Hello, friends.
Spring vacation is over and now the last 2+ months of school remain. There’ll be holidays and such, but there’ll be other things that are exclusive to teaching in the 21st century that are not as fun. Either way, writing full-time won’t resume again until the end of June (except for weekends) which means you get gray cloudy Bill back!
Not really. Well, maybe a little. But I’m here and you’re here so let’s chat.
Welcome to the 170th installment of Gauthic Times, the newsletter about my writing, my life, and thinking about alternative histories of one’s life. If you’re a reader who subscribes via Substack, my website, or Patreon, your encouragement helps motivate me. I’m not breaking any records but I’m thankful to have any audience.
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This past week I’m finished a query letter for Project: Amusement Park and found some possible agents to perhaps send those queries to. The research, writing, and revising for these letters took up most of the week. I also began working on a full synopsis for Project: Amusement Park and mainly hate it. But that’s okay, because we get to revise, right?
The only other writing-related thing I did this week was reformat a short story that I want to revise. I think I originally wrote the story in 2011 from an idea that goes back to 2002 but I think I know what to do now. I just need to do it. That may be this week. Once I’m done with the synopsis.
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Every now and then I ruminate on what could’ve been. I mean, we all do, right? I’m not talking about regret, not really, although sometimes there’s an element of that to it, but just how things that could’ve been really good could’ve happened but didn’t, usually because of timing or poor choices. I don’t dwell on these things by any means—and I’m even reluctant to put it in writing—but I’m sorta outta ideas for this week’s essay and this came to me yesterday, so here we are. The reason it came to me was because I had a moment of, If this had happened then, then I might’ve been doing what I dream to do now.
It happens sometimes, right?
Back in 2003, a short story of mine called “The Growth of Alan Ashley” was purchased for the classic Borderlands anthology series. In recent years the memory of the anthology series has been sullied because the main editor showed he’d gone MAGA and alienated many people in the horror genre.[1] It’s a shame because those Borderlands anthologies really had some great work for a long time. This particular volume, Borderlands 5, was noteworthy because it marked Stephen King’s debut to the anthology series. With a stellar roster of writers writing weird—and in some cases cutting-edge—short stories/novellas, the book sold to paperback to Warner Books.
One night in the fall of 2003 (or spring of 2004), I received a phone call from the editor at Warner Books who’d bought the book. She’d loved “The Growth of Alan Ashley” and wondered if I had any novels. Well, I was working on a novel at the time called Night Brethren (an awful title) and I said I’d send it when I could. I had just gone back to college in the January of 2003 and my first marriage was falling apart. I was working part-time at a bookstore and finishing my English degree and being a father to a kindergartener and working my way to separation/divorce and, well…things were tough.
I finished the novel and sent it to her. Time passed, the separation happened in the spring of 2004, and I think in 2005, with Catalysts already in the works, I got a very nice, detailed letter rejecting Night Brethren. The editor was kind enough to point out all the issues. Which I 100% agreed with by then. I felt like I knew how to fix it and wrote her an email detailing some of the fixes. She liked them and told me to send the book to her when I was done.
It never happened.
I was in the midst of a terrible depression. The separation almost seemed like a mistake and a mistake cost me financially and I’d had to move back in with my parents. I felt like a failure and had trouble writing anything of worth in the time. I could barely write my column for Dark Discoveries Magazine, called American Gauthic. The only reason I was able to write it at all was because DD published sporadically and the nonfiction was a little easier. I miss that column although I’m embarrassed by most of the essays now. But that’s for another time, if ever. The novel didn’t pan out.
The years passed in in January 2007 I met Pamela. In 2008, I emailed the editor from Warner Books—which was now Grand Central Publishing—and asked if she’d still be interested in something from me. I’d started the novel that became Echoes on the Pond. She said she would absolutely be interested in a new novel from me when it was ready.
Unfortunately, it took me nearly a decade to finish Echoes on the Pond and by the time it was done, the editor had left Grand Central and was doing work-for-hire editing. The rest is history.
But I can’t help but wonder what if I hadn’t fucked up back in 2005? What if I’d rewritten (and, I hope, retitled) Night Brethren? And what if it’d been published by Warner Books/Grand Central Publishing? This was the editor of the popular duo Douglas Prestron and Lincoln Child! I mean…come on! Maybe I’d be writing full time?
Or maybe not. That’s the thing from asking what if…? (if it’s lowercase and in my sentence, Marvel won’t come after me, right?), one never knows. If there is a multiverse, maybe there’s the Bill who’s a multimillionaire best-selling writer. Or maybe the books would’ve bombed and I’d be in the same place, or worse! With faith in my writing shaken, maybe I would’ve walked away. Maybe I would’ve become a supervillain and tried to kill the Avengers! Wait. Wrong What If…? continuity. Anyway, you get the idea.
That’s what we do as creators, though. We ask “What if…?” and then try to answer it. What if an adolescent with a horrible past meets a therapist with a horrific past and they awaken a malevolent spirit who wants to possess the girl to come back? (Echoes on the Pond). What if the monster in your kid’s closet was real and pissed off? (The Monster in the Closet). What if a man and his two sons are connected to haunted, evil place that holds an ancient evil and they must face their pasts and reconnect in some way to save themselves and their families? (Project: Amusement Park).
The problem isn’t asking “What if…?” in regards to one’s life, but in being weighed down and regretful of what didn’t happen. Do I regret failing back then? Absolutely! But does it weigh on me? Not at all. Honestly, I wasn’t in a good place back then and things likely would’ve gone south. Or maybe not. There’s no way to know so there’s no reason to dwell.
But it doesn’t hurt to think about sometimes. It may give you a story or, if you’re really pressed for time, an essay for a newsletter.
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That’s this week’s newsletter. Thank you so much for subscribing, reading, and for your support. Be safe out there, friends.
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[1] It should be noted that said writer/editor/publisher had a history of kinda being a dick to people because White patriarchy is a thing. I should also note that same fella wrote a nice introduction to my collection of short stories, Catalysts, because the then-publisher, Dark Discoveries Publications, thought it would be a good idea. The writer/editor/publisher agreed and wrote something that was nice but, well, gave me the vibe that he hadn’t actually read the stories. When his most recent issues happened a few years ago, I asked my current publisher, Crossroad Press, to drop the introduction and they did. I wasn’t comfortable with the association any longer. Writing/publishing has many of these stories and my ineptitude (or learning curve) has provided a few of these stories. But I digress…
Gautham: Bill Gauthier.com 
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