horror

Th Six Hundred and Forty-Seventh Post: The One Where I Head For The Trenches!

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I am a glutton for punishment. Not only am I tossing aside Tribal for the time being, but I have an idea for a World War One horror novel that’s starting to get under my skin like a blood starved chigger. My first problem was which side the protagonist would fight on? The second problem was where? I did a little market research and found out to my surprise – there are few horror novels that take place during World War One. This really surprised me. I figured that World War One would be a popular idea.

Also — the perfect cover photo is public domain.

Think about it – the beginning what would be called total war. The filth. The disease. The tactics of the 18th century running pell-mell into the mechanization of the 20th century. The idea of attrition as a strategy. So many horrors in fact, and then we throw on top of that the supernatural elements. Zombies wandering the no-man’s lands, foam from a chemical attack drying on their chins. A centuries old vampire – caught up in the fervor of the war in the early days and looking for easy conquests – gets cut down by these new-fangled machine guns and is more wounded by the horrors around him. Why aren’t their more novels from this era?

This stirred my resolve to write this book, but I wanted to make my mark – so I did more market research. There are a lot of fictional books (relatively speaking) about the Western Front, but nothing about the Ottoman front. Now I had a place, and working backwards I had the nationality of my protagonist – he’s German. I wanted to take it to the Western Front, but the idea – a real, live flesh-eating ghoul in the trenches – didn’t really work because there were so painfully few Ottoman soldiers in the West. They were mostly pilots and “carry the flag” types. So, I picked the Ottoman front, which turned out to be a good choice for me.

The book started writing itself. So, I am going into research mode when I have some free time (HA! HA-HA!). As it turned out there is also not a lot of non-fiction about the war front. One book is $133 – and it happens to be the best-looking source. A Hundred and Thirty-Three Dollars! Are you kidding me? Am I going to pay it? If you don’t know the answer to that, then I’m afraid we can’t be friends.

So, that’s where I am at. Planning another novel, on top of outlining one and working on another one while promising to finish another one. Such is my crazy life. Well – that’s all for now, I should get to work on something. Ta-ta for now.

The Six Hundred and Forty-Third Post: The One Where I Want A Hype Machine For My Novel!

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I’ve finished two chapters in Unbroken and I am still trying to get through Tribal. I had a decent birthday – new Hawaiian shirt and comfy, comfy clippers. I didn’t write at all that day and that was the hardest part of the day. Good thing I had my wife to keep me occupied with dinner and dessert. I it just me or are the prices at Cheesecake Factory really high now? Our bill – for two people, mind you – was dangerously close to one hundred dollars when all was said and done. I think next year, I’m just going to walk to the pizzeria down the street. It’s a lot cheaper.

I still want to write a haunted house story, but I really feel like I am treading well-worn ground. I’m aware that this is a carry-over from last week. I know that the haunted house can be a metaphor for whatever, and it’s not like it’s something I can cobble together. I guess what I am looking for is the right metaphor to hang on all of this. Right now – I’ve got MAGA werewolves, vampire junkies and ghostly murders. What could a haunted house be a metaphor for? To make matters even more complicated, I’m trying to angle this into the Southern Gothic genre. Maybe I’ll get a good idea someday.

I did see Weapons during my vacation. It was good, gory and a little disturbing, but I’m not going to put it in the category of ‘best horror film of the year’. I think that title belongs solidly to Bring Her Back. I think there was too much hype between Sinners and Weapons for the amount of scares it brought to the table. I think horror in general is getting more and more hype-dependent. When Abigail came out – I was looking forward to it, but the hype didn’t really live up to my expectations. That and the ad campaign gave away what would have been a great reveal halfway through. I think horror might be petering out as a film genre unless we can get some better scares. My YouTube feed is littered with “what the ending of Weapons means” – mostly because I watched a breakdown of the movie after I watched it. Maybe it’s me being a crotchety old man (a title I have earned, thank you very much), but if you have to watch something to explain the ending, then the film didn’t really do it’s job, did it? But that’s just me.

Well – I did all my writing I needed to do today – time to get a shower and get some milk for tonight. Take care, have a slice of cake for me and support your local horror writers.

The Six Hundred and Forty-Second Post: The One Where I Boil Everything Down to a Five Second Sentence!

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Is it a new idea if my elevator pitch is a list of movies? I mean, the elevator pitch for my werewolf novel is: The Howling meets the MAGA crowd. I got an idea for a haunted house story, but it’s really nothing more than The Sixth Sense stays home. I was really excited about that idea, not because it was a haunted house story and that’s a horror trope I can check off my list, but because it wasn’t about the house, it was about confronting past traumas and working through them. The story is not about the living, it’s about the dead and what they’re stuck in.

Now, I don’t know. I’m haven’t completely talked myself out of this idea, but I think I should definitely turn it over more in my head. I just want to get that one topic done. Everyone else has written haunted house stories. One of the more terrifying stories I’ve read is a haunted house story (The Haunting of Hill House). I want to write one of those. I think I’m finding my creative groove as a horror writer, but I still love fantasy. I’ve even managed to incorporate elements of horror in the fantasy epic I’m guiltily working on right now. I can occupy more than one genre, right? That’s not a marketing problem?

I promise, I have not forgotten about Tribal. Just worked on a little bit of it today. Edgar’s got to make some hard choices, and I am not helping him. Hee-hee-hee.

I’m on vacation this week, so I am writing this a bit early. I am going to watch the movie Weapons at some point, and I will report back to you about it. I am also going to watch the one film that still scares me after all these years: Something Wicked This Way Comes. That movie is a foundational film for me. You could say it was my first horror film, and it’s the blueprint I try to follow when I write. I probably should read the book at some point. Since I have a few days off, I think I am going to just sit down and read for the whole day. I haven’t taken a day off like that in a while. If anyone has a recommendation for a book – horror or fantasy – feel free to leave me a note.

Well, the leaves are turning and the air is getting crisp. My favorite season is here and I am reveling in the moment. I got a new hoodie from my wife and it’s like a snuggly little hug.

The Snuggle Is Real…

I’m not putting away the Hawaiian shirts, but I am looking for similarly colored shirts in long sleeves. I’m now drinking coffee for power and warmth. Life is good.

That’s all for you – I have laundry to wrangle. Have a good day!

The Six Hundred and Twentieth Post: The One That Doesn’t Sparkle in the Sunlight!

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Sorry that I missed last Thursday. My dreaded day job had me working overtime and waking up early, which messed with everything. I have emerged from that week with all of my vices intact. I will try to fall back into a regular schedule.

Speaking of vices – do you hate sparkling, sexy vampires as much as I do? Want them to go back to being something dangerous? Then I have news for you. I am working on a new novel – outlining – about vampires called Forever Junkie. I wanted to write a vampire novel, but I wanted a new direction to it. I know that people far smarter than me say that vampires are an allegory for sexuality, particularly in Victorian England. I wanted to turn it into a new allegory, so I thought about something that is touched on very briefly in the lore, but is never examined.

Vampires can also be an allegory for addiction. Modern vampires have turned feeding into a sexual act – not just procreation, but the feeding of a desire. What if we ramped that up to eleven? What if that unkempt guy shuffling down the sidewalk a few steps ahead (or behind…) with the bad odor and dark stains on his shirt was one of the undead?

Clearly a junkie

I wanted to write this as a more grounded version of vampires, something akin to the movie Martin. No fangs, no mesmerism, not even turning into a bat. This is going to be a little more realistic. Which means I get to do research into drug addiction. This is not a complaint! Researching is one of my favorite parts of writing. Now, I don’t know how this story is going to play out. I got the idea a couple of days ago. I just hope I can get it out in a reasonable time frame – which is code for ‘before I die’.

That’s it for the week – living on little sleep and a lot of caffeine. I’ll try to get a little better about updates, with the overtime done, that should be a little more consistent. I’m off to pen the outline. Have fun!

The Six Hundred and Eleventh Post: The One Where I Tell My Character To Have A Seat on the Couch and Tell Me How She Feels…

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Can an influencer be sympathetic? That’s the question I am mulling over while I outline the second draft of Serve Me Now – the horror novel I want to get finished by the first quarter of 2025. She’s an “adult” influencer and model, meaning she does a lot of skin-showing and other things for a living. For this to be a good horror novel, I need to make her sympathetic…can we feel sympathy for someone whose only job is to lopok pretty? That’s my question.

