As noted on Monday, I was trying a little experiment: I flung my Atlanta Burns novella, SHOTGUN GRAVY, up onto Amazon’s exclusive Kindle “KDP Select” program which purports to offer authors two key benefits: first, the ability to take part in Kindle lending which further grants authors access to a large “pot” of money monthly; second, the advantage (or, some might say, “advantage”) of putting your work up online for free.

As of late, a number of folks have noticed a phenomenon. You put your work up for free, and then when it once more re-enters paid gravity, suddenly the book becomes a Purchasing Magnet whereupon droves and flocks and herds and gaggles of Amazon readers come out of the woodwork to buy the recently-free book. A lot of authors have been attempting to jump this promotion’s bones (evidenced by the sudden flurry of “My work is free suddenly!” broadcasts).

Well, I figured, let’s try it.

SHOTGUN GRAVY‘s a novella that did well in its first month but kind of tapered off — it gets a sale or three a day, which is fine and adds to the whole pile, but it’s not exactly a rocketship to the money moon. Further, if I’m going to justify putting out the sequel, BAIT DOG, I figured I damn well better get the book into people’s hands. Free or not.

I originally put the book up for five days. You only get one five-day-period during your 90-day reign of exclusivity, however — so, I figured, I’d better chop it down to two.

Here’s how it went.

Putting the book up for free amassed a sudden burst of books distributed (I dare not use the word “sold” since, well, you don’t pay for a free book with anything but a stab of your finger on a mouse button). Right out of the gate, had about 100 people nab the book. Which was curious — where the hell did they come from? Are they real people? I don’t even know.

Over the course of the next 24 hours, I amassed over 5000 copies distributed free to readers. A nice enough number. Happy to have the book on a heap of Kindles, though one supposes that a good percentage of those will never read the book — perhaps I’m being cynical, but I know that the less I pay for a book, the lower it falls in my To-Be-Read pile. By yesterday morning, the book had reached #44 in the Top 100 Free and so I thought, now’s a good time to cut short the five days to two days. I went to end it thinking that I’d still get two full days of the promo — but within 30 minutes of asking the promo to end, it ended, lickity-split.

Which is fine, but I didn’t expect it to work that fast. Amazon can be notorious for veeeeeery sloooowly updating things — even a simple price change can take up to 48 hours to populate.

So, then. Results?

I did not initially see any boost in sales. Hour or two went by and the e-book didn’t move one whit. But then, ping — a sale. Okay, fine. Then another, and another. Steadily — and slowly, mind — the e-book sold about 60 copies. (This is as of 7:00PM last night.) It’s since not moved again in about an hour. The book crested to Amazon ranking #1,793. Further, it garnered another six reviews during that period (all four- and five-star).

(I’d politely ask that if you procured my book — or any book! — for free, leave a review upon reading it?)

Now, many have reported that a bigger sales boost occurs two to three days after the free promo ends. Not sure if that’ll happen here, but I’m damn sure gonna keep my eyes peeled.

Assessment of results?

Good, I guess. I’m happy to have the novella in the hands of 5000 more theoretical readers. I would have preferred they pay the buck for it, but if that means I’ve got more folks willing to chip in for BAIT DOG or other work of mine, that’s great.

This leads to the question, did I experience a sales boost of my other e-books?

I did not.

Quite the contrary, actually.

Soon as I triggered the free promo, my e-book sales over that two-day period were cleanly halved in twain. That’s kinda weird. I mean, I have no evidence that it has anything to do with the free promo — why would it? Surely it’s coincidence. Only thing I can think of is that there seems to exist some strange internal Amazon promotional algorithm that us Human Beings cannot access lest it overload our mental circuitry. Something about how books achieve rankings and show up under other books and appear on the main page and so on and so forth. If this is true, one could theorize that triggering the SG free promo… I dunno, rearranged the promotional eggs in the digital egg basket Amazon built for me.

Which makes little sense, but there it is.

We’ll see if sales rebound. Gods, I hope so — January has been a really stupendous month in terms of getting the e-books out there. Which leads me to…

Brand New E-Book Promo

Buy any of the following books on writing during the month of February:

CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY

REVENGE OF THE PENMONKEY

500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER

And I’ll comp you a copy of:

250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING.

If you procure via PDF, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll get 250 Things automatically.

If you procure via other methods (Amazon, B&N), send me proof of purchase to:

terribleminds at gmail.

Other Stuff

Let’s see, let’s see…

Just finished the first official (third unofficial) draft of MOCKINGBIRD. Off to the Robot!

Will today also finish the first draft of DINOCALYPSE NOW.

The Washington Post calls me a “death blogger” and “macabre mastermind” in a piece about my collaborative storytelling and art Tumblr project, This Is How You Die. Reminder, of course, that the How You Die blog is always taking submissions — text, photo, song, art of any variety, all about how you might die. (More information here.)

I also get a shout-out at Huffington Post courtesy of Amy Edelman and Melissa Foster in a piece called, “The Big Reasons Indie Authors Aren’t Taken Seriously.”

BLACKBIRDS gets its first official review (from Fantasy Nibbles, tee hee) — and it’s glowing! (“…a truly unforgettable heroine driving the action. The writing is razor sharp throughout, and I’m genuinely concerned that I might be a little bit messed up for enjoying this one so much.”)

Oh, and then the book gets another glowing review from New York Journal of Books! Woo. (“Author, screenwriter, and writing advice guru Chuck Wendig creates a compelling tale with an even more compelling protagonist in Miriam Black: a tough, street wise survivor who finally escapes her troubled childhood only to find that she can’t escape herself. Despite her fairly macabre lifestyle, Miriam has a strength and sarcastic wit that makes her very likeable and strangely sympathetic.”)

And My Bookish Ways throws DOUBLE DEAD into the review machine and gives it a 5 outta 5, baby. (“Double Dead is a terrifying, violent, American road trip through zombie hell.”)

Finally, TALES FROM THE FAR WEST — a rad-ass Wild West Wuxia mash-up short story collection based on Gareth Skarka’s Far West storyworld drops in e-book format (and soon, print). I’m in here surrounded by some of my favorite people — Will Hindmarch, Eddy Webb, Ari Marmell, Matt Forbeck, Jason Blair. My story — “Riding the Thunderbird” — is about a girl, an outlaw, and a herd of storming thunderbirds.

SHOTGUN GRAVY is now on KDP Select.

Meaning, for Prime members, you can take the book out as a “loan.”

Also meaning, right now, the novella is free.

Now, I don’t know how I feel about KDP Select. On the one hand, I do appreciate that it expands options for authors and readers alike in terms of getting new fiction into their greedy little eye-holes. On the other hand, I don’t like that this only further foments the decrease of competition in the marketplace by increasing Amazon’s advantage and market share, which as a result does little good for readers with other platforms (or a desire to support bookselling entities beyond Amazon).

So, why now?

First, I’d like Atlanta Burns to meet some new readers. If this does that, win. I’m keen on finishing and releasing the sequel, BAIT DOG (now likely a novel, not a novella), but I’d like to get this book in more hands before I do so. If this does that? Then hey, score. Because honestly? Atlanta Burns needs some help, I think. This might provide just the sales boost she needs — she’s got 28 great reviews going for her. I get emails now and again telling me how much people really love her as a protagonist and love how the book tackles bullies. But, then again, it may not provide any boost at all. I’m not in the habit of expecting.

Second, this novella’s been out now for, what, four months? And during that time it’s been available at B&N and here as PDF — so, readers outside Amazon have hopefully had the opportunity to get on board.

Third, it seems like at least trying KDP Select will give me a better understanding of its relative merits and concerns. None of my other books at present are going that way.

So –

If you’re looking for a chance to nab the story of a troubled girl going up against some local bullies with her .410 shotgun in order to help a couple friends, here’s your shot to do so for a price that’s Cheap As Free.

If you dig it, then let others know.

Further, if you have thoughts on the KDP Select thing, feel free to talk about it in the comments.

Finally, worth a read: “How KDP Select Saved My Book,” by David Kazzie.

Shotgun Gravy at Amazon (US).

Shotgun Gravy at Amazon (UK).

So, what that means is that you, the casual audience, gets treated to another bullshit “this is what Chuck is up to and where you can find that rambling jackass on the web” kinda post.

No need to thank me. Or fling your panties at my front porch.

Anyway. Where I be?

Blogradio interview at: Canned Laughter and Coffee. Where I discuss flinging panties. And zombies.

An interview with me at Galileo Games about, well, zombies again. (It’s a theme, I guess?)

This Is How You Die has collected close to 20 pages of submissions by now. It’s been an an interesting experience so far. (And we’ve had one musical submission!) Definitely hoping to see more art- or photo-based submissions over time. Given the Tumblr’s thematic (and sometimes narrative) connection to BLACKBIRDS, Angry Robot posted a tidbit at their blog. One thing that creeps me out: searching the “death” tag across Tumblr. You find some interesting stuff there, some compelling ideas and poems and whatever. But you also find a lot of talk about suicide. And you occasionally find very disturbing images of dead bodies. Sometimes murdered. Sometimes children. The Internet is a weird-ass place to live, sometimes.

I might be in LA at some point soon. Where my LA peeps at?

“I find it hard to believe that a person who mistakes vulgarity for humor has advice worth pursuing. Do yourself a favor and buy a book written by a grown-up.” Aww. How sweet! (Er, out of all seriousness, I’m not asking folks to go and respond to her. Her review is her review, if you can call it that. Mostly I like these kind of reviews — “He’s got a poo-poo mouth!” — because they end up selling the book far better than I ever could.)

