Behold, the Power of Writing!

Last week was a rough week. Nothing spectacularly awful, but one of those weeks when not enough goes right, too much goes wrong, and way too much simply doesn't go at all. Annoying. Frustrating. And, to some extent, demoralizing. A real beat down of a week.

But these things have a way of turning around in the most unexpected ways.

Awhile back my friend Russ asked me to read his novel Finders Keepers. He's been working on it for a long time, gone through at least a few drafts I know of, and has had some very promising interest from some good-sized publishers. He's also got a website dedicated to it. When he asked me to read it, he was closing in on finishing the first draft of his second novel and planning to polish FK afterwards. Lately Russ and I have gotten into the habit of hanging out to talk about writing about once a month, and he thought I might give him some feedback before he tackled what he plans to be his final draft.

As long as I've known Russ, this was actually the first of his writing I was going to read. I get nervous when people ask for my feedback. I like doing it, but too often over the years I've found myself in the uncomfortable position of telling people things they obviously didn't want to hear. Not that I'm some wunderkind. It's only ever my opinion as a reader and writer and I take pains to be tactful, but a lot of writers, it turns out, are rather...well, thin skinned.

Shocking. I know.

Thing is, Russ ain't one of them. As I soon learned, Russ is a genuine journeyman who knows the devil isn't in the details, it's in editing and rewriting the details. So when we got together for a beer last week, Finders Keepers came up. After I finished telling him how wonderful, deep, and engaging his characters are, how crisp and lively his dialogue is, and how flat-out cool and original some of his ideas are, I got around to a few...structural items...that had bothered me as a reader. Then, somewhere along the line (Don't ask me exactly when, because we were drinking; writers are always drinking, it seems. Shocking. I know.)... but at some point, I blurted out that I thought he might want to cut the first, oh, 150 pages or so of his novel and start it much later than he had.

Then I hid behind my pint of Guinness and held my breath. And waited.

That's when Russ said, "You know, I was sort of thinking that, too." Or words to that affect. (Again, drinking.)

After I decided he wasn't trying to lure me out from behind my Guiness for a quick ninja blow to my larynx (trade secret: all writers have ninja powers), I cautiously set my glass down. We then spent about an hour and a half hashing through what he'd written, what he'd intended, how it had read to me, how he'd edited it in the past, and what he might do with it for the final draft.

The whole evening left me really energized about writing. We writers work alone too much. Sometimes we really need that little push from someone who reminds us to listen to our instincts. And sometimes we need to be reminded that writing is about going out on a limb even if that only means being honest when someone asks for feedback.

So, two days later Russ sent me a rough draft of his new first chapter. And it rocks.

Then the same day my Domino Lady author copies showed up in the mail and Jason Whitley sent me the last piece of art for my upcoming story collection, Resurrection House. And it creeped the hell out of me. Jason is that good.

And that downtrodden, sickly feeling that'd been nagging me all week simply... went away. Behold, the power of writing!

Compliments of the Domino Lady

I was only passing familiar with the Domino Lady until a couple of years back. That's when pulpmaster Ron Fortier asked me if I might be interested in writing a story about her for an anthology he was compiling. A pulp heroine who originally appeared in a mere handful of stories, Domino Lady's mystique (and, perhaps, physique) has saved her from being lost to the ages. Because Ron is an old friend and a terrific pulp writer and everything about the project sounded cool, I jumped on board. I did my research, and penned a 15,000 word novella, "The Devil, You Know." Aftwerward, as is not uncommon with live projects, the Domino Lady book began to evolve. For awhile it seemed like the book might even be on the ropes, but thanks to Ron's tireless efforts to keep it alive, it landed at Moonstone Books, where the scope of the anthology grew beyond it's original plan. A very satisfying twist, indeed.

Moonstone is arguably the finest publisher of new pulp fiction and comics working today. They've published a lengthy list of comics and prose anthologies featuring the Phantom, the Spider, Zorro, Kolchak, the Night Stalker, and many other classic characters. And they've done it with style and respect for the origins of those characters. Editor Lori Gentile quickly took the Domino Lady up a notch, expanded the scope of the project, lined up pulp-style illustrations and some more contributors, and brought everything to completion for what may be the best pulp anthology I've yet been published in.

My story appears there alongside the work of my friends and terrific writers, Ron Fortier, CJ Henderson, and Martin Powell, as well as comics great, Chuck Dixon. I've read a lot of Chuck Dixon comics over the years; he's one of the industry's sharpest writers and its reigning master of action and adventure stories. Mr. Dixon's run on Batman and Detective Comics is one of my favorite eras for the Dark Knight, and that's only scratching the surface of his body of work. So, it's extremely cool to share pages with him.

So, my thanks to Ron for bringing me into the fold on this book, and to Joe Gentile and Lori G. at Moonstone for seeing the potential in Domino Lady and for being so great to work with through editing and production.

For more info on the book, Moonstone has the full details and Jazma Online has an interview with me done during production.

As for the Domino Lady, aka Ellen Patrick, she's a wealthy socialite whose father was murdered when he tried to clean up corruption in the local government. Ellen, donning a trademark, black-and-white outfit and domino mask, sets out to strike back at the rich, powerful, and evil, by stealing their wealth and exposing their crimes, carrying on her father's work in spirit if not in practice. So, of course, in my story, she gets wrapped up with a group of powerful Satanists who hold places of power in the state government, and much mayhem and danger ensues.

Back to Blogging

Wow, almost a year since my last blog post. I'm lame.

But, well, it's been a hell of a year with a lot of ups and downs, some stretches of rough road, and one or two sudden, dog-leg turns thrown in, but at least there were no explosions. No explosions is usually a good sign.

So I maybe I'm not so lame. It's not like I was cooped up in the basement watching non-stop marathons of David Lynch and Alejandro Jodorowsky movies in search of the hidden meaning of life.

Life does intervene after all, and the real world must take precedence over the Inter-world. I know this because I know which one of those worlds requires me to breathe and eat and live indoors and stuff like that.

Since my last post I've had some new stories published, some old ones come back into print, scripted a four-issue comic book series that came up out of the blue, appeared in an award-winning anthology, and... struck a deal with Dark Regions Press to publish a collection of my short stories this Spring. It's going to be called Resurrection House, and I'll have a lot more to say about it here soon.

I've updated my website with new info, images, and story excerpts and links.

I've also reconnected with some old friends, had new adventures with some other friends, and all around gone through what feels like nigh onto a decade's worth of life changes in less than twelve months, but, hey, that's life.

And if you think I'm going to blog furiously over the next few weeks to catch us all up on what these things are and how they've impacted my life and writing... forget it. I'm going Stan Lee on this. If you missed the last issue or even the last year's worth, don't worry. Captain America's clinging to the side of a giant robot, the Red Skull is screaming maniacally, and there's three seconds before the nuke goes off. That's all you need to know to enjoy the ride.

So, here's the first review for So It Begins. This is the second anthology in the military science fiction series, Defending the Future, edited by the smart, talented, and gentlemanly Mike McMphail. It includes my story, "War Movies." The first volume, Breach the Hull, included my story, "Killer Eye."

More blog soon...