by john | Jun 20, 2012 | Writing
I know that a bunch of you have read Rachel Aaron’s post about going from 2,000 words a day to 10,000 words a day, and if not, you should. Here it is, for the uninitiated. Let me start by saying that I have only implemented a small part of what Rachel talks about in her blog, and I’ve implemented it partially and in my own twisted fashion, because that’s what I do. And I’ve STILL gone from struggling to hit 2,000 words/day to crushing 4,500 words/day in a week. This might not work for everyone, but it’s turning out pretty awesome for me, because I’ve found out quickly that there’s more to the writing life than just sitting chained to my computer every day and working my nuts off. There’s plenty of that, but the rest of the world can be just as intrusive into your writing time as a day job can be, and it’s sometimes easier to carve out writing time at night after work when it’s looked upon as a second job, than when it’s what you were supposed to be doing all day in the first place, not managing social media, making a run to the landfill with a truckload of scrap lumber, dealing with the exterminator, figuring out insurance bullshit about the break-in last week and going to a non-profit board meeting. Which was my day yesterday.
But here are the pieces of Rachel’s monster post (because even she’ll admit that she’s wordy, and VERY scientific in her approach to writing, which is awesome if you can pull it off and process it, but if you’re a loosey-goosey goofball like me, it’s a little hard to assimilate the whole thing in one go.) that helped me double my word count in just a few days. Not to mention a tactic of my own. Like everything on the internet, your mileage may vary.
Don’t you hate it when people write parentheticals that are longer than the main body of the sentence? Yeah, me neither.
Step 1 – Know what you’re going to write.
Yes, I realize that this is ONE point of the diagram in Rachel’s blog post. That’s why I linked it in the first paragraph. I totally told you I learned this stuff sitting on panels and talking with her. I didn’t invent it, I just bent it to work for me. I outline all my long-form fiction anyway. I get lost in my own narrative if I don’t, so I have to make a rough outline. But now, instead of just looking over at the outline when I’m working, I go one step further. Before I put fingers to keyboard for the day, I open a little journal on my desk and I write down what happens in the scene. It really does help me focus, and it I get lost in my dialogue it helps me stay on track. I often find that I can pre write twice as much in my journal as I can actually write, so I really only have to do this every couple of days. But it helps me plow through the saggy middle bits, keeping them tighter, and helps keep me on track so I don’t get distracted by the internet, or my cats, or my Squirrel of Mass Distraction.
This is the Squirrel of Mass Distraction. It’s Allan Gilbreath’s fault. If you come to Fandom Fest, I’ll explain.
This is one of my cats. You see what I mean about being easily distracted?
But anyway. That’s one piece of Rachel’s method that I’ve adopted, and not only has it upped my daily word count, it’s upped my hourly word count by 50%. I was plowing along at about 1,000 words/hour, which according to my fellow panelists at ConCarolinas, is a pretty standard pace for writers who think of themselves as writing pretty quickly.
Now I can get out 1,500 words/hour if I’m cooking along. That’s huge. That means more time for Buffy! More time for reading! More time to write other projects!
And that’s my Step 2 – Write more than one thing at a time. I’ve demonstrated quite handily that I have the attention span of a gnat’s ass, and honestly, I can only do about two hours of real writing time at one sitting. So I get up in the morning, deal with all my social media stuff, wish a bunch of people happy birthday on Facebook (yes, if you want a Happy Birthday wish from your favorite author, I don’t know how to help you. But if you want a Happy Birthday wish from me, friend me on Facebook and as long as your birthday doesn’t fall on a day I’m at a con or away from my computer, it’ll probably happen.), and write a blog post if I haven’t blogged in a few days.
There I go with long parentheticals again. Oh well, it’s kinda my thing.
But then I work on a short story. Either Bubba story, a Black Knight something, or something for an anthology. Last week I wrote my entry for my Big Bad Anthology, and those were some unappealing characters, lemme tell you. But I knocked out 1,000 words every morning, and then moved on with my day. Later on, I’ll come back and do 1,500 words on Return to Eden Book 2 – Exodus. And once I’m done with that, I move on to my next book, As Yet Untitled Thing with Dragons, Teenagers and Lots of Kissing. Which really isn’t any worse than some titles I’ve seen.
But that’s the key for me – multiple projects. I’m a bit of a flake (I know, quelle surprise!) and I can’t focus on one project to the elimination of all others when I’m writing. There are a LOT of ideas banging around in my head, and if I’m only letting one of them out at a time, the rest of them get cranky and give me gas. And that doesn’t make anyone happy, particularly not the cats.
DAD! You cannot Dutch Oven me, and run away before I get a chance to bite your toes! That’s not fair!
I would express some faint hope that my readers find fart humor as funny as I do, but given the fact that my second best-selling title this month features BUBBA THE MONSTER HUNTER, I think I’m probably okay.
So really, that’s all I’ve done to more than double my word count in the past couple of weeks. I pre write the scene I’m going to work on, and I keep multiple projects going. Those are my two keys. I hate to think how productive I’d be if I did everything Rachel blogged about, but for now I’ll stick with the old “under promise and over deliver” strategy.
Bugger, this 1100-something words (plus 3,000 for pics) doesn’t count towards my word limit.
by john | Jun 18, 2012 | Real Life
John G. Hartness (JGH) is pleased that JC Penney (JCP) is continuing down the same path of promoting inclusivity and tolerance in their advertisements. In JCP’s June catalog, there is another family-centered ad, but this time with two dads celebrating Father’s Day. BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH
The ad show two men on the floor playing and hugging their two children at home. It read, “First Pals – What makes Dad so cool? He’s the swim coach, tent maker, best friend, bike fixer and hug giver – all rolled into one. Or two. Real-life dads Todd Koch and Cooper Smith with their children Claire and Mason.”
It is obvious that JCP would rather take sides than remain neutral in the culture war. JCP has already heard from the other side (www.onemillionmoms.com) so they need to hear from us as well. Our persistence will pay off! We must remain diligent and stand up for tolerance, openness, acceptance and love of all people, regardless of color, creed, sexual orientation, gender identity or anything else that a person is born with and can’t help. We don’t have to accept assholes, though. Assholes suck, no matter what religious shroud they wrap themselves in. My country was founded on freedom from religious persecution, and I have faith that eventually people will yank their heads out of their asses on this matter and stop using religion as a club to beat down other people. I know what Jesus would do about that BS – see: moneylenders in temple. Then he’d turn water into wine and we’d chill. Cause JC was cool like dat.
JGH will continue to support JCP and will try to find one somewhere near his house to shop at as long as they continue to speak out for social justice and equality. If you receive their advertising booklets or catalogs in the mail, JGH recommends that you cheek it out, ’cause your threads are looking a little jacked up. Just sayin’. If they receive an onslaught of orders from people that think there are times when two dads are better than one, or the no dads that far too many babies are raised with in this day and age, they will take notice. Also, you may email, call or use their contact form on their website to tell them “Good on ya!” If you have a store credit card, you really should close that shit, because store cards have suck-ass interest rates and debt is bad and stuff. Be sure to tell them that you are canceling your card because you’re embarking on a new life of fiscal responsibility and that it has nothing to do with them being cool in their advertising.
Obviously this is a parody of the statement issued by One Million Moms about the recent JC Penney mailer. I believe pretty much everything written here, but I use the satirical form for emphasis and to protect me from libel when I call people assholes. It’s kinda what satirists have done for centuries, all the way back to the Fool in ye olde king’s court. Of course, he often got his head chopped off, so maybe that’s not the best example. But you get my point – there was a letter, this is a parody of the letter, but it’s still what I believe. Gay people happen. Deal with it. Don’t be a dick.
(“Don’t be a dick” h/t Wil Wheaton. I don’t think he can copyright that one, but he did kinda corner the market on it, so I’ll give him a little shouty-shout. Hi, Wil!)
by john | Jun 16, 2012 | Business of publishing
Please don’t take away my indie author badge just because I have a hybrid career, y’all. It’s no secret to people that follow me on Twitter or Facebook that I’m a fan of Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid Chronicles. Not just because I think the few men writing urban fantasy have to stick together (me, Hearne, Butcher, Tuck and now D.B. Jackson are the ones that leap to mind) but because the books are funny as hell, well-crafted and feature an awesome dog as a main character.
Not THE main character, unless you ask the dog. But I digress.
But here’s the interesting thing about Hearne’s series. He sold his series to Del Rey, an imprint of Ballantine, one of the Big 6 publishers. These are not people typically considered to be welcoming of change, or open to new ways of doing things. But when they bought Kevin’s series, he already had the first three books finished. They went through what I’m sure was an extensive process of editing, revising, cover stuff, etc. But they did this on all three books at essentially the same time, and then they released them.
One each month. All last summer. So instead of readers having to wait a year for the next book in the series, they got three books all last summer, kept their appetites honed for the characters, fell in love with the characters and the series, and then, when they had to wait seven or eight months for Book 4, they were chomping at the bit. Book 4 released earlier this year, and Book 5 will release this fall. This breaks the traditional “one book a year” pattern that traditional publishers had used in the past to manage their release dates and was very effective in Kevin’s case. He came from out of nowhere to become a very popular upper-midlist fantasy author in a very short period of time. This kind of market awareness and adaptability deserves a little shout out for the people at Del Rey, because it shows that they were paying attention. They understood that fun books like Kevin’s are great summertime fare, and people are going to want a lot of them. So good for them. I hope more publishers pay attention, because the idea of only putting out one book a year is anathema to fast writers like me.
The pic is from Kevin’s signing at Park Road Books in Charlotte last week. Yes, that is my book beside him. I gave him a copy of Hard Day’s Knight since I rode the coattails of his also-boughts to great sales numbers last summer. The pic below is how I spent my Friday night, finishing Book 4 of the Iron Druid Chronicles. It was my favorite of the series since Book 1. Really recommend it if you haven’t already gotten hooked on that series.
This is a good Friday night, right here.
by john | Jun 12, 2012 | Real Life
Well, judging by the comments on yesterday’s post and the responses to my Facebook posting, way too damn many of us have been the victim of this same kind of thing. And at 6′ 1″ and 295 lbs., I’m not really the “victim” stereotype. But let’s look at my recent (past ten years) history with crime.
2006 – My wife was held up at gunpoint when a trio of thieves robbed the local community theatre during a performance of A Chorus Line. No, I cannot make that shit up. They got her purse with her car keys and ID, leading to a huge pain in the ass of replacing things, towing cars, calling locksmiths, etc. Because I was in Philadelphia when it happened. Of course.
2010 – My car was broken into in Little Five Points in Atlanta. Bastards took out two windows and made off with my brand-new MacBook Pro, my Canon Rebel XTi digital SLR camera, a bunch of tools, and a bunch of lighting equipment. Minimum replacement cost, $5,000. Insurance doesn’t carry equipment that belongs to your workplace if it’s in your personal vehicle, so I was on the hook for that. Out of pocket – about $2,000.
2011 – My truck was broken into in the parking lot of the Sheraton Suites across from the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta. Window smashed, lock jimmied, all kinds of crap damaged. I was down there for work so my employer paid for the repairs. The cops caught the thieves after they broke into 50 other cars in the same parking garage. Yes, FIFTY. I got all my stuff back. Nothing out of pocket.
2012 – Read yesterday’s post. At this point I’m not sure if it’s going to be worth filing an insurance claim or not. The impact on my premium for the next three years may be such that I’m better off just eating the loss and sharpening the dog’s teeth a little more. So my out of pocket is going to be somewhere from $500 to $2,500. And that’s IF I decide to replace everything. Which is unlikely.
But on the bright side, I got my shit together enough yesterday to get 3,000 words written, even though I stayed up until 1AM to do it. I also went out to Park Road Books and met Kevin Hearne, the author of the fantastic Iron Druid Chronicles. If you haven’t read these, you should totally pick them up. And if you’re in Chapel Hill tonight, he’ll be at FlyLeaf Books. He’s a nice guy, funny as hell and very gracious. I gave him a copy of Hard Day’s Knight since I picked up a bunch of fans last summer when his stuff was released thanks to the Amazon also-bought algorithms.
And a really cool thing happened to me while I was standing in line waiting to get my book signed. I was chatting with a few people, and dude I didn’t know asked me “Are you John Hartness?”
I replied in the affirmative, because I was pretty sure I didn’t owe him money. He then proceeded to pull out a copy of Hard Day’s Knight and get me to sign it. He’d seen on Kevin’s Facebook page that I was going to be at the signing, and he and his wife wanted to meet me! So I signed his book, then he pulled out a Sharpie and had me autograph the back of his Kindle, right under Kevin’s signature! That was a pretty awesome little “rock star” moment for me, the first time I’ve ever been recognized somewhere and had someone ask for my autograph when I wasn’t a con guest or at a dealer’s table somewhere. So I felt downright thrilled about my evening, no matter how crappy a chunk of my day was.
So thanks to Joseph and Mary for making my night!
And thanks to everyone for the words, tweets, emails and texts of support. This burglary has hit Suzy pretty hard, and I hate seeing her scared. That’s the worst thing for me, far worse than losing a few pieces of electronics. But your support really means the world to us. And thanks to everybody who bought a book to help the recovery fund, or donated using the button on yesterday’s post. I really appreciate it.
by john | Jun 11, 2012 | Real Life
That’s how I felt last night when I realized that my house had been burglarized. While Suzy and I were down in SC celebrating Father’s Day with my family, a couple of young black men broke into my house, stole my Macbook Air, my Canon Rebel T3i digital camera and a Wii game console. My neighbors saw them and chased them on foot, but the thieves got away.
On the bright side, I had an older laptop that I was able to quickly get up and running. I didn’t lose any of my writing, thanks to a combination of DropBox and Time Machine backups. My Macbook was password-protected and is now remote-wiped thanks to the iCloud apps. No one was hurt, and our pets were safe. And I learned that I really do live in a good neighborhood, where three young brothers were willing to put their own safety on the line to try and protect my possessions. That last bit means a lot.
On the darker side, I’m fucking pissed. Some little sonofabitch broke into my home. He came into my office and stole my computer. The computer I write on. The way I make my living. My home. I feel violated, I feel scared, and more than anything I feel angry. Last night I re-loaded the shotgun and put it back in its rightful place beside my bed. The warning shot is what you get when you hear the shell racked into the chamber. It’s bird shot, so I’m at least giving you a chance to live through the next round.
