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!

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.

Dealing with Loss

A month ago today, we buried my dad.

It’s been a heck of a month.

For those of you who didn’t know, my father passed away early on Feb. 27. At 5 a.m. to be precise, with my mother, my two sisters, one of my children and myself at his side. He's pictured above with my mom, in a photo taken a little less than two years ago.

I considered writing something about him here, but I did write a tribute of sorts to him in the column I write each Sunday – if you’d like to read it (and I hope you do), go right here.

On March 9 my aunt died. It was my mom’s sister, so yes, it would be quite an understatement to suggest my mother has had a difficult few weeks. My aunt had been sick for several months, some sort of mystery illness the doctors and specialists couldn’t identify. They could treat the symptoms, although even that was eventually going to be a losing battle, and there was nothing fun about those treatments.

Eventually she simply decided enough was enough and discontinued the treatments. Several days later she passed with her sons, her brother and her sister (my mom) at her side.

Although I did get a chance to visit with her a couple of times in the final weeks, I really hadn’t seen my aunt in a number of years. When I was a child, though, I stayed at her house each day after school for several years. Her oldest son and I were fairly close as cousins go – we were the same age (though I took great delight in constantly reminding him I was his senior by three months), we played sports together, tried to one-up one another, played throw-back-and-tackle together with our other cousins (that’s a game that essentially pits a ball carrier against everyone else), and each Friday night I either spent the night at his house or he was at mine.

And yes, we got into some trouble together. We absolutely totaled a go-cart he had racing one another when I cut him off on a turn and he ended up crashing in a creek. And we got a blistering punishment when we dammed up that same creek – so effectively we flooded a neighbor’s yard (and very nearly their house).

We had some fun times. But we grew up, grew apart, and other than visiting her in the hospital, I hadn’t seen my aunt or my cousin in years.

Then, ten days ago I woke to find an e-mail from an old friend, telling me about the passing of another friend, a young lady who was in the same high school graduating class as I was. My high class was small, just 25 students, so we were fairly tight. This particular young lady I had even dated a couple of times, though nothing came of that. We were just friends, and I recall a sweet-spirited, friendly person who never said an unkind word about anyone.

Again, I hadn’t seen her in years – probably two decades – so it wasn’t as if we were close. Still, it was quite sobering to see someone from my youth, someone whose image was still, at least in my mind, 18 and young and ready to take on the world, gone.

And I suppose that reminded me, in a way nothing else could, that I’m no longer young, that I’m no longer ready to take on the world. My own kids are getting to that age – my oldest will marry in September, my second will be transferring after two years of community college to a four-year school, and my next two are entering the later part of their teen years.

We still have one young one – she’s 11 – but even the final child is growing up, and I’m feeling old.

As I’ve aged my writing’s changed, too. I’m a better writer, and that’s good, but somehow along the way the newness, the idea that I’m creating something different every time I write a story, something fresh and exciting (to me if not to anyone else), has faded over the years.

I know that happens to everyone, whether they are a writer or painter, brick layer or traffic cop. As we age, we approach things differently, we see the world through older, sometimes less enthusiastic eyes. I guess it’s the way of life.

But it’s sad to lose that newness, that belief that you really can have an effect on the world, and most of all it’s sad to see those we care about lost.

One story I hope you don't miss

Have you ever read a story and at the end you just said “Wow, that was something.”

For those of you who are writers, have you had the same experience after finishing one of your tales?

Today marks the release of my story PATRON SAINT, the third in my series Nine Weeks of Halloween Horror. As a writer, every once in a while I sit back and think Did I write that? Last week’s tale, THE JOURNAL, was one of those, although with time that feeling has faded a bit. PATRON SAINT is another one, although I have to say this tale excites me, as a writer, more today than when I first wrote it. That’s pretty rare.

What do readers think? Well, I’ll give you a few comments from those who have read PATRON SAINT:

“The only bad thing that I can say about this story is that it made my teeth tremble and I would want to give a health warning to any reader before they read this.”

“Teeth – yikes. I was hooked by this story. I was really hoping for there to be a great twist at the end. And I wasn’t disappointed.”

