My short story, The Snake River Tale, is included in this Old West horror anthology. Go check it out and maybe help out.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crlangille/along-harrowed-trails
Ghosts
Snow and ghost stories
Howdy! November?? What?
I have been working. I’ll stop there and move on.
Just finished a ghost story set on Christmas Eve. Started it about seven times already. Finally hit on a tale that flowed like water. Isn’t that a great feeling? When the tale just unfurls and you don’t immediately move it to the trash and start it all over again?
Oh my gosh, America didn’t go to the Christofascist white nationalist election-denying shitskillets! Hurray! I feel a bit of hope. Yep. Just a bit because that faction is already doubling down instead of retreating to reflect on their serious mistakes and ghastly notions which lead them to very narrow defeats. Just so exhausting all the time here in the home of the bamboozled and the land of the stupid.
It snowed here. Twice now. I think we might get some actual winter.
I might have a California trip ahead of me. We’ll see.
I finished the ghost story I started this morn, so I will treat myself to some coffee and maybe a shower. I need to clean the house, wash some stuff, ready my little garden for winter. I did plant some spring bulbs. I also got myself a Venus flytrap. I rescued it from the markdown bin. Poor little thing. It’s too cold for it here.
I do not wish to attend any Thanksgiving feasts. Is that okay? I’d rather stay home and have tacos and watch Hallmark movies where the big city gal discovers she’d rather give up her life to become a Christmas tree farmer’s wife or whatever the formula is there. Just so numbing and soothing these horrific, skin-peeling times.
It’s Happy Month
Oh, my fellow babies and compatriots for this thing called life– it’s the happiest month of the year. For me. Cause. Halloween.
Pumpkins. Pumpkin patches.
Ghosts and goblins and ghouls, oh my.
Creaky vampire movies with capes and crosses.
American Werewolf in London time!
The weather cooling the frack down.
The Halloween baking competition with its black garlic cupcakes and four-layer oozing lime basil cake with Italian buttercream something or other. Make entire scary scenes from cake, pumpkins, rice crispy treats and sugar work!
Oh yes, oh please, amen.
I have pumpkins about ready to be plucked. I have gourds. I want to make bread.
I feel energized and ready to watch scary movies with all the lights off.
I have the original Night of the Living Dead tucked away. There’s a compulsion within to find the DVD and WATCH IT the old-fashioned way. On my television through a DVD player. No streaming. No computer involved. Old-fashioned out the disc in, push play when prompted. With a big cup of ho-cho in hand.
Of course, it’s still rather hot here in the day. The nights have cooled off a bit. I now need at least a blanket. Kitters has even taken to napping a bit on me so it must be getting cold outside or she misses me as I’ve been working. I call my cat Kitters, though her official name is Jaws. As she showed up with a broken jaw a couple Halloween’s ago.
So. I hope TCM shows horror movies I’d like to watch. I hope hope hope they show the Abominable Dr. Phibes, with Vincent Price. Where he speaks only through a record. It’s so acid-trippy, weird and satisfying. I’m so glad no one has ever tried to remake this one. Why would you? It’s perfection. From that first scene with the bats to the bitter, bitter end. Dang. And there’s sequels, which I hear, are not as good but still. I will also probably watch the silent Swedish made up documentary on witches, because it’s just so good. Haxan or something like that. 1923 or hereabouts. It’s on Youtube. As are a lot of silent horror movies. Like M or the Cabinet of Dr. Caligaleri. [Spelling?]
Halloween month. It’s the happiest month of the year for me. From baking to horror movies I’ve seen a gazillion times already to new horror films I might discover. I do like discovering some offbeat, nobody’s heard of it, frightfest. Like the Blood on Satan’s Claw [Satanic children, 70’s] Or even something like Only Lovers Left Alive, with Tom Hiddleston as a mopey vampire. It’s a gorgeous film, by Jim Jarmusch, and also boasts a sparkly performance by Tilda Swinton. It’s as slow as frozen molasses and it’s not so much a horror movie as a test of your patience but hey, it might hit a sweet spot or two.
Hey, speaking of Halloween and spooky stuff and scary things…I have two recent novels out that deal with zombies and cannibal bikers. Yay!
Aftermath: Boise, Idaho— where Hannah kills herself to escape death by zombie horde only to wake up in a world run by sentient zombies.
There’s also The Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane, where three elderly sisters hiding out in a small Nevada town after a catastrophic world war nuclear event, become embroiled with the decimated cannibal biker gang that’s limped into Fallon.
There’s also Oregon Gothic. The opening tale, Bailey, is about what a real vampire is like and the costs of thwarting that vampire’s will. There’s also the necrophilia-smeared love story of Prince Charming Finds His Sleeping Beauty, which will be in an anthology coming out this year.
Halloween month. Pure joy filling my soul right now. Just pure happy wonderful joy.
Road Trip
September. It’s almost over. The weather here is finally cooling a bit. I’ve rescued the same toads from the dog pool many mornings now. The big one that squeaks at me if I handle it too much, the smaller ones that pretended they were frogs, so I’d leave them alone. That was when the water levels were much higher. I dug a giant hole to put the rubber tub into, and it has this valve that keeps turning so all the water leaks out. Why would you put such a valve into a tub designed to hold water? Oh sure, to drain it but still. It’s entirely too easy to brush against it and turn it the wrong way. I blame liberals for this. Is that how that works?
Snark, sarcasm and hissing gently from the shadows. That’s me!
Job? I don’t know. Nobody cares so let’s move on.
Road trip. I am going to go to Mountain Home, Id-eee-ho, for a literary event. I know!! It’s for the Whistle Pig Literary Magazine launch, held this year at the Mountain Home library. I even got myself a hotel room so I wouldn’t have that long drive back, in the dark, with the extra bright lights in my eyes. I probably need to go see the eye doctor about that…yikes.
Or just deal with it because, hey, who has insurance?
Rimshot! I’ll be here all week, try the chicken.
My story for the Whistle Pig is called Lovesmoke. I based it off a short play I wrote ages ago, about a nearly mute man who’s in love with his brother’s girlfriend. She just wants to get married, have a normal life as her boyfriend is about to lose everything due to bad cattle prices and the bottom falling out of that market. The brother in love goes about collecting rocks and such to sell at the various festivals in and around the Western states. If you’ve ever been to small town festivals, with booths– that’s the type of person Salinas is.
In my prose version, I set it in Weiser, Idaho, with the about to lose everything brother having already run off and the other brother crossing the Rubicon, so to speak, by declaring his love for Lily. It’s bittersweet and it seemed to write itself, once I found that balance between manipulative monster versus clumsy overtures of affection toward another. I sort of blended the two extremes of puppet master and hopelessly bad at romance tropes, so to speak. That happy medium? Eh.
I did play with having them end up together but it just didn’t gel, it just didn’t flow, it just didn’t…yeah.
Rewrote a short story in the last couple days, turned it from vague woman-empowered claptrap to murderous psycho monster baby claptrap. Wheee!!!! I also realized my lead character is the least of my three in that story. I need to, ahem, punch her up a bit. Or not. I also need to look at the ending. It might be awful or okay, depends on mood, weather, snack consumption and coffee levels. The title also needs changing. Willa and the Mist to perhaps Baby Lamb or The Graveyard Baby or something equally provocative. Two On A Meat Hook? I’d have to add a meat hook. Dang it!
I’ve been reworking short stories that keep getting rejected. It keeps me busy and out of prison, so that’s good.
That’s it.
Oh, for those panting to know– I have pumpkins. I also have three giant gourds growing away. I’m so excited! I researched and it said to wait for first frost to collect them. We are nowhere near a first frost. I’m also watching the pumpkins closely, looking for that all-over orange color. Still a bit green underneath. Small sugar pumpkins, for pies but still so gorgeous. I do love the color orange.
Halloween is close. I have a happy feeling somewhere close by. And then the drudge and stress of the ‘holidays’. All those damn turkeys to bake. God damn it. I’m already sick and tired of turkey. I just want to buy a bunch of frozen dinners, call it good from here until next January. Want a fancy meal? Here ya go– Hungry Man Salisbury steak!
Oh my, I should adjust accordingly, eh? Holiday season hasn’t even officially started yet. Not until Hallmark starts constant Christmas movie rotation BEFORE HALLOWEEN USUALLY. Notice that?? I noticed that last year. Syrupy cookie cutter movies that bring numbness and a sort of Zen blankness if you watch too many in a row. Lifetime, also, has a host of these things.
And the Halloween Baking contest is back. Happiness is oozing icing the color of infected flesh dripping down over a rotted pumpkin face chocolate cake. Or pies with top crusts that look like tortured human faces. Happiness and bliss.
Becki and Joani
Here’s an excerpt from THE ADVENTURES OF GRUMPY ODIN AND SEXY JESUS.
***
Becki looked up. Grok had the Bobbler pinned down beneath a hoof-like paw.
Joani blinked, managed to achieve a worried expression across her several eyes. “How can you write at a time like this? There’s never been a time like this! Batboys gone insane, Tentacles missing, Jesus stopped Odin, Halfway Offices destroyed…did I miss anything? Oh! Minette gone. Who’s going to replace her?? And now Grok bringing her work here? Oh and that Ali wandering about. Spooky thing! What’s next, a visit from those nice Mormon tasty treats? They are tasty. So good with potatoes.”
“Stop that. We don’t eat dirt monkeys. You don’t know where they’ve been,” Becki slapped at Joani, who caught her sister’s strange fingers, kissed them, let them go. “No need to be afraid. Change happens. You’re such a…I’ll think of what you are, tell ya later, my dear.”
2 Short Stories
Here are two short stories of mine. Circle Salt, about a seance gone very wrong, and Everything Is Normal Here. That’s a straight up ghost story about a young woman dealing with a particularly persistent and frightening new paranormal visitor.
World of Myth. Horror Zine. Thank you for taking such care with my work.
So! Two ghost stories for some summer reading.
https://www.thehorrorzine.com/Fiction/July2022/AnnWuehler/AnnWuehler.html
Grumpy Sexy
June. It’s June. My birthday is soon. Can you do me a boon? Go take a gander at my book. I won’t rhyme anymore. It might make some of you darlings a bit sore.
I do believe the Kindle is $3.99.
THE ADVENTURES OF GRUMPY ODIN AND SEXY JESUS:
Odin knows better than to trust Newbie Jesus, in a borrowed flesh suit, but Jesus might actually deliver on getting back everyone Odin lost when God attacked the gods that came before him with holy fire. Maggie, head secretary to God, has a total crush on Odin, which lands her in unexpected very hot water with her rather smitey boss, as well as shove her down a path she never, ever saw coming. Poor Suzi finds out the very hard cost of loving a minion but there might be unexpected benefits that go along with her plight. Click and Clack might be holding onto some power that could come in handy during a batboy attack, and possibly useful to the only son of God. Add in some Karaoke Nites at the shared hangout of minions, secretaries and has-been magical riff-raff, along with secrets, betrayals, the Alvord Desert and a small stuffed rabbit, and you just might find yourself cheering for the Adventures of Grumpy Odin and Sexy Jesus.
Remarkable Women
Good mornin’! It’s chilly here in East Oregon. Wind’s blowin’. I am considering a run to town but I’d have to take a shower, find my town clothes, put on real shoes. Ugh! But we are out of lettuce.
Anyhoo.
Hey, Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane, my dystopian cannibal biker versus elderly sisters in what’s left of Fallon, Nevada novel, can be read for FREE ON KINDLE at the moment.
Basically– three elderly sisters, Lily, Violet and Laura, are squatting in Lily’s house in Fallon, Nevada. They’ve made the house look abandoned as there are human monsters roaming about in what’s left of the world and they’re just trying to survive another day, another day after that. The Werewolves, a cannibal biker gang that’s tangled with the Glitterbugs, yet another cannibal biker gang, limp into Fallon and possibly their Waterloo. It’s Laura, the silent sister who discovers her voice and then some, who pushes the other two into a possible showdown with the actual forces of the universe itself or maybe she’s gone completely crazy, cooped up in a moldering house living on boiled pee and deformed mice or whatever Violet can scrounge from the surrounding area. But the actual threat might very well arrive in the form of church ladies on bicycles– the legendary Snitty Ratballs. This apocalyptic threat has managed to make it over the booby-trapped Rockies, intent on law and ordering the remnants of the Old West. Who will survive??! Why is there a lion? Will the sisters join the Werewolves? Will Gut Bucket ever make it to Utah? Can Amy Octopus ever be believed?
