Chuck Wendig's Blog, page 19

Brian Keene: “Let’s Open A Bookstore!”

Brian Keene is awesome. So is Mary SanGiovanni. And they’re opening a bookstore. Read on for Brian’s words about the why and how of it, and also how you can help —

It was summer of 2006 when I realized that — while they may be able to write them — most writers didn’t have happy endings.

I’d just participated in a mass book signing in Washington D.C. — one of those events that combined then big name veteran authors like Douglas E. Winter, F. Paul Wilson, and Steven Spruill with then still-newbies like myself, Mary SanGiovanni, L. Marie Wood, and J.F. Gonzalez. After the signing, author Matt Warner invited everyone back to his home for a party. Mary, J.F., L. Marie, and I were hanging out in his kitchen, talking about J.N. Williamson and Charles L. Grant. Williamson, the author of over forty horror novels and nearly two-hundred short stories, had passed away in a nursing home the previous December. During his funeral service — the sparse attendants of which were basically his sister, and authors Gary Braunbeck and Maurice Broaddus — the preacher disparaged Williamson’s life’s work, taking all of the joy and entertainment it had brought teenage us and reducing it to glorification of the devil. Our conversation then transitioned to Mary’s mentor, the great Charles L. Grant, who — having written countless horror novels and short stories and edited some of the best quiet horror anthologies spanning two decades — was in very ill health and wasting away in hospice. It disturbed me that an author whom Stephen King once called “One of the premier horror writers of his or any generation” was spending his final days that way.

Doug Winter, who had come into the kitchen for a beer and was then eavesdropping on us newbies, squeezed my shoulder and said, “Now you know what keeps us awake at night, kiddo.”  

On the drive from D.C. back to Pennsylvania, J.F. and I vowed to each other that we weren’t going out like that. Despite our then relatively young age, we were already both aware that death comes for all, horror writers included. Richard Laymon, Karl Edward Wagner, Mike Baker, Buddy Martinez, and Mark Williams were already gone by then. We knew it could happen. And so we made plans to take care of each other’s literary estates, should we eventually pass. I’d oversee his and he would oversee mine. Our goals were the same — keep our stuff in print and make sure our children benefited from it.

Something else we used to discuss at length was coming up with a viable second revenue stream. We’d heard about a well-known author (whom I won’t name here to protect his family’s privacy) who — after a storied and celebrated career writing prose, comics, television, and film — was now suffering from dementia and still beholden to cranking out a novel every year to keep a roof over his head. That was a terrifying prospect.  And J.F. and I had learned by then that advances and royalties don’t last very long, even when you’ve written bestsellers (as we had with The Rising and Survivor, respectively). We’d also begun to learn — much to our dismay — that most writers have a shelf life, no matter how popular they are. Sure, everyone still reads Charles Dickens or Mark Twain or Charlotte Brontë, but what about their peers? What about the hundreds of authors who were published alongside them? This was particularly true for mid-list authors such as ourselves, and doubly true for genre authors. J.F. — a student of the pulps — could spend hours rattling off the bibliographies of pulp-era horror writers who nobody else remembered. It bothered him greatly that they’d been memory-holed. But that’s what happens. It’s inevitable. Case in point — how many of you reading this have actually heard of or read J.N. Williamson or Charles L. Grant? Props to you if you have, but it’s okay if you haven’t, because that’s what happens. Those guys were giants to people like J.F. and I, but eventually, all that’s left of giants are their footprints, and in time, even footprints fade away.

What’s worse is being forgotten while you’re still alive, and yet, we saw that unfolding before us, as well. There was an entire generation of horror novelists — folks like Ronald Kelly, Ruby Jean Jensen, and William Schoell, to name a few — who had seemingly disappeared from the face of the Earth during horror fiction’s mid-1990s collapse. Where were they now? Nobody knew. They could have been working at Walmart or a factory somewhere. Or teaching, perhaps. Or dead. It wasn’t until Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks From Hell, and the subsequent imprint from Valancourt Books, that readers began to discover these long-lost treasures again.

J.F. and I knew it could happen to us, as well. Indeed, it was already beginning to happen. With horror’s second implosion, we’d both seen the end of our nice little midlist careers, and new we were in danger of having happen to us what had happened to Ronald Kelly and the others. We scrambled to make sure that wouldn’t happen, helping to reinvent and mainstream independent and small press publishing, and in the process finding a home for many of our peers in the same situation. But we were still fearful of what was to come. Those lessons learned from Williamson and grant still loomed large. And so, we’d return to brainstorming those ideas for a second revenue stream. I suggested we become forest rangers. I envisioned us in a tower somewhere, overlooking the Pacific Northwest, writing novels and stories while getting paid to watch for forest fires. J.F. was of a mind that we should buy a tugboat and become independent operators in the Baltimore harbor.

We never got to do either of those things, because cancer struck him down. But because we’d planned ahead, I’ve done my duties as his literary executor, and made sure his stuff remains in print, and that readers haven’t forgotten him, and that his family benefits from it all.

But the idea of that second revenue stream still haunts me, and it haunts Mary, as well. In the years since that sobering conversation in the kitchen, when Doug Winter scared the hell out of us, she and I have gotten married. We make an okay living together — as good of a living as two midlist horror writers whose core audience is beginning to age out can make. But we are fifty-six and forty (clears throat) and most of our readers are that age, as well. Over the next two decades, that audience will continue to dwindle. We are painfully aware that those royalties will lessen over time, and that we could very well go the way of the giants.

So, we decided to do something about it. Mary wasn’t inclined to become a forest ranger or a tugboat captain, so we opted for a different second revenue stream instead — one that is connected to writing, but doesn’t involve writing. One that, when managed properly and professionally, can supplement those royalties and advances. One that will allow us to give back to our community and our peers, both locally and nationally, and keep those forgotten giants in the collective memory a while longer, as well as elevating today’s new voices, so that they will one day be giants, too.

We’re opening an independent bookstore.      

Inspired by Dark Delicacies, Butcher Cabin Books, The Poisoned Pen, Bucket O’ Blood, Mysterious Galaxy, and other indie bookshops, we are opening an independent bookstore specializing in Horror, Science-Fiction, Fantasy, Bizarro, and other speculative fiction genres. Vortex Books & Comics will open Spring of 2024 in the historic district of beautiful Columbia, Pennsylvania — easily and quickly accessible from Baltimore, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, New York City, Washington D.C. and more. We’ll carry a full complement of books from the Big Five, as well as hundreds of books from many cool indie publishers and small presses, and titles in Espanol and other languages. We’ll host weekly signings, readings, workshops, and other events. Our goal is to make the store a destination.

