by john | Feb 20, 2017 | Amazing Grace, Serialized Fiction, Writing
It’s Monday, so here’s another Chapter of Amazing Grace. That’s at least what I’m tentatively calling it. Hope y’all enjoy it.
Chapter 2
It took a week and a half, but I soon found out just how right Sheriff Dunleavy was. I was bringing in tomatoes when I first saw the poor dear, sitting on the steps to my back porch with her head in her hands. Not literally, of course. Even the dead have some sense of propriety.
I walked past her at first, giving her a glance to make sure she was really dead and not just some misguided cheerleader from the high school selling candy for the prom, or magazine subscriptions for the winter formal, or seed packets for the study abroad program. I’ve disappointed so many of those children for so many years, it’s almost like a game now. They come up with new and even more interesting ways to get me to part with my money, and I come up with different ways to say “no.” But no, this wasn’t a living child here to be disappointed by an old woman on a fixed income. This child was dead, all her disappointments were now behind her.
I laid out the tomatoes on top of the washing machine on a dishtowel I’d put down that morning just for that reason, and went into the kitchen. I washed my hands and face, put my gardening gloves on the windowsill over the sink, and went back out to the porch. I sat down in the rocker my nephew Jason and his second wife gave me for Christmas one year and looked at the child sitting on my steps.
“Well, come on,sweetie. Let’s have it. What’s got you coming to see the crazy old woman that talks to dead people? Except you being dead, that is?”
The girl spun around on the step and stared at me, her mouth hanging open. I laughed so hard I almost spilled tea all over myself, but managed to get myself together before I really made a mess. “Oh my good Lord,” I said, “If you could see the look on your face, child! If you was still alive, I’d tell you to close that thing before flies got in it, but I reckon that ain’t much of a problem now, is it?”
“Y-you can see me?” the child asked. “You can hear me?”
“Of course I can see and hear you, sweetheart, ain’t that the whole reason you and your little girlfriends toilet papered my front yard two Halloweens ago?” It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a ghost blush, but it was still a rare enough occurrence to make me grin.
“I’m sorry about that. We didn’t think about…”
“About how hard it would be for an old woman to get all that toilet paper out of the trees and the grass? Of course you didn’t, that’s what being a teenager is all about. And don’t think you invented anything new, honey, I’ve been getting TP’d on Halloween since your mama was a young’un. It’s a lot easier to take care of than you think. You just take a lighter to it, it burns right out before any part of the tree catches, Easy-peasy. Now, what brings you to my front porch looking all distraught? And who are you, firstly? Ever since I quit teaching Sunday School at the A.R.P. Church, I don’t know as many of you young people as I used to.
“We’re Baptists anyway,” the girl said.
“Well, I forgive you,” I replied. The poor child looked terribly confused, which just made me laugh again, which just made her look even more confused. “Anyway, honey, you were going to tell me who you were?” I prodded.
“My name’s Jenny Miller, and I reckon you can see I’m dead.”
“I noticed that first thing. How did you die and how long ago?”
“About three days ago, I guess. Time is strange now, and I don’t have to sleep, so it’s a little odd. But they had my funeral today, and I think it was a Friday when I died, so it feels like about three days.”
“Well, let me go get the paper and we can see if you’re in the obituaries. That can tell us quite a bit.” I went into the house and pulled out the last three days’ worth of The Herald and carried them out to the porch.
I opened the first newspaper, Saturday’s edition with high school football on the front page, and a big picture of a smiling blonde girl on the back page of Section A. I compared the photo with the ghost on my steps, and sure enough, it was a match. “Yes, honey, you died on Friday night after cheering our Bulldogs to a victory over Dorman in overtime. It says here that you fell down the stairs in your house and broke your neck. But I suppose that isn’t what happened, was it?
The pretty blonde ghost looked up at me, her eyes brimming. “No, ma’am. I didn’t fall. I was pushed. Somebody pushed me down the stairs and broke my neck, now I’m stuck here until I get justice!” Her words built and built on each other until she was almost shouting. I felt the power roll off of her, full of anger and pain. I knew if I didn’t find a away to send her to her rest, that she could turn into a powerful poltergeist. This child needed to move on, and fast.
“Okay, sweetie, just calm down,” I said, putting my tea down and using the same tones I used to use to calm spooked horses when I was little. “Now tell me what you remember, and we’ll work from there.”
“I don’t remember anything,” she said, her voice shaky and thready. “That’s the problem. I remember leaving the game with Shelly, and then nothing.”
“How did you get home?” I asked. I knew if I could get her to realize that the memories were there, that it would all would all work out.
“Shelly drove us. She got her license last month, and this was the first game her mom had let her drive to.”
“Alright. Did Shelly come in with you, or did she drop you off in the driveway?”
“Neither one. She just stopped on the street in front of my house, and I got out. I walked up the steps to the front porch, unlocked the front door, turned around to wave goodnight to Shelly, and went inside.”
“Then what?” I kept my voice low, not wanting to break her out of the almost-trance she had slipped into as she walked back through the night in her memory.
“I reached over to turn on the lights, but nothing happened. I remember thinking that was strange, because the porch light was working fine, but then I remembered Daddy had installed one of them fancy battery backups on the porch light so we’d have some kind of light when the power went out. It was dark as could be, but there was a little bit of light coming in the door from the porch light, and that streetlight the power company put up in the front yard shines in through the living room window something fierce, so I could see plenty.”
“What did you see, honey?” I asked.
“Nothing. I mean, nothing unusual. It just looked like my house, you know? Only dark. I went to the kitchen and got a flashlight out of the drawer beside the sink where Mama keeps all the hurricane stuff, and I went to the basement to look at the fuse box.”
“Only you never made it down to the basement,” I added.
