Allison M. Dickson's Blog, page 17

Serial Killer

Today, I read on Cinema Blend about Quentin Tarantino's decision not to make a Kill Bill 3. He'd been talking about it for years, just as he'd been talking about a Vegas brothers follow-up from his Pulp Fiction/Reservoir Dogs era as well as a prequel to Inglourious Basterds, but he's probably not going to get around to those either. And that's okay. Really.



It's one thing to have ideas for sequels. It's a whole other thing to get them down on paper. Even for someone like QT, who could pretty much do whatever he wanted and have a slobbering horde of fans (of which I am a proud member) throw piles of money at him, it takes a different kind of commitment to write sequels and serials, and some folks just don't have it. They have too many "new" ideas crowding their brains, and once they lay them down, it's almost impossible to go back with that same level of enthusiasm, because you want to devote your attention to the Next Big Idea.



Hell, I don't even know if I have it. I've had ideas for sequels to pretty much every novel I've ever written. I have about twelve-thousand words to the SCARLET LETTERS follow-up tucked away in my In Progress folder. I have a rough plot outline and some notes jotted down for the second book in the Last Supper universe as well as a planned trilogy for STRINGS, and that's about as close to completion as I've ever gotten on a sequel.



And this lack of writer motivation about sequels has little to do with demand. People ask me all the time when the next Scarlet Letters book will be finished, and the few who have read Strings seem very enthusiastic about a subsequent novel, and the latter one will almost certainly happen, especially if a publisher picks it up, because I ended it the way I did specifically to leave room for a second book. Same thing with Last Supper. But the others are a little different. I didn't write with a sequel in mind for Scarlet Letters. It was my first ever novel, and the only priority I had at the time was that I just get it done, period. Trying to go open the door back into that world has been more difficult than I thought it would be, and it isn't just because I'm rusty on the material. It's because I'm a different kind of writer now than I was three years ago. Back then, I was just throwing things at the wall to see what would stick. Now I have pretty specific ideas about the kinds of stories I want to be known for. Tonally, what I've written of Scarlet Letters 2 so far feels completely different from the first book. It feels more like the kind of stuff I've been writing in the years since. Darker, grim, and certainly not as outright funny. While I still want to finish it, it keeps getting pushed further down my priority list as I make room for more current stuff.



At any rate, I can understand why Quentin Tarantino commits to a lot of sequel proposals and doesn't follow through. The writer of the Cinema Blend article said that it's likely Tarantino gets more inspiration and energy from creating new original stories, rather than revisiting things he's already finished (Kill Bill 2 wasn't precisely a sequel, btw. It was written and filmed as a single movie, but broken up into two parts). Also, maybe he's afraid of fucking up the legacy of something he already created. With the first installment of anything, people's expectations lie in what they expect from you as a creator. With sequels, their expectations lie in how well it will compare to the previous installments, and often those expectations are waaaay higher than they should be, especially if the first attempt was a huge hit. And if you don't exceed your first effort, you have failed.



That anxiety something is I can relate to. I don't know if any of my sequels will be finished. I certainly hope so for at least a few of them. It seems to be a lucrative enterprise these days to turn any and every movie or book into a series, regardless of the quality of the subsequent material. But from a creative standpoint, if you're not feeling it, you're not feeling it. And if you're mailing it even a little, the readers and viewers will know it. Kill Bill 3 probably wouldn't have been up to QT's standards, and that most likely means it wouldn't have been up to ours either.

The Care and Maintenance of a Prolific Author's Marketplace

Just because Gwyneth is a slob doesn't mean you have to be

The beauty of indie self-publishing is that you can release whatever you want whenever you want.



The ugly side of indie self-publishing is the same thing.



Imagine your marketplace is a real brick and mortar store, and imagine you're a customer. How would you feel if you walked into a place where things were stacked in off-kilter piles in corners, with no apparent attempt at organization, versus walking into a well-lit, clean space where everything is meticulously arranged and easy to identify? You'd much rather buy from that proprietor, wouldn't you? While there is a sort of romance associated with being surrounded by big, sloppy piles of books, it quickly becomes annoying when you're the one doing the buying, and all you want to know is who a particular author is and what they've written.



My friend Armand Rosamilia touched on this the other day on his blog, about "how much is too much" to have for sale. And while we agree that there is probably no real limit, it's important to have it properly organized. Just because you have a mountainous backlog at your disposal doesn't mean you should dump it on an unassuming public willy-nilly. While having a large library is one key secret to larger and more consistent sales, it's a bit of a detriment to your career if you don't at least attempt to arrange your selections. You don't want people who look up your name on Amazon be confused. You don't want them to feel overwhelmed. You want them to see your inventory, what's related, what's bundled, and what's stand-alone.



If you're new to this whole self-publishing thing with five or fewer titles under your belt, you understandably won't have to worry about this so much. I've been doing this for over two years, though, and I now have seventeen things up for sale in the wide world of e-books, most of those short stories, and things are starting to feel a bit unwieldy. So let's go through a few different examples of how your e-book selections can start to get out of hand and possibly work against you.





1. Shit Tons of Shorts





Buy Me....

When you have a lot of short stories like I do, it might not be a bad idea to consider bundling them into a collection once you have about 8 or more. Right now, I have my holiday bundle, The Twelve Days of Dickson, up for sale, but after the holiday season is over, I will likely just release it under a less seasonal title and then keep releasing volumes of 12 stories once a year or so.



Of course, if you go this route, it means you have to consider whether you want to keep all of your individual stories up for sale as well, or if you want to take at least a few of them down and make them exclusive for your collections. But be careful. When you do this, you run the risk of pissing people off if they buy your collection only to find they own most  if not all of the individual stories you put in it. There's where clear labeling and product description comes into play, and that's where extras become very handy.



If you're smart, you also held back a few stories and maybe some novel excerpts you haven't published yet. Put those in to entice even your regular followers as well as the new people to pick up the collection. Make the purchase feel like big, fun goodie bags with all sorts of extras people can't find anywhere else. Also, make sure you go to the product pages of the individual short stories and put in the description that this title is available in a larger collection. If you have the time, putting it in each of your e-book files, perhaps as a blurb at the end (if you liked this story, check out Blah Blah Story Bundle Volume 1, where you'll find x-number more chilling/awesome stories!) isn't a bad idea either. Any opportunity you have to remind the readers that you have something more for sale, or that one piece of work is part of a much larger body of work, is an opportunity to make money and gain new rewders, so tie your stuff together as much as possible.



2. Serial Novels Out Da Butt





I'm not even sure Brooks

knows what book of what sub-

series this is

It isn't enough to just write a standalone book. Nearly everything has series potential, and if you've created several books centered around the same character or universe, then you are going to need to be very clear about a few things. One, what's the name of the series, and two, what number in the series is this volume. You've probably noticed this, but some people REALLY SUCK at doing this, even the books put out by Big 6 publishers. It's not just the author's fault, but the publisher. They'll say it's Book 2 or 12 of Whatever Saga (if you're lucky), but you flip open the book and there is no list of what the previous books are in the front matter. Maybe it's because the front matter was constructed before the other books came out, and it would cost too much money to print new shit. I don't know. It's irrelevant to what you're doing as an e-publisher, where you can change things on the fly and pretty much do whatever you want.



Just please, if you've written a series, be as redundant as possible. Put it on the cover, the front matter, AND the product page. Don't leave your readers guessing. Give them EVERY opportunity to buy your books.







3. Every Genre Under the Sun





You write zombie porn, steampunk, YA lit, and legal suspense thrillers. What the hell is a widely varied author supposed to do, and how can you make sure that you aren't confusing your fans and making sure that you aren't alienating them? It's debatable whether you want to use a pseudonym. Some people don't, and that's fine, however if you write coming-of-age kid stories by day and the tribulations of cockring-wearing werewolves by night, you really might want to consider a pseudonym. For the children. Otherwise, if your name is the only one you want associated with your work, you have to be very clear that this is how you're marketing yourself--a writer of all genres. And you have to make sure that your covers and descriptions, your web presence, and everything you do fully encompasses this rainbow persona.



Personally, I'd pick the pseudonym. It isn't like you have to keep your real identity a secret. You can even do what Stephen King does when he puts out a Richard Bachman book (which he still does, from time to time). All the Bachman covers now say, "Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman." The Bachman books were a slight but discernible departure from King's standard work in terms of style (Bachman was a tad more literary), though his main reason for picking the pseudo in the first place was that his publisher was worried about over-saturating the marking with his "brand." Once it was found out that King was in fact Bachman, the jig was up, and King just sort of started treating Bachman as one of his alter-egos, releasing books with that name on them if they varied somewhat from his usual fare.



But things have changed since then. It's no secret that romance author Nora Roberts is also the sci-fi crime writer J.D. Robb. It's just a way to put a partition between the different types of work she does. She doesn't want to get her lady-friendly romance chocolate in her likely more aimed toward dudes sci-fi peanut butter, so to speak. Pseudonyms are so when people put Allison M. Dickson into the Amazon search box, they get the horror/thriller/sci-fi stories they've come to expect from her, and not bodice-ripping were-pire zombie orgy tomes she usually writes under the name Harry S. Fukstix. It's just a way to keep things a little neater, even though it's no secret that I'm Harry S. Fukstix (or I will be--I dig that pseudo). While your given name is something to be proud of, it's also your brand, and you don't want to muddle your brand with so much variation that you risk people not knowing what to call you. Sure, Stephen King might write in a different genre from time to time, but most of his work shares a common thread: it fucks with your head. If people can't view that sort of common thread in your work, you really should consider another name to serve as a placeholder for your major genre departures.



A prolific author has a lot to worry about when keeping up appearances, but it goes beyond just the marketplace. You also should have a pretty clean and concise website. I try to update my site's portfolio every couple months, and I also try to keep an update list of works in all of my ebooks, separated by short stories and novels. It's tedious as all get-out, too. I haven't found an e-publishing site yet that makes it easy to perform changes across an entire batch of titles in one go, instead of going through file after file. But it's time well spent, especially if it nets more sales.

Overused Buzzwords on LinkedIn? I Have Your Substitutes.

You know LinkedIn, right? The social network for corporate dweebs people looking for work? I don't know how it's supposed to happen, exactly, but apparently if the right person stumbles upon your LinkedIn profile, they are supposed to shit their pants over your extensive list of qualifications and hire you on the spot or something. Also, I'm pretty sure it's a great way to keep in touch with that secretary you were banging for awhile without the chance of your wife finding out on Facebook. I don't know. I'm not really in the right line of work to make much use of this network. I have an account. I think I've logged into it once or twice. But there are many who do use it, and what they might not know is that Business Insider has recently posted a list of overused buzzwords that you want to scrub off your profile now. And I mean NOW. Or IMMEDIATELY as the article's headline demands, as if the millions of eyes of all the world's potential employers that were looking at your page are now screaming, with blood and green ooze spurting from their eye sockets, and all because you used the word "effective." 




These words are employment ebola, people! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!! 




For those who have been ignoring me for the last seven years or so, I'm a writer. I have extensive experience in the putting together of words for the enjoyment of others. For a while, I was also a freelance editor, which means I have extensive experience fixing people's shitty words for money. But now I'm going to put my skills to use helping you find substitutes for these buzzwords so that your profile can stand high among the rest. Are you ready to kick-ass and make shit happen? Are you ready to shine? Here we go: 



Creative -- Thinker upper of shit and things





Organizational -- Good arranger of stuff




Effective -- Getting shit done



Motivated -- Wanter of getting shit done



Extensive Experience -- Longtime doer of doing things and stuff



Track Record -- List of shit and other stuff I've done



Innovative -- Thinker upper of new shit and things



Responsible -- Not hurting people and things with my shit



Analytical -- Able to see things for the shit they really are



Problem Solving -- Making shit into better stuff




Communication Skills -- Good at talking about shit and other stuff. Also sometimes things 




Dynamic -- Able to handle things and shit of all types




That should pretty much handle it. Now get to buffing up that LinkedIn profile! People are waiting to hire you to do shit! 

Show, Don't Tell

Writing has given me a lot of opportunity to observe and ruminate on human nature, something that is necessary, I think, to creating characters and situations that feel real and three-dimensional. When you're constantly thinking "What would this person do/think/feel" in any given situation or circumstance, naturally you start to apply it to real life. And I've discovered along the way that the better one gets at doing this, the harder on one's soul the writing becomes. Looking or thinking about real human nature too long is a bit like staring into the sun, and I think it's part of the reason why I've been taking such a long break after finishing my last book. The experience has been monumentally exhausting and yet valuable, and it's taught me a lot of important lessons about the craft and about life and the kind of writer and person I think I am, or at least aspire to be.



I've been pondering a lot in particular about that age-old writing rule, "Show, Don't Tell." It's designed help authors develop a story in such a way that it's more of an illustration for the reader's mind than a simple recounting of events.  The latter is boring and trite, artificial. The former is lush, textural, vibrant, exciting. Memorable. It's what gives a piece depth. It imbues the work with meaning and feeling. It's what separates good writing from something about as exciting as stereo instructions or a shopping list. Here's the thing, though: It doesn't just apply to writing or fictional characters. It applies to life and real people, too.



Show, don't tell. Don't tell me you're sorry if you've hurt me in some way. Show it. Don't tell me you're charitable and kind. Show it. Don't tell me that you're confident and wise. Show it. Don't tell me you love people or that you're compassionate or inspirational. Show it. Don't say you speak softly and carry a big stick. Actually do it. Live it. Be all of the things you say you are, and do it without actually saying anything else, without arrogance or a need for validation. Because if that's all you're after, you're not actually doing anything. You're an empty shell pretending to be an authentic person. Kind of like a flat character in a mediocre book.



Show, don't tell. It's not just a writing lesson. It's a life lesson too, and one I will keep relearning until the day I die.

New Holiday Bundle and Other Author News!

Available now at Amazon!

The year is winding down, giving way to thoughts of Thanksgiving turkeys and Christmas presents and goals and plans for the upcoming year. We'll get to 2013 in a second, because what's happening right now is pretty darn exciting.



First, the long awaited second volume of Vincent Hobbes' anthology, The Endlands , is finally out in the world. It's jam packed with stories from 14 authors. In it, you will find a brand new story from yours truly, "The Shiva Apparatus," as well as a repeat of my oldie but goodie, "Under the Scotch Broom." This is the anthology that began my relationship with the great Hobbes End Publishing, who will be releasing my debut novel, The Last Supper, sometime next year. You can get it either in paperback or on your Kindle. It would make a great holiday gift for the readers in your family!





Available now at Amazon and Smashwords!

And speaking of more holiday gifts, I've bundled all of my non-free short stories currently available, as well as a couple of new ones (the above "Shiva Apparatus" as well as one that no one has called "Number One Angel) into a collection called The Twelve Days of Dickson . As a bonus, I've also thrown in hefty excerpts from my novels The Stargazers and Scarlet Letters. It's a lot of reading for only $4.99 (given that each story is a buck, that's a pretty hefty savings), and the perfect gift for yourself or the ones in your life who have received new e-readers or tablets for the holiday. For those who have been loyal readers, don't worry, I will be releasing the two bonus stories as separate downloads very soon. Or you can always pick up a copy of The Endlands and get not only my work, but the work of several other talented writers. The holiday bundle is available now through the end of January, so act fast!



And now onto 2013 (in true defiance of the Mayan calendar). I have decided to make a goal to release a new short story every month in the new year. I realize I have let my activity in my online stores languish in recent months as I've worked to complete a few novels, and this is inexcusable. I've managed to carve out something of a niche for myself in the short story market, and I get regular emails from readers all the time wondering when I have something new coming out. I promise you that you won't have to wait four months or more in between new stories. I will even do my best to maintain this pace as I market The Last Supper next year.



Finally, some of you might be wondering how I'm doing on that whole NaNoWriMo thing. Well, after getting about 11,000 words into the Scarlet Letters sequel, I decided that what I needed more than anything in the world was a break. I pushed myself near to the breaking point while finishing Strings, and I just didn't have any steam left in me to keep up the NaNo pace. The short break has done me a world of good. It allowed me to put the holiday bundle together as well as get an early jump on editing Strings to prepare for my beta readers. I look forward to tackling Scarlet Letters 2 once the holidays are done as well as getting started on The Next Big Thing. It's exciting times!

A Musing on Dream Sharing

Olde Schoolhouse Diner, a local dream

Today I ate breakfast in a 200-year-old house in Miamisburg, Ohio. The proprietor, a very friendly and hard-working woman named Theresa, had bought that house back in December and turned it into a tiny restaurant called Olde Schoolhouse Diner. It's nestled amid some historical old buildings in the village downtown, and you would probably miss it if you weren't looking at the right time or if someone who knew someone who ate there hadn't told you about it. Nonetheless, it stands there, a physical manifestation of someone's dream.





