Wesley McCraw's Blog, page 11
March 10, 2016
Links to my books on Goodreads:
I’m still working on my presence on Goodreads. It’s coming along, but I have a long way to go.
My Author page is HERE.
Here are my books:
House of Cabal Volume One: Eden
reviews: 1, ratings: 4 (avg rating 5.00)
The Forgiving
ratings: 5 (avg rating 5.00)
March 9, 2016
Author Interview: Wesley McCraw
Today my guest is Wesley McCraw, author of The House of Cabal books!
Where did you get your inspiration for House of Cabal?
First, let me thank you for having me.
House of Cabal was inspired by quite a few things because I started writing it in late 1999 and I’ve been working on it off and on for the better part of sixteen years. Initially, the idea was a combination of my two favorite children’s books, The Thief of Always and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. I wanted to do something like these books, only with more adults themes.
Fast forward quite a few years into the creative process. Pinsleep, the witness angel, was a framing device that I invented later on that took on a life of his own, inspired by a lot of my own musings on religion and faith. The Garden of Eden was always…
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March 3, 2016
Book Review: House of Cabal, Volume One: Eden
The witness angel Pinsleep is an outcast among his kind. He grieves the loss of Adam and Eve, while his brothers and sisters witness human stories on earth. When a modern-day couple discovers the Garden of Eden, Pinsleep chances upon a hidden epic.
To understand the far reaching consequences of their trespass, Pinsleep must travel through time and space to uncover the cabal that orchestrated the couple’s arrival, a secret organization that threatens to rip the fabric of reality apart.
I’m not exaggerating in the least when I say that House of Cabal is one of the strangest books I’ve ever read. We start off talking to an angel named Pinsleep who from the very beginning describes himself as looking more like a machine than an organic being, and who has made himself something of a hermit since Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden. A new couple show…
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March 2, 2016
February in Review
Time to look back at the month of February. Here is the quick rundown.
As planed, I mostly worked on House of Cabal Volume Two: Estate. I’m almost done. It has been a huge amount of writing and editing, but I’m excited to be closing in on completion finally. The deadline to send it to my copy editor is the 5th of March.
I edited out some errors from The Forgiving and House of Cabal Volume One: Eden that my copy editor missed. I updated them on both Smashwords and Amazon.
I edited and released my second short story, “The Haunting of New Kingsport.” You can download it free on Smashwords.
The first book in the House of Cabal series is doing okay. I have two five-star reviews. I hope more reviews come in soon as more people finish reading the book. A blogger interviewed me, so that interview should be posted soon.
The Forgiving went on sale for $0.99 for a week and sold a few copies.
My mailing list is pretty dormant still. When you sign up you now get “The Ovum Horror” AND House of Cabal Volume One: Eden free. You can sign up HERE.
I’m still way behind on my reading goal of reading 75 books this year. I need to figure out how to balance intence amounts of writing and leisure reading.
All togeather, satisfactory progress in February, but nothing too exciting. This month I publish my third book!
February 29, 2016
Music Monday 2/29
This song inspired “The Haunting of New Kingsport.”
“The Haunting of New Kingsport” is the second story in The Queen in Yellow collection. You can download a free copy of the story HERE.
February 22, 2016
Music Monday 2/22
And for my third blog post of the day…
Updates to My Books
I spent some time the past few days rooting out some errors in my books and fixing some of the formatting. There is now an updated text of House of Cabal Volume One: Eden up on Smashwords and Amazon and an updated “The Ovum Horror” on Smashwords. The updated version of The Forgiving should go live on Amazon in a day or two.
I was able to track down quite a few errors, which is, of course, good and bad. It’s great that those errors are fixed now, but the fact that these errors were in books that I sold is sort of embarrassing. I’m still learning and getting better at this whole self-publishing thing, so I guess it’s to be expected that things aren’t perfect from the get go. I thought hiring a copy-editor would be enough, but I have to be extra diligent going into the future.
