Harr-oinks, Howls, and Belfire

A lot of news I want to share with you all while I’m working on NaNoWriMo.

Jodi Lee and Louise Bohmer have launched Belfire Press. Two titles already announced. The first is Courting Morpheus, the long awaited anthology that was the impetus for The New Bedlam Project. The second is a At The End of Church Street by none other that the Funkmaster Werepig himself, Gregory L. Hall. Keep an eye on this press for more titles to be announced.

When you bring up Greg Hall and The Funky Werepig, you also have to mention Choate Road and the Caffeinated Wereferret, Jezzy Wolfe. Choate Road has released Knock, Knock…Who’s There? Death!

Graveside Tales has just released Harvest Hill.

And Sonar4 released Ladies of Horror 2009 and Gentleman of Horror 2009

All of these including stories by the Wonder Twins of Terror. Jezzy also has a story in the special flash issue of Morpheus Tales. Definitely worth a read (and it is free)!

Halloween Contest!

Welcome Deadies!

Halloween is tomorrow, which means if we lived in the world of The Crow, tonight is Devil’s Night! To celebrate two days of the macabre and madness, I have devised a simple yet challenging contest for you. On the right side of the blog there is a section of links that are places I can be found around The Web. Somewhere, hidden in plain sight on one of those pages is a clue to my favorite movie to watch on Halloween.

Find it and tell me the name of the movie and email me at william.d.prescott@gmail.com and win The Bizzaro Starter Kit (Blue). You have until midnight Pacific Time (yup, that’s right. I’m giving everyone a few extra hours on this one) November 1st to enter.

Get searching!

~ Grand Master Scare W

Update: No winner! Oh no! =(. For those wondering, the answer was Killer Klowns from Outer Space. The theme song is on my Myspace Playlist.

Guest Blog Post – Louise Bohmer: Writing With Your Ego On The Backburner

Writing with Your Ego on the Backburner

by Louise Bohmer © 2009 All Rights Reserved

If you’re anything like me, you decided to try the writing game because you love a good story, and you want to try telling one. Writing a good story takes time. Much like a sculptor or painter, the first story you produce is likely to be crap. To paraphrase what I once read from a fellow author: “You’ll write a million terrible words before you produce one good story.”

I’ve met writers who are more concerned with ‘making a name for themselves,’ while their stories still require a lot of improvement. Before you make a name for yourself, you need to know how to construct a decent story, at least. Sure, you can ‘just write it,’ but eventually you’ll need to learn how to shape it into an engrossing story that will hold readers.

Stories are the writer’s children in many ways, but we can’t be so precious about those stories we refuse to improve. Constructive criticism is vital to the writer, and it’s in a writer’s best interest to take constructive criticism—whether it come from critique groups or beta readers or editors—and try to learn from it. If eight people read your story and at least five say the same thing, it doesn’t hurt to pull up that section of the story, analyze it, and see if the comments really do justify need for improvement. Chances are they do.

As a writer—particularly if you’re a new writer like me—it pays to listen to the longtime pros. Take advice from those who’ve walked this path twenty or forty years plus. Read Storytellers Unplugged, Robert McKee’s Story, and Mort Castle’s On Writing Horror. Absorb all the knowledge you can. Put your ego on the backburner, if you truly love the feeling you get from a good story—not just reading them, but writing them also.

No matter how fantastical your story, or how mundane, research it. I don’t care how well you think you know your chosen subject, you can always know more about it. Researching elements you want to incorporate into your story broadens your knowledge, insight, and understanding of those elements—gives you new ways to think about your themes and new ways to approach them in your story. Research will make you a more confident storyteller. A confident storyteller tells a confident story, which makes the tale more realistic to the reader, effectively suspends their disbelief, and makes your premise believable for them. Most readers can spot a bullshitter, at least most well read readers can. A poorly researched story will show through whether the writer realizes it or not, because their lack of understanding of the themes, characters, settings chosen / developed will result in vagueness, stereotypical characters, flimsy settings, and a poorly built reality.

Here’s another aspect to remember: millions of books have been written. If you don’t educate yourself somewhat on what’s come before you, how do you know you’re not duplicating someone else’s novel? Granted, nothing is truly original or unique anymore, in a world that’s been saturated with entertainment in one form or another (books, television, film, music, paintings, etc). But do you really want to get charged with plagiarism because your new, thrilling exciting novel (as you’ve dubbed it) uncomfortably mirrors something another writer just had published? It pays to know your genre, and not just your genre, but well beyond it.

