Wherefore Art Thou, Authors?

The thing about being in the thick of writing things is that there's really not much to talk about during that lull. I did pass the 30K-word mark, which usually also starts the paranoia phase of my drafting. I now only have less than 20K words to go to wrap things up, and let me tell you, things go REALLY quickly once that 30K-word line is crossed.

I'm on schedule, and this is going to be a bit of a challenge to revise and edit once the first draft's done.

The folktale I'm basing this on doesn't have a significant resolution, and unlike, say, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", which I based Compline on, "The Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Is" is a weird -- albeit funny -- story because in the end, the main character (who's as dumb as a rock) STILL doesn't know how to shudder. Oh, his future wife makes him, of course, but it's got nothing to do with fear at all but, rather, cold water.

There's a lot of satire in the original folktale, though, but as to what, exactly, is being made fun of, I'm not really sure. There are only a number of interpretations from psychologists whose take I've never been a fan of. It's an old oral folktale that the Grimm brothers merely collected for their books, so whatever the point is for that story is lost forever, I think. 

The one thing I can say about the main character in the folktale, though, is that as stupid as he is (or one can argue he's just impossibly naive), he actually displays an impressive amount of compassion and empathy. Oh, he's got no understanding that the people he's trying to help are dead, but the need to help is there.

I am taking a lot of elements from the folktale and rewriting them in my own way to fit my version of it. So Errol and Edvin's ages needed to be bumped down a little more than usual, but I'm not marketing this as a YA book. They're both 19, which allows them to be utterly clueless about life and the world and believing the universe revolves around them still. We all know how it was to think we're indestructible. 

Anyway, that lack of a solid point in the original folktale has been difficult to keep out of my own story, and that'll make for a pretty intensive revision phase with maybe a lot of deletions and new material woven in. Or at least it'll take me longer than usual to get that done. 

In reference to this blog post title, I'm wondering about the "old guard" of writers who've been very active for years and then suddenly dropped off everyone's radar (or significantly cut down on their presence everywhere). It's very difficult, keeping writing and publishing up. It's not only hard actually turning words in your head into readable text following a plot that does everything it needs to do, but also go through the rest of the publishing stages of revising, editing, book cover design, marketing, etc. 

The sudden or gradual disappearance of the authors whose books I own and am happy to add to gives me a lot to think about. Things aren't forever, and life happens to everyone. For those authors with a massive following and who enjoy significantly more success than I, I reckon the added pressure of reader expectations can also burn them out eventually. 

I do miss them. I miss their stories and their voices and only now hope they're all doing well. A handful of go-to writers are still writing and publishing fairly consistently, but they're doing so at a markedly slower pace. I've been trawling Smashwords for new voices to discover now, and the proliferation of AI-written books is putting a damper on things. I did get sucked into maybe four books from "authors" I now actively avoid, but I've also discovered one relatively active writer I'll be following. 

I'm still keeping an eye out and hope to run across more of these new writers. Serendipity rules, man. 

April Store Sale

Life's rough, and sales are good. Apologies for forgetting to update both my Payhip store and this blog, but a late day is better than nothing.

So for all of April, my Masks collection as well as my Miscellaneous collection are 80% off. In essence, most of these books are cheaper than my Grotesqueries novellas, so yay!

This sale lasts through -- yep -- the end of April, and it's only happening at my store. So if you'd like to snag a copy or two of whatever books you might have been on the fence about, go to the following pages for them:

Masks (80% off the entire series including the omnibus)

Miscellaneous (80% off the entire series including all the omnibuses)

There'll be another sale (a different one) in May, and I'm trying to make these offers a monthly thing. Hopefully I'll be a hell of a lot more on top of things by the first of May, but I'm me, and life is life. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the books if you do purchase any, and thank you so much for your support! 

 

La Colline Aux Oiseaux

Hello, Sping. The Bay Area just ended Winter with a freaking heat wave, and I'm glad it's over and that we're set to enjoy milder spring weather in the coming days. Seeing as how it's still hot where I am, I'm unable to go to bed and have been diverting myself with stuff to feed my brain for my weekend writing.

You know, I actually debated adding this song to the gallery page for Doppelgänger, but I honestly didn't start listening to this until the tail end of that book's creation. I didn't listen to any song at all for inspiration, and it was solely by accident that I ran across this one again after a long spell of forgetting it existed. 

Maybe it's sentimental of me to use it, but as it does have a lullaby-like quality, I imagine this melody being hummed by Marguerite when putting little Théodore to bed. 

I've also listened to the English versions of the song, but I don't know how faithful of a translation they are to the original French (the title might come close enough with the English being "Mockin' Bird Hill"). 

At any rate, it's a melancholy touch if I were to apply it to the book and the LaSalle family's backstory. I'm not adding it to the gallery page, though, but posting about it here is good enough. In the meantime, I'm also not listening to any songs for The Shadow Groom although one of the book's original prompts (besides being inspired by the Brothers Grimm fairy tale) was the Gothic album from Nox Arcana, which I listen to religiously alongside other albums from them. 

Hell, given the way my brain works, I might end up recycling ideas that Gothic gave rise to for a future book.   

Big Sale (Payhip), Baby Sale (Smashwords)

So I did a thing. 

But, firstly, a bigger thing, i.e., the big sale over at my Payhip site. When you purchase a copy of Doppelgänger, you can add another book from the Grotesqueries collection for free. This BOGO sale will be on through the end of March, and it's there to help promote my new release. 

So head on over there if you'd like to support me directly.  

Secondly, a baby sale -- this time I decided to hold a 50% off sale through the month of March over at Smashwords for two books specifically: Hell-Knights and The Flowers of St. Aloysius. 

I only plan to offer future BOGO sales of my books over at Payhip, by the way, because I'd like to draw more reader traffic toward that site. It's my personal store, and I have a lot more freedom when it comes to offering sales and other promos. 

As for Smashwords, I decided to try out their site-specific deals via Draft2Digital since D2D now owns Smashwords, and I can play with their coupon manager feature since I can't participate in their tri-annual site-wide blitz sales (the rules aren't flexible enough for me, I'm afraid). For this month, I'm offering the two novels listed above for my first round of sales. Depending on how well this ends up, I might be doing this on a monthly basis, but by and large, my Payhip store will be where the bigger deals are. 

And I'm going to make it a thing now that each new book released -- all of which will be for the Grotesqueries collection -- will mark a month-long BOGO sale linked to that book and the rest of the other long novellas under that heading. That will be the only time I'll be offering any of my 99 cent books at some kind of discount. The rest of the year will be a mix of 60 - 80% off or maybe a limited BOGO for the rest of my backlist.  

I already have two sales set up for April and May (one per month), and I just need to put one together for June before the next big sale for Grotesqueries, i.e., when The Shadow Groom releases on July 1.  

Now Available: 'Doppelgänger' (New Month, New Book, New Sale!)

Finally saw the back of February, and here we are! Seriously, for a short month, it always feels so, SO long, living out every minute of it. Good riddance. 

We are now staring a new month with a new book plus a book sale via my Payhip store. So behold, ladies and gents, Doppelgänger is now available for purchase online in e-book and print formats. Again, here's the blurb:

An impoverished young teacher loses his job when the informal ragged school where he works shuts down. A much-needed stroke of luck, however, brightens Alec Herridge's prospects when he stumbles across a frame-maker's shop and is offered a job. This puts him squarely in the path of an enigmatic and wealthy family from France—expatriates whom gossips whisper about. Something, they say, has followed mother and son to England, and day servants complain about a heaviness in the air whenever the family is at home. 

It's a dark energy that turns its attention to Alec now that his new job requires him to work closely with Marguerite and Théo LaSalle. It also appears to him as a silent lookalike of Théo, its presence marked by whispers in a child's voice. Urging, pleading, desperately reaching out to Alec for help. 

Folklore defines doppelgängers as heralds of ill fortune, but Alec soon discovers there's much more to Théo's double than a warning. That whatever horrible secrets the LaSalle family believes were left behind in France aren't the kind so easily explained away. That something has, indeed, followed them in exile and now refuses to be ignored or forgotten.

Go here for my Payhip store, which is the most direct way folks can support me. But if you prefer to go elsewhere, this is the Books2Read page for it. Links to the print book might take a day or two to update, so keep checking.  

Now here's an incentive for supporting me directly through Payhip (sneaky, sneaky me, I know)...

I talked about how I never put up the books in my Grotesqueries collection for special sales because they're already dirt cheap (many publishing gurus actually advise against doing this because this price point doesn't entice readers the way $2.99 does, but I have my reasons for sticking to things). Well, I changed my mind at least for my Payhip store.

I'm running a BOGO sale to promote my new book, and it involves the entire Grotesqueries collection. So if you buy a copy of Doppelgänger from my store, you can snag a free copy of ANY book from the same collection. The sale runs through the entire month, and it'll be the only sale for March. And, yes, it's only going to be at my store. 

So, yes -- if you purchase the book, I hope you enjoy it, and do leave a review to help it get some traction. Thanks for the support! Woohoo, new book! 

EDIT: If you tried to check out my store sometime yesterday (Feb. 28), you'd have seen the book already set up and available for purchase. Unfortunately, Payhip doesn't allow for pre-orders, so I might as well get that page live before I go to bed. So, hey -- that's one more incentive to buy direct! 😁