It has been five months since Murder Happens snatched first place in the final minutes from The Vampire and the Dragon in the 2017 Inkshares Horror Contest.

And now I feel compelled to post an update to all you wonderful supporters who I cajoled, bribed, threatened, blackmailed, extorted and wooed into supporting my book with a pre-order. 

Why now? 

Because the next finish line is very close and soon I will let go of the manuscript that is haunting my life. 

I am not a fast writer but I have attended to the story every day and sometimes it makes me laugh and I am amazed at the words I read and often times I worry that it is a big heaping pile of crap. 

The usual stuff.

A couple more passes through the draft and then I will review the Inkshares submission documents and send it off after my fellow Black Hats Writers Group editor reviews it and picks out the darlings I must kill.

Once submitted, I will take a break from writing although I do have another project posted on Inkshares. Better to use the time to create a marketing plan and begin executing it. 

Because executing is fun.

Happy Easter, Neighbors!

EAP: The Magazine’s Spring 2018: Coloring issue is now live HERE and features a new Wonder Tale by yours truly right HERE. No foolin’!

Also, as 31 Days of Narratemes draws to a close, I’ve adjusted my project timeline to be more adaptable/democratic. So if you want more Wonder Tales more often, please share the project with folks you think need some fairy tales without the lame-isms. Every project follower is a vote to help sway my opinion moving forward.

Later neighbors,
Rose

I’m still here, crawling in and out of the mineshaft.

1987

By now, I was a freshman in highschool and I was struggling with my studies as well as being a good son. After Lameck and Tracy’s pregnancy, the church knuckled down on its shepherding of the youth; a mandatory Friday night youth service was instituted and the parents were required to be there as well. Joe was in and out of IU hospital on a weekly basis. I didn’t see much of Mom and Dad except on the weekends, when we were at church, or in a hospital waiting room. I was losing my time with Whitey and when we did get together, I’d drink until I passed out. Whitey’s family sold their house and moved into another housing addition further north on Lone Oak. He joined the basketball team and started hanging out with a new group. I was seeing less of him as we progressed through school and it was disheartening. 

 My nightmares returned and seemed to bleed over into reality. I felt like I was underwater and I couldn’t surface. I quit reaching out for anyone or anything and I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t breathe and I turned inside and closed my eyes. There were days when I’d be called from sleep to the table for dinner and have no recollection of having gone to school or even a string of memories from a previous number of days. I noticed that voices were muffled but I didn’t really care to hear what they were saying. It seemed like there was a fog between me and every other person, so I quit trying to see their faces. 

By March, I’d lost weight and was thinner than normal. To Mom, I had all of the symptoms of mononucleosis. She questioned the morality of my activities at school. I was insulted but I didn’t say anything. Her inquisition about my involvement with girls outside of the church angered me. She took me to the doctor’s office for an examination and a blood draw and the results came back negative. As well, Dad tried to dig inside of my heart but followed the same path as Mom with assumptions and accusation. I didn’t know there was anything wrong with me but by the time they were done, I wished there had been a girl or even one other person who could set me free but there wasn’t. If there were such a thing as being tied to apron strings and coat tails, this ridiculous incident severed the connection and I closed the door to any possible relationship with my parents. 

 Carrie invited me to her house on weekends and I looked forward to the time but she couldn’t afford it. She was occupied with two babies and I didn’t want to be a third. I spent my time walking the lanes between the fields. I went down to the creek where I used to catch fish in the traps that Dad had helped me make. I sat on the rocks and watched the swallows drop from their mud nests under the bridge and was mesmerized by their aerial display. I thought about being on the farm before Joe had his first seizure. I thought about Danny’s first rabbit hunt in the west field with a shotgun Dad had bought him for Christmas. I thought about the weekend cookouts where Carrie grilled more chicken than anyone could possibly eat and the Sundays, after dinner, sitting by the the same creek with no preoccupation of attending a church that did its best to steer me with fear of damnation. I realized the swallows, skimming the surface of the creek, were most likely the offspring of the birds I watched when I first came here and it made me cry.

 In May, the rains came. They fell gently with no angle and felt like someone you love was whispering in your ear and kissing your cheek. I woke one morning to get ready for school and found a note on the counter. It was in Dad’s handwriting and it instructed me to stay home and that Brother Charlie was going to pick me up. I got dressed and sat in the living room not knowing what to expect. A few minutes later, Charlie pulled his old ford truck, with bass boat in tow, into the drive and honked its horn. I pulled on my sweatshirt and trotted out into the rain. Charlie met me halfway up the drive and hollered, “Are you ready to go fishin’?” I was still confused as to why I wasn’t going to school and why Charlie was in the driveway and asked, “Why are we goin’ fishing?” Charlie pulled off his hat, blinked up into the rain, rubbed his mangled hand on his chin, looked back at me and said, “Cause it’s raining the kind of way that makes fish bite." He asked, “You got a rain jacket?” I told him I didn’t and he said, “Well, I been wet quite a few times too.” I still wasn’t sure why this was happening but it was as exciting as sneaking out of a window at night. 

 We drove to Morse Reservoir where Charlie showed me how to put a boat in the water and how to pick someone off the shore. From there, he twisted the throttle of the Evinrude and we motored across the lake to what Charlie called his Honey Hole. 

He brought the boat down to an idle and asked me to move to the bow and watch for snags. He cut the motor and we drifted up under some overhanging branches. He dropped the anchor, arranged a tin bucket full of live minnows, passed me a rod with a spinning reel and said, “Wer’ just gonna’ sit here for a minute and let the fish get to know us.” 

The rain on the water sounded like heavy breathing. I was thinking about being wet when Charlie pressed a metal thermos lid of hot coffee against my arm. I took it and thanked him. After swallowing a few mouthfuls, I passed it back to him and he finished it. Charlie picked up his line, grabbed a minnow from the bucket, and ran his hook through its wriggling tail. I followed suit and we cast our lines between the boat and the bank. Charlie let out a low whistle and whispered, “This oughta’ be a goodun.” It wasn’t more than a few minutes before our bobbers were pulled under the surface. Every time we reeled in our lines, we had Crappies that were larger than Charlie’s good hand. More often than not, the fish hit out bait before the bobbers touched their stops. With each fish, Charlie howled, “Boy, I tell ya what!” In little more than a couple of hours, we stacked two stringers with fish. With a wide grin, Charlie exclaimed, “Boy, I tell ya what, wer’ slayin’ em’ today!” I proudly confirmed his assessment and he noted the clothes I was wearing didn’t have a dry stitch to them. He blew out another low whistle and admitted, “Well, I reckon we’d better leave a few for some other fellers’.” We packed the poles under the gunnels, pulled the stringers into the boat, and headed back to the launch. 

 After loading the boat and strapping down the tackle, we headed east toward Anderson. The rain was still falling along Strawtown Road as Charlie navigated the sweeping turns that cut the way through fields that were waking from the winter. Over the sound of the windshield wipers, Charlie asked, “How’s yer brothers doin?” I felt a pinch in my gut and responded, “I reckon they’re doing as good as they can.” I turned my head to the window and searched the horizon, grudgingly expecting more questions about their condition. After a pause, Charlie asked, “How are you doin?” I wasn’t expecting a question so pointed. In the seven years since we moved to Anderson, no one had ever asked me about my own wellbeing and it made me choke. I knew I wasn’t doing good at all. It was hard to respond and I couldn’t look back at him but I said, “I’m doin’.” I felt he had my heart in his hand and after a long pause he said, “Most of the time, the hardest part of anything is the doin’.” I turned my face back to him and we nodded at each other. Charlie didn’t ask any further questions on the way to the house. There was a comfortable silence that rested between us. With little more than ten simple words and a nod, I understood that Charlie cared about me and somehow, understood what was going on inside of me.

 Upon pulling into the drive, I thanked Charlie for taking me fishing and opened the door of the truck. He said, “Don’t run off, we gotta get your fish!” He met me at the back of the truck where he pulled out a stringer, handed it to me, and said, “The river ought to be good for fishing in a few weeks if you’d like to go - you ever fished a river?” I hadn’t and the idea sounded like fun. I said, “Brother Charlie, I’d like that a lot.” He put his mangled hand on my shoulder and said, “You ain’t gotta call me that - you call me Charlie and I’ll call you when the river is ready.” I smiled and thanked him. Charlie backed his fishing rig out of the driveway and headed down the road.

 I went around the back of the house to get a bucket of water for the stringer of fish and noticed Mom’s car parked in the garage. I stowed the fish near the service door and went inside to get a knife. Mom stopped me in the kitchen and asked if my fishing trip was successful. I was still holding the separation from weeks before and grudgingly admitted that I’d caught a lot of fish. She told me I should go and change my wet clothes. I told her it was still raining and I wanted to clean the fish before they got slimey. She jumped toward the kitchen sink, grabbed a mixing bowl, and made a batch of salt water for soaking the fish. I told her I could pack em’ in the freezer but she said she wanted to fry em’ for dinner. 

 I went outside, pulled fish out of the bucket, and started processing them. I felt bad for not wanting to talk to Mom and I was angry for feeling that way. I knew it wasn’t Charlie’s idea to take me fishing; it was most likely Dad’s idea and Mom was also in on it. I knew they had used Charlie to try and bridge the gap between us.

 I had initiated the forming of the chasm and at the same time, I was disgusted with myself for wanting to be away from them. I knew Dad and Mom were strapped with a ridiculous burden. I knew better than to expect attention from them and I never asked for anything because I didn’t want to add to their struggle. I tried to be as small as possible. I didn’t want to make a ripple or even a shadow. I didn’t want to be here but somehow, unconsciously, I had betrayed myself and exhibited a signal that was misinterpreted. Like a pack mule off its lead, I couldn’t grasp what harnessed me but I wanted out from under it and the only thing that seemed to ease strain was running. By now, I was pretty good at being distant and I thought it best to hold my course. I flipped handfuls of gore into into the garden bed and slipped the fish carcasses into the bowl of salt water. I finished my task by the light from the kitchen window and started to shiver from the rain.

 As summer started to pull out things that slept in the ground, I went fishing on the river with Charlie. We waded along the bank off of Moss Island road behind the old meat packing plant. Charlie said the fish in that part of the river were fat from sucking up blood and offal from the factory discharge drains. He taught me how to seine for bait with a net strung between two sticks. We saved the crayfish I caught, ripped their claws off, ran hooks through their tails, and cast them to the center of the river. Charlie was wrong about the size of the fish we reeled to the shallows; they weren’t fat, they were monsters. More often than not, they broke our lines. 

 We went fishing at least one day a week. I liked to watch Charlie in the river; on land, he waddled with a bow legged gate from arthritic knees but when wading through the river, he moved as if he were a young man. He had tattoos across his arms that were blurry and indigo from age. He told me he got them during World War Two, somewhere in the Pacific. Sometimes, he’d walk out, up to his waist, in the heavy current, stare across the water, and whisper to something unseen while he rubbed those tattoos with his mangled hand. The first few instances worried me and I’d call across the river, asking if he was OK. It shook him from his spell and he’d say he was fine and that he was just remembering something. Upon my interruption, he’d back out of the depths and resume his angling. He could have been praying - it wasn’t uncommon for people of the church to pray anywhere - but it looked like he was engaged with something he couldn’t quite see. On the drives back to the house, I’d ask him about the War but he’d say he couldn’t recall much as it was so long ago. After a number of excursion, I gained enough courage to ask him about the fingers that were missing from his hand and in his fashion of using as few words as possible, he said, “Ahw, I did something stupid - didn’t need em’ anyway.” 

 Charlie had a lot of fishing buddies and my favorite was Sister Hazel. She hailed from ancestral property deep in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. She was a featherweight but what she lacked in dimensions crossed the air between you and made you warm inside. She was old-timey and steeped in backwoods religion but she didn’t ply you with it or try to make you feel bad. Her cotton dresses skimmed the ground but they never stopped her from wading in the river with Charlie and I. Even though advanced in age, she was firm and had a quality that gave me the impression that she had a great number of years more than I yet to live. 

I had a hard time meeting her gaze; though dazzling, her eyes did more than shine, they searched my soul. When she talked with me, she palmed my cheek and rested the pad of her thumb under my eye and like some whisperer, she peered inside of me. Once she had my eyes, I can’t really say if she said anything. Her lips moved but there was some other language that I heard and it was peaceful. Often, she held my arm for support but it seemed more so out of affection. 

 During each vernal and autumnal equinox , Sister Hazel visited her hollow in the Appalachian Mountains. I’m sure she had a number of things to maintain at her property but it appeared as if her main task was as a bootlegger of water. Toward the solstices, she rolled back to Indiana in her vintage Oldsmobile that rocked and swayed under a heavy load. Every nook and cranny of that car was packed with a diverse assortment of plastic and glass vessels filled with water from a spring that flowed through her land. She swore by its medicinal quality and wouldn’t drink any other liquid. A few fortunate people, such as myself, were bestowed with gallon jugs or quart jars. She was right, I’d never tasted water of a finer quality...

Respectfully, 

Sharek

Hi everyone! I’m climbing out of the crazy-busyness that has been March. Here in Northeast Ohio, it’s still cold, but the sun has been out, thankfully. I am excited for real spring weather.

I wanted to let you all know that the manuscript is in! I turned it in last weekend after an inspiring retreat with some of my writing friends. I also read the fabulous YOUR BOOK, YOUR BRAND by Dana Kaye. Those of you who are authors must check it out. I’ve got lots of great ideas for publicity now!

But since we don’t have a release date yet - that’ll be the next update! For now, I’m working on my new manuscript, THE ENIGMA VARIATIONS, which follows three people in a small town after they receive a mysterious code in the mail. I’ll also post short stories for LOST MEMORIES as I finish them, but to be honest, I have been very into ENIGMA - I’m at about 20,000 words, and I hope to have a good first draft completed by this summer.

Well, I’m on my lunch break at work, so I had better get moving! Can’t wait to give you all more news :-)

March 26

Hello everyone!

Today I’m really excited to share two things with you: the new title of "The Devil You Don’t" and the cover art, done by the wonderful and talented Charlene Maguire!

The new title is "The Devil Inside." Not a tremendous change, but it more accurately hits on a recurring theme throughout the book. And the cover is...

Charlene was kind enough to give me an image designed to look like a real, honest-to-goodness book and I got all giddy over it.

We’ve still got a ways to go in the queue for the editor, but as new developments or milestones come up, I’ll let you know.

Best,
Susan

Exciting news, everyone! The Fairy Stepmother, Inc. has been submitted to Inkshares! As can be imagined, their production schedule is quite busy, so I don’t know when they’ll start work on it or how long it will take. I’ll keep you updated as soon as I know more, as well as share exciting things like cover design as they come along.

Not a single bit of this would be possible without your support, and I’m very, very grateful. I can’t wait to share my story with you. While you wait, of course, this is a good time to make sure Inkshares has your correct mailing address (if you ordered a print copy).

And if there’s anyone lurking out there who didn’t pre-order, this is a great time to go for it! 

Best,

Maggie

"Cry ’Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war!"

The time has come at last. It has been almost a year since my first attempt to fund Proteus. In that time, I have spent most of my time and resources working on my development draft for Tantalus Depths. I severely underestimated how long it would take for me to finish that first round of heavy edits (I fully thought I would have had them done well before the end of the year), but at last, they are finally done. I sent the manuscript back to my editor about a week ago, and while I wait for him to work through my revised manuscript, I finally have nothing I have to do with that manuscript.

Which means it’s time to switch gears again.

For the next month or so, I am free of any responsibilities with Tantalus Depths, and I plan to take advantage of that opportunity to finish my Proteus campaign, which I started almost an entire year ago. I am still very determined to secure a publication deal for this second book, and thanks to my extension, I still have all the progress we made the first time I campaigned this book. There is still a long way to go, though.

At present, Proteus has 275 pre-orders. It needs 475 more to receive the publication deal I’ve already earned for Tantalus Depths. As of today, I have 97 days to get those orders. This is very doable, but it’s going to be a big challenge. I’ll need as much help as I can get, from all of you.

If you ordered a copy of Proteus last year, your order is still active. You’ll receive your copy when the book eventually comes out. I could not be more grateful for the support you’ve all shown Proteus and Tantalus Depths already, and I absolutely hate having to ask you for help yet a third time. If you have not already ordered a copy of Proteus, I would be extremely grateful for your support: you will be helping me establish my new career as a published author. If you have already ordered a copy and want to help more, you can absolutely do so by ordering a second or third copy. I would be eternally in your debt, and I simply cannot understate how much such a gesture would mean to me.

If you’re not in a position to support the book directly by ordering a copy, you can still help. I’ll be posting a lot more Proteus content soon, and I need to get it in front of as many people as possible. Please like and share as many of these posts as you can, and tell all your friends and family about this book. The more exposure we get, the better!

Thank you for your support, and I look forward to sharing a lot of exciting new content with you very soon. 

SHORT UPDATE!

I’m working on the next draft after some interesting feedback from my editor. I’m still buckling down, still pounding out the words, and still crafting this book to be the best it can be. Just thought I’d let you all know and thank you once again for your support and patience. 

I’ll let you know when I send in the next draft. Until then, feel free to reach out. 

Thanks again, and I love you all. 

-Michael

Alright Neighbors, now that you’re head is squared away for a proper return to square one, it’s time to start grounding the lessons learned.

Your latest lesson Pursuit  RIGHT HERE requires a touch of playing at villainy and setting ourselves up to pwn all the glory (eventually). But first, that touch of villainy, taking responsibility for our own wrongdoing.

And, there’s a new journaling prompt on Everyday Magic OVER HERE if you like that sort of thing.

Happy Questing,
Rose