The Demonweasel Speaks

Chapter Two

I’d settled into my post-Corner life quite nicely. Waking up early is 10am. Late is dusk. I got the house in the divorce, which managed to be amicable since we didn’t have to see each other. You’ve got to love no fault divorce laws. The place has seen better days, but haven’t we all?

I try not to spend too much time in the house, which doesn’t have as much to do with the smell or the mess as you’d think. It was cute little place once upon a time and I remember how absolutely bursting with pride I was the day we bought it. I had a wife, I had a daughter, and now I owned property like a real-life grownup. I’d never thought it was going to happen, but then one day, there I was. Homeowner.

Now I take a perverse pleasure with how my outlook has begun to affect my surroundings. What once was a symbol of responsibility and stability is now a monument to giving up. It’s a small two bedroom, but it may as well just have one since there’s one room I never go near anymore. That’s a little difficult since her door is right across from my bedroom, always there and smiling at me with fairy stickers and “Monica” screaming at me in big, puffy sticker letters with soul-destroying cheerfulness.

Most nights I sleep on the couch. And by sleep I mean “drunkenly pass out.”
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I’ve decided to kick the dust off of here and start working on (in addition to everything else) a novel I’d started a couple of years ago and then sort of let languish. I started thinking about it again the other day and I remembered how much I really liked the idea and how I wanted to pick it back up again. I’ve also been thinking a lot about the nature of creative work on the internet and my expectations for it. The more I ponder it the more I realize that the work is the reward, nothing else. While making a living writing stuff remains my goal, for now I just want to have more things out there. I’ve had a mini-explosion of people this past weekend reading SHADOW OF THE PAST and while it made me feel great it also hit home that as it stands right now that’s all that’s out there of mine.

So let’s change that. THE ROBOZOIC AGE is still being worked on (and I’m very pleased with how it’s turning out), but since prose fiction is one man band I decided to keep working on this next novel, called THE CORNER, and publish it serially for free here. THE CORNER isn’t a supernatural or a horror story, but a small-town noir tale of crime and revenge that asks “What happens to a man when he loses everything good in his life and what lengths will he go to try find peace in his broken life?” At this point I’m thinking we’ll see new chapters every week.

So without further ado, THE CORNER
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It’s been slower than I’d like around here lately. Partly it’s due to my day job running me ragged these past couple of weeks (which I can’t complain too much about because a: it’s money & b: it’s not called “work” for nothin’), partly it’s due to other vagaries of my personal life (oooooh, personal) and partly because my WordPress seems wonky beyond belief and every time I go to do something on here I spend ten minutes thinking about trying to fix it or worse, actually trying to fix it (which just results in a giant black hole of “well, it’s still the same” or the dreaded “well, now it’s broken and nothing works”).

In nay case, all these factors have made me less productive than I’d like, but things are still moving ahead regardless. I figured I’d go ahead and start talking more about my latest comic project, now called THE ROBOZOIC AGE. I showed off some character designs from artist JC Grande, but the first few inked pages have come in and I figured I’d just go ahead and show them off to whet your collective appetites. THE ROBOZOIC AGE is a set post-post Apocalyptic world where man has taken a backseat to Earth’s two new dominant species: the dinosaurs, who have replaced the animal life on the planet and the bots, who roam the Earth with the single-minded intent of hunting humans to extinction. The story follows a small community at the edge of the world struggles to survive caught between these two predators. The first issue will be serialized on-line this Fall.

At the close of July, Shadow of the Past topped not only the Horror bestseller chart at Smashwords but also the Thriller and Suspense chart and topped out at #13 in the site-wide overall bestsellers. Not too shabby, considering that Smashwords boasts about 63,000 books in their catalog according to their most recent newsletter.

I’m trying not to get too proud of myself, as it was a giveaway sale, but with that many books in the offering and most of them free I’m happy that people picked mine out of the crowd. I’m hoping there’s not too much of a lull on the site now that folks have gorged their eReaders on free books, as Smashwords offers a pretty decent royalty rate for me. Of course, Shadow of the Past is also available on Amazon, if you’ve got some sort of fancy Amazon coupon or preference. The price is still only 99 cents either way, so hopefully that’s as good as free for folks.

Thanks again, and hopefully I’ll have more good news about other projects in the works later this week or early next. In the mean time, you can read my latest “Back in the Game” column for Panels on Pages or listen to me yell about Marvel, Richie Rich and pouring gasoline in hipsters eyes on the latest Super-Fly Comics Podcast.

