Kevin Lucia's Blog, page 67

High School Days and Dreams - Are The Kids Alright?

As a teacher, I can't help but walk through the halls at my school and see bits and pieces of my own high school experiences scattered here and there and just about everywhere.  I see reflections of my face and the faces of my friends in my students, and the worst part?  I always imagine all my teachers were perfect, and they couldn't possibly have made all the mistakes I've made in the past ten years.

But also, it's inevitable that I get to thinking about these kids' futures, and thinking how things turned out for my classmates.  There's lots of stuff about high school that never changes: the drama, the cliques, the rumors, the friendships, the romances.  Fights, school vandalism (both petty and serious), and the occasional administrative controversy.  This all a part of going to school. 

One thing that never changes, no matter what? Some kids make it.  They make it okay.  Some kids even make it big.

Some disappear.  

And some never make it at all.

Always makes me think of this song by Offspring (even more so, with our 20th anniversary rolling around next year).  Through the magic of Facebook, I'm connected with a lot of my old high school friends, and I can see a lot of them have made it big.  A lot of them ended up like me, too - we had our struggles, but now we're doing okay.

But there are some, I know, who haven't done so great.  Some have dropped of the map entirely.  Disappeared.  Vanished.  We're all responsible for our own fates to some degree, and but as a teacher....working with kids that remind me so much of myself and my high school mates...it's shoved into my face daily, that a large part of our fate is completely out of our hands.

And that makes me wonder if they'll be all right, someday.

Enjoy the video, and have good Friday...




 When we were young the future was so bright
The old neighborhood was so alive
And every kid on the whole damn street
Was gonna make it big and not be beat

Now the neighborhood's cracked and torn
The kids are grown up but their lives are worn
How can one little street
Swallow so many lives

[Chorus]
Chances thrown
Nothing's free
Longing for what used to be
Still it's hard
Hard to see
Fragile lives, shattered dreams

Jamie had a chance, well she really did
Instead she dropped out and had a couple of kids
Mark still lives at home cause he's got no job
He just plays guitar and smokes a lot of pot

Jay committed suicide
Brandon OD'd and died
What the hell is going on
The cruelest dream, realit

Winners of Hiram Grange Giveaway, Blog Tour Reflections

First off, I'd like to congratulate Jeff of California, Kenneth of Virginia, and Dixie of Georgia.  Goodreads has selected you as winners, so you'll soon be getting free copies of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One in the mail. Kudos! 

However, that's not all.  Because I like to give stuff away, (it's a compulsion, actually), I'm also going to throw in copies of The Midnight Diner, Volume Three - featuring my story, "Lonely Places" - and Abominations: 17 Tales of Murderous Monsters , which features my story "Water God of Clarke Street".  So, Christmas has come early for you folks.  Hope you enjoy the goodies.

So, the blog tour is done.  For a list of the all places I toured, go here.  Now...what's next?  What are my thoughts on the tour, about what I might have accomplished?

Mixed feelings.  First of all, my original tour idea - to ping Technorati's "Popular Books" Page (which no longer exists), see if I could drive a small press novella up the ranks was a bust from the beginning.  But with the overwhelming response from bloggers who wanted to throw their collective shoulders behind the idea, I went ahead anyway. 

And, it turned out to be pretty fun.  I enjoyed writing some of those different guest posts and answering a whole bunch of interview questions that somehow - amazingly enough - managed to touch on many different topics without much overlap.  Some nice reviews came back, and I wrote some new short fiction.  I hope things didn't get too "over pimpy", as I tried to maintain my regular blog presence, as well.

Did it impact sales? Not much, I imagine.  Did it help spread the word about Hiram and me?  Maybe. I did get a whole slew of new Twitter and Facebook friends during the tour, far more than I usually get in a month. Will that translate into new fans of my work, new blog followers? Who knows, really?

Probably the nicest thing about the tour, the biggest surprise and best result was this: all the folks who chimed in and basically said with their efforts: "Hey, Kevin - we like your work and we think it's worth supporting. How can we help?"  That was probably the best takeaway, and something that really made my day for a whole month, seeing folks cross-posting, re-tweeting and posting things to Facebook.  

Some folks even did RL (real life) things like ordering Hiram Grange for their libraries, (something I'll detail about later, after I've resumed my regular blogging), set me up with potential speaking and signing gigs in the area, stuff like that.  I'm thankful for that, thankful for all of it, really.

Now, however...

Time to drop off the promotional radar.  There are a few reviews and interviews leftover from the tour that'll show up eventually, a few other reviews that had nothing to do with the tour due anytime, but what I really need to do now is let Hiram Grange go his way, and have me go mine.   I have a huge opportunity with these three chapters and novel synopsis, an opportunity that's basically a Godsend.  

A chance to pitch something to a New York publishing house. That's a whole 'nother level of awesome, so you can imagine I'll be pretty obsessed with that over the coming weeks and months.

Also, I have The Drift (Shroud novel) to return to, and in the Spring - The Terror of Miskatonic Falls.  Also, a few stories requested of me, and when I get final due dates on those, I need to get cranking there, too.

Busy, busy, busy....

The Midnight Diner Recommends....

Michelle Pendergrass of The Midnight Diner - a genre publication of The Relief Journal - has recommended Hiram Grange & The Chosen One.  My favorite:

"A little bit Lovecraft, a little bit allegory, and a lot of tension, the payoff at the end is superb."

Also, last day to enter the Hiram Grange Giveaway on Goodreads. If you're a member, click to enter, and Goodreads will choose three lucky folks to get free copies of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, and whatever else I happen to throw in...

End of the Blog Tour

So today is the last day of my November blog tour.  I'm going to reflect on it in tomorrow's post, but for now, here are all the places I ended up at this month:
At Greg Mitchell's, Part 1At Greg Mitchell's, Part 2At Jackie Gamber'sAt Serial DistractionsAt Ben Eads', Part 1At Ben Eads', Part 2At Martin Rose'sAt The Event HorizonInterview At Monster LibrarianReview At Monster LibrarianAt the Swamp Dweller's, Part 1At the Swamp Dweller's, Part 2At Flames RisingAt Richard Wright'sExclusive Fiction - "As the Crow Flies", at The Bag & The CrowAt Jodi Lee'sAt The Non-Horror Reader's SurveyAt Apex Publications There are a few posts left, and a few reviews/interviews that may get posted after November.  In any case, it was fun, productive, and thought provoking.  More tomorrow!

My Booklist #8

1. Currently Reading:The Haunted Air, by F. Paul Wilson. So I'm currently on a Repairman Jack kick. I sorta regret not having discovered Repairman Jack earlier, but it's been cool being able to read them back to back, without having to wait for the next installment. Also, it's a little like when I finally discovered Stephen King's Dark Tower series, and I spent several years hunting down all the mythos connections before he finished the whole thing. Said it once and I'll say it again, I'm a sucker for a mythos.

2. Recently finished:

Slippin' Into Darkness, by Norman Partridge. This was, quite simply, one of the more original novels I've read in quite some time. Again, gotta love Partridge's terse, tight narrative, and I like how he balanced the line here: very faint supernatural elements, but really, the only "haunts" in this novel are memories that dog all of the characters. Partridge continues to take me new places, and this is a good thing.


Symphony, by Charles Grant. FINALLY! I've loved Grant's prose and subtle horror ever since I discovered it this summer, but one thing that I've hard a time with: his endings. I can deal with edgy stories that are realistic and not necessarily "happy"; I have a tough time with nihilistic, "there is no point to anything; we're all gonna die anyway" endings, and so far that's all Grant's work has offered. This one, however, had characters I could really root for - especially Rev. Chilsom - and an ending I could root for, too.



3. On pause:
Romeo & Juliet & Vampires, by Claudia Gabel. As it often happens, with all the reading I do at school, sometimes I pick up books, start them, put them down for awhile, then come back them later. That happened here, but not because of poor quality. There's lot's to be said and debated about literary mash-ups and if they're a valid literary form, but so far this is has been pretty fun. Gabel has already proven herself a quality storyteller, and in this case she's rewritten Romeo & Juliet, not simply added in vampires.



Swan Song, by Robert McCammon. Another book on pause I'll come back to. A nuclear-age, apocalyptic tale a lot like Stephen King's The Stand - but better, in some ways - it's a huge, epic tale that I guess I'm not in the mood for right now. I imagine I'll come back to this over Christmas break, when I can knock off a bunch of hours while reading it.




4. Just finished, B:

Hosts, by F. Paul Wilson. Like I said - big Repairman Jack kick. I used to think my favorite reoccurring character was King's Roland the Gunslinger, or Butcher's Harry Dresden. Harry is still a biggie, but Jack is just the best. He seems so well-rounded, and Paul Wilson has set up a universe in which Jack can experience almost any kind of genre-adventure...but he's a regular guy. He really is. Love it, love it, love it!

My Brush With New York Publishing/Why *Good* Editors Are Worth Gold

A few weeks ago, I spoke with a major  New York publisher.  I won't say which, not to be all vague, but I don't want to talk about something that may never happen.   Anyway, through several mysterious levels of serendipity,  I had the chance to pitch my story to an acquisitions editor there.  Interest was expressed, and a synopsis requested.

Then, a week later, said acquisitions editor emailed me, requesting a phone conference that coming Friday to discuss my synopsis, which he/she said they really enjoyed reading, that they'd love to give me feedback on.

You can imagine my reaction.  Had to peel me off the ceiling.  Good thing I had nothing but vocabulary tests to give at school Friday, because I'm sure NOTHING productive would've gotten done.  Understandably, I was stoked.  Amped.  Totally floored. This was a major house.  I'd be lying if I said dreams of J. K. Rowling success WEREN'T dancing before my eyes.

How'd the call go?

They liked the concept.  Liked certain parts of the story.

They trashed the rest.

And I couldn't be happier. 

See, here's the thing.  THAT'S WHAT GOOD EDITORS DO.
I know there's lots of chatter out there about the evils of New York publishing, how writers of the future are better off self-pubbing or going with small/micro-presses that give them intellectual and creative freedom, that the small press is so much better. 
Problem is, I've heard it so much, it's all become "blah, blah, blah, blah."  
Lots of noise.  
And I'm not saying that the chatter's wrong.  But hardly anything in this world fits into generalized little boxes, and I have to believe New York Publishing is one of those things.  I'm sure there are plenty of bad, heartless editors out there and they probably do screw writers over when it comes to money and ideas and other things.
THIS editor, however - was pure gold.  At least for the duration of this phone call.  
Why?
Because he/she asked me the type of questions that turned my story inside out.  I was SO sure of myself and this story before I got on the phone.  Confident. Maybe even overconfident.  However, when this editor got past all the compliments, he/she got down to the nitty gritty, and it went something like this:
Editor: "Well, this part's been done before.  Pretty Harry Potter. And Sword in the Stone.  Have you thought about how you could avoid that?" 
Me: "Uhh.  Yeah.  Got a point.  I'll look at that..." 
Editor: "And this plot twist seems awfully convenient.  Why does this even happen?  What's the motive for the monsters to attack this guy? What's the point?" 
Me: "Right. Yeah. Hmmm."
Editor: "Also, you need a female character in this desperately.  Have you thought about adding a female character yet?"
Me: "Well, I was thinking about it, obviously...a love interest..." 
Editor: "I do love the smart brother teamed with tough brother angle, though.  Have you thought about having them vie for the female character's affections?"
Me: "Uh....."
Editor: Now, this is a fantasy, right?  Hard sell for teens.  We're really talking tweeners, with this."
Me: "Oh."
Editor: "Other than that....I like the idea.  So what made you want to right teen fiction?"
Me: "Well....."
However. 
The editor asked that after I'd considered these things, I should send them an expanded, more detailed synopsis and novel proposal, and we'd discuss it some more.  You'd think I might be a little depressed at the rather pointed, meticulous deconstruction of my "BABY", but I'm not.
See, I AGREE with everything this editor said.  All those plot points WERE cliched and done before.  And, this whole thing proved to me that I didn't know my story nearly as well as I thought I did.  In fact, these suggestions have almost entirely re-written the story at this point, and I feel SO much better about it, that if in the end this editor decides this story isn't for them...I won't care.
I LOVE this story now.  All because of the questions this editor asked me.  I would NEVER have forced myself to reconsider my story without them. It's not a fantasy now - more suspense/thriller/horror - and the story is MUCH more original than it was.
So I'll be busy the next few weeks with the first three chapters, synopsis and all that.  The best thing? Someone will want this story, eventually. And, regardless of what everyone has to say about New York editors, it'll be because of the questions this one asked me, forced me to consider.
So.  I couldn't be happier.

Review of Halloween Issue

Joe Nazare of Macabre Republic has this to say about Shroud's Halloween issue:

Shroud 10 might not have arrived in time this October, but I can foresee myself returning to it next Halloween season and jumping happily back into its autumnal leaves.  

Again, I have to say - the work in this issue is excellent, both fiction and non.  Highly enjoyable to edit, and I'm sure even more enjoyable to read for the first time.

Read the rest of the review.

A Free E-Comic and Friends From Back In The Day

Some years ago, five or six friends (several absent from this picture), used to spend their summer weekends messing around on Otsego Lake in Cooperstown, New York.   They water-skied, they cooked way too much meat, drank some beer, lay on the dock, and pretty much wasted the days away.  Read more in detail about their experiences here.

One of the friends dreamed of becoming a writer.  Now, back then he felt bound and determined to be the next Issac Asimov.  Raised during the Star Wars years, exposed to Tron (a pre-Matrix Matrix for all you youngsters), gifted box sets of original Star Trek five year mission novels by his parents, this college student's head was in the stars, and he believed he'd be the next big thing in science fiction and fantasy.   That's all he wrote, read, or watched in the theater.

However, in the summer of 1996 this guy encountered something up in Cooperstown that shifted his perspective.  Suddenly, his creative juices churned over things that hid deep in the dark woods, old abandoned houses and gothic relics, a few of which he saw every weekend as he and his friends boated all over Lake Otsego.  

At first he tried to make this new creative desire fit the old science fiction mold - maybe some aliens crash-landed in the forest - but he couldn't do it.  He realized he was far more interested in the dark corners that lurked here on earth than he was the deep reaches of space.  This was all due, in part, to an old abandoned  Victorian farmhouse in the middle of a field.

Several trips were made to this house, over the course of two or three years, and while nothing too awful happened, some things a bit out of the ordinary did.  Or at least, these guys found evidence of that.  Anyway, safe to say after finding this place, the science fiction writer guy had changed genres forever. 

Now, that writer guy still hasn't hit it big like he dreamed of doing all those years ago, lying on the dock with his best friends.  He promised them, though, that he'd write about that house.  Make up a real good story about it.  And he did write several bad ones that never saw the light of day.  One or two pretty good ones are still doing the rounds, not having found a home yet.

However, one pathetically small peek of this house did find a home in Northern Haunts , a flash fiction anthology of fireside ghost stories.  He had to set it in the Maine area to fit the anthology,  but it's still about that house.  Eventually, with the help of artist and writer Corey Clubb and artist Mike Brunt, he put together a simple little e-comic as a wedding gift for one those friends.  Below is that e-comic.  It's an early work, maybe a little contrived and hokey, but it's fun and free.  Just click in the cover and open it up.  Enjoy!



Open publication - Free publishing - More horror

New Short Story at The Bag & The Crow

My newest short story, "As the Crow Flies", is being featured this morning as exclusive fiction at The Bag & The Crow, an extension of Horror Mall.  This one was different for me, in that it's the first second person narrative I've ever attempted.   It's also...just different.  I'll say that. ;)

For any folks visiting via my guest blog at Richard Wright's, or from The Bag & the Crow, I bid thee welcome, and invite you to read the first three chapters of my first solo work, Hiram Grange & The Chosen One , book four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles, below.  Just click on the image, and it'll become a fully interactive document in your browser.  If it doesn't, you'll probably need to install the latest edition of Adobe Flash.



Enjoy!

