Wednesday, September 12, 2012

And you wonder why we don't like you...

So I was going through the oh-so-fun task of sorting the mail the other day and saw a letter from our Home Owners Association. Normally I toss these aside because I want to save reading them for those special days when I have absolutely nothing better to do than waste my time with nonsensical things, but I was curious as to why they were sending me a letter since our yard is up to code and I had paid them our fees several months in advance.

What do you know, they had sent me a notice. But not just any old notice they like to give you about bringing in your trash at 5:07 pm on Wednesday because it's supposed to be brought in by 5:00 pm (and we all know if we bring in our trash a few minutes after 5 because we actually have something to do with our lives, like work, that drug dealers and thieves will be swarming so thick in the streets they'll block out the sunlight and children will become drunkards that roam the in the night breaking windows and spraying graffiti on the walls. That few minute time lag could really bring down the neighborhood within a matter of seconds, you know). No, it wasn't one of those very important letters, it was a delinquency notice.

Yes, we're delinquents.

Our account was delinquent by such an outrageous amount of money they had to contact us immediately to let us know that if we didn't pay them the huge debt we owe it could lead to legal repercussions.

It was for six dollars. Yeah. $6.00.

I don't even have anything to say about that, but at this point I don't think I need to.

Don't get me wrong, I think HOAs can be a great thing. I really think they do help keep a neighborhood looking clean and nice, and some of the park and playground areas in our neighborhood are just fantastic, all thanks to the HOA (not our HOA though, we have a dead patch of grass which serves as our park and it's usually chocked with weeds, though they have made minor improvements over the last month). So I believe they are a really valuable thing that more communities should have because when run properly, they really do make a difference in creating a better neighborhood.

But, they also get a little, well...ridiculous sometimes...

Six dollars...psh!!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Thank you!!

Huge, huge thank you to everyone who participated in the free giveaway of my debut novel G-157!! The giveaway was a tremendous success that far surpassed what I had hoped for.

I cannot thank everyone enough who took a chance and got a copy. I really hope everyone enjoys the novel, and again cannot say thank you enough to the first people to support my crazy dream. Thank you all!!

I'm hard at work on my next novel and can't wait to share it with everyone. I'll be posting a sneak peek at the first few chapters in the next week or two, so stay tuned for another exciting adventure. Happy reading everyone!!

Book Review: The Red Church

I recently read The Red Church by Scott Nicholson. I had never read anything by this author before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. From the moment I saw the cover I was drawn to this piece of fiction, and within the first few pages wanted to read more.

This book is about a small southern town with a "preacher" named Archer McFall leading a religious cult. The majority of the book has your typical Christian horror elements in it: a woman seduced by the dark side, a televangelist as the evil leader, a haunted cop, a stereotypical stone heart female cop, and the one man whose faith in the Lord doesn't falter. A lot of the plot was pretty stereotypical too, but even with all the "been there, read that," happening, I still enjoyed the story and was intrigued to see what happened next.

Aside from being a captivating story-teller, I particularly love the way Nicholson describes things. As a fellow writer, I have to say I'm very jealous of the way he can describe primal emotions in a new way, and for that I have to give him major kudos.

What really made me a fan was the ending of the novel. (Spoiler alert!!) The entire novel was all about the Christian battle between God and the Devil, Heaven and Hell, Good and Evil. And then we get to the last couple pages where we see a major twist. What was the evil leader of the cult actually turned out to be a creature of the earth that gave no such recognition to God or the Devil because it didn't entertain the idea of "anything greater than itself." This creature merely used religion to its advantage to get what it wanted. I really, really loved that this was the way it ended instead of with some intervention from Jesus or having the demonic preacher win out. It really threw me for a loop and got me thinking.

The Red Church is a good read for anyone looking for a classic horror tale with a twist ending written by a talented author with a gift of describing the world around us. I give this book four stars, and am eager to read more of Nicholson's work.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Announcing "Story of the Month"

As a writer I naturally have a trunk full of short stories that I've written over the years. Most are horror stories, some are sci-fi, and a few are literary fiction. Rather than have them sitting there collecting dust, I've decided to add a new feature called Story of the Month. Every month, I'm going to pull an old story out of my writing trunk and post it here for everyone to enjoy.

Some of these stories I've queried to a few magazines, but let's face it, it sucks waiting to hear back from fiction magazines. True, the submission process is a hundred times better than it was when I was in high school, but the waiting still drives me crazy. Back in the day, I'd have to print out two copies of the story along with my query letter, stuff everything into a big manila envelope, and wave farewell to it as I sent if off in the mail. From there I usually had to wait between three and six months only to receive a coffee stained envelope with my query letter inside that had a quick "No" scribbled in the corner. Well thank you very much for making me wait forever just to get a scribble of a response. Awesome. But I get it, that's the way the publishing world works. No one said I had to enjoy that part though. And I have to admit, when I did receive my few "Yes, we want to publish your story," responses, you can bet I ran around the house screaming my head off and waving my acceptance letter in the air.

Nowadays, the submission process has gotten faster, and so have the response times thank to this lovely thing called the internet. But even so, it takes a lot of time researching magazines to find the right fit for your story and trying to craft the perfect query letter for your mini masterpiece. However, when I was going on my short story spree a few months ago, the process was easier than it was even a year ago, so I still try to submit on a pretty regular basis, though my shorty submissions were put on hold for a couple months while I was finishing G-157

With all that being said, I hope you enjoy some of my "classic" tales of horror that have been salvaged from the depths of the black writing trunk. My first story is called "Fritz," and I must say it's one of my all time favorites. I pulled out a binder of a dozen or so stories I wrote years ago and rediscovered this little tale about a man who tells his pet rat the story of how he "unlocked" the fourth dimension. It was one of my all time favorites then, and it was one of my favorites when I pulled it out a few months ago. Look for it under the Story of the Month tab.

Happy reading everyone!!