A Book For Autumn Sundays

This book released back in February, but it takes place in autumn, and I think it's the perfect snuggle-up-with-a-coffee binge read for a day like today. 

College Town began as a writing exercise: a way to keep my writing "muscles" engaged and responsive while I slogged through Lord Have Mercy. It quickly grew legs, and became not one, but two writing challenges I was excited to meet: a present-tense narrative, and a standalone novel, one not limited by the actions, storylines, and style of books that came before it. I ended up enjoying the heck out of it. In fact, upon reflection, it's my favorite project of 2024. 

Aside from loving Lawson and Tommy, which I do, College Town gave me the chance to step outside the comforting, if limiting boxes of my ongoing series, and proved to me that I can write standalones. It was a necessary creative push, one that's given me the confidence to push some more. 

I've made (purposefully) vague mentions in some recent posts about taking a step back, and reimagining what my writing future looks like. I am doing just that, and waiting to hear back (fingers crossed) about some work opportunities. I'm not currently working on an original project, but I don't see myself ever not writing; hopefully, I'll have the time and energy to still write for myself on weekends or holidays in the near future. But as to what I'll be writing...well, let's just say that spending six months to a year on a massive book like Lord Have Mercy is not a wise investment financially. Maybe somewhere down the line my series will enjoy renewed interest and a renaissance of sorts, but for now, I'm enjoying Instagramming, blogging, reading, and sharing books with you all. It would be fun to explore smaller, self-contained standalones when I get back to sharing my writing. The new format is still in flux, but I'm definitely not going anywhere, and I'm really hoping I can use my writing in new and exciting ways. (And hopefully some that are good for my wallet, too!)

College Town, and it's novella follow-up, A Cure for Recovery, are available now at Amazon, B&N, and Kobo for all your fall afternoon reading needs!  

#ReadingLife: Released

Indie Author Alert: my latest read was Released by Julie Embleton, and it's book two in her Turning Moon series. It's a fated mates wolf shifter romance, between Michael, a wolf who fled his pack because of the crushing guilt he carries thanks to what happened in book one, Bound, and Genna, a human living with guilt of her own. Two burdened souls destined for one another, faced with a villain who is truly evil, and a twist at the end that I didn't see coming. You will need to read book one first, and last I checked, it's free to download for Kindle! 

This book left me ruminating on something. Obviously, fiction is fiction, and we read it with the understanding that unlikely and fantastic things will unfold between the pages. But even with the wildest and most imaginative stories, readers still demand a certain level of realism: they want characters to feel like authentic humans with authentic reactions to all big reveals and plot twists. 

But...do they? Do they really? Because how adaptable is the average person? How trusting of strangers? How accepting of the shocking and the unexplained? 

In Released, when Genna learns that Michael is a werewolf, and witnesses him shift from wolf to human, she freaks out. Rightfully so. Her doubt and panic over realizing the supernatural forces of storybooks are real and now a part of her life sends her into more than one tailspin, and I appreciated the reality of that. Because I believe that, though we all love a vampire, or a werewolf, or even a human killer/criminal, like an outlaw biker or a mafia don, in fiction, if we met or fell in love with one in real life, we would freak out, too. In fiction, that process often gets expedited or glossed over; the heroine adapts quickly and sometimes even effortlessly, and while readers might like that, might enjoy that head-first fall into the unknown, it isn't realism. 

Something I've noticed in the response to my own work: characters who begin on the outside of a closed system - be it club or supernatural pack - are the ones least liked by readers. If a woman takes a beat or two to come to terms with her new normal, she gets picked apart. Characters like Ava, in Dartmoor, don't ever have those attacks of conscience with regard to the club's illegal or even murderous activity because she was born into the club, and it's the only normal she's ever known. This streamlines that drama in a pleasing way: we dive, instead, straight into the drama of her romance, her struggles with the bad guys, etc. But characters like Emmie, like Sam, like Whitney have to work through that "holy crap, these guys are scary!" stage, and it pushes the character, and the audience, further outside the inner workings of the club by necessity. 

