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I've been an eBay jockey longer than I've been a writer--although not as consistantly. It's not a "business" model that I can sustain because I tend to buy as much (or more) than I sell. My favorite? Star Wars Legos (highly collectable and damn cute).
I received a nice note in my email inbox stating I've received my red star, denoting a positive feedback score over 1,000 (and 100% positive, too). Pretty cool, actually. Those of you who might have read my flash story, "Enough", from Necrotic Tissue #13 will understand the obsession we eBayers have with our feedback scores.
What else am I working on?
Editing "No Good Deed" for publication (a novella of sorts) and putting some finishing touches on a story without a title. It involves obsession, too, as in the protagonist's father digs in the backyard for hours every night.
But in the morning everything seems fine.
Seems.
Ha.
Between Max's autoimmune issues, baby Elliot, and trying to wrangle Owen/my job/maintain a relationship with my wife... and other things, I haven't been writing as much as I'd like.
I have given a character a gun. Said character has decided to use the gun rather than call the police. See, he doesn't think the police will believe what he has to tell them (his wife might be held captive in a farmhouse/organized crime compound/possible religious cult). It doesn't help his case that it is three in the morning, he's covered in mud, blood, and cow shit, and a little high.
This could get interesting...
And it's all part of
No Good Deed, a crime/thriller novella.
More soon.
I'm thankful to be home today and squeeze in a little writing time. Of course extra time means extra thinking...
How do horror books sell? Depends on how many zombies a book has... Kidding, but seriously, I'm playing with genre on my WIP. Or I should say, playing in another genre. We'll see how it pans out. I've put Reunion on hold for a book which had to be written, a thriller (what?!?) called Badlands. The first line:
Ryan enjoyed a breakfast of yogurt, granola, and fresh fruit before he returned to his room and found his son missing.
Yeah, one of those kidnapping stories. There's going to be copious sex and violence, too. Maybe even an explosion. That is, if Ryan can't stop the explosion from happening. Hmmmm...
Hey... It works for Hollywood, right?
Hope everyone is having a fantastic week.
It's Wednesday.
There is work and there is progress.
Thus, this is my first Wednesday WIP post in (cue melodrama) forever. Back on the horse, in the saddle, leaping over the smelly corpse of my writer's block. As I said in 'this post' I knew the writing funk wouldn't last. I think that's the first time I've been blocked and not in the 'I can't think of any ideas' sense (there were still plenty of those) but I didn't seem to know how to construct a story (sarcastic comments appreciated and forgive my urge to pull tongues at you). A bit like forgetting how to tie your shoelaces. Odd. Probably a bit of the blues, but I've shaken them off with a healthy dose of singing far too loudly to the new Steps album and riding a sugar rush of leftover Halloween candy. So what was I doing before I blogged here...
Oh yes, writing.*
*If anyone yells 'twittering' you may be right. Oops!
And no, I'm not referring to Robert Heinlein's 1961 science fiction novel.
Not NaNo-ing always makes me feel a bit "out of the loop". Many bloggers are deep in the NaNo muck, and I'm here, piddling away at a pace of 500-800 words a day on my new book. Not a NaNo pace at all. Not at all.
Slow and steady wins the race? All right... but I didn't know I was in a race.
Speaking of strangers, here's a snippet of strangeness from what I'm tentatively calling Reunion:
“Hold on,” James said. “Where the hell did Carl go?”
The three men faced each other and turned slowly, eyes scanning the rows of stone and dark fences of trees. James let his gaze drift past the grey ribbon of highway, K-15, which ran along the western edge of Greenwillow. No Carl. Plenty of darkness. A gust of hot summer breeze meandered through the cemetery. Late July brought temperatures near the century mark earlier that day, but James shivered.
Don't worry. Carl's fine.
For now.
My "House" novel, now going by the name In the Memory House is nearing first draft completion. First draft completion doesn't mean much in my book. As a writer, I am a "pantser" for the most part, one of those free spirits wandering through the plot, dropping suspense and characterization along the way. The characters tend to reveal themselves better this way...
But then I have to pick up the pieces. My lead, a graduate student in psychology, has really shown me dark and secret corners of her life.
Now I have to go back and makes sure the early, more "private" chapters work.
From one of the final chapters:
Kelsey glanced once more at the door, took a breath, and plunged into the dark, groping with both hands now, reaching in front of her and to the sides to find the layout of the space. Her knuckles dragged against stone. She stopped, felt on both sides, and noted a rough, circular cavern. Her hands played with its boundaries. Behind her, the door had vanished, leaving no lingering ambient light.
