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How could I forget to post this one for so long! The book trailer for Dreams of the Boardwalk is now up in the Book Trailers archive! But just in case you don’t want to go that far, here it is right here!
If that makes you interested in a copy of the book, just head on over to Amazon!
So it turns out that even when you unpublish a story from Kindle, you’re required to keep it exclusive to Kindle Select until the enrollment period ends. That means one or two short stories are going up this week, but the rest are going to have to go up a bit at a time, and some are going to take as long as April. Stay tuned.
Hey All. Sorry I’ve been gone for a while. The holidays went pretty well. Visited family all over Central New York and the Southern Tier.
So I recently spoke to a friend of mine who has some experience in media marketing, and she pointed out something that I perhaps should have been able to figure out from my own experience over the past few years: very few people are willing to pay even 99 cents to download short stories from an unknown. I’d hoped that enrolling the stories in Kindle Unlimited might help – after all, once they’ve paid their subscription fee, they can read whatever they like for free, so why not my stuff? – but it didn’t work out that way.
My friend’s advice was to take my short stories down from Amazon and distribute them as far and wide as possible in the hopes of getting my name out, and I’ve decided to give it a try. Starting this week, I’m going to be taking my short stories down from Amazon and creating an archive both here and at my old blog where you can read them for free! I will also be looking for archives and journals that accept stories that have been previously published. If you have any suggestions in that regard, please let me know.
I’ll also be making a few other renovations based on my friend’s advice, so be on the lookout for – among other things – a rapid increase in the Reviews and Essays being transferred from my old blog. Interesting things happening!
The picture above is he latest draft of my novel-in-progress, City of Dreams. What do you think? The young woman above is Aislin Rourke, heroine of City of Dreams, but I’m afraid you’re not going to meet her in today’s passage.
Today’s passage is the second half of the story of George Fuller and his accidental journey into the Dream of Coney Island, begun in this post last week.
George’s story is an illustration of the classic advice to writers: “Murder your darlings”. George’s story is intended to be an interlude in City of Dreams, but it’s more than forty pages long. You can’t have an “interlude” that’s 10% of the total length of the book. That means that you, the readers of this blog, are getting to read an uncut version of this story that will not and cannot make it to the final book.
So join me for the story George Fuller, Sally, and their last day at Coney Island.
Beware. NC-17.
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Continue reading “Excerpt from City of Dreams: George Fuller’s Last Day at Coney Island – Part 2″One of the classic pieces of advice for authors is “Murder your darlings”. You have to be willing to sacrifice any individual part of the story – any scene, any character – for the greater good of the story as a whole, no matter how much you love them.
This passage is a classic example. This story – and the second part, coming next week – are intended to be an interlude between chapters in my Novel-in-progress City of Dreams. They tell the story of an old man who accidentally crosses over into Dream when such a thing shouldn’t be possible, and illustrates that Dream can be just as dangerous in its way as Nightmare (though you do die happy). Between the two sections, this “interlude” is more than 40 double-spaced pages long. Clearly, some darlings need to be murdered and some serious trimming needs to be done before the final draft of the book. You can’t have an “interlude” that’s 10% of the total book. But I love the story of George Fuller, Sally, and their summers at Coney Island. So I’d like to share it with you in its uncut form for perhaps the one and only time.
Beware. NC-17.
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George Fuller sat on a bench on the Coney Island boardwalk and looked out at the ocean.
Continue reading “Excerpt from City of Dreams: George Fuller’s Last Day at Coney Island – Part 1″
The picture above is our first look at Aislin Rourke, heroine of City of Dreams, the novel I am currently writing. What is our heroine getting ready to fight…and why is she looking UP to do it? That would be telling.
City of Dreams is a sequel to Dreams of the Boardwalk, or rather, Dreams of the Boardwalk is a prequel to the series of books that I hope to begin with City of Dreams. In any case, it is a story of the worlds of Dream and Nightmare, and the Dreamwalkers who protect the one and strive against the other…which is which depends on the Dreamwalker.
With that in mind, I decided that instead of starting with Aislin’s very first scene, I would start with her first experience in Nightmare, so I can introduce both at once.
Rated R.
PS – As with all the covers for my major works, this cover is being drawn by the marvelous Ruben de Vela.
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Continue reading “Excerpt from City of Dreams: Aislin Enters Nightmare”
Here we have our introduction to the titular Dreams of the Boardwalk, and our first glimpse of the dangers beneath the surface.
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Continue reading “Excerpt from Dreams of the Boardwalk: First Visit”
Dreams of the Boardwalk got a review at Trail of Tales!
Not everyone can be a protagonist or a hero. This is the story of one of Hometown‘s innocent bystanders.
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Continue reading “Excerpt from Hometown: Walking By The River – Kim Laramie”
I have lowered the price of a Kindle copy of Hometown to $2.99!
The Truth of Rock and Roll is now $1.99!
Dreams of the Boardwalk is now $1.99!
Head on over to Amazon and take advantage of new prices for great books!