Okay, I'm cheating a little here. This isn't a brand new story.
I wrote it last year for a flash fiction challenge over at Chuck Wendig's blog, and I won! Anyways, here we go.
Here we go again. Hope you guys enjoy this one as much as yesterday's.
I love October.
I love Halloween.
I love fall, the leaves turning and then gradually falling, one by one off the trees. It makes me want to create.
So this is what I'm going to do: Every day of October (barring a catastrophe) I'll be posting a flash fiction piece on my blog. The theme will obviously be horror. I'm going to try to keep the stories as close to a hundred words as possible.
Here we go.
I came home to write full-time one year ago today.
I still can't really believe I'm doing what I dreamed of since I was a teenager, it's a little too surreal even after a year of doing it.
I decided to sit down and write this after my wife reminded me of the anniversary that is today (glad she was reminding me of this anniversary and not OUR anniversary) and I thought I would stop and look back at what this year has meant to me, what I've accomplished, and what I hope to do in the future. So here we go.
For six years I worked as a personal trainer at a local, 24-hour gym and for five of them, managed it.
I loved it.
I helped people reach their fitness goals, gained friendships with my two bosses that will last a lifetime, and provided for my family.
I was also away from home for 12 to 14 hours every day of the work week. I would look in on my sleeping children in the morning before I left, and at times would kiss them goodnight as they slept when I came home.
I did not love this.
But at the time it was the best thing for our family. My wife stayed home with our children since we decided it was the best for them and financially for us. Each day I would leave them early and come home late. It was a routine that kept me away from my loved ones, but also provided for them. This is in no way special since millions do this everyday, but I hated it.
So at night I wrote.
When I would arrive home I would pound out a thousand words and then flop into bed, ready to do it again the next day.
And the next day.
And the next day.
A year ago my wife was able to start working from home. We had already made sacrifices for her to stay home with the kids and this new added income meant a decision for us. One that thrilled me to no end. Not only would I be able to spend much more time with my family, I could begin to write full-time.
My first book, Midnight Paths, came out in October of 2011 and my novel Lineage, was published on September 17th, 2012. Twelve days later I came home for good.
It took me six months writing in the evenings while working full-time to finish Lineage. Since publishing that first novel I've written three short stories and four more novels in the space of a year- Singularity, EverFall, The River Is Dark, and the latest that will be published in October. For me this pace has been perfect. I try to write 2000 words almost every day and have a great editor and cover artist who are wonderful to work with.
Now not to mislead you, I'm not making millions with my writing, but I'm very pleased with how my books have done over the last year. Two years ago I would be lucky to clear enough each month for a nice dinner and now my writing pays the mortgage, and car payment, along with various other expenses, not to mention my publishing costs.
The year has had its shares of ups and downs. One day your books are selling well, gaining momentum, and gathering shining reviews. The next there will be a horrific, static silence as readers pass your work over for someone else's. I've come to realize these highs and lows are normal, although it doesn't stop me from dancing or moping when they come along. But I'm a writer, I'm not always rational.
If I could pick out two examples of the best and worst times they would have to be in February when Singularity hit the top 100 paid Kindle list in the UK and hung there for a day, and this summer when nearly all of my books slipped down to negligible numbers for weeks at a time.
Some have asked me how I've accomplished becoming full-time. My answer is always this: keep working and adapting, and never give up. There is nothing more to success than refusing to quit.
In the coming year I'm excited to focus more on the marketing of my work while also producing another four novels.
All in all, it's been a great ride, and even if sales numbers slip sometimes or the occasional negative review comes along, I remember that I've already achieved a goal that some never get to experience.
I'm doing what I love, every day.
Fall is my favorite time of year and always breeds creativity for me, for some reason the Autumnal tones of yellow and red leaves kick start my writing gears and new things come to me. Here's a little flash fiction I jotted down the other night, hope everyone digs it!
Tomorrow's the first day of school for my kids.
They're not super-excited. A little, but not super.
I thought about how this time of year makes me feel and needed to put down my thoughts.
Hey! My blog! I'll put down my thoughts!
So here we go.
Today we did lots of fun stuff together as a family, got home in time for me to cook dinner. My wife cleaned out their backpacks, washed them, hung them up to dry. My daughter labeled her pencils for a half hour so no one would take them tomorrow.
As a writer I get to stay home and do what I love to do everyday, but I must admit, when there's no one else in the house, I do get more done. I'm alone with my thoughts. It's quiet. I can think clearly with my ideas making the loudest noises I hear. Tomorrow I'm going to sit down and pound out a couple thousand words on my WIP. Then I'm going to go workout, and then pick my kids up from their respective schools.
And as much as I'll relish the time to work, I'll be truly looking forward to getting them back home and listen to them tell me about their first day. I'm going to make them snacks and cook them a special dinner and help them do their homework. The quintessential feeling is hard to express but it's something along the lines of appreciating what you have when it's not there.
I do love my time alone to write.
But the house gets too quiet sometimes.
And when my family gathers together in the evening is when things are the best.
That's it, a little gushing about my loved ones. Thought I'd share. Hope everyone else who's sending their children off to school tomorrow has a great day.
And a great evening when they come back home again.
So I've been busy writing my fingers off and editing my brains out and it's finally time to reveal my latest novel which will be out August 6th.
The River Is Dark is my first foray into thriller territory and I'm really excited about it. Below is the synopsis.
