I have done a bit of media tie-in work — most recently I wrote stories for Shadowrun and X-Files anthologies — but there are two shows on that I would dearly love to write fiction for (and, frustratingly, there don’t seem to be plans for any yet). The first show I’ve been avidly watching is Stranger Things. I’ve heard some […]
Last week, I added a couple of new reward levels to my Patreon: Ghostwriter $150 or more per month In addition to all my writing, prompts, and monthly chats, I will write up to 750 words of nonfiction to order per month. Need technical documentation? Business letters? Memos? Reports? Blog posts? Copy writing? Instructional materials? Essays? […]
Several years ago, I posted some advice to beginning fiction writers. I still field regular queries from aspiring writers. Lately, the questions I’ve received have fallen into three general categories. How to Keep Writing When Things Get Tough I’m a binge writer at heart, so I set aside large blocks of time to work on my stories. […]
The classic Nathaniel Hawthorne tale “Rappaccini’s Daughter” tells the story of a young man named Giovanni who moves to Padua to be a university student. Every day from his rented room, he sees a beautiful young woman named Beatrice working in a strange and lovely garden full of poisonous plants. She is the daughter of […]
The Shadow Over Innsmouth is a classic horror novella by H.P. Lovecraft. It tells the first-person story of a young man on break from college who travels to an isolated seaside New England village and discovers that it is run by a cult and most of the townsfolk are doomed to devolve into weird amphibious monstrosities […]
I launched my Patreon a little over 5 months ago, and it’s been steadily growing. Through it, my patrons receive: Monthly chats with professional authors, editors, and agents Weekly poems Weekly writing prompts Monthly short stories Monthly novel excerpts Monthly writing articles Monthly manuscript critiques I’m doing my best to provide a good value to […]
One of the things that impressed me most about Conrad’s novel about Charles Marlow’s nightmarish adventures in the Congo was the lushness of language. The atmospheric opening immediately struck me as exceptional: The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky […]
Fiction story ideas are all around us. It’s not a matter of finding them so much as just opening your eyes and seeing them. A story idea could come from a bit of overheard conversation, a photograph, a brief article in the newspaper, or an old family tale. Many horror and dark fantasy authors can find […]
