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Promo: The Roots Run Deep by C.M. Forest

Good morning, squiders! In honor of spooky season, I have a horror short story collection for you today! I also asked the author’s opinion on the core of a horror story, so read below to see their answer!

THE ROOTS RUN DEEP

C.M. Forest

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GENRE: Horror Short Story Collection

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BLURB:

Dug from the twisted mind of C.M. Forest, the acclaimed author of Infested, comes a collection of 15 horror stories that will drag you into the abyss of fear and despair.

A fast-food playland with a nightmarish secret, a greenhouse with a bug problem, a busload of kids lost in the woods, a trip through the solar system to investigate a strange comet, and many more.

Brace yourself for an unrelenting journey through a world where evil knows no bounds, and darkness consumes all.

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EXCERPT:

The truck door swung open with a painful groan. Gordon kept his gaze locked on the barn as he climbed out. A cool breeze wafted across the field to grab and tussle his long, unkempt hair. Ahead, the barn door swayed as if in anticipation.

In the bed of the truck were two gas cans. The fuel sloshed as he pulled the red, plastic containers free. The weight of the cans felt comforting as he approached the structure.

He caught the barn door with his foot and kicked it open enough to enter. He thought he might feel a twinge of nostalgia, or maybe even horror, at returning to the old building, but the truth was, it looked just like every other barn he had ever been in. Spinning the caps off one of the cans, he began dumping the gasoline.

A low, creaking sound pulled him away from his work. He stared around the darkened structure, trying damn hard to convince himself it was just the wind, but failing. Despite his darkest imaginings, he could not wrap his head around what could be living within the old, warped walls of the barn. What malevolent force was animating the ancient boards and struts?

When nothing materialized from the gloom, he returned to his business.

With both cans empty, Gordon stood in the door and fished around in his pocket for his lighter. As soon as it was free, he began thumbing the flint wheel. A few angry sparks jumped from the end, but the flame was stubbornly absent. Once again, he heard the creaking. This time, it seemed to come from everywhere all at once. With his lighter forgotten, Gordon stared ahead as something started moving, opening, along the floor. A spike of cold fear chilled him to the bone. He turned to run.

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GUEST POST:

I asked: What is the core of a horror story, in your opinion?

And the answer:

That’s a hard question to answer. I think horror, and why it works for any individual person, is subjective. Some people believe that for a scary story to work, there needs to be violence, blood, and gore. Pure carnage! Others would say it is all about the characters. Are they relatable? Do we fear for their safety? While a different group would say it all comes down to the atmosphere of the story. The growing storm of unease. Personally, I learn toward that option (I’m not saying the others aren’t important, just that they aren’t the core of a horror story for me). When writing a story, I try to build a spooky atmosphere. If done correctly, it creates a great deal of tension and dread in the reader. Once you’ve instilled those feelings in the audience, the ability to scare them becomes much easier. From there, I’m able to find the right characters for the situation. I’m able to add in the violence, gore, and mayhem.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

C.M. Forest, also known as Christian Laforet, is the author of the novel Infested, the novella We All Fall Before the Harvest, the short story collection The Space Between Houses, as well as the co-author of the short-story collection No Light Tomorrow. His short fiction has been featured in several anthologies across multiple genres. A self-proclaimed horror movie expert, he spent an embarrassing amount of his youth watching scary movies. When not writing, he lives in Ontario, Canada with his wife, kids, three cats and a pandemic dog named Sully who has an ongoing love affair with a blanket.

Website: http://www.ChristianLaforet.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorchristianlaforet

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianlaforet/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/c_laforet

TikTok: http://www.tiktok.com/@christian_writes_horror

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

The author will be awarding a $15 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

See you next week, squiders!

Still on My BS

Good morning, squiders, hope your week is going well! My birthday was quite nice, and now I have new books, yaaaaay.

On we blindly stumble with our random number generator. Progress continues to be made. My SkillShare class is ready for me to make the slides, I’ve written 1.5K on a horror short story (possibly terrible, but we shall see when we’re done), I’ve done 5 pages in my trip book and drawn two character drawings. Progress!

