Swamped

I'm swamped as usual as far as writing projects are concerned, getting my novel chapters critiqued and fixed two at a time in the critique group, Critters, as well as writing and proofreading short stories while I wait for novel critiques. I have a piece in at Horror Bound's Fear of the Dark anthology, a story entered in another magazine where I'm waiting to hear if I'll win first or second place and earn a prize, and a collaboration with fellow author, Ro Van Saint, in at Shroud magazine. This is in addition to critiquing others people's stories and proofreading my second and third novels as I wait for crits. I'm waiting for two more critiques for a short story for Shroud's Halloween issue as well. In addition to having a couple pieces accepted for publication lately, I'm writing a new novel, trying to pound out 2,000 words every morning. The week is for writing and the weekends are for critiquing and reading agent blogs. I hardly have time to shit!

On the playlist: the latest two Megadeth CDs, United Abominations and Endgame. I'm proud to announce they're back to performing speed-metal. The latter two discs are the best ones since 1990's Rust in Peace!

Reading: Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris. A former crime-writer, Harris never fails to deliver as he continues the sage of the ultimate villian, Hannibal the Cannibal, the one outlaw smarter than the FBI and the police.

Oh, and certain people joining my blog that aren't eighteen are hereby warned: GET THE HELL OFF MY BLOG IF YOU'RE UNDER EIGHTEEN AND GO SOMEWHERE ELSE! IT ISN'T LEGAL TO PUSH UNCENSORED HORROR TO CHILDREN!

The Influental Work of Algernon Blackwood

Thanks to my good friend, author Ben Eads, he and I are spotlighting authors of the past and present as major influences of horror writers everywhere, and are hoping to turn some people on to the great masters, should they be living in a cave.

Today's spotlight is on Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951), who was mainly known for his ghost stories but a prolific author who expounded on various topics and achieved much more than the mere "ghost story author" tag. Because of the eclectic mix of mysticism, spiritualism and psychology, S. T. Joshi stated that "his work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer's except Lord Dunsany's." H. P. Lovecraft said his supernatural, mystical undertones put him on a par with Arthur Machen and called his story, "The Willows," the best modern short story he'd ever read.

Algernon was born in Shooter's Hill, now Kent, England, to a well-to-do religous family headed by his father, a high official in the British Post Office. Refusing to conform to their Sandemanian conversion which landed them in an ultra-Calvinistic sect, young Algernon was educated at Wellington College and worked a number of tedious jobs (as I have also done), finding himself no good at these Just Over Brokes. He moved to New York and lived in abject poverty. A weaker man might have given up, but Blackwood found himself in the good graces of a wealthy man and was soon writing for the New York Times, as well as being an occasional essayist for various periodicals.

The pivotal point in his life came when he moved back to England in his thirties and began to write tales of the supernatural. Penning at least ten short story collections (so many, in fact, he couldn't count them all), he soon told these tales on radio and television. He not only joined The Ghost Club, but was an avid enthusiast of nature, likely to be skiing or mountain-climbing when not working on his horrific stories. A loner, his cheerful demeanor moved those he dealt with when venturing out in public. Known for his qabbalistic factions, he eventually joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Blackwood is best known for not only "The Willows," but also for his short story, "The Wendigo," the best tale ever written about the enormous Indian werewolf, told through the eyes of the protagonist as his friend is carried into the sky by a giant-sized monster.

His first book in 1906, The Empty House, was followed by The Listener (1907). Not limited to the horror genre, his other tomes include The Human Chord (1910), The Lost Valley (1910), The Centaur (1911), Pan's Garden (1912), Incredible Adventures (1914), Ten Minute Stories (1914), Julius LeVallon (1916), Day and Night Stories (1917), The Wolves of God (1921), The Bright Messenger (1922) and Tongues of Fire (1924).

His range of influence on my work comes from what he calls "a series of shocks," catching the reader off-guard with what he called "grotesqueries (a word I now use in abundance)." My favorite Blackwood tale is "Ancient Sorceries," a titillating piece about a small, nerdy man looked down on by conventional society. He gets off a train at the wrong stop to embark on an adventure which becomes the thrill-ride of his life. He checks into an inn and, the owner's daughter, a seventeen year old vivacious girl, leads him into a racious romance. He comes to find out this child is a reincarnated witch who's deathly afraid of fire because she was burned to death in the inquisition.

No one can deny Algernon Blackwood's contribution to the horror genre, a true master of not only the ghost story but of every kind of macabre tale, a forerunner of today's trend, Wiccan horror, in stories like "Ancient Lights." Algernon Blackwood is a must-read for anyone serious about becoming a horror author.

This blogger owes a thanks to literature and Web sites. Information based on research from E. F. Bleiler's introduction in Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood, the Wikipedia article on Algernon Blackwood and the Web site, The Literary Gothic.

Horror Quantity Gone Down, So Stress the Quality

Has anyone else noticed that the quantity of great horror is way down lately? It seems like anyone can become an author today (see earlier post, "Becoming"). Even Miley Cyrus has a book!

I prefer authors of yesteryear like Shirley Jackson, Ira Levin, Whitley Strieber, Jay Anson, William Peter Blatty, H.P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allen Poe, Mary Woolstonecraft Shelley and early Stephen King and Dean Koontz (70's and early 80's). In the old days, one really had to be gifted to get a book contract. Now, anyone who learns the writer rules can have a book out. Hell, even those that don't (see my earlier post on "Twilight")!

