This is the end: Friday Update

News:

It’s the last issue of The Crow’s Quill, which I’m so disappointed about, but I’m honored to help close out this gothic zine with my weird apocalyptic slice-of-life story “The Sisters of Our Perpetual Wounds.” As always, it’s free to read. Usher in the end with us.

In addition, my climate horror story “The Behavioral Patterns of the Displaced Siberian Siren” comes out today with the highly anticipated Dead Letters: Episodes of Epistolary Horror from Crystal Lake Entertainment, edited by Jacob Steven Bohr. We had a beautiful review from Vogue Horror in which my story was given an amazing call-out. I made a funny sound when I read it.

Works in Progress:

I finished NaNo2023 by reaching my 150K-word goal exactly. Like, I finished the sentence and hit the mark around eleven last night. Then I finished the final edit of Avarice & Creed (Meridian 4), because I’ve been doing double-duty writing and editing again this last week. I am exhausted, my sleep schedule and tea schedule are off, but NaNoWriMo is over, I’ve written 150K words, and A&C is finished, so I can relax a bit. I’ll still be aiming for 5K a day when I’m writing, but I no longer have to do both.

Over the course of November, I finished the last 28K or so words of extreme horror novel In the Dollhouse We All Wait, wrote the entirety of erotic horror novella A Woman Alone, wrote a short story that I edited down to flash fiction, then wrote about three-fourths of erotic urban fantasy romance novel Tattered & Torn (Meridian 6) (order may end up changing). That was the aim for this month, to get a big chunk of work done. I plan to get another big chunk of work done this month as well, with a little grace. My hope is to finish Tattered & Torn, write about two to three short stories for calls, then write the next Meridian novel (I haven’t decided which yet). If I have time, I have some novelettes or long short stories that I want to write.

Then I’m just not sure what next year is going to look like. Unless someone leaves me a mysterious inheritance of a vast sum of money and a haunted estate, I’ll have to figure out something.

In the meantime, I received the first round of edits for Question Not My Salt, which is really exciting. Kenneth E. Cain and I have finalized the cover and everything, so I have at least one thing to be excited about in 2024. I can take a short break from writing while I apply myself to these edits, then dive back in until the next round.

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
The First Five Minutes of the Apocalypse edited by Brandon Applegate (finished)
This World Belongs to Us edited by Michael W. Phillips, Jr.
Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire

Music I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist, of course. I have a vast and incredibly varied playlist full of old, new, traditional, original, all different shades of genre, which I think is the key to enjoying Christmas music. I think most people are sick of Christmas music because the same forty songs by the same people are played ad nauseum. You get a little more variety on Christian stations, but otherwise, no wonder some people dread the holidays.

Things I’m Watching:

A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish
Holiday Baking Championship series
Holiday Wars series
Celebrity Jeopardy series
Irrational series (caught up)
Queer Eye series (finished)
Great British Baking Show series
Kitchen Nightmares series
Hoarders series
NCIS series
CSI series
Dancing with the Stars series
The Mentalist series

Poem of the Week:

feelings turn
colors after
a trauma

waiting for
the mind to
reabsorb
and pressing
on the bruise