HAPPY NEW YEAR! I love a new year and all the possiblities it holds. We all have so much optimism at the beginning of the year . . . but usually my optimism runs out by March, lol.

#500Stories#500Nights Update

As will probably be the case most of the time, my list is skewed toward audio. I can listen to half a dozen stories a day via podcasts or audible, but I have a hard time chiseling out the time to read even one text-based story. So if you’re thinking, “Sheesh! Why is the list mostly podcasts?!” it’s because the format is easier to consume in great quantities. And why these particular podcasts, aside from they have an awesome variety? The more frequently listed podcasts (like Overcast and Pseudopod) make their stories available to the major podcast feeds; some mags create a podcast but only make the cast available on their website. Visiting individual websites is something I don’t have time to do because I’m usually listening at work.

I’ve put an asterisk by the stories I particularly enjoyed, and a double asterisk by the stories I *REALLY* enjoyed or found interesting.

Dec 1: “The Curfew,” by Roddy Doyle (The New Yorker: The Writer’s Voice, Nov 26, 2019)

Dec 2: *“Bulletproof,” by J. Askew (The Other Stories, 46.3)

Dec 3: “For your safety and Comfort. . .” by Michelle Ann King (The Overcast 111)

Dec 4: *“The Crusted Depths,” by Daniel Willcocks (The Other Stories podcast, Oct. 20, 2019)

Dec 5: “Well Enough Alone,” by Holly Schofield (The Overcast 112)

Dec 6: *“The Bleeding Maze: A Visitor’s Guide,” by Kurt Fawver (Nightmare Magazine Podcast, Aug 7, 2019)

Dec 7: *“The Lesser of Two Evils,” by Shane Halbach (The Overcast 113)

Dec 8:  *“Antripuu,” by Simon Strantzas (Nightmare Magazine Podcast, July 10, 2019)

Dec 9: *“In the Walls,” by Robert Reed (Daily Science Fiction, 12-6-19)

Dec 10: **“The School,” Donald Barthelme (Read this one. Seriously) https://www.npr.org/programs/death/readings/stories/bart.html)

Dec 11: *“The Vaults of Yoh Vombis,” by Clark Ashton-Smith (Pseudopod 611)

Dec 12: “The Night Princes,” by Megan Arkenberg (Nightmare Magazine Podcast, June 5, 2019)

Dec 13: “Mofongo Knows, by Grady Hendrix (Pseudopod 612)

Dec 14: “Mastiff,” by Joyce Carol Oates, read by Louise Erdrich (The New Yorker Fiction Podcast, Nov 2, 2013)

Dec 15: “Figure 8,” by E. Catherine Tobler (Pseudopod 614)

Dec 16: *“Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island,” by Nibedita Sen (Nightmare Magazine Podcast, May 15, 2019)

Dec 17: *“Different Kinds of Darkness,” by David Langford (LeVar Burton Reads #19)

Dec 18: **“Eternity Plus Package, 89.99/Month,” by Michael Milne (Overcast 118)

Dec 19: “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, read by A.M. Homes (The New Yorker Fiction Podcast, Nov 12, 2008) (Of course, this is a given absolute favorite)

Dec 20: *“The Solstice,” by Kev Harrison (The Other Stories 47.1)

Dec 21: “The Fliers of Gy,” by Ursula K Le Guin (LeVar Burton Reads podcast, 6-19-18)

Dec 22: *“A Fate Worse Than Death,” by Matthew Butcher (The Other Stories 3.2)

Dec 23: “Dimensions,” by F.I. Goldhaber (Overcast 104)

Dec 24: *“Malotibala Printing Press,” by Mimi Mondal (Nightmare Magazine Podcast, May 1, 2019)

Dec 25: “How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie),” Junot diaz (The New Yorker: Fiction, podcast, Jun 1, 2007)

Dec 26: *“Soft Mary’s Flood,” by Steven Pirie (Overcast 100)

Dec 27: “58 Rules to Ensure Your Husband Loves You Forever,” by Rafeeat Aliyu (Nightmare Magazine Podcast, Feb 20, 2019)

Dec 28: *“Jackalope Wives,” by Ursula Vernon (LeVar Burton Reads 32)

Dec 29: **“Fyrewall,” by Stefani Cox (LeVar Burton Reads 31)

Dec 30: “Blue Christmas,” by Jessica Levai (Overcast 119)

Dec 31: *“Terry Rowlings, Success Coach,” by Luke Kondor (The Other Stories 3.3)

What Else I’ve Been Reading

During mornings at my day job, I’ve been listening to the short story podcasts. During the afternoon, I’ve been listening to audiobooks. I started with Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse. This one is interesting because, in my opinion, it fits in three genres: Native American fiction, fantasy fiction, and new adult fiction. I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to try it because I avoid young-adult and new-adult fiction like the plague (not that there’s anything wrong with it; I just know from experience I don’t enjoy YA & NA at all). I dabble in fantasy, but it’s not my go-to genre. On the other hand, Native American fiction is my jam.

It was good, and I can see why it has received so many accolades, but it was also very YA-NA and wasn’t my taste. However, if you enjoy the genre, I would highly recommend it. It’s like if Bella was Native and a fiercely independent monster hunter (watch out Edward!); or if Hermoine was!

My second audiobook didn’t quite work out, either, though I thought I’d made a solid choice: Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury. I’ve read this one before when I was a kid, and it illustrates the danger of revisiting a beloved story/movie/etc from the past. I love Bradbury, and I remember loving this story back in the day. But this time around, the story felt incredibly dated. The dialogue was way too Leave it to Beaver for me. “Aw, Gee Wally, that’d be swell.” And every word out of Mr. Halloway’s mouth seemed contrived and forced. His dialogue just didn’t seem natural. Then again, this is really YA too, so maybe that’s part of it. I just have no taste for the genre at all anymore. So now I’m all disappointed that I don’t like the story anymore.

2019 Goals Update

I actually did really well on my goals this year. I’m pretty damn proud of myself.

Update the website: Nope. Okay, so this one didn’t work out so much. Carrying it forward. Hope I can do it this year.

Send out 8 new short stories (which implies *writing* eight new short stories): CHECK (on a technicality). I began eight new pieces of short fiction this year, but I only finished and sent out seven. The reason the eighth didn’t get finished is because my English class required 10 short papers, 3 long papers, and a group project. So, for that class, I wrote and edited over 35 pages. My short stories are usually only 8-10 pages. So I’m counting all that writing for the English class as the eighth story.

Make a decision on four older, as-yet-unpublished stories: trunk or fix. CHECK! I ended up working on them a bit and sending them out again…only to have them rejected. I’m probably going to trunk them in 2020.

Resubmit at least four previously published stories to reprint markets. CHECK!

Read one long form work every month. CHECK! Did it, and then some, and added the:

Read #500Stories500Nights. Started a long-term short story challenge. CHECK (so far, so good, anyway).

2020 Goals

Update the website. I’m not giving up on this goal!

Write and send out eight new short stories again. I’m going to use lessons learned from my 2019 attempt to make reaching this goal easier this coming year.

No goal related to the four or five older, unpublished stories I have lying around. I’ll probably just trunk them and concentrate on new stories and reprints.

Resubmit three previously published stories. This goal is slightly reduced from last year in order to give me more time for new stories.

For a reading goal, I’m going to stick with #500Stories500Nights.

And for something totally different: dabble in horror poetry. It’s so VERY different from what I normally do that I don’t even want to set a “send out X poem(s)” goal; I’d just like to try to write one horror poem, just for kicks.

That’s it for this month! Until next month, happy reading!

Oh, brother, am I ever SWAMPED with things I need to get done before the end of the year. Here it is, winter already, and I’ve got so much school, work, writer, and home stuff that is still left undone. How did this happen? The next few weeks are going to be chaos for me.

There’s no time to hide under my desk and cry. There’s also no time for a decent blog post for you, dear readers. Instead, go read this:

My story, “Spring Fever,” available in Dark Moon Digest!

If I’m lucky, I’ll have made some progress and December’s blog post will be a wee bit longer. Maybe I’ll even finally finish the antho I’ve been TRYING to read, and I’ll be able to give an update.

Until next month (hopefully), Stay Spooky!

Summer went by way too fast, but at least it means the most wonderful time of the year is here: fall! All three days of it, here in North Dakota! I guess I shouldn’t complain, though. Usually we’ve had a solid killing frost by now, but our temperatures have been pretty mild. Montana is in the middle of a snow emergency as I write this, so I guess it could be worse! It won’t stop raining, though. Here are Abby and Murphy wistfully looking out the upper-deck patio door while it pours outside. Murph doesn’t mind the rain, but Abby doesn’t like to get wet.

Though I fiddled around with a couple of stories I’m working on, I didn’t finish anything or start anything new from scratch. I also haven’t finished reading The Best of The Best Horror of the Year. I blame my class for that. It was totally NOT because I’m a procrastinator who sometimes gets in moods where I can come up with the so many trivial tasks that need to be done instead of sitting down to write.

Speaking of which, I got more unpacking done. I mean, we’ve only been in this house a year, right? In our chaotic move, we had a lot of stuff that just got shoved into storage to deal with later. Crawling under the house and unpacking those dusty boxes was definitely more important than writing.

And working on the gating system within and around the house was also a very important taks. My house is starting to be more elaborate than the temple in Aliens vs. Predator. Of course, it’s all in the name of dog safety. Well, some of it is in the name of “let’s not have puppy pee in these areas, okay?” Like my writing room. I’m a monster, and untrained puppies (and Abby when she had her brief problem with incontinence) aren’t allowed in. It’s okay. Murphy is chill. He’ll just sleep right outside the gate. Meanwhile, we’ve got gates to keep them in the designated potty area, gates to keep them off the deck, gates to keep them on the other deck; gates to keep them upstairs, gates to keep them downstairs, gates to keep them out of the gym, gates to keep them out of the writing room….

It wasn’t ALL crickets on the writing front, though. I did receive notice that one of my short stories has been accepted at Dark Moon Digest. Links will be forthcoming!

And something that landed in my inbox that you writers might find interesting is one of the latest “What’s the Score” postings from Autocrit. Autocrit is one of my favorite editing programs. In addition to pointing out problems (generic descriptions, etc.), it gives your piece a “score” based on the problems in the text. Periodically, they run a famous work through the software, so you can see how it stacks up. One of Autocrit’s latest “What’s the Score” tests was on Stephen King’s Pet Semetary. It’s fascinating, and it also kind helps battle some of that “imposter syndrome” so many of us face. It’s great to see where the problems lie in published works and do a score comparison. You can check it out here:

What’s the Score: Pet Semetary

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Next Up: I need to get those three started stories finished in these last three months of the year in order to meet my goals. Think I can do it? Stay Tuned!

Well! I guess you can tell how my July/August went, considering I completely missed the August post!

Part of the problem is just summer in North Dakota. Our good-weather-season is so short that you want to try and suck every bit of life out of it that you can. And with this being the first summer in our new house, we were really trying to get as many home projects done as possible.

Of course, this little guy helped, too. This is our new “thing of evil” (as SK calls his Molly). His name is Murphy. Having a pup in the house is like having a super-energetic, super-mobile baby who poops on your floor a lot and tries to chew all your table legs off. Some day we will be able to sleep through the night again. Someday.

And now, of course, school is back in session, so that’s going to be keeping me busy. Yes, it’s only one class, but OY! WHAT A CLASS! It’s “Introduction to Literary Criticism.” I knew I was in trouble as soon as I got the required texts list and saw that it included The Great Gatsby. My dislike for Gatsby is almost more legendary than Gatsby himself. Yuck. And Gatsby was chosen because it is the text the theory textbook uses as an example in every chapter. . .EVERY CHAPTER!

On top of that, the syllabus for the class includes (in addition to the readings of both Gatsby and the thick critical theory textbook) TEN mini-papers (a single page, single spaced each, which might as well be a two-page paper), three longer papers (5-7 pages each), and a group project. I think I’m going to have my hands full!

And this is all on top of already trying to find that balance between working full time, writing as much as I can, and having a life. Whee! You realize I’m probably NEVER going to get this website design changed (as I keep hoping and promising and dreaming of), right?

And speaking of writing. . .

It’s been a bit of a struggle, but I’m still holding my own.

I’m a little dismayed by the number of “dead market” resubs I have to do this go-around. I have four stories that were out at magazines/projects that have ghosted or folded. It’s certainly the nature of the publishing world today, but it’s still a bummer when it happens. Even famous Weird Tales has died several times, only to later be resurrected (as it currently is; I believe they will once again open for subs in 2020). I need to get these stories re-subbed to living breathing markets as soon as I can.

As far as new stories go, I have three left to write/finish before he end of the year to make this year’s writing goals. One is the story that is 90% already written but the anthology closed early so I tabled the story in favor of other pressing deadlines. Another will be a story I started for a looming deadline and then realized I wasn’t going to make it unless a miracle occurred or I gave up sleeping. That one is about 50% done. The last one will be the only one I have to start from scratch. I should be able to make the goal no problem, but next year, I’m setting my sights a little lower and more realistic.

On the reading front, I barely got started on The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. I’ll probably try and continue on with it, reading it in tandem with the text for the class so I make sure I understand what’s going on, lol.

I finished Weird Tales: Seven Decades of Terror. I enjoyed ALL the stories from the 20s, which I guess says a lot about me as a writer as well as a reader (darn these new-fangled stories, get off my lawn). My favorite stories were:

“Rats in the Walls,” HP Lovecraft
A lush weird tale, classic Lovecraft;

“Bells of Oceana,” Arthur J. Burks;

“The Eighth Green Man,” GG Pendarves;

“The Crowd,” Ray Bradbury
Hmm, maybe *that* explains the ridiculous theory of ‘crisis actors’?;

“The Dead Man’s Hand,” Manly Wade Wellman
HA! What a name! I had to look him up, because I don’t remember running across his name before, though I surely have and just don’t remember since his Wiki states, “Wellman once estimated his output of stories and articles at about 500, of which about 80 were in the fantasy & science fiction genres.” He still sounds like a persona, given his biographical history includes that he became the adopted son of a powerful African chief;

“The Rhythm of the Rats,” Eric Frank Russell
Lest you think I just like stories about rats, there was another rat story in the anthology that I didn’t care for;

“Turn, Turn, Turn,” Nancy Springer
Everyone deals with grief in their own way, lol.

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Next up on the reading list: The Best of the Best Horror of the Year.

Until next time, stay spooky!