I’m still trying to establish a work rhythm, and I’m sorry this update is late. But sales of “The Flesh Sutra” had ranked it in the 800’s in Amazon’s Horror Fiction sales. It’s back down again, but we’re establishing a small business here, and business has ebbs and flows. What else is going on?
A wonderful artist and friend Rachael Mayo is working on a yantra appropriate for Alecsi and Olivia’s mysticism. She loves making dragons, but I chose her because her eye for color is so startling and innovative. Look at this color work!
I use Final Cut Pro on a Macbook Pro, but lately Final Cut is proving to be a lot more than I need. I’m test driving ClipChamp off of Windows 11, and I’ll let you know how that works out.
My new job is doing very well. I work at a supermarket for more than I was making after nine years at a big box tech store. The scheduling is more flexible so the conventions I need to do will not interfere. Stocking shelves and lifting grocery bags make me buff. My coworkers are my age or younger, and their good nature and ambitions remind me the future is in good hands.
Still figuring out how to make best use of TikTok and Twitter. I’ve bought books based on posts. The trick is to come up with promotions that are both effective and comfortable.
I have had my first author interview a few days ago. My friend (and professional journalist) Sally Weiner Grotta interviewed me via Zoom about “The Flesh Sutra” and the subsequent “Saints of Flesh”, and my fantasy novel “Fazgood and the Obstreperous Moosecrab Caper”. What did I have to do? How did it go?
Usually, I work or Zoom from a Panara Bread in my neighborhood. Obviously, it was time for me to grow up a little. My apartment has the bare minimum of everything, but I’m converting a corner of my unused dining area into an office. A small bookcase went against the wall. One of my two chairs went in front of it. I sat in the chair wearing a white dress shirt (which I’ve almost outgrown at the shoulders) and a blazer. My laptop went on an heirloom dropwing table.
Preparation is key and Sally sent me her questions ahead of time. “Oh yeah, I got this,” I thought and did not look at the questions at all. As a result, I stammered through my answers, which while understandable for my first interview, was pretty rude of me. Sally was gracious and the video ended at 26 minutes.
Now I am editing the video. I’m using ClipChamp, Windows 11’s video editing software. Turns out it’s very user friendly. Haven’t exported the results yet, but the video does look good.
The interview format is itself user-friendly. Book trailers can be tricky, and to be honest I don’t look at them. Does anyone? Don’t know.
What little I know is an optimum promo video is less than eight minutes long. I took the 26 minutes and have edited out nine minutes (mainly stammering) and may be able to get out another three or four. Speed up the finished product by 1.2, and it may get down to nine minutes. We’ll see.
Would you mutilate mankind for love? That is the question of “The Flesh Sutra.” In Fin de siècle Boston, the mystic healer Alecsi Keresh lays in the passionate embrace of his lover Mrs. Olivia Spalding, when he is shot dead. Enraged, he forces his way back to life through ghastly means. He becomes an abomination. All for love. Olivia is terrified of death. Alecsandri dreads abandonment. Seeing one another as soul mates, they resolve to atone for their sins by helping humanity. But their jealousies mar their works, often with hideous results. And a spirit stalks them. One that grows more powerful at every turn. Will the lovers succeed and transform mankind? Or will their weaknesses twist humanity into abominations? Therein lies the answer to “The Flesh Sutra.”
Once again, not me. But marketing surveys say I rate very well among Sheet Ghosts. Photo by Ayşenur Sağlam on Pexels.com
This is to catch myself up on what I’m doing in the next couple of months:
Prepare a presentation/reading for the launch(s):
it’s tough to get a slot for an author reading, so apply early. Most conventions allow you to just request a slot; the Horror On Main convention requires the author to buy a vendor table as well for IIRC $200? It’s promotional expense so if I make more than $4K from the books this year I can write off the expense yadda yadda. So step one, get those slots requested.
Prepare the reads/presentations. Usually the author will be given 30 minutes to do a reading and/or what’s called an “anti-reading”. An anti-reading can be anything like a presentation about the novel’s world or a free-form discussion or really it has no boundaries. At present, I plan on fifteen minutes of reading and a fifteen-minute presentation about the fun stuff I discovered while researching the “Flesh” books. I may include a Powerpoint. For the Fazgood launch at World Fantasy, at present I’ll just do a reading.
Get stuff into hands and onto tables: Conventions usually give attendees a swag bag, or a bag filled with promotional materials. My publisher Noble Fusion Press is getting post cards or other materials to World Fantasy to give the launch a boost. For Horror On Main, and more so for StokerCon, I have to get on the stick and find out if they do swag bags. Tables will need signage, which I image will have to small to accommodate travel.
Yes I am nervous about all this.
Contact the relevant media: the Horror Writers Association has a newsletter, and I have to get my Horror On Main and StokerCon plans to its editors.
Supporting promo material: I’m working with a talented artist friend to come up with yantra stickers. Yantra are mystical symbols key to the “Flesh” mythos. I believe stickers are the way to go, because even if no one is interested in the book, they may like the sticker design and get interest developed that way. I’ve seen the preliminary colors and they are disturbing. Plan is to have them done by end of April.
List of people to contact: I’m shooting for podcasters, mainly. I’m funny and have a varied, colorful history. Obvioulsly, the “Flesh” books and Fazgood have two different audiences, with different persons of interest to contact.
Mentioned before that my publisher Noble Fusion Press will be releasing three of my novels this year. Two will launch at big deal conventions:
“Saints of Flesh” will launch at StokerCon in Pittsburgh, June 15 – 18.
“Fazgood and the Obstreperous Moosecrab Caper” launches at The World Fantasy Convention in Kansas City, October 26 – 29.
Cover reveals for both are forthcoming.
“The Flesh Sutra” releases soon in a third edition with some tweaking. You will be kept up to date on that as well.
My publisher will start a newsletter for me, probably by this summer. The newsletter will have lots of supplemental material: drawings; playable AD&D races, classes, and characters; stories published in the past and more!
This is an exciting year already! I’m glad you are here so I can share it with you.
Working with my publisher for Noble Fusion Press, Barbara E. Hill, on prioritization. Three novels in the next year (totaling 230K words) requires spinning many, many plates. You’ve already noticed my increased bog posts, and I appreciate your attention. There is a lot of other stuff:
She is handling: Cover art creation, coordinating line edits, release schedule, Advance Reader Copies (ARCs), marketing, getting blurbs.
Me am handling: staying out of her way, being helpful, final polish of drafts, being charrrrmiiiingggg.
I have done the last polishes of the new edition of “Flesh Sutra” and of “Saints of Flesh”. I sent my terribly fumbled e-mail list to her with the intent of now *actually sending out newsletters as promised years ago*. I am lining up many people to receive ARCs to review on Amazon and Goodreads etc.
Release for new “Flesh Sutra” in first half of 2023, “Saints of Flesh” in the second half, and my fantasy fiction opus “Fazgood etc.” to be determined.
“But Tim! How is your life going?”
New job stocking shelves at a Maritime Themed Grocery Chain is strenuous, but going well. I seem to have caught a mild cold and am a bit tired. My annual check-up told me triglycerides UP but not diabetic, cholesterol DOWN to acceptability, and I am to schedule a cardio-stress test.
Everything else? Holidays are the usual grab bag of awkwardness. I enjoy the people I know and try hard to keep myself comfortable.
How long! So long! It’s been so long since I’ve said “My novel ‘The Flesh Sutra’ made the preliminary ballot for the 2014 Stoker Awards!” I’m bringing back into ebook and print with my publisher Barbara E. Hill of Noble Fusion Press.
It shall be the third edition! The new edition will have changes incorporated which will lead into the sequel. Yes, the sequel!
I’ll walk you through the process of getting this book up and going, then all the subsequent books.
Also, didja know I wrote a campy fantasy caper novel many years ago? I put it up on this website years ago, but have since revised it. My writer friends have been enthused about that book for years and finally, guess what?
Publishing it! With Barbara E. Hill from Noble Fusion!
This is the most excited I’ve been in many moons. And I’m glad you’re here to share it. Hell, I know most of you personally, and those I don’t know have been regular visitors.
I can devote more time to this, for the time being, seeing as I am not working. I have applied for unemployment and have a financial buffer. I have cheap chain coffee places to make my office. I am working with a motivated, experienced marketing person.
SYNOPSIS OF “THE FLESH SUTRA” AND “SAINTS OF FLESH”
In 1890s Boston, the mystic ALECSI KERESH is visited by THOMAS SPALDING and his wife OLIVIA CORMIER SPALDING. Thomas suffers from a life-threatening brain tumor. Alecsi has helped others banish serious illnesses.
Olivia learns Alecsi’s mysticism. Alecsi is impressed with Olivia’s great talent. They fall in love. Thomas catches the lovers and murders Alecsi.
Now a spirit, Alecsi forces himself into Thomas’ tumor. Alecsi gestates and births himself from Thomas’ eye. Alecsi has violated his beliefs by murdering and creating himself as a creature outside of nature. Standing over the homunculus Alecsi, Olivia declares that she is ready to learn everything.
Olivia conceals the murder by burning down the mansion. She is cut off from the Spaulding fortune. She and Alecsi flee to California. She meets with an old family friend MRS. CARUTHERS, who mourns her husband. Alecsi helps Olivia contact his spirit. Olivia gains entree into San Francisco society.
A noted stage magician courts her. Jealous, Alecsi seals the magician’s soul into a maggot in his mother’s grave.
Olivia starts a school of spiritualism. Mystics travel from all over the world to learn.
The school is denounced by a local Christian firebrand. Alecsi provokes the firebrand’s own mystic abilities. Olivia crushes the firebrand’s soul under visions of her hypocrisy.
Public opinion turns against the school. Olivia sponsors a local politician and teaches him how to seem a champion in everyone’s eyes. Alecsi grows jealous. Conflicting perceptions of the politician wrenches him apart during a speech. Olivia is now a social outcast. She and Alecsi reconcile.
Olivia flings the school into San Francisco’s artistic community. Students say that they see visions of a man with a bleeding eye.
Alecsi realizes that Thomas’ soul is still bound to them. As an abomination, Alecsi is outside of karma. As long as he exists, Thomas must haunt them. Thomas’ appearances grow more threatening.
Alecsi dreams of a teacher in an Asian jungle. The man calls to Alecsi, saying he can help Alecsi grow beyond his stunted, cancerous physique. A talented student who can transport himself to whatever location is in his line of sight. The student discovers Alecsi’s existence. Alecsi resolves to travel to Asia with the student.
At a salon, Mrs. Carruthers is shot by Thomas. Olivia’s oldest friend dies cursing Olivia. Olivia tells the police the student traveling with Alecsi is the murderer. The student and Alecsi go by ship to Asia.
On the ship, Alecsi’s existence now bends the laws of nature. Ghosts torment the crew. The ship itself succumb to darkness. The student and Alecsi slip overboard and watch the ship sail into damnation.
Olivia sees her abilities waning and that adds to her despair over Alecsi’s departure.
Alecsi and the student find the teacher. Alecsi learns to compromise with his guilty conscious, allowing him to reshape his original body for hours at a time. Thomas appears and sends the student into space. Alecsi is captured.
As Alecsi becomes more powerful, so does Thomas. Thomas brings Alecsi back to the now-corrupted school. Alecsi is kept in a basin of acid to keep him from growing. The now-malicious students bury Olivia alive, taunting her fear of death.
Sensing Alecsi is near, Olivia overcomes her morbid terror. She projects her spirit in order to entrance her captors into disinterring her body. Olivia confronts her former students, who thanks to Thomas, can invoke horrors. Bloodied, she is victorious and saves Alecsi.
The school lay abandoned. For as long as Alecsi lives, Thomas must remain. Olivia will never abandon Alexandri. Olivia, Alecsi, and Thomas settle into a deathless detente, awaiting some new influence through the ages to break the impasse.
At the start of “Saints of Flesh”, Olivia lives in the ruins of her school of spiritualism. She had mummified herself fifty years ago in the 1970s after her lover and guru Alecsi left her. She is haunted by the spirit of her husband THOMAS, who she and Alecsi murdered in the 1890s. Olivia wants Alecsi back and has been using her spiritualist abilities to find someone to help help her. GRETCHEN FIGGS responds to Olivia’s enticements. Gretchen has cancer, and she allows Olivia to possess her body to cure her disease. Now Olivia can use three keepsakes to locate Alecsi, and use Gretchen for any physical work.
Gretchen’s possession is discovered by her friend DEVIN BAY, an occultist. Devin tries to provoke Olivia by performing a ceremony in her school, but is attacked by the unique toxic butterflies which brood at the school.
Gretchen and Olivia discover that someone had stolen the keepsakes: a terrarium, artwork by Alecsi and Olivia, and a silver bowl.
Olivia uses her tenuous psychic connection with the first keepsake to locate it with MARKO KRATOS. Markos uses the psychically charged terrarium to grow potent herbs. Marko had been using these herbs, as well as sending them to mysterious clients. Gretchen and Olivia discover Marko is guarded by a tupil, a psychically created creature. They defeat the tupil, resulting in Marko’s death. Olivia wonders, How did an herbalist know how to create a tupil?
Olivia attempts to reduce Gretchen’s cancer but finds fighting the tumors an overwhelming task. She believes Alecsi will cure Gretchen when they find him. A still-living Devin Bay approaches Gretchen at the school. He is now possessed by Thomas, and they hint there is a vast power at work. They warn Olivia to cease her search. Gretchen realizes the butterflies have vanished, not only from the school, but from all record. What could twist reality enough to remove a sub-species? Olivia is dismayed, but persists in the search.
Gretchen uses Marko’s electronic devices to uncover ELSIE MCDONOUGH, a psychic with a kitchy reputation. Elsie owns a museum of cursed objects. Gretchen and Olivia visit and discover the museum basement filled with items possessed by spirits who prophesize disasters. Olivia’s artwork cows the spirits into obedience. A spirit interferes, one looking like a much younger Olivia. In the fight for the artwork, Gretchen ignites a fire. The spirit withdraws. But Olivia and Gretchen accidentally kill Elsie. They escape the fire with the artwork.
The spirits of the cursed items fled their incinerated objects and now possess Gretchen’s tumors. Olivia is distraught. How can she fight them? Who is this spirit, who Olivia calls the Imposter? How can she cure Gretchen?
Worse, Thomas and Bay have returned. Thomas has gathered a demolition crew to level the school. Could Olivia exist without her school?
Clues from a strange artwork created by Alecsi point to a village in a valley. Marko’s devices refer to an altruistic organization in a similar shaped valley. Olivia feels close to finding Alecsi.
Gretchen and Olivia visit the campus. The campus is infused with the energy of the Imposter. A house in the mountains gleam with Alecsi’s aura. The members of the organization too are infused with the Imposter and Alecsi. They detain Gretchen in the house. Gretchen and Olivia discover that the Imposter herself is a tupil, one who was created by Alecsi himself. Alecsi stole the keepsakes to fuel this altruistic organization: Marko’s herbs were used to bolster Elsie and the organization’s abilities; Prophesies from the cursed items told where help was needed; The Imposter used the prophesies to guide the psychic energy. Alecsi provided the reality-ability energy by bathing in acid within Olivia’s silver bowl. His channeled agony powers the Imposter in twisting reality and thwarting the prophesies.
Alecsi had been working with Thomas to dissuade Olivia from her quest. Olivia is devastated by Alecsi’s betrayal. Alecsi needs the prophetic spirits to continue his work. He needs the keepsakes at the school as well. The Imposter uses his energy to twist reality and capture Gretchen.
Gretchen finds herself dismembered but still alive, a living shrine to the prophets. Gretchen provokes Olivia to action. Olivia realizes she too can control Alecsi’s wild energy. She brings Gretchen back to the School safe and whole. The demolition crew is readying their destruction. Olivia frightens them away.
Betrayed, challenged, Olivia realizes she is more powerful than she has allowed herself to be. She realizes the Imposter’s weakness and defeats it. His creation defeated, Alecsi arrives at the school to get the keepsakes and the cursed spirits. Olivia twists reality to place the cursed spirits into Alecsi’s body.
Thomas’ soul is released to reincarnate. Bay flees, terrified.
Sometime later, Olivia restores her body. She and Gretchen entice a small-town tycoon to his doom. They provide a disturbingly organic jewelry to an aspiring businesswoman. Another chapter of Olivia’s life begins.
I received critiques of the whole novel from Noble Fusion Eastern Court. I received critiques on the first few chapters from writers on the Online Writers Workshop, plus encouragement.
Writer and OWW organizer Judith Tarr wrote: “The bones of this chapter are solid. There are some vivid and memorable images, and the story moves rapidly forward. Olivia is a strong character; her motivations are clear. There’s no question about what she wants or how she intends to get it.”
Author Kate Tyte provided useful guidance: “I feel you could make some things clearer, simpler and more obvious. I was confused by the homunculous of Olivia’s lover, for example. You have good characters and conflict, but sometimes that gets a bit lost. Gretchen wants to be cured of cancer, and maybe to get back together with her boyfriend, and to get her life together. Olivia wants to find her lover, for magical purposes. The boyfriend wants to be famous. Can you focus on making those things the focus, and very clear, and not losing sight of them?”
I am incorporating these critiques into the chapters still to be posted on OWW. I’m sending updated drafts to my non-writer friends to get their advice.
Here are two AI renderings of key images in “Saints of Flesh”. The prompt on the second one was “cancer polyp jewelry”.
I have a primary irl writers group, an online writers group, and interested friends reviewing my draft. The first concern would be: with som many points of view, wouldn’t I get overwhelmed by detailed critiques? Yes, however! Critiques are like product reviews. You have a look at them, gather their commonalities and adjust based on what lots of people need for the work to be better.
Even people who don’t like my genre can help! Heck, even people who didn’t like the book at all can help.
How? First, for those people who bailed on reading, ask “where in the plot did you lose interest?” Chances are they lost interest where an enthusiastic reader would: at exposition, or dialogue which held no benefit to the story, or at a stylistic darling which jarred the tone. They may bail out if the stakes aren’t clearly described, so like I always say, summarize the stakes before or at the 20% mark of the complete work.
That was for the non-genre readers. For readers already fluent in speculative fiction, what questions can you ask them?
Does this draft remind you of any other existing work? A resemblance to existing books or media may be a good thing, in that you may not realize you wrote “Moby Dick In Space” (did not write that) and people like both Moby Dick and Space. Or it may be bad because It’s Been Done and This Ain’t Fresh. For that reason, if someone tells me one of my drafts reminds them of another work, I seriously consider abandoning the project. I am a snob and this being a snob has made my life difficult. But it forces me to come up with better ideas.
Can you relate to the characters? Not “do you like the characters”, because like actual people, characters exist for their own benefit and on their own merits. Your friends annoy you sometimes, and That Guy can be admirable sometimes. Judge the characters on the clarity of expressiveness and motivations.
Is The Science too easy? Whatever powers warp drives or werewolves needs to be inconvenient in proportion to the benefit.
I aim for three sensory details per page. I forgot to check for that before I sent out the draft.
The Clean Silhouette. Characters need to be easy to imagine. Not stereotypical, because that is LAAAAAAZZYYYY. But if you were to turn off the lights so that you could only see their outline, could you tell one character from another?
The Gut Punch Image/Good Kill. In “The Flesh Sutra”, I had a man birth himself from the tumor in another man’a brain. In “Saints of Flesh”, I’m going after cosmic horror (which I did somewhat satisfying) and body horror (yeah, some good stuff). Both present strong images.
Do any of you have questions you ask your readers?