I can go the old tried-and-true route of ‘hates her job’. I feel though I come back to this well a little too often with Evan. I could make her cynical of people. After all, her job is just to look pretty. She could hate going to the gym as much as I do, but she needs to go to keep her perfect shape, which leads to the real problem when she starts down the path she does in the book.

Maybe she likes her job for the attention but hates the work. NO\o choice in going to the gym. No choice in really what she can or can’t eat. Sure – she wants that slice of cheesecake, but she knows that that isn’t cheesecake, but an additional twenty minutes on the treadmill. She would like to put on sweats and eat a bag of chips and watch Hallmark movies, but that’s not bringing eyeballs to her OnlyFans site.

I think that’s the route to take. Everyone can find something wrong with their job, right? I mean, the key to having a sympathetic character is having something that the reader can relate to in their life. I’m sure we’ve all had jobs where if it weren’t for one thing, we would actually like it.

Here’s another one for the main character – for all the attention she gets, she’s lonely. I know that the whole ‘intimidated by my beauty’ thing is a little…cliched. All the messages she gets just amount to how much that particular person wants to sleep with her, and what kind of person she is in bed. No one comments on her stance on international affairs, or asks her what her favorite book is. They just want to know if she swallows or not.

What if she were a lot smarter than people think? Not super genius mode, but certainly someone with a good head on their shoulders. What if the person that knows her the best is her boyfriend Ian? I mean – he should know her the best because they’re in a relationship. This makes his inevitable departure even that much more painful because this was her tether to a somewhat normal life. When he’s gone, all she has are the empty platitudes of her fans. Even those begin to trickle away.

Yes. I think this is the route I am going to take. I just need to keep this in mind when I work on the outline. Can I show her loving the attention? Sure. There’s a little bit of narcissism in her to lap up the looks and leers. She could suffer from low self-esteem, which would explain a lot of things with her.

Well – that wasn’t so hard.

Now, I just gotta fold this into all the other things that are going on in the book. I am hoping to get it finished in time for publication by the end of the first quarter of the New Year. I want to have my schedule cleared for all the other books that I need to write. Wish me luck!

The Five Hundred and Eightieth Post: The One Where I am Ready To Write 50,000 Words!

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I can’t wait for tomorrow – I’m writing this on October 31st, Nanowrimo eve. I haven’t finished the outline for the novel, but I am confident that by the time I get to the last chapter I have outlined, I will have an idea where to thake the story. I think when it comes to me outlining…as much as I hate this saying: less is more. My outline for Voices Abroad is enough so that I could hand it to anyone and they could write the text based off of my notes. Sadly, I have come to a point in the outline where I don’t really feel like putting anything down. I want to get the outline finished, but I’m just daunted? Is that the right feeling? I’m chomping at the bit to get going for the main book. The outline? Not so much.

I’m also working on the Gothic horror story’s notes and outlines – speaking of chomping at the bit. I might end up starting it on January and push back the hardcore fantasy for a few months. I’m not really motivated to take up those other two novels right now. I’m not despairing right now, I have the whole year to work on them, and this Gothic novel really is hitting the right spot for me. It’s not going to be a Kellas Donovan novel – so sex and violence will be at a minimum. I’m even buying a couple of books that are literary analysis of Gothic literature just to make sure I have all my I’s dotted and T’s crossed. I’m taking my time with this one because I really want to get this one right. I can feel the fire in my bones. This is going to be a good one. I might even try to get this one published through traditional means.

I had a good birthday – got “The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires” and a new t-shirt for the gym. It was a good Sunday. I am hoping that the rest of the week and the next that I have off will be just as productive. Slept in a little…meaning I got up at seven in the morning rather than four-thirty. Working when I feel up to it, and playing some Baldur’s Gate 3 when so moved. It’s been a fun time so far.

That’s it for now. This time tomorrow, I am going to have my little ‘writer’s moment’ and plop myself down in front of my writing laptop and write away. I can barely wait. Might even take a nap and wake up at midnight to get going. Probably not.

The Five Hundred and Sixty-seventh Post: The One Where I Am on a Roll!

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Well, I have good news! I finished The Show Must Go On, at least the first draft. Now it sits aside for a couple of weeks, and then I begin the re-writes on it. I’ve finished two drafts in one year – and the year isn’t over yet! I might be able to get a couple more out. I think I am going to take a bit of a working break from writing for a week or two. I’m still working on the outline for Your Tribe, Our Tribe – my werewolf novel. I should have that done in a couple of weeks and I’ll start on it and try to get the rough draft on that one finished before November and Nanowrimo. I’m still going to do Immigrant Voices for that, and that might be the last horror novel I do for the year.

Next year, I am going to make it the year of fantasy and finish up two projects and try to have them ready: The Marvelous and Malefic Doomsday Medicine Show and The Deadly Barrow to have them done and in the hopper for being reviewed by my writing group after the horror is finished up.

I really feel that things are coming together now. I’ve gotten a cover artist for The Show Must Go On and if things work out well, I might have her do the covers for Serve Me Now and maybe Immigrant Voices if I can afford her. She’s getting $1,000 for the first cover, and I hope this isn’t money misspent.

This is not me…

What I really need to do is churn out something for immediate consumption. Something that doesn’t go through a strigent review process. Maybe go back to Catastrophic Christmas Party? I think I had most of that done, I just needed to pad it. I might do that now and work in the werewolf outline on Sundays, work on re-writes for Serve Me Now on Saturdays and dedicate the weeks for Christmas Party with an eye for December release.

Did I just make a plan? Am I going to follow through with it?

Yes to both of those.

Wish me luck.

Oh, in case you didn’t know – my first novel The Quietest Heart is free for the remainder of the week. So snatch it up before you have to pay for it. Also – I have a couple of other books, ranging from comedy to horror written by me and several dear friends. Check them out and send some love their way.

Stay well.

The Five Hundred and Sixty-Fifth Post: The One Where I Try to Plan Ahead!

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Well, I am amid killing the final anatagonst in The Show Must Go On, and I am at a quandary as whether bump the main character’s kill count to three and axe the producer, or should I stick with the two? No doubt there are people in the entertainment industry who are not producers screaming their opinions at the screen right now. I might being the main character to the brink of doing just that, and then have the cops come in and arrest him. I don’t want this to turn into a legal drama, so…maybe? I’ll have to think about it for a while. I haven’t gotten a good handle on that part yet.

I’m also trying to figure out which story to write as far as Nanowrimo goes. Yes, I know we’re smack dab in the middle of summer, but I want to do as much pre-writing as possible. For that I have several choices:

  1. Immigrant Voices: A schizophrenic Kenyan discovers that the voices don’t travel well
  2. All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Fangs: a young woman is turned into a vampire. This story is played for horror and humor
  3. A Game of Chinese Whispers: In a world interconnected, madness is the web’s undoing.
  4. Breeder: A woman inherits a haunted house, and the spirit that dwells inside wants out.

I have quite a few ideas, and I hope to get through two of them by the time the year is up. I’d like to do the first two. The first one is an idea I’ve had for a while, and I think it’s ready to be put to paper. The second one kinda tickles my funny bone. At first it was going to be super serious and a deep dive into the horror of being a vampire, but my natural sense of humor kept creeping up in scenes I would write in my head.

The last two are certainly good ideas, but they’re still a little half formed, with the last one needing to interview some women about child birthing and how society views that. So, those two might be held back for a while longer to get them ready. These are the four ideas that are coming to mind right now, and if I have some better ideas, I will certainly expand on them a little bit.

Right now, as far as reading goes, I am in the middle of Maeve Fly and I am liking it. It’s got an American Psycho feel to it, which is always good for me. My current break from fantasy is complete for the year. Not reading any, not writing any until next year, when I hope to finish Medicine Show and begin the editing process for that piece of work.

Well – less than a month out from GenCon. I can’t wait for the vacation! Four days of gaming and relaxing. I really can use it. I have some rules, which are going to go up the day GenCon starts, which is a Thursday. With any luck, there won’t be any gaps in posting, since I’ve been fairly good about it up to this point.

