I engaged in a conversation with a some fellow booze hounds at the local bar. Being the obnoxious ego maniac that I am I mentioned that I made it into the paper. The quick response was "Did you get arrested?" asked a rather portly man.

I replied, "No, the paper did a piece on my book."

A car wreck! That's how I ended up in the paper the last time so this is a welcome change. Check it out.

http://standardspeaker.com/news/sugarloaf-man-s-book-not-typical-horror-novella-1.1155930

I don't have a corporate bank roll to advertise, so that piece ended up being a great help. Yep, living the dream of an indie writer.

Congrats! :foodndrink:

I'm hoping to someday write something people will want to read and possibly even get widespread recognition for (though I'm hardly the only one like that on these boards ), and your success just gave me a bit of motivation to further pursue that dream.

You live in a town called Sugarloaf? That's the dream...

Cool! It even gives you an opportunity to sneak past the no-advertising rule here :shifty:.


I grew up next to Sugarloaf hill.

*Waits for someone from Rio de Janeiro to one-up me*

Ahem, I don't know if people will want to read my books. I write strange things. I'm trying to fuse the elegant writing style of Ken Kesey with a mind bending, cutting edge, beast of a horror style. My work is a fusion between Lovecraft and Kesey with my own distorted outlook driving horror literature. It's not for everyone but I won't stop until I'm dead. Plus, I'm still crafting my work and I have a ton to learn. I can already see a vast improvement in my work as I just completed story one for the next book of shorts. It tops off at around fifty pages for a short. If I could classify my work it would be trippy horror with a sensible twist. The story I just completed(needs about a month of rewrites) should hit a chord, as it deals with a rather overlooked sensitive subject. However, it's a story that absolutely must be told.

It's not easy to write horror literature. Critics will automatically classify the work as stupid and trite so I have to go the extra mile to get my point across. Having an army of Stephen King fans looming over your shoulder doesn't help much. That's why I want to break my own ground. The next story for Tequila Diaries is going to be the first short, that I've written, which involves a child character. The one thing about my work is it deals with people that live in an abstract world where shades of evil permeate the truth. Example: Someone might think teasing a cat is bad while the next person teases and kicks a cat. Then the next person teases, kicks, and eats the cat. See, shades of evil. The next book is under the idea that there truly is no good in the world and everyone just behaves according to a moral compass set on evil.

*Interesting enough, the first book I wrote had a white cover. The second book will have a black cover to represent decidedly darker subject matter. I joked to a bookstore owner that in the stories I write everybody dies or ends up really messed up. I guess that's nothing new but mainstream likes happy endings. I don't write happy endings. That goes back to growing up and watching a mainstream movie. I always thought how lame, another happy ending.

I was being sarcastic but in all seriousness I like the country and rural areas. Besides, just because I live there doesn't mean I can't move around.

No, I meant that's my dream. It sounds delicious and fluffy.

Ah, I see-- sugar being delicious and loaf like a loaf of bread being fluffy. There have been a few people who said, "Oh, that sounds like a good name."

Since I live there I don't think much of it.

Anyway, not many people realize this but Kesey's books had a dark undertone. In One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest he talked in great descriptive detail of a harvester. Of course in the movie they cut that out totally. I think that's why he sued them. Not many people may see the darkness in his work. He may not be classified as a horror writer but some of the themes in his work should be explored furthur...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVdTQ3OPtGY
*Oh, and since he was such an influence in the development of my writing skills I felt teary eyes when I found out my book made it to an amazon listing in Oregon. To me, that was incredible. Of course, that really doesn't mean anything but it's the thought that counts.

Congratulations. Is this your first publication? And could we have a peek at the book art as well?



It's also the name of a live-fire range in Ft. Hood Texas. Hell on earth I say... Fun for trivia buffs none the less.

Yes, this is my first book. I'm trying to get the next one hammered down in about five months. I want to take my time and get it perfect. I'll post a snippet of the book. It's one of my favorite parts.

