Edward Lorn's Blog, page 69

OriginalGram #1

Some of you might know that I enjoy Instagram. I dig shelfies and book porn and odd pictures. I know some of you do too, so I thought I would start a series just for us pictophiles. 

 

If you don’t follow me on Instagram, you can do so HERE. But really this is more about other people’s accounts. These individuals are either uniquely odd or casually cool. You won’t find me showcasing accounts that deal with booty or focus on food. That’s not my bag. I like the abnormal (even though I still don’t know what “normal” is), and that is what this is about.

 

Our first OriginalGram goes out to user @abstractconformity. Dude is a merchant mariner and damn good with a camera. I don’t know him personally, but I love his posts. Follow him if you dig what he does.

 

*hugs and high fives*

 

E.

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1182790/originalgram-1

Bay’s End is Going Away.

Hey, folks. As many of you already know, my novel Bay’s End has been free on Amazon and Kobo for over a year. This is because I’m not really happy with the book, but have felt in the past that it is a good introduction to my work. Sadly, its free run is coming to a close and the novel is going away for an indefinite amount of time.

 

I would like to thank everyone who has read, reviewed, enjoyed and even hated my debut novel. I have learned more lessons from this book than any of my other published material. Unfortunately though, the book is poorly written. It’s well-edited but amateurish, and is probably the only novel I regret publishing in its current state. The biggest problem in the book is the colloquial use of “could of/should of/would of” instead of “could’ve/should’ve/would’ve”. This issue was brought up in post by my editor at the time, but I chose to ignore it. I thought it spoke to the first-person perspective of the piece. People simply think they are errors. I can dig it and I plan on fixing it. Don’t even get me started on the people who think that the possessive apostrophe in Bay’s is a mistake. The town’s founder’s name was Francis Bay. He died there. It is literally the place of Bay’s end. 

 

Another problem with the book is the amount of superfluous information (it grates on my nerves how many times I wrote “he/she laughed” in that book) and unneeded foul-language. Those supporters of naughty words and freedom of speech shouldn’t take this as me giving up on vulgarity but see it as an author trying to replace filler words with content fitting the piece. Yes, the language works to cement the tone of the kids and their attempt to “be adult” by using adult language, but there are several sections wherein the language only detracts from the situation. A book’s prose should never cause a reader to pause. This destroys escapism, and I can’t condone that.

 

Finally, those of you who love and appreciate the novel as it is my message to you is this. Bay’s End will always be Bay’s End for you. I am not editing the Amazon file currently in existence, and the version on your Kindle will stay the same. I am removing the novel from all sites and barring further downloads so I can rewrite it from the ground up. Your copy will not be altered. This new version will be just that – a new version. I’m not pulling a George Lucas. Your preferred version will still exist. 

 

To those of you who say “If this novel were traditionally published the author wouldn’t have this option,” I shall direct you to Dean Koontz and Stephen King. Dean Koontz has been rewriting and republishing his work since the 80s. Stephen King released revised and expanded copies of both The Stand and The Gunslinger, so yeah, it’s been done before by bigger names than my own. This is me trying to better a piece of work that I feel I’ve outgrown but still believe it deserves its place in the world. I hope you understand.

 

Thank you so very much to everyone who has supported me and this decision. To everyone who loves the book as is, I offer my sincerest gratitude. And remember this: you don’t have to read the new version.

 

Bay’s End will be available for free to download on Amazon and Kobo for the next 24 hours. After that, it’s gone. Get this version while it lasts, and I hope you guys like the new version… if you read it, of course.

 

*hugs and high fives*

 

E.

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1182582/bay-s-end-is-going-away

The Manse Review

Review:

It is with great sorrow that I must admit to finding no pumpkins devouring newel posts present in this novel. In fact, the book had absolutely nothing to do with pumpkins with teeth or disembodied skeletal arms stroking bannisters. Sad panda.

Dude and dudettes, I’m burned out on 80s horror. I might have liked this more had it actually had a stronger Halloween vibe (which is what I was looking for), but it didn’t. In fact, I’m more interested in who the author was and what happened to her than I am in reading the second book Torments. As far as I can tell, Lisa W. Cantrell fell off the map around 1990 and hasn’t landed anywhere yet. She published four novels and vanished. Wicked pissah of a myst’ry, eh!

I liked three things about this book: Davy, the scene in the mirror maze, and the fact that it ended.

In summation: A serious lack of Halloweeniness killed this read for me. I wanted pumpkins and shit, man. Can’t a Dood get a fucking pumpkin? (Only people who have read this will get that reference.)

Final Judgment: The literary equivalent of candy corn.

(Thanks to Evans Light for scaring this one up for me. If nothing else, it looks good on my shelf.)

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1182096/the-manse-review

Hidden Bodies Review

Review:

From the jump, we will get rid of my one and only complaint. I prefer the original title of this book. According to GoodReads, Hidden Bodies was originally entitled Love. I can only imagine the publishers and/or author decided to change it because there are roughly a quadrillion books with “Love” in their titles. This is unfortunate because Love is the perfect title for this novel. It covers the theme and the plot and the subtext. Everything in this book is about love. No worries, though, as this book is far removed from sappy.

Hidden Bodies is one of those rare books that surpasses the pop culture material it references. You’ll see nods to Mr Mercedes and Less Than Zero, and while the majority of this book happens in the same state as Bret Easton Ellis’s debut novel, Caroline Kepnes’s book resides in a world all its own.

Hidden Bodies also claims a rare spot in literature by being a sequel that does not suck. It is, in my opinion, as good as its predecessor. Hidden Bodies is a different animal. It has different scenery. A different story to tell. Different characters. Even a different style of prose.

Kepnes’s debut effort, You, was written in second-person present tense; our narrator Joe Goldberg speaks directly to the woman currently holding his interest, as if she’s always there to listen. It was a fresh experience. It worked to cement the tone of the work. Besides, there will never be another You like Guinevere Beck. Hidden Bodies is written in first-person present. This switch is needed because we do not follow one obsession throughout the novel. For a goodly amount of time, the reader hasn’t a clue who Joe is going to latch onto next, or if he’ll get the revenge he feels he deserves. All that is only a small part of the magic going on inside Hidden Bodies.

Kepnes has a talent for sleight of hand. “Hey, you, look over here while I do this other thing behind your back.” Twice in the same novel, I forgot what kind of person our narrator is. I’d be riding along on cruise control, enjoying how Kepnes turned a phrase, or I’d be snickering at some reference that is certainly only there for fanservice, and then Joe would remind me how truly unstable he is. This was as effective as a deer jumping in front of my car in the middle of city traffic. The first bathroom scene is one of the best since Psycho (I do not say that lightly), and it is made all that more effective by being in the psycho’s head. The second bathroom scene had my heart playing “Wipeout” on my ribs. That was intense. I’ve not read a scene that nerve shattering in a long time.

Finally, I must give credit to the author for caring about every single character she brought on stage, right down to Harvey. Yeah, I noticed. I actually shed a tear or two after finding out how he ends up. This was a small character, only referenced a handful of times, and Kepnes treated him with compassion and allowed him his own ending, his own complete (albeit short) story. Other authors would have moved on and forgotten about little ol’ Harvey. This is what sets Kepnes apart from many novelists working today. You can tell she loves her cast, from the small roles to the horribly irredeemable ones. Moreover, this woman’s writing is simply damn fun to read.

I believe I have a new favorite novelist, friends and neighbors.

In summation: Caroline Kepnes has her finger on the pulse of Today. She’s counting the beats and taking notes. Because of this, she knows how to make our hearts race, how to steal them and how to break them. Yes, You and Hidden Bodies are about a terrible human being, but it is in his mental illness that we all find the comfort of familiarity, because, as Robert Bloch once wrote, “I think perhaps all of us go a little crazy at times.” Highest possible recommendation.

Final Judgment: I feel bad for the rest of the books I have to read this year.

(Thanks to Atria Publishing, NetGalley, and the author for allowing me to read an advance review copy of this novel. I almost wish you hadn’t though, because I have no idea what to read next.) 

Totes my honest opinion. Totally.

Review:

OMG! Totes informative! Like, I was on Wikipedia, right, and I was all, “ODD THOMAS absolutely CANNOT be the FIRST Odd Thomas book, right?!??!?!?!” Then they had all these lists for free that explained in detail which books came in what order, and I totally knew they were illegal or something, so I totally jumped off that site and went to my favoritest place in all the interwebs, you know, G to the R, baby! GOODREADS! And THAT list said the same thing that Wikipedia said. I was all like, “NO WAY?!?!?!?!” But it was also FREE so I knew I HAD TO BE IN TROUBLE!

Thank my heavenly creator because without her I would never have checked on Amazon and found this ONE OF A KIND list that I couldn’t have found ANYWHERE ELSE legally or for FREE! You know something is legit when you totes have to pay a dollar for it.

For real, you guys, don’t be a big stupid-headed dumby dumbkins like me. Pay a dollar for this unique information that you can totally not find anywhere else for free. Not on Google. Not on Wikipedia. Not on GoodReads (which Amazon totally owns). BUY THIS, because I’m totes sure that Dean Koontz gets a cut. Like, why wouldn’t he, you know?

Thank you ReadList for saving my life for the cost of a Mickey D’s cheeseburger. I knew I could count on you!

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1181652/totes-my-honest-opinion-totally

A Decade with King: 1995-2004

“But—this is important—tell me a story, one that has a beginning and a middle and an end where everything is explained. Because I deserve that. Don’t shake the rattle of your ambiguity in my face. I deny its place. I repudiate its claim. I want a story.” From a Buick 8, by Stephen King

 

Welcome back, Constant Reader.

 

Prefatory Matters: Back in September 2014, I decided to reread Stephen King’s entire catalog, chronologically, by date of publication. Then, I went a bit further. I decided to complete this challenge in a single year. That’s a decade of King every three months. These posts will be a bit emotional, as they are my personal experiences with King’s work. For spoiler-laden reviews of each novel, you can click on the corresponding title. At the end, I will attempt to tie all books back into the Dark Tower using my own theories and facts King himself has verified.

 

Previous posts: 1974-1984 and 1985-1994

 

This, my fellow Constant Readers, is A Decade with King: 1995-2004

 

This is by and far my least favorite decade from Stephen King. Oddly enough, it was also one of the most tumultuous times in my life as well. King kicked cocaine and alcohol in this decade, but he also got turned into a speed bump/pretzel by a man who later overdosed on prescription pain medicine. He had a pretty shitty span of years there for a while, and so did his readership. I’m not going to bore you with why every book wasn’t up to par with his pervious two decades’ output. If you’ve read the last two posts, you know how this is done. I name a book and tell you the memory I have attached to that book. This decade isn’t pretty. King faced his demons and I faced mine. But through the best and the worst, he was a constant for me.

 

In 1998, a shitty friend introduced me to heroin. Yes, I have skeletons in my closet. No, I’m not sharing anymore than that about my habit. I made some bad decisions in my life and I’ve been trying to redeem myself ever since. During this time, I became friends with a man I would come to think of as a father figure. He mentored me and played editor and tried to fixed all my stupid mistakes both on and off the page (some of these mistakes I still make to this day), but I never appreciated him like I should have. He always said it was his pleasure, that I was going places, and the only person who would ever stand in my way would be myself. How right he was. If you follow me on social media you will know I’m prone to emotional outbursts and over-the-top reactions. Am I one-hundred percent mentally stable? Probably not. I’m sure I suffer from depression and several other undiagnosed neuroses I can’t pronounce properly, but I’m scared I’ll wind up like my father—doped to the gills on uppers so I can make it through the day and downers so I can sleep at night. I use the internet as my therapy couch. I rant and vent and make friends and enemies and it all helps me sleep at night.

 

Sadly, my mentor died in 2001, but I keep him alive in my heart. Every book is dedicated to him, even when it’s not.

 

In 2000, I decided to further my education, but heroin and college mix like oil and water, and I kept falling asleep in class. Finally, I dropped out. And then in May of 2001, I met a woman who would change my life. Suddenly I had a decision to make: this woman or the drugs. Some people claim that kicking heroin can be one of the hardest feats known to man. Love made it easy. I sweated and ticked and twitched and vomited for a solid week, but the thought of what I would lose if I kept chasing the dragon kept me from calling my connections. I married her the following May, 2002, and we’ve been together ever since. Our first child (our daughter Autumn) was born in April of 2005. I cut the cord and they placed her in the warmer and I reached in and she squeezed my finger and I was in love. My baby girl. My heart, taken from my chest and laid out before me. I’m not a religious man, but I finally knew what it was like to feel blessed.

 

And then we had an ectopic pregnancy in 2006. Some of you might know it as a tubal pregnancy. The baby doesn’t drop from the fallopian tube, and both the mother’s and the child’s lives are put at risk. That destroyed me. I knew that there was no choice to be made. Either they aborted the pregnancy or my wife would die. Still, it hurt. Holy fuck, did it ever feel like my chest was collapsing. I did my best to be there for my wife, but I still believe that we only made it through that patch because my wife is one of the strongest souls walking around on this revolving rock. Then again, I’m kinda biased.

 

In April of 2012, after six years of nothing, but not for lack of trying, my son Chris came along. I never wanted a boy. My relationship with my father was a terrible one, and I didn’t want my family name to live on and that was the only reason my own father wanted a boy so badly. Yeah, I realize how petty that sounds, but it’s the truth. I would have been perfectly happy with two girls. Christopher is a wonderful, bright, hilarious little man and I wouldn’t trade him for the world, but I look at him at least once a day and think: How much am I fucking up with you? My greatest fear is that he will someday grow to hate me like I hated my father.

