End of the Month Thing

Finished two stories in January, so I'm ahead of my own curve.

"And the Cotton is High" was finished in first draft for Dead Bait , and will be revised tomorrow for the second and final drafts.

"Cooking for One" was finished in first draft (and started) today, and finished in four hours, and will undergo revisions afer dinner and a visit by friends for Devil's Food .

"Ain't Gonna Dig No More" was rejected by Apex for "lovely writing, no a tight story, and too horrorific for our tastes". It has since been re-subbed to Allegory for their consideration after a review and tightening of certain parts I missed during revision.

"No Deductible" is still a lady in waiting over at Weird Tales with no word.

I'm looking for markets still on "Rock A Bye Baby", "Fragile Obsession", and "No Tell Hotel". The first made the first cut and was then rejected by The World Is Dead and most recently by Necrotic Tissue, the second was a submission to Ghost in the Machine , which I have since given up as a dead market, and the third made the short list for Morrigan Books' Voices anthology. If you know of any markets, let me know.

Also, stoked that I finally got Rex Storm, Large Vermin Exterminator in a story.

Stories that have seen print this year are "Many Comforting Words", "Winter Wonderland", and "Big Jim Can Wait", all of which are in the Northern Haunts anthology from Shroud. My copy shipped yesterday. I'll be one pins and needles all week.

Stories to see print are a singleton, "Crib Death", slated to appear in the next issue of Sand from Strange Publications.

A few ideas bouncing around my head thanks to some weird dreams I had last night. I have to eat more popcorn before going to bed.

Other things to happen this month:

Got Promoted
Qualified for the loan to buy the ranch house
Discovered exactly how large the tax refund is going to be (let's say I'm getting rid of some debt this winter)

On the baby front, they've started to roll over, teeth, and crawl. Plus, Maggie has me wrapped completely around her finger. Des, my wife, has started painting again, which is good. In case I've never mentioned it, my wife had a little reputation as an indie filmmaker for her horror and weird movies, and is a wonderful painter. When we first started dating (I had a mustache) she made a painting of me as a confederate soldier under a tree, staring over a blood-stained battlefield in sunset. Don't tell her, I have no idea where it is. Recently she's started doing some other art.

Speaking of art, there was an artist out there that stays in my memory. I had a friend named Kelly who went to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. I forget her name, but she said she painted her nightmares. There was one painting that hung above their couch everytime I visited, a monster of some sort. I just remember it freaked me the hell out. I wish I had offered to buy it at that point.

Oh well.

That's the news from the homefront, where I now have more time because I have an 8-5 shift again.

Peace,
J.C. Tabler

Of Travel and Children

So, here I sit at a HoJo in PA. We've driven up to coal country to visit my wife's parents for the Turkey Day festivities, and are now on our way back home. I've gotten a few things done, finishing the first drafts of a couple stories over the past couple days and getting the inklings done for a couple more to be finished in the next couple weeks.

So...November...

Still have a few stories out at Space & Time , The New Yorker , Saint Anne's Review , Guigonol (Sp?), Fantasy & Science Fiction , and Underground Voices . Looking to polish a few turds and get them out before the Ho-Ho-Holidays.

Personal news, not so good. See, let's go in depth about why writing has become a little more difficult to find time for. My oldest was recently diagnosed with high-functioning...yes, you see it coming...autism. Not a surprise, but still disheartening. On top of that, though it's a positive, I'm doing more at work than before as I'm helping with training classes and becoming a walking policy manual on the center's floor. Then the babies, who are fine by the way, but I'm still worrying they'll stop breathing in the middle of the night, and since these worries started about the same time I was reading Stephen King's new short story collection, Just After Sunset (Wonderful, as always. Look for more this week) and child death was a big theme, I'm freaking out.

Weight of the world, won't bore you with it. Just know, I am trying to get back in the game and back into play with all of you prolific, talented, and successful people. Considering what a hack I am, I'm not sure if that should scare you or not. Just with figuring out what school to send Sophie to next year, and, consequently, how the hell I'm going to afford it, along with everything else...something has to go on hold until things calm down, and right now I seem to be shoving writing aside in order to keep my family sane and healthy. Not a hard choice to make, but I'm still in the game...just a few moves behind.

On the bright side, I think we met a ghost in PA. More on that tomorrow night. Now, I'm curling up with my wife and children in a motel bed. Hope everyone had a good Turkey Day, and I'll be talking to you all soon.

Best Wishes,
J.C. Tabler

Blood On Bluegrass

I finally broke the writer's block, and it isn't on a story. Not exactly.

I'm working on a story about a true suicide that happened here in Kentucky, at least they thought it was a suicide, and it may have actually been. I want to play it close to the vest right now, but it has homosexuality, a love triangle, felonies, embezzlement, a coverup...all the makings of sensational psuedo-news.

