Category Archives: New Pulp

NaNoWriMo Begins

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A few things to touch on this time around. November means the beginning of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and, just as I do every year, I’m participating once more. In the eight years I’ve been doing NaNoWriMo, I’ve only ever finished one novel I began for it. The others ended up abandoned on my hard drive. All novels aside from Fallen were written outside of NaNoWriMo or finished outside of it. Last year was an interesting one—I began working on a book called The Legacy of Frankenstein only to end up burning out around the 16,000 word mark. But it turned out to be a good thing, because it caused me to go back and look at some abandoned projects, one of which was SoulQuest. And though I didn’t finish it in November, I did complete it a few months later in March (more on a SoulQuest update a little later).

This time around, I’m working on a superhero novel. I actually began this back in April or May but then I put it on the back-burner after about 6,000 words because I needed a recharge after SoulQuest with some short stories. Those ended up piling up and took longer than expected, but now I’ve started back on it. I had cracked 11,000 words right before NaNoWriMo began, but instead of starting over with something new, I’ve decided to just keep working on this. Yeah, I know that’s cheating, but it’s not like there are any prizes involved and it helps me light a fire under my ass to keep going. To balance the scales a bit, I didn’t write at all during this first week of NaNoWriMo, so I’m about where I would have been had I started it on November 1st.

Although that writing holiday wasn’t intentional. I was busy on the 1st and the 2nd-3rd I was in Okinawa for the Japan Writers Conference. Speaking of the JWC, it went really well. A bit hectic on the first day because I landed at noon and then had to get from the airport to the rental car shop and then to Okinawa Christian University where it was being held. But I managed to make it in time. I gave two presentations that weekend, one on New Pulp and another on self-publishing. Both were pretty successful. I got to sell a few books and I also got the opportunity to connect with a lot of very awesome writers. Check out the Japan Writers Conference website to read some more about the authors who presented. Very good group of people and I hope I can go again next year.

So today, I’ve gotten back to writing. Managed 2,037 words today for a total of, as you can see on the little image from Writertopia (click on it to be taken to their site, by the way), 13,031 words. According to NaNoWriMo’s stats, the par for today is 11,666. So I’m doing well so far.

 

Sentinels: Apocalypse Rising

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apocalypsemini_2013This is the third book in Van Allen Plexico’s excellent Sentinels series of superhero novels, and the conclusion to The Grand Design trilogy. As a writer moves further and further into a series, some of the magic that was present at the beginning can begin to fade. The characters become overly familiar, the surprises grow less surprising, and there’s a sort of “sameness” that develops.

Although I enjoyed the second book in this series, A Distant Star, there was a sense that it was more set-up for Apocalypse Rising than its own entity. So I was a little worried that Van may not have been able to capture the lightning in a bottle he harnessed so effectively with the inaugural Sentinels novel, When Strikes The Warlord.

Fortunately, my fears were unfounded, because Van certainly brings his A-game to this book. The plot threads that began in When Strikes The Warlord and continued and expanded on in A Distant Star are brought to an awe-inspiring finale that serves as both the end of the first phase in the lives of these characters, and the beginning of something more.

In a world where The Avengers was one of the highest-grossing movies of all time and turned what was once an unknown property to anyone outside of the comic book community, it’s become very frustrating to watch Marvel consistently fumble the ball with their premiere superhero franchise. Of the core titles, one is more concerned with the characters arguing amongst themselves than fighting supervillains, another shows the supposed “heroes” debating the merits of mass genocide in favor of the greater good, and the third features pretentious plot lines and characters who serve little purpose than to act as wallpaper.

It’s extremely disappointing. And that’s why we need people like Van Allen Plexico, who can still give us the same thrilling superhero tales that Joss Whedon and co. delivered so effectively with The Avengers. Van follows in the footsteps of some of the greatest superhero writers in history, names like Roy Thomas, Jim Starlin, Chris Claremont, Kurt Busiek, and Grant Morrison. These men are giants when it comes to superheroes, and Van has proven he is more than capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with them.

If you’re looking for stellar characterization, larger-than-life stories, and, most-importantly, superheroes who aren’t ashamed to act heroic, then you need to be reading Sentinels. Because no one, either in comics or prose, is doing superheroes better than Van Allen Plexico.

