I ran across a good, common sense article on some publication basics today on the Fey Publishing blog. Please visit them at Fey Publishing Blog. The article is entitled “Advice Straight from a Publisher on Getting Your Book Published”. It was originally published on July 18, 2014. Also, Mr. Charles Shell makes a good point about publisher’s responses in the comments section, to which I added my own, of course.
As promised, “The Scent” was published by Fiction on the Web on July 17. I have since received five very gracious comments on it. Please check them out at http://www.fictionontheweb.co.uk.
Follow the link to a Huffington Post article detailing the naming of features on Pluto as it comes into view. Apparently, Cthulhu made the list. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pluto-cthulhu_55a5dda9e4b0896514cfbc06?
I just received word that my flash story “The Scent” will be re-printed by Fiction on the Web (fictionontheweb.co.uk) on July 17, 2015. “The Scent” is not horror, but rather a ghostly story about a young man waking up to memories of a past love. “The Scent” was first published by Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine in 2001. Many thanks to Charlie Fish and his crew at Fiction on the Web for re-printing this, one of my favorites of my own short stories. “The Scent” was my first work of fiction and the first to be published. “The Scent” was previously only in print. This is its first appearance on the web.
This week I received word that my short story “The Creature at the Foot of the Bed” will be published at Nightsandweekends.com at a date yet to be announced. “The Creature at the Foot of the Bed” is a bit of light suspense/comedy about a man who awakes to a surprise in the middle of the night.
I was sitting on my sofa just now, contemplating various matters, one of which reminded me of Lovecraft’s “Shadow over Innsmouth”. I started thinking about how Lovecraft describe it and all his locations eerily. It occurred to me that he lived almost his entire life in Providence and seldom went out of its vicinity. In fact, most of the settings for his stories occur relatively near to Rhode Island. Apparently, he did not travel or often from his home. I started thinking that if he traveled little and only to nearby areas and if he saw the few places he went as spooky or eerie (which would explain why he could describe places so eerily), then maybe he was uncomfortable or had a fear of going outside his physical comfort zone. From what little I know of his day-to-day life, I have the impression that he probably did not leave his home very often and probably spent his time in his room writing or editing stories and writing tons of correspondence to his friends and colleagues.
This makes me wonder if Lovecraft had at least a touch of agoraphobia, a fear of public places.
He seems to have been fascinated with architecture and is very descriptive of it, but I have to wonder if that isn’t because if he was fascinated with it because it frightened him. If something frightens me, I watch it very closely and find out what I can about it in order to alleviate my fears.
I have never read anything about Lovecraft having agoraphobia and I am no psychologist. If anyone knows of an article on this subject, please let me know. I would also love to hear your thoughts and comments on this topic.
On May 24, my short story “A Tale of Hell” was published by Fiction on the Web. Please visit them to check it out. Many thanks to Charlie Fish and his staff. Be forewarned: the subject matter is intense and so is the language.
I have already received four very gracious comments on it:
“An intense and well paced story, cleverly leading the reader up a number of garden paths before Jack’s reality finally clarifies and appears in all its horror. The writing is focused and spare as Jack’s malevolent characteristics and idiosyncrasies manifest themselves. Theresa remains a little underdeveloped, but this makes sense in the context as she is only bit player in comparison with Jacks dominant ego which throbs through the piece. Overall a strong tale that lingers in the imagination. Thank you,
Ceinwen”“brilliantly descriptive piece on man´s apparently unstoppable descent, literally into hell,
very well written
well done
Mike McC”
“Crikey, this is enough to sending me running to the nearest church to repent!! Well written. Your one character’s use of repeition was very effective and added to the build-up of terror even more compellingly than your descriptive passages. Theresa must be one dumb broad to have teamed up with this psychopath. A chilling read. I’d reach for the brandy bottle to calm my nerves …. but see where it landed Jack!
Beryl”“Enjoyed this story. I thought it was nicely written. Started with a familiar vision of hell, but added several unique treatments; kept me interested in how it all would end. Thanks
rlhoste”
I was just sitting here contemplating a couple of my stories and how I could improve them before I send them out for publication once again, when something occurred to me. At the moment I was thinking about what makes a satisfactory ending to a story for the general public. A story can be either simple or complex (in characterization, plot, backstory, all of the aforementioned, or whatever) and it can have either a simple or complex ending. How they are paired determines how the reader emotionally and intellectually responds to the story.
A simple story with a simple ending is probably the least satisfactory type of story. It is no challenge to most people and is not likely to stimulate interest. It is boring.
A simple story with a complex ending is probably not entertaining or satisfactory to most people, but it will stimulate the interest of a few. Not many people like or tolerate complex solutions to simple problems.
A complex story with a complex ending is satisfactory to some people, i.e. those intellectuals or faux intellectuals who enjoy complex matters, but these won’t be the majority.
A complex story with a simple denouement is probably the most satisfactory to most people. It stimulates the mind and enlightens the reader, helping him/her to see reality or the problems of reality in a new light. I have written often about a reader enjoying the vicarious experience of a story. It is the same with a complex story with a simple ending. The reader experiences the story vicariously; he/she feels the vicarious joy of having solved the problem along with the protagonist and any other characters accompanying the protagonist through the story.
