of minor points as well.
For the most part I was writing this before work in half hour or hour long bursts. At the time it felt like it was all moving along really slowly and I was sort of frustrated. I sort of had a few points in the middle of the novel but it was taking a long time to connect them and I didn't really have the beginning or the ending either which I like to establish early on.
I lost my job in January 2015 and after a little while got into writing full time. I had done this before between Jan and Mar 2013 and so got into it pretty easily in 2015. I wrote pretty steadily from between the end of Jan and April or so then took the 500 page manuscript, ran one pass of cuts, removing about 100 pages, then one pass of organizing sections and other pass of formatting, proofreading, writing connections and little new content and reorganization.
In the middle of MAY I had a manuscript that was ready to be shown to beta readers or a developmental editor.
I've hesitated to call myself a writer for a long time. I spend a lot of time writing, or have spent a lot of time writing, but it seems like sort of a pretentious thing to do IMO especially if you haven't published a novel. In a similar way I've been sort of uneager to discuss my novels, especially with people I don't know well because I've assumed they would be learning projects rather than publishable material. I've tentatively started to mention my writing to people I don't know well and discuss the plots of my novels but I still feel sort of strange doing it.
I really love the process of writing (and to a lesser degree editing) probably more than any other work that I have done. I hesitate to call it work because it seems like sort of a ridiculous thing to call it. Regardless sitting in a chair for a few hours just putting words down onto the screen is really enjoyable and fulfilling. I really could see myself doing this for the rest of my life if I could find a way to make money from it.
It is one of the few things that I sort of like feeling lost in, where I enjoy sort of sitting there and having no idea what I am supposed to be doing. I enjoy the feeling that I can just do whatever I want, come up with whatever I want, and get a way with it. I really like the feeling of just writing and hitting the flow where the ideas and words coming out of me sync up with the movement of my fingers and I am just sort of pouring words out onto the page. Writing is probably the only time or activity where I have been able to reliably reach flow, consistently and with not a whole lot of effort.
In a little more removed and abstract sense I really like the feeling that I am sort of participating in this really old and worldwide tradition or practice, like I am doing something that a lot of really, really smart people have done before. It makes me feel sort of less alone I guess.
It's cool too because even when things are looking the worst, when I am having a hard time writing or just swamped with my sense of failure or all those things I can sort of remember what I am spending my time doing and it sort of forces me into a better mood. Like I just have to remember that I am just spending my time writing and I feel significantly better.
Right now (May 2015) I have spent the last four months working full time on me novel. Full time meaning: five days a week, three to six hours a day. In all honesty most days I only spent three or four hours working, but it was a solid three or four hours. There were a few days where I got up to six or eight solid hours, but those were rare.
I've been working in this novel since about Sept. 2013. I started it around the same time I submitted my last novel to publishers (it was not published). For the first year I was mostly just feeling out scenes, trying to get the plot together et c. I started with a few ideas in mind: a secretive and hypocritical Federal morality bureau, a teen pop star that is destroyed by here fame, a character that sinks into madness and worships the pop singer and believes she is a goddess and the immolation of the pop star. There were a number of minor points as well.
For the most part I was writing this before work in half hour or hour long bursts. At the time it felt like it was all moving along really slowly and I was sort of frustrated. I sort of had a few points in the middle of the novel but it was taking a long time to connect them and I didn't really have the beginning or the ending either which I like to establish early on.
I lost my job in January 2015 and after a little while got into writing full time. I had done this before between Jan and Mar 2013 and so got into it pretty easily in 2015. I wrote pretty steadily from between the end of Jan and April or so then took the 500 page manuscript, ran one pass of cuts, removing about 100 pages, then one pass of organizing sections and other pass of formatting, proofreading, writing connections and little new content and reorganization.
In the middle of MAY I had a manuscript that was ready to be shown to beta readers or a developmental editor.
I've hesitated to call myself a writer for a long time. I spend a lot of time writing, or have spent a lot of time writing, but it seems like sort of a pretentious thing to do IMO especially if you haven't published a novel. In a similar way I've been sort of uneager to discuss my novels, especially with people I don't know well because I've assumed they would be learning projects rather than publishable material. I've tentatively started to mention my writing to people I don't know well and discuss the plots of my novels but I still feel sort of strange doing it.
I really love the process of writing (and to a lesser degree editing) probably more than any other work that I have done. I hesitate to call it work because it seems like sort of a ridiculous thing to call it. Regardless sitting in a chair for a few hours just putting words down onto the screen is really enjoyable and fulfilling. I really could see myself doing this for the rest of my life if I could find a way to make money from it.
It is one of the few things that I sort of like feeling lost in, where I enjoy sort of sitting there and having no idea what I am supposed to be doing. I enjoy the feeling that I can just do whatever I want, come up with whatever I want, and get a way with it. I really like the feeling of just writing and hitting the flow where the ideas and words coming out of me sync up with the movement of my fingers and I am just sort of pouring words out onto the page. Writing is probably the only time or activity where I have been able to reliably reach flow, consistently and with not a whole lot of effort.
In a little more removed and abstract sense I really like the feeling that I am sort of participating in this really old and worldwide tradition or practice, like I am doing something that a lot of really, really smart people have done before. It makes me feel sort of less alone I guess.
It's cool too because even when things are looking the worst, when I am having a hard time writing or just swamped with my sense of failure or all those things I can sort of remember what I am spending my time doing and it sort of forces me into a better mood. Like I just have to remember that I am just spending my time writing and I feel significantly better.
