Chapter 2 of Comes The Dark
As the release of Comes The Dark gets closer, I want to provide just a few introductory chapters for you, the reader of this humble little blog. I have already posted Chapter 1, so if you haven’t read it yet, please dig around and you’ll find it here in June’s postings.
I am posting Chapter 2 here, to continue providing you a taste of what the book is about. My intention is to post Chapter 3 in a few more weeks and then wrap it up in time for the release of the book, which is going to be here faster than I could have ever imagined. September, in time for Horror Realm, is still the objective release time frame, but as things roll along, my guess is that it will be sooner.
So, without further ado, here is Chapter 2 of Comes The Dark. Enjoy:
Chapter 2
Ten minutes later Jeff was in the kitchen, stuffing the remnants of his dwindling food supply into his son’s backpack. There wasn’t much left, just some half-eaten boxes of cereal and dry noodles to gnaw on. That was what it had come to. It was why he had left the house to search for supplies. Jeff blinked as he suddenly realized his family had died for a few cans of beans and some crackers.
He angrily jammed the last of his meager rations into the bag and ran toward the steps leading to the second floor. From the back of the house came the sound of more glass shattering. He had covered the big picture window with plywood and it was holding for the moment. The wood vibrated under a barrage of hammering fists but stayed in place. He rushed up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Glad to get away from the stench of infection filtering through the windows and doors, he took a right into his office, trying his best to ignore the shattered door on the left side of the hallway and the carnage that lay beyond it.
Rummaging through one of his bookshelves he found a souvenir mug and dumped its contents on the desk. Sifting through the coins, bits of paper, and other faint memories, Jeff spotted a tiny key. Grabbing it, he went to the top of the bookshelf and pulled down a lock box. Unlocking it quickly he spotted the gun. The tiny pewter weapon with the black grip was still in its original box. Jeff looked at the etched wording on the barrel: MODEL RAVEN CAL-.25 AUTO. He picked up the small clip sitting next to it and slid it into the gun. He nearly laughed. It was a pea-shooter that carried a meager six bullets in the clip. Shoving it in his pocket, he promptly forgot about it.
Moving to the other side of the desk he began to rifle through it. After grabbing a pocket knife and the Mag-Lite, Jeff looked around his office. That was it. He sighed and shook his head. He was no survivalist but a baseball bat, a purse gun, and heavy flashlight probably weren’t going to get him very far.
As he turned to leave he spied something else on one of the book shelves and stared at it for a moment. It was the photo of Ellen and the kids on their last vacation at the lake. Jeff remembered taking the picture. It had been early, maybe about six a.m. Ellen had been trying to drag the kids out of bed for ten minutes. They didn’t want to go out on the boat and didn’t want to swim. They just wanted to sleep. She started tickling them and after a couple of minutes the three were wrestling in a tangle of sheets, screaming and giggling. Taking the picture had been spontaneous; Jeff had grabbed the camera out of his bag without thinking. They were smiling, laughing, their eyes lost in a moment of pure bliss. When he showed Ellen the picture she hated it. Her hair was a mess and she had no makeup on. When he put it on display in his office she was angry until he explained. “Everything that matters to me is in that picture. It’s you and the kids, happy. That’s all I care about.” She never said another word about it.
Jeff’s fingers quivered as he traced the outline of their faces. Another angry scream filtered from below and he tore his eyes away from the picture. Cramming it into his pocket, he headed back downstairs.
It’s time to go.
The urgent thought beat out a staccato rhythm inside his head as he made it back to the main floor. Rushing into the garage he could hear the roar outside. They were actually starting to throw their bodies against the side door now. The sound of them crashing against the house was nearly overwhelming but Jeff ignored it and tossed his small amount of supplies into the minivan. Snatching up the baseball bat he ran back inside.
He was out of breath as he got to the front door. Bending at the knees, he tried sucking in as much air as possible and tried to settle down. The noise at the front of the house wasn’t nearly as bad. The mob had not spread to the front door yet, which worked well with his hastily cobbled together plan. Bending over, he snatched up the hammer dropped there a few minutes before and started prying at the two by four nailed across the door.
It took some effort but within a couple of minutes the board was down and the only thing that stood between Jeff and the outside world was a deadbolt.
Digging into another pocket he pulled out the key to the car sitting in the driveway. Palming the dark plastic key fob, he pressed the red alarm button. Suddenly, an urgent honking cut through the tumult of screams and howls that had nearly driven Jeff’s family mad over the past few weeks. For a moment it seemed as if this new noise, so shocking and ordinary, would overpower all others. But it was not to be. A tide of rage carried the volume of his neighbors above that of the horn as they began attacking the car.
“Stupid mother-fuckers,” he snorted with disdain. After listening for a few more seconds he pressed the red button again and the alarm cut off, replaced with the sound of wet slaps on the hood of the Impala. Glass shattered and Jeff could imagine a thick press of bodies trying to get at whoever had been honking the horn.
He strained to hear as much as possible. There was frustration and rage, but more importantly, he heard no one on the porch ready to punch a hole through the front door. Taking a deep breath, he slowly let it out as he scooped up the baseball bat and put his hand on the deadbolt. Turning his head, Jeff took one last look around the house. He wanted to remember it as it had once been and not what it was about to become. Nodding to assure himself, he tried to keep his breathing steady as he turned to face the door.
Flipping the dead bolt, he tensed as his hand slipped down to the knob.
“Well, here goes nothing.”
Jeff opened his front door.
My handout for Comes the Dark
As the date of the release of my book, Comes The Dark, gets closer, I am working to do what I can to promote it as much as possible. That includes creating a flier that I can pass out at events like a convention I am going to this weekend to help out a fellow author to promote his recently released book. Since I’ve gotten a rough draft of the cover of my book, I can add few images to the brochure to add a little punch. Here is the text of the piece. Big thanks to Tim Long, another fellow author, who showed a flier that he had created for his book, The Zombie-Wilson Diaries, on The Library of the Living Dead message boards. I essentially copied exactly what he did. I think it will help tremendously.
Well, here it is:
Synopsis
The end came with a whimper, not a bang. The mysterious virus came out of nowhere and engulfed the world in a matter of days. Everyone who was infected seemed to die…and then rise again. Governments collapsed, armies disappeared, and entire civilizations turned to dust as the human race tore itself to pieces.
Jeff Blaine had a good life: a beautiful wife, adorable children, and a nice house in the suburbs. He liked his job, loved his family, and spent his lazy suburban Sundays out on the deck, barbecuing with the neighbors. Things were perfect until everything fell apart. And no matter how hard Jeff tried, he could not spare his family from the horrors scratching at the door.
Now, with his family gone, his life in ruins, the only thing left is raw anger and pain. As the world continues to sink into darkness, Jeff does as well. So he ventures out into the desolation with no better plan than to destroy as many of the monsters that stole his life away before they destroy him as well.
But soon Jeff will discover other survivors unwilling to give up. They will force him to decide whether or not to succumb to the venom that gnaws at his soul. Should he continue to fight to survive, or succumb to the things that come with the dark?
Patrick S. D’Orazio
Patrick D’Orazio resides in southwestern Ohio with his wife, Michele, two children, Alexandra and Zachary, and three spastic dogs. He has been writing since he was a teenager but only recently clued into the fact that unless he attempted to get published, no one else would really care.
Several of his short stories appear in various anthologies from Library of the Living Dead, including “The Moron’s Guide to the Inevitable Zombocalypse,” “The Zombist,” “Night of the Giving Dead,” “Zombidays,” and “Letters from the Dead.” He will also be appearing in May December’s “Eyewitness: Zombie” anthology and Pill Hill Press’ “Daily Bites of Flesh 2011.”
Comes The Dark, the first book of a trilogy, is Patrick’s first novel and is being released by The Library of the Living Dead Press this September.
Undead Praise for Comes The Dark
Comes the Dark is well-written, relentless, fast-paced horror. Be ready for blood, carnage and a wild ride in this tale of the Zompocalypse! –Stephen A. North, author of Dead Tide and Dead Tide Rising
A tense apocalyptic survival tale with a powerful heart at its center. -David Dunwoody, author of EMPIRE and UNBOUND & OTHER TALES
COMES THE DARK by Patrick D’Orazio is a high speed adrenaline ride through the madness and insanity of the zombie apocalypse. From beginning to end you question your own sanity and strength through the eyes of the characters. Can’t wait to get my copy! – Benjamin Rogers, author of FAITH & THE UNDEAD.
Excerpt from Chapter 1
Jeff bit his lip as he tried to maintain a grip on the aluminum baseball bat in his sweaty hands. He splashed through a slick puddle of blood as he continued running down the sidewalk.
The backpack jounced up and down and he slipped his hand around the strap to make sure it stayed in place. The tin cans and boxes of crackers thumped in time to his footsteps. Increasing his speed, he tried to suck in another lungful of air.
The howls of rage had grown distant but slowing down wasn’t an option. Not until he was safely back inside. As he crested the hill a smile tugged at Jeff’s lips—there were only a few more houses to pass and he would be home free.
Pulling tighter on the frayed strap hanging over his shoulder, he moved onto the grass to avoid hearing his own footsteps. Eyes darting back and forth, he spied no movement as his house came into view. It was hard to believe it had only been an hour since he had crept out to go on a hunt for food. He spotted the dark brown side door, which stood in stark contrast to the light beige siding that surrounded it.
