Beer Run of the Dead

Wow. I just looked at the reviews for this book on Amazon and would have probably rethought my review if the main one that gave it 5 stars hadn't said he got it for free and hadn't read it. Stay Classy.

The premise of this book is that if you are bitten by a Zombie alcohol will keep you from turning. So drink. A lot. Drinking would probably help a lot if you had to read this book. The main character is alright but the rest of the book is populated by characters you really would like to see dead. Rock and Steady, (no not the character from the Ninja Turtles. I would have preferred him) to stoners who's main goal in life is to sneak beer into a concert and manage not to become zombies because they stay drunk, a black racist nurse who curses at everyone. and the two girls who would do anything with anyone as long at they provide them with tampons. Seriously. Other than the 17 year old these are the characters in the book. There's very little character development and the author mostly uses the situation to set up different things he wants to happen, like having male nipples cut off or getting drunk enough to have zombie sex.

If for any reason whatsoever you have this book (yes even if it was free, I'd go ahead and delete that bad boy off the kindle. Maybe save it for when a real zombie outbreak happens and give it to someone you don't want around as a field manual.
I give this book -2 noodles.

Code Name: Atlas

Okay, I want to first start out by saying I really wanted to like this book for completely selfish reasons. I was on Goodreads when I get a message from the author about a review of a book I had done on there saying that we should be friends and that we seemed to have similar taste in books. WOW! I of course said yes, why I'm honored. Oh by the way I see you have a book! Let me buy that. I'm sure it'll be great. So I went into the book invested in liking it.
Oi. Me and my big mouth. It's not a terrible book. It's just not a great book. The story itself is a little schizophrenic. There is an alien war that you only barely hear about at the end as the set up for the sequel, there is the dystopian world  wracked in war that the hero (who had served in the Iraq war but is only 18 several years later which would somehow be a big deal to the people following him if they knew?)

There is a lot of good in the book. He has built his world, that much is clear. The author knows where he is going. But the characterization is weak. His wife is always angry at him for leading these people, but then cheats on him with another man that is also leading people, and he never seems to get upset about any of this. There are two main characters who have nearly identical names. That's not confusing at all. And the story seems to jump at the last minute from the battle over the city which we have read about for a hundred pages to this new conflict in space. after the main character has been killed and resurrected.

I wish I could give this book more than 3 noodles. I really do.

How did that happen?

I have an ending. I don't know what happened. I sat down, in a depressed mood and 5k words later there is an ending to my story. I don't even have a MIDDLE yet! Writing the ending did give me several scenes that I now have to write and at least three other characters. I promise my readers if there are any out there that I will NOT be one of those people who milks the middle for 10 books. I just am gobsmacked that I have what I think is a legitimate ending to this story already down. I am starting to suspect that the characters are actually writing it and I'm just their stenographer. And that one of them is pissed I won't let him use the F-word.
All I can say is that this is making me feel so much better about what I'm doing that I can't express it. Which is bad for a writer. Good luck to my friends and frustrations to my enemies and everyone keep the inkwell wet!

Using what you have

I recently read an article written about Joss "Nerd Lord" Whedon where they asked him how he got so much done.
He used a lot of words. He had a lot of advice. It was good.
The gist of what I got out of it was that he knew what he was going to do in general each day, just not in specific. So if he woke up and the calender said write, you wrote something. Maybe not what you meant to write but something. You'll use it later.
I needed to write today. But it was a bad day. Things weren't going right and the scene I wanted to write just wasn't going to happen. Let's face it, I was depressed.
Something in the back of my mind reminded me of the article. Write. Maybe not what you wanted but write anyway.
So I did something very hard. I wrote the hard part of my book.
I'm a fairly easy going person and so most of my stuff comes off light (I hope). But in any book there is the time, as one of my teachers used to tell me, that you have to drown your children. Without something painful your characters don't learn, don't grow, and are really dull, no matter how wonderful they are.
So today I wrote the hard part. I killed my Dumbledore. I threw my Gollum into Mt. Doom. I sacrificed my Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Tomorrow I may regret the way I wrote, I may question the decisions I made or the manner I handled them, but no matter what I will be glad that I went ahead and took on this challenge when I was already in this state of mind.

I couldn't find the exact article (I wish I could) but here was some other advice he had that I'll share.
http://aerogrammestudio.com/2013/03/13/joss-whedons-top-10-writing-tips/

The Orc of Many Questions

Book Review: The Orc of Many Questions


                                                 
This book by Shane Michael Murray (I wonder if he's Chad's brother) features a young orc (called a blunc) named Talking Wind who shows us why Orcs are the way they are. Trapped against the mountains, surrounded by Humans, Elves and Dwarves, befriended by Giants, preyed upon by dragons, Talking Wind is a orc out of place in his community as he asks too many questions! Through his questions we discover the nature of his world and the orcs place in it. The protagonist is not a hero, certainly not by Orc standards and it's his faults that drive the story to it's conclusion. Mr. Murray does an excellent job in world building and sets the ground work for a vibrant world that I can't wait to see him expand upon in future volumes.

I'm giving this book.....four noodles!

Secret Agent Milk!

I have just returned from a highly dangerous secret operation. I went to Walmart. 

Now some of you think this is dangerous for a different reason. It's not the long lines, surly cashiers or baguette wielding ninjas in the bakery that posed a threat. It's my town. 

For those of you that don't know I live in a small town. a really small town. I mean in the same county where I live there is a town that is called Micro, that is quite possibly larger. And everyone knows EVERYONE. I mean when I used to date in High School my father would pull down a book that contained a listing of all my relatives to the Nth degrtee and tell me what rank of cousin my date was to me. I swear the book went back to Noah! I won't talk about what that ranks JoCo on the West Virginia Scale, but lets' just say that some family trees grow in a circle around here. 

Anyway what that means is that everyone is constantly in everyone's business. How does this affect my going to the store? Because the Walmart is brand new. 

See there are already two grocery stores in Princeton. The Piggly Wiggly and the Food Lion. Yes, we like animals, and like them even more when we are eating them. You are a Pig person or a Lion Person. The Pig people are obviously the more rural and traditional, as the Pig has been there the longest. If you are a Lion person you are up town and likely to be snooty or a transplant. This is because they took over the space that the even OLDER IGA resided in. (Before that the Pig was for Up town people). See when you know everyone  then when you go to another store it is assumed that you are taking food out of the mouth of their children. 

This is the second time I have gone into the new Walmart. The first time I wore my navy shirt and everyone assumed I worked there and asked me where everything was. Other than that everyone walked with their heads down, as if they were ashamed to get caught there, like it was particularly disreputable porn store or abortion clinic. It was keep your head down, talk to no one, and when you got out, you were never there...you don't care what your great uncle's sisters daughter on your mother's side said. 

Tonight, perhaps by virtue of it being after closing for the other two stores (if they could roll up sidewalks and road signs at 9 pm (6:30 on Sunday) they would here.) most of the people seemed almost smug about the fact that they were there. The whole store was bursting with a daredevil "I don't care if you do tell your mama I was here" attitude that I thought was normally reserved for teens jumping off the rock quarry to swim. I had an actual conversation with someone for no apparent reason. 

But still when I got home my wife asked me "Did anyone see you there?" 

It's time to silence the witnesses....

Summer Shorts

Okay so a little while ago I submitted something to an anthology called Summer Shorts. I got in, which made me question their sanity. Apparently they knew what they were doing though because this morning (the day after it hit Smashwords) I got the news that it was....
Ranked #75 on Anthologies
Ranked #24 on Short Story Anthologies
Ranked #7 on Literary Collections
Ranked #3 on American Literary Collections

In less than 24 hours! 
This means apparently that I can be considered a Bestseller. or had a story in one. 

I'm amazed at all the great people I met last night and how great their writings is. 

Also Got to go see Pacific Rim. I'm gobsmacked (if a non-Brit is allowed to be) 

I now want to write a giant robot story. Which is a problem since I have this Roleplaying story going on with the group and a Viking story and this other story about Zeus working in a cubical. Okay. back to it. 

Write Right, Right Write!

The value of being the weakest link

I'm really excited about my new writing group. I've got Mellissa Black, who has had several stories published now in various anthologies, David Chappell, who has been my friend and GM for years, William S. Childress, who has published his own novel Stygian Shores (available on Amazon and the wilds of Rhode Island), Dave McKeean, who I've been a reader for before on a novel, and Mike Ray, publisher of Redstone Magazine and writer of several short stories that are scattered across the Multiverse. I am truly the weakest link here. And I couldn't be happier.

