Posts Tagged ‘publishing’

Well, I’m feeling pretty good. Tired, but good.

As many of you know, I’ve been caught up in editing a bunch of stories, both for my upcoming collection Hannah and Other Stories, and others I hope to submit to various publications and magazines. For all the obvious reasons, I’ve been calling this the Great Editing, and it’s been a lot! I think I’ve edited about six stories by now, and that was just in the first two months of 2023.

Needing a break, I decided to write some new stories. Sure, they’d become part of the Great Editing at some point, but it just feels good to work on new stuff sometimes. Anyway, I wrote “The Hunting Party,” a Christmas horror story (you can read all about that here), and I just finished “Mother of Spiders,” a novelette set in the 1950s and about a town whose history comes back to bite them in the worst way: with eight legs and some scary fangs!

Yeah, it’s a spider-based horror story. I did say in previous posts that this story would tap into a common phobia, after all. And I think the overall concept of the story is good.

That being said, I really struggled with this story at times. Not because I didn’t know where it was going, because I’m an obsessive plotter. I always know where my stories are going. I think it was just finding the right words for the story and figuring out how to convey it. That was a struggle, and it wasn’t until the final scene of the story that I really felt like the story was flowing out of me. I have a feeling that when I edit this one, it’s going to take several drafts before I can start submitting it for publication. And most of it will just be figuring out how to better tell this story.

But hey, it’s a good sign when you recognize your own story’s shortcomings and are already thinking of ways to improve the story. Hopefully that means when I get around to the second draft, I’ll be prepared to turn this story into something worth reading.

For now though, I think I’m ready to get back to the Great Editing. Let’s face it, the number of stories requiring my attention have only grown since I started my break, and I want to get at least one or two out of the way before the next draft of Hannah lands in my inbox. I’ll start with “The Hunting Party,” because there are a couple of Christmas anthologies already looking for stories and I want to submit this one before they fill up. Then I’m going to get into the third draft of “They Sleep Within the Rock,” AKA the novella where I put neo-Nazis through some well-deserved hell. After that, if it isn’t time to work on Hannah again, I have a few stories to choose from.

For now though, I’m going to chill the rest of the weekend. I have some scary movies from the library, so I think I’ll have a double feature before bed. So, until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night and pleasant nightmares. And if I don’t catch you before Passover starts this Wednesday, may the matzo monster get you and ruin your digestive system with more cracker-like bread than you could ever want to eat.

Cheers!

It’s time! It’s here! After working with BSC Publishing Group’s graphic designer and waiting for days, it’s here! The cover for my new collection of short stories, Hannah and Other Stories, has been released! And you can look at it below.

What do you think? The cover depicts a moment from one of the stories in the collection, a rather macabre moment that made even me shiver (imagine what it will do to readers). I gave BSC the idea of the cover, as well as other covers I love, and they ran with it. From there, we worked together on fonts, added and subtracted elements, and eventually got to the beauty above. At which point, I emailed BSC and was like, “We’ve got it! By George, I think we’ve got it!”

But that was only the beginning. Not only did they create a cover with my input, but they went and created a book trailer too! A freaking book trailer! I’ve tried my hand at creating book trailers before and was thinking of trying to make a new one with Hannah, but they did something even better than anything I have in mind. Check it out below.

How about that? Having a publisher create this book trailer and work so hard to make it as creepy and enticing as can be shows how much they believe in this book and want it to succeed.

So, what happens next? Well, as the trailer states, Hannah will release in Fall 2023, so at least five months and a few days away. In the meantime, BSC and I will work together to make sure the final manuscript is as polished and clear of mistakes as possible. We’ll also work together to build as much buzz for the book before it releases. That way, when it releases, as many people as possible are reading it.

And I may do a little voodoo on my end. What can I say, I like the idea of friendly supernatural entities helping me out with my dreams. And I have reason to believe it’s worked before. Why can’t it work with this book?

Anyway, I’m just so excited for you to read the stories within. They’re all original stories I’ve been crafting over the years and I’m so excited for you to finally read them. There’s Queen Alice, about an internet legend that takes on a life of its own; Fuselli’s Horses, about a horse ranch with some unique stallions among its residents; and What Errour Awoke, about how a simple English literature class leads to a dangerous situation during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. And that’s just three out of seven! But trust me, the other four are just as creepy and as fun.

