Selling My First Short Story.

Since I already went into excruciating detail about how I came to write my first short story, I will now go into even greater detail (maybe not; depends on how much I feel like writing) about how I sold that story.

So, of course, I finished "Follow My Lead (formerly titled "Robbin' Banks With Robin Banks)" in April, but I didn't sell it until late July. That's because the idea of spreading my fiction around to the world (something I've never done before) intimidated the hell out of me. For people who edited and published magazines to read my stories and tell me whether or not they were good enough for publication? Astounding!

Of course, now I don't think it's so intimidating as it was. The number one rule of being a writer who submits a bunch of short stories; hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Anyway, I found this neat little site called Duotrope, which not only gave me the names and websites of hundreds of markets looking for short stories, but also how much they paid, their word limit lengths, when they'd be closed periodically for submissions, etc. It also let me keep track and when and where I'd send a short story, and for a scatter-brained bastard like myself, this proved invaluable.

So I set up my account, looked around for a magazine, and I found one! And it paid TEN CENTS A WORD. It was called Clarkesworld. Yeah, that's right. First short story I ever tried selling was to Clarkesworld. Laugh it up, 'ya yuppies. I got a form rejection within two days. Big deal.

Then I found Beyond Imagination Digital Magazine, ran by Dayne Edmonson. A nice little startup magazine. So I sent my story in, my expectations set low. In truth I'd already found the next market I was going to send it to once Dayne inevitably rejected me. I forget the name of it now, though.

Because Dayne accepted the story. I was thrilled. I couldn't believe it. Someone else besides me and my mom liked my stories. Holy cow, was I floored. I must have bragged about that for weeks.

And they just kept going. I'm up to almost three dozen sold now, and that's a nice number. Still aiming for that big five-o announcement, so we'll see how long that takes.

Until next time.

My First Short Story.

When I first started writing my book back in like, late 2012, I knew it would take me a while. But I didn't want to work on anything in between working on that. Though I did jot down some other ideas for some ideas concerning long fiction, I was pretty damn focused on getting that novel completed.

I never wanted to write short stories. I really didn't want to leave my comfort zone. Writing a book, at that time, anyway, was hard enough for me, and I wanted to focus solely on that and not dedicate time to anything else.

Stupid idea.

It wasn't until early 2014 that I had an inkling for a short story. I don't know what brought it on. But I heard a lyric from a Fall Out Boy song (that's right, I listen to them sometimes) and it said something about "making a career out of robbin' banks." And when I first heard it, I asked myself, did they say something about a person named Robin Banks, or are they talking about someone whose career is literally robbing banks?

And then I thought, why not just combine the two, and just for kicks and giggles, make him a werewolf while we're at it?

I wrote the story in one day, and it rounded out at about 4,500 words. At that time, it was my most productive writing day ever. I wrote it for fun in April, and when I decided to start writing a lot more short stories and selling them in July, I sold it on my second try. I'm still pretty proud of that.

There you have it. If you want to read the first short story in the "Robbin' Banks With Robin Banks" saga, it is available on Amazon in the 7th issue of Beyond Imagination Magazine.

See 'ya, pals.

My Favorite Song (Right Now)

There's also a cover by Dustin Kensrue, the lead singer of the band Thrice, and it's just as beautiful as the original, if not more so.

Hotline Bling Sneak Peak!

I know I've been teasing this new story for a while, due to be published in an anthology on Halloween. Since I'm such a tease, I'll let you guys in on a little sneak peek of "Hotline Bling." If you like it, buy the book when it comes out, for the rest of this story and a lot more by a few other great authors!



“I just…I don’t know what to do anymore,” the man on the other end of the phone said. The tears no doubt pouring down his face did a great job of making him damn near incoherent. “There’s no reason for me to keep going, is there?”


“There’s always a reason to keep going, Frank,” Alex said into his receiver, bored. He stirred his spaghetti, careful not to burn it this time. He checked on the chili cooking on the next burner over. It was as close to actual cooking as he’d go. Threeway for one. He grinned in excitement.


“You say that,” Frank cried. “You say that because you don’t know. How could you? You don’t know anything about what I’ve been through!”


Alex resisted the sigh ready to come out. He closed his eyes tight and pursed his lips. If all you’re going to do is argue with me, why the fuck did you call me in the first place, you stupid twat, he thought. When he first volunteered to help out with the suicide prevention hotline, he thought he’d be doing some good. He had a cell phone dedicated to nothing but answering the second it rang. The calls were forwarded to him from the main office. He liked it at first. That emotional “thank you so much” he often received at the end of each call made it so worthwhile.


