CHALLENGE YOUR LIMITS AS AN AUTHOR
So Throughline Films, a Chicago operation of some status, is filming my first novel The Street Martyr into a feature film. I still can’t believe it’s real. We read the emails from the producer, John W. Bosher, about movie the development process, and it feels surreal. It is the beginning of life, everything I’ve fought for, finally pulling myself out of this illness and disability. It is the break of a lifetime. Authors wait their whole careers for an opportunity like this to build their careers. I never saw it coming. None of this was intended. I am more surprised than anyone, though people don’t seem to be too surprised that I’ve made it this far this soon. I can’t tell. I don’t know if my work is good or bad. I dread reading my own work. I’m a partial perfectionist and a workaholic. I produced the Street Martyr in two months. When I edit my own work, I don’t see it from the fresh perspective of a new reader. I only see what it could be, what I’m currently not capable of writing. I see my work as incomplete, inchoate and underdeveloped, and I think: This will be rejected fast! Somehow, it’s not. All my work sells and is praised. I guess I owe that to my craft, though my spirit has suffered.
I don’t think a good author should know whether their work is good or not. We should just write from our hearts and depend on faith in ourselves. It’s better that way. I wrote the Street Martyr with no intentions, no great life plans to build a career. I just wanted to drop myself into new waters, to get away from horror and short fiction. It was meant to be an education, to train myself to write long fiction. I expected it to maybe be an eBook, get a couple of readers, impress the members of the noir community and then move onto something else, something I’d write better. The response has overwhelmed me, and what it is bringing into my life—great love, a future, a family—has shaken me to my core self-concept. I defined my book, and now it is redefining me. The books we write should always do this. A novel should be a journey of exploration and change for the author as much as it is for the reader. You can chart my life by my work: what I have seen and suffered. I write horror as a catharsis, and now the nature of my work is changing. Once I was the wizard of sad endings. My work summoned weeping. Now I am writing about hope. My work changes as I change, always a step ahead of me, a destination that I wish to reach.
Always take on more than you can chew. Disturb your comfort zone. Overwhelm yourself a bit. Don’t just write what you’re capable of. Write more and worry you’re not going to make it. This effort will translate. Alyn Day, a dear friend and one of my sisters who started at the same time I did, fights to write her novella. She worries and suffers over it like a mother for her child. It is new for her, a bit beyond what she has been capable of, and this is why her book will be a success. She challenges herself to become more, and she will rise with me.
I’m working with John W. Bosher at Throughline Films as we prepare to adapt The Street Martyr into a feature film. They’re arranging funding with a company in Los Angeles. Throughline Films is a substantial production company. And reading his emails has been absolutely thrilling. A part of me still doesn’t believe this has happened, but I’ll handle it in a confident and professional manner. The uneven nature of my life has prepared me that anything is possible, and I will build on this, creating a good life. We have to use the opportunities that come to us. I know much of this is luck, being in the right place at the right time. I am being counted on. I have promises to keep, and I will turn this into something amazing. I don’t know if I’m ready or worthy of this, but I’m going run with it anyway.
I talk more about my writing life in an interview I did with Grey Matter Press with a secret code . . .
I don’t think a good author should know whether their work is good or not. We should just write from our hearts and depend on faith in ourselves. It’s better that way. I wrote the Street Martyr with no intentions, no great life plans to build a career. I just wanted to drop myself into new waters, to get away from horror and short fiction. It was meant to be an education, to train myself to write long fiction. I expected it to maybe be an eBook, get a couple of readers, impress the members of the noir community and then move onto something else, something I’d write better. The response has overwhelmed me, and what it is bringing into my life—great love, a future, a family—has shaken me to my core self-concept. I defined my book, and now it is redefining me. The books we write should always do this. A novel should be a journey of exploration and change for the author as much as it is for the reader. You can chart my life by my work: what I have seen and suffered. I write horror as a catharsis, and now the nature of my work is changing. Once I was the wizard of sad endings. My work summoned weeping. Now I am writing about hope. My work changes as I change, always a step ahead of me, a destination that I wish to reach.