Did you participate in the “Three Sentences For Bear71″ flash fiction challenge? Some of your stories may be popping up at the “I Am Bear71″ Tumblr. Bear71 is at Sundance as we speak.

Okay, this isn’t about me (I know, I hear your bleats of disappointment), but I am reminded (courtesy of Eddy Webb) that Cyanide & Happiness is awesome. If you read webcomics, I’m always looking for suggestions. This particular strip of C&H is a nice jab at our current consumption culture.

And I think that’s all she wrote.

• Have you told the world yet how you’re going to die? New Tumblr. Curating fears and fantasies about our deaths. Go there. Tell me about your death and how you envision it. THIS IS HOW YOU DIE. As a sidenote, received a butt-ton of entries for that — if yours hasn’t shown up, it’s possible it’s in the queue. (Also possible it was a little too out-of-theme. Some entries were fun but were more about cheating death than death itself, which felt like — well, it felt like a cheat. Go figure.)

• Maybe you saw yesterday, maybe you didn’t, but Abaddon Books has asked me back into the writer’s stable, even after that… incident with the donkey (“Chuck Wendig Returns To Abaddon“). And what will Chuck — er, me — be doing? First up is a sequel to DOUBLE DEAD called BAD BLOOD. Your favorite vampire-in-zombieland is back, this time in e-novella format. Second up is I’ll be writing a novel to spearhead a new urban fantasy series called GODS & MONSTERS. Which pretty much tells you all you need to know about that. Thanks to Abaddon for inviting me back!

• Oh, one other tidbit there from that blog post — DOUBLE DEAD was the fastest-selling Abaddon title of 2011? Mine is the face of joy at news like that. Very exciting stuff.

• New “Penmonkey Incitement” count — we’re up to 737. Which means we passed both the 650 and 700 marks, which means it’s time to give out two more postcards and one more t-shirt. (More information on the Penmonkey Incitement promotion right here.) I’ll pick in the next 24 hours and email folks who won — so, if you’re looking for a shot to nab a free postcard or t-shirt, remember to procure a copy of COAFPM and be sure to let me know about it at terribleminds at gmail dot com.

• GIMME SHELTER, new zombie anthology. I’ve a tale in there, along with great stories by Tee Morris, Mur Lafferty, Filamena Young, Phillipa Ballentine, David Hill, Pete Woodworth, and more. Out now!

• Slowly but surely putting together that terribleminds Kickstarter.

• Those asking about the next Atlanta Burns book, BAIT DOG? I’m noodling making it a full novel instead of a novella. Feels like there’s so much more to it than the novella I’ve written, so I might blow it out and go bigger with it. Keep your grapes peeled. Ohhh, and speaking of Atlanta Burns, SHOTGUN GRAVY is now $0.99 at Amazon and B&N.

• Got edits back on the next Miriam Black book, MOCKINGBIRD. Eeee! And ow! And eeee! And ow!

• Looking for DINOCALYPSE NOW news? Done by the end of the month. Ish. Easily one of the most challenging things I’ve ever written. Worth it, I hope. But a serious challenge. Go ahead: ask me why!

• My “25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing” post went very, very viral. Like a rampant case of chlamydia it spread like fire across the writer’s net — in two weeks it’s become the biggest post ever here, and led to this site easily blowing up the previous record for views in a day, week, and month. Glad everybody liked it, and thanks everybody for spreading it around.

Your turn. What are you up to?

Christmas came and Christmas went, and in the wake of Santa Jesus we found the flotsam and jetsam of a child’s joy –what I’m saying is, our living room exploded and gave birth to a metric ass-ton of baby toys.

And now, over a week later, I’m left rocking back and forth. In the corner. Covered in a shellacking of dried saliva and carpet fibers, my fingers burned with battery acid as they tried desperately — and failed with equal desperation — to pluck AA batteries from their plastic cradles. My vision flits in and out. My muscles twitch with myoclonic spasms. I… hear things.

I hear the heretical hymns and blasphemous songs of a thousand insane toys.

I hear them when I wake.

I hear them when I sleep.

I no longer can distinguish between day and night, between up and down.

I have gone mad.

* * *

As it was the child’s first Christmas, that meant that everyone felt inclined to Go Big Or Go Home in terms of providing the tiny human with gifted amusement. That includes us, of course — we, too, procured for him a bounty of entertainment even though he’s got the attention span of an epileptic cricket and frankly is capable of achieving maximum delight from Tupperware containers, paper towels, or his own wriggling feet.

That said, buying toys for a new child is everybody’s right, and I’d dare not rob anyone of that pleasure.