Find out all this and more in THE REMARKABLE WOMEN OF BROKENHEART LANE
If you do read it, hey, leave a review.
Ain’t too proud to beg for reviews at this stage of my utterly barffling life. I added an ‘r’ to ‘baffling’. I think I’ll let it stand.
Blurbing
Monday. Here’s the blurb to go along with novel number five, the Adventures of Grumpy Odin and Sexy Jesus:
In The Adventures of Grumpy Odin and Sexy Jesus, Odin and Newbie Jesus team up, uneasily, to take on God in a power struggle that might rip the known universe apart. Click and Clack might be something other than your normal minion scum. Maggie, who has the hots for Odin, finds herself in the middle of an actual holy war. Zadkiel begins to think for himself a bit, which is rather rare for a batboy. Poor Suzi discovers that loving minion Minette lands her in strange places yet allows her to help everyone but herself. Swiss Charlie’s, under the stellar management of Stella Lou, seems the place to be for karaoke and intrigues gone very wrong!
The Adventures of Grumpy Odin and Sexy Jesus is a fantastical fantasy adventure story that has a lot more jokes in it than any holy scriptures and makes the bible seem like a fairy story!
So Many Cucumbers
My two cucumber plants have produced a wealth of cukes. Blessed! The one plant is trying to take over the yard. My zuke plant grew upward instead of out. And have been drying my own herbs, such as rosemary, sage, thyme, basil and lemon balm. I also dried my few jalapenos.
I have been having a bit of success lately. Three short stories placed! Three! City Full of Rain will be in LitMag. Blood and Bread will appear this October in Hellhound Magazine and now Gladys will be in Agony Opera. I have been shucking out submissions like mad lately. There’s also been the plethora of rejections to balance that out.
Decided to watch White Lotus. Hated it. Absolutely hated it. What a waste of talent. Jennifer Coolidge seemed perpetually confused as to what she was supposed to be doing but she gamely kept on anyway. Rich white assholes getting away with everything while abusing the staff…fuck me running, no thanks. I didn’t find it funny or insightful. The pig-faced trust fund boy bullying the manager until he got him fired…Jesus H. Christ on a cracker. It was set in Hawaii, so getting some scenes of sea turtles and that gorgeous ocean made up for almost nothing of this shit-tastic blunder. This was supposed to be satire…yet it felt like I was being continuously punched in the kisser for the five hours I made myself watch this. I skipped episode five, full disclosure. I learned nothing but that rich people get away with near everything…well, duh. And at least do something more than stereotypes…ugh.
As the weather is a touch cooler, I might work outside today. Or I might watch Suicide Squad for the umpteenth time because watching the same show over and over is soothing and comforting. I discovered other folks do this as well. Read the same books over and over, watch the same shows over and over…as it provides comfort, safety and structure when one has depression. The repetition helps.
Yeah, the news lately. It’s toxic. Afghanistan, for one. There was no winning here. None. Lots of blame to go around, sure, but how to help those who live there, get those who wish to get out get out and…so forth and so on. Blame later, help now would be my unasked for advice. The Pro-Plague league that has set up camp in America. The won’t wear a mask cause freedumb squirrelheads. Poor people might be getting too many pennies in their unemployment scraps, take that away, stat! Women, you don’t own your own bodies, we do, says the state of Texass and other red-minded states. And on and on. Until you’re choking on rage fumes and sorrow clouds, drowning in your own empathy and helplessness. So, you start season one of Gilmore Girls for the umpteenth time and marvel at how blind Lorelei is to Luke’s panting over her. hello!
I’m trying to do a post every week. Trying to keep it light and not a dark bloodied scream against everything right now. I have three short stories that will be read this late summer and early fall. Halloween is nearby! Bats and skeletons and stormy nights full of ghosts and goblins and things that sometimes loudly go bump in the night. And then, hopefully, big snowstorms this year and into the next…2022. And it all begins over again, and it might be even worse! That might call for a Buffy viewing. Teenage girl slays vampires while studying for her history exam is probably the ticket and balm I will need.
ANN WUEHLER 