Stay the Course: How to Keep Writing (Especially When You Don’t Want To)
Afew weeks ago, I attended StokerCon – the annual gathering of Horror folk – inSan Diego. A lot of times at conventions, I’m so busy with being on panels andconducting workshops that I end up not getting to talk to many people, whichsucks, because StokerCon is like a family reunion in many ways. But this year,I managed to spend time with a number of friends and colleagues, sometimes onlyin brief conversations, sometimes in much longer ones, and it was wonderful.During two separate conversations – one with Brian Keene and one with RonaldMalfi – we got to talking about writers who had great careers, but for whateverreasons stopped writing. Sometimes they’re simply not productive anymore forone reason or another, but other times it’s like they dropped off the face ofthe Earth.
I began wondering why some writers quitwhile others continue chugging along, regardless of setbacks and self-doubts. Andas a creative writing teacher, I’ve seen people who stop before they really getstarted or who quit along the way. Why do some writing careers fizzle out, andwhat, if anything, can be done to help writers keep doing what they love?
Well, that’s the topic of this blogpost, isn’t it?
Before We Get Started, It’s Okay To . . .
· Try writing,decide it’s not for you, and move on to something else.
· Come back towriting after a period of time away from it.
· Write once ina while.
· Play aroundwith writing for fun, without any intention of publishing your work.
· Take breaksfrom writing whenever you need to.
· Try differenttypes of writing without ever specializing.
There’snothing wrong with exploring writing as opposed to dedicating your life to itas a Sacred Calling. So often on social media, I see people posting that youhave to be 1000% devoted to a writing career and treat it like a full-timebusiness or else you’re not a “real” writer. I think these people confuse“Writer” the identity with “writing” the activity. Writing is something peopledo, and you can do as much or as little of it as you like, and it can play ahuge role in your life (as it does in mine) or a small role. And how muchwriting you do can change with time and circumstance. It’s all good. So yes,it’s okay to quit writing forever, but this blog entry is for writers who wantto keep writing.
Why Do Some Writers Quit Almost Before They Start?
· They like theidea of having produced writing, but they aren’t in love with language andstory. Most writers begin with love of storyand then seek to become writers, but not everyone. Some people think the ideaof being a writer is cool, and then they start exploring writing. It’s kind oflike falling in love first then getting married vs. an arranged marriage. Bothtypes of unions can succeed or fail, they just start at different places. Sowriters who begin with a desire to have the identity of a writer can eventuallyfall in love with the process of writing. I suspect not many, though. My guessis these are the kind of writers who are attracted by the idea of AI writingstories for them.
· They don’tenjoy reading, so they don’t read. Yes,it’s possible to write without being a reader. It’s even possible you’ll writesomething decent. But if you don’t like reading, you probably only like theidea of expressing yourself, and writing seems like a simple, cheap way to dothat. All you need is yourself and something to write with. But if you don’tlove the written word, odds are you won’t stick with writing. Nothing wrongwith that. Maybe you’ll eventually find a mode of self-expression you do love.
· They discoverwriting isn’t as easy as they thought it would be. “But creative writing is supposed to be fun! It’sfreeform expression and anything goes, right?” some students say. It is if allyou want to do is play, and there’s noting wrong with that. But if you decideyou want to write work that’s publishable and that people want to read, you’llneed to work as well. And work isn’t always fun.
· They don’tknow why they’re writing. Having areason for doing something, a purpose you’re trying to fulfill, a goal you’retrying to reach can help you keep going when the work gets hard and youencounter some serious obstacles along the way. If you don’t have a reason towrite, you don’t have a reason to keep going when it gets hard.
· They’reworried about writing the “right” thing. These writers have been told so often that if they want to succeed, theyneed to produce the “right” kind of book (or story, article, poem). So theycan’t decide what to write, and they end up not writing. Or they try a genrethey don’t love because they think they have to, they end up hating writing,and quit.
· They get boredand start a new project. Even if youdon’t have ADD, finding the discipline to see a project through to completion canbe tough. You have to learn not to be attracted to the next pretty-shiny if youwant to finish anything. These writers don’t quit so much as they nevercomplete a piece of writing.
WhyDo Some Writers Quit Early in Their Career?
· Self-doubt: I think most creative people experience self-doubtabout themselves as artists, and for many of us, this self-doubt never goesaway. In order to keep going, we need to learn to live with self-doubt, toexperience it but not let it stop us, to realize there’s reason it’s called self-doubt.It’s a negative function of the ego. We create it ourselves, and – if we can’tuncreate it – we can learn to understand where it comes from and not give itpower over us. If we can’t, we may quit, even if we’re starting to see somesuccess from our efforts.
· Fear offailure: Some writers are so afraid of failurethat even if they finish work, they don’t do anything with it. Even writers whoare starting to establish a career may become so paralyzed by the possibilitythat failure will inevitably strike that they stop writing before it hits. Thetruth is, you will fail, maybe a lot, especially early on. Experiencingfailure, feeling shitty for a while, then getting back to work will help youdeal with the next failure. I think for some people the word failure iscrippling all by itself. Maybe if we thought of failures as temporary setbacksor That-didn’t-work-this-time’s, failure wouldn’t impact us so severely.But some writers never get over their first big failure, and they’re afraid ofexperiencing failure again, so they quit writing.
· Fear ofsuccess: When I first learned about thisconcept a few decades ago, I thought it sounded ridiculous. Who would be afraidof success? That’s what we all want, right? But success means we draw attentionto ourselves and more is expected of us. And if others don’t pressure us tomaintain or increase our level of success, we do it to ourselves. That pressurecan become so overwhelming that we may end up blocked for good.
· Fear ofrejection or difficulty dealing with rejection when it comes. Creative writing students tell me this is theirnumber-one fear about sharing their work, even with classmates and me, letalone sending it out to traditional publishers or self-publishing it. Thesewriters either never send anything out or they quit after one or morerejections. Or if they’re self-publishing, bad reader reviews and – even worse– lack of interest in their work cause them to quit. Rejection of one kind oranother is guaranteed in the writing life, and we have no choice but to learnto deal with it if we want to keep going. I’m at a point in my career where Isell my work regularly, and while I don’t receive rejections as often as I didwhen I first started submitting my work forty-two years ago, it still happens.And yes, it still sucks. But I’ve often had the experience of having a storyrejected a number of times, only for the next editor to think it’s absolutelybrilliant and want to publish it. The story didn’t change. Only the editor did.This has taught me that a rejection just means that a particular person said noto a particular story at a particular time. It means nothing more than that,and it’s certainly not a reason to stop writing if you love it.
· Their workisn’t getting published or only getting published sporadically. Once I began selling short fiction in my mid-twenties,it wasn’t as if I sold multiple stories a year. I was lucky to sell one, maybetwo if I was especially fortunate that year. Those sales were like a drinkwater to a thirsty man in a desert. They might not have been much, but theykept me going a little while longer until the next drink came. Society tells usthat if we aren’t a massive success right out of the gate, we’re a failure andmight as well pack it in. Some people do have fast success. It’s rare, but ithappens. These writers face the problem of maintaining that success andbuilding on it to become even more successful. Usually, their time in the sunis limited. A writing career is a marathon, not a sprint, and you need toaccept that you’re in for the long haul if you want to keep going.
· No reviews orbad reviews. Negative reader response to our workis no fun, but indifference is worse. I’ve produced work that I think is someof the best stuff I’ve ever done, only for it to receive almost no attentionfrom readers. That can be extremely demoralizing, especially after you’veworked so long and so hard to create a piece of work. Why keep going if no onegives a shit about your writing or if they loathe it? Why continue to work hardonly to receive no reward? This is why creating the work needs to be yourfirst, best reward. If you get few reviews or a lot of negative ones, thatdoesn’t change the experience you had of making a story. If we can continue tofocus on art’s true reward – making art in the first place – it can help us getthrough a lot of not-so-fun experiences along the way,
· Progress istaking longer than they thought. Oldpros on convention panels used to say that the first million words werepractice. The late Horror author Alan Rodgers once told me that it takes aboutten years to start publishing regularly. That jibes with my experience. Somewriters don’t take that long, and some take longer. It’s thatmarathon-not-a-sprint thing again. It can be hard to keep going when it seemslike all your effort is getting you nowhere. I think of the famous quote fromthe I-Ching here: “Perseverance furthers.” That’s the only guarantee youget in an artistic life, that if you keep working, you’ll be farther along yourpath tomorrow than you are now. This is another reason why it's important that yourfirst reward be producing the work itself.
