Tag: M. Ennenbach

September 12, 2020

fiction, horror, publishing, reading, Suspense Author, updates, writing

Some minor news!

It’s three weeks in a row we’re meeting here, and I can hardly believe it! The consistency is just mind-blowing, isn’t it? To think, three times in three…

Whatever. It’s not that impressive. Lots of people do this WAY more consistently than I do, have a robust newsletter each month—or even two or four times a month—and they always have new, on the horizon projects to talk about. Sometimes, when I see the go getters really pumping out the business side of writing (the marketing and networking), I get overwhelmed. Just watching how much they’re doing makes me realize just how much I’m not getting accomplished.

But, we’re in the middle of fixing that, right?

As it happens, yours truly here actually does have a bit of on the horizon news, and I’d love to share it with you. We’ve got a few things to cover, so let’s dive into the first.

The Cerberus Rising audiobook is 1/3 complete and it is sounding outstanding! Daniel Caravetta, my long time narrator—he’s narrated three of my novels and now CR—is nothing short of brilliant and he just turns in a fantastic performance with each outing. To say he’s impressive is an understatement and even borders on insult. The first third of the book is stories dealing with Cabin Fever, and let me tell you, you can feel the walls closing in as you listen to Mr. Caravetta perform our words. It’s haunting, intense, and glorious. I can’t wait to share the finished product with the world.

Next up on the horizon, and this one just a bit further out than the new audiobook, I’ve been invited to co-write a crime novel with a very respected crime novelist, screenwriter, and journalist. I’m keeping the details vague for now, since I haven’t quite decided on saying yes or no to this project. I want to do the project very much, but have to read what’s already there to see if it speaks to me. I’ll be doing that very soon and if some magic starts to gel, I’ll be sharing it with you guys. What’s interesting about how this came about is that I’ve been planning to write a couple of crime novels after I finish my collection of horror and suspense stories, which is my current work in progress. I’ve got some ideas swirling around for some really dark, grimy, maybe even blackly hilarious books, and I’d also like to establish myself as more than ‘just’ a horror writer (not that there is anything wrong with that if you are, just saying I want to show that I’ve got more than one bag of tricks). And as those ideas have been percolating in my head, along comes this respected author with a third to half of a crime novel with a really cool story, and says, “Hey Chris, you want to finish this book with me?” Wow doesn’t cover it. Very cool to be invited, and having read this author before, I’ve no doubt the story is going to be good, and I’m hopeful I’m able to contribute to it.

Finally, even further out on a more distant horizon, some news about M. Ennenbach and myself and the collaborations we’ve been working on, both old and new. If you follow me on social media, you’ll likely have at least a passing awareness of a project Mike and I call NEPTUNE 9. It’s an epic space thriller/cosmic horror jaunt far into the depths of our solar system. If you’re not familiar, here’s the quick recap: I wrote novelette of 11K words or so for this idea I had. Then I expanded it to over 30K words thinking that it would make a fine novella. And, it did…except it still felt like something was missing. I sent it to Mike, and in a couple of months we had over 100K words and were still going strong. We’ve got plans to make it into a several book series, but have pulled back and are regrouping now with what part of the story we want to tell at a time. As we do that, we’ve come up with another really cool project that may well tie into N9 and be a mixture of crime, tragedy, cyberpunk, and just a dash of cosmic horror. Not sure exactly when we’ll get started on it, as we are both working to finish up a some other projects right now, but it’s coming and I’m looking forward to it as both Mike and I stretch out into different genres.

Not sure what else there is to rattle on about, and I just crossed the 785 word mark, so I’m probably losing you (being it’s the current year and all and no one has an attention span anymore), so I’ll wrap this up. Big things coming, lots of great stuff and ideas are flowing, and I look forward to chatting with you guys in the comments about anything at all. For all the folks out there who have supported Cerberus by buying Cerberus Rising (linked earlier in this post), THANK YOU! If you’ve read it, please consider going to Amazon and leaving a review. Good, bad, ‘meh’, doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t have to be long, just a few words, a couple of sentences will do it. It really helps and we really appreciate you!

Take care, you fine folks, and never stop reading.

Chris Miller—9-12-2020

Cerberus in The Panic Room (and more)!!!

fiction, horror, publishing, reading, updates, writing

Cerberus howled Thursday night with Xtina Marie and James Longmore, talking about our new book of nine novelettes, Cerberus Rising. It was a total blast, as always, being on with these great folks, and if you missed it, you need to unscrew that in your life and take a gander (with your ears) right here.

In other news, I’ve made some good progress on my novella,Waking Up the Devil. It’s a dark noir story with lots of action and loads of suspense, and it’s going to be in my upcoming collection of short fiction (if you liked my short novel, The Hard Goodbye , you’ll love this one). I’m still trying to decide the title for the collection and it’s down to two possibilities, and it also hinges on whether one of the stories will be in this collection or not. I submitted one I’m really proud of to an upcoming anthology that got put on hold due to the pandemic, and it’s still in limbo. It’s a little long for the call at 11.5K words, but they loved the story and are still kicking around whether to include it or not. If it does not go in that collection, I’ll use it as the title, which will be A Magnificent View: and other perspectives. I really like that title and feel it really grasps the breadth and variety this collection contains. However, if they decide to take it and that story isn’t in my collection, I’ll title it Waking Up The Devil: and other mistakes. I love that title too, but just a little less than the first. We’ll see, but either way, the collection is going well and I can’t wait to see it out in the world. Most of the stories will be brand new, also, so if you’ve been following me for a while and checking out the anthologies I’m in, you won’t have a bunch of ground to reread, which is cool. At least I think so. I hate getting a new collection only to find I’ve already read most or all of the stories elsewhere at some point, so I’ve spent months writing shorts and novelettes and working on this novella to offer something that is almost 100% new fiction. I’m hoping to see it published in 2021. I’ve already pitched the book to a publisher, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

I’m curious about something and hope you guys will reply here on the blog or email me here with a ‘yay’ or ‘nay’. I said last week I want to make this my central hub eventually where people can keep up with and interact with me. So, I was considering doing a flash fiction story here maybe once a month. Nothing big or fancy, just 500-1500 words or so. They’re fun to write and—more importantly—I can write those in just a little bit of time and still have plenty to work on my longer stuff. Is that something that would interest folks here? Again, please let me know, and feel free to make other suggestions as well.

Speaking of flash fiction, there’s a new anthology of drabbles and flash fiction coming out next month called DARK HALLOWEEN. This will the the fifth and (I think) final book of the Dark Holiday series from Macabre Ladies, presented by Eleanor Merry. Eleanor has put together some great books through the last year, both her own work and in the anthologies she’s been assembling with Cassie Angler, and I’ve been privileged to be included in them. For this outing, I did something fun: I made a little trilogy of flash stories (about 500 words each), depicting an event I’m confident everyone will recognize, but from three perspectives you’ve never seen it from before. When you folks read it, I think you’ll chuckle and have fun, and maybe even get a shiver or two up your spine.

Anyway, that’s about all that’s happening right now. At least all I can think of at the moment (it’s 7:23am and I’ve been up for an hour, working on my second cup of coffee). I won’t keep you any longer, but do make sure you subscribe to my blog here so you get these updates. I’m still working out how to relaunch my Newsletter (which you can subscribe to here on my website), but for now, you can get most of the same info right here, so sign up.

Thanks for stopping by, folks, and remember…never stop reading.

Chris Miller—9-5-2020