December 2, 2019

Cyber Monday VIII: The Capitalisming

Well, it’s that time of year where ugly truths must be addressed. Artists get paid when people buy their art, which gives them the freedom to make more art.

So I’m going to ask you to buy some books.
I know, it’s weird and kinda awkward for all of us, but this is the season for giving and if you wanted to give somebody one of my books (even if that somebody is YOU) I’d really appreciate it. They might too, if my stories are there sorta thing. So here’s a list of my books and a few anthologies and collections I’ve got stories in.  Put them on your wish list or get them as gifts for friends and family members.
Also, I’ve sprinkled a few Amazon links in here for the books that aren’t available anywhere else, but really you should just be going to your local bookstore and asking for a copy. They’re very cool, they could use the business, and this way you’re not one of those conformists sheeple falling for that Cyber Monday capitalist nonsense. You’ll get to brag about that until Valentine’s Day, easy.
Anyway…

Dead Moon came out back in February as an Audible exclusive (read by the always-fantastic Ray Porter) and now it’s available as an ebook as well. Alas, there is no paper version at the moment. Sorry. It’s about a woman who runs away to the Moon and finds… well, zombies on the Moon. And some other things, too. It’s spooky and fun and I’m quite proud of it.

Paradox Bound is my New York Times-bestselling story about infatuation, road trips, American history, a pretty cool train and some pretty creepy antagonists. F.Paul Wilson said it was like Doctor Who crossed with National Treasure, and if that doesn’t get you interested I don’t know what will. There’s an audiobook, ebook, paperbacks, and you might even find a hardcover here or there if you’re lucky.

At least a third of you have probably found your way here because of my odd little Lovecraftian-sci-fi-urban-horror-mystery novel–14. Alas, the paperback has gone out of print, but there’s still an ebook and a phenomenal audiobook narrated by Ray Porter. And there might be more versions in the year to come, but we’ll talk about those when we can…

Somebody once described The Fold as a horror-suspense novel disguised as a sci-fi-mystery, and I’ve always liked that. It’s available in pretty much every format you can imagine, and it’s also part of my “unconnected series” of Threshold books.

Another big bunch of you are here because of the Ex-Heroes series. Superheroes fighting zombies in post-apocalyptic Los Angeles (and a few other places).  Ex-Heroes, Ex-Patriots, Ex-Communication, Ex-Purgatory, and Ex-Isle. All of these are available in a number of formats and a number of languages.

Good news! My weird-but-fantastic mashup novel, The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe, is finally available as an audiobook. Bad news… at the moment it’s only available as an audiobook. Sorry. Hoping to fix that soon, but I really think the audiobook might be a better format for this one.If you really want paper, call around to your local bookstore and you might find one still hanging our on a shelf somewhere.

You can pick up The Junkie Quatrain as either an ebook or an audiobook (still no paper, sorry).  It’s my attempt at a “fast zombies” tale, a series of interconnected stories I’ve described as Rashomon meets 28 Days Later.  It also features a recurring character of mine, Quilt, who keeps showing up in different stories in one way or another… 

I also have a short story collection called Dead Men Can’t Complain.  It’s got a bunch of stories I’ve had published over the years in various anthologies and journals, plus a few original ones. Some are scar, some are kinda funny, one or two of them might even be called heartwarming.  It’s an Audible exclusive, and it’s read by Ray Porter and Ralph Lister.

Past that… okay, look. There’s a ton of anthologies out there but because some of them have limited print runs or licensing deals I’m not sure what is or isn’t available at the moment. The best I can do at this point is give you a quick list and when you’re in your friendly local bookstore… browse around for a minute or three. They might have a copy of something.

X-Files: Trust No One

Naughty or Nice

Bless Your Mechanical Heart

The World is Dead

Kaiju Rising

Mech: Age of Steel

Worth mentioning—please check those last two if you stumble across them. The books went into reprints with some contractural changes I couldn’t agree to, so my stories aren’t in the new editions. Only the older ones. So make sure you get those at a store where you can look at them.

Thus ends my shameless Cyber Monday appeal to you.  Again, so very sorry we had to do this, but it really does make the marketing folks happy and they’ve always been really good to me. Also, like I have in the past, in the next day or two I’ll also do another list with some of the great books I’ve read by other, much better authors, so please check back. And please don’t forget my Black Friday offer if you happen to be one of the folks who might need it.
And now, please resume your internet shopping. Browse responsibly. Clear your history on a regular basis. Especially you, Doug. No, sweet jeebus, don’t click on that—that’s not really from PayPal.
And we’ll be back to regular writing stuff on Thursday.
14Dead MoonEx-HeroesParadox BoundThe FoldX-Files
November 29, 2019

Black Friday VII—Elf on the Shelf in the Hood

So, hey, now I’d like to alter the mood a little. Let’s talk about this whole Black Friday thing and the holidays and being poor for a couple of minutes.
Because being poor at the holidays absolutely, completely sucks.

Being poor’s just a constant feeling of tension.  Of being painfully aware of what you don’thave and what you can’t do.  And for the past ten or fifteen years, a lot of folks have made it painfully clear that they judge you because of that. They find you lacking as a person because of your poverty.

And it’s even worse at the holidays. So much of the holidays is about giving, and when you’re poor you just… you’ve got nothing to give. It doesn’t matter how much you care about that person, it doesn’t matter how much you want to.  It doesn’t matter because you’ve got nothing.
And again… you can feel people judging you over it.  At every office party or gathering of friends or family dinner.  You get judged for being trapped and powerless. Hell, you end up judging yourself, and it just becomes this endless cycle of guilt and resentment and desperation.

