Lori Michelle's Blog

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So, in order to jumpstart my lousy writing lately, I have joined Jessica McHugh’s challenge of writing one short story a week.  Some of them I will post here, some of them I may not (I have to have some to publish!) If nothing else, I will post the title of the work I have done.

In this challenge, I join not only Jessica McHugh, but also Jay Wilburn, April Hawks, Cina Pelayo, Armand Rosamilia, and a whole bunch of other writers.  Make sure you check back every week to see how I am progressing. I need all the cheerleading I can get

I was featured the other day on the Horror Writers Association Blog and just now have had a chance to post about it! Make sure you check it out.  Not only do you have a chance to win a digital copy of Bleed on the HWA site, but a chance to win on this site too.  If you share the HWA article on FaceBook and then let me know, I will put your name into a hat and draw!

http://www.horror.org/blog/halloween-...

So I know, I joined coffin hop to wow everyone with my awesomeness. But so far, that hasn’t happened.

Let me explain this last weekend. Max Booth III and I did the Alamo City Comic Con. Sounds like fun, right? Well it was, but it was also exhausting.  Thursday, we showed up to unload the car and set up, a job that should maybe take about 30-40 minutes. It took us an hour and a half, and we never did make it into the unloading area. Poor Max had to carry all the books down the street and into the convention center.

Friday came, the start of Comic Con. I get a call from the school. My son is coughing too bad to be at school.  I knew his allergies had been bothering him, but they had been bother all of us. So, I pick him up, medicate him to stop coughing and took him with me. He slept almost all day with the chaos of the convention going on around him. He didn’t even want to meet Darth Vader.

Saturday came. They said they had sold 30000 tickets to the convention.  I didn’t think they were telling the truth.  I have never seen so many people in one area. It took a good half an hour to make it to the bathroom. But sales were going nicely. Unfortunately, the boy wasn’t fairing as well.  His fever had hit the magic cancer number of 101.5, so I came home, picked him up, and back down to the hospital we went.

As a leukemia child, my son has little resistance to infection. Viral, bacterial, it doesn’t matter. If he gets one, he has no way to fight it off. Plus, I cannot give him any medication for a low grade fever. If I did, it would mask any potential yucky fevers. And they need to know about the yucky ones.

We get to the hospital and they take us right back. His fever was back down to normal. They access his port-a-cath, draw a lot of blood, then send him for x-rays. Then comes the wait. After a while, they pump him full of some super antibiotics to kill any potential illnesses. They do this any time he has a fever.

He was lucky this time; his white blood cell count was normal and he didn’t have to be hospitalized. They don’t know what kind of infection he had, but he is doing much better now.

That leaves us with Sunday. After only a few hours of sleep, it was time to go back to the convention. There were as many people there on Sunday as there was on Saturday.  It was complete insanity, but a whole lot of fun. After the doors closed at 6, we had done well in book sales and then started the tedious regiment of packing up our things.

We walked the 4 blocks to the car, intending on pulling it around to the dock to finish loading. It took us 45 minutes to navigate the crowded streets of downtown San Antonio since there was so much traffic. Then, to top it all off, the street we need to go down is blocked off. Some brilliant person in the San Antonio events office put the Zombie Walk last night.

Zombie walks are probably cool, but why on a Sunday night? And why, for crying out loud, would you have it the same time the Comic Con is closing?

So, Max and I park illegally and make our way through the throngs of Zombie walkers to the docking area.  We are not the only ones who had to do so. Max asks the dock person to borrow a dolly so we don’t have to carry the 11 boxes of books to the car.  We can borrow one…for 75 dollars. Um no. He and I begin to carry this heavy boxes back to the illegally parked car, through the crowd of mindless partiers. Luckily, Max managed to borrow a dolly from someone else.  Whoever you are, we love you.

So, what should have taken us about 40 minutes to do, took us about 2 1/2 hours. I finally made it home with the kids, all of us ready to pass out.

Today I am tired and sore, but I know that I had a lot of fun this last weekend at the comic con. I am happy in the knowledge that my son is doing much better and even wanted to go to school today.

So, since you have managed to read all of this nonsense, go out and buy a copy of Bleed so we can get children’s cancer to be a thing of the past!

From October 24-31, horror bloggers from all over the world come together to coffin hop. Now while jumping on caskets might be totally fun, this is virtual blog jumping, so you don’t have to set down your twinkie. Make sure to visit everyday for you chance to win prizes. This year I offer more than one prize, but I am not going to tell you what just yet.  You’ll just have to come back to see. Then make sure you visit www.coffinhop.com and visit some of the other awesome blogs and win their prizes too!

Armand Rosamilia let me come over to his blog and talk about children’s cancer awareness, and Bleed. Go see what he let me say!

I got a great question from a BEATRYSEL reader the other day.

“I’m loving your book, but tell me this: why would anyone summon a demon?”

BEATRYSEL centers around Julian Cormac, a modern practitioner of magick, a modern descendent of the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley. Using techniques learned from ancient grimoires, magickal books of Theurgy, he summons his own a demon, his embodiment of love—BEATRYSEL. But he goes to far. In the course of the book, Julian summons other demons as well. Why would anyone do that?

Well, besides providing me a structure for a top notch occult thriller, summoning demons, in the practice of Theurgy, was never thought to be an evil act, because the demons were not thought to be evil.

Demons and angels, spirits all. To quote Shakespeare, (and who doesn’t love to quote The Bard?) “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” (Hamlet Act 2, scene 2). This is how supernatural entities are treated by modern occultists. Demons and angels are the same class of being occupying a specific place between heaven and earth. Whether you call them angel or demon depends a lot on your mood and whether or not they feel like cooperating with you.

Think of them as denizens of another country. As a whole you may have prejudiced views of them, like Canadians always being nice, for example. But it is not so simple. Surely, there are bad people in Toronto. Similarly, that bad person may only be bad because he accidentally spilled beer on you at a hockey game, or works for a competitor or maybe took your girlfriend who you weren’t paying enough attention to anyway. Spirits, like people are complex things, and whether they are good or evil is wholly a product of how we view them, our perspective and needs. It is subjective.

BEATRYSEL was made of the same stuff as angels and demons. Julian wanted her to be only good, but like a child, she is more complex. There is good without evil, no light without darkness, and spirits covet flesh. It’s their nature.

Spirits are interesting. They’re useful. They’re potent. They can be nice or they can be terrible. The same spirit can be either and both to different people. Like Canadians. This tenet of occultism is the basis for my book BEATRYSEL.

LINKS
Website
Book website
Email
Blog
Twitter
FaceBook
Goodreads
Omnium Gatherum Page about Johnny
AMAZON

My friend, Mercedes, has a new novella, Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love, coming out soon. It’s being put out by Ragnarok Publications and today is the day that they revealed the cover!

LIKE www.facebook.com/RagnarokPublications for updates and release information on Mercedes’ book!

No one should ever have to deal with cancer, especially a child.  BLEED is a charity anthology where the profits will go help children who have cancer. This is for all the little girls and boys who fight the good fight everyday.

“Each story in BLEED is like a cold breath whispered in the ear. Chilling, intimate, and deeply disturbing. Highly recommended!” -Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of FIRE & ASH and EXTINCTION MACHINE

Target release date: September 2013 to coincide with Children’s Cancer Month.  All profits will go to The National Children’s Cancer Society (www.thenccs.org)

PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY

 

Table of Contents:
Short Stories

Never Enough by J. David Anderson

The Nightly Disease by Max Booth III

Red-Wat-Shod by Jason V. Brock

Get the Cell Outta Here by Marian Brooks

A Billion Monstrosities by Mort Castle

King Rat by James Dorr

Mr. Expendable by Peter Dudar

Welcome to the World Mr. Smiles by T Fox Dunham

All the Sludge by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

I Am Disease by Jen Finelli

Remission by Charlie Fish

No Limit by Peter Giglio and SS Michaels

The Gift by Lindsey Beth Goddard

That Which is Not Seen by Dane Hatchell

The Call by Rick Hautala

The Lucky Mouth by Gerry Huntman

The Unstoppable Annihilation by Jeffrey C. Jacobs

March by Micah Joel

Goddess of the Moxie Moon by Absolutely Kate

Lost and Found by Patrick Lacey

Funeral Portrait by Christian A. Larsen

The Addition by Bentley Little

The Monster in Me by Suzie and Bruce Lockhart

With Paper Armour and Wood Sword by Tracie McBride

Sky of Brass, Land of Iron by Joe McKinney

The Sallow Man by Adam Millard

Descent by William Nolan

Dance of the Blue Lady by Gene O’Neill

I Know this World by John Palisano

Muted by Hollie Snider

Sludge by Stan Swanson

Death Knell by Richard Thomas

Unwoven by Tim Waggoner

Fight by Jay Wilburn

Ears by Eli Wilde

Dreams of Shadows by Robert S. Wilson

Essays

Five Little Tips by Kristin Bryant

Healing my Cancer through Horror by T Fox Dunham

Slippery Love by April Hawks

True Horror by Lori Michelle

The Rooster by Glenn Rolfe

Poems

Leukemia is Fookin Stoopid by ‘Anna DeVine

Where the Wild Welo Waits by John Hawkhead

Impossible is Nothing by Jack Ivey

Bumper Car Bandit by David Pointer

Wounded Star by David Pointer

(table of contents not listed in final order)

A Four-Author Book Signing!

 

Juli Caldwell, Wendy Knight, Shantal Hiatt Session, and Mercedes M. Yardley will be signing their books!

 

 

Eccles Community Art Center

Saturday, July 13

2580 Jefferson Avenue

Ogden, UT 84401

3:30-5:30

Come and meet the authors! There will be treats and prizes.