2019 Year-in-Review (5 Year Plan Revisited)

Whelp, we survived another one. There seemed to be a few close calls there, but somehow we keep on trucking. In my personal life, it would be pretty hard to be worse than 2017 (please don't try, 2020), so I'm thank for anything that shows even mild improvement.

And hey, the close of this decade is a pretty big one for me. In the last ten years I moved to a new city, bought a house, started a new career, had two kids, published my first books and stories - it's been a momentous time in my life.

A few years ago for Insecure Writers Support Group day, we were supposed to describe where we saw ourselves in five years. I instead wrote a pretty specific list of goals I wanted to accomplished in those years, and every 12 months since I've been revisiting that list to see how I'm doing on it. It's always good to finish any sort of calendar milestone by judging ourselves, right?

FIVE YEAR GOALS (3 years in)

Write 3-5 books.

Here's my big one for this year, which was a secret until now: In the past twelve months I've actually written two new books. (Okay, as of this writing the second one still needs another chapter or two, but I'm pretty damn close). That's huge for me, since I haven't completed a full-length manuscript since Hell Comes to Hogtown came out in 2016. It's not that I haven't tried; I've started probably a dozen novels in the last three years, some of them I've even got 20-30K words deep, but for various reason none of them ever made it to the end. That changed this year.

Now, one of the books was a fun, silly (and illustrated!) middle-grade book I wrote for my kids and nieces which will probably never see the light of day for anyone else, but I'm still counting that as a win. The other one, though, I'm really hoping to do something with in the near future...

Total: 2 revised/rewritten books, and 2 new books. I'm actually doing pretty good.


Submit at least 3 books to agents/publishers.

Because I'm behind on my new books, still have not submitted any NEW books to a publisher, so unless I have a flurry of productivity in the next two years there's no way I'm going to meet this goal. I did submit the book I revised last year to a few places, and while I received a little interest, nothing really materialized. Total: 1 books submitted so far.


Self-publish 2-3 (full length) books.

None this year, but it looks good to have at least one out in the coming year (fingers crossed!). That will still only be 1 in the last 3 years, but hey, that's better than the 35 years previous.


Self-publish at least 1 Werebear vs Landopus story per year.

Missed this one this year. Wrote a lot of words, but unfortunately none of them made it into a Werebear vs Landopus story. I've got ideas for another few stories in this series and more set in the same world, but it's just a matter of moving them up the list of dozens of other things I'm working on. Total: 2 for 3!


Write at least 2 short stories per year and submit them to anthologies/magazines.

This continues to be my most successful area. I had two stories published this year (that were submitted last year) in Masquerade: Oddly Suited and Strangely Funny VI, and I wrote and submitted 3 more. I also just received word a few days ago that one of those stories were accepted and will be appearing in the coming year! I'll have details on that in the coming weeks, and I'm sure you'll hear lots more about it then. Total: 3 for 3



Collect at least 100 rejections.

I had 19 rejections this year, which is a record for me. I also received one back 2 minutes from the time I sent the email! That brings my total to just over 50, which means I'm really going to have to submit some crap to as many places as possible in order to hit 100 in the next 24 months.

What Am I Doing? (#IWSG May 2019)

In a moment I'm going to get into a bunch of great writing-related stuff that's going on, and I think it's important to share that and be proud of my successes. First, though, I just wanted to share some insecurities and some doubts I've had lately due to alot of outside forces. Any writing successes have been very much despite everything else going on in my life, certainly not because of it.

About two weeks ago, my wife went in for surgery. It was a fairly minor procedure, and not the one that we had been waiting for since last year. The surgery went well, and she came home the same day, but after a few days we noticed that she did not seem to be recovering as quickly as she should have been. In fact, it soon became apparent that she was actually getting worse, not better.

We ended up in the emergency room on Friday, and after nine hours and a couple of ultrasounds that found nothing, they sent us home with some more pain meds and instructions to wait a little longer for her to heal. Then on Sunday night/Monday morning, the pain became excruciating and she began showing signs of liver failure (turning yellow, the whole nine yards), so we rushed back to the emergency room at 3:00am.

