Monday, February 27, 2012

Jack's Back

After months of toiling and strain, and doing web things that I don't really understand, I have at last posted two, count 'em, two new episodes of The Dark InSpectre. The site is now totally different, it's on a wordpress platform instead of blogger, and it's pretty bare, so excuse its modesty. I'm still planning on adding a few do-dads here and there, but it's finished enough to start posting again, so yay!

I will henceforth resume my previous posting schedule of every other Monday. I hope you'll tune back in, I promise I've got some wicked things in store for Jack!

So without further ado:

Here's Episode 42, in which our hero returns to his old stomping grounds, only to find things are very different, and not in a good way.

And here's Episode 43, in which our hero continues his various covert investigations.

Hope you enjoy!

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The Dark InSpectre Returns...Monday

Monday, February 27 there will be two new episodes of The Dark InSpectre. These will be the first new episodes in like 4 months, since the previous site's untimely demise. I'm posting two new episodes instead of the usual one to reward all those readers who've been jonesing for their bi-weekly fix of New Arden's foremost paranormal cop Jack Garrett (I know you're out there!).

Anyway, it's a big deal for me to get the story back online and rolling again. Hopefully the audience can slowly but surely get back to where it was before. It's a new site and a new CMS. Right now it's rather bare and not quite where I want it to get (primarily because I have no idea what I'm doing), but it's far enough along to start posting again. And lord knows we've got a lot of story left, cuz Jack's getting in some deep shit before he's done. So keep yer' eyes peeled for Monday!

Friday, February 17, 2012

Guest Column

Hey, y'all.  My monthly column is up over at Abandoned Towers Magazine. As usual, I'm writing about writing. It looks a little different cuz all the blog stuff for AT is moving over to the main site, but it's still the same old me. Check it here.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Subbing, Subbing, Subbing

I sent off my crime novel to a literary agency. It's one of the smaller, boutique agencies, not one of the big boys. Does that give me a better shot? Who knows. Seems like a good place, though, we'll see. They wanted a query letter, synopsis and first three chapters. If they like it, they'll ask for the whole thing. Could be a week, could be three months.

I've also been posting the short story I finished over at the Baen's Universe slush board. I've been getting good feedback, and some not so good feedback. That's the thing with the BU board, you've got to A) have a thick skin and B) be able to separate the constructive feedback from the "non-constructive" feedback. In other words, the stuff that you look at and say, "yeah, I'm going to pass on that," or "sorry, I just disagree." This doesn't happen a lot, but it does happen. By and large my story has gotten better. I'm going to wait another week and see what other comments I get, then decide whether to post a revised version one last time, or start subbing it around. Either way I'm happy with how it's going.

Then there's the Dark InSpectre. Frustration does not begin to describe my current emotional state. My in absentia editor informed me that once again, she cannot find the new episodes I re-sent her for editing. Also, she had some kind of computer meltdown and has to re-do or completely re-create the banner graphic to post on the site. And she's sick again. I re-re-sent her the episodes to edit. Making a new graphic would be cool, provided she actually does it, but ultimately I don't care. It's the episodes that are important, if she can just edit some of these, I'll start posting again. We'll see if this actually happens. I'm deliberately not thinking about how long it's been since the series went away. Oops! There I go thinking about it again...

Friday, February 3, 2012

Two Steps Forward, One Step...

Stuff is happening on multiple fronts, unfortunately, not all of it's good. First of all, The Dark InSpectre is getting closer and closer to coming back on line. I've finally made contact with my in absentia editor who says she never received the next several episodes. So I re-forwarded them to her and also made progress with the new web site, which I'll continue to fool around with. Bottom line, if she can start getting episodes back to me, I'll start posting again, Finally!

On the novel side, not so good. Because my editor (same person as Dark InSpectre) is so swamped with book projects, she said there's virtually no hope of her getting to my revised manuscript this year (yes, I said this year). She actually suggested I start sending it around to agents, that she would love to put it out through her publishing house, but wants to be fair to me. And she'll absolutely hold on to it and publish it if I can't find a home for it myself (although that wouldn't be for quite a while).

No question it's really nice of her and very supportive. But it still sucks. I wrote this thing at her behest, and she knows my voice and helped develop it in many ways, and now I have to go sell it to people who never heard of me , which includes everyone. An extra problem is that while I'm familiar with the agents in the SciFi world, I don't know who specializes in crime/thriller literature. So that's more research for me to do.

It's just a huge letdown after thinking this would definitely be out there in the near future. It was something I thought I could count on, especially after busting my ass to get it done. Oh well, guess I have to flog it like everybody else and deal with all the agent rejections for a while. Coming up with a title for the thing wouldn't hurt my chances either.

At least my wife liked the short story I just wrote. Let me tell you, she can be quite the critic. So next step is I'll post it over at the Baen slush board and let the wolves have at it.

Like I said, all of a sudden there's a lot going on, just not all of it's going my way. But hey, just part of being a writer, I guess. Amiright? Amiright...?