by john | Oct 10, 2011 | Appearances, Real Life, Travel
This past weekend the wife and I ventured out in public more often than is natural for us, with great results. You see, we’re kinda boring nowadays. We like to be at home, and aren’t much for going out in crowds. That’s more me than Suzy, because while I love meeting new people and don’t ever mind getting up in front of people, I kinda don’t like crowds. I get a little freaked out when I don’t have a clear path to an exit, and I really don’t like hanging out too much with my back to an open door. But this weekend presented us with multiple opportunities to be social, and this time we actually participated.
Saturday I lit the second wedding I’ve designed at Theatre Charlotte, which also happens to be the second wedding that’s taken place in the 80+ year history of the facility. Our friends Nick & Kaddie got married, and I designed and ran the lights for the wedding, and also dealt with the pipe and drape to hide the set in progress that was on the stage. Suzy did all the flowers for the wedding, which kept her working for pretty much 48 hours straight. But the wedding went off almost without a hitch, the bride was lovely, the vows were lovely, and the reception was fun. I even danced, something my knee are reminding me about today in an unpleasant fashion.
Then Sunday the Metrolina Theatre Association hosted the annual theatre awards gala, and Suzy and I were both nominated for awards. She was nominated for two different costuming awards, and I was nominated for best lighting design for RENT. IT was a good night for the home team, as we both brought home new hardware for the trophy case. Suzy’s costumes for King Lear won the prize, and I received my award for RENT as well. It was nice hanging out with theatre people away from the stress of a production, and remembering why I like these people in the first place. We had a good time, but my ass is dragging this morning. And getting Facebook reminders from my banker friends about having Columbus Day off doesn’t really help.
I go back into the theatre this afternoon for tech rehearsals for You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up, a new play that I’m designing. We’re in tech and previews this week, then my high school reunion is this weekend, then the show opens next week, then I go to Columbia for RoundCon. It’s an exhausting month, but I’ve got all November to sleep, right?
On the weight loss front, I backslid a little in week 2, putting back on four of the first six pounds I lost. But I got back on the horse last week and am down a total of five pounds since the beginning of the bet. Five pounds in three weeks isn’t great, but with my schedule right now it’s as good as it’s going to get, and it’s five pounds that I don’t have to carry around anymore. So overall I’m pretty happy with that.
How was your weekend? What are you working on? I’m still revising Genesis for a November launch, so hopefully we’ll still be good for that.
by john | Oct 8, 2011 | Business of publishing, Writing
Last night I was pleased to see a comment show up on my post from August about Yog’s Law. In it, I theorized that Yog’s Law does still apply to self-published authors, but maybe not in the same way that some people who are anti-self-publishing use it. I’m just going to drop the whole comment in here, because that, and the blog post, sum up my feelings on the matter pretty perfectly.
Yes, Yog’s Law still applies to self-publishing, because self-publishing is a category of commercial publishing.
Sure, in self-publishing the publisher only has one author, but if the publisher can’t see his/her way clear to putting 15% of the cover price of each book sold into a separate bank account labeled “Author’s Money” (or “Retirement different hobby.
The money flow is still toward the author. That it’s only moving from one pocket to another in the same pair of pants is immaterial.
The individual, in his/her persona as publisher, should say “Would I do this/spend this if the author were Joe Schmoe, writer?” and the person, in her/his persona as author should, simultaneously, say “Would I sell my book to this guy if it were the Joe Schmoe Publishing Company?”
As you say, the Publisher and the Writer are two different people, and wear two different hats, even if they wear the same pair of shoes.
Writers who think about self-publishing should remember that, if they don’t want unhappy surprises.
The author of this comment is one of the most famous people to ever comment on this little blog, and that’s kinda cool. James D. Macdonald used to play around on a listserve back in the early days of the internets. Back in those days, he used the handle “Yog,” presumably taken from Yog-Sothoth, the Lurker at the Threshold from the Cthulu mythos.
He knows a little about Yog’s Law. He came up with it. So that was kinda cool. I’m guessing he’s got a Google Alert or something set up and just now found his way around to the post, but I appreciate him stopping in. Yog’s Law definitely does apply to self-publishing, even though as Mr. Macdonald says, it may just be moving money from one pants pocket to the next. But it doesn’t apply in the sense that writers shouldn’t sometimes lay out money to bring their books to market, because as I said in the post, sometimes we take off our writer hat and put on our publisher hat. And it was nice to have the creator of Yog’s Law stop by and agree with me.
There are a lot of potholes on the road to self-publishing success, and I’ve driven through plenty of them. But the road does eventually go somewhere, so know that there is a destination involved, not just more winding roads.
by john | Oct 5, 2011 | Writing
I’ve come up with a title and the talented Rob Hinckley and I are finishing up a cover, so hopefully Genesis:Return to Eden Volume 1 will be ready to go on November 1. Here’s a little sneak peek at the cover that I posted to the Twitter this morning – 
Yes I said “the Twitter.” I can do that.
No, that’s nowhere near the whole cover, it’s just a corner of the image, enough to give you a sense of the setting.
Yes, I’ll be posting some sample chapters and other fun stuff here in the near future.
Yes, this will be the last self-pubbed book I put out this year, because I got my contract from Bell Bridge and it’s all signed and everything, and the schedule we’re going to be on to release Black Knight Books is aggressive, and I will have little time to work on anything outside of that and maybe a few short stories for the next year at least. But the good news is that there will definitely be at least one new Black Knight book out in 2012, and quite possibly other goodies as well.
Bubba the Monster Hunter will be making a Halloween appearance (assuming I can find enough downtime to get the story written between now and then) and he’ll be battling the scariest monster I can come up with – or more to the point, the scariest monster YOU can come up with! That’s right – you get to pick the next monster Bubba hunts. Just leave a comment here and let me know what’s the scariest thing you can think of, and if I pick your creature, I’ll dedicate the story to you. You’ll be forever immortalized on the internets and in e-books. Second place gets their name used as a victim of the first-place monster.
Dick Cheney has already been suggested, so that one’s taken. By entering this contest you waive any and all rights to me having to pay you anything for this – it’s just for funsies and you agree you can’t sue my ass later. So let me know what scares the crap outta you, and I’ll have Bubba kill it. Because that’s what he does.
by john | Oct 4, 2011 | Writing
Let’s start at the very beginning. That’s a very good place to start, don’t you think, Julie?
Never mind.
Amazon unveiled four new Kindle devices last week, for all types of users and at multiple price points. Let’s look briefly at the devices and what they seem to mean in the e-reader world.
The Basic Kindle – $79 (with special offers, $109 without) – This is as close as what I own as the new models get. I have the Kindle with Special Offers that I paid $114 for a few months ago. I love this device. It’s small, fits happily in the back pocket of my jeans. The e-ink display is amazing! It looks like a real books. And I love the way the device turns pages with either hand, so no matter whether you’re right-handed or lefty, you can always operate the device one-handed. I kinda hate that the keyboard is going away, but honestly I never use mine, so I guess that’s what they’re finding in a lot of people, so they’ve killed the keyboard.
The special offers don’t annoy me at all. They only show up when I turn the device off, so that’s oddly enough when I’m not looking at it. So I don’t care what’s on the screen when it’s sitting in my bag, or on my bedside table, or wherever. And for $79, this is clearly meant to be an entry-level device, and I think most people will opt to not play the $30 extra charge just to not have screen savers.
I don’t think we can ever discount the price point of this device. For a long time $99 has been touted as the tipping point for e-readers. That’s been the theoretical price at which the sales growth of these device skyrockets. Amazon not only hit that price point with this device, but blew through it. For a ton of people, anything less than $100 is an impulse buy, and getting all the way down to $79 is going to be huge.
And having now two choices in the sub-$100 market is even bigger.
The next two models of Kindle are really just variations on the same device – the Kindle Touch. Amazon’s first entry into the touchscreen device market promises to be lighter, smaller and generally cooler than its predecessors, although I don’t necessarily agree with that assessment. There are plusses and minuses to the touchscreen device, in my opinion, but I think the price and the cool factor will pretty quickly jump the Kindle Touch to the front of the e-ink device line.
Honestly, I’m not going to buy one of these. I have an iPad, so if I want to read on a touchscreen, I’m good. I have a Kindle, so I’m covered for e-ink display (which really is tons better for long reading sessions). But the thing that I dislike about the Kindle Touch is that you have to use two hands to turn the page. It’s a little thing, I know, but I’m spoiled by my Kindle. I can sit in a restaurant, eat a burger or a pizza with one hand, and have one hand free to read. And I can turn pages without putting my device down. I know, it’s a little thing, but that’s what makes decision-making happen in the world of competing electronic toys.
There are four versions of the Kindle Touch – with and without special offers, and with and without 3G. For my money, if I were to buy these items, I’d go the cheap-o route, because I rarely am in a situation where I have to have a new book right damn now, unless I’m at home, and I have wi-fi. I think most of the time you could go to a friggin’ McDonald’s in a pinch. But that’s me. If I lived in rural SC where my parents still live, I’d be all about some 3g.
Then there’s the mac-daddy – the new Kindle Fire. But I’m out of time, so we’ll talk about the spankiest of new toys tomorrow or the next day. In the meantime, go buy a book. Keep me fed.
by john | Oct 3, 2011 | Book Spotlight, Writing
Your Perception of Poker and Life Should Be the Same
Barry Greenstein said that the way you handle everyday life situations is a determinant of how effective of a poker player you are. For instance, what do you do when someone cuts you off? Some of you may fly into an angry rage and yell obscenities to the top of your lungs. For many of these people, the anger will lead to them driving more aggressively. Some might speed up to catch the driver and cut him off, and some will find themselves in a nasty car accident due to their aggression. Others will be put off by the driver’s sheer stupidity for the moment, but will maneuver out of the situation and drive to the destination without giving it a second thought. The saying to football quarterbacks when no receivers are open is to throw it away and live another down. The guys who can overcome adversity the most will be the most successful in poker.
In paraphrasing Barry Greenstein, I think the people who are best able to let things roll off their shoulders are the best poker players and enjoy the most satisfaction with life. The people who react negatively to someone cutting them off, or their spouse eating the last Ho-Ho are the average poker players who play badly after a bad beat. These guys are dead money in many instances. The ones who choose maneuver out of the situation are the ones who are the most resilient after taking a bad beat and will not become dead money.
In my eyes, poker and life are the same and exist as one. That’s my subjective opinion, but poker does hold parallels to life within itself. For instance, I’m sure you’ve heard the expression that you gotta know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em. The parallel to life, and in your game selection is that you gotta know when to stick with a good situation and when to bail out of a bad one, just as you must know when a game is a good one, and when you’re at a disadvantage and need to leave the table.
Some may call it common sense, I think it has more to do with perception. Your perception of a bad beat can be that you’re the unluckiest guy in the world, or that you’re getting action on a move that nets you a winning pot 90% of the time and that the game is good, the player is bad and that dead money still exists in a world of poker books and hard economic times. That may not turn around your current poker session, but its food for thought that you can take into your next session and your next decision when playing a hand. No need to remember that you got your aces full set cracked with a royal flush when you realize that your opponent was chasing 1 out holding AK suited. You need to remember that you’re getting your money in good and that you’re going to win more times than not. In life, if you fail at something look at it as “at least I know what doesn’t work.”
Glenn Gamble is the author of A Thousand Chances, Bon Appetit, Escape, On the Run, and James. All of his books are available on Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook and Smashwords
He also encourages you to go to his website
by john | Sep 29, 2011 | Business of publishing, Writing
Well yesterday was certainly fun hanging around at Magical Words and answering questions. It was nice to have folks say that I did things “the right way,” but of course everyone’s mileage will vary with how they go about stuff.
One thing was brought up in comments that I’ll talk about here briefly. Someone asked if I’d had any friends who had self-published and not sold anything, and what I did when they asked me why. Basically asking – how do I handle it when a friend asks me to read something that’s crap or not ready to be sent out for submission or publication.
Well – here are a couple of answers.
First – I don’t know, because since I’ve started publishing I’ve only read stuff by three of my friends with an eye towards critique, and they all knew exactly where their work was with regards to its completion. The first friend knew that her book was in first draft format and needed a lot of love. This was some months ago, and we swapped critiques on her book and Knight Moves before I released it. She gave me some really helpful tips for my book’s third draft, and I hope that I helped her work out some plot points and get her book moving in the right direction for her second draft.
The second friend sent me a copy of her manuscript after I asked to see it, and it’s almost ready to go. It’s a good story, but there are a couple of spots in the beginning that I think need to be re-organized or tweaked somehow, but I think this one is a very publishable book and a darn fun story. And she knew when she sent it to me that it needed a little love, but was further along than Friend A’s book.