Not that there aren't great books coming out. They're just far and few between: Gary Braunbeck's Coffin County; Gord Rollo's The Jigsaw Man; John Everson's Covenant and Sacrifice; Scott Smith's The Ruins; anything by Ray Garton; The Girl Next Door and The Lost by Jack Ketchum; and anything by Edward Lee. But you're lucky to get a great book today. If you do, it's one in a million. That saddens me.

And then there's the slasher story. No plot, just a guy running around with a mask and a weapon chasing a nubile little minx into a shack where she has to choose between the bowie knife, sword, handgun, machete, rifle and flashlight, and she picks the fucking flashlight. Thanks to that shit, "horror" is now a bad word because it shot itself in the head in the 80's with sequel no. 34 of the same old shit, different day. What's even worse is that they're remaking all the slasher flicks from the 80's that gave us a bad reputation in the first place!

Let's strive to put out the best work we can and, to do that, one has to read like a fiend to avoid writer's block.

GOOD LUCK!

On Music

I thought I'd stray from writing a little bit this week and talk about music. I have an hourglass body Jackson Charvel. I also have a Randy Rhoads V Jackson Charvel, but I broke it and won't have the money to get it fixed until I finish my novel and get a book contract. The V has hot pickups and my other guitars (including a bass) don't. So that's a big problem right there. Once you go hot pickups you never go back!

NOT!

I also blew a tube in my amp, which I also can't afford to fix till the book contract.

Now, you'd think this would be a huge problem. I did too. But what it forced me to do was hunker down and really reach to get a great sound out of it. The high E-string sounds almost completely acoustic. I can't even use my Marshall pedal. With a tube blown, it still has a distortion sound but not as flashy as before.

What this forced me to do was play like a fiend to sound professional, and I did it! I really reached down deep and found some adrenaline. The fact that I can still make it sound brutal and wonderful is a miracle.

If you can't jam on a near-acoustic amp then you ain't shit.

I'm not going to tell you about the embarrassing album I put out in 2002 when I didn't know anything about death metal, and don't try to find it. It's out of print. I gave my last copy to my cousin so don't pester me about it. Believe me, you don't want it. I'm light years beyond that now and know what I'm doing. I backslid to devil worship for a year and loaded up on Deicide, Morbid Angel, Nile, Six Feet Under, Cannibal Corpse, Demiricous and Corporal Mortification. Therefore, I know how to do real death metal.

Now I sound like a Christian Cannibal Corpse.

So, the moral of the story is, it was probably better not to fix my amp!

FUCK YEAH!

Oh shit, I can't do it, can't stay away from the writing topic. The Haunting of Hill House is FUCKING BRILLIANT!

I Love My Sony Reader!

I never thought I'd say this, but I love my Sony Reader! I'm playing with my new toy, typical behavior from me since I'm just a big kid, still the same seventeen year old that read Chillers horror magazine constantly. The screen isn't hard on my eyes. The only regret is I can't get some Kindle titles. *Sighs* I'm still reading my paper books, but there's a fascination present when I use the electronic device I didn't think I'd have. I guess I'm a total technology whore! Now I want an iPod, an iPad (yeah, like I'd be able to afford that) and I want to turn on my cell phone. I'd be able to put up a bunch of cool pictures on Facebook with it, and I wouldn't have to buy an expensive digital camera.

At this point, I'm still reading the instruction manual and getting ready to get some e-books at the library, plus wanting to search for some free e-books. Next month, when I'm not in such financial straights, I'll start buying some electronic novels. Last night, I read the first seventeen pages of The Strain. I'm definitely buying that book! I downloaded my e-library, and found they have House Infernal by Edward Lee! I've already bought and read City Infernal and Infernal Angel, but I haven't been able to find the third book in the trilogy anywhere: out of print on the 'net and absent in the used bookstore in Pekin. Therein lies the purpose of the e-book.

McLovin it like McDonald's! But I still love my paper books. It's a hell of a lot easier to buy a paperback and bring it home and read it. You don't have to order it on your computer and switch it over. Currently I'm in love with my paperback edition of Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box. Time will tell if I'll get tired of my e-reader or not and, that seems to be the question, doesn't it? Will the e-book trend die off? I don't think so. People didn't get tired of their iPods.

Information about whether the e-book trend will last came from ereads.com and Publisher's Weekly.

Bonded by Blood 2: a Romance in Red soon available as an e-book on Kindle!

Bonded by Blood 2: a Romance in Red, featuring my story, "The Interloper," is going to be available as a download on Kindle this summer! Don't miss the best in new horror from story of the month contest winners of SNM Horror Magazine in this stirring anthology with a beautiful cover.

There's been a lag on sales of BBB 2, and I'm positive it's because it's only available in paper. With e-book sales going up 450% in March of this year alone, this will definitely solve the sales problem, as everyone's getting a Kindle or a Sony Reader lately. Like SNM editor Steve Marshall, I prefer paper books, but an author would have to be bonkers to ignore this sales trend.

So, all you e-book lovers, get your copy of BBB 2 this summer, only available on the Amazon Kindle (& probably on your iPad, as well).

Facebook War of the Worlds

All of you reading my blog will get the skinny on this, but all those poor schmucks that don't read it are about to get a surprise on Facebook. I'm going to announce that zombies have taken over New York and that the military is rushing in trying to contain it, but a few will escape by train. While I'm keeping you informed of the "grisly events," one of the undead will make her way to me . . . with disastrous results.

This is the comeuppance people deserve for sending me virtual gifts like "A little bitty pink pretty pot" and all that shit (Metal virtual gifts are okay). I'm not going to tell them I'm faking it. I'll say I heard it on the news.

Watch worldwide panic ensue.