Let's Talk Horror: A Top Thirteen

It's Halloween! (In case you hadn't noticed.) I've had a busy, stressful, yet also wonderful month, and I haven't gotten to really dive into my favorite time of the year. I thought I should at LEAST talk horror on THE day of all horror days, so here I am.

I was a panelist at MileHiCon in Denver this weekend. It was a blast, though I was insanely nervous about a couple of my panels going in. My comfort level is horror and short stories, but I read [and write] all over the place, so when I was put on a couple panels that didn't directly relate to what I write, I dove in and did some research and a lot of reading (thank you, Pikes Peak Library District, for having so many great books available on your e-shelf!)

I'm not going to talk about the whole weekend now. That will either occur Wednesday or next Monday. But one of my panels was on different flavors of horror, and at the beginning, we were asked what our favorite type of horror was. My answer was two-fold: psychological and horror-comedy. Here's the kicker. Everyone on the panel preferred psychological in some way, shape, or form. No one said, "Gee, I I really dig torture porn." (Yet it sells...) No one said paranormal, either, which I feel is the type of horror we most often cut our teeth on as kids. (Ghost stories with your friends, folks?) Then again, this can cross streams with psychological horror. "The Others," with Nicole Kidman, is an example.

It was also generally agreed upon that people are scarier than monsters. Monsters aren't realistic, but it's acknowledged that people are frightening. Yet favorite books and movies don't always agree with what we consciously feel is the best element. I thought I'd break some favorite movie elements down into bite sized pieces, much like those mini candy bars we give out.

1. Favorite Scene (TIE):

Opening scene from "Ghost Ship." A calm, peaceful evening is interrupted in a shocking and brutal fashion. Mouth = agape.

The elevator scene in "Cabin in the Woods." A single sound ("Ding!") never before foretold such gleeful carnage. I applauded enthusiastically. There may have been joyful giggles involved.

2. Favorite Monologue:

Samuel L. Jackson in "Deep Blue Sea." Monologues should always be cut short by the shocking death of a character you're certain will make it to the end because of who they are.

3. Favorite Halloween-based movie (TIE):

"Halloween" and "Trick r' Treat," of course. One is the original Halloween slasher film; the other is a series of short films revolving around the holiday.

4. Favorite use of a game in a movie:

"The Conjuring." Hide and clap. A harmless children's game used to great effect. "Clap, clap."

5. Favorite Cast:

"Aliens" was ahead of its time, with strong (yet flawed) female characters and a good mix of people of color in the cast. Ripley, our beleaguered survivor; Newt, the bright young girl who survived where the adults couldn't; Corporal Hicks, a soldier, a powerful man, yet willing to hear Ripley out and throw his support behind her; Vasquez, kicking ass and taking names; Apone, a solid leader in a bad, unknown situation.

6. Favorite Final Girl: 

Ripley from the "Alien" series. She was a well written female character, both strong and willing to ask for help. Her story didn't revolve around getting the guy (though I was all for her and Corporal Hicks hooking up). She was flawed, but smart, and calm under pressure.

7. Favorite Fool:

Marty in "Cabin in the Woods." If he'd been the sole survivor, I would have been happy with that. He was the only one who realized something was wrong. Plus, he was comic relief. Without him, there would be no survivor. The stoner with a heart of gold.

8. Favorite Movie Monster:

The xenomorph. When you attack her, her blood sees that you pay. Bug-like, drooling, and creepy, these creatures can skitter along the ceiling as easily as under the floor. The monster that taught me you always look up when you sense something near.

9. Favorite Moment of Lost Hope:

Drew Barrymore's scene in "Scream." The horror of seeing her fight like hell and get so near her parents, only to be gutted as they listen in on the line. This was her return to the movies, and another example of a character I thought was sure to survive, because of who the actor was. The film that taught me that was no longer a solid truth.

10. Favorite Bad Guy You Can't Hate (TIE):

Ginger, of "Gingersnaps." Packed with attitude and snark, pissed off at the excess hair growth, and just wanting to have a little fun, she's impossible to hate as she goes through a whole different kind of puberty.

Hannibal Lecter in "Silence of the Lambs." His mind is sick and twisted, but he fascinates and titillates too much to want him gone.

11. Favorite Movie Quotes:

I have too many to list (believe me, I started), so here's a montage of best movie quotes.

12. Favorite Twist (TIE):

Brad Pitt in "Se7en" finding out he's one of the sinners being punished, and that he's been played the entire time.

"Sixth Sense." Sure, you might have seen it coming, and the little guy tells us right in the beginning that he sees dead people, but there's no way to be sure until we get that confirmation, and suddenly everything makes sense. This was the twist that killed future twists.

13. Favorite Duo:

Val and Earl in "Tremors." Without these two, the movie would just be about giant, killer worms eating people. They are the heart and the comic relief. And also, ultimately, the heroes.

I could have kept listing various favorites, but thirteen seemed like a good stopping point. If none of these catches your fancy, check out "The Exorcist," "Poltergeist," "Hush," "The Shining," "Night of the Living Dead," "Jaws," "Nightmare on Elm Street," "Psycho," "The Fly," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," "Detention," "A Stranger Calls," "Krampus," or "Re-Animator," depending upon what you're looking for.

Still not good enough? Here's a list of 100 Best Horror Films.

Happy Halloween!

What are some of your favorites? Any favorite categories I should have addressed? Did you disagree on any of them? What type of horror do you prefer?

May you find your Muse.

*Pumpkin from clker.com, Pumpkin2, OCAL

What's a Jumby? Bish Denham Guest Post

Today, I'd like to welcome Bish Denham to The Warrior Muse!

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Thanks for letting me haunt your blog Shannon! Today I’m going to tell you a little bit about jumbies.

A Jumbie, jumby or jumbee, is a spirit or demon in Caribbean folklore which has its roots in Africa. In Jamaica they’re called duppies. Jumbies can be threatening, mischievous, or even malevolent. In some places they are thought to cause blight on plants or make the dogs bark at night.

Traditional sayings

When leaving someone’s house at night it was polite to say, “Don’t let the jumbies get you.”

Ways to avoid a Jumbie

Leave a pair of shoes outside the door. The jumbie, which has no feet, will spend the entire night trying to wear the shoes and thus forget about going into the house.

Upon arriving home late at night, walk backwards into the house to prevent a jumbie from following you inside.

Jumbies are mentioned in my book, The Bowl and the Stone: A Haunting Tale from the Virgin Islands. In it, Sam and her best friend Nick, are being haunted but they don’t know if it’s a mischievous jumbie or tormented ghost. In this excerpt they encounter the *ghost* for the first time.

Excerpt

The air is different. There’s a strange moistness to it. It smells of damp earth after a light rain. And there’s another odor, faint, as though someone has walked past who hasn’t bathed in a while. A weight settles on my chest, making it hard to breathe.

“Do you get the feeling we’re being watched?” Nick asks.

I wrap my arms tightly around myself and hunch my shoulders. I want it to be a game, but it isn’t. This is real.

“Yes.” My throat starts to close, and the word comes out in a hoarse whisper.

We turn at the same moment, staring down the porch which is shrouded in the deepening gloom of dusk. A huge black man is there in the blocked doorway. His body fills the space. In the darkness I can barely make out the tattered pants that are tied at his waist with a rope. His face is in shadow. As one, without a word, Nick and I slowly walk towards him. As we approach, he backs up into the thorny tangle of lime trees and disappears. We race to the blocked entrance, but we can’t get through the trees, so how could a person of his size manage it?

“Did you see that?” Nick runs back to the main entrance and the front steps, red cape flapping.

I follow, almost stepping on his heels. “None of the branches were moving!”

We race outside and around the front of the house to the lime trees, searching for whoever disappeared into them, but no one’s there.

We go back to the front steps and sit.

“How weird….” My heart is pounding. “But we both saw it, didn’t we? So it has to be real, right? This isn’t a game, is it?”

“No, it’s not a game. Maybe it was a jumbie. OOoooooOOooooo.”

I slap Nick’s arm. “Stop it, that’s not funny.”

