Dark Things Rising

What I do

2012-02-27T21:19:00.000-06:00

I’ve been enjoying myself these past few months with these blog entries. Hopefully I’ve been as entertaining to all my readers as well…because it would be kind of sad and pathetic if I were only amusing myself…again… I also hope you’ve taken the time to check out my books. They are, after all, the whole reason I started this blog.

If you’ve been reading all my posts, you probably have a good idea of what my books are about, even if you haven’t found the time to read any of them yet. But I seem to find myself again and again on the subject of the identity of my books. What are they? Are they horror? Are they adventure? When I refer to them as “dark” what exactly does that mean? I know that I’ve posted on this subject before, fretting about how to better market my work and how to clearly identify it for its appropriate audience. But I’m simply not convinced that I’ve found the best way to describe my work. I’ve found myself in a number of conversations lately in which this subject has come to light. One conversation in particular stands out to me.

Recently, I was contacted by an old friend of mine who had finally got around to reading The Box. He wasted no time—and certainly no words—in telling me how much he utterly hated it. Now I’d like to state for the record that this is perfectly fine by me. I didn’t throw a tempter tantrum or lock myself in my room and refuse to come to dinner. I didn’t respond that he was clearly a deranged and ignorant simpleton who obviously had no idea what good writing looked like. I would obviously never think anything like that… I didn't even point out the dozen 4- and 5-star reviews my work has recieved from readers who clearly would disagree with his opinions. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel it deep down in my soul. It was, after all, the first and, as I write this, the only bad review I’ve ever received. And the first one always stings the worst. But it wasn’t as if I wasn’t prepared for it. I’d been bracing myself for that first scathing review since I began writing. It doesn’t matter how good a writer you are, there’s always someone who won’t like your work. But I hadn’t expected such raw negativity from someone I considered a friend. As such, I didn’t know how to respond at first. I did not intend to defend my work. It was clear to me that he despised it and I didn’t want to come off as defensive. That seemed childish. I simply thanked him for his feedback. But my failure to respond must have seemed far harsher than any retaliation I could have verbalized, because he soon contacted me again, concerned that I must utterly loathe him now. He continued to defend his opinion, which he is certainly entitled to, by telling me in more detail what he thought was wrong with it. However, as he told me all the things he didn’t like about it, and all the things he would rather have seen done, it became apparent that we were envisioning two entirely different novels right from the start. He wanted the characters to possess unspeakable inner demons. He wanted them to be repressing dark desires, to be self-loathing. He wanted them to secretly desire to hurt each other. He wanted them to be psychologically broken by the horrors they encountered, to suffer, to feel indescribable anguish. He hated that the characters had the option of turning back at any point and that they didn’t transform into depraved monsters as they ventured deeper into the temple. Yuck! I hated everything he suggested. I was quick to respond that these things would have ruined the book for me, that their ability to turn around was a part of their story, that the discoveries made by the reader hinged on their ability to summon the courage to keep moving forward. I argued that the reader is supposed to relate to my characters, feel for them, even love them, not wish to see them psychologically tortured into madness. It seems that when I referred to the story as a “dark adventure,” he immediately jumped to the assumption that I meant for the content of the book to be utterly black.

Is this what people think when I use the term “dark adventure?” Do people think my work is disturbingly grim and bleak? Does the word “dark” already possess such connotation that the work attached to it must be the blackest, most obscene material imaginable? I consider my work to be on the lighter side of horror. I hesitate to call The Temple of the Blind horror alone because I don’t want people thinking it’s going to be all nightmares and monsters. It should appeal to fans of Stephen King, but also to fans of a wide range of horror, suspense, adventure, mystery and even romance.

So what is the best designation for what I write? My short stories tend to be typical horror tales, but when I pour my efforts into a full-sized novel, the story tends to grow beyond those boundaries. Is it still horror? Is it dark adventure? Is it suspense? Thriller? Or is it merely supernatural fiction? And does it really matter what I choose to label it? Does it make any difference? The story remains the same. The trick, as always, is how do I get more people to read it? How do I convince the world that my book is a good read?

In time, I’ll sort out all the pieces. As my audience grows and I gain more reviews both glowing and scathing, I’ll begin to understand what works and what doesn’t. For now all I can do is keep writing and hope that my readers keep talking about my work.

http://www.amazon.com/Brian-Harmon/e/B004YYT16W

http://www.amazon.de/Brian-Harmon/e/B004YYT16W

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/brianharmon/?ref=brianharmon

I Made It All Up!

2012-02-10T21:24:00.000-06:00

I was thinking lately that I never put one of those disclaimer things in any of my books. You know, the ones that clearly state that this is a work of fiction, that all characters are made up and the book’s plot never actually happened to anyone anywhere. I guess I simply assumed that it should go without saying that a book about a mysterious labyrinth full of monsters hidden far beneath a small, modern metropolis and an endlessly sprawling forest swarming with zombies was not a record of actual events. But then again, I also recently expressed my concern about the growing number of stupid people in the world and that they will undoubtedly eventually be the end of us all… So maybe I should make an official declaration confirming my work is, in fact, entirely fictional.

After pondering over this for a while, I decided to have a little fun and write up a few of these disclaimers, but in an amusing style. It was a great writing exercise and I was very pleased with my results. I enjoyed myself so much, in fact, that I ended up writing more than thirty of them. But then I was faced with the question of what to do with all of them. In the end, I decided to simply list them here on my blog for everyone to enjoy.

…So here they are. Enjoy.

From the desk of author Brian Harmon:

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. Should you find any resemblance to yourself or someone you know, you’re probably a sad and lonely individual in desperate need of the company of an actual human being. You should really think about attending some sort of social activity. I mean it. People think you’re creepy.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. The world doesn’t revolve around you, you know. Get over yourself.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. They’re not real. Like that hot girlfriend you claimed you had in high school.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. Should you find any resemblance to yourself or someone you know, perhaps the problem is that you know far too many people. Seriously, back it off a little. People are going to think you’re easy.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. Please don’t attempt to contact them. They probably wouldn’t like you anyway, all getting into other people’s business and stuff.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. You didn’t actually think it was real, did you? How gullible are you? People must take advantage of you all the time.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. If you see your name in the pages of my book, I either have never met you or you weren’t worth remembering. Either way, it’s not about you. So, again, get over yourself.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. Except for any really cool stuff that gets hot women really turned on. That actually happened to me.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. But the subliminal messages I hid in the text were real.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. So are you. I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. It’s all just an unattainable fantasy…like understanding women.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. You’re not as attractive or as interesting as the characters you claim resemble you. Seriously, you need to get over yourself.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. Should you find any resemblance to yourself or someone you know, it is nothing more than a really freaky coincidence and just means that you or the someone you know is probably exceptionally awesome.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. It’s all completely made up. Except for that one character who was a real A-hole. You know who you are. And you saw what happened to you, so you’d better give me that twenty bucks you owe me.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. They’re like Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends. Everything’s fake. But you still want to open the cover and look inside.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. According to my psychiatrist, I just made it all up and my life really isn’t that interesting.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. Especially all the hot, naked women. Otherwise, my wife would’ve murdered me by now.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. It’s like the Jersey Devil or the Chupacabra. But not Bigfoot. He’s real. And he makes the best snicker doodles.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. I lied, okay! Get over it!

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. You don’t actually know them. You just think you do because I’m such a damn good writer.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is all in your head. You should really get some psychiatric help. It’s not normal.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. But the cool stuff is all based on me.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. It was all a chocolate truffle cheesecake induced dream.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. It’s not real. It’s not real. The doctor says it’s not real…

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. Otherwise it would have to be about real life. And I don’t do reality very well.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. It’s only a coincidence that the victim in chapter nine who died the terrible, agonizing death resembled my old boss.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. It’s just like those things you tell women in hopes of getting them to sleep with you. And no, it doesn’t work for me, either.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. Except for the “About the Author” stuff. Most of that is true.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. The people aren’t who they claim to be and nothing ever actually gets done. It’s a lot like congress, really.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. I’m way too interesting and attractive to adequately describe in a book, so I just made some stuff up.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. Sorry to disappoint you. But on the bright side, so is Twilight.

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. And if I had based any of the characters on a real person, I certainly wouldn’t have studied them thoroughly by way of hidden, closed-circuit cameras. I mean that would just be weird…

*All characters and events within my work are fictional. If you should find yourself experiencing things that happened in one of my books, you should probably be concerned. Especially if it’s a scene that didn’t end well for your character. Someone with excellent taste in reading material might be out to get you.

I hope this clears up any doubts you may have had. If not, then I just don’t know what to tell you.

Hot Naked Women!

2012-01-23T21:53:00.000-06:00

Now that I’ve got your attention… (Don’t deny it. You’re here, aren’t you? Just curious, were you? I’m sure you were.) My wife and I were having a discussion today about the old adage that “sex sells” and the fact that my blog stats clearly show the most visited entry of all time to be the one titled “Making the Naughty List.” (Here’s the link, since you’ll probably be “curious” about that one, too: http://darkthingsrising.blogspot.com/2011/09/making-naughty-list.html) My regular visitors might remember that post being about graphic material—both sexual and violent—within my writings. I made it clear that I don’t set out to produce graphic content, but that I also make no effort to quash this kind of subject matter when the plot progresses in that direction. I tend to describe my work as horror, suspense, adventure and mystery, stressing these areas to draw new readers. I am careful to mention the sexual aspects of the story in the summary of The Box, openly telling potential readers in the plot summary that “their clothes lost in a moment of strange lust, they find themselves forced to navigate the unearthly stone corridors naked and vulnerable.” I want to be sure that no one who is easily offended by sex and nudity stumbles unwitting into my story. If I should get a bad review, so be it, but I’d rather not receive one simply because the reader is honked off at being waylaid by an unwanted sex scene. But otherwise, I’ve always downplayed the sexual content in my marketing, choosing to try and separate my work from the ill-perceived erotica categories. I’ve never actively advertised my books as “sexy” or “steamy.” But sometimes I wonder if I should.

When I first launched my author page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/BrianHarmonBooks, for those who haven’t been there and “liked” me yet), I went in search of other independent horror writers with author pages, thinking I would insert myself into a community and hopefully get a quick boost for my still-infantile social network. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to find in the way of independent horror. Instead, I ended up having “liked” a bunch of paranormal romance writers and fans. Don’t get me wrong, these are fine people and I wish them the best, but they weren’t very much interested in my mostly non-romantic books and I wasn’t very much interested in their mostly vampire-heavy bodice-rippers. But I did notice that words like “steamy” and “spicy” and “sultry” were tossed around a lot in those circles. I found myself wondering if there might be another market out there for my books if I simply came out and instead described the plot with phrases like “inexorably thrust together into an unexpected explosion of unbridled passion” and “lost utterly in a fiery fury of intense and smoldering desire.” Sounds kind of corny, I know, but I feel like there is a noticeable sentimentality for this kind of dramatic romance.

In book three of The Temple of the Blind the cast has grown to four characters, all of whom, by the end of chapter seven, are navigating the dark passageways in the nude. I’ve not openly advertised this part of the plot as I have no desire to be perceived as the guy who writes books about naked people…although my titles so far do seem to suggest it as a common theme, when I stop and think about it… (Really, not all my books will contain sexual content.) But would more readers be drawn to this book to read about a cute blonde and a hot brunette and two really attractive guys attempting to seek out the answer to an ancient and dangerous mystery while clad in nothing but their birthday suits? I have to wonder if that would lead to more book sales than the promise of finding out what lies beyond the fear room…

Then again, would drawing attention to the sexual elements in my books frighten away more readers than it would bring in? After all, the books are not about sex. They are not really erotic. They merely contain some erotic content. Even when the characters are nude, it is mostly downplayed. It’s not as if I spend the entire narrative describing…things. (I promise I have not used the word “jiggle” even once so far.) Perhaps, then, it would bore a reader who only purchased it for the dirty bits while those who would not have been bothered by the actual amount of sex in the book might be given the impression that it is far smuttier than it really is and pass it by without giving it a chance. So the question really is does sex sell?

I also have to wonder what exactly it is that defines a book as erotic. Is it the amount of sexual content? Or is it the graphic nature of the sexual content? The language itself? My wife once commented that my use of the word “thrusting” might have been all it needed to put it into the erotic category. But I thought I kept it rather tasteful, considering the circumstances of the scene.

I suppose it doesn’t really matter how I choose to market the book. The content remains what it is. If you read The Temple of the Blind, you will find steamy sex. You will find romance. You will find hot naked women and men. You will also find an engaging mystery and terrifying suspense at every turn. You will find lots of things. So whether you’re looking for a good read or just…“curious”… I hope you’ll check it out, if you haven’t already. And let’s face it, you did just read a blog post titled “Hot Naked Women!”

My Amazon Author Page (for the “curious” ones): http://www.amazon.com/Box-Book-One-Temple-Blind/dp/1463616295

How the World Ends

2012-01-17T21:39:00.000-06:00

The year 2012 is upon us! Destruction is nigh! Doom! Armageddon! Wrath of God! Cats and dogs living together! Mass hysteria!

…I, for one, am not ready to start stocking my bunker just yet. We’ve been through this before, you know. Y2K. Hale-Bopp. That Harold Camping guy back in May and then again in October. The Spice Girls breaking up. We’ve endured all manner of doom. We even saw Janet Jackson’s nipple on live television and somehow the world kept turning!

I will continue my writing long after the Mayan Calendar finishes its doomsday countdown. You will continue to read my books, uninterrupted by earthquakes, geomagnetic reversals or zombies. The earth will spin merrily away, undisturbed by Nibiru or Planet X or Nemesis or Krypton or whatever the hell is supposed to be lurking out there.

There will be no fire and brimstone, no comet of death, no ice age, no solar disaster, no horsemen of the apocalypse. I can tell you how the world will end. I’ve known it for years. And it won’t be pretty. Pray tell, you say? How will the world end, you ask? What eventual doom awaits us all? I warn you, it’s not for the squeamish. But if you’re bold enough to handle the truth, I will tell you…

The world will end by DE-EVOLUTION.

That’s right. De-evolution. Just look around you. Aren’t there considerably more stupid people in the world today than there were a hundred years ago? Do you watch the news? Do you see the people you work with? Have you ever worked with customers in retail? Haven’t you noticed that something is very much amiss in the gene pool?

Oh, sure, it’s not as action-packed as the sky falling down around us. It’s no glorious, fire-belching super volcano. It wouldn’t make a very exciting movie. After all, it’s simply not going to happen all at once. It’s going to take a long, long time. But mark my words: when there’re no more jobs in telemarketing, the incompetent will walk the earth!

It’s our own fault, really. We’ve created such a safe and comfortable society. We have seatbelt and helmet laws. We have workplace safety regulations. We have redundant procedures on everything that could possibly cause anyone harm. It’s harder and harder these days for evolution to take its natural course and kill off all the stupid people. It’s supposed to be survival of the fittest, isn’t it? That’s how evolution works. The more suited for survival the individual is, the better he fares, the longer he lives, the more offspring he sires, the more he contributes to the evolution of the species. The stupid animals are supposed to get eaten.

Perhaps this is the price of climbing to the top of the food chain. Perhaps this is nature’s way of limiting the term of office for the apex predator. It makes sense, I suppose. And we probably have it coming for knocking off those dodos…

Yes, it’s going to get quite ugly in the next few centuries. But this certainly won’t be our final year.

…Unless, of course, the stupid people have already found the warheads…

First Year's End

2011-12-30T23:37:00.000-06:00

As December draws to a close, so does 2011. A lot has happened these past twelve months. Last year at this time, in the final hours of 2010, none of this existed. Dark Things Rising was not even a thought in my mind. My return to publishing was merely a dream collecting dust. My work sat unread within the aging files of my computer, unheard of, unloved.

It began with my website, www.HarmonUniverse.com. A simple name, I know. Rather uncreative, but it can be difficult to pick a domain name that appeals greatly to you and is not already owned. And besides, I like to think that, as a hub for my marketing efforts, “Harmon Universe” sums everything up quite nicely. The whole thing was, quite honestly, my wife’s idea. (She’s awful smart that way.) At the time, it was little more than a starting point, a launch pad, I thought, for advertising my writing. It was originally to be a gallery of free short stories, assembled with the hope of building a small fan base and maybe even attracting an agent. It wasn’t until I began to contemplate selling my novels from my website that I discovered the miraculous world of independent publishing. Before I knew it, book one of The Temple of the Blind was available for purchase on ereaders worldwide. …And how ironic is it that I now realize my website is the most neglected of all my publishing tools? I haven’t updated it nearly enough these past few months. I’ve promised myself to give it more attention as I journey forward.

Now, as the year draws to an end, I sit here in a cloud of contemplation, reflecting on what I’ve accomplished. I’ve released four books in my dark adventure series this year, both in digital and print formats, as well as the recent collection of short stories. I’m not going to lie and tell you that I consider my writing career a runaway success. I’m afraid you won’t find me at the top of any bestseller lists this holiday season. However, I do consider 2011 to be a successful year. Just check out my reviews on Amazon. I’ve collected a number of fans… It’s not a large number… I mean there’s definitely more than zero… And my book sales have been…well…existent. Most months… Still, I remain confident that my name will grow, that more and more fans will eventually find me. I still have so much I wish to share, so many more stories, so many more adventures. But it can be so hard to wait, can’t it?

Looking forward again, 2012 should be a great year. Look for the final two books of The Temple of the Blind and maybe even another short story collection. I also have a new novel in the works. And of course I will continue to entertain you here at Dark Things Rising and keep you informed at Harmon Universe. I have only just begun to write!

Thank you to everyone here on this blog who has decided to come along for the ride. Let’s continue to see where this journey takes us.

Buried in the Basement

2011-12-15T18:48:00.000-06:00

They say if you wish to make God laugh, all you have to do is devise a plan. I announced in my last post that Buried in the Basement, my new short story collection, would be available on Friday and that was apparently all I needed to ensure a very busy and distracting week. But have no fear! I had to spend the entire day today working, but I remain on schedule!

Buried in the Basement should be available at Smashwords, Amazon and Barnes & Noble in a matter of hours. It’s difficult to predict exactly when the files will be ready for sale at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, since the review process can take up to 72 hours. I have already uploaded the manuscripts to both of those sites and with any luck they will be ready by morning. Smashwords, by comparison, is usually much faster, requiring only minutes when at its best, but occasionally it does get backlogged. I’ll be uploading it there later tonight. With luck, it’ll actually be available for sale before many of you go to bed.

In the meantime, I’d like to formally pull back the curtain and introduce my new book…

Buried in the Basement

“A creepy collection of six short horror tales by the author of The Temple of the Blind series.

A nice guy finishes last one last time. Robbed of everything he ever loved, Daniel sets out to confront the bringer of flames and put an end to his suffering one way or another. Allan is amused by the prospect of a ghost taking up residence in his modest home…until something begins to take an interest in him as well. A night of illicit passion quickly turns hellish for Roger and his wife’s best friend. Kyle and Cat find themselves all alone in the dark with no memory of how they arrived there…and something unnatural is lurking in the unseen walls around them. After surviving a bizarre fall from a second story window, Jeremy’s life begins to unravel around him as he finds himself and his new friends, Violet and Corey, running for their lives from a strange, black creature.

If you’re a fan of scary stories, you won’t want to miss this collection of tales unearthed from the darkest and most chilling corners of the basement.”

This collection is approximately 44,000 words long and includes the following short stories:

“Low Tide”
“The Man in the Fire”
“From Such Small Things”
“The Hell Within the Heart”
“Children in the Dark”
“Jeremy Fell”

Excited? I know I am! Let’s all try our best to sleep tonight and then have a great release day tomorrow! Then I can get to work on Buried in the Basement 2! I’ve got my shovel!

The Return of the Short Stories

2011-12-11T21:04:00.004-06:00

First of all, I realize that I haven’t updated my blog in a while and I sincerely apologize for the long wait. I’m sure you’ve all been very worried and simply beside yourselves without my delightfully deep and meaningful ramblings on the nature of all things…well…me. But I assure you, it is okay. I’m fine. I’ve returned. Where have I been, you ask? (I’m sure you’re all dying to know.) I’ve simply been busy. Last time I posted, Thanksgiving Day was fast approaching and I was preparing my humble home for company. Soon after, the day of the feast arrived and I began my day of cooking. Unfortunately for me, my invaluable partner, my irreplaceable assistant, my wonderful and brilliant wife, was ailing from the flu and a rather overwhelming ear infection. (Don’t worry, she’s feeling much better now.) Somehow, I managed to neither hurt nor embarrass myself without her help…or at least, no one’s told me that I embarrassed myself, which is good enough for me, I suppose. I did, however, discover a newly invigorated appreciation for my beloved spouse as I was forced to incorporate her share of the day’s chores into my own. (So many potatoes to peel!) And yet, even in her discomfort she still somehow managed to remain a gracious and wonderful host to our guests and even managed to help me prepare the rolls. I was only about an hour behind schedule for all that…and since the Packers game was on in the living room, no one even seemed to notice. After Thanksgiving, and up until now, I’ve been occupying myself with one thing or another. My dear wife’s flu has not fully infected anyone else in the household, although the children and I have all had little ailments that have knocked the energy out of us for a few days on different occasions. We’ve also had a number of other, much smaller parties to plan for. There have been birthdays and family visits. In the future, perhaps I should take a formal leave of things such as this blog during the months of November and December so that I don’t leave you all feeling so abandoned. It really is a very busy time of year for me.

But that’s all done now. I am back at my keyboard. And I’m very proud of you all for being so patient with me. You’ve been so calm and confident. Not one of you sent me a frenzied message begging for news of my whereabouts and assuring me that you were worried sick in my absence. Not even one of you…

But I’m here now, and I bring joyous news! I’m here to announce the return of the short stories!

Yes, that’s right. The short stories are returning. This week!

It’s okay. I know how exciting this must be for you. You can cry. I won’t tell.

This Friday, you can look forward to the release of my brand new book, Buried in the Basement, a collection of dark and scary tales. As I stated before, included in the collection are the four stories previously available through online retailers (and available still through some of the pokier sites, I’ve noticed) as well as two brand new, never-before published short stories. And yes, I said Friday! This Friday. December 16.

So now I’m sure you’re asking yourself, “What am I going to do with myself until Friday?” Well, for starters, you can join my brand new MAILING LIST! That’s right. I have a mailing list. (I feel so grown up!) How can you be on my mailing list, you ask? It’s easy! Simply contact me via my website’s “Contact Me” page. (You can use this link if you don’t feel like looking for it yourself: http://www.HarmonUniverse.com/contactme.) E-mail me your name and e-mail address. That’s it. You don’t have to write me any kind of formal letter. I don’t require any sort of flattery or praise, poetry, marriage proposals, heartfelt declarations of your undying adoration of the genius that is my work. Don’t trouble yourself. Your name and e-mail address is all I need. I won’t spam you. I won’t sell your address. I won’t sign you up for embarrassing newsletters about erectile dysfunction. I’ll simply send you and all my other adoring fans a little message whenever I have news that I think you wouldn’t want to miss. Such as when I have a new book available, for instance.

And check back soon. I’ll be posting more information about Buried in the Basement in the next few days.

The Holidays Are Upon Us

2011-11-14T21:21:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving is fast approaching. Fall is giving way to winter with the first snowfalls. Holiday music can be heard in department stores everywhere. My wife can be heard complaining about holiday music in department stores everywhere. And we all begin to look forward to eating ourselves into a tryptophan- and gravy-induced coma. And for me, that also means it’s time to get off my lazy ass and get to work.

A few years ago I took over the responsibility of Thanksgiving dinner. This was not a burden thrust upon me, understand. I volunteered. I thoroughly enjoy the cooking (and I’m not too bad at it, either, believe it or not). And it’s always nice to have everyone over. I find it fun. And the cooking is really not so much work, especially given that I have the assistance of my wonderful wife, without whom I would never be able to deliver such a magnificent feast. I’m sure that without her I’d probably manage only to hurt myself…or embarrass myself…or embarrassingly hurt myself…

My menu always includes a huge roast turkey and stuffing, homemade mashed potatoes and gravy, made-from-scratch rolls, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and usually enough desert for about four times as many people as would ever possibly show up. I begin working the day before, preparing everything I can ahead of time. Time management was the hardest part of learning to cook for me. When I first started out I could never make everything finish cooking at the same time. There would always be something done way too early or too late. Thanksgiving dinner, however, has to be perfect. I don’t want to disappoint anyone, after all, by screwing up their favorite side and so I’ve turned it into an exercise in patience and meticulous planning.

And still the dinner is not even remotely the hardest part. Before I even begin shopping for my annual feast, I set out to clean every surface of my house. After all, with two children under seven in the house, it seems to be constantly in a state of disarray and there’s always some chore I’ve put off for far too long. Like cleaning the ceiling fan blades, for example. How embarrassing. Usually by Halloween I’ve begun formulating a list of chores to do. And the first thing on this list is to pick up all those toys. The first thing on my children’s list, however, is apparently to put them back on the floor. As quickly as possible. In as many rooms as possible. (They’re really good at it too. I turn my back and playthings are scattered all over the place. I don’t even hear it happen. I swear they’re like little messy ninjas.) I just cleaned the house yesterday and today there are dolls and action figures and cars and Barbie accessories everywhere I look. I don’t understand it. There’s a little plastic Scooby Doo on the living room floor. Daphne’s on the dining room table. Shaggy’s in the bath tub with Polly Pocket… It’s like the aftermath of an epic, Toy Story kegger. Barbie’s passed out in the back of her convertible. Ken’s naked in the closet. Mr. Potato Head is wearing a Cabbage Patch Kids dress. There’s part of an Optimus Prime Halloween costume on top of the fish tank and a Little People school bus in the laundry hamper. There’s a plush Spongebob Squarepants in the refrigerator! How does that even happen? One of Polly’s shoes was inside the sock I pulled out of the dryer this morning. It’s out of control!

Assuming I have any hope of staying ahead of these toy ninjas, I still have to sweep and mop and vacuum and dust. The laundry has to be put away and the dishes absolutely must be clean before I start cooking. I’ll need all the space I can get when I start prepping that turkey.

I’ll save the windows for last, like I always do, in the naïve hope that they will stay clean at least long enough for someone to see them. But, alas, I will barely have the first room done before I turn around to find little hand prints smeared across one or more of the panes. Or perhaps the three-year-old will simply be licking the glass. Again.

And I’ll have turned my back again by this time, so let’s not forget to pick up those toys…

Is it all worth it in the end? Of course it is. I look forward to it all year long, actually. And I have no one to blame but myself for letting those ceiling fan blades get so dusty. But I do wish the ninjas would give it a rest for a while.

And what is going on with Shaggy and Polly in there…?

Free Preview - "Low Tide"

2011-11-12T11:04:00.007-06:00

In anticipation of my new short story collection, and as a thank you to all my fans who keep checking in with me here at Dark Things Rising, I’ve decided to post the first tale from the aforementioned collection right here as a free preview.

Some of you may have already read “Low Tide” as it was among those for sale online until I removed it recently. To you, I say thank you. “Low Tide” was originally published in a little small press magazine called Welcome To NOD in the Spring of 2000, which also turned out to be the final issue for the magazine. As a result, almost no one I knew at the time had the opportunity to read it. Now, more than a decade later, I’m happy to offer it to everyone. I hope you all enjoy it.

Low Tide

by Brian Harmon

There was a strange stillness in the air as the dusty pickup crept onto the empty beach and rumbled slowly to a stop.

A handsome, dark-haired man sat silently behind the wheel for a long moment as he stared through the dusty windshield at the wreckage and debris that surrounded him. It was all that was left of the cabin that had stood in this very spot only a week before.

The storm had moved through very quickly, and had actually come very close to missing the little structure. A few short miles up the beach, the only damage had been a few fallen limbs and some washed-out driveways. “Bad luck,” his friends had called it, but his luck was beyond bad.

Everything had seemed to be going great. Just a year ago, he’d had all that he ever needed: a beautiful wife, a great job that put him rubbing elbows with some of the wealthiest people in the world, exotic cars, plenty of the things that made him feel like he was worth something…like his private cabin on the beach, for example.

He could not help but wonder where it all went wrong, how he lost everything so utterly. It just didn’t seem possible. One day he was making love to his wife in the shower, and then talking about the trip to Paris they had been planning for months as they dried each other off. The next thing he knew, he was sitting on his couch staring at the letter she had left him—the only goodbye she had allowed him—and trying his damnedest not to cry.

Then, to make matters worse, he lost a promotion during his struggle to get over her, and the man who earned that promotion over him wasted no time in letting him go. It wasn’t anything personal. It was simply that his office would look a lot more appealing with the redhead from downstairs sitting at the desk instead of him. After all, he wasn’t qualified to do any of the extra errands for the boss that she supposedly was.

He supposed he could not blame the man. He had the power after all. He’d won the position. It was his decision. That was what being on top was all about. He might’ve done the exact same thing.

Maybe.

One never knew.

At last, he opened the door and stepped out into the warm sunlight. Debris was scattered as far as he could see across the rocky beach. There would be a lot of work to do before this mess was cleaned up. He didn’t think he could afford to have it rebuilt now. He’d probably be forced to sell it and eat the loss.

He kicked some trash from his path and uncovered a broken and muddy picture. He picked it up, letting the water run from the broken frame. Immediately, he recognized it as the picture of his ex-wife that had hung upon the wall in his bedroom. Her face was distorted and scarred upon the paper…not unlike the way he had every right to view her. He thought about dropping the picture back into the mud, even grinding his heel into her washed-out face, but he didn’t. As bitter as he should have been, as he had every right to be, he simply did not have it in his heart to be angry with her. He still missed her far too much. He still loved her.

He knew that he was a sentimental fool but he didn’t care. She had meant everything to him. He placed the picture gently atop a heap of dry debris and walked on through the disaster area of his life.

He was not a stupid man. He knew that it was his own, nice-boy attitude that got him into these predicaments. Nice guys finish last. Everything in his life had always ended up this way. He’d rise to the top of the world, only to be tossed aside by the next guy to arrive.

But it was just his nature. He simply could not see how anything would justify being bitter and mean about things. He wished he could be bitter about things. At least bitterness hurt less than heartache.

He shook his head wearily. He remembered the fight he put up in court to keep the cabin. It was the only thing he had actually cared about at the time. It was just something to hold onto, a lifeboat for his drowning sanity.

“Should’ve kept the Corvette,” he muttered as he stepped through the rubble.

He turned and walked away from the ruins. The past few days—not to mention the past few months—had been so incredibly stressful for him. Right now his head was pounding and he felt that he needed to take a walk. Perhaps the beach could offer some serenity.

The scent of the ocean drifted across the sand and the rocks as he made his way slowly to the shoreline. He stepped over an old tire and kicked aside what might once have been a suitcase. It was surprising what could sometimes wash up onto the shore, especially after a storm.

He lifted his face toward the sky. “Why me?” he asked loudly. “What did I do?”

A giggle rose from the water just ahead of him and he froze, startled. He gazed out into the warm sea. There, a woman sat up to her neck in the surf, staring back at him. Only her tanned face and sandy hair were visible above the soft waves.

“Do you always talk to yourself?” she asked as she grinned up at him.

He could say nothing. He was shocked that there was anyone out here at all, much less the lovely vision he was seeing now.

The woman giggled again. “What? You’ll talk to yourself, but you won’t talk to me?”

“I…I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I…”

“I’m just out for a swim.” She stood up and began walking toward him. He had been shocked to find her there at all, and was astonished to see that she wore no bathing suit. “Want to join me?”

He stared at her as she stepped out of the water, stark naked, and crossed the open beach. The sunlight glistened upon her wet skin as she walked right up to him and placed her hands against his chest. He felt the warm seawater soaking into his shirt.

She was like something from a movie. Her every movement, every gesture, was a masterpiece of beauty, grace and sexuality.

He could say nothing. He stood frozen as the woman slowly unbuttoned his shirt and slid her wet fingers down his chest.

“Come on,” she pleaded. “Live a little. Have fun.”

He looked down at her, studying her. She had a gorgeous body. Her skin was soft and flawless. Her round breasts, still glistening from the surf, shimmered in the gleaming sunlight. Her eyes were brilliant and green. They stared directly into his, bold and unafraid. She was unbelievably beautiful, easily the most perfect woman he’d ever laid eyes on.

She backed away from him, beckoning him with her finger. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

He shook away his excitement and began to remove the rest of his clothes as she dived back into the waves and slowly swam away from him. This was exactly what he needed: a little good luck to ease his bad. And this was good luck. How many guys, he asked himself, go for a walk on a beach and find a beautiful, sex-crazed woman swimming naked in the water? Had it ever happened to anyone before? He was willing to bet it had never happened to that cocky jerk who took his job. Oh, if only he could see this!

He cast his clothes aside and followed quickly after her. He did not want to waste time wondering who she was or why she was here. This was his chance to have a little fun, like she said. This was his chance to live, to do something he had never done before. This was just what he needed!

He swam out into the water, his heart pounding with excitement, following the gorgeous, teasing woman until long after he could no longer touch bottom. Then he stopped and looked around.

The woman was gone.

He turned in a circle, looking, searching every rock and every wave. Where was she? She could not have simply disappeared.

He heard a soft splash behind him and turned, startled to find her right before his eyes. “Were you under water that whole time?” he asked. It seemed to him that she had been under for quite a while, but perhaps it had only been a moment. After all, he’d been busy trying to swim out to her. He wasn’t in the best of shape these days. He couldn’t even remember the last time he swam.

She giggled and moved closer to him. “My friends say I have gills,” she replied.

“You must.”

“You know,” she said as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pushed her naked body against his, “I didn’t expect to see anyone out here.”

“You didn’t?” To his own ears, it sounded like a pathetic reply, childish even, but her eyes only brightened at his obvious astonishment. She seemed amused by him and his fascination with her.

“Must be our lucky day.”

“Must be!” he agreed. He could no longer hold his excitement. He felt like a child on Christmas Morning.

She thrust herself forward and kissed him hard. He could feel himself being pushed under the water, and had to struggle to keep his head above the waves.

She smiled and tugged at his wrist. “Come on. I want to show you something.” Holding onto his hand, she began to descend beneath the surface.

He took a deep breath and followed her into the depths below.

He opened his eyes as the woman led him deeper and deeper into the murky darkness. He could feel the pressure growing at his ears and in his chest, and wondered if he would be able to descend as deep as she wanted him to go. But then his toes dipped into the soft sand and the woman turned to face him again. She pulled him close and pressed her lips to his.

He reached out and grasped her breasts, kneading them with his hungry fingers as she thrust herself eagerly toward him.

This was beyond anything he had ever imagined. He was making love to a gorgeous woman on the ocean floor. This was the sort of thing other men lied about while drinking with their friends. This was the stuff of movies, not of true life…especially not of his life.

But the pressure was growing rapidly in his chest and though he wanted nothing more than to stay with her, he could not. He was not in good enough shape. He could not hold his breath for so long. Reluctantly, he let go of her and began to rise toward the surface.

But she grabbed him by his wrist and pulled him down again. She kissed his neck and his chest, her lips venturing lower and lower as she held him with surprising strength.

He struggled to rise to the surface again, but like before, she would not let him leave.

My friends say I have gills, she had said.

His heart began to thump painfully in his chest. His lungs ached. And yet she had not even begun to look as though she needed to surface. He pulled at her, trying to wrench his hand free from her unyielding grip, but she would not let him go.

She floated just beneath him, gazing up into his eyes, and for the first time, even through the blurry murkiness of the water, he noticed how brilliantly green her eyes were. They seemed almost to glow in the murky depth of the ocean water.

As he stared down at her, she opened her mouth, revealing rows of long and jagged teeth. Terror swallowed him, paralyzing him. In his panic, he wondered absurdly how he had failed to notice them while kissing her. He struggled to pull his hand away from her, but she was so very strong. Valuable breath belched from his mouth and nose as he fought to free himself.

He was certain that he was about to feel those razor-edged teeth in his flesh, but he was wrong about that. She did not snap at him. She did not even move toward him. Instead, something appeared from her throat. A long, tongue-like thing snaked from between her lips and rose toward him, gray and dark, like an eel. It hovered before him for a just a moment and then lashed out at him in the murky depths with the speed of a frog snatching a fly from the air. There was a piercing pain in his stomach, and then something awful was squirming deep inside his belly.

He tried to scream.

On the surface of the water, not far from the beach, the still waves were shattered by the quiet fury of escaping bubbles. Far below, the water became clouded with blood, the blue murkiness filling with the dark red tint of gore as predator and prey struggled in the shallow depths of the sea.

An hour later, the man awoke upon the sand, his body naked and cold with the salty wetness of the sea. Slowly, he stood up and walked shakily back toward his truck. There was a fleshy wound on his stomach, just below his belly button, but it was not nearly as bad as it had been. It was healing fast.

He stopped once to pick up the clothes he had left strewn upon the sand, but did not bother to put them on. He had things to do. His flesh tingled, and he yearned to go back into the sea, but he could not. Not yet. He knew somehow that he only had perhaps a week before he would have to return to the sea and remain there, but in the meantime he had some people to visit. First was his lying, ungrateful bitch of an ex-wife. Second was that high-on-his-horse bastard that had won his promotion and then fired him for his efforts. Then there were others. Maybe that whore redhead who slept her way into his old office. And plenty more. He would make them all pay. He would make them all hurt. Then he would return to his princess of the deep.

As he walked, a long, snaky thing emerged from his throat and nimbly brushed the sand from his ear.

Where Have All the Short Stories Gone?

2011-11-06T00:41:00.003-05:00

For any of you who might not have noticed, my short stories have been removed from many of my author pages. I know, I know, what kind of person wouldn’t have noticed such a thing? I’m sure all of you have been sitting there at your computers, wringing your hands, wondering desperately where all the short stories have gone. But perhaps one or two people haven’t yet noticed. Let’s not judge them. I’m sure their reason was quite life-threatening. It’s perfectly okay.

Now, let me assure you that you have no reason to panic. The short stories will be back. That’s right, it’s okay. Take a moment to compose yourself and then I will explain everything…

I would like to start by saying thank you to everyone who bought my short stories while they were available. I hope that you all enjoyed them. However, I’ve chosen to pull those titles from their virtual shelves in order to consolidate them into a single collection which I expect to release sometime this month. This is solely a marketing decision, as the individual short stories were not selling as well as I’d like to see. It seems that collections of short stories may be much more popular, which is no big surprise, since they tend to be much better values.

For anyone who missed out on any of my titles for any reason—strange as such reasons must surely be—have no fear. All four short stories will be available in the new collection along with two brand new short stories never seen anywhere before.

I hope that I have eased your minds and made it a little easier for you to sleep tonight. Except that now you are no doubt incredibly excited about my new short story collection and wondering about this amazing special offer I have teased to you. Sorry about that. If you simply cannot wait, remember that “The Man in the Fire” remains free to read on my website at http://www.HarmonUniverse.com/themaninthefire, so if you haven’t read it, head over there right now and check it out.

Book Four is Here!

2011-10-24T21:28:00.000-05:00

Road Beneath the Wood (The Temple of the Blind #4) is now available!

Now, I know you’re all excited, but just take it easy. We don’t want anyone to hurt themselves. Let’s all just calmly head on over to Amazon’s Kindle store at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005YNO0JK or to Barnes & Noble’s Nook books at http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/e/2940013307056 or you can just go to Smashwords for any format you want at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/98599/?ref=brianharmon and everyone can get a copy. Then you can all tell all your friends how great it is and they can all buy a copy, too. And so on and so forth…

…Go on now.

…You don’t have to be that calm about it. You can hurry a little.

…

(Why won’t anyone ever humor me?)

Oh well. Enjoy the book when you get to it and feel free to leave a message and let us all know what you think.

Sneak Peak: ROAD BENEATH THE WOOD

2011-10-16T16:43:00.013-05:00

I have a special treat today for all my followers here at Dark Things Rising: A sneak peak at my upcoming book, Road Beneath the Wood! This is book number four in The Temple of the Blind series and I expect it to release sometime this week at Smashwords, Kindle and B&N. But just for my adoring fans here on my blog (humor me) I have for you today the entire first chapter!

If you’d like to sample the first chapters of books one, two and three, head over to my website at http://www.HarmonUniverse.com/templeoftheblind and check them out. But I’m sure most of you have already read each of those books half a dozen times by now (again, humor me). For those of you who haven’t read through the end of book three (I’m sure there was some sort of horrible catastrophe you were swept up in) feel free to stop reading right here and go get caught up. This blog post will still be here when you get back. If you’re just too darn impatient to wait until you’ve caught up, I’ve tried my best not to spoil too much. But I always like a story better when I have no idea what’s going to happen, so if you’re like me, I won’t blame you if you skip the rest of this post.

In this fourth installment of my epic horror, adventure and suspense series, we find Wayne where we last left him, alone, separated from his friends, and facing a profoundly intimidating task…

Book Description for Road Beneath the Wood:

“Always close one seal before opening another. Never linger long in one place. Do not touch the roots of the trees that grow in the Wood. If you see something in the darkness, do not investigate it. If anything should call your name while you are down here, do not answer. You must ignore these things. When you pass a stone marker in the road, you must not look back. This is important. No matter what you hear or feel, you must not look back. You must not stop walking and you must not run. Do nothing but walk straight ahead until you pass the second marker. If you fail to do this, you will die. Only after passing the second marker may you look back. The things in this tunnel are imaginary as long as you don’t prove them otherwise…”

Separated from his companions, Wayne stands alone as he prepares to take his first steps on a journey through a terrifying, personal hell. The dark and ancient tunnel that lies before him will test his courage to its very limits, and force him to face even himself. The rules have been explained to him, but can he really ignore these “imaginary” things to save his own life? And even if he is strong enough to endure this torturous road, does he have what it takes to survive what lies beyond? The things that lurk in the Wood are not imaginary. It is a place of immeasurable darkness and despair, a place where death is eternal, but never final…

Can he overcome the fearsome road before him, survive the unthinkable horrors that await him in the black forest beyond and finally fulfill the promise he thought he had failed to keep?

And now, Chapter One of Road Beneath the Wood:

Wayne did not know how long he had lain upon the cold, dirt floor of the tunnel before consciousness finally returned to him.

He sat up, struggling to orient himself. He was cold and naked and filthy. He felt dizzy, his thoughts sluggish as he struggled to rise from his unnatural sleep. He did not know what the “gift” was that the Sentinel Queen gave him, but he was fairly sure that it was nothing he’d wanted. His body felt weighted, as though he’d performed some great physical feat, and there was a cold dampness upon his body that made him feel even dirtier than the reeking, rotten sludge that was dried upon his skin and clotted in his thick, black hair.

He’d been through hell tonight already. First, he was attacked by that thing inside Gilbert House. Then he’d walked for hours, naked, through miles of dark passages within the Temple of the Blind, collecting cuts and bruises along the way and battling to the brink of exhaustion his own fear. He’d even trudged through that disgusting lake of foul-smelling mud, only to end up at the mercy of a long, freakish woman with no face.

He was not so much seduced by her as raped, and that feeling was like a vile worm wriggling around inside his guts.

Even his dreams had seduced him. He dreamt of Laura Swiff, naked and lusting, her voluptuous body glistening with sweat. He dreamt about Nicole Smart, her amazing breasts bare and pressed against his skin as she gazed up at him with a naughty gleam in her sexy eyes. He dreamt about Olivia Shadey, her sweet face gazing up at him, pleading with him as he reached out to touch her.

He even dreamt about Gail Porbin.

He hadn’t let himself think about Gail in a very long time, but as his dreams began to break apart and he felt himself rising toward consciousness, he found himself remembering her vividly. She was a time in his life that seemed very far away, though the years between now and then were not so many.

Gail was a confident girl, a member of the volleyball team, well liked by her friends and well admired by the boys. She was petite, with a gorgeous figure, and the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. Back then, she was everything he’d ever wanted. She was beautiful, popular, sexy, free-spirited, easy going…but in the end he’d let her go. It had been much easier to break up with her than to go off to college without her. He’d set himself free of that leash and prepared for a new life with new friends, new women and new opportunities. At least, these were the things he told himself every night as he lay in bed waiting for peaceful, unthinking sleep.

His flashlight was lying next to him, still on, still intact. He vaguely remembered dropping it when the Sentinel Queen advanced on him. He rubbed at a dull pain in his temple and looked around. The walls of this tunnel, as well as the floor, changed abruptly from smooth stone to coarse dirt and rock about halfway between the first and second seals. He was sitting on the dirt, only a short distance from where the stone ended, close enough to see both seals without picking up the flashlight. He was alone. The Sentinel Queen was gone.

Behind him, the first seal was tightly closed again.

He stood up and walked back to this first seal, leaving the flashlight on the floor. This side of the stone was also covered with those odd carvings, but there was no circle like there had been on the other side. He ran his hands over the surface. It was hard and cold. He pushed, but it would not budge. Like it or not, he was locked in. He could only go forward.

He walked back to the place where he’d been lying when he awoke and picked up his flashlight. Ahead of him, there stood another heavy slab of stone, the second of the fourteen ancient seals he had been told about. On the left-hand side, amidst the shapes and lines and symbols that were carved into it, was a single circle, about ten inches in diameter.

He tried first to push outside the circle, to move the great stone slab without the trick he’d been shown. The seal might as well have been a mountain. Several tons of solid stone stood against his bare hands and would not budge. But when he put his hand inside the circle, the seal withdrew as though intimidated, rotating on its center with the ease of a well-oiled gate. There was a sound as it moved, the coarse grinding of tons of stone across the floor, the sound one would expect to hear while performing such a feat, but the effort was absent, as though he were not actually moving the stone, but watching someone else do it.

Beyond the second seal, the tunnel stretched away into the darkness. He could not see the third seal from here, only a dense blackness that hovered ahead of him, almost mocking him.

Always close one seal before opening another, the Sentinel Queen had told him, and he quickly found that he could push the seal closed from the other side without the circle. It turned without effort until it was flush with the wall, and then it would budge no more, regardless of where he pushed. He wondered how these seals worked, but he did not dwell upon it long. Having permanently closed this one, he felt a quiet sort of anxiousness building within him. What exactly was he locking himself inside?

But there was no turning back. From the start there was nowhere to go but forward. The Sentinel Queen made sure of that when she left him in the tunnel and locked the first seal between them.

He turned and began his long walk into the ominous, looming darkness as a feeling of deep apprehension began to grow inside his gut. He had no idea what awaited him ahead. He had no idea if there was anything on the other side of the darkness but lonely death. He had no clothes, no supplies, no weapons with which to defend himself. He had nothing at all except blind faith and desperate hope that somehow he could overcome this challenge and fulfill the promise he made.

Never linger long in one place. Do not touch the roots of the trees that grow in the Wood. If you see something in the darkness, do not investigate it. If anything should call your name while you are down here, do not answer. You must ignore these things. These were the warnings of the Sentinel Queen, exactly as she had spoken them, and remembering them now, Wayne felt an icy shiver run up his back. The things in this tunnel are imaginary as long as you don’t prove them otherwise…

He had a terrible feeling that this journey was going to test his courage far more than the fear room ever could.

Intrigued? Look for Road Beneath the Wood at online bookstores soon. That is, if you’re brave enough…

Why Indie?

2011-10-10T21:01:00.003-05:00

Why do I self-publish? Why set my work adrift in the uncertain seas of the independent author market when I could hand it over to a traditional publishing company? Why do I single-handedly shoulder the sometimes overwhelming burden of managing every detail of my book’s existence, from copyediting to publicity? People tell me, “You’re work is amazing! You’re too good an author to do all that work yourself!” …well, okay, so nobody’s ever actually said that to me…
…not in precisely those words… ...or any words, really... …but it would be nice if someone did…

Admittedly, I’ve had some difficulty finding publishers and agents to handle The Temple of the Blind. I’ve collected quite a few rejection letters. The book’s size was probably an issue. Clocking in at over 300,000 words, it’s a hefty manuscript. Another issue was likely that the story failed to conform to well-known formulas. It is not, for example, a murder mystery staring a quirky, lovable and relatable sleuth surrounded by a delightfully eccentric myriad of suspects. It is not a tale of a spunky and quick-thinking hero forced to match wits with a sadistic and brilliant killer in order to survive. I never picked up any popular book and said to myself, “I’m going to write something that will appeal greatly to this book’s fans.” As a result, I don’t have a convenient, preexisting fan base that would appeal to a potential publisher.

I did not, however, choose independent publishing because I gave up on traditional publishing. My decision was not a last resort. For one thing, I haven’t collected nearly enough rejections to convince me that the book is not good enough. I still think that I’m a good writer…even if readers of my blog and Facebook page and Twitterings still haven’t taken my not-so-subtle hints and showered me with embarrassing praise as yet… I simply haven’t found that agent or editor who sees the potential in the work that I do. If I feel bad when I look at the number of rejections I’ve accumulated, it is because I should have gathered many more than I have.

My failure was that I was afraid to let go of it. I’d heard so many horror stories about new authors being taken in by publishing scams that I was reluctant to trust anyone. And even the reputable publishing companies rarely lived up to the expectations of a bright-eyed new author. All the articles I’d read about publishing seemed to have the same underlying message: Don’t get your hopes up. First, I should expect rejections. Many, many rejections. Mountains of rejections. Seriously, a whole, freaking heap, more than you can even imagine, boxes stacked to the ceiling, warehouses full of rejections. Okay. Got it. I expected rejections. I embraced rejection, faced it head-on. I even wanted to get a big red stamp that said REJECTED so that I could stamp each envelope before I filed them away with the others, but my wife wouldn’t let me. Something about retaining “optimism” toward my work… I thought I was being optimistic. To me, it was about viewing every rejection as a stepping stone toward getting published.

Secondly, there’s what happens once you finally do get published. New authors have no control over their books. Contrary to popular belief, a publishing contract does not throw open the doors to all your hopes and dreams. Even if I make it through the gauntlet of editors and agents and somehow get my book made, I retain absolutely no say in what they do with it. I might hate the cover, for example. And I certainly shouldn’t expect to see my book on every shelf. I’m not going to be distributed as widely as the big name authors. Not even remotely. Hardly at all, in fact. They’re not going to advertise your book for you. Why would they? They could use that money to advertise an author they already know makes them money. And really, wouldn’t you do the same?

You have to go out on your own and sell your book. You have to convince the bookstores to carry it. You have to convince readers to give your book a chance, even though they’ve never heard of you before. You’ll spend a lot of your own time and money, likely only to see your book out of print in a few short years and nothing left to show for it. Unless you bought something nice with that cash advance…like a big TV…then I guess you’ll still have that…but you don’t have anything else…

Depressing, isn’t it? I thought so. But by independently publishing, I get to be my own publisher. I get to control it all, from distribution to cover design to deciding how long it remains up for sale. And I was going to have to do all that marketing work anyway. True, I don’t get a fat cash advance (no big TV for me) and I don’t have access to a trained copyeditor to review my work for difficult-to-find errors, which means my book ends up less perfect than it otherwise might have. (Potentially embarrassing!) But these days I can put my work out there with virtually no overhead costs.

So do I self publish because I think it’s the only way my work will ever see print? Absolutely not. Do I do it to stick my middle finger to big publishing? Well… No. No I don’t. I mean… No. Definitely not. …Okay, maybe a little. But no. Not really. There’s still a place for big publishing. And I’m sure someday I’ll sign one of those contracts. (Big TV?) But I’m not bothering myself at this time to seek publishers or agents. For now, I’m focusing on building my name.

So until the rest of the world discovers my titles, I’ll just have to keep working and occasionally stop to bask in all that praise from all you adoring fans…

…You guys aren’t very good at taking hints, you know.

Just Me and My Boy

2011-09-23T22:11:00.000-05:00

Earlier this month, my five-year-old started kindergarten. For her, it means longer school days, longer school weeks and more responsibility than she faced last year in 4k. For me, it means that she’s away from home seven hours a day, Monday through Friday. That’s thirty-five hours with only my three-year-old. Just think how much writing I can get done with so much time! No fighting. No playing rough. No working together to get the cat down off the bookshelf. With only half the distraction, I should be able to get twice the work done on my next book…or so I thought…

Sometimes it really does work like I’d hoped. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes he plays by himself with his toys. Yesterday, he saw me typing on my laptop, so he went and fetched his little toy laptop and pulled up a chair at the table beside me and began banging away at it. One day last week, I was working on a scene that I just wasn’t sure about, so I started at the top of the page and read it aloud to myself to see how it sounded. About halfway down the page, he appeared beside my chair. I reached the end of the scene, satisfied with how it sounded, and he said, “Thank you, Daddy. Thank you for reading your book to me.” These moments are truly priceless. And with my wife teaching an extra class this semester, I’m spending more time alone with my son than ever before and more than ever before, I love being a stay-at-home dad.

But life has a way of balancing things out, doesn’t it? More often than not, I find it impossible to concentrate on my work because he no longer has his sister to entertain him and he wants my attention, often for far longer than I have the stamina to last. And when I’m finally able to convince him to go and play with his toys, I’m quickly reminded of how incredibly annoying a great many of his toys are. Between the tambourine (thanks so much, Uncle Gary) and the harmonica (you too, Grandma) and his talking Star Wars Clone Troopers helmet (…okay so I was the one who got him that…seemed like a good idea at the time…) I simply can’t form coherent thoughts.

Now I find myself constantly struggling to balance work with parenting. For this, nap times have been a blessing, but they’re starting to get shorter and I’m not sure how long he’ll be willing to take naps. Of course, if I turn on the television, he’ll sit and watch quietly, sometimes for a considerably long time, but I don’t like to rely on the television. It’s not a babysitter and I’ve never believed in using it as one…no matter how much I may want to… The remaining option is to keep looking for things to keep him busy when I want to be writing. Not too long ago, I brought out some Play-Doh and let him play with it while I worked. Except for having to stop every few minutes to acknowledge his newest creation, it was quite successful in keeping him entertained…but what a mess! I’m still finding that stuff! I don’t even know how it found its way into the bathroom... And I didn’t realize this before, but if you leave Play-Doh stuck to a hardwood floor overnight, you’ll need a putty knife to clean it up. Oh, and for any new parents out there who still care to try this, be sure to clean it up before lunch. Don’t just move it aside so he can continue playing with it when he’s done eating. It will somehow find its way onto his plate and he won’t like it on his peanut butter sandwich. Alternately, I suppose I could probably keep him busy with crayons for a while…but every time I do that, one of them vanishes…and a new work of art usually appears mysteriously somewhere in the house within a few days. I remain somewhat skeptical about the eyewitness testimony accusing the cat.

I would love to have my own “office hours” for my writing, where I can lock myself in my office and compose and edit my manuscripts in peace and without interruption...but that’s not going to happen as long as I still have a child at home during the day. But on the plus side, I still have a child at home during the day. I’d sure miss those little visits I get when I’m working and someone wants to give me a hug and a kiss…

Kind of makes it all worth it.

Making The Naughty List

2011-09-13T08:35:00.004-05:00

Sex! Have I offended you? If so, I sincerely apologize. And also: SEX! BOOBIES! PENIS!

…There. Now that the easily offended and prudish have been frightened away, the rest of us can have a mature and responsible discussion on the topic of sex in fiction and the psychology of sexual attraction and intercourse as it applies to the various characters and their evolution within the pages.

…And that should have chased off all the pervies who just showed up because they saw the word “sex.” Now on to today’s real discussion.

I do not write young adult any more than I write paranormal romance. I sometimes write about young adults…although mostly older teens. My series, The Temple of the Blind (notice how I shamelessly plug this title into my blog posts whenever I see an opportunity? Sorry about that.), is populated primarily with young college students. I also sometimes write stories that are perfectly appropriate for young adults to read. My short story, “From Such Small Things” is a creepy ghost story, but contains no sexual or overly violent elements and I don’t think it is anything any teenager shouldn’t be able to pick up and read—although I’ll leave those kinds of decisions solely to the parents out there. However, much of my work, including The Temple of the Blind (did it again, sorry) and many of my shorter works, contains ample elements of sex and/or violence, sometimes graphically. This is not necessarily because I set out to write a sexual or violent tale. I don’t write erotica and I don’t write splatterpunk. But I also never force my stories into any kind of predetermined package. I begin the story, sometimes without even knowing the ending, and then let it take me where it will. I let the characters evolve naturally. I let the events of the plot unfold as I go. Sometimes, it surprises me.

After the release of my first novel, The Box, I was faced with distributing it to all the people I know. Including my mother… (Awkward!) Overall, I’ve gotten nothing but good feedback on it (the trouble seems to be getting people to buy it in the first place), but a few people have found it difficult to look past the adult content in the book. “It was good,” they’ll tell me, “but a little graphic… But it’s good! …but it’s a little graphic…” And they’re right. It is a bit graphic. In chapter eight, the characters discover something that turns their sexual desires against them and they find themselves unable to maintain control. I don’t sugar-coat it. The camera doesn’t pan away. I don’t cut to another scene. I drag the reader all the way into it, forcing it onto him the way it was forced upon the characters. My intention was never to blatantly make the story more graphic, but rather to immerse the reader in the wild emotions of the scene. It’s shocking! It’s embarrassing! Oh, the awkwardness! What have they done? How will they deal with it? You can’t believe that just happened! If you’re blushing when you read this chapter and glancing around to see if anyone might somehow be able to tell what you’re reading, then the story has had exactly the effect on you I intended. Because this is also what the characters feel when the scene is over.

As a result of what happens in this scene, the characters lose their clothes and end up traversing the frightening, dark, labyrinthine setting naked, compounding the awkwardness of what happened between them and the vulnerability of their situation. It was something of an experiment in character development. And I was very happy with the result. So happy, in fact, that I revisited the idea later in book three, with a larger group of characters, and carried it forward. (Don’t worry. My books won’t always be about naked people. I promise.)

If you happen to be the type of person who is offended by graphic material in a book, I do apologize. But this is my blog, not yours, so…SEX! Seriously, though, nobody’s making you read it, so just don’t get mad at me okay? Don’t make me say “penis" again. (Isn’t that a funny word? What’s even funnier is how angry my wife gets when I say it while she’s trying to record an answering machine message!) For the rest of you, I hope you’ll enjoy my work for what it’s meant to be. The adventures in my tales are like the adventures in your life: you simply don’t know what might happen at any given time. Sometimes it’s the things that shock you that are most memorable.

And if this discussion has aroused your curiosity at all, feel free to check out The Box, book one of The Temple of the Blind, available at Amazon, Smashwords and Barnes and Noble. (Okay, even I found that one rather shameless…)

Who Am I?

2011-09-08T12:37:00.000-05:00

Today I found myself thinking about my identity as an author. Who am I? I mean, clearly I know who I am. I’m the guy who fits all my clothes…uh…most of the time… But who am I to all the readers out there?

I tend to introduce myself as a horror writer. But what does that mean, exactly? Horror isn’t a very well defined genre. Some have even suggested that it is not really a genre at all, but merely the emotion that certain stories instill, regardless of the genre. There is an especially fine line between horror and science fiction. For example, how do you differentiate between a horror story about a giant, gelatinous monster devouring the terrified residents of a small New England town and a science fiction story about a giant, gelatinous monster from space devouring the terrified residents of a small New England town? When an old voodoo witch doctor uses his evil magic to bring the dead to life and set them upon an unsuspecting metropolis, it is a horror story, but when the dead are reanimated by a potent virus and then set upon an unsuspecting metropolis, it becomes science fiction. Also consider that when an army of diminutive, warty goblins swarm a magnificent, medieval castle, it can only be a fantasy tale, but what if those same creatures were set upon an expensive New York high-rise? Confusing isn’t it?

My work is predominantly supernatural, but perhaps not paranormal. What is the difference? Well…I really don’t have a damn clue. I always thought they were the same thing, honestly. But when I look for works tagged “paranormal,” I often find myself neck-deep in moody, lovesick vampires, jealous werewolves and lamenting ghosts. I’m not sure if either word better describes what I write, but I know for a fact that I do not write “paranormal romance” and I try to segregate my work from those titles. That’s certainly not to say that my work contains no romance, but it is rarely the true focus of the plot. I like to focus much more on the horror and suspense elements. I like to write about creatures and monsters and ghosts and how the characters deal with these things. I especially like to create my own horrors. I don’t write about vampires. Nor do I write about werewolves. I find them a little overused and difficult to make my own.

I do use the occasional zombie, however. After all, these were the creatures that most frightened me when I was young. There was something simply awful about the hopelessness of an unstoppable army of zombies. I’ll never forget my first terrifying zombie infestation. It was several years ago now, on an otherwise ordinary day. I walked up to the pharmacy at Kmart and gave pause as I realized how eerily quiet it was. Everything behind the window was dark. Nothing was stirring. Then the pharmacist came back from lunch and took down his little “back in one hour” sign. Instantly, they appeared, shuffling toward me, slowly hobbling from every aisle, swarming! I barely made it out of there alive! My wife will tell you I’m exaggerating, but I’m telling you that was scary! I mean, sure, they weren’t quite dead yet, but they were damn close enough for me! I can still hear the walkers clacking on the tile floor as they shambled closer and closer…

But that was a long time ago. The nightmares have subsided. A little.

My work is generally set in the present day and usually in the American Midwest, especially Missouri and Wisconsin, where I have lived my entire life. But I am not averse to traveling anywhere the story may take me, especially alternate worlds. In fact, I’m quite fond of creating my own universes. I have a number of them already built in my notes as well as in my head. Many of my upcoming titles will contain elements of these other worlds.

I won’t tell you that I will never venture into fantasy or science fiction or any other genre. I won’t promise anything, for that matter, because you simply never know when a great idea may strike me or where that idea may lead. I don’t always control my stories, after all. In fact, I often find myself on the same ride as the reader, holding on to every word without a clue where it may lead me. More than once I have surprised myself.

Does any of this help define me? Does any of it tell the reader who I am? Perhaps it does, a little. If anything, it might tell the reader what he can expect from my work. But if you really want to know who I am, you’ll just have to keep reading.

Buy My Book!

2011-08-27T23:21:00.000-05:00

I think all of this marketing stuff is starting to get to me. I’m obsessed with my book sales lately. I want so badly for my books to be successful, and I don’t know how to create more exposure. Everywhere I go, all I want to talk about is my book and how I can earn more readers. I want to tell everyone I see to buy my book. I feel like I’m slowly transforming into some kind of bookselling vampire. Instead of bloodlust I have saleslust. “Look at that guy in that fancy car over there. I’ll bet he can afford to buy a book. Maybe I should follow him. See where he’s going. Stalk him into a dark alley somewhere and pounce!”

No. I control it. It doesn’t control me.

I’m so preoccupied that I can’t help but look around everywhere I go and wonder if any of the people I see would like my book. If only they’d try it, I think. If only they’d open it up and read the first few pages…I’m sure they’d be hooked. I only need to find a way to convince them…to transform them into my loyal fans… The world is suddenly filled with unwitting victims…I mean…potential customers…who just need a little...encouragement. “Look how bored our waiter looks… I bet he’d like to hear about a good book. What about that guy at the next table? Or the woman he’s with? The hostess? Probably not those ladies in the corner…they’re like eighty…the sex scene in chapter eight would probably kill them…”

I’m not sure if I can continue to restrain myself. The kid at the checkout lane asks me if I’d like paper or plastic and I want to scream, “Buy my book!” But I control myself. I contain it. The woman at the post office asks me if I want insurance on that package. In my head I scream, “Buy my book! Buy it!” Aloud, I simply say, “No thank you.” I went to the library yesterday… Oh god… All those readers...everywhere I looked…reading…right there in front of me… I couldn’t control myself. “Buy my book! Buy it! You’ll love it! It’s good! Just read my reviews!” Luckily, nobody heard me because I was only whispering. (It was a library, after all.) I then decided I should probably escort myself out of the building before I embarrassed myself.

This will never do. I need to focus. I need to come up with some new ideas. I’ve tried simply spreading the word, but that just isn’t enough. On Facebook, I recently started posting small excerpts from my first novel each day, in hopes that someone might become interested and check it out…but so far I haven’t attracted any responses. Clearly, I need to get creative. I need something that will grab everyone’s attention. Maybe if I put together some compelling poster-style art, it would make people pause and consider my work. Or I could make a video trailer. If I do it right, maybe that will get people’s attention. In what could be perceived as my most shameless act of self-promotion ever, I taught my five-year-old daughter to say, “Please read my daddy’s book!” She’s actually quite good at it. She’s so proud of this talent, in fact, that the moment she lays eyes on my book, she will immediately snatch it out of your hands, step back and shout her lines. I’ve been threatening to put her on You-Tube for weeks now…

For now, I’ll get back to work. I have things to do. (Must repress the hunger…) I need to brainstorm. September is right around the corner and that means October is imminent. I’m hoping the Halloween season will bring me more opportunities to show everyone that I’m someone worth reading.

…But in the meantime, there’s always this:

One Month Old!

2011-08-16T09:01:00.001-05:00

Dark Things Rising has been online for one whole month now! This is my seventh post and I have a staggering four followers… Okay, so maybe staggering isn’t the right word. But that’s four more followers than somebody who doesn’t have a blog! Right…?

Well, regardless, I’d like to thank all of you who have joined me this past month, including those of you who have chosen not to follow me but still swing by to see what I have to say. I hope I’ve entertained you and that I may continue to do so for many more months to come. I also hope you’ll buy my books, but that’s beside the point.

Unsocial Networking

2011-08-13T21:25:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, when I first started my independent publishing adventure, I scoured the web for all the information I could find on the subject. I’ve learned a lot since then simply by reading online articles and forums. But what stood out immediately was the necessity for good marketing. Good marketing, as it turns out, is synonymous with success. Virtually no one gets a free ride these days. Whether you publish traditionally or set out bravely on your own, as I have, if you want your books to be read, you have to dedicate your own time and resources into this magical thing called “marketing.” Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that I lack a natural talent for marketing. This apparently glaring defect in my personality appears to be at least partially rooted in my private and rather introverted nature. (In other words, I’m bashful.)

I am not an outgoing person by any means. I don’t crave attention. I don’t need to be surrounded by people to be happy. In fact, I actually have a little bit of a crowd phobia. I become extremely anxious when I’m surrounded by too many people. And I’m extremely self-conscious about every little thing I say and do. I even write these blog posts in MS Word and make my wife read them for me before I post them on this blog! (I really don’t know what I’d do without her.) But if I want to be successful, I can’t just sit and wait for my fans to find me, no matter how good my work is. I need to get out there and find them. I need to engage them. I need to talk to them. I need to win them. …but I’m not very good at that.

Social networking is the most important tool in marketing, according to most of the articles I’ve read. By the time my first book becomes available, I’m supposed to already have a well-developed social network, consisting, presumably, of a great number of friends and family who will all launch into a frothing frenzy of excitement when I announce the release of my brand new ebook and beat and claw each other to be the first to buy it. Furthermore, after having obtained the ebook, and of course having neglected everything important in their lives in order to immediately read it from front to back, they will then enthusiastically tell everyone who will listen how wonderful the book is. Those they tell will in turn race out to get the book, giddy with excitement, read it immediately and tell everyone they know and so on, driving my ebook ever-upward through the bestsellers lists. I would quickly become famous and fabulously wealthy and everyone would want to be my friend and compliment me on my new shoes. The reality, of course, is quite different.

I began by starting a website, a sort of online base of operations, and then a Facebook account. I didn’t have a Facebook account before I published my first book because…well, because I didn’t really care to have one. I didn’t see the point. It simply did not interest me. As a result, I did not have the immediate attention of hundreds of friends when I made my first official announcement that Book One of The Temple of the Blind was now available as an ebook. I did, however, have the attention of a few of my friends and family, who I just knew would trip over themselves with girlish glee upon hearing my bold and earth-shattering announcement. Or at the very least would bombard me with congratulatory replies and beg me for more information…or maybe even just click that little “like” button under the post. What I actually received was practically nothing.

It’s not that nobody cared. Quite the opposite. I’ve discovered that people I never expected to care in the least have been reading my posts with interest. They’re simply not bothered to respond to or “like” every post. And this is fine. I have no problem with it. I’m not bothered to respond to or “like” everyone else’s posts, either. But at the time, I was admittedly a little disheartened. I could see my sales reports, and I was not selling as many books as I had friends and family, after all. But I realized soon enough that my decision to publish my books in electronic format was a deterrent. I did not realize how few of them even knew that they could purchase the book without owning an expensive ereader. And even if they knew, I would be the first to agree that a laptop is not the most enjoyable tool for reading an entire book. (I don’t have an ereader yet, either… Shh, don’t tell anyone!)

The worst part about it all was that I’d really hoped that the social networking would kind of run itself. (Naïve, I know, but you can’t blame me for wishing!) Where are all those giddy fans I was talking about? It’s been, like, four months now! Shouldn’t I have my own Wikipedia page by now? (I know I can just make one myself, but that just wouldn’t be as meaningful, now would it?) I didn’t honestly believe that it would be enough to drive my sales into record breaking stats, but I did think that perhaps it would be a good solid foundation from which to build my marketing strategy.

I said before that there are no free rides, and this is a good example of exactly what I was talking about, even if I did dare to expect more than I deserved. After all, the key to successful social networking is…well, to be social and to actually network. I’m working on both of those things. For instance, I’m on Twitter, where I have a whopping four followers as I write this. (I can tell you’re impressed.) Right now, I’m mostly just making announcements there, so I guess it’s not the most interesting place to be. I hope to make it more entertaining in the near future, so maybe it’ll become something people will actually want to follow. I’ve also signed up for Linkedin …although I still don’t have a clue how to use it yet… I’m also on a number of author forums, but again, I’m not the best at jumping into conversations. And forums are finicky places anyway. I’m admittedly a little intimidated by most forums, but that’s an entirely different post, and I’ve rambled on far too long for one day already.

The lesson here is that it pays to be outgoing. If you can go out there with a smile on your face and engage people, you can win readers almost anywhere. Whether it’s in a coffee shop or on an online forum, it pays to simply strike up a conversation with whomever you run into.

Of course, there’s always that delicate balance between being engaging and being the creepy guy who keeps trying to tell you about his books… I really don’t want to be that guy! You’ll tell me if I start to be that guy, won’t you?

DIY

2011-08-03T21:16:00.002-05:00

When it comes to my titles, I do it all. I’m not only the author, but also the editor, the formatter, and the cover designer. I’m even the photographer for the book covers. And I do all my own marketing. I’ll also claim the title of caterer, since I rarely finish a project without having to get up and fix one or both of the kids a snack. I swear they’re hungry all the freakin’ time this summer! Must be going through a major growth spurt… Anyway, I don’t have the luxury of hiring expensive professionals and I don’t have an extensive circle of friends who are all experienced writers themselves. There’s no one to reach out to when my work needs edited. I don’t have a friend who’s a librarian or a sister who’s an English professor or an Uncle who’s a magazine editor. I have only myself to rely on. How does this compare me to other authors? Does it make me better? Probably not. Does it make me less deserving of my readers? I certainly hope not.

The upside to doing everything yourself is the accomplishment of it all, the bragging rights. I get a good feeling when I tell someone that I not only wrote the book but also shot and designed the cover myself. The downside, of course, is that I spend more time on all these other things and less time writing. I want to just sit and lose myself in my storytelling, but I have to juggle all these things. I need to be thinking about the next book cover and formatting the next print edition and posting updates on forums and creating a public personality on Facebook and Twitter. And let’s not forget that my first and most important job is a stay-at-home dad…and nap time only lasts so long. And never mind that they just had lunch, they’re so hungry!

Seriously? How many peanut butter sandwiches can two kids eat? …Okay! Fine! I’m getting up! …Again!

A Paperback In My Hands

2011-07-29T13:21:00.002-05:00

My first novel is finally available in print! Holding it feels awesome. I can’t wait to show it off. The Box is available now at https://www.createspace.com/3634851 and should be available on Amazon soon.

Next item on my list is book two in print! Gilbert House is already formatted and ready to go, but I have to build the cover from scratch. In the meantime, I’ll be working on formatting book three for its print release and diving headlong into a whole new dimension of marketing. It's not just digital anymore, and getting my physical book on physical shelves is going to require a lot of legwork. I'm sure I'll have plenty to blog about in the coming weeks.

I’ll post updates here when I have something to announce, so check back often!

Fitting it in

2011-07-26T22:15:00.001-05:00

I can imagine that most, if not all, writers have their individual hang-ups, those little things that nag at them, that keep them coming back over and over again, tweaking, fussing, stressing…cussing… The review process is first on that list. We writers are never satisfied. There’s always one more word that can be changed, one more tiny improvement. But there are other things, too, that keep drawing us back, that we’re always convinced isn’t quite good enough. One of mine is the summary.

The book summary is always one of the most time-consuming and frustrating steps in publishing for me. Like the book cover and the sample chapters, it’s one of the most important tools for drawing in readers, and I continue to scrutinize over it long after the ebook goes on sale. It’s especially hard when it comes to a story like The Temple of the Blind, which combines elements of multiple genres.

Just how do I fit the scope of a story with this many elements into such a small package and make it sound like something people want to read? At what point do you lose a potential reader simply because the plot comes off too complicated in the description? Alternately, what can be omitted without oversimplifying the plot and taking away elements that might draw a reader in? I’ve written and rewritten the summary for book one of The Temple of the Blind more times than I can remember. And yet, I can’t help but feel that I’m just not capturing as many readers as I can.

This is not to say that my books are complicated. They do possess a certain complexity, but that doesn’t mean that they are hard to read. I’m simply not sure what the best selling points are. Would more people be drawn to the creepy atmosphere of the settings or to the story’s slow, gripping suspense? Would I sell more books advertising the perilous journey faced by my characters or the gripping sexual tension between them? Will I draw more readers with the engrossing mysteries woven throughout the plot or with the otherworldly things the characters discover along the way? I don’t know what my readers are going to like best because they simply haven’t told me yet. I haven’t received very much feedback as I write this. I’ve been told that it’s scary. I’ve been told that it’s suspenseful, that it’s a page-turner. But what did they like best? What left the biggest impression on them? To what popular work might they compare it? To what author would they compare me? These are the things I want to hear, things that will help me find the people who will love what I write as much as I do. For example, I’d like to think that fans of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series might enjoy it, as The Temple of the Blind is similarly dark and fantastic and epic, but is that a bit pompous of me? I mean he’s Stephen King. And it’s not like the two are all that alike. That’s simply the series that comes to mind when I try to think of something to compare it to. I think they can both be classified as dark adventures, a kind of melding between epic fantasy and horror. Alternately, one of my five-star reviews for The Box on Amazon compared it to “Lost” for its mysterious elements. Having not watched “Lost” (not because I wasn’t interested but out of a fear that I would become frustrated with perpetually unanswered questions), I probably wouldn’t have considered that. I hope to hear more things like this from readers. I hope that this blog might be an excellent place for fans to find me and help me narrow down the best strategies for marketing my series by letting me know what drew them in and what helped them decide to pick it up and read it. Because, let’s face it, when you first begin publishing your work, your target audience is…well…everyone. Because who wouldn’t want to read your brilliant work? But nobody likes every book.

It all comes down to efficiency. I have to find a balance between being brief and being thorough. In the shortest phrasing I can come up with off the top of my head, I suppose that The Box is the story of a young man (Albert) who finds a mysterious box and ends up going on a fantastic adventure. But he doesn’t go on the adventure alone. Brandy joins him. But who is Brandy? I don’t have the luxury of referring to her simply as his girlfriend or his best friend or his ex, something that everyone will immediately relate to without further explanation. She’s his lab partner. From his Chemistry class. He barely knows her, but he’d definitely like to get to know her better. So how does she get involved with all this if she’s basically a stranger to him? The shortest answer is that she finds the key to Albert’s box. With her help, Albert can deduce what the box is and where to go next. It’s these little details that confound me. The book’s whole element of romance is wrapped up in this setup, as Albert finds himself with the opportunity to impress a girl he already likes. I expect there are more than a few readers who would be attracted by this particular detail, and yet, do I have room for it? I still have to point out that their adventure begins in the university campus’ steam tunnels, which leads them into the city’s enormous and overly-complex tunnel system long rumored to be haunted. Or is that too much information? It sets the mood wonderfully, but the story doesn’t really dwell upon the rumored paranormal activity of the city’s underground. The real adventure begins when they discover the strange labyrinth hidden at the bottom of these tunnels, but just to get here, I’ve already rambled on for the length of this hefty paragraph.

Hopefully, over time and through trial and error and perhaps with some healthy feedback from fans, these summaries will become easier and less time consuming to write. Or perhaps I’ll take a page from some other authors I’ve read about on various forums and simply find someone else to write the damn things so I can get back to writing the books themselves.

Narrowing it down

2011-07-23T10:26:00.001-05:00

Since I pretty thoroughly introduced myself in my previous post, I think I’ll jump straight into talking about my books this time. We’ll get these things out of the way quickly that way and I’ll have a nice, solid base to build my future posts from.

I make it sound like a chore, don’t I? “Dang it all, I have to talk about my books now… …sigh…” Of course, I am trying to be modest because I really don’t want to be one of those authors who twists every subject back to his own books (“I’m terribly sorry to hear that! It must be quite frightening to lie there knowing that you have to endure heart surgery in the morning…but do you know what that reminds me of? In chapter four of my latest novel…”). But also, talking about my books, and consequently the series they are attached to, always brings with it a number of complications.

First of all, I’m not real good with genres. I know a horror story when I see one. It’s scary. I know a science fiction story when I see one. It has spaceships. I know a romance when I see one. It’s mushy. And sometimes spicy. Like chili. I know a fantasy when I see one. It has elves and dragons and things in it. Not like chili…I don’t think… But then let’s say you have an elf driving a spaceship…what is that? And then what happens when that same elf finds something scary? And what if that elf is eating chili? I get so confused. Which element is primary? And did you ever try classifying your frightened, chili-eating, spacefaring elf when your options are horror, sci-fi, fantasy OR romance? And then you see the “thriller/suspense” option and you say to yourself, “It does keep me on the edge of my seat…I keep wondering…will he finish his chili? Will he spill it? Does chili come out of elfin flightsuits?” When I write, I write the story first. I let the characters tell me where it’s going. I don’t start off with a specific genre in mind and what happens is that the story weaves in and out of multiple genres. The end result is that I sometimes don’t know where to begin talking about my book. When someone asks me what it’s about, what do I say? Sometimes I envy writers who can say things like, “My book is a classic, sword and sorcery fantasy with a twist.” I consider myself a horror writer. I love reading horror and I am an enormous fan of the supernatural. My short stories tend to be straight-up horror fiction. But The Temple of the Blind is not simply a horror fiction tale. It’s also a mystery. It’s an epic adventure. It’s suspense. It’s also laced with elements of fantasy and science fiction and even romance. But where do I begin? Which element rises to the top? It’s something I’ve struggled with while learning how to market my books.

With all these things to consider, I always end up feeling like a deer in headlights whenever someone asks me what my book is about. I hesitate, considering. Are they really interested or are they just being polite? Either way, they don’t intend to stand there and listen to me ramble on and on. I need to be brief, concise, to the point, and yet it has to be clear. I can’t say, “It’s sort of a horror, suspense, adventure, mystery thing.” Most of the time, you only have a few seconds to catch a reader’s attention and then they’ll move on. And even if I know for a fact that the person asking is never going to read my book, how stupid am I going to look if I can’t even tell them what it’s about?

Speaking of being brief and concise, perhaps I’ll save my rant about the difficulties of writing a well-balanced book summary for next time. I’m kind of hungry right now. I’ve got a weird hankering for chili…

The Beginning...

2011-07-16T22:27:00.002-05:00

This is the beginning of my blog. This is where I suppose I start everything off by introducing myself and announcing what I’ll be writing about on this page…except I don’t really have a clue what I’m going to write about yet. I didn’t set out to write a blog, after all. I set out to write fiction. But I keep getting told that as a writer I need to write a blog. …I didn’t even know what a blog was until fairly recently.

We’ll start with who I am, I guess. My name is Brian Harmon. I am an author. I wrote The Temple of the Blind, a dark adventure, horror and suspense series. I began independently publishing my work about three months ago, so I’m still new to all this. It’s a rollercoaster ride as I monitor my progress day-to-day. Sales slump and sales soar and sales slump again and my mood seems to follow right along with it all, much to the exasperation of my poor wife, who suffers it all quite patiently. I know that she would love for me to find someone else to talk at about my work for awhile. So I guess my journey through the world of independent publishing will be the primary focus of this blog. Perhaps future authors will find some inspiration and guidance among my scattered ramblings. Or at the very least, my fans can get a little chuckle at my expense. I do aim to please, after all.

What else can I say about myself? I grew up in rural Missouri, but now I live in Southern Wisconsin with my wife and two kids. I’m a stay-at-home dad and a first-time homeowner who, it turns out, is highly unqualified to do a great many household repairs (although I’m learning pretty fast). I enjoy cooking, especially when I can experiment with new foods, and I’m getting quite good at it, I’m told. I’m a bit of a pessimist, so I’m sure it won’t always be sunny here, but I’m not so bad. I promise. Also, I’m a very private person who is suddenly dealing with the reality that I need to get out and market my books and therefore have to find some way to become outgoing, engaging and approachable. (I haven’t even posted this yet and I can already hear some of my friends laughing hysterically at that…) I love movies and theater and I like to play games and watch cartoons with my kids. I like all sorts of ghostly and supernatural things. I despise coconut. I’m also a cat person. …I’d say that pretty well covers me.

After much consideration, I’ve chosen to title my blog “Dark Things Rising” in reference to my web page, which I refer to as my “gallery of dark imaginings.” I thought it seemed rather fitting on more than one level. It sounds nice and creepy, for starters, which relates nicely to my writing, since I am a horror writer, after all. Also, it is my goal to make my writing successful, to grow as an author, to let my “dark things rise” from obscurity.

To my readers, please use this blog as a way to get to know me a little bit. I won’t be committing to any specific number of posts per week, as I simply don’t know how frequently I can sit down to write just now. I’ll simply drop by whenever I can and when I have news to share. I’ll post updates on my latest and upcoming releases and talk a bit about my writing and what I’m currently working on. I’ll likely be organizing a giveaway of some kind soon, as well. It’ll be a great way to celebrate the upcoming release of my first paperback. Feel free to ask me questions and discuss any subject that might come up here.

Well…maybe I do know what I’ll be blogging about after all. Sometimes I just have to talk my way through things a little. I guess I’ll just start here, then. Welcome to Dark Things Rising and thank you for joining me.