writing – Sam Stark

Short Story Published in Flame Tree’s “Strange Lands Anthology”

Hello, this is a repost of my short fantasy/horror story that was published in “Strange Lands”, which you can find here: https://blog.flametreepublishing.com/fantasy-gothic/gothic-fantasy-successful-submissions-strange-lands

Enjoy!

Wondrous Grot and Secret Cell

As the last sliver of sunlight disappeared behind the battlements, the king glanced around warily at his advisers and then waved one gnarled finger in the air.

“Open the gate!” he commanded.

Iron chains protested the strain of lifting the great portcullis. Hinges screamed and gears turned in a shuddering, rhythmic clang as the mouth to the castle dungeon opened for the first time in months. A gust of foul air expelled from the darkness smelling of piss, rancid meat, and wet animal fur. The guards around the entrance held their ground but most turned their faces away, grimacing.

Malak adjusted his cloak and watched the portcullis rise. He glanced up and saw the stones of the gatehouse tremble and shake. The ancient castle was on its last legs. It was an old, dead thing. A rotting corpse of a once great dragon that could easily have been taken apart by one strong storm from the Cerulean Sea, had it not been so far inland.

The king waited until the gate was open halfway and then waved his hand, signaling the men at the winch. When the grinding stopped, he gripped the arms of his wooden throne and started to pull himself up, his frail frame protesting, joints creaking. Two of his advisors moved to assist him, but he snarled and slapped their hands away.

Once he was upright, he hobbled the few steps to the edge of the platform and addressed the three standing in the center of the courtyard. A fine sheen of sweat had broken out on his sallow forehead, and spittle clung in tiny white balls to the spiderweb wisps of his beard. When he spoke, yellow teeth flashed between cracked lips, and a voice like dry leaves rattled up from his throat.

“You have until the morning—that is of course, if you survive that long. If you do manage to kill it, I want you to bring me its head. That monster killed my son, you will give it no quarter.”

Malak looked at the two standing at his right and left. The man was a mercenary, tall, lumbering, with a greataxe strapped to his back. The woman was a huntress, thick with muscle and covered in scars. She carried a crossbow and a long sword.

They would probably be dead in a few minutes.

Malak turned back to the king. The old man was twitchy, nervous, and despite the glassy quality of his eyes, his wildly shifting gaze put everyone around him on edge. Silence permeated the courtyard for a moment before the king stamped his foot and barked, “Well? Are you just going to stand there!? Off with you!”

The woman moved first, pulling the crossbow from her back and holding it at a low ready as she made her way toward the dungeon’s entrance. A guard stepped forward to hand the mercenary a lit torch and the big man took that in favor of pulling out his greataxe. Malak followed the two silently, his daggers hidden in secret places no one would understand.

As the three moved under the stone gatehouse, Malak glanced down at painted symbols of purple and gold on the cobblestones. The colorful shapes flickered under the torch like jewels in candlelight. All of the symbols were familiar, but he did not recognize their exact meaning.

“The hell are these?” the mercenary asked.

“Magician’s wards,” said the huntress. “Keeps the thing below from coming up here.”

They left the symbols behind and started the descent. Soon the cobblestones gave way to gravel, and then to dirt that was wet and smelled of blood and feces. The mercenary made a noise in the back of his throat and covered his mouth with his hand, but the huntress pressed on, seemingly unfazed.

Further down, a thin, translucent slime covered every surface, making clusters of ultramarine mushrooms that grew along the floor on either side of the passage shimmer faintly. Strange colored moss lined the walls and hung from the low ceiling in delicate, green-blue curls. Malak marveled at the moss, it reminded him of mermaid’s hair. Such a strange and beautiful thing to find in the middle of this dank, foul-smelling place.

When the walls widened out into a larger chamber, the three of them stopped to take in the new surroundings.

The space was long, with a stone arch ceiling, and a row of small cells sat at close intervals along each wall. The moss was thicker here, the mushrooms larger. The glow from the strange slime was brighter, illuminating most of the chamber with blue light, or maybe pink. It was hard to say. When Malak turned his head, the colors shifted.

Most of the bars on the cell doors had been bent or broken entirely; snapped in half. Malak knew only a creature possessing extraordinary strength could have broken solid iron bars like those, but that was only one in many interesting things he noticed with his keen eyes.

A few pillars held up what was left of the stone arch, but most of the old structure was on the floor, crumbled and broken from the fall. There seemed to have been twelve pillars at one time. Now there were only three, two on the left and one on the right, all standing aegis over this concrete graveyard.

There were pieces of machinery among the debris, wooden benches attached to large iron gears, long metal tables with strange grooves along the edges fitted with small, rusted filtration systems. There had been pain here, and death; years of violence created and conducted by these contraptions of engineering and science, but now they were all rotting away, slowly swallowed by nature and all its terrible beauty.

There were bones strewn about, ribs, a few feet, a skull or two. Parts of corpses peered out from beneath the larger pieces of broken stones while others were the soil for the largest of the moss beds. Some of the dead were clad in rusted armor, and some had tattered remnants of magician’s robes clinging to what was left of rotted joints. No doubt these had been the adventurers that had come before Malak and his party. They had come looking for fame and glory by slaying the monster trapped beneath the castle, but they had never left, and were now reduced to nothing more than plant food.

The mercenary took a squelching step forward into a thick puddle. When he pulled his foot back, the mess on his boot was more red than brown.

“Ah,” the big man growled low, “this is such shite.”

The huntress nodded. “Let’s just find the thing and kill it so we can get out of here.”

The mercenary scraped the bottom of his boot on a piece of stone and made another noise in the back of his throat.

“What is all this? I mean, what’s down here?”

The huntress had moved ahead to the right. She shrugged. “I heard it was an evil spirit that found its way into the castle during the celebration on Underlife Night. It took over one hundred of the king’s knights to corner it in here, and ten magicians to trap it.”

“Well,” the mercenary chuckled as he made his way left, “that’s a lot of bullocks. I heard whatever it was, was posing as a servant in the castle. It put an evil spell on the prince, bending him to its will and such. One night, the queen hears the prince screaming and finds the poor bastard in his chambers, guts ripped out and this thing sitting on his chest, feasting.”

“Damn…”

Malak listened to their conversation but stayed quiet and unmoving. His left hand hovered over one of his daggers; his eyes watched the ceiling.

“I heard something like that too,” the huntress said as she edged around a large fungus cap and toed open one of the broken cells. “It used to be a girl, and she was a servant here in the castle. But instead of her putting an evil spell on the prince, I heard he fell in love with her on his own and tried to take her by force. Supposedly, the violence awoke some evil thing dormant inside of her.”

The mercenary threw back his head and laughed a great guffaw at the ceiling that rattled the loose pieces of stone at Malak’s feet and shook the hanging moss.

“What a romantic story!”

The huntress growled. “It sounds like some bullshite a man made up. Although, if that is what happened, I hope she really did rip out his heart and eat it. Serves the son of a bitch right.”

The mercenary laughed again. “I don’t care how it happened; I just want that reward. Three-thousand silver pieces will keep me swimming in tits and booze for a year.”

Malak slowly lowered himself into a crouch and his cloak brushed the floor with a soft scrape. While his companions had been inspecting the edges of the room, distracted by their conversation, Malak had been waiting. There, at the highest point in the ceiling where the carved stones had fallen away, a nest of sticks, fungi, and bile had been shaped into something resembling a beehive. It was not large, but big enough for a child, or maybe a small woman to fit inside. Two tiny pinpoints of light had reflected in the torchlight but had disappeared as quickly as they had come. At first, Malak wasn’t sure if he had truly seen them.

Now, he watched as a small, white hand slid out from the nest, followed by a slender wrist. A small, oval face with wide, dark eyes appeared in the opening and Malak shivered with excitement.

Slowly, gracefully, she climbed out of the hideaway, her talons gripping the ceiling. White, leathery wings unfolded, their talon tips stretching silently, readying for flight.

Malak remained where he was, barely breathing. Waiting.

“Hey,” the mercenary said as he heaved a broken stone aside, “you see this?”

“You’ve got the bloody torch on the other side of the room!”

