I've ways found quarries to be inherently creepy places, and that still, often lifeless water has never helped improve that perception.
#author #writer #cosmichorror #horror #books
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E.S. Raye
@esraye@mastodon.social
mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-06🇨🇦
Husband. Weirdo. Nerd.
Writer of science fiction and horror short stories, novels & screenplays.
Editor-in-Chief of Perseid Prophecies magazine.
𝘎𝘢𝘴 𝘎𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘎𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘪𝘵: 𝘈 𝘛𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘛𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘉𝘦𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘺𝘨𝘯𝘶𝘴 𝘙𝘪𝘧𝘵 available now!
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Joined January 09, 2025
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Working hard to stay distracted tonight. Gas Giant Gambit is a finalist for the Laramie Awards, and the winners are being announced tonight!
But the ceremony in in Washington state, and I'm in Toronto.
Gonna be a late night mashing that refresh button.
With all the hoopla about upcoming possible Firefly news, I feel conflicted.
- I *LOVE* Firefly.
- But Joss Whedon is a garbage human.
- But good space-westerns are so rare.
- But Joss Whedon is a garbage human.
By the way, have I mentioned I wrote my own space-western?
Just got word that my experimental and political #scifi short story "Visitors" will appear in Flash Fiction Magazine on June 29th!
Here's a taste:
When flying saucers arrive over major cities, politicians, pundits, and experts discuss the implications, and what measures should–or even can–be taken.
I managed to get myself an extra writing day this week, and I'm using it to dive into the (stack of) notebooks containing the lore for my as yet unwritten genre defying seven book series set during World War II.
Coming back to this headspace is always so exciting. I've got some big plans here.
#scifi #horror #fantasy #superhero #amwriting #write #writing #books
Leaning back from the keyboard to daydream different ways of getting your characters out of the impossible situations you've put them in may not add words to the page, but it still counts as writing.
Do you like stories of mysteries, lies, and secrets?
Rare: A Dark Anthology of Unusual Secrets provides all that and more.
Available now at https://esraye.com/rare/
Khazad-dûm.
Z'ha'dum.
Genuine question that I feel like I already know the answer to:
Is J. Michael Straczynski a big Tolkien fan?
80K+ words, and I'm gliding into the third act of Shallow Trenches/Open Skies.
Probably another 25K or so to go, but it's gonna be a hell of a ride.
Life in the clouds of Aeolus ain't for the faint of heart. The wind and visibility are the most obvious concerns--not to mention the prospect of a core-bound fall--but far from the most dangerous...
Gas Giant Gambit: A Tall Tale From Beyond the Cygnus Rift is available now!
Got a lot coming down the pipe in April. Some of it is new. Some of it I have been waiting on for months.
Suffer the anticipations of April with me.
https://esraye.com/2026/04/07/writing-news-april-anticipation/
I am officially giving myself permission to start outlining my 7 book scifi/fantasy/cosmic horror/superhero/alternate WWII history series.
It's gonna be a huge undertaking given my current workload, so I'm starting now with the hope I can start writing book 1 next year.
Between my current WIP, this, and outlining the book I'm writing next in May (and am already daydreaming about), I've never juggled so many major projects!
Wrote 1400 words today, and waded hip deep into my third plot point. I'm done for the night, but there's no way I stay away from this for the whole weekend.
I'm having too many epiphanies and too much fun!
Wait...
So, the Shadow War--the thing #Babylon5 has been building to from the beginning--ends 1/3 of the way through season 4?
What the hell do we do for the remaining 35 episodes?
I just realized I am only a few hundred words away from Shallow Trenches/Open Skies's big third plot point!
It starts off a pretty typical WWI epic, but over the course of the story I have ramped up to full scifi mode (with a growing element of horror), and it's only going to ratchet up from here!
#scifi #sciencefiction #horror #writer #books #amwriting #novel
Yes, Shallow Trenches/Open Skies takes place in Belgium during WWI in 1918, but scifi can take you to some pretty strange places. This one in particular also lends itself to the elements of body horror appearing in the manuscript...
Why do I write sci-fi? It's probably all those sci-fi books and media I consumed as a kid (and well beyond!)...
So, here's my top 5 favorite sci-fi novels (with a few bonuses and honorable mentions)!
Got a surprise writing day today, and I'm muddling through an intense WWI battle scene with alien, starfish-shaped walking tanks and heat-rays a la H.G. Wells.
I know the outcome of this battle, just not how to get there.
To quote one of my all-time favorite scifi properties, "Big bada-boom!"
A short story that I've been shopping around for years just got accepted by a paying publication.
It was my second most rejected story (13), and was also called "excellent" by one of those rejections (the editor loved it, but felt it wasn't right for their audience--fair enough).
But it's times like these I remember my favorite Ray Bradbury writing quote:
"You have to learn to take rejection not as an indication of personal failing but as a wrong address."
🧵 1/2
With quick-draws, and stand-offs, and jailbreaks galore!
But also aliens, and robots, and spaceships aplenty!
Gas Giant Gambit is available now!
https://esraye.com/gas-giant-gambit/
#bookstadon #books #scifi #western #spacewestern #sciencefiction
Although the sinking of RMS Lusitania happened years before Shallow Trenches/Open Skies takes place, it looms large over the main character, 2nd Lt. Bernard "Griz" Behr.
One of the things about writing scifi and horror is that you'll be humming along, in the flow of words, then suddenly you have to describe something scary or alien.
And the next thing you know, you've fallen down a well of "scariest mouths in nature" and have lost an hour or two.
Does that happen in other genres?
Fantasy, I bet.
Got feedback on my #technoir short story "Lines of Demarcation" from the 1st Round judges at @nycmidnight@mastodon.social's #ShortStoryChallenge2026. All three had praise for the world building of Cibus City.
But that's because I've been to that methane-drowned town before, in "The Stuff Legends are Made of."
It's starting to feel like home.
And Clayton Hart is starting to feel like a sister.
I think I've still got more of her stories in me. I can't wait to expand this one and find it a fitting publisher.
Every city has its dark underbelly.
But Cibus, at the bottom of Margot IV's methane sea, is the the planet's dark underworld. Nothing pure happens in those oil-streaked streets, and Clayton Hart knows it.
Still, a job's a job, even if all the players are liars.
Read "The Stuff Legends are Made Of" in Rare: A Dark Anthology of Unusual Secrets, available now.
Character arcs are coalescing on this rainy Saturday.
Crossed 75000 words.
25K-ish to go.
With many lasers blasts and explosions along the way.
Saturdays are usually family days with Jessie and the dogs. But Jessie is off from work for now and home during the week, *and* she's got herself a new hyperfixation (stained glass--and she's really good at it too!), so all that means I get a guilt free writing Saturday!
RE: @perseidprophecies@mastodon.social
The best part about being an indie spec fic magazine editor is getting to read all these wonderful and horrific stories.
The worst part is choosing only six.
#Babylon5 season 2, episode 4, and who do I spy?
Horror giant, and frequent '90s guest star, Brad Dourif!
He and I share a birthday, and it's in 9 days!
Happy early birthday, Mr. Dourif!
A magazine that offered me a "revise and resubmit" late last year on a horror short story--and then ghosted me when I asked about the process for doing so--has suddenly resurfaced and wants to see the story again.
Unfortunately, I never did the "revise" part...
Guess my weekend has planned itself!
#amwriting #horror #shortstory #horrorshortstory #writer #writingcommunity
RE: @RxBrad@mastodon.rxbrad.com
Absolutely phenomenal episode.
I've been struggling with my characters in this manuscript. They don't feel unique enough, nor going through enough development.
But I had some epiphanies about each of them today that will really flesh them all out in a second draft! Just gotta muddle my way through the first one, first.
Moe, the cobbler rob(ot) turned green-bottle jelly wrangling farmhand, is without a doubt one of my favorite characters.
He's suffered to get where he is, and he's not about to give it up without a fight.
Gas Gisnt Gambit is available now!
#sciencefictionbooks #scifibooks #bookstadon #scifi #spacewestern
When a young woman is unwillingly dragged into a roadside psychic's shop, she learns an ancient secret from her family's past that changes the way she sees the world, forever.
Read my short story "The Séance" for free in issue 103 of Blood Moon Rising Magazine, out now!
https://www.bloodmoonrisinghorrormagazine.com/
#bloodmoonrisingmagazine #horror #horrorshortstory #ectoplasm #shortstory
First draft of my superhero-adjacent romance "Crème Brûlée," for the 2nd round of the @nycmidnight@mastodon.social #shortstorychallenge2026 is finished.
Editing tomorrow, but this ended up becoming a fun origin story for a pair of baddies for my Cobalt Fist superhero, and I had a blast writing it!
Yes! "Lines of Demarcation," my first round entry for the @nycmidnight@mastodon.social #ShortStorychallenge2026 (and sequel to "The Stuff Legends are Made Of) earned 2nd place in my group! A personal best!
Round 2, later this week!
The word of the day is "lepidopterist."
And I'm using it to describe how a walking tank is pinned to the ground with a gravity spike.
Ain't sci-fi fun?
It has come to my attention that in order to sell my book, I need to market not only the book, but myself.
Who thought *THAT* was a good idea?
Anyway, I have a 1st-Friday-of-the-month newsletter that you should subscribe to for news, WIP updates, and anything else I feel like chatting about!
https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/782327/110832186268059534/share
I fell down a deep well of lore for my 7-book scifi/fantasy/cosmic horror/superhero/alt WWII history series the other night. Literally thousands of years of history for the antagonistic forces. I wrote it a few years ago now, and I had forgotten some of it.
--Enough that it's making me rethink certain details in my current WIP, which is a sort-of-prequel to the series.
I have some brainstorming to do if I want it all to fit together properly.
I lost yesterday's writing to time to (planned) vehicle maintenance before Jessie drove up to see her mother and grandmother today (7-ish hours away).
I am currently losing today's writing time because she left at a different time than I was expecting and it threw my rhythm off.
Gotta get to it!
I have begun building EdiE, the new PC I used to describe as diesel-punk, and have no admitted its more mid-century retro-futuristic, if you care about such design details.
I have updates and failures to share!
https://esraye.com/2026/04/21/edie-diesel-punk-pc-no-more-long-live-mcm-retro-future-pc/
With 25% left in my current WIP's first draft, the next idea is knocking on my door pretty insistently. I've managed to keep it at bay for now, but I am chomping at the bit to get back into world building mode.
And let me tell you--it's gonna be a weird one.
Just crossed 70k words.
Chippin' away.
Really deep in the "trust the process" of it all right now.
I've seen some people say they don't like outlines because it feels like it takes all the fun and surprise out of the actual writing.
But I disagree.
If you've seen my outlines, you know they're highly detailed, but as I'm writing a small, emotional character scene, it unexpectedly set up something massive I hadn't thought of for later.
Believe me, there's still plenty of room for surprises!
I had #DS9 on to lull me to sleep last night, and I had the sudden realization that S02E18: Profit and Loss is straight up #Casablanca.
I know I'm 32 years late to this realization, but sometimes I can be a little slow with shows I've been watching since I was 9 🤷♂️
The last time we went to the moon, it sparked the golden age of #sciencefiction. Returning now has me feeling thing and thinking thoughts.
If you're new to scifi, or haven't given it a try yet, now might be an ideal time to dip your toe in those galactic waters.
Reading slump official broken, thanks to From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi!
Gonna build some momentum with few short stories from my favorite galaxy far, far away, then switch over to the horror novel (Meat Bees by Dane Erbach) I've had waiting for me!
With so much to choose from in traditional, indie, and self-publishing, picking your next read can be tough.
Here's what I fall back on for that decision.
https://esraye.com/2026/03/03/tbr-piles-how-i-choose-what-to-read-next/