Head on over to Amazon right now and pick up your copy either in print or for your Kindle.

SoulQuest Cover Coming Along!

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imageToday I’ve got something special for you. Brad Horton is hard at work on the cover. If you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw I posted a small headshot from Brad recently. Well, I woke up this morning to find the image you see to your left waiting for me in my inbox!

The hooded guy in the cape and wielding a sword is Zarim, the hero of SoulQuest and captain of the pirate airship, the Excalibur. By his side, as always, is Ekala, his first mate, a rough-and-tumble thief who doesn’t take crap off anyone.

These designs were originally created by artist Frank Jensen when he was working on SoulQuest as a comic book. I gave those designs to Brad as a reference to work from and told him to feel free to make any changes he felt were necessary. For the most part, he left the designs intact, but he made some subtle tweaks which I feel have really tightened up the look of the characters.

And this is just the preliminary stuff, people! Brad’s showed me the concept he has in mind for the cover, and it will take these awesome designs and make them extremely dynamic!

Once again, if you haven’t, run on over to Brad’s website and check out his amazing work. He’s also got some art for sale (my personal favorite is his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles piece)! We still don’t have an official launch date for SoulQuest just yet, because I want to give Brad all the time he needs to work his magic, but once we do, readers of this blog will be the first to know!
On other fronts, my latest story for Pro Se is inching closer and closer to completion. I’m at 5,239 words and the story has a rough goal of 8-10,000 words, so a little more than halfway done.

I announced this on Facebook and Twitter yesterday, but I wanted to mention it here as well: I’m looking into starting up a podcast specifically about pulp writers on writing pulp. I’ve gotten some interest so far, but if any pulp writers are reading this and would like to be a guest on the show, please drop me a line either through Facebook, Twitter, or this site’s contact page. In your message, let me know what aspect of writing pulp you’d be interested in discussing on the show (feel free to come up with a list of things, as I’d like to have recurring guests).

Buy in print, get a free digital copy!

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Amazon has just unveiled Kindle MatchBook. With this program, if you buy a print book from Amazon and a digital version is also available, you get the digital version at a discounted price!

I’ve gone ahead and enrolled all my ebooks into this program. That means Chasing the Dragon, Love & Bullets, Outlaw Blues, The Myth Hunter and Dragon Kings of the Orient are all now part of Kindle Matchbook. The normal price for these ebooks is $2.99.

But, if you’ve bought any of these books in print form from Amazon, then you get the digital versions for the low, low price of free! I don’t believe in charging people twice for the same item just in a different format with no additional content, so if you already own these books in print format, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t also be able to own the digital versions!

And if you haven’t bought these books in either print or digital, then run on over to Amazon and pick them up today!

REMEMBER: This is only for books I wrote on my own which are also available in digital format. So Tales of the Rook isn’t eligible because that’s under the control of Pro Se Press and Fallen isn’t eligible because it’s not available in digital format.

Back to School

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backtoschoolSeptember has brought about a return to school on two fronts for me. At the beginning of this month, I began my new day job. I’m still teaching English in public schools here in southern Kyushu, but now I’m working for a private company instead of the JET Program (which imposes a limit of five years). The other major difference is that before, I taught at elementary and junior high schools, whereas now I’m teaching at only elementary schools. I’ve also got a much longer commute, around forty minutes to an hour and a half depending on the school (I have a lot of schools to visit). The good thing with that is I’ve gotten a chance to catch up on a lot of podcasts, as well as discovered some others.

On that note, if you aren’t listening to Tommy Hancock’s excellent PULPED! and Pro Se Presents: The Podcast shows, then you need to jump over to iTunes right now and search for those. Every week, both are updated with Tommy speaking to a different New Pulp writer and they’re well worth a listen.

The other “back to school” front is I’ve begun the second semester of my online masters course at Southern New Hampshire University. The first semester was a difficult one. I took two classes with the assumption that I’d have plenty of time—after all, I was taking five classes a semester during my undergrad years, why couldn’t I be able to handle two? Famous last words, as those two classes took up a lot of my time and I was burning the candle at both ends. This semester I’ve only decided to take one class. Initially, I was enrolled in a Masters in English, but when registration time came around and I looked over the required classes, I realized they were pretty much identical to classes I took in my undergraduate years. Not wanting to just repeat myself, I changed my major slightly—I’m still going for a Masters in English, but now it’s more specific: a Masters in English and Creative Writing with a Screenwriting Concentration (man that’s a mouthful). Poetry doesn’t pose much of an interest to me (and I’m not very good at it) and while there’s no harm in improving my prose skills, screenwriting and film has always been one of my first loves, so I wanted to focus on that. This semester, I’m taking a class called Fiction Fundamentals and today’s the first day. I popped in on the message boards and introduced myself (as is customary at the beginning of these online classes), talked a little bit about myself, and was surprised to find someone who recognized me from my work with PulpWork Press! Always a nice feeling.

On the education front, last semester both of my final papers focused on pulp work. One of them was a linguistic analysis the language of Fleming’s Bond novels and how Fleming used that language to promote notions of British superiority. After a semester full of struggle and my professor getting really frustrated with me just not getting ig (although still disguising it with nearly endless patience), imagine my surprise when she sent me an email in response to my first draft and asked me to post it up on the class message board to serve as an example!

My other paper was comparing Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan to another jungle hero, Charles Saunders’ Mtimu, who made his debut in Black Pulp. As an editor for Pro Se, I’m entitled to digital comp copies of their entire library, so I emailed Tommy and asked him if I could get one of Black Pulp and explained why. Tommy was more than happy to provide me with a copy (and go pick up yours, it’s an excellent book). Once I finished the essay, I sent it to him and Tommy loved it to the point that he asked me if he could post it up on the Pro Se website as one of Pro Se’s Free Extras and I said sure, albeit with some trepidation. I hadn’t yet received a grade on it, nor feedback from my classmates, so the self-conscious part of me who has been out of college for about seven years kept telling me “this is crap, you don’t know what you’re doing.” But Tommy liked it and so I allowed him to post it up.

Nothing could prepare me for what would happen next. A few weeks ago, I received an email from Ron Fortier, who really needs no introduction (but go on over to Airship 27 if for some reason you do need one). Ron’s always an interesting guy with a story to tell (if you’ve ever heard him on any of the podcasts he’s appeared on, you know this, and he just did one for The Nocturne Travel Agency that you should listen to), and this was no exception. This time around, Ron told me about how he’d been trying to convince Charles Saunders for some time to write a jungle queen novel focused on the character of Lulama, who was at first an antagonist of sorts in the Mtimu story. Saunders gave it some thought, but once my essay was posted on Pro Se’s website, Ron took advantage of it and sent it to Charles. The essay apparently delighted Charles to the point that he decided to move ahead with the Lulama novel! You can read the full account on Airship 27’s press release. Needless to say, I was floored by this news. What turned out to be a simple essay (and writing about pulp in a positive light in an academic setting is a steep hill to climb) turned into something that served as inspiration for a great writer!

And yes, I got an A on the paper.

Things have now calmed down after I’ve moved into my new house and settled into my new job. I’ve managed to jump back on the writing horse. SoulQuest, my next novel, is close to print. My old friend and wonderful artist Brad Horton is handling the cover art this time, and from the concepts he’s shown me, this will probably be the best-looking book I’ve published to date.

After living with SoulQuest for far too long, I decided to recharge by doing some short story work. I’ve also finished two short stories for Pro Se, and I’m in the process of working on a third. I’m not sure if Tommy would like me to go into more specifics than that, so I’ll keep quiet about what those projects are until there’s a press release. I’ve also got another short story to work on for the 2013 PulpWork Christmas Special. This will be the first time I’ve participated in that anthology. I had to decline in the past because I was in the midst of other things and couldn’t get it ready in time. But this time, I had an idea for a great Christmas story. So rejoice, Myth Hunter fans, because this story will focus on Asami, Elisa Hill’s changeling partner!

Once I’m done with those stories, I can get back to my next novel project. I put it to the side for a while so I could recharge myself with these shorter projects. But now I’m chomping at the bit to get back to work on it. I won’t say much more about it than that. I’ve started using the Magic Spreadsheet to chart my progress, and you can find out more about that here.

