So, I have an announcement regarding Hannah and Other Stories. If you’re unaware, Hannah and Other Stories is a collection I wrote that was published by BSC Publishing Group on September 23, 2023. The collection contains tales of ghosts, budding serial killers, and carnivorous horses, among other things.
The collection has been well-received, if the reviews I’ve gotten are anything to go by. Unfortunately, sales have not been as good as they might have been, despite my best efforts, and, with my contract ending earlier this year, BSC Publishing has decided to relinquish the rights to publish the book back to me on January 1st, 2025.
Which means on January 1st, 2025, Hannah and Other Stories will go out of print.
Honestly, I’m going through several emotions at the moment. But the major one is acceptance. It is what it is, and I’ll always be grateful for BSC helping me get Hannah to the level it was. Trust me, I have a feeling it wouldn’t be as well received as it was without their help on the later drafts. Having to go through this kind of sucks, but I know it could be a lot worse.
And I also feel hopeful and determined. You see, once the rights are back in my hands, I can publish the book again, either with another publisher or self-publish. And I think I’ll self-publish. Not immediately, but at some point in 2025. I’ll release Hannah and Other Stories again, and it’ll be the same great book as before.
Well, with some changes. BSC’s business model called for only selling paperbacks if there’s enough demand for the ebook. Now, I’ll be able to publish a paperback, which I’m sure plenty of people who haven’t converted to ebooks yet will appreciate.
I also plan to return the Lovecraftian elements to “What Errour Awoke,” one of the stories in the collection. BSC wasn’t a fan of the Lovecraftian and wanted me to take them out. In the end, we compromised and made it semi-cosmic, but it’s never sat right with me. Now, I have an opportunity to make that story the way it was supposed to be, rather than how it was. (I may make a few more changes, but that’s the big one.)
And I think I’ll shell out for a new cover. Something I think will not only attract readers, but symbolize the book’s rebirth to a tee.
2025 is going to be full of possibilities.
So yeah, Hannah and Other Stories is going away for a while. But it’ll come back sometime in 2025, better than ever and in paperback, too. And if it does well enough? Maybe an audiobook version as well. It could happen.
For now, though, if you haven’t read Hannah yet, you still have fourteen days and about five hours to get an ebook copy. Even if you don’t read ebooks, buying a copy will help me in the long run and show me that there is plenty of demand for this book. And if you do read ebooks, please read it. And then leave me a review so I know what you thought. Not only will I really appreciate it, but it’ll help when Hannah eventually returns.
Hmm…between Hannah and the collection I’ve been working on, 2025 is looking like the year for collections. Maybe I’ll do a third as well? Well, we’ll see. However many I release, I hope they all do well.
Anyway, that’s all for now. Links for the book are below. Until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night, pleasant nightmares, and thank you for always supporting me. It means the world to me.
If you weren’t aware, I have a YouTube channel (which you can find here). And over the past several weeks and months, I’ve been uploading videos of me reading from Hannah and Other Stories. And as of earlier this week, I’ve uploaded videos from each story in the collection. And since everyone here doesn’t subscribe to my YouTube channel (a crying shame, I know), I thought I would post all those videos here on the blog for you to see. In the order they were uploaded, too.
First, we have “What Errour Awoke,” which is probably my favorite story to read from:
I know the angle for this one was weird. First video trying to be atmospheric and all that. We had improvement with the next video, which was directly from “Hannah:”
And with the “Queen Alice” video, I got special stands for my candles. They rock!
After that, I went with “The Autopsy Kid and Doctor Sarah,” which is the closest to extreme horror Hannah gets.
And then we get to the carnivorous horses. You know, “Fuseli’s Horses?” That’s a popular story in the collection.
Then we have The Red Bursts.
And finally, we have “Poor, Unfortunate Souls,” which has a similar camera angle as the first video. Totally not intentional, but in a weird way, it was kind of like going full circle.
Well, I hope you enjoyed those. I know they’re not much, but I do these videos so that you may possibly show interest in the collection. And in that spirit, I’ll be posting links below. If you’re interested, please check out Hannah and Other Stories and let me know what you think. Positive or negative, I love reader feedback, and doing so helps other readers decide whether to check out the book.
Also, if you could subscribe to my YouTube channel, I would appreciate it. The stuff I post isn’t like the top YouTubers, but often they’re stuff I love or want to share it. And occasionally I even get ghosts on camera! So check it out.
And if you could, I’m trying to up my rank in the Face of Horror contest, so if you could vote for me, I would appreciate it. Who knows? I may even win. Thanks!
That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I swear, I’ll do some non-Hannah or Face of Horror posts in the near future. Hopefully, you all aren’t annoyed with all this promotional stuff. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares.
Tomorrow. It’s tomorrow. The release of Hannah and Other Stories! It’s tomorrow. YEEEEAGH!
I’m sorry, I’m a little excited. Can you tell?
So, as you know, Hannah and Other Stories will be releasing tomorrow, September 23rd. And for the past several weeks, I’ve been doing the #FirstLineFriday tag to help get people interested in the collection. If you’re unfamiliar with the rules of #FirstLineFriday, here they are:
Create a post on your blog titled #FirstLineFriday, hashtag and all.
Explain the rules like I’m doing now.
Post the first one or two lines of a potential story, a story-in-progress, or a completed/published story.
Ask your readers for feedback and try to get them to try #FirstLineFriday on their own blogs (tagging is encouraged but not necessary).
Today’s opening comes from What Errour Awoke, a cosmic horror tale with some British literature mixed in. Enjoy:
“Now today class, we’ll be starting our unit on Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene.” Taylor wrote Faerie Queene in cursive on the whiteboard and turned back to the class. “You may recognize some stuff from our unit on Arthurian literature, as Arthur and a few other knights show up in this book. At the same time though, it’s not about Arthur or chivalry.”
Technically, this is three lines. But who cares? It’s my blog, I’ll do as I please. Anyway, how does this college class lead to a cosmic horror story? You can find out when Hannah and Other Stories releases tomorrow. And if you like what you read, please leave a review online so I know what you think.
And if you want to do this tag yourself, consider yourself tagged. Just copy and paste the rules and go to town on your own blog.
Well, that’s one more down. And one more to do next week, after the book is out. I hope you’re as excited as I am for Hannah to release. Until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night and pleasant nightmares.
Yeah, this September is going to be the month where I post about very little but Hannah. But you knew that going in, didn’t you?
Now, if you’re unaware, Hannah and Other Stories is my latest collection of short stories, containing tales of ghosts, budding serial killers, and carnivorous horses, among other things. You know, all the things that are perfect for the Halloween season. And the book releases on September 23rd, 2023. Which is…ten days away! EEEK!
***
Sorry, I had to go scream in terror and excitement while also performing a voodoo ritual to ensure the book’s success. Now, where were we? Oh yeah. So, as I’ve been saying, Hannah‘s release is just over a week away. And I am beyond excited for you to read it. I’ve been recording videos, going on podcasts (going to be on one tonight, actually), and obviously posting about it here nonstop. All in the name of getting people interested in reading this book, which my publisher and I have been working to get it ready for nearly two years now.
And I think you’re going to really like the stories inside. Each one is special to me and I think will resonate with readers of the horror genre (as well as possibly scare the shit out of readers who don’t read horror). Hannah is a fun ghost story told through the point of view of an experienced ghost hunter (and no, not one of those fakes); Queen Alice is a surprising thriller that crosses Alice in Wonderland with Slender Man; The Autopsy Kid and Doctor Sarah is a dark, gruesome tale about a teen getting wrapped up in the machinations of a budding serial killer; Fuseli’s Horses is about carnivorous horses, and they are as terrifying as they are cool; The Red Bursts is the most abstract story, but it also talks a great deal about finding faith in tragic circumstances; What Errour Awoke takes cosmic horror to talk about the horrific events the world has suffered through the past few years; and Poor, Unfortunate Souls is about finding someone who understands in the depths of the Paris catacombs.
Awesome, right? I think so, too.
