James N. Cook's Blog, page 2

Confession Time

My name is James Nathaniel Cook, and I am an alcoholic.
There. I said it.
I’m not talking about a ‘have a few beers before bed’ kind of problem, either. I’m talking about a ‘drink an entire liter of hard liquor a day’ kind of problem. Seriously. About a liter.
Every. Single. Day. Sometimes more. Can’t remember the last day I didn’t.
Let that sink in.
The last couple of weeks, I have been having my first drink at around 10:30 in the morning, and I’m usually passed out in my armchair by 1:00 PM. I wake up hungover, I drink water and tea to get functional, and after dinner, I start up again until I pass out. For the second time in a day. Usually before nine PM.
I haven’t written a word of new material for The Darkest Place in nearly two weeks. I’ve been too drunk. That is the real reason it is taking so long. Hell, that’s the reason all my books take so long. It’s hard to write when you’re so inebriated you can barely string a sentence together.
I didn’t get here overnight. I think I became addicted to alcohol at the age of 21. For a long time there, I could maintain. I could work. I was functional. But I can’t tell you how many times I went to work hungover. I should have been fired a hundred times over from every job I ever worked. It’s a wonder I never was. Maybe I just showed up resembling a pile of hammered dog shit so many times they just figured that was how I looked. Kind of pathetic when you think about it.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not looking for sympathy here. I did this to myself. I’ve spent the better part of 13 years in the bottle, and I have no one to blame but myself. It’s my own fault things have gotten this bad.
What I’m looking for here is accountability. Sooner or later, all my family and friends are going to see this, and the secret will be out. Once I post this, there is no going back. If I’m honest, I think I’m just tired of trying to hide it. I simply do not care about keeping up appearances anymore.
I have had many successes in my life. I served my country for six years with honor and distinction, and I have the service record and medals to prove it. I am the first person in my family to earn a bachelor’s degree (finance major, just in case you were wondering). I have a wife who loves me, two beautiful children, and plenty of people in my life who care about me.
Nonetheless, I feel like a failure.
I failed my family. I failed my friends. I failed you, my beloved readers. But the thing about failure is you can learn from it. You can choose a different path. For too many years of my life, I have walked the path of anger and depression and addiction.
No more.
I cannot live like this. It’s not a life. It’s barely an existence, and unless I make some serious changes, I won’t even have that. I’ll be dead before I’m forty.
I turned 34 years old last month. I don’t know how many years I have left. Maybe forty, maybe five, maybe a few days. But for whatever time I remain on this Earth, I refuse to spend it as a useless drunk. My family, and friends, and you readers who have given me the career I always wanted, you all deserve better from me.
And by God, I intend to make it happen.
I’m in a pretty low place right now. I woke up at three in the morning last night from alcohol withdrawal, shaking like a leaf in the wind, and I knew I was in trouble. All I wanted to do was have a drink. So instead, I stumbled downstairs on shaky legs because I haven’t been eating lately because my stomach can’t handle it, and I got every bottle of booze in the house and poured it down the fucking sink. Then I went upstairs and woke my wife up and told her I needed help. She’s staying home with me today.
The withdrawal is pretty terrible right now. My hands are shaking badly as I type this. But I know I can get through it. It’s easy when you don’t have a choice.
And that’s why I am posting this. I want everyone in my life who has ever given a rat’s ass about my existence to know what I’m going through and hold me responsible for fixing it. I’ve let a lot of people down, but I will do everything I can to make it right.
We all make mistakes. We all strive and fail. I'm no better than anyone else. Being willing to admit it is the first step to correcting the problem. 
I may be down, but I’m not out. Not by a long shot; I have too much to live for. I’m going to take some time and get myself sober and functional again, and then I’ll work on picking up the other pieces of my life. I probably won’t get much writing done, so as far as a release date for The Darkest Place, you’re just going to have to be patient with me. I want to make it the best book I can, but that’s not going to happen if I spend most of every day drunk off my ass.
Enough is enough. I’m going to beat this thing. I’ll post again when I’m feeling a little stronger.

Wish me luck. And as always, thank you. 

Another Excerpt From The Darkest Place: A Surviving the Dead Novel

“It looks like a settlement,” Mike said, handing me the field glasses. I peered through them.
At the highway junction, there was a gas station, a farmers market, and an RV park, all separated from the forest by a broad asphalt parking lot. The fireproof buffer zone had kept the structures and recreational vehicles safe from the fires that had come through not long ago. From where Mike and I lay at the top of a rise near the treeline, we could see the people below had moved the RVs so they formed a ring around the two buildings. They had also packed the space beneath the vehicles with dirt and were using the wide trenches left behind as latrines.
Now that’s what I call multi-tasking.
I counted a couple of dozen people, some of them standing guard, others engaged in menial tasks, and still more doing nothing much at all. There seemed to be an even dispersion of men and women, even a few children here and there. I gauged the size of the small compound and the amount of work that must have gone into securing it, and decided something did not add up.
“There’s not enough people,” I said.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Mike replied.
“All that dirt, the number of RVs, there must be others somewhere.”
“Or maybe there were, but they moved on.”
I put the field glasses down. “Could be.”
“Let’s give it a while. Keep an eye on them, see what we see.”
“Good idea.”
We settled in.
It was nostalgic, in a way, lying there among the torched foliage. During the years when Mike was imparting the lessons he had learned from his days at Quantico and on the battlefield, we had spent countless hours in the wilds, lying motionless, waiting, just like we were doing then. In the early days, my targets had been javelina, deer, and coyotes. Those initial hunts were organized so Mike could teach me the basics. He figured since animals had better senses, better instincts, and are generally more perceptive than humans, if I could get close to them, I could get the drop on a man with no problem. Mike’s lessons took hold quickly, and it was not long before he decided I was ready for phase two.
Next, he began setting up targets in open fields and had me try to shoot them while he watched for me through a spotting scope. By the time I was fourteen, I could consistently fire two shots on target undetected from two-hundred yards.
When I could do it from eighty yards, Mike decided it was time to up the ante with mock sniper duels.
I took on all of them: Mike, Dad, Tyrel, and Blake. Even a few of their students who wanted to try their luck against me. We would start on opposite ends of various landscapes in the Texas hill country, make our way to one of three pre-established destinations, and try to spot the other guy in the distance. If we did, we fired at a steel target hung above and away from them to stop the match. If the shooter hit the right target, he then had to walk a spotter via radio to where the other sniper lay hidden. If he was successful, he won. If not, we reset and started over. The match went on until one of us was victorious, or it grew too late and we had to call it.
Mike was the only guy I never beat.
He taught me, after all, so he knew all my tricks.
The others, I had much better luck with. Which is not to say I bested them on a consistent basis—I didn’t—but I got them enough times to know my skills were well above average.
So despite the heat, and the smell of charred wood clogging my nose, and the slowly building pressure in my bladder, I lay still and watched. Mike did the same, but he was not as still as I. There was the occasional twitch and fidget and shift of torso, a surplus of unnecessary movement. The untrained eye would never have seen it, but to someone who had seen Mike lie still as a stone for hours on end, it was like watching him pace around wringing his hands. After a while, I grew tired of it.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Huh?”
“Something’s bothering you. What is it?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
“Bullshit.”
There was a rustle of fabric as he turned his head. “I’m fine.”
“Mike …”
“Okay. You want to know what’s on my mind? I’ll tell you.” He leaned close so he was right next to my ear. “Did you fuck my daughter, Caleb?”
My face turned to ice. “Um …”
“Well?”
“I wouldn’t put it in those terms, exactly.”
“So you fucked her.”
“Mike, it wasn’t like that.” I met his gaze, and what I saw there made me want to back away slowly and avoid sudden movements. It hurt to see it; Mike was almost as much a father to me as my real one. I blurted out, “I love her, Mike.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Caleb, you’re only eighteen. You don’t know what love is.”
“Look, maybe I haven’t been around the block like you have, but I know how I feel. You talk about what’s between me and Sophia like it’s some sordid, tawdry thing. It’s not. We care about each other. I’ve had feelings for her a long time, and she told me she feels the same way. We just never said anything to each other about it.”
Mike looked at me again, much of the hardness gone from his gaze. “Do you really care about her, Caleb? You’re not just taking advantage of her?”
“What? No, Mike. I would never do that. You know that.”
“She’s been under a lot of stress lately. That kind of thing can make a girl vulnerable, make her do things she normally wouldn’t.”
“I told you, Mike. I would never do that to her, or any other girl for that matter.”
He sighed and turned his face back down the hill. “Sorry, son. I didn’t mean to … listen you have to understand what it’s been like for me all these years. Guys have been coming after Sophia since she was eleven years old. Fuckin’ hordes of them, an endless parade. All this time, it was all I could do to keep her from ending up like my mom—barefoot and pregnant with me by the time she was sixteen. I don’t want that to happen to Sophia.” 
“You don’t think she’s smart enough to keep that from happening?”
“I think she’s a kid,” Mike said. “I think she’s made some bad decisions along the way. The partying, the drugs, the crowd she hangs out with … well, used to hang out with, anyway. For a while there, I thought I was gonna lose her.”
“But you didn’t, Mike. She did some crazy teenager shit like most teenagers do, and she got over it.”
“You didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“Do a bunch of crazy teenager shit.”
I gave a small shrug. “I’m not like most teenagers.”
Mike laughed slightly. “Yeah. I guess not.” He grabbed the field glasses and peered down the hill again, sweeping slowly from left to right. I lay next to him, chin on my hands, thinking about Sophia. Enough time passed that I thought he had dropped the subject, so when he spoke, it startled me.
“I guess if there’s any guy I would want her to end up with,” he said. “It’d be you, Caleb. Just make sure you take good care of her.”
I looked at him, surprised. There was a lump in my throat, and a blurry stinging touched the backs of my eyes. I had to swallow a few times before I could speak. “Thanks, Mike. That means a lot to me.”
He grunted and continued staring down the hill. We left it at that.
Nothing much happened in the settlement below as the sun stretched the shadows into afternoon. I was beginning to consider suggesting we head back and get the others when I heard the sound of a car approaching.
“Hand me the eyes,” Mike said. He had given me the field glasses so he could take a rest. I passed them back.
We watched a car pull up to the compound, a GMC pickup, loaded with supplies, two people seated in the cab. It stopped in front of a low-rider Cadillac that served as the settlement’s main gate. Two men climbed over the Caddy and approached the truck. There followed a brief conversation, then one of the people in the truck handed something to a man at the gate. He ran into the main enclosure, disappeared into an RV, and came back out with a small box in his hands. After handing the box to the man in the truck, there was a quick round of conversation—thank-you-and-goodbye by the look of it—and the truck was off.
“Huh,” Mike said.
“Yeah.”
“Looked friendly enough.”
“Sure did. I’m thinking I might have an idea.”
The big Marine glanced at me warily. “Caleb …”
“What? These people might be able to help us. And I’m a lot less scary looking than you. Besides, if anything goes wrong, you’ll be up here on overwatch.”
He thought it over. “All right. But approach from the road. If things turn bad, signal me by scratching your right ear with your left hand. Got it?”
“Right ear, left hand. Got it.”

