Recent Cons & Photos

 I thought I would do another one of those blog posts where I present some recent photos. I have been making a few appearances at various cons to sell books and sign people up the Horror Writers Association. I thought I'd throw in a few photos from last Halloween for good measure, so here goes.

Here is the table I set up at Monster Fest at the Chesapeake Central Library in Chesapeake, Virginia in October of last year.

It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of my friend Paul Knight, who was sometimes known as Pauzilla. He always remembered me and my family on Halloween.

Here is another attendee from Monster Fest, who was working a puppet on that day.

I entered the costume contest at Monster Fest as a famous movie murderer from a movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock and a book penned by Robert Bloch. I also moderated a panel on how to write scary scenes in horror which featured Red Lagoe, Pam Kinney, and Justin Cristelli.

Here are last year's yard decorations for Halloween.

The wife and I went out dressed as Jason Voorhees and Ahsoka Tano.

Here was the band for that night, Everafter, at Big Woody's in Chesapeake. I loved their costumes.

There's Laurie Camp as Ahsoka again at Big Woody's.

My daughter, Delaney, also got into the spirit of Halloween and dressed as Pearl from the movie of the same name.

Delaney always challenges me to do a difficult jack-o-lantern. This year, she challenged me to make a Frankenstein Monster. Of course that's Laurie dressed as a ghost in our driveway where we handed out candy.

An now we're up to January where I ran a table at Mars Con in Virginia Beach. This was a rather elaborate costume that I felt was photo-worthy.

A few other authors at Mars Con included, from back to front, Pam Kinney, Sidney Williams, yours truly, and Bryn Grover. It was fun meeting up with the other HWA members and talking with them.

And finally, Laurie entered the costume contest at Mars Con, again as Ahsoka, but don't call her a jedi.

2023 Recap

 It's time for another annual recap of my writing successes. I did a little a better this year over previous years, which I am very proud of, and would like to share here, not necessarily to brag, but to show where my work can be found and to maintain some sort of accountability. This is my third year running doing a blog of this sort at the beginning of a new year (the previous ones can be found here and here, so here goes.

Looking at the numbers, I made slightly fewer submissions this year, but had more successes. I submitted a total of 42 items this year compared with 48 the previous year. I usually shoot for 50, but will settle for as few as 35, so I was well over my minimum. Of those 42 submissions, 1 was a novel (a submission in answer to a request for a full manuscript in 2022, so I am counting it here). The largest bulk of those submission were, as usual, short stories, 24 of them in 2023. That is slightly lower than 2022 when I had 29 submissions. I also submitted 10 poems, down one from the previous year.

One area that helped grow my numbers and acceptances this year was a return to non-fiction submissions. I had 7 of them this year. I had zero  the previous two years. 

Now onto the successes, where I broke a new record this year with six total items being published in one way or another, seven if you count my self-published short story, which I still need to blog about. My previous highest number of published works was in 2018 when I had five works published, so that new record is something. Two of those published works from this year were those non-fiction articles. I also did very well with poetry this year with three poems getting published in two different publications this year. Of those short stories, only one was published, but it was at higher rate than many of my previously published short stories, at a semi-pro rate.

Speaking of money, while it may seem shameful to discuss how much money I made at writing, this is also a sign of prestige. More money means more success or more prestigious publications, so I will bring up the subject without giving away exact numbers. Let's just say I made more money with my writing this year than other previous years (excluding full time jobs I've had in the past and regular correspondence work I've done with major newspapers). For the first time, the majority of this money was made selling copies of anthologies at cons, although it was only a slight majority.

Now for the disclaimers. Some of the publications I made this year were not exactly very competitive. But there's a conundrum there. There are a few publications that love when I submit to them, and I enjoy doing it, but they don't pay, so they often do go to the backburner. I write to them when I am inspired by something that could lead to an article that fits that publication. I see no reason to snub them, especially when I consider the people running them my friends. While I grow as a writer, I will continue to strive toward publishing in larger and more prestigious publications, but I do want to remember everyone who helped me get there.

2022 By the Numbers

Every year I do this post to publicly state how much I am submitting and how many of those submissions result in successfully publishing one of my works.  Perhaps it will help any readers to gage themselves against what I have done each year. Perhaps many writers submit far more works than I do. Perhaps many submit far fewer. The idea of doing this began when I read a writer's blog (sorry, I cannot remember who) and they said they submit around 100 works per year. I decided I would see how many works I could submit each year. I found that I could submit between 35 and 50 works per year. I now try to work toward that 50 mark as much as possible. I have also found that the more works I submit each year the more of those works end up getting published, on average anyway.

