What a Year its Been

Where to begin?

My daughter Athena was born this last august and she is doing amazing!

I accomplished a lot this year writing wise, I've had a personal goal for some time to have something creative of mine come out every single month in a year and I've finally done it.

Granted six months out of the year it was my ongoing serial, Walking Through Walls in the pages of Utah Geek Magazine but that is still more than 15,000 words in a novella getting in front of thousands of people locally - I'm hoping it pays off in the long run with some local fanbase - between you - my regular blog friends (because you are) I  haven't seen much in the way of that working out yet, but I'll at least finish the novella and self-pub it and I'm pretty damn happy with it.

Those other six months saw several collections of my stories and a new weird anthology project that I never planned on doing until right before I did it - Whispers Out of the Dust. That was the fastest I ever wrote in my life yet. about 56K in four weeks, eventually cut down to 53K but still.
I also released, The Mad Song in January and The Hand of Fate in June. I was a part of an improv  rock/spoken word album with the Freestyle Gargoyles II - my song was 'Read Em and Weep', and I've heard good things by those that heard it. I also contributed a few stories to an anthology put together by some writer friends - 5 Blades. 

And just in time to still meet my goal, I just put up on Kindle and Create Space - Gods in Darkness, a collection of sci-fi horror and prose. It has a 4 previously released stories and a few new ones and some dark poetry with a Lovecraftian flavor. I'll put up another post when I can actually see it on Amazon.

I also attended some great cons and will do so this coming year to an even greater degree - so good things are coming.

All the best to the rest of you and have a great New Year!

Monstrous Perspective

The Blog: Fortean World recently posted a very familiar article to me about the Beast of Gevaudan, it follows :

The Beast Of Gevaudan

In the 1760s, an area of south-eastern France was terrorised by an enormous, wolf-like beast. The animal attacked and killed over 70 people, most of which were children, by leaping on them and landing a fatal bite to the throat.

General descriptions of the creature refer to reddish fur with black stripes and a large, long-snouted head with short, pointed ears. Some cases also mention exceptional leaping abilities as well as bullet-proof skin and an alleged ability to stand bipedally.

Both military attempts, led by Captain Jean-Baptiste Duhamel, as well as attempts by a famous wolf hunter named Denneval (under direct employment of King Louis XV) to kill the beast failed.

Although the singular identity of the Beast of Gevaudan has never been 100% determined, many large wolves and even an escaped hyena were killed in the area as suspects of at least some of the attacks.

I LOVE the film Les Pacts Des Loups or Brotherhood  of the Wolf, I've mentioned it before here numerous times, in any case, it wasn't long after reposting this snippet on my tumblr page when I saw another picture that gave me pause and had me wonder at how we all have preconceptions that can lock our brains into thinking that answers have to come in one set way or another - its this way with stereo instructions, philosophy and religion, all too often we have to open our minds and find a way outside our own blinders.

This photograph, that I imagine most of you have already seen, would have seemed monstrous to the French of the 1760's and no doubt it is still scary today - especially if it is coming for you, and I found myself wondering if this diseased creature could possibly be that particular beast??? Further research said that Bears can be susceptible to rabies as well, though anything with rabies couldn't survive as long as said Beast was attacking people, not to mention being clever about it. I suppose there may be something to the idea that a creature can get a taste for human flesh and be wily about it, lions and tigers certainly do. So just some theories on a a cryptid I've thought about.