Josh Hilden's Blog, page 28

The Story of Josh Part Forty Nine: The Finale

I have been using these series of journal essays as a therapy session of sorts. When I decided to attempt and get a handle on my depression and my massive sense of inferiority and self loathing I needed the pretense of therapy in order to be truthful. I started in May of this year and have cranked out dozens of stories that delved into my past as I attempted to reach the roots of my issues. I have covered things that have been done to me that were wrong, things that I have done that are wrong, and the world that I have inhabited for thirty six years.

It has been a journey that has been worth the consequences. And my friends and haters there have been consequences.

My parents are mad at me and one of them has not spoken to me since May. A sibling that will not be named, but I will tell you it was not the youngest, threatened to sue me for slander over something I had written (yeah think about that for a minute). And I have disconnected from many family members who I honestly believe do not want anything to do with me now that I have emptied the secrets from my closet. But my wife supported me through ever step, my children still love me, and my grandparents stand behind me. I feel better, I sleep better, and my self-respect has never been this high. Someone I will not name told me that one day I would regret being so candid and telling things from my point of view. Whose fucking point of view am I supposed to use, the homeless guy that throws rocks at cars near the interstate? Well here is my take on it. If I get it all out there, empty the closets and drag the secrets out from under the bed, then there is nothing that can be used as a weapon against me.

So fuck’em … it was all worth it in the end.

But now it is time for this leg of the journey to come to an end. My life has changed more over the summer of 2012 than at any other time since the turn of the century … by the old ones that makes me feel old. I will continue to tell my story o this blog, the story never ends and it will need to be narrated but it will be under a new heading. “The Story of Josh” has finished the first volume and the second one is still being woven in the vast factories and artistic havens of my mind and memory.

The feedback and support that I have received from so many of you has been overwhelming. I love you all and it is because of you that I have been able for the first time in my adult to pull myself out of the darkness of the pit and into the bright light of the day.


Josh

The Story of Josh Part Forty Eight: Diet Mother Fucker … Did I stutter?!?!

Warning we will be discussing nasty bodily functions in this one. Functions that everyone has unless they are crippled or genetic freaks … if you did not have them you would be dead. So grow the fuck up.

No “Therapist” today, this is an update on how things have been going for me physically. It has been three weeks since all of this started and the changes have been unexpected and a little bizarre.

Three Mondays ago I gave up all pop (soda for you fucking heathens from foreign lands … like Montana) and Fast Food. The fast food thing is a bigger deal than any of you may realize. I have been eating he equivalent of six to nine full fast food meals every week for the last three years … yeah not even fucking kidding. Fast food was where I for my escape and my pleasure when I was in the depths of depression and even after I was feeling so much better I found it impossible to stop eating. Pop has been less difficult because I have been substituting juices and iced tea for coca-cola … but man I would beat a crippled foreigner (like someone from Montana) for a warm New Coke.

Ugh.

I have been having dreams of whoppers and coke. And by Whoppers and Coke I do not mean cock and white powder I mean I have been having realistic dreams of Ice Cold Coca-Cola and steaming hot fresh Burger King Whoppers with sizzling Onion Rings.

I have a food boner just writing that.

But things have not been all self denial and suffering. My poop is more pleasant. That’s right folks you read that right, my poop has been less smelly and easier to pass. Also my poop has been a fuck of a lot more regular. I am still being affected by the side effects of my medications but now I know when it’s the meds and when it’s not as opposed to ALWAYS having fucked up bowels. Gas has also been less of a problem. I have been living on Gas-X for quite a while and it has been weeks since I have taken one of the little green gels.

I also smell better.

Yes kids that’s right, no salty meat sweats for me. Or at least less and less of the sweats.

And then there is sex. My doctor has been telling me for awhile now that changing my diet would help with the erectile dysfunction. I did not believe her but it appears to be true. I am not saying that I have become a “Sexual Tyrannosaurus” or anything but there has definitely been a fuck of a lot more activity below the belt … especially when I wake up.