*****

I let them see me coming a long way off.
After backing down from the shallow hillside, I circled around in defilade and emerged at the base of another hill, standing on highway 281. The lookouts at the settlement didn’t see me until I topped the rise and skylined myself.
I could see them in the distance, eyes peering through binoculars, rifles hung over their shoulders, faint echoes reaching me as they called to one another. Their posture seemed neither aggressive nor overly relaxed. They wanted to make it clear they were aware of my approach, but had no plans to get in my way.
I stopped in front of the Cadillac—a purple one, lots of after-market modifications, barely four inches off the ground—and waved at a guard standing atop an RV.
“Hello.”
The man nodded in my direction. He was a little shorter than me, heavyset, late thirties, big bushy moustache. He said, “Howdy.”
“Don’t suppose you have any water in there, do you?”
“Depends. What you got to trade?”
“What are you looking for?”
He reached in his back pocket and pulled out a list. As he did, a light wind kicked up, sending streamers of ash across the soot-stained parking lot. “Got any feminine hygiene products?”
“Um, no.”
“Antibiotics?”
“Sorry.”
“Pain medicine?”
“Afraid not.”
“Toilet paper?”
“No.”
 “Booze?”
I chuckled at that one. “No.”
He stuffed the list back in his pocket. “Well, I guess that just leaves ammo.”
I patted the mag pouches on my vest. “I can spare some five-five-six and nine-mil.”
“How many rounds?”
“That depends. How much water are we talking about?”
One corner of the man’s mouth twitched upward. “You’re pretty sharp for a young fella.” He made a motion over the Caddy. “Come on in. Just hop right over the car there.”
As I obeyed, the guard turned and shouted to someone I couldn’t see. My feet hit the opposite side of the gate just in time to see several men and two women emerge from RVs, all carrying weapons. My hand tightened on the grip of my rifle, but I stayed relaxed, letting it dangle from its tactical sling. If things went south, after I signaled Mike, the rifle would be a distraction. While all eyes were focused on it, I would quick-draw my pistol and start gunning people down. At this range, the sidearm would be easier to bring to bear.
“What’s your name?” one of the men said. Tall, about my height, salt-and-pepper hair, mid to late forties, strong build, moved and spoke like a cop. By the way the others gravitated toward him, I figured him for the leader.
“Caleb Hicks,” I said, seeing no harm in giving my real name.
“Who are you with?” The man said, coming to a halt a few feet in front of me. His tone was not entirely hostile, just authoritarian, like he was accustomed to being answered when he posed a question, and being answered quickly.
“Me, myself, and I,” I said, looking around casually. “What is this place?”
“I’ll ask the questions.” I returned my gaze to him. He had dark brown eyes, focused and intense.
“What are you doing here?”
“Passing through. I need some water.” I lowered a hand slowly to my canteen and gave it a shake. It made a light splashing sound, indicating it was almost empty. I had actually drank most of it earlier, planning to use the empty canteen as an excuse for approaching the settlement. “Came across a house a day ago that hadn’t burned down, found a few liters left in the hot water heater. But I’ve just about worked through it by now. If you have any to spare, I’m more than happy to trade for it. Can’t drink bullets, after all.”
“Where are you coming from?”
I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. “San Antonio. Or what’s left of it, anyway. When Houston went up like a road flare, I saw the writing on the wall. The highways were choked by then, so I left on foot. Had to hide out from the fires for a while, and now I’m trying to make my way to Colorado.”
The man looked from me to the guard standing on top of the RV. “We don’t normally let people inside the gate,” he said pointedly.
“Aw, come on, Travis,” the guard replied. “He’s just a kid. Stop being so damn paranoid and let him have some water. We got plenty, for Christ’s sake.”
The leader, Travis, glared a moment longer, then returned his attention to me. “I suppose Jerry’s right. Leave your rifle and your sidearm at the gate, then go with Mabel here.” He gestured to a frumpy, fiftyish woman behind him. “She’ll get you some water.”
Travis walked off and disappeared into his RV. The others with him cast me a final, curious glance and then did the same. Mabel stepped closer, offering a doughy hand. I shook it.
“Nice to meet you Caleb.”
“Same to you, ma’am.”
“You’ll have to forgive Travis. He’s a good man, but a bit overprotective.”
Jerry climbed down from the RV and took my carbine and pistol, but didn’t ask for my ammo. Mabel began walking toward the gas station in the center of the ring of campers. I followed a few feet behind.
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
“Well, let’s see … it’s been a little over a month since what happened in Houston. Most everyone around these parts evacuated long before then. There were a bunch of us came up from San Antonio with the National Guard. Stopped here for gas, but while the soldiers were fueling up their trucks, they got orders to head back south. Commanding officer apologized, but said he had no choice.”
“So they just left you here?”
She nodded. “Sure did.”
“You don’t sound angry.”
“My husband was a soldier, God rest his soul. I know what orders are. Besides, we had Travis. He organized us, had us scavenge around for food, medicine, weapons, things like that. It was his idea to circle the campers and fill ‘em in with dirt. Does a good job of keeping the infected out.”
Mabel led me behind the gas station to an old-fashioned hand pump. She put a small metal bucket beneath it and began pumping out water. “Back about a week ago, some folks got together and decided they couldn’t stay in this place any longer. Said it was unsustainable. I believe that was the word the fella eggin’ ‘em on used. Name was Thornton, used to be a state senator. Slimy little snake of a man. Convinced all those folks to head west for Arizona. Said there was some kind of bunker out there he knew about, place where they were taking a bunch of folks part of some secret government project. Sounded like a bunch o’ hooey to me, and I told him as much. So did Travis, and those other folks you see here. But they wouldn’t listen. Lit out, and took most of our food with ‘em. God only knows if they made it or not.”She finished pumping the water and held up the bucket. I tilted the mouth of my canteen beneath it and held it steady while she poured. 
“Seen anyone else come through?” I asked. “Travelers, other survivors, the military, anything like that?”
“Had a few folks pass through, lookin’ to trade, most of ‘em wantin’ bullets or water or both. Offerin’ food or whatever else they had. Travis don’t normally allow folks inside the wall. I imagine him and Jerry will have words about it later.”
When my canteen was full, Mabel withdrew the water bucket. “How about ten rounds of rifle ammo?” she said.
I cocked an eyebrow at her. “How about four. Looks like you won’t be running out of water any time soon.”
She smiled. “Five?”
“Deal.”
I pulled a mag from a carrier, counted out the cartridges, and handed them to her. “Thanks, Mabel. Best of luck to you.”
“Same to you, darlin’. Be careful out there.”
“Always.”
She stayed by the pumps as I walked back toward the gate. I looked around along the way, trying to get a sense of the place. There were almost as many campers forming the perimeter as people, a solid white wall dotted at regular intervals with shatterproof glass. The residents themselves milled about in various states of solemn dejection, dust in their hair, eyes squinting under the hot sun as they stared at me from under hat brims and outstretched hands, a few of them lucky enough to be sporting sunglasses. Glancing to my right, I saw the dirty faces of a few pre-teen children pressed against a window trying to get a better look at me. The closer I came to the center of the enclosure, the more acutely I felt the weight of all those staring eyes. The attention was disconcerting.
I had hoped the people here could offer us some measure of assistance, but from what I could see, they needed help more than we did. It would probably best for my group if we just bypassed this place altogether.
About ten feet from the gate, Travis’ voice stopped me. “Mr. Hicks,” he said. “Might I have a word with you for a moment?”
I turned and squinted. The sun was at his back, forcing me to shield my eyes to see him. “What about?”
“Please, it’ll only take a minute or two.”
I didn’t move. “So come out here and let’s talk.”
He stepped down from his RV and approached, hands held out to the sides. His gun was notably absent from its holster. A few steps brought him around so I didn’t have to squint to see him. “I just have a few questions for you, and I would prefer to ask them in private. It will only take a few minutes of your time. After that, you can be on your way.”
I read his face. He looked calm, radiating sincerity, but there was an intensity in his eyes I didn’t like, an unblinking steadiness that made the hair on my neck stand up. Falling back on my training, I did a quick assessment.  
He wasn’t armed, but that didn’t mean anything. He still wielded the most dangerous weapon of all—authority. All he had to do was shout, and I was a dead man. I could decline and try to leave, but if he decided to press the issue, things would escalate. And out here in the open, with only my knife and hand-to-hand combat skills, I didn’t stand a chance. Not unless I got extraordinarily lucky, and I was not about to bet my life on luck.
My left hand twitched as I thought about reaching up and casually scratching my right ear. I could see where my rifle and pistol lay on the ground only a few feet away, Jerry standing next to them. He seemed oblivious to the tension between Travis and me, but he could be faking it for all I knew. If I gave the signal, it would be the end of Travis’ life, and the shock factor would very likely buy me the time I needed to cross the distance to Jerry, incapacitate him, and retrieve my weapons.
But what then?
My best bet would be to run for the southeast side of the encampment, staying low and hugging the wall of campers, and serpentine my way through the dead trees there, hoping none of the residents here were expert marksmen. I knew I could count on Mike to cover me and take out anyone who stuck their head up too far once I was outside the gate.
But did it really need to come to that? What if Travis sincerely just wanted to ask a few questions and send me on my way? Furthermore, if he tried to break bad on me, we would be in the confines of his camper at hand-to-hand range. Travis was strong looking, but I’m no weakling, and I sincerely doubted he could match my skill level in a strand-up fight. Few people I had ever met could.
I was also still at the point in my life I thought it was best to avoid bloodshed whenever possible. I have since become a far less sentimental person, but at the time, I conceded, thinking it was the sensible thing to do.
“Lead the way,” I said, holding a hand toward Travis’ RV.
He walked ahead of me a few feet and disappeared through the door. I followed him in, blinking at the sudden dimness of the camper’s interior. If the afternoon had been overcast instead of blindingly bright, I would have noticed him hurrying to the small table in the kitchenette sooner. But my eyes were still adjusting, and by the time I blinked away the sickly green film obscuring my vision, I found myself staring down the barrel of a .45 automatic.
“Where are the others?” he asked.
I blinked in confusion. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Don’t bullshit me kid. We both know you didn’t come here alone.”
My hands came up to shoulder level, palms out. “Listen, I don’t-”
“Do you want to know what I did before all this happened?” he interrupted, tilting his head at the wasteland outside the window.
“Is that a rhetorical question?”
He frowned, shifting the gun so he held it at hip level. “I was a detective with the San Antonio Police Department.”
“Okay. So if you’re a cop, why are you threatening me with a gun right now?”
“Because a detective notices things. Take your boots, for example.”
I looked down and felt a twist in my stomach. I knew what he was about to say, but it hadn’t occurred to me until just that second what a gaping hole they put in my cover story. 
“They’re too new,” he said. “They fit you perfectly, which means you bought them from a store, not found them along the way. There’s no way you crossed all those miles between here and San Antonio with no more wear and tear than that.” He gestured at my feet with the gun.
There was a moment of silence. I got the impression he was waiting for me to say something, an old cop trick. I didn’t take the bait. Finally, he said, “Then there’s your face. You’re not tan enough. If you had been out in the sun these past couple of weeks, you’d be brown as a strip of bacon. Not to mention you’re clean-shaven.”
He took a couple of steps closer, but stayed out of arm’s reach. “Now tell me, kid. Why does a man facing the prospect of dehydration waste precious water on something as unnecessary as shaving?”
My mind raced. The barrel of Travis’ gun was only forty-five hundredths of an inch wide, but from my perspective, it may as well have been the size of the moon. I kept my hands up and eased back a step.
“Don’t move again,” Travis growled.
“Okay, fine,” I said, playing for time. “Just take your finger off the trigger, okay?”
“No. I asked you some questions, boy. If you want to leave this place alive, you better start answering them.”
“Okay, I will, I’ll answer all your questions. All I ask is you take your finger off the trigger. Just so you don’t shoot me by accident.”
I was scared at this point, and didn’t have to fake the tremor of fear in my voice. Travis glared a moment longer, then eased his finger off the trigger, keeping his fingertip poised just above it. “There, happy now?”
“Thank you.”
“You’re very fucking welcome. Now talk.”
I took a deep breath. “When I left San Antonio, I had two pairs of boots,” I said. “One of them wore out. This is my second pair. That’s why they look so new.”
Travis seemed to consider this. He made a small motion with the gun. “What about your skin?”
“I had a hat, but I lost it a couple of days ago. There are a couple of bottles of SPF 70 in my backpack, the spray-on stuff. It only takes a little bit once or twice a day. I put it on my face and hands. My clothes protect the rest.”
It was true I had the sunblock, but I had only used a little of it. The part about the hat was a lie, but there was no way for him to verify that. My clothes did indeed cover most of my exposed skin, being that my shirt was long-sleeved, and I was glad I had not rolled the sleeves up.
I waited for Travis to say something, but he remained silent. His expression was stoic, but I thought I detected a hint of uncertainty in his posture. “As for my beard,” I went on, “I hardly ever have to shave. When it starts to grow out, I smear it with olive oil and shear it off with a straight razor. Doesn’t require water, just a cloth to wipe the razor on.”
“And I suppose if I search your backpack I’ll find a bottle of olive oil and a straight razor?” Travis asked.
“You will.” It was true. I carried the oil as part of my fire-starting kit, and the straight razor had been a gift from Blake when I turned fourteen. I kept it for sentimental reasons.
Travis’ expression softened, growing regretful. He lowered the .45 and took a few steps back until the kitchen table was between us. “Okay. Sounds plausible enough. If you would be so kind as to empty your backpack.”
I almost did it, then remembered the two grenades and the radio within and kicked myself for bringing them along. Should have left them behind, idiot. What the fuck did you think you would need them for?
If Travis searched my bag, the game was up. I lowered my hands. “What the hell for?”
“So I can verify you’re telling the truth.”
“Fuck you, cop.” I said, growing angry. “I'm not letting you search my shit.”
His eyes narrowed, his face darkening in anger. “What’s wrong, kid? Got something to hide?”
“Me? What about you, motherfucker? Why are we doing this bullshit in here and not out there?” I pointed out the window at the courtyard in the center of the compound. Something crossed Travis’ face, just a flicker, but it was all the confirmation I needed.
“What’s the matter, don’t want those people out there to know what you’re doing in here?” I started backing toward the doorway. “Why do I get the feeling they wouldn’t approve of you shaking me down for no good reason?”
Travis squared off with me, but kept the gun at his side. “Stop where you are, kid. Don’t take another step.”
“You know what,” I said, affecting a tone of indignation, “I already answered your questions. I’m done explaining myself to you. It’s time for me to go. You want to stop me? Shoot me.” And with that, I turned my back and began walking toward the exit.
“Stop!” Travis shouted. I ignored him and kept walking, not hurrying my pace. The kind of thing a man would do when he felt he had done nothing wrong. As the light through the doorway grew brighter, I felt a burning, itching sensation between my shoulder blades. I wondered what it would feel like if a .45 hollow point mushroomed against my spine before blowing my heart out through my sternum. Would there be pain, or would there just be an impact, a moment of breathlessness, and then darkness?
Luckily, I didn’t have to find out. The doorway came and went and there was no thunder of large-caliber death along the way. I stomped angrily toward the main gate, head down, stride determined. Behind me, I heard Travis scramble after me.
“I told you to stop!”
“I told you to go fuck yourself.”
“Jerry, don’t let him out of the gate.”
The guard who had been so kind to me earlier obeyed immediately and aimed his rifle at my chest. I stopped. 
“What the fuck, Jerry?”
“Just doin’ my job, kid.”
Footsteps crunched behind me, then stopped. “Listen,” Travis said. “Just calm down, okay? There’s no need for this to go any further. Just let me search your pack. If you’re telling the truth, this whole thing will be over with and you’ll be free to go.”
I looked around and saw people begin to emerge from campers and stand up from seats in the shade. They wandered closer, eyes wide, no doubt wondering what all the excitement was about. Slowly, I turned and faced Travis, once again forced to squint against the sun’s glare. Shading my eyes with my right hand, I could see his pistol was holstered, but his fingers dangled close to the grip, the retaining strap unbuttoned.
Slimy son of a bitch.
“This is the last time I’m going to tell you, kid,” he said. “Drop the bag.”
I shook my head. “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen.”
My right ear didn’t itch, but I reached up with my left hand and scratched it anyway.

Excerpt from The Darkest Place: A Surviving the Dead Novel

THE CAR WAS a 1998 Honda Accord.
Price: $2500.00. Odometer reading: 98, 319.
I could not have cared less about the mileage. After five summers at the Lazy J Ranch, and weekends mowing lawns around the neighborhood, and afternoons swapping bullet riddled paper targets at Black Wolf Tactical for five bucks an hour, it was mine. And any excuse to go for a ride was fine by me—a fact Lauren had no qualms about taking advantage of.
Caleb, could you run to the grocery store and pick up some milk?
Sure.
Would you mind taking this package to the post office for me?
Not a problem.
Your dad forgot his lunch. Could you take it to him, please?
Be glad to.
I don’t think I ever said no. The day it happened, I wished I had. But not for me.
For Lauren.
It was early in the afternoon on a warm, pleasant Tuesday in May. She had sent me to the dry cleaners to pick up the dress she had worn to her friend Nancy’s baby shower. Mary Sue Lewellen, who my stepmother liked not at all, had spilled a glass of pinot noir on her cream-colored Burberry London. Afterward, there followed the requisite gasp of surprise, and a round of horrified apologies, and graceful forgiving noises on Lauren’s part, and her landing a real stinger when Mary Sue suggested she would buy a replacement.
“Oh no, honey,” Lauren said, smiling sweetly. “I wouldn’t want to put you out. Stan’s tire shop went under last month, didn’t it? Just save that money, sweetie. I’m sure you need it more than I do.”
So I took my time that day. I stopped at a gas station to fill up even though the tank was only a little over half empty. I bought a Slim-Jim and ate it as I cruised down the mostly empty streets. The little Vietnamese lady who owned the dry cleaning business recognized me and we had a short, pleasant chat. I paid with the twenty-dollar bill Lauren gave me, pocketed the change, then carefully hung her dress from a plastic hook above the back seat.
As I neared home, I had a strong feeling something wasn’t right. The front door was shut even though it was only seventy-five degrees that day. When the weather was cool enough, Lauren always opened every window in the house and held the doors open with wooden stops, leaving the screen doors latched to keep bugs out. She loved the scent of a warm spring breeze as it aired out the stuffiness leftover from winter. I tried to remember if I had shut the front door out of habit when I left, and decided no, I hadn’t.
So what was it doing closed?
Rather than slowing down, I kept going, circled the block, and parked on a street parallel to my house. After killing the engine, I hesitated for a moment, wondering if I was being paranoid.
There’s no such thing as paranoid, my father’s voice told me. It never hurts to be extra careful. If something doesn’t look right, it probably isn’t.
I could have credited the closed front door to an absentminded mistake on Lauren’s part, but that didn’t fit her patterns. She was a meticulous, detail-oriented woman. She folded all the towels in the bathrooms exactly the same way, her car went through the carwash every Saturday morning, weather permitting. She never missed an appointment. The spices in the kitchen were stored in identical little tins with magnets on them, stuck to the refrigerator, each one labeled in Lauren’s neat, precise handwriting. Each pair of shoes had assigned parking on the closet rack, her CD collection was in alphabetical order, and she never left a room without turning off the lights. Why would someone like that open every window in the house and then shut the front door by mistake? Why would she walk by and leave it shut if it wasn’t her habit to do so?
The answer was obvious: she wouldn’t.
Something had to be wrong.
I didn’t have a gun or a knife, not even the Gerber pocketknife I usually carried. I pondered my options for a moment, then popped the trunk, lifted the thick piece of cardboard under the upholstery, and took the lug wrench from beneath the spare tire—a heavy, L-shaped hunk of steel about the length of my forearm.
Better than nothing.
I tightened my belt and slid the lug wrench into my waistband. Once I was satisfied it wouldn’t fall out, I got moving.
The thought occurred to me to knock on a neighbor’s door and try to call Dad, but most people in the neighborhood were at school or work at that hour. And even if someone was home, how long would it take to get Dad on the line? What if he was at the range with a class? Even if I told whoever answered the phone it was an emergency, it would take a minimum of twenty minutes before Dad could get home.
Not fast enough.
So I hurried to the Taylors’ house, whose backyard shared a border with ours along a tall wooden privacy fence. There was an entrance on my side of the street, latched, but easily defeated by inserting a thin twig between the slats and lifting. I shut the gate behind me, crouched low, and crept into the Taylors’ yard hoping no one was home.
The backyard was empty except for the Taylors’ patio, a stainless steel grill, and a hammock off to my left. I stayed close to the edge of the fence and crouch-walked to the far side, watching the windows and straining my ears. There was no movement, but I thought I heard a thump in one of the upstairs rooms followed by a muffled shout.

The fence was over six feet tall, with sharp points atop the slats and 2x4 crossbeams between the support posts. I gripped the V between two slats, stepped up on a crossbeam, and leapt as high as I could. My feet cleared the fence as I did a 360 in mid-air and landed in a three-point stance. Looking up, I could see the inner part of the back door was open, but the screen section was latched shut.
Above me, I heard a whimper and the dull thud of flesh striking flesh.
The urge to run into the house was strong, but as it has many times since that day, my training took over. I knew it was stupid to run into a building of any kind when I didn’t know what was waiting for me inside. So I drew the lug wrench from my belt and took position beside the back door. A quick peek around the corner revealed the kitchen was empty, so using flat end of the wrench, I cut a hole in the flimsy screen and carefully undid the latch.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I turned the handle, opened the door, and waited. There were a few more thumping sounds from upstairs, but nothing else.
I stepped inside, lug wrench raised over my shoulder, ready to swing or throw it in an instant. My shoes made almost no sound on the laminate floor as I crossed the kitchen and turned the corner to the living room. Just inside the front door, the foyer table was overturned, the lamp atop it broken on the ground, and several family pictures along the wall had been knocked askew.
On the floor, a blood trail traced across the living room carpet and up the stairs.
Cold rage burned low in my stomach. I stepped back into the kitchen, closed my eyes, and breathed in through my nose, out through my mouth.
In through the nose, out through the mouth.
Think, dammit.
In through the nose, out through the mouth.  
Assessment: There is an intruder in the house, possibly more than one. Assume they are armed. They have Lauren, and she is most likely injured. Secure the house, then immediately call for police and medical assistance.
Dad had stashed firearms in five different places throughout the house. I was guessing Lauren had been attacked and subdued before she could get to one. The closest was a pistol under the kitchen sink, a CZ-75 9mm automatic. I grabbed a bottle of olive oil from the counter, rubbed some of it into the cupboard hinges to keep them from squeaking, and opened the door just enough to reach inside. After a bit of feeling around, my fingers grazed the pistol’s checkered grip. The holster did not have a retaining strap, just a thumb paddle, so I pressed it and drew the weapon. After checking to make sure there was a round in the chamber, I thumbed the safety off and headed for the stairwell.
Ascending stairs is one of the worst tactical situations a person can face. Your enemy has the high ground and multiple angles of attack, whereas the person going up the stairs has a limited range of motion and no cover. The best way to handle it is to keep your weapon up and move quickly, covering as many vectors as you can. 
The carpeted stairs were mercifully quiet. I kept my weight close to the wall to avoid making the steps creak. Once at the top, I checked my corners and crouch-walked toward my parents’ bedroom. The door was shut, but from behind it, I could hear a low moan and a sound like fabric tearing. The rage in my gut soared to a crescendo.
I pressed my ear gently to the door and listened. More sounds of fabric ripping. My stepmothers voice, speech slurred, a plaintive tone.
The lug wrench was still poised over my left shoulder, my right hand holding the gun. There was no way to know how many intruders I was facing or how well they were armed. But what I did know was that Lauren was in there, she was hurt, and I was the only person in a position to do anything about it. Equal parts rage and fear coursed through me as I took a half step back, lunged forward, and slammed a kick just left of the door handle.
The door burst open hard enough to crack the drywall behind it. I stepped into the room and darted my eyes from one side to the other. My parents’ bed was to the left, a dresser and Lauren’s jewelry stand against the wall to my right. Lauren lay flat on the bed, gagged and bound hand and foot with duct tape.
There were two intruders, Caucasian males, one young, maybe early twenties, the other in his mid to late forties. Both wore identical blue polo shirts and tan slacks with dark brown dress shoes—the kind of thing a door-to-door salesman might wear on a temperate spring day. One crouched to my right, rooting through Lauren’s jewelry stand, while the other sat astride Lauren’s hips, ripping away at her blouse. Pale pink fabric lay in tatters on the bed around them, one side of her bra torn away to reveal her small right breast. Both men looked up in almost comical surprise as I entered the room.
Without hesitation, I hurled the lug wrench in a straight overhand toss. By good fortune, the flat end hit the man astride Lauren full in the mouth, causing the lower half of his face to explode in a crimson burst of blood and broken teeth. He let out an inarticulate cry of agony and toppled backward off the bed.
The other man saw the gun and lunged.
It is hard to describe what happens to you in situations like that. The adrenaline rush, the taste of copper on the back of your tongue, the tunnel vision, the way the world goes gray around the edges, the sound of your heart hammering in your ears, the way everything happens in the course of seconds but there are so many details.
I once heard a commercial where a coach exhorted to his team how life was a game of inches. How the small distances—the space between a receivers hand and a football, how close a soccer ball rolls toward the goal line, whether a boxer’s punch connects with his opponent’s chin or empty air—those tiny gaps, or lack thereof, make the difference between victory and defeat.
In mortal combat, they make the difference between life and death.
The intruder crossed the space between us in less than a second, hands outstretched toward my gun. But as fast as his legs propelled him across the room, my trigger finger was faster.
The first shot went low, striking him in the abdomen. I’m not sure if he even felt it, he didn’t make a sound, but by then he was halfway across the room. I raised my aim to avoid his grasping hands and fired again the instant before he hit me. He was shorter than me, but heavier, his weight enough to send both of us tumbling into the hallway. I had the presence of mind hook my instep under his thigh as we went down, and by rolling with the fall and thrusting with my arms and legs, I flipped his body up and over me. He landed flat on the floor, the air whooshing out of his lungs.
I twisted on the ground, brought my gun to bear, and fired twice into his chest at point blank range. In the fraction of a second it took me to fire, I realized I was wasting ammo—there was a neat nine-millimeter hole in his forehead.
The hollow point slug had mushroomed upon impact and excavated a fist-sized chunk of brain and skull from the back of his head. Blood flowed from the wound like water from a faucet, and for a second or two, all I could do was stare in horrid fascination. Then I heard a curse and a thump from the bedroom.
Wake up! You’re not out of danger.
Just as I rolled flat on my back to face the doorway, a gunshot rang out. I could see the other man kneeling on the ground, one hand over his ruined mouth, the other holding a snub-nosed revolver. His shot went wide, smashing one into the drywall to my left and dusting my face with white powder. The floating grit forced me to close one eye.
With my legs pressed flat to the ground to avoid shooting them, I fired four times. The first three shots caught the intruder center of mass, causing him to jerk violently with the impacts. The last one went wide and perforated the wall behind him. His gun fell from nerveless fingers as he slumped over, coughing out a bright spray of blood. Wide, surprised eyes stared at me for an eternity of seconds, then went blank. The intruders face slackened just before I heard his bowels let go.  
Then there was silence.
I lay on the ground, eyes stinging from the drywall dust, my own harsh breath grating in my ears. The three white dots on the CZ’s sights stayed lined up on the intruder’s chest, finger tight on the trigger. I switched the gun to my right hand and used my left to stand up. The intruder’s corpse shuddered a few times as I approached, but soon went still. To my left, I heard Lauren groan.
I ran to her side and looked her over. One eye was badly swollen, and there was a nasty split on her lower lip. But aside from a few scrapes and scratches from where her blouse had been torn away, I couldn’t find any other injuries. Gently, I tapped her on the cheek and said her name. Her eyes rolled, then fluttered, then looked at me and began to focus.
“Caleb?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Lauren. Are you hurt?”
“My head…” One of her hands gingerly touched the swelling around her left eye. I grabbed it and put it back down at her side.
“How bad is it?”
“One of them…hit me…”
Her eyes aren’t tracking. Concussion. She needs an ambulance.
“Listen, Lauren. How many of them were there? Was it just the two, or were there more?”
“Just two, I think.” Her voice was getting stronger.
“Okay, just stay here. Try not to move, okay? I’ll be right back.”
I did a quick sweep of the house and found no other intruders. Before going back upstairs, I called 911 and explained the situation, requesting police and an ambulance.
“Are the intruders still in the house?” The dispatcher’s voice was female, older sounding, but firm and confident.
“Yes ma’am. Two of them. They’re both dead.”
A pause. “Are you sure?”
“Yes ma’am. One of them took a shot to the head, and the other one took three slugs to the heart. I checked them both for a pulse.”
“Did either one of them have a pulse?”
“No ma’am.”
“And you were the one who shot them?”
“Yes. I already told you that.”
“Do you still have the weapon?”
“Yes. I’m going to unload it and put it on the coffee table in the living room.”
“Okay, I’ll let the responding officers know. Are there any other weapons in the house?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Have you dispatched an ambulance yet?”
“Yes, I have. They’re on the way. Can you stay on the line with me until they get there?”
“How long until they get here?”
“I’m not sure, honey. They’re on the way, though. It shouldn’t be long.”
“I’m going upstairs and staying with my stepmom until they get here.”
“That’s fine, honey, just try not to move her, okay?”
I bit back an irritated retort; I probably had more first responder training than the paramedics answering my call. “Okay,” I said. “I”ll be careful.”
I knelt next to the bed and held Lauren’s hand, trying to keep her talking. Perhaps three minutes later, I heard sirens coming down the street. I went outside, flagged them down, and showed them where to find Lauren. I’ll never forget the look on their faces when they saw the bullet-riddled corpses of the intruders.
“Jesus Christ, kid,” one of them said, a big Hispanic guy. His nametag read Ortez. “You did all this?”
I nodded.
Ortez went to look over Lauren while his partner, a pretty blond woman with brown eyes and strong, useful looking arms, checked the corpses for signs of life. When she finished, she stepped in front of me and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. Despite her outward calm, she positioned her feet like a fighter and there was a touch of wariness in her eyes.
“Can you wait downstairs for the police to get here, please?” she said. “Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of your mom.”
I thought about correcting her that Lauren was my stepmother, but decided against it. I simply nodded and went outside to wait.
Sitting there on the front porch, I thought about that hole in the drywall next to my head, and remembered something my dad once told me about marksmanship and ballistics. I think I was maybe eight or nine at the time, and we were eating kabobs at an outdoor picnic table at a bar-b-que place near downtown.
“Here’s something you need to understand about ballistics, son,” he said as he slid the meat and vegetables off a kabob and pointed it at the sky. “Here’s where you are when you’re shooting.” He pointed at the bottom of the kabob. “And here’s the bullet.” His finger touched the tip. “Any little movement on this side here at the bottom translates to a much larger movement here at the end.” He pivoted the kabob from left to right like the striker on a metronome. Looking at it that way, I understood the concept. A fraction of an inch of movement at the bottom of the kabob became several inches of movement at the pointy end.
“See what I’m saying, son?” he asked.
“Yeah, I think so. If I move just a little bit when I’m shooting, it doesn’t look like much, but the bullet is going to travel for hundreds of yards. That little movement of the barrel makes a big difference as to where the bullet ends up.”
Dad smiled. “That’s right.”
The guy who shot at me as maybe ten feet away when he pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the wall about ten inches to my left, and to hit at that angle, it must have traveled over and across my face from the right. Judging by where it punctured the wall, I figured it missed me by no more than three inches. If the intruder had aimed the barrel just a bit lower, or had the presence of mind to make a follow up shot, I would be the one dead and not him. And God only knows what would have happened to Lauren.
As the sirens grew louder and my hands began to shake, I remembered that commercial again, the one with the coach giving a speech to his team. The old fellow had it right.

