Pre-Ordering Strangely Funny now on Amazon

This is a thing now.  While the ebook is ready for download, the print paperback version is available to pre-order and early shipping for those preferring physical copy.

I wonder if the Snoopy Dance GIF works on a blog page...

IT DOES!  VICTORY!

On Catriona McPherson

She's the best-known of the authors contributing to the Strangely Funny anthology.  A British author, she's published rather recently a new mystery series (Dandy Gilver) and a couple of other mystery thrillers here and there.

We've got some of the Dandy Gilver books on the shelves here at the library.  I'm gonna have a look-see at my fellow contributor.  She's got a decent fanbase and a slew of good reviews (and a couple of awards) so it should be good reading.

Update: eBook versions of Strangely Funny now available!

Woot!  Whoop!  Huzzah!

The print version is still a week away, but thanks to the tireless efforts of the editors Sarah Glenn and Gwen Mayo, various ebook providers are now offering downloads at $2.99 for the Strangely Funny humor-horror anthology.

Amazon link here.

Smashwords (which includes ePUB versions accessible to Nook, iPad, and other formats) link here.

Yes, I know my name does not appear as a contributor on the Amazon and Smashwords pages, but I assure you my short story "I Must Be Your First" is published.  The other authors listed are better known, one of them an award-winning mystery writer Catriona McPherson (she won for Best Historical Novel in 2012 for Unsuitable Day For Murder), so I don't mind not being on the marquee.  What's important is that 1) I've been published outside of my self-publishing efforts and 2) hopefully other people reading for the other authors will see my story, like it, and follow up after my other works.

So again, Yay and Woot!  Feeling good today. :)

It's Getting Closer To Publish: Update on Strangely Funny

The editors just sent me a galley to proof, which was awesome I must say... I spotted a glaring grammar goof (say it five times fast!) and asked they change one word to another so it wouldn't be so glaring.  Otherwise, everything seemed to be in place.

Some of the other stories in the Strangely Funny anthology look to be well-done, so this is looking to be a great print.  Spread the word to people (and libraries) to keep an eye out for it, publication is scheduled for August... um, not sure of the exact date yet but hey when you see me jumping up and down you'll know...

Words Into Chapters

I may have to break a chapter I've planned down into two in order to make the pacing work.  Although it leaves the story a bit unbalanced.

In short, I'm coming up with more excuses to avoid finishing off the last two (THREE) chapters of the rough draft.  Tell me to keep working...

A Master Writer Passes: Richard Matheson

News is out that Richard Matheson died today.

Basically, he's THE horror writer of the Sixties and early Seventies.  Before Stephen King, it was Matheson. His literary work covered novels, shorts, television screenplays, movie adaptations.

Matheson's greatest contribution was the updating of the horror setting from the 19th Century (or earlier) to the 20th.  A lot of horror and fantasy by the 1960s had been stuck in the era of Edgar Allan Poe and Hawthorne, in some gothic nighttime landscape of ruined castles and decaying nations.  Matheson brought the horror into the suburbs and cities: his I Am Legend not only redesigned the vampire genre, it basically launched the concept of a Zombie apocalypse (and redefined the concept of just who the monsters really are), and doing it in a world most readers would see as their own (amplifying the horror).  His heroes no longer soldiers or priests or barons in pursuit of the supernatural: they were common blue-collar workers or office drones, suddenly confronted with a real-time terror that wouldn't go away with prayers to a distant God.

This YouTube clip is from Duel, a made-for-TV movie directed by a relative unknown by the name of Steven Spielberg.  Matheson's screenplay played on the fears of driving alone, of being stalked by an unknown force (we never see the driver in full), of a civilized man (an office worker taking a work trip) being stripped of manhood in a stark and dangerous desert land, of the mundane horror that some other human - some bland nobody - can be a monster.

RIP, Mr. Matheson.  ...Just don't mind if we, uh, shove a metal stake into your heart to make sure...  WATCH OUT HE'S GETTING UP HE'S

...

Shamelessly Creating a Facebook Page

As I get closer to finishing my first novel's rough draft, I'm setting up a promotional page on Facebook to get some self-marketing underway.

Just gotta get a better banner image posted... I tried inserting one and the dang thing kept telling me the pixel size was too small, and it wasn't, I SWEAR the pixels were over 600... and still it wouldn't aaaaaaahh /headdesking

Okay, this was the banner I was trying to post:

Is it too small?