To Write A Novel #NaNoWriMo #HalfwayMark #TMOTR

To Write A Novel #NaNoWriMo #HalfwayMark #TMOTR

This picture courtesy of the NaNoWriMo commission

Writing a novel can be pretty hard, y’all. Like... yeah! For those that don’t know or who have never tried, writing a full-length novel is very difficult and can be not only taxing on you mentally but quite a pain physically. And that’s even if you’re writing something you enjoy writing, something wonderful, something light and free and fluffy and lovey-dovey! Piecing everything together to create an easy, memorable and enjoyable reading experience for those future readers you one day hope to have is no easy task, but it is sometimes in this difficulty that we stumble upon (mental stumble upon. Wait, what do you call that...? Thunk upon! That sounds right) brilliance. The one drawback to brilliance is that you never quite know if it counts as such until it’s out there for others to see and consume. But that doesn’t mean you have to fret. I believe that all writing, even the fairly bad stuff, contains nuggets of greatness. That means that for you NaNoWriMo’ers this month, even if you struggle to get to your goal, even if you end the month without having completed your task, remember that you most likely have written something great.

Remembering back two years ago, I embarked on my first official (that’s very important) NaNoWriMo in November of 2015. It was a helluva month as I also decided to take on the unnecessary added challenge of NaNoBloPoMo or, wait... Is that what it is? That doesn’t sound right. NaBlo...? National Blog Post Month (NaBloPoMo! Ha!). For those that are unfamiliar with it or don’t blog, NaBloPoMo is where you post at least one blog post everyday for an entire month. Now, if you’ve read anything else on my blog, you’ll know that it is not like me to not be very verbose. Trying to both do my writing on my novel while also doing the whole blogging thing was extremely hectic and nearly pushed me over the edge. Somehow I managed to accomplish both in a whirlwind that saw me complete the month with at least 30 (don’t know the actual number. Would have to look back to check and I’m rather lazy and too busy to do that right now) blog posts and a 118,000 word first-draft mystery novel.

That novel is TMOTR (#TMOTR for social media) but you can call it by its god-given name The Man On The Roof. It was only the second mystery novel I had ever written, yet all the while writing it I felt a surge of energy that continued to push me forward each day and make me cognizant of its weightiness. I felt I was writing something that would be amazing. Now, granted, I am quite often delusional according to my therapist Bert the trash man who absolutely swears he’s just a trash man but is older, black, always has great nuggets of wisdom and totally fits the archetype of the magical negro (I swear that brotha went to Hogwarts or somethin’). But even with that I still couldn’t fight the feeling that I had created something great, which is one of the biggest reasons that kept me pushing through the project, pushing through the small snippets of writer’s block (though I find it insanely difficult to actually get writer’s block when you’re constantly writing and working on at least two different projects at once. I know it sounds crazy hard, but try it. It frees your mind) and the mental fatigue of crafting a story; pushing through the emotional roller coaster that was (and still is) my relationship with each of the characters and growing to love and loathe them as the time went on; charging forward through the quandaries and quagmires of questions that came up in the plot and how to get from point A to point C while making point B the most dramatic; creating a world and setting for not just my characters to live in but creating enough empty space for the reader to slot his or her thoughts and feelings into the setting too, in order to fill out the rest of the environment; battling to create not just narrative but atmospheric narrative; making sure each voice was right, each character just distinct enough; and figuring out a way to lure the reader deeper and deeper into the mysterious darkness while keeping them hooked on every word, every sentence, every idea put forth in the book. It’s a heck of a lot.

Now, two years after having written it, I finally am ready to release it and am looking for reviewers of this book that I think is similar to Gone Girl, The Girl On The Train, Big Little Lies, In A Dark, Dark Wood and the like. No, I wasn’t editing this the whole time. I worked on the editing for three weeks after I finished it and haven’t touched it since but only now do I think the timing for the book is right.

That’s neither here nor there. What is important is that I know your plight dear NaNoWriMo’er and for all you first-timers, I can say that it is wholly doable. Is it a challenge? Of course. And no, nobody expects you to finish over 100,000 words (which is only an achievement if the book is actually good). But push yourself further and harder than you ever have before.

First Mystery Suspense Thriller

Coming In 

December

OK, now it’s that cringe-worthy time where I give you unsolicited advice. I know. I hate getting that kind of advice because it seems to almost always come from some smart-butt who thinks he or she knows everything or knows something that I don’t, and just wants to rub it in. If you don’t want to take it that’s totally fine, but I do find that sometimes this stuff helps. Sometimes it helps to hear something you already know from someone else to sure-up your own confidence and sometimes there truly are things that you didn’t think of that another person has thought of and that can be helpful to you. So, here it goes, my tips on getting through the month.

First, I know that this month, for many, is so often not really about finishing the novel but about word counts and lengths, and as we get deeper into this thing, we’re gonna start seeing more and more people posting about how many words they’ve written in one day or one week, or how close they are to the minimum goal of 50,000 words. Ignore it! Ignore it all. Is it good to keep track of just how much you’ve done, you’ve accomplished? Of course. And taking a peek at how many words you’ve logged in a day or over a week does help you to gauge your productivity level, but don’t let this sidetrack you. In fact, don’t let the word count get you down at all. This is totally gonna sound like bragging but I assure you it is not and it’s truthful (you can go back through my blog and check if you’d like). So don’t judge.

Anyways, as I was doing the posts and the novel writing, and we did have the Thanksgiving holiday on which I am always the primary cook for my family, I still also had yardwork to do. As some of my long-time readers may know, I am a vegetable gardener and all-around environmentalist (Go #CaptainPlanet) so I am really big into composting. Well, that year I foolishly, for the first (but not last) time requested a truckload of leaves be delivered to my house. Leaves which I would use both for mulching all of my aesthetic gardening beds, as well as mixing with coffee grounds, lawn clippings and food scraps to set as the base for my compost pile. The picture below is of the leaf pile.