That’s all for now. Hopefully with some more time, I’ll be able to post on here more frequently.

The Cestus Concern (Weir Codex Book 1)

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cestusconcernLooking at Mat Nastos’ biography is enough to give you feelings of inadequacy. If you want to talk about making the most of your creative career, he’s definitely one guy who has done that, as an artist for comics/film/TV, director, writer, and now, he can add novelist to that long list of accomplishments. He’s a self-proclaimed Super Genius, and after reading some of his excellent articles on marketing over at his website, I can say that’s a title he’s definitely earned.

The Cestus Concern is Nastos’ first novel, as well as the first book in the Weir Codex series (Book 2 is due out this year). The story centers on Malcolm Weir, a soldier who awakens in an operating room to find cybernetic arms have been grafted to his body and a computer installed in his mind. Fighting his way out, Weir discovers that he has no memory of the past eleven months and seeks to discover what what done to him. With the help of his old college buddy (and conspiracy theorist) David “Zuz” Zuzelo, Weir tries to discover what transpired in the lost year of his life, all while fighting off super-powered mercenaries and assassins dispatched by the government’s mysterious Project: Hardwired, which is also responsible for Weir’s present condition.

The Cestus Concern is some of the best New Pulp out there. Like any good action movie, it’s a roller-coaster ride that grabs hold of you from the first page and doesn’t let go until the last.

I know from my own personal experience that one of the most difficult things to write in a novel is an action scene, because the reader has only your words to visualize it, and sometimes what you see in your head can be difficult to put into words. Nastos has experience with crafting scenes through his work as an artist and director, but being able to translate that into prose is very different. Fortunately, Nastos is able to transition seamlessly into this new medium he finds himself working in, and his action scenes are so vibrant and perfectly and succinctly described that he gives you just enough to let you know what’s happening, but avoids dragging down the narrative with too much description. These scenes move with such speed, that you feel as if you are watching an action movie play out in your head.

Of course, action can only get you so far. You can craft the best action scenes in human history, but it won’t mean a thing unless you’ve got characters for the reader to care about. Fortunately, we’ve got that. Malcolm Weir is a battle-hardened soldier, but when the bullets aren’t flying, he’s a relatable, down-to-earth and funny guy, the kind of guy you could see yourself tossing back a few beers with as you watch a movie or play a video game. We care about Mal as he goes through his predicament, and we feel for him as things go from bad to worse. Also added into the mix is Zuz, who serves a role both as light-hearted comedy relief, but also provides some much-needed narrative explanation. Although there are times when his conspiracy theorist lifestyle borders on providing a bit too much convenience for the story, for the most part he’s an entertaining supporting character that gives our hero someone to play off, rather than being an irritating nuisance like his type of character usually becomes in some of the poorer action fare out there.

Nastos makes no secret of his influences on this book—in fact, he states them in the book’s description: “Fans of films like Bourne Identity or Smoking Aces, or the comics of Deadpool and Wolverine, will love the over-the-top science fiction action of The Cestus Concern.” There are elements of all those in here, and more—it’s an unapologetic hodgepodge of everything you love about over-the-top action movies and comics, and it’s a whole lot of fun to get lost in.

You can pick up The Cestus Concern from Amazon in either print or digital formats. Check out Mat Nastos’ website for more information on not only this book, but his other work.

Pulp Ark Ballot now available!

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pulp ark logoThe nominations for the Pulp Ark Awards of 2013 have now come to a close. If you sent in your nominations by the deadline, you should have received an e-mail from Tommy Hancock with the final ballot. Make sure you send in your votes! Please note that only those who participated in the nominations are eligible to participate in the final voting. So if you didn’t send in any nominations, you won’t be able to vote. Keep that in mind when the Pulp Ark Award nominations for 2014 roll around in December.

A big congratulations go out to everyone who was nominated. I did quite well this year, and I’ve highlighted my own nominations below. Make sure to take part in the final voting and to mark me down in the following categories! While I’ve been nominated every year for a Pulp Ark Award, I’ve yet to win one, so I hope this year I can buck that trend! But to do that, I’ll need your help!

BEST NOVELLA

Outlaw Blues by Percival Constantine (PulpWork Press)
Dragon Kings of the Orient by Percival Constantine (PulpWork Press)

BEST COLLECTION/ANTHOLOGY

Tales of the Rook by Various (Pro Se Productions)

BEST SHORT STORY

“The Curse of Baron Samedi” by Percival Constantine from Tales of the Rook (Pro Se Productions)

BEST COVER ART

Dragon Kings of the Orient by Percival Constantine (PulpWork Press)

BEST NEW CHARACTER

Carl Flint in Outlaw Blues by Percival Constantine (PulpWork Press)
Sun Wukong in Dragon Kings of the Orient by Percival Constantine (PulpWork Press)

BEST WRITER

Percival Constantine
All in all, I received a grand total of eight nominations this year, including two nominations for Best Novella and two for Best New Character! Pretty exciting all around! And also some stiff competition for the awards this year!

I also wanted to give a nod to everyone else who worked on Tales of the Rook, as well as those who worked on Monster Aces (an anthology which I edited). Plus a special mention to my buddy Curtis Fernlund, who was nominated for Best New Writer! Well-deserved!

The Muddling Middle

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Yesterday, I passed the 25K mark on SoulQuest, so I’ve hit the middle of my 50K goal. Crossing the 50% mark on a project is both exciting and scary and it’s when I enter what I like to call the Muddling Middle.

On every project, when I hit the 50% mark, there are two thoughts that occur to me. The first is, “wow, I’ve made it to the halfway point! This is great, I’m going to finish this thing!” And then the second thought is one of panic: “Wait…I’m only halfway through? All the work I’ve done so far and I basically have to do it all again?”

It’s more of a state of mind than anything else. The majority of my books are novellas of only around 30K, so I’d be close to the end if I were writing those. I entered the Muddling Middle on every one of those books when I reached 15K. When that didn’t happen with SoulQuest, I thought I was in the clear and on a great track…until I hit the Muddling Middle at 25K.

So like I said, it’s a state of mind. It’s even happened on short stories of only a few thousand words. It’s this whole idea of being so close to the finish, yet so far at the same time and also a sense of, “you’ve invested this much into it now, so there’s no turning back.”

And the Muddling Middle can really be the point where a project will either see fruition…or stop dead in its tracks. There have been a number of projects of mine that just stopped dead at the Muddling Middle because I didn’t know where to go. A big part of this had to do with the fact that in the past, I didn’t plan out as much. These days, I do much more planning and I’ve got everything mapped out with SoulQuest—I know where I want to go and what I want to do. I know one theory could be, “well obviously, it’s time to change the plan if you don’t like it,” except I do like the plan and I think it makes for a great story the way everything is connecting together.

So it’s more of a state of mind than anything else. Given how long I’ve lived with SoulQuest and how much effort I’ve put into it this far, I don’t think the Muddling Middle will be strong enough to cause me to drop it. Nonetheless, it’s a difficult stage to hit, and something I’m sure many writers struggle with.

Dillon and the Pirates of Xonira

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Dillon and the Pirates of XoniraThey say that the only certainties in life are death and taxes, but I’ve got a third certainty: a Derrick Ferguson Dillon yarn will always be spectacular.

I’m no stranger to Ferguson’s writing or the world of Dillon. I was both fortunate and unfortunate enough to jump onboard when the first book, Dillon and the Voice of Odin, was initially released almost ten years ago. I say fortunate because I’ve gotten to spend that time with this character, reading and in some cases re-reading his adventures. I say unfortunate because that also means I’ve had to endure waiting for the next book to come out. There have been four Dillon books to date: Dillon and the Voice of Odin, Dillon and the Legend of the Golden Bell, Four Bullets For Dillon (a collection of short stories), and now Dillon and the Pirates of Xonira. Each one has been superbly written, with white-knuckle action, snappy dialogue, and witty humor.

This latest tale comes on the heels of The Legend of the Golden Bell, and just like in that book, we see Dillon returning to the fictional nation of Xonira. When I first heard that this book would take place in Xonira again, I have to admit some skepticism on my part—we just finished a tale there, so why did we need to return so soon when Dillon is a global adventurer? But my skepticism was unfounded, as Xonira feels as fresh and as intriguing a setting now as it was a few years back when it was first introduced in The Legend of the Golden Bell.