“That’s right,” the pretty little ghost agreed. “On account of some sumbitch shoving me down the stairs as soon as I got the door open good. I remember feeling two hands in my back, then I went forward, and I remember a big flash when I hit my head…then…I’m sorry, I don’t remember anything else. I woke up the next morning to the sound of my mama screaming, and I was looking down at my own body, lying there at the bottom of the stairs…” her words trailed off into sobs, and I wanted to put my arm around her and try to give the poor child some comfort, but I knew my arm would just pass right through her. I’d done it before with other spirits, and it never went well. It just made the ghost more upset and left me feeling a little bit embarrassed.
“Okay, sweetheart, it’s okay,” I said in a soothing tone. “Let’s go inside and have a seat while you try to think of anything else you remember from that night. You’re doing real good, better than anybody would expect.” I stood up and she followed me into the house.
She stopped by the washing machine and looked at the tomatoes all spread out waiting to be washed and canned. “Did you just pick these?” she asked. “I love fresh tomatoes!” She reached out for one, but couldn’t touch them. Her tomato days were over, unfortunately. She looked up at me, stricken.
“I’m sorry, honey. You can’t touch things anymore.”
“I know. I just forget sometimes, you know?”
I did know. I’d seen it for years with other ghosts I had known. Sometimes a very powerful spirit can move things around them, but that kind of poltergeist energy is real hard to sustain, and it makes a ghost become thin and wispy, and before long it fades away entirely. I don’t know if the spirit moves on, or just…fades.
That was something I didn’t dwell on too much. It was more for the ladies in my Sunday School class, and I tried not to ask too many heavy theological questions around that bunch. They just let me start coming back to Sunday School about six months ago, so I didn’t want to push my luck. I led the teenager’s ghost into the house to see if we could come up with any other clues about her untimely demise.
by john | Feb 18, 2017 | Podcast, Writing
Hey y’all, watch this!
Actually, listen to this.
I’ve started a new podcast, which is a translation of Colt Cabana’s Art of Wrestling Podcast, but for writers. It’s called The Writer’s Journey, and on the first episode, I talk to Drew Hayes, GM of the Authors & Dragons podcast and author of a ton of stuff, including the new book, Forging Hephaestus, which releases on 2/24, the same day as my new book, Calling All Angels, hits.
Excuse the squeaking in the background. I have an old desk chair and a fat ass. It happens.
Soon it’ll be up on iTunes and all those other places, but for right now, you have to go to the website to listen or download.
So give this a listen, and then go buy our shit!
by john | Feb 12, 2017 | Amazing Grace, Serialized Fiction, Writing
That’s my new working title for this. I dunno if I’m going to keep it or not. This is something I’m messing around with and thinking of serializing here. If you like it, go buy one of my other books, or join my Patreon.
Chapter 1
“So you’re a medium?” The large man asked me in the tone of voice usually reserved for the mentally ill or the tragically stupid. I wasn’t sure which one he thought I was, but I had a pretty good guess. “That means you talk to dead people?”
“Sheriff Dunleavy,” I replied, working very hard to keep a civil tongue in my mouth and remember that my mama raised me to be a lady. “I’m Southern. We all talk to dead people down here. As a matter of fact, I don’t believe I can truly trust anybody that doesn’t speak to at least two or three dead relations on a daily basis. The difference is, they talk back to me.”
Jeff Mitchum, one of the deputies, piped up. “She’s right, Sheriff. Miss Lila Grace can find things you thought was lost forever, and tell you if your wife is fooling around on you, and all sorts of things she ought not to know.”
I sighed a little bit. I knew Jeff was trying to help, but he never was the sharpest knife in the drawer and I could tell from the look on Sheriff Dunleavy’s mustached face that Jeff’s endorsement had most of the opposite effect the poor deputy was hoping for.
“Thank you, Jeff, I said, setting my purse down in the one chair in the waiting area of the Union County Sheriff’s Department. I stepped up to the counter, resting my elbows on the chipped and stained formica surface. “Jeffrey, darling, it is powerful hot out there today. Would you be a dear and get me a glass of ice water?” I pulled a Kleenex out from the sleeve where I had it tucked away and dabbed at my forehead.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jeff said, hopping up from his ancient rolling chair and walking back behind the four desks that made up the “bullpen” of the Sheriff’s office.
Sheriff Dunleavy remained exactly where he had been since I stepped into the building, leaning on the frame of his office door, one eyebrow climbing to where his hairline probably used to be. “I can’t get Mitchum to move that fast when a call comes in, much less to run fetch me stuff. Maybe you do have super-powers.” He gave me one of those little half-smiles men get when they think they’re being clever.
“Maybe I taught that child Sunday School every week for six years and brought him up to respect his elders,” I replied with an arched eyebrow of my own. We stood there for a minute staring, neither one of us saying a word, ’til finally Dunleavy cracked.
“Well, what is it?” He asked.
“What is what, Sheriff?”
“What do you want, Ms. Carter? I have a department to run, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Oh, I noticed, all right, Sheriff. I notice all the people clamoring for attention for their complaints.” I gestured at the empty waiting room. “I notice all those cars in the parking lot.” I pointed out the glass door where three police cruisers and my well-loved 1986 GMC Sierra pickup sat alone in a parking lot built for thirty or more. “And I certainly notice the preponderance of victims you are consoling right there in your very office.”
I never blinked. I just looked at him. After a minute or so, Jeffrey returned with my ice water. “Thank you, Jeffrey. I appreciate that. Now, may I come in, Sheriff, or are you going to stand there and be stubborn while my talent and news go to waste?”
Dunleavy sighed a huge sigh. But I suspected everything this man did was huge. He stood about six and a half feet tall, and was a fit man, rare in law enforcement down here. Too much rich food and front porch sitting for a man to keep himself trim much past twenty years old.
“Please come in, Mrs. Carter,” he said, walking ahead of me into his office. I followed him into his office, which was almost completely unchanged from how it looked when Dunleavy’s predecessor, Sheriff Johnny Thomas held court in the room. The pictures on the wall were different, shots of Dunleavy in a tailored suit shaking hands with various smiling important-looking people from his last job, Chicago if I recalled correctly. A light dusting of Sheriff Johnny’s cigar smoke still coated everything else, especially the padded high-back rolling chair behind the desk and the surface of the desk itself. The computer was new, one of those big all-in-one jobs, and looked out of place in the cramped room, like a spaceship in a Sam Spade novel. I ran my fingers across the top of the monitor and took my seat in the wooden visitor’s chair nearest the desk.
Like most people who had been in the office more than once, I knew that the chair on the left was for normal people, and the chair on the right was the “lawyer chair.” Sheriff Johnny had his brother Red take the other visitor chair out one afternoon and shave a quarter-inch off one of the front legs so it never would sit quite right. Sheriff Johnny never had much tolerance for lawyers. But the Sheriff was gone now, succumbed to a heart attack in the middle of umpiring a softball game between the Baptists and the Methodists back in the spring. “Gone” of course is a relative term for me, since I saw Johnny clear as day standing in the corner of the office staring down at the newest occupant of his desk.
“Now, Mrs. Carter—“ Sheriff Dunleavy began, but I cut him off.
“Ms.” I corrected.
“Excuse me?”
“Ms.,” I repeated. “I am not, nor have I ever been, married. And while I appreciate the flattery inherent in the idea, it has been some number of years since I felt reasonable answering to ‘miss.’ Therefore, please call me ‘ms.’ Or Lila Grace, if you tend toward the informal. I assure you I do not find the use of my given name offensive.”
“Okay, then Lila Grace, what can I do for you today?”
“I mostly wanted to call on you to introduce myself and determine to what degree we can work together.”
“Work together?” There went that eyebrow racing skyward again.
“Jeffrey explained to you that I was of some assistance to your predecessor on more than one occasion. I would hope to be able to continue that relationship with you.”
“You want to work with the police department?”
“Not work with, per se. I would simply like to be able to bring you information from time to time and know that it will be treated with respect, and not dismissed out of hand because of where it came from.”
“And where does your information come from, Ms. Carter?”
“From the dead, Sheriff. I thought we had covered that. I am a medium. I converse with the spirits of those who have passed on. They tell me things. Sometimes I need to pass those things along to you. I need to know whether or not you will believe what I tell you, or if I will need to pursue other avenues to satisfy the spirits.”
Sheriff Dunleavy’s eyes went cold and he leaned forward in his chair, putting his elbows on the desk. I thought for a moment I saw a hint of an old tattoo poking out from under his short sleeve dress shirt, but I couldn’t be sure. Maybe the tip of an anchor? Was our new sheriff a Navy man? Rural South Carolina typically produced more Army men and Marines. Not many of our boys on boats.
His stern voice brought me out of my reverie. “Ms. Carter, I don’t know what kind of relationship you had with Sheriff Thomas, but this is my office now, and we will run things by the book. I will take any information you bring to me seriously, and I will investigate every lead in every case, but I will not have a civilian going around town on her own sticking her nose into police business. Are we clear?”
I looked up into the corner where Sheriff Johnny stood with his arms across his chest. He was grinning fit to beat the band, and I chuckled a little. I tried to hold it in, but I couldn’t.
Sheriff Dunleavy’s face and forehead flashed red, and I saw a little bead of sweat pop out at his temple. “Is something funny, Ms. Carter?”
“I’m sorry, Sheriff. It’s just that Sheriff Johnny is standing over in the corner behind you laughing his dead fool butt off.”
“What?” Dunleavy’s head whirled around, then he turned back to me, scowling.
“I’m sorry, but he’s there. He’s amused because this is very much like the first time I sat in this office and talked to him about a murder. He yelled at me, called me a crazy person and told me if I ever stuck my nose back in police business that he would have me arrested and shipped off to Bull Street for a psych evaluation.” I pointed at the corner where Sheriff Johnny was standing.
“So he’s in the corner of my office, just hanging out? What does he want?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t asked him yet. I figured since it’s your office now, I should deal with the current occupant before trying to communicate with any prior tenants that might be lingering past their expiration date, if you will.”
“Well, ask him,” Sheriff Dunleavy said, leaning back in his chair and folding his muscular arms across his broad chest. He did cut a fine figure of a man, if a little thin on top. If I were twenty years younger, I might have set my cap for him. As it was, I wondered if he might make a good match for Jane down at the Children’s Desk in the library.
I turned to Sheriff Johnny and said, “What do you want, Johnny? Why aren’t you back where you belong, watching soaps with Linda or doing whatever y’all do in the Great Beyond?” I’m sure Sheriff Dunleavy was disappointed that my conversing with the dead didn’t seem much different than me conversing with the living, but that’s how my life has always been.
Sheriff Johnny opened his mouth once or twice, but no sound came out. This happens with spirits after they’ve crossed over and come back, sometimes they forget how to talk. I had faith in the Sheriff, though. He hadn’t been dead more than four or five months. He should still be able to converse relatively easily.
“Go on, Johnny, spit it out. We ain’t got all day, now.”
“Trouble’s coming, Lila. I can’t see more than that, but something bad’s coming to Lockhart, and it’s gonna take both of y’all to deal with it.” Sheriff Johnny said, his voice hoarse with grave rust and thin like the wind.
I relayed his message to Sheriff Dunleavy, then looked back up at Johnny. “Now you know he’s just gonna say that’s what I would make up to have you say, so you gonna have to do something to prove that I’m not a fraud now, Johnny Thomas, or this man ain’t never gonna believe me.”
“Tell him the key is taped to the bottom of the middle drawer.” The shade said, then turned and walked through the wall out into the sunlight.
“Wait, Johnny, I don’t know what key you’re talking about!” I stood up and hollered as the ghost vanished. “Dammit. Excuse me,” I said as I sat back down.
“What key?” the sheriff asked.
