Gerald Dean Rice's Blog, page 84

Free Sunday!

This Sunday, pick up a free copy of my ten year old story The 5000 Fingers of Bob. It was my very first long story (clocking in at 9,000+ words). I think I'd seen or read The Green Mile not long before and it influenced me some. It's a ghost story--kind of--and turns in a few unexpected directions before its end.

Also, once you're done with that, keep reading. My next 2 works, Tales from an Apartment due out March 17, and an extended preview of The Zombie Show are in there. If you like zoo-boys in all their glory, come to the party. Over 25,000 words of zombie goodness... uh, badness.

http://amzn.to/zzIdnN

And the Reviews are Coming in...

This one from Ghostleegirl-

 

Wow! I use collections of short stories to check out authors that I've never read. I find it helps me to decide if I like the writing and whether or not I want to read read more by a particular author. Would I read a novel by Mr Rice? YES!!!

The collection 'Tales From An Apartment' had horror, in many forms. There was a varied collection, dealing with different topics, (good vs evil, zombies, etc...) Each story had a different feel, and a surprising end. I especially loved 'The Second Death Of Timothy Moseley'. Creepy and touching at the same time, and that is a really difficult thing to achieve.

Some of the stories are amusing in a macabre way, some deal with subjects that we don't like to think about, some are disturbing, but all of them are worth reading. So often with collections of short stories, there are at least two or three 'throw aways', but not in this collection!

Do yourself a favor, read this collection. If you are a fan of horror, you'll love it. If you aren't a fan of horror, this might make you one! Either way, it's worth your time!

99 Designs

I found a great website to design the cover to Tales from an Apartment.  It's called 99Designs.com and it takes bids from all different people who can design several ideas and you pick the winner.  I'll post it here once the thing has been started so everyone can have a look at the kinds of designs I'm getting.

I wanted to post a review of Tales I got just a few days ago, but I mistakenly deleted it out of my email.  I'll have to go through my messages on Goodreads, but I can't get into that account at the moment.

Tales from an Apartment

Here's the Table of Contents.  Not necessarily in this order.

Slug

And on the Thirtieth Day…

Hay-Zeuss is Watching

Hungry Eyes

Chionophobia

How She'd do It

The Second Death of Timothy Moseley

Neighbor

Why Self-Promo Threads Don't Work

Every author wants free promotion. But indie authors crave it. Promotion could make or break the success of a new release (also factoring in how high the author sets the bar), but there is promotion and spinning your wheels in a fashion made to look like promotion.

We all go the route of combing the internet for reviewers, posting on every site we can find, maybe giving away a gift card, but there are certain things that just don't work for obvious reasons. Like those threads on websites that advertise 'Authors Promote Here' like this one. Why? Because I don't read them. That's not to say that I'm the be-all, end-all of what will and won't work. But I am a reader. And on the way to picking my next book, whatever that's going to be, I don't look at threads that have post upon post of authors schlepping their next work. It could be a great piece of fiction that I would become my very favorite book, but I'll never learn about it that way.

The top ways I learn about new books to read are through recommendations and cool-looking covers. I don't know about anyone else, but that's how to reach me.

So why do these threads exist at all?

It's for the same reason that crosswalks sometimes have that button you push when you're facing a 'don't cross' signal. It gives the authors the impression they're actually doing something. It's meant to placate us.

There are things that actually do work. Joining groups that allow you to post messages aimed directly at people who like your genre. I'm in several Yahoo and Facebook groups and have generated sales from both. You can even track traffic by creating links through bit.ly and posting those links. Of course, there's a ton more that could be done—that's more of a 'hey, this is stuff that actually does something' thing.

But don't waste your time with author promo threads. Serious.

Happy hunting.

Something Else

I didn't have time to write a new entry for Dead Right this week, so I have something else instead.  It's something new, still fleshing it out in my head.  Hope you enjoy.

 

Joe wanted Out.  He knew it would be soon, when they meat started coming down here they took him and some of the others out.  He might get to have the Other too.  Joe wanted out now.

