The first short story collection is nearly done.

It’s been a long stretch of blood, ghosts, and late-night edits. But, it’s almost ready to walk on its own legs. Keep an eye out here soon for a chance to grab a paperback copy.

While that’s getting buttoned up, I’ve already started the next batch five or six stories that twist in darker, stranger directions. Each one’s shaping up with its own brand of chill. They don’t follow the same road as the first collection, they just haunt nearby.

In the meantime, I’ll be creating some fresh individual stories to send out into contests each month. Part to hone the craft. Part to let these characters slip out into the wild and see what the moonlight does to them.

Once this next set is finished, I’ll circle back to a longer piece. The ones with more teeth. Still deciding which world to open up again:

• A werewolf tale that started in the mountains,
• The love story that tries not to die in the apocalypse,
• The wild west antihero story soaked in blood and redemption,
• A WWI trench nightmare,
• Or maybe a return to Whispers, an earlier tale that came to life just as I began dabbling in a style change that has been very satisfying to grow with so far.

What do you think, what bone pit should I dig into next?