THE DEAD RISE: five years later.

I reread The Dead Rise this week.

The plan was: clean it up, polish it to a fine gloss, put it out on the Kindle. Maybe, if it was really good, try to pass it along to agents again.

Optimism!

Back up five years: July, 2008. I wanted to write a book, but I didn't know how to begin. I'd just written Noisome Beasts, which was sort of a very long short story. Inspiration struck, and I spent a couple of weeks throwing together a short novella. No planning. No structure. I just sort of started wherever and ended when I felt like it.

When I finished, I thought it was pretty good.

So I sent it out to a few agents; I actually heard back from a couple of them. They told me that it was way, way too short. 

I spent a couple of months beefing up the novella, and when I was done, I sent it out again. I heard back from another agent who read the whole thing and told me that it just wasn't ready for prime time.

I benched the book. Sat on it and worked on a few other things. Five years later...

The agent was SO right! The Dead Rise is uneven and clunky. The main character spouts out exposition and lays out every thought in his head. He's self-absorbed and narcissistic. At the time I wrote it, I thought that was unique. It wasn't. It might have the potential to be, except:

IT'S BORING. 

Nothing happens! I mean, little things happen here and there, but I gave zero shits about them. I just felt embarrassed by the whole thing.

But I got excited, because I think that I can fix this. I think I can make this interesting; maybe even good. No promises. The Dead Rise has a really exciting premise; I want to do more with it. I screwed up a lot of stuff because this was practice; every book is practice; and this was my first non-jokey book.

I'm working on an outline for version three. Over the next few months, I plan on rewriting 90% of The Dead Rise. When I'm finished, we'll see where we are.

Not that anyone's holding their breath, but no new Kindle books in 2013 :-)

Review: Complete Audio Mastering by Gebre Waddell!

Back from my much needed hiatus, batteries recharged! I started prepping the third draft of The Dead Rise today. It's going to be a tough, tough project. A post for another day.

In the meantime, a review for Gebre Waddell's Complete Audio Mastering: Practical Techniques! Gebre is one of my oldest friends; we've known each other half our lives. He's a professional mastering engineer and runs his own studio, Stonebridge Mastering.

When Gebre first asked me to review his book on audio mastering, I was a little uncertain - I'm a novice to music production. I'd heard of mastering and mixing, but wasn't entirely sure of much more than that. I was delighted to find that Complete Audio Mastering is both an accessible introduction to audio mastering and a solid discussion of professional mastering techniques.

The book starts from scratch, introducing the key concepts behind mastering - why it's a necessary part of an album's creation, and what's involved from beginning to end. From there, he outlines equipment, techniques, and tips for avoiding common mistakes. No two mastering engineers will master the same track the same way, so trying to create a step-by-step from process beginning to end is like trying to describe how to paint a portrait. Instead, Gebre lays out the tools and techniques of his profession and describes what does and doesn't work.

My favorite thing about the book is how much I learned about just listening to music. Volume is key; Gebre mentions that increasing the volume just a fraction can completely change a listener's appraisal of a piece, which is why maintaining strict control of volume is important in mastering, and why the Loudness Wars resulted in poor mastering practices.

One word of warning: I wouldn't expect a novice to instantly know how to master. There are technical details that will likely go above the head of a beginner; I'd suggest reading this as a textbook alongside a course or an internship (Gebre discusses several possible 'next steps' in chapter 15.) But even if you don't plan a career in mastering, Complete Audio Mastering is a fantastic guide to what goes behind the scenes after an album is mixed. It's available on Amazon now through McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics.

Noisome Beasts and Self Publishing: FAIL!

Noisome Beasts has been out on the Amazon store for two months. I made a real go of it. I put in some solid time promoting my book. But it didn't work out this go-round. I totally failed at self publishing. In two months, I sold eighteen copies of Noisome Beasts and gave away another four hundred.

That's not bad. But I would not classify it as a complete win.

A big part of it is that Noisome Beasts just isn't great. It isn't! It's the first thing I wrote that was both (A) longer than ten pages, and (B) not a college paper, and it's (C) not exactly... uh... you know. Tight. I still think it's funny, but funny is subjective.

Another part of it is that I may be the worst salesman in the world. Here are more things I'm not good at: social networking, small talk, and home repairs.