Please take some time to peruse the offerings on the right side of the blog – both from me and very talented writers. Have a good day and stay safe.

The Five Hundred and Sixty-Fourth Post: The One Where I Talk Murder, Mayhem and Priorities!

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I’ve been getting better and better with writing now that I have a goal: to kill another character. Now, all I have to do is get to that point and cut loose. Next chapter, I tell myself. The next chapter I am going to kill the other major character.

Muahahahahaaa…

Before you all think I am some blood crazed sociopath, let me say this: I am not a sociopath, because sociopaths have time. I do not. My day is packed from when I get up to when I go to sleep. I can’t go on a killing spree because my schedule is full. Sorry. Not sorry.

I haven’t touched my other project in a while because of time. I’m not really upset or concerned about it. I’ve still got a bunch of other things to keep me going. It’s just an outline, and I can still work on it after The Show Must Go On is finished. I’m still having Serve Me Now looked over by my writing group (I need to work on chapter two, while I’m thinking about it), so I am having no shortage of things to do. My ultimate goal is to get a table at GenCon year after next to try to sell my stuff there. So, this year I need to clear four horror books and maybe try to finish up a fantasy series – either The Deadly Barrows or The Marvelous and Malefic Doomsday Medicine Show. Leaning towards the last one just because it isn’t standard fantasy fare.

Also, to my credit, I haven’t played any Borderlands 2 since I started this horror kick. Yes, it is one of my favorite games, given how old it is by current gamer standards. It’s an odd thing, when I’m writing horror – I don’t think about the video games I’m not playing. I had this to a lesser extend when I was writing fantasy, but I would use the game as a reward for getting to a word count. Now – it’s more of a ‘meh: it’s a game I’ve beaten before’. Is this me maturing as a writer and as a person?

I miss you, too, little buddy…

Say it isn’t so!

Before anyone brings up Borderlands 3, let me just say that is someone wants to know my opinion of that game, drop a comment in my email and I will bring it up before GenCon just as a way of branching out from writer’s updates on my end. Sometimes I come to the blog page without a topic in mind other than how or what I’m writing. I’d love to have some feedback on what would interest you – the reader of this blog.

Well, I do have to venture to bed because I gotta get up ridiculously early in the morning. Be safe, be careful and watch out for the rat men.

The Five Hundred and Fifty-Seventh Post: The One Where I Give Away The Plot!

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So, I have an idea for a vampire novel that is going to address one of the complaints I have about vampires and how they’re currently viewed in pop culture.

I am personally exhausted with the notion of vampires being avatars for raw sex. Vampires as lovers, or objects of desire for me has been played out. I want to go back to the idea of being a vampire being something horrific in the short term.

So, I thought just how bad is it to be a vampire, but not know what to do. No sire, no instruction – just wham-bam-fanged-you-ma’am and left on the side of the road. Sure – vampire lore is everywhere, and the main character isn’t completely ignorant, but everything else the main character needs to learn is going to be on their own (haven’t decided if the main character is going to be male or female). It’s a good idea, and I am going to work on it closer to the end of the year. When I finish The Show Must Go On, and the werewolf book Your Tribe, Our Tribe, I’ll work on the vampire book tentatively titled Fang Baby.

I amazingly got up on time this morning, and not hitting the snooze button three or four times. I got a lot of work done today. The only change I had to my evening routine was I went to the gym shortly before I went to bed. Didn’t write, but I did walk a few miles. This morning, when I woke this morning, I was fully awake – not bleary minded or anything like that. I felt good. I even wrote 850 words in about an hour. I’m going to try to repeat this and see if I can develop a habit. It was just weird to wake up and get right to the shower and breakfast, If I try to repeat what I did this morning for the next morning, then I need to figure out when to go to the gym since today is laundry day and that takes a good chunk of my time.

Is there anything else going on? Not really. Still focusing on getting the current novel done in a month and a half, then moving on to the next one. I want to have at least four novels first draft finished by the end of the year with one ready for publication. Whether it’s going to be picked up by a publisher or not – who knows? Still mulling that over in my head.

Take care, and stay safe.