Life really is a game of inches.

Century Mark

Today, I celebrate two milestones.
One is the third anniversary of when I started work on my first novel, No Easy Hope. I did not know it then, but when I sat down in my recliner that day, laptop perched on my knees, I was taking the first step on a path that would change my life in ways I never could have imagined.
However, taken by itself, this event is rather unremarkable. The simple passage of time was the only requirement necessary to reach this point. But when combined with the other milestone, and taking into account the auspicious coincidence that they both occurred on the same day, it is very remarkable indeed.
At some indeterminate point last night, the Surviving the Dead series sold its 100,000th copy.
I remember when No Easy Hope hit the 1000 copy mark. I was over the moon. When it hit 10,000 in June of 2012, I had to walk outside, put my hands on my knees, and take a few deep breaths. Then came the release of This Shattered Land, and a 30-day period when my work sold over 8000 copies, and a numb tingling in my face when I looked at the royalty statement.
Don’t even get me started on the Warrior Within release. I think I peed a little.
Now, don’t get me wrong-- I’m not bragging. I am not posting this to wave a proverbial hand in the air and say, “Look at me! Look at me! Look what I did!”
No.
I am posting this because it happened three years to the day from when I first embarked on my writing career. That’s pretty flippin’ unlikely, but it happened. And I’m very happy about it. I think anyone would be. And while 100K is not a big deal for the James Pattersons and Stephen Kings of the world, it’s a big deal to me.
What does this mean for the future? Not a thing, really. I still have to keep writing if I want to earn enough to do it full-time. I don’t get a special award. There will not be a plaque on my wall hereby certifying that James N. Cook is a legitimate writer and is entitled to all rights and privileges appertaining.
But it does give me a sense of validation, and a tremendous sense of gratitude. Without you, my readers, without all your encouragement and support, it never would have happened.
You people rock harder than Keith Richards on a cocaine bender. I mean it.

There are days when I doubt myself. When I put my head in my hands and mutter, “This is shit. I am shit. My work is stupid and pointless and people are going to hate it. I should call up my old supervisor and beg for my job back because I am not cut out for this. I am a pointless waste of human flesh, and I should end my existence for the betterment of mankind.”
When that happens, I look at my sales figures. I look at my author page on Facebook and read all the nice things you folks have said about me. I look at my books’ star ratings. I look at my author rank on Amazon.
More importantly, I remember that I did all this without benefit of an agent, editor, or publishing contract. Taken in that light, a hundred thousand copies is a significant accomplishment.
Which is not to say I did not have help along the way. Keary Taylor’s cover art did a lot for me. No matter how good a book is, if it never gets noticed, nobody buys it. Keary’s covers are bold, eye-catching, and look professional. I cannot overemphasize how important that is, or how important Keary’s art and advice have been to me.
From the bottom of my heart, Keary, thank you. Next time I’m in Seattle, I’m taking you and your family out to dinner.
I also hired some proofreaders along the way. Not editors, mind you. Proofreaders. Which is not to say they couldn’t have done the editing: they could have. But I am a control freak, so I did the content editing myself. The proofreaders spotted mistakes I didn’t catch and helped me polish up the finished product. They also taught me a lot about grammar along the way. To Courtney, Misti, and Lori, I am very grateful for your help.
So what now? What’s next? What’s the plan, Mr. Hundred-Thousand guy?
Well, today is Saturday, so I’m going to go do something fun with my wife and kid. Maybe throw some steaks on the grill later to celebrate. Same story for tomorrow (minus the steak). Monday? Back to work.
Speaking of.
I am taking a short break from the Surviving the Dead series. I know you’re all anxious for the next installment (at least I hope you are, anyway), but the thing is, I can’t just write about zombies for the rest of my life. If I want to have staying power in this business, I have to branch out. Therefore, my next project will be the first installment of the long-awaited Jeremiah Cain: Vampire Hunter series.
This will not take long. I have done a lot of planning, and I think I can write it in about ten weeks. Add another week or two for editing, and I should have it ready to go by late May or early June. Afterward, I’ll get started on the next Surviving the Dead novel. Then Gladiator of Corsryn. Then another Surviving the Dead novel. Then another Jeremiah Cain novel. Then … well, you get the idea.
So to all of you who have followed me on this journey, let me just say again how grateful I am to you, and I hope you come with me on future travels. Do me a favor and tell your friends about me, and tell them I’m a long way from finished. (Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.)
For now, on to the next novel. And, hopefully, the next hundred thousand. Maybe I’ll get there, maybe not. Either way, I’m not going to stop writing even if I don’t make a dime or sell another copy. Because I love writing.

And that’s all that matters.  

Front Matter

As you may be aware, I recently published an omnibus edition of the first three Surviving the Dead novels. However, if you are a long-time reader of the series, you probably did not purchase the omnibus edition because you already have those novels. Consequently, you are most likely not aware of the author's note I included at the beginning. So, to avoid depriving you of what I think is a warm and heartfelt introduction, I have decided to post it here to my blog.

At the very least, it will help you kill some time.

Enjoy.
  When I was twelve years old, I decided I wanted to be a writer.
I told my father about it, and I remember the look on his face when I did. The reaction I expected was a smile, a word of encouragement, perhaps a gentle punch on the shoulder.
That is not what I got.
My dad is a big man, possessed of gravitas, solemnity, and an intensely intelligent gaze. He has little patience for nonsense, and if you ask him for his opinion you had better be prepared for a strong dose of honesty. Because that is exactly what you are going to get. I knew this when I made my pronouncement, but in my boyish foolishness, I expected the old man to share my enthusiasm.
He did not.
Rather, he shuffled his feet a bit and focused on me, eyes narrowing, mouth twisting to the side. He took a step closer, his big workman’s hands moving to his hips, head tilting a little. It was his trademark stance of reluctance, the mannerism which told me that whatever he said next, I was not going to like it.
“Writing is fine, son,” he said. “But most writers don’t make very much money. It’s a tough business to break into. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try, or that you shouldn’t write, but you might want to do something else to pay the bills while you’re at it.”
My father is a practical man. Always has been. Which is understandable, considering he supported six people on a single income.
I let the matter drop until I was sixteen and facing the prospect of my senior year of high school. Unlike many of my peers, I had no plans after graduation. No job waiting for me, no real prospects to speak of, and no chance my parents would put up with me mooching off them for very long. So one bright summer day, I sat down and weighed my options.
The first thing I considered was college. I knew in order to get into a proper university, one needed good grades and a high SAT score. I had not yet taken the SAT, and my grades, at least until the second half of my junior year, were not very good.  I had been a lazy student for most of my scholastic career, doing the bare minimum necessary to get by.
Then, halfway through my junior year, I had an epiphany:
If I didn’t graduate on time, my dad was going to kill me.
So I started working harder, and in the space of about six weeks, went from being a C student to being on the honor roll. I practically floated when I showed my old man that first much-improved report card.
“I always knew you were smart, boy,” my father said, jabbing me in the chest with one thick finger. “Ever since seventh grade, your test scores have been in the stratosphere, but you always get Cs on your report card. Ain’t it amazing how much better your grades look when you get off your lazy ass and do your homework?”
I know. A beautiful father-son moment.
Anyway, despite my newfound diligence, the damage was done. Even if I could maintain my good grades all throughout my senior year, my GPA upon graduation would be, best case scenario, two point one.
Not exactly Ivy League material.
Compounding this difficulty was the fact that I had no money, no college fund, my father couldn’t afford to pay for my education, and my car was a piece of shit. Which meant I would have to start out at community college, find a part-time job, finance my education with student loans, and arrange transportation when my car broke down. Which it did, frequently.
College was out, at least for the time being.  
Okay, I thought. If I don’t go to college, I have to get a job.
But that wasn’t such a great option either. I lived between two small towns in rural North Carolina—which is to say, I lived in the middle of nowhere—and there wasn’t much work to be had. I could apply at the grocery store in Waxhaw, or try to find something over in Monroe, but how would I get back and forth?
Car a piece of shit. No public transportation. Maybe I can talk dad into helping me buy a better car?
I looked at the condition of his old red pickup truck. Scratched paint, busted side view mirror, rust on the fenders, tires nearly bald. He couldn’t even afford a better vehicle for himself, much less for  me. Not that I didn’t think he would do it; he most likely would have. But I didn’t want to create any more financial burdens for my father. The way I saw it, he had sacrificed enough for me and I was not about to ask him for anything else.
So what was I going to do?
I had not explored the military option yet, nor did I consider it at the time. It would be another seven months before I walked into the Navy recruiter’s office in Monroe and made a decision that would change my life forever. Before I would hold up my seventeen-year-old right hand, swear an oath, and feel the gravity of the situation begin to sink in.
What I did, rather, was climb into my 1985 Chevrolet Cavalier—blue, bald tires, crumpled left-front fender, hairline fracture in the windshield, broken spring in the driver’s seat that constantly poked me in the ass, suspicious stain in the back from the time I let my older brother borrow it to drive his girlfriend to work—and proceeded to one of my favorite places in the world.
The public library.
I found a book about publishing. It was written by a successful author whose name I forgot long ago. He laid it all out for me. Query letters, agents, publishing houses, editors, the contentious relationship between publishers and bookstores, the difficulties, the years of fruitless toil, the thousands of rejections, the heartache, the struggle to get noticed. And, finally, the sweet redemption of landing his first book deal.
For a lousy four-grand advance.
And a seven percent royalty.
After twenty years of trying.
I put the book back on the shelf, got in my car, and drove home. It would be fourteen years before I considered writing again.
So what changed, you ask? Why, after fourteen years, did I decide to take the plunge?
Kindle Direct Publishing. That’s why.
I learned about KDP after my wife bought me my first Kindle back in 2010, no too long after Amazon launched the KDP platform. I remember thinking to myself, so let me get this straight. No editors, no agents, no query letters, no publishing contracts, and no rejections. All I have to do is write the book, make a cover, and publish it.
What was I waiting for?
This decision was facilitated by a mini-crisis I was going through at the time. A crisis aptly titled, My Thirtieth Birthday. You see, my twenties just sort of flew by. I joined the Navy and did that for six years, got out, started college, found a job, finished college, fathered a child, and then one morning, out of nowhere, my twenties were over with.
 Gone. Finished.
And me standing around looking confused, vaguely pointing in the direction of those lost years mumbling, “What the hell happened here? I just turned twenty-one, like, three weeks ago. How am I thirty, now? Is this how all my birthdays are going to feel from now on?”
 In response to this anxiety, and as a way to try to control the uncontrollable, I took stock of my life. I reviewed all that I had accomplished up to that point. I thought of what I had done, what I wanted to do before I died—a prospect that seemed much more visceral and close that it once had—and I made a list.
I won’t bore you with the whole list, lest I engender your pity and contempt. But at the top of it, with a big number one beside it, were three words:
Write a book.
KDP. Thirtieth birthday. Lifelong dream. The unavoidable imminence of death.
I remember thinking, let’s do this.
And I did.
Ten months later, I published No Easy Hope. Seven months after that, This Shattered Land went live. Then Warrior Within. The Passenger. And now, well on its way to completion, Fire in Winter.
At the time of this writing, the Surviving the Dead series has sold over 89,000 copies in just over two years.
Burn Them All is next.
Then, Savages.
Gladiator of Corsryn.
Bronze Star.
And that’s just the next couple of years.
What happens after that, I don’t know. But I’ll figure it out, and I will enjoy every single minute of it. Because all those years ago, despite his father’s warning, that kid was right. Writing is the best damn job a person can have.
If you are already a fan of the series contained herein, I want to say thank you. Seriously. From the bottom of my heart. Thank you. You are the reason I am able to do what I love and make a living at it.
If you are new to the series, thank you as well. I hope you have as much fun reading these books as I did writing them, and I hope you come along on future journeys.
If your name is Keary Taylor, and you are the wonderful young lady who did all the cover art for this series, thank you as well. A good cover helps an author get noticed, and without your efforts, I doubt this series would have found nearly as much success.   
Last, but most importantly, thank you to my wife and family for supporting me and encouraging me to stop dreaming and make it happen. My life wouldn’t be worth much without you.
Now do me a favor. Stop reading this and turn the page.
And enjoy.
 