But in the meantime, if you’re interested in supporting me, or if you’re just looking for something spooky to read, you can check out my Books page and then check out any of my already published work. And if you like what you read, consider leaving a review online somewhere. Not only do I appreciate your feedback, but it helps me grow as an author and helps other readers find my work.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’m off to celebrate the reveal. Until next time, good night, pleasant nightmares, and are you scared yet? Because if you are, then my job here is done.

Two posts in one day. My Followers of Fear, you either did something very good in your past life or very bad. Either way, I finished Grady Hendrix’s latest novel on audio book today, so I’m going to review it here.

How to Sell a Haunted House follows Louise Joyner, a mother of a five-year-old who has a complicated relationship with her family. When her parents die unexpectedly, she flies from San Francisco to Charleston to take care of their estate and put them to rest. However, things are complicated by her younger brother Mark, whose lifestyle and choices puts him in conflict with Louise from day one. As the two argue like children and try to get the estate settled, they soon find that something malevolent is alive within their childhood home. And unless they get their shit together, it may claim not just the both of them, but Louise’s little girl.

The amazing thing about Grady Hendrix is that he can take a concept that sounds ridiculous on paper and write a whole novel out of it that’s both darkly comic and quite terrifying. From an IKEA knockoff built on the grounds of a former prison, to a teenage girl becoming possessed in 1980s-saturated Charleston, he just makes it work. And it’s no different here. Honestly, I found myself laughing quite a bit listening to Mark and Louise act like me and my sisters at our worst times ten. And as you get further in and see just how dysfunctional this family is, you find yourself glad you’re not part of the same family.*

And when you figure out who/what is going to be the main antagonist of the story, you find yourself laughing…only to see how terrifying said antagonist is. And as you see episodes from Louise and Mark’s childhoods and adulthoods that formed them as people, you see elements as these moments come back to literally haunt them in their parents’ homes. It’s freaky, and there were actually times I found myself wincing or shuddering as I listened to these moments.

And underneath all the darkness and comedy, you get some great themes about the effects of generational trauma on family and family dynamics, about learning to deal with death (and explain it to children), and what family actually is. It’s heavy stuff.

I do have some problems with the book, however. I did see a certain twist regarding the antagonist very early on, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I also thought the resolution of the climax could have been a bit darker and might have ended too sweetly. And I would have liked to see Mark and Louise explore and resolve their issues a bit more. I feel like during the last third of the book, a lot of stuff was skipped over so the novel could reach its end.

But all in all, How to Sell a Haunted House is another awesome release from Grady Hendrix, whom I’m sure will only continue to grow in stature as a storyteller. On a scale of 1 to 5, I award his latest outing a 4.2 out of 5. It’s funny, creepy, and an all-around thrilling story. Grab a copy, settle down, and get ready to either feel grateful for your own family or feel like you’re reading about your relatives (it’s either one or the other, for better or for worse).

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. Until next time (which will be sometime before the week is done), good night and pleasant nightmares.

*I actually texted my own sisters to let them know how much I loved them and was glad we got along despite our childhood rivalries and disagreements. They were touched, as well as concerned about me because I was sending that text. Anyway, that’s how I reacted to this family’s malfunction.

I knew there was a reason why I was feeling so good about the near future.

As many of you know, I have a new collection of short stories, Hannah and Other Stories, to be released sometime this year by BSC Publishing Group. This is a terrifying collection filled with stories about ghosts, budding serial killers, and carnivorous horses, among other things. And I’ve been updating you all as developments occur.

Well, I have a new development: the cover will be revealed next week! What day, exactly? I can’t tell you. What does it feature? I won’t tell you. All I can say is that after I sent BSC’s graphic artist some ideas, they ran with them and created some great mock ups. From there, we worked together to make the cover everything I hoped it would be, and I think the final result is, to use my best French, fucking fantastic.

Anyway, I look forward to showing you the cover next week, and I hope you’re looking forward to seeing it. Once that cover is out there, the process to getting the book ready for publication and selecting a release date should speed up a bit. Just you wait and see, it’s going to be awesome.