EDIT:

I realized I should post some more.

Alright, so here goes. Work has picked up, and as a result I have four 1/4 finished stories sitting on my hard drive. It isn't about substance right now, just getting the starts down on paper. If I can muscle through that, and get a flow going, I can always go back to rewrite the beginning.

In other news, the whole family got sick last week, babies and all. This meant my 7-day vacation from work for writing purposes turned into 7 days of sniffling and sneezing, turning into a couple of days handlingt he babies myself as my poor wife passed out and had to be hospitalized. She's alright now, but with her condition (MS), both her M.D. and I are in agreement that she has to take better care of herself.

As for the stories...well...

"Norton Is Watching" has been rebirthed, and "The Parting Glass" has come into development stages for the basic idea, clocking in at 958 words for an intro and atmosphere. "Deep Dark Hellhole" is starting to bud into the real meat of a short, short piece, and I've started outlining the NANOWRIMO idea.

I swear I'm going to try and finish that this year.

As for everything else...well, I have no excuse. See, I know I can write, and I know I do a decent enough job, but I'm seeing a serious lacking quality to my recent work. Chalk it up to stress, time constraints, family...whatever. It's no real excuse. I've got to get my feet under me, in a literary sense. I started out this year piss and vinegar and went strong up until July. After that...well. We only have to look back at my blog to see what happened.

So here's the plan...get one story finished prior to NANOWRIMO. Complete a draft of a novel, even if it does turn out to be as rancid as my son's last diaper, during November. Do two more stories in December. Rest for half of January, then kick my big rear back into gear. Luckily, I now have three days off a week, working 4 days a week, 10 hours a day. My wife and I have agreed the extra day is a no-kids, no-distractions writing day, 8 hours from rising to resting in front of the P.C., 4,000 words a day. That...well, honestly shouldn't be a problem for me. My normal daily limit for 2-3 hours is 1,000 words, and that's counting distractions.

I'm counting on you fine folks, then, to harass me every Wednesday on whether I've finished my work or not. Beat him, harangue me, cajole me. Hell, get my phone number and call me incessantly to ask if I'm at the computer.

As for the project above...right now it's research and trying to secure interviews. I have to get the family, coworkers, cops, and journalists to talk to me, secure 15 year old case files, get audit reports, find friends/witnesses willing to talk to me, and secure a photographer. I also have to turn my coal room into a kid-proof lair where I can tack up crime scene photos in all their gory details. It isn't horror, but damned if what I have (just in two interviews and news clippings) doesn't lead me to believe there's a story there.

For now, though, I have to help train a class of new hires tomorrow, so off to bed I go.

Peace,
J.C. Tabler

Ay yi yi

So, I've been away a bit again. This time I have a good reason. Recently I was struck with what has been a recent blog topic: writer's block. Yes, the block. It isn't that I don't have ideas. I do. The problem is that I every time I sit down to work on these ideas I get my nightly limit (1,000 words) out, then read over what I wrote the next day. After making retching noises, I promptly do the electronic version of balling up the sheet of paper and tossing it in a wastebin.

When something is flowing well, however, there are interruptions. Work, family, a squalling child with enough chemical weaponry stockpiled in their Huggies to elicit UN sanctions...take your pick. After dealing with these minor crises, I end up sitting back down to realize I no longer have any clue where to go with the story, and once again the highlight and delete functions are employed.

So, procrastination or block? Not sure really. I have an outline for my NANOWRIMO project, and look forward to writing for the sheer joy of it. In the meantime, I'm abstaining from anything distracting that isn't absolutely necessary until I get at least one of these ideas crowding my head onto paper in some form. This means no television, no bars, no internet surfing, no good books...just typing reading, walking the block, and more typing. Nothing's flowing easily right now.

So, there we stand a storyless month in September, well below my goal of four stories, and it's shaping up to be a pretty barren October. Through willpower and coffee alone will I force November into being productive for 50,000 words. I can assure that much. Until then, I will be the invisible author attempting to finish a story with a baby in one arm and a coffee cup in the other.

Peace,
J.C. Tabler

Let's cover August.

Well, I am loathe to admit this, but I only finished a single complete work of fiction during the month of August. I had finished several things during July, got them sent out and such, but August was mostly work and pregnancy. So, as a result, only one piece of writing got finished. That was:

"Ain't Gonna Dig No More" - Submitted to Potter's Field 3

Outside of that, I started on several things only to have them fall by the wayside throughout the month, among them being:

"One Lump or Two, Balgaraog the Eviscerator" - a possible Dead Jesters story. This was started, and about halfway through set aside because I wasn't certain of the story's thread or where it was going. I had Balgarog, the demon from Hell forced to have a tea party with a little girl whose bed he slept under, down pat. As for the plot, the girl, her family...not so much past the first couple scenes. I'm working on this one still, and someday hope to read over what I have and churn out a definite story, but for now it's on hold.

