A Journey of Discovery (Or How I Spent My Time While Laid Up From Surgery)

I have been on a journey of late.

A journey of great distance. A journey of discovery.A visionquest of sorts.

I have sojourned far these past weeks – traveling from the sofa to my desk, occasional forays into the kitchen, the restroom, even going to the bedroom several times. Every day I've made these little trips countless times.

And I have learned much during this time.

My right leg, a couple of hours post surgery.

Six weeks ago, I had surgery on my right knee to repair a torn meniscus, which the doctor tells me is a rather important piece of cartilage. I injured the knee several weeks earlier, at which time I had to start using crutches, with a doctor-imposed ban on driving. All totaled, I've been more or less housebound for close to 12 weeks. Prior to the surgery I could get out some, as a passenger in the car, but after the surgery my leg was locked in this torturous contraption made of metal and plastic and Velcro. The purpose of this brace was to keep my leg locked in a straight position, and I was prohibited from putting any weight on the leg.

Other than showering and working at physical therapy, the brace never came off.

I haven't been just sitting around the house. Well, okay, I have been doing a lot of sitting around the house, but that's not the only thing I've done. Other than taking off four days for the surgery, I've continued working, just doing it from home.

One of the curious effects of all of this is that during my work-from-home period, I discovered lots of extra time—probably close to four hours a day – compared to my old schedule. I lose close to an hour a day with my round-trip commute; I generally go to the gym five days a week, and workout time combined with drive time was another hour.

Every day, when working from home, I essentially roll out of bed, change into a pair of shorts and t-shirt, get some coffee and that's it – prep for the day is over. I suspect I gained 30 to 40 minutes here.

And, in many ways, working from home is more efficient from a time perspective. I start a bit earlier – around 6:30 or 7, when I get up – work for a few hours, maybe take a bit of a break, then get back on for the afternoon deadlines. I don't get any less work done (on the contrary, I get more done), but I can start earlier, break it up during the day to keep my focus sharper, and I don't have to deal with the constant interruption of folks sticking their head in my office, or answering phone calls (most of which are from people who don't even want to talk to me, they were just incorrectly funneled to my phone by our answering service).

I've also been giving up a bit of sleep. Trying to sleep with that big leg brace on isn't pleasant. I have to be really worn out to finally fall asleep, I can go 5, on good nights close to 6 hours, then I'm awake and not getting back to sleep.

Add it all up and we're between 3 and 4 hours every day (though I don't recommend skipping gym time or sleep for more time in the day)

Having this extra time most days, combined with the four days off around the surgery, I have been able to explore, study, contemplate the many mysteries of life, and I've come to these wide-ranging discoveries:

-- I really don't mind being stranded at home, never going anywhere. For the past six weeks the only time I've left the house is to go to physical therapy or a follow-up visit to the surgeon. That hasn't bothered me in the least. There have been a couple of family get-togethers I missed that I would have enjoyed, and I do miss going to the gym to workout, but otherwise I'd be happy as a clam to work from home, hang out at home, watch movies at home, and...well you get the idea.

-- Working from home really can be more efficient. In my line of work – I'm a newspaper editor – doing that on a full-time basis wouldn't be practical. Editors need to be in the office, accessible when someone from the public wants to visit with the editor. As a department head, I need to be visible to my staff as well as to other department managers, to have real-life face time with them. And the truth is, while I say folks sticking their heads in my office for a brief pow-wow sucks away time, it's usually worth it. I enjoy most of the conversations I have with my colleagues, and I enjoy most visits with the public, and the few unpleasant conversations are generally ones that really need to be done face-to-face, with all parties sitting in the room together. So not being there in person at least some of the time is a non-starter. But, in my opinion, working from home at least a couple of days a week is far more efficient.

-- The Jesse Stone movies, made-for-TV affairs from earlier in the 2000s based on Robert B. Parker's novels, aren't so bad. I always thought the first three or four, taken directly from his novels, were good and the rest – original screenplays based on Parker's characters – weren't so good. But watching them all together over several days, they're all pretty decent.

-- The old Magnum PI series is still kind of fun. It's terribly dated, relying heavily on stereotypes and old tropes (some of which would never fly in today's television world), but it's still kind of fun. (No, I didn't watch the whole seven-year series, just a few episodes).

-- HBO's Six Feet Under really isn't that good. It was critically acclaimed at the time it was released, and to a degree rightfully so. The acting is superb, the writing was certainly strong and, for its time, groundbreaking. But once you get past the first season or so, it's just the same old people making the same stupid mistakes over and over, and growing more unlikeable with each passing episode. Every time one of them showed a hint of growth, appeared as if they might have shown a redeemable quality or gained some new level of self-awareness, he or she would quickly revert to an even worse version of who they had been before. No matter how strong the acting is in individual doses, that got tiring real fast.

Having said that, the closing ten minutes of that show's finale is among the greatest show-endings I've ever seen. Just those ten minutes almost made up for the insufferable episodes between the first season and the finale.

-- C.J. Tudor is a good writer and story-teller. I'd never read any of her work before this, but I really enjoyed The Gathering and The Burning Girls (though the latter really did what I considered not entirely fair character and story manipulation to push a few supposed surprises on the reader). They're not so much horror, which is what I was looking for, as they are really dark crime/bad secret stories with some decidedly supernatural elements. Still, I plan to read more – she's an engaging writer.

My next blog will be about my discoveries while bouncing around in the world of hospitals, doctors, surgeons, and the rest of the medical world.

Thanks for reading!

I'm doing it. Really I am. Honest. Here I go...

Well, I'm really doing it.

Soon.

Kinda.

No, really, I am.

Soon.

I'm talking about writing and finishing the synopsis to my novel and sending that out into the world of agents, so I can become part of the rejected writer's nation.

Let me back up, give those of you not in the world of writing a couple of definitions.

First, the novel. You all know what that is – a book-length work of fiction. I completed my novel, revised, edited, had it read over by some writer acquaintances of mine who tore it to shr—I mean offered some insightful, valuable suggestions. (Okay, no on actually tore it to shreds, but I did get an enormous amount of truly helpful suggestions).

I've had the novel finished, ready to go – at least as ready to go as I know how to make it – for a long time. Months.

I spent time on the query letter. In the world of traditional publishing a writer with a completed manuscript tries to land a literary agent. Most of the large publishing houses won't give the time of day to a would-be writer unless his or her manuscript is submitted by an agent.

Agents get paid on commission. Your work sells, they make money. Your work doesn't sell, they don't get paid. So agents aren't in a position to spend a lot time reading over every novel that comes their way, nor are they going to take too many chances. They understand what books work in what genres, what books might appeal to what publishers, and you have to fit your work inside those parameters, as well as write well and tell an engaging story, and that's what the query letter is for.

It's a brief letter that tells the agent what your story is about, what genre it might fit, names two or three recent novels that appeal to the same readership and why, tells the agent how your learned of him or her and why you've chosen to submit your work to them, as well as tell a bit about yourself, the writer.

All in one page. Agents read the query to weed out most of the slush pile of submissions to save time, progressing to actually reading the synopsis, and hopefully the full novel, afterward. The vast majority of submissions do not make it past the query-reading stage.

I have had what I hope is a fairly decent query letter ready to go for a couple of months.

The big hold-up is the synopsis. This document is roughly 500 to 800 words that gives the nuts and bolts of the novel – introduces the characters and who they are, what they're up against, supporting or significant minor characters, then gives a bit of a blow-by-blow of how the story develops and ultimately ends.

Think of the query as the sales pitch, the jacket copy on the back of a book meant to entice readers to buy. The synopsis is the blueprint, a work document tracing the development of the story to its end.

More than anything, this is the one that scares me. My novel is nearly 76,000 words, a tad over 300 pages. The idea of condensing that to two pages, relying on such a short document to communicate the story in a way that makes an agent not only interested, but believing that publishers and readers will want this too, is more than a bit daunting.

I've spent a good bit of the year putting it off – something else is always more important, or I'm too tired, or I'll get it done tomorrow (or next week) and here we are, the end of summer and I'm still sitting on this thing.

No more.

Yesterday I dove in, reading several guides to synopsis writing, listening to podcasts of literary agents talking about the documents. To take a break, I spent time researching specific agents who take this genre – learning what they want, how they want to receive the submission, as much as I can. Some agents want a query, ten sample pages and a synopsis, others just want a few pages and query, still others want several chapters and a query. Eventually, they all want to see the synopsis, so doing the work is inevitable.

