Month: February 2021

Snow and Vampires

~ The Ann Wuehler Project ~ Leave a comment
Morning snow

Welp, it snowed. I do mean snowed. Lots of snowflakes in a condensed set of days. We got winter all of a sudden. Not a teasing slight whitening of the ground that was gone in an hour as the temps shot up to fifty. Oh no. No. Inches of the stuff. Inches in the valleys, feet in the various mountains in all directions. Sorry, daughter of a farmer, the weather fascinates and controls me.

So! Did not even get an interview for this job I happened to see listed in the local paper for an English instructor. Yeah. I was a bit late turning in my packet, however. As the paper didn’t bother to check due dates, either. But hey, I turned it in, anyway and…yeah, not even an interview, just a form email. I expected this. I knew this was going to happen when I rushed it into HR, as this is the local community college and the HR person was all fake sympathy and we’ll put this on the pile but no promises it will even get looked at. Whee. Lesson? CHECK DATES. I also managed to gather everything asked for in a very short span of time. I’m going to take a victory lap on that, because even a loss is celebrated as a win these days.

Currently, I toil over a new novel. It’s called the Vampire Bride and it started off as rather cutesy-sweet and now it’s fallen into the groove of not so cutesy and not sweet at all. I’m having fun writing it. I have not had fun with writing for near a year so this feels so utterly freaking good. It’s first person unreliable narrator blah dee blah. My vampires are based off evolution and science, bwha ha ha. I won’t go into it but I at least tried to make them not so much supernatural as a distant cousin of humans. Rather like dogs and bears had a common ancestor way back when. Kinda like that. Yep. And I really like Madeline, my vampire bride. She’s sassy! I also only have a vague idea where this is headed. Fun! Of course it’s JUST the first draft yet.

Oh and to end this– my FOURTH NOVEL, The Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane, will be out soon. Like March or April! I go from zombies running the world– Aftermath: Boise, Idaho-– to cannibal bikers versus elderly sisters in the wastelands of Fallon, Nevada after a nuclear fuckitall world war. Sounds grim? No, it’s not! I did write some grim versions of this, but the final version is more a dark faerytale than the Road on steroids. Yay! It’s a mix of the movie Doomsday and Chekhov’s Three Sisters except my three sisters actually do get to go to Moscow, so to speak. Well, maybe they do? Mm!

Oh yeah, that not gonna matter we’re gonna vote for our king Trumpie impeachment thing. Seven GOPers did vote he was guilty. That’s a big deal, it is. No, really. Maybe next time, in criminal trials, he’ll be…And I’m out. I just am hopeless that fuckmonkey will ever face any actual consequences. Maybe he will? Maybe next time? And then that song from Cabaret goes through my head.

Liza, baby, take it away: Maybe This Time – Full Song – Cabaret 1972 – Liza Minnelli – YouTube

Groundhog Late Date Vampire Writing Splurge

~ The Ann Wuehler Project ~ Leave a comment

Happy new month. May it not seem as long as January. Holy cats, what a long damn January that was.

I am writing again! The clog in my inner writing bowels has cleared out and I am pooping out words in a steady fashion. Too gross? Eh, but that’s how it feels. Like something that was bottled up, became unbottled. I even started a new novel. The Vampire Bride. It’s set in La Grande, Oregon and the story…is, I don’t know. I have a vague idea where our faulty narrator vampire gal ends up in a cage but maybe not. I also cross the streams and added James from Bailey, in my Oregon Gothic collection. He’s also a vampire. I know. Vampires??? But. They’re not sparkly, they’re more organic creatures than supernatural ones and…uh huh. I’m having fun writing it. Isn’t that great?? Writing is fun??!! What??!!

Also, my fourth novel is on deck, with a cover chosen. The Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane. Cannibal bikers, elderly sisters, a lion, in a post-nuclear strikes world…in what’s left of Nevada. I’m calling it a dark faery tale. It wrote itself…Ever had that happen? When a story or poem or play or whatever just…rumbles out of you. You just type, allowing whatever story or scrap or epic essay on irrigation and modern man, to arrange itself as it wants. You’re just the conduit, the recorder. It arrives from some alien dimension inside your tricksy head. Bada binga bam. That’s what Remarkable Women was like. I just got out of its way finally. It patted me on the head, cleared its throat and threw itself onto the page. Those three sisters wanted their tale told, the bikers wished to state their case, the church ladies of the apocalypse…well.

My grandfather’s birthday was on the second of Feb. He was born 02/02/02. That would have made him around 119 if he were still around.

And my last little thing– I saw this job posting for an English instructor at the local community college. I saw this advertised in the local very small hometown paper, last Thursday. I gathered my materials and got my packet ready, then noticed the date it was due. Oh dear. However! I took my packet of stuff to the HR there and turned it in anyway. They accepted it, with the caveat I might not be considered and I said that was so much better than what I had expected. I had expected an outright refusal. So. We’ll see. I have no luck at all with this place but hey, turning my stuff in late for a job I am actually trained for, and have professional expertise in…we’ll see.