Martin Rose

So You Want To Be A Writer . . .

2012-01-29T06:18:00.003-05:00

It's exactly like this. Remember, bring your flame retardant suits in case of incineration.

This Great Quiet

2012-01-28T10:08:00.004-05:00

The more I see, the more I read, the more quiet I become.

This: a cacophony of pandering fools, all clamoring for undivided attention. There is a prevailing belief that businesses have an inalienable right to your dollars as though they are benevolent nobles overlooking their loyal sharecroppers instead of a desperate frenzy of starving sharks.

We live in a day and age when some writers believe the tissue they sneezed in is worthy of a dollar-value. Conversely, some writers produce roses with an alchemical magic that leaves the reader breathless -- and are told what they have written is worthless.

In the end the years will drag on and at the end of the road you will look back on your life, if you are lucky enough to be given the time. Some of us won't. We'll be cut down young by circumstance or enemies. Life ends bloody and horror writers ought to know that, not as a fiction, but as a real possibility. It isn't a fate reserved for the "other guy." You might roll out of the bed and discover that all this time, you have been the other guy.

Either way, you'll be dead.

What was it you were doing that was so important, again? And how would you do it differently today if you were to die tomorrow?

It's not an abstract, academic concept. Your heart will stop. The blood vessels will no longer carry the oxygen to your brain and you'll have a minute or so of consciousness left outside of the stalling of your heart. Without oxygen, your eyesight will fail but you'll still retain brain function for a few fleeting seconds as electrical impulses still race through your neurotransmitters and synapses. Time in which you won't be able to think at all -- instead, you'll be lost in a morass of sensation and feeling.

There will be a great quiet, then.

It is this great quiet that determines how I spend my time -- among those who squander it or those who whore it or those who run out of it and those who give more of it than you had before.

Do not waste your time. Should we live to be a hundred, we will never command enough of it. The moment changed forever when I realized I would never have enough time to write all the stories that needed to be written. Therefore, if you are not serious about the business of writing -- you have no call to take up anyone else's time.

Stop SOPA and PIPA

2012-01-18T08:59:00.001-05:00

Coffinmouth

2012-01-03T12:55:00.001-05:00

COFFINMOUTH
issue 1 : dreams eat themselves

Notations

Read This Story as One Seamless Sentence
Fábio Fernandes

Boyfriend and Shark
Berit Ellingsen

She Undid the Night
Robert McCoog

Important Sheet
Bernard Crowsheet

The Dream Where Jason Segel is My Boyfriend
Casey Murphy

Ant (or Insect), or (Ant) or Insect
Dave Shaw

Ariadne After Theseus
J M McDermott

A Means of Escape
Forrest Aguirre

Some Notes on the Eisenberg Estate
River Willow Fagan

Fairyland
Darin Bradley

Bloom | Science
Stephen V. Ramey

The English Cemetery
Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Cannibal Choir
Paul Jessup

Hana Yori Dango Season 1 Episode 1
Atashi Wa

Sticky Note: Rat Park

2011-12-12T19:31:00.005-05:00

In retrospect, I realize it's actually "Mrs. Frisby And The Rats of NIMH" by Robert C. O'Brien, but that's what you get with unplanned doodles . . .

Dead Fiction #1

2011-12-11T12:29:00.004-05:00

Stories die. It happens when you look away, between the click of a mouse and the ringing phone. I have a folder called "Languishing" where I put the beginnings of stories that never went anywhere and died ignoble deaths in the closet of my computer. I am ever fascinated by unfinished works of art, more so than I am those that are complete.

Feathers by Martin Rose

Jefferson Hallam did not consider himself a killer.

Sweet grasses called to him, brushed against his cotton pants; how he loved the smell of the ripe marsh, the pine trees ensconcing them in their soft needles. Something about this land dizzied him, made him drunk with the wildness of this nature, this beauty.

Ben held the gun, and walked before him, his dark eyes focused on the horizon.

He stopped, and pushed the gun into Jefferson's hands.

"Hit the target."

Jefferson nearly dropped it. His fingers were warm against the cold, early-morning metal, and he felt awkward with this weapon of destruction. His hands were soft and used to the rhythm of paper and plastic keys, not these

15 Easy Steps To Being An Instant Best-Selling Author

2011-12-07T11:02:00.007-05:00

-- or, alternately, things I've learned from fellow writers that have made me angry, bitter, and cemented my decision to become a recluse.

In no particular order:

1. Don't be curious. This is a useless facet of the human imagination, which only leads to asking questions, and that only suggests that you have a perverted desire to seek knowledge outside of your own and to question the stereotypes and authority figures that have created the rigid, narrow-minded paradigm of the world you currently live in.

2. Don't bother reading anything. It's really just a waste of time. Unless it was written by a male misogynist, or occasionally a female one. Especially if said author had no particular love of language and prefers explosions as an expression of profound insight into the human condition, namely, one's deeply repressed rage regarding abusive/neglectful parents that presents as pyromania.* Explosions. More explosions. Your computer just exploded. See, now, this blog is read-worthy because there were explosions. I could throw some military jargon in there too, like how we're only a few klicks away from the LZ and when they drop the napalm we need to clear the area ASAP before it's all FUBAR and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, but you get the idea.

* I heard once that women are more likely to commit acts of arson than men, since they are not encouraged to be aggressive in society and this repressed rage finds its way out through the act of setting fires. This one's for you, Left Eye.

3. When in the presence of a professional writer who has paid their dues with blood, sweat and tears, don't bother asking for advice. That would make you appear to be weak, to actually be humble enough to kneel before another's altar. This also relates to point #1.

4. Sign up for college writing classes, writing workshops, writing groups. The more the better. If you ladder them correctly, you may be able to arrange it so you need never actually pursue a career in writing because you will be too busy engaged in group masturbatory practices and circle jerks.

5. Don't be suspicious of praise. It's probably not an impatient, ruthless writer who figured out within the first five seconds of meeting you that your self-absorption and narcissism provides a really convenient point of exploitation: namely, building you up with false praise. Nah. You and I both know that first draft is flawless.

6. Don't bother learning paragraph/sentence structure. This skill will only hold you back, the same way it's really held back Cormac McCarthy. What a jack-ass, right?

7. Don't have goals. This is the best part. Without having a concrete vision of your future, a strategy that requires forward-thinking (a skill situated in what is termed your "frontal lobe") there's no real need to pursue writing on a serious level. This is loosely related to the idea of You Need Not Bother Yourself With Those Pesky Forms Of Self-Discipline, like time management or even, God forbid, sitting down to write.

8. Be offended by sophisticated-looking writers who clearly have developed a greater range of social skills despite their solitary set backs, and extra black marks on their record if they are younger than you. Treat said writer like Big Foot, announce that they are "arrogant,"* and success will be yours.

*Actually happened. I presume that by "arrogant" they meant "you write better than I do." Which happens when you're raised in art history classes because there's no one to babysit for you, and your cultured Mediterranean friend has a father who teaches at Temple University and likes to quiz you on what Hamlet was really saying in his soliloquies. When you're fifteen years old. And you've been sending short stories out to professional markets when you were thirteen/fourteen without help from anyone. I'm, like, the most arrogant motherfucker I know.

9. Don't be concerned with feeling comfortable in your skin, confident of your abilities, or worse yet -- being an authentic artist. Remember, the only purpose to writing is to make a lot of money.

10. Apologize often for having the audacity to dream, and dream big. There's nothing better than someone who strives to attain something meaningful in their lives and then crawls and simpers their way through the journey, hoping a substitute parental figure will give them their nod of approval.

11. Talk about your painful upbringing with the neglectful parents who didn't hug you, hugged you too much, hugged you the wrong way, hugged Jim Bean/Jack Daniels/Johnny Walker, or the one that hugged corpses. Extra points if it's irrelevant to your work, the conversation, and if nobody asked you. This is especially effective because other people suffering from differing traumatic events will have front row seats at a dick measuring contest for the walking wounded. "Oh, you think that was bad? Let me tell you about the time Agnus strangled Richard to death at Easter with the piano wire," or "there was that time Uncle Mikey and Steve-O got into the sword fight at Hornice's wedding."

12. Remember: Announce yourself in an effort to obfuscate the real you. Example: if you are a liar, preface a sentence with the phrase: "I'm no liar." This does not apply to lying alone, as virtually any nasty character flaw you have can be rendered null and void by insisting you have virtues of the opposite quality: "I have nothing to hide," or "I'm not a bullshit artist." Such phrases are often accompanied by the word, "but." In truth, this might not cement your success as a best-selling author, but rest assured, it's a good all around rule of thumb. And I am not a talented, agented author with any particular skill, but trust me: it works.

13. Never forget that success comes to you. There should be no effort on your part resembling hard work. After all, you deserve it. And by hard work, this includes not only the act of writing, but doing necessary research for your topics, doing research on the industry you're engaged in, or even making an effort to "put yourself out there" by meeting new people with similar interests and then showing an interest in them and what they do. A total waste of time, and besides, it really takes the focus off the most important aspect of your writing, namely, you.

14. Treat all rejection with the same sexual intensity with which you entertain your lovers: What? Why don't you like me? Can I do it differently? I'll do whatever you want. We can do that thing we talked about with your best friend. What's wrong? Just tell me what I did wrong! Didn't you feel that, we shared a moment! We've got so much in common! I know you felt it too! Fine! You'll never get anyone better than me!

15. Last but not least: don't write. It's not like anyone reads books anyway . . .

Book Review: The Postman by David Brin

2011-12-06T11:33:00.002-05:00

The Postman by David Brin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've never seen the movie for The Postman, and I'd heard mixed things about it; but whatever the case, it probably missed the zeitgeist by a decade or two, seeing as there's currently a resurgence in apocalyptic stories (perhaps as a reflection of the current state of the economy and rekindled interest in survivalism). And I enjoyed this story immensely. David Brin's language is spare and meaningful, his sense of setting and place lends a grounded reality to a destroyed future as we follow Gordon Krantz on his journey. Brin paints a world whose horrifying setting is not the real horror -- the people who survived the "doomwar" are more sinister than the setting. Heartless raiders known as Holnists/survivalists who take grisly trophies off of victims in a "might makes right" philosophy of life, impoverished and despairing farmers struggling to get through their day to day lives, and a new generation who no longer believe the tall tales of a world populated with computers and scientists and learned professionals, or even the faded fantasy of democracy -- all products of a new Dark Age.

Gordon remembers a world before, when people lived a better quality of life; and as much as he attempts to keep his head down and continue his loner existence, eking out his survival by reciting Shakespeare and long-forgotten songs to scattered villages, he finds himself accidentally stoking the faint embers of hope in the demoralized survivors when he strips a postman's corpse of his uniform and wears it into town. Suddenly, Gordon is being accorded a new found esteem, despite his protests that he is not a post man -- a forgotten relic of the past era whose original job of delivering the mail has been blown out of proportion into legend by the townspeople. They remember post men as heroic soldiers from another age. By the time he readies to leave the village, townspeople are handing him letters for him to deliver, and he cannot bear to tell them no. Unwittingly, he carries on the illusion that he is a postman as he delivers letters to the next town, and soon the lie takes on a life of its own as Gordon becomes a revolutionizing force in this post-apocalyptic world.

It's interesting to compare this to Cormac McCarthy's The Road, in as much as they share a similar idea of the world after apocalypse; but where they differ is that The Road is a bleak journey, and so is Brin's vision of the world -- but Brin offers a refreshing look at the power of myth in a world without heroes. While some would say there's no comparison between the two because The Road is literary where The Postman is a work of genre fiction, I would say that no one has any business using the lines and definitions demarcated by marketing language. Simply because we shelve one book in a different row than another does not change the words inside; Brin elevated his work above many through one, golden virtue: he told a good story.

View all my reviews

Oppose HR 3261 -- The Future Of The Internet

2011-11-16T17:50:00.003-05:00

There's probably no cause that deserves your attention more than that of HR 3261.

This is the most ridiculous thing that may come to pass and I would like to point out that Benjamin Franklin himself (who understood the importance of the freedom of the press and how England was throttling and monopolizing it in the form of copyright control without end and fought to have this freedom as part of the constitution) would never have allowed this. He's turning in his grave as we speak.

This is a letter taken from Scott Nicholson's blog, which you are encouraged to steal, pirate, copy, just speak out and send it to your representative, whatever you do. You can also file a petition online here: http://americancensorship.org/

Dear U.S. Rep. ________ and Editor:

I am writing to express my deep alarm at HR 3261 (Stop Online Piracy Act) and any government intrusion into the Internet use of United States citizens. It is not only a horrible precedent blithely couched in the guise of an economic security measure, it is opening the door to further government control of our speech, thoughts, and communication—indeed, the very fabric of our free society.

As someone who makes a living selling original digital content, I have no worry over people “stealing” my content or even selling it for profit. In fact, most of my books are easily available in illegal torrent streams, and I don’t give it a second thought. Digital piracy is a very negligible threat, largely exaggerated by the fear and hysteria of industries that are afraid of change. Even if the United States could police its own servers, the illegal content would still leak from cracks all over the world. The only possible outcome would be bigger government, higher taxes, and repressive control of our speech—and once the government has its prying eyes deep inside our Internet, do any of us really expect the government to turn a blind eye toward anything else it might not like?

What is the TRUE threat is the government making any move, however well-intentioned, into the public’s largest and most immediate discussion forum. The Internet is the biggest tool for free speech in our civilization’s history, and any regulatory shadow cast over it stands in direct contradiction to our First Amendment and, indeed, the foundation of the democracy we claim to espouse and defend.

I don’t lose sleep over Internet theft. But I lose a lot of sleep over the idea of Big Brother reaching into my computer and telling me what I can’t read, see, or believe. Say "No" to HR 3261 and value individual civil liberty over despotic government growth. Thank you.

YOUR NAME

YOUR TOWN

---

Do something about this. Do not let this come to pass.

TV Review: Dexter, Season 5

2011-11-13T18:11:00.005-05:00

Spoilers ahead, so jump ship while it's still safe . . .

Dexter. Perhaps you've heard of him -- the central character taken from Jeff Lindsay's novels that detail the adventures of a modern day monster -- a vigilante serial killer who kills other serial killers to feed his "Dark Passenger."

Showtime consistently puts out an interesting, thought-provoking series that often delves into ideas of what it means to be human, in between bouts of Dexter's blood letting.

As a bloodspatter analysis expert with the Miami Metro Police, Dexter lives a nicely compartmentalized life divided between his adopted sister, Debra Morgan who serves as a detective, his family, new born son Harrison and adopted step-children Aster and Cody, his wife Rita portrayed by the talented Julie Benz, and his night time activities as he brings killers to justice. All this shatters by the end of the fourth season when Dexter's hunt for the Trinity Killer leads back to his front door -- Rita is brutally murdered by Trinity and Dexter is left to pick up the pieces of a shattered life, attempting to grasp the finer nuances of grief, loss and love -- if he is even capable of such things.

One of the key components of the Lindsay books is the dark humor that surrounds this dark, disassociated, narcissistic character is his fine grasp of what makes a serial killer tick -- or rather, how they don't really tick at all. And Lindsay never forgets it.

In Dexter the show, there's an increasing problem in dealing with a character that is essentially unforgivable -- that is, he's a killer. And no matter how much a TV audience might enjoy the vigilante aspect of what Dexter does -- what he does is still wrong. The most chilling aspect of this show is how much audiences connect with and identify with Dexter -- but just because you like him doesn't make him less culpable for what he does.

In this way there are echoes of Hannibal Lecter who perhaps paved the way for characters like Dexter, for villains whose darkness we regard like an exotic animal in a zoo.

As long as Dexter can continue to be disassociated and unfeeling, what he does make sense. But this doesn't make for a great story, and so as new plots and characters are introduced into Dexter's world and begin to influence and affect him, I find it hard to believe that Dexter can hold onto his monster-self, his "Dark Passenger" without eventually having to reconcile his disassociated state. What makes Season 5 so interesting is that he spends most of this season with "broken" women -- the ghost of his murdered wife, his awkward angsty teenage daughter Aster, his sister Debra, and the most exciting female antagonist I've seen in years, Julia Styles' excellent Lumen Pierce, a rape victim slated to be killed -- before Dexter interrupts the killer.

For a guy with no apparent emotions, he sure is feeling a lot for the women all around him -- he struggles to fine genuine emotion in the events of his wife's murder and his own grieving process, but here's where the real problem begins -- if he begins to feel to this extant, how realistic is it that he keeps killing at the rate that he does? Once you begin to feel, you begin to hate, to love. And in loving, makes the path open for empathy. And if there's one thing that by definition serial killers do not have -- it's empathy.

Enter Julia Styles.

She's been the victim of a circle of serial rapists, when Dexter finds her, weak and struggling out of her prison. Dexter has a real dilemma at this point -- kill her or save her? He saves her, and together, Dexter and Lumen set out to track down the men who've been raping and killing women for the past few decades. Julia Styles gives a great, genuine performance of a woman taken to the brink and then brought back -- with more than she bargained for, a Dark Passenger of her own.

There is a strange kind of cuteness to Lumen's and Dexter's odd courtship -- the mating rituals of serial killers, if you will, where he buys her gloves and a knife, or hilariously, a scene in which Lumen dons her own serial-killing clothes (dark, nondescript) that leaves Dexter speechless in apparent admiration. Interestingly, while their courtship culminates closer to the end of the season, their first "kill" together has more erotic overtones than sex -- for them, the act of killing is a consummation. For the first time, Dexter has someone he can share everything with, and the effect on the character is profound -- and humanizing.

For once, it's nice to see a woman portrayed with a sense of realism -- with an inner steel rather than a victimized despair. The appeal of her character is that Lumen refuses to accept the injustice done to her -- she is more than the rape act committed upon her person, a central idea lost in popular media when portraying victims of assault, and Julia Styles delivers a three-dimensional figure with feral intensity.

The main antagonist is motivational speaker Jordan Chase, who has his childhood friends orchestrate these rapes according to his directions, though Chase does not engage in these acts himself. Portrayed by a deft Jonny Lee Miller, he provides an interesting storyline, opening more questions than he answers -- why he does what he does is never fully explained, and his transformation from social, high-energy do-good public figure to what Dr. Alexander Lowen terms a "little god," is nothing short of horrifying. Most notably, he is one of the few guest-killers in the series that proves an equal opponent for Dexter -- someone who is a master of manipulation and Dexter can't quite get the drop on, which is a welcome change from the usual series formula.

Michael C. Hall has been well-recognized for his acting skills, but for a character whose facial expression is often a mask, he rarely gets to dive in deep to Dexter's inner psyche on a highly emotional level -- but he gets a chance to do that here at the season's end in an incredible portrayal of broken heart.

It's hard to say where the series plans to go in the future, though it is sometimes hard to stomach a show about a killer who is raising a child. While this is well-acted, well-filmed, well-written, one should never lose sight that Dexter is first and foremost a monster -- and should he ever become "human" the premise upon which the show is built -- Dexter's killing -- promptly falls apart.

Promotional image for Dexter Season 5 from wikipedia here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_%28season_5%29
Review banner made from public domain image from wikimedia commons here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OTVbelweder-front.jpg

Recent Reviews

2011-11-09T09:28:00.004-05:00

Several reviews of publications my work has featured in has come to light.

The November issue of Gently Read Literature, via issuu.com offers an overview of the Art From Art anthology and highlights several of the stories there; Scanner Days, Starry Nights garners a mention.

There's been some sad news regarding Murky Depths issue #18 being the possible last; while we all wait to see how Terry Martin might reinvent the fresh and innovative, graphics heavy magazine, you can read a review for issue #17, which included my short Orion's Belt, over at Michele Lee's site.

E-Book Piracy -- Take A New Perspective

2011-11-02T16:57:00.003-04:00

Over at the Intern blog, she had an interesting post on thoughts about e-book piracy. Commentor Michael further directed readers to this YouTube post in which Neil Gaiman discusses piracy and his viewpoint on it.

I see a startling amount of vitriol in regards to various forms of digital piracy, from these two things:

1. a lack of comprehensive understanding of how new technology is shifting the paradigm, and
2. a corporate culture whose prices do not reflect real economic values where supply/demand are concerned.*

*There is a huge supply of e-books; as it was explained to me in school, when supply runs high and demand low, prices fall. But paying $12.99 for an ebook of, say, Gregory Maguire's Out of Oz, considering that there are a few thousand out-of-copyright books I can get for free, to say nothing of the cheapies out there available for .99 -- isn't going to happen. I can't justify the price by comparison to what I am paid in my daily job. Obviously, other factors come into play, such as branding of particular authors and what a devoted reader is willing to pay.

Also, it's worth noting that the entertainment industry might be the only industry where, if you're not satisfied with your product, you are unable to bring it back for a refund. If you buy a power tool from Home Depot and it doesn't make the grade, you can bring it back. Buy a shirt from a store and you don't like the way it fits, you can bring it back. But books? CD's? DVD's? If the talent behind these entertainments fail spectacularly, you're shit out of luck. Obviously, word of mouth can tank someone's artistic endeavor if they fail to please an audience, but what is horrifying to corporations churning out crap is the discovery that we now have an audience who can test drive your product before committing to it.

So let me ask you this: why is your product so special that no one can try it on for size before they buy it, but every other industry allows you to? Hmmm?

Maybe it means you have to work harder.

Maybe it means you have to put out something worth their time.

"But wait!" I hear you cry. "You're an artist! Don't you want to be paid for those pirated items you create?"

First, my product is only worth what it can fetch on the free market. And guess what? It's not worth jack-shit if no one is willing to pay for it, and I have to admit to stifling quite a few mad cackles when I observe other writers who tread in my similarly obscure waters insisting they've been swindled. Unpopular opinion: you've only been swindled if you have something worth stealing in the first place. Spend some time in the economics section of your library for five years like I did before the crash of '08; the definition of "value" and "worth" is varied and abstract and are not synonymous with "money." Vincent Van Gogh learned those definitions in the most bitter of educations.

