Jordan Castillo Price's Blog, page 64
May 10, 2011
GhosTV in Paperback
For the past dozen years, Victor Bayne has solved numerous murders by interrogating witnesses only he can see—dead witnesses. But when his best friend Lisa goes missing from the sunny California campus of PsyTrain, the last thing he wants to find there is her spirit.Purchase or Read an Excerpt
You can buy GhosTV now at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com
It's available for pre-order at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.fr,
You'll spot it shortly at other online booksellers such as The Book Depository, Amazon.ca, and Amazon.jp.
And the ebook is still available from JCP Books and many other etailers.
How Cool!
Since my Quick Link Newsletter went out a few hours ago, the paperback's jumped into the top-100 in gay fiction on Amazon. Thanks, guys :D
Massive Action Day
One of my favorite writing advice guys is Jurgen Wolff. A couple of years ago I heard him speak on a writing podcast and thought, "Wow, this guy's really bright!" but he's also phenomenally accessible. He's been a screenwriter for years and years in both the US and Europe, as well as a writing coach, teacher (and hypnotist...how cool is that?) (Also, he wrote for the Love Boat. How cool is THAT?)
I re-read his book Your Writing Coach all the time.
On Saturday, May 28 he's holding a Massive Action Day, where people all over the world commit to working on their projects for eight hours, and checking in with each other once an hour for celebration and support. He'll give a short videocast every hour to keep us going.
My very full calendar was empty on that day...but as soon as I post this, it won't be anymore. Do you have a project that needs a kick in the pants? Sign up! It's free.
http://www.writingbreakthroughstrateg...
His blog is also awesome: http://www.timetowrite.blogs.com/
I re-read his book Your Writing Coach all the time.
On Saturday, May 28 he's holding a Massive Action Day, where people all over the world commit to working on their projects for eight hours, and checking in with each other once an hour for celebration and support. He'll give a short videocast every hour to keep us going.
My very full calendar was empty on that day...but as soon as I post this, it won't be anymore. Do you have a project that needs a kick in the pants? Sign up! It's free.
http://www.writingbreakthroughstrateg...
His blog is also awesome: http://www.timetowrite.blogs.com/
May 9, 2011
Should I Crap Out Today?
Steven Pressfield, author of War of Art, has a Kindle book out that's free at the moment called Do the Work. It's about dealing that demon Resistance when it comes to writing.
What I personally find discouraging about Resistance is that it can rear up out of nowhere in an otherwise disciplined writing practice. It's kind of like exercise. I can exercise for three months until it becomes second nature, then something comes up where I can't show up for the session, or maybe I'm under the weather so I take a day off, and BOOM. It's as if I never established the good habit at all.
Writing's like that too. Of course I can terrorize myself with, "If you don't write something, you'll have to go get a day job. Is that what you want? After you struggled and sacrificed all these years to be your own boss? Huh? Is it???"
Grab Do the Work on Kindle at Amazon. I'm not sure how long it'll be free. Hardcover and audio are less than $10. I think it's a novelette length book.
Read a great interview with Pressfield about writing and Resistance at the Domino Project. The title of this post is a line from that interview.
What I personally find discouraging about Resistance is that it can rear up out of nowhere in an otherwise disciplined writing practice. It's kind of like exercise. I can exercise for three months until it becomes second nature, then something comes up where I can't show up for the session, or maybe I'm under the weather so I take a day off, and BOOM. It's as if I never established the good habit at all.
Writing's like that too. Of course I can terrorize myself with, "If you don't write something, you'll have to go get a day job. Is that what you want? After you struggled and sacrificed all these years to be your own boss? Huh? Is it???"
Grab Do the Work on Kindle at Amazon. I'm not sure how long it'll be free. Hardcover and audio are less than $10. I think it's a novelette length book.
Read a great interview with Pressfield about writing and Resistance at the Domino Project. The title of this post is a line from that interview.
May 2, 2011
A Paragon of Officialness
Whenever I get something with an official seal on it in the mail, my first thought is always, Oh God I'm being audited. Not that an auditor would be able to find anything hinky in my books. Just that it would take up so much of my time, it would be hideous.
So the latest, Oh God what's that thing with a seal on it? moment came when I got a postcard from the state informing me that I need to file my corporation's annual report.
Oh God what the hell is that?
I went and cried on Josh Lanyon's shoulder a bit--because, really, must everything be full of strange forms that freak me out?--and then I put it on my to-do list to handle. And this morning I handled it. It involved things like "name" and "address" and "type of business" and a $25 fee. It wasn't rocket science to figure out the answers to these questions. Now it's done. Whew.
I suspect part of the problem is that I tried to start an illustration business at the tender age of 19, back in the days before you could do any of this stuff online, in Chicago. To do municipal stuff in Chicago you have to visit a creepy warren of underground offices downtown. (There was the time a stray gerbil bit my friend on the thumb and then died, and we had to take its body in to be tested for rabies. That office was waaaay underground.) With my fragile fledgling business, I remember trying to figure out what paperwork needed to be filed and what fees needed to be paid, standing in a long line, and getting barked at by very mean municipal employee and coming out intimidated and confused.
I really need to get over that. I'm sure she's retired by now.
To this day, whenever my characters are dealing with bureaucracy, in my mind, they're somewhere in those underground downtown Chicago warrens.
So the latest, Oh God what's that thing with a seal on it? moment came when I got a postcard from the state informing me that I need to file my corporation's annual report.
Oh God what the hell is that?
I went and cried on Josh Lanyon's shoulder a bit--because, really, must everything be full of strange forms that freak me out?--and then I put it on my to-do list to handle. And this morning I handled it. It involved things like "name" and "address" and "type of business" and a $25 fee. It wasn't rocket science to figure out the answers to these questions. Now it's done. Whew.
I suspect part of the problem is that I tried to start an illustration business at the tender age of 19, back in the days before you could do any of this stuff online, in Chicago. To do municipal stuff in Chicago you have to visit a creepy warren of underground offices downtown. (There was the time a stray gerbil bit my friend on the thumb and then died, and we had to take its body in to be tested for rabies. That office was waaaay underground.) With my fragile fledgling business, I remember trying to figure out what paperwork needed to be filed and what fees needed to be paid, standing in a long line, and getting barked at by very mean municipal employee and coming out intimidated and confused.
I really need to get over that. I'm sure she's retired by now.
To this day, whenever my characters are dealing with bureaucracy, in my mind, they're somewhere in those underground downtown Chicago warrens.
April 27, 2011
Payback: Channeling Morpehus1 re-release
My, how time flies! Payback is now in its second electronic edition. The rest of the Channeling Morpheus stories will follow, one every other month.Holy water. Crucifixes. Sharpened hickory stakes. Rohypnol. Michael is ready for whatever the vampire he's tracked down can throw at him. But vampires are a lot scarier when they're up close and personal than he'd ever imagined. (Novelette - 11,300 words - 38 PDF pages)
Available now at JCP Books.
Also at Amazon for the Kindle, Rainbow eBooks and All Romance eBooks. Nook coming soon.
Available in paperback in Channeling Morpheus for Scary Mary (Payback, Vertigo, Manikin, Tainted, Rebirth)
If you own the first edition ebooks, there's no need to purchase the second edition. The main differences are new cover art, new typesetting, and small editorial changes (which are also contained in the paperbacks).
April 20, 2011
Ebay weirdness
So in my quest to get rid of things I don't use, I nearly gave away a little piece of musical equipment on Freecycle, but then I quickly googled it and saw it had some "vintage" appeal (how sad, my early days are now vintage) and opted to clean it up and list it on eBay instead. (Cleaning up any kind of musical equipment is just nasty. They get some serious grunk on them.)
I listed it maybe an hour ago, and someone PM'ed me with this:
i'm interested in your [equipment name]. if you shoot me a fair price, i can send the payment direct to your pay-pal account. let me know. thanks.
Well, no. I put it up for a 10-day AUCTION just about AN HOUR AGO to see how much I could get for it, duh.
This is exciting. Makes me think I'll make a few bucks on it. Maybe "a fair price" is more than I'd thought! New ones are going for $90 so I'll be happy to get $100 for vintage--I imagine that's what it went for when my mom bought it for me when I was a teenager.
My biggest eBay success story was a weaving book I bought for a dollar and sold for maybe $75 because it was out of print. But nowadays people flock to used booksales with barcode scanners to cash in on rare books. It was just serendipity on the weaving book; I knew the press was a good press for fiber arts and the book looked nice to me.
My friend Intrepid Amy (who you may recall from the abandoned house and cheese factory field trips) used to work at the Gap where they were supposed to buy new clothes every season, and she ended up selling all her clothes for as much as she paid for them, or more, on eBay.
I listed it maybe an hour ago, and someone PM'ed me with this:
i'm interested in your [equipment name]. if you shoot me a fair price, i can send the payment direct to your pay-pal account. let me know. thanks.
Well, no. I put it up for a 10-day AUCTION just about AN HOUR AGO to see how much I could get for it, duh.
This is exciting. Makes me think I'll make a few bucks on it. Maybe "a fair price" is more than I'd thought! New ones are going for $90 so I'll be happy to get $100 for vintage--I imagine that's what it went for when my mom bought it for me when I was a teenager.
