Hello. Please meet the reason I haven’t blogged in a while. His name is Wilson. He’s one heck of a scientist, he hates sports and spiders, and he can beat up a giant tree monster in under 3 minutes with a spear he crafted from junk he picked up in the woods. When I went through my burnout a couple of years ago I decided I needed something that wasn’t book-related to occupy my time, something completely immersive, and so I bought a PlayStation. It works a little too well. I wake up in the morning and as I’m making my coffee, I worry Wilson and his magnificent hair will get violently murdered by a giant bird if I don’t make him another football helmet. Still, it’s giving me the balance I refused to give myself once upon a time.
And yet somehow I’m still producing things. I commented to a fellow writer recently that I’m so used to banging out books on a monthly basis that it’s hard to undo the manic conditioning that says I’m not doing anything, but I’ve actually done a bit in the last little while.
The Coldest December was released late last year from Quarter Castle Publishing. This fiction anthology was put together by Diane Tibert to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the Halifax Explosion, which happened on December 6. Those who have read my story, Shadows May Fall, on Wattpad are already familiar with this event. The anthology includes my story “Big Ramblin Mike,” about a father trying to care for his children after the explosion and doing the right thing in the face of chaos. I’m really proud of this story and really happy it made it into this anthology. You can pick it up in all formats at Smashwords, and the paperback is available to order from Amazon.
Speaking of explosion literature, I’m still writing How Dark The World, which is a Shadows May Fall story from Robbie’s perspective. It was supposed to be a straight-up story spanning two years of Robbie’s perspective and much, much shorter – I even had someone lined up to read my supposed 4000 word story as an audio file, but for some reason I got another idea in my head and now it involves some flashback chapters told from the perspective of Daniel and Lillian. I don’t know why it turned out that way. I just felt like they had voices as well at some point and the need to show they weren’t always the hard cases you see in Shadows My Fall. There are about three chapters left to go before this wraps up as a novella.
What’s old is new: my first novella, erotic romance The Company of Fools has been released back into the wild with the eventual closure of Loose Id. You can read it for free at Tablo. It’s been re-released as A.M. Hartnett to match up with my other adult works. My other book with Loose Id will be released sometime this year. If you like smutty writing, you can visit I Write Smutty Things to check out a ton of books and anthologies with my name between the pages. I’ve got a couple of projects on the go for A.M. Hartnett (no new writing just yet) and eventually this one will be paired with Loose Ends for a print edition.
Finally, I’ve had another story featured on The No Sleep Podcast. What They Deserved appears on episode 8 of the current season. Absolutely brilliant voice-acting by Mary Murphy here as Christine, an old woman recounting her colourful (as in blood-red and brain matter-grey) past to the listener. Produced by Phil Michalski, this audio adaptation also features Dan Zappulla as Andrew, Jesse Cornett as Richie, Atticus Jackson as Clifford, Erika Sanderson as Mary, and David Cummings as Officer Haynes. Major round of applause to all involved, including Brandon Boone, whose soundtrack always becomes its own character.
Now, back to Wilson and his magnificent hair.
Annemarie Hartnett 