I have decided to do a series of blogs to keep things in focus and also to let those of you who are asking what’s happening and how things are going.

In my last blog i talked about moving out of the apartment i’m in now and drifitng from place to place until my Adoptive Family Bought a new house this summer. So i will be returning to my family, returning to HOME… so this is the beginning of the Journey right now. As i sit here the rent is paid on the apt. until the 1st of March. My roommates have started packing and have already secured their new apartment ( i refuse to bring up the error of their accounting, the sudden excess money they have produced of late, or the surprise extra money in the tax return, yada yada…) While i have until March I will NOT be in this place that long.

In the last two weeks i have boxed up all my books, collectibles and other such and shipped them (in three trips) to my buddies basement. They will wait until the new house is bought and then they shall be moved to the new place… hopefully with help so it doesn’t take another three trips, LOL. My bookshelves, basses, other important elements have gone to my brothers, and I’ve already transefered my dvds and TBR to the “room” I have at my Ma’s. I will need to burrow a van or truck to move my bed but otherwise i’m confident that all will be moved within the next week.

I was only waiting for my W2’s and such so that i could file my taxes, and as of this afternoon I’m all filed and ready to go. My next day off is tuesday, so ill be running my tv, dvd player, end table, small shelf, etc over to the house.

Its all exciting, I’m already budgeting out getting my bills paid off fast and planning to have a little more fun than i’ve had in along time. Now i just ned to survive the “Room”. The room is a sqrae of space that has no ceiling, it opens into the rafters and the attic space above, also it has wide open crawlspace/ attic eaves sweeping to the left and right side of the square for the length of the house. Thos sides are jammed with assorted boxes and gear and i have heavy curtains to block off the drafts that way. The far wall and part of the ceiling have been covered with foam insulation but the ceiling directly overhead is barren and drafty… its gonna be frickin cold and then it’ll be too warm as we get ito summer.

But again, I am willing to endure, in the long run i’ll be far better off. In a new house, back with my family, surrounded by people who care that THERE and not just on the interent. (Had to say that or I’d have some comments from friends saying i thought they didn’t care, distance does matter on that sometimes.)

So there is the beginning of my journey home. I should be in there sometime this week.

In other news I have a third story out in the submission grind, I’m very excited by the whole deal and hope to have some good news on that later.

It Seems 2009 is still trying to kick me in the nuts, still trying to choke me with the last of its feeble strength. For those of you who know me personally you already know how tough last year was… 09 was a year of great loss (but balanced with some great moments and some great people mostly met on forums and Twitter.) I lost my Job, I lost my adoptive father, Lost my savings, etc. etc.

So I promised myself no matter what I was going into 2010 looking forward and upward, letting go of everything bad and just running head long. In my previous posts you’ve already seen that i have submissions out and a ton of projects on the burner… I’m also paid up for Necon 30, considering MoCon, and Looking into a return to CONtext… I’m raring up and taking names.

Well things have progressed… things that started in all that turmoil of last year have decided to catch up to me in this year… I’m not going to turn this blog into a vent about wrongs, or to air greivances, that’s just not right. This site is about my writing and what’s going on in my life mostly around my writing. So let’s concentrate on the facts and “what” but not the “how” and the “who”.

Events in my home have precipated me toward finding another place to live. Only one week ago I was told of pending issues which ‘might result in letting the lease of the apartment lapse in May and cause us all to have to move’. Well as stated earlier i have no savings, it was burned up during months of unemployment as i struggled to get back into a job and continue to pay ALL of my bills.

So by luck my adoptive mother and brother are going to be buying a house and so I decide to get in on this house… while i have no money my credit rating is pretty damn good since i still manage to pay all my bills, so at the least their money my rating… yada (i’m already giving to many details.) So YAY! I say since i will be returning home and I’ll once again be surrounded by family (note I’ve moved 5 times in the last 9 years and its not always been a favorable situation for me.)

Feeling good that things are in the works and that ina few days will be the prelim meeting with the mortgage people I relax and tell my roommates that if things do go south in May I’m alright, I’m taken care of… so this “Force”, this Negativity form Last Year it took that as bait, as a challenge.

Monday, the day of the meeting, I’m at work my Ma’s taking care of it, she calls me while at work. Her credit rating is a little shaky at the moment ( alot of bills since burying Dad… but in good news she’ll have paid off all the credit debt by march and every other bill by april, matter of fact she’d already brought her credit rating up 12 points in dec. alone in prepping for the meeting.) so they reschedule the Mortgage for the 1st of May. This makes me a little worried because my roommates went from maybe lease up in May to definately lease up in May over the weekend. With the appointment in May that means the earliest we could close on a house would be mid may, more likely June… meaning i would need to crash on my ma’s couch because I’ll have to be out of my appartment. This has me a little worried cause were the heck will i put my bed and books and dresser and this computer??

