Ten Chimes to Midnight: A Collection of Ghost Stories is out now from Amazon, and it’s free from Amazon for the next few days. This is a collection of ten ghost stories. I’ve written short story collections before, but this is the first time I’ve actually made sure that they’re all about ghosts. There are ghosts at train stations, ghosts in asylums, ghosts on bridges and ghosts in several other places as well. Some of the ghosts are scary, some have good intentions. It was quite a challenge to mix things up and keep the stories from getting repetitive. There are two stories about abandoned, remote houses, but apart from that I think there’s a fairly varied set of locations.
The House of Jack the Ripper: The Complete Series available now!
You know when people post to their blog and apologize for having been silent for so long? Well…
The House of Jack the Ripper: The Complete Series is out now at Amazon, here’s the .com link and here’s the link if you’re in the UK. This is all eight of the books put together, so you get the full 300,000+ words in one volume.
This is the story of Jack the Ripper, and the various people who were involved in the creation of such a huge myth. It’s also the story of a girl who uncovers the truth in the modern day.
Also out now is Escape From Hotel Necro, at Amazon in the US or in the UK. This is a pretty nasty and gory story about a weekend holiday that goes very wrong.
Next up will be the last volume of Three Nights of the Vampire, and the final volumes of Mass Extinction Event…
Posted in Uncategorized
The Ash House: How I Ended Up Writing an Entire Horror Novel in One Week
I have a new book out today, titled The Ash House. I usually write pretty fast, averaging between 10,000 and 12,500 words per day, but this time something different happened. This time, I ended up writing the entire novel in a week.
I don’t usually talk about how I write, but a few people have asked lately so I thought I’d take a shot.
Warning: mild spoilers ahead regarding the plot of the book.
The basic idea for The Ash House came last Friday (May 5th) while I was walking the dog near the ruins of Sandown Castle. 99% of my ideas come while I’m out with the dog; he should really get a co-writing credit. Anyway, I was wondering what would motivate somebody to return to a haunted house, and somehow that thought led to me thinking about a woman who’s dying, and who wants to go to such a house because she needs to know whether ghosts are real.
As usual, I put the idea on the backburner, thinking I’d get around to it later. But then on Friday evening I had some spare time while I was waiting for a phone call, so I wrote the first 3,500 words. Then for various reasons my plans for the weekend were cancelled at the last minute, so I figured I’d just try writing a little more.
By the end of Saturday I had 16,000 words. I got busy on Sunday too, and by the evening I had 25,000, which for me represents two good, full work days. The book was coming along pretty fast, and I started to wonder whether I could get an entire first draft done by the end of Tuesday. I’d already figured out that the book was going to be around 50,000 words, which is the same kind of length as Annie’s Room and a little shorter than The Cabin. Those books took about two weeks each, but I thought maybe (just maybe) I could work faster this time.
I was lucky that I basically had no other commitments for those few days. I was able to work from 6am to midday, then again from 2pm to 6pm. Apart from writing, all I had to do was look after the dog, which meant regular short breaks for walking and playing. And by Tuesday evening, somehow I had 50,000 words done.
I was also starting to think that if I really knuckled down on Wednesday and Thursday, I might be able to get the entire book finished within a week. Although the idea sounded crazy, I was keen to see if I could achieve that, so I put all my other projects aside and focused.
(For reference, sometimes I finish a novel in about 10 days, whereas sometimes I work on and off for much longer. The Gravest Girl of All (Grave Girl 3) is well into its third year of tinkering, and I’m STILL not happy with that one.)
By Wednesday morning, I was starting to send out copies of The Ash House to a couple of people, to get some other eyes on it, and I was also working on a cover. I spent Wednesday going through the text, making changes where necessary, and then I spent Thursday making a few more revisions. I was quite keen to get the book out by Friday evening, so I could say that I’d completed the entire project in a week, but it was touch and go for a while.
Fortunately, the basic storyline came pretty easily, as did the characters. The biggest change from the first draft to the finished version is the ending, which underwent two big rewrites on Thursday.
The Ash House isn’t the most complex novel I’ve ever written, although there’s some funny business going on with the timelines. At first I wasn’t happy with the ending, but I realized that was simply because the ending wasn’t the real ending at all. So if you read the book, you’ll maybe notice that there’s a kind of fake-out ending, followed by a little extra action.
So for reference, the timeline was:
Friday lunchtime: Came up with the idea.
Friday evening: Wrote the first 3,500 words.
