Writer's Cramps!

First of all I would like to apologize for the incredibly long hiatus, certain things in life are unavoidable, like Mack trucks and old age. For me it was my ability to turn thoughts into words, I guess it just left me for a while, sort of took a vacation to the Bahamas without me. Talk about writer's block, I had writer's Great Wall. Just the thought of trying to sit down and work on something made me ill, that's how it goes sometimes I guess. I think for me it was the feeling that I was getting really close to something momentous, but in the back of my mind I had convinced myself that something like that couldn't possibly happen so why even try, a fear of failure perhaps. Who knows for sure.

  I may not have written much over the last year or so, but I did read quite a lot of books, reading those books eventually produced the help I needed. Sometimes you find inspiration right where you expect to find it, I found mine in between the pages of a book from an old friend of mine, Mr. Stephen King, the Eminent sage and writer junkie! 'Bag of Bones' provided me with a sense of determination to plunder ahead, just when you think all is lost something can spark the old noodle back into action. I'm happy to report that mine is picking up speed again, and I'm ready to limber up my fingers and hit the old Selectric once more!

Cheers everybody,

We'll talk again soon!..........Jeff

New book

I know, I know, its been a while. This has been a rather distracting summer, what with family vacations, hurricanes, and what-not. I'll try and do better.

  My good friend Jonathan Maberry is launching his new Y-A novel from Simon and Schuster, tomorrow August 30, 2011. It is the sequel to his highly acclaimed Y-A book, Rot and Ruin.

  If Dust and Decay is anything like Rot and Ruin, then I am certain it will be a wonderful read. Rot and Ruin left this reader wanting more for sure.

Here is a link to a review:
http://books.simonandschuster.com/Dust-Decay/Jonathan-Maberry/9781442402355 

Check it out, you won't be sorry, Mr. Maberry is a writer of immense talent.

Slacker

Hi everybody, I know I've been away for a while, but now I'm back and I'm back on track. For some reason every time I go to CA, something saps my motivation. This time, however, it wasn't my fault. I blew up my laptop, no laptop, no writing.

  I did manage to get some reading in while I was out there though, and good reading it was. I embarked into the world of Tim Waggoner, Nekropolis to be more specific. I read the first two books in this series, and I wasn't disappointed. Tim has created a world that is every bit as bizarre as you would expect from a world that houses all of the things that go bump in the night.

  Entrenched in that world is a man who relies most heavily on his brains as well as his wit, not necessarily because he wants to, but because he has to, for you see Matt Richtus is a self-willed zombie, zombie detective that is.

  Clever writing and good story-lines draw you into the world of Nekropolis very quickly. Once you start, you will have a hard time putting them down, because you'll have to see what kind of trouble our hero gets himself into next.

  I have resumed work on A Wolf's Paradise now that I have the use of a working computer, so I guess that means I'd better get back to work.

  Back soon,

  JRH

Great Book!

  So I'm two-thirds of the way through "Darkness On The Edge of Town" by Brian Keene, and I'm loving it. How come I haven't read this guys stuff before now? Darkness, sucks you in right from the get go with regular Joe characters who are prisoners in their own town just trying to survive the endless night. Everything beyond the borders of their town is gone, it has been replaced by a darkness, and not just any darkness, this one seems to have some sort of consciousness and it's evil...

  Many of the towns residents have gone missing after trying to leave town through the darkness, witnesses claimed to have heard their screams just after entering the cold black, the darkness has also affected residents of Walden, making normal everyday people do things that they never would have dreamed of doing before.

  If you're looking to spend a few hours with a great read, check out "Darkness On The Edge of Town" by Brian Keene, you won't be disappointed.

Stuff

I hope everyone had, or is still having a great fourth of July. I haven't had much of a chance to work on the blog lately, busy, busy you know. Things are moving right along with A Wolf's Paradise, in fact Max is about to embark on a cross country bus trip to visit a new friend. 

