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Hi Gang!
Okay, I suck a little this month, because I was supposed to have a new story for you based on sentences you provided last month, but it didn't happen.
However, there's a good reason: I just got an offer to do a second book this year! This one's an anthology that I can't talk about quite yet (we're still finalizing the contract), but I'll be working once again with my fabulous Ghost Stories co-editor Les Klinger. The bad part: the deadline is just ten days apart from the due date on my book Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances (November of this year), so for the next few months I won't have time for much extra work. Sorry and thanks to everyone who sent a sentence! Because I still want you to get a story, I've pulled an old one for everyone to enjoy (see "This Month's Giveaway" below)..
I'm also excited to announce the "Strange Tales of the Macabre" anthology series - five reasonably-priced e-book anthologies, each featuring a story by yours truly (and one volume, Ghosts, is also edited by me).
Thanks as always for joining me on this crazy journey.
Lisa
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Still Life
In which I rhapsodize about favorite movie photos from my collection
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R.I.P. Rutger Hauer.
Like so many others, I was a fan. He not only stole Blade Runner (especially with that incredible end speech), but was also great in so many other movies like The Hitcher, Blind Fury, Hobo With a Shotgun, Flesh and Blood, Eureka, Sin City, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the one that provided this month's still, Ladyhawke.
I had the great pleasure of knowing him briefly in the '80s. He was attached to a script I'd written called Lightning Strikes; it was a post-apocalyptic action flick in which he would have played a visionary leader who is trying to restore civilization, but at a terrible cost. The lead character was a nomadic female warrior who encounters him and becomes his antagonist.
Rutger was charming, smart, funny...and HUGE. Seriously, when he shook your hand, your arm disappeared up to the elbow. He had wonderful thoughts on the script, and would call me late at night to discuss them. I'll never forget one call that he ended with the suggestion, "Let's go play!"
Of course it's heartbreaking that the script never got made, and now Rutger is gone as well. He would have been so perfect in the role...and how different my life would have been.
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The Halloween Spirit
Tips for keeping it going all year 'round
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Experiment!
That's one of the reasons I love my Halloween yard haunt. My partner (for both life and the haunt) Ricky and I love learning new crafts and techniques. We've been doing our yard haunt since 2016, and every year we try to add to it by making something fun. It's our chance to be mad scientists!
Last year we learned about carving and gluing styrofoam, and we figured out how to make our own tar pit out of actual tar. This year, Ricky's learned how to work with papier mache (around a base made from cardboard and chicken wire) to make an eight-foot-tall evil tree, while I've investigated new mini-projectors and "invisible" cloth that lets you project an evil spirit seemingly onto the air itself.
Next on our list: the basics of working with simple motors so we can create a "breathing" grave!
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Strange Fruit
The weirdest thing I've recently uncovered in my research
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I just read possibly the most gruesome thing ever, and it was 2,000 years old.
I'm here to tell you that anyone who thinks modern extreme horror is something new needs to look back at the ancient Romans, or, specifically, the tale of a witch named Erichtho. Erichtho was a necromancer, a specialist in gleaning prophecy from the dead. The Roman poet Lucan tells the story of Sextus Pompeius, son of Pompey the Great, visiting the necromancer to obtain a prophecy about a coming battle.
Lucan details how Erichtho goes about her rituals, and this stuff is NOT for the squeamish. Let's just say there are some...ahem---eating practices involved, with graphic details provided.
If you want to dig in more, click the button below - but be forewarned that you just might find your stomach turned!
(Image above is by John Hamilton Mortimer - Flickr: John Hamilton Mortimer - Sextus Pompeius consulting Erichtho before the Battle of Pharsalia - Detail, Playing Futures: Applied Nomadology, 2012-01-05 21:10:08, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19409587)
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"With a Whimper"
This story was originally written for a project called “Fraternity of Flash”. Writer Misty Dahl gathered a group of about two-dozen writers together, gave each of us five words and one phrase - “Lightning splintered the bleak horizon” - and asked us to come up with a piece of flash fiction under 1,000 words. This story was posted to Misty’s website circa February 2012. It’s 992 words long.
There's a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction out there that deals with civilization ending in a bang, but very few stories address the notion of ending with a whimper instead. Whimpers, of course, don't seem as exciting as bangs, but I was intrigued by the notion of creating a compelling, disturbing story that ended the world with a whimper. The fact that it was also flash fiction increased the challenge.
Head down to this month's giveaway to judge for yourself if I succeeded.
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New publishers are a great thing...most of the time. But...
I get invited into a lot of anthologies. With multiple projects already contracted for, I don’t have a lot of spare writing time to put into other pieces, so I have certain rules I need to follow. Some are obvious, like only writing for books paying pro rates or working with editors I like, but others involve a little research.
We all want to sell stories, and we all recognize how few pro-paying markets there are these days. When a new one comes along, our first instinct is, “Ooh – this sounds good!” But the sad truth is that’s not always the case. Even a newer writer doesn’t want to end up with a story that’s accepted into a book or magazine that proceeds to vanish. The writer is left with anxiety they don’t need – what do they do? Can they legally pull the story to submit to other markets, especially if they’ve signed a contract and been paid? How long should they wait this nightmare out?
I’ve been in that boat, and I’ve learned to follow my own little set of guidelines. I’m listing that set here in case it might be helpful to other writers. Think of what follows as “Lisa’s Five Simple Questions to Ask When Submitting Your Story”:
1) Does the publisher have a track record? If the answer is “no”, that’s not necessarily a reason to beware; hey, every publisher has to start somewhere, right? However, if the answer is “no”, you should seriously consider moving on to the next question…
2) Have you heard of anyone involved with the company? Look at the names in the guidelines, or on the website (and if there are no names listed, run away immediately!). Have these people edited or published books before? Do they seem to have any experience at all with working in publishing?
3) Are the guidelines, e-mail invite, and/or website full of grammatical errors and typos? If the answer is yes, let me ask: do you really want these people editing your story?
4) Do they tout the involvement of big names? Again, this is not immediately a cause for concern, and can be a big plus…unless those big names didn’t really agree to be involved with the project. Trust me, this happens more than you might think; I’ve personally encountered it on numerous occasions. If the publisher/editor sets off the other warning signs but claims the involvement of Writers X, Y, and Z, don’t be afraid to contact those writers and ask if they’ve really committed to this project (and these days, it’s not all that hard to contact writers). Just don’t be shocked if the answer is, “WHAAAT?!”
5) Does the publisher have a presence online? If the new publisher is really committed to staying in the industry for a long run, then they should have a business plan that includes early promotion. Do they have an Instagram page, a Facebook or Twitter account, a blog? Have they given interviews to any blogs or magazines? Have they joined any professional organizations, or bought ads anywhere?
There’s always, of course, the chance that a new publisher will fail all five of these rules, you’ll walk away…and then see the book come out and regret not being involved. But…well, frankly, I’ve been in this fiction writing business for nearly thirty years, and I’ve yet to rue turning down a single project that missed these guidelines. On the other hand, I’ve had good stories tied up for years when I ignored my own gut instincts. If the warning signals are all flashing, there’s probably a good reason.
Your work deserves better.
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WIP It
My current works-in-progress
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Weird Tales is finally here, woohoo! See below for links to find out more and order your copy.
I can also now announce that I'll have a story in a 2020 anthology called Final Cuts edited by Ellen Datlow.
Terrifying Tales to Tell in the Dark is out now, and has been getting some really nice reviews.
And, as mentioned at the top of this newsletter, I'm now hard at work on two new books for 2020. You've already heard about Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances, and I hope by next month I can reveal what the other one is. Suffice to say I'm having a fantastic time working on both of these.
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Ghost Stories: Classic Tales of Horror and Suspense
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Co-edited with acclaimed anthologist and genre expert Leslie Klinger, this anthology gathers classic ghost stories from Edgar Allan Poe, Edith Wharton, Charles Dickens, M. R. James, and more!
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Includes my historical dark fantasy story "Etain and the Unholy Ghosts".
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Includes my story “The Gorgon".
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Terrifying Tales to Tell at Night
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Includes my story “The Chemistry of Ghosts".
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My novella, co-written with John R. Little, originally released in 2014, now available in an affordable e-book from Cemetery Dance.
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Has my story "What Ever Happened to Lorna Winters?"
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A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Gods
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Includes my story "Holding Back".
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Weird Tales is reborn! The first issue in this new run features my story "A Housekeeper's Revenge".
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The 5x5 Anthology project is a co-op between five of the horror genre's finest, award-winning authors: Eric J. Guignard, Kate Jonez, Rena Mason, John Palisano, and me. We each traded stories to create five themed mini-anthologies (each branded as part of the Strange Tales of the Macabre series), and all available in affordable e-book format. Stormy Weather, Post-Apocalyptic, and Gothic are available now (click on the covers to order); Ghosts and Haunted Journeys are coming soon.
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This month's giveaway, as noted above, was supposed to be a brand spankin' new story created from sentences you provided, but then I got a second book deal and my spare time (what little there was to begin with!) went away. Instead of that new story, I hope you'll all dig this old piece of flash fiction.
SMALL WARNING: The story contains adult language.
