Tag Archives: Writing

Changing Things

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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.

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.