What's new, pussycat?

Sorry I've been MIA for a while. I've been busily working on some new projects. My son and I began a new silicone Halloween mask. He had never created one, so I wanted to walk him through the process with me. I figured it would be a fun learning experience, which it was. The sculpture turned out really well, as you can see from the picture(s) below. Unfortunately, when we began separating the plaster mold, it broke, so that was the end of that project. All that work down the drain. Eventually, I'll start over as Halloween draws closer.


In other news, I am wrapping up my novella, Rabbit on the Run, which will soon be available via all of my typical distributors. I will provide links for anyone interested in obtaining copies once it is officially released. In addition, I am dividing my time to edit Carniville, a murder mystery involving human oddities; rewriting The Consuming Darkness, formerly known as The Shadow People, the first novel I'd ever written and has undergone many rewrites. (Most of these books I've mentioned in a previous post, which you can read here).

I've stalled on Youthanasia, a science fiction novel about the pros and cons of immortality, due to a lack of enthusiasm. That's not going to stop me from finishing the story and publishing it, though. When I say "lack of enthusiasm", I don't mean it's a substandard or mediocre story. It just means that some other ideas have stolen the spotlight in my imagination and I'm choosing to focus on them right now, which I will talk about in a minute. Also, I've kind of run up against a wall as far as the plot is concerned. I'm not sure where to go with the story while keeping the reader engaged in finding out what happens next. After I let it ferment and mellow for a while on the back burner, I'm sure I'll find a way around that obstacle.

The story who holds my heart at the moment is a new work of horror that I'm currently writing called What Goes Around. I've only spent two days working with it and, already, I've managed to put down a little over twenty pages worth of story. If you don't know what to make of that, let me just clarify by saying that the words are flowing like Niagara Falls; coming extremely easy, which isn't always the case. Since it is still in its infancy, I won't divulge too much, but I will give you the synopsis to whet your appetite. It goes something like this:

In the fall of 1958, in front of onlooking parents, nine children riding a carousel suddenly vanish. Despite efforts to explain the phenomenon, the children were never found, questions went unanswered, and the amusement park was closed.

Until Now...

Nearly sixty years later, three teenagers sneak into the newly-opened park on a dare and spin up the old carousel. They face a startling discovery when the nine children unexpectedly reappear. The boys and girls look the same as the day they vanished, but something is fundamentally different, because...

What Goes Around, Comes Around

I'm excited by this story's potential and hope readers are, too. I've already developed a cover for it and plan to hone this story into a reasonable facsimile of the product I see in my imagination. If I'm successful, then this will be a creepy romp through a sinister landscape that keeps readers captivated, turning pages to find out where these children have been and what mysteries the merry-go-round holds. Already, while writing it, I've given myself plenty of goose bumps. I hope I can pass them on to anyone who chooses to indulge in the story. As I get nearer to finishing it, I'll release a sneak peek of the cover.

Finally, I have some exciting news about an available title. My novel, The Old Royal, has been optioned to be made into an audio book. The narrator is a talented individual named Stephen Self. I've already listened to his audition for the book and his performance of the first chapter. I'm excited by what I've heard and anxiously await the finished product, which will be available on iTunes, Audible.com, and Amazon. Once I know the details for where you can get a copy, I'll post the links.

Stay tuned for further details. And, as always, thanks for stopping by!

Sneak Peek!

I may or may not have said in the past that I will no longer give any sneak peeks of any works in progress because the design can dramatically change before I actually release a book. Well, screw that! I'm feeling saucy. Maybe it's this beautiful weather. Maybe it's because my math studies are going so well. Who knows? Better yet, who cares?

I know I enjoy getting glimpses into other writers' minds when they share where they are with a story, especially when some of those stories are still near the edges of their radar in terms of being released. I figured I would share some of the things I am working on and give you a bit of information about their status in the process. A word of warning before we proceed, however. Keep in mind that some of these books are still in the creation process, so they are still very much apt to change. In addition, the synopses on the covers you will see are most likely going to change. Currently, these are placeholders, but they do reflect my intentions (more or less). Side note: you might think I'm a bit odd for creating the book covers before I've written the story. "That's not how (insert famous author's name here) does it!" Well, f***k (insert famous author's name here)! is what I say. I'm not that person and this is how I do it and find inspiration to keep plugging away. We cool with that? Okay then, so, here we go...


First, I present to you, Lathem's Lament. This is a Southern Gothic novel I have been kicking around since 2010. I wrote it after reading several classical southern writers such as Faulkner, Steinbeck, and Caldwell, to name but a few. I enjoyed many of their stories so much that I decided to try my hand at a story that was brewing during my reading. This is the end result. This story is already in print, but won't be available to the public until later this month or (very) early April. I've received a lot of positive feedback from my beta readers and have a couple of other beta readers going through it now. Anyone familiar with Faulkner's As I Lay Dying will see a similarity in the book's format. I really loved how he wrote each chapter as a different character's POV and wanted to do that with one of my own.


Next, we have Rabbit on the Run, another Southern Gothic, this time from the Depression-era. Currently, this is a novella. I just finished the first draft of this story this past week. For some reason, I'm finding that writing southern literature is loads of fun. I questioned whether southern literature still had a sizable audience and then remembered that Joe R. Lansdale is doing pretty well, so I guess the answer is Yes. Anyway, I show some of the hideous mentalities of society in this story, about a black man wrongfully accused of killing a white girl and flees a lynch mob. Hopefully, it will meet with a warm reception. I'll have to see what my beta readers say first.


Youthanasia is my first foray into real science fiction. It deals with the pros and cons of curing aging, something that really piqued my interest when I listened to a presentation given by a scientist named Aubrey de Grey. He's very passionate about this field of study and claims that we will eventually cure aging, and probably sooner than anyone thinks. If that doesn't grab your attention and give it a good shaking, then you need to check for your pulse. Needless to say, the gears of my imagination began to spin and I came up with this story, which follows a geneticist who has secretly taken a serum he and some other researchers developed, which stops the aging process. The reader gets to see the pros and cons of this polemic subject first-hand from the character's POV and decide for themselves whether they would want to live forever, or not. While researching this story, I corresponded with a biologist in the field to pick his brain on some of the finer points. Hopefully, I will do his feedback justice. Regardless, I will dedicate this book to him and probably send him a free copy for all of his help.


This is a book I'm sure I've mentioned in the past. Carniville is a locked-room mystery I created using an apartment complex of sideshow workers when they were not touring the freak show circuit. First, I wanted to try my hand at writing a locked-room mystery, something which seems very difficult for me not only to solve when reading one, but also to develop using my feeble brain. Secondly, I decided, failing to achieve that first point, I'd at least have an interesting cast of characters for a good crime story. During the writing of this story, the words flowed nicely. Eventually, however, I hit a brick wall with the plot, so I put it aside (yes, these other stories are what happen when I fall into a rut during my writing). I will let this one mellow until I can return to it with a solution for traversing that wall I mentioned. The cover's too damn good to let go to waste!


Last, but certainly not least, is Consuming Darkness. This is the first novel I ever wrote. This is what started it all. Yes, you can blame this abomination for the madness I unleash upon the world from my twisted, depraved mind. Originally, this was titled The Shadow People. I've rewritten it three times (so far). There's another rewrite waiting, I just haven't begun yet, but I have a good idea of what I want to do with it. I hope that this book will eventually be a fresh new horror story (in case you don't know my feelings for the horror genre to-date, here it is) with an admiring nod to Lovecraft's Call of Cthulu.

So, there you have it. Several of the books I have lined up for your future reading pleasure. I can assure you, that's certainly not all of them. There are a couple of other stories in the works, at various stages, I just don't have covers for them, so there isn't really anything to show.

UPDATE: Seems I forgot to link to my feelings on the current state of the horror genre. Consider it fixed. Like I said, I have a feeble mind.

On Vacation in Colorado (with pictures)

I want to apologize to my couple of readers for not posting as frequently as I should. The reason: I'm on vacation at my in-laws' house in Colorado. I've never been to Colorado, so I'm trying to soak it all in. My in-laws have been very hospitable in this area by taking me on hikes to various mountains, buttes, streams, lakes, etc.

While here, I planned to make some progress editing one of my trunk novels, formerly titled The Shadow People, but unfortunately, that has kind of fallen by the wayside. Instead, I've been snapping pictures like crazy. If you could see the scenery here, you would probably understand. I did manage to sit down for about two hours and work on the story though. I've since renamed it Consuming Darkness since I discovered my original title was not at all unique.

Hopefully, I'll carve out some more time to work on the next book. After all, it's been hibernating in a desk drawer for about seven years! Also, it was the first novel I ever wrote. I think it will be worthy of publication after plenty of editing. Look for later posts where I will tell more about it.

Today, we are planning to visit a brewery. I can't wait! In the meantime, let me leave you with some pictures I managed to upload to the interwebs. Thanks for stopping by.