Bloody Christmas: Five gruesome Christmas stories
The book is out, I am incredibly relieved, and today I got the amazing news that Amazon finally decided to put it up on the Kindle store. Things are going surprisingly smooth with this release, and I couldn't be happier about it. Today, the 26th, this post was also supposed to be coming out, but at the time I'm writing it, it's probably going to be a 27th at 01:00AM kinda deal, but I wanted to make something truly special to commemorate the latest achievements, so who cares about dates, right?
If you're not aware of the contents of this book, as in you haven't read it yet, or we never talked about it, or you don't even know why you're here, the title of this post makes it very self-explanatory. It's a short, anthology piece collecting five bloody-gruesome stories about Christmas. Very heavily gruesome, very unmerrily disgusting, and all about what truly sucks about Christmas. If that interests you, in this post I'll be going a little deeper into the idea, the production of each story, my experience with self-publishing the book, and whatever else I find interesting about the whole thing.
If you haven't got it yet, you can use this link, or click the gif below and be taken to the many options of publishers to choose from (I personally recommend Smashwords and Amazon Kindle),
It begins
First, it was the 10th of December, 2022. "Wayne and Me" had just been released after a whole month of dealing with the many issues it presented, and I was TIRED. Happy but tired. It was then also that I realised it was December and I hadn't done anything for Christmas, and had 0 money and 0 idea of what to gift my friends. I love Christmas, and I love giving out gifts, but that last month things were rough: my number of meaningful friends had increased substantially, and to top it all off, the new tradition I tried to start in 2021, of making "a Christmas special' every year, was seriously weighing on my shoulders.
2021 had Hentai for Intellectuals reach its all time viewer-peak with the interview trilogy I ran then, having a talk with some prominent figures of the western hentai scene; Sparrow and JumpJump, at Christmas-day, Peculiart. It was a lot of fun making something special for the general public instead of just for a few people I liked, so in January I was like "Yeah, of course I'll be able to do this every year, right?". Well, as an answer for the past me: kinda.
Checking the calendar and seeing I only had two weeks to think of — and then produce — something big, I started to panic. Having cool guests was not an option at such short notice, I definitely wasn't spawning a whole Youtube channel just like that either, — like were the big plans for the coming year — and all I had was me, and probably pencil and a couple sheets of paper, so I decide to go on a walk and let my mind roam free.
Many ideas came to mind, as they always do, I'm cursed, but I only settled for something when, passing by a bakery, I saw a young couple waiting out of line for their chance to order, hanging out at one of the tables, looking into each others eyes. My voyeur instincts kicked in and I stopped to watch the scene. The boy turned his eyes to me and made a questioning expression, but the girl just kept looking at him, later took his face and made him look back at her. I went my way then, with those two in mind, humming Kissability.
"Look into my eyes, don't you trust me?" was written in the stars, that was definitely going to turn into a nice story. The character of the girl, demanding, controlling, conducting that moment; the boy that hasn't his all into it, thinking for himself independently, guardingly, subjectively-leadingly; and the two inside this dynamic of leader/tyrant, constantly fighting internal and external battles against themselves, against each other, it was perfect! Later on, a half-bottle of wine gone, I thought "What if they were to assault that bakery?" So I told Isaias of my idea and he was like "damn, that sounds grim", and I was like "It definitely does..." and let the idea brew inside my head. On my way home it was decided, they were robbers, it would be a snow day and, since I had just finished binge-reading John Green, it would be Christmas.
The plan was simple: three short stories about Christmas that take a darker turn for the worst. One, maybe two pages long, à la "Wayne and Me". Super nice, super digestible, not a big deal. But then came the idea: "what if it was super gruesome?" You know, what if I used this project as an excuse to experiment with physical horror, as opposed to the psychological horror I always write? And there, right there, was the birth of "Bloody Christmas: [number] Gruesome Christmas Stories".
Fun fact: it was supposed to be a multimedia project, with film, music and written stories, but the dead-end cut off the possiblities of the other two mediums.
The New Bonnie and Clyde
It was going down the cicada slope that I began to plot the assault. The characters remained pretty much the same, the gun was still there, the little money, the pastry order, the tired and unwilling employees in a Christmas morning, et cetera. But now Clyde was a psychopath. Now Clyde shot his gun. And I was enamored with the idea of a bullet hitting an eye by chance when a bullet to the head is shot. The surprise to both parties, the fluids oozing out, the easy path towards the brain and a fatality... And this sounds so weird, I am so sorry, I don't even like guns, I was just trying to imagine the worst possible scene in physical horror. Again, I'm not a psycho, I swear, this is just a writing experiment. Anyways, the emptying of the clips, the cold-blooded murder after you receive your order, the irony of having something nice and interesting happening in your "worst day of the year" become part of what makes it the worst, the loving relationship of two bad persons, how the car drives away into that Christmas morning like the start of a cool movie, et cetera, it all makes that story so nice from a narrative standpoint. And from what Wayne told me once, makes it "so me", even when trying something completely new.
Having read the book "As Baianas", an anthology about the many different women from the state of Bahia, Brasil, and falling in love with the Mayrant Gallo entry for it: "A Bonnie dos Barris"; the title for this one was decided, as well as a dedication to the author that I hold very dear in my heart.
Christmas Failures
At this point I had a "feedbacker": the great Mozart, the one you might know as Raziel, author of "The Devil Watches Over Me" from Wayne and Me's guest section. I was writing the stories, handing them to him, he was saying "oh, that's pretty cool", and then I knew they were good to go. "Christmas Failures" also served to show, along with "The New Bonnie and Clyde", that the stories wouldn't be so nice and digestible as I first thought. Not giving myself boundaries for both length and content, my brain constructed stories full of details, and characters that could very well fit into short novels as opposed to being bound to short stories. Bonnie and Clyde are a good example of that, Laura as well; it would be easy to extend their stories into something bigger if interested, and I love that possibility.
The character of Laura comes from a real person, but one I don't know that well; our last encounter figuring at the end of THE LOST TAPES Vol.42, and coming to me as a well-timed reminder of a sad story. The girl is of jewish heritage and her family doesn't commemorate Christmas. She does love Christmas a lot though, and all year-round tried to get everybody inside her "merry hype-train", but nobody quite cared, that being because we knew that Christmas was supposed to be a December thing, and that's when our holiday spirits actually activated. In the cold of June-October she wore Christmas sweaters knitted by her own two hands, always hidden inside her backpack to be worn when she was far from her neighborhood, and from everybody I've known, she's the best recurve bow archer.
She was also super into me, but we never got around to connecting. Unless when talking archery, of course, because that's very cool. Anyways, after that November encounter, now in December, I passed in front of her house — always the one with 0 Christmas decorations in that street —, and decided to make of her past situation a story; her mom being a complete dick also helped; and that's when the first annotations for "Christmas Failures" were written.
That girl became Laura: a miserable individual with severe mental issues, and a Christmas aficionado; disregarding all that wasn't magical, living life for her passions and giving herself up to the Christmas spirit.
Family doesn't commemorate Christmas because mom is a dick, but that doesn't stop her from doing her own thing and bypassing the house rules, even if that meant building a reflection of her own "Christmas failure".
The idea for the "gross part" of this one came up the same night as I brainstormed "The New Bonnie and Clyde". Having a "grown kid" playing with dolls to simulate a Christmas feast, but taking them from a foam box inside the freezer, and having the dolls be of organic matter, frozen and then defrosting, revealing the putrid state of their carcasses was genius to me at the time; even more if you don't say what the flesh dolls are, or what they're made of; and it was based on this idea that the rest of the story was constructed, using the character of Laura, that used the story of this one person I know.
After putting it together I knew it was my favorite. The lack of clarity in answers really makes you think like, "what are the dolls supposed to represent?", "what can you take from Laura's antics lorewise?", "what is the deal with that girl, anyway?"; attentive readers will pick up in little details, and have the story be much more rewarding than for those that read by passing, but reading it by passing will not sacrifice its main value, that is, of disgusting the reader with a disturbing display of gruesomeness.
Something else I love about this story, and that makes it super mine, is that it is much better to tell than to read. Reading it out loud will help you achieve feelings that would remain hidden otherwise, and make it just that much more enjoyable. You can also take literally anything I write (this post even) and read it out loud, or have someone read it out loud, and see for yourself how that works. That also takes me to the possibility of making Bloddy Christmas into an audiobook, something that I'll bring up later on in this post.
Krampus
"Krampus" came when I truly knew what I was doing. Up to "Christmas Failures" I wasn't so sure of what I really wanted for this book; gruesome stories?, sure, but that's kind of too vague, too "disconnected", and I wanted an actual reason behind the stories, make it truly an anthology. That's when "It sucks sometimes" came to be. What about making an anthology on things that truly suck on Christmas time? Like working on Christmas, or liking Christmas in a family that doesn't like Christmas, or even of having Christmas as an excuse to punish some children and not punish others, making of what is supposed to be a fun holiday into an anxiety-pool for those that don't really have much control over the "naughty" things they do. It was a pretty good concept, and I went for that. At the time there were also many story ideas in the cesspool, but having this concept as base narrowed the number of possibilities a lot, and as of the production of "Krampus", after "Christmas Failures" being as long as it was, and the former promising to be just as long, I settled for six gruesome stories about Christmas; when it was already the 20th and I had just finished the 4th, five stories it was.
People say this one reminds them of Heavy Rain. Never played the game, don't even know what it is about, but it might be good if it's like "Krampus" lol. The story itself is about this impeccable serial killer, and the hunt for it by Detective Connor and Sheriff Hughes. At the time, I was watching a lot of Shrouded Hand on Youtube, and the true crime cases were my favorite; that's when I started mingling with the idea of a truly "perfect serial killer", and how the police force would deal with something so abnormal.
And it's important to note that, even though I don't like police, in no way my dislikeness towards blue pigs influenced the outcome of this story. The main idea remains the same: perfect killings + imperfect people to deal with it = unsolved case. There's absolutely no way the "serial killer" could've been caught, and that's also not because "I like those" or anything. Killing people is bad, I don't like it, people that take other people's lives should pay with their own lives; eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth (life sentences, not death penalty). But in the case of "Krampus", the hole is just that much deeper that justice both applies and doesn't apply at the same time. Why? That's on me to know and on you to discover.
In search of the perfect serial killer I came by many possibilities. From the supernatural to Saw-like reality-bending killings, I thought of everything, and settled for something very unusual. To preserve the whodunit effect of the story I won't say much about it, but know the clues are all there, and to this point (January 26th) nobody really guessed it right. I thought about making something of an ARG for people to play out in search of the killer, but decided to at least wait for the audiobook before doing so. So if you like ARGs, who knows, you could be the one to find the true identity of Krampus!
"Gratitude"
There's nothing worse than receiving a gift you don't like and being forced to show gratitude for it. At least that's what a friend told me one day, because I love everything I get, good or bad, and am very grateful for being able to exchange gifts every Christmas. BUT, as it seems, not everybody is like me and loves Christmas for its values and atmosphere; especially kids, that love gifts above everything else, and even more than that, the protagonist of this story: Tommy.
Mozart said this one is his favorite, and I can get behind that, although it just feels super uncomfortable for me. There wasn't much of an "inspiration" for it, and the idea came from Mozart and I brainstorming about otherworldy punishment for earthly sins, thinking about what asshole kids deserved if they were assholes for no rhyme or reason and found pleasure in ruining everything for everybody. Mozart of course hovered over "egyptian gods", as he does, and I was more into "new mythology type-shit". From that came a story about the punishment of naughty kids, satirizing the irrational logic of old-timey cautionary tales. Kid is a dick > mythological monster comes into his plan of existence and curses him > kid lives miserably for the rest of time.
It's a pretty simple idea and a pretty simple story, no hidden meaning or anything, and from the whole book it is the most approachable. But I gotta admit, there's a thing or two to speculate about that ending. Weird stuff.
It's no Winter Christmas
"I’m happy and then I’m sad
I’m a pit after I’m fed
I turned ripe and then went bad
I’m blue and then I’m red
[...]
"Let the whore into your life
Let the bore encounter strife
May the devil cause no quarrel
As I revel in your peril"
——Sua Yoo, “It’s no TV dinner”
This is a Hollow Saffron Gutter excerpt I chose to start the story with, and one that serves as good clue for what's about to happen then, even though it'll only make sense if you read it again after finishing the story.
"It's no Winter Christmas" is another one of those, full of connotations, that rewards attentive reading. Despite a good description of scenario and context, there's plenty left untold, there but indirectly, and I like to see this story as a 3D schematic, like a The Sims game, watching characters act without your control, knowing what's going to and is supposed to be happening.
From the very first section of the story you can guess its end, but the journey is where the value is at. Exploring the innocence of everyday life, of thinking the worst will happen to someone else and not to you, — not-knowing the potential evil that could always be lurking, — really makes the breaking point the worst it could ever be. Here, the perfect serial killer trope also plays a part, but instead of skill it's more about luck; playing with the chance of being caught, but having the perfect contextual excuse you could ever, like knifing someone in a crowd.
The theme is countries with seasonal cycles that don't abide to american standards for the holiday season. In other words, having your Christmas be on Summer, with all the heat and sweat you could never have asked for. Being a person living in a tropical country, never seeing snow ever, a white Christmas is nothing but a far away dream, and I know very well how the get-togethers can "get". Thinking about turning this subjective horror into a real horror piece, of course I made it an unorthodox murder mistery, with family feuds and drama, and black sheeps and good dinners and everything.
I must admit, though, that descriptive horror on this one was kind of lacking, although it is what felt right to the story, and if you were reading for that, as a piece-ending story it could totally be truly lacking. But I love the "that was the only room with air-conditioning" ending the book. It gives the impression of heat, and is the opposite of the cold, dark morning of the beginning.
It's Christmas and the book isn't out. What now?
Cover "finished" (it got super ugly when I tried to edit it, but it was the best I could do with my limited knowledge of digitizing drawings), .pdf in hands, I was vibrant to finally put it up on Amazon. But then I found out about tax information, and tax interviews, and how processing tax forms could take up to two months, and it was holiday season, and the book could not be published until that was done. Needless to say I was devastated. Definitely should've prepared better for this release, but inexperience took me the wrong path; even more when I decided to wait.
New year's came around and nothing of Amazon giving me an answer, so I decided to wait a week more and nothing, the 10th came around and nothing, and when the second week hit without a reply by the shit-eaters, I decided to look for alternatives. That's when I found out about Draft2Read, the pretttiest and brightest angel I've ever seen, sent by a higher-power to turn my situation around and finally let me release this darn book.
Sure, I still had to wait for confirmations and stuff like that, but it didn't take half as much time as amazon is still taking to this day (the forms were never processed and goddamn I hate amazon), and guess what, they processed my tax forms themselves (the Draft2Read people) and I received personal costumer service and everything, and was able to release the book to amazon through their service much, much quicker.
Now the book is pretty much out and available everywhere in .epub, and will remain as such while I see what else to do with it. The possibility of a "sequel" is there, as well as a print version depending on how many copies this one sells, and how the public receives it. Personally I don't have much interest in printing it when self-publishing, for getting a copy for myself or something of that sort, but if interest sparks beyond me the printers are out of my control.
The audiobook mentioned is an idea I've been nurturing since writing "The New Bonnie and Clyde", and I'm 80% sure it's going to be done until June of this year. If not, give it a couple more months and it'll be out. Not planning on making it the 2023 Christmas special or anything; it really just is something I very suddenly became passionate about and want to see done. For that, of course, I'll be needing a narrator. If you have interest in participating, send an e-mail to priscillamartins2234@gmail.com, and we can talk further.
For the past two days and since the release, I was stricken with immense fatigue; it might be the relief of finally getting it done; and have been sleeping literally the whole day. Keeping up with the special stuff promised for the release, and even just plugging the book like I'm supposed to has been a big struggle; one that feels unusual coming from me, that always have the energy to do everything and so much of. But I'll be respecting the messages from my body and taking my time to do everything.
If you read it up to this point it's a sign that you either liked the book or is going to like the book. It is now officially available on Amazon, but the other stores are pretty good too, especially Smashwords, that I use, and if you grabbed a copy, maybe even told one of your friends about it, thanks a lot, you're helping me pay rent this month, something that I am surprisingly struggling to do lately.
Thanks for enjoying my stuff, I won't let you down if you do, only going up from here. Tomorrow or saturday there's a pretty cool album coming up on The Trove, as well (not happening, probably sunday). So stay tuned for that! And see you next time.
Here's the old gif (I find it so funny):
