Brothels and Sticky Notes

Wrote Friday night but didn't really like what I wrote; it seemed stilted. Wrote different scenes this morning and really liked it. These little scenes alluded to a lot of things happening in the background; sort of what I was getting at in my last blog post. The scenes took place in brothels near Charleston's harbor. As a root doctor, Anika does a lot of biz in brothels, with pregnancy and disease preventatives, prosperity magic, and now plat-eye repellents. Found an interesting plat-eye fact in a book called Blue Roots by Roger Pinckney -- plat-eyes are supposed to love whiskey; they drink it. Well, since in my stories plat-eyes drink blood I changed the whiskey thing a little bit, but I featured it in these brothel scenes and I'll roll the whiskey thing right into my novels. I love these brothels. The two in this morning's scenes are Madame Gilla's House of Black Cats and Scheherazade's Arabian Nights.

Last night, I started reading Bloodroom, putting sticky notes on pages that had outdated cultural references. I know famous writers don't do that. I mean, when you read Pet Cemetery, it's probably full of 80s references. But since Bloodroom's still obscure and I'm republishing it for e-readers and POD, I get a chance to update it a little. Not change the story, though -- not that. I'm getting Bloodroom ready to send to an editor, formatter, and artist. I'll offer that one out for Kindle, et al first. Next, I'll see about my short stories. But I'll keep on writing House of the Apparently Dead, because a writer writes. Right?

Still no word from NYC publishers Tor and Kensington on The Bad Death. My friend John Urbancik tells me to expect to wait up to 6 months for word of acceptance or rejection. John is a terrifically prolific writer whose many books are published by reputable small presses like Evil Eye. Look for his DarkWalker series to come out soon from Evil Eye. You can check John out at http://www.darkfluidity.com/.