Rude Influences

 

No real update this past couple of months.  We suffered another tragedy in addition to losing my mom.  I'll be back to LJ sometime soon.  This is just another self-serving update to post a couple of recent releases ....


Americana: The Last Gleaming is out via Shadowfire Press.  This was bit of a pet project, six intertwined short stories modeled after 1950s hardboiled fiction, with a number of homages to the southern American 'grotesque' writers.  




Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl, Behave! is out at The Fabulist.  A short fairy tale about lesbian witches, their knitting and a very unruly little fellow.



Then a post over at EDF about proofreading that includes some tips and hints on how to efficiently proofread manuscripts. 

And a reprint up at Shalla Magazine, entitled "November Gray (or the fairy who ate a toad)" 

I know, horror, fabulist and literary ... I ought to pick a genre.Oh well.

Back soon. I hope all is well with everyone and their loved ones.

I think I'll spare you the cheesy baroque weather report this update as the weather is indescribably neurotic this time of year and I don't want to encourage it. It's been a hard month, I'm still emotionally recovering from my mom's death. In many ways it was relief, but it was a very intense couple of months and it really let the wind out of my sails. I've visited with one of those special talking doctors a couple of times on the issue and it appears I am on track in dealing with it. Tom Waits has been great company these past few weeks. A fabulous musician and storyteller. The baby is doing quite well and already in 12 months clothes and barely just past the six month mark. He's extremely alert and babbles and grabs and seems well on his way. He is to be the final puppy to the wolf pack (being outnumbered is bit worrisome to me), so to that end I had some minor surgery to to prevent any accidents. Yes, it did hurt quite a bit, thanks for asking. :P Although, being me, I asked the surgeon to let me have a peek at the goriest times, which he happily obliged. Yes it was very gross, thanks for asking. :P So on the cusp April I ask myself where it went, and I'm not exactly sure, perhaps in the broom closet necking with March?

So time does not stand still, of course, and while I've not drafted anything in nearly 20 days, nor participated in my writing groups much, there is still fun things happening. Firstly "Love of the Dead: Redux" was released by Shadowfire Press around the 16th. It's a novella about a love, betrayal, fatherhood and sucking ... blood that is. I love the cover. Celia one of two protags looks perfect.

Then, I'm thrilled to say post-production of the enhanced audio book for "The Movie" is nearly done, and we expect it to hit the virtual shelves sometime this year, although I don't have a time line yet. It's a spectacular job. The enhanced bit means it's got a few accent sound effects in there, it came out beautifully. Also, if you'd like a review copy of "The Movie" give me a holler, I think I have one more paperback left, I'd love to send it out to anyone who thinks they might enjoy it. Free toe-tag book mark even. :D

Despite my funk I've continued to edit my novel "Bound" in hopes I can sucker convince an indie press to take a chance on it. It's rather dark tale that conceptually combines "Good Will Hunting" with "The Maxx". I think it's a great story, although I'm sure without the help of a skilled editor it may never see it's full potential. Also, I've been gearing up to get American Woman going again, I'm at 60k and in the home stretch I think, so I'm hoping to plow ahead in March.

Hope everyone is well.

Just in case anyone is still reading here ... Lots of exciting writing stuff is still happening, and I'll catch everyone up later. But the majority of my time has been spent nursing my terminally ill mother. One week ago, one day from her 58th birthday, she shucked off her earthly burdens and moved on. You bet we had a heck of a birthday party for her. I was honored to have been there when she died, she was a beautiful and intelligent woman, and I I've pasted a few words I hacked out for the memorial here.  More soon.  

--

Dear Mom,

I think this note is not really for you. Your troubles are over now, and I've told you these things, both in the last few months, and hopefully over the years. This note is really for the people gathered here today to say goodbye to a unique and exceptional woman. You fought the cancer with a fearsome stubbornness that was an inspiration to those around you. You didn't give up until it was clear, that surrender was the only action that would allow you to win the battle, and get you the peace you deserved.

So, I'd like to thank you here and now, for the good memories. I remember all the books you read to me before I could read them myself. As always you didn't settle for the status quo, you found the best of the best for me, and of course, the other kids too. I'd like to thank you for the summer walks in the morning where we'd explore the endless prairies, and how we found a hidden pond just over that last rolling hill. I'd like to thank you for bringing me along to help in the garden when I was surely more a hindrance than help. I'd like to thank you for all the clothes you made for us, the sweaters knit, the little suits of clothes sewn from scratch.