The bounty included such plastic idols of childish wonder as:

Blocks; balls; some kind of baby-sized faux-laptop; Elmo; a talking puppy; an electronic plastic “book;” a learning station that features such disparate items as a phone and a book and a piano and, I dunno, an autopsy station or something; a thing that might be best described as a “musical lawnmower;” another set of blocks; rings; wibbly-wobbly bean-shaped things; and so forth.

This is all wonderful and we are of course thankful to have these things.

It’s just…

You need to understand:

These things all make noise.

They all make noise.

THEY ALL MAKE NOISE.

The blocks squeak! The balls rattle! The puppy barks and talks about his ear and his feet and his paw and tells the baby he loves him! The book sings songs and barks and meows and baa’s and bleeps and blorps! Everything is a cacophony of saxophones and ABCs and 123s and and bings and dings and ringing phones and chimes and rhymes and timing tones and next thing you know your ears are bleeding and you’ve developed this tic and you smell the stink of burning flowers before you fugue out and stab the mailman.

* * *

The toys, they are impatient.

And they reward impatience, reveling in it.

B-Dub, he likes to crawl around and lay resplendent amongst his booty, flailing his limbs so that his hand punches one toy and his leg kicks another and then he’ll flop up and over like a breaching whale and crash his head into another toy.  Each punch-kick-headbutt elicits a brand new sound. But the sounds will gladly interrupt other sounds — just as one is beginning to dig into a chorus of the ABCs or Hey Diddle Diddle, the baby hits another button and then another sound or song begins. And trust me, these things are All Buttons. Every little widget and hinge and plastic nubbin does something — every tiny insubstantial movement or event sets off a chain reaction of musical bedlam. If the baby just breathes near one of them it’s suddenly lighting up like a fucking rocket booster and singing some song about a happy froggy.

It sings the song of madness. Our house sounds like this:

Hey diddle diddle the cat and the –

BAAAAA!

Bing!

A B C D E F –

Meow! Meow! Meow!

*guitar riff*

I Love You!

Mary had a little –

Ruff ruff!

Foot!

Hey diddle –

Yellow foot!

*saxophone smooth jazz*

It’s learning time!

It’s learning –

It’s learn –

Ruff ruff!

And meanwhile it’s all lights and vibrations and suddenly I’m starting to stroke out and wonder, “Sweet Christ on a Crumbly Cracker, is this why kids have ADD?” Then I wipe the nosebleed and pass out.

* * *

If you leave the toys alone long enough, they get… angry.

They’re like the toys from Toy Story: they demand to be played with. Each toy addicted to play, fun-junkies who just can’t get enough, man. The toy phone will ring, tell you it has a call. The book will beg to be opened, beg to be played with, hungry for storytime. The puppy wants the baby to know: I love you, baby who I just met yesterday, baby who’s name I don’t know, baby who punches me and bites me and who later ignores me, I love you so much I’d kill for you.

You turn the puppy off and he goes silent.

But even the slightest vibration returns him to life.

You sneeze two rooms away and the puppy’s back.

I love you, you hear.

The toy, talking to nobody.

It’s a trap, you think.

* * *

One rhyme:

“Ring around the rosie / The doggy chase the kitty / Husha, husha / We all fall down.”

What the fuck is that?

What happened to the pocket full of goddamn posies?

Rosie and Kitty don’t rhyme!

…or maybe they do.

Maybe I’ve just lost my mind.

*blubber whimper sob*

* * *

A B C D E F G H I

Meow

Ring around the rosie

Ding ding ding

Riiiiiing riiiiing

Open! Close!

Ruff Ruff

Ear! Blue ear!

Elmo sleepy.

Up! Down!

IA IA CTHULHU FTHNAGN

I AM THE SONG THE WORLD SINGS WHEN IT DIES

KALI MA KALI MA KALI MA SHAKTI DE

THE ANGELS WENT SCREAMING INTO MOLTEN PLASTIC AS THE DEVIL LAUGHED

AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA

It’s learning time!

Ruff ruff!

* * *

All the while, as the chorus of mirth and madness plays on, the baby is hyper-crawling his way toward anything that’s not actually a toy. For all the bounty that exists, he’s happy trying to eat a ball of lint or head-butt the couch. Or, best of all, track down the actual dog, a dog who he perhaps loves more than anything in this world. I’m sure as my wife and I slowly descend into the caverns of lunacy, the boy will discover our drool-slick bodies supine on the floor and he will find great amusement in playing with our twitching fingers, our slackened jaws, our tightly-curled toesy-woesies.

And the toys will sing an electronic dirge to mark our mind-death.

Looking back, staring forward. Standing on this head-of-the-pin moment between two years — an arbitrary distinction, perhaps, from when one calendar becomes useless and a new one must be hung, but a distinction just the same and a fine enough moment to pause and reflect.

