Dear Mortality

If you've had the bad luck of being told by reputable doctors you may not live to a certain age, then you'll know what I'm mean when I say the actual, physical design of your brain is changed from dealing with the news.

I'm 49 years old, will be 50 in April. Doctors told me in 2013 if I didn't quit smoking there was a alarmingly high-percentage chance I wouldn't live to see my 60s. I'd had a massive heart attack that later required triple-bypass heart surgery in 2017. 

For a month and a half, I was able to stay away from the Marlboros. Then, small step by small step, I started to sneak to smoke. At the time, our budget was tight, so I couldn't spend money on cigarettes or it would be noticeable to our bottom line. I'd eventually have to confess to explain where the money had gone. 

So I found cigarette butts in public places.

Yep, nicotine creates a powerful addiction. The last time I did it was about three days before I finally admitted I had started smoking again. I was on my way to work at about 4:30 AM and passed Walmart.

The parking lot was abandoned, a strange state to find the superpower retailer. I took the next turn and drove to the parking lot and walked to the front doors to find in the ash tray receptacle (don't now what they're actually called) a nearly full cigarette someone must have lit as they were going in and tossed out soon afterwards. I picked that thing up and smoked it, cherishing every fine second, giving no thought at all to what kind of sickness I could be exposing myself to whatsoever.

I'm still that addicted, and my last cigarette has to be before midnight on April 22.  

I break from writing THE BOX (Novel in Progress) to say this...

Worked at the job yesterday for 13 hours. The job, the journalism. Worked six more hours today on a roofing project my father-in-law has been tackling by himself for the past week. Alone, just him, 63 years old, ripping away old shingles, removing felt, nails, re-felting, nailing down new shingles, and, during the in-between, replacing rotted boards with newly sawed and fitted wood. 

By himself.

My faith says I must, and my heart, my striving for honest devotion to loved ones, demands it of me. So six hours today, until 3 p.m. He was working when the sun went down shortly after 7 p.m., and had started two hours earlier than I had, a chilly 7 a.m.

I guess I needed to say it. 

When I pulled into the driveway, I limped, half bent, up the hill to my house, a tired we've all known, the kind when all your brain can register is tired. I'm tired. It can provide no other output then. I slept from 3:30 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. when my beautiful cat, Cleopatra, woke me, overdue for her supper and not pleased that I'd made no move to help her out with that. Who knows how long she sat beside my paralyzed body before at last deciding to begin meowing and bumping her head into my chest?

I never mean to transform Bent Country, my first online home, the first time my words were sent out for consumption or deference, I never mean to make it hardly more than a public journal. It just goes that way sometimes. Writers and friends tell me I need to make my personal life more accessible to my literary community, that it humanizes things. I don't know about any of that, I honestly don't, but Bent Country is the only place I feel half-comfortable doing this. Facebook, Twitter, these things scare me, probably second only to the deaths of my loved ones. It's a selfish fear, but nonetheless.

Here it is, an hour out from midnight, and I dread sleeping again because that time travel only puts me right back to morning and pulling on my workboots to go again to the roof. I'll eventually break down some early hour of the morning and give in, grit my teeth and prepare for teleportation to another morning and afternoon working.

I'm still tired, and I haven't had enough fluids today; my face is flakey with dehydration. I should drink water and go to bed.

Typing to be not thinking.

Just finished my entry in the daily journals I started about five years ago. It's all very precious. Moleskin notebooks - seven of them now full - and it's alarming to see that a lot of what's in there is about writing. Well, not alarming. Writing is a big part of my life, but it's like there's not much else going on. I go to my job as assistant news director of this little tv station here in Eastern Kentucky and do these same little stories over and over and over. I'm burned out at this point but too old to start over with anything. I'd like to get a job teaching where I got my undergraduate degree here in Pikeville but there's someone on the English staff there who hates me and not for good reasons at all; in fact, I should hate them because of what they did to me ten years ago. All of that from a decade ago will never leave my mind. My writing career was actually going in that "taking off" direction and they murdered all of that. I mean I'm satisfied now and couldn't be more thankful for my place in letters. I have a fantastic publisher, the writers who know me generally like me and my writing. I've put aside my need for a larger readership. I really only write now for myself. There's a sad thought that's been lodged in my brain for the past couple years. I'm 49 years old and was told if things didn't change (and they haven't) that I wouldn't live past my 50s. These people who told me were doctors. Cardiologists. Heart surgeons. I'm not playing around. I may have only about five years left to live. I'm not scared to die, but knowing it will possibly be so soon is making me sad about the finality of it, never getting to see the people I love again. It's just a sadness that's on me now and it won't be going away. Nothing to really say here this early morning. Just writing to be writing; talking to be talking; typing to be not thinking.

