About My Impending Hiatus (Yes, Another Hiatus)

As I've said, it's time for me to take a hiatus.

I've grown a bit tired of the stories I'm writing now. I feel locked into a style of writing that I never intended to own. I wrote the first chapter of Antioch by accident, but since then, I've been writing a long series of relationship dramas.

The truth is that, while I respect this type of writing, I want to write horror. I feel that at my current pace, I'll never be able to write horror. I need time to practice, and time to write.

I do feel that I've gained valuable experience as a writer of character driven dramatic short stories and novels, though.

I'll be releasing two more short stories, and the remainder of The House On Bernard Street, and then I will be in full hiatus. I am only in a partial one right now.

That's not to say I'm not writing or that I won't be writing. I simply won't be publishing it online for a while.

I'll be writing three horror novels, covers and descriptions to follow.

The Caretakers

A novel about a Joe Ramsey and his dying mother, who rent a house in the country. The landlord supplies three men who work around the house, and their presence causes Mrs. Ramsey to get well. But at what cost? Joe learns a sinister secret about the house and the men who inhabit it, and he's soon faced with a decision no one should ever have to make.

The Lucid Dark

A novel about a man who rents a house with four friends when he goes away to college. Before long, though, parts of the house began to disappear. When the bedrooms vanish, so do his friends, and he seems to be the only one who remembers they were ever there to begin with.

Kill John

A novel about John, a college student who's on his own for the first time. He rents a house near campus with a boy he meets in one of his classes. Soon, though, he begins to see dark shadows that look like the people he knows. Soon, he realizes that he can't distinguish between these ghosts and real people they represent, and before long, he's even afraid of himself.

So you see, it's not really a break from writing so much as a step toward goals I'd almost forgotten.

I certainly hope that all of you will stay with me as I change.

A Little Backstory: The Dead Astronauts

Well, the time has come to drop The Dead Astronauts. Never have I been quite as nervous as I am with this release, because this story is technically science fiction.

As I have stated previously, I am no Carl Sagan. I've had to suppress the natural tendency to describe in detail all of the futuristic technology in favor of the focusing on what I know how to do, which is to say, tell a story about two guys who don't know where to go from where they are.

I've very much accepted that I am known as a “gay author,” and with that in mind, I feel that it's my duty to experiment with style, etc. I no longer have any duty to prove how ordinary gay literature is. I've decided that rather than try to prove it, I can do it just by writing what I want to write.

The Dead Astronauts is the story of Henry, a lonely cafeteria worker who wants to know what exists beyond the glass walls of the space station where he has lived all of his life. George, his boyfriend, is perfectly content to live the rest of their lives aboard the craft, and wishes that Henry would stop looking out the windows at the stars and wondering if there's a god.

This is an intensely personal piece for me, as it always is. This story's element of wondering if there's a god was particularly challenging, because as an atheist, I wanted him to come to a solid conclusion that there wasn't one, but it simply did not suit the situation, so I left the whole thing ambiguous, and I'm very proud of that. It's not my duty as an atheist to shove my lack of religion on my readers, and for this particular story, a question of the existence of god was best left unanswered and unbiased in its curiosity, not leaning toward or away from my own convictions.

I think that that's one of the hardest things I've had to overcome as an author: the urge to make my characters all atheist or gay. Granted, most of my main characters are gay, but that's what I know. Religion is not always something that has to be dealt with every time one sits down to write something, though, and for the most part, I prefer to avoid the subject unless it moves the story forward.

I hope that this story means something to someone. As always, thank you to everyone for your continued readership, and for your support.

Indie Author Threatens To Turn World Into Parking Lot

I've decided to put together a tentative release schedule for the next 30 days. I'm going to post the art for the releases in this blog alongside the anticipated drop date.

01/14/13: The Dead Astronauts. This short story takes place on a space station, and follows my most commonly used theme: a character in a very ordinary life (for the time and location) and the desire to find something better. It's one of the riskiest stories I've written, as far as setting and writing style go, because I'm no Carl Sagan. I've taken the focus off of the high tech elements that normally dominate the genre so I can focus on the relationship, which is something I do know how to do.

01/20/13: Chapter Three of The House On Bernard Street. The third installment in my second live novel. With Christmas at Warren's mother's house looming, Aaron faces stress and familial resentment, as well as the equally frightening threat of Christmas at Warren's Dad's house.

01/26/13: We All Come Home Eventually. This short story focuses on the dynamic between a man and his best friend in the aftermath of a breakup. I'll reveal more about this later on.

02/02/13: Our Lives In Ruin. This short story focuses on a man and his mother living in poverty in a small town. More details about this later as well.

Also, at some point, I plan to put up the new art for Spin The Bottle, designed to match the vintage toilet bowl spittoon Saturn rocket thing my new covers have going on. Also, A Tree In The Park and It Might Be My Mother are being taken down after the release of The Dead Astronauts for revision and expansion. 

Stay tuned. I'll link to all of these things as they occur, including any easter eggs I decide to crack open on your collective foreheads.