  I was playing around with the idea of a collaborative short story session if anyone is interested. The idea is to write a few lines, up to a couple of paragraphs and then hand it off to the next person. Might be fun. Ideas and suggestions as to how to pull it off would be welcome. Let me know; hiro83@hotmail.com

I'll leave you with a piece of my weekend for now, peace.

JRH

 

A Bit of Good News

Well everyone, I'm afraid this isn't going to be the normal post that you're used to for Wednesday. Instead of the continuation of A Wolf's Paradise, I have an announcement to make. No I'm not stopping the blog, just turning it in a new direction.

You see recently I have had publishing interest in A Wolf's Paradise, Woo-Hoo, and with that interest I have been advised to stop publishing chapter by chapter on the internet.

However, I do plan to keep the blog going with writing updates on the progress of Wolf, short stories, author interviews, and so on. I urge you to check in once and a while and follow my progress, and to also see what else is going with friends and colleagues of mine in the literary world.

Thank you so much for all of your support since this thing got started!!!

Have a great week,

JRH

Chapter Three - Part Four...Time To Grow Up Kid

  Maintaining eye contact with me, Mr. Jennings walked directly over to my desk. Leaning down and in, close to my ear so the other kids wouldn’t overhear him, he softly whispered, “Mr. D would like you to accompany him to his office.”

  Apparently the teachers couldn’t pronounce Mr. D’s name either. “What’s this all about Mr. Jennings,” I asked warily.

  “I think you’d better let Mr. D tell you that son,” his voice quavering ever so slightly. When he called me son, I started to wonder what the heck was going on.

 

  Seeing that I wasn’t going to get anything out of the usually loquacious Mr. Jennings, I got up and started the long walk down the green mile, towards Mr. D and the doom that awaited me. As I slowly dragged my suddenly leaden feet through the classroom, I could feel the entire classroom staring at me, as well as hearing the little sniggers and snide comments coming from my supposed friends. I couldn’t just let their derision go, so I twisted my head slowly around like a cobra, appraising the rogues gallery that was my class, and gave them the most withering stare that I could manufacture. It didn’t really have much effect though, but what the hell, it made me feel better.

  Three things happened next, and if you ever asked me if I thought they were possible, I probably would have stared at you like a third eye had just grown out of your forehead, things like this just didn’t happen.

  First, when I had finally finished my funeral march across the classroom floor to Mr. D and my impending doom, he didn’t say a word to me; which wasn’t the odd part. He could probably stare at a prisoner for days without uttering a word, until you’d finally just crack, turning into a blubbering wreck; you’d confess like some God forsaken sinner to all the bad things you’d done in your life, whether you’d done them or not, all the while just hoping to get those terrible glasses to stop staring through you, stripping your soul bare, leaving you with an empty, hollow feeling inside.

 Nope, this is how the first one went down... When we stepped out into the hall he did speak to me, and it scared the crap out of me, not because of what he said, no, it was the way in which he said it. Laying one of his enormous hands on my shoulder, causing a cold shudder to run through my body, all the way from head to my toes, Mr. D spoke to me with a solicitude that I didn’t think the big man was capable of.

“I want you to come with me son,” was all he said.

  Believe it or not, I swear that I noticed the same small quaver in his voice that I had heard when Mr. Jennings told me I was to accompany Mr. D to the office; and he called me son as well. I was starting to get a really bad feeling in my guts; my illusions of the giant school principal were crashing down all around me. If the great man whom I thought was unflappable in any situation was showing signs of emotion, then surely the apocalypse couldn’t be far behind.

   I wanted to know what was going on, but I didn’t, if you know what I mean? I knew that I hadn’t done anything wrong, so whatever he had to tell me I was sure couldn’t be good news. In the end my curiosity got the better of me and I squeaked out a question. “Um, Mr. D, could you please tell me what’s going on, I don’t think that I did anything wrong today.”

  He looked down at me and said, “I think we should probably wait until we get to my office Max, ok?”