But he’d grown tired. There was something to be said about a lot of the people that called him--they didn’t want to kill themselves. They were just being dramatic. It was the equivalent to parents of newborns holding their child in the air, telling them they were going to drop them. They did for a split second before quickly catching them, and they shared a great laugh. Those were the callers Alex often received. They said they were going to kill themselves, they swore they were going to do it, but more often than not, the threat was nothing more than a ploy. Only instead of the entertainment the newborns received, the caller only got the attention they wanted in the first place.


It occurred to him Frank was still talking. He stifled a yawn and stirred his spaghetti. It was nearly finished.


“Buddy, I know I don’t know your situation. But no matter how dire, ending your life isn’t the answer. Think of your family, your friends, all the people you’ll be leaving behind. It’s almost selfish to-”


“Selfish? Selfish?!” And the man went on for a while about how little his family cared about him. His mother shunned him in favor of his brother and sister, both of whom were loads more successful than himself. His father didn’t care to have a relationship with him after he’d divorced his mother. He supposed his half-brothers were much more interesting than him, thus absorbing all of their shared father’s attention. Girls rejected his advances often, and the few friends he had were only there for him when convenient for them.


Alex listened to all of this with a smile, if only because the spaghetti was finished. He slurped a piece of pasta from the end of the forked spatula. Perfect, he thought, turning the burner off. He held the phone between his ear and his shoulder, carefully grabbing the pot’s handles and carrying it toward the strainer in the sink.


“God!” Frank screamed on the other end of the line. It’d come from nowhere. He was merely mumbling about how much his family hated him one second, screaming into the phone the next. It was so sudden, however, that Alex’s arms jerked forward reflexively. Boiled water and hot spaghetti flew over the edge of the pot. He tilted it back to save his dinner, causing a bit of the water to pour down his front, burning his stomach and falling at his feet.


“Fuck!” Alex screamed back. He dropped the pot in the sink and set his phone on the counter. He tore his shirt off and wiped at his stomach with a wad of paper towels, doing the same to his feet. The spots the water had touched were quickly turning bright red. That was going to hurt for a few days.


The guy was still screaming through the receiver. He was partly bitching at Alex for scaring him and using such horrible language, partly still whining about how little his family liked him. Alex took a deep breath and picked the phone back up.


“All right, I’m back,” he said calmly. “Sorry about that. Now listen-”


“I’m going to do it!” he screamed again. Alex wondered where the man lived that he would so blatantly and carelessly scream his intentions of suicide. “I’m going to fucking do it! You don’t care, my family doesn’t care, nobody cares!”

“Okay,” Alex said. “Do it.”

Those Who Inspire Me: Robert Jackson Bennett; Writer.

When I was seventeen or eighteen, though I still longed to sit down and read a book every once in a while, reading had taken a backseat to everything else that had come along at that age. Senior year of high school, usually going straight to work after school, and using the time in between to hang out with my delinquent friends and chase some tail. My crew's usual Friday night plans were to trek the forty-five minutes to Newport On The Levee, the closest thing we had to a mall in Northern Kentucky (with only our legs as transportation).

There was a Barnes & Noble there. Our usual trips inside were dominated by making puns based on books' and authors' names. I found a book I made a pretty decent joke about (too vulgar to share here, and I barely remember it enough to paraphrase it), but upon reading the synopsis on the back, I realized right then that I needed to have this book. Mr. Shivers, by Robert Jackson Bennett.

I bought it on a whim and carried it with me on the walk back home. I didn't think I'd ever get around to reading it, but it was nice knowing it was there if I ever did get around to reading it. A couple days after that trip to B&N, when the internet (and subsequently, Xbox Live, the chief thief of my alone time) went out, I was stuck in the house alone with nothing to do.

Besides read. So I picked up Mr. Shivers, got comfortable on my little pallet of spare blankets on the floor, and began reading.

I finished the book within a span of two days, and long after finishing it, I found myself thinking about it and the possibilities its ending presented. It was one of the few books that has stuck with me, even now, seven years after closing it.

I went back to Barnes & Noble the day after on my dolo, and I hated them at that moment because they didn't have anything else from Robert Jackson Bennett's bibliography. Granted, even back then, it wasn't that large, but I digress. The only other thing RBJ had released up to that point, in novel form, was his novel The Company Man. "Well," I thought to myself, "it probably won't be as good as Mr. Shivers, but I really like this dude, so I'll check it out." That was actually the first time I've ever ordered a book online. I've done it hundreds of times since, in spite of what my checking account suggests.

I loved The Company Man, even more than Mr. Shivers, and it was then that I knew, thanks to this guy Robert Jackson Bennett, I'd rekindled my love of reading, which in turn provoked me to start writing again for the first time in a long time.

I kept my eyes glued to his website like a hawk, and every time he spoke of any new books coming out, I would mark that day down in my calendar (okay, maybe not, but I at least committed it to memory) to ensure that I would be one of the first people to read his work. The Troupe was released in 2012, and to this day, I still name that the best book I've ever read. My all-time favorite. I don't really think it stands a chance of being dethroned. American Elsewhere followed shortly after, and its twists and turns caused me to stay up way past the hour I should have been in bed, regardless of what I had to do the morning after.