The pile was taller than me, as long as a full-sized Sedan (maybe longer), and made of the driest, most compact assortment of leaves you can get. Most were maple leaves and they smelled amazing, like warm maple syrup. We had 70 degree temps that week in November which is unseasonably warm but pretty great because it would get dark hella early and it was the week of Thanksgiving so everybody was home and off. Moving the leaves alone, it took me four days to get them all moved from the front of my yard to all around the property where they needed to be. That was four days of not writing at all on my novel.

Whatever time I did get at the end of the night went directly to my blogging and sleep. And another full day of Thanksgiving-ing (uh... That should totally be a word. Yes, I know that thanksgiving in and of itself is technically a verb. Don’t bother me with minutia, reader) where I also hardly wrote anything. So out of 30 days I only wrote for about 25 of them. My point is that if I had stressed over word count and how much I got done during those days (I may have blogged about stressing a little), I would have volunteered my brain for writer’s block and never achieved my goal. How many words you have doesn’t matter as much as how complete the story is and how good those words are. Granted, there is some importance to the word count if all you’ve previously done is write short stories, but even then, I’d say don’t look at the word count until you are satisfactorily finished with the story, then hopefully you still have a week of time left at the end of the month to make some changes or additions within the story.

The Writer Seasons 1-3 Out NOW

on Amazon Kindle

With that point made, I feel everything else should flow easily. Remember, while this month is certainly focused on finishing a full novel, it’s not really about finishing a full novel, but telling a story as best you can in a way that pleases both you and a potential reader one day. Have fun with this thing. Remember that the writing is supposed to be the fun part, even if you are purging anger, resentment, depression or the like out onto the blank page (The Man On The Roof #TMOTR was written in a rage-fueled miasma that stemmed from continuing to be a failure at writing and all-around, and having poor timing in my life). Don’t stress over words. Take risks with your writing, try new things, let the story take you where it wants to venture and be willing to make mistakes. But—this is something that most other authors won’t tell you because everyone is a huge worshipper of the editing and revisions process—make your first draft as near to perfect as possible. Yes, you’ll have plenty of time to go back and tinker and fix and add and subtract, but one of the reasons why this month is so challenging is not because of the word counts or things of that nature, but because it wants you to challenge yourself to write a novel and not just slop together some pretty words that occasionally make sense. If you’re gonna stress over anything, stress over the tightness of the narrative and the believability of the characters (not even so much the relatability as each reader will pick and choose who they relate to based on their own biases).

Another big nugget of advice: DON’T TRY TO EDIT ANYTHING DURING THE MONTH!! It’s tempting, I know. And some people will tell you that it pays to be a perfectionist and if you just go back and tweak things, it’s OK. No. Stop before you do that and remember this thought: there is more brilliance deleted by authors than ever makes it into their novels. Quote from me. Michael Stephenson. If you’re a seasoned writer you should already know that you should never be deleting anything anyway, unless it is a grammatical error like mispalings and such. But sentences that don’t sound right in the flow of things, dialogue that you don’t particularly care for and even entire scenes that you think can be cut—keep all of it in your first draft. And if you want to make an edit later, then mark it as something you want to take a look at, then write whatever you wanted to edit it to be (if you already have something in mind) just below your note, but don’t delete it. And don’t slow down your mind’s conscious stream of thought to go back and question yourself if this one particular word is the right particular word in that sentence, because you could come back to the novel in a month or two and realize that your first choice was the best choice but you can’t remember what it was.

As for outlining and framework construction, I will leave it up to you. I will tell you that while I had been thinking of TMOTR for a while, I hadn’t had a proper outline and, in fact, the original idea I had for the story was drastically different than what the novel ended up becoming. Sometimes I have an outline but sometimes I simply leave prompts for myself, something which I recommend all writers do. The prompts are generally questions or brief synopses about what I want or think should happen either next in the story or what I am comfortable writing next. Again, this month should be about getting into a particular groove of comfort that allows you to open your most creative mindset. Some good questions are: what a particular character learned from what you wrote that day, when you want a crucial event to happen, how you see the characters interacting with each other at the end, and et cetera. Those are just examples, but it is important to think like a reader would which is going to actually drive your narrative. If you can get into the mind of your reader before they are in their own mind, and anticipate what they will think when reading your work, then you can reward them by fulfilling their expectations or yank them deeper into the story by throwing an unexpected twist at them. And yes, sometimes the best thing to do is to let yourself fall into a bout of writer’s block because right after that is usually when the magic happens, but never get concerned about not being able to get any words down on the page.

Extraordinary Season One Out NOW!

This month’s pursuit is solely to make you a better writer, make you a faster thinker and more agile wordsmith. It is meant to challenge your perspective on how you write from start to finish, including the planning process. So get messy, make mistakes, and most of all, have fun! And some of the best times you’ll have during this process will come, surprisingly, not from the writing, though that will be pretty amazing. Some of the best times might very well come from social media and any other offline/real-life socializing groups that you have where you can get together and talk about either writing or reading or both. NaNoWriMo is one of the few months where you don’t have to be or feel alone in the writing process. Yes, writing is often solitary but it doesn’t have to be this month. Go to wherever other writers are and share your stories of what you are doing. Give updates on what you are writing, what characters you’ve fallen in love with, which ones you absolutely loathe, or how the plot has changed from what you thought it was originally. And don’t just share triumphs, share failures, the mundane, the quirky, the questionable and the like. If you’re struggling with a particular section, don’t agonize in silence, take it to Twitter or Facebook or Goodreads or wherever and ask questions about that situation there. Yes, while there is always a bit of paranoia about idea theft, there are still tons of authors out there willing to help you solve your writing problems. And sometimes it’s just good to commiserate with others trying to achieve the same thing. Make friendships and more importantly, make enemies, too. Seriously, haven’t you always wanted a nemesis? You could totally have one and have that person be a writer just like you. It’s perfect!