Suzy and I have lived through this before, each in different ways. I’ve had two vehicle break-ins within the past three years, both in Atlanta. The first time, ironically, my MacBook and digital SLR camera were stolen. The second time not only did the thieves get nothing of value, but they were caught just hours later and my stuff was returned. Suzy was held up at gunpoint while working in a theatre, and had her purse and car keys stolen. That was decidedly more traumatic and scary.
But this just pisses me off. I know it’s all just stuff, material possessions, and I really am very happy that neither my neighbors nor my pets were hurt. But it was my stuff. I worked hard to be able to afford those things, and now some assclown that doesn’t want to go out and get a damn job has my stuff. And I’m pissed.
And now I can see a little better how things like the Trayvon Martin shooting happen. I don’t want to say that my situation is analogous to George Zimmerman, because only two people know what happened that night in Florida, and one of them is dead. But I know that my immediate experience has trumped my liberal leanings right now, and I could see me overreacting to some perceived threat right now. My personal security has been rattled, and I don’t have much of a flight instinct, it’s all fight. So please send a message to the Seventh-Day Adventists and the Mormons that this is a bad week to knock on the door of Casa de Hartness, because the nicest thing I’m holding down behind the door when I answer it is a baseball bat.
I really do appreciate all the well-wishes on Facebook and Twitter. It’s nice that folks were concerned. If you want to help, buy a book. I’m not sure yet whether it’s going to be worth filing a homeowner’s insurance claim or not. It may affect my premium more than the stuff was worth, so I have to weigh that in making my decision. If you really want to help, click the Paypal button below.
And thanks for reading my rant. I’m not going to shoot anybody. Much. But a .22 slug to the kneecap is looking like a better and better answer. After all, if I shoot a bitch in the knee, he’s not going to be playing second-story man anymore.
by john | May 30, 2012 | Appearances, Promos/Giveaways, Writing
I just wanted to toot my own horn here for a minute and thank Deirdra over at A Storybook World for giving this little corner of the interwebs a Brilliant Writer Award. It even comes with a cool badge thingy, see?
I really appreciate the kudos from Deirdra. It’s nice to get these little attaboys from out of the blue, it helps remind me that I’m not completely screaming into the void when I post here.
I also want to take a quick second to thank everyone who retweeted, posted on Facebook or otherwise helped spread the word about my free books to vets and active military promo for Memorial Day Weekend. I gave away over 50 ebooks to veterans and active-duty servicemen and servicewomen, and it made me feel good to do something for the people who do so much for me.
I’m getting geared up for ConCarolinas this weekend! I’m looking forward to seeing some old friends, making some new friends, and probably being an opinionated jackass on at least a couple of panels. I doubt I’ll get a new episode of Literate Liquors up before the con, but I’m going to try to get several episodes in the can during the con, so we’ll have plenty of content for the summer. I enjoy doing the show, it gives me another excuse to drink! And there will be a live version of the show taking place at Fandom Fest in Louisville at the end of the month. I’m doing a panel with Jackie Gamber, who I stole this whole idea from. She does tea pairings with book selections, so we’re going to do tea pairings, then liquor pairings of the same books, then we’re going to end up getting drunk. If you’re planning to be at Fandom Fest, definitely check that panel out!
Alright, kids, I’m gonna go do some more work on the new Bubba story, which I hope to have out early in June (no spoilers, but there’s a lot of shooting in this one!). And the Bubba origin story is coming, but I’m not sure yet how to craft it. I haven’t decided if it works better as a series of stories, or as a novel. I know that the current storyline will remain a series of shorts, but I’m not sure yet about the origin. I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out!
by john | May 6, 2012 | The Chosen
For Sample Sunday I decided to turn the clock back to my first novel, on sale right now for only $2.99. If you haven’t checked out The Chosen, here’s why you should –
“It’s deeply funny, very well written, both in terms of pacing and voice, and fast paced.” – Asa C. Page
“The Chosen by John Hartness is an example of all that is good and joyful in fiction. I love this book. It’s fast paced, very well voiced, and genuinely funny. ” – Keryl Raist
“What I will tell you is that this is a well written work that transcends genre. Its a great book that will keep you entertained on a flight with even a crying kid or two. Don’t grab it when you can’t sleep though. It will keep you going til the sunrise.” – Ken Prevo
See, told you. But if you don’t believe me, here’s a sample!
Chapter 1
I sensed him before I saw him. I always did. I was just sitting there, minding my own business, playing a little blackjack, when I felt his presence over my right shoulder.
I spoke without bothering to turn around. “Hi, Lucky.”
“Big A.”
I hated that. He always had to go there right away. And he was supposed to be subtle. Ass.
“Been here long?” he asked.
“A while. Playing a little cards. You?”
“Well, you know me. I’ve got a place here. I love this town. Everything about it just calls to me.”
“Yeah, I think I heard that somewhere.”
I finally glanced over and gave him the satisfaction of a look. A new image for him this time around—red riding leathers, no helmet of course, black boots, black hair tied back in a ponytail and sunglasses. The sunglasses were kind of a given, I suppose.
