Devon McCormack's Blog, page 4

What's This? A New Cover?

Indeed, it is.

For those who actually even know that this blog exists, you may have seen my original cover for Clipped:


Well, recently, after a lot of labor and pain...and a few tears, I came up with another cover--one that I think serves as a good replacement:


Oh my. Who might you be, Mr. Man? Well, in terms of my story, he's Janka, protagonist Kinzer's angel lover. Outside of that, just a lovely model that I don't mind staring at for hours on end. And that's exactly what I've been doing ever since I started work on this latest project. I know, I know. I was really going out on a limb (Shirley-Maclaine-style) by opting to place one of my favorite things on the cover: sexy man-torso. My internet bud and fellow author, Brenda approves, so I'm happy.

That all said, when you see this sexy man-cake staring at you, I hope you feel the same delightful sensations that I feel in my penis...um...my hard heart. Heart!

Dear, Sweet, Dear Friday (with Dave Franco Love)

Oh, Friday, you couldn't have come at a better time. As I sit at my laptop, sipping Dunkin' Donuts-brand coffee and eating vanilla yogurt, I can't help but reflect on all that's happened this week. It feels like just yesterday I was sitting at this same laptop, yelling, "Why won't you work?!" Screaming at a fictitious character, "Why won't you work?!" Whining at my face in the mirror, "Why...won't...you...work?"

All good, though. Everything seems to have worked out for the best. By that, I mean that I'm still here, in one piece. So, as a tribute to Friday, I'm going to treat myself to some...Dave Franco love!!


Dave. Dave, Dave, Dave. I remember when I first noticed you in that Funny or Die video with the nerdy guy from Superbad (the same guy who makes an inexplicable appearance in Pitch Perfect - I will reserve PP love for another time, and pee pee love for yet another). And then later I saw you in Warm Bodies. At the time, I didn't even know it was you, but I thought, We could be warm bodies together! And then there was the video that you clearly made for me that featured this lovely shot:

And for that, too, I thank you.

I want those eyebrows inside of me!

That's all I got. I know, right? Why'd I even bother? *shrugs. hits post*

Poke-stalgia: Reflecting on Pokemon and Savoring Consumerism

Anyone else miss pokemon? You know who does? This guy. All 150 of the original ones. I couldn't care less about the ones after that. But I was so in love with that initial batch of the alien freaks that the humans of Poke-world enslaved and continually pitted against one another in an unending quest to be the best...like no one ever was. Those guys were awesome.

Every weekend, my mom would drive me and my brothers to Toys R Us. We were adolescents, so of course we were too cool for the kids games or action figures. No, no. Those things were silly. Rather than blowing our money on useless things like that, we spent our not-so-hard-earned allowance on $3.99 packs of 10 cards of these fake creatures. We would trade and get into huge fights over who deserved what. The rule in our family was, if you got mad enough, eventually you'd end up with what you wanted. The secret was to get as mad as you possibly could and then have a magical epiphany that your other sibling deserved it. Then, they'd hand whatever it was right over, no questions asked. This is how my brother ended up with all the Oddishes:

