Sam Stark

“What sense I had just took her panties off and laid down in front of him.” ― Tiffany Reisz, Submit to Desire

I tried to find the silliest quote for the title of this entry, and well… there you go. You may be wondering why I have a quote from an erotic novel as my title, so let me explain:

I am now in talks for a contract to narrate an erotic novel. Yup.

Last week I decided to find out how audiobook narrators found jobs and stumbled across a site where you can make a profile and put up voice samples and search books looking for narrators. I did some research to see if the site was legit and the internet was basically in agreement that it was, so I went for it.

I found a couple of my favorite narrators and modeled my profile after theirs, then hit up my brother in law to see if I could use his studio. My bro in law is a musician and choral director and he runs a business recording and mixing audio for the schools in the area so kids can still have their music education during the pandemic. It’s pretty awesome. Anyway, his studio is cool, it’s just in his house, so I went over and recorded some samples and a few auditions for some books. It took about four hours, which really isn’t that bad considering I’ve done eight to ten hour stretches in a studio back when I was doing music.

Long story long, I uploaded my samples to my profile and submitted my auditions. I didn’t think anything would come from it actually, I just wanted to get myself out there.

But then Tuesday morning I had an offer for an audition. Not one I had submitted for, but someone random coming to me. They had listened to my samples and wanted to offer me a chance to audition for their book. It’s a psychology book about anxiety in relationships. So of course I said hell yeah and got the info.

BUT THEN I got an email responding to one of my auditions! I got the job! They are interested! Yessss!

Quick note: it was the only erotic novel in the stack of auditions. I mean, of course it was.

I don’t feel weird about it, it’s acting. It’s a job. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I need to build up a portfolio and romance is probably the way to do it quickly so…

I’m super excited. I’ll post the details once everything is done. Maybe link some stuff and you can check it out if you want. Or not because would that be weird? Meh, whatever.

I hope everyone has a good holiday. I’m not real big into Thanksgiving, considering the history and all, but I do like food? I also don’t really like Christmas but oh well. I will just concentrate on narrating and finishing this YA novel and not gaining 20lbs before the end of the year.

Peace out. Pet your pets. Have a good one.

“I have never met a vampire personally, but I don’t know what might happen tomorrow.” – Béla Lugosi

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I’ve been having some nerdy thoughts about supernatural lore. (Not the tv show, otherwise I would have capitalized it, obviously.) Well, now that I think about it Supernatural would be included, but it’s not what I’m focusing on. I’m thinking more generalized lore.

Let me preface this with a little backstory: I’ve been reading a lot (please read that as “shit ton”) of urban fantasy lately, which I admit goes a little off brand for me as I kind of hate most of the UF out there. I hate a lot of the tropes – i.e. the young and gorgeous heroin doesn’t have any self worth until she finds her true love because self worth is apparently wrapped up in how the boy sees her, OR the young and beautiful hero/heroin is special and the only one in the universe that can save the world and that somehow makes them a total twat about everything. The wining, winging, complaining, and crippling self-doubt finally turns them into a big enough asshole that I don’t want to read the rest of the story. Let it all burn because I just want the protagonist to die is not a great feeling to have three quarters of the way through a book.

However, there is a contingent of UF out in the universe that is just. fucking. great. I’ve noticed that it’s mostly queer, and that’s cool, sort of weird that’s a correlation but whatever. UF usually has amazing universes and some have really cool plot devices, so if the characters are cool, the books/series/show is usually cool too.

I fell down a deep, dark werewolf/shifter hole last month and couldn’t climb out for a few weeks. Werewolf stuff is pretty cool because there’s so much going on with pack and smell and bonds so there’s a lot of stuff you can do with miscommunication. Found family stories and stories with strong familial bonds are my jam anyway. Straight dudes rubbing up on other straight dudes because they’re basically canines is also my jam too but I digress.

So, I’ve been thinking about supernatural creatures with regenerative properties verses healing properties. I noticed in all the werewolf and shifter stories I read, the werewolves get injured like shot or stabbed or whatever, and unless the wound was inflicted by something silver, they heal over, gone without a trace. This is the same for all the vampire stuff I’ve seen too, wounds heal and disappear like there was never anything there.

Vampires I can understand. They’re kind of demonic I guess? Undead in their own special way? Or something? So I assume complete regeneration would be in the cards for them. (I’m not going to think too hard because there’s zombies and revenants and other undead things that are reanimated and they don’t heal – omg my brain.)