Understand, this is not something we’re doing on a whim. I didn’t wake up one morning and roll over and look at Mary and say, “Hey, you know what might be fun?” This is something we’ve been researching and investigating for several years. We’re confident we can make it a success, and we’ve invested in the tools and resources to achieve that. Indeed, we’ve invested a significant amount of our own money into this endeavor. We have a thorough, intimate knowledge of this industry — wisdom gained from thirty-five years of writing, publishing, and selling. We’ve talked the the marketers and the distributors and most importantly, other booksellers. We know this business, and are familiar with its ups and downs, ebbs and flows. We realize that we are uniquely positioned to make this work.

After investing our own money, it was suggested to us by several knowledgable mentors that we give the community an opportunity to chip in and help. And thus, we’ve launched a GoFundMe. If you would like to show your solidarity and support with a donation, it will be put toward further set-up costs such as fixtures, security, inventory, marketing and advertising, signage, etc. thus giving us a bit of breathing room and time to make the store profitable. However, you are under no obligation to donate. We appreciate your support regardless of whether you wish to donate or not.

Thanks to Chuck for allowing me this space, and thanks to all of you for reading us these last thirty years, and allowing us both a place at the table. We are very excited for this next chapter of our story, and giving back to our peers and fans in an all-new way.

Eliot Peper: Five Things I Learned Writing Foundry

This is a story about two spies locked in a room with a gun.

This is a story about how semiconductors are refactoring 21st century geopolitics.

This is a story about the greatest of games, the game that subsumes all other games, the only game that really matters: power.

This is a story about finding yourself before they find you.

This story is a trap.

You will face catastrophe, so get over it

Foundry began with a dream.

I woke up in the middle of the night with an emotionally resonant image hanging in my mind, but no memory of the dream’s larger context. I made a note and went back to sleep.

The next morning, I read the note and realized it was the perfect opening line for a novel. So I wrote the next line, and then the next. I didn’t have an outline. I didn’t have a plan. Lines became paragraphs, paragraphs became chapters, and Foundry took shape.

Writing Foundry line-by-line taught me something interesting. Reflecting on his time at Pixar, Ed Catmull says that the team would face a catastrophe during the production of every single movie. Initially, they tried to put processes in place to prevent the same thing from happening on the next film. But no matter what they did, the next film would bring a new kind of catastrophe. So instead of trying to avoid catastrophes, they focused on building a team that could respond to them with grace and efficacy.

Just so, when I write a novel, I inevitably face a creative crisis. Foundry was no exception. In fact, because I didn’t know what was going to happen next, drafting the manuscript felt like a single extended creative crisis. But precisely because the crisis never ended, my angst about creating in the midst of crisis sloughed away through sheer exposure. I could face the unknown without emotional baggage. I could ignore sunk costs and release expectations. I could discover the story alongside the reader.

Stories are about one thing

Novels are long. They are complex. They are pocket universes. One of my favorite feelings is to wander the shelves of a bookstore and run my finger along the spines, each a world patiently waiting to be explored by the right reader.

So when I sit down to write a novel, I often try to come up with long, complex story ideas. I worry that without sufficient material, the narrative may peter out prematurely. What if you tell everything there is to tell and it’s not enough? That never happens. Every time, I wind up having to cut the complicated ideas. What I forget is that stories are about one thing.

Foundry is about the memory of a dream. I mean, sure, it’s a near-future espionage thriller that spirals across time and continents to reveal the games people play to win control of the technology at the heart of modern civilization. But the entire novel is about unpacking that single haunting image I woke up with in the middle of the night. Everything derives from that. There’s no need to manufacture material. Stories are fractal. The closer you look, the more there is.

If given the chance, don’t travel back in time

Judging by headlines and social media feeds, we are barreling toward apocalypse. Wars rage. Disease runs rampant. The planet is in jeopardy. Corruption plagues our institutions even as our culture shatters into a thousand razor-sharp shards.

Fucking bleak, am I right or am I right?

After a recent conversation enumerating these many and varied woes, my mother-in-law asked me what historical period I would travel to if I had a time machine. I answered immediately: I would decline any temporal voyages and stay right here in the present, thank you very much.

To write novels set in the near future, I read a lot of history. From a certain angle, history and science fiction are two aspects of the same genre: both explore realities different than the world we inhabit—experiencing the gap between our world and the historical or science fictional one is part of the appeal—and both suggest explicit or implicit theories of historical change. You can learn a lot from reading history, but one lesson overshadows all the others: the farther back you go, the worse life gets.

Augustus may have ruled an empire, but he didn’t have antibiotics, electricity, Wikipedia, or burritos. Many of those lucky enough to survive childhood would go on to die young in violence or childbirth. Slavery was commonplace. Plumbing was exceedingly rare. People drank astonishing amounts of alcohol in order to avoid contracting waterborne illnesses. Basically, it sucked.

So no matter how bleak things appear right now, don’t fall into the trap of seeking to return to a mythologized past that never existed. Instead, study the past to make sense of the present and contribute to building a better future.

Treasure thorny questions

You’re reading this sentence on your phone or laptop. Do you know how the chip powering your device is made? It’s TOTALLY INSANE.

A robot the size of a room drips a tiny droplet of molten tin into a vacuum. Then it hits the droplet with a laser, turning it into a falling pancake. Then it hits the pancake with a more powerful laser, vaporizing the tin and releasing a flash of light with a wavelength so short it can only survive in outer space. The light goes through a reticle that gives it a pattern and then bounces off a series of mirrors that shrink the pattern still further before hitting a silicon wafer, drawing billions of resistors on a chip the size of a fingernail. Oh right, and you have to repeat the procedure fifty thousand times a second with perfect accuracy. It makes the Apollo Program look like child’s play.

Even wilder, almost all advanced chips are manufactured in Taiwan, one of the most hotly contested territories on Earth. So this intricate supply chain is a magnet for high-stakes espionage. What if China invades Taiwan? What if a typhoon or earthquake takes out key fabs? What if a new discovery revolutionizes the production process? What if spies weaponize the semiconductors civilization depends on?

The more I learned, the more intriguing the questions became. None of them had easy answers. Each of them connected to all the others. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. That’s how I knew I needed to weave the implications into Foundry—not because I had something to say, but to figure out how to even make sense of the possibilities. Writing often seems to be a way to capture answers, and it can be. But it’s also a way to explore questions, the thornier the better.

Share your enthusiasm

Remember that high school teacher who made you fall in love with a subject you thought would be boring? Their enthusiasm was contagious. Just so, a writer’s enthusiasms define their writing. You can only write well about something you genuinely care about. You thinking something is cool is a key ingredient in readers thinking something is cool, so the best books are about what the author thinks is cool.

So be selfish. Indulge your curiosity. Go down the rabbit hole. 

And then be generous. Report back. Tell us what you found. Show us why it matters.

This is the power of art: enriching our lives by inviting us into each other’s worlds.

Eliot Peper is the bestselling author of eleven novels, including, most recently, Foundry. He also works on special projects. The best way to follow his writing is to subscribe to his newsletter.

Foundry: Amazon | B&N | Bookshop

Eliot Peper: Website | Newsletter

My Cooked Apples Recipe Will Bring All The Apple Monsters to The Yard

I have been asked for this recipe and so I shall supply it, in accordance with The Law of Internet Acquiescence. To remind, I have noted that I make killer (not literally) cooked apples, and so I’ll tell you how I do that.

First, the apples. Choice of apple here is important, same as it is when you’re choosing apples for a pie. And, same as you don’t want your apple pie to turn into an apple swimming pool, you want the apples in this recipe to remain, well, apple-shaped, or, rather, shaped like the slices you cut them into.

Turgor is important here — the pressure inside a plant cell against the cell walls is what keeps any fruit or vegetable firm. Less turgor means less firmth (not a word, but should be), and so, you get softening or wilting much faster and easier. You do not want apples to break down so quickly that they turn to SWEET GOO, despite how delicious SWEET GOO sounds — that’s great if you want applesauce*, less great if you want cooked apples.

So, higher turgor is important, which is to say that you’re looking for apples that are not already starting off kinda limp. You want those crunchy crisp hard-breaking apples. To borrow a phrase from Black River Orchard, an apple that feels like you’re breaking a chip of slate in half, snap.

The second consideration is, you want either a mix of sweet and tart apples, or one apple type that is itself an excellent balance of sweet and tart. For that “one apple” solution, I like to go to GoldRush apples, or Cosmic Crisp, Suncrisp, or whatever. You probably want to use Honeycrisp and that’ll be good, too, though I am less a fan of Honeycrisp than you, because I am a giant apple snob with Strong Apple Opinions (aka applepinions). If you want heirlooms for this purpose: Belle de Boskoop, Esopus Spitzenburg, Northern Spy, Zabergau Reinette, and I’ve even used russets, but I’ll note that russets are also quite dense, which isn’t the perfect texture. They do work, though.

You have your apples.

The amount of apples you choose to use is up to you — you can tweak this recipe from two apples to twelve. Doesn’t matter, really.

Peel the apples.

Slice the apples — not too thin but not too thick, either. I don’t know the measurement here but you know what I mean. Not, like, mandoline thin, you don’t want them to melt. Again, we need slices to stand up to the cooking.

Melt a tablespoon of butter in a medium or large pot over med-heat.

Toss in the apples.

Sprinkle with salt.

Let the apples cook a couple minutes, while stirring often so that there’s not any browning or anything.

Then, put in enough orange juice so that it’s maybe not quite halfway up to the top of the apples. Definitely not enough to cover the apples. It’s okay if you don’t use enough, you can add more later. For now the goal is twofold: first, to soften the apples, and second, to impart the orangey flavor.

Which yes, sounds strange. I used to do this with apple cider (the non-hard variety) and it’s great, truly, but the orange… adds a magical dimension to it? I think it’s like how some apples actually have a citrus component to them already, and therefore this lends itself a curious complexity that only deepens when you add your spices: a generous spranklin’ of cimmanon, er, cinnamon; a pinch of clove; a pinch of fresh-grated nutmeg. Can also do a pinch of ginger if that is a flavor you like.

At this point, you’re just going to cook down the apples fo 15-20 minutes over that medium heat — the goal here is to reduce the orange juice while softening the apples. Don’t over-stir, because you don’t wanna mash the apples. But you also don’t want the heat to cook them to the pot-bottom, so, move them gently now and again with a soft spatula or perhaps a baby’s hand, because baby hands are very gentle wait no my lawyer is telling me now do NOT, repeat, do NOT use any part of a baby to stir hot food. Cold food, okay, fine. Not hot food. Whew. Thank the gods for legal counsel.

The orange juice will get kinda syrupy. This is ideal. The apples will soften, but still maintain their shape and relative structure. This is also ideal.

It is at this point you can be done if you want to be.

I will, sometimes, add in a splash of really good maple syrup or brown sugar right at the end. Or, if after tasting you find it too sweet, a squirt of lemon juice over it is good. Basically, you want to work to still find that sweet/tart balance, and if that means adding some stuff, do so.

And that’s it.

What to do with this?

Besides, you mean, shoveling it into your mouth and making happy sounds?

Well, it goes great on oatmeal — cooked fresh or overnight oats.

It’s delicious with granola or toasted nuts.

Warm it back up and pop some vanilla ice cream in there, and it’s basically like ice cream on pie, just without the crust.

Or, crumble in some graham crackers and eat it that way.

You could even use this in an apple pie, since sometimes there’s benefit to pre-cooking your apples in a pie so that they don’t shrink and cause air gaps in the top crust.

I am at this time reminded of a passage from the Scripture of Fieri, the Book of Flavortown 4:2 — “And lo, he said he would eat it on a flip-flop, and it would be good, and it was good.”

I dunno. Just fuckin’ eat it, it’s delicious. Apples are good for you.

YOU KNOW WHAT IS ALSO GOOD FOR YOU.

Reading books.

Reading is fundamental, so I hear, and so if you like apples, and you like books, and you like spooky shit, Black River Orchard awaits you. And I remind that if you pick up the book for the holidays and buy it from Doylestown Bookshop, I will sign and personalize the book. But wait, there’s more: I’ll gladly invent a new evil apple variety just for you, while also giving you an evil apple sticker. And we all like stickers. We’re all basically fourth graders at heart, aren’t we? If only I had a smelly marker to give you.

Details on that here at the blog.

And as always, if you’ve checked out the book, or any of my books, or any book by any author, leaving a review at the usual review places is a huge help to us, and we thank you for it. A book like this in particular will thrive when people talk about it and share how much they love it — honestly, it’s how both The Book of Accidents and Dust & Grim reached their audiences.

And now I ask: what’s your favorite apple recipe?

*I note here that this recipe can also work to make a great applesauce. The tweaks: don’t need to cook the orange juice down so far; blend it with a hand-blender if you like it smooth or mash it with a potato masher if you need them sweet chunks; keep cooking after you blend/smash so that it loses a bit more of the liquid and the sweetness condenses further; the end.

Want My Books For The Holidays? Here’s How.

AS THE PROPHECY FORETOLD, the holidays again gather at the margins, waiting to pounce and pin us to the ground under the weight of a cooked turkey, a tower of presents teetering above us, ready to fall. And so comes the time when you may want a TOME OF WENDIG (not a D&D artifact, though it should be) for yourself or someone in your life, and here is how you do that.

I can sign and personalize any of my books through Doylestown Bookshop, and they will ship these books right to you. Maybe via some sort of catapult device. Probably through like, the UPS, tho, but I really don’t know for sure, so let’s quietly hope that catapult is an option. You order the books and then you tell them you want the books signed and/or personalized and/or how you want them personalized, and I will do this thing.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE.

If if if you order a copy of Black River Orchard…

I will do two additional things.

a) I will include a sticker for you in the book (first come first serve, though I do have quite a few) of an evil apple, likely by the delightful Natalie Metzger (her designs above at the fore of the post), though I also have some I bought from Etsy, which are cool, too.

b) I will name a brand new evil apple in the book, written in pen, invented from my own foolish mind and out of the sinister ether. This evil apple is just for you. No one else will have this evil apple. It is your evil apple alone.

You can order the book from Doylestown Bookshop right here.

But, you can request signed/personalized copies of really any of my in-print books there, too. Like Book of Accidents, Wanderers, Wayward, Gentle Writing Advice, Dust & Grim, and more. (Oh, also, if you buy any of the Miriam Black books, I will sign them and predict your demise. For fun!)

MERRY HAPPY APPLEMAS, FRIENDS

Buy books. Let me scar them with my inky leavings! Bye!

New Appearance: B&N Montgomeryville, 11/11

HEY THERE. If you’re a Pennsylvania (or NJ, or DE?) person, I’ve got a new event for you if you wanna come hang out with me and I’ll chat and sign your books (like ahem ahem ahem my newest, Black River Orchard) and I might even tell you my favorite apple.

I’ll be at the B&N Montgomeryville this Saturday, 11/11, at 2PM.

Details here.

COME ON BY.

When Your Process Isn’t Working For You, Change Your Process

That’s it, that’s the lesson. I said it in the post headline. You can go home now.

OKAY FINE WAIT don’t go home.

So, it is once again National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo, and maybe you’re doing it, maybe you’re not, maybe you’ll succeed at the task, maybe you will be overwhelmed by holiday stress and global chaos, maybe you’ll be eaten by bears, I don’t know you, I don’t know your life.

What I know is this:

When writing, and that’s true for this month or any other month, it is entirely acceptable to blow up your process with a variety of metaphorical explosives. We all think we know how we do things. We think we know how we write. We think we know how we tell stories. Over time we super-glue ourselves to our process, and in fact that process can become a part of us in a problematic way as we mythologize and even fetishize said process. (Weirder still, we will then sometimes attempt to turn our process from mythology and fetish to straight up cult and religion — look no further than any TEN WAYS YOU MUST WRITE, YOU FUCKING HEATHEN lists.) I’m guilty of this as anybody, to be clear! I definitely put a ring on my process and stayed married to it long beyond its value. Hell, the very start of my novel-writing career was born out of me shedding some rather foolish ideas I had about my process and the wifty head-in-clouds notions that governed it at the time.

And now I’ve used ‘process’ far too many times.

Process, process, process. Princess abcess praxis.

*clears throat, tries to escape this linguistic oubliette*

Anyway, my point is ultimately this: you’re gonna eventually hit a speedbump or even a wall where you discover that the Way You Write is simply no longer working. Why that is, I don’t know, because again, I am not you, I don’t know your life. But it’ll happen. And when that does, you have to be willing to change it up. Change when you write. Evening to morning, morning to evening. Change where you write: stop writing in that Starbucks, or fuck, start writing in a Starbucks, write in the Starbucks bathroom, get behind the counter and write your story in latte foam, go sit with a stranger at Starbucks and steal their laptop and write your story on it. Change something. Change the font. Change the genre. Genre the POV, the tense, who the protagonist is. Change the software, ditch the software and write by hand, ditch the notebook and write by carving your story into the dirt with a tame, content-to-be-clutched live raven. If you write every day, try writing only on the weekends. If you write only on the weekends, try writing every day. Write a little every day or a lot one day. Just–you know, just fuck some shit up.

Explode it. Boom.

Will it fix everything? Maybe not. Will it fix anything? Shit if I know. But it’s something to try, because —

It’s the only way you’ll know. It won’t solve every problem. It’s not a magical fix. But every story is different and some demand different processes. Further, you’re a different writer when you start a story than you were when you last finished one–guaranteed, you’re a new person. We shed our authorial skin regularly and sometimes that means you have to do some adjustments. Life is complicated. Our minds are chaos. Our biology is on a roulette wheel. Go with the flow and be willing to come at the story from different directions. Gotta be willing to get messy and get weird with it.

So, whether you’re doing NaNoWriMo or you’re just writing to write–

Go! Get out of here, you scamp. You know the task at hand.

Get messy.

Get weird.

Try new stuff.

*opens the airlock and boots you out of it*

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A small town is transformed when seven strange trees begin bearing magical apples in this masterpiece of horror from the author of Wanderers and The Book of Accidents.“

Chuck Wendig is one of my very favorite storytellers. Black River Orchard is a deep, dark, luscious tale that creeps up on you and doesn’t let go.”—Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus

It’s autumn in the town of Harrow, but something besides the season is changing there.

Because in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard, seven most unusual trees. And from those trees grows a new sort of apple: strange, beautiful, with skin so red it’s nearly black.

Take a bite of one of these apples, and you will desire only to devour another. And another. You will become stronger. More vital. More yourself, you will believe. But then your appetite for the apples and their peculiar gifts will keep growing—and become darker.

This is what happens when the townsfolk discover the secret of the orchard. Soon it seems that everyone is consumed by an obsession with the magic of the apples . . . and what’s the harm, if it is making them all happier, more confident, more powerful?

Even if something else is buried in the orchard besides the seeds of these extraordinary trees: a bloody history whose roots reach back to the very origins of the town.

But now the leaves are falling. The days grow darker. It’s harvest time, and the town will soon reap what it has sown.

Buy signed / personalized copy from Doylestown Bookshop

The Book of Accidents: $2.99

Not sure why, or for how long, but The Book of Accidents is a mere $2.99 for your various KOBOMACHINES and KINDLEDONGLES. So, if you’re like me and spooky season is an all-year-round affair, well, you know what to do.

Amazon, Kobo, B&N, though not Apple for some reason? Shrug.

ENJOY. And leave a review if you dig it.

Psst, Leave A Review (And Why Leaving A Review Matters)

art by the amazing Natalie Metzger!

Reviews matter for books and their authors.

Let’s unpack why, a little bit. Though some of this (maybe even all of this) will be blisteringly obvious, I feel it all needs restating because sometimes we just need to be reminded about things. I certainly do. The only reason I wear pants is my wife is always like, “hey, you, pants” before I leave the house in the morning. Admittedly the embarrassment I’d have suffered upon leaving said house would’ve been minor, since I work in a shed in the yard, so the most I’d have done would be to flash my underdrawers at various noisy robins and probably a squirrel or three. But still: it’s a helpful reminder.

And so I remind you:

Reviews matter for, say it with me, books and their authors.

Here, then, is why:

First, they’re a more generalized variant of “word-of-mouth.” It’s not you telling a single friend about a book (which is also very good and you should do that), but rather, telling the world about a book. Our online circle of trust is larger than our in-person one, these days — though fractured social media has crumbled that cookie, I fear, thus breaking the circle — and reviews can reach that circle of trust. Which allows the book to echo out like a song or a sound that others can hear. It’s nice. It helps.

Second, and please understand that this slicks my tongue with foulness just to say buuuut, THE ALMIGHTY ALGORITHM. Unfortunately, online visibility is subject to the whims of deranged digital robots, and one way to goose an algorithm is through leaving reviews for the books you love. That means leaving reviews on your choice of social media (though some are blessedly ungoverned by Algorithms), or even better, on sites like Goodreads or Amazon. (You can leave a review at Amazon even if you didn’t buy the book there!) Also true for B&N and Apple and Kobo and so forth.

Third, sometimes those reviews have other side benefits as well. Goodreads will do their Goodreads Choice Awards and also sometimes sum up some of the best reviewed books of XYZ genre — The Book of Accidents made a horror list of theirs (Readers’ Top 66 Horror Novels of the Past Three Years, which is admittedly sort of arbitrary but hey whatever) exactly because it has the aggregate review score and number to be included. Sometimes outlets will use the number of reviews to determine whether or not a book is going to get coverage or not. It’s not a great system and I don’t love it, to be clear, but it’s how shit works and we are sadly subject to its callous whims.

Third, and okay, this isn’t the most vital reason but — it’s nice! It’s nice to get positive reviews. I mean, it’s less nice to get bad reviews, and I don’t read those. (And please get shut of the notion that we should read them or that we should view them as instructive. I even hear some authors say this sometimes, “Well, I like to read my bad reviews in case they contain something useful.” They don’t. I don’t mean they’re a bad phenomenon or that people shouldn’t write negative reviews! I only mean, they’re not for us. They’re for other readers. Reviews are readers talking to readers.)

Again, I don’t believe readers owe us authors anything at all. You are not obligated morally or spiritually to leave a review if you read a book of ours, though not leaving a review does damn you to a purgatory where you never get to read a book again and instead have to watch endless Life Hack TikToks except they’re the kind of life hacks where they’re not life hacks at all but just people discovering how a product is actually already supposed to be used? Or like, basic-ass life hacks like the kind your mother would’ve told you had you listened to her years ago about how to open a pickle jar or stop pasta water from fizzing over? Beyond that, you’re not obligated at all. BUT it is nice and we appreciate it and you get a gold star in our hearts if you do.

So, if you’ve read Black River Orchard — or really any book by any author — and loved it, it’s great to talk about it, and also amazing if “talking about it” includes leaving a review somewhere out in the world.

We love you. If you love us. OUR LOVE IS CONDITIONAL I AM SORRY okay not really we love you anyway. Even if you don’t leave a review.

*side-eye*

LET’S SEE WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

Well! I am back from my second leg of the Black River Orchard tour — this one, out west! — and it was pretty gosh dang spectacular. The events were all stellar and so many great readers came out to these wonderful bookstores and I felt bathed in booklove and and probably also apple sweat. I do think a special shout-out must go to Montana Book Company, in Helena, MT, not just because Charlie and Chelsia are an absolute delight, and not just because they’re a great bookstore fighting the good fight in honestly a pretty red-red-red state, but, selfishly, because they fucking brought it. Like, real-talk, I went there expecting a good event but maybe not a huge one? Something fun, intimate, easy, chill. Well, I was wrong — er, not about the fun or chill part, but about the size of the event. It was huge. They put out all these empty chairs and in my heart I was like, yeah no they’re not filling these seats, and then they pretty much filled those seats? It was wild. Such a cool crowd and the two of them also showed me around their town and — it was the best.

Also shout-out to Sadie Hartmann, YE MONSTROUS MOTHER HORROR, who has been a pal for a long time (and who long time readers of this site should know) — Sadie was my conversation partner in Seattle and is unsurprisingly so thoughtful with her questions and I hope to have more events with her in the future. (And please, if you’ve not checked out 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered, uhh, hello, do so immediately? Do not wait! Horror doesn’t stay trapped by Halloween, you’re gonna need this book every day of the year, it’s that good. The coolest thing is that the authors recommended in that book will then sign the book, and I tend to sign it like it’s a yearbook. It’s slick and cool and go get it.)

And a final shout-out goes to Natalie Metzger, who came to the Portland event at Powell’s and handed me a whole container (which I erm stole) of amazingly creepily delightful EVIL APPLE stickers, which some of you will receive in your prize packs from the pre-order contest. Natalie also did the wallpaper at the fore of this post. Natalie’s art is ever-delightful and I remind you that she was the artist on our book, You Can Do Anything, Magic Skeleton, which ahem ahem ahem is a good gift for people who need a weird pick-me-up in their lives. Ahem ahem ahem, holidays, ahem.

(Thanks also to all who brought me apples and books and other treats along the way, including those intrepid readers who realized I was travel-weary from traveling all day into Denver and they procured for me a LIFE-GIVING container of Panera’s mac and cheese which honestly is RILL GOOD?)

Also I’m literally just noticing right now, while Googling the book for some reviews, that, uhh, Black River Orchard was a USA Today bestseller last week?? It came in at #59??? I had no idea. I am not lying to you when I am saying I am truly just seeing this now as I type this paragraph. You can check the list yourself — I am stunned. Am I hallucinating? Huh. Wow. Whoa.

*clears throat*

*stares at the wall for a bit*

*shakes it off*

Anyway here are more nice things people said about the book!

Also at USA Today, Brian Truitt included the book in a horror Halloween roundup, saying:

“Pour yourself some cider when sitting down with this huge (609 pp.) tome, set in small-town Pennsylvania. After several painstaking years, Dan Paxson’s apple trees have finally fostered a fruit his teen daughter has named the Ruby Slipper. Local residents become ravenous for its delicious taste – and the apple’s powerful aftereffects – but there’s something much more evil at root in this story of social status and rural terror.”

Den of Geek included it in their best horror of the year so far, saying:

“Chuck Wendig will make you think twice about autumnal apple picking in this contemporary fairy tale with a spooky bite. When Calla’s dad Dan plants an unusual orchard in their town of Harrow, it initially bears uniquely delicious fruit that makes everyone’s lives better, brighter, stronger. But the townspeople aren’t just consuming apples; they’re inviting madness into their hearts, turning more violent and inhuman, as a dark force waits over a century to reap its own harvest.”

Janelle Janson reviewed it for Cemetery Dance in a whoa-dang review, where she says some very nice things like:

“Chuck Wendig masterfully explores the irresistible allure of the Ruby Slipper apple, the darkness it awakens within the human psyche, and the powerful forces that seek to exploit its supernatural abilities. In the midst of this tantalizing mystery, the characters are forced to confront their deepest desires and confront the repercussions of their actions, in a thrilling narrative that leaves readers both enthralled and haunted until the very last page. One of the finest works from Mr. Wendig to date.”

The Los Angeled Review of Books took a deeeeeep crunchy bite of the book in a rigorous, thoughtful (and more academic) review, which I love, in a review called “Masculine Frailty and Ambition: On Chuck Wendig’s Black River Orchard.” Excerpt:

“Wendig’s skill in weaving together the small and large, local and universal, personal and political, so it’s clear that they are so enmeshed that the one is informed by and influenced by the other and cannot be extricated without great effort—in fact, cannot be extricated without delusion—renders this novel a cautionary tale well worth reading in our current sociopolitical climate. His ability to tell a compelling story with lush description, humor, and empathy amid the horror renders it just plain fun to read.”

Books Bones & Buffy included it in the best horror of the year thus far.

Culturefly included it on a list of horror novels to get you in the Halloweeny er okay that sounds weird HalloweenISH? mood:

“Black River Orchard is a big book, but boy does Wendig make the most of the daunting page count. With elements of folk horror and psychological suspense, this multi POV, character-driven novel is atmospheric, unique and downright weird in the best of ways. You’ll never look at an apple the same way again.“

A nice review from the Library Ladies, too — excerpt:

“So yes, this is a big book, like many of Wendig’s books are, but like his previous novels Black River Orchard is paced so well and is so addictive that it reads very, very fast. This nearly 700 page books took me maybe four days to finish because if I wasn’t dealing with the day to day responsibilities of my life, I was reading.”

Then, a coupla podcasts —

I got to be on the Nerdette podcast to talk about the book!

And I’m sure I already mentioned it but I got to do another round with Neil at Talking Scared, a true favorite.

ANYWAY.

If you still haven’t checked out the book and you want a signed, personalized copy, the very nice people at Doylestown Bookshop can furnish you with one.

And again, please leave a review somewhere if you’re able!

I LOVE YOU ALL

EXCEPT YOU OVER THERE

THE ONE WHO ATE ALL MY APPLES

YOU’RE ON MY LIST, YOU MONSTER

*vanishes in a splash of caustic apple juice*

Psst, Leave A Review (And Why Leaving A review Matters)

art by the amazing Natalie Metzger!

Reviews matter for books and their authors.

Let’s unpack why, a little bit. Though some of this (maybe even all of this) will be blisteringly obvious, I feel it all needs restating because sometimes we just need to be reminded about things. I certainly do. The only reason I wear pants is my wife is always like, “hey, you, pants” before I leave the house in the morning. Admittedly the embarrassment I’d have suffered upon leaving said house would’ve been minor, since I work in a shed in the yard, so the most I’d have done would be to flash my underdrawers at various noisy robins and probably a squirrel or three. But still: it’s a helpful reminder.

And so I remind you:

Reviews matter for, say it with me, books and their authors.

Here, then, is why:

First, they’re a more generalized variant of “word-of-mouth.” It’s not you telling a single friend about a book (which is also very good and you should do that), but rather, telling the world about a book. Our online circle of trust is larger than our in-person one, these days — though fractured social media has crumbled that cookie, I fear, thus breaking the circle — and reviews can reach that circle of trust. Which allows the book to echo out like a song or a sound that others can hear. It’s nice. It helps.

Second, and please understand that this slicks my tongue with foulness just to say buuuut, THE ALMIGHTY ALGORITHM. Unfortunately, online visibility is subject to the whims of deranged digital robots, and one way to goose an algorithm is through leaving reviews for the books you love. That means leaving reviews on your choice of social media (though some are blessedly ungoverned by Algorithms), or even better, on sites like Goodreads or Amazon. (You can leave a review at Amazon even if you didn’t buy the book there!) Also true for B&N and Apple and Kobo and so forth.

Third, sometimes those reviews have other side benefits as well. Goodreads will do their Goodreads Choice Awards and also sometimes sum up some of the best reviewed books of XYZ genre — The Book of Accidents made a horror list of theirs (Readers’ Top 66 Horror Novels of the Past Three Years, which is admittedly sort of arbitrary but hey whatever) exactly because it has the aggregate review score and number to be included. Sometimes outlets will use the number of reviews to determine whether or not a book is going to get coverage or not. It’s not a great system and I don’t love it, to be clear, but it’s how shit works and we are sadly subject to its callous whims.

Third, and okay, this isn’t the most vital reason but — it’s nice! It’s nice to get positive reviews. I mean, it’s less nice to get bad reviews, and I don’t read those. (And please get shut of the notion that we should read them or that we should view them as instructive. I even hear some authors say this sometimes, “Well, I like to read my bad reviews in case they contain something useful.” They don’t. I don’t mean they’re a bad phenomenon or that people shouldn’t write negative reviews! I only mean, they’re not for us. They’re for other readers. Reviews are readers talking to readers.)

Again, I don’t believe readers owe us authors anything at all. You are not obligated morally or spiritually to leave a review if you read a book of ours, though not leaving a review does damn you to a purgatory where you never get to read a book again and instead have to watch endless Life Hack TikToks except they’re the kind of life hacks where they’re not life hacks at all but just people discovering how a product is actually already supposed to be used? Or like, basic-ass life hacks like the kind your mother would’ve told you had you listened to her years ago about how to open a pickle jar or stop pasta water from fizzing over? Beyond that, you’re not obligated at all. BUT it is nice and we appreciate it and you get a gold star in our hearts if you do.

So, if you’ve read Black River Orchard — or really any book by any author — and loved it, it’s great to talk about it, and also amazing if “talking about it” includes leaving a review somewhere out in the world.

We love you. If you love us. OUR LOVE IS CONDITIONAL I AM SORRY okay not really we love you anyway. Even if you don’t leave a review.

*side-eye*

LET’S SEE WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

Well! I am back from my second leg of the Black River Orchard tour — this one, out west! — and it was pretty gosh dang spectacular. The events were all stellar and so many great readers came out to these wonderful bookstores and I felt bathed in booklove and and probably also apple sweat. I do think a special shout-out must go to Montana Book Company, in Helena, MT, not just because Charlie and Chelsia are an absolute delight, and not just because they’re a great bookstore fighting the good fight in honestly a pretty red-red-red state, but, selfishly, because they fucking brought it. Like, real-talk, I went there expecting a good event but maybe not a huge one? Something fun, intimate, easy, chill. Well, I was wrong — er, not about the fun or chill part, but about the size of the event. It was huge. They put out all these empty chairs and in my heart I was like, yeah no they’re not filling these seats, and then they pretty much filled those seats? It was wild. Such a cool crowd and the two of them also showed me around their town and — it was the best.

Also shout-out to Sadie Hartmann, YE MONSTROUS MOTHER HORROR, who has been a pal for a long time (and who long time readers of this site should know) — Sadie was my conversation partner in Seattle and is unsurprisingly so thoughtful with her questions and I hope to have more events with her in the future. (And please, if you’ve not checked out 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered, uhh, hello, do so immediately? Do not wait! Horror doesn’t stay trapped by Halloween, you’re gonna need this book every day of the year, it’s that good. The coolest thing is that the authors recommended in that book will then sign the book, and I tend to sign it like it’s a yearbook. It’s slick and cool and go get it.)

And a final shout-out goes to Natalie Metzger, who came to the Portland event at Powell’s and handed me a whole container (which I erm stole) of amazingly creepily delightful EVIL APPLE stickers, which some of you will receive in your prize packs from the pre-order contest. Natalie also did the wallpaper at the fore of this post. Natalie’s art is ever-delightful and I remind you that she was the artist on our book, You Can Do Anything, Magic Skeleton, which ahem ahem ahem is a good gift for people who need a weird pick-me-up in their lives. Ahem ahem ahem, holidays, ahem.

(Thanks also to all who brought me apples and books and other treats along the way, including those intrepid readers who realized I was travel-weary from traveling all day into Denver and they procured for me a LIFE-GIVING container of Panera’s mac and cheese which honestly is RILL GOOD?)

Also I’m literally just noticing right now, while Googling the book for some reviews, that, uhh, Black River Orchard was a USA Today bestseller last week?? It came in at #59??? I had no idea. I am not lying to you when I am saying I am truly just seeing this now as I type this paragraph. You can check the list yourself — I am stunned. Am I hallucinating? Huh. Wow. Whoa.

*clears throat*

*stares at the wall for a bit*

*shakes it off*

Anyway here are more nice things people said about the book!

Also at USA Today, Brian Truitt included the book in a horror Halloween roundup, saying:

“Pour yourself some cider when sitting down with this huge (609 pp.) tome, set in small-town Pennsylvania. After several painstaking years, Dan Paxson’s apple trees have finally fostered a fruit his teen daughter has named the Ruby Slipper. Local residents become ravenous for its delicious taste – and the apple’s powerful aftereffects – but there’s something much more evil at root in this story of social status and rural terror.”

Den of Geek included it in their best horror of the year so far, saying:

“Chuck Wendig will make you think twice about autumnal apple picking in this contemporary fairy tale with a spooky bite. When Calla’s dad Dan plants an unusual orchard in their town of Harrow, it initially bears uniquely delicious fruit that makes everyone’s lives better, brighter, stronger. But the townspeople aren’t just consuming apples; they’re inviting madness into their hearts, turning more violent and inhuman, as a dark force waits over a century to reap its own harvest.”

Janelle Janson reviewed it for Cemetery Dance in a whoa-dang review, where she says some very nice things like:

“Chuck Wendig masterfully explores the irresistible allure of the Ruby Slipper apple, the darkness it awakens within the human psyche, and the powerful forces that seek to exploit its supernatural abilities. In the midst of this tantalizing mystery, the characters are forced to confront their deepest desires and confront the repercussions of their actions, in a thrilling narrative that leaves readers both enthralled and haunted until the very last page. One of the finest works from Mr. Wendig to date.”

The Los Angeled Review of Books took a deeeeeep crunchy bite of the book in a rigorous, thoughtful (and more academic) review, which I love, in a review called “Masculine Frailty and Ambition: On Chuck Wendig’s Black River Orchard.” Excerpt:

“Wendig’s skill in weaving together the small and large, local and universal, personal and political, so it’s clear that they are so enmeshed that the one is informed by and influenced by the other and cannot be extricated without great effort—in fact, cannot be extricated without delusion—renders this novel a cautionary tale well worth reading in our current sociopolitical climate. His ability to tell a compelling story with lush description, humor, and empathy amid the horror renders it just plain fun to read.”

Books Bones & Buffy included it in the best horror of the year thus far.

Culturefly included it on a list of horror novels to get you in the Halloweeny er okay that sounds weird HalloweenISH? mood:

“Black River Orchard is a big book, but boy does Wendig make the most of the daunting page count. With elements of folk horror and psychological suspense, this multi POV, character-driven novel is atmospheric, unique and downright weird in the best of ways. You’ll never look at an apple the same way again.“

A nice review from the Library Ladies, too — excerpt:

“So yes, this is a big book, like many of Wendig’s books are, but like his previous novels Black River Orchard is paced so well and is so addictive that it reads very, very fast. This nearly 700 page books took me maybe four days to finish because if I wasn’t dealing with the day to day responsibilities of my life, I was reading.”

Then, a coupla podcasts —

I got to be on the Nerdette podcast to talk about the book!

And I’m sure I already mentioned it but I got to do another round with Neil at Talking Scared, a true favorite.

ANYWAY.

If you still haven’t checked out the book and you want a signed, personalized copy, the very nice people at Doylestown Bookshop can furnish you with one.

And again, please leave a review somewhere if you’re able!

I LOVE YOU ALL

EXCEPT YOU OVER THERE

THE ONE WHO ATE ALL MY APPLES

YOU’RE ON MY LIST, YOU MONSTER

*vanishes in a splash of caustic apple juice*

Dan Moren: Five Things I Learned Writing All Souls Lost

Say hello to Mike Lucifer, Spiritual Consultant. He’s back in town to take care of business. Unfortunately, when business is good, things must be very, very bad. After two years trying to run away from his past, Mike Lucifer’s back in his office less than ten minutes when a persistent young woman shows up asking for help: her boyfriend’s been possessed by a demon.