And in the meantime, if you want to support me, or if you’re just looking for a creepy read, you can find all my work on the Books page of this blog. From plant/human hybrids and ancient gods to mafia-hunting serial killers and mad scientists, I got a bit of everything, so why not check it out and see what tickles your fancy?

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’m off to fill my belly before getting into a groove of creativity and terror. Until next time, good night, pleasant nightmares, and look forward to whatever’s coming next week.

I’ve been asked this before numerous times in one way or another. “What advice do you have for new writers?” Well, there’s one thing that always comes to mind. And the past couple of years, the thing I’ve come back to, time and time again, is this: “You need to carve out the time to right.”

Yeah, that’s the advice. A lot of people want to write, but they say they don’t have the time to write, or that they can’t find the time, or there’s just not enough time in the day. I often reply, “Well, you’re going to have to carve out the time. If you’re serious about writing that story. There’s no time fairy who’s just going to grant you time to write.”

Sounds kind of caustic, and it is. But it’s also true. For one thing, I’ve never seen a single fairy, let alone one that grants time to would-be writers. For another, the time to write just doesn’t find you. It doesn’t drop out of the sky and into your lap. And yeah, there is only 24 hours in a day, with hopefully only 8 of them devoted to a day job and the other 16 sleeping and personal stuff.

Fact of the matter is, if you don’t make time, even just half an hour, to write, you won’t ever get the time to write.

I mean, if you want to cut out sleeping, you’ll find that time, but from a health standpoint you’ll really suffer.

But I understand why people say they don’t have the time. Finding that time can be hellishly difficult. Besides day jobs and sleep, people need to do chores around the home, take care of family obligations, and finding time to relax after a long day.

Still, you can find time. Plenty of others have done it before. Even when he was raising three kids under the sage of six and was living out of a trailer, Stephen King found time to write 2500 words a day. That’s how he wrote Carrie, which later launched him into the stratosphere. And my friend/colleague Angela Misri wrote every day on the bus to and from work in moleskine notebooks. That’s how she wrote her Portia Adams books, and they’ve been pretty successful.

As for me, I write in the evenings between dinner and bed (though on weekends or days off I try to write during that free time as well). I’ve been doing that for years, and it’s how I’ve written some of my best work. Yeah, it helps that I’m only responsible for myself, don’t have kids, and writing helps me destress. But I still carve out that time most nights to get work done, because I want to get those stories done and out there. I want to write for the rest of my life. So I carve out that time.

And if you really want to tell those stories and get them out into the world, you’ll find the time. It may take some changes to your schedules, or maybe some changes in your life, but if you’re serious, you’ll be able to find the time. Like I said, plenty of people have before and plenty of people in the future. That includes me, and that includes you.

How do you find time to write? Did you make changes to your life or schedule to do it? Has it helped? Let’s discuss in the comments below.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. Just wanted to get something out to you sooner rather than later, and this seemed like a good subject to post about.

Until next time, good night, pleasant nightmares, and–oh look, a fairy! Oh, you want to join my Army of Nightmares and help me accomplish my goals? Okay, let’s go! To the dragon bats!

The cover of Entomophobia.

Some of you may remember my interview with Sarah Hans last year about her debut novel, Entomophobia (click here if you’d like to read it). I was interested enough that I bought my own copy (Sarah gladly signed it for me) and I began reading it recently. And while I don’t have a lot of time to read these days, I was able to get through it quite quickly. So, what did I think? Let’s find out.

Entomophobia follows Meri, a woman who has just left her abusive husband and is trying to get her life back together. However, it seems life is conspiring against her at every turn: her aloof mother is unsupportive; the judge ruled that her soon-to-be ex-husband will have primary custody of her daughter, Magda; and, after having to steal supplies for an art show she’s part of, she gets cursed by a tiny man with insectile features. The curse is changing her, forcing her to face her darkest fears. And if she doesn’t do something quick, she’s going to lose what little she has.

One of the biggest strengths of this novel is Meri. She’s a fully realized character, sympathetic yet flawed. Within a few chapters, I felt like I really knew her, and that made it easy to empathize with her pain and fear and the woes of her life. There’s also a strong supporting cast, especially in the character of her mother, whom I wanted to strangle at times.