The Book 1 submission materials continue to be a sticking point, but at least we are looking at them. I went through the potential comps my Discord person sent me to see if they seemed like they would work and identified one of them as a possibility (of course, now I must read said book). Still, ideally I would have two comps (assuming this one will work), so the search is ongoing. I cannot seem to find any YA fantasy books published in the last three years that involve prophecies at all, so that’s not great.

All I’m looking for is dual viewpoint, involves a prophecy, and may or may not involve a sentient forest. Nothing much, I know.

Still, I cannot get hung up on comps forever, so I did hunt down my synopsis (four years old, apparently). It’s actually in pretty good shape. The wording is a little awkward and a couple plot points need updating, but it should be pretty easy to fix up. Of course, in theory I should have shorter and longer versions of said synopsis (I do have a chapter list, with summaries of each chapter. I don’t know if that will work for a longer synopsis or if it needs to be more stylized) but that may be a problem for future!Kit.

You’ll note that actually writing the query letter has yet to come up.

I’m thinking I need to rework the steps in the spreadsheet for the Book 1 submission materials, to cover the extra steps I’m finding I’m needing. But I also need to not dwell on the comps so much. It’s an avoidance technique as much as anything else, but with the added insidiousness of seeming like productivity.

Also, I need to get on it, or I’m not going to be able to move on to my next edit in time for my December critique meeting.

Squiders, if you’ve queried recently, how did you pick your comps?

Why is Writing a Query Letter so Hard?

Happy Friday, squiders. It is almost my birthday, which continues to be a day I look forward to, despite the inescapable march of time.

My random number generator continues to work well! I’m getting a lot done, and I’ve managed to close half of the tabs I had open (which was admittedly beginning to stress me out) as I’ve completed various tasks. But one thing is not getting done, even though I am spending time on it when it comes into rotation.

And that’s the query letter for Book 1.

This came up as the thing to do on Wednesday, so I dutifully opened my query document, read through the examples I had put in there and the notes I had written at the top from when I did a bunch of research a few weeks ago, and copied a template I’d had recommended to me to use for a first try.

And then I promptly spiraled.

You see, the first thing on the template is the housekeeping–genre, word count, comps, why you’re querying the agent, etc.

The last time I seriously queried (a decade ago?) the housekeeping went at the end. So I went onto my publishing Discord server to ask if the housekeeping was, indeed, going at the beginning these days. And they confirmed it did go at the beginning, and then we got into a side conversation about whether or not I could query as adult fantasy and not YA fantasy (a little wishy-washy, but I think we decided that it had to be YA), and then we got into a second side conversation about potential comps, during which one member very nicely talked to me in DMs about what the book is about so she could recommend some YA fantasy that might work, and during which I discovered that I am bad at explaining things succinctly and also that I don’t know how to explain it in tropes.

Which was stressful but perhaps understandable, as I have been working on the book for twenty years and it has gone through some fairly major iterations during that time. I may reread the draft again and write tropes down, because I know we are selling things that way these days.

Anyway, she made a couple of suggestions for comps that I need to look at, and I also made a post in my online group that runs the marathons to see if anyone had any comp ideas, and emailed my in-person group to ask the same.

And I realize the comps are, like, lower priority than the query itself. But my mind has fixated on them. And drawn a complete blank. I read YA fantasy (though perhaps not as much as adult fantasy) but I may need to read specifically for comparison sake for a month or so, or look at other media (like TV or movies) that has the right tone or themes.

But I also know that I can, you know, just write a kickass query. People have successful queries all the time without comps.

Now, if my brain would just catch up on that idea.

Hope your autumn is actually autumning, squiders! See you next week!

Random Number Generator Follow-On and Oh, Hey, It’s MileHiCon Time

Good evening, squiders! I hope your week is going well.

So far, this random number generator plan I mentioned last week is working great. I’ve outlined my SkillShare class (something I’ve had on my to-do list for, like, two months), made great progress on my trip book and character drawings, and have finished my edit and sent it off to my final beta.

And I’ve actually made a lot of progress on other goals, like reading and playing video games.

I do think I was psyching myself out. Because when I was making my daily to do lists, I was listing drawing AND editing AND writing AND outlining, and so it’s no real surprise that I was having a bit of issues with prioritization and focus.