 
James N. Cook
Charlotte, NC
11/27/2013

Anno Secundo

Saturday marked the second anniversary of the day I published my first novel, No Easy Hope. I didn’t post about it then because I was in Key West with my wife celebrating our tenth anniversary. It was the last day of our vacation, and I spent most of it either waiting for flights, flying, or drinking. Lots of drinking. (Double rum on the rocks, dash of diet coke, squeeze of lime, serve, and repeat until I damn well say stop.) Don’t judge me.

I despise air travel, and no matter how many times I engage in it, my hatred remains undiminished.  Anyway, the things I have learned in the past two years about writing and publishing could fill a book. Most of it I obtained through hard experience, but I also learned a great deal by heeding the advice of other writers and by studying various books on the subject. I would like to take a little time to share some of those lessons learned, as I have done in previous posts, and hopefully prevent other aspiring authors from running afoul of the same pitfalls I have. Perhaps, in addition, I can make a bit of an apology for those early, amateurish blunders.  
The first step to finding success in writing, even success as limited as mine, is to practice, practice, practice. In retrospect, I wish I had spent more time refining my technique before posting my first novel on Amazon. No Easy Hope has gone through a great many revisions since its initial iteration, and the edition available now is a far cry from the original. But still, I cringe a little when I go back and read that first awkward, halting literary attempt. My second novel was better in my opinion, which seems to be borne out by its more favorable reviews and higher star rating, but it was rough in places. I think Warrior Within was a vastly superior effort to the first two, although it received criticism for not featuring enough zombie violence. And while it certainly showed room for improvement, it gave me confidence my writing technique had progressed significantly.  
The Passenger was a unique experience in that it was my first attempt at writing in third-person. I thought making the switch would be difficult, but as it turns out, writing in third-person is really not that different from writing in first-person. The adjustments are relatively minor, and third-person provides the added benefit of allowing additional perspectives to create a more vividly realized story. That said, I still think first-person is the best way to help readers connect with characters, and I have no plans to change this aspect of the Surviving the Dead series. 
Getting to the main point of this post, let us explore some of the most common transgressions many new  writers—myself included—frequently commit. I discovered these snafus through a combination hard experience, tips, and hints from authors such as Patrick Rothfuss, Jim Butcher, Stephen King, and Elmore Leonard, as well as suggestions from fellow writers in my chosen genre and editors whose services I have employed from time to time. While I freely acknowledge I have been guilty of all of these infractions in my own writing, I can honestly say I have learned from them, and avoiding these mistakes has improved my craft significantly. The following is a brief index of said blunders, but as you read it, please note this list is in no way comprehensive. I’m still learning, and I am certain by this time next year I will have plenty more items to add to the list. But for now, here is the distilled inventory:  
1) In writing, you almost never need to use the word ‘that’. In most cases, it is filler material which detracts from a sentence’s core message, clutters up paragraphs, and adds unnecessary wordiness. For example: John shot a man thathe hated with a gun that he found in the bedroom.Or:John shot a man he hated with a gun he found in the bedroom.  
The second sentence is shorter, more concise, and easier to read. The litmus test for whether or not to use ‘that’ in a sentence is to simply write it both ways, once with ‘that’ in place, and again with 'that' removed. If it reads just as well or better without ‘that’ (as it will in most cases), get rid of it. Doing so will tighten up otherwise slack writing.  
2) Simple past tense vs. past participle. I see people screw this up all the time. Here is an easy guide: Simple past tense (this is the voice you want to prefer in your writing): John walked down the street. Present perfect participle (used heavily in first-person, present-tense writing, which is popular in mysteries and noir fiction): I have seen John walk down the street.Past perfect (used very commonly in most forms of writing, but can often be replaced with simple past tense for more concise structure): I had seen John walk down the street. (Think about it. Does ‘I saw John walk down the street,’ sound any worse?)Future Perfect (rarely used, mostly found in dialogue): I will have seen John walk down the street. 3rd Conditional (used mostly in dialogue, or in first-person narrative): I would have seen John walk down the street.
Each usage has its place, but in most cases, simple past tense will suffice.  
3) Active vs. passive voice. Example: Active voice: I killed a man. Passive voice: A man was killed.
One describes a person doing a thing in direct terms. The other describes a thing that was done by someone in indefinite terms. Defense attorneys, convicted criminals, and politicians are very fond of the passive voice. It softens the verbal impact of describing their actions. (Don’t believe me? Watch an episode of Meet the Press, Lockup, or Nancy Grace sometime.) You do not want to use too much passive voice in your writing. You want your writing to be profound and hard-hitting. However, passive voice has its place. One of the most celebrated instructional manuals on writing, The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, says to prefer the active voice whenever possible. However, for stylistic purposes, passive voice is not necessarily a capital offense. Remember: the rule is to prefer the active voice, not use it exclusively with no exceptions allowed. That said, you should write nine sentences out of ten in the active voice. It will give your storytelling a more forceful impact.  
4) Adverbs are not your friend, especially as applies to speech tags. Example: “I’m going to kill you, but not until after I kill your family. I’m going to track down and murder every last person you ever cared about. Then I will catch you when you least expect it, I’ll lock you up someplace where no one can hear you scream, and before I’m done, you will beg for death. I warned you not to cross me, David. You didn’t listen. Now, you’ll suffer the consequences,” John said angrily. Let’s explore this for a moment. Given the content of this snippet of dialogue, is it really necessary to insert the adverb ‘angrily’ after ‘John said’? Does not threatening to murder a person, as well as his or her family and friends, in and of itself constitute a statement of anger? I mean, it’s not exactly the kind of thing you promise when you are in a jaunty, bubbly mood. Also, there is the question of placement of the speech tag. For which, generally speaking, sooner is better. Let’s try it a different way:
“I’m going to kill you,” John said. “But not until after I kill your family. I’m going to track down and murder every last person you ever cared about. Then I will catch you when you least expect it, I’ll lock you up someplace where no one can hear you scream, and before I’m done, you will beg for death. I warned you not to cross me, David. You didn’t listen. Now, you will suffer the consequences.”
For a detailed description of speech tags and their proper usage (which I did not discover until I was halfway through Warrior Within), consult the Chicago Manual of Style online, or go on Amazon and purchase a copy.  
5) Their, there, and they’re. To, two, and too. Your and you’re. It’s and its. A simple Google search can explain these distinctions. If you’re not sure, look it up. I’m not saying I never messed this up—I have—but these are not difficult mistakes to correct.
6) When writing an action scene, do not interrupt the action with a bunch of character introspection and excessive description. Readers will flip through this material impatiently and curse you for not advancing expeditiously to the goddamn point. If you must add something to the character’s experience, do it with as much brevity as possible, and do it either before or after the part where your character or characters kick some proverbial ass.
7) I hate weak heroes. I hate when a protagonist wins the day by getting his or her dumb ass saved by his or her friends. I hate protagonists that are constantly getting their asses kicked, getting captured, and making bone-headedly stupid decisions. This is common in literature. It is also formulaic, hackneyed, and cliché. It is literary laziness, and I have no patience for it.
8) Avoid excessive use of the word ‘very’. Don’t get me wrong, it has its place. But in most cases, you can get along just fine without it. ‘Very’ has a tendency to diminish that which it seeks to amplify. Ask yourself this:
Should a character be ‘very angry’, or should he be ‘infuriated’?
Should a character be ‘very upset’, or should he be ‘distraught’?
Should a character be ‘very happy’, or should she be ‘elated’?
There is almost always a better word to use than very, except when there isn’t, or if it doesn’t matter one way or the other. Use your best judgment. 
9) A few things no one wants to read about are as follows: poop, snot, bad breath, any body function described as ‘sour’ or ‘fetid’, and sweat on a person's upper lip. Just don’t do it.   
10) You may have seen this, but here are ten writing tips from Elmore Leonard, as well as my agreements and amendents:
1. Never open a book with weather.

(Unless it is vitally important to the story.)
2. Avoid prologues.

(Notice he said 'avoid', not 'never use'. Generally though, I agree.)
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.

(Asked, replied, shouted, and screamed are acceptable as well, but should be used sparingly.)
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.

(Agreed. In most cases.)
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
(Depending on the context, I would say you can get away with more than two or three. But use them with the utmost caution, and if a sentence can stand on its own without an exclamation point, get rid of it.)


6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."

(Agreed. Just don't do it.)
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

(Agreed.)
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

(Unless it is important to the story. But don't give it away all at once. Take your time, and spread it out evenly over the course of the story.) 
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.

(Again, unless it is absolutely necessary to the story, or adds color and richness to the prose. But, as always, don't overdo it.)
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

(Agreed. How do you know if readers will want to skip a section of text? Simple. If it is boring to you, it will probably be boring to your readers. That said, you will be guilty of this sin sooner or later, so don't beat yourself up for it.) A full and comprehensive list would be a lot longer than this post will allow. But I have covered the most common and important bases, and I think it will be helpful to anyone just starting out in writing. If I used any terms in this post you don’t understand, a simple internet search should clear it up for you. Most importantly, don’t ever give up if writing is what you really want to do. It takes diligence, and you might never find the success you hope for, but for those who really love it, it is its own reward.  
Go forth and be fruitful, my friends.