Anyway, that’s my two cents. To all my fellow writers and authors who dare to participate in the 2017 November NaNoWriMo, I wish you good luck and happy writing. And for anyone interested in reviewing my novel The Man On The Roof, I would love it if you did. Here’s a description:

“There was a man on your roof.” And so starts the psychological intrigue. A small, quiet, Northeast Ohio suburb plays host to a murder when the body of a teenage ne'er-do-well is found hanging from a street banner on a summer morning. At the end of the lane where the murder took place, live five different couples and one old man. Neighbors make for convenient friends as all five couples consider themselves one collective group. But someone here is a murderer. Lies, betrayal and twisted deeds come to light as fingers point and eyes narrow. Who's lying? Who can be trusted? Who has a secret worth killing for? As spouses turn against each other but one thing is for sure: The boy's murderer was trying to send a message. The murderer will kill again.

A psychological mystery thriller in the vein of Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train, and Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies, The Man on the Roof is told in 10 distinct voices that dig into the inner marrow of the lives and secrets that the people at the end of Shady Lane hold. Designed to be re-readable and keep readers on their toes, it will keep you up at night and have you second and third-guessing every theory about who done it and why. You might want to take notes on this one because you'll surely be talking about The Man on the Roof (#TMOTR) all year long! If you'd like to review it, let me know in the comments below and we can set something up. Currently, it will only be an ebook but hopefully within six months I will have hard copies.

Otherwise, I wish you all as much success as you can stand this month and beyond. Write something cool, and if it isn’t cool don’t fret, nobody actually reads books anymore anyway ;).

Check out my 5-star comedy novel, Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend. #AhStalking If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinary on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.

Until next time, (looks at book on coffee table) “Wow! Have you read that book?”

‘Uh... Yeah, totally.’

“I love the part when she takes the paddle and starts spanking the guy and he turns into a dragon and—”

‘Well, actually, I haven’t read it at all. I’ve just been using it as a coaster for my tea mug. Dat tea be hot and delicious!’

(exasperated head shakes)

P.S. Yes, I know that was a long sign-off. Don’t judge me. I should be judging you, reader. You totally know that you have at least one or two books that you have been meaning to read but is now serving as a cup coaster somewhere or is sitting somewhere in plain sight to make you look well-read. For shame! Well, at least drink a cup of tea for me. Cheers! I’ll think of a better, shorter sign-off line next time.

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Ash vs. Evil Dead vs. 80s Nostalgia Two: The 80s Strike Back #AshvsEvilDead #3WeekRoundUp #Starz

Ash vs. Evil Dead vs. 80s Nostalgia Two: The 80s Strike Back #AshvsEvilDead #3WeekRoundUp #Starz

All pictures courtesy of Starz 

"Huh? What the hell am I reading? I'm even confused by the title. What part of the internet is this?" First off, for those of you who are saying that to yourselves or your significant others, don't be ridiculous, this is only a blog. For those of you who do know what's going on, you know that this is just another three week roundup of a new show this season. And what do ya know, its of a show not on network TV.

I know what you're thinking right now, "god, he watches a lot of TV. And he writes and does other stuff too. That's insane! I don't sleep very much. But I sacrifice so that you all know precisely what you need to know about the entertainment out there that you don't know about. Or the stuff that you do know about but are so enamored with that you feel compelled to talk about it ad nauseam. Lo and behold, a place for that. And now, finally, after two wasted paragraphs of exposition I bring you... the review/recap of the first three episodes of Ash vs. Evil Dead.

It's Been A While, Ash. Good To See You Old Friend. Now Squeeze You Lovable Bastard!

First off, if you're not an Evil Dead fan I doubt you've heard about this show, as it is on the cable channel Starz and didn't have a huge amount of advertising dollars spent on network or basic cable. Or maybe you have heard about it but you weren't a fan of the movies or you just heard and saw the commercials and thought, "eh! I've got enough stuff to watch." If you fit into one of those categories, the good news is that you weren't far off from giving this show little, if any, of your attention. The producers/writers assume you have seen if not all three films (Army of Darkness is my favorite one and they don't have the rights to it so expect little to no reference of Ash's medieval adventure), then at least the first two. Really just the second one since the first one is kind of covered in the first ten minutes of the second one. The second is also the one that is responsible for the evil dead culture as it was the one to showcase the humor and over-the-topness a lot more than the first. In hindsight, watching the two films one could almost say that the second Evil Dead plays more as a parody of the first, but I digress.

Ash vs. Evil Dead picks up about twenty or so years after the third movie which shall not be named (man, it would have really been cool to see Ash time-traveling due to the book and going back and forth between now and medieval times). Technically, it's thirty years after the second movie which is ten years earlier than the third, but semantics. Still a valued but average grocery/small mega store (it's a thing) employee, he lives in a trailer park just a few miles outside of town in his own tiny trailer. Not much to his life, he's kept himself separated from most people, a real lone wolf as it were, el jefe... but retired, living his days out upon a groovy pasture of cheap women, cheap alcohol, and even cheaper laughs. Like the average American, he's not too fond of his boss, thinks many of his coworkers are kind of idiots, isn't madly in love with his neighbors but shows respect to everyone in his life. Carefree, he's spent those last twenty (or thirty)-odd years keeping the secret, the curse.

Well, as stupid men go when around stupid women, during one night of drug-addled fun, he haphazardly reads from the Necronomicon, unleashing all unholy hell to roam the earth once more just as it did in that cabin in the woods that time (not the Drew Goddard movie!). Now, he will be forced to stop this new rise of those that seek to take over the world and bring hell on earth, or at the very least inconvenience him and his hermit lifestyle.

Across the way, two cops enter into a dark and mysterious home, armed and ready for anything. State police, it's not clear why they showed up but they expected something sinister from the word go. Finding a few dead bodies, they run into one of the first evil dead minions seen in years. A gunfight breaks out and who dies but the male cop. As unholy luck would have it, he turns into an evil dead minion himself and is blasted away by his female partner played by Jill Marie Jones (Girlfriends fame). Not known to her, the woman/evil deadite who killed her partner is the same chick who slept with Ash a few days earlier. Jill manages to escape the home with the horrendous injury of a pair of scissors all the way through her hand--something which seems to go completely ignored seconds later. I mean, seriously she held a flashlight and shot a gun with that hand and everything. It had me all like "what!?" Now she must look for any clues as to why this has happened.

Back with Ash, as he goes back to work after realizing he just reopened the gates of hell, his young coworker Pablo slides easily into the quirky, nerdy sidekick--his robin to Ash's goofy Batman. He happens to have a crush on another mega small store worker and his recently hired neighbor Kelly, who has that whole dark soul apathetic "I don't really care about anything but maybe I kinda do" hipster vibe going for her. Attractive, Ash is the first one to hit on her because... you know, creepy old man juju and what not.

Things get hectic when Ash goes into the back to store some bulbs and a doll attacks him--one of those porcelain white ones that wear the bonnets and look like those girls from Little House On The Prairie. Clearly not gonna be taken down by a little doll because he's a grown man fighting a little doll, he barely escapes to the front with his life when he notices that all hell has ensued.

The responsible adult who always cleans up his own messes, he books it out of the store and goes home where he searches for the book. However he beat the Evil Dead the last time probably isn't going to work so he's gotta embark on a road trip to find someone who can not only read the book but who can help him defeat the monsters popping up everywhere. And so his journey--wait, there's some more evil deadites popping up as his neighbors also become the non-zombie zombies and start to attack his awesome little trailer.

In the nick of time, because that's how these types of shows generally work, Pablo and Kelly show up to try helping save the day, and to ask him to give them a ride to her parents' house. Why her parents'? Apparently her mother who died months ago is not only returned, but has been alive and well this whole time and only just now got her memory back (something we learn in the second episode). Not until after they get into a fight with one of the gnarlier neighbor/deadites and Ash rips off his prosthetic hand to slide into that chainsaw bad boy that's become so iconic does he get down to the business of properly chopping off heads, rocking out to 70s and classic rock, and taking no names as he kicks butt. Everybody doing a little bit of saving everybody in the small trailer, the day is saved... momentarily. Ash still doesn't agree to go to the girl's house but he does take off with the two youngins by his side. And so his journey--I mean their journey begins.

Back up! Actually, what happens is that Kelly takes off with Pablo's bike for her parents house to either welcome her six months dead mother back from her non-grave or save her father from her deadite mother. After Pablo tells Ash that she took the book, they set off to her parents house where the second episode begins.

Courtesy of Starz and Entertainment Weekly

After an attack by their dickwad boss from the store who turned into a deadite and tracked them all the way down to Ash's trailer park only to stash himself away in the vehicle to facilitate a cool, gnarly, over-the-top bloodfest of a fight in a moving vehicle, their road is clear to Kelly's farmhouse. Arriving at night, Ash suspects the worst and opens the door to find... a happy family sitting with the once-thought dead mother. Kelly even changed into a purple robe which was a very nice color and a little distracting on her; she's an attractive young lady. Seriously, I don't know what it is about her that has me so intoxicated but I get it, Ash and Pablo. I get it. Why she was suddenly wearing that, I don't know.

Is It Racist To Say All Deadites Look Alike?

Still suspicious, Ash questions her mother about her recent deadness, earning some BS story about how she drove off the road into a river and lost her memories and had been wandering around for the last few months until finally something clicked. Riiight! Getting cleaned up, Pablo finally reveals that he lied and that Kelly never had the book, but he took the book because he wanted Ash to help his would-be girlfriend, because if saving a young woman's life and her family don't get you into her purple robe, then I don't know what will.

Dismissing Ash's paranoia, Pablo reasons that if Kelly's mother was an evil deadite, she would have killed Kelly and her husband already. Still not buying it, Ash thinks it's a ruse to lure him in because all the book really wants is him dead... and world domination. Only after he tries quizzing her on her memory loss does he finally punch her to the floor. And holy cannoli, he was frickin' right! She jumps up and stabs her husband through the eye with a fork leading to another gnarly blood-spurting deadite vs. Ash scene (expect a lot of that, because of the title). The three nearly dying, Ash helps save the day again when he chainsaws into her body with Pablo's help.

Burying her parents' bodies, the group continues on to the next stop, an otherworldly apothecary/book store/novelties place where the guy who can read the book works. There, the guy wastes a little time marveling at the complexity of the book, the human flesh it's bond in and the history behind it. Long ago some unholy priests loved killing and darkness so much that they opened a portal into hell to get demons to do their bidding. The book is the portal and has thousands of incantations in it to unleash certain demons. Ash then has the bright idea to summon a lesser demon in order to interrogate him on how to close the portal as they can't find anything in the book on how to stop the evil dead caused by the book.

I'm Back And My Hand Still Works!

Summoning the low-level demon, hell breaks loose (literally, they had it in a containment circle) when Jill Marie Jones' character shows up and tries to arrest Ash because of his link to the other deaths. The demon can disappear and reappear at will, as well as command inanimate objects and explode brain cells one at a time. It nearly electrocutes Ash and Pablo to death before Kelly steps in to save them with an assist from Jill. The reader guy dies by glass shards piercing his eyes and head before the demon is dispelled back into the book. Free to arrest Ash, Jill handcuffs him only for him to pop his hand off and handcuff her to a metal shelf. It ends with her trapped in the room as the guy killed by the glass rises to become a deadite himself.

Yeah, I Used To Be A Warrior Princess

There's also a side story that has yet to connect to Ash's quest. Featuring Lucy Lawless (Xena fame), she is tracking after Ash and not only knows about the book but has some kind of special deadite weapon that burns at their skin and is quicker to kill them than Ash's chainsaw and shotgun. Not sure if I want her to be a potential partner in crime/love interest for him or another adversary like Jill but I can't wait to see what develops.

