An Amazing April Writing Symposium

Me teaching a packed room on living a literary lifestyle

Over the winter, I was asked to teach at what was presented to me as a unique opportunity. A literary event was being organized and it would be held at Coppertoppe Retreat Center, where my writers' group spent an unforgettable Halloween weekend in 2015. Caring for a disabled spouse makes travel now both rare and difficult, but I committed to the weekend while snow was piling up and the subzero winds howled around Xanadu. I knew I couldn't say no.

Over the next few months, I made arrangements for round-the-clock nursing care, formulated the workshops I would lead, and also set goals, professional and personal, for the weekend. One of the workshops needed to be on a subject close to my heart -- "Living a Literary Lifestyle", something I both preach and practice. I was also requested to hold a lecture on writing Mysteries, as I've had some wonderful successes in recent months in that particular genre. As winter waned, the towering walls of snow around our home melted, and the date arrived, I grew anxious and excited -- the latter because of the opportunity presented, the former because I would be leaving the house, loved one, and cats for the first time in nearly two years. It turned out they were in the best of hands.

I packed lightly, as I always did when traveling, and departed a full day before the symposium was scheduled to begin with good pals Edwin Berne and Judi Calhoun. We traveled down to beautiful Newfound Lake and the retreat center, the first arrivals. Our hosts, Sheila and Bill, were as gracious and pampering as always. An incredible dinner (pork roast wrapped in bacon) greeted us, and we three hung out in the big bedroom upstairs and talked the writing life. After dinner, we gathered downstairs among the cafe tables overlooking the lake and wrote. I began a terrifying ghost story called "The Woman in the Wallpaper", one of three projects I brought to work on between sessions.

The following morning found me again downstairs by 5 a.m., belting out fresh pages at a dizzying speed. Over that first early cup of coffee, our dear friends and fellow conferees The Sisters Dent motored up the long, winding drive and joined us for a scumptious breakfast. I finished the first draft of my story, and soon the masses descended. The symposium kicked off with spirited conversations and my first workshop as, outside, the sky opened up and rain hammered our surroundings.

Among the other esteemed teachers that weekend were Tor Books senior SF editor Mosche Feder and agent Beth Marshea of Ladderbird Literary Agency. Beth held an insightful open discussion on the writer-agent relationship, and on Saturday Moshe led a Milford method-style consultation with six of us novelists on our current projects. My novel-in-progress, Grave Space, earned high marks from he and Beth, and I am presently tearing through the remainder of the novel for submission.

With Edwin Berne, Beath Marshea, Clarence Young, Roxanne Dent, and Judi

Other wonderful workshops were held formally and informally around the enormous table-for-twenty at the heart of Coppertoppe, where a gourmet feast was offered throughout the weekend. Of particular note was a roundtable held by the amazing Clarence Zig Zag Young, a writer based in Detroit. His workshop on the joy of writing filled me with inspiration, and his body of work is superb. Following the completion of my ghost story, in and amongst I also wrapped a draft of "Absolutely Murderous", a murder mystery set at a drag review. That third project brought along for the weekend didn't get touched because, simply, we ran out of time. There was no lack of passion, which infused the atmosphere. Our final treat before departing for home was a workshop led by Dan Szczesny. Following yet another gourmet lunch, we headed for home, all of us committed to writing to the next level. It was a one-of-a-kind experience, and one I'm so grateful to have experienced as part of my literary life.

Meet the Talented and Luminous Kyle Rader

Six years ago on one of those scorching August dog day Wednesday nights I remember so fondly, I had the pleasure of meeting a young writer eager to learn the business side of the literary life. I was immediately impressed by both his chops and his passion for the words -- he shared a chapter of his first novel, and was receptive of the feedback provided by the members who make up the divine experience that is the Nashua Writers' Group. As the weeks progressed, I grew more fond of Kyle Rader -- the writer with, I often say, the most action-y/adventure-y byline ever. My new friend listened, worked to improve, shrugged off criticism, and put down the pages. Soon after joining the group, he began to submit his short fiction. Not long after that, Kyle earned the first of numerous acceptance letters.

Before our move north, Kyle started work on a Western/Horror hybrid novel about a triggerman trapped in a dangerous town in a blizzard who finds himself stalked by five of his mortal enemies, and with only four bullets to defend himself. It was my pleasure to hear early chapters during Wednesday writers' group meetings, the occasional Sunday party, or at the Friday night literary salons held at our former apartment with friends and food. Kyle finished Four Bullets after our move (while also penning new novels, novellas, and short stories at an admirable pace), and the novel found a home at Sinister Grin Press. It was my pleasure to sit down and talk with Kyle about Drake Travis, the shadowy lead in Four Bullets, his process, and what he's got in store for the future.

I love your novel. Bold, unapologetic, beautifully written. What’s the genesis behind your original idea for Four Bullets?

Thank you very much! Four Bullets is a source of pride and pain for me. Pride, because, it is my debut novel, obviously. Pain, because it took me so damn long to complete! The seed of the idea that became Four Bullets actually started as a dream, as clichéd as that sounds, it is true. The dream, which I scribbled down on some piece of paper I’d been using to capture story prompts and ideas (I now use my Idea Notebook), was quite removed from the end product of the story. In the dream, it took place in a desert, kind of like any Western town you’ve seen in the countless movies/TV shows that have come before. And, in the dream, the story played out as one long action sequence, so, all I knew was that the protagonist was released from a jail cell, given a gun with four bullets and told to head out into the town square and defeat five people. I thought the idea was cool enough that I decided I would turn that into a short story. This was fairly early on in what I am considering my ‘professional’ writing career, meaning, I was writing with the expressed goal of being published, so I was fairly green. When I sat to write the story, I fully intended to make it as close to that dream as I possibly could. However, when I sat down to outline -- I used to outline ALL my works, not just novels -- I rolled my eyes at how clichéd it was. A Western in the desert? Really original. The hero saving the day? Played out. So, I made the decision to change the setting from the summer and the desert to the dead of winter in the middle of a blizzard. It was that simple really. Coming to create Drake Travis, the Devil’s Claw, Captain Marsden and the rest of the cast, was trickier. I realized that making the protagonist the hero of the story was boring to me. All I could think of was Dudley Do-Right and I nearly abandoned the story altogether. I then remembered, of all things, reading a story arc in Action Comics, where the protagonist was Lex Luthor, and not Superman. He was still the evil guy you’d expect, yet, he was written in such a way where he got to do all the villainous things, and still be the one you were rooting for! I took that principle and decided to apply it to Four Bullets, and, thus, Drake Travis came to be. So, kiddies, if you ever wanted to know how to write a villain as your protagonist, there is your answer. Surround him or her with people that SEEM much worse by comparison. They may NOT be worse, but your audience just needs to think they are, otherwise, they won’t stay onboard with you as you make your character do terrible things. Anyways, it quickly became apparent that a short story wouldn’t be able to cover everything I wanted to say, so Four Bullets became a novella, and was COMPLETED as one, actually, until I went over it again and realized that I STILL had more to say, and had to add more in. The entire process of writing took longer than I feel it should’ve, but it taught me a lot of about writing longer pieces and outlining and editing that I use to this day.

In Drake Travis, you’ve created a hell of a protagonist. Not necessarily a hero. A flawed man with blood on his hands. And you clearly had a great deal of fun writing for him. When Hollywood casts Drake, who do you want in the role?

Ah, the question every writer asks him/herself about their stories! It’s certainly a fun one to ponder, that is for sure. Physically speaking, Drake Travis is rather unassuming. I essentially modeled his physique after my own, in that, he’s your average height and fairly lean. Not exactly the kind of person you think of when it comes to gunfights and action, which was my point. There is an actor, of whom, I actually never considered would make a good Drake until fairly recently and now that he’s in my head, I can see Drake as being anyone but. That guy is named Ben Foster. You’ve most likely seen him in many films, but the one that really, really stands out, at least for me, is 30 Days of Night, based on the graphic novel by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith. The movie itself, is all right; good, but doesn’t quite reach the heights that the concept allows for. Ben Foster is only in two or three scenes and, in those scenes, completely steals the entire movie. He makes a lot of interesting choices in his acting and I feel he’s got the look, but the depth of his craft to ‘get’ who Drake really is. On paper, Drake Travis is just a psychopathic killer. The ultimate bad guy. In reality, he’s so much more. I don’t consider him to be evil, because I don’t consider him to truly be human. Earlier drafts of Four Bullets had Drake with a lot more humorous things to say, but I cut a bulk of them because I wanted to really strip him down and see how it played, and, I think it played out quite well.

You know I’m a fan of your work. Where can readers read your short fiction?

The easiest place to track down my stuff is to go to my website: www.kylerader.net. I’ve got a section for all my published works there, and, I’ve even got a couple of freebies I created exclusively for the site up as well! So, hit me up over there and leave me some love.

Would you share with readers the story of your Idea Notebook? I’m always so impressed to see you flipping through that monstrosity!

Before I got serious about writing, if I had an idea, I’d scrawl it down (FYI: I have the WORST penmanship. It’s embarrassing!) on any random piece of paper I could find. In fact, I wrote down an idea for a short story two years ago on the back of a receipt from a brewery and I still have it! (story should be coming out soon, too!). As one can imagine, this becomes problematic from an organizational standpoint. While some people enjoy chaos, and even thrive in it, it simply wasn’t cutting it for me. So, I went out and bought a three-subject notebook and began to transfer some of the more prominent ideas into it; I also shoved some of the random scraps inside of the pages as well. I started using this notebook to not only capture new ideas for stories, but to outline them as well. In fact, the first outline of Four Bullets currently exists inside Idea Notebook Number One, I’ve a second one that I’ve been using for the capture of new ideas, a beautiful, one-of-a-kind one made for me by the uber-awesome Judi Calhoun (NAME DROP!!) I’ve toyed with exactly HOW I log things into the notebook over the years, but my main entry is really just to write down a sentence or two that describes the idea I’ve had. Most times, I am lucky enough to even come up with the title of the story along with the idea, so that will go in as well. For example, that story I mentioned that I wrote on the receipt? I came up with the title at the same time as the idea because it was taken directly from something my wife said at the time I wrote it. She was speaking about how, when she was a child, they’d buy honey from this old man who lived at the top of this windy hill down in South Carolina. ‘Let’s go see the honey-man!’, is what she said, and that is what the story is named. FYI, if you’re looking for a quaint story with a happy ending, you won’t find it in that one.

You often juggle numerous novel projects. What are you presently working on, and what are your writing plans for 2017?

Writing hasn’t been coming as easy to your old pal as of late. Been a bit distracted by life, the day job, and all that comes along with it. Lately, it kind of feels like pulling teeth when I sit down to get some of my REAL work in, yet, I press on. Even if its only two hundred words in a couple hours of work, that is still two hundred words down in my story that weren’t there before! I’m planning on an ambitious 2017. I’m currently at work on four novels, and am putting the finishing touches on a fifth, which my goal is to begin submitting for consideration early next year. I have this desire in me to be able to stop the daily grind of corporate work and write for a living, and, because of that, I’m taking on so, so much more than I used to, writing-wise. It’s a double-edged sword, of course, because that very ambition pushes down on me too hard, as it is lately, I think, and then I become far too hard on myself and get in a mind-set where I am counter-productive and am not getting ANYTHING done! I’ve also a novella that I am shopping around, which I hope to land a home for shortly! Fans of Four Bullets may not recognize these stories, as they range from transgressive comedy all the way to crime fiction, but, the same bold, unapologetic style that I have is still present, of that I can guarantee! I’m very punk rock/heavy metal when it comes to my writing, at least, in attitude, anyway.

BEHOLD -- MURDER INK!

During the summer months at Xanadu, my mornings begin in my spectacular Writing Room and quickly transition to the sofa on our sun porch, where I spend my days writing. On one balmy late May morning, with iced coffee and blueberry seltzer sweating within reach, lap desk on lap, and pen racing across the page, I happened to look up and noticed something out of place in the view beyond the windows. That part of our home faces the bend in the road, and the brooding gray house that has sat empty for over a decade. A black Mercedes Benz was parked at the curb in front of the house. My pen skidded to a stop. I sipped from my iced coffee, got up, grabbed another notepad from my Writing Room, settled back on the sofa between our two rescue cats, and wrote these words: Stare out the same window long enough and you're destined to see something.

In one of those Eureka! moments, an entire new story was born. I put pen to the fresh notepad and began writing "Exhuming Secrets on a Hot August Day", a tale about a reporter obsessed with a crime that took place at his best friend and confident's house a decade earlier. Like me that same month, the reporter had lost his estranged father, and was, in fact, writing the obituary when he noticed a car parked in front of the house, scene of the unsolved crime. That first longhand draft of "Exhuming" dashed itself off over the next two days and was accepted into Murder Ink, an anthology of mystery and crime fiction set in New England newsrooms edited by Dan Szczesny. This weekend, Murder Ink will be given a spectacular launch at The New England Newspaper and Press Association Conference held in Boston at the Park Plaza Hotel, complete with luncheon and author reading. I'll be sharing the opening to "Exhuming" (and long last holding my beautiful contributor copies, which feature stunning cover art by Donna Catanzaro), and there's confirmation that a Murder Ink 2 is in the works. In fact, I've been invited to feature my character from the first round in a sequel for this next installment.

Many of my fellow authors in Murder Ink's stellar Table of Contents shared the back-stories behind their stories.

Judi Calhoun on "Murder at the Monitor": "I was observing city workers out the window as they were cutting down trees -- not just any trees, but the birch, New Hampshire’s state tree. Having traveled across the USA many times, I pondered the idea that in some places in US cities, certain official trees are protected. But the birch, not so much in our state, perhaps because they are so plentiful. I was thinking about the nature of my character, detective Rick Knightly. As I was looking at those tall white trees, I saw him interrupt the workers and irreverently unzip his fly.  The moment I pictured this, Rick Knightly began to unfold in my head. I wanted to know more about him. So, I began to do a voice journal and I interviewed my character. I discovered he really was an exceptionally brilliant detective who could easily solve crimes, but he wasn’t happy because he couldn’t make his wife happy, and this was a very big puzzle to Rick. I thought maybe his wife Wanda was a sort of a demanding woman who really wanted to have some birch trees planted in the yard. Rick told me that after their breakup, he sort of fell apart and began to drink a little heavier, pissing Wanda off even more and without even realizing it he was sabotaging their relationship. Other than his wife, his other love was his job. That’s what kept Rick going: the love of the game…detective work, interrogating suspects, and quickly solving crimes. And at the end of his interview he told me he realized the one thing he wanted most of all is his wife back, but he really doesn’t know how to be that man."

Tom Sheehan on "Grave Robber Extraordinary": "The basis of the story, theft of cemented coins, is true. We were kids loving the Saturday movies which, at that time, included an A picture, a B picture, the news, the coming attractions, a comic or cartoon session in a series, such as The Three Stooges or Popeye, Olive Oyl, Wimpy, and Bluto. Oftentimes there was no promise of a few pennies for the theater. That's when we struck on the idea of doing a little hammer and chisel work. But all those players are gone now, my theater pals, the coin man who decorated his steps, and the theater itself, twisted apart thirty years ago. I am the lone survivor of our group and, as I have captured many other childhood incidents, I thought it best to bring this one to paper. That's how this story started ... and my often going past Mr. Zinias's house on the side of the hill, as close as a house can be to Route 1 heading north, our busiest road. I pass it often. I look up at it often. I remember my pals often, and brought them close once again in this story."

Dan Rothman on "Nothing Nasty on Page One": "In search of a setting for a Murder in a Newsroom, I thought first of Manchester, New Hampshire – thirty-five square miles of mean streets and dark alleys. There’s probably a murder there every fifteen minutes. And a famous (or infamous?) statewide newspaper once had its newsroom just a couple of blocks off Elm Street. However, I’m not a city boy. I live fifteen miles west of the Queen City, in a small town whose hills are patterned with stonewalls and fields and forests. This is a different world. I’ve had moose in my backyard, and the pileated woodpeckers which hammer on my beech trees remind me of prehistoric pterodactyls.  It’s quiet here, except for the woodpeckers; my town recently appeared on a list of New Hampshire’s ten safest. Even so… I’ve got a file of Untimely Deaths in my town’s history that goes back 250 years. Under the cotton-puff clouds which float lazily in the blue sky over my village, who knows what unspeakable deeds might be happening at this very minute? What if I wrote a story of a murder -- or murders -- in a small town? A small town with its own newspaper? Let me hasten to add that my short story ‘Nothing Nasty on Page One’ is not necessarily based on my town nor the local newspaper which appears in my mailbox the first week of every month."

Roxanne Dent and Karen Dent on "The Death of Honeysuckle Rose": "When editor Dan Szczesny and Plaidswede Books put out the call for Murder Ink, a collection of crime fiction based in New England, three words, Noir, Mystery and Newsroom Crime immediately inspired us to write a story. The images they conveyed pulled us back to the 1940s and ‘50s, when the gritty, dark and cynical world of Film Noir and the popularity of newspapers were all the rage. We thought of films like The Maltese Falcon and Double Indemnity and tough detectives like Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum, but decided to turn the genre on its head and focus on an equally tough and cynical female reporter. When we started looking for a New England setting, we were blown away by what we discovered about Portsmouth’s involvement in World War II and a little known story by today’s generation."

O. Lucio D'Arc on "One Way Dead End": "I had been working for several months on a novelette loosely titled, "Pine Street Blues," and was up to about 22,000 words when this anthology opportunity came along. Was there any way I could reduce my work to the 8,000-word limit required for the book? Sure, I told myself. I've been editing for four decades in the newspaper business in one way or the other. So I did. It's probably a better tale now. I tell everybody I whittled it down by deleting all the sex scenes, which is only partially true. When I first started writing I just had in my mind a scene in a ratty bar, where the finished story, ‘One Way Dead End,’ begins, and I had no idea where it was going, how many murders there would be along the way or who-dun-it. It all came out of my head. I've never had so much fun."

Mark Arsenault on "Murder by the Letter": "A reporting colleague of mine came across the call for stories for the Murder Ink anthology a few days before the last call for submissions, and referred it to me. So ‘Murder by the Letter’, a crime story about newspaper reporters, is itself a piece of deadline writing. I’m normally pretty slow with fiction, but in this case I managed to get it done because I was so painfully familiar with the larger setting of the story, which formed the atmosphere and guided the tone of the writing. It is a crime story set within the slow-motion murder of the newspaper industry, which I have watched for twenty years. Most people understand how and why the industry has suffered. Publishers, facing falling revenue, cut back on their newsrooms and weaken their product. Readers aren’t fooled; they understand when they’re getting less, and some won’t stand for it. So revenues drop some more, and the cycle repeats like a mindless snake eating its own tail. So when I dropped a smart-mouthed protagonist into this setting, the writing went unusually fast. I got the tone I wanted on the first try. With a little sleepless, hysterical, forget-to-eat effort, I made deadline."

Victor D. Infante on the “The Death of a Copy Editor: “I have a confession to make. I began writing the first draft of this short story at 6 a.m. the day it was due, and I finished it by noon. What can I say? I’m a journalist. I thrive on deadlines. But I had wanted for a while to capture that frustration of that vanishing aspect of journalism, the despair and anger that came when a job that’s already implicitly invisible disappears even more.” 

Amy Ray on "A Nose For News": "As any New Englander will remember, we were slammed with snow last winter (Boston hit a record 108.6 inches!) While digging out my walk, hoisting the shovel high enough to clear the snow bank that towered over my head, a crime started to form in my imagination. What if a murder occurred just before one of these killer snowstorms hit, covering the victim under an icy mound until the spring thaw? Drawing on my prior freelance experience, my protagonist was naturally a female reporter for a small weekly newspaper. I wanted to make my story different from what I imagined the other submissions would be like -- gritty, hard-boiled, noir -- so I wrote a cozy mystery, complete with animal sidekick. The canine hero, named Poe after the newspaper owner’s favorite author, was inspired by my friend’s adorable pug, Peter. I enjoyed writing in the cozy genre so much that I’ve since e-published the first of my Antiques Alley Short Mysteries. Even though I grumbled my way through last winter’s succession of storms, the endless shoveling let my mind wander and unearth ideas as fresh as the snow falling around me."

Donna Catanzaro on creating Murder Ink's killer cover: "When George Geers, the publisher, asked me to create a collage for the cover of a pulp fiction newsroom collection I immediately imagined the scene. It would be a smoky, dirty room, cluttered with files and old crime photos, placed in the past, back in the heyday of pulp fiction. I hadn’t read any of the stories that would be included in the book -- in fact I don’t think the stories had been chosen at that point. But as George informed me, pulp fiction covers rarely ever related to the contents of the books. As I worked on the piece a story developed. I placed a man’s body under the desk with an empty bottle of alcohol. Is he dead or passed out? A beautiful but tough newswoman, smoking a cigarette, is holding an old Graflex camera. She’s worked extra hard to get this position, so of course, she has arrived earlier than her male co-worker. Or maybe she’s been there all night. Has she photographed a crime? Or did she photograph the man under the desk for blackmail? The newsman clutches the phone. He just walked in. But who is he going to call: the police, the man’s wife, or his boss? He hesitates. Around the office are possible weapons: a gun and a letter opener -- but have they been used? Like most of my work, I imagine it to be a scene from a movie, or in this case, a short story. I invite a writer to finish this story if they find it inspiring, for the next Murder Ink!"

NaNoWriMo 2014 Part One

Five years ago, on a warm November Sunday that now seems part of another life, I put my pen to a fresh pad of paper, fifty blank sheets, and jotted the first sentence of my novel Lawrence, an homage I'd always wanted to write to one of my favorite movies of all time, Otto Preminger's brilliant film noir Laura.  I didn't know what I was in for exactly, other than that a publisher had mentioned interest in the book even before word one was written, and that I'd hitched myself to the runaway horse that is National Novel Writing Month. Every First of November dating back to 1999, untold flocks of writers delve into their creativity, hopeful that by the Thirtieth, they will have completed 50,000 words.  It's the kind of pressure and a commitment that may seem insurmountable. Not all make it to the finish line.  Far fewer than those that do go on to sell their novels (there's a great debate about quality among all that quantity, and plenty of chatter about lit agents cringing soon after the end of November rolls around). Regardless of the yay-sayers and nay-sayers, I gave it a whirl, And the whirlwind of that month was unforgettable.

(November 1, 2014 -- deep in Chapter One)

Over the course of thirty days, I belted out the entire first draft of Lawrence, along with a novella, a short screenplay, and two short stories. It's possible that November 2009 may be the most productive single month of my literary life.  I completed my novel not only on time but early, and throughout could not wait to return to the world of a New York socialite targeted for murder, the hardened cop who works to save him, and the delicious mystery that flowed from my psyche through my pen and onto the pages, which flew off the pad at a record speed.

With three friends of my way-cool local writers' group (and several from my extended circle), I decided to give NaNoWriMo another go in 2014, helped along by a literary agent who approached me about doing a M/M-themed fantasy novel (a sort of 'Gay of Thrones', if you will).  At first, I was hesitant; I'd already decided over the summer to work on a project called Different.  Given the deadline imposed by the agent, I did do something different after all -- over a day spent jotting down notes, I crafted a solid and engaging (I hope!) story called Kingdoms Be Damned. I committed to the novel with the agent, more so with the characters and the exciting, danger-fraught world they inhabit.  As the first of the month approached, I worked to clear the desk and then, this past Saturday (a morning far less balmy and sunny than its predecessor in 2009 -- in fact, we woke to the first trace of winter's snow!), I uncapped my pen, opened a fresh pad of paper, and dove in.

(NaNo Swag Bags -- break open in case of emergency!)

November 2009 was marked by lots of icy Diet Pepsi, sipped at numerous venues, like the town library where we used to live and the cozy comfort of the A & E Roastery, where the very first write-in kick-off to that year's literary road race was held.  Public write-ins, in which friends and strangers gather at destinations announced via social media, are a NaNo standard, and normally great motivation to put in one's words.  No such events exist up here in the North Country, so to honor the fun, I decided to create several for our circle of talented friends.  The first started in my living room on November 1, complete with gourmet hot chocolate (courtesy of the Barefoot Contessa), 'emergency' Swag Bags filled with notebooks, pens, Buffy bookmarks, and chocolate, pastry, and, of course, cold Diet Pepsi. I drank a lot of it way-back-then when, that month, we also all suffered from the ravages of the swine version of the flu.  No H1N1 this year, I hope.

(Second Write-in at the Berlin Public Library, courtesy
of Dan Szcezesny)

Our second official group write-in took place on Tuesday, the Third at our town library.  It's a beautiful building with the perfect tables for writing adventures set in far away lands, an amazing fireplace, and books that rise up, up, all the way to the distant ceiling and require those huge rolling ladders to access.  Good pals, the dynamic Judi Calhoun and Dan Szcezesny, who just got courted to write for The Huffington Post, joined me among the stacks for several productive hours. We wrote and boosted our word count despite the presence of a loquacious Marine recruiter at the table beside the one where we were camped with our novels. It was another unforgettable, fun time as we forged forward in our respective new adventures.  Later, we enjoyed a big dinner at home and a wonderful writers' group meeting.

A week into NaNoWriMo 2014, and this Wrimo (as we're lovingly called) has maintained a very healthy 2,500 daily word count -- to reach the 50K goal, one is expected to write 1,667.  I'm only 500 shy of reaching 17,500, and the exciting conclusion to Chapter 7.  At this rate, as before, I'll finish my first draft of Kingdoms a full ten days before the end of November.  Flus, colds, and the many horrors from the fantasy land within my novel willing, of course!

Autumn 2014 Writers' Retreat to the Waterfall House

(First morning, on the deck beside Crystal Falls)

In 2012, I traveled far and wide to conferences, readings, and retreats -- one of the latter set at the grand hotel on Star Island in the Isles of Shoals among that year's adventures.  Since buying our house in 2013, my retreats have been fewer and closer to home. Last spring, the members of my fantastic writers' group posed the notion of doing a weekend getaway to a house in nearby Stark, New Hampshire -- to a destination we've since come to refer to as the Waterfall House. As the name suggests, the house sits braced right up against Crystal Falls, a lovely local landmark.  The deck and one of the bedrooms gaze over the cascade, whose roar was ever present in the background. Four of us arrived early Thursday afternoon before the official start of the retreat, got eating, and then quickly got writing.

With the help of good pal, the talented Judi Calhoun, we shopped for eleven attendees (one of our literary colleagues was forced to cancel travel plans at the 11th hour).  We hit two of the three local grocery stores, and picked up a sheet cake at one made for the occasion.  En route to the house on a gorgeous, sunny day, we stopped at the famed local butcher for an enormous prime rib, bone in. From there, we landed at the Waterfall House, I kicked off my sneakers, and dove in.

After our easy meal of pizza and White Castle burgers, I sat in one of the house's two rockers

and lost myself in "Sound Effects", a short story I had started but never completed.  The rest of the story wrote itself over the next two hours, my pen gliding over the page, my hands cramping as a result of its speed.  I was beyond thrilled with the results, and went to bed in my room overlooking the falls excited to see what the next morning would bring.

At 5:30, before the sun had yet to rise, I woke and grabbed notes for one of my oldest unwritten stories, my robo-centric "The Long Frost" novella.  Serenaded by the constant rush of the falls, I put down the first ten pages before 7, showered, and sipped coffee while French toast and fruit were served up. By noon, I had started work on the most experimental of my retreat goals -- the screenplay for my short film script, "Voice Over".  I got down the first eight pages on my laptop before moseying back out into the kitchen, where I made homemade meatballs for that night's anticipated pasta dinner. In ones and twos, the rest of our group members arrived to claim rooms.  A luscious fruit salad crafted from fresh watermelon, cantaloupe, red and green grapes, local apples, and strawberries was made, fresh bread was buttered, and angel hair pasta and the aforementioned meatballs were served for a casual welcome meal.  I finished my movie script (at 17 pages/minutes), and we held the first of two group readings, in which I shared the opening of "The Long Frost".  I went to bed reading an ancient H.P. Lovecraft paperback in readiness for the following morning's project.

(In my room beside the falls)

That project was a long-ish story paying homage to Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls".  Judi had graciously provided us with story prompts to get the creative ink flowing -- and flow it did for all of us.  One prompt about planting seeds and the results inspired me to get going on "The Rats in the Bulkheads", my version set in deep space.  My pen, sensing the fatigue from my previous two days of nonstop writing, went at a slower than expected pace, but by lunch, I had the first 2,000 words.  I put our monstrous prime rib into the oven to slow roast for the rest of the afternoon, and boosted my story another thousand by the time it came out to rest.  I mashed potatoes, a second option (slow-roasted boneless pork roast with homemade apple sauce) joined the first, and a magnificent salad -- which I devoured with tangy bacon salad dressing -- completed the meal.  We ate, and then I returned to my room beside the falls, where I dashed off the remaining pages.  I shared the opening to "Rats" during that evening's reading, which ran late into the night.

I slept like granite, and woke on the final morning aware that my creative batteries had drained down to the barest sparks. I packed, enjoyed the homemade blueberry and caramel cakes made for our last retreat breakfast, and the flurry of departure began.  Once home, after enjoying time with husband and cats, I edited the movie script and printed up a hard copy, and unpacked all of my bags. The final tally: nearly 12,000 words between four projects (three of which were written to completion). A wonderful retreat with fantastic colleagues.  Now, it's time to put all I experienced at the Waterfall House into the next of my literary adventures!

The Bold and the Beautiful

I've always been a diehard Alphabet Network soap viewer (until those schmucks went ahead and cancelled All My Children and my favorite, the superb One Life to Live), so forgive the title of this post.  It seemed appropriate for a shout out for the latest release from Firbolg Publishing, Enter at Your Own Risk: The End is the Beginning, which contains my short story "Every Seven Years, Give or Take." I was honored to be part of this anthology, which boasts a veritable 'Who's Who' of gothic literature, present and past.  Notable names include the Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, H.P. Lovecraft, M. R. James, K. Trap Jones, B. E. Scully, Sydney Leigh, Norman Partridge and, nestled among the Table of Contents, yours truly.

Publisher Alex Scully has done a fine job assembling a thick and gorgeous book.  Or books, as is the case. I was thrilled when a fat package arrived in the mail on Monday, May 20  It contained my copy of the special edition World Horror Con 2014 hardcover release of the anthology, gorgeously enhanced by four vibrant color interior illustrations. There's something extra-special about reading your work in hardcover. The book (officially considered 'textbook-size') is so big, so beautiful, it doesn't stand upright in any of the glass-front bookcases that contain my archives of published work.

End is filled, cover to cover, with stories of environmental horror in which mankind's hubris comes back to haunt us. My particular contribution to the book owes to a dream I had twenty years ago, in which I was trapped in a house located somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.  Olfactory authorities claim we don't 'smell' in our dreams, but I remember vividly the thick fragrance of sap from the Douglas firs that surrounded the house, as well as the steady drip of rain.  Beyond the house, among those trees, terrible danger lurked.  Within the house, an equally deadly threat brewed.  Both were the result of our disposable society's shortsightedness.  We recycle almost everything here in our fair mountain town, and we compost year-round.  Still, having a tale in this book has made me feel like our small family is making a difference in helping to heal our wounded planet.

And then there's that Table of Contents. Who wouldn't love to have their original short story published alongside a reprint by the author who wrote Frankenstein?  Or the stellar Mister Poe, my favorite wordsmith of all time? The autumn my first book, Ghost Kisses, was released, I spent Thursday afternoons on the college campus where my then-writers' group met, reading his stories and mine and reciting "Lenore" -- that elegant elegy is still tattooed upon my grey matter, able to be invoked start to finish at a moment's notice.  As for Mister Hawthorne...

When I was in grade school, I boarded a bus for a memorable field trip to the House of the Seven Gables. I was blown away at the time to find myself standing in the setting of a book I had read and loved. In the gift shop, I purchased a postcard of the house in a green mat, which hung on my bedroom wall, unframed, from a thumbtack. Somewhere along the way, the postcard got lost.  Last year, my fabulous writing pal Judi Calhoun (a talented name to watch for), upon hearing the story, found the very postcard online -- and framed this one for me as part of my Christmas presents.  It now sits proudly in my Writing Room, atop the archives of my published work.  A week or so after Christmas, I learned that "Every Seven Years, Give or Take" would appear alongside a reprint of Hawthorne's classic, "Rappaccini's Daughter".  Bold stuff.  And quite beautiful.

Meet the Talented and Luminous Judi Calhoun

One of the many blessings of our new life North of the Notches is the fabulous creative community we've met and been welcomed by.  Early on, Judi Calhoun (who is as gifted an artist as she is a writer) impressed me with her creative passion -- and her brilliance in delivering a great read in both short and long story format.  A member of my Berlin Writers' Group, Judi's latest release is the engaging novel Ancient Fire in which a demon-slayer armed with a blessed weapon is tested not only in battle against the dark forces seeking to devour her family, but in matters of the heart when she meets a fellow warrior. Judi's prose is crisp, and her world building abilities top notch. Fire is a page-turner in the truest sense, and it was my delight to speak with the author about her exciting literary vision.

Your journey is as interesting as that of Shonna Wells, your heroine in Fire.

Even at a young age, adults labeled me a dreamer and made it sound like a bad word. Perhaps I was living in a dream world…retreating into my fantasies while my parents battled through an ugly divorce. I was constantly creating new fantasy realms and mysterious characters arriving on the scene in ballgowns, masks, and top hats with antenna…all to accompany my artwork. I once whimsically illustrated an entire cast of characters before I even wrote one line to my story. 

This combination I call visual writing was perhaps the best brainstorming contrivance I had in my toolbox as a child. At the time, I was not aware just how important this tool would become in my writing and art. When my husband and I moved to California in 1979, I started a photography business while attending classes at Palomar College, as an Art and English major. I also worked on the school newspaper and magazine and held an office in two major honor societies. Yet, it wasn’t until my husband suffered a major stroke that I donned my top hat, mask and scurried down the rabbit hole…back into my wonderland dream world. That’s when I really began to explore writing at a different magical level.

I love Fire -- is this part of a series and, if so, what's next for Shonna and Company?

Yes, I consider Ancient Fire, The Chronicles of Shonna Wells the first book. However, I wrote another smaller book about the younger Shonna, when she first received the power. It sold roughly 300 copies before going out of print. It’s not my best work. I wrote Ancient Fire, Book 2 in less than two months. It was the easiest book to write. I thought I must have done something wrong, so I kept going back over it, only to discover it was exactly how it should be.

This next volume picks up after Jake has graduated and is leaving for Colorado. While Shonna starts her senior year and struggles to exist without Jake, Rick Steel returns to New Bedford with motivations that are even more mysterious and perhaps still connected with the occult. Shonna’s battle is beyond psychological facing an enemy she cannot kill with her sword, learning the truth about her father and the business he was tangled up in that connects him to the house on Pine Street. The same house that Rick had taken her to the night of the fight with her mother.  

What other projects are you presently working on?

I find myself writing more and more short stories between novel projects. I never considered the possibility it would open up for me. I feel as if I’m acquiring a wealth of knowledge, priceless guidance that people like you, Gregory, offer without veiled motivation. Currently, I’m working on five novels and six short stories, as well as designing book covers for the next installment of Chronicles of Shonna Wells and a middle grade chapter book titled Leaving Holland Glen.

You're also quite the accomplished artist -- what's the Judi Calhoun method?

Other than the visual writing I mentioned earlier, I find self-disciplined, self-motivation to be key factors I believe I’ve got going for myself. I’m up at 4:00 or slightly later every morning, grabbing my cup of tea (me and Captain Picard) and I'm off to my work space to start writing or painting. Sure, I’m passionate about what I’m doing and that is what drives me.

I’ve heard people say they cannot create artwork without being inspired. I have to shake my head when I hear that kind of crap, because as a human being you have this incredible imagination to draw from, everyone does, unless you’re my third grade teacher, who stifled all artistic expression -- she claimed art was a waste of good paper. Not true of course. We are creative beings and we can create anything. Art is a learned process, like learning to play an instrument. Sure, there are people born with gifts, and everything comes natural to them, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to develop it and it also doesn’t mean you have to be born with abilities in order to follow creative dreams. That’s like saying that because you are not gifted you can never play the violin.

I don’t really have a set process in writing or art other than what I’ve already mentioned. Most artists see beauty in almost everything, even a dead leaf floating in a puddle, just as most writers see a story in faces they pass by on the street. We draw from our inner resource, our pain, our suffering, and our life experiences. We might identify with our characters without making every protagonist and antagonist carbon copies of ourselves. When I wrote Ian Corbet, the evil, demonic familiar spirit in Ancient Fire, I had to think about soulless creatures and what motivates them to hurt and destroy. How could I make Shonna’s life a living hell? Of course I included my own personal pain somewhat contrived. I’ve had a lot of pain in my life, which helps me to understand the human condition. I want my reader to identify with Shonna’s pain, disappointments and sorrow. No doubt, you’ve heard it said that writers spend far too much time in isolation, and need some social aspect. While that is very true, I find I have this wonderful time with my believable characters. You can try to label me crazy, but I enjoy being with my characters almost as much as being with friends. To me, they are just as real and the more time I spend with them, the more I know about their habits and what makes them tick.

Judi, you and I share a mutual love of '60s classic Science Fiction TV -- particularly, Lost in Space.  How has that love influenced your work?

I have always loved classic fantasy and most all Science Fiction. Television was a new medium when I was a kid. It quickly became the family thing to do, watching shows like The Twilight Zone and later on Lost in Space and the original Star Trek. They not only inspired me on so many levels, but as much as I enjoyed them, they caused me to ponder the possibilities. Lost in Space had some unbelievably complicated plots, sure many offered predictable outcomes, but a few caused me loss of sleep.  I would get frustrated with the plots and think I could have ended this differently. I would grab my journal and write a new ending; one I thought mirrored the beginning, giving the story more strength. I did this all in secret, because I didn’t want to suffer ridicule. According to my teachers I was astutely a lost cause.   

One particular episode of Lost in Space, "The Golden Man", stayed with me for years; I couldn’t get it out of my mind. This may sound completely unrelated, but it really isn’t…one day standing in the flower fields in Carlsbad, California near my former hometown of Oceanside, I was staring transfixed at flowers. Row after row of beautiful flowers and my imagination went back to that episode. I began to develop a plot for my story, which later on, much later, developed into a book, one of those novels currently in the process of truncation wonderfully titled, The Andalorian Bloodstone. 

May 2013 Writers Group Party

(with the brilliant poet/writer Esther Leiper-Estabrooks)

So much has changed in recent months.  Not taking into the equation the lurking malevolence of a cranial cyst that landed me in the hospital for four-plus days, those changes have been mostly for the better. We love our new life up here in the Great White North of New Hampshire, our beautiful new-old house, Xanadu, and the many new friends we've made -- not a full day in town, and I was seated at the monthly meeting of the local writers' group, where it was my pleasure to meet the legendary Esther Leiper-Estabrooks, who has since become a vibrant source of inspiration. And one of the things that remains the same in this new life is a love for breaking bread and sharing stories with my creative comrades, and so a week after my release from the hospital, we hosted our first writers' group(s) open house, and seventeen lovely scribes -- faces both familiar and new -- graced us with sumptuous offerings of food and fresh pages.  It was, in a word, spectacular!

The theme for the day's readings was 'Rebirth' (or variations: 'Spring', 'Resurrection', 'Renewal').  A week after our momentous move north from our former world to this big, bright new adventure, I sat in our living room and wrote a shiny, fresh idea based upon the cobalt blue lamp in our bay window.  The story, "Occupy Maple Street", inspired the theme, which seemed appropriate given our renewal here in a formerly sad old house that rises daily from neglect, and now -- dare I think it? -- smiles as a result of the happiness of its occupants.

The buffet was incredible. Among the many offerings, which stretched around our kitchen (you grabbed a plate, hopped in line, and traveled along counters, stove top, table, and finally the drinks station set up atop our big antique server with the marble top) were: maple-glazed pork roast, baby sausage torts, stacked, stuffed sandwiches, salads (potato, pasta, and green leaf), baby rolls and butter, perhaps the best dip for chips I've ever tasted, creamy mac & cheese, and an assortment of desserts almost too sinful to imagine -- berry pie, pineapple upside-down cake, and delicious little vegan-friendly coconut cupcakes by the fabulous Judi Calhoun, author of the Ancient Fire series.  In honor of the last big writers party we hosted, I made the same chocolate coconut cake, which suffered a bit of a volcanic meltdown during the baking process.  However, there's no cake snafu that frosting can't correct, and it was scrumptious.

While a warm, sunny day blossomed outside the house, and a sweet green breeze stirred the living room curtains, we read our stories, novel excerpts, poetry, and even staged part of a play penned by the brilliant Jonathan Dubey, Arthurian, which is being performed in town this coming August.  Six of us assumed roles and the results were delightful!

(Writers Kyle Newton and Lorrie Lee O'Neill)

Five of my favorite writers from my beloved Southern group made the long trek north -- the lovely and talented Lorrie Lee-O'Neill, with whom I share cover space in the New Hampshire Pulp Fiction series; Philip Perron, who runs the Dark Discussions podcast; the luminous Brad Younie and Ralph Mack, and Douglas Poirier, who always surprises and amazes me with his creativity.  The fit with the many creative geniuses from my new home realm was seamless, and many new friendships resulted.  The day was about celebrating the writing, and we did so with verve!

And we'll do it all again in September -- if not before!