As you know, the writing lair is a cluttered place these days with lots of WIPs in various stages of development. I’m ecstatic about this.

Listen carefully. You might hear her... — Listen carefully. You might hear her…

It seems that I’m at my best and most content when I’ve got many irons in the fire and various levels of creative victory and frustration to drive me. Of the new books, THE WEEPING is closest to being fully drafted. That doesn’t mean done, of course – only that a first draft will be on my desk in the near future.

THE WEEPING has been in development for over a year. The first inkling of the story probably came while hunting for la llorona as a little boy.

La Llorona was a very bad, quick tempered woman. She was the kind of crazy that therapy and medication just can’t fix.

Motivated solely by her own needs and desires, she drowned her children, a boy and a girl, in a river. Upon her death, she was sentenced to wander the riverbank and look for her children. She hasn’t found them and on a cold night you might hear her wailing as she looks for her little darlings. Unfortunately, she remains a vile presence in the afterlife (some folks never change) and should she run across you, she’ll drown you, too.

All good Mexican mothers tell the la llorona story to their kids.

It supposed to keep them from venturing too close to the river at night. The story does the opposite and most boys are compelled to investigate. (Courage comes easy to a boy protected by his older cousins.) So I have fond memories of full moons and the smell of the river as the la llorona hunts dragged on. Unfortunately, none of the good memories made it into the story. (Maybe they’ll get their own story someday. We’ll see.)

I’ve put my own spin on the legend in THE WEEPING. The legend already varies from locale to locale (a couple of versions can be found here) and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to muddy the waters with a new twist. We’ll see. Anyway, I’m pushing hard to finish this one and send it to my editor by the end of the year and publish early 2014. So that means that the next book to hit Amazon will be…

I mean…

ZOIE

Some of you might remember that Sinister, a story about a boy and a guitar with a dark history, was written here at this blog. A new chapter went live every Sunday night for a long time. During that time a bad movie came out with the same title. And who wants to have a book out that’s automatically associated with a bad movie? Not me. Books take a long time to write and it’s only fair that they get an honest shot at being read. So…

The story’s new title is ZOIE. If you read the online version, I think you’ll like the changes. If it’s completely new to you, I’m pretty sure you’ll never look at a kid playing guitar quite the same way… More on that later. Don’t forget to check in the closet tonight and make sure it’s locked before turning out the lights. Connect with me on Facebook for live updates. See you there. LL

In my reckless days I used to start writing a book the second the idea entered my head.

As time went by (and the stack of failed manuscripts grew taller) I realized that ideas were more like bullets than stories, so I began planning the work ahead. Now I don’t write a word until I’ve got the important parts down on paper. It’s a good way of doing things, at least for me, and essentially it means that the frustration comes a lot earlier in the process than it used to. Right now, I’m in the middle of plotting a bunch of new projects and some are more frustrating than others.

The first is about a boy growing up in a funeral home.

This kid lives with his aunt, uncle and cousin Six Feet Under style and he’s dealing with some serious emotional issues. Many of his internal struggles stem from the incident that ended his childhood and left him feeling orphaned. (Sound a little like Luke Merrill, the lead in TiDP, right? Maybe, but this kid’s older than Luke Merrill and both of his parents are alive. Luke’s baggage is grounded in a distant father and this kid’s has more to do with bloodstains, the kind that never wash away…)

Anyway, the boy’s problems escalate when he finds a bloody kid wandering through Torinton’s Fairview Cemetery and from that moment the ride is on. I can’t give the story away, so let’s just say that death doesn’t always sneak up on us. Sometimes, the grim reaper gives us advanced notice of his arrival…

This story is coming together bit by bit. One of the challenging parts is creating the home environment, growing up in an old school funeral home, in a way that fits a horror story yet presents the death-care business in a respectful manner. Having stood at the graves of loved ones, I know that funeral directors provide an extremely important service. No doubt, it’s an immensely difficult job at time. It would be a disservice to the profession and this story to utilize only the gruesome elements of the work. Don’t you agree?

More on this story and the others later, I’m sure you’ve got some good books to get to. Thank you for listening. LL

Mexican Legends & Old Guitars