Personally, it’s been a good year. Nah, fuck that, it’s been a great year.

Double Dead hit shelves. And is, I’m told, selling well. Well enough where — well, I won’t spoil any of that news right now, but oh, there shall be news. Blackbirds and its protagonist, Miriam Black, found a home after a small but confidence-boosting bidding war, and now sits comfortably nestled in the arms of an Angry Robot. Further, it has a jaw-dropping cover that still geeks me out to this day. (You can totally read the first chapter of that book at the Angry Robot site, by the by.) The transmedia project I co-wrote with Lance Weiler, Collapsus, got nominated for an International Digital Emmy. Our short film, Pandemic (watch here!) was at Sundance and continues to get lots of attention.

I also self-published this year — six books starting last January. Sales have, on the whole, been excellent. Curiously, they’re weakest for my fictional offerings. Shotgun Gravy sold well in the beginning but has since tapered off — I’ve got Bait Dog waiting in the wings to receive a good clean polish, but I want to see if I can get some more readers on board with Atlanta Burns #1 first. We’ll see.

I read some fucking awesome books, too. I’m a picky finicky dickhead of a reader, but this year has been a bounty of great books –Robert McCammon’s The Five and Hunter In The Woods; Christa Faust’s Money Shot and Choke Hold and Hoodtown; Adam Christopher’s Empire State; Anthony Neil Smith’s Choke On Your Lies; Duane Swierzcynski’s Fun and Games; Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City; Matthew McBride’s Frank Sinatra In A Blender; Matt Forbeck’s Carpathia; John Hornor’s Southern Gods; Stephen Blackmoore’s City of the Lost and Dead Things (the bad-ass sequel, and it’s a toss up as to whether it or Zoo City were my year’s favorite reads). Certainly some I’m missing.

Of course, the biggest and craziest and most wonderful thing was the birth of this little dude:

The boy is a constant source of amusement and adoration, and even when he’s not sleeping or karate kicking me in the trachea or accidentally drooling into my open mouth (seriously, that just happened the other day), he’s an endless delight and so cute he’ll turn even the hardest charcoal hearts into a big gooey wad of marshmallow fluff. We love him very much. I mean, duh.

Of course, a month before my son was born and a few days after my birthday, my dog of 13 years, Yaga, passed away. That was hard on us and sometimes, still is (I had a dream the other night I was playing with him in the snow — both a wonderful dream to have, and sad to wake up from and realize that it wasn’t quite true), and it was strange that in the span of a single month my dog died and my son was born. Parity and opposition: life and death in all its finery.

Not everything worked out perfectly. The television pilot officially fell through with TNT, and our film project has momentum, but it’s the momentum of a slowly-rolling kickball rather than the pinball’s swiftness we’d hope for. Almost had an LA agent; that didn’t quite click. Some friendships were made stronger this year. Some were decidedly not. Life progresses just the same.

I’ve said in the past and I’ll say again: I don’t truck with regret. Regret is perhaps one of the most worthless emotions we have as humans — we are who we are and all the moments and choices and happenstance has formed the equation that adds up to the sum of us. For good or bad, for better or for worse. Like who you are? Keep on keeping on. Don’t like it? Change something. But don’t get mired in regret. Your boots will get stuck there and you soon start to realize that it has no value, offers no function. Regret doesn’t let you rewrite anything. You don’t get a mulligan. It’s one thing to find a lesson and to learn from it, but regret is something altogether more insidious and, at the same time, worthless.

So, fuck regret in the ear with a meerschaum pipe. Mostly because I wanted to say “meerschaum.”

Onward, then, to 2012.

What will that bring?

Well, I can’t know for sure.

Blackbirds and its sequel, Mockingbird, will land.

I’ll continue to self-publish. I’ve got a novel — a creepy li’l something called The Altar — that begs to have the DIY treatment, I think. The outline is done, I just need to write it. (I make it sound so easy! Yeah. No.)

I’m almost halfway through Dinocalypse Now, the Spirit of the Century novel for Evil Hat. It features love triangles and professorial apes and psychic dinosaur goodness. It’s a challenge to write, honestly — a good challenge, but a challenge just the same.

Speaking of Evil Hat, I’ve got a wealth of stories in from the Don’t Rest Your Head anthology, called Don’t Read This Book. Got some great authors on that one, so keep your grapes peeled.

I’ve got more plans for the website (Kickstarter, quite possibly) and for some other writing books that both do and do not come out of posts here on the blog.

More to come, more to come.

Thanks all for coming here and making for a great 2011.

Here’s to 2012, then.

What’s on your agenda for the new year?

It’s the month of December and as a gift I’m going to give you:

My boot in your ass and my fist in your trachea.

