Michael Whetzel's Blog, page 3

I'm still here...

I have not posted for awhile and I apologize for that. I was knocked flat with some sort of virus and, even after 2 weeks, am still recovering. There will be a blog update this week with the Providence: Blood Will Run release date and further info regarding April/May news. 

For now check out Episode 2 of Everette Bell's zombie serial, Cora, over on his website here.

Be in touch soon. 

Mike

Everette Bell's CORA - Zombies serialized.....

iFiction! finally has its first foray into serialized fiction and it comes in the form of CORA. Everette Bell brings us a dystopian zombie future that you can read for FREE on his website before it sees release on the Kindle. Let me repeat that: You can experience it for FREE! Just head to Wartooth's website here and read the first installment. Then like Everette's Facebook page to get updates on when the next episode will be released. It's that simple. I had the privilege of reading it early and I am excited. What a great start!

My first foray into the serial platform hits mid-April. The first story arc in the Providence Saga, Blood Will Run, will be three episodes and serve not only as a great story but a nice intro to the city of Providence and the seedy characters that inhabit it. The Providence mini-series will run six episodes total before giving way to the ongoing series that hits Winter of this year: Heater. 

Providence is crime fiction and features characters and ideas that were created over 12 years ago. I feel like I am visiting old friends when I'm in this world. I also think it is a unique take on the crime/thriller. I can't think of many crime books that allude to everything from pro wrestling to Macguyver to The Great Gatsby all in one place. I am a child of the '80s and I think you will see that a lot in Blood Will Run.

After Providence/Blood Will Run (not sure on the final title for the project yet) hits in April, May brings us to my most anticipated work yet. Pretty much 2/3 of the reviewers of the Pied Piper of the Undead have asked for a sequel. You asked for it. Well, you're going to get it. 

Mid-May sees the release of The Pied Piper of the Undead 2. I am going to have a huge advertising push/campaign once the release date is set for the whole Piper series. It is my most loved work to date (although Black Rain is growing in popularity) and I want to celebrate the new release. The third book hits later in the year to round out the trilogy.

So to rehash: Providence kicks off in April and Pied Piper hits in May. I am pretty confident on the release dates as I am WAY ahead of schedule in the production pipeline. Knock on wood.

The first 15 minutes of the BOOM audiobook just arrived in my Inbox today. Look for more on that soon.

The Goodreads giveaway for Raw Feed Stories is still going on and ends on the 31st. If you have not entered to win one of three copies of the new paperback, hit the site here.  

I also have uploaded a FREE short fiction piece called BLISS on both Wattpad and Smashwords. It is a stream-of-consciousness piece that is very different from what I usually write. It is available as a Kindle/NOOK/Kobo file on the Smashwords site. Read it and let me know what you think.

That's it for now. I went to the planetarium today with my sons on a field trip, and left with literally 5 to 6 new ideas. Now if only I can get some of those CUBE clones, I can get them all finished. 

GO READ CORA AND LIKE WARTOOTH"S PAGE!!!!!!!! Great, fun fiction for FREE!

Talk to you soon, 

Mike

List of updates to the website:
-Added Raw Feed Stories to the paperback store
-Added Wave 2 titles to the iFiction! page

The Pied Piper of the Undead expands!!!

For the first time ever, The Pied Piper of the Undead is available for the Nook and KOBO platforms!!!


KOBO: http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/The-Pi...


Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-p...


Please support the book on these platforms so that I can continue to offer it to these readers.

Mike

Goodreads Giveaway!!!!

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Giveaway ends March 31, 2013.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

First convention and some new friends...

This past weekend I spent hawking my paperbacks at the 22nd annual Madicon, James Madison University's Science Fiction and Fantasy convention.

What started out as a nerve racking experience (Will they like me? Will they like the books? What about the typos? What about the cosplay? and so and so on) turned into a blast of a good time. It was the perfect place for my first convention experience as a vendor. I talked to so many people and enjoyed everyone's company greatly. It may have been my first con as a vendor, but it was also my first con in general in several years. I miss that atmosphere of comraderie. Geeks unite!

I had the pleasure of meeting John St. John, the voice of Duke Nukem, who ran one of the craziest coolest panels I have ever witnessed. He's a great guy, very likable, and very talented. 