Second, no one is arresting librarians for loaning books.

Third, I have, over time, developed something of a photographic memory. I'm not being funny about this -- in the aftermath of PTSD, I experience an interesting plethora of after-effects that I am often at a loss to describe. One of which is the sudden intensity of experience, of perception. Now, when I look at something, I often roll it back in my mind like a film reel. I looked at a license plate once during a near accident and repeated it back to enforcement by taking a moment to close my eyes and re-imagine the license plate as I saw it in that moment. I didn't quite understand what was happening to me. The capacity of the human mind to recall details is breathtaking in scope. And quite terrifying. It does not make me unique, or "special." If I can do it -- everyone and anyone can.

So let me ask you this -- are you going to arrest me for piracy because I can close my eyes and recall your book, page for page? That I did, in a sense, "download" your work as a sensory experience, filtered through my brain? You think it's laughable, but I see no end to the ridiculousness of what copyrights/patents will constrain people with as long as there is a corporation that stands to profit from it.

And don't get me started on Monsanto's patents on pigs.

For a more comprehensive understanding of this subject, everyone should read Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. It should basically come with your internet connection. Oh, and it's free. Legally. Though you may never look at copyright the same again.

A Footnote On The Human Experience - #1

2011-11-02T09:42:00.004-04:00

I shiver in my boots when I type, because one day I know that I will be dust and stolen carbon, scattered and pressurized and a thin layer in the earth's crust. But what the words are going to do after I'm gone? I have no control over what havoc they wreak. I send them out, and they set events into motion while I stand aloof from the twister, watching the ground rise up beneath.

Right now, everything is at a standstill. Anthologies have withered and blown away, publications folded and whimpering their way into death. I am no one in particular.

But I feel -- with a growing sense of terror -- that I have no control over what is coming for me. And more importantly, coming for my words.

This human experience is a curious thing indeed.

TV Review: The Secret Circle

2011-10-19T17:12:00.005-04:00

*Photo Credit from the CW site here: http://www.cwtv.com/shows/the-secret-circle/about

Someone told me to watch this. Clearly, they were high, because here's my review:

Like The Craft, but lamer, and without the benefit of Fairuza Balk's intensity. You can watch this tragic collection of stereotypes on the CW, Thursdays, 9/8c. *

*Though I might just watch more of it because I have an unhealthy addiction to melodrama, camp, and soap opera tropes. For whatever reason, I live off of trash TV.

Writer's Workshops

2011-10-19T16:45:00.002-04:00

I stumbled on this post by Doug Murano, in which he eloquently states his thoughts on writer's workshops and what they do and don' t for writers in general -- probably better than I can.

I've been writing since adolescence (like most writers, it seems) but I was lucky enough to discover early on, around 14/15, what workshops could or could not do for me. I attended a college class, a summer camp that allowed students to work with a professional editor. I was already sending out my first stories to magazines in those years before the internet became inescapable during '93/'94.

What I learned was that I had nothing to learn from these people. My best encounters were with rejection letters that had useful commentary on why my stories failed. This trend would continue, from college professors to professional writers, and I've become a misanthropic cuss the more disillusioned I am by the failure of anyone to demand more of themselves professionally, and worse yet, their failure to demand more of me.

As Murano notes, there are good things to be had from writer's workshops: positive reinforcement being a major one. And perhaps I have been unlucky in my experiences that I have not encountered a setting in which I felt I flourished instead of languished, that my talent did not gutter and extinguish instead of blazing forth; no workshop yet has been able to do this for me. Thus, my skepticism runs high -- how does one justify charging money and profiting off would-be hopefuls who receive, in return for their attendance and money, what is little more than an ego stroke? Again, my experience may not be typical.

But I for one, edit and work with several peers; I pass on what I have learned as a copy-editor for a weekly paper, and what I have learned by bitter experience in matters of life and how it might transfer to the written page. I give them a new viewpoint to bounce their thoughts and insights off of, and I gently push them in the direction that can best suit their work, while retaining their artistic integrity.

My payment for this? Passion. Passion for what I do, and the privilege of working with passionate people who enjoy telling a story.

I am in poverty. And were I in a gutter -- again -- I still would not charge to teach what I consider something akin to a divine gift; how dare I divide and manufacture this inner fire, and claim a monopoly on it? It offends my sense of character. Anyone can learn the mechanics of this writing skill, its seams and bolts and how it connects and comes apart, and no one needs a workshop to do it. It is ever there for you to discover. I would sooner buy and sell shafts of sunlight.

William Shakespeare

2011-10-19T11:13:00.000-04:00

Picture in its original state is part of the public domain and can be accessed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Title_page_William_Shakespeare%27s_First_Folio_1623.jpg

Mark Twain

2011-10-19T10:56:00.001-04:00

Mark Twain in Nikola Tesla’s lab.

Picture in its original state is part of the public domain and can be accessed here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Twain_in_Tesla%27s_Lab.jpg

Mark Twain In Nikola Tesla's Lab

2011-10-19T10:50:00.003-04:00

Mark Twain in Nikola Tesla’s lab.

Picture in its original state is part of the public domain and can be accessed here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Twain_in_Tesla%27s_Lab.jpg

Charlotte Bronte

2011-10-13T20:16:00.001-04:00

Alexandre Dumas

2011-10-12T14:41:00.002-04:00

John Keats

2011-10-11T16:18:00.002-04:00

Edith Wharton

2011-10-11T07:47:00.000-04:00

Oscar Wilde

2011-10-10T22:37:00.000-04:00

Psychology In Writing - Some Helpful Pointers

2011-10-09T23:10:00.003-04:00

I stumbled on this post from tumblr - Using Real Psychology In Your Writing. Writers might find the links useful, as they delve into the psychology of writing. Topics include:

・ What Will Your Character Do When Disaster Strikes? by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD
・ Characterization and Conflict: Using Psychological Tests to Improve Your Writing by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD
・ Gathering Information from Characters: Types of Questions by JJ Cooper
・ Using Body Language in Writing by JJ Cooper
・ Body Language Cheat Sheet by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD
・ A Primer on Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD
・ Creating Riveting Romances: The Anima/Animus Archetype Defined by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD
・ Writing Romance: Three Influences on the Anima/Animus Archetype by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD
・ The Perfect Hero and the Perfect Heroine: Dark and Light Sides of the Anima & Animus by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD
・ What Does it Really Take to Live Happily Ever After? - by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD
・ Three-Dimensional Villains: Finding Your Character’s Shadow - by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD
・ The Other in Fiction: Creating Wonderfully Wicked Villains - by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD

For the links and the full post, please visit via the link as I did not compile these articles.

All I know is this: suffer. In every way imaginable, go forth, and fucking suffer. Trust me, you'll have all the insights you need to know on villains, lovers, friends, heroes and enemies in this lifetime and the next. And when you think you can't suffer anymore -- suffer some fucking more.

What will your character do when disaster strikes?

Go find yourself a fucking disaster. Find a car wreck. Find a tornado. Find a mugger in a dark alley on a lonely street. Live with the homeless. Catch out on a train. Hitch hike and make really bad character judgments. Spend time in prison. Take on someone else's identity, tell no one about it. Save someone's life, and don't stick around, don't ask for a reward, don't even ask for recognition. Do dishes for twenty years, and don't complain once. Bear a child -- or kill one. Sleep with a man. Sleep with a woman. Sleep with both.

If any of these things horrified you -- those are your shadows.

If you've ever done the things that horrified you and lived with the scars -- you know what it is to be a villain.

If you did great things and received no thanks, and expected none -- you are a hero.

This isn't a story. This is real life. This is your life.

Pick up the pen and fucking write.

T.S. Eliot

2011-10-09T11:36:00.001-04:00

Arthur Rimbaud

2011-10-08T23:36:00.001-04:00

Television Review: Merlin, Seasons 1-3

2011-10-08T12:15:00.004-04:00

Photo Credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Merlin_Full_Characters.jpg

*Beware -- spoilers ahead.

Merlin is a series on BBC One "across the Pond," to us Yanks. The first season was picked up by NBC back in 2008, but dropped after the first season, and it wasn't hard to see why -- episode after episode was packed in with the usual cliches -- a "special" character with a secret power, Uther as the black-and-white, against-us or for-us tyrant, Arthur as the sun-kissed uppity princeling with the heart of gold -- there were moments in which I eye-rolled enough to give myself a head injury. And the finale was perhaps the weakest episode of the first season itself. Also, quite a few episodes end with a sort of "canned laughter" between characters as they meet each other's eyes in shared understanding over a medieval dinner -- I think I saw this same device used when I was a tyke watching my Saturday morning cartoons, al a G.I. Joe -- "And knowing is half the battle!"

The better moments of the season is the development of the uncommon friendship between Merlin and Arthur despite their vast differences in social status, and strong acting from the cast as a whole. Anthony Head as Uther, the tyrant attempting to keep together his kingdom in the face of political challenges, the heart-warming fatherly Gaius portrayed by Richard Wilson, gorgeous Irish beauty Katie McGrath as the idealistic Morgana, Angel Coulby as Gwenivere who serves in a similar lower station with Merlin as servants to nobility, and then, the two central figures themselves -- Merlin and Arthur as portrayed by Colin Morgan and Bradley James. I cannot fault the ensemble, nor the guest stars who manage to breathe life and depth into their characters. Despite season 1's faults, the acting between everyone is strong. This is utilized to great effect during scenes between Arthur and Merlin, in which they serve as excellent foils, offering up bits of unexpected comedy in the midst of lackluster dialogue.

I wasn't even going to watch the second season at this rate. The CGI was not terribly up to snuff, though, you can only expect so much from television, but BBC has come along way from the television I remember in terms of quality, and I could see why NBC picked it up in the first place -- visually, Merlin can compete with any other shows of the same genre.

I generally give any series at least until the second season to redeem itself -- first seasons are always uneven. And I'm glad I did, because by the second season, I was inexplicably hooked to a show I hated. I couldn't figure out for the life of me what had changed -- the acting chemistry? The writing? The character progression? Impossible to pin down, I suddenly couldn't stop watching, and I blew through the remaining series in time for the Season 4 premiere. Impressive, considering this is a story in which we all know the ending.

This sudden flip in opinion has everything to with the subtle explorations of moral questions, the constant restraints which Merlin must operate under -- he keeps his magic a secret from the world under threat of execution, since acts of magic are banned in the kingdom and punishable by death, and is further disadvantaged by his lack of social importance. He is often put into stocks and humbly, at times, good naturedly, suffers through bouts of rotten vegetables being hurled at him in the process, along with accusations of having a "mental affliction." His apparent laziness and failure to serve Arthur as a servant effectively gets him non-stop derision from Arthur himself and others, but the irony we, as the audience, share in is that simple/lazy Merlin is not all that he seems, as he is often working in the background as a kind of medieval social engineer, utilizing his magic in secret with the object of protecting Arthur. Arthur and Uther persecute others like Merlin, but Merlin gives everything in return to preserve Arthur's life -- creating an excellent tension that leaves the viewer wondering when, if, the prince will discover Merlin's secret, and what his reaction will be.

This is the main focus, though the supporting cast provides a wide array of questions and rich character development as they move through their own arcs toward their inescapable destinies. That they often start out at points so diverse is of interest -- how does Gwen develop from a simple hand-maid into what we presume will one day be Arthur's queen? How does rebellious, idealistic Morgana, who puts her life on the line to save a persecuted boy, become the villian we recognize from mythology today? How does this clumsy magician and this bully prince fit into their roles that future has dictated them?

Merlin is by no means a thematically "deep" show, but serves better as a character/plot driven story. But there is much there for a modern day audience to enjoy.

I've often posited that we are living in a Dark Age -- take away our three square meals a day, our electricity and plumbing, and we have not advanced any further in our civilization. Don't believe me? Take a look around. Our medical services are on par with a medieval barbers, and our social classes have degenerated to a similar state. You want to know what it's like to be poor in modern day America? Watch how Merlin is treated in the Dark Ages. We have a class division in America that is just as volatile and wide as a thousand years ago, and there's no accident that there's been a resurgence of fantasy stories and a revival of ancient myth -- from Robin Hood to the Arthurian legends and all their derivatives, our modern times mirror their stories as we are ruled by tyrant kings, starved by our present day foreign Crusades. Perhaps the only real cliche here is not the poor screenwriting in the Merlin series, but our own population that is condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past. We are chasing the tail of a millennium old zeitgeist.

While you await enlightenment in your own age, Merlin will certainly help you pass the time. For American audiences, SyFy airs Merlin, and season 4 airs on SyFy in early 2012.

Web Series Review: Divine

2011-09-14T10:15:00.000-04:00

The new web-series Divine is the brainchild of various creatives involved in the production of CW's Supernatural, entitled MapleBlood Productions, and Supernatural actor Misha Collins is also co-producing the web series.

The first episode enjoyed its premiere a few weeks ago and curious, I plugged in for a viewing. (I'm a sucker for horror with Judeo-Christian themes, an interest only stoked by B-movies like The Prophecy and Anne Rice novels.)

For an independent web-series, the production values are high, and everything is well-filmed. This is early in, only two episodes of a span of several minutes each, and the first is slow moving and some what confusing, however, that being said, I think that's a problem of time constraints and not of production; ultimately, one must watch and wait for the answers to unravel further down the road, and I am patient -- particularly in a case like this where the visual element is strong.

The second episode satisfies a definite horror element and I enjoyed watching an obvious trope get turned on its head. It was thrill, in a guilty pleasure kind of way. Sometimes, I like junk for the sake of junk, and the second episode was pulp at its core, but well done pulp -- something I haven't been seeing too much of lately.

As a result, I'm curious to delve into the other web-series I've been hearing buzz about, among them, Scott and the Book of Pure Evil and Zombie Roadkill over at Fear.net. Television is spectacularly failing to deliver content worth watching, aside from a few scattered gems (and AMC seems to be beating the odds with a helluva line-up, eh? Just goes to show that genuinely interesting stories will rise to the top -- drowning out the stale and boring content the main networks offer up.)

You Can Do Better Than That

2011-09-13T13:07:00.000-04:00

As a professional slush-maker, I think I earn the right to be rejected. Because as bad as some might view rejection, the only thing worse than rejection is being so unimportant they forget to reject you in the first place.

*Credit to Gif Party at Tumblr

Feeling's mutual.

Under Construction & Update

2011-09-04T11:26:00.003-04:00

I've been rethinking the purpose and design of this blog. I appear to be moving more from a private sphere to a public one, and I think I'd like to streamline the focus of this blog. I'll be jettisoning old posts that I feel aren't relevant anymore, but anything horror/writing industry related will remain.

I've been very busy as of late; and the new direction I appear to be going in is very novel-focused. Short stories aren't holding the interest for me they once did, and I am in large part disillusioned with the short story market -- or perhaps, with writers in general.

There's an element I am seeking, and it's very important to me -- a kind of passion about what it is we do. And I'm just not seeing it. What I am seeing are Horatio Alger myths and overnight-success wannabees. What I am not seeing are people who remember what it's like to hold a book in their hands and read a prose line that folds your heart in half -- the sort of thing that makes you sit upright in your chair and breathe hard and heavy like you're falling apart.

In this job, you read so much work that it is almost a necessity to be inured to most styles and voices in writing -- you lose that magic and wonder that captured you in your youth and propelled you to want and desire this writing gig in the first place. I see people very eager to be recognized but don't, in turn, wish to recognize anyone else. And the fact is, I find myself having a very difficult time reading short stories. My attention is fickle. If I am not "grabbed" right away, I find myself turning the pages and skimming and losing interest all together. How can I expect people to read my work when I have such difficulty reading others?

The crunch on my time is also an obstacle. My writing hours are ferocious and punishing, because I approach writing like an act of war. I'm in the trenches, going on rations and no sleep.

My disillusionment is also conspiring to make me bitter and, in a frightening turn of events, more arrogant. This stems from a number of attempts to reach out to others in the industry, only to have others condescend with "advice" which I have outstripped and outgrown by fathoms when I was fifteen. What place is there for an adult writer today who was sending out their first stories when they were thirteen/fourteen? I feel alienated and isolated by what I love, for what I love, and by how terribly I love it. I come upon the frightening possibility that there may be no one quite like me.

I do, however, feel lucky enough to have found a few who write from the heart, with genuine passion -- they are open and curious about the world, about other writers, about everything. This is what I seek to cultivate, in myself and others -- when we stop being curious, we stop being human altogether. This blog should reflect the desire to be curious, and to continue to grow and learn . . .

It's The Face To Face Rejections That Piss Me Off

2011-08-09T22:54:00.006-04:00

And technically, they're not rejections. I mean the type when you're at a gathering, no matter what particular social strata it happens to be composed of, and they ask what you do. And you mention that you write. And they're almost interested, but not quite, and then they ask what you write, and everything grinds to a halt and you can hear crickets chirping in the background and you say:

Oh. Y'know. Creative fiction. Speculative. Genre. Pulp.

And then you get the condescending brush-off, the dismissal. Like, "Your scribblings sound very amusing to the rest of us, but do you think you'll ever do something, you know, important, like pro-creating and going over stock options and buying paper mache vaginas?"

And then I look like this:

Source: gifparty at tumblr

Hoc Est Bellum

2011-08-07T18:18:00.004-04:00

Get in line. Be orderly. Stop fidgeting, stop shouting. Quiet down, quiet, I say!

You, you in the front -- yes, I'm pointing to you.

You're ugly. You're small, way too small for the front lines -- what is that? You want to go? You're ready for it? Well that depends on the other guy. You've noticed him. The quiet one beside me who never says a word.

Intimidating, isn't he, the way the silence wraps around him like the cigarette smoke that curls up from his fist. He rolls his own, by the way. He never speaks. When I choose one of you to sacrifice, he's the one who's going to grip you by the lapels and spin you around.

He might draw his gun and make you dance.

Bullets will spark at your feet and copper shells will fly; you'll taste lead in the air, but don't stop dancing. He and I, we like it when you dance. You'll dance till you drop. I'll record it, I'll write it down and send it out, and strangers you have never met all across the world will read about the beauty of your death throes, the agony of the oxygen burning through your lungs and the moment you begin to realize you are going to run out. You are going to fall. You are going to stop dancing. And when you stop dancing, it's over.

Do you understand the nature of this game now? All of you?

It's a war, like any other, and you are my soldiers. The battlefield is this silly blog and the blank page and every publishing venue, but there is nothing silly about this business. It is the business of killing, killing ideas.

I am the Warlord, and he is my Messenger.

And we say dance.

Plagiarist Strikes Again - Boyer On The Loose

2011-08-06T09:19:00.005-04:00

David Boyer is on the loose again with stolen goods. (You might remember him from his theft of Ferrel Moore's "Electrocuting The Clowns" among various other crimes) You can view his latest "anthology" of stolen stories at this link for Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Emails-Wasteland-2-David-Boyer/dp/1463649436/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312636897&sr=8-1

PLEASE DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. I know of several writers for certain who are not being compensated for their work, and these stories are being published without their permission.

J. Travis Grundon who has had his share of unfortunate run-ins with Boyer also blogged about it here:

http://jtravisgrundon.blogspot.com/2011/08/dont-buy-this-book-of-stolen-stories.html

I'll be going on Amazon myself to speak out against him. One of my own stories is featured here, and it should be known that I've given this story to the public domain. DON'T PAY FOR IT! You can read it for free here:

Fulton's Garden as PDF
Fulton's Garden at Blogspot

ETA 8/7/11 - Pembroke Sinclair whose story has also been stolen by Boyer, has posted her story, The Last Hope, on her blog, and you can read it here. Another reason to never buy this book when you can read the excellent work and support the writers by spreading the word and speaking out against theft of intellectual property and plagiarism.

Keep updated with B Thoughtful's blog specializing in uncovering plagiarism and Plagiarism Watchfires.

If you have an Amazon account and would like to step forward to denounce Boyer, I encourage you to annoy the living shit out of this man.

NaNoWriMo Ain't Just For November

2011-07-28T21:12:00.002-04:00

. . . Apparently, NaNoWriMo is every month for me.

I'm clocking in at 100,000 words at the end of two months.

I dream in text.

I still have so much further to go.

2011-07-27T11:03:00.004-04:00

This is my back yard.

This is where I go to fill myself with slanting light; to bring my words to bear with primeval force, with dark age forest. We open up the mysteries of nature and crown ourselves kings, but take a walk in the woods. You will find yourself small indeed, and the path extends long before you, unconquered.

I still have so much further to go.

A Song And A Dance

2011-07-23T16:25:00.006-04:00

I hate marketing. So hear's what Imma gonna do. I'll give you a song and a dance. At the end of my private infomercial between you and me, there's a fucking kick ass song, The Wondersmith and His Sons, by a band called Astronautalis. It should feed your noir fantasies. It certainly sets the tones for mine.

Here's what's shakin' in my world:

The Art From Art anthology is out, as a limited print run in full color from Amazon and B&N, hard back and a POD black and white paperback also from Amazon and B&N. Art From Art features my futuristic story "Scanner Days, Starry Nights" alongside some amazing talents.

