Writing & More Writing... And Old Friends

AJ Brown. A good guy with lots of heart. While I was a part of the HL's workshop office at Zoetrope.com, I read a lot of blogs about writers writing horror. Or merely, writers trying to figure out how to better write through blogging about it and conversing with one another about it. If you continue to read them I'm sure you'll learn a lot. I'd doubt I could believably say that I didn't learn anything from them. But after reading them for some time, they sort of start saying the same thing over and over again and after awhile you just want to shoot yourself. But, I would suggest reading this. I kind of like AJ's blog this time. It sums a lot of my own feelings up on the matter.

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Never heard of them, but they are intriguing me: http://gravesidetales.com/. I have this old (and yet unfinished novel) called Grave October Moon. It's based off my feature-length screenplay, which is adapted from my story Jack Straw. I don't have the original story due to one of those crashes where you have realized that you (the complete moron that you are) have not backed up your hard work enough in the last year, or possibly even longer.

It might, however, be fun to see if I can use what I have (the novel and screenplay) and see if I can rewrite that original short story. Why not? Right?

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Just talked to an old friend, who I used to go to grade school with. Haven't seen him in more than eighteen or nineteen years. It's funny how just a voice can reawaken so many details of a life that seemed to have been lived long ago.

Jennifer's going to be home soon. I guess I have things to do.

Nicotine Demons

Wretched, awful, hate my day... bad. Good grief. Every day I've been thinking: I need a cigarette. But never have I really wanted one this freaking bad. Of course, part of it is my fault. Sort of, anyhow. I had to stop taking the Chantix for awhile because I was getting very sick between that and the pain meds for the surgery.

Hm. Wow. Anyway. Point is, I don't need the pain meds and that fiend, the nicotine demons are making me a living asshole. I'm jumpy and crazy and I've offended just about everybody today. Well, almost everybody. My dentist's receptionist learned I was a writer and she was very happy to talk about reading good books with me while I waited on the Doc.

Anyway. I won't have that cigarette. I'll refuse. But tomorrow morning I'm back on the Chantix.

Hel Hounds & Halloween

Just found this article on Norse Hel Hounds and werewolves. It's a scholastic piece of work, so it might be slow for some, but I found it fascinating.

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Halloween is just around the corner. Chase (not to be confused with me: Chas) wants to go as a Banana and Taylor's a Gothic Vampiress. I'm designing Taylor's costume for fun, a mishmash of makeup styles and a costume not meant for the normal vampiress. Jennifer trusts me, I think.

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Oh! And before I forget . . .
PHIL RICKMAN'S TO DREAM OF THE DEAD!

It's on Amazon, and I'm so there.

Kicken Butt

Mike Wever won first place at The Middle of Nowhere Film Festival for the three minutes category (staring me . . . hahahahahaha!). We were all very excited for him and the festival was fun.

TRADITIONAL THREE MINUTES AND LESS CATEGORY:
1st Place- $150 prize
"Man and Monster" by Mike Wever

I'm currently on several meds after my oral surgery and I'm really not feeling well, and am very tired. However, the swelling has gone down and I'm finding enough energy to do some writing/editing today. It feels good.

I also finished Gaiman's American Gods. I have to say that it was probably my favorite read this year. That guy IS a master storyteller and I'm looking forward to reading more of his work.

Ghoul Season Begins

Yes! It's October. The countdown to probably my most favorite holiday: Halloween, All Hallow's Eve, Samhain... Plus, don't you just love the smell of cooling air tinged with, on the best of days, a bit of rain? Everything becomes colorful and you're usually through feeling like a sweaty pig. Well, it makes me want to sing and dance.

I re-worked my website at http://www.freewebs.com/cdallen/
so, if you're interested in seeing what I've done, I'd stop by and have a look.

Also, I'm proud to say I'm on my second day of having not one smoke. It's very hard. Even as I write this, my fingers itch for putting one between them, so I'm making it through each minute by chanting, "You're not a smoker anymore. You have those who love you. You have those you love. And Jennifer would kick your ass." That usually does it for about three minutes and then I have to repeat. That, or I eat. Luckily, I have a very fast metabolism. Hopefully it can keep up with me.

The hardest part about quitting smoking, for me, is what the hell do I do with my hands if they're not working the cigarette from lap to mouth? My answer: read. More reading never hurts. So I subscribed to a couple more magazines and picked up Neil Gaiman's American Gods.

American Gods. You know, I have never read Neil Gaiman. Not really. I collected his Sandman comics, which I loved, but after comics Mr. Gaiman put out a collection of short stories. Mike, a friend of mine, picked up the collection and read through them. He said, "Charles. I'm not liking any of this. I think Neil's a great comic book writer, but I don't think he can write narrative very well. At least, I'm not liking his style." Apparently that had an affect on me, because I never did read his book or anything else he's ever written (save comics and watching movies based off his work). Flash forward, I pick up a copy of American Gods, thinking about how badly I needed a cigarette, and took it home with me, still needing a cigarette, and started reading it, still needing a cigarette. Three hours later I'm still turning pages and suddenly realizing, I forgot I needed a cigarette. That and Jennifer's pissed because I forgot to take some time to finish the dishes. But that's a small grief. I was still happy that I bought a good book and it was taking me away from thinking about something I don't really want.

Speaking of Neil Gaiman, his The Graveyard Book is turning out to be a very cool story, too. I've been listening to it for free on audio, as they are coming out in like a serial audio/video. Check it out!

QUITTING ZOETROPE

I received a few question regarding my withdrawl from www.zoetrope.com and +The Horror Library+. I just wanted to point out that my reasons for doing so have nothing to do with anything that happened on Zoetrope. I have a lot of friends there (or one would like to imagine, anyhow), and it is a great place to rework your stories and network friends and colleagues. But my time has become very active. I used to go from day job, to Zoetrope, to writing, to bed and started the whole thing over again the next day. I was single (mostly) and had no other expectations of me. Now, I've gotten engaged to a wonderful woman, Jennifer, who also happens to have two kids: ten and eight. Now my time runs more like this: day job, clean/errands, make and have dinner, clean/errands, and then go to bed. I read during my breaks at work and perhaps have time to write a few notes for a story, but otherwise, I'm hardly doing either. I decided that on my days off, I need every spare second I can get toward writing. And I only get the morning. Starting at 1:00pm I'm making sure the house looks good so Jennifer doesn't have to worry about anything when she gets home. Then we make dinner. And then we spend time with the kids or work on our wedding plans.

That's all there is, really. It's nothing more than that.