"Mitchell Hill Road" - A calling from the world of Harvest Hill. I've started it, and have decided in a few hours of writing that it will be much longer than the simple one-shot I wanted to do as a work-up for my own amusement. This'll be on hold for definite development until I get the anthology in my hands and see what history has already been developed for the town outside of my own story. It may be a possible submission to some future anthology or project set in that tiny Tennessee town.

"The Coal Room" - Not really on hold, just having a few false starts. Everytime I found the thread, my wife (still pregnant then) needed something done, and by the time I was finished the story would have fled. The basics are still there, just waiting for me to sit down and type the story.

"Rex Storm, Large Vermin Exterminator" - A longtime project finally began, that saw a good amount of work on the outline for it over the month. Between this one and the babies, I have a decent excuse not to get many short stories done over August.

September will hopefully see a lot more work being done, both on "Rex Storm" (which may end up being that 'someday' novel I keep talking about, depending on how the outlines tickle my fancy) and on the short story scene. Now that the kids are here, believe it or not, I'll have a little more time to write because I'm going to be up half the night anyhow. Might as well make some use of those midnight hours. Plus, I tend to be prolific when I'm stressed out.

Well, back to the children, then back to the grindstone. By the way, remember to read Catherine Gardner's new story over at Allegory. It is, very simply, another wonderful piece from this talented writer.

Peace,
J.C. Tabler

Now introducing....

As of 5:58 and 5:59 (17:58 and 17:59 for you limey readers ;) ) On August 28, 2008, we can now introduce...

Margaret Beatrice Tabler - 19 inches, 5 lbs 9 ozs

and

Henry Billingsley Tabler - 20 inches, 6 lbs 1/2 oz

Now, to get some sleep and get back up to the hospital with the new big sister.

Peace,
Daddy J.C.

Delays, Delays, Delays

I will finish the Grinder story, damn it. I swear it. I just have to find two seconds to do it in. Yesterday I took the day off intending to sit down and get it out, start on revising, and start on a comedic Mythos piece that popped in my head the other day. What happened, as I was staring at the T.V. in the A.M. hours, was my friend and his wife called to tell me their car had died downtown in a parking garage after a job interview. Since Desi and I are the only friends they have that don't live in the suburbs, it was up to us. So I packed up my pregnant wife and five year old, thinking it would be a quick jump and then we could have a family lunch somewhere before I went home to work on that story.

Eight hours later, we finally had his battery replaced. Seems my buddy had dozed off listening to the radio while his wife was in her interview. It was drained flat, not even enough juice to hook tiny jumper cables up to a mouse's nipples and coax out intimate secrets. So we have to get the battery off...but it was under a stress bar and in an awkward place, and assuming it would be a jump I hadn't brought my toolbox. Back home go I, to return and find out the terminal posts are stripped, so I had to wander downtown in search of channel lock pliers. Finding and purchasing them was easy, but then the batery had to be charged by a local auto parts store, then replaced. Eight hours after setting out to give them a jump, we finally got home. I was tired, and after giving Sophie a bath went straight to bed.

So tonight, while the wife and kiddo are out at my sister's wedding shower, I'll be finishing up the Grinder story and starting revisions on it...or finishing it, setting it aside to get revised over the weekend, and leaping into the first draft of my Mythos story, as I have another story being outlined right now, and the Truck Stop Story is waiting to be written still. I can't slow down now, I'm already a week behind schedule.

Oh, yeah, as a sidenote, I got a job with Humana Insurance in their Medicare Customer Service department. I can't talk about the pay, but I can say it's enough that "We ain't po' no mo'."

Now, to devour my McDonald's.

Peace,
J.C. Tabler

Parents say the darndest things

Tonight, while putting my daughter to bed, I think I summarized fiction very well.

"You're a farmer," she insisted while wriggling out from beneath Snow White blankets.

"No baby, Daddy's not a farmer," I answered, trying desperately to keep my cigarette smoke from drifting over her. I had thought of putting it out, but only briefly because a draft was winking at me from my laptop and only the constant, cutting criticism of my wife had dragged me from a cocoon of Alice Cooper and Bing Crosby and into harsh lighting. Daddy would have to go back to his writing once a story was read and a song sang, and so Daddy's cancer stick stayed clenched firmly between yellowing molars.

"You're a farmer, Daddy," she insisted again, wrapping tiny arms around my neck.

"No, Daddy's a writer," I explained, reeling for a simpler way of explaining why we didn't live on her grandparents' farm in Pennsylvania, "Writers like Daddy don't make any money, so Daddy has to have another job, and there aren't any jobs like that where Grandma and Pap live. So we live in Kentucky."

"Oh," she answered in sweet little tones, deceptively sweet, "I understand."

"So why can't we live in Pennsylvania?" my wife asked from the doorway.

Sophie screwed her face up and sighed. Her smile was dazzling, cuteness and insolence in a wrapper of innocence.

"Because Daddy's a bad writer," she answered as I choked on cigarette smoke and tried to get my wife to stop laughing.

It went askew

Started working on a possible submission for the Age of Blood and Snow (is that right?) anthology. About two pages in, I realized it wasn't going to end up dark enough for them, but I still like the idea. This story is getting finished.

This, however, is one my mother and nobody at my church can ever read...I think they'd refer to it as heresy.

More later, heading to the office now.

Peace,
J.C. Tabler

Great Big Gobs of Greasy, Grimey..

You know the rest. Been a hectic couple of days. There's some infighting going on in the family, but that' not unusual. We're all a little off our rockers over here.

This weekend is Thunder Over Louisville, the first one that I've lived downtown for. It is a little disconcerting, to be truthful. I'm already searching for things to do this weekend that will get me out of downtown and away from the traffic. I could always just pack up the wife and laptop and head out to Ray and Angie's on Saturday, as they plan on having some sort of get together. I think it's a spectacular idea, as long as I have no plans to return home until around two in the morning due to all the road closures that'll be happening.

Got a rejection back for my "cheeky" zombie dialogue today, the same one that got sent back from Bits of the Dead. I had resubmitted it to The Town Drunk, and got another "well-written, but not quite right for us" rejection. Not bad, though. I rarely get the "this is horrible" rejection letter, and most of the time get very polite, nice, and personal ones. I see it as a point of pride that I get more personal rejections than form, though it would be nice to occassionally get a personal acceptance, you know what I mean Vern?

Rewrote the "cheeky" piece, added about 500 words or so to lengthen it a bit and put some meat on the characters. It was originally a big bit of dialogue with a few speech tags, written to pump a nice and funny lil story into 500 words or less. Adding a little bit more, I wouldn't call it a story as much as just a nice little scene, and a decent enough chuckle from everyone. After pumping in those extra words, I did a couple revisions with my Blue Pen of Death, then sent it off to Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine to get the next in a series of rejections for it. Hey, if nothing else there's always The Rejected Quarterly after two more, right? Right.

Alright, at work, finishing up soon, then grabbing chow with my folks while the little lady is at work. Then, if it's not time to pick her up, I'll head home and get some story work done on the "Creepy Doll" story, which started going a different direction the other day and may turn out to be speculative fiction after all.

Peace,
J.C. Tabler

Marraige is...boring

I got married Friday. What's new in your world?

With twins on the way we decided that marital bliss in June wouldn't be a good idea, so Friday we gathered our things and got hitched on short notice. This makes certain that I can lie to my children about one mroe thing, namely whether or not we were married when they were conceived. I'll be more than happy to tell them that they were just born early. As I plan on fibbing to my children about many, many things over the years, it shouldn't matter too much. At least not as much as when I tell them Abraham Lincoln was the man who invented the penny.

Today I've puttered around since getting up at 5:30 in the morning, eating a bowl of cereal and catching up on all of the news I've missed in the past week. Did you know there was a shooting in Illinois? No lie, I had no clue until this morning. I've been understandably distracted by other things over the past week, so now that we've started to fall into line it makes more sense.

The "novel" got stuck on the backburner when I started a freewrite the other day, then had an idea for a short story I want to finish well before Derby this year.

Peace,
J.C. Tabler

Just Got Done Tonight

So I just hit the word limit for today. Finished up the third chapter, started on the fourth. Four chapters in, and I'm just now getting into the real meat of the story. Although I have a desire to keep writing tonight, I'm going to need a day to figure out how to get this chapter really up and running. My goal, now, will be to get a chapter done on each weekend day, maybe more, as well as hitting the 1,600 words I want to do every weekday. The sooner I get this done, revise it, and see if it has merit, the sooner I can get on to some of the other projects that have started niggling around in the back of my head.

Still no word from any of the other markets, although I learned something today. I learned my aunt has begun to read my journal. Personally, this freaks me out a little more than the whole preggers thing. See, I have no problem talking to the whole world when it may stumble across my doorstep like a drunken bum on a Saturday night, but family? That's a different matter. I never know what to say around my family.

Not to mention it means I can't relate any of the really funny stories about my genetic background.

My mother may also be reading this now. Expect the curses to virtually cease from this point on. No more potty mouth from me, oh no no no. I have to be a good boy now.

Well, that's that for the night. Work tomorrow, then home again to continue writing. I'll let you all know when I hear back from any of the story markets I've submitted to, if I hear back from them. And, of course, another post tomorrow about workign on the Long One, as I've named this project.

Peace,
J.C. Tabler