Mark Matthews's Blog, page 9

ALL SMOKE RISES AND A HUMBLEBRAG

This post is full-tilt humblebrag.

I've been blown away by the type of authors who have agreed to read and blurb my upcoming release ALL SMOKE RISES: MILK-BLOOD REDUX .

You see what I mean. Braggart. But it has truly been humbling.

John FD Taff for one, the modern day king of pain, who writes books with such emotion, and the epitome of proof that dark fiction writers have the finest hearts. But he's been a digital friend of mine for years, and, you know, friends read your book...

Then along comes another Jon. Jon Bassoff, someone who is on my short list of autobuy writers. Winner of the Darkfuse Reader's Choice Awards for his book Corrosion. He writes with a tone so unique, and with characters so cool, that I hate to message him for every second he responds means less time spent writing fiction for me to read.

Well, he read ASR fast and gave it a blurb.

Les Edgerton, who writes crime fiction so real that you'd think he'd opened up the brain of those who commit such dark atrocities and dropped you inside.

Blurbed my book.

Richard Thomas, who writes like he has a gun to his head, with lyrical sentences, modern day urban epic poetry, (Read Breaker and read Disintegration) blurbed my book.

I know, when you score a touchdown or hit a home run, you're supposed to act like you've done it before. I'm not hearing that. I know I work my ass off, I know I obsess over what I write. I write from the wound and the scar, and God forbid I ever bore a reader or make them think they'd rather be reading something else. Still, this is not how it's supposed to be. I'm a self-published hack. A hobbyist. So I'm not pretending I'm not surprised, humbled, because I am. And I'm bragging on it.  I may sound like an ass. But, I don't care. Cause I'm going on

Bram Stoker Award winning author Kealan Patrick Burke, a horror writers' horror writer, whose fiction you can not deny is art, whose novel KIN is the one book I would choose if asked to pick an example of how to write Horror,  agreed to do an introduction after reading the book.  When I read what he wrote, it was perhaps the highlight of my writing career (um, hobby, ... ). Not just for his words on ALL SMOKE RISES, but for its explanation of what horror and dark fiction is all about.

I feel incredibly indebted, so thanks to you all above, and for the many who have helped shape the book.

I am like a Lannister, I always pay my debts, and I will be paying them back as I'm able. It starts with Kealan Patrick Burke, and my mission to release a bit more KIN into the world. I'm going to explain more in a future post on the elements of KIN that make it how one should (in my humble-bragging opinion) write horror, but first, I'm gonna release a bit more KIN into the world.

I'm doing a twitter giveaway of a KIN paperback soon. Like real soon. Look for it on twitter later today.

FLORENCE+ The Machine

Florence + the machine is perhaps my current favorite artist. Her songs are like Anthems, all of them, full of imagery and creative metaphors. She's not afraid to play with language, so many of her songs work as stand-alone poetry, but when screamed aloud by a beautiful, red-haired flowing banshee, they stick to my skin and burrow into my soul. (she'd have either written that better, or sung it with such power that it did the same to you).
Her songs explore love, death, heaven, hell, and often come with emotional bursts that explode from relaxed emotional states. There's a tender desperation that runs through all of her music, all of it backed up by the best percussions you've ever heard.
Her music has served as much of the soundtrack for my next release, ALL SMOKE RISES, especially Lilly's current state stuck in her darkness. I see this in songs like COSMIC LOVE.
 I was all set to see her live a couple years back, but child sickness changed all that, and I sold the tickets last second on Craigslist to some happy folks.
Not sure who she is? Well, you may know her from "Dog Days Are Over" or from "Sevin Devils" which was used as a Game of Thrones Trailer.  "Sevin Devils" captures the series so well, it was a slam-dunk to pick for the show.
So, Florence, please, make eye contact with me. I may suck a bit of your soul out when you do (you have plenty to spare). I’ll be in the 28th row at DTE theater, Detroit Michigan (really auburn Hills). Say this song is for Mark. Or for for Lilly. 




COSMIC LOVE
A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes
I screamed aloud, as it tore through them, and now it's left me blind

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
You left me in the dark
No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart

And in the dark, I can hear your heartbeat
I tried to find the sound
But then it stopped, and I was in the darkness,
So darkness I became


I took the stars from my eyes, and then I made a map
And knew that somehow I could find my way back
Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too
So I stayed in the darkness with you 

ONCE A RUNNER

This blog, my life, and most everything I did in it used to revolve around running.

I would eat food based on my run for the day. I would look at the weather for the running conditions for not only that day, but for the week. Laundry was sweaty running clothes. Vacations were filled with runs in some of the loveliest beaches on the earth: Galveston, San Diego, China (yes, China). I've run on cruise ships in the middle of the Caribbean, run in the nastiest of winter and through lightening storms. In all, I ran 13 marathons in multiple cities including Boston, Chicago, New York, Detroit. I would often sleep in my running clothes, so that I could wake up and run first thing out of bed.

Running was the best way to detox my body and brain and let my spirit escape from this carcass, if but just for an hour or three.

Well, now I don't run at all.

A herniated disc from playing hockey has changed all of that. Now I often walk with a limp. I have seen a million doctors, a zillion physical therapists. Running ain't happening.  I haven't given up, but my running life appears over.

23 years ago I gave up getting high off alcohol and drugs, and now I'm giving up getting high all over again. The Running High, however, was quite a bit healthier.

Self-pity is poison. For suckers. I hate it. Doesn't mean the whole thing hasn't torn me up and seem like a cruel joke played by a cold-hearted God. I wake up mornings and imagine that it will have magically fixed itself overnight. It hasn't.

Fuck.

Truth is, I am blessed with much, probably more than I deserve. I remind myself of that.

I've written a handful of running-based books. On the Lips of Children , that fine piece of running horror, was based on a true run I took at 4 am.

The other two running books are free this week:

* Chasing the Dragon: Running To Get High *
Marathon and running tips, and the role that running plays for recovering addicts and those looking for the high of the run

* The Jade Rabbit *
The story of a Chinese adoptee who runs marathons in order to deal with the stresses of her past and her job managing a shelter for runaway youth

Crazy thing is, I am starting to forget the person who wrote these books.



 

ARGHHHH. PUBLISH MY DAMN BOOK ALREADY

I'm in that exciting as Hell (because Hell is exciting) time of an author's life. Book is done, edited, beta read, combed over, hashed out, taken behind the shed and beaten and taken out to dinner and then breakfast. I'm shooting out review copies, and am finding readers are getting to it faster than I would have imagined.

I used to beg for takers to read my self-published piles of steaming dog crap, now they take it willingly. Huge thanks to all of them, and to the beta readers who are my friends for life

I've been chasing highs all my life, but this high of waiting for a book to be released can't be chased, but rather slithers up your leg, slips into your body through your orifices, and then replaces your spine until you're all wobbly. It's a different kind of thrill, and once it's inside you it takes over. You become "The Thing" not really yourself anymore, but pretending to be yourself and going about your daily duties while inside all you can think of is the book release.

At least that's me.
ARGGHHH: PUBLISH MY DAMN BOOK ALREADYPart of the book preparation for ALL SMOKE RISES:MILK-BLOOD REDUX was done by   Julie Hutchings , who is a fantastic editor. I contracted her partly since I knew she had a passion for books and an understanding of the work they take, and that she would treat my baby with care. Well, she did an incredible job, and returned it much better than I left it. She made so many sentences zing by eliminating lame-ass words that I had stuck in there as clutter. (I clearly saw their 'lame-assity' once they were removed.) She reordered some sentences in paragraphs. Identified over-used words. Noted tense issues. All of this, and she got it back to me not only on-time, but early.

And if you've ever had anything edited and stared at those comment circles in the right, you've also felt that cold isolation in your soul. Well, it's like a conversation with Julie. Her comment bubbles came alive. They spoke to me. They rose out of the computer like ghosts from the machine and had more personality than any comment bubble in the history of all time. I shook my head, laughed to the dog, and commented back while going over the edits. I recommend her highly and without reservation. Contact her here.

I worked hard for ALL SMOKE RISES to serve as a stand-alone read. The kind of book you can pick up without having read MILK-BLOOD and still fully 'get-it'.

If you're not sure you should start with ALL SMOKE RISES , well, here's the deal. If you pre-order it, and shoot me a message here that you did, I'll gift you a free kindle version of MILK-BLOOD so you can have both of them on your kindles. Read them in whichever order you'd like. Bamn, problem solved.

(This blog post would be better if Julie had edited it.)


ALL SMOKE RISES

ALL SMOKE RISES: MILK-BLOOD REDUX - Available for Pre-Order

The cover for ALL SMOKE RISES: MILK-BLOOD REDUX is done! Kealan Patrick Burke from Elderlemon Design smashed this one out of the park.  You want a cover done, you call him.

You want to preorder ALL SMOKE RISES ? Well it's here! Check it out on Amazon. It will be 99 cents until January 4th, and then to its regular price of $2.99. Release date is February 9th (latest)

Here's the blurb:

Ten year old Lilly was the victim of a tragic house fire and her own tragic family. Her father was an addict with mental illness, her mother was murdered and then buried across the street, and her Uncle got her addicted to heroin.

 Lilly’s story has been told in ALL SMOKE RISES, and it may be true, for the author has broken into your house, and placed her body on your kitchen counter.  He demands you read the manuscript, before cutting his own wrists and bleeding out on your floor.

Now you have decisions to make, for the body may not be dead, and her family is coming for her.

**ALL SMOKE RISES**

STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKENS

Star Wars: the Force Awakens was perhaps the greatest time I've ever had in a movie theater. I watched in in full luxury recliner, my 9 year old on one side of me, my 12 year old on the other. I started embarrassing them as I clapped during the opening trailers when Wonder Woman came on the screen. My excitement only got better once the movie started, or worse, depending if you are a 12 year old who is slightly embarrassed by their dad geeking out in public.

Maybe I'm full of hyperbole this year, because seeing Mad Max: Fury Road, was also of the greatest times I've had in a theater.

The Force Awakens did what seemed could not be done. It summoned up the best of what we loved about Star Wars, and added some depth and some new characters. New heroes, some of them reluctant, some of them surprising.

Kylo Ren was an incredible bad guy. A worshiper of Darth Vader, with bad-ass powers, but still in training.  The moments where he showed his face you could feel the fragility. He was full of angst and his tantrums were perfect. I've always loved Adam Driver in HBO's Girls, and I hope he has a couple more Star Wars movies left in him.



Rey was a clone of Luke; same kinda planet, same kind of tough tenderness, same kind of backstory; both longing for family. Rey a bit more reluctant to embrace her true self, but the similarities were obvious. It was the way in which Force Awakens wasn't afraid to plagiarize itself that made me feel I was safely back home in the Star Wars universe. For 2 hours plus I sat with my daughters watching an incredible role model.

Finn was even more convincing than Rey as reluctant hero, and like many heroes from Star Wars past, was motivated as much by friendship and interpersonal ties than something larger.
 All of the old heroes had a remarkable entrance, and they were more than just cameos. My only regret is I wanted Leia to say to Han "I love you," and for Han to answer, "I know." But this is a Han who's a bit more mature. The Force Awakens is a movie that is more mature as well. It has depth, while keeping its childlike Sci-Fi qualities. The fact that it does this by plagiarizing older Star Wars movies is A-Okay with me.  Seeing it again day after Christmas.   

MILK-BLOOD SEQUEL, MUTANTS and GOD BLESS US EVERYONE

ALL SMOKE RISES: MILK-BLOOD REDUX is complete! Well, mostly complete. It's been written, and it's been read. A wonderful list of beta readers agreed to read it, and now it is in the hands of Julie Hutchings, who is doing the edits. After that, a couple more beta-reads, and it will be ready. 

That is a year and a half after MILK-BLOOD (part one) was published.

I am amazed at authors who can put out material on a quicker basis. (many of them do, and it's great stuff.)  I'm amazed not only for their writing skills, but their mental fortitude. Writing stories turns me into an obsessesed, manic kind of dude. I rattle single sentences around in my head while I try to sleep, thinking of ways to change them. I listen to my family talk, nod my head and smile, while I am internally preoccupied with  the voices of characters from my story who talk to me non-stop. I kill them in my head, bring them back to life, have them talk to each other, change their motivation, all of this while I go about my real life.  I suspect all authors experience this, and the obsessive nature of writing is probably part of the reason it attracts me. 
If I could stick my hand in my heart, and spill it all over the page, it would probably feel less painful. 
All that makes one book a huge effort to write, and some do this 2-3 times a year, and they are herculean. Similar to running a marathon, which I maxed out at two a year but really one was reasonable, I find those that do more are of a different breed. Mutants, even, and they live among us, well-disguised. You’ve been warned.

Check back here for a cover reveal coming soon, created by Kealan Patrick Burke of Elderlemon design. 
And Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and God Bless Us Everyone. 

MAD MAX FURY ROAD GETS A GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATION

 
So happy that Mad Max: Fury Road got a Golden Globe nomination for best picture. One of the most spectacular movies I've experienced.


And thanks to random internet guy Max Palas for making me this:

"NO ONE MOURNS THE WICKED" -FROSTY THE SNOWMAN THRU THE EYES OF THE MAGICIAN

We all remember that old silk hat the kids found, but who had rights to its ownership?


  st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, watching the Christmas specials was a huge part of Christmas.  Before the day of DVR, and when VCR tapes were just emerging, catching the live Christmas specials was an exciting event and my eyes were glued to the TV. I caught every nuance of every program over the years, and of course had questions.
Like, in Frosty the Snowman, why does Karen wear gloves and mittens yet her legs are fully exposed to the cold? And if you watch carefully, when the children run out of the school house, a little boy jumps on a sled which goes both ‘up’ and down a hill?  Being an avid sledder, I just knew that wasn’t right, so my questions came. And as I grew older and my moral compass developed, I started to question the Villain of the story of Frosty the Snowman. Yes, I started questioning the mythology that was part of my youth and I looked at the story through a different lens. 
If the Wizard of Oz can be rewritten through the eyes of the Wicked Witch of The West, then certainly Frosty The Snowman can be retold through the eyes of the bumbling and bitter magician dressed in black; Professor Hinkle.
The cartoon version of Frosty begins with the Magician’s hat failing him while he performs to a classroom of children. He throws the hat in disgust, but just then the rabbit finally appears and hops away with the hat out the front door. The magician gives chase, but the hat ends up on the snowman the children have just built.  The iceman comes to life with his proud first words, “Happy Birthday!”
It was his birthday, and it was a regular miracle. A Christmas day virgin birth.  Indeed, ‘there must have been some magic on that old silk hat they found.’
But did they really ‘find’ the hat? They refuse to give the hat back to the magician, saying it was now there’s, but was ownership ever really ‘transferred’?  The magician did throw the hat away, but after he threw it he immediately tries to get it back, chasing it down before Karen places it on Frosty’s head.
So who does the hat belong to?
A fight over ownership of the hat ensues, and the conflict of the story becomes a chase, a hunt really. The Magician becomes an obsessed Javert, tracking the fugitive Jean Valjean Frosty to the North Pole, where Karen is bringing him so that he doesn’t melt away.
Why don’t we question which side is in the right? Do the sad faces of the children increase sympathy and tilt the justice in their favor?  What about the story of the Magician?  Who will tell that tale?
Well, after hours of investigation, wiretaps, and Google searches, I have learned the magician’s back-story.
His name was Peter. Actually Petra, and then Americanized to Peter. He was the child of a Russian immigrant. An alcoholic. Yes, his father was a magician as well, who used to curse his poverty and his pathetic black hat while taking slugs of vodka at the dinner table. As the liquid burned his throat his anger burned at his son. He told his son he was, “no good,” “a burden,” and that he was “naughty, naughty, naughty.” There was rarely food on the table. Often stale bread. Mold on the cheese needed to be sliced off. Just the green spots, save as much of the orange stuff as you can.
But as all little boys do, Peter loved and emulated his father, needed his fathers approval, and when he inherited the black hat upon his fathers passing he swore he would become a magician himself.  He would do what his father could not do; he would make the hat work magic and heal all the wounds caused by all those sharp, bitter words. Yes, performing magic would prove that his dad was wrong about him, he was a special person, and his father would finally give him an approving smile from his place in the after-life.
But the Hat didn’t’ deliver. It was sporadic and unreliable with its magic.  Sometimes it sprung forth multiple rabbits, sometimes flowers, but other times was useless.  Peter was never without the hat, however, and made careful to place it on the hook with tender care each night (but never on a bed) and, sometimes when he wore the hat he himself felt a magic glow and began to dance around.
Peter grew up very lonely and was unable to develop relationships so stayed in school as long as he could until he became ‘Professor’ Hinkle.  Like his father, he was socially awkward and had a tendency to repeat adjectives and adverbs when angry, such as “messy, messy, messy” or “busy, busy, busy” and never seemed to feel comfortable in his own skin or at job interviews.
The school gig where the story of Frosty begins was his big break. He hadn’t worked in months, and when the hat failed him at that pivotal moment in front of the classroom, it was a crushing defeat. Bitterness burned in his gut and the laughter of the children sliced his heart in pieces.
His pursuit of Karen and frosty all the way to the north pole just to get the hat back wasn’t the act of a selfish, bitter and cold man, but was the personal fight of his inner child started decades earlier. Making ‘real’ magic out of his father’s hat had been his lifelong dream, his lifelong battle, and the story of his struggle against his demons.
Yes, it was terrible and evil when he closed the greenhouse door trapping frosty inside and sent the snowman to his slushy doom. Peter Hinkle becomes his father at that moment, taking his frustrations out on the world around him, and the cycle continues.
The magician finally does give up the hat after Santa threatens to no longer bring him presents, which of course brings out all the transference issues he has had with his father (for, after all, what is Santa but our fantasized version of our Dads with a red coat on.)  First Peter must go home and write; “I am sorry for what I did to Frosty” a hundred zillion times.  Blame and shame the victim never fails to get results.
I remember as a child how sad I was for Karen when her teardrops spilled into the puddle that used to be Frosty, and how I wanted her suffering to end and her sadness to go away. Hurry, Santa, I pleaded in my head, tell her that frosty isn’t gone but will come back with the first Christmas snow.
But who will cry for Professor Petra Hinkle, the Magician?
No one mourns the Wicked.



STRAY on Amazon




The Jade Rabbit on Amazon

LEGEND WEARABLES

This blog used to be largely about running, but since my spinal cord has been shredded, I've changed all of that and haven't run a step in months. This hasn't stopped running companies from asking me to try their products. Oddly enough, I've received more requests now than back in the day when I was running regularly and posting about it just as much.

When this happens, I kindly decline, while I privately curse my predicament. One product I did agree to try is the Legend Wearable since I am a 'walker' now (gulp) and I need to be plugged in everywhere I go.

Finding something that fits my arm to hold my phone has always been a challenge. That's why I agreed to try the Legend Wearable, and I can confidently say that it's a great product. (My wife who is a kick-boxing, fitness-walking, hill-running fitness fiend uses it as well.)  What is great about the Legend Wearable is that it has multiple holes for headphone jacks, so there isn't a phone that it won't accommodate. We've use it for the Android Galaxy as well as an Iphone 5. It's incredibly light weight, and the velcro straps are adaptable to fit on anybody's arms, no matter what size guns you're sporting.

Check out the information below and more on the Legend Website here.