“Great stuff, got me hooked from the start and never let go. I didn’t see the twist and it was so good it made me smile even though it was horrific.”

Clearly, PATRON SAINT touched a chord with a few readers, and I think it can with you, too, if you like scary stories with a twist.

PATRON SAINT is just 99 cents, and is available for download to your Kindle. If you don’t own a Kindle, you can get a FREE Kindle reading app for your PC, Mac, or mobile device right here.

Mid-August portends Halloween Horror?

Beware the ides of August.

Okay, that doesn’t quite have the ring of Shakespeare’s Ides of March, but we are at the mid-point of August. Around where I live the weather’s already begun changing a bit – it’s still hot during the days, but the heat isn’t as oppressive and the nights are cool enough to turn off the AC and open the windows.

Soon, the lazy warmth of August will give way to September, with the first fall-like days on tap, and then we’ll have the cooler, crisper days of October. Before we know it, the ridges and mountains around where I live will erupt in vibrant reds and yellows and oranges, then the leaves will fade and the streets will fill with little ones – and maybe a few big ones – dressed as ghosts and goblins, demons and Mitt Romneys.

While my writing of late has centered more around murder and suspense, romance tinged with a bit of eroticism, I was born into the literary world as a horror writer, learning much of my craft while writing about bad things that often are not of this world.

Well, that’s not entirely true. What I strove for was to tell what I hoped were compelling stories, with ever-improving writing, with horror as the backdrop in which the story exists. In other words, I didn’t write “go boo” stuff for the sake of being scary. I wanted to write good, strong stories that took place within a world where things weren’t exactly as they should be.

I think that training helped me learn to create life-like characters, with situations built around human drama, rather than relying on the clichés and tropes of a given genre.

Despite having moved away from horror in much of my writing, this time of year I begin to think about autumn and cool breezy nights and scary stories.

And I still have the urge to write horror. Which brings me to what I think is an exciting announcement.

Nine of my horror tales will be published in a weekly series called NINE WEEKS OF HALLOWEEN HORROR. Beginning on Sunday, Sept. 2, and for the next eight Sundays afterward, one of my horror stories will be published on Amazon.com and available for download to your Kindle.

So get ready for a few chills and thrills – cannibalism, a killer with an obsessive compulsion (and a victim with a dark secret), an ancient home in search of new blood, a small town that strangely is devoid of any ghost stories, some religious zealots who’ve lost perspective – all of that and more will be available in my series NINE WEEKS OF HALLOWEEN HORROR.

More information coming, including a full list of stories and maybe a couple of sample covers, this Sunday, Aug. 19.

See you then.

John Peters is the author of the paranormal romantic thriller CLAIMING MOON, available for download to your Kindle now. Don’t have a Kindle? Get a free Kindle app for your PC, Mac, or mobile device right here.

Weekend warrior writing challenge results

Well, folks, just reporting on my weekend warrior writing challenge.

If you’ll recall from my last blog, posted Friday afternoon, I was challenging myself to put out 5,000 words on my novel in progress, while also mowing the lawn, making a few trips to the gym, and doing whatever odd jobs my wife had planned for me around the house. Not all at the same time, of course.

I didn’t quite make it.

First, the excuses. Friday night I arrived home only to find my youngest and one of her friends at the house, using the computer. They kept it busy until well into the evening – right around 11 o’clock, and I just didn’t feel up to starting any writing that late.

Then came Saturday morning, and instead of rising early and jumping on the writing, I had the rare occurrence of having a few extra bucks in my pocket, so I took my wife out to breakfast, then we ran a few errands, and…well, you get the idea. Between all of the unexpected stuff, the planned mowing and other chores…I did not reach 5,000.

I did manage slightly more than 3,000 words. Given the fact I had managed a total of 1,000 the entire week prior, I’ll take that. It’s not what I wanted, and by-and-large I have no one to blame for that but myself, but I’m back into the novel, writing, and I’m feeling pretty good about it. And I still managed to slip online a few times for a bit of posting/marketing about my recently published novel, CLAIMING MOON, available on Kindle for just $2.99.

It’s now late on Sunday, I’m readying myself for the week ahead, and part of that week includes 800 words a night, Monday through Friday. No excuses accepted.

And, lest you forget, let me remind you all ...

CLAIMING MOON is now available on Kindle, and soon will be on Nook and other mobile readers. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download a free reading app for your PC, Mac, or other device here. And, while I don’t have any fancy, schmanshy contest to drive readers to buy my novel, I will send a Hershey Almond bar to anyone who downloads the story and offers a review on Amazon. In fact, I’ll send a LARGE such bar to the first three people who do (but you have to send me your mailing address!).

It's here! My first novel, now available on Kindle

My debut novel, CLAIMING MOON, is now available at Amazon.com for download to Kindle.

Set in the mountains of Southwest Virginia, the tale follows two people – Clearwater Police Detective Frank Taliaferro and Clearwater Daily Dispatch reporter Cassandra Kincaid.

Frank, with more than 20 years of police experience, finds himself forced to participate in a charity bachelor auction as a public relations move for the police department. Cassandra, a rising star at the Daily Dispatch who has her sights set on moving to one of the larger dailies – New York, Washington, maybe Atlanta - just as soon as she can is forced into participating in the auction as a bidder so she can write a feature piece on the whole process.

Although she is none-too-fond of police, Cassandra ends up winning a date with Frank. She finds him a little more disarming than she anticipated, and enjoys their evening together until the date is interrupted by a gruesome murder. The death is the first in a series of strange killings that have their roots in an ancient cult still alive in the Virginia mountains, where some people continue to practice the religion brought to their land by their ancestors, generations ago.

Frank is determined to solve the crimes and bring the killers to justice, Cassandra is equally driven to uncover what is at play and why there seems to be a conspiracy to cover up the deaths. In the end they learn the deaths are the result of no ordinary killer, and both of them may be next on the list.

CLAIMING MOON is available now for download to your Kindle.

Don’t have a Kindle? No problem – you can get the FREE Kindle application for download to your PC, Mac, or many mobile devises right here.

Well, it's about time

For those of you still around, you know it’s been a while since I lost blogged. Kids, work, other family obligations – you know the drill, a thousand different things get in the way but in the end it comes down to this: If you don’t make the absolute commitment to blog and tweet and write regularly, then…well, you end up not doing it.

Guess I’ve been a little soft on that commitment.

I have been writing, editing, and revising though, even if I haven’t been blogging and tweeting about it, and now it’s time to return to the blog, Twitter, Facebook, and the rest of the digital world so many of you inhabit.

And I do have a few things to tell everyone about, first and foremost being that my novel, CLAIMING MOON (formerly known as THE RETURN), is due out Aug. 1. More details on that, and another publishing surprise or two, will be forthcoming.

Second, I’ll be doing a bit of regrouping here as I return to the blogosphere, and most likely will be moving on over to Word Press soon.

Truthfully, I like Blogger better – it seems to be easier to use for those of us whose minds just don’t wrap around technology very well, but for some reason Blogger doesn’t seem to want to play well with Amazon. I’m an Amazon Associate (these days, who isn’t?), which means I’m kinda working as an independent sales contractor for them. That means I get paid a teeny weeny little bit (something like one one-millionth of a penny, I think) if you click on a link from my blog that takes you to Amazon, and then you purchase the book or item through that link.

Blogger has decided it just won’t let its users do that – when I take a linking code from the Amazon Associates program and place it here on my blog, Blogger automatically adds extra computer code which invalidates the link. If you click on it, you go to a page which says you’ve followed a bad link. I spent a fair bit of time on the phone with Amazon, and they’ve looked at it eight ways to Sunday and can’t do anything about it.

Interestingly, at least to me, if I just take a generic link from Amazon (or from anywhere else) and place it on my blog, the link works. It is only the Amazon Associate links which Blogger monkeys around with. It would appear Blogger (and by extension, Google) wants us to utilize their services, so long as they are the only ones making money off of it.

Oh, well, if I can figure out all the trap doors and rabbit trails of Word Press, I’ll be moving over there. Stay tuned.

For now, the countdown is on….28 days til CLAIMING MOON is released!