But werewolves and shifters are interesting. Do they regenerate? Or are they super healing? I guess it depends on the lore. Are they basically humans sharing a body with an animal soul? Or is it more curse/magic based and they, like vampires, regenerate?

I think this all kicked off when I was thinking about if a werewolf could get a tattoo. Would the body regen to the point where it pushed the ink out? Or would they just super heal as the tattoo was being drawn? (Man, wouldn’t that be awesome?)

I probably need to make the differences clear. Regeneration is when the wound or injury would reverse. Like it would go back in time or un-injure. A knife wound would close backwards, leaving no marks because the skin and tissue completely regenerates. All cells and blood and everything is restored. Supernatural healing is pretty self explanatory: the would heals haha. Everything works the same as it would with a regular human, it’s just sped up. The tissue and muscle and all that would knit back together and it would leave a mark/scar. And it would be tender for a while.

Now, why do werewolves and shifters heal without a trace in most media? To me it doesn’t seem right that they regenerate, since I don’t feel like shifters are in the same supernatural category as a vampire. Shouldn’t they have super healing? Shouldn’t shifters and werewolves heal real fast and then be left with a badass scar? Why isn’t this a thing? Is it a thing? Why isn’t this a thing more often?

I think werewolves should have scars and tattoos. Is that just me?

Hope everyone is having a w o n d e r f u l election season. Pet your animals, love your family and friends unless they’re terrible assholes, then love them anyway but stay away from them. Be kind. Have a good week.

You Could Fry An Egg On My Face

life, writing

It’s hot.

I know if you’re reading this from somewhere like Florida or Texas or something you’re thinking “haha, no it’s not” but goddamnit. It’s hot for Seattle okay? I’m not a fan of the sun, or the beach, or generally nice weather because again, I am from Seattle. I like rain. I love rain. And overcast. Damp is what flows through the blood of the Seattleite. So anything coming even close to 80 degrees is climbing too far; reaching too high. Slow your roll there, partner.

I’ve made the most of it by staying inside as much as possible, but I have a three and a half year old that also happens to be a sunflower. With my first it was okay, because like me he’s a vampire, but now I’m forced to go outside in the bright and the glare and the colors and bugs and do things. We have a huge umbrella over the patio table and that’s been quite the life-saver, especially when we BBQ. I mean I guess I could sit on the other side of the screen door in the air conditioning while my family plays outside and eats ribs and stuff, but thinking about it, that seems kind of depressing. No, I’ve been trying for real. I bought bird feeders and squirrel feeders and I leave out peanuts for the crows and raccoons. We have jays and woodpeckers and these little fat, round birds that look like the blue guys from Angry Birds. It’s great. Makes it all worth it. Animals are awesome.

A lucky side effect to the sun and the playing outdoors is my youngest gets tuckered out sometimes and has to chill for a bit, giving me some time to work on things. I’ve gotten through all the terrible, soul-crushing, teeth-pulling rewrite edits of the novel’s first few chapters, and now I’m actually getting to write some new stuff. It’s still rough, and I’m going to try and work through some of it with my writer’s group when we meet at the end of the month, but I’m also really happy that there’s an end in sight. Sort of.

Oh, I also sold a story. My short horror-fantasy work will be featured in Flame Tree Press’ Strange Lands Anthology coming out in November. It’s going to be a pretty great compilation of stories so check it out if that kind of thing interests you. Here’s a link so you can check it out.

http://blog.flametreepublishing.com/fantasy-gothic/gothic-fantasy-successful-submissions-strange-lands

The cover is so cool. It’s like a tome, or a Grimoire. I’m super excited to have it on my shelf.

I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy, wearing your masks and observing social distancing. At least you better be because I’m ready for this to be over, please and thank you.

Love your pets, treat people with respect, unless they’re complete assholes that don’t deserve your respect, and have a great week!

I Tried To Take One Day At A Time, But Several Days Have Attacked Me At Once

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Hello again folks. I hope everyone is having a safe summer. I hope no one is going mad, stuck in their houses with their children for months on end. I hope everyone is finding something to do that’s calming, or soothing, or at least distracting. Because holy cow, I am going pretty stir crazy.

I have been doing some fun projects though. I bought a few bird feeders and placed them in various spots in the front and back yard. I made sure to get different kinds too, so we have food for the bigger birds like the blue-jays, robins, and woodpeckers, not just the peep peep birds. (I know they’re called finches but “peep peep” sounds better when you have a three year old.) We even leave out a pile of peanuts in the shells for the crows. It’s a goddamn menagerie up in here now.