“Exactly my point,” I grumbled. I reached down to the floor and picked up my purse. I stood up and extended my hand. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time, Sheriff Dunleavy. It’s obvious that you don’t believe in my gift, so I will take my leave.”
The sheriff stayed seated. “What key, Ms. Carter?”
“I don’t know, Sheriff. That’s what’s so damn frustrating about dealing with dead people. They tell you half what you need to know, then wander off and go back to being dead. It’s worse than dating, I swear to God.”
“What did he say about the key?” Sheriff Dunleavy’s voice was calm, but he was working to keep it that way. I could tell by the way his knuckles went white around the arm of his chair.
“He said it was underneath the middle desk drawer, whatever that means.” I replied.
“Sonofabitch!” Dunleavy sat up straight, then dropped out of his chair onto one knee and yanked out the center drawer of his desk. I sat back down in my chair as he felt around the bottom of the drawer, then got down on his hands and knees and vanished behind his desk. He emerged a moment later with a brown envelope clutched in his fist. “Got it!”
He sat back in his chair and ripped open the top of the envelope. A small brass key fell out onto his calendar desk blotter, and he pounced on it like a kitten playing with a junebug.
“What’s that, Sheriff?”
“This is the key to Sheriff Thomas’s file cabinet, Ms. Carter. He had one copy on him when he…”
“Died is the word you’re looking for, Sheriff. Remember, I still get to talk to people after they die, so it’s not quite the hardship for me that it is for most people.”
“Yes, well, he had one copy on him when he died, but those keys were lost after the autopsy. And I’ve had no access to any old case files, or even his current case files, since I got here last week.”
“Until now,” I said.
“Until now,” he agreed.
“When the sheriff’s ghost told me where to find it.”
“When you used some resources unavailable to most people to assist me in finding it,” the sheriff agreed, nodding in unison with me.
“So we have an understanding?” I asked, standing and holding out my hand.
Sheriff Dunleavy stood up and shook my hand. “Ms. Carter, I’m not sure what we’ve got, but I’m pretty sure I’ll never understand a minute of it.”
by john | Feb 6, 2017 | Amazing Grace, Serialized Fiction, Writing
I don’t like that working title, so it’ll change at some point. This is something I’m messing around with and thinking of serializing here. If you like it, go buy one of my other books, or join my Patreon.
Prologue
When I was a little girl, my best friend was named Tina. I met her the summer after my fourth grade year, and we played together all summer long in the woods behind my house. I didn’t have many friends, so when I started telling my mother about Tina, she was thrilled. I’d finally found a girl my own age to be friends with. I suppose she thought this would make school easier in the fall. I didn’t believe that, I just thought it might give me a nice summer before I had to go back to school, where the girls teased me about my clothes and asked me why I always wore boys’ shoes and why my clothes were old and frayed at the hems.
Tina never asked questions, just played Star Wars on our swing set Millennium Falcon and always let me be Princess Leia and never made me be Chewbacca because I was “dirty” and “smelled like a Wookie.” Tina was always there that summer, just hanging around outside whenever I got done with breakfast in the morning, ready to play. She never came into my house, not even for afternoon snack, and I never went to hers. We just played together, exploring the woods and the creek and the red clay banks and getting the mud between our toes and making mudpies and taking off our blue jeans and sitting on the wet rocks in the creek in our underwear, pretending we had on bikinis like the older girls we saw on TV.
Until one morning Tina wasn’t there. I hopped down the cinderblock steps at the back door of our trailer and looked around, but she wasn’t nowhere to be seen. I wandered around my back yard for a little while, swung on the swing for a bit, but she didn’t show up. So I went to look for her. She wasn’t down by the creek, not even in the deep pool where we liked to catch crawdaddies. She wasn’t in Old Man Perkin’s field seeing how far she could fling cowpies before they broke. She wasn’t in the old barn across the road at Aunt Hazel’s place, with all its smells of hay and old horses.
Finally I found her all the way down at the old Martin place, sitting all by herself on the steps. There weren’t no house there no more, it having burned up a long time before I was born, so there was just a concrete slab foundation poured with three brick steps leading up to it, and a chimney sticking up like a red brick finger pointing at the sky.
“What you doing sitting out here all alone?” I hollered as soon as I saw her. She was still tiny off in the distance, and when she didn’t say nothing I figured she didn’t hear me. I ran down the overgrown gravel driveway, thistles and grass seeds catching all up in my white tube socks I had to wear on account of the handmedown boots Mama got me from the church was still a little big. She allowed as how I’d grow into them by the time school started.
I was out of breath from running up that whole long driveway, so I leaned over and put my hands on my knees like I seen people do on TV when they were tired. It didn’t make me feel no better, so I just sat down on the top step next to Tina.
“What you doing all the way out here?” I asked again, panting a little. Tina never got out of breath, no matter how far we ran or roamed. She could run for days if she needed to. Me, I had a little belly from watching too much TV, so Mama liked that I spent all day running around outside with Tina. She said all the fresh air was good for me. I thought she liked it that I was out of the house for her to watch her stories.
Tina didn’t answer me for a long time, then she finally said “I’m waiting for my mama.” I hadn’t never met Tina’s mama, not in all the time we’d been playing together. I hadn’t never been to her house, neither. She’d always just showed up outside in my back yard, ready to play.
“Okay, I’ll sit with you. Is she gonna bring you lunch?” Tina shook her head and didn’t say nothing. I just sat there with her, quiet. Sometimes she was like that, quiet and still. Other times she was just like a normal girl, least as much as I could tell, not really having any other friends to speak of.
We waited for a long time, but nobody came. After a while, I got bored and started to look around the old burnt down house. I’d been there before, a couple of times, but I always got scared and left before I could see anything. Kids on the school bus would point at this place, nothing visible from the road but the chimney, and say somebody died in the fire and that it was haunted. I wasn’t scared of ghosts, not as long as Tina was with me, and it was daylight.
I found a nickel, and a Bible that you could still read some of the pages in, then I was rooting around in a back room and found a golden locket. The chain was melted away, but the locket itself looked like it had been under something when the fire happened, so it wasn’t hurt too bad. I couldn’t get it open, not even with my pocketknife. I messed with it for a long time, then turned to Tina to see if she could open it.
Tina was standing at the top of the steps with a pretty woman with long dark hair and eyes that hadn’t smiled in a month of Sundays. I don’t know how I knew, but I could tell that I’d never seen anyone so sad. She wasn’t dressed to be outside, wearing slippers and a housecoat over her pale green nightgown, but she didn’t seem to care, and I wasn’t going to tell a grown-up how they should or shouldn’t dress.
I walked over to them and stuck my hand out. “Hey there,” I said. “You must be Tina’s mama. I’m Lila Grace Carter and I appreciate you letting Tina come play with me. She has been a good friend to me this summer.”
She knelt down in front of me, putting herself eye-to-eye with me, and smiled. It was a winsome thing, a little flutter of a smile that might run away if you looked at it too hard, so I tried to pretend like I couldn’t tell she didn’t have many smiles in her life. “Why, thank you, Lila Grace, I appreciate you keeping my baby company these past months ’til I could come be with her again. I expect we’ve got to move along now, but know that wherever you go, Tina will always be your friend.”
Then she stood up, motioned Tina over to her side, took her hand, and they were gone. That’s all it was; one second they were standing in front of me, the next they were gone. I turned around in circles and ran around that burnt-up homestead looking and hollering for Tina, but she was gone. After what felt like hours of looking, I decided she was gone for good and trudged on home.
Mama was standing at the sink peeling potatoes for supper when she saw me walk up the driveway. “Lila Grace you leave them nasty boots on the back porch and wash up before you come in this house!” She hollered through the screen window. I took off my boots and turned on the spigot by the back door, then let the water run through the hose for a minute ’til it got cold, and washed the dirt and soot off my hands and feet and face. I dried off with an old towel hanging by the back door that Daddy used to clean up with before he came in from the sawmill at night, and I carried my boots in and set them on the porch before I hopped up to the kitchen table for some lunch. We never ate in the dining room except on special occasions.
Mama brought me a glass of sweet tea and a tomato sandwich, and I could see on her face she’d been crying. “What’s wrong, Mama?” I asked as she sat down, washing down a big bite of home-grown tomato and mayonnaise with tea sweeter than lemonade.
“A woman from our church passed this morning, honey, and the whole thing made me a little sad. I was glad when you came home for lunch instead of going off all day playing today.”
“Who was it?” I asked, taking another too-big bite of sandwich. Mama smiled at me as the tomato juice ran down my chin. She picked up a paper napkin off the table and wiped my face for me. I grimaced a little, I wasn’t a little kid anymore, but she was upset, so I let her do it without fussing.
“I don’t think you knew her, but it was Clara Good. Her family lived down the road a piece before you were born. Her husband and daughter were killed in a house fire years ago, and poor Clara never was right after that. She couldn’t keep a job, and finally they had to put her in a home up in Rock Hill. Well, she died today, and it all reminded me of how sad the whole story was.”
“She lived in that old burnt-out house on the other side of Mr. Sam Junior’s place?” I asked, slipping the locket deep into the front pocket of my jeans.
“Yes, that was the place. You know it?”
“Only that some kids on the school bus say it’s haunted.” I had never lied to my mother before, but something told me that no good would come of telling her where I had spent my morning.
“She had a daughter about your age, I can’t remember her name…” I watched my mother’s eyes go wide, then she looked at me. I looked back at her, ready to tell her everything if she asked, or to tell her nothing. It was the first time I remember us talking like that, having a whole conversation without speaking a word, but it certainly wasn’t the last time it happened.
“Finish your sandwich, sweetie. Then I need you to help me hang up the laundry this afternoon.” She got up from the table and went back over to the sink and went back to washing and peeling potatoes. I finished my sandwich and carried my paper plate to the trash can on the back porch. While I stood there, out of Mama’s sight for the time being, I pulled the locket out and looked at Tina’s face staring into her mama’s, both of them smiling like there was no tomorrow.
I closed the little golden oval and slipped it back into my pants pocket. I looked out the back door and thought for a minute that I could see a woman walking away from my house holding hands with a little girl, but in a blink they were gone.
“Bye Tina,” I whispered, and went inside to help Mama with chores. That was the day I realized how different I really was.
by john | Feb 6, 2017 | Business of publishing, How to Sell Books, Writing
Now that I’m in publishing, I’m working with a lot of writers. A lot of these writers are publishing their first book, or their first stand-alone work, after having been in a number of anthologies over the years. One question I get a lot of times is “How do you sell books on social media?”
Well, there are a lot of disparate opinions on that. Some people, who sell a lot of books, think that you can’t actually sell anything on social media. They feel that it’s all about building your brand, and engagement, and getting people to like you and be interested enough in you to go buy your stuff. I tend to tell those people that they have very valid opinion, and it’s one way to approach social media. These folks frequently build a very rabid following for their blogs, or their twitter feeds, and are able to parlay those readerships into readerships for their books. Chuck Wendig and John Scalzi both built a lot of their fanbase off their blogs early in their careers, and still have very popular blogs today. They’ve done a great job of building engagement, and almost surreptitiously selling their fiction while building real engagement with other things they had to say. It’s very much a good way to work it, and can be very successful.
Some other folks think that social media is the devil, and they hate it, and just want to stay in their ivory towers and write. I usually tell those people that they are not going to make much money writing, and they should leave that J.D. Salinger/Emily Dickinson shit in previous centuries where it belongs.
My method is different, and it’s one that a lot of people don’t care for, but it results in actual sales for my books, so I’m not likely to change it anytime soon.
I promote the hell out of my stuff on social media.
Like, a LOT.
Every weekend, I spend an hour or so writing tweets or copying old tweets from a master list I keep on my desktop, and I paste them into Hootsuite to automate the cross-posting to Twitter, Facebook, and my author Facebook page. Every hour on the hour from 9AM – 5PM Eastern, I send out one tweet promoting one product. Sometimes, when a product is releasing that week, it will get two tweets per day, but usually just one.
Here are some samples of things I tweet –
You need more Sasquatch dick jokes in your life. Pick up Grits, Guns & Glory, Bubba Season 2 Today! http://amzn.to/1IZQSkO
Late to the Harker Party? Check out Harker Year One for the collected adventures of this badass magician! http://amzn.to/1TxBjVG
My Patrons get exclusive content like my writing advice blog posts, cool giveaways, and free stuff! https://www.patreon.com/johnhartness
Keep up to date with all my appearances, releases, podcasts, and get a #free #ebook! Sign up for my email list – http://eepurl.com/fV4In
Typically my breakdown will be – One post per day for my mailing list. One post per day for my Patreon. One post per day for the latest Harker release. One for the newest Bubba. One for the latest Black Knight. One for an older release. One for a recent audio release. One for a release that doesn’t sell as well and needs some love, and one flex slot. Some weeks the flex slot is pimping other writers, which engenders a lot of goodwill and retweets. Some weeks it’s pimping a con I’m going to, or other guests at that con. Some weeks it’s a podcast or an Audible subscription promo code. It just depends on what I’m thinking.
This is in direct opposition to what I and other people have said for years about social media. It’s using it as a billboard, and not as a conversation. It isn’t building real connections. It isn’t creating true fans. It’s very much a shotgun approach to marketing, with almost no way of knowing whether it has any effect or not.
Except on the weeks that I don’t do this promotion, I can see a noticeable dip in sales.
So it sells books.
That’s why I keep doing it. Because it sells books. And that’s my job. One of them, anyway. That’s what’s important to remember as a writer. You have many jobs, and one of those is to sell books. It doesn’t matter if you’ve written the next War and Peace if nobody reads it. So if you have to sell War and Peace as 50 Shades of Grey, so be it. Sell the book. If you want to be a professional writer, and pay your bills with your book sales, it’s on you to sell some damn books.
“But John, I only have three stories in anthologies and one book out. How am I supposed to make nine social media posts a day?”
You’re not. You should make five or six. Make one for each anthology you have a story in. The publishers will appreciate the fuck out of it, and are likely to invite you to be in more anthologies. Trust me, we notice who promotes a book and who doesn’t. Especially if it’s a Kickstarter anthology. We know who is working to promote the hell out a Kickstarter and who sends out one tweet in the 30-day funding period. You should make one post per day for the book that you have out. And one post per day about your mailing list.
Yes, I just said that you should be on social media EVERY SINGLE DAY telling people to buy your book. Yes, it is shameless. Yes, it is unseemly. Yes, it is brazen. Yes, some writers will consider you unprofessional for doing it. And yes, it will sell books. People cannot buy the book they have never heard of, so make sure they have heard of it.
I also said that you should have a mailing list, and be actively working to build it. You should have a website, and there should be a place on the website to sign up for the mailing list. Those are people who have already expressed an interest in your work, why wouldn’t you want to be able to reach out and touch them? Even if you only have one book out now, unless that’s the only book you ever plan on writing, you need to be building a mailing list. Right damn now.
If you want to promote other authors, great. It’s a great way to make friends and influence people. But you HAVE to be visible. I am at a place now where I have invited a bunch of authors to play in my Harker and Bubba sandboxes. Some of those authors were chosen because they are extremely talented. Some were chosen because they are some of my best friends, and extremely talented. And some were chosen because they are extremely active on social media, and extremely talented. Which ones do you think I expect to sell more books?
Get out there, get visible, get active. If you think you can “just write” and make a living, go lie in the dirt with Salinger, because that career path is as dead as old J.D.
This post is part of a book I’m working on about my methods for selling books and making a living. Pretty much everything that ends up in the book will be from either posts I make here or stuff I’ve written on Magical Words in the making Money Mondays posts. So you can get all the info for free. But if you like it and find what I’m writing useful, I’ hope you’ll buy the book when it comes out next year, or consider joining my Patreon.
by john | Nov 21, 2016 | Promos/Giveaways, Writing
Hey there, since it’s the season of conspicuous consumption, I decided to jump right the fuck on board with that shit and put a ton of my books on sale for Black Friday/Cyber Monday/Buy All The Shit Sunday/Eat Too Much Shit Thursday/Tired Of Dry Fucking Turkey Sandwiches Tuesday and whatever else we can jam into this week.
The sales start on Wednesday, November 23rd, so if you’re traveling, you can pick up a cheap read for your trip. These are all Kindle Countdown Deals, so the prices go up as the sale goes on, so hurry your ass up!
Go to my Black Friday Sale Page!
![Cover Reveal – Heaven Help Us, Quincy Harker #7]()
by john | Nov 3, 2016 | Uncategorized
It’s that time again, that time of the year when my release schedule gets compressed and I need to write like a motherfucker to get everything released that I want to release in 2016. So hot on the heels of Heaven’s Door last month, November will bring you Quincy Harker #7 – Heaven Help Us.
In the latest Quincy Harker novella, we find out what happened to Harker after the events in Heaven’s Door. How does he deal with the death of one of his friends? How does he handle the betrayal from the last book? How does Detective Flynn handle her new world? And who the fuck is The Shadow Council and what are they doing?
Find out November 17th, in Heaven Help Us, Book 3 of The Cambion Cycle, Quincy Harker Year Two.
by john | Nov 1, 2016 | Real Life, Writing
So once upon a time, there were blogs. And there were blog aggregators, and people read blogs, and blogs were super-active, and a thing, and some people wrote blogs about poker, and then they parlayed those blogs into jobs writing “news” articles about poker, and then they got fired from those jobs and turned to writing fiction (not that there hadn’t been some fiction in the other work).