Another of the book’s strengths is the human-based horror. We see a lot of characters being cruel, uncaring, or just plain awful. This is obvious in Meri’s ex-husband Adam, who is a huge piece of shit, but also in her mother, in random teens in a bad neighborhood, and even in her ex-boyfriend Dan, though he does mean well at times. Whether they realize how their actions effect others or not, it’s horrifying to see just how much they don’t give a shit at times about the damage they cause.

The body and supernatural horror isn’t anything to sneeze at, either. A lot of scenes in this book will make your skin crawl as you read them, and the description of some of the characters, especially the less-human ones, really bring them to mind and make it easy to imagine what they might look like.

I do have some gripes, however. I did feel like the book could have been longer. As I said at the beginning of the review, it’s a short book, and I feel like it could have been a bit longer. Perhaps some scenes could have been drawn out more or added in, especially ones involving the curse or Meri’s phobia. I would have been good with some expansion.

On a scale of 1 to 5, I’m giving Entomophobia a straight 4. It’s a quick, creepy read with a great cast and an engaging story that I recommend.

On a sad note, you might have trouble finding copies. As mentioned in my interview, Entomophobia’s publisher closed and was only printing new copies through the end of 2022. So right now, I have a kinda-rare first edition.

The good news is, Sarah tells me Dragon’s Roost Press will be re-releasing the book sometime this year, possibly this summer. So if you’re interested in getting Entomophobia when it’s available again, check out Sarah’s Twitter and you’ll find out with the rest of us when the book is available again.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’m off to read some more before heading to bed (I’d rather do some more writing, but I know if I start now, I’ll never get to bed at a decent time). Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares!

The Wild Hunt, the major inspiration for this story.

Glad I got it done in March than maybe in June or July. The Great Editing, am I right? Keeps me so busy!

Anyway, as I said in a previous post, I took a break from all that editing so I could get some new stories written before all that editing drove me mad. Well, madder than usual. You know what I mean. The point is, I took a break, and this past Wednesday started on a new short horror story set on Christmas Eve. Yeah, I know I’m Jewish, but I can write a Christmas horror story like everyone else.

And no, this story, which I’m calling “The Hunting Party,” doesn’t involve Krampus or another evil Santa Claus variant. I love the character, but he’s already been done to the point publishers are starting to get tired of seeing him. Instead, I decided to base this story on the Wild Hunt. For those of you unfamiliar, the Wild Hunt is a mythical band or horde of ghostly riders that travel at night, flying through the air as they hunt whatever crosses their path. There are many variations of the Hunt throughout Europe and even beyond, and depending on where you are can be made up of different leaders, riders, spirits and reasons why they ride. It’s a fun motif to work with.

And some versions of the Wild Hunt, as well as some of their leaders, are said to be most powerful around the Christmas season. In fact, some versions are led by Odin, who himself is speculated to be an influence on the modern depiction of Santa Claus. You can see why it lends itself well to Christmas stories, including one written by me.

As for “The Hunting Party,” I’m going to start sending it out to a beta reader or two as soon as I can find one. It’s about 7,400 words long, so I hope neither their suggestions or my attempts to improve the story end in the story getting too much longer. Yeah, the publisher I hope to send it too allows stories up to ten-thousand words or more, but I’d feel more confident if this story didn’t get that long.

As for what’s next, I already know what story I’m going to work on next. It’s going to make you shudder in horror, it involves a common phobia, and takes place at Halloween. I do not write enough stories set at Halloween. The last one I did ended up a trunk novel. Hopefully this one finds a home.

For now though, I’m making a late dinner and watching a movie before hitting the hay. I have a crazy week ahead of me, so I’m going to need all the rest I can get. Wish me luck.

And until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night, pleasant nightmares, and Merry Christmas! May nothing bloodthirsty come down your chimney (or otherwise enter your home if you don’t have a chimney).

Well, I just finished editing my Backrooms story, “It Changes You,” and added two-thousand words along the way. Only took two weeks. I even improved a very squicky scene so that it will be easier to imagine. And I just reached out to a friend who expressed interest in beta reading the story before I send it out. Depending on how things play out, I may have a few others have a look at it before I try sending it out to publishers.

And now, you might be wondering (or you might not, I can’t read minds) what I plan to edit next. Am I going to go back to “They Sleep Within The Rock,” AKA the story where I put neo-Nazis through hell? Or will I do another pass on the stories in Hannah and Other Stories? Or will I edit something else?

