First Chemo, and a some vague thoughts on writing

Well, Lana had her first chemo treatment yesterday.  It was a long day, from about 8:20 to 2:00 in the chair with infusions of various medications running into her body.  She handled it like a trooper.  We took along my laptop and she was even able to get online with it and do a little facebooking as a distraction.  She had some weird feelings in her body later but so far not a lot of problems. I understand the worst often hits after a couple of times.  She also has to go back today for a half hour for another infusion of some med to counteract the nausea effects of the first meds. 

I actually did some 'thinking' about writing yesterday evening, for the first time in quite a while.  Mostly I was thinking about the cover to Harmland, and deciding I needed to add a subtitle to make sure folks knew it was short stories rather than a novel.  Also, in the first version I posted, a couple of folks thought the "eyes" down in the left hand corner were headlights, so I wondered about adding another pair of eyes, or two, to dispel that possibility.  I also enlarged the font size of my name and the title, and moved the title in a bit, which several people suggested. Anyway, I've copied the new mock-up below.  It's still not completed, of course, but let me know if you see problems. I'm not really happy with the subtitle of "stories," but haven't come up with anything else yet.

A New Kind of Summer

Our graduation ceremony was yesterday.  I have to return the monkey suit (graduation regalia) on Tuesday and check in at the office for anything critical in my box, but other than that I'm off work until the fall.  Normally this would be a time of great rejoicing and I'd be full of writing plans. But on Monday Lana gets a port put into her chest so she can get her chemotherapy infused, and then the therapy itself starts on Thursday.  She'll be getting 5 to 6 hours of treatment, and then will repeat that treatment every 21 days through the rest of the summer.

They told her she will lose her hair; they expect her to get weak and nauseated.  They gave her 3 prescriptions for anti-nausea medicine.  They told her that her immune system will be weak so she needs to avoid being around folks with any sickness.  She's taking a leave of absence from work.  She won't be able to feed the birds because of the dust dangers.  She has to worry about infections through her fingernails so she won't be able to handle raw foods or do a number of other things she normally does.  Despite this information, neither of us really know what to expect.  That means I don't really know what my plans are either.

For now, I've gotten a new video game, called Skyrim.  It's a fantasy game and so far I'm enjoying it a lot.  Not easy to worry when you're in the middle of exploring some ancient burial site and being attacked by skeletons and dragons from all sides.  And that's a good thing.

Tubb versus Kern

E. C. Tubb (1919-2010) was a well known British writer who wrote over 140 novels and hundreds of short stories under as many as 58 pen names. Most of his output was SF, although he also wrote fantasy and westerns. His best known series is the “Dumarest of Terra” SF series, numbering 33 novels. His best known pen name, at least to me, is Gregory Kern, under which he wrote 17 books in the Cap Kennedy Space Opera series.

I’ve read quite a few of each series, though slightly more of Cap Kennedy. Critics and SF historians generally consider the Dumarest series to be superior, but I have to admit that when I reach for a space opera I’m more likely to choose a Cap Kennedy than a Dumarest.  I recently tried to analyze why.

First, there’s no doubt that Earl Dumarest is a superior character to Cap Kennedy.  Dumarest has depth and we get to see his emotional ups and downs. He’s tough but vulnerable to love.  He has moments of doubt.  Kennedy is always focused and disciplined. He gets lots of opportunities for sex but turns them down because he’s committed to his mission, to protect earth’s civilization from its many enemies.  Kennedy is very nearly a superman, and is pretty clearly modeled after Doc Savage.  He even has a crew of associates, much like Doc, although his assistants are a lot more sophisticated and I like them a lot better.  Dumarest travels alone, although he often picks up a companion, usually female, during each novel.  You feel like you could be friends with Dumarest, not really with Kennedy.

Now let’s consider setting.  The settings for the Dumarest series are slightly more varied than for the Kennedy series, but in general there isn’t that much difference. In each case we have exotic settings in the space opera tradition.  There are desert worlds, ice worlds, etc.  The Dumarest settings often seem somewhat more realistic to me, while the Kennedy settings are more dramatically presented.  I think I like the dramatic presentation a little better.  Storytelling is so much about heightened focus on specific details. 

The big difference between the two series is plotting.  The plots for the Dumarest novels are much looser.  The ‘series’ plot is that Dumarest is trying to find his way to Earth, which in this future history is so completely forgotten that it’s considered a myth.  The ‘series’ plot for the Kennedy series is that Cap is a kind of secret agent who travels the galaxy on missions to protect the Terran federation.  This means the Cap Kennedy series is more tightly plotted, with each story focused on a specific threat to the Federation.  The Dumarest stories, on the other hand, generally give lip service to the overarching issue, the search for Earth, while focusing on Dumarest as he gets involved with a particular character and some problem she (or less commonly, he) is having.  This means the Kennedy series has a lot more continuity from story to story than the Dumarest series, and that means less time needs to be used on set up and story development.  This allows the Kennedy series to get into the action much more quickly, and that is the main reason I prefer the Kennedy series to the Dumarest.

I appreciate the Dumarest stories and enjoy them, and actually wish I liked them better because I do really enjoy the character. But for just a quick, enjoyable read, I pick the Kennedy series. 

Cold in the Light on Sale, and Harmland

Cold in the Light is on sale for $2.84 as a Kindle ebook this week.  That's 2 dollars off the regular price so it's a pretty good deal.  I didn't even realize it until Paul McNamee pointed it out to me. 

I'm getting ready for a signing today at Barnes & Noble in Covington, Louisiana.  In fact, they're hosting an all day literary affair, with a children's play, poetry readings, and an authors' signing circle featuring a bunch of folks who are far better known than me.  I'll be signing at 2:00, so if you're in the area, check it out. The address is: 3414 Highway 190, # 10 Mandeville, LA 70471 (985) 626-8884


I'm working on a blog post comparing E. C. Tubb's Dumarest series to his Cap Kennedy series, written under the name Gregory Kern. That should be up in a couple of days.  I'm trying to recover from all the whining I got about grades right after I turned them in. I'm sure I've not heard the last of that. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a cover image that I've been considering for a collection of horror/noir stories. What do you think?

Been A While

Been a while since I blogged. I’ve been giving and grading finals, meeting with students, meeting for the last time in the semester with various groups and committees. I have one more final to give. Tomorrow. So far I’ve only made two students cry. Better than some years. I hate this time of year. I hate flunking people. And yes, they have truly brought it on themselves, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

Lana has been having some issues. Her taste sensitivities have gone all to hell since the tonsillectomy. Many of the foods she loves to eat taste like crap to her now. We are hoping that will ease up soon. She’s also having some pain in the neck area where the cancer is, and we’ve already been put off once in getting an appointment for her treatment. It’s frustrating and upsetting. However,  Lana did return to work today. I’m home alone for a few hours. I hope she’ll have a good day.

Outside of tomorrow, I should be more regular in blogging for a while now, and able to blog about some things other than work and health issues. I see my Google reader is up to 271 posts. I won’t make it through all of those, but I will start trying to do some visiting today. I’ve got a couple of ideas for decent blog posts coming up.

 I will be signing books with several other writers around 4:00 this Saturday, May 5th, at the Barnes & Noble in Mandeville, Louisiana. I know very few of you live anywhere close, but you are invited if you would like. I also got in a shipment of some of my own books today. I got more copies of In the Language of Scorpions and of Bitter Steel. I now have copies of all my books except Writing in Psychology, and the ebooks, of course, Days of Beer, Killing Trail, and Harvest of War, so if anyone is interested in a signed copy, drop me a line at kainja at hotmail dot com.

 And now, off to visit blogs.
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Bits and Pieces of News

A couple of interesting bits, at least for me.

1. My first novel, Cold in the Light, is finally available as a Kindle ebook. It's $4.99, but that is for something like 140 thousand words. If you're interested, it's HERE. It's not up on Nook yet. Not sure when the publisher will put it up. The back cover blurb is below:

Where the beings known as the Whoun came from, only a few know....
What they're going to do next is anyone's guess....

But in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, where a decades old conspiracy has started to unravel, a cop and a doctor are about to find out. Against an enemy from their nightmares, the two will have to fight, to save the life of an unborn child who isn't human, a child that will change their world forever.

In the brooding forest, they'll learn what it means to fear the dark.
...And the light.

It's a darn good book if I do say so myself.

2. Paul R. McNamee has reviewed some of the latest Orc short stories released as ebooks, including my own "Harvest of War." Check out what he has to say. (Thanks, Paul.)

"Harvest of War" is just .99 cents on Amazon, HERE.

3. I got word that my space opera, "Under the Ember Star," will be released soon. Not up yet, though. I'll let folks know. I'm excited about it, though.

4. Finals are beginning here. I get my final papers today and am giving multiple tests over the next week. May not be around all that much. Wish me luck.
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The Evolution of Gossip

I won’t claim to have always been innocent of gossiping. I’ve done it, though I generally despise myself after. In most cases, I’ve gossiped when I was frustrated with the actions of one particular person, and I don’t believe I’ve ever told a ‘lie’ while gossiping. But gossip doesn’t have to be a lie to be effective in changing people’s behavior.

This last week, though, I discovered an interesting thing about gossip. I picked it up from my Evolutionary Psychology book by David Buss. Gossiping may well have been selected for by evolution because it can carry certain benefits for the gossipers. Here’s the story.

People gossip primarily about the “relationships” of others (who is sleeping with who), and about behaviors or events that are potentially dangerous (who assaulted who, who stole from who). People also gossip more about people who are higher status rather than lower status, which explains why people gossip about presidents and celebrities more than about their servants.

But how could this serve an evolutionary purpose? Well, first consider a primitive hunting/ gathering society, which humans lived in far longer than we’ve lived in our modern technological world. In such a setting, you might be a member of a tribe of 50 to 150 individuals. Since you have a limited number of potential mating opportunities, it can be very important to know who is hooked up with who and who is potentially available. A breakup might be just the news you were waiting for, because it creates an opportunity that you didn’t have before. In that primitive society, over a period of 100,000 years or more, those who paid attention to such ‘information’ and were able to act on it to increase their mating opportunities, might have left a few more offspring than those who didn’t pay attention to this kind of thing. Any ‘slight’ increase in reproduction levels leads to an evolutionary advantage.

Similarly, the hunting/gathering folks who listened to the gossip about who is hurting someone else, such as abusing a mate, or neglecting offspring, might then have avoided linking themselves with that person, thus improving their own reproductive successes. Again, a small change might have led to an evolutionary advantage over a very long time.

Consider Crod, a hunter in my tribe 100,000 years ago. Crod goes hunting every day but seldom brings back meat. Then my friend BabYaga whispers to me that Crod never really goes far when he hunts, but just finds a quiet, shady spot and goes to sleep. She saw him when she was gathering berries. I tell my other friend, Bam-Bam, that Crod appears to be lazy. Bam-Bam tells me that Crod has been making eyes at his sister, Pom-Pom. We decide we better make sure Pom-Pom doesn’t mate with Crod or her children won’t have enough to eat. We whisper in Pom-Pom’s ear and she listens. She becomes the mate of Hukk instead, who brings home much meat every day. Pom-Pom has 11 children, 9 of whom grow up to have children of their own. Crod has one kid, with Takky, who, it is rumored, will even mate with a Neanderthal. Maybe that kid isn’t even Crod’s. And what chance does it have to grow up and have kids of its own?

Crod loses; Bam-Bam and Pom-Pom win. Gossip has served an evolutionary purpose.

I still don’t like gossip, but I sure understand it a lot better now than I did before.
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What the Genres Taught Me: Or Tried To Anyway

Everything we experience shapes us. That includes the stuff we read. I got to thinking recently of what the books I read in my youth taught me, or tried to teach me. I thought I’d analyze it by genres, which is often the way I think about my reading. Let’s see if your experiences differed.

Westerns: (Example: Louis L’Amour: To Tame A Land). Taught me about being honorable, about standing up for what you believe in and what is right. Taught me to yearn for natural vistas and to enjoy a night out under the stars.

Y/A fiction: Animals stories: (Example: Walter Farley: The Black Stallion). Taught me about the bonds that are possible between humans and animals. Taught me to respect the strength and courage of our animal companions, and indeed of all animals. Taught me to see animals, not as humans, but as unique beings in their own right.

Science fiction: (Example: Ray Bradbury: The Martian Chronicles). Taught me about wonder, about the glories of strange landscapes, and about the nature of humanity’s fears of the unknown, and our abilities to adapt to that unknown. Taught me about the beauty of language to express what no one has ever actually seen or experienced.

Fantasy: (Example: Robert E. Howard: The Conan stories). Taught me about being independent minded, about not following the herd just because that’s “the way it’s always been done.” Taught me to think about the things I was told rather than accept them blindly. Also taught me about honor and about establishing one’s own sense of ethics.

Sports stories: (Example: Joe Arichbald: Hard Nosed Half Back). Taught me about getting up one more time than I’m knocked down. Taught me about perseverance, about preparing yourself for your chance rather than just waiting for luck to find you.

There are other genres I read. Maybe I’ll talk about them later. But this is enough for one blog post. I’m sorry I’ve been absent so long. Last week was, to put it mildly, “full.” Lana had her tonsils taken out, which from what the doctor said appears to be the source of her cancer. There is still the issue in the lymph node but we are supposed to see him next week about that. I’ll keep you informed.

In the meantime, what did your reading teach you?
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Self Publishing Report:

Well, “Harvest of War” was free for five days and there were 466 downloads in that time. Seems like a respectable number, but I’ve never done this before so I’m not sure how it ranks. I picked up some very nice five star reviews on Amazon, as well as mentions around the blogosphere, including Ty Johnston’s kind comments, here. Thanks, Ty.

In order to make it free, I signed up with Amazon select, which means it can be offered only at Amazon for 90 days, about 82 more days, I guess. After that I’ll put it up on Nook too. It’s way too early to see if this had any effect on the sales of any of my other books. The Talera trilogy is also fantasy and folks who liked “Harvest” might like those books. Closest to it in mood, though, are the stories in Bitter Steel.

This makes three items I’ve self-published for ebook:
1. Killing Trail, Summer 2010 – Has been a relatively steady seller each month, although in small numbers.

2. Days of Beer, December 2011 – Sold respectably the first couple of months and then has dropped to zero.

3. Harvest of War, April 2012 – remains to be seen, although I’ve sold one more copy since the free period ran out.

My experience has been that self-publishing is a useful outlet for stories and novella length material and collections. I don’t believe it replaces the need for or the pleasures of mainstream publishing, even at the small press level, and it appears to me that you have to have some kind of name, or you have to promote your ass off to make any headway with it. Certainly there are some amazing success stories. I’m not one of them.

I’ll continue to offer an occasional work this way. One of the pleasures is having complete control over every aspect, from content to cover. And it’s nice to be able to see sales results almost in “real time.”
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Red Dead and Harvest

I've done too much mindless stuff on my break, or maybe just enough. I've played a lot of my video game, Red Dead Redemption, and actually completed it. The ending was rather bittersweet but I suspect it had to end the way it did. It was memorable at least. I almost immediately started over again from the beginning and this time I'll do all the challenges and side missions I skipped last time. Lana is helping me. I've already found three treasures I wouldn't have found without her.

I finished some school work but didn't do any writing. I tried one day and quit after about a half hour of spinning my wheels. The emotional energy required for writing is considerable, and I'm not to the point of being able to, or perhaps needing to commit it.

Harvest of War is still free, and will be for two more days. The icon below will take you there if you haven't gotten your copy. It's been downloaded 365 times as of now. I hope that's a good sign. It's garnered very good reviews so far, including a great one over at James Reasoner's blog. Thanks James. I'm glad people are enjoying it.


Well, that's about it. I think I'm gonna try and get out and enjoy some sun today. Happy Easter Weekend to those who celebrate.
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Much News: Even Some About Writing

We left the house a little after 8:00 this morning and got back a little before 7:00 in the evening. Lana had an appointment with another doctor about her cancer and they ended up doing another needle biopsy. Before they could do that, though, I had to run to a couple of other hospitals to pick up some of the scans she's already had. It made for a nice little 200 mile or so round trip, but the news was generally encouraging in that we are being told the cancer cells appear to be encapsulated, which is a good sign. We celebrated, if that is the right word, with dinner at Red Lobster before coming home.

A couple of nice things happened in the blogosphere today too that I want to mention. Over at Adventures Fantastic, Keith has a very nice review of "Harvest of War." He picked up on some of the elements I was particularly happy with in the story. Thanks, Keith. I appreciate it.

Then, out of the blue, Jess, over at Praise, Prayers and Observations did a post called "C is for Charles." I'm pretty humbled by that, and very appreciative. Thanks for the kind words, Jess.

