Gerald Dean Rice's Blog, page 71

Get in the Dark

Jay Rauld’s short story, “Dark” will be available for free on the next two Saturdays (15th & 22nd) and then again on Monday Christmas Eve.  If you haven’t picked this one up, you can get a copy on us.

 

Description-

A woman discovers the end of mankind leaking out of the janitor’s closet, a husband who can’t bear for his wife to leave him predicts how their relationship will end, and a woman unsure of the future of her relationship discovers her mate’s emotions on a tragedy-stricken freeway.

Get it on Amazon, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada.

I Have a Bone to Pick with LDP

I wrote this on September 10, 2010 and decided not to publish it at the time for fear of getting blackballed for besmirching an actual publisher.  From what I’ve read over the last couple days, I didn’t need to be so cautious.

I have a bone to pick with LDP, but I’ve tried to keep a lid on it up until now. My story, “Goner” appeared in volume 6 of the Dead Worlds anthology. Up front, I’ll say my story needed editing. But it didn’t need what the editor did to it. It was the literal equivalent of a dentist sneezing while he’s drilling into a patient’s tooth.

Even before I had my deal with Severed for my novel I’ve had stuff published. I know rewording and reworking are part of the process, but there are changes and then there are changes. Rejection can be a great thing. I had a story that was rejected by Alien Skin Magazine and why they rejected it helped me rewrite the weak parts, I resubmitted it and they published it. I appreciate rejection. I can still respect an editor and maybe resubmit something another time. Hell, I got rejected for Dead Bait 2 (again, another rushed story and it probably showed to the editor).

But I had things taken out, like a mallet because, (I’m paraphrasing as the conversation took place in February or March) “Nobody knows what a mallet is.” My main character was a scavenger, hell EVERYONE in the story was. That’s why the bad guys were on mopeds. But those were changed to motorcycles. Y’know, because the bad guys always ride around in style.

And again, some things needed changing. Like my main character breaking through bricked up windows. I don’t know why boards over the windows didn’t cross my mind, but it was a good change. But there was PROSE changed, y’know the stuff that shows your own personality? And things added THAT I WOULD NEVER WRITE. I have to check my contract again, but if I could I would love to post my whole story, as I’d submitted it and invite anyone to read the two side-by-side and decide for themselves which was better. You’ll more than likely be doing the same thing as me and asking yourself over and over again, “Why was that changed?” To this day I haven’t been able to finish reading it.

But hey, I thought, maybe I’m the crazy one. So I read the story the editor wrote, a couple stories ahead of mine. I forget the title, but if you’ve seen the movie Zombieland you already know the story. It was completely derivative, down to the characters being named after states and using the whole “Kill of the Week” bit. All they did was walk into a grocery store, get attacked by zombies, shoot a bunch of them, and leave.

I have never trashed another writer, but by the way I was rudely handled over the phone and the end-product that showed up in the antho I feel like I’ve been mistreated. Right now I’m working my way through “Love Prevails” and it’s by far better written and plotted than the editor’s story.

I wrote for the antho as a way of getting good press for my novel, but I got 0 traction. You know what would have made up for that? Getting paid for the 6,000 or however many word story I wrote. I’m officially done with writing for free unless it’s something that benefits me or something I believe in.

As an aside, a month or two after this was published I attempted to have this added to my list of books (authors will understand) I had contributed to on Amazon.

Death by Haiku

I used to write poetry.  A lot.  So much so, that I wrote somewhere over 200 haiku poems.  I may post about 1 a day, depending on if I get around to it.  Here’s the first:

 

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooo…

 

Howling notes, Bobby tends

To rip out feelings

Without a word.

Editing a Manuscript

 

Now that NaNoWriMo is over, I should be done with my project, but I’m not.  At best, I’m halfway done, probably closer to a third of the way.  But I’m coming through my old site and pulling out gems.  This one is from October 31 of last year.  Enjoy!

 

After my post about how I published my novella, Fleshbags, an astute reader made the point that there’s a lot more to editing. And he’s right. I glossed over it originally, assuming that anyone who wrote would know you need some keen editing to polish up a manuscript.

There was something I learned years ago (back in my poetry days) that applies to prose as well. You have to know the rules before you can break the rules. It may not make too much sense but that’s all the difference between a beginning writer who uses poor grammar and punctuation as opposed to a seasoned writer who does the same thing. Case in point, Cormac McCarthy. It took a little bit for me to get into The Road simply because he never uses quotation marks when characters speak and he frequently uses fragmented sentences. But once you get over that minor hump, you realize it works.

Grammar and punctuation are the easiest mistakes to make, but they are also the easiest mistakes to fix. One of the most common mistakes I see is the improper close of a sentence after a character is speaking. For instance, “Leslie is never going to make it out of here.” he said.

By no means do I know everything. I was at a convention last year when I learned what a gerund was. I’ve sense learned and incorporated it into my writing (or rather, incorporated not using gerunds).

For this initial post on editing I’m going to keep it simple. There’s a whole world of editing, but first the basics should be followed. Editing actually begins in the first draft. Or a better way of stating it, not editing. In an initial draft, everything that comes into your brain should fall onto the page. It’s a huge temptation to go back and fix that word that was bugging you in the last paragraph, but trust me, it’s more important to keep going forward.

After you have that first draft, the very beginning of your novel should read like new to you and ideas of how you could better word phrases, paragraphs, and ideas will be so much more fluid to you. You’ll appreciate things you’ve written in a greater context and you’ll also see things that make absolutely no sense to you. Guess what—they’ll make absolutely no sense to your reader as well. Change it.

After you’ve done a second draft you aren’t done. It is your baby, you’re way too close to see all the errors. If you can line one up, it’d be great to get your story to someone who can give you a completely impartial opinion (probably not your mother). You may need to pay someone or you may have a buddy who writes and the two of you switch off. Whoever this person is, try not to take what they send back to you personally.

If you can afford to wait, let your manuscript marinate on a shelf for 3 months or so. Once you pick it up again, you’ll be able to read it again with fresh eyes. Some people draft several more times, but it’s really a matter of personal preference. I read an article where this one author said she drafts 70+ times. She’s published, so I can say her method is wrong, but I wouldn’t have the patience to do such a thing.

I’ll post more as it comes to me, but if you remember nothing else, keep in mind: write-write-write. That’s the most important thing you can do.

Finish The Zombie Show!

Every now and then, I like to look up sales info on my books.  About 2 weeks ago, I was looking up info on The Zombie Show when I came across another title of the same name.  But it was written by someone else, an author by the name of Aevin Abstract.  I don’t know if that’s a real name or what–I’m guessing the name ‘Aevin’ is gaelic or something and the author is British.  My curiosity got the better of me and I bought this on a whim.  After adjusting the visual settings on my Droid’s Kindle app (the text and background were both black for some reason), I read this story in one setting.

That’s both a bad and a good thing.

It was bad because it was just so short. We’re barely introduced to the main character before he is thrust into a conflict with the zombies. I like his ideas on defense, although he should have been a little better prepared. And just as the story really seemed to be getting underway, it ended. Boom. Just like that. Done.

Obviously, the good part was this was an engaging story that I couldn’t help but read in one setting. Solid writing that made me actually care about the main character. I also wanted to know about the ‘people’ (I don’t want to spoil what that means) and how they came to be in their situation. There really is at least a novella’s worth of material to be written and I hope ‘The Zombie Show’ is just a prelude to the rest.

I have about nine pieces of advice for Mr. Abstract. Finish this story. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it.

DEADLY GRAPEFRUIT

Guest post from James J Murray:

 

As I watched one of the national news feeds yesterday, I was reminded of how unaware the public is to one of the more serious drug-food interactions.

 

The subject of the feature was the adverse interaction between many drugs and grapefruit. It was presented as a “startling revelation” that there is a detrimental interaction between certain drugs and grapefruit when either the fruit or the juice from it is consumed concurrently with these medications.

