Chuck Wendig's Blog, page 216

25 Ways To Be A Happy Writer (Or, At Least, Happier)

I read this article — “22 Things Happy People Do Differently.” And I was like, yeah, you know, I like some of these. They’re a little simple, a little direct, but still, I liked the point — we have to choose to be happy instead of letting the universe ladle happiness upon us.

Further, I thought, well, writers are a traditionally unhappy lot, always moping around and crying into their manuscripts — the tears streaking the title page and soaking through the first few chapters. And so it seemed a good time to look at how writers can choose to be happy, too.

And thus, another list was born struggling and screaming from my quivering blog-womb.

1. Write

Writers write. If we were little simulated characters in a video game, we’d have various meters to fill up (liquor, pee, self-esteem, tweets) and one of them would be labeled with two tags: HAPPINESS and WORD COUNT. The happy writer is a writing writer.

2. Care Less

We come to the page with too many expectations. Each poor little story is like a trembling donkey upon which we heap tons of weight. We don’t just want a good book, we want a bestseller. If it isn’t perfect, we hate it. If it isn’t 100% right, it’s 1000% wrong. Problem: we care too damn much. It’s all or nothing with us and that’s the kind of dichotomy that shanks our happiness right in the kidneys. So: care less. Ease off the stress stick. Have more fun with what you’re doing. When your kids and dogs play in the mud, you can either freak out that they’re too dirty, or you can laugh and jump in the mud, too. So, fuck it: jump in the damn mud already.

3. Write What You Want To Write

A career spent writing things you don’t want to write is a career spent trying to birth a VCR through your pee-hole. It’s awkward. It’s painful. It won’t fit and it’ll damn sure tear you apart. Writing as a career isn’t so financially fruitful that there’s much value in coming to this thing without the purity of your love and desire on display. Writing what you want to write, on your terms, is a powerful kind of bliss. And the trick with bliss is, it’s up to you to find it.

4. Put Differently: Bring Yourself To The Page

I’m sympathetic that writers sometimes take assignments or write stories to fit parameters they did not themselves design. The same rule applies as above with a slight modification: even in writing something outside your purview you can still put yourself on the page and make it your own without hammering that square peg through that circle hole (or, for a more grotesque version, “hammering that Rubik’s Cube into that pigeon’s cloaca”). If I’m gonna write an article about trout fishing, grout lines, tulip farming, or a brand comparison of monkey diapers, by gosh and by golly I’m going to write that article the way I want and in a way that pleases me before it pleases you. If I’m not doing that then I might as well be digging ditches.

5. Stop Comparing Yourself To Others

You will never be at the tippy-top of the writer pyramid because there is no fucking writer pyramid. No ladder, no mountain, no March Madness-style ranking. You will always find other writers who have more awards, more sales, more books, better covers, sexier author photos, more Twitter followers, bigger advances, more powerful beards (GODDAMN YOU ROTHFUSS), and on and on. One author with a butt full of awards can still end up jealous of another author who has more awards. Or no awards but a bigger audience. Or better hair, or a cooler agent, or the ability to hold one’s liquor. Strive to be better, yes, but don’t strive to be someone else. You are your own person with your own stories to tell. You’re stuck with you. You can’t comparison shop to be a different person, and trying to do so will only drown you in a washtub of misery.

6. Open Yourself

The happy writer is an open writer: open to experiences, emotions, words, ideas, books, authors, tastes, smells, films, travel, unusual liquors, fancy cupcakes, sexual positions, exotic lubricants, animal costumes, and so on, and so forth. All happy thought-grist for our word-mill.

7. Set Realistic Goals

“I’m going to write this book. It’s going to earn me a seven-figure advance. It’s going to climb all the bestseller charts like that giant ape climbing whatever that really tall building is, and I’m going to win all the awards and then I’ll sell the film rights for another seven figures and the protagonist will be played by Baby Goose himself, THE RYAN GOSLING.” Unrealistically high goals just mean a long fall when you miss a ledge or a foothold crumbles beneath you.

8. Recognize The Lengths Of Your Control

And that leads me to this: Happiness lies in knowing the difference between control and influence. You control the quality of your work. The quality of your work influences factors outside your control like, say, whether you get an agent or sell a lot of books or get to make sweet sweet on-screen love to Ryan Gosling. Happiness is controlling what you can control to the best of your ability while letting the rest fall to the misty vagaries of your influence.

9. Gaze Not Into Publishing’s Demon Eye

You should know how the publishing industry works, but you don’t need to know it biblically. Pretend that you’re in a Lovecraft novel, right? In the world of a Lovecraft novel it’s enough to know that the Great Old Ones are out there beyond time and space in an astronomical mind-destroying fuck-tangle. You have your knowledge, yay, great, now go home. Don’t study it. Don’t stare. Don’t go fucking around with the Necronomicon or ululating foul entreaties of Azathoth the Blind Idiot God because that’s how you lose your sanity. Same thing with publishing. Know it’s there. Know how it works. Then go home and write your books. Because you start picking off those cosmic, spiritual scabs and you’ll start shedding sanity faster than a Collie blows his coat.

10. Don’t Give Haters Real Estate In Your Brain

Creative folks put themselves out there further than many by the nature of the work: you create a thing whose value is reflected only when it is held and beheld by the community that receives it. But that also means you’re a kind of antenna receiving both good vibes and venomous ones, too. Fuck the haters. Piss on any negativity that comes flinging your way. Letting haters have real estate in your head is like letting a strange dog shit in your kitchen.

11. Stop Looking At Your Amazon Ranking (Or Other Internet Numbers)

I don’t even think that number means anything. I suspect one day Amazon will reveal that the entire Amazon ranking calculation is the invention of an insane spam-bot staring into a snowglobe. And now authors are ranked separately from books? Oh boy. Pinning your self worth to an Amazon rank is no better than measuring your value by the pH balance of your front lawn. For that matter, stop obsessing about blog hits, Twitter followers, Facebook likes, Myspace wongles, OkCupid tickles, or any other pokes, peeks, clicks, views, twists, tweaks, or other agglomerated purple nurples. Those numbers will never add up to your happiness.

