Sumiko Saulson's Blog, page 44

The story behind why The Moon Cried Blood is going temporarily out of print

There are many resources available to an independent author looking to hone his or her craft, and particularly one like myself, who is a part time worker and quarter-time student. The community college track may not be extremely financially lucrative, at least in the short run, but it is chock full of opportunity to improve and hone one’s craft.

            My English teachers at Berkeley City College have everything to do with why I suddenly find that I have the confidence to accept the challenge posed to me by one of my readers. The challenge is to place The Moon Cried Blood through another round of proofreading.

Those of you who follow my blog are probably already aware of the fact that I am planning to separate the 541 page into two shorter books with a bit more action to balance out the exposition. Part of the reason I am willing to take up this challenge is that I am realizing that the indie eBook market is primarily shorter works, and that the length of Warmth (about 250 pages, or a little more than half of TMCB) is more appropriate for that market. However, I have decided that there are more basic issues with TCMB that need addressing.

As a result, on December 18, 2013, I will be temporarily retiring all versions of The Moon Cried Blood: paperback, hardcover, and electronic.  This is a response to this Amazon review:

 “This is an amazing book. I downloaded this book on the day it was offered for free.

This is not a Twilight or Harry Potter book. In my opinion, it’s better. There is a very complex plot that thickens with every page. The characters, and there are many, are quite detailed. You don’t know what’s going to happen, even as it’s happening. That has been missing with many books these days, and I’m glad to see it here.

There are a few downsides, however, and that is why I’m only rating this 4/5 stars. There is a LOT of grammatical errors in the book. Majority of them are incorrect word usage, such as using “is” instead of “it” or “on” instead of “of”. They occur on average every 2 pages or so.

“But there are some that make reading the book confusing, irritating, and difficult to follow. They are more rare, I only found a handful throughout the book. Some of these examples include using the wrong character name. An example of this would be using “Joy” when “Letty” was the person talking, and Joy wasn’t apart of the conversation at all. If you can read between the lines and make sense of the story without the errors, its not so bad.

All of these mistakes could be easily corrected with a proofread. I highly recommend the author taking the book down long enough to get a proofread done and have all the errors corrected.

I have seen some reviews asking the author to change parts of the story. I don’t think that it’s necessary at all. I loved the story itself and will read it again. If a new copy, without errors, is posted, I’ll buy it right away.”

-          Lance S. Elliott

If I had not just spent a few semesters in community college English Writer’s Workshop classes learning new editing skills and honing those I already possessed, I would be extremely intimidated by this prospect. In fact, I will admit here and now that I originally attempted to pay for proofreading and editing assistance for the book, but I was never really able to afford it, and the offers for free assistance I received (there were a half a dozen of them) never really went anywhere. At this point, I am realizing that the best person to edit this is me: I have a vested interest, and I am an editor that I can afford.

The issue with that, however, is that like most writers, I am blind to my own errors. That is where the classes I took come in to play: I have been learning various techniques for seeing my writing with new eyes, and catching precisely the kinds of errors mentioned in the review.

These errors are the types that authors often miss in their own works because the mind substitutes what you intended to write with what is actually there: you see “on” because you intended to write “on”, but “off” is actually there.

One of the techniques I was taught is to read the paragraph backward, so that I am focused on the language, and not on the meaning, in order to assist with preventing the mental substitution of intended or correct words where incorrect words were used. Another is to read the work aloud.

In order to accomplish this task I have grabbed up the last print copy of the second edition of The Moon Cried Blood and marked it as an Editing Copy. I just finished reading the cover text aloud, and editing it (yes, there is at least one error on the rear cover) and now I am reading through the rest of the book to capture the other errors.

I am not sure I can find them all, but I am certainly going to do my best.

Because The Moon Cried Blood is going out of print on the 18th, and I still have three days left to offer for the Kindle KDP Select program (I can’t take the book down until after the 17th) I am offering it for free on December 15th, 16th, and 17th, the last three days it will be on sale.

Pick up your free eCopy on Amazon:

The Moon Cried Blood

If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download a free Kindle reading app.

Happy Friday the 13th! Here’s a short story… “The Last”

Today is Friday the 13th, and I do have a book sale 99 Cents for “Warmth“. This story takes place immediately after the end of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and is written from the point of view of the Creature. I wrote it as an assignment for my English 85b class at Berkeley City College, and I also read it for my English 21 Cinema class. Thaolinh Tran was so kind as to videotape it, so here is a videotape of the presentation that includes the reading:

The Last

[This story takes place immediate after the ending of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”]

Clip art from Clipartheaven.com

Revenge is all-consuming. All at once, it fed me and fed upon me, the way steam fuels a locomotive, becomes its beating heart, propelling it ever forward, but in doing so, it squanders itself. Only by devouring itself can the hot water cause the train to engage in its forcible motion. When I was consumed with revenge, mine was a heated heart exhausting itself in the pursuit of my creator, but when it was over, I found myself spent.