Today I've spent time building the basic outline of the synopsis, and this week I'm going to spend time every day and get at least the first clean draft done and ready to review, so I can get this book out. I've already got the next one ready to write, and quite frankly the two after that as well.

I just have to get this synopsis thing done first.

And I will, This week.

Really, I will.

The End of Things

It's arrived.

Finally.

The end.

Okay, maybe that's a little dramatic, and not entirely accurate.

A view of our garden, shot a couple of weeks ago. The big brown empty spot is where we harvested the potatoes a couple of weeks ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I'm talking about the end of summer. As I publish this, a glance at the calendar will tell you we have another 32 days of summer, according to the Gregorian calendar. (I've read that meteorologists actually consider Sept. 1 the start of autumn, but maybe we'll talk about that another time).

Every year, usually some time in the first half of August, we get a day where the whether feels just a little autumn-like. Maybe it's a breeze that's cooler than typical summer wind; perhaps it's the hint of a chill in the night; or even on a hot day the air feels less humid, crisper, more like a warm day in fall rather than a sweltering summer day.

Whenever that first day comes, it's suddenly as if summer is winding down, that autumn with its changing leaves and cool nights and smoky air from burning leaf and brush piles is about to commence.

Oftentimes after that first day or two of autumn hinting at its arrival, summer comes back with a vengeance – the days grow humid again, the nights don't cool off much, and you find yourself wanting that fall-like weather even more.

As I write this it's been nine days since those first hints of fall crept into the air-- it was a Sunday, my wife and I had just returned from our bi-weekly torture march through the grocery store loading up a fortnight's worth food and stuff, and after unloading all the groceries I just stood outside for a while, enjoying the feel of the air. Later that evening we spent an hour or so sitting outside as the sun set and the day faded into night.

I generally say autumn is my favorite time of year. I love the feel of the air, the cool of the nights, the colors – yes, even the brown colors of the dead leaves once they begin falling to the ground. And Halloween is one of my favorite holidays even though, I suppose, it's not an official holiday.

But this year I'm not so sure I'm ready.

As I grow older, I can't help but see summer winding down as the first steps toward winter, when the world is cold and dead and occasionally a bit dreary. There are all sorts of poems and stories and essays likening the autumn to the final years of middle age for people, with the cold hard winter of one's final years just around the corner, so I won't try to say the same thing here.

What I will say is my reticence to welcome fall is far more practical.

My wife and I enjoy gardening, and we have for years done the usual fare – tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and squash, along with decorative gourds and even a few pumpkins. Some years we try a few cantaloupes or watermelons.

Last year, we experimented a little bit. We grew some kale, a few carrots, cauliflower, Swiss chard, and late in the summer we planted some lettuce and spinach, along with a few turnips and rutabagas.

They were great. Stephanie, my wife (better described as The Chief, the Household CEO, or Head Honcho) wasn't so fond of the cauliflower, so we dumped that from this year's garden plans, but we decided to try a few new items this year.

We scrapped the gourds and pumpkins, cut back a bit on the tomatoes, peppers, and vining plants, and went hog wild with lettuce, kale, arugula, and Swiss chard. We put most of those in raised bed gardens this year. For the main portion of the garden, to give the soil a break from the usual plants, we sowed black beans, white Cannellini beans, corn (that was a bit of an accident), some peas, and on a last-minute lark, some potatoes, along with a half-dozen purple cabbage plants.

The corn we had no intention of growing, but a seed company accidentally sent those to us (and didn't want them back once I told them), so we squared off a corner of the garden and put those in.

Three days ago, we realized some of those corn plants were ready – we ended up with nearly three dozen full, thick ears of super-sweet corn, and nearly that much still growing.

Earlier this summer we pulled nearly 40 pounds of potatoes from the ground, the harvest from about 9 pounds of seed potatoes. I've since read that's not necessarily a great yield, but we bought them on a spur of the moment decision, threw them in the ground and didn't do any feeding or fertilizing. So I'm happy with that yield and hopefully we can do better next year.

We're still a few weeks away from harvesting the beans.

All of this brings me back to my point of not necessarily being ready for autumn to set in. What we learned last year is there's plenty of late-season plants to put in the garden in August. I've put out turnips and rutabagas, Stephanie pulled up the old dying vine plants and has replaced them with new cucumber and zucchini seeds. We've also done a second planting for lettuce and spinach and peas.

And that's what brings me back around to saying I'm not so sure I'm ready for autumn to kick in just yet. I'd like a little more summer-weather growing season. Turns out, even here in the mountains of Southwest Virginia, with its short growing season, you can still get two full plantings in – one for summer harvest and another for fall harvest, if you just switch things up a bit, if you're willing to try new things and work a little longer into the autumn, you can pack a lot more plants into the same little plot of land. And some of those fall crops will store up a lot longer through the winter than the more fragile summer plants.

I suppose that could almost be a metaphor for life. Autumn might very well be the final years of middle age and the first glimpse into the geezer years, but if you're willing to try new things, slip outside your comfort zone, could be the autumn years just might be the best of all.

Confession time

 I have a confession.

Two actually.

Let's deal with the second, smaller one first. For those who know me, this hardly qualifies as a confession -- some might say it's been painfully evident for years.

I'm not all that tech-savvy.

It's been a tad more than six weeks since my last blog posting, and it's entirely because I thought I had lost access to my blog. I logged on one day, went to the dashboard, and my blog -- at least this one, my Dark Scribblings, was not there. I could see the blog on the front end, like you do, as a reader, but when I went to the dashboard, it wasn't there. A few older blogs I haven't used in years were there, but no Dark Scribblings. 

I poked around, closed it out and re-opened, tried to look up trouble-shooting guidelines, but nothing. For two or three weeks I tried multiple times, to no avail.

This past weekend I made one more attempt, with the idea I'd just have to scrap Dark Scribblings and start an entirely new blog, and it still didn't work. Then I clicked on my profile, then clicked on my picture and voila! I was in.

It's still not right -- when I go to the dashboard like I should there's no option to open the back end of my blog, but at least for now this double-clicking of other links seem to work. So for now, I'll keep blogging.

Now for my main confession.

I'm not a very good reader.

Well, that's not entirely accurate. Let's say I'm a lazy reader.

No, that's not right, either. Maybe we can just say I've not been a diligent reader.

Two of the main tenets of being a writer are to write a lot (as in every day), and to read even more. Read voraciously -- in the genre you're writing, in other genres, non-genre fiction, even non-fiction work, just anything you can get your hands on.

I was once that voracious reader. All during my childhood years, well, at least since third grade, I loved reading. I'd always get the maximum number of books allowed on weekly trips to the school library. I thought the public library was the most magical place on Earth. I'd read novels, non-fiction, short stories, magazines (Reader's Digest was a particular favorite in our household), cereal boxes, clothing tags, anything I could get my hands on. 

My reading appetite continued well into adulthood. I remember once, and I guess it's safe to say this now, 30 years after the fact, but I once called out of work "sick" because I was so engrossed in reading a novel.

Well, okay, maybe twice.

In recent years it's been a struggle to read at night, or in the morning. Or most any time.

I suppose a little context might be in order. I'm a daily newspaper editor, in a world of shrinking newsroom staffs and higher demands on newsrooms. I edit, revise, and rewrite somewhere between 10 and 30 articles and press releases a day. Sometimes more. I peruse wire stories, look over work from other editors in the company, read other papers and make my way through close to 100 emails a day (that doesn't count the ones I trash on sight or after glancing over the first couple of lines). 

Some days, the word count of all my reading might equal close to half a novel's worth of words, not to mention the time I spend editing and rewriting.

When I come home most nights the last thing I want to do is read.

I don't mean to suggest I've totally sworn off of reading fiction. Over the past eight months or so I've reread a couple of old Robert B. Parker mysteries, read THE LOOK-A-LIKE by Erica Spindler (an enjoyable murder mystery), devoured THE HOLLOW KIND by Andy Davidson (one of the better horror novels I've read in a long time), made my way through Eric LaRocca's novella and short story collection THINGS HAVE ONLY GOTTEN WORSE SINCE WE LAST SPOKE, and I just finished the paranormal romance DO YOUR WORST by Rosie Danan, which was a fun read.

But that's only a half-dozen novels or novel-length works in eight months. My wife, who might be accurately described as the MAD READER, can devour nearly that many in a week, while holding a full-time teaching position.

Truth is, I miss reading a lot. There's nothing quite like getting wrapped up in a good story, losing a half-hour (or more) of sleep simply because you can't put down the book, or pausing just to think "wow" and then going back to reread a page because the writing is so sterling.

Not to mention I should be reading more to sharpen my writing skills.

So here's my plan -- starting this week, I'm going to  spend at least 30 minutes a day, at least five days a week, reading from a novel or short story collection. For now it doesn't matter much about genre, just so I'm doing the work. 

My first selection will be the one pictured a little higher in this blog -- the anthology DEATHREALM SPIRITS. I bought this last October, when it was first published, because I loved the old Deathrealm magazine. It w as quite possibly my favorite, or at least among my two favorite, magazines from back in the day.

Yet it's set on my desk since last autumn, cracked only long enough for me to read the introduction by editor extraordinaire Stephen Mark Rainey, and to look over a most promising table of comments. 

Tonight, that ends, and I'll be diving in to the first tale of the collection, GHOST IN THE CELLS by Joe R. Lansdale.

I'll keep you all posted on how the reading goes. For now, thanks for stopping by!

Who controls the media? Look in the mirror

While my blog primarily is a chance for me to talk about my wanna-be career, writing fiction for a living, occasionally I blog about my long-time career as a newspaper man.

Today is one of those times.

I recently came across a Facebook posting by a writer sort-of friend of mine. I call him that because he's a genuinely good guy, well-respected, a fantastic writer, not to mention a Dark Shadows man; we've exchanged Facebook posts, a few emails and I even interviewed him once years ago for my blog, but I've never met him in person. In his post he is low-key decrying the state of the modern news media. Rather than rant about the media, he linked to a column by Ben R. Williams, a journalist living and working in Southside Virginia. 

I don't really know Ben, and he most certainly doesn't know me, although back when I was managing editor of The Martinsville Bulletin I knew his dad, who was a General District judge in our community. My wife remembers Ben – she was his kindergarten teacher, and perhaps one of his first crushes, according to his dad.

I do occasionally read Ben's column in the Henry County Enterprise – he is a good writer, with a way of cutting to the truth of most subjects he discusses with concise, sometimes funny, sometimes biting, prose. His work is both enjoyable and thought-provoking.

In this particular column, he takes to task the sensationalist tendencies of the media, using recent reporting on the Joro spider as a prime example. If you've been online for any length of time in recent weeks, you've no doubt seen article after article about this supposedly dangerous, venomous, wolf-sized spider that's about to descend on the Eastern Seaboard, perhaps wiping out life as we know it.

Okay, that's not exactly what has been reported, but when reports of this spider first came out, a couple of years ago, I got the idea I was going to walk out of my house every morning to find the sky filled with these several-inch-long colorful spiders, floating through the air under little spun-web parachutes. We'd have to be dodging these eight-legged paratroopers whenever going outdoors, cover ourselves with gloves and long sleeves and pants to protect from venomous attacks while working in the garden, and always have the car's gasoline tank full so we can speed to the hospital if bitten by one.

Things didn't play out that way. In truth, they never were going to, but the headlines and some articles certainly made it seem this was our fate. More than two years later I have yet to see a single Joro spider.

For some reason the web is abuzz with fresh new articles about their imminent arrival, with the same headlines, the same sensational headlines, which I suspect will lead to the same big fat nothing.

Ben, in his column, calls this practice fear mongering by the media, and he's not wrong.

Yet, I would say that assigns far too much thought and planning to this monolithic creature known as “the media,” and, much like voters ultimately get the political leaders they deserve, the general public gets the media it demands.

The truth is, today's media is just trying to make a buck. It's always been that way, but more so in recent years. Ever since the advent of television, and to a lesser degree radio, the news media has morphed into entertainment media, a process that's kicked into overdrive as the internet has grown to maturity. It's a business, and the first rule of business is to make money (perhaps that is the real problem, that the supposedly independent press is largely made up of for-profit businesses, but that's a discussion for a different time).

Even Fox News, which has rightfully been labeled little more than right-wing propaganda, truthfully has no particular ax to grind nor cause to push. That outfit simply has found a niche – a large group of people who swallow that ideology hook, line and sinker without regard for truth or accuracy – and then sold access to that audience to advertisers willing to pay ungodly sums of money to reach it.

The founding of the network, if one does a deep dive into the facts, shows it was always about making money off of this segment of society, not about offering alternative, conservative-based news. Even today, a number of documented, undisputed reports show some – at times most – of the people working there don't believe a word they're saying, but they're rolling in money by saying it, and that's really the name of the game.

The rest of the news media, regardless of political or social affiliation, is largely the same. There's an old adage in newsrooms – if it bleeds, it leads – which perfectly illustrates this.

Essentially, that means if we have a hot story about a fatal wreck, a deadly shoot-out, or some other violent event, that's the lead story. Television news shows will make that the first, and often longest, story of the night. Newspapers will splash that across the front page, or put flashy red banners around it online.

Such stories aren't generally the most important stories – the tax rates your local government is imposing, how it's spending the money, regulations letting governmental control creep into our lives, how well local schools are educating – those are among the critical stories. But no one cares.

As a long-time newspaper guy, I can tell you back in the day papers with headlines about commissioner and supervisor meetings, changes in school curriculum, how local political parties are consolidating power with changes to candidate selection processes, and similar stories, sat in newsstands largely ignored. But splash a scandal or shooting or fatal wreck or minor drug arrest across the top of page one and the newsstands quickly emptied, even if we upped the press run that day.

In our more modern world where reader interest is measured in story clicks and average time on a page, it's the same. Important news stories go largely unread, while sensational headlines and world-is-ending tales can see their read count quickly surge into the thousands or tens of thousands, even on small community news sites.

As an industry, we in the news world should be better, we should demand serious stories be given their due, and we cannot escape blame when that doesn't happen.

But in a world where virtually all forms of media – news, entertainment, and otherwise – are owned by profit-seeking corporations, what sells is what is published.

Ultimately, that leaves final control over news content with readers – giving them the news media they demand. And the only person who can help change that is staring at you in the mirror.

I'm no longer blogging, I'm platforming (and other tidbits on where I've been)

Nearly 11 months ago, I restarted this here blog -- it had been somewhere around 8 or 9 years prior to that when I had last blogged.

At the time, in 2023, I wrote a bit about getting back to some old dreams and hopes – you know, the kind that get pushed to the back burner as life takes center stage, then get pushed off the stove top completely, then maybe get pushed into that funny little drawer under the stove never to be seen again, as one gets further into a career, raising kids, taking care of all the stuff that comes along.

My dream, my hope, of course, was to do far more during my life with writing. For those of you who know me, you know I have spent most of my adult life as a writer. Most of that time I've been a newspaper reporter and editor, interspersed among a few dalliances with the business side of the industry as a general manager and publisher. I've sold a number of freelance articles over the years, and have more than a handful of short story publications in the horror field to my name.

Most might say I've done okay, in terms of making a living in some form as a writer. I recall way back in my younger days when my dream was to be a fulltime writing, penning fiction and freelance articles. To me, for a writer, that was it -- there was no higher achievement or way of life. Then I came across a stringer who covered county government news for her local weekly, getting perhaps two or three articles a week for low pay. Her real job was writing novels -- she was regularly publishing two science fiction novels a year, through one of the major publishing houses, yet she needed the stringer work to have anything above absolute basic bills paid. She once told me that I, as a full-time reporter, had the dream job every writer wanted.

I never fully bought into that, but there is something to be said for a regular, albeit relatively small, paycheck, health insurance, and a handful of other benefits, all things full-time freelancers rarely see. With a family, those are all must-haves, so the novels and short stories eventually get put away and forgotten.

In those handful of blogs I published last summer, I told you all I had seen a few things recently, experienced a few events that got me to thinking that if I'm ever going to chase those old dreams, there's nothing like the present.

 And then I disappeared from the blogging world.

But I didn't just fade away. I have been writing. And writing. A lot of that has been for my full-time job as a daily newspaper editor, but I've managed to eek out a few words of fiction now and again.

I've penned a handful of short stories, sending two out to publishers. One was rejected, but the other was accepted for the anthology WRITER'S RETREAT: TALES OF WRITING AND MADNESS. I have a few others I hope to send out soon.