Saturday: Wrote the next 12,500 words (up to 16,000 now)
Sunday: Wrote the next 9,000 words (up to 25,000)
Monday: Another 12,500 words (up to 37,500)
Tuesday: The final 12,500 words (up to 50,000)
Wednesday: Editing, making corrections, expanding a few scenes
Thursday: More editing, proofing etc., rewrote the ending twice
Friday: More editing in the morning, then uploaded
I don’t think I’ll ever try writing a book quite so quickly again, but it was a fun experiment. And I don’t think the novel suffered from the way it was written, although others might disagree. Tomorrow (Saturday, May 13th) I’ll be getting back to the book I was working on before, which is about halfway done, and also working on finishing the sequel to The Devil, the Witch and the Whore.
BTW, I’m not necessarily recommending this as a way of working, and I’m not saying the book is somehow better because of how fast it was written. I’m just saying how I wrote this particular novel. And now I have to go and do a lot of washing and ironing that seems to have piled up over the past week…
The Ash House is out now from Amazon (US), Amazon (UK) and the various other Amazon stores. The usual price is 99 cents (or 99p), but it’s also free to read in Kindle Unlimited. Also, over this weekend (May 13th and 14th) it should be free to download!
New short story Lamb to Slaughter!
I have a short story in the new collection Collected Easter Horror Shorts, which you can find at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK) and the various other Amazons too!
Lamb to Slaughter is the story of a girl who has to face her destiny one Easter. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but let’s just say that she has to take a walk through the forest, where she meets something or someone that might be willing to offer her another chance.
You can find a full list of contributors on the product page, but by my count there are 22 different stories in the book. And now I’m off to read them all! P.S. I’ve also set up a page here that lists shorts stories I’ve written that appear in various other places.
Out now: B&B!
B&B is out now from Amazon!
It’s the story of a girl with a secret, who makes the mistake one night of checking into a very strange B&B. She soon realizes that the B&B’s other guests are a little on the strange side, but leaving might not be an option. Not with a serial killer, known only as the Snowman, on the loose outside.
B&B is available from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and the various other Amazon stores. It’s also available to borrow, for readers who use Kindle Unlimited.
Out now: The Horror of Devil’s Root Lake!
The Horror of Devil’s Root Lake is out now from Amazon!
This is the story of a woman who wants to know the truth about her son’s death. Everyone else thinks that Charlie simply wandered into the water and died, but Emily is convinced that there’s another explanation. Is a mysterious creature haunting the world’s children, luring them to their deaths?
The Horror of Devil’s Root Lake is available from Amazon.com, Amazon UK and the various other Amazon stores. It’s also available to borrow for readers who use Kindle Unlimited.
Out now: Last Wrong Turn, a sequel to Perfect Little Monsters!
Last Wrong Turn, a sequel to one of the stories from my Perfect Little Monsters collection, is out now from Amazon!
Last Wrong Turn is the story of Penny, a heavily pregnant woman who finds herself trapped in a remote Kentish farmhouse. She’s the latest prisoner of Enda, the girl from the Perfect Little Monsters title story, but Enda is now in charge of the farm, and things aren’t about to run smoothly!
And in case anyone is wondering: Yes, I do have a third story in mind for this series. I’m already working on a book in which the farmhouse receives a fresh batch of unwelcome visitors…
Posted in Short Stories
Tagged Last Wrong Turn, Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories
Out now: Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories!
Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories, my first short story collection, is out now from Amazon! The book collects together five brand new stories, as well as a revised version of The Scream.
The five new stories begin with the title story, Perfect Little Monsters, in which a strange young girl finally believes she has been given a new sister. Things don’t quite work out that way, however, and soon the pigs in the yard are given a feast. This is followed by I Hate You, a story about a girl who spends her life tormenting strangers online, and who then receives a taste of her own medicine.
Next is Meat, about a woman who starts to worry that her neighbors are a little strange. Then again, people in glass houses…
Fifty Fifty is set in a prison, where the inmates are being used as part of a macabre experiment. Unfortunately for the prison’s dictatorial governor, his plans are about to be interrupted. Then there’s Stay Up Late, in which a man stays up after his wife and daughter have gone to bed. As he opens a bottle of wine, he hears a knock on the door…
I’m already planning a second book of short stories, with similar themes. I should probably mention that these stories are quite graphic and nasty, and they also feature strong language, albeit only in context. And one of them is already getting a sequel in the next collection!
Amy Cross 