Malicious Deviance -- NOW AVAILABLE

That's right!  Malicious Deviance is now available at amazon.com.  25 twisted tales from the perspective of bad, evil or just plain out disagreeable protagonists.  This book takes your average story of good vs. evil and flips it on its head.  If you are interested in reading these unique and strange stories of horror, you can purchase the book HERE

Here's the Table of Contents:

1. Taking Out the Trash by Philip Roberts

2. Red Turns to Green by Del James

3. Love Refinished by Jeff Kozzi

4. Bad for Business by Michelle D. Sonnier

5. Shotgun Shelter by Jason Sizemore

6. Better than God by Lancer Kind

7. Margery's Alternative Therapies by Tammi Pratt

8. Gossip Hounds of Sherry Town by James A. Sabata

9. Punishment by Travis Heermann

10. They Pissed on My Sofa by David A. Riley

11. Killing Klaas by Aaron Legler

12. Stalin's Coal Mine by Richard Marsden

13. Six Cases of Beaujolais by John C. Caruso

14. Death and Decay by Natalie L. Sin

15. The Howling of the Wolves by Eric Pinder

16. Urination and Degradation by Keith Gouveia

17. A Wife from Hell by Uri Grey

18. Sea Glass by Jacob A. Boyd

19. Pied Piper by Robert Walford

20. Rats and Rednecks by Rob Rosen

21. El Dentisto que Corta by Mike Norris

22. Goodnight, Francine by Stacy Longo

23. Nil by Barry Rosenberg

24. Mr. Banjo by Tonia Brown

25. The Nasty Club by Jeffery Scott Sims

The Lakatos Clan

Well, it looks like Sideshow Fables #3 is almost ready.  It's been quite a wait for this one, but I just received an email saying that it is almost done and will be available for kindle when it comes out.  It isn't going to be in print like the first two issues, and I'm note sure, but I think it will be available at sideshowfables.com when it goes live.  (I just noticed this web address has expired, but I imagine they're dealing with that since I just got the update email.)

I will be pleased to see my story of carnival craziness "The Lakatos Clan" published in this issue and hope that those of you wandering into my blog will check it out when I post the link.

WIP -- Hell Awaits

My latest work in progress is now called Hell Awaits.  I wrote a post earlier about not looking at the word count any longer and I think it's working for me.  I have no clue what the word count is, but I'm on page 148, which makes me wonder if I have replaced the word count obsession with a new-found page number obsession.  I don't think so.  I don't pay all that much attention to the page number, at least not obsessively, and it seems that writing is based more on word count than anything else as far as length is considered.  There are some very large paragraphs in this WIP, which could account for a possible lengthy word count with fewer pages than something that is dialogue heavy.  But that goes without saying.

At any rate, Hell Awaits is coming along nicely, and I'm not sure where it's going.  And that's just fine with me.  I'm not a fan of plotting too far in advance.  I find it easier to take it as it comes and see where the characters go.  They really do have minds of their own, so it would do them a disservice if I acted too much like a puppet master.  They have a far better story to show that I can dream up anyway.

Rusted Roots

My latest story "Rusted Roots" has been published in the current issue of the.gloaming magazine online.  It is available to read for free HERE.  The print zine will be available very soon.

What happens when you mix sci-fi with horror with tragedy?  You get "Rusted Roots," my dim look at the future where a government "bug" changes everything we once knew and cherished.  This story made me sad to write.  Perhaps more so than anything I've written before.

Enjoy!

The Road to Hell -- Now in Print!

That's right, The Road to Hell is now available in print at amazon or postmortem press.

Post Mortem Press present four novellas:

Number Six by Joseph Williams Have you ever been to Hell? Zach hadn’t. Not until he lost his job, girlfriend, car, and home over the course of just a few hours. In his quest to find solace in isolation and introspection, Zach finds depravity beyond any fathomable nightmare. Zach has found the true meaning of freedom discovering it’s not as wonderful as he figured. Freedom has consequences, and God isn’t always the only one with a plan for you.

Cemetery Tour by Robert Essig Three college students decide to spend their Spring Break taking a driving tour of cemeteries across the southwest of America. When they discover a dug up grave in one of the cemeteries their trip becomes much more than they had anticipated.

Mistress of a Higher Purpose by Daniel Pearlman In 2035, bad luck tosses beautiful Rose Langley from a prison in New York to a strange environmentalist slave-camp run by scientists in Idaho. A series of abusive men have frustrated her deepest desire--to have a child of her own--but her jailers in Idaho miraculously offer her this, and freedom too. The price is gigantic, however.

Enslavement by Nicholas Conley Addiction is an easy trap to fall into. It starts out small. It turns into a habit. Given enough time, it becomes enslavement. Six individuals, each suffering from their own individual addiction, are kidnapped one night and wake up on an empty, moving train. There are no exit doors, no outside contact, the train is an endless maze of identical compartments and the group is terrorized by monstrous “Grey-Men.” As they struggle to understand the unseen force that’s thrown them together, it becomes clear that there’s only one way off the train; they must either overcome their dark histories and self-doubts, or drown in them.

Excerpt from "The Old Man"

Here's an excerp from the third story "The Old Man" from my chapbook Pantomime:   

   The next morning Benny woke, performed his ritual of shower, shave and breakfast followed by a monotonous dose of morning news before leaving for the cemetery.

      Rose or no rose, he was going to make the visit he made every week since Marge's passing.  She would be expecting him, or so he liked to think, and he wasn't one to disappoint.

      He opened his front door half expecting to see the decrepit antique of a man staring at him, waiting with foul baited breath, but he wasn't there -- no, not at the door step, but at the end of the driveway, scurrying away as if he had just been coming up the walkway and became frightened.  Without a cane it was a miracle he didn't fall over in his rush to evacuate the yard.

      Benny had half a mind to yell something to the old man but decided against his initial rage.  After all, he could be troubled.  He was definitely obsessed with Benny or his house, that was for sure, but why?

A New Method for My Next Writing Project

I finished my first novel over a year ago and have been shopping it around for the past year.  I've began two novels since without finishing either of them.  The first made it to around 30K words and the second around 15K.  They will be finished eventually, but while I was writing them I became sidetracked due to other projects.  In that time I wrote a novella that is currently submitted that capped in around 20K and a slew of short stories, of course (I can't stop writing shorts).

So, now I'm beginning a third novel and I'm trying something different.  Not because of the previous two books being abandoned for the moment, but because I have felt for a long time that keeping track of the work count hinders the creativity, for me at least.  So that's what I'm doing for this project.  I'm not going to check the word count even one time before I'm finished.  It may be a novel, may be a novella, but whatever it becomes, the plot is spewing from my brain like a train out of control on a slope.  I just hope I can harness it before it derails.  The tentative titles have been Angel-whore Rising and Death Fraud.