So anyway, here are this year's numbers. I submitted a total of 8 books, although it was actually the same book submitted 8 times, which brings up another point. This is the total number of submissions, which means if the same book is submitted many times (8 in this case) it still counts as 8 submissions. The same holds true of short stories, poems, etc. I am working very hard to finish the follow-up to that first book, and I think I am getting close to deciding to self-publish that first book if I receive a few more rejections. Which brings up yet another point, some of these works I am still waiting to hear back on, including a few submissions of this novel.

I also had 29 short story submissions. Unfortunately, only one of those were successful this year, but again, a few of those submissions are still waiting on replies. That makes this year an anomaly in that I submitted more items than most other years, 48 total submissions, my second highest number of all time, but I had only one sale (again, so far). That success was "Beheaded" which appears in Madame Gray's Poe-Pourri, pictured above, and available on Amazon here. I also blogged about that particular sale here.

I had 11 poetry submissions, without any sales, and no non-fiction submissions this year. Just for comparison, 29 short story submissions is tied for my second highest, and 11 poetry submissions is tied for fourth highest. Eight novel submissions comes in second highest.

The most submissions I ever made in a year was 2018 where I hit 53, and it got me the most published works in a year as well with five total. This year saw my second most total at 48 as noted earlier. Third was in 2019 when I reached 47 total submissions, followed by 2021 with 44 total submissions, fourth was 2010 with 42 total, and 2020 with 35 total.

My goal for the coming year may be a little lower as I would like to start working on my longer works once again, namely my follow-up novel, and that Frankenstein project and hopefully get them both sent out to potential publishers or even agents.

I keep track of these on an Excel spreadsheet, and only recently started keeping track of total submissions each year. I find it helps me compete with myself to keep getting my works out there. If you see fit, feel free to tell me how many submissions you made last year, and how that looks compared to your other years. If it makes you feel better, I've had a lot of years with only a handful of submissions and even a few years with goose eggs.🥚😊

 

After One Year of Covid

 

It's been one year since Covid 19 shut down the entire world, and it seems there is finally land on the horizon. It had been about hundred years since the world saw a good fashioned pandemic (the Spanish flu in 1918 was the last), so we were long overdue.

But now we have a vaccine out for this virus, so we should be seeing its final throes soon. I finally received my first shot today, and will be returning in about four weeks for the follow-up. Additionally, one of the colleges where I teach just announced we are returning to in-person classes in the fall. While there are new variants of the virus emerging, getting the vaccine is supposed to keep us from getting so sick we need hospitalization, or even face death, even from those variants. Factor in that most people are just plain tired of being cooped up, and all indicators show that we this is ending one way or the other.

So what did you accomplish as a writer? And for that matter, what did I accomplish as a writer? Honestly, things were a bit distracting, with not only the pandemic, but also a TON of misinformation about it, and a very contentious presidential election. Factor in the summer of protests from the Black Lives Matter movement, and there was a lot to keep track of. I don't think I'm alone when I say I could have been more productive than I was. But there were areas where I was productive.

I did manage to finish editing my first novel. . . again, after a mentor looked it over. I wrote a query letter for it and sent that out. I also finished my other novel, and began editing it. I sent out a lot of works, and many of them fell to dead letters, but I noticed I'm starting to receive the rejection letters again (which is a very good thing), another sign this pandemic and quarantine are in their final throes. And don't be afraid of those rejection letters. I've started reading those books for my Frankenstein research project again. And yesterday, I finally wrote another short story.

Could I have been more productive than that? Probably, but it also goes to a point I've always suspected was true: the more you do, the more you want to do, and the less you do, the less you want to do. Writing kind of works like that, perhaps more than other aspects of life. So keep plugging away, and I will do the same.

Writing in the Apocalypse

With everything going on now, the coronavirus pandemic continuing and now all of the civil unrest due to the murder of George Floyd, it can be hard to concentrate. It might even seem to be the end of the world. While I even named this blog post after an apocalypse, I am a bit more optimistic about the future of the country and the world as a whole. In the long term, I think we'll likely be okay. In the short term, things seem to be a bit rocky.

I, like many of you I assume, find myself on Facebook for longer periods of time than I used to. And I keep watching and reading the news to find out the latest. I've been watching some of the protests and riots on Facebook Live and other sources. We are living in a historic time, one in which, hopefully brings about some sort of needed change. It is hard not to get caught up in it. If you feel moved enough to get involved, by all means do so. Don't let me or anyone else talk you out of it.

But the bigger purpose of this post to remind myself, and if you see fit, to remind you, the reader, to keep taking care of yourself. It is best mentally to carry on as normally as possible. For the purposes of this blog that means to keep writing. Remember to tune out of the Facebook live feeds once in a while. Put time limits on how much time you spend watching and reading the news. It is good to be informed, but it is best to not let it take over your life. And again, I'm talking to myself as much as I am anyone else, as I do with most of my posts.

For myself, I've still been reading items I need for my non-fiction book on Frankenstein in film. I am also very close to finishing a rough draft of a novel about a werewolf. I've also seen a little success lately. If anyone is interested, my most recent publishing credit is a horror short story titled "The Lecturer" and was posted on Page and Spine's new Outta This World page here. And my latest poem, "A Perfect Rainbow" can be found in the latest issue of Teach. Write. here.

So what is everyone else doing to cope with the pandemic and all the other turmoil in the world today? Here is a picture from a cruise ship I was on a few years ago. I like it for its bright horizon.

Photos from last October

It occurred to me that I never posted my photos from last October where I participated in several Halloween / horror events and activities. First I participated in a presentation on the history of mummy tropes in horror stories at Monster Fest.

Also at Monster Fest, I met up with my friend Mr. Lobo, who is a horror movie host, much like those of the olden days, and boy do I miss those days. Thankfully, the internet exists and that seems to be where Mr. Lobo and many other horror movie hosts have gone.

That poster hung from a video store in downtown Norfolk, until the video store, The Naro, closed.😥😭

Then I decorated my lawn for Halloween.

And began dressing into my costume for Halloween.

And finally went out for big night, but met up with the Wolfman.

See you all later.

Finding Time

They say time ⏰ is a human construct. It doesn't really exist, except that humans have devised a way to measure it. If this is true, it is good news to the writer, because we are at a constant battle with it. Things have been pretty busy for me lately, which is why I haven't had much time to blog, and is why I've decided to talk about what to do when real life is leaving you with little time to write. I had the end of another semester recently, which is always a busy time of the year. Then I had a honey-do list of activities that was ignored for longer than it should have been. Along with all of this, I've had some personal issues that required a lot of my attention. Obviously, this has left me with little time to write or blog. So I thought I would take some time to talk about what I have accomplished in these last (good lord, has it been almost two months already) since my last blog, and how to steal as much time as possible to write during life's little moments like these.

I did manage to finish the introductory chapter to my book on Frankenstein in film, Franksploitation, and I'm writing the first chapter. My goal is to get a few chapters of this completed before the end of the summer. I also managed to outline the rest of the book, and make lists of films I would like to cover in each of those chapters. Just this week I also managed to write a mystery short story. It's the first mystery I've managed to complete, but not the first I've attempted.

I've read some writers who claim a writer has to write every day, regardless of outside influences. I suppose this may be true if you've already reached the level of writing full time as the main source of your income, but for many of us this is just not realistic. However, I will say the shorter the breaks the better, and it is important to steal a few moments whenever possible. I am much better at night, sometimes just before bed. Sometimes I have to quit because I'm just so sleepy I cannot concentrate any more, but if I can get in even a few hundred words, I call it a victory. If you are more of a morning person, you may want to plan on waking up early.

The main thing is to keep going, keep writing, and keep trying. Even if this means taking breaks that last, days or even weeks. Just don't beat yourself up over it. Write as much as you can whenever you can. I've had a few personal setbacks lately, and it can be hard to remain positive. But when this happens, it is equally important to remain focused on the goals and keep striving to improve.⏰⏰

My Second Scholarship Haul

Some time ago, I won a scholarship, and a short time after, I posted about my first scholarship haul. Recently, I made my second scholarship haul (pictured above), which I would like to discuss today.