After another twelve hours in the ER, they did another emergency surgery on Monday afternoon and finally fixed the issue. It's two days later now and she's finally on the mend, and should be coming home today.

So the good news is that everything seems to have worked out, but the bad news it's been an incredibly stressful couple of weeks (and especially the last few days). And this was just one event in my wife's ongoing health and chronic pain issues. On top of that, both of my kids have recently been seeing a lot of doctors for various health issues, not to mention all the other everyday regular stresses like the water heater dying last week, the cat getting sick and needing to go to the vet, the car making weird noises and threatening to break down any minute, etc, etc, etc. And did I also mention that my boss asked me on Friday (before we had to rush to the ER) if I was interested in a promotion? It's the same job I did temporarily last year, which is more money but also A LOT more work.

So with all that in mind, I have to ask: When the fuck am I supposed to have time to write?

I want to, I really do. In addition to several releases I've got a number of other stories and a manuscript out on submission, plus a couple of other stories about ready to go out. I've got two novels I'm finally making progress on and feeling excited about, plus a dozen other things I'm itching to start working on.

And yet I'm considering just giving it all up.

It's too stressful. I've got so much already going on with my life, that adding writing and all of its related tasks is just too much. I'm excited and I want to work on my projects, but I'm constantly disappointed when I don't get to them. And worrying about them while dealing with all the other worries in life just compounds the stress.

I don't know. Writing is very important to me, and I feel like I need some kind of creative outlet in my life, but I don't know if I can cut back. If I write something, I'm going to want to put it out, so I'm going to need to do the submissions or the self-publishing and the social media and everything that relates to it. And then I'm going to think of other projects I want to work on. Part of me thinks the only way to do it would be quit writing cold turkey, and just step away from it for now. But that's just scary to even consider, so I don't know what to do.

Anyway. That's enough complaining for today. On to the good stuff.

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Most of you should be familiar with the release of the latest Dancing Lemur Press / IWSG anthology, MASQUERADE: ODDLY SUITED. You're going to see it talked about plenty I'm sure as you visit sites on the IWSG blog hop today. Welp, in case you didn't know, Masquerade features a short story by little old me, and you can buy it RIGHT HERE.

That's right, buy it RIGHT HERE.

I just wanted to thank all my fellow contributors to this anthology, some of whom have been absolutely working their butts off promoting and organizing this book launch (you know who you are). I was not always able to give as much attention to the build up as I would have liked due to outside factors going on in my life, so it was great to have so many talented, dedicated people taking good care of our shared project.

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While you may be familiar with Masquerade, you may have missed the OTHER anthology that just came out from Mystery & Horror, LLC, which also features a story by yours truly: STRANGELY FUNNY VI!

Buy this guy RIGHT HERE

This is the third year in a row my work has been featured in Strangely Funny. It's a series of comic horror and supernatural tales, and the stories are both creepy and hilarious. It's exactly my cup of tea. Here's the blurb: 

"My name’s not Clarence, and this ain’t Bedford Falls. I’m more like a pixie on probation and you’re my punishment.” – Dial M for Marvin by Robert Allen Lupton

Welcome to the seventh book (yes, seventh) in the Strangely Funny series. Tales of paranormal comedy await you. Meet one vampire who has found a unique method of sheltering from the sunlight, and another one seeking a tan. See what they’re serving at the Devil’s table below. Discover a new definition for ‘dream lover’. And if you can’t figure out what a ‘Skunknado’ is, we’ll show you. 

STRANGELY FUNNY is currently available for Amazon Kindle, but the paperback will be out any day now. Pick your copy right here. 

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Finally, to help celebrate all the new book goodies, I'm also giving away one of my old stories FREE on Amazon Kindle as well. WEREBEAR VS. LANDOPUS book 1: TENTACLES UNDER A FULL MOON is free on Amazon until Saturday, May 4th, so go check it out right now! It's a creepy, funny, disturbing little story, and if you like there are two more available in the series with more (hopefully) to come.

GET IT FREE

This is a serious story. 

A serious, grimly dark short story of hilarious misery.

SUGGESTED FOR MATURE AUDIENCES: Contains coarse language, violence and candid descriptions of the genitalia of various fantasy races.

In a peaceful land of lush prosperity, an ancient eight-tentacled evil has risen to wreck unfathomable havoc. A simple, unassuming warrior named Huckle gathers together the bravest and most dysfunctional band of heroes in the kingdom to battle the beast, but they are fated only for the direst of suffering and failure.

The only way to defeat a monster of this magnitude is with an even more horrifying monster... 

Huckle goes to hell and back and back again in this tragic tale of terrestrial cephalopods, ursine lycanthropes and explosive volcano drake diarrhea.

Dark fantasy will never be the same.

With a forward by R.S. Matheny and Philip Overby, hosts of the Grim Tidings Podcast

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That was a long post today, so I'm going to call it right here. For anyone who made it all the way to the end, thank you for sticking around. I'll do my best to reply to comments and visit other sites in the blog hope, but please forgive me if I'm a bit behind.

Hope everyone has a great Wednesday!

Hugs and kisses,
-CDGK

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The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Writers post their thoughts on their blogs, talking about their doubts and the fears they have conquered. It's a chance for writers to commiserate and offer a word of encouragement to each other. Check out the group at http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/.

Lots of News (#IWSG November 2018)

First the good news: I finished the renovations on the Closet! 

Then the bad news: I haven't actually used it to do any writing yet.

Then other good news: I have actually done a fair bit of writing in the last month, just not in The Closet. I finished and submitted one story, and I'm in the middle of two others. I've been scraping to find time to write whenever and wherever I am, I just haven't had time to sit down and do it at my desk.

Sitting down to write this post actually reminds me that I have a bunch of writing-related stuff going on, so I shall get down to it.

THE GUN NUN

For those who didn't stop by on Halloween (shame on you), I have a new story available on Amazon Kindle: THE GUN NUN, the continuing misadventures in the Werebear vs Landopus series.

This long short story (I hate the word "novelette") follows a new character, Sister Siouxsie Cue, a nun of the Gunpowder God, as she hunts a troll and spreads the Good Word of the Gun on her way. While it's technically part of the Werebear vs Landopus series, it stands alone, and you don't really have to read "Tentacles Under a Full Moon" or "Revenge of the Lycanterrancephalopod" to get this one (though the epilogue will make a lot more sense if you do).

If you have read the other stories, you know what to expect: irreverent, black humour with cringe-inducing adult situations in a fantasy setting. A few people have compared it to a Dungeons & Dragons game. It's not technically LitRPG (which is a very specific subgenre), but I see where the comparisons come from. Like any good D&D game, the characters in the WvL series are nuts, argumentative, and often die in random, horrific ways.

The Gun Nun is just 99 cents on Amazon, or free on Kindle Unlimited. If you want a review copy, hit me, up, I know the publisher.

SPFBO $0.99 SALE

The Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off lumbers on. The Top-Ten Finalists are supposed to be chosen by the end of December. For those who remember, Hell Comes to Hogtown was chosen as a semi-finalist way back at the beginning of August, and the the final semi-finalist in my group was just chosen this week. The reviewers running my bracket has said they will cull their 6 semi-finalists down to their choice for the finals by the end of November.

I'm not holding my breath on moving onto the next round. When I saw the original bracket I was 99% sure I knew who was moving onto the finals before the contest even started, and based on the reviews so far my prediction hasn't changed. But that's okay. I'm already super honoured and pleased to have gotten as far as I have, and my book has already seen a nice boost in sales and reviews thanks to the contest.

That said, there will be one more 99-cent SPFBO sale coming November 15-19, just in time for the Holidays. Hell Comes to Hogtown and somewhere between 70-100 other SPFBO entrants (not sure what the final tally is yet) will be available for just 99 cents that week, so be sure to swing by and grab yourself some cool fantasy books on the cheap! Unfortunately I don't have the direct link for the full list of participating titles yet, but I will share it as soon as it becomes available.

(I also have it on good authority that "Tentacles Under a Full Moon" will be available for FREE during that same period, for anyone looking to get into the Werebear vs Landopus series).

November 7 Question

How has your creativity in life evolved since you began writing?

This is an interesting one. Overall my creativity has gone down since I started writing seriously. Or maybe I should say the variety of my creativity has gone down. I used to paint, draw, act, play music, do woodcraft, play and make games. As I've gotten older my free time has become less and less, so I've had to focus on one thing. Writing was the obvious choice since it's been my passion since I was a kid, plus I'm pretty shitty at most of the other stuff I listed. Still, I've daydreamed recently about getting on a stage and making a fool of myself, or picking up a guitar and learning a few new songs. And I'm always ready to throw down to play a creative roleplaying game, if time permits. Maybe one day I'll have free time again.

Oh, and maybe I'm making some crappy illustrations for a silly children's book (shh, don't tell anyone).

The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Writers post their thoughts on their blogs, talking about their doubts and the fears they have conquered. It's a chance for writers to commiserate and offer a word of encouragement to each other. Check out the group at http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/.

TRICK OR TREAT 2018 (FREE BOOKS!)

It's that time again!

Stores have run out of candy and cheap plastic costumes, so they've starting putting up Christmas trees, wrapping paper and those little creepy ceramic villages with the tiny trains running around them.

Also, it's... (*insert spooky voice*) HA-LO-WEEEEEN!!! (*cackles*)

Authors around the web are giving away treats for Halloween, but instead of tooth-rotting candy, they're handing out FREE BOOKS AND STORIES!

Biggest of thanks Patricia Lynne aka Patricia Josephine for organizing #TrickorTreatReads once again. A list of all the participating authors are below. Make sure to be a good little goblin and visit everyone to grab lots of sweet goodies. And PLEASE SHARE the event far and wide. Everyone loves free books, right?

Below is a list of other writers who are participating and SHARING FREE BOOKS for Halloween!



Here's my contribution to the festivities:

GET "THE GUN NUN" FREE ON AMAZON TODAY!

This BRAND NEW story is set in the same world as my Werebear vs Landopus stories. If you've read either "Tentacles Under a Full Moon" or "Revenge of the Lycanterrancephalopod," you know that they're pretty polarizing. You either love them or you hate them. But if YOU like foul language, morally abhorrent protagonists, bodily fluids and black humour you will hate yourself for laughing at, then HAVE I GOT A STORY FOR YOU!

Here's the blurb:

Yet another serious story about grim, dark, hilarious misery.

SUGGESTED FOR MATURE AUDIENCES: Contains violence, coarse language, and members of the clergy selling dwarf-built firearms.

The Gunpowder God does not deal in mercy and salvation, but in lead. And he'll give you a two-for-one deal on a box of bullets if you put at least a 50% downpayment on that shiny new Sacred Revolver of Defense Against Home Invasion.

Sister Siouxsie Cue is not on a mission for her church this time. The weary, cynical Gun Nun rides into the backwater town of Diagonal Luncheon to see a man about a troll - and to figure out why that troll is building bridges in the middle of a flat town square and trying to charge tolls for crossing it. But the misguided would-be toll collector only leads her to an even bigger troll, as well as a baby-faced country bumpkin named Timmy Corkeater who may be the death of her...

You can pick up "The Gun Nun" FREE, exclusively on Amazon Kindle:

Amazon USA 

Amazon Canada 

Amazon UK

And of course, it wouldn't be a free giveaway day if I didn't give away copies of my debut novel, TEN THOUSAND DAYS:

Available on SMASHWORDS

Use the coupon code VN24V at checkout

Ten Thousand Days was first released in 2015, but I have since nearly completely re-written it, and released a revised, expanded (and professionally edited) version in 2017. If by some chance you haven't picked it up yet, now is the time to do so! (Cause it's free)

Here's the blurb:

They say love hurts and time heals all wounds. 

Sometimes the reverse is true. 

Isaac was very good at wasting time. Video games, a mindless job, no responsibilities - he had a simple life and few wants. Despite being hopelessly average, unassuming and kind of useless, he had somehow married the most beautiful, wonderful woman in the world. 

He had no idea how good he had it - until it was all taken away. 

Time does not like being wasted. It is mercurial, inexorable and carries a wicked grudge. And sometimes, just sometimes, it enjoys playing games with people's lives. To be perfectly honest, Time is a bit of a jerk. 

Isaac had never learned to appreciate what little time he had, and now he must travel to the ends of the universe and face unspeakable evils in a cat-and-mouse game with Time itself for the slim chance to win back a few fleeting seconds of happiness. The price of failure? Only the end of all existence. 

Ten Thousand Days is a fairy tale set in the modern day, a fantastic journey of desperate love and horror with a twisted sense of humour. It's a story of exactly how far a young man will go for love...

Get TEN THOUSAND DAYS FREE at SMASHWORDS

Use the coupon code VN24V at checkout

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!
Be sure to check out all the other free books!

I Can't Believe I Pulled It Off (#IWSG November 2017)

I did it!

It took over two years, but I finally did it!

I made it to the top 100 of the Insecure Writers Support Group LinkyTools list!

Read it and weep, baby. 99. Just like The Great One.

I attribute this victory to ingenuity, creativity, pacts made with Satan brushing and against Charlie Sheen once. And never missing more than one monthly post in a row.

Seriously though, I do have a couple of actual small writing victories this month. Regular life is still sucking the big one, but I managed to surpass my writing goals in the last 30 days. I'm not entirely sure how I did it, but I somehow completed and submitted not one but TWO short stories to anthologies in October, which is a staggering feat for me. (I also submitted another old story for like the fifteenth time but it's already been rejected fourteen times so that's not so exciting.)

In September I didn't write a single word, so completing two separate 5000+ words stories in only 30 days is mind-boggling. For some, that's like a day's work, but for me it has been a slog. I had to skip a lot of my lunch-time exercise breaks, and had to get up at 5:30am on weekends, but I managed to pull it off. These stories better not suck, because I'm sure finishing them has taken a toll on my health.

Wish me luck.

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Yesterday was Halloween, and I took part in Patricia Lynne's Trick or Treat blog hop to give away free books. If you're reading this on November 1, my contributions are still available for free (Samhain technically lasts until Sunday November 1), so check them out below:

FREE BOOKS!

 

A serious, grimly dark short story of hilarious misery.

SUGGESTED FOR MATURE AUDIENCES: Contains coarse language, violence, alleged dwarf ejaculate and candid descriptions of the genitalia of various fantasy races.

The Werebear vs Landopus series is for folks who love dark fantasy with a goofy, at times obscene sense of humour. It reads a lot like playing Dungeons & Dragons with your friends when you're all punch drunk/feeling silly, and you can't help but laugh when your half-elf wizard is bitten in half by a vampiric hippopotamus. 

Part Three should be coming out soon, so now is the time to catch up!

 ~GET PART 1 (TENTACLES) ON AMAZON KINDLE~

~GET PART 2 (REVENGE) ON AMAZON KINDLE~

They say love hurts and time heals all wounds. 

Sometimes the reverse is true. 

Ten Thousand Days is a fairy tale set in the modern day, a fantastic journey of desperate love and horror with a twisted sense of humour. Inspired by Neil Gaiman with a touch of Terry Pratchett, and based on the ancient tales of Sleeping Beauty and Orpheus & Eurydice. It's a story of exactly how far a young man will go for love...

Ten Thousand Days is my first published novel and it's been around a couple of years, however earlier this year I made a MAJOR revision to it earlier this year, nearly doubling it in length and (in my opinion) making it substantially better. If you still haven't checked it out, now's the time! It's available for free on Smashwords until November 1.

!!GET TEN THOUSAND DAYS ON SMASHWORDS!!

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NOVEMBER QUESTI... nevermind.

I've never participated in NaNo and there's no way in hell I'm starting this year, but good luck to all of you who are! I look forward to hearing about your harrowing tales. ☺☺☺

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The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Writers post their thoughts on their blogs, talking about their doubts and the fears they have conquered. It's a chance for writers to commiserate and offer a word of encouragement to each other. Check out the group at http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/.

Trick or Treat for FREE BOOKS! (Happy Halloween!)

It's time! Pumpkins are being smashed on lawns by teenagers with hockey sticks, and children are running through traffic! Department stores are putting up their Christmas decorations, and dentists are rubbing their hands greedily thinking about all the expensive cavities they're about to fill. And do you know the best part? Authors are giving out FREE BOOKS like candy!

Big thanks once again to the lovely PATRICIA LYNNE and her amazing hair for organizing Trick or Trick reads again this year. Be sure to check out ALL the authors on the list below to grab whatever books or stories they're passing out today. I've found some real gems this was in years past, so it's well worth your time to stop by them all to see what they're offering. And stop by Patricia's site to thank her for setting this up!

It's Halloween; everyone's entitled to one good scare.

Here's is the list of authors participating today:



Now check out what I'm giving away today!

 

A serious, grimly dark short story of hilarious misery.

SUGGESTED FOR MATURE AUDIENCES: Contains coarse language, violence, alleged dwarf ejaculate and candid descriptions of the genitalia of various fantasy races.

The Werebear vs Landopus series is for folks who love dark fantasy with a goofy, at times obscene sense of humour. It reads a lot like playing Dungeons & Dragons with your friends when you're all punch drunk/feeling silly, and you can't help but laugh when your half-elf wizard is bitten in half by a vampiric hippopotamus. 

Part Three should be coming out soon, so now is the time to catch up!

 ~GET PART 1 (TENTACLES) ON AMAZON KINDLE~

~GET PART 2 (REVENGE) ON AMAZON KINDLE~

They say love hurts and time heals all wounds. 

Sometimes the reverse is true. 

Ten Thousand Days is a fairy tale set in the modern day, a fantastic journey of desperate love and horror with a twisted sense of humour. Inspired by Neil Gaiman with a touch of Terry Pratchett, and based on the ancient tales of Sleeping Beauty and Orpheus & Eurydice. It's a story of exactly how far a young man will go for love...

Ten Thousand Days is my first published novel and it's been around a couple of years, however earlier this year I made a MAJOR revision to it earlier this year, nearly doubling it in length and (in my opinion) making it substantially better. If you still haven't checked it out, now's the time! It's available for free on Smashwords until November 1.

!!GET TEN THOUSAND DAYS ON SMASHWORDS!!

I want you to tell me a story: A man and a woman in a loft a year ago. I'm sure you'll remember. You killed them, on Halloween...

A One-Legged Man in an Ass-Kicking Contest (#IWSG June 2017)

Its IWSG day. Here's a good one to feel insecure about.

About a month ago I submitted my book, Ten Thousand Days, for Mark Lawrence's Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. For those who don't know, Mark is the very successful and respected author of fantasy books such as Prince of Thorns, Prince of Fools and the David Gemmell Award-winning Emperor of Thorns. In addition to his success, Mark is a big supporter of new up-and-coming writers, especially independent writers, and so for the last three years he has lent his name to the aforementioned SPFBO.

Each year between 250 and 300 self-published authors submit their books to Mark, who delegates them to ten respected book review blogs. Each reviewer then pours over the books and chooses their favourite of their bunch, and the top ten books are then read and reviewed by all the blogs so that a single winner will be chosen. The full list of this year's 300 entries can be found here.

Not all the books will be read cover-to-cover and be reviewed of course, but the reviewers promise to give them all a chance and review as many as they can. Officially there is no prize, but getting chosen as a top contender and especially a finalist is a huge marketing boost, as it will result in numerous reviews on many top sites that will get your name and book in front of tons of potential new readers. It's so much buzz, in fact, that last year at least two of the finalists were approached by major publishers with the offer of contracts.

Last year's winner. This guy is now a big deal in my circles, and this book (and its sequel) will be re-released from Penguin/Random House next year.

The field of competition is wide, since the only real requirement for the contest is that your book is self-published. On the one hand, you have people entering who have literally just hit "publish" on Amazon with their very first book, who had it edited by their cousin and paid $5 for a cover on Fiverr. On the other end of the spectrum you have hybrid authors who have published traditionally, have large self-published back catalogs, and are well-known names in the field. There are people in the contest who run their own successful small publishing houses, or have agents. This is a business and a livelihood for them and they invest thousands of dollars into their covers and editors, and produce quality rivaling anything put out by the major publishers. One of the contestants is currently in the news for having just signed a $100,000 deal with Audible for the audio rights to his next book (he's sold 500,000 copies of his last half-dozen books or so).

Where exactly is the line for "up-and-coming" author, anyway?