Pirates. Explorers. And spooky ghost hunters.

It’s 1962. Sam and her best friend, Nick, have the whole island of St. John, in the U. S. Virgin Islands, as their playground. They’ve got 240 year-old sugar plantation ruins to explore, beaches to swim, and trails to hike.

But when a man disappears like a vapor right in front of them, they must confront a scary new reality. They’re being haunted. By whom? And why? He’s even creeping into Nick’s dreams.

They need help, but the one who might be able to give it is Trumps, a reclusive hunchback who doesn’t like people, especially kids. Are Sam and Nick brave enough to face him? And if they do, will he listen to them? 

As carefree summer games turn into eerie hauntings, Sam and Nick learn more about themselves and life than they could ever have imagined.

Available for purchase at:

Amazon

Smashwords

About the Author: Bish Denham, whose mother’s side of the family has been in the Caribbean for over one hundred years, was raised in the U. S. Virgin Islands. She still has lots of family living there whom she visits regularly.

She says, “Growing up in the islands was like living inside a history book. Columbus named the islands, Sir Francis Drake sailed through the area, and Alexander Hamilton was raised on St. Croix. The ruins of hundreds of sugar plantations, built with the sweat and blood of slave labor, litter the islands. Then there were the pirates who plied the waters. It is within this atmosphere of wonder and mystery, that I grew up. Life for me was magical, and through my writing I hope to pass on some of that magic.”

The Bowl and the Stone: A Haunting Tale from the Virgin Islands, is her third book and second novel. You can find Anansi and Company: Retold Jamaican Tales and A Lizard’s Tail, at Amazon.com.

To learn more about Bish, you can visit her blog, Random Thoughts, at www.http:/bish-randomthoughts.blogspot.com.

She can also be found on Facebook: www.facebook.com/BishDenham/Author

Twitter @BishDenham

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6439315.Bish_Denham

Enter the drawing here! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Have you heard of jumbies before? Do you have a similar creature in your neck of the woods? What is it? Would you walk inside backward to keep the jumbies away?

May you find your Muse.

My MHC Schedule & Savannah, GA Pics!

For anyone who's going to be at Mile Hi Con in Denver this coming Halloween weekend, here's my schedule as a panelist. Come say hi!

Friday, Oct 28
Horror on the Menu: Different Flavors for Different Tastes
9 PM

Saturday, Oct 29
SF/F Outside the West
12 PM

Reimagining History With the Living Dead
7 PM

Sunday, Oct 30
Supernatural Fan Forum (I'll be hosting/moderating)
3 PM

And come out to the mixer Friday night! It's hosted by Pikes Peak Writers. Rub elbows with your fellow writers. 9 PM in the area next to the bar, 2nd floor.

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Don't forget to visit over at Shelley Workinger's But What Are They Eating? where I did a guest post about food in my short story The Blue Mist, found in the anthology The Deep Dark Woods.

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A week ago my husband and I went to Savannah, Georgia as a late celebration for twenty years of marriage (our anniversary was in August, but we had no desire to go to the Georgia coast in August). Savannah being the most haunted city in America, it was a great month to visit. We hopped on a last minute ghost tour and there were several places decorated for Halloween, despite the city just having been through a nasty hurricane (Matthew, you jerk!)

I thought I'd share a few pictures. For the most part, Savannah had made a good recovery from the hurricane, even though it had been just under a week since it hit. There were still some mildly flooded areas in the form of big puddles and there were trees down here and there. In fact, by the riverwalk there was a row of trees that had fallen over by the roots, taking the surrounding grass with them. Unfortunately, the famous Forsyth Park was heavily impacted. A lot of the historic oaks had been felled or broken, and part of the park was roped off. The well known fountain, however, was fine.

We stayed at the Savannah Riverfront Marriott, which was truly on the river front. In fact, our final morning there, we had breakfast at the hotel before taking off for the airport. They seated us at a window, and I got to watch a dolphin playing in the river! It was a lovely goodbye.

Here's a smattering of pictures of our trip. I've added notes of interest.

On our trek up the road from our hotel.

One of our favorite places. The Pirate's House is the oldest building in Savannah, I believe they said. It actually enveloped the oldest building, as multiple original buildings were sealed up together to make this restaurant. They actually had a wall inside that had originally been the exterior wall of a tavern.

Yellow Fever Tunnel. This was a tunnel where goods were brought up from the river. It was also where they took drunken men, including one famous Savannah policeman investigating the disappearances, who would wake up on a ship out at sea, where they would be forced to work. Tunnels like these are called Shanghai Tunnels in Portland, OR. This one was called Yellow Fever because they ended up storing bodies in it during an outbreak of the illness.

An old fort.

Our view from the Tybee Lighthouse of the beach. We had been told the beach was closed due to damage, so I was longingly gazing out the windows as we climbed, thinking I wouldn't get to go to the beach.

The beach! We found a local who directed us to this beach, which was open, though the pier was closed. These sand dunes were between the residential areas and the beach, and there were neat swings along the front of them for beach goers to enjoy.

The pier as we approached it.

Underneath the pier.

The Waving Girl. It's said she died of a broken heart after waving to the incoming ships in hopes of her true love returning. He never did.

Moss covered steps climbing up from the cobbled street in the historic downtown area.

A statue outside the Cotton Exchange.

The old Cotton Exchange.

I was so excited to see the gorgeous old oaks covered in spanish moss. If you're curious, the moss doesn't impact the trees and is, in fact, NOT moss. It feeds off the dust in the area, and merely uses the trees as a resting place. On the tops of the branches there was lush, green resurrection moss. It only shows up after a massive amount of moisture. In this case, it was from the hurricane. We were told it would be gone within another week.

Capital building.

This is the Candler Oak, over 300 years old. It withstood the storm, despite many nearby trees having been destroyed.

The fountain at Forsyth Park.

One of our tour guides (we took a trolley around) told us that military statues are made facing the enemy. There were two military-related statues in Forsyth. One was facing north, representing the Civil War. Another was for the Spanish American War, and it faced south.

Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.

Jingle Bell Chapel. This is where Jingle Bells was written.

A view up the river from our hotel.

Same view at night.

The view toward the sea.

A tiny portion of one of the massive container ships coming up the river. They apparently keep having to re-dredge the river to make it deeper as ships get larger. It was amazing to stand there and watch these ships towering over us.

This is a tiny portion of the five kazillion photos we took. It was such an amazing trip, and we hope to return in the future. We ate so much fresh seafood, drank sweet tea, and visited Leopold's, a famous ice cream parlor. Despite it being a week after a hurricane, the people were welcoming and cheerful. They were always happy to give a recommendation for somewhere to visit or to eat, and we managed to only eat at a chain restaurant once, out of desperation when we needed lunch and didn't want to stray too far from the trolley stop.

We kept hearing Savannah Strong after the hurricane, and they certainly are.

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Now for some links! Bear in mind that I'm not endorsing these, merely passing them along. Always do your own due diligence before submitting.

Accepting Submissions:

FunDead Publications has extended their deadline for short stories for the anthology Night in New Orleans. 1000-6000 words. Pays $10. Deadline November 25.

Splickety Love is open for stories for their February issue with the theme Change of Heart. They want classic love stories with a twist. 300-1000 words. Pays $.02/word. Deadline November 25.

The current submission window for Vestal Review will be closing for a few months. Flash fiction up to 500 words. Pays between $.03 and $.10/word. Deadline November 30.

Baltimore Review is open for submissions of literary short works. Poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, video. Up to 5000 words. They also have a contest with current theme "milestones." Pays $40. Deadline November 30.

World Weaver Press is open for short fiction for Equus. Speculative fiction involving horses, unicorns, and pegasus. Up to 7500 words. Pays $10. Deadline November 30.

Enchanted Conversation: A Fairy Tale Magazine will open for submissions November 1. The theme for this issue will be "The New Year." 700-3000 words. Pays $10-$30, depending upon whether it's poetry or short fiction. This issue closes November 30.

Oscillate Wildly Press is open for submissions for the themed anthology Monsters Among Us. Monsters must be human. Poetry and short fiction up to 7000 words. Pays $15. Deadline November 30.

Chicken Soup for the Soul is looking for stories with the topic "Military Families." Up to 1200 words. Pays $200. Deadline November 30.

Have you ever been to Savannah? Have you tried shrimp and grits? Ever been in a shanghai tunnel? Will you be at Mile Hi Con? Any of these links of interest? Anything to share?

May you find your Muse.

Guest Post, Question & Horror List Book Review: Psycho

Two things before we hop into the review of Psycho:

1. I'm a guest over at Shelley Workinger's But What Are They Eating? My story, "The Blue Mist," from The Deep Dark Woods, is featured. Come say hi!

2. I'm looking for recommendations of non-western (American or European) toned authors in speculative fiction. Anybody have some? 

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I'm reading through three lists of best horror with two friends (DeAnna Knippling and M.B. Partlow), posting reviews as we go. (For more information, including a list of the books, see this post.) To see the books I've reviewed so far, you can view the list at the end of this post where I rank them.

This week I'm reviewing Psycho, by Robert Bloch.

This is going to be a brief review, because it's incredibly hard to review something I was so familiar with already, having seen the film based on the book about a billion times before reading it.

It could have been better written, but I suspect it was an early book for Bloch. I imagine it was a shocking piece of fiction when it came out. Norman Bates is a slow reveal. At first, he's an overweight noodge (that's not a real word, but I think you know what I'm saying). Shy, quiet, tentative. He fully believes he's cleaning up after his mom when a woman is murdered at the hotel. He gets rid of the evidence and takes action against his mother.

We bounce around through multiple points of view, from Norman to the woman soon to be murdered, to the woman's boyfriend, etc. Bloch explores their various ways of thinking, why they make the decisions they do, and their insecurities and insanities. The reader gets far more insight into why things go the way they do, as well as into what happened to his mother, than in the movie. 

I was warned before I read the book about the sexism. At first, I thought the warning was inaccurate, thinking that since we were seeing it from the viewpoint of Norman, it was just part of the character (Norman has mega-issues with women courtesy of his mother.) However, the original victim has a sister, and she is the most inane, dull, stupid character. She does everything the men tell her to do, including not reporting her sister missing, all while wringing her hands and asking the men what should be done. She is dismissed repeatedly, and even interrupted...in writing! Repeatedly! ACK!

Moving on from there, this book has the suspense you would expect from it, and it delves into the mental issues of all the characters, not just the murderer. It's a worthwhile read and a quick one. Don't expect to be surprised if you've seen the movie, though. Both do the story justice in their own way, but the story lines are close.

There will always be something frightening about the plain guy next door being psychotic, twisted, and dangerous. The more unassuming, the more frightening. This is captured in Psycho.

My new rankings:

1. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)

2. The Bottoms (Joe R. Lansdale)

3. Coraline (Neil Gaiman)

4. A Choir of Ill Children (Tom Piccirilli)

5. The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2010 (Paula Guran)

6. The Year’s Best Fantasy: First Annual Collection (Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling)

7. Needful Things (Stephen King)

8. Those Who Hunt the Night (Barbara Hambly)

9. Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror (Ellen Datlow)

10. The Stranger (Albert Camus)

11. Dead in the Water (Nancy Holder)

12. The Witches (Roald Dahl)

13. Psycho (Robert Bloch)

14. The Damnation Game (Clive Barker)

15. The Wolf's Hour (Robert McCammon)

16. Berserk (Tim Lebbon)

17. Prime Evil (Douglas E. Winter)

18. Best New Horror, Volume 1 (edited by Stephen Jones and Ramsey Campbell)

19. Flowers in the Attic (V.C. Andrews)

20. The Tomb (F. Paul Wilson)

21. Shadowland (Peter Straub)

22. Blood Meridian (Cormac McCarthy)

23. The Imago Sequence (Laird Barron)

24. My Soul to Keep (Tananarive Due)

25. Penpal (Dathan Auerbach)

26. World War Z (Max Brooks)

27. From the Dust Returned (Ray Bradbury) 

28. The Red Tree (Caitlin R. Kiernan)

29. In Silent Graves (Gary A. Braunbeck)

30. The Cipher (Kathe Koja)

31. Drawing Blood (Poppy Z. Brite)

32. The Doll Who Ate His Mother (Ramsey Campbell) 

33. Hotel Transylvania (Chelsea Quinn Yarbro)

34. Naked Lunch (William S. Burroughs)

The next book I'll be reviewing is Dawn, by Octavia E. Butler.

