Tag: chuck (page 8 of 10)

Chuck Under Microscope

April 19, 2011 / 42 Comments

What’s The Frequency, Wendig?

I haven’t done a status update in a while. I have no idea if any of you actually care about this, but I’m just going to float here in my ego bubble and pretend you do. If you’d do me the kindness of golf-clapping or some shit so I know you’re out there? Sweet. Thanks, all. You’re good people.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s what’s up in The Life Of Wendig.

Irregular Creatures

Flying cats. Demon vaginas. Family problems. Mermaid love.

Been out for three months now, and my short story collection continues to sell, though no longer as consistently. It’ll go a couple days with no sales, then suddenly earn a weird sharp spike. That’s okay, though. Any sales are good sales, and it still evens out pretty much.

I am now fortunate enough to have 27 reviews, all four- and five-star. If you want to add a review (presuming you read the book), I would be mighty appreciative of that action.

I’ve now sold just shy of 600 copies, which means I’ve earned about $1000 off the collection. Though I earn about two bucks a copy, remember that I had two periods where I dropped the price to a buck, which cut that two bucks down to about thirty cents. Worth noting: my last $0.99 sale lasted a week and saw a much less significant jump in sales than the first time I did it. I’ve seen other authors report similarly: that initial drop in price brings a flush of activity that offers diminishing returns. I’m doing better at $2.99 than at $0.99, ultimately. I have to sell six copies at $0.99 for every one copy at $2.99 to earn out the same. To make the money I’ve already made, I would need to have sold 3000 – 3500 copies rather than 600.

Also continuing to hold up: the PDF/ePub sales directly through this website. Those sales account for about 22% of my total sales. Not insignificant. If you’re a self-pubbed writer and are not offering a product directly to the reader, I’d politely suggest you get on that shit like flies on roadkill. Not only does it allow them to bypass channels they may not like or utilize, but it also puts you in more direct contact with the readership. That, to me, is a clear win.

So, here’s the deal.

I’ve sold ~600, and I want to sell another 400. That’s my goal at this point. Will you help me do that? I’ll keep a periodic tally here to see how far we have to go — but I’d love to nail that number.

Anybody wants an interview, I’ll grant it. Want a review copy, I can do that, too. Want to pimp the collection, you’ve got my gratitude.

Let me know what will get you to either buy the collection or spread the love.

You can buy on Amazon (US).

You can buy on Amazon (UK).

You can buy right through the website here.

You can check out my many-headed sales pitch.

At this point, I can only reach the goal if you folks love it enough to convince others to jump in and nab a copy for themselves. My thanks, glorious readers. You’re the wind beneath my wings.

Double Dead

Double Dead is double done. Er, for now. I wrote it, I gave it a quick editing pass, and now it’s out of my hands. But really, that’s not the important piece of information. What I want to share is:

PRE-ORDER BUTTON, MOTHERFUCKERS.

That’s right. You can pre-order at Amazon with but a clicky-clicky of your mouse. Like vampires? Like zombies? Want to know what happens when a vampire awakens in a zombie apocalypse? Two great tastes that taste great together, friends. If you dig the idea, feel free to pre-order.

[EDIT: You can pre-order at Amazon UK, too.]

Why pre-order, you might be asking? Pre-ordering is good for the publisher and great for the writer. The publisher gets an idea of preliminary demand and can produce accordingly. The writer also gets a boost — your pre-orders send a signal to the publisher that, hey, this writer is worth holding on to. So, we author-types appreciate your commitment.

Everything Else

Blackbirds is… well, I’ll just say, hey, keep your fingers crossed for me, will you?

HiM is out the door. We reached a draft of the script that feels like we nailed it, and so it is once more out in the world, ideally impressing folks. I think the script is rock-hard, so here’s hoping.

Have another film property bubbling up. Very excited about it.

The TV pilot is… well, it’s still out there.

Just finished up two small pieces for White Wolf.

Will also have two pieces coming up in The Escapist.

