WIP Wednesday: September Wakes

The first edition of The Red Penny Papers is hot from the "virtual press" and you can read:

“The John” by Corinne Duyvis
“Pluvial” by NK Kingston
“Shaper of Dreams” by John Cash
“Postcard Wings above Blackpool Sands” by Cate Gardner
and...
“Black Medicine Thunder and the Sons of Chaos” Episode 1 by Aaron Polson

I'm a little (a wee bit) excited to see Abraham Reaver (the rather gruff looking gent on the cover) released to the wilds of the interweb^TM.

Thanks to editor extraordinaire KV Taylor for the opportunity to write something fun.

__________

Now, September. What will we do with you?

I'd like to do an editing pass on Borrowed Saints. It has languished on my hard drive since last May. So sad. I have a few ideas for a rework of the ending, so yeah, maybe I can do that, too. I've finished another story for We're All Liars Here. I'd like to squeeze out another 10K or so on that project by the end of September. No promises, though.

Steady as she goes.

WIP Wednesday: Like a Dog

The pseudo-horror, magically real (I hope), The Things They Carried inspired WIP has a working title. I'm not sure mentioned it before, but for the record I'm calling it We're All Liars Here. Until I can work "Saints" into the title, that is...

As I finish stories, I'm going to try and sell a few individually. Some won't work out of context of the book, but others should fare just fine.

So far, I've written part (or all) of the following (about 20K):

"We're All Liars Here"
"The Second Death of Elroy Jantz"
"BJ is Seventeen"
"Mutiny"
"The First Girl I Loved"
"The Ground Plan of Hell"

And I'm having a helluva good time along the way. I hope to share the journey in its entirety someday, but for now...

Tony Manning was a liar. He usually lied about little things, like when he stole beer from his father on the night Bobby killed Elroy Jantz. Tony lied so well his old man never imagined a single can went missing. The big lies he reserved for special occasions, but all of them--big or small--came from his lips with a silver of magic.

How's your WIP coming along?

WIP Wednesday: Taking Back the Man Cave

Yes, you read that correctly. Today I take back the Man Cave.

Maybe I'll do some writing later. In the Man Cave. Ah, that's the stuff.

One of my favorite books--top five (seriously)--is Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. If you're familiar, skip ahead. If not, well, it's a collection of stories (sort of) and a novel (sort of). O'Brien served in the military during that awful tragedy in Vietnam, and The Things They Carried follows a platoon through combat, coming home, and even fictional Tim's experience before the war. Or is it fictional Tim? Are the members of the platoon fictional? Just how much of this book is true, how much is made up?

Damn, it's a good book when it has you asking those kind of questions.

My last visit home really inspired me. You've seen the pictures. I've had this seed of an idea to write a novel/collection (kindasorta experimental) with my hometown as the base. Yes, it would be horror-esque. More dark fantasy and magical realism, I think. Yes, I would break a few narrative conventions, ala The Things They Carried. Visiting home again, I just knew this was the right thing to do. Maybe a little too ambitious for a writer of my skill, but hell. I'd rather try to climb a mountain than roll down a hill.

It's been brewing for a while. I better just write it, huh? In fact I've already started:

Elroy Jantz’s first death was an accident.