What people are saying about Slander Hall

Dropping directly into the meat of the novella, Matthew Tait wastes no time bringing his readers completely up to speed within a few paragraphs… ‘Slander Hall’ has a cinematic feel to it; eagerly grasping the reader by the hand, it’s like watching an intense movie unfold.

Crafted like a cross between a classic ghost story and twist on Silent Hill, this haunting and well-written tale takes you to the edges of the madness in your own mind… Well-written and pacy, the story will haunt you for many days (or even weeks) after you read it.

… a great turn of phrase, a literary frolic and a grotesque elegance. Yes, despite the more artistic delivery in places, many splatter writers should sit up and take notice…

… stirs in some thoughtful social commentary on the subjects of suicide and doomsday cults, and serves up a tasty and satisfying dish….

About Matthew Tait

Matthew Tait was born in Australia in 1977. Like many writers he has held far too many jobs, including co-managing a video store. And although it seems a prerequisite for any writer, he’s played rhythm guitar in a few bands as well.

From 2005 until its closure in 2011, Matthew was an assistant editor for the award-winning Australian news and literary criticism zine, HORRORSCOPE. He currently writes for HELLNOTES.

The first story in his collection Ghosts In a Desert World was awarded a recommendation from the Australian Horror Writers Association.

Among his influences are Clive Barker, and the late, great Richard Laymon.

Tait’s new novel, Slander Hall, was published in January of 2012 by Dark Continents Publishing.

Excerpt From Slander Hall

Cedar felt cold. He had not expected developments this early in the game.

Sephera asked: ‘Are you people seeing this?’

Now fully within the glare of his torch, a humanoid figure walked implacably toward them. Then it stopped. It scrutinized the group through eyes that didn’t appear to be human, twin ovals that were slanted and black. It stood on skinny posterior legs that arched slightly, enough to give it a semblance of humanity. A bulbous head stood atop a naked torso and midriff with flesh the color of yellow cheese.

Time canted for the briefest of moments, as if the five of them were mere models encased in a paperweight scene and being shaken. The space between this creature and his little group could be no more than fifty meters, yet Cedar could feel from that meager distance a bubble of air as thick and palpable as fluid. Whatever this thing was, it had presence… a malignancy that started in its eyes and radiated through the tainted air.

He tried to speak, but found no speech forthcoming.

‘We should back away,’ Sephera whispered, saving him the trouble. ‘Something’s not right. Everybody move toward the right. That small lane that angles between the fence.’

Gordana let out a little whimper. ‘Something’s definitely not right. That thing isn’t even human.’

‘What is it?’ Philip said.

As if the creature had heard the question and felt the need to respond, it suddenly sprang into a lurching gait, fixing them with its huge eyes. Closing the already short distance, Cedar could see they were haunted – almost predatory. When it moved, its body made a writhing motion utterly out of proportion to its anatomy, and it was this more than anything that finally got them moving. With Cedar taking the lead, they began to back away by slow degrees toward the skinny lane. Philip was no longer transfixed; turning his back on the creature, he broke into a full-tilt run.

Want more?

Sure you do. You can pick up Slander Hall at Amazon: HERE

If you’d like to follow Matthew Tait, I’ve done the stalking for you:

Twitter: @MatthewStait
Blog: Different Masks
Facebook: Matthew Tate

Other Works

Ghosts In a Desert World

[[The Before We Get Going Side Note: This blog is all about me and what’s been going on lately. I can’t say for certain if there will be any humor involved, but there will be pimpage.]]

I start this edition of Type AJ Negative with a video clip of a show from my childhood. It is from The Great Space Coaster and it is the Gary Gnu No Gnu show.

That clip is how I’ve often felt when writing. You know, things should go a certain way, but they don’t. Lately, things have gone fairly well in the writing portion of my life.

First, the news:

If you haven’t heard, my three story e-book collection, Along the Splintered Path, is out now. It was published on January 1st as part of Dark Continents Publishing’s e-book release, Tales of Darkness and Dismay, not so better known as: TODAD.

You can find it here: Along the Splintered Path

Also, my short story, In the Shadows They Hide was published on January 16th by Blood Bound Books in their anthology, Night Terrors II.

You can find out more about Night Terrors II here: Night Terrors II

And that is currently all the news that is… umm… no gnus…

Now for the reviews:

Along the Splintered Path has garnered some pretty good thoughts from folks who have read and reviewed it so far. Just a few blurbs:

AJ Brown has a gift for expressing the emotions of his characters. Within the three stories found in this collection, individual journeys are riddled with landmines of torment that lead to discovery. Sometimes the discovery is life affirming and sometimes it is life threatening, but never is it mundane. If you enjoy crawling into the skin of a character and seeing the world through their eyes, no matter how traumatic the view, you’ll enjoy the writing of AJ Brown.

~~~

AJ Brown certainly has his own voice on display with his three stories in Along the Splintered Path. I entered into this one expecting something completely different; tales of rednecks and zombie chickens and banjo-plucking cannibals. I was very, very wrong… This is said by so many people on so many reviews about so many authors… and I think I’m going to say it. Yes, I am. AJ Brown reminds me of Stephen King. ‘Round These Bones especially reminded me of King’s stories of people trapped and simply trying to escape their fate. My favourite was Phillip’s Story. As a writer myself who tries to create completely evil bastards that the reader hates, AJ has the skills to do the opposite: characters that are uplifting and good despite the circumstances.