Now I’m just putting “Creativity” on my to-do list and doing whatever the task for the day is, and not feeling guilty because I’m not getting to it all.

So, fingers crossed, but so far, so good!

Also, now that it is October, the best of all months, it means MileHiCon is coming up. It’s a bit inconvenient this year, because EVERYTHING is on top of it, and I have a training that I’m going to miss part of, and then have to leave the convention early for, so that’s grand.

I have three panels this year: We Named the Dog Indiana (I’m assuming on naming things), Everything Dinosaurs (self-explanatory), and then I’m moderating a panel called Horses (Because We Can). An interesting selection, as always, and no straight writing ones this year. Ah well.

Normally I wait a little longer to start MileHiCon prep, but it won’t hurt to start things early instead of stressing myself out.

So, to do list:

Check book stock and order more if necessary
Research and prepare for panels
Follow up with author co-op table sign up if haven’t heard by Friday
Figure out if I have any Writers’ Motivation fliers left over from last year and if not make more
Bookmarks??? (And if so, of which book(s)?)
Make sure we have Venmo, Square, et al set up and ready to go with all the pieces
Business cards??

I feel like I’m forgetting something but we have time. Especially if I start working on stuff.

MileHiCon is one of my favorite times of the year, and I’m a bit sad that I have to truncate it this year because of the aforementioned training (but also annoying that I will have to miss part of the training! who plans this stuff) but it is what it is.

Anyway, hope you’re doing well! See you Thursday-ish!

Random Number Generator

Good afternoon, squiders! It’s finally October, and yet it is still so hot. I just want my autumn weather, is that so much to ask? Hot drinks and sweaters and boots and all that jazz.

So, September was okay, productivity wise, but not great, and I think it ultimately came down to still being a bit unfocused. Too many potential projects, too easy to give up on doing anything and instead read fanfiction.

(Must stop reading fanfiction. It is a sign of procrastination.)

So, I’m trying something new this month. A random number generator. My very own random number generator.

I’ve made the following Google Sheet:

On it I’ve listed all the things I might potentially work on for the month, and then I’ve made separate sheets for each project with the steps on them. Like so:

Screenshot of a single project, with the first step crossed out

Now, you might be wondering, where does the random number generator come in?

Screenshot of the random number generator circled

Ta-dah! Random number generator. Every time I open the document, or make changes in the document (such as crossing out a step as completed), this number changes. It aligns with the list of projects beside it.

So, the idea is that I, instead of waffling over the many possible things I could be doing, simply go into my spreadsheet, see what the number is for the day, and then work on that. Problem, in theory, solved.

(I haven’t had a chance to check it yet, as I made the spreadsheet Wednesday, did not have any time to work yesterday, and am working on Book 1 today as I need to get the draft to my final beta who is going to check overall flow on the whole novel. But I’m optimistic!)

You’ll note that there’s a couple of yellow items at the bottom that do not have corresponding sheets of steps. In an attempt to rein myself in, I’ve designated these projects as follow-ons once other things finish. Both the novella outline and the Rings Among the Stars edit can only be started once the Book 1 submission materials list is done, and the book from Prospector (which is our interlibrary loan program) needs the Trip Book to be done first.

Anyway, we shall see how this goes. Any thoughts, squiders?

Thinking Ahead

I sent the end of Book 1 to my in-person critique group yesterday. I expect there will be some adjusting necessary, though I am interested to see how they feel about the ending as they’ve read the whole book, whereas the online group was more inconsistent, with some people missing large swathes of it.

(On the submission material front, I re-read the book, taking notes on the first quarter or so to use in the query. I’m finding the actual writing of the query letter to be very intimidating, which is frustrating. And I still haven’t figured out how to even start looking for comps. A problem for next week, though.)

I’ve found myself, over the last week or so, starting to think about Book 2. Books 2 and 3 are drafted, though they will need to be adjusted at some point to match the changes I’ve made in Book 1 over the last few drafts. Part of me would like very much to jump right into doing that–I’ve got some really good ideas for changes to Book 2–but logically I know that I’ve got to get Book 1 completely finalized and ready to go out, and that it doesn’t make sense to spend a lot of time on Books 2 and 3 until, hopefully, Book 1 sells.