 
For some reason that me and my other brother couldn't possibly understand, he had to have all the fucking Oddishes. For those who aren't into Pokemon (and if you aren't, I don't understand why you got this far in the post), Oddishes aren't rare at all. They're like weeds that you find as you're looking for something awesome. Nevertheless, he had to have them all, and he wouldn't take no for an answer. This became more problematic when me and my brother started withholding them just because we knew that he needed them so desperately. But we learned very quickly that one does not deprive of Heathcliff of his Catherine unless one wants to suffer great consequences. Oh, brotherly love.
I want you to consider this: the whole point of this being a trading card game was to fight with them. They all have skills and a certain amount of life that you subtract and add to with other cards. But me and my brothers never actually played that game. We just collected the cards. Right?! What the fuck? As you can probably tell (and anyone who got sucked into these guys probably knows already), this was a cruel addiction that prepared my generation for Apple products and Starbucks. It's quite appropriate because, like with Apple and Starbucks, though we were young, we knew that we had an irrational need for these things that had no real addictive quality to them (Starbucks, of course, has caffeine, but we should note that there are plenty of easy ways of acquiring that without needing the brand Starbucks). We were obsessed, and being groomed to be the best consumers in the world! And I believe that my generation represents a great generation of vapid, illogical consumerism. Continually, I'll hear my friends referencing how they feel that companies like Apple and Google are rapidly taking over and encouraging us to blindly consume whatever they put out. Of course, no one actively wants to fight this (I don't really think I do, even). It's like with Pokemon. We knew they just wanted our money, but we'd been sucked in...and we just kept on buying. Today, we do the same thing, recognizing the money-making nature of the business, but also savoring the joy that we find in being consumers to these mega-conglomerates. We really do gotta catch 'em all, because we want to be the very best, like no one ever was. And the latest iPad, iPhone, Chai Latte will do just that...Right? Right?!

New Carrie Movie Review Starring Chloe Three Names and Julianne Meany

It's interesting when a remake makes me question the quality of the original. That isn't to say that I thought the new one was better. Rather, there were, at times, the new version contained such strong similarities that fell short of my recollections of "ooo" and "aw" that I was left thinking, "Maybe the first one wasn't all that great after all...and that's why this one is only so-so." I think this side-by-side from Yahoo does a good job of demonstrating the radical difference between the two versions:

 
Left, we have a slightly disturbed Chloe Whats Her-face. Right, we have Crazy-Eyes McGee (aka Sissy Spacek). The shot of three-names-Chloe doesn't do justice to the angry-face that she makes when she's wreaking havoc on her peers, but I think there's a big difference between Chloe's straight up anger and Sissy Spacek's bug-eyed terror. Sissy Spacek took me on a ride into crazy-land. Chloe Blah Blah made me feel like she was just throwing a tantrum, which I believe is what the director was going for.
Stepping back, I'll provide a brief synop for those who might be unfamiliar with the Carrie franchise:
Carrie is loser. Carrie's bitchy peers throw tampons at her. Carrie realizes she has telekinetic powers. Through a series of character choices more unbelievable than the telekinetic powers, Carrie ends up going to prom with hottest guy in school. Lead Bitchy Peer pours pig blood on her. Carrie uses her telekinesis to ruin prom for everyone (throwing appendages and cars all over the place). It may seem like a spoiler, but anyone who doesn't know this by now just needs to be told. There's a subplot with Carrie's über-religious mom, and while it's cool, it's not really the selling-point of the film. I'm not sure why, as it's the best part in both versions. Speaking of the über-religious mom, this was one of the better parts of the movie, portrayed by none other than Julianne Moore.

Though I'm not usually a fan of Ms. Moore, I thoroughly enjoyed her performance. And with lines like, "I can see your dirty pillows," (in reference to Carrie's boobs), how could I not have loved it? There's another wonderful, self-reflective moment where Moore's character proclaims (regarding her pregnancy), "I thought you were cancer!" To which Carrie replied, "That's a terrible thing to say." And that's what everyone in the audience was thinking, too. That's why we all laughed.

The humorous parts seem to be the director and actors commentary on Stephen King's disturbing dystopia. At times, it seems they are letting the audience in on the fact that the things these characters are doing seem unrealistically cruel and maniacal. But that's part of what makes it all fun. Judy Greer does a great job as the gym teacher who gets way too involved in her student's lives. But she's one of the better parts of the movie as well.

Aside from Moore and Greer's performances, we have the usual teen stereotypes running around, doing what you'd expect. Just think Mean Girls, only some loser has telekinetic powers. And since we're back to the powers, I just want to emphasize how hilarious it was watching Carrie walk around, inadvertently and not-so-inadvertently ruining shit with telekinetic outbursts (to the point where the viewer is left wondering, why is no one else noticing that it's her?) In the first movie, it wasn't so blatant. At the same time, I doubt they had the budget or technology to make it that way.

