The Spice of Nightmares: A Few Updates

I'm always working on something, though slowly at times. No deadlines at the moment, so I have my hands dipped into a few projects that I hope to submit in the near future, and, of course, quite a few stories and two novellas in the hands of publishers. Us writers are always waiting to "hear the good word" from someone. When Tom Petty wrote the song "The Waiting" he must have been dabbling in the writing biz.

I have a short story called "Dr. Scabs and the Hags of El Cajon" coming out in the soon-to-be-released anthology from Blood Bound Books entitled DOA II. Easily my most disturbing and offensive piece yet. The story certainly holds up to the title. Writing this story was a way of preserving the idea since I have a lot I want to get to before exploring it further.

My second novel People of the Ethereal Realm is slated for release from Post Mortem Press in June, just in time for my birthday. This is the story of two men from different walks of life who are brought together by a mysterious, ghostly woman who uses them to find something she has been searching far too long to find, and she'll go to any length to get what she wants.

As for what I've been writing: two short novels and a novella. The First is called In Black. I still have a few rounds of tightening up and fixing typos and grammatical errors. I'm waiting for a couple of readers to get back to me with their thoughts. My first reader brought up a few points that I will address when I go over the manuscript again. The second short novel is called Of Dreams Come Nightmares. I'm currently editing this one and will soon request volunteers to beta read it (a concept that is new to me, but seems to be working well). This story is about a man who lives a simultaneous life in reality and his nightly dreams. When the stress of starting a new business becomes too much, his worlds begin to collide. The third is a novella called Brothers in Blood that I am in the process of writing. This one is a non-supernatural horror story. People seem to be more responsive and freaked out about stories that could actually happen. This one'll rip your face off.

I have also been dabbling with a few short stories, but for the most part that's what I've been up to. I can't wait to get these stories into the world. Hopefully some publishers feel the same way.

Blood and guts to all, and to all a good fright!

Robert