Lastly, Harvest of War is now FREE for Amazon Kindle. This should run for about four more days so if you have any interest in the story, or think you might at some point in the future, now is the time to get it. Since the story is dedicated to my niece, Tammy Kalb, who died of brain cancer only a few days ago, I wanted to make sure the piece was free at some point so her family could download it if they wanted to.

Thanks again to Keith and Jess, and also to Scott, Tom, and Randy, who also did reviews of "Harvest of War." I'm lucky to have all of you as friends, and everyone else in the blogosphere who has been so supportive of me.
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Things I’ve Noted of Note:

Been a while since I’ve done a post about stuff that’s happening of note in the world. So here it is.

1. The excellent werewolf novel called “Tainted Blood, by Ferrel D. Moore, is going to be free for the Kindle for the next few days. It’s not started quite yet but you can check it out here.

By the way, I understand that my piece, “Harvest of War” is gonna be free soon too for a few days. I’ll post about that. So if you haven’t bought it, hold off for a day or two and you may be able to get it for nothing.

2. The spring issue of White Cat Magazine is out and looks to be a great one. Check it out free here.

3. A new musical release that I’m tremendously excited about is now officially debuted. It’s the first CD from American Falcon. I’d heard several songs from this in rough format, and one in particular, “Tallulah Black,” is just awesome. My copy arrived today. I'm listening to "Tallulah" now and it is every bit as good as I remember. Damn but this rocks! If you like good hard rock I think you should too. You can check it out: here.

4. Patti Abbott is running the results of her flash fiction challenge, with her own story up and links to others. For some good free reads, check it out.

5. I’m also wondering how I’ve missed the band called “Clutch.” I heard a song by them the first time the other day and loved it. I’m on YouTube today playing as much as I can find by them. Here’s Mr. Shiny Cadillackness.

And on the ridiculously lame side:

6. Rick Santorum has referred to President Obama as a “Government Nig”ger. I think it’s pretty clear if you listen to the first part of this. The fact that it is looped irritates me but it looks like this is the real thing. Is it possible for this guy to get any more ridiculous?
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Life

No matter the things that happen, life keeps rolling right along. Today marks the beginning of Spring Break for my university. We're off for a week. I gave a test yesterday but managed to get it graded. I also got rough drafts from my writing students so I'll be working on those over the break. But that will still leave me with some time to relax, and sleep. I'm always appreciative of such opportunities.

When I got home yesterday afternoon, Lana's friend, Katya, was visiting. We had some good talk. I drank a couple of beers. After Katya left I didn't want to stop having beers, so I had another six pack of 16 ounce Red Dogs. I topped that off with a bit of Jack Daniels and some Vodka. It's been a very longggggg time since I've done anything like that. Lana sat up with me and we listened to music until about 3:00 in the morning. A lot of ZZ Top for me, and Pink Floyd for Lana. We debated the merits of Billy Gibbons and David Gilmore, both of whom are phenomenal guitarists. I'm feeling surprisingly good, this morning, considering. And I don't think I'll need to do that again for a few years.

I also got news that my "Under the Ember Star" has been sent to the publisher and will be out soon. It's going to be a "Double" with another writer named Mark Burgess. His piece is a high octane tale that I think is a good match for mine.

Once I get a good nap today and put some protein in my belly, the week will begin, and we'll have to see how everything is going at the end of it. I'll let you know.
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Tammy, and a Story Dedication

I’ve been planning for about a month to dedicate my next published work to my niece, Tammy Kalb, who has been suffering from brain cancer for a while now. Her father, my brother Jimmy, called this morning to say she was in a coma and that the doctors say she could pass on at any minute. They’ve been saying that for a couple of days now so we’ve all been bracing ourselves.

Jimmy, who is twenty years older than me, was already married and gone by the time I was born. But in my first fifteen years or so he used to come home at least once a year with his family. Tammy was his firstborn and was only about a year and a half younger than me. We played together a lot and got along very well. We were good friends and steady companions when she visited. After Jimmy and his family moved to England for many years, I didn’t see Tammy very often. I’ll always remember our days wandering across the farm, though, and that she was the first person to ever ride on the back of my old Suzuki motorcycle.

As some of you know, I’ve been working on a collection of noir tales, and I’d intended to dedicate that to Tammy. However, a couple of days ago I found out that an anthology I had submitted a story to hadn’t panned out and so I decided to epub that piece through Razored Zen Press and dedicate it to Tammy. The young girl in the story, Ehma, isn’t that much different from the Tammy I remember hanging out with. Both were tough girls, and Tammy is a very tough woman.

The story is called “Harvest of War,” and is a little over 5,000 words long. I uploaded it to Kindle last night and was surprised to see it had already been posted as of this morning. It’s on Kindle-only for the next 90 days. It’s a heroic fantasy story involving Orcs, the first such tale I’ve ever written. I owe a major debt of thanks to Scott Oden. Without his prompting I never would have written the piece. And many people owe a debt to Tammy Kalb, for all of her caring over the years. She is, and will be, remembered.

NOTE: Harvest of War is HERE if you want to take a look.
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Resignation, at Novel Spaces

I posted over on Novel Spaces today. I've decided, with sadness, to resign from posting there for the foreseeable future. Some day I'd like to return, but other things are priorities right now. And I don't have the energy to do justice to that site.

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Lana

This is the hardest post I've ever had to write on the blog. Many of you already know, from Facebook, that Lana has been diagnosed with cancer. It's associated with the lymph gland in her throat but we don't know anything else at the moment. We are trying to schedule doctor's appointments now.

I'm actually pretty angry at the local doctors she's been seeing about this issue. She reported to a doctor almost two years ago about a swollen lymph gland. They kept assuring her everything was normal. Well, it turns out, not so much. And now they seem to be giving her a run-around even about setting up an appointment. She is looking tonight for alternative sources of care, and I'm going to make sure to go with her when she gets an appointment.

The past few years have been some of the happiest of my life, and we are both hoping for many more. But life has changed irrevocably for both of us. I guess the law of life is change. I would have liked to go on just like we've been for at least another 20 years. But mostly you don't get what you wish for.

I wish I had something more profound to say, but my mind is moving at glacial speed right now. I've become largely an automaton. I expect to be that way for a good while. I have to keep working so we'll have money and insurance, but I guess it's a good thing I've been doing this teaching thing for a long time and can do much of what I do on autopilot.

I don't plan to stop blogging. In this modern world, the people I blog with have become part of my social support network. We now all have good friends who we've never met. I will be blogging less. I'll probably cut down to one or two posts a week, which I've been kind of doing anyway during the school year, and I won't be commenting as much on other blogs. I will miss that.

I know you will, but please send us your best wishes and prayers. And thanks for being there.
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An Ordered Desk, An Ordered Mind.

Some folks seem to thrive on emotional chaos. I'm not one of them. Emotional upset brings me to a standstill. I become an automaton, going through the motions, getting my work done, but nothing else. I'm not creative when I'm emotionally upset. I feel and work best when my emotions are stable and thus able to be focused on a particular task, like teaching a class or writing a story.

On the other hand, I don't subscribe to the notion that an orderly mind is always desirable, in the sense that mind represents one's ability to reason.

A friend of mine once made a comment about my cluttered desk being a sign of a cluttered mind. His own desk was a model of order, thus demonstrating his "ordered" mind. I told him, well, that's all well and good if one 'does' something with an ordered mind. If an ordered mind helps you solve real-world, or theoretical problems, then that's good. But if an ordered mind simply creates more order, that seems to be less than desirable.

In fact, I told him, the great advances in science and philosophy come out of confusion. When there is no order, the mind tries to impose order, and that's how hypotheses are formed and theories supported. How many years did Charles Darwin spend living in a state of mental confusion as he tried to sort out the problems of evolution? And yet, great order came out of that chaos. It just took a long time.

I believe I won that debate. How about you?
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The Price of Thinking

I’ve been thinking. I understand how dangerous that is. But perhaps you’ll bear with me. I decided over the Christmas break that I was going to self-publish two more Kindle/Nook collections this year. One was going to be called “Whiskey, Guns and Sin,” and would be noir/crime stories. The second would be called “The Gaunt,” and would feature ghost/horror stories set in the woods. I figured I’d include three stories in each, and make each collection somewhere between 5 and 10 thousand words, and charge 99 cents for them.