So yeah it hit me the other day that this is a diet.

Not sure how to feel about that. When I was 12 years old my mother enrolled me in the diet workshop (after my begging) and I lost weight. But then depression and lack of drive killed it. After that first major dieting attempt I have done literally dozens of diets. All of them have been abject fucking failures. Now I have stumbled into a diet without trying … not sure how it will turn out. I have made three aborted entries into the McDonalds parking lot in the last three weeks and I have stared at bottles of pop and fought myself not to drink them.

This is hard people … really fucking hard.

And not in the good way.

The Highs and the Lows

It has been busy for old Josh and I have been somewhat remiss in keeping you all updated on my professional machinations. To put things simply … life has been awesome!

But first the bad.

I had handed off the finished draft of Shores of the Dead Book One: the Rising to the person that had offered to do the editing. I had believed that everything was chugging along and we were on target to meet the November 1st release date. I had the cover finished and in my hands and I had done a dry run with the publishing process to make sure that I knew what the fuck I was doing.

Then I received THE email.

My editor told me that they had barely made a dent in the manuscript that had been in their possession for almost three months. They were apologetic and accepted all of the blame but the reality was I had no editor and no money to hire an editor. This editor was doing it as a final project for a university English class. After my stomach crawled up out of my feet I hit the social networks and laid it all out there. I told them that I needed help and that time and money was a factor.

The response was breathtaking.

Literally dozens of people responded and it was less than twelve hours before I had a new editor and the manuscript was in her hands. She has been updating me chapter by chapter as she has chewed her way through the book like a lioness.

Thanks Marla!

I think the book will be a little late but I am confident that I will be releasing it before the end of November. I feared that I wouldn’t have a prayer of releasing it before the first of the year. Mr. Mike Mumah is working on the covers for Book Two: The Escape and Book Three: The Last Stand and the things we have discussed makes me believe that they will blow your mind. And maybe turn your stomach!

The first draft of Camp of the Dead is chugging along. The various plot lines are gelling together and with every pass my characters feel more and more real to me. The ending has been roughed and I am now working on knitting all the islands of story into one cohesive continent of a novel.

Now for the big news …

… I have a new writing job. I am now a freelance writer for Fat Goblin Games (www. fatgoblingames.com). I am working on something that I can’t discuss at the moment but if I nail it it could lead to something awesome!

Alright that’s it folks!


Josh

Shores of the Dead Update

Just a quick update for all of you who have been so patient. I have received the Kickstarter funds in full from all of my backers. Thank you so much to everyone who supported the project financially and emotionally, you guys are the best! The next step will be to get payment out to my cover artist (the amazing Mike Mumah) for books two and three and then to buy the ISBN’s for all of the books. Editing is progressing on Book One and everything is looking good on that front and I will be getting Books two and three into the editorial pipeline ASAP. Everything is looking good.

The Story of Josh Part Forty Seven: I am a Self Hating Fatty

We are sitting out on the deck sipping iced tea and watching the dog chase the squirrels when Joe’s mom and dad ask what we would like to have for dinner. They are all throwing out ideas but I stay quiet. When they decide on Italian I secretly sigh with relief.

Joe’s dad notices.

After Joe and his mom leave the room his dad asks me why I didn’t give any suggestions. I tell him that I like just about everything and that since I don’t know what they like I figured I would just let them decide. He looks me right in the eyes and then tells me he knows that’s crap.

When I do not say anything I response he tells me that he knows I have the same love hate relationship with food that he has with booze. The only difference he tells me is that he can do his damndest to make sure that he never takes a drink again but I need to eat to live.

I nod with my eyes downcast.

Tell me about it he says.

As always this is first and foremost a therapy session and the doctor is in. This is a hard one people, because unlike some of the shit I have disgorged in these essays this one is my fault.


