HELLO LIL’ DEACON (and some pretty vague news)

Okay, so it’s exciting times here.

Yesterday I got a royalty check from Kensington. Whoo HOO! It was a nicely sum, not life-changing by any means, but good. Steak dinner, new laptop, new camera, new violin for the Missus, and savings good. Plus, it showed that BLOOD AND SILVER (Deacon book 2) earned out its advance JUST LIKE BLOOD AND BULLETS DID!

Thank you, really thank you. You are totally wonderful and I really appreciate it. Your support means the absolute world to me.

So where does this leave the Deacon Chalk series? Ongoing. Around September (earlier if I can swing it) you will receive into the world SPECIAL FEATURES which will collect all the Deacon short fiction up to now and some new pieces new to the collection.  I look at the first six releases : THAT THING AT THE ZOO, BLOOD AND BULLETS, SPIDER’S LULLABY, BLOOD AND SILVER, CIRCUS OF BLOOD, AND BLOOD AND MAGICK as the first season of a really, really kick ass urban fantasy show.  SPECIAL FEATURES is exactly what it sounds like. All the short fiction falls before or between those releases with one piece that caps out BLOOD AND MAGICK.  Plus it will have some essays, excerpts, and all kinds of goodies.

Before the end of the year (I am shooting for October/November) You will have OF SILK AND SCALE Deacon Chalk Book 4. This one picks up in a world where everything is different after the events of BLOOD AND MAGICK and if you thought that book was intense, wait until you see what I have in store for you! (Muwah-ha-ha)

So between now and then? Glad you asked.

The WIP: RED RIGHT HAND, a Lovecraftian Urban Fantasy, which is DARK. is one last push to completion and it goes out into the world to find a home. This one is intense. Lots of depth. You will love the heroine, Charlie….she so wonderfully broken and tragic and amazing.

THUNDER ON THE BATTLEFIELD: Volume 1 Sword and Volume 2 Sorcery are nearly done and will be out end of June. I edited it and it is awesome sword and sorcery goodness featuring not one, but TWO stories from me featuring Deacon’s time-flung ancestor Theok. The cover art is coming along wonderfully and as soon as it is locked and loaded I’ll have the actual release date from Seventh Star Press.

I have a Giant Robot novelette due to Mechanoid Press for MECHANOID EARTH and the story is a doozy. Science hella fiction to the max. I go all Shogun Warriors on this one, but you know me, it will have the weird Tuck twist to make it awesome. Should be out in August.

The super secret collaboration project with a NYT Bestselling author is off to find a home. That one will be amazing and I cannot wait to spill those magic beans to you.

I just today sold a series of pulp short novels and a matching anthology to a publisher. It will be majestic and I’ll announce the details as soon as the ink dries on the paperwork but you will have pulpy goodness from me every quarter in 2014. I’m uber excited about this one.

Sent out a project proposal that WILL sell. It will be awesome. But can’t talk about it until sold. But trust me, it will be bigger on the inside.

In talks with an author whose work I admire to collaborate on a novella-length weird western erotica.

Still have the Outlaws of Fiction weird western novella to wrap up.

HOOKERPUNK is still on and should be out soon from Dark Oak Press. My story in it is one of my absolute favorites. I love the story, the characters and the world. More weird west kick ass.

You can buy THE BIG BAD: An Anthology of Evil edited by my friends John Hartness and Emily Leverett, also from Dark Oak Press RIGHT HERE.  My story in it is basically: what if Superman were a dick?

And finally, I WANT to do a kids book for adults starring this guy, so keep your eyes peeled for it.

Lil’ Deacon kicking big time monster ass.

THING I DO NOT UNDERSTAND FANFICTION IS THY NAME. (plus some assorted news)

Ok, news first.

BLOOD AND BULLETS WILL BE OUT FEBRUARY 7, 2012!!!

Mark your calenders. It’s Super Tuesday, so go buy the book and read it in line to vote.  Also, my short story “He Stopped Loving Her Today” will appear in the Halloween special issue of One Buck Horror’s e-anthology. You will be able to pick it up for only .99 cents. Stay tuned Loyals and True Believers, I will let you know when.

I finished the prequel short story that occurs before BLOOD AND BULLETS and the plan is to give it away to whet your greedy little appetites for the book’s release. It’s 15,000 words so it’s well worth picking up when it’s available. Again, stay tuned. And finally I am 3,000 words into a Sci-fi Lovecraftian tale that I am aiming at a specific publisher and a specific anthology, so keep your fingers crossed.

Now on to the thing I do not understand.

Fan fiction.  Ok, I understand fan fiction…I have even read fan fiction. I get it, you want to play with cool concepts.  To clarify, I don’t understand fan fiction if you are a writer who is seeking to be published.  Why waste your time?  It will never see the light of day and will lend to problems down the road if you do get published.   I am sure you had fun writing about the shared unierse of DC Comics and Battlestar Galactica.  It was quite fun to have Green Arrow on Galactica and Darkseid working with Number 6.   However, every word you spent in someone else’s playground was a word you will not have to make your own.

If you want to be a writer, a published author, then the name of the game is to create a world of your own imagining and fill it with characters who have agendas, and motives, and weaknesses, and desires, and strengths.  Pit them against each other in a bid for power. Have on character royally screw another one. Turn blood on blood and pull families asunder. Destroy your world in a cataclysmic thunder of armageddon. Have someone find love, have someone lose it. Restore a characters faith in humanity and then rip it away from him in a vicious act of betrayal over a woman.

Go crazy. Be the vengeful god of the world you created. Be sadistically playful with these imaginary lives you have set in motion, after all, they are yours for the destroying.

You don’t have that right in fanfiction. Quit wasting your time and man up. You can write. Do it. No excuses, no explaination.   You could have written 5 paragraphs in the time it took you to try and object or defend the time you have wasted with somebody else’s creations.  Go make your own way.  You will not get lost in the woods. Just trust yourself.

Until next time, write well.