I also discovered Jonah Knight. This is the bio from his website:

Jonah Knight performs Paranormal Modern Folk: songs about ghosts, monsters, super heroes and steampunk with a roots folk style.

In the past few years he has found a niche at SciFi conventions throughout the mid-Atlantic region due to his five supernatural and science fiction leaning albums, his unique finger-picking style, and his live performances. He had written songs for authors, tribute albums, and webcomics. His upcoming album, a collection of creepy Christmas songs, was funded 214% on kickstarter.com and will be release in the 2012 Holiday season  


I ended up picking up some of his CDs and am very pleased.

I also want to give a shout out to my boothmate, jonny Lupsha (he spells it with a lower case J. Never did find out why). jonny is the opposite side of the coin in that he solely writes non-fiction. But it's not that boring non-fiction they threw at you in high school and college. No, this non-fiction is very, very cool. jonny is the owner of A Carrier of Fire publishing and has released two books: 

100,000 Years of Detention is a collection of essays on subjects as diverse as ex-girlfriends, Bob Dylan, tattoos, and cold medication. His follow up, Penny Cavalier, is an in-depth study of real life superheroes. jonny spent a year researching and interviewing RLS's and ended up becoming an integral part of the final chapter in the book. 

He also releases a digital magazine called the Broken Paragon that takes a close look at the world of video games and its culture, and delves deep into themes and ideas generated by the games. The last issue was almost entirely devoted to the Silent Hill franchise and I know there are several fans of those particular games who visit this blog. And he's a hell of a writer. I just flew through 100,000 Years and enjoyed it very much. 

I'll be adding links to both Jonah's and jonny's respective websites to the links page. Hit them up and enjoy. 

I also want to link to the Amazon store for my iFiction! pal, Everette Bell. He has been releasing a slew of audiobook versions of several of his works and has more in the pipeline. If you are a fan of the medium, don't miss out. Click here to look at the catalog.

With the convention taking most of my time I am now ready to get back to working on current projects. First draft of Episode 1 of Blood Will Run is almost done and I will start right in on Episodes 2 and 3. I also broke ground on The Pied Piper of the Undead  sequel this weekend and it looks like it will come quick too. 

I have had a Wattpad account for a while now but have not used it. Today I started some original work that will be available through the site for free. I will post the info once I have some things uploaded there. Look for flash fiction, song lyrics, plays, poetry and some experimental stuff as I open the vaults and share. 

That's it for now. I'm heading back to the grind. 

Mike

Call for Beta Readers....

If you look to the right of the blog, you will see a help wanted for new beta readers. I am looking for 2-3 people who would like to beta read new/future projects. 

What does a beta reader do? They would be reading mostly for content and story flow, and pointing out obvious typos and such. But mostly for story content. 

I have one proofreader who works on spelling/grammar issues. And I do at least two passes looking for errors. 

Perks of being a beta reader: 
-You get to read all projects ahead of everyone else and for FREE. 
-You participate in the process and help make a story smoother and even better. 
-You get to read cool stuff, especially if you like horror/scifi/crime or very unique stories. 
-I can probably throw some comp paperbacks your way also. 

If you are interested in possibly beta reading, then hit me up at michaelwhetzel@gmail.com.

Looking for

Plug into the Feed.

RAW FEED STORIES is out today. It collects all the short story/novellas I have released so far into one nice big book. If you have not read any of my iFiction! works this is a great chance to get them all and save a few bucks too.

Also included is a brand new Day 1 chapter for the Black Rain Journals. For you Black Rain completists who already own the shorts, fear not, the story will be included in a future Black Rain book. There will probably be more Black Rain bonus chapters springing up here and there as I look to bring in more readers and grow the story some more.

Here is the list of what is in Raw Feed:

The Pied Piper of the Undead
BOOM
Punchy
Bandwidth
Cube
Black Rain: The Student

Every 5 to 6 short works, I'll release a collection. They are great for paperbacks and for those looking to buy just one work and not several at one time.

I've been thinking a lot about the next wave of iFiction! one-shots. There will definitely be a haunted house story, and an older story I wrote a few years back. Also look for one "normal" story to come. I love the short story platform and will continue writing them.

