Embracing My Negative Capability

I was considering posting another Completely Random Crap Teaser today, but then Cindy Pon brought up the movie Bright Star, which she saw recently.  That got me thinking of John Keats, dead so young, and that in turn made me think about the very idea of my Random Crap folder, from which spring all these [...]

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Made-to-order creepy

I can’t help myself sometimes.  Even when I think I’m in the middle of writing a “normal” story, the weird has a way of creeping in.  Most of the time, however, I invite it. The challenge is to hit upon the right degree of creepy, the right disturbing element without going over the edge into [...]

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Teaser Tuesday: HORNBEAM (Caveman in the Ladies Room)

He was watching me all along, the whole time I walked down the center aisle looking at the historical displays. It didn’t seem fair. He had all that time to prepare himself and I just got that one moment, when he stepped out from behind the covered wagon. Under a big sheepskin jacket, he wore [...]

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Teaser Tuesday: HORNBEAM (Pot and Peppermint)

Another excerpt from a work in progress, The Hornbeam Door.  School hasn’t gotten any better for Oona.  She’s still an outcast and she’s still hearing the voice.  Only now it’s giving her directions: a set of coordinates located in Codell, a little town about an hour away.  In class, she struggles to ignore the voice, [...]

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Teaser Tuesday: HORNBEAM (Goth Grrl)

This little excerpt is from a bit further into The Hornbeam Door, after Oona has a nervous breakdown, courtesy of the voices in her head.  Rumor has it that she really had a bad acid trip, and on her first day back at school, she discovers that none of her friends are talking to her.  [...]

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Teaser Tuesday: HORNBEAM (Date Night)

Today’s teaser is from a young adult book I’m working on called The Hornbeam Door.  It feels a little weird to write something intended for teenagers, but I’m clearly tapping into the desolate weirdness of my own adolescence. *** As soon as Mom got home from work, I said, “Reese asked me to the movie [...]

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