Am prepping my next e-book release, a book of writing advice: Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey. Got the cover slowly coming together thanks to Amy Houser (she of Irregular Creatures‘ cover). I’ve put the book together, and it tops out over 100,000 words. It features revised iterations of writing advice found here, as well as a kind of “director’s commentary” on each piece. Look for that in the next month or so?

I turn 35 very, very soon. Like, in a handful of days.

My son turns zero also soon — in a handful of weeks. If you didn’t see, we finished the nursery. If you want to know about that tree and owl on the wall, it’s this decal right here, from Etsy. Also: got a new camera, the T3i. Reason being, I wanted something that takes video, something better than a Flip. This will allow me to snap baby photos and flip a switch and move right into baby videos without grabbing new gear.

For those seeking updates on the old dog, he’s… well, not every day is a winner, but by and large he seems happy and still has a handful of good days in him, I think. I hope. You know, except the ones where he has diarrhea in the mornings? Yeah, that’s fun. Can I just say, my new best friend in the world is the Bissel SpotBot? That little robot fucker is a dream. If this is the future of robots, I’m in. Even if a SpotBot comes back in time to “clean” Sarah Connor. COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT CLEAN CARPETS.

And I think that’s all she wrote.

How About You?

How are you doing?

I like to hear what other writers are up to, so, hey, drop a comment.

Give us a status update. Whatchoo got going on?

Anything I or anybody else can help with?

April 7, 2011 / 28 Comments

The Mighty Endjaculation

I love ending a story.

Here’s why:

Because eventually you reach a space where it’s the point of no return. You’ve been building. And building. Climbing the hill. Worrying at the bone with your teeth. And suddenly it’s all there. You can only go down. It all comes together how it has to come together and —

Well, use whatever metaphor you like.

Roller coaster cresting a hill.

Throwing up and purging after a long night of feeling like shit.

The climactic ejaculation — the blog-titular “mighty endjaculation.”

You either get there or you don’t. If you get there, you know it adds up. Maybe it’s not good, but sweet fuck, it adds up. And it happens fast, too. You have momentum. You use gravity. That’s the best part about writing an ending, or even a whole third act. No more confusion. Only a kind of weird eerie purity. The way is clear. Run, fuck, kill, or die. You’ve already jumped off the bridge. Now all you gotta do is fall.

It happened when I finished Blackbirds. I hit the last act and it all just burped out of me.

It happened when I finished the script for HiM. We knew where it needed to go and how it was going to happen and when the time came to bang it out, those last days of writing I was hitting 10, 15 pages a day.

It happened just now, 20 minutes ago, when I finished Double Dead.

Wrote 4k day before yesterday. Wrote 4k yesterday. Today? 7k.

Double Dead is double done.

And by “double done” I mean “not actually done at all.” This is just the first draft. I gotta do a pass. Editor’s gotta do a pass. Writing is rewriting, after all. But I will say, it feels good. I’m happy. For today, at least. And I’m going to run with that. Run with it all the way home, cackling, giggling, doing cartwheels. Metaphorical carthwheels. If I tried to do the real thing, I’d break my fool neck.

For now, I breathe a big giant exhalation of air.

Who wants some whisky?

*clink*

March 29, 2011 / 9 Comments

I Am Offering A Writing Critique: Genre For Japan

GENRE FOR JAPAN.

Heard of it?

It’s a sci-fi, fantasy and horror-based auction in service to the Red Cross to aid the victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. It is filled with a ton of awesome stuff from your favorite authors past, present and future. Hello, Neil Gaiman? Mike Shevdon? Adam Christopher? Rowena Cory Daniels? Hell, the list goes on and on and the index of lots is right here.

Anyway, they asked me to contribute a little something-something, which is like asking a bait-minnow to hang out with a flock of majestic blue whales — hell, blue space whales, glorious and translucent as they float through the nebulae — but hey, I’m totally excited to have been asked and doubly excited that maybe someone will bid on my lot and send some money to the relief effort.

What do I have on the auction block?

First, an e-book of Irregular Creatures.