Skidding to a halt in front of the door, Jeff’s eyes narrowed. There was a smudge near the knob. A rusty red finger-shaped outline caused his heart to skip a beat.
Feeling a rush of white hot terror flooding his system, Jeff looked around, eyes shifting to the bushes at the back of his neighbor’s house. He could feel his heart racing and pulse accelerate as he tried to keep his breathing normal. Turning quickly, he looked across the street at the other houses, scanning for movement among the shadows. Ignoring the moans and howls off in the distance, he tried to reassure himself no one was watching or waiting to pounce. Taking a deep breath, he tried to tell himself that everything was going to be okay.
The smudge had not been there before. He recalled staring at the door after shutting it earlier and wondering if leaving, even if for a little while, was such a good idea. There had been no scratches and certainly no blood on the door when he left. That was not something the detail oriented man would have missed.
Jeff dug into his pocket and curled his fingers around the house key. Regardless of whoever…or whatever…had left the mark on the door all that mattered now was getting back inside before he was discovered out here.
As the key touched the knob and the door moved slightly, Jeff’s eyes widened and his hand began to quiver. The door was already unlocked. Worse, it wasn’t even shut. He began to shake his head and whisper “no” over and over. It couldn’t be.
Jeff knew he had locked the door when he left. He had hugged Ellen, told Frankie and Mary to behave for mommy, and then…
A cold, stark fear for his family’s safety overrode the slow itch of terror in Jeff’s gut as he slammed his fist into the door and burst into the garage. Staring into the darkened space, he nearly stumbled but somehow his watery legs managed to hold him up.
Mark, his next door neighbor, was bent over Ellen, teeth buried in her neck. A wide pool of bright red fluid gushed from where he gnawed at her torn flesh.
Jeff froze in the doorway as he desperately tried to comprehend what he was seeing. The guy he had shared a few beers with over discussions about politics, baseball, and the Horton’s Rottweiler crapping in their yards was tearing into his wife’s throat. Jeff couldn’t quite see Ellen’s face because Mark’s blood-drenched hand was clasped over her eyes and nose, but it was definitely her. There was a faint scent of jasmine in the air mixed in with the rich coppery scent of blood. It was that perfume she always wore. The tenth anniversary diamond ring he had given her a year before sparkled in a splash of sunlight as her arm flopped to the side. Jeff’s eyes gravitated to the ring but it was hard to catch more than a brief glimpse of it as his wife’s fingers twitched violently in response to the tearing motion of Mark’s teeth.
For more info on the book, head over to http://www.patrickdorazio.com
Comes The Dark
The ongoing saga of becoming a published author…
Yep, it continues to be an interesting journey for me. Currently, I am dealing with plenty in my life and the writing aspect is only one sub-section of that, but even with all the administration that goes into getting a book ready and prepared for the publisher, it is a fun experience.
I haven’t written for a few days due to other distractions, but I want to focus on it full steam over the next couple of weeks. I am starting to feel the compelling need to begin writing my next novel, since I have been so short story happy that the idea and outline has been sitting there, collecting dust for a long time. It is going to start beating on my brain pretty soon, demanding that I start paying it attention. That is the thing about writing. It’s all in there, in the brain, hanging out in various locked rooms, banging on the doors trying to get out. Sooner or later, the wood starts to splinter and you either let it out or it overwhelms you, keeping you from doing anything else until you appease it and pay it some much needed attention.
In other news, I finally got my Amazon author page going. Here is the link, but do NOT prepare to be dazzled…at least not if you are reading this around June 1st, 2010…when all of one anthology is listed. http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B003O5GJBC. Still, it is a beginning. I still have not taken the plunge and gotten a Facebook fan page going just yet. I will definitely do so in the near future…before the book comes out.
I reached out to an artist today to see if he would be willing to work on the cover of my novel. Since nothing is official yet, I will remain quiet about who this artist is but he sounds interested, which is exciting. He is an excellent artist and will do the cover great justice if he takes this project on.
I am currently waiting for the edits to approve for Comes The Dark, which will allow me to start getting blurbs going with several other authors and a reviewer who publishes their reviews on the net. Now the blurbs are assuming that they like the book (fingers crossed) and as such will give it a nice comment. I have done what needs to be done as far as other things that will appear in the book: introduction, biography, dedication, etc. But until the edits are done, things are pretty much in stasis.
But as time rolls on, I get the privilege of seeing more of my short stories come out…promoting them, making sure they are listed on my Amazon Authors Page, and trying to convince anyone and everyone to check them out. I am also waiting to hear back on several submissions outstanding…and I need to start writing again.
The real trick is to keep writing, despite how many distractions there are. I could focus on all the mechanics of the book and just keep the writing to a minimum and feel like I am accomplishing something, but that really doesn’t cut it. The first rule for me seems to be: write as much as you can, read as much as you can. The rest tends to follow that.
