Thursday, August 3, 2017

At The Highways of Madness

I've been remiss in keeping up with the blog, letting things slide as I try to accomplish the "real" writing.

In any case, besides BRUTAL - which has been receiving some great reviews - Thanks Keith and Fantasia Reviews! I also put out At the Highways of Madness along with a few semi-related bonus stories - (all previously released) in part I just thought the story was long enough at 22k to warrant its own book and I loved my own idea for the cover which I commissioned the indomitable Carter Reid to do.

So I'm pretty stoked, yet - it hasn't been selling too well. Though I did have a great review by the Injustice Gamer, so that was cool. Maybe enough people already bought Redneck Eldritch or perhaps my sense of humor isn't too pc these days.

The fun for me was working on what is essentially the Dude and Walter from Big Lebowski as truckers who meddle with something that crashes beside the highway in the remote desert and then find themselves pursued by a host of Lovecraftian monsters and also get a beautiful hitchhiker who just happens to be the daughter of Nyarlathotep.

I had a so much fun writing this one (ore than I initially believed I could writing rednecks) while not making fun of them so much as showing the situational humor and the difference in how salt of the earth types might react as opposed to be maddened and going insane like stuffy types from Miskatonic. Check it out!

On the horizon.
I will have another Porter Rockwell weird western short story "Under the Gun" in the forthcoming Storyhack #1


Whenever they get round to it I have a short S&S tale "Stygian Black"  about Abdul Alhazared in a forthcoming Skelos mag - I was told either issue 3 or 4.

A Beowulf retelling is coming in a mythology anthology (no idea on its status)

And "Garden of Legion" a popular Porter Rockwell short of mine is getting reprinted in Mirages and Speculations, later this month.

Oh and another fantasy noir novella "Jia of Luck" is coming in October part of the the Valcoria Awakenings anthology - stories set in the world of Jason King's Valcoria - that was a lot of fun. I took a lot from Dashiell Hammett for that one too!

And of course I'm still working at cranking out novel's via pulp speed as best I can - but I'll have to see how that goes - it can be hard to tell sometime.

How goes your guys pace?

6 comments:

Paul R. McNamee said...

All great stuff, David!

I plan to read a lot of your stuff in the near term. Just a couple of commitments to take care of first. You're on my short list, honest!

As for me, I'm putting aside short stories in favor of finishing my horror novel w.i.p. once and for all. I started it back in November as part of a workshop. I am treating August as my own personal NaNoWriMo and we'll see how it goes. Only three days in and not quite pulp speed but getting there. Not caring about the quality of every word is helping. Internal editor OFF until the rewrite & polish.

If I find the groove, I want to crank out a few more short novels before returning to short stories. Trying to ignore open calls except I will try something for StoryHack if it goes on to a second issue.

Adventuresfantastic said...

David,

You're welcome. And I love that mudflap.

David and Paul,

I'm running into a bit of an issue that I've been aware of for a while. That's length. Novelette and novella seem to be my natural lengths. I'm thinking of ignoring open calls as well and finish some things that are hanging out incomplete and put them out there. If I've got something that fits an open call, I'll send it in, but for right now I'm going to follow my muse.

nephite blood spartan heart said...

Thanks Paul. I'm pretty confident it will go a second issue, Bryce told me he had plans and was holding some stories for that.
Looking forward to reading more of your stories too.

nephite blood spartan heart said...

Good plan, Keith. Do what feels right.

Charles Gramlich said...

I was rolling pretty good for a few days but hit a wall yesterday

nephite blood spartan heart said...

I hear that Charles, same here lately.