No Clever Title: Why I Was In The Hospital And the Foreseeable Future

It has been a rough few weeks from me. I just came out of the hospital on Thursday, as some of you may know already, and there were some major developments.

I have been dealing with some pressure pain for about a week before. I thought I was just connected to red meat, since I would get on the nights after eating it, and wasn’t all that put off as earlier in the year I had that bout of time were red meat was just unsettling in my stomach. All that changed when I went to my nephew’s birthday.

The night we got there, we went to a nice Mexican restaurant. I got all my food with chicken, trying to keep my nights as pain free as I could. But that didn’t matter, I spent the rest of the night with diarrhea and the pain came back.

Now, just before we left I did notice that my skin was getting a little jaundice again. It’s not thing new, just something that happens from time to time and usually goes away. I had blood tests done not to long ago that I receive copies of that even said my bilirubin level was a little higher. After that first night, though, something drastic happened. It’s hard for me to remember which day it was but before the weekend, I was yellow. I haven’t been that yellow in my life that I can remember and I don’t think even as a baby I was. Not just my skin, but my eyes too took a lemony hue. The pain would now come after eating everything along with feeling nauseated with all food.

Little to say, we contacted my liver specialist and set up and appointment for the day after we got back. We got to the appointment and the liver specialist wanted to run a bunch of different tests and procedures that would take too long to do out patient. So, I was admitted to the hospital by 4 pm.

Over the next few days, after blood tests, ultrasound, chest x-ray, paracentesis, endoscope, flex scope, and triple phase CT scan, it’s determined that what has happened was combination of ascites building up and causing pressure and a further development of my liver cirrhosis. My bilirubin levels are the only thing that seemed to have changed since the earlier blood tests and they didn’t just change, but sky rocketed. From a 4 to a 24, effectively changing my MELD score from 15 to 22 (the past the 20 “really start to think about a new liver soon” point)

In one way, it is good. It caused the hospital to get their act together and finished the process to list me. With my MELD score and blood type I’m at the top of the list so I could literally have a new liver at any point. I’ll be getting as close to the normal life as I have dream of for a long time.

But there is a lot of that it is going to make difficult. I have to stay within an hours distance from the hospital as we can get a call for transplantation at anytime. So, my whole plan for conventions next year has to be put on hold. Even if I do get a chance, I will need to go with someone as I’m now deemed not fit to drive myself. Deadlines are going to be fun too do to the spontaneity of the situation too.

So, fellow readers, I want to say that at least for the rest of the year not much new is going to happen here. I’m still discombobulated from my stay. So I will be resting a lot of the time. I do apologize and hope to make it up to you as soon as I can. The Christmas contest, I will have to post pone though the entries already submitted will instantly be added to the list when I do another contest. I have no idea yet what it will do to my Scattered Tales blog I plan to launch in January. I will try to x-post any decisions on both it and here.

To all my friends and family that have been by my side through this last week and everything so far up to this point, I can’t thank you enough. You all remind me what I fight for and try to accomplish each day of my life. I’m hitting a real low point now, but hopefully it will be one that won’t last too long and I can bounce back and be the happy-go-lucky horror jester you all love.

Again, I apologize to all my readers if this starts affecting my writing, either blog or stories. All I want to do and just write stories and ideas you all would enjoy and it is frustrating when something you can’t control get in the way.

I adore you all,

Grand Master Scare W

W. D. Prescott

It’s Over

After a long talk, Bellupino and I have broken it off. We decided that we couldn’t be burdens to each other if this is going to be the outcome of it all. I can’t be the reason that cause hurt in her life again. I care about her too much. Sometime caring means letting go. which is what I have to do now.

Goodbye my angel.

A New Nightmare Before Christmas (Contest!)

Well it’s that time of year, again, people a shopping like it is the zombapoclypse, and holiday cheer is just a catch phrase to disguise the actions of those possessed by demons of greed. Now, I like the holidays, so I want to bring back a little genuine cheer this year. Two lucky winners will receive the last copies of Tainted : Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, signed and inscribed to them (if they wish).

Here is how to enter:

Take your favorite holiday movie and in a comment to this post, change the title and tag line to make a holiday horror movie.

As always, winners will be drawn randomly. You have till Dec. 19th to enter.

Everything Else Is Gravy

It’s Turkey Day! So, let me start by saying Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Now, like almost all holidays that aren’t centered around a war, revolution, or good cause, there is always the debate of how to celebrate, should we celebrate, what can we change to make the celebration less offensive.

Reasonable debate? Sure, all debate is reasonable. A debate that is really going to change much? Something in me says not really.

Maybe it just my traditionalist nature in relation to celebrations talking, but I think you can celebrate the meaning behind a holiday without having to always draw back to the origins of it. Sure, the way we are taught about Thanksgiving is a Disney-ized version of the history. In today’s mind set and ethics, it was horrible what happened and the stat of something that is far from a gold mark in our history.

But does that mean that the reason we celebrate is just as tarnished? Seems like a black and white answer in a world seeped in shades of gray.

We live in a pretty selfish time, or at least is seems a lot more selfish than I remember. Thanksgiving is a day where we look back on the year, and, hopefully, for that brief twenty-four hour period, and reign in our selfish tendencies and acknowledge everyone and everything that keeps us going, striving to succeed, and supporting us through good and bad times.

In dishonorable acts, honorable intentions can always overcome.

This year has been a crazy one, and amongst that insanity, I have a tremendous amount to be thankful for:

- My family: They are a mainstay, but as there have been almost extreme highs an lows this year, I can’t help but be incredibly thankful they were there every step of the way.

- Old friends: Old connections reestablished, even if for just moments in the span of a year, but each one precious as they remind me of when I come from and how far I come since the first time we met. They are memories or past and portents of the future; islands of understanding that I always have frequent flyer miles to travel and find some piece of mind when needed.

- New friends: I have been lucky to meet a plethora of new people, who bring new ideas, new visions, and new experience into my life. From writers to ninja moms, they all have a spot in my life these days and I’m a so grateful for their friendship.

- Bellupino: She started as a friend for a good while, but it feels like we have been together for longer. Each day is filled with emotions I didn’t know one could feel and conversations that never want to end. There are even those moments of silence where we both know there aren’t words to express what we want to say. For her to be in my life I will be thankful, not just today, but everyday of my life.

So, as you are sitting, enjoying the cornucopia of a dinner and fighting of the trypophan, look around and see the people that are there with you and have been. Give them a spontaneous hug or a playful elbow to the side and a smile and let them know you are thankful that they are there.

A Horrible Sense of Talk

It is hilarious the things that can be said in conversations between friends. Especially the mistakes made when the mind decides to not cooperate. I have one friend that is just as bad as I am when it comes to verbal communications. So, when we get to talk to each other, it is a certainty that at least one of us will of a “speakingFAIL” at some point. We had one of those that left my sides hurting for a few hours today:

Setup: A conversation that when from cell phone head sets to dominate sides of the body to specifically nostril dominance.

Anonymous Friend: Wouldn’t it be horrible if something happened that made it so that you could only smell?

Me: Yeah, you would be able to go to too many places.

AF: And it not like you could say anything–

Me Why not?

AF: Well…if you lost all of those senses, you wouldn’t be able to talk.

Me: Talking isn’t a sense…

*A few minutes of gut busting laughter on both our parts for the ridiculousness of that statement*

AF: No. I mean, if you were deaf, blind, and mute, you wouldn’t be able to communicate what was going on very well. Helen Keller could really only grunt–

*I start cracking up again*

Me But…mute isn’t something that you would have to worry about if you lost your senses, ’cause…well…talking isn’t a sense.

*Finally, it comes out that the initial thought wasn’t about just sense, but being completely incapacitated and using the word “senses was a mistake*

[beat]

AF: They really should make talking a sense. It would certainly make things easier to excuse.

Me: “Sorry, I just have a bad sense of talk.”

AF: Yeah, because I really do.

Me: Oh, trust me, I do too

This, my friends, is why they say the difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense.

It’s Blog, Blog, It’s Better Than Bad, It’s Good! Blog from Nano

Oh Ren & Stimpy, how you have shape way too much of my personality as a child.

So, it’s past the half way mark for NaNo and I’m throwing in the towel. I have too many ideas in my head and things going on here, which are not conducive to the churning out of words in mass quantities. I found out two markets opened up for “Witches’ Brooms” and “The Unsheathed Blade” (a title from the past, aye!) so I have been working on that. I’ve got one of my last columns to write for Sonar4 Ezine I need to writing in the next month.

Hmm? Yeah, last. Unfortunately, the ezine is closing up shop after the publication of the July 2010 issue. So, there are only three columns left for me to write for them. This quarter I’m planning on writing on how to your gore effectively in a story without coming off like Tom Savini went mad and penned the less than lucid moments. The last one I think I will devote to the effect of the small press in the horror genre and writers. Sort of in homage to the closing of the ezine. So, if there is one topic about horror and writing, this is your last chance to send in suggestions!

Meanwhile, I have been bouncing ideas off Jezzy Wolf for the Nostrildamus project. By bouncing ideas, I mean have incredibly silly conversations and saying, “we got to use that in a story sometime.” Also, there may be a new feature on both of our blogs in the future after a conversation today. This is one funny lady, people, and definitely keep an eye out for her.

Along with my own writing, I have been helping Bellupino with a couple of her stories. I tell you, there are just some things I would never think to write about and she those stories well. I’ve always been the kind of guy that if you were helped by someone in life and given the opportunity to do the same thing for someone else, you just do it. To hear the appreciation in her voice when I give her tips and multiple ways to work on part of the story, it feels great. Then again, every day feels great when just talking to her, so I might be a smidg biased.

Of course, we are also getting to the end of November, which means birthdays and
holidays galore in my family. My time is slipping already from just hunkering down and working, now I have these distractions coming up. I really wouldn’t mind an extra 12 hours a day. But in the mean time, I’m going to trying to set up a series of interviews to close out the year. Part of my tasks for the weekend is to email people about it. Though, there may allows be an opening. So keep an eye out in the next week or so for an open call for free publicity.

And as every story I go to already thin it is Black Friday, a special quote from those lovable pair that kicked of the blog:

(Stimpy sits on the lap of the Lincoln Memorial)

Stimpy: “A-And I’d like a bike, and a Betsy Wetsherself doll, and a Cheesy-Bake Oven, and a Pulpy The Pup doll, and a gajillion green army men, and a-”

Ren: “Get down from there! That’s not Santa Claus; it’s a memorial!”

Stimpy: “A memorial? I didn’t know Santa Claus was DEAD…!” (cries out loud)

Life Progressions – Part 2: The Relationship

Well, if the title of the tags didn’t give it, I’m a very happy man.

I have a terrific woman in my life now. She is writer as well, so we tend to get in great conversations about all aspects, from creation to publication, amongst all of the random things people talk about. Being a guy with the nickname “Wolf” for years, I’m so happy to have found my Bellupino.

The best part of it is that we fit seamlessly together (No! Not that way, you dirty minds, you. Such scandal…lol). What we share, it is just a incredibly wonderful time with each other. What we don’t share, we have a curiosity and interest in learning about it and learning from one another.

We have been dragging are feet a little on this, both of us never quiet sure how the other would take it, yet being so magnetically drawn to one other. But slowly, it evolved and we felt comfortable to test the boundaries. Once wee did that, though, it was like a floodgate opening. It’s hard to believe that it has been less that a week since we admitted our feelings to each other. Each day seemed to go by so fast, yet so much has already grown between us.

There’s so much I want to say. I’m a tumult of every wonderful and beautiful feeling a person can experience. I’m sure her name will Bellupino will make her way into my entries these days. She is my inspiration and i have even seen an upswing in my writing since committing to her. And that being said, I would like to end on this note:

In Relation To All Works Written From This Point On:

Dedications

To Bellupino,

A friend, love, and muse in the truest sense of those works. You are a pillar of strength and soft voice to sooth this savage beast.

Life Progressions – Part 1: The Writing

I woke up this morning and didn’t realize I had closed my mail client at some point in my sleepy haze (anyone who spends enough time with me takes on average 4 hours to get out of. I’m not that much of a morning person). When I did, one of the greatest emails was waiting for me.

The acceptance of “January” for the Dead Bells anthology by Library of Horror Press!

My goal for at least one sale this year was met. Next year is two (meanwhile what me fail around like maniac trying to work on something like 32 submissions, haha). Now it’s just down to working with the wonderful Jodi Lee on what edits she suggests.

Let’s just say, today I have been really giddy!

In other news, I’m shelving Scavenger. After a lot of debate with myself and a great correspondence with friend and mentor, Mike Arnzen, I decided that, to do the book justice, it needs to be completely rewritten after I have been able to detach from it completely. So, for NaNo, I’m going to do a number of flash piece, short stories, chap books, and possible an old novella idea or two. All of which will be set in my fictional town of Lucin City. After that, I’m probably going to work on the first of my Rock ‘n’ Roll themed books. Hopefully, during that time, I can get a hold of one of the local roller derby teams here and get the research I need for the book after Scavenger.

Check back, as soon as I get more information on Dead Bells, I’ll post it here.

Next part teaser: Find out how one person has changed my life.

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.