Cap'n Quaker!

No, it's not the woolen clad avenger for those who shun modern ways. And it's not the unsteadiest gun arm to ride the west. It's my new, favorite way to spice up boring food.

Now that I'm no longer a young, strapping buck with a bod covered in rippling muscles and...wait...I must be thinking of someone else. Ok, so I'm in my forties and need to watch what I eat. No matter how appealing the notion of dying with a gut full of burgers, face down in a greasy pizza with bacony cheese in the crust may be, I really have to rein it in nowadays.

My favorite meal is breakfast and oatmeal is one of the best alternatives to the ever glorious McGriddle. One time, many years ago, I described the then-newly-arrived McGriddle to a guy over XBox Live who lived in London. They didn't have them there yet and he said they sounded "Fucking brilliant". Granted, he was probably high, but that doesn't mean he was wrong. So now that Mc-justaboutanything is off my menu, I find myself wanting to spice up the foods I can have.

Oatmeal is ok, but it needs to be mixed with something. How about something with texture? Raisins. Sure, I guess. Nuts? Come on, now. I'm not an animal. Something crunchy, though. Cereal! I started with peanut butter cheerios, which was good, but the Os got mushy pretty quick. Next I tried Cocoa Krispies, which were delightful. Then I dumped in some Cap'n Krunch. Let me tell you, Captain Yohann Krunch never disappoints! Yeah...Yohann. He looks like a Yohann, doesn't he? It's the 'stache. Next time, I go for Yohann's peanut butter variety. Droolin' over oatmeal? Now I know I've hit paydirt.

It may not be as healthy as straight oats or the raisins thing, but you gotta live a little. If wanting to start my day with some Krunch is wrong, I don't wanna be right!

New me for 2015!!

Alrighty! It’s 2015 and time for some changes. First of all, I’m sure anyone who’s been to this blog before notices the different layout. I love black and all, but got sick of looking at the same backgrounds, etc on this page. Also, I want to dedicate this page to everything I write so a new look seemed to be in order.

Another change for me is the shift in focus as far as my writing goes. This entire industry has been knocked on its ass for some time now. Ebooks are awesome, but to paraphrase the Joker from Dark Knight, they’ve changed things…forever. And there’s no turning back. Man I love that movie. I want to watch it now. Be right back…

…Ok. Awesome flick. What was I saying? Right. Changes. With the rise of the ebook and the fall of so many brick and mortar bookstores, the industry is still in upheaval. That might not be as obvious to the readers. After all, there are still some bookstores out there. Books are still being printed. There’s stuff to read. The Kindle is coming out with new models all the time. (I desperately want one of the new Paperwhite Kindles by the way) Trust me, though, it’s crazy from the inside of this industry and only gets crazier as the months drag into years.

Someone like me who isn’t on the receiving end of a publishers’ marketing budget needs to hustle for work whenever possible to keep up with the ol’ rent. That means trying to line up contracts wherever possible that pay some sort of advance so I can make ends meet. I love ebooks and the sense of creative freedom that comes along with them, but they’re a gamble financially. If writing is my only source of income, waiting for royalties to trickle in is not a stress-free way to live. So, after years of fighting the good fight and busting my butt to survive within the publishing machine, I need to suck it up and find other sources of income. Does that mean no more books from me? Uhh…why would I redo this blog if I was gonna shut it off?

Actually, it means the opposite. Once I secure myself in a more traditional manner (see also: day job) I can stop jumping through so many goddamn hoops, begging for the attention of publishers who only want me to write stuff that resembles whatever other author is the flavor of the month, and scrambling to fit myself into someone else’s category. I never was good at that kind of thing and haven’t gotten any better as I ferment.

Pleasing so many higher-ups who barely even know what they want anyway is a good way to drive yourself insane. The good thing about being truly apart from the machine (and being insane, for that matter) is that you don’t have a lot to lose. I will no longer worry about taking a good idea and rearranging it to fit the current trend. I will now focus on writing what I WANT and not just what I need to pay the bills.

I’ve been told my vampires need to be more mysterious and sultry. I’ve been told that I need to adhere to the concrete rules as set forth in legends in regards to mythological creatures. Legends as FACT? Isn’t tweaking legend and playing within a genre the FUN part of fiction? I’ve been told horror is no longer a genre. I’ve been told Steampunk is dead. I’ve been told a lot of things and I don’t mind hearing people speak their minds. I also don’t need to change what I do just to satisfy a bunch of rules that will change in a day or two anyway.

Overall, it’s a scary time for me. It’s also an exciting one. There’s a big weight lifted off my back when I stop worrying about trying to please someone in an office reading my horror manuscripts who doesn’t even like horror in the first place. I’m doing my own thing again and it feels good. Check back soon and I’ll tell you all about it.

Guardians, Vampires and Flicks

Where the hell does the time go?? I mean seriously! I know I’m not a spring chicken, but I’m not so old that I can use that as an excuse for spacing off months at a time. Come to think of it, most older folks I know keep up with things better than I do. Oh well. In the words of the immortal sailor: I yam what I yam.

So what’s been up with me? Let’s see…I finally made it through all the summer popcorn movies I wanted to see. Best of the bunch had to be Guardians of the Galaxy. I was familiar with the comics to a certain extent, but enough to be fairly confident it was gonna kick ass as soon as I saw the first preview. Good to know I was right. I also recently Netflixed (yeah it’s a verb now) the new remake of Robocop. This was one that I thought should be pretty good even if it wasn’t great. Turns out, the makers of that film actually found a way to make Robocop BORING! What the…huh??? ED209s were there, robot cops were there, even Gary Oldman and Jackie Earle Haley were there! Oh well. There’s always the Dark Knight trilogy and Human Target to see those last two guys shine!

On the work front, things have been amping up nicely. Most recently I’ve been putting together a short story for the third anthology in Jonathan Maberry’s V-Wars series. Very cool stuff. Here’s a link!  I’ve also got another pretty big project happening. It’s not a huge secret or anything (not Skinners related) but I’d rather make a big announcement a little later. I just don’t want to jinx anything, you know? It’ll be cool. Trust me.

Guess that’s it for now. 

UPDATE - That cool thing I mentioned at the end fell through. Them's the breaks.

Love you, Ma

It’s been a rough couple of months. On a personal note, I recently lost my grandma Sophie who was one of the sweetest, most charming and loving people I’ve ever known. She was one of the foundations for who I am and everything I’ve done. I’ll never stop missing her. My world will be a little dimmer now that she’s no longer in it. Of course she’s with me in spirit and she made a point to tell me she’d watch over me, but it’s still tough.

On a professional note, the publishing industry continues to be an unconscionable ball-breaker. Series are getting axed left and right, which is a good and bad thing for us writers. Obviously, having fewer series to write hits us in the wallet. However, it frees us up to pursue our own passions and get our projects out there in ebook format. To that end, I’ve been hard at work on several different fronts. Book two of The Gillis Ledgers is coming along nicely and should be released in a month or two. After that, I’ll be hard at work on Book 8 of Skinners. Around the same time as the new Gillis comes out, I’ll be releasing the first book in a brand new steampunk series. More on that later, but I’m very excited about it!

Hope you all are doing well and don’t worry, I’ll have more for you guys to read real soon! 

Hello from the COOOOLD

Hey! The holidays are over. Whew. Is it just me or is every holiday a prolonged, agonizing trial anymore? I love Halloween, but now it starts in Sept and goes all the way through Oct with a non-stop shit storm of cutesy costumes, candy commercials and “spooky” put in front of everything on menus and billboards. And Christmas? I think it’s still going, right? Sigh. Anyway, I laid low for a spell and now I’m back.

I’ve been working on a few projects. I’ll have some new Ralph Compton westerns coming out under the Marcus Galloway pseudonym. Also my Doc Holliday series, The Accomplice, is being re-released in e-book format. On the horizon, I’m about to start in on the next Gillis Ledger book as well as another Skinners project. Of course I’ll be doing Book 8, but what would you guys feel about some stand-alone prequels? Maybe stories from Paige’s early career? That could be cool. I’m also circulating some steampunk and crime novels to various publishers and if they don’t get snatched up, I’ll be releasing them my own damn self!

In other news, my Dad called me today for tech support on his Kindle Fire. Why does this warrant a mention? About a year and a half ago, I took some work answering the phones at Amazon for Kindle support. I did fairly well in the knowledge and fixing stuff departments, but my customer service / warm fuzziness was lacking. Can you believe that? Fuck them, right? Heh. So when my Dad calls for help with a WiFi connection problem, I had all kinds of advice and steps for him to take. A real chance to impress the guy. Did I fix his Kindle? Of course I didn’t. Maybe someday I’ll find something I’m good at. Until then, take care!

Drum roll please.....

I’m not a big one for a lot of talk and promises, but…after a lot of talk and promises, the seventh SKINNERS book has finally been released! It took a bit longer for it to appear on Barnes & Noble, but I’m guessing that was just some weird computer holdup or something. The important thing is that Forged from Ash is out and ready to be read. So…go and download a copy! It’s also on Kindle and Smashwords.

For those of you who have read it, I’d appreciate you leaving a review at the site where you purchased it. That really does help an ebook along. Some of you have commented that this one ended with some loose ends and to that, I plead GUILTY. Now that I’m able to get my books out there again, I can continue running my series how I like. I’ve always seen this as a series that rolls along and evolves without everything wrapping up nicely at the end of each book. To accommodate this, I need to approach publication of the series in a new way. Fortunately, I can now do that. For Skinners, the plan is to write shorter books and release more of them per year. It took a while to get settled with a new cover artist, new publisher (Crossroad Press has been amazing!) and a new way of doing things. I’ve also been busy with other stuff, but now I’m rollin’ and things are looking good.

Ideally, I’d like to put out three Skinners books a year. I’ve also got other series to work on and I’d like to get them all chugging away as well. I’ll keep you updated on those. When it comes to the next Skinners book, I’m shooting for a release date somewhere around February or March of 2014. Until then, stay in touch and thanks for sticking with me. I’m doing my best to make you all glad you did!

Not just # 7 Anymore

Wow. Busy, busy! I just got finished with the third draft of Skinners #7 and thought I’d post a little progress update. My progress is…I’ve finished the third draft of Skinners #7. Guess I shouldn't have led with that, huh? Well, it’s coming along nicely. I've even got a title....Skinners Book 7: Forged from Ash. But wait, there's more! Here's a very cool thing for Show & Tell. A sneak peek of the cover!!

 

Woo hoo!! Very cool.

In other news, I’ve entered into a working partnership with Crossroad Press. When I launched into the whole ebook thing, I was very excited. It allows me to write what I want, but I also had to do other stuff like formatting for different services, trying to network with different outlets for marketing / distribution and all that kind of non-writing thing. I thought, “If only someone else could do that stuff so I could just keep writing.” Well, Crossroad Press does that stuff and they seem very capable of doing a great job of it! They’ll be able to put my books into formats that I couldn’t figure out and a few that were simply beyond my reach. There’s a much better chance for trade paperback copies and audiobook versions. Awesome! They also work very quickly. Since there are just a few more hoops to jump through, however, the release of Skinners 7 might have to be pushed back by a month or so. I know you guys are waiting for the book, but this way it gets released in a much better and much more complete fashion than me doing it completely on my own. Thought I’d let you guys know right up front. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.