For any budding authors interested in Amazon KDP promotions, here are things that are Definitely Supposed to Generate Sales, but didn't for me:

• Review requests. I contacted 30+ review sites and 30+ Amazon top Amazon reviewers and offered each of them a free copy. No luck!
• Lots and Lots of Amazon Reviews. I've seen books with 25+ reviews and worse sales than Noisome Beasts. Reviews don't seem to guarantee sales.
• KDP Free Day promotions. I'm SO glad that people downloaded the book; I want more readers! But I have this sinking suspicion that not many of the freebie downloaders will actually read the book. And, no, I got zero extra sales after both of my promotional periods.

At this point, I'm number six hundred thousand on the Amazon sales list. Five hundred and ninety nine thousand books have to be doing better than me; I bet some of those were self-published. I bet there's some sort of evil secret that I don't know.

If you know it, I'll trade you. I have a really good recipe for chocolate chip pecan cookies.

Happy news: I'm nearly done with the first draft of Psychopomp. I've been writing for five months now. I know that doesn't seem like a long time for a first draft, but balancing writing and working and toddler and cooking and all the little things that have to be done around the house...  my brain is worn out. It's time for a break.  So after I finish, I plan on taking a break for a couple of months (or until I can't NOT write.)

The plan was to self-publish The Dead Rise on the Kindle store; right now, I don't think I want to do that. I don't want it to disappear into the aether too. Back when I queried it, I had some strong interest from a couple of literary agents. I think that after I rework it, I'll try querying it again.

Which might work out as badly as it did the first time around! But we'll see; I can always change my mind later. But I really like The Dead Rise; I want to give it a fair chance.

Almost as much as I want chocolate chip pecan cookies.

THE BIG INTERVIEW

Last week, I was interviewed by Bill Thompson of The Bookcast.

I was nervous as hell. I get tongue-tied easily, so I knew exactly what was going to happen: I would start talking and go completely blank. It happens a lot. The worst: back when I was twenty or so, I was chit-chatting with an adult (remember when adults made you nervous?), and he asked me what I did for Christmas. This is what I said, almost verbatim.:

"I uh. Uhh. I... I. I. Ha ha ha!  Jeez. I can't remember."

Only I remember this stuttering going on for about five minutes while he smiled politely. EVERY THOUGHT DISAPPEARED FROM MY MIND.

That only happened twice during the interview, and Bill edited those bits out. I need him to do this for every conversation I have, every day of my life.

That being said: I had a FANTASTIC time, and if you're an indie author, do yourself a favor and check out The Bookcast. Send in an interview request: It is incredibly easy to do. Even though I was nervous, it went really well. Except for the part where I got too hot and tried to quietly turn on my ceiling fan and accidentally pulled the entire chain out. That part was not according to plan.
Listen to the interview below, or at The Bookcast!

Interview with Robert Chatham "Noisome Beasts"

Noisome Beasts: SECRETS REVEALED.

At this point, Noisome Beasts has been out for two weeks and has sold an average of nearly a copy a day. Right now, I'm fielding a lot of questions from book clubs.

In the interest of saving time, here is some trivia about Noisome Beasts.

• The book is a metaphor for the book. As I wrote it, I was pretty sure that no one would ever read it, and that it would be the only book I'd ever write. And at the same time, I hoped that in the distant future, robots would worship it.
• I am Todd. Rebecca is definitely Edgar.
• I used to really like Wilson Phillips and Phil Collins. When I think back on it, I wonder what was wrong with my parents. Why did they let me do that?
• I am the worst on road trips, because, like Todd, I have to go to the bathroom frequently. The More You Know! The truck stop is a real place where I made Rebecca stop. I still regret it to this very day.
• You have to go to the Dairy Queen on road trips. You just do.
• Reverend Wayne Crumlick's sermon is a real thing that I had to sit through when I was dating Rebecca. Except the real life sermon went on and on and on, forever and ever.
• I wish I knew where that neon model Frankenstein's Monster was, because it was GREAT, even though it was lumpy with model cement.

Noisome Beasts: Published!

No one likes an infodump! Big chunk of information and links all smooshed together like a sandwich left in your back pocket. But I have some news, and so this is as good a time as any to take the opportunity for a massive infodump.

Noisome Beasts is finally up on the Amazon Kindle store! It's good news. Noisome Beasts was originally released on Torrent sites and www.robertchatham.com five years ago; since then, it's been downloaded over ten thousand times. Ten thousand times!

And yet I'm not sure how to get my book discovered outside of my circle of friends. Right now, it's relatively unknown.
 
So why NOT post some social network links? And whoever's reading this: if you'd like to swap links and promote one another, let's try it! Let's make these dreams come true.

My Facebook author page!

My Amazon author page!

My Goodreads author page!

This summer, I plan on posting six short story collections before I release "The Dead Rise." That book that's been floating around since I started this blog four years ago. One day, fame will be MINE. Until then, yeah. Just keep plugging away!

2013: AN UPDATE!

Two whole months I've been gone! The days... they just disappear. Nine hours at work, then waiting for baby to go to bed, and then more work.

I'm officially halfway through the first draft of Psychopomp. I started writing this series back in 2008; it's been nearly five years. It'll take a couple more years to iron out everything. But... I'm really, really proud of what I've come up with. Feels unique. The plan is to start querying Mrs. Shadow, the strongest book in the series, early next year.

The more exciting news: this summer, I'm going to release my first book (The Dead Rise) for the Kindle. It's going to mean more revisions... and illustrations! Which means more work.

I feel like I should be doing SO much more. Writers are supposed to be involved in some kind of community; I barely have time for Facebook posts. I haven't even sent out a sample of my writing in four years. But it's time to get something out there. Five years is a long time, and I don't want to put everything on hold until Audrey grows up.

Audrey is one!

Babies make it tough to write!  I wrote Mindtrip during a three month binge just before Audrey was born. At the rate I'm writing, Psychopomp's first draft is going to take six, seven months. But today, she's given me a present - a nap that's been going on for nearly two hours.

Thanks, Audrey.

She turned one a couple of weeks ago! We had a combination Thanksgiving and Birthday Party.

It was pretty good.  Audrey ate a cupcake.

A year ago was a very tiring, confusing time. Audrey did two things: slept and cried. It's amazing how much she's grown in the first year. She started out at 21 inches and ended up growing ten inches in twelve months. She walks. She says "Duck." She has a snarky sense of humor. She likes to be scared and mock-screams in delight.

It's kind of amazing.

Her favorite song: "Class Clown Spots a UFO", probably followed by the theme songs for 21 Jump Street and Daria. Her favorite food: macaroni and cheese, as well as pulled pork and any sort of fruit. Her favorite toys: cell phones, remote controls, and plastic plates.

I don't want to forget any of this.

THE DARK CARNIVAL

Happy Halloween. I don't even know when I wrote this.

The Dark Carnival

"Ow," said the clown, accidentally bumping into the strong man again.
"Whoops, sorry about that."

It was not his fault.

The problem wasn't that he was a clumsy, silly oaf, which he was, but that he was a member of the Dark Carnival. Back in the day when the Dark Carnival was the mythical creation of Ray Bradbury in his stories "Something Wicked This Way Comes" and "The Illustrated Man," it was pretty cool to talk about. Most people thought of it as the place where childhood dreams were corrupted, where monkeys capered without fear of peanut-throwing audiences and where the fire-breather and the tattooed man could plot evil conspiracies over whatever it was that Ray Bradbury was thinking about that particular day. It was sort of frightening, and if you were afraid of ventriloquist dummies, it was probably even scarier. There were no ventriloquists in the Dark Carnival, but everyone was willing to bet you money that they'd fit right in.

Later, the "Insane Clown Posse" became the first musical group to claim that they were actually members of "the Dark Carnival," with brilliant insights into the mind of "Insane Clowns." Perhaps their greatest achievement, "The Evil Dark Carnival that The Insane Clowns Live in," explains America's fascination with the Dark Carnival best: 

"We livez in the dark carnival

Ya ha ha ha ha 

Evil clownz drinkin all the Faygo

Bam shackalackalackala!" 

It was this sentiment more than anything that made children under the age of 14 want to join the Dark Carnival when they got old enough to legally work for the old carnies. In fact, some children even cheated, working when they were seventeen and absolutely not eighteen, under the pretense that they were "Dark Carnival Interns." Everyone know that this was just a cover, that they were really becoming evil souls working for the Dark Carnival and should be stopped, but no one really cared either way. 

