Craig Terlson's Blog, page 12

Bent Highway: Chapter Thirteen

Fire-Water

I didn’t know what day it was, nor the time, or even month - for damn sure, not the year. The heat had been building since I was dropped off in front of the mobile home. Dropped off, right - more like kicked out on my ass. It had to be summer, but I couldn’t tell if it was just starting or ending. A wave of black birds swooped and crested into a boomerang shape, shifted into long line, and then dissipated across the wide expanse. I pictured her at the wheel of the truck. Waiting.

I’d...

Correction Line - redux

I have decided to put my novel Correction Line up for a free promotion again - well, actually I decided this about a month ago.

It is still part of the KDP select plan, so I thought I'd do it one last time. I wrote about what happened last time (How did that free thing go), and honestly, I have no idea how this one will go. I've learned in the last few months a lot about Amazon, notably its pesky algorithms (and how they have changed). But ultimately, I am simply looking to introduce more read...

Responding to reviews - the kids behind the fence

I have been thinking a lot about reviews lately. Well, check that, I always think about reviews - probably too much. And I am guessing that writers who do not think about them are either:

1. Much more nobler (and mature) than I.

Or 2. Lying.

Now with the advent of this new fangled thing called the internet, writers have the opportunity to connect directly with their readers. Sure, they had it before if they were the types who went on book tour, and signed books and gladhanded their fans - or one...

Bent Highway: Chapter Twelve

New Wave

My life had become a Godard movie - and not just the fucked up parts. I used to watch those French films, for some weird reason my small town video store had a full collection of French movies, all the New Wave ones, Godard, Renoir, Truffaut. I got bored with all the Hollywood crap, and started watching them. At first they made no sense, like that poetry that English teachers take apart as the whole class shares the same blank stare. Then I’d watch them again, and again. Just by mysel...

Bent Highway: Chapter Eleven

Rest Stop

I awoke in a glowing white room, unable to tell the source of the light. My leg throbbed. I didn’t have to look to know it was bleeding. Instead, I stared into the snout of the wolfdog – and towering above him, a man I needed to ask some questions.

“Where is this?”

“Think of it as a rest stop.”

The wolfdog growled.

“Seems more like a interrogation room.”

“We needed to get off the highway.”

“Where is she?”

“That’s not your concern.”

I knew what happened after we left Lester’s place – after I...

How the hell do you explain a book?

Maybe not the most elegant title for a post, but something I have been thinking about... a lot. One of the issues the Big 6 publishers had with Correction Line (as forwarded to me by the agent for the novel) was that it couldn't be easily placed in a genre. It was too literary to really be a suspense thriller, but it had too many suspense type elements to really be a literary book. (And no one seemed to be buying literary books anyway).

Oh, and then there is the whole supernatural thing.

Insert...

Bent Highway: Chapter Ten

Airstream

Lester’s front porch sagged like a Sally Ann bargain mattress, and just as stained and worn. Two of the four supporting posts were completely gone and the others had two by fours nailed into the parts that weren’t rotten. He pulled up the half-ton next to a dented airstream that I recognized right away.

Lester got out of the truck and banged on the trailer door.

Inside there was a muffled, “What?”

“Where’s your mother?” Lester yelled through the door.

“Damned if I know.”

“Hey, no swearing...

King Harvest!

Bent Highway is going to be up within the hour - here is a musical teaser. This tune figures in today's chapter.

Groove along.

More cowbell!!!

It was one of those aimless afternoons...

I've posted before about my story Dunked, but I thought since it is on a free promotion right now I'd say a bit more about it.

The setting is one of favorites, circa 1970's, at the end of one of those lovely long languishing (l.l.l.) summers. As I say in the story,

It was one of those aimless mid-vacation afternoons; not so late in the summer that you thought about going back to school, but around the time you started running out of anything good to talk about.

Time seemed to stretch out forever...

Bent Highway: Chapter Nine

Starshine

I woke up to the smell of cow shit mingled with motor oil and old cigarettes. Crammed into a small space, strapped into something, and moving fast. Damn fast. I moved my head, pain knifed through my skull, the driver spat on the floor of the truck.

“Morning Starshine.” A chortle.

“What - where?” I tried to sit up, held fast by the strap and buckle.

“Now where the hell are you fixing to go? You ever jumped from a vee-hickle going,” a pause, “79 mile an hour?”

The outside slid into sharpne...