I am the eggman.

It's egg-hunting time again. I had to explain to Click how this works. I hide eggs and he, Caligula and Senga can go and look for them. They can keep any they find.

The game is fun for me because I get to stay indoors while they wander the swamp looking for eggs I haven't hidden. If I put real eggs out there, they might find them and the game would end. As it is I can look forward to hours of peace and quiet.

They can begin at first light. I will be having a lie-in. The fog that's building up should add to the excitement.

With any luck, none of them will find their way back for a week.

Samurai weeding.

It's spring, and the whipweed is especially lively this year. I can't even step outside without the crack of chlorophyll ringing in my ears and whacking across my face. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the barbed stings.

So I have ordered the Samurai Weeding Tool. Layered steel with a razor edge. That should sort out the whipweed. And those people who keep coming around to demand tacks. They come around every year and I always tell them I don't have and don't want any, but they keep coming back.

This time I'd better be sure to get to the post box before little Caligula does. He likes toys.

Book release day.

It's official. Jessica's Trap is now released upon the world. So now, to Senga's relief, I can stop talking about it and start talking about the next ones.

Samuel's Girl is just about ready to send. Well, it's probably been ready to send for over a year but I'm fussy. Norman's House is first-draft-complete and part-rewritten with more tension. Victor's Will is almost first-draft-complete. Demdike's Return is sketched, as is The Apocalypse Show, but that last one cannot go out for a long time. It's the end of something.

Ghosthunters, which is, paradoxically, the only one with nothing paranormal in it, is plodding along. I might use a different name for that one. It's very different to anything else in the pipeline.

Aside from proper publishing, there are the self-published stories and more of those are planned. There is the short story book on Lulu (in the sidebar) which someone suggested might be good on Kindle. First I want to put the published Blackthorn family tales along with some unpublished ones, and perhaps a few more, into a book of their own. I like the Blackthorns. We get along very well indeed. Here's a sample. And another. These won't be in the self-published book because they are in existing anthologies and I see no point in competing with myself. I might not win, and how embarrassing would that be? No matter. The Blackthorns are always busy so there's no shortage of new material.

The Alien Queen Mother once suggested I compile those Alienskin articles on horror-writing into a book. I've never done it. Perhaps I should. There are four years' worth of them, assuming I still have them all, and they might be useful to someone. Then there is the Chronicle of Dume which I have yet to compose. A host of half-finished, nearly-finished and merely outlined short stories that would make another book or maybe two. Oh, and of course, that children's book, Mirror-man, which might still work if I can reduce the death rate to less than three per chapter. Apparently modern children have gone soft and now object to wanton destruction and mayhem. Fortunately my own son, Caligula, is of old stock. That's why I won't be sending him to school. They'll only send him back.

Now that I think of it, I have noticed a sharp decline in the rat population here and Caligula has been very busy making little crucifixes. I must remember to quiz him about this.

Ah, I hear the little half-man, half-waste-disposal-unit howling. I'd better see what he wants.

I expect Underbed Monster has escaped again. If only Caligula wouldn't torment him so much he might stay where he's supposed to be.

Circular linking.

If you click on the image of Jessica's trap at the side, it will send you here. Take care with that, because if you click too often and too fast, your computer will enter an eternal loop and suck all the matter out of spacetime. Which will be a tad inconvenient for someone trying to sell a book, so please, don't do it.

The reason that link sends you here is because I can't work out how to put multiple links into the image. Oh, I can link you to the American Amazon or to the UK one or to other ones, to Barnes and Noble, to the publisher's site for the PDF version or to the Kindle version.

Or I can just say 'Look for Jessica's Trap by H.K. Hillman on those sites' and it's easier for all of us.

Well, it's certainly easier for me.

Just... whatever you do, don't keep clicking that link. You might break the universe and if you do that, everyone will point at you and be very cross. There's one consolation.

They won't be cross with you for very long at all.

Red Stan's Literary Ambition.

Red Stan is none too happy. He popped out of the fireplace this evening even redder than usual and believe me, that takes some doing. I pulled the safety pin out of my chairside fire extinguisher, just in case.

"You left me out of the book!" He waved the charred remnants of a paperback at me.

"Uh... what?" I let my hand stay on the fire extinguisher.

"You wrote about most of the others. You had Baal in there and Asmodeus and that dope Orobas and even the hideous little freak Bifrons. All I get is a quick mention. Not even a cameo role. I am insulted." He folded his arms fast enough to make the remaining bits of the paperback explode into ash.

"Uh... what? Which book are we talking about here?"

"This one." He thrust his hand at me, sending a few flakes of ash my way. "I... oh. I appear to have incinerated it." Red Stan snorted. "Well, it deserved to be burned anyway. I might order a few more, just to burn them."

"Can we back up a little?" The only book that includes the demons he mentioned is Jessica's Trap and that's not out yet. "How did you get hold of a copy?"

"I bought it on Amazon, of course. They are the only ones who'll deliver to my address."

I shook my head. "You have an Amazon account? Wait - never mind that. Jessica's Trap doesn't come out until April 7th, and then only on Kindle at first. The paperback won't be available until a couple of weeks later."

"It's out now. And I'm not in it." Red Stan assumed his most petulant pose.

I turned to my computer and called up Amazon.co.uk. No sign of the book. Kindle store - nothing. Did Red Stan have access to some kind of demonic Amazon? Amazon.hell, maybe?

It turned out to be even more bizarre. Amazon.com have the book for sale, so apparently those on the other side of Hell, in America, can already buy it.

"Well?" Red Stan demanded my attention.

"Well what?"

"Why am I not in this book? It's about demons so I should be in there."

I scratched my head. "There are a lot of demons and it's not that big a book. I couldn't fit everyone in."

"That's not the point!" he roared. "I'm in charge. Any demon stuff, I should be right in the middle of it all."

"Oh, no," I said. "I couldn't possibly include anyone I know in my books. That would just be rude. Tell you what, I'll write something with you in it, just for you. How's that?"

His anger subsided. "Well, it would be nice." He inspected his hoof. "I mean, it's not asking much, is it? Every other horror writer has me in their stories."

"Is that why you don't keep popping out of their fireplaces?" I doubted the reason would be so simple but I entertained a little hope. "Do you only visit those who don't write about you?"

"Ah, no, that's not it. Your fireplace just happens to be one of Hell's portals. Your ancestor, Dume the Deranged, built the early part of the castle to include this portal." Red Stan laughed. "And to think, they said he was insane."

Actually, they said he was deranged, and my researches lead me to suspect it was true. I let the matter pass. It seemed I'd just have to put up with Red Stan's spontaneous and combustible visits. Ah well, best keep the fire extinguishers handy.

"Okay," I said. "I'll write you a story."

"Good." Red Stan moved back to the fireplace. "Oh, and just for a change, could you write one where I win? No thwarting or 'get thee hence' or any of that nonsense? I mean, I win in real life all the time. It would be good to have a bit of accurate reporting for once."

"No problem. I'll make sure you win and I'll make it devious and cruel."

"Lovely. I look forward to it." He ducked into the fireplace, cursed as his horns struck the mantelpiece, and vanished.

I slid the safety pin back into the fire extinguisher. Well, it's good to know that Jessica's Trap is available to the world, or at least to a large part of it. Now all I have to do is invent a tale for Red Stan. Most people get away with giving him their souls. I think they get off lightly.

My fingers paused above the keyboard. Death isn't in that book either. I closed my eyes. This whole scene is going to happen all over again, I just know it.

Perhaps Death doesn't have an Amazon account. I can but hope.

Book One Done.

Well, the final proofs of Jessica's Trap are checked and that's it. No more changes. I have elected not to show you my face for this first book because I want you to buy the second, third etc. No point in scaring all the readers away.

With excellent timing, another issue of The Horror Zine has just appeared. Good thing it didn't appear last week or I'd have been late with these proofs.

Time for a short period of relaxation before the next submission starts the entire process all over again. I suppose I'd better let Senga, Caligula and Click out of their cages too.

Aniseed Hump.

I have work to do. Jessica's Trap is now on its absolute, final, very last chance page proofs. From here it goes to print so any errors left in it after this pass will be in the final version forever. I have one week - well, six days now - to check every comma and every quote mark.

So, naturally, I have been procrastinating. I came across a site that generates anagrams and a great deal of fun it is too. What's unnerving is the way it throws up anagrams that relate to your name.

When I type in the letters of my name - PhineasDume - it comes up with 13,354 anagrams. Most are nonsense but I was particularly struck by 'Pinhead Muse'. Considering that I found it when I was supposed to be working on this book, it seemed most appropriate.

For Senga it came up with Aged Menus and Mange Used, which leads me to suspect the program was written by someone who has sampled her cooking.

Little Caligula, too, generated some appropriate anagrams. A Lad cum Guile, or Ace Maul Guild among them.

I don't think I'll tell the Professor about this. He won't be happy, because the first on his list is hardly complimentary.

Even if, at times, it seems accurate.