Shenanigan Report - Where's Your Lantern!?!?

"Let's go scare some demons." - Gallowglas, from Halloween Jack and the Devil's Gate

“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” — L.M. Montgomery

Failte, a lucht leanúna na scéalta!

Welcome, story lovers!

Oíche Shamhna shona daoibh go léir!
Happy Halloween to all!

Halloween Jack is 15 years old!

I viscerally remember the joy of writing this book. 30 days, start to finish. On the last day, I wrote 10,000 words. Probably my most productive writing day ever. Those happy memories are due to sharing this book with my younger son as I wrote it. This book exists because I wanted to have something to tie into my Ren Faire Storytelling shows, and to help inspire my son to read more. After finishing each chapter, I would share it with my son. He had to read the first page, and I would finish the chapter. Of course, I did all the accents and voices. Mickey the Ogre became one of my favorites to read.

A little over a year later, I published Halloween Jack and the Curse of Frost.

In the spring of 2013, I started work on Halloween Jack and the Red Emperors. I didn't publish that book until last year, more than twelve years later. I appreciate the Irony, that the first adventure of Halloween Jack was the fastest book I wrote, while the third adventure took me the longest to write. Now, I know some of you have been waiting on other books in other series; I have either paused work or haven't started at all on those books. (Deepest apologies to ToR and Dead Wight readers.) However, I never really stopped work on Red Emperors. It was just HARD. It took an immense amount of research, and the story floundered without focus for over a decade until I figured out whose story it really was. Once I knew that, I finished it in a few months. Never have I left so many discarded pieces of a draft out of a book.

The good news is... I know the basic plot of Halloween Jack and Viola's Tears. I have the journal that will be the first home to that story. Once I crank out some Tears of Rage and Dead Weight, I have a feeling the fourth adventure of the descendants of Jack of the Lantern will pretty much write itself.

Since it's that time of year again, I have an offer for anyone who subscribes to the Gallowglas Army site. Anyone who subscribes at any level will get the ebook of Halloween Jack and the Devil's Gate as a thank you... UNLESS... you sign up for a yearly subscription! Then, you get ALL THREE! BUT WAIT!!! Anyone who subscribes at Marine rank or higher will get a zombie tree (print edition) format of book one. If you choose a yearly subscription at Marine rank or higher, you'll get all three.

Schedule

November 1, 2026
Reading as a Contact Sport - 8 am FREE on ZOOM.
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Stephen Graham Jones

October 27
Fixing Infinity War & Endgame - 7pm Pacific
On my YouTube Channel

November 14 & 15
Kearney Park Renaissance Faire
Fresno, CA

November 21, 2027
Writing Workshop - 8 am Pacific on Zoom
$35 - Free for members of the Gallowclass Community.

November 27, 28, & 29
LosCon
Los Angeles, CA

December 6, 2026
Reading as a Contact Sport - 8 am FREE on ZOOM.
The Everlasting, by Alix E. Harrow

December 10, 2026
Poetry Event with T-Mo entertainment
Sacramento, CA

The Gallowclass writing community is live. If you're interested in rediscovering your writing, email or message me, and I'll help you decide if Gallowclass is right for you.

My writing/creativity livestreams on Tuesdays at 7 pm Pacific are going strong!

Gallowfacts

Careers and jobs I've had before being a full-time writer: paper carrier, working in a dunk booth at Renaissance Faire, retail, game specialist at Gamekeeper, cashier at McDonald's, bootlegger, server in a bouji tea house, internet community moderator, online community manager for Reading Rainbow, swing and ballroom dance instructor.

Life of a Literary Underdog

I don't have a lot of new stuff that's different from the last Shenanigan Report.

The biggest thing is that I'm thrilled at how many people came out to last Saturday's Bard for Life performance. We got some great footage. Some of it will be coming to my YouTube and social media at some point.

OOOOH!!! Just remembered... Next year, World Storytelling Day (that is March 20th) is on a Saturday. I'm going to make it a HUGE event. We'll film it. I've already spoken to The Adventure Chef about catering it. AND!!! I'm going to be composing an entirely new story for the occasion. It will be a Gallowglas original. Make your plans now! It's going to be epic!

Media Consumption

Dungeon Crawler Karl continues to be amazing. Sometimes I have to pause to rewrite some of his prose in my head. A wordsmith, Matt Diniman is not. However, his sentence-by-sentence work is a solid decent. However part 2: His storytelling is stellar. If he can stick the landing on this, supposedly by book 10, I firmly believe that this will be the quintessential genre series for people to study.
Buffalo Hunter Hunter - I'll save my thoughts on this for after Reading as a Contact Sport.
Aspects of the Novel - Giving me food for thought. I'm trying to be open to everything, even though I'm bristling at a couple of ideas he has. I can see the foundations of many schools of thought about novels as an art form in this book. More after I finish it.
VisionQuest - It's fun. James Spader is a treasure. Paul Bettany's subtle changes between the original Vision and this one are nothing less than masterful.

Storytime

Halloween Jack and the Devil's Gate - Prologue

It started with a turnip. True, some stories say it was a gourd, others go with the now traditional pumpkin, but, in truth, that first lantern John the blacksmith carved was out of a turnip. That’s when he first became known as Jack of the Lantern. The stories don’t all agree on how it was that Jack made the Devil so angry that the Devil wouldn’t let Jack into Hell, but the fact remains that all humanity owes Jack a debt, for as time went on and the Devil and his kin became free to roam the world only one night of the year, we carve our turnips, gourds, and pumpkins into lanterns to put outside our doors. We know, that the Devil and his kin know, behind one of those lanterns is a troublemaker of the likes they can do without.

However, deep in the bowels of his dark realm, sitting on his dark throne, the Dark One has not forgotten. While Jack of the Lantern has wandered over the centuries, the Devil and his kin, cunning and crafty one and all, have plotted and schemed their revenge.

Halloween Jack and the Curse of Frost - Prologue

It started with a glance, as tales of true love often do.

This glance happened to be in the reflection of a glass window in the chill of a winter morning. A young lady wrapped in layers of wool and fur was busy scraping his artwork, his masterpiece – as each work was a masterpiece – from a window so her mother could view the rising sun as she made porridge that morning.

Being a bit behind this morning, he saw the young lady destroying his work on the window. He was not overly attached to his works – each one was a transitory thing by nature: the sun always came, and his work always died.

He was, however, overly attached to mischief.

Flittering on the winter wind, he snuck up behind the young lady and blew on the window after she wiped the frost from the glass. He bit his lip to stifle his snickering and waited for the gasp of surprise that usually came when he did this. The young lady didn’t gasp. She just wiped the new frost away from the window. It happened so fast that he didn’t have time to hide himself as his kind usually did in the presence of mortals.

She stared at his eyes from the reflection in the glass. He wanted to run, to hide, knew he should, but could not. Her eyes seemed to trap him, hold him, and keep him from wanting anything other than to look into her eyes forever.

And so he made a choice, and they were happy for a time. However, as it is with the tales of love between the human world and the hidden world of secret things, it could not last.

He was forced to make another choice, a tragic choice.

Now, he’s lost himself in his art. And, in those few times he indulges in his mischief, it has become cruel and painful. This is exactly how the Dark One, sitting on his dark throne deep in the bowels of his dark realm, wants it. For the Devil and his kin, cunning and crafty one and all, have not forgotten the secret pacts and have had nothing but time to plot and scheme on how they can exploit those ancient pacts to exact their revenge.

Halloween Jack and the Red Emperors - Prologue

So many problems begin with men trying to be too clever for their own good.

All throughout the secret history of the world, called “mythology” by most, some men have never remained content with tried-and-true methods of protecting themselves from the creatures that prey upon humanity. Rather than leave well enough alone, some men need to push the boundaries, test limits, push against barriers, and bend rules to the point of their own downfall. Defying logic and reason, something motivates them to say what they shouldn’t, eat what they shouldn’t, open what they shouldn’t, make what they shouldn’t, act how they shouldn’t, and worst of all, scheme how they shouldn't.

In some cases, the men, women, and beings who pushed against boundaries and traditions helped their fellow men with new inventions, ideas, and lands to explore. However, sometimes individuals with this innate rebellious spirit test boundaries that should be left well enough alone. For, in the age when legends walked the earth, the powers that be, both of light and darkness, gathered and forged certain rules to govern the battles of light and darkness across the world. In some places, the rules served as guidelines…in others, the rules were ironclad. Throughout the ages and across every culture in the world, some have tried to bend the rules, sometimes even ignoring them altogether. Their names echo throughout folklore, legend, and myth: Pandora, Gilgamesh, Coyote, Bellerophon, Morgan le Fey, Jonah, Orpheus, Sun Wukong, and many others.

Long before the beginning of this tale, a scheme of being far too clever begins with a ship and a voyage. Many ships, actually. A fleet of ships. A fleet of ships with red sails that set out from the middle and sailed east. The flagship of this fleet carried a large box. Taller than a man, just as wide, and twice as long. Only the commander of that fleet knew what the box contained. Most of the sailors left that box well enough alone. For the most part, sailors were a pragmatic and practical lot who would see a box that size, nailed shut, wrapped in chains thicker than their arms, and leave it well enough alone. Most sailors, that is.

Sometimes, on a voyage that lasts for months and months across the eastern sea, far beyond any point ever sailed by any ship from the Middle Kingdom, a certain kind of man gets curious. A certain kind of man decides he needs to know what this whole trip is about. When he thinks no one is looking, that kind of man will sneak a peek into one of the air holes in the top of that enormous, chained box. Shortly thereafter, a man like that finds his way into an accident that carries him overboard, and of course, keeping the mission’s secret is far more important than one man.

Months and months later, the fleet (now missing quite a few ships to storms, tsunamis, and strange people in even stranger boats) finds land where no one thought land should be. The flagship sailed into a bay, dropped that box overboard, and turned around for the long journey back west. If the winds favored the fleet of ships with red sails, they might return home in time to celebrate the new year with their families.

The box rested at the bottom of the bay. Months grew into years. The years lingered into a century or seven or even more until events collided to create that moment when the creature slumbering in the box awakened and freed itself.

Centuries upon centuries after the tricksters stopped playing their games and testing their boundaries, someone discovered gold not too far up the river emptying into that bay, hordes of men left the Middle Kingdom and crossed that ocean looking for work, and a young man, in his rise to become his own trickster legend, spoke seemingly innocent words:

“If Saint Peter wanted things done in the traditional way, he wouldn’t have asked an American.”

With those words, and by his actions that followed, The Old Ways began to unravel. Now, this young man never outright broke any of The Old Ways, but he freely and blatantly manipulated the traditions as well as his heavenly gifts to gain advantage after advantage over his enemies. Each time he bent the rules a little more, like so many of those before him, he did so with the best of intentions. And, like so many before him, each choice and action had unforeseen consequences. With each rule bent and each limit tested, the Old Ways began to fray at the edges, near to the snapping point.

Even the Devil himself felt this fraying. However, trapped as he was by the magic of a certain blacksmith’s hammer, the darkest of dark lords could do naught but fume and brood as the hammer kept up its steady, clang, clang, clang. However, that vile and ancient adversary was not the only power in the world that felt the fraying of The Old Ways. Another creature, nearly as old and vile as the Dark One himself, stirred from its slumber in a box at the bottom of a bay.

On a holiday both similar and quite unlike another holiday, being celebrated in a completely different land far from the people who first celebrated either of these holidays, where men chased creatures off with lanterns, though completely different kinds of lanterns for completely different kinds of stories…

(Are you confused yet? Read on. The answers are coming. If you pay attention.)

The prisoner in that box opened its eyes.

Centuries upon centuries of hunger growled in its belly, and it sensed an entire city of people nearby.

But first, it needed to get out of this box…