Don’t live in a vacuum. Don’t make the writing all about you and your ego, and how your potential bestseller might get you mentioned in the New York Times. Chances are that won’t happen with your debut book. And don’t whine about how the big houses just won’t give you a chance because you’re too controversial or cutting edge. Most controversial or cutting edge writers never called themselves that, nor did they set out to be controversial. They became dubbed so over time because their writing naturally pushed some boundaries, and the reviewers, readers, and media labeled them as such. Nothing is more egotistical than tooting your own horn as the next great cutting edge novelist who is going to blow the industry away.

Step back from yourself, put your ego in a jar, and stop thinking about ‘memememe’ for a moment. Ask yourself why you first picked up the pen, or sat down at the keyboard. Did you do it because when you read your favorite author(s) for the first time, the story blew your mind, and something deep within you said: “I have to write a story that good one day. I want to invoke the same reaction I just had with this book in other readers, through my own carefully crafted words.” Or was it a case of “Oh, I really want to appear on Oprah one day. Having all those cameras on me would be divine!” Regardless of your answer, you still need to learn to craft a good, entertaining story, and to some extent that means forgetting about you and concentrating on learning the elements of crafting a story.

Granted, you should be writing for you. Because you want to write. Because something in you is addicted with every bone in your body to telling a story, for better or worse. But you need readers if you want to develop any sort of successful career. Ultimately, you have to make your audience believe that tale, enjoy that tale, whether it be a sweeping saga of 18th century Russia, or a tale of giant spiders eating people in a subway. You need to learn how to effectively suspend disbelief, how to develop characters so people actually care they might be eaten by a giant spider, and you need to have rising and falling action—some semblance of a plot or anti-plot—so readers aren’t just reading a sequence of events with no real connection at all. Showing—dramatization—rather than telling the story, not to mention what words, scenes, characters to keep and which ones to cut, are all crucial elements that go into writing an enjoyable tale.

Don’t be so concerned with being the next big thing in horror, or whatever genre you write in, that you forget telling a good story takes time and constant learning mixed with constant practice. Don’t get blindsided by the ‘fame’ factor. I’ve been at this, starting out as a hobby writer to trying my hand at the professional ladder, for almost eight years. I know I still have a ton to learn about crafting a good story, and I’ll never stop learning, even if I ever crack the bestseller list. Much like any other art form—painting, composing a song, sculpting, script writing—writing a great story is a never-ending evolution. If you’re too focused on yourself and the name game, you’ll forget the importance of the story, and you’ll lose out on the chance to learn innovative, masterful ways to tell it.

*        *        *        *        *

Louise Bohmer is a freelance editor and writer based in Sussex, New Brunswick. Her debut novel–The Black Act–was recently reissued by Library of Horror. You can read her short fiction in the upcoming Courting Morpheus, Ladies of Horror, and Into the Dreamlands. Her poetry can be read in Death In Common. (from her website)

If you enjoyed this post, check out her other posts at Scott Colbert’s and Jodi Lee’s blogs and watch for posts by Louise at Jude Mason’s and Kody Boye’s blogs

Writers And Characters And Muses, Oh My!

Note: This post is not really an opinion, it is more thoughts said out loud, as they occur, in my attempt to find an understanding on a topic that I’m not sure about. There will be no point or conclusion at the end. It could easily become contradictory. I don’t know. It is just a pure free write.

I’ve wanted to talk about this since I got back from Context 22. On Friday, I caught up with one of the Seton Hill Writing Popular Fiction mentors and we started off talking about what each other has been up to since June and our plans for the rest of the year. I started talking about the trouble of getting back into the mind of my main character after being away from my novel for so long. It soon went from that to a long discussion of the relationship of writers and their characters and/or Muses.

Personally, I’ve never had a problem with run-amok characters or stubborn Muses. Sure, there are times when I’m writing when either the actions of a character will lead me to a place I couldn’t conceive of at the beginning or there are days where I’ll sit at the computer or the notebook and nothing will come to me except a few sentences. I think all writers encounter such situations and the more they write the better they are able to handle those situations. But some writers seem to almost put the blame of any trouble they have in their writing on either their characters or Muses. I, personally, don’t understand that.

When I write, I know, in the end, I am ultimately responsible for everything I write down. From blog posts to novels, it’s all from my mind and my hands and fingers present those thoughts to the rest of the world. It might be that my first real writing classes were playwriting and screenwriting, but I look at myself as the writer and director of my ideas. The time I take to research and develop parts of the story is the play or screenplay and what I type out is what I direct to come alive on the page for readers to enjoy. Muses become the cinematographers, working with me for inspired ways of framing each seen. Characters are actors that have the possibility of giving me an insight to the character I would think of with all the other elements I’m trying to keep under control. They have their purposes and they help me in my task of storytelling.

There are times, though, where it seems like writers have given up their control of the story to their Muses or their characters. I know a couple of people that have a horrible time with their characters that will occasionally just not even care about the story and go off and do something completely random, may not even be in the universe of the story, and stay there from days to weeks at time. In the meantime, nothing is getting written and the writers are just waiting. I’ve heard similar stories about Muses go away, taking vacations, or disappearing for spans of time and not finding inspiration for a story they are working on.

Now, I know not all people who say this really believe it and are being metaphorical. But I do know a few that really do. And I have to wonder what is the cause of this way of thinking. I think there is a perception of not just writing, but any art, that is if it doesn’t come from an transcendental moment where the artist is in tuned with and a tool for the source of the idea that inspires a piece of work, it is devoid of the artistic merit and is, in a way, formulaic and mundane. The fact of the matter is, I think that there are people that don’t realize or don’t want to believe that the sometimes there are days you can’t write. Life is always throwing things at you and the way you deal with them affects other things in life. Writers cherish their writing and I would be willing to bet that these people are the ones that try to protect their writing from the forces of reality the most.

It is noble effort; stories are writer’s children. But like children, you can’t shelter them. If you don’t expose your writing to even the toughest part parts of your life now, what happens if something more difficult pops up? If you don’t try to even get those few sentences written, even if they are bad, how can you make sure you can meet a deadline during an unexpected crisis?

No, I don’t think you will always be able to write during any hard patch in your life. I know from my own experience that there are some things that just take too much out of you are can completely distract you from writing. But I have noticed that those that try often are able to produce more than those that give control over to inspirational figments. Muses are representation of the passions of an artist. Characters are representations of parts of the writers mind. They are going to be affected by anything the writer is. They are parts of the writer. So they can never take control, no more than a hand can take control of the rest of the body. When these entities wonder off, is really them that is causing the problem and not really something else. It could be anything as it depends on the writer, but I doubt that a tardy muse is real culprit for stall in writing.

Can I Have Some Sleep Please (An Update)

Just a quick update on what’s going on here. Let’s see, first up, “Witches’ Brooms” didn’t make the cut. I had a bit of a feeling that it wouldn’t as the voice of the story was just completely different than my usual voice. It was right for the story, but who knows, maybe there was just enough doubt transcribed into it. I made a few quick edits and then sent it off to Shock Totem. I’m of the mind that when you send off a story, try for the Pro markets first and work down. You never now what will get picked up where and it’s better to try and get rejected, than never try and gain that experience of what the higher end markets want. Hopefully, I will find a home for the story soon.

I submitted my story, “January,” to the DEAD BELLS anthology. A fellow writer heard back not that long ago about the status of her story, so I’m making a rough guesstimate in my head of when I will hear back. Of course, as with many things with me, by the time I wake up in the morning I will have forgotten my calculations and just thinking about the next story(ies) to write.

I didn’t get to finish the story for the Apex Halloween Contest. I tried, but the ideas I came up with didn’t want to stay in the word count, and a lot of them I would go back and read them and I would think, “Oh fluffernutters! That’s *insert dark sci-fi movie title here*” and I would have to go to a new idea. I love science fiction, but I’ve have always known that it’s not my bag to write. It always comes off as a copycat work when I do.

It looks like I’m going to put my story for the DARK FAITH anthology on the back burner. I have a really interesting topic, but the setting it is in lends itself to becoming didactic unconsciously. So, it will be one of those stories I have to really take my time with. It will definitely be disturbing and unsettling one day, but not anytime soon.

So I have now the BACONOLOGY anthology (I think the idea of trying to make bacon scary is more of a horror than the story itself. I mean, I’m a sausage guy), FOETUS NOIR anthology, and the New Bedlam Spring Thaw Contest. But here is the part were you, the readers, get to help me out.

Yup, another poll. It’s coming up to NaNoWriMo time, and I’m going to take part of it. By take part, I mean I’m going to challenge myself with writing 50,000 words in a month. Not going to sign up on the webpage and all that. I mean, as anyone has noticed, I do tend to become a bit secluded when I’m working on my writing.

The trouble is, I’m not sure what to work on. I have three choices:

1.) Scavenger – Granted, a lot of it is written, but I’m planing on some major overhauls and also plan to retype the whole story. It sits at 51,600 words, so if I finish the edit and retype it all, it will meet the goal.

2.) The Sequel – I haven’t done nearly as much research as I wanted for part of the background of the main character, but a lot of what would be missing would be easy to insert later. It’s also a new monster, new sections of Lucin City, and a lot of fun to explore this new idea.

3.) The Possible YA Novel – A part of me has been wanting to write this story for a while, the only thing that has kept me from starting is how old I want to make the main character. It is a story that could work at any point in time in the characters life and I’m waiting for that kick in one way or another.

So comment with your thoughts, opinions and votes!

Still Tainted One Year Later

Today marks one year that Tainted: Tales of Terror and the Supernatural was published. I didn’t even think to check on how many have been sold up to now. I have had way too much on my mind. I know I have bought my fair share for the signing in June, a couple I promised I would get, and some that people paid me in advance. In think in all about 50 are out in the world from my own self-promotion that I know. Could be more, might be less. One thing I will say, self-promotion is damn hard, even worse when you are a shy guy, more so still when you worked in a mall and saw how much those kiosk workers are built up to latch on to a potential customer. I don’t want to be that kind of seller.

See, I find that trying to make a person buy your product, no matter how good you are is a 50/50 shot in the dark. I say that because when I was working at Borders I was selling books left and right just by talking to the customers as if I didn’t work there. I don’t know, maybe my personality is one that works best reading the rules, throwing out the idiotic ones, and then improvising with what I know. I seem to take the same thing with my writing. I never really self promote myself saying “hey, I’m published here you should go read it!” Not a self-confidence thing either, in fact, I get too many compliments on my writing to be able to delude myself that I’m not good. Though, it is still really hard for me to take a compliment. I like to think that if a person will reread my story at least once in their life, that says it all, or if I were to ever get one of those great fan letters you see other writers talk of on how this story or that book moved/helped/changed a person, well then I think life would be complete right there.

What can I say, I have simple and modest dreams.

But what is kinda scary is that a year has come and passed. All I’ve got at this point is one story. Granted, the last year was full of family and medical distractions up to and through the summer, and I went on a busy Con season (for me at least) during the summer too. I only really have started my writing for the year. And sweet baby Jesus in bondage gear is it a lot. If you want a full account, check out the interview I did with my friend Dhympna du Maurier at her blog, Culinary Carnival. It is a lot and this may be the last post from me for at least October. Though, there will be a wonderful blog post by the Dark Fantasy Mistress, Louise Bohmer, later this month.

I wonder if all the work I’m trying to finish is not a way to make up for the lost time I had the rest of this year? I mean, I would like to think that at some point my writing chops with get faster and stronger and I will become prolific, but really, what was going though my head. And the trouble is that I could easily give up any of them, set them aside for another time. I mean, I’m not under contract or anything. But I love all of these stories and I want you all to have a chance to read them and those that have yet to hear of me. I want to splurge imagination on you. I want to give you the diverse insanity that is my mind in stories that will, if not terrify you, make you think how even the ordinary can become evil and extraordinary.

So, I leave you with my favorite season, favorite holiday, a time where the world becomes my inspiration and I get very distracted. I go to work for you, those that have read my blog for this whole year, for those that have read “The Tethering” in Tainted and have been waiting for more, and for those that have done both. And from the depths of madness stricken heart, thank you for your support and being kick ass creatures of the night!

~ W. D. Prescott
“Grand Master Scare W” (who A-V are I don’t know, but we should build the Guild of Spookery)

Mama Fish by Rio Youers

Title: Mama Fish
Author: Rio Youers
Genre: Horror/Dark Sci-fi
Publisher : Shroud Publications
Pages: 91
ISBN: 9780981989402

        If you read the back blurbs of this book, you find readers that were affected by the story Rio Youers wrote. And every one of them hit on a facet of this short, yet complex tale of emotion and fate. In truth it is two different stories that are connected, thought you never know how until the very end of Mama Fish. Both center on the main character, Patrick. One when he is a teenager, the other as paralyzed adult. The adult story line is what is meant to be followed with the teenage story line adding the mystery and suspense.

        Personally, I thought the teenage story was the stronger of the the two. The bourgeoning friendship of Patrick and Kevin Fish had the same emotional impact as the friendship of George and Lennie in Of Mice and Men. I could almost se this story as a modern version of how those two characters might have become friends in the backstory of Steinbeck’s classic. The emotional impact and growth of both characters happen in that story.

        The adult story is incredibly well written, but felt more like a social commentary than character revelation in a few spots. Never so much that I was pulled out of the story. Youers has an incredible talent of flooding you with information and ideas in just a small chapter an let it creep in under the active story. It just felt off balance with everything Youers was able to do in the other story.

        One of the elements that both story arcs have is an incredible sense of realism. If anyone wants to understand how a fantastical story needs to feel real to the reader in order for them to suspend their disbelief — read this book. It’s not about the setting descriptions or the details that are exactly correct for they year the story is written in. It is about the details that we all take in everyday: other people’s quirks, the way a person would describe a smell or sensation because of the life they’ve had, background noise of life that our brain filters out what we think we need and throws out anything deemed useless. Youers is able to make that all happen in this novella, something that even some novels can’t do and a challenge to any writer as the story has fewer and fewer words alloted.

        Mama Fish is only the first story of Rio Youers’ that I have read. But based in the strength, passion, and artistry this book is brimmed with, it won’t be my last and I bet there will be many more stories for a long time.

Let Me Eat Cake…But Only If It Is Ice Cream

So, tomorrow (or today, when ever you get to read this, and if it past Oct. 3rd, pay no mind to this long winded explanation) I will be another year older. To be honest, I wish I loved my birthday like I did as a kid. I always knew that no matter what, it was a day for me. A day where you get away with being a little bit selfish and have the ultimate excuse to have fun for 24 hours straight.

I dread this day every year now.

Its not the, “oh crap, I don’t want to reminded I’m growing older again” that most people have when they hate their birthday. No, it more like it just a reminder of all the things I try to forget about and get through during a whole year only to be remembered about it all and the years past.

I’m going to be 27, that means it the 25th anniversary that I became a medical anomaly for surviving what, at the time, was a sure fatality disease. Even the doctor’s thought I wasn’t even going to make it because they couldn’t figure out what was wrong after a year and a half of constant illness. I should be happy, I should be dancing on the ceiling for being here still. But, I’m just can’t get the thought that I’m raking up borrowed time with Reaper and I never know when that dance card is going to be filled.

Depressive, me, a bit. But hey, like I said, it’s a me day, lol

The other thing is that they have been cursed for a long time. Something like 12 years now, I think. The last good birthday I had was when I had a part back in NH with a few of the friends I went to Australia with that past summer. Since then, it’s ranges from disappointment to catastrophe if I even think of doing anything for my birthday. So, like a good Pavlov dog, it is difficult to even budge myself to do anything. I had a few things come my way this year, but right on cue, life got in the way.

This is why I make sure that on my birthday, everyone else I know has the best day they can. It is a day to celebrate all that there is to life, all of the wonders and experiences a person goes through. And if I’m not going to use it to it fullest advantage, then the next best thing is to see my friends enjoy it and find the happiness I always get when people I care about are happy too. That way I can go to Carvel, get my little ice cream cake and indulge in that little gift to myself.

So, my good readers, I implore you. On the night of the 3rd, go out and be joyous. Indulge in the turning of the season and the start of the 28 days till Halloween. That will be your birthday present to me and it is one that nothing else can compare to.

Let’s get personal?

I have been wondering about this for a while. I have heard both sides of the argument, but I want to know what you all think. Do you want me to be more open and more personal here on my blog or do you like it the way it is?

Anniversary Contest – Round 2

        I first want to congratulate Danny Evarts for winning the first round of the contest. Found You has been shipped of to him, just in time for October. But as I said in the first round, there were two books to win. This round is for Play Dead by Michael A. Arnzen, a good friend and mentor, as well a multiple Bram Stoker Award winner. This is an Out of Print book signed by Mike Arnzen.

        Same method for entry, just post a comment and then at the deadline I will pick a winner randomly. This time around, though, there is a new thing to add to you comment. Actually, two:

        1.) What is something that frightens you about Halloween since you were a kid?
        2.) Favorite Halloween costume you ever wore?

        Just write those two things in your comment and you will have a chance to win. The deadline will be October 8th. Pass the word along.

         The winner of Play Dead is Pia Veleno. Congratulations, Pia!