The Next Big Thing? I Sure Hope So…

Evening there folks!  Tonight is the night I dazzle you with answers to questions I know have been burning in your skulls.  I too, have now been tagged in “The Next Big Thing” bit of author pimping and I am here to show you around the dark recesses of my filthy and blood soaked mind.    So without further delay, I give you…my answers!

What is the working title of your book?

I have a couple of projects going on right now, so I am going to go with “Southern Devils”

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I have a degree in history and I really wanted to make myself feel better about it and put it to good use.  What good use?  Well, I decided to write about how a voodoo resurrected Stonewall Jackson was sent to fight General Sherman in the South during the Civil War.  I wanted zombies that were a little different and these are purely revenge driven and either once they are killed by a head injury or once the mission they were brought back for is completed, they return to the dust where they came from.  Once I got into it, the problem gets out of hand.  The story arc did the same thing and went from the plots for a single novella to a novella trilogy and then a full novel to deal with the trilogy’s aftermath.

What genre does your book fall under?

Historical fiction that leans heavy on the horror side of things.

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

The main cast would be:

General Sherman- Brian Cranston

General Jackson- Sam Worthington

Lt. Mark Duvall- Matt Damon

Dunn- Jason Statham

Hettie- Naomi Harris

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Seeking the ultimate revenge, the resurrected General Stonewall Jackson is sent by Robert E. Lee to hunt down General William Tecumseh Sherman as he embarks on a mission to bring the rebellion in the south to its knees.

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

I want it to be released from a press and not self-published.

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

It has taken quite some time.  Between the research involved and the constant shifting of the tale’s scope, its been hard to finish.  I would say it has taken a year to get to the end of the first book.  The short story “Stonewall”, where the whole saga kicks off, should be out before too much longer from KnightWatch Press in their The Blue, the Grey, and the Scarlet anthology of Civil War horror stories.  The rest of the trilogy should go quickly, but then I’m finishing my first White Creek novel before beginning the ending novel Reconstruction of the Dead.

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

As far as something that is a history/zombie mash-up I would say Stant Litore’s The Zombie Biblebooks.  They are a great mash-up of the bible and the zombies we all know and love.  For a look at his work I direct you to go to this little linky here.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

I was inspired by the muse that has taken over my life the last two years, Wesley Southard who pulled me back in, and for the words from Brian Keene when I needed them the most at my first public reading (having him pull a lighter out and wave it back and forth during the end is still one of the best feelings I’ve had since I began writing seriously).

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

Funny you should ask that!  Why if you turn to the sidebar and find the Biblio page link, it will take you the complete list of all my work out there.  I’ve been in or have stuff coming out in over 15 books (some are unannounced and not on the list yet) as well as my first novella In Memoriam.

Well, that does it for me! 

There have been some issues with rounding up the next victims.  I’ll get some links up in the next few days so you can go learn about some more great authors.

Goodnight…

And the Coffin Hop 2012 Winner is…

The names have been brought together and the entries given to the spirits who live in the random drawing thing on-line.  Each name flutters around and all of them cry out to be the lucky one, the chosen name.  After a moment, a winner is revealed…

But first, this short break.

I want to thank everyone who stopped by on the Coffin Hop 2012!  I had a lot of fun and I hope everyone did too.  The Hop is a great way to meet new authors and win some cool prizes.  Go and buy some of the great work from the Hoppers and stay scared all year until we meet again on this path next year.  Remember, Halloween is a way of life and not a holiday.  Live it and love the whole year (and go buy In Memoriam, help a brother out with his first solo work).

So until next time,

Oh yeah, the winner…

Jason Darrick!  He wins the signed paperback of In Memoriam and the Coffin Hop EP, but since Jason is in the full Coffin Hop anthology, there is another winner for the EP and that person is bn100!  I will contact both of you so we can get the prizes out!

Goodnight…

Halloween is Near, So Let Us Coffin Hop!

Here we are again kiddies, the baddest of bad, the scariest of scary, the Coffin Hop 2012.  Last year I wrote several posts about authors I dig that you should be digging too.  In my “10 Questions” feature I have from time to time, John Everson , Nate Southard, and Jeff Strand entered the arena and survived their battles.  This year I want to take it back a bit.  There is one guest lined up to step in the arena and as soon as the interview comes back, you’ll be in for a treat.  The other days, I want to focus on what music, movies, books, and such influence me and my work.

Before I begin however, there are some housekeeping things to tend to.  First, to see what other amazing authors are on the Coffin Hop go here and hit the Linky Link 2012 button, to check out the Scavenger Hunt at Melissa Smith’s website visit here, and to support the upcoming Coffin Hop anthology to benefit literacy programs by picking up some sweet Coffin Hop swag drag your mouse this way and click here.

For those who have found me here for the first time, hello.  I want you to step inside and get comfortable.  Fire up a cigar and pop open a beer.  Kick your feet up on the table, hell I don’t care.

But once you settle in and feel like everything is going to be ok, I’ll plunge you down into the dark depths of humanity and the evil lurking in the shadows of our very minds.

No, really…I’m glad your here and please feel free to roam around the site (nothing will bite…much).  This year is new to me because before I only had anthologies to promote, but this year I have my controversial novella In Memoriam.  A signed copy is part of this year’s prize package as well as an electronic copy of the Coffin Hop Anthology E.P. ( a short preview of next year’s full anthology), and a few nice paperbacks from some of my favorite horror authors.  To be entered in the drawing, you must make a comment on any blog post this week during the Coffin Hop or sign up to follow the blog (comment once-comment often).  You can earn extra entries by following me on Twitter or “liking” my fan page on Facebook (links are over on the side).  Already signed up for all the social media places to find me?  That’s fine, just comment and you’ll be entered!

Well, that does it for today.  Tune in Wednsday for the top 10 albums that haunt my dreams and me scream when I write and on Friday night, author Tim Lebbon stops by to answer the “10 Questions”!

Goodnight…

Our Father’s Blessing

The title is one I’ve got penciled in for a story about the settling of my fictional town White Creek, but as I sit back and reflect on this past Father’s Day it brings up other feelings.  Growing up, we all want to be like our dads and when we reach our teen years, we want to be the total opposite of everything our dads represent.  I felt this way for my whole teen existence.  As a young boy, my father was everything when I got to spend time with him.  As a teen, I rebelled and the ramifications of that rebellion are things I struggle with internally to this day. 

I am the oldest of three children and during my youth, dad worked two jobs to make sure we had everything we needed.  There were times I wished he was around more, but he still made sure he had time to coach our ball teams, lead our Scout groups, or dispense advise we ignored until later.  He also blessed me with the love of classic rock like Eagles, Black Sabbath (I wore out his Vol.4 tape as a kid), and CCR among others.  It wasn’t till I became a father  I realized he was right about everything.  I told him that too and I think it brought a certain satisfaction to hear me utter those humble words.  Everything we’ve gone through only made me better in the end.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, he can be a smart ass, but that’s where I get it from.  I also got my work ethic from him.  I hate leaving something unfinished at work.  I bust my ass to make sure I always do what needs to be done and to do it right.  I blame him for that too.

But, I see a pattern.  I work tons of hours right now at the primary job and I work at the writing thing as my second job.  Sometimes I might only have a day or two off a month, work twelve-hour days, and then try to write on top of it.  Just like him, I make time to coach my sons’ teams, be their Scout leader, and try to make every game.  I love to sit and play the X-Box with them, listen to them jabber on about a computer game, or play ball in the yard. 

I hope when they grow up they realize that just like my dad, I did the best I could for them and I love them very much.  Some of the things the boys are in has the added bonus of me spending more time with my dad.  Sometimes while I wish it was in the past, I think I cherish these moments now more.  We sit back, shoot-the-shit, and watch the boys do their thing.  There is nothing I could ever do to repay him for everything he’s done for me and how he made me who I am.

I love him and I want him to be proud of me and how I eventually turned out.  A beer with him now sounds good…

Thanks dad,

Goodnight…

The Journey Part 1: Novella Thoughts

For those who are new to the blog, or who will be, let me introduce myself.  I’m a man of wealth and…wait that’s the Devil, not me.  I’m Brent Abell, newbie author and general pain in the ass to most who know me.  I like my books bloody, my music heavy, and my movies scary.  Right now in my DVD player is The Devil’s Rejects, my computer is playing Mastodon, and I’m reading J.F. Gonzalez’s Fetish and Armand Rosamilia’s Dying Days 2.  I drink my beer and I like my rum and Jameson’s.  My mouth gets me in trouble and if you are my friend, I wouldn’t be able to bail you out of jail because I’ll be sitting next to you in the drunk tank.  Job?  Not happy right now, but who is?  What do I want to do?  I want to write.

