A New World of Horror...and Smelling Salts

   This is sort of a re-post of stuff I had on my Cover Reveal party for Ambulatory Cadavers. It introduces the world of Monezuela were the book takes place.

   Ambulatory Cadavers is my new horror comedy novella, coming October 31!
   Blurb:
   Two cousins. One on the verge of a great discovery—and excessive power, wealth, and infamy—the other on the verge of an odious marriage.

Lyra will stop at nothing to achieve her father’s dream of dissolving Parliament into so much anatomical sludge, searching out the farthest reaches of science and the arcane arts. Until her own dreams begin to awaken, jolted by the electric sparkle of an artist’s eyes.

Alice’s worst nightmares begin to awaken as great expectations weigh upon her and her answer to a very important question is awaited. Lacking a strong constitution, Alice can only run from her problems—until she runs into a strange young man of questionable occupation and discovers her cousin’s terrible plans.

The dead are about to rise, the Lords are about to fall, and things are about to get creamy. And high society will never be the same again.

   Bamberg…the ripest nest of vipers in all Monezuela. In all the world, in fact. I created Bamberg as the setting of my own barber tragedy after watching Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It became the home of many wild tales of darkness and crime. And ridiculously foolish and fashion-prone individuals. I knew that someday I would write about this place, this notorious city and the country of which it is capital: a land without a continent, an un-sunk Atlantis. I did not know that this day would come so soon.

   Bamberg was just waiting to have a story slapped down in its winding streets and catacombs and slums and elaborate parks. So where else could I put the walking dead when they came ambulating across my laptop screen?

   I actually already have an unpublished story lurking around somewhere that was meant to be set in Bamberg, but I don’t think I use the name. At any rate, I think Ambulatory Cadavers is a much better introduction into this comical hive of wickedness. It will ease us gently into this world, a world that really was still somewhat undefined and foggy. We will spend quite a bit of time out in the countryside near the city before diving into the streets and the bloodshed that will ensue.

   Are you ready to follow me into Monezuela and Bamberg? Keep a close eye on your pocket book, your china, your unmentionables and your relatives.

   Review of Ambulatory Cadavers by Mr. Harold B. Farthingale for the Bamberg Daily Discharge

   This is a highly disgusting work of fiction. Hysterical and lewd, it depicts obscene violence in a cavalier manner and plays with words as if they were of no consequence. The characters display little or no remorse for their hideous actions and fall in love with unrealistic candidates. This is sure to give impressionable young people a distorted outlook on life and morals and fill their heads with complete nonsense. 

   Furthermore, blue kissing is metaphorically described in vivid detail and decapitation is portrayed with gruesome and callous abandon. This type of sensational writing is neither skillful nor of remote value. It is frivolous and wicked and should not be purchased, borrowed or hidden beneath stockings in bureau drawers

An InLinkz Link-up

Welcome to #OctoberFrights!

Hello, hello, hello

Welcome to #OctoberFrights 2016! This is just a little introductory post, I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare, but I have some cool things coming later this week, so stay tuned. Also, check out the awesome blogs at the bottom of this post, many of them have cool stuff up already.
A little about me:
I had my first novel published when I was nineteen, in 2014. So far there are two books in my steampunk mythology series, the Weather Casters’ Saga. Both are on sale this month for 99 cents on amazon. A Hole in the Ice, Book 1 and A Hole in the Sea, Book 2. The children’s magazine, Boy’s Quest, will be publishing a non-fiction article by me this December.
But most importantly, my horror-comedy-zombie-romance is coming out this Halloween! Ambulatory Cadavers is the story of two cousins, a plot to destroy parliament, an artist and medium, and … the walking dead. Tomorrow you can find out more about the setting, and the next day, I’ll show you some of the character art (with a giveaway!). In the meantime, if you wish, you can read an excerpt here.
I wanted to write some flash fiction, but I ran out of time. I might be able to squeeze in a film review to go with the Blu-ray I'll be giving away.

And, of course check out the blogs below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Ambulatory Cadavers Excerpt

Chapter Three: In Which Lyra’s Diabolical Plans Are Thwarted

Lyra hated company. One had to get up so god-awful early. The Duke of Hopenheim was always very strict about traditional Monezuelan breakfast, even though fashionable society had begun to adopt the British form of breaking the fast in a much less formal manner. The Duke of Hopenheim liked to have everyone together in the mornings so he could glare at them all in turn and tell them what he thought they ought to do with their lives. And he insisted upon dress.

Afraid of Alice’s quaint way of looking much too sprightly in the mornings, Lyra rose especially early to make absolute certain that her barmy cousin didn’t outdo her. She had to rouse her lady’s maid from an apparent binge sleep-off and wasted a good ten minutes getting Bridgette out of bed and then thirty to get her hair satisfactorily tamed into an acceptable arrangement of curls and topknot. Perhaps she should just get a Titus cut, it would be less trouble.

