Tag Archives: author

Read Indies – Find Good Indie/Self-Published Books!

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The gang over at ReadIndies is going to attempt to read one of my travesties. Haha, good luck on that. Betting lines are open that two reviewers will go insane before someone contacts me and threatens legal action ;). Here’s some info, go give their lists a shot and find something good to read. It HAS to be better than the drivel I vomit up.

Have you heard about Read Indies (http://readindies.blogspot.com/) where you can find book selections, top picks, and recommended reads? If you’re looking for something new to read, a great place to start is Book We Recommend (http://readindies.blogspot.ca/p/books-were-reading-recommend.html). There are also pages for specific genres:
 
Best Fantasy Books (http://readindies.blogspot.com/p/best-fantasy-books.html)
Best Horror Books (http://readindies.blogspot.com/p/best-horror-books.html)
Featured Authors (http://readindies.blogspot.com/p/featured-authors.html)
Hot Reads (http://readindies.blogspot.com/p/hot-summer-of-indie-reads.html)
Top Picks (http://readindies.blogspot.com/p/top-indie-reads.html)
Best Sci-fi Books (http://readindies.blogspot.com/p/best-sci-fi-books.html)
Best Mystery Books (http://readindies.blogspot.com/p/best-mystery-books.html)
Best Romance Books (http://readindies.blogspot.com/p/best-romance-books.html)
Best Children’s Books (http://readindies.blogspot.com/p/best-childrens-books.html)
Best Fiction (http://readindies.blogspot.ca/p/fiction.html)
 
Read Indies started out as a place where indie authors go to learn about important writing-related issues. Now it’s also a great place for readers to learn about great books. Periodically, you’ll also find recommendations from international bestselling author Robert Stanek (http://.www.robert-stanek.com/). In particular, Robert will be highlighting hidden gems, overlooked books, unsung heroes, and new favorites. Robert Stanek will also be helping to shape the following lists: Best Fantasy Books, Best Horror Books, Best Mystery Books, Best Thriller Books, and Best Children’s Books.

If I Was – or – If I Were? Grammar Lesson!

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Right. So. As I’m editing a story tonight, I’ve come across a couple of times where I’ve had to scratch my head and say a sentence out loud. A lot. Why? I’m glad you asked (you didn’t but be a good hostage and pretend I’m important for a moment).

“…a strange foreigner of high birth who threw silver coins around as if he were allergic to them.”

This is one of the sentences in question. If you exchange “was” for “were” in this sentence, it still sounds right. Right? Sort of? And then when you start thinking it does sound correct, you start questioning that. Because “were” starts to sound more correct again.

Okay, maybe I’m the only one with brain damage and has trouble with this. However, I’ve seen this question often, and when Google can autocomplete my query perfectly when I go searching for the answer (remember, English classes were a long time ago for me), I feel better knowing that others have been in this situation.

All of the sites that I respect have the same answer, but since I like Grammar Girl the most, I’ll use hers:

“Believe it or not, verbs have moods just like you do. Yes, before the Internet and before emoticons, somebody already thought it was important to communicate moods. So, like many other languages, English has verbs with moods ranging from commanding to questioning and beyond. The mood of the verb “to be” when you use the phrase “I were” is called the subjunctive mood, and you use it for times when you’re talking about something that isn’t true or you’re being wishful.“

This particular piece of confusing English badassery is known as “subjunctive verbs.” It’s badass because it always kicks my ass. Thankfully I have smart editors who, when not laughing at my attempts to relay an intelligible story, make giant, angry red slashes on my manuscripts (or, you know, uses the Track Changes feature in MS Word) when I fail this ongoing test. I’m also bad at using “that” instead of “who.”

There you go, young writers. And old writers like me who forgot most what what I learned in high school and college after banging my head on the desk too many times trying to come up with a plausible storyline that didn’t read like it was written in blue crayon.

PS: If you like Grammar Girl and want her tips to come up first, just make sure you always add “Grammar Girl” to your search. But you knew this already.

Le $.99 / Free Sale (this weekend)

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This weekend, I’m offering all of my books at either $.99 or Free @ Amazon!

Angry Sale

Including my latest release “Diabolus”

Speculative Fiction Blog Hop

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Hey. So… I’m supposed to tell you something about me, and then tell you to visit some other authors are all vastly superior in writing skill/talent to me (trust me, they are good). Thanks to Cherise Kelley for sending eyeballs this way.

What is “speculative fiction”? Honestly… I have no idea. It seems to be one of those things that are founded in opinion (STAR WARS! NO! STAR TREK! NERD FIGHT!). To me, it’s pretty much everything I write, since I don’t write in the non-fiction genre (yet). I write science fiction, horror, crime fiction, coming of age, humor, fantasy, and even some kid-friendly stories with no *gasp* curse words. Or sex. Or violence. Weird, right?

I’m probably in a lot of trouble with the blog gods because I’m extremely late posting this. The unfortunate clashing of “Diabolus” being released this Friday (putting me in that ugly ‘final edit crunch’ where everyone in the house hates me because I ignore them, and when I am not ignoring them while editing, I’m probably yelling at or to them) and my turn at the blog hop was unexpected. So… blog gods, I’m apologizing up front to hopefully keep my head (or at least my hands, I have to be able to type).

I’ve just finished up what is supposed to be the final edit of “Diabolus,” but of course I’ll sneak one or two more by Wednesday (and probably two or three in the month after release, because I’m kind of anal like that and hate giving readers another reason to hate me). Now I get to bore you with a lot of long-winded nonsense.

1. What Am I Working On Right Now?

Diabolus is pretty much out the door, which puts me back in the rotation, like I’m a homicide detective and I have to solve how I murdered each semi-finished story waiting to be completed.

I have about 2/3 of Book #1 of a new alien invasion trilogy, and I’ll be using Trevor Smith (artist who designed Diabolus’ cover) again for these books.

Then there’s this “Space Weed” story that you might have read a couple chapters of at this here website. If you are a police officer, there are no illicit narcotics residing within the webserver this site is hosted on.

A few vampire shorts (you might have noticed I hate vampires, werewolves, and zombies… and I mean REALLY hate them, but Garth Wright, a fellow Idaho author, convinced me to write a couple of old-school vamp stories with the kind of weird twists that I enjoy.

And finally… there’s this prequel/sequel that I’m finally ready to work on now that all of these other books are out of the way. “It’s Better This Way” has been my most popular book, by far, to the point I could probably be driving my brand new orange $46,000 Dodge Challenger SRT8 with black racing stripes if I had actually written more in this universe six-plus months ago. Whatever. I do things for the love of the story, not for money.

I mean… money is great. I’d love to have more. But I refuse to write anything just to make a buck off it. I can easily see through the bullshit when I write for money instead of for the story, and since I’m one of the dimmest bulbs there is, I’m convinced everyone else can see through it as well.

2. How Does My Work Differ From Others Of Its Genre(s)?

The separation comes from either fresh ideas that I’ve never read before (granted, I’ve read a lot in my forty years, but I’m finding out daily there are thousands of books in my favorite genres that I’ve never even heard of). Or the mash-up of different ideas. “Diabolus” is a good example. I call it my “The Exorcist” meets “The Matrix” meets “Skynet” story. Almost sounds interesting, don’t it? Nah, it ain’t. I wrote it, so I’m a pretty good judge of stuff like that.

I spend a lot of time either cleaning cat litter boxes for my masters (five of them), or vacuuming the floors for my other master (the one with the magic ring that won’t let me have a ninja sword and makes me eat vegetables). During this time, weirdly, I get a lot of dumb / crazy / ridiculous / funny / boring / lame ideas about this or that, and then I’ll spent the rest of my cleaning time piecing together a few scenes in my head to see if it works. If so, it goes in the spiral notebook (to die, mwahahaha). If not, but still might be useful down the road, I email a short synopsis to myself. If not, for sure, then I punch myself in the kidney as hard as I can to warn myself about having ideas that are wastes of time.

3. Why Do I Write What I Write?

Because I’m weird. I have a very strange, vivid, morbid imagination. I’m the product of child neglect + abuse, so I had to keep my mind busy a lot while growing up. Now I write to exorcise a few demons from those days, or because I accidentally drank some lemon-flavored bleach and sort of blacked out for a while, and when I came to, there was this cool idea on my screen / in my notebook.

Mostly I write what I write because I love it. If I don’t love a story, you won’t ever read it. You probably shouldn’t ever read anything I write, but if you think maybe you might want to, I’ll warn you again to avoid at all costs. Seriously. I love my stories, and I’m proud of them. I publish them and hope that others enjoy them, but I’m really not concerned if they do or not. I’m a big boy and I know that not everyone will like everything (or anything) that I write.

4. How Does My Writing Process Work?

Step 1: Do something useful like vacuuming floors, cleaning litter boxes, gardening, etc., with noise-canceling earbuds + very angry, loud, heavy metal blasting into my hear-holes.

Step 2: Come up with really ultra mega super awesome badass idea. Write it down somewhere. WRITE IT DOWN! Sheesh. You always forget, then you bug your wife with the “man, I had a really good story idea but now I can’t remember it!” routine because you DIDN’T WRITE IT DOWN!

Step 3: Take the basic idea, and with my awesome Zebra 402 ball point pen, begin writing what I like to call ‘concept.’ Concept is kind of an outline of sorts, but it’s all condensed like I’m a teenager trying to tell an important story to another teenager. It’s a bit jumbled, but I get all the important plot points down. Names… meh. I make up names when I actually sit down.

Step 4: Write a story from the concept. A 6,000 word concept can net me 100,000+ words in a novel. I’m a blowhard that never shuts up like that. It’s what I do.

Step 5: PROFIT!
Wait… there’s something missing here. Oh, put it down for a month after finishing the story. Don’t touch it. Write other stuff. Edit other stuff. Watch Game of Thrones in one sitting. Drive wife crazy begging for ninja swords and a guard tower for the back yard (.50cal machine gun too, please!).

After a month, revise it. Slash and burn and mend and heal. Put it down for another week minimum, then edit it one more time. Then send it to some unlucky fool along with a nice fat check and watch them shrivel in misery as they try to edit my gibberish (written in 67 point font with crayons).

Step 6: After editor sends it back with a note to never contact him/her again, along with threatening legal correspondence, possibly even a restraining order (or a doctor bill for eye replacement after gouging theirs out), put it away for another week. Then edit it. Send it to proofer.

Step 7: PROFIT!!!
Wait… grrrrr. Okay. While that editing stuff (whatever that is) goes on, you should be drinking beer and running down squirrels on winding forest roads! Or… having a cover made. That’s what I’d do, anyway. As you can tell, I’m not good at this. Get a good cover. Trust me on this. Never believe anything I say beyond this, but this one thing, trust me. Get a good cover.

Step 8: PROFIT!!!?
Hah! NO! Now time to navigate the Amazon and Smashwords and B&N portals to print my deliciously adverbial trash-fiction. Wait for approval then…

Step 9: Skip step 9, because 9 is better than 8, but not better than 10.

Step 10: PROFIT!!!???
YES! PROFIT!

So… now what?

Now, my little grasshoppers, you must travel beyond my realm, and to a very nice gentleman named “David Pagan.” Here’s a little about him:

By day, Dave is a programmer, or a software engineer for those times when he feels like sounding more important than he really is. He enjoys working on computers and feels fortunate that he’s been able to do it for most of his adult life. When he’s not sitting at a computer earning a living, Dave can usually be found sitting at his computer either writing or blogging. Dave writes mostly horror/dark fiction, though he’s been known to dabble in short fiction on love/romance. He dedicates his blog to his father, who passed away recently, and hopes to someday be as good a storyteller as he was.

You can find out more by visiting David’s blog:
http://www.davidpagan.wordpress.com/

(Right. So. I’m terrible at this, and didn’t actually make it a hyperlink. Never invite me to any social function. I will embarrass you. Badly. And probably ruin it for everyone.)

It’s Harder This Way – update

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Right. So… apparently over the last few days, “It’s Better This Way” shot up from its normal rank of around #3000 in the Amazon free store and peaked at #96 (last I checked, anyway). I suppose a lot of you reading this might be here to find out what the hell I’ve been up to, and why, after an entire year, is there still no more to this story?

Imagine my surprise when someone alerted me to the fact this story started climbing up the rankings. Also imagine my dismay that this story, which has always done very well for almost the entire year it had been out, is suddenly shooting up the charts and I still don’t have a single word typed for a sequel or a prequel.

