I'm Attending CreepyCon 2021 in Knoxville!

 I just paid for my table at CreepyCon 2021 in Knoxville, Tennessee August 20 - 22. This will be my first event in a couple of years, the last one being the Oddities Expo in San Diego. I did that show with a handful of local authors, and all of us did very well, especially for a one-day event. I'll be vending CreepyCon by myself (well, with the help of my wife and son), though I have it on good authority that there will be at least a few other authors there as well.

If you're going to the event, look for me in the artist's room. I will have copies of most of my books, including Chew on This!, Death Obsessed, Shallow Graves, Stronger Than Hate, Double Barrel Vol. 3 and more! I might even have a couple copies of the Thunderstorm Books edition of Mojave Mud Caves.

For more information on the event, check out their website HERE.

Monthy Newsletter #5 July 2017

Welcome back to my monthly newsletter. Maybe I should call it a newsblog, yes? Before getting to the usual news, reviews, and writerly goodness, I would like to thank everyone who has purchased, borrowed on Kindle Unlimited, or otherwise supported my latest horror novella Brothers in Blood over the past month and a half. This novella has had a better opening than anything I have published. I'm not saying I can quit my day job and write full time or anything, but I can maybe buy a better bottle of whiskey and a lobster dinner. Maybe. At any rate, thanks to everyone who shared a social media post or bought the book. Page reads on Kindle Unlimited have been fantastic. Unfortunately, as of this writing, there are NO Amazon reviews. I'm not going to lose sleep over this, but if you read the novella I would greatly appreciate an honest review. Thanks!

News

The latest San Diego Horror Professionals anthology has been released, this time with even more SD authors than before. My offering, "Brain-Case Soiree," is a Laymon-esqu story that follows a young couple in a strained relationship who decide to explore a long abandoned asylum and find something truly unexpected. You can purchase the anthology HERE in the US and HERE in the UK.

I'm fine tuning two novels that I am sending to two particular publishers for consideration. I have also started a story that I like to call a cross between THEM! and The Descent. The idea came from a recent experience at work and a conversation with my father during a recent visit to Arizona. I've put down another novel I was working on, figuring this one is more marketable. I'll probably end up writing them both simultaneously.




 Cool Read

I'm suggesting two books this month.

The Lucky Ones Died First is the debut novella from my pal Jack Bantry. I'm not only spotlighting his book because he's a friend, but also because it's a damn fun read. It's pulp cryptid horror fiction at its best. I think of this novella as Friday the 13th but with Bigfoot rather than Jason. I was lucky enough to beta read this one and was thrilled when I heard Deadite Press picked it up. It's getting good reviews, and rightly so. Purchase it HERE.

It would be remiss of me not to highlight James Newman's Odd Man Out. I bought the paperback a few weeks ago (a different sized trade PB than what I'm used to, but fitting for a novella), and read it in two or three sittings, which is quick for me. Not only am I a slow reader, but I have a young child. 'Nuff said. Yes, Odd Man Out is socially relevant, yes I'm a fan of Newman's work (and I consider him a friend), but more importantly, this was an all encompassing read. The kind of story that truly pulls the reader in and blocks out everything, creating a visceral movie in my mind. This story made me forget that I'm a writer, and that's hard to do, as any writer will tell you. That's the kind of thing that elevates a story. Animosity still holds its place as my favorite Newman read, but this one comes in a close second. You can purchase Odd Man Out HERE.

Featured Fiction

This week I'm going to tell you a little about a story published a while back called "The Nostalgiac." This one appeared in the Post Mortem Press anthology Fear the Abyss, which featured science fiction stories with a horror bend. It was great to be published with so many talented authors such as Jack Ketchum, Harlan Ellison, Mike Arnzen, and Tim Waggoner, just to name a few. "The Nostalgiac" was an idea I dreamed up long before I was invited to this anthology. I saw a pair of intergalactic grave robbers risking radiation to claim entire graveyards on a dying Earth. I wrote half of the story and left it there, not really knowing where to go. When I was invited to submit, I knew this was my only chance. All of the other sci-fi horror stories that I'd written at that point had been published. I thought through my issues with the plot,  developed the Nostalgiac angle, and treated it very much like an episode of the Twilight Zone (the story was actually compared to TZ in a review). I think it's my best sci-fi/horror mash-up to date. You can purchase a copy of Fear the Abyss HERE.

