Author Archives: Brian B Baker

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About Brian B Baker

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

Getting back to normal

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I found myself straying away from the point of this blog. It was meant to help me deal with the world around me. I know why it went sideways. I was chasing my writing. I should have let it develop on its own.

I used to talk about depression, dealing with it, and trying to escape it.

I have a book coming out in October. It was challenging to write. Here’s where I get a bit personal. With the healthcare system in the United States, I should have seen someone about a specific situation. I had a severe mental break ten years ago. During and after that break, I dealt with delusions. I would hear things, see things, and for most of those years, believe untrue things. I used what I dealt with to write the book coming out in October.

I didn’t seek professional help because I worried it would impact my wife’s and my health insurance. We had great health insurance in Las Vegas, but sadly, we’re using my wife’s now. It’s not as good as what he had in Las Vegas. But no health insurance is decent when it comes to mental health.

Gerald’s journey in ‘The End Is All I Can See’ is similar to mine. He has dealt with other issues, but writing the book was cathartic. I found myself diving into my head, seeing the world through those lenses. I haven’t been diagnosed with what Gerald deals with, but the signs point to it. My delusion was something like the Truman Show. I completely believed the delusion. It wasn’t until I said something to my wife that we sat down and discussed it. It continues to raise its head. It’s usually when I’m stressed or worried about how I’m perceived. This perception led me to believe in the delusion. There are times I’ve wished for it to be real. This plays into the delusion. With my writing, it’s an ever-present thought. If the delusion were absolute, someone would care about what I do. Someone would care about my writing. It’s all any of us want. For someone to care about us. This makes my depression worse. I constantly worry I’ll head down the road on this delusion and have a psychotic break. This is my greatest fear with the delusion.

I would like the delusion to stop. I have weeks where it’s not there. Then it pops up again.

I think it started a few weeks before my mental break. I’d taken a pill for something. A few hours later, I heard a woman screaming for help. I ran around our house and outside, looking for her. My wife was worried as hell. A woman, completely naked, her skin all bloody as if she were pulled from a Clive Barker story, stood outside our closet. I didn’t say anything to my wife about the woman. I knew how mad it sounded. I knew how absolutely ridiculous the idea of the woman being there was, but I saw her.

I haven’t seen her since, but it’s something that has stayed in my head.

I had to get that out. I hope you’ll read the book when it comes out.

Review for Looking Glass Sound By Catriona Ward

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I read this in about a week. Honestly, I’ve had trouble reading Catriona’s work before this one. I couldn’t get into Needless Street. It’s one of my wife’s favorite books, but I struggled and DNF’d it because of those struggles.

I try to find a connection to books while reading them—something from my past or, with this one, something from my childhood. My parents divorced when I was in third grade. They fought constantly over everything. I understood Wilder Harlow.

We start with Wilder in his youth. Something messed up happens one summer that changes everything for him and the friends he’s gained during the summers his family vacationed on the Maine coast. I don’t want to spoil this book, but I’m Warning You there may be some within this review.

The incident in question haunts Wilder throughout his life, eventually leading him to write a book about it.

He returns to the scene many years later, but this is where it got weird for me. The book took a turn into the abstract. It made me question what I’d read up to the ending. It almost felt like I was duped. The ending felt like a dream ending in books or movies. I loved the book up until the end. I wanted it to stick the ending. It came out of left field for me.

There is so much I want to say about this book. I want to talk with others about it. The ending was off for me. Maybe I missed something and need to read it again, but the ending with the book (you’ll understand when you read it) came across as forced and convoluted. I ended up not entirely sure what happened and what was a story within the story, but not in a good way.

My wife and I talked about Needless Street. She told me the ending, and maybe having known it, I should have been prepared for it to do what it did, but I didn’t care for it.

I want to discuss this book with whoever wishes.

Taking the Time

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This post popped up on Instagram and several other sites over the last few days. It’s the “Take The Next Six Months” post. I saw it six times in the last couple of days. I’m taking that and other things as a hint to disappear for a while.

I’ve thought about doing this and posted here about it a few times. I no longer need to post, write, take pictures, or do anything else on the social media trash fire.

I will continue to write, and I have a book coming out in October and another in December. They’ll come out, and I’ll promote them, but I won’t kill myself over this anymore. I’m done trying to play the game.

I have too much to do and don’t want to worry about clicks or how well my books are doing. I’ll write in whatever genre I feel like at that moment. Get it as good as I can and publish it.