So far, I’ve completed the first collection, which would run to about 7500 words and contain:
Whiskey, Guns and Sin (with a new ending from that previously published on Beat to a Pulp.)
The Finest Cut. (New)
The Grey Within (New)

The second collection is partially completed and so far runs to about 6,000 words, although it would be more in the end. It contains:
The Gaunt (unfinished)
The Toad
Mouth Wet With Rain and Leaves
The Finding

Then I started getting my numbers back from the sales of “Killing Trail” (2.99) and “Days of Beer” (99 cents). The relative amount of money I’ve made is far greater for “Killing Trail,” which is at the 70 percent royalty rate, as compared to “Days of Beer.”

So, then I started thinking: What if I put all the stories together, built the collection to about 20,000 words, and charged 2.99. I could entitle the overall collection, “Whiskey, Guns and Sin,” and then inside have a part 1: Noir/Crime stories, and part 2: Ghost/horror stories.

How does this sound to you? Do you think readers would be put off by a collection that includes both noir and ghost stories? Would two unified collections be better? (I’ve also considered just adding more stories to each collection to take them each to 20,000, but that means a lot more writing and I have a couple of other projects I’d like to get to.)

As always, feedback is appreciated. I’ve missed a day or two of visiting blogs but am getting ready to head out. See you around the blogosphere.
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A Fascinating Tidbit:

Here’s a fascinating little bit of information I’ve just come across. At least it’s fascinating to me. I discovered it in the Evolutionary Psychology Textbook I’m reading for my class this year. The book is by David Buss, and is Evolutionary Psychology, 4th edition, 2012.

For evolutionary psychologists, homosexuality, particularly male homosexuality, has been difficult to explain. Although you will sometimes hear the argument that male homosexuals don’t reproduce and thus couldn’t pass on any genetic characteristics that lead to homosexuality, that is clearly not the case. Many homosexuals do reproduce and have reproduced down through time. However, there are differential reproduction rates. On average, male homosexuals produce about a fifth the offspring that male heterosexuals do. So why does this orientation continue to occur?

The traditional theory to explain this has been “Kin Altruism Theory.” Basically, it says that if male homosexuals channel more of their resources to their biological relatives than heterosexuals do, then the increased survival rate of those relatives will also carry along the genetic components involved in homosexuality. This is an example of something called “Indirect fitness” (how many copies of your genes get passed on by being carried by relatives) rather than “direct fitness” (How many children you have who directly carry your genes).”

The Kin Altruism Theory has garnered some support, but there are also plenty of studies that don’t support it. For example, in the US, male homosexuals often report greater estrangement from their relatives than heterosexual males do. I’ve talked about this theory, though, in most classes where I’ve discussed the potential basis for homosexuality.

Now we come to something I’ve only recently learned, which may be a much bigger influence on the issue. It’s called the “Female Fertility Hypothesis.” It turns out that the female relatives of male homosexuals, particularly their mothers and their aunts, have significantly higher reproduction rates than the same female relatives for male heterosexuals. In other words, the genetic aspects of male homosexuality could be carried down through the maternal rather than the paternal lines. I would also guess that this apparently greater fertility is hormone related, and hormone variations, especially in the fetal period, may explain many aspects of homosexuality.

Now ain’t that kind of cool?
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Writing and Fun at Novel Spaces

I've got a piece up at Novel Spaces today on the fun in writing. I hope you can stop by.

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Some Classroom Errors

One thing I’ve done for my writing class this year is give them specific examples of common errors made by students who’ve taken the class in the past. Of course, I don’t include the names of the students whose works/mistakes I feature. I thought it might be interesting to show you some of these examples. All of the examples below were turned in for my Writing in Psychology class. I've indicated the primary issue in bold print. These are not terribly extreme, but if there is interest, at some point I’ll publish some of the more egregious errors I’ve seen. All with names left out, to be sure.

FAT:
1. It is believed that the easier and more quickly we can bring an example of something to mind, the more frequently we believe it occurs.

2. Therefore, it is apparent that we must rely heavily on our skills and abilities of social perception and attribution to correlate behavior with its causal source.

COMMA SPLICE:
1. Due to the recession a lot of businesses are going bankrupt, one of the most publicized is that of GMC.

VAGUE TIME REFERENCE:
1. At one point in time you could not watch television without seeing a commercial about the virus.

AGREEMENT IN NUMBER (Plural vs Singular problem):
1. The Psychoanalytic Theory attempts to look at the person’s family life as an explanation of their homosexuality.

SENTENCE FRAGMENT:
1. Many question if the reason why serial killers exists.

WORD CHOICE ERROR:
1. Skin color differences have transcended throughout history.

REPETITION:
1. If peer pressure influences adolescents’ decision making, then adolescents who are influence by their peers tend to let their peers influence their sexual attitude.

STATEMENT OF THE OBVIOUS:
1. People usually go through a lot during a normal daily routine.
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Mid-terms in. Caught up on Grading for Now

Wow! That was the longest marathon grading session I’ve had in several years. Teaching the writing class is a tremendous investment of time. Plus, the way that Mardi Gras fell in association with mid-terms meant that I had to give two tests in the same week that I got the latest set of writing papers. On top of that I came down with a pretty bad cold that has had me feeling pretty miserable.

I’m glad to have the grading done and have my mid-terms turned in, and I’m feeling a bit better on the cold front. It’s still going to be a busy week catching up with everything I put off while I was grading, but at least I should be able to get a bit more sleep and have a little breathing room.

Now to try and get back into the swing of blogging, and back to doing a little bit of writing. Not one word of new fiction has been completed since the last Sunday in February. I did a little polishing on a rough drafted story but that was about it. I hate to be forced into such long breaks because it sucks so much momentum out of me. Such is the curse of the working man.

I can see from the number of posts in my Google Reader, though, that it’s gonna take me a little while to get caught up. I’ll start tonight but probably won’t finish. Missed everyone.
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Break from Blogging and Reviews

I've got to take a few days off blogging and commenting on blogs. Just too much grading to do. Two full length tests, a quiz, and twenty term papers coming up on Thursday. I hope to be back by the weekend, or next Monday at the latest. I'll leave you with two five star reviews of books I've just recently finished. Won't be much more reading for a few days either.

Cold Blooded, by Bernard Lee DeLeo

An assassin is given the task of killing a woman who is under witness protection. Instead, something draws him to her emotionally, and he takes on the task of protecting her and her tween-aged daughter from a host of murderers. Who better to save someone from assassins than the coldest blooded killer of them all.

This is an exciting thriller, full of brutal action, but not without a sense of humor. The assassin, Nick, is about the baddest bad ass ever. Good characters, good story, good read.

Hallam Collection, by L. J. Washburn

This collection contains two long short stories by L. J. Washburn featuring the Cowboy detective, Lucas Hallam. The first one, marking the first appearance of the character, is just called "Hallam." The second is "Hollywood Flesh."

Hallam is an ex-gunfighter and ex-lawman who now works as a private eye and a part time actor in westerns in the early days of Hollywood. He deals mostly with crimes involving the movie industry. In "Hallam," Lucas must sort out a war between two rival gambling moguls. It reminds me a bit of "Last Man Standing." In "Hollywood Flesh," Hallam runs up against the uncanny in the form of a script writer who has apparently been cursed and is pursued by zombies. Despite the apparent existence of the zombies, it's far more a mystery than a horror story.

I enjoyed both these stories a lot. Straightforward storytelling with an interesting private eye, interesting settings, and considerable action. This is the first of Hallam I've read, but there are at least three novels available about the character that I know of so I will be reading more.
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Telling Lies, Up at Novel Spaces

New post up at Novel Spaces this morning. I'm talking about lying in fiction and reality. I hope you can stop by.

Here's a couple of other things I want to call to your attention. Both involving White Cat Publications, which is a new independent publisher with a lot on the ball.

First, they have an April Fools flash fiction contest running. Check it out here

Second, they are running a Kickstarter project for their first book publication, a tremendously fine werewolf novel that I've actually read in manuscript form. You can find out more about that HERE. I'm in.

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Days of Beer: New Cover

I'd hoped to get it done before now, but I finally got around to revising and improving the original cover for Days of Beer. You can see the results here. The title and name are larger, and they are in line with each other, as opposed to the original cover. I think the color of the title is more festive as well.

Lana took the original photo for this, and then I cropped it and added the verbiage. I did the original using the 'paint' program on my old desktop. Last night, I was having so much trouble I went and tried to work on the revision on my new laptop. I found that its 'paint' program is a revised program and is much, much, much easier to use. I'll be doing any future covers on that.

Supposedly, this version went live this morning but I notice it's not showing up yet on Amazon itself. Maybe it will in the next few days.
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Second Hand Books

After the electricity went out on Saturday, Lana and headed out to the second hand store. I generally spend most of my time looking at the books, and I always find a few that call out to me to take them home. Interestingly, I tend to see different kinds of books at the second hand stores, books I don't normally stumble upon in regular bookstores or when I'm browsing online stores. Here's a few of the items I found.

1. A young adult King Kong published by Grosset and Dunlap. It's got a pretty cool cover of Kong climbing the final tower with the planes coming in toward him. There's even a "photo insert" with photos from the original movie. This is a 2005 reissue of a 1932 copyrighted work, it appears.

2. I generally do not like or read books featuring real historical figures such as Abe Lincoln, but I have a soft spot for Charles Darwin so I brought home The Darwin Conspiracy, by John Darnton. I'd never heard of this one before.

3. The Fire Thief, by Terry Deary, which I had actually heard of. This is another YA series, and I think this might be the first one in the series.

4. Blade Runner: Replicant Night, by K. W. Jeter. I loved the movie, Blade Runner, but had no idea there'd been a sequel written.

5. Empire of the Ants, by Bernard Werber, which is apparently a kind of Watership Down, with ants. Since I've always loved stories about micro folks and ants I had to get it.

6. An apparently very non-PC western by Chet Cunningham called Sioux Slaughter, which starts out with an Indian scalping a white man. The oddest thing, to me, is that it was published in 1998. I'm looking forward to reading it to see if it really is as non-PC as it seems.

7. Jack Ketchum's She Wakes. Ketchum can flat out write.

8. The Last Place God Made, by Jack Higgins. I've always enjoyed whatever I've read with the Higgins name on it and this looks like some grand old adventure.

Such a shame I don't have more time to read. Really, really a shame.
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Micro Burst

Mardi Gras is here and I'm off through Wednesday. So far, working would have been better. I'd arranged to get a set of term papers in my Writing in Psychology class on Thursday, and some quizzes that I could grade over the break, but everyone else decided that I'd have so much time over the break that I could do stuff for them too. Letters of recommendation, IRB proposals, QEP reports. You don't even want to know what all those letters stand for.

Friday I put in a long 14 hour day, hoping to get enough done so I'd have a few days off at the end of the break. I planned a good 8 hour marathon on Saturday but the world had other ideas. I worked all morning and had a good head start, then decided to lie down for a short nap. That was my last peaceful moment of the day.

Suddenly we got hit by what are called "straight line" winds, but which I've also heard described as a micro burst. The winds seemed to explode out of the woods and our roof sounded like a war zone as it took a pounding. A few moments later the electricity went off. A few minutes after that, Lana came to tell me I had a ceiling leak in my home office. No nap for me.

We had small hail, and thunder and lightning the rest of the day, as well as periods of heavy rain, so I wasn't able to get up on the roof. Hopefully I can this morning. The electricity came back after about 10 hours finally, but the Satellite TV won't load so it may be that the dish took a hit. I ran my laptop long enough to edit a few more student papers but I'm behind on what I planed to get done.

We did take a drive though, to see what else got hit. Electricity was out all over and apparently some houses were damaged pretty severely by the winds. We stopped at the second hand store and I bought a few books that I'll tell you about at some point. Since cooking was out, we got Popeye's Fried Chicken and came home to play Mad Libs and Trivial Pursuit. The evening was good by candlelight, but now today we start picking up the pieces. I won't be online much.
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The Toad

I've started a new story. It's called "The Toad." One piece of common writing advice I've generally ignored has been to "write what you know." Certainly, I use my life and experiences as the basis for characters and settings in my tales, but I typically veer far afield after that. Talera, Thanos, Kelmer. These aren't towns I've lived in. "The Toad" is going to be a little different. The story takes place at my house in Abita Springs. It involves myself and Lana. Pretty much everything except the 'toad' itself will be absolutely real. In fact, maybe the 'toad' is real too. I'll have to let you decide. Below is the opening few paragraphs of the story.

By the way, what do you think of the advice to "write what you know?"


THE TOAD

After Hurricane Katrina tore up New Orleans, my wife and I decided to get out of the city and find a place further north without so much noise and so many people. Lana discovered the perfect hermitage for us just outside the small town of Abita Springs, Louisiana. The house sat along a dirt road with pine forests on three sides. Our only neighbor kept entirely to himself, which Lana and I both appreciated.

We had a deck with a tin roof put on the back of the house so we could sit with ease and enjoy a big back yard shaded by oaks and magnolias. Bird feeders brought us cardinals, blue jays, doves, woodpeckers, nuthatches, chickadees, and a brazen little thing we called Wrenny Wrenerson. In season, the yard swarmed with goldfinches and chipping sparrows. Occasionally even a few crows dropped by. In the evening, we threw our table scraps into the backyard for the birds or whatever critters might come. Soon, the local raccoons and possums began nightly visits.

The location was so pleasant, I decided to take off our first summer in the new place and try to write a novel. I’d wanted to for a long time. The deck became my office. A laptop and a cool drink was all I needed. The drone of cicadas and the flash of bird wings kept me company.

It wasn’t until a week had passed that I first saw the toad.
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A Frosty Matter

Sun shining, but it's fairly cold here today. Around 38 on our back deck. I have to admit, I kind of like it. I grew up in Arkansas and wasn't exposed to the kinds of frigid winters they have up north. But it got cold, and the trees all lost their leaves, and sometimes the snow would come for a visit. You needed a heavy coat in Arkansas.

Since coming to Louisiana I've seen very little of winter. I remember one very cold snap in the late 80s where we had a week of below freezing temps. Other than that, the only time I've worn a heavy coat down here is back when I used to ride my motorcycle to work in December and January. I kid you not.

I've only got about 3 long sleeve shirts, I've worn one of those twice so far this year, with the sleeves rolled up because it was too darn hot. I get asked a lot by folks at Xavier, "aren't you cold?" I reply with, "aren't you hot?" Because most of the people who ask me the question are wearing mufflers and gloves and heavy coats in 50 degree weather.

I think I'm gonna go out for a walk now. I'll wear a jacket, and I'll like it. I'll let the crisp air carry a little frost within, and just maybe I'll be able to remember that frost when August rolls around and I'm sweltering at midnight on some black summer night.

One can hope.
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Fiction versus Nonfiction at Novel Spaces

I'm over at Novel Spaces today with a post about fiction versus nonfiction, and how story is the king in all. Hope you'll drop by.

We have a job candidate in for interviews today so I may not be around the blogosphere much. Stay frosty!

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In the Language of Scorpions: Review

Well, two days in a row with reviews up of some of my stuff. This time, Randy Johnson, over at his Not the Baseball Pitcher Blog has weighed in on In the Language of Scorpions. If you get a chance to scoot over and have a look, that would be grand!

Randy, thanks for the review. Much appreciated.
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Musings on Days of Beer

Over at his "Musings" blog, Sage has a review of Days of Beer and a short essay on his own drinking experiences. His were a bit different from mine. Check it out HERE

Hope your week is going well. Mine has been far too busy so far.

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The Evolution of a Career

My interest in the Theory of Evolution began when I was in college, first as a biology major and then a psychology major. As soon as I understood the nature of “Comparative Anatomy,” in which human physical structures are compared with those of animals, I had my very own eureka moment where evolution through Natural Selection is concerned. I was simply blown away by the theory’s elegance, simplicity, and its ability to explain things that no other competing theory has ever come close to explaining. Why, for example, the bones in the wing of a bat, the flipper of a whale, the paws of a cat, and the hand of a human are nearly identical except for size.

I specialized in biological psychology in graduate school and that’s what I was hired primarily to teach at Xavier University of Louisiana when I got my first job there in 1986. I had been continually reading about the subject of evolution for nearly a decade by then, and I knew that biological psychology could ultimately make no sense unless understood from an evolutionary perspective. I always spent several class periods in the first week or so on the topic.

In my third year at Xavier I got to offer a seminar on any topic I wanted and I chose “Ethology,” which is the study of animal behavior. Evolution as a necessary mainstay of that class. I eventually began teaching this class as a regular offering, but in regard for my students’ interest, made it more about “comparative” psychology (humans in comparison with animals) than about ethology alone. I kept the evolutionary component.