What I'm really excited about is my other writing. I now have a full-length adult novel completed, along with first drafts of two children's novels. Full disclaimer here -- the novel is actually a novella I wrote years ago, but over the past year I rewrote and revised, built that from about 35,000 words to 75,000 words. It's best categorized as a romantic supernatural thriller, with a few murders, some mystical evil and a bit of light humor. The two protagonists are a high-profile police detective and a reporter, each relentless in their pursuit of what is behind the murders, while finding themselves drawn toward one another despite their best efforts otherwise.

I've written, revised, edited, and rewritten that thing, and I'm ready to start querying literary agents, to see if I can get any bites on that. From everything I've read and listened to on podcasts, landing an agent is nearly impossible. Most of the ones who are accepting queries get anywhere from 20 to 100 queries a day, and many of them might take on four or five new clients a year. Not great odds.

But, as I told a writer the other day, you will never land an agent if you don't send those queries out. At present, I've more or less finished the query letter -- an arduous task in itself, trying to tell what my novel is about in less than 300 words -- and now I'm slogging through the evil synopsis. Once that's done, I will begin submitting those queries. I've set a goal to start that within two weeks -- by June 16.

After that, I plan to spend the following 10 to 12 weeks on the children's novels. To be more precise, they are aimed at the lower middle grade market, meaning I'm shooting for kids in the age 9 to 10 range. Both works are spooky children's horror novels. I've got the complete bones of the stories -- one clocks in at 18,000 words, while the other is around 21,000. I need to rewrite, revise, and build them out to the range of 30,000 to 35,000.

Hopefully, I can have them both written, polished, and be sending them out to prospective agents by the end of the summer.

Then, I'll be turning my attention to a straight-up adult horror novel I've already more or less outlined. Actually, it's from a short story I wrote years ago called The Dark Secret of Warren House, which was published in the Canadian magazine Dark Recesses. That story was about 3,000 words, but I'm hoping to build it into a 75,000 to 80,000 word novel.

And, I'll be blogging. Really I will.

Seems agents, and most book publishers, like the idea of their writers engaging with the public via social media. I guess that's no surprise. For non-fiction, it's a must -- you have 20 million engaged followers, you're getting a book deal. No followers? Crickets.

It's not quite the same in the world of fiction. A large following -- any following -- is a nice bonus, but it's ultimately the story which has to sell. But the following doesn't hurt. I suppose that means I'm going to have to start engaging a little more on Facebook, get busy on the dreaded X (formerly Twitter), and dive into Tik Tok (assuming the GOP -- the supposed party of individual freedom and the free market -- doesn't follow through and ban it).

It's called building a social media platform. You know, where you can go if you get a book published and shout from the digital mountaintop that everyone should go buy your book.

I also read that blogging is passé, that blogging has been passé for about a decade. We all know all trends eventually come back around, generally with new cool-sounding names. This is my push to bring bring about blogging's return, but we'll keep it hip and trendy by christening its new name --  platforming.

I'm officially platforming now.

Hopefully, I'll have more platforming for you all soon. For now, that's where I've been spending some of my time lately.

Thanks for reading!

A thrilling new-to-me writer

I know quite a bit of time has slipped by since I last posted, when I promised to give my take on the book THINGS HAVE ONLY GOTTEN WORSE SINCE WE LAST SPOKE, AND OTHER MISFORTUNES, by Eric LaRocca.

Part of that has been just plain old procrastination, a particular skill I have spent years developing. The other part is that I've been a little unsure how to describe this work.

First, it's not a novel, but a collection – a novella, a longish short story, then a small short story. I enjoyed this particular aspect of the book, or collection, simply because it's so rare today. In the modern book world, at least among the big boys of the traditional publishing world (and the wanna-be big boys), it's uncommon to see a book published that doesn't hit the prescribed word length for a novel. That length is different in the different genres – horror is generally around 80,000 words, I believe – but long gone are the days when a novella, or a novella with a couple of short stories, were regular finds at a book store.

So I was immediately drawn to this one as a simple nod to my younger days, when I would pick up these types of books at stores or library sales.

Now for the content.

Wow.

The first tale, the novella “Things Have Only Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke,” is one of the most exciting macabre stories I've ready in years! (And I never, ever do exclamation points – at the paper where I'm editor, I've always told my writers they are allowed one exclamation point a year, and even then they better be ready to justify it when I ask).

There is a Six Sense-level ending to this one.

The story is engaging, set back in the early days of the internet when folks could communicate with one another through rudimentary chat services. That's what's going on here, when two women meet by chance in the virtual world. One of them, a needy and lonely individual named Agnes, has resorted to selling a family heirloom, an apple peeler, to raise some much-needed money to pay her bills.

She comes across Zoe, a woman of means who is interested in the peeler. She appears to be a kind-hearted soul, going so far as to tell Agnes to keep the peeler – which has great sentimental value to Agnes -- while at the same time extending financial support to Agnes. From there grows a tangled, increasingly perverse relationship that eventually ends with...well, I won't spoil the work, because this is absolutely stunning at the end. Like the aforementioned Six Sense movie, the final line just stopped me in my tracks. It's the kind of ending I didn't see coming yet when it happened in the instant I finished reading, I could see every clue, every marker pointing to how this was going to play out – things that I should have picked up earlier.

I didn't, and that's because LaRocca does an exceptional job of story telling, building characters and weaving their lives together in a way that draws the reader in, yet doesn't give away too much. This one story made the entire book worth it.

The second tale, “The Enchantment,” is centered on a couple grieving the loss of their son, at some point in the not-too-distant future when science has supposedly proven, beyond any doubt, there is no after-life: Whatever we get here on earth is the whole ball of wax.

As part of their grieving process, the couple takes a position on a resort island as caretakers during the off season. Not long after everyone else packs up and leaves, a stranger – a young man not much older than their late son – shows up, and their life is thrown into turmoil. Soon enough, they begin to learn that science may not be right, and the afterlife may not be all they had hoped.

For me, this story was a study in story-telling. It was an extremely well written tale, an engaging story with building conflict that kept me turning the pages. For my money, the ending left me a little flat, but that was just me – most reviews I've read rave about this one as much as first story.

The third tale, “You'll Find It's Like That All Over,” was a fun little examination of the dangers of being too polite just for the sake of being polite (or maybe just for the sake of appearances), and the dangers of getting caught up in an escalating series of bets by the protagonist, known simply as Mr. Fowler. He finds what appears to be the fragment of a bone in his yard, which leads him to his neighbor's house, Mr. Perlzig. The neighbor turns out to be a master manipulator, who leads Mr. Fowler down a path of increasingly lucrative, but dangerous, bets. I won't tell you how this ends, but I will say there is a guillotine put to use before the story concludes.

All in all, this was an enjoyable book. The second and third tales were good reads, but that first one was fantastic. As if you couldn't already figure this one out, I would recommend you grab a copy of this and get to reading!

Ten days a vegan

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about switching to a whole food,plant-based diet – more easily written as a vegan diet. There is a difference, however. While both eschew (I feel so smart using that word!) any animal products, vegans can quiet easily eat a lot of processed junk food without violating the idea of being a vegan.

A whole food plant-based diet? That's one which primarily stays away from processed food. There's a lot of cooking, using seasonings and spices, fresh ingredients, not to mention a lot of salads and fruit.

Big change from a guy who can polish off a dozen tacos, or down a whole pizza, not to mention being able to pack away a couple of pounds of hot wings (or more) in a single sitting.

When I mentioned here I'd be doing this, I promised some updates, so here it is.

Week one was a disaster. Monday and Tuesday were great, but then we had some things going on at work, top guy from our regional production department in town, so my boss decided that would be a good day to buy lunch for the three of us while we met.

Lunch came from The Loaded Goat – yes, if you're an Andy Griffith fan, you know that phrase. The Loaded Goat has the best hamburgers around – big, thick, juicy, with the most incredible taste. (The restaurant also made the best catfish sandwich I've ever eaten, but that was a few years ago. I don't believe that's on their menu now).

I resisted going for a burger, or even a chicken sandwich, instead opting for a Beyond Burger. I don't know what they did, but man, that was the best Beyond Burger I've ever eaten. Whoever is cooking at The Loaded Goat has it going on.

But, the burger came on a slightly greasy bun, with a big mound of fries, and before all was said and done, I knew I'd messed up.

