Heath Stallcup's Blog, page 13

No News Is Good News?

I hadn’t really posted much here lately because…well, there wasn’t really much new to post.  MS5 is slowly developing.  I wish I could simply say that I was being thorough.  Methodical.  Anal.  But honestly, I’ve been struggling with time management, story development and a writer’s worst nightmare…self confidence.

Add to that, I’ve been running back and forth seeing different specialists for my heart and not really getting answers, only more questions.  I find myself not getting done what I’d like to have done and the frustration level has hit a new high.  For those who aren’t privy to the whole ‘heart’ thing, we thought I had a heart attack a few months ago.  A quick trip to the ER and their tests indicated that it wasn’t a heart attack.  They couldn’t tell me what it was, but they urged me to get a stress test. I figured, if it wasn’t a heart attack, why bother?  Yeah.  Not so smart.  Anyway, a nurse friend explained what the stress test was for and two chemical mountain climbing trips later, there is restricted flow to the lower part of my heart.  They want to try to treat it with medication first before they go looking around inside. Yay for them. I’m not keen on the idea of having anybody poke and prod my innards.  Especially around my ticker.

So what does that have to do with writing?  Nothing.  But it’s just one more thing on my plate and on my mind and it’s something that takes away from my putting my full attention to anything.  It seems that between ballgames, doctor visits, being a taxi driver for mini-me’s and trying to find time to write…it all takes it’s toll.

I can say that I got some really cool feedback on the t-shirt design.  I’ve even contacted a couple of different places that print shirts to try to get quotes.  I hadn’t realized all of the different ways to make a custom t-shirt until I started this search.

Anywho, I just wanted to touch base with everybody since it had been a while.  I AM still kicking.  Nothing has really changed other than the schedule for future releases, but since that is so fluid and up in the air, I’ll save it for later when I know something more solid.

Input Needed

Yeah, I should be writing instead of penning this.  Sorry.  Even my brain needs to step away once in a while and sort of decompress.  In the meantime, I’ve been playing with different ideas for SWAG.  For those who aren’t too familiar, it’s the little freebie stuff you give out to folks to help promote your product.  In this case, it’s the Monster Squad.

I have a friend and fellow author who is also a graphic artist who designed a really cool ‘unit logo’ for me to use.  As some of you have seen, I’ve put this on some stuff like coffee cups and t-shirts and whatnot…just to get a feel for it.

While the coffee cups looked pretty darned cool, they aren’t really something that people carry around with them ALL the time.  Well, unless you’re a Chief Petty Officer in the NAVY and have a permanently hooked finger.  Sorry.  A little military humor there.

So…here’s the thing.  I talked with Jeffrey (he’s the aforementioned author and graphic artist) and he tossed together something for me to use for t-shirts.  Instead, I saw it as the cover of the hardback for the first four Monster Squads…a little project that Denise and I had been talking about for quite a while now.  With just a little tweaking, he gave me this:

I really liked it.  No.  Scratch that.  I LOVED it.  Simple, yet…striking.  At least to me.

So here is where I need YOUR input.  I mean, you guys are the fans.  You’re the readers.  You’re the reason the characters continue to grow and enjoy new life and new adventures. If you were to look for Monster Squad items, whether they be coffee mugs, t-shirts, pens, posters…whatever.  What design would you like to see?

Would you rather it be just the logo like the coffee cup above?  Or would you rather see something that reminds you of the book covers that you’re used to seeing? Something with the silhouette of the soldiers?  Both?  Neither?  Just the words ‘Monster Squad’?  Give me some feedback, please.  Because I’ll tell you, this stuff isn’t cheap and picking up little bits here and there just to see how I might like it is getting…well…expensive!  Help me decide which image best represents the squads.  What do YOU think of when you think of them?

You can message me here or on Facebook or email or drop by the house and we can chat over a cup of coffee.  However you choose, your input is valuable. Or should I say, invaluable?

 

Surprise Surprise!

Well, originally we had MS4, Blood Apocalypse, scheduled to be released in May.  Then we moved it up to April because of the World Horror Con.  Release it early so that we could compile the first four books into one big hardback edition and present it at the WHC in Portland.  Then ACX reared its ugly head and stated that if your book wasn’t under contract by March 12th, it fell under their new terms and conditions.