She found herself in a cave. She hadn't stepped inside a cave since she was eight.
What are some of your most-powerful childhood memories?
I quizzed my students about horror yesterday as a lead in to our study of Beowulf. I asked them to list, and rank-order, the top five elements they expect to see in a horror movie or read in a story.
The answers were telling--and somewhat funny: sex, darkness, dark scenery, fornication, death, nudity, scary music, stupidity... One group even mentioned "creepy-ass-mofos".
Okay...
All but one group included blood as the first item on their list. This speaks to the kind of movies they're used to watching, doesn't it? Would their be no Saw XVII without blood? Can there be a true horror story without blood?
I think so. Some of the best horror doesn't even play in the realm of blood. My "not-quite-haunted house" WIP doesn't have (much) blood, and I've been scaring my own pants off for weeks.
We'll see how readers feel later this year.
I wrote a little piece called "To Put Away Childish Things" a few years ago. It appeared in Kaleidotrope before the 'zine went digital, so I have a dead tree copy lying around somewhere. It's a strange little tale, but one which a reviewer mentioned seeing a novel based on the story's characters...
Well, I'm writing it. A novella, at least, one which I'm calling Skin Jobs (for now). But I'm starting where the story leaves us...
“That’s him?” Tag called over his shoulder. “That’s Santiago?”
The portly man stopped his climb and dabbed his forehead with a rag. “Yes. Hanging from the—”
“Cross.”
“Huh?” The fat man’s face twisted.
“It looks like a cross,” Tag said. “Somebody’s crucified the poor old bastard.” Tag started down the debris pile, his heavy synth boots crunching and cracking over loose scrap. His coat, long in the hem, flapped like black wings as his slow descent became a run.
Tag Deeken is a sort of detective. Think Future Noir.
What about the weird house story, Aaron? It's still there, incubating. Fred told me he needs some time to work on it.
Have a lovely day.
From my current WIP, an as-yet unnamed supernatural "thriller" (in other words, a weird-ass horror book I hope might have a tiny bit of commercial appeal):
Following her up the stairs, Kelsey paused to ask, “so what are you afraid of, Erin?”
“Oh, me? The only thing which scares me is knowing too much.”
You see, Erin is the girl who has everything: looks, brains, a perfect California tan. Unfortunately, she's also psychic. Puts "knowing too much" in perspective, doesn't it? One member of their little group has already vanished, but it wasn't a member of the cast--no, the house, or whatever might be in the house, decided to start with the crew. Goodbye, sound man. It seems he had heart trouble, too. So sad.
Why don't they just leave if things are getting a bit out of hand? Good question. I asked myself the same thing while watching Paranormal Activity.
But I have several answers.
This is where things turn really "sour".
Stay tuned.
I'm obsessed with haunted houses.
No, not the Halloween theme spook houses, with genuine haunted houses (if such things exist). I've never been in one--as far as I know--but the idea fascinates me. Some of my favorite novels feature spooky houses--The Haunting of Hill House, Hell House, 'salem's Lot. Yes, I know the last one is about vampires, but the Marsten House certainly haunts the protag. The House of Leaves is an amazing book about--you guessed it--a bizarre house.
The House Eaters features a house--a semi/sort of haunted place. I've written stories about "places" with hauntings or "infestations". That's a good word for it, I suppose: infestation.
Here's the set up for my WIP:
Six people volunteer for a reality style show set in an old country house. The rules: they must stay inside for seven full days. No slipping out for a walk on the veranda or stroll through the garden. For their time, each will receive a minimum of $12K.
Four of them have been there before, but that time there were five. They sought shelter during a snowstorm (their van had landed in a ditch and there was no cell phone reception in the boonies).
The fifth member of their party disappeared in the house. The police, of course, theorized he wandered out into the snow to find help and never found any.
His body, of course, was never found.
But the four friends did find something else, upstairs in the house.
And I'm not telling what.
Yet.
I'm posting to keep myself honest: for the past five days, I've wrenched myself from bed to write and averaged over a thousand words each day. Nothing groundbreaking, but this book isn't going to write itself.*
One of the characters, in fact the main character, is a young woman working on her PhD in psychology. Her area of study? Fear and anxiety.
There was nothing to fear. She was a God-damned expert.
But yet, in the quiet slumber of the house, a sound came to Kelsey. This sound crawled through the frame and walls, over the polished hardwood of the floors, and into the sheets and comforter on Kelsey’s bed. It whispered in her ears.
