The Intervention

Last year I had a story accepted by The Protest Diaries, an anthology about protests, naturally. It was supposed to go out by the end of the year. Back in March, I think it was, I got word from them that they had made some changes. They had too many stories and were going to ax about eight, and others would need revision. Ever the pessimist, I assumed my story was on the chopping block. Last week I got notice that my story had survived but they wanted significant revisions. They kindly outlined the changes they wanted. I agreed that most of the changes strengthened the story and was glad to accommodate them. Now I’m waiting to see if the changes are acceptable. The letter implied that if I made the changes they wanted then it was a done deal. We’ll see. Until then, well, writing is a waiting game.

As a preview, my story is “The Intervention”. A high schooler remembers his father’s funeral from when he was eight years old. His father had died fighting in Afghanistan and his funeral was picketed by evangelicals similar to what we’ve seen from the Westboro Baptist Church. If you’re unfamiliar with them, check out their website -godhatesfags.com. Yeah, they’re that kind of Christian.

Anyway, he learns that the same protesters are coming to picket the funeral of a police officer who was gay and a good friend. How he handles this situation is the balance of the story.

The editor said he liked my take on the issue and definitely wanted the story for the anthology. It just needed tightening up. Sometimes I just run on and on. Anyone who has read my writing knows that about me. I’ll post here when I know more. In the meantime, I’m still waiting for a publication date for Worlds Within and my story “Changing of the Guard”, the sequel to “La Duchessa”.

Sing a Song of Amazon

I was checking my bank account the other day and noticed I had a deposit of $10 from Amazon. First, how does Amazon know which bank I use? I pay for all my Amazon purchases with a credit card. Second, of course they know. Amazon knows everything.

But why? Why did Amazon give me ten bucks? The deposit had a series of numbers and EDI PYMNTS written beside it. I quickly deduced that PYMNTS meant payments. I’m smart like that. So I googled Amazon EDI payments. Seems EDI payments are transfers of small amounts of money when a seller makes money on Amazon. Ok. So why did they think I made money on Amazon? I have a Vella site, but anytime I go there I have to wipe off the dust and cobwebs and the crickets are so loud I can hardly hear myself think. So no. No money there.

The EDI site had two handy little links for Amazon sellers and non-sellers. I clicked on the Amazon sellers link and it immediately told me I was NOT an Amazon seller. Maybe not, but they didn’t need to be so abrupt about it. Kinda hurt my feelings. So I clicked on the other link. And it was in German. A page full of German, and nothing that looked like a translate button.

So back to square one. I figured I would contact Amazon directly. Contacting Amazon is fraught with problems – mostly revolving around language. I usually opt for the “Chat”. I have found that it is frequently easier to tease out the meaning of pidgin English when written than when spoken. And no offense intended to the employees who I imagine have much better English skills than I have Hindi or Burmese skills, but face it, sometimes it seems like an impenetrable shield.

So I clicked on Chat. In a few moments Saba comes on. I do like that they seem to use their real names, rather than trying to make me think I’m conversing with ‘Bob’ or ‘Mack’. A Google search informed me that Saba is a typical Kuwaiti girl’s name, so I guess I was working with a Kuwaiti lady. She opened with asking how I was. I made nice and told her I was fine and hoped she was, also. She responded she was pleased I was well and hoped for my good health every day of the year. A bit over the top, but I’ll take good wishes as I can get them.

I explained that I had received the deposit and just wondered what it was for. She said she would check and get back to me. After a quite long wait she can back on and wanted to know if I had “any other Amazon.uk accounts”. UK? As in United Kingdom? I told her no, I only had the one account with Amazon.US. She thanked me and went away. A while later she asked if she could have my four-digit number. This was a poser. Did she mean the number I use to get money from the ATM, the number I use to turn off my house alarm, the last four of my social security number, the last four digits of my phone number, or the number I have to use to let the cable company know that the freaking cable is on the fritz again? A likely answer seemed to be my credit card number, but why did she need to ask me? See number two above. Amazon probably knows more about me than I know myself. They know my dad’s middle name, my mom’s maiden name, my first car, favorite pet, and that I like Christmas. Why get so cagey all of a sudden? I decided this had nothing to do with my credit card, so I offered her the number attached to the deposit. She thanked me and went away.