I'd like to thank you for all the times you let me crawl into bed with you because I was scared of whatever nonsense a little boy can dream up. I'd like to thank you for doing the best with what you had when we came to a strange place and you didn't have much to work with. I'd like to thank you for all the guidance you gave me as a teenager -- how to correct the bad decisions and how to make good ones in the future. I'd like to thank you for always telling me I could follow a dream and catch it, all I had to do was try. I want to thank you for helping me when I was left alone with a new baby, going to school and working as I tried to get start in the world. I'd like to thank you for your warmth and support as my family grew. Even when we didn't agree, your continued influence of patience, inquisitiveness and goodwill was with me, and benefited my growing family. I'd like to thank you for being the bigger person, and coming forward and letting me know how sick you were.

I'd like to thank you for allowing me and my family to take care of you when it was getting too hard for you to do it yourself. We were all honored that we could do it. Even as the end approached you continued to offer guidance and love, and brought our family together despite the dire circumstances. I'm glad that when the moment finally came for you to move on, I was there, and able to comfort you.

I want to thank you for teaching me that:

* The touch of a loved one's hand can be more powerful than the strongest morphine.

* Despite disease, old age, and debilitation a woman can be beautiful.

* Loyalty and love can't fix everything, but that should never stop you from trying.

* There is nothing disrespectful about laughter, loud children and humor, these are the things we live for.

* Human sentience and the will to live is the most powerful and mysterious thing in all the vast universe.

Mom, you had so much talent, you could have been anything, an artist, a writer, a scientist, a musician -- anything you put your mind to. Instead, you chose to be a mother, a often thankless job, a job that is hard to quantify or qualify. I'd like to thank you for making that choice and using all that brilliance to raise a generation of kids who, will in turn, raise their own kids using the best of what you taught us.

I'd like to thank you for the sacrifices you made, sacrifices, that I once naively thought came quite naturally to you, but now I'm sure that choice was not always easy. So I'd like to thank you one more time, here in front of my kids, and brothers and sisters, my father, and all these folks gathered here to honor you. Your body wore out, and mind has transitioned to memories and imperceptible influences that will live forever among your family and friends. You'll never be forgotten, your mark on the world is indelible.

I realize, mom, these words are really inadequate to express the depth of gratitude, but they will have to do. Thanks so much for being you, and rising to the challenge of dedicating your life to five rowdy kids. I love you, and am proud to have you for my mom.

And now Adam will read a short poem by A.A Milne, this was one of mom's favorites to read to me when I was just a little guy, and she'd attack it with unparalleled drama . There is an ephemeral quality of a human life that mimics the wind as described by Mr. Milne in this poem:

Wind on the Hill
by A. A. Milne

No one can tell me,
Nobody knows,
Where the wind comes from,
Where the wind goes.

It's flying from somewhere
As fast as it can,
I couldn't keep up with it,
Not if I ran.

But if I stopped holding
The string of my kite,
It would blow with the wind
For a day and a night.

And then when I found it,
Wherever it blew,
I should know that the wind
Had been going there too.

So then I could tell them
Where the wind goes...
But where the wind comes from
Nobody knows.

January update ... lots of snow this year

I've been swamped with some family issues, work, and all that fun stuff. Such is life ...

but, you can catch my "A Moment (On the Gallows)" in print in the best of EDF 2009, and my short story "Earned Apples" in the Shalla's pop art pocket edition, volume three. Both are dark literary stories (and you thought I was a one-trick pony).

Also, Shadowfire Press will run my novella "Love of the Dead" in mid-April. It's a reprint, but it's been reworked to implement some of finer points of the craft of fiction. It's the only vampire story I've ever written.

I've stopped submitting altogether for 2010 since I've placed most of my backlog and am now focusing on novels. I'm about 60k into my WiP, "American Woman" which deals with the a slightly delusional sex addict suburbanite (I swear it's not autobiographical). :p

The Movie had to be re-set due to the wrong draft going to the printers. If you got a bum copy, sorry! Contact me and I'll send you toe-tag bookmark with the character of your choice.

Also, I'm working on a self-published anthology of three reprints and a fourth unpublished ms, tentatively entitled "Never Smooth" to be published on Smashwords. It has a theme of love from a male perspective. Straight literary, no speculative elements at all.

Hope 2010 has been awesome for all you ...

Ciao for now.

Because Mr Macgowan proves the only thing you need to rock out, is soul. :D

It is Christmas time in Bosleyland . . .

The tree is trimmed with bright glossy orbs of preserved reindeer eyes, and fine ornaments are chiseled from their still moist bones. Beneath the tree, boxes of all sizes wrapped up neatly in smooth recently tanned reindeer skin.

"Ho, ho, ho!" Bosley hears as he dozes in his arm chair. Cyanide milk, arsenic cookies have been laid on the table. A double barreled sawed off shotgun sits in his lap. He watches the embers in the fireplace and grins, as the wafting smell of fresh meat pies fills the air.

"Come on down you son-of-a-bitch," he whispers, and pumps his gun.

Down the chimney the drunken merry old elf comes like a clumsy, morbidly obese, sneak thief. Stocking, hanging heavy, sway like murders on the gallows.

"Hey Kringle, smile for the camera," Bosley says with a grin, one arch of an eyebrow raising up, as he lets buckshot fly.

"Ha!" Santa grunts and dives to the side. The stockings, hung with such care, tatter to shreds.

"The one and only," Bosley says and empties the other barrel with a soft beady bang.

"I hate to tell you kid," Kringle says, "this isn't the first gun I've seen today." He takes a surprisingly nimble flying leap toward Bosley who steps back as the jolly fat elf flies through the air. "I thrive on the Christmas misery," his stinking body slamming into Bosley. "How do you think I get so fat? On the laughter of children? On goodwill? Oh no."

Bosley squirms from underneath him and suddenly decides a standing shooting star press might be in order, and slams himself down.

"Hear that Kringle? That's not the crunching of snow."

"Suck it, Gravel," he says and rams a hammy fist into Bosley's delicate glass baubles. "I'm a juggernaut. I can't be stopped." He stands, towering. "Each bit of senseless consumerism, each dollar we go in debt, each shinny rock---"

Bosley stands now and wobbles.

"I'm going to send you back to hell," Bosley says.

"That's the Christmas spirit, my boy," Kringle says as Bosley pounces, pounding and fierce.

"This one is for more crap from China to end up in our landfills, this one is for horrible cookies, and drunken dysfunctional relatives ... all the annoying in-laws!"

Bosley works his fists up and down like pistons while he sits on the fat man's chest. "And this one is for all the driving, and the shitty weather."

Kringle, believe it or not, is grinning.

"But that, my boy, is the true meaning of Christmas!"

Bosley looks down at rosy cheeks, the black eyes, the broken teeth. A sense of wonder and revelation fills Bosley's chest.

"Misery! Suffering! That's what it is all about!" Bosley says.

"Yes!" Kringle says, "That's it! Do you see beautiful it can be now?"

Bosley wipes a tear from under his eye as he takes out his trusty pocket knife, and tests the blade with his thumb.

"Yes, oh yes ..."

The tree is trimmed with bright glossy orbs of preserved reindeer eyes, and fine ornaments chiseled from their still moist bones. And beneath the tree, boxes of all sizes wrapped up neatly in smooth recently tanned reindeer skin. Cyanide milk and arsenic cookies on the table.

And up on the top of tree sits Kringle's head with a toothless grin.

Bosley smiles and pokes the fire; the head of Kris Kringle on the top of the tree, and says, "I hope all you folks on my LJ flist have a wonderful holiday ... and to all a goodnight!"

Dead Bait is reviewed at Fangoria  and yours truly is mentioned by name ... I guess Fangoria is a magazine about horror stuff or something?! ;)

My friend Rachel has an awesome painting for sale at ebay ... would make a nice (late) xmas present for anyone who loves teh fairies. :D

First review of The Movie is up ... check it out here.

And if you haven't already .... join The Movie Facebook fan page here! Promotions and free copies coming soon!
Hope your holiday are pleasant thus far, no matter what they might be.   (Personally I'm waiting for that Festivus miracle that happens every year.)

But have a gander at the beta trailer for my novella "Anima Venti" (a Shadowfire Release)



And help yourself to a scone: