Today is the official release of Danse Macabre, and it
stumbled out of the gate around midnight. As I start writing this, it is 5:00
pm here, and the book has only made it through Smashwords and Kindle so far. I
will post the link for them, and those for the paperback when it is available,
on the preview page at the bottom. This is a zombie novella, and it was just a
side project that I was working on. Here is the book cover blurb:
Spencer Mason has
discovered a secret spell that will raise the dead, and as a funeral home
director, there is no short supply of bodies. As Spencer builds a legion of
undead soldiers, he plans to get revenge for the torment he endured during his
childhood years - until Raven Anderson moves into town.
Blind since birth,
Raven struggles to adapt with her new surroundings after the death of her
mother. She finds a sympathetic shoulder to lean on when she meets Spencer, and
the two find out that they have a lot in common.
Raven senses that
Spencer is troubled by something that he isn’t sharing, but the thing that
tortures Spencer the most is something Raven cannot see.
Since today is the first day of the year - and I don’t
really post much about myself - I figured that I would do a short year in
review. I never make a resolution because I don’t like to break promises, and I
would hate to disappoint myself by not holding true to my own word. Instead I
started thinking back to one year ago. What I was doing, dreaming, and hoping,
and then about everything that I’ve learned since then.
One year ago I was anxiously waiting for my final edited
version of Endlessly to come back from
the editor. I had a slightly elevated hope that it would do decently well
online. Don’t get me wrong, at no point did I ever imagine, or hope, that I would
become rich with this book, or series. I’ve read a lot of books, I know what
sells big, and Endlessly was not them.
Endlessly was
about trying. Even though there are people that hate it, at least I tried, and
that is a lot more than most people can say. It may not be grand, or the next
greatest novel, but I put my heart out there on display, and smiled when people
stabbed it and called it crap. Why? Because that’s what authors do. We slave,
stress, worry, lose sleep, get frustrated, and spend months of our free time
building something for people to enjoy. Then someone comes along and tells us its
garbage, and we smile, nod, and say thank you for your feedback. Or at least
that is what an author should do. Some take it personal and attack the negative
reviewer, which is a bunch of bull, not everyone has the same opinion, and I
would hate to live in a world where everyone did.
Through this process I learned a lot. Things like grammar, punctuation,
and sentence structure… all the things that I should have paid attention to in
high school. But there was more than what I thought, like: formatting,
cover design, pitches, marketing, cover letters, and constant rejection from
agents and publishers. It's enough to squash your self-esteem, and it
makes you question whether it’s really all worth the effort.
I moved forward, even with all the negativity, and published
Legacy. This time it moved a little
easier because I knew what to expect. I took everything that I had learned, used it, plus I learned more about grammar. Reviewers were gentler, but I know
that is to be expected. Let’s face it; if you don’t like a book, you sure as
hell aren’t going to read the sequel to it. I learned some more about repeat
customers and their expectations, and still disappointed a few readers.
Then I joined The LL Book Review. Having written two
books at this time, I knew what it was like to try and get your name out there. I have this weird thing about doing things for other people that I would
like done for me. (They call it The Golden Rule I hear.) I call it karma. When I was starting out, I
just wanted someone to read my book and leave a review, and this is was the LL
does. So after Legacy, I started writing reviews while I continued with my own
writing venture.
Phantom was up
next, and at this point, people are constantly asking when it’s going to be available.
(Late February 2012) Phantom was the
first book that I wrote that I actually felt confident with the way that it
turned out. I know that any editor that would look at it would say that it was
crap, and it really needed to be cleaned up, but knowing how the first
draft of Endlessly looked compared to
Phantom, I was happy with all the
progress that I had made as a writer.
While Phantom was
off in the hands of the editor, I started fiddling around with Danse Macabre. (And now we come full
circle.) I never meant for it to be anything really serious, and wasn’t even
sure if I was going to publish it. I’ve spoken with other authors since becoming a reviewer at the LL, and I have started growing a small network of contacts.
I asked one author if he would be interested in critiquing Danse Macabre, and he accepted. We had a huge meeting of the minds,
and I can’t begin to tell you how much we learned from each other. I had to
take notes to remember it all, and since then, I have begun keeping a small
notebook with the things that I learn about grammar on my desk, along with my
grammar book, dictionary, and The
Elements Of Style.
One year. It just amazes me how much I’ve learned in one year.
I can’t claim that I know everything about writing, and I still have a bumpy
road ahead if I continue to write, but I’m learning. And as long as you are open to
suggestions, and willing to learn from your mistakes, you won’t go insane.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and
expecting different results.” - Albert Einstein
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