She came back a while later and thanked me for my patience. As a sign of their appreciation, they were going to give me another $10. I know Amazon is the most profitable company in the world, but you don’t usually get there by just throwing money around. But if this is the new company policy, maybe they should throw some at their employees. I thanked her for the money and then asked about the original $10. This is when it got weirder.

She said she had “just discovered this”, discovered what I don’t know, and that the $10 credit I was getting was taken off the price of an MP3 player I bought about four months ago. I had purchased a cheapo MP3 player from a Chinese company for about $39. It was a piece of crap that didn’t work as advertised; it barely worked at all. I had contacted the company for a replacement. They said they would only send me a replacement if I would first post a good rating of them on the Amazon site. WTF? No. I told them I would give them “a rating” after they made good on my purchase. No deal. I had to write the good review, or they wouldn’t participate. I stood by my principles and chalked it up to experience. I purchased an MP3 player on Ebay, instead (anyone need a marginal Chinese MP3 player cheap?). I never contacted Amazon about my problems with the Chinese company and I paid for the device when I purchased it. So why was Amazon bringing up something I bought long ago? I asked Saba. She seemed hurt and wondered why I wasn’t appreciative of their “gesture of goodwill”. I assured her that I was appreciative (she used ‘appreciative’ a lot). In the next word salad I got from her it appeared that they would refund the entire price of the MP3 player. I say it ‘appeared’ because, you know, word salad. She didn’t just mangle the English language; she left it broken and bloody on the floor.

After another abortive attempt to get information from Saba I decided it was time to go. I exchanged way too many parting pleasantries and made my escape.

So at the end of the day I have $10 in the bank, either a ten dollar or thirty-nine dollar credit with Amazon and still no idea what started the whole deal. Maybe I’ll try again with another chat person. They may have a better grasp of English. Or I may get even more credits. I’d like to get Amazon Prime for free. Maybe they can arrange that.

Confessions of a Horror Writer

I have a story coming out in a horror anthology in March. Five of the other stories I’ve had published would also be considered horror. If you look on my Amazon author’s page, two of the three books there are horror anthologies. It might look like I’ve found my niche.

I’m not a fan of horror. There, I said it. I don’t read horror books or stories and only watch classic horror movies. I hate blood and guts. Then why do my stories seem to find their way into the horror realm? Your guess is as good as mine. I just write what bubbles up from my subconscious.

Let me clarify my definition of horror. Horror in written form is much harder than on the screen. Film can use music and sudden camera switches or something jumping into sight to startle the viewer. Hard to do on the written page. But I see written horror (or good film horror) as creeping dread, the need to look over your shoulder, check the locks, and turn on more lights. That is rare in the little horror I have read.

I read a Lovecraft anthology once. His style was not what I was used to, but I eventually got with it. Only two of the stories did I find actually disturbing in the ways I mentioned above. I guess I’m just not a Cthulu fan.

I read The Shining because I liked the movie. Let me be clear about this. There are two movies I will never see again. The Shining and Alien. Those two scared the bejesus out of me. Not because of blood and guts or weird camera work. They are just plain scary. In a good way. The Alien sequels missed the mark. So I wanted to read The Shining. It was summer and I was alone one night (not a good way to read horror). I had to go pee. I was just at the part in the book about the dead woman in the bathtub. As I stood at the commode, a gentle breeze may have wafted through the open window. All I know for sure is that in the mirror beside the commode I saw the bathtub curtain move. I was out of the bathroom and under the covers in a flash, my heart beating like a drum. That’s what good horror does.

I’ve read a couple of Stephen King anthologies. I enjoy his stories, but most of them I don’t classify as horror because they don’t elicit that response in me. I think Salem’s Lot is the only one that came close. As for his novels, IT did scare me. Again it brought the elements to the page that evoked the fear response I mentioned above.

I grew up watching late night “horror” movies like Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman and such. None of them were particularly frightening, even when I was nine years old. I loved the camp of all the Draculas, from the color drenched Hammer films to the granddaddy of them all, 1931 Dracula. Frankenstein was okay, but I kept seeing plot holes. I tried reading the original but couldn’t get through it. It was so different from the movies and didn’t sustain my interest. I never got into the wolfman movies because I got tired of Lon Chaney Jr. emoting over his misbegotten fate to be cursed. And they all ended the same – a good man turned into a monster and then killed. Kind of a downer.

The monster movies like Godzilla and the rest of the Japanese crew really shouldn’t even be considered horror. Just call these disaster movies. Or science fiction. I mean how horrifying are two miniature Japanese ladies riding on the back of a giant moth?

All that said, do I consider my horror stories as true horror? Maybe. Some of these can be found here.

La Duchessa is my vampire entry. I try to give the old duchessa an air of subtle menace. And the old photographs indicate that something may be amiss. It’s available now on Amazon for only $2.99.

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep would probably better classify as a thriller, although with all the cut off heads I guess it also falls in the horror camp. https://terrorhousemag.com/lay/ 

Welcome to Hell is more fun than horrifying. https://fb.watch/8ShBfglfJy/

The Haint is an old-fashioned ghost story my grandfather used to tell. It’s quaint and not particularly scary. https://www.pagespineficshowcase.com/curtis-a-bass.html

Little Green Men is madness in outer space. They say in space no one can hear you scream, but you also need to remember that help is half a billion miles away. https://theworldswithin.net/little-green-men

I’ve got some others that have not been published yet. There’s The Stick Men, a slightly scary story that my mom told me about her childhood nightmares. Manitou, based on the Norse eddas, is my homage to Lovecraft.

But one of my favorite stories, Johnny’s Got a Gun, comes out next month in Screaming in the Night anthology. It’s a good old style ghost story – kids at night getting into mischief and all hell breaking loose. Is it horrifying? Probably not. Is it spooky? I hope so. Since the anthology is for sale on Amazon, I won’t be publishing the story on my blog until some much later date. You should probably get the book. I’ve read a story by one of the other authors included and she gets my thumbs up for a spooky story. Creeping dread just the way I like it.

Idle Thoughts from Vacation

There should be a special circle in Hell for people who bring infants on cross country flights.

I was people watching on my recent ski vacation, seeing what people were wearing, and being the curmudgeon that I am, judging them for it. I noticed someone wearing a ski outfit in arctic camouflage. Why? Having two shoulder injuries from being tackled on the slopes, I value being seen as opposed to wearing camouflage. The only situation that seems sensible would be if there were an active shooter at the resort (or if they were the active shooter). On the other hand, if they became disoriented and passed out on a trail, the rescuers might miss them. Camouflage is a bad idea.

I noticed that mask mandate signs were posted all over the ski area. Of course, no one seemed to be paying any attention to them. A big sign proclaimed you had to wear a mask to ride the gondola. Looking around each time I noticed my wife and I were the only ones in line who wore masks. We always asked at the front to ride a gondola with other masked patrons, so we always got a private gondola. Our vaccination status was checked to enter all the base lodges and restaurants, but the mask requirements were mostly ignored there also. I’d say about 80-90% of the people were not masked and no one seemed to call them on it. One liftie muttered that he’d been told not to enforce the mask mandate. I guess the signs were just to cover their asses.

Now that I’m getting older, I find that my medical vocabulary is increasing dramatically. How is it I lived my entire life without knowing the meaning of stenosis? Or hemilapidectomy? Or T1 neoplasm? I’m learning so much.

Speaking of age reminds me of a lunch I had with a friend just before the pandemic struck. I told him all about my rotator cuff surgery and he filled me in on his hip replacement. I countered with my wife’s struggles with arthritis. After a moment he said, “What did we use to talk about before we got old?”

La Duchessa

The Worlds Within Winter 2022 Issue is up and available for purchase on Amazon. Go to my author page https://www.amazon.com/author/curtisbooks to see the cover. My story “La Duchessa” is one of six spine tingling tales in this issue. It is available in hard and soft cover. And by the end of February it will be online in audio form. They sent me an advance of the audio copy for approval and I loved it. The British accent of the reader gave it such an air of class. I’ll put up a link to the audio version once it’s available. I sent Worlds Within a sequel to “La Duchessa”, but they haven’t told me yet if they’ll run it. If they don’t, I’ll post it here anyway.