Second, a critique of your writing. Up to 5,000 words, which might be a short story or a piece of a novel. Is my critique worth anything? Well, hell, I dunno. I like to think so. Outside of my dubious writing advice that I offer here on this site, I have developed a number of books for White Wolf Game Studios, and that involved me helping writers hammer their first drafts into final drafts. You can ask them if I’m qualified, I guess.

Anyway, what I’m saying is, the bidding is now open.

Get on over there and pitch your coins into the hat if you care to. If not for my lot, then for another lot from another great publisher, editor, or author. Time to help out if you can, peeps.

Thanks, in advance. I’d also appreciate you spreading the word on this.

My Lot (Item 21) can be found here.

March 7, 2011 / 13 Comments

Everybody Can Do Everything: DIY Days

Ahh. Another DIY Days come and gone.

If you don’t know DIY Days, then simply put it’s a free conference for people who really want to do shit — or, as I apparently said last year, “Make Shit, And Make It Awesome” (via mighty Guy “The Dread Pirate LeCharles” Gonzalez). This is a crowd who doesn’t want to sit on their hands. Who doesn’t want to kowtow to gatekeepers, who has no interest in asking for permission. Many are storytellers, but just as many are the makers of the tools that help storytellers tell their stories. As Guy said yesterday in a tweet, the energy there is different than at other conferences, and because of that, feels more inspiring.

I was afraid I wasn’t even going to make it to the conference, honestly. Night prior I spent awake every hour or so with stomach problems — morning came and I felt hollowed-out. Like a gutted pumpkin. Could barely drink a cup of coffee, ate like, 1.5 pieces of sourdough toast. But I felt better than I did at night, so the wife sent me off with cookies and Gatorade (a good substitute for meth and Four Loko in a pinch!), and I drove to Jersey to catch a train into the city.

On the train, got to hear two strangers have a conversation, which is a thing that I love to witness. A Latino man and a black woman had a long conversation about all kinds of things — Facebook, child predators, gang initiations, how gangs used to leave civilians out of their business, movies new and old, etc. At the end of the train ride, they’d formed an actual connection as like, temporary friends. She asked him his name, he hers, they shook hands. She said to him, “God bless you,” and he to her. It was this kind of neat, connective moment — which, perhaps unexpectedly, sits nicely in-theme with DIY Days.

City was great. Weather was — *mwah* — so good. Fifty-five, sunny. Fuck yeah, Spring. Put your earthen boot on Winter’s icy neck and press down until you hear the crinkly snap of an icicle spine.

Still, got there later than I wanted. Missed Lance’s talk about Storytelling Pandemic, though one supposed I didn’t really need to see that talk given my involvement.

First person I met was Jeanne Bowerman — a truly rockin’ Twitter pimp if ever there was one — and this would unfortunately be my only real encounter with her for most of the day. Actually, this is a theme: I met a number of people and really only got to spend so much time with them. Next time I’m in the city, I need to somehow earmark more time to actually be in the city. Which probably means staying over somehow. *makes note — start collecting couches in NYC and LA on which I can crash* I met Iris Blasi, Caitlin Burns, Nick Braccia, and of course Guy Gonzalez, Andrea Phillips and Jim Hanas. Dave Turner — @electricmeat — is an officer and a gentleman. Jonathan Reynolds — @therealjohnny5 — was not lying and did indeed sneak me a little bottle of 15-yr Glenfarclas. Fortunately, not before my talk.

Some takeaways from the day’s events:

• Data can tell a story, says Nicholas Diakopoulos. Though, to play Devil’s Advocate, does it really? Is that how data is intended? Human nature is such where we must draw connections — in many cases, narrative connections — between two unlike things to find understanding and context. But that also doesn’t mean that human nature is correct. Data may tell a story, but seems just as possible that we create stories out of data, or find data to fit our stories. Or something. Here’s some data for you: I wear pants only 35% of the time. What story does that tell? Either way, engaging presentation with some really awesome visuals.

• Mistress of the DIY Empire known as “Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School,” Molly Crabapple, is awesome and full of snark. She tells you how to deal with haters by imagining that the best and most wonderful artist that you love has, when Googled, someone out there calling them fat or telling them they suck or whatever. You would then respond, “That person is crazy,” which is how you should envision your own haters — as crazy people. Love, too, that Dr. Sketchy’s is basically an art-school version of Fight Club, with “franchises” worldwide. Doubly love that she makes sure the franchises pay their models. Finally, she notes that too many artists spend too much time on the “swoosh” in their logo and don’t get down to business. This is true for writers, too — some writers become so obsessed with [fill-in-the-blank] (platform, strategy, worldbuilding, etc.) that they forget they need to actually write something and then get it out there.

• Brian Newman says that if you get involved in any one issue, let it be Net Neutrality. He notes that the name “Net Neutrality” sucks, and if you want to help fix it, then as an artist and a creative human being it’s your job to help re-frame that problem in a way that people understand it. Because, right now? They don’t. Also, don’t let it be DIY — let it be DIWO. Do It With Others. Which sounds sexier than intended.

• Michael Margolis helps you reframe your bio online — the short form takeaway here is “Character Trumps Credentials.”

• Ted Hope and Christine Vachon had a very organic back-and-forth: love the idea that somewhere in the middle of art and business is where we find the way to get our work out there. Like too that neither producer is afraid of digital work, and notes that some of the work being done in that arena is better, sharper, stronger than what you find amongst Oscar hopefuls. Sidenote: if you haven’t watched it, you really need to check out the SUPER trailer (Rainn Wilson, Nathan Fillion, Kevin Bacon). I want to see that pretty badly — in reference to it, Ted noted that girls are taught to be supermodels and boys are taught to be superheroes, and from this kind of diseased mindset comes the movie. Another true notion: creating art and putting your craft out there is an act of running full speed at a wall and praying for it to open. Sometimes, it does open for you.

• Andrea Phillips — of the excellent Deus Ex Machinatio — noted, in her Ethics of Transmedia talk, that her work has been denounced by NASA. This is awesome in ways that cannot be described. I long one day to be denounced by NASA. That’s good press, right there. NASA’s had it too good for too long. Also, in private conversation, Andrea and I talked about how what’s important in fiction (whether in transmedia or in gaming or in the written word) what’s most important isn’t realism so much as it is authenticity. Stay true to the story you’re telling and the world it lives in. Don’t be so concerned with reality and fact.

• Transmedia is becoming an overused word, say some.

• From Faris Yakob and Brian Clark (who probably now thinks I think he’s Mike Monello), an interesting idea: charge as much as possible for half your time so that the other half of your time you can create what you want to create. Basically, become your own investor.

• From Scott Lindenbaum, of Electric Literature and Broadcastr: “When not monetized, creative endeavors are mere hobbies. It’s crucial we protect them as professions.”

• Further proof why nobody should let me speak out loud to other human beings: I will discuss teabagging and hookers. Thankfully, Greg Trefry was there to balance me out. Greg’s an awesome dude. In fact, he’s the kind of awesome dude who runs roleplaying game sessions for his students and asks me questions like, “How important is it that they get to roll their own dice?”Anyway. I think our talk went well?

Overall, the theme of the day orbited around the democritization of creative tools — where once it was expensive and prohibitive to create music or film or transmedia endeavors, it’s getting cheaper and cheaper. This mirrors the publishing world, obviously — where once big publishers were necessary to do X, Y, and Z, we’re seeing a Renaissance (for good and bad) of DIY storytellers saying, fuck it, I don’t need to pay the gatekeeper, I don’t need to ask for permission, I’m going to do as I like — I can hire my own cover and book designers, I can get my own editor, I can find my own distribution channels online. The trick is, democritization of tools does not also mean the democritization of talent. There is in self-publishing communities the idea that the cream will rise to the top — what you might call “Talent Will Out” — but I don’t know that this is proven yet. Which to me shows that the most important component to balance the democracy of tools is filter. We need more meaningful filters across the ‘Net. Vast procedural filters from Google and Amazon and so forth just don’t cut it.

Final takeaway:

Be energized. Get creative. Find a way to put your work into the world. And don’t let me speak in public unless you want to hear about ramping a mini-bike over 100 hookers.

