I kind of already said this, but HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Here is the jack-o-lantern Emily and I carved this season:
October is the best month for a variety of reasons. You got beautiful fall colors, crisp, cool weather, and yeah, Halloween (see above). I got in some good mountain biking, had tons of fun at the annual West Virginia Book Festival, and got to meet up for coffee with an old friend at Taylor Books, which is a pretty great coffee shop/book store in downtown Charleston that I recommend.
Also, this month I released a new Kindle horror novelette, Antique Bed, which you can get on Amazon for only $0.99.
And just in time for Halloween, Horror Tales Podcast released their fourth episode, which is my story “The Unknown Thing”, previously published in Beneath the Waves: Tales from the Deep. Click below to listen (it’s free):
***EDIT: I was just notified that my story has been listened to over one thousand times already, in just a few days! Cool!
One experience I had that was not enjoyable this month was the Witch’s Brew drink at Starbucks. This purple monstrosity was so awful looking that I just had to try it. There is zero coffee in this drink (not that anyone expected it), and I could only take a few sips before tossing it in the trash.
As I don’t live in a town where there is trick-or-treating (or a town of any kind, for that matter), sadly, my house is not stocked full of candy (also, I guess they don’t always do trick-or-treating on actual Halloween anymore?). However, Emily and I have some pretty fun plans involving our traditional viewing of Halloween is Grinch Night and some caramel apples that are sure to ruin our teeth but be wildly tasty (ironically enough, last night I had a dream in which two of my teeth fell out for no reason).
So go enjoy the holiday, however you do that—consuming tons of sugar, watching movies, listening to Horror Tales Podcast, or reading one of my books (I guess somebody else’s book is fine, too). Remember that tomorrow candy will be dirt cheap.
Podcasts
Listen to "The Unknown Thing" on Horror Tales Podcast
My short story “The Unknown Thing”, originally published in Beneath the Waves: Tales From the Deep by Things in the Well Publications, has been turned into an exciting podcast episode on Horror Tales Podcast. They were going release it on Halloween, but they just couldn’t wait any longer—so here it is! Click the icon below to see all the episodes, including mine (Episode 4).
Give the podcast a rating and review on iTunes if you have an account there, and it will help this new podcast reach more people.
Max Ablitzer does so much hard work in getting the best and most intriguing sound effects for the podcast and I love how it turned out. I think you will too.
Happy Early Halloween!
Coming up for fresh air and sunlight, and winning a #NGHW challenge
Well hello! Didn’t expect to see you standing there next to my hole! Wow, doesn’t the sun hurt your eyes up here? So bright… I’ve been down there for so long, tunneling away…
I’ve been making good progress on my WIP. Today I passed the 50,000 word mark! And there is still plenty left in the story. I’m happy to be so sure that this will be my longest novel yet (When the Watcher Shakes is somewhere around 60,000 words, and Little One is around 55,000). At the beginning of this, I was really hoping that I would be able to make it to 80,000. Right now, I’m feeling that goal could become a reality in as little as a month! (And I still don’t have a good title! That’s okay, I usually don’t come up with one until after the story is finished anyways.)
But the real goal is not necessarily to reach a certain word count, but to tell a good story at a good pace.
In other news, I’m still competing in the Next Great Horror Writer Contest over at HorrorAddicts.net. I can’t say that I’m really doing great overall, at least so far, but I am glad to finally say that I won the most recent challenge, which was to create a short spoof radio commercial script for a fake horror-related product. The judges really liked mine. You can read the script here: https://horroraddicts.wordpress.com/2017/05/22/nghw-winner-of-commercial-spoof-timothy-huguenin/
If you want to read the top eight spoof commercials, here’s the link for that: https://horroraddicts.wordpress.com/2017/05/21/nghw-top-8-commercial-spoofs/
Alternatively, you can listen to their recent podcast episode, and hear my commercial acted out at the end!
Well, back to digging. I’ll see you again sometime soon, I hope.
A reminder to those interested: Little One will be released in July! You can mark your calendar and hope to remember—or you could just sign up for my email newsletter, and make sure you don’t miss it or any future publications!
Read "A True Artisan" on HorrorAddicts.net #NGHW
Howdy! Most of you know by now I’m competing in the Next Great Horror Writer Contest by HorrorAddicts.net this year. As part of the application, I had to enter a 100 word horror story. You can go over to their website now and read all of the entries, including mine, “A True Artisan”.
Click on the banner below:
If you’re into podcasts, you can also follow the contest’s progress by subscribing to their podcast. Episode 1 of this season is up!
Tune in tonight
Tonight from 7:00pm to 8:00pm Eastern, I will be on Parker J. Cole’s blog talk radio show, The Write Stuff. Tune in to hear me discuss my new book, When the Watcher Shakes.
Crime Time Podcast
Another podcast recommendation! Listen, I got so excited about H.P. Podcraft because I had just discovered it, and then I later realized that somehow I haven’t told you guys about one of my favorite standbys, Crime Time Podcast.
I first found out about Lee and Eddie’s podcast focused on crime and horror fiction when they interviewed Ian Rob Wright, a popular self-published horror author (who has quite a bit of free stuff over at his website). They’re two Australian girls that just, you know, talk about crime fiction and horror. They’re pretty funny, and like the guys over at the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, often point me towards new stuff I hadn’t had on my radar, and also often discuss other books and authors I already know and love, so every couple weeks I end up bombarding their twitter with comments relating to the episode I’m listening to (sorry girls). They usually respond, too, so it’s like, I feel like we’re best friends that I’ve never even met. (Well, I don’t know if they would say I’m their best friend, maybe more like that annoying kid that follows you around everywhere and won’t shut up.) For a while I would get confused because for some reason I couldn’t tell the difference in their voices, but I’m just now finally starting to pick out the one from the other. They say they even have different accents, but all Australian sounds the same to these American ears. But they say cool Australian things, like “good on ya” and other things that you are only allowed to say if you’re Australian. I wonder if they like vegemite…
I want to take this moment to share with everyone that there is an Australian member of my own family:
This is Canaan, my wife’s Australian cattle dog. So you see, I love Australians. Here’s another:
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Crime Time Podcast. Go check it out, if you love Australians or if you love crime or horror fiction, or both. As they would say, “get amongst it.”
Crime Time Podcast on Facebook
Crime Time Podcast on Twitter
Writer Resources: The Author Hangout Podcast
I love to read, but when it comes to how-to, news, or other non-fiction information, podcasts are my jam. You can listen to them on the way to work, while you’re eating breakfast, while you’re washing the dishes, cooking–I could go on. It’s just about the most convenient way for me to absorb current, interesting, helpful information in a way that fits better into my schedule. I could do a whole blog post about how much I love to listen to podcasts and which ones I think you should check out, and because my interests are so diverse, most of them wouldn’t be related to writing or publishing at all.
But this one is.
In fact, the podcast I want to tell you about today is probably the single greatest influence on my journey to self-publishing.