Why is he in a cowboy museum?

So, I have had other stuff I wanted to post about besides the stupid literature pirates. Maybe my old brain will remember most of it. First, though, to the subject line. I wish I could post a picture, but I can’t find the cord that connects my phone to my computer. Anyway, after weeks of him asking, I finally took my youngest son back to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum today. Sadly, like most kids today, he doesn’t really watch or appreciate Western movies like I did. He likes the play area and the Old West town recreation. And, of course, the gift shop. But, back on topic. There is a massive and incredible statue of Abraham Lincoln sitting in the museum. First Jake told me it was George Washington, but then he guessed it right. Then he looked at me and asked in his this-makes-no-sense voice, “Why is HE in a cowboy museum? He should be at the White House.” Eh, maybe you had to be there. Personally, I was impressed that my 7-year-old son recognized Lincoln and could place him in the White House.

Last week was brutal! I was at an Advanced Placement workshop all week and worked my part-time job, too. The workshop was pretty draining, but I learned a lot I’ll be able to use in class. Still, I didnt have much juice left for creative stuff when I got home.

The big thing at the moment is preparing for the first Vampire vs. Werewolf signing with Gabrielle Faust this Saturday. I did two interviews about the signing the other day, so we’re hoping for a good turnout. I have to say that Gabrielle and I are both disappointed in the online response to the charity component of the “battle”. The werewolves are ahead, but not by much … because donations have been really slow. Come on, folks, you could win four signed books for a simple $2 donation that will go to help rescued wolves. Or bats, if you prefer.

Well, between my daughter and her boyfriend watching the (I’m sure crappy) remake of My Bloody Valentine and the smell of whatever my wife is cooking for dinner, I can’t recall what else I had to say. Besides, I need to reserve this typing for the werewolves. There’s a new character and I’m dying to know what part he’s going to play.

Pirates II: Curse of the Snark

In yesterday’s post about story thieves I said I couldn’t possibly contact all of those places that had “Unholy Womb” illegally posted. I did, however, contact djjeremy@gmail.com at winterrowd.com and told him to remove the story or pay me 3 cents per word for the privilege of having it on his site. He responded in typical pirate fashion:

it’s gone, it isn’t worth .03 for the entire story. sorry for any inconvenience. (sic)

Isn’t that nice? He apologized … after saying the entire story he’d had posted on his site for over two years isn’t worth 3 cents in its entirety. Well, maybe he’s saving his money for some mail order grammar and punctuation lessons. Douchebag.

Meanwhile, Stephen Evans (steve@thecryptmag.com) of The Crypt Mag (www.thecryptmag.com) still has my story online. Click the e-mail link and tell him what a putz he is if you want.

Thieves!

I can be rather forgetful sometimes. Fortunately the population at large is filled with dumbasses. Today I got a notice from PayPal informing me that one Stephen Evans of The Crypt Mag (www.thecryptmag.com) rejected my request for money. The request was sent on Dec. 20, 2004. I was demanding that Stephen Evans of The Crypt Mag (www.thecryptmag.com) pay me $38.85 for reprinting my short story “Unholy Womb.” You see, Stephen Evans of The Crypt Mag (www.thecryptmag.com) copied the story for a Web site I did authorize to reprint the story and then Stephen Evans of The Crypt Mag (www.thecryptmag.com) pasted it into his online magazine.

Being reminded of Stephen Evans of The Crypt Mag (www.thecryptmag.com)’s thievery today made me do a Google search for my story. As you can see, a number of people have helped themselves to my copyrighted material. Of those, only Halloween Ghost Stories actually has permission to have the story online. I could contact every site that has it online, but there are pages and pages of them.

What the hell? Why do people think it’s okay to steal and repost material that isn’t theirs? I mean, I’m flattered that so many people like the story and want to share it, but come on! In most cases they even copies the hot link of my name that clicks through to an e-mail address of mine. Would it be so damn hard to ask permission?

The only good news here is that a Google search of the story’s first line did not turn up even more sites hosting the pirated story. That’s happened before, with this story and a couple of others. Some jackass actually reposted them under his own name. He stole a few of mine and some other authors’ stories, and there was a big uproar. Even Brian Keene got involved in that one.

