NOTE: Any links in old posts to the Pill Hill Press Book Shoppe are NO LONGER VALID since Pill Hill Press closed their online book store in March 2012 and have since gone out of business as a small press in January 2013. Please do not click on those I missed erasing in moving these old posts from The Many Worlds of John X. Grey's Archives Page.
An Introduction - December 6, 2010.
Greetings and welcome to my new Weebly web page. I am still getting the hang of this, but should figure out how it all works eventually. First a little about myself - I have lived in the same house within the same southern Ohio town for
the last 42 years. A chronic bachelor with no current prospects or likelihood of that changing, I embarked on my career to become the professional author back in August 1999, two years and about four months after a profound religious
experience from which I became a born-again Christian. I did not start this career ambition all at once, feeling some urging from God's Holy Spirit within several months between 1998 and 1999 about becoming a fiction writer. Aside
from this urge to write (I think of it as a calling, as others are called to become ministers), my earlier career ambitions were never this strong or long lasting, and I have been stubborn in pursuing it despite years of setbacks, advice to abandon it, and some personal losses since starting this uncertain path.
The reason I take upon myself the label 'anti-celebrity' is an illustration of my inner disdain for the current American
celebrity worshiping culture and all its various permutations that seem to dull common sense in an average person. Should I ever become known as a professional author, I would refuse the trappings of celebrity and its label. Then again, considering how hard the writing business is, I probably have nothing to worry about if remaining an obscure eccentric like some other practitioners of this craft. Welcome aboard.
the last 42 years. A chronic bachelor with no current prospects or likelihood of that changing, I embarked on my career to become the professional author back in August 1999, two years and about four months after a profound religious
experience from which I became a born-again Christian. I did not start this career ambition all at once, feeling some urging from God's Holy Spirit within several months between 1998 and 1999 about becoming a fiction writer. Aside
from this urge to write (I think of it as a calling, as others are called to become ministers), my earlier career ambitions were never this strong or long lasting, and I have been stubborn in pursuing it despite years of setbacks, advice to abandon it, and some personal losses since starting this uncertain path.
The reason I take upon myself the label 'anti-celebrity' is an illustration of my inner disdain for the current American
celebrity worshiping culture and all its various permutations that seem to dull common sense in an average person. Should I ever become known as a professional author, I would refuse the trappings of celebrity and its label. Then again, considering how hard the writing business is, I probably have nothing to worry about if remaining an obscure eccentric like some other practitioners of this craft. Welcome aboard.
My first professional story sale - February 1, 2011.
At last, all the effort I have put into creating fiction since back in August 1999 has finally yielded my first professional story sale as of February 1, 2011. Pill Hill Press has accepted my horror short story "The Vampire Hunter's
Requiem" for publication in the upcoming anthology Leather, Denim & Silver: Legends of the Monster Hunter (cannot get this page to italicize or bold that title for some aggravating reason). Needless to say, I was properply ecstatic about my first paid market story sale after discovering the welcome news, and am hopeful (as with my first non-paying acceptance by Leucrota Press in late June 2009) about making additional professional sales in the future. As I write this (on Feburary 2nd - what would have been my mother's 80th birthday, had cancer and pneumonia not claimed her life at age 74 on January 11, 2006), I only wish my parents could have both lived to see their only child finally making his first professional writing mark in publishing. Aside from that regret, it feels good to finally reach this personal milestone.
Requiem" for publication in the upcoming anthology Leather, Denim & Silver: Legends of the Monster Hunter (cannot get this page to italicize or bold that title for some aggravating reason). Needless to say, I was properply ecstatic about my first paid market story sale after discovering the welcome news, and am hopeful (as with my first non-paying acceptance by Leucrota Press in late June 2009) about making additional professional sales in the future. As I write this (on Feburary 2nd - what would have been my mother's 80th birthday, had cancer and pneumonia not claimed her life at age 74 on January 11, 2006), I only wish my parents could have both lived to see their only child finally making his first professional writing mark in publishing. Aside from that regret, it feels good to finally reach this personal milestone.
The Dream died a little bit today - thank you Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for killing my spirit and will to live this afternoon on February 24, 2011.
Having a 20% chance to advance from the first to second round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award as of today, of course being a natural born loser I failed to make the cut into the 1,000 general novel category finalists from the
5,000 that entered. I am filled with barely-contained rage even as I type this horrifying announcement. Yet again I believe the bias against genre fiction had some thing to do with this failure, my pitch failing to move some unknown prick judge from Amazon's staff. The entire g**damned world sees me as an untalented failure again on February 24, 2011, and as just another customer for some other lucky writer's wares. I never take losing well up to now and NEVER WILL. To those that went on to the second round and the one that will eventually win in June, to Amazon.com and Penguin Books - KISS MY ASS! I can only be far more gracious in losing when I have little or no intense interest about winning. To this world that has given me nothing but endless frustration, grief and misery (admittedly far less than someone living in the Third World on $2 per day), GO TO HELL WHERE YOU ALL BELONG! I may soon close my account at this free site and blog that no one has ever visited or commented upon as the obvious insignificant
waste of storage space it is, and someday say (after a welcome demise) - GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD. I mean, what reason do I have to live when what I thought was my god-given calling has again been dealt another cruel blow of utter failure? Every paying story market I am submitted to at present is in no hurry to even reject my work, and the one possible book for publication expressed interest in is at (this is not intended as an insult, just a sign of frustration with the publishing world) a small press (once seeing the entire manuscript and possibly approving to publish my fantasy novel) whose publisher expects me to be a promotional whiz. This site and blog is clear evidence I don't know how to do any of that. I'm not a shameless publicity-seeking huckster fool by nature, and don't know how to promote my writing career in any way that will set me apart from the pack of other failing amateur writers out there seeking professional success. The DREAM is effectively DEAD.
5,000 that entered. I am filled with barely-contained rage even as I type this horrifying announcement. Yet again I believe the bias against genre fiction had some thing to do with this failure, my pitch failing to move some unknown prick judge from Amazon's staff. The entire g**damned world sees me as an untalented failure again on February 24, 2011, and as just another customer for some other lucky writer's wares. I never take losing well up to now and NEVER WILL. To those that went on to the second round and the one that will eventually win in June, to Amazon.com and Penguin Books - KISS MY ASS! I can only be far more gracious in losing when I have little or no intense interest about winning. To this world that has given me nothing but endless frustration, grief and misery (admittedly far less than someone living in the Third World on $2 per day), GO TO HELL WHERE YOU ALL BELONG! I may soon close my account at this free site and blog that no one has ever visited or commented upon as the obvious insignificant
waste of storage space it is, and someday say (after a welcome demise) - GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD. I mean, what reason do I have to live when what I thought was my god-given calling has again been dealt another cruel blow of utter failure? Every paying story market I am submitted to at present is in no hurry to even reject my work, and the one possible book for publication expressed interest in is at (this is not intended as an insult, just a sign of frustration with the publishing world) a small press (once seeing the entire manuscript and possibly approving to publish my fantasy novel) whose publisher expects me to be a promotional whiz. This site and blog is clear evidence I don't know how to do any of that. I'm not a shameless publicity-seeking huckster fool by nature, and don't know how to promote my writing career in any way that will set me apart from the pack of other failing amateur writers out there seeking professional success. The DREAM is effectively DEAD.
Some Previous Additional News about my Longer and Shorter Fiction.
On January 24, 2011, I entered my unpublished novel Worldjumpers in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award sponsored by Amazon.com and Penguin Books in the general fiction category of the contest. The preliminary judging began after the submission deadline on February 6 and will conclude on the 22, the submitted pitch of 300 words or less being judged in that initial round. From 5,000 entrants 1,000 will continue into the second round beginning February 24, 2011. On the afternoon of February 24, 2011, I was among 3,999 other authors whose entries to ABNA were rejected as potential finalists for the second round of judging. Professional publishing big shot entities HATE my work. Apparently my complaining about this state of affairs at the Amazon.com ABNA message boards led one other respondant to label me a 'douchebag' for being the poor loser. I think almost a dozen years of failure and rejection would make any somewhat neurotic perfectionist the occasional douchebag.
Garett Starlen (a.k.a. Chris Jacobsmeyer) has reprinted my story "Last Stand in Zombie Land" (written in
2008)originally featured in Horror Through the Ages Anthology from Lame Goat Press with 14 other stories from that
edition in the new CreateSpace publication Horror Through the Ages LITE Anthology available at Amazon.com as of January 1, 2011. This is my second short story reprinting. Both are available at Amazon.com and CreateSpace. This story has also been accepted in March for reprinting again at Static Movement's Undead Space Anthology edited by Joe Jablonski.
Earlier in 2010, my twice-reprinted science-fiction short story "Just press Erase" (written in 2007) was nominated
by Static Movement Chief Editor and Publisher Chris Bartholomew for a 2011 Pushcart Prize (along with those of five other writers published at Static Movement). Needless to say I'm pleased at that development and will be certain
to note it here and elsewhere at my site if I should win that award for small press publications.
I have learned that one of the anthologies a story of mine appears in ("The Covered Bridge") in Something Dark in the Doorway: A Hanuted Anthology by Static Movement and edited by Gregory Miller MIGHT receive a mention in The Best Horror of the Year Volume 3.
Garett Starlen (a.k.a. Chris Jacobsmeyer) has reprinted my story "Last Stand in Zombie Land" (written in
2008)originally featured in Horror Through the Ages Anthology from Lame Goat Press with 14 other stories from that
edition in the new CreateSpace publication Horror Through the Ages LITE Anthology available at Amazon.com as of January 1, 2011. This is my second short story reprinting. Both are available at Amazon.com and CreateSpace. This story has also been accepted in March for reprinting again at Static Movement's Undead Space Anthology edited by Joe Jablonski.
Earlier in 2010, my twice-reprinted science-fiction short story "Just press Erase" (written in 2007) was nominated
by Static Movement Chief Editor and Publisher Chris Bartholomew for a 2011 Pushcart Prize (along with those of five other writers published at Static Movement). Needless to say I'm pleased at that development and will be certain
to note it here and elsewhere at my site if I should win that award for small press publications.
I have learned that one of the anthologies a story of mine appears in ("The Covered Bridge") in Something Dark in the Doorway: A Hanuted Anthology by Static Movement and edited by Gregory Miller MIGHT receive a mention in The Best Horror of the Year Volume 3.
Something needs to change for the better in my life after March 2011.
Okay, dear viewer, here is the cold hard fact. About one month ago I finally had my first professional story sale since starting this mostly fruitless professional quest back in August 1999, having survived dozens or maybe up to
around a few hundred rejections of my books and stories by the publishing industry and its literary agent middle men fellow gatekeepers. Apparently getting close to forty stories and exactly five poems either published or to be
published, only one of those stories a professional sale, is not good enough to seem like a potentially commercial writing prospect in their collective eyes especially when money is involved. To put things in perspective, sixteen months ago I had not one story in print.
This month, I must sell something else and several somethings I write, enough to make a survivable living for the final eight months of 2011. I haven't gotten one job offer in my futile unemployed search for work, and don't truly expect any in the near future, preferring to make a living writing fiction if only I could. If by March 31, 2011, John X. Grey has earned no more paid story sales and certainly not the bigger ones, I must end all efforts toward writing and slink away
quietly into deeper poverty like a lot of other losers in life lately. I'll probably need to investigate personal bankruptcy protection and liquidating all my remaining assets (mostly a car and house), since by early May the unemployment benefits will be exhausted and no one will hire me except for scam or crap entry level jobs a trained monkey could do far better. Additional Note (4/24/2011): I have discovered my eligibility for an extra 20 weeks of benefits
from the State of Ohio beginning this week, extending my survival without a job until September.
around a few hundred rejections of my books and stories by the publishing industry and its literary agent middle men fellow gatekeepers. Apparently getting close to forty stories and exactly five poems either published or to be
published, only one of those stories a professional sale, is not good enough to seem like a potentially commercial writing prospect in their collective eyes especially when money is involved. To put things in perspective, sixteen months ago I had not one story in print.
This month, I must sell something else and several somethings I write, enough to make a survivable living for the final eight months of 2011. I haven't gotten one job offer in my futile unemployed search for work, and don't truly expect any in the near future, preferring to make a living writing fiction if only I could. If by March 31, 2011, John X. Grey has earned no more paid story sales and certainly not the bigger ones, I must end all efforts toward writing and slink away
quietly into deeper poverty like a lot of other losers in life lately. I'll probably need to investigate personal bankruptcy protection and liquidating all my remaining assets (mostly a car and house), since by early May the unemployment benefits will be exhausted and no one will hire me except for scam or crap entry level jobs a trained monkey could do far better. Additional Note (4/24/2011): I have discovered my eligibility for an extra 20 weeks of benefits
from the State of Ohio beginning this week, extending my survival without a job until September.
My genuine thanks to some small presses.
Recently ranting and raving at some of the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award message board topics, I was called a 'douchebag' by some woman poster unimpressed with my poor sportsmanship at being among the first 4,000 finalists
discarded for later rounds. Realizing I complain too much for my own good when things are not going the way I would like them to, I wish to take this opportunity to thank the (so-far) half-dozen small press publishers whose imprints have presented my novella, poetry and short fiction works to readers out there.
First, I must thank Leucrota Press in sunny California and its president Danielle Kaheaku for accepting my first story
to ever be published in the Abaculus III anthology for 2009. That one success started my current roll into small market non-payment presses and was a small vindication of my career choise after a decade of rejections. Although rejected
for 2010's Abaculus (the 2009 acceptance was only one of fourteen stories I sent that year and the only piece accepted), I might try again in 2011 with that anthology and maybe another book pitch.
Second, I thank Christopher Jacobsmeyer (a.k.a. Garett Starlen) of the former Lame Goat Press and current Shade City Press in the Show Me State of Missouri for all of his kindness and encouragement, the first press accepting two of my stories and reprinting one of those in a Best of collection. He has also printed one of my stories this year that had previously been rejected and a hard sell, as well as shown interest in considering one of my unpublished novels for future publication at Shade City. I also need to send some more short stories his way.
Third, I especially wish to thank the very supportive and generous Chris Bartholomew and her Static Movement press in north Georgia, having published more of my ficiton work than any other press since April 2010, having believed in my talent since I submitted "Just press Erase" to a collection she edited for Lame Goat Press in early 2010. I wish her and
Static Movement every success to grow into a major force of the publishing world. Right now Static Movement has some 62 varied topic fiction anthologies from 17 different editors currently taking submissions and dozens of published
anthologies available for sale at online retailers - not bad progress for what started out as just an online magazine by a highly-experienced author and editor. With Static Movement, I have some 20 short stories, 1 novella and 3 poems currently in print within 16 different anthologies.
Fourth, I thank Michael Pennington and Linda Manning of Aurora Wolf Press way up in the 49th State Alaska for
publishing my story in John Arthur Miller's Novus Creatura anthology, and hope to someday submit another story to this small press.
Fifth, and hopefully not last, I thank Jessy Marie Roberts of Pill Hill Press in at a western Nebraska haunted house for
publishing my first flash fiction ever to appear in a collection last year and for accepting my story in editor Miles Boothe's Leather, Denim & Silver: Legends of the Monster Hunter as my first paid story sale ever. Despite being
rejected by Pill Hill a dozen times before in other anthologies last year, this was one illustration of how persistence paid off in my career.
discarded for later rounds. Realizing I complain too much for my own good when things are not going the way I would like them to, I wish to take this opportunity to thank the (so-far) half-dozen small press publishers whose imprints have presented my novella, poetry and short fiction works to readers out there.
First, I must thank Leucrota Press in sunny California and its president Danielle Kaheaku for accepting my first story
to ever be published in the Abaculus III anthology for 2009. That one success started my current roll into small market non-payment presses and was a small vindication of my career choise after a decade of rejections. Although rejected
for 2010's Abaculus (the 2009 acceptance was only one of fourteen stories I sent that year and the only piece accepted), I might try again in 2011 with that anthology and maybe another book pitch.
Second, I thank Christopher Jacobsmeyer (a.k.a. Garett Starlen) of the former Lame Goat Press and current Shade City Press in the Show Me State of Missouri for all of his kindness and encouragement, the first press accepting two of my stories and reprinting one of those in a Best of collection. He has also printed one of my stories this year that had previously been rejected and a hard sell, as well as shown interest in considering one of my unpublished novels for future publication at Shade City. I also need to send some more short stories his way.
Third, I especially wish to thank the very supportive and generous Chris Bartholomew and her Static Movement press in north Georgia, having published more of my ficiton work than any other press since April 2010, having believed in my talent since I submitted "Just press Erase" to a collection she edited for Lame Goat Press in early 2010. I wish her and
Static Movement every success to grow into a major force of the publishing world. Right now Static Movement has some 62 varied topic fiction anthologies from 17 different editors currently taking submissions and dozens of published
anthologies available for sale at online retailers - not bad progress for what started out as just an online magazine by a highly-experienced author and editor. With Static Movement, I have some 20 short stories, 1 novella and 3 poems currently in print within 16 different anthologies.
Fourth, I thank Michael Pennington and Linda Manning of Aurora Wolf Press way up in the 49th State Alaska for
publishing my story in John Arthur Miller's Novus Creatura anthology, and hope to someday submit another story to this small press.
Fifth, and hopefully not last, I thank Jessy Marie Roberts of Pill Hill Press in at a western Nebraska haunted house for
publishing my first flash fiction ever to appear in a collection last year and for accepting my story in editor Miles Boothe's Leather, Denim & Silver: Legends of the Monster Hunter as my first paid story sale ever. Despite being
rejected by Pill Hill a dozen times before in other anthologies last year, this was one illustration of how persistence paid off in my career.
Thank you, Angry Robot Books for twisting another knife into my would-be career!
Earlier today (March 31, 2011), I received unwelcome news to cap off a mixed month at best with some stories and poems accepted for publication, and other stories, poems and ONE NOVEL rejected. Submitting my vampire hunter novel A Legacy of Blood to Angry Robot Books (a division of Harper Collins) in the UK during their March Open Door Month for unsolicited submissions on March 2, 2011, I thought this review of my novel's first three chapters, its two-page synopsis and one-page discussion of characters and the proposed novel series would sway some unknown reader in Merry Olde England to recommend Angry Robot Books to request the full manuscript. Sadly that forever anonymous wanker (to use a British idiom) hated my writing and recommended it be dropped from any further consideration. No one ever bothers to tell me what's wrong with my work, assuming something is wrong, and I don't know who to trust to allow reading it. There are no writer's groups near my home and even if they were I probably couldn't impress them, much less desire to read works by others in genres I might care little about, so there it is. God has given me no abundant natural talent for this work, obviously meaning it must not be my calling in life from Him. If He had granted me any ability at this, I would've been a best seller by now. And of course, Angry Robot Books got the answer back in time to prevent me from having time or energy to send another book for consideration before the month-long deadline. So, thank you Angry Robot Books (rejecting me just like all the other book publishers out there before you), THANKS FOR NOTHING. Two hours after receiving that 'good' news, I also learned one of my stories was rejected at a non-paying market - two failures in one day - it never rains but it pours when the weather turns bad.
Another Failure on my Part.
Yet again this year, I have LOST at another slim-to-no chance writing contest or publishing opportunity from some major press or sponsor - making a grand total of three for 2011. On February 24th, it was my failure to advance beyond the initial pitch entry stage for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (co-sponsored by Penguin Books)competition. By March 31st, I learned my submitted novel to the Angry Robot Books (until recently affiliated with Harper Collins) was of no interest during their Open Door Novel month. Yesterday (May 18th), I never received any e-mail from the Suvudu Editorial Review contest (sponsored by Random House - Del Ray Books), meaning my novel submitted (the same one that lost at ABNA in February) neither won the grand prize, nor placed as three
additional finalists receiving prizes among the approximately 700 entries received. Obviously, I AM A NATURAL BORN LOSER. I might as well play the lottery, since I have as much chance winning that as writing contests of any sort with a substantial opportunity or prize attached to it. I also cannot feel glad toward the fortunate SOBs who win these events, cursing all my failures in fiction writing as I am wont to do. A few more professional publication rejections in the near future come my way, and I will QUIT writing altogether, since my parents must have been right a dozen years ago - advising me I had no chance of professional success due to lacking any background, connections or other advantages in the publishing industry. Approaching a dozen years of life wasted on this ambition, and having gotten published as a professional only once in that long chunk of my overall existence with no book I've written to ever see print in any realistic sense, and tiring of every encouragement received to "hang in there," the time is fast approaching to end this fool's quest for elusive success doled out in this world only to the already or newly famous, the fortuanate and well-connected.
I enjoy ficiton writing enormously, but that enjoyment will soon no longer be enough since I cannot earn my daily bread through the one particular labor of love.
additional finalists receiving prizes among the approximately 700 entries received. Obviously, I AM A NATURAL BORN LOSER. I might as well play the lottery, since I have as much chance winning that as writing contests of any sort with a substantial opportunity or prize attached to it. I also cannot feel glad toward the fortunate SOBs who win these events, cursing all my failures in fiction writing as I am wont to do. A few more professional publication rejections in the near future come my way, and I will QUIT writing altogether, since my parents must have been right a dozen years ago - advising me I had no chance of professional success due to lacking any background, connections or other advantages in the publishing industry. Approaching a dozen years of life wasted on this ambition, and having gotten published as a professional only once in that long chunk of my overall existence with no book I've written to ever see print in any realistic sense, and tiring of every encouragement received to "hang in there," the time is fast approaching to end this fool's quest for elusive success doled out in this world only to the already or newly famous, the fortuanate and well-connected.
I enjoy ficiton writing enormously, but that enjoyment will soon no longer be enough since I cannot earn my daily bread through the one particular labor of love.
Leather, Denim & Silver: Legends of the Monster Hunter - available now.
My first professional story is now available for sale in the anthology Leather, Denim & Silver: Legends of the Monster Hunter - a collection of monster hunter stories set in earlier or contemporary times where the heroes face vampires, werewolves, spirits and other creatures. Some hunters and creatures die, but no one goes without a fight in these
stories. My contribution to this anthology is the first (and chronologically in terms of the main character's life story - the last) Jack Petrov Private Investigator/Vampire Hunter story I ever wrote, entitled "The Vampire Hunter's Requiem" where he travels to New Orleans for destroying his estranged undead wife twelve years after she left him for her vampire master. This story will someday become the modified next-to-last chapter for my proposed Jack Petrov novel with its working title The Twilight Ones as an epilogue to the old hunter's career. The anthology contains 29 individual stories, plus a Foreword by Brian P. Easton. It is available at Amazon.com as a Kindle electronic book and at Barnes & Noble as
a Nook electronic book. The book is now available at Amazon.com in paperback format during the weekend of Easter 2011. I received my contributor's copy (given to authors submitting stories of 5,001 - 7,000 words - my piece was 6,600 words) on Good Friday 2011. By July 15, I have read the entire volume (taking my time savoring the contents) and will be expanding the review on my short story page, plus possibly soon writing a customer review at Amazon.com for the book.
stories. My contribution to this anthology is the first (and chronologically in terms of the main character's life story - the last) Jack Petrov Private Investigator/Vampire Hunter story I ever wrote, entitled "The Vampire Hunter's Requiem" where he travels to New Orleans for destroying his estranged undead wife twelve years after she left him for her vampire master. This story will someday become the modified next-to-last chapter for my proposed Jack Petrov novel with its working title The Twilight Ones as an epilogue to the old hunter's career. The anthology contains 29 individual stories, plus a Foreword by Brian P. Easton. It is available at Amazon.com as a Kindle electronic book and at Barnes & Noble as
a Nook electronic book. The book is now available at Amazon.com in paperback format during the weekend of Easter 2011. I received my contributor's copy (given to authors submitting stories of 5,001 - 7,000 words - my piece was 6,600 words) on Good Friday 2011. By July 15, I have read the entire volume (taking my time savoring the contents) and will be expanding the review on my short story page, plus possibly soon writing a customer review at Amazon.com for the book.
Tor.com - The final nail in my writing career's coffin for 2011.
Some recent feedback, what little I ever get here being a loser, suggested this site is too negative and angry. Today I have a great reason to be angry, in fact coming closer to going off the deep end into full-blown and permanent
insanity. I had a nervous breakdown thirty years ago at the tender age of 12 while almost 13, missing a few weeks of 7th Grade and a few months of 8th Grade, but still was promoted to high school somehow. Now, I face loss of unemployment benefits for turning down a job which I realized I'm unsuited to do (but thought from the job description when applying for it weeks earlier I might be able to do it until realizing otherwise during my interview this month), cannot sell any of my books or additional stories to the tight-assed professional markets who consider my work TOO inferior in some way for their sainted electronic or print venues. Earlier today I got the GREAT BIG REJECTION from one of the highest-paying short story markets around - Tor.com - a related online publication to Tor Books. They casually rejected (as probably with almost 100% of their submissions) one of my favorite short stories, a 6,000-word modern-day fantasy tale (I first wrote back in 2007) entitled "Maze's - The Biggest Little Convenience Store" in which a young college graduate and her fiance are lured like other desperate patrons to the story's isolated store on a two-lane Nevada road to find their way out of a maze (not told by the management it resembles an endless super store) with many false exits (only one is correct) and some previously unmentioned dangers inside (cannibalistic surviving contestants trapped there for years, alien predatory animals that stalk people, and some of the false exits leading to a worse situation). In the end, the main character loses her lover in the maze but figures the correct way for getting out - the first contestant of a game show beamed to alien spectators on many worlds and other dimensions to ever succeed in decades. The prize is $1 million tax free and some other wonderful parting gifts. Apparently it wasn't good enough to grace the screens of Tor.com - they get too many submissions to ever bother explaining WHY a story is rejected as with most other paying markets, leaving a schlub failure like me forever wondering what was WRONG with it.
I remain upset at their verdict having received it less than an hour ago while typing this post and almost cannot see straight filled throughout with rage. Twelve years of my best efforts and I got to kiss a mere $1,400 possible for selling my work at Tor.com goodbye. After this and my 2011 defeats in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, the Angry Robot Books March 2011 Open Door submission period (at that time part of Harper Collins) and the Suvudu Editorial Review Contest from Del Ray Books, there seems little point in continuing to write any more fiction. I cannot even get a full-time crap job in this economy to survive on while nursing the dream of becoming a true professional author (that means getting a lot more paid publications than just one).
From anyone wishing me the best of luck - get bent. I don't believe in luck. I believe in a God who wants to make my life on Earth miserable as possible, considering He crucified His Son for our sakes - now that's tough love. I don't buy into all that prosperity gospel hot air on so much of Christian TV nowadays, considering how poor in terms of material comforts Our Lord and so many of his disciples were in the First Century AD. No, don't wish me luck (since if I believed in it all I ever get in terms of a writing career is bad luck). Pray for me not to lose my mind suffering all the rejection the publishing industry and its minions pour upon my hopes and dreams this year and every year before I labored to become a working fiction author (not necessarily a best seller, just professional).
I obviously don't know how to promote myself - this page and blog should be ample proof of that failing. I don't have the money to self-publish or make nice covers from my visions of what each book I've written should look like once put together. It is now clearer than ever - my would-be professional writing career is in a word DOOMED.
insanity. I had a nervous breakdown thirty years ago at the tender age of 12 while almost 13, missing a few weeks of 7th Grade and a few months of 8th Grade, but still was promoted to high school somehow. Now, I face loss of unemployment benefits for turning down a job which I realized I'm unsuited to do (but thought from the job description when applying for it weeks earlier I might be able to do it until realizing otherwise during my interview this month), cannot sell any of my books or additional stories to the tight-assed professional markets who consider my work TOO inferior in some way for their sainted electronic or print venues. Earlier today I got the GREAT BIG REJECTION from one of the highest-paying short story markets around - Tor.com - a related online publication to Tor Books. They casually rejected (as probably with almost 100% of their submissions) one of my favorite short stories, a 6,000-word modern-day fantasy tale (I first wrote back in 2007) entitled "Maze's - The Biggest Little Convenience Store" in which a young college graduate and her fiance are lured like other desperate patrons to the story's isolated store on a two-lane Nevada road to find their way out of a maze (not told by the management it resembles an endless super store) with many false exits (only one is correct) and some previously unmentioned dangers inside (cannibalistic surviving contestants trapped there for years, alien predatory animals that stalk people, and some of the false exits leading to a worse situation). In the end, the main character loses her lover in the maze but figures the correct way for getting out - the first contestant of a game show beamed to alien spectators on many worlds and other dimensions to ever succeed in decades. The prize is $1 million tax free and some other wonderful parting gifts. Apparently it wasn't good enough to grace the screens of Tor.com - they get too many submissions to ever bother explaining WHY a story is rejected as with most other paying markets, leaving a schlub failure like me forever wondering what was WRONG with it.
I remain upset at their verdict having received it less than an hour ago while typing this post and almost cannot see straight filled throughout with rage. Twelve years of my best efforts and I got to kiss a mere $1,400 possible for selling my work at Tor.com goodbye. After this and my 2011 defeats in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, the Angry Robot Books March 2011 Open Door submission period (at that time part of Harper Collins) and the Suvudu Editorial Review Contest from Del Ray Books, there seems little point in continuing to write any more fiction. I cannot even get a full-time crap job in this economy to survive on while nursing the dream of becoming a true professional author (that means getting a lot more paid publications than just one).
From anyone wishing me the best of luck - get bent. I don't believe in luck. I believe in a God who wants to make my life on Earth miserable as possible, considering He crucified His Son for our sakes - now that's tough love. I don't buy into all that prosperity gospel hot air on so much of Christian TV nowadays, considering how poor in terms of material comforts Our Lord and so many of his disciples were in the First Century AD. No, don't wish me luck (since if I believed in it all I ever get in terms of a writing career is bad luck). Pray for me not to lose my mind suffering all the rejection the publishing industry and its minions pour upon my hopes and dreams this year and every year before I labored to become a working fiction author (not necessarily a best seller, just professional).
I obviously don't know how to promote myself - this page and blog should be ample proof of that failing. I don't have the money to self-publish or make nice covers from my visions of what each book I've written should look like once put together. It is now clearer than ever - my would-be professional writing career is in a word DOOMED.
Uncle Johnny went a little crazy the other day, but is feeling much better now, everybody.
First off, I apologize to anyone (especially my anonymous responders) I offended or upset by the harsh words the other day regarding some feedback. Everyone, feel free to give me reactions good and hard (just like something H. L. Mencken said about what Democracy gave to the public). The only bit of advice I cannot follow is to forget about God. Being born again since April 1997 it would be impossible to abandon any belief in Him. But I have only love for atheists, as I should for all humanity, misguided though I consider such souls. God bless them anyhow. It is true that I have wrapped up too much of my personal self-worth in professional success at fiction writing, being a perfectionist and 'all or nothing' when it comes to any ambition, even the more difficult ones. It just gets hard to take when every major creative writing effort (articles or books) I expend is crushed by a seemingly indifferent industry whose good will and support are necessary for success, fleeting though that outcome remains for most people trying to break into this profession. I have been somewhat chastened, and probably needed to be from getting a swift kick in the rump by reality. Maybe when I start blogging again, I can get back to some personal pet peeves about everyday life, or rant against the latest federal government injustice, or maybe just softly thanking someone or some institution for giving me a break I didn't deserve. I hope the earlier anonymous responders and anyone else reading this will
understand I just go a little bit nuts every once in a short while from the insanity of perfectionism, injuring only myself more than any other person on each occasion. Th-th-th-th-th-th-that's all, folks, for the moment anyhow.
understand I just go a little bit nuts every once in a short while from the insanity of perfectionism, injuring only myself more than any other person on each occasion. Th-th-th-th-th-th-that's all, folks, for the moment anyhow.
The Doldrums of Summer 2011 - going crazy under the heat and from silence by paying markets I have submitted to in the past.
As I write this on July 14, 2011, it has been in some cases months since I submitted stories to certain small press professional markets, only to still be waiting for some feedback regarding the work. Realizing I might risk being
accepted by vindictive editors who cannot take criticism for their lethargic response times (Tor.com was the worst at 7 months and 3 weeks, but at least they pay excellent rates, even if rejecting probably almost everything they are
sent), I have yet to hear from A Thousand Faces: The Quarterly Journal of Superhuman Fiction magazine regarding a story I first submitted in January and had to resubmit in April after my first e-mail never arrived. Now that their site has vanished last month, I suspect A Thousand Faces has either gone out of business or is in the act of
reconstituting the website elsewhere (update 7/22/2011 - website has technical difficulties). Another slow-paced offender has been the anthology Ocean Stories at Elektrik Milk Bath Press, where I sent my submission back in January but still know nothing about its status, as its editor seems more involved with other anthology projects ahead of that one. Other anthologies or electronic magazines I currently have stories with for only two months or less are also still quiet on whether or not John X. Grey will ever get a second professional writing credit this year. In all, including the two singled out above, I currently have (as of 7/14/2011) 10 stories at 9 different markets (plus 1 at a non paying market). All the recent disappointments from other paying short story markets (especially Tor.com) and book contests or markets this year (Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest, Angry Robot Books Open Door Month and Suvudu Editorial Review Contest) have cumulatively eroded my morale and the determination to continue what seems ever more like an exercise in futility. In the case of two rejected stories by Books of the Dead Press for
Best New Werewolf Tales Volume 1, the guest editor indicated my submissions were rejected due to space limitations, but that if there was a second volume my werewolf stories might have a chance of being accepted in that. I cannot hope to survive as a professional writer on vague promises, especially when it appears as though there will not be any second or subsequent volume for months, since the first one is still in editing at present. One non-paying market's editor made a similar hint when the story I sumbitted for his long story fiction collection arrived too late to be
considered, the volume having already been filled. He suggested I might get accepted for a second volume which so far has not even been announced at the press publishing the first one and may never happen. I do not believe in luck
as a Christian, but if I did I would have to quote a lyric from the old Hee Haw TV series song entitled Gloom, Despair and Agony on me: "If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all."
accepted by vindictive editors who cannot take criticism for their lethargic response times (Tor.com was the worst at 7 months and 3 weeks, but at least they pay excellent rates, even if rejecting probably almost everything they are
sent), I have yet to hear from A Thousand Faces: The Quarterly Journal of Superhuman Fiction magazine regarding a story I first submitted in January and had to resubmit in April after my first e-mail never arrived. Now that their site has vanished last month, I suspect A Thousand Faces has either gone out of business or is in the act of
reconstituting the website elsewhere (update 7/22/2011 - website has technical difficulties). Another slow-paced offender has been the anthology Ocean Stories at Elektrik Milk Bath Press, where I sent my submission back in January but still know nothing about its status, as its editor seems more involved with other anthology projects ahead of that one. Other anthologies or electronic magazines I currently have stories with for only two months or less are also still quiet on whether or not John X. Grey will ever get a second professional writing credit this year. In all, including the two singled out above, I currently have (as of 7/14/2011) 10 stories at 9 different markets (plus 1 at a non paying market). All the recent disappointments from other paying short story markets (especially Tor.com) and book contests or markets this year (Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest, Angry Robot Books Open Door Month and Suvudu Editorial Review Contest) have cumulatively eroded my morale and the determination to continue what seems ever more like an exercise in futility. In the case of two rejected stories by Books of the Dead Press for
Best New Werewolf Tales Volume 1, the guest editor indicated my submissions were rejected due to space limitations, but that if there was a second volume my werewolf stories might have a chance of being accepted in that. I cannot hope to survive as a professional writer on vague promises, especially when it appears as though there will not be any second or subsequent volume for months, since the first one is still in editing at present. One non-paying market's editor made a similar hint when the story I sumbitted for his long story fiction collection arrived too late to be
considered, the volume having already been filled. He suggested I might get accepted for a second volume which so far has not even been announced at the press publishing the first one and may never happen. I do not believe in luck
as a Christian, but if I did I would have to quote a lyric from the old Hee Haw TV series song entitled Gloom, Despair and Agony on me: "If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all."
Halloween Frights Volumes 1, 2 & 3 from Pill Hill Press, Static Movement and Wicked East Press are available.
With cover art by Josh Hoffman designed by Alva J. Roberts, this three-volume collection of frightening Halloween stories is now available from the Pill Hill Press Book Shoppe, sold as a discounted set for $30.00, or each volume individually at $15.99 beginning in October. Not since Stephen King released novels (Desperation and the Richard Bachman pen name written The Regulators) with interlocking cover art in 1992 have I seen multiple covers look so interesting. Each contributor receives a limited edition hardback copy of the volume in which his/her story appears (my copy of Volume 2 arrived on October 15th). The Jack Petrov Private Investigator/Vampire Hunter tale, "The Night that panicked Gotham, New Jersey," set on the same night of Orson Wells War of the Worlds radio broadcast, appears in Volume 2 (my sincere thanks to publisher/chief editor Chris Bartholomew for that fact). I also tip my hat to Jessy Marie Roberts, Chris Bartholomew and Jessica A. Weiss for conceiving this multi-volume horror collection sold by their respective presses, and the short story collection trilogy is available in time for Halloween.The three volumes are also available from Amazon.com for $15.99 each I discovered.
For Volume
1: http://www.amazon.com/Halloween-Frights-I-Mark-Souza/dp/1617061123/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317577545&sr=1-7
For
Volume 2: http://www.amazon.com/Halloween-Frights-II-Dave-Fragments/dp/1617061131/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317577336&sr=1-6
Fro
Volume 3: http://www.amazon.com/Halloween-Frights-III-Lyle-Perez-Tinics/dp/161706114X/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317577545&sr=1-5
For Volume
1: http://www.amazon.com/Halloween-Frights-I-Mark-Souza/dp/1617061123/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317577545&sr=1-7
For
Volume 2: http://www.amazon.com/Halloween-Frights-II-Dave-Fragments/dp/1617061131/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317577336&sr=1-6
Fro
Volume 3: http://www.amazon.com/Halloween-Frights-III-Lyle-Perez-Tinics/dp/161706114X/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317577545&sr=1-5
Registered for 2011's National Novel Writing Month Contest.
On October 16, 2011, I again registered for the National Novel Writing Month contest which begins November 1, 2011 and runs through November 30, during which time any registered writer may attempt to complete a 50,000-word novel within 30 days. I took a stab at this contest last November and proudly completed the required word count minumum in 26 days, with the full science-fiction novel (60,800 words) Invasion Bubble of the Eternal War finished in 28 days. This year I plan to write a fantasy novel based on my first published short story "Saved by a Damsel in Distress," the new version entitled A Damsel in Distress saves the Hero. The main effort will be to expand an original 6,200-word story with more action, intrigue and locations than depicted in the constraints of shorter fiction and include a different ending. I first wrote the story back in 2000 and still picture its two lovers, one doomed to die and the other to share her lycanthropic curse, within their Wycherealms fantasy setting and hope I'm up to the challenge of making it a novel. Even having to take a job this month and beyond (assuming I cannot find one in the private sector) from my home county to earn the food stamp benefits I now receive, I hope to finish 50,000 required words and be among 2011's winners. The NaNoWriMo offers some electronic acolades for each victor, including a winner's PDF file certificate, but entrants can take pride in the amazing accomplishment of creating a rough draft within 30 days. Before this contest, my old record for finishing a rough draft was 36 days set in 2002, and two other books came close - one in about 45 days and another with its final 3/4 finished in 21 days (started that book in 2001 and put aside with a few finished chapters) both in 2009. I also look forward to maybe making more social media contacts this year than last, and possibly getting out of my cave for any contestant writer gatherings in my home region. My participation page for NaNoWriMo can be found at the following address - http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/edhaney.
Christmas Fear 2: Unholy Night now accepting submissions at Static Movement until early December 2011 with a publishing timetable of mid-December.
Due to the popularity of last year's horrorifying holiday offering, Christmas Fear: Spooky Stories for the Holidays from Static Movement, Publisher Chris Bartholomew has started accepting stories for its sequel volume entitled Christmas Fear 2: Unholy Night to feature similar horror theme tales hopefully in time to be released this Christmas. Due to the limited time window available to complete this anthology before December, any and all writers interested in contributing should set their digits to the keyboard and write suitable ideas like mad between now and around Thanksgiving. For some idea of stories sought, it might be a good idea to purchase a copy of the first collection from Amazon.com for $9.99 (http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Fear-Chris-Bartholomew/dp/1617060658/ref=sr_1_22?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289502639&sr=1-22).
Although that was a bit of shameless promotion, considering two of my stories are in that volume ("It said 'do not open until X-mas'" and "Why is Santa Claus disappearing?"), the anthology still makes a great Christmas gift this year for the reading fan of spooky and sometimes touching stories contained therein. One of my new pieces has been accepted for the next volume ("Christmas thankfully comes but once a Year") along with eleven other stories and a poem by fellow authors so far (as of November 12, 2011), and hopefully more wonderful submissions will appear in coming weeks from talented contributors.
ADDED from another post 1/22/2013. The final cover now available to view at the left, Unholy Night: Christmas Fears 2 is finally available in time for the holidays this month. Yes, Evil Santa is looking great and menacing once more. He's tanned, rested and ready after last year's slaying bells were jingling, returning again to frighten your Yuletide season in 2011. I have three stories included this year: "Battle at the Top of the World," "Christmas thankfully comes but once a Year" and "I saw Mommy slaying Santa Claus," but offer no spoilers here. This year I've contributed 33 1/3% more fiction this year than last. It is available at Amazon.com at this link.
http://www.amazon.com/Unholy-Night-Christmas-Fears-2/dp/1617061697/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3
Although that was a bit of shameless promotion, considering two of my stories are in that volume ("It said 'do not open until X-mas'" and "Why is Santa Claus disappearing?"), the anthology still makes a great Christmas gift this year for the reading fan of spooky and sometimes touching stories contained therein. One of my new pieces has been accepted for the next volume ("Christmas thankfully comes but once a Year") along with eleven other stories and a poem by fellow authors so far (as of November 12, 2011), and hopefully more wonderful submissions will appear in coming weeks from talented contributors.
ADDED from another post 1/22/2013. The final cover now available to view at the left, Unholy Night: Christmas Fears 2 is finally available in time for the holidays this month. Yes, Evil Santa is looking great and menacing once more. He's tanned, rested and ready after last year's slaying bells were jingling, returning again to frighten your Yuletide season in 2011. I have three stories included this year: "Battle at the Top of the World," "Christmas thankfully comes but once a Year" and "I saw Mommy slaying Santa Claus," but offer no spoilers here. This year I've contributed 33 1/3% more fiction this year than last. It is available at Amazon.com at this link.
http://www.amazon.com/Unholy-Night-Christmas-Fears-2/dp/1617061697/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3
The Trigger Reflex: Legends of the Monster Hunter II will be published soon.
I learned on July 15, 2011 that my contemporary Las Vegas monster hunting team story "Knocking them dead" was accepted for the sequel volume to Leather, Denim & Silver: Legends of the Monster Hunter, entitled The Trigger Reflex: Legends of the Monster Hunter II. The story I submitted features vampire hunter Jack Pike, grandson of the earlier tale's ("The Vampire Hunter's Requiem") main character Jack Petrov, the young ex-tabloid reporter and semi-experienced hunter working for a Vegas-based service called Monstrum Venatores LLC that hunts any unnatural menaces in the early 21st Century, mainly around the American southwest. In this story, the six-member monster hunting team Pike works within investigates a strange hotel casino on the Strip that seemed to appear from nowhere the previous year and has a single headlining act rocketing to great success. Unexplained disappearances at this hotel are another mystery the hunters will solve when confronting the thing behind them. Considering the high quality of Leather, Denim & Silver's 29 tales, I am proud to have returned for the second volume and expect it will entertain and thrill readers who enjoyed the first one. I mailed the completed contract to Pill Hill Press on July 18, 2011. Editor Miles Boothe has finished editing the 28 tales for this volume. By November 12, I reviewed my story for errors in the proof copy provided by Pill Hill Press and returned the notes to Publisher Jessy Marie Roberts. She has indicated the book with go to press by the 18th of November and be available soon.
Once Bitten, Never Die anthology from Wicked East Press where one of my stories will appear is at the printers.
On August 5, 2011, I learned that Wicked East Press has accepted my vampire-vs-werewolf (with an unrequited love story twist) tale "Last of the Hunted" as one of the twenty-two featured stories for the upcoming anthology Once Bitten, Never Die. After a month of nail-biting tension on the anthology's short list, this was welcome news as the second time
something of mine short-listed would eventually be published. My thanks to WEP Editor/Publisher Jessica A. Weiss, who had the difficult decision of selecting those twenty-two selections from 150 submitted stories. Last year, the short list was never my friend (once concerning this very anthology and an earlier story submitted entitled "Beware the Sundown Curfew"), but this year it has been kinder to me at least twice. Although the payment rate is $5 (picture if you will cartoon chihauhua Ren Hoek of Ren & Stimpy rubbing his hands together and saying "Five Bucks!" at this moment to express my genuine delight), it will be my third story sale since beginning this authorship career twelve years ago this month. I also have renewed hope that some other stories I submitted to various paying markets might accept my work in those venues at future dates. The cover is very impressive with its fanged demonic denizen and I remain grateful to have been selected for this collection. The book is at the printers as of November 24, 2011, so perhaps it will be available soon.
something of mine short-listed would eventually be published. My thanks to WEP Editor/Publisher Jessica A. Weiss, who had the difficult decision of selecting those twenty-two selections from 150 submitted stories. Last year, the short list was never my friend (once concerning this very anthology and an earlier story submitted entitled "Beware the Sundown Curfew"), but this year it has been kinder to me at least twice. Although the payment rate is $5 (picture if you will cartoon chihauhua Ren Hoek of Ren & Stimpy rubbing his hands together and saying "Five Bucks!" at this moment to express my genuine delight), it will be my third story sale since beginning this authorship career twelve years ago this month. I also have renewed hope that some other stories I submitted to various paying markets might accept my work in those venues at future dates. The cover is very impressive with its fanged demonic denizen and I remain grateful to have been selected for this collection. The book is at the printers as of November 24, 2011, so perhaps it will be available soon.
My first web-published short story is now available at Tales of the Zombie War web-zine site.
On September 22, 2011, I learned from Editor Ryan West my story submitted to Tales of the Zombie War back in June is being published at the web-zine's web site. Here is the link to the publisher's zombie story home page
(http://www.talesofworldwarz.com/index.php) and also the direct link to read "Serving his Country for the Third Time" (http://www.talesofworldwarz.com/stories/2011/09/22/serving-his-country-for-the-third-time-by-john-x-grey/).
The story was my essentially my third attempt to tell a story rattling around inside my head since the mid-1990s about a reanimated Vietnam War veteran who awakens after years in cold storage, following his having been temporarily used as an undead assassin by the CIA between 1968-1976, and tries to find his way home again. The first attempt was written in 2000 as "Wanderings of a Forgotten Soldier," and the second stab the 2008 effort "In Search of the Past" (a.k.a. "Undead Soldier in search of the Past"), before taking elements of both to create "Serving his Country for the Third Time." I hope fans of World War Z or other zombie apocalypse fiction will enjoy the story of Sergeant Henry Lee Peterson, US Army KIA 1968, and later Agent Romero from the defunct Project: Gravedigger program, as an undead man going home again during a mid-1990s zombie plague outbreak. By the grace of God, I finally have some short fiction published online. Now if I could just break into magazines someday with His help.
(http://www.talesofworldwarz.com/index.php) and also the direct link to read "Serving his Country for the Third Time" (http://www.talesofworldwarz.com/stories/2011/09/22/serving-his-country-for-the-third-time-by-john-x-grey/).
The story was my essentially my third attempt to tell a story rattling around inside my head since the mid-1990s about a reanimated Vietnam War veteran who awakens after years in cold storage, following his having been temporarily used as an undead assassin by the CIA between 1968-1976, and tries to find his way home again. The first attempt was written in 2000 as "Wanderings of a Forgotten Soldier," and the second stab the 2008 effort "In Search of the Past" (a.k.a. "Undead Soldier in search of the Past"), before taking elements of both to create "Serving his Country for the Third Time." I hope fans of World War Z or other zombie apocalypse fiction will enjoy the story of Sergeant Henry Lee Peterson, US Army KIA 1968, and later Agent Romero from the defunct Project: Gravedigger program, as an undead man going home again during a mid-1990s zombie plague outbreak. By the grace of God, I finally have some short fiction published online. Now if I could just break into magazines someday with His help.
A New Beginning and Plan coming soon - December 17, 2011.
Greetings readers of this sometimes pitiful excuse for a weblog reflecting my darker thoughts and unwelcome opinions. I come before you today with some sense of contrition and regret still lingering in things I have shared and written here during my first year online with this website. It is clear to me this blog page is just not working as I had hoped and some changes (seemingly radical) must be made.
I therefore intend to take a two-week hiatus from posting anything else to this page and returning on January 1, 2012
with a retitled blog page and fresh posts, having removed everything I have posted in the past year into a personal archive on my computer's hard drive where they can quietly fester and be forgotten. The blog page will be retitled
something like "John X. Grey Online - Year 2" and contain happier musings from me about my ongoing career efforts. As the old song says, "You've got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative."
I started this page with its gallows humor title as a way to express the right amount of careless swagger I wish I
possessed within myself to boost weak self-confidence. I wanted to have the FU attitude of lines delivered by Jack Nickolson as the Joker in Batman ("This town needs an enema.") expressed here as I gave the world my virtual middle finger toward popular trends or ideas that disgusted or irritated me. Of course I came off as a gigantic prick (or small insignificant one if you prefer) filled with hate and derision regarding things beyond my control to affect or change. I
wish I could pull off that touch of swagger and curmudgeony behavior that tells the world I seek its approval while also not caring what it thinks about me, all as a public identity or persona shielding the true timid coward I am from view.
I wanted also to write my libertarian political philosophy of the past dozen years as as recovering Republican across
this page, damning the two-party system with every line I wrote whenever possible. I now realize that even voting in the rigged American political system is more a waste of time in life than trying to become a successful fiction author. The Libertarian Party supporter fetish is over for me, as I will never vote in an election involving anything above local office ever again. I cannot support a Republican Party that clamors for endless war against the world and an American Empire straddling the globe as no other world empire ever had before (the British coming closest to it in the past), as some among them claim to be Children of God while chanting the delusional lies of American Exceptionalism, Christian Zionism and NeoConservative Imperialism over and over wrapped in the American Flag on the Cross. Yahweh has never commanded America to smite other nations that did not attack our land or kill our citizens (Afghanistan, Iraq, Lybia, etc.) and even our own so-called highest law (US Constitution itself a coup against the superior humbler Articles of Confederation) requires a formal Declaration of War by Congress before invading another nation presuming some just cause for that war. Our military and its commanding government now does things to other weaker nations that the Nazis were condemned for at the Neuremburg Trials after WWII - invading another nation without just cause or reason, simply to impose our will. I would almost say further that Germany's September 1, 1939's invasion of Poland was more justified (seeking to take the 95% German inhabited city of Danzig inside Poland and the German minority inside the Polish Corridor) than America's war against terror (a tactic not nation) which is all political theater to keep the unthinking masses entertained while only a tiny minority are shoved into those needless hellish battle zones. I can never support the Democrats so long as their nasty Marxist progressivism will lead to a Fascist America just as surely as the Republican's National Greatness Security State since (or perhaps long before considering how the Cold War's end did not finish our needless commitments overseas to support this shadow empire) September 2001.
All that said, regardless of what any reader thinks about it, agreeing or disagreeing with me, I now close this last blog post in the final month of what has been in some ways the best of my life (completing 44 new short stories and 9 new poems, published in 34 different poetry or short story collections - most of them sadly non-paying markets - 1 novel at NaNoWriMo and self-publishing 2 novels) and other ways the worst (a bachelor for 25 years, no close family, unemployed 10 months this year only to end up in a crap job since November 1st, every effort to become a true professional author failed and frustrated somehow, and making only $37 from my writing so far, creating enemies needlessly by trashing the memory of a now seven years dead woman I once thought I loved who had rejected me in 1986) I have ever known in 43 years, 7 months and 17 days in this fallen world. Given how I magnify every personal and professional failure and diminish any success however great, fleeting or small, it is a wonder I have not yet killed myself. One thing is certain - I cannot live with all my mistakes any longer and SOMETHING MUST CHANGE in this equation. The posts here will be gradually disappearing as I move them to hard drive storage, with this one vanishing by New Year's Eve. And I will not let time's door hit my posterior on the way out of 2011.
Until 2012, goodbye everyone.
Greetings readers of this sometimes pitiful excuse for a weblog reflecting my darker thoughts and unwelcome opinions. I come before you today with some sense of contrition and regret still lingering in things I have shared and written here during my first year online with this website. It is clear to me this blog page is just not working as I had hoped and some changes (seemingly radical) must be made.
I therefore intend to take a two-week hiatus from posting anything else to this page and returning on January 1, 2012
with a retitled blog page and fresh posts, having removed everything I have posted in the past year into a personal archive on my computer's hard drive where they can quietly fester and be forgotten. The blog page will be retitled
something like "John X. Grey Online - Year 2" and contain happier musings from me about my ongoing career efforts. As the old song says, "You've got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative."
I started this page with its gallows humor title as a way to express the right amount of careless swagger I wish I
possessed within myself to boost weak self-confidence. I wanted to have the FU attitude of lines delivered by Jack Nickolson as the Joker in Batman ("This town needs an enema.") expressed here as I gave the world my virtual middle finger toward popular trends or ideas that disgusted or irritated me. Of course I came off as a gigantic prick (or small insignificant one if you prefer) filled with hate and derision regarding things beyond my control to affect or change. I
wish I could pull off that touch of swagger and curmudgeony behavior that tells the world I seek its approval while also not caring what it thinks about me, all as a public identity or persona shielding the true timid coward I am from view.
I wanted also to write my libertarian political philosophy of the past dozen years as as recovering Republican across
this page, damning the two-party system with every line I wrote whenever possible. I now realize that even voting in the rigged American political system is more a waste of time in life than trying to become a successful fiction author. The Libertarian Party supporter fetish is over for me, as I will never vote in an election involving anything above local office ever again. I cannot support a Republican Party that clamors for endless war against the world and an American Empire straddling the globe as no other world empire ever had before (the British coming closest to it in the past), as some among them claim to be Children of God while chanting the delusional lies of American Exceptionalism, Christian Zionism and NeoConservative Imperialism over and over wrapped in the American Flag on the Cross. Yahweh has never commanded America to smite other nations that did not attack our land or kill our citizens (Afghanistan, Iraq, Lybia, etc.) and even our own so-called highest law (US Constitution itself a coup against the superior humbler Articles of Confederation) requires a formal Declaration of War by Congress before invading another nation presuming some just cause for that war. Our military and its commanding government now does things to other weaker nations that the Nazis were condemned for at the Neuremburg Trials after WWII - invading another nation without just cause or reason, simply to impose our will. I would almost say further that Germany's September 1, 1939's invasion of Poland was more justified (seeking to take the 95% German inhabited city of Danzig inside Poland and the German minority inside the Polish Corridor) than America's war against terror (a tactic not nation) which is all political theater to keep the unthinking masses entertained while only a tiny minority are shoved into those needless hellish battle zones. I can never support the Democrats so long as their nasty Marxist progressivism will lead to a Fascist America just as surely as the Republican's National Greatness Security State since (or perhaps long before considering how the Cold War's end did not finish our needless commitments overseas to support this shadow empire) September 2001.
All that said, regardless of what any reader thinks about it, agreeing or disagreeing with me, I now close this last blog post in the final month of what has been in some ways the best of my life (completing 44 new short stories and 9 new poems, published in 34 different poetry or short story collections - most of them sadly non-paying markets - 1 novel at NaNoWriMo and self-publishing 2 novels) and other ways the worst (a bachelor for 25 years, no close family, unemployed 10 months this year only to end up in a crap job since November 1st, every effort to become a true professional author failed and frustrated somehow, and making only $37 from my writing so far, creating enemies needlessly by trashing the memory of a now seven years dead woman I once thought I loved who had rejected me in 1986) I have ever known in 43 years, 7 months and 17 days in this fallen world. Given how I magnify every personal and professional failure and diminish any success however great, fleeting or small, it is a wonder I have not yet killed myself. One thing is certain - I cannot live with all my mistakes any longer and SOMETHING MUST CHANGE in this equation. The posts here will be gradually disappearing as I move them to hard drive storage, with this one vanishing by New Year's Eve. And I will not let time's door hit my posterior on the way out of 2011.
Until 2012, goodbye everyone.
Available at Amazon.com on December 1, 2011, Wicked East Press' new anthology Once Bitten, Never Die.
Today, my first paid story accepted by Wicked East Press appears in the new anthology Once Bitten, Never Die, containing 22 tales about things that are changed into something supernatural which never dies of any natural cause to be certain. My story is a vampire/werewolf love story with a tragic conclusion for the bloodsucker entitled "Last of the Hunted." Set in one slum neighborhood of a contemporary American city, a centuries-old vampire who was transformed into what he is when a Jewish teenager living in Switzerland, survives against werewolves hunting down his kind as he lives low profile, until intervening to save a street walker from gangbangers accosting her outside his delapidated two-story home. The vampire learns too late that the woman is not what she seems to be and that werewolves can learn new strategies and tricks to defeat him after he has thwarted their efforts for years. This anthology is available for sale at Amazon.com for $16.99 (http://www.amazon.com/Once-Bitten-~-Never-Die/dp/1617061654/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322853621&sr=1-1).
With that amazing cover and knowing how good the story I contributed to this is (beating out more than one hundred other entries competing for inclusion in this anthology), I cannot wait to get my copy and read the other tales therein.
With that amazing cover and knowing how good the story I contributed to this is (beating out more than one hundred other entries competing for inclusion in this anthology), I cannot wait to get my copy and read the other tales therein.
Also available at Amazon.com on December 3, 2011, Static Movement's anthology Local Heroes.
Having a part-time second shift job with a local cleaning company, I was unaware until this morning (December 1) that another anthology which contains one of my stories was released on the last day of November. Local Heroes contains 25 different stories that deal with some form of heroism from the ordinary to unexpected with heroes who walk among us every day. Edited by Liquid Imagination's Brandon Rucker, this volume is sure to have something for everyone's reading tastes with the broad theme of heroism. My story tapped into the superhero genre with "A Superhero's Rescue" about a building janitor who rises to the sudden challenge of coming to the rescue not only of a woman in distress from the city's new baddest supervillain but also the experienced costumed crimefighter losing his battle against the villain to protect the woman's priceless artifact from being stolen. This anthology is available as of December 3 at Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Local-Heroes-Robert-C-Eccles/dp/1617061662/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322964596&sr=1-1) for $14.99. With a wonderful cover from Pill Hill Press publisher Jessy Marie Roberts, as are so many of the covers she had contributed to Static Movement books, this anthology should be a hit for the holiday season. I'll be curious to see what other forms of heroism appear alongside my "unexpected" superhero story.
The Trigger Reflex: Legends of the Monster Hunter II is now available at Amazon.com.
On December 1, 2011, Pill Hill Press has released the second volume of its monster hunting story saga with The Trigger Reflex: Legends of the Monster Hunter II, the anticipated sequel anthology to April 2011's Leather, Denim & Silver: Legends of the Monster Hunter. Retail priced at $16.99 the new anthology of 28 monster hunt tales can be found here (http://www.pillhillpress.com/shoppe-anthologies.html), its stories grouped into past, present and future sections. My contribution to this edition is a 2008 Las Vegas setting story entitled "Knocking them dead" featuring the grandson of my Jack Petrov Vampire Hunter character Jack Pike and his monster hunting team Monstrum Venatores (monster hunters in Latin) investigating a strange new casino on The Strip where some guests have vanished without any trace but the case escaping local law enforcement's notice. Once inside to see the surprising hit lounge act of singer Vic Marino, the five-member team discovers what is behind those disappearances (something not of this world) and the mysterious casino-hotel's very existence itself. I was very proud of this story and think it an improvement over my story in Leather, Denim & Silver ("The Vampire Hunter's Requiem" - the bittersweet Jack Petrov Vampire Hunter tale set in 1975 New Orleans about that elderly hunter's final case where he hunts down his estranged vampire wife). The first volume has done well since its release in April and I wish this sequel every success in the fiction marketplace. Editor Miles Boothe has also mentioned there is to be as yet untitled third monster hunting volume for this series sometime next year, so I'll need to get started with an idea for that one (possibly something set in the 24th Century this time). The new anthology can be bought in Kindle or paperback editions at Amazon.com (but is listed with the subtitle More Legends of the Monster Hunter for some reason, even though it's not that way on the cover).
http://www.amazon.com/Trigger-Reflex-Legends-Monster-Hunter/dp/1617061107/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322852662&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Trigger-Reflex-Legends-Monster-Hunter/dp/1617061107/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322852662&sr=1-1
Pill Hill Press releases its second volume of horror flash fiction in December 2011 with Daily Frights 2012 Leap Year Edition: 366 Days of Dark Flash Fiction.
Pill Hill Press follows it rather successful Daily Flash Publications imprint anthology Daily Bites of Flesh 2011: 365 Days of Horrifying Flash Fiction with this year's day-by-day offering of stories 500 words long or less in Daily Frights 2012 Leap Year Edition: 366 Days of Dark Flash Fiction, now available at the Pill Hill Press Book (closed as of March 2012). It is available at Amazon.com however via the following link.
http://www.amazon.com/Daily-Frights-2012-Fiction-Edition/dp/161706162X/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_6
Last year I contributed the turnabout horror story "Who's the Monster here?" and this year I mustered up two more flash fiction tales, one original and the other a recent previously printed story. First there apperas for February 12, the new story "Strange New Planet" is the sci-fi horror tale where a crippled 23rd Century stellar warship is headed toward an uncharted seemingly living planet that is not what it appears. Then on October 21, repritned from the Static Movement anthology Pot Luck - Flash Fiction anthology where it appeared earlier this year, "All the Clerks went berserk" is a contemporary tale of a store manager's ploy to make his staff harder working and less discontent by black magic goes horribly wrong by the busiest shopping day in the year. With an even better cover than last year's book, this 366-story collection should be successful. And check out the other fine Daily Flash publications at the page, including last year's Daily Bites of Flesh and the 2011 and 2012 Daily Flash collection of more varied short-short stories. Here is the link to the first collection at Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Daily-Bites-Flesh-2011-Horrifying/dp/1617060186/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_5
http://www.amazon.com/Daily-Frights-2012-Fiction-Edition/dp/161706162X/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_6
Last year I contributed the turnabout horror story "Who's the Monster here?" and this year I mustered up two more flash fiction tales, one original and the other a recent previously printed story. First there apperas for February 12, the new story "Strange New Planet" is the sci-fi horror tale where a crippled 23rd Century stellar warship is headed toward an uncharted seemingly living planet that is not what it appears. Then on October 21, repritned from the Static Movement anthology Pot Luck - Flash Fiction anthology where it appeared earlier this year, "All the Clerks went berserk" is a contemporary tale of a store manager's ploy to make his staff harder working and less discontent by black magic goes horribly wrong by the busiest shopping day in the year. With an even better cover than last year's book, this 366-story collection should be successful. And check out the other fine Daily Flash publications at the page, including last year's Daily Bites of Flesh and the 2011 and 2012 Daily Flash collection of more varied short-short stories. Here is the link to the first collection at Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Daily-Bites-Flesh-2011-Horrifying/dp/1617060186/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_5
My First Novel is available at CreateSpace and Amazon.com - Worldjumpers: An amazing Journey to Parallel Worlds. Price reduced to $11.99 through end of December at CreateSpace.
Greetings, everyone. Frustrated with the obstacles of the repeated rejections by major and smaller publishers, along with the lacking interest by literary agents, all of whom want the sure best seller from any new writer these days, I finally decided (and wish I had years ago) to go the self-publishing route through CreateSpace and printed my 2009-written novel Worldjumpers: An amazing Journey to Parallel Worlds into a 182-page manuscript now available for sale at the following CreateSpace listing: https://www.createspace.com/3645450. I designed the cover myself using paint artwork, public domain art images and a trial version of an Adobe cover creation software out of my price range at almost $700. I just did not like the options of generic covers at CreateSpace and could not afford any professional designer's work. This book is actually the eighth book I ever wrote of ten so far, but my first in print as a paperback copy.
It is the story of teenage mutant Alon E. Strange Chance and six of his fellow mutts (short for mutant) sent by his secret aged grandfather, retired Physics Professor Thaddeus Woodcock who erected the force field protecting Hope Valley, Ohio (the last surviving town from that Earth's World War III) from deadly radiation, to find a new suitable Earth for the Hope Valley survivors continued existence. The force field will run out of energy slowly after December 21, 2012 and its citizens will die in weeks afterwards. Alon and his friends encounter several Earths, first by traveling to one through the professor's special experimental machine to breach dimensions, but after that using Chance's innate power to travel between universes inherited from his missing father (his mother dead since 1997 after birthing the boy). The seven teen scouts must contend with hostile human authorities on other various Earths while seeking a new home for Hope Valley's less than 5,000 remaining people, facing perils to their lives and poor parallel Earth choices, travelling onward until finding the one Earth that will prove suitable for their fellow orphans (some also mutants or mutts) and everyone else still alive on that dead parallel world. I priced it $12.99 (now $11.99 through December 31st), the manuscript at under 200 pages, to make it more appealing in the hard economic times today.
The book is available at Amazon.com as of August 26 (http://www.amazon.com/Worldjumpers-amazing-Journey-Parallel-Worlds/dp/1463767579/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314405165&sr=1-8)
which was faster than I expected. I hope this parallel world adventure tale with its supernatural twist ending on the last Earth they visit proves popular with some among the book-buying public. If anyone ever asks me to sign a copy
somewhere, I will drop whatever I'm doing for the honor. I hope to next publish my Vampire Noir novel from 2004 called A Legacy of Blood: Jack Petrov Private Investigator/Vampire Hunter featuring vampire hunter Jack Petrov from five of my short stories published by Pill Hill Press and Static Movement in paperback anthologies (Leather, Denim & Silver: Legends of the Monster Hunter, Twisted Love, Weird City and Weird City 2) earlier this year. Two of the tales appear in Weird City 2.
As mentioned above, I've cut the price of the book by a dollar for Christmas and New Years to $11.99 now in
effect at CreateSpace on orders there. The price listed at Amazon.com may take a few days to change reflecting my new decision. I hope this will help stimulate some holiday sales.
It is the story of teenage mutant Alon E. Strange Chance and six of his fellow mutts (short for mutant) sent by his secret aged grandfather, retired Physics Professor Thaddeus Woodcock who erected the force field protecting Hope Valley, Ohio (the last surviving town from that Earth's World War III) from deadly radiation, to find a new suitable Earth for the Hope Valley survivors continued existence. The force field will run out of energy slowly after December 21, 2012 and its citizens will die in weeks afterwards. Alon and his friends encounter several Earths, first by traveling to one through the professor's special experimental machine to breach dimensions, but after that using Chance's innate power to travel between universes inherited from his missing father (his mother dead since 1997 after birthing the boy). The seven teen scouts must contend with hostile human authorities on other various Earths while seeking a new home for Hope Valley's less than 5,000 remaining people, facing perils to their lives and poor parallel Earth choices, travelling onward until finding the one Earth that will prove suitable for their fellow orphans (some also mutants or mutts) and everyone else still alive on that dead parallel world. I priced it $12.99 (now $11.99 through December 31st), the manuscript at under 200 pages, to make it more appealing in the hard economic times today.
The book is available at Amazon.com as of August 26 (http://www.amazon.com/Worldjumpers-amazing-Journey-Parallel-Worlds/dp/1463767579/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314405165&sr=1-8)
which was faster than I expected. I hope this parallel world adventure tale with its supernatural twist ending on the last Earth they visit proves popular with some among the book-buying public. If anyone ever asks me to sign a copy
somewhere, I will drop whatever I'm doing for the honor. I hope to next publish my Vampire Noir novel from 2004 called A Legacy of Blood: Jack Petrov Private Investigator/Vampire Hunter featuring vampire hunter Jack Petrov from five of my short stories published by Pill Hill Press and Static Movement in paperback anthologies (Leather, Denim & Silver: Legends of the Monster Hunter, Twisted Love, Weird City and Weird City 2) earlier this year. Two of the tales appear in Weird City 2.
As mentioned above, I've cut the price of the book by a dollar for Christmas and New Years to $11.99 now in
effect at CreateSpace on orders there. The price listed at Amazon.com may take a few days to change reflecting my new decision. I hope this will help stimulate some holiday sales.
A Legacy of Blood is now available for sale at CreateSpace and Amazon.com as of December 16, 2011.
My second foray into self-publishing with CreateSpace, a horror novel entitled A Legacy of Blood, is now available for sale for $14.99 as a 262-page paperback novel in time for Christmas. This is the first novel (originally conceived in 2001 and written in 2004) featuring my vampire hunting 20th Century private eye Jack Petrov, a hard luck investigator starting his life over after being framed and disgraced by fellow police officers until pardoned from prison for crimes he did not commit. Taking his first case from retired railroad executive Joshua Sloane, that man suspecting his younger wife is being unfaithful after the woman took their son and left him for no apparent reason, Jack discovers Helena Egeresi Sloane is in fact a 331-year-old Hungarian vampire who has maintained gruesome traditions of her long-dead maternal grandmother (the infamous 17th Century Countess Elizabeth Bathory - the first early modern historical female serial killer) killing people to drink and bathe in their blood for retaining youth. Jack gets help from his retired former
police mentor turned book dealer Willy Krauss, police detective and former peer Dennis Dooley and crusading social worker Annie Mertz to thwart Helena's kidnapping and murder spree and from eventually passing that blood legacy's power into another. This vampire noir novel is available today (12/16/2011) at this link - https://www.createspace.com/3684905. It is also available at Amazon. com now with the following link - http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Blood-Private-Investigator-Vampire/dp/146630815X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324138943&sr=1-1.
I plan to convert both my books to Kindle soon, despite the expense incurred, but need to get distributed by Barnes & Noble before it can appear as a Nook edition. NOTE: The cover depicted here is a revised version I created in 2012 to replace the original 2011 inferior cover artwork. I still hope someday to get a more professional illustrator to improve on my revised cover work.
police mentor turned book dealer Willy Krauss, police detective and former peer Dennis Dooley and crusading social worker Annie Mertz to thwart Helena's kidnapping and murder spree and from eventually passing that blood legacy's power into another. This vampire noir novel is available today (12/16/2011) at this link - https://www.createspace.com/3684905. It is also available at Amazon. com now with the following link - http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Blood-Private-Investigator-Vampire/dp/146630815X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324138943&sr=1-1.
I plan to convert both my books to Kindle soon, despite the expense incurred, but need to get distributed by Barnes & Noble before it can appear as a Nook edition. NOTE: The cover depicted here is a revised version I created in 2012 to replace the original 2011 inferior cover artwork. I still hope someday to get a more professional illustrator to improve on my revised cover work.
Static Poetry Volume Five is now available over at Amazon.com for Christmas.
The fifth and final volume of poetry from contributing authors to Static Movement is now available on the eve of Christmas for any who love this particular art form. The earlier four volumes are available at Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Static-Poetry-V-Chris-Bartholomew/dp/1617061689/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324825534&sr=1-1)
and each contain one or more of my poems written sometimes 22 years ago or more
recently. They range in subject matter from darkness ("I wish her dead" among three poems in SP Volume I, written about a woman who spurned my affection in 1986, and oddly enough she died rather unexpectedly and young at age 34 in December 2004) to bittersweet nostalgia ("The Dog I never had" my only poem in SP Volume IV, about lacking a four-legged friend over the past 36 years in my life). The one poem written for this volume was "I did not ask Him," a lament about not asking God for things I wanted in my life years ago (including the dead lady mentioned above when we were both still teenagers) - the editor saying the poem was very effective and powerful in its subject matter. I've written only a handful of poems in my life, never loving it as much as prose fiction, but the one in this book is certainly one of my better inspirations since being saved by the blood of Jesus Christ almost fifteen years ago.
and each contain one or more of my poems written sometimes 22 years ago or more
recently. They range in subject matter from darkness ("I wish her dead" among three poems in SP Volume I, written about a woman who spurned my affection in 1986, and oddly enough she died rather unexpectedly and young at age 34 in December 2004) to bittersweet nostalgia ("The Dog I never had" my only poem in SP Volume IV, about lacking a four-legged friend over the past 36 years in my life). The one poem written for this volume was "I did not ask Him," a lament about not asking God for things I wanted in my life years ago (including the dead lady mentioned above when we were both still teenagers) - the editor saying the poem was very effective and powerful in its subject matter. I've written only a handful of poems in my life, never loving it as much as prose fiction, but the one in this book is certainly one of my better inspirations since being saved by the blood of Jesus Christ almost fifteen years ago.
My second Internet-featured short story at the electronic magazine Static Movement Online is available for readers visiting the website.
Today I discovered the second John X. Grey short story ever accepted at an electronic magazine or web page is now available to be viewed and read. Static Movement Online has published my fantasy short story (originally first written in 2008) "Death came on Autumn Winds." It involves a wandering half-elf alchemist named Montesque Elezar who discovers an isolated rural village where almost the entire population has died from an unnatural plague over the autumn months prior to his arrival, with only five teenaged survivors managing to survive as their village comes under attack and invasion by zombies resulting from those plague deaths. Taking refuge with the teens during the next zombie attack, Elezar must discover the source of the plague and reanimated villagers to save those remaining humans while also facing their mistrust toward a demi-human stranger. I hope visitors here will also check out the other stories at the Static Movement Online past issue archives dating back to 2006 from Editor/Publisher Chris Bartholomew. Here are the relevant links for "Death came on Autumn Winds," the complete November 2011 issue's lineup, and the Archives page for each issue at Static Movement's website. Enjoy.
http://www.staticmovement.com/deathcame.htm
http://www.staticmovement.com/november2011.htm
http://www.staticmovement.com/Archives.htm
http://www.staticmovement.com/deathcame.htm
http://www.staticmovement.com/november2011.htm
http://www.staticmovement.com/Archives.htm
Not a resolution for the new year, just starting over in some ways.
Greetings, visitors, to my webpage and blog. I hope my toxic negativity of December 2010 - December 2011 did not put off too many people from ever wanting to stop by ever again. Yes, I was a bad boy last year in my own puny-minded manner, but all that bad blogging is archived somewhere far away from cyberspace now and should best be forgotten. I'm through with broken-hearted rantings for something obviously God never meant to be, even as I still occasionally dream of or wish for the cosmic do-over for the past 30-31 years of mistakes that only happens to characters in movies, TV shows, plays or fiction, never in real life (unless someone admits to getting that sort of second chance - but they would probably be considered crazy). I suppose that's one reason I've often been attracted to the alternate history fiction genre (the modern era's examples beginning in 1953 with Ward Moore's "Bring the Jubilee"). As interesting news about my ongoing career or new publications occurs, I will post announcements here. Stay tuned, dear readers.
Coming Attractions - soon some of my unpublished short fiction will appear published on a new page here for visitors to read and comment about.
Although I've been fortunate to see a number of my 113 short stories written since 2000 published between November 2009 and December 2011, there are certain stories that never seem to find any home to market them, some of them among my personal favorites (which makes the rejections even more heartbreaking to receive). Until I become widely-read and name-recognized enough for publishing all of them together in what I would title The Orphaned Stories of John X. Grey, after some recent advice from a Facebook Friend I intend publishing some of those stories for the first time here and let visitors to my site judge their quality (possibly also offering some minor constructive criticism about what makes them rejected so often by every market I've ever submitted them - I could use the insight). I will probably begin with some of my all-time unpubilshed favorites, such as "Maze's - The Biggest Little Convenience Store" or "The
Avatar House on Eternity Road," those and others rejected by some big and small time short fiction publications (especially ones that pay good rates). I'm desperate to figure out why some of what I consider my best work gets no respect from editors out there (especially the pro publications). Any feedback and help will be appreciated, even as I read the comments with white-knuckled apprehension sometimes. Thank you in advance.
Avatar House on Eternity Road," those and others rejected by some big and small time short fiction publications (especially ones that pay good rates). I'm desperate to figure out why some of what I consider my best work gets no respect from editors out there (especially the pro publications). Any feedback and help will be appreciated, even as I read the comments with white-knuckled apprehension sometimes. Thank you in advance.
A Legacy of Blood will be reduced in price to $12.99 in time for St. Valentine's Day.
This month I am reducing the price for my second paperback novel with CreateSpace from the original $14.99 to $12.99 in the hopes it might generate sales (which have remained flat at zero since mid-December with the book's debut). I also intend looking into some advertising of my two works somewhere in the print or cyberworld even though I'm not the marketing genius needed to promote my works. Currently working on a paying market short story with plans to self-publish another of my novels (The Circle of Light) after sending it to one superhero novel publisher for marketing purposes. Once I get some actual cover software for my new laptop, I may even revise the cover file for A Legacy of Blood, making the original a collector's item should my languishing career ever become more significant. Still, until then consider this price reduction as a Valentine's Day present to anyone thinking about buying a copy. The price change should take effect in a few more days at CreateSpace and Amazon. com. Still no word yet on the Kindle version of this book I'm sorry to report.
A Legacy of Blood is available on Kindle at Amazon.com.
Yes, my first published vampire hunter noir horror novel is finally available for Kindle I just discovered today. Still listed at $14.99, I hope my price reduction entered on my dashboard at CreateSpace will take effect for this version soon also (I may have to go to the Kindle Direct Publishing page for adjusting the list price there). Here is the link.
http://www.amazon.com/A-Legacy-of-Blood-ebook/dp/B00728BWV4/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1328462770&sr=1-3
There is a possibility in the near future I might redesign the covers for this one and Worldjumpers once acquiring affordable cover creation artwork software sometime this year, so the one displayed here might become a collector's item.
http://www.amazon.com/A-Legacy-of-Blood-ebook/dp/B00728BWV4/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1328462770&sr=1-3
There is a possibility in the near future I might redesign the covers for this one and Worldjumpers once acquiring affordable cover creation artwork software sometime this year, so the one displayed here might become a collector's item.
I need some help.
For some reason, not one copy of my vampire hunter noir novel A Legacy of Blood has sold at Amazon or CreateSpace since it came out in mid-December. Perhaps it is a bit too expensive as a 262-page novel for the $14.99 cover price, and I may be lowering the cost $2 starting before or by St. Valentine's Day to encourage sales. Also with all the vampire fiction out there (Stephanie Meyer's Twilight, Anne Rice. P. N. Elrod, Laurel K. Hamilton),
and with horror having suffered drops in sales outside of the usual best selling authors of the genre since the early 1990s, maybe my first chapter in the 20th Century Jack Petrov saga will become the only volume to that series I had in mind to write in coming years. If the first one can't sell, how would the next book I have planned for the series (Beware any Dark Land Mirrored), which has only one chapter completed so far, fare any better than A Legacy of Blood? If anyone has some good suggestions for how to get my vampire hunter's debut novel selling to the same level as my first book Worldjumpers (four copies so far, but that is better than zero) or even better, please contact me at either [email protected] or my alternate e-mail address [email protected]. The fact not one copy of this novel has yet sold has been somewhat distressing and does nothing to boost my self-confidence. This is the book I've written I most like to imagine being adapted into a noir-style movie with its Roaring 20s time period and horror themes. As it says above, I need some help. I'm more the artist than the businessman or promoter. For a description of the story, just go to the
CreateSpace page (https://www.createspace.com/3684905) or the Amazon.com page listing it (http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Blood-Private-Investigator-Vampire/dp/146630815X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324138943&sr=1-1). There's also a paragraph about it on this site's published and unpublished novels page you can navigate to in the menu above labeled "More." Thanks for any help I can get.
and with horror having suffered drops in sales outside of the usual best selling authors of the genre since the early 1990s, maybe my first chapter in the 20th Century Jack Petrov saga will become the only volume to that series I had in mind to write in coming years. If the first one can't sell, how would the next book I have planned for the series (Beware any Dark Land Mirrored), which has only one chapter completed so far, fare any better than A Legacy of Blood? If anyone has some good suggestions for how to get my vampire hunter's debut novel selling to the same level as my first book Worldjumpers (four copies so far, but that is better than zero) or even better, please contact me at either [email protected] or my alternate e-mail address [email protected]. The fact not one copy of this novel has yet sold has been somewhat distressing and does nothing to boost my self-confidence. This is the book I've written I most like to imagine being adapted into a noir-style movie with its Roaring 20s time period and horror themes. As it says above, I need some help. I'm more the artist than the businessman or promoter. For a description of the story, just go to the
CreateSpace page (https://www.createspace.com/3684905) or the Amazon.com page listing it (http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Blood-Private-Investigator-Vampire/dp/146630815X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324138943&sr=1-1). There's also a paragraph about it on this site's published and unpublished novels page you can navigate to in the menu above labeled "More." Thanks for any help I can get.
A new promotional campaign for my second novel - 20 free copies to be given out on a first come first served basis. To learn more, read on below.
Greetings, vampire fiction fans (I trust you know who you are out there). Uncle Johnny got himself a weird idea so desperate it just might work regarding the book he self-published back in December that NO ONE seems to be buying or even remotely interested in after three months of existence. My 262-page vampire hunter noir novel A Legacy of Blood: Jack Petrov - Private Investigator/Vampire Hunter just isn't selling (unlike my first self-published novel Worldjumpers: An amazing Journey to Parallel
Worlds which sold it fourth copy as of January - thanks to each reader that bought one). I've heard horror is a tougher genre to break into especially in the past twenty years, so now I'm taking another bold (some would say drastic) step to promote my writing career. Later in March, I intend giving away 20 free copies of A Legacy of Blood to the first 20 souls requesting one who e-mail me at [email protected] once the announcement is official. I will post this at my Facebook page (under real name Edwin Ray Haney) to be seen by anyone viewing it, the Writers Inc. group at Facebook, the message boards for Absolute Write Water Cooler, Pill Hill Press, Static Movement Press, Where Writers Meet and Wicked East Press. I only ask that the folks requesting their free copy (remember the first 20 only will get one) be fans of vampire horror fiction and especially vampire hunter stories, give me a real mailing address to send this (US or international) instead of a post office box, the name is optional but include it if you would and a valid e-mail so I can inform you when the package is on its way and to check if it was received at your end of the journey. I will post another announcement here also when the giveaway begins, so to any who regularly visit and are interested in the offer, stay tuned through March, as I need to make some arrangements for ordering the copies from CreateSpace (at my author's discounted rate - passing the savings on to you since your copy will be free) and the necessary mailing materials. And if after reading A Legacy of Blood you like or love it, feel free to post a review at the book's Amazon.com page - I would appreciate any feedback there or at my Yahoo mailbox.
Worlds which sold it fourth copy as of January - thanks to each reader that bought one). I've heard horror is a tougher genre to break into especially in the past twenty years, so now I'm taking another bold (some would say drastic) step to promote my writing career. Later in March, I intend giving away 20 free copies of A Legacy of Blood to the first 20 souls requesting one who e-mail me at [email protected] once the announcement is official. I will post this at my Facebook page (under real name Edwin Ray Haney) to be seen by anyone viewing it, the Writers Inc. group at Facebook, the message boards for Absolute Write Water Cooler, Pill Hill Press, Static Movement Press, Where Writers Meet and Wicked East Press. I only ask that the folks requesting their free copy (remember the first 20 only will get one) be fans of vampire horror fiction and especially vampire hunter stories, give me a real mailing address to send this (US or international) instead of a post office box, the name is optional but include it if you would and a valid e-mail so I can inform you when the package is on its way and to check if it was received at your end of the journey. I will post another announcement here also when the giveaway begins, so to any who regularly visit and are interested in the offer, stay tuned through March, as I need to make some arrangements for ordering the copies from CreateSpace (at my author's discounted rate - passing the savings on to you since your copy will be free) and the necessary mailing materials. And if after reading A Legacy of Blood you like or love it, feel free to post a review at the book's Amazon.com page - I would appreciate any feedback there or at my Yahoo mailbox.
Starting tonight, it's time to get those requests to my Yahoo e-mail account for your free copy of my vampire hunter noir novel from CreateSpace - A Legacy of Blood: Jack Petrov - Private Investigator/Vampire Hunter.
As promised earlier this month, I am now taking e-mail requests from the first twenty who respond to my offer about sending them a free copy of my vampire hunter noir novel entitled A Legacy of Blood: Jack Petrov - Private Investigator/Vampire Hunter. This 262-page horror novel, available at CreateSpace and Amazon.com since December 12th has yet to find an audience in the marketplace, so I decided to give out by mail 20 free copies to the first individuals requesting one at my [email protected] e-mail address, one per requesting party. But I will require your name and mailing address to place on the envelope containing the book, no post office boxes please (unless you really really want one and have absolutely no other way to get the package by mail), and your e-mail address so I can inform the first 20 souls requesting their copy that one is on the way. I don't know how large the response will prove to be or how fast the requests will flood in if at all (could end up with 20 unmailed copies on my hands, heh heh heh), but when all 20 copies are gone I will post an announcement of this fact at the same sites where I first announce the giveaway is beginning tonight. See posts of mine for the 20 book giveaway also at Absolute Write Water Cooler's Announcements, Events and Self-Promotion topic, my Edwin Ray Haney Facebook page as a public wall announcement, Pill Hill Press' Promote your stuff topic, Where Writers Meet's Announcements topic, Wicked East Press' Pubicity topicm and at the Writers Inc. page on Facebook if you wish. I hope the twenty readers requesting their copies enjoy my vampire hunter noir tale of 1925 private eye Jack Petrov and might be interested in future volumes about his adventures.
That's all folks - the book giveaway is officially ended and I've successfully mailed out twenty copies of A Legacy of Blood.
Just thought I would officially announce here, and on other sites where the offer was made, that the 20-copy free book giveaway for A Legacy of Blood has concluded with two final requests I received on April 9, 2012. For those who missed out on getting one, I wish it was possible for me to give out more copies. The book is still available at Amazon.com and CreateSpace in paperback format ($12.99) and on Amazon.com as a Kindle edition ($6.49). I
have already posted links elsewhere on this site, so it seems too redundant repeating them here. Just scroll down to another post on this book for more information. I enjoyed spreading my writing work through this offer and wonder
what the overall impression of my work will be. I hope I'm prepared for the reactions that might be forthcoming eventually. Until then, I must return to proofreading The Circle of Light one final time and adding some end pages advertising my earlier books and inserting the About the Author page.
have already posted links elsewhere on this site, so it seems too redundant repeating them here. Just scroll down to another post on this book for more information. I enjoyed spreading my writing work through this offer and wonder
what the overall impression of my work will be. I hope I'm prepared for the reactions that might be forthcoming eventually. Until then, I must return to proofreading The Circle of Light one final time and adding some end pages advertising my earlier books and inserting the About the Author page.
My two Kindle Editions are now reduced to $3.99 each.
Realizing other titles available in paperback and on Kindle are cheaper as electronic book versions, after reducing both books on Kindle to $9.99 each lower than the paperback prices of $11.99 (Worldjumpers) and $12.99 (A Legacy of Blood), and then cutting the Kindle prices to $5.99 (Worldjumpers) and $6.49 (A Legacy of Blood), today I cut the prices on both books to $3.99. I would advise any interested buyers to wait about 1-2 days before checking for these new prices, as the changes take some time They can be found and purchased at the following Amazon.com pages by then.
Worldjumpers: An amazing Journey to Parallel Worlds on Kindle (cover at left).
http://www.amazon.com/Worldjumpers-ebook/dp/B0072PMYI2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329089103&sr=1-1
A Legacy of Blood - Jack Petrov: Private Investigator/Vampire Hunter on Kindle.
http://www.amazon.com/A-Legacy-of-Blood-ebook/dp/B00728BWV4/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1328462770&sr=1-3
Since electronic books are easier to acquire than paperbacks, and after some welcome advice from other writers on the subject, I hope this move will increase interest and boost sales for the novels. So, far only one copy of the second
e-book sold, but this may encourage additional readers looking for an easy gift to buy.
Worldjumpers: An amazing Journey to Parallel Worlds on Kindle (cover at left).
http://www.amazon.com/Worldjumpers-ebook/dp/B0072PMYI2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329089103&sr=1-1
A Legacy of Blood - Jack Petrov: Private Investigator/Vampire Hunter on Kindle.
http://www.amazon.com/A-Legacy-of-Blood-ebook/dp/B00728BWV4/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1328462770&sr=1-3
Since electronic books are easier to acquire than paperbacks, and after some welcome advice from other writers on the subject, I hope this move will increase interest and boost sales for the novels. So, far only one copy of the second
e-book sold, but this may encourage additional readers looking for an easy gift to buy.
The Circle of Light is now available at Amazon.com as of May 10, 2012.
My modern day superhero fantasy story, The Circle of Light, is finally available at Amazon.com, the 310-page paperback selling for $13.99 there. I intend for it to be sold as a Kindle Edition soon. The front cover is at your left and depicts the reborn team with their main adversary in the background looming over them. I liken my work to a non-illustrated comic book series and am obviously hinting at the future possibility some talented artist could turn my creation into a graphic novel (sadly, I lack necessary great artistic skills - having first discovered that limitation when I was 12 when wanting to become a cartoonist) as a tie-in project down the road. It concerns a 21st Century superhero team from South Florida responding to a meteor crash disaster on Georgia's Jekyll Island and discovering that impact has deposited a large hairless monster destroying property and threatening lives (labeled by media reports as The Great Terror). The Circle of Light is ultimately about that hero team's destruction and later rebirth due to a secret conspiracy by its only former member intending to not only gain revenge on his former comrades but also slowly demonize and eventually outlaw all US costumed crime fighting vigilantes. The front cover depicts the new Circle (with the former member and ex-hero turned villain Shining Light in the background) and the rear cover (not shown here) will feature an illustration of The Circle at the story's beginning. The novel about a seven-member Christian superhero team of 2012 features one central character, the new superhero Overman - son of two earlier members Mr. Amazing and Mighty Woman, learning virtues of teamwork and having allies as one of its central themes, along with the fallen superhero turned villain Shining Light's failure to realize how his desire for revenge would consume him and everything he still values. The link to my newest novel's Amazon.com page can be found here.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Circle-Light-John-Grey/dp/1475195710/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336968716&sr=1-1
Obviously a novel aimed at comic book fans and followers of series like George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards series, and even those who know the Champions Superhero Role Playing Game, and I hope those folks will find familiar yet new adveture reading about The Circle of Light
http://www.amazon.com/The-Circle-Light-John-Grey/dp/1475195710/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336968716&sr=1-1
Obviously a novel aimed at comic book fans and followers of series like George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards series, and even those who know the Champions Superhero Role Playing Game, and I hope those folks will find familiar yet new adveture reading about The Circle of Light
New or Refined Covers coming soon for A Legacy of Blood and The Circle of Light.
Hello, dear readers. I'm glad some sales of my books are picking up steam slowly but steadily this year. Perhaps with the traditional summer reading some might want to read a superhero fantasy or vampire hunter horror story instead of
more romantic or best-selling fare seeny in the hands of men or (mostly)women reading at the beach. In the waning days of spring, I now announce the replacement or refurbishing of cover artwork on two of my novels released in
December and this month. The Circle of Light will soon have a front and back cover with artwork I revised
to meet CreateSpace industry standard of 300 dots per inch (dpi). The comic book heroes remain the same but the colors should be more vibrant with a better image printed on future covers. As for A Legacy of Blood, one of my free copy giveaway readers pointed out how crude and unattractive the cover art appeared (indicating if he had been a book buyer seeing it would not have bought the book based on its cover), and upon reflection of the crude representations of certain characters and scenes with the Paint program last August-September, I decided to use my adequate drawing
skills and created new images for that novel's cover. Anyone who has an original cover may one day consider it a collector's item (or maybe not). The new front cover (featured to the left) will depict Jack Petrov and Annie Mertz
discovering Helena Sloane's basement of horrors with an enlarged image of the villainess looking down upon them. The new rear cover features young US Army Corporal Petrov from the prologue chapter facing a squad of Russian Cossack vampires and their master Colonel Kamanev outside the US rifle squad's farmhouse quarters after the other Americans were massacred and the house set on fire by those vampires on a cold 1919 winter night.
I hope these changes (and possibly one minor interior change to A Legacy of Blood's text) will only improve sales this year. I also now announce I may self-publish another of my fantasy novels, the other worlds adventure Sister Helena of the Sword before the summer is over. Stay tuned, dear readers.
more romantic or best-selling fare seeny in the hands of men or (mostly)women reading at the beach. In the waning days of spring, I now announce the replacement or refurbishing of cover artwork on two of my novels released in
December and this month. The Circle of Light will soon have a front and back cover with artwork I revised
to meet CreateSpace industry standard of 300 dots per inch (dpi). The comic book heroes remain the same but the colors should be more vibrant with a better image printed on future covers. As for A Legacy of Blood, one of my free copy giveaway readers pointed out how crude and unattractive the cover art appeared (indicating if he had been a book buyer seeing it would not have bought the book based on its cover), and upon reflection of the crude representations of certain characters and scenes with the Paint program last August-September, I decided to use my adequate drawing
skills and created new images for that novel's cover. Anyone who has an original cover may one day consider it a collector's item (or maybe not). The new front cover (featured to the left) will depict Jack Petrov and Annie Mertz
discovering Helena Sloane's basement of horrors with an enlarged image of the villainess looking down upon them. The new rear cover features young US Army Corporal Petrov from the prologue chapter facing a squad of Russian Cossack vampires and their master Colonel Kamanev outside the US rifle squad's farmhouse quarters after the other Americans were massacred and the house set on fire by those vampires on a cold 1919 winter night.
I hope these changes (and possibly one minor interior change to A Legacy of Blood's text) will only improve sales this year. I also now announce I may self-publish another of my fantasy novels, the other worlds adventure Sister Helena of the Sword before the summer is over. Stay tuned, dear readers.
Giving away ten copies of my new superhero novel. Details coming soon.
Well, I'm going to try this shameless self-promotional tool again, hoping I wasn't burned too badly by giving away an earlier book that needed much more proofreading and revisions than I allowed for back in March-April.
Soon I will announce a new book giveaway aimed especially at comic book/graphic novel costumed superhero fans. This time I will send out ten copies of my third self-published novel The Circle of Light. Available a bit longer than a month now at Amazon.com, my first superhero adventure novel has not gotten much notice in the cyberworld, so I decided to send out ten free paperback copies to the first ten interested readers (hopefully comic book fans) who request one.
Now don't put your cape and cowl on and leap out the window to send that request in just yet. I've ordered the copies from CreateSpace but not yet received them shipped here. Once they are here I will announce the book giveaway's beginning here, at my Facebook page (Edwin Ray Haney - John X. Grey) and at the following message boards: Absolute Write ater Cooler, NorGus Press, Pill Hill Press, Static Movement, Where Writers Meet and Wicked East Press. The posts at those six sites will be under self-promotion, new projects, announcements, or similar labeled sections. If there are other boards where the announcement will appear soon, I'll update the list.
Listen, Folks. I realize now I jumped the gun on that last book giveaway (A Legacy of Blood) when the novel was not ready. Please forgive me, those of you who received a copy and have not yet given any feedback. The cover is improved and I made some manuscript changes to improve the final product.
The Circle of Light should be a better crafted story, but not one copy has yet sold and I need some feedback on my first superhero novel (possibly the first in a trilogy I have in mind to write someday). If you comic book fans or the fans of George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards novels are interested, I hope The Circle of Light will conjure up vivid colorful images by its superhero fantasy adventure story. When the books are ready to mail, I'll make the announcement. Stay tuned.
Soon I will announce a new book giveaway aimed especially at comic book/graphic novel costumed superhero fans. This time I will send out ten copies of my third self-published novel The Circle of Light. Available a bit longer than a month now at Amazon.com, my first superhero adventure novel has not gotten much notice in the cyberworld, so I decided to send out ten free paperback copies to the first ten interested readers (hopefully comic book fans) who request one.
Now don't put your cape and cowl on and leap out the window to send that request in just yet. I've ordered the copies from CreateSpace but not yet received them shipped here. Once they are here I will announce the book giveaway's beginning here, at my Facebook page (Edwin Ray Haney - John X. Grey) and at the following message boards: Absolute Write ater Cooler, NorGus Press, Pill Hill Press, Static Movement, Where Writers Meet and Wicked East Press. The posts at those six sites will be under self-promotion, new projects, announcements, or similar labeled sections. If there are other boards where the announcement will appear soon, I'll update the list.
Listen, Folks. I realize now I jumped the gun on that last book giveaway (A Legacy of Blood) when the novel was not ready. Please forgive me, those of you who received a copy and have not yet given any feedback. The cover is improved and I made some manuscript changes to improve the final product.
The Circle of Light should be a better crafted story, but not one copy has yet sold and I need some feedback on my first superhero novel (possibly the first in a trilogy I have in mind to write someday). If you comic book fans or the fans of George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards novels are interested, I hope The Circle of Light will conjure up vivid colorful images by its superhero fantasy adventure story. When the books are ready to mail, I'll make the announcement. Stay tuned.
The 10-copy giveaway for The Circle of Light begins Saturday June 23, 2012.
The free book giveaway for 10 free copies of my new superhero fantasy adventure
story The Circle of Light officially begins tomorrow, Saturday, June 23, 2012. Just e-mail me your request for one copy at my other e-mail account [email protected]
or message me at Facebook for Edwin Ray Haney. (UPDATE WARNING: My [email protected] account has been hacked recently to my disgust and any requests for a book might not reach me there.) I'll mail the first ten requesting readers a copy of my
310-page novel. Be sure to give me a mailing address to send your copy (P.O. Boxes are okay too) and I'll mail it out ASAP. This announcement will also appear at the following message boards about writing: NorGus Press, Pill Hill Press, Static Movement, Where Writers Meet and Wicked East Press. There will also be the announcement here and at my Facebook page under my real name Edwin Ray Haney. Due to some criticism about my self-promotion at Absolute Write Water Cooler by two other members, I have decided to skip that board on this occasion. Okay, I'll put up an announcement there, but still didn't care for the criticism. As of Sunday June 24, 2012, my original post at AWWC was removed accusing me of posting spam. This was either due to my mail account being hacked or some childish retaliation for my negative reaction toward mean comments aimed at me personally by other members there.
The only thing I would ask, once those ten books have been read, is that the readers take a small amount of time to write some review (good or bad - please be honest) on Amazon.com at the book's page there or maybe even give feedback at my RoadRunner e-mail address ([email protected]). I only received some feedback from the first giveaway and no reviews at Amazon.com or anywhere else I've learned. The Circle of Light book page at Amazon.com where reader reviews can be left is found here.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Circle-Light-John-Grey/dp/1475195710/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336968716&sr=1-1
I hope to receive more feedback this time and that the readers will enjoy a non-illustrated comic book story.
story The Circle of Light officially begins tomorrow, Saturday, June 23, 2012. Just e-mail me your request for one copy at my other e-mail account [email protected]
or message me at Facebook for Edwin Ray Haney. (UPDATE WARNING: My [email protected] account has been hacked recently to my disgust and any requests for a book might not reach me there.) I'll mail the first ten requesting readers a copy of my
310-page novel. Be sure to give me a mailing address to send your copy (P.O. Boxes are okay too) and I'll mail it out ASAP. This announcement will also appear at the following message boards about writing: NorGus Press, Pill Hill Press, Static Movement, Where Writers Meet and Wicked East Press. There will also be the announcement here and at my Facebook page under my real name Edwin Ray Haney. Due to some criticism about my self-promotion at Absolute Write Water Cooler by two other members, I have decided to skip that board on this occasion. Okay, I'll put up an announcement there, but still didn't care for the criticism. As of Sunday June 24, 2012, my original post at AWWC was removed accusing me of posting spam. This was either due to my mail account being hacked or some childish retaliation for my negative reaction toward mean comments aimed at me personally by other members there.
The only thing I would ask, once those ten books have been read, is that the readers take a small amount of time to write some review (good or bad - please be honest) on Amazon.com at the book's page there or maybe even give feedback at my RoadRunner e-mail address ([email protected]). I only received some feedback from the first giveaway and no reviews at Amazon.com or anywhere else I've learned. The Circle of Light book page at Amazon.com where reader reviews can be left is found here.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Circle-Light-John-Grey/dp/1475195710/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336968716&sr=1-1
I hope to receive more feedback this time and that the readers will enjoy a non-illustrated comic book story.
Coming soon: Sister Helena of the Sword, my new fantasy novel.
Sometime in the next few days to weeks, I will be releasing my new fantasy novel, the other world adventure Sister Helena of the Sword as the next self-publication effort in this ongoing writing career. Centered on a young borderline criminal from 1957 fated to become a new military, political and religious leader upon the planet Sepharata, Evelyn Lynn Weiss will become the blessed Sister Helena after a series of amazing adventures in discovering her ultimate God-given destiny. The front cover artwork is featured here for the first time to the left of this paragraph. The book should be about 290 pages in length and the first in an intended Sepharata trilogy involving three generations of heroic women (the later planned volumes currently titled Sister Catherine versus the Volcano People and Sister Lara the Redeemer saves the World), parts two and three I intend writing in the near future. However the story itself also serves as a stand-alone tale introducing its heroine to a strange planet in an alternate universe this world with two suns and four moons containing its mixture of primitive to Middle Ages Earth equivalent human cultures and societies. Once the book is available at CreateSpace and Amazon.com, I will make the announcement here and hopefully publicize it far better than my previous efforts.
My Three Self-Published Novels are all available at Amazon.com!
First of all I wish to apologize to those folks that read my free copies of A Legacy of Blood due to the remaining problems with the manuscript and the poor quality front and back cover art. If I ever become famous, those copies will possibly be considered collector's items as an earler draft. I have since reworked the front and rear cover art, even if the rear
image still looks a bit blurred (I tried setting the image to 300 dots per inch but it did not help - the fornt cover looks so much better as you can see to the left of this message). Second I post this announcement now that all three of my self-published titles are now available once again from Amazon.com and CreateSpace. The science-fiction story
Worldjumpers is still $11.99 in paperback and $3.99 as a Kindle. Here are the links for each edition.
http://www.amazon.com/Worldjumpers-amazing-Journey-Parallel-Worlds/dp/1463767579/ref=la_B004E5AHE6_1_35?ie=UTF8&qid=1339635698&sr=1-35
http://www.amazon.com/Worldjumpers-ebook/dp/B0072PMYI2/ref=la_B004E5AHE6_1_35_title_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1339635733&sr=1-35
The horror-theme vampire hunter noir story A Legacy of Blood, the first in what I intend as an entire series of stories about 20th Century vampire hunting private eye Jack Petrov, is $12.99 in paperback and $3.99 as a Kindle. Here are the links.
http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Blood-Private-Investigator-Vampire/dp/146630815X/ref=la_B004E5AHE6_1_56_title_0_main?ie=UTF8&qid=1339635919&sr=1-56
http://www.amazon.com/A-Legacy-of-Blood-ebook/dp/B00728BWV4/ref=la_B004E5AHE6_1_56_title_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1339635975&sr=1-56
The modern-day superhero fantasy adventure The Circle of Light is available in its 310-page paperback edition for $13.99 and the Kindle is also $3.99. Here are those links.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Circle-Light-John-Grey/dp/1475195710/ref=la_B004E5AHE6_1_52_title_0_main?ie=UTF8&qid=1339635975&sr=1-52
http://www.amazon.com/The-Circle-of-Light-ebook/dp/B00865T39U/ref=la_B004E5AHE6_1_52_title_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1339635975&sr=1-52
All three front covers can be viewed in the slideshow below. I intend my next self-published offering to be either a contemporary werewolf tale entitled Claws of T'birsk or the other world fantasy story Sister Helena of the Sword. I hope the wide variety of stories will find their audiences out there in a crowded book publication world even in these hard times.
image still looks a bit blurred (I tried setting the image to 300 dots per inch but it did not help - the fornt cover looks so much better as you can see to the left of this message). Second I post this announcement now that all three of my self-published titles are now available once again from Amazon.com and CreateSpace. The science-fiction story
Worldjumpers is still $11.99 in paperback and $3.99 as a Kindle. Here are the links for each edition.
http://www.amazon.com/Worldjumpers-amazing-Journey-Parallel-Worlds/dp/1463767579/ref=la_B004E5AHE6_1_35?ie=UTF8&qid=1339635698&sr=1-35
http://www.amazon.com/Worldjumpers-ebook/dp/B0072PMYI2/ref=la_B004E5AHE6_1_35_title_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1339635733&sr=1-35
The horror-theme vampire hunter noir story A Legacy of Blood, the first in what I intend as an entire series of stories about 20th Century vampire hunting private eye Jack Petrov, is $12.99 in paperback and $3.99 as a Kindle. Here are the links.
http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Blood-Private-Investigator-Vampire/dp/146630815X/ref=la_B004E5AHE6_1_56_title_0_main?ie=UTF8&qid=1339635919&sr=1-56
http://www.amazon.com/A-Legacy-of-Blood-ebook/dp/B00728BWV4/ref=la_B004E5AHE6_1_56_title_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1339635975&sr=1-56
The modern-day superhero fantasy adventure The Circle of Light is available in its 310-page paperback edition for $13.99 and the Kindle is also $3.99. Here are those links.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Circle-Light-John-Grey/dp/1475195710/ref=la_B004E5AHE6_1_52_title_0_main?ie=UTF8&qid=1339635975&sr=1-52
http://www.amazon.com/The-Circle-of-Light-ebook/dp/B00865T39U/ref=la_B004E5AHE6_1_52_title_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1339635975&sr=1-52
All three front covers can be viewed in the slideshow below. I intend my next self-published offering to be either a contemporary werewolf tale entitled Claws of T'birsk or the other world fantasy story Sister Helena of the Sword. I hope the wide variety of stories will find their audiences out there in a crowded book publication world even in these hard times.
The time has come to consider marking both this site and my would-be writing career with the label RIP.
Monday, October 15, 2012 - a date I have come to deeply lament as one painful truth hits me between the eyes.
Everything I have done here to strive toward professional authorship seems a failure. I played the struggling author game sending my long and short fiction to paying markets starting in 2000. After writing 11 novels, more than 100 short stories and almost a couple dozen poems, getting published in around 58 different small press anthologies or collections since November 2009, and self-publishing a quartet of books that have either barely sold or practically not at all, the time has finally come to admit fiction writing could not have been the divine calling from God (in the wake of my Christian salvation during 1997) I assumed it was. Every effort to make this a career has been a constant stream of mistakes, miscalculations and rejections, especially at the most professional levels of periodicals, story collections and book publishing companies. Reading my blog, the curious visitor will discover I am being threatened by a lawsuit
from someone I believe wronged me over a real estate transaction I had little choice but to enter at the time, simply because I complained about how it turned out this year to my disadvantage (never naming names in the complaints). I also face crippling medical expenses from a long-term injury that is only now finally healing. I cannot work while still recovering from the injury for another four weeks (into mid-November 2012) while taking two antibiotic medications twice per day (along with other daily medicines for diabetes, high cholesterol and blood pressure). I am alone with no immediate family for emotional and financial support for the past six years. I kept faith over the past 13 years inside that God had given me a calling to become a professional fiction author and some of my long and short stories contain Christian themes (but not all of them do and perhaps this is what displeases God along with occasional slips into sin I seek forgiveness and attempt repentance for often enough). Apparently that blind faith was misplaced. Perhaps the writing ambition was whispers from Satan leading me down a bad path with this impending oblivion as its final result. I
have certainly lost much of my driving ambition in the past several months to continue writing new short fiction and my newest long fiction projects are stalling or languishing because earlier self-published novels are not selling even a few copies in the last several months. A lawsuit from one vindictive party resenting something I wrote here or elsewhere about that party without mentioning any names would be the final nail in my coffin.
Two promised interviews from earlier this year - one on a website and another possibly on radio - have failed to
materialize from two writers who received free copies of my novel The Circle of Light. Receiving no feedback about the book since earlier this year from either fellow author, they must have disliked it and decided I am not worth promoting based on what I wrote being terrible. The twenty copies I sent out of another self-published novel - A
Legacy of Blood - proved to be an embarrassing introduction of my incompetent proofreading skills since the novel needed one more revision before I ever offered it. I have left a permanent negative impression with these 20
folks and none of them would ever want to buy anything I write again I assume. I have received little feedback and that was all constructive criticism about the book's flaws that made me recheck it and find the story was not quite ready for public consumption. I have no time or money to market my work out in the world, with circumstances preventing any such campaign to elevate my writing profile. God must be working against my efforts, so I can only assume He does not intend I succeed at this work. My soul is crushed, if true, but He seems unwilling to tell me what I should be doing instead of writing fictional stories.
As a result of my waning ambition to become the professional writer, since it is clear I will never be able to succeed under current conditions and diminishing future expectations, this could be one of the last posts. My natural death would be a blessing from God since I cannot withstand adversity having this fragile body and mind. I would die
barely mourned by anyone as it should be. I am nothing and have accomplished nothing in almost 44 1/2 years on Earth. Let it end soon, should that be Thy will, Heavenly Father Creator.
Edwin Ray Haney and John X. Grey - a NATURAL BORN LOSER who remains that regardless of whether using his real or pen name.
Everything I have done here to strive toward professional authorship seems a failure. I played the struggling author game sending my long and short fiction to paying markets starting in 2000. After writing 11 novels, more than 100 short stories and almost a couple dozen poems, getting published in around 58 different small press anthologies or collections since November 2009, and self-publishing a quartet of books that have either barely sold or practically not at all, the time has finally come to admit fiction writing could not have been the divine calling from God (in the wake of my Christian salvation during 1997) I assumed it was. Every effort to make this a career has been a constant stream of mistakes, miscalculations and rejections, especially at the most professional levels of periodicals, story collections and book publishing companies. Reading my blog, the curious visitor will discover I am being threatened by a lawsuit
from someone I believe wronged me over a real estate transaction I had little choice but to enter at the time, simply because I complained about how it turned out this year to my disadvantage (never naming names in the complaints). I also face crippling medical expenses from a long-term injury that is only now finally healing. I cannot work while still recovering from the injury for another four weeks (into mid-November 2012) while taking two antibiotic medications twice per day (along with other daily medicines for diabetes, high cholesterol and blood pressure). I am alone with no immediate family for emotional and financial support for the past six years. I kept faith over the past 13 years inside that God had given me a calling to become a professional fiction author and some of my long and short stories contain Christian themes (but not all of them do and perhaps this is what displeases God along with occasional slips into sin I seek forgiveness and attempt repentance for often enough). Apparently that blind faith was misplaced. Perhaps the writing ambition was whispers from Satan leading me down a bad path with this impending oblivion as its final result. I
have certainly lost much of my driving ambition in the past several months to continue writing new short fiction and my newest long fiction projects are stalling or languishing because earlier self-published novels are not selling even a few copies in the last several months. A lawsuit from one vindictive party resenting something I wrote here or elsewhere about that party without mentioning any names would be the final nail in my coffin.
Two promised interviews from earlier this year - one on a website and another possibly on radio - have failed to
materialize from two writers who received free copies of my novel The Circle of Light. Receiving no feedback about the book since earlier this year from either fellow author, they must have disliked it and decided I am not worth promoting based on what I wrote being terrible. The twenty copies I sent out of another self-published novel - A
Legacy of Blood - proved to be an embarrassing introduction of my incompetent proofreading skills since the novel needed one more revision before I ever offered it. I have left a permanent negative impression with these 20
folks and none of them would ever want to buy anything I write again I assume. I have received little feedback and that was all constructive criticism about the book's flaws that made me recheck it and find the story was not quite ready for public consumption. I have no time or money to market my work out in the world, with circumstances preventing any such campaign to elevate my writing profile. God must be working against my efforts, so I can only assume He does not intend I succeed at this work. My soul is crushed, if true, but He seems unwilling to tell me what I should be doing instead of writing fictional stories.
As a result of my waning ambition to become the professional writer, since it is clear I will never be able to succeed under current conditions and diminishing future expectations, this could be one of the last posts. My natural death would be a blessing from God since I cannot withstand adversity having this fragile body and mind. I would die
barely mourned by anyone as it should be. I am nothing and have accomplished nothing in almost 44 1/2 years on Earth. Let it end soon, should that be Thy will, Heavenly Father Creator.
Edwin Ray Haney and John X. Grey - a NATURAL BORN LOSER who remains that regardless of whether using his real or pen name.