When I was in high school I managed to get on the football team. Despite being a farm boy I wasn't nearly the strongest or the best player we had. I was slow, weak and honestly lazy. I was used to doing things with my head. But when I went into weight training I got put in with the strongest kids, Chad Strickland and  Eric Thompson. I know, I know, train wreck right? Wrong. They pushed me and didn't let me give up. Every time I thought I was at the wall, when I wasn't looking they'd slip a bit more weight on the bar or lie about how many reps I'd done to make sure I burned every bit of potential I had out of me. My Senior year I won the award for Weightlifting and was one of the strongest people in the school. And I owe it to those two guys.

I think you see where I'm going with this. That or I've started to attract the shiny vampire crowd.

I know these guys are going to push me. Mel is going to kick my backside everytime I make an excuse about not having time until I'm back at the computer. Dave C is going catch me everytime I'm on the computer playing a game instead of writing and just remind me of what I SHOULD be doing. Mike is going to point out when I get lazy in my writing and don't keep it moving. William (Scotty from here on out) has a belief in me that I don't have personally (I wonder how much he'll sell it for. I have just the place on my shelf for it.) And Dave M isn't afraid not to go after the story because we are friends. If I could build an evil Cabal to help me take over the world these would probably be the people I assassinated first because they know my weaknesses. Or recruit them.
Anyway, if you ever have to go to war, or write, these are the kinds of people you want on your side.
Good things are coming.

Mental Cleansing

After the pain what was Spring Breakers I decided to treat myself to something good. Since it was going to be 3 days until Pacific Rim I went to the bookshelf. Kevin Hearne was waving his hands at me so I cracked open Hunted at last.

Why at last? Because there are somethings you savor. And like most things that you truly enjoy they are gone all too quickly. This is the 6th book in the series and it starts off running. Through most of the novel the main characters are either running or fighting with ancient Greek and Roman gods with a steady commentary coming from the wolfhound Oberon that always has me rolling. The action is steady and the patter entertaining and you nearly forget that Loki is out there trying to destroy the world. The next book is set up nicely and there is even an extra novella to help tide you over to next time.

But just like ice cream it is over before you want it to be and it will be another year until the next one comes out. That's the only bad thing I have to say about the book.

Recent readings and writings

The writing went well today, if a little dark.
I'm working on a short story about a Viking Berserker and what causes that and how it would affect him. Right now it is way too much show and not enough tell but when I send the rough out to my 1st readers we'll see if they want any more of it.
My two children's books are still looking for Illustrators. I think I've locked one up for the "Evil Monkey Minions" But I'm still looking for one for "Monty the Mischief Monster." All the books say I should just send it off and try to get a publisher to take it and let them deal with the illustrating but I want to have a copy in my hands before my son is too old to enjoy them.

Lately I've been reading a lot of steampunk. Lillith Saintcrow's Bannon and Clare series was very good. If you get a chance you should read it. I've also been revisiting an old love Warmachine. They recently put out some books one by Larry Correia. His was excellent but I'm not sure how good it would be without the extensive background. If you try it let me know.

The big excitement today is being signed up for the Brian Sanderson writing class.
http://www.writeaboutdragons.com/extra/2013-summer-class/

Several of my friends and I are going to be writing during this so I can't wait to see what they come up with.
Oh...did I forget to mention I'm getting published?

NO SPRING BREAK HERE!

I have long been a student of film. Okay that's not true. I've just watched a lot of them. But as an aficionado of MST3K I have seen cheezy movies. The worst ever made. I even sat through Vanilla Sky. (Tom Cruise you owe me my $6 for that. No...seriously. Pay up. I don't care how much Katie took. You owe me for that. )
All that said, I couldn't make it 15 minutes into Spring Breakers.
That movie was...well awful doesn't cover it. I need some word out of a Lovecraft novel for an unspeakable horror that is never seen by the protagonist or can not be described in English. This is coming from someone who has watched Manos :The Hand of Fate repeatedly.
To the poor girls who for no apparent reason decided to be in that movie, I have this advice. Read the Script. If it's only 3 pages long for a 2 hour movie, you should probably just pass.
To the people who made the movie and put it out there for sale, you and Tom Cruise need to come see me.
Maybe I'm getting too old and I know I'm not the target audience but all I can hope is that the movie DOESN"T speak to a new generation.
If so, look out for me. I'm the old guy, on the porch. Holding the shotgun.