My biggest eBay success story was a weaving book I bought for a dollar and sold for maybe $75 because it was out of print. But nowadays people flock to used booksales with barcode scanners to cash in on rare books. It was just serendipity on the weaving book; I knew the press was a good press for fiber arts and the book looked nice to me.
My friend Intrepid Amy (who you may recall from the abandoned house and cheese factory field trips) used to work at the Gap where they were supposed to buy new clothes every season, and she ended up selling all her clothes for as much as she paid for them, or more, on eBay.
April 19, 2011
Fare thee well, vinyl
Do you have Freecycle where you live? It's a website that hooks up people with stuff to give away with people who'd love to have that stuff.
I'm not sure why I logged in the other day...probably to see how hard it would be to post a few of the larger items I'd like to get rid of. There's also a spot where people can post requests, and I saw someone who was looking for vinyl records!
Woo hoo! I gave the turntable to my ex when we broke up and I've been streaming all my music through my Napster subscription. In fact, I listen to more of my old albums that way than I ever did even when I owned a turntable. I've been talking about hauling those things off to the thrift store for months. So I emailed the kid and told him to come get my record collection.
He just came over and grabbed them. It turns out he asked for a turntable for Christmas and has been trying to slowly build his record collection. He has FIFTEEN albums, and says it's hard to build up the collection because they're so expensive. (Ha ha--I just gave him about 200.)
I'm so excited to think that someone who will love and enjoy those albums owns them now.
I'm not sure why I logged in the other day...probably to see how hard it would be to post a few of the larger items I'd like to get rid of. There's also a spot where people can post requests, and I saw someone who was looking for vinyl records!
Woo hoo! I gave the turntable to my ex when we broke up and I've been streaming all my music through my Napster subscription. In fact, I listen to more of my old albums that way than I ever did even when I owned a turntable. I've been talking about hauling those things off to the thrift store for months. So I emailed the kid and told him to come get my record collection.
He just came over and grabbed them. It turns out he asked for a turntable for Christmas and has been trying to slowly build his record collection. He has FIFTEEN albums, and says it's hard to build up the collection because they're so expensive. (Ha ha--I just gave him about 200.)
I'm so excited to think that someone who will love and enjoy those albums owns them now.
April 18, 2011
More Places to buy GhosTV
Since "new-release" status is past, I've put GhosTV up at some third-party vendors. Now it can be found at:
JCP Books
Amazon
B&N
Rainbow eBooks
All Romance eBooks
I expect the paperback to be ready in a couple weeks or so.
JCP Books
Amazon
B&N
Rainbow eBooks
All Romance eBooks
I expect the paperback to be ready in a couple weeks or so.
April 15, 2011
April JCP News is out
-Thoughts on how not to write, gleaned from reading
-Cover art...and why I'm glad the photographer raised her prices
-A couple of quick surveys
-Three more big chapters of The Starving Years
All this in the April 2011 edition of JCP News!
-Cover art...and why I'm glad the photographer raised her prices
-A couple of quick surveys
-Three more big chapters of The Starving Years
All this in the April 2011 edition of JCP News!
April 12, 2011
That can be my next tweet
This random site generates some scary tweets! Maybe one would make a good story prompt?
!!! your wall? love Vic and eating it right away...will change password too. I'm in there the other ones.
(huh?)
I hurt myself going, Shut up, shut up. I guess was showing Thank you, that makes me two days ago.
(Yes, I hate it when I hurt myself going shut up. I shouldn't be so vehement.)
Writing computer. Yay! I love hearing that! Ah, my book has a cry tally.
(A "cry tally" hm.)
Please stop snowing sideways, Wisconsin. I try not putting some people off. I just yelled Oh no.
(I didn't, really yell Oh no, but I do try not putting some people off.)
I had a good repertoire of a sponge must be embarrassed. Well, you once thought it is now it's not alone.
(Anything with a sponge is just "ew.")
http://yes.thatcan.be/my/next/tweet/
!!! your wall? love Vic and eating it right away...will change password too. I'm in there the other ones.
(huh?)
I hurt myself going, Shut up, shut up. I guess was showing Thank you, that makes me two days ago.
(Yes, I hate it when I hurt myself going shut up. I shouldn't be so vehement.)
Writing computer. Yay! I love hearing that! Ah, my book has a cry tally.
(A "cry tally" hm.)
Please stop snowing sideways, Wisconsin. I try not putting some people off. I just yelled Oh no.
(I didn't, really yell Oh no, but I do try not putting some people off.)
I had a good repertoire of a sponge must be embarrassed. Well, you once thought it is now it's not alone.
(Anything with a sponge is just "ew.")
http://yes.thatcan.be/my/next/tweet/