What's my score. I give it a B, but that comes with a strong caveat. As much as I might like wasting a quick half hour on Saturdays at 9pm on Starz, I can't see anyone who isn't a fan of the films and over-the-top comedy actually liking this. You have to love comedy horror and realize that this is going to be squarely in the stupid comedy canyon before going in to watch it. Walking Dead it is not. Nor is it Supernatural or Vampire Diaries or Teen Wolf. It is its own thing and is about three steps above Syfy's Sharknado, but has much better actors actually trying and much better production values.

Should you be watching? Refer to the paragraph above. If you haven't seen the films but you do like silly comedies or are just a fan of all subgenres of horror, then give it a look. Otherwise, stay away and don't diss it because you thought it was something totally different.

What do you think? Have you seen this show? If so, is it what you were expecting? And what do you think the future holds for Lucy and Jill's characters? Let me know in the comments below (hint: click the no comments button if you see no comments).

Check out my new 5-star comedy novel similar to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend. #AhStalking

If you’re looking for a scare, check #AFuriousWind, #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or  #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check out #TheWriter. The full first season is out now NOW exclusively on Amazon. If you like fast action crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.

Until next time, "evil that pops up, gets shot up!"

P.S. OK, that's not the exact Ash Vs. Evil Dead catchphrase but it's pretty close. They can have it if they want. I'll come up with something much better as a sign-off next time.

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Who knows? The Shadow knows. #SleepyHollow #DVRRewind #FOX

Who knows? The Shadow knows. #SleepyHollow #DVRRewind #FOX

All pictures courtesy of FOX

What a busy week for me. Not only was I doing the last dot your i's and cross your t's edit on Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend (#AhStalking) out now, I had so much TV to watch, some fall gardening to do, and some other books to read on top of all the blog entries and other news I had to keep up with, let alone my exercise routine. So much stuff that I'm hitting you all with not just one but a few DVRRewinds this weekend and I still have yet to decide if I'm going to do one for The Flash's season premiere or the third week of Nashville. Too. Many. Shows. But, I'm trying to juggle as much of the entertainment world as I can right now so bare with me as I get to some of the stuff I missed.

For this week, I have Sleepy Hollow (#SleepyHollow) in my DVRRewind. That's right, I am one of the few millions that still watch and enjoy Sleepy Hollow even after they killed Orlando Jones (aka the Black guy), brought him back to life, turned him evil and killed him again all in one season! Ahh! They killed the Asian dude in the first season and they killed Ichabod's wife last season after turning her evil too, which I found to be straight disrespectful but I digress. Anyway, they returned with their season premiere on Fox last week and I hadn't gotten around to watch the first two episodes until last night. Interestingly enough, their move to FOX Thursdays at 9pm hasn't effected them in the ratings that much as they were always a lower-rated show. With FOX being cancel-happy with anything new and out of the box that doesn't involve people under the age of 24 (fingers crossed for Minority Report?), I'm surprised this has stayed on for as long as it has.

Pandora's so evil and a hell of a gardener

Moving on to episode two, this week saw Ichabod dealing with another conjured minion of Pandora (yes, the one with the crazy box for those of you not initiated into the insanity of this show. I ain't got time. Look it up!) From what we learned in the season opener, as the two witnesses supposedly prophesied in the bible, Ichabod and Abbie have only gone through one test of seven (complete mess of the Revelation prophecy but we've all accepted that at this point). Now comes their second test, Pandora. After the strange fear-paralyzing creature she summoned last week, this week she hit them up with a shadow creature that surrounds you with darkness and extracts from you, in your state of horrified petrification, a deep secret. This often leads to your death in some way as the two men the shadow performed this on died from a heart attack or a car accident.

While I enjoy this show, I will say that this is one of the most ebb and flowing shows I've ever seen on TV. It will be incredibly hot one week and incredibly cold the next. That being said, I enjoyed the season premiere more than I have most season premieres from my other established favorite shows. This week's episode seemed like the biggest throwaway episode I've seen since Breaking Bad's fly episode (I know it was supposed to be a metaphor but whatever). Though this shadow is supposed to be extracting secrets from people, the show never really gets around to revealing what those secrets were, concerning itself instead with Ichabod and Abbie's secrets, which is fine, but makes me wonder why the heck Pandora sent the shadow after the other three people in the first place.

Then there's Abbie's sister doing this dance of "caring" with the long-dead sheriff's son who just surfaced to look through his dad's things. What? The sheriff literally got beheaded by the headless horseman on the first or second episode of the series... back in 2013. Not only that but the premiere featured a time jump of nine months since their last adventure in season two's finale. It has got to be at least a year and a half after his death. Why is he here now? Sure, he made brief appearances in the past but one would think that he could have either moved on by now or they would have made him a series regular long ago. Doesn't seem quite right for him to be around now. Anyway, he got kidnapped in exchange for an artifact--the eye of Anubis, I believe--and Abbie's sister rescues him.

Finally, they have the newest Black guy love interest that networks seem to be plug and playing, Lance Gross. I say that because last year Grey's Anatomy on ABC inserted him as a 4 or 5 episode love interest for Meredith's sister. Now he's in as the new head over Abbie in her FBI post (a big step up from when she was at the deputy's office) even though they went through Quantico together. Is she gonna hit that at some point in the season? I would say yes, because if there has been anything more noticeable in this show than how little sex Ichabod and Abbie have each had, it is... uh. Well, there isn't anything more noticeable on the show than that.

So far Pandora has caused nothing but trouble, which now that I think about it is her main thrust but that's all she's done. Outside of sending a shadow monster easily defeated by calling out his name Marcus Collins (can you believe that? Yeah, that's his name. Marcus Collins. That's just as bad of a name for an evil being as Gerald was for the furry foot-eating monster that lived under my bed when I was little), she's shown off not a hint at a plan outside of growing a tree. Basically Pandora is Johnny Appleseed only more evil. A bad episode? Can't say it was their best, or even close to their average. It was below average, but that just means that next week's will probably blow me away.

What did you think? Do you watch this show? Are you happy with the way it's going with Abbie and Ichabod both getting new love interests and keeping away from each other's bed? What do you think Pandora has in store for them? Let me know in the comments below.