City Of Stairs took a new turn, as it was the first world he'd created which didn't really mirror our own. I loved it regardless, and though I haven't picked up the sequel yet, it is high on my list of things to read next.

RBJ has a habit of creating characters who seem as real as the people we speak to each and every single day. He makes you fall in love with them, and when he hurts them and puts them through trials unfair to any human being, we're in pain with them. His stories are intricate, crossing into each and every genre I can think of like a tightrope walker, never committing too long to just one. I've never read a book of his I didn't like, and at this point, I don't think it's possible.

Here are some links to his work and his website, so that you might get hooked to his work the same way I have. And if you do, remember to think of me and thank me with all your heart whenever you can.

http://www.robertjacksonbennett.com/

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2916869.Robert_Jackson_Bennett?from_search=true

https://twitter.com/robertjbennett?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Updates On My Writing.

Those updates are scant, boy, let me tell 'ya. But they're there. A few of them, anyway.

My story Hotline Bling is being released in an anthology from Lycan Valley Press, titled The Final Masquerade. The tentative release date is October 31st. Spooky, right? One of my beta readers, Samantha, said, "I think I'm a fucked up person for even liking the story." Another good friend of mine, Daniel, said, "The concept alone disturbs me." If that isn't enough to make you read it, you must be a decent human being. Regardless, here's the short synopsis I'm going to write on the fly.

"Alex never used to mind volunteering his time to take calls for the suicide hotline. As time goes on, though, he finds he's getting really sick of these people whining about things he finds trivial. Finally, he does something about it. Something sick."

I hope that made you want to read it. If you don't, your opinion of the main characters in my stories thus far won't diminish, so at least there's that.

I sent in a short story titled Into The Wild to be considered in an anthology from Off The Beaten Path Press, titled Hell Is For Children. Here's the synopsis for that one (again, written on the fly):

"Frank and his family have been forced to move to a gritty apartment in inner city Cincinnati due to his losing his job, the family’s only source of income. He and his wife scoff at their daughter’s notion that their new home is haunted. The place is a dump, but there’s no such thing as ghosts. However, as strange things begin to happen first around the house, and then to the family themselves, Frank can’t be so sure. And within just a few days of moving in, his looming unemployment is the least of his worries."

Again, this is just a pending submission, far from a sure thing, but at least keep your fingers crossed for me, would you?

As you all well know, I'm still trying my damndest to sell my debut novel Speak Of The Devil to an agent, but that hasn't yielded anything. Not to fear, though; I've only been rejected by eight of them, so I still have a long time to worry about whether or not I'm a piece of crap writer.

I was hard at work on the sequel, Heavy Lies The Crown. I got about a quarter of the way through it, then shelved it in favor of some short stories I had the itch to write. I'll get it done soon, though. Promise.

Along with that, there's still the Iconoclast Saga, which I'm about three novellettes (or 35,000 words) deep into. I just can't find the time to edit the damn thing. Same goes for my novella Secrets To The Grave, though there was a few day stint a couple months back where I put in some serious work on that badboy.

As you can see here, my problem is that I can't just focus on one thing for too long. But I'm a writer, and that's my life. If it weren't, this post wouldn't have been so long. Oh, well. Until next time, chums.

PS - Going back, I can see that this update wasn't scant at all. My apologies if you feel like I've deceived you in any way. Either way, get over it. I didn't make you click the link!

Happy Birthday To Me.

Well, not yet. My official birthday is September Sixth. I turn the big TWO FIVE tomorrow, a quarter of a century old.

That's a scary thought. I set some pretty large goals for myself to reach before I turned 25, but I set them like, 10 years ago. I'd say I can extend them another five years without any major repercussions, wouldn't you agree?

That's about it for this post. A short one, yeah, but I figure I'd let you guys know that if you see me riding around on a new Harley, or even a new elephant, that I'm just going through a midlife crisis and there's no reason at all for you to worry.

Thanks again for reading.

Music And Writing.

I always used to stress about finding the best music to listen to while writing. I know what you're thinking; "Craig, if that's all you're stressing about, your life must be pretty good." Well, it's one of the many things I stress about. You don't know my life.

Ahem. Anyway.

I finally figured out it's not what I listen to that's the important part, but what it is I'm writing at that time. The music has to match the mood of whatever I'm writing. If I'm writing a fight scene, I'm listening to death metal and heavy ass rap music (think Heaven Shall Burn, old school G Unit, Job For A Cowboy, Cassidy).

If I'm writing a sexy scene, which are rare, I know, I need to listen to something slow and methodical (The Weeknd, Frank Ocean, Lana Del Rey).

Sometimes I'll listen to instrumental music, which is good for pretty much every occasion (Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Disasterpiece.

I've also found that the only two bands I can listen to no matter WHAT I'm writing are Bring Me The Horizon and The Arctic Monkeys, which probably has a lot to do with them being my favorite bands.

Ironically, I found that I write the fastest when I'm not listening to any music at all. But where the hell's the fun in that?

The Necessity Of It.

One day, I would like to be writing for a pretty sizable audience. People who love what I put out and demand that I keep doing it. Hell, even a few death threats and stalkers would be super neat!

Right now, of course, it's almost like I'm writing for myself. A lot of the stuff I've published has been read, of course, but I choose to think that those people are fans of the publication instead of fans of Craig Steven. I get a few messages from people telling me they love my writing and look forward to my next release (thanks to those of you who no doubt know who you are). For the most part, though, since my first short story was published a little over two years ago, while my name has gained some stock, and possibly notoriety, the progress I've made professionally has felt minimal (though it is there, I promise).

Sometimes people ask me why I do what I do. Why I write when the chances of my name being of the household variety are slim to none.

Because I have to.

I know a lot of writers can empathize with this feeling. Writing isn't something I just shrugged and thought I could do on a whim to make a quick buck (LMAO at people thinking writing and quick buck should be ANYWHERE in the same paragraph together, let alone sentence (not counting the two sentences that preceded this one)). My head is full of stories that need to be told, ideas that need to be fleshed out, characters who threaten to come squirming violently out of my ears, nostrils and other orifices of my body (eww) if I don't do something with them.

I hope a lot of people read my books and short stories in the future. I've gained some steam, I'm looking for an agent for my first book, Speak Of The Devil, and I'm constantly sending short stories to different publishers. If I don't make it in the writing world, no one could ever say it's for lack of trying.

And if I don't get there, sure, it'll be a damn shame. But I could never stop writing. I've gotten down in the dumps before after a few different strings of rejection, I've almost let my life get in the way a few times, and, put quite simply, there have been times when I wanted to do nothing more than give up and live my life without sitting in front of a keyboard ever again.

But that's not a choice I'm allowed to make. I'm a writer. It's not in my DNA or anything, but I was born to do this. No matter who reads what I write, I have to write it. It's that simple.

So to those few of who have read my work and found it enjoyable, good news; I'm not going to stop any time soon. Even if you're the only ones who will ever be on the lookout for it, it will be there. So sit back and watch me try to add members to your ranks as I type my goddamn fingers off.

What Made Me Fall In Love With Horror?

A couple months ago, I wrote a blog post where I asked myself a question (I'm such a loser, lmao). The question was, "What made me fall in love literature?" This time, I'm going to answer another question; what made me fall in love with horror?

Well, as a kid, I owned literally every Goosebumps book. There was a great little used book store in town called Tom's Book Nook, which has long since been shut down, and he sold paperbacks for a quarter and hardbacks for a buck (Jesus Christ, do I wish that place were still around?). And this guy always had Goosebumps in stock. I remember the first cover that grabbed me, too; A Night In Terror Tower. I saw it, wanted it, persuaded my mom to get it for me, and read it that night. After that, I set a goal of reading at least one of those books a day, sometimes two. They really instilled terror in me.

Honestly, though, I think cinema had just as much, if not more, to do with me being a horror writer today. I was probably seven or eight when my uncle Scottie (Rest In Peace) set me down on his huge recliner and turned on It to keep me occupied while the adults drank and talked about adult things on the porch. That really fucked me up. Then, maybe a year later, I'd stayed up much later on a Saturday night than I had any right to. That was when we didn't have cable, and so I had to be content in watching MadTV. After that, Fox would always play their special Saturday late night flick, and what else should come on but Candyman? I think I found every possible excuse to not use the restroom that night and for most of the next day before my bladder threatened to release in my pants. I forget how old I was when I went to see Jeepers Creepers in theatres. I mean, I could just do the math and look up what year it came out and figure it out from there, but to hell with that. Anyway, that movie scared the bejesus out of me. My bed was situated right next to a window, and the first thing I did when I got back home was situate my bed so it was nowhere near ANY windows.

As a teenager, my love for scary things only developed. I always scanned the TV guide (back when those were still relevant) for anything that sounded halfway scary. I read a lot of Creepy Pasta online, and soon, I stumbled across Lovecraft, Poe, and King and I fell in love.

Somewhere down the line, I got it in my head that I would really love to scare people the way those books and movies scared me. And here I am, nearly a quarter of a century old, doing just that. If I hadn't saw that one book cover in Tom's Book Nook, if my uncle hadn't thought to turn on It in lieu of anything that might be appropriate for children, if I hadn't stayed up late that one Saturday night... who knows what I'd be doing with my life? Probably selling used vacuums or something. Or worse, writing romance.

There you go. You know a little bit more about me than you did before. Have a good day.