Yeah, sometimes you feel those old winds. Memories and the like. The tentative spring sun. A certain song. Dust and trees ( Read more... )

It's 7:08 on a Sunday morning. I'm sitting here with a cup of coffee watching, from my living room window, the fog engulf the tops of the trees. Today is my youngest's 10th birthday. She had a sleepover and one of her friends had to leave at 7 for a day of skiing, thus my being awake and functional on an early Sunday morning. Still to early to ( Read more... )

Tonight I came home and wrote before dinner. Tonight I wrote after dinner. Tonight my youngest daughter and I sat and read our respective books for 1.5 hours downstairs. Tonight I played the music quietly. Tonight I did not drink alcohol, I drank water. Tonight the only thing I read on the computer was an explanation of the Oort cloud. ( Read more... )

It was the best of writing, it was the worst of writing...my writing in 2012 lived in a difficult place. On one hand, I completed more stories than I have in the previous couple of years, and I believe these stories to contain my best writing. On the other hand, the births of these stories were slow, laborious and I often found myself wondering ( Read more... )

Every year I make it a point to read anywhere from 2-6 horror anthologies (generally published within the last four years, though I will read older ones on occasion.) Some of it is professional interest--seeing what folks in the field are doing. And I like to support the editors who put these together. I worry that skilled editors are in the ( Read more... )

It is Thanksgiving morning. The house is quiet, everyone but me still in bed. Later today there will be amazing food and amazing people. There will be stories told and there will be laughter. The walls of this house will absorb all of it. This is what makes a house home: the life lived in it. In a year that has seen much sadness and darkness ( Read more... )

Like many children of the eighties, the Nightmare on Elm Street movies were a big part of my youth. I maintain that the first film is one of the most original and important movies of the decade, genre be damned. There are pages and pages of text and subtext that can be read into that movie, and while I've swam in those waters before, today I want ( Read more... )

I'm on a pretty good writing roll. I feel as though I know what I'm trying to do, and the words are coming. Of late I've often been able to get out of my own way, away from the overthinking that too often has stifled my creative process these last couple of years. Since the start of the year I've finished two stories and I'm currently on a rewrite ( Read more... )

This is a quiet evening. I'm sitting in my office, sipping a beer, listening to beautiful abstract music that a good friend made. I'm not writing; too fresh from the annual trip to Chewelah, perhaps, or too drained from work. There is much going on in life but I can't even really approach it in a journal entry. Some of it is too sensitive, some ( Read more... )

It's funny, how certain things will get you. Yesterday my girls had their last event as Girl Scouts--an end of the year awards and bridging ceremony. My girls are leaving Girl Scouts to focus on other activities and this is a natural time to leave, a good time for the break. It's not ending on any kind of sour note. Girl Scouts has been a ( Read more... )