Writing What Hurts

What’s Happening

As I continue to send out resumes and seek the next day-job adventure, I’m concentrating on boosting sales for Crossroad Press, drinking more caffeine, and putting out more words. I have a very ambitious writing and publishing schedule in the works.

I’ll cover that below. I’m also going to start adding excerpts to this newsletter from Writing What Hurts – Tips & Tales from a Writer’s Journey – the non-fiction book on writing, as I learned and experienced the world of creating, and publishing during a fairly long life (so far).

Currently, the cat meter rests steadily on eleven. There are several eating on our front porch at night, but none show any interest in coming inside, and we are probably beyond the sane limit already with eleven.

The Chicago Cubs have started winning again. I have mixed feelings today because they face the Angels with Kyle Hendrix on the mound. He was a key member of the 2016 World Series winning team, and I have his signed jersey hanging on the wall above my Cubs shrine. Baseball relaxes me… usually.

I am still auctioning off books from my personal collection with many more to come. None of our kids is really a reader except Katie, and she leans more toward Poppy Z. Brite than the older authors. I would rather these find a good home and honestly, the shelves look crazy with the ridiculous number of books weighing them down.

What I’m writing & Planning for 2025/26

The current novel in progress is tentatively titled Coyne House. It is a haunted house novel, with all the standards. A psychologist / scientist who brings a team together to investigate. There is a medium. There is a bioelectrical engineer, a ghost hunter, twins, a cat – and those are the characters in the present.

I started out wondering how many horror tropes could be included in a single book without it just getting ridiculous. It turns out, as Lawrence Watt-Evans’s first law predicts, there is no idea so ridiculous that a talented writer can’t make it work. I’m not going to claim the talented writer crown, but the story holds up, and the first draft is nearly finished. The list of tropes would not fit on the back cover of the book, though. It really is a fun book to write.

A lesson learned, just yesterday, is that if you get too into a thing you can miss serious details. Like sending a team back to the California coast at a time when Spanish settlers and Native Americans were the only folks present, and the main language was Spanish… not English. Major revision to fix that one…

That is project #1. I have a novella due that will involve virtual computing, a bit of cyberpunk, and a lot of darkness in a not yet announced anthology I will be working on as soon as the novel has been revised. I also have two Lovecraftian Stories I need to write in the next year.

On the publishing side, I intend to re-lease the short stories featuring Cletus J. Diggs and Donovan DeChance in a couple of anthologies, and possibly a poetry collection. The agent is marketing Tattered Remnants to all the right places. If/when that sells, it’s pitched as a series, with synopses for two follow-on books, so fingers crossed.

I’ll be busy – including more on the aforementioned Writing What Hurts because that’s been a long time in the writing.

What I’m Reading

This week I’ll finish the anthology And One Day We Will Die, but this bears mentioning. These are rich, literate horror stories. The writing is beautiful. It is absolutely the first anthology I’ve read in years where, instead of finding two or three stories to like, every single entry has been solid, well-written and edited, and memorable. These are all inspired by the music of Neutral Milk Hotel, which, while a band I like, still feels an unlikely source for this many quality works. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. I have not chosen my next read, but I have several queue on the Kindle. Also slowly working through The Essential Bukowski: Poetry… about 18% in. I like the way poetry makes me feel when I’m immersed in it, and ol’ Charles could bring the reality like few others.

What I’m Watching

Trish and I just finished the first season of STICK and I did not expect it to pull me in the way it did. The chemistry between the characters is perfect. The action (most of it) is ridiculous, but Owen Wilson is in his element. I used to play a lot of gold. I don’t see myself doing that again, but I love watching how this story plays out… they have the right amount of conflict, but, unlike other shows I’ve watched, they don’t let it linger and linger. It boils over, it’s dealt with, and they move on.

Currently we are making our way through HUNTING PARTY which feels sort of like Reaper, or that Kevin Bacon show that just failed. A ridiculous premise meant only to release a bunch of crazy killers they can hunt down week after week. It’s entertaining, but not very deep. Better things coming (I’m looking at you Peacemaker…)

What I’m Listening to

Winding down to the end of Night’s Master by Tanith Lee. I love these stories. Sometimes the darkness wins, other times humans surprise him. All are intricate and detailed and twist back and forth through one another like the magic they describe. Please, if you have not read Tanith Lee… do yourself a favor.

Next up I have (again) a lot of choices. I am leaning toward John Skalzi’s Old Man’s War because I’ve put it off for so long, and since then have enjoyed others of his. We’ll see.

Buy My Books

Closing Time at the Sunny-Side-Up When You Leave I Disappear

The Devil’s in the Flaws & Other Dark Impressions Jurassic Ark