This blog is like my attempts at journaling over the years. I start out all enthusiastic and then I forget about and weeks turn into months and then there hasn’t been any sign of life for year or two. So rather than making a commitment to put out a new article every two weeks, or once a month, or whatever else I’m going to fail at, I’m going to call it like it is: This blog is dead. It’s a corpse blog. When you see a post here, it just because the blog forgot it was deceased and decided to get up and shamble around.
So on with the shambling. I’ve been hard at work on my debut novel, tentatively titled Somewhere Dark. Its a novel about Eamon Chase and his best Friend Lark Hayse and how their lives fall apart when they get mixed up with a ruthless gangster by the name of Sam Adler, who just so happens to be deeply involved in the occult. The novel also features one of my favorite antagonists—The Canary—who is the titular character in my short story coming out this year in GabaGhoul: A Mafia Anthology by October Nights Press.
This is the fifth novel I’ve written and every time I feel as if I am reinventing the wheel. When I write something, I tend to need a running start. I write and write and write and then it doesn’t feel right and I go back and I rewrite the beginning. When this comes to a short story, it’s not a big deal as I am usually rewriting the first 700 to 1000 words until it feels right. When it comes to a novel, however, this equates to me rewriting the first 20K-30K words until it feels right and this takes a hell of a lot of time. More time than I have as a stay-at-home father of two young kids. But, the novel has finally found it legs (after writing 77K words) and I am now making good progress.
In the mean time, and when I’m not feeling it, I’ve been writing short stories. My latest is a horror story called You Were Always Meant for This which is my usual brand of surreal, atmospheric, weirdness inspired by Junji Ito’s idea generation in his new book on writing manga called Uncanny: The Origins of Fear. I think it turned out great and it is now being shopped around. With fingers crossed you all will be reading it soon.
Finally, my story Beneath the Pines was released on Thirteen Podcast last month. This is a little different from what I usually write and falls in the Gothic Horror category. The folks over at Thirteen Podcast did a great job with it and I’d love for you to give it a listen and let me know what you think.
Okay. Back to the grave.
Cheers,
C.J