It comes back to - as ever - perspective. Characters inside the system will view it differently and react to it differently than those outside of it. Props to Julie for giving Genna that realistic struggle. 

NaNo Starts Now

 

If you're a writer, or have a writer in your life, you've likely heard of NaNoWriMo, or, my preference, NaNo. It stands for National Novel Writing Month, and it takes place in November, during which the goal is to write a complete novel (or 50,000 words of a long-form novel) in the span of thirty days. That breaks down to roughly 1,700 words a day, which sounds like a lot, I'm sure, for new writers, but which is a pretty typical daily wordcount for anyone who writes for a living. When I'm working on a project, I give myself a daily minimum of 2,000 words, and try to shoot for 2,500-3,000. 

There's as many ways to participate in NaNo as there are reasons for doing it. You can keep track of your word count progress by yourself, or in a group of writing friends, or by signing up with one of the websites that helps keep you on track. It can be a social thing, or a solo one. It can be a fun way for a new author to stick with a project for the first time, or a chance for an established author to try and knock out something new in a concentrated format. 

I've only participated "officially" once, when I started writing Walking Wounded on 11/1/16, and ended up with a 60,000 word complete novel by the end of the month. But I usually manage 50,000 on whichever WIP I have going. This is the first time since 2012 that I haven't been working on anything in November. It feels strange! 

There's been lots of talk in author circles about the inconvenience of NaNo falling in November, when holiday prep is ramping up, and finals are looming for students, and life seems to get much busier as the nights draw down sooner and sooner. There are summer NaNos for this reason; really, you could pick any month to challenge yourself to 50,000, but for the social butterflies, there's much more support - and commiseration - in November. 

Anyone out there participating this year? As I mentioned, I'm not, for maybe the first time ever. Given that Lord Have Mercy is more than 460,000 words, I'll say that counts for nine NaNos. Ha! And I'm also stepping back to focus on finding more reliable work. Good luck to everyone tackling the challenge! 

#ThrowbackThursday: Happy B-day to White Wolf

Two monsters studied one another, and for them, the war was over.

White Wolf released on this day six years ago. How has it been that long? 

The road to the first Sons of Rome book was long and paved with self-doubt and heaps of necessary patience. It was an idea that first germinated when I was still in high school. Its first characters were Fulk and Anna, and Val and Mia. I didn't then know how those four characters fit together within the larger narrative, but when I played with them on paper, I was running two parallel storylines that I hoped to some day converge. Val was always a vampire, and always Vlad's brother, but in my earliest drafts, Fulk was a demon instead of a werewolf, though always the First Baron Strange of Blackmere, a delightfully real nobleman listed in the annals of British aristocracy. 

I never managed more than a page or two; mostly, I was jotting notes, daydreaming, and collecting aimless plot bunnies in spiral notebooks. After I graduated college, and started my blog, I attempted several times to begin the series, in a variety of ways: efforts that all stalled out before I'd made anything like progress. Something was missing. Some vital piece of the puzzle that would click everything into place. The project had become monstrous in scope in my mind, and I couldn't figure out how to attack it. I needed an order of operations. 

White Wolf, and all its characters, chiefly Nik and Sasha, proved to be that missing piece. Not only did I quickly fall in love with them, and feel the need to tell their stories, but Alexei and the Romanov/Muscovite/Third Rome storyline proved to be an essential and galvanizing building block of the overarching plot of the whole series. By the time I was halfway through the first draft of White Wolf, my vision for Sons of Rome was complete, if daunting, and I knew I had something special on my hands. 

This series is my intricate and convoluted love letter to vampires, to wolves, to magic; to Gothic romance, and Classic horror, and epic fantasy sagas. It's bloody, and violent, and spans literal centuries. Not just a "few of my favorite things," but all of them.

The first four books are available, and book four ends on a positive, uplifting, satisfying conclusion, opposed to a cliff hanger, which is a good thing because I don't know when I'll return to this world. One day, I tell myself. After all, I haven't had the chance to introduce Richard, yet. And there's a certain pantheon of old gods waiting its turn as well. 