Do you think about what your characters would eat? Is food an instrumental part of your books? Did you stop by and say hi? Do you have any recommendations for non-western voices? Have you read Psycho? Seen the movie? Have you read anything else by Bloch? What did you think? Anything you'd recommend?

May you find your Muse.

Author Meet and Greet Update & Links

I'd love to be able to post something of consequence right now, to put out an informative post, or to even post fun horror stuff since this is usually my favorite time of year, but the election and just plain PEOPLE have me so depressed right now that I sit here staring at this blank screen and can't think of anything I want to talk about. I'm thankful it's not impacting my fiction writing, but it's just not happening for me on here.

So instead I'm going to post about the fun Author Meet and Greet I was part of this weekend. Because I had a great weekend until I went on social media tonight, so I'm just going to back up and pretend this evening didn't happen.

A local small press put on a signing event Saturday, and I was invited to be a part of it as one of two horror authors! It was held in a local art gallery, so we were surrounded by paintings and other forms of visual art, which is a great setting. There was wine, there were goodies, and there was a talented group of local authors. Friend and fellow horror author DeAnna Knippling shared the table with me, so we had some fun decorations.

The sign is new. My husband got up early and made it for me that day. Isn't he awesome? He even dropped by and said hi about partway through, and to see if I needed lunch or anything else.

I had four of my titles there, and I sold out of two of them! Not to say I had a big inventory of them or anything, but it was still exciting. Especially as my biggest fear going in that morning was that I would sell a big goose egg, thus letting down the friends running the event. I imagine it helped that it's the month of October. You know, formerly my favorite month. It's the month some folks who don't otherwise touch horror check it out. Even bigger than selling out, I sold to strangers! We authors try to support each other by buying books, but strangers, people who were not writers, they bought my books! Meep!

Now I have to decide whether I'll go through the work of selling my books at MileHiCon at the end of the month. It involves getting sales tax licenses for state and the city of Denver, and I only have two of my books. While I might be able to get my books in time for MHC that I sold out of, I'm not willing to pay expedited shipping to ensure it. So I need to decide this week, and to determine whether it's worth trying to get at least the one book shipped out now. SO MANY DECISIONS!

A lot of people stopped by and chatted, and even when they didn't buy a book, it was nice. All in all, I'd say it was a successful event, but I'm not the one who has to do the bookkeeping on it. If it was, in fact, successful, they'll hopefully be doing it again with other authors, but I don't know how soon that will be. Organizing events is stressful, and nothing teaches you that like doing it!

Now for some links. Bear in mind that I'm not endorsing these, merely passing them along. Always do your own due diligence before submitting.

Accepting Submissions:

Ellipsis, a Westminster College literary journal, is open for their annual publication. Poetry, short fiction, creative non-fiction, drama, and art. Pays $10-$50. Deadline November 1 for most categories.

Belmont Story Review is open for fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. No word limit mentioned. Pays a cash honorarium. Deadline November 1.

Mofo Pubs is open for submissions to their anthology Wanderlust. Sexually explicit literary erotica. 1000-5000 words. Pays $.01/word. Deadline November 3.

Lamplight is open for submissions. Dark literary fiction. Up to 7000 words. Pays $.03/word up to $150. Current deadline November 15.

The Lorelei Signal is open for fantasy short fiction. Up to 10,000 words. Pays between $2 and $7.50. Current deadline November 15.

Contests:

Don't forget the Insecure Writer's Support Group 2016 Anthology Contest. 3000-6000 words. Fantasy with the theme "hero lost." Pays in royalties. You will be published in an e-anthology. Deadline November 1.

