John Quick's Blog, page 4

Cleaning Up

Today, my short story collection Three Shots and a Chaser found its way onto Kindles everywhere. There's a paperback version coming in the next few days, once I approve the final proof for it, but either way, it meant I needed to do some updating on the website.

To that end, I also ended up doing a serious overhaul on the Bookshelf page. Previously, I listed everything I'd finished at least a first draft of, but as I looked at it today, it occurred to me that it was starting to become a b...

Arm Cast Podcast Appearance

For those who are interested, you can catch me on Armand Rosamilla's Arm Cast Podcast today along with fellow horror author Frank Edler; you can check it out here, or just listen to the embed below!

A Strange Day, A Strange Reality

It’s a strange day in America.
As I write this, the country is waking up to a new president-elect, one that so many expected would be nothing but a blip on the radar as election night results came in. That blip became an all-consuming one, though, and suddenly—understandably, in many cases—people were forced to see that the country wasn’t what they thought it was.
The arguments have already begun, the fingers are being pointed as people try and figure out how it happened. We are experiencing ou...

Things Past and Things to Come

Another month is gone, and so I figure it's about time for a quick update on what's going on in my world lately.

First, it is now November, which means NaNoWriMo is officially underway. I'll be working on my coming of age novel, tentatively titled What Sleeps Beneath. After the first session last night, I'm already over 3k words in, so it's off to a fantabulous start. For the record, the progress meter is showing a completion based on the projected final word count, and not the 50k expected fo...

A Review in Two Parts: Jonathan Janz's Witching Hour Theatre

Let me go ahead and get something out of the way right up front: this is going to be different from what I normally do with my reviews, but this is how inspiration works, so bear with me. I’m going to be talking about Jonathan Janz’s novella Witching Hour Theatre, which has just been re-released with some additional content and an essay for the afterword where he talks about some of his influences, his early writing development, Stephen King, and his wife. Since I’m one of those people who re...

Happy Birthday Vicki Beautiful

I am pleased to host a special announcement from Somer Canon, author of the wonderfully morbid Vicki Beautiful. See what she has to say, and be sure to check out the book as well! See my review for it here.

Congrats on six months of Vicki Beautiful, Somer!

Vicki Beautiful Celebrates Six Months with Giveaway. Have You Ate Dinner Yet?By Somer Canon, Author
Do you know what happened on April 26, 2016? Yes, that was six months ago. Surprise! It was the day that my novella, Vicki Beautiful, laun...

NaNoWriMo: What Sleeps Beneath

I have decided this year to make a stab at the whole National Novel Writing Month project. Since I've been averaging a novel a month, I figure it's a pretty good thing to try to keep me motivated and have some fun with the process as well.

Image courtesy of NaNoWriMo.org

The novel I'm going with is tentatively called What Sleeps Beneath, and will be my "coming of age" tale. I don't have a synopsis as of yet, just a basic idea of what the story's going to be, but I will definitely be posting mor...

One Week: The (Not-So) Glamorous Life of an Indie Writer

Even for only having one book out, I've heard the fun comments: wondering why I have a day job still, or the ones that really set my blood boiling, that writing can't really be that hard. That kind of thing. So in the interest of showing just how glamorous and "easy" it is, here's how my week has gone so far:
Sunday: Work at the day job, so try to spend a little time with the family beforehand. That's tough, since I didn't get home until 1 AM from my shift the night before, and was enough of a...

Modern-Day Rosemary's Baby: A Review of Stolen Away by Kristin Dearborn

I have to admit that I’m not very familiar with Kristin Dearborn’s work, but after reading her latest effort, Stolen Away, I’m going to be taking more notice in the future.


The story’s familiar, especially if you’ve read Ira Levin’s book or seen the movie Rosemary’s Baby. That said, this isn't just a simple re-hash of the same old territory. Where Stolen Away differs is in how it blends the subtle creepiness of the old with the directness of modern horror. And while there are many out there wh...

Random Musings: A General Update

It's strange to look at the posts I've made on here the last month or so and see mostly reviews for other folks, and notices on the Summer of Consequences Publicity Tour, and little else. Don't get me wrong, neither of those are a bad thing at all; it's just a little surprising considering what I expected this blog to be when I first started out with it. So if you'll indulge me a little selfishness, here's a snapshot of what all's going on with me right now.

First, I want to explain why all th...