Updates

A week ago right now I was sitting in a chase lounge on the patio outside Erik and Laurie Alk’s hotel room at Horrorfind. I think Drew Williams had already scared the hell out of a nearby group of walking drunks by yelling “Surprise buttsecks!” as loud as possible. I was still several hours from bed. Rex was likely still blinding everyone with his infernal camera and Nanci was only pretending to drink when she upended Marcy and G’s bottle of Canadian Club. Good times. If those East Coasters and Canadians didn’t tawk so funny I’d almost wish I lived closer so I could see them more than once a year. I can’t seem to get any of them to move out here.

In other news, Seven Days in Benevolence is now available through Amazon. Here’s some linkage. The cover image isn’t up yet, but I suspect it will be in a few days. If you want to see the cover, you can always go to my Web site. I’m glad this haunted house book is finally available in print. While not a full-length novel, at about 25,000 words it’s long enough to hopefully show people I can write more than just werewolf books. Now, that said, I have to admit I’m in a different place now than I was when I wrote this book. At the time, I was experimenting with more extreme fiction, and this one goes pretty far out there. Here’s a couple of lines from a review of the manuscript that ran in Hellnotes last year: “Wedel’s growth as a writer, and as a craftsman of the horror genre, can be seen blossoming in SEVEN DAYS IN BENEVOLENCE. I highly recommend it to those of you who want to get that dark feel of the ’70s exploitation horror film again.”

Hopefully it isn’t quite as schlocky as those 1970s films. I can’t find the review on Hellnotes’ site any more, and I haven’t asked for permission to reprint it. But, here’s another excerpt that I like better: “Wedel takes some daring risks with his fast paced approach to this usually soporific sub genre of horror. So much so that I liken SEVEN DAYS IN BENEVOLENCE to THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE, more than, say, THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. … With his story, Wedel finds a comfortable middlin’ range between the two opposite poles and keeps us enthralled, as one strange event leads to the next. He colors his tale with some great characters- some more well drawn than others, admittedly, but he definitely knows how to establish a chilling atmosphere of unease.“

Anyway, overall I am proud of the story. While the ending may be over the top, I think I did a decent job with the characters, and it reminds me of a different time in my life, when I was about to lose the best paying job I’ve ever had and we lived in a big house in Ponca City that the kids still talk about fondly. Several of the actions of the little girls in the story are things my own daughters were doing and saying at the time. And, yes, some of the things happening in the house were really happening in the house we lived in.

Enough of that. It’s after 1:30 a.m. and I’ve been up working on the novella still tentatively titled Pain again. How about a word meter? You got it!