That all said, it's worth checking out, but I don't think I enjoyed it as much as the original. I want to re-watch the 1976 version and figure out if I'm just being pretentious or if there's really something there that was missing in the more recent version (although, if it's pretense, I'll just stand by it...because that's how pretentious people work).

But on to a more important matter: when I posted last about the 1976 Carrie, I mentioned that I didn't think there would be any good torso. The guy playing Tommy, Ansel Elgort (of couse I googled that shit. How the fuck would I have just known that?), actually has a few nice shirtless shots (but for some reason I can't find these on Google. Dammit!) Here's a pretty face shot:

 
Sorry. It's all I got. But if you think I'm disappointing you now, go see this movie and be even more disappointed by the lack of sexy-man-torso. Though it's not much, I appreciated it immensely (if just because he was the only action the director was willing to give me).

Reflecting on First Times with Carrie (The Movie with Spacek)

"Arg! I hate it when people tag me in photos!"With the new Carrie movie coming out today, I'm eagerly thinking back to my first time with Carrie. Not the book. The movie. Though I've read several Stephen King books, surprisingly I never got around to Carrie. Perhaps I need to add that to the bookshelf. At any rate, what I want to focus on is that first, magical moment with the cinematic masterpiece. I was fourteen. I was hopeful. I was eager. I was excited about life...I was a lot like Fantine when she was skipping through the fields with her douchebag lover. And then I saw a bunch of high school girls launching tampons at a blood-drenched, bug-eyed Sissy Spacek. I remember thinking, "Girls are horrible. I'm gonna go with dudes." Just kidding. If only I'd come to terms with my sexuality at that age...imagine all the STDs I could have had by now #unfinishedbucketlists.

Admittedly, I wasn't the most attractive fourteen-year-old. I was about twenty pounds overweight. I let my hair grow out till it draped around my Powder-esque complexion, which contrasted beautifully with bright red acne. At the time, I was a good Catholic boy, and I believed in a benevolent God (which considering my appearance, was odd. He certainly had never done anything to earn that adjective). Clearly, I wasn't a very good Catholic. As any real Catholic knows, there is no benevolent God. There is only a money-hungry, guilt-mongering God that envies our affections and is like an omniscient Christian Grey (for those who don't get the reference, you are the lucky ones). I digress. My point was that I was an ugly, round, faggy thing that was an easy victim for teasing, so it was easy for me to sympathize with a girl who I thought I was just like--even though I was never bullied to the extremes that exist only in the dystopian nightmares that King writes. But what can I say? I was over-dramatic. I totally thought me and Carrie would have been best buds. Looking back, I know if someone had handed me a tampon, I would have chucked it at her and said, "You disgusting cunt! What's wrong with you?!" I wish I could say that I've changed, but the reality is, if I had kids, I'm sure I'd be chasing them around the house, screaming, "No wire hangers in this clean closet!" And wire hangers don't even annoy me! Kids, on the other hand...

At the time, though, I totally thought, "That girl's just like me." And I watched those bitches and assholes plot against her, shouting at the TV, "Why are you doing this?!" Fortunately, the brief cathartic moment arrived where Carrie telekinetics the shit out of her peers. I think most people who watch that moment have very specific people that they can put in John Travolta and P.J. Soles places. I sure did. And then she went home to her mother. Like my delusion about having peers like Carrie's, I totally thought I could relate to Carrie's psychotic mother. My mom is a wonderful person, and when she forced me to do things like homework or study, I somehow thought that was comparable to her screaming, "They're all gonna laugh at you!" or trying to kill me because she thought I was the devil. I guess when you're high on hormones and puberty, it's hard to see the world as it really is.

Although, let's be real for second. It didn't exactly make telekinesis seem like the most awesome power in the world. Or I should say, 1976 special effects didn't make telekinesis seem like the most awesome power in the world. In fact, I wonder if they just hired the Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) guys because they knew they could just tie a string to something and pull it to make a person look like they were altering the physical manifestations of our world with their mind. But I guess CGI has spoiled me. Certainly, the new Carrie will have plenty of masturbatory special effects (and speaking of which, probably a hot guy to take the place of JT. Quick search. I was wrong. Don't worry. I looked it up, and now you don't have to. The one replacing JT doesn't seem to have any good shirtless pics. And the shirtless pics of the guy playing Carrie's prom date make me feel like a pedophile. Well...hmmm...At least we'll always have this:


Ah...much better).

Well, here's to hoping the new torso...I mean, Carrie, will be awesome.

(Side note: has anyone else seen the tagline "You will know her name" and thought, "We already do, dumbasses"?)

New Review: From Kazza of On Top Down Under Book Reviews

Hey all,

Kazza over at On Top Down Under Book Reviews just reviewed Clipped. The review includes a must-see disturbing and frightening yaoi pic, so you have to check it out! Here's a snippet:

Well…this book was an interesting ride. I wasn’t sure what to think first of all but not at any stage was Clipped boring or slow. I guess I’m going to start by saying that if you don’t like blood play, breath play, large cocks penetrating unlubed arses on multiple occasions – not because the author was slack – but for the pain and the burn that it brings. If you’re a bit squeamish, if you don’t like rough sex, rape (which is not glorified or on page, as such), and if you don’t like sex at the unlikeliest of times, and on more than a few occasions, in other words if you don’t like erotic, then you may not like Clipped.  This book is M/M erotica with a good fantasy/paranormal story that I think, but I’m no expert, takes a lot from yaoi. I do like erotica, so I was in!

The review mentions all the different types of sex you can expect to read in Clipped, and some of Kazza's descriptions have even inspired me to add some new keywords to my book tags (e.x., auto-erotic-asphyxiation, breath-play, and cock-o-saurus land). It also makes me realize that I might need some psychotherapy to cure whatever pathology has led me to thinking these sorts of things are erotic. But who has time for therapy? Seriously.

I really appreciate Kazza taking the time to read and review the book, and I'm totally not going to judge her for the fact that she lives in the home of the British Empire's criminals...and Vegemite sandwiches. I swear.



Thanks again, Kazza!

Again, you can check out the review here.

Writers, Take off Your Clothes!

The other day, I noticed Anne Rice's FB message about her son promoting his new book with a shirtless pic:

Rice's message read:

Should my son put his shirt back on? I mean, really. I guess we do what we have to do promote our books! Here's a post that shows you both my son without shirt on and his wonderful book trailer for THE HEAVENS RISE, his new novel and first supernatural thriller, which releases the same day as THE WOLVES OF MIDWINTER. Follow the link in the first comment below:

At the time, I didn't give it much thought, but the other day, I posted about gay singer/hottie Steve Grand. Grand is a very attractive country singer, and there are plenty of shirtless pics of him available online. Mainstream singers are constantly in the limelight. It's as if they're required to be aesthetically pleasing. They constantly parade around shirtless or scantily clad for various publications (and I'm so glad they do!). Of course, it must be true that attractiveness and good singing don't always correlate, though the mainstream media would have us believing otherwise. That said, I wonder, what happens to amazing, fugly singers? I guess I should know. Nothing. It reminds me, as Fifty Shades of Grey does, that success and talent do not go hand in hand.

Bridging this with the writing arena, the Christopher Rice pic makes me wonder if the modern interconnectedness of social media is going to create a similar system within the mainstream writing world. Certainly, this has been going on to some degree for some time, but will sexy authors who take it off be more likely to sell copies than their more prudish or fugly competition? We know from some of our successful authors today that this isn't happening yet. But I do wonder if one day I'll be sticking a needle in my ass, snorting for lunch, and rolling around in a vat of oil with a sign saying, "Please buy my book!" Will my future book promo look something like this?:

Amazon and B&N: Deleting M/M Erotica and Offensive Content

As I was perusing twitter today, I noticed several tweets about Amazon & B&N censoring offensive and explicit content from self-published authors. When I googled this, I found a BBC News article on the subject. According to the linked article, Amazon and B&N are in the process of removing such content from their online stores. B&N claims that this sort of work already violates their content policy, which justifies the removal. Amazon has yet to comment. As is to be expected, self-published authors are rallying against this action, criticizing the e-venues for censoring their content. The word censor, of course, is a great buzz-word in the writing community, because it immediately evokes riot and outrage. At this point, it's anyone's guess who will win the dispute, but it may be necessary for self-published erotica authors to find new avenues for distributing their work.

As someone just entering the m/m dark erotica genre, with content that I imagine would certainly be pulled from Amazon or B&N, I don't feel it will affect me too much. The ones that will really be hurt are those who have already established networks within the Amazon or B&N marketplaces. Fortunately, when I was first researching how to distribute my manuscript, I quickly dismissed Amazon. Amazon's lure to the $.99-$9.99 seems grossly unfair and their Kindle Select program doesn't appear to serve the author as much as it does enable Amazon to walk all over them. My displeasure about this led to me posting my usually free title on Amazon at $12.99--a price that guarantees I would make only 35%, rather than the 70% I would make if I offered the title at under $9.99. I had no intention of ever selling any of these copies through Amazon, but I took the action as a statement that I didn't like how they were treating their self-published authors, particularly those that are bound by Amazon's Kindle Select 90-day-distribution agreement.

As a disclaimer, I don't want to dismiss the success that self-published authors have surely had with Amazon or B&N. Certainly, there have been plenty who have benefited by the exposure that these e-venues offer, and I'm glad that they found success. With a situation like this, there's a sense that if you want to play their game, you have to play by their rules. To some extent, I understand that, but I am largely not interested in their rules, especially when they come at the creative and financial exploitation of their self-published and self-promoting authors. This information has definitely helped me realize how important it is to create a marketing platform that is not geared toward these avenues, which could be shut off to me entirely in the future. Does this mean that I'm completely in the clear? Absolutely not. If other venues follow suit, then I, along with other self-published erotica authors, will have to find new avenues for distributing their material. I currently use Smashwords and Scribd to host my e-book, and if they decided to take similar action, then I'd have to find a new way to distribute. Fortunately, it's early enough in my e-publishing career that I'm able to keep this in mind as I venture forward.

On my Obsession with Piryanka Chopra...

*Heads up: this post is loaded with videoclips. There's only one you must see. It's the one that has a big, bold message: The Only Video You Need to Watch heading. 

I sometimes wonder how many American peeps my age are Bollywood fans. Based on the ones I encounter on a daily basis, it doesn't seem like there are too many. But here's the scoop: during the heyday of Netflix InstantPlay, me and my brother got obsessed with Bollywood films. It's interesting, because neither of us are big fans of musicals. I have a hard time watching musical numbers unless it's a cartoon or puppets (Avenue Q). For whatever reason, though, I put on Dhoom 2, a Bollywood action film starring a series of long names: Abhishek Bachchan, Uday Chopra, Hrithik Roshan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. This is actually the number that got me hooked.