Back on topic. This is not good. But I don’t know what to do about it. If it’s stolen and reprinted a certain number of times, do I lose any rights to it? What if I wanted to adapt it to a screenplay? Is the story even still mine? This really blows. “Unholy Womb” was my first published story, appearing in The Midnight Zoo back in about 1992 or ‘93. I let Halloween Ghost Stories reprint it in 2001. Now, eight years later, it’s gotten around as much as a cheap Webcam whore.

Killing a friend

I killed a friend yesterday.

I’d known this person since 1993. I met him because of a creative writing course at Francis Tuttle Technology Center. He’d been a good friend, though always a little strange. He didn’t deserve to die, but then life and death seldom play fair. I miss him already.

Fortunately, since he only exists in my fiction, I won’t be charged with murder for killing him. Still, considering I can’t name a single real friend I knew in 1993 that I still talk to today, I kind of feel like I killed a real person.

He’s gone, though. This needed to be done. Knowing it had to be done kept me from really getting started on the next book of The Werewolf Saga. I didn’t want to do it, you know. But now it’s done and I can go on. He may reappear through the magic of flashback and … I have three award-winning chapters and an outline of an historical romance novel that stars him, too. So, as Harley Shaw learned, “Dead ain’t gone, and gone ain’t dead.”

I have 25 pages of the new werewolf book done. That’s about 6,000 words. I suspect it will go pretty quickly now. Much quicker than The Girls Nobody Wanted to Date! This one is called Nadia’s Children. If you don’t know who Nadia is, you can find out by reading the history pages at The Werewolf Saga online. If you can’t figure out who I killed … you probably didn’t read the ending of Ulrik.

In other news, the temperature here in central Oklahoma was about 100 degrees today. (Yes, Marcy, it’s time to water the house again.) It’ll be hotter tomorrow. I think our air conditioning is about to crap out, too.

Summer school is over! Of the three years I’ve taught summer school, this was the easiest. I got confirmation yesterday that, yes, I will be teaching the senior English classes again this fall. I expected as much. The second job is going well. I’ve met some very interesting people from all over the world doing this ESL testing.

Finally, just a reminder about the Vampire vs Werewolf “fight” between me and Gabrielle Faust. It isn’t too late to make a $2 donation to Mission: Wolf for a chance to win all four signed volumes of The Werewolf Saga. Or, yeah, you can support the vampires and have a chance to win four books from Gabrielle by donating to her bat conservatory cause.

Reading at Literati Indie Book Fair

I’ll  be attending the Literati Indie Book Fair at the AIO Gallery, 811 N. Broadway in OKC this Saturday. I’ll have a reading at 2 p.m.; the fair itself runs from noon until 8 p.m. At the moment, I’m planning to read “Elysia” from Call to the Hunt. I have to keep it PG-13, so that ruled out the funny stories. This is a free event, the first of its kind in OKC. I hope you’ll come see what it’s all about. My appearance is courtesy of the good folks of SoonerCon.

Rejections, editing, and work stuff

Last week I got two rejections on Amara’s Prayer. This manuscript has been a major disappointment. It’s been just about five years since I defended the manuscript as my thesis project at the University of Oklahoma. I don’t recall how many drafts it went through prior to that point. Two writing professors and another with who specialized in anthropology and mythology made up my thesis committee. They put the book through the wringer, making sure the research was right, the leaps from fact to fiction were plausible, the writing was good, etc.

Then two agents tied it up, one after the other, for a long time with minimal results. Another, upon recommendation from one of his clients, agreed to submit it to a certain editor at a major house when one of her authors told me it would probably work for her. Said editor never responded. At all. Even to follow-up messages from this very reputable agent. That was about three years

Since then I have tried numerous agents, all with rejections or dead silence, and various publishers, large and small, that take unagented queries and submissions. The two most recent, and the one that came a few weeks ago, were all from small publishers. The problem in all three of these cases? Here’s a line from one of the rejection letters: You’re certainly a capable writer, but the religious overtones of your material aren’t quite right for us. Hmm. Here’s another:  Despite your very well-written professional query, and an interesting plot.. words like angels, Christian duty, redemption, etc. are putting me off… See the trend?

I’m not gonna go Jerry Falwell on you and claim there’s an anti-Christian, liberal publishing establishment thing going on here. Now, I might point out that The Exorcist, The DaVinci Code, Rosemary’s Baby and countless other published books also have “religious overtones” and words like “redemption” in them and they didn’t do so poorly for their publishers.

