Giddy up, Buttercup!

I may have played my hand.  

At least when it comes to my rabid consumption of all things Fallout, after watching the excellent Amazon series. I’m not enamored with the keeping feral-ghoul, madness at bay with the imbibing of mystery juice, but otherwise I really enjoyed the first season overall.

Having watched, now, like so many others, I’ve desired to revisit the Wasteland via Fallout 4.

Now, in Survival mode!

I’ve been murdered by stiff breezes.

A lot.

But it’s fun to live the trauma of the wind’s continued sadism.

As to playing my hand, the title of this work is the name of mechanical horse that you find throughout Fallout 4 in various degrees of assembly. The horse is also symbolic of the Kentucky Derby that is officially this weekend but had events for the past two weeks in the build-up for it.

I personally would attend if my handsome boy in the picture were among the horses. He looks like he’d win through pure spite or by bleeding the other horses out through massive bite, injuries.

Besides the horse festivities of the season, I’m working with my publisher to get a fall release. My manuscript has been submitted. And by manuscript, I mean the second book of the Bleed Chronicles.

And I do have a title…

…which I cannot share until my publisher gives the greenlight.

Boo? But yay!

As to upcoming events, I will be at Scarefest again this year, in Lexington, and attending a writer’s convention in Knoxville, TN. I’ll remember to refresh my attendance, when I’m not too busy dodging horror winds.

Crafting the Love?

I’d known about the Mythos (i.e. Cthulhu and his sometimes lesser known, but no less sanity blasting cohorts) long before I ever read my first Lovecraft story. This fell knowledge originated in the main from the Call of Cthulhu RPG by Chaosium.

                Really, I would have been drawn to their titles by the Chaos in their Chaosium, but I digress.

                That is a topic for another time.

                It wouldn’t be until I was a freshman in college that I first read my first, actual HP Lovecraft story, or the original stories of the Mythos as it were. Our school library had all of Lovecraft’s works in a three-piece set: all black binding and gold lettering. It needed only the Elder Sign engraven upon the spine to complete the dread pull of dark knowledge.  

                I remember being enthralled by the things that man was not meant to know. As much as I adore my darkness, I actually find much of Lovecraft’s writings too bleak. There is no respite, for humankind is insignificant and meant to die terribly or have their sanity shorn away, leaving them a drooling wretch drowning in their own filth.

                In a way, Lovecraft’s stories helped shape my own worldview, which is reflected in my work. I see strength and perseverance in my worlds. There is never a moment that is the end, if the will endures. Sure, there is darkness aplenty along with potential madness, but it is not a foregone thing. So, there is some influence on me, from Lovecraft, which goes in the opposite direction of his insectile view of humankind, which is a good thing, when you look at some of his other writings.  

                I revisited Lovecraft recently.

 I found a podcast that narrated his stories and listened, while I worked on other things. What I remember about my early, Lovecraft readings was the vehement disgust in which he described subhuman races, like his aquatic-dwelling Deep Ones. I also remember reading the “The Horror at Red Hook” and his ascribing monstrous attributes to those dwelling in the area. When I read it as a freshman, I thought it was an inhuman race he was describing, much like his Deep One. With less naivety (I hope) and experience, I believe he was actually describing people of color.

                There are Reddit posts full of Lovecraft’s racism and I know when I first read his stories, almost twenty years ago, I didn’t see it, and was generally confused when I heard it mentioned casually, after first reading his work. Hearing his stories again, now, it clicked with a literal, “Oh, there it is.”

                The Mythos is a wonderful, shared universe of cosmic horrors, and I appreciate the perspective Lovecraft’s early writings gave me to go in the opposite direction. But, when I revisit the Mythos in the future, it won’t be to Lovecraft that I go. It’ll be to those that have come after and write purely of fantastical monsters not born from prejudices.

The holidays are over. Long live…

This is Halloween, this is Halloween!

Focus, Jamie.

I looked up and noticed that I had been decidedly blogless for a tick. So, here’s to new material.

New year, new beginnings?

Not likely.

Or I’ve never been the type to use the holiday to make a resolution. If it’s something worth doing, it’s worth doing at any time of the year. Anything else is procrastination.

Even on a Wednesday.

Or a Thursday, as this happens to be.

Barring the unexpected, I will not be attending any cons until May at the earliest. Apparently, I’m obligated not to leave my day job as I the manage all aspects of our impending surprise audit, which is happening between February and May.

Boo, for lack of mobility!

Things coming up: my remembering to join the American Horror Writers association, as an actual member, and establish a timeline for the publication of the second part of the Bleed Chronicles with my publisher. To everyone new an old: thank you for hanging in there.

Note: no pacts were signed in the publication of The Bleed Chronicles. Although, I do have some spare papyrus handy, if anyone feels an inkling to sign any dotted lines. Don’t worry about the lack of ink, it will flow along shortly.

Until next time!

Where is the Work heading?

The next two books, in The Bleed Chronicles, are complete. I admit to a certain visceral thrill at the prospect of attending my next convention, with a table of books (you can blame my two Hell Priest muses, for the fleshy references from here on out).

Look ma! They’ve multiplied!

                My books have.

                Multiplied that is.

                Or will they have spawned sequels?

                What’s next?

  Publication of the aforementioned books, of course, I will likely not write supporting short fiction. Although I’ve written a number of short works over the years, I’ve never been a fan of making short stories a habit. My mind is a crowded place and doesn’t easily condense down the subject matter, once I start digging. There is a spinoff series from a minor character in Bleed Chronicles Book 2, from my having researched a “cool” name. The italics represent that I mean something else, but don’t want to reveal all, just yet.

  Speaking of cats out of the bags. I mean, I was thinking it. Like I said, a “crowded place”. Full of cats evidently. I was working on a creature feature over a year ago, with the stipulation of it not having any supernatural elements. I’d written about half of it, but decided I wasn’t happy with the no supernatural caveat. So, it’s been sitting idle, while I’ve worked on other projects, but I’m thinking of revisiting it and adding those mythic elements it was missing.

It’s already spawned a spinoff too.

In summary: cats.

Just chock full of them.

Explains the plaintive nighttime yowling.

And the smell.

But that could be something else, best to blame it on more relatable, feline references then.

Something old, something new

I’m a fan of reboots.

It may surprise you that not only have I read “Pride and Prejudice”, but I’ve also seen almost every adaptation of it to the silver screen or otherwise.

I’m not saying every reboot is stellar by any means, but my point will materialize.

Eventually.

As you may have gleaned from my bio, Harmony has been a work-in-progress for some time. But that also doesn’t indicate the true age of some of my characters.

Some of them have been engaging in shenanigans for a decade or three. So, I guess that makes them:

Experienced?

Aged?

Vintage?

Vintage sounds like that piece of clothing you insist on wearing, but your friends have the good grace to suffer its frequent reappearance in silence. We’ll work with vintage.

So, my vintage characters have their stories told in a variety of formats. They’re seeing publication now, as part of the Bleed Chronicles. I’ve written several short stories detailing their adventures. And lastly, they’ve been traipsing through my tangled tapestry of the mine.

I should probably insert an ironic “help me” here, but my characters become quite cozy in their mental, meat digs and they’re gaining a voice now, at last.

What do my vintage characters have to do with reboots?

They, like reboots, are reflective of the time they find themselves incarnated. The characters’ cores remain the same, but there have been reinterpretations and refinements to their stories. I mean, I’d like to think I’m a far more experienced storyteller than twelve-year-old me, but who knows? In almost every case these past stories have become a part of their vintage mythologies: tales or legends that are fantastical creations, but simultaneously true.

Whether you’re a fan of reboots or not, try looking at them as multiversal, alternate mythology. If you look at Greek mythology, for instance, there are many variations in those myths. Which of those myths is the “truth”, and does the “truth” actually matter?

Just what the heck am I doing?

Dramatic, I know, but I met large number of people over this past weekend, at ScareFest, and got to share what “Harmony” is actually about.

                It is better to explain the genre I use. To be fair I’m not strictly a horror author. Although I weave horrific elements into my stories, I *usually* identify my work as Dark Fantasy. There are no dragons, yet, in the world I’ve built with Harmony, but there are shades of gray reflected in all the primary actors and their actions. The Man Called Midget manipulates the energy of decay to fuel his magic and the results are sometimes, unpleasant.

                Great story material, but still, unpleasant.

                Influence wise, the setting of Warhammer Fantasy and 40k had a large influence on me, especially the grim-dark art of John Blanche. I remember an encounter describing a dwarf that had been sacrificed, arm and heart missing. Of course, it didn’t just stop with the description, no, there was a grimy black and white drawing of the dwarf in all his eviscerated glory. The imagery was a sharp departure from the clean, fantastical drawings of D&D. I was instantly hooked.

                There is fantasy in my books that takes the form of magic and supernatural creatures, but my settings are firmly grounded in the modern world and not a medieval forest or town. You are unlikely to find a tavern in my stories, perhaps a bar or two. Somehow, Emma always finds her way to the worse spots in any town.

                The Dark is the nature of my stories. Harmony is grounded in the visceral and physical and has a theme of transformation woven throughout it. The “gross” physical matter changes into something else. Is it a better state or does it putrefy and become mired in the degeneration of its own physical form and rote actions? Midget’s magic transforms. He literally shifts decay from one thing to another and what happens to the state of the thing that is Purified?

                Harmony and its sequels are the beginning of a mythic cycle that I hope you enjoy. This also leads me to the topic of names, which sounds like an excellent topic, for next week.

The artwork is from WeirdDarkness on DeviantArt, please check them out!

September is just October Eve

Sure, it’s a bit of meme cliché at the moment that’s the making the rounds of social media everywhere, but it’s also apt.

I for one am excited to welcome Halloween back. Although, I don’t think it ever truly leaves.

That would be the yearlong, Halloween decorations that I refer to as interior décor reminding me daily.

I’m back from vacation and ready to welcome Harmony back into everyone’s lives. While you can’t meet the real Harmony, as mentioned in the my previous post, the Man Called Midget will be helping run my table at Scarefest in Lexington, KY, October 20th – 22nd.

While not surgically attached to my table in the literal sense; I mean no visible sutures, running a table does not allow for much time for diversions. There are many wonderful guests in attendance, but I’ll be saving what limited time I have to see Chad Coleman and hopefully, catch up with the Terrifier 2 cast and crew.

It’s still those dastardly clowns you know that draw my attention so.

I can’t leave Midget alone too long, after all he and Harmony don’t always see eye-to-eye. Anyone know any calming mantras for mediating disputes between a rot channeling magician and Other?

Asking for a friend.

Frenemy?

Midget will be available for photo opportunities. Not that he’s agreed to anything, but I’m sure he’ll be just fine with it.

I’d say I cold write him amenable to it, but that doesn’t always work.

The Man called Midget, and clowns. So, many clowns.

Scarefest Weekend is coming up, the weekend of October 20th – 22nd, in Lexington, Kentucky. I will be attending and manning my booth with the Man Called Midget.

What’s that?

Midget isn’t real. You mean your book, “Harmony”, right?

I do not.

Although, Midget is generally the safest of my characters in telling them they aren’t real.

I mean, I wouldn’t.

But knock yourself out.

So, thankfully I do have Midget helping me run my table so I can do necessary things: rest breaks, cry breaks, food breaks, clown breaks. More cryptic details to come, as we move closer to Halloween.

I mean, conveniently the cast and writer/director of Terrifier 2 will also be attending Scarefest. And having a table helper doesn’t mean I’ll totally fanboy and get a picture taken with Art the Clown, while wearing one of my Art the Clown t-shirts.

While I’m not looking for an opportunity to fanboy and leave Midget with excuse to unleash the Bleed, you should come to my table, and ask me about influences on my books, like having been allowed to see Creepshow when I was five. I’m not certain a clown wasn’t an active participant the waking nightmares I had all night after said viewing, but I wouldn’t put it past them.

They’re tricky, those clowns. The Clown may even put in an appearance or three in “Harmony”.

I wonder what he’s gotten up to, after?

And you really can’t go to horror convention without the obligatory visitation of the evil clown horde. The Clown doesn’t mind.

His worshippers take many forms, and all things are reflective of the first.

Want to have an inkling of what the heck I’m talking about?

