Now, here I am five years later, staring at a dusty script that I started adding notes to a few weeks ago. My short story Her Lover’s Touch was a warm-up for this novel. I wanted to start exploring a few ways to get my creepy vibes flowing because I knew I would really need to pour it on for this story. I’m sure, when it’s all said and done, and I’ve written THE END, that some of you will be able to see where I was flexing my muscles in the short story.

I don’t want to give too much away just yet, but this is what I can tell you about my next novel: An alcoholic framed for a murder he didn’t commit believes he’s going mad because he’s plagued by visions of the victim everywhere he travels.

Did I grab your attention? Hopefully so. If everything goes according to plan, I will have the first draft ready by the end of the year. Wish me luck. I’m going to need it.

A woman trapped alone in a mansion during a severe storm is tormented by the emotions and desires building inside of her. Stranded in the dark with only her hands and imagination to satisfy her cravings, she is forced to travel down an unnatural path in search of the ultimate release.

I am happy to announce I have made my short erotic story “Her Lover’s Touch” available for FREE at Smashwords until the end of February 2012. After that it will be available for only 99¢

This is the first piece of paranormal erotica that I have ever written and I’m pretty proud of it. Please give it a read and let me know what you think!

2012 is upon us, and to me it feels like a stack of elephants are standing on my shoulders.

I have a few resolutions I need to get out of the way, and so far things are looking good. In January, I am going to start polishing the Shady Palms manuscript I received from the editor a few months ago. I hope to start submitting it to a few places by March. After that, I plan on starting on the first draft of Old Mill Road sometime in March also and hopefully having it wrapped by the end of the year.

To get my mind focused on Old Mill Road which is a supernatural tale of revenge, I decided to flex my writing muscles with “Her Lover’s Touch.” I just wrapped the first drift of the story, which is just over 3900 words. I have to admit this is one of the creepiest and weirdest stories I have ever written, but I meant for it to lead that way. I wanted to create something that was very dark and atmospheric, sort of in the style of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale heart”, but with contemporary erotic overtones.

When I found myself down to the last 200 words, the story suddenly took control and ended in a way I never planned. Right now, I think the story has a suitable ending…but I need to see what I think after I finish the second draft…and then what the beta readers and my editor think. I think it’s creepy as fuck as it stands. If all goes according to plan, I’ll post it for free in a week or two. Stay tuned to my newsletter, Facebook or Twitter to know when it pops!

For my last New Year’s Resolution, I am trying to get my Twitter Followers up to 10,000 targeted people by the time I submit Shady Palms to the first publisher. This is probably one of the hardest things I am attempting, but I’m making good progress. I’m up to about 7,500 followers as we speak…how many of those really pay attention, I do not know.

That’s it for now…I have plenty of work to tackle and hopefully you will enjoy my efforts.

Alison is a small town girl who has fallen into a life of crime while chasing her big dreams. One night, while stealing from a traveling circus, she runs into a mysterious man who kindles a fire deep inside of her. Torn between her desires, she must choose whether to run away from her deepest fears or surrender to her wildest fantasies.

This is the first piece of contemporary erotica that I have ever written and I’m pretty proud of it. Please give it a read and let me know what you think!

You can download it for only 99¢ to read on Kindle, Nook, iTunes, Kobo, Diesel or any other type of eReader you may have.

Tonight I wrapped the first draft of a piece of erotic fiction I’m current calling “Caught White-Handed.” What makes this story unique is that it is the first piece of pure erotica I have ever written. There’s no blood, violence, or supernatural creatures, but somehow I managed to keep it interesting. At least, I think so.

Last week we repainted our office, so everything was in an upheaval for a few days. While I was stroking my paint roller along the wall, I started having visions of an attractive nude woman applying clown makeup. One thing leads to another; I pulled out my iPhone, fired up my Moleskine app and started outlining things. Last week I have a few hours to start the first draft which buzzed right along. This week, in-between the hustle and bustle of holiday shopping, I managed to wrap the story.

The present word count is around 4,800 words. I think it’s a bit bloated, but then again, first drafts tend to be. My plan is to wrap the second draft next week and then pass it along to some beta readers before I send it to my editor. After that I think I’m going to shop it around for a bit. If nobody bites, I’ll publish it for free or at least post an excerpt.  Something along those lines….still a little early to tell.

In other news, I submitted “Pixie Cut” to an erotic horror anthology. I should know by the end of the month if it’s been accepted or not.  If not, there are a few other places I would like to submit it before I give it away. So far the few people who have read it have loved it, but they are not editors.

Back to the drawing board…after thinking long and hard about it, I think I’m going to bump Old Mill Road to the front of the line and start the first draft of that novel. I already have the screenplay written from A-Z, so it will be fun to fill in the blanks and really get inside the character’s heads.

Stay tuned…

After some soul searching, and realizing I kind of took my own spin with a mythical creature, I decided to rename “Eye Buzz” to “Pixie Cut”. I think the name is far more fitting and self-descriptive for my readers, plus I grew tired of watching my wife roll her eyes at me every time I said the title. By the end of the year I plan to push this one out to eReaders. I’m busy working on a cover and writing up a suitable synopsis.

