Bradley Convissar's Blog, page 9

The Problem With epublishing

I don't want to seem negative, because e-publishing has its benefits.  The internet has been a great outlet for those looking to be found.  Artists, musicians, and filmmakers have been using it for years to get their products out there.  To get exposure.  And sometimes, a diamond in the rough is found.  But that's part of the problem- there is too much out there, and most of it is crap.  And if not crap, then not up to a professional level.

In the days when you needed print media, agents and publishers played an important role, weeding out the books that simply weren't good enough in the actual writing department.  Of course there are always exceptions- talking to you, writer of the Twilight books, Stephanie something-or-other- but most of the time, as consumers, we were offered quality.

But now we are inundated.  And all I have to say is, thank you for sample chambers.  My Droid X has the Kindle app, and I will often go through the forums that I belong to and download samples of books that seem like they have promise.  Then, when I am out to lunch or I am waiting in line at the market, I can read the samples.  I'm always looking for new horror to read.  I've read all that King and Koontz, Barker and Gaiman, Saul and Straub and Matheson have written.  And I don;t like Vampire romances and I am absolutely tired of zombies and post-apocalyptic worlds.  So I am always looking, hoping to find someone new to hook on to.

So many have potential.  So many seem to have intriguing stories.  The problem is, if the writing ability is not up to snuff, I can not go on.  Because the actual writing is as important as the plot, if not more so in many cases.  Now, not everyone can be a master.  Most people will never have the raw writing talent of King or Gaiman or Barker, and that's fine.  But you don't need to be a master to be an effective and competent story teller.  And I don't think a lot of people have it though they want to.

But too much of what I have been reading is… well, imagine you're watching American Idol, and you see all of those pissed off and crying contestants who think they can sing but really can't, and it breaks them when someone impartial tells them they can't.  A lot of what I am finding is that stuff.

I'm not saying that I am the best.  I know I will never be one of the masters.  But I like to think that my writing is more than competent, that my stories intriguing, and that I will get better as I go.  But sometimes I worry that I won't be found because there is just so much out there to sift through.

I'd like to think I am one of those diamonds in the rough, but unfortunately, one has to big through a lot of crap before finally finding me.

But, at least e-book publishing has given me the opportunity, and for that, I am thankful.

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Technorati Tags: e-books, Horror, Writing

Four Corners

[image error]New semi flash fiction piece up at Feedbooks (search for Brad C DMD)

Called "Four Corners", inspired by something I once heard 12 or 13 years ago while I lived in New Orleans.  Don't know if it is true, but you never know.  It's free, so enjoy.  Only about 2,000 words

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Technorati Tags: Horror, Short Stories, writings

Me and Video Games

[image error]I have a very, let's say tense, relationship with video games. I love them. Hey, I'm a healthy 33-year-old with the normal appetites. I own a Wii and a PSP and a DSi XL. And when the new 3D DS comes out next year, i'm going to get that, too. i know, I know, most men my age have either a Playstation 3 or XBOX 360, as the games for these systems are more mature and have better graphics. But as I've mentioned in earlier posts, I am title driven, and with limited time, I must be frugal in where I spend it. So as long as Nintendo continues to release Mario and Zelda and Metroid games, the Wii and DS will be what I am playing.

But I digress.  Why am I writing this.  Because they're is something wrong with me.  I've been waiting for God of War: Ghosts of Sparta ever since it was announced.  I reserved it (as if a PSP game was going to sell out).  I bought it on Tuesday morning half an hour after Gamestop opened.

How is it, you may ask.  And my answer would be: I have no freaking idea.  Because I haven't even opened it yet.  Not even to glance through the instruction book.  It is sitting in my car under piles of mail and bills, which in turn sit under a jacket.  Weird behavior, I know.

But I have an obsessive side, as most people do, and I know the moment I slip that game into my PSP and fire the sucker up (after dusting it off), I won't put it down until I'm done.  And when that happens, other important activities, like showering and paying  bills and sleeping get pushed aside.  I become a hermit of sorts, spending zero time with my kids and eschewing reading while in the bathroom for my game.  And if it is a Wii game, I'll turn off my kids cartoons and force them to watch me play games.  My DVR gets backed up.

And my wife gets irritated.

I remember going on vacation while in the middle of Super Mario Galaxy 2 for a week and I felt like a heroine addict going through withdrawal.  Luckily, I had Picross 3D with me, and I stayed up every night until 2:00 in the morning playing, leaving me a zombie in the morning.

So when will I crack open God of War?  Maybe when the holidays come and TV is all repeats and I have some time off.  If that's the case, I wonder when I will open the new Donkey Kong Country which comes out at the end of November.  I'll probably pick it up the morning it comes out.

I'll be lucky if I actually open it by New Years.

And by the way, I dreamed last night that I killed a man by stabbing him with colored pencils.  Should I read anything into this?

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Technorati Tags: God of War, PSP, Wii

As Seen on Craig's List

New flash fiction, "As Seen on Craig's List" up at feedbooks.  .  Well, not technically flash fiction because it is more than 1,000 words, but it is less than 2,000, so I'll squeeze it into the category.  Still won't take you more than a couple of minutes to enjoy.

Search for Brad C DMD at feedbooks, and while you're at it, you can check out On the Curb if you haven't already.

Or you can visit my writing section at Goodreads if you prefer.

Thanks

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Technorati Tags: ghost, Horror, Short Stories, Thriller

AS Seen on Craig's List

New flash fiction, "As Seen on Craig's List" up at feedbooks.  .  Well, not technically flash fiction because it is more than 1,000 words, but it is less than 2,000, so I'll squeeze it into the category.  Still won't take you more than a couple of minutes to enjoy.

Search for Brad C DMD at feedbooks, and while you're at it, you can check out On the Curb if you haven't already.

Thanks

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Technorati Tags: ghost, Horror, Short Stories, Thriller

On the Curb

[image error]Visit Feedbooks.com and search for On the Curb to read a new as-as-yet unpublished short story.  Not very long.  Not flash fiction, per se, but less than 5000 words.  Enjoy and comment

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Welcome to the Chair

[image error]Finding a good horror novel is as difficult as finding a good horror movie; most of what is out there is simply crap. What do we have when it comes to the horror genre? Steven King and his son Joe Hill, Peter Straub and Dean Koontz. Anne Rice is gone, having found Jesus (though it is said she recently lost him, and will possibly exhume Lestat from his literary grave). And Clive Barker hasn't published a new adult novel in years (still waiting for the Scarlet Gospels and the return of Harry D'Amour).

If you've exhausted these author's works and have no interest in vampire soap operas (which seem to dominate the horror shelves these days) or mindless zombie bloodfests, there's little left to explore.

I want to add another voice to the genre, and if you're willing to step into the twisting hallways of the mind of a thirty-something year old dentist, I can assure you that you won't leave unchanged.

Bradley Convissar's books on Goodreads

Pandora's Children Book 1: In the Chair

Bradley Convissar | Create Your Badge

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Clive Barker's Imajica

[image error]Clive Barker is one of my favorite authors, right up there with Stephen King and Neil Gaiman.  I haven't read everything he has written, but most of his works.  Weaveworld and The Damnation Game rank up there with Gaiman's American Gods and King's It as some of my favorite books.

nd I have read Barker's Books of blood volumes 1-3, as well as volumes 4-6, which were released under other names (In the Flesh, The Inhuman Condition, and Cabal).  I have read the Great and Secret Show and its sequel, Everville.  I have read the Hellbound Heart, the basis for the Hellraiser movies, and a Thief of Always, a book geared towards young adults.  I have read his two newest offerings for adults, Coldheart Canyon and Mister B. Gone.

I have not read the Abarat series, which is also geared towards young adults, and I have no desire to at this point.

And that leaves us with, what I call, the Big 3.

Big, because they are massive volumes.  And an 800 page Barker novel would be akin to a 1500 page by most other authors.  I mean, have you ever looked at the type in one of Barker's books?  They are dense pages.  If you were to take the newest 350-page offering by Koontz and condense his words to be the same size as Barker's, the Koontz novel would be a paltry 200 pages.

But I digress… I never bought either of these Big 3, Imajica, Galilee or Sacrament because I didn't want to involve myself in a novel that would take me six months to read.  Between the children, TV, comic books, video games and MLB, my reading time is limited, and there is so much I want to read.  So I purposely eschewed these three novels.

But, of course, I was at a used book store one day, and Imajica was sitting on a stack of $1 books, an old wonderful hardcover copy with a little stain.  The clerk notcied me looking at it and told me it was his favorite Barker book.  And I, being the sucker I am, turned over my $1 and took the book home.

Where it sat on a bookcase for over a year

I finally picked it up three weeks ago, after finishing Lincoln Child's Terminal Freeze and Simon Greene's Daemons Are Forever and left with nothing else to read.

I cracked that baby open and…

Here I am, three weeks later, only 230 pages in.

I eat 230 pages for breakfast.  At least I do when there are 33 lines per page and a measly 9 words per line.  And a good amount of the story is dialogue.

I hate to say it, but reading Barker can be a chore sometimes.  He oftentimes takes two pages to describe what most authors would spend a sentence or two describing.  And while the images he paints are compelling and complete, he can often go into overkill mode, describing everything and not leaving enough to the imagination.

His paragraphs are so dense, and his language, while almost akin to poetry, can be stilted at times.  But he is British, so what can you expect?  So many sentences are multiple lines in length that I oftentimes find myself re-reading full paragraphs to fully appreciate the words on the page.  Other times I re-read a line or paragraph to fully appreciate the picture Barker is painting with his words.  Other times I have to re-read a paragraph because I accidentally skipped a line and got lost, as if stumbling through a hedge maze.

All of these reasons, combined with the actual hefty word-count, has made Imajica a chore.  Not an unwieldy chore, and not a chore I am going to cast aside and ask someone else to do.  But its tough.  Its tough to dedicate so much time to a single volume.

I am a man of instant gratification- that is why I sometimes have a hard time working on my own writing.  I enjoy writing, but there is absolutely no guarantee that anyone else will read it, or that I will eventually earn some monetary reimbursement from it.  So many times I eschew writing for those activities which will give me instant gratification: reading comics, playing video games, watching TV, or reading books.

With Imajica, there is no immediate gratification.  It is an enjoyable read, and while the trip is as important as the destination, looking at the tome and realizing anew each time I pick it up how much is left, reminds me of how much more I have to go.  And it is daunting.  Because I know that in the same time I am reading this I could be completing a half a dozen other books from beginning to end and have the enjoyment of the trip as well as the conclusions.

But I am not a quitter and I will continue with the trip as long as it takes me for as long as it takes.  And just hope it is all worth it in July when i eventually put the book down for good.

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Technorati Tags: Books, Clive Barker, Horror, Imajica

What's That Smell?

[image error]I am a Jeopardy junkie.  I tape it every night, and my wife and I will watch the episodes in spurts.  If you watch Jeopardy, you know that after the first commercial brake, halfway through the first round, Alex interviews the contestants.  I always wondered what story I would tell.  And this is what I settled on.  Is it great?  No.  But it doesn;t have to great, because everything is relative, and relatively speaking, most of teh stories told suck.  So here we go:

Have you ever woken up on a Sunday morning to frantic sound of knocking on your door?  Sure you have.  We all have.  But most of the time its a Jehovah's Witness or another religious zealot sticking his nose in where it doesn't belong, or some kids trying to sell candy bars to pay for new wrestling unitards or cheerleading outfits.

But have you ever opened the front door early on a Sunday morning and find two men standing in biohazard suits waiting for you?  Bet you haven't.  But I have.

It was several weeks after 9/11, and I was living in an apartment complex in Edison, New Jersey, and everyone was paranoid.  And when someone smelled something strange…

Anyway, we were given just enough time clothing and then ushered out of the house.  No time to put in contact lenses or even take a piss.  Thankfully I knew where my glasses were.  I felt like I was an extra in the sequel to the movie Outbreak, and as my wife (girlfriend at the time) and I were forced out along with every other bleary-eyed resident, I couldn't help but scan the roof for a loose monkey.  I saw none, and was slightly disappointed.  But I did see plenty of police cars, fire engines, and guys in funny outfits

We were told we wouldn't be allowed back into the apartment until the mystery subtance that was discovered was fully examined, and they didn't know how long that would be.  It was cold, so we left for her parents' house, stopping along the way at a CVS to use the restroom.

We returned ten hours later as dusk set in and found everything quiet.  We talked to a couple of neighbors and learned the truth of the mystery liquid that was found in the entranceway to the apartment building:

Curry,

Someone had spilled curry.  And someone else freaked out and called the police.

Now, you have to understand, Edison, NJ has a very large Indian population, and the smell of curry is very prominent.  Pervasive, even.  When we moved into the apartment, the handles to all of the kitchen cabinets were covered with a thin layer of curry powder, and if I could have stripped the wallpaper, I would have, because the smell had just sunk in. 

To live in Edison is to be intimate with the smell of curry.

Obviously someone was new in town, and instead of maybe asking someone what the strange smell was, he panicked and called the police.

As if someone would waste their time on a chemical attack against a small apartment building in Northern New Jersey.

Dumbass.