The heat was exhausted, and all that was left was cold.

Cold, and ice… a desolate land of ice I exiled myself to after the only father I would ever know died, never loving me, never truly knowing me. I was as cold as the icy hand of Victor Frankenstein, which I held as I sobbed inconsolably by his bedside, and as cold as the grave he returned to in the frozen ground of his family cemetery. I was cold, and alone.

Thus emptied of all remaining reason to cling to this tragic and ill-conceived life, I moved forward on heavy limbs, rickety and ill-coordinated. The snow and the ice smashed under my boot heel, and when I occasionally heard it crack, I deeply and profoundly wished with all of my heart that it would continue to do so, opening a great rift that would drag me under the sea.

Contemplating death, I wondered if one so strangely formed as myself, and with such bizarre sciences made, would drown in its icy depths. I felt the life flowing through my patchwork limbs in strange contrasting levels of sensation. Some of my skin felt the prickling tingle of the icy wind that bit it, and in other places, the skin was dull and numb. I saw through two mismatched eyes, one of which was very nearsighted. From time to time, I would close one eye so I could get a better view of what lie ahead. One of my ears was prone to a constant ringing.

My legs were uneven in length, and that caused one of my legs to drag slightly behind the others, a disability my creator surely did not intend. I imagine he did not consider the implications of using limbs and organs from donors of different ages: if he had, he might foresee the ache I felt in my sixty-six year old hip bones. Some strange animal or plant life entered my nostrils on the wind, and I sneezed. I doubted that Victor knew I was born with allergies.

My leg and hip were getting the better of me, and I was going to need to find a place to sit. Considering that I was determined to die, I was surprised to find myself looking for a cave or some nook or cranny in which I might experience warmth, and have shelter from the long arctic winter.

I stopped where I stood.

If I was determined to die, there was no need for any shelter. I should just lay my body on the ground where I stood and allow nature to take its course.

I slowly lowered my body onto its creaking knees, and then placing the palms of both hands into the snow, As I began to lower myself down onto my bottom, I looked at my hands… both tremendous in size, the one a ruddy pink with broken, yellow fingernails, the other an olive-brown kind of khaki with nails neatly groomed and manicured. These hands both belonged to other men once, but now, they were mine… cooperatively obeying my every command, even the ones that would lead to their own demise.

I felt the soft flakes of downy snow land in cold spots against my skin, and I smiled. I was filled with a vast sense of knowing, an internal warmth aflame at the core of my soul as I realized suddenly, finally, that I was a part of nature. I was a part of this nature, and it was a part of me.

When I finally hit the ground, I heard a mysterious cracking sound.

Looking down, I laughed. I was sitting on top of the sled, the very sled that carried my maker to the ship where he died. It was a last little bit of the world of man, the world that had rejected me, smashed underneath my unnatural weight.

My laughter began to slow as I became aware of the gray forms strewn about me in the snow. Some were speckled with blood, but most of the sled dogs just lay there, curled up in balls to ward of the cold. I stood up and began to walk around them, touching them… stroking their stiffening ears and patting their icy fur.

I let out a wail of grief.

Who had abandoned them here? Was it my creator who let them run free into the cold night, or was it theirs? The senseless death of the innocent creatures struck me to the core in a way the death of a man never had.

Then I noticed something odd about them. In the center, several dogs were piled close together, one upon another. Sensing that they were protecting something, or someone, I began to peel back the bodies, and as I did, the bodies became warmer, and further from death. I continued until I reached the last.

The last dog was a young mother, sheltered by the bodies of the dead. I do not know if they covered her, or if someone covered her body with them like so much cordwood. Perhaps the wind blew their bodies against her somehow… I do not know. All that I know is that she lived. When I hoisted up the last, and lifted her to my bosom, I saw below her on the ground the reason she held onto life so long…

There were three of them, three tiny puppies, frozen in the snow.  I saw them and I knew that revenge was not the only thing that was all consuming. She had lived for her puppies, knowing they needed her to live. Maybe she was just an excuse that I used to give purpose to my life. I can’t tell you. But when I lifted her cold body up against my chest to warm it and she licked my icy cheek, fearless, and accepting, I knew I could not leave her there to die.

That was when I knew I had to live my life, to the last.

We live in a cave now, and I know that she doesn’t know that it is the bodies of her fallen comrades that I am feeding her as we sit by a fire fuelled with the broken bits of wood that were once a sled. She doesn’t worry about what we will do when the firewood is gone, or we run out of food. I worry for the both of us, and I live for the both of us. I have told myself, that I will have to live at least as long as she does.

After all… how would De Lacy live without me?

Warmth for 99 Cents – Friday the 13th through December 16th

How to get a free copy of “Things That Go Bump In My Head”

When you enter to win a signed paperback edition of “Things That Go Bump In My Head” on my Facebook page, you qualify to receive a free eBook copy just for liking my page and entering the contest.

To enter, like my page by clicking here:

https://www.facebook.com/authorsumikosaulson

Then click on the “Enter Giveaway” tab (or button) at the top of the page to enter.

When you enter, you’ll be asked to answer two questions, “What’s your favorite horror novel?” and “What is your favorite Sumiko Saulson book?”

When you get to the page where it says Agree to Terms & Conditions read it carefully. The instructions on how to get your free eBook copy (which you are eligible for now that you have entered the contest, just for entering) can be found in the Terms & Conditions.

If, for some reason, you accidentally entered without reading the Terms & Conditions, no problem! Just send me a Facebook message letting me know. I have a list of who entered and I can just send you the link to the book on Smashwords and the coupon code. The free eBook will be on Smashwords here:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/327226

But you WILL need a coupon code to get it for free.

Reviews of “Things That Go Bump in My Head“

A Must-Have for the Horror Lover (Five Stars)

By Joslyn Corvis on June 13, 2013

Format: Kindle Edition

I couldn’t get enough reading this book! Dead Horse Summer might just be one of my favourites, but I absolutely adored each story. I’m torn on suggesting paperback or ebook, because paperback is great so that you can have it on you as part of the amazing Sumiko Saulson collection (such as her books Warmth, Solitude, and many others) but if you go with ebook you can purchase the entire collection! Agrippa was another great story here, but there are actually too many for me to name!!! Every now and again, when I close my eyes at night, I get a chill as a part of one of her stories randomly pops into my head.

It’s also quite obvious that Miss Saulson is extremel well-read, as some of her stories make me feel as if my own IQ has gone up a bit merely because of the fact that she alludes to some of the classics that I should have read, but never got around to it.

I also love how she puts a woman’s voice to the horror arena, something that isn’t often seen, and depicts something other than the blond-hair-blue-eyed population that seems to only exist on-screen and as main characters in most horror stories (not to mention varied avenues of popular media).

A Must-Have for the horror lover!

Not what I expected (Four Stars)

By Kris Lugosi on July 16, 2013
Format: Paperback


I am pleased to say that Sumiko Saulson is def. on my read more of her work list. I have to say that the collection of stories in this book is not what I thought. In fact the first story, A LIFE OF HER OWN is absolutely heart wrenchingly sad. I did not expect that story to be in this book based on the synopsis let alone be the first story to open the collection. It was haunting as it was sad, and it stuck with me. Much of the stories in this book I feel are a great introduction to this authors style. AGRIPPA is a great human vs. technology story. It has a very Harlan Ellison feel to it which I love. Saulson taps into the very paranoia’s of the human minds and weaves a deep, thought provoking, often poignant delivery. COMPANY is a wonderful example of how in one story, the main character goes through being complacent as the owner and basic proprietor of the town, then realizing how badly she doesn’t want to be the one responsible for the dead end town (literally) and knowing she wants to do more with her life. She finds hope and then her dreams of leaving are promptly shattered as quickly as they were developed. It’s this ability to show the human race’s desperation for more, be it for one’s self, for the growth of technology or just the desperation of trying to stay sane that makes these stories stick with you. ATTEMPTED HAPPINESS is a disturbing yet at times comical unconventional story of revenge and the battle to maintain one’s sanity. I loved this story quite a bit. Saulson also includes some of her poems in this book which I found to be rather funny. WHAT’S UP ON VICKSBURG and ZOMBIE HAIKU gave me a laugh, and her poem KILLER ROMANCE is the perfect example of how I always say that the grass isn’t greener on the other side, you just have to spend some time tending to your OWN yard.

All in all, I very much enjoy this woman’s work. I love what her stories stand for and I love the voice in which she tells them. Very happy to have received this book.

Sumiko and Carolyn’s Excellent Adventure

Richard Pini, Sumiko Saulson, and Wendy Pini at Convolution

The first week of November has been an incredibly busy one for me and my mother, Carolyn Saulson. We were working double time the last week of October to finish the first issue of our joint project, “Living a Lie” in time for it to debut at Convolution, which took place in Burlingame at the San Francisco Airport Hyatt Regency from November 1st  through November 3rd. We were there the first two days, and had the pleasure of seeing Unwoman open up for Tricky Pixie at the Goblin’s Ball. We had a great time dancing.

