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With the Quaraun Short Stories now being published at a rate of 10+ a day (as of October 2024) I am now also receiving a shit ton load of questions regarding that. Here's as good a place as any for the answer.

Answering your comments/questions about writing/publishing 10, 20, or more posts a day.Why I write 10+ a day & How I write 10+ a day and not burn out & Earnings from 10+ stories a day & Where I get ideas to write 10 stories a day.Answering the top 5 questions you’ve asked about my writing and publishing 10+, sometimes 20+ stories a day.

1. Does it increase earnings to publish 10/20+ stories a day?
2. What’s the point? Why bother? Isn’t it just spam if you publish 10/20+ stories a day?
3. How do you write so fast?/How do you have time to write 10/20+ stories a day?
4. Where do you get enough ideas to write 10/20+ stories a day?
5. Do you start with a title? Or come up with a title after you finish?

The tl;dr super short 1 minute answer is this:

I write several a day and for me, it’s more a mix of excitement and boredom.

I get very excited to write about my characters (I write fiction), but also I am bedridden with a broken spine, but I used to be very active, hiking, mountain climbing, horseback riding, ect and now I am stuck in bed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, for 11 years now, since November 14, 2013, and so, there is not a lot I can do other than read and write and read some more and write some more.

So for me it’s the boredom of being bedridden mixed with the excitement of I can’t wait to spend time with my characters that causes me to write and publish multiple stories a day.

And thus I am not concerned with stats, reads, earnings, etc.

I only make the stats and earnings update pages because so many of my readers on Medium ask for them.

The long answer will take you over an hour to read, and here it is:

First off, I usually write and publish 3 stories a day, and they are quite short. Often drabbles which are only 100 words, double drabbles (200 words), and most common of all triple drabbles (300 words), so when you see me publishing 10 stories in a single day, it os only 3,000 words which is a 6 minute read, were it all on one page.

For reference, most paperback novels have chapters of 7k to 10k words, so, my publishing 10 pages at 100 words per page, is also only 1/3 of a single chapter of a novel.

The day that I published 36 stories, each of the 36 stories were only 100 words each, so it was only 3,600 words total, something that takes even a slow poke writer to type in only 20 minutes.

Keeping in mine that the average writer (career novelist) types at a speed of 175 words per minute, which is well over 10k words per hour.

My average typing speed is VERY SLOW, as I type at only 91 words per minute which is only 5k words per hour.

So, 3,600 words is only 13 to 20 minutes of typing.

Yes, ALL 36 stories took me under a half hour to write that day.

So, before you start marvelling, that 36 posts are a lot for a single day — each was only 100 words (there are 400 words in a 4 minute read and 700 words in a 2 minute read, so a 100 word post takes only around 20 seconds to read, not even a full half of a minute.

So, it’s not like I’m publishing 36 stories of 1k words each. These are very, very, very short micro-fiction pages.

The amount of words per page must be considered here.

As you will notice, when I write longer stories, I only publish 1, 2, or 3 that day, because each story was 1k words.

So, the days I publish 3 stories (3 at 1k words each) are the same amount of words as the days I publish 30 stories (30 at 100 words each).

So, do take word counts into perspective.

No, let’s answer your questions.Does publishing 10, 20, or more posts a day increase earnings?

No. But I don’t write for money so, that’s okay.

Someone wanted to know, if they write 10, 20, etc articles a day would it increase their earnings.

No.

It does not.

More posts per day does NOT equal more earnings.

Sorry, but that’s not how it works.

I am someone who often publishes 10, 20, 30, even 40+ pages a day. My average is 7 a day, while my most in a single day is 44. I started publishing on Medium February 2024 and in September 2024 crossed 800 stories and poems published here, so I am averaging around 100 stories published each month.

I’ll likely cross 2k posts before reaching my 1st anniversary on Medium.

And, yeah, more stories published does NOT equal to more money.

Thing is, for me, when I started doing this Stripe was not available in my area so I had no ability to earn money from my posts either. So clearly it wasn't about the money.

Partner Program is available in my area now, and I've gone back and turned it on for my old posts, so they are making money currently.

Even though making money wasn't my goal, there is also no reason to not make money once it became available.

But yeah, 10+ posts a day = around two dollars a day income, most days, but .10c days are not uncommon either.

No. Not $2 a day per post.

$2 a day TOTAL.

Every day this week has earned UNDER .10c per day. .04c yesterday for over 100 reads, .07c the day before for over 100 reads, .05c the day before, for over 100 reads.

(Today is October 23, 2024.)

Yes, earnings on Medium for October 2024 are around .10c per 100 reads, so it is going to take well over 1k (one thousand) reads to reach $1 (one dollar) 10k reads this month to reach $100.

Pay per read rate is VERY LOW for October 2024.

…even though I’ve has over 700 reads in those same 7 days… yes, over 100 reads = only .10c for those 100 reads. Not… not ,10c per story… ten cents TOTAL for 100 reads on 800 pages.)

So, at the end of the most, 800 pages results in a $40 to $60 payout most months. Though August and September both saw only $15 payouts, not even reaching $20 earned.

For me writing is not about money so, it’s not an issue. But for people looking to make a career of writing, Medium is NOT the answer. People should not be looking to Medium as an income source because Medium simply does not pay enough.

Being asked if I do this for money and how much money does it make, seems to be the most common comment I get about the 500 drabble/story challenge.

The other question asked often (and I think is the 2nd most common question), is what is the point? aka Why bother?

This one often comes with the addition of things like “no one is going to read 20 posts a day”. The one who left the most ranting comment, also write an article on just exactly what they thought of my writing 20+ posts a day too, Here it is, you can read it for yourself:

Publishing 20 Posts in a Day Makes No sense
That’s spam I wouldn’t ignore

As this person seems to be unaware, Medium is NOT where I write primarily.

I am a traditionally published author, whom has sold over ten million books in the last five decades.

138 novels, 423 novellas, 500+ poems, & 3k+ short stories published since 1978. 2028 is 50th anniversary 1st book.

And while I’ve not talked about it on Medium… outside of Medium, my readers know that:

…In celebration of the upcoming 50th anniversary of my Twighlight Manor/Pink Necromancer series, I am writing a collection of special edition, there is soon to be release a 13 volume set of hard cover, illustrated collector edition Short Story Collections. One hundred stories in each volume, meaning 1,300 stories total.

The 50th Anniversary Manuscripts
Links to the WIP documents of The Pink Necromancer 50th anniversary manuscripts

And… as my readers are also fully aware, with the series being traditionally published, and sold in brick and mortar bookstores, that also means there are ZERO ebook editions of my books.

Readers (twenty-seven thousand of them) requested that there be an ebook edition of the short story collection.

And so, as I write those short stories for the collection, I am publishing them in various places online (Medium, SubStack, OnlyFans, Notid, Vocal, RoyalRoad, FictionPress, Tapas, ScribbleHub, and about two dozen others places) to test out where my established base of readers wants to read the ebook editions.

These stories (and their illustrations) you see on Medium are all part of this project and will be appearing in the finished hardcover books that will go on sale in 2028.

And so, as you can see, I don’t give a fucking flying rat’s ass if 20 stories a day is too many for Medium readers to keep up with (see the linked article above — -you’ll see why I say this once you read what they said) because Medium readers are NOT my target audience. Medium readers are NOT who I am writing for.

But I already answered the why do I write question several months ago:

Why do you write?
Answering a random question

And as this question also often includes comments of “How do you not burn out from writing so much a day” there is this answer from a few months ago:

Have you ever wanted to give up on writing?
No. Have you?

While the 3rd most common question is how do I do it, how do I write so fast.

For that question, I answered already a few weeks ago, and went into a lot of detail on the full process, here:

How do I write so fast?
Do I write fast? Are you sure it’s not that you are writing slow? (The bitchy rant answer “writers” don’t want to…

and here:

It is 14 years since my stroke
October 21, 2010

But the short of it is, that I am bedridden, crippled with a broken spine that can not be operated on due to how one of the fractured vertebra is punctured through my spinal column. The surgery to fix it, requires something that the doctor has to do to the nerves inside the spinal column, to prevent my becoming fully paralyzed from the neck down, and he said the surgery would cost upwards of thirty-seven-MILLION dollars, due to it being some sort of new experimental computer chip (installed in my brain) surgery that has not been fully properly tested on animals yet, let alone on Humans yet.

My income is around four thousand dollars a year, so it’d take me a few thousand years to come up with the money for the surgery. I do not qualify for medical insurance, ObamaCare, MediCare, or Medicaid, because according to the State of Main Department of Health and Human Services, my income is “762% below the national poverty level” and the social worker explained that ALL government medical insurance, including ObamaCare and MediCare and MediCaid are ALL “just loans” and you are required to have enough money to make monthly payments towards the medical insurance, before they will let you have medical insurance.

So… since November 14, 2013, I have been stuck in bed with 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with nothing to do all day but write and read and paint and draw… and so I do a shit ton load of reading and writing and drawing and painting and reading and writing…

…literally every waking minute of my day I am either reading or writing…

…meaning I am read for 8+ hours a day and writing for 12+ hours a day.

Meaning, yeah, I AM sitting here in bed typing all day, all night, all day, all night, and so, yes, it is very, very, very, VERY easy for me to publish 10, 20, 30, 40+ poems, drabbles, and short stories EVERY SINGLE DAY.

As I said, I am not writing for money.

I am writing because my spine is broken, I can not sit up, I can not even sit in a chair.

I am laying on my back, perched up slightly with pillows, and typing all day long…. because it keeps me alive.

The first thing you learn when you become crippled is that 99.99% of your friends, family, and people you care about and THOUGHT they cared about you, will ALL leave your life and never come back.

They will NEVER visit you in the hospital.

They will NEVER visit you at home.

The church I attended for 42 years? Not one bishop, not one priest, not one missionary, not one home teacher, not one visiting teacher, not one woman from the relief society, not one congregation member has visited, checked in on me… NOT ONCE… in ten years.

My family, my relatives? Not on parent, not one sibling, not one aunt, not one uncle, not one cousin, out of a family with 400 people, not one has visited me in the hospital, checked in on me at home… NOT ONCE… in ten years.

My friends from college? Not one has visited me in the hospital, checked in on me at home… NOT ONCE… in ten years.

My friends from the three TTRPG game groups I was a member of for years and never once missed a single game night? Not one has visited me in the hospital, checked in on me at home… NOT ONCE… in ten years.

My friends and neighbours who live on my street, where I have lived since 1975? Not one has visited me in the hospital, checked in on me at home… NOT ONCE… in ten years.

THAT is the reality of being crippled and bedridden with a broken spine.

EVERY SNGLE PERSON in my life, a total of well over TWO THOUSAND people… every one of them vanished, and they not only vanished offline, but they ALL also unfriended me off FaceBook, Twitter, ect, WHILE I was still in the hospital back in 2013… BEFORE I was even awake again to find out I was crippled!

I write because I am alone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, for the past 10 years with not one single, solitary person who cares to even stop by and find out if I am still alive.

THAT is the secret to publishing 10, 20, 30, 40+ posts a day…. being trapped in bed all day, and having no one who cares, so no one to pass the time with.

How do I write so fast?Do I write fast? Are you sure it’s not that you are writing slow? (The bitchy rant answer “writers” don’t want to hear.)

