2024 WRITING WRAP

Having a read back through last year’s edition of this Writing Wrap business, I realised I achieved nothing of what I made mention of there. There were remarks in regards to more Extremes books being on the horizon, potentially delving back into novellas and so forth, but suffice to say, none of that happened.

And why’s that, you ask? Pretty simple really.

I went in an entirely different direction. New achievements were unlocked. New ventures, new works, and somewhere else I’d like to be dwelling for some time. Which is, of course, if you’ve been playing along at home, motherfucking Headbanging Horror!

Anybody who knows me, or at least has moderate knowledge of me, would be pretty well versed in my passions. Aside from my family, that would of course be, horror and heavy metal. I’ve been pushing the notion that what I write is old school splatterpunk horror driven by heavy metal for some time now, and while I’ve done a fair bit of blending the two over the years, this year was the one I dove full on into marrying the two.

Just an aside here, I do tend to write stuff that’s on the extreme side of things too, though I prefer to say I dwell more in the splatterpunk camp. You can’t venture anywhere without a whole debate raging over what constitutes extreme horror and what constitutes splatterpunk, so I’m not going to delve into that right now. Suffice to say, I prefer a storyline to carry a piece rather than eschewing it in favour of pure shock and whatnot, but again, not the purpose of this post so I’m not getting into that shit.

What I am getting into is Headbanging Horror.

I’ve kicked around the idea for many moons to compile a book of my tales where heavy metal is front and centre, driving the horror that unfolds in the stories, and 2024 was when it happened. Not only the one book, but three. Count ’em, fucking three books in the one series released in the one year. I know I mentioned elsewhere on this oft-neglected site that I aspired to have three Extremes books out in one year, and well, maybe that will still happen sometime down the track, but for now, that goal was unlocked with a completely different set of books.

The Headbanging Horror collective. Book One, which was that initial assemblage of metal-driven tales emerged in April, while Book Two came along in September. A couple of months later, come November, and Book Three was surfacing. I’d like to say that’s potentially the quickest I’ve ever written a book, but Corpse Collector and the Craze might want to disagree. Ghoul Night was also penned pretty fucking quickly. In any case, while it wasn’t a trio of Extremes books that happened, I still managed to release three from another series, so I’m pretty fucking happy with that.

What’s more, I’ve found exactly where I want to reside for a while, swimming around in the heady mix that is horror driven by heavy metal, and trust me, I’ll be staying there for some time. Yes, I love writing novels and big books, but I also love writing short fiction. And in reality, most folks know, my short fiction isn’t really that short. One only needs to check out a handful of the pieces that comprise all three of these books and you’ll acknowledge there’s some shit in there that would work as standalone novellas. I’m talking Thrashers and Halloween Headbangers from 3, Detention and Making Music With Flesh (The House of Painfiend) from 2, Necrothesis Divine from 1, etc. etc. Still, I’m happier compiling them all in one book, making sure folks get more value.

In any case, that’s primarily what 2024 was comprised of. A whole fuckload of Headbanging Horror. Three books, around sixteen tales in total. Some relatively short, most of them quite lengthy. All horrific, all heavy, all driven by pummeling percussion, razoring riffery, abrasive vocals and bludgeoning instrumentation.

Amongst all that skull crushing metal monstrosity, I did put out another book, though it sort of slipped below the surface somewhat. It didn’t stray too far from the heavy metal and horror marriage template either. This was the second From the Vault collection of song lyrics doubling as dark poetry, all of which were written way back in the mists of time. More From the Vault was the book, following on the heels of From the Vault, though it’s fair to say most of my preferred pieces were collected and published in the first book. Nonetheless, that happened too, so it was a pretty good year for releases. Four books all up.

What’s more, all the Headbanging Horrors are now available in paperback too, so if you’re more into physical copies than Kindle and so forth, then check that shit out.

And this time, when I say, Headbanging Horror will be my focus for some time now, rest assured, it will be. Granted there might be a return to the Extremes series at some stage, there might be other novels and novellas, maybe even some long-awaited-or maybe not awaited-sequels in the works, but there will be more Headbanging Horror. I already have an assortment of different tales currently being worked on, so let’s see if I can drop another trio of books in the upcoming year. Maybe even more. Who knows?

In any case, that’s the writing wrap for 2024. Pretty fucking good year writing wise for me.

Bang your head. Or lose it.