This stuff is hard
As the world rolls on and I try to “become” an author through all the other processes involved with the translation of writing a book to having a book actually published, I have realized that this stuff is hard.
This belief stems from the fact that I have spent all day today trying to create an introduction to my novel, Comes the Dark because my publisher, the esteemed Dr. Pus, asked me to start putting together all the little things that surround the novel. I have had the back cover written for a long time, which has undergone a few changes but has remained close to what I originally created back in 2008, which I foolishly believed I had finished the book…the first time. But its the other little things that I am now focused on: my biography (not just for the back of the book, but to post on Amazon with the book), the introduction, the dedication, an extended description (once again for Amazon)…and various and other sundry things.
You see, a book is not just about getting it accepted by a publisher, getting it sent to an editor to do that voodoo they do so well, having an artist create a cover, and then slapping it all together. Nooooo, it is far more complicated than that! I am sure if you are in the biz, you already knew this and are having a nice little giggle under your breath at this point. But for those out there like me, who are novices, you have to understand what all goes into this, even when you are dealing with a lean and mean publishing house like Library of the Living Dead.
I never gave much thought to the inside of a book. Now I am not speaking about the actual story itself (duh) but the outline of the book. The table of contents, the font used, the way it sits on a page…but there is someone handling that little tidbit, and as I have discovered, that person has to deal with all of your mistakes, just as the editor and publisher do. How you format the manuscript makes a difference as to how they have to deal with the layout of the document.
A manuscript is expected to be in a certain format, whether you are writing a short story or a novel. The biggies, as I have seen them, are 12 point courier, double spaced, with an indent at the beginning of each paragraph. But watch out! Different publishers want different things. Some want headers, others do not. The gentleman who does outlining for Doc at the Library does not want the indents set automatically, but manually. Italics that you use in a story may or may not be acceptable in an manuscript. Some publishers want you to underline everything that is to be italicized, while others want the story to appear as you want it to be when it comes out as a novel.
In addition to the stuff I have listed above, I have the duty of seeking out blurbs for my book. What are blurbs you ask. Blurbs are the comments made by other authors that you want to appear on the cover and inside of your book. So how do you get these? Not by being bashful, of course. You submit a request to the authors (hopefully, you already know them) and provide them with an edited version of your book if they are willing to take a swipe at blurbing your work. Of course, you have to cross your fingers that they like what you have written and will get you something back before all the formatting and book design occurs.
Yep, this stuff is hard. It’s fun, so don’t get me wrong, but writing a novel is just the beginning of this process.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention all the promotion and “pimping” I need to do as well…things like getting a Facebook fan site going, an author page on Amazon (both still in the works), promoting the book on this blog and promoting it via other blogs, as well as doing interviews, attending events like Horror Realm, and other stuff that will come about as I continue to move forward.
More on that later. Right now, I need to keep rocking and rolling with all of this, while I try to find more time to write and read other folks stuff as well, which is something I love doing. It keeps you busy, that’s for sure!
My first interview!!!
Tim Long, Horror and Fantasy Writer Extraordinaire, was kind enough to include me in a interview he did with several different up and coming writers who are getting published in various Library of the Living Dead Press works.
It was a blast to do. There is plenty of other good stuff in his podcast for the horror fan, so check it out!
Collaboration of the Dead
It appears that I will be participating in a collaborative effort with several other writers who have been published by the Library of the Living Dead and in other publications. I believe the term for what is planned is a mosaic novel. To the best of my understanding, this is how it works:
A coordinating editor or contributor brings together a group of different writers and sets the stage for a story they will develop together. Each writer is assigned a couple of different chapters they will write, either in a random order or perhaps in an organized setup. The order is determined and then the first chapter is written, edited, and then passed along to the next writer. That writer produces their chapter and then hands it back to the coordinator, who edits it, puts the two chapters together, and hands both of them to the next writer, who reads, reviews, and crafts a third chapter in the story. This continues on, and perhaps circles back through all the authors after they have all had a hand in crafting one chapter each so that they can complete their other chapter. Finally, when all the chapters are done, they are compiled and then hopefully published.
The project I will be working on was a spontaneous idea from one of the writers at the Library who has not planned further ahead than getting us all together. Whether it will end up being published by the Library or by another publisher remains to be seen. So as it stands, it will be a very exciting and unique experiment for me as well as the other writers involved.
I will admit, I am nervous about this, although the collaboration here is more generalized than one might experience if they were writing a novel in tandem with another writer and the communication is far more intense as you both strive to complete the story and make any differences in writing styles work. I am not sure with this mosaic novel whether the expectation is that we will all be writing in the same style and keeping the story consistent, or if the expectation is that everyone will be allowed to go crazy and really twist the story around as we see fit. It will definitely be a new and exciting experience for me, one which will definitely help me grow as a writer.
Coming up with Story Ideas
One of the biggest challenges that wears me down as I have gotten more serious about writing is coming up with new, fresh ideas for stories on a continuous basis. Some will say that stories that have creatures like zombies in them, which have been used in a wide array of stories over the years, is probably not going to get you an award for creativity. It’s certainly true that I have read my fair share of rip-off zombie tales that follow the patented process made famous by Romero and others, with a group of people hiding out in a enclosed area desperately trying to figure out how they will survive because the undead are bashing at the doors, or gates, or whatever, and things are getting tense inside, and perhaps there are some other living humans outside that are also causing trouble, etc. But I have also read quite a few zombie stories that bring new ideas to the table by making the zombies intelligent, fast, demonic, alien, etc. I have also read the same type of stuff in other genres countless times with the rehash factor playing a major role. Heck, I have read an author who has regurgitated the same idea they had years before and just put some new decorative touches on it before selling it again.
What I have gathered from all of this is that even if you use a tried and true set of story guidelines and keep going back to the same well, it doesn’t mean you are creating something dull, drab, and uninspired. Similarly, if you throw some real curve balls with your ideas to make your story stand out as unique and different, you may still have the same stale and flabby plot if that is all you are relying on to make your tale something someone will want to read.
In other words, the setting is only one piece of the puzzle. I have read in excess of 300 different zombie books over the past few years, mixed in with a wide assortment of stories from other genres. And no, I am not just some incredibly obsessed fan boy who cannot stop pouring over the minutia of survival that apocalyptic and zombie stories usually give you. Sure, I’ve given my fair share of thought to what it would take to survive if things go terribly wrong in the world. I’ve written my posts on various message boards talking about that topic and others, both with the very serious folks out there that thing the world is going to end tomorrow and those who just love to kick around ideas and have some fun with it. BUT, and this is the big BUT, that does not mean I like reading the same old story with just minor changes just because they have zombies in them. Because what I really enjoy in good zombie story is a writer who can come up with new characters, new challenges, and essentially someone who will paint a fresh coat of paint over a basic story that has been around since Romero created Night of the Living Dead. In other words, if you are stuck in a farmhouse with a bunch of other people, I am not going to groan this setting has already been used, but I expect some new perspective , new and compelling characters, and something that will perhaps shed NEW light on the human condition. This is not to say that catapulting these characters into a new fresh environment with an entirely new breed of the undead might not be a bad idea, but what it boils down to for me, at least with what I would define as a ‘good zombie story’ is that you’ve made a serious effort at presenting the reader with characters that are multi-dimensional, intriguing, human, and perhaps allow us to love or hate them based on who they are and what they are willing to do. No, scratch that. That doesn’t just make for a good zombie story, it makes for a good story in general.
I use the zombie genre as an example because it is one that I have been immersed in for some time as I have written my book and the short stories that have followed up with more recently. My novel, in some ways, has a very traditional setting for a tale of the apocalypse. The undead nemesis is, for the most part, is very traditional. But I didn’t focus all my energy on the undead. Most of my effort went to developing characters that felt real and natural, doing what they can under terrible circumstances. Whether or not I succeeded in creating a compelling story with them is something each reader will have to decide for themselves, but finding a publisher willing to put out my book and having others who have read it indicating that it is a compelling has definitely given me the confidence to know that I can perhaps write something enjoyable and entertaining. But the first person I had to please was myself. Just like every other author I have know, I am by far my harshest critic. So with my novel, I didn’t slam my head against the desk desperately trying to write a story that didn’t have elements no one else has ever used before. Instead, I devoted myself to making my characters people that would keep someone glued to the page to see what happens next to them. Hopefully I pulled that off.
Short stories are something I am spending time with right now. The ideas for these are ones you can put together and develop without mapping out massive story arcs, which is a nice change of pace for me from writing the novel, although I will be getting back to writing my book within the next month or two. Writing short stories, after diving so deep into one story with a very specific characters, is a refreshing twist for me. It allows me to work with character that aren’t perhaps as complex, at least on the written page, but still definitely have intriguing stories to tell.
I do struggle more with coming up with creative stuff for short stories than I did with my book. I think of these smaller stories like guerrilla warfare. You sneak in, do the job, and get out before anyone realizes what you’ve done. Writing a novel is like going to war. You are the general and you are looking at thousands of different troop movements and trying to figure out what the enemy will do before they do it so you can adjust your techniques to outwit them. It is waged over months and years and generally speaking can be quite costly for all involved. A war takes lots of planning before you ever attack, and there are lots and lots of battles, and the map you are working with changes daily, because things change as you move forward-you discover you don’t like the direction a particular plot point is taking, some wonderful idea has filtered through that will require you to revamp over 100 pages of your tale, etc. The whole objective of guerrilla warfare is to get in and get out before the enemy can point its artillery at you and smash you flat. So it requires you to be light on your feet and come up with a story idea that can be effectively relayed in just a few thousand words, rather than 80,000.
I am not sure how good I am at writing short stories just yet. I have four accepted currently, and three more I have to wait until the editor gets past their designated deadline to even look at, but none of that means that I know for sure that I have what it takes to come up with something new and different every few days or weeks, which is what writing short stories is all about. Because you see, unlike with a novel, I think there is more onus on the short story writer to have something unique and different each time they set pen to paper. In 5,000 words or so, you need to set the stage, build the drama, let the story unfold, and bring it to a conclusion. Trust me, that is not such an easy task.
So far, I have been able to come up with something different with the short stories I have written. There are a few others I haven’t tried to get published because they really haven’t fit in the anthologies I have been working with, but if an idea strikes, the first thing I do is write it down and then stow it away. If it really is something I am obsessed with and have fully shaped inside my brain, I will start writing it right away. But usually the ideas I have are half formed and need time to gestate.
An example would be a story idea I came up with about a sixteen year old girl who has been bouncing around the foster care system her entire life. She is a chronic troublemaker and no one can handle her for long. Along come a very stern, very religious couple, who agree to take her and intend on scaring her straight. The main character takes that as a challenge and tries to torment these people, but they are un-tormentable, or so it seems. They lock her in her bedroom at night and she hears them down in the basement, praying. She wants to mess with them and wants to also find out more about their very secretive beliefs, so she breaks out of her room one night and suddenly, she discovers… Well, that was as far as I got. The idea was fairly basic, and would need a lot of molding and shaping, with some major embellishments. But what did I do with this idea? I later found a anthology that was looking for stories on phobias. These would be horror stories about the innocuous fears we have. So I started morphing my idea and wrote a story where there is a little girl who has a phobia of God and religion and she gets taken in by a very religious but very kind couple. I submitted the story and am waiting until the deadline passes in another month or so to see if its been accepted.
Sometimes you just never know where a story will lead you.
Other story ideas pop into my head fully formed. Writing the outline is simple and easy to do. A story I hope to start writing today is one like that. Another anthology is looking for stories of doom. In other words, major catastrophic events that wipe out whole civilizations. That was their only guidelines, but the idea that popped into my head was fully conceived and very specific. I wrote the full outline for it in around ten minutes and thus far, I love the idea as it is. That’s not to say it won’t change as I start writing, but for now, its a go and I just have to make sure I stick to the story guidelines about length and content before I turn it in.
I know of plenty of authors who out there who are superbly more talented than me who can see some submission guidelines for a short story or even a novella and their brain immediately starts creating something that works perfectly for what the editor is looking for. I envy those folks, but that is not me. I have to be hit by inspiration or I just don’t have the enthusiasm to carry a story through. The eureka moment is a big deal to me, and while sometimes it comes when I concentrate, most of the time it comes when I am not even thinking about writing, stories, or anything creative. Its not always a lightning bolt and thunder clap, sometimes its just a light drizzle that slowly saturates me and allows me to slowly poke and prod the idea until it fully develops into something tangible and hopefully, publishable.
I am afraid that one day, I will be sitting down, having just finished a story, and my brain will go blank, with nothing left inside as far as creativity is concerned. So far, it hasn’t happened, but the fact remains that I can’t always come up with something new that fits with something someone actually wants. An example is a new anthology looking for submissions that are supposed to be humorous science fiction tales. I would love to be a part of that and create something that is a riot, but unfortunately I haven’t come up with a single good idea as of yet. The good news is there is no deadline for this story just yet, so I have time, but I am still wracking my brain trying to come up with something for it. In the meantime, I have other ideas that just pop in my head that will make interesting stories, but none that are remotely close to something sci-fi-ish and humorous. But such is life.
I wish I had written this topic with some sort of advice in mind for someone reading this, but I really don’t have anything for you. Sorry if that seems selfish, but the muse visits different people in different ways. It seems that everyone has a different way of coming up with story ideas. Different inspirations, different personalities, different ways of thinking. I guess the best thing is to keep an open mind and listen to the world around you. Because you never know when or where inspiration will hit.
My experiences with the writing, editing, and publishing process.
Its almost surreal, this experience I have been going through lately. Well, when I say lately, I mean over the past three and a half years. July 2006-That is when I got “serious” about this writing stuff. I, like many people I know, had always sworn they would become a writer some day. We all have ideas, we all have plans to sit down and write chapter after chapter and create the great American novel. Or at least, the novel that someone might want to read, even if it is just our wives or husbands and maybe the rest of our family members. But honestly, how many of us end up doing that?
I have a friend who encouraged me every step of the way. He was impressed when I told him that I had written a hundred pages, he was impressed when I finished my first draft. He had started his own book, and trashed the efforts, countless times. He could never get past chapter one.