I’ve also been trying some new cooking things. I’m experimenting with different kinds of flour, or no flour, or using oats instead–that turned out pretty good actually. My daughter and I went by the Asian market and bought some ingredients for Korean foods like Tteobokki which is a spicy stir-fried rice cake. Super good if you eat it in ramen with sausages and lots of veggies. Oh, and I’ve decided that I’m eating sandwiches for breakfast until I’m old and all my teeth fall out. Sandwiches are the best and are especially good if they are the first thing you get to eat in the morning. (Also you can stay pretty low-cal if you get a good wheat bread and go easy on the mayo.)

There have also been some drawing and painting projects I’ve gotten myself into, but by far the coolest thing I’ve started is knitting. I taught myself how to do it last week by watching 8,000 hours of YouTube how-to’s. I bought a huge thing of cheap yarn and just went for it. Super hard at first, but after a while your fingers sort of get the idea. Funny story though: you have to look at your hands when you’re knitting, so when I tried to find something to watch while I did it, I got frustrated because everything–and I mean everything–in all my queues is foreign. As in subtitled. And since I refuse to listen to the atrocity that is English dubs, I didn’t actually have anything to watch. I know, I know, first world problem, but it was still annoying. I thought about just listening to a few audio books (started the Cartographer series by AC Cobble. Not bad, fantasy murder mystery with horror elements + steampunk) but I was set on having a show going while I worked. So I ended up marathoning Hannibal for the fourth time because it’s available on Netflix and I’m a sucker for Hugh Dancy’s ability to look like a kicked puppy and a lumberjack porn star at the same time. Also the crime scenes in that show are so over the top it’s great.

So there it is. Some knitting. I took that picture a few days in so that piece is longer now and sports a few holes where I fucked it up, but hey, progress.

As for writing, it’s going kind of slow. Not a lot of motivation. I’ve written a few short things, and re-worked some of the novel re-write (God that is starting to piss me off) but not much to report. However, I am headed to Port Townsend this weekend for a few days of relaxation alone in an inn by the water. I’m hoping the peace and quiet will get some things in my brain moving. And if not, at least I will be able to recharge my batteries.

I hope everyone is doing well, staying safe and healthy, loving their pets, and finding some creative outlets for whatever you might be going through. Have a great weekend, and I will update again soon!

I’m Trash Because I Love Hunky, Man-Chest Book Covers

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I published a book.

I mean, yes, it’s a book but it’s more a novella. It’s a fun little story I wrote for shits and giggles about two dirty-mouthed pirates that fall in love with each other over food. A reader of mine was kind enough to offer their editing services and the niece of one of my writing group pals is a artist/designer. Long story short: I received free editing and free cover art for the book and I am beyond grateful. I don’t know what I would have done without them. (Actually I do: I would have had a stock image cover and a bunch of typos. The end.)

It’s doing fairly well. I didn’t expect much from it, but it’s been steadily making money and the little line graph thing in the sales section of Kindle Publishing is headed in an upward slant, not a downward, so I guess that’s not bad for my first try.

All that is making me excited for the book I’m writing now. It’s a mashup of romance, super heroes, and a little body horror because I’m weird.

But hey, back to the first book. I had a time trying to figure out what I wanted on the cover. I searched the top 100 Gay Romance novels on Amazon, but that was kind of boring, so I searched “gay romance covers” on Google and that got some pretty amazing results. This one is my favorite:

It’s just fantastic. I’m going to read the shit out of this book when it arrives (yes I bought it).

There’s also this one.

Please go to the Goodreads page and check out the synopsis. If you’re not dying to read this book after that, friendship with me is off the table.

Besides the book–sorry, novella–publishing stuff, things have been kind of weird. If you haven’t heard, there’s this virus going around. It’s in the news and stuff, you probably heard about it, I don’t know. I live about 15 minutes north of Seattle, so I’m a stone’s throw from one of the two American hot spots. I haven’t actually seen any of the stuff they’ve been reporting on the news, like hospitals overcrowding or riots in grocery stores, but I can tell you that traffic is really, really good. In Seattle. In the middle of the day. It’s insane.

Oh, update on my last post: My daughter is doing well, back to using her keyboard so she’s playing lots of video games during this pandemic. The skin is red and strange-looking but healing, which is the most important thing. Jokes about alien skin or attacks from acid dragons are in the near future, I’m sure.

I hope everyone is safe and healthy and getting all the things they need and are not hoarding toilet paper or sanitizer like assholes because that’s selfish and stupid. Just saying.

Pet your pets and take care of yourselves! Have a good one!

