Justin Macumber’s Blog

Not sure why it is, but today I feel drained. More than usual, anyway. Granted, I’m fat, so being tired kinda goes with the territory. But for the past week or so I’ve been on a bit of a high, getting things accomplished and putting other things in order. I’ve felt good, motivate even. Today, though, I feel like I’m down to the bottom of my tank with a long way still to go. Reminds me of lines from a Robert Frost poem – “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.” Maybe it’s just one of those strange biorhythm days some people talk about. Then again, perhaps there’s no reason for it at all. Maybe I just didn’t eat well. Either way, I feel sad and empty right now. I hope it goes away soon. I have so much left to do.

You know, for a writer I haven’t been doing a lot of reading, and that’s damn near a cardinal sin. Writers write, but they also read, and over the past several years I’ve let that habit/passion slide to the wayside. Not sure why, though I think my increase in video game playing is mostly to blame. Be that as it may, over the past month or so I’ve managed to read and finish three books. That’s right, THREE. First it was “On Basilisk Station” by David Weber (it was okay, but not as good as I’d hoped), then “Contagious” by Scott Sigler (went in directions I hadn’t anticipated, and I loved the ride), and just the other day I finished “The Strain” by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan (it had some issues, but all in all I loved it and highly recommend it). Man, that’s some speedy reading, for me anyway! It feels good, too. I feel like I’ve rediscovered an old love. Now I’m reading “Heart-Shaped Box” by Joe Hill, the son of my favorite author of all time Stephen King. It’s a good read so far. I love the way he gets into his characters’ heads and sets a mood. If any of you are interested in reading these books, here are some links that can get you to them. Now, back to reading!

My erotica story, “Little Mysteries,” has gone up at Erotica a la Carte: A woman returns to her high school and finds a sweet mystery waiting for her. Thanks, Philippa!

Linky!

* Direct Download *

Part Two of my four-part short story series entitled “The Ties That Bind” has been published. I hope you enjoy it!

It’s been three weeks since Butch, my father-in-law, passed away. Since then our lives have been like a rocking ship trying to sail its way through stormy seas. Some days are good, some are bad, but nothing feels the same, and we desperately need them to. I’m assuming that as the days go on we’ll feel more normal, but for now that just isn’t possible. Dealing with his estate and getting all of his affairs in order is a huge task that never seems to end, while at the same time reminding us constantly that he’s dead. The scab of his passing can’t heal because we’re forced to pick at it all the time. Meanwhile, I’m trying to get back into writing, and my success with that has been iffy. I’m trying not to push things, to let them flow naturally, but that’s hard. I want to be okay, I want to write, and I want to be happy. Maybe someday I will.

But, not all is grim and Debbie Downer. I recently picked up a horror novel titled “The Strain” by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. It’s like “The Hot Zone” meets “Salem’s Lot,” and I loved it. I finished it last night, and immediately I wanted to dive into the next book. I have no idea when it comes out, but it can’t be soon enough. The book wasn’t all that scary, but it was creepy as hell, and that’s just as good. Creep can be sustained a lot better than horror can. I can’t recommend it enough. I chose it as the book for our next podcast book review/discussion. I hope the other guys like it as much as I did.

So, that makes two books I’ve finished in the past month. First it was Scott Sigler’s “Contagious,” and now “The Strain.” I thought about reading J.F. Lewis’ “Revamped,” but I didn’t want to follow one vampire novel with another, so instead I cracked open Joe Hill’s “Heart-Shaped Box.” He’s the son of Stephen King, so my expectations are high. Thus far, they’ve been met. We’ll see if he can keep it up.

Anyway, that’s it. That’s life. You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have… well, you get the idea.

Take care.

Hey, everyone, I just wanted to let you know that my short story “Pirates Of The Crimson Sand” has been published by the fine folks at eMuse-Zine. If you want to read it (and I hope you do), just click on THIS LINK and it’ll take you right to it. Thanks for coming by, and please let me know what you think of it.

And, the day after I write that, I find out my father-in-law has passed away. Words can’t express how sad I am right now.

I think today is the first day in a good long while that I’ve actually felt good. For the past couple of months I’ve operated under a low level of tension, worrying about my writing career, worrying that I’m not reading enough, worrying about my mother’s breast cancer, worrying about… well, everything. Over the last few weeks, that feeling had only gotten worse. I wasn’t writing nearly as much as I needed to, and what I did write I wasn’t entirely happy with. Add in the fact that I needed to write a story for someone, needed to record narration for yet another person, and then work on my own audio production, and it all amounted to a hill I wasn’t sure I could climb.

But today I feel good. After two days of wrestling with that short story I mentioned, I made a breakthrough. You see, the story is for an erotica podcast called Erotica Ala Carte, hosted by my friend Philippa Ballantine. The premise of her podcast is that people get to vote for what they want the story to be about from a list of options, and then she writes a story using the options that were voted on the most. I offered to write a story for her, and the options that came back were: 1) It had to be from a female’s point-of-view, 2) it had to take place at a high school reunion, and 3) it needed to be a mystery. Now, the first option wasn’t that bad. I like writing female characters, sometimes more than I do males. The second and third options, though, were a bit tougher. I write science fiction, stories that take place way out yonder. I don’t do mysteries, and I don’t do modern settings. Luckily I have Terry, one of the co-hosts on my podcast, and he was able to chat with me and help me figure out what sort of story I was going to tell. But, after struggling through the writing of it for two days, I finally figured out why I was having so much trouble - I was writing it from the third person point-of-view. For an erotic story, I needed to come at it from a much more intimate perspective, something close in. So today I went through what I’d written and changed it from third person to first, making all the necessary adjustments along the way. Now I’m happy with it. More than happy, I’m excited (pardon the pun). I think the story flows so much better now, and I have total confidence that I can have a good story ready for Pip.

Anyway, that’s gone a long way toward assuring me that I can do this. When you have a problem, you have to sit down and figure out what that problem is and what you can do to fix it. I did that with my current book in progress, and I did it with this short story. I’m glad. I can write. Hurray!

Anyway, that’s it for now. I finally feel like I have a handle on things, and that makes me feel so much better.

Cheers.

Well, it looks like my short story series “Tales Of The Breaking Dawn” is finally getting released to the world. Part One has just been published by the fine folks at Ray Gun Revival. Parts Two, Three, and Four will be released in the following three months. I hope you guys download the magazine and give it a read, and then I hope you enjoy it. Once I have the audio version created, I’ll make sure to post a link to it.

This doesn’t look good…