Here is the contents from Art From Art:

1: STEVE HIMMER. I See What You Mean

2: MICHAEL MENDOLIA. Transparent Tigers and Towers of Blood

3: FRED SKOLNIK. Creativity

4: V. GEBBIE. The Return of the Baker, Edwin Tregear

5: RICHARD C. ZIMLER. Stealing Memories

6: BENJAMIN ROBINSON. The Bridge House

7: ROBERT MCGOWAN. An Ephemeral Exertion

8: LISA ANNELOUISE RENTZ. Glove

9: MARSHALL MOORE. Flesh, Blood, and Some of the Parts (Le sang du monde)

10: RICHARD K. WEEMS. Artistic Endeavor

11: MARTIN ROSE. Scanner Days, Starry Nights

12: GRACE TALUSAN. The Book of Life and Death

13: FRED MCGAVRAN. A Photograph From the Permanent Collection

14: JOHN MORGAN WILSON. The Pull of the Current

15: KEYAN BOWES. The Intra-Galactic Shakespeare Festival

16: RENI KIEFFER. Right Where it Belongs

17: ANDREW HOOK. Ennui

18: ALEX MACLENNAN. Four Minutes Time

19: LAUREN ALWAN. Self Portrait: Untitled

20: FELICE PICANO. Absolute Ebony

21: BILLY O’CALLAGHAN. The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind

22: DAVID GULLEN. Installation 72

23: RON SAVAGE. Retrospective

24: KEVIN W. REARDON. Three Shades

25: ANNE WHITEHOUSE. A Visit to the Stock Exchange

26: STEVE RASNIC TEM. La Mariée

27: TRACY DEBRINCAT. Call It a Hat

28: PEDRO PONCE. The Piazza De Chirico

29: DAVID C. PINNT. 1 Penny for Art

30: TERRI GRIFFITH. Corporate Art

31: JAMESON CURRIER. The Bloomsbury Nudes

32: ELIZABETH GRAVER. Flatiron

33: STEPHEN SOUCY. Skating

34: SEAN PADRAIC MCCARTHY. The Man Who Walks Beside the Sea

35: DEB TABER. Black Silk

36: ROBERT GUFFEY. Graffiti

37: SYLVIA MARTÍNEZ BANKS. _____ , John

38: LOIS BARR. Gesso

To boot, Murky Depths issue 17 is out, featuring "Orion's Belt." Conor Doyle illustrates my humble tale as well -- always a thrill to see someone else's take on your work.

These past two months have been a heady whirlwind as I go through a final polish with the agent/co-conspirator on my zombie-noir novel, "Bring Me Flesh, I'll Bring Hell." I am digging into edits on Antichrist Diaries and feverishly attempting to finish Wound Revelations before August 1 -- in a 100 degree heat wave without air conditioning. As if this isn't enough, there are two other irons in my fire that I can't speak of just yet. And speaking of work --

I am a soldier, baby, who works just like a slave, sweating through the pain and digging his foxhole that he knows is just a grave . . .

Book Review: The River of Shadows by Robert V.S. Redick

2011-07-20T11:13:00.004-04:00

I've been tapped to do reviews through Amazon Vine which allows me to post them here. So have a review folks -- I like to look up the authors of these books so I have some background information before I start plugging away, and I have to say, Mr. Redick has a most impressive writerly life, and it shows in his incredible work. For any writer who desires to master the English language, take a note from how Mr. Redick has clearly done it -- learn other languages. You will come away with a greater context for how we process prose and shape it when one learns how other cultures utilize less, or more, words at their disposal. It certainly worked in T.S.Eliot's favor, when he had to learn how to translate during his day job at Lloyd's Bank in his work with foreign accounts.

~-~

The River of Shadows Book Review:

If you haven't heard of Robert V.S. Redick, author of The River of Shadows (book three of the Chathrand Voyage series) you're missing one of the most dynamic writers in the fantasy genre. He creates a startling narrative, and employs the English language to devastating effect by immersing the reader into a seamless fantasy world that evokes the spirit of Alexandre Dumas's fiction with Redick's political intrigue and non-stop action. The thick and interwoven plots and the well-drawn characters enrich each other rather than taking away as we share in the fate of the Chathrand crew. Along with Thasha and Pazel, the reader journeys through unexpected encounters in a changing landscape of awakened animals and crazed humans as the main characters attempt to stop Arunis and understand to what ends his machinations are shaping their destinies and those of their world. It is a journey not to be missed.

~-~

PERSIST

2011-07-17T15:27:00.002-04:00

Over at the blog "Animator Letters Project" is a handwritten letter from Austin Madison, who works at Pixar. No matter if you're a writer or an artist, the plea written there -- to persist in your work -- should resonate with all of us.

If it doesn't, I don't know what you're doing here.

There's little I can say that can add to what Austin Madison has written; but there are other letters on this site as well whose main thrusts are universal for any creative fire that burns within you. It's not enough to read a thousand books by a thousand worthy authors. We think ourselves such unique artists, but we can only get to that space of original creativity by realizing what passions unite us all, and how we share in similar obstacles of mind and resistance; that we share this same journey, even as we shape it differently.

Antichrist Diaries Has A Tumblog

2011-07-06T00:02:00.000-04:00

You can visit the new experiment in madness here on Tumblr.

It turns out, this is the perfect place I can utilize social/multi-media to give a greater framework to the concepts at work in Antichrist Diaries that are meant to form a backdrop to the work -- namely, we the people.

Shakespeare Is Not Better Than You

2011-07-02T22:17:00.005-04:00

Shakespeare is not better than you.

Here's why:

When you cook a meal from scratch in the confines of your humble home, your ingredients are varied and come from a variety of places. Much of it may be processed food, genetically engineered, or even organic from certain sellers. A good chef at a restaurant can usually command a better quality ingredient. The difference between your two dishes will be vast even when working from the exact same recipe in the exact same amounts, and you can never create the same one twice.

However, you and Shakespeare both shop at the same place for the exact same ingredients. The words available to you are the same words available to him.

The playing field is effectively leveled.

Disagree with me. We can agree to disagree. But we are using the same words. And what will decide our talent, our genius, or lack thereof, is the manner and style and arrangement of our dishes. That's it. That's the only difference between you and Shakespeare. Where or how you choose to put your words in the frame of a sentence.

Don't let the reputation of a hundreds year old writer terrify you into thinking you can't do the same, or better. (Admittedly, a queen backing you is the ultimate PR campaign, but marketing is not writing.)

There Are No Rules

2011-07-02T21:59:00.004-04:00

Do not confuse "rules" with "discipline."

There are no rules in any form of art. No, really. None at all. But without technique and discipline and hard work to channel that artistic chaotic energy, breaking those so-called "rules" amounts to little more than a child throwing a tantrum. Your language is a sword; you must sharpen it with hours of drudgery, editing, questioning, self-doubt, alcohol and coffee (though not to be consumed at the same time.)

Do not confuse "rules" with "form" or "architecture."

That is, just because your words are on a written page, doesn't mean that when the words transfer to an electronic format, this is a "rule." Rules have nothing to do with it. This is architecture. Alchemy. The form changes. But the content and the substance should be your focus. Outside of it, everything else is garnish. Words are still words. And they still have the power to shake you, providing you can arrange them in a spell-binding manner.

Finally, do not make "rules" your religion.

Rules are safe and provide security and routine and dependable bedrock. This is an illusion designed to lull and soothe you as you journey through the chaos that often defines this life. To realize there are no rules is to be humbled by the immensity of what you can make of yourself -- to be vulnerable. To submit to terror. Nothing need ever confine and restrict you again. Once you accept this, you can begin to truly play.

Play then.

Yellow Sticky Note Strikes Again

2011-06-22T20:35:00.001-04:00

When In Doubt . . .

2011-06-11T18:56:00.001-04:00

I Miss Kurt Vonnegut

2011-06-05T16:01:00.002-04:00

Johnnie Walker Begs To Differ With Your Writing Plans

2011-06-01T00:23:00.002-04:00

Little Yellow Sticky Note 2

2011-05-31T09:38:00.003-04:00

Little Yellow Sticky Note 1

2011-05-30T20:38:00.002-04:00

620,000 WORD DARE. 1 YEAR.

2011-05-24T20:06:00.004-04:00

So, I've decided to write 620,000 words in what remains of this year. And I'm gonna be honest -- it's probably impossible. But I'm gonna give it hell anyway.

The reason for this? The fact that my job could be taken away at any moment due to the economic distress; that I might have to take on two jobs; that maybe I'll be shipped off to the nut house before then. A stray Rapture might happen. Who knows what might occur and in what particular order, but I have stories and they must be told before I'm dead in the ground. There is mythology that claims Angels of the Principalities are those that inspire us artistic types; if this were true, then I've got a turbo-charged motherfucker riding my ass. This year, more than any other, is the year that will make or break me, for a variety of reasons -- now is the time to put forth my everything, my all.

And writing is what it all comes down to, isn't it? The only thing that really matters. All of this social media, this blog/twitter/social networking -- falls away before the storm and the rush of this single purpose. To tell a story. How often we forget it, what tragic shapes we make of ourselves in an effort to chase what should come with ease, with pleasure, and even a modicum of beauty.

I'm going to be updating the sidebar on my blog to keep up with my progress and check in and keep true to my goal. Even if I don't make it, it would be worth it to keep myself accountable and I may get more finished than I expect. To keep to goal, I have to write roughly 3500 words a day from here on out, through the bad days, through the good days, through writer's block, and more than that, the words have to matter.

I'm excited by the Museum Rats project -- can I write a series of interconnected stories in the form of chapters that chronicle the end of the world in a museum, through the eyes of a high-riding bitch, a transvestite, an ex-con, a clone and a priest? Oh, I think I can. I think I can do it with enthusiasm, and come in close so I can whisper this last one: fun!

I know, a totally alien concept around these here writing parts where people rage and tear their hair out and fret on the stage of life about the economy and how it effects writing and about a slew of other useless shit. Which is a shame, because there's a dearth of sheer heroic fun around here, so I guess someone needs to ante up and put it on the line. I do believe I am qualified for the job. <insert strut, dusting off of shoulders, and a smirk> And what's more fun or ridiculous than a dare with myself?

Game on, world.

. . . In Which I Gain Velocity

2011-05-22T11:01:00.005-04:00

It's been quiet round these here parts. I've been neck deep in all kinds of work, so I get to share some of the fruits of the labor with you. I hope you all enjoyed the rapture this past weekend, we really should do this more often.

Without further ado, here's the news on my end:

The award-winning UK based Murky Depths picked up my short "Orion's Belt" for their August issue 18. "Orion's Belt" follows the violent relationship between a father and son as they determine what is real and what is not. The tale is entirely fictional, but my personal experience formed the springboard for the central idea -- my father's interest in aliens.
The Art From Art anthology from Modernist Press including my short "Scanner Days, Starry Nights" has an official street date now -- July 19, 2011, this anthology will be available as both B&W POD and a full color limited edition 500 print run, with plans to launch the book in galleries in NY and LA. The thought of that makes me absolutely giddy -- as an graphic designer/artist, being shown in a gallery is part of that biz, and when I chose to pursue writing I left all that behind. So this is hilariously ironic.

The creative head behind Modernist Press is Mr. Stephen Soucy, who is also expanding into film and just recently wrapped his first short film, Slant. The look and feel is gorgeous, and you can view it through the Modernist website here.
And you can read my essay "Avatar" over at Sein Und Werden in their newest online issue for free.

I've begun preliminary research for the second book in the Antichrist Diaries series, to begin writing this fall when the weather cools down and I won't have to sit in front of a computer in hundred degree heat in an un-air conditioned house. Oh, how I suffer for my art.

I've got three -- count 'em, three -- other stories that look like they're on-board for three other publications, but I'm waiting for details to be finalized before I start opening my mouth and inserting my foot with enthusiasm. There's two other things in the works which are still crystallizing, and have been since December of last year, but things are starting to move at a startling pace. This market has been brutalized by the economic distress, and I don't see things getting better for speculative fiction in the small press, so if anyone out there is selling anything at the moment, feel blessed -- if you're doing it now, imagine what you could do in a good market.

I honestly did not expect to do well either, but apparently, despite rumors to the contrary -- I can string together a couple of words in a pleasing manner.

The Dark Side of Higher Education

2011-04-27T21:41:00.010-04:00

I was recently engaged in a dialogue with a writer by the name of Jolyn Palliata. She's treading the writerly path like the rest of us do, following a demanding passion, and like so many of us, we are often harder on ourselves than we need to be.

From one of Jolyn's transmissions (posted here with permission):

...you should know that I don't have an English degree, or any sort of thing like that. I'm learning the same way most writers are - through experience. Don't get me wrong, I've written in one form or another for most of my life, but no formal education, so to speak.

This fretting regarding our status, how it relates to one's education, is a common concern in the area of genre/speculative fiction -- perhaps because there are few fields where the competition is so fierce, where so many fail, and that even to admit that you've thrown yourself into the ring is to face scorn and denigration amongst one's peers either in the "real world" where they hold "real jobs" or even in the dubious hierarchy that forms among the small press communities.

Writers with MFAs vie alongside high school drop-outs, and what gladdens me to no end is that, unlike the usual daily grind (where a person's placement in life could depend more on the corrupt social practice of who you know instead of the intrinsic value of what you do), talent levels the playing field. Talent will exalt you, and bring you to the top, even counting in factors like personal bias, cronyism and other such nonsense that may work against you.

Jolyn's insights are intelligent and well-articulated, and so I immediately reached out to the internet to discover what I could find about writers and their relationships to the much lauded, cruelly expensive arena that is higher education.

Here then, is a list of writers who either never attended college, or never finished it out:

John Steinbeck: Graduated Salinas High School in 1919, and attended Stanford University until 1925, leaving without a degree.

William Faulkner: He attended the University of Mississippiin Oxford in 1919, attending three semesters before dropping out in November 1920.

James Ellroy: Dropped out of school. He joined the army. According to Wikipedia, he was "engaged in minor crimes (especially shoplifting, house-breaking, and burglary) and was often homeless."

Ray Bradbury: Bradbury graduated from Los Angeles High School. He did not attend college. Per Wikipedia, "In regard to his education, Bradbury said: 'Libraries raised me. I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.' . . . It was in UCLA's Powell Library, in a study room with typewriters for rent, in which Bradbury wrote his classic story of a book-burning future, 'Fahrenheit 451.' "

Harlan Ellison: He spent time at Ohio State University for 18 months and was subsequently expelled. "He has said that the expulsion was a result of his hitting a professor who had denigrated his writing ability, and that over the next forty-odd years he had sent that professor a copy of every story he published." (Wikipedia)

Dashiell Hammett: Left school when he was 13, and went on to work for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.

Philip K. Dick: Dick graduated from Berkeley High School. Ursula K. Le Guin was also in attendance, but apparently did not run in the same circles. He did attend the University of California but withdrew only a few months in.

There are perhaps an equal number of writers who did seek and complete education, in related or unrelated fields, both unknown and known. Myself, I earned a degree in visual arts; Jolyn earned one in accounting. And as educated as either of us might be, I know for myself there persists the insinuation that without more education, especially in English, or more workshops in writing, my value as a writer is less. There have even been instances where a call for submission was accompanied by a requirement that the writer submit what courses/workshops they had been involved in, and another that admitted only those who had attended workshops with the editor would be given first consideration in an anthology.

I hold a degree in visual arts, with a track in graphic design; my abilities in Photoshop and Dreamweaver are apparent in the headers of each of my blogs, my design sensibilities, my website, and virtually every graphic media I use to market myself. Yet, despite all this skill, I cannot find a position in the graphics field that will pay me more than $18,000/yr.

Yes, you read that right. $18,000/yr. (And someone once castigated me for using "poverty" as a way to draw people to buy my works in an act of sympathy. I don't use poverty. Poverty uses me, and I'd like it to stop now, kbyethanx?) At $18,000/yr, I wound up in a library much like Ray Bradbury. It was there I went to churn out the first stories I would sell later on.

Author Kevin P. Keating, who teaches at a college, wrote a compelling essay "The Diploma Mill," (at identitytheory.com) examining the current trend of higher education -- no longer a stepping stone to gaining greater knowledge but instead an inconvenience on the way to achieving the entitlement that comes with accreditation -- a paying job, usually to pay off the loans. True education is not the goal of "higher education."

Writers who fear that their education falls short, should take heart, and know that education does not define you. What you choose to do with every moment of your life will determine your destiny and make your character. Do not allow an institution to give you permission to go forth and set sail, to wage war, to snub your nose at the gods and to steal the fire. Prometheus suffered for that crime -- but he never apologized for it. Nor should you.

Jolyn Palliata, author of the Entwined Souls Trilogy, has a website, here.

The Day That Never Was

2011-04-26T20:53:00.007-04:00

It seems to Martin there are many without fathers.

He's known a few who've tried to fill the role for him, to be a father; but he's not entirely sure what the word means. Martin's aware that in medieval villages they burned babies who called their parents by their christian names, and he wonders what kind of fire he would have made while he burned. They used to think they were changeling children, those kind. He cannot remember a time he ever referred to his father as "Dad." Nor would he refer to the next man who applied for that post, though that man tried cajole him into using the term of endearment, right up until he got into a car, spun and crashed into a marshland and died staring at the reeds.

Martin has a birthday, and he is about to turn the corner. That day is not today. That day is the day after his step-father died, and Martin turned 22.

Sometimes he looks to others to fill the role, but none are really interested, and he's reached a point in life where father figures are no longer necessary; he is an adult in the fullest sense of the word. He does not long for childhood days, he does not shirk responsibility and keeps himself on a leash and walking a line. But he does what he knows how to do as a writer -- he tells the story.

He lacks that patriarchal guidance in his life, the caring elder male figure who would pass down ancient secrets and old wisdom. Martin borrows archetypes to fill the role, dreaming of old men who take him out to the marsh where his step-father died, and the old man shows him a mythic plant that grows in the reeds that has the power to render humans immortal, and he shows him how time is a wheel and that his step-father is both dying and living simultaneously and there is no such thing as distance. This dream will stay with Martin for the rest of his life.

Martin will look to Odin with his single burning eye with a sense of respect as though this is a facet of a man who should have raised him. He will imagine a king from a Grimm's fairy tale awaiting to pass him his crown and allow him to ascend to the throne with a kind gesture, a distant smile. He will be Cernunnos; he will be the Knight of Wands, the Knight of Discs, the Knight of Cups, and the Knight of Wands. He will be Black Elk, he will be Mercury and Mars, he will be war-like gods and benign sovereigns. Odysseus, the eternal soldier who never returns. He listens for the voice of that unreachable father figure in music, in the percussion of a modern band.

The irony of this is that in any hero/trickster myth, the central character is never reconciled with the father. That story is not written that way. Martin likes the idea that a writer somewhere is moving him along like piece on a game board, avatar that he is, directing him into fire to see if he will run or burn, face it or collapse, throwing knives in his path and weaving stones along his way. Martin carries a sword, keeps a first-aid kit on hand, and marches with enthusiasm. After a long enough time, war becomes play.

He watches with a skewed eye the ditherings of others as they eat cake, open presents; he remembers opening presents while his step-father's body was cold on a slab when the same man had wrapped them the day before and sometimes, the crinkle of paper makes him sick. He did not always get a birthday, after that, because no one close to him really wanted to remember that day, and he is fine with that. He does not mind forgetting it himself. And now that he does not celebrate it, he finds a liberation in refusing to keep track of the years and the time.

That maybe that old man in the marsh who explained that time is a circle and there is no distance between the dead and the living was onto something.

He remembers standing outside of himself, like a balloon hovering above his head as he falls to his knees at the age of 21, and screams, and screams, and screams. And maybe he's screaming for the next ten years, and the scream extends across eternity becoming a clarion call that beckons me to rise, lift one hand to catch the spoke that radiates from the Wheel of Fortune that crushes and exalts us by turns; to pull that wheel with all my might, to pull it until the spokes themselves begin to whir and I may ride it with a gleam in my eye, a smirk upon my face, an appetite for life. Ride it, from the bottom to the top.

Because time is a circle, you see. And there is no distance.

----
Video: Puscifer, "Momma Sed."

Books That Shook Me

2011-04-09T07:05:00.014-04:00

. . . in no particular order.

- The Secret History, by Donna Tartt

*Image taken from Wikipedia.org

This book is a literary gem but it's all horror, all the way, and there's even an odd supernatural feel midway through the book, which I won't expound upon in case someone reading this has never had the pleasure of losing themselves in Tartt's butter-textured prose line. From the first sentence you're quietly drawn in the way an excellent tale should hook you -- without even realizing you've been seduced. The human relationships detailed are frighteningly realistic in all our dirty motivations, secrets, and hidden motives.

- Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice

*Image taken from Wikipedia.org

I realize there is a large section of horror folks out there who abhor Anne Rice, and I'm not going to argue -- this book is sort of like the emo manifesto. But it was the first time I was introduced to the concept of taking a tired, stereotyped monster and looking at it from a fresh viewpoint. Say what you will, Anne Rice has a clear voice and style, whether you like it or not, and her modernized prose feels influenced by nineteenth century French writers. I was fourteen and stuck in a motel room Supernatural-style without the benefit of Magic Fingers to while away the hours, so I started in on the book. Roughly twelve hours later, I powerhoused through the whole fucking book from dusk 'til dawn like a machine.

- The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas

*Image taken from Amazon.com

I took this book out of my sixth grade library and started reading. I wasn't impressed, but by the time I made it through Dantes' miserable ten years in Chateau Dif, I felt connected with this character who had suffered so and wanted to know what he planned to do with the rest of his life. One of the things most writers don't bother with anymore is building a character so completely by spending the first half breaking him down until all that's left is marrow and spirit -- and even that might be up for grabs. Monte Cristo is great, not only because of the plot and the characters, but because of the multiple viewpoints that allow us to see the Count from more than one angle, and because the sideline characters are incredibly rich in their hidden agendas and how they resolve with the Count's subtle influence as he plays at fate. No movie yet has been able to do this book justice because they continue to fall into banal and pedestrian tropes while refusing to follow in the path of the book, which never requites love, never forgives the evil done, and while it does deliver a happy ending, not the soap opera bullshit that Hollywood continues to churn out.