As always, check out my books on Amazon (if you’re looking for Halloween scares check  #AFuriousWind,  #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or #ThePowerOfTen). For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check out #TheWriter. All 15 episodes are out now on Amazon.

And check for my latest book, a comedy entitled Yep, I'm Totally Stalking, My Ex-Boyfriend (#AhStalking) available only on Amazon (look for a post about it later today). Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.

Until next time, “my daddy still alive? What? ”

P.S. Was anyone else's mind blown when Abbie said her father was still alive? Yeah, neither was mine. As with most absentee father's he's become just some old guy sitting in a park, feeding the birds. Wait, there were no birds? Aww, that's even sadder.

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I Present To You Lady Monster... But Where's That Plot, Though? #AmericanHorrorStory #AHSHotel #DVRRewind

I Present To You Lady Monster... But Where's That Plot, Though? #AmericanHorrorStory #AHSHotel #DVRRewind

All pictures courtesy of FX unless otherwise stated

"Ooo La! Oo la Ga-ga! Ooo La! Oo la Ga-ga!" Wait, those aren't the words to Lady Gaga's "Judas" song? Well, how am I supposed to know that, I'm not her biggest fan--Paparazzi--but I am a fan. I'm just trying to give her that thing that she wants... you know, applause. Is that enough Lady Gaga song references or do you want more? I know everyone else has done it already but I can't help it, I was born this way. Leave me alone!

Anyway, American Horror Story came back for its fifth season, American Horror Story: Hotel (#AHSHotel). And with the absence of Jessica Lange--you dear sweet woman whom we'll miss forever--someone had to take over as lead monster. Enter Lady Gaga. But before we get to her fantastic starring role, we have to backtrack through a little non-plotting, plot.

What's the basis of Hotel? Similar to seasons past of the popular horror anthology series the producers have been very sparse on details. Though there has been talk of vampirism in some form, an earthly entrance into hell and even purgatory, none of that has been outright confirmed. All we know as of this moment is that the Hotel Cortez is haunted by a host of baddies sure to maim and disgust. We also have word (and have seen in previews of this season) that a few of the past favorite characters from prior seasons will make an appearance in the hotel that guests check in but never check--what? Oh, so you're saying I shouldn't make that joke because it's too easy. Fine, I won't write it, but I'm definitely thinkin' it.

A little character background, we have Kathy Bates playing the front desk check-in lady, Wes Bentley playing a creepy looking detective (though that just might be his normal face), Matt Bomer playing Lady Gaga's lover/Bates' son, Denis O'Hare playing a cross-dressing chain-smoker, Lady Gaga playing the boss of everything and Sarah Paulson playing... uh, Debbie from the Thornberrys?

Picture courtesy of Nickelodeon and The Wild Thornberrys

Is that...? No, she's supposed to be a blonde version of Selma from the Simpsons, right?

Picture courtesy of FOX and The Simpsons

Well, whoever she is supposed to be that hair is teased to death, literally as it is revealed she is dead or at least should be after the fall she took at the hands of Bates' character. That's at the end of the episode.

I know, I'm jumping ahead again, but to be fair, this season started off with a very strange feeling. Unlike in seasons past, it felt like it had very little plot. Leeway is always given to the season premiere of any show as it sets up the rest of the season, but because this is an anthology series and we know each season will be different, you have to set us up with what's about to go on for the next twelve episodes. And I really have no idea what to anticipate.

Granted, this can be argued for any season and there are a ton of story strands, but it spent an hour and a half kind of meandering around from character to character showing us creepy stuff with no explanation. It starts with two foreign girls entering the hotel who, despite their better judgment, stay at the hotel even though they don't want to. There's an ode to the creepy children from The Shining in a scene where one of the girls goes to get ice, and one sees a huge stain of blood on some bed sheets that are being washed outside of a patron's room. There's also an apron-wearing man a la Hostel--a testament to this season's gore factor. Then the girls cut open their stinky mattress to find a person trapped inside of it all gaunt and Gollum-like. Naturally, like any other normal human being who just witnessed a person pop from inside their mattress would do, they stay in the hotel from fear that they could be arrested. What the hell? Personally, I would have left... unless they comped me all the pillow mint chocolates I could handle, then we could at least talk about me staying. And then one of the girls gets eatin' by the devil children... or does she? I don't know as she appears in another scene later on just fine, but locked up by Kathy Bates who has this thing about druggies (her son is one and OD'd in the hotel long while back in the 90s). Sarah Paulson was his dealer/fellow smack head.

In a secondary story, Wes Bentley's detective studies the murder and torture of a cheating couple where the man is glued into the woman mid-coitus and left to bleed with no eyes or tongue while the woman is stabbed through the head. This, coupled with the rape of one of the hotel guests using a metal drill phallus and the disemboweling of two other guys seems to suggest this season will be drawing heavily from David Finch's Seven (a must see if you haven't already). Those deadly sins and commandments will get you every time. Even the beginning credits have the list of the ten commandments between such horrifying visions of people bursting from things they shouldn't be inside of. He's got a daughter and a wife but is going through some serious family strife which ultimately leads him to stay at the hotel in room 64 where the murderer says he'll strike next--seems pretty reasonable to me.

Courtesy Entertainment Weekly

And lastly, we have Lady Gaga playing the boss of everyone. She seems not to age as she was in the hotel during the 90s and the OD of Bates' son, Bomer. Now, the two of them have couples' sex with other creeptastic swingers before slitting their throats and drinking some of their blood, though most of it is wasted. She encounters Will Drake who has just purchased the hotel and presumably will re-vamp (ha! Re-vamp. Vampire? Lady Gaga is some sorta non-vampire, vampire. You get it?) much of it to his stylings and kick out the residents that populate some of its rooms. I'm supposing this will be a main plot though I'm not sure as Drake seems easily seduced, though we do know that no woman has ever had him starstruck as we learned this summer (Meek Mill is still taking losses. Sad).

