Magen Cubed's Blog, page 47
May 4, 2011
Greetings from behind the veil of death
Better known as Texas Frightmare Weekend. Yes, my first TFW on the Post Mortem Press tour has come and gone, a whirlwind of blood, guts, and girls in skimpy Freddy Kruger costumes. I met some people. I sold some books. I hugged Norman Reedus. Overall, it was a pretty good time. Unfortunately my brain hasn't congealed enough yet to provide a fully coherent con report, so here's some pictures to better illustrate what you missed.
April 28, 2011
Come with me now, on a journey through time and space
Hello, denizens of the vast and all-knowing Internet. This is the last you'll be hearing of me for the month of April, as I am whisked away for a magical weekend of blood, guts and the undead at Texas Frightmare Weekend. Yes, it's true. I'm packing my bags, putting good old Fort Worthless in the rear-view for the Sheraton Grand Hotel in Irving, Texas, situated on the appropriately-titled John Carpenter Freeway outside the north entrance of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Doesn't it just sound glamorous?
I'll be live and in glorious Technicolor at the PostMortem-Press booth with editor-in-chief Eric Beebe, so if you're down there, stop by and see us. I'll try my damnedest to sell a book or two. I might even say something clever. Won't that be something? So, come for the terror! Come for the mayhem! Stay for my dazzling personality and impeccable wit! Also, you know, maybe buy a book or something, jeeze. I'll see you all on the other side.
April 23, 2011
It's time for summer, time to shine
Spring is here and halfway gone. I've put out most of the fires in my personal life that have been distracting me from this project lately (I've found gainful employment after five months of searching and I'm nearly done with all the manuscripts I have due), so I think it's time to get to business.
The first order of business: The Summer Sessions.
The Summer Sessions is a project I organized with the help of Melissa Dominic, bringing authors, poets, photographers and artists together under a common theme: A desire to create. The project consists of creative types, in different stages of their careers and creative development, from different cultural and educational backgrounds, who agreed to be interviewed and interview one another, with the goal of cross-posting each others' interviews in our respective blogs. It's a project about knowing who's in our community, and giving back to that community by helping one another promote our own work.
Last year I was fortunate enough to round up a great and diverse group of women for the project, and I think it went really well. This year I'd like to hopefully gather some more people to participate, with both men and women to share their experiences. (It's a boy-friendly party, guys, jeeze.) If this is something you'd like to get in on, comment with your email address, or drop me a line at m.toole@rocketmail.com. After everybody's signed up, we'll go from there.
I'd like to have all interested parties in by June 1st. Ideally I want to have the ball rolling by then, so everybody has time to get acquainted and conduct all the interviews, to be turned in by July 1st. Last year we kind of got this started late in the summer, this time I'd kind of like to get a head start, because a lot of people are out of school/are on vacation/usually have more time to do silly things like this. It's just for fun, to get to know the people in our communities and help promote each others work. So if that's something you'd be interested in doing, let me know.
April 15, 2011
Adventures in Real Life
You're sitting in a crowded sandwich shop. It's lunch-hour. There's people everywhere you look, squeezed into tiny booths, about to spill out onto the floor. You're waiting around for your to-go order. Then you notice all the high school boys lurking around with their friends, glancing at you. Loitering around next to you. Not-so-much-glancing-as-staring at you.
You're acutely aware of the attention. You're obviously not interested in the opinions of people who can't vote or shoot a gun, but you're aware of it. And then it dawns on you: In this crowded room, all the teenaged boys are staring at you. The broom stick in skinny jeans and blonde hair that they came in with get less attention than you. You come to the conclusion that either, A) you're just really hot today, or B) you look like a fifteen-year-old.
You already know people think you're younger than you are. You still get carded at the liquor store. Hell, you still get carded at the movies. The last time you got into the theater without a showdown with the ticket guy was when Where the Wild Things Are came out. But fifteen? That's low, even for you.
Slowly but surely the horror sinks in. You take your sandwiches. You leave. You try not to look any of the teenagers in the eye but everywhere you turn, there they are. You try not to think about it. You're almost twenty-five, for god's sake. You're post-college. You're metal. So to make yourself feel better, you go and cut all your hair off.
Now at least you'll look an angry fifteen-year-old, by god. It's all you can ask for in life.
April 12, 2011
Write, edit, repeat
I've got stories coming. Stories and stories. A few coming out, a few being written for anthology publication, and a few I'm working on fielding to magazines and editors as I sit here and type this. I'm preparing for Texas Frightmare Weekend where I'll be helping Eric Beebe from Post Mortem-Press man a table. I'm trying to get my serial novel Flesh Trap ready for public consumption. I'm looking forward to summer trips, traveling, sunshine, seeing people who are important to me. Water, beaches, sleeping in, the whole nine yards.
But until then, I'm writing.
Like this. More Flesh Trap snippets. Consider it like DVD extras, like behind-the-scenes documentaries or creator commentary. Or, you know, something.
Casey Way sat on his hands on his father's front porch, and waited.
He was seven years old, all skin and bones and shaggy hair he hated having cut. He still had his mother's freckles then, back before they disappeared. They were the only thing she left behind when she went to Heaven, beside her pictures on the mantel and her Venus Flytraps in the backyard. Casey didn't know much about her except for the things she left behind. His father didn't say much. His father could be like that sometimes.
April 1, 2011
It's all measured out in coffee and cigarettes
So the economy is in the toilet. The world is on fire. All over the internet, writers are sending you spam emails and private messages telling you to please please please, buy their books. Everybody is the next So-and-So, the next best seller, the next award winner. Then you find out that publishing is dead. No, wait, it's alive. No, wait, it's dead again. But in any event, ebooks are the answer. Ebooks are our saviors. Except, well, nobody seems to know how much it costs to produce them or how much they should charge to buy them.
And traditional publishing is the Devil, the enemy of art and progression. But so is self-publishing, leading good writers from the righteous path to the slush pile. Or something. So I guess no matter what, we're all screwed.
Honestly, I have no idea. I'm just going to continue over here in my corner, writing what I write. Doing what I do. Either I'll make money or I won't, and I'll stick with day-jobs. It doesn't really make much difference to me. But every day I keep that quote in mind. I take a deep breath and tell myself as long as somebody reads my stories, and somebody likes them, and somebody wants to read more of them, then I never really lose the race. Maybe I don't end up the next So-and-So, but I don't go home empty-handed.
That's why, on my twenty-fifth birthday, when I'll full of piss and vinegar, fully entrenched in my quarter-life crisis, I'm going to get that tattooed on my arm. That way, no matter what, I can look down and remind myself of what matters to me. I write because I want to, and because I'm good at it, and I don't want to do anything else.
That's going to be my gift to me. You can leave yours at the door, if you like.
March 22, 2011
Shot from the heart instead of the head
The last week has been a bit of a blur.
Writing, editing, more writing. Personal drama. Job-hunting. Getting my ducks in a row for Texas Frightmare Weekend next month. (You're going right? Right? Yeah, that's what I thought.) Posting snippets. Starting new projects, namely my submission for Phobias from Dark Continents Publishing. Then there's plotting, plotting, always with the plotting. I'm thinking two books ahead, and I'm not even done retooling the one I finished. My brain feels like split-pea soup. I just want to lie down and watch some bad television.
Today, though, I have places to be.
In the meantime though, I will leave this snippet with you. Casey Way and Mariska Kovol from Flesh Trap, circa 1992. I plan on writing more of these, and slapping them around town while I prepare the final draft of the manuscript. Consider them to be fun character studies? Otherwise, just get used to it.
"You have to do this. You have to make this promise, okay? If you don't I'll hate you forever. I'm allowed."
Mariska held out the knife she had hidden in the waist her skirt, expecting Casey to take it. His step-sister's pale blue petticoat made her legs look like bones until they disappeared into the combat boots she kept in her school bag, exchanging high heels for boots once she was out of her mother's line of sight. She was thirteen then, a full head taller than all the other girls at her school and built like a boy. The dresses her mother covered her up in slipped from her bony shoulders and absent hipbones, the gathers of fabric that Mariska tugged at like a choke collar, uncomfortable in her own skin.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go feed the turtle.
March 13, 2011
In defense of my home
Oh we are what we are when we're praying, in our way of seeking some light. May the mission bells still ring of the colorful dream, in the faith that everyone will be treated right.
Terry Reid, To Be Treated Right
In corners of social networking and internet blogging, there are American citizens who have draped themselves in nationalism and so-called Christian values in order to celebrate the devastation in Japan. You may have seen this sentiment documented on sites like Karma Japan and Ignorant and Online. These are young, ignorant Americans who feel that the Japanese people "deserve" the earthquake, and resulting tsunami and nuclear crisis, as retribution from God for the Pearl Harbor attack during World War II.