Yes, that’s a pun! Y’know, because there’s a whole mess-ton of fire in the book!

Annnnyway, bad jokes aside, the Summer/Winter Sale at Smashwords.com has been a big hit for me and my novel SHADOW OF THE PAST, and as of this writing it sits atop the horror category bestseller charts. Yes, it’s pretty easy to be a bestseller when you’re giving your book away for free, but there’s a whole ton of books that are participating in Smashwords’ site-wide sale, so it still feels like a great honor. I promise not to run around calling myself a “bestselling author” just yet. Today has been quite the sales juggernaut, so I’ll have to save that if things keep this steady tomorrow.

I’d like to thank everyone who’s picked up the book thus far (especially those of you who paid for it). There’s a lot of stuff out there, and I’m pleased as hell when anyone decides to take their time to check out the book. I’d also like to thank Kelley Harrass over at “Cracking the Books,” Lynnette Phillips’ “Lynnette’s Book World”, and Susan Crealock’s “Online Novels” list.

I’m working on a couple projects at the moment, one of which is fast coming to fruition. Artist JC Grande and I are working on a comic project right now, and below are a couple of the character designs for it. I’m pretty happy where this is headed, and hopefully I’ll have more to show folks soon.

When I was in chemistry class during my junior year of high school, I made note of that fact that Boron gives away all of its electrons during a chemical bond by drawing a little Boron atom guy singing “Give it away, give it away, give it away now” in my notes, complete with a an Anthony Kiedis mohawk. I may have barely passed chemistry that year (and still may not fully understand what some of those words in the last sentence mean), but that’s stuck with me all these years. I like to think that Boron is a pretty cool guy, giving away his stuff like that.

In a similar vein, this July Smashwords is running their Summer/Winter (it’s winter south of the equator, so there’s no need to be hemisphere-ist) sale for the books on their site. My novel, SHADOW OF THE PAST, has been enjoying modest success on that site and during the Summer/Winter sale it will be like that plucky little Boron atom and be given it away, given away, given away now. Yes, with the coupon code “SSWSF” you can get it for the low, low price of Free. The self-publishing in the digital marketplace is a hell of a game, and as I struggle along trying to make a name for myself I’ve come to realize that there’s nothing better than just getting your name out there and letting people know what you have. Hopefully, folks will find the book, enjoy themselves and then leave a pleasant comment about it on the site. It is still available on Amazon for 99 cents, if you are so inclined to still pay for it. You can read sample chapters at both the Amazon and Smashwords pages, or here on the site. One of the nice things about Smashwords is that it supports downloads in a ton of different formats, including Kindle (or the free Kindle app, available for any smartphone), Nook, Kobo, PDF or even just straight up reading it on the screen.

It’s been an incredibly busy summer for me thus far. I’ve still got a couple of irons in the fire that I don’t want to jinx by talking about, but I’m hoping to have more free content available by the end of the month. As I mentioned before, I’m just over a year in to doing the Super-Fly Comics & Games podcast on the Panels on Pages PoP!-Cast Network, as well as writing for the site (primarily my weekly column “Back In The Game,” about my transition from comics retailer to civilian fanboy after 8 years in the business). That, plus visiting my folks in upstate New York for the first time in almost 5 years (and getting a wicked bad sunburn in the process) as well as traveling to Colorado this coming weekend for one of my oldest childhood friend’s wedding (where I will definitely be packing sunscreen).

Either way, if you’re having a hectic summer yourself and want to something fun to read to take your mind off your problems (and go “Hey, a fire-powered serial killer isn’t stalking me, so maybe things are going okay for me!”) then give SHADOW OF THE PAST a try.

For the past year I’ve been one of the hosts of The Super-Fly Podcast, the Official Podcast of Super-Fly Comics & Games broadcasting every Monday on the Panels on Pages.com PoP! Cast Network. It’s been a blast, and even though I’m no longer at Super-Fly full-time I still love doing the show and talking comics, games and other kinds of bullshit withe the good friends I still have there. If, for some reason, you haven’t heard the show before and are even remotely interested interested in comics, genre stuff and other things that are awesome, give it a try. You can check out the two clip shows our Audio Chewbacca Jared Whittaker put together here and here. Be warned, we do work “blue.”

If you have listened to the show, feel free to send us an email at superflycomics@gmail.com before we record Sunday evening with a question, comment, complaint or challenge for a street fight. It’s a celebration, let’s act like it!