The mercenary sighed and straightened. “But the light from the mushrooms… never mind. Get over here, woman. There’s a—”

A shriek pierced the air and a white shape fell from the ceiling, landing on the mercenary’s shoulders. He cried out, dropped the torch, and flailed his arms trying to reach his greataxe.

“Damnit!” the huntress cried. She lifted her crossbow but the creature was wrapped around the big man so intricately, there was no way to shoot and not hit them both.

The creature tore at the mercenary’s chest with her long talons, her sharp, brilliantly white teeth snapped at his face and neck. The man’s screaming turned wet, and within moments there was so much blood, Malak couldn’t tell exactly what was happening. Fans of crimson rained in perfect arcs across the stones, splashing ribbons of color onto blue mushrooms, turning them a dark, dripping purple.

The huntress unsheathed her sword and sprinted across the chamber to help the mercenary, but Malak knew it was no use. As she neared where he crouched, he braced himself and thrust out his leg. The huntress’ foot caught on his heel, and she went down hard, her face slamming into the dirt. Her sword fell from her hand and slid through mud into the darkness underneath a cluster of fungus and stone.

Sputtering, she turned and looked at him, her dark eyes wide with fury.

“You!” she hissed. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Malak folded his cloak back and pressed a single finger to his lips.

“Wait.”

There was a crash, followed by a wet thud, and both Malak and the huntress looked up to find the mercenary on the ground, greataxe nowhere to be seen. The creature perched on his chest. One last guttural cry bubbled up from the mercenary’s lungs before she reached into his mouth and tore out his tongue.

The huntress’ lips pulled back in a terrible snarl and she pushed herself up on her hands. “Crone’s eyes be merciful! We have to—”

Malak’s hand shot out and grabbed her by the jaw. He used just enough pressure to stop her from speaking, but not enough to truly hurt. Her body stiffened. Fear started to creep into her features and her eyes frantically searched for her sword, or perhaps an escape.

Again, Malak raised a finger to his lips.

“I said… wait.”

The huntress looked at him again, eyes wide and terrified. Malak felt the tension in her muscles, the coil of the spring in her core. She was either preparing to fight or getting ready to flee as soon as he took his hand away.

“She will feed now,” Malak explained quietly. “She will grow calm and it will be easier to communicate.”

The huntress opened her mouth to say something and Malak let her. He released her jaw but put his finger up to his lips one last time as a warning.

“You want to communicate with it?” the huntress hissed. “What the hell is wrong with you? It’s eating the big one—whatever his name was! It tore him apart—”

“They’ve left her down here for months with nothing but rats. What did you expect?”

“I expected we were going to kill her—it!”

Malak shook his head. “That was never my intention. Now listen, I like you. You seem—despite your profession—to be a good person so I will tell you this: Make no moves, make no sounds. Whatever happens, you stay silent and still until I say otherwise. If you do that, you will live. If you don’t, you will die. I give you my word.”

The huntress blinked at him stupidly. “What?”

“Swear you will stay still and silent!” Malak growled.

“Okay!” the huntress cried and shrank back. “Okay, all right! I swear!”

Malak nodded and watched as she slid underneath the broken remains of a table. He really did like her. There was no way she could have known what she was getting herself into. She was not at fault.

When Malak straightened and turned back to the unfolding carnage in the center of the chamber, he thought about the mercenary and winced. The man was collateral damage yes, but even though he had been a crass, rude, and generally unpleasant person, Malak still felt a little guilty for leading him to his death.

Blood soaked the crumbled remains of stone pillars. It pooled in thick, dark puddles that reflected the shimmering glow from hundreds of colorful mushrooms. Strings of flesh had joined the hanging moss along the stone wall, and a large chunk of something hung caught in the broken bars of the closest cell door.

She was still there, crouched on what was left of the mercenary’s chest, pulling away bits from the awful and slipping them into her mouth. Her chewing was quiet, almost dainty, as if she were at tea with her friends, snacking on cakes of flour and fig. Pieces of lung went between her lips like plump dates dipped in gravy.

Malak took a few steps forward and her eyes lifted. They met his gaze and she froze; a slice of intestine halfway to her mouth.

He stopped moving and put up his hands. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her.