The Passenger: A Preview.

I've been posting recently on Facebook about my new novel The Passenger. The feedback from you guys has been overwhelmingly positive, but there does seem to be a bit of confusion as to what what role this story plays in the Surviving the Dead universe. So I thought I'd take some time today to make it a little more clear what The Passenger is all about.

First, this is not Surviving the Dead volume four. Eric and Gabriel are not in this novel. This a standalone novel set in the Surviving the Dead universe, but features characters you may recognize from my first novel, No Easy Hope. Although it does tie in with the central plot of the main series, it is not a crucial element. You can ignore this novel and still follow the series just fine, but I think you will be missing out if you do.

As you may have noticed me mentioning before, I'm writing this novel in collaboration with Josh Guess, author of the Living With the Dead series and it's parallel, Victim Zero. Josh is a very talented writer who enjoys writing in the zombie apocalypse sub-genre just as much as I do. We first started talking about doing a collaboration about seven or eight months ago, but had to put it on the back burner while we finished other projects. After I published Warrior Within back in April, both of our schedules cleared up and we finally had the opportunity to make the collaboration happen.

There were two central ideas, one from each of us, that we ran with to create the story that would eventually become this novel. For my part, I have wanted to revisit Ethan Thompson's character for a long time, and explore what happened to him after he joined the Army and relocated to Fort Bragg. Ethan's story is interesting to me because it illustrates the difficulty of trying to be a good person in a rotten world, and lets us see through his eyes how drastically the world has changed since the Outbreak. We also get a better idea of just how dimished the U.S. military has become, and how difficult and thankless of a job those soldiers still loyal to their country have to face. These are all important themes in the Surviving the Dead series, and following Ethan's journey lets me display them from a fresh perspective.

The second idea came from Josh's fertile imagination, and I thought it was fascinating. His idea boiled down to a question: What would it be like to awake--fully cognitive just like a living person--inside the mind of a walker? To be forced to see through its eyes, hear with its ears, feel its hunger for flesh, to kill and feed, all while being completely helpless to interfere? What kind of an effect would that have on your sanity?

Gives me the creeps just thinking about it.

We realized we both had pretty good ideas, and wanted to find a way to weave them together. The question then became how to do it, and after much brainstorming, we came up with the answer.

Gideon.

You don't know Gideon yet, but you will. And if you're anything like me, you'll quickly learn to hate the bastard. Gideon was my idea, but Josh brought him to life, which is why I now kind of think that Josh might secretly be a serial killer, and why from here on out I will only meet with him in public where there are lots of witnesses. (People of Frankfort Kentucky, consider yourselves warned.)

Once all the ideas were in place, we took these three characters--The Passenger, Gideon, and Ethan--and set them on a collision course. The Passenger is the mayhem that ensued, and it's been a hell of a ride.

Now, for long-time fans of the series, I want to set a few expectations up front. First, Josh and I have very different writing styles. About half the book was written by me, the other half by Josh. I think it will become clear very quickly who wrote what.

Second, much of the story is told from the third-person rather than my usual first-person perspective. I normally write in first-person because I like writing that way, I like reading books written in first-person, and I think it's a great way to connect with a character. However, third person gives a writer a great deal more flexibility as far as storytelling, and to be honest, I just wanted to try it. How did I do? I don't know. I think I did all right for a first attempt. I'll have to defer to your wisdom on that, dear readers. But just know that all the portions that I wrote in this novel are third-person. (Josh wrote a little in third-person as well, but mostly from first-person. He's equally good at either one, the cocky bastard.)

Also, this novel will not be quite as long as my previous work. I tend to be a long-winded storyteller, as evidenced by the length of my other three novels. (Word counts as follows: 116,000 for No Easy Hope; 105,000 for This Shattered Land; 136,000 for Warrior Within.) The Passenger should weigh in somewhere in the neigborhood of 60,000. Still novel length, but more concisely told than my other work.

(The word count isn't set in stone yet because it's still in the editing process, so it could go up or down.)

Last is the price. It will be set at 3.99, just like all my other work. I think 3.99 is a fair price that compensates me (and Josh, we're splitting it 50/50) enough to allow me to continue writing for a living, but doesn't ask my readers to bust their wallets. And considering the prices that the big publishing houses charge, I think four bucks is pretty reasonable.

So there it is, folks. I hope this clears up any confusion, and I hope that you enjoy reading The Passenger as much as Josh and I enjoyed writing it. And as always, thank you so very much for being the best readers a guy could ask for. As long as you keep demanding, I'll keep writing.

Now...where did I put the files for Fire in Winter?...that's Burn Them All...no, that's Gladiator of Corsryn...Savages...ah-ha! Here it is.

Okay. Back to work.

Caesura

A week ago today, I released my third novel: Warrior Within.
It was the culmination of not just the ten months it took me to write it, but of the last two years of my life. It was in early March of 2011 that I first started writing, and considering how much has happened since then, it’s hard to believe that it’s only been a little over two years. Sometimes it feels like a lot longer than that.
A lot has happened in those two years. My son is almost three years old. My wife finished her MBA and got a new job. We sold the old townhouse and moved into a single family home. (It has a yard and everything.) My brother, who is thirty-five and once compared girlfriends to underwear—restrictive, uncomfortable, and entirely unnecessary—is now engaged to a very nice lady. It will be a happy day when we welcome her into the family.
Oh, and I wrote three books.
And I left my job to write full time. That was back in August, you may recall.
I could probably write a whole post about what it was like to quit my job, but I’ll sum it up with this: It was nerve-wracking. I lost sleep over it.
You know what, to heck with it. I’m going to elaborate.
I had a good job. I was an investment advisor in the high-net-worth division at Vanguard, one of the largest mutual fund companies in the world. I had a 41K a year salary, medical, dental, 401K, and even an annual bonus. (The 41K salary may not sound like much, but consider where I live. Charlotte is a low-cost-of-living city. The median per capita income is only about 31K.) I had a series 7 license (still active, actually), and my career was on a good trajectory.
In other words, I had a lot of reasons to stay.
When I started telling people I was leaving to pursue writing full-time, I expected to get pushback. I expected people to tell me I was nuts, and that I should hang on to my job with both hands. I expected people to tell me I was being selfish and irresponsible.
That’s not what happened.
Everyone who was privy to the decision had read my work. Well…most of them had, anyway. They told me I should go for it. At the time, this was encouraging, but in retrospect, it’s difficult to believe. I mean, I had a wife and a kid. Unemployment in Charlotte is around 10 percent—way higher than the national average. Competition for employment is fierce. There were thousands of people who would have killed to have my job. Much less to have my job and have success as a writer. Nevertheless, they all told me I was doing the right thing.
I’m glad I listened.
I gave up the 9-5. I gave up the cubicle, and the uncomfortable chair, and the florescent lights, and the crappy coffee. I gave up the salary, and the benefits, and the security of having a well-paying job at a respectable, successful financial firm. I traded it in for spending my days at home, and sitting in the living room with my laptop perched on my thighs, and my dogs sleeping on the couch next to me.
I’ve never been happier.
But happy wouldn’t really describe Warrior Within. In fact, taken as a whole, it’s a downright dark story. Dark, but not hopeless.
I wanted to do something different with Warrior Within. My first two novels were crafted to be entertainment, pure and simple. I wasn’t trying to make a serious literary work out of either one of them, I just wanted people to read them and have a little fun.
Along the way, however, I began to question whether or not I could write anything else. Anything better. Richer. More complex. Could I take an action-adventure/zombie apocalypse novel, and give it heart? Could I make it a statement about humanity, and relationships, and the things that drive us, and weave that into the Surviving the Dead storyline?
Back in July of last year, I didn’t know. So like every other challenge I’ve faced in my life, I decided to tackle it head-on.
I drummed up bad memories. It wasn’t hard to do, I’ve got plenty of them. All the way back to when I was a little kid. Hell, my mind is a fucking torture garden—festooned with anger vines, lush with the flowers of melancholy, and trimmed with thorny hedges of regret. I had plenty to draw from.
I took all of that, distilled it down into a soupy, gelatinous napalm, and I set it on fire. You might notice that things get a little prose-y in the last few chapters of Warrior Within. This was not an accident.
It took a lot out of me. I find myself a little lethargic, now. I spend a lot of time looking out windows and sitting alone in the silence. My writing is different. Clipped. Shorter. None of the long sentences that I’ve been so fond of up to this point. I think I just don’t have the energy.
But don’t worry, folks. It won’t last long. I get like this every time I accomplish something big. It happened when I got out of the Navy. When I graduated from college. When I got the job at Vanguard. When my son was born. After my first and second novels. It’s just a cloud that comes over me, shades me for a while, and then blows away.
This cloud will clear, and when it does, I’ll get back to work in earnest.
Speaking of.
I have my next project lined up already. I’m doing a collaboration with Josh Guess, a fellow zombie author whom you may have heard of. We’ve been corresponding for a while now, discussing writing and such, and he threw an idea at me that I found intriguing.
I would like to set some expectations up front, so as not to upset people.
It is a stand-alone novel. It is set in the Surviving the Dead universe. It features characters you will recognize.  It is told from two perspectives, one in first person, one in third person.  It is not pivotal to the Surviving the Dead storyline. Josh and I are just writing it for fun.  It will be shorter than my other novels, probably around sixty thousand words or so. Still novel-length, but not excessively so.
This book shouldn’t take us that long. We each only have to write half of it. We should be able to knock it out in a month or so. I think you’ll like it.
After that, the tale of Gabe and Eric will continue, and I’ll get started in earnest on the vampire hunter series that I keep promising, but have yet to deliver. Not sure of the timeline yet. I’ll have to get back to you on that.
With all that said, let me again express my sincere and profound gratitude to each and every one of you. To all my readers, thank you. You are the reason I do this. Without you, I’d still be sitting in my cubicle and listening to rich people complain. I really don’t miss listening to rich people complain.
You rescued me from that, one book at a time.
Thank you is a paltry phrase. It strives and fails. Badly.
But still. Thank you.

Earshot: An Indie Author's First Foray into Audiobooks

Recently, I announced on my Facebook page that I was working on getting my first novel, No Easy Hope, on audiobook format.

Like most things in my life, the path that led me to pursue this endeavor was not a straight one. It started with a private message on Facebook from a publishing house that I have exchanged messages with in the past. I will not state their name here, because I don't want my experience with them to color anyone's opinion. They are, for the most part, a reputable organization. But my dealings with them have not been altogether positive.

They contacted me a while back to buy the rights to the Surviving the Dead series. Long story short, I turned them down. They couldn't do anything for me that I wasn't already doing for myself, and with the royalty stucture they were offering, I would have had to take a pay cut. No thank you.

Later, they contacted me again to purchase the audiobook rights. This came as a surprise; audiobooks were not even on my radar at the time. Their rather hefty price tags have always been a turnoff for me, and I didn't think there were enough people buying them to make them worth my time.

