On a Personal Note About My Writing

May I take a moment to give you a bit of news?

A writer’s art is mostly about balance. Balance of the elements of plot, dialogue, description, dynamics between protagonists and antagonists, even long sentences and short ones.  I wrote my first novel at age 21 about vampire bats and my second novel about a haunted windmill. Both were dreadful novels and crushing failures.  I wrote a pack of short stories and they also failed to see the publisher’s light of day. I rejected fiction writing for a while, wrote freelance feature articles  for newspapers with surprising success; then I went back to fiction writing, determined to excel in my craft: read, examine, study, write; read, examine, study, write.

Here I am (I won’t say exactly how many years later) with seven short stories published in literary journals and anthologies,  and two “quiet horror” novels selling conservatively  on the internet (The Dazzling Darkness did make the Amazon ebook best-seller list for about 24 hours–a thrilling day), and book reviews  by industry professionals and customer readers that I can be proud of.

Today, I’m happy to announce that Crickhollow Books (Crispin Imprint)  in Milwaukee, Wisconsin will be publishing the print editions of The Dazzling Darkness and Night Sea Journey.  Release dates might be as early as December.

Another piece of good news, Whistling Shade Literary Journal in St. Paul, Minnesota has just published my latest ghost story, Between the Darkness and the Dawn in their print edition (Internet edition will go live next week).

My Reading Fiction, Tales of Terror blog is nearing the 10,000 hits mark in less than a year of posts. And if you are a regular reader here, you can probably sense my dedication to (and my  joy because I love doing Tales of Terror) writing highly inviting story introductions and hunting for the most thrilling and provocative classic short stories  to post every week.

I value every single follower and visitor and especially your comments.  Thank you to all the readers who are following me, commenting here, and reading my novels and short stories. Most of all, thank you for sharing my writer’s  journey.  Which continues, as I’ve got two more short stories on the fire and a third novel drafted.

Balance … kind of like riding a bike, right? Keep on peddling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Night Sea Journey, A Tale of the Supernatural

The Dazzling Darkness

$2.99 for Kindle and Nook