I eat.

That sounds like the most obvious thing in the world when I say it but the reality is that for thirty six years I have been almost entirely defined by the fact that I eat. I have touched on this facet of my life here and there during these writings but I have refused to look it right in the fucking eyes and tell it like it is. In a very real and a very sick way I feel like I am about to beat my oldest friend to death or die trying myself.

That may not be very far from the truth.

I have not been well lately and I think my weight and my diet have to bare almost 100% of the blame. I weigh as of a week ago 306 pounds I am now less than ten pounds from the maximum weight I have ever achieved. I am barely five foot nine (you metric mother fuckers can figure that one for yourselves) and I am closer to forty than to thirty. I have six kids ranging in ages from about to be three to twenty four. I have severe type two diabetes that is being managed but only with medication and not with much in the way of logical dietary controls. I have been experiencing numbness in areas of my body and I have been having palpitations and shortness of breath as of late.

And still I eat.

When I say I eat I mean I fucking eat. If there is food to be consumed I consume it. I do not mean that I take food from the mouths of my children, I am a fatty not a fucking monster, but when they have had theirs I will almost always make sure that there are no leftovers. At night I will get up and do the foods dance, anything left over in the oven or the microwave or the refrigerator will be devoured in a scene worthy of a Romero flick. It is a nasty disgusting process that makes me feel like I am flying while I am doing it then sends me to the pits of shame when I am done.

And yet I still eat.

Almost every day I will stop on my way to work and get fast food. A couple of burgers, a large fry, and a large coke with maybe some chicken thrown in for good measure are how I brace myself for work. Nobody knows I do this, nobody knows that I spend this money that should be saved, and nobody knows how much I hate myself for this behavior. I feel tired, greasy, and nasty all night while I am at work but I still eat the food that I have at work for breaks and dinners on top of this binge. Then when I get home I eat a full meal right before going to bed … then I get up and do the foods dance again.

And yet despite all this I still eat.

I can tell you the stories of my childhood where I was the sad little fat kid and food was one of the only things that made me feel good, true. I could tell you that I used to fear that if I didn’t eat as much as I could as fast as I could or there would be no food for me, true. I could tell you that I just love to fucking eat, true.

None of that matters.

I am a grown ass man with a family and responsibilities. I am tired of always being tired, I am tired of always being or getting sick, I am tired of constantly being a human methane generator, and I am tired of producing stool that would offend the lords of the underworld.

And yet still like a complete moron I eat and eat and fucking EAT!

I have begun so many diets that I can’t even remember them all. I am so tired of hearing how some people just found it so easy to lose weight, all they did was stop eating.

Fuck you.

Here is MY plan it is a simple one that is going to harder than anything I have ever done before. This is the first step but I am no longer stupid enough to think I can change everything at once.

First, no more pop (or soda or whatever the hell you call it in the strange foreign place you live) and that means no diet pop either.

Second, no more fast food. This one simple and makes me want to cry.

Third, no more giant meals when I get home from work. Just something simple and lighter.

So that is all I have. I have also decided to start posting my weight every week when I get a scale. I have found this has helped keep me honest with my writing when I post a word count.


It’s hard to give up something that you have found comfort in Joe’s dad says. Then he squeezes my shoulder. I know you can do it he says and walks away.

That is the end of today’s session.

The Story of Josh Part Forty Six: I think I may have PTSD

When I woke up the next morning Joe’s mom took me aside and asked me if everything was OK. I asked her what she meant and he said that it sounded like I was having some really bad dreams the night before. I sigh and tell her that I am sorry. I have had bad dreams since I was a kid and that I didn’t mean to bother anyone.

She takes me aside and sets me down in the kitchen. After making coffee she asks me to tell her about them. When I seem reluctant she reminds me who her husband and son are and tells me that nightmares are nothing new to her.

I guess that it is time to explain the dreams.

As always this is a therapy session and it appears that yet another doctor is in again.


