Phil Slattery

Special Feature: “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”

On Sunday, March 7, a friend of mine, Tim Stamps, whom I have known since college way back in the dark ages of the 70’s, sent me this link to a truly dark video. I thought it would make an excellent special feature for The Chamber. Here’s what he says about it:

“Hey Phil, check this out —A friend [Samuel Hanon is the name on the video] put this together. Playing the Twilight Zone version of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” with a Pink Floyd concert CD “Live at the Empire Pool, Wembley Park, London” recorded in November, 1974. Nothing is edited out or changed, except color effects added. All the lyrics and everything synchronistically match on queue. Play here: https://www.facebook.com/samuel.hanon.3/posts/545802596336504“

As you will learn with Rod Serling’s narration during the intro, this is not a Twilight Zone production per se. This is a French telling of the classic tale “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce. It was the winner of the 1962 Cannes Film Festival and of several other international prizes as well. The original version is truly haunting, but the additional soundtrack and colorization take it to a whole new, nightmarishly surreal level.

What I find interesting about the story is that, when it was written in 1890, feelings about the Civil War were still very intense. After all, the Civil War had erupted only thirty years earlier in 1860. Many soldiers on both sides were still alive. Many African-Americans were still alive who had been slaves. Bierce had served with the Union Army and had seen combat several times including at Shiloh. He sustained a traumatic brain injury at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, whose effects he felt for the rest of his life. Nonetheless, Bierce penned this story about the hanging of a Confederate soldier told from the rebel’s perspective. Bierce did not see his former enemies as inhuman monsters, which I am sure many former Union soldiers did. He recognized the humanity in them and he brings this out in this story, making his readers, many of whom doubtlessly still had strong feelings about the war, feel sympathy for their suffering as well and made them see the former rebels as human.

In our current atmosphere of political turmoil (which cannot hold a candle to the turmoil before, during, and after the Civil War), there is a lesson for us in this classic work of American literature. It shows us that in spite of our feelings about current political and national issues, no matter how intense they are, we must not lose sight of the fact that our political opponents are as human as we are and feel as deeply and as intensely as we all do. We are people with differing opinions, but we are all still people. We must not lose sight of that fact.

I hope you enjoy the video as much as I did.

Follow this link to the original short story on AmericanLiterature.com.

By the way, I will take submissions of links to dark videos or films so long as they meet the stipulations in The Chamber’s submission guidelines and so long as the person submitting owns the copyright. There are a wide range of formats to which I can link, so please query first and I will let you know if I can link to it.

The Chamber Magazine is Seeking Dark Fiction and Poetry

The Chamber Magazine is seeking articles, reviews, essays, poems, and short stories of approximately 5,000 words (more or less) including flash, micro fiction, smoke longs, drabbles or of any flavor of short fiction that demonstrates the art of writing dark fiction, whether it be prose, poetry, one-act plays, or any other form of literature. We want to showcase the genre in all its subtlety, intelligence, art, horror, terror, suspense, thrill-seeking, and gruesome detail. We will accept dark humor provided it follows the guidelines below with regards to content and good taste.

To be good short fiction, the shorter a work is, the more power it must pack.

There is no pay for publication, but the author retains all rights. Reprints are acceptable. Multiple submissions of up to three works per submission are permitted. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but you must tell us if the work has been accepted elsewhere. We usually respond within a week. Works generally appear a month after acceptance.

More details about submissions are available on the website.

Send submissions and queries to thechambermagazine@gmail.com.

The Chamber Magazine is Seeking Dark Fiction and Poetry

The Chamber Magazine is seeking articles, reviews, essays, poems, and short stories of approximately 2,000 words (more or less) including flash, micro fiction, smoke longs, drabbles or of any flavor of short fiction that demonstrates the art of writing dark fiction, whether it be prose, poetry, one-act plays, or any other form of literature. We want to showcase the genre in all its subtlety, intelligence, art, horror, terror, suspense, thrill-seeking, and gruesome detail. We will accept dark humor provided it follows the guidelines below with regards to content and good taste.

