Scarlet Letters

Go to http://www.longandshortreviews.com and see my post about procrastination! It's your last chance to enter the drawing for a free copy of ABADDON! If you get the chance, too, thank the kind folks at Long and Short of It for featuring me. It really has been an honor. Also, don't forget tonight's release party chat for TWILIGHT AND THORNS! Such a pretty cover. I can't wait to read the rest of the stories. (I already read mine.) The chat is at 7 p.m. CST. Go to http://www.circledarkpublishing.net and scan down to the chat link. It is a Java-enabled chat, so you'll need Java to participate. See you there!

Wait, that's me. The Long And the Short of It kicks off its week of featuring MOI in the author spotlight today! I've tried to be quasi-entertaining in my little chats - a new yammering by me will be featured each day. Best of all, enter each day for a chance to win a copy of ABADDON! Even if you have zero interest in my ramblings, please drop by and give these folks hit counts. ALSO: Circle Dark Publishing is holding a chat party Friday night beginning at 7 p.m. CST to celebrate the release of TWILIGHT AND THORNS. The anthology includes a short story by yours truly, so I'll be there with bells on! (Or, you know, sans bells.) Let's have a good showing!

Another day, another couple of characters killed. I apparently broke the internets, since Zokutou's word meter is missing and others suck. So you'll just have to take my word for it that YR stands at 73,924 words. My goal was 80,000, and I'll make that easily, but longer is better, I suppose. Some publishers are starting at 90K for a first novel these days, though I wouldn't want to go over 100K. Not until they knows me better. :) Today was a day of failed research. I sought a protection spell, reading up in MONSTERS by John Michael Greer and firing off emails to people who might know, but I haven't found what I wanted and I don't know if the scene will be in the book anyway. I also took a stab (pardon the expression) at courthouse security research, but that scene is already written. Still, I hope the attempt gains some fruit, since I'd like to catch any egregious errors at this phase. I've been ultra-paranoid about language lately. A bit of constructiv...

69,416 / 80,000 (86.8%) Holy crap, I did a lot today. And I freaked myself out rewriting the library scene. I don't know if it'll make the readers crap their pants, but I feel like sleeping with the light on. Today's Research: • Ten-codes vary widely from department to department. However, a Ten-Double-Zero is nearly universal for "officer down, all units respond." This is a better choice than "Ten-Thirty-Five," which is just "major incident." Duh. I have been listening to my Yellow Roses mix while I write the rest of this book, but for the library scene I switched. First Solus ad victimam by Kenneth Leighton, then Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique . The march to the scaffold is truly freaky. Often while writing, I have felt that the stories I want to tell are ill-served by my talent. I knew the ending of THE COLD ONES long before I began to write the book, and yet when I finally wrote the ending (and rewrote it, as is my wont) ...

That would be moi. The Long and the Short of It , a fiction review site, will be featuring me as their guest author all next week! Drop by all week to hear me blather on insanely, or at least to support people kind enough to consider my work worthy of their time. Links will be forthcoming each day next week! Now to come up with something quasi-coherent to say....

I wonder what it says that I keep cackling to myself and muttering, "Ain't I a stinker?" That said, one of today's scenes rawtha smells. I've tossed it to the First Readers, and I guess I'll see if it stinks as badly as I think. I need to slow down, I know, but it's been so long since it was this much fun... 56,868 / 80,000 (71.1%) The Latest Research: • A hook is a type of punch in boxing. You turn the core muscles, swinging the arm at a 90-degreee angle into the opponent. Usually aimed at the side of the head, but can also be used for body blows. A cross is a more powerful hook, thrown by the rear hand horizontally. • Ghost hunters would use a digital thermometer probe for the most accurate testing of cold spots.

We're zooming now, folks. Of course, we're in the fun part. All that grief, agony and pain. Yum. 47,951 / 80,000 (59.9%) Research has included: • The background and history of the Wildey Theater , as well as a personal visit to the interior of the Miner's Theater. Both are wonderful old turn-of-the-century stage-movie houses, and both are allegedly haunted. • Everything Nick spouts in all his scenes is from my research into ghosthunting and paranormal investigation as it currently stands. I am not soaking St. John's Wort in olive oil for two months just to see what it looks like, though. • Dillinger was allegedly shot and killed outside a Chicago theater by the FBI, led by Melvin Purvis. There is an ongoing theory that the Feebs accidentally killed the wrong man, but the official version is that Dillinger got plastic surgery right before his death and that's why his own father didn't recognize him. The "oops" theory doesn't account for...

I rather thought Shelfari was cool when I signed up for it. Any online community built entirely on books must be great, yes? Until I had a friend request on it, and I clicked the wrong button. Instead of just accepting invitations, it sent an email inviting my entire address book. That address book had my editors and reporters at the newspaper. My colleagues at Cerridwen Press, Ellora's Cave, New Babel Books, Circle Dark Publishing... It had editors at publishing houses and magazines to which I've submitted, added to my address book automatically so their responses wouldn't go into the spam filter. Clients from my editing service. Fellow writers. Friends from college. Long-lost relatives. 394 NAMES. I hereby declare that those "invite your entire address book" programs are evil, and they must be destroyed. My apologies to any and all I accidentally invited. I tried to send an apology to my address book, but Yahoo wouldn't let me. Ironically, it seems they don...

Apex Magazine is having a subscription drive for the best of all possible reasons: to increase its pay rate for authors. The more subscriptions it gets in the course of the drive (through Nov. 30), the more it can raise its rates to writers. Apex is one of the best horror/sf markets out there, and it is absolutely worth your time. They publish good stuff, by established and new writers alike. A one-year subscription is a very reasonable $20. Go forth and subscribe! Help keep a good market in business and support markets that are dedicated to paying a quasi-living wage to hardworking writers. If nothing else, you should subscribe to support that goal.