He grabbed the mesh of the cage and growled.  Maybe if the meat saw him, saw It, she would give him the Other.  But she kept not looking at Joe.

"Step back."  Joe pulled away from the caging at the new voice.  Another meat stared at him.  This one was not like the first.  This meat smelled different and Joe remembered from others he'd eaten that ones like it had harder flesh. 

Joe did not want the Other with this meat.

"I said step back," the meat said again.  It stared at Joe in the eyes and Joe quickly looked away.  When meat stared Joe in the eyes it agitated him.  And when Joe was agitated he CLAWSCRATCHBIT.  When he CLAWSCRATCHBIT meat ran away and the bangstings came.  Joe did not like the stings.

"I said step back, motherfucker."  Joe did not like that last word.  He didn't understand most of them, but this one upset him.  Joe did step back, his hand fingering below his collar.  He used to wear something there that had been important.  People wouldn't speak to him like that back then.

Joe shook his head.  He did not like remembering.  The thoughts confused him and he saw people who weren't there.  They weren't meat like the ones he saw now.  They weren't real at all.  They were--

"Memories," Joe said, his finger still at his collar.  Something hit the floor at his feet.  Joe bent to pick it up--that was the other thing he was still good at, most of the others could barely use their hands--and puzzled at it between his thumb and index.  It was small and round at one end and smaller and flat on the other.  It looked like it belonged in the collar and he tried shoving it back in a hole he found in the collar, but his hands weren't that good.  He stood and walked back to the mesh to show the meat in the pen next to his.  The other that had been there had CLAWSCRATCHBIT and the meats had hit it with the bangstings until it stopped moving.

He waved it around, trying to catch the meat's eye, but the meat was dragging water around on the floor with a stick.  Joe moaned to get the meat's attention.

"Joe, what the hell?" the meat said.  He banged his stick against Joe's pen and water sloshed off the bottom on his feet.  Joe looked at the meat, holding the small thing in his hand.  The meat stared him in the face and Joe looked away again.  He dropped the small thing, wanting to CLAWSCRATCHBITE, but knew he couldn't do that.  Joe made fists, but the feeling was already out.  He dug his fingers into the collar and yanked at it, moaning again.  He yanked and yanked until something snapped.

Joe's collar came open.  His first thought was to try to show the meat again, but meat never paid attention.  This wouldn't help him now, he was still in a pen.  Joe closed the collar and opened it again.  Closed.  Opened.  He could do it anytime he wanted.

Joe sat down and did something he remembered doing from the time before.

He smiled.

Yay Google Translate!

I took my biography on my author's page at Amazon and used Google Translate to translate it into French.  I don't speak it, but it looks like spriggin ze Deutsche to me!  Read below if you dare...

 

Bon, ma biographie dernière a été à looooooong et ennuyeux. Je ne savais pas combien il était triste jusqu'à ce que je fait essayé de revenir en arrière et de le lire. Bla-bla-bla. Quoi qu'il en soit.

Je suis doyen Gerald Rice. Utilisé à Gerald Rice- Je suppose que je le suis encore, mais tous les travaux futurs doivent inclure mon deuxième prénom. C'est une chose de rebranding.

J'ai toujours été dans l'horreur. Quand j'étais à la maternelle, ma mère m'a pris dès l'école pour voir Creepshow. J'ai vu une tonne de choses que je n'aurais pas quand j'étais gamin.

J'ai eu un livre d'histoires de fantômes quand j'avais 11 ans pour Noël. Ce furent les jours avant YA romans, moins vous avez ramassé un de ces livres gnangnan Andrews VC. Bon, zéro qui, je n'ai jamais lu un livre VC Andrews.

Mais plus je lisais et plus je vieillis plus je eu l'envie d'écrire mes propres histoires. J'ai essayé ma main à écrire des histoires de bandes dessinées avec mon meilleur ami au lycée, mais nous n'avions aucune idée de comment percer dans la BD. J'ai soumis ma première histoire d'Cemetery Dance en 2000. Il a fallu quelque part autour de 7 mois pour les répondre.

J'étais si fier, même si ils me rejeter. La vérité de celui-ci a été ce n'était pas une histoire très originale et il était très simple. Il y avait tout un tas, je ne savais pas sur l'écriture à l'époque. Mais j'ai appris assez rapidement et ont depuis eu des histoires publiées sous forme imprimée et en ligne.

Mon premier roman, "The Ghost Toucher", est paru en 2010. Elle est née de plusieurs échoué écriture romanesque tente et je suis immensément fier de ce que j'ai créé. Depuis, j'ai mis un peu de collections de quelques moi-même et un short zombie quelques-uns.

Mon plus récent projet, "Fleshbags" doit être libérée dans quelques semaines. J'ai eu une sorte de "In Treatment" chose dans ma tête comme lorsque les patients de Paul ont un aspect d'eux reflète dans sa vie personnelle. J'ai mélangé mes personnages de cette façon (difficile à expliquer ce que je veux dire). Mais c'est certainement quelque chose de différent que ce que vous avez déjà lu et je vous suggère de lui donner un essai.

Idea

Got another cool idea today while trying to think up something for an anthology.  Much too involved for what they're looking for (sorry, Matt) and I'll just have to go it alone.  But it's much too hot an idea--at least to me--for me to idle on it.  I have to get it down now before it cools.  Any writer worth his salt will tell you a cooled idea is as good as dead.  Can't tell you too much, but it's call It's Dead and it approaches zombies in a very unique way.

Dead Right, ep XXX

"Toddy!" Dell said with as wide a smile as he could manage, looking at his nephew through the window of the door. The little boy was standing in the office in front of a secretary's desk. He wasn't doing anything, really, just peeking over with his thumbs hooked under the straps of his book bag. He turned slowly and regarded his uncle with semi-present eyes.

Dell opened the door to the office and took two big steps over and hugged him.

"You ready to go, champ?" Todd shrugged and walked to the door. "Sorry I was late. Got busy with work and I was wayyyy on the other side of town." That was true, he supposed, but he felt guilty just the same.

"It's okay," Todd said. "It's not the first time." Dell felt a slight burn of anger at his brother.

Before he could usher Todd out the door a heavyset lady with a short haircuit and too-red lipstick charged back into the room. "Excuse me, sir," she said. "You are?"

"Windel White. I'm Todd's uncle." He flashed a smile and she half glared at him, picking up a clipboard.

"You have some ID?"

"Sure." He dug his wallet out and flashed his driver's license.

"Okay, you are on the list to pick him up, but you do know there is a twenty-five dollar late charge?"

"Oh, there is? I'm sorry. I'm just filling in for my brother for a couple of days. He's out of town on business. I work at the mayor's office." He offered that last part to see if he could wedge a little leeway on the fee. The woman's eyes told him she was unimpressed. Dell gave a slight shrug and whipped out his wallet. There were several bills inside, he hadn't bothered checking how much money he had this morning and lunch he'd bought at the hospital cafeteria with his debit card.

"Uh, how much?" The woman made another face at him. As if he were doing something wrong that he should have known better.

"I can't accept cash." She shook her head. She sighed for what felt to Dell like the millionth time. "If you don't have a check I'll just have to make a have the secretary add it to the account."

"You're not the secretary?" Dell had looked down at the nameplate at the desk the woman was standing in front of. Willa Peel. Not-Willa Peel breathed in deep, then out. "If you could leave that note…" Dell said, making a slow retreat to the door. "That would be hugely appreciated. Thanks and… sorry."

He put his hand on the doorknob and bounced off the door before he managed it open.

"Last thing I need," he mumbled to himself, thinking of the growing list of people who would look favorably upon his death. Dell raced up to his nephew, slapping Todd on the back and bringing the boy in close. He hoped Toddy didn't have such an opinion, but turning his eyes down to him he didn't see anything on the boy's face at all. It was as if Toddy didn't have any emotion at all about nearly being forgotten.

