I just finished editing my first novel, The Christmas Tree Massacre. It’s currently 70,343 words. I made it my goal this summer to finish this project during Autocrit’s Novel90 Challenge. I enjoy their challenges, but in the past, I would enter and never quite get my projects done in time. Life would always seem to get in the way, but this year, I decided I was going to make it about finishing projects. I got the idea for this book because my parents used to take us to get a Christmas tree every year growing up, and when we got older there was a year where my father found a Christmas tree farm on Craigslist, and I thought “Oh, great, we’re going to get murdered,” and that was the beginning of the idea for this book. I will be querying this project so can’t share too much, but here is the current blurb, at least:

Welcome to Eatonville, where Christmas cheer hides something more diabolical. The Holiday family has run their picturesque tree farm for generations, but the firs aren’t the only things they harvest. Behind the twinkling lights and carols lies a darker tradition of ritual killings, butchered flesh, and offerings to something older than the forest itself.

When Natalie, a sharp-tongued goth, stumbles into their world with her family, she discovers the Holidays’ empire of ham and horror: a farm where victims vanish and ghosts aren’t the only thing that walks the night. The only way she can save herself is by becoming part of the family. But how will she manage to save her own before time runs out?

Part grotesque fairy tale, part holiday nightmare, The Christmas Tree Massacre delivers 25 chapters, an advent calendar of horror, that asks: how much darkness can a town swallow to keep the lights twinkling?

Upon completing the novel, I had a glass of Jagermeister, which is my antagonist, Doc Holiday’s drink of choice. I’m not much of a drinker, but it’s customary to have a drink of some kind when you finish a book.

I have some more projects coming this fall, so stay tuned.

Also, Autocrit is doing another Novel90 Challenge this fall and you can still join that one if you would like to participate for free: https://www.autocrit.com/writing-challenges/#challengelist

They also do several shorter challenges throughout the year that are equally as fun. If you sign up for a free account with them, you can receive e-mails to find out about their other upcoming challenges, workshops, and events. Plenty of chances to finish a project and win great prizes.

Their pro plan is great too if you want access to even more tools, a great community of writers, as well as a variety of highly informative pro workshops. I also recommend their Nightmare Fuel course for horror when it comes back around! It’s where I got my start. 🙂

Inkwell of the Afterlife: A Dark Poetry Collection is due for Release on Amazon on September 19th.

From the shadowed corridors of memory to the echoing halls of the beyond, Inkwell of the Afterlife is a haunting collection of poetry that lingers between the veil of the living and the dead. Inspired by the gothic brilliance of Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe, Penny Royal weaves a world where whispers of sorrow and reveries of the unknown entwine in lyrical verse.

With a rhythmic cadence that pulses like a heartbeat in the dark, these poems delve into love and loss, the ghosts of regret, and the eerie beauty of what waits on the other side. Each line is inked in longing, wrapped in mystery, and laced with the bittersweet chill of eternity.

For those who find solace in the shadows and poetry in the night, Inkwell of the Afterlife is an invitation to wander the twilight between worlds—where the soul lingers, and the words never die.

There is a dark place that I know

A place where I would never go

It haunts me like my own shadow

And steals my breath away

It keeps me locked inside my head

With things that live beneath my bed

And in the closet, something said

Please come inside and play

At night I hear the scratching walls

And laughter trailing by footfalls

As in my ear the darkness calls

You damn well better pray

And if I make it through the night

I’d be a sheet of ghostly white

And never slip into the dark

Or there, I’d have to stay

I Dreamed A Dream With Close-ed Eye

And Dark Dispelled The Void

A Universe So Deep Inside

Where Light Can’t Be Employed

I Stood Upon The Brink Of Time

A Fragile Humanoid

As Gears Sung In Their Pantomime

The Rise Of The Android