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Hi Gang!
Well, I hope your first month of the new year was better than mine.
Some of the irritations were relatively minor - plumbing problems, car problems, taxes. Others were close to major - my mom tested positive for Covid. Fortunately she's fully vaccinated and sailed through with nothing but a slight cough.
And then there was the day that ranks in the top worst three days of my life. That happened when I went to pick up a 74-year-old friend and fellow Iliad Bookshop employee, Bob, from a convalescent facility, where he'd been recuperating from a fall. I brought him home, he promptly fell again, I called another friend to help me get him up...and Bob had a massive heart attack in front of us. We called 911 and the dispatcher talked us through CPR until the paramedics arrived. They got a weak heartbeat and took Bob to the hospital, where he survived three more days. Bob was much loved among the Iliad's clientele and he will be greatly missed. He left behind his ten-year-old cat, Henrietta - who was the Iliad's official bookstore cat from 2012 to 2013 - and I've brought Henrietta home to live with me.
Writing-wise, the month wasn't much better - an endless slog of trying to catch up with correspondence and small bits I owed people.
Here's hoping that the rest of this year improves. Please stay healthy and warm out there.
Lisa
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Still Life
In which I rhapsodize about favorite movie photos from my collection
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Last month I talked a little about artist-produced alternate movie posters.
In January I talked about the Dune poster created by artist Matt Lyon. That put me in mind of one I already own: a poster for Dario Argento's The Stendahl Syndrome by artist Malleus. This is hanging in my backyard office (which we fondly refer to as "The Dacha" in my house). I'm an Argento fan, and I just love the way this poster captures the splattery violence and the baroque stylization of Argento in general, and the loss of identity theme of The Stendahl Syndrome in particular.
Malleus sells limited edition concert and movie posters through Dark City Gallery (which also offers the work of a lot of other wonderful artists). Click the blue button below to see more of his own work or even to buy your own posters.
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The Halloween Spirit
Tips for keeping it going all year 'round
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You don't have to wait until October to enjoy Halloween treats!
A friend who knows a remarkable New York bakery called Wild Angel Treats recently gifted me with these gorgeous Halloween shortbread cookies. And they're just as a delicious as they are lovely!
I also just enjoyed some pumpkin spice tea.
I feel no guilt.
Neither should you! Have Halloween treats in February. Live it up!
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Strange Doings
The weirdest thing I've recently uncovered in my research
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Sometimes research is simply observing.
I got in some observation I could've done without last month, when I had to call 911 for my friend Bob.
Here are three things I noticed about paramedics that movies and tv shows always get wrong:
- They do not RUN to the scene. When they arrive, they take the time to assemble their equipment before they walk, not run, to the victim.
- They're messy. They will push or toss aside anything that impedes their access to the victim, and they'll unwrap lots of equipment and fling the plastic bags aside.
- They don't care about your thanks. Once the job's done, they're ready to move.
Will I use this in something? Yes, I think I will...while still painting these folks as heroes, because that's what they are.
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"Tested"
(first appeared in )
I thought it was high time I talk about some of the stories in my collection Night Terrors & Other Tales that I haven't already discussed...
I was surprised to realize I haven't yet written about "Tested", an important story for me. It was my first sale to Cemetery Dance (issue #55), and it went on to win the Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction (my first major award). It was the story I chose to open Night Terrors & Other Tales.
The story begins with a car crash on an isolated road in the Pacific Northwest. As the protagonist struggles out of the wreckage, he realizes he's up against more than lack of a cell phone signal - something's out there in the brush stalking him.
But what the story is really about is my response to books like The Greatest Generation that suggested fighting a war made one generation greater than others. Every generation has done great things; why, for example, should the generation that fought for civil rights in the '60s be somehow regarded as lesser? In the story, the protagonist is fighting both for his own (and his wife's) survival, and to move past the judgments of his decorated World War II vet grandfather. He is tested, and proves his worth in an unusual way.
I also wanted to start the story with intense action, so it opens in the middle of the car crashing. I tried to capture that sickening instant when you feel something spinning out of control and you can't stop it.
The story seems to have resonated with a lot of readers, which is always the best reward a writer can hope for. It's been reprinted a number of times, and I still hear from people responding to it.
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You may have heard me rant before about the non-writing parts of writing, but indulge me...
One of the things writers at the beginning of their career might not think (or even know) about is how much time they'll have to spend on NOT writing. The more successful you become, the more this will be true. It's why major writers hire personal assistants.
I'm not at that point yet (oh, how I wish I could afford it!), so I do all this stuff myself. Here are a few of the things that you'll need to get used to:
- Contracts. If you think all you do is sign 'em and send 'em, think again. First you need to read them over...carefully. If there's a clause that's suspicious (like, say, they want all rights forever), you have to begin the negotiations. If you have an agent, you need to talk to them about it. Once the terms are all in place and it's been signed, you need to file it someplace where you can find it again, in case you need to come back to it. Trust me, this all takes up a lot more time than you might think.
- Proofreading. If you're traditionally published, you'll need to go over galleys of your work with the editor or copy editor. If you're indie, you'll either need to polish your own work, or confer with an editor you've hired. You should never just assume everything is fine and blow this off; I've found significant errors in my galleys from publishers both great and small.
- Promotion. OMG, can this eat up the time. It's a good thing I love doing these newsletters, because they alone take hours. Now add in social media, blogging, etc., and that's a big chunk of time.
- Correspondence. I get hundreds of e-mails a day. By the time I weed out all the spam, I'm still left with inquiries from publishers, editors, co-authors, readers, reporters, bloggers, podcasters, and more. All of those things need to be answered. If there's an interview involved, I need to note that in my calendar.
- Money and taxes. You already know the pain of this crap, I'm sure. Now try keeping track of the stuff writers can write off.
I'm not even mentioning research or later drafts because I consider those things to be part of the writing process.
Be prepared to become two parts writer and one part your own secretary!
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WIP It
My current works-in-progress
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There are some big things in the offing I can't talk about yet, but here are a few news items:
I'm now doing short film reviews for Rue Morgue Magazine. My first one, for the film King Knight, appeared in the last issue.
The third edition of Becky Spratford's incredible Readers' Advisory Guide to Horror had some very kind things to say about me, and I'm quite flattered to be listed as an author, an editor, and a non-fiction writer.
Someone recently told me that the original cut of my 1989 movie Meet the Hollowheads - when it was still known as Life on the Edge - is available to be viewed in its original cut at this Japanese website (it's broken into six files). This was jawdropping news because I really thought this cut - in which I have a cameo appearance as the "Edge Slut" (I'm in Part Two, during the "Edge Walk" sequence) - was gone forever.
It was nice to see five of the books to appear on the Bram Stoker Awards preliminary ballot in the Anthology category had stories by me, and one book in the Non-fiction category also included me. They are:
- There is No Death, There are No Dead
- Attack from the '80s
- Under Twin Suns
- Humans are the Problem
- Professor Charlatan Bardot's Travel Anthology to the Most (Fictional) Haunted Buildings in the Weird, Wild World
- Writers Workshop of Horror 2
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Night Terrors & Other Tales
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This, my first major non-themed collection, is now available. Includes twenty reprints plus one new story, "Night Terrors", written for the collection.
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Haunted Tales: Classic Stories of Ghosts and the Supernatural
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My Ghost Stories partner Les Klinger and I have re-teamed for a new anthology of more classic horror tales. Coming in August 2022.
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A Little Yellow Book of Carcosa and Kings
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I edited this collection of the four stories that make up "The King in Yellow" cycle by Robert Chambers. Includes my introduction and annotations throughout. Limited to 1,000 copies signed by me.
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Classic Monsters Unleashed
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Coming in 2022...includes my Headless Horseman tale, "Hacking the Horseman's Code".
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Humans Are the Problem: A Monster's Anthology
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Includes my story "In the House of the Elemental".
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Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances
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Now in a second printing: my comprehensive survey of the history of spirit-calling looks at necromancy, Spiritualism, modern ghost-hunting, and more. Illustrated and fully indexed.
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Weird Women Volume 2: 1840-1925
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Coming September 2021: a new volume of Weird Women, with stories by George Eliot, Edith Wharton, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and more!
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Includes my story "The Garden of Dr. Moreau".
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Includes my short story "A Plague on the House".
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Professor Charlatan Bardot's Travel Anthology to the Most (Fictional) Haunted Buildings in the Weird, Wild World
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Includes my short story "The Gulch".
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This month I'm going to give away five e-books of my collection Night Terrors & Other Tales! Just click the blue button below to enter, and good luck!
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