Still, I tried to stay on the straight and narrow the rest of the day and night, but the next day was even worse. Along with another meeting, we had some training with my newsroom staff, and my boss decided to get pizza for everyone. I appreciated the fact that one of the pizzas was spinach and mushroom, but still it had plenty of cheese and what I'm sure was a fat-filled, wholly unhealthy crust, and that was the final straw. I blew the rest of the week.

But the following Monday, ten days ago as I publish this blog, I made another run at it. Ten days later, I can say I've had no animal products, and I've eaten loads of salads, fruit, and some amazing food my wife and I have cooked from various plant-based recipes. The food is so good I almost don't miss meat or cheese at all.

After the first week, I'd dropped 13.6 pounds as well.

As I mentioned in that first blog, I've been down this road before, many times, so there's not a lot to get excited about just yet. But I'm definitely going the right direction with my eating, and I'm hitting the gym pretty regularly, too, so all is good in the land of veganism for now.

For my next blog, I'll go back to reviewing one of my recent reads – THINGS HAVE GOTTEN WORSE SINCE WE LAST SPOKE, AND OTHER TALES by Eric LaRocca. I'll leave this little tidbit – this book blew me away more than anything I've read in a long time.

More later.

A Big Shelf, Old Books, And Stolling Down Memory Lane

I'm a firm believer in the concept of e-books, and it's always grated on my nerves when people say “Well, that's not a real book.” To me, a book is the story, the writing, the creativity, not the medium through which that story is delivered.

Having said that, there still is no substitute for what a physical book can offer at times. Earlier today I found myself with a bit of unexpected time on my hands, so my wife and I decided to clean out this massive, floor-to-ceiling shelf that was overrun with books and papers and loads of photos and a couple of big basketball trophies from my coaching days, along with a load of toys at the bottom belonging to our granddaughter.

The shelf is quite an item itself from long ago days – my wife and I, along with a since-departed friend, built the shelf way back, well, gosh, it had to be within the first year or two of our marriage, which would make it 30+ years old. It's made of heavy, solid wood, and the shelves are double depth, meaning we can put two rows of books on each shelf.

We've lived in our present house for 12 years, and I'm guessing quite a few of the books on that shelf were dumped there the week we moved in, just to get them out of the way, and that's where they've remained, gradually hidden by more papers and books and assorted stuff.

We attacked the shelf, which ended up being quite the stroll down memory lane.

I came across a copy of one of my favorite novels – HARVEST HOME, by Thomas Tryon. I remember first seeing the movie adaptation of this novel right around the time I turned 15 and absolutely loving the mini-series (though I've never seen it as a rerun or VHS or on any streaming service). A few years later, on my first reporter job in the town of Appomattox, I snapped up a copy at a used book library sale and devoured the book over the next couple of days.

I found a long-lost copy of the anthology THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE: HORROR IN RURAL AMERICA, published in 2009. I doubt any of you have ever heard of that, but one of my tales, “For Want of a Ghost,” found its way into the pages. Certainly not my best effort, but one I had fun writing years ago when I was living in the tiniest of towns that inspired the story. (When I say tiny, I mean the town population jumped by a hearty 0.8 percent when my family took up residence there).

I also came across these two gems:

I got both of those books, along with a DARK SHADOWS novel I seem to have lost, when I was in second grade. I still remember how giddy I was scooping those up from the table – it was my first time at a book fair at the Mount Pleasant Elementary School Library, and we all got to pick a book to take home and keep. Because I had won a reading contest, I got to select two more. While everyone else was grabbing up SEE SPOT RUN books and racing car books, I snatched up these two, along with the DARK SHADOWS LOOK.

I still recall the look on the face of Mrs. Prilliman, our school librarian. She asked me over and over if I was sure, if I really wanted those? She opened them up to show me there were no pics, just pages of dry, gray copy.

I was certain of my choices. Even if I couldn't quite read those books then, I knew somehow, that in a few short years I'd be able to read every story. And I did, a few times over. Finding these today brought me, if only for a moment, some of that childhood excitement I felt as a kid, reading scary stories or watching scary movies.

Yet another great find was this little hardbound chapbook titled THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE. There was only one work inside – NARRATIVE OF A. GORDON PYM – which is supposedly Poe's only full novel.

Way back in my college days, one of my best friends – Jeff Moore, from Delaware – saw this at a yard sale and snagged it for me for something like a quarter. Regrettably, I lost touch with Jeff over the years, and I really thought this book was lost as well. I don't know much about it, it had no copyright or publication date on the title page. It carries the words “The Richmond Edition In 10 Volumes,” and at the bottom is printed “New York John Hovendon 156 Fifth Avenue.”

I can say I'm the only person on Earth who has read this copy cover to cover – when I first read the work, back in my college days, many of the pages were uncut – meaning the printer had not properly separated and cut the pages on the press. It would have been physically impossible for anyone to have read this copy without first slicing the pages apart – which I did.

Finding this brought back a little of the excitement I felt upon reading this so many decades ago. Even more, it reminded me of Jeff and our friendship and all the good times we shared in college, both of us in drama classes, sharing our writing work with one another, just being college kids searching for their place in the world.

There were a few other pleasant surprises hidden in the old shelf – an anthology called PRIME EVIL with some big-time names (Stephen King, Clive Barker, Peter Straus, Ramsey Campbell, among others) and NIGHT VISIONS DEAD IMAGE, another anthology of horror. I picked up these many years ago – in the 1980s, when I was still a bit bright-eyed, the world was still new to me, and I thought I'd one day become a full-time horror writer, taking long walks while working out stories in my head, spending the rest of my time smoking a pipe, banging out tales that would thrill the world.

Unearthing these books – these physical, paper and hard cover editions – brought back a lot of memories. Mostly good, some bitter-sweet, but all part of my life.

And I have a couple of hours with a few old books to thank for that walk down memory lane.

The Hollow Kind

No, that title isn't some clever headline I came up with to entice you to read my blog, although I do hope it had that effect.

THE HOLLOW KIND is the name of a novel by Andy Davidson. 

In my plan to catch up with the modern literary world since I more or less stopped writing (and reading) horror fiction more than a decade ago, I picked up a copy of THE HOLLOW KIND.

I don't know that I could have made a better choice.

I'm really bad with labels, but everyone tells me this is Southern Gothic Horror. Whatever it is, THE HOLLOW KIND is an excellent, engrossing horror tale, one of those novels that builds the suspense, the sense of dread and doom, as an evil slowly encircles the main characters, Nellie Gardener and her 11-year-old son, Max.

The two have come to an old family homestead in deep, hot, humid Georgia, she inherited from her grandfather. August Redfern. (Okay, maybe the book doesn't talk about the heat and humidity quite that much, those are just my memories of Georgia).

The homestead sits on 1,000 acres of mostly forested land, grown over with pines that spurred her grandfather to sink his lot into the land in the early 20^th century, hoping to become rich running a turpentine mill. For Nellie, the land and the remnants of the mill are of little consequence, other than it offers a refuge, a place she fled, with Max in tow, running from an abusive husband.

As the two work to spruce up the place, odd events begin to happen – events that soon slip from strange to dangerous to downright evil.

That evil inhabits the land, is an entity of its own, a creature of sorts which brought tragedy, repeatedly, to Nellie's family two generations earlier and set her grandfather on a course of battling that evil, alone, for decades. He had come there to marry and make his fortune – and it was within his grasp, but the land, the evil there, asked a price that was far too great for August to pay, thus he and his family fell victim to that evil, repeatedly.

Andy Davidson, the writer of this novel, deftly handles drifting back and forth between Nellie's time, in 1989, and her grandfather's time, which began at the farm in 1917 and moves well into the 20^th century, until Nellie meets the odd, lonely, possibly delusional man in the 1970s whcn she is a teenager dealing with the grief of losing her mother. While she and August were together a short time, a bond grew between them that remained, resulting in the old man leaving the house and land to her upon his death.

While that seemed like a blessing at the time, the house and land bring with it a curse, one that seems to inflict maximum damage and tragedy upon whoever it targets.

I've always admired writers who could switch back and forth between time periods, telling what is essentially two separate stories tied together by bloodlines and the evil that haunts the family grounds. Davidson does an excellent job with this. 

I think I read, or perhaps heard him on a podcast saying he had initially written the book as two separate tales – one telling the story of August Redfern and his years on the homestead, then segueing into Nellie's 1989 to pick up the story. Eventually, he – or maybe his editor – decided the story should be melded together, flipping back and forth. Whoa – mad respect to the writer for being able to essentially tear down the two stories and then put them back together as one larger work.

In any event, this was a fine horror novel, one I'd suggest to anyone who enjoys slowburn thrillrs which effectively build, piece by piece, to a satifsying climax, rather than rushing through to get to the end. In addition to the supernatural evil Nellie and Max face, there's plenty of small Southern town evil as well – a nasty local distant relative who has decided he will take that land at any cost, along with a few men with violent and bad intent way back in August Redfern's day. Davidson does a good job of blending all the story lines together in a novel that will keep you reading long after you should have gone to bed (or left for work) – a real page-turner.

12 Weeks a Vegan?

Little more than a week ago, I restarted this blog after a nearly decade-long absence, to share with whoever might want to follow along, my path toward returning to the writing life.

Today I'll share a new path I'm looking to follow as well -- converting to a fully whole food plant-based eating plan. 

This is far from the first time I've set out to lose some weight and get healthy -- I've spent most of the past 30+ years in a perpetual, and losing, battle against really bad eating and health practices. This is not even the first time I've blogged about it (Some of you may remember my old blog, A Fat Boy's Story). That time, with the Fat Boy blog, I chronicled my loss of something like 40 pounds,  over the course of a couple of months, but eventually fell off that wagon.

A couple of years ago, my youngest son and youngest daughter and I joined in with the local wellness center in doing the 12-week Body for Life program. None of use really adhered to the diet portion of the plan, thus I only lost about 25 pounds, but holy cow, the workout portion of the plan was incredible -- by the end, I was doing multiple sets of 100-pound dumbbell presses, at 6 to 8 reps each, and seeing similar gains in all lifts. My son and daughter were seeing big-time results as well. But being as dedicated as BFL takes is a hard task to do indefinitely (not to mention a car vs. tree incident left me with a permanent shoulder injury that's ended my big-lift days when it comes to any sort of bench pressing).

Since then, I've mostly been eating exceptionally poorly (hot wings or tacos at midnight, anyone?) while remaining in a high-stress job field (with more stress and fewer rewards every day). I have continued weight training, mostly, but with no cardio. 

Every once in a great while, I've switched to a plant-based eating plan. For so many years I said that's something I'd never, ever try. I love my hot wings, tacos, pizza, burgers, steak, fried chicken, pork barbecue, eggs, sausage...need I go on? At family gatherings or work functions, when everyone is going for dessert, I'm going back for more of the meat (or the mashed potatoes with gravy, or the cheesy potatoes dripping in butter). Even when going to see a movie with my wife, I'm thinking as much about how each cinema makes its popcorn, how much butter I can soak it in, as I am which movie I want to see.

Nevertheless, the science is clear -- if you're looking for optimal health, if you're looking to hopefully extend your life to a good many years with a generally high-quality of life, a plant-based diet gives you the best chance.

In my own experience. when giving it a shot, I find the weight comes off quickly, all the health markers (blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, etc) respond quite well and quickly. But I never stick with it long -- maybe a week, or two, maybe a month if I'm lucky.

So here's the deal: For the next 12 weeks, I want to commit to a plant-based, whole food diet. That means not just the absence of animal products, but staying largely away from processed food as well. Making my own stuff, in the kitchen.

I know there will probably be a day here or there where I may end up violating the plant-based plan -- maybe some family gatherings with big meals, or some work-related events. Outside of that, we'll see just what sort of changes I can experience, if I can manage to stay on the straight and narrow. And for anyone who is interested, I'll keep you updated here.

Note: Feel free to share your own experiences, if you wish, with plant-based diets, weight loss, exercise, etc., in the comments. I'm always looking to see how others have been successful.

My Reading List: The Look-Alike, by Erica Spindler

In my last post, I told you part of my return to writing fiction was to read a few modern novels in my chosen genres -- crime thrillers and horror.

I did a bit of internet sleuthing, came across the name Erica Spindler as a best-selling crime thriller writer, and I picked up one of her more recent novels -- The Look-Alike. I'm glad I chose this one to read.

Before I go any further, I'll just say I never know exactly how to go about reviewing a book. I keep thinking of my elementary or middle school days, trying to write a book report that's supposed to give the essence of the story without actually reproducing the story. And now, as an adult, I'm keenly aware that no one wants any spoilers to a book review, so I'm going to be pretty brief. 

The main character in the novel, Sienna Scott, is returning home after a ten-year absence, when her father sent her away to help her recover from being traumatized from being the closest thing to a witness that was available to a cold, bloody murder in her town. A murder that claimed the life of a young lady who looked much like Sienna.

Now, she's returned -- confidant, grown up, ready to restart her life in her hometown while perhaps starting a new business venture. There's plenty of baggage to return to, with a mother suffering from a mental illness and a brother who is not quite all that he seems to be. Add to that the fact that more and more clues seem to indicate perhaps she was the original target (and may yet be targeted by the killer) a new love-interest who my turn out to be the murderer, as well as a law enforcement officer who worked the original murder case exhibiting an unhealthy interest in Sienna, and you have a really well-constructed who-done-it thriller.

One of the things I appreciate about this story is how, at times, the author can flip back and forth, between present-day and a decade earlier, when the murder took place. I find it a challenge, as a writer, to bounce back and forth like this, telling a story from two different time periods, but Spindler does it well.

Another aspect of this novel I appreciate is how Sienna's mother is dealing with a mental illness -- how it affects the mom's life, and even more how it is always a dark presence affecting the lives of all of the family. Spindler adds this as an integral plot point, one that becomes important to the story, and shows in a realistic way how mental illness affects the entire family, without being a contrived plot point.

All in all, this was an enjoyable book (though I'm still a little flummoxed over the fate of a rotisserie chicken that seemed to be shoved aside and forgotten at one point -- rotisserie chickens are not to be trifled with or forgotten in my book). I will definitely be picking up and reading more by Erica Spindler.

As for horror fans, I'll next be talking about The Hollow Kind by Andy Davidson. Until then, as always, thanks for stopping by and reading.

Like a slow, lumbering vampire rising from a damp, moldy grave...I'm back!

For those of you who have been anxiously awaiting my return, counting the days until my next blog, that day has finally arrived – just eight years, 11 months and five days since my last posting.

No, I haven't struck it rich, written a series of best-sellers and gone off to some secret mountain hideaway. I've just been muddling along – working, getting older, getting fatter, and every once in a great while still reading and writing a bit.

Let me qualify that. I'm still editor of a small daily (well, we're supposed to call it a daily, with three print days a week and two additional e-editions each week, down from the heady days of big print editions 7 days a week), and I'm editor of a now-quarterly magazine (devoted to all things Mayberry!). So I get plenty of writing done as a journalist, and more than my share of reading with editing articles, reading wire copy, proofing pages, writing headlines, etc.

But I suppose the demands of life, along with a lack of focus on my part, has resulted in me drifting away from what I always really wanted – to write fiction. I've continued writing over these past 9 or so years – more than 400 short stories and novellas and even four full-length novels, none under my own name or my chosen pen names. They are essentially ghost-written contract pieces. They make some decent side money for the amount of time and effort, so I've done that periodically over the years.

But the real writing I always aspired to? The horror, the suspense and crime thrillers and the spooky children's tales?

They kind of fell by the wayside. But I always intended to get back to them – next week, next month, maybe next year. Some day.

In recent months various events have reminded me that time just keeps marching along, and it's far too easy to let the things one really wants to do get shoved aside for the things that have to be done, or that are easier to do. Then, suddenly, you wake up one day and it's too late – you've missed your chance, or you're no longer able to do what you've always wanted. Some day never came.

No, that hasn't yet happened to me, but I've seen it far too often over the past year – people felled by illness or accident, people no longer able to do what they love (or in the worst cases, no longer with us at all).

So a few weeks ago I decided it was now or never – time to get back to doing what I love (even if there are times I hate it while in the midst of it – but isn't that the quandary of writing?)

Rather than just jump in and start trying to write short stories or novels again, I figured I'd go back and read a few novels I enjoyed, get back into enjoying fiction and, as a writer, seeing what works and what doesn't, how good writing and story telling is constructed.

So, the first thing I did was pick up a few novels by one of my all-time favorite writers, the late Robert B. Parker. If you don't recognize the name, perhaps you know his chief characters – he originated and wrote several dozen of the Spenser novels; originated and wrote the Jesse Stone novels (perhaps my favorite series), and he wrote a handful of Sunny Randall novels. The Randall novels are of particular interest to me, because I have the rough outline of a couple of thriller novels that feature a female lead/crime solver who is neither cop nor detective, so I figured I'd just jump in and read a few of those before writing.

I read through Family Honor and Perish Twice. Both are excellent books – I know Hemingway is known for his sparse, direct plot-driven works, but sometimes Parker makes Hemingway look almost verbose, even Dickensonian, by comparison. I don't know that I've read a writer who can tell and show more, who can convey more emotions and actions, with so few words as Parker. His works make for quick, enjoyable reads, as well as a great study in story telling.

While I was reading these two novels, I also began listening to interviews with writers, watching Vlogs and listening to podcasts. The world of publishing has changed dramatically over the past decade (and just for the record, I'm pursuing traditionally published success at present, not self-publishing).

Heck, it's an entirely new world since I was actively writing and trying to get my work published, so I figured I could spend my daily commute learning from podcasts rather than listening to music. One of those is a podcast and Youtube video series from Alexa Donne. She has a ton of videos about writing and the writing life. Most are, unfortunately three or more years old, but she is updating the series every once in a great while.

One thing she said that was so startlingly simple yet was something I had not considered was this: If you want to publish in a given genre, read what is hot right now. Read the top selling books.

Duh. She is absolutely right, yet I was still caught up in reading older books, with characters and settings I was more familiar with. So I have now set off on a quest to read modern thrillers, horror, and supernatural fiction.

I'll keep you all posted on my progress, on my modern reading selection as well as posting updates on my writing. I may even be asking for a bit of help, asking for test readers for some of my upcoming fiction.

My first two sojourns into reading more modern top-selling work was The Look Alike by Erica Spindler and The Hollow Kind by Andy Davidson. And let me tell you...well, let me tell you about those in my next blog!

For now, thanks for reading, and hopefully I'll have much more to share with you in coming weeks and months about my own writing.

A golden age for writers, so why all the literary disdain?

Writers are a funny lot.

Most of you who know me know I've been writing in one form or another virtually my entire life. As a second grader I tried to write a story following the adventures of Billy the Fish, who was accidentally dropped from an aquarium into a creek and eventually made his way through rivers all the way to the ocean, and I've been putting together stories – fiction and otherwise – on paper and on computer screens ever since.

As I grew into early adulthood, and had fallen head-over-heels in love with creepy and dark fiction, I got it in my head I might one day turn into the next Stephen King. Of course, I was clueless as to how much work, talent, raw drive, work, determination, discipline, did I mention hard work, and yes even some luck, was needed to get anything into publication, much less reach the lofty perch shared by King and others of his stature.

Unlike others I've known over the years who have pursued their writing goals while holding day jobs in construction, teaching, retail, customer service, the law, or any number of other employment fields, I've written for a living. I've spent most of my adult life in the newspaper field, reporting, editing, managing. For a couple of years I left newspapering but kept writing nonfiction, penning articles for business magazines, education publications, and a few other specialty markets.

Along the way I have quit writing fiction, given it up for good, swearing never to go back. I've done that numerous times, sometimes out of frustration with the impossibly slow pace of magazines who purported to be professional but might take months to get back to you on a submission (if they ever did). Other times I felt I was wasting time, that even with publication the pay was pathetically low – the most I ever made from a piece of fiction someone else published was a couple of $150 pieces. Sometimes I had to quit because there simply wasn't enough of me to go around – as the sole bread winner in the house, with a big family (5 kids), my first priority was keeping us housed, clothed and fed, even if that meant working two jobs while freelancing for non-fiction publications on the side (kinda like holding a third job).

Still, I'd always come back, drawn to writing.

I've hooked up with a few writer groups over the years, and I've had the great fortune to be around those who were serious about the craft, who pursued writing doggedly, as if their lives depended on it. Some of those folks are now editors and publishers, mostly with small or specialty presses, others have gone on to see some success as writers, one or two who even now support themselves fully with significant contracts writing novels for one of the Big Five publishing houses.

There were days many of us would commiserate together, bemoaning the state of writing – particularly in the horror field – where it seemed unless you were related to a magazine owner or book publishing official, seeing your own work in publication was as likely as a trip to the moon. A number experienced what appeared to be near-misses, when an agent or Big Five publisher would show interest, string you along, then back away. I had my own experience along these lines a few years back when a couple of agents showed quite a bit of interest in a series of middle-grade books. Alas, it came to naught.

So it's puzzling to me to see some of those very same people, or others like them, be so openly critical of writers now making decent to good money through their own publishing efforts, assailing those indie writers as if they were some sort of affront to Western civilization.

Most of you probably have a Kindle or some similar e-reading device. Amazon is the big kahuna in this field, and definitely the pace setter, introducing technology that allows writers to easily upload and publish their works in e-format, and making it just as easy for readers to access that work, giving readers novels and other works at a fraction of the cost the Big Five boys charge while allowing writers to make significantly more on each purchase than one of the old Big Five publishers would have paid.

In the old days, most novelists with contracts through one of the Big Five publishers (then Big Six) were lucky if they made $5,000 in a year. More often than not the quality of a given submission to an agent or publisher had little to do with whether it saw publication. The marketing folks weighed in on whether a piece was easily marketable according to their guidelines. That was the chief, overriding concern for the so-called gatekeepers of the literary world.

In this new e-reader world a bit of democracy enters the equation. Anyone can write a novel and sell it through Amazon.

I know quite a few who have been doing this for a few years now, some making a few hundred dollars a month, some a few thousand, and I know a handful who are making six-figure annual incomes from their writing. I happen to know one fella who's annual income has inched higher than that.

Here's the part I don't get. Some of my old writer friends, and a few other writers I've come across, seem to really have a problem with those making a good living at independent writing/publishing. They spend their time pooh-poohing that success, saying these people aren't "real writers" (whatever the heck that means). When confronted with the success stories of those who are making good money at their craft, the response is often accusing those indie writers of somehow exploiting the system, discovering a publishing formula that generates money, but isn't real writing.

Sorry folks, but the writers I know making a nice living at this are exploiting one simple formula: They work damn hard (if you'll pardon my French). While some old-school legacy writers sit around, gazing at their navals, wasting time telling everyone how excruciating it is to produce a thousand words a day in a couple of hours of anguished writing, these folks spend their time working – sitting in front of a computer four, eight, even twelve hours a day, producing reams of copy. I know one individual who produces a novel every five to six weeks because he parks his butt in the chair and writes for hours upon hours upon hours every week.

And that, my friends, is the key. Hard work, long-term commitment (it doesn’t happen overnight), combined with a bit of marketing savvy (which is NOT rocket science, anyone can learn and do a little marketing), and a commitment to professionalism in your work. Yes, luck plays into it, and can be the difference between someone pulling down a six-figure income vs. making ten or twelve thousand as a nice little supplemental income.

Yet there are some in the writing field who simply won't accept that, who refuse to believe indie writers are "real writers," and who take every opportunity to bash those in the indie field.

I don't understand it. As I said, writers can be a funny lot. And sometimes a bit petty.

For me, I'd love to get a big-money offer from one of the Big Five publishers. I'd love to walk into a book store and see my work on the shelves there. I don't harbor any ill will toward those who have achieved that. But, I have to say I'm just fine doing indie thing.

My question to other writers is, why aren't you?

More change -- the kids are coming home!

Since I restarted this blog talking about all the changes that had occurred in my life over the past 18 months, I'll continue that with a new one. My oldest daughter, the one who married and moved away last September, is coming back home!

Well, sort of.

They had to move out of state because her husband, who I'll call Andrew for the purposes of this blog, still had one semester of college to finish. My daughter, who I'll call Erica, has two years of school left, but she put that on hold so he could finish up and then, hopefully, get a job teaching. She had already been accepted at a university about 45 minutes down the road from here (after doing community college for her first two years of college), so they were fairly limited in where they could go.

The teaching thing hasn't worked out yet for Andrew, but yesterday he was offered a position with a media company in the same city where she will be going to college! Better yet, that puts them 45 minutes from us to the west, and 45 minutes from the rest of my family (mom, sisters and their families) to the east. She and Andrew will be smack-dab in the middle of us all!

Good for all of us – though she and Andrew might get tired of us after a while, I don't know.

The challenge of it all is the timeframe. He starts his new job in twelve days. That's right, less than two weeks. They have no apartment, they live three-and-a-half hours' drive away, and they both work, so it's not as if the two of them have nothing but free time between now and then. There's also the issue of furniture, but we'll figure that one out as we go.

Just as soon as I tell you all I'm back, ready to start publishing a few pieces under my own name again, I find I'm going to be a busy little bee over the next few weeks, doing a lot of traveling down there and back, helping them get set up, helping them move – all built around my day job.

It's a good challenge to have, though, and I can't tell you how ecstatic I am they will be moving this close.

And, since I wasn't blogging last year when the two of them were married, and I am talking about them now, I'm going to share a couple of wedding photos. The first is my wife and I escorting the lovely bride toward the ceremony and her waiting husband-to-be. The second pic is my mom with the two of them, and the third one is the happy couple. And yes, the dude is that tall – he's 6'7" (but he still can't take me on the basketball court. Just don't tell him I said that.)

Until next time (I'll post again this weekend), happy trails!

Back in the old ball game...

Hello.

I wasn't sure what to say in the rebirth of my little blog, John's Dark Scribblings, so I thought I'd just say hello.

After all, what does one start a conversation after a nearly 14-month absence?

So, hello, and welcome back.

I have been away from this little corner of the world for quite some time I suppose, and I should explain.

A lot happened in my life last year. I suppose that's always the case for a lot of people, but in my case there were some big, major life changes.

Tragically, my father passed away in February of 2013. I come from a strong family where we've been taught to just keep moving forward, keep working, never let all the bad stuff drag you too far down. So that's what I did, that's what all my family did in the aftermath of our loss – we just kept moving forward.

Between that loss in the late winter and the fall of 2013, there were more changes for our family, more joyous ones to be sure, but change none-the-less. My second oldest daughter went out into the world, going to the University of Virginia, in late August. A couple of weeks later my oldest daughter married a fine young man we've known for years and moved out of state.

Like I said, some major changes.

In the midst of it all I kind of lost my way in my writing, aided by a confusing, on-again, off-again policy by my employer that prohibited any employees from doing any writing or editing outside the company. Even fiction. Except when it didn't. Like I said, terribly confusing.

I never stopped writing – I still write and edit at work on the job as a newspaper editor (though just between you, me and the virtual fence post, my job has become more about compiling and writing reports, meetings, and paperwork than it has been about actual honest-to-goodness journalism -- you know, writing and editing work that is germane to your community). And I didn't call it quits entirely with the fiction work – I do some, let's say specialized type of writing under a pseudonym (and no, I'm not tell you anything else about it, at least not for now).

But the work that moved me – the horror that I once wrote, the mystery and historical novels I outlined - just kind of drifted away from me. Or maybe I drifted away from them. I arrived at a point where I couldn't just put my head down and keep working. I still had to do my day job, because I have a family that depends on me for income and a staff that depends on my to lead it and a company that's paying me to do that job. Beyond that I just wasn't sure what I wanted in my writing, or my life for that matter. So I stopped blogging about my work, even took this blog down from public view for quite a while.

Now I'm back, and I'll be returning to some of my writing roots over the coming months and years. I won't be terribly prolific – I have a burgeoning pseudonym career to keep going (well, okay, a pseudonym CAREER may be overstating it, but it's something I'll keep up for a while). I also still have the full-time job to keep working at, and I need to spend at least a little time with the family.

But I will be publishing a few horror and mystery tales here over the coming months – short stories, a novella or two, I'll be releasing a novel in August and another one in November. Beyond that? We'll just see how it goes.

For now I'll just say hello, and glad you're back with me.

Excerpt 8 -- A town with a dark secret

Today is an excerpt from one of my favorite stories, The Dark Secret of Warren House. This story was originally published in Dark Recesses in 2007. I also released it as a single on Amazon last autumn, and it briefly made it as high as #2 on the promotional list for horror. Now, it's part of my collection, THE ALCHEMIST & OTHER DARK TALES -- and that entire collection is on sale now for just 99 cents.

And now, from The Dark Secret of Warren House.

*****

“This doesn’t feel right,” Marcia said.

“Oh, come on Marcia. It must be some sort of initiation. Let’s play along.”

She didn’t move, so Kevin squeezed by and continued, pulling Marcia along.

The air grew cooler and damp. Somewhere ahead water dripped.

“Kevin, let’s go back.”

“No, look,” he said. Marcia peered around him. The light was brighter, much brighter. “Come on, that’s where everyone must be.”

Kevin walked faster. Marcia struggled to keep up. They reached the end of the corridor. Kevin entered a massive round room, its walls arching into a doom-shaped ceiling. The room seemed as big as the entire first floor of the house. Marcia stepped in behind him, then gasped.

Along the wall, ringing the entire room, were a series of alcoves, a torch mounted above each.

“Damn,” he whispered.

Marcia tried to pull him from the room, but Kevin held firm, then moved to the first alcove. Inside was what appeared to have been a body, sunken in on itself, as if the insides had dried up. Its hair was shoulder length, held in place by a rotting headband. A thick mustache hid most of its mouth.

“This is one of the guys I saw upstairs, dressed like a sixties reject. I thought it was a costume.”

Marcia stepped beside him. “I saw him, too,” she said, voice trembling. “Come on Kevin, we have to get out of here.”

The man’s skin, what was visible, was laced with cracks, the body enveloped by gray tentacle-like growths protruding from the alcove’s walls. Some of the growths wrapped around the body, holding it in place. Other clear tentacles had grown right through the skin. Kevin leaned into the alcove. A dark, thick fluid moved, slowly, through the clear tentacles, from the body toward the walls.

Kevin stepped back, grasped Marcia’s hand. She shivered. They moved to the next alcove. Another body, this one in worse shape. Kevin recognized a tattered frock coat. A top hat rested in the alcove, next to the man. This body was nearly flat, its skin as dry as the parchment on which Kevin’s Yuletide invitation had been written.

In the next alcove he recognized the long coat of the Revolutionary War era man, though no color remained. The body was papery thin, the tentacles brown and dry. Kevin reached into the alcove, touched the body. It crumbled.

“Dear god,” Marcia cried.

Kevin looked at her. She was pointing to the next alcove.

There, Kevin saw, sat Lucy Adams. Her face was drawn and pale, eyes staring vacantly. Blood dripped from a dozen different entry wounds where tentacles invaded her body. Kevin reached into the alcove, fingers brushing Lucy’s face, when a tentacle stabbed from the shadows, slicing into his forearm.

Kevin yanked his hand away. The tentacle stretched and then snapped, a sliver still in his arm.

“Get it out,” he screamed, clawing at this skin. “My knife,” he gasped.

“What?” Marcia asked.

“Knife … in my right pocket,” he said through clenched teeth. He continued scratching, peeling the skin away from the wound. Marcia slipped her hand in his pocket, withdrew a small pocketknife, then opened it.

“Now what?”

“Cut it out!” he screamed.

“Wha… I can’t do that.”

Kevin grabbed the knife and sliced around the wound. The tentacle was longer now, growing from his arm. Kevin slashed deep into the skin, cutting under the tentacle, like a surgeon removing a tumor. A chunk of flesh, tentacle imbedded in it, fell to the floor.

Kevin stumbled away, the room spinning, gray clouding his vision. He fell to one knee. Marcia knelt next to him, eased him to lying position. Blood trickled from his arm, pooling on the cold stone beneath him.

“We gotta get out of here,” Kevin said. “Help me up.”

Marcia helped him to his feet. Kevin stumbled, dizzy. He looked down, his senses snapping awake when he did. Two tentacles sprouted from the floor where his blood pooled.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Marcia draped Kevin’s uninjured arm over her shoulders to lend support. They staggered from the room, made their way down the long hallway. Each time they stepped in the flickering light of another torch Kevin glanced down, watched blood drip from his arm. Tiny tentacles sprouted from the stone where each drop splashed.

They reached the steps.

“Go,” Kevin said, pulling his arm down, pushing Marcia ahead.

“You need help.”

“Stairway’s too narrow.” Marcia started to protest. He pushed her. “Go. I’m right behind you.”
*****
To read the rest of The Dark Secret of Warren House, and the entire collection THE ALCHEMIST & OTHER DARK TALES, click here for Kindle or here for Nook.