- De Profundis, by Oscar Wilde

*Image taken from Wikimedia Commons, released into Public Domain

Technically a letter, though there are shortened versions with the personal element taken completely out. Avoid those; it's crap. Read the one addressed as a letter. Passionate, heartbreaking, a portrait of a soul under fire. Of all Wilde's work, it is the lesser known, but the most inspired and intelligent. I read this on a Wilde kick when I was 16. I read this sixty-odd page Oxford Edition, printed on thin-as-fuck onion skin paper and eye stabbingly small text. (Eye-stabbingly? That's a shitty turn of phrase. Welcome to the blog where I take no prisoners and make no apologies. :P)

- The House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

*Image taken from Wikipedia.org

A story within a story. This book doesn't really hold up to summation; the whole of it is greater than the parts, and proves difficult to describe -- best explained as an experiential work, which makes great use of the visual dynamics of what a book is. Fascinating and lesser known, Danielweski's sister is the singer known as Poe, whose album ties into the book, including a passage read by the author himself and songs that correlate to themes in the book, compounding the sensation of a story within a story. I picked this book out of a stack of others in a bookstore and knew it was going to be a great story before I even started reading -- the concept alone was earth-shattering in its execution.

- The Magus by John Fowles*Image taken from Wikipedia.org

Bring out the lube, you're in for a mind-fucking. John Fowles expressed mixed feelings about this, it being his first novel. His first. He continued to rewrite it for years upon years until 1977, and it's a psychological work of dark intensity; if you've the courage to make it to the end, it will leave your head whirling. When you find books that do that to you, hold onto them. They only come around once and awhile.

- The Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy

*Image taken from Wikipedia.org

I never see Conroy make it onto any "best-of" lists; but he's a personal favorite of mine, because the man's been through some shit. He's seen ugly things, but he renders them effortlessly beautiful with a borderline purple prose. It's his rhythm that he uses to great effect. Some of the passages from this particular work alone are gold as he details the fire we burn in on our way from childhood to adulthood, and the moral dilemmas that determine our inner characters. In some ways, The Lords of Discipline is predictable, reads like a soap opera, but -- the prose. The way he says things. That sticks with me, and makes his work a pleasure to read.

- The Long Walk by Richard Bachman

* Image taken from Wikipedia.org

I can always read this. Always. It's a Strunk-White wet dream with its stripped down prose and long passages of effortless, realistic dialogue. One of the great aspects of this story is (and maybe this is the inexperience of youth talking, as I was most likely 13/14 when I first read it) that I had no idea what the end-game of the long walk itself was until the first walker gets his final warning. After that, I was hooked, but more than that, above all, you become invested in Ray Garrity, and whose who walk along side him. I read King voraciously when I was an adolescent and up into my twenties, and his style changed over time, as can be expected of any writer. As time passed, I haven't read King's more recent works in many a year, and nothing, nothing I tell you, has, or ever will, hit quite so hard as The Long Walk -- though Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is a close second.

Incidentally, Frank Darabont secured the rights to this, and really, there can't be a better filmmaker out there for any work. Period. The man makes a delicious-looking movie, really, his film stock, gah. Totally flailing in admiration for his visual style.

- The Farseer Trilogy/Tawny Man Trilogy by Robin Hobb

(I couldn't find a satisfactory image that wasn't under strict copyright, so, eh.)

Technically I've listed a series there, I know, but, gah. I read the first three while life was still relatively good for me, and then my Ten Year Martin!Whump descended in force and the next three she wrote helped me limp through the darkest period of my life. While everyone else who I had either put on a pedestal or at least marginally respected proceeded to spectacularly fail at life and fail at showing me a shred of humanity and left me to drown, I hung onto FitzChivalry Farseer as a validation, like an unseen voice to help drive me forward and survive. Without a doubt, whenever I questioned my actions, I turned to the books to validate myself when it was clear I was being punished for the crime of courage, integrity, and the act of compassion. There is no greater horror than living in an age surrounded by people determined to beat your soul free of all the qualities that make life a worthwhile endeavor, for no other reason than that their hearts are too small to ever measure up. Maybe that's a lot to take from a high fantasy series, but even with that aside, I'd take these books with me to a desert island, over Lord of the Rings, EVERY time.

Be A Slut!

2011-04-03T22:41:00.005-04:00

I mean, be a slut in the sense that you shouldn't hold on to your first novel to the exclusion of writing any others. I constantly run into other writers who hang such high hopes on their first novel effort that they forget that they should always be writing, always creating something new -- think like a stage-5 clinger virgin who thinks they've found "The One."

Don't do that to yourself. There's more out there, start writing it. And it's not just good advice about novels, that applies to short stories. Aaron Polson often talks of his Write 1/Sub 1 method, in which he keeps generating material and sending it out on a regular schedule. Everybody has a rhythm, but regardless of what works for anyone -- please write. Write your ass off.

If at some point you discover that you're disappointed that those first efforts haven't landed you instant success, through novels or short stories -- you might want to examine why you're writing in the first place.

Short answer: it better be for love.

The conundrum of writing on a professional level is that it is only achieved through genuine passion, and I don't think there's a writer out there that hasn't sat down and had the moment -- The Why Am I Really Doing This Moment? If you make it to that place, it's a part of the process, and it means you're in the right direction. You have to love what you do, and understand you may never meet with the success you envision. It may be unrealistic in proportion to your talent, or the market, or the culture. But that doesn't mean you stop. You have a soul to take care of. Feed that first. The rest comes naturally.

-- Personal Word Vomit Follows Below

I've been busy as all fuck. I miss posting on this blog. Suffice it to say that Antichrist Diaries has eaten my life, but it has also become an exciting project of immense proportions. In addition, I've been slammed with a sudden flood of short lists, manuscript requests, and what looks like a short film on the horizon. In one week, I was wrecked to hell and back with the sudden re-appearance of my significantly fucked-up father and a bout of food poisoning; in the next, all this interest in my work descended on me in a short space of time.

And what I've come to learn is this one truth: You think you want success. Turns out, I'm fucking terrified of it. Panic attacks, the whole nine. All these projects are like OVNIs, hovering and could scatter and disappear at any second.

I lost everything and turned to writing as an effort to reclaim myself. I think, this time around, I might be getting a lot more than I bargained for.

The Antichrist Diaries Is Online and At War

2011-03-20T19:00:00.004-04:00

I'm been undercover and on the down-low lately, friends. Great portents and omens abound. I have been watching this industry with a skewed eye and have decided that today, I bring the storm; that today, I bring rain and the lightning strike. I bring galvanization and desire.

The Antichrist Diaries is finished.

It's going through a once-over, and then it will be further held under brutal examination, because no manuscript is ever really finished.

More importantly, I want to give people password access to view the manuscript as I upload it, piece by piece; if readers want, they can follow, sign up, and interact with the manuscript. I want to explore the symbols in use and how they relate to our crumbling world in the public viewable portion of the blog, but the fiction entries will be securely encrypted, and viewable only to those with the key.

The details are available at http://antichristdiaries.blogspot.com/

Oh, Japan . . . This Soft Quiet Land . . .

2011-03-16T15:10:00.005-04:00

Misao Fujimura. You've never heard of him. I never did until my research took me into suicides, and I discovered Fujimura who fell in love with a girl named Tamiko. If Tamiko loved him, who can say; she married another. And Fujimura took himself to the Kegon Falls in Japan where he wrote his last letter to the world on the trunk of a tree. The picture above is his last farewell to the world before he committed suicide. His words are what I think of now when I think of Japan.

What has happened is going to leave a wound on the world whose scar I cannot begin to calculate.

This is his poem:

Delicate line between heaven and earth…
The calm of the ages,
all the world’s worth.
Such minuscule measure,
while we think it so grand…
Just five specks of smallness,
This soft quiet land.
So frail and so fleeting,
in the end you will see
Simple dreams were Horatio’s philosophy.

For all the truth,
all creation,
all secrets of yore
Can be told in an instant,
by then they’re no more.

Ah, The Unexplainable
All worries unsettled,
heartache unresolved…
All questions unanswered,
with death, shall be solved.

We already teeter,
this sheer cliff so high.
When we fall to corruption,
insecurities die.

To end is to start;
to surrender is to know.

Despair and depression,
together they grow.
Hope shall meet hopeless
when there’s nowhere to go.

Fujimura lived from July 1886 to May 22, 1903. No copyright, to my knowledge, is applied to either the picture or the text.

Your New Word

2011-03-02T17:17:00.002-05:00

FARK: What happens when snark goes bad. It gets totally Farked.

Odds & Ends

2011-03-02T15:35:00.003-05:00

I've always had a thing for apocalyptic fiction, especially with quasi-religious themes and few television shows tackle such concepts quite so well as the spectacularly failed HBO series Carnivale and the more accessible Supernatural. What's more interesting about these two is that Carnivale still fascinates after all these years after cancellation.

A particular observant reviewer, Mr. M. Morse, is watching the Carnivale series for the first time over at Chud.com. His insights are compelling and there are some beautiful stills from the series; if you've never seen Carnivale, it's worth the watch for the viewer who can enjoy the burn of a slowly told story, and one that is epic in scale.

Supernatural got a write up in New York Times. No, it's not the most intelligent television, but that's why I watch it -- junk food for the soul.

Poverty

2011-02-23T17:24:00.008-05:00

There is a thrift shop on coastal New Jersey where the wind beats hard and bitter and wet in the winter days; I go there when I have dimes and quarters and there are tears in my jeans and holes in my threadbare sweaters. This is where I go to find clothes, to haunt the ancient, mothball scented racks, to find odds and ends I can use to repair my 800 ft. dilapidated Ranch that the previous owners allowed to fall into squalor and ruin so there are holes in the floor where you can step into the crawlspace beneath and be ankle deep in New Jersey sand. This is my home I share with my beloved, and we are poor.

It has been decided that my college education, which I worked through, which I attended beside odd adult-shaped children playing with priceless electronic gadgets and have cars that delivered heat even on 10 degree days -- my college education which was paid for by the absent fathers, both of them, the one in the grave and the other in prison -- my college education, in which I was thrown out of my house and alienated from my family -- my college education,is utterly worthless. It earns me slightly above poverty level pay. I am a graphic designer.

So I investigate the rooms of this thrift shop with the elderly widows who trundle up and down the shelves wheeling carts of unfound things. Objects, mysterious and with more scandalous histories than I can ever own to. Here, the dreams of children, here, the discarded gifts of the dead. I find things which catch my interest and please my eye for cents on the dollar, for though I am poor I have a refined sense of value, I know what copper is worth in the metals market, I know genuine mahogany from a veneer. I know a Richard Bachman first edition Thinner versus the Stephen King one.

I am not unhappy, to be poor.

In this lifestyle, I freeze with the heat turned way down in winter, I live off of beans and rice and a survivalists meal; these used clothes and hand-me-downs buy me an internet connection in which I view the world with a fevered lense. This is my secret room, where the floors sag from years of unchecked water damage, and I read blogs and journals and notes by the thousands. The virtual world can be devoured with the eyes for free; the hardbacks, the paperbacks, the PODs, even the electronic books, they have priced me out of the market, kept dreams just out of my reach.

And they tell me, study the market. As if I could. As if I could squeeze my fist around this stone and pump blood from it still. My heart will have to suffice. I can sell my blood for money. And there will still not be enough left over for all the books that I should read, for all the magazines I am told I must buy.

I am not unhappy to be poor, because every day I enter a work which has made it known they find me all together contemptible and worthless, only to return at night and turn on the computer, eager for the hum of the drive toiling inside, and watch as my inbox fills. As your voices fill the electronic atmosphere with your stories, your lives. One by one, I send stories like messages in a bottle, and behold, I am answered. I am vindicated. I am printed.

And all the while my co-workers continue, oblivious to the magic inside, the magic that turns into words, into books, into money. They shop at big-box corporations where their clothes are shipped from foreign countries built with broken hands, they buy high-end food that is whole and fills their bellies, but they are poorer by far than I, who laughs in the box they call a cubicle and wonder how long it will take them to notice that what I am worth, they can never pay for.

They play the lottery and appeal to the gods for a winning ticket, they track the numbers in the newspaper because gambling is the last resort of the emotionally poor, the spiritually impoverished who have been so broken by fate, like an abused child, they believe only their abuser can save them, and so turn to damage again and again for salvation. And they lose, time and again, buying the next ticket with a prayer on their lips and the belief that, this time, this time will be different.

And all the while, I laugh. I wear threadbare clothes that don't fit right and jeans blown out at the knees and people treat me and my appearance with practiced disdain, and I laugh. For I have been playing a different kind of lottery, where the tickets are bought with hard work, with heart's blood, with words, with only the best of my words.

Oh, for me it will be different. For others will be poor forever, but I am happy, like this, waiting for my number to be called. It may be the wait, neither here nor there, where I am the richest.

Up In Smoke

2011-02-20T21:10:00.006-05:00

These cigarette ads are rife with all kinds of innuendo just waiting to be explored. Delicious, really. I stole these from and Old Ads blog that stole these from old 1970s/80s magazines, so we are merry thieves all. I was amused to rediscover the Marlboro man -- that faded cancer cowboy of the American west. Aside from his flavorful invite, where his lasso is conveniently haloed around his crotch, the Newport ad maybe be racier in that the woman's head leans suggestively into the man's thigh, with his hand possessively stroking her head. I'll let you speculate on your own where he's hiding his Newports.

I've been quiet of late. Expect it to continue.

Feverish output on the Anti-Christ Diaries has forced all other projects to the side; this novel is, in short, consuming me whole. These have been archetypes I've long wanted to get down and dirty with, and the result is what I would like to believe is the best writing I've ever done, connecting story with characters to modern day science, technology, social media and evolution and ancient, Christian-Judeo mythology, from Dante's Divine Comedy to Milton's Paradise Lost. The story aims to turn our ideas of God and the Devil on their heads. It's ambitious, it's bold, it's arrogant. And it's harsh commentary on what we're doing to the earth and the creatures that live on it, including ourselves. Will it sell? Probably not. I'm not writing it for that. It's writing me, and if the story will not sell, I intend to guerilla market the living fuck out of it.

In addition to this, around Dec 30, I found myself in a whirlwind of shortlists and manuscript requests, and now, just recently, another surprise, which I can't talk about just yet. For now, I am the calm in the storm waiting to see if I will remain untouched by the ravenous winds or hopelessly damaged, on tenterhooks until I hear word on any of these projects -- which only seem to pile up the longer I wait to hear on their outcomes. In the background, the tenth anniversary of my step-father's death is looming, increasing my feelings of unease, and I bounce back and forth between manic phases and depressive lows.

Which brings me to Electronic Cigarettes.

One of my colleagues, in an effort to kick her habit, purchased an electronic cigarette. I was not aware of this, had never heard of them before. While inside the break room, talking to her, I happened to glance over in time to see two white plumes of smoke escaping her nostrils, at which point, I thought: Hey, she's smoking inside. Wait a second, that's not a cigarette. Where the frig is the smoke coming from!

Second thought: Oh God. I'm crazy. Shit, I've become my father. I am living my own personal Titus episode. Thoughts of straitjackets, electro-shock therapy and Shutter Island scenarios abound. For several hours I'd convinced myself I'd side-slipped into my own schizophrenic universe and I was confronted with all kinds of questions: Do I tell anyone? Do I say anything? Maybe I could hide the crazy. What to do?

I quickly looked away from said colleague, pretended like she farted, and just shucked my ass outta the room. At which point, detective work gave me my answer -- electronic cigs. Leave it to progress to take all the fun out of perfectly good vices and make you think you're seeing things to boot.

Instant Interview with Myrrym Davies: Just Add Blood

2011-02-15T07:57:00.008-05:00

If a writer spends enough time immersed in the horror community, sooner or later you'll run into Myrrym Davies, the whip-smart senior editor at Graveside Tales. She previously worked with The Monsters Next Door, where she edited fiction, and has an online serial free for the reading over at Graveside Tales, "Letters from a Psychopath," a satire of slasher movie villains coping with all the pitfalls of aging in a nursing home.

Myrrym was kind enough to devote her time to this interview, and for those hopeful novelists intent on submitting to Graveside Tales, there's advice here for you as well.

Martin: What drew you to horror, and at what age?

Myrrym: It seems I have always been drawn to horror. Even as a child, I preferred to watch the Saturday afternoon creature features instead of cartoons. Whether that was because my family tended to favor those kinds of films or because there was something intrinsically wrong with me is subject to debate. All I know is dark fiction seemed to speak to me in ways no other genre did. I have always enjoyed the suspense—and, yes, the splatter—of well-scripted horror, so I suppose it is only natural I would end up writing within the same genre.

Martin: Horror in this writing community tends to be an accepted lifestyle; do you feel that as a woman in the horror industry, you're treated differently in your real life, outside of the internet community? How do people react when you tell them about what you do?

Myrrym: When it comes to my family and personal friends, no, I am not treated any differently. They don’t necessarily understand my attraction to the macabre, but they certainly don’t look down on me because of it. When it comes to people with whom I am not personally acquainted, I make things easy for them by simply not telling them I write horror. In fact, I rarely mention writing at all. If they ask what I do for a living, I give them the details on my nice, safe, socially-acceptable day job.

Martin: There's been much made of TOCs which lack a female presence -- do you feel that there's a gender bias in the horror industry, or do you feel that's a matter of there not being as many women writers as men available, or a different reason altogether?

Myrrym: Honestly? No, I have not noticed much in the way of gender bias in the horror industry. That is not to say it does not exist, only that I have no personal experience with it. This could be because my work is still small press material, or it could be because I have been fortunate enough to work with very open-minded people, but overall, my experience with the horror industry has been pretty positive.

Martin: In honor of Women in Horror Recognition month, are there any female writers out there whose work you enjoy and look forward to?

Myrrym: This is probably going to get me into trouble with the majority of your readers, but I am not a fan of the material most popular female horror writers put out there. I enjoy reading books by many female sci-fi and fantasy authors—Anne McCaffrey, J.K. Rowling, and Ann C. Crispin are some of my favorites—but when it comes to horror, well, let’s just say the books I have read are a bit too soft for my taste.

That said, there are a couple of small press authors whose work I really like. Fran Friel comes to mind. I love the way that woman strings a sentence together. She is a wonderful writer, and the stories showcased in her collection, Mama’s Boy and Other Dark Tales, are genuinely creepy. I can’t say enough good things about her. My other favorite is Hallam Heathcoat. What a brilliant storyteller she is. I was impressed with Necrotica, and looked forward to seeing more of her work, but I believe she dropped writing to pursue other interests. I hope she picks it up again, someday. I’d be inclined to read anything she wrote, horror or otherwise.

Martin: Ebooks. Everybody's all aflutter over the ebook revolution; how do you weigh in? Will ebooks kill the print industry? Do you have an e-reader yourself or intend to get one?

Myrrym: I do not believe e-books are going to kill the print industry altogether; there will always be a place for certain non-fiction print books. Fiction, on the other hand, may very well evolve into an e-book-only market someday, and while I find that thought incredibly depressing, I cannot deny the possibility of it happening. I am not a fan of e-books, myself. I do not own an e-reader, nor do I intend to purchase one soon. My issues with digital books have nothing to do with their format (though I am, admittedly, not a gadget person); I just prefer to read the old-fashioned way.

Martin: You're doing work over at Graveside Tales, editing and reading manuscript submissions. Would you like to tell us your pet peeves, and what a writer can do to get noticed and make your job easier?

Myrrym: As an editor, there is one thing that drives me completely insane: incorrectly formatted manuscripts.

I read at least four sets of sample chapters and synopses every evening during our submissions periods. That averages out to around 600 pages of material every night. Needless to say, I don’t have time to reformat manuscripts for readability. Occasionally, if the synopsis looks promising, I will send the author a quick note asking them to reformat and resend, but most of the time I delete improperly formatted submissions, unread. It’s harsh, I know, but that’s how things work when there are two hundred submissions to go through and only six spots to fill.

As for what an author can do to make the editor’s job easier, the obvious answer is “follow the guidelines,” but when it comes to getting one’s manuscript into the hands of the right people, I would have to say market research is key. Yes, it can be time consuming, but targeting submissions to presses that publish the kind of material one writes is infinitely more productive than simply blanket-submitting to every publisher in one’s chosen genre.

Martin: Working on anything currently? Anything coming out you'd like to share?

Myrrym: I do have some projects in the works for 2011, but I am not at liberty to discuss what they are just yet. I hope to be able to announce a few of them very soon. In terms of releases, some of my short stories were published earlier this year in various anthologies: Ante Mortem from Belfire Press, Best New Zombie Tales Vol. 2 from Books of the Dead Press, and the 2010 edition of Ladies and Gentlemen of Horror from Sonar 4. Two more short stories are due for release later this year – one in the Horrorology anthology from Library of Horror, and one in the April issue of Necrotic Tissue magazine.

Myrrym's website can keep you up to date on events and her latest fictional offerings. A big thank you to Myrrym for stopping by and letting us pick her brain.

Mary Shelley and Frankenstein

2011-02-07T23:26:00.003-05:00

Well, it's Women in Horror Recognition month, folks, so I thought I'd take a look at Mary Shelley, not just because Frankenstein is one of those masterpieces of literature that is often overlooked in favor the literature written by those of a gender with dangly parts, but because she was a fascinating woman and a rebel during her own time. More fascinating than what stance we take while we pee, however, is the various interpretations Frankenstein has yielded over the past 193 years since it was written in 1818.

For a very general outline of this story for those of you who have not read it, Frankenstein follows the story of the doctor Victor Frankenstein, who cobbles together a human from various parts of corpses, reanimating the flesh and creating a monster of a man. This monster figure, the Frankenstein monster, realizes his own hideousness and demands that Victor make him a bride; when Victor attempts to do so, he relents at the last moment and the Frankenstein monster proceeds to a killing spree, killing Victor's bride as punishment for the monster companion the doctor refused to make for Frankenstein himself.

In the years following her novel, there's been a lot of criticisms, and for those not in the know, Mary Shelley had a tumultuous, scandalous relationship with the poet Percy Shelley, who was married to his first wife while he ran off with the precocious 17 year old Mary Shelley. Mary Shelley had been the apple of her father's eye, from all accounts, and they shared "radical" views on social customs of the day. Mary and Percy together did not believe in exclusionary love, and Mary did not anticipate the fall-out of their decision -- that her father would spurn her and she would be become pregnant.

Against this backdrop, Ellen Moers posited that Mary's three, count 'em, three failed births, helped shape Frankenstein -- for even though Victor succeeded in giving "birth," he still failed as a parent, becoming an outlet for Mary Shelley's anxieties about her own parental roles. Other theories abound, that she was lacking in self-confidence, that she funneled her repressed desires, sexual or otherwise, into her writing because it was not appropriate to do so in her day to day life. In particular, the principle characters of Frankenstein are punished for their various crimes in a subtle way -- through the loss of all ties to family -- a punishment Mary experienced herself when her father turned his back on her in light of her romantic relationship with Percy. One may view these interpretations as they will.

One interpretation I have yet to see is this: A heavy motif in Frankenstein is that of marriage. The monster desires a bride, but is eternally denied the privilege of attaining one who will accept him as he is. Victor marries, only to have his wife killed by the monster he created. Only when Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley finally married did Mary's father open his arms to Mary once more -- how did it make Mary feel to know her only value to her father as a person was in if she married or not? That must be a devastating blow to one's ideas of self-worth and value. It should come as no surprise that she could relate to the monster -- as a social outcast pregnant with a married man's child, she must have been made to feel monstrous.

It's easy to see autobiographical portraits in these characters with Mary Shelley's own life, but I don't think I've heard of anyone suggesting that the relationship between Victor Frankenstein and the Frankenstein monster might have been an analogy to Mary's relationship with Percy; in which case, the viewpoint changes entirely. Remember that in real life, Percy was married to someone else (think of Victor with his bride), and they both believed in the concept of "free love" in theory -- yet Mary (Frankenstein monster) consistently found herself only with Percy despite the potential for other lovers. Bound to each other but eternally apart.

For those joining the e-book revolution, you can find Frankenstein here for free.

Snow Day and Anti-Christ Diaries

2011-01-27T16:31:00.005-05:00

Today, I was snowed in. Boredom is luxury I can no longer afford, as there are rewrites, copy edits, reviews, and writing to be done. Alas, the days of sledding are long behind me.

The picture above is my sloppy desk. Wrappers, empty cans, a mug of tea and a shitload of post-its. Most of them are ideas yet to be hammered into prose form, which I jot down so I don't forget them later.

Aside from wasting time taking pictures of my work station, I started the second part of Anti-Christ Diaries today, which takes us to a town outside of Chicago known as Justice, Illinois. Resurrection Cemetery can be found here, and will inspire the setting for a pivotal moment in the story as the protagonists are hunted among the tombstones. Incidentally, there's a classic urban legend in Justice among the Vanishing Hitchhiker ilk regarding a specter known as Resurrection Mary.

From today's efforts:

---

Falling.

My heel hit the ice. In the wet and the melting thaw and the steam rising from the road, I felt my feet go up from under me. I had been walking like a native brave for every eighteen years of my life, sneaking and creeping and stealthy. I had slipped past law enforcement and under fences and through barbed wire, but it was a second of my fascination -- overwhelmed by the rising sun over the snow, the frigid breath in my lungs and my warm chest and a sudden feeling of gratitude for the world and its beauty -- undid everything.

Journal Image #01072011

2011-01-24T06:21:00.003-05:00

Here's a bit of whimsy for you.

I used to paint in oils. Gave it up to write. One day, I may return to it. For now, I doodle now and again when I get the urge. This is crap, but I can really pound out a nice photo-realistic rendering in graphite. Alas, those days are gone and I sold my soul to the graphic design industry. I toy with the idea of writing a story to represent each card in the tarot, and then update the archetypal image for a modern age equivalent . . . and I could ramble all day, so enjoy this little peek at my interior world. :P

McBlog Mentality

2011-01-24T05:52:00.004-05:00

I read a lot of blogs; not just the ones I follow, but anything. Being poor, I'm not wasting all my hard earned food stamps on retail books, so blogs and the occasional thrift shop book are about it.

There's no universal for how a blog is defined, or how to approach it, but there's plenty of people out there who would love for you to do it all the same: Don't wander! No digressions! Pick a topic, stick to it! Dispense helpful advice and don't talk about your personal life! This isn't a whiny dumping ground for your fan fic or your sex life (which for some, is arguably one and the same). If you talk about touchy subjects, editors and agents and the publishing community will descend upon you with great vengeance and furious anger (said in the manner of Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction).

What makes blogs exciting and vital is that they do not conform to rules. If you're into marketing and pleasing everybody, you have the option of making your blog as vanilla as they come. But telling everybody what they should be doing with their blog? That's just silly. It's as though we've become so brainwashed as a people that unless our blog reflects a uniform, McBlog, corporate branding standard in which we maintain a vague blandness in an effort to appeal to all but offend none, we don't know how to categorize it or what to do with it.

Screw it, folks. I turn to blogs to find authenticity, and to give it back in return. My favorite blogs are the ones that get down and dirty, that show the disparity between the illusion of our perfect world and the reality of how hard, how human, how long-suffering this existence can be, and they do it with digressions, with tangents and random thoughts and observations. They can do it in one page or twenty, they can make it up or be totally honest. And I will still read them, and you won't lose me because I'll read it anyway, to chart the arc of your personal story.

So, fuck the rules, bloggers. Be you. I really wouldn't have it any other way. You'll offend someone, most certainly -- my advice? Enjoy your work. Your life may be many things, a business, a joyride, a horror show, but please, don't run it like a corporation.

In Which I Invade Second Life

2011-01-19T14:49:00.007-05:00

Yep, you heard it here first; I'm in Second Life, totally fucking up the place and without a single clue as to what I'm doing. I just signed up today and I'm a proverbial bull in the china shop, learning the interface fresh. I'm excited to be picking up quite a bit of it relatively quick, and I'd been waiting for them to finish their betas and come out with the newer version which allows the users to choose their own name. Marketing purposes go without saying, as anything you do with an internet connection involved can be whored out at will, but privately, I just hate the real world, and I would easily and with very little persuading become one of those freakish people molded to an office chair half-living real life ala Surrogates.

The real charm of Second Life, among all these things, is the promise of a new digital world unfolding; what really strums my strings, though, is how the Second Life space can be utilized. The thought of the possibility of a horror convention in such a setting leaves me dizzy as a school girl. Aside from the cost cutting factor, it would allow more people to be involved with each other, in ways that would not be prohibited by budgetary needs.

Obviously, the horror community is not entirely ready for this; but with self-publishing becoming such a large force, more and more writers are developing graphic design skills to augment their self-publishing ventures, teaching themselves (and usually very poorly, in most cases) how to work PhotoShop. Until the prices of such Adobe programs become more affordable and until the industry knowledge becomes more readily available, I think this will take time, but in the end, I think it's clear that people are learning these different program interfaces faster and with greater ease. This can only be a boon in the coming years because I look forward to digital releases whose covers don't look like smeared shit -- but I digress. And frankly, most of them are fine -- it's the few rotten eggs stinking up the joint that compel me to vomit all over the screen.

Second Life has already had interviews conducted online with such personages as Kurt Vonnegut and Dean Koontz. Vonnegut, in particular, strikes a note with me because of his graphics background.

I see this as the place where the future is headed, and I'm not sure if I should be upset that it probably won't be in full swing until I'm about 50, or if I should be delighted that I stand on the beginning upswing of amazing trends and if myself and my fellow horror colleagues are smart enough to align our interests we could trail blaze with an awesomeness of Renaissance proportions. And yes, I really believe that. History is being made out of the current economic crisis, and I couldn't be more excited or passionate about it.

Beginning today, I'm going to be active in Second Life. At 8:00 Eastern time I'll be there, screwing up things as I learn how to get around, every Saturday night starting February 5. That's right, it's as you've suspected, I have no life. I'll use the usual social media orifices for announcing when I'm in-world, and anyone interested can bump into me there, where anyone should be able to look me up under Martin Rose.

The Church by John McCuaig Book Review

2011-01-16T14:42:00.004-05:00

Full disclosure: I've been in an anthology put out by Library of the Living Dead Press, and I'll be featured in a few more upcoming ones as well. Take it as you will. Conflicts of interest out of the way, continue on to the book review . . .

The Church by John McCuaig is put out by the Library of the Living Dead Press, publisher of many things zombie and macabre. Mostly zombie. The book is available through Amazon.

Meet Sam Miller, husband and proud father, whose world slowly disintegrates as the Berlin virus proceeds to decimate the international population, taking from him his wife and his children, and with it, all the luxuries our civilized world affords -- electricity, authority, medical services, and a steady food source. Wandering in despair, he reaches the church, and takes residence there with several survivors and the mentally unbalanced, fundamentalist Reverend McKay.

One of the keynotes of this novel is that the plot is swiftly moving and fresh; the action is never boring as we follow Sam, the quintessential, mild-mannered Every Guy, through his daily existence under the oppressive and increasingly violent auspices of Reverend McKay. Questions of how civilization falls apart and then attempts to rebuild in a real-world apocalyptic setting are examined here as the church is met with challenges from the outside -- flesh eating zombies risen from the dead are the least of their problems as they must contend with new factions of survivors whose religious ideologies do not align with Reverend McKay's Old Testament sense of justice.

The Church reads very much like a diary, as it is told from first person point-of-view; this lends it a Donner Party type feel as each chapter takes us from one event to another. The voice throughout is consistent, and McCuaig weaves interesting character subplots within the action. Caveats I have regarding this work: I would have liked to see greater character depth in the main protagonists, but this is largely a plot-driven work, so that may not matter so much to some. Every body has a liking for a different flavor of fiction, and this is meant to appeal to zombie-apocalypse aficionados. I can only assume that, as I've been given a copy to review, that typos and grammatical errors within have hopefully been worked out. All in all, this one didn't make my Saturday night, but others may feel differently.

Pimpage Update and Wichita, KS

2011-01-12T10:47:00.005-05:00

I just got a line from the publisher, Modernist Press, for the forthcoming Art From Art anthology which will feature my speculative short "Scanner Days, Starry Nights," an homage to the excellent Vincent Van Gogh. My mother raised me on his artwork and the Impressionists; this had particular meaning for me. This antho has been quite awhile in the making, since I first was accepted for it back in '09. Here we are, 2011, and closing in on the street date, which is tentatively March of this year. This is designed to be a coffee table book, with accompanying artwork for each story. I'm curious to know what the designer come up with in conjunction with Van Gogh's masterpiece for Scanner Days, so there's definitely a feeling of excitement in the air.

In the meantime, I'm trying to keep my head down and write like hell; mostly because I'm convinced there's been a conspiracy amongst various publishers to short-list me in unison. The events have struck me as so odd it's comical, so I'm just trying to ignore it and stay inside my cave. On top of that, I got word from a couple entities for manuscript requests, once again, simultaneously -- what are the odds? It's like running a store and having a crowd of people show up, demanding to browse through your items. There's no obligation to buy, so I just stay behind the counter and STFU. Life gets weird.

Enter Anti-Christ Diaries.

Today, highway 400 east takes you all the way to Wichita, Kansas. In my effort to research the area beyond what a bland Wikpedia entry can give me, I found this helpful video which takes us on a joyride along McLean Blvd through Wichita. There is something uniquely American about this country, and the many shapes and forms our land and cities exist in . . .

Anti-Christ Diaries: Status

2011-01-08T23:26:00.002-05:00

Where are we today, Anti-Christ Diaries?

Highway 400. Dodge City, and God is coming for a man and girl. And by that, I mean, the angry, jealous God that makes the Old Testament so much fun to read.

Glass explodes, peppers her hands, her face, her eyes as her body is propelled with force against the seat belt, fabric pressing into her chest. Her breath explodes from her mouth in a silent scream that spins with the force of the turning car, which spirals out and away from the main drag and into the cow pasture beyond. Bovines sleep on their feet while the Lincoln Towncar flies like a tiddly-wink into the soil and the dirt. From inside the cabin, petals and flowers and roses fly in every direction in concert with broken glass. The driver is thrown into the side window by the centrifugal force of the spin, splitting his skull and shattering the glass. Blood flies in circles. The gyrating wheels cut great swaths of muddy grass in their wake, and the cows remain sleeping, unbothered by the carnage in their midst as the car rocks to a stop.

The Anti-Christ Diaries: Notes On A Work In Progress

2011-01-05T10:23:00.004-05:00

Largely for my own navel-gazing pleasure, I'm going to make notes to myself regarding the work I'm engaged in. This story is a big 'un, and I hope it will extend to three books, each told from a separate point of view. I wanted to take the tired cliches that infuse apocalyptic, God and the Devil type stories and turn them on their head, so welcome to notes on the Anti-Christ Diaries.

Yesterday, I traveled with my flawed characters to the Glass Mountains of Oklahoma, where a father tries to kill his daughter on the empty stretch of highway 412. Today, I put 2,000 words in, and the journey progressed to Cimarron National Grasslands of Kansas and from there down highway 56 to Dodge City, once a city renown for lawlessness, a gateway city for the Wild West.

I wanted to write something that put to use the fear of my nomadic childhood, the looming threat of being hunted, and having a parent of questionable sanity in control of your life. And then whip some scary shit on your ass. But what I'm really enjoying is examining these cities and byways that define America, many which I've traveled on and through, many I have not.

And I hope, as a celebratory event for the completion of this work, that I might be able to make the same road trip my characters to make. I'm using Google Earth and maps to guide me on my characters journey, using footage from YouTube as well to augment my research and capture the look and feel of each place as I attempt to evoke it in the writing. While the plot is mapped out, I have no idea where I'll take my characters next, to the research for setting is done simultaneous to the writing -- served up fresh, if you will. And it's apparent the places and highways are becoming characters in their own right, even if they are in the background. So I'll close this out with a small taste of the WIP:

He pulls out the revolver, and the nickel brushed finish shines in the brilliant morning light, blinding. His hand does not shake, but his breathing increases in time with his heart and the pulse of his blood, and he aims the gun at the back of her head. From this distance, he calculates the spray, the explosion, the mess she would make over the black grit pavement of highway 412; would she look like the roadkill that gets caught beneath the sixteen wheelers and dragged down ten miles worth of road? It happens, sometimes, mostly rabbits and sometimes coyotes. It is easier if he thinks of her like a coyote.

Dark Days

2011-01-04T20:07:00.003-05:00

These are dark days -- literally. Today there was a solar eclipse visible in parts of the world, the economy, well, don't get me started there; cutbacks at my current employment, and not much hope in sight. And the days themselves are gray and dark, short and fleeting. We are in the heart of winter, and the heart of winter makes itself known -- bitterly.

Perhaps this mood is infectious, for I've noticed a trend in the blogs, the tweets, the facebook fellowship and the social media that connects this strange community of horror writers -- there's quite a few who are bowed and bent beneath the steady tide of rejection that, for ill or good, for good writers or bad, affects us all.

This is where I dovetail to my day-job. For the most part, I don't like to discuss that part of my life, because while my oblivious co-workers may be wholly unaware of what I laughingly refer to as my super-hero alter-life, one day, they're going to find out. Secrets have life spans, and eventually, they all come out. They'll go hunting through my blog posts, perhaps even find this line with a cry of triumph, and read about themselves. Indeed, the embarrassment of the discovery may only increase with the size of my success. (Presuming there will be any success to be had.)

It took me a long time to understand why, though I work with colleagues who have shown themselves to lack the barest shred of integrity, self-worth, respect, courage, compassion, empathy, and heroism by turns, I cannot find it in me, no matter their transgressions, to hate them.

I pity them. I pity them far too much to ever hate them.

My life may play out like a Supernatural episode, and as bad as that is, I pity them for their failure to know -- know this desire to write, the satisfaction of completing a piece you can believe in, even the rejections in all their dirty glory are stones up this jagged mountain. I may not make it to the top, but the view from on high nourishes my tired heart; I look at the ones starving below and I pity, pity, pity them. For being so impoverished in their souls, that never once do they look up. Indeed, that alone has aided in keeping my writings secret from my co-workers -- their apathy is total. In turn, I keep my head down and play my part -- as though I do not notice them either, but the opposite is true. I notice their lives, their conversations, I piece their secrets, intentions and interactions together like a detective in a dime novel.

All this reminds me to be grateful for what I have that can never be bought and sold or taken away -- qualities brutalized, burned, and redefined to make the character I am, but not only myself -- all of you as well. And some of you are muddy and dishonest and desperate and overreaching, and some of you are humble and hopeful and optimistic and genuine, and for you all I wish I could give away a fraction of all I have known and earned and feel gratitude for.

You are more fortunate by far than many. May you all be lucky enough to feel it. You made it to the mountain; you won't be left behind on the bottom to wonder what the wind on your face feels like when you reach it. I work beside them every day, and bit by bit, everything is being stripped from them -- their chance to earning a living, the money they used to have, their health care, their dignity and sense of self-worth, everything is being taken away. And perhaps I am not so different, that I should pity them so, but I have this thing burning inside me, these secret words and writings. They are my armor, my ember in the horn.

Do not sell yourselves short, friends, in these dark days -- your value is greater than you know.

Tools of the Trade

2011-01-01T09:42:00.001-05:00

I'm referring to the hardware, everyone. That's right, mechanics. Machinery, moving parts.

Perhaps no one so lovingly details the love/hate relationship with the physical tools of the trade than Stephen King in Misery, in which we follow our flawed hero, Paul, as he attempts to bang out a novel for his arch-nemesis, the dirtiest bird of all, Annie Wilkes. And what does he do it on? A 50 lb Royal, which has a penchant for throwing some of the most oft-used letters in the alphabet.

While I was younger, I consumed a lot of Ray Bradbury books, and one of the things I recall reading either in one of his introductions or in an interview was that Ray Bradbury was too poor to have his own typewriter -- he paid the local library for the privilege of using theirs, typing out his stories there before he sent them off. Tell me, how many of you think you have the ability to type out an error free manuscript on an old ink ribbon?

The truth is, I pray to writers living and dead the way Catholics pray to saints and my mother prays to angels. I often thought of Ray Bradbury when I too, found myself at the local library; in my case, I had no internet connection of my own, back in '08, so I used the library's to send out my first tentative offerings into the world.

Well do I know the frustration of such writerly mechanics, however -- I got a word processor when I was 12, which was really just a fancy typewriter with a thin sliver of screen about as big as a flash drive. It was capable of remembering about 10,000 words, after which you were SOL, and even at 12 I broke the barrier, so everything got printed out on this old ink ribbon. Onion skin paper and everything. I came across two of these old biddies at a thrift shop last week, and had nice moment chortling to myself at the medievalness of it all.

All this brings me to Harlan Ellison, who is selling off his Remington typewriter for $40,000. I encourage you to read the interview here, as Harlan Ellison remains one of my all time favorites, not because I've extensively read his work, but because he's just a bad ass. The reason? He bites with words, my friends. He has some very interesting observations on our modern world, and I'm sorry the man is sick -- he paints a grim portrait of the world we live in, and I'm also sorry he feels that way.

Enjoy the New Year, folks, and hop on over to www.MartinRoseHorror.com if you'd like to see the new look, or not.

Anyone here have story to share about the tools of their trade?

Update: Fear of the Dark Anthology, 2011

2010-12-26T21:04:00.001-05:00

I got a line from the wonderful editor, Maria Grazia Cavicchioli over at HorrorBound Publications. She recently posted the contributor list for Fear of the Dark anthology, and I was little taken aback. There's a lot of names I recognize, some whose blogs I read regularly.

After submitting and going round the story carousel after awhile, you get to be familiar with the horror community, and you even get a sense of where you "fit" in the strata. Who talks to who, who's buddies with who, who collaborates with who, that sort of thing. There are odd bits of clubs and cliques which are ever shifting, some exclusive and some not. Some are forum haunts and lurkers and regular members.

For my part, I've always felt alienated from most groups -- part of that is just the way I've always been, so I enjoy the horror community the way a friendly ghost might enjoy spending time with a family in a haunted house. Aloof, in the background, but liking the people, and occasionally moving the furniture or the car keys while no one's looking. Some of the horror community might meet up at conventions, through interviews, but I'm reclusive in nature, so I knew at the outset close friendships were probably not going to be in it for me. From the outside in, all these people interact so easily with each other, so it seems -- myself, not so much.

Thankfully, I've been proven wrong -- I've made friends here, and I enjoy the opportunity to read others lives as they post them, on blogs, forums, or social networking sites. And in the process, there are opportunities to read the work of others, to admire from afar and appreciate the use of language in new and exciting ways.

So I'm excited too, to be featured in Fear of the Dark anthology, and the cast of contributors can be viewed here. My offering will be a humble little tale called "Dark Horse." Let's hope it is one, eh?

Ring In, Ring Out - 2010 In Review

2010-12-25T23:30:00.000-05:00

In 2008, I really threw myself into writing again, but I didn't pick up steam until 2009, when my work really started to see serious print. Breaking down 2009, I came out with about 22 submissions and a handful of acceptances, some of which saw the light of day and others that didn't.

I met several professional goals for 2010:

-Wrote a novel.
-Qualified for affiliate membership within the HWA.
-Registered myself as a business.

In this same year I bought a house, on top of all this. I've lost count of how many moves I've been involved in all across this nation. This is the last time I intend to move -- I wish to die here, and rest my weary bones in one place forever. I also took a handgun course, which I felt benefited my understanding of how my characters should approach firearms.

In 2009, 22 submissions. 12 new stories created. 5 acceptances.

For 2010, drum roll, please . . . .
64 submissions. 15 new stories created. 6 acceptances.
These statistics do not include novel queries, reprints, or short listings.

I changed the way I approached submissions this year. Once a story had been produced, I sent it to the highest-paying, punishing markets I could. I've learned to approach rejections in a new light, and this is probably the most important success of all -- these stories aren't rejections.

The impact they have lasts long after rejection -- it's about name recognition. Editors all across the country, big and small, might be turning my pages over and saying "Not for us," but if I've done my job right, they'll remember me. They'll remember my name, and it hits a subconscious nerve. I decided that if I submitted hard and heavy, as often as possible, my goal was not necessarily to publish -- I'm making editors my first readership.

