23,337

More than twenty-thousand. That's how many times a story of mine has been downloaded or otherwise bought between May 2010 when I began this self-publishing experiment, and today, the end of April 2012. I'm not sharing that number to brag, but rather to convey my total shock at how many people have potentially read my work. The better share of those have been free downloads, so it's not like I've gotten rich off this thing, and in fact I can safely say that any money I've made has been invested right back into marketing myself, with a giveaway here and an order of bookmarks there. On the other hand doing all the formatting and design-work myself has kept my costs low, and that means that while my writing hasn't made me much money, it hasn't lost me any, either. That's been an important factor in keeping this whole experiment away from the territory of "it's a shame what happened to that guy" and safely in the realm of "as long as it makes him happy".

So all I've really put into this has been my time, two years of it, which of course is valuable in its own right. Time is money, etcetera, and that's not even talking about all the hours I've spent of my life writing, all that putting words down and deleting them, all that editing and thinking and focusing on things that aren't real. Good practice, all of it, and all of it taking up time. I could have had a complete second job in that time and been making real money, but how much of our time do we really spend doing things of actual value, versus time wasted watching television and sitting on the internet, playing games or screwing around in the yard? I would argue that I didn't waste any of the time I spent writing. I would argue that I did have a second job.

The reason I'm thinking about all of this is the same reason I came up with that big number I mentioned. You see I had to crunch some numbers because there's someone who has expressed strong interest in being my manager, someone who can help me develop my work and put it in front of the right people. Back before May of 2010 I was doing my best to get someone's attention, anyone who might be willing to represent me and get my name out there, but when that proved to be difficult I changed directions and dove into the new arena of self-publishing that was happening around me. Now two years later one of those people has contacted me, and he did it because he read a few of those things I'd self-published and saw some something in them. And he's even a nice guy.

Nothing is official yet, and I may be talking about this too early if the whole deal ends up falling apart in my hands (though so far I don't see it happening), but even then I would treat this experience as a success, because I did what I set out to do- I got someone's attention, not by way of gimmicks or shouting at them, but by the merit of my work, or at least the potential in it. It's either ironic or very fitting that this comes so soon after someone tried to use my writing against me, to defraud a bit of cash out of me, because even when that setback happened I didn't let it frustrate me, and instead made a conscious effort to take it in stride and laugh it off (see my last post). For now at least good things are happening, and its given the last two years a sweet validation, to know that even if it may take a while to go from the place I am now to a place where I don't need a day job anymore, but can rather support my wife and myself with my work, the waiting will be easier, and angled increasingly upward. If nothing else I've earned myself more than twenty-thousand pairs of eyes to watch me stumble there.

Lemonade.

I was recently contacted by someone named Terry James who inquired about having me edit an article of his for pay. I don't normally do this kind of thing, but I have considered it in the past as a source of side-money, and as luck would have it I'm in a brief lull between projects at the moment. So I figured, what the hell. The hell was, Terry turned out to be a check scam artist. Luckily I figured this out before I got burned and, deciding to have fun with the situation, I sent Terry what I thought was an appropriate response. What follows is our entire exchange.


Him: Hello,

            How are you doing today and am Terry James.I want to know if you will be available for rewriting and editing job,the document is attach to the mail and I will wait for your quote.Hope to read from you soonest.


Kind regards,
TJ.


Attached was a file labeled "English.doc" which contained seven pages of broken English. Here's a sample sentence: "Addiction is a chronic brain disease often recurs, despite harmful consequences for thepeople around himself and has fallen into the addiction, the drug asked for it is they cannot become."


Me: Hi Terry, 


I'm not sure what kind of budget you were looking at, but this does require some pretty extensive editing work. If you tell me your price range I can tell you if I would be right for you or not.


Take care,
-Brian M.


Him: Hello,


             Thanks for your swift response and am very happy to read from you,i want it rewrite and edited also I will pay $250.


The document is base on drug so we want to use to it to create more awareness on drug for those who abuse it and the article will be read by teenagers.


I want it back in 20 days however the payment will be through Check so send me your name and address with phone number where the payment will be mail to and i got your detail at a writer website,hope to hear read from you soon.


I wish you a pleasant day.


Me: Terry,


That sounds reasonable to me, and I can have it in the time you're asking. I have a fairly good understanding of what you need but if it's alright with you I might ask you a question or two during the process in case I need some clarification as to what you're going for.


As far as payment I would prefer to use PayPal. I can supply you with my account if you're able to pay that way, but if you need to pay by check I would respectfully ask for a money order/bank check/etc. I certainly don't want to cause any problems with this, I've just found it to be better for everyone involved and so it makes everyone happier.


Let me know if you want me to go ahead. I look forward to hearing back from you.


-Brian M.


Him: Thanks for your mail and i can work with money order so send me your name and address with phone number,awaits your mail soonest.


Me: Sounds good to me, here's my info: (REMOVED)


Him: Morning,
                Thanks for your mail and how is your day going? Some people request for Editing to be done and run away with your money,i do have a personal editor but right now she is sick that is why am looking for a competent and trustworthy editor.I have gave a job to a editor and paid him advance and he did run away with my money and i don't want to be a victim anymore but am ready to give you a chance which i will pay you upfront because there are many jobs we are going to do together.This is a charity which help less privilege kid around there world also the money is needed for Republic of Vanuatu relief,I hope you understand me.


(Note: Here's where the bomb drops.)


However,my sponsor notify me that the check has mail out and there was a mistake with the amount on the check which is $2000 so what i want you to do know is get it cashed and you will send the difference back to us after you have deduct your money so you will send it to us through western union,you are saving a million lives and may God almighty bless you as you do so.Awaits your mail soon.


I wish you a pleasant weekend


Regards.




A classic check scam. Spoiler alert: the money order is a counterfeit, which I wouldn't learn until after cashing the check and wiring him the cash. The bank would come calling for their money back, and I would be forced to pay them out of pocket, unable to retrieve what I'd already wired.


And so, brushing the dust off my shoulders, I wrote Terry the following reply.


Dear Terry,


There's something fishy going on here, and I think I've figured it out. All this time I've been trying to figure out what you are based on the style of speech in both your emails as well as the file you sent me for editing. Your address says you reside in Anchorage, Alaska, however your English says otherwise. Your last email, though, gave me the final clues I needed to figure it out, and I can finally say with confidence what you really are.