In the immortal words of Gomer Pyle, Surprise, Surprise, Surprise.  Guess what gets released 3/10/2014?

If you guessed Monster Squad 4, Blood Apocalypse, then you’d be right!

Beside trying to hurry and get MS4 into the system and beat ACX at their own game, there are other reasons for publishing sooner than originally planned.  As mentioned, we want to compile the first four squad stories into one very large tome…one complete edition with each story re-edited and rechaptered and attached back to back, telling the epic story of the Rise of the Sicarii from start to finish as it was originally intended.  This new hardback edition will be released at the World Horror Convention in Portland and I hope that it will be well received.

I know this is a strange new twist for those who have been following the squads since Phoenix.  Usually we plan for a certain date and hold our breath, praying that we can hit close.  Something always seems to come up that throws it off, usually at the last minute.  But this time, not only are we early, we are WAY early.

So, enjoy it.

Because now the real work begins.  Not only do I have to try to promote this, I also have to get MS5 drafted and to Todd for editing.  And MS6 and MS7 and…>sigh<

Merry early Christmas y’all.

The Meaning of a Handshake

I’m old school.

Big surprise to a lot of you, eh?  No, what I mean is, to me, a handshake has more power, more meaning than a written contract.  If someone tells you that they’re going to do something, their word is their bond.  If you shake hands on it, it’s a done deal.  It’s as good as gold.  You might as well take that to the bank, because it was DONE.

Well, there are a LOT of people out there…nay, not just people, but entire businesses, institutions, that don’t understand what that simple concept means.

What am I talking about?  Take for instance, your credit card. Regardless of whether it was a pre-approved offer sent in the mail, an offer found online or even one that your bank or credit union offered you, they give you the terms and conditions and you agree to it.  You SIGN your NAME and you enter into a contract with them.

Fast forward six months…or even a year.  You receive a notice in the mail.  “We have changed our terms and conditions…blah blah blah.”  Ummm.  No.

You see, you entered into a legally binding contract and…

Oh, no, sir.  If you’ll look at the fine print, it states that we reserve the right to…

Really?  Seriously?  Fine print?  You can change a CONTRACT midstream?

Yes, and if you don’t like it, don’t deal with us.

Well, that’s sort of what ACX is trying to do with writers and narrators.  As of March 12, 2014, ACX is changing the terms and conditions of the way they deal with WE the People who actually CREATE the stories being sold on their site.  Before, they took a full half and left the other half for us to figure out if we could hire a narrator ourselves and keep our profit or find a narrator of a good enough quality and that was willing to split our half with us.  In essence, if we were an aspiring young writer (or old writer, as the case may be), we could either pony up thousands of dollars to get it produced and then keep all of our half…or split it and hope that both the writer and narrator made money.

Now, ACX has decided that they are entitled to a full 60% of the monies.  They didn’t write the stories.  They didn’t narrate them.  They didn’t produce them.  They don’t even PROMOTE them for us.  But for some reason, they get damn near two thirds of the money?  Where the fuck does this get from?  Pardon my language, but…for reals??

Now, ACX has their ‘reasons’, and they’re all BS.  They may as well have just written, “We are feeling really greedy and since we have the market cornered, screw you guys.”  Because, trust me…that IS exactly how everybody affected by this has taken it.  ACX has forgotten what a ‘handshake’ means.  They’ve forgotten what it means to stay true to your word.  They’ve forgotten that it is all of ‘we the people’…the little guys and gals who actually CREATE the stories and market the stories and the narrators who produce the awesome sounding audio files that you the consumer actually listen to…they’ve forgotten that it is US who are the crafters.  We’re the artisans.  We are the faces behind the craft.  They’re the Wal-Mart to our product.  Except, they don’t offer the advertising. Or the ‘everyday low prices’.  They just offer…a place.  For us to go to…to get screwed!

So there you have it.  My rant.  For whatever it’s worth.

And the really truly SAD part about the whole thing?  They KNOW they have us over a barrel.  If we want our books made into audio, we’re going to have to continue to go to them and get raped.  At least, until someone comes along to compete against them.

Where is our audio K-Mart?  The Audible Target?  The Amazon against Amazon?

I guarantee you…if eBay decided to get into producing audio books, Amazon would straighten their sh!t up in a hurry!

Spread Too Thin

Well, as I announced in my previous blog post, to get the creative juices flowing, I began working on a second story in tandem with the fifth installment of the Monster Squad, Homecoming.  I think I opened a can of worms.  Although the two stories were beginning to form up nicely, more and more ideas began popping into this echoing cavern of a noodle of mine.  The problem?  The ideas had nothing to do with the two stories I was working on.  They did, however, have to do with another story that I wanted to make into a trilogy…or a short series.

What to do??

Why, start a THIRD story as well.  All while doing some minor editing on the first three MS stories and putting them back to back and restructuring the chapters in them for a little World Horror Con surprise.  And breaking ground on a fourth little project that had been bouncing around in my head just so it would quit ricocheting off other ideas and really throwing me for loops.

So now, when I sit at my computer, the first major decision is…which one of these can of worms do I want to stick my hands into?  Which story is calling to me?  I had to draw a line in the sand.  No more.  No matter how many ideas flow from this stupid mind of mine, there is simply no way I could create them all.  I wish I could…believe me, I do.  There are stories just itching to pour forth, but my old arthritic hands can only pound out so many words at a time.  And not all of the stories are worth the effort.  At least, not to me.

Hmm.  Is it a focus problem?  Is it a time management problem?  Or maybe it’s just a sanity problem…too many alternate realities jockeying for pole position?  Regardless, it alleviates one problem.  When I sit at my computer and my brain draws a blank on a particular project, I can quickly switch to another and see if anything comes to mind.  While I absolutely DETEST doing things this way, I fear that at least for now, it’s how I’ll have to operate.

So there we have it.  The inane ramblings of an inane storyteller.  Oh yeah…I think I’m going to drop the whole ‘author’ thing.  Some people take the title way too seriously.  I don’t want to be one of those people.  So, I think I prefer the title ‘Storyteller’.  I feel it fits better.

For now, anyway.

Strategies

I’m trying something new.  I sort of had to.  I’ve been working on MS5 and it’s been an uphill battle the entire way.  This is unusual for me because the characters had literally come to life previously.  They told their own story.  Even after I had decided that the story was finished and I was moving on to other pastures, snippets of their continuing lives continued to bombard my mind at odd times.  Like, while driving.  Or in the shower.  Or while talking on the phone.  Key scenes of what ‘should happen next’ flooded my mind while I tried to write other stories.  My wife was right (again).  I should have written it down…because now that I’m actually trying to WRITE MS5…blank.  My mind turns into a wasteland and I can literally hear the winds blowing between my ears.  If I close my eyes, I can see tumbleweeds scampering across the dank recesses of my mind.

What to do, what to do??

Start a different book instead, that’s what.  And of course, the ideas start flowing again.

So, for the first time, I’m trying to write two different books at the same time.  Even though Caldera isn’t scheduled to be released until March, I’m working on the followup to it now and it has gotten the creative juices flowing once more.  After sitting at my computer screen and drawing a blank for so long, I’ve found that getting the story down isn’t such a chore.  It’s still slow going since I’m bouncing between two stories now and I’m constantly having to remind myself what occurred in the past, at least the creative juices are flowing again and progress is being made.

As pappy used to say, do what you gotta do to get it done.  If it means writing two stories to get one out, then so be it.

A Worthy Cause

For those of you who may not have heard yet, Armand Rosamilia is collecting fellow author’s books to send to the troops stationed in Kuwait and Afghanistan in April. If you are an author and want to help, join this effort and then get in touch with Armand at Facebook for the address to send your copies. Let’s do something positive for someone else! And props to Joe McKinney for previously doing an event like this and seeding the idea!

Not an author and still want to support the cause?  You can help with shipping costs AND get a really cool t-shirt, too! Just go to http://teespring.com/ASOT2014 and order the size you want.  Don’t want a shirt, but still want to help with shipping?  Reach out to Armand and he’ll get you the Paypal email address where you can donate to help.

Do it.  It’s a worthy cause.