I've waded through a lot of saddening things in the last few weeks. From the union-busting, anti-teacher sentiment coming out across the country, to wholesale defense of rape culture in the self-proclaimed "enlightened and unbiased" media. I can usually keep a stiff upper lip, make my rounds of retweet/reposts, sign my petitions, argue with some people on Facebook, and feel just a little bit better about things. But this? I won't keep quiet about this.
I find myself living in a country full of spoiled, ugly, reckless children. These children are not representative of the whole of America, but they're often the loudest among us. Children who pride themselves on ignorance and covet material possessions above all else. These are children who defame other countries for imagined threats, because they feel America is the chosen land of God, some great shining city on the hill that all others must strive to emulate. These are children that have made enemies out of people they don't know, don't care to know, and will never understand. They don't feel like they have to understand other people, because they're American. They have shiny cell phones and laptops and designer jeans. They're more important than anyone else.
Like those shifty Chinese people, they're out to take all our jobs and crush our spirits. Those lazy Mexicans, they just want to soak up our resources and pump out children. Those cowardly French, what a bunch of faggots. All those freedom-hating Middle Eastern people, because there's no difference between an Egyptian and an Iraqi, or anybody else from that region. And now the Japanese, those dirty Japanese. They're now beyond forgiveness for a war-time attack that only the grandparents and great-grandparents of this generation were witness to. They deserved this earthquake for what they did to America.
Never mind that Japan is one of America's closest allies today. Never mind that Japan has provided millions of dollars in relief funding for America during natural disasters, both from government sources and private donations. Never mind that most of the cars, computers, gaming systems and technology that my generation now takes for granted comes directly from Japan or was derived from Japanese ingenuity. Never mind that these are just people who got up one day, unaware that their lives were going to be changed forever, and are now fighting to survive amid the wreckage.
We get it. You're proud of your ignorance. You feel justified in expressing it. But we won't allow you to hide behind Free Speech or God to justify being a stupid, hateful, xenophobic nationalist. We will publicly call you out on your lies. We will shame you on blogs like Karma Japan and Ignorant and Online. We will make sure that the world knows that Americans are not afraid of petulant children. We will not allow you to embarrass America like you've embarrassed yourselves.
March 11, 2011
Coming to a city near you
Some big news out of my backyard of Dallas, Texas today.
Eric Beebe of PostMortem-Press has launched the PMP Press the Flesh Tour 2011, beginning this month in Cincinnati, Ohio at the PMP Launch Party. From there the imprint will be hitting the road, appearing at horror conventions and book festivals across the US and Canada. Just confirmed this morning, Eric will be at Texas Frightmare Weekend April 29th – May 1st to promote. And guess who else will be there?
Drum roll please.
Me. I will be attending with Eric to help promote PostMortem-Press, the brand and the authors. Think of me as the Vanna White of Texas horror, but with less sequins. If you're headed to Texas Frightmare Weekend this year, be sure to stop by and say hello. Oh, and also buy some books. A girl's got to eat, okay? Tickets to the event are still $25 a piece for day passes, and $65 for full weekend tickets, but prices will go up after April 1st. So if you're going, get your tickets now while they're cheap.
Mark your calendars, guys, it's going to be a big weekend. Hope to see you there.
March 9, 2011
Everything's coming up guts and existentialism
Alright so, after a lot of meandering and hand-sitting, I have news on the publication front. Shock and awe, I know. You'd think I was actually working on stuff.
I've recently been invited to participate in an upcoming horror anthology from Dark Continents Publishing. Along the same lines of M IS FOR MONSTER, twenty-six authors pick a letter of the alphabet and a corresponding phobia, then publish for great profit. Or, uh. Great street cred. Whichever. I decided to write about the phobia of contradictions, logical fallacies and paradoxes, as they manifest in the physical world and wreak havoc one some poor dude's brain. I'm also joined by quite a few authors from M IS FOR MONSTER, so it should prove to be a good read.
I hear the Copeland Valley Press Sampler will be out soon from Copeland Valley Press, featuring bizarro writers including William Pauley III, Matthew Revert and Jordan Krall. I have two flash fiction reprints in this one, but, really, the cover art is worth the retail price. It's something to behold. In other news, I have a reprint of The Girl on Mooreland Street, the introductory chapter of Flesh Trap, coming out soon through an upcoming issue of Fantastic Horror and some flash fiction coming from Fantastique Unfettered's upcoming second issue. Everything's coming up guts and existentialism.
Speaking of Flesh Trap, it's still my intention to begin releasing it as a web serial late spring/early summer of this year. If all goes according to plan, I believe I'll be done with the last round of readings and revisions by the beginning of May. So stay tuned for that.
Otherwise, it's just another plain old Wednesday morning.