The Dark Carnival was not particularly evil or spooky, but was actually just a poorly lit carnival. This did not explain its bizarre and fascinating appeal. No one really understood it, in fact. It was pretty spooky, I guess because most carnivals are well-lit, and this one was not. That made it different. 

The clown that bumped into the strong man was fairly myopic, and combined with the poor lighting and a bottle of bourbon consumed just a few moments before, this totally explained the minor accident. "Jesus," the strong man exclaimed in consternation. "Watch out, Mr. Clown!" 

"Oooops," murmured the inebriated clown. "Sorry, mister Roosevelt." But the strong man's name was not Roosevelt, and the apology was lost like dust to a storm. 

The clown stumbled into the ringmaster's tent, barely able to see two feet in front of him. The ringmaster was sitting at his desk in a fairly frightening pose, sort of hunched over and very evil. 

Mr. Johnson," the clown shrieked rather loudly. The ringmaster winced. "Mr. Johnson, I can barely see a thing in here." 

"Please, stop shouting," the ringmaster told him. "I was trying to take a nap. That's why I turned off - look, it's hard to talk to someone I can't see. Are you still listening?" 

The clown wasn't, really, but this was to be expected. He was trying to find a piece of candy that he'd dropped on the ground - the damn carnival, he thought to himself. This damned dark carnival. I can't see very well. 

"Ah, Miller," murmured the ringmaster. "Did you ever hear how this carnival got its name? How it came to be called the dark carnival?" 

"Who said that?" asked the clown, who'd forgotten that he'd told the ringmaster his name was Miller. His name was actually Rumparuck, which he felt was a silly name for a clown. 

"It was thirty-odd years ago," mused the ringmaster. "Thirty odd years ago. When I decided to make a carnival. And I named it after myself: 'Mr. Dark's Carnival.'" 

"I thought your name was Johnson," the clown told him, but the ringmaster was lost in a world of his own devising. Nostalgia, the clown told himself, is the bitter fruit that Age bears. He thought this was deep and witty, and maybe it was, but even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally. The last deep and witty thing he'd thought before this was "the Taco Supreme is the bitter fruit that Taco Bell bears." Why this was meaningful to him was anyone's guess. The fact that it was meaningful to over five hundred thousand people was even more startling, until you realized how many people actually existed. 

"Mr. Dark's carnival, and little did I know that this place would become known as 'The Dark Carnival.' I was going to make this a happy place with bunnies and flowers and pixies, and magical leprechauns," continued the ringmaster. The clown was busy fiddling with his shoes by this time and had managed to tie both of him together, but the ringmaster continued with his rambling anecdotes for at least ten or fifteen minutes. The ringmaster never actually mentioned why he thought his name was "Mr. Dark" in the first place, when it was actually "Felipo Guiterrez," and why he thought they'd named the place after him when he'd actually been a plumber when the carnival was created. The place was only called the Dark Carnival because they couldn't afford the lighting, and millions of children shivered in their beds. 

Pray that the Dark Carnival never visits you... with its sad, pathetic clown, and the dark, twisted monkeys that the carnival bought from a roadside monkey stand. Pray! Or else you might end up paying five dollars to visit the Dark Carnival... with its evil, twisted freak show consisting of two guys who look kinda like Tony Danza and a jar of brine shrimp labeled "Sea Monkeys" ... and you won't be able to see any of it, because the carnival is too dark.

Audrey Harper!

After Audrey was born, I thought I should keep a journal about everything. Everything! Something that Audrey could read when she was older, to trace the early childhood that she'd never remember. Anyway, that never happened.

She's REALLY cute. Right now, Audrey is incredibly into
* Books (she wants to read all of them three times in a row.)
* Bananas
* Tablet computers
* Things on the floor that are very small and possibly edible
* Daredevil stunts
* Sign language for 'bath' (it's the only one she's really sure about.)
* Watching me cook

It's pretty good. I'm beginning to feel like a real member of the human race again. Like, I get to sleep... all night! Almost every night! And Audrey is maybe the friendliest person in the UNIVERSE. She's always, ALWAYS happy to see Rebecca and me.

Pretty soon, she's going to be ... a lot more coherent, and one day, probably a little less jolly. I'm going to miss how HAPPY she is all the time. She's adorable!