 

The truth is that the medical community identified this harmful interaction at least ten years ago and now pharmacists routinely attach alert notices to certain prescription medications involved in these interactions.

 

The new information here is that the number of drugs that can cause a deadly interaction with grapefruit has doubled in just the last few years.  At present, 85 drugs interact with grapefruit to cause injury, 43 of which cause serious or deadly interactions.

 

The list of drugs that interact with grapefruit now includes many blood pressure medications, most of the cholesterol-lowering drugs, certain cardiac drugs, some anti-seizure medications, specific chemotherapy drugs and a few antibiotic medications.

 

What astounded me about this news broadcast was that the medical expert being interviewed recommended that patients who have been prescribed these medications “stop taking their medications and call their physicians for alternatives”.

 

The easier solution and a much better recommendation would be to simply STOP EATING GRAPEFRUIT!

 

Many of the drugs that interact with grapefruit are maintenance medications, those that patients take every day for chronic medical conditions. If a patient is achieving good therapeutic effects (especially long-term) with a drug therapy, it’s considered irresponsible to discontinue that drug in favor of a specific food in the diet.

 

The safer action is to keep the patient’s medical condition stable with that specific drug and to DISCONTINUE EATING THE OFFENDING FOOD.

 

As healthy and tasty as grapefruit is, if taken with certain medications it can be deadly.  As little as one-half grapefruit, or the equivalent in juice, can interfere with the metabolism of certain drugs.  A chemical in grapefruit called furanocoumarin causes some drugs to stay in the body much longer than expected and create an overdose effect when subsequent drug doses are given. Patients have died from respiratory failure, kidney failure and internal bleeding as a result of this accumulated drug effect.

 

As mentioned, this has been known for a long time and patients are now being warned about this serious interaction. The problem, however, remains a public health hazard for two reasons.

 

First, many people don’t read warning labels and, secondly, grapefruit is usually a food consumed as part of a healthy diet. People don’t associate a food as simple as grapefruit with having a deadly effect, and the problem is becoming more widespread as additional new drugs come on the market that have this potential interaction with grapefruit.

 

While it’s important to have news features to educate the public concerning this dangerous drug-food interaction, it should be emphasized that the recommended plan should be elimination of the offending food, not the beneficial drug.

 

It’s much easier to delete grapefruit from the diet than it is to find a replacement drug that would work as well as the one prescribed by your doctor, particularly if that drug is working well to control a medical condition.

 

Thoughts? Comments? I’d love to hear them!

 

Bio for James J. Murray:

 

With experience in both pharmaceutical manufacturing and clinical patient management, medications and their impact on a patient’s quality of life have been my expertise.  My secret passion of murder and mayhem, however, is a whole other matter.  My obsession with reading murder mysteries and thrillers left me longing to weave such tales of my own.  Drawing on past clinical expertise as a pharmacist and an infatuation with the lethal effects of drugs, I create novels of Murder, Mayhem and Medicine that will have you looking over your shoulder and suspicious of anything in your medicine cabinet.

 

 

James J. Murray

 

Website: http://www.jamesjmurray.com/

Blog: http://jamesjmurray.wordpress.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamesjmurraywriter

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JamesJMurray1

My First Book Signing

Reblogged from Carol Carroll, Author:

Today I have my first appointment to set up a book signing.

Like with every other first I’ve been doing since I wrote Inconclusive Death, I’m traveling into unknown territory. It’s a little nerve-racking, but at the same time exciting to be learning more about marketing my book.

I’ve read on the internet about how others do a book signing, so I have a good idea how to go about it.

Read more… 224 more words

Interview with Al Sarrantonio

I did an interview with Al Sarrantonio in August last year on my old website.  Figured I’d dig it up and share it with you here.

It was about a year in the making, but the stars finally aligned and I stumbled into an interview with Al Sarrantonio. He edited an anthology, Portents, which was released earlier this year from Flying Fox Publishers. Read on:

 

RP: What started your interest in horror?