Re: The Old Invisible manuscript

I finished a novel called The Old Invisible a couple weeks ago. I can't tell what I think about it. I don't think it's bad. It's just that I wrote it fast. It took me about six months, maybe five. 

It's the longest book I've written (about 330 manuscript pages) and it's, of course, set in Eastern Kentucky, but it's not exactly the kind of regional literature of mine that's often tagged as Grit Lit. 

It's gritty because it's set in EKy, but there's a mountain witch and she's the main character. I like writing about witches. And sometimes other kinds of monsters. Horror writing brought me into the writing life (many thanks, Stephen King, from one of millions who can say the same exact thing) and that'll always be with me. I'm glad of it. Thing is, it sometimes leaves me unclear what my overall intentions are with a book I'm writing.

Then I remember it doesn't matter.

But there's still the matter of this finished novel I've got here in a folder on my Google Drive. 

Do I make another folder called "Trunk Novels" and put it in there? Do I call the folder "Shelved Novels" or something else? Why do I think about any of this?

I don't know why I think about it. I have a lot of folders in my Google Drive and all of them are about to my writing; folders for short stories, for novels, for prose poems, for essays, for notes, for outlines (very very recently began doing some outlining, since it happened organically in order to keep track of where the hell I was while writing my novel Oblivion Angels). There's others, all of those also about writing.

Off course.

So I don't know about The Old Invisible. I'm worried about sending it to Adam to have a look at. Adam Van Winkle is a publishing wizard. Founder of Cowbody Jamboree Press, he's published nearly all my books now in print, as well as tons of other books by solid as hell writers all around. When I send him a manuscript, I want to make sure it's worth his time to read.

I'm going to do something I've never tried before and that's put the manuscript aside and give it time to breathe, as they say, then go back and see what I think of it after a couple months. 

I'm bad at that kind of thing; impulsiveness has both worked in my favor and against my better interests. Against, me, though, far more often than not. So I'm going to give it a try. 

The time when I was almost kidnapped, raped, and probably killed.

Just told my sister about this childhood incident from when I six years old. It was published as fiction, but it's entirely autobiographical, except I told it from the POV of the predator.

Here is the link to "The Scout," published in 2021 at Schuylkill Valley Journal Online.

Three stories recently published

I've had a few stories published lately that I'm proud of and proud of where they were published. Below are the links to those stories, and the publication that put them out there. I'll also soon have a story appearing at BULL, sometime in November, I think.

/

Harm May's Vegas Money - Porchlight

Flush - Grit Quarterly

The Dress - New World Writing Quarterly

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EARLY MORNING CLEO / July 29, '25 - 4:55 AM

So yeah I put the time on there because it's a ridiculous time of the day. 

But, also, I wanted to say, too, that my cat, my beautiful Cleopatra -

Woke me about an hour ago and wanted to cuddle. I cuddled, my friends. And now I'm awake and I've already written on my novel and short story last night, so I thought I'd stay sharp and hit the old blog a bit.

As I've said here, I think, I'm working on a novel called The Old Invisible right now. I'm 275 pages into the first draft (though I only ever put a book through more than two drafts, usually) and should be reaching the endish soon. 

I had planned for the book to likely come in around 600 pages, but it's wrapping up a lot sooner than I expected. I never know. I just write the sentences and they add up.

It has been the fastest draft I've written, though, by far. My other novels have taken an average of about five years each (I work on more than one at a time mostly). I started this one about four months ago.