Yeah, I know, it says at the back of the book that I’ve been working on it. Imagine more of my dismay when I had to fix the Amazon version because I changed covers and forgot to credit the new cover artist, and read the end notes again.

I asked myself why I had yet to write another word in this universe, knowing that I could have written something, ANYTHING, and made a few bucks. Enough to finish painting the interior of our house (long story, don’t ask, fills me with rage to even think about it), or at least buy a new toilet (a scary story, and one that fills The Wife with rage, so let’s not talk about it either).

I realized the answer was that I haven’t written a single word yet because I just didn’t feel it in my heart. I DO love this story, and it will always be special to me because it was the first real story I ever published. And I do love the universe I set up. However, the few times I’ve actually tried to come up with more of this story, it has always felt forced, fake, as if my heart just wasn’t in it.

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“Henchman” – a new series of stories

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Right. So. Carly and I talked about this idea, and I sort of just went with it. We hear all about the superheroes and supervillains, but we never really hear from the henchmen, the guys who make all of the magic happen (well, for anyone who doesn’t have a superpower).

Henchman – Author’s Note
Henchman – The Day Dave Subbed
Henchman – Randy the Tech #1A

Henchman – by Mike Williams
Author’s Note & Introduction

I bet you’re wondering why anyone would write a book about henchmen. Actually, I bet you’re looking at the cover of this book again and asking yourself “who the hell is ‘Mike Williams?’. There’s all kinds of books and TV shows and movies and comics and novels and action figures and pop culture when it comes to superheroes and supervillains. But let’s be honest and admit that you know nothing about how this semi-hidden culture actually operates.

For instance, did you know that superheroes have almost no henchmen? And yes, I’m counting the fact that the good guys (I call bullshit on this, by the way, but that’s for later) don’t call their helpers “henchmen.” So let’s say that Jake Donovan, the famous superhero detective, has his bombshell secretary Lila Donovan, and his two junior detective sniffers, Kyle & Donna. To you, they’re sidekicks, but to everyone in the business, they’re henchmen. Just because they work for superheros instead of supervillains doesn’t change the fact that they’re lackeys, grunts, handlers, and any number of things that all of the henchmen that work for supervillains are.

Anyway, superheroes rarely rely on henchmen to do their jobs, yet supervillains employ armies of men and women like me. Literally, in some cases, armies. Why? See? You’re already partially hooked.

 *

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Amtrak & The NHL: The Great American Hockey Road Trip

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So, crazy idea time… (and yes, Carly is coming with me, I simply couldn’t do this without her!)

I saw an article the other day where Amtrak has some kind of pilot program where they offer a “Writer’s Residency” which sort of translates to “you get to ride Amtrak anywhere they go and use the time to write a book.”

Awesome idea, right? I mean, who of you have actually ridden in a train? And if you have, was it just a commuter train, or did you take the long way around?

This got me thinking… I might be able to combine this into two most excellent, as my friends Bill & Ted would say,  lifelong dreams:

1. To travel the country via Amtrak and then write a non-fiction book about the history of trains in America and how they opened up the west, the boom and bust towns along the Amtrak lines, businesses that still rely on Amtrak passengers to survive, and the people who still ride the train (both vacation and commuter).

2. Specifically, to ride the Amtrak to all 30 cities that have an NHL hockey team (keep in mind, Canada will require riding VIA Rail, their version of Amtrak) and write a book about our experiences including: A short history of each city and their NHL team. Photos and interviews with fans, business owners affected by the team, and members of each team, including players, coaches, and executives.

Some of the things (besides money, we’ll get to that in a minute) that would make this trip-job a lot easier:

A. To coordinate with Amtrak (and VIA Rail in Canada) so they can help us plan out our trip, maximizing time at each location while also taking the most scenic routes, stopping at historical or otherwise interesting cities along the way. To help us connect with interesting or influential persons and businesses that have history with the train companies. I want to make this a story about how trains built America, how they’ve become ghosts to almost everyone outside of the Northeast, and how they still affect the lives of Americans (and Canadians!) around them.

Discounted or free (promo) tickets of course would free up a huge expense, but not necessary. The money saved would allow us to stay longer in each location, visit more locations along the way, and spend more time digging up history and interviewing persons of interest.

Bonus: I want to encourage EVERYONE to take a train trip once in their lives.