AS: I actually started out as a science fiction buff. But after I was booted out of engineering school (my Dad actually helped design the Space Shuttle) I discovered that my writing talent was more easily geared to the horror field – specifically the so-called “quiet” horror that Charles L. Grant and others were promoting in the 1980s.

RP: That’s interesting—I dropped out of GMI Engineering & Management Institute after two semesters. How many rejections did you have before your first sale?

AS: I could have wallpapered a room with them. That’s part of what keeps you going – if you believe, you don’t give up. Ambition and talent are the twin engines that drive any writer to success. If you don’t have both, forget about being a professional writer.

RP: Did you keep them and if so, what did you do with them?

AS: Good question! I probably still have some, socked away in a box somewhere. Some were interesting. The form letters I tossed out. The one I remember vividly (and that kept me going) was from Bob Silverberg, who was editing a series of original sf anthologies called NEW DIMENSIONS at the time. He took the time to give me some advice.

RP: What was the first story you submitted and has it ever been published?

AS: Actually one of the very first I submitted was eventually published. I wrote the first draft of it at the Clarion SF Writers Workshop at Michigan State University in 1974.It was an sf/horror story titled “The Artist in the Room Above.” It was published in a volume of the Chrysalis series and was reprinted in my collection HALLOWEEN AND OTHER SEASONS.

RP: I read Skeletons probably when I was about 14.That novel blew my mind! I’d never read or seen zombies like that (and I’d never read anything told in first-person before).What was the inspiration?

AS: As bizarre as this sounds (I don’t think it does) the inspiration for that book was Thomas Pynchon – specifically, GRAVITY’S RAINBOW. It took me many tries to get through that book, but it blew me away. And I thought to myself, why can’t I do something like this in the horror field? Meaning snatches of song lyrics, gonzo situations, etc. It was probably the most fun I ever had writing a novel. There’s a follow-up novel to it that’s never been published, my only unpublished novel (Bantam was set to do it in the early 90s when they got rid of their entire horror line); it’s called UNDERGROUND and has characters with names like Malice in Wonderland. Someday…

RP: I grew up on late 70s and 80s horror. The Howling, John Carpenter’s The Thing, Return of the Living Dead, Creepshow and then my mother got me hooked on King and Koontz. What did you have as a child?

AS: Another great question. I had the Alfred Hitchcock Y.A. anthologies that were published by Random House, which had all kinds of crazy stuff in them – sf, horror, mysteries, you name it. They were brilliantly edited. I received one every Christmas from my godparents when I was perhaps 10-13 years old. They changed my life. And I got to know (!) some of the writers who were in there, such as Manly Wade Wellman, later in life.

RP: When would you say you ‘made it’ as a writer?

AS: That’s all in your mind. My epiphany was the first time I wrote a story and I knew – I knew– that I nailed it. After that it didn’t become easier, but I knew what I was doing.

RP: Do you see a point when you’d stop writing or is it something you’ll do until you physically can’t?

AS: The old line: they’ll have to pry the keyboard (used to be typewriter) from my cold, dead hands. It’s a compulsion as well as a business.

RP: Have you ever had an idea and someone beat you to the punch in their own novel? Did you abandon the idea or revamp it?

AS: Not really. The only time that happened was when another horror writer came out with a novel titled OKTOBER a couple months before my OCTOBER came out. It didn’t make a difference.

RP: Was there a ‘sophomore slump’ when it came to getting your 2nd novel published? If so, how’d you get past it?

AS: Honestly, I didn’t have a sophomore slump. Once I knew what I was doing, I just kept going. That was almost thirty years ago. I did go through periods when I needed to recharge the batteries, but that’s only natural. My third novel actually had a character in it who got jettisoned, and it became my fourth novel.

RP: You’re very prolific—have you ever had a significant writer’s block?

AS: What gets you out of writer’s block is when you need a paycheck. I’ve always found that when I needed to write, I could write. When I don’t I get lazy. I’m not saying I don’t believe in writer’s block. But I think it can be overcome by need. Need to eat, need to put kids through college. And then of course there is the need to write, which, like I said, is a compulsion sometimes.

