As I’m currently between jobs, looking for a job and have time I’m writing something for a submissions call that I just found out about. The deadline is right before the end of the month. Juuuuuuust about two weeks for a 2-4k word short story. I can do it if I polish off two pages a night. I’ve done it before. Between typing this evening and just after midnight I’ve got about 700 words which is just over two pages. Appropriately enough I started while watching “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken,” as it is a horror story. I first dreamed up the basic Idea following a call a few years ago from Vitality Magazine (which folded soon after)  for an LGBT themed ghost story. As I am a big fan of M.R. James and Ramsey Campbell I envisioned a Jamesean/Campbellian tale and wrote down a few ideas as to plot in a notebook, and a note to write up the story on a paper on the wall in my office. Fortunately, I put the title down there because there’s no way I could find it in the pile of notebooks I have. I borrowed a little from my own experiences and a few things I’ve noticed now and then.

Oh, and as for that title; it’s “Something In The Dark.”

I’ll keep you posted.

——jeff baker, july 15, 2018.