She was very small, but from the swell of her breasts, to the curve of her hips, all the way to the graceful lines of her ankles, she was a woman. Her hair was dirty and matted, but long and thick. Her skin was the pale, shimmering pink of a deep-sea pearl, dotted with tiny blue stones the color of the ocean. Her eyes had been deep pools of black during her attack, but now they were gray, almost human. They shone brightly in the blue-pink light, watching him with something that was neither fear nor apprehension, only curiosity.

Malak felt he couldn’t breathe. She was nothing like he had expected, nothing like he had ever dreamed. Carefully, he opened his mouth and spoke in a series of clicks and hums at the back of his throat.

“Don’t be afraid.”

Her eyes widened and she bolted upright. Her wings came out wide and she made a noise like a reed of grass whistling in the wind.

“How do you speak like me?”

At the sound of his birth language on her tongue, Malak felt tears in his eyes.

He smiled softly and clicked, “How do you think?”

His cloak unfolded from his shoulders. The worn, leathery skin, scarred and stiff from disuse, stretched out wide for the first time in years. Shoulders protesting, Malak shook himself, and flapped his dark wings once, testing the joints for motion and strength.

Her lips and teeth were still bloody as her mouth slid open in shock. Her eyes darted back and forth, side to side, taking in the size of him, the idea of him. His wingspan was half again wider than hers, but he was taller than she was; it was to be expected.

“You are...” she whispered, awed.

Malak smiled. “Yes.”

There was only a moment of hesitation, and then she ran to him. She threw herself into his arms and wept. The mercenary’s blood mixed with her tears and ran down Malak’s neck, collecting at the collar of his jerkin. He held her close, heart aching, wishing he had heard about her sooner, wishing he could have come to this place years ago.

“I thought I was the last,” he murmured. “How were you trapped here? What happened?”

“I lost my mother,” she said into his throat. “I wanted to play with the children, so I came through the gates. They chased me, caught me, and brought me down here. Their magic sealed me in, and they did things to me, terrible things! I didn’t want to hurt them, I asked them to stop! I begged! But they kept hurting me! And I was so hungry! When the science men were all gone, they left me all alone. All alone for so long and I was so… so hungry.”

Malak stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head. “You don’t have to be alone here anymore. I know how to unseal their terrible symbols. You can leave if you want.”

She pulled way and looked up into his eyes. “Can I go with you?”

He nodded. “Of course. You can go wherever you want now. But first,” he put his arms on her shoulders, “let us put an end to the evil people that have done this to you.”

Her smile was wide and bloody, and she giggled as she flapped her wings and danced away from him toward the tunnel entrance.

Malak followed, but stopped where he knew the huntress lay waiting.

“Wait here until the screaming stops. It’ll probably be sometime after dawn.”

The Huntress said nothing, and Malak didn’t wait for an answer.

In the gray morning light, two figures emerged from the city gates. Both were small, and slight. The man was dark-skinned with even darker hair, and he was wearing a brilliant black cloak of scaled leather. The woman was lovely, pale skinned with midnight black hair, and piercing gray eyes. She wore a dress of shimmering white that trailed behind her like smoke on the water.

“Where shall we go?” the woman asked.

Malak smiled and took her hand. “I have a home on the other side of the continent. It’s a long journey, but it’s on a cliff by the sea. You can fly with wyvern children in winter, and in the summer, you can swim with mermaids in the ocean.”

“Will we be safe?”

He nodded. “I will show you how to live like them. Humans aren’t all bad, I promise.”

She looked back at the castle. Smoke billowed from the burning keep, the broken edges of windows winked at her in the morning light. Even from this far away, she could see the blood running from the walls of the battlements. The evil men were dead, they all were dead. The terrible things that had been done to her had been avenged and now she could start anew.

“I think…” she turned back to him and squeezed his hand. “I think I would love that.”

“What do I call you?” he asked.

She frowned and shook her head. “My name was taken from me. I wouldn’t mind if you gave me a new one.”

He looked at her, at the stone gray of her eyes, the black of her hair, the lovely pink of her skin.

“Pearl,” he whispered.

She smiled in a way that made her seem very young. “I like that. What is a pearl?”

Malak pulled her around and took her in his arms. He wiped a single drop of blood from the corner of her mouth with his thumb and then slipped his thumb between his own lips.

“When we get home to the ocean, I’ll show you.”

END

[JSS1]Changed “She” to “The huntress” for clarity.

“It’s so long since I’ve had sex, I’ve forgotten who ties up whom.” —Joan Rivers

Uncategorized

I’m writing sex again.

It’s been ten-thousand years.

It’s like riding a bike, not going to lie. Writing across several genres (romance, fantasy, horror) I’ve come to recognize the stuff that’s easy to fall back into and what’s a struggle, and sex is the easiest. I fall into that shit like it’s a Posturepedic.

My weaknesses are many. I mean I’m pretty shit at a lot of stuff but mostly intros and first lines. I work into things slowly and I always get “you need to get to the tension/action faster” in critiques. I think that’s the horror writer in me. Sucks that every story in every genre has to have a first line and an intro haha. Also grammar? Punctuation? Yeah, not my thing. But at least there are editors for those.

But anyway, I was talking about sex scenes. I like them. I like writing them. I like reading them a lot. I also like to read and write fight scenes, and I think the creation of the two share the same part of my brain. Both involve more than one person (yes I understand there are solo sexual situations bear with me) and both are intensely physical. Both acts are shaped by the individual skill level of the participants, be they skilled or no; experienced or no. And, most importantly, in both situations, if the encounter is fueled by emotion you can dial everything up to 12.

I love it when the emotions are high. It doesn’t even need to be a sexy thing or during a fight. I’m reading this book now, Hush by Tal Bauer, and yes there’s sex and yes there’s a lot of romance but there’s also this courtroom/political thing involving presidential assassins and Russia and it all kind of hinges on the main character struggling with his identity and coming out as gay and there’s just so many feelings gaahhhh. It’s so intense. ~~Also Joel Leslie is a god of audiobook narrating fuuuck me.~~

Moving on, there is no point to this post. I just wanted to gush about how much I missed writing sex and how happy I am to be doing it again. It’s nice to be writing something that’s not killing my brain or making me want to tear out my hair in frustration.

Hopefully you all are not killing your brains or wanting to tear your hair out. Love your pets! Have a great rest of your week!

Venting

life, writing

I need to learn how to not be so hard on myself.

Yeah right.

I am probably the most organized person I know. I’m not crazy anal or anything, and I’m not ODC or whatever, I just have this fairly strict sense of things I need to do in a specific amount of time because I’m a fucking adult and I have things that need to get done. There’s always Something. I’m always doing Something. (Just a side note: this specific amount of time is a week. I don’t know why it’s a week, it’s just the way of things. I live circularly. I write circularly I guess it just makes sense.)

The things (Somethings) that need to get done are all pretty straightforward: Kids have to go to school. That means there’s laundry and lunches to be prepared, which means trips to the grocery store on a schedule (every Sunday and Thursday). That also means doctors appointments, dentist and orthodontist appointments, homework checkups, and the occasional ride to orchestra or home from swim practice. There’s meal planning for the week for the entire family and daily mandatory house cleaning because if I don’t keep up it all goes to hell real fast. Then of course there’s work–real actual day job work, and even though I’m fortunate to have a job that I don’t have to bring home, it’s still nine hours (sometimes ten depending on traffic) that’s being taken up by Something. And then of course there’s the thousand little things, feed the cats, check the litter box, check to make sure there’s litter and food for the cats in the first place–oh and also are there paper towels?

Weekends are family time, bath time, take the kids swimming, D&D with the youth group etc.

Something.

There’s always Something going on, so when I get a few hours to relax or a little “break to write” I’m usually not in the correct headspace to do that. I end up watching anime or binge-watching Midnight Mass (highly recommended btw), or writing a fucking blog post, and I don’t get to that chapter because fuck it’s hard and I don’t want to go back to that scene where I couldn’t figure out why the dialogue isn’t working, and why am I not just focusing on audiobook narrating because it seems to be going better and it’s easier to get jobs that actually pay?

I get really mad at myself if a week goes by and all my time is taken up by Somethings I had to get done and I didn’t have any time to work on my current writing project. Which is a fucking stupid thing to think because there’s always a little extra time. I’m just not always managing it perfectly. There’s always a few hours here and there I could be devoting to placing my ass in my chair and staring at Word. But I’m watching brilliantly written vampire shows and k-pop videos and scrolling through Pinterest for The Raven Cycle fan art because I. Like. It.

And see, that’s what I’m talking about. I spend fifty plus hours a week devoted to work, and then also have to do all this prep for the kids and school, meals, laundry, cleaning, pet care, exercising–Jesus H Christ the list just goes on–and then I expect myself to just be a robot and work some more. Like hours and hours more. No down time needed, writing is fun, we love writing. Writing IS downtime.

Most weeks I do it. Most weeks I’m an exemplary fucking human being, spitting up 12K, sometimes 15K words on top of all this other living and Somethings I do. (Real talk: it’s not all usable. Maybe I keep 8K on average?) And sometimes I get ALL that shit done AND I narrate a fucking audiobook as well. Hell yeah, I’m a machine.

I’m sure this is some kind of trauma. This is probably leftovers from being pressured to be perfect all the time and toss everything that even slightly smells of Second Best.

I really wish I could just chill the fuck out. I want to have a few weeks (months would be nice) of not stressing out over not losing weight, or not writing the best novel ever, or ah fuck I wanted to go to that thing but I’m too tired so I’m a fucking failure of a friend.

I think I actually do a pretty good job. Most of the time.

It’s just once in a while, there’s a lot of Somethings. And I can’t fit in the somethings I want unless I risk burning out. I need to just chill, and think about how many important Somethings I do get done every day. The other somethings will still be around when I have time and the brainpower. I just need to be kinder to myself. I need to be okay with vegging out and watching Squid Game.

I need a fucking vacation.

“The Future Belongs to Those Who Believe in the Beauty of Their Dreams” – Eleanor Roosevelt

audiobook narration, writing

I %100 did not meet my goal of getting a journal post up last week. Oops. I have a good excuse though, promise.

Okay, so, first thing’s first: I have now finished two novel narrations. The first is past the author/publisher’s checks and now it’s on to Audible approval. I should hear back (hopefully) soon. I’ll put the link to it up here, but it’s the billionaire romance so I don’t expect anyone that follows me to actually read (listen to) it. It’s cool, don’t worry about it.

The second is an urban fantasy and that one was really fun to narrate. I got to try out some silly accents, it had a nice range of emotions and style choices, and bonus! The story is kind of fun! It got a little harry there for about a week because I got behind and didn’t have the time I thought I would to record. Well, actually, recording is the easy part. After I record all the chapters, I have to go back through and cut out all my bloopers and that takes FOREVER. Then I have to do a third pass, reading along as I listen to make sure it’s accurate to the actual text. If I’ve messed up a phrase, or flubbed a word or something, I have to go back, record that piece again, and then splice it into the final cut. Waaahh, such a long process! But I did it. I turned it in on the due date and it’s waiting approval now.

I’m trying not to be nervous about it, but there is so much in there, and so many voices and accents they might not like? Bluuuh. Oh well, nothing to do but turn my energies on the next one. This third novel is a drama/military/tragedy and wooaaa it’s heavy. I also have to do it all in a southern accent. It’s not actually that hard, the hardest part is going back to talking normal once I’ve left the studio haha.

All in all I’m loving it. There are so many weird things I wouldn’t have thought of before starting this whole thing. Like, for example, I think Rule Number One of audio narration should be ALWAYS HAVE CHAPSTICK ON HAND. It’s a must, otherwise when your mouth begins to dry up – and it will – your lips start to click and it’s Super Loud on the microphone. Random huh? But good to know.

Also, Jesus Christ AIRPLANES. I forgot I live next to an airport! How many freaking planes fly over my house per hour?? SIX! SIX PLANES AN HOUR!! …It’s cool though, it’s cool. It’s only in the afternoon. Someday I’ll live somewhere quiet and I’ll have an actual studio office with soundproofing…. … someday.