All of the original wooden moldings are still in place, the floor the same hilly old maple planks that have seen the shoes of at least a few generations. A vintage set of electric fireplace logs keeps the place warm, ticking contentedly on the old hearth in the front room. Fresh-cut flowers fill little vases on the tables that were likely purchased secondhand from a restaurant supply or the liquidation of another person's dream. The back of the house is a modern commercial kitchen and a reminder of how much things have changed since the walls around it were erected. Gleaming stainless steel and flat, clean surfaces for preparing food. 




Theresa probably got a loan to buy all that equipment and the house, to make everything "just so," right down to the mismatched salt and pepper shakers and the cooler that displays the homemade carrot cake behind the main counter. She gets up at 5 o'clock every morning and starts cooking. On the little white board in the front of the house, she lists her daily specials. Homemade cabbage rolls, meatloaf, and chicken and dumplings. Her eggs are delivered by a local farmer, and with them you can order homemade omelettes and French toast. The corned beef hash tastes like real corned beef, an impromptu breakfast thrown together with the leftovers from the previous night's St. Patty's Day feast. 




All of these things are part of Theresa's dream, and eating there is like having a front row seat to her wishes.  Every customer she has, every dollar she makes, is the fulfillment of a desire to carve out a little piece of this world and make it into something good and decent. The food isn't perfect, but it is simple, homey, and satisfying in a way that little to do with taste but more to do with the knowledge that you helped to validate a person's wish to serve others while doing something they love. When we ate it, we felt good. We felt content. We felt like we had done the right thing.




This is the beauty of local businesses and independent producers. We can see these dreams, and we can share them. When we buy their food, shop in their stores, buy their music and books and art, we can understand a little more of how and why we made society work long before the predictable brick shapes of impersonal commerce came to town and separated us from the those dreams and turned us into mere consumers of stuff and things of questionable origin. 




I don't know if Theresa's little business will last. If it doesn't, it will likely become part of someone else's dream, as all dreams eventually do. Dreams are fickle and unstable and ever-changing, after all. Time is the master of all things. If you have similar businesses or artists in your own communities, I hope you're making a regular habit of sharing those dreams while they last. It creates a direct connection between us. It humanizes us. I think we could all use a little more of that in this day and age. 

Vote, Damn You

I don't want to get political here, so I won't. My beliefs aren't exactly secret, but I'm not going to use this place as a pulpit for my issues. That's what Twitter is for. However, I am going to use this spot to deliver one simple non-partisan message, and that is this:



Vote, damn you.



Seriously, I don't give a crap how much you've rationalized to yourself over the years why you can't or shouldn't participate in our democracy. To me, that's just cowardice. To me, you are a useless complainer and should be ashamed of yourself. Too many people in this country have been and in many cases are still being deprived of this most fundamental civil right, and for you to actively shit upon it is disgusting to me. In fact, I can't even be nice to you at this point. I can't even rightly call it tough love that I am using right now. It's gentle hate. Because you should fucking know better, and it angers me that you don't.



Don't tell me that you don't participate because "both candidates are bad." Don't tell me that government is "too corrupt and you're not going to get involved." Don't tell me that you believe it will somehow all get better if we all decided not to play "their game." Don't tell me any of that fucking bullshit, because that's all it is. Fucking bullshit.



Just shut up and vote, damn you.





5000 Americans died for this while you stayed home

Do you honestly think we voters aren't aware of government's monumental imperfections and corruption? Do you think we always like having to make the tough decision between a giant douche and a turd sandwich? Do you think you know something that we don't, that you're some kind of enlightened demigod gazing down at us all with terrible sympathy as we herd our way toward the polls on election day? Do you think that any of this excuses you from exercising the right that thousands have died to make sure you have? That thousands of our soldiers are dying for right now in countries on the other side of the globe to make sure others have? Because it isn't just an American thing. It's a human thing. All of life is a struggle for the masses to have a voice, even a small one, in how the very few decide to lead us. The vote is our voice. And people have fought and died to win it and protect it for centuries.





Thank you, voters

Even if you don't want to vote between the two major parties, vote for a third party. Write someone in. Participate. It isn't just about the presidency. It's about your local government, your senators, your judges, your commissioners, your coroners and treasurers and schools and state initiatives that range from allowing your gay friends to get married to legalizing marijuana to how our school teachers and firefighters get paid. Issues whose outcomes far outlast a presidency, that people worked tirelessly in many cases to get onto the ballot in the first place.



A ballot covers a whole range of things that you are completely missing out on because you for whatever reason feel you're too good to get your hands dirty and help us pick a fucking president. In 2010, my neighborhood missed the passing of a badly needed operating levy for our ailing school district by 37 votes, because the people who were energized to get out there in 2008 suddenly found the weight of their complaining asses to be too heavy two years later to get out and do the same thing. And because of that, many of our kids are losing out on athletics and school buses, teachers have been let go, and we continue to scrape by on a shoestring. Not because there are more people in this town who oppose school levies than people who don't. But because of the apathy of those who didn't think it mattered one way or another. Who might have ticked "Yes" on their ballot if someone had dragged them by their ear to their polling place so they could take five fucking minutes to do one simple task that means so much to so many.





His buddies didn't die face down in the muck

 so you could sit home on election day

I don't want to hear your excuses. I don't even care who you vote for or why. Doesn't matter. Even the people I disagree with understand why we do this simple ritual every couple years, and that the moment we all stop doing it is the day we lose for good. Right now, your lack of a vote is advancing the agenda of someone who is counting on you doing just what you're doing now. The same way criminals count on fewer police officers on the streets, so they can continue to get away with their nefarious deeds.



There is no such thing as a perfect choice or a perfect candidate or a government without corruption. There people who are grown up enough to take their rights seriously and there are children trapped in adult bodies who think the world still owes them something before they can be motivated to get off their asses. If you are the latter, you have two days to grow up.



Get out there and vote. Damn you.

Brace Yourself. NaNoWriMo Time.

Last year, I told myself I wouldn't do another NaNoWriMo, but then September rolled back around, like the start of an enormous eclipse. When that happens, the shadows change in your brain and you start thinking of "The November Project." You initially tell yourself it isn't going to be "NaNo-style," (which is far less glamorous than Gangnam Style, as my grubby sweats and caffeine and Ramen-heavy diet can attest this time of year), in that mad dash to complete the first 50,000 words in thirty days.





But then you realize a lot of your friends are doing it. Some for the first time, and you start to yearn for that annual writerly solidarity, that special magic that happens in the collective unconscious when the air is cold and winter is in the air, and more people than usual are throwing their creative sparks into the universe. And even if you only just finished a novel four days ago (a novel that nearly drove you insane to write), you say to yourself, OF COURSE I'm doing NaNoWriMo! Duh! 




Besides, this year marks my fifth consecutive year of doing it. Of the four previous works, one (The Stargazers) is currently completed and on sale. Two of them (The Kingmaker and Archer's Velvet) will likely never see the light of day. Last year's (The Shiva Paradox) is still in my "to finish" pile, which I plan to attack sometime in the doldrums of January-February--you will be able to read a prequel short story for it (The Shiva Apparatus) in The Endlands Vol 2 anthology releasing on 11/13 from Hobbes End Publishing, so my incentive to get it done is high.



So my success rate with this yearly ritual isn't great. I do make the 50K, but I don't always finish the books themselves. However, it doesn't dampen my enthusiasm much. It's all about creative abandon for me. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but in the end it's really all about the experience. NaNoWriMo is like a month-long tit-baring Mardis Gras for writers who are otherwise spending the previous 11 months of the year doing "real work" and just want to forget about that shit for a little while. They'll use the month to maybe write out of their comfort zones, try a new genre, explore new creative ground. Some of us will be writing sequels to books that may or may not sell, not because we think it's great advice financially, but because this is the one month where such considerations get chucked out the window, and we just write for the love first. Pragmatic considerations of the directions of our writing careers can just take a 30-day breather. 






Others see it differently, of course, but that's how I do things. And anyone who follows this blog or my Facebook page at all knows I will be tackling the sequel to my humorous vampire novel, Scarlet Letters: The Tale of the Vampire Mailman. After finishing the intensely dark Strings, I am very much looking forward to the change in pace and mood. With any luck, once I step back into the shoes of Louis and Stan, the book should write itself. After it's finished and to my liking, I plan to release it myself. I imagine that will happen sometime in late winter (it would be nice to release something during that time, because The Last Supper preparations/release/marketing may be taking up more of my time in 2013), but I'll hold off on making predictions at the moment. 




The cover was a lot of fun to make, mostly because I only needed to do the text. My daughter, Natalie, drew the mouth. I love making use of the family talent. I imagine that one of these days, I'll be begging her to help me with a book cover, and she'll be all like, "Mom, I have to finish this commissioned work I'm doing for Richard Branson and/or Pixar. Can't you just hire someone?" 




And then I'll say, "Yeah, I guess you're excused. Can I borrow some money?" 




At any rate, between all of the writing and the Creative Commoners podcast (we have a lot of exciting things planned there too!) it's going to be a roaring finish to the end of the year, with a pretty jamming 2013 in store. I may release a short story sometime in December to hold folks over while these bigger projects come more into focus. I can only say to those patiently waiting for more that I think it'll be worth it when it's all said and done! 




See you all on the flipside of November! 

A Brief Halloween Tale: SWEET THINGS

Over at the Creative Commoners podcast, the guys and I put together an annual Halloween writing challenge, where we take reader submissions and incorporate them into the show. It's one of my favorite aspects of doing this podcast, because it involves fellow Commoners, folks just like us who just want to express themselves and share it with the world. Or at least our tiny little corner of it.





Below is the story I wrote. You may listen to me reading it over on the podcast if you like (as well as hear some stories that are, frankly, far better than mine). But either way, do enjoy! And uh... careful with that candy. 












SWEET THINGS





It was Halloween night, so of
course… razor blades. Also needles and wood splinters and rat poison. But just a
dash. He didn't want to kill anybody. He just wanted them to cry. Maybe they
would never eat candy again. Maybe they wouldn't turn into fat little slobs. Maybe
they would live longer and have better teeth.

Maybe he was saving humanity.

Parents were crafty little
inspectors, so he’d honed his skills over the years, each little candy bar a
painstaking operation that would make a surgeon weep with envy. A singular
puncture hole, a slightly imperfect seal, and all his hard work would be so
much refuse for rats or other garbage bin carrion, and that would not do.

The right tools were essential.
Fine tweezers for opening the ends of each package, a commercial heat sealer
for closing them back up again so they looked fresh from the factory. A pair of
tin snips for making the bits of needles and razor blades into a devious silver
confetti to be sprinkled carefully throughout each
confection. A mortar and pestle to grind the rat poison into a fine powder so
that he could combine it with a viscous mixture to be inserted with a
hypodermic needle, undetectable particularly amid the caramel varieties.

He found a soldering iron to be
useful for melting the chocolate back over the places he’d inserted his special
ingredients. No one would mistake his trickery for an assembly line malfunction.
No flaw would be detected—until it was too late. After his treatment, the candy
would look just as it did before. Perhaps even better.

He was a maestro of the subtle.

Equal distribution of ingredients
was key. Maybe they wouldn't notice anything amiss on the first bite, that
initial (and literal) pins-and-needles sensation mistaken for taste buds
cramping from the delicious sugar rush, or perhaps a particularly sharp nut. But
at some point, a new taste would enter the gastronomic equation. It would be
the slippery mineral taste of blood as the sharp objects punctured soft,
innocent membranes, awakening them to the nightmare hidden within their sugary
delight. And then perhaps later that night, after the treats made the
treacherous journey through their intestines, a whole new nightmare would
begin.

Their screams of shock and horror
would validate weeks of work. If he performed especially well, it might even
make the news. But that was just a bonus.

But before that, the economics of childhood
candy trading during recess would ensure that his nightmares were distributed
across the whole neighborhood like little metallic viruses. Hundreds of
day-after candy bowls full of fattening loot would contain at least one piece
of his life’s work, and because he focused all his efforts on the favorites,
the peanut butter cups, the Snickers bars, the Milky Ways, the Hundred Grands
and Almond Joys, his efforts would be among the first sampled.

He didn't like being last in line.

The work started early each year,
in September, when the stores began stocking their shelves with the telltale
rainbow of cellophane bags. He was the enthusiastic early bird filling his
basket to the brim. Price was no object. Terror was an investment.

He moved regularly. Not every
year—that would look suspicious—but every two or three. He wasn't a complete
hermit. His neighbors knew him well, and he knew their gossip. “Oh that Mr.
Insert Alias Here is such a nice man. He helped me clean out my gutters last
fall. He changed my flat tire, he helped Timmy with his curve ball. It’s a shame
what happened to his wife. Died in childbirth, I hear.”