The Publisher’s Alley, where we were situated, was in the same room as registration, so we got a lot of foot traffic from people who were just arriving at the convention. We were also in the same room as the book signings, and I was very excited because Wendy and Richard Pini, the team behind ElfQuest, were out there half a dozen times. They were friendly and personable every time I saw them. I’m a huge fan of their work. The Pinis are working on the Final Quest of their long-running series.  Debuting in 1978, ElfQuest is 35 years old this year.

Monday, I stayed home sick with the flu. Between me and you and the wall… well, not the wall, but the blogosphere, I still have this flu. And I have an opening for an art exhibit today at Café 3016.

Christopher Rice, Anne Rice, Sumiko Saulson, Carolyn Saulson (photo taken by Beckett) at Books Inc in SF

Tuesday night my mother and I went out to San Francisco to see Anne and Christopher Rice at a book signing at Books Inc. at Opera Plaza in San Francisco. We got there early, so we didn’t have to stand in a line halfway around the block like we did the day we came to see Anne Rice for a signing related to Wolf Gift about a year and a half ago. She has a sequel to the book, “Wolves of Midwinter” out now, and her son Christopher, an accomplished author in his own right, is debuting his first supernatural thriller, “The Heavens Rise.”

I’m a big fan of his show with Eric Shaw Quinn, The Dinner Party Show, and two other fans (known as the Party People, so dubbed by Anne Rice, who is a Party Person herself) were there – Justin Simpson and Buffie Peterson. I was a ways behind them in line, but Buffie and her family came back to hang out. It was awesome!

Thinking about all of this in retrospect, I am touched by just how much family was involved in this. My nieces Franchesca and Elisabetta Saulson came out to the signing, although they were in line separately. I was with my mother. Anne Rice and Christopher Rice were doing a mother and son book signing. Buffie Peterson was out with her entire family, and although her sons are growing up, they act like they are going to be close and doing things together forever just like me and my mom do. The Pinis are a husband and wife team – another family unit.

Sumiko Saulson and Buffie Peterson at Opera Plaza

It was touching to know that my family is not alone in bolstering each other, in leaning on one another, in gaining strength in one another’s presence.

When we came to the book signing for “The Wolf Gift” back on my mom’s birthday in 2012, my dad was with us in line, but he got intimidated and took off in his mobility scooter when we reached the door. It was a funny story that would be told over and over again later, as my father would pass away in January 2013.

My parents were divorced when I was seven years old, and my parents have both been fighting cancer over the past four years. My mom is in remission.  For those reasons this was a rare moment when both of my parents were out together somewhere during the last year of my dad’s life. Although my dad wasn’t there Tuesday, he was definitely with us in spirit.

Today is another day I will spend with family. I am headed up to my brother’s house in Vallejo to get my brake pads replaced and pick up my mom’s new sound system – one my brother got for my mom – and head back down to Café 3016 for the opening of the Art of Agrippa, where I will read, and my mom will perform and DJ.

Art isn’t just something we do individually.

Art is part of our connection as a family.

Interview with Christopher Rice, author of ‘The Heaven’s Rise’

The Author

Christopher Rice

By the age of 30, Christopher Rice had published four New York Times bestselling thrillers, received a Lambda Literary Award and been declared one of People Magazine’s Sexiest Men Alive. His first work of supernatural suspense, THE HEAVENS RISE, will be published on October 15, 2013, by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. His debut novel, A DENSITY OF SOULS, was published when the author was just 22 years old. A controversial and overnight bestseller, it was greeted with a landslide of media attention, much of it devoted to the fact that Christopher is the son of legendary vampire chronicler, Anne Rice. A DENSITY OF SOULS was recently published as an e-book. This new definitive edition features a highly personal Afterword by the author about a dramatic publication process that forever changed the life of this much talked about young novelist. The members of the Insight Out Book Club selected his novel BLIND FALL as one of the Best Books of 2008 and mega-bestselling thriller writer (and Jack Reacher creator) Lee Child hailed Christopher’s novel LIGHT BEFORE DAY as a “book of the year”. Together with his best friend, New York Times bestselling novelist Eric Shaw Quinn, Christopher launched on his own Internet radio show. THE DINNER PARTY SHOW WITH CHRISTOPHER RICE & ERIC SHAW QUINN is always playing at TheDinnerPartyShow.com and every episode is available for free download from the site’s show archive or on iTunes.