In other news, I’ve also submitted my writing for the Norwescon Writer’s Workshop. I almost didn’t, having had a not-so-great-experience last year. (Maybe I’ll talk about that later bluh.) However, the workshop is where I met my current writer’s group, and I’ve already made so many good connections through the process that it would be irresponsible of me not to try and do it again. I submitted the first chapter of my horror/thriller+superheros novel, so that should be fun. If I make it in, I hope everyone gives me the “superhero trend is dying out” speech so I can punch them. Not really. But maybe.

Okay, I think that’s all the major things that have happened in the past few months. I hope everyone is doing well, and that things are looking up for you in this new year. If you ever feel lonely or need someone to talk to about… well, anything, but mostly nerdy stuff, hit me up. I am down for feelings jams, especially if we get to scream about anime or awesome tv shows or something.

Love your pets, be nice to people, and have a good one!

“For Every Job That Must Be Done, There Is An Element Of Fun” – Mary Poppins

Uncategorized

I haven’t been keeping up to date on this blog, and I really should be because a lot has happened the last month.

First, I finished my novel. My dumb apocalypse adventure with land pirates, cute gay boys, and a dash of zombies. I’m not super happy with how it turned out, but I am happy that I finished it. Sometimes just finishing something is good. It felt great for about an hour and a half but then I was staring into the big black void of having nothing to work on and started freaking out. (That is complete bullshit by the way, I have a million things I could be working on. I was just having a very silly existential crisis.) Luckily one of my writing friends got back to me already with her very spot on critique and I have plenty to think about again. (I’m obviously not happy unless I have a bunch of shit in my head.) All her points were things I was already uneasy about, so at least there’s that. And the bones of the story seem to work. Hooray. I’ll let everything marinate for a few days and then get back to it. Try and work some new things in there and cut out all the broken stuff. It’ll be done someday. I swear.

Second, I landed another audition!

Hold on, back up. So when I auditioned that first time, I auditioned for seven different things. I got the erotic novel like I said in my previous post, but thought I bombed the rest because none of the others got back to me. Well it just took a while because the one I really wanted responded! And it’s actually an author from around here! The book is an urban fantasy about these people that go around breaking hexes. What I read for the audition was funny and sounded really fun. (Also it’s published through an actual publisher and has actually been edited, so that’s nice.)

So, long story long as usual, husband’s clothes are all in plastic containers around the room because the closet is now my studio. I bought a nice stool and hung blankets on the wall and inside the doors. I already had a good mic and I just use Audacity for the recording software since it’s a free download. I spend a couple hours a day reading things, and then try and find another five or six hours to do editing.

Seriously, fuck editing.

But for real, it’s super fun. I’m actually doing the two things I’ve always dreamed of doing professionally: writing and voice acting. It’s surreal. Hopefully, once I get a few novels under my belt I can start auditioning for bigger titles. I’m still not sure how a lot of it works, but I’ll figure it out. I’ll get there.

I see fortune and glory on the horizon, kids. Not even joking.

I hope everyone is doing okay. We live in strange times but we will get through it. And hey, if we’re still quarantining in six months you can download me reading about billionaires getting with cute yoga instructors or magic police chasing around dudes using illegal hexes. I mean, why not?

Oh, before I go, I’m starting this thing where at the end of my posts I recommend some stuff. Here it goes.

“Virgin River” on Netflix. It looks like your average run-of-the-mill cutesy romance about a city girl coming to a small town and falling for the bartender, (and well, yeah it’s that too) but there is some heavy shit going on in this show. It still has a few of the tropes that annoy me about straight romance, but the issues they deal with need to be utilized more. Also, the characters are pretty likable at about episode three.

I started reading the “Tyack & Frayne” series. It’s a bunch of novella length books set in Cornwall, England. It’s just a bunch of cozy mysteries with a touch of the supernatural centering around Frayne, who’s a copper, and Tyack, who’s a psychic. They solve crimes together and fall in love and it’s wonderful. The book I’m on now they just got married.

“Tenet” comes to DVD on December 15th. Watch that shit. Just fucking do it.

Well, that’s all I think. I’ll leave you now to go watch and read good shit. As usual, pet your pets, be nice to people, and for the love of god wear a mask.

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.

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!

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.