Tag Archives: award-winning writer

The Tale of Forever Dark

As with everything I write, I set out with very specific goals when I sat down with Forever Dark, my story in Tales from the Lake, Vol. 2.

To begin with, I wanted to create an immediate experience. A continuous unfolding with the reader actively discovering the narrative landscape alongside the Main Character. Trapped in the unfamiliar, I wanted there to be a sense of displacement or occasional confusion (as there is in life) while waiting for “the next realization” to occur or “the next thing” to present itself. I wanted the Main Character and the reader to discover this new, frightening world together.

Second, I wanted the prose to veer between lyrically poetic and abruptly visceral. In Forever Dark, my goal was to weave together a shifting narrative with an unpredictable prose, keeping the reader engaged but off-balance enough to encourage them to barrel forward, paragraph after paragraph, in search of a Safe Space.

A Safe Space that might not exist.

I also wanted — and the writing of Forever Dark predated Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast as well as any knowledge there was a thing called Crystal Lake Publishing — to try my hand at something with a bit more gore. To move away from the Martuk the Holy-type of terror that lives in the dishonest safety of the imagination for the Forever Dark-type of fear that pivots around the obvious wounding of the body.

But it couldn’t be an active gore. It had to be the aftermath of an unseen event. A silent something that shadows everything, that has given birth to everything, but is never spoken of. I wanted the mysterious Hows and Whys of a mangled hand or a bleeding mouth to engage the reader’s imagination and their sense of curiosity, but not give them any answers.

At least not right away.

Finally, my goal was to move out of my comfort zone as a writer. Stretch my wings a bit and see if I could do all of the above at the high level I demand of myself.

Hopefully I did so. That Forever Dark had the great honor of placing 2nd in Crystal Lake’s contest — and thus earning a coveted spot in the Table of Contents — indicates I came closer to my goals than not.

And I hope, should you take a look (and do so knowing the process behind my writing it), that you enjoy it.

Forever-Dark - J Winn

(artwork for Forever Dark by Aaron Dries)

Tales from the Lake 2 full cover

A taste of Bullet

Coming soon from one of the top publishers of dark fiction and horror, the award-winning Crystal Lake Publishing (click link for author bio), here’s the tiniest taste of my current WIP, Eidolon Avenue, a collection of novellas and short stories due out in early-2016.

Can’t WAIT to see the cover for this one.

Okay, EXCERPT TIME —

“Cool tats,” she’d said. It was afternoon. Late afternoon. The sun wasn’t as bright. The shadows were long. And the shop had tossed his ass out. Had gone around the corner to take a leak and then puke the pancakes up by a dumpster.

Shitty stomach couldn’t keep anything down these days.

“Cool tats.” Those were the first words from the girl with the forked tongue. “I’m Eve.” She’d stood near, her eyes sleepy and dark.

“Of course you are,” he remembered saying. He’d wished he had a mint.

Coming closer, she’d dragged her thumb through the puke along his bottom lip. Stuck it in her mouth. Sucked and then smiled.

Fuck yeah. Twisted chicks. Loved ‘em.

“I do tats,” she’d said. Goth chick with a Daddy’s Girl Gone Bad vibe. Hair fifty shades of black. Bangs chopped with a razor. Big eyes rimmed with black. Skin as pale as ice with dark blue smeared on her lips. Metal in her ears, nose, chin. Her small white teeth chewing the bright blue from her stubby nails.

Tiny and thin, her nipples poking from a thin tank that ended right below her tits, she stood there with a skirt the size of a bandaid and legs like a fuckin’ Halloween skeleton. The kind you’d stick in your yard and take down right before Thanksgiving. Only this one wore thick blue socks and battered combat boots.

What he wouldn’t give to see those boots up by her fuckin’ ears.

“You do tats?” His stomach had moved again.

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

“Where do you want it?” She’d taken the fingers from her mouth and stuck ‘em down the front of her skirt.

He’d puked.

He turned over and pushed his face into the mattress. The rest was just dark. Clouds and confusion. Walking nowhere. Talking about nothing. The feel of her arm around his waist. Her thin hair in his fist as she gripped his cock through his faded jeans. Night falling. The sound of sirens. The whirling flash of red in the dark. The chill in the air. His face hot. His bones cold. His muscles seizing. His heart racing. The air like knives stabbing his lungs as he tried to breathe. Trying to act like everything was okay when he knew something was very wrong.