Recent Posts

  • Chad (AI Generated)

    No Necromancers, Please

    This is a story about online dating, necromancy, and other things that sound fun until you have to attempt them.

    Tags: fiction, humor, fantasy, short-story

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  • Pen case

    Too Many Words About Fountain Pens

    I get back to posting and immediately take a break to talk about fountain pens for about a thousand words.

    Tags: writing, pens

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  • Shut up and write.

    The Intervention, or Killing My Darlings With Help

    You need to kill your darlings. Good friends will line them up in front of the firing squad for you.

    Tags: writing, process

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  • Skull pipe

    Why I Write Horror (and Children’s Stories)

    I seem like a generally well-adjusted, kind person, so I normally get asked pretty quickly why I write horror. I have reasons (and it’s not just a fertile imagination).

    Tags: writing, fiction, horror

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  • Shep in Skeleton Pajamas

    The Flashlight Game

    This is a short horror story from last year that has only been shared via Slack and text message until now. In that time, it’s sparked a lot of good conversations and become my favorite story, though, so I had to share it. It still gives me goosebumps, by the way.

    Tags: fiction, horror, short-story

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  • Shepard at the door

    Another Season, Another Schedule

    I love my schedule. It gives me guardrails, and I need it. I also need to be flexible enough to throw the whole thing out and make a new one every few years (or months).

    Tags: writing, creating

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  • Rough Draft

    What I Learned Finishing My First Novel Rewrite

    The rough draft of my novel took just five months. The first rewrite took over a year. I learned a few things in the process.

    Tags: writing, process

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  • TWSBI

    The Grand Guignol

    I tried to write a horror story with nothing supernatural, and I wanted to research a period piece, so I wrote about 1920s Paris and the Grand Guignol. Don’t know what that was? Read the story.

    Tags: fiction, short-story, horror

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  • Typewriter sleeve

    Inked (Again)

    Now that I'm firmly in my forties, I've decided to start getting more tattoos after twenty years. I pretend it’s not a mid-life crisis as much as finally knowing what I want to say.

    Tags: tattoos

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  • Lamy 2000

    That Magic Moment (That’s Surrounded by Work)

    There is a magical moment, one that happens at least once per finished piece of writing, when I know that something needs to be written, and why. It takes work to get there, but it’s the most important moment in my writing process.

    Tags: writing, process

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