Always take on more than you can chew. Disturb your comfort zone. Overwhelm yourself a bit. Don’t just write what you’re capable of. Write more and worry you’re not going to make it. This effort will translate. Alyn Day, a dear friend and one of my sisters who started at the same time I did, fights to write her novella. She worries and suffers over it like a mother for her child. It is new for her, a bit beyond what she has been capable of, and this is why her book will be a success. She challenges herself to become more, and she will rise with me.
I’m working with John W. Bosher at Throughline Films as we prepare to adapt The Street Martyr into a feature film. They’re arranging funding with a company in Los Angeles. Throughline Films is a substantial production company. And reading his emails has been absolutely thrilling. A part of me still doesn’t believe this has happened, but I’ll handle it in a confident and professional manner. The uneven nature of my life has prepared me that anything is possible, and I will build on this, creating a good life. We have to use the opportunities that come to us. I know much of this is luck, being in the right place at the right time. I am being counted on. I have promises to keep, and I will turn this into something amazing. I don’t know if I’m ready or worthy of this, but I’m going run with it anyway.
I talk more about my writing life in an interview I did with Grey Matter Press with a secret code . . .
CLICK ME TO READ INTERVIEW @ GM PRESS
STATE OF HORROR: NEW JERSEY
Featured Anthology
So a number of anthologies have come out since my last blog post. I should post more, but I don’t want to fill up the internet with a lot of chatter and detritus. To follow my short fiction, all you need do is type in my name, and a number of links will appear.
State of Horror: New Jersey has been re-released through its new publisher, Charon Coin Press and Editor Jerry E. Benns. This was one of my early publications, and I was glad that it was being published a second time, given a new look and promotion. My story, Doctor Nightshade Comes to Ocean City, NJ has second placement on the table of contents. It’s about a cancer cluster in New Jersey, based on the Toms River tragedy. The misery and death summons a dark creature based on the Mothman legend which I also tied into the Jersey Devil. Many of these myths parallel and have roots in the same tradition.
Here are some quotes from other stories in the book:
State of Horror: New Jersey has been re-released through its new publisher, Charon Coin Press and Editor Jerry E. Benns. This was one of my early publications, and I was glad that it was being published a second time, given a new look and promotion. My story, Doctor Nightshade Comes to Ocean City, NJ has second placement on the table of contents. It’s about a cancer cluster in New Jersey, based on the Toms River tragedy. The misery and death summons a dark creature based on the Mothman legend which I also tied into the Jersey Devil. Many of these myths parallel and have roots in the same tradition.
Here are some quotes from other stories in the book:
"Whenever she did fall asleep Charlie was there calling to her, showing her happy memories lulling her into what she craved most then twisting it into something terrifying. Each dream tortured her a little more than the last."
--“Sweets for my Sweet” by Margie Colton.
The door opened suddenly and a giant of a man stood in the doorway holding a shotgun, his beard bushy and his eyes wild. "Holy shit," Jack said and stepped back, falling into the mud and weeds in front of the house. "Mister Meyer?" Kendall asked slowly, hoping to God the madman with the gun was his friend's father. If not, they were in trouble.
--"Dying Days: Charon" by Armand Rosamilia
The warmth of Paul’s body was rudely robbed from her as the dark swallowed him. Josie heard the sounds of Paul’s bones breaking and screamed. Held in place by her panic, she stared into the darkness that fanned out around her at the end of her nose.
--"Under the Boardwalk" by Julianne Snow
Here is the table of contents:
Here is the table of contents:
A Friend of the Family by Diane Arrelle
Doctor Nightshade Comes to Ocean City, NJ by T. Fox Dunham
Monster by Christian Jensen
Evacuation by C. I. Kemp
American Gargoyle by Scott M. Goriscak
Rudetown Road by Blaze McRob
Memories of Her are Dead by Eli Constant
Road Wearier by Tim Baker
Sweets for My Sweets by Margaret L. Colton
Red Eyes by Nathanael Gass
Under the Boardwalk by Julianne Snow
Dying Days: Charon by Armand Rosamilia
Pork Roll, Egg, and Sleaze by Frank J. Edler
State of Horror: New Jersey is available from Charon Coin Press. It is part of their State of Horror series. I also have a story in their Pennsylvania collection.