Anyway, that’s my tirade for the night.
Thoughts? Comments?
Here’s a terrific article on use and misuse of some common words.
About. Here is an interesting blog on writing. As you can see by my comment on the About page, it delves into the essence of writing: communication, the clear transmission of an idea from one person to another.
This not what I would consider to be horror (though I perceive a hint of horror at the end), but I love its lean, muscular nature; the choice of words; and its rhythm. As I have mentioned before, before one can be a good writer of horror, one must first be a good writer.
I am pleased to announce that my short story, “The View from the Apex of Civilization” was reprinted on May 13 at www.throughthegaps.com, Once again, my thanks go out to Benjamin Choi and his staff at Through the Gaps.
“The View from the Apex…” is one of my earliest efforts and was published originally by Mobius Magazine in 2004. It is sort of horror lite. I wrote it to make a comment on our society. I hear often that our society is at the apex of civilization, or something else that implies that our society has learned all it can about certain subjects (granted there are some new ones like space travel or genetics that almost everyone will have to agree that we are struggling neophytes). To put things in perspective, I wrote this story in which, during the time of the Inquisition, an overly proud bishop brags to a local official about how their society is at the apex of civilization and there is nothing more to learn.
Please visit Through the Gaps and peruse all four of my stories that are now on their website.
Thoughts? Comments?
While over at Hastings tonight (not much to do in Farmington on a Monday night), I saw a new book entitled “The Annotated Lovecraft” (I hope I have the title right). It’s about 8″ x 10″ x 2-3″ thick. It contains a lot, if not all, of Lovecraft’s works with copious notes and illustrations, including photos of his home area. It sells for about $25 and would a terrific gift for any Lovecraft aficionado. I looked at it only briefly, but it did not occur to me until I arrived at home that I should write up a few notes on it for those who may not have encountered it.
Thoughts? Comments?
Here is a superb explanation from http://grammar.about.com/od/alightersideofwriting/a/sensualgloss.htm of the distinction between two words I still confuse (no matter how many times I watch the supermarket scene from Animal House). Knowing the history of the two words helps. I stumbled across this article today while double-checking its usage for a story I am writing.
After reading this it occurred to me that a good mnemonic for the difference would be to remember that sensual and sexual both end in -ual. As a matter of fact, the only difference in pronunciation is that one has an x (a ks sound) and the other has ns.
The adjective sensual means affecting or gratifying the physical senses, especially in a sexual way.
Sensuous means pleasing to the senses, especially those involved in aesthetic pleasure, as of art or music.
But as explained in the usage notes below, this fine distinction is often overlooked.
Examples:
- “If one wants another only for some self-satisfaction, usually in the form of sensual pleasure, that wrong desire takes the form of lust rather than love.” (Mortimer Adler)
- Her first book of poems included several sensuous descriptions of flowers.
Usage Notes:
- “The controversial 1969 bestseller The Sensuous Woman would have been more accurately titled The Sensual Woman because its explicit subject matter concerns the unabashed gratification of sexual desire.
“Here’s how you can keep the two words straight. If you mean lovely, pleasurable, or experienced through the senses, use sensuous; if you mean self-gratifying or pertaining to physical desires, use sensual. Sensuous thoughts have a pleasant effect on your senses as well as your mind. Sensual thoughts are erotic, sexually arousing, maybe even lewd.”
(Charles Harrington Elster, Verbal Advantage: Ten Easy Steps to a Powerful Vocabulary. Random House, 2009)
- The Origins of Sensuous
“Sensuous is an interesting word. The OED says it was apparently invented by [John] Milton, because he wanted to avoid the sexual connotations of the word sensual (1641).“The OED cannot find any evidence of the use of the word by any other writer for 173 years, not until [Samuel Taylor] Coleridge:
Thus, to express in one word what belongs to the senses, or the recipient and more passive faculty of the soul, I have reintroduced the word sensuous, used, among many others of our elder writers, by Milton. (Coleridge, “Principles of General Criticism,” in Farley’s Bristol Journal, August 1814)
“Coleridge put the word into ordinary circulation–and almost immediately it began to pick up those old sexual connotations that Milton and Coleridge wanted to avoid.”
(Jim Quinn, American Tongue and Cheek, Pantheon Books, 1980)
Overlapping Meanings“The consensus of the commentators, from Vizetelly 1906 to the present, is that sensuous emphasizes aesthetic pleasure while sensual emphasizes gratification or indulgence of the physical appetites.”The distinction is true enough within one range of meanings, and it is worth remembering. The difficulty is that both words have more than one sense, and they tend often to occur in contexts where the distinction between them is not as clear cut as the commentators would like it to be.”(Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, 1994)
Great nano-fiction at Drabble. This tale does a good job of bringing out the the critical elements of the story and ending with a horrifying moment in the protagonist’s mind.
By E.F. Olsson
My one job was to talk people out of bad situations. And I was good at it. I could get anyone off the ledge. Except for this guy. I didn’t care that day. There were better things to do than worry about some cry-baby who was dumped by his wife. He threatened to jump and I told him to hurry at it.
He eventually listened.
His head busted open – blood oozed into a pool beneath. I thought that’s what he wanted to hear.
I’m back there. On the ledge. I don’t care anymore. I want his screams to stop.
Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher 