Growing up, if I was reading a book, you can bet the cover either featured a dude in armor, a dragon, a wizard or some combination of the three.

I lived for fantasy! I was in second or third grade when the local librarian recommended A Spell For Chameleon, by Piers Anthony. Before that, I'd read any kids books I could find, especially loving books like Half Magic and Castle In The Attic, but once I realized the breadth of books available in the "grown up" section of the library, I went crazy.

I read everything I could, important books, long books, short books, elaborate series and collections of short stories. I loved it all, but I eventually found myself drawn towards light fantasy. Tolkien was great and all, but it all seemed so important. I wanted to have a good time reading and it didn't take long to hone in on a few faves.

Lawrence Watt-Evans is my favorite author, bar none. His books are fun and good hearted and always clever. I started with The Misenchanted Sword and enjoyed it so much that I stole the book from the library (I later donated a new copy, wracked by the guilty thoughts that I was depriving others from reading it) and I own every book he's written since. I buy any copy of his I can find and give them away to people because I don't think enough people read him.

Some other faves from that time  - C. Dale Brittain (Funny, fresh takes on wizardry) Piers Anthony (Who I don't really dig anymore) Terry Brooks (Which I haven't read in a long time) the Dragonlance Series (This either) and Terry Pratchett (Who took me a while to warm up to, but is at the top of my list now, naturally)

And I stayed pretty faithful to the sword and sorcery set for a very long time. Every once in a while, I'd pick up some sci-fi and even rarer, a horror of some sort, but it was usually all shining armor, all the time.

In recent years, I found a new appreciation for thrillers and crime novels, eagerly devouring old 60's pulp and recent authors like Marshall Karp and Victor Gischler, and for the most part, my fantasy addiction retreated to it's underground lair, to languish on the paperbacks of yore. But every once in a while, I feel the urge to dive back in. I've read three Watt-Evans novels in the last week and just downloaded Brittain's catalog (Or what's available... She's devilishly hard to find!) It's been a lot of fun and kind of a palette cleanser.

Is this normal? Have you always read the same genre of books, or do you bounce around a lot? What were/are some of your favorites?

Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD. It happens every winter to some. Its a general sense of depression and discomfort that comes on with the short winter days, the closed up houses, the decreased activity and added stress.

I've never really been affected before but this year I think I'm getting a bit of the SAD action. In our old house, we used to be able to walk a block to get to a shoveled walking path we could take our dogs on and we had a nicely fenced yard. We have a nice yard here... somewhere under the three feet of snow out there. So I guess I could get some outside experience if I wanted to play Donner Expedition...

I've been having a hard time concentrating on my revisions and I think part of it is a lack of energy. So spring needs to get here soon so I can shed my hibernation weight, get some exercise and get my book finished!

Growing up, there was one man that meant Superman for me. It wasn't Christopher Reeves, though I watched his movies and Tom Wellings or Brandon Routh hadn't come around yet. For me, it was a man from before my time. In my opinion, it was a man from a better time - Kirk Alyn. My buddy Rob and I used to spend hours watching crusty VHS copies of old movie serials. It was our thing in high school especially. We'd get out of school, borrow some cash for junk food and ice cream from his brother (Because we could, not because we needed it) and go to any video store we could find that carried them. Any serials at all, we loved every one. We relished their little sum-ups, their outlandish cliffhangers and even more ridiculously great escapes.

I desperately wish I lived in an era that still did movie serials. For a long time, I thought that could be the solution to getting folks to visit the theater again. Who wouldn't go once a week to see a show if, before the feature, there was a twenty minute installment of a production? Especially if it was well done and starred real actors and actresses. I loved the idea of it.

Right now, there's a chance to try something similar in the writing world. For decades, magazines published serialized stories and Stephen King did something similar with The Green Mile a few years ago but now, with the advent of electronic publishing, someone could release a chapter a week, set their price and string happy readers along for months. Who wouldn't plop down a quarter once a week to read the next chapter in a book by their favorite author?

Lawrence Watt-Evans, one of my fave fantasy authors, has been doing something vaguely similar for years. After interest in his fantasy series waned slightly, his publisher stopped printing them, so he started releasing them himself on his website, in serialized form. After he's received a set amount in donations from readers, he puts up the next chapter and announces it on Facebook, Twitter and his site. You can read the entire book for free, provided other fans pony up the dough. And as an added bonus, anyone that donates over $25 over the course of the novel, they get a copy of the eventual printed book gratis.

I think Watt-Evans has the right idea, and he's been doing it for years before the e-reader came about. I wonder what the chances of an unpublished, largely unknown author like myself would have trying something similar with one of my books. I have a zombie novel that just needs its last few chapters finished that would be perfect for this. Wide range of characters, lots of cliffhangers and if I timed it right, it could be out in time for Halloween. What do you readers think? Could something like this gain enough of a following? Would you pay a quarter for a fifteenth of a book every three weeks or so?

I had planned to dig up some great news tidbit to report, since I have nothing interesting to say today, but instead I just thought I'd post this photo. Has anyone ever seen a magician that actually pulled a rabbit from his hat?

Revisions

I'm neck deep in my final re-writes/revisions for Mr. Pale Steps Out, and I've been thinking a lot about methods. Sometimes, I love the feel of having the printed manuscript in front of me, covered in scribbles and highlighted stretches. Other times, it seems so much simpler to go into the text file itself and just dive in. I think my fave right now is to print the MS and do a cursory overall story edit, then use that as a guide for my onscreen edits. That way, I don't miss any overarching plot or repetitive passage, but I can revise quicker because I'm only doing it once.

How do you usually revise your writing? Does reading it aloud help?

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
~Francis Bacon Senior

My New Cover

So, this is a bit premature, as I'm still finishing up a few last revisions, and I don't have a firm release date (it'll be out sometime in the early summer, folks!), but I couldn't resist sharing the cover to Mr. Pale Steps Out.

Ain't she a beaut?

Mr. Pale Steps Out is about a criminal in a slightly alternate version of the sixties. He is trapped in a safe room just before a world altering series of accidents occur that leaves the world barren and crawling with mutated beasts, shambling zombies and violent gangs. He's in a world he doesn't understand, but his bullets still seem to work just fine, and revenge still tastes just as sweet.

I really wanted something that fit the era that the story takes place in, something that looked like a legit paperback novel, and I think my buddies over at Deeply Dapper Designs did a fantastic job. The blurb across the top and the tagline may change, I'm not totally sold on them, and I'm debating on the idea of adding a price or some sort of little detail, but overall, I think it turned out amazing!

And if you're looking for a designer for your novel, drop 'em a line.