~~~

If you are looking for something that will keep you on the edge of your seat this is it!

~~~

A fantastic collection and all I can say is I want more from this writer.

~~~

Brown is a writer who does a great job of exploring the reasons why his characters act the way they do. It’s character-driven fiction, and he does it beautifully…

~~~

The author has a unique styling and storytelling that keeps you engaged throughout…

~~~

…therein lies the true horror of “Along the Splintered Path” – in these characters, we can all see shades of ourselves, and all see how everything can come crashing down around us in one moment’s inattention, one split-second mistake, or one crushing pronouncement from a loved one.

Those are some nice words and I appreciate them all. To go with those snippets of reviews is this image of a friend of my sister (We call my sister P-Shorty, by the way. The P stands for Pooky. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.) In this image, the young lady is reading The Woodshed, from Along the Splintered Path. It’s nice to see the look of fear on her face… and yes, the image is used with permission.

Shameless begging time: If you’ve read Along the Splintered Path and haven’t reviewed it yet, would you mind doing so? If not, I understand and will probably only asks another hundred to a thousand times in the future.

Interviews:

If you would like to find out what I’m thinking at any given point, check out these interviews:

AJ’s Back: Announcing Along the Splintered Path at BREATHE

This Is My World Along the Splintered Path with A.J. Brown

I Wasn’t Dreaming: Tales of Darkness and Dismay Series An Interview with A.J. Brown

On the Couch with A.J. Brown

Inspirations Forum’s Our Interview with A.J. Brown

And, finally, but not least, is a couple of Guest Blog Posts:

Scared Little Writer Boy at Exquisite Corpse, Home of author Tracie McBride

Along the Splintered Path at The Writers Block Party

Now that you’re done reading, go check out the links.

I leave you now with Toby Keith’s “I Wanna Talk About Me”

Until we meet again…

Should I pursue a contract with a publishing company? Or should I self-publish? Or should I place a bob each way and try to do both?

If you decide to go down the self-publishing route, then to do so you’re going to need either very deep pockets or very talented and generous friends. You might already possess the extensive skill set to successfully get your book to market and to do it well, but that is unlikely. Otherwise, prepare yourself for a mighty steep learning curve.

Let’s assume you’ve already honed your craft to the stage where your work is worthy of publishing. No matter how good you are, it will still need editing. And once it has been edited, it’s a good idea to have it proofread as well (contrary to popular opinion, editing and proofreading are not the same things). This is so important, it bears repeating, in bold and italics:

No matter how good you are, it will still need editing.

There might be some freakish individuals out there who are capable either of turning out a perfect manuscript that requires no further polishing, or who are capable of turning a wholly objective eye on their own work and effectively self-editing. I’ve never met any of those people. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that, if you’re reading this, you’re not one of those people either. I’ll go a little further out on that limb (it’s thin and bendy at this point, and just about to snap off and dump me on my ass) and say that, if you’re one of those self-publishers who neglects this stage altogether, then you’re doing your readers, your fellow indie writers and the craft of writing itself a grave disservice.

OK. So you’ve found yourself an editor who is both good and affordable, and after a few months’ work (it’ll take at least a few months, because it’s highly likely that neither you nor your editor has the time to devote your entire attention to just this one manuscript) your book is as good as it can be. Now you need cover art. But you’re a competent graphic designer as well as a good writer, so that’s going to be easy…

Oh. You’re not a graphic designer? Then you’ll either have to find one (and probably pay one), or learn how to do it yourself. Your cover design can be created fairly quickly and inexpensively using stock images purchased off the internet and a good quality graphic design program. If you want customized artwork on the cover, that could cost you more (or you could call on those talented and generous friends mentioned earlier). This stage of the book production process needn’t be difficult to get right, but get it wrong and your book could languish forever unsold in the bowels of Amazon.

Once you have your manuscript and your cover design sorted, you have to lay out your book for publication. Resources abound on how to format your book as an e-book, but even this can give you headaches. If you want your book published in paperback, then the interior layout is different again.

And once all of the above is accomplished, you still have to sell the thing. Simply listing your book on Amazon and hoping it will sell on its own is not going to cut it. Anecdotal evidence suggests that successful indie writers spend just as much time promoting their work as they do writing it.

Let’s review the list of skills involved: writing, editing, proofreading, graphic design, layout, e-book formatting, marketing and promoting… Are you overwhelmed yet?

If your book gets accepted by a publisher, then they’ll take care of everything except for the writing part. Sounds much simpler. Except that for your manuscript to be considered by a major publishing house, then you’ll need an agent. And getting an agent involves…sending out a lot of query letters, L-O-N-G waiting periods for answers that will more often than not be “No”, and still no guarantee of publishing success even if you do manage to secure that elusive representation.

Which is where the small press comes in. Small publishers offer most of the services that big publishers do, except they’re…well, smaller. They might not pay advances, but you don’t have to go through an agent to get to them, either. Small press publishers usually specialize in a particular genre, and they do so because they genuinely love that genre. Their primary reason for running a small press will not be money (although making money certainly helps!); because they’re not as concerned with the bottom line, they’re more inclined to take creative risks and to sign the relatively unknown writer or to accept the commercially unusual concept novel. They will probably be run by people who are writers themselves, so they understand the process and understand what you as a writer need from them. They will most likely be active in genre fandom; you’ll see them propping up the bar at conventions, and they will represent your book to the best of their ability when awards time rolls around.