Confessions of a Pantser

I read that 66% of authors say their characters speak to them. At first glance, I’d say that implies a high incidence of schizophrenia among writers. But I was secretly pleased to find this because my characters speak to me. And no, I don’t mean there are voices in my head. There is only one voice, mine. But my characters do tend to take on agency. I once wrote a story for college, the big project in my creative writing class. It got an A, but I wasn’t completely happy with it. Years later I had a dream where the main character of that story came to me and said I had his story all wrong. I woke up the next morning, sat at my computer, and opened my mind. The story poured out in one sitting, all 7,000 words of it. It had the same beginning but took a completely different direction.

One of the differences was the name of the best friend. Once I discovered the friend’s name, he took on more of a role in the story. I’ve found my characters are particular about their names. Many cultures believe personal names have power. My characters are the same. If I change a character’s name, often the entire arc of the story changes. When I start a story, I will lay out the characteristics of the MC, maybe conjure up an image, then I start writing. So often, the name just comes out. I’ve had stories where I had to force a name because one didn’t come up automatically and the story hasn’t worked. In my WIP I’m on the 4th name for an important side character, but it’s not the right one, yet he stubbornly refuses to reveal it. And then there are times when the name doesn’t really matter. I recently sold a story told in first person where the MC is never named, except once, when his sister calls him Cupcake. I wrote the whole story never realizing he wasn’t named until I did my re-read. I thought about adding a name, but no. He wanted to remain anonymous.

And no, I’m not off my medication. I still understand the difference between fiction and reality. But somehow, the act of writing taps a part of my brain that is otherwise quiescent. It’s part of why I’m a pantser rather than a plotter. When I write, I frequently don’t know where the story is going. Sometimes I have a destination in mind, sometimes not. And even if there is a destination, I don’t always end up where I thought we were going. It’s the getting there that’s fun. I allow my characters free rein when I write. Sometimes they go places I didn’t intend. I guess in those cases a piece of my mind wanted to explore it. But it’s almost like watching a movie. I’m just recording what I’m seeing.

To be sure, sometimes my characters go places and do things best left unwritten. Those stories are either deleted or assigned to an X file, possibly to be resurrected if they promise to behave. And the ones who please me the most get more attention. Two of my favorite characters became the focal points of my two novels. I liked them so much I wanted to continue spending time with them, just as I would a friend in the real world. So I kept going back to the page and asking them to speak to me again. It was like reconnecting with an old friend. I got 110,000 words from one and 77,000 from the other. I also got hours visiting someone I felt a real connection with.

So yeah, my characters speak to me. But that’s okay. I enjoy what they have to say.

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

My story, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, went live on Terror House today.

I originally had a content warning on it, but the site didn’t run it. I guess they figured anyone signing on to a place called Terror House was willing to take their chances.

I’m not very happy with the story they published. After I sent it to them I found some typos and more important, some stylistic flaws that really bothered me. I contacted them and they said to send them a corrected copy. Guess which one they published. Yeah, the original. Just keep that in mind when you spot errors in the story.

While the serial murderer angle provides the creepy factor, the story isn’t really about that. It’s about our unnamed protagonists struggle with his father. Wow, I never realized until now that I never gave the kid a name. It didn’t seem important to the story. But our hero is on the cusp of manhood and trying to figure out what makes the measure of a man. Does he want to be the kind of man his father is? Obviously not. But his final act pushes him in that direction. A deeper story would show if he simply followed the path of least resistance or fought his way free.

A few readers complained that I didn’t reveal the identity of the killer, but as I stated above, that wasn’t what the story was about. However, I did write a final scene tying everything up. Terror House has first rights to my story for seven days. So next week I’ll post the version of the story I like, with the final scene as a bonus.

Accessing Published Articles

In checking my Publication menu I have found that some of the links are broken. It also takes an extra step to bring up the menu, find the story, click on it and then find the link. This list will streamline the process. I have listed below all the works I currently have in publication and links where available. Most of these can also be found by googling the magazine plus the story title. One story, The Fourth Reich, no longer seems to be archived, but it can be found on this blog. Yellow Piece of Paper has not yet been released. I’ll update this list as timelines change.