 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I told you all that so that I could tell you about these other memories without going on too long. Anyway, here we are, starting with…

 

Rose Madder reminds me of my oldest sister. This isn’t the first King book connected to her that I’ve mentioned, but it is the first that connects to her personal life. Her second husband liked to tool up on her, and it was around the time that his fists started flying and the sunglasses started showing up at night and the makeup got thicker that I read Rose Madder and wondered if my big sis might be going through the same shit as Rose. She moved away to Alabama with that wife-beating motherfucker, and we followed shortly afterward. I read Insomnia on that trip, as you might recall from my last post, and Rose Madder came next.

 

Hurricane Opal came through and wrecked my fucking world. The Green Mile reminds me of that, and you can read about why in my review. All of my reviews for these books are linked toward the end of this post. Feel free to check them out as you hop along.

 

Desperation reminds me of the only year I went to Christian summer camp. Our youth group leader was a fat guy named Bill. He had an orange beard and kinky orange hair. He was one of those guys that yank up his jeans only to have them slide right back down again. The kind of guy who needs suspenders, not a belt. Anyway, Bill caught me jacking off in my bunk. I was thinking about the pretty lady who’d played guitar and sang for us after dinner that night. That Old Rugged Cross indeed…I sure as shit wouldn’t have minded getting nailed. Bill told me what I was doing was completely natural but not to spill any seeds on any stones. That shit might be the death of me. I had no idea what he was talking about. It wasn’t until years later that I found out why that was so goddamn funny. When I got home from camp, Mom had Desperation waiting for me. She was so happy that it would be the first Stephen King novel she could let her son read because it seemed King had finally found Jesus. Mind you, Mom didn’t know I’d been stealing her King books out of the mail every month, so this was a special time in our household. Behold, the first Christian-friendly King novel! PRAISEJESUSAMENANDTHANKYOULORDLETUSEAT! Any of you who have read Desperation will now how inappropriate it is for a teen to read, what with all the sexy-time stuff the statues make the characters think about, but there was a strong Christian message about the power of faith in that book too, and Mom felt that message overrode the naughtiness. Excuse me while I laugh my ass off…

 

Wizard and Glass was the first Stephen King book to make me cry because it was so fucking terrible. I would go on to hate three other books before this decade of King’s career was over, but W&G started it all. 600 pages of romance garbage with 50 pages of denouement. I was livid. I told my mother, her being the King aficionado of the family at the time, that I was done with King. Fuck him for making me read all that nonsense only to end by ripping off The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. What a hack! The nerve! Fuck. King. Of course we all know…

 

I read Bag of Bones and hated it. It’s now one of my favorite King novels after my 2015 reread, but back in 1998 I was too busy trying to find out if we all really float (heroin assisted floating of course) to be bothered with what might be some of King’s best writing. It’s the one shining gem in a pond filled with a decade of scummy water. Let’s face it, King was on his way out. This should have been his final novel. I think, deep down, he knew it. He poured his very heart into this book, but I was too high to appreciate it. The only thing this book was good for was chopping up lines to snort. I lost that copy when my storage shed flooded. That’s probably for the best. The front and back of the hardcover were sliced to shit under the dustjacket (razorblades, God love ‘em, can make a mess of a book). Hey, at least I thought enough to remove the DJ before cutting up what amounted to twenty bucks a toot.

 

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon slid under my radar. I would love to tell you a great little story about my time with this book, but the first time I read it was in May of 2015, the year I am writing this post. I do recall losing a good friend while reading this one. They didn’t die. They just showed their true colors. Anyway, I always thought The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon was a novella and I was waiting on King to release it in a collection. Even the best of fans drop the ball from time to time. My bad.

 

If you’re still reading this, you’re probably a King fan. Even if you’re not, you probably know that the man was hit by a van in 1999. After they scrapped him off the side of the road and he suffered the tortures of physical therapy, he went home, where he tried to rebuild his life, his craft, and himself. During this time, he filled ledger after ledger with text describing the silly antics of a group of man-boys plagued by shit weasels. There are over 200 pages of fart jokes in Dreamcatcher. It truly is the product of a pain-addled mind. King wrote that entire book at his kitchen table because sitting at his desk and working at his typewriter was too painful. The result was… well, it was terrible. I don’t attribute any memories to this awful book. I read it, and then I reread it in 2005. Because I’m fucking stupid, that’s why. But not as stupid as I was when…

 

I reread From a Buick 8. I don’t want to talk about this book. If you want to read my thoughts on it, click on the review downstairs. Fuck this book. Fuck King for submitting it and Viking for publishing it. King is the only author with books on both my Best of list and my Worst of list. In my opinion, It is the greatest horror novel ever written, and From a Buick 8 is one of the most terrible.

