Amanda M. Blake's Blog, page 10
June 7, 2024
Never early, always late: Friday Update
News:
Nothing to see here, other than fact that it seems appropriate that I’m finally watching all the Omen movies around the time of Damien’s birthday (which my nephew shares). I’d only ever seen the 2006 remake prior to this (it’s largely faithful to the original and I actually appreciate it more after watching the original), but I wanted to watch the rest of the franchise before tackling The First Omen, which I hear good things about.
Works in Progress:
I finished May Cooler Heads Prevail at 21,633 words. I still can’t say whether it’s a novelette or novella, since it could go either way in edits. I’m really pleased to have that concept story written and waiting for me when I’m ready to work on it again.
I then proceeded to throw my previous schedule out the window to attempt writing and editing a full alternative-history gothic novel, Masque, before the end of the month. I’m doing it to try to make a novel submission call, but also for myself. This story has been with me for years, probably since the mid-2010s. I’ve put off writing it all these years because it was one of those ideas where I would think, I’m not ready for this one yet. I need to cook more as a writer before I even try. I still have stories like that, and I’ve had stories that I tried to write before I gave myself time to cook.
I’m not sure whether I’m ready, but I’m 25K words in and still going strong. It helps that I wrote a comprehensive outline, which I think I will do for every story going forward so I can see where I’m going without having to hold the whole story in my head at all times. I just don’t have the attention bandwidth for that anymore, so my methods have to change. But the timing couldn’t be better, because it occurred to me while I was writing that I would not have been in the best position to write a plague story prior to COVID. I can and have read about plagues, but going through a pandemic answers questions you don’t think to ask and don’t always know where to find the answers.
The other wonderful thing about this story is that I’m going full-out gothic prose, with long sentences and giant paragraph blocks, whatever my heart desires. I cut my teeth on 18th and 19th century literature, and even Stephen King was of a more elaborate and gothic style for his time. The way I think very much resembles how these stories’ syntax was structured. I’ll clean and tighten it up in edits, of course, but it’s been fun letting the style run wild for now.
I’m going for my usual 5K words per day that I try to do for a novel. In theory, banging this novel out is entirely doable, depending on how much longer it is than my initial estimate of 100K words. As usual, we’ll just have to see.
Part of the reason for writing the novel instead of editing Crooked House (Thorns 5) is the frustration that I am still not employed and cannot yet spare the formatting costs. But as soon as Masque is completed, I’ll start Crooked House‘s final edits anyway. I may or may not be able to tackle a short story before the conclusion of a June call, but I can’t promise anything, and the story for it is more undefined than I’d like.
Books I’m Reading:
Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin
The Tommyknockers by Stephen King
Things I’m Listening To:
Pop playlist
The Village soundtrack
Knowing soundtrack
Sacrificium Instrumental Versions by Xandria
Nightwish
Things I’m Watching:
The Omen (1976)
The Exorcist: Believer
Pearl
Five Nights at Freddy’s
Damien: Omen II
Omen III: The Final Conflict
Omen IV: The Awakening
Summer Baking Championship series
The Amazing Race series
CSI series
CSI: Miami series
CSI: NY series
9-1-1 series
Poem of the Week:
no matter what you do
whether you spin the world
off axis
untether sky
from earth
steal worth
from paper and precious metals
stain great lakes red
marry the newly freshly dead
you can always count
on family
to stand with you
at the altar
May 31, 2024
One storm after another: Friday Update
News:
No writing news, but we did have a pretty gnarly storm hit our neighborhood early Tuesday morning. I sleep with earplugs, so storms don’t usually wake me anymore, but this one did, and the way the wind and rain sounded against the window wasn’t right. Never heard it like that before. Usually, storms have a tendency to go around us, for whatever reason, but this one’s hail patch went right over us, and the part of it that eventually had tornadic rotation went over us before coalescing, which might account for the strange wind. All in all, could have been worse, but it gave us a pretty good scare at six in the morning, with straight-line and rotating winds around 80 mph.
The neighborhood lost limbs and sometimes whole trees, there was some structural damage around us, and the lawns and streets still look chaotic with twigs and leaves. After that storm, we’ve had more pass through, but nowhere near as strong. We still have humidity that puts us in a good position for these storms, but the first was so powerful because we were so hot as well as humid, and all these fronts have pushed that ahead of us. We’ve had about seven inches of rain since Tuesday, but there’s pretty good drainage around our area, so no flooding, and although power flickered, we were lucky enough not to lose it.
Works in Progress:
The weekend before, my period hit me hard not with cramps, except that first night and morning, but with intense fatigue. I pretty much fought falling asleep the whole time and wasn’t able to work.
I’m still working on my novelette/novella May Cooler Heads Prevail. I’m not even sure what genre it is, other than speculative—maybe fabulism—so I have no idea what I’ll do with it, but I’m just seeing where it’s going. Hope to finish it and the next short story before next Friday.
Books I’m Reading:
Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin
The Tommyknockers by Stephen King
Things I’m Listening To:
Fumbling Toward Ecstasy by Sarah McLachlan
The Blacklist playlist
YouTube ambient videos
Things I’m Watching:
Insidious
Shivers
The Wicker Man (1973)
Scary or Die
The Frighteners
Fantasy Island (2020)
Summer Baking Championship series
Under the Banner of Heaven series
CSI series
CSI: Miami series
CSI: NY series
9-1-1 series
Will Trent series
Transplant series (finished)
Jeopardy Masters series (finished)
Bake Squad series (finished)
Home Town series (finished)
Murder, She Wrote series
Poem of the Week:
accuse me of willfully lying,
of cleverly applied deception,
glitter, wax, and rainbows
obscuring your perception,
but perhaps you might consider
your own baffling misconception
that my face came this way—
what cunning self-contraception.
May 24, 2024
Basket case: Friday Update
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?
May 17, 2024
Brace for impact: Friday Update
News:
My Crystal Lake Shallow Waters entry for this month’s Resurrection theme, “Second Chance,” has been posted on the Patreon. ($5/month, basically a themed anthology every month)
I’ll be wandering around Texas Frightmare in Dallas this weekend. I love it because I’m surrounded by a bunch of people who share my enthusiasms and aesthetic, but my introvert self has to brace for the muchness of everything.
Works in Progress:
I wanted to finish editing In the Dollhouse We All Wait before Texas Frightmare, and I did yesterday. Second round of edits went much faster, and I write synopses during second edits, so that’s done and dusted, too. I’m continuing to do really well in my first round of edits, which allows the second round to be swifter, strictly polish. All I have left is to put together the long and short pitches, but the manuscript itself is ready to sub. There aren’t a lot of markets for extreme horror, but maybe PitDark will find a place for it.
My other goal was to get it below the 90K-word max of a lot of small press sub calls. I cut it down from 116,160 words in the first draft to 88,636 at the end of the third draft. That seems like a lot to trim, but my usual novel word cut is about 20-25%, so it’s not too far off—a little more than average.
I have the Dollhouse pitches to write, and then I have two short stories I’d like to tackle. After that, I start on the professional edits for Crooked House. I’m still not sure if I can afford to pay for my series standard formatting, but we’ll see what June brings.
Books I’m Reading:
Killing Time by Russell C. Connor
Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire
Things I’m Listening To:
RAIGN
Joseph William Morgan
The Silicone Veil by Susanne Sundfor
Fumbling Towards Ecstasy by Sarah McLachlan
Arcadia by Eurielle
The Unknown by Sea Stars
When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go by Billie Eilish
YouTube ambient tracks
Metal soundtracks
Things I’m Watching:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
The Taking of Deborah Logan
The Meg 2: The Trench
The Pope’s Exorcist
CSI: Miami series
CSI: NY series
American Idol series
9-1-1 series
Jeopardy Masters series
Hometown series
Murder, She Wrote series
Poem of the Week:
what have we here, hidden
beneath branch and planted weed,
obscured with brush and scattered seed?
where have we come, unbidden,
and where does this winding path lead?
what kind of man conceals a bad deed,
and when does a path turn forbidden?
May 10, 2024
Ennui and existential dread: Friday Update
News:
Not a damn thing. Wondering if I need to reassess strategies, goals, hopes, dreams, or maybe just expectations. Been doing this for twenty years. That’s a long time to spin my wheels. I might just be tired.
