About Brian B Baker

I write horror stories, review books, and talk about depression, and how I get through all of it.

Write what works for you, not others.

Posted on December 2, 2020 by Brian B Baker

When I published my short story collection in October I knew it wouldn’t do well. The point was to publish something this year, regardless of what it was.

I loved writing those stories and enjoyed the process of editing them, putting them together, and putting them out.

When you write, there are things that you hope will happen: that people will read your stories, that you’ll get amazing reviews, and that you’ll connect with those people through your writing.

What happened was none of that.

The only people who bought the collection, now $.99 on Amazon for Kindle, are mostly family. There are couple of outliers, but it’s mostly family.

Here’s the thing about that. My family doesn’t read horror.

My mom used to, but doesn’t anymore. I guess I put together the collection for them, and not for myself, which is fine.

I’ve listened to a authors talk about the fact that their families don’t read horror so why should they write for them?

I took this to heart with the last few stories I’ve written. It’s about what scares me because in the end, if I’m not scared when I write something, the reader won’t be either.

Writing for you is more important than anything.

There are family members who will be turned off by writing for various reasons.

I realized I’m okay with that. I write for me first and if I like the scary parts I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Your writing should be important to you, not to your family. If someone doesn’t like the bits about gore, it’s not for them. If they’re turned off by those things, remember, you liked them and someone else will as well.

Throw the dirty, gory, nasty things into your writing that you’ve been afraid to. Put it all out there, someone will like it.

I’ve read a lot of extreme horror in the last few months because I hadn’t read it. I wanted to see how far other authors have gone, and realized something. There were great swaths of things I was afraid to write that these authors shrugged at and went more fucked up.

So I’m doing that now.

I’ve written scenes I wouldn’t have dared write six months ago, but seeing where other authors went, I dug myself a hole and followed it into the dark.

Chase the dark, it’s where the best part of horror lies.

Unregulated and unrefined

Posted on November 30, 2020 by Brian B Baker

There is a way to go about writing that’s been sticking in my brain.

I haven’t been able to work really well until recently, at least on a novel. I have short stories coming from everywhere, but novels have eluded my since May.

Recently, the last week actually, I found my way through them and into something more worthy.

This breakthrough or whatever you want to call it came out of writing for an anthology with a quick turn around. I realized I was entirely capable of writing a story in a couple of days, editing it the best of my ability and submitting it.

It was less difficult than I believed it would be and found myself actually enjoying the editing process, macabre as hell I know, but it did happen.

When I came back down from the editing and after I submitted it, I realized what I’d done and thought about it for a few days.

Today is the first day I’ve thought of putting something down about the experience.

I’d been avoiding this blog, though still paying for it, maybe because I was paying for I was avoiding it.

Whatever the case, I’ll be sharing my writing journey more often.

I write horror and that comes in many varieties.

My short story collection on Amazon has 11 stories in it. I’m working on a novel currently as well as writing short stories for any anthology that I see on Twitter or Horrortree.

I’ll see you on Wednesday.

Book birthday…

Posted on October 6, 2020 by Brian B Baker

Today is the day I’ve waited for since my teens.

I published a book today. Its only a small collection but I promised myself I’d publish something this year and it’s not a big collection, but I needed to get it done in order to be happy with myself.

The collection is only a small part of my writing and there are a lot of other stories I could have put in this collection but chose these based on my feeling about each of them as well as how they show a progression of my writing.

Some are from a few years ago while others are more recent, but each one of them is special.

I intend to publish another book in January, it will be in a different genre though.

After that I will publish a horror novel, which I’m currently writing.

I will write what I enjoy writing, which is horror.

Since I was a little kid I’ve always enjoyed horror.

My mom rented Halloween(the original) on VHS and Children of the Corn when I was a kid. I watched Halloween at least ten times. Then in my sister had me watch Hellraiser, it was all over after that. I love that movie and it’s one of my all time favorite movies of any genre.

Today I’m working on horror, but later this year that may change.

In a world like this, an escape is a necessity. Reading books, especially those in horror can get you away from what you’re dealing with and help you find a way to deal with things better.

Seeing someone deal with a horrible monster and having an ending for that story helps, but anyway here is a link to get a copy…

Amazon Kindle and Paperback are here.

Barnes & Noble Nook is here.

I am working on getting it on Google Play as well as Kobo, but I submitted them for review late. They’ll be up soon.

We’re always figuring things out.

Posted on September 28, 2020 by Brian B Baker

Next week I publish a book and it’s been a learning experience.

The whole thing has changed my perspective on what I write and how I write. I used to think I could only write in one genre, this book and another I wrote in April made me rethink what I write.

The book next week is a collection of horror stories, while the book in January is a political thriller.

I denied myself writing a thriller book for years because I felt I shouldn’t write it.

I considered myself a horror writer because I love horror. My favorite books and movies have always been horror. Narrowing myself to only horror limited what I wrote. I didn’t intend for it to do that but it did.

I still love horror but for some reason I’m having a hell of a time writing long form. Short stories happen easily, but long form are a pain in the ass.

I wish I knew why I have this issue.

I loved writing the stories in the collection which comes out next week, they’re all horror of some sort or another.

You can find it on Amazon for Kindle or Barnes & Noble for Nook.

I don’t understand why I have this issue, but I do. I hope you’ll get the book. I enjoyed writing every line of those horror stories.

About long breaks…

Posted on September 12, 2020 by Brian B Baker

I took a break from this blog for a while to work on things.

If you follow me on social media, you saw my post. I have been working on this collection for most of the summer and another project that fell apart.

The latter of these things made me realize a few things about myself and my writing. I am really good at writing short horror stories. But when it comes to a longer form of horror, I have trouble. let me explain.

From April 4th to May 4th I wrote the first draft of a 100,000 word novel.

This novel is different from anything I’d written prior, and it is the only novel I’ve followed a beat sheet and outline to the letter.

It is a very strong first draft. Possibly the best first draft of a novel I’ve ever written. I owe that to the set up with the outline and beat sheet.

The book will be coming out in January and it is not horror.

When I was a teenager I read the military and political thrillers that were popular in the late 80’s and 90’s by authors like Tom Clancy.

At the time I wasn’t allowed to read any other books, or at least that’s how it felt. Any time I asked to read something other than those books, my father rebuffed me and it was only in my room where I could read the books I wanted to read; horror, comics, fantasy, and science fiction being my favorites.

When I began to write my own stories I swore I’d never create worlds like Clancy’s. This came about because of the way I feel towards me father(he and I don’t have a relationship).

With the books I felt I had to read it was about control and I have an issue with being controlled, as we all should.

I believe that by allowing the way I was treated to enter into my head, it stopped me from following a path that maybe I should have followed.

The first idea I had for a novel was along the lines of the military/political thriller, but I closed myself off to that because of the trauma I experienced growing up. In other words, I allowed it to stop my creativity because I worried old feelings would come back.

Now it comes back around to the novel I’ll be self-publishing in January. There are other novels I’m currently writing or ideas I’m pondering contained within the same world.

It is a change that maybe I needed to do. I believe by allowing myself to be stopped creatively because of past trauma, I rejected stories which I would have enjoyed as well as ones that would push me.

Today, I’m moving forward with these books because I really enjoy writing them more than anything else. I consider myself a writer who does not limit themselves to one genre. I will write in whichever genre a story comes to me, I only wish I knew why I had such a difficult time with creating outlines for horror novels.

Maybe this is just a learning experience and I need to figure it out at another time, but for now I’ll write these political/military thrillers because they give me a joy that I’ve rarely found in writing.

Here is the link for the short story collection. I hope you enjoy the stories. There are some dark ones in there and I enjoyed writing each of them.

Brian B Baker, Writer

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