WhyDo Some Writers Quit Mid-Career?
You’re publishing your work fairly regularly, readersin general respond to it positively, you’ve been nominated for – and maybe evenwon – an award or two, and you might even be making a little money from writing.But maybe you’re not as far along as you’d hoped by this point, and maybe itlooks like this level of success is all you’ll be able to obtain. It can betough to keep going if you believe you’ve gone as far as you can. Writers inthis situation – or who feel like this, whether or not it’s true – maywell be tempted to quit altogether. There are other specific reasons, too.
· Imposter syndrome:You believe you’re a fraud and any daythe rest of the world will figure it out. You decide you might as well quit nowbefore you’re exposed. Whenever I feel like this, I pull one of my authorcopies off the shelf and flip through it, or I pull up my bibliography on my computerand skim it. Doing these things helps remind me that I couldn’t possibly foolso many editors over the course of so many years. I may also look at somepositive reader reviews on Goodreads or Amazon to remind myself that there arereaders who like my work.
· The Writer’sDisease – Envy: You look around at yourcontemporaries – or worse, younger writers – and envy their successes and beginto resent them (and the world at large). That kind of envy can eat an artistalive until they quit or just stop producing work. I think of it as a kind ofmental/spiritual cancer for writers. Whenever I feel this way, I tell myselfthat the eighteen-year-old kid that I was when I first started out would bethrilled and amazed to see the career I have today.
· Careersetbacks: Publisher folding, agent severing yourbusiness relationship, editor telling you that they won’t be looking at yournext book because the last one didn’t sell enough copies, the book you put yourheart and soul into and are convinced is the greatest thing you’ve ever writtenreceives the worst reviews of your career. . . Any one of these things candemoralize a writer and make them want to give up, and if more than onehappens around the same time, it can be devastating. All of us will experiencecareer setbacks. My first novel deal was canceled by the publisher because they“no longer felt comfortable with the book,” whatever the hell that means. Myagent and I submit work to editors who ghost us (This is a relatively newthing, at least in my experience. How hard is it to send an email that says NO?It’s only two letters, for Christ’s sake.) If you’re already strugglingmentally, emotionally, and financially in your career, any setback could be theone that finally strikes a mortal blow and gets you to call it quits. As I’vementioned before, finding fulfillment in creating the work in the first placecan help you weather setbacks, as will starting to work on something new.
· Unable tobuild a large audience: When you thinkof how many people live on the planet, even bestselling authors are read by asmall percentage of humans. Most people don’t read for enjoyment (and manypeople around the world can’t read or are too busy trying to survive to kickback with a book and relax). Most writers have very small audiences, and whilethey might increase the size of their audience over time, they may reach a pointwhere they’re unable to add more readers. This sucks if you depend on writingfor your income, and it sucks if it makes you feel that your career isstagnating. Whenever I start to feel this way, I ask myself how many people doI need in my audience for it to be worthwhile for me to write something. Ten?Twenty? A hundred? A thousand? I have a day job as a college English professor,so I don’t have to worry about audience size for economic reasons. I do try toremind myself, once again, that the work itself is my first reward. I alsoremind myself to value and appreciate the readers I do have instead ofpining for all the readers I don’t have.
· Promoting morethan writing. In the age of social media, this canbe a real problem. Publishers expect you to promote your work and often theycalculate this into their promotion budget for you. Sometimes that budget iszero because they put the responsibility for promoting solely on you (not thatthey’d ever admit it). Most writers aren’t comfortable trying to hawk theirwares 24/7 on the internet, and doing so can wear them down emotionally or, ifthey don’t manage to promote often, make them feel like a failure. They end uppromoting more than they write, and they quit because what’s the point ofhaving a goddamned writing career if you don’t get to do any fucking writing? Itry to keep my promotion balanced with my writing. The writing comes first,because without it, I have nothing to promote. I have a few social mediaaccounts, a website, an Amazon page, this blog, a newsletter, and a YouTubechannel. I try to regularly promote on social media, but only once a day, ifthat. I also post other types of content so readers don’t get sick of me, and Irepost other writers’ promotional messages to be a good literary citizen. Thebasic rule of thumb I’ve seen is that you should put out three non-salesmessages for every sales message you post. As for my newsletter, blog, andYouTube channel, I try to post new content at once a month (but I often don’t havethe time). Common wisdom is you should post content once a week, but there’s noway I can do that and still write as much as I do, so I don’t worry about it.Again, the writing comes first. And if you can’t write and promote because ofyour overall life/work schedule, then screw promoting. Write and enjoy writingand let the other aspects your career take care of themselves. Writing – notpromoting – is why you got into this gig in the first place. Don’t ever losesight of that.