There's some stuff in there about never leaving and having to feed something, but that was about it. Oh, and they ended the show with the most appropriate song in history "Hotel California" by the Eagles. I don't really know who these Eagles are but they're totally going to blow up after this. I mean, they're gonna be super famous, like maybe even legendary.

Was the first episode scary? It had a few good moments in there, definitely better than Scream Queens over on Fox. Has it lived up to Freak Show? Not yet, but there's plenty of time. We'll see.

What do you think little monsters and AHS long-standing fans out there? Did you love Lady Gaga about as much as I did? Do you think she is a good actress? Do you already miss Jessica Lange? And what the heck is up with not seeing Evan Peters (the other longest tenured cast member) on the first episode? What are your theories about what the heck is going on? My money's on the gateway to hell/purgatory where wayward souls come to vacation before either moving on or going back to haunt their old places, or a grown-up version of Hotel Transylvania. Let's see, multitude of Lady Gaga references, Seven reference, rapper Drake reference, Simpsons reference, Nickelodeon reference, so-so joke pretending that I don't know who the Eagles are--yeah, I pretty much nailed this recap. Let me know what your theories in the comments below.

As always, check out my books on Amazon (if you’re looking for Halloween scares check #AFuriousWind,  #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or #ThePowerOfTen). For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check out #TheWriter. The final episode of season one of The Writer is OUT NOW. Ahh! That’s right, all 15 episodes are out now available exclusively on Amazon. And ladies, my comedy Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend is out today. Get it and laugh only on Amazon. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right side.

Until next time, “I want your lovin' and I want your revenge. You and me could have a bad romance.”

P.S. How did they not use that song in that gruesome foursome sex scene? I thought Gaga would permeate the entire episode. Oh well. There's always next week.  

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Am I Captivated by the Red Devils? Uh... well #ScreamQueens #3WeekRoundUp #PremiereWeek #FOX

Am I Captivated by the Red Devils? Uh... well #ScreamQueens #3WeekRoundUp #PremiereWeek #FOX

All pictures courtesy of FOX

Oh boy. Scream Queens. Fox’s Scream Queens (#ScreamQueens) is... quite the show. Honestly, I don’t really know where the heck to begin with this. There is so much right and wrong with this show that it’s hard to piece out the difference between either. It both appears as a complete mess at times while also knowing what it is doing. Its brand of satire of the horror genre can sometimes be right on while at other times drifts into a far too over-the-top melodrama that even Liberace or Lady Gaga or Bjork or any other outlandishly dressed musical artist would sit back and go, “whoa! Too much.” But before I begin deconstructing the show, let’s back track a little and breakdown what to expect in this review/recap.

As was stated in a previous post, this will be a three week round up post (the same goes for all new shows). Why? Because I believe in giving a show three episodes to prove itself and decide whether I’ll continue with it or not. Since Scream Queens as well as Heroes Reborn gave us a two-hour season premiere, they have already covered three episodes of the series come the end of this week. I’ll go more into depth on why I have this three week rule in a later post but for now just know that I don’t think most people can adequately judge something in just one episode, as a TV series (or my episodic novella series) is meant to change over time. With that in mind, writing a series off that you were initially interested in after just one episode can be foolish as plenty of things start slow.

Now that that business is out of the way, back to Scream Queens. My initial excitement for this show was based on the fact that this came from the same creator of American Horror Story and Nip/Tuck and that it would be a comedy (for a recap of that click #PremiereWeek to go back to that article). Comedy it is. A little too silly? Definitely.

The story follows a brand new year at a university that still allows for Sororities and Fraternities. The best and most popular sorority on campus is the KKT (because the KKK would have been too obvious? Not likely for this show, but OK). The president of the KKT happens to be a young white girl by the name of Chanel played by Emma Roberts. So self-obsessed and cartoonish in her ego this girl is that she has no time or just lacks the brain cells to remember and call her fellow sisters by their proper names, instead naming them Chanel numbers 2-5 (as if that perfume needed any more free advertising). Far too into the worship culture of Chanel, the only thing missing from these other girls (one of which left before the season began) is the yellow Minion color and strange goggles. I’m surprised they can even speak English rather than having formulated their own language of Kissass-ese or some other gobblety-gook. Two of these girls are recognizable as Ariana Grande and Abigail Breslin (Chanel no. 5 and the first suspect due to her name alone). Ariana’s time as a TV star is short-lived as she tweets about her death in the first episode but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Jamie Lee Curtis as the dean of the college, she concludes that KKT reflects poorly on college culture and the university as a whole. This comes after an accident last year when Chanel was a prime suspect in loading a spray tan machine with acid, which then sprayed down the president of KKT at that time. Now that Chanel has moseyed her way into such a position, the dean makes a decree that any and all people wanting to join KKT must be permitted to do so—this only after a meeting with a past sorority sister serving as the lawyer for that branch who is stuck in the 90s for whatever reason. That’s what’s going on all in episode one to set up the future shenanigans on the actual college side.

As for the would-be sisters, we have Grace—a legacy whose overprotective father actually comes to teach at the college after the murders start. Her mother apparently died a long while ago but her father regaled her with stories about how much the woman loved being a KKT sister and the celebration of womanhood and blah blah blah! Naturally, she wants to follow in her deceased mother’s footsteps. Her initial roommate, played by Keke Palmer (excuse me as some people I know by their character’s name and others just by their real name) is the only black girl to pledge and really doesn’t want to do it save for it looking good on a resume one day as she has lofty aspirations.

Filling out the trifecta of pledges that matter is Lea Michele’s character or neck brace girl named so because... well, it’s obvious. Outside of her over-creepy nerd knowledge about death, she calls Chanel mom in some strange idolatry fetishism that I’m partially convinced the show made up (apparently young girls without female figures in their lives call a girl near the same age that they admire and look up to their mom? What?). There’s a few other pledges—deaf Taylor Swift (she gets her head run over by a lawnmower toward the end of the second episode), other strange nerd girl and Asian lesbian chick but they’re really there just to fill out the cast and to raise the body count before getting rid of characters you really love. They all move into the house just as the murders start.

Surprisingly, the first real murder comes when Chanel dips their house maid’s (since when do sororities have maids? Don’t they make the pledges do all the gruntwork?), White Mamie (yeah, you read that right. And as the most awkward and cringe-laugh-inducing scenes in the opening minutes of the show tell you, she also don’t know nothin’ ‘bout birthin’ no babies) into a deep fryer that was on in the sorority house kitchen (since when does a sorority have a deep fryer? Aren’t the girls always looking out for their weight? I’ve seen those recruitment videos online and not a single girl is over 150, tops). Instead of calling the police, all the girls go along with throwing her body into the freezer from where she subsequently disappears. This, in turn, bonds the girls in secret which also leads to Ariana Grande’s death as she tweets and a hazing situation where all the pledges are buried up to their heads in soil in the backyard and the red devil—the school mascot—runs over the deaf girl’s head on a riding mower. Ka-boom! We got a murder mystery on our hands.

So, outside of the fact that Chanel has a typical douche, jock, frathouse boyfriend with grades so bad he has

to sleep with the dean to stay in school—her choice, though he thinks he’s madly in love with her—the only

other suspect in the first episode is his gay best friend played by Nick Jonas. Yes, that Nick Jonas... from the Jonas Brothers and now with his own solo career. In a completely expected twist akin to Scream, it’s revealed at the end of the second episode that not only did Nick fake his death in his own frat but that he is most certainly one of the two killers stalking the campus. Yes, two killers because murder is only fun if you have a partner. It’s like Scattergory or sex. Side note: I predict with the ridiculousness of this show that there will end up actually being three to five killers.

Because the murder happened solely on KKT property the dean declares that they need to have extra protection, ending them up with Niecy Nash as the security guard in her Reno 9-1-1 callback days. She is hilarious for what she brings and as the Deputy Dewey of the show she gets an old friend killed and manages to accuse the only other black character of being the murderer as only good cops would do, right? Right (Eyeroll, sigh, double sigh!)?

To top it all off there’s a secondary mystery about the death of a sorority sister from twenty years earlier who died during a house party in which she gave birth in an upstairs bathroom and supposedly bled to death. Though her sisters knew of this birth, she died anyway because they had to go dance to TLC’s Waterfalls, which, to be fair that was also my Jimmy-jam back in the day. Hey, sometimes we all need to just listen to the rivers and the lakes like we used to. Not to move to fast away from this second mystery, the girls, along with the help of White Mamie (damn, she was working for them way back then too?) and the dean (not the dean at the time) covered it up somehow and made the young girl disappear. The mystery remains.

Coffee Shop Creeper/Reporter

Because of this continuing question mark, Grace and her new non-boyfriend boyfriend who stalked Chanel the previous year (they probably had a thing before she became uber-popular) is investigating this along with the murders as he considers himself a future journalist/current school newspaper editor... and part-time mascot. Whaaaaaa..! That’s right, he has a red devils costume, but is he the killer?

In my estimation, no. In fact, along with Nick Jonas, I think the person most likely to be the killer is Grace’s overprotective father, played by Oliver Hudson who had a steady gig on Nashville last year and a little father drama of his own over the summer. Why? Because I think either the dead girl from 20 years ago or the second girl who took the dead girl’s baby has something to do with him: Grace’s mother (making the baby grace), a good friend of his, or maybe his sister, etc. I also think Nick Jonas’ character is somehow related to Grace (maybe older brother) and is doing the killings for the hell of it/father-son bonding. Crazy, but right up this show’s alley.

So, my diagnosis of this show? Meh! I rate it around a C or C+ at the moment. While it hits its mark on many things including the actual mystery, well-defined characters and plenty of blood-lust, I think the exaggerated slapstick-ish humor of the show can wear on the viewer over the season. Even for an audience much younger than, say, the AHS crowd, this seems like it could get old fast (probably why this is only a short run 13-episode season). Emma is great at playing the “B” as she has been for the past few years (I’d like to see her stretch and play a nice girl again even in just one thing), Niecy Nash is Niecy Nash,

Keke Palmer has a little too much sister-girl going on (a hyper-attitude that some young girls give off reminiscent of the movie BAPS and falls into the stereotypical black sidekick role), Abigail Breslin and the others haven’t had their proper time to shine yet (it’s only the third episode) and Jamie Lee Curtis feels partially wasted here. Honestly, I would have preferred she do a role on AHS first, maybe fill in the vacancy left by Jessica Lange as the horror godmother of sorts, but I understand how she seems to only want to do comedy nowadays. Will I keep watching? Probably, but this might be a DVR spacer—a show I leave on the DVR for a really long time until I get enough free time to binge nearly the entire season and then be done with it. Should you watch if you haven’t been doing so already? Not if you want real horror or don’t find teenage and young adult drama/comedy funny. If, however, you enjoy things similar to Evil Dead 2 and Dale and Tucker vs. Evil, and can stand a lot of humor in your horror. This is right up your alley.

What do you think? Am I being too harsh on this show? Is it only average or do you drop everything to watch it because it’s your jam, jelly, and secret sauce? Or are you patiently waiting for American Horror Story to come back October 7^th? And what about the mystery for those that do enjoy it? Who do you think the killers are? Let me know what you think in the comments below. Scream Queens airs Tuesdays at 9pm eastern only on FOX.

As always, check out my books on Amazon (if you’re looking for Halloween scares check #AFuriousWind, #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or #ThePowerOfTen). For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check out #TheWriter. The final episode of season one of The Writer is OUT NOW. Ahh! That’s right, all 15 episodes are out now available exclusively on Amazon. And coming in just one week, check for my new comedy book “Yep, I’m Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend” (#AhStalking). Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to my blog.

Until next time, “This is not a cheerocracy. This is a cheer-tatorship.”

P.S. Look, if this show doesn’t remind you of Bring It On at least a little, then I don’t even know who you are. I probably don’t know you anyway, but you know... whatever. I'll keep thinking of something else as a sign-off.

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