Scott Colbert's Blog, page 5

Heart of A Poet, Mind of Roadkill (with talent to match)

The first sale I ever made was a poem for the anthology DEATH IN COMMON.  While the antho is no longer in print, my poem is available in my sampler DETRITUS. It was probably the hardest I’d ever worked on anything in my life. There were probably 20 drafts and half as many versions.  The editor (and a friend) Rich Ristow was incredibly helpful and patient, making my contribution FORGOTTEN SON something I take much pride in.

Nikita also wrote a poem. While it’s not as bad as some other work I’ve reviewed…oh who am I kidding, it’s shit. The piss poor writing aside, it also details his feelings about 9/11. As the anniversary draws closer, I thought it appropriate to critique: THE SEASONS OF BLACK SEPTEMBER. A big thank you to Lewis for pointing this out to me.

Note: All misspellings and double commas (!) are from Nicky. 

Prologe: Reminders of Forever

no more

one more

emptiness

that I cannot ever tell,,

no more

one more

No more, yes! One more? Dammit. For someone who frequently uses expressions like I cannot ever tell, you never seem to stop babbling.

no more

one more

one more horror in the sleep

no more

one more

Patterns I am sensing. Talent, I am not.

years to come – cemetery graves,

As opposed to say,  the bakery graves.

I watch the towers fall

I watch the many die

no more, one more

one more mourning

I’m going to guess he had a rainman like obsession with one more.  Nothing wrong with repetition if it serves a point. If it’s the only words you know however…

I. Clay and Dust

I am one — yet no one, 

Can’t argue with that.

when angels cry their blood,,

only then we begin — crucified,,

impaled by our thoughts — slaved,

lead into salvations — enslaved,,

I’m not sure he knows the difference between crucifixion and impalement.  I’d settle for either rather than have him go on. And yet he does, trooper of turds that he is.

dying — this is my suffication,

horror — flames melting my flesh,,

decay — blackness of hell around me,,,

Not sure what suffication is, but it can’t be any worse than an eternity of having this read to me over and over.

melting flesh — flowing blood, clay and dust,,

full blood moon — raising brighter in black,,

Melting brain overflowing with illiterate scibblings.  full stomach about to raise and splatter.

II. Ashes and Blood Flow

when we allow all the blood flow,,

the question without the reason,, 

Blood flows, that’s what blood does (along with other amazing things but I won’t bore you with my lack of scientific tidbits), but what is with these double and triple commas? No doubt he’ll have some excuse though it still boils down to lack of knowledge of and talent.

death in the end is only the beginning,,

take the tour of hell my friend — here it is

Could have told me that in the beginning and saved me from reading this. Fucker.

III. Untold Omen

dying tomorrows, lost my sorrow,,

of what hope is sinking forever,, 

My hope of you making sense sank long ago. I know the feeling.

where our truth turned into the lie,,

Or in your case where the lie turned into a greater lie.

IV. Seasons of Rust

as it comes where I walk alone, 

I could say something really disgusting about this, but then I’d never sleep again. Suffice to say everything he does is alone.

fires — were we have no more control,,,

time — as it ticks slowly down into night,,,

horrors — as they cannot be defined,,,

Crap, we’re back to the undefined again. Though if a word could ever describe this work, undefined is as good as any.

V. Stygian Skies

do we see inside our own demise

gathering in the travels to stygian 

Umm, yeah, I got nothing for this bit of nonsense.

as it remains the memories of the day of Black September,,,

The best I can suggest is remember those who lost their lives, but forget this turgid, incomprehensible, waste of time. It does far more of a disservice than anything else in recent memory.

Getting Submissions The Pacione Way

First, you start by posting a self pic giving the camera your stubby middle finger. Follow this up by making a face as if you just pooped your pants. Third, make sure it’s so low res that it appears blurry and blotchy (though in this case, it’s an improvement). Since he’ll scream if I use the picture here, go take a quick look. http://unclefossil.wordpress.com/ Note: I am not responsible for any ill effects you may succumb to by viewing said photo. Proceed at your own risk! 

Once that’s done, refer people to wikipedia because you’re too incompetent to say what you want. Assure potential submissions that it will take 5 editors to make it coherent, then confuse them by calling yourself an executive producer.

Also, make sure you let everyone know your crap will be the lead story, no matter how much better other stories may be (let’s face it, anything will be better than his).

Refer people to a social network to get ideas for characters. Since Nicky has no clue how to create a character, he thinks everyone is as ignorant as himself.

Finally, pimp your own work in a lame attempt to make sales.

Do all that, and you can be as successful as Lake Fossil Press!

Leave Ablert Alone!

Yes, the spelling on Albert was intentional, as that’s how Nikita once spelled his own middle name on one of his poorly formatted, unreadable pile of printing he calls a book.

I got an email from a friend, a non writer , I might add, asking why it is I keep picking on Pacione.  ”He’s obviously unstable and mentally unbalanced, it’s a little sad.”

To this I respond: Yes, it is a little sad. However, any sympathy I may have ever felt for him, evaporated when he continually spews his hate. There is a big difference between being mentally ill and a raging asshole. There’s a difference between being someone who needs help and someone who not only doesn’t want it, but thinks you’re persecuting him for offering any assistance. I will always sympathize with someone who has a mental illness, but not with someone who uses that as an excuse to behave the way he does. When he attacks people, calls them names, threatens them-that’s not mental illness. That’s assholism.

In 1993 I was diagnosed with Major Depression Recurrent.  I was given a prescription for antidepressants and have taken them since then.  That’s 20 years.  Not once did I ever blame anything on my depression. I’m fully cognizant of everything I say and do, and so is Nicky.  It would be so easy to blame something, anything-for my mistakes, however it all boils down to me knowing what I am doing.  I accept responsibility for my actions, and when I can, I try and rectify them. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn’t.

Nikita, on the other hand, will blame everything and everyone, and not look at the real problem-himself.  In fact if it was just the rage he exhibits, or the the name calling he loves to use (albeit badly), it might be different.

But he preys on others. He’ll use and abuse unknown writers, those just starting out and don’t know any better. He’ll refuse to pay them, publish their stories without permission and then go after them relentlessly when he gets called out on it.

He calls himself a writer, yet has no clue about grammar, spelling, pacing, plotting, or any of the basic skills one needs to be an effective author.  He’ll self publish because no one in their right mind would want their name attached to any of his projects. He’s a parasite. An uncarng, unthinking, untalented blight on the horror community.  Google his name and his past doings are there for the perusing. I’ve only had to deal with him for 6 years, others have had to do it for far longer.

He will never change, and as long as he doesn’t, it’s my duty to warn people away from the type of business practices he utilizes.

As my meme above states, Nickolaus Pacione, you are NOT a writer!

The Cabbie Homicide – One Cab Ride You Want To Avoid

And not because of the homicide, but it was typed by our favorite fan fic writer. Nicky “two kitchens” Pacione!  You may be wondering how I coulddelve into another one of his scribblings so soon, and the answer is I dipped into my kitty’s stash of catnip.  It was either that or the banana peels.

Oct 13, 1993. I remember that day as the day a friend of mine took the life of a cab driver in Itasca, Illinois.

August 15th, 2013. I remember this day because it was when my nervous system and brain activity spun out of control, near irreversible damage done by just one sentence,

 I have a lot of questions of that night of what went through his mind — and wanting to know why he threw away his life at 17 years old.

I have a lot of questions too, like why would you think you could actually write? I’d suggest basket weaving or collecting toe nails.

here I am close to ten years later writing of this horrifying crime –

Because I haven’t had an original idea since thoughts of model bound up being bombarded by Richard Matheson novels.

As it was written in our school paper

Never mind local news, television or even a pennysaver, when you need info, you go to your high school newspaper.

and there was nothing I was able to say to warn them about it.

That’s due to the fact you dodn’t know about it until long after it happened, dipshit.

Then the next thing I knew was that there was a clipping from The Daily Herold. It was almost out of the pages of a bad nightmare that I was not able to awake from

the thoughts that are still there are what would stay in the shadows wandering.

The bad writing is still there as well.

the questions as there were many when they sat in the courtroom and the horror drawn out from the drama of the jury.

What was the jury doing that was so dramatic? Shouldn’t they have been paying attention? Perhaps victims of your inability to string words together in a coherent fashion.

“You mean to tell me that you knew the murderer,” asked the Cab driver who was driving me from the sporting good store

Bwahahahahahahaha! We all know they greaseball would never go to a sporting goods store. well, unless he was picking out a new sleep sack.

 ”I was supposed to do that call that night. The driver that died that night was a friend of mine,” he added.

Totally didn’t see that coming! Oh wait, yes I did.

“Holy shit,” the driver responded, “you are sure brave to write about this. I don’t think if my friend was a murderer — I would not of even tried to write about it. It would scare me so shitless that I could not even sleep at night.

Don’t worry Mr. Cabbie, Pacione is still afraid of his own shadow, and runs away screaming like a little girl.

With that I know it must be done — this narrative in the sense that I try to find the words to describe that he had done,

Well it isn’t, there’s still five more paragraphs of this crap. Don’t tease me!

I can’t. I just can’t.

Someone call me a cab.

How To Be A Professional The Pacione Way!

In a response to something I posted on his blog, La Femme Nikita responded with this:

I am not a liar or a fraud. I just don’t publish the faggot nor will I read works from the faggot. I strongly make this suggestion, please refrain from trying to stop people from submitting to my anthologies. It is not professional.

The first thing to notice is his use of faggot twice. Nothing screams professional more than slurs about someone’s sexual orientation.  What else makes someone a professional according to Nickolaus Ablert Pacione? Let’s take a look at just a few things.

First, let’s establish that he’s been a “professional” for a very long time. I’ll go back to a blog entry I wrote on 12/3/08. That’s right, six years ago. That was when he talked about taking a shit on the grave of late writer Joe McGee, a man who in death still has more talent than Nikita ever will.  His response to myself and others in the comments, calling him on it reeks of…well, something.

Melany — I hope you have a miserable social life, well as a matter of fact you can’t hang onto a boyfriend longer than six months after you left me. And yes I am getting published in more places, just I haven’t finished writing new material to send off but should be finishing off I.O.W.A. That anti-abortion yarn that someone pirated the shit out of on AutoLame.org.

You really need to shut your mouth more often because you’re revealing too much of someone’s personal life. You’re just a coat-tail rider as much as this Scott faggot is. Your mother dying is the best day in my life. I wanted to throw a dance on her grave party. As you assholes attempted to do with my publishing company but you sadly failed to see that happen. I already been published a few times within the year but the print appearance is long overdue. Getting published on (link deleted) helped me a little bit.

And a little bit down he adds:

Nah I just got done pissing in your dead boyfriends urn.

Being a professional also entails being banned from several, websites and forums, not just once but over and over again (Goodreads three times and the yuku forums twice); having more blogs closed due to hate speech than I can count; consistently referring to women as bitches and cunts, threatening people with violence (in spite of running away like a little girl when confronted); challenging writers to fist fights-the list goes on ad infinitum.

And the last thing I’ll touch on is his new submission call. A true professional will put it up on Tumblr (because everywhere else doesn’t want his crap there), single space it in the tiniest font possible, and then not even put an email address to send a submission.

If all of that is professional, but warning people away from that behavior in a so-called publisher is unprofessional, I’ll be proud to be wear the mantlle of unprofessional any day.

The Important Friends

I originally posted this on facebook, and decided to do it here as well. I hope it moves someone to tell a friend how much they mean.

I want to thank everyone for all the wonderful birthday wishes. They are deeply and truly appreciated. However I would be remiss if I didn’t offer a few words and a happy birthday to one of my long time friends Joseph Adams.

Joe and I met back in the late ’80s, and became very good friends. We shared a lot of the same interests, including writing. He taught me the difference between a writer and a dilettante: that not everything needed to be turned up to 11. We read each others work, ate a lot of Chinese buffet and we wrote.

When Joe moved to California, he taught me how to say goodbye, and if we saw each other again it was icing on the cake. We did see each other again when I moved to the Bay area in 1990. We worked on and wrote plays, went to meetings, and he showed me the best burger joint in Berkeley. As things so often happen, I was not the nicest or most put together person, and I moved back to Phoenix on less than pleasant circumstances.

And yet, back in January when my publisher and I parted ways and I felt the weight of the world on me, I found Joe right here on FB. I won’t say it’s like nothing changed as that would be a lie. We’re both older, wiser, I hope anyway, and different.

I wouldn’t have it any other way. I write this from the bottom of my heart Joe, I’ve missed you all these years. You were a far greater influence on me than you’ll ever know. I wish you the happiest of birthdays, the best of health and lots of sales.

Evil Airs- Another Lesson In How Not to Write by Nickolaus Pacione

Now that I’ve fully recovered from the grueling task of wading through FANDOM WEIRDNESS, I feel strong enough to wade into the diseased depths of the flatulent ferret’s writing once more. This time it’s EVIL AIRS, inspired by the time he got-wait for it-bronchitis! I’m already trembling with fear (the fear that this may do me in).

I had a bizarre dream when I passed out the past few nights.

So did I, it was so bizarre I thought that opening sentence made sense.

I found myself in a room full of mirrors sort of a hall of mirrors to describe this

Well which is it, a hall or a room? Christ, it’s not that difficult to pick one, is it?

The thoughts as they dwell inside which it is written as it is here — the narrative being as one lays within the covers of the bed of the hotel overlooking the outskirts of Joliet and Rockdale, Illinois.

The nausea as it dwells in my stomach is but a grain of sand in the endless beach that is Pacione’s  wretched writing.  I already need a lay down and it’s barely the second paragraph.

Where in the darkness that the coughing can be heard — loud enough to shatter the glass in the rooms.

Apparently this is the Ella Fitzgerald of coughing!

From the sleep are heard in the whispers of strangers — where in the night of silence had been shattered by sounds of the coughing in the sense of the mind, the impaling of ones lungs.

So I put that into Google translator and it said no such language known.

the description could be similar to the hotel and a hospital where it is set up like a movie theater;

Tip: before writing a story know where the damned thing is set, is it a room, a hall, a hotel, a hospital or a movie theater? All that coughing would piss people off in a movie theater. Kind of like people get pissed you call yourself a writer when they read your work.

the pages induced from the medicated slumber as they pen into the narratives from the being in the shadow of time. Understanding as it comes being from the drug induced sleep knowing that comes from the dreams –

Who wants drugs? Who needs drugs to understand this? Seriously, all I know is there’s some louder fucker coughing and breaking glass.

Foreboding minds — as one sleeps from the dark transcending into the waning daylight.

Foreboding: you use that word and I do not think it means what you think it means.

The stark descriptions of which being from the hospital and the hotels being that one can hear the vitals of the next room fading from the neighboring bed.

I need my vitals checked. I mean really, what the hell does any of this mean?

the hard coughing that impale the ribs as a rattler biting and injecting into the bloodstream.

As a rather biting and injecting what? Is it the Turd Raper of Campbell Hollow come to haunt you?

Passing slumber of the eyes which open the gates of the bizarre dreams that come among the darkening majestic — the patterns descending from the blacker cosmos; from the thoughts of which are the defining sleep of years.

So all 2200 words of this “story” is about someone being sick and and having bad dreams as they drift in and out of sleep.  I’ll be awake all night.

For one of his novels, William Burroughs took the manuscript, cut it in four pieces and then put all the pieces back together-but not in order-and THAT still makes more sense than this.

Of course Burroughs was a great writer, and Pacione is barely literate, so there is that.

Writing Updates

I wanted to give a brief update on what I’m working on, and what you can expect to see from me in the future.

The new book I’ve been working on (less and less I might add), LONELY ARE THE DEAD, has caused me a lot of problems recently. I know the story, have a pretty good idea of where it’s going and how it will end, but having problems on exactly how to tell it. When I first started, it was written in 3rd person. After several thousand words, I found an emotional disconnect which would kill the themes I wanted to get across, so I switched to first person. This seemed much better until I started working in a subplot which follows the main story from a different perspective. First person wouldn’t work for this area. I’ve played around with the idea of alternating between two first person narratives, or first person and third person. Neither of which I’m particularly happy with, so it’s kind of sitting there tapping its toes impatiently, waiting on me to make a decision.

I finished an 1100 word short story THE DAY LLOYD CAMPBELL’S MAMA CAME TO TOWN, and doing some final edits on it, before I send it out here: http://cussedness.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/call-for-submissions/. If accepted this will be out in 2014.

On the heels of that I was asked by a long time friend (nearly 30 years now) to submit a story for an anthology he and his partner are putting out. It’s all local writers (aside from me) in the Portland OR area, with a Lovecraft theme. I already have somewhat of an idea of what it will be about, and a title A HINT OF LILAC. I’m very happy to have a chance to do this because 1) I’m not really a short story writer. I’ve written my fair share, but novella length works seem to be what I do best, what I enjoy most. 2) It will give me a chance to introduce a character I’ve had in my head for awhile now, Private Eye Napoleon Santerre.  Not only was he character in LATD, but I had plans for him for my book after, THE COMMITMENT OF ERYLE HARRIGAN.  Being able to introduce him in a short story is going to be a plus.

What’s THE COMMITMENT OF ERYLE HARRIGAN about you ask? Originally it was going to be my Lovecraft homage. Well, an homage in my own twisted way.  The one sentence summary is young poet goes crazy, is committed to an insane asylum and disappears 40 years later, only to reappear in 2013.  That’s really all I want to say.  This is going to be a bit of a historical novel, bit of Lovecraft, and some wibbly wobbly timey wimey things.  I think I may head right into that after I finish writing A HINT OF LILAC.

Despite the fairly simplistic plot of LONELY ARE THE DEAD, it may be a bit too much for me to write, at this point and maybe working on something else, will allow me to get the right tools to finish it off.

Look for THE COMMITMENT OF ERYLE HARRIGAN to be out by Christmas time if all goes well.

Ageism, Getting Older, and the new Doctor

In six days I turn 48. Not one of the milestones to be sure. Certainly not like turning 30, 40 or -gasp – 50! But for my own reasons it is. My Dad was 48 when he died, and while the chances of that happening are probably pretty slim, it still weighs on me. As I get older, I’ve noticed how much ageism exists in society. While it’s not to the extent of say, racism, class warfare, or homophobia, it does exist, and it has affected me.

I started thinking about this today because of the revelation of the new Doctor. 55 year old Peter Capaldi will be the new Doctor Who, replacing the 31 year old Matt Smith.

When the announcement was made, the reaction was interesting. Many of us long time Doctor Who fans cheered as it was a return to the Doctors of yore. For others who haven’t seen anything prior to David Tennant, or maybe Chris Eccleston it was a huge let down. While there were younger Doctors (Peter Davison was 30 when he played the fifth incarnation), none had the rabid fanbase of Matt Smith or David Tennant.  Certainly none of them had the looks of either of them as well.

So it was with at first bemusement, then annoyance and now outright anger that I began sifting through all the reactions.

“Too old!”

“Too ugly!”

“The Doctor should be someone you want to snog, not whose diaper you’d need to change!”

As a society we’ve been led to believe that youth and beauty are the only important things. Who cares about education, wisdom, and experience when you don’t want to bed them? I expect this in certain areas. Advertising, movies, are geared almost exclusively around the young and pretty (talent not required).  We see the importance of this in the amount of plastic surgery, botox injections, hair transplants, tummy tucks, ass enlargement (not to mention penis enlargement) that is thrust at us in almost every way.

Yet I was still surprised by the reaction. People didn’t want a Doctor, they wanted masturbation material. They wanted someone who could fulfill their lacking lives by giving it imaginary meaning. This is becoming so ingrained in our psyches it affects everyday life in ways you don’t notice unless your of “a certain age”.

I’ve been unemployed for longer than I care to think about. I’ve sent out and filled  well over 1000 resumes and applications. Actually closer to 1500 at this point. when I go for an interview, there’s invariably a waiting area filled with other unemployed hopefuls, all of whom are at least 10-20 years my junior. They’re easier to train, demand less money-naive. Older workers know the ropes, have been around the block and have more experience which should be adequately compensated.  It’s depressing, it’s wrong but it’s also the world we live in.

I’m very happy for Mr. Capaldi, very excited to see what he brings to the table, but most of all happy that sometimes the old fart actually wins.

Now get off my lawn.

Managing Social Networks – The Ugly Truth

Whether you’re an indie writer, published by a small press, or have a publishing deal with mid tier and higher publishers, chances are a lot of the promotion will fall onto your shoulders. Unless you achieve the status of a Stephen King or Dan Brown (two people who actually don’t need a ton of advertising), your going to get your hands dirty. In the always connected world we now reside in, not only is an online presence suggested, it’s actually required.

As I’ve said in other posts, I’ve been online since the BBS days of the mid ’80s. I’ve hung out on usenet groups, chatted in AOL rooms, posted on Compuserve and Prodigy forums, and even had a GeoCities site.  Yesterday I got a notice that I had been on WordPress for Five years. I’ve been on Twitter since March of 2009, Facebook since about the same time and Google+ since June of 2011. I also had MySpace, and far too many accounts to far too many forums to ever be able to mention-let alone remember-them all.

All of that however doesn’t make me an expert. It does make me reevaluate the amount of time I’m online, but that’s a sad tale for another day.  What it has made me, is a scheduling expert.  Not for everyone else, just for me.  Everyone is different. We all have lives, family, friends, and obligations which take our time. Then of course there’s our writing, and there never seems to be enough time for that. So how do we juggle all that and maintain some kind of presence?

I schedule what social Networks I’ll be on for any given day. Twitter is a little bit different, as 98% of my posts are from my phone or tablet, and I can do that from anywhere.  Blogging takes the biggest chink of time at once. With G+ and FB, I can do that in little bites, but to blog means sitting down in my comfy chair, grabbing my laptop, a cup of coffee and grasping at straws for an idea. Due to this, I tend to blog the least. I try to keep them to about 500 words when possible.  Not too long to either write, or read, but enough to not feel it was simply filler.  On Sunday nights when I’m putting together a schedule, I’ll come up with three or four ideas for posts, and space them out throughout the week (and try to keep one for the weekend, as people like to have something new to read then). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. If I get an idea throughout the week and I have time, I may write one on the fly. I’m working on being consistent after many months of a fallow field.

I alternate my days on FB and G+. Example, I’ll concentrate on FB Mon, Wed, and Fri while working on G+ Tues and Thurs. I don’t ignore them on their off days, but I don’t spend as much time on the pages and communities as I do when it’s their day. I try to be as engaged on the pages I subscribe to as possible.  On weekends, I mix it up, whatever I feel like hanging out on is where you’ll find me.  And twitter is throughout the day whenever I have the urge to say something, or a new post is up.

It’s very easy to get consumed in all of it, but remember it’s your time, you run them, they don’t run you.