Guest Blog: Richard Wright, author of Hiram Grange & The Nymphs of Krakow

Hello there. Richard Wright here,trading blogs with Kevin for the day. For those who don't know,I'm the author of the book following Kevin's in the Hiram Grangeseries – Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow . I thought Imight waffle on a bit, in a quite random and wandering fashion, onhow characters are birthed.
The tale of how Hiram was born shouldbe familiar to most readers here. From Timothy Deal's first, loosecharacter outline, through an eighteen month or so developmentprocess in which five writers tossed ideas around, crushing some,saving others, and developing the final character before each writingan entry in the first series of his adventures, it's a welldocumented process.
What we've rarely gone into is thebreath of life moment. After our extensive brainstorming sessions,during which emails would fly about often faster than you could keepup with reading them, we weren't left with a living,breathing, character who could bestride our individual tales. Whatwe had was a list. Items owned. Personality traits. Bits of agreedupon history. Named acquaintances. Bad habits (quite a long list,this one). What none of us had yet done was sew the parts together,and breathe life into the man.
It's not something that you can do asa team. It's something very personal, very unique to each author. It happens when fingers are hitting keys, and the character starts toinhabit you, speak through you. That's how it works for me,anyway, and I can only document it retrospectively. At the time,it's too furious a chain reaction to break down.
Hiram was an especially swift birth. He got into my head as soon as I started to write his world down,longhand, in a lined, moleskin notebook. I set things up to maximisethe chance of this happening. The opening section is actually thevery end of an unseen previous adventure based somewhere betweenKevin's Chosen One and my own Nymphs of Krakow. Frompage one events are moving fast, and the pressure is on for Hiram. This helped in pinning his essence down – by immediately findingout where his break points were, what decisions he made when underextraordinary stress, I was already turning those lists of words intoreactions within context, and that's where people reallydemonstrate themselves, in art just as in life.
I kept the pressure on the characterfrom those first moments, quickly moving him out of his comfort zoneand thrusting him into a new environment, the city of Krakow. Hegets barely a moment to rest from the first page to the last, and isconstantly tested. Part of this was dramatic, a function of story. On the other hand, after so many months work creating him, I waseager to road test him as brutally as I could. I may never getanother chance to pen a full length Hiram tale (this will be decidedon a very practical basis in the end, depending solely on theappetite for the character), so it was important to me that I writeas though it was the last time I would get to play with him. Wecreated Hiram so that we could grind him through the mill, and I hopeI did just that.
As well as the exhausting physicalityof the stress Hiram is put under, I established very early on in thedevelopment of the series that I wanted to pull his world apart inthe last book. Hiram, as you'll know if you've dipped your toeinto one of the five books he now features in, is a mess ofinsecurities and addictions, a man who barely functions as a normalhuman being. What holds him together, and brings him back from thebrink more than once, is his mission. For all his flaws, he defendspeople from dark, shrieking things on the edge of reality. Loathsomethough he may occasionally be, he is validated by the honesty andvalue of his purpose.
What if I could take that purpose away,or at least undermine his faith in it? How would he answer tohimself, without his get-out-of-jail-free mission? That'sthe real pressure I applied to the character through the book, notbecause I wanted a definitive answer, but to find those preciousbreak points. It was the most enjoyable part of writing the book. Sex, booze, rooftop chases and werebats are all very well, butthey're so much more fun to write when your character is reelingwith uncertainty and doubt.
The question of his reality, andwhether any of what Hiram believes has merit, also helped to dealwith hearing his voice and needs in my head. We devised Hiram to beflawed. More than that, we devised him to be pitiable and horrific. He's an anti-hero in a true sense. You don't ever want to spendintimate time with this man, yet as his author, my job was to do justthat.
To write a character like Hiram, youdon't have to be him. However, you do have to empathisewith him, which can leave a bad taste in the mouth when he's athis lowest. Yet, the worst thing that any of we writers could havedone would have been to judge him. Hiram's love/hate relationshipwith himself is very different from the rest of the world's, and inunderstanding that you're halfway to being able to write him. Ifyou can write him empathically, feeling your way through how hishopeless addictions grow organically from his life, then you're therest of the way to allowing readers to love him despite his flaws. We had to open the door to let you do that.
I hope it worked, I really do. I hopeHiram Grange has lodged in your brain, taking some small place in thepantheon of fictional characters you've enjoyed, and might one dayenjoy again. If you can feel him breathing, we might just havemanaged it.
Sorry about that.
Richard Wright is an author of strange dark fictions, currently living with his wife and daughter in New Delhi, India. His stories have been widely published in the United Kingdom and USA for over a decade, most recently in magazines and anthologies including Dark Wisdom, Withersin 3.2, Beneath the Surface, Shroud, Tattered Souls, Choices, Dark Faith, the Doctor Who collection Short Trips: Re:Collections, and the Iris Wildthyme anthology Iris: Abroad. When not tiger hunting or snake wrangling, he wonders what Hiram might make of India, and hopes to one day find out.