See… not a great story, but better than the crap that most people spew on Jeopardy.

I still can't smell curry without seeing a biohazard suit in my mind's eye.  Indian food has been ruined for me forever.

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Technorati Tags: biohazard, curry, edison, Jeopardy, NJ

TV Time 1/30/2010

[image error]Some thoughts on my favorite television shows:

Lost-  God, I miss the days of escaped polar bears.  And The Others.  And inputting numbers into an old computer and pushing a button.  I remember complaining about the show back then, but man, it was gold compared to today.  Time travel.  I HATE time travel.  Abhor it.  Its an awful premise in any show.  And all it has done to lost is make it an incomprehensible mess.  I mean, you need a legal pad and pencil to take notes while watching the show to have a shot at understanding what you witnessing.  And even then, its near impossible.  Months later, I'm still trying to figure out how the events that caused the plane to crash in the first place could have occurred considering it required the characters to be on the island and travel through time to help it happen.  It makes my head hurt, and sometimes I think I'm developing a slight psychosis as I try to work everything out.  Man, I am glad that this is the last season.  I don;t even care if it makes sense in the end.  I just want it to be over.

 

24-  Season 1 was awesome.  Season 2 was good.  Missed season 3.  Season 4 was awesome.  Season 5 was good.  Season 6 was okay.  Season 7… my wife and I got so bored we didn't even bother to watch the last six hours, which we had DVRed.  It was soooo boring.  There were a handful of good episodes, but it hit its high point and reached its conclusion way too quickly, and we stopped caring.  We knew Jack survived because he had signed on for another year, so all of the suspense was gone after hour 18 when the main plot line wrapped up.  I'm glad FOX replayed last season's finale before the first night this season so we could catch up, but it wasn't very good.  As for this season, I;ve enjoyed ot for the most part.  We got back to the good ol' villains: Arabs and Germans.  The first five hours haven;t been extraordinary, but they havebeen entertaining.  I hate, like most viewers, the whole Dana/Jenny subplot, which makes absolutely no sense, but the weak plots can be overlooked because of the new Rene Walker.  The new brooding, violent version is much more fun than the clean cut FBI agent from last season.  Watching her cut off Ziya's thumb was awesome.  Jack broke her last season, forcing her to accept that the ends justify the means when it comes to extracting information, and we the viewers are rewarded with a much more interesting character.  Will the show even capture the magic of Season 1?  Of course not.  But its trying.  (PS, I miss Edgar)

 

Dexter-  Best- show- ever.  The story of a sociopathic serial killer who kills those who slip through the cracks at night and works at Miami police department during the day as a blood expert.  The series is simply amazing.  The acting, especially by Dexter's sister, can be piss poor at times, but this is the only fault I have with this show through 4 seasons.  Forget the Sopranos.  This is where its at.   Now, we and my wife watched this series in a kind of unique way: We watched the second half of season 3 first, when we discovered the show.  Then we watched the first half of season 3 on demand.  A year later we began watching season 4.  Halfway through season 4, we picked up season 1 on DVD and watched it concurrently with season 4 (which left us very confused at some moments).  And then we watched season 3, finishing the 12 55 minute episodes over two and a half days.  Whenever the kids were down, either at nap time or at night, we started an episode and pounded the season out.  As soon as we have time, we'll re-watch seasons 3, and then catch season 4 when it is finally released.  Go over to IGN and read up on it if you are interested.  But this is a can't miss series.  Better than the Sopranos.  Better than Mad Men.  Better than Breaking Bad.  Simply awesome.

 

Scrubs- New series is better than I thought it would be.  The new cast is fair, saved only by James Franco's younger brother Dave, but the returning characters serve as a bridge from the original series which makes the viewers immediately more comfortable with the new premise and cast.  Watchable, but nothing spectacular

 

Better of Ted-  Already wrote a dedicated post to the series, but I figured I would touch upon it again.  Great show.  Hysterical.  Portia de Rossi is a jewel, and everything that comes out of her mouth is gold.  I never miss an episode.

 

Love Big Bang Theory.  Love Modern Family (finally, a new vehile for the amazing Ed O'Neal, Mr al bundy himself).  Still like the Office, buts getting close to jumping the shark.

 

Still hate all things "reality".  Once Beauty and the Geek left the airwaves, I have boycotted all reality broadcasting.

That's it for the wrap up, let me know what you think.

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Technorati Tags: 24, Better Off Ted, Big Bang Theory, Dexter, Lost, Modern Family, reviews, Scrubs, television