B. To coordinate with the NHL so we can purchase game tickets in each city (have them waiting for us at will-call to make things simple), help me get access to players/coaches/executives for interviews, and to point out some of the more interesting persons/businesses in each NHL city (such as lifelong fans, a hot dog vendor who has been there 25 years, things like that). I want to make this a human story, but a human story about our love of hockey.

As with Amtrak/VIA Rail, discounted or free tickets to the NHL games would also free up a huge expense, allowing us to visit more locations, spend more time in each city before moving on, interviewing more persons of interest.

So, I’ve decided to begin a Kickstarter project. To make all of this happen, I’ll need some kind of funding/backing. Since I don’t know anyone rich enough to fund such a book writing excursion, I’m going to attempt to get a Kickstarter fund of $50,000 to make this happen.

Sure, it’s a pipe dream and a long shot, but if I can make this happen, this will be possibly the most memorable time in our lives. The reason I am going to try and get a minimum of $50k for funding is that Carly will have to take a sabbatical from her job, which means we’ll need not only just enough to pay the normal, minimal (we are VERY frugal already) bills, but we’ll need to also purchase everything: train tickets, NHL game tickets, hotel rooms, food, rental cars, and a myriad of other expenses that come along with taking an extended trip.

$50,000 won’t cover everything, but it will cover all of the major expenses, and we’ll scrimp and save and hope to <favorite deity here> that I sell a lot of books between now and opening night of the 2014-2015 NHL season in October. If I can somehow convince Amtrak or VIA Rail or the NHL to help out, I can lower the Kickstarter fund goal significantly.

Once the Kickstarter project is live, I’ll link it. As my friends, I sincerely hope you will do me a huge favor and spread the word about this. The more eyes that see it, the better my chances of meeting the funding goals are reached, and that means I can write two books about this incredible journey that Carly and I will have had the chance to experience.

Q&A With Science Fiction Writers – #1: Richard Tongue

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One of my fellow SciFi authors, Edward Lake, interviewed a lot of his colleagues (including me!), and has started posted them on his blog. A lot of us authors are interested enough, and we hope you’ll be interested enough as well, to read some of them.

Who knows, you might find a new author that you’ve never heard of and begin enjoying their work!

First up: #1 – Richard Tongue

EL: What inspired you to be a writer?

RT: Wow, that’s a long story! I’ve been reading fantasy and science fiction since I was a very small child, and I think the two genres have always fascinated me; further, I’ve been a complete spaceflight nut since I was about the same age. That definitely explains the genre, but as for writing itself – I guess I just want to tell stories. I think it’s as simple as that!

EL: How did you become a science fiction writer?

RT: Lots of reading around the genre and a good grounding in actual science were the keys here, as well as an understanding of history and current events. I think those are the keys to success as a science-fiction writer specifically; as for the craft, it was a question of writing the ‘million words of crap’, I think.

(hit the link above to read the rest of the interview and more!)

Hugh Howey: The Conundrum That Baffles The Publishing World

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If you’ve never read Wool, then I urge you to get it from Amazon or your favorite e-book store. It is free for the first hit. The rest will cost you, but my oh my, they will addict you like textual smack. Black Tar textual smack.

Now that you’ve read that, or if you’re already a fan, you really need to understand why Hugh Howey is the hero to many self-published authors, including me, and somewhat of an anti-hero to the traditional publishing world, or at best, a conundrum that constantly evolves and cannot be predicted.

What is the beauty of having a physical book? Is it because it is made of paper? Is it the size? The smell of the pages and cover? The way the pages feel under your fingers? The memories of growing up with physical books? I still love physical books, but I’m also a huge Kindle fan (a fan of all e-readers to be honest, since that is the direction the literary world is evolving in).

The one thing e-books don’t have that physical books have, well, one of the things, but sometimes the most important thing, is a physical presence. So in a sense, without a physical presence, it can have no smell, no paper pages, and since it is so new, no real fond memories of sitting under a tree in the summer reading an epic story. Maybe some of you have had this memory with the e-readers, but I’m still working towards that goal.

But what if you could have an e-book AND a physical presence to remind you of it? Friends, this is why Hugh Howey is someone authors like me respect and publishers cannot predict:

What will the man think of next?