It is 14 years since my stroke- October 21, 2010

I do not have any reason for saying it, I just happened to look at a calender today, and notice that it is October 25, 2024, and for some reason seeing that date made me want to find out how many years it has been since my stroke on October 21, 2010.

I have typed with one hand since October 2010, because that stroke was when I lost the use of my left hand/arm/fingers.

I have some feeling in my left arm/hand/fingers today, and can raise my hand up to waist height, and can curve my fingers enough to hold a cup or some such thing in my hand, but beyond that my left arm/hand/figures are essentially “dead”.

I have no grip strength at all, so, I can not do things like open a doorknob or pick up a ball.

The most notable change was my typing speed.

Before October 2010, I had an average typing speed of 175 words per minute, which is 10,500 words per hour. Which is why before 2010, I was able to win NaNoWriMo every year in only 3 days (writing a 50k word novel in three days), but have not been able to reach 50k words in 3 days since 2010.

Because I can not move my left arm/hand/fingers enough to type, I had to relearn typing completely, this time learning how to do touch typing fully with just one hand.

Today, my typing speed is 91 words per minute (5,200 words per hour), but it is all fully, completely done with only my right hand, as my left hand is still mostly dead and incapable of typing at all.

But yeah, October 21, 2024, is the 14 year anniversary since I lost the use of my left arm and had to relearn to do everything with one hand.

So, someone asked how it is I write so fast (they were pointing specifically to the fact that I frequently write/publish 10, 20, 30, or more drabbles per day — a drabblers a 100 word micro fiction short story, for those who don’t know what a drabble is).

I don’t think I am writing fast.

See:

• 10 drabbles is only one thousand words.
• 20 drabbles is only two thousand words.
• 30 drabbles is only three thousand words
• And when I am working on a novel, I type between 91 words per minute to 175 words per minute, with is 5k to 9k words per hour
• I average on a normal day 17k words a day.
• Three thousand words is a LOT FEWER than seventeen thousand words
• My writing and publishing 30 drabbles a day is me writing and publishing only 1/8th of my normal 17k word daily average output.

They were talking about this and the fact that I have published over 250 drabbles in the past 21 days:

500 Drabble Challenge

I’m sorry but if you think a miserable teeny, tiny, barely a few paragraphs totalling only 3k words is a lot of words a day or is fast writing then you seriously are in the wrong business and need to rethink your writing career.

You can not even get a job in a law office as a secretary if you can not type MINIMUM 175 words a minute, which is well over ten thousand words an hour.

• A law office secretary can, and does, daily type well over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND WORDS PER DAY.
• Novelists can and do, write and publish a 100k word novel MONTHLY, publishing 12 novels a year.
• The average professional career fiction writer of novel and short stories writes and publishes TWO MILLION WORDS every year, which is five thousand words a day.

There is no excuse for a writer to be typing at anything under 75 words a minute. That is 4,500 words an hour.

If your typing speed WITHOUT SPELLING AND GRAMMAR ERRORS is anything less than 75 words a minute, then you REALLY need to reevaluate your simple basic typing skills.

At bare minimum, a writer MUST learn proper touch typing.With proper touch typing skills they is simply no excuse for anything under 75 words a minute, and that is slow.

Most touch typists can reach 175 words a minute easily.

The world record is 310 words a minute.

So, yeah, if you actually get GOOD at touch typing 18k words an hour is possible.

Yes, EIGHTEEN THOUSAND WORDS AN HOUR is possible for touch typists who are actually good at typing.

Think about that.

Think long and hard about that.

Let that soak in.

And then, ask me again why I think anyone who thinks 3k words a DAY is a lot — -is an idiot who hasn’t got a clue a thing about the writing and publishing industry, and REALLY needs to do some deep soul searching as to WHY they are writing.Believe me honey, if you are bitching that 3k words a day is a lot, then writing probably isn’t the career for you…because 3k words per HOUR is considered VERY SLOW when it comes to typing skills.

My average typing speed is 91 words a minute.
My average output is 5k+ words an hour.
I average 17k to 35k words a day.
I publish on average 4 novels a year, 12 novellas a year, 100+ poems a year, and 300+ short stories a year.
I have more than TEN THOUSAND works published since 1978.

So, when you say 3k words a day (the word count of 30 drabbles) is fast writing…no, it’s not. It’s not even 10 words a minute.You are in bad need of a reality check as to what constitutes a professional writing career, because if 3k words a day is a lot to you, you will never make it going up against writers who output 3k words EVERY HOUR.

It takes me around 45minutes, not even a full hour, to write 30 drabbles.Think about this too:Meaning:Aka:

• I got good at typing
• I got good at spelling
• I got good at grammar
• I’m not writing things I know nothing about
• I only write things I have hands on real world personal experience in doing
• I published my first book in 1978
• I am writing fiction
• I am writing a series with pre established characters, lore, and world building which I spent over a decade of intensive creation on

• I don’t waste time looking for where the letters on the keyboard are
• I don’t waste time editing
• I don’t waste time researching
• I publish my first drafts, minutes after writing, without the need to either fact check or edit for spelling and grammar
• I have fifty years of practice at doing this
• Fiction has more leeway then non fiction
• I am not creating new characters, because I created these characters 5 decades ago
• I am not world building because I built the world and its lore five decades ago

• I do stream of consciousness writing.
• Do typos slip through? — -YES!
• Do I worry about them? — -NO!
• Am I a good writer? — NO!
• Does being a good writer matter? — -NO!
• Why?
• Because the ONLY thing that readers REALLY care about, is having fun, with fun characters, who have fun, doing fun things, that the reader wishes they could be having fun doing.

I love stream of consciousness writing. It’s the fastest, that’s for sure, because you just write as you think, without pre planning.So what is the answer?

In my mind, asking how I write so fast translates into wanting to know what I do so you can do it to, yes?

Well, my advice therefore is this:Learn touch typing and get good at it.

It took me 3 semesters of retaking the same course 3 times, to be able to pass the final times exam with an A.

To get an A requires passing a timed proctored exam with a speed of 175 words per minute… aka it took me 9 months to learn to touch type at 175 words a minute.Learn grammar and get good at it, and than keep practicing it so you never forget it.

I use the 4th grades through 12th grades ABeka grammar and composition books — 8 text books — and I re do all the assignments, essays, quizzes, every year. It takes my about a year to do all 8 books.

I do it every year.

I started doing it in 1984.

You can’t publish your unedited first drafts, if you write grammatically incorrect slop.Live life, have hobbies, go places, do things, and then write about those experiences.

Look at my 3 main characters.

Meet The Characters:
The Pink Necromancer Index Part 2

• One is a chef who works on a food truck on a beach.

Did you know I went to culinary school, worked on a food truck in Old Orchard Beach?

• One is a silk weaver who embroiderers cloth he wove and makes his own clothes.

Did you know I weave cloth, embroider cloth, and make my own cloths from patterns I also made?

• They live in a tent.

Did you know I live in a tent made out of a 8x6 tarp?

What even IS relatable content? (Did you know I’ve been homeless since 2006–18+years — and am STILL homeless right now while writing on Medium in 2024?)
Does anyone really know?

• One is legally blind.

Did you know I am legally blind?

• One walks with a cane because he has a lame leg.

Did you know I walk with a cane because I have a lame leg?

• They live on clam flats and dig for clams.

Did you know I live in clam flats and dig for clams?

• They are by race and culture Scottish Gypsies.

Did you know I am by race and culture a Scottish Gypsy?

A Scottish Gypsy English Language Primer.💟🌸🦄
aka FAQs: Is BoomFuzzy speaking a real language? What language is BoomFuzzy speaking?

They make a lot of their income by busking in street markets.

Did you know I make a lot of my income by busking in street markets?

I write about experiences I have had. No need to research the things I know from doing them daily.Write a series.

With a series you build the world once and set all your stories in that one world.

• It took me well over a decade to build planet Vesonta, and its sister planets Flame, Diona, Ptarmagin, and Crystonia, and all of the alien races, languages, governments, biomes, cultures, continents, countries, and cities, which make up the solar system my main character, Quaraun, travels to selling his silks.
• But once it was finished I can set my stories in any location on any of the 5 inhabited planets of the solar system and start writing immediately without having to create the location first.

With a series you create the characters once, and all future stories are about that one set of characters.So, my answer is this:

• In addition to the 3 main characters, there are around 75 primary reoccurring side characters, and around 300 minor side characters, all of whom are fully fleshed out, each with a fully written in spiral notebooks, background and family history.
• It took me close to twenty years to write the 750 notebooks that make up the world building and character lore of the series I write.
• Because all the characters are already created, I only have to grab the ones I need for my current story and use them. I have no need to create new characters.

• Get good at touch typing
• Get good at grammar
• Build a massive world with a shit ton load of characters and write a series about that world and its characters.
• Draw on personal experiences of your own life, health, jobs, hobbies, culture, and every day experiences, to inspire story ideas and plots for your characters to have.

That’s is.

That really is all I do.

There is no secret magic pill to make you write faster.

Its all about spending years (decades) practicing, figuring out what works, cutting out what doesn’t work, and creating a streamlined system that works for you.

I do not plot out stories.

I use improv stage acting method to write by the seat of my pants without a clue how the story will end.I did away with things that waste time.

• Looking for letters on the keyboard is a waste of time.

I learned touch typing instead.

• Editing is a waste of time.

I learned good grammar instead.

• Being a perfectionist is a waste of time.

I prefer being good enough for my readers instead. If typos slip through, oh well, it happens. I fix them when I find them, but I’m not going to waste hours searching for them.

• Brainstorming ideas is a waste of time.

I use writing prompts instead.

• Research is a waste of time.

I write what I know instead. I write only about things I’ve personally done in my real world offline life, health, careers, and hobbies.

• Plotting stories is a waste of time.

I write improv instead.

• Creating an outline is a wase of time.

I free write stream of consciousness instead.

• Writing stand alone stories is a waste of time, because you have to create new worlds, new character, for every story.

I write a series about one cast in one world instead.

Get rid of everything that takes up time away from writing your story.

And don’t expect to get faster over night.

It’s all about putting in DECADES of dedication, discipline, hard work, and practice.

And I already answered WHY I write here:

• REMEMBER: the ONLY thing that readers REALLY care about, is having fun, with fun characters, who have fun, doing fun things, that the reader wishes they could be having fun doing.
• So stop over thinking it and just write the fucking story!

Why do you write?
Answering a random question

As for the:

Have you ever wanted to give up on writing?

Part of that question...No. Have you?

>>>Have you ever wanted to give up on writing?

No.

I have not.

I think this is due to the fact that I take frequent breaks from writing, often taking off a weekend or an entire week or an entire month, once I went over a full year without writing.

I have other things I do. Writing isn’t “my entire life”.

I have noticed that the writers who say they want to give up writing, often also cite that writing is their ONLY hobby, their ONLY pastime, the ONLY thing they do in their spare time, their ONLY outlet.

They have ZERO diversity in things to occupy their mind, occupy their time. And I think that is WHY they feel like they want to quit writing. They burn out, get bored, from doing the same one and only thing every day.

They have no break from the monotonous monotony of doing the same thing every day.

Writing is fun.

Writing is great.

They will cite that they love writing and say they can not understand why they suddenly are sick of writing because they still love writing.

Well, let’s take a look at why I don’t ever get sick of writing, why I don’t ever feel a need to quit.