After “Pixie Cut” is polished like a diamond and handed over to the rabid readers in the world, I’ll wrap up the first draft of “Z3R0S”. If all goes according to plan, I’ll publish it on Valentine’s Day, which seems suitable since it will be my first piece of erotic sci-fi.

I stare at the chrome as it glistens in the light.

What the fuck has led up to this night?

I count the rounds as I load them in the chamber.

How can I ever fix all this sadness or control my anger?

I place the barrel into my mouth and savor
its awkward cold and oily flavor.

I close my eyes and pray to any God that’s listening,
will I go to hell or will all be forgiven?

I slowly inhale my final breath
and rest clenched hands against my chest.

All the while I ponder what my ears will catch as their final sound,
will it be the gunshot or the splattering of my blood upon the ground?

The first of these shorts I’m calling “Eye Buzz” for now. The story crossed my mind while I was sitting in a panel at Comic-Con over the summer. I wanted to crank out something that was just quick and dirty to give people a better taste of the type of fiction I’m planning on writing. As of now, the genre falls somewhere between erotic horror and urban fantasy. The erotica doesn’t necessarily drive the story, yet I wrote the piece to highlight some horrific sex. In the end, I’ll just let the readers decide. I’m calling it a horror story, and after the buzz words thrown around by publishers fade away, it will still be a horror story.

I own an iPhone and I love it. Just like most of the other geeks out there, I can’t wait for them to release the next version, so I’m always browsing the tech blogs for hints of what’s to come. I couldn’t help but laugh when an iPhone prototype was lost for the second time. Those events, plus my own love for the horrific and supernatural, prompted me to write the story.

The current draft is just over 5100 words. I have a lot of fat to dissect from this one at this point, but I wrote the story mostly from the hip. At Comic-Con, I scrawled a quick synopsis in my notebook. On September 29, I sat down, created the manuscript on my PC, and typed out a quick outline of where I wanted things to flow. I also did some brainstorming and developed my characters names, the location the story would take place and researched a few extra tidbits.

I’m not exactly sure what I want to do with the story once it’s done. I really just wanted to see if I could write it in the short time frame I gave myself. I’ll try to submit the final draft to a few places I’ve been keeping an eye on, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll just throw it out there for people to enjoy.

If all goes according to plan, I’ll have this one polished off before Thanksgiving gets here.

“Part VI: Infestation” marks the final section of the book.  During this portion of the story, I realized my two final chapters were very different in tone and fall at a later part of the story, so I broke them off and created a small Epilogue.  I am passing the final part along to my beta readers and then I’ll give the whole book a final cosmetic pass before I send it off to the editor.

The second draft of the story has swelled to just over 89,025 words and it is 303 digital pages long.  The first draft of the story contained approximately 78,750 words, so I added about 10,275 words to this version.  Now, I just didn’t add words to add words.  When I started the project, my goal was 70,000 words.  During the rewrite, I trimmed a lot of fat and hopefully added more muscle to my characters and plot, but I guess I have to wait to hear from the editor before I can say that without any doubt.

As I have stated before, I know this is not the end of the project.  There is still a lot of work to do and I still have a stack of aces up my sleeve when it comes to how I want to market the novel.  Depending on the publishing route I take after the editor whips the skin off my hide, I know that attending conventions, getting reviews (hopefully favorable one), and doing some interviews are just a small portion of what my chores will entail.

I would love to produce a trailer for the book, and I know that can make people cringe.  I’ve seen many bad book trailers on YouTube and I’ve seen some good ones.  I think my biggest issues with the bad trailers are the ones when a self-published author writes a lot of wordy text on the screen and then they zoom around on photos that really have nothing to do with the story and all the while, there is some pirated piece of music playing in the background.  If I do a trailer, I’m doing it right.  I’ll get a few actors, get some custom music composed and film everything in HD.  I’ll have somebody provide some narration it and it will be loaded with all the tidbits of sex, gore and intrigue that I believe represent my story.  I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Thanks for being patient and checking out my blog.  I can’t wait for the day you’ll be able to read this story and tell me what you think.

Things are moving along quite nicely now and I hope to have this rewrite completed by the end of September. I only have seventy pages left, but I have a feeling that the story will continue to grow when I add some detail to the final chapters. So far, the word count has crept past 87,000 and I am up to 298 pages of manuscript. To save space I only put page breaks between the different Parts of the book and not between chapters. It seems every publisher requires  different formats for submissions, so it can become quite bewildering when planning a manuscript.  Once I narrow my selection of potential publishers, I will worry about shaping the manuscript with their format requirements.

In addition to the rewrite, I have been brainstorming on viral marketing and merchandising for the book. I have an editor all lined up and two others waiting in the wings just in case I need to execute Plan B.  While the book is away at the editor, I will start working on some short fiction pieces I have been thinking about for a while and I am going to dust off an old novella called Dark Obsession and turn it into an eBook.