The third friend had a short story that had already been published, but she now had the rights back and wanted help with the mechanics of converting and uploading the story. It was polished and ready to go, and she didn’t need me to tell her that. :).
So I’ve been really lucky that I haven’t had any deluded buddies come up and tell me about their book that’s sure to be a bestseller once it gets out in the world. I have only looked over manuscripts from people who are serious about the craft of writing, have paid some dues in the writing biz, and have a good sense of where their book is in its development. I suppose I need to set a policy of reading unpublished work (or not), because that’s the kind of thing that can get somebody in trouble if they’re not careful. So I guess here it is – if you don’t know me well enough to call me on the phone, I probably won’t read your unpublished book and offer critique. It’s a litigious society out there and I have to protect myself.
What I find more often than anything is that my friends have delusions of mediocrity. I have some really good writers that I’m friends with, and some of you guys aren’t putting anything out there. Come on! Get the stories out, get some feedback, really get a sense of where you are along the continuum of writing talent and skill. I’ve developed a pretty good sense of where I am (happy to be a hack), and I don’t let it hold me back! So here’s my challenge for all of you writer-types out there – submit something in the month of October. I don’t care what it is, but you must submit. And I’ll go with you. I promise that in the month of October I’ll create a piece and submit it somewhere that I’ve never been published before. So I’ll find an anthology or magazine, and I’ll submit right alongside you. We can track our progress here together. I bet one of you gets a piece accepted before I do.
by john | Sep 23, 2011 | Writing
Well, yeah, I kinda am, I guess.
Enough equivocation in that sentence for ya? Suzy, who knows full well exactly how crazy I am, asked me roughly that question when I told her I’d come up with a new character for a new series of stories. I replied that Bubba the Monster Hunter is not necessarily going to be a novel-length character, but he’s somebody fun to play around with while I’m between longer works. The first story, Voodoo Children, is out now, and available wherever e-books are sold (it’s free on Smashwords, BTW, and hopefully will be free on Amazon before too long, but I have only limited control over that). But Bubba is just a fun side project, and as the Black Knight books have been taking a little bit of a darker turn, Bubba gives me the opportunity to let my sense of humor have free reign. And since I’m not AT ALL gearing the Bubba stories towards younger readers, they’re free to have more profanity and adult situations than some of my other work.
In a sense, Bubba stories are just fun stories about a giant redneck behaving poorly and killing monsters in the process. And being a somewhat larger-than-life redneck in reality, I enjoy behaving badly, so it’s a big chunk of my id running around loose yelling WOOO-HOOOOO and “Hey Y’all, watch this!” I’m always going to have about eighty-seven different projects in the fire at one time, that’s just the kinda guy I am. Look at this weekend – I want to finish edits on The Chosen in preparation for a relaunch of that book with a new cover, new edits and maybe (just maybe) some bonus material. Then I want to write and do the cover for a second Bubba story (Bubba goes to the Circus), and I’ve got a buddy doing a book signing that I want to go to, the Panthers are playing (hoping for the first win!), I have to drive to Atlanta for the day job, and now that at least one beta reader has told me that Return to Eden isn’t a total piece of crap, I need to start working on a cover and edits for that books. So I’ve got a lot going on, not the least of which needs to be taking a HUGE box of DVDs to the used DVD joint to try and unload them and cover my bar tab in Atlanta this coming week.
Oh wait, I’m on a diet. So much for a bar tab. Guess I’ll just sell off the DVDs to get them out of the house.
On a completely different note – as writers, or any type of creative person really, do we ever get over that terrified feeling of being the awkward kid asking the pretty girl to dance? When I finished Return to Eden I was convinced that it was crap, the worst book ever written, and that no one would ever want to buy it. In my saner moments I knew this was not likely to be true, since I felt the same way about every book I’ve ever written, and they all turned out to be okay in the end. But when I sent that poor little book out to my betas, I didn’t feel like a proud papa watching his kid go off to school for the first time. I felt more like the pizza-faced skinny kid with glasses who sent a rose to the cute girl in middle school then found out that she didn’t like him and he had to get the rose back and send it to someone else “as a friend” despite the entire seventh grade knowing about the whole thing and making him feel small like only middle school kids can do.
Yeah, that happened. What can I say? I wasn’t always the pantheon of cool that I am today.
But anyway, sending a new book out still feels like being that middle-school kid again. All awkward and nervous, just waiting for someone to slap you down, despite the experiential evidence to the contrary. What about you writer types? Do you still get butterflies when you send out a book to the first readers?
by john | Sep 21, 2011 | Business of publishing
My friend Stuart has a great analogy for the publishing industry (and he has a new book out, so go here to check it out!). He says that self-publishers are like speedboats, nimble little boats that can turn on a dime and give you change, quick things that can react to market forces immediately. Then to continue the analogy, small press publishers are like destroyers, well-armed, but still fairly quick to turn and adjust to things. They don’t move nearly as quick as a speedboat, but they’re a hell of a lot better equipped than most. Then there are the aircraft carriers – this is the metaphor for traditional New York publishers. They’re huge, with a whole city inside of them, and they lumber along slowly, and it takes them forever to slow down and turn. But once they get turned and locked onto a course, you DO NOT want to be in their way, because they’ll run over a speedboat without ever noticing.
I was reminded of just how good an analogy this is last night at the meeting of the Charlotte Writers’ Club. Kevin Morgan Watson of Press 53 came to speak to the group, and he gave his opinions on the state of publishing, what it takes to get published in today’s world, and all sorts of other things. I found myself nodding at almost everything that came out of Kevin’s mouth, something that happened very little at Dragon*Con panels, and I was struck by the accuracy of Stuart’s analogy once more. Kevin is a small press, and I tend to use Minor League baseball as my metaphor for small presses.
I would classify Press 53 as a AA team. They have a good listing of authors, including some truly amazing writers, but they’re still a pretty small operation. They don’t have some of the distribution deals with Barnes & Noble that some publishers have, and they don’t yet have their entire catalog available in e-book format, but they’re moving that way and understand that e-books are the future, and have embraced that fact.
I classify Bell Bridge as a AAA press, because they do have the B&N print distribution, have some truly rocking deals with Amazon and iTunes, and have landed a bunch of their books on the Amazon top 100 list, which is a serious sales number. Also, they pay advances, albeit small ones, which is almost unheard of in the small press world.
Someone I call a A team would be someone like Hydra Publications, out of southern Indiana. They’re a start-up, with just a few titles so far, but Frank over there is a great guy with an eye towards the future, and I think they’ve got potential to grow into something over the next few years. So they’re someone to keep an eye on in your submission process.
Okay, now that I’m done expanding my metaphor (and don’t forget other awesome small presses like Kerlak or Apex when you’re choosing which one is the best fit for you, because those guys are great, too, especially for building up new authors), let’s get back to my point – small press publishers are paying better attention, and reacting better, to the market changes that are going on today.
I would sign with a New York publisher only if there was pay off my house money guaranteed.
I happily signed with a small press for less money in an advance than will pay off my truck (way, way less, but it was an expensive truck). And every time I talk to a publisher from a major press, or listen to them on a panel, I become more and more convinced that they have no idea how to change their business model to fit with the new world. And every time I hear someone like Allan from Kerlak, or Deb from Bell Bridge, or Kevin from Press 53 talk, I become more and more convinced that they are paying attention and working on a plan to figure out how to survive in the new world of publishing.
And that’s what has me so impressed with these small press folks – they’re working on a plan. They understand that the world is changing, and they have to change with it. They aren’t still trying to hammer square pegs into round holes, they’re taking keyhole saws to the pegboard and changing the shape of the holes. Duh! But when I talk to a publisher at a major house and ask “How would a self-published author get your attention?” and I get the answer “With a self-published work, they can’t. We won’t ever publish a reprint.” I think that I’m talking to someone who isn’t paying attention to the world around them.
I didn’t sign with Bell Bridge for money (although I do have hopes for increased revenue for both of us) – I may very well be giving up cash on the table by making this move. I signed with them for marketing support, assistance in building my brand, editorial help in crafting my books, and career development for myself as a writer. I could pay fifty grand in a Creative Writing MFA, and MAYBE get some of that education, or I can give up some of the revenue for a few of my books and get exactly that education. And since I’ve already dropped out of grad school once, I think it’s a better bet for me to go this route.
So there’s a few rambling (as usual) things to think about when looking for a publisher. Do you want to be the speedboat, or do you want to sign on with a destroyer or an aircraft carrier? Only you can make that decision, and only you will be the ultimate judge of whether it was the right call or not.
by john | Sep 19, 2011 | Real Life, Weight Loss
That should be the best description of my mood for the next couple of days. So if I’m a little snippy, deal with it. I’m starting a diet, and that’s never on the top of a fat guy’s favorite things list. My buddies Nick and Russell came up with a $100 weight loss prop bet this weekend at poker, and I need some type of motivation to get my fat ass out of the chair and start losing some weight, and the prospect of winning a couple hundy off my friends should be just the thing. The worst part of any weight loss endeavor – the first weigh-in. I knew that I’d let myself get heavier than I’ve ever been, but I wasn’t quite prepared for just how high the numbers on my scale would go.
They go all the way to 296.8.
I suppose I should be happy that I didn’t weigh in over three bills, the way I’ve been living the past couple of years, but when I look back at pictures like this
And I realize that just a few short years ago I had lost 55 pounds and was down to a pretty svelte 215 lbs, but now I’m eaten my way through a small country and now look like this
Well, let’s suffice to say that I’m less than thrilled with myself. So I’m back on the same plan that I used a few years ago to lose weight. Start off with diet only for the first month. Cut back to less than 2,000 calories per day, with one cheat day per week. Add a little exercise whenever I can. Then start serious exercise in month two. Then work my way up to working out five days a week for at least half an hour a day. This helped me drop 55 pounds in six months, so I think by the time we weigh in on January 2nd, 2012, I should be able to have shed 10% of my total body weight. Which is a good start. But I’m going to get back to where I was a few years ago, and maybe even further. Because I have to. I’ve noticed the toll my weight has taken on my health and my enjoyment in life, and something has to change.
It really hit me at Dragon*Con, when I could barely walk from the Marriott to the Sheraton without dying. As it was, I got so horribly sweaty I had to change shirts two and three times a day, and it wasn’t that hot. It was warm, and it was humid, but I was sweating like a pig because I’m in terrible condition. And I’m the guy who used to be on my bike four or five times every week! It’s disgusting, and I’m going to fix it. I’m not even forty yet, and I take anti-inflammatory pills for my knees (because they aren’t meant to carry this much weight on them), blood pressure pills (because I’m a fatass), decongestant spray (because my neck and nasal passages are so fat it’s hard to breath) and cholesterol pills (because I’m a fatass). So for the $50-60 a month I spend on prescription drugs, I could be buying books!
So the good news for you, my loyal readers – now in addition to boring posts about writing, you’ll get boring posts about weight loss, too! Lucky you, right? Oh well, if you’re anything like most of America, you need to be on this same exercise kick with me. So I’ll post my weekly weigh-in numbers here, and you get to hold me accountable for the crap I put into my body. So I’m off the beer, and (mostly) off the soda, and onto the carrot sticks and water. And hopefully off the super-heavyweight roster before too long.
by john | Sep 16, 2011 | Writing
I have a problem, I know. But here’s a new character that I think is going to be a lot of fun to play around with. He’s going to be short stories only for now, but expect at least one a month for the near future. Ladies and gentlemen, and the rest of you, please allow me to introduce Bubba the Monster Hunter.
Voodoo Children – a Bubba the Monster Hunter Short Story
Skeeter gave me the skinny as I cruised through the sorry excuse for a town. You like that? It’s funny, ‘cause he’s skinny, and I said…never mind. I guess you had to be there. Well anyways, apparently there had been a bunch of robberies on the eastern side of Columbia, where what passed for hillbilly high society lived. One of the robbers had been caught in the act, which was usually a good thing, because robbers tended to talk when arrested. Problem was, this robber had a long criminal record. A criminal record that ended in 1987, when he died in a drunk driving accident. So the local constabulary (I don’t know why the hell Skeeter can’t just call them the po-po like everybody else) had consulted with the nearest Catholic Church, which happened to be in Nashville. Nashville didn’t have very many exorcists on staff right now, thanks to a bad case of non-belief in these here United States, so they kicked it up the food chain until they finally got to Skeeter’s uncle Joe.
Now most of Skeeter’s family didn’t talk to Uncle Joe, because of the whole turning Catholic thing, but most of them didn’t talk to Skeeter neither, because of the whole liking boys thing. So Skeeter and Uncle Joe got to be buds, because they was the only people who talk to either of them at the family reunions, except for Aunt Linda, who had cerebral palsy and didn’t know enough to do anything but love everybody. So whenever something came across Uncle Joe’s desk that seemed to need my particular talents, he sent his favorite nephew a little email, and we went out and killed a bunch of something. We weren’t officially on the church’s payroll, but since we weren’t all that holy, we got to keep any loot the bad guys we smoked were hiding. And supernatural bad guys usually kept some pretty good loot around, so we made ends meet. And when we didn’t, Skeeter whored me out as security for rock concerts.
I pulled into the cemetery at around ten o’clock, which I figured would be good zombie-raising time. It was dark, and the zombies would have plenty of time to shamble off to wherever they were being sent, steal stuff and bring it back before the sun came up. I didn’t know if voodoo zombie could run around in daylight or not, but I preferred to do my killing in the dark. Just always seemed fitting that way.
I knew I’d come to the right place because the gate was wide open. Most cemeteries are pretty good about locking the gate at dark. Not usually for keeping things in, but mostly for keeping kids out. I never saw the appeal to making out in a graveyard myself, but I’ve been killing things that go bump in the night for a long time, so I reckon the place has kinda lost its luster for me.
The three dead guys walking down the path to the gate were the other indication I’d found the right place. I pulled the truck into the graveyard and pulled the gate shut behind me. I took a piece of chain out of my toolbox and fastened the gates shut. I didn’t have a lock, so I ran a piece of baling wire through the links to hold the chain together. I kinda figured zombies wouldn’t have the manual dexterity to unwind a piece of wire. If they did, my troubles were just starting.
By the time I secured the gate, the three zombies walking my way had turned into eight zombies, with two of them standing right in front of my truck. I walked up to one of them and gave him a push in the chest. He fell over backwards, then lumbered to his feet and tried to take a bite out of my face. I swung my machete through his neck and then pushed his body back down. Headless, he stayed there like he was supposed to this time.
I pushed the button in my ear. “Good call, Skeeter. They’re pretty damn slow.”
“That’s good, but don’t underestimate them. There may be quite a lot of them, and they don’t feel pain. You can’t just sever the spinal cord, like with vampires; you have to destroy the brain. Otherwise they can grown back together and attack again.”
“Ow! Now you tell me!” I said as the head I’d just chopped off took a big bite out of one calf. I tossed the machete aside and pulled my battle-axe from my belt. At five feet of sharp steel and bad attitude, that axe promised pain to anything in its path. Too bad for me nothing I was fighting could feel pain. I stomped on the detached head with my other boot, putting one hand on the hood of my truck for balance and finally kicking the head free. It rolled across the graveyard, coming to rest against a headstone.
“I’ll deal with you later, asshole.” I muttered.
“What was that, boss?”
“Not you, Skeeter. Now lemme go do some killin’. I’ll call you back.” I pressed the button in my ear and looked around again. All seven remaining zombies were gathered around my truck, bumping into it as they tried to walk forward.
“Alright, assholes!” I yelled, waving the axe in the air to try and get their attention. “Get the hell off my truck! I just had her detailed!” One zombie turned to follow me as I walked out from behind the truck, and I caved in its skull. Pain sensors or not, twelve pounds of axe in your head will ruin your day. I pulled it free and spun around, crushing two more zombies with one big swing. Problem was, that big swing ended in a big tree, and my big axe got stuck big time. I tried for a minute to pull it out, but when a pair of dead hands grabbed my ponytail, I returned my attention to the problem at hand.
I solved the problem in my hair with Bertha, my polished chrome Mark XIX .50 caliber Desert Eagle pistol. I pressed Bertha under the thing’s chin and squeezed the trigger, removing most of the top of the zombie’s skull. I used my left hand to knock the thing’s hands off my hair, then dispatched the other four zombies in fairly quick succession with Bertha. When I’d splattered the last one’s brains all over the ground, I gave Bertha a little kiss on the rear sight, replaced her half-spent magazine with a full one, and put her away in her holster. Then I walked over to the grave marker with the last zombie head lying against it, reared back my size fourteen steel-toe boot, and kicked the head to jelly.
If you like that, then you can go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble and buy the whole thing. It should be available by tomorrow (Saturday). Or you can hit the drop-down menu below and I’ll email it to you for a buck!