Thanks, as always, to Lance Weiler for putting this thing together.

February 14, 2011 / 20 Comments

I Am The Luckiest Bag Of Dirt In The World, Because My Wife Rocks

It’s Valentine’s Day.

It is, depending on your perspective, some combination of day where you go above and beyond the call of duty to celebrate your love, or a day where you get on the Internet and bitch about how Valentine’s Day is a crass holiday created by the greeting card companies and how you should be nice to your loved ones every day so blah blah blah now you’re the Grinch That Had Venereal Disease And Stole Valentine’s Day. Because, c’mon, Santa was invented by Coca-Cola. The Easter Bunny was invented by, I dunno, Cadbury. Jesus was invented by Toyota. It’s all just marketing and advertising.

Listen, I get it, you think Valentine’s Day is a stinky pink blossom of consumerist hate juice. I don’t really care. Just shush about it and keep your head down while the rest of us love our respective others, yeah?

With that in mind, let me just announce it:

I love my wife.

I love my wife unmercifully, beyond the periphery of reason and sanity.

I met her online. Match-dot-com, actually. When I “online-dated,” I met a small percentage of very cool and lovely ladies, and I also met a small battalion of total farking moonbats. I went on dates that concluded with me going home, locking all the doors, and corking the silverware. When I met my wife, however, we went out to a Chinese restaurant. And we stayed there for four hours. We closed the joint out. They were throwing fortune cookies at our heads to get us to leave.

It was then and there that I knew I would marry my wife.

Why do I love my wife so completely, so deeply, so dearly?

First: she’s hot.

See? Hot.

Second: she is not an alcoholic, despite the inordinate number of photos I take of her where she is imbibing said alcohol. Which, for the record, seems to be most of the photos I take of her.

That’s really just the tip of the iceberg. In my photos, she drinks a lot. In real life, not so much. Still, right now she deserves major kudos because, as a pregnant human being, she cannot consume her most favoritest drink in the world, the Dirty Vodka Martini. Me, I just tell her to drink it. Frankly, the baby’s going to need booze to put up with us as parents. Even still, she perseveres.

My wife also puts up with my shit. Which is a really big deal, because I am a man who gives a lot of shit with up which that one would need to put. Or something. See? I can’t even write a reasonable sentence. The fact that she has not yet snapped and taken a rifle up to a clocktower is a really good sign. A number of my ex-ladyfriends are now locked away in those white metal-free rooms like where they imprisoned Magneto. If you want to see my wife in the middle of putting up with my shit, here is an image. You can see it on her face how she is very kindly tolerating my nonsense:

That is her “Tolerate Husband” face. I know it well. Here is another:

One day, she’ll probably stab me in the temple with a chopstick. And I’ll totally let it happen. I won’t even be mad. She’ll be like, “Do you remember how you were acting?” And I’ll be like, “Okay, yeah. Yeah. Yes.”

My wife is funny. And, mysteriously, she thinks I’m funny. She also has the foulest mouth of any woman I know, which for me is a total win. The fact that she can occasionally out-profane my infernal tongue does not merely earn a check-mark in the box but rather a check-plus-plus. Seriously. You cut her off in traffic, she will tell you to eat a dick and die. She will curse you in ways that will wilt your heart like warm spinach.

She’s kind-hearted. She’s tolerant. She believes in me.

But even her negative traits are ones to love:

Her impatience matches my own, as does her raging river of snark.

Plus, if cajoled, she will kiss a tiki, which is not a metaphor for anything sexual but rather a literal truth:

Tiki Loving 101, kids.

She’s got beautiful eyes and long gorgeous hair and legs that won’t quit. Seriously, her legs — her getaway sticks, her lady-longs, her gams — are long. We’re the same height but I go to drive her car and I have to spend two minutes and 37 seconds readjusting the seat to compensate for her long legs and my stumpy little clod-hoppers. By the way, I totally just made up “lady-longs,” but you can have it for a dollar.

She is one half of the Husband And Wife Video-Game Super-Team.