 

Finally, we come to the last three Dark Tower novels. I used to be a Certified Nurse’s Assistant (more on that in my final post, coming in October), and I was working at Jackson Hospital in Montgomery, Alabama as a Nurse Support Tech (a fancy name for a CNA who’s been trained as a phlebotomist too). The night I heard about the final DT novels, I was on the floor, making my first rounds, getting vitals and tucking folks into bed, when my buddy Florence came bursting out of the break room. She hollered something unintelligible about Stephen King calling wolves, and disappeared back into the lounge. Of course I wanted to know why the fuck King was pulling a Jack London, so I left the Dina-Map (blood pressure machine) out in the hall and went in search of an explanation. The charge nurse on duty that evening—this was Foot, if you recall Foot from my first post—had come in with news about an interview she’d either read or seen (sorry, I can’t recall which) wherein King mentioned that the next book in the DT series would be entitled Calling Wolves, and would be followed shortly by two other books, completing the series. Well, we all know how badly Foot fucked up the name of Wolves of the Calla, but she was on point with the rest of her info. I reread the first four DT novels and bought each new book as they came out. It was grand. It was heartbreaking. It was the best series I had ever read. Too many horrible and happy memories of that time to mention them all (you’d be bored to tears if I did… hell, you might already be bored or gone off to read or review or play with your kittens and have left me sitting here talking to myself, but what’s new in my neighborhood, right?), but I will bring up one special memory. I was reading the coda in the back of The Dark Tower (I had also started a reread of Carrie in an attempt to do what I’m doing now; trying to read his entire catalog in a year, but I failed back then) when my wife told me she was pregnant with our first child. She was already two months along, but that did very little to dull my excitement. Also, I’d tried to tell her she was pregnant the month before (her breasts seemed to have grown by half, so I was either married to the Wonderful Inflatable Woman, or she was with child, because it wasn’t plastic surgery), but she said she was still having her periods, so I dropped it. Then, about four weeks later, guess what? She told me I was gonna be a daddy. I knew it was a girl. I had always known it would be a girl. And I knew my life was going to change. Awesome, man. I could dig it. Then I hurt my back and some asshole in a gray dress shirt with black pinstripes and an ugly-as-balls charcoal-gray tie and a stupid beard told me I’d never be able to pick my daughter up out of her crib and carry her around or rock her to sleep. Hell, I might not even walk again, period, and I should be thankful I can still feel my legs and he’d see what he could do. He’d see… what he… could do…

 

But that’s a story for another time.

 

Ring Around the Tower:

 

This is where I will begin to repeat myself, so I will make it easy on all of us. All of the book reviews at the end of this post mention how each novel ties into the Dark Tower series. You can find even more information on my first two Decade with King posts (look upstairs, just after Prefatory Matters)

 

My theory is simple: King has stated that a certain number of his books tie into the Dark Tower universe. I say they all tie into that universe to create the King-verse. More exactly, every one of his books fits in with one of three works: It, The Tommyknockers, and the Dark Tower series. The Grays, man. It’s all about the Grays. I believe they come from the PRIM.

 

Some of you will notice that Hearts in Atlantis is nowhere to be found here. That’s because I still have no idea how to classify it. It’s not really a short story collection. It’s kinda a collection of novellas… kind of, but not in the same way books like Different Seasons and Four Past Midnight were. Hearts in Atlantis is a beautifully rendered masterpiece, and it deserves a special place in King’s catalog. I will speak about it one day. Until then, my apologies for not including it. And yeah, I know all the connections between it and the Dark Tower. That’s what makes it so damn special and magical. We’ll talk on the subject eventually. 

 

Closing Thoughts:

 

I have received some questions as to why I’m not including any of the Bachman books in this project. I have a very specific reason for this. I consider the Bachman books to be trunk novels. They are books that King would have never released had it not been for this other personality he created. The tone of these seven novels is much different than King’s other work and they deserve their own project. According to King, all seven novels (The Long Walk, Rage, Roadwork, The Running Man, Thinner, and even the more recent Regulators and Blaze) were all written between 1966 and 1973. We’ll get to these, I promise, but they will likely have their own posts. Something like… Seven Years of Bachman. Or whatever.

 

Likewise, King’s collaborations with Straub will be covered in a separate post once the third and final Jack Sawyer novel is released. If you’re waiting for my thoughts on The Talisman and Black House, your waiting on King and Straub as well.

 

A final note on this project. I’ve said from the beginning that this journey has been about the novels. I have tried to keep up with the collections, but I’ve pretty much given up on getting through them all before October. I will, however, be finishing all King’s full-length ventures on time (ONLY 6 BOOKS LEFT!). If my King hangover is not too disastrous in size, I will finish and review all the collections by the end of the year (2015). I’m not fretting over the collections because not every story fits into my Dark Tower/King-verse theory. Many do, don’t get me wrong, but there are ones where King simply wanted to stretch his literary muscles and does not mention anything from his other stories. I actually believe that Everything’s Eventual was supposed to be his final collection, a scraping of the shit at the bottom of the barrel, as it were. The only good story in there is the Dark Tower tale, “The Little Sisters of Eluria”, but that’s just my opinion.

 

This has been so much fun. Thank you all for joining me. One more decade to go, which should be out some time in or before October, and I can finally relax. I’m trying to decide if I’m going to do Dean Koontz of Robert McCammon next. If you have any requests, drop them in the comments below. Dean Koontz’s catalog will be a chore, as he’s been hit or miss (mostly miss) for the past twenty years, but his books are mostly shorter than 400 pages and can be read in a day or two. McCammon is far more long winded, but his books are better as a rule. Other authors I would consider would be Richard Laymon, Dan Simmons, or John Saul.

 

Cool little side note. If I published all these Decade with King posts along with the individual reviews of each book, I’d have a novel over over 100,000 words on my hand. That might be an option, but I wouldn’t do it without King’s blessing. We’ll see.

 

Until next time, Constant Readers…

 

Reviews:

 

Rose Madder – June 1995

 

The Green Mile­ – Release first in serial format March – August 1996

 

Desperation – September 1996

 

The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass – November 1997

 

Bag of Bones – September 1998

 

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon – 1999

 

Dreamcatcher – March 2001

 

From a Buick 8 – September 2002

 

The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla – November 2003

 

The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah – June 2004

 

The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower – September 2004

 

Short Story Collections:

 

Nightmare and Dreamscapes (actually released in 1993, but I missed it last decade because my source was wrong about the date of publication) – Review Pending

 

Everything’s Eventual – Review Pending

 

Novella Collection:

 

Hearts in Atlantis (if you can truly call it a novella collection) Review Pending

 

Shortest Novel:

 

From a Buick 8

 

Personal Favorite:

 

Bag of Bones

 

1,000 Page Novel:

 

The final three Dark Tower Books, as I believe he wrote them all together, meaning for them to be read as one volume. If you want to argue a single-book case, the paperback version of the final book The Dark Tower, is 1074 pages long.

 

Dark Tower Novels:

 

The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla

 

The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah

 

The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower

 

(I would like to mention my fellow King aficionados Ruth and Cody. If I ever get King’s approval to publish these, I’d like your help filling in any blanks I might have created in my theories. It would be a pleasure and an honor to work with you.)

 

 

 

 

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1181424/a-decade-with-king-1995-2004

This is one of the coolest mashups I’ve seen in a whil...

This is one of the coolest mashups I’ve seen in a while. Very well done. Wish I knew who did it…

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1181179/post

Douchebaggery and Asshattery

What the fuck is wrong with the world?

 

Have you heard about the Duggar boy? Not sure what number he is, but he’s admitted to molesting his younger sisters. Now the Walking Womb and Ol’ Swingin’ Dick Pa Duggar are saying there are other families who’ve said they’ve had similar “issues”. 

 

Issues? Fucking… ISSUES? We’re talking the molestation of children by a seventeen-year-old boy and this talking sperm bank says the family has had issues? I can’t fathom the fuckery afoot in that household for the father (or any human of a sound mind) to think there is anything even remotely natural about a teenage boy of seventeen playing doctor with his little sisters.

 

Curiosity is when you’re three and you play with your dick in front of Mom while she’s helping you put your shorts on the right way. Curiosity is being a thirteen-year-old boy and shoving a shampoo bottle up your ass because V05 makes a nice streamline bottle. Curiosity is being a fifteen-year-old girl and kissing your best friend because she wants to practice for her boyfriend and you wondering why you’re sitting in a puddle. 

 

At seventeen, you can drive. You can graduate high school. You can start college. You can kill someone and get the chair. 

 

My point is this: He knew what he was doing, and the parents should not be defending him in any way. I didn’t think I would see something like this in this day and age. Back when I was growing up people had the uncle they kept the kids away from or the neighbor whose lawn you couldn’t play on… but in 2015 we’re condoning the molestation of children? Not a lot of shit floors me anymore, but this… this bullshit has me reeling.