Publishing is not the end goal. Readership is. If an author can get an editor to read their story from start to finish, that's impressive, because some of these editors are getting hundreds of submissions in a single day, much less a submission period. If you really think they're taking the time to read your baby from start to finish, think again -- they're most likely not. Why do I think they're reading mine? Simple: they're making it through the slush piles before rejection. As a general rule, I don't include my shortlistings in my statistics. But this year, they were substantial. Dare I say, irritatingly substantial.

I was born under the sign of Taurus; and if you know anything about bulls, we are persistent to a fault. So I lower the horns and charge again, and I'll do it as many times as I have to. I'm taking a breather at the moment to make an outline for the next novel I'm going to write, and gear up for the next round of submissions.

All this persistence, does have a toll.

I've had to give up drinking coffee. Turns out, my heart is having some trouble; atrial flutters. I've had them for the past several years now, thinking they were heart murmurs. Switching to tea has improved the problem, but there's definitely a fear that I've used up more lives than I have -- too much trauma sustained in too short a period of time, too many accidents, too many moves, too many burdens at too young of an age.

Complicating the problem is the upcoming ten year anniversary of my step-father's death. In the next ten years, I will be older than he was when he died; his death coincided with the day before my 22nd birthday, hence, my refusal to celebrate my birthday, or to post it publicly. I lie about the date constantly, giving a false one. And I can't say why I feel so talkative about the subject, when I've been silent for so long, except that I fear holding it inside me for a decade is what's killing my heart. He knew how much I wanted to be a writer, and he died before I ever reached that point.

I find myself attempting to reach catharsis through any medium available, through my own stories, through others. Sometimes, I find it, and I come away shaking with the violence of so much feeling. I'm such a fucking fake, because I write about it and I call it fiction. It's not fiction. Not when you get right down to it.

This blog started out with a different direction; sorry to digress. This ten year anniversary is weighing on me, and 2011 is the year that marks it. All I know is that writing helps, talking about it helps. So I'm kicking off the New Year with a finished novel, polished and ready to go. I'm hoping Bring Me Flesh, I'll Bring Hell will find a home in the horror industry.

Fittingly enough, I purposely delved into Bring Me Flesh by evoking my deceased, would-be father figure, and the story centers on a son who is not a son, a father who is not a father, and they both pretend that one is the other, for just a little while. Once I realized that I was writing about my step-father, and worse yet, I had written myself into the decayed, corrupted main character, I had to walk away for a bit. I had to reassess the person I thought I was. And maybe it was time to bury the corpse for good.

For anyone who's curious, Bring Me Flesh, I'll Bring Hell centers around the same character I wrote in "Dead Man's Kiss," that Library of the Living Dead put out in their Through the Eyes of the Undead anthology. I had such a ripping good time writing him, his voice wouldn't stop, and 65,000 words later, I had a novel on my hands. Meet Vitus Adamson. Apparently, he's me.

Kick some ass in 2011, kids. I know I intend to.

Xmas For The Dysfunxional

2010-12-19T11:00:00.000-05:00

Christmas is not really my thing; not the holiday I truly anticipate with excitement and cheer. That would be Halloween.

Christmas tends to have an over-emphasis on good times and family bonding, to the point where it feels like an overcompensation for what most of American families lack . . . y'know, complete families. There's seems to be a near religious adherence to a Normal Rockwell way of life, but the truth remains that most of us do not have these close-knit, nuclear families. Some of us have families of drunks, of addicts, of criminals and con-artists, of crazy people and pedophiles. You didn't really think people in prison don't have families who pull up an empty chair for them, did you?

There's a fascinating component to this commercialized, plastic American life that desires to shuffle the ugly, the gritty facets of ourselves under the nearest carpet. If our lives were so picture perfect, police would never work on Christmas, or Christmas Eve, for that matter, and there would be no soldiers overseas who must satisfy themselves with memories of a home hearth fire. This is the reality. Some of us don't get to go home. Some of us never have a home. And it's not a charity, it's not a toy drive, it's the way our lives play out, the uneven handling of destiny's tarot cards. Some of us get dealt. We don't get grand feasts surrounded by people with our best interests at heart, and most of the time, the people with our best interests are not our family.

This does not depress me.

What depresses me is the insistence on a "Happy Holiday" leaving no room for any alternative version of life. Worse than a broken home is the denial that a broken home exists at all.

To this end, I intend to stop this over-romantic sappy idolization of the holiday and celebrate with the appropriate amount of black humor, grit, and alcohol. So pour yourself some nasty-ass egg nog, and watch some of these movies to get you in the Christmas spirit.

Also, you might consider joining a SantaCon, if there's one near your area. If you haven't heard of SantaCon, well, there's different versions of what it's supposed to be, ranging anywhere from a goodwill interpretation of Santa, to a mob of Bad Santas. You can read all about it on Wikipedia, which goes into the details of this strange event: “Sometimes known as Naughty Santas, Cheapsuit Santas, Santarchy, Santapalooza, and Santa Rampage, SantaCon incorporates elements of a flash mob in the context of cheerful bawdy and harmless behavior, the singing of naughty Christmas carols, and the giving of small gifts to strangers.”

Bad Santa - if you don't have a relative like this in your family, you haven't lived. I particularly enjoy the drunken tiki-bar fight in the beginning. Oh, wait, I am that relative . . .

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - Christmas in California, making fun of every noir/crime trope along the way. And not a speck of snow to be had. What more could you ask for?

The Ice Harvest - While Kiss Kiss Bang Bang poked fun at the noir genre, this is the real deal, gritty and cold, with a femme fatale to boot. Pour a stiff one and don't sober up. For the noir fans who prefer to read, the movie is based on the book of the same name by Scott Phillips.

Just Friends - This is more in the romantic comedy vein, but what makes it enjoyable is a generational connection. For anyone who remembers the cheesy music of the early nineties, before executives started getting a little more clever about how they pitch boy bands, you'll really enjoy Ryan Reynolds' rendition of "I Swear." Any movie in which Santa catches fire in the genital region is up my alley. That, and it's set in Jersey.

Scrooged - There is a bit of schmaltz on this one, but what's appealing is Bill Murray's rendition of the classic Dicken's character. The horror element is very appealing as well, since most Christmas movies don't bother to examine the darker side of our human natures.

Elf - Will Ferrell makes this movie worth watching, as well as James Caan. While this is a family movie, and maybe it's got too much of a misty-eyed Christmas coating for some, I generally can over look the schmaltz to realize that this is a movie about a misfit, lost and looking for his family -- and the family he finds is far from perfect. It's hard to a find a film for the holidays that examines this plight that we generally find ourselves in at one time or another, that sense of alienation and outsiderness, but I feel it does it here well and in a very lighthearted way.

My sister and I make it a habit to watch and episode of Supernatural, A Very Supernatural Christmas, which takes the old CBS Very Special Presentation intro from the early '80s, which, if you're of my age group, you can really appreciate. We tend to identify with that particular broken family of the Winchesters, owing in large part to my nomadic/survivalist upbringing and the loss of a major parent figure, forcing us into similar roles that the Winchester brothers share. Thus, this might not strike a chord with everyone, but for anyone with an absent father figure, or if you've had to look after yourself and someone else at a very young age, this might be your flavor.

Other movies whose settings involve Christmas, but aren't about Christmas, are Lethal Weapon and the first 2 Die Hard movies. There are also some campy horror movies, but I think I fell asleep during Jack Frost, so I can't comment on it, along with Silent Night, Deadly Night.

Unless anything earth-shattering occurs, this will likely be the last post of the year. Be safe this Christmas, don't kill yourself over stupid shit that happened years ago, or serious shit that happened years ago, and even if it's just a party of one, celebrate. Wherever you end up, it doesn't need to have a Christmas tree, or a menorah, or whatever faith you happen to follow, and it doesn't even need to have people. And remember, it's 316 days 'til the best holiday of the year: Halloween.

Peace, ya'll.

Round Raven: Feedback on A Potential New Project

2010-12-09T20:23:00.000-05:00

I've been tossing around an idea for a long time now; when I was younger, I used to play Round Robin. Now, for the uninitiated, Round Robin involves someone tossing out a situation, a snippet of a story, if you will, and all the people involved take turns building a story, piece by piece, off of it.

One of the more depressing aspects of writing with the intent to publish, is how the intention often changes the writers themselves -- suddenly, all their energy is bent to success, and as a result, a lot of people lose track of why they bothered writing in the first place. It becomes more about succeeding than about doing what you love. One of things I always appreciated about Round Robin sessions was how primal the intent was -- purely to story tell for the sake of entertainment, and in some cases, merely to outdo the skills of another.

The beauty of so many social networking sites and blogs is that it could open up the door to revolutionize that childhood game. Thus, I've been chewing over the idea of Round Raven -- Round Robin, but for speculative fiction story-tellers. What's the gain? Absolutely nothing at all, but the self-satisfaction of participating and seeing what others have to say.

Awhile back, Ann and Jeff VanderMeer opened up the Thackery T. Lambshead book to flash submissions via their blog, and one of the things I enjoyed about it was being able to read everyone else's submissions. I imagine that others felt the same, but it occurred to me that, while a different idea, Round Raven could potentially do the same thing -- allow us small windows into each other's imaginings, widen our idea of what story can be, and in the process, be hugely entertaining.

Or maybe the idea just sucks. I felt airing the idea out here -- and perhaps I'll make the rounds on forums to ask for feedback -- would be a good way to find out if that fired anyone's interest. There could be a day of the week, 24 hours or maybe longer, in which an opening paragraph is submitted, and participants must think of 500 words or less or build off it. Once people begin submitting via the comments, they look to the last comment to build their new one, and soon, a narrative -- no matter how wild or incoherent -- begins to form.

So, if anybody would like to weigh in on what they think about that, I'd be curious to know your love letters, hate mail, or other assorted thoughts . . .

Fulton's Garden

2010-12-07T10:51:00.000-05:00

Fulton's Garden
by Martin Rose

BEGIN TRANSMISSION

From: GreekKorus
To: Isaac Covington, James Unger, Katherine Smythe, Jennifer Rennix, Adam Fulbright, Theresa Lavon, Kitty Hawke, Lenore Overland, Patrick Overland, Frank Fulton, Kevin Arnold, Etta Holmes, Dana Sheehan, Justin Mead, James Crenshaw, Lily Thompson

Anyone there? Anyone online?

From: GardenerFulton
To: GreekKorus

I am here. Is it over? I did not think there was anyone left. My name is Frank Fulton. I am the master gardener of the Overland estate, trapped inside a panic room.

From: GreekKorus
To: GardenerFulton

Are there any survivors with you, Frank?

From: GardenerFulton
To: GreekKorus

There are none. I am sorry to report it, but Patrick Overland is dead.

It was a terrible tragedy, so help me God. Please, I will soon perish here without help, but his death is not my doing.

The plague swept through the city, this much you know. Before this, there had been trouble at the Overland estate. Friction had sprung up between old man Overland and his young trophy wife, Lenore. She was a pretty young thing, and I suppose that was half the problem. How does an old man marry a slip of a girl, and expect she will be satisfied with a quiet life?

I know because I cut flowers for her every morning. She had a preference for peonies and roses. These are the sort of a things a gardener must know to please his employers. I served Mrs. Overland to the best of my abilities, but during the summer of '10, she disappeared.

There was a furor in the estate. Some believed she ran away, and that became the prevailing assumption -- she was so young, after all. All this soon died down, and was forgotten in the face of the plague raging in the neighboring town. People were scared, and blockades had been thrown up. I spoke to Mr. Overland directly, and he was unresponsive to my concerns.

I may not have a master's degree in psychology, as Mr. Overland does, but I am no fool; and I had known for the last year in his employment that he had a panic room.

As the plague began to make itself known, and the local authorities were not able to dispose of the mounting bodies fast enough to hide the presence of the pestilence, someone set fire to a house. The fireman were dead; no one responded. The conflagration raged right on into the next house, and the one after that, exploding gas lines and oil tanks.

I confronted Mr. Overland about the panic room, expecting that he would lead the way and we might sustain ourselves there until the danger had passed. Instead, he lost his mind, demanding to know what I knew of the panic room.

Mr. Overland was fevered, and his hands shook -- he had the plague. I suggested we take cover in the panic room, and he refused. Believing that he was out of his mind from the fever, I dragged him to the door, buried within an old root cellar.

When I attempted to gain entrance, he brandished a firearm. I had two choices -- stay and die, or close myself within the panic room, leaving Mr. Overland to his fate.

I chose the latter.

I expected Mr. Overland to succumb to the fever. He spent several hours at the door, begging to be let in, where was Lenore! He demanded to be let in to see his wife. His ramblings intensified, became delusional. At one point, he had convinced himself that Lenore was inside with me, and that we were carrying on an extramarital affair, talking about him behind his back. He begged to see her one last time, that he might have the honor of confronting her adultery. At the last, he barricaded the door on the other side, fastening it shut.

After a time, he became silent. When I thought he had perished, there was a gunshot; and then, nothing more.

From: GreekKorus
To: GardenerFulton

We are sorry to hear this news. Rest assured, you are not the only one carrying the heavy burden of plague victims upon you. Many became delusional toward the end, throwing away their personal safety to chase after self-created demons.

We have many more questions for you. We've begun to generate power to bring back parts of the grid. As you can see, we have servers up and running.

We will not lie to you, Mr. Fulton; this situation is grim. There are bodies in the streets, where they expired in their cars, walking on their way to work. In nine months since the plague ravaged our streets, we are few. We fear there will still be minor outbreaks of this super plague that has swept through the nation, claiming the majority.

The plague is not our greatest fear, however. We have survived the worst and are nothing, if not persistent. Our people are combing the streets for supplies to help see ourselves through the next winter.

But we did not bring the electric back up because we enjoy light, or because we miss our prime time television -- we're rather sick of reality, wouldn't you agree? No, Frank Fulton, we need your help.

We need seeds.

We have no seeds. Without the ability to grow our own food, all of our weaponry is useless. We cannot eat our bullets, they make a poor meal. Even our minor feat of electricity pales in comparison to the honest labor of a farmer's work. Our greatest cities have been reduced to nothing. No more grocery stores, fancy restaurants. Food is a problem that can only be remedied by the ability to replicate plants, whose fruit has the power to sustain us. Our canned goods are running out, and in a year's time, we face starvation.

Until we can secure our future with seeds, we are slowly dying. Mr. Fulton, please, tell us -- are you in possession of seeds?

Our future depends upon it.

From: GardenerFulton
To: GreekKorus

Seems you have struck lucky.

My military background has always put me in the survivalist mind set. So, as insurance, I kept what's called a 'seed bank.' Seed banks are set aside for emergency agriculture on an acre of land.

I made my own personal seed bank. Not only did I collect seeds from corn, tomatoes, peppers, squash, I maintained seeds for roses, zinnias, nasturtium, morning glory, foxglove, lavender -- so many more. I kept seeds from plants that I thought would be useful, and those whose only purpose is their beauty and amusement.

There is only one problem -- I must find it.

I believe Mr. Overland hid the seed bank inside the panic room. It was to him that I gave over the seed bank for safe-keeping, and have not seen it since.

I begin the search now, and will email you with my findings.

From: GreekKorus
To: GardenerFulton

Good luck! We all depend upon you now, Frank.

From: GardenerFulton
To: GreekKorus

I have not located the seed bank. I am starving. There were only a few canned goods hidden away behind a false plank in the panic room, and I am facing dire circumstances.

From: GreekKorus
To: GardenerFulton

We are making efforts to clear the city, and open the roads that lead to your town. We are heading an expedition to find you and escort you, with the seed bank, from the Overland panic room.

From: GardenerFulton
To: GreekKorus

I have torn this place apart from top to bottom. And there is nothing.

Where could the old man have put it?

From: GardenerFulton
To: GreekKorus

Dear God. I found her. I found Lenore.

From: GreekKorus
To: GardenerFulton

Another survivor, Frank?

From: GardenerFulton
To: GreekKorus

She's dead. She's been here in the back room all this time. The bastard knew. He had to have known. He was so desperate to make sure I didn't get in here.

I didn't know her very well. She liked her roses, and I cut the orange and the yellow ones for her. She was always so sad, and gorgeous in the way silent film screen stars are gorgeous, like moving statues. Beautiful, but quiet; she never looked happy.

I have to keep looking for the seed bank. But I need time to think. I'm so hungry, I'm trying to make what little food I have last. I don't know how to deal with this.

From: GreekKorus
To: GardenerFulton

Stay safe, Frank. The world is depending on you.

From: GardenerFulton
To: GreekKorus

I'm sorry it took so long to respond.

I've been trying to make plans to get rid of her body. I am overwhelmed with a sorrow I can't express. Alone with her body in this panic room, there is a growing sense of "otherness," a lingering presence that demands explanation. She appears to have died of starvation -- haunting reminder of a fate I too, might succumb to, and sooner than I think.

I find myself reminded of Iraq. Her prone body, her twisted shape -- was she in pain at the end?

I sat by her corpse a long time. I opened up a bottle of whiskey Overland stowed away, and poured some over her, as though she were a fallen comrade. Strong scotch poured over wrinkled, decaying skin. Her body didn't even smell anymore, proof that she has been in this vault since she went missing. It does not seem fair. I find it hard to care about the seed bank, which I still have not found, when Lenore Overland lays in an old storage room like discarded trash.

I pulled her out and put her on one of the spare cots, covered her with a sheet. I hope she finds peace. God help me, I hope I will.

From: GreekKorus
To: GardenerFulton

We're coming for you, Frank. Our people are clearing the roads, and there are strings of hostiles here and there, holding us up, but we are on our way. Hang in there, Frank. Don't give up.

From: GreekKorus
To: GardenerFulton

Are you there, Frank? We have not heard from you in two weeks.

From: GardenerFulton
To: GreekKorus

things have changed.

they are my children our children. you cannot have our children

From: GreekKorus
To: GardenerFulton

Are there more survivors, Frank? Have you found the seed bank?

Frank? Are you there?

From: GreekKorus
To: New FEMA; Reconstructed Red Cross; Emergency Minute Men; Acting President of the New Republic of the United States of America

We have penetrated the Overland Panic Room in the hopes of rescuing Mr. Frank Fulton and the seed bank therein. In his final hours he succumbed to a variety of hallucinations due to ketosis, extreme starvation. We cannot express our deep sorrow that we could not come in time. We feared the worst, knowing that Frank had been unable to locate the seed bank.

However, what greeted us at our arrival was unexpected.

We pried open the door of the panic room and were confronted with a jungle of plants. Vines stretched from floor to ceiling bearing gorgeous blossoms, tomato plants in full bloom, fragrant herbs of lavender and mint, struggling seedlings crowding out others for light. Astonished, we fell back before the onslaught of vegetation seeking to escape the room. Thick and lush, we were forced to regroup and reconsider our efforts.

Frank Fulton did not survive; his garden did. We are in the process of transplanting, beginning our great agricultural heritage -- one that defines our ability to succeed as a civilization. The ability to feed ourselves cannot be overrated. Weaponry alone is not enough. Frank Fulton can easily be credited with saving our lives, and what remains of our world. In remembrance, we will know this as Fulton's Garden.

From what we have been able to learn during the course of transplanting, all vegetation originates with the corpse of Lenore Overland. Her final letter illuminates the strange circumstances that has led to Fulton's Garden.

Husband,

By the time you read this, I will be dead.

What a sad, pathetic caricature of a love story we have become. I married you a year ago, but it feels like a hundred; and this panic room, a testament to the strength of our love, has become my tomb.

I hear Mr. Fulton on the ground level, moving about with his tools. Is he planting the rose beds this year, as spring moves in? The flowers bloom, with little thought to the drama going on in the ground beneath them.

Any shred of love I once had for you, Patrick Overland, is as dead as the dirt I find myself buried in. Bravo, Mr. Overland -- even a mausoleum could not be so cold, so impersonal, as a panic room when there is no panic, a locked vault with an occupant of one: your slowly dying wife.

How I wish Mr. Fulton would hear me through his roses, his violets, his ever-blooming sun flowers. As though my voice might channel through the roots, and spring from the petals, blossoms and thorns, pricking him, awaken him to my plight. I had thought to protect your sense of dignity and honor through a quiet divorce, and we could go our separate ways.

I did not intend to fall in love with Mr. Fulton. It is a flaw in myself, that I find such attraction to wounded men, and he is a man with many wounds. He will not talk about the war. What does it take a man to walk out from a desert and into our garden? How does one let go of a gun, to pick up the spade, the trowel -- to cut roses for my vases every morning?

Something in that gentle nature, twisted to such ends, entranced me, Mr. Overland. Can you hold it against me, that my heart beat faster in the moments he handed me my arrangements in the dewy morning, his eyes downcast, a mutter of acknowledgment, the terror of touch and kindness?

Mr. Overland, we married because we thought it was love; I was a child, and you, an older man. Well, I have seen the world now, Mr. Overland, and you are not it, you are not the center of it. For what it is worth, I have never betrayed you, or told Mr. Fulton how deeply I feel for him, never given a clue to my secret nature, my yearnings, the nights I paused before his door in the old servant's quarters, daring myself to knock.

How I wanted to confess all! And for love, for respect of my husband, I scattered the ashes of my desire, I tempered the burning; I have always been faithful to you. Now, Mr. Fulton putters in the garden above me, among the topiary and the bushes, laying down mulch for the season and turning over the beds. My death will be nothing compared to the death I suffer internally: I never told Mr. Fulton I loved him. And, now I never will.

I have been starving for weeks, after the canned supplies ran out. I have grown weak, and do not have much time left, as it is hard even to type this message on the computer you have left here on the back-up generator for emergencies.
The only thing I have left to eat now is the seed bank Mr. Fulton gathered. I pray there will be nourishment within. Hope springs eternal, husband.