• Reading makes up way more of my time than writing does.
• Drawing and painting also make up far greater hours per day/week/month, then either reading or writing do.
• Worldbuilding by far is the hobby which takes up the largest amount of hours each day, week, month, year.
• I have a new puppy and new a kitten (both under a year old), and 2 giant Raphael catfish (which I have had for 17 years and they are probably close to 30 years old) who are bigger than my dog and live in a fish tank that is bigger than my bed, bigger than a bathtub, almost as big as a swimming pool. Giant fish that eventually will be over three feet long.

• Hiking, travel vlogging, nature photography, botany, ornithology, city parks, state parks, national parks, glamping, and rving, take up huge amounts of my week.
• I cook. A lot. I bake cookies and cakes and pies and breads and casseroles and dumplings and lasagna and rice and stir fry and bobo tea … you get the idea.
• I am a CosPlayer. I not only sew my costumes, I make the patterns, I weave and embroider the cloth, I hand tie the wigs, I make the hats.
• I grow roses and lilies and orchids and grapes and apples and vegetables.
• Until 2013 and my spine being broken, I used to raise horses, goats, bantams, and rabbits.

And there are more things. More hobbies. Things I don’t do daily, but things that I do as often as monthly. Things like collecting comic books, rebuilding antique cars, building art cars, cloth doll making, Scuply doll making, dollhouse building, making wooden dollhouse furniture, model car making, designing/making/painting 3d printed figures, playing Dungeons and Dragons, playing video games (Witcher 3, Don’t Starve, Subnautica, Happy Acres, Tropico, and Civilization being the ones I replay most often).

So… as you can see, writing is not my ONLY daily activity.

Yes, I write a LOT. But writing is not the ONLY thing I do, and I have a large range of other things I do.

Yes, online, writing is the thing I talk about most, and you don’t often hear the other stuff mentioned, but this is largely because I am an author, a novelist by career, and a lot of people come to me asking for writing advice, so online I tend to talk mostly about writing because that is the thing my online followers are wanting to hear about.

I don’t give up on writing, because I do not get burned out from writing, because I have so much diversity in things to occupy my time, that writing never becomes a burden.

Why do you write?Answering a random question.

Why I write Non-Fiction:

I have Autism.

I have to write in order to communicate.

The problem is, people offline are too busy rushing around to read words written down, so they pat me on the head say some condescending remark “Oh look like the little retard is pretending to communicate” and go back to what they are doing.

So I started posting my words online, because I have no one else to talk to, and I can not talk with spoken words like everyone else. I am alone all day and all night, for fifty years now. I have no one. Because I am too retarded to be worth spending time with.

People think it is okay o beat me up with golf clubs when I was 8 months pregnant and murder my baby because they think I am too retard to have feelings, they think I can not tell anyone what they did because I am mute and blind. But I can think and I can type. So here I am.

People offline treat me like I am stupid and incapable of thinking because I am mute. Being mute does not mean I can not think. That is why I write.

• I have Kanner’s Syndrome (the type of Autism aka Low Functioning Autistic Savant, seen in the……but I do not let that stop me from writing novels and getting my books published

• If you know who my son’s murderer, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322Do you know who this woman is? She beat my 8 month old infant son’s head in with a golf club. We don’t know who she is…

• EVERYTHING We Are Allowed To Publicly Release About The FBI Investigation Can Be Found HEREaka Full details of the events surrounding my son’s murder and my becoming crippled

• Why my motorhome was painted pink— If you have any info please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

Why I write Fiction:

Because I am a non verbal low functioning autistic retard, there is no one offline who will spend time with me. No one single solitary person in five decades now. So I created a set of fictional characters to spend time with instead.

I created a world I wanted to explore.

I created a character that I fell in love with.

I got addicted to continually building the world bigger so they had more places to have adventures, and I couldn’t stop writing those adventures.

Now I have 138 novels, 423 novellas, & 2k+ short stories published since 1978, featuring the adventures of those 2 characters exploring said world.

A quick note for anyone new to the series:

• Quaraun and BoomFuzzy are an elderly, married gay couple, whom have been together for many centuries.
• GhoulSpawn is their shared live-in lover, whom they have recently met, after he fell out of a portal into their world. He is from 1970s Maine.
• Quaraun is a white Persian Moon Elf. He is around 750 years old in most stories. He is a silk weaver, travelling merchant, and psychic necromancer (aka he can hear and see ghosts/spirits/etc and uses occult divination practices to communicate with them). Quaraun believes he gets his powers from his hair and refuses to cut it. His hair is twelve feet long.
• BoomFuzzy is a black Scottish Phooka-Fae of the UnSeelie Court. He is around 2,000 years old in most stories. He is the King of the Realm of Fae, turned MasterChef. He owns most of the wold’s restaurants and works out of a food truck.
• GhoulSpawn is a French Quebec Canadian Satyr. He is around 60 years old in most stories. He is a mad scientist who was the inventor of time travel.
• All three of them have an animal form. Quaraun has a Pink Meanie JellyFish form, BoomFuzzy has a purple Unicorn form, and GhoulSpawn has a Golden Fleece Cotswold Sheep form. Yes. This is the “Furry Genre”.
• Unless specified otherwise, the story is set in York County, Maine in the 40th century far future Earth. Meaning it is set in approximately around the years between 3901A.D. and 4000A.D.
• In 2525 a comet pinballed it’s way through the solar system, changing the orbits of all the planets, completely destroying a few of the planets, fracturing Earth’s Moon, and filling Earth’s atmosphere with Moon dust and comet debris, causing a new Ice Age, which killed off most all life on the planet. More info on that can be found HERE.
• This is a Cozy Slice of Life story, that has no plot and simply looks into a single event of a single day, of this gay trio’s life.
• These stories do not contain sex scenes, but it is understood that the three of them sleep together and have sex with each other.
• The novels, however, are NOT Cozy and delve into GrimDark.
• This story supplements a larger set of novels, showing quick events that take place between the novels, and therefore references events and characters found in the novels.
• If you are looking for the long fully plotted novels and novellas, or the paperback editions, you can find those on Amazon and/or GumRoad.
• I’m adding this note, because it was brought to my attention that many readers finding the series through Medium had no prior knowledge of these basics.

Also in the top 5 most asked questions I get is: “Where do you get your ideas?” and “How do you find ideas?”

Over 2 decades ago, I wrote this:

Ideas, Ideas, Ideas (Where Do You Get Them?)
The answer to the most asked question every author receives: Where do you get your ideas? | A Short Story About Writing…

That still holds true today as it did back in the 1990s when I first published it… the article on that page was published in 1997, so a full decade before I became crippled, so I no longer do today, many of the things mentioned in it, but, hey, if you’re not crippled, you can do them.

Here is an excerpt from it (this is about half the article), which explains the basic of my idea process:

Ideas Where?!?

Ah yes. Here it is. You never have to wait long for this one, heck you don’t even have to wait for an email for this one. You could be eating at a restaurant with your family and have a waitress toss it in your lap. You could be pissing in a public toilet and and have someone standing outside the stall hollering it in at you. I give you the single #1 most asked question of all time, after “So I wrote a story would you read it and tell me what you think,” comes:“So, here’s the thing, see, I quite my job to become a writer, but now I’ve got writer’s block. Can you help me? Where do you get your ideas?”Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

One of the most commonly asked question a writer hears is: “Where do you get your ideas?”

This question seems to baffle and mystify people who don’t write and people who want to write but don’t know where to start. So, today I am going to take a look at this question and it’s answer.

The Dreaded Question

The question “Where do you get your ideas?”, is usually followed by an explanation something like this:

“I quit my job to become a full time writer, but this is my first time writing anything. I’ve never written anything before. I’ve always wanted to write, but my job was in the way and just never had the time. Now I’ve quit my job and have lots of time, but zero ideas. I want to write a novel (or article/ short story/ play/ comic book/ graphic novel … depending on what they want to write) but I can’t think of anything to write about. I’ve spent weeks trying to figure out what I wanted to write, but I guess now I know what writer’s block is, because, I just can’t come up with a single idea. I’ve got writer’s block really bad and I just need to get an idea so I can write. You are such a prolific writer, you write about a wide variety of things. It’s like you can write about almost anything! How do you do it? Where do you get all these ideas? I really need you to help me on this. Please help me, my bank account is almost dry, I need some ideas. Where do you get yours?”

Every published writer has heard this blah, blah, blah braindead story at one point or another. The more famous they are, or the more accessible they are to their readers, the more often they have to put up with hearing it.

I’ve sold ten million books, so I get to hear it a lot. It’s very difficult for me to go to restaurant, movie theatres, or shopping at WalMart with my family because, I’m one of those authors whom every one knows not only my name, but also what I look like, and being a household word type of author, means I can not go outside without being recognized… so this “Where do you get your ideas” question, gets thrown in my face DAILY, heck HOURLY, and ALWAYS comes with a boo-hoo side of “I quit my job to write and now I don’t know what to write, can you tell me what to write, I need some ideas!”

Honey, ideas are a dime a dozen, and I got a few dozen just from listening to your question.

Writers who do book signings get the hear it every other minute, from practically every person who got their book signed. Many writers come to fear dread and loath this oft repeated question. Some just want to strangle the next person that walks up to them for fear they’ll ask this all dreaded question. It is a questioned fear most by writers, because no matter how many times you answer it, there are a million and one others out there lining up to ask it.

And so the question no matter how short or lengthy, still remains the same: “Where do you get your ideas?”

What it Means to Be a Writer

Before moving on the answer the direct question (“Where do you get your ideas?”), I would first like to cover, the indirect one. Did you see it? Do you know what it is? Let’s go back and read that load of tripe, I mean question, once again:

“I quit my job to become a full time writer, but this is my first time writing anything.I’ve never written anything before.I’ve always wanted to write, but my job was in the way and just never had the time. Now I’ve quit my job and have lots of time, but zero ideas.I want to write a novel but I can’t think of anything to write about. I’ve spent weeks trying to figure out what I wanted to write, but I guess now I know what writer’s block is, because, I just can’t come up with a single idea.I’ve got writer’s block really bad and I just need to get an idea so I can write. You are such a prolific writer, you write about a wide variety of things. It’s like you can write about almost anything! How do you do it?Where do you get all these ideas? I really need you to help me on this. Please help me, my bank account is almost dry, I need some ideas. Where do you get yours?”

Well boo fucking hoo. Are you really THAT stupid that you can not see the ideas you are spouting as you speak?

Did you see it this time? Yeah, that’s right, this guy isn’t asking where you get your ideas from. He thinks that’s what he wants to know, but really, getting ideas is not his problem. This guy needs a reality check. I mean, even if you tell him where you get your ideas from, what good will it do him? Nothing. Not one damn thing. Because this guy is clueless. This guy has no idea what a career in writing even is. If you didn’t see what he said wrong, well keep reading because I’m about to spell it out for ya.

What is the problem here?

The problem is this guy is NOT A WRITER.

Writers write.

Writers write a lot.

Writers write every day.

Ask every writer why they write, and you’ll always get a near identical answer:

“I don’t know really. It’s like I can’t not write. It’s like if I stop writing I’ll die. It’s like writing keeps me alive, you know like eating or breathing does. You know how if you stop breathing you die? Or if you stop eating you die? Writing is like that. I feel like if I let a day pass without writing, I won’t wake up the next day. I don’t know how else to explain it. Sometimes a day will pass when I don’t write something down, so I have to punish myself by writing straight through for 24 hours, otherwise I feel like I’ll die. My throat tightens up and my heart starts racing. My chest hurts and my head pounds. It’s like someone is trying to chop my heart out with an ax while someone else is beating me in the head with a sledge hammer and the only way to make them stop and make the pain go away is for me to start writing. Doesn’t matter what I write just as long as I write something. I’ve got all these people running around inside my head and if I don’t write about them, they’ll kill me.”