I'm also working on several short stories right now. I love titles, so here's what they're called:

The Greenpoint Test

Return Ticket

Fallujah Boy

Dirt Worshippers

Writer friends have told me over the years I should talk more about my personal life instead of just talking about writing and reading all the time. Well, look up there at Cleo again :)

Truth is, I don't think about much else when I'm not at work (I'm Asst. News Director now, after spending many years as a reporter). But free time for me is reading and writing only. I cut the grass time to time, but that's about it. Oh, and go to the movies with my daughter. I explained this oddity to her like this, "I devote time to reading and writing at about the same level most other people devote to social media." It's true, I promise. I'm scared of social media.

I did have to delete YouTube from my phone, though. I did it after sitting on the porch for six hours without realizing I'd been there watching YouTube videos. Six hours gone. Poof. It felt like half an hour.

But that's not what scares me about social media. I can't say what scares me, what pushed me away from it forever, but trust me, it would you, too.

That's it. 

I have a new short story about kissing at Poverty House today

I have a new short, "Revelation Kiss," up at Poverty House. 

I wrote it a couple of days ago after seeing this strange photo. 

I wanted to share the photo with the story but was afraid to because of copyright and general paranoia about anything having to do with an online social presence.

Hope you read it! 

Revelation Kiss at Poverty House

House of Leaves, and, right at the end, fathers

Hi. I've been writing a lot. Got 226 first draft pages of my new novel The Old Invisible finished since February. Started it, half-heartedly, late last year. Used it for the first three months while composing as a place to be safe; used it this last month not at all. Only wrote on it.

I also have a new short story collection finished called Story of My Stories and Other Stories. I'm adding to that one as I go. I'll know when it has enough stories in it. Or maybe not. My past collections were sent to my publisher when I'd written enough to constitute a book-length work. With that as a measuring stick, I would have submitted this to them a month ago. So I don't know what I'm doing with it. All I'm sure of is the stories are coming fast. Even with my output on TOI I've still written seven new long stories and three shorter stories. This has been in the last two months. 

I guess I rarely have prodigious output (not that this is prodigious on the full scale, only in relation to what I usually write..you know what I'm saying).

/

But my writing isn't what I stopped by here at the old house to talk about, actually.

I was enrolled as an English major at Eastern Kentucky University in 1997. One of my English classes (I cannot at all remember which one no matter how hard I try) assigned us some books to pick up at the college bookstore. One was Watchmen by Alan Moore. Another was House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. My sister-in-law at that time knew more about hot books than I did. I was still reading Hemingway and Stephen King and nothing else. So she asked if she could have them when my wife at that time left me and moved back home to the hills. I gave them to her. And found later that both were major books.

I later read Watchmen, borrowed it from a friend, but have not yet read House of Leaves. Tonight I ordered it and will see what I can manage with it. I glanced through it back then and thought of it as, I don't know what, really, a really long, involved literary parlor trick? I'm going to try to actually read it this time and see how it goes. If I finish it, I'll add the designation "personal mountain top" to it on my Reading Log here.

/

That's all. Happy Father's Day to you dads who are being good dads. To hell and all its dark fire to those of you dads who are doing anything other than that.

Still struggling with social media

I was the victim of people on social media in 2015. They called me things I'm not, terrible things that actually contradicted my actions as recently as a month before this began. I can't say anything else because I'm afraid something will happen to me again. I wouldn't be able to get through it again.

/

I don't bring this up in search of pity or anything of that nature. I bring it up so I can explain to my writing friends why I'm no longer active on social media. It scares me, plain and simple. It's just something I wanted my friends to understand. 

Love you all.

Fact for a Title: Today It Has Rained

I'm barely in the following places anymore - Twitter, Facebook, and, well, I was never at any of the others. 

I suppose I should include Blogger, since I rarely post here anymore either.

There was a time, though, when this was the only thing I did use to connect with the literary community. This was before I knew what Twitter or Facebook was (I miss those days).

There are reasons behind why I don't like social media, but they are long, complicated, and decidedly unpleasant for me to recall, so we'll leave it at that.