The Book:

The Heavens Rise

New York Times bestselling author Christopher Rice brilliantly conjures the shadowed terrors of the Louisiana bayou—where three friends confront a deadly, ancient evil rising to the surface—in this intense and atmospheric new supernatural thriller.

It’s been a decade since the Delongpre family vanished near Bayou Rabineaux, and still no one can explain the events of that dark and sweltering night. No one except Niquette Delongpre, the survivor who ran away from the mangled stretch of guardrail on Highway 22 where the impossible occurred…and kept on running. Who left behind her best friends, Ben and Anthem, to save them from her newfound capacity for destruction…and who alone knows the source of her very bizarre—and very deadly—abilities: an isolated strip of swampland called Elysium.

An accomplished surgeon, Niquette’s father dreamed of transforming the dense acreage surrounded by murky waters into a palatial compound befitting the name his beloved wife gave to it, Elysium: “the final resting place for the heroic and virtuous.” Then, ten years ago, construction workers dug into a long-hidden well, one that snaked down into the deep, black waters of the Louisiana swamp and stirred something that had been there for centuries—a microscopic parasite that perverts the mind and corrupts the body.

Niquette is living proof that things done can’t be undone. Nothing will put her family back together again. And nothing can save her. But as Niquette, Ben, and Anthem uncover the truth of a devastating parasite that has the potential to alter the future of humankind, Niquette grasps the most chilling truths of all: someone else has been infected too. And unlike her, this man is not content to live in the shadows. He is intent to use his newfound powers for one reason only: revenge

The Interview:

Q.  ”The Heavens Rise” is a supernatural horror novel with suspense novel pacing: I would categorize it as a supernatural thriller. Do you think your familiarity with the action-oriented thriller genre affected the tone and the pacing of “The Heavens Rise?”

A. Absolutely. Along with films and television. Writers can be sheepish about admitting how they’re affected by other mediums, but I don’t have any qualms about it. I think the horror/action thriller is more of a recent phenomenon as a novel, made increasingly popular by shorter e-book works by super talented writers like Blake Crouch. The horror novels I grew up on in the 80′s and 90′s were bigger, juicier works than the market seems to have a place for today.

Q. It doesn’t take too many pages in for the reader to get this really clearly drawn picture of Marshall Ferriot as this particularly creepy kind of guy who has a really dehumanizing sense of completely entitlement when it comes to his obsessive need to own the object of his infatuation. The fact that he’s also bigoted is just icing on the cake. Were there any particular life experiences you had where you ran into these kinds people that inspired you to write a character like that?

A. Marshall Ferriot is supposed to be a walking nightmare of white entitlement in the American South. My shorthand for him is “evil on two legs”; because it drives home the humanness of his monstrousness. But in a novel full of characters making sacrifices, Marshall holds a mono-focus on a single act of sexual rejection in high school and that, combined with his blind privilege and his bigotry, make into the type of villain I both despise and fear. Some people don’t see other people in three dimensions. They really do believe that the rest of us on the planet are just supporting players in their ongoing drama or quest for self-gratification. Marshall is one of those people. And how horrifying that he comes into a power that allows him to manipulate people like human puppets.

Q. As a fan of your program with Eric Shaw Quinn, “The Dinner Party Show,” I saw you pose the very same question to your listeners, and I thought I would pose it to you here now: what do you think makes a novel a part of the horror genre?

A. I think it requires a stark and bloody collision between a very human world and a non-human world. And I consider world in which humans have taken sadism or violence to an insane degree to be non-human, more like a reversion to something so primal it can’t easily be categorized as human. And thank you for listening to the show and being one of our most loyal “Party People”. We love hearing from you during our live shows on Sunday evening!

Q. There are many types of monsters in horror, and in some ways, the most frightening of them are those which are in some way human. They introduce in us well-placed fear of the darkness that lurks in our fellow man. Without giving away too much, can you tell our readers to what degree the terror in your story comes from supernatural foes, and to what degree human motivations?

A. I think it comes entirely from human motivations in this book. Look, the power that’s introduced, the ability to control someone’s mind, can be used for good or for evil, and in THE HEAVENS RISE; we see it used primarily for evil as the events of the novel pave the way for a better and noble use of it in the larger world. I don’t think that gives away too much. But it raises the same compelling questions as the gun control debate. Are guns inherently evil? Should they be regulated as if they are, or as if their capacity for evil outweighs their capacity for personal security? This novel isn’t about the gun debate, but the same fears and concerns can be applied to this power.

Q, You’ve been an established author for over a decade now, but this is your first horror novel. Did you feel intimidated at all by writing in the same genre as your famous mother Anne Rice?

