I’m always fascinated by how my concept of a story I’m working on can change and morph over time. The one I finished yesterday is case in point. I agreed to write this story for a themed anthology. I chose a location. For a while, I thought I was going to write it in tweets. The max word length was 2500, so I imagined 20 or so tweets to tell the story. Sort of a “found tweetage” idea. I honestly thought that’s what it was going to be, but I never wrote a single tweet.
Instead, I picked two characters who’ve taken me on adventures before. A brother and sister who’ve so far been to Centralia, PA and Cheshire, OH in published stories. (A third story is on hold with another anthology.) These two have an interesting family story that establishes the baseline for these adventures. Some day, when I get enough of them, I might put them together into a collection. Anyway, the first draft is about 20% over the limit, so I’m going to have to do some slicing and dicing.
Several weeks ago, Rich Chizmar and Brian Freeman approached me to see if I was interested in being part of a project that launched today. The idea behind Stephen King Revisited is that Rich will read all of King’s books in publication order (including collections, Bachman books and non-fiction) and blog about the experience. In fact, the blogging part was King’s idea after Rich told him what he was going to do. They asked me if I would write an accompanying essays that puts each book in its historical context. Rich estimates that he’ll read two to three books per month, which means we’re going to be at this for at least the next two years! My first essay, How Carrie Happened, went up today, along with Rich’s introduction to the project. His blog about Carrie should be up in a few days, with ‘Salem’s Lot to follow by Thanksgiving. I’ve been working ahead: I have my first five essays ready to go. Check it out. Sign up for email updates. Comment on the blogs. It’s going to be an interesting journey.
I’m enjoying American Horror Story much more than I thought I would. The teasers didn’t do much for me but the story, so far, is decent. Glad to see Elementary back, too. The murder method in the first episode was a tad preposterous, but it was mostly something to hang the interpersonal drama off.
The episode of Haven that airs tonight is the one being filmed when my daughter and I visited the set in June. The scene we saw takes place in a house (a real house, not a set), and I suspect it’s from late in the episode. A couple of major characters are handcuffed together. The scene also features Chris Masterson, Lara Jean Chorostecki, and Kris Lemche. It was raining really hard outside during filming. A gully washer. I’ll be curious to see if any of that external sound is audible.