· Promotionalefforts don’t seem to work. Thesecret of promotion is that no one – including mega-corporations – has any ideaif specific promotional efforts actually work. And ones that do seem to workone time can fail utterly the next. It’s a crapshoot. You can increase yourodds of success by learning more about promotion, but you’ll never be able toguarantee success. (Unless you write a diet book, self-help book, orhow-to-have-better sex book.) Try not to worry too much how successful yourpromotional efforts are, because no matter what you do, you’ll never reallyknow. So promote and hope for the best, and like I said above, don’t letpromotion overwhelm – and even take the place of – your writing.
· Not makingmuch (or any) money. My second agent once told me that “Noone goes into this business to make money.” If you want to make money inAmerica, become a doctor or a lawyer. (Or a corrupt politician.) Writing – notcounting technical and business writing – begins with a need for creativefulfillment. We seek money from our writing so we won’t have to work asoul-sucking non-creative job. That way, we’ll have more time to write. So ifyou’re a writer, you’re almost guaranteed to make little-to-no money from yourwork, and what income you do have will be sporadic and unstable. Living a lifeof economic uncertainty can wear anyone down over time, and if you have healthproblems – especially as you age – it can be a nightmare. Healthcare is hellaexpensive in the U.S.A., and a lot of writers’ strategy for dealing with healthissues is to hope and pray that they’ll never get sick. Even if they have acondition that won’t kill them, if it’s a painful one and they can’t affordtreatment, the pain will make it difficult, if not impossible, to work. When Iwas in my twenties, I was on GEnie, a message board service that was like aproto social media service. Lots of professional writers were on there, andthey posted stuff about living the writing life that I’d never read ininterviews before, and one of those things was how difficult it was to be poor,even if you were regularly publishing and winning awards. A lot of thosewriters said they weren’t producing any more work than they did before theybecame full-time writers because they were depressed or in ill health. That’sone of the reasons I got a day job and have kept it all these years. I’m luckythat my job still allows me time to write, and that I’m generally a fastwriter. But establishing a writing career is hard enough without having to constantlyworry about the wolf at the door.
· No recognitionfrom readers and critics. Every yearwhen people start posting “best-of” lists on social media (or lists of favoritewriters or writers you should be reading), writers lament about how their namenever appears on those lists. They also complain about how few reviews they getin Publisher’s Weekly or Booklist, or on Goodreads and Amazon,and how few – if any – reviews they get in magazines like Fangoria, RueMorgue, HorrorHound, etc. Feeling unappreciated, or even invisible, can causeany writer to consider quitting. What’s the point of producing work if no onegives a shit about it? I try to counter this feeling by saving some of thepositive reviews I do get by taking screenshots of them. Whenever I start tofeel like I might be invisible, I pull up a couple and remind myself that yes,there are readers and reviewers who do see me. It helps.
· Winning noawards. Every award season, writers getdepressed because they’re never nominated or if nominated, never win. Often,I’ll see writers post a sour grapes message on social media about how allawards suck and how the specific award they weren’t nominated for sucks the most.(But if they ever win one, they never criticize awards again.) This is Envyrearing its toxic head again, plus, in a capitalistic society, competition iseverything. You have to have losers in order for there to be winners, and youhave to have winners otherwise how would we ever know what the hierarchy ofsociety is? I’ve won a few awards, and I feel honored by them all. But I alsotry to remind myself that an award doesn’t mean I’m officially One of theGreatest Writers of All Time. It simply means that a certain group of peoplechose to honor certain literary works at a certain point in time. Awards areyour peers acknowledging that you do good work, and nothing more. (They don’tneed to be more; appreciation from your fellow artists is more than enough!) Theycan be used for promotion, sure, but that’s a side benefit. And it’s arguablehow much help they are in promotion. As I keep saying, try to find fulfillmentin creating the writing itself and knowing that you have readers (however many)that think you and your work are awesome.
· Not getting TVor movie deals. Envy again. I’ve never had a movie orTV deal (although I’ve had some nibbles), and I do my best not to be enviouswhen other writers announce their deals. Again, I remind myself that the youngme would be thrilled to have the career I have now, and it helps. Besides, if Iwanted to make movies or TV shows, I would’ve gone into those fields. I want towrite fiction.
WhyDo Some Writers Quit After a Long Career?
Ithink the following list is mostly self-explanatory, and most of the items arechallenges of aging in general applied to a writing career. I turned sixty thisyear, and I’ve started to feel some of the issues below. I remind myself aboutenvy again, try to focus on what I really wanted from my career (to write andto grow as a person and artist), and I remember the kid writer I used to be.
· Disillusionmentwith the publishing industry.
· Seeing youngerwriters having earlier and greater success than they did.
· Their careerdidn’t reach the heights they’d hoped for.
· Fearing theirbest days artistically are behind them.
· Feelingforgotten.
· They’re tired.
HowNOT to Quit
If you’re truly determined to quit writing, no one canstop you. And as I said at the outset of this long entry, it’s okay if you dowant to quit. But if you’d like to keep going, here’s some advice from someonewho’s considered quitting more than once in his forty-year career.
· Don’t letothers define your writing career.Don’t accept anyone’s paradigm for what a writing life should be but your own.You don’t have to make a living at it, you don’t have to be an award-winner,you don’t have to have a zillion followers on social media, you don’t have towrite in a certain genre, etc. If you try to follow a path someone else haslaid out for you, you’ll be miserable and eventually feel like a failure.Create and follow your own path, and you’ll be more likely to go the distanceas a writer.
· Understand whyyou write. Figuring out what you want most outof your writing will help you achieve it (or at least work toward it). Ifyou’re fulfilling your artistic and personal needs, you’re less likely to quit.
· Allow the actof writing to be fulfilling in and of itself. I’ve mentioned this several times already, but it’sworth mentioning one last time.
· Accept you’regoing to feel negatively about your career from time to time. Don’t give thesefeelings more power. Whenever I start to (figuratively)hear voices telling me I’m a lousy writer, I’m a failure, I’ll never be as goodas I want to be, I remind myself that those voices lie. They’re just my doubtsand fears speaking, but what they’re telling me isn’t true. I’m more successfulat this some days than others, but it helps a lot overall.
· Accept thatyour career can never live up to the heights of your imagination, and that’sokay. Our imaginations have no limits, butreal life does. I’d love to be ten times successful than Stephen King (or evenhis rip-off doppelganger on Amazon, Stephen R. King), but that’s not realistic.Shit, it’s not even within the realm of possibility. It’s okay to imagine morefrom your career, to want more and strive for more. But don’t think you’re afailure for only achieving what you can in the time you have in this world.
· Avoid burnout:Rest when you need to. Have interests aside from writing. I suck at this. I love writing and teaching writing, Ilove reading, and I love movies. Primarily Horror, but I love SF/F andmysteries, and superheroes, and interesting documentaries and nonfiction series(not reality shows, though) as well. I’ve never understood hobbies. Ilong ago figured out what I liked and I’ve devoted my entire life to it. Ihaven’t experienced burnout yet, so hopefully I’ll keep going like this until Idie. But I think it’s probably healthier to take rests and have a life outsideof writing. I guess this is a “Do as I say, not as I do” piece of advice.
· Connect with awriting community. Having friends who understand you,support you, and commiserate with you in ways non-writers will never be able tois huge. It’s a vital survival tool for writers, whether your communityis in your town or online. Sadness and depression thrive on loneliness. Letyour writing brothers and sisters be there for you when you need it, and you bethere for them.
· Try new things. Try a new genre or a different craft technique (likewriting an epistolary story or a story in second person). Write a poem oressay. Try ghostwriting. Try anything and everything when you start to feellike quitting. Either you’ll return to your work refreshed and ready to go, oryou may find a new kind of writing that you want to focus on for a while.Either way, you’re less likely to stop writing altogether.