Works in Progress:
If I continue at my current pace, I should finish the first round of In the Dollhouse We All Wait edits tomorrow evening. Editing is less emotionally draining than writing, because I’m more immersed in the story when I’m writing, mentally living it more and for longer periods of time (because of course I write slower than I read). However, the more extreme parts of this story are still a bit rough to get through while editing, although it affects me in less obvious ways.
I’m really not sure how this book will be received or what place it can hold in my oeuvre, but the point now is just getting it in fighting shape.
During the second round, I’ll write the synopsis. Then I’ll put together the pitch after. I’m not positive I’ll finish before Texas Frightmare, but I should finish before PitDark.
Books I’m Reading:
Killing Time by Russell C. Connor
Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire
Things I’m Listening To:
YouTube playlists
Metal playlists
Things I’m Watching:
The Gray Man
The Judge
Mr. Bates vs the Post Office series
CSI: Miami series
CSI: NY series
NCIS series
NCIS: Hawai’i series
American Idol series
Spring Baking Championship series (finished)
Murder, She Wrote series
Poem of the Week:
give me gold gild
in a baroque style
a grand chandelier
crystallizing rainbows
and champagne flutes
stroked to make
the phantom weep
May 3, 2024
The call is coming from inside the house: Friday Update
News:
My leg still isn’t back to normal. I don’t think it ever will be, or at least not for a long time. Can’t go to an orthopedist again until I have insurance, but I suspect that the original injury didn’t heal right and the chunk of muscle remains atrophied, while all the other muscles continue to overwork in compensation. However, I’m at a point where I really need to start doing some kind of aerobic exercise for health reasons, and the secondary injury seems to have finally calmed down. I’m going to try to get back on the elliptical at the absolute lowest resistance. It’s possible I just may not be able to walk around well without shoes. I guess I can live with that.
Two weeks ago, I said I’d include the link to the Citywide Blackout interview about Question Not My Salt, which was a great deal of fun, and I read an excerpt from the story, but I forgot to include it in last week’s update. So here it is.
My storm story “The Glitter of Bile” is featured in this month’s Cosmic Horror Monthly with Hailey Piper and Evelyn Freeling. It’s ultimately a COVID story, vile little cloud notwithstanding.
My piece “Second Chance” will be in this month’s Resurrection-themed Crystal Lake Shallow Waters flash fiction contest. There are twenty stories featured this month, so it should be a real treat. Barring complication, “Second Chance” should post on May 13.
In negative news, I think this month was the first since I started publishing with Totally Entwined under my other name in the previous decade that I received absolutely no royalties. So if you’re into spicier horror romance and dark urban fantasy, check out my Arcanium and Meridian series. Arcanium (series complete) brings together my two favorite horror tropes: ‘careful what you wish for’ and demonic circus/carnival. Meridian (series in progress, standalones) is in the vein of Supernatural and Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel, set in a fictional Texas city. Arcanium is darker, but Meridian should still be a lot of fun. Fourth Meridian novel is coming out later this year,
Works in Progress:
The Meridian Book 7 novel I thought I’d never be able to write, Tooth & Claw, is finally finished at 95,287 words total (which includes outline and more false starts, so remove about 5K for the real total). It’s such a relief to have that done and dusted and in my Meridian folder ready for editing when I come to it. I also wrote out the outline for the last book, Rack & Ruin, which I’ll tackle in November. That takes plotting off my plate when I get there, which is another relief, because I know I’ll have the story all ready.
I also had some intense inspiration for two separate anthology calls during one of my walks, so I decided to do an experiment where I wrote both short stories at the same time, kind of doing a section here and a section there, to see if that worked for me. It did not. I eventually had to focus on one to its conclusion, then work on the second. But I did get both of them written. And for now, I’m on track for my modest goal of one short story and one flash piece average for the year.
With all of these things out of the way, I’ve started my editing of In the Dollhouse We All Wait. Goal is to get it down from 116K words to under 90K by the end of the second edit, and to get it all done before Texas Frightmare on the weekend of May 17—the earlier the better, of course—because PitDark is on May 23 this year. I hope to be pitching In the Dollhouse (extreme horror), A Woman Alone (erotic horror), and We All Follow in the Dark (regular horror).
