This "Month on the Shelf" Business

One month. One single, solitary month. What to do, what to do...

Let me tell you what there is to do. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I was going to use this period of time when my book is finished and sitting "on the shelf" for a month (a sort of self-imposed break I take, which, when it is over, allows me to read the work again with fresh eyes) to start work on the art for the interior and cover of said book. 

And that I have done! For the cover piece, I've hammered out a few dozen thumbnails, decided on one, arranged my models, and even started my sketch. I would show you what I've got so far in that department, but the cover is supposed to be this cool surprise, you know, there's usually this big "cover reveal" day where the cover is displayed and people "ooh and ah" over it, or mostly just shrug and then click on a video where some cute puppy falls asleep next to some equally cute baby.  

Such is life.

But what about writing? I've heard that writers need to write every day. Since I am fairly new to this writing business, I of course hear things like this and immediately start to feel inadequate, thinking, "Oh my God, I haven't written a friggin' thing all day! I'm fooling myself. I suck." So to alleviate this feeling of incompetence, I've decided to start writing short stories in the morning. At first, I thought it would be difficult to come up with ideas for stories, but it actually didn't take long. I just sat in my living room with the kids playing upstairs, sipped coffee, and stared out the picture window. It was nice. Relaxing. And lo! I now have five ideas for short stories that I'll be hammering out over the next month! 

I'll keep you posted as to how they're coming along. Right now, I'm doing research on the first one. I haven't decided on a title yet, but it takes place in 1920's America. There's a milkman, his daughter, and a crow. Weird combination, but there it is.   

Book 3 is DONE!

... and now let me qualify that sensationalist title. What is really "done" is the first draft for book three of the "In the Time of the Dead Trilogy." And by "first draft" I mean that I have written 100,000+ words, there is a beginning, middle, and an end, and it seems to be reasonably kick-ass.

With that said, I am now in the process of reading through the whole of the manuscript, checking for any little (or big) issues that may present themselves. This means things like, "Do I really need a comma there? Would that guy really say that?" and "Wait a minute, what day is that happening on? How could they get to the location they are in that short amount of time?" as well as, "Oh man, I completely do not remember writing this, did my kid get on my computer and hammer out these pages?" 

You know, stuff like that.

In a few days, after I'm done this read-through, I get to put the sucker on a shelf for a month! That's right, one month! And then, after that, I get to pick it up, dust it off, and attack it with a fresh mind... or as fresh as its going to get- which actually means it has a slight amount of moss growing on it along with an old, withered man in a loincloth walking around inside, banging on its walls with his cane, saying, "This sucks, sonny. Oh, yes, she sucks!" 

From there, I get to send it off to my readers and my agent. 

Now, lest you think I am sitting back and taking my leisure in those thirty days, let me assure you that I am only sort of doing that. In those intervening days, I shall be working on the cover and the interior pieces for the book. So... stay tuned! I'll be putting some artwork up here in a bit! 

Later gaiters. 

The Thing with Blogging

Ye gods, blogging is tough. 

Is it, though? I mean, you're a writer. You've written novels. You're writing one now. What's so big about writing a blog?

It's just... the TIME! You don't understand. It's just hard to think about sitting down to write a novel all day and then, somewhere in there, think about having to sit down even longer to write something in a blog. And it's not just the writing. It's the thinking up content; something that's going to be interesting for people to want to read. And what's the use anyway? Are my thoughts really so awesome, someone out there in the world wants to read them?  

Blah. Blah. Blah. Just write and stop complaining. 

I'm explaining. Not complaining.

Sounds like complaining to me.   

What you've just read is the conversation I have in my head when I think about blogging. I'm constantly going back and forth on whether it is worth having a blog when I have all these other ways of connecting with readers. There's the big one, Facebook, and then there is Twitter, Instagram... and all the others. It's exhausting to think of trying to keep up with providing content for all those sites, writing and researching for my current and future books, doing the illustrations for those books, on top of blogging. It's just... yeah. A lot.

