David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 235

“Bones Buried in the Dirt” Coming Soon To The Eckleburg Book Club!

I just wanted to let everyone know that Bones Buried in the Dirt will soon be a part of the illustrious Eckleburg Book Club over at the The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review’s web site. It’ll have it’s own page over there with various resources for the book, possibly including excerpts, discussion questions, and other such gems.

I’m told the book club page for Bones Buried in the Dirt will go live May 19, 2014 and I’ll post when I have it. It’d be cool if you could stop by and discuss the book, or just stop by at least and see what other people are saying. Should be fun.

Anyway, keep an eye out for this. In the mean time, maybe you’ll want to head over to the Eckleburg Book Club and check out some of the pages for some of the other books, see what kind of stuff goes on there and maybe find out something interesting about a book you have been or should be considering.

Hopefully we’ll be talking more around May 19.

Things I Care About More Than The Fact That George Clooney Just Got Engaged

The entire Internet appears to be abuzz over the fact that George Clooney got engaged. According to what I’ve heard, he is now engaged to the human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin. Good for George. However, I don’t really see why this is such a big deal.

Frankly, I don’t really care whether or not old George is engaged. I know people have been poking into his private life for a long time, and he’s a ‘heartthrob actor’ so lots of people are concerned. Still…it doesn’t much interest me one way or another.

In fact, here is a list of things that interest me more than either the fact that Clooney is engaged and/or who he just got engaged to:

- Most things

And there we have it. I didn’t put too much effort into this list, but as I said…I don’t much care. Hopefully George and his fiancée will be happy and everyone else will find something else to do.

Live Online Reading For “The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes” At Lit Demon!

Lit Demon will be hosting me doing a live reading for The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes  Thursday May 15th at 8:00 PM CST (7:00 PM Mountain, 9:00 PM Eastern, 6:00 PM Pacific). Check out the page at Lit Demon for details.

The page at Lit Demon has the webex link to join to be part of the live reading when the time comes. Since this is being hosted via webex, we will be limited to 23 live participants. As such, please join the Facebook event page if you’re going to attend for sure so we know who is going to attend live and aren’t going to be over the max number.

No worries, though, if you can’t attend live. Lit Demon is going to capture the event and put out an archive video on Youtube later that everyone will be able to watch. Hope you can attend! This’ll be fun.

Goodreads Giveaway For “The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes”

There is now a goodreads givewaway for The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes! There are five copies to give away and it ends May 27th. Check it out and sign up to win.

Goodreads Book Giveaway


The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes
by David S. Atkinson

Giveaway ends May 27, 2014.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

It’s More Complicated Than Aleister Crowley Led Us To Believe

I’m sure you all remember the notorious Aleister Crowley. In The Book of the Law, he stated “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” I’m sorry, Aleister…but I’ve found there’s a bit more to it than that.

Trust me, go to law school. You’ll need a lot more than “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” You won’t even get through one exam with that. There’s more.

For example:

- Boulder, Colorado regulates your ability to allow llamas to graze on city property (5-4-7 Grazing on Public Property: No person shall knowingly cause or permit any domesticated animal that such person owns, possesses, or controls, including, without limitation, cows, goats, llamas, burros, mules, horses, pigs, or sheep, to graze, pasture, or run at large or to be driven or herded within any property belonging to the city or under the possession and control of the city, except pursuant to a written permit from the city manager.)

- Louisville, Colorado statutorily establishes a pro-turkey/anti-chicken agenda (Sec. 6.16.020. Keeping of certain animals prohibited. A. It is unlawful for any person to maintain or to keep any cattle, sheep, goats, swine, chickens, horses or other livestock within the city, except in areas zoned for such use as provided in the zoning regulations. The keeping of such animals within areas of the city not specifically excepted herein is declared to be a nuisance. B. It is unlawful for any person to maintain or to keep more than three ducks, geese or turkeys, or any combination thereof, within the city in areas zoned for such use as provided in the zoning regulations. The keeping of more than three fowl within areas of the city not specifically excepted herein is declared a nuisance.)

- Vail, Colorado mandates the good skiing skills (5-5-3: SKIER DUTIES: D. Avoid Obstacles: Each skier shall stay clear of snow-grooming equipment, all vehicles, lift towers, signs, and any other equipment on the ski slopes and trails.)

See? There’s more than just “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” A bunch more. Sorry, Aleister…you were apparently mistaken. Maybe you were just ignorant of the law, but that’s no excuse.

What I Remember About Four Corners

When I was around 7 or so, my parents took my sister and I on an extended car trip around the southwestern United States. One of the places we stopped was Four Corners. I’m led to believe that this is a highly beautiful place, the only spot where four U.S. states meet. However, given that I was seven at the time and haven’t been back since, my memories of Four Corners are a little hazy.

In fact, here is all I remember:

- It was hot. Flat too.

- Families of four seem to get a kick out of putting one family member in each state and having them link hands, perhaps experimenting with the experience of getting away from each other without actually having child protective services get involved.

- Someone sold snow cones there.

- The snow cones being sold at Four Corners were cherry…or at least red. I think that was the only option.

- There was a lot of sand. Or maybe it was rocks, or dirt. Something like that.

That’s all I remember. Quite an impressive experience, eh? I bet you can tell I’m a writer.

Here’s A Cereal I Bet You Don’t Remember

Here’s a cereal I bet you don’t remember: Halfsies.

Many of you might not be old enough to remember. It was apparently only sold between 1983 and 1984. I remember having it briefly, and I loved it. Then Halfsies was gone, and I just barely remembered it.

Turns out, Halfsies was actually put out as a response to criticism that children cereals had too much sugar. Halfsies had half the sugar of other popular kid cereals. I didn’t know that, but I doubt my parents would have told me if they were trying to get me to go for a lower sugared option. I’m surprised I even got that much. Regardless, like most products put forth in response to health criticisms, Halfsies failed quickly and the other cereals that had been the target of the criticisms are still around.

Let’s face it: we want to complain about how bad products on the market are, but we still want the bad stuff. It’s just like McDonalds. We complain about the fat and calories in their food, but we keep going and we don’t buy any of the healthy options they try to offer.

Anyway, I don’t think I even got this cereal for long when I was a kid, but I remember it still. For whatever reason, I loved it.

My Writing Process

Yeah…so you remember how I said I wasn’t sticking my neck out when people were asking for who hadn’t done the “My Writing Process” blog chain thing? Remember how I said I probably was going to get sniped the moment the post came out when someone saw I hadn’t done it? Yeah, I got hit. Funny though, Jon Konrath (author of a number of of kick ass books including the recently released and extremely good Atmospheres) tapped me for this fifteen seconds or so before he saw the post.

I’m cursed.

Anyway, enough whining. Here are the questions:

What Am I Working On?

Right now I’m working on promoting the fresh release of my second book The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes. I’m also shopping around a new book called Apocalypse All the Time, shopping around a collection of absurd stories called Not Quite So Stories, and doing some preliminary ‘sketches’ for a novel where a guy tries to fix a failed relationship with a kind of sympathetic magic by making up for things he did wrong to get the girl to reappear.

How Does My Work Differ From Others of its Genre?

I’m not really sure I have a genre. Some of my work is pretty straight realism (Bones Buried in the Dirt is a good example with a child narrator), some is absurd (like “Home Improvement” or “Monkey! Monkey! Monkey! Monkey! Monkey!“), some is just straight weird (like “There’s a rabbit living under my kitchen sink….“), and some like The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes defies easy categorization by wandering between realism, magical realism, and whatnot else. I write a lot of different stuff, but I’ve always been a little off and I think that results in my own take on whatever I do.

Why Do I Write What I Do?

I obey the whims and orders of my brain. Something appears in my head and my brain screams: YEAH! At that point, I either do what it says or suffer the consequences. Stupid brain.

How Does My Writing Process Work?

I work a lot by intuition and feeling out what works. I’m working daily on something, whenever I can fit it in and whatever it is. Reading, blog posts, jamming myself into literary discussions on social media, ‘sketching out ideas,’ actually writing, revising, planning, writing book reviews, I don’t do a lot with my non-work time that isn’t really writing related. It’s just what I do, regardless what it is or what it looks like.

One thing to mention is that I write almost everything longhand first on a legal pad. Then I type it up, getting at least one pass of revision in just getting it into electronic form. There are times where I don’t even keep to that though, going straight into Word or into Word from a page of notes. I work best when not under a completely rigid process so I always leave room to wander from what I even normally do…much less set up any rigid rules that I’d chafe under anyway.

And now I’m supposed to tag other people to do this. I contacted them all telepathically and they all agreed, so I’ll just assume they don’t know their own minds if they don’t follow up on this:

- Edward J. Rathke, author of Ash Cinema, Twilight of the Wolves, Girl with Ears & Demon with Limp, and the forthcoming Noir: A Love Story

- AE Stueve, author of The ABCs of Dinkology

- BH James, author of Parnucklian for Chocolate

Consider Supporting “Fly With Molly”

I’m sure you all know Molly Gaudry right now (driving force behind The Lit Pub, author of We Take Me Apart, and so on). I’m sure you also know that she has struggled with double vision, cognitive functioning, and sensory processing disorder…to the point that in her first semester as a PhD candidate she was medically advised that she needed to start considering a viable plan outside of academia. However, Molly managed to find significant success combatting these issues via AntiGravity® Fitness. As such, though she’s not giving up on academia, she wants to become a certified AntiGravity® Fitness instructor.

That’s where the “Fly With Molly” Indigogo fundraiser comes in.

Of course, the full certification program costs around $7000. Considering the average salary of those in writing academia, the student loans she’s likely carrying already, and the medical bills she’s already incurred (some of which she even had to pay with student loan money), this obviously isn’t going to be easy.

Which is exactly why the “Fly With Molly” Indigogo fundraiser was started. The hope is to raise the $7000 by May 15th. If you can help, that’d be really cool…and they’ve got some great perks (Lit Pub swag; various books signed by authors such as Molly, Matthew Salesses, J.A, Tyler, Kathy Fish, Amber Sparks, and others; and more).

At the very least, check it out. Molly’s cool.

Don’t Forget The Reading for “The Garden Of Good and Evil Pancakes” At The Nebraska Book Festival This Saturday

Don’t forget, I’ll be reading from The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes at the 2014 Nebraska Book Festival this Saturday, April 26th. If you’ll be in the area, why not come on out and hear me?

As I mentioned previously, the tentative schedule so far has me reading in the 1:15-2:00 p.m. block in Bootstrapper Hall over at the Thompson Center at UNO. I believe I’ll be going on just after John Price reads from Daddy Long Legs: The Natural Education of a Father.

In any event, I’ll be there. It’d be cool if there were some familiar faces in the crowd. I certainly hope there’ll be a crowd.