I have always had bad dreams. I have talked about them here before and I think that the creative nature of my personality it is probably a price that I would have to pay regardless for my art.

Christ that sounds pretentious as fuck.

But it is true, some of the best ideas that I have ever had have come from my dreams. More importantly the more graphic and frightening dreams, along with the more erotic, have always been a key that has opened new paths in my imagination. But there are subsets of dreams that have always served to keep me grounded in the horrors of my past.

You all know I was raped as a child and I am not going to rehash that story or give some people a reason to accuse me of trying to get sympathy. But I think people are really quick to discount how that has affected me. I am not sure if it is because I am a man, or if it is because I kept it inside for so long and managed to seem functional during that period. Or if it is because they think I am a fucking liar. In the end it doesn’t matter, it has in some ways damaged me to the point where some things will never be “Normal” in my life relative to others.

But that in no way means that I can’t be happy.

Ever since those days when I was a child I have had dreams. They have been the dreams that have wakened me in the dead of the night gasping and choking back tears and screams. Sometimes the dreams have been crystal clear and I can see him, sell him, and feel him. But other times they have been nebulous and ghostly. Either way they have tormented me for almost twenty years of my life.

That all changed this summer.

One of the reasons that started all of this was the dreams. Yes I have been delving into all of my issues in this series of essays and yes I have covered some things that have made people mad. But in the end it has all been worth it because I have been feeling the results. I have been happier, I have been calmer, I have been more productive, I have been freer with my feelings and opinions, and maybe most importantly I have been sleeping better.

Before June I was having the dream at least once a week. When I would have it I would keep it to myself, the last thing that I wanted to do was to push that nightmare onto my wife even peripherally. She had said repeatedly that she wants me to wake her but it’s just not something I can do, I have felt that I deserve to suffer for not being able to stop what happened to me.

I understand that that sounds ridiculous but in my mind this is all my fault I am a male and nobody should have been able to do that to me, I should have fought that mother fucker. I should have found something sharp and jammed it into his fucking throat. I should have waited till he was asleep and burned his house to the ground with him in it.

Instead I just took it and cried.

After I told the story, a story by the way that my family has known the broad strokes of since I was 17, I felt better. I felt, and most of the time I still feel, that a great burden had been lightened. But I knew that it would NEVER be gone. Since the night that I posted the essay about my assault my dreams of that experience have been tame.

Until last night.

Last night I woke at three in the morning gasping for breath with a scream in the back of my throat and sweat coating my body. Even with my eyes open and the air heaving in and out of my lungs I could still smell the beer on his breath … I could still feel the burning. I did not wake Karen, I did not make any noise, and instead I went into the bathroom and threw up in the toilet. A dream has not done that to me in years.

In some ways I think I got my hopes up that this was over. I need to accept that it never will be.


Joe’s mom gets up and hugs me.

“It was never your fault” she says.

I cry.

That’s all I want to say today, this session is over and the doctor is out.

Kickstarters and Unicorns

This morning my first Kickstarter project has closed and it has been an unmitigated success. This is not to say that there weren’t a few road bumps and that I didn’t learn more than a few things on the journey. Here I am presenting an overview of how things started, what happened, how it all ended … and what the next one might be.

I had been holding onto the massive manuscript that is the complied version of the Shores of the Dead Trilogy for almost a year when I got very very tired of trying to work inside the stale world of traditional publishing. As much as a part of me wanted to get a kick-ass agent and be published by a giant book mill there was an even larger part of me that was totally an Indy-Boy at heart. In early 2012 I read “Tough Shit” by Kevin Smith and it changed my life. I decided after finishing reading that book in one day that “Fuck Agents and Publishers, I am doing this shit myself.”

The first thing I did was look into financing.