· Try to enjoywhat your career is instead of obsessing on what it isn’t. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t continue trying toadvance your career and further your learning as an artist. But if you’realways focused on tomorrow, you’ll miss the joys of today. And those joys arewhat feed us and keep us going.
· Give back. Volunteer for a writing organization you belong to.Teach a writing class or workshop at a conference, your local library, or a reccenter. Mentor new writers. Giving back helps us find deeper meaning andsatisfaction in our careers, especially as we get older.
· Focus onliving a creative life. When I waseighteen or nineteen, I asked myself what my true goal was as a writer, and Irealized that what I wanted more than anything was to live a creative life. Andthis is my ultimate weapon whenever I feel down about my writing career andthink I should probably hang it up. I wanted to live a creative life, andthat’s exactly what I have done for over four decades. I’ve succeeded at that, andI continue to succeed every day. So what if I get a rejection, don’t win award,don’t make a best-of list, get few reviews, no reviews, or bad reviews? I’vealready succeeded. And you can, too.
Andif all else fails . . .
Just Keep Writing
· Even when youdon’t feel like it, even if it’s like pulling teeth, even if you think whatyou’re producing is garbage.
· So manyproblems writers face can be dealt with, one way or another, by simply engagingin the act of writing.
· If you want tohave a long career as a writer, and keep from quitting when the going getshard, focusing on producing writing is the best way to ensure you stay thecourse.
Sowhether you’ve quit writing and are contemplating returning to it, you’rethinking about quitting, or if you’re concerned that some day you might sufferburnout or disillusionment and finally throw in the towel, hopefully, I’vegiven you some ideas to – as Dory says in Finding Nemo – “Just keepswimming, swimming, swimming.”\
Thatlittle fish is a lot smarter than she seems.
DEPARTMENT OF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
Old Monsters Never Die
Like horror? Like short stories? I got what you need!
My eighth fiction collection – Old Monsters Never Die – came out May 28from Winding Road Stories.
From the mind of four-time Bram Stoker Award winnerTim Waggoner comes 18 provocative tales of terror that explore the darkestcorners of the human mind. This comprehensive collection concludes with anunforgettable metafictional story on what it takes to be a horror writer. Withthis carefully curated selection of short stories. discover why no matter howmuch we try, in our deepest subconscious, Old Monsters Never Die.
Available in paperback and eBook editions.
Amazon Paperback: https://tinyurl.com/59yny48s
Kindle: https://tinyurl.com/5b3etxts
B&NPaperback: https://tinyurl.com/352a9nzx
The Atrocity Engine
TheAtrocity Engine,first in a series of horror/urban fantasy novels for Aethon Books called TheCustodians of the Cosmos, has been getting great reviews!. The secondnovel, Book of Madness, releases July 30th, and theconcluding volume, The Desolation War, comes out Oct. 30th.
TheMaintenance novels take place in the mythos I’ve been developing since my novelThe Harmony Society came out in 2003. If you want to learn more about mymythos, you can check out this previous blog entry: https://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/2022/12/twenty-years-of-waggoner-mythos.html
(Don’tworry, though. You can read the Maintenance novels without having read any ofmy other work.)
Menin Blackmeets Hellraiser in this rollicking mash-up of urban fantasy and cosmichorror from four-time Bram Stoker Award-Winning author Tim Waggoner.
Creaturesfrom dark dimensions infesting your home? Demonic beings trying to drive youinsane? Alien gods attempting to destroy your universe?
Justcall Maintenance.
Thisunderpaid and overworked secret organization is dedicated to battling forcesthat seek to speed up Entropy and hasten the Omniverse’s inevitable death.
NealHudson is a twenty-year veteran of Maintenance. A surveyor who drives throughthe streets of Ash Creek, Ohio constantly scanning for the deadly energy knownas Corruption. Since the death of his previous partner, Neal prefers to workalone, and he’s not happy when he’s assigned to mentor a rookie.
Butthey better learn to get along fast.
TheMultitude, a group of godlike beings who seek to increase Entropy at everyopportunity, are creating an Atrocity Engine. This foul magical device candestroy the Earth, and they don’t care how many innocent lives it takes tobuild it. (Spoiler alert: It’s a lot!)
