Monthly Archives: November 2013

Some free fiction…

I have posted two stories under the “Free Stories” link at the top of the page.  The first is part of my short story collection, 14 DARK WINDOWS, and is titled “Grandpa”.  It’s a short tale (about 700 words) about a boy who is enjoying his time with his grandfather.  It is the first story in that collection, and if you download the free sample from Amazon, you also get it in its entirety.

The second story is called “The Book And Candle Pub”.  There’s a little bit of backstory about it.

Back in the 90’s, I was part of, and helped to run, an internet forum on Delphi Internet Services called “The Book and Candle Pub”.  The Pub was a friendly place where I made several good online buddies.  We started life as “The Stephen King Club” on Prodigy but moved to Delphi for some reason that is lost in the recesses of my memory.  (Probably had something to do with cost.)  We were joined by people from NVN and GEnie, two other online services, and we had a nice little community which was pretty active.  My role was “conference coordinator”, and I moderated chat sessions with our author guests.  I also would coordinate their forum visits sometimes as well.

Another big part of the Pub was our writing games.  We had an ongoing contest called “The Publican Brief” and a lot of the stories in 14 DARK WINDOWS were written for that contest.  So was this second story.  The challenge was to write a short story describing how we saw our place in physical terms.  I always liked mine, since it fit my vision.  So here it is, for the first time since it appeared in that forum.  I won’t ever publish it elsewhere.  I hope someone finds it mildly interesting.

Here’s how to get to the stories.

GRANDPA

THE BOOK AND CANDLE PUB

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Some wordage done today!

Hey, I actually feel like I got somewhere with my WIP, a horror novel or novella about an inn in the south.  I stood at something like 20,800 words before today.  Right this minute I am at about 24,150 words.  That’s 3,350 words today!

The story was flying off my fingers as I got past a part that was giving me trouble.  But I think I’m coming up to another part that is going to give me some trouble.  I know where “we” are in the story, and I know who’s going to win, but I have to figure out how it’s gonna happen.  And some of what I wrote will need some extensive editing and rewriting.  But some is pretty good.

Look for an excerpt here, once I finish up.

Take care!

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Oh, the horror!

I’ve been writing something that I’d classify as “horror”.  It’s got some thriller elements, and there isn’t much supernatural about it, but I think it’s sort of frightening.

So I’ve been reading a bunch of horror as well.

Recently I have read GRAB by Blake Crouch, which was more of a thriller than horror.  I liked it.  I met the main character, Letty Dobesh, in a collaborative effort between Crouch and J.A. Konrath, but I can’t exactly come up with the title.  Just a lot of serial killers in it.  But this is a heist tale, a story about ripping off some scary people in Vegas.  It was good.  It took me a while to get into it, but once I did, it clipped right along.

I also read two books by John Everson, who I had not read before.  The first was called The 13th, and it was about a series of kidnappings of women for something nefarious.  I found it to be a good story that seemed fresh and original to me.  It did seem a bit drawn out, maybe a little overly wordy, but all in all, I really liked it.

I also read Night Where, which I also found to be quite original.  And a little drawn out as well, but I realize that Everson has a way with characters.  He creates characters that you want to find out more about.  This was a haunting read.  I thought about it when I’d put the book down.  The subject matter (it’s set in a bondage and submission club) is a little out there for folks who don’t read horror regularly.

I found these to be entertaining stories, different from those of William Malmborg, where the horror is in realistic people, serial killers and crazies who terrorize innocents for their own purposes.  (More like mine.  I don’t know how well I write “supernatural”…)

We’ll see what else comes up as I get through more horror.

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