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Kool and the Gang put out a song in 1980 titled, Celebration. It’s the ultimate Raise Your Beer song. It’s the ultimate Look What Amazing Thing You Did song. And it should be the song we sing when we succeed, even with the little things � especially with the little things.

Did you get out of bed this morning? Celebrate it.
Did you get dressed this morning? Celebrate it.
Did you make it to work or school this morning? Celebrate it.
Did you make someone laugh today? Celebrate it.
Did you write a song today? Celebrate it.
Did you write a story today? Celebrate it.
Did you write a paragraph or even just one line? Celebrate it.
Did you draw or paint a picture? Celebrate it.
Did you graduate from school—any school? Celebrate it.
Did you get a new job? Celebrate it.
Did you do something new? Celebrate it.
Did you do something you were afraid to do? Oh, celebrate it.
Did you do something you thought you couldn’t do? Celebrate it.
Did you do something you’re good at? Celebrate that, too.
Did you cry because something made you sad? Celebrate the emotion.
Did you help someone today? Celebrate kindness.
Did you stop holding a grudge today? Celebrate maturity.
Did you do a workout for the first time or the thousandth time today? Celebrate progress.
Did you do something for yourself today? Celebrate you.
Did you not let something bother you that usually does? Celebrate tolerance.
Did you dance for the first time today? Celebrate it.
Did you arrive to work on time today? Celebrate timeliness.
Did you realize you’re an amazing person? Celebrate the awesomeness of you.
Did you fall in love? Celebrate that with all your heart.
Did you stay in love for a week, month, year, twenty-five years, fifty years, more? Celebrate endurance � and patience.
Did you learn something new today? Celebrate education.
Did you say goodbye to something toxic? Celebrate renewal.
Did you say goodbye to a loved one who is no longer here? Celebrate their life.

There are so many things we can celebrate every single day, but we’re too focused on bad things, on failures, on the things that bring us down. We’re too focused on not being good enough for a person, for a group, for a job � for ourselves. Life is full of small successes, things we pay little attention to, but things that matter more than we tend to believe.

Celebrate all the small things (did you read that as if you were singing a Blink 182 song?). Those small things so often lead to bigger successes. We should make celebrating these things a part of our daily lives. I’d celebrate that.

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

Good morning. I’m really excited to announce the coming of Memento Mori Ink Magazine, presented by the duo of Crystal Lake Entertainment and Lisa Vasquez of Stitched Smile Publications.

What’s even more exciting is I get to participate in this with a new series about writing and what I know so far.

The first issue is slated for the end of August. Check out the cover art below.

I hope you will check it out in August.

Until we meet again my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

I sat at my desk, quietly leaning back in my seat. I didn’t face the desk, the computer or the papers that sat beside the keyboard, the many emails I had printed out that outlined tasks I needed to do for the day. I can’t say I was looking at anything—I wasn’t. I just â€� stared at nothing, my thoughts on a slow train running circles around my brain.Ìý

…�

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Before continuing, let me back up a couple days. Context is important.

A few days earlier, my wife introduced me to a song I didn’t know by a fairly well-known band. It was odd, maybe quirky, but catchy and emotional. There’s a piano at the end of the song that makes everything feel so heartbreakingly sad. I didn’t really know how I felt about it. Again, it was an interesting song with some lyrics that I would later know and be like, ‘damn, those are some good lyrics.�

“What do you think?� She asked.

“I love the piano at the end.�

“I thought you would.�

“It might be one of those songs that grows on me. I don’t know.�

The song grew on me, partly because of the lyrics and partly because of the piano at the end. I’m a sucker for the higher notes of a piano, which is why some of my favorite songs are ones people wouldn’t think would be on my list, like Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart and Britney Spearsâ€� Everytime. And now, Shindown’s Symptom of Being Human.Ìý

The piano is important here because, as a writer—or just as a human being—I have a soundtrack in my head, and it seems to always be on a loop while I’m writing. Every song on that soundtrack has a piano in it and the only actual part of the songs my mind hears are the piano parts. Sometimes there isn’t even a song, just a piano. The notes make sense in my head but I don’t know if they would to anyone else. I know, confusing.

The soundtrack had me thinking, if my writing were a genre of music, what would it be? At first I thought it would be heavy metal. I’m always listening to some sort of metal band or other. Then I thought, no that’s not accurate. You see, I don’t hear heavy metal when I’m writing. I hear pianos and I realized my genre would be simply a piano in the background and it fits my love of subtleties and emotions in my stories; the conversational style I have.Ìý

I posted something on social media, asking writers the question, If writing was a genre of music, what would yours be? The answers were neat and so many of those who responded, I understood their thoughts, their ideas on what their writing could be compared to as a musical classification.

Then a long-time friend of mine, a former writer who told some of the best stories I have ever read, commented:

I wish anthem rock songs. I wish, I wrote a story 2 weeks ago and considered sending it to you for old times sake � but then wanted to tweak the story and ran out of time.

Having read so many of this guy’s stories, I wanted to read his new one, even if it hadn’t been polished. I responded with one sentence:

You can still send it if you wrote it.

I hoped he would send it. I love this man’s writing. I have since the first story I read of his when I was part of TheHorrorLibrary.net’s Terrible Twelve. He subbed this piece that was too good to pass up and I contacted him. His responses were pure exhilaration and enthusiasm and excitement—all the Es. We’ve been friends ever since.

Man, that was so long ago.

Fast forward to present times. He did send the story. It’s titled, Dream Lane and it’s short and hopeful â€� and sad. You see, he sent a note with the story, one which I won’t put here and not to tell my friend’s business, but if I’m going to be honest, if I’m going to allow myself the therapeutic healing power of words, I have to tell the entire story the way it is, the way it’s meant to be told.Ìý

My friend, who seems to have an unconquerable spirit, told me of bad news he received about his youngest child. That child, who is no longer a kid, has been dealing with cancer for years. It came, he beat it. It came again, he beat it again. It came again, and yeah, he beat it again. It’s back. Though I’m not in his head, though I didn’t hear him say the words he wrote, I felt them, the sadness of a parent who has watched his child suffer since he was a young teenager.Ìý

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At the end of his note, one that stated he told his son this story—the one he sent me—was something he told his son, and I’m not even certain I want to even write this part, but it bears so much importance to life.

Sometimes I wave goodbye.

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Deep breaths are meant to fill your lungs with air. I think they were also intended to release sadness or frustration from your body. A long inhale followed by a breathy, exasperated exhale. Yeah, there’s another E for you. Sometimes you feel better after that deep breath. Other times, well, things just kind of stay the same.Ìý

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So, I sat in my chair—one that used to belong to an attorney until he gave it to me for a more ergonomic type—my back to my computer, my emails next to the keyboard with work waiting to be done. Though I stared at nothing and everything and saw nothing at all, my brain, and the slow train it was on began recalling things about my friend and his son. I could only shake my head and take deep breaths of sadness, hoping to release some of it from my spirit.Ìý

I turned around and lifted my keyboard from the desk. Beneath it was the printed out story sent to me by my friend. Dream Lane.

I spun my chair around, again putting my back to my computer. I had work to do, but it would have to wait a few more minutes so I could read the words of a masterful writer, one I’ve often been jealous of because of the way his mind thinks and how he sees things.Ìý

I read the story.

It was about a person in a turn lane at a busy intersection and how he hoped the green arrow that allowed drivers to make a left turn would stay lit for him, and possibly the person behind him—a guy in a pickup truck. It was a story of hope. As long as the light was green, he had hope that he could make it through the light, and everyone in that lane—that dream lane—had that same hope. For a few moments, everyone in that lane had the same purpose—get to the light, get through the light. Everyone was in the same predicament and they all shared in the same hope. The light just had to stay green.Ìý

Once they were through the light, once they made that left turn, each driver, the white car directly in front of him driven by a woman, the bikers in front of that car and the guy in the pickup truck behind him, each person made their way out of the other driversâ€� lives, probably never to be seen again.Ìý

As I read the story, I kept thinking about a song by. R.E.M. called Everybody Hurts. In the video for the song, there is a big traffic jam. As the song plays, the camera focuses on different people and words appear at the bottom of the screen as if those words were the thoughts of each individual the camera is on. It’s like none of them had any hope at all, even to the point of one person thinking. If I had a gun � At the end of the song, everyone gets out of their cars, tired of sitting in traffic that barely moved, tired of being in their head with their own thoughts. Maybe, getting out and leaving the cars behind and walking, those people found hope, found a way to move forward. Like, I don’t know, a green arrow at a busy intersection that allows drivers to turn left �

�

Sometimes I wave goodbye.

…�

The taillights on the other cars or maybe the quick glances in the direction of the drivers, then the moving on from the left turn where there had been hope and the hope had been met � maybe that was their way of waving goodbye to people they would never see again.

The story was over. I sat there for a few minutes longer, a part of me not able to help but think that this was him waving goodbye to his son. Having a son around the same age made me long to see my boy right then. My heart ached. My soul hurt. My spirit â€� my spirit was sad.Ìý

I set the story back under my keyboard and left my office to take care of some of the things I had neglected for a half hour or so. As I walked the halls, saying hi to people and taking care of things, I thought about my friend, his son, his stories. I thought about the people I saw in the halls, the people I talked to, their request, some which may have just been little things, but were still requests made by someone—a human being.

In that moment, I didn’t want to be at work. I didn’t want to be around people. I just wanted to leave the office and walk the four miles home down one main road, across a busy bridge, along another main road, through a neighborhood of section 8 housing where some folks can barely afford the necessities of life, then eventually, to home where my wife and son were, where our dogs were. That didn’t happen. Instead, I stayed at work, finished the tasks I had committed to earlier in the day then moved on to other things.

I went to lunch. I had a sandwich, chips and a bottle of water and a cookie. After eating, I went for a walk. Seeing how it was the end of May in South Carolina, it was somewhat warm out, but not terrible.Ìý

People were out and about on Main Street, quite a few more than I cared for right then. To my left was the statehouse a block and a half away. To my right were blocks and blocks of buildings, stores, offices, hotels, apartments, the courthouse. So many places along that stretch of road where people worked or lived, where people shopped or ate, where people had experiences, both good and bad.Ìý

Directly in front of me to the left and right were people sitting in metal chairs at metal tables. Three women sat to my left, all of them holding plastic coffee cups from the Starbucks a block to my right. One of them seem to dominate the conversation. I don’t know what they were talking about, but I had a feeling the one doing the most talking was telling some story about a current relationship or an ex or maybe even something that happened at work. To my right, sitting by himself was a homeless man, his head down on the table, a dirty, worn backpack at his feet. His head sat on his folded arms that rested completely on the table. I think he was asleep.

I made a right and shoved my hands into my pockets. Coming toward me were two men in business suits, younger than me by more than a couple years, their suits sharp, their shoes shining, the air about them was of importance and arrogance. One of them wore glasses, which spoke of vision issues. They passed me by without so much as glancing at me. They were in their world, talking about their important issues.Ìý

I reached the end of the block and stopped. I didn’t have the light in my favor and there were plenty of cars passing in the cross traffic. On the corner across from me was the Starbucks. There were several people sitting at the tables outside, couples, groups and even individuals, all with a cup in front of them or in their hands. For a moment I thought of the story my friend wrote, the Dream Lane. Those people in the sitting area at Starbucks had the same ideas, the same feelings of, hey, let’s get some coffee and sit for a while. Maybe there was hope in a plastic or paper cup. Maybe there was hope in sitting and letting the world move on. Maybe they all had the same shared mindset for a few minutes, and though they don’t speak to one another, there is an acknowledgement that they are all kindred spirits, if only for half an hour.Ìý

I didn’t cross the street. Instead, I made a right and headed up Washington Street. I passed another businessman in a nice suit. He was older and he had a plastic To Go bag in one hand, his lunch, or maybe someone else’s. The lines on his face made me think he was older than he probably was. Those wrinkles could have been caused by stress or a hard life. I don’t know. He walked on, as did I, and for those few seconds where we were both in each other’s sights, we played a background role in each other’s lives. Then the role was over, the cameo passed, and we will probably never see each other again.Ìý

Near the corner where I would make another right and walk along the backside of the parking garage that was attached to the building I worked in, I saw another person, a man or a woman. It was hard to tell, and I didn’t wish to stare. This person wore two baggy shirts, a white one beneath a faded red one, and a pair of loose black slacks. The person’s shoes were worn out sneakers that were more gray than white and the person’s skin was the color of chocolate. Sweat beaded along the individual’s forehead and two tired eyes seemed set deep in sockets. Those eyes didn’t look at me. This individual, woman or man didn’t really matter, shuffled along as if walking was a terrible discomfort or nuisance and a necessity in order to get from one place to another. Like all the other people I had seen in the few minutes I had walked, the person went by me and faded into my past.Ìý

Isn’t that the way of lives? People coming and going, some staying for a while, a handful staying forever until an end is met, some staying for mere seconds, moments that seem inconsequential. Most people you come in contact with will never remember you, may not even remember ever seeing you. Most people you don’t matter to. Again, you’re just a passing role character in the movies of many other people, just as they are role players in your own movie. In reality, each time you go in and out of someone’s lives and they come in and out of yours, we’re all just waving goodbye.Ìý

We’re all just people in cars at a stop light, waiting for the light to turn green and hoping the person in front of us will go fast enough so we can get through that light, too.

�

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Take a deep breath. I’ve told myself this before. I’ve wrote those very words in another story, one about a fifteen-year-old boy who was murdered on Halloween night in 1995. That, like this, is a true story. Like I said earlier, sometimes deep breaths are meant to release sadness or frustration from the body. I think this was more sadness than anything else.

As person after person I saw that day moved on with their lives, I moved on with mine. I don’t know what their lives held for them, good, bad, or indifferent. I didn’t know if any of them had just gotten married or graduated from college or got a new job, or maybe, lost a loved one or lost a job or been booted out of their home by parents who didn’t like the fact that their child was gay, so therefore they no longer love that child. In my mind, I waved goodbye to each person, as if they could see me, as if they would wave goodbye back.

I got back to the office and sat down, drank some water, and played the song by Shinedown. I thought about my friend, about his son, about the people I passed on the street, the people I talked to during the day. Every single person in this world is like the people in the left turn lane, hoping the light will stay green long enough for them to get through it. We’re all hoping for something. We’re all wanting some outcome to go our way. We all want that light to stay green for us, but so often it turns yellow, then red. Yellow brings that fear of not making the turn. Red dashes our hopes.Ìý

The light’s not always going to be green. At some point, it will turn yellow, then red. When that happens, sometimes we have to wave goodbye. But here’s the thing about goodbye, it’s final. Goodbye almost always feels like the end of something, and sometimes we wave goodbye. Most of the time we don’t want to.Ìý

A couple years ago, I quit the business of publishing for a while. I even wrote a letter and posted it here and on social media. I was frustrated with the way the publishing world treated people, the way many authors treated other authors, with the amount of plagiarism I saw in this business, with the amount of â€� I don’t know â€� hate I saw in the writing community.Ìý

When I left everything behind, I went through a period of mourning. You see, I loved writing. I loved the act of telling a story. I loved sharing those stories with the world. That period of time was slightly depressing, almost like a lesser version of Runner’s Depression. In case you don’t know what that is, let me try and explain it in as few words as I can. This happens to people who run, who love to run and all of a sudden, they can’t. They were born to run. They lived for that alive feeling they had when they were finished running. It’s an exhilaration that is similar to an adrenaline rush. Not being able to run can sometimes send a runner into a depression that could last a long time or just a little while. It’s as if part of them has died. It’s a mourning period.

After a few weeks, I started writing again without the pressures of wanting to put out a story, without feeling like the story needed to be amazing or I was wasting my time. I wrote a lot of bad stories during that time period. They were pieces that had been inside of me but I refused to write because I knew they would be crap and ain’t nobody got time for that.Ìý

I also wrote some really good pieces, some I think will end up getting published at some point.Ìý

Though I was writing, I can honestly say, I wasn’t really happy or content with what I was doing. I had been part of the writing community for over twenty years and by leaving it, I also left part of me behind. Hence, the mourning.

A few months after leaving publishing, I was convinced by two friends to give it another go. So, I did. I put together a collection of stories, titled A Color of Sorrows and began querying publishers. Not long after submitting to this one particular publisher, they responded saying they loved the collection. Yes. Awesome. I was excited. A contract was worked out. They did an analysis of my writing and deemed my style was similar to this exceptional author of horror whose initials just happen to be S.K., who also just happened to be my favorite author.Ìý

Things were going well. Discussions were had and I did a lot of work on my end. About six months before the book was to be released, I was sent a formatted copy of the book to look over. It looked great, but there was one problem. I still hadn’t been assigned an editor. I had received edits, but those had been done by software, not a person. I had rejected half of them because they made no sense within the context of the stories. A month of so later, I enquired about an editor, more specifically, when was I going to work with one.Ìý

I was told they don’t provide editors unless the writer pays for it. Umm â€� no. Up until right then, I had been excited. The discussions after that were not as cordial as they had been. I told them I expected an editor and that editing the stories was part of the process and the publisher should be the one paying for the editor. They didn’t see it that way and my excitement went from on fire to ice, ice cold.Ìý

My enthusiasm for getting back into the publishing world tanked. You see, this was one of the things that made me want to get out of the business, poor treatment by publishers.Ìý

Still, I was under contract and I didn’t want an unedited book to be released to the world. I asked my editor to go over it, even though she had done so before I submitted the collection. I wanted one more pass. She found two things that needed correcting, one of which was a change I had made because of the software suggestions.Ìý

They released the book in May of 2023. I promoted it � Just. Once.

You see, the very first publisher I worked with after getting up and dusting myself off, didn’t do things the right way.Ìý

And just like that, the experience was soured for me. To say I was frustrated and aggravated was an understatement.Ìý

I’ve released two books since then, but I have to be honest, my heart wasn’t into promoting them and I did a bad job of letting people know about them. I’ll talk about those later. There are other things to get to for now.Ìý

Not only did I lose enthusiasm for publishing, I neglected my website. I mean, seriously neglected it. Don’t believe me? Go look at the last post. It was in February, it’s June now. I also shut down my Patreon page. I mean, really, I just kinda said screw it.

Now for some hard truths I had to tell myself. I wrote a book called Motivational Shit You Didn’t Ask For. Great title, right? I think the title will sell the book all by itself. The book isn’t huge and most of the chapters are under two thousand words. Yeah, it’s short. Something I mention in the book multiple times is making excuses. We humans make excuses to not do things. We might say we want to do them, but if we don’t then do we really want to? Nah, I didn’t think so.Ìý

I sat back recently and thought about why I didn’t promote my work. Sure, maybe I had some valid points with the publisher issue, since it felt like I did all the work except formatting (which I could have done) and cover layout (which I could have done, also). However, it was MY book, those were MY stories. Okay, let’s just say I had valid reasons instead of excuses for not promoting The Color of Sorrows. What about Six Strands To Lost Sanity? What about Human Touch? What about two books I believe are really good? I mean, seriously, what is the reason behind not promoting them? I have no valid reason. Only excuses.Ìý

I have neglected a lot since first walking away, then coming back, then making excuses. That passion and drive I had when I first started out have been gone for almost three full years now. I’m trying really hard to find it again. So what have I done about it? I started mentoring again, which is going well. I’ve written a bunch of stories. I’ve joined the staff over at Memento Mori Ink, where you can read the first article at the end of August. More on that later. I’ve started submitting stories to publications again.Ìý

And � I’m posting here. I recently realized I don’t have to post long pieces like this one. I can simply post something like: It’s coming, and post the cover of a book. And I can post as many times as I want. Once a day, once a week, 18 times a day. It doesn’t matter. You’re either going to stick around or not. If you do, thank you. Also, thank you for sticking around while I’ve been gone.

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

A couple years ago I was in a rut with writing. A couple? Seriously, A.J.? It’s been five years. Back in 2019, I was in a rut with writing. My editor, Larissa Bennett, challenged me, literally, to write a story I didn’t want to write. I told her about an idea I had but was hesitant to write because it was a ~GASP~ love story.Ìý

“You should write it,â€� she said.Ìý

I said, “I don’t want to,� like a petulant child about to pitch a fit.

After a bit of back and forth, I finally said, “Okay,� but it was more like one of those moments where your parents told you to apologize for saying something rude to your sibling. You apologize begrudgingly but really don’t mean it.

At some point I sat down and wrote the first couple lines to the story:Ìý

The coffee shop was quiet. The few people talking did so in whispers as if they were in a library and the librarian was an ancient old biddy with blue hair, triangle lensed glasses and a mallet behind her back. Talk too loudly and get a smack to the head you might not wake up from. Charlie liked it that way.Ìý

It wasn’t like the Starbucks a few blocks over that garnered most of the public who were willing to spend their money on their favorite caffeinated drinks. There weren’t a bunch of college students with their laptops and schoolbooks, and there were no groups of more than four people who liked to talk and laugh loud enough to disturb those reading books (or possibly doing schoolwork on one of those laptops). No, this was a little mom and pop place not owned by a mom or a pop, but a woman in her mid-thirties who married, divorced, and had no children that he was aware of. She spent her mornings and most afternoons behind the counter of the Coffee Dee-Light serving the regulars, like Charlie, with a smile and a bottom-line price that should have competed with Starbucks, but somehow didn’t.Ìý

I liked the first few paragraphs and decided to write more. Though I would walk away from the story and come back to it later, the story of Charlie Massingale and Dani Overton never left my mind. I finished the story close to the end of 2020 after a few starts and stops.Ìý

I had no intentions of releasing this book. It was going to be my dirty little secret. I, author of dark, emotional stories, wrote a love story. No, no one could find out about this. But I really like the characters, even Dee, who owns the little coffee shop they meet in.

So, here we are, you and I and this book, this story, Human Touch. It’s a love story. It’s Clean Romance. It’s completely different from anything I’ve written, simply because I intended for the two main characters to fall in love.Ìý

Why post about this now? Well, because I’m releasing it soon and I need to talk about it. I want you to read it. If you don’t know about it, well, you can’t read it.

With that said, below are both the cover, which has a Take On Me by A-Ha vibe and the synopsis.

Charlie Massingale has mastered the art of fading into the background. Haunted by the tragic loss of his wife, he seeks solace in a quiet South Carolina town, hoping to escape his past and bury his pain. For years, he succeeds in his quest for anonymity.

Everything changes when a young woman recognizes him at a coffee shop and strikes up a conversation. Plagued by his own guilt and desires to stay missing from the world he once thrived in, he denies their connection, leaving Dani yearning for more.

Determined to unravel the enigma that is Charlie Massingale, Dani reaches out to her beloved author, hoping to connect with a man no one has heard from in nine years. To her surprise, Charlie responds, sparking a fragile bond that neither can ignore. As their correspondence deepens, Charlie finds himself captivated by Dani, awakening emotions long dormant within him.

Caught between the past and the present, Charlie faces a crossroads. Will he allow himself to embrace the possibility of love once again? Can he overcome the weight of his past and accept the warmth of the Human Touch? With their lives intertwined, Charlie and Dani must navigate the complexities of age, and the lingering shadows of the past that threaten to tear them apart.

So, what do you think? Interested? Let me know in the comments below.

Until we meet again, be kind to one another.

A.J.

On June 29, 1993, I wrote my first short story. If you were a member of my Patreon page, One Step Forward, then you know that story is called, Chuckie, and was based on a nightmare I had multiple times. You also know how the story came about. But here, at Type AJ Negative and this thing I call The Concepts, you probably don’t know anything about that. Today, I give you the story—the full story that has never appeared anywhere outside of Patreon.

I was twenty-two in June of 1993. On the day—early morning, really—I wrote Chuckie, it was eight days from my birthday. Before I get into that particular day (which is really short, to be honest), I want to tell you about what led to it.

A few weeks earlier, maybe longer, I can’t really remember, I began having nightmares. Time has a way of running together. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years � decades � they all run together at some point. Things you remember completely when they first happened become dull around the edges over time. Details get lost or exaggerated upon, and as a writer, my job is to exaggerate the truths while telling all sorts of lies. But those nightmares. I remember them quite well.

I was in a house, but I wasn’t me. I was a kid named Chuckie Benson. He had blond hair and blue eyes and was bigger than my lanky 150 pounds at the time—oh and I had dark black hair. These days, it’s more on the gray side than black. The doorbell rings, which was definitely not a reality in the house I grew up in. No, there was no doorbell, only knuckles on wood. In the dream Chuckie—me—opens the door and there stands Alex, who looked like a burned up weenie with a sinister grin that was mostly teeth, and well, not really a grin. Alex didn’t have a last name in the dream or even in the original version of the story I wrote. When I rewrote the story, I gave him the last name of Morrison, since I was a Doors fan.Ìý

I always ran through the house trying to get away from Alex only to run back into him. He would grab me by the throat in his still smoldering hands and choke me. At that point, I woke, not screaming or shooting up in my bed the way you see in movies. My eyes just snapped open, and I was awake, my heart crashing hard in my chest and staring at the darkness of my room.Ìý

I had this dream quite a few times, almost nightly for a while there. This was bad for a couple of reasons, the biggest of these being sleep. I already struggle with sleep—had since I was about fourteen—and with this recurring nightmare, sleep became nonexistent.Ìý

Then one day someone asked me, “Hey, are you okay? You look tired?�

“I haven’t been sleeping,� was my answer.

From there a conversation was had based on my lack of sleep. I mentioned the nightmares and how terrifying they were for me.

“Why don’t you write your nightmare down the next time you have it?�

“W³ó²â?â€�

“That might make it go away.�

That’s hoodoo magic nonsense I believed. I think the individual who told me that caught my thoughts on my face before I could even say anything.

For the next few paragraphs, I will relay to you what was relayed to me, in as much detail as I can remember. These are the words I was told:

There was once a writer—a very good writer—who suffered from having nightmares, specifically, one nightmare over and over and over. He got to where he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t function, and couldn’t write. He went to his doctor and told him what was going on.

The doctor said, “The next time you have the dream, get up and write it down. Writing it down will make the nightmare go away.

The writer, desperate for some relief and sleep thought it couldn’t hurt.

That night he had the nightmare. When he woke, he got up and spent the next three hours writing the nightmare down. When he went back to bed, he didn’t have the nightmare, but the next night, lo and behold, the nightmare was back.

The writer went back to his doctor and took what he wrote with him. He explained to the doctor that he had done what he was told to do.

“Let me see what you wrote,� the doctor said.

The author handed him the papers. The doctor spent the next little while reading it, then shook his head. “I see what the problem is,� he said.

“What?� the writer asked.

“What you wrote is the nightmare.�

“That’s what you said to write.�

“Yes, but you’re a writer. All you did was write the basic details of the nightmare. You didn’t write the story the nightmare is trying to tell you. Next time you have the nightmare, write the story it is telling you.�

A couple nights later, he had the nightmare again. He got out of bed and spent the next three days writing the story of the nightmare. He never had the nightmare again.

That was the story told to me. Of course, with a story like that, I, like anyone who heard it would do, asked, “Who was the writer?�

“Robert Louis Stevenson.�

â€Áè±ð²¹±ô±ô²â?â€�

“And the story was The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.�

Now, as with any story told like this, I was skeptical. Still, I was desperate for sleep. The next time I had the nightmare, which was the very next night, I got out of bed, pulled out a note pad—what people refer to as scratch pads now—and a pen. I spent the next couple of hours writing the bare bones story of Chuckie Benson and Alex Morrison.Ìý

After I was done, I laid back down. I didn’t fall back asleep that night. However, I never had the nightmare again.

Here’s my caveat for this Concept: I’ve never been able to substantiate the story told to me about the writer or the story. I mean, the story does exist, and the author was a real person. But I’ve found no record or truth of how the story came to be. It very well may be true. Or it very well may be something made up in the mind of someone playing shrink and offering a solution.Ìý

Either way, it did work for me, and that’s what matters here. Oh, and the fact that writing that story springboarded me into writing, something I loathed up until then. Other than jokes and parody songs, I hated the very idea of constructing a story. In school, I did the bare minimum to get by with a D-.Ìý

The story—true or false as it may be—of the supposed nightmare Robert Louis Stevenson had that led to The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, remedied my own nightmares and spurred a love for writing that has never passed, and here it is three decades later.

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

One thing I want to do this year is promote my work more. I’ve done a poor job of it over the last few years. Sure, I post stories here, and occasionally, I post information about a book but those have been sporadic at best. That means information about new books, old books, reviews and goings on. That also means more posts, some of them that will simply read like this one with a title similar to this one.Ìý

With that said, here is the first installment of Just What’s Going On Here.

1/03/2024-1: There are books coming. They are, in no particular order, 22, Human Touch, Unbroken Crayons, Motivational Sh*t You Didn’t Ask For, Her Cure, The One Left Behind, Susie Bantum’s Death and Simply Put. There’s also the 10th anniversary release of Cory’s Way.Ìý

1/03/2024-2: I recently had a discussion with Lisa Vasquez about doing a collaboration similar to the one I did with another writer, M.F. Wahl, a few years ago, titled All We See is the End. You can find that little book here:

Lisa came up with a really cool storyline and I am currently researching for it. I’m excited. You should be, too. It’s going to be killer.

1/03/2024-3: I received a new review for The Forgetful Man’s Disease today. It’s pretty cool and I am proud of it. Here is the review:

This story is about an old man named Homer Grigsby who suffers from dementia and has flashbacks of his son’s death. He also sees ghosts of his old friends and refuses to leave his home in the Mill. The writing was exquisite, seamlessly weaving nostalgia, sadness, and a touch of horror. Homer Grigsby felt incredibly real, and portrayal of his struggles with dementia was both moving and authentic.

Wonderful Story!!

This was a real pick me up and will be appearing on the site with the other reviews. Also, if you want to pick up a copy of The Forgetful Man’s Disease, you can get the digital version here:Ìý

If you would like a print copy, drop me a line at [email protected]

1/03/2023-4: I finished my first story of 2024, a five thousand word piece called No Sin Goes Unpunished. The devil does his deed without making a deal with someone for their soul. It was a fun write.

Thanks for stopping by. That’s all for now. Feel free to drop me a comment below or reach out to me at the email above. I’d like to hear from y’all.Ìý

Until we meet again my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

For the last month or so I have been posting one word on social media almost every day, mostly in the mornings. That word? Believe.Ìý

Why believe?

Before I answer that, let me give you some context. Three years ago my wife joined a fitness group. This group consisted of a few women around the world, but mostly in America. At one point, I think around December of the first year my wife was part of this group, they started talking about their word of the year, the word they would live by during the following 365 days. My wife’s word was Consistency. That’s a magnificent word.Ìý

I decided to do the same thing. Like my wife, I went with the word Consistency. But it wasn’t my word. It was hers. Last year I chose Unstoppable. It felt like a good word, and it was inspired by the song of the same name by Sia. Great lyrics that should be exceptionally inspiring. But I think that was a cop out word. Sure, I used it at certain points through the year, but it wasn’t even remotely â€� consistent.Ìý

Fast forward to around the middle of July. I didn’t know it at the time, but I began experiencing what I fully believe was depression. Having never dealt with that in my life, I didn’t recognize it. Sure, I know people who have depression and some of it is crippling. But I—me, personally—have never experienced the feeling.Ìý

Not knowing what it was, but knowing I was in some weird funky mood, I said nothing to anyone about it. ‘It will pass� is what I told myself. Well, it didn’t, at least not right away. It lingered until mid to late-September � and I didn’t say anything about it. This caused some issues. I was easily angered. For the first time in my life, I felt real jealousy, and that being toward the person I love the most. At points, I withdrew from people—I wanted to be alone all the time. I already don’t sleep well, but during that time, I slept even less, which led to exhaustion and more crankiness. I would go out to the studio and hit the punching bag without gloves on—I split or bruised my knuckles a few times during this process.

At separate points, I was approached by two people, one young man, and one woman. They both asked the same question: ‘Are you okay?� To the young man, I tried to play it off as just going through some stuff. ‘You want to talk about it?� he asked. ‘Not really. I’ll be okay.� To the woman, one who knows me so well because she is pretty much the female version of me, I said, ‘I don’t know.� We were in New York at the time and she said, ‘Let’s go to the store.’�

It was a brief trip there and back. During that twenty minutes or so, I finally said, ‘I think I’m depressed.â€� It’s the only thing that makes sense.Ìý

Saying that out loud gave me a starting point. It gave me something to think about, to act on. It gave me a way to move forward. Outside of that brief conversation, I texted with another friend about it. I didn’t talk to anyone else about it until one day after Thanksgiving when my daughter and I were sitting at the kitchen table discussing her and her boyfriend’s plans for the future. I brought it up because I feel like she was one of the ones I took it out on. That conversation helped me understand I had lost something during the entire process.Ìý

I still don’t know what caused it, but I think it had been coming for a LONG time. What I do know, is at some point at the beginning of it, I stopped believing in myself. I’ve always been one to say, ‘I don’t need you to believe in me, because I believe in me.� But at some point, I lost that. I had to find that. I had to get that back.

I started saying the word Believe to myself. That was it. No other words. No Believe in yourself, man. Believe in your abilities. Nothing like that. Just BELIEVE. BELIEVE. BELIEVE.Ìý

BELIEVE.

That word means different things to different people. It might mean believe in God. It might mean believe that something will work out. It might mean believe that what happens is meant to happen. It might mean that you believe in someone else. It might mean you believe in yourself.Ìý

The definition of believe is simple in this context: to have faith. And Faith in this context is complete trust or confidence in someone or something. Believing in yourself or having faith in yourself means you have complete trust or confidence in you and your abilities. That’s a powerful mindset.Ìý

Two things before I go.

First, Believe.Ìý

It’s my word going into 2024. I think it has been my word my entire life. When nobody else believed in me, I always did. Every morning now, even the bad ones, I say to myself, Believe. I leave it at that, and I take on the day. Some days are good. Some, not so good. But Believe. It’s what I have always told myself and something I am trying really hard to regain.

Second, depression doesn’t always appear as a frown or slouched shoulders or sadness. It’s often a smile, a joke, a positive appearance around people. It’s not always outwardly visible, but I can promise you it is always inwardly gray and cloudy. It’s a muddled mass of tar-like quicksand and you’re always sinking â€� and sometimes, you don’t realize it.Ìý

If you need a word to live by, you don’t have to wait for a new year, choose Believe. Believe in yourself. Believe in what you bring to the table. Believe in your abilities. Just � Believe.

Until we meet again my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

Little Witch

There’s a witch at my door and she won’t go away. I saw her as I drove up the street, coming home from work. She wore a black dress, black cape and black pointy hat. She was short and slightly hunched over as if time had beaten her down. She turned her green face toward me. A wart sat on the tip of her long nose. She carried a white bag with a crudely drawn pumpkin face on it. The bag didn’t look full, but there was something in it. She looked up at me as I passed. Her eyes were dark and the smile that crossed her lips was crooked and terrifying.Ìý

A chill ran up my spine and I thought a cat may have walked across a grave I have yet to be buried in. In my hurry to get home, I knocked over the mailbox and parked, half on the concrete driveway, half in the grass.Ìý

Once out the car, I glanced down the street. She walked toward me, bag in hand, crooked smile on her face and those dark, evil eyes on me.Ìý

I didn’t wait for her to reach my house and cast a spell on me. I ran inside and closed the door. I turned the lights off, both inside and out. I called for my wife. She didn’t respond. I started to look for her, but barely made it to the hallway before the knock came, three sharp raps that echoed in my brain.Ìý

She’s here, I thought and turned toward the door. My legs were like jelly and my stomach flipped and flopped as if full of a thousand tiny fish. If I don’t answer the door, she’ll go away.Ìý

I eased into the hallway and planted my back against the wall. It was cool through my shirt but it did little to help ease the tension in my shoulders. Still, my brain hoped the witch would leave and I would be okay.

The knock came a second time, three sharp raps louder than before. My breath caught in my throat.Ìý

“Go away,� I whispered then cringed at the sound of my voice. Was it too loud? Did she hear me? She’s a witch. She had powers. Of course, she heard me.

“Mr. Brown?â€� came the voice from the other side of the door.Ìý

Yes, she heard me.

My hands went to my mouth, clamping it shut. With my heart in my throat, I squeezed my body to the wall as tight as I could, hoping she couldn’t see me beyond the door. My brain said witches have a third eye and, oh yes, she could see me.Ìý

But she can’t come in, right? She can’t open the door. She had to be invited in, right? No. That was all wrong. That’s vampires, not witches. What’s the rule for witches? My brain spun and my thoughts were a jumbled mess. I didn’t know the answer.

Then a very clear thought tip toed across my mind. Did I lock the door? It was a question very much like was the coffee pot turned off before going on a trip. You never can remember, but you hope it was. Right then, I couldn’t remember locking the door. All she had to do was turn the knob and enter the house and then what? She’d have me right where she wanted me.

Go check, I thought.

Are you crazy? I replied.

There’s a witch at your door. What do you think?

I eased off the wall and poked my head into the doorway. I couldn’t tell if the door was locked or not? I took a deep breath, certain I would die before the night’s out. As quietly as I could, I eased into the living room and walked slowly to the door, hoping the floor wouldn’t creak or I wouldn’t stumble or bump into anything. Any noise would surely land me in a cauldron over an open fire. The thought made my bladder heavy.

When I reached the door, I looked out the peep hole. I saw her in the odd globe-like view these little one-way windows create. My bladder grew heavier. The witch was not alone. Next to her stood a vampire dressed in a fine white button-down shirt, powder white face, pointy ears and, long, sharp fangs. I couldn’t quite understand what they were saying, but I heard my name and the words, ‘he’s home.�

They knew I was there. I wanted to call for my wife again, but they would hear me and not leave. At least not until the vampire had drained the blood from my body and the witch had gathered my remains and stuffed me into her cauldron. I would be the Brown Brew and she would feed me to her witchy sisters.

I hope I taste good, I thought, then shook my head. No, no, no. She’s not going to eat me.

Of course not. She’s going to turn me into a toad and keep me as a pet. She’s going to feed me flies and …�

“Stop it,� I said aloud then slapped my hands back over my mouth.

The two outside became quiet. I looked through the peep hole. They had been joined by a ghost that looked like a soft-edged triangle, and a princess in a blue dress with blonde hair and a wand in one hand. She had to be an evil princess, maybe even a witch. Maybe a house needed to be dropped on her, on all of them.

The next knock on the door came but it wasn’t three sharp raps by one hand. It was several heavy thumps by multiple hands. They were growing restless and angry. It was only a matter of time before one of them busted out a window or magically unlocked the door. Then it would be all over but the stewing and brewing.Ìý

My breaths came in quick gasps, and my heart was beating in my temples.Ìý

I have to get out of here.Ìý

I turned to run, then screamed like a two-year-old child. A shadowy figure stood in the doorway. It wasn’t short like the ones at the door. In its hands was a bowl. It was there to chop me up and give me to the monsters outside.

“Jeff, what are you doing?� she asked.

The light came on. Cate stood in the hallway, an orange bowl in one hand.Ìý

She repeated her question, “What are you doing?�

“Ummm …� I pointed to the front door. “There’s monsters outside. They’re going to eat us.�

Cate rolled her eyes and brushed by me. She flipped on the porch light and unlocked the door.

“What are you doing?� I asked.

“It’s Halloween,â€� she said and opened the door. A well-timed chorus of Trick or treat came from the monsters outside.Ìý

I looked over Cate’s shoulder as she talked to the children dressed as a witch, vampire, princess and ghost. I felt silly. I felt dumb. It was Halloween. It’s my favorite day of the year. How could I forget?

