Summer’s End

Adventures / Author Appearances / Barnesville Chronicles / Book Signing / Gothic Fiction / Motorcycles & me / No Rest For The Wicked / Vampires / Writer's Life

Summer turns to Fall in the wee hours of tomorrow morning.  Yesterday we did some spiedies and fresh garden squash on the grill. What the hell are ‘spiedies’? I hear the non-locals reading this say. It’s our regional culinary claim to fame. Tip: If someone is trying to pass this delight off served on a roll with toppings like lettuce and/or cheese, it ain’t a spiedie.  A slice of Italian bread, maybe a touch of butter, meat. That’s it! Don’t mess with it! Today, Jim fired up the smoker and tossed a big ole slab of pork ribs on the grate. Six hours later – meat candy! Add some macaroni salad, beans, and watermelon and that says Summer!

The Harley roared to life this afternoon, too. It didn’t leave the garage, but still … it’s the first time I’ve heard it since we wrecked in mid-July. I have to say, it made me tear up a little bit, that sound, the feel, the smell. She, like us, has taken a lickin’ but keeps on tickin’. If there were any doubts in my mind about getting back on once the old girl is fixed, hearing that rumble shoved them all away.

A shame Summer is over with so fast, but you can’t stop the march of time and despite not accomplishing all that we had planned, there were some positives!

I read some awesome books! Andy Davidson’s novel In The Valley of the Sun takes top billing! As a long-time fan of vampire fiction, this book simply blew me away! It’s going to take something phenomenal to bump it from my #1 spot of the year – including Stephen King’s The Outsider that I finished up a couple weeks back. Sorry, Steve! You’re good, but Andy’s got you beat this year. I also laid my eyeballs on some Sci-Fiction I really enjoyed with Eight Minutes, Thirty-Two Seconds by Peter Adam Salomon and top honorable mention to W. Sheridan Bradford’s debut novel, the literary Horror title All Hallows. I’ll be finishing Hunter Shea’s latest release Ghost Mine this week, too. Thank God for great summer reads to push aside the aches, pains and boredom of the past three months or so.

We were able to get No Rest For The Wicked re-released after a brief hiatus. That felt good. I really hated having the book down and unavailable even if it was only for a couple of months. I expect to finish the first draft of my Texas Gothic Horror – The Inheritance by the end of this week. YAY!

I also did some paintings. Just as our trip last November to Terlingua, TX to be part of their Day of the Dead celebration was an inspiration for writing The Inheritance, it also inspired some art work in the form of four 8X10 paintings, El Cuervo, El Gato, El Lobo, and El Lagardo – The Crow, The Cat, The Wolf, and The Lizard. I’ve already done some prints for the first two, but haven’t managed to get the second two that far. Still – it’s been nice to have a paint brush in my hand again – and I don’t mean painting the house. That’s another story all together that I really don’t want to talk about.

Several things loom large for the Fall season, like book signing events! First one is coming up October 4th and 5th in Oneonta NY at the Horror-SciFi Festival. It will be my first convention. I’m super excited as well as a bit nervous. Maybe a bit more now that I won’t physically be up to speed. I still have a broken collar bone and a lot of pain so, it’s going to be a huge challenge. The second signing will happen a month later on November 1st in Owego NY at Riverow Bookshop as part of the village’s First Friday event. A lot closer to home and a lot less stressful. Those are the positives.

The negatives will see Jim getting surgery for his separated right shoulder on October 11. I’ll be taking a week off work to take care of him as best I can. Six weeks later, I go under the knife to get my collar bone put back together by way of pins and screws. It’s going to be a very rough fall and into the holidays for us. Sorry, family – Mom won’t be making Thanksgiving Dinner this year! Hopefully, this will be the beginning of the end of all this pain and suffering. Recovery, recovery, and more recovery.

New short story ideas have popped up here and there. I might go back to writing a Barnesville Chronicle I got overwhelmed with last year or work on re-writes for another title while I’m out (again) from the day job. Plenty of things to do that aren’t all that pressing in my mind right now, but will keep me from going too stir-crazy – I hope.

What I Didn’t Want To Do On My Summer Vacation

Greetings, All –

It’s been far too long since I made a blog posting, almost a month! Yikes! I have a really, really good reason, though.

On July 13th my husband and I took part in the 11th Annual Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway of Valor Tribute Ride – phew, that’s a mouthful!  Anyway, it’s a 100 mile motorcycle ride that runs the length of Route 38 from Owego NY – Hannibal NY.  We had a great ride up. This was our first time and I was so surprised at how many spectators there were along the route, town after town. There were families sitting in lawn chairs, people waving American flags, and color guard units stationed at attention as hundreds of motorcycle road through. At the end of the ride was food, music, beer, and a few vendors. The weather had been perfect all the way and promised to be fine for the ride home.

A stop in Groton for food, drinks, and a good leg stretch.

At around 4:00, we decided to head back home.  At around 4:30 – all that came to a crashing halt, literally. I heard my husband shout, “Shit! A stop sign!” and felt the bike shift and heard the squeal of brakes. Next thing I knew, I’m apparently in the middle of the road on my back. I hear someone say something about calling 911. Sirens follow. A woman’s voice says, “I’m an EMT.”  I asked about my husband; is he okay? I’m told he is and that he’s in an ambulance behind us.

Instead of that day’s journey ending back home in our own garage, it ends with us at Upstate Medical in Syracuse. Broken bones, dislocated joints, a concussion, lots and lots of pretty bad road rash which, even after almost 2 months, we can still see traces of. We stayed with my parents for a week after my discharge on July 17th. I’ve yet to return to work. That happens next week. So much for all those summer plans.

Welcome To Upstate Medical’s Trauma Ward.

On the bright side, we’re alive! We’re banged up. We’re still in pain. There’s a least one surgery to be had before the year’s it out, but WE ARE ALIVE. And we will ride again… but likely not this year. The bike can be fixed but its repair is low the list of things to pay for right now.

For almost a week, sitting at a computer wasn’t even possible. Eventually, I was able to sit up and  check my emails, Facebook, and Twitter, but only for short periods, an hour, maybe two, tops. Most of the time was spent sleeping, watching TV, waiting for the magic hour to take more pain pills, figuring out how the hell to take a shower with only one good arm while the other side of my body throbbed and shrieked in pain, and stopping everything when the room started to tip and spin from the concussion.

It still took at least another couple of weeks before I could sit at the computer long enough to even consider writing fiction. My brain wasn’t ready, quite honestly. I’d had a blog post written up for awhile and then seemed the perfect time to post it. Vanishing for who knows how long didn’t seem like a good idea. Eventually, however, fiction writing started to happen. Ideas came trickling in. My first try was only a couple hundred words, but it was progress. Progress beget progress and now I see light at the end of the tunnel. Another first draft is almost done.

On one hand, I want to get back to work, the day-job. I miss having people to talk to and interact with throughout the day. Plus, I’m running out of medical leave to supplement disability leave so I can draw a full paycheck! I hope I am able to do my job when I get there. Parts will be pretty difficult and I’m going to have to find alternative methods for sure.

On the other hand, I’ve liked having all this time to write and do other things. The only problem with that is there’s still so much pain and limited mobility in my left arm and shoulder. It’s hard to have fun when your body keeps saying, “Oh no you don’t!”

So – what other than writing have I been up to these past almost eight weeks now?

 I got the rights back to “No Rest For The Wicked” a couple weeks before the accident and we were able to get a new cover designed and the whole things reformatted recently. You can find links to this beauty below.

I’ve been reading Stephen King’s “The Outsider” which is totally awesome! Murder-mystery meets Horror. Right up my alley.

We also celebrated our 3rd Wedding Anniversary on August 27th with dinner out to Texas Roadhouse.

Our Wedding Day – August 27, 2019

Last but not least, I was recently interviewed by Sue Rovens of Plump Toad Press. https://suerovens.com/meet-greet-author-q-as/

There you have it, a rather unconventional version of What I Did On My Summer Vacation. Let’s hope and pray next year’s plans are a whole lot LESS painful and a whole lot MORE enjoyable.