I will continue to try to make sure my releases are at the highest quality I can make them. Thank you for your understanding.
Portent
A recurring dream, as vivid as life, portended the horror.
In the dream, I fly, a city of belonging laid out below me. Though remembered in my waking life, it is only vague fragments: a turquoise spire, a distant snow-capped mountain, ginkgo trees.
I explore each time for three days. (Or live with the denizens; I can’t really remember.) And then on the fourth day in the east, an onyx disk, as big as the sky and as deep as the sea, blots out the sun and its light.
The disk’s arrival is a foretold apocalypse. Awesome. Petrifying. The dark is like the sky ripped away. The only remaining light dimly emanates from a sentient mist that searches the streets for life.
When I realize everyone in the city is already dead, I wake, gasping, often in tears and soaked in sweat.
I’ve lived this dream life in tandem with my waking life, forgetting one while living out the other, thinking the two could never meet.
This night the onyx disk, that phantasmal termination to all things living, has infected, has bled through, fouling the real world with its wet, putrid mist. It has brought with it an emissary: a yellow thing, now outside my bedroom door.
Download “The Ovum Horror” FREE here.
February 20, 2016
Rewarding Myself With ‘The Witch’
I plan on rewarding myself for writing by going to see The Witch this weekend. I love horror, but great horror movies are few and far between. I hear The Witch might be the next great one.
On that note, here are Self Write’s Horror Awards:
Best recent horror finds: the graphic novel Beautiful Darkness by Fabien Vehlmann and the Australian film The Babadook.
Best deconstructions of horror: Scream (movie, not the TV show obviously) and Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods.
Speaking of Drew Goddard, best found footage and best PG-13 horror: Cloverfield
Best 80’s horror: Hellraiser and Nightmare on Elm Street
Favorite horror movie you haven’t seen: Inside (2007) À l’intérieur (original title). Runner-up: Martyrs (2008) and Taxidermia (2006)
Scariest horror: Alien and The Descent
Best Zombie Movies: For me Night of the Living Dead (1968) was the beginning of zombie movies and Dead Alive (Braindead) was the climax. There were some cool zombie movies later like Dawn of the Dead (2004) and Zombieland, but you can’t beat Dead Alive. It’s insane.
And finally…
Favorite horror manga: Uzumaki. In addition to stunning art, the climax of the three book set is very satisfying.
February 19, 2016
Horror Influences
This week my horror novel The Forgiving is on sale for $.99 at Amazon, so I thought I would go into some of my horror influences.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson is one of the most influential ghost stories of all time, and it probably had the most influence on The Forgiving. If you ever want to write a modern ghost story, this book is required reading.
The Haunting of Hill House has inspired more than one movie, the 1963 version being the most faithful and effective, though I recommend sticking with the creeping psychological terror of the novel.
The horror that had the most influence on my impressionable young mind when I was growing up was Clive Barker. I started with his children’s book The Thief of Always and then the very adult Weaveword and then read the first volume of Books of Blood. His dark fantasy work influenced my House of Cabal series, but his Books of Blood were a main touchstone for The Forgiving.
Books of Blood works its way through extreme gore toward more existential horror, all the while exhibiting endless creativity and an authoritative narrative voice. It’s the best horror collection I have yet found.
His writing was also one of the first I had read with gay characters and queer sexual themes.
The film that influenced The Forgiving the most would be Rosemary’s Baby. I love the happy tone through the beginning of the film, then the mounting paranoia that creeps into her perfect life.
The final influence on The Forgiving is the endless stream of slasher films from the 80s and 90s and onward that I never had a taste for.
My main goal with The Forgiving was to not have any disposable characters that you hoped got killed. That’s why I had the three main characters in a loving romantic relationship. I’m not a fan of horror that is written to punish sin. I think horror works better when it is transgressive, unexpected, and challenges social norms and the status quo.
Buy The Forgiving HERE.