"Hey, kid, I'm sorry, okay?"

Todd looked up at him as if he didn't understand what Dell was talking about. He thought things would have been okay, but he was increasingly finding they weren't. He was going to have to take a better look at Wenton, see if things really had took with him.

When they were outside, his nephew turned to him.

"Wanna see something?"

"What, Toddy?"

"It's over here." He tugged Dell along by his coat, leading him across the wide lawn of the school, over to the fenced-in schoolyard. The black-grey concrete was cracked and lumpy, faded white outlines of a basketball court to their right in between two sagged and leaning netless basketball rims with scuffed-up backboards. There was an open play space just ahead then another court that was just as in disrepair as the first and then another open space followed by another court on the other end of the schoolyard just before the fence.

Todd led him there and they stood at the fence. There was a tree that upon closer inspection looked to be a weed that had grown unchecked and twisted its branched into the fence, twisting it off the supporting pole in one place. Half-hidden by the weed-tree was an old copper-colored brick house with an overgrown lawn and sections missing from its cracked walkway.

"What are we looking at, Toddy?"

"Sh," the boy said. "Wait a second." There was patience in that voice that spoke volumes. Todd had grown used to waiting. Had grown used to a great many things a boy his age shouldn't be used to, by Dell estimation. It made him seem more like an old man than a what—three or four year old? He opened his mouth to ask, but Todd reached up and latched onto his ring finger.

Something stirred on the other side of the gate. Dell instinctually took a step back, but Todd held firm. A moment later a figure shook out of the low branches of the weed-tree.

There was a street light not more than thirty feet away, but it was as if the light wasn't able to penetrate over here beyond a trickle. Had Dell been an actual parent, he might have instinctually pulled the boy away. But the part of him that preferred to bring out the adult in Todd, the part that didn't want to take care of a child, let him stay and he stayed too, trusting his nephew's judgment.

Tiny fingers wrapped around the links of the fence. A pair of eyes Dell recognized all too well caught the trickle of light and reflected it. A veman, but he'd never see one this short. Dell at first thought a dwarf must have had one commissioned when it struck him. He grabbed for his smart phone and thumbed the flashlight app. It clicked on and he turned the camera flash onto the figure on the other side of the fence.

It was a child. A veman child.

But he'd never seen or heard such a thing. Veman organs were only intended for adults. No tests had ever been conducted on children. Who could have—

And then Dell's mind made another leap. Nobody had commissioned this child. It had been born.

He scanned left and right, looking for what he knew had to be nearby. It's parent. And like it had been summoned, an adult veman scurried up behind the child. It was low to the ground and from the look of its eyes—locked onto Dell and his nephew—hostile. He'd never seen that look on a veman before. Well, before today. But the incident across the street from the mayor's office had been different. That one had been programmed to do that. Dell knew a thing or two about programming vemans, but this one seemed to be running on a kind of instinct.

Dell turned the flashlight off.

"Toddy, let's go," he said low.

"I never saw the big one before," the boy said. "Can we stay?"

The bigger one growled and slapped at the fence, warning them off.

"No, Toddy. We have to leave. Now."

"No!" Todd shouted. "I don't wanna go!"

Dell didn't waste any more time on the argument. He scooped his nephew up and began to run back the way they'd come. He didn't know it, but one thing for certain was that vemans rarely were found alone and he didn't want to find out that this particular one wasn't an exception to the rule. The thing had appeared violent and he knew there was no way to stop a pack of them bare handed, especially with a toddler in tow.

2012 Calendar

My wife had the good idea that I should be calendaring everything I intend to do this year.  I want to have my first YA novel released in time for the Christmas season, but I really want The Golden Ones cranked out before that.  There needs to be a little space between the two titles so TGO needs to be ready for release sometime in August.  So August.  Tales from an Apartment will be released March 20th and I'm around the corner from being done with that.  More info soon.  Oh, and new Dead Right tonight!