I hope you’ll read my books. They’re wherever you can find your books.

Down to the last thing

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Last week I wrote a couple of reviews here. I’m going to be only on here.

I tried the Substack thing. It’s just like being on here, but there are fewer readers. I had almost zero engagement on there. Twitter is the same way. I’ll probably leave there soon.

I’m considering leaving every social media I have except for this one. Substack is a blog. You can dress it up and add fancy things, but it’s still a blog. It’s why I deleted my account yesterday.

I can devote time to writing or social media, not both. I know SM is supposed to help me gain readers. I understand that, but I’m at the point where I’d rather write and publish what I want. It could be the next Jax Reed novel, a horror collection/novella/novel, or something else.

Jax’s book came out almost a year ago, and I haven’t written his next book. I know what it’s about. I have an outline. I’ve been worrying so much about finding connections on SM that I didn’t write it. I’ve written a lot of horror stories. Those will be coming out later this year and early 2024. I’ve created the covers for them. This is for the novella coming in October/November.

It’s been through a bunch of rewrites and revisions. I’ll be inputting those this week. I should have it up for preorder in early August. I’ll post here when that happens. I’ll have the other covers up soon, but the edits aren’t done for those yet.

You’ll be seeing more of me in the future. This is the only place I’ll write.

Brian

Review For Spin A Black Yarn by Josh Malerman

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I have read two of Josh’s books, Bird Box and Daphne. My wife has read almost all of his books, but I’ve had trouble with them. At least, I used to. I intend to revisit his books after reading this collection of novellas.

Spoilers Ahead

Let’s start out with the first story. This one felt chaotic at first. As I settled in, making my way around the story as the characters makes their way around the house. It made me uncomfortable in a way I’ve tried to put into words. This has become difficult, at least with this story. The presences within Half The House Is Haunted made me think about my childhood.

There are numerous throughlines in this story. It’s longer than some of the others. I wonder if Josh thought of expanding it into something longer. It feels like it could have been longer.

My uncomfortableness with this story lies with the telling of it. The first sequence is about childhood and what we find in our house. It’s about discovering the parts of your house your parents forbid you from, siblings, and how we don’t get along with some of ours.

It reminds me of one of the houses I grew up in. We were forbidden from going into our parent’s room. Which is normal. But discovering the house between the siblings and their interactions scared me more than the story itself.

I’ll move forward to the next story, Argyle.

Have you ever had those thoughts? The ones you shouldn’t speak about? What if you decided to come clean on your deathbed. How would that go?

Luckily, Josh has done that for us, but if you want to spill your secrets, go for it. I won’t hold you back.

I enjoyed the hell out of this story. We’ve all had those uncomfortable thoughts. Or maybe it’s me. I love Shawn in this story. He was honest about letting go of who he wanted to be and not letting anyone know until the end of his life. The struggle of keeping those secrets is similar to the first story. It’s about secrets.

Doug and Judy Buy the House Washer

Doug and Judy worked their whole lives to have the best of everything, but they’ve sacrificed themselves to get there.

The house washer cleans everything up. It doesn’t hold back from those little things you’ve kept in drawers, literally and figuratively. As the cleaner makes its way through the house, we see the darkness within Doug and Judy. We see what they’ve done. Who they’ve done it to, and how far they’ve gone to get where they are. It was a fantastic exploration of what people will do to get ahead in life and business and to be better than those around them.

The scenes in the bubble gave me that claustrophobic feeling. It’s as much of us, the reader, watching them, and them watching their lives.

Jupiter Drop

I’d like to see Josh do more science fiction like this. The claustrophobic feeling of the box. I was fascinated by Steve and what happened to him and all the little details. This was a great exploration of doing anything to escape your problems, only to find them waiting for you.

Egorov

This was my favorite story in the collection. I recently finished The Brothers Karamazov and found the writing in this story similar, but one particular scene stood out. When one brother returns to a house to find a woman living in it, there is a scene in Egorov similar, or at least gave the same vibes.

The story of revenge is an almost Dickensian tale of scaring someone to get revenge for what they’ve done. It reminded me of many classic mystery and revenge books I’ve read.

I would like to see Josh write a novel-length book like this one. A revenge/mystery book.

I read this through NetGalley, but I will buy it when it comes out. I want to reread this last story.

Josh is a great writer, and I’ll go to Goblin soon.