Actually, I’m going to take a break from editing. Let me put it this way: I’m tired. And I’ve been itching for a little while now to work on something new. And I thought I could get through editing one more story. But, you know what they say: man (or whatever species I am) plans and God laughs. So, I’m going to work on some new stuff that excites me and that I think I could find homes for. One’s going to be a story set at Christmas. Yeah, it’s February, but holiday anthologies are already accepting stories. And I may be Jewish, but there are aspects of the holiday season that I enjoy. And which I enjoy putting through hell in stories. The other story will be inspired by a rather unsettling thought I had before bed one evening and which I developed into a story. It’s probably going to make people shudder. Especially my mother. This is something she’s famously afraid of.

I hope she doesn’t mind me saying so. Oh well. She knew what she was getting into when she had me.

Anyway, after those stories, if I don’t have another draft of Hannah to do, I might do that next draft of “They Sleep Within the Rock” and do a third draft of “It Changes You.” Or I may write more new stories. It just depends on what I’m in the mood for. But yeah, I’m going to get those stories edited at some point. I just need breaks from so much massive editing from time to time.

In the meantime, I’m taking the rest of the night off before I get to work on these stories. Tonight it’s dinner, a horror movie, and maybe some reading before bed. It’ll be a good way to end the weekend.

Until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night, pleasant nightmares, and enjoy this week if you can. For all we know, it could be a rough one.

Before we start, I would like to thank Lucy A. Snyder and the team at Tor Nightfire for providing me with an ARC copy to read (and a special thank you to Lucy for the awesome galley copy she gave me a few months back).

Set a few years after our current COVID-19 pandemic, Sister, Maiden, Monster follows three separate women as their lives are affected by a terrible new disease raging across the planet. Known as polymorphic viral gastroencephalitis, or PVG, the disease is like the stomach flu from hell. For those who are lucky, it kills them very quickly. For the rest, it changes them, making them unable to eat most sources of nutrients. They have to get their nutrition through rather macabre means. And that’s only the start of the apocalypse that’s going to come.

So, it looks like there’s still an appetite for pandemic fiction, even after a real pandemic. At least, if the release of Sister, Maiden, Monster, the airing of “The Last of Us,” and one or two of my own stories, among other works, areanything to go by. And everyone telling those stories are making sure the hypothetical future pandemics are even more terrible than COVID-19 was. Which, honestly, I gotta respect.

Alright, onto the story. Sister, Maiden, Monster was great. I really enjoyed it. For one thing, the three main characters are really well-developed, which is great in such a character-driven story. There’s Erin, who’s seeing her life implode and strange new desires growing inside her after becoming infected; Savannah, a prostitute and dominatrix who discovers she has a talent for causing death in the name of new masters; and Mareva, a sickly woman who has been chosen for a terrible purpose. I really got to know these characters and get inside their minds. Which, by the way, was not always the most pleasant ride, believe me.

Speaking of which, Lucy Snyder does not shy away from showing what Stephen King calls the “gross-out” factor of horror. There are bloods, brains, gore, and plenty more body horror to make more squeamish readers feel faint. Add in the isolation and paranoia of living through another pandemic, this one worse than the one preceding it, as well as some good and delicious cosmic horror, and it makes for a rather scary read.

I did think that the time spent with each narrator was unbalanced. Somewhere between a third and half the book is from Erin’s perspective, and while I get why, I would have liked to see more from the other two narrators. Especially Savannah. That lady is wild and a lot of fun to read, even if you would be horrified by her if she were real.

I also noticed that something that appeared later in the book and which I loved seeing was foreshadowed earlier in the story, but I felt it could have been foreshadowed a bit more. Hell, I nearly forgot about the foreshadowing until the reveal, so that says something.

All in all, Sister, Maiden, Monster is a great, body horror-filled ride and I’m glad I got to be among the first to read it. On a scale of 1 to 5, I’m giving it a 4.3. The book releases this Tuesday, February 21st, so go preorder a copy, settle down when you get yours, and get ready to see the horror of the pandemic go through a terrifying metamorphosis.

Until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night and pleasant nightmares.

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!