Starting with the lower left is a book titled It's Alive: The Classic Cinema Saga of Frankenstein by Gregory William Mank. I was very excited to get this book because I still remember pouring over it as a ten-year-old kid after borrowing it from my local library. Published in 1981,this was the very first book on Frankenstein films, and although it is chock-full of interesting stories about the development and creation of the classic Universal Frankenstein films, it is also filled with out-dated information. For instance, it talks about deleted scenes, such as the Monster tossing the little girl, Maria, into the water as though it is a deleted scene in the original 1931 film. This scene has been restored since the 1990s. It also mentions that Mary Shelley visited the actual Castle Frankenstein in Gernsheim, Germany. However, it is very unlikely Mary and her husband, Percy, ever visited actually visited the castle after all, even though they were within ten miles of the castle.

And this evidence is presented in the book to its right, Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Published just last year, Making the Monster by Kathryn Harkup is proving to be a fascinating read. It examines all of the science mentioned in Mary Shelley's novel and explains exactly what she was referring to in the book. Yet, it is more than just an annotated version of the Frankenstein novel, because Harkup proves to be a great story-teller, making this an extraordinarily fun read. While It's Alive is currently out of print (I had to hunt down a used copy), Making the Monster is available from Amazon and other book sellers. I highly recommend it.

The two DVDs at the top of the photo are seasons one and two of a television show titled The Frankenstein Chronicles. While I haven't had a chance to view it yet, it has been receiving rave reviews from all over the globe. I think it was originally produced by the BBC, and one should be advised that the DVDs will not play on most DVD players in the United States, unless you have a region-free DVD player, like I do. 😁 It is available on NetFlix. (I didn't provide a link because I don't have NetFlix.) The story follows a private investigator looking into mysterious murders that may or may not involve a certain mad doctor and his creation. I'm very much looking forward to it.

I will likely have two or three more hauls from the scholarship money as I still have not used up even half of it yet. I've outlined two more chapters for an academic conference I'm attending (stay tuned to this blog to find out how that went), and I plan on using much of my summer writing and researching as much of this project as I can. Wish me luck.

Being Recognized

I received this from one of the schools where I teach, Paul D. Camp Community College. It is nice to be recognized. I'm assuming it has to do with the scholarship I won last year (and yes, I'm still working on the Frankenstein research). I also published several short stories and one poem last year, so I did achieve both scholarly and creative engagement as the certificate reads.

I'm hoping to continue my string of successes from late last year. I have several short stories and poems out right now, and am hopeful at least one of them might prove successful and gain publication. I'm also working with someone who may help with my long fiction. In addition to that, I'm still working on the Frankenstein in film project and hope to publish an article or two on that sometime soon.

Let's hope I find the success I'm looking for.

My First Scholarship Haul

I received my first haul from the Horror Writers Association Rocky Wood Memorial scholarship for Non Fiction Writing recently (pictured above). I'm pretty sure the contents at this stage will make sense only to me, but I will attempt to explain them anyway.

The books with the face cover are my methodology, Kenneth Burke's dramatistic pentad (or pentad on dramatism). It is considered a pragmatic approach to analyzing literature, or any other rhetoric. I will post more thoroughly on this at a future date.

Next to Burke is the first film purchase, Jess Franco's Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein. I have a few other outlets to get films, but am pretty sure I will not be able to get this one from any other source, so I placed it in this first order. It's also a film I've been trying to hunt down for about 20 years. Jess Franco is (sort of) the Ed Wood of Europe, I like to call him. He makes horrible films, but has a certain amount of enthusiasm for the horror genre, which I can very much appreciate.

Below that are two books that I chose to order first because I think I can use them for far more than just this project. The Golden Turkey Awards is a list of the worst movies ever made. It didn't have as many Frankenstein films in it as I had hoped, but it is a fun read.

Next to that is a far more serious study, that of homosexuality in film, The Celluloid Closet. It is essential for one chapter, but it is a very important chapter, the one on James Whale's Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, which I will examine together. Whale was one of the first openly gay figures in Hollywood. I would also like to use the book to write another article or two on Whale and the horror genre in general that will be separate from this book project. The book doesn't look exclusively at horror, but LGBTQ images in Hollywood.

I've also finalized the title of my book, Franksploitation and the Rhetoric of Filmed Frankenstein. I will be posting much more about it in the future, so please keep checking back, and don't be afraid to subscribe.

Photos from Monster Fest 2018

Here are some photos of my presentation, Franksploitation, Frankenstein exploitation films from the 1950s to the 1970s, at this year's Monster Fest. I'll provide more information on this even soon.