Bits of Tid…er, Tidbits?

Is there really a point to this late night blog entry?  Sort of.  Kinda, but not really?  Most of my blog entries are at such odd times.  While most ‘bloggers’ try to time their blog posts to where the most people will see them, I write mine when I can.  You see, I have a new full time job.  It’s as a full time Grumpy to my youngest grandson, Poot.  Yes, that is his name.  I know it is, cuz I gave it to him.  Sometimes being a grandpa has its perks.

Anyway, with mom having to reenter the work force and daycare rates being so high, I got voluntold that I get to watch him.  At 5 months old, he and I have a lot in common.  We both have few teeth, little hair, we cry a lot, have strange smells that emanate from our bodies and we both can be pretty whiny.  Really, we’re about even at the moment. While I’ve got him beat in that I’m not in diapers, he has me beat in the ‘cuteness’ department…but that’s sort of subjective.

And apparently, we both have the attention span of a fruitfly because I almost forgot the point to all of this.  Due to my new full time employment, my online presence will be greatly diminished.  Okay, it will be almost nil.  Unless it’s late at night.  Same thing goes for my writing.  But, since I did most of my writing at night anyway, that part won’t really take a beating.

Since I was roaming the halls of this blog tonight, cleaning up a few corners, updating the ‘Works’ page by adding Amazon links to COD, (which came out a day EARLY for those paying attention) and just generally making things a little more presentable, I thought I’d drop a line to those few who frequent here and let you know…I may not be around as much as I used to be.  I still intend to meet the deadlines as set forth by my publisher.  At least, I will do my absolute BEST to meet those deadlines.  We still have Caldera penciled in for a March release.  We’re still planning on May for MS4 Blood Apocalypse.  I’ve got folks looking at Forneus Corson to see if there is some way to salvage it.  I’m currently working on MS5 The Return, and we’re hoping for a January release for it.  It won’t be until 2015 that things really get messy.  By then, I’m supposed to have a new release every couple months…alternating between an MS story and (hopefully) the Caldera line.  That is FULL-TIME writing.  So unless I can figure out how to teach Poot the in’s and out’s to a word processor…I may need to invest in a Velcro wall and a special suit for the little guy…and some noise cancelling headphones.

MS3 Target: Monday!

If you’re one of the few who have been waiting for the release of MS3, Coalition of the Damned, your wait grows shorter.  The target release date is set for Monday.  But, if we’ve learned anything over the last year, we know that sometimes things happen.  So, if it doesn’t happen Monday, please, let’s keep the hate mail to a minimum.  Angry mobs with pitchforks and flaming torches, please try to be just a little more patient.  Besides, I’m not really sure if two people cursing in my yard shaking a pitchfork is REALLY considered an ‘angry mob’ these days, but hey, I’ll call it what it’s meant to be.

Either way, as announced before, we’ve included a wee peek into the world of viral infected zombies at the end of this one.  With luck, come March, you’ll be able to dive into a whole new world where man has fallen from his perch at the ‘top of the food chain’.

Caldera is my first dive into the zombie infected pool and it’s my hope that you’ll enjoy it enough to allow it to be my next series.

So, with that said, enjoy your weekend, wrap up whatever else you may be in the middle of reading and get ready for the third installment in the Monster Squad series.

Countdown Has Begun

As the title to this blog entry suggests, the countdown to the release of MS3, Coalition of the Damned, has begun.  While I don’t have an exact date, it should be about a week (give or take) for the third installment to be released to the masses.

This release will be a little bit different than the previous Monster Squad books.  This time we plan to include a peek at an upcoming release.  We’ll be including a chapter from Caldera, my first novel delving in the zombie genre.  These aren’t your typical Romero style, slow moving, mindless munchers either.  These are the viral infected, fast moving, eat-anything-that-moves, rage type.  Pulling a chapter from early in the book, I’m hoping it will tempt you to take a chance on what I hope will become my next series.  Although Caldera was planned to be a stand alone novel without follow-up, I’ve been convinced otherwise by my beta readers and my missus.

As the release date draws closer, you know I’ll let you know.  And once it is ‘set in stone’, I’ll announce it.  Until then, keep believing, keep reading and keep checking under the bed.