Then there was Twitter, then Facebook, then Instagram, then Tumblr, then whatever, then whatchamacallit, then whodafuqknose…then most of that stopped being fun.
So there were still blogs. And some folks still owned blogs, no matter how infrequently they posted to them. And when Facebook and Twitter and all the other social media sites started throttling the amount of posts they displayed, it became a lot more effective to have a blog again.
At least I hope. I mean, I know I won’t be throttling this space down at all. In fact, I’m going to try very hard to do just the opposite. I’m going to try to be consistent with my posting here, and to post a lot of the crap I used to post on Facebook here instead.
So I think I’m back. We’ll see. I still have a fucking ton of books to write, but I think I can get some better mileage out of regular blog posts than I can out of just screeching into the void on FB.
Either way, Hi! Good to see you. Hope you’ll come back for a visit.
In the meantime, here’s my latest release – Heaven’s Door. It’s book 6 in the Quincy Harker series. I think it’s really damn good, and boy, you wanna talk about shit getting real? Shit gets real real up in here. So give it a look. It’s exclusive to Amazon, so if you need to read it on other platforms, print will be available in January, and all my releases are available to all my fans early using my Patreon.
by john | Oct 19, 2016 | Travel, Writing
Hey y’all!
I’m gonna try something new in an effort to tweak my social media and interwebs presence. I’m going to go back to blogging more and Twittering less, and maybe impart some actual information on folks instead of just screaming into the void. To that end, whenever I attend a convention, I’ll put up one of these blog posts with a convention report and analysis or whether or not it was a worthwhile trip financially, and if there are other reasons that will or will not draw me back to a con.
The first victim of this new idea is Fayetteville Comic Con, where I was last weekend. This was the second year for this convention, and by all anecdotal reports, last year was a rousing success. The show went from one day to two this year, and with attendance in the 8,000 range last year, people were looking for 10-12K going into October.
Then Hurricane Matthew hit. If you aren’t local to the Southeast, you might not be aware that Hurricane Matthew hit Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina like a motherfucker. There are parts of eastern NC that still aren’t open, and a friend at the show told me that his uncle still takes a boat to get to his house, and FEMA can’t even move in until the flood waters recede. So while there wasn’t a ton of actual wind and storm damage, the flooding in the eastern part of the state was intense.
Needless to say, I had some concerns leading up to the show. I didn’t know if anyone would show up, or if they did, if they’d have any money to spend. I wasn’t on any panels, which was fine, because I’m not accustomed to being on panels at comic book shows, and I was perfectly happy to sit at my table and sell books all day for two days. I was joined at the booth by Emily Lavin Leverett, one of the co-authors of the new Falstaff Books release Changeling’s Fall, and my co-editor on the Big Bad anthologies. She lives not too far from there, so she came down and promoted her book for a couple of days and sold anthologies. I wanted to get copies of Changeling’s Fall for the con, but weather and timing conspired against us.
So let’s start breaking things down as to good, bad, and ugly –
Good
Attendance – for one thing, it was good that people were there at all. It seemed like the overall numbers were about the same as last year, and 8,000 people is certainly a great number for a very young convention, so there were people to see.
Bad
Revenue – for that many people, a lot of them weren’t spending, and a lot of vendors said they didn’t make anywhere near the money they made last year. This is to be expected in a region that just got hammered with a natural friggin’ disaster! the way I set expectations for what I call “Trade Show Cons,” which is what most comic cons are – big exhibit halls where people are selling stuff all day with maybe a few panels – is fairly simple. In an area that doesn’t have a lot of competition for convention dollars (basically anyplace that isn’t a major metropolitan area) there is probably only one convention of this type each year. That means that once it gets some traction with the local folk, it becomes an event. It’s something people plan for all year long, or at least they keep it in the back of their heads for months in advance. When I attended Heroes Con as my only con each year, I set aside $100-150 to spend at that con. And I expect that most people have a set budget that is their “con money.”
When your fucking house is flooded, that con money becomes “replace my entire home” money. Hell, just being without power for a full day or two is rough – you have to replace every piece of food in your fridge and freezer, and there goes your con money right down the drain.
So there were people, but they weren’t spending like some folks expected. I tempered my expectations to meet the conditions, and for the weekend, I walked away with right about what I expected to see.
Good
Seeing old friends and other writers – Networking is one of the best things about going to conventions, and this time I got to spend time with James Maxey, Chris Kennedy, Kindra Sowder, Jonathan Rosenbaum, and Edd Sowder. I always love hanging out with those guys and getting a chance to swap stories, exchange ideas, and trade information on what is working and what isn’t in our various lines of work.
Bad
Communication – This is a new con, and they’re still ironing some things out, but they’ve got to get better about updating the website and communicating with their guests and vendors. It was hard to get confirmation that I had a space, I didn’t know where my table was until I got there and wandered around looking for it (okay, Emily wandered around looking for it), and I just generally felt like I wasn’t very important to the people running the con. Admittedly, I’m not, but I did pay for the privilege of being there, and getting no communication from the show leading up to the event, not even a “Hey, we’re still happening and here are the road closures leading in to Fayetteville” was a little disconcerting.
Okay
Placement – This con boasted a “Authors Alley,” and I wasn’t part of it. I signed up late, and I needed a whole table, because I have too many titles to share a 6′ table with anyone, so those are the main reasons, but I was never told that I wasn’t going to be in Author’s Alley, which was disappointing. Goes back to the communication thing. It turned out to be a good thing, because the Author’s Alley was more of an Author’s Ghetto, where the writers were stuck out in an unsecured hallway out by the panel rooms, which were sparsely attended. I was in the exhibit hall, on one of the back rows, but I had great traffic all weekend and made decent money. I will happily attend the show again, but that is contingent on me NOT being in Author’s Alley. I want to be somewhere that I can leave my stuff on the table overnight in a secure area, and I want to be where the people are. So what initially appeared to be a negative for me turned out to be a positive for me and a negative for the other authors.