12. Give Yourself Permission To Suck

You ever get the opportunity to play with an artistic medium in which you have no experience? Photography? Fingerpaints? Erotic botany? When you do that, there exists this level of freedom where you’re like, “I have no stake in this, I’m just going to spackle some paint on my fingers and — I don’t know, fuck it, I’m going to draw a turkey on a jet-ski.” And then you’re there dicking around and fingerpainting like a boss and suddenly you realize: this is fun. And it sucks, but yet, there’s something real in there. Something of value. (“I WILL BE A CHAMPION FINGERPAINTER.”) It’s a cool moment where by creating art with no limits or no pressure and with jizz-buckets of fun you still managed to do something interesting. Something different. Carry that into your writing. Leap into the beyond. Fingerpaint like a boss. Remove the pressure of quality and give yourself permission to suck. Remember: with writing, you can always fix it in post. Why do you think Word Jesus invented the Editing Process? PRAISE WORD JESUS.

13. Deal With Your Shit

Happiness is active, not passive; it’s a decision, not an award someone gives you. Happiness takes adjustment. When something is broken, you adjust that thing with a wrench, a screwdriver, maybe a flamethrower. Writers, as it turns out, bring a lot of shit to the table. Other people have baggage. Writers have cargo. (By the goddamn tonnage.) This burden will stand in the way of your happiness as a writer because, worst of all, it will stop you from writing. Whatever it is that blocks you, it’s up to you to unblock. Deal with it on the page. Deal with it in therapy. Deal with it with medically-approved happy pills, whatever. Hard as it may be, it remains your choice to atomize the obstacles in your mind and on your path.

14. When Something Isn’t Working, Change It

We can usually tell when something is off. We know when our process is wrong. When we’re writing the wrong thing. When a behavior we’re committed to isn’t yielding the results we expected. You can only try to pick a lock with your dick so many times before you realize it just isn’t gonna work. (Or, for the lady version, “You can only try to open a stuck pickle jar with your vagina so many times…”) We often repeat mistakes out of some combination of stubbornness and laziness, but all that does is sink our boots deeper into the mire of dissatisfaction. Change your game. Mix it up. Approach your problems from a new direction.

15. Take Care Of Your Body

Move your body. Don’t fill it with a ton of crap. Your brain is the thing responsible for your writing but that brain is just a passenger in a car that needs to be working in tippy-top shape. Fill it with the right fuel. Take it out driving. Keep it maintained. Your body isn’t some unmufflered explodable rust-fucked jalopy. Give your brain the best ride you can give it.

16. Fuck Money

When the time comes to send my son to college in 16 years, it will cost about as much as it does now to send him to Alpha Centauri. So, I’m no enemy of cash. I like money. I need it. To eat. To live. To whiskey. (Is “whiskey” a verb? It should be. CALL OXFORD, CAMBRIDGE and tell MERRIAM to stop playing grab-ass with WEBSTER, stat!) I’m not saying you shouldn’t write with money in mind — but writing with only money in mind is a tram ride into Disappointment City, population: you. You gotta find a reason to write that isn’t just a pouch of imaginary chits and ducats. You gotta write because you want to write, because the story is about to pop out of you like a chestburster. You must love the writing more than you love the money from writing.

17. Recognize The Limits Of Shame

Shame sure seems like a powerful motivator, doesn’t it? I once thought it served me well. “Ah, if I don’t write X,000 words a day I’ll be ashamed of myself and that shame will be a burr in my hiney-hole to get me working!” And it does motivate, to a point. But you have to realize that shame is only half a ladder. It only gets us part of the way and it does so for the wrong reasons. We should try to be better writers because it makes us feel good to do so not because it makes us feel bad to do otherwise. Become addicted to the positive feelings, not the negative ones. Give shame its due — which is to say, flick it away like an errant booger.

18. Treat Your Audience Well

There exists what I consider to be a positive feedback loop, which is to say, giving positivity into the world returns it like a boomerang and uhh, hello, BOOMERANGS ARE FUCKING RAD-GRAVY (“rad-gravy” is superior to “awesomesauce,” by the way). Treat your audience well and they will treat you well in kind. And it will magnify and multiply.

19. Help Nurture Other Writers (And Be Nurtured In Return)

We seem like a big community, a formless and faceless blob — but the writing community is actually a lot smaller than you think. Be a part of it. Nurture relationships. Help other writers find opportunity and they will help you in turn. Hell, just make friends with other writers. (I mean, not all of them — some of us are quite scary with our pantsless whiskey rages and our bone-woven beards.) Like with one’s audience, feeding into it feeds back upon you — that’s true of positivity and true of negativity as well. More to the point, imagine there’s a communal fountain: you can either poop in it or fill it with vodka and Kool-Aid. CHOOSE WISELY.

20. See Failure As An Instruction Manual

Failure is illuminating. It reveals every broken board beneath our feet, every crack in the wall, every pothole in the road. Do not shun failure. High-five it. Hug it. Engage in lusty pawing with it. Failure means you’re doing. Everybody fails before they succeed. Failure is how we learn. Failure is part of the grand tradition of figuring out how to be awesome.

21. Make No Excuses

We tell excuses to other people as if they’re reasons, but we know the truth: it’s just some nonsense we say to absolve ourselves of the sin of Not Doing The Shit We Were Supposed To Do. Every excuse uttered is another squirrel nibble out of our happiness. Soon your excuses amount to a whole swarm of squirrels. They’ll make short bitey work of your self-worth.

22. Long-Term Satisfaction Over Short-Term Happiness

The happy writer knows that not every day is spent as happy writer. Every day isn’t, “Open Word processor, giggle as a rain of puppies and panda babies fall upon you, proceed to breathe brilliance onto screen, go take a nap.” Some days are hard. As intellectually grueling as back-breaking labor. Some days feel like you’re pulling out a wolf’s teeth by going through his asshole. What you need to realize is that even a bad day of writing contributes to a sense of long-term satisfaction which is far more valuable than the short sharp cookie-pop of temporary happiness (though that’s good too, and needn’t be avoided).

23. Let Your Voice Find You

An author doesn’t find her voice. An author’s voice is what’s on the page when she writes without trying or pretension. You are your voice. Trying to find it is often an act of digging a deep hole to discover what was standing next to you all along.