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1181063/douchebaggery-and-asshattery

Writing Groups and Terrible Advice

I’m not paying to have this edited but it will likely end up some of everywhere by tomorrow. My rants normally do. You may share wherever you want as long as you credit the author. That’s me (Edward Lorn or E.).To all those who choose to nitpick the errors and ignore the message, do me a favor take a lengthy fuck at a burning futon. Eloquent, aren’t I?

Writing is a lonely job and no one can tell you how to do it. I’m all for community unless it is detrimental to creative growth, and my experience with writing groups has been this:

A bunch of people sitting around talking about writing and getting advice from people who aren’t actually making money from their craft. Call me elitist, call me an asshole, but this is my experience. Let your friends lie to you. I’m an asshole, an asshole that’s not going to lie to you. Fuck your feelings. Making you feel good about yourself is not my job, nor is it anyone else’s. I do not want to be surrounded by a bunch of dumbfuck writers who value popularity and popular opinion over talent and craft. This isn’t fucking high school.

Writing groups kill me. They figuratively stall my fucking heart. I’m not a very popular guy in the author community because I don’t play well with others. I’m foul-mouthed and opinionated, two things that offends creative types. In other words, I have no problem telling Rainbow Bright her fucking rainbow looks awfully goddamn dull today. Sure I have friends who are authors, but they’re their own people who blaze their own trail. Some of these ladies and gentlemen (snicker) might be members of writing groups themselves, but nobody’s perfect.

Mostly, writing groups are circle jerks. There might be a handful in the world that actually promote the craft of writing, but the greater majority sit around and stroke each others egos. “Oh, that’s not garbage! Your idea for a comedy-thriller-with-an-all-Giraffe-cast erotic poem will surely sell billions!” Talk is cheap, and writing groups are a dime a dozen. There’s a reason for that. I want to meet the successful author who became successful because of their writing group, and I want to know if they are still part of that writing group, and are they successful because they listened to any of their writing group’s advice. Or did they just write and edit and submit and publish and go through the motions. I honestly want to know. I’m not a proud motherfucker. I can admit when I’m wrong.

(Fantasy authors who play D&D and plot their epic novels with friends while LARPing are the only exception I can think of. Those guys are cool. Far cooler than I.)

Most of the badly-behaved-author activity you see is overflow from writing groups. Members get this idea in their head that they are Tom Cruise’s gift to to the literary world because they have a bunch of other hacks (I’m a self-proclaimed hack myself) telling them their shit smells like roses soaked in vanilla water.

Writing groups are terrific at offering advice like “What Not to Write!” This pisses me off. Sweet baby Tom Cruise under a mobile of squirting cocks, this lights a fire under me and boils my colon. If I listened to a quarter of the advice from these writing groups on what not to write, I wouldn’t write anything at all. Don’t offend anyone. Don’t write about genders and races of which you do not belong. Don’t write serials. Don’t write short stories. Don’t write novels. Don’t write outside your comfort zone. Don’t write outside of your readers’ comfort zone (as if you could know what that is…). Don’t write in the morning. Don’t write at night. Don’t offend anyone. Don’t eat twenty-minutes before writing or an hour afterward. Don’t write about animals or from an animal’s POV. Don’t write about kids. Only write YA because that shit is HAWT! right now. Don’t write about teenagers. Don’t eat bacon while writing. Don’t have sex the night before a writing session. Don’t NOT have sex the night before a writing session. Don’t write at all. Did I mention don’t goddamn motherfucking offend anyone, jackhole!?

To the lovely people who pollute (whoops, I meant populate) these writing groups: Kindly eat all of my ass. To all the aspiring writers out there: Write whatever you want. Will you be successful? Fuck if I know. Will you piss people off? Yes. A million times YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES… okay I’m tired of typing YES. But you will piss off people trying to please them, too. And guess what? What you write probably won’t be any good, either. It will be derivative. It will be boring. It will likely be a mess. Moreover, every time you have to stop writing because you’re worried about offending someone, you stop being you and start being them.

Mimicry is the failure of self, and censorship is for dictators with bad haircuts. Choose your own path. Write what makes you happy, and stop listening to Joe Blow from Kokomo who’s only sold that one short story to his mother-in-law’s publishing house, the one that only accepted it because it was Little Joey’s tenth birthday and no one could afford cake and presents. If you have fun with your writing, that fun will carryover to the reader. Or it won’t. Either way, at least you can say you had fun.

…

You’re still here? You want advice that works, you say? Well… Here’s some shit from people who actually pay their rent with words and have been doing so for over twenty years. That’s experience, pumpkin, and experience is worth more than speculation ten times out of ten.

Neil Gaiman said: “This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard.

Isaac Asimov said: “Writing is a lonely job. Even if a writer socializes regularly, when he gets down to the real business of his life, it is he and his typewriter or word processor. No one else is or can be involved in the matter.”

And if you’re still feeling empty inside, read Stephen King’s On Writing. I know no better book on the craft, but that’s only my opinion.

*hugs and high fives*

E.

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1181010/writing-groups-and-terrible-advice

Getting To Know Me – E. Edition

Cody posted his and he got the idea from Hunger for Knowledge who got it from My Little Book Blog. I decided to go far afield and add more than a dash of tongue in cheek.

 

1. Are you named after anyone?

My father was Eddie Pete, so… kinda.

 

Side note: I’ve never met a guy named Ed, Eddie, or Edward that I didn’t automatically dislike.

2. When was the last time you cried?

While reading Palisades Park, which was about a week ago.

3. Do you have kids?

 

Two. A ten-year-old daughter and a three-year-old son. Autumn and Chris.

4. If you were another person, would you be a friend of yourself?

 

Nope. I’m an asshole and an egotist. I’m mouthy and arrogant. I’m always right. Did I mention I’m never wrong? Because I’m not.

5. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

See previous answer.

6. Will you ever bungee-jump? 

HAHAHAHAHAHA! More like bungee-die. I weigh 350 pounds. I’ve not found a tower operator that didn’t laugh at me when I approached his station.

7. What’s your favorite cereal?

Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Did I mention I’m fat? That cereal is why.

8. What’s the first thing you notice about people?

Their sexual organs. Unless they have clothes on, then I notice their smell. Doesn’t matter what you’re wearing, if you smell like bean dip and cabbage you might as well dress in garbage bags and Ugg boots.

9. What is your eye colour?

Changes with the lighting, but I have gray eyes that shift from blue to almost transparent. The darker the environment, the bluer my eyes. The brighter, the more see-through. This is how I snagged my wife. That, and I’m super fucking funny. Seriously, have you met me? I’m a goddamn riot.

10. Scary movie or happy endings?

Scary movie. Fuck happy endings. I’m a married man, and massages are expensive.

11. Favorite smells?

A woman and old books. Both. At the same time.

12. Summer or winter?

 

Winter. Fuck the sun.

13. Computer or television?

 

Computer. Cable’s expensive, and Netflix, Amazon Instant, Hulu, and Crackle are things that exist. You can sign up for all of those and still spend less than you would for basic cable and have more to watch when you want to watch it.

 

(I am not sponsored by any of the aforementioned companies, but I’m not opposed to receiving checks for my services) 

14. What’s the furthest you’ve ever been from home?

 

If you consider home the place I was born, which was California, I suppose the farthest I’ve been is Maine.

15. Do you have any special talents?

 

I play percussive guitar. If you don’t know what that is, search it on YouTube. Yeah, I can do that.

16. Where were you born?

 

I don’t like repeating myself.

17. What are your hobbies?

 

Minecraft while listening to audio books. Cover and poster design. Socializing on book sites.

18. Do you have any pets?

 

Two dogs. Ash and Coal. Or, as they are more commonly referred to, My Goombas.

19. Favorite movie?

 

Howard the Duck. No. I’m not joking. Not even a little. 

20. Do you have any siblings?

 

Four. I only actually know three of them, and only speak to two of them. They are all half-sisters from my parents’ previous marriages.

 

21. What do you want to be when you grow up?

 

An adult, but I’m putting that off until I die.

 

 

 

To make it easier for everyone else who wants to play, here’s a copy of the questions without the answers. Cheers!

 

 

1. Are you named after anyone?

2. When was the last time you cried?

3. Do you have kids?

 

4. If you were another person, would you be a friend of yourself?

 

5. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

6. Will you ever bungee-jump?

7. What’s your favorite cereal?

8. What’s the first thing you notice about people?

9. What is your eye colour?

10. Scary movie or happy endings?

11. Favorite smells?

12. Summer or winter?

 

13. Computer or television?

 

14. What’s the furthest you’ve ever been from home?

 

15. Do you have any special talents?

 

16. Where were you born?

 

17. What are your hobbies?

 

18. Do you have any pets?

 

19. Favorite movie?

 

20. Do you have any siblings?

 

21. What do you want to be when you grow up?

 

 

 

 

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1180458/getting-to-know-me-e-edition