Am I intimidated and insecure about going up against this kind of competition? Damn right I am. In the immortal words of Jim Ross, I feel about as prepared for this as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. I fully expect to be eliminated in the earliest wave of cuts. If I'm lucky I may get a polite "good try" review.

Pictured: A polite, "good try" review.

Some of the folks involved in the contest are currently running "fantasy brackets" (like in fantasy sports) to pick who they think the winners might be, based on simply the covers, blurbs and current reviews for the books. Imagine my surprise when someone actually picked Ten Thousand Days as one of the finalists (they picked it for top spot in the Fantasy-Faction bracket). I know it doesn't mean anything, the person who chose it is not a judge, nor have they even actually read the book, but it was a pleasant surprise.

So anyway, the contest is just ramping up and will be ongoing for awhile (it takes a long time to go through 300 books). In the next couple of months though, if anyone wants to drop my name or mention Ten Thousand Days anywhere, it would be much appreciated. Review copies of the new-and-improved version is available to anyone who wants one.

June IWSG Question: Did you ever say “I quit?" If so, what happened to make you come back to writing?

All the time! Then I usually just take a nap and I feel better.

Seriously though, I've never officially "quit" writing, though there have been times when I've fallen into a lull and not written very much. But other than six months here or there I've been officially "writing" since high school, so over twenty years now. That's how long I've actively been composing words for the purpose of other people reading them. If you included stories I wrote for English classes in school (which was always my favourite assignments) I'm at about thirty years.

The lulls are usually caused by periods when I'm just really busy or tired or feeling down, and I can't find the time and the motivation to put the words down on the page. I haven't really quit, I don't think I could quit writing any more than I could quit eating lunch. It's just part of what I do. But sometimes you need a break, and ultimately those periods of downtime help you recharge, I think.

One last thing...

I just released a brand new (rather long) short story, "Revenge of the Lycanterrancephalopod" on Amazon. It's the sequel to my mildly-received story, "Tentacles Under a Full Moon." Both stories are very dark comic fantasy tales (Grindark? Grimlark? Grimdork?), and are full of violence, profanity and crass humour. Reader discretion is advised.

I decided to put both stories on Amazon KDP Select to give it a whirl. So if you have an Unlimited account, you can pick them up for free anytime. For everyone else, both "Revenge" and "Tentacles" are FREE to download for the next three days (June 7-9) so grab a copy now! If you like weird, obscene and hilarious fantasy, this is for you! Or maybe it's not, whatever. But it's free, right?

Blurb is below.

A serious sequel to a serious story. A story about grim, dark, hilarious misery.

SUGGESTED FOR MATURE AUDIENCES: Contains violence, coarse language, and alleged dwarf ejaculate. Allegedly.

One year after the great battle between the Werebear and the Landopus in the Barony of Amorous Felines in the Kingdom of Dyskovenia, a great evil has returned to once again scour the land. This new threat is both hairy AND slimy, as well as thoroughly indestructible.

A new group of heroes has risen to combat the threat, and this time, they mean business. They've brought along an inexperienced elf, a disgusting dump dwarf, a foul-mouthed uff and a vampiric chicken.

Maybe this isn't going to work out after all...

PICK-UP REVENGE OF THE LYCANTERRANCEPHALOPOD FOR FREE!

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The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Writers post their thoughts on their blogs, talking about their doubts and the fears they have conquered. It's a chance for writers to commiserate and offer a word of encouragement to each other. Check out the group at http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/.

How to Write a Classic Story: Buy a Bear

"Left Port Arthur 7 a.m. In train all day. Bought bear $20."

That's an actual entry in the diary of Harry Colebourn, a Canadian soldier from Winnipeg who was travelling to Valcartier, Quebec to undergo training on his way overseas in 1914. He bought the female bear cub from a hunter who had killed the animal's mother. Now, Colebourn was a veterinarian by trade and I could absolutely understand him wanting to take the animal from some weirdo random hunter, but he then proceeded to take the bear with him to training camp.

Even better, when Colebourn shipped out to England... HE STILL KEPT THE BEAR. It became his unit's unofficial mascot.