I’m here.
Come play with me.
Yes, ol' Aaron is writing about a house again. But this one isn't haunted--not in the traditional sense. Have I mentioned two cameramen follow our intrepid characters around? But this isn't a Ghost Hunters knock-off. Oh no. The cameras are more interested in the living. Sort of.
More soon. Take care.
*of course, now I'm away from home for a wedding, so we all no nothing will get done for the next several days. Sigh.
June was my least productive month since starting to write five years ago. I managed to squeeze out 12,000 words on a so-so novel. Maybe it's better than so-so. I did manage to sub one story (which is being "held for further consideration"). But as far as write 1 / sub 1... I'm a failure. I'm suffering from a severe case of the blahs right now.
Have you heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? (here's the Wikipedia primer, if needed)
During the home remodel (and yes, it has spilled beyond the bathrooms), I feel stuck on level 2: safety.
Notice "creativity" falls under the top level.
*sigh*
My wife told me to go on sabbatical. I'm not going to do that. I love writing too much.
But for now, I'm going to spend a few hours on rebuilding my home.
How's the summer in your world?
Or maybe that should be titled, 'There's so much missing here, Kathleen Fair'.
The novellette/novella is complete at 14,537 words. Hearts, men and mirrors have broken, but fair Kathleen is the most lost of all.
Now to let it stew while I contemplate what happens in the bits between the bits or decide to lob off other bits.
The above was achieved with a little help from my friend, Freedom. Dude is a pain in the ass at times with his tough love, but in the end, when the universe restores, I appreciate his tenacity.
I'm trying a new approach, we'll label it How I Write Method 230. As most of you know, I had a wander along the corridors of Writers Block a couple of weeks ago and to help combat it (and to ensure I don't sit down to a blank screen), I'm building my ideas before I start to write them. And then, in the case of my just completed short story (Glimpses of Beauty through Bleached Bone - 3700 words), I may write some stories out of order. That is, when I'm stuck, I'm jumping to another scene where I know what happens. It worked for Beauty. So today, I am working on building a new short story something to do with perfume and balloons and the Devil.
In other news, there are just 3 copies of Nowhere Hall left. Thank you so much to everyone who has pre-ordered the chapbook. Three copies!!!
I've cooled off after yesterday's tirade. I guess I'm just a little tired of all the flag waving. The image above is from a cover of The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. One of the key scenes involves several standard bearers falling in battle until Henry, the protagonist, picks up the flag and leads his unit to victory. So much death just to keep a flag flying.
Sigh.
I'm a writer. Writers write. When stereotypes are tossed around (self-published writers are __________; literary agents are __________), no one wins. Writers write.
I've almost finished the extended "Spider and I". At around 16,000 words, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. Maybe I'll make it available in e-format for free. Maybe I'll do my own art and try to sell a limited number of hand-made chapbooks. Maybe I'll send it to a dozen markets and receive a dozen rejection letters. I don't know. Yet. But I wrote it because it was a story I wanted to tell.
I do know (from "Spider and I"):
Night was coming, and Jack was afraid.
I'm off the soapbox and in the trenches. Writers write. Period.
I'm on "tour" promoting Borrowed Saints (and writing in general) this week. Yesterday, I popped in to visit Cate Gardner and wrote about what was "Behind the Door". Today, I'm visiting Belinda Frisch's blog with a post about creating conflict and suspense. Stop in and say "hi". Tomorrow, I'll be leaning on Robert Swartwood with a little post about patience. God knows I need some.
More stops to follow.
So about this WIP Wednesday...
I'm writing a vampire-esque novella. I'm brainstorming for a middle grade (holy-sh*t, MG?) sci-fi, slipstreamy adventure book. My dear wife inspired me to write it, saying: "Why don't you write something Owen can read?" Yeah, why don't I?
And then there's the sequel to Borrowed Saints. Yes, I've already started writing that...
Sheesh. I'm starting to sound like Barry Napier with all this WIPing (love you, Barry).
Speaking of my dear wife... I want to share a dream of mine. I'd love for her to be able to stop working. She has terrible nerve issues in her mouse hand and a job which requires a ridiculous amount of clicking. She has back trouble stemming from a car accident when she was twenty.
I've taken on e-book formatting and cover design on the side (www.simplekindleformatting.com) to try and supplement our income. I'm continuing to write and hopefully build an audience. I'd love to add enough to the communal pot that she could stop working, or at least cut back and only see clients part time.
That's the dream.
Now that I've written it down, I need to get to work.
I don't find myself as attached to particular words, sentences, or even stories as I once was. This helps when I'm faced with the undesirable task of cutting chunks of flesh from tales which just aren't "getting the job done".
I finished drafting three stories in the past week (2,700 words, 900 words, and 1,500 words), and each needs a fair bit of trimming. An older piece has also staggered from the grave, begging for a new coat of paint.
I'm going to prune a bit today, and then move on to my first round revisions for The Sons of Chaos and the Desert of the Dead.
And from that story which wouldn't stay dead:
Her stare rested on the blade, watching it glimmer as the sun caught its edge.
“Give me your hand,” he said.
She sniffled, but sucked in a deep breath, pushing out her chin in mock courage. “I ain’t too afraid of dying, mister. I buried two brothers already. Earl Ray was only two weeks old when the fever got him. Dean got kicked in the head by a horse at five.”
Watcher held the knife to her skin, but his eyes were locked with her face.
“Figure I’ll see them soon enough.”
I dipped my toes in self-publishing (or Indie if it suits you) last April with The Bottom Feeders. Since then, between the free edition, Kindle, and Smashwords, well over 200 readers have picked up the book. Much has changed in the world of self-publishing in the last year. To mark The Bottom Feeders anniversary, I'm prepping it for print.
I've written a little afterword for The Bottom Feeders (print), and here she is:
As part of my day job, I tell my students (high school juniors and seniors) never to apologize for their writing. A nervous sixteen-year-old often sputters and us, afraid to show his or her work to the class.
Get over it, I say.
No excuses. No apologies.
I won't make any excuses for The Bottom Feeders. No apologies, either. These stories have their fair share of blemishes and errata. An earlier electronic edition contained several formatting errors. The prose in unwieldy at times, but its mine. All of it. The Bottom Feeders represents the best of my early work. These stories have life and memory. "Everything in its Place" was my first commissioned sale. "The Bottom Feeders" marked the time I juggled the balance between my past and the fictional universe I was creating. "Tesoro's Magic Bullet" will always be a reminder of the struggle: a story accepted to a market which I'd tried to break into a dozen times before getting it right.
Along the way, I found my voice. I hope you can hear something of the small-town Kansas kid with much love for vintage EC comics, Saturday morning cartoons, and Boris Karloff's staggering monster.
I'll keep telling stories.
Thanks for reading them.
(And, of course you can still get the electronic edition for Kindle or other formats at Smashwords for only 99 cents.)
It's Wednesday.
I have a WIP.
It has nothing to do with clocks or exploding monkey heads.
It has to do with this
When I'm not twittering, I'm editing 'Barbed Wire Hearts'.
*no monkeys were harmed in the making of this post.
The soundtrack for my novelette/novella/thing-of-undetermined-length is
Once More with Feeling, you know, the Buffy musical. Of course you know--I've put a picture to the left. I think it's just an excuse to visit You Tube daily.
I've got a theory. Some kid is dreaming. And we're all stuck inside his wacky Broadway nightmare...(Apologies, but sometimes you gotta belt out a song. Be grateful you're not in the room with me and a karaoke machine).
Barbed Wire Hearts (working title) currently stands at 10,376 words and is about a boy who loses his heart...
If made of glass, his heart would have splintered. If balloon like, it 'd burst. Where it once beat, it thudded, then dropped into his bowels waiting for him to shit it out. ...literally. I made poor Eddie wander around a forest with it dribbling down his inner leg. Although, I'm reserving my sorrow for Rose, she's just discovered the coroner's stitches on her chest. I don't think he did a very good job.
Oh, Sisyphus, how I feel for thee.
I'm on comment #1138 out of #2677 from an editor's pass on a book. None of the edits were changes to the text...oh no...they were just comments. 2677, people! Thank Zeus for digital files. If I had to do all of this on paper, I'd shoot myself. I just might, anyway, and then come back to haunt the editor in question.
So my WIP is jealous because I'm putting it on hold until I scratch through the rest of this ridiculous pile of comments. Thank goodness I've managed to send out my eighth Write 1/Sub 1 entry.
We have another snow day. Eight this year. I'm going a little batty, to tell the truth.
So I spent a good deal of my morning editing Borrowed Saints. This afternoon, I'll have another look at Anthony J. Rapino's Uprooted, the next chapbook for Strange Publications.
If you find yourself snowed in and need something to read (or just need something to read), might I steer you toward Jeremy Kelley's "This is Nathan Hall" (a serial short at his blog).
Innsmouth Free Press #6 is up and running, too, featuring several lovely pieces of weird fiction by writers such as Angela Slatter, Joshua M. Reynolds, Daniel José Older, and yours truly with "Drowning Old Milford". As always, it is a free read, and you can download the PDF issue for free, too.
Have a lovely day. No more snow, okay?
Yeah, I'm writing a short story. I've always been writing something for the last five years. There's your "WIP Wednesday". Haha.
I love the discussion which started yesterday. Book piracy is a hot topic. It's a relatively new topic for books, too. Bootlegging movies and music has been a pretty easy task for years, long before digital copies and the 'net have made it even easier. Some bands built their reputation on bootlegged tapes (um, how about some Metallica irony, folks?). But books were harder to steal and mass produce--you needed a printing press or a really reliable photocopier and a boatload of patience.
Now we have e-books. Now we have Creative Commons licenses. Now we have pirates trading books.
At McLouth High School, we have a rule in the student handbook stating "all electronic devices will remain in student lockers during the school day". Right. Seen any cell phones lately? Out of 22 students in first period, 20 had a cell phone, MP3 player, or both (I surveyed them). How do you police a rule like that? Is it worth the time to try? My point: some people will do what they want regardless of laws or rules or moral order. They just will. It doesn't make it right. It just is.
I know piracy has hurt music sales. I used to download pirated music (before I saw the light), a practice I've given up because cheap, reliable, and convenient alternatives now exist. I know the music industry's lack of foresight and willingness to change has also hurt music sales. We can't blame the pirates for the whole mess.
So, when I tongue-in-cheek told people to steal my book, I'm acknowledging the reality of electronic piracy. I can't live in fear of it, just like I won't spend my teaching day seeking out every contraband electronic device I can find. I'm an English teacher. We read literature and write. We think. We don't have time for cat and mouse.
Students have always found a way to "goof off" in class. When I was younger, we did it with pencil and paper and passed notes. Now they text. Who knows what comes next?
I don't.
But I'm curious...
I'm "enjoying" my third consecutive snow day. I know, silly to complain--who wouldn't like a little time off, right?
Right.
One day is great. Two days can be fun. On the third day, especially when the temps are well below freezing and it hasn't snowed since Monday, I begin to ask: "When does my life return to normal?" I teach in a rural district, and snow tends to drift. Sure, county maintenance plows roads where possible, but then the wind comes through overnight, and...you get the idea.
To my gift horse: I'm trying not to look you in the mouth, 'kay?
I'm just about ready to send my second submission for Write 1/Sub 1. Just about. I'm working on my fourth story (allowing a little time for editing lag). I call this one, "Through the Tunnel":
“Can you tell me what happened before the spell?”
Dr. Ellingham always called trips into the Tunnel spells. Spell sounded like something from a children’s movie. Something a cartoon witch might do, or Harry Potter, or Merlin in Camelot. Joel frowned at the word. “I was just walking. I was walking and then I was in the tunnel.”
“Mmm-humm.” Dr. Ellingham scribbled on his yellow legal pad
.
“I’d just dumped my tray. I was walking. Then…then I was on the ground.” Joel’s eyes shifted down, away from the yellow legal pad. Dr. Ellingham was always scribbling, scribbling. Pages filled with doodles, probably. Doodles of crazy me, Joel, with witches casting spells as they fly around mounted on cartoon broomsticks and conjuring black things from their cauldrons. Black things from the tunnel.
“Joel? What are you thinking about?”
“What?”
“You shuddered just now. Shivered, like you were cold.”
How's the writing going in your world?
My second official Loathsome, Dark and Deep contest starts tomorrow (at least I'll post the "rules"). I'm also going to give away a book, or better, having you help me give away a book. Make sense? Er...okay.
I'll explain...promise.
Today, I want to introduce you to Ron's Bait and Tackle:
Ron’s Bait and Tackle was a bent-backed grey mule of a shack at the corner of State Highway 15 and Old Miller’s Road, the later of which ran over a few hills and swooped around a curve until it ran into Lake Lotawana. It was the special hub of fishing action for Boone County, far enough outside of Boone’s Hollow to be free of the town’s more stringent laws regarding the sale and consumption of alcohol. The poor taste of the citizens of Boone County insured all the beer sold at Ron’s was domestic, in a can, and sold from an iced-down stock tank in Ron’s back room.
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Congrats on the Red star status!
Seems? Nothing is as it seems in reality...(Hugs)Indigo