“I Became Insane, With Long Intervals of Horrible Sanity.”

life

My dear friends, it has been a rough couple of weeks.

Some of you may know I have a twelve (almost thirteen) year-old daughter. She is wonderful and hilarious and loves horror movies and is basically everything one could want in a daughter.

On February 17th, we had a small kitchen fire that blackened our walls/ceiling, and melted a lot of plastic stuff. It started when a bit of oil splashed out of a pan, caught on the element, and built from there. My daughter was burned pretty badly trying to put it out. She had oil burns from fingertips to elbows on both arms, and second degree patches on her right thumb, wrist, and ring finger. I don’t know if any of you have ever experienced second degree burns, so let me tell you: they are terrible. They are very painful, and take forever to heal. My daughter has been a trooper the past few weeks through pain, open blisters, excruciating anxiety attacks, and a bunch of skin shedding. I’m not exaggerating when I say that her right arm looks like the fiji mermaid from The X-Files.

It’s been a long, slow, agonizing few weeks.

We are very thankful that her injuries are only second degree. They could have been a lot worse. She doesn’t need any kind of surgery, or skin graphs or anything like that, and none of the bad burns are deep enough to worry about movement or motor function. So let me say again, we are very lucky, all things considered, and we are very thankful.

That doesn’t make it any fucking easier to deal with though.

Understandably, this whole event has left my daughter with a little PTSD. It took a little while to manifest but it’s there, and it’s hard to communicate with her sometimes because I have no frame of reference. I’m just doing the best I can by cleaning and dressing the wounds, staying up with her when she needs it, comforting her when she breaks down–just being there.

There’s a lot of anxiety and underlying tension in the house right now. The baby (okay she’s not really a “baby” she’s a toddler) can feel it too so she’s turned into a tantrum monster. No seriously she screams at everything including routine diaper changes.

So, long story short: I am tired. I don’t like to complain about all this because I wasn’t the one that was injured, I’m not the one that’s in pain, but I really am ready to just crawl in a hole and sleep forever.

Hopefully you all are doing better than me and mine. I’m going to go home today and finish the second season of Altered Carbon (Omg Anthony Mackie is fucking great, but you know who’s better? Chris Conner. Seriously, just watch season 2 for Poe).

Image result for altered carbon poe and kovacs

Remember to pet your pets. Hug people you care about and will allow that sort of contact, and drink water. Have a great rest of your week everyone.

Double Trouble – More Work Makes It Easier…?

writing

I was thinking of this blog last night and started feeling guilty because I haven’t updated in a while. Truth is, I don’t have much to update. I’m still writing, still plodding through a manuscript that needs thousands of words of overhaul. It’s still too long, even if most of it is still only in my head. I’ve taken to putting names down in an Excel spreadsheet because forgetting characters is a thing. It’s rough because I saw the light at the end of this tunnel, or I thought I did, about seven months ago, but that was either an illusion, or the tunnel has made itself longer. Fuck you tunnel.

However, those of you that followed me though my years of fanficiton, you know that I actually do better when I’m writing more than one thing at a time. Having trouble with a twenty chapter Naruto fic? That’s okay, start a seven chapter One Piece story. Granted, this usually turned into both stories ending somewhere in the thirty-five chapter, 185,000 word range, but the point is I sometimes can organize my thoughts a little better if I… add projects? That doesn’t even make sense.

I started that horror story. Finally. I really like it so far. It’s so nice to sit down and write something in the current now and in our own universe so I don’t have to stop every paragraph and world-build. I love world-building, don’t get me wrong, but damn, it’s tiring. This horror story will be heavily character based and will offer up some juicy bits of my favorite horror genre – body horror. Also, possible interdimensional monsters because I can’t seem to get away from that.

I’m sure someone is reading this thinking “yeah okay, add projects and nothing will ever get done, you idiot” because that’s what I initially thought but I think it will be okay. My writer’s group made a channel on Discord where we put out goals for the year. I really only have two: 1) getting a first draft of my fantasy novel completed and up for the writers group to read 2) starting and finishing my new horror novel. So not that bad. I can do this.

Some other good news, I made the Norwescon writer’s workshop again this year. I’m really excited to meet some more potentially great writers, get some helpful feedback, and of course get that sweet, sweet networking. Claire Eddy, the executive editor for Tor Books, is the professional guest of honor this year, and if she were participating as a clinician that would be killer. Not that I think my stuff would ever be published by Tor, but I’m sure she would be a great person to know.