To be good short fiction, the shorter a work is, the more power it must pack.

More details about submissions are available on the website.

Send submissions and queries to thechambermagazine@gmail.com.

The Chamber Magazine is Seeking Dark Fiction and Poetry from Around the World

To be good short fiction, the shorter a work is, the more power it must pack.

More details about submissions are available on the website.

Send submissions and queries to thechambermagazine@gmail.com.

Update for March 4, 2021: Lycanthrope

Here is a quick update on my progress on my horror novel, Lycanthrope.

Currently, I have over 46,000 words on Lycanthrope and I am gradually building toward a climax, probably the first of two or three along with at least two plot twists that should spice things up.

The main setting of Lycanthrope is in rural southeast Arkansas, but it ranges over a lot of the area. So far, action has taken place in an unnamed small town in southeast Arkansas, Memphis, Little Rock, and Shreveport.

I like to set things in places where I have been because I feel it adds an air of authenticity to the story. In this way, I can describe things that people who haven’t been there would experience, but which natives would note as missing. Hemingway and Fitzgerald set the majority of their stories in places they had known. For me, this makes their stories quite realistic, which is a quality I would like to achieve with my writing. I want the reader to vicariously live the experience described in my stories. I want to make it so realistic that the reader feels that he or she is the protagonist.

I can write comfortably about southeast Arkansas, Little Rock, and Memphis, because I have been to those places. I have not been to Shreveport, however, and had to rely on the Internet to get an idea of the city. I described the Shreveport setting in rather vague terms, so that the action seems plausible. I hate it that I had to describe Shreveport without having been there. Maybe I will get the chance to go before I finish Lycanthrope. If that happens, I will be able to revise the Shreveport events in the story enough to intensify the reader’s vicarious experience. I have plans for later events to take place in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but I have spent a lot of time there, so I can accurately describe the locations where events will take place.

Currently, I am writing about events that take place in Texarkana. I have been to Texarkana several times, so I have something of a feel for the place. However, I have not been to the places where the events are taking place and I am having to rely on the Internet, and particularly Google Earth, to enliven my description of the setting. However, Texarkana is only three hours from where I live in Gillett, so I can probably go up there one weekend and scope things out where the novel’s actions take place.

On another matter, I am going to explore using the Anchor App to produce podcasts of my posts, so that I can reach a wider audience. This post will be my first test of the Anchor system. I have liked what I have seen of the system so far and I think it will be useful.

Take care, stay safe, and have a pleasant day.

My Kind of Place to Write

Before the Coronavirus struck, I used to love to go to coffee shops or diners and write with a decent pen into a spiral notebook. I have a few dozens of these on my library shelves, where I would come up with an idea while out running errands and then go buy a notebook (I always carried a pen with me to jot ideas down on napkins, etc.) and then head to a coffee shop. As for my beverage of choice at moments like this, I normally imbibe basic American coffee, black, or unsweet iced tea. Even when I go to Starbuck’s (or went to Starbucks during the pre-coronavirus days), I would often order just their café Americano, black. Occasionally, I might order a vanilla latte. If I felt like living a bit of a life of luxury, I would order an Irish cream breve. All of these would usually be in the (euphemistically termed) tall or grande sizes.

I put this ambience video on to listen to while I work this afternoon. It is supposed to be the Double R diner from the 80’s TV series Twin Peaks. Looking at this, I became nostalgic and wished I could find a place like this again. This diner is straight from the 80’s and is a place I would love to sit with a notebook and spend an afternoon, and maybe even into the evening, scribbling down ideas as fast they come. Usually, when I am writing a scene, it’s like a movie is playing in my head and I am just noting down everything I see as fast as I can. I can even envision the dialogue between people and what is going on inside their heads to make them say what they say. It’s a very enjoyable process. I can become totally immersed in it for a while and therefore it is great for relieving stress, tension, anxiety, what have you. Just being in a place like this once again would be a bit of paradise for me again.