So is it worth it? Not really sure. I read everywhere that in order to have any kind of writing career, you NEED to blog. Is that true? Let me know your thoughts. As you can see, mine are engaged in a heated debate with no real decision in sight. But wait... here I am, blogging... that's gotta tell you something. Right?

Cover Reveal for THE WARRING DEAD!

Check out the new cover for my next zombie book, "The Warring Dead!" Cover Reveal

The Zombie Axiom! Re-released!

It's HERE! Re-released by Severed Press, grab a copy on Amazon... and if you've read it, drop a review! Click on the image above, or here: The Zombie Axiom @ Amazon.com

The New Cover is UP!

It is true! The new cover for THE ZOMBIE AXIOM is now up on Mybookaddiction.com! Head here: My Book Addiction and check it out. Not a bad job, if I do say so myself!

Got that Publisher, My Journey from There to Here

Finally. 

It took some doing, but there it is: a publisher with a contract for my book, "The Zombie Axiom." And not just that one book, all three books in the "In the Time of the Dead” trilogy. 

Imagine that!

Man, what a process it was...

- cue dreamy music, full of harp strings and faraway glances to a starry sky- 

It all started long, long ago in a faraway land...

- needle scratches across vinyl-

Well, not really, it was actually only a few years ago in Northern New York, but doesn't, "long, long ago in a faraway land" sound better? I think so...

-okay, start the music again, ah screw it, that music sucks-

Anyway, it all started long, long ago in a faraway land with some great advice from a learned sage. Now, we've already been over the faraway land stuff and the long, long ago stuff, so who's this "learned sage" fella? That ladies and gentlemen, is an easy one...

-drum roll please-

The guys name is Murray Tinkelman. 

"Ah," you say, "I see," you say, "Exactly who is this Tinkelman?"

Right, I can see for those of you outside of the realm of illustration or art or coolness, you would probably not know who he is. For those of us into illustration and art and coolness, we know he is this amazing illustrator, a wonderful teacher and art historian, and we know that he's excellent at dispensing short barbs of advice that stick and welter and then grow into something good. 

At least that's what happened with me. 

You see, I had decided to get my Masters of Fine Arts degree in illustration, and I started nosing around for programs that would allow me to continue working from home while I did this because, let's face it, I had a wife, a kid, and a house. I wasn't about ready to go some university and live in a dorm, go to parties, and bars, and... waitaminute what was I thinking? That sounds like fun! But no, no, no, I had responsibilities darn it. I'm an adult!  

Ahem. Finally, after much searching, I had found a program that I thought was a good fit only to find out it wasn't actually a good fit at all, too much design, too little illustration, too tight around the waist. 

That's when I found The University of Hartford's Low Residency MFA (link here: The University of Hartford MFA) , headed by a professor I had at Syracuse University, the aforementioned Murray Tinkelman. While there, I busied myself with drawing and painting, painting and drawing- basically doing all the things you do while taking art classes. In the midst of all this drawing and painting, there was, of course, the writing of papers. It was here, in the writing of the papers, where Murray dispensed one of his barbs of advice in my direction. In this case, it was something like, "You're really good at writing. I've been teaching for (insert incredible amount of years) and you're one of the top two or three people I've had who can write so good. You should keep writing." Something like that.  To me that was huge. In case you haven't guessed it yet, I really respect this guy, and to have him tell me that was quite startling. I took it seriously. 

The barb had stuck. 

Shortly after, it began to welter. I was a good writer? Hmm… I thought about how I’d always loved books. I love the smell of them, the beauty of the covers, the feel of the pages, the way they could lift you out of wherever you were and drop you wherever they were. That love is what got me into creating the art for them in the first place. So, if I’m good at writing, why don’t I write one! Why don’t I write my own novels, paint the covers, and throw in a handful of internal illustrations to round them out.

Why don’t I?

And then I did it. I wrote a book. I did a bunch of illustrations. It took a couple of years, but I did it. When it was done, I thought, "Now what? I've got this manuscript and these illustrations, what the hell do I do with all of it?" Excellent question. From where I stood, I could see two different paths: the self-publishing route and the traditional route. To me, the traditional route held more appeal. It was the way I had always seen it done since I was a kid. Why not give that a shot first? Float my book the traditional way, you know, find an agent, get a publisher, and then, I don't know... repeat with the next book. If it doesn't fly, go with self-publishing. 

This was good. I had a plan. 

The first step was getting a literary agent. So I researched, I wrote one page summaries, I wrote two page summaries, I wrote five hundred word summaries, I even wrote five sentence summaries. I was so sick of summaries. Then I wrote query letters, query letters upon query letters. Query. That's a funny word. I said it to myself so much that it stopped meaning anything. Query. Querying. Query. Queried. After that, or during that, I got kinda confused with all that summary writing and repeating of "query" to myself, I sent all that stuff out. 

And I was rejected. 

Repeatedly. 

For three months I was rejected. Don't get me wrong, as an artist I know rejection. I've received my fair share of, "Thanks, but no thanks" replies. Here, though, it was different. I mean, since I was a kid I've always drawn pictures, and I've always had people giving me their opinions on them, be they relatives, professors, or art directors. I had developed a thick skin from all those critiques. But this form of expression, this writing business, was new, something that was still sort of fragile, where if it took on too much water, it would just sink. In short, getting rejected for my writing seemed to suck way more than getting rejected for my artwork. Weird, I know, but there it is.

Anyway, I was rejected. Poor me. 

There I was, thinking I really should stop all this useless writing and querying and hand-wringing until, one day, I got an email from an agent who wanted to see my manuscript.

Okay, what?

That's right, someone wanted to see my work. How cool is that?! With bated breath, I sent it out. He read it. He liked it. We signed a contract. Just like that I had an agent. Wow! How validating is that? It felt great!

Yes, it felt great. Right up to the point when the rejection started again. A years’ worth of, "Sorry, this isn't the right fit for us." Ugh. 

My agent and I had a conversation at that point. We decided that, because the publishing market was changing so much, it was no longer a big deal for publishers to take on a title that had been self-published. In fact, if it's done well, it might even serve to show them how great the whole package is... the words, the cover, the images inside, not to mention the marketing end (including the Facebook page, Twitter account, Amazon Author Page, reviews, all that stuff).

I was convinced. Plus, I was tired of sitting around on all that work. I wanted to see the thing done. If I had to do it myself, so be it! 

To that end, I arranged a Kickstarter drive and used the cash from that successful fund raiser to pay for an editor, a website redo, and marketing expenses. I then put the book together, did a great big ole opening, complete with a social media blitz and a kick-ass book launch party, and I stuck that thing up on Amazon for the world to see.

Tah-dah!

It was done. It looked great. People bought it! I started to get some reviews in, and people liked it! It felt great.

Still... I hate to say it, but anyone can self-publish. Really. Anyone. What I really wanted, what I really needed to truly feel that my work was professional, was a company behind me, one that was willing to say that my writing was so good they would publish it. That’s it, pure and simple.   

Then it happened. A publishing company we queried got back to us and said they wanted to take me on board. I wrote before how validating it was to get an agent, remember? This was way better.

And as it stands now, I’m still sort of there, basking in the joy of feeling like my writing doesn't suck, windmilling in the sun, in the middle of a field of daisies, arms widespread, head back. Well, maybe not that last part. That would be… weird. But, dang, it feels like that. It’s a good thing right now. Of course, ask me six months from this point and you may get a different answer. I don’t know. Maybe not. I’d like to believe it would still be that way, that the barb had gone in and had made something good that lasts. Stay tuned. I’ll tell you if it does.