I knew that I could handle some of the expenses out of pocket but even doing things as on the cheap as possible I was still going to need to hire a professional artist to do the covers and I needed to hire a third party editor. One of my maxims, one of the things I believe above all others when it comes to being a professional writer;

“NO WRITER SHOULD EVER BE HIS OR HER OWN FINAL EDITOR!”

As far as I am concerned there are no exceptions to this rule. I don’t give a shit what one publisher told me as he tore my work to pieces years ago. Even Stephen King agrees with this.

So I decided that the best way to raise capital was crowd sourcing. Asking strangers and social media friends to help fund my work through a third party service bothers me a lot less than begging family and close friends for funds. That half of the project was financed in the end by people I know and love but this way just feels more “Legit” to me.

So I set the parameters of the project (60 days, $1000 goal, and a string of rewards for backers) and after Kickstarter reviewed it I launched it. The process was relatively smooth and the money was pledged steadily allowing us to hit out goal three quarters of the way to the deadline. In the end we even hit the one stretch goal that I set.

It was awesome.

Completion has meant that I can do everything I want to do. I can afford to pay the awesome Mike Mumah (www.artofmikemumah.com) to do the covers for the trilogy. I have admired his work for years and his style fits well with the tone of the books. I will also be able to pay for a professional editor and for a bit of advertising. The experience required me to whore my project online for almost sixty days. At first this was a daunting prospect but as it turned out it does not bother me in the least to ask people to give me money in return for rewards and the knowledge that they are supporting something that I believe in.

But I made some mistakes.

First – I never made a video for the Kickstarter and several people I know told me that next time I just need to get over my reluctance and do it. To be fair I did make a couple but I will never subject any of you to them.

Second – I set the Kickstarter for the maximum length of sixty days. Next time I am going to set it for thirty days, I think more people will be likely to help if they know it’s not going to be around much longer.

Third – I want to have some art to post with Kickstarter when I launch it which means paying for it before the Kickstarter.

But now the fun part begins, the artist is hard at work and the first book is almost edited. When I get the bits and pieces back I will assemble them and the first volume of the Shores of the Dead Trilogy (The Rising) will be ready to roll!

My next project I am currently working on. I expect the first draft of my Young Adult Horror Novel (Camp of the Dead) to be done by December 1. I have an artistic team lined up to do the cover for this book and I will be paying for them and the editor out of my own pocket. The next project that I will be Kickstarting will be my Zombie Roleplaying Game (The Risen Dead). Production of that will begin early next year and I think the budget will be $3500 tentatively.

So that is the update folks. Right now I am feeling awesome, like I had stiff drink and am watching Mystery Science Theater 300!

Chasing the Unicorn Bitches!

The Story of Josh Part Forty Five … Everybody’s working For the Weekend Part 4: “The Day Job … at Night”

It’s the next morning for us at Joe’s childhood home and I have to admit that despite whose house it is I slept very well. The family is out on the back deck and invites me to join them. After we are done eating Joe goes inside to help his mom clean but when I get up to help his dad asks me to sit and talk for a bit.

I am beginning to wonder if I have a sign around my neck that says “I am broken help me”.

He asks me what I do for a living, what my trade and craft is if you like. I sigh and tell him that I want to be a writer. He stops me right there and asks me if I have ever actually written and or published anything. I tell him yes and give him a rundown. He laughs and I think he is mocking me but then I see the good natured humor through the thick lenses of his glasses. Son you are a writer. He says, then he looks harder and says but what do you do to support you and those that you love?

I knew I would have to eventually talk about this … but really who better to finally get it off my chest to?

As always this is a thing that resembles a therapy session and for all intents and purposes it IS a therapy session. Thankfully the doctor appears to be in.


All names of people and places in this one have been changed due to the questionable and possible somewhat illegal social media policies of my current employer.


