How Much Has Changed (& Spinetingler News)

When you’re living life one moment at a time, it can seem like not much happens. You don’t notice a few extra lines around the eyes that creep in over time, a few more grey hairs at the temples, a bit more bulk around the waist…

Until you don’t see someone for a while, and then are reunited. Last week, I felt like I came fact to face with myself for the first time in a while, only I’m not talking about physically.

Not only was I interviewed for the Oshkosh Northwestern recently, but I was also interviewed for the latest Spinetingler. And what struck me was how much had changed, particularly since I did the Spinetingler interview, because it was done in early October.

I have avoided everywhere talking about the future for Lara and Farraday (the protagonists for Suspicious Circumstances) because I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen. The truth…the truth I haven’t been telling people… is that there is a sequel written.

But I don’t know if it will ever be published.

This is what it all boils down to. My current publisher gets one more book. Because they had a different book first, before SC, that was the book I was to give them. It obviously isn’t Past Transgressions, the sequel I wrote to SC.

Not knowing if PT would get published, I took the baseline of the story and wrote a version without Lara and Farraday. Obviously, it’s a different book. It’s an example of how the same starting point for a story can produce two entirely different works.

But only one will see the light of day.

It might seem a weird thing to invest this energy in a manuscript, knowing that one of them will never become a book, but to me it’s a great learning exercise. So many people think their work is wasted if it won’t be published. I’ll admit to feeling discouraged at times (before I got the deal for SC), but it’s never a waste.

The way I see it, first you walk, then you run. It takes time to hone your craft. It takes discipline. Most people have a first manuscript languishing in a drawer somewhere that will never be published. I don’t. Suspicious Circumstances was the first manuscript I completed. The thought of having a version of Past Transgressions that won’t be published doesn’t bug me.

Although that said, having two versions in draft form, I’m not prepared to spend any more time on either until I know what’s going to happen. It was meant to be a continuation of Lara and Farraday’s story. If that doesn’t happen, it essentially becomes a book that could launch a new series. Isn’t that weird, to have two diverse possibilities sitting in front of you, not knowing which way things will go?

I guess the new answer when asked what’s next is I haven’t got a fucking clue. So, for those who wrote after reading SC and said it was killing them to know that book 2 wasn’t going to be Lara and Farraday, I hate to tell you this… but it might be. But if it isn’t, there will almost certainly never be another Lara and Farraday book published. At least, not in English.

How’s that for suspense?

Now, because of the way I usually work, I write out a manuscript, set it aside to mentally clear my head, then go back through it and that’s when another layer to the story emerges. Weirdly, last week that happened with one of the versions of PT – the Lara/Farraday version. I could completely see where I needed to change one thing, at the end of the third chapter, and how that was going to have the snowball effect throughout the rest of the work to make it that much better.

But I’m not touching it.

I’m one of those really fussy creatures. Once I start on something I like to bring it to completion. I’m obsessive. I’ll work seven days a week, dawn to the wee hours, when I’m on a project. I don’t like being part way through a revision and then putting it aside for any reason.

So, since I don’t know what’s going to happen at the moment, I have decided to let both lie and move on and write the next new book. In a weird way, it’s exciting to write something that isn’t contracted, that I have no obligations to offer to anyone. Right now it’s all blank pages and endless possibilities. Plus, I’ll be traveling in the new year, visiting friends. (Nope, no bookstore events.) So this is the perfect time to start something, bring it to first draft, then go away and come back fresh and do an edit on it. That’s my focus for 2007 – new work. I have two new manuscripts I plan to have written by June.

Of course, there could always be developments that shift the plan, but I’ve got a new philosophy. Plan for what you know, deal with the unexpected later.

There were other things that surprised me looking back. Was it really barely more than two months ago that I said I hardly knew Ken Bruen but adored him? Well, I still adore him, and all that much more for having just finished American Skin. I must thank Jon Jordan for giving me a copy of that book. I will be reviewing it for the next Spinetingler, but I think if I had to pin it down in a word I’d say genius. Absofuckinglutely mindblowing is more like it. I’m half way through Vixen now.
Spinetingler News
If you go to the site where you can get the free downloads, you’ll notice the new issue has an option to buy the paperback version. We’re going to aim to have the print version available when we go live next time, but it’s a lot of extra work. Not to mention that it’s amazing how many people still don’t read the f***ing submission guidelines, which causes formatting nightmares galore.

Although we liked the magazine style format we went with last issue, it was more economical to do the paperback version. We wanted to keep the cost as low as possible, and this will be the ballpark for all future issues. We’ll have to start capping space to fit a length – ugh.

From Uncle Charlie

Water – It has been scientifically proven that if we drink 1 liter of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli bacteria found in feces. In other words, we are consuming 2 lbs of poop each year.

However, we don’t run that risk when drinking wine, rum, whiskey, vodka, beer or other liquors because alcohol has to go through a distillation process of boiling, filtering and fermenting.

WATER = POOP

BOOZE = HEALTH

Free yourself of poop, drink booze! It’s better to drink booze and feel like shit than drink water and be full of shit. (Al, are you paying attention?)

There’s no need to thank me for relaying this valuable information.