Tag Archives: Writing

Gears are changing

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As with everything, writing changes.

I’ve kept a close eye on the sales of my books through this year. I’ve sold 21 copies of my books this year. Most of them are in Ebooks, but it’s not the number but which books are selling better than others.

My thriller, Disunion By Force, sold more copies than my horror novel and while it’s close, the various places its sold around the world is the most interesting thing. I’ve sold copies in places I never thought I would. India is one of the newest places.

I’ll continue to write horror, but only short form. I work better with short form horror than I do with long form. I’m able to get the conciseness of it down while long form feels like a slog.

As for thrillers, I’ll be writing those in long form. I have two that I’ve started but put away for one reason or another, mostly because of I’ve doubted myself. The writing holds up with those thrillers. I have one at 39k that I’ll be working on through the end of the year.

After discussions with my wife, I’ll be focusing on the thrillers, though I have a story coming out in November for the Utah Horror Writers yearly anthology. You can help with the Kickstarter.

I will continue to review books. I am considering a pseudonym for my thriller novels. I had one before and will probably use that going forward.

I have to head to work and I hope you enjoy your day.

Review for Kill Your Darling by Clay McLeod Chapman

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Every parent thinks about what they’d do if they lost their kid. When they’re babies, we worry about whether they’re breathing in their cribs. When they’re toddlers, they get quiet in their rooms. We run to their room, and they’re usually asleep in a pile of toys or stuffed animals.

We lose sight of them when they get older, and we walk around the store. All the thoughts run through our heads. When they get to be teenagers and start driving or hanging out with friends, hell, in America, we worry about them not coming home at the end of the day because of a shooting.

That latter part is an everyday worry for me.

: SPOILERS AHEAD :

In Clay’s story, he takes the idea of losing your kid to violence and does a masterful job of following Glenn, our protagonist, through the stages of his life. Also, through the stages of grief.

Glenn feels the police have failed him and his son in discovering how he was killed.

His boy was left in a dirty, empty lot as a teenager.

Over the years, Glenn has done research and called whichever detective was assigned to the cold case, but he had a breakthrough when his wife urged him to join a writer’s group.

Glenn writes a story about his son’s death and how he believes it happened.

When he presents the story to the writer’s group, it begins a fracture in a community he believes hid the truth of what happened to his son. Glenn learns he didn’t know his son as well as he thought.

The heartwrenching ending for this book is brilliant, and I believe it captures the book well.

Glenn is looking for one last connection to his son. He finds it in writing the book but also in learning the truth about his son’s death.

It’s a magnificent ending, and as with all of Clay’s books, it will pull on your emotions.

I finished this book at work, and while it was a slow day behind the bar, I had to keep myself from crying.

We all think about how we’d handle the loss of our kids. Clay orchestrates a great story about loss, grief, and understanding that once our kids get older and have their own lives, we don’t know who they are.

We try to understand them as they grow older, and the best we can do is be there for them as they move through the world. Listening to them is essential.

Good morning, Good Evening or Goodnight?

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I’m writing this as I put a self-imposed ban on social media. I have deactivated my IG, Threads, and TikTok to get my head right. I have contemplated quitting writing over the last month, but I sold a book recently, and my thriller, Disunion By Force, is selling well.

I needed time to get my head right. It’s been in a bad place, and while I like sharing my journey with my mental health, it appears that my family doesn’t like seeing me struggle. I haven’t posted my usual content. I have been writing reviews. I’ve enjoyed the distraction of writing reviews for the last year. I’ve read some fantastic books. I got most of them through NetGalley.

I am going to start submitting short stories again. I feel I’ve fallen off somehow, and short stories are a way for me to get my head back in writing. I have three books left to review for my NetGalley account. After I finish the books I have, I’ll be taking a break from doing reviews for a while.

I’ll be cleaning up 30-40 short stories for submission. Each is a horror story and fits into various subgenres.

I’m taking time for myself, which will exclude social media for a while.

I am playing World of Warcraft: The War Within with my wife. It’s a great expansion, and we’re both enjoying it. I’m currently reading Nobody’s Hero by M.W. Craven. It comes out in December and is one of the books I received on Netgalley.

I’m not really watching anything. I will be seeing Terrifier 3 in a couple of weeks. I saw Beetlejuice this past weekend for my youngest’s birthday. It was fun—not great, but fun. She really enjoyed it, and it was nice to spend time with my wife and kids.

My job at the bar has changed a bit. It was bought in July, and they’ve made some significant changes. The food is better, and the menu is more manageable. It’s a lot cleaner than before.

I work four shifts now. I only worked once every week before. It’s been slow as some of our regulars change as the bar changes. That’s fine. People change in every aspect of the life of a business.

I’m ready to get back to work on the page.

Review for The Atrocity Engine By Tim Waggoner

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I have read a couple of Tim’s books. I loved them. He takes an idea and turns it into a fever dream. I don’t know where the idea for the Atrocity Engine came from, but it’s wonderful.

We start with the main character, Neal. He works for an organization trying to keep the universe from being consumed. The story has a lot of detail about what is consuming the universe and its eventual end. I’ll leave that to Tim.

The world-building in this one blows me away. It feels like an urban fantasy with incredible horror gore. If you’ve read Tim before, you know what I’m talking about.

I’ve seen the comparisons to the Cenobites, but I feel it leans more toward Dark City and the creatures within that universe. The description of one of the creatures, Brother Nothing, gives me Cenobite feelings, but the entirety of the story gives me Dark City feelings—at least in the descriptions of the Multitude.

I know the book is listed as book one. I’m more excited to see what happens with Neal in book two.

I don’t write long reviews, and this is no different.

I enjoyed the hell out of this novel. It’s fun and disturbing. It gives us a glimpse into a world dissimilar from our own.

Who knows, maybe that white van driving around town works for Maintenance. I see it all the time.

Moving ahead and through

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I’ve had this problem with who I am for a long time. Am I the kid whose parents divorced when he was eight and threw his world into shambles? Am I the 18 year old who was sent home from Marine boot camp?

I used to be really angry with my parents about their divorce. My mom left when I wasn’t home and nothing was explained to me. Her and two of my sisters just weren’t at our house anymore. We all went to therapy together, but it was a ruse, or at least felt like it to me. I knew something else was going one. I was eight. I had no idea the minds of adults.

Over time, I’ve grown to understand what they went through. That eight-year-old boy may not understand, but this 47 year old man does, and that’s good enough for me to move forward.

That 18 year old boy didn’t know what the hell was happening. He said something about his lungs. He didn’t have any lung issues, but had a reaction when he was working one night. He took that as something worse. It’s something he, and I, have had to deal with for almost 30 years. Sometimes the consequences of honesty are not what you expect. Sometimes they change your life. I’ve been angry with what I said that day. It’s taken a long time to forgive that boy. He’d barely experienced anything in his life. He’d barely lost his virginity(Something that was a big deal then, but not as much now). I think that boy needs to be forgiven. He wanted that title worse than anything. He didn’t know the consequences of his actions. He was just a kid who wanted to get away from his family.

I never planned to come home after boot camp, except to see my grandmother. She passed away while I would have been at boot camp. It’s a nice thing to say that if I’d have made it through boot I’d never have talked to her again. She visits me often. I don’t believe in things happening for a reason. It’s bullshit.

I see where my life is. I see that boy I was, both at eight and 18. He would be amazed we’re married, have kids, and writes books. Neither of them would have believed it.

It’s time to do something now that I’ve let them go. There’s a force in me that rears its head on occasion. I call it the monster. It’s been leashed for too long.

Let’s take it for a ride.