A real-life Nigerian prince! Terry, why didn't you just say so? All this time I've been speaking with a member of royalty and never knew it. I know you mentioned the Republic of Vanuatu, but I recognize a prince when I see one. You don't have to be modest with me. I hear about you folks all the time at my day job but I never thought I would have the wonderful privilege of directly speaking with one. Well, regardless of the outcome of the job you've offered me, thank you so much for the honor of communicating with someone of your stature, even if being a prince in the extant kingdoms of Africa is mostly nothing more than a genealogical assertion of a legal claim to a throne regardless of how remote the possibility of ascending to it is. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/)


In our previous emails you were eager to learn my address, and I take that, as I believe I should, as a genuine interest in my personal life. There's not much to say, really, except that I'm happily married, have a deep love for animals, especially dogs, and am admittedly a bit of a film buff. Well I suppose I could tell you what the day job is that I previously mentioned. I work at a bank, one of the larger ones. While it isn't my dream job (writing is, as your research turned up), it does offer some other advantages. For instance one would be education on all things financial, including some of the more unsavory aspects such as identity theft and e-mail scams. These are a part of life, sadly, but then again scum has been walking the Earth since long before you or I had our turn on it, and these things are only modern variations on old tricks. Instead of being pessimistic about the whole thing I prefer to keep a positive attitude, knowing that people are genuinely good and it's a small percentage of the population that gives the rest a bad name. It's easy to think that all people are bad when you hear so much of this sort of thing, but in reality it's only because crimes are what get the news coverage, never the acts of kindness both small and large that decent people show each other every, single day. Obviously I don't need to tell you that, being someone involved with a charity that benefits children.


Well I'm going off on a rant here. I have to apologize for that, Terry. I suppose it's just I feel we already have a strong connection. I trust you, as I hope you trust me.


Sincerely,
Brian


P.S., Sorry for the small delay in responding to your email, there was a small matter to attend to first with the FTC. Take care, and I look forward to receiving your totally real check.

(FTC is the Federal Trade Commission, who I reported him to before sending the email) 

Report of Incident on Eleventh Floor

There's the story of a man by the name of Jeremy Silk. Aged forty-one, no wife, no children, Jeremy lived on the eleventh floor of an apartment building which had recently been renovated due to a particularly flammable insulation material discovered in its walls.

One summer, just as the nights became too humid to to sleep through without the help of an air-conditioning unit, neighbors began complaining of music which had started coming from Jeremy's apartment every night at roughly twelve-thirty. When first asked about the music, Jeremy was witnessed as behaving erratic, explaining that lately he needed the distraction in order to help him fall sleep. His neighbors were gracious in their understanding, and kindly requested that he turn the volume down or use headphones, as the quality of their own sleep shouldn't have to suffer. He generally agreed with this, though was evasive when asked what steps he would take.

That night, at roughly twelve forty-five, neighbors were disappointed to hear the same, loud music coming through their walls and ceilings. Four of said neighbors convened at Jeremy's door, knocked, and asked him to turn the music off, as most of them had work in the morning. Jeremy, who according to reports looked “excessively disheveled”, nodded once and shut the door. The music was heard to shut off soon thereafter, and the neighbors, satisfied, dispersed.

The next morning, Jeremy failed to show up at his job as warehouse manager for a local food distributor. Management placed several calls to the two phone numbers they had on file for Jeremy, but received no call back. On the second day when once again he failed to appear, they placed a call to Jeremy's emergency contact, his estranged father currently living on Lake Michigan. They found the man to be distant and uninterested but managed to ascertain that he hadn't spoken to Jeremy.

On the third day, being concerned for Jeremy's well-being, management sent an employee to the apartment building to speak with his landlord. Several neighbors heard their conversation and joined in, agreeing that none of them had seen Jeremy since the night they'd gone to see him.

When Jeremy failed to answer either his phone or his door, one of the neighbors placed a call to the police in order to report possible foul-play. Before the authorities could arrive several of them noticed a faint odor which seemed to be coming from Jeremy's apartment, prompting the landlord to use his keys to open the locked door.

Reports of what they discovered inside varies from witness to witness, though all include the deceased body of one Jeremy Silk, aged forty-one, still lying in his bed since three nights prior. Wads of paper were noticed as being stuffed inside his ear canals. The official coroner's report states that the paper was inserted with such force that it it damaged Jeremy's tympanic membranes, forcing them into the adjoining cavities.

Police entered into evidence several personal effects of Jeremy Silk, including the small stereo he kept by his bedside responsible for the music which had bothered his neighbors, as well as his private journal which he had written in more or less daily. In the journal, detectives discovered several entries in which Jeremy complains of a noise coming from the walls in his bedroom, particularly the west wall, opposite the window. In initial entries Jeremy describes the noise as low and indiscernible, only slightly bothersome to his sleep, but in subsequent mentions the noise is described as increasing in volume and attaining the tone and timbre of a human voice. Then, in the last week, as growing in clarity and level of agitation.

When comparing the date of the entries to transcripts from witness interviews, as well as invoices and receipts submitted by the apartment building's landlord, a correlation has been noted between the onset of the noise heard by Jeremy in the wall of his bedroom and the renovations which had been performed in the building. In fact, when compared in greater detail, the first entry comes just one day after work had been completed on the eleventh floor, the same as Jeremy's apartment.

All files have since been sealed.

In the Recesses

When I was maybe eight years old- that would be what, third grade? that sounds right- some kids were playing with a kickball out on the grass when it got away from them and landed at my feet. I wanted to impress them with how far I could kick it back at them, so I picked that fucker up, dropped it on my foot and kicked it as hard as I could.

The problem was I kicked it at a terrible angle, so instead of soaring forward in a beautiful arch indicative of your typical alpha male's kick, it hooked up over my head and landed on the roof of the school behind me. To anyone but me it looked like I'd done it intentionally. I was so embarrassed by how bad a kick it was that when they asked me why I'd done it, I just froze up and smiled strangely at them. It was almost better for my ego for them to think I was an asshole with amazing skills rather than a nice kid with the best intentions who can't kick a god-damned red ball properly. I was in elementary school, for christ's sake. I had a reputation to maintain.

I wonder sometimes if any of those kids, now adults, still remember that incident the way I do, or if it was only seared into my memory by the pure heat of my embarrassment. Maybe there's a guy my age somewhere right now, and he's typing, "When I was eight years old- that's what, third grade?- I was with my friends playing kickball on the grass, just totally minding our business, when the ball got away from us and landed at this kid's feet. So what does he do? He picks it up, making like he's about to kick it back to us, but then this little shit curves his foot and kicks it up over his head and onto the school's roof. To be honest I'm not sure how he even did it. It was one of the most impressive kicks I'd ever seen, or have since then, but fuck that kid. He was a heartless bully picking on us like that. We didn't do anything to deserve it. If I ever run into that prick on the street I'll kick HIS balls and throw HIM on the roof. I bet you he doesn't even remember doing it."

A Chemical Fire: Free for 5 Days

 I had a good time sharing my other book last month, so I figured what the shit. I'm giving away A Chemical Fire for five days, February 8th through the 12th. This is a one-shot deal, so download it now before it's gone. Tell your friends, your enemies, your frenemies, even your enefriends, though they stopped listening to you years ago.

A Chemical Fire was the first novel I ever completed, and in some ways the most clear of vision. It was one of those big ideas that only come along so often, that demand to be written down and sent out. It taught me a lot about story-writing, and as far as I think I've come since then, I'm still very proud of it.

Read it: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004G093Q2

Weak End

When I make a plan and stick to it I feel like an unstoppable force. I'm moving faster than ever before and picking up speed. I'm eager to see out this year because I know what it entails- improving what I do and reaching out further into the world. People will hear what I say and know who I am, and that part of me that wants it will feed and grow and grow. That part of me that doesn't will be rejected like a transplant that didn't take.

Nicholas Cage had a cameo as himself in my dream last night. It wasn't a stretch for him, but it's good to see him taking on some smaller roles.

My Dead Night

Had nothing but zombie dreams last night. Debriefing follows.

Someone in the street has the flu and is stumbling around. They try to get into the house. More people in the street, sick, getting worse, traffic accidents, try to get something from my car but a runaway truck takes off the door. Realization of zombie apocalypse. Mild excitement but also panic, sense of real danger. Yelling at family to grab any bag they can find and fill it with food and medicine. Filling my bag with apples and water bottles. Outside, crowds of dead.

About to leave, government responds. Dropping concrete dividers from helicopters in the street to slow them down. It's working. Some of them are crushed under the dividers. Then a rumbling in the ground. House is suddenly raised. All houses on street coming up on metal platforms like giant car garage lifts. Feels like house will fall apart but holds together. Sense of sunlight coming through the windows, making the room bright.

Some time later. Rickety structures fifty feet above flood water. Zombies in the dirty water below. When anyone falls in they're bitten or dragged down. Have to jump from one structure to the other or use ladders and ropes. The structure I'm on begins to topple and I have to lean it toward the next to reach it, but the impact causes that to topple and I have to lean it toward the next. Fall into the water. Claw my way out and onto a rock with the feeling of hands on my ankles.

Some time later. Living with other people on a resort or hotel property of some kind. Structures are built all over to climb up and use for escape in case of attacks. Inside the main building is a spinning vault preserving artifacts of humanity.

Some time later. Towns are abandoned, not even zombies for some years. On a garbage detail with a group of men trying to clean it out. Out of the corner of my vision I spot slow movement. A single zombie. Need to deal with the situation, but then there's another coming out the window of an old building. Then a group from around a corner ahead. We start to run. Another group from behind. We try to snake through the buildings to duck away but more and more zombies surge from every corner and every building until we're trapped in an alley. One of the men starts to sing a song as the zombies close in, but I can't remember the song.

Read my 2nd Book Free

Today marks one year since I published my second book, a book I never planned to write until about two weeks prior, when I learned of National Novel Writing Month. The idea was simple: write a complete novel from start to finish in November. It came at just the right moment for me since I was at somewhat of a crossroads in my writing. I had just seen my first attempt at a new project fizzle, a science-fiction story not quite ready to exist, yet the other project I had in mind was too lengthy and involving to jump into just yet. With that in mind, pushing myself to write faster than ever before seemed like a good exercise. So I signed on. I went in with a skeleton of an outline, half a page at most, and even that was partly scrapped. What came of it was as unexpected to me as it is to anyone reading it, a surreal, twisting story involving experimental drugs, robots and sword swallowing. It was never intended to be read by the public, only passed among my inner circle, but these things have a tendency to find their way out. And once they do, they're out for good.

A year later, Kissing You is like Trying to Punch a Ghost is my least read book by such a large margin it essentially doesn't exist, yet the reaction I get from the title alone makes the whole thing worth it. You can almost think of it as my Snakes on a Plane; everyone talked about it, no one saw it. But I still like the book. Occasionally I open it to a random page, read a line and struggle to remember writing it, similar to thinking back to a dream from last night, or even last week. The details are there, but the frame has all but collapsed.

This book is my freak in the basement, the one everyone hears but no one acknowledges, and I want to celebrate it. So today until the 19th, you can read it totally free. If you have a Kindle you'll find it that way, if you don't just find it on Amazon and make sure to download one of the free reading apps covering everything from PC to iPhone to Android. If you do read it, take a minute to write a few words about it on Amazon, seeing as it's my only book with zero reviews.

You hear the chains rattling down there. It's time to make eye contact.

Coagulations

The woman told him he was doing it wrong. You don't lean back. That just makes you sick, gives you the runs. You lean forward and let it clot. Keep the nose above the heart. Pinch the bridge and apply ice to the forehead or to the back of the neck. That's fine, he said, but tasting all these pennies was making him feel loose in the jaw.

After the flow stopped she told him to avoid anything that might make it start again, like blowing his nose or rubbing it too hard. All he could think was: if he was the kind of person who knew how to avoid a nosebleed in the first place, he never would have come here.

He was happy he'd worn a red shirt that day.

Take the Hand from the Picture

Nulla dies sine linea. This has been my motto for some time, without my realizing it. It's attributed to a fourth century Greek painter by the name of Apelles, and it means "No day without a line". Apelles believed that art was a daily discipline. Like a true artist he boiled that idea down to its simplest form- four words in Latin, five in English, and in the process he invented a simple rule to follow, one that I believe yields results. I have certain word counts that I keep myself accountable for. One is optimal. Half that is minimal. And if I don't reach at least one of those numbers on any given day, I label myself a failure for that day. It's harsh. And it needs to be. And this year I'm raising my numbers.

I don't fancy myself an artist, though I do find myself entrenched in one of the arts. A practitioner, maybe. Calling oneself an artist is the first step toward complete uselessness. Maybe it's my particular personality but I almost view fiction from a more scientific viewpoint than I do a creative one. The technical aspects, the chemistry between the various elements. It's like a form of math which has to be reinvented midway through every equation for it to work. That's why it can be so challenging at times, why the chase eludes. The toughest game draws the most fools, and I number among the crowd.

A lot of people talk, some of them write, but only a few of them write every day. Nulla dies sine linea. No day without a line.

Numbered

2012 is almost here, and that has me thinking about what happened during 2011 to get me to this point. This year gave me more new readers than any previous year of my life, thanks almost entirely to the Kindle and the chance it gave me to offer freebies. Driven by that, and by the good feedback I got, I spent a good part of the year writing my serial The Mountain and The City. Between February and December I completed four parts, with the fourth hitting tomorrow and the final two coming in early 2012. From there, the plan is to throw myself into a larger project- a series of Noir books I've had on the back-burner for the past year.

Looking back at my rate of output, I've realized it's too slow. Fifteen-thousand words every two months has been standard for me lately, and I don't know, maybe to some people that's respectable, but personally I know I can do better, not in exchange for quality but in exchange for doubt. Too much time is spent second-guessing myself. It's time to shear off the side-views. At my current rate it would take a good chunk of 2012 to finish up The Mountain and The City, pushing the next project to who-knows-when, maybe even 2013. I don't want to think that far ahead, and if the Mayans have their way I won't have to, so something has to be done, and it's probably the only part of this I have any control over.

Ironically, given the longer form of a novel versus a serial, this increase in output won't be visible to anyone but me for some time. So I want to stay busy in other ways, too, ways that keep me on the radar. I'd like to do more blog posts, hopefully including guest posts on other blogs. Maybe even write some articles if the opportunity is there.

Production. This is the only thing I have in my control, and that's what I'll be focusing on. This month I sold more books than I've ever sold in a month (it's not much), but as good as that felt it was only a bi-product of my actions, not a direct result. This year I won't be looking at what happens. Instead, I'll be looking at what I do.

Sit down. Do more. Do better. That's 2012 for me. That or Earth's magnetic poles flipping due to a massive solar flare resulting in a cataclysmic event which spells the end of human civilization. Either way.

The Darkening Days of Winter

I just found myself watching footage which was shot yesterday in a Walmart in Mesquite, Texas. It showed a crowd of Black Friday shoppers crammed together, shouting at each other while tearing apart a display of video-games. In the center of the chaos a woman is being pulled out, presumably by her daughter, who is trying to keep her from being trampled by the masses. As I watched this footage, I couldn't help but feel both angry and truly sad for them, because if this is the kind of behavior human beings allow themselves to degrade to over something as trivial as a game, what hope is there?

If these were a starving people, and this was the last crate of food which had been air-dropped into their village by the military, even then I would feel disappointed in those people for not trying to act in a brotherly, civilized manner, but I would understand that survival can do some dark things to people, and that they were only acting on self-preservation and the protection of their families. As it is, these people in Walmart were elbowing and smothering each other over toys, and seeing them do it can only make me feel discouraged. There is something fundamentally wrong here, and no amount of jokes or explanations can hide it.

It's either ironic or telling that Black Friday starts only a few hours after Thanksgiving has ended, a holiday which is meant to slow people down from their day-to-day lives long enough to remind them they should be thankful for the things they have in their lives. Thankful for their friends, their families, the food and shelter that keeps them alive. How flimsy, how meaningless does this message become when millions of people finish their meals, wipe their faces, excuse themselves from the dinner table and then drive to a store to act like some kind of goddamned animal.

This. This is how we as a people have come to start the holiday season. It's no wonder Christmas has become a twisted, depraved version of what it used to be. I wonder how many of the vein-headed, finger-choked consumers in that crowd praise Jesus, and have convinced themselves that this is how they show their love for him. I wonder if they know that December 25th is not his real birthday, but was chosen to overtake a Pagan holiday, and I wonder if they appreciate the sick humor of celebrating the life of a pacifist by clawing at the chests of their fellow man to save a few dollars on a toy.

Group psychology is an interesting and scary thing. Maybe on their own each of these people can act civilized, courteous, but bring them together in a tense situation and they turn on each other, devolve, act on their basest instincts. Deep in my heart there's a special fear reserved for crowds, because I know that you can put a man in a suit, teach him economics and proper grammar and appreciation for wine, but if you place twenty of these men in a small room and drop dollar bills on them, they will chew each other's fucking eyes out.

Friends 'til The End

I'm in love with the apocalypse. If you've been around me or read my stuff for longer than five minutes, you probably know that already. When I wrote my first book, A Chemical Fire, I set out to make my definitive apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic zombie/pseudo-zombie story. I put all those things into it that I'd never seen in a movie or comic or book but always wanted to, and when it was finished I expected it to be out of my system. I would still read it, sure, but it was a well I wouldn't dip into again.

When it came time to spread the word about A Chemical Fire, I began to look up blogs and sites that dealt with apocalyptic fiction, and what I found surprised me. There's an entire community out there that loves the concept of the end of the world just as much if not more than me, and the people who run those sites are the most passionate of all. For the most part they make no profit from their sites, and those who do only years after anyone trying to cash in would have long quit. Yet they continue to search for news, update their sites, respond to readers and field email.

I'm a fan of these sites now. I visit them religiously and follow them on Twitter, and it's because of this that I ended up going back into the genre to write The Mountain and The City, which started out as a short story and turned into a serial, part three of which came out a few days ago. I never intended to be here again, but here I am. The well turned out to be deeper than I knew.

The contact I've had with the faces behind these sites has been overwhelmingly positive, people who are way too friendly to be rooting for life-ending cataclysm, so I wanted to share those sites with you. Check them out, see what you like. And if you end up like me, sticking around for longer than you planned, tell them I sent you.

Online Post-Apocalyptic Fiction - A Squidoo lens by Shanna that points to all kinds of content, a lot of it free.
The Post Apoc - Run by Eric, a passionate guy who also seems to be obsessed with handmade weapons. Not updated often, but definitely entertaining. He wrote a review of ACF and even hosted a giveaway.
Megaton.us - An entire network of PA sites, including some fairly active forums. Bill, aka Megaton, still finds time to read my stuff and tell people about it.
Quiet Earth - A great site for movie news especially. It has started to branch out a bit and included more general sci-fi and generally dark material.
Survive The Apocalypse - This site offered to feature an original story of mine, and when I sat down to think of what that could be I ended up with The Mountain and The City. Sadly they've since changed formats and ditched the fiction section, but it can still be found on the old version.

My Top 10 (9+3) Books of All Time (So Far)

It's not easy for me to make a definitive list of anything, especially things I love. It always seems that for every one addition I make to that list two crimes of omission are committed. Given that, I started compiling a list of my top ten (in no order) favorite books of all time, and I decided it should ignore format, genre, and social value, looking at it as I often do, with a combination of the "If-I-Was-On-A-Desert-Island" and the 'If-I-Had-To-Prove-To-Aliens-We-Shouldn't-Explode" scenarios.

I say "so far" because I'm always looking for that next book which will rewrite or rearrange everything for me, forcing me think about the written word in a new way. The "9+3" is because, as you'll see, there are three books which blend together as a concept for me, included for what they do for the art and mean to me as a writer more than they stand on their own. I've listed a good amount of these in other places, including my site, but I've never given a proper explanation of why they're favorites. So, here goes.

1) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson

If I had to choose one literary hero above all others, it would be Dr. Thompson. Unapologetic in his views, feared by his enemies and loved by his friends, he was a monster of a man, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was Hunter at his unbeatable, undeniable best. He took what began as a Rolling Stone assignment to cover a race in the middle of the desert and turned it into the best drug trip ever captured on paper. Then he had the balls to make it about something. His search for the American Dream became a time capsule holding the death of the sixties, told in a style so distinct it was practically trademarked. Hunter took politics and made them not only personable, but dangerous. Reading this book is so enjoyable I find myself having to slow down to taste every word.

2) Dermaphoria, by Craig Clevenger

I devour Clevenger's work. I'm greedy for it. Considering he's only put out two novels in the past ten years, I'm forced to join his newsletter and check his site far more often than necessary to catch wind of the slightest development. As great as his debut novel The Contortionist's Handbook is, and it is great, Dermaphoria is the one I had to put down after reading only three sentences to get in touch with my friends and make sure they were reading it. Clevenger is that good, constructing sentence after scenario after character so pitch-perfect it angers me to know they're not mine. In Dermaphoria it all comes together to tell the disjointed story of an amnesiac drug chemist, piecing his memory together after a near-fatal overdose.

3) Invisible Monsters, by Chuck Palahniuk

With all due respect to Mr. Palahniuk, I'm not sure whether I outgrew him or he outgrew him, but sadly I haven't enjoyed or bothered to pick up his last four books. If you look into it you'll find that those four books came out in the last four years, which is telling. He's the polar opposite of Clevenger in that he puts out too many books too fast and doesn't give them a chance to fully form, or, in plainer words, shed the shit. However there's no denying the lasting effect Palahniuk has had on fiction and the chances publishers take on darker material. Most of the spotlight fell on one of his other books, even though rule one of that book clearly states we shouldn't talk about it, but the book that stuck with me most was Invisible Monsters, the story of a model who has her face blown off, and the drag queen who bases his look on said model's former face. I love a properly done twist, and while that other unmentionable book has quite the example, Invisible Monsters has a dozen. Practically every chapter reveals some previously withheld detail that changes not only everything to come, but everything you've already read. This to me, both the reader me and the writer me, is one of fiction's greatest strengths- the trust that comes from letting someone else see for you, someone who may not be entirely trust-worthy.

4) Batman: The Killing Joke, by Alan Moore

In the third grade, when most boys wanted to be Superman or Spiderman, I wanted to be the Joker. I vividly remember standing under the hanging branches of a weeping willow tree during recess, telling a friend that when I was older I'd end up in an insane asylum. The reason? I'd seen it in Killing Joke, and the Joker just made it look too fucking cool. Alan Moore showed us comics could be dark and cruel and funny all at once. They could show nudity and madness. And they could be really, really good. Either by chance or by the simple evil of its cover it drew me in at the comic shop at the ripe age of nine. Thankfully I wasn't carded, because it changed the way I saw comics forever. I must have re-read it a hundred times before retiring it to it's dust-resistant grave. Unknown to me at the time, Killing Joke would be referenced as one of the turning points in comics toward more adult-oriented themes. It also laid down the popularly-accepted origin of the Joker and influenced both movie versions of the character. Supposedly Heath Ledger was handed a copy of Killing Joke by Christopher Nolan when he took on the role.

5) House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski

When people talk about the Bible, I bet their expressions are close to mine when I talk about House of Leaves. Like them I'd gladly spend my time going around, telling people why they should have a copy in their homes. The problem is, I could tell you what it's about (a narrative about a manuscript about a documentary about a house that defies logic), but like the Matrix you really have to see it for yourself to understand. Not many novels can be considered an object of art, but House of Leaves wears the label comfortably. It's a masterpiece of typography and ergodic literature, and it could only be achieved with such single-minded vision because Danielewski went to the printing house, hunched down and slaved over it on his own. The resulting tome is a testament to the dying paper book. As interesting as e-books are, and as thankful as I am  for what they mean to me as an independent writer, a work like House of Leaves is simply impossible to translate into any other format. All those lists and footnotes and recovered photos would be there, sure, but the effect would be wholly lost. Do yourself a favor. Go to a bookstore, find House of Leaves and look inside. If you don't find yourself helplessly taking it to the register and putting down money for it, you're a stronger person than I.