With a Whimper
Tracy gripped the railing edging the building’s roof, looked down six stories to the empty street, and tried to ignore the dead man who stood beside her whispering, “Jump.”
It’d be so easy. The railing was low enough. One more step after, and their voices would end forever.
Except she knew that wasn’t true; their voices would keep going, and she’d be one of them.
When she’d climbed the stairs to the top of this building, she’d hoped she’d be alone. She hadn’t really decided yet. The fact was, it was night, and she was lonely (of course) and drunk, and she’d come up here without really thinking about it, picking her way across the dark roof by a flashlight’s beam. She’d felt weariness descend on her when she’d seen the dead man.
They were everywhere. They’d been everywhere for six months now, since the Outbreak. Every day, Tracy relived the beginning, that first week of disbelief, seeing news reports of thousands, then hundreds of thousands, then millions dying of a mysterious, fast-moving illness. But they didn’t really die, or at least they didn’t stay dead - they came back, but they were changed. Not like the flesh-eating zombies of horror movies; they didn’t try to eat anyone, or chase them, or even touch them. They were...drained. Dull-witted, slow-moving shells that went to the same places they’d always gone to, and who had a soft message for those who hadn’t yet succumbed:
Kill yourself.
Tracy and her husband, David, had stopped going to work, and had kept their son Ben home from school. Maybe if they sealed themselves away, they could wait it out, like flood victims or...
But it’d taken David and Ben, too. Two days of illness, while Tracy had hoped and prayed and worked to keep them alive, but finally the life had drained from their eyes. She’d locked herself in the bathroom until she was starving, and then steeled herself to come out. For a month, she’d endured her six-year-old son murmuring, “Die.” Then she’d given up and fled.
Tracy didn’t know why the Outbreak hadn’t taken her. More and more she wished it had. By the time she left the crowded city, civilization was gone. It’d happened so quickly, almost as if everything had been set up for it to go down this way. A groan, a whimper, and then soft whispers. No explosion. No wars. Just an ending.
She’d gone to a smaller town, found an empty house that she’d taken as her own. She’d still hear them outside sometimes, at night: A whisper on the other side of the bedroom window.
Give up.
It was worse when she went out. The supermarket was packed with large dead women who stared at her as she went through the aisles. “Eat more,” one had grunted at her. At the hardware store, when she’d stocked up on tools, a tall man in a John Deere cap had said, “You’re useless.” At the department store, where she helped herself to clothes she’d never been able to afford, a woman with elegant cheekbones simply asked, “Why?”
And she hadn’t responded. She’d never responded, because that was how she’d been taught, that it was impolite, unladylike. David had liked that about her. “I never have to worry about you,” he’d told her, with a smile and a peck to the cheek after a successful dinner with his boss.
She’d left the night he said, “Quieter.”
Lightning splintered the bleak horizon, and the dead man on the roof muttered, “It’s better.”
Tracy remembered where she was and why she was here. The power had finally given up last week (she’d been impressed by how long it had stayed on), and now she didn’t even have the empty company of old movies or games or music. Tonight she’d had nothing but Jack Daniels and rain and the sound of her own breath. She was hungry for fresh food, and she was tired of hearing them, and remembering David and Ben.
She lifted her other leg over the railing. Now nothing stood between her and the six-story drop. One last step, and she could stop it, stop the voice of the corpse who stood behind her. “Do it.”
Tracy lifted a foot...and stopped as she heard something.
It was a car engine. Running. In the distance, but coming this way.
And something else, clearer as the car approached: Music. Loud, coming from the car. A booming bass-line, pounding drums. Rap music.
David had hated rap. “That’s not even music,” he’d said once as they’d been stopped at an intersection next to a car blaring rap. He’d frowned and turned up his country station. Tracy, of course, had said nothing.
And now she thought of that last night with David, when he’d said, “Quieter,” and she’d walked into his study, picked up his hunting rifle, and put a bullet in his head while he’d just stood there looking at her. She hadn’t waited to see if he was truly dead or not, and she hadn’t said goodbye to Ben. She’d just dropped the rifle, taken her car keys, and left.
The rap music grew louder, and she saw headlights; the car was driving down the street below her.
Someone who was still alive was driving that car.
And suddenly she wanted to be with them, more than she wanted to die. She didn’t care who they were, what they looked like or how old they were - they were alive, and that was all that mattered. They’d be gone by the time she ran back down the stairs and out into the street, but she knew they were out there, and she’d find them eventually.
She pulled herself back over the railing, moving carefully now, putting aside drunkenness in favor of hope.
The dead man said, “Stop.”
Tracy did...long enough to turn and say, loudly, to him, “Fuck you.”
Then she laughed and ran.
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