Adventures in Bat Country

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.

Sales on Twilight Temptations have been fairly decent and thus far I haven’t seen a drop in numbers. Your emails and comments have been very encouraging.

A few years ago I tried an experimental crowd-funding project called Dylan and the Dream Pirates. A number of you volunteered money to see the chapters posted each month. This was my highest paid project in my career. However, I feel as though the audience for that novel could be bigger if it was released in a different format.

Today I took down the site so that I can properly organize it into my next project on Amazon.

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.

Greetings,

I have a number of stories that should be seeing print soon. I figured I'd mention some of them here:

"Requiem" will appear in the anthology Dark Tales of Lost Civilizations from Dark Moon Books. Release Date: World Horror Con



"Lay Down Your Hair" will appear in the anthology Queer Fish 2 from Pink Narcissus Press. Release Date TBA

"The Sky God's Daughter" will appear in the anthology Daughters of Icarus from Pink Narcissus Press. Release Date TBA

“Recovery” will appear in the anthology In SITU from Dagon Books. Release Date TBA

I never left the apartment today, yet I went on a strange journey through my own memories and words. I spend several hours working on my short story collection titled Twilight Temptations.

It is strange to read words you have written years later when you no longer remember writing them. The best quote comes from Fear and Loathing in Bat Country. "Tears are the natural currency of respect to bastards."

I manged to figure out the process for CreateSpace. It is an easy to use tool and I can see why so many people are jumping at the chance to use it. I wish I could say the same about the Kindle side of the process, but I'll get there.

The 500 words a day program is working like gangbusters as I'm always at least hitting that much, but usually making at least 800 to 1000 words. My brain is starting to want that addiction that comes with putting words on the screen and is ready when I sit down to write.

Spotify really helps me shut out the world. I managed to create playlists for each project to put me into the mood for that particular world. I wish I could post them as people might get a kick out of them.

This week, I need to concentrate on "Murder on the Feng Shui Express" as the deadline is coming up in a couple of weeks and I need to make sure I have time to revise this one and have it run through a beta reader.

I've learned something else a bit strange. I think I've matured past the need to watch every genre project out there. Time was that there would be one science fiction show and if you didn't watch that, you didn't have a genre show to watch.

Now there is an endless glut of half-ass low budget television shows on the market and I feel like I can be choosey. I tried really hard to love Grimm, but I just got bored.

On the other hand, I love BBC America's Sherlock and their new show the Fades. I'm also a big fan of Once upon a Time. Yes, it isn't Fables, but it has been fun this time. (Although, if it sticks to the Lost formula and doesn't advance the story by the end of the season, I may get tired of it.)

The new Doctor Who has long been a favorite for me. I've enjoyed all of the Doctors. Steven Moffat is my favorite writer, but maybe not my favorite show runner. The non-Moffat episodes weren't that awesome. I think he needs an editor of some sort. I am glad that they are taking a bit of a break for the next season as it will give them time to make the episodes pop.

I think sometimes writers go through that sort of thing. They hit a theme that they want to express and explore and come at it a thousand times from different angles. The trick is to break through and I have faith that Moffat can do that.

Here is what I managed to do today:

* Revised Highway West Query Letter
* Edited Synopsis
* Copyedited a story from my upcoming short story collection
* Plotted with Editor about Secret Project #1
* Crossed Fingers and discussed Secret Project #2.
* “Murder on the Feng Shui Express" Word Count: Total 1,766 (600 new words)
* updated website

I am very tired.