The Nephilim and the False Prophet

The second book in my Armageddon trilogy, The Nephilim and the False Prophet, is live in the Amazon bookstore!

From the blurb:

Fueled by brutal, random violence and a worldwide leprosy epidemic, the Earth descends into chaos. Preparing for Armageddon, Hell plans an atrocity called The Slaughter of the Innocents while Heaven’s scattered agents fight a cold war against superstar evangelist Kyle Loubet, who they believe is the False Prophet foretold in the Bible. 

The Eremites walk the Earth: black magicians kept alive through unholy relics. Terrible visions assail the world’s remaining psychics, promising an eternal night of blood and fire and endless agony. Caught in the middle, Hector, Ozzie, and Siobhan face terrible dangers from all sides. Now free from their infernal prison, what are the Watcher angels planning? With only days before the Apocalypse, can humanity be saved?

This edition includes a synopsis of the first book in the trilogy, The Blessed Man and the Witch; a list of characters; and a glossary of terms.

$2.99 or free to read through Kindle Unlimited. Get your copy now!

The Algorithms, the Minefield

The algorithms, the algorithms, the damned algorithms.

Facebook and Twitter choose what we see and what we show according to the algorithms, social media's God (or Devil), of sorts. We can blame all sorts of things on the algorithms: our lack of reach, the things we miss, the ads we see and the ones we block.  The friends you used to see on your wall three times daily have dropped off social media...or have they? No. Facebook's just not showing them to you anymore (or, more to the point, Facebook's algorithms aren't). The same cat videos and memes are there, but now you just have to go hunting for them on individual pages.

Oh, but the irritating stuff is there, too.  The Darth Trump video she Liked; the Bernie Sanders student loan debt thread he commented on; the Stephen King meme she retweeted that called everyone not an unreconstructed 1970's hippie a fascist. That stuff's front and center. Can't miss that.

It's a terrible thing to serve such an arbitrary and capricious deity as the social media algorithm, especially when its Creators are such flawed figures. I know: I saw The Social Network.

When you're treating social media as a potential sales outlet, you subject yourself to a terrible set of self-imposed strictures that can't help but conflict. Say you're a writer, like me, and you use Facebook not just to connect with friends and relatives, but find new readers and network with other writers. It is a social network, after all.  When you're starting out, the rule is: don't alienate half the world with your horrible political/religious/economic opinions (and they are horrible, all of them, every single one).  Keep it light.  Stay professional.  Be yourself, but don't be too much of yourself, because you'll piss someone off. Maybe you'll make someone important angry.  Is it worth the price of a book (or an online friendship) to dash off that paragraph about how evil Hillary Clinton is?  They're watching you, you know. They'll see and get mad.  So how much tongue-biting are you going to do?  You want to be you, but you have to hide certain things, which isn't you.

No, it doesn't matter that you see what they Like and it makes you mad but you let it go.  Your forbearance means nothing.  You see them, but more importantly, they see you. They can piss you off all day long, but don't piss them off. Only their views are legitimate.

A conundrum, isn't it?

No.

Because it's all bullshit.  You're not going to ruin your writing career, nascent or otherwise, through social media, especially Facebook.  The people who will get mad at you for your appalling opinions on issues that have nothing to do with your writing are entirely without value as individuals or contacts.  Their conditional professionalism can only damage you.  Nobody gets rich selling books on Facebook or Twitter.  Nobody.  (At least, nobody who wasn't rich to begin with.) If you can't strike it rich there, then you can't get bankrupted there, either. Social media is a tool among many.  Obviously, it's stupid to go out to deliberately make enemies, but living on eggshells will kill you.

Anyone who'll construct a negative opinion of you because you Like Rush Limbaugh (or Rachel Maddow) on social media is a waste of time.  They won't buy from you and they won't sell for you. Ditch them and move on.

The only caveat is that shoehorning your disgusting political views into your fiction at the expense of plot and characterization dooms you to deserved failure, as my Breitbart piece suggests.

So don't worry about the algorithms. They're there to upset you, but they won't kill you.  Most of the time.

He Knows You Know

You've got this social media thing all figured out. You're smart about it. You choose your friends carefully, you like the right things they do online (not everything, because you don't want to be That Guy, do you, the obvious ass-kisser?). You're cool. You're building that all-important network.

(Oh, don't get me started on that network thing, either. I mean, who gives a damn how many writer friends you have, especially if they're all unknowns like you? Do you want to have lots of writer friends or lots of reader fans?  Fans are where the money's at. If all you hang out with is writers, how do you break out?  What about all the writers recommending each others' books, isn't that a gigantic circle jerk? On the other hand, you have to start somewhere, right? But is this the best place to get started? And what about those fans, the ones who all the writers are friends with on social media? They like all the right things, too, and get free books out of it. Lots of free books. So yeah, that's your network.)


You're so smart, right?  There was that one time working in retail and you caught that girl shoplifting years and years ago and when you caught her she said, "You think you smart, but you ain't," and it was funny at the time and it's become a thing you still laugh at now, decades later, but it's not so funny the more you think about it because it raises the all-important question, the question on everybody's mind every day: What did I miss?

Thing is, you see what the others are doing on social media and you don't want to duplicate their mistakes, so you do different things, but they see you, too, and that's something you really need to install into your personal hard drive: they see you, too. They do.  Just as you're watching them, they're watching you, and they see what you do and what you don't and what you Share and Favorite and Like and Retweet and WooWoo and whatever else is out there.

It's a two-way street, all this stuff, this interacting with other frustrating humans, whether it's on social media or in meatspace, and you know that if you stroke you should get strokes back, and when you do it's great and when you don't it's not so great and nobody strokes you the way they should for the things you do. People like what they like and not what you think they should like, and it's funny when you think of writers like A. A. Milne, who hated that his most successful writing was the Winnie the Pooh material, but Jesus Christ, man, at least he got successful, and success in anything honorable isn't to be despised and beggars can't be choosers.  If that's a frustrating roadblock in the path to success, you'd take it in a heartbeat.

The thing you can't forget is that your writer buddies know what you Like, but most importantly, they know what you don't Like.  They know when you've put them on the Pay No Mind List, even when you don't announce it.  Oh, you've got your reasons for not sharing their stuff, and they're good ones and not about jealousy (oh, there's so much jealousy), but about character: this one called you and your buddies fascists; that one called everyone who thinks like you a bigot (which means that he called you a bigot, let's be honest); the one over there's an ass-kisser who never reciprocates your strokes anyway so she's no loss except that you did spend some time boosting her books and giving her asked-for feedback some time ago and it'd only be fair to get a stroke in return.

So while you're watching them, they're watching you, and the bitchy, passive-aggressive nature of social media reinforces hostilities even as it bolsters friendships. And those red flags, the ones you ignored because you wanted to make friends with everybody? They're still there, and there're reasons why they're there, and those reasons never vanish: you just ignore them.

Just remember what limited good social media really does, and whatever happens, no matter what, cross your heart and hope to die, remember that they see you too. You know them, and they know you.

(Title taken from Marillion's song of the same name.)

End of Year Post

I'm going to take the rest of the year off to spend Christmas with my family.

Yes, I'm Jewish, but my wife celebrates Christmas, and I don't feel like trying to make my little boy pick between Judah Maccabee and Santa Claus for holiday heroes, so we do both, and now's the time when things get busy: holiday meals to be cooked, Christmas cookies to be baked, house to be cleaned, presents to be wrapped.

(Though he should totally pick Judah Maccabee as his holiday hero; I mean, what's cooler: a guerrilla fighter or a fat old guy who slithers down chimneys?)

It's been an eventful year.  Some of the highlights include:

• In March, I wrote my first review for the website Ginger Nuts of Horror.
• In April, my short story Hold On was published at Liberty Island.
• In June, Nev Murray reviewed The Blessed Man and the Witch.
• In August, Adam Howe gave me the honor of blurbing his story Gator Bait. 
• In September, my short story How to Fix a Broken World was published at Liberty Island.
• In November, I released the second edition of The Blessed Man and the Witch.
• December was quite busy. Get the Greek, my Kindle Single, made it to #1 in a free category on Amazon; the Beyond Lovecraft Indiegogo campaign I supported made its funding goals (and then some); and I learned that I had been kicked off the website Ginger Nuts of Horror (more on that later).

2016 is shaping up to be a good year, too. I'll release The Nephilim and the False Prophet in the first quarter of the new year, and I hope to be finished the entire Armageddon trilogy by early 2017 at the latest. I continue to meet new readers and writers, which is great fun, and it's a joy to watch my son become his own person every day.

Best to all of my readers, both new and familiar. 

See you in 2016!

WE'RE NUMBER ONE!

I spent part of last week and the weekend up north visiting family. Travel, especially with a small child, can be exhausting, so Sunday night after my son went to bed and we were able to relax for a bit, I thought to check how the Get the Greek Hanukkah giveaway did.

Getting to #1 in Kindle Short Reads for the Humor and Entertainment category isn't so bad, even if it was in the Free section. And #7 in the Religion and Spirituality category! I'll take lucky seven.

Here's another photo:

Yes, it's a free book, and there's nothing easier than giving away free e-books. People often collect free e-books and never read them. Still, I'm pleased with how well the giveaway did, especially for the money I put into marketing it ($0.00). 

So yay me, and thanks to everyone who liked, shared, plus oned, tweeted, re-tweeted, Instagrammed, MySpaced, Tindered, and generally word-of-mouthed my humble effort. It's very much appreciated.

The Blessed Man and the Witch 2nd Edition

I've released a Second Edition of my novel The Blessed Man and the Witch that includes a new cover and an excerpt of the sequel The Nephilim and the False Prophet.

While the Second Edition doesn't change any of the story in any way, I have cleaned up some of the grammar and added back matter like About the Author and Author's Note sections. That's one of the great freedoms of digital publishing: improving the product as you go.

It's likely that I'll improve the blurb, but after that, no more tinkering. I'm moving forward. The Nephilim and the False Prophet should be ready for publication early next year, and I'm already working on the outline for the third and final volume in the Armageddon series.

If you haven't already, pick up your copy of The Blessed Man and the Witch today!

Answers to Questions for Writers

On Google+, the social media outlet that's been dying of the same heart attack for years (shades of Hyman Roth), +Shen Hart tagged me on a list of questions about writing.  What follows are my answers.

Do you share your work with your partner or spouse? Does it matter if it’s been published yet?

I always give my fiction to my wife to read first before it goes anywhere.  She's very detail-oriented and works as the Product Owner for a software program that if you don't currently use, you've probably heard of.  She has to make sure that the i's are crossed and t's are dotted (hee hee) in all aspects of the product, and is extremely good at her job.  In addition and most importantly, our tastes in fiction don't always coincide.  This means that she doesn't have expectations about the subject matter, so if she likes it, that's helpful.  If she doesn't, she tells me why and I can decide to change it or not from there.

How much of your family and/or closest “friends in real life first” read your stuff…let alone give you feedback about it?

I have one friend whom I trust to give me unbiased feedback.  His name is Mike.  He's an educator and one of the sharpest men I've ever met.  Knowledgeable and smart don't always coincide, but they do in him.  He beta-read my first novel and I hope he'll do so for the next.  I have other close friends and family, and I value their feedback as well, but I fear their affection for me may cloud their perspicacity somewhat.

What do you do with the pieces that continually get rejected–post on your blog? Trash? When do you know it’s time to let it go?

I have only one piece of writing that has been rejected, but it's still a great story.  When I have more time, I will send it and other pieces further afield.  What I won't do moving forward is publish my fiction on my blog; there's some really good stuff there, and I want to get paid for it.  I trust myself to know if something's worth holding onto or ditching.

What is your main source of reading-based inspiration (especially you essayists)? Blogs? Magazines? Journals? Anthologies? Book of essays by one writer?

I don't read fiction for inspiration.  The essays I write are inspired by current events, usually.  When I'm not reading fiction, I'm reading newspapers, news sites, magazine articles, and other pieces of political interest.

What tends to spark ideas more for you: what you see/hear in daily life or what you read?

I don't know.  I've never measured that and don't know what the terms for calculating it might be.  My ideas come from my sick, sick id.

Who have you read in the past year or two that you feel is completely brilliant but so underappreciated?

I've recently started writing book reviews for Ginger Nuts of Horror, the UK's largest indie horror website.  Any of the four or five-star reviews written there will point you to brilliance that needs to be appreciated more.  My fellow reviewers there are extremely sharp and know good books from bad.

Without listing anything written by Dani Shapiro, Anne Lamott, Lee Gutkind, or Natalie Goldberg, what craft books are “must haves”?

Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish, Artisan Breads Every Day by Peter Reinhart, and Dough by Richard Bertinet are all extraordinary craft books on the art of baking bread, and- oh.  You mean books on writing.  I don't know.  I don't own any, nor have I read any.  I read a lot every day, both fiction and non-fiction.  Does that count?

Have you ever regretted having something published? Was it because of the content or the actual writing style/syntax?

I would like to rewrite The Ultimate Guide to Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse some day, as I'm a much better writer now than I was in 2010, when it was published.  But I don't regret it or anything else I've published.

Forbearance and Who We Are

I'm going to wade into the ugly lake of politics here, but not in the way you might think.  What follows might upset you.  If it does, ask yourself why.

I was lucky enough to find Sonny Bunch's essay on the concept of forbearance in the Washington Free Beacon.  If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it as an incisive piece, something that you can find yourself nodding along with as you absorb it (or, as my little boy says, "think about it with your brain").

There's a lot to it, but one takeaway is this: just because someone throws you a pitch, you don't have to swing at it.  Even on social media.

I'm as much into politics and current events (the two are inseparable) as anyone, and more than most.  My political/philosophical viewpoint has been honed by personal experience, research, and careful reflection.  Regular readers of this blog know that I like to strip away euphemism to get to the heart of things.  To dig deep.  You grow when you're made to feel uncomfortable.  I like to write fiction, but I won't live it.

One of the reasons I write this blog is to stretch myself, to write about things I hadn't before, like short stories/flash fiction, or war stories from my past employer.  But I'm also here to create that all-important writer's platform: a place where people can find me online and learn about my books.  The dirty little secret nobody in writing wants to tell anyone is that the vast majority of writers don't want to blog, Facebook, or get involved in any kind of social media.  They just want to write their books, and they want you to buy them.

Honestly, I can't stand Twitter.  I loathe it.  But it's a social media box to check, so I'm there and I participate.

With all that in mind, I have strong, informed opinions about the issues of the day, but I won't communicate all of them here. This blog, first and foremost, is about building a relationship with you, my readers, and if I tell you exactly what I think about, say, the recent election returns, half of you will be turned off.

So despite that I want to talk about what's going on with Ebola in the US, what happened a week ago on Election Day, and other such things, I can't.  I shouldn't.  I...forbear.  Even though controversy and disagreement get attention.

See, I'm not this guy:

Huge amounts of snow in Maine yesterday! Republican voters should probably stay home tomorrow, safe & dry! HAHAHAHAHA.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) November 3, 2014

As jokes go, it's weak sauce, and even King himself saw that, hence the HAHAHAHA.  However, I'm quite familiar with his other non-fiction pieces, and I know for a fact that he thinks that people to the right of him politically are not only stupid, but actually evil.  He's allowed.  Just as I'm allowed to find my horror literature elsewhere.

I understand that it's very difficult to forbear when you're certain that the people who disagree with you are actively trying to destroy the world.  It's like making friends with a murderer.  The idea, however, that refusal to invest in failing green energy businesses means that you're in favor of ruining the planet with global warming is a false equivalency, and descends into the lack of a sense of proportion that I already talked about.  Achieving that sense of proportion and combining it with forbearance create a grace we used to have before instantaneous, semi-anonymous communication changed us into, well...take your pick of rude words.  We've changed as a culture, and not for the better.

Just because we disagree, even on the important things, it doesn't mean one of us is an evil idiot.

Forbearance is very much a prized quality, more so for its rarity.  It's something to work on, because it inspires grace and civility, even in the most heated communications media.