I have been working at Angelica Gardens, the day job at night, since June of 2009. The Gardens is a high end retirement community and a state licensed nursing care facility in Dayton Ohio. I was working at Toys R Us, a job we have not gotten to but we will in out dirty little journey, when Karen and I decided to have one more baby and I knew that my twenty five hours a week for $12.00 at the toy store was no longer going to cut it. At this point I was still not recovered from the blow to my ego that I took from Palladium Book (for people that are tired of me bitching about that experience I say piss off, it is a defining episode of my life) and leaving a supervisory position for an employee position didn’t bother me in the least.

I put out a ton of applications in the spring of 2009 and had several interviews that did not pan out. Considering the state of the economy I am surprised I had that many chances. I was applying mostly for jobs in the commercial and medical sanitation fields considering my past experience. I worked for half a year and got my state certification at Kettering Hospital back in 2004 – 2005 and that managed to get me a first look by several people.

I was starting to worry about my chances and had already been working a second job for several months when I got a call from the Gardens. For two years the gardens became a comfortable boot. I loved the people that lived there. I liked the people I worked with. And the hours (2:30 pm to 11:00 pm) left me with plenty of time where I was not under the scrutiny of management and I could just relax and work. But there was one thing that stood head and shoulders above everything else. At night on my breaks I could write in quiet.

That had been the one thing that had made me hesitate leaving Toys R Us despite the bad hours and the bullshit way the company was run since it had been bought by Bain Capital. At Toys R Us I could commandeer the back room and write in relative quiet when my shift was over … and to honest even when I was working because I had carved out a niche where as long as my job got done and done right management didn’t give a shit what I did. Of course there was one asshole supervisor who took umbrage with everything but I killed his literary avatar in all its douche bag glory in The Shores of the Dead Book One: the Rising and it felt really good doing it.

Fuck you asshole.

Of course there were things I did not like about the Day Job. I didn’t get to see my wife enough (the idea that my depression and fatigue related to practically no testosterone didn’t occur to me at the time) and I always felt like I was being taken for granted by those above the supervisor level. Considering that was closer to true than false and that I was petrified of making waves and losing my job or sacrificing my pride made things even more complicated.

In May of 2011, one month before my second anniversary, I quit my job.

Mostly I quit because at the time I thought it was the only way to save my marriage. But I also wanted to just fucking do it. I just wanted to stop saying “I can always quit” and not actually believe it when the stress and disappointment got to high. I just wanted to climb that fucking tree and jump in the pond!

(For the purposes of this narrative pretend I related a heartbreaking and highly resonant story about a tree, a pond, and mean kids in my past)

So I quit, we abandoned our house because the bank was about to take it anyway, and we moved to the city where I had been tortured as a kid. And I can say that moment where we made those monumental changes was the beginning of the changes in my personality that have been like an out of control freight train this summer … oh and made my family very unhappy and dare I say some of them hate me.

Delah

But within two months I knew that we would not be able to make it financially with just my wife’s salary. So I got my job at Toys R Us back. Boy was that a fucking mistake. That company has been shredded and diced. Every corner that can be cut has been cut and asinine rules and rampant intimidation has become the order of the day. It broke my heart to see a place where I had worked for six years and had at one time loved turned into a faceless and soulless monstrosity.

But I then got a call from the Courtyard Marriott offering me a job so I told Toys R Us to piss off, literally walked off the job, and went to the hotel. Marriott was a great place to work. I was there for four weeks and I would not have left under any circumstances … however an unanticipatable circumstance is something else.

One day out of the fucking blue I got a call from the department manager at the Gardens asking me to come back. I said yes, I had missed the job, I had missed the environment, I missed the people. I was brought back on first shift but was assured that when a second shift position opened it was mine. Eight months later a second shift position, my old position if you can fucking believe it, opened and in April of this year I was back where I started … but I was wiser and happier.

I have had little to no complaints … till today.

