Teasing Your Chest Hair and Other Subjects

Over at The Night Bazaar, I relate yet another anecdote and talk about my pet peeves in writing. And I draw a picture of a guy IN...

"Another Loosely Related Anecdote to Our Assigned Topic"

Enjoy.

Cthuhlian Covers

This looks fantastic. I love the type treatment of the title and the artwork is wonderful. It also makes me hungry for sushi.

Dracula vs. Salem's Lot

Over at The Night Bazaar, I tell the story of when I totally flipped out, batshit crazy-like, when I inadvertently stumbled upon my mom and dad watching the 1970's miniseries Salem's Lot.

You think that's silly? I was freakin' ten years old. I wake up, go into the TV room and witness the above photo. You woulda totally freaked out, too.

Don't lie.

Anyway, go visit and comment.

HERE.

The Book of Cthulhu - Table of Contents

I'll be appearing alongside some greats of speculative fiction, of both today and yesteryear. I realize that it's a reprint of his story, but having a story of mine share the same pages as even a reprint of T.E.D. Kline's (cause he ain't writing anymore) is a total fanboy moment.

Plus there's Ramsey Campbell, Charles Stross, and Bruce Sterling!

Holy crap, just look at this list.

Caitlin R. Kiernan - Andromeda among the Stones
Ramsey Campbell - The Tugging
Charles Stross - A Colder War
Bruce Sterling - The Unthinkable
Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Flash Frame
W. H. Pugmire - Some Buried Memory
Molly Tanzer - The Infernal History of the Ivybridge Twins
Michael Shea - Fat Face
Elizabeth Bear - Shoggoths in Bloom
T. E. D. Klein - Black Man With A Horn
David Drake - Than Curse the Darkness
Charles R. Saunders - Jeroboam Henley's Debt
Thomas Ligotti - Nethescurial
Kage Baker - Calamari Curls
Edward Morris - Jihad over Innsmouth
Cherie Priest - Bad Sushi
John Hornor Jacobs - The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife
Brian McNaughton - The Doom that Came to Innsmouth
Ann K. Schwader - Lost Stars
Steve Duffy - The Oram County Whoosit
Joe R. Lansdale - The Crawling Sky
Brian Lumley - The Fairground Horror
Tim Pratt - Cinderlands
Gene Wolfe - Lord of the Land
Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. - To Live and Die in Arkham
John Langan - The Shallows
Laird Barron - The Men from Porlock

Synaptic Misfires

Well, it's been a long while since I've done one of these, so I figured I've had an enough accretion of small, piddly thoughts, observations, news and whatnot to let my electro-chemical pathways do their thing, unhindered.
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Best book I've read in a long time has now got a cover. Behold, Stephen Blackmoore's City of the Lost.

Pre-order that bastardo right here. It really is an amazing book. And its follow-up, Dead Things, which I've also had the pleasure to read, is amazing as well. Seriously. There's some violence in these books that made me reconsider how to write violence.

On a side note, I was a terrible pre-reader for Stephen. My feedback consisted of "Uh...they're great! Don't change a thing! Oh, and there's a typo on 237."
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WRITING TIP #213:

So, everyone has been remarking and questioning the fact that I've sold 5 books in one year after only starting writing seriously in late 2007. Well, first off, I didn't sell them. My agent did. Stacia Decker is the boss.

Second, I've only written three of the five sold, so there's that. (I have one more book complete. The Incorruptibles. I've challenged Stacia to sell TI before November and she'll have sold every book I've ever written within a single year. That's gotta be some kinda record, right?)

Third, I'd spent my whole life in preparation for that day in early November, 2007, when I began to write Southern Gods during the National Novel Writing Month. I'd say from the time I was 14 until I was 33, I read at LEAST 5 novels a week. There were years I'd read a novel a day. I'm not fluffing those numbers. I read a lot of great novels - I received a BA in English while I was doing it - but I read a lot of books that were crap, too. Whatever the case, I guess you can say I was in training to be a novelist. My whole life was a movement toward it.

Fourth, and this is the big thing (and the TIP), after I finished writing Southern Gods, I immediately started writing This Dark Earth. And when I finished TDE, I immediately started writing The Twelve Fingered Boy. And when I finished that - I took a couple of months off - and then I started writing The Incorruptibles.

The point is, I kept writing. I didn't spend all my time waiting for SG to sell or to do something. I stopped tinkering with it and moved on, flawed as it was. I had my first three novels complete before I ever landed an agent.So that now, now when I have a book coming out and an agent on a hot streak, all of the work I did back then has begun paying off.

So, I guess I'm saying, after you've completed your first book, whether you have a deal or not, whether you have an agent or not, start writing #2. Right then. You'll be glad of it later.

This concludes my writing tip for this week.

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I have to write a blog for The Night Bazaar tonight and I'm dragging my feet about it. In the meantime, I'm sitting here writing a different freaking blog post, complaining about the blog I should be writing. Whoo, boy. I need to re-evaluate my life.

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I had big news today. I was invited to be a part of the Arkansas Literary Festival. I asked if I could be a part of it last year and they never responded to me. Just ignored my email, la de da.

This year they asked me. That felt freakin' good.

So that means I'll be on panels and do readings, all literary and stuff. David Sedaris has attended two years in a row, I think, so maybe they'll have him back next year. And THAT means, I'll get to meet the man at the author meet-n-greet.

Here's the list of last year's participating authors and literary figures.

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Jess Bullington, author of the brilliant The Sad Tale of the Brother's Grossbart, said some nice things about Southern Gods over at his blog. Jesse moderated the very first panel I was on at the World Horror Convention in Austin. He asked prescient and thoughtful questions and I responded in grunts and clicking sounds. I was mightily impressed with him. I don't think I'd ever be able to do what he did. (Also, I think you have to give two shits about the subject matter and I am notoriously short of shits when it comes to anyone or anything that isn't me. Really. I'm becoming quite the self-consumed whore. But in a GOOD way. Wait. Is that possible?)

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Crap, I guess I need to go write this other blog post. Sheesh, the life of a novelist sure does include a lot of blogging, but I'm not complaining. These are the best problems ever.

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Oh, wait. I don't know if I should share this. I probably should of been offended when Steve Weddle sent me the link. I should've been outraged at these folk's intolerance and prejudice. But I just couldn't stop laughing.

It's just terribly funny to me that they would research this so intensively and then focus on da poo poo.

Also, when he said "deepahhh" in front of his congregation - that's right, his congregation - I was howling with laughter. I know, it was really wrong of me. I should've been howling with outrage.

I'm not gonna embed this one. You'll see why once you watch it.

Check it out here.

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That is all.

More Publishing News

2011 has been a banner year for me. I've been sitting on this news for a while - uncomfortably sitting on it - and now I can share.

Here's what Publishers Weekly Childern's Bookshelf Newsletter has to say:

Andrew Karre at Carolrhoda Lab pre-empted John Hornor Jacobs’s The Incarcerado Trilogy, comprising The Twelve Fingered Boy, Incarcerado, and The End of All Things. The trilogy features two inmates of the Pulaski County Juvenile Detention Center for Boys, who discover their superpowers even as they realize that the sinister Mr. Quincrux, head of the Extranatural Agency, wants to control them. The Twelve Fingered Boy will pub in spring 2012, and the next two installments will follow annually. Stacia Decker at the Donald Maass Literary Agency did the deal for world rights, plus audio.

There were a few houses interested in this, but once I spoke with Andrew on the phone, and we discussed the books, how we could make them better, I absolutely knew Carolrhoda Labs was the perfect home for these books. I thought I couldn't be happier, but sometimes life throws you a curve. I'm happier.

History Is Closer Than You Think

I've started researching my next novel, tentatively titled Seventeen Year Cicada. It's a ghost story set in a Japanese internment camp in Rohwer, Arkansas, about a relocated family of Issei and Nisei and the struggles that go on internally, in the family. And past misdeeds.

Anyway, I was telling my father about the novel and he said "Hold on," and went to the basement, and came back with this photo. It's of his first grade class in Wilson, Arkansas, 1945. They bussed in kids for school, since the Jerome Internment Camp over-ran the Jerome schools.

All my father can remember was the older boy's name was Hank Sano and was quite good at baseball. And he told a story of visiting their tenement house and being amazed at the smoothness of the floors.

Thought I would share because this excites me. I love making connections.

That fine specimen is my father. He is 72 now. We don't call him "Gramps," we call him "Grumps."

St. Louis: An Instagram Photojournal

Last weekend was a doozy. I packed my family in the Honda and we drove up to St. Louis. It's a six hour drive so there was some inside-the-car drama. And it wasn't all about the kids, either. Mom and Dad can have inside-the-car drama too (hint, directions).

We saw the arch, but we didn't stop to muck around underneath it.

We walked the streets surrounding our awesome hotel.

Word to the wise, if you're ever in St. Louis with kids - go to the Chase Park Plaza and splurge on a big room. The short ones will LOVE it. But, ANOTHER word to the wise, lock the mini-bar.

The suite was sweet.

The pool was sweet, too.

We swam.

We visited with Miss Grumpybutt.

I went and did a high-falutin' literary thing. Pictured here is the amazing Daniel B. O'Shea and the lean and deadly Frank Bill. You can almost tell from this photo, but the dude behind them, at the microphone, was reading a MANLY story after consuming many MANLY beverages.

I met Matthew McBride, Frank Bill, Dan O'Shea for the first time. I had dinner and drinks with Erik Smetana, who is the nicest dude this side of the Pecos.


Dan and Bill tell me to stop taking f$%#@&*ing pictures before they give me a van beating.


Fred Venturini read a story that was a BIG HIT with the ladies.

Noir @ the Bar was awesome. Big thanks to Scott Phillips and Jed Ayres for putting it on. And so concludes my N@B coverage.

We looked up at big buildings.

And I took artsy Instagram photos of them. (I've drank the Instagram Kool-Aide.)

The intrepid explorers consider their next move, amongst the flora and fauna of St. Louis. It's a jungle up there.

We swam some more.

My daughters are otters.

There was stuff like this everywhere.

We went to The City Museum. It was awesome. Everywhere you look, there's some amazing artistic, craftsman detail.

That wall is made of cafeteria serving pans.

There were big spaces.

There were small spaces.

There was hugging. There was fighting (not pictured.)

Faces received the pre-requisite amount of paint.

Here there be dragons.

No muscle cars, thankfully.

Lily got a lily.

There were steampunkish gears and doodads and geegaws.

There were lots of people.

There was crazy crap to climb on.

And there was the drive back. It had singing. Lots of singing. Some of that singing sounded like this:

Noir @ The Bar

I'll be appearing at Noir @ The Bar in St. Louis tomorrow night, June 11th. I have absolutely no idea what I'll read, most likely something not noir.

Also appearing will be Frank Bill, Aaron Michael Morales, Fred Venturini, Scott Phillips and Jed Ayres. Oh, and the bag wearing Malachi Stone.

Should be interesting.

Here's what the folks at Riverfront Times have to say about the event.

Noir at the Bar returns after a brief hiatus, and it comes out swinging. The hard-edged reading series abandons the friendly environs of the Delmar Lounge for Meshuggah Coffee House (6269 Delmar Boulevard, University City; 314-862-6100 or www.subbooks.com), and before you can even complain we'll note that Meshuggah sells beer and wine.

Acey Deucey

Over at The Night Bazaar, ACEY and DEUCEY discuss standalone novels versus series. It is a deep, profound and slightly profane blog post.

But there you have it. Pretty much par for the course around these parts.

Go there and enjoy.

Why I Write

I am a novelist.

Strange to write that, but there it is. At varying points of my life – and even currently – I could make many similar statements:

I am a father.
I am a husband.
I am a musician.
I am a designer.
I am an artist.

All of these vocations are hard. Harder than most people who don’t do them – or don’t do them well – can believe. And success at any of those things is subjective, fleeting, and always up for review.

In the course of these human events, we fathers, husbands, musicians, designers, artists, and novelists have to ask ourselves why we keep doing it. Because it is fucking hard, a hard and thankless road for long stretches, miles upon miles, and many times during the journey it would be easier just to abandon the path and walk away.

But we don’t.

Why?

#

Asking why someone writes seems infinitely more interesting than the mundane, nuts-and-bolts, cobbler’s question of how to write. The question of why I write isn’t one I could've addressed a year ago. Or, hearing the question, I would’ve said, “To get published.” But, now, since that goal has been achieved – and do not let me downplay the magnitude of that feat, for any writer; getting your first novel published is like broaching some infinitely high plateau, pulling yourself up and over the rim, scraped knuckles and barked shins and all, into the thin and vaporous air. A fantastic view, but there’s still a ways to go. We have monstrous appetites, mankind does, and we’ll storm heaven itself and overthrow God and still never be satisfied. What does the guy who’s banging Angelina think about in flagrante so he can come?

Writing just to get published seems like saying I listen to music just to keep myself from boredom. I sing to keep myself from suicide. The inner workings of writers – and most artists, though I’m just speaking for myself - are labyrinthine and convoluted, motivated by obscure forces, and writing just to get published doesn’t ring true, not in the least.

So, why do I write, now that it’s not just to get published?

Is it for the money? Again, a year ago, I would’ve answered differently than I do today, because then money seemed like a bonus. THEM: “Hey, man, we want to publish your book, it’s fantastic, we love it. Oh, and I almost forgot, we’re gonna give you some money for it, too. How’s that sound?” ME: “Uh, freaking awesome! I’d just be happy to get published. But money too!?! Pinch me.”

But that was then.

Now, while I don’t write for the money, I’d be lying if I said I don’t have plans for every cent I earn writing. The money isn’t peanuts anymore, either. So, yes, I do write for the money. But not solely for the money.

Do I write for the glory? The renown? Ahahaha. Money and glory? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, right? I write horror novels, fantasy novels. I write books for teens.
Example: I went to a movie premiere in Little Rock the other night and schmoozed with the editors from Oxford American, a magazine published here in Arkansas. When I told them I was a novelist, they were very interested in me. When I revealed I was a horror/fantasy author, noses suddenly became elevated. The managing editor said, “Oh.” Sniff. “We don’t cover that sort of… literature.” I had been drinking so I laughed it off, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt.

So, no, I don’t write for the glory.

However, it is wonderful having novels on the way to publication from great houses and knowing that when they do come out, people will read them and know my name. The fame a writer has is infinitesimal compared even to some C or D list actor, but still, knowing that countless people are aware of you and your work is a great – and sometimes terrifying – feeling.

But I am no Ozymandias.

When I hear people saying, “I write because I can’t NOT write,” I want to smack them about the head and shoulders and edit their double negatives. Placing the desire and vocation of writing on the level of, say, breathing, is the same sort of reasoning twelve year old girls use to justify getting the newest skirt – they just HAD to.

I’ve heard writers speak of TRUTH – that it’s at the tip of their pen and all of literature is an attempt to achieve it. I’ve read that some authors feel that we’re all born flawed, and wounded, and the act of all creation is a way to heal that wound. Certain misogynists feel that all artistic pursuit is an attempt by men to become a gestative, creative force – all art is due to womb envy – which leaves me wondering, then, why do women write?

No, none of this applies to me. Or maybe all of it. Shit I don’t know. But I keep going back to one thing.

#

It’s 1979 and we’re somewhere outside Kankakee, Illinois, barreling through the night in my father’s light blue ’73 Impala. My mom is slumped against the passenger window, head against a pillow, bare feet on the dash. My sister has passed into slumber on her side of the car, sprawled out on the big bench seat, no seatbelt in sight.

I can’t sleep. I’ve always been a good sleeper, going down easy if I had half a chance, but I’m too excited and we’ll be in Ludington, Michigan, in the morning and that’s my most favorite place in the world, on the beach, the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, sliding down the dunes, roasting hot-dogs over driftwood fires, having ice cream at the nearby A&W Root Beer stand.

But it’s after midnight now and I can’t sleep.

Dad fiddles with the dial, moving the red frequency indicator back and forth across the face of the radio, changing the shape of the soft static coming from the speakers and making my mom grunt and twist her body a little. He turns it off and drums his fingers on the steering wheel.

In the backseat, I scoot up and hang my arms over into the front seat, resting my chin on the upholstery.

Dad, in a kind of whispery voice, says, “Hey, tiger, you wanna hear a story?”

“Yes!”

Mom shushes us but then says, “Just keep your voices down, okay? It’s late.”

Dad says, “You ever heard of the Greeks?”

“No.”

“Not Hercules?”

“Yeah, we saw that movie.”

“That’s right.” He rubs his chin and says, “This story was close to the same time in history, but it’s about a war. The Trojan war. All fought because of a girl.”

He stares out the windshield for a bit, headlights passing us like ghosts while bugs make bright streamers in the air before sounding soft splats on the window.

“It starts like this, if I can remember it right…’I sing, O Muse, of the wrath of Achilles, Peleus’ son…’”

“What’s a Muse?”

He smiles and even though I can’t see it in the darkness of the car, I know it’s there.

“Well…let me tell you…”

I sit, chin on upholstery, hands empty and swinging loose, hanging on his every word as he retells The Illiad, after midnight, going eighty miles an hour, somewhere in Illinois, 1979.

This I will never forget. This I will never forget.

#

There are moments that shape the course of our lives. Some bad, some good. Sometimes they’re such small, passing moments, you never realize how important they are to you without the space of forty years with which to view them.

But I know why I write.

I write in hopes of giving to others what my father gave to me. The intense joy of story, well-told. An adventure. An escape. And to add my voice to the chorus of innumerable storytellers since mankind sat huddled around campfires.

We are what we do. Sometimes, we can change the world – or at least another person - by what we say.

More Imperial Cartography

CLICK TO EMBIGGEN

So I've started the follow-up to The Incorruptibles - my fantasy/western/alternate Roman history/demonpunk novel. Yeah, that one, in case you were confused.

Been working on the map, some, thought I'd post it here for your edification.

Maps are fun.

Needle Magazine - Spring 2011 Issue

Needle Magazine - Spring 2011 Issue is live. You can purchase it right HERE.

I will cop to being the reason that Needle's a little late. Got a lot of stuff on my plate right now. But it is still, technically, spring, though it doesn't feel like it here in Little Rock, what with near 100º temperatures. But it is. So there.

Big thanks go out to Naomi Johnson, Daniel O'Shea, Stephen Blackmoore and Matthew C. Funk for getting all the stories right. And of course, to our fearless leader, Steve Weddle.

While every issue of Needle is chock full of in your face, smack 'em up, rough and tumble shit, this issue has a few notable entries. First, it's the second installment of Ray Banks' novel, Wolf Tickets. Second, Tom Piccirilli has a story in it - this is a major coup, since we never thought he'd deign to grace our pages with his crime-writing badass self. There's also an amazing little piece by William Shakespeare, hisownself, as related to Daniel O'Shea. And another Team Decker member brings the grit - as Frank Bill might say if he wasn't too busy perusing the pages of Playboy - Matt C. Funk, the funkmeister, Dr. Funkenstein, the funk of 40,000 years, smacks you around with some New Orleans crime.

Also, Todd Robinson - another member of Team Decker - has a piece of gambling wickedness in our pages. And David Cranmer - the fearless leader over at Beat to a Pulp - has a story in there that will make you feel good, if you like killin' and stuff.

Plus, the guy who directed Cherry 2000 has a story in there, Steve De Jarnatt. He has seen Melanie Griffith naked, or that's the scuttlebutt at the Needle Headquarters.

Shit, y'all, it's jam packed with depictions of aberrant behavior. You know you want it.

Get you some Needle.