Off to a roaring start

It is officially six days into October, and although the day is not yet over I really don't expect anything in my mailbox today. Yesterday I did receive my first rejection of the month. It was nice polite and to the point. It was also from Hobart for my story Open Graves which, despite its title, is a literary piece with absolutely nothing supernatural about it. I still like the story and will continue to try to find a nice home for it.

Now despite what I told myself about reading My Side of the Mountain I am reading a Robert Bloch pulp about a one eyed private eye trying to solve a murder in Hollywood from Hard Case Crime. Can't remember the name of the story but if I were to walk across my house and look on my nightstand I could tell you.

Hope everyone's weekend went well. Mine did, got a lot of stuff done around the house, installing lights and trim around windows. Changing oil. All good stuff. not any writing though. That should change today.

Looking for work?

I don't know how other writers work. I don't really know how my own mind works (rarely, is what my wife would tell me) but I watched the creepy little movie that is linked to on The Poison Apple blog today (Thanks Cate!) and it inspired me. I have wanted to write a screenplay for awhile. I have studied the form and know most of the language. I often watch movies and try to 'write' (in my head) a story that would follow the movie. Often times my mind can come up with a better story than the movie but sometimes the screenplay is actually better than any story I can come up with. This movie was one of those times. It's not often that I will intentionally try to start a story specifically for a market either. I try to find a market after I write the story. I don't know what everyone else does but as long as you are getting published, who cares.

I don't know if it has to do with the richness or sparsity of the scene and setting or the actor(tress) that is playing the roles, but some things are actually better left to the screenplay form. The short little movie was borderline genius and I encourage everyone to watch it ALL THE WAY TO THE END.

I mentioned in my post that it reminded me of something that Robert Bloch would do. Now Bloch has been dead since the early 90's and is probably best known for his work on the Hitchcock movie Psycho but his short stories (very hard to come by) were masterful in their suspense. He had several collections of short stories, put out in the 60's after he became known as the Psycho guy, that would honestly put Stephen King to shame, and I like Kings short stories.

Anyway, the only Bloch book out there right now is a paperback from Hard Case Crime books that is a two-fer in the pulp category, if you are interested you should check it out. They are good reads.

This post has rambled on long enough. Anyone else have a favorite obscure short story writer out there? Please let me know.