It’s time to wipe the bullshit from our faces and squeeze all our little excuses so hard their heads pop off one by one. We will exterminate our worst writerly habits with a Dalek-like enthusiasm.

And by “our” bullshit, excuses and bad habits, I also mean my bullshit, excuses, and bad habits.

So! Consider this the annual “cleaning of the pipes,” the yearly “let’s get shut of nonsense,” the month of “fuck you, get to work” before we sashay our holiday-swollen hips into the shining light of the New Year.

If there’s anything you want me in particular to talk — er, yell — about, let me know now.

Now: onto other news!

December E-Book Promo

500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER is, quite honestly, doing very well for itself. And the “lists of 25″ continue to draw in readers, so I’m assuming people like them and don’t find them overbearing. (Or, if they do, they’re at least amusingly overbearing?) (I originally mistyped that as “overbearding,” which is not possible — you can go overboard, but you cannot go overbeard. True story!)

So, I’d like to keep that momentum going.

If you procure 500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER during the entire month of December, I’ll throw in 250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING as a free PDF.

If you buy 500 WAYS as a PDF, this freebie will be automagic — I’ll email it to you accordingly.

If you buy 500 WAYS via Amazon or B&N, then you’ll need to email me proof-of-purchase at terribleminds at gmail dot com. Because, despite my deepest efforts, I am not yet psychic.

(Also, 500 WAYS could totally use more reviews at Amazon, B&N or GoodReads, if anybody is so kind and inclined? No pressure or anything. Ignore the gun at the small of your back. Shhhh.)

To procure 500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER:

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

Blackblurbs

We have hot new tasty blurbage for BLACKBIRDS (which is, as you know, available for pre-order, right?) from some incredible people which I am eager and excited to share –

“Trailer-park tension, horrified hilarity, and sheer terror mixed with deft characterization and razor plotting. I literally could not put it down.”

– Lilith Saintcrow, author of Night Shift and Working for the Devil

“Blackbirds is a horror story, a traveling story, a story of loss and what it takes to make things right. It’s a story about fate and how sometimes, if we wrestle with it hard enough, maybe we can change it. Blackbirds is the kind of book that doesn’t let go even after you’ve put it down and nobody else could have made it shine like Chuck Wendig.”

– Stephen Blackmoore, author, City of the Lost and Dead Things

“Mean, moody and mysterious, Blackbirds is a noir joyride peppered with black humour, wry observation, and visceral action. Fans of Chuck Wendig will not be disappointed.”

– Adam Christopher, author of Empire State

“Balls-to-the-wall, take-no-prisoners storytelling at its best.”

– Bill Cameron, author of County Line

“[Blackbirds is] A gleefully dark, twisted road trip for everyone who thought Fight Club was too warm and fuzzy. If you enjoy this book, you’re probably deeply wrong in the head. I loved it, and will be seeking professional help as soon as Chuck lets me out of his basement.”

— James Moran, Severance, Doctor Who and Torchwood screenwriter

“Enchanting and drowned in blood, BLACKBIRDS is a meaty piece of fiction, a non-stop mind-job where the first hit hurts and you keep going back for more. It’s the kind of gritty, unapologetic story that grips you long after the book’s done; dark, intense, utterly without mercy. Chuck Wendig spins one hell of a tale.”

– Karina Cooper, author of the Dark Mission series

Other Workity-Jerkity

The first draft of MOCKINGBIRD is complete, and the second draft is actually almost in the can. It takes Miriam on a deeper journey into the heart of her gift-slash-curse. Of course, most of you haven’t even read BLACKBIRDS yet, but when you do, I think you’ll eat up the horror with a silver spoon. Oh! It looks like the second book’s release date is moved up, actually — now Aug/Sept 2012 rather than “sometime in 2013.”

I’m told that DOUBLE DEAD is doing well for Abaddon, which is nice! I’ve heard tell that some folks would like the story of Coburn the vampire to continue, and between you, me, and the starving raccoon in the corner, I’m hoping that such a thing will soon become a reality. Feel free to tell Abaddon — “Hey, that Chuck guy? We sure do like him a bunch. Here, have some candy. Get in the van. GET IN THE GODDAMN VAN.”

I’m receiving some killer stories from the assigned authors of the DON’T REST YOUR HEAD anthology. So far, my editorial job will be a very light one, indeed.

I’m revising the opening chapters of DINOCALYPSE NOW, my Spirit of the Century novel — I found a way to better connect to the characters and give them a stronger emotional throughline.

I’ve got a second round of notes on POPCORN back from uber-agent Stacia Decker, and I’m excited to push them forward — think it’ll really become the book I envisioned it becoming. (Never underestimate the awesome power of editorial criticism to refine a story and highlight paths you wish were obvious all along.)

Next week I speak to the Writer’s Guild in NYC, joining Lance Weiler for a day-long talk on transmedia.