  I nodded in agreement, while shaking my head in disbelief at the same time. What the hell was going on here that he couldn’t at least give me some inclination of where this was all heading, and he knows my first name, whoa… not good, not good at all.

  We finally made it to the office where Ms. Hoover was waiting to greet us, and that’s where the second sign of the apocalypse reared its ugly little head. Not only did Ms. Hoover not even look up from whatever she was doing, to give me her usual sardonic half-smile. Mr. D ushered me straight into his office, bypassing the chair and it’s 15 minutes of hunched over, splinterrific-pain, ‘OH GOD,’ what have I done?

  Mr. D offered me a seat in front of his desk, which I immediately took for fear of passing out if I waited to long to sit. The air around me seemed unusually thick all of a sudden, and I was having some trouble breathing. My skin was awash with the sensation of a million needles poking into me all at once, and I felt really dizzy. I don’t think I’d ever been this nervous in all my life to receive the news that was about to be handed down.

  To make things worse, Mr. D didn’t go straight to his seat to give it to me. He walked over to his office window and just stared out at some unknown object off in the distance for a minute or two. It had the feel of a man trying to collect his thoughts before he could speak, or a man who just plain didn’t know what to say. I’ll tell you what though, it wasn’t doing my nerves any good, but I knew better than to push the man.

  I didn’t think it would be possible for me to be any more nervous than I was, but when Mr. D finally took his seat behind the desk, I was a lot more nervous. You see, Mr. D seemed to shrink a little bit when he sat down in his chair, his shoulders were slumped, he leaned forward a bit and placed his elbows on the desk, and he lowered his head into his hands, then ran his fingers through his hair. It kind of felt like he was nervous to tell me whatever he had to tell me, which an hour ago would have seemed impossible, and that’s when it happened, the third sign.

  With his hands still on top of his head, Mr. D inclined his head up, as he did so his hands lowered to the frames of his glasses pulling them off as his head came up and he looked at me for the first time without the glasses on. It was then that I saw the torture and pain in his eyes, they were the eyes of a man who would rather be anywhere but here, bloodshot and red around the edges like he’d been crying recently, and then he spoke.

  “Son, I don’t know of any good way to give news like this, and believe me I’ve been trying to think of one, so I’m just going to tell you and hopefully you won’t resent me later for being so blunt. The truth is that there’s been an accident involving your folks.” He gave me a moment to digest this.

  Reading the answer all over his face, I still asked, “Are they ok, what happened?” My body was now starting to shake.

   Taking another moment to collect himself, Mr. D took in a deep breath and gave it to me straight, “They were on the interstate access road this morning after they dropped you off. Apparently they were just getting to the point where the speed limit increases to 55 mph, and it starts to go uphill, when a car traveling in the opposite direction at a high rate of speed crossed the center line and moved directly into your parent’s path. He hit them head on Max, and knocked their car over the embankment and into the river.” I could see the tears starting to form in his eyes, even through the blur that was fogging my vision.

  He got up from his desk and started walking around it towards me, “they never had a chance son, I’m so sorry,” his voice straining to get the words out.

  I just sat there in utter disbelief of what had just been laid on me, all I could do was shake my head back and forth while uttering no over and over again. Could it have been only a couple of hours ago, that my parents had dropped me off at school, smiling and waving goodbye, telling me to have a great day? Hot tears were burning their way down my cheeks and I was blowing snot-bubbles out of my nose. This just couldn’t be, not my kind, gentle, loving parents, and that was when it really hit me. “I’m all alone Mr. D,” I spluttered.

  I never thought the big man could move so fast, but he was around his desk in a flash, picking me up out of my chair ever so gently, just like he was my father taking me out of my crib after a morning nap. He wrapped me up in a gigantic bear-hug, and I just let it all go at once, my body wracked with sobs. “What am I going to do?”

  “Lets not worry about that right now, son.” At that moment Mr. D was all the family I had in the world. 

I hope you all enjoyed this weeks offering.

As always, I appreciate any input you have.

Tell your friends, and have a great week! 

JRH