By evidence of this post, I would like to come here to my first online home and reach out into the bleary ether of the lit world more often. I can't give a good reason for this feeling, so I won't try.

/ /

I'll likely talk some about writing here, but not as much as I intend to write about living and reading. I turn fifty next year and have the strong feeling I won't live to see my sixties, along with plenty of health issues to add weight to that suspicion. I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about this. I feel scared, but also, in short bursts, excited - excited to see what's next. My brother, Bryan, went on to whatever's next in 2008 and I think a lot about how he now possibly knows that big unknown. 

But thinking about dying also makes me sad.

/ /

I've been reading a lot (really since the summer of 2014 ((which is when my reading log on here began)) but steadily more over the years). This new-to-me-author Vladimir Sorokin is blowing my hair back, man. Already two stories of his and large chunks of one of his novels I read before the collection have stopped me in my tracks. First time in my long life of reading I caught myself with my mouth hanging open while reading a passage from a book. Literally was reading with my jaw dropped for several minutes and didn't realize it until pretty far into the story. If I had it to do over I would have read his collection Red Pyramid first; I actually read his novel Day of the Oprichnik first. Both are good, but that collection would have made me a fan for life. I am anyway, but it would have been cooler that way is all.

/ /

Since I am writing well lately, I will mention something. For the past two months I've been writing fluidly, that is without much strain. I'm logging about a thousand to a fifteen-thousand words a day with ease. And the work's not half bad. Novels are coming faster for me now. My first was a three-year-long grind, and I still don't like to think of the book often because of that. The one published in January came far easier and faster. And now this new one I'm writing is going even smoother than that. I guess the more novels you write, the easier it gets. This is coming from a short story writer, so take it as you will. But the work is flowing nicely enough that I look forward to opening my MacBook after a long day of working as a journalist to pay bills. 

I have no clever way to end this post. So, next time.

A title change for my novel-in-progress, publication Tuesday of my new novel OBLIVION ANGELS

So I started a new novel. I swear, it's like every short story I start now veers too long and then becomes something more than a short story, because I don't think a short story should be thirty pages long. I love horror collections but those stories are way way too long. I truly believe they are novel attempts that faded out around that page count and were reconstructed to fit a short story narrative and then submitted to an anthology.

That's something else I've noticed; a lot of horror writers publish their stories not in journals but in anthologies. It always seems like somebody like Ellen Datlow or Ellen Datlow herself is putting together another anthology. It's surely some quirk of the genre I've just never noticed before now.

But those stories are too long. So once a story I'm writing hits around twenty pages I either stop and read it over a few times and see if I've just got wordy here and there or if it should have been a longer work. If it's the latter, I usually just drag it into the Various folder on my desk top for the time being or possibly forever. With others, I sort of like where it's going and can feel more of it swirling around in my head and fingertips and so keep working on it.

It's become easier for me to admit that I'm officially working on a novel. I had never been a novelist, really, until the publication of The Orchard Is Full of Sound. Before that book, I was solidly a short story writer and a hundred percent content with that. But after Orchard, I started a story that became Oblivion Angels; and now I've started started a story that's become The Old Power (originally titled Sister Hall). I'm at about page twenty-five on The Old Power and so it's only just been born as a novel. 

With this being my six novel (the fifth, Oblivion Angels, comes out Tuesday) I'm now at five novels and four story collections. Once this sixth is published (Lord willing) I'll have two more novels than collections and then there it is.

I'm proud of Oblivion Angels and really eager to see it come out with my publisher, Cowboy Jamboree Press. Adam Van Winkle, the publisher there, has published my last several books and will publish (if he likes them in manuscript) whatever books I write from here on. We have an agreement that CJ will have exclusive rights to all my prose books - fiction, essays, short stories, etc. 

But I also have a collection of stories presently in the works - Until the Going Down of the River. That manuscript is at just over a hundred pages right now, and I just finished another story to include in the draft called "To Open Hills," published by Wilson Koewing at his journal Bottle Rocket. You can read it at the Selected Writing page here at Bent Country.