My spin on an updated version of a classic ghost story is complete. I have some editing to do, for sure, but I handed it over to my wife for a read and she seemed quite affected. I had to clarify her opinions, but her reaction was ultimately positive, though she admitted to feeling disturbed.
Once this story is completely edited and print-ready, I have about six or seven more to prepare before I will be able to start down the road to publication.
When I reach the end of the line and can hold the completed collection in my hands, I intend to throw a party or something. I mean, I’m not a very social person, but why the hell not?
Now, to bed and then on to the next tale!
Friday, March 6, 2020
Thursday, March 5, 2020
Writing Progress and Feeling Weird About Ghosts
Yesterday, I spent most of the day working on a weird tale which borrowed from my experiences as a boy in Florida as much as it did from my interests in odd and horrific fiction. I wrote for hours, getting out well over three thousand words, but as I surveyed my progress and the consistency of the tale I realized that I was making a mess of my original intention.
I have abandoned that story for the time being.
Today, though, I am in the midst of another series of hours of pouring out words. This time the story is different, and I'm getting a little too invested in it. I decided to write my version of an update on the model of a classic ghost story. Like the story from yesterday, this one also borrows from my past experiences, as I find myself loosely following the old, "Write what you know" directive.
I'm tapping into a cold February from years ago, in a historic town where my wife and I managed to escape for an unforgettably strange, yet charming Valentine's Day. The story doesn't involve the holiday as much as it focuses on the oddity which is the Victorian bed and breakfast, and it goes into the feel of an old town and the old establishments which comprise the town. There are also ghosts, because a ghost story would be kind of crap without them.
The trouble with trying to capture the feel of a good ghost story, I find, is that you tend to creep yourself out and cultivate a mild paranoia about the quiet corners of your home. I try to get into the moments and the atmosphere when I write, and when I do this in a ghost story it creeps me out, thoroughly.
Regardless of my personal terror at my own process, I'm hoping to try and sell this story, if at the end of its composition I am satisfied with it. However, if it doesn't sell, I will certainly be placing it in my short story collection.
Anyway, back to the writing. Progress updating and blog massaging for this day is complete!
I have abandoned that story for the time being.
Today, though, I am in the midst of another series of hours of pouring out words. This time the story is different, and I'm getting a little too invested in it. I decided to write my version of an update on the model of a classic ghost story. Like the story from yesterday, this one also borrows from my past experiences, as I find myself loosely following the old, "Write what you know" directive.
I'm tapping into a cold February from years ago, in a historic town where my wife and I managed to escape for an unforgettably strange, yet charming Valentine's Day. The story doesn't involve the holiday as much as it focuses on the oddity which is the Victorian bed and breakfast, and it goes into the feel of an old town and the old establishments which comprise the town. There are also ghosts, because a ghost story would be kind of crap without them.
The trouble with trying to capture the feel of a good ghost story, I find, is that you tend to creep yourself out and cultivate a mild paranoia about the quiet corners of your home. I try to get into the moments and the atmosphere when I write, and when I do this in a ghost story it creeps me out, thoroughly.
Regardless of my personal terror at my own process, I'm hoping to try and sell this story, if at the end of its composition I am satisfied with it. However, if it doesn't sell, I will certainly be placing it in my short story collection.
Anyway, back to the writing. Progress updating and blog massaging for this day is complete!
Wednesday, March 4, 2020
Cringing, Sighing, Shame, and What's Been Happening Here for Almost a Decade
If you want to embarrass most writers, or at least knock them off their guard, you should seek out their old work and show it to them. You will probably witness eye rolls, looks of revulsion, sighs of shame, and maybe even a knowing chuckle.
I have been writing since I was a small child, and I have been writing here, on this blog, since May of 2010. I know for a fact, having reviewed my old posts here and the notebooks I've carried around for decades, that I have trailing behind me a legacy of shame and embarrassment. But as they say, "It is what it is."
Through writing all of this awkward, unquestionably bad, painfully embarrassing, and occasionally surprisingly decent material I have learned so much. Without the scraped knees and broken bones of failing to pull off the voice of others or moronically abusing the thesaurus, I wouldn't be capable of writing how I write today. Hell, I'm sure that in a year or ten I'll look back on what I create today and shake my head.
Regardless, I have to keep going. One letter after another, making words which will follow words, and eventually they'll communicate ideas or tales which may or may not shame me greatly in times to come. It's the process, and I embrace it, wincing all the way.
To those of you who have read my odd posts, ignorant ideas, silly reviews, and dumb-dumb opinions, thank you. I'm sorry for the pain, but I appreciate your support.
Maybe I'll look back on this blog in another ten years and write a similar post. Who knows?
I have been writing since I was a small child, and I have been writing here, on this blog, since May of 2010. I know for a fact, having reviewed my old posts here and the notebooks I've carried around for decades, that I have trailing behind me a legacy of shame and embarrassment. But as they say, "It is what it is."
Through writing all of this awkward, unquestionably bad, painfully embarrassing, and occasionally surprisingly decent material I have learned so much. Without the scraped knees and broken bones of failing to pull off the voice of others or moronically abusing the thesaurus, I wouldn't be capable of writing how I write today. Hell, I'm sure that in a year or ten I'll look back on what I create today and shake my head.
Regardless, I have to keep going. One letter after another, making words which will follow words, and eventually they'll communicate ideas or tales which may or may not shame me greatly in times to come. It's the process, and I embrace it, wincing all the way.
To those of you who have read my odd posts, ignorant ideas, silly reviews, and dumb-dumb opinions, thank you. I'm sorry for the pain, but I appreciate your support.
Maybe I'll look back on this blog in another ten years and write a similar post. Who knows?
News of an Upcoming Self-Publishing Project, and Other Things...
After years of self-doubt, uncertainty, apathy borne out of depression, and other nasty things, I have managed to drag myself free from the mire of creative paralysis and dedicate myself to publishing a collection of my short stories. I even have an artist in reserve for the cover, which I've been told is something quite rare for those who travel down the pathway of self-publishing.
These stories are mostly new, having been written within the last year and over the next few months. However, some of the ideas popped into my mind years ago and have sat in a sort of file box in a dusty corner of my brain ever since. It never hurts to horde ideas, but it would damage the integrity of the ideas less if one were to act on them while they were fresh instead of letting them sit unattended, to deteriorate with time.
If you were to attempt to categorize the stories which will be collected you could assign them to the genre of horror, though some fantasy might creep in, depending on the tale. It has felt most natural to write about the horrific and to meditate upon darkness, and in a way it always has. This isn't because of the ridiculous state of the world, as I'm sure most would shallowly assume or declare. It is due to the fact that my interests in literature have always tended to lean toward the dark and macabre.
I'm not some self-labeled goth, or aspiring edge-being, who's trying to express some contrived dark persona through excessively grim and cliched writings. I'm just a person who has always enjoyed the stories of the supernatural, mysterious, chilling, and unfathomably horrific, whether I read them myself or heard them spoken aloud by the people who influenced me most in my formative years. Considering the exposure I have had to horror throughout my childhood, it's actually not at all surprising that I would naturally end up outputting tales like these.
I will chronicle any and all developments here, on my now nearly decade-old blog. So, please look for the updates and blurbs I deposit about the experience. It is possible, depending on the publication and plans for marketing the book, that I will set up a separate site and blog for it, but until then, this is my home for writing my mind on the vast and unsettling Internet.
These stories are mostly new, having been written within the last year and over the next few months. However, some of the ideas popped into my mind years ago and have sat in a sort of file box in a dusty corner of my brain ever since. It never hurts to horde ideas, but it would damage the integrity of the ideas less if one were to act on them while they were fresh instead of letting them sit unattended, to deteriorate with time.
If you were to attempt to categorize the stories which will be collected you could assign them to the genre of horror, though some fantasy might creep in, depending on the tale. It has felt most natural to write about the horrific and to meditate upon darkness, and in a way it always has. This isn't because of the ridiculous state of the world, as I'm sure most would shallowly assume or declare. It is due to the fact that my interests in literature have always tended to lean toward the dark and macabre.
I'm not some self-labeled goth, or aspiring edge-being, who's trying to express some contrived dark persona through excessively grim and cliched writings. I'm just a person who has always enjoyed the stories of the supernatural, mysterious, chilling, and unfathomably horrific, whether I read them myself or heard them spoken aloud by the people who influenced me most in my formative years. Considering the exposure I have had to horror throughout my childhood, it's actually not at all surprising that I would naturally end up outputting tales like these.
I will chronicle any and all developments here, on my now nearly decade-old blog. So, please look for the updates and blurbs I deposit about the experience. It is possible, depending on the publication and plans for marketing the book, that I will set up a separate site and blog for it, but until then, this is my home for writing my mind on the vast and unsettling Internet.
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