She is beautiful even when she’s picking something out of her eye:

She lets me thrust her into dubious Photoshop situations:

And she is beloved by all the creatures of the earth, as evidenced by unrequited looks of love and lust born by this… I dunno, amphibious Deep One frog dude.

Let’s be very clear, here. The fact that this person —

Married me —

Is an indicator that she is both charitable and loving.

She is going to be a wonderful mother, but really, who cares? What I care about is that she’s a beautiful, awesome, kick-ass wife. The kid’s just going to have to take the back-seat on this one. Sorry, Upcoming Wee One. This hot chick is all mine.

I love you, wife of my life.

You make my world awesome.

It would turn gray and then black and then die without your presence.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

February 13, 2011 / 30 Comments

Things You May Not Know About Little Chucky Wendig, Age Eight And A Half

It has come to my attention that a lot of you crazy people are reading this blog. Which, for the record, is awesome, though it does lead me to suspect that my words have some kind of narcotic effect, or that perhaps my blog exudes some kind of nicotine haze. I certainly don’t know why you keep coming back. Or why you follow me on Twitter. I’m an ass.

I don’t have the good sense God gave to a brain-damaged trilobite.

(For those of you with alternate religious beliefs, replace “God” with: Zeus, Buddha, Ahura Mazda, the Devil, genetics, Papa Legba, Shiva, Wash from Firefly, Godzilla, or John Quincy Adams.)

Regardless, here you are.

Which I totally appreciate.

As such, I figure it’s a good time to get to know one another. Here, then, is a random slapdash written-in-no-sensible-order list of things you may not know about me. It bears no rhyme, no reason. It doesn’t even strive to be all that interesting, really — it’s more or less a conglomeration of meaningless facts about yours truly. With that in mind? Let us begin.

…

I only recently learned how to belch. Or burp — whatever term you prefer. Now I go around burping because I can, and because it is wonderful. This is not good news for my wife because I am like a kid with a new toy. What’s interesting, and this may be entirely coincidental, is that once I learned how to burp, I no longer get heartburn. True story.

Mice ate my buttplug. To clarify, I did not have a buttplug for my own buttplug pleasures but rather, because a friend gave sex toys as gag gifts one year for the holidays. (Though I am not knocking said “buttplug pleasures.” I think that in this world you do whatever you like to enjoy yourself — I make no judgments on your sexual peccadilloes.) I ended up with a buttplug which went into a drawer where I forgot about it. At the time I was living in a double-wide trailer (“the carriage house”), and I had mice. The mice, I discovered, had eaten into many objects of mine (including books, the little fuckers). I opened a drawer at one point to find that mice had eaten the buttplug package and the buttplug itself, and then made a nest out of the rubbery buttplug materials. Which makes them the weirdest mice in the history of mice, living in a nest made of a buttplug. Be advised: “Mice Ate My Buttplug” is a great name for a band. Be advised also: the mice shit on my silverware. Since I am not a fan of hantavirus salad, that earned the mice a death sentence.

Speaking of death sentence, it is Squirrel War up in this bitch. For the squeamish, you have my apologies, but so far two squirrels have… lost their lives in this war. The same principle is at work: they are shitting on our front porch. They leave a line of little squirrel turdlets along the railing. That is the lesson for all animals out there: if you shit on my things uninvited, you have written your own ticket. Actually, that’s probably true for humans, too. If some dude wanders onto my driveway and takes a dump on my car, I’m going to shoot him. And I think that would be excused in a court of law.

I wrote a short story called “Squirrel Skin.” It was about squirrels who steal the flesh of humans and wear dudes like suits. That story is in this anthology — Vermin — which is apparently out. I’ve seen no payment for this. I don’t even think I realized it was out. It was a woefully mismanaged, long-delayed anthology. It’s part of why getting short stories published is a pain in the ass. Worth the trouble sometimes, but not always.

Have you read “Hell’s Bells“…? A short story about Coyote (like, the mythic character) in Hell. It features sandwiches. And the Devil. And Dybbuk. Is it any good? Eh. Funny, maybe. Wrote it five, six years ago.

