Give Fred a Day Off, He Comes Back with Vengeance

Fred, the moniker I've given my subconscious/muse, was stumped with my "not exactly a haunted house" book. I gave him the day off last week and wrote a little on a science fiction/future noir story I've been kicking around.

And then Fred came back from vacation, sipping a piña colada and wearing a vintage "I Survived the Orient Express"* t-shirt. His little imaginary head was filled to the brim with ideas for the house story (heretofore only known as "the house book").

He suggested several titles, too, some with "smoke" in them, others with "fog". The house, it seems, plays with those inside, toying with their memories.

Especially memories which elicit fear, sadness, or outright paranoia.

So... The House of Smoke and Fog?

Maybe.

It sounds a bit too much like The House of Sand and Fog, a much different story altogether.

Suggestions?

*The Orient Express was the bad-ass roller coaster at Worlds of Fun, a Kansas City amusement park, when I was a boy. It's gone now, but the memory remains.

Sorry, Fred's Busy

Remember Fred? I introduced him in this post (in which I recommend the best book on writing short fiction, Creating Short Fiction by Damon Knight). By the way, "Admiral Atlantic's Guerrilla Marketing" is now in the Land of Dead Stories. I guess it didn't find a home. (RIP, Admiral)

But Fred can't come to the blog right now. He's busy.

I'm working on two short stories (both about half done) and a flash piece that I want to finish before Fred comes running up from the basement and takes over my life. My self-imposed deadline is Friday.

What's Fred doing, you ask? He's working. He's doing that thing that he does--putting together stories. Fred is busy plotting my next novel.

Don't bother him.

But I Like Writing Short Stories...

The title of this post comes from Fred (my subconscious mind/muse/internal voice). He's whining again. He prefers to write short stories, but I'm making him help me with another novel.

The only problem is that ol' Fred only wants me to write YA novels. I'm okay with that. No one (apart from Stephenie Meyer or J.K., maybe a handful of others) makes a living on YA, but I'm not banking on making a living at this anyway (that would be, how you say, a pipe dream--although a very attractive one).

I started working on The House Eaters (which will, no doubt, receive a title change). I tried to work the whole adult horror angle (3rd person, the whole nine yards), but when I hear a narrator's voice, it's a seventeen year old boy. Maybe Freud could help me with that...

So, my narrator moves from the city to a rural farmhouse just before his senior year because his mom has lost her job. Their new place is 1/2 mile from a run down house (haunted? not really). He is suspended on his first day (always bullies, aren't there?), and hears the House (as he calls it) talking to him (no, it's not haunted...not in the conventional sense) while spending the day at home. I'm trying to blend some Native American spirituality with "old dark house" sensibilities with a healthy dose of teenage angst and dissolving family dynamics. Whew.

Oh, and The Black Garden is available for pre-order from Corpulent Insanity Press. The book has received a few interesting pre-release reviews.