Further opportunities continue to line up for 2012, all of which are filled with nougat and custard and other delightful flavors.  Novels and a new film idea and some cool transmedia endeavors.

And 2012 will surely see new e-books. Hopefully one of those will be the follow-up to SHOTGUN GRAVY — but if you want that, then I need you to spread the word and help get the book to readers.

Finally, thinking on doing a Kickstarter to keep terribleminds running in 2012.

And that’s all she wrote, kids.

How are you doing?

Purchase as book or e-book at:

Amazon (US)

Amazon (UK)

Barnes & Noble

iTunes

It’s the 15th of November.

Which means that Coburn the vampire is here.

Poor, poor Coburn. Once the king of his castle — his castle being New York City — he awakens from slumber to discover that his city and his world have been gobbled up by a zombie apocalypse.

Most of the humans are dead.

Which means his food source is spoiled. Vampire can’t live on dead blood, after all.

And so the vampire must move from predator to protector, a shepherd who must find a food source and stand vigil over the herd. It’s not an easy transition, of course. The monster is still a monster, after all.

(This ain’t Twilight, folks. Only way Coburn glitters is if he kills and eats a stripper.)

Along the way, what will he discover about the world? About the girl he protects? And about himself?

Gotta read it to find out.

A vampire in zombieland.

Featuring:

A teenage girl with a healing gift!

Zombie evolution!

Wal-Mart cannibals!

An army of Route 66 Juggalos!

A little white terrier named “Creampuff!”

And, of course, one cranky-ass cocky fuck of a vampire: Coburn.

Please to enjoy, folks.

It happens once a day, maybe.

My son will be looking at me — he’s five-and-a-half-months now, you see — and then comes this moment. It’s not one thing: it’s the alchemy of muscle movements, facial tics, of whatever unseen elements constitute our faces. All of it adds up to a single sum, an equation answered by my father’s face. Staring back at me.

It’s pretty weird, seeing your father’s face. In infant form. It’s like seeing a ghost. A ghost that has taken over my baby — but then you realize, that’s not it, that’s not right at all. The ghost hasn’t taken over my baby.

This is my baby.

Holy shit.

I mean, it makes sense, of course. Genetically, the baby is in part the product of me and I am the product of my father and By The Mighty Scepter Of Science I conclude that, yes, indeed, it totally tracks that certain physical traits will make themselves known over the course of our lives. It goes deeper than that, however. Our faces are more than just the features. It’s more than just a delicate twining of DNA spawning certain recurrent elements. This equation has imaginary numbers.

Here’s what I mean:

When my father passed away, I was present. And when he died, I knew he was gone — no longer present — before any of the signs and signals were made clear. It wasn’t merely the slackening of features — you could tell that something had gone. Poof. Vanished into the ether. I don’t mean to suggest you have to believe in a soul, but just the same, life is different from death (a-duh), and so when life vacates the body, the body changes. The body and the face become reflective of that inert state.

Life has left the building.

The body, given up the ghost.

But now sometimes I see the ghost — my father’s life — on my son’s face. The way he moves his nose. Or the way he smiles. My father used to get this puckish grin on his face — curiously, the same look I sometimes saw on my grandmother’s face, even after she had her stroke — and now there it lives, sometimes floating to the surface on this cute round little baby head. Again, I don’t know that you can even pinpoint it.

It’s just… there.

I have it in me, too. Maybe not the face. I don’t look at myself often enough to see it. But I hear it. In my voice, in my words. Something in the tone or tenor. Word choice, maybe. (My father, after all, is where my love of profanity was born. He celebrated profanity, and now I do, too, for better or for worse.)

I’m named after my father.

My first name is his.

My first name and his first name is also my son’s middle name.

Charles.

It’s too early to see how else or how often that glimmer of my father will appear in my son — maybe it’ll come and go and then leave for a time, or maybe it’ll always be there. My son is strong. Independent and stubborn. Like my father and, perhaps to a lesser degree, like me. He’s already good with his hands — my father worked with his hands. Maybe I’m just making all this up. Perhaps I’m hungry to see connections that aren’t there. That’s what some will say. That’s what some will think. Maybe they’re right.

Maybe they’re just assholes.

Who knows?

What I know is, I’m sad my father never knew my son. While the last thing I want to think about is my son one day passing on, but perhaps some day long and far away from here and now the two of them will travel together in the great Happy Hunting Ground up in the sky. Some of the things my father taught me, I’ll teach my son. Some of the things he taught me, I won’t. But other things I can’t stop and don’t want to stop. The ghost lives on. The ghost persists. The soul — or whatever that passes for it, whatever uncertain and spectral vehicle is the thing that carries that ember of life, that living mask, that visage as unique as a fingerprint — is here in my son’s eyes and smile and in the shape of his nose.