That’s exactly the kind of mess that drove him from his hometown of Boston to a sunny beach—and the bottom of a bottle—in the first place. But there are some problems that even booze can’t drown, and while Lucifer may be no hero, his dwindling bank account provides a thousand reasons to take the case.

No sooner is he back in the game then the complications and corpses start to add up. The boyfriend’s not possessed—he’s dead. The tech company where he worked is looking shadier by the second. And Lucifer’s client definitely knows more than she should…about everything. The deeper Lucifer digs, the more he wonders if whatever sinister entity lurks behind this case wants him to be the last to die…

In the immortal words of Whitesnake, here I go again. You might think that I, having already published a handful of books, have nothing left to learn, but I’m here to tell you that—surprise!—the world is just chock-a-block full of things that I haven’t learned yet. Or things I have learned but forgot because my brain has got a real unhelpful “last in first out” system going on.

Anyway, let’s learn some stuff. Together.

First things first

After four books written in third-person narration that jumps between protagonists, All Souls Lost is the first time I’ve written a novel focusing on a single protagonist, written entirely in first person. (Well, one that saw the light of day, anyway.)

What I learned from that is that I absolutely love it. So much so that I’m writing in first person RIGHT NOW.

Being inside a character’s head, finding their own unique voice, is a blast. And it gives me the freedom to do all sorts of things that I at times struggled do in even a close third-person narration, leveraging an almost stream-of-consciousness style. It doesn’t hurt that my protagonist, Mike Lucifer, is a bit of a smart-ass, and yes, before you ask, writing that does come rather naturally to me.

I also learned that first-person narration has its challenges: for example, your character can only ever know what your character knows. It’s like going from a big blockbuster to shooting an indie movie with a handheld camera. Plus every sentence, every paragraph, has to be infused with the character’s sensibility—you can’t really take a page off. Still, it’s the good type of challenge to have.

Terminate with extreme prejudice

Okay, I admit it: I have a tendency to the tangential. A predilection for digression. A whim for wandering. Basically, I like putting extra shit in my books. I’m not going to say that’s unequivocally bad; sometimes a little detail that seems unimportant adds color, or sometimes it’s just fun (never underestimate the value of fun). But when I set out to write a taut 80,000 word novel, all those extra bits can add up and detract from that nice, tight story.

The “good” thing about working on a book for many, many years is that you spend a lot of time revising. I mean, I hate revising (don’t believe any writer who tells you they like revising, they’re damn liars—we all prefer to write it correctly the first time), but all that time and repeated exposure does help you get some distance from a piece. You stop looking at it as your adorable little baby, cooing and gurgling in soft focus, and start seeing it as the toddler it is, screaming as it throws a bowl full of spaghetti onto the floor for the third time today.

Let me tell you, it gets a whole lot easier to start paring words, sentences, and even whole chapters out of your draft after you’ve read it six or seven times. Here’s the thing, though: I’m an inveterate hoarder when it comes to writing. I don’t delete things; I just shunt them off into a separate file because you never know when you might want to drop something back in. Or use it somewhere else. But I can honestly say this book got more trims than any I’ve written before: the novel ended up around 77,000 words while my file of cuts and trims clocked in at 69,000. That’s where you’ve got to be brutal: If it doesn’t fit, lose it. If only I could bring myself to apply the same principle to my sock drawer.

Write what you know

It may surprise readers of my space espionage novels to know that I have neither been to space nor ever been an intelligence operative. (That you can prove.) Did that make readers thrown down my books in disgust as the fabricated work of a charlatan? I don’t know, maybe! People are weird like that.

But one big thread in All Souls Lost involves some shady goings-on at a big tech company and, as it happens, that’s something I do know a thing or two about: I’ve covered the tech industry as a journalist for the better part of two decades. Might Paradigm, said company in the book, bear a surprising resemblance to a noted big tech company in our own world? I’ll never tell! (Unless you ask me.) Does that help infuse it with a real sense of vraisemblance, as the French say? Look, I don’t know what that means, but those folks invented the croissant, so they’re clearly onto something: let’s say yes.

I also chose to set this book in my own backyard of Somerville, Massachusetts. As a result, a lot of the locations are lifted directly from real life, which helps add both a bit of realism and some local flavor. Though I do have to cop to the fact that I idealized some elements of life in this city—specifically how fast you can get between any two places.

Don’t be afraid of what you don’t know

You can’t know everything. Believe me, I’ve tried.

But that’s okay. Every writer, sooner or later, is going to run into something that they don’t know. I’m here to tell you that not only is it okay not to know something, but it’s okay to make it up. I’m not talking “I don’t know what the capital of Oklahoma is”—if you can look it up, by all means, do so—but it’s okay if you don’t know exactly what thek interior of a 1983 Volkswagen Rabbit smelled like after baking in the sun all day, or exactly how many steps are at the entrance of the Boston Public Library. It’s cool, I’m giving you permission to fudge it. Because unless it’s absolutely critical to the story, you can just make it whatever you want—that is, hands down, the best part of being a fiction writer.

Besides, readers love to tell you when you got something wrong, so just look at it as giving them something to look forward to.

I just want to celebrate

This book’s path to publication didn’t go the way I expected. I started writing it nine years ago, and when it debuts next week it will be primarily as an ebook (though audiobook and print-on-demand versions will be available as well). I’d had dreams of a big publisher deal with a huge publicity campaign, maybe even my first hardcover release, but that simply wasn’t to be. While the book got close to acquisition several times, it never could quite make it over that last hurdle.

But my agent, Joshua Bilmes, believed in the book, and proposed that rather than simply shelving it on the island of misfit stories, the agency itself publish it as part of its ebook program. The support and enthusiasm for All Souls Lost from everyone at the agency who’s been involved in the process has been a bulwark against the sometimes unforgiving world of publishing, and given that writing is usually a pretty solitary occupation, it’s always nice to feel like you’ve got people in your corner.

So even though it’s not exactly the scenario I had expected and dreamed of, I’ve learned to be okay with that. I dearly love this book—I’m not afraid to say it, and my straight-shooting wife says it’s her favorite too, so take that for what it’s worth. But the important thing is that you get to read it. No matter how it sells, no matter how it’s received, I wrote a story that I love and put it out into the world; everything besides that is gravy.

But, uh, I would really appreciate if you’d buy it.

Dan Moren: Website

All Souls Lost: Books2Read