New York Encounter is holding a poetry contest. Theme: Reality has never betrayed me. Cash prizes up to $300. Deadline November 1.

For Fun:

It's always good to find new scary books. Here's a list of 40 Scariest Books of the Last 200 Years by Sarah Mangiola on The Lineup.

How was your weekend? Bought any good books lately? Read any books in the last month or so you'd recommend? Are you ready for Halloween? Any of these links of interest? Anything to share?

May you find your Muse.

IWSG - It's Beta Time, Signing, & Links

Before we jump into the Insecure Writer's Support Group, a little news. I'll be participating in a local author meet and greet this coming Saturday, October 8, 11-2, at Cottonwood Center for the Arts.

It's free to attend! Wine, treats, trivia, and lots of books for sale for Christmas gifts. I hope to see some local familiar faces there. I'll be selling/signing copies of Once Upon a Scream, The Deep Dark Woods, Through Clouded Eyes, and Bloodbond Magazine.

I'll also be a panelist at MileHiCon in Denver the last weekend of October. More on that soon. I got my schedule last night, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to share it yet.

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Now onto IWSG. This is the brainchild of Alex J. Cavanaugh, created to give writers a place to air their insecurities. Join up and share! All are welcome.

This month's co-hosts are Beverly Stowe McClure, Megan Morgan, Viola Fury, Madeline Mora-Summonte, Angela Wooldridge, and Susan Gourley!

Stop by and say hey and thanks for all their hard work.

The optional question of the month is "When do you know your story is ready?" Not sure I have a good answer for that one. I tend to think you just know. On the flipside of that, it's probably never 100% ready. Once you have done your big edits and are just nitpicking at it, it's ready. You will never find every issue, and you could easily spend forever on one story.

Speaking of which, my insecurity this month is that I've just sent my novel out to several beta readers. Waiting to see what they think. I should know by November, and launch into another round of edits then. Nerve wracking!

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My short story submission stats for the month of September are:

17 submissions
14 rejections
1 anthology invite
1 short listing
12 currently on submission

Busy month! The longest a story in this batch has been out is 130 days. The longest I've ever had a story out is 293 days.

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Now for some links. Bear in mind I'm not endorsing any of these, merely passing them along. Always do your own due diligence before submitting to a publication.

Accepting Submissions:

Splickety Havok is taking submissions for the Literary Mutations issue, due out in January. 300-1000 words. Pays $.02/word. Take a literary classic and twist it. Deadline October 28.

Chicken Soup for the Soul is looking for pieces for the theme Inspiration for Teachers. 1200 words or less. Pays $200. Deadline October 30.

HorrorAddicts.net is seeking stories for Clockwork Wonderland, a clockpunk Alice in Wonderland themed horror anthology. 2000-5000 words. Pays $10. Deadline October 31. Personal note: I do endorse this publisher. I've worked with them, and they were wonderful to deal with. 

Level Best Books and Dames of Detection are seeking stories by and about law enforcement for the anthology Busted: Arresting Stories From the Beat. Up to 5000 words. Pay is not listed. Deadline October 31.

Tacitus Publishing is open for horror set in space for the anthology Shattered Space. 1500-5000 words. Pays $.01/word. Deadline October 31.

A Murder of Storytellers wants your speculative fiction story about people's gods for The Book of Blasphemous Words. Up to 10,000 words. Pays $15. Deadline October 31.

Whortleberry Press is asking for flash fiction of 500 words or less for Forty Flashes. Fantasy and science fiction. Pays $6. Deadline October 31.

The Literary Hatchet seeks dark fiction, poetry, essays, art, photography, and more. 1000-6000 words. Pays $1-$10. Deadline for the next issue November 1.

The First Line's next first line (and final for this go around) is: "In the six years I spent tracking David Addley, it never occured to me that he didn't exist." Write a short piece with this first line. 300-5000 words. Pays $5-$50. Deadline November 1.

Blog Hops:

Juneta Key is hosting the October Storytime Blog Hop. Post a speculative fiction story on October 27.

What are your insecurities? How do you know when your story is finished? Any of these links of interest? Anything to share?

May you find your Muse.