Every author, in every interview, always says something along those lines.

ALL OF THEM.

There has NEVER been a writer who DID NOT describe the drive to write as though they had no control over it.

All writers express a feeling of anxiety, panic, fear, and dread if they miss a day without writing.

All writers describe writing as though it was as vital as, if not more so, than the act of breathing.

• Writers write.
• Writers write a lot.
• Writers write every day.
• Writers are always complaining that they wish they could stop writing.
• Writers are always saying they feel they have no control over the fact that they can’t stop writing.
• Writers write stories or poems or journal entries all day and all night, never once stopping to think: Is this any good?
• Writers are obsessed with writing.
• Writers view the act of writing as more vital to their survival than eating, sleeping, or breathing.
• Writers do not think about wanting to write.
• Writers do not dream about one day writing a novel.
• Writers find time to write in between every spare second of the day.
• Writers never have trouble with things like jobs or family getting between them and the act of writing.
• Writers don’t worry about ever getting published or read, all they worry about is finding another sheet of paper so they can write some more.
• Writers just write, because writing is what writers do…because that is what the fucking word WRITER literally means!

Some writers even get published, but not all.

Writers are people who write. Authors are writers who have been published.

Writers never get writer’s block, because writer’s block isn’t real.

Writer’s block is a thing which happens when non-writers try to force themselves to write. Non-writers assume that writing is easy and that everyone can do it, therefor they are going to do it too, because they want to be rich and famous, so they try their hand at writing to see if it sticks, and than they can’t think of anything to write so think it must be writer’s block.

Writers write about everything and can write about anything at the drop of a hat, and are never at a loss for what to write next because they write about absolutely everything that goes on around them.

And then here we have people like the question asker, saying: “Well, I’d like to write. I think I might want to write a novel some day. But I’ve never written anything before, I have writer’s block, I need ideas.”

No, you don’t have writer’s block, you are just not crazy enough to to have writer’s syndrome that’s all. I’m not joking here. Several psychologists and psychiatrists are now agreeing with the fact that writers are crazy, (suffer a mental illness, usually schizophrenia, which causes them to be unable to stop writing) and that normal sane people who try to write, are simply unable to do so, because they lack the chemical imbalance of the brain, which causes writers to be writers. These people assuming they must have something wrong causing them to not be able to come up with ideas, tell themselves they have writer’s block, when in fact they only thing wrong is that they don’t have anything wrong at all.

Can you see now, the difference between a writer and a person who wants to write?

For this guy writing is a fantasy where some millionaire, smoking a pipe and wearing a silk jacket, lounges around the house for weeks on end and than miraculously one night he wakes up, screams “I’ve got it!” and pounds out a best selling novel in a single weekend and than does not write another word for 2 or 3 years, when the next “best seller idea” mysteriously comes to him out of the blue.

No writer lives like this. No writer writes like this. Unfortunately, no non-writer believes that a writer’s life is anything different from this.Reality check:

Writing is work.
Writing is getting up and going to work 5 days a week.
Writing is writing from 9 to 5 every day.
 
Writing is, well, it’s writing.

It’s not sitting back and thinking about writing.

It’s not wondering what you should write. 
 
It’s not running around telling everybody you are going to write a book, am writing a book, want to write a book, should write a book, or any other such fool thing. That’s not writing, that’s called talking. Or was it called bragging and making a fool of yourself? I forget now.

Hey! What do you know — writers actually write! Odd isn’t? Who would have thought it possible? Ironically, not many people. Most people seem to think all a writer has to do is sit on a toilet and start shitting gold bricks on a page and viola!

Instant shitty first draft! Next they wave their magic plunger overhead and POOF!

Instant edited manuscript!

And forget about the hours, weeks, months spent finding publishers and getting promotions set up, because we have fairy godmothers doing that for us.

Yay!

We don’t have to do any work because we are writers and can goof off all day long, because that’s what writers do! YIPPIE!

I want an easy-peasy job like writers got. I wanna be a writer so I can shit gold bricks and goof off all day long too!

PLEAAASE!I am just so sick of people running up and flapping their mouth off about how great and easy it must be to be a writer and not have to do anything all day. And it’s bad enough they are so clueless they say that, but than they end it with, “Will, I’m writing a book too, only I can’t come up with an idea, could you help me?”

Seriously? Now not only are you too lazy to get off your ass and write, but I’m supposed to do it for you now? Honey, I may write about ghosts, but I ain’t no ghost writer! You want ideas, than you go out there and get them the same place I do, and I’ll tell you how I do that, so you can do it to, sure, but I ain’t gonna do the work for you.It’s YOUR JOB to come up with your own ideas. Because hey, that’s what we writers are paid to do — come up with ideas and write them down. Okay?

If you ain’t gonna write something, get out of here and go back to your day job, okay? we got enough deadbeat wannabe writers who never write a word lazing around the planet as it is. I am so sick and tired of twiddle-dee-dum dweebs prancing around all stary eyed and sing-songy with “I’m gonna be a writer, it’s my turn to shine, la, la, la, la, la, laaaaaa!”
 
Well, whoop dee do and trall, la, la, if you a going to write, than sit your frigging ass down and start doing it, because the only way to be a writer is to write.

So, you need ideas do you? You want to know where I get mine? Okay. Let’s do some role playing than. I want to you pretend you are me. Yep, that’s right. The Dungeon Mater has spoken and you little player must obey, if you want to find the secret to becoming and endless well spring of ideas flowing down the mountain.

Now, pretend you are a writer. I know it’s hard to do, what with all your writer’s block pounding rail road spikes through your brain but hey, pretend you are a writer anyways, because guess what? Me being, you know, a writer, like most writers, I don’t believe in writer’s block. Any writer worth his salt knows that writer’s block is nothing but a load of hooey that wannabe writers talk about because they’d rather talk about not writing, than do any work. And if you are going to pretend to be me, than the first thing that has to go is your wishy-washy “Boo-hoo pity me I got writer’s block” lazy attitude. So kick writer’s block in the pants and get rid of it once and for all.

Close your eyes, use your imagination, think, breath, deeply, slowly, you are drifting off into the world of writers, where you are a world famous author who has written the top selling book of the year, and your agent has set up a world tour for you.

You have spent the last several weeks travelling across the country bookstore to bookstore doing book signings and answering mountains of questions.

After 10 book signings where you signs a thousand books each, you have answered the question “Where do you get your ideas?” 10,000 times now while simultaneously tossing 10,000 manuscripts in the recycling bin unopened and unread, because you are a writer who barely has time to write books, let alone read 10,000 armature crap manuscripts that were so rudely tossed in your face the past 10 days.

You are ready to scream, you want to toss a bookshelf on the head of the next person who leaps from foot to foot pissing their pants at the joy of meeting you, their beloved favourite author, while holding up a familiar manila 8x11 envelope and explaining they got writers block and can’t finish their manuscript because they need ideas. You agents sends you to a psychiatrist, you come back to your senses and agree to go to the next book signing.

Okay, so here you are at a book store signing books, and this guy is standing in front of you with his sob story about quitting his job to become a writer and now he’s starving to death because he needs ideas, and worse he is so inapt at finding ideas, that now he’s here in front of you begging you to give him some of yours. How do you answer this guy? You want to help him out, but you know that telling him where to look for ideas is not going to help this guy. So instead of telling him where to get ideas, you decide to say something like this:Writing Is a Career Not a Hobby

Now every writer is going to see this differently, but you are pretending to be me, remember? I see writing as a career, not a hobby. I can’t afford to get writer’s block or fail to see an idea, because my life depends on it. Literally. If I don’t write, I don’t eat. Writing buys the food. I don’t have the baby-faced luxury of sitting on my ass, twiddling my fingers and thinking “Ho-hum, nothing to write about today” like you do, because hey, this is my day job.

But here you are in front of me, instead of asking for a book signed you want to know where to get ideas, and are spouting out your pitiful tale of woe-is-me I have writer’s block and there are no ideas anywhere, and so you wave a hand in my face and say:

“No, you don’t understand, I know all that, I know writing is a career. I quit my job to become a full time writer, after all, but I’ve got writer’s block really bad and I just need to get an idea so I can write. You are such a prolific writer, you write about a wide variety of things. It’s like you can write about almost anything! How do you do it? Where do you get all these ideas? I really need you to help me on this.”

But I am helping you, and you are too blind to see that, otherwise you would have seen all the ideas I have given you thus far, I’ve already given you several and you are still asking for more while not yet seeing a single one I’ve already given you. And that is why I am now saying the problem is not your lack of ideas, but rather your lack of seriousness about writing as a career.

You are looking at writing all wrong. You are sitting back and waiting for ideas to jog up to you and say “Here I am! Write me!”

But that doesn’t happen. Writers are very busy active people who are out and about doing all sorts of things all day long, like going to car shows and monster truck rallies, or mountain climbing, walking on nature trails, hiking through national parks, taking photographs of birds and bears, knitting sewing, beach combing, walking dogs, playing drums, flying radio planes, cooking, baking, selling at farmer’s markets, building art cars, painting on canvas, cleaning cat poop, planting seeds, harvesting crops, CosPlaying at comic book conventions, watching Star Trek and Dr Who, attending classes at community college, rooting around in museums, reading ancient documents in historical society archives, visiting haunted houses, interviewing alien abductees, visiting ufo hot spots, eating at food trucks, …you are pretending to be me here remember? Busy, busy, busy, busy. Way too busy to just sit on my ass doing nothing but waiting for ideas to float by me.

And yes, you are right, I am a prolific writer, with endless topics to write about, but did you ever stop and notice the topics I write about? Haunted houses, aliens, ufos, guides to pet care, how to do art/sewing/costuming/gardening, etc, I write cook books, and self-help books, horror stories of hikers lost in deep dark forests…. my list of fiction and non-fiction topics to write about looks an awful lot like that list of things I do every day, doesn’t it, now I wonder why that is?

See, I write what I know. I know a lot of things. I don’t know everything, but I do make it my business to know everything I can about the things I do know. If I like it, I do it; if I do it, I write about it. I see everything I do as an opportunity to write about a new topic.

Writing is my career, but writing is not the only thing I do. I have a huge life outside of writing. I fill every second of the day with all sorts of busy things to do, places to be, things to see…and every single one of them is a doorway to dozens of things to write about. This is what a writing career is REALLY like.

Ask yourself this:

What does writing mean to you?

Is writing a hobby or a career? How did you answer? A career? You must think it is a career, otherwise why would you quit your other job. Why than are you not treating it like a career? What are your goals? Who are your readers? What do you want to write? What is your work schedule?

You said you quit your day job to write. Okay, so I ask you:

What was your day job?

Did you wait tables? Drive a school bus? Were you a cashier at the local super market? Did you teach high-school geography?

Whatever it is that you did for your day job, ask yourself this: How many days did you work each week?