One day.

Until then, Happy Birthday to White Wolf, and Happy Halloween, everyone! 

 

Happy Halloween Week: Tarry Town

 

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk, hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind.

 

If you’ve ever read Washington Irving’s much-beloved short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” I think my writing style becomes self-evident. It has always been, and will doubtless always be, my favorite work of fiction. As a very little girl, I fell in love with the story itself, thanks in large part to Bing Crosby and the animated Disney featurette, which is not only adorable, but lovingly faithful, and, of course, exquisitely narrated. Save the musical numbers, almost all the audio is a straight-up recitation of the text.

As for the text itself, I quickly fell in love with it as well, when I was old enough to read it. Irving liked words. Scratch that: he loved them. His joy for language leaps off the page, and it’s clear, upon reading any of his work, that the telling was as much if not more fun than the plot of a story. All of his stories are, in fact, rather simple; it’s the execution of them, their onion layers, their asides, their backstories, that make them most interesting.

Given it’s baked into my imagination, I’ve found myself wondering, this Halloween season more than those previous, if I was always destined to be a verbose and elaborative writer, that it was some latent instinct with regard to storytelling, even in my earliest, kindergarten attempts, and if that’s why I’ve always loved Irving. Or if my obsession with this story from an early age shaped the way I would eventually write as an adult. Bit of a chicken and egg situation, honestly, and I may never know the answer.

In any event, this is my annual “I love Sleepy Hollow” post. And speaking of: though I generally dislike film adaptations of books, and I especially don’t like creative license being taken too far, Tim Burton’s 1999 film Sleepy Hollow is absolutely perfect, and also the perfect Halloween watch. I’m not even a Burton fan, but the way he managed to capture the vibe, and even a few frame-for-frame shots from the animated short, and spin them into something darker, truer, and more sinister, in which Christopher Walken plays the Horseman, and it’s absurd, but it’s awesome…it’s a feat, let me tell you. The musical score, the sets, the coloring, and, most especially, the grisly practical effects, outshine most modern movies. And the riding! The horse is gorgeous, and whoever’s riding him did a beautiful job.

Happy Halloween, fellow pedagogues.

In one part of the road leading to the church was found the saddle trampled in the dirt; the tracks of horses’ hoofs deeply dented in the road, and evidently at furious speed, were traced to the bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of the brook, where the water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it a shattered pumpkin.

~*~

The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of these matters, maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited away by supernatural means.

#TeaserTuesday: Better and Deeper and Truer

Lord Have Mercy: The Complete Novel

“I think it was right sweet,” Devin said, on the porch of Walsh’s old place out by the train tracks. Night had fallen, a net of stars hanging suspended above them, and the last train had rumbled past five minutes ago, its roar now a distant, shrinking echo like far off thunder. An open cooler sat between them on the edge of the porch, where their legs dangled over into the weeds, loaded with ice and beer. “Chivalrous. Perhaps heroic…if you’re in the mind to give the boy hero credit.”

“We won’t go that far.” Mercy set his empty can aside and reached for a fresh, dripping water in fat, dark discs onto the porch boards. “But it was – a not shitty thing he did.”

Devin snorted.

“Surprising,” Mercy added.

“What? That he’d do something brave for his brother? Come on, then. You’re not surprised. My boys are at each other’s throats all the time, but they would have done the same.”

Mercy skated him a look.

“That’s right,” Devin said, grinning as he lifted his can. “I’m paternal now.”

There was a lot to be said in response to that, but the growl of approaching motorcycles snared both their attentions.

Devin hopped to his feet, more agilely than a man his age should have been capable. “Wait here,” he said, setting his beer aside and rounding the porch toward the overgrown gravel driveway, gun appearing in his hand without any visible reach for one.

“Sure thing, Papa.”

Mercy caught the grin he tossed over his shoulder before he melted out of sight.

The bikes arrived with a symphonic grumble, and then were silenced. Voices floated around the cabin, masculine, familiar, soothing, even if he couldn’t understand the words. And then he heard running footsteps crunching over the gravel, racing around the cabin, heading toward him.

