Eldritch Thoughts Hits 100

Monday was a good day for me. I logged onto Eldritch Thoughts and saw I hit the 100 follower mark. At the time, I had 102 posts. Take out all the none quote posts out and I have had roughly a new follower for every post since I restarted the project. I’m absolutely amazed! Add to that the people following on the Facebook page and the Twitter account, and there were 193. All I can say is thank you to all of you reading.

The project started as just a way to get my mind back into writing and creating ideas after my transplant. The first version was crazy as I tried to build a storyline under the humor. Bad idea. It quickly got to the point when I was more concerned about mapping out plot points that the humor fizzled. The few that read it then were there for the humor and nothing else. Why mess with a good thing?

After a break, I came back to it. I moved it to Tumblr and kept the twitter and face book accounts open as feeds. I didn’t want to alienate that already enjoyed it. I wanted to give them better content. But I had learned something from my blog here. It is also something that I have been lacking the last few months.

Consistency.

Back before the transplant, I did my best to have two posts a week. Tuesdays and Fridays new there was going to be something here for them. After I started doing that, I saw the hits climb to my best so far. When I decided to re-start Eldritch Thoughts, I wanted to see if could make it “Appointment Blogging,” for lack of a better term. One post a day, at a time during the day when I thought most people I know would catch it. So I set a schedule and I stuck to it. Since then, people keep finding it and many of the re-blogs, re-tweets, and likes are around the time it posts. Is it working? I can’t say except anecdotally.

I’m at a point now, though, where I’m thinking of the future of Eldritch Thoughts. When I started it, I had the thought of creating small humor books a lot like the Deep Thoughts books that inspired the project. Technically, I could compile what I’ve done so far and have enough for a similar book. Of course I wouldn’t do that. I’d add new stuff that no ones seen as well. Anyways, I really thought if I did, I would have to do it myself. I can’t think of a publisher that would do a humorous horror coffee-table book. Unfortunately, I can’t find a service that does the small books. So I have a feeling, I’m going to have to start looking for an actual publisher to print this book. It may be a while until the book comes, but it is next big goal for Eldritch Thoughts.

And again, thank you to all that have been reading. You all keep me going to give you more of what you love.

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An Unplanned Hiatus

Found at http://wesleyandlaura.com/lebuc/Rapture

I know it has been a while since I’ve posted anything. Lets me say the last month and change has been tumultuous.

The day after my last post, I get a phone call from my best friend. He called to tell me that another friend of ours house caught on fire during the night and his mother and younger sister were missing. It was a shock, to say the least. I knew his family really well, since the 5^th grade. He was one of the guys in the band I had up until I moved from NH. The days following was mostly spent trying to get what news I could about the situation from here. Unfortunately, his mom and sister were lost to the fire and both him, his wife, his daughter, and his father were lucky to get out in time.

That weekend, we get news that my grandmother was getting worse, doctors were saying it was no more than days. She passed early that following Monday. It’s hard to even begin to talk about my grandma because through a long part of my growing years she was a part of it. Too much to shrink down into a paragraph of a blog post. But for those that know me, I wouldn’t be who I am without her. The rest of that week was filled with funeral arrangements, time with family, the funeral and Easter.

I started to get back work on all the projects I have on the plate. Thursday I woke with what I thought was gas pain. The reason I thought it was that was that I was in pain and seemed to be burping continuously through out the day. Friday the gas kinda left and the pain was a different more constant pain. Long story short, it was appendicitis. So I had to have an emergency appendectomy. Normally they do it laperscopicly, but my body never does anything easy and my appendix was so inflamed it was attaching to my colon and was impossible to do it that way. So, they cut me open, took out the offending organ, and stapled me shut. Since then I have been just resting. Until today, it hurt a lot to stand or sit. Still isn’t comfortable for too long. But I’m going to slowly getting back to things.

Monday I’ll get back to posting Eldritch Thoughts daily. If you are on Tumblr, follow it! I may have something special for the 100^th follower!

The next big thing coming up here and Non-Horror Reader Survey is going to involve the book, Many Genres, One Craft. I’ll be reviewing the book here and having a series of interviews and other posts relate to it over at NHRS. Keep an eye out for all of it. If you are a writer, do check it out. One of the better books out there on craft.

Then again, this entire post will be pointless if today is the Rapture. Wonder if anyone is going to have wacked out Rapture parties like the scene from Independence Day.

Blog Vs. Twitter: An Email Turned Rant

At the end of last week, I got into a discussion with the man behind The Worm That Walks. He is where I was back in October with Eldritch Thoughts. What started out as just a quick rundown about what I experienced slowly became a rant that I tried to stop prematurely for the sake of brevity and not to come off like a loon. But I will now go into full rant overdrive and let effluence of the subject do its job.

To Twitter, or to blog, that is the question. Whenever technology brings writers a new way to give stories to people, you will rarely see any of them not think, “How can I use this?” Granted, some are pragmatists and some dive right in, but they all have that thought because new forms always gives us writers new challenges to embark on. In part, that is what I was, and still am, doing with Eldritch Thoughts.

Where Did The Week Go And Why Wasn’t I Invited?

picture from Ferrell McCollough

Well, it has been quite a week. Lot’s of things to get to and recap.

First, Eldritch Thoughts is fairing well so far, already getting people following on both Twitter and Tumblr. The padding of what I did previously has been a great help. Plus, looking them over has sparked new ideas that I’m adding to the stable.

Women In Horror Recognition Month has started off strong at The Non-Horror Reader Survey with a Spotlight on The Language of Dying by Sarah Pinborough (yes, for those wondering, it is a pared down version of my review here) and an interview with the wonderful Jodi Lee, Editor in Chief of Belfire Press and The New Bedlam Project. There are some great answers there, so I’d check it out. And if you haven’t taken the survey yet, there is no better time than now!

The rest of February will be more Book Spotlights of other women writers, including Angeline Hawkes, Mary SanGiovanni, and possibly one if we have time. March is already starting to form up and it looks like April will be filled pretty full as I help promote Many Genres, One Craft, a new book on writing popular fiction written by alums and mentors of the Seton Hill University Writing Popular Fiction program. If you want an interview or do a guest post on NHRS, just send me a message on the site’s contact page. March still has openings and after April is wide open.

That’s the good news. The bad is that “Witches’ Brooms” is still looking for a place to call home. I’ll probably put it aside for a bit and then go back to it, see if I can tighten it up better. In the mean time, I’m going to finish a story I completely don’t remember starting. It is possibly a memory that was lost as result of the coma. “Every Cell” is going to be an interesting one and it took me a while to find the real conflict in it. Until know it was just an overly described idea. I’m hoping to have it done for submission to Horror Library vol. 5.

It is not the only project that I have going. There are two others, one definite and one possible. I don’t want to say much about the latter until I present my proposals and get a response back. The definite one is my secret “Project 10.” This is an idea that I have had for a while now, and it is possibly one of the most challenging ideas I’ve come up with. It probably won’t even have a word written for it for at least a year, because there is a lot I want to research before diving into it. I’m starting right now at looking at various densely layered stories and analyzing them, both TV and literature. The first one I’m looking at is 24, because no matter what you think of the show, you can’t deny the they brilliance of the plotting through that entire series.

Before I let you go, Valentine’s is coming up. A while ago, I used to make mixes for friends to use during the holiday, and I started it up again. So, for the couples out there, take a look at Valentine’s Day 2011: Somebody’s Somebody. For the first time this year, I decided to make one for the single people too. I know all to well how much it suck to be single on Valentine’s, so I made mix so single people can be pumped to make this year the Year of the Singles. Check out Valentine’s For Singles 2011. Both Tumblr posts are also link to the playlist on iTunes, though it didn’t have all the songs I used (which I note in the posts). Hope you all enjoy them.

That’s all for now. I wish you all a great weekend and Valentine’s Day. Mine will be filled with doctors appointments to figure out why me legs still don’t work.

Eldritch Thoughts

Some of you might have stumbled upon a project late last year called Eldritch Thoughts. It was something I started to get my head back into the writing game. I only did it for three months. Each week there was a blog post, soon followed by translator notes. Every day there was a tweet. All of it centered on humorous wisdom give by Cthulhu and translated by a character of mine, Enrich von Brandt. There were a few reasons I stopped the project.

The first was that it did what I wanted it to. It got me back into doing regular updates and creating new ideas to write about. Second, my idea was much bigger than I had planned it and I wasn’t ready for the next step. I had wanted to tell a tale of the translator going mad from reading all these Cthulhu texts. And I may do that at some point. It is a great idea and there is a lot of things to play with. Lastly, it was soon taking up the time I wanted to use for my other writing.

So I put it on hold for a while, but I’m going to bring it back.

There are a few changes. The biggest is that I’m going to consolidate the blog and tweet portions onto a Tumblr account. The Twitter and Facebook page will stay up and Tumblr will send everything to both those accounts so no one has to join Tumblr to follow it. Through out this new run I will re-post all old posts and tweets so anyone that hasn’t seen them doesn’t have to go through both the tweet stream and the blog. Third, there wouldn’t be a underlying story, at least for know. I’m going to plan for at least one new post a day. This way, though, I’m not splitting myself between two places because of character count.

So, for those that enjoyed the “pilot” of Eldritch Thoughts, I can assure you more of the same. For those new to it, I hope you enjoy it and see that even Great Old Ones have their eccentricities.