Writing more, losing weight--sure. I've made those resolutions. The one that's got me the most worried, however, is one that my wife and I have made together. We are going to be vegetarians. We'll eat fish, though. And there's this (maybe Buddhist?) notion that you shouldn't refuse any food offered to you by a host, so we'll eat our friend's BBQ. At home, though? Vegetarian.

(Maybe a steak on the grill once in a while.)

You get the picture. This one's so flexible it has to succeed. We will be pesca-flexitarians. Great. I can do that.

Why am I worried, then?

We need recipes. Please help us with things we can make for special dinners, as well as quick things that we can throw together on busy weekday nights.

My son doesn't like beans. Keep that in mind.

Use the Contact link to the left or post your best dishes as comments right here. Convince us to be more than just pesca-flexitarians.

I dunno. Maybe this'll be a contest. Anyone who gives up a recipe? You'll go into a drawing for ... something. Something that will be a surprise.

(To you and me, both.)

Drafts of the first two chapters of The Centennial Horror, my latest novel-in-progress, are now available on my DeviantArt page.

It is 1876, on the eve of the Centennial Exposition.

Chapter I introduces Stanley, a ne'er-do-well treasure hunter who finds more than he bargained for in a mysterious ruin in the Chihuahuan Desert.

The action switches to Philadelphia in Chapter II. We meet Patrick O'Rourke, a former police detective whose experiences with a brutal serial killer have reduced him to near-vagrancy.

Let the Lovecraft-flavored fun begin. Check out earlier blog posts about this novel to catch up.

I don't hate writing. I love to write. Like I love to go places. I just hate the actual "going" part. Put me into some altered state, at the end of which I'll have a finished book and no memory of the process. It'd be like the blissful half-sleep I find in the passenger seat of a car on a long trip. Nothing but a distant yet happy sense of missing all of the hassle.

Otherwise, the trip has to be interesting. I've got to drive past ruins or old cemeteries. The trip, itself, has to be the destination.

I once heard Paul Watkins speak to a group of high school students. He talked about his process, and how he hangs notes and scraps of paper on the wall until he can hear them flutter when he opens the door. The room sighs, he said. And that's when he knows he's done researching. Then he writes.

I'd always gone a different route. Take Toothless. I already knew a fair amount about Knights Templar, and other things. Enough to start writing, I felt. Research? A little. Sure, there are echoes of real history. Martin's sword coming from Germany, for example, because that's where some early examples of Oakeshott Type XIIIa come from, and the 12th century is pretty early for anything bigger than an arming sword.

But, really. Once the zombies start marching--and that's on page 1--the world is mine. Did I get the organization of the Knights Templar wrong? Maybe in the real world, but in my world, well, the dead started walking around. Did I misunderstand the relationship between church and state? Or the geopolitics of 12th century kingdoms? Well, you see, a rampaging army of demons was pulling a big evil tree on a cart across France. And then there were werewolves. So, yeah, people made other choices.

The Centennial Horror is a different animal. (Though there are werewolves.) In Chapter II, Patrick (our hero) washes his face--a brief moment to establish his, well, dirtiness. But where does the water come from? Did Phildelphia have running water in 1876? (Hydrants in the street, I'm thinking. So, sink in his apartment becomes a pan of water.) How about street lights? The first lit up Second Street in 1841, but where and when else? Were the streets paved? Cobblestones? Does he have to walk on dirt streets in the dark to City Hall? But was City Hall even built yet? Turns out construction was halted because they couldn't afford the marble. A commemorative map shows the unfinished foundation and the cranes, as if the construction site had been silent long enough to have become a fixture, even a landmark. In one photo, the pile of marble looks like the base of a pyramid. But the Masonic Temple was there, right across the street. And, research reveals, the architect of the temple actually worked on some of the world's fair buildings. And that's important to the story. And so's the notion of a pyramid, actually.

So, research can be exciting. The trip can be the destination. If I'm interested, and I'm informed, I'll write a richer novel.

But I can feel the research becoming a distraction. Something for me to do instead of writing. If I keep reading, I'll know an awful lot and will be ready to write a Dan Brown novel. I'm not Dan Brown.

Or Paul Watkins. My room's sigh will be the gasp of its going unconscious after holding its breath for too long.

So, I'm forcing myself to write. Two chapters are done. And, by "done" I mean recorded on my Olympus dictation thing. Which means I still need to write them. Which means that I'll wrestle with questions along the way. Running water to his apartment, or pan that he filled from a Fairmount Water Works hydrant bathed in the light of a Philadelphia Gas Works street lamp, its decorative flourishes filled by three decades of chalky black paint? But when did those lamps actually appear in the streets just north of City Hall? Hopefully by 1876.

And if not by 1876? Then he walks in the dark. Or maybe the werewolves put them there.

Stay tuned.

The first 1,000 words, or so, of The Centennial Horror are down. Check it out here. The new software--Liquid Story Binder--is holding up nicely, though I find myself going out to OpenOffice or Word to do the heavy editing. Nice thing, though, is that LSB seems to anticipate that you'll do this. Its file structure is pretty easy, and all of the files are in RTF.

A bit about my process, here. I have a long commute to the day job, so have gotten in the habit of dictating into an Olympus Something or Other digital recorder. This is a nice little machine, has withstood a lot of punishment, and only cost about $50 when I got it. (Though it's got this proprietary driver and won't work in Linux.)

I'd finished Toothless, and was spending time catching up on other podcasts. Mail Order Zombie, Dread Media, H. P. Podcraft, Don't Look in the Podcast, and others.

I was getting itchy. This past week, for the first time since finishing Toothless, I picked up my recorder.

The batteries were dead.

I fished out my old iTalk, which had never worked, and was happy to discover that, on that morning, for those 20 minutes, it was cooperative. Clunky and not nearly as convenient as my Olympus Thing, but at least it worked.

Why that morning? Stanley was ready. He'd been rummaging around in the back of my head, getting himself together for his debut. And he was ready. That's all there is to it.

From here, I'll probably take about a week or two to get my bearings, flesh out details, and flex Liquid Story Binder's muscles. As usual, I've got a lot of questions for myself. I've set the stage for some themes and ideas, and my head will need some time to simmer them all together. Once everything's gelled, it'll start to come at a good pace.

And research. Got to read up for this one. That's where Liquid Story Binder is really shining, for me. Lots of places to put all of that good stuff I find.

More coming soon!

Introducing ... The Centennial Horror!

In the summer of 1876, a massive Corliss steam engine awoke to power the machinery of the Centennial Exposition. The world's fair was meant to be America's coming out party to the industrial world. The Civil War was over. Its triumphant general presided in the White House. America's most thoughtful men and women had labored for years to organize the Centennial. They had debated endlessly over the organization of its displays. They had begged for funding. They had judged submission after submission from hopeful and talented architects drafting in every corner of the continent.

It was to be the dawning of a new era.

No one expected the End of Days.

The Corliss Steam Engine at the Exposition.
Was this engine powerful enough to open a gate to Hell?
Do you really have to ask?

The Next Novel from J. P. Moore

Plotting for The Centennial Horror has already begun. I'm excited to make plain my "process" for researching, writing, and ultimately podcasting this novel right here in my blog. Like Toothless, this project is attracting characters who are already quite familiar to me from the back of my head. There's Cairo, the eccentric but brilliant palmist from England. Stanley, a vagabond and teasure hunter, wanders the Southwest, looking for the fabled Kingdom of Dreams. (He'll find more than he bargained for.) And, deep in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, a forgotten sect worships an ancient and slumbering god who is about to wake on the absolute wrong side of the bed.

Feeding the Beast

Perhaps not surprisingly, the works of H. P. Lovecraft represent a chief inspiration. In this, I've not only been re-reading those works, but also soaking up ...

The Art of Scott Purdy: the world of The Centennial Horror seems as if it would fit nicely in Scott's head, and I spend a lot of time staring at "Cthulhu WIP" and "Nightmare of the Plains" to put me in the right mood. Fans of Toothless already know Scott's amazing work, so should not be surprised that his art is proving to be an inspiration for this equally dark project.

I'm gaining a new understanding of and appreciation for Lovecraft's work from The H. P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast. I'd been looking for a podcast like this. Dissecting Lovecraft's stories with intelligence, humor, and finesse--if you're a Lovecraft fan, subscribe now.

I'm also flexing the muscles of some new software. Liquid Story Binder XE seems like it may just be the right platform to tease out all of threads of this tale. I'll let you know how it goes.

Stay tuned ...

I'll post more--much more--on this work as it progresses.