6) Nobody Move, by Denis Johnson

Denis Johnson seems to me one of the last, great classics. As far as I'm aware he has no internet presence; no Twitter account, no blog, not even a website, and so it's difficult to tune into what he has going on. But when he does write something, you can be sure he'll write the shit out of it. Jesus' Son was full of so much vivid honesty that reading it was like that moment you hear your favorite band for the first time. And just as you do with a favorite band, I flipped between what my favorite work of his was- Jesus' Son, about his alcoholism, or Seek, a collection of his brilliant non-fiction articles. I went back and forth this way right until Nobody Move was released, and then there was no contest. It's not as flashy a book as the others, but that's where its power comes from: the effortless way with which it owns you. All it is, really, is the story of a low-end criminal mixed up with medium-end criminals, with a girl thrown in for measure, but you never spend a second not caring about the stakes, not enjoying the ride. It's genre fiction by a literary king, and instead of feeling dumbed down it feels pared down, honed to a stabbing point. Sometimes your favorite is the one you want to go back to the most to relive it.

7) The Informers, by Bret Easton Ellis

In general I like the idea of Bret Easton Ellis more than I actually like him. Like someone out of one of his books, he comes on strong, and seems a bit in love with himself. However I need to know that writers like him are out there, scaring people with their books, saying things others are too timid to. But even if I'm not an adoring fan I have to tip my hat to Ellis for one book in particular: The Informers. With this inter-connected collection of short stories about (of course) Los Angeles, he manages to reveal a dozen, different sides of the same, vapid society, offering a handful of characters you either love to hate or feel your heart break as you watch their cruel surroundings consume them and turn them into one of its own. This alone is enough for a good book, but then one, final element comes into play from so far left field you don't see it coming, until it cracks you straight in the skull. It's one hell of a surprise, pulled off with flawless skill, and it elevates the entire book to an unexpected level of greatness. Well played, Ellis.

8) Book of Sketches, by Jack Kerouac

There's a pattern forming here. I tend to acknowledge an author's more known work yet celebrate their more obscure, less celebrated stuff. In other words, I might be a book snob. Kerouac's huge hit was The Road, easily the most widely-read book to come out of the Beat Generation. My only issue with that book is I think it's too long a form to maintain Kerouac's passion, so that by the end I felt numb to it. Book of Sketches solves that by not being a novel at all but rather compiled pieces from the notebook he kept in his back pocket and ritually, even obsessively detailed the things he witnessed inside. Not only does this set an example any writer would be smart to follow, it offers a thousand, tiny moments of genius for us to discover. It finds a happy medium between his poetry and his prose, and finally it acts as the most telling kind of autobiography- one told in brief moments, those the man felt were important enough to put down on paper. All Kerouac is worth a read, but this one slapped me the hardest.

9) Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

I'd always meant to read this classic, and when I finally did about a year or two ago I kicked myself for waiting so long. Then I went to the library and borrowed all the Bradbury they had. His voice is so modern and clean I had to stare at Fahrenheit's 1953 publishing date a few times to make sure I wasn't reading it wrong. It's no wonder it blew people away when it came out. This is one case where an author's most popular work, while being nowhere near the only thing he had to offer, is also his greatest. Warning of a future in which no one reads books, and in fact can't own them by law, brought out the best in Bradbury. It's science fiction yet it isn't, common for Bradbury, one of the most respected sci-fi authors (the Ray Bradbury Award is the highest honor in its field) yet he claims he isn't one. Don't be fooled into thinking Fahrenheit 451 should be lumped in with all those boring classics found on mandatory school reading lists. While some of those dead texts can feel like punishment, others become classics because they're actually that good.

+3) The Unfortunates, by B.S. Johnson, The Microscripts, by Robert Walser, The Atrocity Exhibition, by J.G. Ballard

Finally, there are three works which I group together because I love what they represent to me, which is the endless possibilities inherent in books. The various forms they can take when approached with a mind that's either innovative or, to be honest, mentally ill. And sometimes both. Books like these free me up in the way I think about books themselves, similar to the way House of Leaves does except that that book stands very much on its own.

The Unfortunates is an attempt to create a non-linear narrative in the most honest way possible- by taking it out of the author's hands and leaving it completely to chance. You see, The Unfortunates is made up of twenty-seven, individually-bound chapters which the reader removes from the box and is free to shuffle and read any way they choose. While the premise could be considered gimmicky, the idea works because the story- a true account of Johnson's friend dying of cancer- is told through random memories as they float to the surface during Johnson's return to a familiar city. Though I'd like to see something like this tried with a more fictional, event-based story, there were enough unplanned moments in my reading for the whole thing to be worthwhile. I compare it to a videogame. When something amazing happens through gameplay and physics versus scripted cinematics, it always seems more special, more real. Ironic that a "Book-in-a-Box" showed thinking outside one, and it ends up as a one-of-a-kind experience.

The Microscripts is a book of writings by the German author Robert Walser, a man who spent a great deal of his life in a sanitarium. Walser was unique because due to a combination of his illness and a lack of confidence he wrote in tiny marks a millimeter high on scraps of paper he found. For years after his death the scribbles were believed to be written in a code that died along with Walser, until someone realized it was actually German script so small it was barely legible. The scraps were painstakingly transcribed and sadly revealed not the ramblings of a madman but rather a real author with a real voice. These Microscripts come reproduced with color photos of the original scraps, written on the backs of receipts or in the margins of book covers, letting us look into the mind of the tortured artist.

Finally, The Atrocity Exhibition is what I'm talking about when I say both innovative and mentally ill, because I'm not sure anyone in their right mind could write something even close to Atrocity Exhibition. Nor anyone less than brilliant. If you need evidence of how disturbed the late Ballard was, you only need know that a) he wrote Crash about his repeated theme of sexual arousal by car crash, and that b) the movie Empire of The Sun (with young Christian Bale running through the wasteland of WWII internment camps) is based on Ballard's childhood. Atrocity Exhibition is about as bizarre and disjointed as they come, depicting a world post-JFK assassination. Eerily abandoned and sterile, it focuses primarily on a doctor attempting to somehow map out the architecture of sex. It treats dead celebrities and parking garages as equal sexual objects. In short, it's genius and it's insane. I could never write a book like this in a hundred years, and I probably sleep better for it, but all I have to do is crack the cover on this for ten seconds to read a sentence or even a chapter title so brilliant I have to put it back down. Which is for the best, because attempting an in-depth sitting with this one is both challenging and off-putting. It took me a few years to actually finish it even though in reality its not very long. Do I recommend it? Yes. And also not at all. That's the greatest compliment I believe I can offer a novel.