Books I’m Reading:
Killing Time by Russell C. Connor
Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire
Things I’m Listening To:
YouTube playlists
Metal playlists
Things I’m Watching:
FeardotCom
I Spit on Your Grave (2010)
Haunted Mansion (2023)
Robin Hood (Disney)
Yellowbrickroad
CSI: Miami series
CSI: NY series
American Idol series
Spring Baking Championship series
Hometown series
Murder, She Wrote series
Poem of the Week:
there is ecstasy in mourning
violence in grief
and a terrible endlessness
to the numbness
of absence
the heart does grow fonder
but finds no purchase
in what is no longer there
unrequited love
never found
April 26, 2024
In the jet stream: Friday Update
News:
Not a lot going on this week.
If you’re part of the Crystal Lake Patreon, voting for Workplace Horror flash fiction is open until tomorrow morning. You have fifteen interesting interpretations of the theme to read and choose from.
Someone on the Books of Horror Facebook page was kind enough to leave a review of Out of Curiosity and Hunger. I’m not going to link to it here, because she posted it on Amazon and Goodreads as well, but the way she described the whole vibe of OOCAH was just so perfect: “I love National Geographic, especially when the animals eat each other, and sometimes maybe humans too.”
I really do love creature features. You want creature features? I’ve got two! Out of Curiosity and Hunger (urban jungle) and Deep Down (cave monsters).
Works in Progress:
I’m still working on Tooth & Claw (Meridian 7). Barreling forward, in fact, 5K+ words a day. For reference, I started April 6, and by the end of the day, I’ll have written over 85K in twenty days. Based on where I am in the story, I think I’ll be able to finish by the end of the weekend, maybe Monday, although my period’s coming, and depending on severity, it may slow me down. I have a cushion of a few thousand words to keep up my 5K/day average lately, though.
Once I’m finished with that, I’m going to edit extreme horror novel In the Dollhouse We All Wait, because I want it to be ready in time for PitDark after Texas Frightmare in May. I ideally need to cut over 20K words, but I think that’s doable. That means I might have to push back Crooked House (Thorns 5) publication to June, but I might have to do that anyway if formatting is out of my financial reach. Depends on what I can sell between now and then and whether I’m employed.
I would categorize Question Not My Salt as on the milder side of extreme, but In the Dollhouse definitely fits into the subgenre, so much so that it might be hard to place instead of self-publish, but I’m going to try.
Books I’m Reading:
Killing Time by Russell C. Connor
Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire
Things I’m Listening To:
YouTube playlists
Metal playlists
Things I’m Watching:
Love of My Life (2013)
The Others
Army of the Dead (2021)
Alien vs. Predator: Requiem
Abigail (a fun, bloody flick)
NCIS series
NCIS: Hawai’i series
CSI series
CSI: Miami series
American Idol series
Spring Baking Championship series
Murder, She Wrote series
Poem of the Week: (throwback to April 2023)
haydust gold winds
round rustic spindle.
he does the work.
she reaps the spoils
of rotten wheat to
a marriage bed.
and does she ever
say thank you
or give freely
what she offered,
what she owes
for his labor?
April 19, 2024
Here comes the sun: Friday Update
News:
I experience reverse SAD (seasonal affective disorder), which means that as the days get longer and hotter, my sensitivity to heat and light intensifies my mood disorder. The first warm breezes and sweaty walks of the year make me grumpy, while the first cool breezes and cold nights in October bring me joy. So whenever I feel unsettled or cranky for no reason around this time of year, I have to remind myself I’m adjusting to my new reality for the next six months. It usually hits in May, but it’s come in April this time.
I had a job interview earlier this week. The job itself seems promising, and I think it went well. I stress about interviews for a day beforehand, then have a hard time winding down after. By the time I got home afterward about thirty minutes later, I was still answering interview questions in my car right in front of my house, talking to nobody. However, after two decent interviews, I think I’ll be less terrified of them going forward. So far, I haven’t had any weird, random questions that are hard to answer because they’re out of left field. It’s all fairly straightforward, and now that I’ve worked in an office before, I have a better idea what questions to ask. I have trouble coming up with questions of my own when I don’t have enough information to know what to ask. I don’t know what I don’t know, you know?
In addition to a job interview, I had a book interview with Citywide Blackout last night on Question Not My Salt. I had a really good time and got to talk about extreme horror, about what Saw traps say about human survival instinct, and about the different kinds of cannibalism in the genre. I’ll provide the link to it next week, but it should pop up on the site tomorrow.
My workplace horror flash fiction “Eye Spy,” about mystical micromanagement, posted on the Crystal Lake Patreon earlier this week.
In other news, I watched the Nightmare on Elm Street movie series for the first time in release order (except the reboot, which I watched first). I hadn’t seen the second NOES before. So now I’ve seen them all, and it feels like an accomplishment. Also, I’ve been working on watching The Mentalist for years and finally got the last two seasons under my belt. It’s such a comfort show to me, and it was nice to finish. House and/or Criminal Minds might be next.
Works in Progress:
Thank goodness, Tooth & Claw seems to be the solution to my Book 7 problem. So, among the changes I made between restarts, just in case it’s useful to you: First, a change in tense from present to past. Then, a change in protagonist from Lis to Tara as primary and Lis as secondary (multiple POVs, which has precedent in the Meridian series). Last, changing where I start the story.
Those are all pretty much par for the course when trying to figure out what does and doesn’t work: tense, POV, who the protagonist should be, and where the story starts. It just usually doesn’t take me 50K words I can’t use to get there. However, by end of day today, I’ll have reached 50K good words in two weeks, at 5K or more words a day, except for my job interview day. Being able to maintain that word count is proof that this version is working, because in the last two versions, I struggled with 3K a day and I didn’t look forward to getting to work each morning.
In addition, I’ve been working on poetry, and I edited and submitted a short story to a submission call in the breaks between my writing. I like to write 500 words at a time and have a little treat in between, especially during higher word count days that can end up creatively exhausting. Sometimes that treat is a page or two of editing. Sometimes it’s editing or writing a poem. Sometimes it’s fifteen to twenty minutes of a low-concentration movie or show. Even these update sections are a break from my work!
It’s similar to the Pomodoro Technique, which suggests that intervals of work are more effective than marathons. I call them my In-and-Outs. Some days that sounds dirtier than others, depending on the content of my writing.
Books I’m Reading:
Killing Time by Russell C. Connor
Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire
Things I’m Listening To:
YouTube playlists
Singer-songwriter playlists
Metal playlists
Things I’m Watching:
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare
New Nightmare
Freddy v. Jason
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)
The Mentalist series (finished)
NCIS series
NCIS: Hawai’i series
CSI: Miami series
American Idol series
Spring Baking Championship series
Murder, She Wrote series
Poem of the Week: (throwback to April 2023)
field mouse in search of shelter
inspects daisies and daffodils,
dandelions and clover, none a fit
cushion for her tiny girth,
finally settles on the fairy bed
of a pink tulip, pollen gilding
her humble fur with apian gold.
April 12, 2024
Third-time charm: Friday Update
News:
We were in the path of totality. Above is my eclipse kit. We ate mini Moon Pies while we stared up at the moon-covered sun. It was edge of twilight all around. I’m used to the light getting disquietingly thinner during a partial, but never bad-storm dark like that. And the sight of the corona around the moon is just like the pictures, but there’s a difference between looking at pictures—which look like a black circle Photoshopped over the sun–and seeing it in person. It still looks fake, but you know no one has manipulated the sky, which makes it so unreal and cool to see.
In industry news, Pleasure in Pain is getting mixed early reviews on Goodreads (through NetGalley), but “Graphite” is proving to be a standout in the collection, which feeds my ego just fine, thank you. Don’t worry, my ego is underfed and only gets healthy with the occasional meal.