Come see me and the Man Called Midget in booth #102.

Tonight’s soundtrack is entitled Blood, by NoiseBox.

Photo by Robert Zunikoff on Unsplash

Never seek it out

The image above is a picture Waverly Hills Sanatorium taken on a blistering, Saturday night. For the Dead travel fast, but even they appear unable to escape the oppressive Summer heat, in which we find ourselves. Or maybe they went to Summer, somewhere more hospitable?

But I digress.

I had occasion to visit Waverly Hills for the first time, hence the photo to immortalize the event. Waverly Hills has been described, to put it bluntly, as super-haunted. I first found out about it from the film, “Death Tunnel”, which is named after the tunnel used to transport bodies, beneath the sanatorium, during the TB epidemic. The movie has little bearing on the actual experience, but at least put the sanatorium on my radar as a place to visit.

During the tour, visitors are lead to the 4th floor where they are told that unnamed atrocities occurred, during the time of a hospital that took over, after the sanatorium. When asked by our guide, who in our group wanted to proceed to the end of the shadow-haunted hallway, I immediately raised my hand and became something a tad less introverted in my excitement. After a few minutes, the guide asked if I was standing in the middle of the hallway I confirmed that I was and she described several, spectral visitors about me. Did I see or “experience” anything of what she was telling me?

No.

No ghosts or specters resolved themselves, during the two hour tour to me personally, but I recommend the experience of taking the tour. And this is where we intersect with these week’s title. I took an American Folklore class, while I was in school and one day the instructor noted how the class had a guest speaker once. I don’t remember all the particulars of his describing the speaker’s discussion save one part, and that was the speaker saying, “never seek out a supernatural occurrence.”

I asked.

Oh, believe me, I asked, what would happen, if you did do the very thing that said speaker said not to do.

Unfortunately, my professor was unforthcoming with the details that I desired.

So, I had to create my own.

Does this mean I’ve been bouncing about the country seeking out this forbidden thing that I was once told, not to do?

No.

Although, I did have the opportunity to visit the lovely Waverly Hills and remind myself of one of the “whys” of Harmony.

Harmony does this very thing and her actions allowed me to create the “what if” scenario of someone seeking out a supernatural experience via “The Bleed Chronicles” and the first book in that series, “Harmony”. More on this next week.

Gone to Texas

A lot of history, in the above title, and appropriate for my trip to and return from Texas Author Con. I know the phrase originally, from Garth Ennis’s “Preacher”: Gone to Texas. Vampires, magic…I don’t recall any actual magic, beyond divine power & divine agents.

No pesky spell casting that I recall!

The same cannot be said for “Harmony” and the world it finds itself. Magic and those pesky casters are found literally around every corner. Sometimes, even in the corners where the folds of things press in to create things of sublime mystery.

I believe, I’ve Gone to Author, this time.

What’s coming up next, for me?

Trying to fit my flighty ideas, into a form that’s readily consumable in this newsletter. But seriously, or maybe not, I will be attending Scarefest in Lexington, Kentucky come October 2023. See my lovely Events page for details and links.

I will also be trying to fix the date in my website, as I am uncertain as to why it is living in the past. My last post evidently transcending space & time by being on both July 10th 2023 & May 2019.

It’s those pesky casters a’ play again.

I am also looking at local events to host/contain my terribly wondrous writings.

More details to come.

July 10th Birthday Musings & Texas Author Con

It’s technically my birthday. Okay, it is definitely my birthday today, but I’m holding off the celebration portion until this weekend.

Well, there WAS cake.

The cake was not a lie.

This weekend (July 14 - 15) I will be at Texas Author Con, in Dallas, Texas, as one of the many talented authors invited to attend. My timeslot for speaking is 6 pm, on Saturday the 15th. Attending my speaking engagement makes a wonderful birthday gift.

It’s only a twelve hour drive.

The things I do for “Harmony”.

Speaking of Harmony, my book is celebrating its “90-days, since it’s release date.” So, it’s a weekend of birthdays. Did I mention that I’m writing a newsletter? Okay, this is the newsletter that I will fill in with my randomly-specific musings. And sometimes, there will be cake. I mean, I’ll describe it’s consumption in glowing regard.