This is number 157 in the blog series, “My Writing Life.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
I WOULD LIKE, if I may, to take you on a strange journey.
Ring a bell? By the time I saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1979, it was already a cult classic. People went to it more to participate than to watch. Costumes, dancing (Let’s Do the Time Warp Again!), flicking lighters, putting newspapers over their heads, and shouting out lines or comebacks for lines that almost drowned out the soundtrack from the movie.
Well, years ago, live theatres building on the campy idea started doing shadow cast performances during October. Essentially, people playing the roles perform in front of the screen showing the movie. It adds a whole new level of chaos to the Rocky Horror experience. I recently saw a ‘memory’ from a friend who was in a shadow cast in Everett, Washington twenty years ago! Productions got a big boost in 2025 for the 50th anniversary of the movie’s release, and then again this year, after the sad passing of actor Tim Curry.
And this year, I’m deep in the cult, acting out the role of the criminologist/narrator with a cast that is mostly kids half my age or less. I’m having a blast.
It is so much better than pumpkin spice.
I’ve always enjoyed Halloween and somewhere I’m sure I still have some photos of me dressed in costumes just for the fun of it. Well, I was a theatre kid. I’ve also frequently written a special Halloween story like last year’s
Alienable Rights, ‘A political satire in which everyone gets screwed.’ I submitted that to the Halloween contest on SOL last year, but frankly I was so bored of the season by the time results were out, I forgot to check the winners for weeks. Not that it made a difference. People don’t enjoy political satire so much these days unless it is specifically attacking someone they are opposed to. I freely “attacked” everyone because I consider all politics to be equally ridiculous.
In
Alienable Rights—a novella—we discover that all the weird stuff that is going on in the world—especially in the US—is being caused by shapeshifting aliens bent on saving the earth by taking over the US. They decide they don’t have to take over all the world at once, they only have to take over the US. Why the US? Because Americans don’t believe anything and will therefore believe anything.
Right?
I thought it was funny.
Alienable Rights is still available on SOL, my own website, and as a Signature Edition hardcover.
I’m not participating in the holiday contests anymore. I might sometime when I feel especially inspired, but the format just doesn’t appeal to me. First of all, the entries are restricted. I can’t release them anywhere else while they are in a contest or even tell anyone about them. I feel that isn’t fair to my patrons. And if a story places in the top three, there’s an exclusive period of months before it can be released to anyone else.
Secondly, the entry deadline is on the 30th of the month with judging opening the next day. Well, on the 31st, the holiday is basically over. Judging ends two or three weeks later, and by the time results are announced, who still cares?
But I still enjoy writing oddball Halloween stories.
Two years ago, I wrote
The Key to Eve, a story of a shapeshifting cat and a boy who talked to animals. It did pretty well in the contest (third). But I’m still trying to get it exposed to readers in the right timeframe.
The Key to Eve is still available on SOL and on my website.
What’s really cool, though, is that the idea stuck with me and my next short drama,
Code Kitty, features a shape-shifting cat!
Every keyboard needs a kitty. That’s coming up in November.
My first Halloween story for an SOL contest was
One-Hour Do-Over, third place winner back in 2012. That was one I wrote based on a real-life experience that I still think of fondly. I happened to go to a Halloween costume party back in the early 80s that fell on the night of the time change from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time. I got caught up with a beautiful witch and we stayed out very late. About two in the morning, we realized we were both supposed to be home, but then thought, ‘It’s not really 2am. It’s only 1am. We have a one-hour do-over!’
So, we did. Over and over.
One-Hour Do-Over is still available on SOL and on my website.
One of my favorite Halloween stories,
Before the Fire, was never entered in a contest because it was too short. But it’s too long to be called flash fiction. One reader commented, “You now can claim the title of the ‘erotic’ equivalent of O. Henry.”
At less than 1,500 words, I can’t tell you much more than that without telling you the story.
Before the Fire is available both on SOL and on my website.
This Halloween, I’m truly enjoying playing the criminologist in the Red Curtain Theatre production of
The Rocky Horror Picture Show in Marysville, WA. One of the reasons is that my daughter is directing the show. She can finally tell her old man what to do with impunity.
The show only runs for seven performances on the last three Fridays and Saturdays of October. The odd seventh performance is at midnight on Halloween. I wonder if I’ll be awake enough to recite my lines for that one. Old, you know.
But there is also one other thing that is certainly being affected by the season. That’s my new work in progress,
My Name Is Vengeance. It’s progressing at a rate of a couple of chapters a week, partly slowed up by me pausing every hour or two to recite all my lines again. You know it’s not really “Practice makes perfect.” It has to be “Perfect practice makes perfect.”
My Name Is Vengeance is a sweeping supernatural revenge saga about a warrior who has already destroyed one world—and refuses to let death stop him from reclaiming another.
After an ancient war leaves nothing but ash, a nameless avenger fulfills his father’s command to annihilate his enemies. But vengeance is not finished with him. Cast into the sea while seeking a new land, his spirit endures for millennia before finding a new host: Erik Oswald, a brilliant Boston dockworker betrayed and left to drown by his ruthless stepbrother.
Reborn in Erik’s body, Vengeance inherits a 1950 world of skyscrapers, automobiles, labor unrest, organized crime, and a stolen family legacy. He also inherits Erik’s unfinished promises: protect the woman he loves, reclaim the fortune taken from his mother, and make those who thought him dead answer for their betrayal.
As Erik rises from dockworker and scholar to professor, entrepreneur, and heir, he builds allies in unexpected places—from hard-bitten longshoremen to former criminals seeking redemption. Yet every victory draws darker forces: corrupt union bosses, mobsters, corporate conspirators, and descendants of forgotten gods who recognize the ancient power behind Erik’s eyes.
Driven by bloodlust, bound by an oath, and awakened to love for the first time, Vengeance must decide whether justice means destroying his enemies—or building a future powerful enough to outlive them.
Some names are given. Others are earned.
His name is Vengeance.
My Sausage Grinder Patrons are following the development of this story as I write it. It’s a great time to be a patron.