After much deliberation and very little input from the sluggish maid, Lyra decided on a cream chiffon and silk gown. Then she realized a bit of ribbon needed sewing back on and dresses and pearls and bonnets and shoes and parasols hurricaned around the room.

Lyra grudgingly slipped into a pale blue muslin gown and tripped down to breakfast late. Lyra stopped on the thresh-hold. The breakfast room was empty save for the butler.

“What’s the meaning of this, Jeebie?”

“Miss?”

“I haven’t missed breakfast, have I?” Lyra asked, suddenly greatly afraid. “Did Leroux make my favorite?” She always missed breakfast when Leroux made her favorite.

“No, miss,” Jeebie said, pulling out a chair.

“No to which?”

“You have not missed breakfast, but neither has Leroux made your favorite.”

Lyra sighed. When would things work out in her favor? She glanced down at her gown. All this carefulness for nothing. She strode into the room and took her seat.

“Where is Alice? And Papa?”

“Still asleep, m’lady,” Jeebie said, placing a plate before her.

“Ah, well, let them miss out, I say,” Lyra said. She tucked in with enthusiasm. More enthusiasm than was generally considered proper for a young lady, but no one was at breakfast, so she excused herself. “More sausage,” she demanded.

Lyra was halfway through her indecorous seconds when Alice arrived. Lyra swallowed rapidly, nearly choking, and assumed a more polite eating rhythm. She glowered at Alice’s lustrous hair, perfectly arranged with little flowers of silk. Her porcelain complexion, humongous blue eyes, sweet as a baby’s, and adorable little nose and mouth always made Lyra furious.

“Good morning, Alice,” Lyra said. “I thought you’d never come!”

“So did I,” Alice said resignedly, “but I got so hungry. Is…uncle here?” Alice looked around fearfully.

Lyra rolled her eyes. “Yes, he’s invisible,” she said sardonically.

Alice started and gasped quietly. “He is?”

“No, you twit,” Lyra scoffed, silently praying for the chandelier to fall on her head.

“Oh,” Alice said, her voice heavy with relief. “Is he not coming down to breakfast?” she asked hopefully.

“I hope not,” Lyra said.

Alice smiled tentatively. Or maybe not, it was hard to tell since Alice seemed to do everything tentatively. Even sitting down. Alice sat down tentatively and began to tentatively taste her breakfast. Hungry indeed. She must have slept in late to recover from Aunt Elizabeth’s tirade. That must be what was keeping Papa in bed as well.

“I hear you have a proposal,” Lyra said innocently. Alice cringed. “Rupert Winkle, the Earl of Chornby.”

“He did propose to me,” Alice confirmed tentatively. Lyra silently applauded her; the girl was an artist of the oxymoronic.

“You could do worse,” Lyra said.

“Not much worse, I should guess,” Alice responded. Lyra was shocked. The girl actually had fight in her.

“He is a hideous old sack of vitriol,” Lyra said, “but he could be a hideous old sack of vitriol without a title.”

“I could give him many titles,” Alice mumbled.

“What did you say?” Lyra asked, leaning forward.

“Nothing,” Alice said, turning a lovely shade of scarlet. Lyra was astounded.

“What kind of titles?”

“I shouldn’t,” Alice said, “he really hasn’t done me any wrong other than ask for my hand whilst holding such prestige and titles and an unfortunate lack of the delightful in his personality.”

“He strikes me as a wife beater,” Lyra said.

“No!” gasped Alice. “I mean, surely not. He seems more like the kind who might stay away for long periods of blissful time.” A hopeful look came across her face.

“So you’re giving up?” Lyra asked, on one hand disappointed in what she had thought was a new and braver Alice, and on the other delighted that she would soon be leaving.

“I didn’t say that,” Alice said. “I started out to defend his character and found myself on a road I did not want to be on.”

“That’s what happens when you defend characters undeserving of kindness and friendship.”

“That’s very uncharitable,” Alice admonished.

“Charity,” Lyra said disparagingly, “what a useless scrap of rubbish.”

“’And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins’” Alice said.

“Jeebie!” Lyra called. “Bring me the newspaper, she’s quoting scripture!”

Jeebie brought her a freshly cut and ironed paper and vanished back into the shadows. Butlers, supernatural creatures of darkness. It was like having a djinn. She flipped through the paper, making sure to hold it forbiddingly between her and Alice.

Distracted by Art and Upcoming Newsletter!

My writing has been neglected this month as I've been following the #artitupwithfriends daily drawing challenge theme list for June on Instagram (hosted by @pabkins and @badaliceshop). It's been fun to stretch my drawing (and painting) muscles.
Here are several drawings. The themes were Danse Macabre, Black, and Under the Bed. Follow my Instagram @mccallumjmorgan for more!

I'm also working in releasing a (hopefully) monthly newsletter, the first issue of which is going out in July. If you want the inside scoop on upcoming projects, sign up below! It's going to be a blast. I plan to have a new character portrait from Weather Casters Book Three each month, starting with the Duchess of Nachdenklich and hoepfully later on, I'll be able to organize some book recommendations and spotlights. Who knows what I'll stick in there.
Newsletter Sign Up

Cover Reveal for 'Stay, If Only for Tomorrow' by Hazel Robinson

Cover reveal for

Stay, If Only for TomorrowBy Hazel Robinson

An upper YA Contemporary Romance novella by Hazel Robinson.

Release date – July 2016

Published by – Little Bird Publishing House

Cover design by -  STAR Graphics and Creations

Cole has one summer to turn his life around but he makes one mistake, falling for the girl next door.

Now his desire is out of control and he can't avoid her anymore.

Can Darcy calm the man he is trying to hide or will her new found rebelliousness be the catalyst to his flame?

Join in the party with guest appearances and giveaways

Facebook Party

To celebrate this amazing cover reveal we Something Missing will be free to download on Amazon!

Of Earth and Sky

   Ok, here goes...I asked for input on what to post here on M'Habla's! and someone said: poetry. I AM NOT A POET! I never learned the ins and outs of poetry and only very recently figured out the whole syllable thing. Anyway, I do like to take a whack at it from time to time, mainly as a side thing in my books. For instance, the poem on the Chart in A Hole in the Ice, and of course the old prophecy trope.

   I took a trip to Arizona earlier this year and flying always inspires me. I'm way up in the sky, looking down on the strangeness of distant earth and I wax poetic. I remember writing poetry in the sky when I went to New Jersey a few years ago and I had to break out the pen again this time. I wrote about half of 'From Heaven' and a few lines of 'Little Bauble' as impressions from an airplane. So here they are, two little fragments of thought that were written in the sky.

FROM HEAVEN

Little ripples wander ‘oer and yon,

Crease the folds of earth and frowning stone,

Rising suddenly, falling they’re gone,

Stretched out below like a spinal bone,

Distant tableau, set as a table,

I long to taste the fine things beneath,

To eat, if only I were able,

To crush the red rocks between my teeth.

From Heaven, this disk is desolate,

Only the stones. Where are the fountains?

I look around me, the clouds are wet,

I let my gaze fall to the mountains,

Where Heaven shed her frosty white tears,

Where black chasms deep, I see it all,

Tis mine forever, throughout all years,

If I let go, if I jump and fall.

LITTLE BAUBLE

Living thing, yet dead,

Full of life and full of death,

I see your veins, your bones, your spine.

Unbelonging, free, yet you’re mine.

You stretch forever,

Spherical and cubicle,

You draw a veil across your face.

One of millions, the only place.

A little bauble,

Unimportant, essential,

War on your face, endless squabble,

Glittering and consequential.

Alien Jungles

   Sometimes, writing feels like an alien compulsion; the words well up from within, unstoppable. They will be put down on paper, and they will do it now, regardless of what you want.
   The story is an extraterrestrial entity, taking possession of your body in order to express itself. 

   And other times...You battle onward, abandoned by your infernal Muse to hack through a dangerous jungle on your own. You keep going because you can't just leave that story out there in those wastes. It may have abandoned you, but you will never abandon it. Once you have tasted madness, you will never go back.
   Why?
   Why seems an irrelevant question. To those who know, it does not matter why. It only matters when. When can I do it again? It's that 'sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring' (Annie Dillard, The Writing Life). It's a frantic waltz with the sublime.
   The imagination bubbles and simmers, taking things in, eye of newt and toe of frog, boiling them, changing them. The imagination is a witch's cauldron, frothed by the flames of the senses, stirred by the mundane, the mystical, and the beautiful in life. And it is fraught with peril.
   You have gone out into the fetid coiling vines, the nest of vipers and of bird eating spiders. You are unarmed, unprotected.
   "I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams." (William Butler Yeats, He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven ). You are exposing your soul when the reader opens your pages.

   It is a danger worth risking, a peril both terrifying and delightful. What kind of alien entity is controlling you? You suspect it is not a terrible black chitinous endoparasitoid. You suspect it is more of an ethereal silvery exctoparasitoid that only occupies you briefly as a cocoon and then develops fully outside of you, a papery butterfly covered in colorful wings and filled with magic.

   Metaphors can be dangerous, especially when mixed. Ravenous mongrels, those.

   Be careful, be wary. The jungle is deep. The way is difficult but the rewards are bountiful.

                                                                     *

   

      I was supposed to talk about what inspired me to write, but I got sidetracked into a metaphorical murmuring. I can't really nail down where my inspiration comes from. As I've indicated above, it seems a very myriad source. I am often inspired by very vague mysteries, an image, a sound that holds a feeling, theme, or certain psychological sensation. Visuals especially. I can watch a film and be captured by a single shot, inspired by the possibilities of one image. I'm always inspired by other books. Little fragments here and there break off of material I read, see, or listen to and collect inside me. The writer is not only a cocoon but a fertile field where seeds are sown and grow into wild new hybrids. Ravenous mongrels. The fields become wild again, jungles.. Bountiful jungles.