Ex-homicide detective Liam Dempsey is waiting to die.
His career, the only thing he ever knew how to do well, is over. The single solace each day brings is the ever-growing contemplation of suicide.
But when his estranged brother and sister-in-law are brutally murdered in their bucolic town set on the banks of the Mississippi River, he is drawn into an investigation surrounding a string of killings unlike anything he has ever seen before. The murderer is ruthless, cunning, and without conscience.
Soon Liam learns that the river is dark.
And so are its secrets.
So that's it for now. Like I said,
The River Is Dark
comes out August 6th and I'd be really pleased if everyone took a peek at it when it goes live. Thanks for stopping by!
Really simple post today folks. This one's for people wondering how to start and end chapters in the projects they're writing. So here we go...
The beginning of a chapter should be a fishhook through the eyes.
It should yank the readers attention to the words with clarity and concern and bit of unease. Something should be happening at the beginning of a chapter, something you want to read more about. Here's an example from my short story The Line Unseen:
So, my Twitter buddy, Steven Montano, writes some really excellent vampire, military fiction called The Blood Skies series, and you should really check it out, you won't be sorry. But Steven's a busy guy and he's actually started a new series of books called The Skullborn Trilogy, which is more epic fantasy. I wanted to give him a shout out since his cover reveal for the first book in the series is today. So without further ado, here it is:
City of Scars (Book One of The Skullborn Trilogy)
By Steven Montano
Release Date
: June 28
th
, 2013
Cover Art
by
Barry Currey
It’s been three decades since the Blood Queen led her legions on a brutal campaign of conquest and destruction, and the Empires are still struggling to rebuild. Now, in the distant aftermath of the war, the real battle is about to begin.
Haunted by the crimes of his past, fallen knight Azander Dane ekes out a mercenary existence as he drifts from one city to the next. His latest job is to hunt down Ijanna Taivorkan, a powerful outlaw witch desperately seeking a way to escape her destiny.
Dane and Ijanna find themselves in Ebonmark, the City of Scars, where deadly crime guilds and shadowy agents of the White Dragon Empire prepare for a brutal confrontation. Pursued by apocalypse cults, mad alchemists, exiled giants and werewolf gangs, Dane and Ijanna soon learn a deadly lesson – in Ebonmark, only the cruelest and most cunning can survive.
City of Scars is the first volume of The Skullborn Trilogy, an all new epic fantasy adventure from the author of the Blood Skies series.
Check out bloodskies.com for more!
So as the title of the post says, I have a new novel coming out this month. It's always an exciting and busy time right before a release but I thought I'd do something different this go around. I'm gonna give you guys a little look-see of the first chapter before it goes live on the 30th. The cover above was done by the very talented Kealan Patrick Burke who always does a fantastic job with my books. So take a peek at the chapter below and feel free to let me know what you think!
Chapter 1
The Storm
The night my family was taken from me I’d had too much to drink. Storms did that to me. For as long as I could remember, clouds, thunder, lightning—any of them started the feeling inside. The itching feeling of something with too many legs crawling, first, in the base of my stomach, and then up into my chest, where it sat and prodded my heart into a staccato rhythm. I’d start sweating and shaking, and before I knew it, I’d reach for a bottle. It was worse when I was younger and wasn’t allowed to partake in liquid courage. I’d huddle in my room until the storm passed, after which I felt like I’d just escaped something that had been looking for me, hunting me. My parents did what they could, assuring me it was an entirely normal fear that many people dealt with, but hearing that others go through the same thing as you do doesn’t make it any better. When they couldn’t calm me and my terrors got worse, they took me to a therapist who talked in a quiet voice and asked me so many questions I found it hard to follow where he was going half the time. I guess my parents thought the therapy helped, since I was always fairly relaxed when I came out of that little room with two chairs and a single fountain between them, the water trickling over a few rocks and never failing to make you want to pee. Problem was, there were never any storms raging overhead when I went to see the good doctor. It’s easier to talk about something you’re afraid of when it’s not there staring you in the face.
So the years went on like that. I’d get up every morning and check the weather for the day. I came to know which weathermen knew their stuff and which were just shooting from the hip. Some days, when I knew a storm was imminent, I’d sneak back home after heading off to school and sit in the basement of our house, the quietest part I could find, and just wait it out. The muffled rumbles and strobes of the lightning still reached me there, but it wasn’t near as bad as having a panic attack in the middle of a history lesson with thirty other sets of eyes on you. No, for a fifteen-year-old kid there isn’t much worse than that.
I found out that drinking helped when I was a senior in high school. My best friend, Bobby Anderson, snuck me a half-empty bottle of Malibu in the empty locker hall between fifth and sixth hours.
“Dad won’t notice it’s gone, he hates that shit,” Bobby said, pushing the bottle deep into the recesses of my backpack. I was scared to death to try it, having never taken so much as a sip in my life (my parents both grew up in alcoholic homes and were deeply set against anything that resembled recreational drinking). But a storm showed up around two that next morning, and in the flashing light outside my window I spun the cap off the rum and swallowed three mouthfuls before I could taste it. After the burning stopped, I nearly threw up but managed to keep it down long enough for a warmth to spread out from my stomach to my limbs. The thunder came down a few decibels and the lightning didn’t make my breath catch like it usually did. I was in love.
The therapist had mentioned sedation only once to my parents, and they’d firmly shut him down on that front. To be perfectly honest, pills scared me too. But I was mature enough to know when I’d found a solution to my problem—if not the best one—and at the tender age of eighteen I began to self-medicate.
I was able to hide the drinking from my parents until I was a junior in college, majoring in conceptual design. They stopped by the little house I rented on the outskirts of my college town for an unannounced visit. They found me passed out beneath the dining-room table, an empty bottle of wine and two beer cans clustered around me like a miniature defensive wall.
This isn’t to say I was an alcoholic at that point. I actually didn’t even like the feeling of getting too drunk. For the most part I would relegate my self-medication to only when I needed it, which was sometimes three times a week and at others once a month.
Needless to say, my dad had a few choice words that day after they’d roused me from beneath the table. I understood. How could I not? And I nodded along with them once my dad stopped yelling and my mom stopped crying. We sat down on the sofa and had an honest heart-to-heart about the dangers of drinking, and I swore to them that I wouldn’t touch a bottle again. I’d go back to counseling for the astraphobia, as it came to be named. It was the first lie I ever told my parents.
I realized over the years that prolonged fear does something to a person. This isn’t an excuse, just a truth that I learned in time. It curls you in on yourself like paper in a fire and cuts you off from the rest of the world, which doesn’t deal with the lurking terror that never truly leaves. Fear drains life of hope. It only lets you see as far as tomorrow, which might be as bad as or worse than today. It crushes you with arms that wrap you so close, you can’t tell someone what normal actually feels like.
So by the time I met my wife, I’d become somewhat depressed and reserved. I’d just started at a company designing brake systems for jet aircraft, and she was a vice president’s secretary. I can remember the day I first saw her. I had to go up to the executive offices to present a report for our fail analysis, something I hated to do since it involved enough questions to choke a mule. Jane was at a desk just outside the vice president’s office, trying to repair a heel that had come off one of her shoes. Her legs were crossed and she was wearing a modest skirt that had ridden up her thighs as she examined the break in her shoe. I couldn’t help but notice she had great legs. I told her this later when we were married, after she’d asked me what was the first thought that went through my head when I saw her. She’d slapped me hard on the shoulder and called me something equivalent to male swine, but I could always see in her eyes that she liked it. I offered to help her fix her shoe, and after some prodding, she let me take it back to the workshop downstairs, where I applied a simple bonding compound on the break. You would have thought I moved the earth an inch.
We married a year later, and nine months after that our daughter was born. We called her Sara, after Jane’s grandmother, and when a baby boy followed a short time later, I got the honors and we named him Jack. I always liked the name Jack; it’s a good, sturdy name, the name of a detective or a construction worker. Someone tough who wouldn’t be bothered by the stresses of the world or phantom fears that came and went without boundaries or concern.
For the first few years of our marriage I tried to keep the fear and the drinking a secret from Jane. I kept a flask of vodka in the back of my sock drawer, tucked behind a divider. She knew I didn’t like storms, but I usually retreated to our bedroom when one came and sipped from the flask until everything faded to an acceptable level.
One rainy Saturday afternoon she caught me slumped in the corner of our bathroom, the flask loose in my grip. There was a falling-out. A reckoning, if you will. At first she just asked questions calmly, but by the end both of our voices were raised. It wasn’t until Jack knocked politely on the door to our room that we both stopped. She asked me to go to counseling and I refused on the grounds that I’d already tried that for years and it had solved nothing. I wouldn’t have some quack tell me I needed a bottle of pills and to come to terms with my fears. But, in truth, I knew why I didn’t want to go back. In my own way I’d found how to cope, but it was more than that—it was addiction. To put it in any other terms would be a lie. You can’t drink as much as I did for twelve years and not get addicted. I knew that I was because I’d find myself having a drink even when it was sunny or when Jane and the kids were out shopping. I remember rushing to the bathroom more than once to use mouthwash so they wouldn’t smell anything but pure, fresh mint on my breath. Addiction is the tiger in the grass. You don’t know it’s there until you feel the teeth close around your neck.
I half expected Jane to leave, to just take the kids and go, but she didn’t. She stayed, and when I explained everything to her about the anxiety and fear that took over whenever there was a storm, she understood. She relented and allowed me to drink when I wanted to and, believe it or not, it angered me that she let me do it. In some insane way I always expected her to give me an ultimatum that would force me to stop, but it never came. So the tiger pounced and locked its jaws in place, and that was how we lived our lives.
I remember the last storm. I’d been tracking it on the weather radar all morning at work. My job as lead design manager dried up along with the company two years before, and we’d moved back to my hometown in the northern part of the state. At the time there was nothing resembling what I really wanted to do, what my degree said I could do, so I settled for a mechanic’s position at a small shop on the edge of town. I worked with the smell of grease and oil in my nostrils every day until it felt like the only odor I’d ever known. When I clocked out that particular night, it was almost six and the evening sun was gone, lost behind pallid layers of gray clouds. The trees were beginning to tip like wavering tops in the wind. I drove as fast as I could to our small development and pulled into my spot beside Jane’s minivan. A fat raindrop splattered on the windshield as I got out, and I bolted up the steps before any other cold drops could touch my skin. The wind tugged at my shirt and I shivered. It was uncommonly cool for the first week of June, even for Minnesota, where sometimes you had to wear a sweatshirt in July. Our house was a modest one-level identical to three others in our neighborhood, but Jane made it comfortable and our own in the way I think only women can.