Most importantly, once you sign with a small press, you become part of their family. They will remember your name, your partner’s name, the name of your kids and your pets. They will see you, not as a row of dollar signs, but as a talented and worthy individual.

So in the tussle between indie authors and publishing giants, spare a thought for the little guys, the small press, working away tirelessly to bring your book into the world. You might even want to support them by buying a book or two…

*****

Tracie McBride is a New Zealander who lives in Melbourne, Australia with her husband and three children. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in over 80 print and electronic publications, including Horror Library Volumes 4 and 5, Abyss and Apex, BULL SPEC, Dead Red Heart and Electric Velocipede. She won the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best New Talent for 2007. Her short story and poetry collection “Ghosts Can Bleed” was released in April 2011 by the writer’s co-operative Dark Continents Publishing, of which she is vice president. She welcomes visitors to her blog at

The Exquisite Corpse

Also, check out Tracie’s books.

Ghosts Can Bleed

Dark Continents Publishing

April Fool and Other Antipodean Horror Stories

Why is it that folks freak out anytime a woman in a story is beaten or killed, but when it’s a man…no one really cares?

That’s a good question. Can anyone answer that objectively?

I thought about it for a few minutes before responding.

I’ts reality. Bottom line. Reality hurts, especially when it is women and children.

The truth is it’s the nature of the beast. But, it’s wrong. A life is a life, no matter race, sex, sexual orientation or age. All life should be honored and respected.

Is a man being brutally beaten any different than a woman? Honestly, yes. Why? Before I answer this, let me preface anything else that I write here. This is solely my opinion on the matter. What I say may anger some women’s rights advocates. If so, I’m sorry. What I say may anger some child rights advocates. Again, I’m sorry. What I say may anger some men’s rights… oh, wait, there are no real men’s rights advocates. I find that, in and of itself, interesting. If you find what I am about to write controversial… well, it is what it is. I don’t believe it is, but I have been known to be wrong.

So, why do folks take offense when a woman is beaten (or a child for that matter) in fiction, but not really bat an eye when a man has the same things done to them?

Growing up in the seventies and eighties and in the south, I was taught that you don’t raise a hand to a woman. Not everyone was taught this values. In all honestly, not many kids are taught these values. But, for me, striking a woman isn’t an option… unless they are trying to hurt you. Then, you must protect yourself. However, there is protecting yourself and there is the use of excessive force. Yeah, we hear that term when referring to police, but all too often men use excessive force on women and children to either show their superiority or to discipline them. Some men are obsessive and controlling. They are dangerous to women and children and even other men they deem weaker to them. We see this all the time when we read the papers or turn on any news channel.

Give those same men alcohol or let them have a bad day and that frustration tends to be taken out on… you guessed it, the women and the children.

Like I said, we see this all the time in reality. Why put it in our fiction? Because it’s real and as writers we have a responsibility to the readers to make our characters and their situations as believable as possible. But, let’s do it with some tact, okay? We don’t have to go into all the gory details. The implied deeds are often so much worse on the imagination than the shown deeds.

Wait, I just mentioned a man beating a woman or child. It happens in real life and you better believe we get up in arms about it. Rightfully so. I’ve been in more than a couple of fights with big bad bully men in my days, mostly because they were either hurting a woman or someone weaker than them. I put another man in the hospital because he beat up a kid. No, I don’t put up with it in real life. You want to anger me? Hurt a woman. Hurt a child.

In fiction, if I’m going to tell the truth about life, then life has to be depicted… truthfully. If that means there is a woman who gets beaten by an unruly boyfriend because he’s a drunk prick, then so be it. If that means a kid suffers at the hand of his father (or mother as we’ve seen in real life) then I write it. Again, I don’t write the full-blown details unless I absolutely have to.

There’s a scene in an unpublished novel I wrote about six years or so ago. In it a teenager dies brutally at the hands of other kids in the neighborhood. When I was done with the scene I felt sick to my stomach. It was–and may still be–the most brutal thing I have ever written. I almost deleted the entire book after writing it. After going back and reading it, I realized it was the only way that I could have written the scene—violently enough to make a reader cringe, but also give the character enough reason to come back as a ghost later on and do all the damage he does in the book. Any other way and the impact would have been lost on the reader.

That scene was a bunch of boys killing another boy, one clearly weaker than them. Sound familiar? The dominant member of the species killing off the less dominant one. Kind of like a pecking order. I’m not condoning it, just saying this is the way life is.

If you’ve read anything by Jack Ketchum then you are familiar with someone who writes some very disturbing and often brutal stories. In his book, The Lost, Ketchum’s main character kills two women because he believes them to be lesbians. He doesn’t kill them because they are women, but because he thinks they are gay women. That ratchets things up a notch. They’re not just women, but lesbians. That makes it worse.

Why?

Why does that make it worse? Does being a lesbian make them any weaker than being straight? I would think not. However, this takes the murders more into the realm of hate crimes, which is viewed, by and large, as worse than someone killing a straight woman. Murder is murder no matter how you slice it. The black and white of the matter is that there really is no difference between killing a man or a woman or someone who is white, black or Asian. Murder is murder. Brutality is brutality, regardless of who it is done to.

The truth is the strong prey on the weak and only when the weak fight back does the strong back down.

Okay, enough on that. Let me see if I can get to the point now. Men are viewed as the dominant sex. Biblically, men are supposed to protect the women and the children and the women and the children are to submit to man. Don’t throw the rotten tomatoes just yet. However, men are supposed to be nurturing and slow to anger the women and the children. It’s a two way street. Sure, men can be the dominant ones in most relationships, but they are also supposed to be the protective ones.

This could very well play into the psyche of many people, depending on how they were raised. Maybe that’s where some of this comes from. Men are supposed to be dominant andprotective. If they are not protecting then they are hurting. And no man should hurt a woman or a child… or a weaker person. As I told that fellow I put in the hospital all those years ago, ‘Come pick on someone who can fight back.’

Back to the original question and I’m going to switch it around a little:

Why don’t people get as upset about men getting beaten and killed as they do women and children?

All life should be treated equally. If a man gets stabbed 47 times it should be treated with the same disgust and sadness as if it were a woman being stabbed 47 times. There should be no difference.

However, a child is considered helpless and the hurting of children strikes a nerve with most people. And it should. If it doesn’t then I venture to say something is wrong with people these days. The thought of a child being hurt by an adult makes me hurt on the inside. It angers me and I want to just break that person over my knee. I may not be a big guy, but I was raised in the south in a little section of South Carolina known to the locals as Broadacres. I was a Broadacres boy growing up and if you couldn’t fight, you got your butt kicked on a regular basis. So, let me hear about someone hurting a child…

I think—keyword here, think—that part of the reason people freak out when a woman or child is hurt or killed in a story is that we see this stuff all the time, as I mentioned before, in the news, on television, on the computer feeds. Readers want to escape reality and reading about a man hurting a woman or child or, maybe not even a man doing it, but any type of event where a woman or child gets hurt is just putting them right back into the real world. I understand that. I get that. I respect that.

But (yes, there is always a but) as a writer, I want to put you into my world. I want you to feel what my characters are feeling. I want you to experience their pain, sorrow, happiness, triumphs and revenge. I can’t do that if I don’t bring the reality into the story. It’s the nature of the beast that we call writing.

Still, in real life, a man’s life is viewed somewhat less than a woman’s or a child’s. I find that somewhat sad. Maybe it’s the helplessness we attribute to women and children that polarizes their deaths more so than a man’s. Maybe it’s the way we were raised. Maybe it’s that sense of taboo, that feeling that killing a man is one thing but hurting or killing a woman or a child is crossing the line. That last one I don’t understand. All life should be treated the same. Man. Woman. Child. The elderly. Black. White. Tanned. Straight. Gay. And, in my opinion, the unborn.

I think I may have raised more questions than answers, but I tried to be objective, tried to have an unbiased eye on this. I’m not sure I succeeded.

If you’re willing, feel free to discuss the question. Give your opinions (thoughtful opinions) on the subject. Help me answer my friend’s question. I think it’s one that begs to be discussed and, hopefully, answered.

As always, thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this.

Until we meet again…

Let me preface this for my sister [yes, my favorite sister out of three siblings, two of which are boys] before I write this piece: I will do something similar for you. Now, P-Shorty just hold onto your boot straps for a while longer.

~Ahem~

Since that’s out the way, let me continue.

You may have heard by now that I have a three story collection out there on Amazon titled Along the Splintered Path. If you haven’t heard before now, well, now you have. Follow the link above and check it out. The reviews have been really good so far.

[[Side Note: I know that was a shameless plug and here is a shameless request to go along with that shameless plug: if you have read Along the Splintered Path, would you mind leaving a review? People really do read those things before deciding on buying a book. End Side Note]]

Occasionally in life you have a chance to do something nice for someone. Many folks don’t take these opportunities. We live in a world where it’s all about ME and if we can’t get anything out of it, well, then we’re not going to do it.

Let me say this to that mindset: When you do something nice for someone you do get something out of it. You get the satisfaction of helping a person(s) with something they needed and that makes you all warm and fuzzy inside. And if feeling that does nothing for you… well, go ahead and stop reading now because nothing I say from here on will interest you.

As I mentioned above, recently a three story collection was published by Dark Continents Publishing in what is their Tales of Darkness and Dismay e-book release. I’ve done a bit of advertising and seeking out websites to review the book, as well as seeking out places to do guest blogs and interviews. Marketing is tough work.

[[Side Note: To you writers out there, if you have any suggestions on where to send requests to, I’m completely open to listening. Just drop me a note. It’s much appreciated. End Side Note]]

A few of my friends and family were not happy with me because I didn’t tell hardly anyone about the book until right before it came out. I did that on purpose and I’ll explain it briefly here: A few times last year things in the works fell through. I had mentioned these things to friends and family and then those things didn’t come to fruition. I’m not really the superstitious type, but I got tired of telling folks, ‘no, it’s not happening now,’ so I kept this one under wraps until it was a done deal. No need to jinx myself, you know?

In the process of telling folks after it came out, I missed a few people. One of them is a lady I have worked with for a while now. She and I had an instant bond when I saw her reading a Stephen King book when I first met her. We talked off and on after that. When I told her I was going to try my hand at writing, she encouraged me.

And encouraged me.

And encouraged me.

Do you get the idea that she maybe encouraged me?

Besides my wife, she is the only other person who truly believed that I could succeed (as much as success can be had) if I worked hard at it.

Occasionally she would read one of my stories or ask if I had anything for her to look at and I would give her the current project.

She has been a constant believer in me and my abilities. Even when I wasn’t so sure.