RP: What’s it going to take to get you to do a signing in Metro Detroit?

AS: Yow! Been in the airport there on the way to see my eldest son in Chicago. I don’t know. It could happen. I haven’t done many signings or gone to many conventions the last couple years. Hunkered down with the work.

RP: I wanted to ask if you still work in multiple genres, but I see the anthology Stories: All-New Tales, which was published back in June, has stories across a myriad of genres. Do you still think diversification is the best policy for any writer?

AS: My good friend Joe Lansdale and I have talked about this over the years. When the horror boom of the 1980s collapsed in the 1990s we both saw the writing on the wall. He was quicker than me, broadening out into comics and just about everything else, but I, out of boredom with any one genre, and out of necessity to make a living at writing, starting going every which way, too. Also, people were asking me to. I wrote my first western (WEST TEXAS) because an editor at a hardcover house asked me to.

RP: I see your new anthology, Halloween, is coming out next month- what’s your story about?

AS: The reprint antho HALLOWEEN is edited by Paula Guran, and contains my novella “Hornets,” which was the very first Orangefield tale. It also appears in HORNETS AND OTHERS, a short story collection of mine that will be available as an e-book soon.

RP: Looking through your titles on Amazon I see a lot of your titles have been re-released on Kindle. How do you feel about the rise of the e-book considering the bulk of your career has been in print?

AS: Almost all of the books that are coming back on Kindle were dead in the water, out of print, and unavailable to my fans. Because of this, it’s almost impossible for me to put down e-books. I bought a Kindle this past January, and am beginning to see what it’s good for. It will not replace physical books. It will augment them. Nobody in the publishing industry –publishers, agents, editors, some writers and readers — seems to be able to wrap their heads around this yet. It’s not a replacement system – it’s an augmentation system.

RP: Is there anything you have upcoming you’d like to tell us about?

AS: I’m working on a long story for an original monster anthology, which looks like it’ll take place in Orangefield. The original horror anthology I edited and published, PORTENTS, is still available through my website, Alsarrantonio.com. And a bunch more titled will be available as e-books, including my sf/horror trilogy FIVE WORLDS, which was another experiment for me. I tried to yoke space opera to the horror genre (There’s a character named the Machine Master of Mars, whose own brother snipped his lips off, leaving him looking like the Phantom of the Opera.)I think some of the best novel writing I ever did was in those books.

RP: Well, I’m a fan of yours. My collection of Al Sarrantonio books rest proudly amongst my other favorites—Ethan Black, F. Paul Wilson, Thomas Harris, Thomas Disch—I’d say all of you had an impact on the writer I became. Do you attend any of the horror-cons on a regular basis? I’d love to bump into you someday. Thank you for your time.

AS: Like I said, haven’t hit the cons in some time. Maybe in the next couple years. And funny you should mention Tom Disch – he was one of my mentors, and I was able to publish a bunch of his stories in the original anthologies I edited.

My Review of Brian Keene's The Cage

Reblogged from Matthew Vaughn:

I just realized while posting this that this is my first review of a Brian Keene book. I’m pretty sure I meant to do reviews of some of his other books, but obviously I didn’t. It’s better late than never though.

I only started reading Brian Keene’s work just as his relationship with Dorchester dissolved. What I read was what my brother had and a couple books my wife bought for me over the internet.

Read more… 366 more words

Kealan Patrick Burke brings down The Curtain on Timmy Quinn with NEMESIS

Reblogged from October Country:

Concluding a series must be one of the most difficult things a writer can do – especially a series that’s been as popular for a writer as the Timmy Quinn stories (comprised up to this point of The Turtle Boy, The Hides, Vessels, and Peregrine’s Story) have been for Kealan Patrick Burke. Not only have they been popular for him, they have in many ways defined his career: from the hot-shot indie writer making a splash among those “in the know” with 

Read more… 760 more words