The Cornfield            https://www.arielchart.com/2019/10/the-cornfield.html

Ariel Chart Int’l Lit Journal    October 20, 2019

The Park Bench        https://thechambermagazine.com/?s=park+bench&submit

Ariel Chart Int’l Lit Journal    October 21, 2019

The Chamber                          June 11, 2021

Escape to Paradise    escape to paradise | Search Results | The Chamber Magazine

Scarlet Leaf                            January 21, 2020

The Chamber                          June 18, 2021                                                                  

Inna Gadda da Vida  https://www.scarletleafreview.com/short-stories8/category/curtis-a-bass

Scarlet Leaf                            April 11, 2020

The Chamber                          June 4, 2021

         Café Lit                                   September 27, 2022

Sharing Christmas    Writers from Scars Publications (select Curtis Bass from list on left)

Down in the Dirt                     May 2020

2020 in a Flash Anthology      November 2020

The Fourth Reich      unavailable                 

Scarlet Leaf                            May 10, 2020

Best Summer Ever    best summer ever – Youth Imagination                     

Youth Imagination                  October 2020

The Haint                   https://www.pagespineficshowcase.com/curtis-a-bass.html

Page & Spine                          November 6, 2020

Pick Me                      https://fabulaargentea.com/?s=pick+me                     

Fabula Argentea                      April 2021

Somewhere in Iowa  B093D8YP4C                      

Amazon Kindle Vella             July 2021

Little Green Men     

Worlds Within                        September 2021  

         Dragon Gems                          2022/2023

Welcome to Hell       

What the Writers Wrote          June 28,2021               Site failed

Tall Tale TV                           October 2021              https://fb.watch/8ShBfglfJy/       The Chamber                                February 18,2022        https://thechambermagazine.com/2022/02/18/welcome-to-hell-darkly-humorous-fiction-by-curtis-bass/

The Intervention                   Not yet published       

B Cubed Press                         December 2021             

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep         

Noise of a Quiet House           July 1, 2021                Project canceled                                 

Terror House Press                 January 6, 2022          

         The Chamber                          August 5, 2022          

December Tales II December 2023

 

Johnny’s Got a Gun             Amazon.com

Screaming in the Night           April 4, 2022               Sinister Smile Press

La Duchessa                          https://drive.google.com/file/d/18vOFIQrGPHHNJMT0YkxpOkG7Gb1FigQq/view?usp=drive_web

Worlds Within                        March 7, 2022

Changing of the Guard        https://theworldswithin.net/changing-of-the-guard

Worlds Within                        September 2022

The Pearl Earring Google Mystery Tribune The Pearl Earring

         Mystery Tribune          Summer 2022 

Yellow Piece of Paper

Thema                         June 2023

News

Amazon has issued me an Authors page. It’s a place where any book in which I’m recognized as an author will be listed. This should take you to it: https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B09NH6P79Y

Alternately, in Amazon just type my name in the search bar. The first item will be “2020 in a Flash”. Click on that and there’s a link to my author page. I may have linked this blog to my author page but technology and I don’t always cooperate with each other, so maybe not.

More publication news. La Duchessa was picked up by Worlds Within to appear online in early 2022. It’s my vampire (maybe) story. I contacted the editor about my sequel “Changing of the Guard” and they’re considering it. They said they’d get back to me by February. If they accept it, that will make 25 pieces of writing that I have successfully placed. Not too shabby since my first acceptance (The Cornfield) on September 29, 2019. I just looked at my big spreadsheet where I keep up with my submissions. It shows that I sent off my very first ones on April 8, 2019. I was just a starry-eyed kid, no idea if what I was writing was worth a crap. Of the seven stories I sent off that first day, three were eventually accepted for publication, but not by the mags I first sent them to (Sharing Christmas, Escape to Paradise and Best Summer Ever). I had several months of rejections to work through. I still receive a rejection or two every week, but I have dozens of submissions out there and plan a bunch more this week. My theory is that every story has a home, I just have to find it.