This is my blog about life as an author. These posts are suitable for general audiences, but probably not of interest to anyone under 50. Feel free to contact me with questions or for information about my 70+ books. I Might even give tips regarding how to get involved. I encourage you to join my Patreon community.
10/11/26
Horror!
I WOULD LIKE, if I may, to take you on a strange journey.
Ring a bell? By the time I saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1979, it was already a cult classic. People went to it more to participate than to watch. Costumes, dancing (Let’s Do the Time Warp Again!), flicking lighters, putting newspapers over their heads, and shouting out lines or comebacks for lines that almost drowned out the soundtrack from the movie.
Well, years ago, theatres building on the campy idea started doing shadow cast performances during October. Essentially, people playing the roles perform in front of the screen showing the movie. It adds a whole new level of chaos to the Rocky Horror experience. I recently saw a ‘memory’ from a friend who was in a shadow cast in Everett, Washington twenty years ago! Productions got a big boost in 2025 for the 50th anniversary of the movie’s release, and then again this year, after the sad passing of actor Tim Curry.
And this year, I’m deep in the cult, acting out the role of the criminologist/narrator with a cast that is mostly kids half my age or less. I’m having a blast.
It is so much better than pumpkin spice.
I’ve always enjoyed Halloween and somewhere I’m sure I still have some photos of me dressed in costumes just for the fun of it. Well, I was a theatre kid. I’ve also frequently written a special Halloween story like last year’s Alienable Rights, ‘A political satire in which everyone gets screwed.’ I submitted that to the Halloween contest on SOL last year, but frankly I was so bored of the season by the time results were out, I forgot to check the winners for weeks. Not that it made a difference. People don’t enjoy political satire so much these days unless it is specifically attacking someone they are opposed to. I freely “attacked” everyone because I consider all politics to be equally ridiculous.
At last we know! People have been dazed and confused by all the things going on in the US lately. The government shut down. Agents are in the streets. And frogs are on the front lines. Everyone in a Halloween mask. Is it any wonder that no one believes the media? Is it all fake news?
No! It's the aliens. They’ve landed and they’re here to stay in Longview, Kansas.
Satire, parody, and humor, with lots of tentacle sex!
I thought it was funny. Alienable Rights is still available for free reading on SOL and my own website. Also available as a Signature Edition hardcover.
I’m not participating in the holiday contests anymore. I might sometime when I feel especially inspired, but the format just doesn’t appeal to me. First of all, the entries are restricted. I can’t release them anywhere else while they are in a contest or even tell anyone about them. I feel that isn’t fair to my patrons. And if they place in the top three, there’s an exclusive period of months before it can be released to anyone else.
Secondly, the entry deadline is on the 30th of the month with judging opening the next day. Well, on the 31st, the holiday is basically over. Judging ends two or three weeks later, and by the time results are announced, who still cares?
But I still enjoy writing oddball Halloween stories.
Two years ago, I wrote The Key to Eve, a story of a shapeshifting cat and a boy who talked to animals. It placed third in the 2024 SOL Halloween Contest. But I’m still trying to get it exposed to readers in the right timeframe.
The Key to Eve is an enchanting, adult fantasy romance where magic, mystery, and destiny intertwine. Peregrine, a kind-hearted wanderer who speaks the language of animals, is cursed after taking an apple from a witch’s forbidden garden: he will know no peace until he finds the key to Eve’s heart. As he journeys through a world of foxes, wolves, ghosts, gryphons, and dangerous fortune-seekers, Peregrine discovers that bravery is not conquest, and love cannot be won by force. Meanwhile, Eve, a gifted young witch sheltered within an ancient mansion, rejects the suitors who see her only as a prize. When a magical key and a black cat draw Peregrine back to Tumwater, the pair must confront the greed that has endangered the town and its creatures. Rich with folklore, humor, sensuality, and heart, The Key to Eve is a spellbinding tale of two people learning that the truest magic is freely chosen love.
The Key to Eve is still available for free reading on SOL and on my website.
What’s really cool, though, is that the idea stuck with me and my next short drama, Code Kitty, features a shape-shifting cat! Every keyboard needs a kitty. That’s coming up in November.
My first Halloween story for an SOL contest was One-Hour Do-Over. It won third place in the 2012 SOL Halloween Contest. That was one I wrote based on a real-life experience that I still think of fondly.
One-Hour Do-Over is a nostalgic, high-voltage tale of love, chance, and a Halloween night that changes everything. Set in 1984 amid theater crowds, costumes, music, and shifting clocks, it follows Jonathon as a fading relationship collides with an unexpected connection to Lynn, a captivating newcomer in a witch’s costume. When Daylight Saving Time grants them an extra hour, the night becomes a turning point neither could have imagined. Witty, intimate, and steeped in the texture of its era, this autobiographical romance explores heartbreak, desire, second chances, and the strange magic of meeting the right person at precisely the right moment. Sometimes one hour is enough to rewrite a life.
It’s only 1 a.m. We have a one-hour do-over!’
So, we did. Over and over.
One-Hour Do-Over is still available for free reading on SOL and on my website.
One of my favorite Halloween stories, Before the Fire, was never entered in a contest because it was too short. But it’s too long to be called flash fiction. One reader commented, “You now can claim the title of the ‘erotic’ equivalent of O. Henry.”
At less than 1,500 words, I can’t tell you much more than that without telling you the story. Before the Fire is available for free reading both on SOL and on my website.
This Halloween, I’m truly enjoying playing the criminologist in the Red Curtain Theatre production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in Marysville, WA. One of the reasons is that my daughter is directing the show. She can finally tell her old man what to do with impunity.
The show only runs for seven performances on the last three Fridays and Saturdays of October. The odd seventh performance is at midnight on Halloween. I wonder if I’ll be awake enough to recite my lines for that one. Old, you know.
But there is also one other thing that is certainly being affected by the season. That’s my new work in progress, My Name Is Vengeance. It’s progressing at a rate of a couple of chapters a week, partly slowed up by me pausing every hour or two to recite all my lines again. You know it’s not really “Practice makes perfect.” It has to be “Perfect practice makes perfect.”
My Name Is Vengeance is a sweeping supernatural revenge saga about a warrior who has already destroyed one world—and refuses to let death stop him from reclaiming another.
After an ancient war leaves nothing but ash, a nameless avenger fulfills his father’s command to annihilate his enemies. But vengeance is not finished with him. Cast into the sea while seeking a new land, his spirit endures for millennia before finding a new host: Erik Oswald, a brilliant Boston dockworker betrayed and left to drown by his ruthless stepbrother.
Reborn in Erik’s body, Vengeance inherits a 1950 world of skyscrapers, automobiles, labor unrest, organized crime, and a stolen family legacy. He also inherits Erik’s unfinished promises: protect the woman he loves, reclaim the fortune taken from his mother, and make those who thought him dead answer for their betrayal.
As Erik rises from dockworker and scholar to professor, entrepreneur, and heir, he builds allies in unexpected places—from hard-bitten longshoremen to former criminals seeking redemption. Yet every victory draws darker forces: corrupt union bosses, mobsters, corporate conspirators, and descendants of forgotten gods who recognize the ancient power behind Erik’s eyes.
Driven by bloodlust, bound by an oath, and awakened to love for the first time, Vengeance must decide whether justice means destroying his enemies—or building a future powerful enough to outlive them.
Some names are given. Others are earned.
His name is Vengeance.
My Sausage Grinder Patrons are following the development of this story as I write it. It’s a great time to be a patron.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