One of my many jobs at night is cleaning empty apartments for occupation. I go into an apartment and clean it top to bottom, depending on the size it takes anywhere from 30/40 minutes to 2 hours. Last week I was told to clean the apartment of my friend who had passed away, I am glad it was me it would have angered me if anyone else did it. There were still things that the maintenance guys had to do so I had to split it to two days and if anyone remembers I was sick as fuck last week.

That is not an excuse that is just an explanation so get off my dick.

So today one of the people from the Marketing department, let’s call her Bitch Pants, took the crappy welcome basket to the apartment for the poor SOB they are fleecing for everything they have to live here. While in there she inspected the apartment, not her responsibility but Bitch Pants got her fucking name honestly.

What did she find?

Well kids she found that yours truly fucked up. When I was cleaning the kitchen (I vacuum every surface before I wipe down in an apartment) I forget to wipe out the three drawers by the fridge and there is a lazy susan in the same area that I forgot to detail. I had soaked and scrubbed it because it was caked with food but I had forgotten to go back with a magic eraser and really get it clean. People make mistakes and once upon a time you could say hey I made a mistake and people would accept that and move on. In three years this was the first time that I had ever had to go back and fix an apartment clean … except for the “Oven Incident” but we will never speak of that one.

So what did Bitch Pants do?

Bitch pants tore into my supervisor. My supervisor is one of the best, maybe the best, bosses I have ever had. She works hard, she manages well, and she backs her people. You know what she did today? She fucking backed me! Un professional Bitch Pants was yelling so much that she could be heard on the entire floor as she took my boss to the apartment and tried to humiliate her, she failed but gods what a bitch!

After she left I fixed it, it took fifteen minutes. No big deal and my supervisor agreed with me in public and private because I flat out said it was my fault but that that bitch over fucking reacted!

From now on I know that she can never be trusted … not even with the color of the sky.

Days like this I wish I had a pet bear.


Steve laughs at the last statement and his smile is infectious. He asks me if it is easier for me to handle things like this since coming back from my four month “Vacation”.

I have to think for a minute and then I tell him that knowing that if push comes to shove I can keep my pride and walk away makes it infinitely easier to deal with situations like this and people like Bitch Pants.

Good he says. Then he invites me to stay a few days and rest before I hit the road again.

It appears that is all the time we have for today.

Greetings from the Edge of the Sphere!

So I have been relatively quiet on the Journaling front lately (both personal and professional) but I have my reasons. Josh has been one busy son of a bitch behind the scenes kids. This will in no way be a detailed update but I have been editing today as opposed to writing and I want to create some new content as opposed to sculpting existing content before I sign off for the night.

I am almost 15,000 words into the new novel and I have written sections from beginning to the end so I am 98% sure that this one is gonna rock! I have already lined up the cover art this time coming from the amazing team that is Comfort Love and Adam Withers. The book is called Camp of the Dead and it is a Young Adult Zombie Novel.

Yes another zombie book.

Look people I will stop writing them when I no longer hear the muse singing and the tales become stale. I tried writing other things after I finished the Shores of the Dead Trilogy and it all died because my mind kept returning to the world of the walking rotted dead. That is where, for the moment, my creative heart lives.

Anyway kids onto other things.

I have been approached by an RPG publisher that I will not name for the time being to do some work for them. The setting is awesome and I am chomping at the bit to crank out some product for them.

The Kickstarter for the trilogy ends in three days and it looks like we will not hit our stretch goal but damn we hit the main goal and that rocks! Things are going to be moving really fast really soon and I am excited and terrified by what is coming.

I am going to be looking for a new artist for the comic book Bunny Bunni & Bobby but it’s not my number one priority at the moment. The comic will be done but I recognize that doing a comic book is a hell of a lot more complicated than doing a novel or an RPG book.

I was sick over the last weekend and that pretty much knocked my dick in the dirt. I have a severe sinus infection which caused my upper jaw to swell which caused the broken tooth to hurt like a motherfucker. It got to the point that I was looking for ice skates so I could knock the tooth right out of my head.