But, man, the urge. The urge, squiders.

I’m indulging a bit. Daydreaming. Writing down some thoughts so I don’t lose them. I may reread both drafts for my own entertainment. Might do some character sketches, or play on avatar makers (though finding ones that do green skin is always a bit of a challenge).

Hopefully that will be enough, for now, to squash the urge to poke any further.

Probably part of it is subconscious avoidance of query writing and that jazz. Just got to make sure I stay focused.

Any thoughts, squiders, on focusing on tasks even if they seem intimidating or scary? Thoughts on how to find decent comps?

Blogging in 2024

Every now and then I sit here and actually think about marketing (I know, shocking). And one of the things I think vaguely about is…is this blog working? Is it doing anything for me? Is blogging even still relevant in 2024?

But then I get distracted by something else and never look at it too deeply.

On one hand, the blog in general is useful. It keeps me writing even through otherwise dry spells. It helps me organize my thoughts. I wrote part of my nonfiction series here.

On the other hand, the marketing hand–maybe not? I wouldn’t say my views or comments or likes or what have you have greatly increased from when I started 14 years ago to today, and I can’t point to the blog as moving the needle when I put out a new book. I doubt followers of this blog have joined my newsletter list, or any of that jazz. And it feels like blogging is out. Like, it’s YouTube or TikTok or Instagram now, and who reads things other people write anymore?

Part of me wonders if I should move to another platform. Something like Medium or Substack, where there is better discoverability. But if also feels like you need a little more polish for something like that, instead of just writing whatever comes to mind on a vaguely routine schedule.

That could entirely be a misconception. I haven’t ever looked too closely at alternatives. If you’ve used Substack or Medium (or some other alternative that I don’t even know about), what has your experience been like? Do you like it better than maintaining your own blog? Do you follow blogs on Substack/Medium/whatever? How’s the reading experience?

I will admit to being a creature of habit. I’ve blogged here for a long time, and it’s scary to think about leaving. But hey, I did LiveJournal for a long time before that, and before that, I used to send random emails to my friends. So I can learn new tricks if necessary.

Thoughts about blogging, squiders?

WriYe and Writing Characters

Howdy, howdy, squiders. I got a flat tire today, which is a pain in the ass. Siiiiiigh. Hole in the sidewall, so no repairs for me.

But anyway.

WriYe’s September prompt is: What type of characters do you like writing? Hate writing?

At first thought, I don’t think I hate writing any sort of character. Boring ones, maybe, but if you have a character you’re not jiving with, maybe you should spice them up a bit?

Like, let’s look at Lily, who is in Shards. She’s a secondary antagonist, and on the first draft, she was kind of boring. I think I wasn’t quite sure what to do with her.

The only image of Lily I could find easily. I think I liked this particular avatar maker cuz I could give everyone appropriately colored wings.

That wasn’t really Lily’s fault.

When I did the revisions that would end up in the published version of the book, I spent a lot of time doing character work on Lily. What was her background? What was her motivation? Why was she working against the main characters (in the first draft she’d been an antagonist still, but I wasn’t clear why, and so her actions didn’t always make sense)?

And she ended up being one of my favorite characters in the book.

Even despicable characters can be fun. Sometimes it’s therapeutic to work through someone being evil.

So I kind of feel like if you have a character you’re hating to write, something’s wrong with the character. And you should take a look at them and either flesh them out better, or maybe remove them from the story if they’re not working. Sometimes the wrong character is in the wrong story, after all.

I’m afraid I’m not going to be a ton of inspiration on this particular prompt. Characterization typically comes easily for me, so it’s not something I spend a lot of time on (unless a character isn’t working, like Lily above, and even then I can normally sort them out–or remove them–without too much trouble). Now, pacing is something that does NOT come easily, and so I have spent more conscious time working on that.

What about you, squiders? Thoughts on characters?

Don’t Store Things on Tumblr

Howdy, squiders, how are you?

So far so good on my front. I’ve gotten through my query research (and goodness, I’m going to have to figure out comps, and I can’t think of any YA fantasy I’ve read recently that fits the bill.) and have consolidated all my story ideas into a single document.

