Month: June 2017

Interview About a Vampire

Having recently published my flash-fiction that was the genesis of Cursed Hearts, the folks at Uprising Review were kind enough to follow on and request I submit to an interview.  They seem a sound lot, so I do not think I’m violating Vox Day’s dictum about aiding the enemy.

The interview is here.  After that, please look over the rest of their site:  lots of good stories and commentary; bookmark them and come back often.  I do.

I really would like an answer to the question I posited:  what is it about horror, specifically, the notion of being eaten, that so fascinates people?

The Problem…

…with the dictum of “write drunk, edit sober” is finding the time.  To be sober.  Still, I’ve made the time and had three editing passes at CH.  The third and last – of mine – was tonight.  Just after, I sent it off to a copyeditor I hired from Upwork.com, recommended to me by someone I trust.  I wrote up a story summary, what I wanted, and what I was willing to pay.

A week later (sober!), I reviewed the list of about thirty applicants for my job.  Most of the replies were reasonable.  A few were laughable:  “While no editing experience, I’ve a Masters in English from [insert liberal arts college here] and plenty of time to work on your manuscript while working as a barrista!”  I’ve never grasped why we import Central Americans to mow our lawns when someone from Kenyon can do it; and they’re just up the road.

What’s one of my sig lines, kids?  That’s right:  there are no such things as coincidences.  One of the applicants – with lots of experience – also went to UC San Diego.  I didn’t ask if she was Catholic, but with a surname of San Nicolas, I bet she knows where the Neuman Center is, which looms so large in the lives of Cat and Chris.  After a brief exchange to make sure she was okay with sex and violence, I clicked “Hire.”

I look forward to her telling me how awful CH is.  And, how to fix it.

Now:  where to find designers for the cover…

Fate/Cursed Hearts

Self-publishing is a fantastic byproduct of our modern age.  But, when someone approaches you and says, “hey, your stuff’s pretty good; can we publish it?” that’s wonderfully gratifying to a writer’s ego.

A year ago I came up with a short story called “It’s Just Business.”  Today, it was published by Uprising Review.

That short was the genesis of the idea behind “Cursed Hearts.”  Is it a coincidence that a week to the day when I finished writing CH, someone wants to publish the source material?  Of course not:

There are no such things as coincidences!

“Two trains leave the station…”

We all hated word problems in math.  To commemorate this, forty years on, I created a word problem for myself in English:  Chris leaves home on day -1, arriving in San Diego on day 0; the story between Chris and Cat unfolds, coming to a head when little sister drops into their love nest on day 12.

From the other side, Maya leaves home on day 1, spends some time in a hospital, travels by freighter then airplane, arriving in San Diego on day 16.

16 – 12 = 4.

Well, crap.  I knew there was going to be a discrepancy, but four days?!  So, putting down the coffee and picking up the wine, I did this to the Chris/Cat side:

 A week had passed since their dinner and the odd ceremony Cat and Anton had performed on him. Although he did not understand, it had been efficacious in at least one way: his need to feed on the life force of animals was significantly lessened. Beyond that, home life with Cat had settled into a simple routine where they helped one another as much as they could. Chris still occasionally wondered whether he was imposing, but never detected that feeling from his cousin. If anything, she grew closer to him, both emotionally and physically, although it seemed something held her back from taking the next step, even after her ‘incident’ in the shower. Ah, well, he thought.

That gives me CC at +3 over M.  Sooo…

“She’s made remarkable progress in her recovery over the past three days, barring her memory, of course.” He took a drink of his coffee.

See what I did there?  Now the stories synch, with all my main character getting together for the bloodletting on day 19.  Back to coffee.

Church mice

Coming to around 1000 at my day-job, I had a moment of clarity:  for the last seven months, all my waking moments had been filled with Chris, Cat, and Maya somewhere in my mind.

For the past 36 hours:  all quiet.

The mental moment was this:  I was in a darkened – but not dark – older church, alone. A place that was just recently host to a hundred, and soon will be again, but now preternatuary still.

At the end of T4L, I’d already seen the sequel.  The close of EFL was a ‘LOL’ moment, as kids would type.

Alone, looking at three graves of those that have been, not a part of me, but me… well… it’s very quiet, now.

Don’t like it.