Sign up for newsletter. Get free novella.

A few months ago, as I sat sweating in my car, a story occurred to me. You see for me there's the kind of story that I develop slowly, one piece at a time, often not knowing how they'll all fit together. But then there's the kind that slaps me in the face before I see it coming. De-Partment was that kind of story, the kind that, even though I had other plans, it seemed I had to put those aside and write this thing.

Which is what I did.

Once it was finished, I decided the right thing to do was to give it away, and given I'd been thinking about starting a newsletter the whole thing dove-tailed nicely. All you have to do in order to read De-Partment is sign up for my newsletter, but don't worry, I won't be using it to flood you with links to buy. I plan to be better than that, now and always. So if you're interested in a free book and a potentially entertaining newsletter, sign up below. The book comes in PDF if you don't have an e-reader, EPUB if you do.

http://tinyletter.com/bloodstreamcity

Description:

“Welcome to the Parts Department of the great city of Smoke.”

These words greet Tuxxel on his first day at the warehouse, a building so massive the ceiling can't be seen. Yet what follows is anything but welcoming. An Exterminator in the city of Smoke, he finds himself leading a life of violence and subservience. Picked on and abused by his supervisor he has little choice but to do the dirty work Smoke demands of him. As the days pass, and he learns of his city's horrific treatment of its citizens, he finds it more and more difficult to listen to the orders given to him. He must do what feels right. But disobedience has its consequences.

De-Partment is a dystopian novella about the struggle to maintain one's sense of self, set in a world both recognizable and entirely foreign.

Here's Your Change

Until the time comes when I can support myself writing full-time, I have a Day Job. Capital letters. Forty hours. The Big Suck. In that Day Job I work as a bank teller, usually head teller, which means I'm responsible for this great, big pile of cash that I'm allowed to play with and look after but never take further than the bullet-resistant glass. My power is like that of the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade- it's incredible to behold, but it can't cross the seal.

Or, as I like to say: I have the only job that gets worse the more money you throw at me.

In October I'll have completed three years at this job, a number that's scary considering how fast it came, and how bad the job has gotten at moments. There were stretches of time in which I can only explain why I showed up in the morning as a sick fascination. That thing where you say, "It can't possibly get worse," and then it does, and you laugh and say it again. And it happens again.

At times like that I like to imagine myself sitting up on a hill, watching a gruesome train derailment. Maybe I'm eating popcorn.

The main reason why The Job got so bad, and not all of the time, but a good amount of it, is simple: under-staffing. I worked at a branch which simply didn't have enough employees for the amount of work that needed to get done. That kind of thing tends to snowball- low morale, lack of energy, all the little things that get put off until some mystical future that never quite comes, stays just out of reach- it all congeals into this great, gaping wound that doesn't get a chance to heal.

About a month ago, on a Monday, at three-thirty, thirty minutes to closing time, I was called into the office. There I was told quite simply that, due to some shifting needs in the area, I'd be reporting to another branch the next morning.

I'd been transferred. Nearly three years in one place, and I had thirty minutes to say goodbye.

This was a shock to me, as you can imagine, as was walking into my new situation the next morning and finding I'd gone from an old, dirty building built in the fifties and frequented by the elderly and generally not-well-off, to a bright, clean block made of glass and daylight within eyesight of a golf course, visited by an endless line of lawyers and trust-fund babies. All these people had teeth and used the internet! They wore ties and had investment brokers on speed-dial!

I was lost.

Now, a month later, I'm finding myself as adapted to the change as I'll likely ever be. Not entirely, but enough. There's a strange resentment in dealing with people who have money when you have little, but mainly in dealing with the ones who don't deserve it, who push it around like a shield, with a sense of entitlement in every move. The ones who see waiting in line as spit in their faces. Whose immune systems violently over-react to the word No. Whose primary weapon is the threat of Taking Their Money Elsewhere. It's an insult to people not so fortunate to see ones who are, yet take no pleasure in it at all. Or maybe it's an important and affirming lesson. Who knows.

And then, just when your mind is made up about these Money People, you'll turn around and meet one who's the nicest guy you've ever met. Or you'll meet, as I did, the plastic surgeon who uses his own money to bring kids over from Iraq who have been disfigured in the war, who puts them up in comfortable surroundings and then rebuilds their faces, free of charge.

But it's not all doctors and lawyers, of course. There are the nurses and drivers, too, the secretaries and the retirees. Yesterday I helped a man with a check from the Narcotics Department who looked head-to-toe like an undercover drug cop, and when he walked away he was replaced by a sushi chef in full uniform, the shirt held closed by a safety pin.

Does anyone see these things and simply move on through their day? Am I the only one haunted by intangible connections?

The only constant is change, as they say, change is good, change is growth. But change always seems to have a running start on me, and I have to chase after it, lungs burning in my chest, to catch the trailing seams of its shirt.

A Few Questions for The Reader

So this is what's going on, maybe you can help.

I'm starting a mailing list, and the plan is to send out some kind of newsletter once a month at most, but really it could be longer. Whenever I have something relevant to share, let's say, in a way that won't be just a bunch of spam. But I need some input on what people would want out of such a newsletter. What would make them excited to stay on the list.

Have any of you signed up for an author newsletter before, and if you have, what do you like about it? Just as important, what don't you like? I would also want to give people an incentive for signing up, some kind of automatic reward, and I'm more or less decided that it would be a free story. In fact, I think the novella I recently finished would make a very fine gift. After sign-up the person would receive a welcome e-mail which would include a link to PDF and EPUB versions of the book. I know that not everyone e/screen-reads, but it's the most realistic way I could give away something for free.

I'd really like some input on this. I'm not about to waste people's time on garbage, if I'm going to do it I'm doing it right. Comment below or email me at Brian at Bloodstreamcity dot com, whatever you need to do to be heard.

Follow-upper

It's cliche' to start a post by talking about how there hasn't been one in a while, yet one we've all been guilty of. Here's mine.

