This is a cross post from my Substack, where I’ll be posting more often.

I’ve been away from this place for a couple of months. I’ve been sorting things out in my head. It’s about deciding what way I’d like to take my writing.

It’s been a long time coming to get to this point. I love writing. I love writing what I enjoy reading. Let’s skip the BS and get to the nitty gritty.

Hello, I’m Brian. I’ve published horror novellas, short stories, and I have a story in the Utah Horror Writer’s Anthology for 2025.

I love horror stories. I love the darkness of the story. I love watching the movies and reading the books. But I’ve found my love of another genre, thrillers, has more pull with my writing and with who I am.

I watched a lot of horror as a kid. I was left alone often as a kid, as were most Gen X kids. I spent that time watching horror movies. I have the fondest of memories of watching Scanners for the first time only for my father to tell me not to watch it again. I did anyway.

I didn’t read horror until I was older. Horror books didn’t interest me. The movies always did. The first horror book I read was Four Past Midnight by Stephen King. I liked the stories in it but it didn’t hold my attention like other stories.

I spent quite a bit of time at the bookstore. My parents divorced when I was in third grade and I dove into books.

I owe my love of books to my father. He took my sister and I to the bookstore on his weekends. We’d get home and sit for a few hours and read, then dinner, and whatever movies we’d picked up at the video store.

I used to fault my father for only letting me read what he read. I read Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising in sixth grade and move of Tom’s books afterward.

I have fond memories of those books and I read many in that same genre.

My father didn’t let me read what I wanted to read. It always had to be the Tom Clancy style books.

I hated not reading what I wanted and took to hiding books in my closet, comics too.

I’m looking at 50 in few weeks. I love reading and watching horror but find that I’m not that good a writing them. My horror stories have sold less than my thriller, Disunion By Force. Which has sold 46 paperback copies and 51 digital copies.

Disunion is my best seller and it’s not even close. I’ve sold copies in Australia, France, Serbia, UK, Norway, New Zealand, and Germany, besides what I’ve sold in The States.

I’ve sold copies of my horror mainly in The States, but a few overseas.

I’ve realized that my thrillers are more popular and because of that I won’t be writing horror for a while. It’s less about sales and more about enjoyment and the process. Writing horror feels difficult. I’ve taken time off because I struggle writing horror.

My thriller writing comes easily. I’m able to outline, choreograph a beat sheet for an entire novel in a matter of days, but horror doesn’t come that way.

Every day feels like a challenge. Every time at the writing desk is hard.

I recently returned to a thriller novel I put away only to bust out 2,000 words without blinking. I’ve never been able to do that with anything horror related.

I love the horror community online. They’ve helped me figure out where I should put my focus.

I have plans for the next couple of years. I’ll be submitting my current project to agents. I’ve never submitted my thriller novels so I’m leery of it. I have plans for them regardless. I have 4-5 novels on deck in the next few years. I’ll be working on them.

If I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight.