This month, aspiring (and existing) novelists everywhere begin their 50,000 word jaunt for National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo. 50,000 words, or the equivalent of half a standard novel, translates to writing roughly 1,666 words every day. For writers with a full-time or even a part-time job, furiously scribbling five to seven pages of text can seem rather daunting — especially if you’re not sure how (or what) to write. Not sure if the snowflake method is best? Or if your dialogue techniques are up to par?

Flames Rising and DriveThruFiction can help!

In honor of novelists everywhere, we’re offering a contest to receive $10 gift certificates to DriveThruFiction.com!

Do you have what it takes to be one of my thirteen? October thirteenth is coming up fast. That date marks the day I’ll contact applicants who applied to become one of my thirteen. I blogged about that on my own website, but wanted to extend the invitation to FlamesRising.com readers, too. Many of you have been following my career from the very beginning — after all, it was here where I first posted game fiction for Obsidian: the Age of Judgement. It was also here where we published The Devil’s Night for White Wolf fans and here where I was able to announce projects like Strange, Dead Love, Scenes of the Embrace, Worlds of the Dead, and so many more.

This group I’m putting together is unusual in the sense that I’m providing readers with the ability to get to know me in a more intimate fashion than folks normally would be able to online. I’m also going to talk about the deep, down, and dirty parts of the submission process for my original work and throw a few stories to them.

Questions? I’m sure you do. Read on!

Where and how to submit your novels and short stories for publication.

From the editors at Writer’s Digest, this fantastic resource for horror writers details hundreds of magazine and book publishers who are interested in acquiring and publishing new frightful fiction.

Each market listing provides information on where the publisher is located, what they’re looking for, who to contact, how to reach them, and what their terms are. Each entry also comes with special insider tips for getting their attention. You want to get your horror fiction published? Start by looking here.

The 2012 Horror Writer’s Market is available now in ePub format at DriveThruFiction.com for only $2.99!

I was recently given the opportunity to take a crack at legendary “Mojo” author Joe R Lansdale’s latest books, a new collected short stories anthology and a newly collected version of all three “At the Drive in” series-featuring never before seen art from the un-produced film of the same title and on top of that, I got a wonderful Email from Matt asking if I would like a chance to interview Mr. Lansdale for Flames Rising, well of course I jumped at the chance so here, without further ado and good sense, is the interview.

As a horror and dark fantasy writer and fan of the genre for years, I’ve noticed certain horror tropes that are used time and time again. For example, in supernatural horror you will almost always see the pentagram used as a satanic symbol and the story will typically revolve around the Catholic religion. In slasher flicks, typically there’s always one modelesque female who ends up getting slaughtered viciously in a gory bloodfest. Vampire stories range from the horrific to the romantic, but almost always center around a Master Vampire who is deathly allergic to sunlight. I’m sure you can name several horror tropes that you recognize, but do you know where these tropes began?

The former president of the Horror Writers Association tells us about his new Templar Charonicles series and other projects.

How did you get into gaming? Well my first experience was with a choose your own adventure type book which had a character sheet and everything. All I remember about it was that it had a crazy looking snake-man on the cover with a scimitar and a black cover. Then in high school I met […]