24. Love Some Part Of What You Do

Sometimes we get an idea in our heads to do a thing (go to the moon, climb Everest, learn bondage knots, cross-breed a panther and a pony into an adorable predator known as the PANTHY), but it turns out we try it and don’t actually like the process it takes to get there. Love of the end-game isn’t enough to keep you happy. It might be enough to get the job done, but happy-making, it isn’t. You have to love some part of the process. The writing. The editing. The rewriting. If the only thing the act of writing earns you is a mouthful of ash and a pair of rage-throttled fists, fuck it. Writing ain’t worth doing if it fails to tickle your inner monkey.

25. Finish Your Shit

Every time you fail to finish your work, a little girl loses another kitten. A unicorn loses his horn and becomes a regular stupid old horse. A sweet old lady chokes on her dentures. But worst of all, every time you fail to finish your work it wears another small hole in your soul. You can feel it there — that ragged tear in your cloth, wind whistling through the gap. Because you know what it means. You’re giving up. Giving in. Handing over the keys. Letting the terrorists that are your Doubt and Fear and Uncertainty win. You know what all the books published and movies made and comics inked have in common? Someone finished what they started. And finishing will give you a bliss-boost. All your happiness circuits will fire like a 21-synapse-salute. Even if it’s not the best thing you’ve written. Even if it’s the worst.

Because the best thing you never finished is always less than the worst thing you did.

Want another hot tasty dose of dubious writing advice aimed at your facemeats?

500 WAYS TO TELL A BETTER STORY:

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER:

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

500 MORE WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER:

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING:

$0.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY:

$4.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

REVENGE OF THE PENMONKEY:

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

S&S Versus B&N And The Self-Publisher Schadenfreude Tango

So, in case you missed the news, Simon & Schuster are having a very public secret snit with Barnes & Noble over — well, best as I can tell, B&N sees itself as the only big dog left in bookstores and wants better support from publishers, and S&S claims it cannot afford said support and probably also sees itself as one of the only big dogs left in publishing, and blah blah blah, genitals-a-waving, slappy slappy, flappy flappy.

I don’t know who’s right or who’s wrong. I know I like Barnes & Noble as a bookstore and I know I like a lot of the books Simon & Schuster puts out. I also know that Barnes & Noble is increasingly focused on things other than books despite still being labeled a “bookstore,” and I also know that Simon & Schuster is occasionally responsible for some pretty scary contract clauses and is also responsible for one of the new vanguard of vanity presses (which in my mind you should avoid like it’s a bitey gonorrhea monkey coming for your wiggly bits).

Point is, they’re both businesses who do awesome things and shitty things.

Because businesses are like that.

I have seen on the sidelines, however, some cheering of this situation.

It is cheering by some — hell, relatively few — self-published authors.

Just the same, I thought I’d take a moment to remind you, as Delilah Dawson does here, that the people who get hurt in all this are, well, people. Authors get hurt because you can’t find their books. Readers get hurt because they can’t find the books they want. Even workers at B&N and S&S are hurt because they’re not a part of this cruel and clumsy tango. They didn’t sanction it. Most of those folks love books and love authors.

Let me say right now that schadenfreude by any author — self-published or otherwise — is an ugly thing. Put it down. Walk away from it. Don’t cheer damage done to other authors. Don’t cheer the erosion of the publishing industry. And further, don’t suspect for one second that something like that couldn’t happen to you. This could happen between any distributor and any publisher (and has, actually). This could happen when Amazon or some other e-tailer changes the rules on self-published work. Nobody is safe in this big corporate scraps.

Whenever Godzilla and Mechagodzilla fight, shits gets broken.

People get stomped.

Nobody wins.

So: no more cheerleading the misery of others, please.

And, if you’re so inclined, feel free to support your favorite Simon & Schuster authors by finding their work wherever you can find it — even if that’s somewhere other than a Barnes & Noble store. (Hey, aren’t indie bookstores cool? Indiebound is your friend.)

The Most Controversial Question Ever Posed At This Website

What soup do you like?

I know, I know. Soup. Courting controversy with that one! I mean, sheesh. If there’s one piece of advice absolutely critical to creative creators of all stripes it’s: Don’t talk about soup on the Internet, but I’m a rebel, an iconoclast, I cannot be pinned down by your digital norms.

Didn’t Amanda Palmer just do a TED Talk about this?

Something about… about soup?

Whatever.

I want to know what your favorite soup is.

Then, second question: I demand some soup recipes.

In the last few weeks I’ve made two damn fine soups — a sausage kale soup and a vegetable soup — and I’m kind of on a soup kick, as it were. So: help me out, won’t you?

Spit in the face of controversy and speak to me of soup.

Favorite soup.

Recipes of soup.

SOUP SOUP SOUP

Flash Fiction Challenge: Ten Words Will Give You Five

Last week’s challenge: “They Fight Crime“

I’m going to a random word generator.

*does that*

There. It has chosen ten random words.

Those ten words are:

Library
Ethereal
Dolphin
Replay
Undertaker
Storm
Envelope
Cube
Chisel
Satellite

You will choose five of those words.

You will include those five aspects — not just as words but as actual components of the story — in your 1000-word flash fiction this week. As always: post at your blog or online space, then link back here so we can all read it. You’ve got a week. Due by Friday the 29th, noon EST.

Pick words. Write story. Go.

Ten Questions About Black Feathers, By Joseph D’Lacey

Joseph d’Lacey is a fellow servitor of the Angry Robot, and he’s got a new book out – Black Feathers, which releases 3/26 as part one of the Black Dawn duology:

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?

Among other things I’m responsible for MEAT, a dystopian horror novel exploring factory farming and slaughter themes. I write H/SF/F, often inspired by ecological or environmental themes.

GIVE US THE 140-CHARACTER STORY PITCH:

To avert Armageddon, two children must search for a dark messiah, The Crowman. But is he our saviour or the final incarnation of evil?

WHERE DOES THIS STORY COME FROM?

It’s the coalescing of not-necessarily-connected elements over many years.

Its roots go back to my childhood, to a batik I made in art class, aged 14. The subject was three crows in a skeletal tree, silhouetted by a red sunset. I’ve been fascinated by the beauty, intelligence and mystery of corvids ever since.

I’m convinced humans embody a spiritual essence. But I’m appalled at how destructive religion can be. And yet, in all religions, there is wisdom. To me, the stories in ‘holy’ books are metaphors for the human journey; charting the ‘unfolding’ of the individual.

I’ve had many experiences in which the natural world has been my teacher – vision quests in particular – and it stuns me that all this knowledge, about ourselves and how the world works, is right outside the door and yet we’ve become so removed from it.

I wanted to chronicle a messianic life in a secular tale, whilst retaining the idea of spirit through the imagery of crows.

HOW IS THIS A STORY ONLY YOU COULD’VE WRITTEN?

Anyone could have written this. In essence, it’s a quest. If you believe in a finite number of story templates or plots, then it’s probably been written many times already.

Of course, it would be almost impossible to tell it in exactly the same way. I just don’t think it’s that original or unique.

WHAT WAS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT WRITING BLACK FEATHERS?

I wrote it during a period when publishers everywhere were turning down all my work – even Beautiful Books who did such a great job on MEAT and Garbage Man. They then went out of business, leading to further troubles.

Black Feathers was more ‘from the heart’ than anything else I’ve attempted and yet I wrote it with very little hope. The year it took to write and the two years spent rewriting and trying to find a home for it were quite tough.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN WRITING BLACK FEATHERS?

I learned that when I care about a subject, I overwrite. I learned that the story I most want to tell is the one I should write now. I learned that even though I write my books alone, I never write my books alone.

And all the things I always try to teach in writing classes? I learned about them. Again.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT IT?

Black Feathers is full of mystery about the nature of The Crowman – is he for the good or will he destroy everything? As well as making for an intriguing read, it’s a question we could ask about ourselves.

Although the book deals with the end of the world, it is full of hope for the future. It’s an apocalypse pregnant with possibility for a change.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME?

I’ll never write a book like this again. For start it was too long; over 250K. Angry Robot suggested splitting it and so it became a duology, improving it immeasurably.

I’ll use more structure in future novels and I probably won’t take any part of the process so seriously.

GIVE US YOUR FAVORITE PARAGRAPH FROM THE STORY:

“I do not want to recount it. I do not want to recall the casting out of so much goodness, nor the reaping of so much pain. But, for the sake of all of us, I must and I will. Mark it well. Tell your kin and those you love his story. Tell them this: Satan walks nowhere on this Earth, nor has he ever, save where he treads within the human heart. Tell his story and let us keep the Crowman alive for as long as our kind walks the greening byways of this world. Above all, make them understand one thing: the Crowman is real.”

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU AS A STORYTELLER?

More fantasy; more tales with adolescent heroes and heroines; more tragedy; more worlds just out of reach; more stories in which the outer journey reveals the inner; and ever more refinement.

I hope.

Joseph d’Lacey: Website

Black Feathers: Amazon / B&N / Indiebound

Ten Questions About Blood And Magick, by James R. Tuck

James Tuck is equal parts bad-ass and bonafide sweetheart, but when it comes to writing, he’s all business — his Deacon Chalk series is already three books deep, and here he’d like to sit in the terribleminds hot seat and answer ten questions about Book 3, Blood and Magick:

Tell Us About Yourself: Who The Hell Are You?

I’m  the big scary guy at the bar who’ll actually talk to you, assuming you aren’t an asshole or trying to puke in my pockets. Hell, I’m a normal guy who just happens to write a series of books about a hyper-violent, die-hard Catholic, death wish havin’ monster fighter and his oddball crew of allies including a Were-rabbit, a Were-spider, a chain-smoking priest, and stripper with murderous ghost spiders straightline jacked into her brain. I’m a husband and a dad and a tattoo artist and a Southern boy and an asshole and a fanboy and a best friend to my dog, and a lover and a fighter.

I’m James R. Tuck, spinner of yarns, teller of tales, and professional maker up of shit.

Give Us The 140-Character Story Pitch:

Witches come to town and all Hell breaks loose.

Where Does This Story Come From?

It’s a logical progression from things that I set up in books 1 and 2 (BLOOD AND BULLETS and BLOOD AND SILVER for those keeping score at home).

But I really wanted to show Deacon’s progression, how his faith really configures in his fight against evil and how an extended, chosen family and love interest might affect his war on monsters. To really put him in a crucible and see what he’s made of. Plus, I got to really go all Hammer movie modernized with the witches. These aren’t wiccans on a bad day, these are real deal daughters of the Devil satanic witches and they are awesome!

How Is This A Story Only You Could’ve Written?

The story only works if it is told portraying both Deacon’s faith in Catholicism AND his propensity for brutal violence as a solution to all situations in an honest light. The juxtaposition of a character who honestly prays the rosary and shoots monsters in the face is something I enjoy. I work hard to get the religion and the weapons right. I busted my ass to give this book a raw honesty with everything the characters go through, no matter how brutal it is. I never pull back, never look away, never soft sell it. You need to see the brain matter on the page and I give you that right next to a tender kiss between lovers, all without a fucking flinch.

What Was The Hardest Thing About Writing BLOOD AND MAGICK?

Because the book is a result of things that happened in book 1 and 2 my biggest struggle was to write in a way that allows new readers to get on board without being lost and still not info dump for the readers who have been on board from the start. NO BACKSTORY IN THE FIRST 50 PAGES! Damn hard advice to follow, but it’s true. I held to it . . . mostly.   One day the publisher will let me do a PREVIOUSLY ON:  sum up section at the front of the book where I can do a quick couple of paragraphs to get new readers up to date without having to put any of it in the book itself. One day.

What Did You Learn Writing BLOOD AND MAGICK?

I learned a lot about craft. It’s the third book I ever wrote ever and I’m pleased with my progression as a writer. I held onto the things I rocked in the first two books and cut out the things I sucked ass at. I tend to get pretty repeato-James and I think I killed almost all of that this go around.

What Do You Love About BLOOD AND MAGICK?

I love the villains. The witches are both deliciously evil but at the same time have great motives for what they do. One of them will creep you the fuck out, one of them just might make you cry.

I love the new character I created in this book. (read it to find out)

I love the dialog. It’s snappy and funny in a very noir kinda way. I’m pleased.

Finally, I love that I just went THERE. Balls out, 90 MPH into a brick wall, gonzo cross-eyed crazy THERE. From the get with this series I said I wouldn’t hold back and baby in this one I really didn’t hold back. It’s all hanging out there on the page for you to see. All the sex, all the violence, all the creepy, all the tragedy, all the humor . . . everything I could put in this damn book is there.

What Would You Do Differently Next Time?

There is a crucial scene, a powerful scene, that happens. I won’t spoil it, but it is HUGE in the book and huge in the mythology of the series. I would have stayed in that scene just a touch longer, really let what happened stay in our sight as readers for a minute.

Other than that, nothing. Not a damn thing.

Give Us Your Favorite Paragraph From The Story:

She drove that midnight blade deep through the center of my chest. It slid in slick and sharp. The witch behind it rushed in, pressing close, leaning her weight into it. Her eyes were wild, spinning like loose marbles of basalt. This close I could see things rippling through the inky surface, maggots under the thin skein of a cornea. Her breath was hot on my face, carrion sweet and rotten vegetable musk like compost.

What’s Next For You As A Storyteller?

Holy shit 2013 is busy for me.

I’m finishing an urban fantasy based off the Lovecraft Mythos that is really dark and disturbing and totally kick ass. In some ways it’s even darker than the Deacon books, cutting the urban fantasy with some straight, hard-core, Ed Lee level horror.

I’m editing a Sword and Sorcery anthology from Seventh Star Press and will have a story in that.

Being part of the Outlaws Of Fiction (Me, Brady Allen, Steven Shrewsbury, and D.A. Adams) we’re doing a novella 4-pack of weird westerns.

I’m writing a not-for-public-consuption-yet collaboration with a terrifically talented, NYT Bestselling author friend of mine. It’s an urban fantasy retelling of a classic fantasy story. It is gonna rock. We are a few chapters in and it’s off the chain.

The next 3 Deacon books are proposed and in the inbox of my editor so there should also be some more crazy ass Deacon Chalk from me.

And if I find the time there is a 40,000 word YA faerie love story banging on the inside of my skull next to a post-Biblical apocalypse weird western fantasy epic.

James R. Tuck: Website

Blood and Magick: Amazon / B&N / Indiebound / Books-A-Million

@jamestuckwriter

Monkeys, Blood, And Radiation: Kadrey And I Talk Writing

So, earlier this morning (late at night for him), Richard Kadrey and I talked about writing. And about ninja monkeys and kidnapping writing students and about diapers and whiskey.

You just have to read it.

(Kadrey is, of course, the man behind the kickass Sandman Slim series. Which you should check out. I need to get caught up on the latest two books, but the first three are cracking.)

(I’ve embedded the conversation below. Thanks to Caitlin O’Sullivan for curating!)

[View the story "Writing, arrogance, and success" on Storify]

It’s Half-Past “You Should Quit Writing” O’Clock

*wakes up in puddle of spit and vodka*

*checks watch*

*glances up at calendar*

Wuzza?

Ugh.

Oh, shit.

It’s that time of the year again, isn’t it?

Whoo. Okay. Deep breath. Deep breath. Do some calisthenics — is that how you spell that? “Calisthenics?” Do people even say that word anymore? Whatever. Focus. Focus.

I’ll power-chug a kale smoothie. Do I want it as an enema? *whistles* Okay, we don’t have time for that. Enemas need a lot of tubing, bagging, all that clean-up. And the registered nurse I keep on my Authorial Payroll has gone and fucked off again to Puerto Vallarta, so.

I’m just going to have to do this blind.

Here we go.

Are you sitting down?

Good.

YOU SHOULD QUIT WRITING NOW.

*pant pant pant*

Okay. Okay! There. We’re over the hump. We’re past that part. Like swallowing a horse pill!

Whew.

Let’s see. I think now it’s time to go through all the reasons you should quit, right? I know I have a list around here somewhere. AH YES, it’s tattooed to this hobo’s back. Hold on, let me flip him over (he’s sleeping, the dear). Ah! Ah. Here it is. WHY YOU SHOULD QUIT WRITING.

It’s not 25 reasons, but fuck it, it’ll do.

Hm, okay –

You’re probably not that good.

Sure, sure, that tracks. I mean, who is? So many great writers out there. What are the chances that you’re among them? Eh. Slim. Are you even fit to lick boots? Mmmm. NO.

What’s next?

The publishing industry is a parade of cannibals eating one another.

Truth. It’s just a circle jerk of zombies — the dead who don’t realize they’re dead yet! Stumbling about, eating each other. Soon there won’t be anything left but a foamy blood smear on the sidewalk. Publishers are basically doomed. We’ve smelled the char on the wind for a long time now, haven’t we? I mean, shit, are books even published anymore? I haven’t seen a book since Clinton was president. Hell, there’s only one Barnes & Noble left. It’s way out on old Route 66 — it’s just a ghost, shimmering in the heat haze. You go in, you never come out again. And if you do, you only come out with — *crash of thunder* — BOARD GAMES AND COFFEE DRINKS.

What else?

Your chances are next to nothing.

Might as well be zero. Nobody gets published anymore. I’m not even published. Oh, I know, I know, you think you’ve read my books, but HA HA HA it’s all an elaborate ruse. I just sell bundles of index cards laced with high-test hallucinogens. DMT, ayahuasca, some kind of LSD you have to cook in an E-Z-Bake oven with that little fucking lightbulb. You get this shit on your hands, you’ll believe any of the lies that come tumbling out of my mouth like horse apples.

*goes down the list*

There’s no money in it.

Virtually none. I mean, this guy made it to the Amazon bestseller list and he made nothing. Nothing at all! And by “nothing,” he of course means $12,000 dollars, but that kind of money won’t buy you a sweet-ass hovercraft or a diamond-encrusted poodle, so what the shit is the point? ALL WRITERS USED TO BE RICH and now it’s just, you know, the rain of caviar and supermodels has dried up. The gravy train has turned to a curdled milk wagon. Sure, you might think that $12k on a book put out by a small publisher across a single distribution medium that made the bestseller list for a short week based on some dubious media attention is a good number. NOPE. Dude should be raking in fat cash. What happened to the world?

See? So far, SO QUIT.

*keeps poking the list*

Takes too much time.

Takes like, 10,000 hours to get good, then ten years to write a book, another ten to get published, then another ten to start collecting royalties. Who the hell am I, Yoda? Fuck that.

It’s hard.

Super-tough. It’s like, putting one word after the other — ? And then making them make sense? And then using those words and that sense to invent some story about some blah blah blah fake people who blah blah blah get into some imaginary predicament – oof. I’d rather be shoveling animal feces. Or taking fire in a hot zone. Is that what they call it? A “hot zone?” Whatever. I’m just saying, tangoing with terrorists would be HELLA EASIER.

Rejection.

Yep, you’ll be rejected. IN THE FACE AND GENITALS AND SOUL.

Hearbreak.

Your heart won’t just be broken, it’ll be run through the irritable bowels of a literary agent.

*flips through the rest of the list*

I mean, you know all this, right? It sucks. It’s hard. It takes fucking forever. Low advances. Zero respect. Self-publishing is for shlubs. Traditional publishing is for slaves. Amazon is eating everybody and everything. You’re probably getting worse, not better. You’re sad. You’re old. Best days are behind you. Or you’re young and you’ve got no shot. You’ve got nothing to say and no one to say it to. It’s hopeless. Who cares? *poop noise*

This is where I sum up, right? I tie it all together? Say something pithy? Offer you some kind of choice as if that’s meaningful? That sounds right. It’s been a while and I’ve been drinking.

Here goes.

Like I said, you should probably just quit.

If you read that and there’s some part of you that’s nodding along, great. Hey, listen, go be happy doing something else. Writing isn’t here to make you miserable. Why do that to yourself? Why do that to the rest of the world? Not everybody gets to be everything they want to be. I once thought I could be a radio DJ, a rock drummer, a cartoonist, a sex god, whatever. But as it turns out, my general sluggishness combined with an overly active imagination and paired with a propensity to a) drink and b) avoid pants seemed to add up on the Aptitude Test that is my life to one thing: writer. It may not add up like that for you. Maybe you’ll be a sex god. Or a monkey wrangler. Or the owner of the world’s only cat rodeo. Hell, maybe you just want to stay home and sit on your couch-imprinted ass and play video games all goddamn day.

Find your fucking bliss, dudes and dudettes.

If, on the other hand, this post fills you with a magma spout of rage that sears the back of your throat, good. Maybe you really are a writer. If your response to this is to shut down the browser, punch social media right between the 1s and 0s and open up your word processor and write the best fucking thing you’ve ever committed to paper, awesome. Hell, even if you open it up and write a relatively mediocre piece of crap that can be improved with effort, that too earns you a freeze-frame high-five because that proves that this is a thing worth doing. It’s not about talent. It’s about possessing the desire to do it and then the discipline and diligence to back it all up. You’re not born a penmonkey. You choose to be one.

So, make your choice.

Whatever happens, stop blaming other people for your failures. Stop complaining. Stop dicking around. Start doing that thing you want to do and do it with all the love you can fling into it.

If you’re a writer, you’ll write.

If you’re a quitter, you’ll quit.

And if you’re some other thing, find that other thing and be that.

Follow your path. Know your truth. Ride your spirit animal into the supernova or some shit.

*checks the hobo’s back*

I think that about covers it.

*looks back at the hobo list*

Oh, wait, goddamnit, I did do 25 reasons on why you should quit writing!

Never mind. Go read that instead.

25 Turns, Pivots, And Twists To Complicate Your Story

1. The Heinous Fuckery Is Revealed

This is the “first turn” of the story: something happens that disrupts the status quo and this event pushes the protagonist (and perhaps the world around him) into the tale. The king dies! Terrorists attack! My beloved pony has been pony-napped! A vampire just joined your Little League team! This turn, unlike all the others in this list, isn’t optional: storytelling is an act of taking the straight line that is the status quo and kinking it like a garden hose. This first turn — known sometimes as the inciting incident — is why the story exists in the first place.

2. The Actual Heinous Fuckery Is Actually Really Revealed

In some stories we chug along thinking we know what the problem is (“My boyfriend broke up with me!”) but at some point during the tale, perhaps around the midpoint of the narrative, we learn of the real problem lurks behind the scenes (“My boyfriend broke up with me because he’s actually a robot hell-bent on invading our high school and turning us all to robots and now I have to save us all!”) The initial problem, the one presented by the inciting incident, is something of a stalking horse — it’s a bit of magical misdirection that the protagonist and the readers fall for while the real problem waits in the shadows to be exposed.

3. The Truly Villainous Fucker Is Revealed

Similar, but different: the problem is connected to a particular antagonist, and we think we know who the true antagonist is, but oops, there’s a meaner scarier malevolenter (not a word) motherfucker in the wings: Darth Vader steps aside and it’s The Emperor! We think it’s George Bush but it’s really Dick Cheney! Agent Smith is the bad guy but really it’s a bunch of, uhh, squidbots and spider-borgs and whatever it doesn’t matter because it turns again and actually it’s really Agent Smith anyway haw haw haw you just got played, audience!

4. Oh, Shit

This turn is also fairly essential: “Oh, Shit,” means, “We just escalated the problem.” One tiger got loose? Now it’s ten. The protagonist’s love interest is getting married? His fiancee is also pregnant. The hero is being hunted by terrorists? Now the terrorists can psychically control bees. This turn is a very simple one to understand: you have a pot of water on the stove, now it’s time to turn the knob click by click until it gets hotter and hotter and eventually boils over.

5. Holy Tits, It Looks Like We’re Gonna Lose

In many stories you’ll have that moment where it looks like everything is basically fucked. In the original Star Wars trilogy, this is perhaps best embodied by the end of Empire Strikes Back. You reach the end of that film you’re like, “Oh, okay, so, that’s it. Obi-Wan’s long dead, Luke lost his hand, the Rebellion is against the ropes, Vader’s way too powerful and also Luke’s… uncle or whatever, Han Solo got turned into a coffee table for a slimy turd-skinned space gangster. Okay, everybody. Time to pack it up and go home.” This is the dark pit, the bleak moment, the part in the aerial acrobatics show where the plane dives right toward the ground and you think it’s impossible to pull up in time but then vvvooooooom there it goes.

6. Sweet Jeebus, We Totally Fucking Lost

We’re conditioned to believe that the heroes are going to win. Even when we reach that all is lost moment, we still have a tiny ember glowing bright in the ash-pile of our expectations: we still suspect that things are going to turn out okay, we just don’t know how. Ah, but, again, storytelling is an act that refutes the status quo and in this case audience expectations are that status quo. Which means we must defy the audience. Which means in this case actually letting the characters lose. Not a fake defeat. Not a temporary one. But that thing they were hoping to achieve (save the victim, rescue the hostages, defeat the Satanic Unicorn Lord in his lair of bedazzled bones and elf-flesh), mmmnope, too bad, sorry, too late. The victim cannot be saved. The hostages are fucking dead. The Unicorn Lord is triumphant. Take them past the point of utter loss and there may lie the end of the story or a new story may exist in the dread and unexpected space after. The goals shift. The emotional frequency changes. The plot turns.

7. The Fake-Ass Victory

This is a real fuck-you-flavored move for the storyteller to make, but hey, sorry, that’s life in the Big Story, pal. In this one, you lend the protagonists a victory: “Oh, ha ha ha, I did something good! We’re gonna win!” and then you kick the chair out from under them and watch them hang for it. John McClane calls the cops and goes through hell to keep them there, but his only ally turns out to be a donut-chugging desk jockey and the entire police force not only doesn’t help him but instead accuses him of being one of the terrorists.

8. A Goddamn Knife In The Back

Betrayal is powerful story-fu. A character close to the protagonist suddenly turns and sticks a dagger in the hero’s back either out of new opportunity for the traitorous character or because he was planning on doing some cold-as-ice backstabbing all along. The girlfriend is really a demon! The boyfriend is actually a doom-bot! The jealous best friend has been planning the downfall of his buddy for the whole book! This works only when we believe the original relationship to be rock-solid but at the same time engineer into the narrative reasons that the betrayal makes sense. (That’s the weird trick of storytelling: on the one hand, you have to tell the story with all the elements in place to uphold logic, but at the same time you’re trying to direct attention away from many of those elements so that the audience isn’t stunned into disbelief.)

9. Ha Ha Ha This Is All Part Of My Secret Plan, Dickhead

Here the oil-slick story squirms away from the all is lost or the false victory moment and tears off its mask and says, “HAR HAR HAR, I ENGINEERED IT THIS WAY FROM THE VERY BEGINNING.” The hero appears defeated but then she pulls a machete out of her ass-crack and starts cutting fools to pieces. Or the antagonist is thrown in jail but suddenly we realize that was his intention all along and now he’s closer to the Queen’s Jewels he wants to steal or the orphanage he wants to blow up or the Whole Foods where he buys his sinister quinoa.

10. Variation: The Villain Knows Everything, Dumbass

This is a variation on the above — except here, it’s not so much that the villain has engineered the whole thing from the beginning but rather that the hero hasn’t been as sneaky or clever as he thought. The hero performs some elaborate scheme and sneaks into the monster’s lair only to have the monster slow-clap while emerging out of the darkness while wearing a smoking jacket. The monster says, “I knew you were coming because you butt-dialed me two days ago and haven’t hung up since.” Or maybe this ties into the earlier Knife in the Back and the villain’s surprising knowledge comes from a betrayal within. (Mix and match for maximum fun!)

11. That One Asshole Is Really Some Other Asshole

Darth Vader is really Luke’s father! Verbal Kint is really the serial killer in Se7en! The kid from The Sixth Sense is actually Casper the Friendly Ghost! The Gilmore Girls are actually The Fabulous Baker Boys! All along we expect that Character A is, as told, Character A. But then he rips his face off (probably metaphorically) and reveals the true face beneath: he’s really Character Z. And also, a woman. And a werewolf. And the Prime Minister of Canada.

12. Variation: That Poor Asshole Had No Idea Who He Was

This variant assumes the same as before (one character is actually another character), except in this case that information is kept from the actual character in question — imagine, if you will, Darth Vader not realizing he’s Luke’s father or that he ever had kids at all (“That damn princess ran off and had a litter of Jedi piglets on some dirt planet. I tell you, Tarkin, it’s a cold, cold Galaxy out there.”). Here you have the power of dramatic irony at your command: the audience may end up knowing something well before the characters themselves realize it.

13. That Poor Asshole Also Had No Idea What He Had

Picture it: King Arthur thinks he needs the magical sword given to him by Lady of the Lake in order to fight off a… I dunno, a phalanx of randy leprechauns or a buncha grizzly bears or some shit (what am I, an Arthurian scholar?) And then at the end the sword is destroyed in battle (oh, shit!) but then the Lady of the Lake appears like a Force ghost and is all, “Excalibur was within you all along, Artie-boy,” then light shines out of his mouth and butt and King Arthur becomes Excalibur. (Somebody throw some money at my face so I can write this up, proper.) Point is, a character goes through the tale not realizing he had what he needed all along: the secret weapon, the launch codes, the love of his life, a delicious Snickers bar, whatever.

14. Motherfucking Peripeteia, Bro

Peripeteia is a fancy Greek word for “Is it worth it, let me work it, I put my thing down, flip it and reverse it,” as made famous by Missy “Artemisdemeanor” Elliot. Or, put differently, it suggests a reversal of circumstances. The Shakespearean tragedy known as Trading Places (starring Dame Daniel Akroyd and Knave Edwardth Murray) is a good example of this. Someone rich becomes poor. Someone with no power gains all the power. Man becomes God, God becomes man, dogs and cats switch places, you know the drill.

15. That Subplot Is A Real Sonofabitch

Subplots help interrupt the standard narrative storyline — the main story is about a cosmic battle between good and evil while there’s this subplot about an emperor’s daughter and how she’s trying to find her lost moon-horse. Thing is, a subplot has to eventually collide with a main plot, and sometimes when that happens, it causes a kind of pivot. The subplot may become the main plot (imagine that the emperor’s daughter and her moon-horse, Mister Buckets, suddenly become the catalyst for the conflict at hand), or it may simply flip the main plot and change the circumstances by introducing new conflicts, characters, or settings.