Book and Record Acquisitions

I bought quite a few books over the last month. The Ten Little Indians paperback was a nice find at two bucks in a book store I had walked by several times but never stepped inside. I think that and The Seed were pretty much two of the only horror titles they had in the entire store outside of some Stephen King and Dean Koontz. No lie. I looked through the entire store--literature, sci-fi, and fantasy sections--no labelled horror section!--with no luck. There were a few F. Paul Wilson titles, but I already had them. I was also pleased to find a hardcover first edition of The Kill Riff on Ebay (and very affordable to boot!). Here are a few of my finds:

Closing Words

In closing, I have some reflections about life and the genre. First off, the Fourth of July came and passed. I went to the fair with my wife, mother-in-law, and son. We had a great time despite insane numbers of fair-goers. Everyone was so nice. I think that was due to the Fourth being a more family friendly day, whereas an average night at the fair consists of wading through packs of asshole teens and drunk twenty-somethings who wish they were still asshole teens.

So I was looking over my files and wondering if other writers have so much unpublished material. I'm not talking trunked stuff, but novels and novellas that are good enough for publication (or at least I think they are). I have six novels (most teetering on novella status), two novellas, and five unfinished projects. I've been reflecting on how difficult it is to break through in the biz, even on a small level. I'm convinced that networking at conventions and writing conferences is better than blindly submitting to the very few respectable publishers who actually accept submissions. Of course, talent and good stories play a part, but I keep running that quote through my head that I've heard so many masters of the genre say: "It's twenty percent talent; eighty percent luck." The numbers vary depending on who's making that particular quote, but it can be attributed to any number of bestselling authors. I've developed a few fans. They contact me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and it's surreal. I've earned compliments (mostly for my short fiction), and some harsh criticism (don't we all). I believe in my work and I know I get better with each piece of fiction I pen, whether I trunk it or attempt publication. It's a tough business, but I'm relieved when I read some of the fiction being published and find that there are some amazing authors out there. At least, for the most part, I can see why my stories get rejected, considering the competition. I've been short-listed enough to know I'm on the right path, and I've had some of the best editors in the biz say nice things about my fiction. I have to remember this when self doubt rears its ugly head. Onward and forward and all that jazz.

That last part was long winded. Thanks for reading. See you next month!

Monthly Newsletter #2 February 2017

Welcome back to my monthly newsletter. A day late, but certainly not a dollar short. I'm still green, so cut me some slack, please! I hope you find some of this interesting, and if you have any feedback it is always welcome. Cheers!


News (fake or otherwise)



I have a number of works in progress at all times. I really wish I could focus on one or two at a time, but I have way too many ideas brewing in my head, and they all want out. In fact, after a recent incident that happened to my wife and I, I have the beginning of a novel in my head. As much as I want to open a new document and type away, I have to restrain myself. This is not easy. So, I'm focusing on two pieces right now. One is the first book in a potential urban fantasy series set right here in San Diego. The working title is The Underground: A Veronica Hensely Story. I took some of the tropes I see in urban fantasy and tried to twist them a bit. I love the story. I'm about 65K words in. The other is a collaboration with Jack Bantry. Think Cronenberg's Shivers with the comedic essence of Return of the Living Dead. We're having fun writing it.

The San Diego Horror Professions, a group of horror authors I roll with here in town, have set up a twitter feed. We all have access and will pop in from time to time to tweet out cool horror stuff. Sure, you'll get tweets of us selling our prose, but we'll dish out some cool and fun surprises too. Follow us HERE.


Cool Read

This month's cool read is Ministry: The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen (with Jon Wiederhorn). I love a good rock bio, and anyone who reads these things knows that the autobiographies are the best, especially when the artist is brutally honest. Uncle Al is nothing if not honest in the telling of his absolutely mad, absurd, drug and alcohol fueled life of debauchery as the front man to the industrial metal band Ministry. Easily one of the best rock bios I've read, right up there with bios by Lemmy, Ozzy, Slash, and Rex Brown.