As far as the next releases, we are looking at the FIRST serial from iFiction!. BLOOD WILL RUN is a three episode miniseries that sets up a crime world for future projects but will also still stand on its own. I am looking forward to releasing this as I think it will do very well. This will mark my first foray into crime/thriller and the story has been a lot of fun to write.

At the same time I will be working on THE PIED PIPER OF THE UNDEAD 2 !!!!!!!!!! Story notes are finished and I will begin the first draft in early March. So many people have been clamoring for this. I have to admit, the pressure is there and sequels are a tricky road to walk.

Madicon is next week and if you are in my area, stop by. Should be a lot of fun and you can get paperbacks of the Black Rain series and Raw Feed. Check www.madicon.org for more details.

CUBE had a nice debut. Just waiting for some reviews to begin trickling in. Curious to see what everyone thought.

That's all for now.

See you soon.

Mike

"It's a gift."

That's a quote from CUBE, the newest iFiction! release from me, Mike Whetzel. It hits the Amazon store "officially" tomorrow, 2/22. It will be FREE, "a gift" from me to you, on the 22nd through the 24th. That's 3 days to receive a novella clocking in at over 34,000 words for nothing. Of course, if you want to pay for it, it's up right now. I won't stop you :). 

I think CUBE is my most ambitious work to date. It starts small and then balloons into this huge thing that at times I lost control of. Story can be like that. You take the reins and try to guide it where you want it to go, but like a bucking bronco, it can throw you and take off on its own. Hopefully I reined it in enough. Hopefully you like it. Hopefully I'm not the hack I think I am. 

There are so many things that influenced this story and I want to share with you a couple of them, because if it turns out you do enjoy the bucking bronco of CUBE, you will enjoy these things also. 

First, CUBE is science fiction all the way. There's no post-apocalyptic themes here. No zombies. No monsters (ok, maybe a couple), and not much violence. So this kind of goes against what my other works have been about. It is a science fiction adventure with a dash of space opera thrown in. And here are a few places the idea seeded from:


First I'm going to show you a picture of this man. His name is Ray Bradbury and CUBE contains a dedictaion to him. He was always in the back of my head as I worked on it. Bradbury is a master storyteller. We lost someone of great importance with his death last year. DANDELION WINE, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, and everything else this writer gave us was amazing, especially the short stories. If I can be a 100th of the writer this man was, that would be something great. This is Isaac Asimov (Best muttonchops ever BTW). He is the grandfather of science fiction. I'm ashamed to say I did not discover his work until college (thank you, Dave Turk). I started with the Foundation trilogy and never turned back. That series of books is awesome! After that it was on to his robot stories and everything else I could find.












There are a handful of films that also helped inspire the story. MOON was the most influential and after you read the story you understand why. CONTACT is based on the novel by Carl Sagan, but I love the film version much more. And 2001 influences pretty much everything in the sci-fi realm. All three are about humans and space exploration (althought MOON is a little different.) Again, after reading CUBE you can pick up on some of the shared themes.

Towards the last part of writing the story, I was really struggling to tie it all up neatly. And then on a recommendation from my brother, I streamed this on Netflix:
After watching this, I knew what I wanted CUBE to really be about. It was always there in the back of my head but I was struggling with how to bring it to the story. This flick works as a great companion piece to MOON. But be warned, you may hate this movie. It is very polarizing in how it is set up. Considered arthouse all the way, this is not a typical film with a linear narrative. But if you go into it with an open mind and patience, I think you will be pleasantly pleased.









Which brings us back to CUBE. Yeah, I did not say much about how each work really influenced the story, but I don't want to give away anything either. I hope you do enjoy the story as much as I enjoyed writing it.



CUBE (what's with the little 3? Cube is cubed!) is available now for download from the Amazon store here.

It will be FREE starting 1/22 through the weekend!

Have a good week, folks.



peace,

Mike

Unofficial Soundtrack? Ok, I'll play....

So one of the things I do in my free time is explore my fellow indie writers web pages. There is a lot of talented individuals out there and I am interested in what they have to say and what they are currently working on. 