Anyway, I can’t wait to share this book with you and will do everything in my power so you’ll want to read it when it releases. If you’re interested, you can preorder it from any of the sites below. And if you end up reading it once it’s released, I hope you’ll leave a review with your thoughts. Even if it’s negative, I would appreciate the feedback. Plus, other readers would appreciate it, too.
That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. If anything else comes up, I’ll be sure to let you know. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares!
Run for your lives! Light a magic candle! Pray to the Great Old Ones to be left alone! Hannah and Other Stories releases in just one month!
As you’re probably aware, Hannah and Other Stories is my new collection of short stories which is releasing on September 23rd, 2023. This collection contains seven original tales, featuring tales of ghosts, budding serial killers, and carnivorous horses, among other things. My publisher, BSC Publishing Group, and I have been working on this book for two years, so we’re very excited for people to read it. Hell, I’m kind of hoping it becomes one of the most talked about books for the Halloween season this year.
At the very least, I want to get the book in paperback. Right now, it’s only available in ebook, but if it does well, it’ll get a paperback. Maybe even an audio book.
With that in mind, we’re also doing everything we can to get people interested in the book and in maybe preordering a copy. On my end, I’ve been posting YouTube videos where I read sections from the book. A couple of the videos I’ve done are below.
Not bad, right? I tried to create an atmosphere to go with the stories, and I plan to do the stories I haven’t covered before it releases.
And BSC has been doing some amazing excerpts as well, only they’ve been posting these beautiful graphics that they do in-house! I absolutely love them. Here’s some of the most recent.
Anyway, I’m super excited for people to read it. These stories are all beloved to me in each their own way. What Errour Awoke is a story that not only allowed me to tap into my love of cosmic horror, but helped me to deal with world events that were causing me anxiety at the time of writing. Hannah and Queen Alice were both fun to write, with the former being inspired by a ghost story that’s always fascinated me, and the latter being an interesting mashup of Alice in Wonderland with Slender Man. The Autopsy Kid and Doctor Sarah was a story where I experimented with extreme horror and splatterpunk that I hadn’t done before, while Poor, Unfortunate Souls made for a heartfelt story of acceptance and hardship in the midst of the Paris catacombs. The Red Bursts gave me an unexpected story of finding faith in dark situations, and Fuseli’s Horses allowed me to have fun with a new monster while also playing with some teenage drama.
I can’t wait to see what people think when they read them.
And if any of this has made you want to read Hannah and Other Stories, I’ll include the links to preorder it below. That’s right, “links.” As of this past weekend, Hannah and Other Stories is available to preorder from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other retailers, including a few international ones. I’ll include links for all the shops below, and I’ll be sure to update future posts as BSC lets me more stores are carrying the book.
And if you like what you read this September, please be sure to leave a review online somewhere. Positive or negative, I love reader feedback, and it helps me and other readers in the long run.
That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’ll be sure to post more updates as we get closer to the release date. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares!
Did you know that we’re only a hundred days away from Halloween? It’s true. And I can’t think of any way to celebrate the opening of spooky season than preordering what will surely be one of the best horror releases of 2023.
Okay, terrible opening aside, it is both 100 days away from Halloween and two months till the release of Hannah and Other Stories. For those of you who don’t know (I’m sure there are a few of you out there), Hannah and Other Stories is my new collection of short stories. It’s being released on September 23rd by BSC Publishing Group and features tales of ghosts, budding serial killers, and carnivorous horses, among other things.
And I am so excited for people to read these stories. The seven stories are all plenty fun and strange and unique, which is what I love. The title story, “Hannah,” is about a pair of ghost hunters who get more than they bargain for when they investigate a haunted school. The one that follows it, “Queen Alice,” combines Alice in Wonderland with Slenderman, which I’m sure would intrigue many of you. The story “What Errour Awoke” combines classic English literature, cosmic horror and some of the biggest events of the past few years into an epic tale of magic and horror. “Fuseli’s Horses” contains those carnivorous horses I mentioned, and come on! Don’t you want to know how that works?
Plus, half of the stories contain LGBT characters and “What Errour Awoke” deals with a lot of the conspiracy bullshit we’ve been dealing with these past few years, so I’m sure someone’s going to try to get it banned from a library or school at some point. I’m sure more people will want to read it just for that.
But back on track. I’m so excited for people to read these stories, and I’m doing all I can to get people interested in preordering copies. It hasn’t been easy (see my recent post on marketing), but I feel I’m making headway. For example, I’ve posted some videos on my YouTube channel, and they’ve gotten some attention. Below are some of the ones I think really help with the sell.
If you watched all those videos, or even just one, thank you. That helps immensely.
I’m also releasing tons of excerpts, some of which are below. And I’m appearing on podcasts soon. Plus, with the eARC almost ready, that will mean I can do a lot that will surely heighten Hannah‘s profile, not the least of which will be the eARC readers, some of whom are very well known in horror, may help spread the good word about it.
Hopefully by September 23rd, there will be plenty of buzz for Hannah.
In the meantime, I’ll leave a button down below. If you click it, you’ll be taken to the preorder page for Hannah. I hope you do and you decide to preorder a copy. Every copy helps immensely. And I know it’s only going to be in ebook at first, but if Hannah does well, a paperback version isn’t out of the question. Maybe even an audio book.
So if you’re at all interested, preorder a copy. And be sure to talk about Hannah on your social media. The more people talking about Hannah, the likelier it is to be ordered and read and reviewed. All that will help this book be as successful as possible.
Anyway, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I look forward to Hannah‘s release and what you think of it. Until next time, good night, pleasant nightmares, and–look out! There’s a carnivorous horse behind you!
So a few weeks back, I posted some excerpts for Hannah and Other Stories that my publisher and I had created. These excerpts each had beautiful backgrounds and graphics to match each story, and I was really proud of each and every one of them (even though I only made three). And at the end of that post, I promised to post the other graphics as soon as they were available.
I should have said as soon as there were more of them and I had the time, which is what happened. But oh well. All the excerpts are out on my other social media, so let’s post them all here.
For a refresher, here are the ones from the last post. These first two are from BSC Publishing Group and are from “The Autopsy Kid and Doctor Sarah” and “Fuseli’s Horses.”
Then we had one from “Queen Alice,” which I made. If you can’t tell, Alice in Wonderland is a big influence on this particular story.
And now for the new stuff. Here’s two more from me. One is another from “Fuseli’s Horses,” while the other is from “Hannah.”
Pretty neat, right? I wanted to use some atmospheric quotes and combine them with matching images. I’m happy to say, I think I succeeded.
Now, check out these excerpts from BSC Publishing Group. I swear, Peyton, my editor, went all out on these and they’re amazing. First, we have “The Red Bursts,” with the most scenic background.
Then we have the inciting incident, “What Errour Awoke,” which combines classic English poetry with cosmic horror and contemporary events.
I wonder what he’s screaming about? Well, I know, but I’ll never tell. Next, we have another from “Hannah” which introduces the main characters, Dominic Holmes and Diesel Berkowitz. They’re ghost hunters with their own ghost hunting show. Maybe you’ll want to check it out?
After that, we have an excerpt from “Poor, Unfortunate Souls,” which takes place in the Paris catacombs. Finally get to publish a story with that beautiful and terrifying location as the setting.
Did that make you feel claustrophobic? I’m hoping it did.
Finally, we have another one from “Queen Alice,” which BSC dropped yesterday. Don’t be fooled by the sweet prose or unassuming background, however. This tale is as dark as a pool of water on a moonless night.
So there you have it. Ten excerpts, seven by BSC Publishing Group and three by me. And who knows? Maybe more excerpts will drop between now and September 23rd. Maybe even other types of content. I already put a video about “Queen Alice” on my YouTube channel (you can check it out here), and I will probably add more videos (so subscribe there as well). Whatever there is, I’ll be share it with you, no matter the platform.
And, of course, you can preorder Hannah and Other Storieshere if these excerpts have intrigued you at all. Right now, it’s only available as an ebook, but if it does well in preorders, sales and reviews, we may see a paperback and even an audio book version in the near future. That’s even more incentive to preorder a copy, if you ask me.
And if you want one more excerpt, you can click here for that. It’s a digital copy of the chapbook I’ve been giving away at events. It’s quite popular.
That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’ll be back soon. Until then, good night and pleasant nightmares. I’m off to do some reading before bed.
I’m back, Followers of Fear! And let me tell you, I had the best time at Stoker Con, the biggest convention for the horror writing community in the world! Four days spent with my comrades in the Horror Writers Association discussing all things horror and enjoying all things macabre. Honestly, it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had!
And it was in Pittsburgh, which despite how difficult it is to drive in, was the home of George A. Romero, so his presence was felt throughout the convention. Hell, the city has kind of embraced Romero as sort of a patron saint, and the George A. Romero Foundation was even a sponsor for the con, so that made it extra special.
But back to the con. Honestly, how can I describe it to you? I guess I could go over the things that made it memorable to me while also supplying photos here and there. Yeah, that works, so let’s go for it.
All the awesome panels! I think there were over 60 panels and classes to take, and I attended as many as I could. All were a lot of fun and quite educational. I didn’t sit on any panels, but I did enjoy watching them. Some, like the Evolution of the Zombie panel, were more like a conversation between the panelists and the audience. Probably helped that I walked in pretending to be a zombie in need of caffeine and snacks.
The panel for portraying drug use and drug addiction. Started out funny, but quickly got serious.
Others, like the Bisexuality in Horror and the Mental Health in Horror, hit me in a personal space (for those unaware, I’m bisexual, and I am on the autism spectrum. I also have ADHD and an anxiety disorder, among other things). It was interesting to hear what others had seen about my communities in horror and how we can portray them better in our stories.
Others, like Writing Nonfiction and Pitching Your Novel, I went to see what tips I could glean from my more experienced colleagues. I got some great info from the former that are already producing results, and the latter will come in handy in a couple of years once I finish Crawler.
Every panel was definitely worth it!
Author readings! While I was there, authors gave and attended readings for upcoming and recently released works. I did a reading with Barbara Cottrell, Jeremiah Dylan Cook, and Gabino Iglesias on Friday. We each took turns, with me going third. Of course, I read from Hannah, specifically the story “What Errour Awoke.” I think people enjoyed it.
Me during my reading. And yes, I wear that hat and cloak during plenty of events.
From left to right: Jeremiah Dylan Cook, myself, Gabino Iglesias, and Barb Cottrell.
Of course, the best reading was from Clay McLeod Chapman. And it wasn’t even a reading, but a one-man show! He’d basically memorized a monologue where a seventh grade boy recounted learning sex ed and how the diagrams of the reproductive systems resembled Lovecraftian entities (and they kind of do, from a certain point of view). He flailed and gesticulated around the room while speaking loudly. It was the most hysterical histrionics I’ve ever seen! I wish I’d seen it on camera.
The Final Frame competition was intense!
Final Frame film competition. On Friday night, we gathered in one of the ballrooms for a competition of 13 short horror films from around the world. These films ranged from the comedic to the terrifying, and most were quite good. The clear winner was “The Queue,” about a content moderator for a video-sharing platform who finds the videos are way more than meets the eye. God, that film was so terrifying, my brain tried to repress it minutes after I’d seen it! If you get the chance, definitely go out and see it.
Honorable mentions go to “Shut,” “Eric,” “Drop Dead,” and “We Forgot About the Zombies.”
The Awards Banquet. Saturday night was when the Bram Stoker awards were awarded, and it was lovely. After a tasty dinner, awards were given out in Superior Achievement for a variety of categories (and I love that it’s “Superior Achievement,” not “Best”). There were a lot of laughs from our speakers and presenters, and some beautiful moments. Cynthia Pelayo became the first Puerto Rican horror author to win Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection, and to win a Bram Stoker, overall. And Gabino Iglesias became the second not too long after, while also winning Superior Achievement in a Novel, the first Puerto Rican to do so.
And a lot of people won Stokers for the first time, leading to tears. I got to hug a lot of people who won their first Stokers after years of trying, and I was happy to be there for those moments. It was beautiful, and I’m so happy for them.
People showing interest in my work! Throughout the convention, people were showing interest and even preordering copies of Hannah and Other Stories (which you can do here). And during a mass author signing (think a book fair within a very small hotel room where you can either buy books or bring your own to get signed), I sold plenty of copies. It put a hop in my step to have so many people wanting to read and support my work.
Being with my people! It’s great being connected to so many horror writers online, and even meeting a few over Zoom or even in person from time to time. But it was nothing compared to meeting so many likeminded individuals in person, and being able to discuss horror subjects so openly. Hell, I had two different conversations on cannibalism in one evening!
Being part of this community, being able to meet and talk with people I’d only interacted with online, and making new friends, is truly special.
Me and my fellow HWA Ohio members: DM Guay, Neil Sater, Sarah Hans, and John Kachuba.
Me with Gabino Iglesias, first Puerto Rican author to win the Bram Stoker award in Superior Achievement in a Novel.
Me with Alma Katsu, Lee Murray, and Barbara Barnett, three amazing ladies of horror. Alma and Lee won Stokers later that evening.
Me with John Langan and Phillip Fracassi. The former and I had plenty of laughs sitting next to each other at the banquet.
Me with Patrick Frievald.
Me with Clay McLeod Chapman.
Me with Brian Keene.
So yeah, Stoker Con was absolutely amazing, and I was so happy to be able to go. And while I probably won’t be able to go next year (San Diego is a little too expensive for me), I would definitely like to go. Maybe next time, I’ll be able to sit on a panel. Maybe I’ll even be nominated for a Stoker award. That would be nice.
Opening ceremonies. It was great.
And if you get the chance, I would highly recommend going to Stoker Con. It’s a fun time and you can learn a lot. I’m already so inspired and can’t wait to start writing this week. Imagine what it’ll do for you.
Well, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I got a lot of work to do before the day is over. But don’t worry: I’ll be back real soon. There’s still plenty to talk about.
Until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night and pleasant nightmares!
So, one thing that really surprised me about the editing process for Hannah was that I had to get rid of brand names from the stories. YouTube became WeTube, and Kroger and Meijer became Lundgren’s, etc.
But those weren’t the only things I had to take out. Ohio State University, which was featured in What Errour Awoke and which was mentioned in Hannah, has been renamed Aurelian University. And Disneyland is now Mueller Land. Yeah, Disneyland was in a story at one point, but now it’s Mueller Land. And I was really surprised I had to change those both.
As my publisher explained, we have to be careful, because if we use a real brand and the company that owns the brand thinks the depiction is negative, they can sue both me and the publisher. Which makes sense. I mean, Apple doesn’t allow its products to be used by bad guys in movies and TV shows. If you see someone in a movie using a generic android phone, chances are they’re bad guys. And in the TV show Chuck, the name of the store where the main character works is a Best Buy parody called Buy More. And given that the store is regularly depicted as being staffed by lazy, incompetent, and oftentimes creepy employees, or is the sight of shootouts and spy shenanigans, it makes sense that the creators would change the name.
Also explains why Subway, which was a sponsor for the show in later seasons, was only ever eaten by the good guys. As far as I can remember, I never once saw a bad guy in that show going for Subway.
Still, that show also depicted Stanford University as a major recruiting center for CIA operatives, and during the first season, the main character has negative feelings towards the school due to his being framed for cheating and getting kicked out while there. Did Stanford not care? And if it didn’t, would Ohio State really care that some characters in my collection were students there?
On the bright side, I was able to keep Slender Man in Queen Alice. Even though he’s a copyrighted character (I know, most people think he’s public domain as well), I was able to keep him as mentioned in Queen Alice because he illustrates an ongoing phenomena regarding Internet boogeymen. And in What Errour Awoke, I was able to keep a reference to Die Hard because, as my editor put it, Nakatomi Plaza is not a copyrighted name or actual location and everyone loves a Die Hard reference (truth).
I still find myself wondering about this, though. Some authors, especially big-name authors, can put references to brands, businesses and universities, among other things, into their work and don’t think twice about changing them. Occasionally, you even see song lyrics from famous songs! Gerald’s Game‘s antagonist draws his name from lyrics from “The Joker” by the Steve Miller Band, and My Best Friend’s Exorcism had lyrics to many popular songs from the 1980s, albeit sung with the wrong lyrics because that’s what the characters liked to do. Not sure if that counts as parody or fair use, but it doesn’t change the fact that We Got the Beat by the Go-Gos was used as an exorcism chant later in the book.
And how does Law & Order: SVU get away with using TikTok and TikTok stars in one episode? Yeah, season 23, episode 5. Even if the app isn’t portrayed as having any bearing on the bad guys in that episode, I can’t imagine TikTok was happy to have its name used in the show like that.
I guess what I’m saying is, there’s a lot to using real brands in fictional contexts that I don’t get. It’s incredibly nuanced, and you can’t get away with using a real brand by using it in a positive light and then pointing to the copyright text at the beginning of the book stating that all characters, settings, and whatever are fictional or used fictionally. In which case, more often than not, it might be better to just turn a popular brand or institution into a fictional version with a name that may or may not reference the real thing. YouTube becomes WeTube, Disneyland becomes Mueller Land, Ohio State University becomes Aurelian University, and…well, you get the idea.
Do you have any insight on this, my Followers of Fear? Please sound off in the comments below.
That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. Just a reminder, though: this Saturday I’ll be at the Canal Town Book Festival in Dover, Ohio, selling books. If any of you are in the area, please stop by and visit. Also keep an eye out for some exciting news on the horizon regarding Hannah and Other Stories. Trust me, you won’t want to miss it.
Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares!
So, these past few weeks, I’ve been editing the hell out of the stories in my upcoming collection, Hannah and Other Stories. This collection contains stories featuring ghosts, budding collections, and even carnivorous horses, and it looks like we’ll be releasing it some time this fall.
And as of early this morning, I’ve finished editing the third draft of the manuscript.
I’m not going to lie, this has been the most exhausting editing process I’ve ever gone through. Way more than Rose ever was (and I had to rewrite two-thirds of that novel at one point). Some of the stories, such as What Errour Awoke and Fuseli’s Horses, required extensive editing and rewrites. Autopsy Kid, which at this time is the last story in the collection, had a ton of content cut from the story and a lot of changes made so that it could stay part of the collection. As a result, I actually missed the deadline to get this story turned in!
Yeah, I’m not happy about that. It was due on Friday night at 11:59 PM, but even though I adjusted my schedule to maximize editing time despite being at ParaPsyCon, I still couldn’t finish it by then. I actually had to grab some shut-eye, then wake up at 5:30 in the morning and finish the edits!
Still, I’m not happy that I was late. Yeah, there were factors that contributed to the lateness, such as having a day job and needing to sleep. But it was still a failure on my part, if a minor one. I’m glad I wasn’t like one of those writers in the movies and books, who are one to six months past deadline. Or that one writer whose next book is…nine years overdue?! Good Lord, we are never going to get that series finished, are we?
Anyway, now that the third draft and all the major edits and rewrites are done, all that’s left is for the fourth draft. This draft will mainly be editing the stories to be grammatically correct. Any new content will likely just to make an unwieldy sentence read better, or to flesh out something that’s more telling than showing. And after that, provided there’s nothing more to do, we can move forward with getting this book released in the fall.
I’ve actually already done three stories in the fourth draft, and it only took me an hour to get through them, rather than the hours or days for each story in the third draft. Hopefully the next four stories go the same way.
That being said, right now, I’m exhausted. Work has been crazy, so balancing work and the writer life, as well as my personal life and getting sleep, has been insane. And I didn’t get enough last sleep last night. So, although I want to party with wine, cake, and some horror movies or anime, I’m just going to get into bed. Tomorrow, on the way back from ParaPsyCon, I’ll try to pick up some of the good stuff and have a good time when I get home.
Anyway, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’m hoping to be blogging a bit more now that the third draft is done. Until then, good night and pleasant nightmares. I know I plan to have a few.
Rami Ungar The Writer 