I've never served in the military and I don't know a whole lot about army practices and regulations, even less about those in effect during World War I, but I had no idea they were so cool about their soldiers keeping giant wild animals as pets. I mean, were people back then so badass that no one was worried about A FUCKING BEAR wandering around their base? And no one thought it was odd when the dude brought the thing with him ACROSS THE OCEAN to hang out with him in England? I mean, I would imagine if a soldier asked to bring his dog with him that would be a flat-out no. But a bear's okay?

You're probably wondering where I'm going with this and what this has to do with writing, so stick with me a moment (if you haven't figured it out already).

Colebourn wasn't a complete jerk; when he shipped out to France he finally decided to leave the bear behind. Apparently the trenches at the front line were not the place for a bear cub, though I'm sure if she had been full grown they would have slapped some armour on that bastard and brought it along.

Way deadlier than any WWI-era tank.

He left the bear at the London Zoo, where it became a favourite of guests, in particular to an aspiring writer and his young son, who loved the bear so much he named his teddy after her. Did I mention that Colebourn had named the bear "Winnie" after his hometown of Winnipeg? It all makes sense now, right?

A.A. Milne wrote the Winnie the Pooh books for his son, Christopher Robin, based on his toy bear that was in turn named after a real bear that Major Colebourn irresponsibly dragged halfway around the world.

(For anyone who caught that, yes Colebourn was eventually promoted to the rank of major despite  - or maybe because of? - the fact he irresponsibly dragged a bear halfway around the world.)

So what is was my point in this ridiculous story? My point is that A.A. Milne became famous because some dipshit bought a gawd-dang bear off a crazy hillbilly in a small town in backwater Ontario. That, my friends, is the secret to literary gold. Ursine trafficking.

Being super creepy-looking apparently also helps.

So if you too are an aspiring writer, if anyone ever offers to sell you an orphan bear cub, snatch that up right away and wait for your book deals to start pouring in.

Or, alternately, I'll become famous writing about you getting eaten by a bear. Either way, someone wins.

My new story Tentacles Under a Full Moon - now available here - doesn't have anything to do with Winnie the Pooh, but it does contain a giant murderous werebear, which is probably much better.

FREE STORY! (Happy Halloween!)

Joyous Samhain!

In honour of All Hallow's Eve (and in association with the Trick-or-Treat Blog Hop and the Share-a-Scare Blog Hop), as promised today I'm giving away a weird and creepy story in the tradition of the season! So please don't egg my house!

The big news is that this is a BRAND NEW, never before seen tale by yours truly, and you're getting it ABSOLUTELY FREE! Grab it fast, cause this promotional event only lasts until November 1st! 

Here's the blurb:

A grimlark short story of hilarious misery. 

In a peaceful land of lush prosperity, an ancient eight-tentacled evil has risen to wreck unfathomable havoc. A simple, unassuming warrior named Huckle gathers together the bravest and most dysfunctional band of heroes in the kingdom to battle the beast, but they are fated only for the direst of suffering and failure. 

The only way to defeat a monster of this magnitude is with an even more horrifying monster... 

Huckle goes to hell and back and back again in this tragic tale of terrestrial cephalopods, ursine lycanthropes and explosive volcano drake diarrhea. 

Dark fantasy will never be the same. 

SUGGESTED FOR MATURE AUDIENCES: Contains coarse language, violence and candid descriptions of the genitalia of various fantasy races. 

With a forward by R.S. Matheny and Philip Overby, hosts of the Grim Tidings Podcast 

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This story was inspired by a conversation on the Grim Tidings Podcast, between hosts R.S. Matheny and Philip Overby and their guest Will Bly. They said someone should write about werebears and land octopuses. I took that as a challenge.

The story is weird, creepy, funny and not for the faint of heart. As you can probably tell from the blurb, reader discretion is advised.

Here's where you can get it:

Download Tentacles Under a Full Moon at SMASHWORDS (Free!)

Download Tentacles Under a Full Moon at KOBOBOOKS (Free!)

It's also available at Amazon (US, Canada, UK and everywhere else), but it's not free because, you know, Amazon (still only a buck, though). You can get a Mobi file from Smashwords, so grab it there for your Kindle reader or app.


Don't forget: I'm not the only one giving away free books today! For the full list of everyone who's giving away a book or story for Halloween, check out below: