Jinx

I know there’s no such thing as jinxes. I know this. My brain know it. The rest of me, eh, no so much. I am always wary of speaking or writing of something before it happens. Like a job interview. Do not tell anyone or even admit you have one before the interview. Otherwise, IT WILL GO BADLY.

Anyone else have this one? You don’t talk about something important or just ordinary [like a job interview] before you get the results or it will GO BADLY.

Anyway! Yes, I have a job interview or rather, a process to get to a job. A series of steps, as it were. I’m on step two. If I get through [this next task], it’s on to other steps. Hurray. The good thing is: I can do this job from home. I don’t have to deal with anything but equipment going nutty. Or a bad internet connection that day. As the internet works most days here, not really concerned that way. My computer works fairly well. I can even hook cameras and headsets up without much trouble. Go me! Normally I am such a Luddite. But it’s just plugging stuff into the USB ports, so…yeah. I can totally do that. I am the master of plugging stuff into USB ports. You betcha.

I’ve tried this before, what sort of job I’m trying to land now. I failed so miserably at it. Ugh! Could not get the equipment to work. But this time, I am ready, more or less. I’m being vague because of the whole jinx thing.

I have books out. Aftermath: Boise, Idaho deals with sentient zombies and our intrepid, pragmatic heroine, Hannah. The Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane pits three elderly, but thoroughly fabulous sisters, each in their own way, against a beat-up cannibal bikers. The Werewolves limp into what’s left of Fallon, Nevada, after their own epic showdown with a rival gang, the Glitterbugs. But wait, there’s a third gang of law and order church ladies looking to restore everything called the Snitty Ratballs. There’s also a lion roaming around, double and triple crosses and alliances formed to fight a common foe!

I had a lot of fun writing both of those. I tried to balance between the absurd, the comedic and the horrible. I think I did okay. Both are available on Amazon, Goodreads, etc.

Pig Bait

Wheat field, with storm coming in, last year

It’s May. The weather is either FREEZING, WINDY HELL or hey, it’s warm out. Garden is planted, got a new blueberry plant to go with the one from last year.

So have been not writing that much. But. Have been thinking about it. Does that count? Yes, it does.

So saw this blip about Baker City, Oregon and how it’s now a sanctuary city against…wokeness. I. Um? Ahem. Not an Onion article or a satire piece in the sedate New Yorker. The mayor, with crazy glazed eyes, did an interview on Fuck It Fearnews. Where she blatted on about entire Pacific Northwest cities burning down, Antifa not welcome in Baker and…the usual bullshit you can hear from your red-hatted relatives. Seattle is gone? Portland is now just ashes? We’re kinda short on cities here in the Pacific Northwest. Eugene? Is it Eugene she’s shrilling about?

Yes, so!

This utter stinking lunacy gave me an IDEA. What if…what if someone deliberately trolled the red-hats, got them so wound up that one of them actually decided to ‘do something about it’. And it’s a trap. Baited with ‘go ahead, look me up, if you dare’ rhetoric implied. As Americans are off their damn rockers right now and do actually find people to shoot or run over or…Yeah, my brain, it just goes there.

Sometimes you have to take those wild ass far right news blips and turn them into horror tales for this post-modern trying to return to the actual fucking Dark Ages timeline we’re in now. Yeppity yep.

I am fully vaccinated. There’s that.

Been up since two. My brain is a swirly whirly sludge of huh? right now. But I noticed I had not posted for a while and hey, I do have a rough draft, two now, done of a short story I’m called Pig Bait. I rather enjoyed writing it. I haven’t enjoyed writing for a long time.

All righty! It’s gorgeous outside so I need to obsessively check my seedlings and yank the sprinkler to a dry spot. All my flower seeds sprouted! The cat is also doing well. In case you were worried. You know who you are.

Ambitions

Hi and hello. I am going to try to record my work in audio formats, which should be a fun learning experience for all. I am also going to stop being a chickenshit and get…A PATREON PAGE. Why not. I have stuff to offer. It’s a way to get my works out there.