But wait, the Force isn’t done with me yet. I get to my appartment Monday after work and dicsover that my roommates have already started apartment hunting and that they’re out looking at new places…?? WTF? What happened to May? So as of Monday night my roommates loook at me and go we’d like to be out of here by March 1st saying we can break the lease, you can find a place right? I month is more than enough time.

I’m pretty commited to the House idea… I have no savings… so yeah I really can’t even get into a Studio Apartment, especially not if they want first and last… and deposit… forget it… and also why would I rent a place to only have to move out of it in 3-4 months.

So as of yesterday I contacted a few friends and some family and I’ve started to pack my stuff… a bunch of my books will go into a buddies basement (as much as I HATE to box books in a basement at least its cold and dry right now and not all damp summer) My bass guitars and other such will end up at my brothers, my shelves and such as well… I don’t have a clue how I’ll move my bed? Come March first I will be probably be crashing on different couches, living out of my car… or maybe living in a crawlspace under the eaves at my ma’s place (since all the bedrooms are filled). Its gonna be tough as hell and its a little scary, but in the end I’ll be in a brand new house. I just need to make it through all the holy hell to get there, and even when i make plans other people wreck them.

So here’s a little timeline of the high lights just to show you how fast things go to hell around me.

wed. 6th: Maybe issues, might have to move out in May.
Fri. 8th: I make plane to move with my Ma and Bro in or after May, even if things don’t go bad.
Mon 11th noonish- setback on the house, instead of March May for the mortgage.
11th evening- Roommates in a panic say they’ve already found another place they want and they’ll keep this appartment only until the 1st of march.

From issues to fucked in one week.

So yeah I’m a little put out, a little pissed that I’ll be rendered effectively homeless for months, until whenever we can close on a house. I’m angry that my stuff has to be packed into different peoples places, that i won’t be able to look at all the books on their shelves (yeah its a funny thing and probably deserves its own blog), and I’ll probably give up some of my shelves and maybe my desk and such, since i don’t know how I’ll fit it anywhere.. let alone have a van or truck to take it in.

Ok that was a mini vent… here’s the thing. Despite looking at all these hardships, despite wondering if i might have to go without internet (or very limited internet access), despite all that I still feel alright. I’ve found silver linings. For months i won’t have to pay that huge rent check… i can take that money and make larger credit card payments, maybe even get out from under one or two of the damn cards… hell my rent payment was equal to two car payments. I didn’t think I could go to mocon but hell I’ll have extra cash and with all the stress my work will be glad to let me take the vacation time. Shit i might be able to sign back up at the gym…. I’ll have the time and it guarntees me one place i can get a hot shower!

Yeah I’m still worried all to hell and yeah i haven’t slept much and i get sick to my stomach thinking about this crap… But i really do think a lot of good will come of it, hell if i can fit my bed into that crawlspace, attic room thing I might just content myself with staying with my family. Now if i can get over the nerves and start writing again I’ll be in fighting shape as it were.

So now you all know what’s happening and if i dissappear for a spell or two you know I’m just working through some stuff and I’ll be back when I can. Hell I got a ton of more books to review eventually.

Ok probably should have written this a week ago, but life is in transition. As we enter the new year and we make our vows to make changes, things actually DO happen and we have to roll with it.

First off I fully believe that this year will be better than the last, it has to be otherwise it’ll be some very grim times. That said I will admit that personally I’ve been at a low state in my life for a while now… shrugging off blackest depression, brimming with undirected rage and emotion, feeling Lost. I’ve made it thru the Holidays and now i’m looking at a new year and I’m truely trying to shake off all this negativity and bad thoughts. When i stop to look around i find several good and exciting things and it makes me feel better. Hell I can even see the GOOD in the BAD things happening around me at this time. Which i think is an accomplishment. That all said let’s just look into the year’s start:

First i love snow but hate to drive in it, by some miracle it keeps snowing here but the roads are absolutely clear. I always make the joke that I love white lawns but i want black top under my tires. Well i have. It’s simply beautiful.

#2 I have two stories out for Submission right now. Both subs include great stories of how awesome the editors have been with me. I’m pretty new to the scene, yeah I’ve been showing up on peoples radar but i have yet to get that elusive first acceptance. That said i won’t give you guys the full details but first Scott Colbert of Bandersnatch books put me at ease about my “cover letter” which i totally blanked on and I felt like a total noob trying to write my submission letter. Then there is Tim “The REAL DEAL” Deal…. LOL :)… who told me over the summer to submit in Jan but who then needed to close down his reading period and shift it over to May. Tim was awesome enough to tell me to send in the story anyway… AND he wrote me back only hours after I sent it in to tell me he really liked the premise. It was a shot to my Ego that made me happy for the whole night. Thank you Tim and thank you Scott for making me relaxed.

#3 My Friend and Mentor, David Niall Wilson is having a measure of success and has started his own Digital Publishing Book Store… a place for great authours to give a little life to their old short stories and novellas. I’m excited by what it could be and all the great stories i will soon be able to devour. You should all check it out: http://macabreink.com/macabreinkpublishing/ I’m one of those people who truely enjoys when his brothers, his friends, succeed. dave has had some crazy jumbles in his life this past year. But he’s going strong and I only see more and better for him. It makes me proud to know I’ve helped him in some small ways and that he’s always been gracious enough to return that help. This entire website is thanks to his good graces, and I really should use it more. LOL. (I have resolved to blog more often).

#4 So i have a ton of writing that’s not getting done and I figured that I’d better get my ass in gear. I aslo figured if I put it in print here I’d have to commit to it. Not that I have a ton of readers…though maybe i do and all of you just don’t feel the need to comment, its cool. But anyway here’s a look at the projects both started and unstarted and yada and their state of readyness:

i. In the Depths of Amon Niall (NaNoWriMo) novel length Keegan and Slater Adventure, still have finished the rough draft, stalled at about 58K (need to cut about 20K from the beginning of the book) will need another 60+K to finish the rough.

ii. The Collab: SYPDERS… this has been a work in progress since oct 08… I did about 9 chaps during last year but my Collab hasn’t answered an email in over 4 months, nor has he been anywhere online in almost as long. I feel weird trying to finsih a story where HE’S the main character and yet i can’t talk to him!

iii. Have started a timeline and character Guide for the Characters in my Dime Novel Series. I used to play a lot of Deadlands… a Horror/Weird Western Role playing game… I ran 4 epic campaigns with the system and hung out with all the creators and all sorts of cool stuff. I’ve been meaning to mine those games for a ton of cool weird western stories and I never got around to it. Course i can’t write in a universe based off of somebody elses works so I’ve been trying to have a similar origin point but different change, course and reasoning. So i have started the character guide for “Pretty Boy” Murphy and Jon Walker.

iv. I need to finish the complete overhaul of my first Pale story, Pale is the Night.

v. Keegan and Slater novellas, shorts, etc need to go on the planning board.

wow… ok this post is going to be like ten pages long if i keep this up… those are the things that are major right now… and i forgot to list the major research project that i started. Yeah i tend to be pulled in many directions and i usually get into one really heavy for a while and then peter out and jump toward another. Its truely bad form and something i will be working on this year. Knocking tiems off the list not adding more to it until then!

#5 My life has never been permenant… meaning their is little in it that has ever lasted, even friendships for me have usually had short shelf lives… though that thankfully seems to have changed for the better. In the past decade i have moved 5 times. In my life the longest two stretches I’ve ever spent in a place were 6 and 5 years. THE LONGEST in a single place… 6 years. People wonder why I have such problems with saying i have a home…. That said it looks like things have finally reached their point, I will be making another move this year… but this time I’m hoping for it to be a last. I’m hoping to spend at least a decade in this final move. Frankly i want the stability. I will be going itno more details as the months progress, but for now things are barely in the planning stages. My life is in upheaval but this time instead of getting crushed by the waves i plan to ride them.

Man this has been a helluva year for reading, the last two years has seen me really sink back into to always having a book on me. I like this alot. So without further ado the books i read this year, in the order i read them: (this list was compiled over on Horror World in their forum, i will be doing it again for 2010)

1. Succulent Prey by Wrath James White, read it in one day.
2. Deathbringer by Bryan Smith
3. Fear of Gravity by Brian Keene
4.The Not Quite Right Rev. Cletus… by DNW… good ole hillbilly horror.
5. Werewolf by Night #1 by Duane Sweirczynski
6. Locke and Key HC by Joe Hill
7. Castaways by Brian Keene
8. The Wheelman by Duane Sweirczynski (My first from Sweirczynski and first “crime” novel)
9. Gene O’Neill– the Confessions of St. Zach (my first time reading O’Neill)
10.Jeff Strand– Graverobbers Wanted (first time w/ Strand)
11. Simon Janus– The Scrubs (first time)
12. Weston Ochse– Vampire Outlaw of the Milkyway. (first time)
13. Editing a 500+ pg Zombie Manuscript by Thomas Erb
14. PreReading/ editing Manuscript- The Dare by Brett Williams
15. David Schow– Gun Work (little Hard Case Crime to break up the horror, gun porn, lol)
16. Skipp & Goodfellow– Jake’s Wake
17. Nate Southard–Just Like Hell
18. NRA– Basics of Pistol Shooting (must read for permit class in CT)
19. Kealan Patrick Burke– You In? (read this last night… i don’t get it… i like KPB but didn’t get what exactly happened to the main character. oh well)
20. DNW– Ennui and other Tales of Madness
21. Tim Lebbon– Assassin vol I-Dead Man’s Hand.
22. Jim Butcher– Backup
23 Jack Killborn– AFRAID
24. Sh.Stor.: Tom Piccirilli– Circiling (Shroud #1) my first Pic story
25. SS- Tim Waggoner– Unwoven (Shroud#1)
26. Bryan Smith– House of Blood (thunderstorm edition)
27. Tom Erb– Aeternus Umbra (2nd draft unpublished novel, editing it)
28 DNW & Brian Hopkins– One Eyed Jack Chapbook
29. Brian Keene– Stone Tears, Chapbook
30. Michael McBride– Bloodletting… my first novel from McBride.
31-33 Sweirczynski– Werewolf by Night # 2,3,4 (After here I no longer list individual comics and ONLY Graphic Novels)
34. Brian Keene– Unhappy Endings
35. Jim Butcher– Turn Coat
36. Ray Garton– The Loveliest Dead (first Garton)
37. DNW& Hopkins- One Chance in Hell (chapbook)
38. DNW & Hopkins– Pure Chance (chapbook)
39. Scott Edelman– The Hunger of Empty Vessels (First time)
40. Koontz– In Odd we Trust–Manga
41. James Moore–Serenity Falls v. 1 Writ in Blood
42. James Moore– SF v2 The Pack
43. James Moore– SF v3 Dark Carnival
44. Bryan Smith– Freakshow
45. Richard Laymon– The Traveling Vampire Show.
46. William Ollie– The Damned (His Debut Novel)
47. Hack/Slash Omnibus (comic GN)
48. Keene– Devil Slayer Trade (Comic GN)
49. Templesmith- Welcome to Hoxford (Comic GN)
50. Keene– Dead Sea
51. Dave Barnett– Tales of the Fallen Vol. 1 Awakening
52. Rick Hautala– Untcigahunk (DB HC of Little Brothers)
53. John Everson—Sacrifice
54. Clive Barker– The Hellbound Heart
55. Sims & Maynard– The Black Cathedral
56. Keene– Sympathy for the Devil
57. Andersen Prunty– Market Adjustment
58. Graham Masterson– Half Sick of Shadows
59. Tom Piccirilli- The Nobody (bloody brillant book and my first Pic!! WOW)
60. James Moore– Vendetta
61. Brian Keene– Running with the Devil
62. Ron Kelly– The Sick Stuff
63. Brian Keene– The New Fear
64. David N Wilson– This is my Blood
65. Knost- Writers Workshop of Horror (reading sections of this between other works)
66. Keene- Urban Gothic
67. Simmons– The Terror
68. DNW– Unpublished Manuscript C.G. (technically still need to finish this)
69. John R. Little– a Pair of little things
70. Brett McBean– Tales of Sin and Madness
71. Gary Braunbeck– In Silent Graves
72. Ed Lee & Etal– Infernally Yours
73. Wrath James White– Population Zero
74. Brett Williams– Family Business
75. Savage– Laymon
76. Broken Skin– Southard
77. DNW– ARC of Vintage Soul
78. KD/BF/DA– Fresh Blood (three novellas chap book)
79. Ed Lee– Trolley #1852
80. Keene– Terminal
81. edited by Tim Deal– Abominations
82. JF Gonzalez– Shapeshifter
83. James Moore– Blood Red
84. Simon Clark– The Ghosting Tide
85. Steven Shrewsbury– HAWG
86. Ed Lee– The Golem
87. ShortStory- Jeremy Ship– Spider House
88. Tom Piccirilli- The Dead Letters (my first full length novel from Pic, so far good.)
89. James Maxey—Bitterwood (some issues with this)
90. Kim Paffenroth—Valley of the Dead. (first time)
91. Michael McBride—Remains.
92. Ray Garton—Live Girls
93. Bryan Smith—Depraved.
94. Stephen King—Under the Dome (first King novel in over 5 years)
95. Various—Keene Interest #1
96. DNW—Heart of a Dragon
97. Jeff Strand—Pressure
98. Brent Weeks—Night Angel I: Way of Shadows

Hello Readers,

Yeah i’ve been lagging behind. I came out of Nanowrimo and i knew i had made the goal but that i wasn’t even half way done and i looked at all the projects i had waiting and i will admit i allowed work stress to intrude on my writing. In other words i haven’t written a damn thing in almost two weeks other than a forum post! I have made a lot of promises and i haven’t delivered on them all yet. That said I’m writing out the To Do list now on my Desk White Board. I seem to have a ton of reviews i promised. That said i will now devote a paragraph to each of those stories.

