Josef Matulich's Blog, page 20

When the Plants Start Screaming, It’s Time to Call Lunch.

Sunday morning, while the sun was still shining on Kit’s garden, she opted to do some weeding and transplanting while I stayed in to red-pencil my latest big manuscript.

There is a woody lavender in the center of the rock garden that did not come back after a very hard winter. Assuming it was dead, Kit began to dig it up. When she thrust the shovel into the ground, there was a high-pitched shriek that startled her away from the shovel and garden.

Assuming the scream to be an indication that maybe the plant was not completely dead, Kit removed the shovel and tamped down the soil.

My theory is that Kit bisected one of the ground squirrels that had been eating the lavender’s roots instead of the dormant plant shriek like a mandrake being pulled from the ground, but either way it was a good way to signal a break for lunch.

Huckster Week

Authors do two things: write books and mercilessly flog books. I got the chance to do the latter twice in the last week at two wildly different venues.

I started last Wednesday afternoon with the Ohio Writer’s Guild at Mozart’s Bakery. The place is large for a bakery, previously having been an oriental carpet store and a recording studio before that. We were given one of the larger halls that would have accommodated fifty to seventy five people. We were eight to ten authors and their significant authors. I had my film-maker friend Sheldon and Kit as my entourage.

We all sat, and sipped coffee or tea and stared at each other across the few tables set up with books. I was perhaps the second or third youngest author there. My novel of sex, magick and power tools certainly did not fit in with the multiple inspirational memoirs and family friendly books with poodles.

I think the only one who sold anything was the bakery.

Swinging over to the other pole, Kit and I spent last Saturday at the Printers Alley Lit Fest in downtown Chicago. The crowd with Post Mortem Press brought their best books and their “A” game to sell them. We had six authors Chris Larsen, Brian Dobbins, Cina Pelayo, Michael Matula, Max Booth II and the publishers Eric Beebe and Stephanie Kania-Beebe.

We were tucked beneath a tree on a sidewalk, situated between a vape store and the tent for the Mystery Writers Association. People who actual bought and read books paraded by in a steady stream.

Kit quickly demonstrated her sales technique refined in convention huckster rooms and our vintage/costume store:

“What kind of books do you like to read?”

It’s important to not give them a question they can answer “no” to like “Do you like horror books?” or “Do you like the weird stuff displayed before you on the table?”

Some answered, “I like all different kinds of books.” To that we could answer: “You’re in luck, these are some very different books.” A little probing and pressing finds the horror or mystery or non-fiction the reader needs.

If the potential buyer wasn’t overwhelmed with the beauty and quality of the product, Kit followed up with a second line of attack:

“We have the authors of the books here, and they’d be glad to sign their books for no extra charge.”

The authors would jockey for position, even offering to sign other people’s books. The buyer’s fate was sealed.

At the Lit fest, we picked up on Kit’s techniques quickly, selling each other’s books and outselling Post Mortem Press’s clearance bin.

As we experimented with new techniques, huckstering became street theater. I juggled to garner attention and Max made up a sign to pitch “Toxicity” along the lines of “I am poor and there is a big lizard in my backyard. Buy my book so I can feed it.”

One of the festival staffers approached me about “the weird guy” that was lurking near our table.

“Don’t worry, he’s with us,” I assured the staffer, “and it’s a weird book.”

“Itsey Bitsey Spider” 1950′s Science Fiction Version

It’s been a while since we’ve done a silly song, so here we go:

Itsey Bitsey Spider

crawled on the testing ground.

Out came the nuke

and knocked the spider down.

Along came the rains

and washed the rads away…

and the Itsey Bitsey Spider

is

TWICE

AS

BIG

TODAY!

The Case of the Misplaced Graveyard

My wife, son and I just spent our family vacation in upstate New York. It was four days in total with one day spent driving in, one day driving out and forty-eight hours to visit the dead relatives.

This tradition started nearly twenty years ago when our daughter passed. We interred her in the family plot in Richfield Springs with a stone for her, Kit and I for economical considerations. Each year after that, we made sure to visit, if no longer than a weekend. Other relations on my wife’s side passed away over the years until there were more family members beneath the turf than above it.

I like dead relatives. They hang out in graveyards. They’re quiet. They don’t espouse embarrassing political opinions. Of all my relatives by blood and marriage, I think I like the dead ones best.

Kit had become the family genealogist and chronicler, if only because she was the only one who had any interest. She had in the previous years found many graves scattered all across the upstate area from Cooperstown to Croghan and beyond. This year she wanted to re-visit some of the sites she had incomplete notes on and tend to the graves.

I enjoyed helping with this. Though my primary super-power is Disappearing in a Crowded Room, I’m pretty good at Finding Things. Several times we’ve had exchanges along the lines of: “Keep an eye out for such-and-such stone.” “You mean this one here?” “Yeah, that one.” One particular graveyard this week was thwarting our every attempt to locate it. We had pictures of it, but no name or address. Only scanning of her Family Treemaker files narrowed it down to which city.