Mercy set his beer down, stood, and turned, and when Ava came flying around the corner, – he’d known it was her right away, the strike of her shoes on the gravel, the speed at which her long legs carried her to him – for a moment, the past superimposed itself over the present.

She was eight and all knees and elbows, dark pigtails streaming behind her. She was ten, and shooting up again, her jeans turned to high-waters over the harness boots she insisted on wearing instead of sandals. She was thirteen, fifteen, seventeen and wondrous, and begging him to love her, which was ridiculous, because he already did, he always had, how could he not? She was twenty-two, and hating him, and that was okay, because he loved her enough for the both of them. And she was twenty-two, still, and marrying him, promising to love him forever, because of course she could, did, would, because their love had always existed, no matter its shape or its weight or the directions it took them; it was something patiently waiting for them both, star-destined and inescapable, labeled so quickly and wrongly by those outside of it.

Her smile was wide, but wobbly, and there were tears in her eyes, and she was reaching out before she got to him. She was thirty, and she’d borne three of his babies, she loved him still, they loved each other better and deeper and truer than they ever had.

They’d been apart four days and it had felt like years.

He caught her around the waist and tucked her under his chin, and the others who’d come were kind enough to hang back out of sight, until Ava had whispered, “Hi, baby,” and blotted her eyes dry on his shirtfront.

“Hi, baby,” he echoed, and rubbed her back until she stopped trembling.

 

Happy Halloween Week: Edgar Allan

 

There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.

- "The Masque of the Red Death"

I love Halloween. How utterly uninspired and cliche of me for loving Poe as well, but here we are. 

I think the brilliance of Poe is the brevity of his short stories, and what he manages to accomplish within that limited narrative space. As someone whose skills lie in long-form storytelling, I'm always wildly impressed by a successfully executed short story. It's no easy feat to convey a wealth of conflict and sentiment in just a few-thousand words, but Poe not only managed it, he carved himself indelibly and forever famously in the landscape of American literature. Why? Skill, yes. But mostly because of the horror. Horror is affecting and memorable. 

I think there are readers who enjoy horror (me), and those who might not enjoy it, per se, but are both fascinated by it, and by the fascination it holds for fans. In either case, everyone's heard of at least one Poe story or poem, and even those who don't enjoy his work still felt some kind of way when they read "[T]ear up the planks! - here, here! - it is the beating of his hideous heart!" There's something visceral and touching about the macabre; the contemplation of dark, unpleasant, or wicked deeds grips us with the same kind of fervor as love or heartbreak. True Crime wouldn't be such a runaway hit of a genre if not. 

Stylistically, Poe does two things that I think make his fiction effective. One, he throws the reader immediately into the narrator's deepest confidence. There's no slow intro, no convoluted backstory; in the stories that seem to be taking their time establishing setting, those paragraphs are pulling double duty: they're establishing the setting and vibe of the story, and they're also lulling you into a sense of calm so he can spring The Horror on you at the perfect moment. Some of his narrators, as in the case of "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat," are truly horrendous people, but he presents their perspectives in a plain-spoken, unselfconscious manner that trusts the audience to come to the right conclusion without a lot of hand-holding or moralizing. 

And two: he punches you right in the face with The Horror, and then ducks neatly away without dawdling about with any sort of conclusion or lesson-learning. Just boom, look at this! And out. 

No one currently writes in Poe's prose style, nor should they: as delightful as it was/is, language has evolved and modernized, and a modern-set story written by a modern author is going to reflect the pose stylings of today. But the set up and payoff approach of his stories is something we still see in most horror writing. It's a formula that still works, as timeless as it is stirring. And his prose is inspiring and useful; while I wouldn't want to duplicate it exactly, his particular, handpicked approach to detail is a worthy area of study. 

I also happen to think that all of Poe's work is ripe for modern interpretation. Every one of his short stories and poems has the potential to become a long-form novel, TV series, or film, given the right approach, and a broad enough imagination.