My excuse is at least is one I can be proud of, and that's that I've been off doing what I do. After Amazon suddenly made "The Mountain and The City" free on Kindle, I had even more reason to push forward on the project I had started, which was to turn that story into a serialized novel. A serial is something I've always wanted to write, having always been interested in stories like that of Great Expectations and the way people were so impatient for the next installment they literally lined up on the docks to wait for the shipment to come off the boat. Serials seemed to die down over the past number of years, but now with the internet and the development of ebooks and email, Twitter, Facebook and all the other methods of communication, as well as condensed time and attention, I feel times have strangely come back around to making sense for the serial.

It seemed to me that this story made perfect material for a serial, and having sudden exposure on Kindle (3,000 downloads so far, still mind-blowing) even furthered that, so I hunkered down and completed Part II, which I'm proud to say is out now on Kindle and Smashwords. Already I've been involved in some interesting conversations about the idea of the serial ebook on Twitter and Goodreads, most especially the always active "Apocalypse Whenever" group, where I'm getting some good feedback.

It's an interesting experiment regardless of what else, and I'm curious to see how it plays out. I'll share anything I learn and I invite everyone to leave suggestions/thoughts/doubts/opinions in the comments. I'm, as always, open to hearing what people think about what I put out there and how I go about it.

Something for Nothing

Big announcement: The Mountain and The City just became a free e-book in Amazon's Kindle Store. Either sometime late last night or early this morning, Amazon dropped the price to zero in order to match how it was being offered through Smashwords and the affiliates they distribute to. I'm not sure when it actually happened, but the book has already hit #403 in Amazon's overall rankings, as well as #19 in the Horror genre and #7 in Short Stories, and is being downloaded more as I watch.

This has really made my morning, and I thank everyone for the support you've given me as well as the new people who are just checking out my stuff. I'm actually writing Part II of The Mountain and The City as we speak (to be fair, I'm writing a blog post about it, but I believe we all accept the parameters of this phrase) and I'm even more excited to finish that and put it out there now that this happened.

**EDIT**

Twenty-four hours later, the story has been downloaded over twelve-hundred times and is sitting at #130 in the rankings. I've wanted to crack Amazon's top 100 for a while and this is the closest I've come by a mile or so.

An Epic Battle in Two Acts

I leave words like slugs leave slime.

On all my computers, on my cell phone, even on old, unlabeled cds, I have files of random text. Open some of my closets and you'll find manila folders bulging with stacks of papers, both hand-written and printed. In drawers you'll come across backs of receipts, corners of flyers, with only a sentence or two on them which by now have lost all context. They're ideas I need to get down before they disappear, or conversations I've had. Or people I've met who struck me as such fully-formed characters I knew I'd write them into something some day. Or dreams.

In one such place I had these: two notes which I left for my wife before leaving the house, which I usually do in a text file on our computer's desktop. Screw you, Post-its. The day before the first note, leading up to a trip to Mexico, I had spotted a spider in the corner of the bathroom when I was getting into the shower, but by the time I had gotten back out it was gone. Worse, it seemed to be colored a deep red.

This is what followed.


Dearest Natalia,

I hesitate to tell you the following, as it will certainly put you into a state of distress, however I believe in my heart that you deserve fair warning in these matters. In short, the bathroom spider exists. Yes, the large arachnid which I did briefly spy upon entering the bathroom those several nights ago, half asleep, torch in hand, is real, and continues to be real and to live. I spotted it just this morning, in the far corner to the left of the mirror, as I sat for my morning rituals. I can confirm only this: that it is large, that it is red (yes, I regret to say, red, as a hemophiliac's nightmare), and that it possesses telepathic abilities. This last detail is the only logical conclusion I can make based on what I witnessed of it, which was nothing less than fully developed psychic power. The incident in question concerned the matter of an immediate response in the bathroom spider to my silent retreival of the tissue which I had planned to form my weapon with. It responded by proceeding directly behind the mirror, out of harm's way, before I could so much as stand let alone deliver the deathblow. I feel I've failed you in no small way by falling short of protecting you from this hellish beast which has violated the security and sanctity of our homestead, but I take solace in the unexpected skill my enemy brandished. I was, after all, outnumbered, at least in the area of legs, by a ratio of eight to two. I've formulated several ideas as to how we can proceed from here to fell the intruder, not the least of which is burning this house to the ground and starting over somewhere the bathroom spider can never find us. Montenegro, perhaps. I regret to be the bearer of such grave news but as I stated previously, I believe you have the right to know the particular danger you find yourself in as you await my return. I wish you good luck and humbly recommend you take caution.

Dutifully yours,
Brian Martinez





Dearest Natalia,

I hope this letter finds you in good health and in high spirits. If they are not, I have news which very well may lift them. I say it with great joy: the bathroom spider is dead. I felled the beast.

The day started in a rather dismal and unassuming manner, as I rose feeling the effects of what is surely a touch of the consumption which has afflicted these parts. Do not worry for my well-being, I have already frequented the apothecary, and he supplied me with several tonics which he assured me would cure the illness. It was in this weakened state that I entered the bathroom this morning, forgetting myself for a moment and ignoring the danger inherent in the room. Quickly the thought struck out at me and I whipped around, scanning the corners, the nooks and crannies the beast is known to inhabit, and surely enough it was there, above the shower, with all of its red eyes trained upon me. I feel comfortable in admitting to you that at first I did not feel up to the task, what with my weakened state and lack of sleep. It was only my thoughts of you that steeled me for the task. I thought of you, sitting alone in the house all day, frightened to enter a room of your own home, and the image angered me so much I put my mind to it, right then and there: it was to be the beast, or me.

I withdrew my weapon of tissue paper and went to the beast where it crouched. I felt not only its eyes upon me but the effects of its mind control which at this point I am most sure it possessed. Its shrilly voice was inside my head, taunting me, confusing me. But I would not lay down so easily. I shall spare you the more gruesome details of our battle, but I will tell you this: I felt as if the Lord Himself guided my hand. My strike was fierce and my aim true, and in the end I stood before the fallen monster and, for just the briefest of seconds, I pitied it. Strange, isn't it, how we can pity the very thing which terrifies us. Such thoughts are useless, I am sure, but there they are regardless.

We are free, my dear. We can go about our lives here in the cottage and raise our family in the knowledge that we are safe. I believe a celebration is called for, even a voyage. I have always wanted to vacation in a more tropical region, perhaps the time has come.

Triumphantly yours,
Brian Martinez