I started small, thinking that is how you start off.  Beginning with short tales of dread, I believed I had to slave away making next to nothing just to get my name out for the public.  I was right and I was wrong. 

I needed the short stuff to get a sense of what I wanted to do.  When I was in high school, I loved to write and would come up with stuff I would read to a group of friends when the mood took us.  After school, I stopped and never picked up a pen, pencil, or mouse to write fiction for a long time.  Two years ago I picked it up and it’s been a hell of a ride since then.  I have 14 stories in 12 anthologies, most of which have come in the last 9 months.  I thought I was doing right…

…Until it came to the novella.  I decided it was time to move up in length and I wrote my first novella.  It was a labor of love that brought many disagreements to my house, but I wanted to tell the story I wanted to tell.  I wrote and re-wrote until on the advice of James A. Moore at Horrorfind, I sent it off.  

Without giving too much away, the story revolves around a woman and how a deadly choice she makes brings her and her loved ones on a collision course between two entities, one natural and one supernatural, on missions of revenge.  All choices have consequences and the clock is running out.

The novella is being work on with an editor now.  I’m not going to go into details because the project is very early in the process.  I’m going to update the trail of the novella here on the blog as I go through the steps of getting it published.  Tonight I spoke a little about the story to set the  stage for the rest of the Journey.  When I have some news, I’ll be sure to share.

On March 21st I will have a guest blog by author Armand Rosamilia on his tour promoting his new novella Dying Days 2.  He has a great interview and there will be a contest tied Armand’s tour, so stop back by and check it out.

Lastly,I leave you with the cover of Wicked East Press’s Chained in the Attic anthology with my story “Amos’s Song” the first of the White Creek cycle.

 That does it for tonight.  If you’re new please join the conversation by following here, Facebook, and Twitter.  It was a pleasure meeting you and I hope you’ll come back and hang again.

Goodnight…

Voice in the Wilderness

Busy, busy, busy…

I have signed and sent in the contracts for the Chained In The Attic and Undead Tales 2 anthologies, the novella is out there being looked at, and I really want to throw someone under a bus still.  That last comment is because I had another story accepted, but the way you communicate with an author over your uptight idea of a signature is not to insult a signature made by a mouse in Adobe.  Seriously, how many signatures are legible any way?  Not that damn many judging by the ones I’ve seen so I pulled the story.  Anyway, the story was the first non-flash fiction piece I ever wrote and I thought it wasn’t great, but I was trying to prove a point to myself.  It did however connect to the novella and introduced the best watering-hole in White Creek.  Will the tale ever come out?  I’m not betting on it, but I might put it up sometime so that you can see how far my work has progressed.

The new projects pile is four strong right now.  There are still shorts, but the four things are going to take a lot of time away from the shorts.  First, I’m researching  for a novella sequel to the story “Stonewall”.  The tale is still one of my favorites and there is more story to finish what I started with that one.  The second two are a series of shorts.  One focuses on the town of White Creek and introduces you to the wicked that reside there.  The other is the continuation of the Dark Frontier concept I’m playing around with.  A short intro to it was published in Pill Hill Press’s Daily Flash 2012, but things have changed a tad.  The center piece story is almost complete and then I’ll start fleshing out the rest of the humanity’s downfall.  Lastly, the outline for the novel I want to write first is complete and right after you meet White Creek, I’m going to kick it in the ass.  The town is a place of myth and legends and of hurt and pain.  Ground paid for in blood and protected by betrayal can’t be safe forever as they find out on March night.

Overall, I know everything sounds ambitious, but I think the walls I set up around me in the past few months have finally tumbled down.  My head is clear and my motives are clean so I’m ready to lace ‘em up and kick ass.

Goodnight…

Come and Hear “Amos’s Song”!

This afternoon, I received word that “Amos’s Song” was accepted to Wicked East Press’s Chained in the Attic anthology.  It is my fourth story with WEP and I would like to thank Jessica A. Weiss for her continued faith in my work.

