GtPGKogPYT4p61R1biicqBXsUzo" /> Google+ Patrick Rutigliano guest post: The Eldritch Lush in my Left Hemisphere (Wind Chill book tour) | I Smell Sheep

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Patrick Rutigliano guest post: The Eldritch Lush in my Left Hemisphere (Wind Chill book tour)

The Eldritch Lush in my Left Hemisphere

All creatives have their muses. For some, they whisper gently in the ears of their creative host organisms, easing them into their work. Not mine. But that’s probably because she’s a Cthulhoid entity that usually resides in my gray matter. Oh, and she drinks. A lot.

I think she moved in while I was in college. Perhaps she was lured by the combination of campus bacchanals and the Lovecraftian fiction stored in my dorm room. Honestly, I’ve never thought to ask her. She was probably too drunk to remember, anyway. God knows she was when she first started talking to me.

Well, “talking” might be the wrong word for it. I thought it was tinnitus at first. Maybe the effects of a loud concert on my eardrums. Turns out she was just doing her impression of the old Emergency Broadcast System tone. It went on for a month. Then, she belched and I noticed the snoring.

Needless to say, I was concerned. Nobody except a deranged cultist would want an elder spawn living in his brain. She assured me it would be okay when she woke up, of course. Told me I “had a nice place here” and that she would “pay her rent on time every month.” That’s when the first story came, interrupted by periodic manifestations where she would puke in my bathroom (she has yet to find the toilet).

Alas, sloppy drunk that she is, I found I had to write everything down. She repeats herself, you see, and the only way to get her to switch gears is to offer proof that she’s echoing herself. Or to pour enough strong drink in my ear to put her under, but the whiskey burns something awful on the way in.

The only quiet I have anymore is when she goes out. But even then, I can sense her presence at work in the world. She gave a wedgie to the high priest of Thoth while on an absinthe kick once. Another time, she placed a “kick me” sign on Kim Jong-Un’s back just to watch the ensuing massacre. And always she comes back to me, bragging about it all before slurring into another story I have to translate through the hiccups, retching, and random bouts of giddiness. Or else suffer it again... and again... and again...

All of this was trying enough. Then, she realized I’d been published.

The only thing worse than a blasted elder thing with a motor mouth is one that’s had encouragement. She talks even more now, ever eager to see her ideas in print. No mind is given to the layers of blisters on my fingertips or the red lines threading my eyes.

Perhaps the only way to stop her is through an act of will. To give up the keyboard cold turkey and refuse to type one more word of what she wants transcribed no matter how much she rambles on.

Ah, screw it. At least she pays the rent.


Wind Chill
by Patrick Rutigliano
January 29th, 2016
Crystal Lake Publishing
Emma Rawlins has spent the last year a prisoner. The months following her mother's death dragged her father into a paranoid spiral of conspiracy theories and doomsday premonitions.

Emma finds herself drugged and dragged to a secluded cabin, the last refuge from a society supposedly due to collapse. Their cabin a snowbound fortress, her every move controlled, but even that isn't enough to weather the end of the world.

There is no choice but to play her father's game while she plans her escape.

But there is a force far colder than the freezing drifts. Ancient, ravenous, it knows no mercy. And it's already had a taste...

will post buy link once released

About the Author:
amazon-goodreads
Patrick Rutigliano made his way as a fry cook, cart monkey, and feral cat tamer before going into business for himself. Working as an editor and proofreader in addition to writing, his first independent release, The Untimely Deaths of Daryl Handy, hit Amazon in 2013. His first novel, Surviving the Crash, was released by Retro Rocket Press in 2014. Crystal Lake Publishing is publishing his newest work, Wind Chill, in January 2015.

During his off time, Patrick can usually be found attempting to recreate foreign cuisine, performing the solemn duty of feline waterbed, and having spirited debates with his wife over the failings of Disney villains.

2 comments:

  1. Love the cover do you have any book marks or cover of it I would love to read that just stand out

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love the cover, and the story seems to have a bit of dark humor to it.

    ReplyDelete