I’ve considered the Christian/inspirational market, but … unrepentant adultery is a key element of the book. I understand there’s a new trend of “Christian erotica” publishing, and adultery is acceptable, but the adulterer has to feel remorse. So … here I am, sitting on what I still feel is probably the best book I’ve written, unable to sell it because traditional publishers don’t want the religion and religious publishers don’t want to acknowledge that sometimes married people look elsewhere for sex when one partner doesn’t want it. Oh, and then there’s my tampering with the whole creation story, the origin of angels and other deities, etc.

In other writing news, I’ve finished reading/editing the not-so-super-secret project I wrote with a certain popular young adult author. I don’t really feel like I held up my end of the editing process. I fixed one of the major issues her agent had, and at least made some improvements on others. The manuscript is only 1,000 words shorter now. I’d cut a little here, then add a little somewhere else. But then, length wasn’t one of the specific issues he mentioned.

My summer school readers of The Girls Nobody Wanted to Date has fallen off. The boys who were reading it have stopped, and I’m back to babysitting them after making sure they at least do the written assignment of the day (I swear they can’t carry on a conversation without every other word being either nigga or cuz!). Two of the girls are still reading it and one is enjoying it, anyway. The other doesn’t talk much. Our incoming book club president read the manuscript and says she loved it. My biggest fear was that the plot would become predictable, but she assures me she never guessed what was coming next. Maybe that’s a good sign. I don’t know.

And finally, I’ve begun working a second job. I’m an ESL (English as a Second Language) tester for Oklahoma City Community College. The next three weeks, as I wrap up summer school then attend an Advanced Placement workshop, are going to be pretty busy. The testing is easy and the money’s good. Testing will slack off when real school starts again in the fall, but it’ll be a steady part-time income.

Katrina and The Frenchman

I meant to post about this several weeks ago, but life got in the way, then I just forgot. I’m old, ya know. Bifocals and all that. Anyway, my buddy Marcy Italiano has finally published her memoir Katrina and the Frenchman. Marcy and her husband, G, had just returned from their 10th wedding anniversary cruise and was spending a couple of days in New Orleans when hurricane Katrina hit. This is her story.

I had the honor of being one of the first to read this book. I read it in pieces as Marcy wrote it. It is raw, powerful, gut-wrenching stuff. You get to see the horrors of Mother Nature and human beings at their worst, but you also get to see people acting with compassion and love. It’s a read you won’t soon forget.

Here’s a press release Marcy sent to promote the book:

KATRINA AND THE FRENCHMAN: A JOURNAL FROM THE STREET is now available!

On August 27, 2005, a Carnival cruise ship docked at the harbor of New Orleans. Amongst the arrivals were Canadian writer Marcy Italiano and her husband, G, wrapping a wild 10-year anniversary celebration in a city they dearly loved. But this was less than 48 hours before the levees crumbled, and the nightmare began.

Katrina and The Frenchman is a haunting, harrowing first-person account of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, seen from the perspective of two tourists trapped in a city gripped by terror, and coming apart at the seams. Repeatedly finding light in the darkness, and then watching the darkness swallow it whole. Finally forced to escape on their own, when the system broke down completely.

Mostly, though, this is a story about beautiful people, and what they become as their hope runs out.

“I love this book. It’s a riveting story, intimately told with skill, deep humility, startling honesty, and the kind of stark photographic recall most people only achieve when they find themselves suddenly slapped within an inch of their lives by death. Which is, of course, precisely what happened; and that profound revelation is delivered intact throughout the course of this beautiful, powerful work.”
– John Skipp, bestselling author of Jake’s Wake and The Light At The End

Marcy Italiano is sharing their story so that donations from sales of Katrina And The Frenchman: A Journal From The Street can be made to Common Ground Relief, and to help the people of New Orleans.

Find out why the story was written, listen to the song and video, and buy the book for a good cause at: http://www.marcyitaliano.com

Thank you for your support.

Mission: Wolf on board in battle against vampires

I am very pleased to say that Silver Cliff, Colorado-based Mission: Wolf has graciously accepted my invitation to join the werewolves in battle against Gabriel Faust and her vampire minions at Vampire vs Werewolf.

