Success!

I have sent out the following stories for publication:

“The Redness at the Edge of the Sore”

“Craft Time in Watering Station, Minnesota”

“Kanaima”

“Red Lockbox” (formerly “Seventy Times Seven”)

“Last Stop”

The latter two were the most changed. I cut 2/3 of “Red Lockbox, leading to a leaner, meaner scare story.

As always, I will keep you updated on my progress on this site.

By the way, I celebrated my success at Donny Dirk’s Zombie Den. It’s the official zombie bar of AxelKohagen.com. If you want to feel like a 50s biker, resurrected and drowning in great beer, you don’t want to be anywhere else. Someday I’m going to write a story, from start to finish, sitting at one of their booths. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get a beer out of it.

-Axel

I called an audible and skipped the bar scene. Instead, I went to the only coffee shop I’ve ever known tough enough to look like the vampire bar in From Dusk Till Dawn.

I hadn’t been in Hard Times Cafe in well over five years, and going back for a Cafe Miel and editing session brought back college memories. Except this time I wasn’t smoking, I couldn’t handle strong coffee, and my outfit didn’t look like something on a GI Joe guy no one bought (as my college RA described my fashion taste).

If you don’t know, Hard Times has coffee with the kick of a good whiskey and a punky style of decoration. It’s a place people go to discuss the “hegemony of hipsters” (something I actually heard being discussed today), or to sell pictures of themselves blowing fire (a memory from a college visit).

When I was in college I went there to work on writing, and I once celebrated making an 10 minute silent film about a murderous college student at Hard Times. Back then, the cigarette smoke was Bogart-movie thick. Now, the smoke is gone, but the place still has the right feel.

Between my time at Hard Times and the rest of my editing at home, I finished revising all three remaining stories. One of them, “Last Stop,” forced me to take a break until the shivers went away. It’s on probation right now – it may be too cynical for me to consider publishing.

By the way, I had planned on printing up “Mudwife” and not “Last Stop. I feel like there’s some sort of fate involved here.

Still hoping to get one more story out tonight. Time for more caffeine.

- Axel

Earlier in the week, I challenged myself t0 send out 5 stories for publication before the end of Sunday.

My status, now that the week has almost passed me by?

A little behind, perhaps, but by no means giving up.

My short stories “Craft Time at Watering Station, MN” and “The Redness at the Edge of the Sore” have been submitted to magazines. By the end of the week “Mud Wife,” “Someone Else’s Song,” and “Seventy Times Seven” will begin their journey next.

I may take the final three stories out with me on Friday night. I’ll  settle in the darkened corner of some pub, have a Newcastle or two, and make the final three stories of this challenge presentable.

Those three stories are all sad, regretful, and brooding. I believe this rules out Chuck E. Cheese’s. Any suggestions?

Here’s what’s happening:

– I’m setting a very public goal for myself. If I fail at this goal, all who read this may mock me without mercy.

I WILL send five short stories out for publication this week. They’re written. Why aren’t they out trying to get jobs?

I have until the end of next Sunday to accomplish this mission. Too many stories sitting round, taking up space. A line must be drawn.

– The HooseCows is very close to being ready for submission. I’d love to see it out by the end of the year, so I can annoy everyone by insisting it’s the Christmas gift of the season.

– Over the last few months, I’ve had the opportunity to learn more about film making by shadowing the folks at TriWar pictures. Working with them has been a great experience. They’re all friendly and ego-free over there, but they meet deadlines and get work done in the most professional of ways. I may have the opportunity to get some advice on my slasher camp screenplay A Good Death. I’m very thankful to have made that connection

As I settle down to the precise, detail-oriented work of preparing stories for publication, I realize I miss writing and publishing online too much to skip writing a novel this year.

So, if you need some American Gothic Ghosts and Romance, head back to cfcows.com to check out chapter one of my new serial novel.

Lots of things are going to be happening on the riverbanks this summer. Tune in and dig it.

Axel

http://cfcows.com/2012/03/11/the-lonely-bed/

Looking at my website, I realize it just doesn’t look quite right.

Truth be told, I’ve been looking at this website quite a bit and I just can’t gussy it enough to make it pretty.

I have the same problem trying to get myself to look presentable before leaving the house. In the days before my wife Michelle, I wandered around college wearing:

1) pleather pants and Hawaiian shirts

2) a blaze orange shirt-vest and an orange, purple, and white head scarf.

3) Black jeans and a black military shirt.

Don’t think I’ve grown up, either. I would still wear any one of these outfits if given the chance (read: Michelle takes a vacation or loses her vision for a brief period of time). I’m incurable.

Because my bad taste is terminal, I’m going to need help. If you’re reading this, please look around this website. It’s not much now, but it’s going to be the place you can go to check up on my writing progress.

What do you want from this site? What does it need? I need your help. Otherwise, the next time you see this website it could be blaze orange.

Axel

The process of sending out my short fiction has begun, and I already have my first rejection email to prove it.

I’m currently editing “The Redness at the Edge of the Sore” for publication. It’s a story I really like. It came from years of wondering what it’d be like to be an action movie thug, sitting in some rusty sedan and thinking about the TV dinners in their kitchen cupboard. After years of watching those movies, I started cheering for the namelesss thugs more than I cheered for the heroes.

The rejected story is already back out, looking for a home. It’s called “Craft Time at Watering Station, Minnesota.” Its roots go all the way back to finding the occult book section of the Denver Public Library in Denver, Iowa. A small picture book called “Devils and Demons” started scaring me in elementary school.

At a book sale years later, I actually got to buy that book from the library. It’s sitting on a bookshelf in my house right now. I don’t know if that’s good luck or bad luck for me.

They’re both stories I’m very fond of, and I hope to see them in print sometime soon.

Axel

As some of you may already know, baseball and horror are two of the main passions in my life. This website is dedicated to promoting my horror writing – although baseball found a way into that writing with The HooseCows, now didn’t it?

Thanks to www.TwinsDaily.com, I have a place to write about Minnesota Twins baseball. Those posts won’t make the front page of www.axelkohagen.com, but you can find them listed in an rss feed to the right of this post.

This way, if you want to read baseball bitching and moaning, you can. If not, my other obsession won’t intrude on your enjoyment of the site.

I do like my baseball writing, though. I get to be a little more footloose and fancy free. I hope you like it, too.

Axel

Right now, one of the three readers of The HooseCows final draft has returned their edited copy to me. Two more to go and then it’s time to start a-courting publishers. There are some hip new e-book publishers that have caught my eye . . .

Other than that, it occurs to me a website devoted to your writing progress would be greatly enhanced by having writing progress to report on. Time to break out some short stories and do some damage.

The usual tradition is to send a great story to Cemetery Dance. Getting my name on their Table of Contents would give me a hell of a trophy.

I’ll post a tale here, because this site’s looking a little too bare bones for me. Keep your eyes peeled.

-Axel

I’m heading to Crypticon this weekend, and you should be there, too.

In addition to having fun and cutting loose horror-fan style, I’m also hoping to make a few contacts and check out what other people are doing to market their stuff.

Bringing my HooseCows business cards/baseball cards to share. Hopefully, in the near future, I’ll be able to set up my own table and sell a copy of my own book.

But until that day, I have to get out and hustle. See you there!

Axel