Lot 1, Draft One — A Story in Progress

I’ve been coming to Atlantic Beach for vacations since I was a kid in the 80s, which is now, officially, last century and last millennia. We spent the odd long weekend at Atlantis Lodge or Seahawk Inn, but the summer after my sixth grade year, we stayed at a family friend’s trailer for a month after my grandparents were in a car accident that landed them in critical condition in the Carteret County hospital.

It was a liminal time marked by fear but also by a sense of excitement. I was somewhere new and strange during an emotionally charged moment in my childhood, and I fell in love with the park’s tin can caravans and gnarled, wind-bent oaks. It would be fair to say I’ve never stopped thinking about it, and PLP’s newest adventure, following the publication of Emily Carter’s moving essay collection A Spork in the Road, pays homage to these vanishing communities.

The idea for Weird Tales from Waves End Retreat came to me a couple of years ago—before Winter Hauntings, our annual ghost story contest. I’d heard one of the local mobile home parks was under the gun, and it sparked an idea for an anthology of short stories that all take place in the same strange trailer park—Waves End Retreat. At the time, we didn’t have a publishing company, and I didn’t have much time, so I thought about it and sometimes talked about it, but that’s as far as it went.

Naturally, once we founded PLP, Weird Tales from Waves End Retreat became one of my top priorities. I couldn’t wait another minute. I announced (hastily) at the last Carteret Writers meeting and at the Chamber Expo this week that I’d release the first story, the one that builds out the world, today, May 1, but guess what. I’m still busy.

I was stressing out about the fact that I only have a first draft ready, and Jack said, “Just publish that.”

Genius. I mean, the Lot 1 story, as told to me by Janine Washington, the modern-day property manager of Waves End Retreat, is all about multiple realities and changing timelines, and what is the act of editing but creating new story universes branching off willy-nilly from the original Big Bang of an idea?

What you’ll read today (if you choose to read Lot 1) is a working draft, released as part of an experiment in public storytelling. I see Waves End Retreat as a kind of literary rift: a space where we can re-imagine old ideas, drag new ones out of the depths, and combine our voices in a Cronenbergian chimera of a short story collection. At Waves End Retreat, things are always mid-transformation, so it’s only natural this first story should be a changing thing.

Why Not Share a First Draft?

It gives you an early feel for the world of Waves End; Lot 1 is our entry point. It also makes the editorial process transparent, and maybe even a little exciting. As writers and artists, we all want to get to the polished end product — the finished story, the clean page, the crisp formatting. But behind every good story is a series of questionable choices, dead ends, revisions, reader reactions, and unexpected detours. So let’s open that process up.

Here’s What You’ll Find

• The raw draft of Lot 1, told from Janine’s point of view in short scenes.

• A few unresolved threads, lines I’m still not happy with, and characters who may shift in future versions.

• A story that’s anchored in this world but not yet fixed.

In the future, you’ll also find a link to a changelog on the Waves End anthology page that tracks future updates — and a way to offer feedback, if you feel inclined. I’ll be sharing my own notes soon, too: what I already know needs work, and what changes I plan to make as new stories emerge from the rest of the anthology.

Want to Weigh In?

If something delights you, confuses you, bores you, haunts you — I’d love to hear it. You can comment below, shoot me a note at [email protected], or share your impressions with a passing storm cloud. They find their way back to me.

What Happens Next

Lot 1 will evolve in public over the next few months. Think of it like beach glass — shaped by time, feedback, and the strange tides of Carteret County. The final version will appear in the printed anthology in January 2026, alongside other stories that other writers (maybe even you) will be submitting once the window opens up in July.

Thanks for being part of the early ripples. Let’s get weird.

Read Lot 1, Draft One