16. Besieged By Bastards On All Sides

John McClane’s got it bad in Die Hard. Not only is he dealing with international bank thieves, he’s also gotta contend with an incompetent police force, a psychopathically aggressive pair of FBI agents, and whoever it was that decided Nakatomi Plaza needed so much goddamn glass. In your story, just as your protagonist (and the protag’s proxy, the audience) thinks she’s seen the face of her enemies, give her new enemies to fight on top of her existing enemies.

17. Turns Out You Can’t Trust That Jerkoff, The Narrator

The unreliable narrator is a classic move (Verbal Kint! Tyler Durden! Huck Finn!) — but it’s not one that needs to be telegraphed so early on in the story. We begin every story, I think, assuming that what’s on the page is as honest as Abe Lincoln’s yearning need to behead vampires. That’s good. You can use that. Let the audience settle into that sense of comfort, then start seedings hints throughout that the narrator might not be on the up-and-up.

18. What The Shit, I’m Pretty Sure That Major Character Just Died

(AKA, The George R.R. Martin Honorary Authorial Serial Killer Hugo Award.) Take one of your main characters and kill them. Do so as a part of the narrative, of course — I mean, spoiler alert, I guess, but it’s not like Ned Stark gets hit by a VW Bug crossing a dirt road in Westeros. His death is an explicit part of the story — it’s just a death nobody ever expects. Think of this as a character-specific version of the aforementioned Sweet Jeebus We Totally Fucking Lost — the audience really doesn’t expect you to drop the axe on a beloved major character. Which is exactly why you sometimes need to do just that.

19. Piss On The Grave

In both religion and comic books, death is not so much a permanent condition as it is a troublesome speedbump — Jesus was, of course, one of the earliest superheroes, and that guy was pretty much unkillable. Point is, once again it’s time to mess with audience expectations. Outside religion and comic books, generally speaking when a character dies, we assume it’s a permanent pipe-sucking daisy-pushing state of affairs. So, to resurrect a character — whether literally bringing them back to life or simply making it clear they never really died — you turn the tale and surprise the audience. And that is part of what we do, isn’t it?

20. Accelerate The Narrative On Goddamn Go-Go-Pills

A show like Homeland, you think it’s going to be this one thing, right? They’re going to drag out this War on Terror vibe and because it’s television the entire “Who is Brody?” and “Get Abu Nazir!” plotlines are going to streeeeeetch out like what Bruce Banner does to his man-panties when he becomes The Incredible Hulk, but that’s not what happens. Without spoiling anything, the show is on some kind of trucker meth — there is no “laggy middle.” It’s all rocket-boosters and caffeine enemas — and so you can give your story the same kind of energy by just pushing, pushing, pushing. Shove the narrative forward. Accelerate the timetable. Let the audience think your tale is about one man’s struggle to dethrone a king but then, fuck it, he dethrones the king in the first 100 pages. The audience is like, blink blink, “WHUUUUT.”

21. Ah, Crap, It’s The Pyrrhic Victory

A Pyrrhic Victory is a victory that only comes with great cost and sacrifice — something lost, something given, a hard choice made. Victory in one hand is a pile of steaming monkey shit in the other. It’s a good turn because our expectation is that victory is absolute — you can’t win while losing, right? DOES NOT COMPUTE BEEP BOOP BEEP. Except, fuck that. It works.

22. Jerkoff’s Gun

Chekov’s Gun is pretty straightforward: reveal a gun in the first act, that gun better get fired by the third act. Put differently, something that shows up earlier may seem important or it may seem insignificant, but if you’re mentioning it, it probably matters. The trick is that the audience doesn’t know how or why and so this makes for a powerful turn: any detail you reveal in an earlier portion of the story can come back in a big way. A stray footprint, an odd comment made by passersby, a funny-looking pubic hair stuck to someone’s creme brulee.

23. The Shit Just Got Fixed — Now What?!

The opposite of everything is lost is yay everything just got solved, except the trick here is that the end of the conflict doesn’t come at the end of the story like everyone figures but rather, far earlier. (Beware: spoiler incoming.) Look no further than Breaking Bad, where Walter White effectively solves the problem put forth in the pilot: cancer’s gone and the treatments are paid for, so what’s the problem? It would seem as if a vacuum is created by the loss of conflict but instead it demands a deeper, more meaningful conflict as a troubling truth is revealed as he continues on his path: Walter White wanted to be the drug lord Heisenberg all along.

24. Story Within A Story Within A My Head Just Fucking Melted

For a good portion of the story, the audience thinks the story is one thing but then we realize that the main story is nested in a larger (or smaller) story: one minute it’s a girl on a space station who wants to explore the stars but then later we realize that the space station story is the delusion of a girl abused by her mother and who just wants to escape her house. Or, maybe a more abstract version of this: we think the story is one about redemption but it ends up being about one of vengeance. We think it’s porn but it turns into something about love. We think it’s love but it turns into something about hate. We think it’s a Western but it’s really Elfpunk BDSM. Once in a rare while a story deserves big changes: dramatic thematic shifts and setting flips. (The Princess Bride and The Matrix are examples of this.)

25. The Nature Of Boredom Is A Straight Line

These techniques all add up to one thing: the audience grows bored when the story marches forward in too-straight a line. Even the standard “escalation toward climax” is a straight line that needs to be kinked up and broken apart from time to time. Which means all of these techniques boil down to: change shit up. Envision what the audience will be thinking as they read it. What do they expect? What is the predictive course they have in their head? Then tweak that. Maybe a subtle shift. Maybe a really violent one. But don’t be afraid to change things up. Go risky. Get crazy. In life, we adore comfort. In fiction, comfort is our greatest enemy.

Want another hot tasty dose of dubious writing advice aimed at your facemeats?

500 WAYS TO TELL A BETTER STORY:

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER:

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

500 MORE WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER:

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING:

$0.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY:

$4.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

REVENGE OF THE PENMONKEY:

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

Gods & Monsters: Unclean Spirits (Excerpt) At io9

If you’re looking to read the opening chapter to my upcoming novel, Gods & Monsters: Unclean Spirits (Abaddon), then look no further, urban fantasy junkies.

Because io9  just posted the first chapter.

Within the next month too you’ll start seeing bits and pieces of The Blue Blazes, too.

Gods & Monsters is available for pre-order (for $6.66!). It lands 5/2.

And The Blue Blazes is also available for pre-order. It drops 5/28.

Hope you enjoy!