If you do not get that reference kids we need to talk and a friend of mine named Wilson want to kick your ass.

Halloween is coming and that is my favorite holiday! I am planning another Hilden Family Halloween Night Horror Movie Extravaganza!

Yesterday I was feeling down about the situation with my family and I was missing my dad.

Alright that’s it, this word smith has things to do and schlocky pulpy horror goodness to create.

I hear the muse whispering in my ear.

The Story of Josh Part Forty Four: “It’s for Tornado’s and maybe Nuclear Bombs”

When we entered Joe’s parent’s house I wanted to run away. I knew where I was and I knew who I was going to meet and ice filled my gut. I didn’t want to meet him and the only thing I wanted to do was meet him. Since I had been a young boy he had been my hero and if it turned out that he was a complete asshole I would be disillusioned.

We sit and wait and when his parents come into the room Joe introduces me. I think that they can tell that I am nervous and they do their best to put me at my ease. After a delicious dinner we sit out on the back porch and I blend into the shadows as I listen to them reminisce. I tell them that my grandparents had a very large enclosed and screened in patio like this one on their house when I was a kid.

I also mention that they had a bomb shelter in their back yard.

This seems to catch their attention and Joe’s father asks me what that was like. I remember playing in and on it when I was a kid and I smile before I begin to talk.

As always this is a therapy session of sorts and the doctor is in. Gods I hope I do not fuck this one up.


When my mom was a teenager a tornado tore through her neighborhood and heavily damaged her house. I am not sure if they were visiting family in North Carolina or not when the twister tore through the area but I believe that they were. Following the storm the destroyed the rural neighborhood the rebuilding began and my grandfather took full advantage of the opportunity to do some selective construction.

Behind the house my grandparents had a large hole excavated, then a structure was built within the hole, and finally everything was recovered with earth and a bulk head was installed. Discounting the ventilation pipe that stuck out the top of the hill after the turf had taken root and the grass on the new man made hill was as lush and green as the rest of the land it all looked natural.

Except it was the ONLY HILL in the area.

I mean the thing was clearly there as a shelter from storms. Or considering this was the 1960’s it was possibly a fallout shelter that my grandfather had installed. Most likely so that he could delay the cancers and mutations that would inevitably result after the radioactive ashes that used to be the Motor City covered the area. And damn that is the one cool thing about my biological maternal grandfather, he is ready for everything. At his current home, at least the last time I was there years ago, the top of his barn has a secret arsenal of weapons hidden away. He claims that they are to be sold at gun shows, and in his defense when I was a kid he did a lot of gun shows, but I will believe till my dying day that he is prepared for the end of the world.

Bring it on you fucking Mayans!!!

When I was a kid the shelter was already decades old and it had been converted into a root cellar for my grandmothers canned vegetables. But when I would go down into the hill and pretend that I was delving into the depths of the earth in search of Morlocks, Chuds, and Mole people I could see where it had originally be constructed to hold people first and goods second.

I have not been a fan of my grandfather for a long time. I have related one of the many instances that caused this rift earlier in this series of essays but needless to say there is very little about him that I want to believe has rubbed off on me. But I have to say that I did get one attribute from my grandfather, I am a closet survivalist. Not the crazy I have a million guns and a bomb proof bunker in my basement where the zombies will never get me!!!

Give me some credit.

I keep food and emergency equipment on hand all the time. And I was proved vindicated in 2008 when the remnants of hurricane Ike slammed the Miami Valley and crashed the power grid. My home was without power for more than a week and even though I had to go to the store to get some supplies we were much better off than a lot of the people in the area.

Although damnit I would sell a hobo to science for a generator.


Joe and his family are entertained by my story and I can tell that I made a decent impression. They ask me if I want to stay the night because they wouldn’t feel right turning me out in the night.

It’s all a little surreal.

I think that is all the time we have today, but I want to suggest that you all watch “Doomsday Preppers” on Nat Geo.