I could not have been more wrong.

I contacted a friend of mine--a fellow zombie author with whom you're no doubt familiar--and asked him for his opinion. His response was (and I quote):

"Audiobooks are fuckin' huge. My first novel has been out for three years now, and it has, like, three-hundred reviews on Amazon. The same book has only been on audio for about ten months, and the audio version has over a freakin' thousand reviews. I'm  telling you, audiobooks are fuckin' huge."

Maybe it was the sincerity in his tone that got me, or the thick New England accent, but I believed him. So I entertained the publishing house's offer. I even agreed on the advance and royalty.

Then they sent me the contract.

Now, there are a lot of authors out there who jump at the chance to sign on with a publisher. I have never been one of them. I am a paranoid person, I don't trust anyone or anything, and I always assume that anyone who comes to me with an offer for anything, no matter what it is, is trying to screw me. This attitude has saved me from a lot of grief.

So, being the pedantic, untrusting soul that I am, I forked over a few hundred dollars to have a reputable attorney review the contract for me. A few days later, I got his response via email.

Oh. My. God.

I won't bore you with the grim details, but suffice it to say, what they were asking for was not NEARLY worth what they would have been paying me. As you can imagine, I wound up turning them down.

Now I had a dilemma. I knew that I would be leaving money on the table by not putting my books on audio, but I didn't have the cash it would take to pay for production. Making a well-engineered, professional audiobook can be an expensive proposition.

Enter: ACX.

Amazon's Audiobook Creation Exchange platform. It is, in a word, awesome.

There are three parties, generally speaking, involved in creating an audiobook. The rights-holder (me), the producer (most of the time, but not always), and a narrator. Some narrators do their own production, but many work with private studios or production companies. In the past, it was difficult--nigh impossible, in fact--to bring these three entities together without involving a major publishing house.

If there is one thing Amazon it good at, it is spotting opportunities.

They created an online, B2B marketplace where all of these separate parties can come together and make audiobooks. Here's how it works:

As a rights-holder (author), what I did was create a profile for my book (which is essentially a sales pitch) and posted it for auditions. When you create a profile, ACX gives you two options for paying for the production: You can either name a budget in terms of how much you are willing to pay per finished hour of audio, or you can offer a royalty share agreement.

With royalty share, the deal is simple: The author pays nothing up front, the producer or narrator records the audiobook on their own dime, and then the two parties split the royalties fifty-fifty. This is a great deal for indie authors; you don't have to come up with thousands of dollars up front, and all of the risk essentially falls on the producer. If the book doesn't earn out, it's no skin off the author's back. For me, it's all profit no matter what happens. My up front cost is ZERO.
 
Shortly after posting the profile, the auditions started rolling in. Some were kind of crappy, but most of them were actually really good. In fact, I was kind of taken aback at how talented some of the voice actors were.

Right about the same time, I got another message on Facebook. This time it was from Gregg Savage, the proprietor of Sunny Day Audio. He has done some quality work in the past, and has been in the audiobook business nearly his entire life. I called him, heard what he had to say, and hedged my bets by asking him to submit an audition.

Gregg went above and beyond by actually submitting two auditions from two different narrators on his payroll. Both were good, but I wound up going with Guy Williams. He has quite a bit of work available on the various audiobook platforms, and I think he is genuinely talented.

I have to hand it to Gregg, he brought his A-game. The narration was good, the engineering was crisp and clear, and the overall production was thorough and professional. He impressed me, and that is not an easy thing to do.

The production is now finished, ACX has the final product, and hopefully in the next week or two, it will be available for purchase. For any authors out there who read this blog, and haven't considered the possibility of getting your books on audio, my advice is this: ACX is your huckleberry.

Look into it.

Audiobooks are fuckin' huge.

Interview with author Brian P. Easton

I've mentioned before on both this blog and my facebook page that I'm a big fan of Brian P. Easton's werewolf hunter series comprised of two novels titled, in order, Autobiography of a Werewolf Hunter, and Heart of Scars. (Click the link if you'd like to purchase a copy through Amazon.)If you haven't checked them out yet, both novels get my highest recommendation for horror fans. Be warned, however: These novels are honest-to-God, no-holds-barred horror, and they are NOT for the faint of heart.

For clarification, the main character's name in both novels is Sylvester Logan James. So if you see SLJ, that's what we're talking about.

Now, as Arnold said in Conan the Destroyer, ENOUGH TALK!


J: Where did you get the idea for the SLJ series?
B: That’s a question that doesn’t have just one answer because the idea itself and the character both evolved from a youthful fascination with classic horror. A host of influences helped shape the story into what it is today. My inspirations ranged from my Dad and our mutually admired border-hero Lewis Wetzel, to an obscure scene on an episode of Laverne and Shirley, circa 1977.
As a kid I saw lots of vampire killers in movies and comic-books, but there was a conspicuous absence of werewolf-hunters. I decided to remedy this apparent oversight by creating one of my own, but Sylvester Logan James would be barely recognizable in his earliest incarnation. The character who would become SLJ first starred in my home-made comics as the Werewolf Stalker, and then graduated to a career in typewritten short stories. I started taking the character seriously around 1998 when I gave him a literary makeover in When the Autumn Moon is Bright, which would become Autobiography of a Werewolf Hunter. To this day I have six unpublished, SLJ based manuscripts that bear little resemblance to the AWH storyline.
J: What has your experience working with Permuted Press been like?
B: I couldn’t have asked for better people than Permuted Press; they’re an exceptionally author-friendly, forward-thinking outfit. I have nothing but good things to say about Jacob, who has the best interests of his authors at heart. I’m fortunate to be associated with him and such a talented stable of writers.
J: How has becoming an author changed your life?
B: I was self-published for a number of years and I can tell you at this point it’s mostly bragging rights. Naturally, if you’re a writer being published is a big deal; just ask one who isn’t. I mean tell someone at a party you’re a writer and they’ll probably tell you about poems they’ve written or the idea they had for a novel back in high school. On the other hand, if you say you’re a published author you might get a, “Oh, really?”
In the life-changing department I’d like to say being an author has made me independently wealthy and won me national acclaim, but I can’t so you might want to ask me again when I’m a NYT bestseller.
J: How do your family and friends feel about your choice of genre?
B: My friends love it, but of course you can pick your friends can’t you? Family is a much harder sell, because they’ve probably put up with our ramblings since adolescence and won’t see us for the polished wordsmiths we’ve become. My family isn’t much in the way of horror and I don’t think they understand its appeal, so for the most part I get an occasional “atta-boy” but that’s about all. Truthfully, that’s enough because while they might not fully appreciate what I write, they’ve always been supportive. In fact, each of my parents played key roles in my decision to be a story-teller. When I was only 10 my mother gave me her old typewriter on which I wrote my very first stories, and thus instilled in me a love for writing. My father’s attitude towards the concept of werewolves is the very foundation of SLJ, and defined my interpretation of “The Beast” once and for all.
J: What do you do when you’re not writing?
B: Basically, I chase a toddler all over hell’s creation. I’m also teaching him to hunt werewolves and cast silver bullets in between periods of wiping the snot off his cheeks. Other than that I’m a bit of a firearm and motorcycle aficionado, though the seldom get a chance to indulge both interests at once. I also dabble in graphic design and have created a line of horror/sci-fi themed labels which I put on antique bottles and sell on Ebay around Halloween.
J: What can your fans expect in 2013? Any new releases coming up?
B: This year with a bit of luck I’ll be able to finish The Lineage,which is the third and probably last installment in the AWH series. I’ve been working on this thing for what feels like way too long, but when you add a 20-month old to a pre-existing penchant for working slowly I guess that’s bound to happen.
My buddy Miles Boothe has edited a nice anthology series for Pill Hill Press called Legends of the Monster Hunter, to which I’ve contributed a Foreword and other supplemental material. The first two books, Leather, Denim and Silver and The Trigger Reflex are available right now and the third installment Use Enough Gun should be out sometime this year. There are some real gems in these books that are worth the purchase price all by themselves.
J: Would you ever consider writing a zombie novel?
B: I don’t think so, it’s not my niche and I have no vision for it. I’d have to have a real epiphany of an idea to even consider it. You know, something that’s never been done in a field where almost everything’s been done? No, I believe I’d write another kind of monster novel first, maybe an Aztec mummy or something.
J: Who do you think could play SLJ in a movie? Any other cast picks for characters from your novels?
B: My dream cast is pretty well established for a movie treatment: Gillian Anderson as Tanya Clemons, Gabriel Byrne as Daniel Rogier, Christopher Walken as Diego etc., but SLJ has always been harder to cast. It’d have to be someone with a talent for portraying anger and grief with equal enthusiasm; someone who is masculine without being loutish and visually striking without being pretty. When I think about movie characters who with these traits I settle on Bill the Butcher (Gangs of New York) and Nathaniel Bumppo, aka Hawkeye (Last of the Mohicans), both as played by Daniel Day Lewis. Sam Eliot would also be my first choice to play Foster, SLJ’s father.
J: Do you have any book or movie recommendations for your fans?
B: You know, tastes vary so wildly from person to person that I’m always hesitant to suggest books and films to others. However, there is one book I would recommend to anyone interested in tales of violent redemption and that’s Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece, Blood Meridian. To say the least it’s not for the faint of heart or the easily befuddled, but for me it’s become the gold standard.
In these days when horror seems to have been watered down or glitzed to the nines, I think it behooves those of us with an abiding interest in the genre to re-visit its roots and the classic authors who pretty much defined it. I think reading the old grandfathers like Jacobs, Derleth and Blackwood could give us some perspective and re-calibrate our palate for what bumps in the night.
As far as movies go I’ll just drop a couple titles that I think are underrated. Ravenous (1999), starring Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle combines my two favorite genres (horror and western) into a bloody, funny and downright cool-as-hell romp through the American wilderness with a genuine Windigo. Also, if you’ve never seen Angel Heart (1987) with Mickey Rourke you’re really missing something as far as I’m concerned.
J: What would you tell anyone who hasn’t read your books yet to get them to give it a shot?
B: All I can promise is that my monsters don’t sparkle and my protagonist doesn’t gratuitously take off his shirt. My werewolves aren’t romanticized, bare-chested love-puppies and my hero only looks like the “good guy” because of the company he keeps. I paint a hard-boiled, sometimes noir world of teeth on the floor and hair on the wall and make no apologies for it. I strive to make the existence of werewolves as realistic as possible, and since I see them as demonic creatures I’m going to take you to places that are pretty messed up.
I’d also add that these stories have a larger tale to tell than just a vengeance-seeking anti-hero at odds with supernatural monsters. The heart of the series is a running commentary on the effects of hatred on the human soul, but you don’t necessarily have to appreciate that to enjoy the story.