And I’m happy for that. It’s the only way he’ll know his grandfather.

That, and the stories we’ll tell.

Putting the name and the life to the face.

Filling in the ghost.

Happy birthday, Dad. You would’ve been 68, today, I think.

Go bag a great big heavenly elk and use his antlers to fight the Devil and give him what-for.

Hungry for another double-barrel buckshot of questionable writing wisdom unloaded into your brain-guts? Ohhh, I have just the thing for you, my little ink-fingered word-cobblers.

Available today: 500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER.

At present, the book is $0.99 — but! That price will go up after one week (around Wednesday November 9th) to $2.99. Those who buy the PDF now are able to select a “pay what you want” price ($0.99, $1.99, $2.99) if you care to pay more for the book. Absurd? Maybe. But you’d be surprised at how often it happens that folks tell me they want to pay more than a buck for books like this. Consider it an experiment!

[Please note: current sale is over!]

Okay, let’s get our procurement options on the table:

AMAZON (US)

AMAZON (UK)

B&N

(A note about buying direct: if you buy direct, I send you the file — er, directly! — via email. This is generally very fast unless extenuating circumstances prevent this. Like, say, if I’m asleep. Or if Paypal delays sending me the head’s up. Or if I experience a massive power outage. You’ll generally have your file within an hour, unless it’s at night, at which point you’ll have it very early in the morning.)

What The Hell Is This?

This is the sequel to 250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING, and, as many sequels go, this one is bigger and badder — twice the size, in fact, of its predecessor.

It features 20 “Lists of 25″ from the blog-bound pages of this very site.

What lists, you say? Well, here’s what’s in it:

Prologue: 25 Things You Should Know About Writing Advice

25 Questions To Ask As You Write

25 Reasons You Won’t Finish That Story

25 Things You Should Know About Endings

25 Things You Should Know About Mood

25 Things You Should Know About NaNoWriMo

25 Things You Should Know About Queries, Synopses And Treatments

25 Things You Should Know About Self-Publishing

25 Things You Should Know About Social Media

25 Things You Should Know About Theme

25 Things You Should Know About Writing Horror

25 Virtues Writers Should Possess

25 Ways To Be A Better Writer

25 Ways To Defeat Writer’s Block

25 Ways To Fuck With Your Characters

25 Ways To Make Exposition Your Bitch

25 Ways To Plot, Plan And Prep Your Story

The Life Cycle Of A Novel (In 25 Steps)

Appendix 1: 25 Sleep-Deprived And Also Drunken Thoughts On Writing

Appendix 2: 25 Brief-But-Hopefully-Potent Writing Exercises

Now, four of those are brand new and are not found here at terribleminds — Endings; Mood; Sleep-Deprived And Also Drunken Thoughts; and the writing exercises.

All told, it’s around 50,000 words of total content.

None of it is replicated from 250 THINGS.

Why Buy?

Because this is a mega-explosion of thinking and talking about writing.

Got a big bad case of the writer’s block? Exposition a barnacle-crusted colostomy bag around your hip? Don’t know how to cinch that perfect ending, or describe that perfect mood? Doing NaNoWriMo and want a little something-something, some idea-coal for the story-furnace? Or maybe you just want to hear my drunken ramblings about writing? If any of those apply, then this might just be the book for you. Plus, like I said — for the next week, it’s naught but a dollar.

Alternately, maybe you want to support the blog. Maybe you say, “Hey, I come here every week and Wendig hoses me down and delouses my writer-fed delusions and I come away smelling of rye whiskey and — quite curiously — butterscotch, so why wouldn’t I want to throw a couple coins into the ol’ terribleminds coffers?”

Or — or! — maybe you say, “Well, a ding-dang-doo, that is one cute baby. I would love a guilt-soaked appeal to whatever instincts drive an adult’s need to protect a tiny big-eyed human, and if I can contribute money toward this kid’s diapers-and-college fund, then that makes me feel warm inside, like freshly-baked bread.” See? There he is, all dressed as Babyzilla. And, apparently, pointing at his crotch. So much like his father! Which is, uhh, presumably me? I do often dress like a monster and run around town pointing out my crotch, so I’d say the bloodline has manifested itself elegantly.

Those are just three potential reasons to procure this e-book.

Other reasons might include:

A love of profanity!

Syphilitic insanity!

A hatred of money and so you must spend it as fast as you get it!

A zealous love for all things self-published!

An obsessive and ever-mounting collection of e-books!

The beard! THE BEARD!

And so on.

If you procure? Then you have my thanks. If you don’t nab a copy? I definitely do not wish a plague of bed-bugs upon your home. That would be rude of me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to read this book of ancient hexes. Whyfor? Oh. Uhhh. What? No reason. Just buy the book already.