Minor Bonuses
Having a few celebrity guests, like my buddy Santiago Cirilo, was nice in boosting attendance. They had the original Flash Gordon there, and the Skullcrusher dude off Naked & Afraid, so that was kinda neat. It also breaks up the monotony of it being just rows and rows of Pop figurines and comic boxes. I like it when cons bring in a few actors to boost attendance. I wonder exactly how much it does boost attendance, but as long as folks are making their guarantees, I don’t care. As long as the focus of the show remains on the vendors and the fans, and it doesn’t become too much of an autograph hound con, I’m fine with it.
The tables in the vendor area were 8′ tables, which is great. I have a lot of books, and I fill up a 6′ table quick. Having the extra space was super-nice. Loading in wasn’t terrible, even though some of the parking guys were kinda douchey.
Minor Annoyances
The tables were so close together there was no room left to get out between them to go pee or get anything to eat. That’s actually a bigger pain in the ass than you’d expect, because every time somebody has to pee, you end up knocking shit over on either your table or somebody else’s. Cell reception (T-Mobile) wasn’t great, but it held up through the weekend. No power near the booths, but that’s really to be expected in a convention center. The bathrooms could have been cleaner, but that’s not on the con. I would have liked a tablecloth to be provided, or at least to know that it wasn’t. I think my new standard is going to be not to expect a tablecloth at a comic show, and only expect them at programming cons.
Money
That’s what it all boils down to, right? Did I make any money? Will I go back? Well, here are the dirty details.
Let’s look at expenses –
Table Rental – $100 At a lot of cons, I pay for the table. This was one of them.
Hotel – $0 – even with traveling three hours across the state, I had no hotel expense. Thank You, Marriott Rewards points. The Fairfield Inn Fayetteville Cross Creek Mall wasn’t anything glamorous, but the rooms on the third floor have hallways, not just rooms opening to the outside, and the amenities were nice. Little white noise generators in the rooms, and USB charging stations by the bed. Bed sucked, though. Not horrible, but far from great.
Food – $90 (roughly) – I ate really pretty cheaply on this trip. Dinner in the truck on the way out there, then I carried Pop-Tarts and Clif Builder Bars for breakfast and lunch Saturday. Grabbed a slice of pizza, a few pretzels, and a couple sodas in the convention center over two days. Had one nice Mexican dinner with Emily, James, Cheryl, Chris, and Sheellah (I’m sure I butchered that spelling), but overall getting out for less than a hundred bucks in a two day con that involves travel before Day 1 is really good.
Gas – $40 – the truck was EMPTY, so I filled her up. Didn’t use the entire tank, so my guess is about $40 in gas.
Vendor Hall BS – I bought $20 worth of magic cards. Didn’t open anything good. Oh well.
Total Expenses – $250 This was a super-cheap con since I didn’t have a hotel room associated with it.
Gross Sales – $408 – I sold $408 in inventory over the weekend. Figure 50% of that is profit, by the time I buy the books and pay shipping on them. That’s about right overall, given the difference in discounts and pricing, and the royalties I have to pay the writers whose books I sold over the weekend. Net Revenue – $210 (est.)
End Results – $40 loss
Yep, lost money on the con. And it was worth it, because at $40 for a convention, it’s something I can afford in a marketing budget for the year. So this con is definitely worth it, especially next year when I’ll have even more books out for people to pick up, and hopefully there won’t be a devastating natural disaster less than ten days before the convention. If I have to have a room next year, we’ll have to see about either crashing with someone, splitting a room with someone, or staying somewhere on points or super-cheap. Gotta manage expenses, and if I’d paid even $75 per night in a hotel at this one, it wouldn’t have been worth it. That’s why everybody that does this circuit is always scrounging for hotel points and offers, they can really turn a show around for you. The last two comic cons I’ve done, I’ve stayed in hotels on points, so that’s been a huge savings.
The Verdict – I’ll give Fayetteville Comic Con a B+, and will definitely be back next year if at all possible.
If you think this was awesome, feel free to share a link! If you really think it’s awesome, you can go over to my Patreon and sign up! My newest release, Heaven’s Door, is the latest in the Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter series, and is available now on Amazon.
by john | Oct 17, 2016 | Harker, Writing
Shit gets real in the Harkerverse with this one, kiddos. Heaven’s Door is the real kickoff to The Cambion Cycle, which comprises Year Two of the Quincy Harker novellas. Heaven Sent was a nice preview of things to come, but Heaven’s Door is where the rubber really meets the road, so to speak. If you thought things in Quincy Harker’s life were complicated before, just wait until the end of this one.
Sharon from I Smell Sheep was kind enough to give the book an excellent 4.5 Sheep Advance Review, which you can read here. My favorite excerpt – There are lots of bloody fights, traitors unveiled and then Mr. Hartness goes all Games of Thrones on some characters…damn, no mercy. There are going to be some very powerful and pissed off people looking for revenge in the next book. Can’t wait to see them in action.
Thanks for the shoutout, Sharon!
If you want to be the first of the cool kids to read Heaven’s Door, click on the cover for the preorder!
He’s finally found something to care about after a century of searching, but will he lose it all at the hands of his most dangerous foe yet?
Seven years ago, Quincy Harker vanquished the demon Orobas and saved the city of Charlotte, NC from his evil plans. Or so he thought. Now the half-divine Nephilim are turning up dead in the Queen City, and it looks like Orobas is back to finish the job.
Can Harker stop Orobas, or will the bloodthirsty demon unleash Hell on Earth?
Who is behind these horrible murders, and why do they seem to be calling Harker out?
Will this be the battle that finally ends the long life of Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter?
Find out when Harker, his girlfriend Detective Rebecca Flynn, his guardian angel Glory, and his uncle, the legendary Count Dracula bring the battle of the diving and demonic right to HEAVEN’S DOOR.