Mission: Wolf is a wonderful organization that rescues wolves born in captivity, as well as wolf hybrids, and gives the animals a safe home in a remote part of Colorado’s beautiful Rocky Mountains. They encourage visitors to come out, see the wolves, camp on-site and wake up to the song of the “children of the night.” They also take wolves on the road to educate people about the truth concerning these majestic and often misunderstood animals.

And, to make it even better, Kent was very cool about coming on board. Good folk there in Colorado! Speaking of which, I need to thank my long-time friend Robyn Lydick for recommending Mission: Wolf.

This is all well and good, you’re saying, then adding, “But what can I do?” I’m glad you asked! Go to www.vampirevswerewolf.com and read about the “battle” between the mighty werewolves and the dirt-sleeping vampires. Or, we can cut to the chase and you can just go straight to the donation page and start buying raffle tickets that will help support Mission: Wolf and put you in the running to win a full set of my Werewolf Saga books.

When you go visit the Mission: Wolf site, make sure you click on the Links page and read about some of the things being done for and to the wolves in North America. If that doesn’t make you want to support an organization like Mission: Wolf … well, I worry about ya.

Last word: Don’t forget to come to the live “battle” between me and Gabrielle at noon on July 18 at Eerie Books of Wylie, Texas.

SoonerCon 2009 recap

I’m tired. Maybe I’m just old. I don’t know. I almost slept through my panel this morning, which would have been bad. I mean, like K. Hutson-Price kinda bad. Yeah. At least she had a good excuse for missing that panel, though. If, you know, excessive debauchery is a good excuse.

But I can’t spend the whole blog picking on Kristy. She may return the favor, and she has a sharp wit better avoided. And, she was only one of several people it was good to see again.

Alan, Leonard and the crew put on another great SoonerCon convention with excellent programming. I wish I could have attended more panel and especially The Twisted Blades demonstration, but they kept me pretty busy. When I wasn’t on a panel, I tried to hang around the Darkfaery Subculture Magazine booth because they were kind enough to let me put books for sale on their table. At the moment, I can’t remember which of my panels was my favorite … probably the “Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies, Oh My!” panel. I don’t get to sit on too many panels with Selena Rosen, but when I do, they are always memorable.

Who else can I talk about? Hmm … THE James K. Burke was there (sorry Jim, can’t find a link for you) and gave me a fascinating lesson on aviation history. The biggest surprise was that Rachel Caine was there instead of in Germany. Her husband Cat Conrad was there, too, and I learned that he, not the family feline, likes to add hot spices to the food. Yes, for a while I thought Rachel had the smartest cat on the planet. Sherri Dean was there and, as always, was a pleasure to be around (Sherri, you don’t have a Web site???) She made a parting comment about collaborating on a project for a certain magazine, and I think that’d be fun. The always-smiling Rosemary Clement-Moore was there, though I didn’t get to talk to her all that much.

Okay, finding the links is taking too long. You want to know who was there, go look at the Guests page at the con Web site. I’m only linking to two more. You see, I’m looking forward to the online appearance of a photo in which I dunk Craig Wolf with one throw at the TrickConTreat dunking booth. Ah, that was sweet.

So, if you’ve never been to SoonerCon, you should start making plans for next year. They were able to confirm the guest of honor before we left this year, and you will not want to miss your chance to be in the presence of one Mr. Joe R. Lansdale.

Okay, well, back to that panel I almost slept through. You know, like Ms. Price did. It was about the fine art of collaboration. My collaboration partner wasn’t there. She’s back in Maine, where she probably assumed I was at home doing some revisions. So, like, I should totally get to work on that.

Can this be for real?

Can it be? I’m not sure. But … yes … it does seem to be.

I have finally — no, FINALLY — finished the first complete draft of The Girls Nobody Wanted to Date. Look at this:

Okay, well, this word meter won’t let me show how I went over the original estimated word count which, you’ll recall, was 60,000 words.

I was beginning to think this was the book that would never end. That was especially depressing considering the speed at which a certain still-kinda-secret project was written back in December. But now it’s finished. I’ll turn it over to my critique group this afternoon. And I have a voracious student waiting for the end, too. It’ll be nice to see what someone in the target age group has to say about it.

The werewolves are waiting for me. And I am more than ready to revisit them. The Pack is gathering, after all.