My newest book ROAD KILLis here!
Take a trip to Munsonville, Michigan, wander into the haunted woods, walk among the trees, commune with the spirits…and run for your life.
Available in paperback and as e-book.
Tag: horror
The Sudden Book
In the time I have had since losing my job I have gotten a chance to write a lot. I completed and put together my novel ROAD KILL, I wrote a script for a short film I am going to make this year, I have written some short articles for a website, and finally I made a decision to pursue two books I wanted to write.
Well, three and a half months into 2019 and I have completed writing the first of those books, a novella/novelette (I still need to revise it so who knows what could happen with it) I am calling ROOTS OF FIRE.
ROAD KILL cover reveal
I have written before about my upcoming novel ROAD KILL but I wanted to talk a little more about it as I reveal its cover for the first time.
The novel itself, as I have mentioned, was a long time coming. When I wrote the very first version it was vastly different than what it ended up being but the heart was still there – two friends who bring out the worst of ome another. There’s a lot more to this verion of it and in that it’s a lot more about my fictional towns and their shared histories. Something I really like about this book is that it fleshes out worlds that I have already written about and talks about characters that will be familiar to anyone that has read previous work of mine.
For the cover I wanted to shoot something that captured the mood and theme of the book but didn’t give anything away. I posed as a ‘model’ for the backcover shot, which my wife took, and I took the cover photo and set that up. I love being able to use my full creativity on these books, and to find more ways to tell the story.
ROAD KILL is slated for release in April and I cannot wait for you to explore it and its dark mysteries.
Much more to come.
The Red Prince Approaches
A town born from secret horror.
A stranger with a hidden past.
A doomed destiny that entwines two friends and binds them in blood.
The road kill is coming.
My new novel ROAD KILL will be released on April 6.
Making Our Mythologies
Humans are a species joined by our stories. Our histories, our myths, our legends, all of those things unite us in ways that images alone cannot. Stories are the connective tissue between us and the unifying light that marks the path of humanity both forward and back.
As a writer I am always keen to create my own myths, meaning that I want to write stories or create art that has meaning deeper than the surface. I want to create things that stay with you. Now, not everything will, but some things may. That’s my hope. In ways I have worked to that end. I have towns that re-appear. Characters. Themes. Ideas. Echoes that ring through many works How impactful it all is for other people I can’t say but the hope is that it sticks with some.
Road Kill Is Coming
When I started writing Road Kill as a kid some thirty years ago I envisioned it as two friends, obsessed with killing animals and heading down a very dark dead end.
It wasn’t going to end well and it didn’t.
It was about the idea that if the wrong people get together their evil can be amplified and intensified.
The story was one of supernatural retribution as well as the animals the boys had killed took their revenge in the end.
When I lost the story, having put the notebook I wrote it in on my mom’s car before she had driven off some place, the heartbreak from that loss lasted decades. I always loved the idea of that story and the main character of Bubba Diem stuck with me over the years. I kept thinking about revisiting the story but could never bring myself to do it, though I did start a sequel that didn’t get too far. It was the main story that had captured me.
Over the last few years I have been trying to clear old projects off of my plate, wanting to take care of writing projects I had begun but never finished. It was one of those things where I just wanted to feel as if I had told the stories I had meant to tell once upon a time, before time ran out for me.
Road Kill was the last of those stories.
The last story that was still waiting to be told.
Things have changed a lot for me over those years and so too did the story change. Bubba is the secondary character now with Spector taking the lead. I started mapping the story out in my head over the last few years and have lots and lots of notes as I started guiding the story forward. There was one image that stuck with me early on and that image stayed through the new version of the story. An image of the end, because I always knew how it was going to begin and how it was going to end, it was getting there that I never knew. The funny thing too is that the book continued to surprise me with the directions it took. I wrote in fits and spurts, never really focusing completely on it, but I managed to buy into the story I was writing and followed that through, to where it lead.
I am not sure that this was the story I meant to write initially, nor had begun writing. I can assure you that it’s not the story I wrote sa a kid.
This is darker, deeper, and while the name of the book stands true, it has a different meaning.
This is a mean book.
Happened While I Wasn’t Looking
When I started writing as a kid it wasn’t for any other reason than because I had stories to tell. I didn’t see the stories as anything other than ways to be creative and to sorta share that creativity with the world. I dunno that anyone ever saw my stories outside of my mom and a teacher as a kid. It wasn’t until we started doing ‘zines that my stories got in front of other people.
As I wrote more though the more I dreamt about What If?
What If I pursued this, in whatever way that I could?
I didn’t have any thought that I’d be a Writer, but just that I wanted to write and to see where it lead. That’s what lead to me putting books out. Not the way I had dreamt but the way that worked. I came up with a DIY ethos of – if I can figure a way to do it then I will – and that was what I did. I got the stories out to people. When that was done I got the books out in front of people. I did conventions, art shows, book shows, whatever I could to get the book and me out in front of people to tell them about what I was doing. It took a while for a second book to come out, ten years, but it came out, and it was still in keeping with that DIY spirit that got me started with all my artistic ventures.
In putting this most recent book together I thought about the books I had put together, curious about how many it had been and where I was. I was honestly shocked to realize I had written and put out fifteen books with two other books done for private release.
That blows my mind.
Yeah, it wasn’t done traditionally, with a publisher backing me, but the books came out. And I will say this – anyone who goes through the process of putting a book out with the writing, editing, layout, art, release, and support, that isn’t something that you do unless you are passionate about it all. Yeah, it’s ‘easier’ to put books out via self publishing but that doesn’t make the process easy if you are genuinely putting some time and thought into it.
Fifteen books.
15!
I never would have thought that was possible.
At all.
More than that, if you told me, at age 18, that I would write books, do shows, do conventions, and meet hundreds of people because of the books I’d never believe it. I’d be even more shocked if you told me that in those books I’d write four children’s books, and a fantasy trilogy. That just wasn’t something I woulda seen happening at all. It wasn’t that I would have thought I was better than that sort of work but that just wasn’t what I wrote. I wrote horror. I wrote scary. that was it. The thing I have found though is that I got to a point where I just wanted to tell stories. That was what the point was when I started. The fact is that all of my books are weird and creepy, just aimed at different audiences and telling different stories.
That’s the thing though, I am in it to tell stories. Whatever those stories are. Wherever they take me. That’s why I do this.
I never would have imagined I’d put fifteen books out. Three novels, four kid’s books, three fantasy books, and the rest are colletions.
So.
Weird.
Once this new book is out that clears my plate of all the old stories from my past that I wanted to tell. That’s the last thing I had always wanted to write/finish.
I dunno what that means but it means that, for this moment, my stories are told. The big ones. The forgotten ones. The lost ones. That’s a heck of a thing.
…c…