(I think I’ve got to query as YA, even though Dan and Lana are a little old–18 at the beginning of Book 1, and 20 by the end of Book 3–but that probably fits better from a theme/trope standpoint.)

(aaaaaahhhh comps)

The story idea consolidation took me longer than I expected it to. The last piece of that was going through my Tumblr likes.

Guys, do not use Tumblr if you ever want to find anything again.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love Tumblr. It is my favorite social media, and the only one I use on a semi-regular basis. (Semi-regular, in this case, means I spend a lot of time for a few weeks or months, liking and reblogging memes and stuff from whatever TV show(s) I’m on at the time, and then don’t touch it for like two months.) (Also this autoposts there, the last remaining hold out.) It has its own lore, the randomest stuff goes viral, I learn all sorts of weird things that someone else found interesting, and all my favorite fandoms are there.

I initially made a tumblr with the idea that I would use it for marketing, but you cannot actually market on tumblr, and also I always get distracted by everything else going on.

(You guys are welcome to follow me there, if you are also on tumblr. I’m here. Recent stuff includes writing memes, a lot of Psych–my current hyperfixation, some Gravity Falls due to the resurgence of interest because of The Book of Bill, Star Trek, and whatever else randomly caught my interest.)

Anyway, what tends to happen is I’ll get deep into the tumblr rabbit hole, come across something that either is a cool story idea, a writing prompt, vibes, or otherwise gives me that pleasant little “this could be a story” tingle, and I’ll like it.

Guys. Guys. There is not a way to efficiently search through tumblr, let alone your own blog or likes. If you reblog something and tag it, you can look through your tags, but this assumes I reblogged it, which most of the time I do not.

It took me hours to get through my likes, and even then I gave up, still not having reached other tumblr notes in my story idea document. Some things are lost to the aether forever.

I’ve got to stop doing this. If I want to save something, it’s got to go straight into the story idea document. I will never find it again otherwise.

So, lesson learned. RIP things I never found again.

(Even if I could search my likes, I don’t know how I’d find anything. Not like the words “story idea” appear in any of them. Alas.)

Focus, Go!

It’s September! And yet still like 95 degrees. The planet is on fire, my dudes.

So, as we discussed last month/week, August ended up not being terribly productive for me because I was free of the revision (aside from making edits from the marathon) and promptly was like I CAN DO ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING and hence did nothing because of Too Many Options.

Having had the weekend to think about this, I’ve remembered that this often happens when I move from working on a single project to multiple. It’s like my brain forgets how to compartmentalize. (To be fair to my brain, I did work on this revision for a year and a half.)

So, having had some insight, this weekend was actually fairly productive, and September should be better in general.

First step: clear goals for each project.

Project 1: Short Stories

This is further broken down into subgoals:

Read book about writing short stories — I inherited this from my mother. It is from the late ’90s and is Bad. But I am almost through it, and if nothing else it reminds me what not to do. (It is very short or I would not bother. Plus then I can get it out of my house.)
Consolidate short story ideas — I’ve been going through my idea list and expanding ideas, and I’ve picked a few anthologies to try and write stories for. I also need to do a RaTs this month.
Write shorts — depends on the number of ideas that get fleshed out enough, timing, anthology deadlines, etc.

Project 2: Submission Materials for Book 1

Same thing here:

Research how to write a query letter
Write said query letter
Get feedback and revise as necessary
Research how to write summaries
Write summary (multiple?)
Get feedback and revise as necessary
Do agent research and make agent list

Project 3: Finalize Book 1 draft

This will be done later in the month, but basically will include making edits based off the final weeks of the critique marathon and then running the end of the book past my critique group (which is meeting the last weekend of the month) and making any additional changes that are necessary.

Project 4: New SkillShare class

Steps here:

Outline class
Create slides for class
Film class
Edit class
Publish class

I don’t expect to get further than the slides this month.

If that seems like a lot, well, it might be! But the secret is to identify priorities, blocks of available time, and have a plan of attack, instead of putting everything on my to do list everyday and throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. I’ve already made more progress these past four days than all of August combined.

So, cautiously optimistic!

Hope your September is off to a good start as well, squiders!

Oh, and Hallowed Hill is on sale for $0.99 through tomorrow, so pick it up if you need a Gothic horror fix in time for spooky season!