Spotlight Weird: Shock Totem Magazine

Well, to kick off my new weekly feature, Spotlight Weird, I decided to start with my friends at Shock Totem: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted (clickable). As you can see by the picture of issue one, shown above, it's a beautiful magazine. However, there's a lot more to Shock Totem than wicked cover art and quality binding. The magazine is chock full of excellent stories, interviews, reviews and an interesting little nugget called "Howling Through the Keyhole", a section in which each author gives a little background to the fine stories published in the issue. These authors will literally blow your mind... they sure did mine. Even though only one issue has been released thus far, issue two is just around the corner and I kid you not, it's well worth going back and buying issue one as well as issue two. K. Allen Wood, editor of the magazine, is a great guy and he and the other "Totemites" have impeccable taste in fiction, art, and music. And they have great senses of humor, which is always a plus.

I'd recommend this magazine to any reader who loves horror, fantasy and all things weird. And if you happen to be a writer of those things... bring your A-game. Shock Totem might be new, but don't expect left-over-like stories. These tales are top-notch and are more than worth the cover price of the mag, $5.99 USD (plus shipping, of course); very low for a magazine of this quality. I've paid more for genre mags that look about half as good. Go visit the site, take a look around... buy issue one. Then buy issue two once it becomes available. You absolutely will not be sorry.

In addition to the magazine, there is also a nicely growing little community, Shock Totem Forums (clickable), where you can meet all the great people who work at the magazine and some who just hang out (like me). Also, Shock Totem hosts a themed flash fiction contest every two months and forum membership is required to take part, so if you're a writer who does a little flashing, keep it in mind. Just something fun to do, with possible publication as one of the prizes (the details are available on the forum). You can check out K. Allen Wood's blog, The Eyesore Times (clickable), for insight on the man behind the mag, for a good laugh (he is a funny, funny guy), or just to keep up with what's going on over at ST.

Now, as you may have noticed, this was not posted on Saturday. I decided to make "Spotlight Weird" a Monday event. So, check back next Monday for the next edition of "Spotlight Weird". Wednesdays will be a personal post from me, and Fridays I will join K. Allen Wood and Kara McElhinny, among many others, in posting weekly word counts so we can hold each other accountable. Thanks for reading and hey... as always...

Peace & Love
~Effie

Okay, time to kick butt and chew bubblegum

I'm so bad at this blogging thing. I have nothing to blog about. My life is fairly mundane... write, research, write, edit, revise, edit, revise, look for appropriate mag markets, write... feed my spawn at some point, write... almost write a blog post and then delete the draft because it's stupid.

I'm a fiction writer. Writing about myself is tough. Or even writing about my writing. I am selfish and don't want to talk about what I'm writing.

But, I'm going to make a conscious effort to blog more. Dunno how much more, or what it will be about, but I'm going to at least try.

One thing I'm hoping to do is a "Spotlight Weird" weekly post about an interesting horror/spec fic/darkish magazine for writers to have a look at... and hopefully readers too. I send stuff out to these guys... the least I can do is share the love, right? That starts Saturday.

So... I don't know what else I'll be blogging about in my "I'm going to blog three times a week" thing, but it'll be something.

But for now...

Peace & Love, y'all
~E

A Contest! ...Umm... not mine, though.

My darling friend and fellow writer, Damien Grintalis, is holding a contest on her blog.

A Contest, you say?

Go, read the rules, do your thing. Win prizes! Yes, prizes! Bards & Sages Quarterly, features Miss Grintalis herself or a book. Go forth! Make that first sentence shine!

Peace & Love, y'all
~E.

Hometown Tragedy--The Montcoal Mine Explosion

It's 3:00 a.m. and the alarm is going off. You haven't seen daylight in years, but you do what you have to do. This is your livelihood. You get up and dress, pack a cold lunch and drive, maybe a few minutes, maybe hours. When you get to work, you put on a hardhat and lay down on a trolley--the man-car--that will take you deep into a mountain. Thousands of feet deep.

The hole you enter in only 20 or 30 inches high and the tunnel is no bigger. A thousand feet or more you ride down into the mountain. Thousands of pounds of dirt and rock are above you, held up only by columns of the same dirt and rock every twenty feet. You can crawl on your knees, but there is no standing up. The pitch blackness is unforgiving, even the light on your hardhat won't pierce it. You see only what your headlight shines directly on. The air is thick and full of dust and it's so hard to breathe. But you have to go into that hole in the mountain; and in this hole, you stay for ten to twelve hours a day, six days a week. Mining coal. For your family, for your life. For electricity that powers part of our country. And while inside that deep, dark hole, a blast. Heat.

Death.

I am the daughter of a coal miner and my husband once worked the mines. This is not fiction, my friends. This is absolute truth. My husband's father is a coal miner. This is the life they lead. Constant darkness, constant danger. Breathing god knows what for however long. They do it for you, for me, for themselves. It's not just a job. It's their entire life. A man who spends his life inside a black hole deserves respect, and they all have mine.

The county next to mine is suffering. 25 dead miners and 4 still unaccounted for. My state is in turmoil. That job was all some of those men had to provide for their families. 25 families. If there are four members in each of those families, that's 100 people affected by this mine explosion. And that may just be a wife and three kids. What if they had 4 kids? Or 6? This doesn't include mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, grandparents... grandchildren. Hundreds of people in anguish... and the coal company is non-union. They don't have to do anything for these people. They may... but they don't have to.

If you are willing to help those affected, and can, please visit The Red Cross Central WV website for information on what you can do. I'm sure everyone has seen the news reports. It's on the national media circuit. The Montcoal Mine Explosion (link to article on Newsweek) is the worst in years. My thoughts go out to the four still missing, and my heart aches for the family members of the 25 already found dead. If you can... please...

~E.

Flash Fiction Contests: Podcasting, anyone?

The people of Escape Artists are holding Flash Fiction contests, five hundred words or less, for each of the company's podcasts. Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Everything Masters of Horror is about, so I thought I'd share the info with you lovelies.

Join the forums here and find the rules here.

Each podcast zine has a different submission period so be sure to read when to send the different genre submissions. Good luck!

Peace & Love
~E

Bunnies and Eggs

Just to say Happy Easter to my friends, fiends and fans who celebrate, religiously or otherwise.

Peace & Love, y'all
~E

The Keepsake--short story up at SNM Horror Magazine

Hello, lovelies.

Want to have your breath taken away? Over at SNM Horror Magazine, 8 wonderful stories (including my own, The Keepsake) wait to suck the breath right out of you. And the lovely Diane Dooley has one up as well (After Happily Ever After). Check them out (check them ALL out please) and I promise, you won't go away disappointed. Both issues are excellent.

April Asphyxiations at SNM!

Give 'em some love, y'all.

Peace & Love
~E.

Spitting Out the Unnecessaries

Sometimes, writing is much like seeded grapes. You keep the good part and throw out the bitter seeds that you don't want or need.

Nasty buggers, those seeds.

When choosing what to throw out of your writing life, whether it be within a story or even in your "network" of writer-ish types, bear one thing in mind. You can't do everything for everyone, nor can you include every little thing. Sure helping people is great, doing things with other writers is great, but egads, it's draining.

I took a good, hard look at myself this morning and I don't even like what I see. There is absolutely no color in my face what-so-ever, the circles under my eyes seem to have doubled (even for a chick with chronic insomnia), and I have lost so much weight it's scary. Oh yes, I can count my ribs and cut people with my hip bones. Not good at all. I was sitting comfortably at about a buck forty (women all over are gasping in shame that someone told their weight on the evil interwebz) and I'm down almost thirty pounds from that. Hell, I feel unhealthy.

My point?

We writers try so hard to spread ourselves out--but a too thin layer of cheese on any cracker is useless. Might as well just let it slide off, yes?

The life of a writer, especially one just starting in the publishing business, can be very isolating. More and more time gets spent on editing, writing new sections, rewriting this or that, reading for one writer friend, reading for another, trying to make sure you talk to everyone in the biz you know a few times a week at least. The writer forgets what the sun looks like, forgets what he or she looks like, what outside smells like. They forget to eat (just coffee and a cigarette, please!), forget to call their mother on her birthday, forget to pick up bread for lunch. Got to churn out more words.

We're not machines, okay guys? Yes, setting goals is great. As long as they are realistic goals and one doesn't forget to take care of themselves. You can't write shit if you're dead.

Writing needn't be an obsession. It should be fun, should be something you enjoy doing as much as you desire to do it. If it becomes a chore, what you put out turns to crap.

Writing crap is okay--after all there is nothing you can't fix and sometimes you have to write crap because it just won't leave you alone. But if it gets to the point of burning yourself out, I think it's time to reassess exactly what you are doing. No one's chosen career should kill them. And if you only put out crappy writing, you need to take a look at what caused the change and get back to you. A tired, burnt-out writer can't write for themselves, much less socialize with others and help them out.

Which brings us full circle.

How many of your "writer" friends only talk to you when they want help with something? Thankfully, this has happened very few times to me, and I've had no problem cutting them the fuck out of my circle of writerly friends. If I hadn't, I'd be in worse shape than I am now. This is taxing, guys. If all you do is take and take and take, with no reciprocal return for whom you take from, you are only hurting yourself in the long run. We should help each other, not be selfish and only get what we can out of each other. This business is tough enough and draining enough without selfishness added to the mix. Eventually, the takers will have taken all they can get from every writer whose path they have crossed and there will be no one to help them when they really need it.

And if you are one of those that only take, I say this. Shame on you, asshole.

Peace & Love, y'all
~E.

Time for Change!

So, now that things are moving along, I do believe it's time to make some changes to the blog. Over the next week or so, I'll be changing theme, my blog title, adding additional pages. Keep an eye out for other news from me, coming soon--hopefully all the changes will be made before then.

Peace & Love, y'all
~E

So. What would you do, buddy?

I love what if situations. You can ask what if till the proverbial cows make their way back to the green pastures of their birth and/or origin. What if is great.

So, there's an idea. A little nugget of something squirming around in the back of thy sacred brain matter and it's half-formed. Half-baked. Still doughy in the middle.

As I said, what if is great. So is "What would you do, buddy?" Want to know why? Cause you're a person. If you ask it of yourself, and of those (family and friends) you know intimately to yourself [assuming you know them well enough to be able to guess what they would do], you can gauge a general concensus of what a normal person may do in that situation you've got going in the back of your head.

That is, you know... if you are indeed normal.

I have a quirky situation in the back of my head that I have no idea what I would do with, or what anyone would do with. It's quite strange, this. It's not a situation I've ever run across, in book, film, or that thing called life.

So. I can be creative with what a person might do with this... situation.

But is it right? That's the question. I could do this all day.

What if, what if.

Sometimes what if's a bitch too.

Peace & Love, y'all
~E.