Category: Patrick’s Updates

Hello everyone!

Ah, summer is fading…and I couldn’t be happier. Ironic, isn’t it? Most around where I live are so sad to see summer go, but I can’t stand it. The heat, the humidity…I know I’m in the minority, but I’ll take ice and snow over that any day. It’s much easier to add layers to stay warm than to strip layers off to stay cool.

However, there are other reasons to be excited for autumn. Naturally enough, autumn is my favorite time of year, and that is in no part due to the fact that Halloween looms on the horizon! Call it cliché all you want, but I am a true Halloween fanatic. There’s no time of year that I feel more myself or in my groove than at All Hallow’s Eve. This in turn has given rise to my other great passion besides story-telling: haunting. I have been an active member of the professional haunted house industry since 2013, and will most likely continue to be so until my dying day…perhaps even beyond. For a time, I even tried to turn that into a full-time career, but as anyone in the entertainment industry can attest: making a living there is difficult at best. For niche pursuit like haunted attractions, the prospect of earning a living through that kind of work is even worse. A guy can dream though, right?

I still dream.

Writing was not my first career choice, but it was a very close second. Between writing and my day job, haunting has been relegated to more of a hobby than an actual career pursuit, but if my plans for this October proceed, than perhaps for the first time ever, I’ll be able to get paid to do what I love.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with the Twins…

Don’t forget that my haunted house novel, the Curse of House Corbant, is now available for pre-order pretty much EVERYWHERE. If you’ve already pre-ordered, then head on over to the “Buy” page to fill out the form for my pre-sale giveaway. Who doesn’t want free stuff!?

As always, stay scary my friends!

Hello everyone!

So let’s get real here for a moment. This may come as a surprise to some…or maybe not, who knows…but I am not a full-time author. I’m up every weekday to be in to a factory job at 6:00 am. A few years back this shift began at 4:30 am instead. That was fun.

Anyways, my day job is nothing spectacular. I run the wrapper in shipping for an interior door factory. On the plus side, the simplicity of the job does lend me a lot of time to do some scheming. Some of my best ideas have hit me as I’m watching stacks of doors spin on the turn-table. For this reason (and since we’re not allowed to have cell phones on the production floor), I always carry a stack of pocket notebooks with me at all times. You never know when inspiration will strike, so the trick is to always be prepared when it does. It’s also worth noting that any idea is worth writing down. If it doesn’t work now, you might come back to it later.

So that’s my life in a nutshell. Just like most, I spend the majority of my days at work (an average of ten hours a day). As to what happens at home…that’s a topic for another time.

Don’t forget that my first novel, the Curse of House Corbant, is currently up for pre-sale with the links on the Buy page. You can also enter my Pre-Sale Giveaway on the Buy page, with a chance to win free stuff! Don’t miss it!

As always, stay scary my friends!

Hello again, everyone!

The pre-sale for Curse is in full swing! My, what a trip it’s been. It only took…ten years, give or take? If you have pre-ordered the book, don’t forget to enter my pre-sale giveaway by following this link:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf4Odzy62uSbdFWimnkh55rTZHE8EWj2u-seDLTrSJh44OzwA/viewform?usp=sf_link

Now that that’s out of the way, I’d like to take a moment to talk about one of the short stories exclusive to my mailing list. Specifically, I’d like to elaborate on “A Good Story,” which is the short story that goes out to everyone who signs up for my mailing list. If you haven’t signed up, get on it! Come back only after having read the story that comes with it!

Back now?

Well, if you haven’t read it yet, that’s all right. I’ll keep this spoiler-free. “A Good Story” is based on a story I wrote many, many years ago that pulled me into the idea of becoming an author. In the original story, a boy is pulled into a world hidden inside an old book. Unfortunately I lost the original manuscript years ago, and now only the idea remains in my head. Given that this story started as a writing prompt for a middle school class, I had to amp up the horror element a little, and decided to throw a little ambiguity into the narrative. Both stories can be summarized with the expression, “a good story pulls you in.” If you have read the “A Good Story,” I hope it succeeded!

As always, stay scary my friends!

Hello again, everyone!

Yeah, I know it’s been a while, but trust me when I say business is about to pick up. Why, you ask? Because the official pre-sale for my first novel, the Curse of House Corbant, is just four days away!

Holy Hell, let me read that again…

The pre-sale is only FOUR DAYS AWAY!

What am I gonna do? I didn’t think I’d make it this far!

All joking aside, it has been a very, very long road getting here. Some may remember very early drafts and experiments in writing from across that time, but I am glad to say I have grown as a creator and am finally releasing something that I feel I can be proud of. I hope it meets or exceeds your expectations…but of course, it will still be a few months before we find that out. Still, thank you for joining me, and, fortune prevailing, this should be only the beginning.

They say that artists use lies to tell the truth.

What truth will you find in the story to come?

As always, stay scary my friends!