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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 Twenty-third Post: The One Where I Address the Digital Monkey on My Back…

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I have to get rid of this thing.

Yes, you…

My phone sucks up more time than a black hole. I have an hour lunch, and I find myself spending more time on my phone rather than putting pen to paper. When I’m at home, I have hours of time I could be using to getting this outline done and moving on to the next project.

Nope – if it’s not YouTube, it’s the social media sites. I am horrible. If any of you thought that I was obsessively hacking away at the Great Works that are struggling in my mind to be loosed upon the world, let me let you in on a little secret: I have a horrible work ethic.

And I can’t just tell myself that I can’t use the phone. Music is an integral part of the writing process for me, and I use my phone to play music. What’s also on the phone? Reddit. Facebook. Instagram. Those old demons tempting me. Not really tempting me, but racing with me on the primrose path of destruction.

I’m also going to admit that I am getting a little impatient to finish this outline. Which doesn’t help with the guilt I feel over flipping through Facebook looking for more film clips from Monument Hobbies. I know what I have to do. I need to do this:

If I want to get anything done, I have to put my foot down. During the hour of lunch, phone is for music only. When I get home, I have another hour of work, and I can listen to music from the computer. I just need the phone in the bedroom getting charged up for the next day. I have to exercise some discipline here.

Does anyone here have that problem? The intrusion of that little hunk of dead dinosaurs and stardust into your life? Any hints or suggestions? I could honestly use some.

Hang on – let me send this cat video to my followers.

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 Seventy-Fifth Post: The One Where I Succeed Finally!

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I finally did it! I got something finished before a (moved back twice) deadline! The Catastrophic Christmas Party is finished and off for editing and a first read through! I have a few days which I am going to use to start to do the spell-check and some lighter editing. The deep editing is going to happen during October and possibly November, but it looks like it will be ready by December, barring any unforeseen circumstances.

Shown: Relief

This is good, not only for morale, but I now have all of October to get my last horror book outlined and finish up the research – which is now solely about non-drug therapies for schizophrenia. That’s all I am doing in October to get it done before November first, when I take off for Nanowrimo. This book is going to be written during November and December and will hopefully break the 100K mark, which would make it the longest book I have ever written with the objective of putting it to market.

I haven’t has a successful year like this in a while, to be bluntly honest. It’s rare (sadly) that I finish a rough draft, and here I am sitting on three right now (Serve Me Now, The Show Must Go On, The Catastrophic Christmas Party) and gearing up for a fourth one to be finished before year’s end. Could I be maturing as a writer? I’m certainly not maturing as anything else….

As much as I would like to bask in the afterglow for a few minutes, I have to keep going. Next year is going to be fantasy, with the intent of finishing two long standing projects: Unbound and The Marvelous and Malefic Doomsday Medicine Show. I am hoping that finishing the untitled schizophrenia project will give me enough confidence to finish these two books over the course of the year. Maybe even tackle a third one? Who knows? If there is a third, I don’t know if it should be a sequel (Unbound is a part of a trilogy) or a new work (of which there are dozens…dozens I tell you).

Maybe this is a good idea – dedicating a year to a genre, getting things done and moving on? It worked with horror, and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work with fantasy and then the year after that with romance. Maybe that’s the best balance. A year gives me a chance to work on something but doesn’t really tie me down if my choices change. I can clear four books a year – long ones if I can hold steady, and if needed be, I can whip out a short one (like another Evan book) to keep ym name out there. I think I am going to run it that way.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m looking forward to getting started on a new project and completing it before year’s end. Check out the titles on the right if you’re curious as to how good I am, or how good my friends are. Until next time!

The Five Hundred and Seventy-Third Post: The One Where I Need Two Matches for One Candle…

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I am so ready to end this current project. It’s not boring, it’s that I am ready to start my Nanowrimo project, even though I am not anywhere near finished with the research. I’m going to finish the current one first, obviously, because I can see the finish line – I think I have to write two more chapters and touch up at least one – and the other one is really interesting to me. I don’t think I’m going to finish it in a month. I’m aiming for 90,000 words, and I don’t think I can get that done in a month, even if I go into ‘burning candles on all three ends’ mode.

Shown: November

This is why it’s so hard for me to finish projects. I get so entranced with the next one, I abandon the unfinished one. I’m a dog on a highway – there are so many tires to choose from! I’m honestly surprised I finished two books this year and I am very close to finishing a third one. I have to focus. I have to hunt down that one car before I take off after that eighteen-wheeler.

Shown: Next Project

I’m also trying to look it as this: the fact that I finished two books is a sign that I am learning and growing as a writer. I also see it as divine influence, and I really need to get back to other projects. Next year is definitely the year of Fantasy with finishing The Deadly Barrow and The Marvelous and Malefic Doomsday Medicine Show and working on something else if I get those two done before the end of the year. Don’t know what – might be Unbound…might be something new. I might rob a bank. I might get ice cream. I’ll decide in the car.

I think that’s it for now. I just have to put the screws to my thumbs and get finished with this disastrous Christmas party so I can torment people with schizophrenia. The joys of being a writer!

The Five Hundred and Seventieth Post: The One Where I Listen for the Whoosh of a Possibly Blown Deadline…

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My confidence that I am going to complete the novel The Catastrophic Christmas Party by the end of August is waning rapidly. I have only myself to blame: I took on overtime which does cut into my writing time at home, but I need that money for next summer’s vacation. I am certain I can still get it done and published before the beginning of December. This one is not going before the writing group. My wife will read it and give advice, but this one’s going straight to Amazon like The Dreaded Day Job.

The novel itself is coming along in fits. The first part of the current chapter was a bit of a slog to get through, and the second part is coming along a lot better. I might want to consider coming back to that first part and tightening it up a bit when I begin the revisions. Having the whole conceit of the book ultimately being Evan at Christmas parties and various things going (hopefully) hilariously wrong does limit the scope, but I am having fun introducing the future love interest Sunny. It might not end up being a full 50,000 words, but closer to 40,000.

What else is going on? I got back the proof for the cover for The Show Must Go On and I am delighted with it. Next up is finish raising the capital to pay off the artist, who I will use definitely in the future. I do have tog et things together for the photoshoot for Christmas Party. I just wonder if my wife has a Santa’s cookie tray she doesn’t mind having a drill hole in it. Or maybe I’ll just buy one and sacrifice it for art. Also, need to buy an obnoxious Christmas sweater. For art, I swear.

Something less classy than this…

On the writing front there is not a lot going on beyond trying to finish this project and getting started on another (what it’s going to be is based on when I finish this current one). I haven’t even finished the outline for the werewolf book. It just slipped under the radar in the rush to get Christmas Party started. I might start it since I have quite a few chapters outlined, and just write the rest of the outline while I’m writing the first part of the book. Try to kill two birds with one stone as it were. Or hit two werewolves with one silver bullet.

I guess that’s all for now. Wish me luck in finishing up this slight interruption to the Year of Horror. I’ll see y’all later.

The Four Hundred and Forty-Third Post: The One Where I Go For The Cadillac!

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I’m still working on the fantasy series, but now my mind is coming up with ideas for other things left and right. I have an idea about a Southern Got novel (a tale of friendship, murder and privilege…) and a haunted house novel with a twist (the working title, and I might stick with this is: Breeder).

Even with these shiny new toys, I am trying to stay on track. It’s really hard not to act like a methed out German Shepherd chasing cars on the highway. I write notes and start some outlines, and that’s how it starts. Next thing I know, I’ve abandoned the current work for this new shiny thing.

I am trying to stay on track with this because it’s so long, and I have already put some time into it (Chapter 16 of…20? 25? Of book one of…20? Really, why can’t I do single novels?) and I am hoping to make the sunk cost fallacy work for me for a change. I am almost done with the first book, and I am bringing it to my writer’s group to get some opinions on it. I just need to finish it, but not rush the finish to get to the next book (a little less planned out sadly). I’m hoping that this series will get me some traction if I take the less traditional road of putting it up for free first, then publish it second.

But my big problem is the ideas come hot and heavy to me when I am occupied. When I’m not? Not even a dust bunny of an idea. My wife says it’s because my mind is working, so it’s not distracted by other things. I think my mind hates me at times and does this to trip me up.

Anyway – things are still going well as far as writing goes. I did take a day off to get some errands done, and I cleaned a little.

Shocking, I know.

See? Clean.

Just grinding away at books and trying to keep the muse happy – that’s my week in a nutshell. I might outline the haunted house story and work on it after the first book is done. I am going to have to research pregnancy…which is going to get me some odd looks at the book store and some interesting things on my Amazon account.

Sorry this is a little quick, but really – not much as been going on. Life of a writer and all that. Check out some stuff to the right – hope to add some new books soon. Have fun and take care.