Since I started at Xavier, however, a new field has emerged in psychology called Evolutionary Psychology. This year, I began teaching a course I’m calling Comparative/Evolutionary psychology, and am using an evolutionary psych text, which is very exciting reading. I’ve increased the details on evolutionary theory to fill a full third of the class, with the rest being focused on specific applications of evolutionary psych to traditional psychological study areas such as psychopathologies, and Social Psych. I rather wish the field would have been around when I was going to graduate school.

What an exciting time to be a psychologist, when a new way of looking at things is starting to permeate the field, and when we may be in sight of a unified theory of psychology the likes of which we’ve never had before. Here’s to Charles Darwin, one of the greatest thinkers of any age.
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On My Kindle

I suppose it was inevitable. After all, my “To Be Read” piles in print have grown to mammoth proportions over the years. For a while, my Kindle TBR….”list?” was manageable. No longer. I turned the device on a moment ago and it showed 129 items. That’s not counting archived items, of course. Lately I seem to be downloading at a rate of about 3 pieces a day. A majority of these have been books by friends or folks I know through blogging and facebook. A fair number of these have been ‘free’ works given away for promotional reasons. Honestly, I’d probably eventually “buy” most of the free works I’ve gotten from friends this way, but it’s kind of hard to turn ‘em down for free when I know I want them. Here are some of the books loaded on my Kindle from friends and colleagues.

The Red Reef – James Reasoner
Uncle Mildred and other Stories – Ian Ayris
The Prairie Chicken Kill – Bill Crider
Hallam – L. J. Washburn
Shooter’s Cross – Colby Jackson
The Golden Amulet – M. M. Fahren
Mindjacker – Sean Patrick Reardon
Ghosts of the Asylum – Ty Johnston
Malcontents – Has authors I know
American Horror – Has authors I know
Matters of Honor – Channing Hayden
Scars and Candy – Sidney Williams
Cold Blooded – Bernard Lee De Leo
Tractor Girl – James Reasoner
The Dishonored Dead – Robert Swartwood
No Shelter – Robert Swartwood
Beat to a Pulp: Hardboiled - David Cranmer (ed)
The Paths of Righteousness – James Reasoner
Battle Kiss – O’Neil De Noux
City of Rouges – Ty Johnston
Monkey Justice – Patti Abbott
Hard Bite and Others – Anonymous-9
Bayne’s Climb: Part 1 – Ty Johnston
Discovery of Death – A.P. Fuchs
Calling 666 – Akasha Savage
Drunk on the Moon – Paul D. Brazill
Yesterday’s Flame – Livia Reasoner
Axiom Man – A.P. Fuchs
Deadly by the Dozen – Has authors I know
Monsters and Mormons – Has authors I know
Laughing at the Death Grin - has authors I know
Collateral Damage – has authors I know
L. A. Noir – has authors I know
8 Pounds – Chris F. Holm
Sever, Slice and Stab – Ty Johnston
More than Kin – Ty Johnston

Here are two still on my Kindle from friends that I have read:
The Hunt – Shauna Roberts. An excellent novella. I’d call it space opera. I did a further review on Goodreads and Amazon.

Night Games – Sean Patrick Reardon. An intense and fun short story.

I want to read every one of these. I’m sorry some of them have been languishing unread on my Kindle for quite a while now. So far in 2012 my writing has gone pretty well, but my reading has dwindled even further. I sure wish I could download some reading time for free. Heck, I’d even pay for it.
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So What is Fast Writing?

Once in a while, someone will tell me they wish they could write as fast as I do. Over the years it’s occurred quite a few times, but I’m still a little surprised when it happens because I think of myself as a very slow writer. Of course, I’ve told other writers that I wished I could write as fast as they. That got me thinking about how exactly to define ‘fast’ writing.

Something that confounds the issue, of course, is the difference between writing and publishing. The last time someone made a comment to me about being a fast writer was right after Days of Beer and In the Language of Scorpions came out, and after I mentioned that Under the Ember Star would likely be published this year. That’s not fast writing, though. That’s fast publishing. A third of Days of Beer was completed a couple of years ago, and I wrote the rest throughout November and December of 2011. That’s probably close to 15,000 new words in two months, which is actually kind of fast for me. As for “Scorpions,” the majority of the stories in there were reprinted from earlier magazine publications. I did write a couple of new pieces for that book, and I completed a number of stories that had been in rough draft form, but the total number of new words in that book was fairly small. “Ember Star” was written mostly last summer, 30,000 words over several months. I didn’t even average 500 words a day.

In order to try and understand more about my own productivity, I decided this year to keep word count records. I know many writers who do this routinely but I’ve never really made an effort to do so before. Well, the first month’s data is in and here are the results:

I produced 8033 new words of material that I hope to get published. This counts stories, introductions to stories, and material about stories that might go into a publication. It doesn’t count blog posts or letters of recommendation or other writing that I do as part of my job and life, but which isn’t going to be put on any bibliography of my publications. Although I don’t know exactly what my average monthly output is, I feel comfortable saying that this was actually an above average month for me.

January has 31 days so my average daily output was 259 words a day. That’s a little misleading because I didn’t write every day. I didn’t keep “exact” notes on when I wrote or didn’t, but looking back over my journal it looks like I wrote material that I hoped to publish on about 20 days of the month. That would bring my average daily production count up to a whopping 402 words a day. According to my journal, on my best day in January I did “about a thousand words.” None of that suggests to me that I am a fast writer.

I also realized, though, that word count is only a partial record of writing activity. I do a lot of revising and rewriting on my stuff. In other words, on the days I wrote I tended to work a lot harder than a new word count of 402 would suggest.

So if I’m not a fast writer, who is? Stephen King? King says he writes about 2,000 words a day. Considering that he’s a full time writer while I’m not, even two thousand doesn’t seem all that fast. But if he writes six days a week, that would give him a production of 634,000 words a year, or one and a half books considering the size of his novels. To average a million words a year would require around 2740 words a day, every day. Since I don’t imagine anyone writers 365 days a year, we’re probably talking about million word a year folks averaging 3,000 words a day or better. Now that seems pretty fast to me, but I’d like to know how many hours a day this writer works, and how much revision they do.

So. Is Stephen King a fast writer? What does it take to be considered a fast writer? Is fast even about word count? Or it about an attitude? Is it about a writer wanting to churn out the biggest word count possible in the least amount of time necessary, without worrying about achieving anything more than the lowest level of quality needed to get it published? What do you think?
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Kindle and Nook Collections

Some folks I know who are self-publishing on Kindle are talking about hundreds of sales for their works a month. (I don’t know any of those folks who are claiming thousands.) I have two self-published titles up on Amazon and Nook, Killing Trail and Days of Beer, and I haven’t come close to that number yet. Sales for Days of Beer have pretty well flatlined, but Killing Trail is still selling a few copies a month.

One thing the folks are saying who are publishing more is that it 1) helps to have more titles available, and 2) it helps if they are all basically in the same genre. I’m never going to be able to pull off the second one. I don’t read in any one genre and I just can’t focus my writing in one. I like stories of all kinds, and I want to write the kinds of stories I like to read. And I don’t want to use three or four different pseudonyms; I’d end up having to tell folks it was me, anyway.

However, I’ve decided that I’m going to put up at least two more ebooks from my own Razored Zen Press in 2012. One of them will not be the erotica collection I was talking about last year. I just decided I didn’t feel comfortable doing it. However, I do have two specific collections in mind that I will try to publish.

The first will be called Whiskey, Guns and Sin. It will be a noir/crime collection. The title story was previously published at Beat to a Pulp, but the ending is completely redone for this collection. The Swampy Jack story, “The Finest Cut” will also be in there. And another story, which I have an idea for but which hasn’t been written yet. I have a cover concept firmly in mind.

The second one will be a “Hauntings” collection. I have one story written for this already, called “Mouth Wet with Rain and Leaves.” There will be at least two more stories but I have to write them first. I have plenty of ideas. I don’t know what the collection title will be yet, but all the stories will deal with hauntings in some way or another. I have a cover idea for this one too, although not as firmly held.

Each of these collections will be shorter in total words than either Killing Trail or Days of Beer, but will contain three stories each and I’ll sell them for .99 cents. I’ll see if this will make any difference in my sales figures on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

For those of you who are saying, oh no, not more Gramlich already after Days of Beer in December and In the Language of Scorpions in January, it’s going to be at least a couple of months before “Whiskey” goes up, and quite a bit longer than that before the “Hauntings” collection is ready.

It’s a crazy new world of publishing out there. I haven’t the foggiest what is going to happen. But I'm going to have my stuff in the mix some way or another.
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Strange Worlds Contest: The Winner

Well, it took me longer than I'd planned to have my drawing for the copy of Strange Worlds, the illustrated Sword & Planet anthology that I have a story in. But it is now completed, as of about 9:00 this morning.

The winner is: Bernardl, and judging by his comments on Edgar Rice Burroughs I think the book has found a good home.

Sorry to all those who didn't win, and thank you for your patience.

Bernard, I have your email address so I'll email you later today about mailing you the book. Let me know if you want me to sign my story.

If anyone wants to purchase a copy of Strange Worlds, you can order them here. I'm going to order a few more copies myself for sale at some point. This month was not a good 'money' month, though.

Thanks to everyone who left a comment on that post, and who faithful visit my blog. I appreciate you folks.
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Surprise blog at Novel Spaces

My post at Novel Spaces is still up today, but is the second post down from the top now. It's about "Surprise" in writing. If you haven't visited yet, perhaps you will today.

I haven't forgotten my giveaway. I promise. Someone will win a free copy of Strange Worlds. Soon. I've just been swamped with things coming up.

Thanks to all for reading.

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In the Language of Scorpions

The moonlight settled over the December beach like snow birds coming in to roost on an arctic plain. And the midnight world was brush-stroked in white, the white of sand and shells and stones, the white of bones and ghosts. In the midst of that white was a splatter of black, or what could have been red in brighter hours. It reminded Kyle Dupree of a snowflake in negative, and he thought it was incredibly beautiful until he realized what it represented. Then he dropped the cigarette he'd walked out on the beach to smoke, and reached down with his thumb to unsnap the strap that held his Colt Trooper in its holster.

In the Language of Scorpions is out from Borgo Press. I really love the cover. Maybe my favorite yet from Borgo/Wildside. This is a collection of my horror stories, written across some two decades. Some of the tales have been printed before but there are actually quite a few new ones written (or finished) for this collection.

The sample piece that opens this blog comes from a story called “Splatter of Black,” and it features the main character from my first novel, Cold in the Light. There are a few flash fictions here too, but most are full-length stories. Here are a few other story titles from the collection:

Still Life with Skulls
Roadkill
Razor White
Haunting Place
Wall of Love
Twenty-Four Mile Bridge

Just to let folks know. Most the books that people have seen from me so far, except for Midnight in Rosary, have been heavy on fantasy adventure. “Scorpions” is a horror collection. There are a lot of Twilight Zone type stories and tales inspired by writers like Edgar Allan Poe that any reader might enjoy. But there are also some stories that have graphic gore and explore very intense subject matter. Some folks find that kind of thing uncomfortable.

In the book itself, I inserted author notes in front of some tales to let readers know what they were in for. There are notes about each of the stories a the end of the book, too, which give more information about them. The most graphic tales are “Razor White,” “Splatter of Black,” and “Wall of Love.” These were all written during the heyday of “Splatterpunk.” If you like gore, those should satisfy you. And if you don’t like gore, there are plenty other tales that I think you would enjoy.

The books is available at Amazon at the moment, in both print and ebook. It will be available on Barnes & Noble soon.

Here’s the link for print

And for Kindle

Thanks, as always, for reading.
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Writing and Other Fun Things

I've finished two stories in the past few days. One was the "Swampy Jack" story, which ended up under the title "The Finest Cut." Several folks pointed out that the original title, "Swampy Jack's Finest Cut," might either have given too much away or may not have set the right tone. I agreed. I ended up keeping the character name "Swampy Jack," though, because it fits that character and how he portrays himself. The piece is pretty much pure noir.

The other story is a horror piece under the working title right now of: "A Mouth Wet With Rain and Leaves." Some day I'll post about short versus long titles. Personally, I'm a sucker for long titles as long as they have a poetic or humorous element to them. I don't buy books for their covers, but I probably have bought books before just because the title was so cool I figured I'd have to like the writing within.

Unfortunately, the work of the semester has also hit big time. I've got a couple of research proposals on my desk to review, a student paper to edit, a set of tests to grade, a brief note I have to write for a scholarly journal, and a long scholarly book that I've been asked to review. Lana says we need to grocery shop too!

This is not to mention any pleasure reading of the books and stories I have loaded on my Kindle or sitting on my desk from blog friends like Patti, Oscar, Bernard, O'Neil, Sid, Chris, and plenty of others that I'd like to get read.

I never wonder where all the time goes. I know exactly where it goes.

By the way, I am getting ready to close my giveaway for Strange Worlds and will have the drawing this weekend. If you haven't yet entered, all you have to do is leave a comment on This Post

The Drawing will likely be held Sunday so today and Saturday it is still open.
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Styx versus The Priest

I was driving the other day when a song came on the radio that I didn’t remember ever having heard before. My first thoughts were, “Wow, this must be a remake of “Suite Madam Blue” by Styx. I punched the info button and the name Judas Priest came up. The song was titled “Beyond the Realm of Death.” There was absolutely no mention of it being a remake, and I couldn’t imagine the Priest doing a remake of Styx!

I did a little more research, and could find no connection between these two songs at all. Yet, they have almost exactly the same basic riff. “Suite Madam Blue” was on Styx’s 1975 album Equinox, while “Beyond the Realm of Death” was on Stained Class, from Judas Priest in 1978. I also read a hint that Judas Priest may have had a guest guitarist on their song, and, rather strangely, the Styx guitarist named John Curulewski, who played on Equinox, left the band right after that. I began to wonder if Curulewski could have been the guest guitarist on “Beyond the Realm of Death” but could find nothing to indicate that.

The mystery remains. How in the world could a Styx riff end up on a Judas Priest album three years later? And lest you think it’s only a passing resemblance, I’ve linked both songs below. Give them a listen, especially the opening sections.

Styx: “Suite Madam Blue”.

Judas Priest: “Beyond the Realm of Death”.

If anyone has any info on this, I’d love to hear it.
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A Life Lesson

I don't often buy new shirts, but I did at the end of 2011. I needed 'em for school. I bought 'one' long-sleeved shirt, because on rare occasion it gets cool enough in southern Louisiana for such. I also bought shirts with pockets so I could carry pens and markers to classes with me. No, I don't have a pocket protector; I'm not that much of a nerd. Though maybe I should be.

I wore my new long-sleeved shirt once. All went well. I decide to wear it again. As I'm getting ready for classes that day I have a variety of pens on my desk to choose from. I pick up one and note that it has ink smears around the bottom. Clearly, this one should not go in the pocket of my new shirt. I pluck up another instead and am off to class.

I come back from class with a giant ink stain in the pocket of my shirt. The pen that looked as if it would not leak...leaked. I am absolutely sure this experience has provided me with a life lesson I need to learn. I'm just not exactly sure what the lesson is.

At first, I thought the lesson was: "No matter what decisions you make in life, you are screwed." Then I thought, maybe, it was: "Don't worry about trying to prevent disasters. You can't." But then, perhaps, the lesson is really: "Give up any illusion you have that you can 'control' things in life."

Right now, I'm leaning toward another interpretation of the event: "Inanimate objects know what you are thinking and will do anything they can to spite you."

I'm wearing my ink stained shirt today. I'm carrying the pen in the pocket that 'looked' as if it would leak. It felt like the thing to do. I hope I'm not throwing a gauntlet into the face of the inanimate world. I'm badly outnumbered, if so.

Wish me luck!
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The Genesis of an Idea, at Novel Spaces

I'm over at Novel Spaces today with a post about generating writing ideas. It's related to an idea for a story that occurred to me yesterday on my commute for a noir story I'm calling "Swampy Jack's Final Cut." I hope you'll drop by.

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Upcoming!

I'm looking forward to what I hope will be a couple of big publications in 2012. I hesitate almost to mention them, having been burned that way in the past, but I don't really have a lot of other stuff to blog about today and not a lot of time to think about what to blog anyway with it being the first day of classes. So let's hope I don't jinx myself.

First, a collection of my horror stories has been sent to the publisher by Borgo Press's editor. I don't know exactly when it will be out, but in past practice it's been within a month or two of getting to the publisher. That collection will be called "In the Language of Scorpions."

Second, Borgo's editor, Rob Reginald, has found a possible match for "Under the Ember Star," my space opera novella. He plans to publish it as a "Double," with "Ember Star" on one side and another novella on the other side. I'm looking forward to seeing how that turns out.