Our son and his GPS guided us to a cemetery in New Bremen, but this was not the one with Kit’s great-great-great-great grandfather who fought in the Civil War. There was a baseball field across the road from the churchyard. Knowing that baseball moms just love to be questioned by out-of-towners about graveyards, we stopped and asked a couple.

Oddly enough, no luck with that.

Then we noticed that the town offices were situated in the double-wide trailer at the back of the diamond’s parking lot. We scooted over to one of the employees coming out and showed him the images we had of the graveyard. They showed nineteenth-century headstones, a partially buried vault used for storing bodies over the upstate winter and the corner of somebody’s house beyond that.

The town employee, a very nice young man, immediately recognized the house as belonging to the second employee that had just come through the door. After a minute’s consultation, the first young man lead us to the graveyard. Kit was re-united with her Union artilleryman ancestor and we all drove back to our hotel in Cooperstown.

Kit and I sang along loudly to the oldies on the radio, because that is what middle-aged parents do when they’ve had a good day visiting the dead relatives.

Getting shot…

I walked into our vintage and costume shop the other day, and a photographer friend of Kit’s looked at me and said:

“I want to shoot you.”

Oddly enough, that is a common occurrence. Many people want to shoot me. At least half of them are photographers. Frequently, this is a function of my costuming. Dozens have wanted to share a photo op when I was done up as Snape from Harry Potter. Many more would stop Kit and I for pictures of our garb at conventions or ren faires.

During my years as a street mime, it was a fifty/fifty split between cameras and small arms fire. Or at least, pimento loaves wielded in anger.

I don’t change my social media profile pictures as frequently as some authors I know, since I no longer have a screaming need for the world to validate my existence. It still warms my heart a bit to have women look at my face and smile, even though I know it is not from appreciation of my rugged good look, but amusement at the mustache that rides my upper lip and looks like an illo from a Dr. Suess book.

Because I Took Crap from Everyone…

Fellow writers, we all get this question:

“Where do you get your ideas?”

There’s all sorts of deep and shallow responses to that one, but I have an entertaining answer for my first novel “Camp Arcanum.”

“Because I used to take crap from everyone.”

For about a year, I worked in an EPA licensed lab that tested drinking and waste water for municipalities and facilities all around the state of Ohio. At least once a week, I would get a white plastic bottle filled with unprocessed sewage labeled: “City of Arcanum, Darke County.” Now, with a name like that, you have to expect something weird going on under the surface. That concept fermented in the back of my brain over the years until I came up with my version of Arcanum populated with witches, Qlipphotic demons and a university with a Bindings and Summonings classroom in its basement.

See, sometimes all an idea needs is a steady supply of organic fertilizer to grow.

I Am Now Intercontinental

Like a Titan missile or some similar Weapon of Mass Destruction, I am now Intercontinental. My good friend in Perth WA Hilary Callaghan nee Radowick bought my novel Camp Arcanum, read it and then donated it to the Victoria Park library in my name. Now, denizens of that Perth suburb can check out Camp Arcanum and see that Arcanum Ohio, with its tree spirits, Qliphotic demons and undead skinless squirrels and bunnies, has metaphysical fauna just as spectacular as Australia’s. Thank you, Hilary!

In a related vein, I was recently solicited to purchase an online seminar on how to promote my work without whining, begging or stealing. The point is, there is NO way for an independent author to promote without begging or looking pathetic, so here it comes. If you have bought or read Camp Arcanum already, I thank you from the bottom of my heart and assorted other internal organs. Now, I fervently request that, where possible, you would post reviews on the web. Amazon, Goodreads or Library Thing are the highest profile sites, but personal book review blogs are always nice. This will allow me to increase my book’s profile, reach more people and convince my publisher to consider the sequel. Again, many thanks and watch out for the reanimated roadkill.

Chekov’s Boat Anchor

This is not a review of “Oculus” because I consider myself one of the worst reviewers on the net. Instead this is a quick of cataloguing of fears exploited in the film that we horror writers might want to consider for future abuse.

Spoilers abound, so those who care should stop here now. As to the title: all it took was one shot of the weighted boat anchor suspended from the ceiling with an mechanical release to know that it would be fired before the end of the third act and that someone besides the Evil Artifact would be on the receiving end.

Before I go into my Fear Catalogue, a quick comment. “Oculus” is an ideal independent horror film. Not perfect, it does tend to run a bit long for the content, but an ideal starter film for a low-budget production team. With less than ten primary roles and only a half-dozen locations, it puts its efforts into script, editing and acting.