I am not good with technology so this will be a challenge. And since the weather refuses to not be wintery, which is freezing all my plants…yeah, should jump with a WTF, let’s do this! rebel yell into the nearest canyon. All righty then! Onward, upward, woot woot.

https://www.patreon.com/annwuehler

Secret Writings

That is a truly crappy closeup of the owl hooting away the other early evening

Last night the winds cracked their cheeks. Probably some dead branches cracked as well, but not enough to fall onto the roof. Yay! You really can find the good, even in a wind storm. No branches fell on the roof from the incredibly ancient, rotting even as you read this, cottonwood tree.

It’s the same tree that the local owls like to use to send their owl messages back and forth to owls perching in the locust tree along the lane. There’s just the one locust tree, which draws every insect within a thousand miles when it puts forth its honey-smelling blooms. Tractors have attempted to yank that thing out but the tree won. It was quite a goodly thrill to watch a tractor nearly do flips trying to kill that old tree. Ha ha ha, take that, evil farmers!

So, yes, I am writing. I have started a new novel with the title of Vampire Bride. Where a vampire marries a human after a wild tequila-fueled night in Vegas. Have I mentioned this in the few blog posts I’ve put out since January? Anyway! I’ve also been what I call junk writing. This is just writing I do for me. I will never ever ever show it to anyone. It’s indulgent, shallow crappy tripe. Most of it, anyway. I have millions of words invested in this.

Now, my actual question is—do other writers do this? Do they have a private stash of self-indulgent, just for them, creations?

Is there a split of the ‘good’ stuff and the everything else stuff they’d not show to others? Is there a secret stash of bodice ripper historical romances versus the ‘serious’ literature produced for awards and lit mags to fawn over?

Is there an Anne Rice in all writers? Her BDSM series, based on Sleeping Beauty being woken up by a very horny dom Prince…and her other works, which don’t feature actual whips, chains, human trafficking and passages involving orgies. And were published long before 50 Shades had grown from Edward Cullen fanfic. A.N. Roquelaure is the pen name used for the Beauty series. I just found out there’s a fourth book in this series, Beauty’s Kingdom, 2015. The others were out in the 80’s.

So, honestly, just wondering if other writers keep a secret stash of words meant only to be read by themselves. It’s probably a way of coping with life, rejection, life and the slow strangulation death of any and all dreams. Yep. Drowning yet again, I pen words meant to comfort and console my dying brain that there’s still some oxygen bubbles bursting nearby. That I am writing away, just not on anything I’d show to group of other writers. Private little romances that always end in happy times or adult-themed high to very lowbrow fantasy full of dragons, shapeshifting creatures and goblins living under magical castles full of ghosts, devils and sexy dark lords…hey, not admitting anything. Nope!

Or perhaps I am ashamed that I have a need to write the secret stuff at all. That it’s rather like that ‘comical’ moment in movies when the heroine’s vibrator is found or turned on by accident so that it rattles away as she stands there with a red face. Instead of just shrugging, grabbing it up, turning it off, and admitting, yes, she likes orgasms. You got a problem with that, she should demand instead of the embarrassed horror of people discovering she’s, well, masturbating on a regular basis.

Did I mention the owls have been very busy the last couple weeks? And that I am writing, not necessarily on anything I’d let you or anyone else read. Vampire Bride, sure. It’s meant for others. Goblin Ghosts  Versus the Dragon Lord’s Prisoner, no. And no, I did not write anything like that. Or did I??? Bwhahahahahaha.

No, actually I didn’t.

I swear it. On a stack of Interview With the Vampire. Oh hey, anyone else go through an Anne Rice phase?

I have four books out now. I have a short story in the next Ghastling. Go check them out.

Remarkable Women

My fourth novel is out now.

Amazon.com: The Remarkable Women of Broken Heart Lane eBook: Wuehler, Ann: Kindle Store

Snow and Vampires

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

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.

