Archive for the ‘Novella’ Category

Review: “Victorian Psycho” by Virginia Feito

Posted: March 24, 2025 in Novella, Review, Scary Stuff
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2

Wow, it’s just been good book after good book after good book lately. At least I’m having luck in that area lately.

Set in my beloved Victorian England, Victorian Psycho follows Winnifred Notty, a governess who comes to Ensor House, the country home of the Pounds family to help instruct and raise the children. However, Winnifred is about as far from Mary Poppins as you can get. She’s got a history, has a mind that works in mysterious ways, and has some terrible plans in store for the Pounds family. Ones that will come to terrible fruition on Christmas Day.

Whoo-boy, this was a wild one. Written entirely from the point of view of Ms. Notty, you really get in her head, and it’s an uncomfortable place to be. She sees things that aren’t there (or are they?), does things that defy both common sense and my uncommon sense, and puts up red flags left and right while making the funniest observations (like what she says about the head maid’s sexual history). Compounded by the fact that you can’t rely on anything she says (I highly doubt most of the people’s last names in this book are their real last names), it’s an intriguing read that keeps you wanting to read more.

It’s also darkly funny, satirizing the manners and beliefs of the age in a way that somehow manages to keep things between insane and believable. I could hardly believe it when one character mentioned that when he got home, he’d have to deal with both a depressed wife (apparently she’s delaying getting over her child’s death much too slowly for her husband’s sake), and a chimney sweep who’s stuck in their chimney (they tried to light a fire under him to press the issue that they didn’t want him hanging around. It didn’t work).

And then what happened a few pages later…well, I’ll just say that was a real thing Victorians did, and seeing it depicted here was kind of amazing.

As far as downsides go, I did think some parts of the ending could have been tweaked. Also, maybe it was just because I was listening to the audio book, but I was only able to listen to this book in short spurts before needing a break. Which is weird, because when I first started, I thought this was the sort of story I would nearly binge from start to finish, and that feeling is hardly ever wrong.

All in all, though, Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito is a quick and enjoyable read. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give it a 4.2 for its witty, stomach churning portrayal of insanity and evil set against the backdrop of banal, Victorian melodrama and morals. A movie version is set to release next year with Margaret Qualley in the lead, and if she brings the same A-game she brought for The Substance (which I recommend if you can deal with body horror), it’s going to be a hell of a film.

In the meantime, better go brew some (hopefully poison-free) tea, lie back in the drawing room, and crack open a copy of Victorian Psycho. Trust me, it’s worth a read.

Review: “Midwestern Gothic” by Scott Thomas

Posted: November 29, 2024 in Novella, Review, Scary Stuff
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

As many of you know, Kill Creek by Scott Thomas has become one of my favorite novels, if not my favorite (you can read my review from 2018 here). So, when I heard Thomas was releasing a collection of four novellas, I had to get my hands on it. And while it took me longer than I wanted to get through it (I picked it up in September and only just finished it), I’m glad I got to read it.

Taking place in a fictional version of Kansas that’s part of the same universe as Kill Creek (and possibly his other novel Violet, I’m not sure), each novella follows a native who gets pulled into horrors beyond their control. Three of these stories connect to the very land and the entities, natural or supernatural or preternatural, that inhabit and make up Kansas, all of these stories deal with dark histories and hidden truths, and each story connects in some way to the authors who were the stars of Kill Creek,* enhancing the reading experience.

The first novella, The Door in the Field, follows a young construction worker with anger issues who joins his boss for a drink after an incident, and ends up spending a night in terror. This story does move a bit slow at times, but it’s a thrilling tale full of blood, violence, and cosmic horror that pays off well at the end with the reveals and the main character’s growth. My one major criticism is that the novella is kind of a story within a story, and the framing device doesn’t really add much to the story. It doesn’t take anything away, but it doesn’t add much, either.

The second novella, Wear Your Secret Like a Stone, follows a troubled young woman who, after her pick of book for the Halloween display at her job is taken down by a customer complaint, goes on a mission to get her favorite book back. Only along the way, she learns some frightening local history which is more alive than she thought. I think this might have been my favorite novella of the bunch. It’s atmospheric, the protagonist is likeable, and the ending is a dark fantasy twist that will bring you chills.

The third novella, The Boy in the Woods, is about a young boy who, on the last night at camp, finds himself in the middle of a slasher story with a rage zombie twist. It’s a wild ride of a story with a sympathetic protagonist and a the way the slasher/rage zombie aspect are approached gives both tropes new life that I wasn’t expecting. If Wear Your Secret was my favorite, then The Boy in the Woods is a close second.

The final novella, One Half of a Child’s Face, is about a mother who is able to see into her ex’s apartment building al a Rear Window. There, she frets about not having her daughter living with her full-time and gets a vicarious thrill at watching the residents live their lives…until a strange painting in an empty apartment seems to throw an evil influence over the building’s residents. Of the four novellas, I would consider this the weakest. It takes a long time to build to anything and there are quite a few plot threads left hanging at the end. However, the last fifty pages are so were hard to put down and I enjoyed reading them.

All in all, Midwestern Gothic by Scott Thomas is a worthwhile collection of novellas. On a scale of 1 to 5, I would rate it a 3.9. Pick up a copy, settle down in your favorite chair, and prepare to be transported to a different sort of Kansas.

*If you haven’t read Kill Creek, don’t worry. You can still read the collection just fine. Kind of like how you can watch The Big Bang Theory and still laugh at all the jokes while not necessarily getting every sci-fi or comic book reference the characters make. Still, I highly recommend Kill Creek, so if you’re curious, read that one, too.

Review: “The Ballad of Black Tom” by Victor LaValle

Posted: February 18, 2024 in Novella, Review, Scary Stuff
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
4

I’ve been hearing of this novella for years, but for some reason I haven’t gotten around to reading it until recently. However, recently I felt an itch to indulge in some cosmic horror and the audio book was on sale, so I downloaded it and listened to it.

Followers of Fear, why did I wait so long to check this out? It was awesome! I can see why it was nominated for a Stoker award.

Set in 1924 New York and based on “The Horror at Red Hook” by HP Lovecraft, the novella follows Tommy Tester, a black man living in Harlem with his father, trying to get by as best he can. When he’s asked to play guitar at a dinner party for an eccentric gentleman named Robert Suydam, Tommy finds himself plunging headfirst into a world of magic, insanity, and cosmic forces. Such exposure will not only change his life, but the lives of all humanity.

If you’re not familiar with “The Horror at Red Hook,” this story was written when Lovecraft was living in New York, and, because he’s Lovecraft, he characterizes the non-white characters, many of whom live in Red Hook, as criminals and gangsters. This story is sort of a rebuttal of that, showing things mainly through the eyes of one of the people whom Lovecraft would have disdained. This allows for a great examination of cosmic horror versus the horrors of racism as seen through the eyes of Tommy Tester, later known as Black Tom. As he notes, the indifference of cosmic horror cannot compare to the malice and cruelty of racism, though both are equally horrifying in their own rights.

Beside that, it’s just a well-written and compelling story. You really grow to understand Tommy and sympathize with him, and can’t blame him when he makes certain choices later in the book. Not only that, but the emotional power of this story cannot be underestimated. One scene involving Tommy’s father was so heartbreaking, I wanted to pick up the phone and call my own dad just to check on him. That’s strong storytelling right there.

I also liked how part of the novel was shown through the eyes of Malone, the main character in “Horror at Red Hook.” Here’s, he’s written more as a character than just some vehicle for Lovecraft to transmit his purplish prose through, and he’s not unlikeable, though he’s still subject to the same prejudices that a lot of people back then unfortunately had. His role in the story is also more consequential, which is a nice change, and his final fate is a terrifying but welcome change from the original story.

On the whole, I give The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle a straight 5 out of 5. I cannot find anything wrong with this story and I’m so glad I finally experienced it. If you’re at all interested, grab a copy, put on some jazz or blues, and give it a read. Trust me, you won’t regret checking it out.

Also, the audio book has my recommendation. The narrator, Kevin R. Free, does a great job with the various voices and the sharp prose. It’s enough that you’ll want him to narrate something you’ve written. That, ladies and gentlemen, is talent.

Novelettes and Novellas Deserve More Love

Posted: February 10, 2024 in Novelette, Novella, Reflections, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
6

I try to write short stories, but they rarely end up that short. They end up being novelettes and novellas.

Now, I know a lot of you are writers and are familiar with the terms. But for those of you who are not, novelettes and novellas are stories that are longer than short stories but shorter than novels. Depending on who you ask, the length can vary, but the HWA defines novelettes as 7,500 words to 17,499 words and novellas to 17,500 words to 40,000 words. Obviously, shorter than 7,500 is a short story and over 40,000 is a novel.

And like I say, I try to write short stories. I do. Most publishing magazines and anthologies prefer short stories, and many like them under five-thousand words. Can’t really blame them. Not only do short stories that short have a special punch, but it’s just more cost effective. If you’re paying by the word, then the cost per story goes up with the word count. And if you’re paying a flat rate per story, then the higher the word count, the more the author might expect to be paid. Hence why they tend to publish short stories.

However, I have trouble keeping my word count under seven-thousand. I’m an expansive writer, as one of my college writing professors once told me. Hell, even most of the stories in Hannah and Other Stories is more novelette-length than short story, and that’s marketed as a short story collection. I just like having those longer stories that still have that punch of a short story but don’t require the same commitment as a novel does.

And I wish there were more publishers that were willing to pay for novelettes and novellas. Especially novelettes, because a lot of the presses and magazines and anthologies that accept those don’t tend to go above ten thousand words.

Thankfully, my wish appears to be coming true. Perhaps in part due to popular collections of novellas by popular authors like Stephen King and Josh Malerman, and perhaps in part due to readers hungry for them, more publishers are buying and releasing novellas, both as standalone releases and as collections. And it’s a slow trickle, but we’re seeing a rise in publications accepting novelettes, including ones above ten-thousand.

Who knows? Maybe there are even publishers who would willingly put out a collection consisting entirely of novelettes. If the response to some of my social media posts are anything to go by, there’s an audience who would read that.

And I have been considering putting together a collection just like that, as well as a collection of novellas. After all, a lot of what I’m writing these days ends up either a novelette or a novella. Who knows? Maybe if I can put together enough stories of the right length and that gel together and if the stars are right…

Well, we’ll see what happens. In the meantime, if you have social media, make sure to post how you would love to see more publishers and magazines releasing novelettes and novellas. Trust me, if they see the demand, they will respond. The responses to my own social media posts have me convinced of that.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. This post wasn’t the most important thing I could write about, but I wanted to write about it. Besides, who knows? I could find a few more people who wish for more venues for novelettes and novellas. We could start a trend.

Anyway, until next time, good night, pleasant nightmares, and aren’t you glad this post didn’t become a full-length novelette? Or even a novella?

My First Story of 2024 is Completed!!!

Posted: January 28, 2024 in Novella, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
6

You know, last year’s first story I finished in March? I know I was knee-deep in edits at the time, but still, I’m glad I could get this one finished in January!

So, as you can tell, I just finished my first story of 2024. The story, called “Hooty Boy,” (yes, that’s the title I’m going with) is about a young man with an extraordinary relationship with owls, and a girl he meets who’s interested in him. I described it online as a story about two strange owls courting, and that’s not too far off. The first draft is 23,304 words longs, making it a novella.

And you know what? I expect it to be even longer once it’s gone through a few edits. I feel like I could flesh it out a bit more, expand some scenes and perhaps give a minor character a bigger role like I originally planned.

But for now, I’m just happy to get the first draft done. As I said in one of my previous posts, I’ve been owl-obsessed for quite a while now, and I’ve known for just as long that I wanted to write a story around those birds. They’re so powerful and deadly, with sharp talons and beaks and wings that make no sound as they fly. Yet they’re also so sweet to their mates and young, and look so peaceful when they’re sleeping. Why wouldn’t I want to put them in a story?

And when I finally had the idea, I was excited to write the story. But then I finally got around to write it, and so many reasons cropped up to keep me from finishing it as fast as I wanted to. Hence why I spent most of today getting it done. Otherwise, it might never be done.

Well, it’s done now. And I think it has some potential, which I will attempt to bring out in subsequent drafts. Hopefully I can make it darker than it is now. There’s one scene that’s really dark, and I would like to see that darkness spread to the rest of the story. Or most of it, anyway.

For now, though, I’m hitting the hay. After all, it’s well past midnight. And after a day or two to recharge my creative juices, I’ll start a new story. I already know what sort of story I’m going to write. And I have a feeling it’s going to be a fairy–I mean, a fairly fun story.

And after that and maybe a few other projects, I’ll edit “Hooty Boy” and a few other stories, too. Hopefully then we’ll see them in print somewhere.

In the meantime, if you can’t wait, head to my Book Links and Excerpts page. You’ll find all my work there, including some free stories, that will surely entertain you or the horror fan in your life. And if you read them, I hope you’ll let me know what you think with a review. Positive or negative, I love reader feedback, and it helps me and other readers out in the long run.

Well, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I can hear my bed calling to me, telling me to get some sleep before the Ohio chapter of HWA meets tomorrow. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares!

Review: “Gone But Not Forgotten” by Iseult Murphy

Posted: December 28, 2023 in Novella, Review, Scary Stuff
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
4

Iseult Murphy has been a friend and Follower of Fear since Rose came out, and I have always enjoyed not just hearing what she thought of my stories, but having conversations with her through blog comments, social media and email. But Iseult is not just a friend or a Follower of Fear. She’s a fellow horror author, and she recently put out a new novella, Gone But Not Forgotten. It sounded interesting and I’m very into authors supporting other authors, so I got a copy.

For someone who has Halloween every day in my soul, this was a good choice.

Taking place on Halloween in Ireland, Gone But Not Forgotten follows widow Mere as she goes to visit her friend and neighbor Bill, a widower who lost his wife Donna about a year ago. Bill has been having a rather rough go of it, as he’s seeing Donna everywhere. As it turns out, Mere can see her, too. And Donna’s not resting peacefully.

What I liked most about Gone But Not Forgotten was that it did not go in the direction I expected. When you’ve been reading horror as long as I have, you get good at guessing plot developments. But I did not see the development that occurred midway through the novella, and which really changed my outlook of the story. I won’t say what it was, because spoilers, but it was worth the read.

I also liked Mere as a protagonist. She’s sweet and a bit naive for her age, but I found her quite endearing as a person and was rooting for her throughout the story.

If there was one thing I would have liked more, I thought there could have been a bit more danger and violence to the story. Things were a bit too calm for my tastes. As it is, the levels of violence and threat put things more in line with cozy horror, which I’m sure many would enjoy. But it just wasn’t enough for me.

On a scale of 1 to 5, I’m going to give Gone But Not Forgotten by Iseult Murphy a 4.5. If you’re looking to feel that Halloween spirit at any time of year, this is a good novella to go with. Have some brack bread and an amaretto sour and pick up a copy today.*

*Irish barmbrack, or just brack, is a type of bread eaten in Ireland around Halloween. People would often put little things like rings or toys in it to tell fortunes. It features in the story, as do amaretto sours, which Mere drinks during the story.

And next Halloween, I’m definitely going to attempt to make a barmbrack bread. The amaretto sour, I’m not so sure. I already have a favorite cocktail.

Review: “Man, Fuck This House” by Brian Asman

Posted: August 15, 2023 in Novella, Review, Scary Stuff
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
2

So, in case you’re wondering, yes, this is a real book, and this is the actual title. Yes, I know, it’s hard to believe. My own mother sent me a meme featuring the book’s Amazon page and how it was the perfect title, thinking it was a fake page. She was so surprised that it was a real book and there’s a Netflix movie in the works, though she wasn’t too surprised to hear that I knew the author.

Anyway, Man, Fuck This House has been on my TBR list for a while, but I haven’t been able to get to it till recently. And with only 158 pages, it was a quick read. But was it a good one? Well, keep reading and find out.

Man, Fuck This House follows the Haskinses, a stereotypical nuclear family with some friction underneath the surface who move from Columbus, Ohio (yay, my home!) to the quiet neighborhood of Jackson Hill out west and to a beautiful new home. However, the house is more than just a pretty structure of timbers and aluminum siding, and it starts to reach out to the family. To communicate. To even terrify them!

So, this book was really funny. From the first couple of pages, I was laughing at the antics of the Haskins family. Most of it is told from the POV of mom and housewife Sabrina, who fully admits to herself that she’s not entirely satisfied with her life, that her husband Hal is kind of dimwitted, and who is terrified that her son is secretly evil (hence why she named him Damien). Speaking of which, Damien’s pretty funny, too: he’s an intelligent old soul who enjoys messing with his mom, though he does go through some growth in the story as well.

I also loved the narration of the story. The plot’s a mostly stereotypical haunted house story, with some twists and references to other haunted house tales (anyone else remember watching Monster House as a kid?). But it’s told in such a funny fashion, you find yourself laughing and enjoying how the author plays with the tropes and typical structure of such stories.

My one gripe is that the book was maybe too short. I mean, I bought it because I needed something short to read, but I feel the story could have gone on a bit longer and still be as funny. We might have even gotten some more character development from Hal and daughter Michaela that way.

But all told, this was a fun, funny, light horror-comedy. On a scale of 1 to 5, I’m giving Man, Fuck This House by Brian Asman a 4.8 out of 5. If you’re looking for something of the funnier variety in your horror that doesn’t use too-crude humor, this is the book for you.

Just make sure you respect and take care of your own house before, during, and after reading, okay? Your lifespan will thank you for it.

I’m Still Going to Try with My Backrooms Story

Posted: February 10, 2023 in Novella, Reflections, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
4
The photo that started it all.

So, I freaked out for a moment earlier this week. I found out that a Hollywood studio was making a movie out of The Backrooms.

If you don’t know what the Backrooms is, it’s an Internet urban legend/creepypasta about a maze that looks like a never-ending office building with the most horrid yellow wallpaper. Supposedly, there are things in the Backrooms that will come after you if you fall, or “noclip,” into them. They were birthed by a photo that was posted anonymously to 4chan, followed by some lines of text that were posted by another anonymous user, so the Backrooms are technically public domain. Anyone can use them to tell stories.

I wrote a novella taking place in the Backrooms: “It Changes You: A Backrooms Story.” And I’ve been planning on editing it throughout the week. However, earlier this week, something came up that made me wonder if I even could or should edit the story. You see, one of the most–if not the most–popular iteration of The Backrooms was created by YouTuber Kane Pixels. He’s created his own mini-mythology through a highly successful YouTube series, the first video of which having over forty-four million views at the time I’m writing this.

Yeah, the new movie is going to be based on his take on the Backrooms, and he’s likely going to be writing and directing as well.

So, my first reaction was like, “Oh shit! Way to go, you’re barely out of high school! Good luck, I can’t wait to see it!” And then I was like, “What does this mean for ‘It Changes You?’ Will it even be worth editing and trying to find a home with a movie on the way?”

In times like these, I look to the experts I know best: my fellow horror writers. So I asked them in one of my Facebook groups. And they pointed out some things that I’d almost forgotten.

First off, plenty of writers and creators are making stories and videos and whatnot off the Backrooms, not just Kane Pixels and myself. Hell, I’ve seen one author posting photos of his own story on Twitter and Hive. I won’t be the last one. And so long as I don’t steal anything to someone else’s interpretation of the Backrooms, it’s fine if I want to release my own version of it.

Yeah, a movie might make things more difficult. But it wasn’t as if they weren’t difficult before. Let’s face it, everybody’s putting out their own versions everywhere they can. So long as I keep trying, my version is well-written and compelling, and

And it’s not as if the movie will be a surefire thing. It could end up in development hell or just never get made. Look at the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie. That thing has been in development since 2015, and it reportedly only just started filming this month! And the Bartimaeus Sequence by Jonathan Stroud? One of my favorite fantasy series from childhood and still beloved. It was supposed to have a movie years ago! But twenty years after the idea was first floated, still no movie out, even though some new studio bought the rights four years ago.

Who’s to say the same thing won’t happen with the Backrooms movie? It might spend several years in development before it actually gets to the production stage, let alone gets filmed and released.

In the meantime, that’s plenty of time for me to make a mark with my version. Not sure if that’ll be on its own as a standalone novella or as part of a collection, but that’s part of the fun of the search: getting to find out what happens and where your stories will end up.

So, this weekend, I’ll get started on editing “It Changes You.” Some friends/colleagues read the first five-thousand words and gave me feedback, so I’ll look over their notes, and then get to work. By the end of the weekend, maybe I’ll have it off to beta readers, and then maybe next month off to publishers.

But for now, I’ve got work. Until next time, good night (no matter what time it may be where you are), pleasant nightmares, and–watch out! There’s a killer behind you as you’re reading this!

And My Last Story of 2022 is Finished

Posted: December 26, 2022 in Novella, Scary Stuff, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2
The original photo that started the Backrooms. At first, not too creepy, but then you realize that there’s no sign of human habitation. And that’s what makes it really terrifying.

Well, I didn’t think I’d get it done this weekend, but I somehow managed to do it. Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Happy Boxing Day/Happy Holidays to me.

So, as I mentioned in my last article on Ginger Nuts of Horror, I was developing a story based on the Backrooms, an internet urban legend that’s become really popular in the past year or so. For those who don’t know, the Backrooms were inspired by a photo of an empty office decorated with yellow wallpaper and some accompanying text, both posted anonymously. The text went something like this:

“If you’re not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you’ll end up in the Backrooms, where it’s nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in
God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.”

Spooky, no? The Backrooms has since gone viral, becoming a series of games, YouTube videos, and fan art, among other things. However, there isn’t a lot of prose fiction set in the Backrooms yet, so I thought I’d try to get ahead of the crowd and give it my own original twist while I was at it. After all, it was stuck in my head. Might as well make something with that.

Thus, I have created “It Changes You: A Backrooms Story,” which I have spent basically all of December working on. The story follows a bunch of people, particularly two teen girls named Kat and Ginger, who end up falling into the Backrooms, and what happens to them as they try to find a way out.

This story was a blast to work on for so many reasons. The first half is very strange and psychological, while the second half has body horror, some really gross stuff, and a bit of cosmic horror that was terrifying even to me! I also had a lot of fun making the main characters nerds into anime and Doctor Who like I am, and Kat in particular is a writer who also happens to be aromantic, like me.* I also based some characters loosely on characters from shows I watch, including Law & Order, and let my mind go in some really weird directions with this story, which allowed my characters to take over to a greater degree than I’d ever seen before with a story. Overall, it was just a great experience writing it.

And let’s not forget how much ambience helped me write this one. Prior to Kat and Ginger finding themselves in the Backrooms, I listened to YouTube videos of outdoor crowd ambience to get in the mood. Afterwards, I listened to ten-hour vids of fluorescent buzzing to really help me feel like I was in the Backrooms, and during the final scenes of the story, I listened to creepy horror music to get me in that cosmic horror mood.

And now this story is finished, a novella of decent length of nearly 27,000 words. Yeah, that long. No wonder it took all month to write. Anyway, I’ll let it rest a while before editing it and then sending it to a beta reader to look at. But honestly, I think it has potential. The Backrooms are still not as well known as other internet horror creations like Slender Man or Momo, so there’s plenty of room for this story to make a splash. That’s the hope, anyway.

So, now that this story is done, what’s next for me? Well, I’ll save that for another blog post. Right now, I haven’t had dinner, so I’m going to fill my belly, watch a late movie, and then hit the hay. Until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night, pleasant nightmares, and happy holidays! I hope Krampus didn’t visit you this year. Or maybe I hope he did, I honestly don’t know how many other people love the guy like I do.

*Aromantic means I don’t feel romantic attraction or want to be in a romantic relationship. Like, I’m physically incapable of doing so. It’s a real thing and a discussion for another blog post, but I liked putting it into a story through one of my characters.

One more thing before I forget, my Followers of Fear: in the hopes of starting 2023 off on the right foot, I’m having a special sale on my published stories. The electronic copies of most of my books will be discounted to 99 cents for the first week of January, and the audio book of The Pure World Comes will also be discounted for that first week from certain retailers. If you’re interested, please head to the retailer of your choice after the new year and download a copy.

And if you like what you read, please leave me a review letting me know what you think. Positive or negative, I love reviews, and they help me out in the long run. Not only that, but reviews help other readers figure out whether they want to read a story or not. Pretty sweet, right?

Right, now that’s the real end of this post. Until next time, pleasant nightmares!

The First Story of 2022 is Finished!

Posted: February 3, 2022 in Novella, Progress Report, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2

I would say pop some champagne, but I decided to abstain from alcohol this month. It’s healthy to do every now and then. I think I’ll stick to tea instead.

Okay, enough weird asides. As of this evening, I’ve finished a novella I started working on back in December, making this my first completed story of the year. The story is called “They Sleep Within the Rock,” it’s exactly one-hundred pages and is about twenty-six thousand, four hundred words. Which is just a bit shorter than I thought it would be.

As for the plot, the story is about a group of white supremacists that try to establish a “whites-only enclave” in the American West, only to find out that the land they’re on has a history to it, and may be cursed. The story was inspired by a news article I read about white supremacists trying to buy up land and housing in rural areas to establish their own mini ethnostates. Yes, that’s something they’re trying to do, and I hope they’re never successful at it.

Anyway, I read that article and thought, “I can write a story about that. There are so many ways to make a story about people trying to establish a place like this scary.” It took some brainstorming, but I managed to come up with something that I liked and, over three months, I got it written out. And I found it quite therapeutic, as well. There’s been such a rise in anti-Semitism in the US and worldwide lately, and the horrors reigned on my people, such as last month’s synagogue hostage situation in Texas, have been rising as well. It was nice to be able to visit some horror back.

That being said, I don’t know if the story is any good. It was therapeutic and I enjoyed writing it, but that’s no mark of a good story. Plus, I’m sure there are plenty of things that could use improvement in the story. Perhaps there’s even a need to rewrite certain parts.

Well, I’ll try to edit it later this year if I can. I say “later this year” and “if I can” because I’ll soon be editing the stories for my upcoming collection Hannah and Other Stories, so that’s obviously going to take up some time. And after so much editing, I may just want to write rather than edit another novella. But hey, at least whenever I do return to it, I’ll be able to see it with fresh eyes. That’ll be helpful, for sure.

So, what’s next? I think I’ll take the weekend to relax and refuel my creativity. I have an important blog post I want to put out before Valentine’s Day, so that’ll take priority. And I want to edit that superhero horror story I wrote last year and see if I can find a home for it. And after that…well, we’ll see what’s going on then.

But for now, though, I think I’ll hit the hay. Good night, my Followers of Fear. I hope wherever you are, the winter storm isn’t causing you too much trouble, and that you have pleasant nightmares.

Older Entries