A. I was, and even with horror, I knew I was going to do something different. My style is more gritty, more contemporary, than hers. I’m not sure the horror label applies that well to Mom’s work. There are too many other dominant elements like romance and historical drama.

Q. As a California girl, I was quite intrigued by the richly layered descriptions of Louisiana and the Bayou not only as geographic locations, but as cultural experiences depicted in the lives of your characters. Even their names Niquette Delongpre and Anthem Landry, seem to be from a different world. Did you have to do a lot of research to develop these character, and to what degree where they influenced by personal experience?

A. Louisiana is another language and I started learning it when I was ten. I discovered when I went away to college that just by living there I had become a storehouse of trivia and information other people found exotic and enticing, and that was a great gift. I had to familiarize myself with post-Katrina New Orleans because I moved away several years before the storm hit and the levees failed. That took some trips back and some long conversations with friends, but the fundamentals of the state and it’s exotic Caribbean/Cajun culture were ingrained in me at a young age.

Q. Your book has been very well received and I would personally categorize it as a delightful entry into my personally favorite genre. In light of this, do you think our readers can look forward to seeing more Christopher Rice horror novels in the future?

A. Thank you! I couldn’t be more pleased with the reception this book is getting and I feel very at home in this genre. I’m one third of the way through another supernatural thriller set in the deep South, which rare for me. Previously, I was a very slow writer. I would wait for a book to come out and see how it did and factor it into my next project. It wasn’t always the healthiest way to work. This is the first time I’ve made big strides on the forthcoming book while still in the midst of publication for the current one. So don’t expect me to leave behind monsters and the swamp anytime soon!

The Book Trailer:

Where to Find Christopher Online:

Website: http://www.christopherricebooks.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHeavensRise

Twitter: @chrisricewriter

Dinner Party Show: http://thedinnerpartyshow.com/

I got my first bad (two star) review today

The author… simulating a response to a bad review.

Here is the text of the two-star review:

 

“Too much, October 15, 2013

By  Philonese Simmons

Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)

This review is from:  The Moon Cried Blood (Kindle Edition)

I read over 200 pages and this book had too much in it, but never seemed to get to the actual story. It was very confusing with all the Letricia characters, all their relatives and fosters and histories of everyone, especially without knowing why you needed to know all of that. And why did we need to know the lay out of the apartment? Where all the furniture was and the colors what was that for. If all that information was important to the point of the story, I never got to it and if it was it made me not care what the point was.”

Since the writer asked a specific set of questions regarding the furniture and the apartment, I decided to answer her questions. Being an author who has only sold about 500 books in total, I’m still very excited just to know that some read one of my books – or, in this case, a bit less than half of my book (The Moon Cried Blood is a bit over 500 pages.) Here is my answer:

“Sumiko Saulson says:

Thank you for your honest review and opinion. Since you asked a question (about the apartment lay out and the furniture) I thought I’d answer it: There are three reasons why I described the apartment in such detail:

1) The novel is set in the mid-1970s, and I sought to improve the verisimilitude of the piece by describing everyday objects of the period. The furniture and furniture colors in the apartment were very popular, and contemporary, in the 1970s but today they would be considered out of style or maybe “retro.” The apartment’s appearance also tells the reader something about the character Bridget or “Jet” who decorated the apartment: she was very trendy and tried to keep up with the latest styles.

2) The discussion of furniture (overall, in this piece) is an homage (or nod to) the gothic era horror novels, which were so named because they made frequent reference to the gothic architecture.

3) Directionality (east, west, north, south) are important to the story.

I realize this probably won’t change how you feel, and I am okay with the fact that you did not particularly care for my book. I just wanted to give your question an answer. Have a nice day.”

Here is the three star review:

Here is the earlier (mediocre, not bad) review and my response to it. I decided to respond today: I did not when it was originally posted. The thing about the three-star review is, it is very well thought out, and accordingly, useful to me as a writer. It gave me some pretty good ideas.

 Yes! The Title and Story Match!, May 19, 2013

By AF

Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)

This review is from:  The Moon Cried Blood (Kindle Edition)

I read this book because the premise appealed to me. Who wouldn’t be enticed by the promise of a good folklore/myth played out between man, animal, and nature? And true enough, the initial chapters were as captivating as the premise but as I continued with the story, I grew impatient and confused. Even though the author attempted to help the reader keep the similar-sounding names and family lines straight by filtering and layering in information, that didn’t help. I found myself lost in a maze of characters who did not stand out strong enough for me to latch on to. I kept having to recite relationships in my head and at one point actually thought about drawing a family tree. But that’s too much work for a fiction novel. For me, one of the goals of fiction is to entertain. Perhaps if the author had done more “showing” of the story instead of “telling,” the story would have been easier to follow. Also, I think it would have helped me stay engaged if the author had tackled one generation at a time instead of throwing in the entire kitchen sink (the psychic abilities, the myth, the types of wolves, etc.) in one fell swoop. Or, if not one generation at a time at least reduce the number of generations. The author packed a lot in this story–too much. There were however some strong themes that played throughout: good versus evil, the importance of family, redemption, and more. Unfortunately, the contrived actions and coincidental outcomes did little to underscore these themes. What did I like? I think the author is quite imaginative and her research seems impeccable. I also enjoyed the revisit to the ’70s, a period of time I don’t read enough of. Plus, it thrills me to match a title with the story. I’m surprised at how many books don’t marry the two. A friend asked me if I would read another book by this author and I said, “maybe.” My “maybe” lies in the fact that the author is very creative and as Toni Morrison said (paraphrased), writers improve with every writing. And I do think this writer will.

And here is my response:

 

Sumiko Saulson says:

Thank you for your honest and instructive review. It is helpful to me as a writer: this story is complete, but I will certainly keep this in mind moving forward. I probably will add a family tree appendix to the story, I think that’s a good idea. Perphaps this heavy tome would have worked better as a two-part series: it is 500 odd pages long, which is twice as long as my shortest book, and it’s received the most mixed reviews. That is worth thinking about for the future, in case I ever decide to revisit the story. In two books, it could tie up two different stories with two different generational foci. That could be interesting, and would address some of the issues people have with the pacing.

The naming conventions were supposed to be a comment on patrilineal naming conventions, where a family has sons and grandsons named John Doe, John Doe Jr., John Doe III, etc. and they all have different nicknames: John, Jack, Jay, etc. It was supposed to underscore the matrilineal conventions of the family in the story, but if it was becoming so burdensome that it takes away from the action of the story, that is problematic.

I am currently writing a sequel to my first book, “Solitude,” but I am seriously considering a revisiting TMCB when that is over with.

See for yourself and draw your own conclusions:

If the reviews are any indication, TMCB is the most polarizing of my works. Some people love it, and some people have issues with the naming conventions and the pacing. The specific pacing issue seems to be with areas where there is too much exposition. I am taking this feedback seriously (especially the three star review, which makes some really good points) and I am going to break the book into two and add some more action to make it more interesting.

In honor of this bad review, I am going to put The Moon Cried Blood up on promo at Amazon.com so you, dear reader, can draw your own conclusions.  I am honestly interested in hearing your feedback on this, the long, involved story: especially feedback that will help me change the book into a two book series. Perhaps you will like it just the way it is: several readers did. I am intrigued by the mixed reviews, and I wonder what you’ll think.

It will be available for free all day on Sunday, October 27 my time (Pacific Standard Time) starting at midnight tonight.  You can get it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Cried-Blood-Sumiko-Saulson-ebook/dp/B007P9WL4W/

No Kindle? No problem! Get a free Kindle reader app for your PC, Mac, smart phone or tablet here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=dig_arl_box?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771

I will be reading at John F. Kennedy University’s “Day of the Dead”

I will be reading at the Day of the Dead event at John F. Kennedy University at 100 Ellinwood Way Pleasant Hill, CA 94523-4817. Directions to the campus via public transportation and driving directions are both posted on their website here: Directions to JFK University. It is in the Liberal Studies department,  Here are the details:

“JFK University’s Liberal Studies program invites you to get ready for Halloween in a traditional way – with a haunted evening filled with scary short-stories. Listen to the ghoulish readings of others and join in the Halloween Spirit. A delicious witch’s brew will be served. Costumes are encouraged. A prize will be awarded to the best costume. This event is FREE and Open to the Public. The stories may not be appropriate for children 14 and under.”

The event takes place on Friday, October 25, 2013 from 8:00 PM – 10:00 PM. You can RSVP here.

Going A.P.E. this Sunday

Going A.P.E….

This Sunday (tomorrow), I’ll be going down to visit day two of the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco. I am just going to check out what everyone else is up to (I’m not tabling or anything), but I am pretty excited about it!

I wish I could have made it down there today… in addition to the regular festivities, they have something called Comic Creator Connection going down right NOW, where artists and writers can get together to work on a comic book with each other. Very positive stuff.

Speaking of collaboration:

Living a Lie

I am working on a collaborative piece with my mother, Carolyn Saulson. The first issue of the dramatic comic book (or if you will, serialized graphic novel) is slated for November 1, 2013 release, to concur with the Iconoclast Productions & Sumiko Saulson presence at the Publisher’s Alley at Con-Volution,

“Living a Lie” will have color cover art, but the interior artwork will be black and white. We expect it to be about 40 pages and to run about $4 an issue.

“Living a Lie” is the serialized tale of an unnamed protagonist who goes by a variety of names, most recently Randolph James. Randolph is not who be pretends to be. No one knows his true heritage. No one knows about the time he spent in jail, or in foster care, or that he came from the wrong side of the tracks.

Most of all, no one, not even Randolph himself knows about the strange hereditary powers that he and his mother possess that manifest in their early thirties.

Now Randolph has met a girl, and thoughts of love, even marriage, begin to threaten his carefully weaved illusion. How can he risk falling in love with a woman who doesn’t even know who he really is? How can he find room for romance in his life when he is living a lie?

Promotional Offers:

Tomorrow, Sunday, October 13, 2013 Warmth and The Moon Cried Blood are both FREE for download for the Kindle Reader on Amazon.com – if you don’t have a Kindle, you can download a free Kindle app for your Mac, PC, or Tablet.

The eBook versions of Things that Go Bump in My Head are 50% off on Smashwords.com – that’s just 99 cents! Use the coupon code GN23U. Offer starts today October 12, 2013 expires October 31, 2013 (that’s Halloween).

 

Solitude Two: Electric Boogaloo

I use Grammarly’s plagiarism checker because in horror, the reboots are never as good as the original.

Reboots and sequels…

Back in the 1990s, we had a running joke about Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogalo. The movie sucked, and we used to tag “Electric Boogalo” to the end of any really crappy second addition to a movie franchise.  For example, “Highlander II: Electric Boogalo.” Every horror, dark fantasy or sci-fi writer, I think, would live in deep and eternal shame if his or her second entry was as terrible as “Highlander II: The Quickening,” a movie so bad that even Sean Connery couldn’t save it.

I am feeling that kind of fear as a I fret and worry over “Disillusionment,” the second installment in the “Solitude” series. The last thing I want is to churn out “Solitude Two: Electric Boogaloo”

As I try to complete my work on “Disillusionment,” the second book in the Solitude Saga, I am finding that there are challenges in writing a sequel that are not present in writing the first book in the series. For one thing, plot consistency has become more challenging since there has been a two year gap between the completion of the first work and, well, today.

I also find I am a little intimidated because like any sequel, “Disillusionment,” part two of the Solitude Saga, lives in the long shadow cast by the first novel. “Solitude” was not only the first book of this series, it was my first completed novel length work, which gives it a special place in my heart.

So the feeling that I need to top it somehow gives me a mildly intimidated feeling which occasionally leads to a kind of writer’s block. I’m half way through the novel, but still and yet, things are going slow.

I had intended to complete it before I went to Convolution in November, but I can see at this rate, that is not going to happen.

Most likely, I will be working on “Disillusionment” during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November. I hope to complete the first draft at the end of NaNoWriMo… I made a great progress at Camp NaNoWriMo in July, even winning an award for completing the first 50K + words!

I have decided that it will take as much time as it takes to finish Disillusionment, and I sincerely and deeply hope that when it is completed, it will be worth the wait for all of the fans of “Solitude” who asked for a sequel…

All three of them.

Interview with Rebecca Snow, author of “Hazard” (WWW 8)

Rebecca Snow is one of thirteen women vying for the title of Most Wicked 2013 in the Wicked Women Writer’s Challenge! Listen to the stories and vote for your favorite here:

http://wickedwomenwriters.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/who-will-be-most-wicked-2013/

The Author:

Rebecca Snow lives in Virginia with a dwindling herd of geriatricats.  Her short fiction has been published in several small press anthologies and online.  You can find her on facebook (look for the bloody handprint) and Twitter @cemeteryflower and has an online journal at cemeteryflowerblog.wordpress.com

The Interview:

Q. Was this the first time you participated in the WWW?

A. No, I participated last year as well.  This year, I was able to add sound effects.

Q. Were you excited?

A. Always.    And kind of frightened too.  Hearing my own voice coming from anywhere other than my mouth scares me.

Q. Was what you wrote for the challenge different from what you usually write, and how so?

A. I used different words.  Actually, it’s not that different from what I normally write.  Having to use the items given was a little bit of a stretch, but in my fiction, these things happen all the time.

Q. How long have you been writing horror?

A. Since I was five. I had a lot of nightmares. I’ve only been writing it publicly for three years.

Q, Do you have anything coming down the pike you would like our readers to know about?

A. I’ve got stories in a few upcoming anthologies.  For details, head to cemeteryflowerblog.wordpress.com