January Notes

Oh golly, such a slow month! That was sarcasm. America, for those not having to endure it themselves, is batshit insane looney tunes over the moon cray cray right now. We had an actual attempt at a coup just last week and now the outgoing prezzie has TWO impeachments to his credit. That’s…ah. You don’t know whether to laugh or cry so you do both, with the snot running and the entire body shaking. You make sounds not heard outside a slaughter house full of helium-infested pigs. A kind of squeal-scream-shout-laugh-gasp, and now even the local coyotes line up to see if you’re okay.

I’m not okay.

I won’t be okay for a long time, because what’s been going on in America is trauma. It’s just straight up war zone-esque trauma. That’s what it FEELS like. I have no idea, of course, about a war zone; never had to survive in an actual war zone. I’m just calling up all the usual stereotypical whatevers for trying to…explain what the past four years have been like. Hell, what the past week has been like. The constant tension of ‘what’s he gonna do next??!!’ followed by ‘did he really fucking just say/do that?’ followed by ‘there is not enough cheese in this house’ followed by ‘I think my blood pressure is around 400 or something right now, is that normal?’.

I won’t attempt to break down the nuttiness of Jan. 6th. It’s available, it’s out there, you can look up just who got arrested lately for smearing their own shit on the walls of the capitol building, and yes, that the QAnon half-naked cosplaying Viking wannabe with the white supremacist tats was arrested. That he lives with his mom and eats only special food and…okay.

I mean to write some long political scream about all this but…I think my gaskets would blow and they’d have to haul me off to the mechanic. That people are yet defending all this is so very American. If you don’t live here, it might be mystifying and horrifying. But. Fox News says it was patriots who were all peaceful and Antifa rogue agents who blah de blah. I…mm. There is not enough cheese in this house.

I started a new novel! Yah! It’s called Vampire Bride. I wrote a short story of the same name and thought, hey, there might be a longer story here. As you sometimes do. So. Am just writing, with no plan or outline, just seeing where it goes. Cause unfettered free writing is the new patriotic blood of the land! Cheese? Here, cheese!

So! Here’s the link to my publisher’s page. Check it out!! Not only me, but other writers you might find worthy of your time and interest. You never know when you might find your OH MY GAWD I LOVE THIS writer/artist/person. You never know.

HOME | Poeboypublishing (wixsite.com)

Hello 2021!

It’s finally here!! 2021!

I have no hope it will be better but it surely cannot be worse than 2020. Yes? No? I guess we’ll see when we’re all fighting off the zombie hordes, waiting for 2022 to hit so everything magically gets reset due to the Oregon Prophet’s prophecy. Because anything is possible in this time of no laws, magical thinking, alternate realities for all and ignorance is just as good as knowledge debates. No, I’m sober. Okay!

I did start up an Amazon author page. My only goal this year is to improve my self-promotion skills. That’s it. No grand plans, no wild dreams, nothing bigger than…be better at advertising a wee bit. I just started this yesterday so am still trying to figure out why it won’t…and then cussing a lot, then playing some Candy Crush, but I’m stuck on this particularly horrid level, that gives you about five moves to clear about seven of those fucking nut/cherry combos. Why do I bother with this stupid game??? Why?? Surely I should be writing or self-promoting so hard my entire face bleeds…

Yes. Hi. Hi, 2021. How ya doing so far?

Move To Trash

I have decided to ax a post. I hit the publish button and then went, eh. Why does anyone need to read that? They don’t.

I have a book out, Aftermath: Boise, Idaho and am working on getting another one into final editing. That’s Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane.

I have had a pretty good year writing-wise.

My short story, Mouse and Man, was published in the Sun, in April.

My short story, Greenhorn, was in the Whistle Pig’s Volume 12.

I helped co-write a screenplay based on a short story of mine from Oregon Gothic.

There’s other things out there that got accepted and hey, good for me.

So will press forward this last very long month to be. Will skip Christmas, spend it on my own.

Onward and upward to a bright new year. [Hopefully?]

And thanks to all who read my scattershot blog and thanks to those who support me, even only slightly and thanks to this year about being nearly OVER ALREADY.

I didn’t cuss once. Look at me go!