First we have Silver by Steve Saville:

First off what a sexy cover! Yeah that’s just the image without the blurbs and what have you on the frontis, but its damn Nice! I was lucky enough to get my grubby hands on this story, which will see print in January from Variance Publishing. Silver is a straight up Spy/Military thriller with a dash of Vatican/ Ancient Mystery thrown in. Saville gives us a very believable Cult and a very interesting take on ancient Christian Idealogies… and at the same time he isn’t bludgeoning us with this, its an enchancement not a diatribe. The story is fast paced as this Cult has begun a campaign of murder and terror across Europe, 40 days and nights of Bloodshed and Terror. Saville has assembled a cast of characters that are each highly capable and each very scary in their own ways. Even the teams tech geek is a scary guy, actually he might be the scariest while the rest are in life or death struggles and fighting in hand to hand, Lethe can do things with a computer that border on godlike. Operating as individual cells our heros run around the world trying to piece together the clues and stop the Sicarii (means Dagger Men, assassins) from killing the Pope. I don’t like to give away too many details about the story. You have to read it yourself, believe me YOU WILL be drawn in, the book flies. It is a very “visual” book, extremely cinematic, and it would lend itself to a movie effortlessly. All the characters have a personal style that just begs for the screen. You like Bond? You like Jason Bourne? You like ‘take no crap’ characters and a lightening fast pace? Pre-Order the book, you will NOT be dissappointed.

http://www.variancepublishing.com/books/silver-by-steven-savile.html

Onto our Second Review:

Valley of the Dead by Kim Paffenroth.

This was my first time reading Dr. Kim though i have wanted to check out his Zombie books for a while. I also always wanted to read Dante’s Divine Comedy. Well now i managed both. Valley of the Dead is the story of what happened to Dante during the missing 17 years of his life where he emerged with his book, The Divine Comedy. Dr. Kim theorizes that he traveled through a “hell on earth”, an area completely over run with Zombie hoardes and with “evil” people. Now EVIL is a strong word… perhaps i should say people who’s flaws and stresses have been pushed to the forefront by the situation. Men whose Wrath is so peaked that they keep several of the Walking Dead chained up and use them as punching dummies to try and assuage their Rage. People who have lost their faith, people who exploit other’s faith. People who profit from suffering. The book is laid out in short chapters, each a sliver taken from the inferno and translated into a “What on earth could have caused Dante to think up this particular hell?” The bite sized chapters make you fly through the book and i finished it in two long sittings. It was thoughtful and filled with symbolism and allegory, and since i just happened to have been taking some writing classes centered on both of those, i found the book to be a serious help in my own writing endeavours. I’m glad that Dr. Kim’s Permuted titles will be going to Pocket Books, it means a far wider distrubition of his stories.

Third times the Charm: The Dead Letters by Tom Piccirilli.

This is the first novel length work of Tom’s I’ve read. Its brillant and manic and had me guessing wrong all the way to the end as to who the killer was. Noir. I never really read anything in the Noir… barely ever watched the movies either. When i think of crime books i think of COP books, detective stories. Hell i have to admit that I have never read a Parker novel (though i have seen several of the movies based on the character including Payback, which i LOVE that movie). That said, a lot of my newer friends are horror fans and noir/ criminal book lovers and they’ve been goading me toward reading a bunch of those book. Tom Pic’s name comes up often especially as he was an authour who wrote several straight up horror novels and then started heading into the Noir/crime stories. So far i have read two stories in the Noir Vein and the one thing i have figured is everyone you like will die, including the main character… now knowing my own psychological needs i realize i will need to read Noir novels sparingly… if the Hero dies in every book… yeah that won’t work for me, unless he goes out taking the villian with him. But I’m digressing. This is about the Dead Letters and not about the genre. TDL is a striaght up whodunit with a main character driven to the edge of sanity who WILL NOT STOP. To be honest i don’t think there is actually a sane character in the entire book. Our Hero is an emotional wreck and Tom hits you with his pain in a constant drive. The emotional turmoil is broken up with utterly insane letters (which are pretty damn amusing actually and i give Kudos to Tom for coming up with them, the ‘Voice’ of the letters) and a very Bizarro hallucination where our Hero finds himself living in his daughters dollhouse, his life uninterrupted. The doll version of him calls him and they have conversations. About this time you realize fully there are NO SANE characters in the book. But it doesn’t matter cause you’re hooked by the mystery and you want to see and stop Killjoy (which is a great name for a serial killer by the way… wish i could steal that one). The end is great, it pays off the reader, and firmly sets in the hook for more of Tom Pic’s novels. I’m upset that i only have one novel left in my TBR… and i would really like to go back and read more of his horror style prose. You should all go out and grab his newest, Shadow Season.

