Writing What Hurts - September Rising

Feel free to forward, share, or suggest this to friends. The more the merrier.

Author

David Niall Wilson
August 31, 2025

What’s Happening

First, I want to assure everyone that, despite the fact I’m going through some personal things, it doesn’t affect Crossroad Press in any way. We are solid, self-sustained and not going anywhere. There have been some concerned notes, and, while I appreciate people reaching out and offering support, I hope you all trust that, if something were going to happen to Crossroad Press, I would let you know. We have watched companies come and go for a lot of reasons, and I have always said that the important thing is communication and transparency. We’re good, or I’d have told you. I am confident that my own issues will work out as well, but I wanted to let everyone know up front not to worry about the publishing company.

The novel continues to grow, and my mind continues to rebuild earlier parts in anticipation of the revision. It’s going to be my longest novel any way it shakes out. There is just too much going on to shorten it very far, though my tendency to put things in the beginning that end up being for my own benefit and getting cut may help with the length. Another issue I often have is including too many characters. I’ve been working around that by splitting them up, and in a crazy haunted house with shifting paintings and connected timelines in the past, it’s not too difficult to keep them apart.

I am coming to what I hope will be a dramatic conclusion soon. The details seem clear when I’m about to fall asleep or dozing in my recliner. It remains to be seen how that translates to words.

Here is a teaser… the synopsis in progress. It’s commercial, and I like it, but it does not encompass at least a couple of major elements… and I’m not certain it needs to…

“When psychologist-turned-influencer Stephanie Danvers buys the eerie Coyne House to stage a week-long paranormal experiment, she gathers a volatile mix of skeptics, scientists, and sensitives. What begins as research for an online program becomes a slow spiral into terror as the house’s strange history and a mysterious entity inhabiting a ruined mission blur the line between science and the supernatural. For the guests, survival means uncovering whether Coyne House is haunted, cursed, or alive before it consumes them all.”

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.

NEW!

My collection The Whirling Man & Other Tales of Pain, Blood & Madness has been updated. New cover, new format, and the paperback (finally) is live. These are stories of mine that, in some way, deal with madness. Everything from serial killers to fairy tales. It spans many years of my career, and is only $13.99 in paperback, and $3.99 in eBook. The audio is currently taking auditions so stand by for that. More of my collections, previously available only as eBooks, are getting facelifts and new paperbacks. Stay tuned.

What I’m writing & Planning for 2025/26

I’ll try this in bullet form…

· A Dagon story featuring Cletus J. Diggs… and catfish people.

· A Shoggoth story that is a mashup of Lovecraft and the Brothers Grimm

· A novella combining government and corporate greed with virtual computing

· Compiling and adding new material to an Old Mill, NC Cletus J. Diggs / Donovan DeChance collection.

· Compiling all the many Edgar Allan Poe stories in a single volume (with more new material)

· A long-awaited book of poetry

· And possibly completing Writing What Hurts… the semi-biographical book on writing I’ve been working on for years.

What I’m Reading

Still reading the Patrick Barb edited And One Day We Will Die: Strange Stories Inspired by the Music of Neutral Milk Hotel anthology. Will be something I believe you should see on awards ballots all over. I have not read a story in this book yet that I don’t feel could receive nominations, and I’m 60% of the way through. That’s a seriously high score for an anthology, at least in my experience.

What I’m Watching

We are nearly through Sherlock Holmes and Daughter, after finishing the first season of The Hunting Party. That one feels kind of hurried, and the setup is too pat and weird. Rather than a deep backstory, it relies on a single hour to handle every killer, which makes it kind of entertaining fluff, but not something I’d go out of my way to get excited by. Sherlock, on the other hand, where else can you see Wonder Woman’s god of war incarnated as the world’s greatest detective? It’s fun, not dark, but on the cusp of dark, and building. I hope it returns for a few more seasons.

What I’m Listening to

I completed Nights Master by Tanith Lee in audio - my Goodreads review is Here, and I’m filling in a gap I should have filled long ago now, listening to Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, narrated by William Dufris. So far very entertaining. Not as snarky (so far) as the later works, with a lot of very cool political and scientific tidbits.

Buy My Books