Just look at the place in detail. It has the old-style, Naugahyde bench seats. On the table closest is a slice of cherry pie, which Agent Dale Cooper (played by Kyle McLachlan) used to eat at the end of an episode. There is also an old style tape recorder with a cassette in it and an old style hotel key, which was used before key cards made their debut. In the front booth and to the reader’s right are the traditional mustard and ketchup bottles, a sugar dispenser, salt and pepper shakers, and a worn menu. In the very back under the plate glass window and to the left is an actual jukebox. The slow, soft jazz playing is perfect for a setting like this. I have been in many, many places like this across the US. In the back of the front booth and on a shelf is an ash tray with a burning cigarette in it. Although a lot of people hate tobacco smoke, I would love to smell it in restaurants and bars again.

Good times.

Hopefully, before long, this pandemic will be over and we can once again pack places such as this and not even wear a mask.

Update: Progress on Lycanthrope, Feb. 2, 2021, 4:56 a.m.

I resurrected Lycanthrope on December 31 and now have 45,729 words in it. I couldn’t sleep, so I am working on it now (4:56 a.m.).

As you know, I love the ambience videos on YouTube. I was watching the one below to help me relax and fall asleep, but my mind wouldn’t shut down (I was mulling over my life as a whole). Therefore, instead of wasting time lying in bed (actually on the sofa, which I find more comfortable), I decided to write.

I came to a point in the story where the protagonist and his girlfriend are in wolven form in the forest late one night. Without going into details I don’t want to reveal, for the setting I decided to base my description of the setting they are experiencing on the video below. It turned out to be exactly the right touch the story needed.

If you are ever up late at night, and need to wind down and relax, I recommend this video. It is a beautiful moment that lasts twelve hours. Just set your TV to YouTube, turn out the lights, maybe light some candles and/or incense that smell of the forest, and revel in the moment. That’s what my characters do.

Creepy Cabin in the Woods

As you may know, I live in house in the remote backwoods of Arkansas on what was once a civil war battlefield. A few thousand probably died here and my house is probably very near where the Union commanding officer stood while directing the fight, which was only a hundred yards or so away.

Being so solitary and the woods are often filled with strange noises, especially at night, this can be a spooky place to be at times, particularly at night when foxes scream searching for a mates while barn owls scream at nothing in particular. Both of these sound very much like human screams. Once when both were going on together, stepping out the back door was like listening to the screams from a not too distant torture chamber. Thankfully this doesn’t happen too often.

As you may also know, I am into ambience videos which run for hours on end and aim at setting a certain mood. There are some that set a happy or light mood or a fantasy mood like you might find in The Lord of the Rings or set in some idyllic medieval world or even on another planet. I like spooky ones or dark and mysterious one. There are a few that emulate the atmosphere of Blade Runner, which I have found recently and which I really enjoy.

I found this video today while searching for ones that set a “werewolf ambience” to play while I continue writing Lycanthrope.

Right now, it’s almost 5:00 p.m. and overcast and wet following a few days of rain. The temperature is near 60 (Fahrenheit). Twilight is coming soon. I stepped out the front door just now to check the outdoor temperature on our outdoor thermometer and I heard birds singing not too far off. There’s a slight wind blowing. Although gray and dreary, it’s rather pleasant.

If the wind picks up, as twilight encroaches, the atmosphere around my house (which is quite modern as opposed to the rundown one seen in this video) will be a lot like that in this video. I don’t hear the insects now as in this video, but they will come out as summer approaches. I hear owls like this often. There is an eerie, ghostly waver I hear in this that I don’t hear (of course) out here. Nonetheless, this video captures the spirit of what the woods around my house will be like in an hour or two. And it’s now February, not Halloween.

Enjoy.

Update: Lycanthrope

I just now reached 40, 246 words on Lycanthrope. According to my scan of publishers on Duotrope, 40,000 words is the minimal word count that almost all publishers will consider a novel.

My best estimate currently is that I will need another 20,000 words to complete Lycanthrope. I have been working on this since the end of December. I stopped work on Shadows and Stars to pursue Lycanthrope because the ideas for it were coming fast and furious. They still are. I work on this almost every night.

I have recently come up with a couple of really good plot twists that should make this interesting. These will bring a supernatural element into the story.

Once I have the first draft finished, which should not be long now, I will do some editing, but I expect to do minimal revision. Of course, that could change. I am coming up with new ideas and I like subtle plot twists. I also like to leave some subtle clues hinting at a denouement, but these could be a red herring too.

This work is being increasingly intriguing for me.

For me, I see the events unfolding in my head and I just write down a description of what I am visualizing. Sometimes the characters take control and I just watch and record.

Hasta luego. I need to sleep.

Werewolf in Action (Theoretically)

I found this while surfing Twitter today. I dare say that this is the closest you will ever come to seeing an actual werewolf in action. Now, you understand why the peoples of 16th-17th century Europe feared wolves and were terrified at the thought of werewolves.

Anytime i hear AC: Valhallas Eivor being called wolf-kissed i'm like: "So like this?" pic.twitter.com/ChEsM97nk3
— Chaki@woof.bork 🐺🏳️‍🌈 (@Smorgasbork) February 24, 2021

Playlist: Diegaro

Here is an article I published on The Chamber Magazine today. I thought it would be suitable for this blog as well.

The Chamber Magazine

Sometimes in my YouTube account, I create playlists of music to help inspire my writing of one work or another. Below is my playlist “Diegaro”. “Diegaro” is Esperanto for Gathering of the Great Gods (Esperanto is the artificial language I use as the alien language). I listen to this sometimes to inspire or accompany work on my sci-fi novel Shadows and Stars, sometimes just to start the morning.

In the novel, the two main characters, the astrophysicist Daryn Jacob and his bodyguard/guide, Baslo Sero, are traveling by foot on a long journey across the planet Zaigosh. On Zaigosh, religion is outlawed. Nonetheless, tens of thousands of worshippers of many gods meet in secret and away from the government’s eyes in a remote canyon. Daryn and Sero happen into this celebration and see many odd and wild things. This playlist is a soundtrack for what they experience in the Diegaro.

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Update, February 22: Progress on Lycanthrope

As you probably know, I have been taking a break from writing Shadows and Stars and working on Lycanthrope, a psychological thriller/horror instead.

Shadows and Stars is over 150,000 words and needs some editing and a little revision, but revising it was becoming complex and I was becoming a little burnt out on it. There is also something more I need to do to it, but I haven’t quite figured that out yet.

However, the ideas for Lycanthrope started to flow about that time and they keep flowing. Lycanthrope will be a psychological thriller about a man in rural Arkansas who wants to become a werewolf and therefore researches the combination of herbs that was used to do this in the Middle Ages. It is then about his reign of terror and its end. I am writing it in stream-of-consciousness style as if he were writing down everything in a journal.

This is an idea I have had bouncing around in my head for literally decades. I first came up with the idea for a novel about a werewolf when I was serving aboard the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) from 1991-93. I started writing it but never got farther than a few pages. I really didn’t know anything about writing novels at that time. I tried tinkering with it off and on for years, but never had a good concept of where I wanted to take it. That all changed in December. I started it afresh then and now have 38,514 words that are almost finished. I will have very little editing to do to these. I would like to reach 80,000, but I will take the story as far as necessary to tell the tale completely, whether that is 50,000 or 70,000 or whatever. Right now, I doubt I will go past 75,000.

When I first conceived the story, it was set in the Northwest near Bremerton, WA, where I was living at the time. When I moved to Texas, I thought about setting it there. When I moved to New Mexico, I thought about setting it there. I have always wanted to set it where I was living at the time, so that I could describe the terrain and culture accurately. Now that I live in Arkansas, Arkansas seems a perfect fit, although one doesn’t usually associate Arkansas with wolves like one would do with mountains and endless forests. However, in the rural setting of southeast Arkansas, it seems natural that a man who wants to escape his life here would dream of living in the mountains of the Northwest, and if he has a murderous bent, he would dream of being a werewolf ranging through the Olympics and Cascades. If he can’t relocate and is stuck here, then he would be a werewolf here. This area is open with a lot of huge crop fields, but it is also surrounded by seemingly endless forests. Its population is sparse, so that a werewolf could range far and wide without being seen as he seeks out opportunities to prey upon people living on the edge of society.

Also, when I first conceived the story, I was going through a rather dark phase of my life and my mentality turned toward dark things like horror movies. Oddly, thinking about dark things, so long as I don’t dwell on them constantly, seems to me find relief from the darkness sometimes surrounding me. I think it is because that somehow I realize that no matter how bad my life might be, it can always be much worse. Maybe it’s because if I feel down getting lost in a horror movie or writing a dark story provides an escape of sorts, so that it is easier to face whatever that is bringing me down. It’s hard to explain. I have never been one for cheery, happy stuff anyway. Facing horror seems to prepare me for horrible moments, whereas someone who has only known happiness would be overwhelmed by those moments.

After I moved to Texas in 1993, I went through a period where I constantly read up on murderers and serial killers as research for Lycanthrope. That fascinated me for a long time, but then I reached a point where it nauseated me, not just from having read so much on one subject, but because I was beginning to see serial killers for the sick, twisted freaks they are. Of course, that line from Nietzsche always come to mind when thinking about those times and I can tell you from experience what it feels like: ““Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

That research has also paid off in providing background for another as yet unfinished novel: The Man Who Escaped from Hell. I have about 80,000 words on that. That will take more revision than Shadows and Stars, but I can foresee finishing it now. It is another novel that I have had weighing on me for years and years, though not nearly as long as Shadows and Stars.

Anyway, I need to get at least a little sleep now. I have been writing this only because my insomnia has hit me tonight. I still don’t feel like sleeping, but I must.

Hasta luego.

Call for Submissions: Seeking Essay on Contemporary Dark Romanian Literature

Here’s a good opportunity for someone seeking publication in a US magazine.

Update: Lycanthrope, February 12, 2021

As you may know, I have started on another novel entitled Lycanthrope. I am still working on Shadows and Stars, but I have ideas constantly flowing about Lycanthrope, so I am getting them down as fast as possible.

The story is about a man who decides he wants to become a werewolf, so he researches the Medieval potions used to transform someone into a werewolf and uses them. The story is set in modern-day rural Arkansas. I am writing it in the form of a journal, so that as I think up stuff, I can jot it down and it will fit in neatly with what I have written so far. I do very little revising or editing to keep it as realistic as possible. Like a journal, it doesn’t have a meticulously laid-out plot. It is haphazard and jumps from topic to topic, just like life. I am delving into the lycanthrope’s psychology. Telling this in first person is a challenge, because I have to think carefully about what to include and what to omit. I want to give some background on a subject now and then, but then I have to reign in that drive after I consider that a person would not know that from firsthand experience. So, the novel will have a nebulous feel to it. I have not stated a town in which this happens, because I do not want anyone to get the impression I am saying a murderous werewolf hails from their town. I may create a fictitious town name later, but for now I like not giving the town name and keeping it mysterious. I do name some of the towns around here through which the protagonist may pass now and then, but so far, I haven’t stated the name of the town where he lives.

I have written just over 23,000 words in just over a month. I would like to have it reach 100,000, but if the story ties up neatly at around 50,000-80,000, so be it. I want just enough words to tell the story and no fluff. I like lean, muscular writing.

That’s it for now. I will hopefully write more later.

Excellent Summary of Werewolf Lore

As you know, I have been working on a novel about a modern lycanthrope, called, appropriately, Lycanthrope. I researched werewolves sometime back as well as werewolf movies and videos. This video from YouTube’s Top 5 Scary Videos is an excellent, detailed, quick and dirty summary of werewolf lore from the historical perspective. I will post more werewolf-related material here as I come across it.