Your faithful wife,

Mrs. Lenore Overland

END TRANSMISSION

How To Destroy A Plagiarist Antho -- In Email Format

2010-12-07T09:24:00.000-05:00

Seriously, folks, there is no such antho - the title is a parody/satire on David Boyer, recently exposed plagiarist, who sent out a submissions call for an anthology, (and I quote verbatim from his email invite) "Emails from the Wasteland, which will be stories written in the form of an EMAIL." His emphasis on the word "email" not mine.

Allow me to begin.

Back in August, I was contacted by the now infamous David Boyer; he put forth his anthology idea, inviting me to submit. Before I did anything else, I did what all smart writers do -- I researched him. At the time, however, nothing had yet come to light or broken on the forums about his misdeeds, such as the most notable ones, stealing from Lisa Morton and Ferrel Moore. Ferrel Moore's story "Electrocuting the Clowns" actually garnered Stoker recs, which HWA removed, and you can read all about it on there main site here.

Since I could find nothing damning on Mr. Boyer, and he appeared to have legit book out previously of collected interviews, I thought, why not? I took into account that no news did not necessarily mean good news -- I took the gamble knowing full well he could be thief. A few things that made me think so might surprise you -- his photo's facial hair, and his proclivity for all things Christian.

Don't get me wrong, I know a lot of great Christians, and I happen to love the theology, particularly as it pertains to horror -- however, the facial hair struck me as distinctly . . . oh, how to put this -- ex-convict? And when you're bending over backward to publicly proclaim your religion, it smells of the clink. For those of you who've never had loved ones in the prison culture, a lot of cons get religious while behind bars, for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of this blog.

However, you can find the results of my federal inmate search under David Boyer's name here, and take particular note of the convict whose age matches Boyer's exactly -- 50 years old. Might be him, might not be. Happy Birthday, Mr. Boyer, you just turned 51, but the inmate locator search engine won't reflect that until the year is up. It's the way they roll.

Long story short, I submitted a story entitled "Fulton's Garden," for this Email Antho. Later on down the line, I got a heads up via email from Boyer that "The folks at Pill Hill Press have sent me the contract, and I am signing it as we speak," and he would let me know more.

In the interim, news broke regarding his misdeeds, and on the heels of that, others stepped forward on various blogs and other media. You can get the basics at the Writer's Beware blog, which if you don't already read or follow, you should.

As soon as I heard, I pulled all my email transmissions and sent out an email to other authors he'd included in the last note he sent me. I had a few get back to me, and the next step was obvious -- I had to contact Pill Hill Press to find out what their involvement with David Boyer was. Writers had submitted work, and the work was circulating in the ether, in someone's hands. Had Boyer taken it to Pill Hill under one of his many aliases? I emailed the staff there directly to ascertain the situation.

Pill Hill told me that they had nothing to do with Mr. David Boyer.

So, I have a plagiarist claiming to have a business deal with a publishing company, and I have the company claiming to have nothing to do with him. The plot thickens! Mr. Boyer's submission call used to be up at his website (such as it was) before he took it down; now people, you can pretend like it disappeared and never existed, but I make a habit of printing out the submission calls I intend to submit to, and I have a print out copy of the text from that page, along with the date, time, URL it was accessed at. It looks like this:

And Boyer's submission call looks suspiciously like Pill Hill's submission call here.

What a coincidence! Now, I'm not given to gossip or speculation, so the viewer may draw what conclusions they like from the evidence provided. My first and primary concern for myself and everyone involved was to be assured that our work was not being published under David Boyer's name, and I was told by Pill Hill that they are not publishing anything by Mr. Boyer; however, I feel I cannot trust anything Mr. Boyer said in regards to Pill Hill, and quite frankly, I can't trust Pill Hill with anything they have to say about Mr. Boyer.

This leaves me in an odd position. You see, "Fulton's Garden" has not seen the light of day anywhere, and unless it's registered at the copyright office, I can't prove I actually wrote it if Mr. Boyer whores my story out somewhere else first. He may never do so -- but if you find out your neighbor is a thief with a rap sheet as long as your arm, do you really trust him to give back that snow blower he borrowed last winter? I don't think so.

A writer pointed out that there's really nothing to be done, because after all, I haven't been plagiarized yet; to some extent, this is true. However, there is always a choice.

So, friends, writers, countrymen . . . lend me your ears. I'm going to post "Fulton's Garden" immediately after this post, but David Boyer -- feel free to take it. I won't prosecute. Steal it to your hearts content. I want you to have my story. I want you to whore it out to the four corners of the earth. And each time you read it, (and I highly doubt you even read any of the things you steal), I want you to know that I know you better than anyone else in cyberspace. I know the squalor you live in. I know you're in your fifties, and you're missing some of your teeth, and if it weren't for the charity of your parents, you'd be homeless. You're staring down the twilight of your life with nothing to show for it. Dollars to donuts, you've got skip-tracers aplenty on your trail. I know the wretched world you live in, because somewhere not far from you, I've got a father in the same boat. But he's got a better excuse for his misbehavior -- he was a genius, and he was also a paranoid schizophrenic, and while he was a doctor, he saved lives.

"Fulton's Garden" is your gift, Mr. Boyer. Because I find it hard to hate a man I find so pathetic, and because I hope that if someone comes across an old, toothless schizophrenic raving about aliens, they treat him with a modicum of compassion. But I'm afraid a story is all I have to give you, Mr. Boyer. Abuse it to your heart's content. It is nothing for me to give you a fraction of my imagination. I am lucky in that it remains infinite, no matter how much I may parcel it out.

Anyone who wants to comment, feel free; I'll let everyone know ahead of time I will not censure them unless the content is offensive to potential readers (i.e., curse words, expletives, that sort of thing). I like to let it all hang out. That, and I will not respond to comments designed to draw me into argument or the like. I've stated the facts. Do with them what you will.

Industry News Update

2010-12-03T05:53:00.000-05:00

I get a newsletter from SF Scope to keep up with industry news, so if you haven't heard, you can read the real deal here, or read on; Horror Writer's Association has now opened up its ranks to a "Supporting Membership" category. Non-professionals in the field may now offer $45 for membership for the opportunity to join.

I don't particularly care who joins or doesn't join HWA; my purpose within the organization is largely in the hope of meeting like-minded people in the genre. However, I wonder if this isn't a larger sign of our dour economic times, and perhaps even a sign of decline in the horror genre itself.

The Psychology of Rejection

2010-12-03T05:22:00.001-05:00

I've been compiling statistics in anticipation of the year's end. I'm not a big fan of nitpicking submission details as I go, i.e., oh-looky-here-I've-been-shortlisted-512-times-but-with-nothing-to-show-for-it sort of details, which I find slightly painful; not because the statistics themselves are depressing. Counting depresses me.

Looking at the numbers, however, I realize why I struggle so hard and why it feels like a struggle in the first place, and I think it's important to recognize there is a psychology at play behind rejection.

It's in our human culture and our instinct, from the cradle to the grave, to adapt once we discover we are engaging in a mode of behavior that will prove harmful to us, socially or physically; thus, it is inherently unnatural for anyone to continue a creative process when the process is rejected time and again. I've reached the conclusion, then, that the more times you are rejected, the more your instincts steer you away from submitting at all, creating an atmosphere of fear around the act of submitting itself.

Ironically, I think there are a lot of parallels to abusive relationships, as well. The battered wife/husband who can't find the defining reason to just get out and leave the bastard; the child who has no choice but to listen to their parents degrade their basic self-worth with non-stop insults, and so on, and so forth. I am reminded of studies done with abused dogs, the end result being that even when abused dogs were offered a door out, they often preferred to stay with their brand of abuse than attempt to free themselves into an unknown world. What does it say about us?

This is not to suggest that any editor is "abusive" because they must reject a manuscript that doesn't fit their venue or is poorly written; not at all. When a writer creates an artistic effort, and invests a lot of their personal selves within it, the rejection is damning and will have a similar effect. If it didn't, no one would give up in the creative writing field, and there'd be a lot more competition.

There is also another element at play, and you usually see this behavior in connection with casinos and lotto tickets. I know a group of people who play the lottery religiously -- the lottery is their retirement plan, and they fail consistently, never making the connection that they will never win. At times, I think it's realistic to consider the same effect in the writing world. Are we all just hoping that story is the next lucky ticket, the one that will make all our dreams come true? I've worked in a casino, and I'm here to tell you, they make their money counting on each gambler believing the persistent lie that, just around the corner, within the next few seconds, if they're in the right time and the right place, they too, can be instant millionaires. It's a fact that your odds of being struck by lightning are significantly higher than winning the lottery.

Conversely, I am terrified of being struck by lightning; maybe because my life has been a collection of "that sort of thing happens to somebody else." Apparently, I was Somebody Else all along.

That was actually one of a few defining moments that got me back into writing -- let's just say I've had things happen that, similar to being struck by lightning, generally don't happen to most people. Ergo, if disaster can strike at any time, so too can fortune. Maybe that makes me the biggest fool walking gods green earth, but I still hunch myself a little deeper into my coat when the thunderheads roll in.

Some Industry News

2010-12-01T15:58:00.000-05:00

There's an excellent article over at Publisher's Weekly online site about the changes in how big publishers and authors are doing business, or in some cases, how they're doing very little business at all. I think great changes are coming, and we're about to see the dawn of the small press, ebook era, folks. I'm excited to be a part of the first generations that will have a taste of the potential the internet can bring us all... Read it here.

Writing Fail

2010-12-01T15:50:00.000-05:00

Power failure today. I was kicking ass and taking names, tripping the keys fantastic, if ya know what I mean. Ever get that word groove, where the world disappears and you don't even feel yourself tapping the keys, you're living in your story-world like a doped up a mental patient who doesn't even notice the tasteful suit he wears is actually a strait jacket, that's just how into it you are? Yeah, it's like that.

Than, boom, flash, fry. It's gone. Mother nature pulled the plug by knocking a pitch pine into a power line and that's enough of play time. Game over. Nor'Easter wins.

I powered up once power was restored. No dice. All those glorious thousand and one words, lost in virtual real estate that was sold out from under me before I could even get settled. Le sigh. Now's the hard part -- reconstructing a hundred words from memory. That, and buying a battery back-up system . . .

Generating Ideas, or Waiting For The Muse

2010-11-30T17:38:00.000-05:00

It's hard to imagine that a writer has hobbies -- isn't writing the main one? While some secretive writerly types might call it a hobby, the truth is, none of us, deep down inside, consider it a hobby. It doesn't matter if we can't sell our manuscripts even as recycling paper, or if we spend 40 hours a week flying planes or as brain surgeons. Even Ethan Hawke thought of his acting job as just a sideline until his writing career took off. This is, my friends, the hold the written word has on us all.

From time to time, however, one can suffer burn out, so we hermit types rouse ourselves from the blue glow of the computer screen, blowing dust from our shoulders with canned air, a trail of mice following the crumbs of pop-tarts deceased raining from the creases of our pants. Yes, time to switch gears, and do . . . something else.

What writers do in their spare time is often just another stepping stone to the eventual goal -- writing more. Myself, I languish amid other forms of media, waiting for the right mood to strike me so I can finish the last part of a novel, or start a new story. I find ideas a lot like I find clothes, and I can go anywhere from looking for the business formals to shopping at the discount rack for something more casual that expresses my inner feelings of I-Don't-Give-A-Shit-About-My-Day-Job.

I go from one dark room to another, one in which I spend all my time manufacturing dreams, to another where I want someone to spend several hours a day, dreaming for me. Because dreams can be exhausting when you do it every waking hour. Sometimes, you need a snooze. I take my snoozes on a futon, wallowing in movies or, even better, television series where I can be devoured for hours at a time. It serves as a false-sleep, which makes the experience especially relaxing since I don't dream much anyways.

What tends to kick-start my process is imagery; I like to look at beautiful things. In so doing, I collect these images, knock them around in my brain, and rearrange them. I pull images from everywhere, and somewhere along the way, they're put up against the storyboard images of my life, where a strange, alchemical transformation occurs. After sometime, I emerge with the genesis of an idea, and I can then transfer those moods, images, and feelings onto paper.

I understand Stephen King liked to take a leisurely walk for this sort of thing, as though he were snatching dreams from the Maine atmosphere itself. But I suspect many authors may find inspiration at their day jobs, or jobs they used to hold; some might go to movie theaters, or go out drinking. Others might include camping, geocaching, or more outdoors oriented endeavors. Perhaps those types might like to weigh in on how they generate ideas, or if they merely wait for their arrival.

All Pimped Out

2010-11-28T18:03:00.000-05:00

So Kevin Lucia's blog tour is coming to a close at the end of the month. For those following, you might want to keep in mind these following sites and what they're offering as part of the tour:

Guest Blog on Flames Rising
Guest Blog on Richard Wright's Website
Guest Blog at Jodi Lee's Website and Belfire Press

An interview at the Non Horror Reader Survey

Kevin Lucia's short story, As The Crow Flies at The Bag & The Crow

Go as you will, fellow travelers . . .

A Picture Worth A Thousand Volts

2010-11-27T08:01:00.000-05:00

Enjoy this picture, everyone, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. I've been meaning to put this up for awhile. This picture features Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla in the Tesla lab, whom you can spot looking on from the background. While Edison went to violent extremes to prove direct current was the way to go and bury Tesla's work, I think it's interesting to find he's experiencing an odd revival of sorts; his name comes up at odd moments in pop culture. Take, for instance, the 2006 film The Prestige. There, Tesla is portrayed by David Bowie.

Happy Thanksgiving, or Thanks-taking

2010-11-24T19:54:00.001-05:00

(This image is taken from the Wikimedia Commons, in case inquiring minds wish to know. Notice how there's three natives on the end, and the rest have been relegated to the kiddie table. Oh, the horrors!)

Time is a swift thing, my friends, and tomorrow many of us Americans gather round the family table and give thanks. In true American fashion, it's usually a guilty, bittersweet thanks, stained with the blood of our Native American brothers and sisters, but hey -- what's a family gathering without a little bloodshed? My first Irish ancestors did helluva job covering up that secret Cherokee bride arrangement, but sloppy record keeping reveals all in due time . . . to say nothing of my great-grandfather, who descended from the French-Canadian area of Algonquin speaking tribes.

And what is a Thanksgiving, really, but a gathering of a tribe? I would like to take the time to consider those families that don't fit into the Norman Rockwell image of what we imagine a normal Thanksgiving to be -- an overflowing table, with adults mashed in upon one another like, well, mashed potatoes. Ours is small. My father will be somewhere lost in the Midwest dodging those pesky aliens, perhaps; more distant relatives will remain distant, and with good reason -- and perhaps that's the greatest thanks I have to give, after all: That my table never be so crowded I can't take a more deserving person in.

Yanks, enjoy the holiday, and don't take anything too seriously.

In the meantime, the end of the year is fast approaching -- before we know it, we'll be opening holiday gifts and ringing in the New Year. All ye writers, have you accounted for yourselves in the meantime, made this the best year you could? I hope you have; and for all you NaNos out there, hang in there -- the nightmare is almost over just in time for National NaNo Hang Over month.

Kevin Lucia's Blog Tour

2010-11-20T11:33:00.001-05:00

For anyone who hasn't heard about Hiram Grange and Kevin Lucia's contribution to the Shroud supported series, the author has been doing what he's dubbed a "blog tour," providing us bloggers with material for review and, in an interesting quirk of fate, given me a chance to connect with other bloggers I would not have otherwise. He's been interviewing at some of those other sites, and so here's a breakdown of where he's making the rounds:

Interviews

Interview at Monster Librarian
Swamp Dweller Interview, Part One
Swamp Dweller Interview, Part Two

Reviews
Review at Monster Librarian
Tim Remp Review

Guest Blog
Guest Post at Apex Blog

So, if you've got an interest, in Hiram Grange or even just to take a look at all the different bloggers involved and how this strange, odd community interacts, peruse the links at your leisure . . .

NaNoWriMo . . .MoFo's!

2010-11-17T15:03:00.000-05:00

At the beginning of the month there was, dare I say it, a tsunami of pumped up would-be novelists chomping at the bit to prove their prose prowess . . . more than midway through November, not so much.

I think NaNoWriMo is great for the participants, it has merits. But I think it's time for participants to consider December as the NaNoWriMo Hang Over Month. So you wrote 50,000 words in 30 days, which is little like deciding you're going to sleep with 30 people in a month. During that time, you forgot to shower, eat, and do any kind of routine maintenance because you're hell-bent on reaching that goal. You drag yourself across the finish line . . . and then what?

Well, if you slept with 30 people in 30 days, go see a doctor. He won't want to see you either. If you wrote, than you're sitting on a stack of papers in dire need of an edit.

A really good interview with Joe R. Lansdale -- I think it might have been the Necrotic Tissue January 2010 issue interview -- details how he learned the hard way what a pain in the ass writing a whole novel and then editing it as an afterthought can be. Sure, you spent 30 days writing the thing, but you'll probably spend several years editing it to make it worth anyone's time. And for anyone who thinks I'm exaggerating, and it didn't take you that long -- you probably don't know how to edit. I ended up rewriting a manuscript no less than 10 times. And it's still not as good as I think I can make it.

The Lansdale method involves editing as you go. Set a goal for yourself -- if you write ten pages, stop and edit them while you write the next ten pages, and keep an even pace. Editing is best done when you've set some time aside to forget about what you've written, but this isn't always convenient, so instead, I immerse myself in a television series, or movies, to instill a temporary amnesia. I blew threw five seasons of Supernatural just to forget about the last thirty pages I'd written.

Beta readers are good; too bad I don't have any. I've been lucky enough to have a few offerings from people, but it's hard finding dedicated readers who really want to put the effort into reading your MS and give honest, worthwhile feedback. I tend not to like to ask friends, because I feel this is mixing too much of the personal with the business aspect of writing. Next thing you know, your friends are avoiding you and they don't want to hear about your damned writing "hobby." Their lights are out and they won't answer when you knock at the door. Sort of like my dad, who was truly indiscriminate, since he did this to everyone. Especially if you were an alien from outer space.

So I intend to make December NaNoWriMo Hang Over month; the month you wake up with underwear over your head, ancient word processor ribbon intertwined in your fingers, ink stains on your clothes, and FaceBook friends you have no recollection friending. That, and a very large manuscript in need of a year long edit.

Hiram Grange And the Chosen One Book Review

2010-11-09T20:42:00.001-05:00

Hiram Grange and the Chosen One by Kevin Lucia is book four in the Hiram Grange series, several novels penned by different authors and published by Shroud Magazine (also available via their website).

The series concept itself eerily echoes the film noir and Dashiell Hammett Sam Spade novels of generations ago, but with a modern twist: otherworld beings and places where they push through to our reality, what Hiram Grange himself calls "confluences." Noir appears to be making a come back these days, and it's no less appropriate here, where it can be wallowed in like a guilty pleasure -- sort of like Hiram himself.

While I have not acquainted myself with the previous books, I found I could follow the plot and delve into the characters without trouble, and the action begins non-stop from the flash-back sequences into Hiram's dubious past, up to present day Ireland where trouble is stirring afresh in a young art student's apartments; young Therese receives a medallion of unknown origin, bringing a maelstrom of monsters on its heels.

Enter Hiram Grange. A brooding, unattractive fellow with libertine desires for booze and women. While he's intended to be repulsive, like any true anti-hero, we connect with his dogged desire to do right despite his wrongs, and follow him on the journey. And, he likes absinthe -- how can I not like a fellow chaser of the green fairy?

Kevin Lucia strips down the narrative to deliver assaulting action, but is clever enough to inject humor within it as well, balancing the characters with humanity and allowing the dialogue to take over on Hiram's behalf when descriptions would have failed. Bloody Hell, after all, is a curse and a descriptive, and you'll meet with both literal and figurative in between the pages of Hiram Grange and the Chosen One.

Hiram Grange is worth the time, and keeps the reader entertained through to the end, a pleasurable change of pace from the detritus that tends to fill bookstores these days.

Also, the graphic elements are impressive, and Malcolm McClinton supplies the main illustrations, while the interior woodcut engravings are created by Danny Evarts, who also works for Shroud doing layouts. What can I say, as a graphic designer, I have a special love for the design work in Hiram Grange.

Kevin Lucia has been doing a blog tour recently, and you can read interviews with him at Jackie Gambor's site, and also at Ben Eads.

If anyone interested would like to sample what Hiram Grange has to offer, Kevin Lucia has been kind enough to provide chapters for viewing:

Buy Hiram Grange & The Chosen One

Hiram Grange Book Giveaway!

2010-11-06T21:00:00.000-04:00

Just a quick note.

Anyone looking to get involved in a book giveaway, Kevin Lucia, author of Hiram Grange and the Chosen One: The Scandalous Misadventures of Hiram Grange (Book #4), from Shroud Publishing. Available through GoodReads here. Anyone looking to just buy it can find it on Amazon.

There's an insightful interview with Kevin Lucia delving into how Hiram Grange came about from Greg Mitchell's blog, you can read the first part here, and the second part here.

Full disclosure: I do submit reviews to this guy. I encourage suspicion and general anarchy wherever I go, so if you ask me if it's in my benefit to rave about his work, well, you're damn right it is. For this reason, I set out to hold Hiram Grange to a higher standard, and go over it with a more critical eye. At the end of the day, though, all conflicts of interest aside -- it's a fun read. Maybe that's my personal bias -- I have a liking for ugly anti-heroes, that, well, remind me of myself. I'll be reviewing it this upcoming week.

Cooks Source Debacle

2010-11-06T20:52:00.000-04:00

Some of you may have heard, as the word travels through the blogosphere, about the Cooks Source Debacle. Some blogs I follow, like Aaron Polson and Pimp My Novel, have had things to say about this heinous example of what happens when too much responsibility is given to people who clearly have not earned their position in life based on the merits of hard work. That's not to say there are not hard-working people in important positions within their careers, but I get the impression there has been a major cultural shift in the last hundred years or so in which our society is starting to look a lot like Russia's before the Soviet Bloc fell in 1990-1991: a country rotting from within from too much cronyism, nepotism, and red tape.