So I guess I was wrong. I started this entry with “don’t have much to update” and ended having plenty to talk about. Whatever, with that I’ll sign off. I hope everyone is having a good beginning of the year. Hope you are all petting your cats and dogs and other critters every day. Hope you are eating well and taking care of yourself. Good luck in anything you are striving for, and have a great day/week.

NaNoWriMo 2019

writing

NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month.

I was sure I was never going to do it again because the last few times I participated, I realized the pressure of putting out a specific amount of words in a short period of time drives me absolutely fucking bananas. The result is usually a massive writer’s block or sickness or something. I have a regular word output every month that’s fairly decent, so it just wasn’t worth it.

However, I did decide to participate this year because a good friend of mine from my writing group is participating. He’s a great writer and puts everything he has into every piece he creates, so I thought I would support him. I decided to go to a few write-ins and meet some people in the community, work on the novel, take it easy and not stress if I couldn’t make the deadline. Basically just commune with some folks that are going through the same thing as me, have similar goals, that kind of thing.

Turns out the Nanowrimo community is awesome. Huh. Who would have thought?

It’s cool to chill with like-minded people. I’m always around a lot of artists and creators, but those people are mostly musicians, or literal artists. I don’t really know any writers besides my writing group. And even though my writing group is becoming like a second little family, I don’t ever see them. It’s nice to be in the same room as a bunch of writers and talk face to face with people that are just as excited about proper grammar and world building as you are. It really is. I didn’t know I needed it.

Turns out I can pump out 50,000 words on command, because I hit the deadline a few days ago, and today is halfway through the month. I feel sort of shitty though because I came into it not taking the whole thing very seriously, but finished quickly when people are still working so hard and so diligently with all their hearts. But I had a good idea and I ran with it. (It’s martial arts boys falling in love in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought so.)

It’s not good. Let’s get that straight right off. It’s definitely not good, but it’s words on the page and it felt good.

I hope everyone else doing Nanowrimo is doing well, meeting their goals, heading to that finish line and all that. If not, I hope you’re still happy with what you’re doing and accomplishing because that’s what matters.

Good luck! 健闘!!

Grocery Line Epiphanies

Thoughts

Stories are everywhere.

I met an old man in line at the grocery store yesterday. He was friendly and from what I could tell, he was kind. He acquiesced his place in line to a mother with two kids and a cart full of stuff, even though I think he had gotten there first and he had maybe five items in his basket. Someone who gives up a spot in line at the busy hour, to someone who has at least two hundred dollars worth of stuff to ring up, is probably a saint.

I was curious so I stepped in behind him and struck up a conversation. I have experience with the elderly from my time working geriatric care, and I’m pretty confident in my ability to engage. He really was extremely friendly, and funny. I discovered that he had lived in one of the big houses down the street from my parents while I was growing up. Crazy coincidence. He and his wife had nine children, and are right now expecting their twelfth great grandchild.

It took four minutes to get to know the basics of this man’s life. He remembered his last three addresses, all the way back to the 1940’s. He could tell me about machine shops during the war, about his kids swimming at the lake on hot days, and all the names of every dog he had ever owned. It was amazing.

Only when he had finished paying for his small bag of groceries and started to head out, turning to give me a little wave and a sweet smile, did I realize I never asked his name.

I have no idea what the point of this musing is, not really. I was just thinking about how every person you pass on the street, or say “excuse me” to on the bus, or stand behind in line at the grocery store has a life, and a story. Not every person is going to be a nice old man that likes ice cream and telling stories about his kids–most are probably shit bags actually, but the whole thing just got me thinking.

I love discovering bits and pieces of lives like that, it’s very inspiring. I highly recommend taking some time to just listen to people once in a while. Ask questions. Collect characters and ideas from real situations. It makes it more authentic and believable, immersive.

Again, I have no idea what the point of this post is. I’m 190,000 words into the novel and my brain is starting to function on some strange plane between exhausted and teetering on the edge of a fourth dimensional epiphany. Or psychosis. One of those.

I hope everyone is having a good week.

New Blog and New Beginnings

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Hello, this is my new blog. I had to trash the old one because it wouldn’t connect to my Gravatar. I would like or comment on someone else’s blog and my avatar would show up but if one were to go to my profile and click on the blog site, it would take you to Internet Nowhere.

Stupid.

So here’s the new blog. I exported my last few posts and added them here at the beginning, but only a few. Most of my last blog was crap anyway. Time to get serious. I will keep trying to update this one on a regular basis, bi-monthly probably. Not too much because writing a novel requires that I, well, write it.

Speaking of, I’m wasting time. I’m going to go work.