Weekly Update

Leg Day SUUUUUUUUCKS

I started #LegDay last Friday, and whew! Let me tell you. Any illusions I had as to how in shape I’d gotten flew right out the window! Suffice to say my quads are bit rubbery, at the moment. BUT, we’re training for longevity, here, so we’ll just have to suck it up and push it. In any case, here’s this week’s Inspirational Flex:

On the writing front, so far the increased productivity has gone well. I just finished a very short story called “Vines,” and am now working on something I’m calling “Tunnels.” This little snippet came to me a few days ago, so now I’m tinkering with it, see if I can grow it into story:

“Don’t look for the tunnels. I wish I hadn’t. I wish no one had ever even TOLD me to not look for the tunnels, but they did, I listened, and now here I am, telling YOU not to look for it, and we know how THAT’S going to out, don’t we?”

The idea I’m toying with is inspired by my summer job. I work at the Greater Binghamton Health Center as a summer teacher to at-risk youth. We’re famous for having the first ever inebriate asylum in the U.S. The old asylum - affectionately called The Castle - is no longer in use, but you can see it right from my classroom window:

Pretty wonderful, right? Anyway, the facts are even better - apparently a network of underground brick tunnels run from The Castle to all the other buildings on campus, especially the older nurse and client dormitories which are also not in use. I’m toying right now with a Clifton Heights story about Webb County Assisted Living - which I’ve mentioned before in several CH stories - and a similar set-up: the old asylum is no longer in use, but those tunnels still exist, and though they’re patrolled by police, one of the unused buildings is close to the woods, so kids can sneak through the woods and into the building, then into the tunnel system below.

That’s about all I have for the story right now. I’m wavering between making it supernatural horror or cosmic horror (yes, of course I’m aiming for that Flame Tree Publishing submission call, lol), but I’m unsure yet what angle to take. We’ll start fleshing that out in a few days.

So. On another note.

I want to write about my Christian Faith. And how disgusted I am with the Religious Right, Evangelical Christianity, and MAGA. And how I grapple daily with what I was taught growing up, and how I see those who taught me to be kind and loving now turning cold and judgmental. With everything that’s happened since Trump came to office…how do I square my faith with the rise of White Christian Nationalism?

That’s gonna take some thinking, though. So we’ll circle back around to that topic maybe next week. Until then…

Works in Progress:

The Horror We Keep - nonfiction

The Man Who Made Heads - short fiction

Tunnels - short fiction

Horror Hotel - movie novelization

The Dream Witch - novel

Books I’m Reading:

Movies Recently Watched: