Adventures in Bat Country

Life as a freelancer writer is chaotic, wonderful, and frightening.

I love my current contract with the Mouse. I work on a laptop in the company cafe because my office has two other technical writers in a very cramped space and I get warm easily. The only downside is that the windows are open providing a spectacular view of the city of Seattle. I have to sit behind a curtain least I spend the day staring at the Smith Tower. The only downside is that I’ve had to brush up my Java skills.

I had a difficult choice to make last week as a fiction writer. A small press that shall not be named made an offer on The Highway West. Knowing that another believes in your work enough to publish it is a heady matter especially when you’ve been trying to get others to look at your book for almost a year. I read through the contract and it felt wrong. I won't go into details, but I politely turned them down. I believe in this series and I hope that one day I am able to share it with you. I have faith that I will eventually find a hope for this book.

I managed to finish the drafts of two short stories in the last couple of weeks. I need to edit them this weekend.

“Spinach Salad and Heirloom Tomatoes: Lessons from the Victory Garden” was difficult because I couldn’t decide how to tell the story. I wrote a first person and a third person version of this story. I am letting Lisa read through it to decide.

“What I Did This Summer: A 7th Grade Essay by Suzie Sampson” was a story I wrote for Michael Dyer when he won the cover contest for Twilight Temptations.

I am currently working on three stories for various anthologies:

“House of the Sleeping Beauties” involves a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty myth from a Lovecraftian point of view.

“Nothing Has Changed of the Sorrow in Store” is a sad little ghost story involving Michal and the Witch of Endor. Michal is the daughter of King Saul who was killed by a ghost he demanded that the Witch of Endor summon for advice. Michal laters marries King David, but first she has to prepare the body of her father for burial. This is a strange little story.

The last story is untitled, but involves Ed Wood and the Lovecraft mythos.

I am what I like to call a method writer. I have to be able to experience the emotion of a scene to write about it properly. This week I returned to working on the sequel to The Highway West titled A Wicked Messenger. There is a scene where the main characters have forgotten to fill their gas tank and it starts a major fight. This has been surprisingly easy to write. I have a major phobia about running out of gas that can trigger anger and anxiety. I have been in huge fights with my wife over stopping to get gas. My mother used to push the envelope and often we ran out of gas during the summer waiting on the side of the road for a friend to help us. I hated that helpless feeling and have been channeling it into this scene.

Yesterday, I dusted off an old comic book script that I wrote as a sample for DC comics titled The Joker’s Crusade. It was rejected, but it ain’t half bad. I might post it for giggles. I have a number of rejected media fiction in my files. I should share them as examples.

My short story “Recovery” is featured in the just released anthology IN SITU from Dagan Books.

IN SITU is a new anthology of science fiction stories featuring alien archeology, hidden mysteries, and things that are better off left buried.

A quiet man finds more than he bargained for when he sets out with his metal detector on a lonely hill … A soldier meets a new kind of enemy fighting an altogether different kind of war … On a distant swamp planet, a woman questions what kind of human she’s becoming … a pregnant archeologist finds a connection with a long-dead alien child … while deep space scavengers wonder what it ever meant to be human at all. These fifteen evocative science fiction stories will take you from dusty archaeologists digging up our alien past into a distant future where we’ve become the relics. Thought-provoking and entertaining, IN SITU explores science, theology, preservation, and the art of alien finance, in a whole new way.

Edited by Carrie Cuinn. Contains stories by Ken Liu, KV Taylor, Paul A. Dixon, Bear Weiter, Mae Empson, Jason Andrew, Greg Burch, Sarah Hendrix, R.S. Hunter, Rebecca Lloyd, Alex Shvartsman, Kelly C. Stiles, Graham Storrs, David J. West, and Dawn Vogel.

You can purchase it from Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/In-Situ-Ken-Liu/dp/0983137323/ref=la_B003NMGK6A_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341941135&sr=1-1

Greetings,

My 2006 novella Fear and Loathing in Bat Country: Hunter S. Thompson Versus Dracula is now available on the Nook at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/fear-and-loathing-in-bat-country-jason-andrew/1007628272

This is my first Nook title and thus it is free for the next couple of days and make sure that the bugs have been worked out. Limited time only. Then you will have to pay a whole $1 to read it!

Today was a working Saturday. I finished writing the second of my contracted chapters for Hunters Hunted 2.

I took a break in the middle of the day to watch one of my favorite movies Ed Wood. Johnny Depp has never been finer than in this movie, not even Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

I grew up with a great deal of love of monster movies. Every Saturday afternoon, I watched the Creature Feature and watched the horror greats such as Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, and the mighty Bela Lugosi. It must have been a magical time for movie goers.
Ed Wood loved monster movies. He was unashamed of that love and did crazy things to make that dream happen. His friends were a rag-tag crew that helped his dream, even going so far as to be baptized to get funding for Plan 9 From Outer Space. Sometimes, I wonder if I have the grit to stick with my dream like he did in the face of solid rejection and scorn.

Tonight, I was finishing my work when I was poked from a good friend Mario. A number of friends were at a local pub nearby and so Lisa and I took a break to visit with them. It was a fine night with good friends that cheer me forward and drag me away from the computer to take breaks. I was drinking a Bloody Mary and looking at the circle of friends and I realized that how lucky I am as a person.

Granted, none of them are as crazy as Bunny Breckinridge, but almost as colorful.

Weird that I would be the happiest I've ever been at 39. Fate is a strange mistress.

The last week has been very busy for me. I’ve been spending most of my writing cycles researching and working on my sections of Hunters Hunted 2 for White Wolf Books. I’ve looked at so many WoD books I’m dreaming about them. I’ve been taking my time to fill my sections with the maximum amount of awesome.

My lovely wife just finished reviewing “The Murmur of Lorelei” and returned it with copyedits. This story was an informal love letter to my wife. Tonight, I will be finishing that story and sending it to the editor a couple of days early!

At lunch, I did a vague outline for the short story that Michael Dyer won titled “What I Did During My Summer Vacation by Susan Sampson.” This story will be set in my Ravenswood Academy universe of mad super science and legalized villainy. It features Robotic Ben Franklin!

Once my freelance duties are fulfilled, I’ll be making a mad dash to finish the sequel to my novel The Highway West titled A Wicked Messenger.

I have a firm mental picture of the last two story arcs and I’m very excited. I have names for all of the remaining chapters with the notable exception of the last chapter. I’m considering either “Lenny Bruce is not Afraid” or “New Ways to Fall Apart.”

Thanks to my meta-outline for the Dreamlands Chronicles, I’ve been able to see cameos from characters that will appear in the Omega Watch trilogy. Thus far my outline has:

Dreamlands Chronicles:

The Highway West Trilogy:
• The Highway West
• A Wicked Messenger
• The Man of Constant Sorrow

The Omega Watch Trilogy:
• The Omega Watch
• Project Ouroboros
• The Arc Paradox

My novel The Highway West had advanced to the semifinals in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. From 5,000 entries, there are now only fifty left in the Young Adult category.

This is a wonderful birthday present!

One of my Secret Projects just had a death knell. , but I feel really good over all.

By nature, I am an introvert. I’ve never been comfortable in crowds. Usually, I feel drained emotionally and physically when I am completely surrounded with people. It isn’t so much a phobia merely a preference. It took a long time for me to develop proper social skills. I think the Camarilla really helped me develop those skills. It taught me how to manage crowds and exist within a group of people. I have friends such as Mario Medina that feed from crowds like vampires. I am not so lucky, but I’m starting to manage.

When I returned to Fresno for my cousin’s funeral, a number of relatives commented how comfortable and articulate they found me and was surprised that I could be charming and talking to them. I can only imagine the mess I was when I first left California.

This weekend is Norwestcon. This is a huge science fiction and fantasy convention. It also means a good thousand plus people in the same hotel. I managed to run an 800 person game at Grand Masquerade 2011, but this makes me a little nervous.

Writing has always been a private thing and only in the last year did I even fully come out of the closet and discuss it with friends openly. I have remind myself that networking is part of the business. I wish I had Jason Carl’s natural skills. Someday that man will be the secret master of the world.

I have two meetings this weekend. Fingers are crossed. I have a number of friends and acquaintances visiting. I plan to hit a number of the panels.

Work with Secret Project #1 has been paused until I get a contract and the budget is approved. I am very excited on this one.

Secret Project #2 seems a bit dubious at this point. The team I would be working with is sheer awesome. However, the discussion over the contract has been running six months now and I’m starting to feel less confident than I once was. I am very disappointed by this, but it wasn't entirely unexpected. This is a property I really love and so I still have a bit of hope.

The bright side of the fence is that there is now a Secret Project #3 involving a dark fantasy erotica novella for this year. This is looking very good at the moment.

My novel The Highway West is a Quarter Finalist at the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. I am fairly proud of making it to this round, but there is still a long, long way to go. You can see the excerpt here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Highway-West-Entry-ebook/dp/B007GEBZU2/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

Writing on the sequel A Wicked Messenger is proceeding at a good pace. I expect to be done by the end of May or beginning of June for the first draft. I know it seems weird to write a sequel to a novel that hasn’t been published or accepted yet, but I feel this story in my bones.

I have a couple of short stories I need to complete in the next month or two. Two of them were invitation only anthologies. Those can be intimidating because you really want to do well for the editor that remembered you. I did a good deal of research and brainstorming last night for the one due at the end of May. I am going to start this story after Norwestcon.

Thus far these are the stories of mine that will be published this year:

“The Application of Discipline” and “Omega” will be appearing in a forthcoming Wildside Press megapack e-anthology as reprints.

“Lessons Learned From My 5th Attempt to Conquer the World” will be appearing in Stupefying Stories.

“Lay Down Your Hair” will appear in the anthology Queer Fish 2 from Pink Narcissus Press.

“The Sky God’s Daughter” will appear in the anthology Daughters of Icarus from Pink Narcissus Press.

“Recovery” will appear in the anthology In SITU from Dagan Books.

"The Honey Offering" will appear in the anthology The Extinction Files anthology by Alter Press.

"A Test of Will" shall appear in the Anthology of Ichor IV by Unearthed Press.

Twilight Temptations is now available as an e-book for a mere $2.99. You can purchase it here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0072JLHIG

If you own a kindle, you can check out the book for a month for free via the Prime program. (Note: Amazon pays authors royalties for this service so please feel free to take a look before you buy. It helps rather than hurts us.)

Twilight Temptations is still available in print here: https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/books/book-detail-page?ie=UTF8&bookASIN=1468130811&index=default

As a reminder, there is a Twilight Temptations cover photo contest and e-books do qualify for the contest. Details can be found here: http://jasonbandrew.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/twilight-temptations-contest/

Reading through all of your stories from a certain period is like a snapshot of who you were during that time. Last month, I read through all of my published stories from 2005 to 2010 and looked for a theme amongst the best of them.

It turns out that I was very interested in the temptations of the dark side and what a person was willing to surrender to achieve their ambition or dreams.

I started reading the last couple of stories I’ve recently written and I discovered the very best ones were about rebelling flesh. Souls dealing with the betrayal of their bodies. I’m older and now my body isn’t as healthy as it once was. I was sick at the early part of last year with Bell’s Palsy and surely that had an impact in the stories that came afterwards.

I think my short story “A Pattern Recognized Amongst the Stars” is the best thing I’ve written yet. I don’t think I could have written it if I hadn’t gotten sick and started wondering about my mortality and the slow breakdown of my body.

Our world affects us in such subtle ways that it is impossible to see sometimes until after the situation has passed. Perhaps that is why we look back to younger days with such happiness. Sometimes, I think writers have to tell a story over and over again until we’ve gotten it out of our system.

This last year involved some changes for me socially. I’ve gained a number of new friends and lost a few that were very important to me. Is that way suddenly I’ve become interested in the breakdown of relationships?

Sometimes, I think if you look too deeply into your own motivations, you start to wonder if you have any real free will independent of external stimuli.

The word amateur comes from the Latin word amātor meaning to love. It has come to mean lacking in professional skill rather than the earlier meaning of an engaging in a past time because you love it. I think we're socially discouraged from engaging in such things if we can't become professional at it. I think that is very sad. There are very few people that can be rock stars, but there's no reason you can't love making music and singing in a garage band. It is OK to produce entertainment as well as consume it.

The modern word for amateur is fan. Someone that is fanatic of a subject.

I think for me the best part of writing short fiction is to explore passions and fears that are not my own. The more interesting stories are about characters that love or hate something and then allow readers to experience that passion, even if they aren't interested in the actual subject.

If I am going to put the effort into a novel, the subject and the themes have to be something for which I feel a certain amount of internal passion.

Short stories are less of an investment and thus more freeing internally. It is a chance to see a subject through the eyes of someone that loves, hates, or fears it.

I've never had a fear of bees for example, but I've been reading about Apiculture Bees and Apiphobia (aka fear of Bees). It is fascinating how there is a tiny subculture of which I had no concept. I love to be surprised.

I think amateur is a word that we need to embrace as a culture.