I believe in ghosts and grew up in a haunted house and believe I have proof that ghosts exist. My earliest ghostly encounter was when I was about five years old as I emerged from the bathroom. I had not yet put my “boy parts” back in my pants when I saw footprints appear in the carpet in front of me. I ran. Correction: I ran without having put my “boy parts” back in my pants.

When I was a kid, I did not fear the supernatural or monsters or any of that. I feared two things very distinctly: serial killers and nuclear war. I shouldn’t have been afraid of those things so early — frankly, I shouldn’t have even been aware of them at that point. So it goes. Now I write fucked up horror stories.

The first horror book I read was Stephen King’s The Shining, but I didn’t really “get it.” I was, I dunno. Ten? Eleven? After that, I didn’t read any more King novels until high school — but I did read one helluva lot of Dean Koontz and Robert McCammon. Stinger, Swan Song, Watchers, Strangers.

I do not like eggplant. I used to not like tomatoes, fish, mushrooms, Brussel sprouts. I now pretty much like everything I didn’t used to like. With one exception: eggplant. Because, really, fuck eggplant.

I used to run a BBS when I was in high school. It went by many names: Shadowlands, BizarroWorld, Unreality. There may have been a fourth name? I used to call BBSes, too. One time I ran up a $500 phone bill because I didn’t realize calling Philadelphia was a “long distance call.” To this day, I am genuinely surprised my father did not attack my computer with a hammer. The threat was made.

I once had a hedgehog, name of Poppy. She was not a happy animal. You see some hedgehogs being all cute and shit, but not her. Angry, xenophobic little lady. Cute, though, even still.

The first short story I had published was “Bourbon Street Lullaby,” a kind of Poppy Z. Brite-esque ghost story about these dead twins and their older, still-living brother. It was a good early lesson on the value of editors and so-called “gatekeepers.” Editor (John Benson) saw something good about it, but wanted changes — I made those changes gladly, resubmitted, and boom, my first publishing credit. That was, what, 16 years ago? And the pay rates for short stories haven’t gotten better. They’ve gotten worse. But it did teach me that you can get paid for this crazy gig. And, more importantly, you should get paid.

I’m probably going to die of cancer one day.

I used to think I was going to be a cartoonist. I drew a comic called Odds N’ Ends. Starring hedgehogs. One was a surfer. I had a copyright on it. Still do, I guess. Turns out, I wasn’t very good at it. Or, maybe more importantly, I didn’t want to become better. Writing, though — that’s what eventually drew me.

Not sure why, but I used to be fascinated by surfing. And surfers. This despite the fact that I was somewhat hydrophobic. Hell, maybe because of it. Maybe because surfers conquered the ocean, and the ocean is basically one big scary hungry watery mouth. And there they are, astride the churning hell-waves. Or maybe it was because there were a lot of bad-ass surfer chicks in tight suits. Who can say?

I was once stung by a lot of bees. Ran into a nest of bumblebees. I was more afraid of bees before that. Not sure why, but getting stung by a fuckton of bees (and being coated head to toe in pink Calamine lotion) cured me of my “bee fear.” You don’t hear that very often. “I was afraid of being trampled by wild boar and then stabbed in the face by natives. But when it actually happened, I was like, hey, this isn’t so bad.”

My Dad used to give me a .22 revolver as a kid, and we’d put .22 CCI shotshells in the cylinder, and I’d shoot carpenter bees who were trying to eat our barn. I still have that .22.

Someone bought our property a couple years back and tore it down and build a shitty-looking house. Our house was old. But, it’s gone. And the dickwipe also tore down the barn. A red barn. If you live in this area, you know that red barns are kind of “a thing.” Jacks the value of your house to have an original red barn and this guy kicks it to splinters. It’d be like buying a house with a Jacuzzi tub and then filling it with cement and then taking a crap on the cement. Nice job. Asshole.

I love bacon but I suspect it’s becoming overrated. I think sausage is the next big thing.

That’s not a dick joke.

That’s it for now, folks. I think I’ve bored you enough.

Your turn, if you so desire.

Flit down the comments, and drop into them one thing about you that I probably don’t know.