A predominant idea that keeps recurring on these author's sites is the unofficial soundtrack or playlist. This is a list of songs the writer has listened to during the course of working on a project and so has helped inspire some of the formation of the tone and feel of a story. Amanda Hocking is famous for her playlists (it helps that she has great taste in music and is an all around cool person) and her fans seem to appreciate them greatly, going so far as to seek out each song and listen to them as they read her books. Many other authors have followed suit and list have included everything from jazz to heavy metal. 

I cannot listen to music while I write. At least anything with actual lyrics. I've found that instrumental film soundtracks have helped me find the mood I was searching for in a particular scene. But actual wordy music is a No No for me. Usually the lyrics tend to find their way into what ever I am writing. Not fun. 

But music does have a role in my writing process, just mostly during the idea/work through phase of the project. I listen to music to help me work out scenes and beats in my head a lot, especially on Saturday mornings during a weekly two hour drive. I've found that each work has it's own unique musical catalyst. So I guess it is the unofficial official soundtrack. Here they are:

Black Rain Journals
I've been working a lot on getting the structure for Black Rain 3 down. Pink Floyd has become the go to band for stimulating the creative process. Haunting and moody with flashes of hope and strength evident throughout, Floyd is the perfect back drop for an alien invasion and the people trying to survive. There was a little bit of Pearl Jam thrown in there, but it's mostly Floyd all the way. Especially Hey You, Time, and Eclipse.

BOOM
Thirty Seconds to Mars' "This is War" album was Jeffrey Walls' battle cry. I pictured him rocking the title track during the shadowboxing scene. I also recall he tuned in a Metallica song before his run-in with the cop. I'll have to double check that. But if you want to get pumped up enough to knock the crap out of your boss and the douche you work with, 30STM will help. 

BANDWIDTH
I listened to a lot of Johnny Cash trying to find that feeling of walking on the edge of death and solitude that Wayne must have been facing. Pearl Jam was another choice, especially the "No Code" album which has been a treasure trove of creative juices. But Cash is the music of choice for lonely soldier vs crazy homicidal killers.

Punchy
I know that if our deaf boxer could hear, he would be jamming to '80s hair bands. Enter Jon Bon Jovi and AC/DC. Working the heavy bag while blasting those two bands is enough to make anyone beat the crap out of a bunch of scum buckets.

The Pied Piper of the Undead
Now this is an interesting one. Piper was actually inspired by a song. I was recommended the Police's Greatest Hits collection and after buying it, immediately fell in love with it, especially "Message in a Bottle." On one of my drives, I was listening to the song and actually pictured a teenage boy dancing on top of a water tower, singing the song at the top of his lungs. Surrounding the tower was a huge horde of zombies, all staring transfixed at the boy who kept singing the chorus which goes : "I'm sending a SOS to the world, I'm sending a SOS to the world." 
At this time, Pied Piper was actually a zombie love story (much like WARM BODIES but the girl was the zombie). This nugget of a scene grew into the Pied Piper of the Undead. Sadly, the scene never made it into the final cut. But who knows, maybe it will find a home in one of the sequels. 

CUBE
Cube has been a hard one to nail down. It goes from small time country farm to interplanetary space travel. As I've worked through the beats of the story, I've been listening to a lot of Coheed & Cambria. If you are not familiar with the band, their music is based around this epic science fiction story called the Amory Wars. One part love story, one part war epic, the band was perfect for telling Curtis' amazing journey into the stars. I cannot wait for all of you to finally read it. 

And I'll finish with a quick note on CUBE and it's release. It is almost ready. I lost some time as my son had to go back to the hospital for some treatment, but it is really close to completion. Take a look at the word counter up top. I told you I would  probably destroy that goal. It will be over 30,000 words easy, putting it into small novel territory. I am looking at a price of $2.99 to start. But have not decided firmly yet. 

Next blog will be the official CUBE announcement. 

Have a good week. 

Mike

iFiction! freebie week!

We're giving away FREE copies of select iFiction! books all week long. Cause it's Valentine's Week and we love and appreciate our readers (but not in that way. That's just weird, you freak.)

Monday and Tuesday:


Wednesday and Thursday:
Friday and Saturday:
Take advantage while you can and get aboard the iFiction! bus before it leaves without you!