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What’s Happening?
This time out, there is quite a bit happening. I suddenly owe several short stories to several interesting projects. I’ll mention them in this newsletter, but not all at once, because where is the fun in that?
The first book is already available. It’s titled THE WICKER YULE, edited by Alex S. Johnson. In there along with Billy Martin (Poppy Z. Brite), Jeffrey Thomas, Sandy Deluca, Nicole Sixx- interviews, poetry – Clive Barker… is my story “I’ll Have a Deep Blue Christmas”. For those familiar with the novel DEEP BLUE, this is something I wrote long ago to tell Old Wally’s backstory. It’s been published only once on a long defunct website, so good as new. Also, I did a quick edit/revision because I could not help myself. If you have NOT read Deep Blue, Old Wally is a harmonica player that the novel’s protagonist, Brandt, meets in an alley full of trash can fires and lost souls. He is the one who “gifts” Brandt with the ability to play the “deep blues,” playing away the pain of the world. The curse of this gift is that if Brandt doesn’t play, the pain builds up. “Crossroads or the crosshairs, boy. Ain’t no in between.” “I’ll Have a Deep Blue Christmas is a Christmas story, but not a happy one.
Along with that, I’ve created a landing page for DEEP BLUE at Bookfunnel – a simple sign up for this newsletter is all that is required to download a free copy of the novel. There is a similar page for HEART OF A DRAGON, book one of The DeChance Chronicles, which can also be had for free.
If you are reading this you are probably already a subscriber, but if not, those free books are a good incentive. If you are already subscribed, you can still sign up and get the book. The system won’t add you twice, but it’s the least I can do for those who pay attention to me now and then. I would very much appreciate if you would pass on either the newsletter, or the links below, to others so they can get the free books as well.
You can find those pages here. DEEP BLUE / HEART OF A DRAGON
I also have a story coming soon in a tribute to Billy Martin / Poppy Z. Brite. More to come on that. When there are better details.
Staying on the FREE STUFF subject, and on Book Funnel, which I am learning is a pretty good tool, I have made the first story in my new collection HICKORY NUTS & BONES and Other Uncomfortable Tales free in the hope that reading it will convince you to check out the rest of the book. This is a new, unpublished story, very personal memories woven into it… You can read the story and find the buy it links here: Hickory Nuts & Bones.
The bigger news (maybe) is that the agent has interest from a very good publisher in my novel Tattered Remnants, featuring an odd character named Lucien who is a bookbinder, among many other things, and Monica Velazquez, a detective with an eidetic memory that haunts her. The thing is, though, the interest was accompanied by the question, “How is he coming on the second book?”
(Narrator: He had not, in fact, started book two, despite providing a short synopsis, because it felt foolish to write a second book if the first didn’t sell).
I have been pounding the keyboard to get the first three chapters of Guilty Until Proven Innocent down and edited to send to my agent, and I’m finding that what seemed like a difficult thing to pull of is less so than I believed. I am really loving the book. Of course, I’m still working on the big horror novel as well, so busy hardly seems an adequate word.
Quick notes: Passed my CompTIA Security+ exam which will help if I need to change jobs later this year. Did NOT break my arm, or die, when the swinging door by the dumpster at work got caught in a huge gust of wind. Spun out of the way (almost) just in time and got a bruise and a scrape and a scare. Have not won the 1.6 (now) billion-dollar lottery (yet). Onward.
What I’m Reading
Currently reading: On Kindle, Blood of the Witness Tree by J. C. Vande Zande – picked it up from a post on Bluesky, just so you know that some of us actually buy and read one another’s books. About 20% in and enjoying this one.
Listening to the audiobook of WHISTLE by Linwood Barclay. Very reminiscent of Stephen King in places. Toy trains, writer protagonist. Eva Kaminsky is doing a great job of narrating.
My review of Harry Turtledove’s TWICE AS DEAD is on Goodreads, and I’m one completed book from my goal of fifty for the year.
Still making my way through The Essential Bukowski: Poetry – There is a poem in this book, The-History-Of-One-Tough-Motherfucker – that really hit me. He loved cats… so I found common ground.
What I’m Watching
Watched and enjoyed the new Knives Out movie Wake Up Dead Man and really enjoyed it. Not as silly as the last one – well acted and a lot of fun. Also watched the old and the new SPINAL TAP movies. Daughter (21) enjoyed both, so that was a win. The new movie is just about perfect.
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