Well, for me, the journey was about kicking myself in the ass and not playing around any more. The disconnect was never after I had sat down and started writing, it had been moving from the idea stage to reality. Once I actually started writing, I never looked back…
Now, please understand, I think it is fair to say that everyone writes differently. You can’t say that there is a step by step process that everyone should take to become a successful writer. Certainly, I can’t recommend On Writing by Stephen King enough. That guy is a machine, and he is a regimented, highly organized writer who keeps to a schedule and perhaps even follows all the rules he has in place for how things are supposed to go. Me? I doubt I will ever be like that.
Some folks I know sit down with an idea and just start writing. It flows from that point and grows from there. They have a general idea in their head where they want to end up but don’t limit themselves by organizing their thoughts too much beforehand. Me? I over think EVERYTHING during the writing process. Let me put it this way: I started writing my novel back in July of 2006 and I believe my first draft was not completed until January of 2008, a year and a half later. Now let me say this: that was not me simply writing and writing. That process involved outlining, revamping outlines, trashing big chunks of what I had originally written, and laboring over individual sentences at 3 a.m. as I tried to make it sound right. By the time my first draft was completed, it was well over 360k words.
Let me repeat that for those of you in the cheap seats: 360k words. Stephen King’s The Stand was originally released with 150,000 words cut from the manuscript. It was still well over 800 pages (honestly, I can’t remember how many pages there were) but my book was about the size of the originally released version of the stand. Now even with my meandering mind could I ever hope to top Mr. King, whose unabridged version sits at approximately 520k words.
So, move forward from my triumphant evening sitting at the keyboard, when I typed out that last sentence and officially announced to friends and family that I had finished my book. It felt like a relief, like I could scratch off something on the bucket list, etc. I was 39 years old at the time and I had written my first novel before hitting that big middle aged landmark. I was over the moon.
Then I started to realize that even with all the editing I had done, all the effort to put together something presentable, that my story was monstrous. I approached a publisher. Someone I had been having a dialogue with previously, because I had been reviewing books they had come out with and they had been so kind as to send me review copies of other books to also review on Amazon. The publisher was more than willing to look at my book, but…and this was a big BUT, could I turn it into a trilogy? The reason for this was because at 360K words, it was far, far, far too large to ever be considered for publication with them. He liked a maximum of 120K words per book, and that was even pushing it.
Sooooo, that leads us to the second part of this process-my efforts to turn my book into a trilogy. Thankfully, that was not as hard to do as I had originally though, because as I started looking, I saw three natural splits in the novel-cliffhanger endings that set up the following segment of my tale nicely. So that was done, along with some more compulsive editing.
Alas, this is where I began to actually learn a few more things about writing that became invaluable to me. The first came a month after I submitted my manuscript to this particular publisher and the gentleman came back and said that he could not publish my book. He was kind enough to provide me with feedback and the key thing I took away from that was this: I was doing a hell of a lot of telling and not nearly enough showing. In other words, I was dumping a lot of information on people and not allowing them to discover the story for themselves.
I thanked that publisher and admitted to myself that he was absolutely correct in his assessment. I also realized that my book was massively over bloated and I needed to mercilessly start to slice and dice it down to what it should have been in the first place.
So my editing journey continued. The publisher had actually suggested I leave this story on the shelf and work on other stuff for a time and after getting published with other novels or short stories, then return to my story later. I had given that some thought but in the end, I couldn’t help but return to the story that had been in my dreams and nightmares now for two and half years at that point. It was the beginning of 2009 by then, and my novel had just gotten rejected by a publisher and as a side note, my job had just been eliminated.
So, I was unemployed and focused on finding a new job. I did leave my book on the shelf…for about a month or two. Then I went at it with red penned zeal. I should probably say at this point that other people were reading what I had written. They had been doing so for quite some time. I definitely took a lot from their thoughts. Mind you, I didn’t change everything based on their suggestions, but having those other folks to bounce things off of was invaluable.
I was bound and determined to get my book published. Let me put that a different way. I did not want to self-publish. Period. A writer by the name of Rhiannon Frater has written a trilogy of zombie apocalyptic fiction entitled As The World Dies. She went the self-publishing route. Her success is well known in the world of zombie fiction. I can’t say that I know Rhiannon personally, but I do know her through the wonderful world of the internet-Facebook and message boards, etc. Her success has been definitely the exception to the rule. Rhiannon has a business savvy and loads of smarts that allowed her to self-publish and create something that was terrific and create something that people have bought. Word of mouth has been a big part of that. That is my plug for her work: go buy her trilogy. Its fantastic.