A few well say three, some well say four, almost all of you well say five. No one says seven. By law your employer is required to give you at least two days off each week. That is a law. An anti-slave labour law. It’s a national law. All 50 states have it. That law is enforced. If an employer asks you to work more than five days a week, they are required to pay you a minimum of time and a half (overtime) for the 6th and 7th days of the week. That too is a law.

Why?

Because even the government knows that you can’t get the job done if you are not given a day or two of rest. If you work seven days a week, you well run down, wear out and get sloppy. You begin to suffer burn out and your work well suffer, because you didn’t get a day off. But you did work a certain amount of days right? You had to be at work at certain times? You had certain things you had to do at certain times? You had a schedule. You had errands. You had assignments. You had deadlines.

How many times have you changed jobs in your life time? Did you ever have a job where you did not have to be at a certain place at a certain time and had to do certain things otherwise you did not get paid?

So you quit your job to become a writer.

Well than why are you not treating your writing career like a real job?

Why haven’t you set your schedules yet?

Why do you not give yourself assignments?

What do you do during your lunch break — wait, what do you mean you didn’t think to give yourself a lunch break?

Damn-it man! Don’t you know writing is a business?! You are no longer working for someone else! Just because you work at home doesn’t mean you can lay around doing nothing all day! You have a business to run, tax forms to fill out, expenses to pay, mouths to feed, deadlines to meet. You have work to do buster! Why are you lazing around trying to find ideas instead getting your butt to work?

So, we come back to your answer: Why do you write? Hobby or career?

If you said career, than you know that being a writer is just like every other 9 to 5 job.

Nine o clock you sit down at your desk and you start writing. Around noon you take an hour break for lunch. After lunch it is back to your desk to write until five. Five o clock comes around and no matter how compelled you are to keep writing, you put down your pen, turn off the light and do not go back to your desk again until tomorrow morning when nine o clock rolls around again. Like any other job, you take the weekend off.

Why? Because for you writing is more than a hobby.

For you writing is what puts food on the table. For you writing is what puts clothes on your children. Writing just paid for your teenager’s PS3. Writing pays the $5 a gallon gas you have to put in your car. Writing pays the mortgage. Writing pays the vet bills caused by the recent pet-food recall. Writing will pay to send your kids to college.

You write because writing is your career, your job, your livelihood. For you writing is not a hobby. You can’t afford to let you writing get sloppy and you know that. Which is why you also know that it is foolish for you or any other writer to think that it is in your best interest to write every day.

To be the best writer you can be, write often, write frequently. The more you write, the better you will become, but remember: take a break, get some rest, take a vacation. And whatever you do, give yourself the weekends off. Do not write every day. You’ll be a better writer for it.

What does any of this have to do with finding ideas?

A lot!

The guy looks at you blankly and explains he knows all this., but that what he needs to know right now is where to get ideas.

Yes. You nod. Ideas. I’m coming to that. While all writers are different, they all share one common goal: to become a better writer. For many, becoming a better writer is a goal which they feel is out of their reach because they just can not find ideas to write.

you want to know how to find ideas? Well than, I ask you again:

Why haven’t you set your schedules yet?

Why do you not give yourself assignments?

Now don’t laugh. This really is going to help you to find ideas.Set a Schedule

Set a schedule. Give yourself deadlines. Create a calendar. Tell yourself that you have until such-and-such a date to get the job done. The job could be anything. Here’s a few jobs you could set for yourself:

• Come up with an idea
• Come up with 100 ideas
• Decide on a title
• Write 1,000 words
• Write 50,000 words
• Write a chapter
• Create a new character

Write down something to the effect of: “I will write 1,000 words this weekend” or “I will finish chapter 3 before August 13.”

Having deadlines like this works wonders, because your brain really starts working overtime to beat the clock. Your brain wants you to succeed and will start focusing on getting the job done.

But how does this help you get ideas? Well, let’s find out.

When you set deadlines and schedule dates for your writing goals, other things start happening, things I like to call: giving yourself assignments.

Give Yourself Assignments

Here’s where the ideas start coming in.

Now let’s say you scheduled for yourself a new goal and deadline which states:

"I want to write about a haunted house, and I want to publish it in time for Halloween. I will come up with an idea for a short story involving a haunted house before February 1st, and I will write it before March 31st, so that I will have time to get it published in ______ magazine's October Issue which comes out in September."

Now you must give yourself assignments in order to reach that goal. What assignments would you give yourself? Not sure? Can’t think of any? Well, this is a common goal I give myself, seeing how writing short stories set in haunted houses are a particular passion of mine, so I’ll share with you the assignments I would give myself for such a goal. They include the following:

Day #1: Read Edgar Allan Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher again. Drive out to local abandoned hospital and take pictures. Watch House of Usher DVD staring Vincent Price.

Day #2: Head to Old Orchard Beach, down by the gulley to watch coast guard dredge for bodies, again. Make notes of changes in shore line since last hurricane. Watch Ju-On on DVD. (And Never go to bed because I next decided to watch the entire Ju-On/Grudge series, because once I start watching 1 DVD in the series I just have to watch them all.)

Day #3: Visit local historical society and get more information on local haunted/abandoned hospital. In need of some less scary ghost stories after GrudgeFeast, watch Disney’s Haunted Mansion, which for some reason reminds me of Rocky Horror Picture Show so I watch that too.

Day #4: Go to library, order books on real haunted houses. Have an all night fright feast and watch The Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness (aka Evil Dead 3), and Evil Dead (aka Evil Dead 4) back to back on DVD. Make note of all the times I saw Sam Rami’s car than, go watch SpiderMan DVD series so I can see more of Sam Rami’s car. Remind myself to include haunted car in story. Go watch Christine DVD.

Day #5: Walk around neighborhood looking for houses that look haunted, make notes of what it is that makes them look that way. Find online forum about ghost encounters, ask questions. Watch Saw, all 7 DVDs back to back. Make note of the fact that JigSaw is the perfect villain.

Day #6: Read Edgar Allan Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher again. Drive out to local abandoned hospital and take more pictures. Watch House on Haunted Hill DVD staring Vincent Price, and than watch the remake and the remake’s remake, than watch Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phibes Rises Again, followed by how ever many other Vincent Price movies it takes to stay up all night long, including House of Long Shadows.

Day #7: Visit hospital again, take more pictures, watch for ghosts, ask neighbors about happenings in the area of the old place, and suddenly notice that local abandoned hospital is on Elm St., so scratch all previous plans for this day, head home and watch Nightmare on Elm St DVDs, all 14 or so of them, and don’t sleep for 3 days straight. Become obsessed with Robert Englund and watch more of his movies starting with Phantom of the Opera, 2001 Maniacs, and The Mangler.

And so on, until I’ve reached my goal. And by this point you suddenly realize that I have a massive collection of just about every horror movie ever made on DVD and I watch them nightly, than spend hours writing furiously after watching them.

If you was paying attention than you will have also noticed that I do a lot of foot work going around to local haunted houses (which here in New England we have no shortage of), visiting crime scenes, rummaging through library bookshelves, and visiting a lot of old historical museums (which are also in abundance here). Remember what I said earlier about how authors do more researching than they do writing?

It is also important to note that whenever I go anywhere I take with me a lined notebook, a blank drawing pad, pigma (drawing) pens, pencils, coloured pencils, crayons, and a digital recorder. I write down every thought that crosses my mind, draw every detail that sparks interest, and record interviews and conversations with people I meet along the way.

And I make note of everything: the colour of the leaves on the maple trees, the peeling aint on the porch, the rock in the drive way, the crack in the window, the noisy old lady peeking out from behind the faded yellow calico curtains of the cape across the street…

When I get back home, I pop a horror DVD in the player, turn on my computer, and start transferring my notes to my filing system on the computer, while the horror movie plays in the background producing the proper atmosphere for writing horror.Than I open up yWriter and start typing my story.

I will point out here that I never write without a DVD playing while I write. I use it as “background noise” and for setting the mood. If I’m writing horror, out come the horror DVDs. If I’m writing sci-fi out come the Star Trek, X-Files, FireFly, and Dr Who DVDs. If I’m writing vampires, Angel goes on. When I’m writing children’s books, Disney cartoons (especially DarkWing Duck and DuckTales) are playing. And so on and so forth.

And yet the guy is still staring blankly at me, saying “Yeah, I know, it’s great hearing your writing process and all, but ideas, I need ideas…”

Finding the hidden Ideas . . .

Ideas . . . yes, those things that writers are always seeking
 
I suppose the problem our fictional wanna-be writer had was multi fold.

Obviously he did not do his research before he quit his day job and jumped into a writing career. If he had, he would have known that even top best selling authors have to have a day job to pay the bills, because let’s face it — writing just does not pay worth shit.

You work, you slave, you are lucky if you ever get paid.

Every one wants to read, no one wants to pay for it. It’s a problem all writers eventually learn to face. Unfortunately it’s also a problem that can get in the way of finding ideas too.

How?

Well, let’s look at our guy again.

He quit his job with high hopes of booming in the writing business. He probably quit his job 6 or 7 months ago. He’s been on a roll living the high life on his bank account, and putting off writing until “the big idea” hit him.

But now his bank account is running thin and he’s starting to worry, because the big idea hasn’t presented itself to him yet.

Now he’s wondering where that idea went.

He was so sure it would arrive. He had waited expectantly for it to run up his driveway, knock on the door and yell out “Here I am! I’m your best selling idea! Write about and make millions!”

So why didn’t it come? Where was that big idea when he needed it? What did he do wrong? Well, let’s look at how he spent those 6 months and see if we can’t figure it out together, shall we?Day One — I Quit My Job To Become a Writer!

Friday night our guy storms into his boss’s office with the announcement “I’m quitting my job to write a best seller.”

On the way home he takes his buddies out to celebrate his new career.

On their way there they see a high speed police chase.

After the celebration he heads home and watches X-Files. Tonight’s episode has Mulder chasing vampire pizza boys through a motor home park.

Our guy falls asleep and dreams a giant vampire pizza eats New York City.

Did you see them?

Idea #1: a book about a guy who quits his job to write a book

Idea #2: a review for the local newspaper about your favorite place to celebrate

Idea #3: a bunch of buddies go out to celebrate an event and something happens that changes their lives forever

Idea #4: 2 guys see a police chase and get involved in an international conspiracy

Idea #5: a renegade FBI agent hunts down vampires

Idea #6: a giant vampire pizza eats New York City

OMG! How did this guy miss seeing all those story ideas? If he’d opened his eyes and looked at the world, the way a writer looks at the world, he would have seen ideas all around him that night and would have been bursting with stories to write. But, he wasn’t looking for ideas, no, he was waiting for an idea to come to him instead.

And those are just the first 6 ideas I saw in there. I can find more. I can find a lot more.Day Two — Soon I’ll Get My Idea

After a fitful night of pizzas terrorizing the city, our guy wakes up wondering when the first big idea will hit him. He decides not to eat the left over pizza, due to lingering memories of last night’s nightmare.

He brushes his teeth, and out of the corner of his eye sees a construction truck driving across his lawn and thinks: yellow. One of the construction men working on the street, sounds vaguely like a Viking — though he wonders why he thought that. He bumps his head while making tea, lucky thing he had just come out of the shower and still had his trusty towel on his head.

hhhhhhmmmm. . . . did you see it? The beginning of a best seller? If you missed it, than you don’t know Author Dent, the average ordinary guy who’s life was turned upside down because he did not think of more than “yellow” or realize just how really lucky he was to be carrying his towel when aliens kidnapped him in Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That book became one of the best selling comedies of all time and it started out with a guy looking out the window and seeing construction trucks on his front lawn.

So many ideas, from so many little insignificant ordinary things. Now why didn’t our guy think of thee things?Month Three — Not Even My Neighbours Have Ideas!

Days have turned into months for our guy who is still wandering through life looking for the big best seller idea. Every day he gets up, gets the paper off his lawn, waves to the old guy next door and heads back inside. For three months now he has done this. And yet, he has failed to notice changed in the front lawn of the old guy next door. Every day the old guy is out there digging holes. In three months his nice green lawn has turned into much and mud and piles of dirt. Why?

If our guy had stopped wondering when his idea would come and looked at his neighbor’s yard, he could have seen the next big idea.

Idea #1: the old guy his killing off his rich girlfriends, living off their pension checks, and burying their bones under his lawn

Idea #2: the old guy found a pirate’s treasure map which indicates treasure is buried about where his lawn now sits.

Idea #3: 50 years ago his beloved wife lost her ring in the garden and he’s desperately looking for it

Idea #4: someone thinks the old guy buried his wife on the lawn and every night digs a new hole trying to find proof, and every morning the old guy puzzles over the new hole as he fills it in

Did you see more? I can see more. I can see a lot more. I can see several ways to turn each of these into horrific horror tales, as well as ways to turn each into romance, and each into sci-fis. From these “4 ideas” I can see another 2 dozen. Can you?Month Six — Help! There are no ideas ANYWHERE!

Our guy is sitting in the coffee shop. He’s too busy worrying about his next meal and wondering why his big idea never came, to notice the bank robbery going on across the street, or to see the crowd of screaming teenagers running after a rock star who will be giving a concert tonight.

He doesn’t notice the couple sitting in the booth behind him or overhear their conversation about their wedding plans. He hasn’t noticed that the waitress is sneaking food out the back door to a homeless woman and her small children.

He doesn’t see the mayor and his mistress sneak behind the counter to hide from the wife. He does not see any of these people, all of them waiting for a book to tell the story behind their actions, because he is too busy waiting for an idea to float past him.

By chance he looks up and sees a crowd at the bookstore, and figures, there must be a famous author there signing books.

So he rushes from his seat, past the fireman rescuing a child of the 10th floor of a burning building, past the boy and his dog playing Frisbee in the park, pass the local haunted house, pass the the theater where Hamlet is playing, pass the biker gang that looks suspiciously a lot like vampires, pass the road side preacher who says a meteor will hit earth at any moment, pass the soldier just returned from war, pass the couple hugging at the train station, pass the Mormon missionaries who want to tell him how Jesus visited the Aztec Indians two thousand years ago, pass the news reporter who is saying a whale just washed up in the bay, pass the man who telling another reporter he was abducted by aliens, pass the girl who can’t stop smiling and telling every one how great life is, pass the boy scout team waiting for their campground bus to pick them up, and straight into the book store where he now stands in front you asking: “Where do you get your ideas?”

You look out the store window and you see all those things this guy had to ran past (and ignore) to get to you and you wonder:

Where the hell is his brain? How can he be so stupid? Why didn’t he see all those story ideas?

You, the author signing the books, you know without a doubt that this guy is clueless and beyond help. He will never be a writer, because he is incapable of seeing the world through the eyes of a writer.

You saw story ideas in each of these things:

• The bank robbery going on across the street
• The crowd of screaming teenagers running after a rock star who will be giving a concert tonight
• The couple sitting in the booth
• The conversation about wedding plans
• The waitress is sneaking food out the back door
• The homeless woman and her small children
• The mayor and his mistress sneaking behind the counter to hide from the wife
• The crowd at the bookstore
• A man rushing from his seat
• The fireman rescuing a child of the 10th floor of a burning building
• The boy and his dog playing Frisbee in the park
• The local haunted house
• The theater where Hamlet is playing
• The biker gang that looks suspiciously a lot like vampires
• The road side preacher who says a meteor will hit earth at any moment
• The soldier just returned from war
• The couple hugging at the train station
• The Mormon missionaries who want to tell a man how Jesus visited the Aztec Indians two thousand years ago
• The news reporter who is saying a whale just washed up in the bay
• The man who telling another reporter he was abducted by aliens
• The girl named Polly who can’t stop smiling and telling every one how great life is
• The boy scout team waiting for their campground bus to pick them up
• The author at the book store signing books
• The man annoying the author by asking: “Where do you get your ideas?

He did not even see any of those things at all, and thus never saw the potential each of these things had to inspire a mirid of stories. Every one of these ideas can be used for each of any of dozens of genres: romance, sci-fi, horror, erotica, mystery, chick lit, young adult, children’s chapter books, fantasy, paranormal, small town, slasher, gorn, western, historical, who-done-it, inspirational, conspiracy theory, thriller, adventure, intrigue, gothic horror, gothic romance, coming of age, slice of life vignette, family drama, court room drama, medical fiction, or any of the rest of the countless genres out there. You can take any one of these ideas, and turn that single idea in a dozen or more ideas, simply by changing the genre you apply it to.

I have given you 24 separate ideas on this list, followed by 28 genres, for a grand total of 672 story ideas. I just gave you 672 story ideas free of charge, just in this list, and if you had been paying attention you would see that throughout this article I gave you 100 separate story ideas, plus the 28 genres, for a grand total of 2,800 story ideas.

Writers are observant. A writer will get to the end of this article and will have counted no less than 100 story plots from 100 best sellers peppered throughout this article. (And many will be able to name the titles and authors of the 100 best selling books I referenced throughout this article.) Everyone else will say: “But you only listed 34 ideas!” Hum-uh. And that’s why I said I can’t help you. You are clueless. You will never be a writer, because writers don’t sit around waiting for ideas, writers dig deep and actively look for ideas, which is why writers will be able to not only find all 100 story ideas I purposely planted in this article, but they will even come up with their own ideas besides.

And so, if you have reached the end of this article and find that even after I have handed you no fewer than 2,800 story ideas on a silver platter, you still can’t think of a single idea to write about than honey, I really think you need to come up with a more suitable career, because writing just may not be your thing.So, where do you get your ideas?

The answer is all around you.

No really, that is the answer.

Open your eyes and look around you. Life is happening every where. Life happens a lot. And what do writers write about? Life and things happening. So, stop waiting for the big idea to come to you and know that it already has.

Ideas are all around you every second of every day.

Pick up the newspaper — it’s full of ideas.

Walk down your street — it’s full of ideas too.

Look at your neighbors, look at their yard, look at their car, look at their house.

Go to the store — look at the sales clerk, look at the customers, look at what they buy, listen to what they say.

Take notes.

Write down conversations.

Make note of the things they wear.

Read books. Watch movies.

Go to the park.

Follow the fire truck and see where it goes.

Eat at a restaurant you’ve never been to before. Go to the side of town you’ve never seen before.

Sit on a bench and watch people walk by.

Go to the beach and pay careful attention to the ocean.

What does living near the ocean give me? Why is living near the ocean so great? I love the ocean. I was born and raised on the ocean, by people who likewise were born and raised on it, for many, many generations. The ocean is in my blood. What does it give me?

• Shells to collect, peace of mind at the end of the day, serenity, beauty, a sense of place.
• The ocean waves crashing ‘round my body are like hugs from an old friend.

Why is it so great?

• The sights, the feels, the sounds, the smells.
• The glistening blue, the cloudy green, the deadly grey, sand in my toes, sand in my hair, the cleansing salty grit contrasting with the frigid cold wetness, the cry of the gulls, the screams of the loons, the shrill call of the killdeer, the salty, misty, musty fog, drenched is hints of seaweed and crab.
• I love my ocean in all it’s glory.

The ocean inspires some of my best writing.

Inspiration, that is what the ocean gives me. It can inspire me to write soft beautiful romance, with its hot summer days and lovers in the sand; or it can inspire me to write simple stories of the simple joys of children building sandcastles while puppies chase frisbees in the gentle surf.

I could write those things, most people do, it’s not very hard, I have done it before, but more often than not, I don’t.

• Dark brooding stories of blood and death.
• Drowning victims, bodies washing up along the shore, mermen strangling young women with seaweed, monsters from the deep surfacing to swallow you whole, tourists trapped at hide tide, dashed to death on the rocks, falling from the slippery cliffs to lay shattered on in a shell lined grave bones picked clean by gulls and crabs.
• Yep. That’s what I write.

I could write about seaside carnivals, I often do.

But what side of the carnival to I choose?

• Happy. Joyful.
• Couples laughing on the ferris wheel overlooking the Pier?
• Children their faces sticky with cotton candy, waiting in line to ride the Shooting Stars?
• Or their demise, as darkness falls, and moon rises over the cool black waters, revealing the ride operators for what they truly are: brain sucking zombies, the carnival a trap to lure in tourists for food, like sheep to the slaughter.

Why do I write, the dark things I write?

Why does the ocean inspire such terror?

My most popular character: Etiole: The Silver Salamander Electric Eel MerMan - Quaraun, seen here in his Grand High Emperor of The Triple Planets era, with his great-grand son Etiole the Eel MerMan. 3d printed figurine by Wendy Christine Allen.

I write every day. That’s 31 years (in 1997) of writing every day, or 11,315 days of writing on average 7,000 words a day, except during The National Novel Writing Month contest when I write on average 15,000 words a day for 30 days.

I’ve already written more than 7,000 pieces on a range of topics, and the ocean takes the lead in nearly every one, not simply as scenery, but as an ever imposing character, overbearing and bearing down on everyone it crosses.

Darkness, sci-fi, gore and horror; once in awhile the occasional romance gone very horribly wrong. I could have done none of this without my ocean.

Most folks look at the ocean and see warm summer days, children, laughter, lovers, family vacations, and fun in the sun.

I look at the ocean and write pages dripping with blood.

The Town of Old Orchard, Maine (originally known as The Garden By the Sea, Quebec, until 1821 when Maineland, Quebec was stolen by America, ripped off of Canada, remained Maine and declared a very reluctant American-hating territory of The United States), is the actual name. Old Orchard Beach, is not the name of the town, but rather is a 7 mile long beach which stretches from Biddeford, through Saco, running the whole length of Old Orchard, and ending in Pine Point/Scarborough.

I was born and raised in Old Orchard, Maine, as were both my parents. My father’s grandfather George Ricker, was the first fire chief, and his many times great-uncle, Thomas Rogers, settled the town in 1548, and I still live on that original piece of land. One branch of my family literally built this town. This is more than just a town, it’s my family’s personal history.

No, I don’t set my stories anywhere else. I have agoraphobia. I’ve never been anywhere else.

I have Autism. I write what I know, and this town is the town I know. I know this beach, it’s every curve and wave. I know what it’s like to stand on the shore with a 70MPH hurricane whipping all around me, my skin covered in tiny glass cuts caused by the blast of sand. I know what it is to stand on the shore during a February snow squall, with temperatures -48F.

My mental, spiritual, and emotional connection with this beach is unfathomable. Here is where I meditate, pray, commune with the spirits.

• I know the tides, the snails, the sandpipers, the gulls, the tourists.
• The French Canadians in Speedos, the elderly Floridians in straw hats, the fast talking New Yorkers.
• The deafening sound of the fireworks, every Thursday night mingled with the crashing waves.
• The pitch black of night and the thick choking fog rolling in and blotting out every sight, soaking your clothes wetter than a pouring rain, and filling your nostrils with the pungent smell of uprooted seaweed and dead crab.
• Once in awhile we get the excitement of watching the Coast Guard dredging for dead bodies washed down from the Saco River.
• Dead bodies wash up on the beach more often than town officials would like to admit, 5 a year, not uncommon, never less than 3, as many as 10 some years.
• Not just bodies washing down from the river.
• People drown in the gully.
• Parents turn their back on toddlers, letting them swim alone in the gully.
• Locals don’t go near the gully.
• They know better.
• Tourists don’t care.
• The tourists don’t think about it, I wonder if they even know the danger they are in, should be in the gully, when tide come roaring back in?
• Do the read the warning signs?
• Clearly posted, in bright red letters.
• Swim at your own risk.
• Dangerous riptide.
• No swimming after dark.
• No one thinks about it.
• Not even when the bodies wash ashore.
• Neighboring towns don’t care.
• The papers never say where the body was found, only where it fell in, in some little town no one ever heard of deep in the forests of Northern Maine.

No one knows the dark side of Old Orchard Beach.

They see the signs, but no one cares.

Danger.

Warning.

Beware.

Riptides.

Stay behind the fence.

No swimming after dark.

• Tourists ramble past, not giving the signs a second glance.
• Why should they bother read a sign?
• They are here for fun in the sun on their great big family vacation.
• We don’t want to think about the dangers.
• Who cares that we’ll be flying one of our own back home in a coffin.
• It’s the beach, I’m here to swim.
• They come.
• They swim.
• They die.
• THAT is the reality of Old Orchard Beach, Maine — since the 1970s no fewer then TEN tourists have been killed in our gulley EVERY SUMMER, and yet NOT ONE of those deaths has been in the TV news or newspapers because town managers and hotel owners pay police officers of Old Orchard Beach to NOT give those death reports to the reporters, because money, money, money is all local business ownders care about, and so we locals continue to watch the Coast Guard pull out bodies every few weeks, and continue to complain when the news does not tell anyone how deadly and NOT tourist friendly Old Orchard Beach really is!
• It’s the same thing every year.
• Tourists are stupid.
• They have no respect for the ocean and the dangers it brings.

The only people who really know the dark side of our beach, are those of us, fewer than 2,000 year round residents, who live here on it and actually see the Coast Guard pulling up the bodies.

The red and white helicopters, big red ships, little red dignies, yellow police tape closing off the beach….

”Nothing to see here, folks, nothing to see,” say the soldiers as they push back the crowds.

For many years I have sat in my bedroom window watching bodies being pulled out of the gully, wrapped in red body bags, and loaded into Coast Guard helicopters.

There’s a reason why no one who lives here on the beach, actually swims in the ocean.

We know the danger.

We’re right off the Saco River delta so, any body that falls in the river from here to Canada, is eventually going to wash up on our beach.

The Great Saco River and its infamous Saco River Curse. World’s most haunted river. Claims more bodies than any other. And here is where it dumps them. The Saco River coughs up bodies on our beach, like a cow coughing up its cud.

The Saco River Curse is a local legend based on a strange and unexplained series of deaths that have occurred here at the Saco River Delta where the river meets the Atlantic Ocean. The history of the Saco River Curse goes like this:

The York family moved to Saco (Maine) and built a house on the tiny island overlooking a huge waterfall where the Saco River dumps into the Atlantic Ocean. They named the place York Manor of York Hill. On the other side of the river was Saco Island (today known as Factory Island at the Memorial Bridge Crossing). On Saco Island lived a tribe of Native American Indians who worshiped or rather feared a local river demon, Memegwesi, a type of Faerie or water dwelling trickster. On the mainland just a few hundred yards away, was the port where sailors docked (and still dock to this day — and is where I park my Volvo when you hear me talk of parking on York Hill when I visit my dad at his Biddeford apartment).

One night, in 1547, three drunken sailors rowed across the river to Saco Island, kidnapped a baby from the Indian tribe, than rowed across to York Hill, where they threw the baby into the waterfall, claiming that Indians were born able to swim, thus it would survive the fall. The baby’s mother followed desperately after them, and jumped into the falls trying to save her baby. Both the mother and the baby were crushed to death on the rocks below. The husband/father was also the tribe’s medicine man/witch-doctor/shaman/holy man. Infuriated at the white men for killing his wife and child, he went to the waterfall and called upon the river demon asking it to punish the white men, by killing three white men in the waterfall of York Hill, every year for eternity, so that no one would ever forget what these men had done to his beloved wife and child. To date, no year has passed since with less than 3 deaths in the waterfall at the Saco River Delta on York Hill.

Marquis de La Fayette, resided here during the American Revolution. A vast fort was built on the islands surrounding York Hill. The English Lobsterbacks were rumored to have meet a watery grave at the hands of the river’s demon. Local Fisherman claimed we had won the war against England because the Memegwesi it had been English soldiers who’d killed the baby so long ago.

By the late 1700’s church groups began congregating on York Hill, some claiming to have encounters with not a demon, but rather an angel, others claiming communication with the spirits of long dead Indian chiefs, some claiming Faerie communications, at least one claimed to talk to men from the sun, another said a man from Venus, and some began to call the Memegwesi “The White Salamander” (Salamander being a type of Welsh shapeshifting Faerie), while still others gathered to bless the river and exorcise its demon. Hundreds of attempts were made to remove the curse, and more than 200 new (mostly short lived) religions sprung up and were found here in Saco Bay. The most famous of these were “The Community of Christ”, “The Society of Free Brethren and Sisters”, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints” (aka The Mormon Church), “The Salvation Army” and “The Shakers” all of which still exist to this day.

By the 1800’s our little haunted river, with its white sands beach, had begun receiving tourists. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln came to Saco Island, hoping to get a glimpse of the river’s “Old Indian Ghost”. His visit would inspire folks to on those new fangled things known as locomotives, for the purpose of ghost hunting in Maine. This spot has been a hotbed for ghost hunters ever since.

In the early 1800’s the fort was turned into a huge mill factory on Saco Island, and the death toll skyrocketed, as a transvestite serial killer took advantage of the curse and took to rapeing mill girls and then tossing them in the waterfall. The most famous of these murders was the infamous Bean Murder of Factory Island, which resulted in the capture of the abortion doctor who had made a habit of pretending to be a mill girl in order to kill all the women who’d had an abortion. He pleaded that he had been possessed by the river demon and got off with hardly any punishment, only a few months of hard labor, in spite of having been wanting in suspicion of having killed over a dozen young women.

Stories of ghosts haunting the house began to rise. In the late 1800’s York Manor was torn down by terror crazed locals who were convinced that the house was haunted by the ghost of the father/husband/medicanman. They believed that tearing down the house would end the curse. The remains of the house were saved, however and the house was rebuilt elsewhere in Saco, where it stands today, in its new giant Victorian apartment building form, next door to the church on Smith Street, behind the Amato’s, beside the RiteAid, across the street from Thornton Academy. That big yellow Victorian mansion, is what was once, many years ago, known as the York Manor the cursed haunted house of York Hill. Removing the house from the island, removed the curse from the house, which has had no farther hauntings since it’s move.

Are you seeing YET where I get my ideas?

EVERYWHERE!

Go outside and walk around YOUR HOME TOWN and start paying attention to everything that goes on.

I guarantte you’ll find a hundred plus things to write about before you get 5 minutes into your walk.

THAT is what I do.

THAT is where I get my ideas.

I write a lot of stories about people drowning in the ocean, because I live on the ocean and watching the coast guard pull out bodies is a thing I see from my driveway several times a month!

One can not live on the edge of the ocean at the mouth of this monstrous river, without being affected by the river which feeds the bay. Each year tourists come in millions. The packs and herds, they flock to our shores in droves.

Our beautiful, deadly, dark, bloody beach. They come and go oblivious, so few ever know.

And then they read my books, and ask in utter horror, Why?

Why do you write this great wonderful place, in such a dark, horrid light? How could this place of utter beauty inspire you to write such utter horror?

How?

Why?

Because I know this beach.

I know this river.

I know the dangers that lay in wait.

I know the deeper story, the one you do not see.

You see the surface beauty of the crystal blue waters, but I see the deep dark truth, that lay in the rocks below.

You come and go.

I live here every day.

You see only its natural beauty.

I see it’s every bloody drop.

People think it’s creepy, my morbid fascination with this little known dark side of this beach.

Every town has its secrets.

Little skeletons in the closet.

The Town of Old Orchard depends on The Old Orchard Beach, and its 2million yearly tourists to survive.

It’s a ghost town in the dead of winter, businesses boarded up, homes shuttered, fewer than 2,000 residents by the time snow falls.

This town needs tourists to survive.

You think the tourists would come swim on a beach that spits up a few dozen dead bodies each and every year?

Town officials go, hush, hush, not too loud, we don’t want to scare away the income. So the tourist come with their money, and a few must die to keep our town alive.

Only the locals know our beach’s dark little secret.

• I love this beach.
• Everything about it, the good, the bad, the ugly, the utterly unmentionably horrible.
• It is raw, unforgiving, unpredictable, wild, untamed, mesmerizing, beautiful.
• I write horror.
• Vampires.
• Zombies.
• Ghosts.
• Farrdarigs.
• Phookas.
• RedCaps.
• Bloody, bloody Faeries and Mermen from the deep.
• Haunted mansions clinging to rocky cliffs threatening to throw themselves into the depths of the foaming waves.
• Bloodthirsty mermen, pulling their victims to cold watery graves.
• You only see this beach in the bright days of summer.
• Come back in the winter and see it frozen over.
• Come back in the fall and brave the blasts of wind, feel the sand as it slices through your tender skin.
• Come in the spring when you can see nothing for the fog.
• This cold, icy, foggy beach has atmosphere.
• The atmosphere here is the perfect setting for horror, especially the horror I write.
• You can look out over the fog and almost see the ghost ships, the vampires, the fish men from distant galaxies…it is the perfect setting for the dark, gloomy, brooding, bloody Poe-esk stories I like to tell.
• The beach is the story itself and I am the one it has chosen to tell its tale.
• I didn’t choose this beach as a setting.
• It chose me.
• The stories come to me as I stand on the slick, jagged granite, listening to the gulls screaming bloody murder through the fog.
• The little hermit crabs scurry across my feet in search of dead rotted flesh, begging me to write of the murder victims the hide in the tidal pools.
• Looking down from the rocks, into the drop offs on the other side, the gleaming silver eyes of seals and fish peer up at you though the dancing kelp, but are they fish and seals, or mermen and selkies, lurking, waiting, starving, thirsting, for the unsuspecting human to venture too close to the edge.
• The tourist who washes up mangled on the shore, did they really slip and fall, or did a cold icy hand reach up from the deep, and yank them down under by the ankle?
• Beware foolish travelers.
• Beware of the deep.
• For little men lie in wait, your flesh they come to eat.
• Where do I get my ideas? Everywhere.
• I just open my eyes, my ears, my heart…I look around me, I listen, I feel, I smell, I see, I touch, I taste, I empathize, and I write it all down.
• Every bit of it.
• I am what I write.
• I write what I am.
• Everywhere I go, the beach, the store, the library, here in college, there is something to see, something to hear, something to write.
• My life is where I get my ideas.
• That is how I choose my topics.
• I can write about anything, because the world is full of everything.
• But the ocean, my ocean, the riptides of Old Orchard Beach, nothing can set a fire under my pen, better than does my beloved white sands beach.
• I love my ocean.
• And so, when you ask the question, what does living near the ocean give me?
• This is what living near the ocean gives me.
• A blessing.
• A glory.
• A history.
• A curse.
• A horror.
• It is my inspiration.
• The gift to write of terrors, dark and deep.
• The ocean gives me my career, my life, my inspiration for all I do, for I am a writer, and tales of this ocean is what I write.

I would have it no other way.

Get involved.
Get out there.
Do something.
Be part of something.
And take notice of everything that goes on around you.
Everything is an idea.
EVERYTHING!

You know what? Everything happens for a reason, and if you are a writer, than there is only one answer to that: Everything happens so that you have something to write about. So get off your ass and go find something to write about.

You only have to look out your window.

Another common (top 5 most asked) question is: Do you write the title first or last? Along with “How do you come up with your titles?”

I do both ways.

Don’t know which way I do most.

Never paid attention.

Some times I have a title and I think “Damn! That’s a great title, I got to write a story to go with it!”

And other times, I just have an idea and write it down, but no title for it. When I get done writing I search through the text of it looking for a line that would make a good title.

So, sometimes I have the title first, other times I make the title last.

I don’t see that either way is better then the other. Though I can see how some people might want to stick to one or the other.

I don’t put much effort into coming up with titles. Never saw the point.

You can find out more about Quaraun HERE.

You can find out more about BoomFuzzy HERE.

You can find out more about GhoulSpawn HERE.

EVERYTHING We Are Allowed To Publicly Release About The FBI Investigation Can Be Found HERE

Do you know who this woman is?
If you have any information about the identity of this child murderer, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

On November 14, 2013, she used a golf club to bash out the brains of my 8-month-old baby Xavier-Octavian Allen. She called herself “Claire” as though she thought I knew her, but I know no one named Claire and had never seen her before. She was about 65 years old and would be around 75 years old today in 2025. The FBI believes the woman who murdered my son is the same woman who hired the backhoe to drive over my house on August 8, 2013, a few weeks before my son’s murder.

If you have any information about the identity of this child murderer, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

My house at 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, on July 4, 2013 and on August 8, 2013 after vandals drove a backhoe over it. The backhoe is still running in this photo, I got home from work while they were doing it and the white haired man jumped out and ran away leaving the backhoe running, until it ran out of gas. It sat in my yard for 6 months until the police finally towed it away.

She is the same woman who severed my spine with the same golf club used to murder my baby. She had distinctive two-inch wide stripes in her hair all the way around her head, platinum blond and dark reddish brown, in a pageboy haircut.

If you have any information about the identity of this child murderer,please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

Of the Portland, Maine FBI Office, 4th floor, Middle Street Portland.

FAQ: How Did the FBI get involved?

The FBI believes this woman who crippled me and murdered my baby on November 14, 2013, is connected to the backhoe that illegally drove over my house making me homeless on August 8, 2013.

Between June 2001 and continuing on into 2025, there have been over 200 violent attacks on 146 Portland Ave, Old orchard Beach, Maine, including the beheading of 75 pet roosters April 2007, whose headless bodies were hung in my rosebushes from rope nooses.

The FBI believes ALL of these events are being done in an attempt to drive me off my land. 

According to the FBI, in 2007, a developer went to the Old Orchard Beach Town Hall and filed an illegal building permit for a 27 unit condominium, on my land and CLAIMED to be the owner of my land. This land has been in my family since 1531, we are Native Americans of the Kickapoo tribe and there are more than 500 graves, most dating from the 1500s to 1600s on my land. 

This land has been in my family well over 500 years, and I inherited it from my grandmother Helen Ricker Allen in 1983.

The FBI believes, ALL of the slander/rumours that falsely accuse me of being transgender were ALSO started by this woman who murdered my son, in a further attempt to drive me from my land via working locals of Old Orchard Beach into a trans-hating frenzy.

If you are a real estate agent and ANY ONE contacts you interested in buying 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, PLEASE report that "client" IMMEDIATLY to FBI Agent Andy Drewer, head of my son's murder investigation, and head of the investigation into the 200+ acts of vandalism and hate crimes which have occurred at 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine between 2001 to 2025.

If you have ANY information about ANY of the incidents, attacks, vandalisms, and hate crimes that took place between 2001 and 2025, on 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, please give that information to FBI agent Andy Drewer as well.

My land is not for sale and ANY ONE offering to buy it is likely connected to this woman who murdered my son.

ANYONE interested in buying my land has a HIGH PROBABILITY of being hired BY MY SON'S MURDERER, and you MUST send their information to the FBI.

If you have any information about the identity of this child murderer, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

She shows up at my yard (both in Old Orchard and in Biddeford), at my college classes, at my workplace... always violent and smashing things, always yelling "transvestite freak" and similar hate slurs about transgender people (she seems to believe I am transgender even though I am I cis woman, and her hatred of transgender people seems to be her primary motive.).

At one point the man who was with her called her "Vallerie". But she herself talked of herself (in a bizarre, not how normal people talk "3rd person") Claire. She kept saying things like "I'm Claire, bitch!" and "I'm Claire you fucking transvestite freak!"

She really, really, really, really was going overboard in emphasizing that her name was Claire - to the point that I am led to believe that her name is NOT Claire, and that she was in fact pretending to be someone else, who's name was Claire.

The fact that the man with her (who was later discovered to be a Biddeford police officer - he was identified in February 2025 when he was killed in a car accident in New Hampshire.) called her "Vallerie" and not "Claire" when he talked to her, indicates, that her name is more likely to be Valerie, then Claire.

But I know no one named either Vallerie or Claire, and outside of these events where she shows up and attacks, I've never seen this woman before and have no clue who she is.

She has attacked more then a dozen times, IN ADDITION to the golf club attack when she murdered my son and crippled me.

She frequently dies her hair and wears wigs. And has looked quite different in the over TWELVE YEARS of her stalking and harassment

I have 3 broken vertebrae, 3 ruptured discs, a broken sariliac, hip dysplasia (broken hip and broken pelvic bone, with hip bone pushed back into pelvic bone and fused together), in addition to rheumatism in both hips, both knees, and both wrists, as well as MS.

Rheumatism I've had since I was 8.

MS I've had since I was 16.

All the rest was done by the crazy blonde woman with the golf club, November 14, 2013, at Southern Maine Community College. I was also 8 months pregnant and she murdered my son as well. I was paralyzed for 18 months and had to relearn to walk. Her hair was wild extreme unnatural rave style 2 to 3 inch wide platinum blond and dark blonde-brown stripes.

I found a pin that shows a similar hairstyle:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/tonos-de-cabello-rubio--322148179608879161/

In May 2015 I returned to work, walking minimally with a cane.

On June 24, 2016, the same mystery blond woman with her hair now dyed rusted reddish blond, woman, this time driving a late 1990s vintage gold Volvo station wagon, drove up beside my car, while I was putting groceries in my car at Scarborough Walmart, jumped out, grabbed an empty shopping cart from the shopping cart corral, and attacked again, same as she did with golf club three years earlier. This attack is the one which caused worse damage, and I have still not yet recovered from now in 2025.

In the 2016 attack, her hair was dyed an unnatural burgundy red, with slight grey roots growing out, the same unnatrually straitened pageboy style, and she was wearing a burgundy sweater that time.

In the 2016 attack, her hair was dyed an unnatural burgundy red, with slight grey roots growing out, the same unnatrually straitened pageboy style, and she was wearing a burgundy sweater that time.

She most often looks like this, with the red hair... and it was what she looked like on the December 24, 2016 Christmas Eve attack at my dad's apartment building. And THIS attack we have on camera, and so we have actual video footage of her... including, we have audio files of her yelling and chanting "transvestite freak!" while shooting a gun, during the Christmas Eve attack at 27 High Street, Biddeford, Maine.

Her hair has been a different colour each time she has shown up. In 2021 it was a neon dayglow purple, but still the same pageboy. The 2021 attack she was wearing a black poly satin dress with neon lime green trim

Her hair has been a different colour each time she has shown up. In 2021 it was a neon dayglow purple, but still the same pageboy. The 2021 attack she was wearing a black poly satin dress with neon lime green trim

When she showed up at PortCon 2023 and the Round 1 at the Maine Mall the same day, she was again wearing the black dressed, but this time her hair was died black, but she was wearing a neon dayglow lime green "clown wig".

Her face is covered in deep "smokers wrinkles" and her skin is very, very abnormally dry and flakey.

She had a somewhat large nose, (kind of more like a man's nose then a woman's nose) and very thin lips (almost none existant, again, more like a man's lips, then a womans)... she is a LOT bigger then me... a LOT - I am 5'6" and she's maybe 5'11" to 6'2"... she's like really, really, really big.

When she showed up at PortCon 2023 and the Round 1 at the Maine Mall the same day, she was again wearing the black dressed, but this time her hair was died black, but she was wearing a neon dayglow lime green "clown wig".

at one point at the Round One in the Maine Mall attack, she pulled off the green clown wig while she was yelling and her hair was a black-black super fake dyed black pageboy.

The 2016 attack is the one that did the most damage and. That is why I have the cane, walker, rollator, and wheelchair. And which one I use is determined by how much pain I am in at the time I try to stand and move.

She is the one the FBI is looking for. He said he thinks Bruce’s family knows who she is. He said they become alarmigly, agitated, evasive, and violently hostile whenever questioned about her.

If you have any information about my son’s murderer, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

• Everything we are allowed to publicly release about The FBI Investigation Can Be Found Here

She is the same woman who severed my spine with the same golf club used to murder my baby. She had distinctive two-inch wide stripes in her hair all the way around her head, platinum blond and dark reddish brown, in a pageboy haircut.

If you have any information about the identity of this child murderer,please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

I have 3 broken vertebrae, 3 ruptured discs, a broken sariliac, hip dysplasia (broken hip and broken pelvic bone, with hip bone pushed back into pelvic bone and fused together), in addition to rheumatism in both hips, both knees, and both wrists, as well as MS.

Rheumatism I've had since I was 8.

MS I've had since I was 16.

All the rest was done by the crazy blonde woman with the golf club, November 14, 2013, at Southern Maine Community College. I was also 8 months pregnant and she murdered my son as well. I was paralyzed for 18 months and had to relearn to walk. Her hair was wild extreme unnatural rave style 2 to 3 inch wide platinum blond and dark blonde-brown stripes.

In May 2015 I returned to work, walking minimally with a cane.

On June 24, 2016, the same mystery blond woman with her hair now dyed rusted reddish blond, woman, this time driving a late 1990s vintage gold Volvo station wagon, drove up beside my car, while I was putting groceries in my car at Scarborough Walmart, jumped out, grabbed an empty shopping cart from the shopping cart corral, and attacked again, same as she did with golf club three years earlier. This attack is the one which caused worse damage, and I have still not yet recovered from now in 2025.

That is why I have the cane, walker, rollator, and wheelchair. And which one I use is determined by how much pain I am in at the time I try to stand and move.

She is the one the FBI is looking for. He said he thinks Bruce’s family knows who she is. He said they become alarmingly, agitated, evasive, and violently hostile whenever questioned about her.

If you have any information about my son’s murderer, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

• Everything we are allowed to publicly release about The FBI Investigation Can Be Found Here