Free on Kindle through Wednesday

The Children of Pandemonium, the first book in The Spiral Series is free until tomorrow on Amazon. 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FA5P87U?ie=UTF8&force-full-site=1&ref_=aw_bottom_links

The first book in The Spiral series. The Children of Pandemonium

With a remarkable act of violence, Tera Cortez escapes the brutal underworld of Portland's strip club scene only to find herself thrown into the arms of an ancient evil. Now she must rely on a dark family gift to survive.

Chaff

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Sow's Ear

This is a flash fiction piece about how real life can be more frightening than the supernatural.

Sow’s Ear

10/21/10

                “There’s gotta be something in my body Britney.  It itches so bad…Whatever it is wants to come out.  I gotta get it out.”

                Cathy Simmons stood before a cracked full length mirror and stared at herself.  She was feverish and her green eyes were glassy.  Naked except for the dirty pair of pink cotton panties she wore; her body was death camp skinny, full of sores, and pale.  Her blond hair fell passed her shoulders in locks bound together by weeks of grease. 

                “Damned mirror.”  She said to the picture of Britney Spears in her teen years taped to the glass.  “Can’t see anything is this damned mirror.  Never could.  Need to find a new mirror.  Need a big one.  Yeah.  A big one to see everything in.  I need to see all of me.”

                The single wide trailer she stood in was nearly vacant.  A mound of filthy blankets and pillows was shoved into a corner. Black mold grew up the walls. The carpet stank of mildew and cat piss. Three of the trailer’s four windows were broken out and taped over with cardboard. The fourth still held glass, but was covered by a Nine Inch Nails poster.

Cathy energetically dug at the gruesome sore on her upper lip with the dirt encrusted index finger of her right hand.

                “Damn Brit!”  She exclaimed.  “I can’t understand why I keep getting these things!  I get at them and I get at them but they never go away!” 

                Cathy smiled and cocked her head to get a better look at herself.  Her teeth were red. Blood ran from her mouth and down her chin.

                “Maybe a little cover up will help, yeah, a little cover up will definitely help.  Or foundation?  That may work.” She said. “I don’t know about these damned things.  I go through a bottle of foundation a day to try and hide them.”

                Again she worked at her lip sore and pulled away small bits of flesh..

                “Maybe I should do something with my hair.  It’s too stringy and too blond.  Make’s me look all washed out.  My eyes too green.  Red maybe?  Maybe black?” She asked the picture. “I don’t know, a cut?  No, it’s too short already.  Maybe extensions like yours?” 

                She ran her bloody hands through her hair and slicked it back.

                “I could go bald like you did Brit.  Something out of the blue.  Get some tattoos too.  Something classy right here.”  Cathy touched her chest and left a bloody print.  “Some lips like what you got on your wrist.  That would be beautiful.  Beautiful lips, I wonder what your lips feel like Brit?  Ugh!  My wrist itches!”

                Without thought Cathy scratched the inside of her left wrist and raised a welt.  Focused on her reflection, Cathy soon tore a hole in her skin.

                “Where could I go to get my hair done like yours for cheap though?  No where that’s where.”  She said then sneered evilly.  “Those bitches at the salon always charge me twice what they charge everyone else and then they call me a dope fiend behind my back.  But you wouldn’t take that would you Brit?  Not at all.  You would have those bitches fired.  I know you would.  Yeah that’s right.”

                Finally, she raised her arm, looked at the bleeding gouges, and then laughed joyfully. Cathy showed her arm to the clipping.

                “I think I got it out!  I think I got it out Britney!” She shouted. “Now I’m as beautiful as you!”

                

Blood King Midas

This short comic was the inspiration for Angels…Rest. 

Turning to the blog to jump start the muse

Yes, I need to jump start the Muse. She's run from me for the moment. I suppose this happens to every writer, the words seem to vanish. The story is called "A Dirge Born of Swallows" and it has been one of the most difficult I have written. Of course there is a theme, a tone, etc. There is no outline which is by choice. I usually outline all my work fairly meticulously. This began as an exercise to break me out of some habits I have developed. I needed to "shake things up" as it were. Instead of beginning at the beginning I began the story in the middle by expanding out a previously written short story called "Chasm" to see what happened. What happened was originally a 30,000 word piece. After some feedback from better authors than I, it was stripped down to 16,000 and became "The Children of Pandemonium" a piece that creeped me out in a good way. On the cutting floor, I realized that I had three stories that were all linked together and so I'm developing them in that way.

Which has brought me here, to stare at the last word I typed without an idea of what comes next. I've dropped out of the stream of consciousness where I'm watching the characters move and describing it as a reporter instead of creating it as a writer. This is an unsettling feeling, like I've woken up from a dream that was a far better place to be than the reality I'm surrounded by. I'm sitting in a coffee shop, with my lap top open, and music playing in my headphones. All the things I normally do when writing, and yet I can't get back to that place on the edge of a waking dream. Now I see why writers drink. Maybe that's what I need, copious amounts of alcohol, and drugs. Something, anything to take me out of me and put me back where the magic is.

© 2011 All Rights Reserved

A Brief taste of Angels…Rest.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And I made it all wasted! And I made it all void! 

So he unleashed the Light to stop me, but, I am the spavine rat without eyes. There is no power here but mine...here...just beyond your sight.

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