The Raven

Recently, I got Netflix. It's something that's really good. I can watch a movie when I want in just about any genre. I've been finding recently that I need to relax once in a while since I write every single day. There are no days off for me especially I had to start meeting publishing deadlines. The old adage applies, all work and no play...

This Raven is a movie I watched recently and I think it's a decent bit of horror fiction. It's a little gory here and there which I don't mind since it kind of goes with the genre.

Found it to be a quite imaginative look at the last days Edgar Allen Poe lived. Some madman is committing murders based on what can be read in Poe's stories. The author himself is brought in to help solve the cases though at first it's because the police suspect him. The suspense was well done and it kept me guessing on who was the murderer. I really didn't expect who it turned out to be. 

An Ill Wind Cometh

So far, this book is coming along really well. Still have three chapters to write the complete rough draft on since I only have little bits of those at the present. I'm thinking next week the manuscript will go into final editing stages. Note, this excerpt is a rough draft but it is part of the upcoming book.

All of the events of the last few weeks had been building up within him. Too much, it seemed, had happened in his life recently and he felt he had reached the breaking point. It didn’t help finding all of those newspaper accounts of what happened either. When he came home he made a point of not telling Sharon what he’d found. After she went to bed he was sitting alone in the living room. He had to have some kind of release and drowning his sorrows in alcohol sounded perfect for the task.

On the way home from the museum he stopped and got a large bottle of whiskey. In the quiet of the late evening, Karl was sitting on the sofa in the living room. Displayed prominently on the coffee table, in front of him, the bottle of whisky was now about half full. He had been steadily making a dent in the contents. The cap and a tumbler that had two fingers of the brown liquid sat next to it. A quick swallow emptied the glass and he slammed it down almost hard enough to break it.

Unable to make it to the bathroom he pissed his pants where he was sitting on the sofa. Now the unpleasant odor of urine mixed with the comforting aroma of the whiskey. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead. Gazing at the bottle he considered taking another drink but the one bottle now appeared to be two of them. Ah shit! What fucking one do I choose? Reaching for the one on the left he missed completely and lost his limited sense of balance. Falling forward, his face and chest slammed on the coffee table. He snorted in disgust at himself. Turning his head to rest his ear on the table the two bottles had become one that was indistinct and blurry along with the empty glass.

Pushing himself upright he tried to grab the bottle. He was interrupted in mid-grab by a song that he could now hear. What the hell? To his surprise, along the wall was an upright piano and the keys were moving. He blinked twice in disbelief at the impossible thing. They didn’t own a piano. Figuring initially it was a player piano he noticed there was no roll of paper above the keys. There was no reason for it to be doing what it was doing. It was almost beyond all understanding.

Squinting at the strange sight he began to sober up as fear coursed through his veins. His curiosity getting the best of him, he got up from his seat. In an attempt to solve the mystery, he drew closer to the rather odd object that had materialized to investigate it further. Once he was close enough he reached out his hand to touch it. A shock was transmitted from the strange item into his being.

The walls faded slowly around him and as they disappeared he could see another room. Everything was tinted a sepia and was hazy. Bookshelves ringed the room and were filled with leather bound volumes. At a desk in the middle of the room a man wearing a charcoal colored suit and bow tie was seated. His hand gyrated across the piece of paper he was writing something on. His moustache twitched as he scribbled away. The desk and the man would have looked quite at home in museum. Laying down his pen the man turned his chair around and opened a drawer in the bureau behind him. Reaching in, he extracted a little clear glass bottle with a handwritten label that held some bluish liquid. He shook it to mix the contents a little and then slide it into the pocket of his coat.

As he got up and began to walk out of the room the song changed that was coming from the piano. The scene followed the man as he walked through the house which looked much like this one they now lived in. Then Karl realized it was the same house and who he was seeing probably was Peter Maudlin. The pictures that he had seen on the newspaper articles didn’t entirely do him justice but was close enough he thought he could recognize the man.

Rip Tide Excerpt

Jeremy Downes had been very busy earlier during the wee hours of the morning. The act of relieving those two women of their suffering had been such a liberating experience for him. Excitement surged in his veins with the thrill of it all as he was caught up in the fervor. Closing his eyes, he could see everything so very clearly that had happened. As the dawn arrived, since he was still awake, he had brewed a pot of coffee in the porcelain percolator. Now he was sitting at the table drinking the contents, emptying the pot while he relived the fascinating events over and over, both of the women in one night.

Later today, he would pick up one of the newspapers and find out that the names of the most recent ones were Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes. It seemed the papers couldn’t get enough of the macabre and the sensational. The more sensational they could find the better it seemed to be for them. The headlines would shout out in large print the dramatic events of the previous day.

Read all about it!

Madman on the loose!

 While it didn’t matter what their names were, he just felt it was always good to put a name to the faces that were now indelibly etched upon his memories. Every time he closed his eyes he would see them again and could even talk to them including the others earlier that weren’t known about. Previously, he had met them and had obtained their services while out on one of his many nightly jaunts. His restless soul drove him to walk late at night through Whitechapel when he couldn’t sleep which was often. Just about every weekend as far back as he could remember was a sleepless one.

Historical Fiction

I love reading good historical fiction. Have a passion for it. Over the years I've read a lot of great books that are quite memorable and here's a few of them. Some of these are rather recent and I'm quite impressed with the level of research I've been seeing.


The Luck of the Weissensteiners by Christoph Fisher

Shindler's List by Thomas Keneally

Chesapeake by James A Mitchner
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
11/22/63 by Steven King
Fallls the Shadow by Sharon K Penman
Tempest at Dawn by James Best
War Brides by Helen Bryan
Seducing the Knight by Gerri Russell
The Devils Tide by Matt Tomerlin
The Devils Fire by Matt Tomerlin
The Cartographer -1492 by Othniel J.Seiden

Probably one of the best crime drama/historical fiction I've ever read would be:

Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

I even love writing it as long as I can find a good horror twist which is actually pretty easy. Mankind has been really disturbing for a long time. To tell you truth, the idea of the knights holding a code of ethics close is largely a myth. Many of the knights did very bad things in real life. One of the main reasons for the Inquisition isn't what you think it was, it was a way to grab peoples property. Presently I'm working on a piece that will be set during the Wars of the Roses time. Very interesting piece so far and I'm still in the research phases.

Readers

It's always fascinating to me when I've printed a rough draft and have someone read it. Usually, I just pick someone at random and in some cases they've never seen anything I've written before. I always enjoy the feedback that I get and it helps me during the rewriting process and there's always rewriting to do. The rewriting is what really brings the story to life. There is no author anywhere who will get it perfect immediately that I'm aware of. It takes honing and polishing the story over time to make it the best it can be. Usually, the honing and polishing takes longer than writing the story initially.

Even more fascinating for me is watching their expressions as they are beta reading. It tells me a lot about what I've written. Some, just can't seem to put down the pages. I just love it when that happens and I'm lucky that most of the time that's the case that they can't stop reading the story. That's the moment I know I'm onto a great idea, one that will stand the test of time and will be proud to add a print copy of to my bookshelf. I've got quite the collection started. It will be fascinating to see how full I can make the shelf in the years to come.

Perseid Press

It looks like I'm off to a great start with Perseid Press and I'm having a blast these days.

My submission for "Dark Corners" was accepted, and I have the contract. I'm really happy and to tell you the truth it's a really disturbing but at the same time a good story. It was quite fun to write but after editing it really pops and should give nightmares to some. Can't wait to see it in print, the book will look good on my shelf.

I also have most of the rough draft of the story I was going to submit for inclusion in, "Discontinuum." It's a good storyline but I happened along another idea that might work even better. It’s something that’s been running around the back of my head for a while. Can you imagine writing a story set in the Spanish Inquisition? I can and we'll see how it works out though when I get further into it.

Don't know as of yet when, "Terror By Gaslight," will be coming out. Love the story, "A Spiritus Renascentis," that was selected for it. I'm a big fan of historical fiction and if I can write it as horror it's even better. 

Cover Reveal End of the Night

It began with tragedy.

Continued with rebirth.

Intensified with an uncovered past.

How will it all end?

The wait is almost over!  

Storm Sullivan's epic journey comes to an end tomorrow with the release of 

END OF THE NIGHT

I am thrilled to reveal the stunning new cover created by the brilliant and fabulously talented, 

Tammie Clarke Gibbs.

And, a teaser excerpt.....

Storm

Beep, Beep, Beep.

Storm groaned and rolled over, right into PacMan’s back.  “PacMan, you bad boy.”  She halfheartedly mumbled the reprimand and attempted to push his body to no avail.  “Fine.  Be that way.”  Slapping the snooze button to silence the alarm, Storm draped an arm over her dog and snuggled into the short soft fur, relishing the gentle rise and fall of his chest. 

Beep, Beep, Beep.

PacMan snorted and licked Storm’s face.  “Alright,alright, I’m getting up.  I don’t know why you’re so put out, you get to lay around in bed all day.”  Pushing off the bed, Storm reached down and flipped the alarm to off before breaking into a yawning stretch that was highlighted with a serious of soft cracks and pops as her spine realigned.   For a second, Storm swore she heard a baby crying and paused at its closeness.  She mentally chastised herself and shrugged.  Must be the neighbors.  The apartment walls were paper thin after all. 

Stepping into the shower, Storm stood for several minutes under the steaming hot water, washing away the grime from the day before and the vague discomfort following the vision she’d had.  The vision.  It was an ugly one and somewhat painful if truth be told.  She’d made the call to the precinct from her disposable cell and hoped they been able to nab the sicko in time.  Part of her wanted to call Dan and Shane to ask about it but then they would wonder how she knew.  Every time Storm had the same internal argument but ultimately did the right thing and waited for the news story.  She rinsed off and stepped out, wrapping herself in a worn bath towel.  PacMan sat in the doorway of the bathroom staring at her in his usual concerned way.  Storm called him a worry wart because he always appeared to be frowning in concern. 

“I think I talk to you too much, boy.”  Storm turned from her dog and wiped off the mirror.  A man’s face looked back at her.  She blinked, rubbed her eyes and wiped at the mirror again but only saw her own reflection.  “Yes, definitely.  I am losing it.”  Storm grumbled to herself and went about methodically combing the tangles from her hair before neatly plaiting it.  With the towel secured tightly around her body she slipped back into the bedroom and flipped the television on to the morning news.  Sifting through her wardrobe, Storm half listened to the weather and traffic.  By the time the main anchor re-took the screen she’d slipped into a pair of black pin-striped pants and her least ratty white lace camisole.  The story Storm had been waiting for came on just as she was slipping into her emerald green satin blouse.