7/13/13: Say What?

It was lunchtime. I was eating at the table while reading. People around me were talking.

Halfway through lunch, the book I was reading reached a chapter on the psychology of abusive relationships.

Meanwhile, the people around me began conversing about the psychology of abusive relationships.

I had not spoken a word about what I was reading, nor could the conversing people have read it.

As I reached the chapter's end, which summed up why someone in an abusive relationship might choose to remain in such a relationship, one of the conversing people asked, "Why would someone stay in a situation like that?" These two coincided so perfectly, I couldn't help but burst out laughing.

(Some fun facts about this incident:

1. It was by total chance I was reading this book at all. I had bought a used Kindle, and it had come to me preloaded with several books. It was one of these books I would be reading when the conversation occurred, and I had just started reading it the afternoon in question.

2. After I made it known to the conversing people that their conversation had just mirrored perfectly the text I was reading at the precise time their topic turned to abusive relationships, one of the people said, "Oh, like Patty Hearst, right?" Seconds later, on the very next page of the book, it mentioned Patty Hearst by name -- not too notable, considering this was on the same subject being discussed, but still.

3. The morning before this happened, I'd been editing a chapter of a book I'm writing, which made repeated mention of the "rose-colored glasses" phenomenon. Then, when I started reading the Kindle book at lunch that afternoon, it made mention of the "rose-colored glasses" phenomenon.)

7/12/13: Pulp Modern

Find my psychological-horror story, "The Common Evil," in Issue #5 of Pulp Modern, now available!

Amazon link

Inspiration for "Windows to the Soul"

Find a write-up regarding my inspiration for the story "Windows to the Soul," from the Mental Ward: Stories from the Asylum anthology, here, on The Sirens Song blog.

7/5/13: Gold Dust

Find my bizarre humor piece, "Rascally Piss Stream: A Memoir," in Issue 23 of Gold Dust magazine -- for free online!

Link

Upcoming Anthology

Announcing Dark Visions: A Collection of Modern Horror from Grey Matter Press

Beginning this Summer, Grey Matter Press will release the first in a series of highly anticipated volumes of dark fiction that truly celebrate the spirit of independent horror.

Dark Visions: A Collection of Modern Horror takes readers on a terrifying psychological journey with exceptional tales of darkness by some the most talented authors working in the fields of horror, speculative fiction and fantasy today.

Unable to contain all the visions of dread and mayhem to a single anthology, Dark Visions will be a two-volume release published in both paperback and digital formats over the next several months. All versions of Dark Visions will be available for purchase at favorite online booksellers.
It has been a long time coming, but we are immensely proud to introduce you to Dark Visions...

Dark Visions 1 - Table of Contents (Alphabetical by author)
Revised Tentative Release Date – Mid-Summer 2013:

The Troll - Jonathan Balog
Collage - Jay Caselberg
Delicate Spaces - Brian Fatah Steele
What Do You Need? - Milo James Fowler
Second Opinion - Ray Garton
The Weight of Paradise - Jeff Hemenway
Three Minutes - Sarah L. Johnson
Raining Stones - Sean Logan
Mister Pockets: A Pine Deep Story - Jonathan Maberry
Thanatos Park - Charles Austin Muir
The Last Ice Cream Kiss - Jason S. Ridler
Scrap - David A. Riley
Show Me - John F.D. Taff

Dark Visions 2 - Table of Contents (Alphabetical by author)
Revised Tentative Release Date – Early Fall 2013:

Remember Me - David Blixt
Release - Jane Brooks & Peter Whitley
Mister White - John C. Foster
Variations of Soullessness - A.A. Garrison
Last Call - J.C. Hemphill
Dreaming In and Out - Carole March
Moonlighting - Chad McKee
City Song - Edward Morris & Trent Zelazny
Water, Some of it Deep - David Murphy
The Elementals and I - C.M. Saunders
Chapelston - Rhesa Sealy
The First Years - David Siddall
Wormhole - J. Daniel Stone
Acceptance - Kenneth Whitfield

Visit the Site – http://www.darkvisionsanthology.com

6/30/13: Dark Light 3

Find my speculative short story, "I Come To Teach," in Dark Light 3, a new anthology of dark stories.

Amazon link

6/27/13: Communication

So, I'm writing a new book.

A few days ago, I started a chapter called "Communication." Around the same time, I started reading the book Alive, a non-fictional account of people who survived a plane crash in the Andes mountains.

Yesterday, toward the end of Alive, the book mentioned how the survivors found a flight manual which contained in it a chapter entitled "Communications." The chapter's number was thirty-four, mentioned specifically.

"Huh, that's about the same name as the chapter I'm writing in my book," I said aloud (not nearly as dorky-sounding as it reads).

Chapter thirty-four, I thought afterward. If I wasn't mistaken, my "Communication" chapter was in the thirties. I made a mental note to check it out.

That night, I checked it out: my book's chapter was exactly thirty-four, just like that in the flight manual mentioned in Alive -- which had the exact same title except for the addition of an 's.'

I laughed out loud.

(It bears mentioning that I am not writing one book, but three, the original having run on long enough to be split up. I had made the decision for the split while writing the "Communication" chapter, but decided to finish the chapter before going through the logistical work of splitting the text into three separate files. As it so happens, I finished the chapter last night, so this morning, on the 28th, the day after I read the aforementioned passage of Alive, I finally got around to splitting the text, so that chapter thirty-four became chapter ten of the third book. Had I read that part of Alive today, less than twelve hours later, there would be no synchronicity to speak of.)