And with that i have three thing off my to do list… only about a half dozen more to go.

OK… no excuses i should be back on here more often and i shall endeavor to do so.

As you can see by the little widget to the left i have made the Nanowrimo Goal… I have written 50K+ in one month. Woot! Alas the story itself is NOT complete and i must still pound away at it. Luckily I have recognized the long winded-ness of my prose (when i write for nano i tend to drag things out, go for a dearth of unnecessary words) so i know there is a ton of material i can cut to shreds in the beginning of the story. 20 pages of the psychologly of the two main characters and introspective thoughts, plus back flashes to the previous story in the series… yeah over kill.

That said i am putting the story aside to polish and ready two of my shorts for submission. Both have been over hauled by myself and several of my friends. They are two of the most polished stories i have… so lets all hope they both find a home. The first story is a sorta weird western… unfortunately not undead gunslinger style (which i love) but more frontier 1880’s horror with the trappings/ stage setting of a Western. Seth McLeod, a drunk and gambler, finds his debts settled by a strange man who only asks him to preform one simple task. A task using a shovel and tools inside the Cemetery. All Debts Paid.

The other tale is Geist Esser, which is german for Ghost Eater, i recently felt a pull to write a story based in WWII and i will admit that some of the story is inspired by a co-worker of mine, a veteran of the War. He told me some stories before he retired and they’ve stayed with me for a long while. So this is my first ghost story, Corporal Andy Coleman’s unit gets wiped out, but they still want revenge.

So those are the two stories that will be going out to look for homes come january. Now that Nanowrimo is over I’m jumping on the Under the Dome bandwagon, i started the book last night and have to say it is a smooth entry. You slid right in and the pages start turning and the size of the tome no longer phases you. While i was reading the Terror i was well aware of the size of the book, constantly aware. But Under the Dome lulls you in. I will post more about it soonish. Also i should start up reviews again… I have a couple of good reads i just finished. Depraved by Bryan Smith, The Dead Letters by Tom Piccirilli, and Valley of the Dead by Kim Paffenroth. Al;l excellent books and all deserving a little review space… so those will be coming soonish, promise.

Getting back to the writing… I will be changing some of the bars on the side panel… most of those are stroies that i plan on overhauling… and as i stated the nano project will probably go to 100K before i finish and finally go in and cut the hell out of it. So it will be in upheaval for a while. I also plan to power through Spyders… damn thing has been a year in the making and most of that time its just sat and waited. My partner is pretty much absent so i will power on without him. The plan is a chap every 2 weeks… while i’m working on the shorts… then back to a chap. every week. I should be able to finish it before feb. Then i don’t know… without my collab giving me his input i feel a little lost with whole deal. Should i try to pitch it while its still just a rough first draft… or should i do a full edit, combine the files and see what the whole looks like? If so then i won’t be pitching it until april or later…sigh. Ok time is running low. Be back on tomorrow where i will review one or two of those books mentioned above.

Hello all,

I know i don’t have regular traffic but what the hell i figured i would try to make at l;east a post this month. Nano is going well as you can see by the bar to the left. Though i have determined that the end of the first draft will be closer to 100K then the 50K… as such when the nano is complete I will be changing the bar to a normal progress bar and this will go in the shuffle of projects. I really want to complete the rough of Spyders before the end of the year if possible and i need to revamp an entire story for submission in january. I also am taking classes… as mentioned in the previous blog entry… i might betaking a step back and taking the level 1 classes that i missed out on in oct. So classes should continue all the way to the end of the year.

I have managed to read some good books this month… though my normal 8-12 books a month is MUCH lower this month… I have recently finished Kim Paffenroth’s Valley of the Dead and i will give it a review in the first week in december. I recently got a bunch of Pdf and Word files from some of favourite authors for some of their soon to be published work… I’m dying to delve into these stories and such, I’m being pulled in about a dozen directions all at once. So we’ll see how i get it all worked out.

That said i need to do some project work and push further ahead on nano… which means i need to get off this blog and get some more work done. Ciao.

Hello, ok we’re gonna roll two into one here. I’ll be talking more about Nanowrimo and then I’ll be reviewing HAWG by Steven Shrewsbury.

First another little jolt of NaNoWriMo… it starts this sunday. Yup already coming on fast and believe me I am twitching in anticipation. November is going to be one hell of a crazed and busy month. Not only will i be working full time in RETAIL (Black Friday anyone??) but I’ll be trying to write 50K in my off time… and I’ll be the wikimaster for David Niall Wilson’s NaNo (which means i will be updating his read along website with info about the characters and events unfolding in the book… which is #2 in a series… you all should read along with us @ http://macabreink.com/dragons/ )… and I’ll be taking classes with Michael Knost every monday night as well. KNost is running an online creative writing program, he also teaches Writing in a classroom setting, he’s the Editor of many great books, but anyway you can go to his website for more info and maybe even join me in the classes http://michaelknost.com/ .

So yeah, Work, Nano, Wiki, Classes, and then the holidays themselves. I think I will become a gibbering animal by the end of the month. LOL. One can only hope right? To be honest i think i really need this. I stopped writing after college… mostly while i had this current job. I left for an office job at the end of 07 and while in the office i joined forums, was online all day, and had time to relax think and write again. I stepped back into retail hell at the beginning of this year and I’ve started slowing down on the writing again. So i NEED this challenge to make me write, to get me through the days. I think in dec. I’ll come through with a renewed sense of purpose and the discipline to write more. I have four stories slated for revision in dec. they all have homes i willbe submitting them to. 2010 is the year of the Acceptance. Period.

Alright, enough Nano news… now unto the review.

Hawg by Steven Shrewsbury.

Shrews is well known for his dramatic readings, his horror and fantasy mixes (much like myself)… though he writes in more of a sword and sorcery/ barbarian rage genre. HAwg is about a rural illinois town beset by a beast man, a Pig Man.Hawg, the title character, goes on a rampage, frees himself from his pen and wrecks havoc through out the town of Miller’s Fork. We have bikers, small town sheriffs, factory workers, etc all trying to survive and fight the beast. Some parts are over the top, but in a good way and when the action starts it just goes completely haywire. Berserk.

The first few scenes are quick and dirty but as the book progresses the violence (and description) grows. The last 100 pages or so is all running action. Overall the book is a fun ride with some interesting characters. Its also apparent that Shrews brought his real life job… and maybe some of the people he doesn’t much care for into the book… lets just say Hawg goes rampaging through a factory… taking some good people but mostly destroying all the “Bad Managers” (LOL, believe me i LOVED this scene, while i don’t work in the same environment I could understand a lot of the stress and angst of the workers).

If i had to find one thing to be down about… well its middling… some of Shrews turns of Phrase seemed odd. Just the way he wrote a sentence or two, the order of the words and the words used themselves… and to be honest i think it was just a little local accent coming through. There were several moments were i had to pause and reason out if what i had read was right, when i said it outloud I could hear a bit of the accent and by changing my inflection of the words it made sense tht someone might say it that way. Anywho, fun book with much mutilation and body parts getting torn all to hell. Some of the things Hawg does are just damn gruesome… I quite like it.

You can pick a copy of the book up in trade paperback from: http://gravesidetales.com/156/preorder-hawg-by-steven-shrewsbury/

Alright, that’s another blog in the can so to speak, onward and upwards right. I hope you all check out the Read Along and Hawg.

So last year i tried Nano for the first time… it was a hell of a great time and I would have won it if not for the loss of my Hard Drive. It’s a long story and not one i wish to live through again. Mush was lost and I don’t believe i shall ever endeavor to write that story again. I was going through my old blogs spaces… checking things out and I lucked upon the first 500 words of last years story. So i copied it into word and altered it only slightly… mostly just font and type size. I figured I’d post it here… just a reminder this is unedited (YES i know so are most of my blogs, organic and unedited) but the purpose of nano is speed and discipline. I have speed but its really hard for me not to read back and fix every typo and such. Anyway… its pretty late so here’s the only remaining words of last years NaNo:

