Horror Quantity Gone Down, So Stress the Quality

Has anyone else noticed that the quantity of great horror is way down lately? It seems like anyone can become an author today (see earlier post, "Becoming"). Even Miley Cyrus has a book!

I prefer authors of yesteryear like Shirley Jackson, Ira Levin, Whitley Strieber, Jay Anson, William Peter Blatty, H.P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allen Poe, Mary Woolstonecraft Shelley and early Stephen King and Dean Koontz (70's and early 80's). In the old days, one really had to be gifted to get a book contract. Now, anyone who learns the writer rules can have a book out. Hell, even those that don't (see my earlier post on "Twilight")!

Not that there aren't great books coming out. They're just far and few between: Gary Braunbeck's Coffin County; Gord Rollo's The Jigsaw Man; John Everson's Covenant and Sacrifice; Scott Smith's The Ruins; anything by Ray Garton; The Girl Next Door and The Lost by Jack Ketchum; and anything by Edward Lee. But you're lucky to get a great book today. If you do, it's one in a million. That saddens me.

And then there's the slasher story. No plot, just a guy running around with a mask and a weapon chasing a nubile little minx into a shack where she has to choose between the bowie knife, sword, handgun, machete, rifle and flashlight, and she picks the fucking flashlight. Thanks to that shit, "horror" is now a bad word because it shot itself in the head in the 80's with sequel no. 34 of the same old shit, different day. What's even worse is that they're remaking all the slasher flicks from the 80's that gave us a bad reputation in the first place!

Let's strive to put out the best work we can and, to do that, one has to read like a fiend to avoid writer's block.

GOOD LUCK!

On Music

I thought I'd stray from writing a little bit this week and talk about music. I have an hourglass body Jackson Charvel. I also have a Randy Rhoads V Jackson Charvel, but I broke it and won't have the money to get it fixed until I finish my novel and get a book contract. The V has hot pickups and my other guitars (including a bass) don't. So that's a big problem right there. Once you go hot pickups you never go back!

NOT!

I also blew a tube in my amp, which I also can't afford to fix till the book contract.

Now, you'd think this would be a huge problem. I did too. But what it forced me to do was hunker down and really reach to get a great sound out of it. The high E-string sounds almost completely acoustic. I can't even use my Marshall pedal. With a tube blown, it still has a distortion sound but not as flashy as before.

What this forced me to do was play like a fiend to sound professional, and I did it! I really reached down deep and found some adrenaline. The fact that I can still make it sound brutal and wonderful is a miracle.

If you can't jam on a near-acoustic amp then you ain't shit.

I'm not going to tell you about the embarrassing album I put out in 2002 when I didn't know anything about death metal, and don't try to find it. It's out of print. I gave my last copy to my cousin so don't pester me about it. Believe me, you don't want it. I'm light years beyond that now and know what I'm doing. I backslid to devil worship for a year and loaded up on Deicide, Morbid Angel, Nile, Six Feet Under, Cannibal Corpse, Demiricous and Corporal Mortification. Therefore, I know how to do real death metal.

Now I sound like a Christian Cannibal Corpse.

So, the moral of the story is, it was probably better not to fix my amp!

FUCK YEAH!

Oh shit, I can't do it, can't stay away from the writing topic. The Haunting of Hill House is FUCKING BRILLIANT!

I Love My Sony Reader!

I never thought I'd say this, but I love my Sony Reader! I'm playing with my new toy, typical behavior from me since I'm just a big kid, still the same seventeen year old that read Chillers horror magazine constantly. The screen isn't hard on my eyes. The only regret is I can't get some Kindle titles. *Sighs* I'm still reading my paper books, but there's a fascination present when I use the electronic device I didn't think I'd have. I guess I'm a total technology whore! Now I want an iPod, an iPad (yeah, like I'd be able to afford that) and I want to turn on my cell phone. I'd be able to put up a bunch of cool pictures on Facebook with it, and I wouldn't have to buy an expensive digital camera.

