Storytellersunplugged

Self promotion has always been an important tool in my quest to find new readers for my work. When I started writing in 1994, the internet was just making itself know as a means for communication and promotion. A couple of years later, it seemed the only way to network with writing friends and associates between the few conventions I’d made certain to attend. As a result, I now travel many trodden paths—for example, my Yahoo mailer, and message boards such as ... Read More

I read my old favoriteIn my bed last nightHe seemed so glad to scare meI just screamedAnd he showed me some old nightmaresAnd I embraced those old fearsStill scary after all these years(With apologies to Paul Simon)Several years ago, Al Gore invented the internet, and now people have a place to bitch about things and make derisive comments with total anonymity. This usually happens on message boards, and quite often, the people doing the bitching have names like SexMachine69 and ILuvMetallica74 and ... Read More

Many years ago, I had a piano teacher who owned a pet bobcat named Lester. Normally, Lester sat quietly on his haunches during my practices, paying little attention to anything other than his feeding time. One Saturday, however, I arrived for practice and discovered Lester running around the house like his tail was on fire. When I asked Ms. De’Rebolo (my teacher) what had gotten into Lester, she said simply, “The moon.” She gave much credence to the effects of the new ... Read More

On June 25th of this year, a novella of mine, The Turtle Boy, won the Bram Stoker Award in the Long Fiction category. You'll note I didn't say that I won the award, and there's a simple reason for that--I didn't win it, the book did, and later I will tell you why the distinction is important.In the days before the winners were announced, I had to try real hard to pretend I didn't care what the end result was going to ... Read More

I’m on my way back home from NECON as you read this, probably with a few more books and few less brain cells than I had when I departed on Thursday. Fortunately, I wrote this entry in advance—like a previously prepared meal on a cooking show—so you won’t be burdened with the ravings of a hung-over sleep-deprived happy camper. Not today, anyway.A subject I don’t often see discussed on message boards or other writer communities is our relationships with editors. They’re among ... Read More

The idea of self-promotion always sounds loathsome because I believe most of us are convinced from an early age that putting yourself in front of something or someone else is more than just rude, it is taboo. It's not even merely taboo, it's a sin and possibly a crime in several red states. I heard that a guy was executed for this in Texas, once. I've even read on blogs and message boards that ... Read More

Do You See What I See?While attending the annual conference of the Horror Writers Association a few weeks ago, I participated in a panel discussion on getting that first break with a mass market publisher. One of the questions put to myself and my three companions on the panel revolved around what we thought was the best tool, process, or practice that we had learned in our careers to date. At the time, I answered that I had learned to write a ... Read More

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BEING CONVENTIONAL AND LOVING IT!March of this year was not a good month for me. It�s okay, no oohs or aahs of sympathy required; I mean nobody died or got seriously ill � or even frivolously ill for that matter - but there was enough of the proverbial brown stuff hitting the fan of my life to knock my confidence and leave me feeling pretty sorry for myself. And let�s face it; it�s always worse when you know that most of the ... Read More

Storytellers UnpluggedThere are rules?I keep getting the feeling that somewhere along the way I missed something. Not in the writing part of the agenda (I KNOW I missed something there) but in the business side of things. Don’t get me wrong, I can read a contract with the best of them and I know better than to casually accept that what is written down on that contract is written in blood on stone. What I’m trying to get at is it seems ... Read More