Yes, you’re reading this right. I’m back, once more making an attempt to utilize this platform and, hopefully, be one step closer to being able to abandon the last couple of social media sites I still waste my time on.
So, what have I been up to lately?
Funny you should ask. I just recently celebrated my 41st birthday on January 3rd (now that you know, I expect lavish gifts), as well as a year in my home. The new has worn off of it, but I’m really enjoying it. I like where I live, I like my house, and I like that I’m not paying any city taxes. HA!
But aside from my advancement in age and love for my humble abode, I’m entering a new season of life…
I’m not going to go into details, but I came to a crossroads within the last couple of weeks. As many know, I’ve been struggling with my mental health for several years now, and finally I decided to do something about it in late 2023. I was diagnosed initially by two different doctors for PTSD along with depression and anxiety. I started seeing a therapist, and she too diagnosed me with the disorder. I was shocked initially. Like, isn’t that what soldiers in wars who see their buddies blown apart or accidentally kill a kid (or end up forced to do so)? I’ve never been a soldier, no military service, and I’ve never seen anyone die a violent death, either as a witness or perpetrator. No one has ever invaded my home and I’ve never endured physical torture. How could I possibly have the same disorder? They have every reason to struggle with that, what reason do I have?
I soon learned that PTSD is not unique to soldiers and survivors of horrific events. I saw how years of walking on eggshells—be it around an ex, my parents, or older people who’ve known me my whole life and still think it’s appropriate to chastise and judge me when I say or do something they deem “unChristian” (#whatthefuckever)—in a constant state of worry, stomach in knots at the idea that I’ve done something wrong or forgotten some task or folded some shit slightly differently than others do! It may seem silly, but this was the life I’ve lived for more than 16 years now between two marriages and the work environment I was in for over 20 years. It had gotten bad, so much so that even taking a phone call at my job was a monumental task. Instant dread, the old knot in the stomach cinching tighter and tighter. I was getting closer and closer to being unable to function and I knew if something didn’t change soon, I was going to—literally—lose it.
So, I took a sabbatical from work for a while. At first, I found myself exhausted constantly, needing sleep like a newborn baby needs. It was awful. I couldn’t get to sleep at night, then I couldn’t wake up during the day, and nothing I did to try to reset my sleep schedule worked. This went on for a while, and I noticed something else I’d been willfully ignoring about myself:
I was drinking entirely too much.
It was slowly killing me, and also affecting my sleep, but for a long while, it was a form of self-medication. I was miserable, feeling sorry for myself, and having a harder and harder time doing what I truly love to do: write.
Fast forward a bit, and I’m in therapy, I’ve quit drinking completely (woohoo!), and I’m starting to feel like my old self again, though without as much self-loathing. But even though things were/are going so much better, I still found myself at a crossroads a couple of weeks ago.
I was starting to go back to work. Just a little at first, with the plan to swing back into full-time very soon. Only…I really didn’t have any passion for it. Not that passion is necessary to work a job, but remember, I just turned 41 and felt like the 20+ years I put in with the company hadn’t afforded me with anything to show for my time and efforts. It was a thankless place that underpaid and overworked its employees, almost never provided any positive reinforcement, and frequently would have other managers wanting to start fights in front of the whole office.
It was time for something new.
As soon as I made that decision, though there was some worry about finding exactly the right kind of job, there was a sense of peace. I don’t have to deal with those jerks ever again. And if I land a remote gig I’m interviewing for, I’ll be free of the office environment and the grunt work in the field. Fingers crossed.
What does any of this have to do with writing? Well, everything.
Another phenomenon happened when I made this decision: I started writing more frequently again. And actually enjoying it, to boot. I’m not sure I can put into words how amazing that has felt to feel the muse moving within me again like some alien worm digging up artifacts in my brain and throwing them into my creative center where they become stories. New ideas stepping into the open, old ones rising from the ashes with a fresh sheen on them. I’m excited about what the future holds for the first time in a long time. That alone is worth celebrating.
I released five books last year and appeared in a handful of anthologies. Dub-Town Blues, Waking Up the Devil, MOOBS: Limited Edition, Miranda: A Love Story, and In the House. Two novels and three chapbooks. I made the covers for all but one of them and formatted three of them myself. That’s a fair amount of work to pump out, but it should have been even more. I expected to have The Sons of Thunder: Director’s Cut out last summer or fall, but I never got it done. The book is written, and I’m 3/4s the way through its last edit before final proofread, and I was forced to abandon work on it for a while due to my mental health struggles. Now that I’m getting back on my feet, I plan to finish that up and have it out this year. I’m not giving any hard deadlines, but I’m disciplining myself to finish up that one and a couple of projects that are almost ready for release.
The three books above are all just about ready to come out. I still have to finish up the cover for the 2nd Edition release of The Hard Goodbye, but it’s right there (it went out of print back in July or August of ‘23). Hardly anyone has read it—the original cover apparently turned people off, though I liked it—and only a handful have read The Sons of Thunder, which was in Cerberus Exploitation: A Grindhouse Triple-Feature along with novels from Mike Ennenbach (M. Ennenbach) and Patrick C. Harrison III (PC3). That book is also out of print (though both it and The Hard Goodbye are still available in audiobook on Audible and Apple Books). Then there’s Prime Cuts, which no one but a couple of beta-readers has read. Unlike the other two, it’s another chapbook (I love writing that length of story), and it’s firmly in the EXTREME category of horror fiction. With how well In the House has done, I’m expecting it to sell quite well. Folks seem to be hooked on the extreme stuff at the moment, so I’ll give them some of that along with my other work.
Yeah, I’ve got those projects I plan to see through this year and get published. But am I writing anything completely new?
That brings me to now, as I sip on my pineapple/peach Kombucha and type these words, I’ve got two brand new stories in the works. One will be a novelette and the other will be a novella. Along with Ennenbach and 3, Eric Butler, author of the outstanding The Pope Lick Massacre and The Rest Stop and the Donn, TX series, has been brought into the fold. Cerberus still exists (and we’ve got something cooking for ya!), but with Eric we are now The Four Horsemen. We will be releasing a book together this year with a story from each of us based on War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. We each took one, and we’re bringing the pain and the beauty of the end. One of the new stories I’m writing now will appear in that book, which we’re all excited about.
The novella I’m writing, Five Occupied Rooms at the Black Dirt Motel, is going to be a mean and hilarious extreme black comedy. But I mean like pitch black. Not the movie with Vin Diesel, I mean in the imagery the words convey. No light. None. But if you have a quality sense of humor, you’ll be grinning and chuckling to yourself in the midst of all the crimson (and white?) moisture.
More is to come on the horizon, but I think I’m wearing out my welcome on this post. Thanks for checking out what I’ve been up to. To those who’ve been there through all my recent struggles, God bless you. I won’t forget it. I’ll come back in a few days and talk about the rest of what’s in store for 2024. Which rhymes.
It feels good to be back. It’s Miller Time.