Some might say I go too far with such an statement, but I'd like to know why so many have dropped the ball in making this astute observation. You can read all about in the offices of Vanity Fair, who like to hand out internships to inexperienced relatives rather than students who earned them with good grades and intelligence, in How To Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young. In my personal experience, I am one of the few people I know of in my department hired based on my resume. My employer pulled it out of a stack of papers when he hired me. While I'm sure I have other colleagues who were hired based on their know how, the list is small in comparison with those hired due to who they were related to, or who they were friends with. In Soviet Russia, one of the reasons given for why notorious serial killer Andrei Chikatilo was not fired from one of his jobs prior to his arrest, was because there was too much red tape involved; it was easier just to transfer him. Nowadays, nobody wants to fire their employees because business sees it as a loss to pay out unemployment, which, ironically, the employee themselves has already paid a large portion of during their time of work.

And what are people being told, as the secret to getting that fantastic, cushy job with all the benefits? Networking, of course! Which sounds suspiciously like getting a position based on someone you know, as opposed to the content of their character . . . did Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr have a speech about that? Ah, never mind, it must have been a dream.

Update & Guest Blog Elsewhere

2010-10-23T09:34:00.000-04:00

Quick update: I had the opportunity to guest blog over at one of SD Hintz's websites. He's behind Skullvines Press. You can get a chance to win a copy of Through the Eyes of the Undead put out by Library of the Living Dead Press that also features one of my stories, "Dead Man's Kiss." The guest blog is a good read because it's not entirely me -- I can't lie, Satan helped me with it.

On a related note, I'm about 25,000 words into a novel based on the main character from "Dead Man's Kiss." The short story flowed so well it was impossible not to pour Vitus's voice into a longer work. He wanted to tell a story, so I'm letting him and I think it will come to great effect in the long run.

So anyway, get your butts over there, make some noise and send a message for a chance to win; other than my obvious conflict of interest, I do think Robert Essig put together a stand-out collection of zombie stories in that anthology, and it's well worth the read.

Faith In Horror

2010-10-16T11:30:00.000-04:00

Today's blog post, I wanted to discuss a topic I felt was appropriate to our times: Faith in Horror. By this I mean the appearance Christian-Judeo mythology in horror.

Now, one can't do a post like this without discussing their personal outlook on matters of faith, so I'll lay it out there with the very large caveat: no one has to agree with me, or anything I say here. It's only a viewpoint.

I was raised by a mother who was raised Catholic, and while she rejected the faith in large part, she often burned 7 day candles to Saint Michael the archangel, and had a deep love for Joan of Arc. I have no religious leanings whatsoever, but I can't deny that these particular saints and angels have formed a background to my life. I identify with St. Michael in similar fashion to my father -- they're both distant, figureheads, with questionable motives, and my mother worshiped them both.

For myself? Not so much. My world doesn't operate on levels of faith. I am immersed with the task of survival. Faith is for the dead. And I'm not there yet. It's an Occam's Razor principle -- the simplest answer must be correct. And the simple answer to the question of faith is that I don't have the time to be worrying about it. I've got writing to do, and God will have to wait. (Arrogant, no? Ha ha. No less than Prometheus to steal fire, after all . . .)

What intrigues me is how often these Christian-Judeo mythologies are creeping into popular culture, perhaps more so in the aftermath of the turn of the millenia, often with a connection to an "apocalypse" because we've all been naughty. Take for instance, these examples in film and television:

Carnivale, HBO television series 2003-2005 that explores this myth against the backdrop of the 1930s Depression as a pervasive sense of "End Times"

Legion, a 2010 movie starring Paul Betany, Dennis Quaid and Charles S. Dutton. (This was utter crap, but enjoyable if you like watching grannies turn zombie and start eating people. Who knows, maybe the diner food wasn't up to par and eating people was plan B for granny.)

Supernatural, a television series still running from its start in 2005, which follows the story of the Winchester brothers as they begin hunting demons and then run into angels, which of course, all heralds the end of the world as we know it.

Book of Eli, another 2010 movie which follows Denzel Washington's character in the post-apocalyptic, on a mission to keep his most precious asset secret: a mysterious book he will allow no one to touch or look at.

Down the pike, expect to see the thus titled "Black Death" in the future. Apparently others have noticed this trend in culture, so you can read an article about it here.

There was a spate of similar movies prior to 2000, such as End of Days, Stigmata, and the Prophecy. And what's not to love about Christopher Walken? Except that maybe the Prophecy could have used more cowbell. But I digress.

You could chalk all this up to a public that feels the faint stirrings of unease that all is not right in our world. While publicly, nobody is discussing the slow death of the Cantrell oil field and what it might mean for a world that depends far too heavily on oil, or that we're over-populated, that we're using water and resources beyond our ability to sustain them no matter how "green" we strive to be, there's clearly an undercurrent of worry bleeding into the entertainment field. But take heart -- this is not the first time we've done this.

How short our memory is! In the days of 900 - 1100 AD we thought the world was ending then, too. Our concept of Hell as a fiery pit truly solidified then, since burning to death was a fate that many fell to, either as victims of non-stop raiding from the blue-eyed Vikings to the north, or as accused witches/Protestants/Catholics/Insert-Any-Religion-You-Like-Here. Without the conveniences we enjoy today, such as police force, centralized government, and access to penicillin, life was Hell on earth in the Dark Ages.

Talk about impending apocalypse. From the War on Terror, to Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami -- it must seem like the end times.

I think what makes this obscure genre accessible is simple: you don't have to be religious to have heard about Revelations, which is possibly the world's first, best-selling horror story. You've got dramatic action, enigmatic prophecies, and characters that could animate any pulp novel. Better yet, the warning signs of apocalypse reads like newspaper headlines -- poisoning of the lakes, rivers and ocean (BP oil spill, anyone?), earthquakes, scorched earth (California wildfires ringing a bell yet?), between all the natural disasters there's something in there for everyone, from any age.

The stage is set to tell an epic story that fires the imagination of a people in distress. And so the story is constantly updated and retold for our modern times. While there are many in the horror community who are tired of this story, it's interesting to note it does not appear to be dying out any time soon, but waxing even stronger than ever before.

Update

2010-10-03T08:29:00.001-04:00

Just a quick update, for y'all.

If you like reviews, you can read my latest posted over at Shroud Review Blog, for Lynsay Sands Born To Bite here.

Been busy reading for the first time in a long time -- I always read, but while I used to gobble huge fiction novels whole as a teen, I find myself reading a lot more nonfiction: economics, organic chemistry, gardening, travel. There's a wealth of knowledge to be discovered, and I think it enriches a writer, as what we pick up becomes useful later on. Now that I've returned to fiction, I'm horrified by the state of the industry. What's a critic to do? Hmmmm.

The writing front has been terrible for me lately, not because of rejections, though that in itself became interesting. Rejections are so passé, ha ha. No, that's business as usual in Martinland. Three stories short listed, and with little else to do in the interim but keep writing. So I do. And then I get another email out of the blue with an interesting proposition. I never like to talk about projects until a contract is being finalized, so mum's the word. Overall, life has been put on pause.

Interestingly, I received a rejection from Weird Tales, and I have to say, Ann VanderMeer is very sweet -- she apologized for holding the story for a long time. I've never had that happen, but I wasn't sure how to thank her for having said so, so I didn't respond. There's a short story on Weird Tales website called "All In" which was very cool, so anyone with a few minutes to kill should check it out.

All Art Is Quite Useless.

2010-09-14T20:57:00.000-04:00

All art is quite useless. - Oscar Wilde

I recently viewed Dorian Gray, about a year after initial release from September of 2009. (I'm a shut-in, so what's old is new again in my case.)

An interesting bit of fluff, but I thought the most clever thing the film did was make the character of Dorian Gray the spitting image of Oscar Wilde. For your viewing pleasure, compare the man and his character.

The movie took liberties, to be sure, and there are the purists; but expecting a book and a movie to be matched set is asking too much from either medium. They treaded new territory in interest of the story. Was it good? Well . . . don't press your luck. It was well enough to while away and lazy Tuesday afternoon watching it -- the acting was top rate, the sets were very well done.

They didn't need nearly the amount of CG that was used in the beginning in an attempt to evoke 1890 Britain -- shades of Sweeney Todd and the chimney sweeps from Mary Poppins come to mind. And, considering the opening sequence was a two-second trip experienced by the main character returning to his childhood home, it could have been cut completely and no one would have known the difference, sparing us all the glaring eyesore that over-used CG has become. Perhaps film makers will one day rediscover the ultimate CG experience, the human imagination! Picture that, if you will, while I create a CG rendering of this movie review.

However, they bravely delved into places the book always hinted at but dared not go. While it's tempting to take Dorian Gray as commentary on Wilde's relationship with his lover, Alfred Douglas, the novel was published in 1890, and he only met Alfred in 1891.

The suggestion that Oscar Wilde portrayed himself through the main character is tantalizingly hinted at in the film adaptation as the character wallows in a life of hedonism while his portrait visibly rots. In a strange moment of life and art merging, there is a scene in which Dorian is hiding his portrait behind a set of bars, further drawing the parallel between the character and his creator. Oscar Wilde was imprisoned during the last years of his life, intensifying the scene to the audience member who can grasp the significance.

Ironically, what is remembered of Oscar Wilde is his vibrant youthfulness, his epigrams and cutting wit -- not the penniless man living in exile, who dies miserably as a result from long term complications of a ruptured ear drum. In weird moment of self-fulfilling prophecy, it seems as though Wilde deferred payment for youthful happiness through a terrible existence later on in his life, since, in his own words, he "shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom."

News Update

2010-09-12T09:41:00.000-04:00

I have been busy, everyone!

A just few things to announce:

My short story "Tremble" is featured in issue #13 of Horror Bound Online, you might want to check it out here. There is also a contest centering on Nick Rose's art, I highly urge people to enter since you've got nothing to lose.

I got an opportunity to do reviews, and Shroud now has it posted on their blog, you can read it here. I hope to do more of these, since it gives me a opportunity to hone my talent and also, to motivate me to read a more. I am a notoriously bad reader -- I get bored very quickly. However, put a carrot in front of me somewhere down the line and I can be bribed into turning the pages.

Living and Dead

2010-09-03T22:36:00.000-04:00

Lately, I've been thinking a lot on people who've passed in and out of my life. Mostly the two men who applied for the position of "father figure" in my life. When writers talk about formative years, about their genesis, their childhood rears an ugly, multi-faceted head.

Part of this trip down memory lane was instigated by current events: A letter arrived from a detective agency, searching for my biological father. Now, detective agency sounds a lot more romantic and exciting than it is in real life, because modern day detectives are usually hired by lawyers to expose things like various forms of fraud, or hired by corporations to infiltrate their own work force and report back, or, more popularly in recent years, as skip tracers -- in other words, repo-men.

I do not know where my father is. He's hard a man to find because he has the gift of invisibility. He pulls a mean David Copperfield, but the biggest trick he ever pulled was making his family disappear. By piecing together various events from my past, I was able to draw a clear picture of what he was trying to do. I don't want to spend the whole blog talking about my fucked up childhood -- that would take a butt-load more blogs than one -- but basically, on the fringes of society, you have a sort of transient element who specifically attempt to "disappear" from the grid. They usually are in debt and want to disappear from their creditors, but in my father's case, he wanted to have his social security number rescinded, and escape the debt of being a tax payer. He fell into fringe, conspiracy groups. (If I ever dig up the cassette tape with his recollected interview with the FBI in a government building basement in the 80's, I'll post it.)

Now, if you know anything about mental illness, you'll know smart money is on schizophrenia and paranoid delusions, with sprinkles of narcissistic personality disorder on top.

The letter from the detective agency details they're seeking him for non-payment on a used vehicle. The letter was heartbreaking. My father is in debt to a lemon that could send him back into prison, presumably. He is nearing sixty, an old man. He had nothing to his name, and as an ex-convict, and I do not believe he has paid into the system enough to receive social security benefits (if ex-cons are allowed to receive them.) And so far, no one has been intelligent enough, except myself, to bring up the possibility that this man is suffering from schizophrenia.

My guess? He's living in the car he can't afford. I write horror, because this life is horrifying. And of course, the father figure I speak of today is the one that's alive. Tomorrow, I'll find the time to tell you a true story about the one that's six feet under.

In the meantime, I soldier on in the writing front. I've got projects on the burner, but most recently I've had the opportunity to featured in Horror Bound Online. "Tremble" is there, free to all, and as an extra cool coincidence, Nick Rose's artwork is also featured. This is the second time I've run into his work in collusion with my own, and I hope it keeps happening. They're running a contest based on his art, so check it out, there's a prize involved.

You Never Forget Your First

2010-08-21T10:57:00.000-04:00

"As things stand now, I am going to be a writer. I'm not sure that I'm going to be a good one or even a self-supporting one, but until the dark thumb of fate presses me to the dust and says 'you are nothing', I will be a writer."
— Hunter S. Thompson (Gonzo)

Whenever I am discouraged by rejection, there is a specific rejection I think of and look back to -- my first one.

When I was 14 years old, I sent out my first story to Deathrealm, back in 1994. Mark Rainey, I believe, was heading it up, and one god-sent associate editor Danielle D'Attilio wrote back to me. I'd written a story called "Queen Butterfly" which I've long since jettisoned. Unlike a lot of writers, I don't have the pack-rat gene -- I will burn reams of stories in the fire pit in my back yard with nothing but dry eyes all around.

Ah, 1994 -- golden year. The internet looked like some passing fad. Grunge was king, Kurt Cobain was a year dead, Mulder and Scully were still looking aimlessly for the truth, and I was writing my pants off. Convinced like every ego-maniac that I must be "special" and "talented" and anyone would surely recognize my inherent "genius", I taught myself how to write an official looking cover letter and with the aid of a copy of Writer's Market, sent out my story to Deathrealm.

The only thing "special" about me is that I did all this without any help. If my parents had been the sort whose advice I thought was reliable, I would have asked them for assistance, but it was clear to me even at 14 that my parents were self-absorbed, narcissistic lunatics, as evidenced by their general destitution and homelessness today. These were people who had trouble changing a roll of toilet paper effectively.

I received my first rejection by post, and Danielle D'Attilio gave me better advice than my parents ever could. She gave me the advice only a skilled professional in the field could give, putting my teachers and the institution of schooling to shame. In all my years at school, at college, this letter taught me more than their worthless classes. We do not learn to experience the world in books. We must do so in the arena of life. And this does not come without rejection, which is a requisite for future success.

With her kind permission, you can view them above. They can probably be better viewed via my FaceBook account. Her advice was solid and she knew what she was talking about. I was young and my story had a trillion problems only time and skill alone could fix. But she pointed me in the right direction, and I eventually learned more about grammar, and I learned to develop a thicker skin. I was in sore need of discipline and guidance, as I had none at home, and school was out of the question.
My English teachers were giving me detentions because I was trying to sneak into the library. (You know. So I could read books. Those rectangular objects filled with paper and type.) Apparently, schools aren't interested in education. They're interested in obedience.

Looking back, I know the world I inhabited as a teenager was an emotional, psychological, and intellectual wasteland. We create a world in which we strangle hopes and dreams while they're too young to know any better. I resisted at great cost to myself. I came within a breath of what I expect may have been expulsion, and all for the written word. They call me "Troublemaker" at work, and with good reason -- a troublemaker, a trickster, subverts the philosophy of deadened hopes and dreams. Laying down and taking it is easy. Rebellion is another animal.

Pretty deep, for a rejection, huh? But that's what it means for me.

A lot has changed since 1994. I got a lot more rejections, I took a ten year hiatus, I came back stronger, and now I've got acceptances. This job is always difficult, always hard, and you are always proving yourself and your skill to someone else. This is the letter that gives me impetus to keep at it.

The Marketing Game, with Digression

2010-08-08T10:28:00.000-04:00

Writing is a carefree act when taken considered by itself. You wake up, dreams still clinging, you make coffee, you sit in front of your screen and for however long you like, you continue dreaming. A magical extension of sleep. For me, it's heaven, because I dream so infrequently.

People like to cite insomnia as their biggest sleep problem, but imagine a hell where you sleep for eight hours every night, but you don't dream enough. You wake up as though you only slept one hour. Welcome to my world. I have difficulty reaching REM state, resulting in less dreams, and less satisfactory sleep. This is an after-effect of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; your mind's way of attempting to sleep with one eye open. I have to write to manufacture my dreams.

Writing is solitary; it's a relatively cheap hobby, but once you pursue it professionally, things get complicated quick. Writers I've known are, by nature, quiet, unassuming, self-possessed sorts. Sometimes drunk. You can tell a writer most of the time -- something in their manner, the way they construct their sentences, and usually, a certain bitterness. They're intelligent, they know it, but nobody else does. This explains the bitter part.

Naturally, we're none of us geared toward the fine art of self-promotion and marketing *cough* prostitution *cough, cough*. Pardon me.

However, you need to ask yourself what you're in this business for. You want to write -- but if you want to make it the job of your dreams, the job you can live off of, you need an audience to support your dirty habit, and the only way to do that is to promote and market yourself. I understand the necessity of it, I don't blame others for engaging in it, but I don't particularly enjoy it myself.

I see promotion as a battle plan. So I've been compiling lists of target sites, so to speak, and doing recon, gathering my intel. And there is some very interesting data lying around waiting to be picked up.

Bookstores. Makes sense -- one of the best places to promote books, right? And hence, promote yourself. So I started doing searches on Borders, Barnes and Nobles, and what smaller independents I could dig up. And my, my, my, there are a lot of dissatisfied employees who are eager to share a lot of info on how Borders and Barnes and Nobles conducts their biz.

Here's how this conspiracy theory breaks down:

Take Borders, for instance.

The market crashes in the fall of 2008, leaving a lot of people up the creek without a paddle. You didn't really think we hapless consumers are going to spend what little money we have on books, right? You can't eat books.

So, I ask you, dear reader, what you think happens when Borders orders too many books from their distributors/wholesalers, and ends up with excess inventory that won't move off the shelves? Well, for one, their CEO disappears like smoke, and a new one takes over: the CEO from Linens n' Things. You know. The company that went bankrupt.

Like the glut of inventory that exists in the housing market, these big box bookstores are experiencing their own massive crash. And like their subprime counterparts, they stubbornly refuse to take the hit on their bad investment.

How does this effect us, the lowly writer?

This is Borders strategy, according to the rumors among employees: if Borders can move decaying best-sellers and yuppie-backs that nobody wants to read off their shelves, they earn a "credit" from the distributors/wholesalers to purchase the hotter, brand new best sellers. In turn, they harass their already underpaid, overworked employees to become salespeople, and ruthlessly pester customers to buy certain books they want to move the most.

Now, to the writer who thinks they've got the next War and Peace written in their back pocket, you didn't really think there's any room for you in this industry, did you?

There's a choke hold on the literary culture. Everything has come to a halt because retail can't sell what nobody wants, and nobody wants old books at ridiculously inflated prices. I can't afford to buy books -- and I love reading books.

This is why the economy is in the shitter: Big business wants to dictate to the public what they can and can't buy. And capitalism has never worked like this. The public shows its dislike for a product by not buying it, period. Business should take a cue and readjust their plans.

And this is not happening. Until it does, nothing recovers, everything stagnates.

However, in crisis there is opportunity: whoever can successfully sell in this market will be a messiah in a good market. But the future of books is not in big box bookstores, and this generation of writers must find a new way.

Battle Plans

2010-08-04T12:07:00.001-04:00

Goes like this: so you're a writer, a modern writer, living in the digital age. And like any writer, you join about a thousand and one internet social networking sites, because that's what we're told we need to do. And there's a lot of great 'zines out there that offer forums and the like, as well as free stories. In addition to all this, it's imperative we target our markets by buying issues to study them, and to tailor our stories accordingly. All these things come with the territory.

Yet, it's a new digital age -- but our behaviors have not become more authentic, now that we've been given a virtual world to explore. We're silly, preening, marketing machines, BUY BUY BUY, an endless mantra of "You can pre-order at," "My debut novel," "Get it now at Amazon.com . . ."

Marketing is normal. I get it. How else are you going to spread the word? But I think my philosophy about the world is changing along with the evolving new market, new economy. I sat down and took a look at FaceBook and such, really examined it. I've been researching statistics for my website, trying to figure out where the jump in numbers was coming from. Apparently not from FaceBook.

And everybody touts these sits as the way to "brand" yourself, a phrase that's already making me nauseous. The architecture has changed, but the method is still the same. There's no difference between asking people to buy your book on FaceBook and standing up in a busy city street corner and yelling -- it's the same thing, and it attracts as much notice.

There needs to be a better way.

There's a time, I think, when you can have too many friends; when having too many friends can actually hold you back. And there's a lot of dead weight there -- people just selling, selling, and they really don't have anything interesting, thought provoking, or intelligent to offer the world. I'm hungry to know people who are passionate, curious, and modern. And I'm sorry to say that, with a few exceptions, I'm still looking.

I've made contact with some genuine souls on these sites; and I hope at the end of the day, they'll still be there. But they're not pawns in a marketing scheme (which is what I'm starting to feel like, being surrounded by strangers screaming that I should buy/read their work.) They're people I hope one day I'll actually meet.

But having to wade through three thousand clowns to get to five authentic people with real souls is ridiculous.

Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war!

So this war.

Marketing from a computer isn't enough. Preaching to the converted serves no one. And if you're not going to be authentic while you're marketing to me, I'm going to take out the hatchet and unfriend at a ridiculous clip, and if this offends . . . Watch me. I relish it. Because there really is no story without a conflict.

I'm actually taking out a map and putting on my general hat. I'm compiling lists of bookstores and publishers, and when I'm ready, I'm going to be hitting the pavement with purpose, because this is war. These places are going to be battle campaigns, and I intend to conquer. I'm dusting off Sun Tzu and Caesar.

The victory is this: I won't have anything to sell. But I'll have something to give.