Of course, Mr. Insert Alias Here
never had a wife, but the stories always helped. It was difficult for a single
man living alone to endear himself to a neighborhood. It demanded a careful
social balance, a symphony of deception where every instrument mattered. Appear
open and available, but not overly eager for attention. Wear suits and ties and
carry a briefcase to and from your car Monday through Friday, mow the lawn on Sundays,
offer an occasional helping hand to a fellow resident in need. And, of course,
decorate the house for every holiday, not just Halloween.

But tonight was the most important
night of the year, when the curtain went up and all of his careful scrutiny,
his obsessive confectionery nurturing would be put to the test.

He liked to let the kiddies pick
their own fates from his treat bowl. It was more satisfying to give them the
illusion of choice. A miniature Snickers bar for the miniature superhero. A
peanut butter cup for the pretty princess. A Baby Ruth for the baby. The
teenagers who didn't wear any costumes, who just showed up for the free candy,
were his favorite. He always invited them to take extras. "There's plenty more
where that came from, kids," he would tell them.

Dusk was approaching. The
porch light was already on. His fog machines and mechanical ghouls activated.
The children would be drawn to Mr. Insert Alias Here’s house like costumed
moths. For his own getup, he always picked something special. This year it was
a purple velour jacket and top hat, and a warm smile with just enough menace to
befit the occasion. He was a caricature of the most famous candy man who ever lived,
and whole families would love him for it.
           He took his seat by the door, inhaling the dark sweetness from his bowl, and waited for the doorbell to ring. "Trick or treat!" they would cry, and in his generosity, he would oblige them with both.

Let's Crowdsource the Sh!t Out of This!

Read Me!

I'm more than halfway through STRINGS, not quite on pace for finishing by the end of the month, but close. I still have every intention of doing NaNoWriMo, though. As you might have gleaned from one of my recent posts, I need a respite from the darkness, and getting back together with my dudes Stan and Louis in the Scarlet Letters universe is really going to be the ticket, and I hope it will be as much fun for the rest of you to read as it undoubtedly will be to write.



A couple things, though. This book is going to be an "indie only" project. This is good, because it means you the readers will get it sooner. It also means that since I won't be writing this to satisfy whatever the market or a publisher might demand (let's face it, we writers shouldn't really be doing that ever, but we kind of do anyway), I can go full throttle on this thing and do it 100% my way. I'm writing this just for you, the readers. Especially you wonderful, generous souls who have bought my independent work, reviewed it, and made me actually able to call myself a paid author for the last two years. I can't tell you what that means to me. So in that spirit, consider SCARLET LETTERS: THE POSTMAN ALWAYS BITES TWICE a love letter to you.



I'm still in the early planning process for this story, and I've had even less time to plan because I'm still busting my ass on STRINGS. I have a very rough sketch of the story in terms of the who, when, and where, but I'm currently lacking in the "what" department. Right now, I have the following:



It's been a year since the events of the first story, but things have been a little rocky for our friends in Chagrin Falls. The town post office closed due to government cutbacks, which means Louis is out of a job. His buddy Stan has discovered that being the mortal mayor to a town full of vampires isn't as easy as he thought it would be, and Louis's girlfriend, Sera, has just discovered that her husband--whom she long thought dead since World War I--has returned.  And, well, that sucks.



So this is where you fans come in. Help me plan this thing. If you have read SCARLET LETTERS: THE TALE OF THE VAMPIRE MAILMAN, then you have a good idea about what sort of story I'm telling here. It's a satire. It's funny. It's silly. It's darkly wry. What I want to know is, what would you like to see in the follow-up? And if you haven't yet read the book, what the hell is wrong with you? Don't worry, you can still help.





This kind of friend...

Think up any kind of movie, book, mythical creature or supernatural folklore you would like me to spoof or mention in the book. What sort of plot element do you think would be hilarious? What sorts of new conflicts do you see happening for the existing characters? Help me brainstorm. If I use one of your ideas, I will put you in the acknowledgements section and I will forever consider you "friend." Okay, and I'll also give you a free e-copy of the book when it comes out.



So feel free to let loose in the comments section, or if you want to keep your ideas sacred, use the form in the Contact section to send me a note! Either way, I look forward to hearing from you!