But Rhiannon’s success is the exception. There are good self-published novels, sometimes by jaded authors who got sick of trying to go the normal route to publishing. They write terrific stories that will really blow you away. But in addition to those novels, you are going to get a LOT more novels that probably were taken out of the oven way too early. That is my polite way of saying that a professional editor would have gone a long way for those folks who so desperately wanted to get published and were willing to do whatever it took to achieve that dream as fast as possible. On top of that, you have to consider how much marketing responsibility you have taken on by becoming your own business entity. Rhiannon was able to do it, but I daresay she is a unique person. Did I write a book so I could become famous and read by thousands or millions? No, but if I am going to get published, I would like to have a company standing behind me with not only an editor, but the ability to effectively market what I have written. They can promote my book in the back of other books they produce, they can take me to trade shows, put excerpts from my book on pod casts, etc. Being in a stable with other authors is also invaluable. I have interacted with a much larger group of people because of my relationship with the Library of the Living Dead. Not only is Dr. Pus, the benevolent publisher, someone who I have gained valuable insights from, but I have also had the privilege of bouncing ideas off of published authors like Tim Long and Steve North. That guys like that (amongst many other terrific writers) are asking for my opinion on what they are currently writing is mind blowing.
Whew! That was quite a tangent, wasn’t it? So anyway, back to my saga. I pulled down my manuscript and started slicing it and editing it about another million times. The end result? About 162K words. At the same time, I introduced myself to the Library of the Living Dead and Dr. Pus, who was so kind as to create a section of his message boards where I could post chapters of my book for others to read and critique. What a difference that made! It introduced me to a lot of people. Folks like those I have mentioned above, including Rhiannon Frater, who has not only been self published but also published at the Library as well. Tons of other writers of both novels and short stories, as well as fans of the genre, were there, supporting me every step of the way.
So after I felt pretty strong about my novel, I submitted it to the Library. But again, at 162K words, it was a bit large, but still could be turned into a trilogy that would make sense and worked quite well. So I spoke to Doc about that and less than a couple of weeks ago, he agreed to publish it as a trilogy.
Once again, I was over the moon and thrilled. But the journey, in many ways, has just begun. Doc is assigning me an editor, who I will become very familiar with over the next few months (and beyond), I am sure. We have chatted about artwork for the cover of the first book, the description on the back, and any sort of promoting that I can do, including creating a website (thus this blog, which is the tip of the iceberg for me). I will be at Horror Realm in Pittsburgh in September, which will be occurring shortly after my book is released in September.
I will likely be talking in detail about my experiences with the publishing process in later blog installments. Its been an interesting ride so far.
Welcome to my world
I am a horror writer.
It’s strange writing that. Heck, its even more strange saying it. While it has been a dream of mine to be a published author for well over half my life, its just now becoming a reality. Which is pretty surreal.
My first novel, Comes the Dark is being released by Library of the Living Dead Press later this year. I’ve written some short stories and so far (knock wood) I’ve had good luck in getting acceptances for a few of them. So technically, I haven’t been published yet, but unless everything caves in, my name will be on several different stories in several different books within the next few months.
I am a horror writer, but I hope to extend that description to science fiction and fantasy writer as well as time goes on. I guess technically, I am already a fantasy writer, though trying to count the novel I wrote back in high school when I was in the throws of a Dungeons and Dragons fetish probably doesn’t really count. I have looked back on what I had banged out on the old typewriter (that will give you a hint as to how old I am, but just a hint) and I see something that would need to be totally reworked and revamped before I would ever consider trying to have it published. Still, I was able to create a complex world with interesting politics, magic, and creatures. There is something there that I definitely want to revisit some day…hopefully soon.
Now, back to Comes the Dark. This is my submission to the world of zombie horror, my effort to humbly add something to a genre that has grown in popularity over the last decade, but which has remained popular since George Romero recreated the zombie into something different than those island dwelling automatons. But don’t get me wrong, the origins of zombies are fascinating and one of the short stories I wrote deals with voodoo zombies. They certainly can be just as terrifying as the Americanized version that Mr. Romero came up with, but I think most of us are a lot more intrigued by the flesh eaters rather than the soulless slaves of the Carribean.
Yep, I tend to ramble a bit. Comes the Dark deals with one man’s journey through the zombie apocalypse and my focus was on character development. My fascination with zombies has always been that the stories, or rather the really good ones, generally tend to focus more on the people rather than the monsters themselves. Zombies are us and we are them-there is a sort of reflection going on, but its really how human beings struggle to avoid degenerating into something worse than zombies that has always intrigued me with the stories of Romero and many of the authors who have written some really terrific zombie sagas since he introduced us to the rotting buggers.
Well, that’s it for now. I am working on trying to create this blog and also wrap a website around it. Wish me luck in this endeavor, along with all the fun and challenging stuff that comes with trying to bring out your first novel!
Patrick D'Orazio's Blog 