'Kaley arrived a little on the early side. Thanks to her foster parents, Kaley developed a neurotic condition of being prompt. Her obsession with being early often caused her to fall into a gentle psychosis. She hated going to the doctor to begin with, dealing with a mind bending, obsessive-compulsive train of thought would only add to the aggravation and influence her headaches. The worst part of the entire process involved the sign in and paperwork. The assistants nail you with a [censored] load of questions and then tell you to wait.
In the wasted time, your curious eyes evaluate the surrounding unhinged, in hopes of finding someone who, in the end is worse off than you are. Thoughts like this helped the time pass for Kaley. The reading material was trite and elicited meager thoughts of suicide. The idea of slitting her wrists became palpable with the notion of sitting with these people for an extended amount of sand. Kaley laughed inwardly at the potential scene of her blood filling the lobby and creating a river of crimson to wade through. Nothing as exciting and dubious of that nature would happen now she thought. Kaley reached toward the pile of waiting room magazines then withdrew her hand. She didn’t think the magazines and their promise of a million paper cuts would be enough to bust through the great skin damn that held her reservoir of salty crimson goodness in check.'


The things I don't like about this are the poor editing. I edit and write my own work. I'll never let an editor touch my work without a solid working relationship. So what you see is a fruition of me, being stubborn. There is one editor that I will work with but she won't talk to me.

I have artwork following the word check, unfortunately I can't post that here. It's a light psychedelic piece that fits the mood. Anyway, here is the follow up paragraph. The book has ten pieces of light psychedelic artwork. I call it psychedelic other people call it abstract.

'The door to her left opened and an old nurse walked into the waiting room. “Kaley?” asked a Nurse with a pair of radar like eyes.
The aged woman tried to associate the name with the faces that helped supplement her income and allow her the time to gossip and complete crossword puzzles. The nurse lived a parasitic existence that stemmed from another person’s life long studies and accomplishments.'

So that's a snippet of my first book. Very raw. My second work destroys this writing, which at one point I thought was good. Interestingly, my first book has a white cover and my second book will have a black cover. Perfection is the only resolution. I had to overcome a huge amount of obstacles for my first work. I edited the book on my iphone with a cruddy free app.

For comparison her is a piece from my second story
. 'Cars rushed by in a blur. It wasn't until the comfort of bus flashers hit home that solace dug into his spirits. The yellowish blinkers offered a friendly face like the beacon of a lighthouse to an overwrought wayward ship and her crew. The bus came to a halt near the curb by Creek’s feet. He took another drag of his cancer stick and tossed it aside then flowed onto the bus. The usual pleasantries exchanged and he made his way to the first available seat. Three up from the back beckoned him as home.'

Now I may just be in love with a current write but I like the temp of that piece better. Then again a month from now I can say I hate it and write something better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODTv9Lt5WYs&feature=related

Lately I've been cranking out three pages of prose a day and edits of those pages and rewrites. So, I've been writing a ton lately. I write at work, when I should be working. I cranked out fifty pages and edited those in five days. It's a poor man's edit. Write on one pc then email and print then copy edit then rewrite and wash rinse repeat. I do this all while holding down a 7-5 job, mixing in some fun. I don't sleep much. This is the first night I took a break as I just finished the first raw copy of my next short for my next book slated for 250-350 pages. The problem is in writing a book of short stories you have twenty scenarios going on in your mind but you have to finish stage one. I already have the next story burned into my mind. However, I have to finish the edits of the story I just wrote before I move on. That's how I punish myself but when I get to the money part in said story it is the best it can be as it births in my imagination and grows like a baby in my sub-concsious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKHUwfFb2lw&feature=relatedI may have lost some people there.

My favorite line from my next short is "Tell all those slug lovin bloodsvckers I'm coming to get you!"

"Scary's on his way"- Alice in Chains We Die Young
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JA25BIxgtk&feature=relmfu