Ahem, okay, this long overdue update shall be called...

...Chris's Writing Projects, Past, Present & Future!  Catchy, isn't it?  Are you thrumming with excitement?  Me, too!

Current Project:

(Updated 1/4/14)

Vines (novella length).  Suburban neighbors find themselves pitted against flesh-hungry plants, due to a nearby bio-medical research facility experimenting with creating a new bio-weapon.  Never a good thing!

The Magick Door (novella length, at least).  Started first chapter and story notes.

Past Projects in Various Stages:

Primal  (novella or novel-length, in need of serious revision).  Love this werewolf story, but because of an unfortunate mishap with a flash drive, I'd lost my entire Word file manuscript, except for my printed out first draft.  Wrote 100+ pages of a sequel called Primal Blood, but plot was too far-fetched, and will merge elements of it into Primal rewrite.

Moon Child  (mammoth 632 page erotic-horror novel, in need of serious revision, as well) will be reworked at some point, but all I have is partially revised printed manuscript copy.  My old Dell crapped out several years ago, leaving me without numerous short stories and longer works-in-progress...a very hard lesson to learn in Why You Should Back-Up Everything, Dumbass!

Shifter  (teen dark fantasy/paranormal novel-length story) is one that I'd written a Prologue and first chapter for, then kind of lost interest in.  I would love to revisit this and perhaps finish it, given how popular Teen fiction is.  What's it about?  Girl who can shape-shift into a cat...a really big cat...think were-cat, and you get the idea.  Oh yeah, these beings are also called Children of Bast, the Egyptian cat goddess.

In The Flesh  (novel-length, possible trilogy) is my erotic novel.  Not as explicitly extreme as your 50 Shades books or the like, but more like an adult fairy tale...set in our time and world...but very naughty. 

Future Projects:

Blood Island  (or Black Tide, novella or novel-length) is about a group of couples who spend a weekend on an island off the southwest coast of Florida, only to be attacked by a flesh-hungry organism from deep in the ocean. 

The Becoming (formerly House of Dark, novella or novel-length) deals with an ancient cult (think Mayan or Aztec) that survives today in the body of a teenage girl, adopted by Linus Bayne, a wealthy rancher and landowner in Florida.  Mayhem and murder ensues, and flash-forward to modern times, where a distant relative inherits the Bayne Estate.  The young couple begins to experience bizarre and horrifying things, realizing that their dream is about to become a true nightmare.

The Malagawn (novella or novel-length) is my Florida Bigfoot story.  Wrote the original story on a crappy Olivetti typewriter in my late teens and still have the revised manuscript.  But I love the basic story:  Man kills Sasquatch's mate, Sasquatch gets royally pissed off and goes on a human-killing spree.  Even thought about setting story in Pennsylvania, but may still keep the revised story in Florida.  Except my Native American-sounding name for the creature is Malagawn.  What's it mean?  Hell if I know...sounds sinister and cool!

Well, let's see...over a year should be time enough...

...for a damned update, don't you think? 

Coming Soon! 

Ch-ch-ch-changes....ugh!

Been a while since I posted anything, so here we go!  After much consideration, I've decided to scrap most of the 100+ pages of the PRIMAL sequel, PRIMAL BLOOD.  The storyline, plot, so far wasn't resonating with me, felt too unbelievable, too hard to swallow, and as much as I had high hopes I could make it work, I decided to start over.  Yeah, it sucks to basically do this but as many of my fellow writers so kindly responded to me on another forum, this is part of the process.  Brian Keene so aptly put it like creating a piece out of wet clay, shaping and working it, reworking it...and he's very correct.  Thanks, Brian!  I may not start over right away, since PRIMAL needs revising and as does MOONCHILD, my monstrous 600+ page horror tome...we'll see!

My Literary Influences & Likes...

The list is long, but let's start at the beginning...

Around the age of 13, I got hooked on Men's Adventure series type novels (after having to read a book for school and write a book report) like Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan The Executioner novels, as well as Jerry Ahern's The Survivalist and Hank Frost They Call Me The Mercenary novels.  I don't read these types of books any longer and haven't in a long time, but I still have a deep fondness for those books, as they inspired me to write at a very early age...

Stephen King, 'nuff said.  I discovered him around 19 years old and never looked back.  Probably the single biggest literary influence (yeah, somewhere Harold Bloom is cringing in his tweed-with-leather-patches-on-the-elbows jacket) and a very big reason why I chose to write horror.  Shortly thereafter, there was Dean Koontz, Peter Straub, Robert McCammon, and Clive Barker.  Later, I added to that list with more recent writers such as Brian Hodge, Skipp & Spector, Edward Lee, Owl Goingback, Jack Ketchum, Bentley Little, Brian Keene, Bryan Smith, and Jonathan Maberry...to name just a few!

Somewhere in between, I have to give a nod to the grandmasters, such as Poe and HP Lovecraft.  I do read outside of my beloved genre when the mood strikes me and enjoy some of the Florida mystery authors such as Tim Dorsey and Randy Wayne White.  Not much of a sci-fi/fantasy reader, but loved the original Conan series by Robert E. Howard and the Dune series by Frank Herbert.  Stephen R. Donaldson of the Thomas Covenant series is brilliant epic fantasy for those Tolkien fans out there, and his Gap series (although I've only read the first two books) is very good for science fiction.

More recently, I read one of the best novels ever, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.  Amazing story, beautiful and haunting.  Also, per my lovely girlfriend's suggestion, read a couple Jodi Picoult novels and enjoyed her unique gift of storytelling.

Primal Blood & Shifter...

A first for me (sort of)...working on two writing projects at once.  Kind of fun, actually, and a lot of writers do this, but as I'm working on finishing up Chapter Four of PRIMAL BLOOD, I hammered out a Prologue to SHIFTER, my young readers/teen dark fantasy-slash-horror novel.  It was a lot of fun.  Will probably do a little more work on both today, we'll see, but the latter part of today will be getting Super Bowl foodstuffs ready for the grill...burgers and hotdogs, yummm!  Go G-men! ;)

Projects, projects, projects...

Been working on the sequel to my horror novel, PRIMAL, called PRIMAL BLOOD, for past few months and currently writing Chapter Four.  Basically, it is a werewolf novel but with some unique twists, I think.  Also will be delving into revisions on PRIMAL soon.  Then there's my mammoth 632-page horror novel, MOON CHILD, that needs work but on hiatus, for now.

Started writing the first chapter to something for younger readers, possibly teens, called SHIFTER.  The idea was spawned after I recently learned my 10 year-old goddaughter started writing her own stories (which pleases me to NO end!) and have been mulling over writing a story for her.  One thing led to another and the idea grew to something much larger.  It's been nagging on my creative consciousness and this morning I hammered out 5 pages...yay me!

May also work on some new short stories in the near future since it has been a while.

Oh the horror...the horrorgasms!

Welcome!  This is the unofficially official temporary sort-of website-slash-blog thingey for yours truly, horror writer, Chris Kosarich.  Yes, this is my lazy way of shamelessly (or is that shamefully?) promoting myself, sharing my work, short horrorgasms and large ones (get your mind outta the gutter now!) and everything in between...

Come back often, but keep in mind this is a work-in-progress.  But do come back...pretty please?  Does it sound like I'm begging?