Featured Fiction

 This month I'm shining a light on my short story "Starving Artist" that was published last year in San Diego Horror Professionals Vol. 1, featuring Ryan C. Thomas, Chad Stroup, David Agranoff, Anthony Travino, Bryan Killian, and myself. My offering is about a woman so drawn to a piece of art on the boardwalk that she has to buy it. When the beach bum who sold her the painting shows up at her door the next day, she finds out that the painting is more of a curse that the exquisite piece of art she just HAD to have. I've had some good feedback on this story. If the horrors of losing control terrify you, then you will probably like it too. You can pick up a digital copy HERE for just a buck.





















Thrift Store Finds

Didn't find much over the past month. My local thrift stores have been weak. The books and records pictured below were from a library book store and a nice old man who's selling records and toy cars locally on the weekend. Nice guy. Used to be a DJ decades ago, so he has an insane pile of records. I've gone through them twice and still there are more buried under tubs of cars and other records. His prices aren't the best, but he's willing to haggle. Some good surf rock from the Champs. Not the most surfy Ventures record, but good nonetheless. Krokus is an unabashed AC/DC ripoff. I hate it. Haven't read either author, so I hope these books are good starting points.

Closing Words

In closing this month's newsletter I would like to let you all know that two of my titles are on sale for .99 cents for another week. If you haven't checked them out already, there's no better time. Reviews are always welcome, whether you liked it or hated it. It means a lot to authors, and apparently the Amazon algorithms.

"Well written, well paced and thoroughly twisted, In Black is sure to please readers of horror and Bizzaro alike." 

- Bryan Killian, author of Welcome to Necropolis and Dust of the Devil's Land

Get In Black HERE.


"Essig brings a fat slice of urban horror combined with his uniquely abstract vision of a hellish world. Endless suffering abounds! For fans of down and dirty horror!"

- Daniel I. Russel, author of Come into Darkness and Mother's Boys

Get Through the In Between, Hell Awaits HERE.

SDHP Vol. 2 HOLIDAY EDITION!

After the success of San Diego Horror Professionals Vol. 1, we've decided to hit the ground running and wrote six more horror tales that revolve around the holidays in San Diego Horror Professionals Vol. 2. Ryan C. Thomas, David Agranoff, Anthony Trevino, Bryan Killian, Chad Stroup, and myself return with all new stories. This time we're decking the halls . . . in blood!

To gear you up for Vol. 2, I invite you to check out this review we just received for Vol. 1 by Marvin Vernon at The Novel Pursuit. This guy is the real deal. Here's what he says about my story "Starving Artist": "I am wary of picking a favorite out of these six works but this is a doozy. It has a delicious Twilight Zone feel . The basic plot is of a woman who falls in love with a painting by a somewhat sleazy looking sidewalk artist and buys more than she realizes. It is a little clever and a lot wicked."

With volume two I was challenged to write a holiday story with a clown. I accepted. I asked a simple question: what do clowns do on Christmas? Sounds like a joke, right? Sounds like something with a funny punchline. Nope. It's a serious story and I believe it delivers a wallop. A Twilight Zone feel for sure. I hope you all check out the book and enjoy our twisted holiday offerings.

Feeling Like an Outsider

I had originally titled this "Feeling Like an Outcast", but after careful consideration I realized that outcast implies that I had somehow been cast out of something, which isn't accurate at all. Sometimes I feel like I'm drifting further and further away from the norm, which means my understanding of modern life is suffering. I think much of this is a part of getting older, but I also realize a lot of it is me. I'm tired of walking around looking at life like some kind of alien, but that's the way it is. Might as well embrace it.

One of my big struggles is technology. I'm in my early thirties. Most of my peers have taken up the techno stuff pretty heartily over the years, but I just don't get it. It's amazing I can even run this blog. Thing is, not understanding technology can really hold one back. Kind of bums me out, you know. If I want to come up with a bookmark design for one of my books, I have to ask someone to do it for me. I've found wonderful people who have done this for me, but when will I outwear my welcome. We're all busy. I have to do this shit for myself and sometimes I feel I will never learn. I just don't have the time or patience, but more importantly I have an outdated computer and no money to buy a new one. Even if I wanted to download some program to learn design, all I would do is slow this old beast down. I have to keep my damn itunes thinned out just to preserve some of my gigs.

Another aspect of life that brings me down is the simple entertainment of television. I just don't get any of it anymore. Sitcoms are so fucking boring these days. I don't get the jokes. I don't get shows with shaky camera and silence. Call me old fashioned, but I like a live audience or laugh track or whatever. Not that I need a cue on when to laugh (I've watched the shows with laughter in the background and I'm just sitting there wondering what the hell was so funny), but I just don't get that particular formula, a la The Office or Modern Family. Another popular type of show is the serial drama/horror show. These are intensely popular. People discuss them on facebook like mad and I just don't get it. I've tried watching Bates Motel and The Walking Dead and American Horror Story and I can't do it. This is two-fold. 1. I have found the plots to be far fetched and unbelievable or just plain out boring, and 2. I have this issue with watching a show on the same night every week. I'm not all that spontaneous, but I always manage to miss a program I want to watch. And no, I don't have any of those DVR/Tivo recording things. (Costs extra money that I'm not willing to pay. Money's tight, you know.) And I'm not even getting into so-called reality TV shows.

I'm not one of those people who wants to drop social media or anything, but I've been scarce as of late. Well, more so than usual. Part of this is due to being in the thick of a new novel. I'm at the point where the gears are in full swing and I'm easily knocking out a couple thousand words a day (which is always a feat because I work full time and have a family). That makes me happy. It's been a long time coming with this particular story. I started it at least five years ago and eventually had to rewrite the first thirty thousand words. When I get this involved in a project, social media is the first thing to go. But there's one more aspect to why I've been feeling like an outsider. Publishing. This is one hell of a tough business. I struggle. And struggle. And struggle. There are publishers who don't have the decency to respond to pitches or short story submissions, which infuriates me. This is nothing new, and it happens to all of us, but that doesn't make it any better. I have a boatload of patience. I've waited over two years for a rejection from a pro zine after being shortlisted. Thing is, they responded to the few queries I sent during that duration of time. Is it so fucking difficult to be a human being, to have decency. Did some publishers forget what it's like to be on the waiting end? And don't get me started on not responding to queries. I can understand that emails get lost or sucked into the SPAM filter, but that excuse only works so many times. Everyone has their goddamned cell phones on them at all times, so how hard is it to write a simple message? By the looks of some people's facebook and twitter output, not hard at all.

I keep writing. I love this new story, and I'm editing a novel I finished at the beginning of the year that I feel optimistic about. Not sure how I'm going to shop it around, but I think I'll try something different. Thing is, whenever I have doubts about publishing I realize that I cannot stop. I love it. I may only sell a few short stories and novels here and there (a mere fraction of my actual output), but so be it. I'm getting better. I'm learning from mistakes and critiques and those leading the path ahead of me. Writing is a balm for my troubled mind. It's a place I can go when everything seems to fall in on me. Life can be a bastard, but I always persevere. This isn't a pity party, just a place I can get some shit off my mind. Better here than on facebook, right?

Keep on doing what gives you pleasure just so long as you're not harming anyone.

Cheers!

Writing is like Canasta

No, really, writing and canasta have some parallels. Trust me on this one.

For those of you who don't know what canasta is, it's a card game. It's kind of like rummy on steroids. There's are a lot of rules and it takes a while to feel comfortable playing the game without having to ask if you're doing it right. One deck of cards just isn't enough, so you play with two decks. You better get used to shuffling that monstrous pile of cars, and you better shuffle 'em good.

You might already see some parallels to writing in that introductory paragraph, but the meat of why I think canasta and writing are similar goes a bit deeper.

My mother taught me how to play canasta maybe twenty years ago. If I remember correctly we were camping at King's Canyon in Northern California. A friend of mine was on that trip with us and we both loved playing card games, so we were excited to learn a new one. My mom told us not to expect to win right away. In fact, she said it would be a while before we won. A long while. Now, that kind of straight talk will discourage some people. They'll toss their hand down right then and there and say, "Well screw it then, why would I play a game I know I'm gonna lose?" Because it's fun, that's why. Because you have to learn how to play the game and this game is far more skill than chance. The initial dealing of the hand is chance, but after that it's ninety percent skill. You gotta know what to do with those cards you've been dealt regardless of whether it's a bum hand or not. You also have to watch your opponent carefully. Learn what signals they give to indicate what they're planning on doing. These are things you learn after playing the game over and over again and losing every damn time, but eventually you get closer to the win. Your score at the end of the game is higher, and then you have that breakthrough and you actually win one. You want to dance and cheer and scream it from the rooftops.

Then you play another game and you lose.

However, now that you have the win under your belt, you play harder and one win turns into two, then three, and soon enough you're feeling pretty good about your canasta skills.

Last week when I played a game of canasta against my mother I took her to the cleaners.

But that doesn't mean that she won't do the same to me next time.

In writing you start off and you're told to expect a pile of rejections. Kind of sounds familiar, right? You're pretty much told you're gonna lose right from the get go, and I imagine that crushes a lot of people's will to follow their dreams of becoming a published author.

It's all true. I have a file of paper rejections from back when most publishers were accepting snail mail submissions. Now I delete them as soon as I log them on my submission tracker sheet. I've been at this for a number of years. I've published over sixty short stories, two novellas and two novels. In the past few weeks I made my first pro sale to Eldritch Press for a story called "High Fashion" that is going to appear in their debut anthology Our World of Horror. I sold my novella Salpsan to Damnation Books, sold three flash fiction stories to Post Mortem Press ("Names on the Sidewalk", "Meeting the Quota", and "Moonlight Sonata"), and sold another story to Eldritch Press for their online zine. That story went live yesterday. It's called "Like Ants on a Carcass". You can read it HERE.

Without any doubt whatsoever I can expect to find rejection emails in my inbox. I can expect to be disappointed. I can also expect to take those stories and submit elsewhere and eventually, dammit, I expect to sell them.

Cheers!

Do You Write When You're Sick?

So I have a four-year-old. He's a great little boy...most of the time. Hyper, yes; energetic, of course, but for the most part he's a wonderful and sweet human being. However there is something that comes with having young children that is the bane of my existence. Something those of us who wash our hands regularly, don't stick our fingers in our mouths, don't sit on the floor in public places, and don't stick our tongues on everything manage to avoid.

I'm talking cold and flu here. And that son of mine manages to get sick as much as he possibly can, perhaps in the interest of causing his father to become sick so I have to stay home from work. That could be it, after all. The kid could have a master plan in mind when he's sticking his tongue on the table at a restaurant or touching every goddamn thing at kid-level in every store and then sticking his fingers in his mouth. 

Yeah, maybe he's doing it on purpose so dad gets sick and has to stay home with me.

Well, whatever the reason, I was sick on Friday and Saturday. It was some kind of bastard summer cold that attacked my sinuses something wicked. The kind of sinus pressure that makes one dream of lobotomy. And the sore throat...I don't remember swallowing any sandpaper, but apparently I did. I sat around most of the time reading Downfall by Michael S Gardner (review to follow), watched some documentaries on biker gangs, dozed off a bit, read more, and...

Well, I tried to write, but for the life of me I couldn't get my thoughts together enough for the task. In those two days I may have typed out a grand total of 250 words--maybe! A sentence or three of uninspired drivel better left on the cutting room floor.

As it has been since I began writing, it remains: I cannot, for the life of me, write while I'm sick. It seems like a great time to write for someone who works full-time, but that just isn't the case, so I fell behind the schedule I had created for myself this month in regards to my work-in-progress. I started on August 1st, aiming for one thousand words a day. The manuscript looks like it will round out between 20K and 30K, so I am determined to finish the first draft by the end of August. I should be at 12K by the end of the day, but I don't know about that. I had fallen a little behind before I became sick, and even more so over the course of Friday and Saturday. I'll write more tonight. Hopefully I can take my 9K words and elevate them toward my goal.



So, if you find yourself with a nasty summer cold, you've been placed on supreme couch duty, why not download my latest book onto your e-reader and forget about your misery by losing yourself in some good ole horror? Various formats are available at: amazon, Barns and Noble, and smashwords.

Keep it horror!

Robert

On Deck

I dislike working on too many projects simultaneously, but I always seem to find myself in that boat. I've been working on my short novel Of Dreams Come Nightmares, which is coming along nicely. I had to completely rewrite and piece together the first four chapters because they just didn't work, but the second half of the book is pretty tight. There's one issue I need to address, but it's minor.

I have also been working on Brothers in Blood. I have about 1/3 of the manuscript to go. I've already tightened up what I have written and I'm happy with it. And, of course, there's another story that will be called Broth House that is tickling my brain so damn much I may have to start on it before finishing Brothers in Blood. Broth House is going to be a tricky one. I'm looking forward to writing it, but also horrified that I'll totally fuck it up. I have a solid plot, a solid protagonist, and a solid villain, so I have those bases covered. I just have to use the canvas of my mind to paint them into some semblance of reality...after I finish Brothers in Blood, damn-it!

Good-fright, all!

What I've Been Working On

With work on Through the In Between, Hell Awaits finished (it will be released so damned soon I can taste the blood and grue!) I have had time to work on some other projects that have been set on the back burner, and I would like to get some things finished before editorial work on my Post Mortem Press novel People of the Ethereal Realm begins.

In the interim I have written a story that reflects one horrifying result of the desperation many facets of our current society are dealing with called "Like Ants on a Carcass".  I heard two news stories in one day that were frighteningly similar with a sad yet comical bend, so I took the idea and gave it a sad and horrific twist by taking said situation to the extreme. I'm pleased with the first draft and eager to tidy it up.

I have recently rewritten a story that I had entered into a writing competition last year.  The story had done terribly for many reasons, one of which was that I was too excited and didn't properly edit.  As a result there were a few embarrassing typos, however the commentary by the others in the contest was very helpful in directing me away from the worn-out monster with tentacles and the typical POV I had been using. Now the story has an original villain that better reflects the deeper meaning of the story, and with the shuffle of my lead character I think it is a far more engaging and affective read.  And, of course, I will have to clean this one up before submitting (maybe a few times for good measure).

With first drafts of those stories finished, I have resumed working on my latest novel In Black, which is coming along nicely. I have been hitting 500 words a day, which isn't too shabby for a guy who has been working a day job and then coming home to work on his house until 10 PM just about every night for the past week and a half.  What is it they say, if you can't fit writing into your busy schedule, then you may want to reconsider being a writer? I don't know what they say, but it's something like that. And who the hell are they anyway? In Black is coming along nicely. I am writing it using the stream of consciousness method, which I am trying to steer away from if for nothing else that to see if there are more effective ways to write books. I'm always interested in trying new methods. Having no idea how the book will end or where it is going is kind of thrilling, and can be very exciting when the plot begins to take hold.  Recently I have hit a major development, which may have something to do with my recent 500 words a day (that may not be a lot of words for many other authors, but I'm kind of a slow writer, so it's very good for me, particularly on weekdays).

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. I appreciate it.

Cheers!

Resolute Disillusion 2012

This morning I submitted four short stories to various publishers.  Two of the stories went to the same publisher by invite, though they still have to go through the submission process and aren't guaranteed a spot in the book.  The other two went to separate publishers, one in Australia and the other here in the states.  I made my notes and marked each submission with the month and year, and that's when it occurred to me that it is indeed 2012.  Sure, there was the same old drinks and celebration last night (very low key this year) but I believe it's when you first write 2012 on a check or document that it becomes a reality (or when you write 2011, curse yourself, and have to change it).

What does this all mean?  Well, I started thinking about my writing...hobby (I can't truthfully call it a career--I don't make enough money to live off of, so I feel I must call it a hobby).  I realized that it has been five years that I've been seriously submitting my work to publishers and collecting far more rejections than acceptances.  That got me pondering where I am with my writing and where I should be and where my fellow writers are.

When it comes down to it, we all go our own pace no matter how talented we are or however much we are mindlessly chasing a dream that will never come true.  For some it will come true, for many it has, but for most it will not.  That's a sad truth, but reality stings, doesn't it?  There's no reason to live in denial or have ridiculous expectations, and I think that's how I made it through the past five years writing and submitting my stories.  Besides, I have to write.  It's therapeutic and necessary.

To date, I have had 39 short stories and two novellas published from early 2008 - 2011.  My debut novel People of the Ethereal Realm is due out in 2012 from Twisted Library Press as well as a short story  called Tale of the Abnormal Beauty Queen which will appear in the anthology Darker Minds.

Not too shabby.  There are a lot of writers who have accomplished far more than that in the same amount of time, but as I said earlier, we all work at our own pace and some of us are far superior at the craft than others.  I fancy I'm somewhere in the middle.

Here's to bigger and better things in 2012.

Cheers!