I passed by her desk recently and we started chatting about King’s 11/22/63. After a couple of minutes my book came up. The lady was excited. Her eyes dazzled—dazzled, I say—and her face lit up.

But, then the shine faded when she said she doesn’t have a Kindle and she doesn’t use a computer at home.

As a writer I want to get to as many readers as I can. But, this was one reader who wouldn’t be purchasing the e-book. I wasn’t disappointed that I wouldn’t be making a sell. I was disappointed that someone who had constantly believed in me and encouraged me wouldn’t be able to get the book.

I went back to my office and an idea formed. I have the PDF version of the story. I have the cover art. Why not make her a book? No, it wouldn’t be perfect bound like the presses but still… it was something in print that she could hold and read in bed if she wanted to.

I had the book printed out along with the cover art. Then I went to a local copy shop and had them bind the book with a clear front (there is a reason for this) and a hard vinyl back. Then I took it back to my office, pulled out a black Sharpie and signed the clear cover with her name, my name and sandwiched in between were the words:

Thank you for always believing…

A couple hours later I went back to see my friend.

“I have something for you.”

She gave me a curious look.

“It’s not much and it’s not an official print copy, but I had this made for you.” I proceeded to hand over a copy of my little collection.

Her face lit up and I swear her eyes got wet. She gave me a big hug and said ‘thank you’ several times. She then said, “I have every story you’ve ever sent me printed out and in a box at home.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes. I wanted to keep them for when you get famous. I can say I knew you when.”

There is more to this, but that is the gist of the story. You see, she believed in me, she thought I could do this writing thing. I’m going to be honest, I was never sure I could do it. Granted, I’ve not done much, but even a little success is more than a lot of folks have.

I walked away feeling all warm and fuzzy. I may not have made a sell, but I did keep a long time fan happy, one who always believed in me. And, really, isn’t that what this is all about?

His words are on the money—all 25 pieces of advice holds water better than a bucket on a rainy day. Every couple of days I go back to this post and read it and each time I think, ‘man, he is so right on this and that… oh and that, too.’

So tonight, after having read the article yet again, I want to tackle another of Wendig’s nuggets of advice. This one may be one of the top five:

Stop Thinking It Should Be Easier

It’s not going to get any easier, and why should it? Anything truly worth doing requires hella hard work. If climbing to the top of Kilimanjaro meant packing a light lunch and hopping in a climate-controlled elevator, it wouldn’t really be that big a fucking deal, would it? You want to do This Writing Thing, then don’t just expect hard work — be happy that it’s a hard row to hoe and that you’re just the, er, hoer to hoe it? I dunno. Don’t look at me like that. AVERT YOUR GAZE, SCRUTINIZER. And get back to work.

There are two types of people—and no, I don’t care what anyone else says about it. There are those who work and there are those who are lazy. Period. Sure, you can say there is an in between, but honestly, there isn’t. You either work or you don’t. Whether that is at a job or at an artistic endeavor or at being a housewife or househusband (yes, there is such a thing), its still work. For those who make an honest living out there, I commend you and thank you. For those who don’t, well… unless you have a legit reason, you and I may not get along that well.

[[Side Note: With today's economy being in the suckage hole, please understand that I'm not referring to those people who had jobs and lost them of no fault of their own. I'm referring to those folks who would prefer to sit on the sofa watching soaps all day and not out looking for a job and probably haven't held one in a while because they're lazy and prefer for folks that do work to pay their way. End Side Note]]

We live in a world of entitlement these days, a world where people think things should be handed to them instead of having to work for them. Those folks–those entitled folks–make me want to punch something… oh wait, they make me want to punch them.

Enough talk of violence. I’ll just punch someone in one of my stories…

Writing is not easy. Okay, maybe the writing part is somewhat easy. It’s everything else that isn’t. And, if you want to become a published writer everything is ten times harder. (Oh, I see those out there saying, ‘it’s not so difficult for me.’ Fine. Then you are the blessed half percentile.)

You have to:

First write the story
Edit
Re-write
Edit some more
Re-write again
Edit, yet again
Re-write
Proofread (ah, you thought I would say edit again, didn’t you?)
Research markets (often meaning you have to purchase a few books/magazines to garner an idea of what they like)
Find the right market for your work
Read the submissions guidelines (and hope they make sense)
Format the manuscript
Write the query letter/submission letter
Oh, wait, you better proof that story again
Make changes yet again
Make sure you formatted the manuscript right since you made changes
Don’t forget to change the word count
Attach the file (or send it via snail mail)
Press Send
Then wait
Wait some more
Still waiting, are you?

And that’s just for a short story.

That doesn’t even touch on sending out a novel, which involves so much more, including finding an agent, writing a really good query letter and synopsis of the novel and finding someone else to edit and proofread the manuscript. Oh, and the long waiting period…

If you are a writer, then you better be prepared to work for it. No writer gets anywhere by being lazy.

What if one of your short stories gets picked up? Well, you can’t just sit on it, can you? No. You have to tell the world about your publication. You have to let everyone share in your success. Do you have Facebook? Twitter? Google+? Anybeat? Guess what? You have to go shout it from the rooftops on these various social platforms. It’s kind of like those kids back in the old days that would stand on street corners selling newspapers:

EXTRA, EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT. MR. WORKSHARDALOT HAS A STORY PUBLISHED. EXTRA, EXTRA.