How was your summer?

Behind The Bedroom Door

Erotica / Horror / No Rest For The Wicked / Women In Horror

Ten years ago my writing career began. It wasn’t the sort I’d been dreaming of for as long as I could remember, but we all have to start somewhere and I was willing to put my toe into the water in places I’d never trod before, let alone swam.

In 2004 I completed writing the manuscript that would eventually become my first published novel. Contrary to what most people out there think, it was not “Blood of the Scarecrow” which was released just over a year ago. No, this little gem was called “Love In Chains” and would eventually find a home in Michigan with established erotica publishers, Pink Flamingo Publications (NSFW) in 2006. As you can imagine, I was pretty nervous about the whole thing. What would people think? What would my parents think? Egads! What had I agreed to? At the time I was using a nom de plume and it seemed a godsend. Like Anne Rice with her Beauty Series, I could get published without anyone knowing it was me. Considering the genre that’s exactly what I wanted. One thing led to another and by 2010 I had five titles under Pink Flamingo’s wing.

The reactions of family and friends weren’t as horrified as I’d thought they would be, but I have still kept it very quiet. I think the main reason is because I truly believe that what goes on in the bedrooms of consenting couples belongs there and is nobody’s business but those involved. I also kept thinking that because of the nature of the books, people would be under the impression I was an avid practitioner. On some level, I was, but certainly not to the extremes presented in the book. Everything I write involves an amount of research. It has to, to be believable to the readers.

I posted a disclaimer on my Facebook awhile back in regards to my writing, about the supernatural topics and strange research tangents I’ve gone on for the murder-mystery-thrillers. Yes, I read about serial killers. I’m well-versed in vampires, witchcraft, and ancient alien theory. I enjoy reading about encounters with the various forms of Bigfoot. It just so happens, crazy as it may sound, I enjoy sex, too. In fact, in high school I read A LOT of vampire novels – dozens and dozens of them. Why? Because I liked to be frightened? Hell, no! Those books were ripe with sexual encounters and I was a very healthy and curious teenager. Just because I learn about a topic does not mean I practice it to the full and sometimes outlandish extents others may enjoy. And ya know what… it’s true. Sex Sells. In fact, my fifth and final title with PF (Bound To Be Bitten) is a vampire-erotica based storyline.

I’ve not struck it rich like the author of “Shades of Gray”, though I’m told by people who have read my work as well as that one that mine is better. I wouldn’t know. I’ve not read “Shades of Gray” and have no plans to do so. As far as I am concerned my erotica writing days are over and I want to focus on my real passion and first true love – horror.

So, why am I bringing this topic up at all? Well – Last fall I was contacted by one of Pink Flamingos editors and was asked if I’d be interested in doing a re-release of three books as a trilogy. I accepted. Over the past six months I have been re-writing and editing all three books, selecting new titles and choosing new cover art. They are historically-based stories set between the years 1859-1865 in Virginia and France. Not exactly a quiet time period for the United States.

Book #1 “The Virgin of Greenbrier”
Book #2 “The Mistress of Greenbrier”
Book #3 “Mistress For Sale”

These Are Erotica Titles. The situations and imagery in them are portrayed graphically and are not for the sexually timid or prudish. They are what they are, a phase of my writing where I learned to hone my craft in the ways that were made available to me. My pen-name will remain in place with them as a way to differentiate them from what I am currently working on and wish to do. There are no plans to write new erotica but I could not pass up the chance to re-release this set when asked.

There is no release date as of this writing, but I hope to have one soon. As far as I know, they will be available as singles, too, but a discount will be employed if the whole set is purchased at once. Both paperbacks and eBooks will be available.

If you want more immediate news on this venture and all my other Writerly Shenanigans, please visit and LIKE! me on my Pamela Morris Facebook page. As soon as the Greenbrier Trilogy is available my website will be updated as well.