Also, I never made it public because no contract was signed, but Bathroom Omens, my bathroom horror prose/poetry collection, received some publication interest. After a bit of upheaval, though, I decided to withdraw it from consideration for now and start submitting the individual pieces instead. In theory, this should allow the collection to do some work for me first, since collections are a harder sell to audiences. I’d like these stories to be read, because they’re some of my best, even if word counts mean that some of those best are hard to place in the short story markets.
Go forth, my filthy little pretties.
Works in Progress:
This seventh Meridian book has been a job of work, to borrow from Buffy. Two previous versions, false starts, finally resorting to an outline (not a bad thing, just atypical). After two more false starts, I finally managed to get a good opening to Tooth & Claw. I am much more confident in this version than the last two, and the outline proves I have a whole story. It also takes some of the long-term lifting off my shoulders, because I don’t have to remember everywhere I’m going, just the scene I’m in and the next. With my memory issues, that’s really been helpful.
In addition to putting my collection to work, these last two days has involved handfuls of submissions and handfuls of rejections, but I’m still getting holds and personalized rejections, so it’s not all negative.
In the coming week, I’d like to push my daily word counts, if possible, and hit 50K words, because I have a job interview on Wednesday, and should I have good luck there, I’d like to get as far into the book as possible before heading into a new job. But I also want to take a short break at 20K or 25K words to edit a short story for sub and finish out my poetry for the month.
Books I’m Reading:
Killing Time by Russell C. Connor
Half-Off Ragnarok by Seanan McGuire (finished)
Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire
Things I’m Listening To:
YouTube playlists
Singer-songwriter playlists
Things I’m Watching:
Train to Busan
The Autopsy of Jane Doe
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (finally first time watching; Netflix has all but one NOES movie streaming)
Angel series (watchalong, finished)
White Collar series
NCIS series
NCIS: Hawai’i series
CSI: Miami series
Will Trent series
American Idol series
Spring Baking Championship series
Murder, She Wrote series
Poem of the Week: (throwback to April 2022)
The placid white clouds
have all turned gray.
The streets of pearl
have shattered away.
What happened to
these Elysian fields
to fade to brown
from the final seals?
Feathers floating
down from above.
Send in the crows
instead of the dove.
April 5, 2024
Curve ahead: Friday Update
News:
The Pleasure in Pain: A Queer Horror Anthology is officially available in e-book and paperback on Amazon, with my story “Graphite,” loosely inspired by the Japanese fairy tale “The Boy Who Drew Cats.”
My short story “Eye Spy” is part of this month’s flash fiction finalist line-up for Crystal Lake Shallow Waters at their Patreon, themed Workplace Horror. I really do like writing for these and Apex’s flash fiction prompts. It’s good exercise in a lot of different horror directions.
Works in Progress:
I feel like I still make writing schedules like I still write at the same pace as in my twenties. I didn’t get to start on Tooth & Claw yet, but I edited and submitted a novelette, wrote eight substantial poems, and wrote a short story for a sub call. I’ll be starting my third attempt at Meridian Book 7 today after finishing this post.
I came up with an idea for a creative non-fiction article, which is new for me, unless you count the Introduction to the Bathroom Omens short story collection. I don’t know when I’m going to tackle it, but I put it on my list for this year.
I feel like I’ve been submitting a lot but not getting responses at the same pace. I’m bracing myself for a deluge of rejections to try not to take them personally.
Because I’m still doing long poems based on the Crow Calls prompts for this month, I’m going to do some throwback flash poetry for the Poems of the Week, this time from April 2022.
Books I’m Reading:
Killing Time by Russell C. Connor
Half-Off Ragnarok by Seanan McGuire
Things I’m Listening To:
YouTube playlists
Singer-songwriter playlists
Things I’m Watching:
Spider-Man: Far From Home
Wonka
Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Bodies Bodies Bodies
Is It Cake? series (finished)
Home Town series
American Idol series
CSI: Vegas series
The Mentalist series
Angel series (watchalong)
Spring Baking Championship series
Poem of the Week: (throwback to April 2022)
all I want
is a quiet life
with books on my nightstand
and a cat purring in my lap
while clean rain drums
picture windows
before swaying trees
and a cup of hot chocolate
and instead you turn over
in obscene thread count sheets
and cheap socks
and choose violence
you do not know
what you awaken