About That Scholarship

Last blog post I talked about some recent successes I've had as a writer. It's been a while, but I finally have a few. On the other hand, I also had another rejection letter in my inbox the other day too. Anyway, the biggest of those success was winning the Horror Writers Association Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship for Non-Fiction Writing. This has led to some interesting developments so far. One of the schools I work for, Paul D Camp Community College, set me up to be interviewed by the local newspaper, the Suffolk New Herald,  for an article. I also notified my alma mater magazines. We'll see if they choose to cover this or not.

This is not some ego burst, but an attempt to draw up some interest in the project to hopefully sell books whenever I can finish it and get it to an agent and/or publisher. I'm also working on a presentation for Monster Fest next week on this very project.

I actually applied to both the Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship and the regular HWA Scholarship. Sometimes you have to throw your hat into many rings before one decides to take you in, just like my last blog post, "Throwing Shit Against the Wall." After they reviewed all applicants for several weeks, I received an email asking if I could be more specific about what I will do with their funds. So I did several things to accomplish this. The easiest was to create a wish list on Amazon.com.

I also knew I might need money for photos for the book, but I had no idea about the legalities of even using photos for books. I did know one thing, however, I knew David J. Skal wrote what I consider the best horror book I've ever read (and I've read a few), with The Monster Show. I friended Skal on Facebook, and interacted with him enough. This was not enough for me to say I "knew him" but enough to know he seems very approachable about this topic. So I Googled his name and found his author page, which provided me with his email, and I asked him about how to get photos. He proved to be as approachable as I previously thought as he replied to my email within 2 hours. I added this to my budget.

The third part of my budget was to purchase research articles. I work for two different higher education facilities, which allow me access to their article databases. These databases are enormous, and can provide a large amount of the information I'll need to write the book for free. However, while the majority of these articles are free, sometimes you have get an inter-library loan to get some of the articles. And these inter-library loan articles are often not free. I searched for some articles I knew I would have to pay for to get an idea of how much to budget for this. I found two articles that I felt were exemplary, one cost $6 and the other $36. So I budgeted as though these were the higher end and lower end of the articles I'd need.

They reviewed this for about another week or so, and then sent me an email telling me I won the scholarship. Now some of my colleagues at Paul D Camp are asking if I can do a presentation on my progress as I go. And I still need to contact someone to help me with the methodology, but that's a topic for another blog post.

Throwing Shit Against the Wall

I am from a blue-collar town in Pennsylvania, Erie to be exact. For whatever reason, everything up there relates back to various excrements and the crotch. We don't say a business went belly up, we say it went "tits-up." If an idea didn't work out, we say it "shit the bed." It's just part of the colorful way we talk.

So when we're trying all sorts of things to be successful, sometimes we'll say we're just "throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks." For some time now, I've been doing just that, and FINALLY, I have a few things that have stuck. Mind you, most of these things I was working on all summer in the hopes of drumming up some business during my slow time of the year as adjunct faculty. But then when things began to come in, it really began to pour.

First off, I spent part of my summer shopping my resume and a few clippings around to a few of the newspapers in the area to try and drum up business, keep busy, and bring in a few extra dollars. Well, they finally got back to me as soon as classes started again. I'll still work in a few articles into my busy schedule. I feel it is important for a writing teacher to continue writing for an audience anyway. And getting paid for it is always better than not.

Then the poem I sold at the beginning of summer is finally published in Teach. Write. Here it is. I seem to have a regular place to publish some of my more literary works since this is the second time they published my work. I have a personal essay I worked on over the summer that still needs some work, but when I do send it out, I will likely send it to them first. I like the publication a lot, and I think the piece is a good fit for them anyway. Their homepage is here.

Third, and most importantly, I just won the Horror Writers Association Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship for Non-Fiction Writing for a non-fiction book idea I have on the history of Frankenstein in film. This is actually a really big deal. They split the award between myself and another writer, Joseph Maddrey, who seems like a real heavyweight, having published eight books and written and produced over 50 hours of documentary television. It's a tremendous honor just to be named in the same breath with someone with these kinds of accomplishments.

I'm sure I'll post much more about this scholarship and the project in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, since winning this scholarship, I've received two more rejection letters in my email, but somehow, they don't seem so bad now.