He awoke to darkness, darkness thick and cloying. It pressed down on him, smothering and thick. Panic strove to take over his mind but training kicked in, hidden deep in his brain thoughts squashed the fear and demanded even, slow, breaths. His mind was a mash of miss-firing neurons, his memories gone like dust on the winds, even his name was lost. He decided to pay more attention to his situation and less to his shattered psyche.
It was dark and cold, a damp coldness which numbed his limbs and held him in place. His left arm was pinned and numb, his right he could barely move. He realized quickly that the damp cold was earth, he’d been buried. Panic threatened to rise up again and his disciplined mind seized control again. He moved his right arm and felt around the darkness. Whoever had buried him had done a quick job of it. Wood, rocks, and other debris had been pushed in as filler. It was the only thing keeping him alive, the debris creating air pockets. His hand slid into slick warmth, syrupy gore drenched his hand and anger welled through him. He was in a mass grave, his hand questing inside someone’s guts. He felt anger surge through him and he twisted his shoulders, trying to break free of the grasping hands of the grave.
He managed to free his left arm, pulling it out from underneath another body. He freed his hands and brought them to his face. Pain lancing through his shoulders and neck. He was damaged, hurt bad, anger was all that kept him going. He found a large branch above his head, it was what kept the earth from smothering him. He yanked the branch, twisting it in the wet earth. A hollow opened and branch caught against a body or some rocks, he didn’t care, it stuck fast and he grabbed it with both hands. He pulled with all the strength his abused body could muster. His legs slid free of the earth and bodies and he struggled harder. He clawed with his hands into the soft earth and began to burrow, kicking and swinging his legs side to side to widen the hollow left by his body. He dug his way into the earthen cyst holding the body of one of his men, he knew these were his teammates. He couldn’t remember names but faces flashed within his damaged brain. He gagged as pulled himself into the grave, the stench of ruptured bowel filled the hollow and he paused to vomit. He asked for forgiveness and then he climbed onto the brutalized body and he continued to dig toward the surface.
Like a worm he wriggled and pushed his way through the gore and mud and when the earth finally released him he gasped. Cold fresh air burned into his lungs, sweet with the scent of fresh tilled earth.

Hello! Ok we’re gonna do three books that i read in the month of July… though looking at the list of 12 that i knocked out i see that i already did full reviews on two of them… Well here we go:

#56 The Nobody by Tom Piccirilli. Other than a short story this was first book i’ve ever read from Tom. I know him more from forums and twitter than I do from his writing… and I know he went from striaght horror to horror/crime to more striaght crime in the arc of his writing. I do have two of his novels in my TBR slowly making their way toward the surface… and I have no idea were they fit into his arc… I know they’re late enough to have crime as the focus but I believe they still have horror elements. But that was a total digression… The Nobody is AWESOME! Seriously… I mean just the premise is great… Man comes home and interupts Killer destorying his family, he fights him off and ends up stabbed in the skull. Goes to the hospital and has a total breakdown… no memories of who he is just the memory that his family was taken… and some fragments of the night of the attack. He recovers and gets out of the halfway house and the only thing he has is a sense of vengence, he wants to get the killer… even though he can’t really remember anything. Its awesome, its striaght to the point, and I really like the riddling through the crime, the clues. When I was a kid I loved mysteries… Encyclopedia Brown and all that… I loved the whodunit… and now as an adult I really like vengence… I like stories were the bed guy gets it. The Nobody brought back my old love… the problem solving whodunit, and delivered the violence and Justice (redemption??) that I so need. Within the next week or two I will be starting my first Piccirilli novel… The Dead Letters. Is that a good starting point? We’ll see.

#53/58/60 Brian Keene… the Collected Hail Saten’s vol. 1-3. Awesome. A collection of Keene’s blogs throughout the mid 2000’s. We get to look in on so many things… some funny, some sad, some twisted… but over all Honest. Drinking and carrying on too much… its in there, depression and missing his home/wife… also there, pranks and jokes and messing with telemarketers. Yup. Also the gensis of some of his stories and his thought processes on how he arrived at the stories. I like looking in… maybe I have some voyueristic tendencies or somesuch. But looking in allows us to look at our own lives and realize how much in common everyone really is. It also lets us appreciate the art more… The Rising is NOT just some crazy Zombie book… it’s the story of a man who loves his son so much he would walk 100’s of miles through the worst hell just to see him again, to hold him and protect him. That’s some powerful stuff… it just happens to have a bunch of zombies in it to keep people amused… but this writer/reviewer likes the hidden/deeper meaning. Real emotional power will always trump gore, special effects, and what have you. Anyone who dismisses Keene and his books as just ‘more Zombie’s’ or ‘monsters’ needs to look under the surface, there are some really deep waters therein. I for one feel privileged to have read these books and actually met the man.

Well I said i was gonna do three books but that was technically four… and now i’m all worked up. But hey both of those books are really emotionally charged, and both writers deliver the goods… so we almost have a themed matchup. LOL. Ok I must away to edit a short story for a friend and start some work for Maurice Broaddus.