Now a little about the story for the newly titled “Why Did I Write It?” segment…

Last year while working at a booth at our local Fall Festival the idea magically appeared.  The booth was next to the stage and I worked during the amateur hour competition.  The way I portray the tap-dancing acts is spot on and they gave me the biggest headache.  In typical form, I started to kill them in my mind and this little tale about revenge came from my experience.   There are some things spoke of that might not make sense…yet.  Fear not because all will be explained (please keep reading).

This is also the first published story taking place in my town of White Creek.  The town was created because I hate having a series of stories set in a real place.  I didn’t feel like I can destroy a town properly while a reader thinks about the real place.  With that in mind, I decided to go the new town route and create my own stomping ground.  Currently, I am working on a group of stories to introduce the town and its main characters.  There will be many tales that interconnect in some way, but can still be enjoyed on a story by story basis.  One of these is the completed novella and three other stories round out the group so far.  My goal is to put it together as a collection and introduce the world to the most cursed place on Earth, White Creek.

In closing, I feel odd.  The story is my 13th and I hope it proves to be lucky for me instead of a portent of things to come.  It is also the third story accepted this year already and I hope to have many more.  I will leave you with one last thought,  beginning authors don’t have a lot of name recognition yet.  Do something nice for a new author, go to Amazon and check out their author page.  Once you read about them, like them and pick up some books they are in to show support.  Like those books, review them, and follow them on Twitter and Facebook, or follow their blogs.  We aren’t doing this for the money, we are doing it for our love of storytelling and we want to know our work is not falling on blind eyes.  Go and like the hell out of some starting authors and make their day (including me .

Goodnight…

Crossroads (and not that crappy movie…)

Those words are like my battle cry.  They are words from a man who I respect very much and I credit along with my friend Wesley Southard of starting this whole wild ride.  Without those two would I be sitting here now blogging to the masses?  Hell no, I wouldn’t care or have anything to say.  Wes got the ball rolling, digging up a talent I had buried, and Brian gave me the confidence to carry it forward and do something with it.  I could never thank you enough Brian for the encouragement and advise. 

The market is a mess right now.  Before going forth, brandishing the banner of a completed novel, I decided to start small and work up.  The last year I have mainly written short and flash fiction attempting to find my voice and get my name out.  I have found some success with this.  There are nine stories out there now and one is already in print (if you haven’t, go pick up “Undead of Winter” with my story “A Winter’s Feast”, links are in the Biblio section to the right).

But the time has arrived.  There are still some ideas for shorts floating around, but the time has come to think bigger.  I have a short story collection in the works to submit to a place next year that will weave my “Dark Frontier” concept into a group of stories that flow as one narrative (a small peek will be in Pill Hill Press’s “Daily Flash 2012″ anthology with the story “On the Wings of Darkness).  I also have another in the works that introduces my town of White Creek through the stories of local legends during a centennial celebration.  While these are still shorts, they are really different acts in a larger piece.  I have managed to complete my first novella, “In Memorium” this past year also.  I fight with myself about some story points and my pre-readers are about two to three weeks from getting it to tear apart (I’m counting on you guys-no being soft).  I also fight about “In Memorium” because the social construct that the story takes place in is very controversial and if the opening stays like it is, it will freak people out (I hope).  I have plotted out three novels and the first three chapters of the first one are complete, but this will take some time.

So, the crossroad?  I have gotten pretty used to having success with the short stories and I’m getting ready to embark on a journey that will more than likely crush my spirit.  The days of whipping a story out in a few days and getting in some place are coming to a close.  Why?  I’ve been called an “arrogant motherf**ker” in the past month and to some extent it’s true.  My goal for 2012 is to have something I don’t share with anyone else, a book of just me.  Is that wrong?  No, it is just the natural evolution of my writing career, to take off on my own.

This is where you guys come in.  Go out and support people like Wes and I, buy the books we’re in, and then review the book at Amazon (or Tweet about it, talk on Facebook about it, help get the names out).  One of the main things I’ve learned from the authors I’ve met in the past two years is to pimp the hell out of yourself.  I didn’t feel comfortable at first, but you either learn to network and get your work noticed, or you fade away silently into the night.  I choose to survive, I choose to push myself, and I choose to write for you.

So let the journey began, let’s ride the ride, and take some names along the way.

As a thank you, I am working on something for everyone who has signed up to follow the blog before Dec. 31, 2012.  I guess my wife playing Christmas music already has got me feeling like gifting the ones who were here when it all began, were here when the heads rolled, and were here before the storm.

Good night…