“Put an extra piece of candy in the ghost’s bag,� I said.

“W³ó²â?â€� Cate asked.

“He’s probably only been given rocks tonight.�

She rolled her eyes again then dropped an extra piece of candy in his bag.

I stood in the doorway and watched them walk down the drive and onto the sidewalk. The witch looked at me. She smiled her crooked smile, shook her head and cackled.

AJB

On June 29, 1993, I wrote my first short story. If you wereÌý a member of my Patreon page, One Step Forward, then you know that story is called, Chuckie and was based on a nightmare I had multiple times. You also know how the story came about. But here, at Type AJ Negative and this thing I call The Concepts, you probably don’t know anything about that.Ìý Today, I give you the story—the full story that has never appeared anywhere outside of Patreon.

I was twenty-two in June of 1993. On the day—early morning, really—I wrote Chuckie, it was eight days from my birthday. Before I get into that particular day (which is really short, to be honest), I want to tell you about what led to it.

A few weeks earlier, maybe longer, I can’t really remember, I began having nightmares. Time has a way of running together. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years � decades � they all run together at some point. Things you remember completely when they first happened become dull around the edges over time. Details get lost or exaggerated upon, and as a writer, my job is to exaggerate the truths while telling all sorts of lies. But those nightmares. I remember them quite well.

I was in a house, but I wasn’t me. I was a kid named Chuckie Benson. He had blond hair and blue eyes and was bigger than my lanky 150 pounds—oh and I had dark black hair. These days, it’s more on the gray side than black. The doorbell rang, which was definitely not a reality in the house I grew up in. No, there was no doorbell, only knuckles on wood. In the dream Chuckie—me—opened the door and there stood Alex, who looked like a burned up weenie with a sinister grin that was mostly teeth, and well, not really a grin. Alex didn’t have a last name in the dream or even in the original version of the story I wrote. When I rewrote the story, I gave him the last name of Morrison, since I was a Doors fan.Ìý

I always ranÌý through the house trying to get away from Alex only to run into him somewhere else in the house over and over again. He would grab me by the throat in his still smoldering hands and choke me. At that point, I woke, not screaming or shooting up in my bed the way you see in movies. My eyes just snapped open and I was awake, my heart crashing hard in my chest and staring at the darkness of my room.Ìý

I had this dream quite a few times, almost nightly for a while. This was bad for a couple of reasons, the biggest of these being sleep. I already struggled with sleep—had since I was about fourteen—and with this recurring nightmare, sleep became nonexistent.Ìý

Then one day someone asked me, “Hey, are you okay? You look tired?�

“I haven’t been sleeping,� was my answer.

From there a conversation was had based on my lack of sleep. I mentioned the nightmares and how terrifying they were for me.

“Why don’t you write your nightmare down the next time you have it?�

“W³ó²â?â€�

“That might make it go away.�

That’s hoodoo magic nonsense I believed. I think the individual who told me that caught my thoughts on my face before I could even say anything.

For the next few paragraphs I will relay to you what was relayed to me, in as much detail as I can remember. These are the words I was told:

There was once a writer—a very good writer—who suffered from nightmares, specifically, one nightmare over and over and over. He got to where he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t function and couldn’t write. He went to his doctor and told him what was going on.

The doctor said, “The next time you have the dream, get up and write it down. Writing it down will make the nightmare go away.�

The writer, desperate for some relief and sleep thought it couldn’t hurt.

That night he had the nightmare. When he woke, he got up and spent the next three hours writing the nightmare down. When he went back to bed, he didn’t have the nightmare, but the next night, lo and behold, the nightmare was back.

The writer went back to his doctor and took what he wrote with him. He explained to the doctor he had done what he was told to do.

“Let me see what you wrote,� the doctor said.

The author handed him the papers. The doctor spent the next little while reading it, then shook his head. “I see what the problem is,� he said.

“What?� the writer asked.

“What you wrote is the nightmare.�

“That’s what you said to write.�

“Yes, but you’re a writer. All you did was write the basic details of the nightmare. You didn’t write the story the nightmare is telling you. Next time you have the nightmare, write the story it is telling you.�

A couple nights later, he had the nightmare again. He got out of bed and spent the next three days writing the story of the nightmare. He never had the nightmare again.

That was the story told to me. Of course, with a story like that, I did, like anyone who heard it I think would do, asked, “Who was the writer?�

“Robert Louis Stevenson.�

â€Áè±ð²¹±ô±ô²â?â€� In actuality, I was thinking all sorts of B.S. had been told to me.

“And the story was The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.�

Now, as with any story told like this, I was skeptical. Still, I was desperate for sleep. The next time I had the nightmare, which was the very next night, I got out of bed, pulled out a note pad—what people refer to as scratch pads now—and a pen. I spent the next couple of hours writing the bare bones story of Chuckie Benson and Alex Morrison.Ìý

After I was done, I laid back down. I didn’t fall back asleep that night. However, I never had the nightmare again.

Here’s my caveat for this Concept: I’ve never been able to substantiate the story told to me about the writer or the story. I mean, the story does exist and the author was a real person. But I’ve found no record or truth of how the story came to be. It very well may be true. Or it very well may be something made up in the mind of someone playing shrink and offering a solution.Ìý

Either way, it did work for me, and that’s what matters here. ThatÌý story springboarded me into writing hundreds more, something I loathed up until then. Other than jokes and parody songs, I hated the very idea of constructing a story. In school, I did the bare minimum to get by with a D-.Ìý

The story—true or false as it may be—of the supposed nightmare Robert Louis Stevenson had that led to The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, remedied my own nightmares and spurred a love for writing that has never passed, and here it is thirty-one years later.