Somehow I dragged my brother into this movie and re-watched all 152 minutes of it with him. After that, we started hunting down good Bollywood films on Netflix. To our satisfaction, we found several, a few that starred one gorgeous lady: Piryanka Chopra (aka former Miss World). One of my favorites was Dostana, a knock-off of Adam Sandler's I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Here's a bit that I adore that will allow you to experience the glorious beauty of Piryanka.
My breeder brother, of course, thought she was gorgeous and wanted to fuck the shit out of her, and I didn't blame him, cause that girl could turn me. Anyway, our Bollywood obsession came and went, and one night, my dad and brother were watching football and my bro called for me. When  I looked at the TV screen, who did I see? That's right! Our girl, Piryanka: right here.
It took a little time, but I managed to convince my brother that it really was her (that we weren't just lost in some magical dream). I googled to see what was up and discovered that she'd released a single:
The Only Video You Need to Watch:

Everybody's welcome...we ain't got no worries...she knows you're gonna like it...you ain't gonna wanna leave...her pussy! She says "city," but she's not fooling anyone. I haven't seen such obnoxious faux-innuendo since Britney's "If You Seek Amy." I still sing this on occasion, especially if my brother's in earshot. So flash forward a little bit. Me and my boyfriend discovered this song, "Exotic," while we were on a road-trip:

This was more what "In My Pussy City" should have been: a series of sexy shots of the gorgeous former Miss World, who I can only imagine left Bollywood because she feared her hand over hand dance moves were not enough to compete with the real dancers in the Bollywood market.
Although I adore the video, I think media critic and feminist leader Jennifer Pozner would murder me in the face for liking it. It is the total embodiment of Andrea Smith's third pillar of white supremacy: colonialism. Piryanka is presented as beautiful and enchanting, but ultimately (as we see in the scene where she's flashing mean eyes and dancing in black in the wilderness) dangerous. It really is the most stereotypical representation that could possibly be conceived, but I love it. This is why I'm a shitty feminist. Because I see evil, and say, "I love you!" Oh, tsk, tsk, tisk. The end is nigh.
Anyway, I hope that if you had not been previously exposed to Piryanka, you're like, "Oh my God, this girl's amazing!" If you already knew who she was, I hope you're like, "Oh my God, someone else who knows who the fuck she is!"

Atlanta Pride and Steve Grand

The other day, me and my boyfriend saw this picture on the cover of David Magazine (a popular Atlanta gay publication). We both had a similar reaction: "Meh, and why is this guy the one they chose to put on the cover?" We've seen plenty of David Magazine covers, and they usually opt to use some scantily clad boy that is more than appealing to the superficial interests of gay men. But considering it was the Pride issue of David Magazine, we were less than impressed.

Skip forward to today. Me and my boyfriend went to Pride Market with some friends. Afterward, we stopped by Jason's Deli, where I devoured a Sante Fe Chicken Sandwhich and an ice cream cone (a ritual binge that I do after pre-Pride starvation). One of my friends had mentioned several times that he was going to a meet and greet with Steve Grand. Evidently, he's an out singer that dates a porn star. I don't actually know if this is true, but it's what my friend said. Of course, I'll be googling this and getting back to you.

At one point, while I was shoving a swirl of vanilla and chocolate down my throat, aforementioned friend handed me his phone, saying, "This is the guy."


 "Oh my fucking Jesus Christ!" I said. "Who is this?"

My boyfriend looked at the pic and gasped. "That's the guy that's on the cover of David Magazine," he explained.

Needless to say, this was the pic that should have been used on the cover, because it evokes a far better reaction than, "Meh." In fact, after a Google Image search, we discovered a slew of images that were far more aesthetically pleasing, and I thank the innovations that have led to modern technology for making this eye-porn speedily accessible to me.

To summarize who exactly this Steve Grand fellow is, he's an out country singer, who as far as I'm aware, is best known for the single All-American Boy:

 
The video features a sexy Steve Grand in an unbuttoned shirt, gazing longingly off to where I assume the light stand is and singing about how he wants to hook up with this guy that has a girlfriend (Is it a surprise that there is a huge heterosexual fear of gays when we perpetuate stereotypes about stealing girls' guys? Nope. Watch out girls. We're coming for your men, and we don't mind giving them an STD, either.).
So, let's take another sip of coffee to progress!