I also applaud the film for touching on a broad range of fears that should all be hot buttons for the suburban young demographic audience. Obviously, Fear of Death, Dismemberment and Insanity are classics used by most horror flicks. Fear of Homicidal Parents, though done before, added terrifying sense of powerlessness to the younger siblings battle with Pure Evil. I was most impressed with what the mirror did to Katie Sackhoff’s housewife character: Loss of Look and Spousal Betrayal have been done before, but I have yet to see a C-Section scar split open and start to bleed. While I’m sure the middle-aged mom demographic is not big on horror films, I would like to think their teen-aged children might dread those images going through Mom’s mind just before she tries to strangle them in the living room.

Escalating Author Neuroses in the War Against Evil Incarnate

All writers, like all cats, are neurotic. It comes of alchemically combining pieces of your soul and life experience into some amazing simulation of life and thrusting it out into the word for approval and profit. The stress of the process as well as the pain of exceedingly personal rejection generate enough tics and twitches for a dozen Siamese cats.

I admit to all of them, but I am convinced of the saving grace that I have one more coping mechanism than neurosis, though it might be one less. It’s hard to tell. Here is my Jacob’s Ladder of Escalating Neuroses and the story of how the latest almost had me crawling into the grasp of Evil Incarnate.

1.) Can I Come Up With a Decent Story?

Early on, writers obsess about being able to write a good story, an original story, a worthwhile story. Napkins, paper placemats and Moleskin notebooks get filled with snippets of plot until something gels. The only way around this is to work up stories, by the dozens if necessary, and let them ferment in your backbrain. If you are not widely read, Google “clichés” to check if it has all been done too many times before. Don’t spend a lot of time talking them out with friends and relatives, because that leads to Neurosis #2:

2.) Can I Get It Done?

Talking about what you’re going to write, is not writing. Obsessing out loud about a plot reduces the needed back pressure to facilitate your vomiting your brain’s contents onto the page. The only way to combat your neurosis about finishing stories is to finish stories. Rewriting them a few times helps with Neurosis #3:

3.) Is This Total Crap?

The short answer is “No”. Nobody’s story is total crap. The unfortunate/scary thing is that it is guaranteed that someone out there WILL think it’s crap. That is the nature of taste and free will. All you can do is refine your storytelling and your style to point that you don’t cringe at what you wrote the day before. The Mythbusters proved that you can polish a turd, and somebody will think it could make a lovely paperweight. This leads to Neurosis #4:

4.) Can I Get It Into Enough People’s Hands?

Being published by a small press with limited means has encouraged my neurotic writer brain to engage in some fairly spammy behaviors in the few weeks since my book dropped. I plead temporary insanity on that and promise to cut way back. But I still feel the need to try to get the book under as many eyes as possible to make it a success. This is what lead to the whole Evil Incarnate thing.

My wife and I had been involved with a convention for a very long time; we actually met there. Things got ugly and we left, but not before the leader took a shot at us through our dead daughter. Perhaps it is libelous/slanderous to refer to that person as Evil Incarnate, but I’m not using names. Besides, the point of this story is not what they did, but what I was willing to do.

The convention itself is of negligible importance anymore, but it still had a few hundred sets of eyes for my new book. I had worked myself up, under the influence of Neurosis #4, to seriously considering attending it for publicity, in spite of the insult to my daughter’s memory and the pain it caused my wife. She even supported my decision because she knew how important my first book was to me. Fortunately, I came to my senses before going through with that plan.

It’s fine to be neurotic and a writer. It’s almost a prerequisite. Just keep an eye out for who in your life your escalating neuroses might injure.

The Further Adventures of a Highly Ritualized Cat

Our black cat Kestrel, as I’ve said before, has a lot of his own little rituals. Food magick, as it were. He has gotten even fussier with age.

About a month ago, he stopped eating the Healthy Indoor Cat Kibble we had been feeding him the last few years. We switched over to Even Healthier Indoor Cat Kibble with Salmon and Green Peas. That was acceptable for about a week. We tried kibble with soft centers, semisoft cat treats and little plastic containers of soft food with flakes of simulated fish on top. Except for the soft stuff, he was having none of it.

We took him to the vet, fearing tooth/gum problems or some Horrid Lingering Disease. Despite the Black Prince dropping three-and-a-half of his original twelve pounds, there was no sign of problems. He was simply Fussying Himself to Death.

We have a new feeding ritual now. Every twelve hours, we scrub out his chrome steel feeding bowl and give him half a container of the Soft Cat Food with Simulated Fish Flakes on Top and a third of the soft form of the Even Healthier Indoor Cat Kibble with Salmon and Green Peas. If these are left over portions, they must be microwaved for exactly fifteen seconds, no more, no less, to dispel the chill of the refrigerator. We must break up the two kinds of food with a fork and intermix them or he will only eat the stuff that isn’t all that good for him.

Then, I must watch.

It has to be me. Last week, I went out to catch a movie and didn’t get back until eleven. His six o’clock feeding went untouched until I came into the living room and stood over his bowl. Even now, I can see him going after his six am feast as I type this.

When I die, I want to come back as a cat.