It sucks.

And, yeah, as some of you know, I’m speaking from experience. I’d saved a little money before I became a full-time writer, but two or three random-but-normal problems—car repairs, a sick cat, a pay cut at the magazine I wrote for—and wham I was poor. I mean… nothing. Cards maxed out. Stretching every paycheck until it was tissue thin. The phone got shut off. My partner and I didn’t turn the heat on for three winters in a row. We stole toilet paper from the library. Pretty much everything we ate came from the 99 Cent Store. Frikkin’ Shane Black offered to sit down and talk with me over coffee for an article I was working on. And I had to turn him down ‘cause I couldn’t afford the gas to get me across the city to where he was. Hell, I didn’t have enough money to buy a coffee.
Look, some folks just love to snort and blabber about “entitlements” and “nanny states,” but the simple truth is that the vast majority of poor people don’t abuse the system. They’re way too busy just trying to survive with their health and maybe just a shred of dignity. And I say that as someone who spent three years constantly on the edge of panic and feeling sick with despair.

And holy hell I hope that none of you reading this are there right now, feeling helpless and sick with despair. Because like I said before, it seriouslysucks to be in that position.



But if this is where you are right now—if you’re in that same crappy place I had to be in for three Christmases in a row—maybe I can help.

If you  can’t afford gifts for your friends or family, get in touch with me at my old business email–PeterClines101@yahoo.com. I’ve got about two dozen books here, I think, that I’ll autograph to whoever you want and mail out to you. Or to someone else, if you need it shipped. I can even gift wrap if you need it (seriously, I am a fantastic gift wrapper). Most of these are paperbacks of Paradox Bound, but there’s six or seven other things in here, too. Think I might still have two or three of those big audiobook CD sets, too. If audiobooks work better for your special someone, just say so. You can request a specific book but I can’t promise anything.

Past that, though… I’ll send them out for as long as the books last. If you need some help this season, just ask

Again, this is only for those of you who need some help getting gifts for others. The people who are pulling unemployment, cutting back on everything, and feeling like trapped because they can’t afford gifts for family or friends.  It’s not so you can recommend someone who might like a free book.  You could do that for them, too—go get them a book. They’ll love you for it.
Speaking of which—look, whenever I do this folks offer to chip in and help out. Like I just said, you don’t need me to do that. You can go be fantastic people all on your own. Seriously, I’m willing to bet cash money there’s a toy bank or a food bank or some kind of program within ten or fifteen miles of you right now.  You could help out with that.
Also, I’m also doing this on the honor system, so if you’re just trying to save yourself some money or score an autographed book… well, I can’t stop you. But let’s be clear—if you do, you suck. You’re a deplorable person who’s taking a moment of peace and relief away from someone who really needs it this holiday season. Don’t act surprised when karma kicks you hard in the ass over New Year’s.
Anyway, Happy Holidays. Let me know if I can help out
Christmasholidays
November 26, 2019

Word. By. Word.

Thursday’s Thanksgiving and my parents are coming into town tomorrow, so I’ve got a lot of cleaning to do. No post on Thursday. But I had a simple idea I’d been meaning to toss out to you for a while now and this seemed like a good time.
Random theory of mine, probably not all that original. I think we tend to batch-read words. We tend to look at larger text elements—the clauses and phrases and sentences, rather than the individual words that make up those elements. I mean, you’re doing it right now. You’re not picking out the individual words, you’re reading this as a whole. And that’s a good thing. It’s what we want readers to do. It means my writing has a great flow to it.

But…

By the same token, this can make us kind of blind to things in our own work. Once we’ve written a sentence, we tend to gloss over it. Especially after reading it three or four times. We get overly-familiar with it. Even when we’re re-reading it in an edit draft, a lot of the time we’re just taking in the big picture and not looking at what’s actually there on the page.  It’s how we can read a sentence a dozen times and never notice that glaring typo in the middle of it. Or not notice there’s a word missing altogether.  Or that twice on this page we refer to Stu as Ted, but we don’t think about it because we know Stu was called Ted in an earlier draft and so they’re the same person in our heads.

That kinda thing.

So here’s my quick tip for you.  Do at least one pass where you  don’t read your story. Read the words on the page. Actually look at each individual word there on your screen  and. Read. Each. One. Of. Them.

Yeah, it’s slow. And it’s tough. That sounds silly, I know, but it is super-tough to go through a story this way. Especially a story we know. You need a ton of patience and focus. But I guarantee you’ll find dozens of things that were missed on earlier passes.

In fact, here’s a tip for that tip. Before you do this pass, change the font on your whole document. If you normally write in Times, switch it over to Courier. If you normally write in Courier, switch it over to Times. If you normally write in Wingdings, what the hell’s wrong with you? Seriously, nobody’s going to be able to read that. Put it in Times, make everybody’s life easer.

Anyway… remember what I said about how we get overly-familiar with things? Well y’see Timmy, by changing the font, I’ve just made the whole document unfamiliar to me. The spacing’s different. Things will sit on each page in new ways. Which means I’ll be looking at it with fresh eyes, and things will be a little easier to catch.

And there you go. This writing tip has been brought to you by cranberry sauce. And by Nana’s special holiday rolls.

Next time… well, look. Black Friday’s coming up, and if you’ve been here for any amount of time you know what I’ll be talking about. And then there’s Cyber Monday, plus NaNoWriMo will’ve been wrapped up for a couple of days. I’m going to be blabbing about a lot of stuff for the next week or so. Check back often.

Until then, go write.

editingfocusreadspellingtipsvocabulary
November 25, 2019

Tom Gauld

ChristmascomedyGauldholidayspublishing

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