“Nice outfit. You look like one of the cavemen in that insurance commercial.”
“Thanks. You, as always, look well put-together.”
I’d never been sure how to take his compliments, and I wasn’t in Las Vegas to think, so I just went for face value. I was wearing a worn t-shirt I’d picked up at a roadside store somewhere in Montana sometime in the past, and a thrift store work shirt with “arry” over the left breast pocket. I didn’t know if it used to say “Larry” or “Harry.” Neither was my name; I just gave Goodwill $2.99 for the shirt.
“Thanks.”
For once, he didn’t press the issue. He sat beside me and slid the dealer a hundred. We played blackjack together for a while, me playing green chips, him moving quickly from green to black to purple, all the way up to the yellow thousand-dollar chips in a couple of short hours. He lost just enough hands to keep from getting thrown out, but not quite enough to keep the eye in the sky from getting suspicious.
“A, looks like we’ve got company.”
“You got a mouse in your pocket? I’m not the one who’s been sitting here counting cards for three hours.”
“Yeah, but I’m not the one who took twenty grand in chips out of my safe deposit box this morning. Chips, I might add, that came from a casino that was demolished a couple decades ago.”
I hated that he always had more information than he rightfully should. To give him his due, he probably had people literally everywhere in town. But it was still annoying. I could admit that visiting a box that hadn’t been touched in years might raise an eyebrow or two, but I still blamed the attention of the lummox in the off-the-rack suit on my unwanted companion’s unabashed card-counting. Either way, the brutes in suits might have had a few questions for me that I wasn’t fully prepared to answer at exactly that moment, so I looked at my old pal Lucky.
“Keys?”
“Might I suggest California? I hear San Francisco’s nice this time of year, and you know how much you love seafood. Why not check out Fisherman’s Wharf? Visit Alcatraz, you know, see the sights a little. My bike’s out front. You’ll know which one. You owe me.”
“We’d have to be even for me to owe you. And we’re not even. This doesn’t even come close. Nowhere near close.”
“You really know how to wound a guy, Big A.”
“Bite me.” I grabbed Lucky’s keys from the table, tossed a green chip to the dealer, and headed for the cage. I spotted another security goon between me and the cashier, so I decided on discretion as the better part of valor, tossed a couple grand in chips into the air, and used the resulting pandemonium to make my less-than-subtle way to the exit. As I glanced back toward the table where I had left Lucky, I noticed that he and the two guards were having a beer and yukking it up like long-lost frat brothers, which for all I knew, they might have been.
He was right; I picked out his bike right away. It was a big, loud ostentatious black thing with flames painted on the gas tank. Subtle. I could have sworn the thing looked hungry. I put the key in the ignition—an apple key chain? Really?—and pointed the machine south down the Strip, putting California firmly behind me as Lucky had suggested.
Okay, so looking back on it, maybe opening a twenty-five-year-old lockbox wasn’t exactly the most under-the-radar move I could have made. I knew that people took out safe deposit boxes in this town all the time. But not all of them paid the rent on those boxes with automatic debits from numbered accounts. I’d just had the bad luck to run into the same security guard that rented me the box the first time, on his first day on the job twenty-five years ago. Little bugger had a good memory, that was for sure. I guess I hadn’t changed much since then. Okay, make that not at all. But I was still blaming Lucky. After all, he’d been taking the blame for things for millennia now, so what was one more little incident?
Maybe I should back up a little. This is as good a time as any for introductions. My name is Adam. No, I don’t have a last name. Yes, that Adam. No, really, you can feel for the rib if you like. But it’s better if you don’t. I’m ticklish.
Chapter 2
I rode south a few hours. Just outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico, I pulled over to watch the sunset. And to think. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for Lucky, or Lucypher if we wanted to be precise about it, to show up unannounced, but I hadn’t seen him in years. I wondered what he wanted. He always wanted something, and he usually got it. And it usually wasn’t good to be the one who gave it to him or the one between him and his goals. It was better to sit on the sidelines and watch the carnage, hoping not to get too much splatter on your shoes.
That’s what I’ve done for years—watch. I’ve watched the number of people grow from just a couple to billions of huddled masses, yearning for something or another. I’ve watched people kill each other over pennies in the street, and I’ve watched people give their last breath to help a stranger. And through it all, ever since the Garden, Lucky has been a constant. Always around, always goading something into action. I never know why or what he wants, I just watch.
But our last little interaction was different. For the first time in a long time, Lucky had been goading me. He wanted me to do something, and whatever it was, I didn’t want to do it. The last time I did something he wanted, it didn’t turn out so well for me, so I’d tried to steer clear of his maneuvering since then.
I sat for a while and watched the desert turn from a superheated wasteland to a patchwork canvas of light and rolling shadows. I liked sunsets; they carried the memory of the day before and the promise of the one yet to come.
Eve always preferred sunrises. She said they were more anticipatory, like a held breath before the day exploded like a sneeze all over the world.
Yeah, Eve’s real too. It all is, except for the bit about Lucky being a serpent. That was a little bit of poetic license on Moses’ part. He’d always been creeped out by snakes, so I think the whole serpent thing was just an underhanded way of making sure people overall didn’t like snakes any more than he did. Really, Lucky was our friend, and he was in the Garden with us from the very beginning. Several of the Archangels used to come visit; Gabriel, Ariel, Jophiel, and Metatron were there the most, but after we left the Garden, we saw more of Azrael than we really wanted to.
We really did all live there with all the beasts in perfect harmony. Everybody lived forever, nobody died, and it was all sweetness and light. But that couldn’t last, and it didn’t. Then the whole war in Heaven thing happened, and the angels didn’t come around much after that. When Lucky did come back to visit, he had another agenda in mind—one that changed things for us forever.
Lucky tricked Eve into eating the apple, and she shared it with me. We got kicked out of the Garden and headed off to the land of Nod to live all that stuff you’ve read about since you were a tadpole.
We were out on our own, cast out of our Father’s presence and betrayed by one of our best friends. Things were pretty tough for Eve and me for a long time, and eventually we parted ways. After a long time, and more than a few beers, I managed to forgive Lucky, and we reached an understanding of sorts, but Eve never let it go. Leaving the Garden broke something inside her that never healed.
I guess by now you’ve figured out that we’re immortal. Gaining knowledge of good and evil didn’t do anything to change the whole ‘living forever’ thing we started off with, even though we didn’t completely pass that on to our children. Don’t get me wrong; they lived a good long time. I watched more than one century turn with my kids, but eventually they grew old and died. It seemed that with every generation, they died sooner and sooner until eventually, Eve and I were alone. It didn’t matter what my buddy Clive Lewis wrote about all men being “sons of Adam.” That could never change the fact that my direct sons and daughters were gone.
There I sat, on a little hill in New Mexico, watching the sun go down and trying to figure out what Lucky wanted. He had suggested California, so of course, I headed east, but was that what he wanted me to do in the first place? Lucky was the original trickster, so for him to double- or even triple-think me into going exactly where he wanted me to go wasn’t out of the question.
As I pondered, the first star of the night came winking into view in the east, and I felt my answer. East. I had to go east, and I had to find Eve. Things were gonna get ugly.
by john | Apr 25, 2012 | Fiction, Writing
This time, Bubba hunts La Chupacabra! Here’s a little preview of the new Bubba story, on sale this weekend!
It was the middle of the night, and I was crouched in a damp, smelly field waiting for something the happen. This wrapped a lot of my least favorite things all up in a nice little ball of suck for me to gnaw on. I hate waiting. I’m a man of action, as they say. I like to do stuff, not wait around to do stuff. Now I’ll admit that some of the stuff I do sucks, like chasing down zombies, or werewolves, or fighting witches or ghouls or vampires or pretty much anything else that goes bump in the night. But it’s a damn sight more entertaining than sitting around waiting for something to show up for me to kill. Especially when I don’t know what I’m waiting on. Waiting to me just seems like a great big waste of my precious drinkin’ time.
I hate being wet, too. I’m a big dude — six-five and a good bit past three hundred pounds. And every damn inch is covered with hair. I got a ponytail that hit me halfway down my back, a beard that reaches almost down to my chest, and a pretty good suit of man-fur everywhere else. I ain’t one of these billboard pretty boys that’s got nowhere for a tick to hide on their cute little manscaped six-pack abs. I got a whole great big fuzzy pony keg of a belly, and that all makes it pretty uncomfortable when I’m rolling around in the cold damp grass. And it takes forever and about three big towels to dry off. I tell you, it’s just irritating.
And as much as I am a bonafide country boy, I’m not a big fan of the smells of nature, if you know what I mean. And this field was full of some impressively natural smells. I much prefer the kind of smells that come from a bottle. Like the sweet, soothing smell of Jack Daniels. Or the glorious lavender-scented cloud of stripper perfume. I once heard a fella say “they call it Destiny, but it smells like shame.” I disagree. It smells like the hopes and dreams of desperate men and women smart enough to take advantage of them. I love strippers, they have an uncomplicated view of life. You give them money, they show you boobies. I have a similarly uncomplicated view of life — monsters need to be killed, I kill ‘em.
And that’s why I was stuck in a damp, smelly field in the middle of the night miles away from the scent of whiskey or the sight of a boob. I had a monster to kill, and as long as the critter was playing shy, I was stuck out there freezing my ass off and bitching to Skeeter over the Bluetooth. Skeeter’s my backup, my technical liaison, my navigator and my best friend. He’d appointed himself my best friend since the day I kept Jason Skoonfield from running his underpants up the flagpole in middle school. I probably wouldn’t have stopped Jason from having a little bit of innocent fun, but since Skeeter was still wearing his underpants I thought that was a little over the line. So me and Skeeter struck up an unusual alliance. I kept him from getting killed for being the only black kid in our school, not to mention the only gay kid and the smartest kid in three counties, and he made sure I passed algebra and got out of high school. Even the principal thought it was a fair trade. He was pretty tired of replacing all the desks that couldn’t hold me, and he didn’t want to deal with the paperwork if Skeeter ended up dead. So he didn’t ask about my grades, and I didn’t tell.
“Skeeter, you remember when Jason Skoonfield was gone run your drawers up the flagpole in tenth grade?” I asked the air.
Skeeter’s disembodied voice came back in my ear. “It was one of the most traumatic experiences in a traumatic youth, Bubba. Of course I remember it. It may have been the pinnacle of my humiliation in that vile institution they called a school. Why do you bring that up now?”
“You know I get all philosophical-like when I’m stuck out here smelling cowpies and staring up and the stars. You ever wonder where we’d be if I hadn’t stopped Skoon and his buddies?”
Skeeter’s voice got very quiet. “I do, Bubba. Sometimes I do, but I try not to think about that too much. And you shouldn’t either, we’ve got a job to do.”
I knew where he was going, and it wasn’t a road I wanted to go down right then. Or ever, for that matter. I looked down at the glowing face of the child’s Mickey Mouse watch and thought back to happier days. Then I gave myself a shake and answered Skeeter. “Yeah, but what the hell is the job, Skeeter? I’m freezing off my danglies out here and ain’t heard nothing all night.”
“You know the monster’s been feeding every third night, and this is the only herd that hasn’t been attacked this month. So if there really is a chupacabra somewhere around here, this is the best spot to find it.”
“Yeah, it’s a pretty damn good spot to get a frostbit sack, too.” I grumbled. “You got it easy, sitting there in your nice warm little command center. Remember, I was on a lake just a few days ago in flip-flops and no shirt, and supposed to be there for another four days. Instead, I’m fully dressed in long pants, a leather jacket and a sweater and I’m still freezing my ass off!”
I heard a sharp intake of breath as Skeeter started to reply, but I cut him off with a hiss. “Shut up, I think I hear something.” There was a rustling sound coming from the fenceline a few feet away. I crept over in the direction of the sound and suddenly realized that the source of the sound was a cow. I got to within three feet of the beast before I could make out its shape in the moonless night, then I scrambled backwards as quickly as I could as the cow unleashed the most terribly stench I’d ever experienced right in my face.
“Skeeter you sonofabith a cow just farted on me!” I screeched into the earpiece, trying to get away from the cloud of methane that was wrapped around my head. I heard Skeeter laughing uncontrollably in my ear as I worked hard not to vomit.
“You know I’m gonna kill you when I get out of here, right?”
“I don’t make the assignments, Bubba, I just send you the emails.” He sounded dangerously close to hyperventilating, and I was dangerously close to walking off the job when I heard the scream.
If you’ve never heard a goat scream, you should do everything in your power to keep it that way. It’s a sound like nothing on earth, kinda like a mix of a human scream with a deeper tone than any human can make, and it can carry for miles. It chilled me to the bone, and put my butt in gear. I started running for the sound, drawing Bertha, my fifty-caliber Desert Eagle as I went after the monster. When I got there, I stopped dead in my tracks at the scene in front of me.
This was not what I had come here to hunt.
by john | Apr 23, 2012 | Writing
No, not like that, you pervs. I just wanted to knock out a quick update on my whereabouts and doings before I head home from Nashville. This makes a good halfway point between Batesville, Arkansas and Charlotte. I was in Arkansas for the first time ever for the 2012 Pulp Ark convention, where I got to make some new friends, hang with old friends and learn more than I ever wanted to know about Lamont Craston and the rest of the pulp heroes of old. If you missed me on the Pulped! podcast, you should go listen to that – Tommy Hancock and I had a great time recording it.
I’m still having a great time working on the Black Knight Omnibus (out this summer!) and Black Knight IV – Paint it Black (out late summer/early fall). I’m learning a ton through the process of working with this publisher and editing team, and I’m sure there’s more to come. We’re polishing all three of the early Black Knight novels, brushing up on some continuity things I screwed up the first time, cleaning up some bad writing habits that I had in Book 1 that I’ve worked my way out of by Book 3, and generally making the books tighter, cleaner and better. I think there will be enough new going on in the Omnibus that even if you’ve read all the books, you’ll find something fun in there. And I’m trying to figure out what kind of little bonus content I can put into the Omnibus for the folks that buy it – maybe an exclusive short story or something like that.
That sound? That was my editor’s head esploding from the concept of editing another short story from me in addition to the revisions on THREE NOVELS in time to make the release dates for this omnibus :). That’s what writers do, we don’t just torture our characters and readers, we torture our editors, too. Love ya!
But I haven’t forgotten the Bubba fans. I’m halfway through the next Bubba short, and it should be finished, polished and uploaded THIS WEEK. I make no promises when this week, but Bubba the Monster Hunter: Hall & Goats will hit before April leaves us, I swear it. And I’ve got more Bubba news – next month you’re going to get more Bubba than you can shake a stick at (I’ve never understood that phrase). Not only will I do a new May Bubba short story, but that will give me four Bubba stories since I released Monsters Beware. That means it’s time for a new four-story Bubba Collection! And with eight Bubba stories under my belt, I think it’s time for a Bubba the Monster Hunter PRINT COLLECTION!
That’s right, kids. Come find me at a con in June or July – ConCarolinas, HeroesCon, Fandom Fest or LibertyCon – and I’ll have a Bubba the Monster Hunter print collection available! I’ll also have print copies of Genesis at those cons, because I’m going to spend May holed up in my office editing, formatting and writing. When I’m not in a theatre, but anyway.
So that’s the news that’s printed to fit for today. See you in the funny books!
by john | Apr 10, 2012 | Book Spotlight, Writing
Tamsin Silver is an old friend of mine, and I’m happy to lend her this space (and it means I don’t have to come up with a blog post!)
I love being a Fantasy writer. What a fun genre to write in. I’ve attempted to write Crime…and I can do a downright awesome beginning, but blimey, I cannot get past that. Hats off to J.D. Robb and those other folks that write Crime, like Richard Castle. What? He’s not real? Oops, my bad. 😉 (Nathan Fillion, you’re real to me🙂
I’ve been writing stories since I was…ten or eleven (we will NOT say how long ago that was…but I will say I wrote them on an electric typewriter.*shudders*) and I’ve been often told, “Write what you know.” So, when I was redoing my series, Living Dead Girl, a few years ago I set them in the Goth/Industrial scene seeing as I’ve been in that since 1989 (*cough cough* please don’t do the math). We used to always joke that the real vampires could hide in the goth/industrial scene easily since so many “posers” and “wannabes” were there, no one would know the difference. Thus the background for my series was born.
Originally, my series was going to be this love story between a vampire and a witch. Then I set the book down to finish college, become a teacher, run a theatre company, move to NYC, and produce theatre. But one New Years I made a resolution to finish it. As I reworked it, the characters took over. Atlanta fell in love with someone else, the primary plot changed, and I was stuck sitting there going, “Where did my original story go?” Then I thought, “Who cares?”
From that point on I’ve written without an outline. I just let the characters take me on a journey. From what I understand, this is not normal practice. And, it very likely is why I have to do a lot of revision and cuts, but I enjoy the adventure my characters take me on.
That journey got a wakeup call one day when a YA vampire movie, that shall not be named, was all people could talk about. I worried, “What if it’s my story?” So, on a Friday afternoon off, I went to see said movie the day it opened (I was one of 4 in the theatre) and saw that it was NOT my story, not by a long shot. HOWEVER, it made me realize…someday it might be. If I wanted my story out there, I needed to take my dreams seriously.
I sat down to finish The Betrayal (the first book in The Living Dead Girl Saga) and began to shop it around. I told myself I had two years to get a bite on this book or I’d consider going to grad school. Thankfully, I did get a bite, and in October of 2011, Eirelander Publishing released The Betrayal as an e-book. The second book of the saga, Shattered, is in edit now, and hopefully will hit e-book “stores” this summer!
Speaking of October, I was lucky enough to be interviewed at NYC Comic Con this October by the talented and lovely Ana Catris (Link to Interview: http://is.gd/sIbCn1 ). The audience of that online publication is primarily Young Adults. Now, my books fall under the 17+ age range so I’m not used to getting YA feedback. So I asked Ana what they had to say. She told me that they felt the interview made me sound normal, like anyone else they would know, giving them hope for their own writing. That made me supremely happy to hear.
If you have a dream, be it writing, theatre, dance, drawing, graphic design, etc. You should go forth and do it! If you have an original idea, let the world know about it! Have the confidence in yourself. I didn’t have that confidence for ten years and this book sat printed on paper, in a drawer, bouncing about with me from SC, to NC, to NYC. And thankfully I saw that sparkling vampire movie, because it put a boot on my ass…and my simple “love story” became a story of self discovery, strife, love and standing up for what’s right. It’s an adventure not only for those who read it, but for me as well. I couldn’t be happier.
I pray that you pursue what you love. It makes all the difference.
Take care and happy writing! If you are interested in asking me anything…find me on Twitter…I lurk there often! Username: @tamsinsilver
xo
Tamsin J
P.S. If interested, you can snag an e-copy of my book by going to my website: www.tamsinsilver.com and if you don’t have an e-reader, the book will be out in print through Amazon Print On Demand by the end of March, 2012.
For fun, if you like my characters, there are pictures of them here: http://tamsinsilver.com/photogallery-2.php as well as info on each of them on my blog: http://tamsinsilver.blogspot.com/