Justanother day on the job. . .
“Waggoner offers a fresh variation on the trope of acovert agency combating evil in his blood-drenched Custodians of the Cosmosseries opener.” – Publishers Weekly
“This gripping dark fantasy boasts an indelible castand an unwavering pace.” – Kirkus Reviews
"THE ATROCITY ENGINE is a wild ride full ofentertaining scenarios and scary monsters!" – Booklist
“THE ATROCITY ENGINE is a kick-ass cross-genrethrill ride of a novel! Holy moly! Tim Waggoner is easily one of today’s besthorror writers.” – Jonathan Maberry, NY Times bestselling author of CAVE 13 andNECROTEK
"This is edge-of-your-seat Horror Fantasy. It'sas if Stephen King wrote MEN IN BLACK!" —Scott Sigler, #1 NYT Bestsellingauthor of EARTHCORE
“Fast-paced, cleverly thought-through, and deeplyunnerving in all the right places—urban horror fantasy with a decidedly creepydifference. Don't read it in the dark!” – Diane Duane, New York Timesbestselling author of TALES OF THE FIVE: THE LIBRARIAN
B&NHardcover: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/book/1144299910?ean=9781949890891
Lord of the Feast
Mymost recent horror/dark fantasy novel for Flame Tree Press came out in April.
Twentyyears ago, the Shardlow family attempted to create their own dark god – andthey failed. Now they’re ready to try again . . .
Checkout this cool review video the good people at Flame Tree Press made for Lordof the Feast!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-6apaQI7Rs
“Lord ofthe Feast is an entertaining mix of bloody horror and honest emotion and awelcome return to the surreal, gruesome horror hijinks that Waggoner’s longtimefans know and love.” – Considering Stories
“Lord of the Feast is sure totake the reader down a dark rabbit hole into a twisted wonderland filled withcharacters from the darkest of nightmares and fans of dark fiction are sure tolove it.” – A Reviewer Darkly
https://www.flametreepublishing.com/lord-of-the-feast-isbn-9781787586369.html
Barnes & Noble Paperback: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lord-of-the-feast-tim-waggoner/1143636012?ean=9781787586369
Barnes& Noble eBook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lord-of-the-feast-tim-waggoner/1143636012?ean=9781787586376
Audiobook Sale
Audible versions of some of my booksare on sale at Amazon until 9/16/24! You can find them here: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=tim+waggoner&i=audible&crid=2UB4IZSPVIKVW&sprefix=tim+waggoner%2Caudible%2C115&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
The books include: The Way of AllFlesh, Eat the Night, The Last Mile, Love, Madness, and Death (a novellacollection), The Winter Box (Bram Stoker Award-winner), The MenUpstairs, (Shirley Jackson Award finalist), A Kiss of Thorns (BramStoker Award finalist), and Dead Detectives Society (I have a newNekropolis story in this anthology).
Eat the Night features the first appearance of Maintenance, theentropy-battling agency in The Atrocity Engine.
Teeth of the Sea eBook Sale
The Kindle version of mycreature-feature novel Teeth of the Sea is currently on sale for 99cents! I have no idea how long the sale will last, so snag a copy before theprice goes back up.
They glide through dark waters, sleekand silent as death itself. Ancient predators with only two desires – to feedand reproduce. They’ve traveled to the resort island of Las Dagas to do both,and the guests make tempting meals. The humans are on land, though, out ofreach. But the resort’s main feature is an intricate canal system . . .
. . . and it’s starting to rain.
SCHEDULED APPEARANCES
In Your Write Mind. June 27th to June 30th. Greensburg,Pennsylvania.
IGW Genre Con. August 17th and August 18th.Huntington, West Virginia.
Authorcon V. March 28th to March 30th.Williamsburg, Virginia.
StokerCon. June 12th to June 15th.Stamford, Connecticut. I’m one of the Guests of Honor!
WHERE TO FIND ME ONLINE
Newsletter Sign-Up: https://timwaggoner.com/contact.htm Website: www.timwaggoner.com Amazon Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Tim-Waggoner/author/B001JP0XFM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true Blog: http://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/timwaggonerswritinginthedark Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tim.waggoner.9 Instagram: tim.waggoner.scribe