Go ahead, laugh, but it’s true. No one gets anywhere in this business without spreading the news. Also, word of mouth goes a long way. If you post a link to your story or where to buy it and someone sees it and likes the story, then chances are, they will repost it on their social media platform of choice. By doing so, the word spreads that Mr. Workshardalot wrote a good story and, by golly, you should check it out.

Do you have a blog and have 18 followers, as I do? Hey, that number has gone up recently. If so, then you need to post on your blog that Mr. Workshardalot made a sell and be proud of it. And don’t just throw that blog up without editing it and making sure it reads right and making sure any applicable links, italics, bolds and videos and images show up in the PREVIEW section. Yes, more work.

Promoting and marketing may seem easy, but after posting on Twitter, Facebook, Myspace (if you still have one of those dinosaurs), Google+, Anybeat and any number of writer forums you may belong to, as well as posting to your blog (which, by the way, you will want to post links to it at all those previously mentioned social networking sites) you will realize that you spent quite a few hours on that ‘easy’ task.

And this is all for one short story acceptance.

But, wait, I’m not done yet? Do you think your story will be accepted to the first place you sub it to? More likely than not, it won’t. More than likely you will have to submit that story to various places until some editor finds it worthy of their publication. That’s finding sometimes multiple markets to submit to.

There is also work that must be done after the acceptance and before the story comes out. There is the contract to read over–and make sure it sounds right in your ears. There is the editors edits that you have to go over and either make the changes or choose not to (but, be wary if you choose not too). There are proofs that need to be… well, proofed.

Being a writer is easy. Being a published writer is hard work. It takes dedication. It takes determination. It takes the epidermis of the largest elephant you have ever seen and maybe the tusks, as well.

Back when I first started out (which was only a few short years ago), it took me over a hundred rejections before I received my first acceptance. Did you get that? It took over a hundred submissions before someone thought one of my stories was worth publishing. At the time I thought it was the best thing that had ever happened to me. People will know my name and people will want to read my stuff and I can become famous and… oh, shut-up already.

I had no clue what it took to get my name out there. It’s a LOT of work. I wasn’t part of any social networks at the time and I was fairly bad at writing. Bad. Bad… Awful…

Thanks to some well timed advice I began to learn about writing, about how to write and about social networking (though I’m still working on that part). I had to work at it. Work. Work. Work.

Writing is fun–it is only second to one activity of the things I enjoy most. But, it’s a lot of work and if you think you can just waltz in here and start getting published without working for it, well, you better think again.

Before I go, let me add one thing to all of this work oriented talk. When you sit down to write, enjoy the process, enjoy learning about your characters and how they react to what is happening to them, enjoy letting the story unfold. If you enjoy the process of writing, it makes all the work well worth it.

Now, do you still think you want to be a writer? If so, get to work…

Here’s what Mr. Wendig had to say on the subject:
Let 2012 be the year of the risk. Nobody knows what’s going on in the publishing industry, but we can be damn sure that what’s going on with authors is that we’re finding new ways to be empowered in this New Media Future, Mother*******s (hereby known as NMFMF). What that means is, it’s time to forget the old rules. Time to start questioning preconceived notions and established conventions. It’s time to start taking some risks both in your career and in your storytelling. Throw open the doors. Kick down the walls of your uncomfortable box. Carpet bomb the Comfort Zone so that none other may dwell there.

Risk. That’s something a lot of folks have a hard time taking. It’s also the only thing that gets anyone anywhere in life. Come on, how many of you men out there sweated taking the risk of asking a pretty girl out? With fear coursing through your veins and trying to be cool, keeping that voice even is near impossible. Just the thought of asking certain girls out petrified me when I was younger. Really, what could they say? No? Sure they could. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world. Interesting enough, I never got turned down for a date—the girls either said yes because they wanted to or because they felt pity… It may have been more pity than anything else.

Life is one big gamble and as Kenny Rogers once said, You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run.

If we were to use Poker as a guideline, then life really is about the risk/reward. You get your hand, like a few cards so you put the others back. You either raise the stakes or fold. If you raise the stakes, you better hope you have a strong enough hand and that those cards that replaced the previous ones are good. The Risk: betting in the first place and then hoping your cards are good enough to beat everyone else’s at the table. The reward: taking home the pot if you hold the winning hand. The flip side: losing the money in the pot (and if you’re smart, it wasn’t a lot of cash).

Writing is much like poker in many respects. You can play it conservatively and not put in as much or not draw as many cards after the initial deal-in or stand pat with what you have. In writing terms, you can play it safe by writing what everyone else writes or doing what everyone else does, by staying in the confines of your comfort zone. You can submit your stories or novels or what-have-you’s to the markets you know will accept them, but maybe not pay you all that much. Yes, you can do all of that. But, where’s the risk in that?

Or…

You can step outside your comfort zone.

My friend, Petra Miller (a talented writer in her own rite), told me something about three or so years ago. She said (and I’m paraphrasing here since I can’t remember word for word) ‘A.J., you’re a good writer, but if you ever want to get anywhere you have to step outside your comfort zone and write things that you wouldn’t normally write.’

I stewed on that conversation for a day or two (and if you know me well at all, you’ll say it was longer than that) then sat down to write something completely out of the norm for me: I wrote a story involving sex. No, I’m not a prude, but I steer away from sex in my work. Most of the time I don’t feel it necessary for the content, but for that story that is what I wrote.

I also started working foul language into some of my stories, but only where I deemed it appropriate. There are way too many writers out there who feel the need to cuss ten times in one paragraph, mostly completely unnecessary. That may be how they talk in real life. I don’t know, but it’s not needed in stories unless it is important that the reader understands the type of person that spouts off all those expletives.

Let’s be honest here: some words just don’t capture the full effect of what you are going for. I mean ‘darn’ is all fine and dandy, but ‘damn’ gets the message across. As do other words and phrases that I’m sure you know and that I don’t need to go into detail about.

There is also the point of not just submitting to the easy markets. Sure a lot of the ‘for the love’ or low paying markets readily accept quality work and that strokes the ego a bit, makes the writer inside feel like they are doing something right and are going somewhere. And, you know, there is nothing wrong with that… if that’s where you want to stay. It gets you some exposure and exposure is as valuable as money in many cases. But, if you really want exposure and you want to get paid well for your work, you have to aim higher, shoot for those tougher markets to get into.

Again, risk/reward. You are risking getting rejected by the bigger dogs, but your reward is so much greater if you get an acceptance, both in pay and in exposure.

On the flip side of that, I will say that supporting the lower paying pubs is a good thing for all of us and I have no issues with someone helping out the smaller publications by submitting their works to those places. I just wouldn’t make that the majority of where you send your best work.

Then there is the whole thing about writing out of your comfort zone. If it has an affect on you, do you think it will have an affect on the reader? As Stephen King said in On Writing, if he doesn’t know where the story is going, the readers won’t either and half the fun is the journey. Take your readers and yourself on that journey. I did that in my as yet unpublished novel, Cory’s Way. I knew what I wanted, but in getting there I learned a lot more about my characters and the storyline than I would have if I would have just wrote it the way I saw it in my head. I went on that journey with Cory and his friends and, in the end I think the novel turned out much better than it would have if I would have been in control of it instead of my characters.

Will Cory’s Way ever sell? Honestly, I can’t say I don’t care. I do. I think it’s a good story and that’s the important thing. It was outside my comfort zone, it was something different as far as style is concerned and it’s a novel—something far different as far as word count is concerned. I believe it will sell one day and I believe the readers will like it.

So, editors and publishers alike can say they think it won’t sell. I’m okay with that. I’ve seen the stuff that is selling and I refuse to write like that and I refuse to believe that my work won’t sell.

I’m a long-winded writer and it shows in my work. Will my work sell? Some of it will. Maybe some of it won’t. But I don’t know that and neither do the publishers. What they do know is what they want to sell. There’s a big difference between the two.

I’ve taken a lot of gambles lately. I plan on taking a few more. And, guess what? You should, too. Don’t let someone tell you that what you’ve written won’t sell. In this world of e-books and self-publishing, what do they know? What do any of us really know?

Thanks for reading and I’m A.J. and I’m out…

I’m not going to do that. I don’t have the time, really and if I did, well, I’m not sure what I have to say would be any different from what he said. However, there are a handful of these suggestions that I will write about.

Why?

Why not?

It’s simple. They are all things that I have faced or dealt with while writing that I think are important for other writers to know about. They are also things that we all need to overcome (not just in our writing world, but our real world as well) in order to even see a hint of success in this business we call writing/publishing or at anything else in life.

For this blog I’m going to tackle #21 on the list: Stop Listening to What Won’t Sell.

Chuck’s words:

You’ll hear that. “I don’t think this can sell.” And shit, you know what? That might be right. Just the same — I’d bet that all the stories you remember, all the tales that came out of nowhere and kicked you in the junk drawer with their sheer possibility and potential, were stories that were once flagged with the “this won’t sell” moniker. You’ll always find someone to tell you what you can’t do. What you shouldn’t do. That’s your job as a writer to prove them wrong. By sticking your fountain pen in their neck and drinking their blood. …uhh. I mean, “by writing the best damn story you can write.” That’s what I mean. That other thing was, you know. It was just metaphor. Totally. *hides inkwell filled with human blood.*

One thing sticks out about this more so than the rest: It is your job as a writer to prove them wrong.

Okay, let me repeat that:

It is your job as the writer to prove them wrong.

Tell me something: has anyone ever told you that you can’t do something? What did you do when that happened?

I’ll tell you what happens with me. I prove them wrong.

My art teacher in high school told me I wasn’t good enough, that every other student in the class was better than me. She was a vindictive lady and she, clearly, didn’t like me. I was a sophomore and still feeling out the world. I said nothing—I think that was her intention; to hurt me so bad that I wouldn’t say anything or that I would ask to be transferred to a different class. One problem with that. I had to take art and she was the only art teacher. There would be no transfer unless I took a failing grade in the class.

That wasn’t happening.

What did I do? Well, I stewed for a couple days—maybe even a couple weeks—before deciding she was wrong and I was going to prove it. By the end of the school year I had created a black and white penciled work that held 17 images on it, all of them related to wars and the military. In crumbling gray tombstone letters, I had drawn the words MEN OF WAR in the center of the image, a beret hanging off the edge of the M. Another of the pictures was a rifle jabbed into a mound of dirt, a helmet hanging over the butt—a soldier’s grave. A battleship being bombed at Pearl Harbor encompassed one corner. There was a plane and a man crouched on the ground, weapon aimed at the enemy. There was a crosshairs—yeah I was especially proud of that. You see, there was meaning in those crosshairs. Can you figure out what it was?

I’ll give you a hint: my art teacher was in my sites, so to speak.

I passed the class and she, begrudgingly, gave me an A for the project… Oh, yeah, no other student could touch that picture—they weren’t good enough…

Another example:

I grew up playing basketball in a gym where I was the only white kid. That’s right, I was white bread, cracker, whitey. I was told ‘home boy can’t play.’ No respect. None. I went to that gym four or five times a week to shoot baskets, rarely getting invited to play in the games (you can call me Rudolph D. Rednose, thank you very much).

Then one day—I guess I was thirteen or so—one of the guys wanted to play a game of one on one. “Twenty-one, win by two,” he said. Understand, that’s not scoring by twos and threes, that’s scoring by ones, with the person who scores getting the ball back with another opportunity to put more points on the board.

This guy was older than me by three or four years and I knew what was going to happen. He was going to embarrass me and he was going to enjoy doing it. Then white bread would be laughed at and never come back. I saw it in his face, in his eyes, in the way he smiled at me when he threw down the challenge.

“Okay,” I said.

He looked a little stunned. Surely, white boy wasn’t going to accept his challenge.

I did and he commenced to wiping the floor with me, winning 21-3. Yeah, it looks like a football score. To put this in perspective: he made 21 shots. I made three.

His buddies laughed and howled and just rubbed it in with each shot he made. When the game was over, not only did he win, but the entire gym probably thought they had run me off.

“Let’s go again,” I said.

“What?”

“Let’s go again.”

We did and he beat me again, but not as bad. I scored seven that time.

“Let’s go again,” I said after losing the second game.

We did and he beat me again and again and again. Six times this guy drudged me in front of his friends. By that sixth game, though, I had started figuring him out, the way he dribbles, his favorite shot, how he defended me. I only lost by five in that last game. His friends were no longer howling and laughing and having a good time. I think he was relieved that he won that final game.

The next time I saw him at the gym, I challenged him. What was he going to do? Say ‘no’ to the white kid right there in front of his friends? He beat me three more times.

Then one day I beat him. It was a close game, but I won. Then I beat him again. They all took notice and white bread was no longer white bread, but one of them. They learned my name, even gave me a nickname. I had proven to them that white bread could play.

As a writer, I was told I sucked by an editor. It was a few years ago and that editor and publisher is no longer around. His exact words were: You should quit writing. You’re not good at it.

Brutal.

I stewed for a couple days–probably more like weeks–and I almost gave it up.

Almost.

Instead of quitting, I wrote more and more, trying to hone the craft that I knew I could do. I’m a good verbal story teller. I can paint pictures for people as I tell it to them, drawing them into my world. If I can verbally tell these stories, I can write them as well. No doubt about it.

This brings me back to #21: Stop Listening to What Won’t Sell.

Answer me this: how does anyone know what will and will not sell? They don’t. They may think something will or will not sell, but they don’t know.

I can’t believe I am about to type this, but, Twilight was turned down by a lot of publishers before someone took a chance with it. Oh, yeah, it won’t sell, by the way. That’s what the publishers thought. They were wrong. Twilight has sold quite a few copies and, in case you haven’t heard, there are a few movies dedicated to it…

No one knows what will or will not sell, so why listen to them?

The slice of the pie in today’s publishing market is bigger than it has ever been. Sure, there’s more competition out there, but if you are a writer and you can tell a good story then you can do this. It takes work–a LOT of work, but you can do this.

And I don’t mean writing what everyone else writes. As a writer, in order to be worth a grain of salt or anything else, you have to have your own spin on things. You can’t be a cookie cutter writer and expect to set yourself apart from all the other cookie cutter writers. Experiment. Have fun. Take risks and don’t be afraid. Enjoy the process of creating… and don’t ever let anyone tell you that what you’ve written won’t sell. There’s a market out there for good stories. You just have to find it and one day someone will take that chance on you, on your work.

Trust me on that…

For now, I’m A.J. and I’m out…

[[Side Note: My short story collection, Along the Splintered Path, is out and can be picked up at Amazon by going: here

To anyone who picks it up, I say thank you very much for doing so and I hope you enjoy the read.]]

Oh, wait, that’s not right. While I do feel a little like Steve Martin from the movie The Jerk right now, the new phonebooks don’t arrive until February around these parts.

What has arrived is my three story compilation, Along the Splintered Path. Officially, it was released yesterday by Dark Continents Publishing, but sometimes it takes a day or so for it to appear on Amazon. I’m here to say that, yes, it is now Alive—Alive, I tell you… mwa ha ha ha ha—at Amazon.

Ahem…

I like to make things easy for the readers, so here is the link to the Amazon page:

Along the Splintered Path

If you, the readers, wouldn’t mind picking up a copy and reading it, I would appreciate it. Seeing that it is priced at 2.99, I’d say that’s a deal, wouldn’t you?

Also, if you feel inclined to, would you mind leaving your thoughts about the collection? If not, I’m okay with that. I’m just glad you wanted to read it.

Also, the first of what I hope is many interviews is now live at BREATHE, Michelle Garren Flye’s blog. You can check it out here:

A.J.’s Back: Announcing ALONG THE SPLINTERED PATH

Drop a comment, say hey to Michelle and peruse her blog—lots of good stuff going on there.

Also, I want to mention that my collection is one of ten released by Dark Continents Publishing in what is The Tales of Darkness and Dismay book release. Twelve authors, Ten books. In the coming weeks, I will post blogs and, hopefully interviews, for all of them. Stay tuned. You won’t be sorry.

For now, I’m A.J. and I’m out…

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,200 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 53 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.