Dillon, of course, is back. Along with his frequent partner-in-crime and mentor, Eli Creed (who, despite retiring, seems to be doing a very bad job of actually staying retired, and bless him for that as he’s always a fun addition). Signing up for this mission as well is Toi Lahayne, a representative of the mysterious Braithwaite Group and Allie and Shon Pierri, a mother-and-son team of French defense agents. On the other side, we have the Pirates of Xonira, commanded by a man who has some history with Dillon.

The action moves along at a brisk pace. At a little over two hundred pages, it feels like a lot less, given how quickly you can progress through the book. Ferguson very rarely lets up on his characters, even for the briefest of moments, and there’s always something either happening or on the verge of happening (or sometimes both simultaneously).

While the roles of one of the characters seemed a bit too obvious to me at first, Ferguson flipped it on its head slightly at the end of the book. I won’t say anything more about it than that, other than it’s a very realistic thing in this situation, and serves both to give Dillon a bit more humanity by presenting him with a problem he can’t really solve as well as opening the door for a follow-up in the future. And speaking of follow-ups, the last scene hints at exactly that in a very big way.

I’m not sure when the rest of that adventure will be told, but I will be waiting for it.

The Next Big Thing: SoulQuest

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I was tagged in this game by Mark Bousquet earlier this month (which shows you how off my memory can be as I just remembered). The Next Big Thing is a little game where you answer ten interview questions about your upcoming project and then tag five writers in it. For this, I’m going to go ahead and tag Alan Lewis, Jim Beard, Sean Taylor, Kevin Rodgers, and Sean Michael Wilson. Join in if you guys feel so inclined.

TEN INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR THE NEXT BIG THING

What is the working title of your book?

SoulQuest.

Where did the idea for this book come from?

Several years ago, I was searching for an artist for a project. I got two responses and one of the artists was very talented, but his style didn’t quite fit the project in question. His style reminded me of the character designs for Final Fantasy VII and Xenogears, two of my favorite video games, and it got me thinking about those games. I then came up with the idea for SoulQuest, and contacted the artist. Unfortunately, the project never came to fruition as a comic book, but the idea has stuck with me over the past several years and I’ve now decided to finally produce it as a novel.

What genre does your book fall under?

Sci-fi/fantasy. It’s very much inspired by Final Fantasy VII and Xenogears, so I wouldn’t go so far as to call it fantasy in the Tolkien sense and there’s enough science and technology in it to set it apart from that setting.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie?

What, you couldn’t think of a more difficult question? In all seriousness, I’m not really sure. It’s got a fairly large cast. For Zarim, the main character and a sky pirate, I might go with Leonardo DiCaprio. Ekala, his right-hand woman, could only be played by Eliza Dushku. Swul, a hard-drinking, chain-smoking surly faerie would probably be either Jon Polito or Danny DeVito. Tanus, an ex-military guy who gets roped into this would probably be Idris Elba. There are more characters, but it’s difficult to cast them off the top of my head.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

I’m terrible at writing these things, but here goes: When the power of the ancients is awakened, the fate of the world falls to a ragtag band of pirates.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Self-published through PulpWork Press.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

It’s not finished yet. Currently I’m at around 16,000 words, so got a ways to go. It’s been in development for a while. I first began work on it when it was going to be released digitally as a serialized novel through an original fiction site, but when that site closed down, work stalled. I’ve since come back to it and managed a good bit of progress.

What other books would you compare this story to in your genre?

I’m not sure. I’m not familiar with a lot of books in this style, my inspiration for this comes more from video games and TV/movies.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

As I said earlier, the impetus that got me thinking was an artist’s particular style and I drew inspiration from the previously-mentioned Final Fantasy VII and Xenogears, as well as TV shows like Firefly.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

New Pulp has a lot of focus on globe-trotting adventurers, masked heroes, or period pieces. This is a different kind of story from most of the New Pulp, and I hope that will cause some people to give it a look, even if it’s out of curiosity.