I came inside and shut the door against the storm. The smell of cooking beef met me and I inhaled the small comfort it brought. There was the pounding of little feet and then Jack was in my arms, his six-year-old body so warm, it always felt like he had a fever.
“Dad, you’re late again!”
“I know, I’m sorry, buddy.”
“Are you shivering?” he asked, his little head tilted to one side.
I tried to smile. “Just chilly outside.”
“Dad! It’s summertime. You can’t be cold.”
“It’s the storm,” Sara said as she rounded the corner to the mudroom. Her hair was drawn back beneath a headband, exposing her mother’s features. It still stunned me how much she, at only eight, resembled Jane, and I knew she would become as beautiful as her mother before she hit fifteen.
“Hi, kiddo,” I said as she came to my side.
“Hi, Dad. It is the storm, right?” she asked, hugging me around the waist.
I nodded. “Yeah, just the storm. I’ll feel better when I get settled.” I set Jack on his feet and he rushed off to his room, no doubt remembering his Legos desperately needed to be built into something grand. Sara trailed after me into the kitchen, her eyes glancing around the room as if she would find a way to ask the question she held by searching the walls and ceilings.
“What is it, honey?” I asked as I squirted a generous amount of soap into my blackened hands. Sara hopped onto a barstool on the opposite side of the counter and smiled.
“How did you know I wanted to ask something?”
“I can read you like a book.”
Again the smile. “Ashley asked me to come to a sleepover tomorrow night at her house, and I wondered if I could ride the bus there.”
“Well, let me talk to Mom and we’ll see. Are you okay with staying all night at her house?”
“Yeah, Ashley just got an American Girl doll for her birthday and I’m going to bring mine, and we’re going to play house.”
I chuckled as I attempted to scrub the grime from beneath my fingernails. No matter how many times I washed my hands the dirt never really seemed to go away. “Well, it’s fine with me, but I’ll check—” My voice was lost in a parade of thunder and I stopped. My heart did a funny flip, as if it were doing a trapeze act in my chest.
“Okay, Daddy?”
I swallowed as the vestiges of thunder rolled across the sky. “Yeah, just fine. Why don’t you go play in your room for a few minutes?” Her eyes, the only feature she’d inherited from me, searched my face for a moment, and I wondered when she’d become so much older than her years.
“Okay,” she finally said, and disappeared through the archway, into the living room.
I dried my hands and fumbled a glass tumbler from the cabinet. Without bothering for ice, I went to the pantry and pulled the dark bottle of rum from the highest shelf. I filled the glass half full and took two swallows. The burn of the liquid as it first went down was like finding the right key to a lock after searching for hours. Immediately my muscles began to unclench and my breathing deepened. I put the bottle back on the shelf and stepped out of the pantry, almost running into my wife as she rounded the corner.
“Jesus! You scared me,” she said, putting a hand against the wall.
“Sorry.” I leaned in and kissed her. She smacked her lips and raised her eyebrows when I pulled away.
“Wow, I think I have a buzz now.”
I sighed and turned toward the fridge to pull out a bottle of iced tea. My hand shook a little when I registered a flash of lightning through the window above the sink. I topped off the glass and set the bottle of tea on the counter; I’d need it again soon enough.
“How bad is this one supposed to be?” she asked, occupying the stool Sara sat on only minutes before. Thunder grumbled nearby and my gaze shifted to the ceiling involuntarily.
“It looks pretty severe. No tornado warnings out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we got a few later.” I saw a crestfallen look ripple through her features and knew what she was thinking. “I’ll only have a couple,” I said.
She nodded without looking at me, but managed a smile after a few seconds. “There’s burgers still warm in the pan.”
“Sounds great. I’m going to shower first,” I said, heading for the door to our room. Before the shower got hot, my drink was gone. The storm was quieter in the bathroom and the streams of scalding water helped iron my nerves a little.
By the time I changed into a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt, I felt almost normal. I heard my son singing a theme song to a cartoon in his room, although I couldn’t place which one it was. Jane was folding laundry in the living room, and I tried to make as little noise as possible while I poured my second drink of the night.
“Sara wants to stay at Ashley’s tomorrow for a sleepover,” I said as I leaned against the archway.
“What did you tell her?” Jane asked.
“That I’d check with the emperor of the house before I gave her my blessing.”
She shot me mocking look and stuck out her tongue. “It’s okay with me.”
“Good, I’ll tell her.” I started walking across the living room, toward Sara’s door.
“Michael?” My full name stopped me in my tracks. She called me by that only when she had something important to say. “Please, just a couple tonight?” I looked down at the floor, a tumult of emotions rip-tiding through me.
“Yes, I’ll try,” I said. I started walking and after two steps the lights flickered. I tried to stifle the breath that my lungs attempted to heave inward in panic. The answering machine beeped to life in the kitchen, and I took a long pull from my glass, leaving only an inch of liquid at the bottom.
Sara sat on her bed combing the hair of her prize doll, Megan. She’d saved her money for nearly six months to purchase the toy, and even after several talks about the high cost, she went ahead and bought it. To her credit, it almost never left her side at home, the doll’s dark hair and stylish red dress staples amongst the other stuffed animals that adorned her bed at night.
I sat down beside her on the bed, my weight pushing the mattress down so that she fell off balance and tipped into me, laughing.
“Dad, you’re too heavy!”
I scrunched my face and looked at the bed. “No, this bed’s just a piece of junk. We’ll have to get you a stronger one.”
She giggled. “I heard you guys talking.”
“About what?”
“About my sleepover.”
“You little eavesdropper.”
She frowned. “What’s an eavesdropper?”
“Someone who listens in on other people’s conversations,” I said.
“That doesn’t make any sense. How would you hear someone if you were dropping off their eaves?”
I laughed and hugged her. “You’re right as usual. And yes, you can stay at Ashley’s tomorrow.”
She hugged me back and leapt from the bed to her closet, her feet barely touching the carpet. “Awesome! I’m gonna pack right now! I’ll have to take Megan’s party dress and her brush and her shiny shoes.”
“Don’t forget your own clothes,” I said, standing. I’m not sure if she heard me. Her head was buried beneath a pile of blankets, in search of her doll’s necessary items. I smiled and left her to it.
I crossed the hall and peeked into Jack’s room. He was there, in the middle of the floor, toys of all kinds spread around him as if he were at the epicenter of a G.I. Joe–Lego explosion. The wind moaned outside and nudged the house, causing loud creaks and cracks. I finished my drink and set the empty glass on the floor of the hallway. My head swam as I stood up and took a deep breath. The rum was doing its job. I pushed the door open and stood there, watching my son play for a moment. His little fingers spun a bright yellow Lego in several different directions before seating it into a makeshift wall his army men hid behind. I traced my memory back as far as I could go and tried to remember a time when I’d been as carefree as he was right then. Soft images came to me: playing cards with my father, a simple game of go fish, I think; my mother humming a soundless tune, her hands thrust in soapy dishwater while I pushed small cars around her feet. But that was all. The rest was a choppy blur of rain and low clouds that made my guts writhe. I steadied myself and stepped into his room.
“Whatcha doing, champ?”
“Playin’ Joes.” He didn’t raise his head from the small figures on the floor. I knelt beside him, picked up a particularly frightening member of Cobra, and made the figure’s knees flex wildly.
“You Joes are cowards! Hiding behind a wall!” I said in a mockingly high voice, and followed it up with a raspberry that made Jack’s eyes widen and then close with belly laughs. “Laughing at me? I’ll show you!” I made the figure trudge up to the wall Jack had built and aim a kick at its bottom. “Ow, oh no, I broke my foot!” I cried.
That did it. Jack fell backward in gales of laughter. I watched him, giggling a little myself, painfully aware of how brittle and fleeting this moment was. There would come a time when he wouldn’t laugh so easily at his father’s simple jokes. Someday the toys he loved so fervently would be packed away and forgotten. I hoped he wouldn’t forget the feeling of easy laughter, or the joy he got from the make-believe worlds he created, or what it felt like to be young.
Jack opened his eyes as his laughter subsided, and sat back up. “You’re so funny, Dad. You should be on TV.”
“Am I better than Diego?”
He thought for a few seconds. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“You guess so? Come here!” I yelled, and began tickling him. He screamed laughter again and rolled away from me. Thunder slammed overhead and echoed into the deepening night like a rockslide. I sat up, my throat tightening, threatening to strangle me right there on the floor. A small hand on my arm brought me back, and I looked down at Jack’s upturned face.
“It’s okay, Dad. The storm’s outside and it can’t get in.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, and the sadness I only allowed myself in moments of complete solitude tried to rise. Sadness for feeling so paralyzed that my six-year-old had to comfort me, sadness for sitting in his room with booze on my breath, sadness for feeling like a failure.
I leaned over and kissed him on the top of his head. “I know, buddy. You’re too smart, you know that?”
He just smiled and came closer. “Dad?” he asked in a whisper.
“Yeah?” I whispered back.
“Can I have a candy bar?”
I burst out laughing again. “Sure, buddy.” He responded with a small whoop and raced out the door, nearly tripping on my empty glass.
Before I made it back to the living room, I heard Jack exclaim to Jane that he was having a treat at my bidding. Jane raised an eyebrow at me as I walked through, and I merely shrugged and acted as if it was the first I’d heard of it. As I came closer to her, I could smell the familiar fragrance of her shampoo mixed with her own, more subtle scent. It was the smell of her skin, organic and real and singular to her. I put my hand on the small of her back and guided her away from the laundry. Her face was close to mine and a little smile played at the corner of her mouth. I kissed her. In that moment—with my children happy, one in the kitchen, one in the bedroom, my wife pulled against me—I was content. I savored it. We finally moved apart, Jane’s smile now complete.
“What was that for?”
“Because I love you,” I said, simply. She hugged me close again and my eyes strayed to the window at her back. I stiffened.
Our front yard was dark. Darker than any yard should be on a June evening, a little past seven. Night had come early with the storm. Clouds thicker than I’d ever seen before coated the sky just above the tree line surrounding our home. I expected the tallest tops of the pines to actually scrape the hide of the storm at any moment. But what approached from the west cooled my blood and sent a runner of fear down my spine. A roiling whirlpool of clouds turned in a flattened spiral formation in the sky. It was enormous. Lanky tendrils of root-like thunderheads trailed up to a central black eye that rotated, swallowing the rain-laden clouds and spitting lightning every few seconds.
“Jesus” was all I managed. Jane pulled away from me and turned to the window. A hand went to her mouth.
“Is it a tornado?” she asked, transfixed by the swirling storm outside.
“I don’t think so, but we can’t be too sure.” Thunder roared like an enraged freight train and lightning touched one of the trees across the street, creating a shower of sparks and flying wood.
I swore and pulled Jane back from the window, my hands shaking on her shoulders. “Get Sara,” I said. She nodded and ran toward the opposite end of the house. I made my way to the kitchen, my knees threatening to drop me to the floor every few steps. Jack sat at the counter, contentedly chewing on a chocolate bar. “Jack, sit down in the archway, right now.”
Something in my voice must have registered, because his eyes widened and he nodded. Without so much as a word, he slid from the stool and went to the main archway leading to the living room and sat at its base. I turned to the pantry, my heart leaping in alarming directions within my rib cage. The bottle of rum was in my hand before I knew it, and I put it to my lips and swallowed one, two, three gulps before I had to take a breath. I shook my head as I capped the rum and set it in its place, noting with crazed amusement that it was almost empty.
There was a loud snapping sound, like a hundred rubber bands breaking at once, and the lights went out.
“Honey?” Jane’s voice was high and tight with worry. I stumbled from the pantry, amazed at how black the house was. I made out the oblong shape of the counter and the islands of stools beside it. Just a few more steps and the archway should be there. Lightning lit up my path, and in its flicker I saw my family huddled together in the archway, Jane’s arms cuddling both of the kids close, their small faces white in the electric glare. They looked scared. Perhaps more frightened than me, but I doubted it.
“Flashlight,” I said and turned back to the kitchen. Wind pushed at the walls and made the house moan like a ship at sea, as I finally found the drawer I was looking for. Pencils, pens, paper, coupons ... finally my fingers touched the hard barrel of the Fenix light I kept there. I clicked the bulbous switch and cool, white light flooded the ceiling. I swung the flashlight around and focused on my family again, securing them in the beam. My nerves still felt like ragged live wires, but I could breath and my heart had slowed to a normal rate. I made my way around the end of the counter as lightning strobed again, suffusing everything.
My flashlight fluttered with it.
I stopped, sure I had imagined it. The beam was steady, and I could see Jane raising a hand to block its glow. A word seemed balanced on her lips—perhaps a plea to shine it away from them? I didn’t find out because lightning flashed again at that moment and my flashlight went out for good. I stood, stunned for what felt like an eternity, shock radiating through me as my mind tried to catch up with what had happened. Electromagnetic charge in the air from the storm short-circuited the minute board within the light? Batteries dead? Coincidence? I shook the light. Nothing. Flicked the switch on and off. Nothing.
A roaring began to build beyond the roof, as if a wildfire burned above us. It grew louder with every passing second, and I wondered if this was what everyone meant when describing a tornado’s sound. Raising my head, I realized I was still flash blind from the combined brightness of the lightning and flashlight. There was a floating afterimage in the darkness of the living room. Three glowing, elongated shapes hung there in the black. I blinked, thinking they would be there on the inside of my eyelids too, but instead they disappeared. My stomach lurched. I opened my eyes as the golden points of light grew and sharpened in the room beyond my family. I tried to run. I tried to move to them, to pull them away from what my senses had already deemed real but my mind refused to accept.
The giant eyes and mouth hovered in the darkness. The mouth smiled.
I let out a half scream as lightning flared again, and I saw inhumanly long arms and hands scooping my wife and children into an embrace. Thunder roared and the floor shuddered beneath my feet. I lunged toward the doorway as the lights came on, in a mockery of my horror. I tripped over a stool and fell to my knees in the now-vacant archway. My family was gone.
Hey guys, a few quick thoughts today and a little announcement.
Yesterday I hit a major milestone in my writing career. My latest novel, Singularity, really took off from the free giveaway I did last week which propelled me into the top 100 on Amazon UK! It stopped and held at #74 for most of the day. Can't be more pleased right now, just thought I'd share since I'm still riding high. Currently it's ranked #108 and is #2 in horror, horror thrillers, and police procedurals.
Now onto the important stuff. The idea for the post today has been hovering in my mind for some time and I never really realized it was a substantial thought until now.
What does it mean to have a reader's trust?
This question might be more difficult to answer if you're an author than if you're a reader. I know, I know, if you're an author then you're a reader, but sometimes I think authors get sidetracked with the million other things that go into writing a book, and that's fine. In fact if you do most things well in writing a story then you don't have to worry as much about your reader's trust, but in any case here's just a few of my ideas on what the answer to the question above means.
Hey everyone, just a little plug today for my latest novel. The title is Singularity and it came out this morning on Kindle with paperback to follow within the next week. You can take a peek at it here. Really appreciate any feedback and comments you have and thanks so much for stopping by!
Hey guys, little change of pace this week. Doing a blog hop and answering some questions about my newest work. Enjoy!
So, what is a blog hop? Basically, it’s a way for readers to discover authors new to them. I hope you'll find new-to-you authors whose works you enjoy. On this stop on the blog hop, you'll find a bit of information on me and one of my books and links to four other authors you can explore!
My gratitude to fellow author, Adrienne deWolfe, for inviting me to participate in this event. You can click the following links to learn more about Adrienne and her books.
Her Next Big Thing: http://writingnovelsthatsell.com/blog-hop-for-authors/2013/01/
Her Website:
Her books: http://ebookdiscovery.com/AdrienneDeWolfe.html
In this blog hop, my fellow authors and I, in our respective blogs, have answered ten questions about our current book or work-in-progress (giving you a sneak peek). We've also included some behind-the-scenes information about how and why we write what we write--the characters, inspirations, plotting and other choices we make. I hope you enjoy it!
Please feel free to comment and share your thoughts and questions. Here is my Next Big Thing!
Q: What is the title of your upcoming release?
A: The title is Singularity, the cover is at the top of the page. It will go live on Tuesday, January 29th.
Q: Where did the idea come from for the book?
A: The idea for the book came right after I finished Lineage, my first novel. The area in which I live in was struck by a monumental downpour that created flash floods in several towns and cities, especially the neighboring city of Duluth. The idea for the story spawned from hearing about another town called Moose Lake and a prison that is nearby. The town itself was surrounded by water and when I heard about it I wondered what would happen if the prison instead of the town was cut off, and Singularity was born.
Q: What genre does your book come under?
A: The genre doesn't fall in one specific category but in several. This story is a police procedural, has elements of horror, and takes the fast pace of a thriller all in one. I think that by blending genres an author can create a more satisfying story that touches on many levels.
Q: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
A: Wow. If I had to pick I would probably choose Clive Owen to play the lead character of Sullivan Shale and Dean Norris from Breaking Bad to play his partner Barry Stevens.
Q: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A: A haunted BCA agent travels to an isolated prison during a torrential downpour to investigate a horrendous murder of one of the inmates.
Q: Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency?
A: It is self-published.
Q: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
A: The first draft took about four months to produce writing in the evenings and on weekends.
Q: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
A: My beta readers have compared it to Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane and Pines by Blake Crouch.
Q: Who or what inspired you to write this book?
A: I was basically inspired by the idea of the setting: a prison surrounded by a flood in which the water is rising higher and higher. Other than that the thought of writing a creepy police procedural was very enticing and it turned out to be a lot of fun.
Q: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
A: This is truly for fans of police procedurals and horror fans. Once the stage is set the action and sequences are pretty much non-stop until the end. I think anyone who likes a fast paced thriller with touches of horror will really enjoy it.
Below you will find authors who will be joining me virtually, via blog, next Wednesday. Please be sure to bookmark their sites, and add them to your calendars for updates on their upcoming books! Happy Writing and Reading!
Thanks very much for everyone stopping by!
So as the title of the post says I've had a short lull in blogging. This time of year always seems to be the busiest for me, as I'm sure it is with most people. I'm about to begin a few final edits on my second novel Singularity which I'll be posting updates on as I get closer to a release date. Also within the last few strides of finishing my latest WIP which should be done in the next week or so.
Part of my absence from blogging has also been attributed to my computer being a major pile of worthless crap as it wouldn't allow me to use the internet for a period of two weeks. Finally got it fixed today and am purchasing a new computer today.
Little side-note, I'm giving away my collection of horror stories away today only for free on Amazon, so check it out if you get a chance. The link is below if you're so inclined-
Other than that it's business as usual around here. Hope everyone had a great holiday and be safe tonight if out gallivanting. Cheers!
Just a quick thought I had today guys. I heard a quote quite awhile back that Glen Krisch said on Twitter and I'm not sure if it's his own or not, but I liked it and it went something like this: "You know what's harder than writing the first draft? Writing the second draft first."
There's so much truth in that statement I can barely explain it. But I'll try.
As a writer your brain sometimes gets in the way. And this isn't just relegated to the profession of writing, it can happen to anyone doing anything that requires a little bit of instinct. That's right, instinct. The force that guides you back to bed in the dark without rapping your shin against the chair you meant to move earlier in the day. Instinct is a basic sense of direction, content, and character for a writer. I sum up the idea with four words:
Just tell the story.
What I mean by this is when I'm writing my first draft I fly without instrumentation. I try to write by the seat of my pants, without judgement or nail biting. I just try to tell the story. I've gotten trapped before, writing a page so slowly and carefully, making sure I portrayed a scene just right until I realized what I was doing. I was trying to write perfectly the first time through. The first draft is not for perfection. Neither is the second or the third, but definitely not the first.
The first draft is revving the engine and popping the clutch just to listen to your tires burn out. The first draft is jumping off the dock without checking the water temperature first. The first draft is swinging so high on the swing you feel like you're going to fly off. The first draft is freedom.
So I try not to get too wound up about minor errors or if a sentence sounded odd. That's what the second and third and even the fourth drafts are for. That's when you take your nasty looking stone and pop it in the tumbler until it's shining and bright. The first draft is simple.
Just tell the story.
Hey guys, Happy Holloween! My favorite holiday of the year is here and I wanted to wish everyone a fun and safe outing tonight.
Little update: I entered a flash fiction challenge over at the very talented Chuck Wendig's site TerribleMinds a few weeks ago and lo and behold, I won. You can see my story here .
Now, onward and forward. Just some quick musings this week on the interim of completing a project and beginning a new one.
I just recently finished my second novel and I have a new idea for my third which will be wholly unlike anything else I've done, but I got to thinking about the process of birthing ideas, or more exactly where they come from. I always try to include a little explanation in my books about where I got the ideas for them but then I asked myself, but really, where do they start?
Hell if I know.
This new story spawned from seeing a few dead leaves floating along the ground as I took a walk with my family. In a period of five minutes I had characters stepping out of the darkness and into shadow, a plot that is ambitious but doable, and a new POV for me for storytelling.
All I can tell you is that stories seem to be something organic to each and every one of us. Stephen King says they're always there and we find them, dig them up. I agree. They're inside of us all whether we know it or not. From the quagmire of our dreams, fears, sins, and choices they emerge and slither to the forefront of our minds. In my case they're usually nightmares that come to me in the day. I'm just tickled that I'm able to express them into something that other people can enjoy.
So whether the ideas for your work come from nature, your family, or your subconscious, the most important thing you can do is grab them by the throat and hold them up to the light to see what they're made of. You may be surprised by what you find.
Hey guys, just a quick one this week, more or less a random thought. I want to touch on a subject at times glossed over when writers talk about a novel or story they're working on. The topic today is- theme.
Ahh yes, theme. It's the, how would you put it? The very, well, I would compare it to... Yeah. Theme is either there or it isn't in a story. At times I think writers have a theme without knowing it in certain pieces of work. I know Stephen King has said The Tommyknockers was his alliteration of addiction. I'm not sure if he meant to do it or not, but I'll wager somewhere down deep that message was trying to get out.
Because that's all theme really is folks, a message.
Deep, buried beneath the story, plot, and characters, there's a message. For example my novel Lineage (I'm not going to link the title of my book to the Amazon page when I'm just referring to it as an example since I hate when people do that on their blogs) was basically about coming to terms with one's past so as to move on to the future.
Pretty simple, huh?
I have found novels and stories without theme before and they can be entertaining but most times they're not. Personally I think people are looking to walk away from a story holding something inside. A story should touch the reader in some way. It should have meaning, pathos, something that the reader relates to and can sit back in their recliner and say, "Yeah, I get that. Hmmm. I'm gonna think on that a little. Now where's my beer?"
Ok, maybe not the last part, but you know what I mean. Theme flows throughout the story and comes from the character's pores, the plot's twists and turns, the resolution whether good or bad.
So the next time you're reading something see if you can glean what the author's really getting at by writing those hundred thousand words or so. Because it's in there, and if it isn't, it should be. :)
May your fingers be nimble on your keys
And the blank page a welcome instead of a foreboding sea of white
May your characters speak to you and for you with voices of their own
May you write a thousand words of truth everyday
Without a hint of self doubt
May your critics enlighten you
May your friends and family encourage you
To step after your dreams
May your plots be tight and without holes
And your adverbs limited
May you find your audience or your audience find you
May your ideas flourish in the light of a thousand minds
And blossom into stories that will never be forgotten.
I took a little hiatus over the past month, please don't yell at me, I've been writing my keister off on my novel which is about three weeks away from being done. I'm very excited but that's not what I'm writing about tonight. Tonight I'd like to just say a few words about an aspect of the writing industry that I just recently realized: it's the friendliest profession in the world.
Now, that's a pretty profound statement but hear me out. The reason being that it's the friendliest is there's no actual competition between writers. Sure you may compare yourself to another author or be a little jealous when he or she is outselling you but the nice thing about books is they are a 100 % renewable resource. A person doesn't go on Amazon, spend three months researching which book they'd like to purchase and then take another five years to read it. The people that are true readers read several books a month, at least I know I do, and there's millions of them out there! Personally I've been so happy to help out a few fellow indie author's lately. Whether it's been on Twitter, Facebook, or just by purchasing a copy of the book.
A great example of authors helping authors is Mr. Griffin Hayes. He's a really great guy who's written some pretty scary stuff. Right now his first novel Malice is selling really well on Amazon. Griffin was kind enough to interview me on his own blog which can be found here. By having me on his blog it helped draw more people to his books while also giving me exposure which is really great.
All in all I can't say enough good things about the other authors I've met so far. Even some of the bigger names like Jeremy C. Shipp and Michael R. Hicks have responded to me when I've sent them messages and I have no doubt that in the future they would help me with a project if I asked them. (Just a side note, I've noticed that these really successful authors put their middle initial as part of their name. A coincidence? Perhaps not. Maybe I should do that too. Hmmm.... I'll mull that one over for awhile.)
Anyways, that's my dose of love for the week. Basically just giving a shout out to all the authors out there that realize the more people read, not only their books but everyone else's too, that we'll all be better off. Until next time, keep writing, reading and I'll catch up with you soon.
Hey everyone, just a quick post this week about styles of writing in the horror genre in general. There seems to be two definitive approaches to horror writing these days. One is the psychological horror (I would say a lot of Kealan Patrick Burke's stuff falls under this heading) and gore horror (Edward Lee is proficient at this one).
My recent publication, Midnight Paths, is mostly gore horror with a few stories of mind warping going on in the midst of all the blood and guts. In my opinion, a really creepy book has a good mixture of both, Stephen King has done this countless times, and if a story is completely composed of one or the other it might be too lopsided to run so to speak. I like to refer to one of my favorite movies as a perfect example of psychological horror- Signs, by M. Night Shyamalan. For most of this film you don't see the bogeyman. You know he's there, by the fear seen in the characters, glimpses of something in the corn field, and mainly in the threat of losing something precious. If you haven't seen this movie, go get it right now, don't wait, go right now and watch it, you won't be sorry.
In my new novel I've tried to expand on the psychological side of horror instead of relying too much on scaring people with broken bones and eviscerated corpses. I hope to be done by the beginning of June and will post a release date here in the future.
Well, that's it for this week, just a random thought I had and figured I'd share. Feel free to post your comments and thoughts!
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