I'm working on two short stories at the moment, one called "Harvest of War," for a Scott Oden anthology, and the other called "Swampy Jack's Finest Cut." I came up with the idea for "Finest Cut" commuting across the 24 mile Bridge this morning.

Hope everyone's day is off to a good start.
Later.
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A Pub and some Reviews

My last post featured a giveaway and I'm going to let that run a little longer, so if you haven't yet entered the drawing for a copy of Strange Worlds, just leave a comment on the post HERE.

In the meantime, though, I thought I'd go ahead and post a couple of things of interest (at least to me) that have come up. First, an article I wrote about Sword and Planet fiction, and which Steve Servello expanded, is up online at ERBzine, volume 3566. If you'd like to know more about that genre, you can find it here.

I've also gotten some very nice reviews on Amazon for Days of Beer. I thought I might copy them here. Thanks very much to Steve, Randy, Travis, and Kent. I much appreciate it.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Frothy Adventure, January 3, 2012
By Travis D. Erwin "Travis Erwin"
A quick, enjoyable read as tasty as a cold one on a hot summer day. Reading this book is like sitting down and with great friends on a Friday night. The stories will make you smile, reminisce, and forget all about the hangovers that went along with them.

4.0 out of 5 stars great fun, January 2, 2012
By Kent Westmoreland
I love this book. It reminds me of my own mis-spent youth, but in North Carolina. Charles is a great wit; he'll keep you in stitches.

5.0 out of 5 stars How well I remember . . . well maybe not, December 31, 2011
By Pleasure Reader "Steve"
Charles has created a wonderful coming of (drinking) age tale set in rural Arkansas. Growing up in Oklahoma, may of the images and events he describes bring back vague memories for obvious reasons. Charles tells his stories with such self-deprecating humor and a wonderful descriptive voice that pulls you into each successive tale even if they do not always turn out successful for him. Great fun.

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny!, December 31, 2011
By George R. Johnson "Randy Johnson"
Charles' humorous look at his "love affair" with beer, from his first taste to his first drunk to various adventures he went through over the years. Some eerily mirrored things that happened to me. Maybe it's a universal male thing.

Had quite a lot of fun reading this. He mentions not liking Budweiser. Same here and I used to love to infuriate "Weiser drinkers by saying I'd rather have a Blue Ribbon.

Recommended.
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New School Year, a Review, and a Giveaway

My son, Josh, is coming up today so I won't be around the net much. And tomorrow I start back to school so I'm going to be less regular (in blogging that is) than I've been over the Christmas break. In the meantime, I leave you with a review.

With his John Carter of Mars series, Edgar Rice Burroughs ignited a publishing juggernaut that lasted well into the 1980s and drew in writers such as Robert E. Howard, Leigh Brackett, Gardner F. Fox, Lin Carter, Alan Burt Akers (Ken Bulmer), and many others. The John Carter stories formed the prototype of a genre that came to be called Sword and Planet fiction. By the late 1980s, however, the genre had declined to the point that it was no longer being published by the major presses and only the small presses kept it alive. Now, Jeff Doten has created one of the first new pure Sword and Planet anthologies to appear in many years, and he himself did the lavish interior illustrations for the work. Here are my thoughts and notes on the collection.

Strange Worlds, “Collected and Illustrated by Jeff Doten.”
Space Puppet Press, 2011

Soft cover, fully illustrated, 189 pages.

Contains an introduction, eight illustrated stories, and a full color comic book, as well as an expansive list of suggested reading in the genre of Sword & Planet fiction. Each story is introduced with a full color cover set up to look like the fantastic paperback covers of the 1970s and 80s.

Cover: by Jeff Doten. A John Carter type character is caught in a contemplative mood.

Introduction, by Jeff Doten. A very short commentary on the nature of Sword & Planet fiction.

1st story: “God’s Dream,” by Charles A. Gramlich. As a boy, Zarn’s father is murdered by desert nomads and Zarn himself is taken captive. He grows to adulthood and earns the right to wear the title nomad for himself, but he can never be fully a nomad, and the mystery of his father’s death draws him into the badlands and toward a destiny he has never suspected.

2nd story: “When the World Changed,” by Ken St. Andre. Is it death that awaits anyone who opens the Pits of Vrando’harr? Or something much worse?

3rd story: “Metal Rat & the Brand New Jungle,” by Jennifer Rahn. Ivor and Tyla fight the Zernesq, and no matter how strange the world around them becomes they find a way to fight on. This one definitely had one of the strangest and most unpredictable endings I’ve seen in fantasy.

4th story: “Pearls of Uraton,” by Paul R. McNamee. Drak of Dithor knows how to get things done on Uraton. That’s why two Terrans come to him with a dangerous and illegal request. Great hook at the beginning and action all through this one.

5th story: “The Final Gift,” by Liz Coley. It is time for Tarn to seek his spirit guide, and kill it with the last new blade of his people. But what if the beast he meets is more than a beast?

6th story: “The Beasts of the Abyss,” by Lisa V. Tomecek. “Miranda Station. Edge of the empire. No man’s land. A place of little opportunity and even less mercy. For Caliban, it was perfect.” Lisa Tomecek was channeling her inner Leigh Brackett when she wrote this one. The atmosphere and action are very good.

7th story: “The Specimen,” by Adrian Kleinbergen. You open a small doorway into a parallel universe and you get a small sample of the weirdness to be found there. What happens when you open a “big” doorway?

8th story: “Slavers of Trakor,” by Charles R. Rutledge. Connor Blake had what John Carter had, what Dray Prescot had, but then his princess was killed, her flyer shot down by the insect-like Chithlain’s. And now Connor has only emptiness. Until a young man tries to waylay him and instead ends up offering Connor redemption.

Comic book: “Martian Abductations,” by Jeff Doten. A grocery run on old Mars is not for the faint of heart.

Suggested Reading: A pretty comprehensive list of the best known Sword and Planet fiction available. Authors and titles listed.

Now for the giveaway. I have a copy of this book that I'm going to give away to one of the commenters on this blog. I'm going to leave this post up for a few days so if you want to be entered in the drawing for the book just leave a comment. After I have the drawing, I'll post the winner here and indicate how to get in touch with me to claim your prize.

If you can't wait and simply must have your copy shipped now, you can order these: HERE.

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So how was 2011 from a Writing Perspective?

I guess most folks my age or older will agree that the events of a single year kind of run together these days. I remember events but I don’t remember exactly when they occurred. Was it 2011 or 2010, or maybe 2009. I can’t keep ‘em straight. That’s one of the major reasons why I start my new year with a retrospectus on the old one. I’ve always been a guy who likes ‘summing up.” I like making lists. I like seeing lists grow. And these days I need to do that sort of thing regularly to keep up.

Until I sat down this morning to look at my 2011 writing, I had a feeling it had been a slow year for me. Turns out not so much. More good things happened than I recalled. Borgo/Wildside published Midnight in Rosary, my collection of vampire and werewolf stories. Swords of Talera, Wings Over Talera and Witch of Talera were released as ebooks at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. A Rip Through Time came out, to which I was a contributor, and it made a bit of a splash. Strange Worlds also came out, one of the first illustrated anthologies of Sword & Planet fiction ever, and I had the lead story in that, called “God’s Dream.” The Dreams in the Fire Cross Plains charity anthology came out, which contains my story “A Gathering of Ravens,” and what might well have been the best short story I read in 2011: “I Am a Martian Galley Slave,” by David Hardy.

I finished a couple of nonfiction essays that paid pretty well, and had stories published in Rick Moore’s White Cat Magazine (“Ruins and Wraiths”) and in Trembles Magazine (“Lily White and Red.”). Gave a couple of nicely attended speaking engagements and got invited to three cons that I much enjoyed, The LA SF and Costuming Fest, The Undead Con, and CONtraflow. Did a couple of online interviews, most notably over at Elaine Ash’s wonderful blog. That was actually more of a feature than an interview, and one I cherished.

For brand new writing, I didn’t do that much. The school year was pretty rough, especially in the fall, and there were health issues for both Lana and I all year long. I did complete two new novella length projects, “Under the Ember Star,” a space opera piece which should be out next year from Borgo Press, and “Days of Beer,” a humorous memoir of my beer drinking days, which I self-published from Kindle and B&N at the very end of the year.

I also blogged a lot, facebooked a lot, read a lot, and in March I bought a new car, a Hyundai Elantra. All in all, not a bad year.
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