At this point, I'm still reading the instruction manual and getting ready to get some e-books at the library, plus wanting to search for some free e-books. Next month, when I'm not in such financial straights, I'll start buying some electronic novels. Last night, I read the first seventeen pages of The Strain. I'm definitely buying that book! I downloaded my e-library, and found they have House Infernal by Edward Lee! I've already bought and read City Infernal and Infernal Angel, but I haven't been able to find the third book in the trilogy anywhere: out of print on the 'net and absent in the used bookstore in Pekin. Therein lies the purpose of the e-book.

McLovin it like McDonald's! But I still love my paper books. It's a hell of a lot easier to buy a paperback and bring it home and read it. You don't have to order it on your computer and switch it over. Currently I'm in love with my paperback edition of Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box. Time will tell if I'll get tired of my e-reader or not and, that seems to be the question, doesn't it? Will the e-book trend die off? I don't think so. People didn't get tired of their iPods.

Information about whether the e-book trend will last came from ereads.com and Publisher's Weekly.

Bonded by Blood 2: a Romance in Red soon available as an e-book on Kindle!

Bonded by Blood 2: a Romance in Red, featuring my story, "The Interloper," is going to be available as a download on Kindle this summer! Don't miss the best in new horror from story of the month contest winners of SNM Horror Magazine in this stirring anthology with a beautiful cover.

There's been a lag on sales of BBB 2, and I'm positive it's because it's only available in paper. With e-book sales going up 450% in March of this year alone, this will definitely solve the sales problem, as everyone's getting a Kindle or a Sony Reader lately. Like SNM editor Steve Marshall, I prefer paper books, but an author would have to be bonkers to ignore this sales trend.

So, all you e-book lovers, get your copy of BBB 2 this summer, only available on the Amazon Kindle (& probably on your iPad, as well).

Facebook War of the Worlds

All of you reading my blog will get the skinny on this, but all those poor schmucks that don't read it are about to get a surprise on Facebook. I'm going to announce that zombies have taken over New York and that the military is rushing in trying to contain it, but a few will escape by train. While I'm keeping you informed of the "grisly events," one of the undead will make her way to me . . . with disastrous results.

This is the comeuppance people deserve for sending me virtual gifts like "A little bitty pink pretty pot" and all that shit (Metal virtual gifts are okay). I'm not going to tell them I'm faking it. I'll say I heard it on the news.

Watch worldwide panic ensue.

Tales from the Abyss

I've talked before about collaborating with fellow horror author, Ro Van Saint, and our first book is coming out on June 1st, titled Tales from the Abyss. This four-story ebook won't contain an actual collaboration on a story, but two tales by her and two by me. But it's FREE. This gives you a taste of better things to come. Just sign up for The Hooligans list on www.zerotorockstar.com to recieve it at the beginning of next month (though personally I am an anti-rock star).

The next book will feature even better stories, and might include the tale I collaborated on with her if the pro-paying magazine I'm going to send it to doesn't publish it. The next book will not be free. I'm very excited about this as the first story I wrote with her is the sickest piece I've ever taken part in. The next project with Ro will be a novella, and then a novel will follow, Lord willin and if the creek doesn't rise.

So sign up, creeps, and get freaked! You won't regret it!

Sony Reader

Okay, I've decided to cave to buying the almighty e-reader, but I'm getting a Sony Reader instead of a Kindle--too pricey. I could go on about how I prefer paper books, but that would be detrimental to me since I have stories out in two of them: Heavy Metal Horror and Vermin through Rymfire e-books. Those e-novels are fucking terrific, as is Bonded by Blood 2, which will soon be out on e-book also, so there'll be three.

The only time I'm going to use the damned thing is to review books for Nitelbade 'zine.

The rest of the time I'll be reading my paper books in my La-Z-Boy chair. It's been proven that e-books aren't better for the environment either. Because of the water and minerals it takes to make an e-reader, it's actually worse for the environment. So e-book lovers can't pipe that song anymore.

I'm just glad I'm back in my easy chair with paper books until the last week of the month.


I owe the information on e-books being worse for the environment to Richard Curtis's wonderful blog, www.ereads.com, to Daniel Goleman, author of Ecological Intelligence and to Gregory Norris, who's developing a life-cycle assessment software system.