Today’s the day, friends!

First of all, I’d like to thank Travis Miles for continuing to provide awesome covers for the Dark Choir series. Also for being patient with a persnickety indie author such as myself.

Second, I’d like to comment briefly on the two Dark Choir novels. The Curse Merchant began as a near-reality urban fantasy, drenched in mood and tone. The noir elements were almost inadvertent, a product more of the character and the city in which the story was set than an active choice.

Once again, a surprise came bundled up in The Curse Servant. This book is perhaps darker in mood than Curse Merchant , but the plot is heavily peppered with politics and social commentary. Again, I feel this is a consequence of the city of Baltimore as a stage for the story. Ultimately the near-reality of this universe shall, by design, unravel to reveal more and more of what lies beneath. We’ll take a tiny peek behind the curtain in The Curse Servant.

Okay, enough talk… here’s the cover:

The Curse Servant will be available for purchase in eBook format both from Amazon and Smashwords on October 31st. Keen-eyed readers will recognize this as the one year anniversary of The Curse Merchant’s release. (it might also be a horror-themed holiday)

Please share and spread the word. If you haven’t read The Curse Merchant, it’s available for only $0.99. So go catch up on the intrigues of Dorian Lake and see you guys on the 31st!

Here in the Mid-Atlantic, we’ve enjoyed a very mild summer. Last weekend, for example, we had a few days with highs in the low 70’s. We’re looking at another such weekend coming up just in time for our county fair. All of this to trumpet the coming of autumn, easily my favorite season. Everything changes into something that feels, at least to me, more comforting and reminiscent of youth. Last night I made some pumpkin gnocchi and curried butternut squash soup. My beer choices have shifted from the summery blondes and wheats to the malty festbiers and brown ales. Soon the leaves will change and the first wisps of chilled air will blow over the Catoctin ridge into my back yard.

I’ve always wondered why it is that my senses seem to come alive during the autumn. I figured it may be because I was born in late October. My son was born in the middle of summertime, and he still prefers the heat of summertime. I don’t know… correlation may not mean causation, but I’m thoroughly jazzed. (not to mention I have a birthday coming, as does my wife, and we have an anniversary… all in the same two-week space)

Another thing to be jazzed about? I’ll be revealing the cover of The Curse Servant on Monday. Yep, this Monday, the 16th. It’s an awesome little piece of art, and I feel it really captures the darker tone this book has taken. Speaking of which, the final revisions are complete on Curse Servant, and it’s in the hands of an editor for one last spit-polish. I may be announcing my release date Monday, as well… but that sort of depends on the editor’s schedule.

In other news I have begun my next project. After putting Top Secret Manuscript ™ on indefinite hold until I figure out how to satisfactorily voice a sixteen year old, I began outlining my latest project. It, too, is independent of the Dark Choir series… and from what I hear from my wife and my critique group, it’s kind of ambitious. We shall see if I can pull this off. If I can, I think it will rock faces!

See you guys right here on Monday for the cover reveal!

After two solid months of key-hammering, the first draft of Curse Servant is complete, and has been subjected to a thorough acid-wash of revisions. The second draft is now in the hands of my alpha reader (read: my wife), who is adept at picking out loose threads, plot holes, and other embarrassing yet inescapable elements of early drafts. Once that’s done and I have a third draft in-hand, I’ll be farming it out to beta readers. It’s a lot of tire-kicking, and once that’s complete I’m still going to secure the services of a professional editor. Why? Because this is serious business to me, and I want the product to be as ship-shape and Bristol-fashion as I can manage.

In the meantime, I find myself in the lull during which the readers do their thing and I, as the author, do my thing. Typically this includes some down-time, perhaps catching up on my brewing or convincing our new dog not to chew my fingers directly off.

“Don’t hold your breath, pal…”

This time, however, I’ve skipped that between-projects-pause entirely. Why? Well, the astute blog follower will recall something I’ve been obtusely referring to as Top Secret Manuscript. This is the novel I began last year shortly after I wrapped up Curse Merchant. I had to put it on pause once the marketing push for Merchant began. Then, when the plot of Curse Servant landed in my frontal lobes, I elected to continue said pause in order to push on with Dorian’s sequel.

The time has come. Top Secret Manuscript is back on track! It’s a strange experience coming back to a work in progress. I typically insist on completing a full draft of a novel before returning to the output with a revising eye, but this was an exception. I had to re-read what was written in order to bring myself back to speed. And in doing so, I found some truly sharp edges that needed a good rasping. One thing led to another, and now I’m back into outlining the novel. It’s all a very good process for me, as I’m hoping this manuscript turns into something I can run past a literary agent.

In the meantime, this dog is eyeballing my ankles with sadistic intensity, so I’m going to hop back into the writing dungeon before I lose another pint of blood.

Sometimes the words simply flow from the fingers like a poorly conceived analogy involving a fire hose. Sometimes those fingers are dead weights, just sitting on the keyboard trying to muster the strength to move. Sometimes it happens all in the same writing session, which is as frustrating as it is baffling.

I’ve suffered some bouts of Scriptus Interruptus this week, not that it’s an unusual occurrence. But what I’d like to share with you today is how I broke through my personal creative log jam and started hammering out pages like a slightly better-conceived power tool analogy.

I’ve stated before, almost exhaustively, what a fan I am of planned writing. I have outlines, spreadsheets (Jesus God, the spreadsheets!), character sketches, even organized playlists to help center my thinking. It’s a left-brained Wonderland in my writing dungeon.

Formatting cells is totally a writing skill, right? RIGHT?!

I’m elbow-deep in The Curse Servant’s first draft, and by God I’ve got that sucker outlined. Granted, shortly into the third chapter I had to dramatically re-structure my outline thanks to one or two good ideas that popped up. And by Chapter Ten I realized that my entire outline was, in fact, only Act II, and this sucker was ballooning out of control.

All right, I’ll admit it. My outline was useless one week into drafting. I spent more time trying to tie things up on my spreadsheet than I did generating words. This led to spiraling doubt and confusion, the net result of which was unproductive writing sessions and a general sense of doom and dread.

Then Memorial Day weekend happened. I spent my time in the swimming pool, cutting grass, washing off the smell of sunscreen and chlorine, smoking ribs, and noodling around like a feckless layabout who didn’t have a damned novel to write. Here’s the great thing about mindless, repetitive activities such as lawn mowing, tending charcoal, and taking showers. You tend to block out your own brain.

It was a God send.

When I stopped thinking about my book, I started imagining it. And it really sank in this weekend when I specifically set aside time to daydream my way through my story instead of trying to engineer it. I cranked out ten thousand words in three days, which with my life schedule is above average. It seemed the key to getting over the creative lethargy was to reconnect with the right side of my brain.

So, a word of caution to all of the visitors to my blog who check in on my spreadsheets (yes, I see you over there!)… don’t get too hooked on the formula. Invest time doing nothing, opening up that chest of wonders inside your imagination, and just baste in it for an hour or so. Then see what come out!

Image courtesy of imagerymajestic | freedigitalphotos.net

I have something new and interesting for you today.

My friend Jason Konopinski and I had a conversation over Skype the other night about writing in general. We discussed the new onus that self-publishing has placed upon the reader to be her own gatekeeper for quality. We also touched on my journey into self-publishing, and perhaps most interestingly how we view ourselves as writers.

If you have fifty minutes to spare over lunch or on your commute home today, you can listen to our convo on his podcast Riffing on Writing.

And since I know there will be some new faces nosing around the old blog, I thought I’d do something special this week. The Curse Merchant is now available at a reduced price of $0.99 via Amazon or Smashwords! If you’ve thought about picking up the first book of the Dark Choir series, now’s a better opportunity than ever before. Spread the word, guys, and hop on over to Jason’s site and catch up on his podcasts!

Time for an in-between manuscripts blog post! In a perfect world I’d be updating this blog more regularly, but the truth of the matter is I tend to center most of my creative energies on one or two specific things, and the peripherals such as blog posts and parenting tend to suffer.

I’m currently about halfway through The Curse Servant (so rejoice!). While I was hoping to make a June launch date for Servant, I’m recognizing that this sucker is a lot bigger than Curse Merchant in scope if not in word count, and thus requires a bit more engineering. If you don’t follow my Facebook Author Page, then you’re missing some selected snippets from the Work in Progress… hie thee thither so you can catch up!

Speaking of social media (see what I did there?), today was all about Twitter and how much it wasn’t working for me. Let me back up a couple steps.

Two years ago when I first started a serious endeavor to pursue writing as a career, or something like a career, I absorbed volumes of rote wisdom from the Internet. In the several dozen months since then I’ve recognized that some of that advice was not only dubious, it was outright blather. A lot of this toxic wisdom centered on how to use Twitter to gain readership.

So, I did what most nascent author-types did… I followed any account that looked like it was related to the publishing world. A lot of it made sense, particularly literary agents who seem to have a good sense of how to maintain a personable, relate-able persona online while maintaining content that was, you know, actually useable. I follow-backed (followed-back?) fellow authors, and in no time at all I discovered that my Twitter feed had swollen into a corpulent bulge of mutual self-promotion. It was a din of voices, all desperately grasping for notice, none of them listening one to another. It rendered impotent my ability to follow actual conversations on Twitter.

“Hey hey hey… how am I supposed to talk when you’re too busy not listening?”

Here’s the problem… you can’t employ the Hard Sell in the online 21st Century world. I asked myself “Self, whose tweets are you reading and why do you care?” The answer: real people who are actually talking about things. I pledged long ago to actually talk about things on Twitter. In other words, I chose to be a person and not a product to be consumed.

Sure, I have a product out there. But I can’t claim to have ever read a 150 word pitch on Twitter and declared “Sweet Crispy Jesus, I must buy that ebook!” I have, however, garnered a firm sense of an author’s voice from her Twitter conversations and concluded that she was a “good gamble.”

Furthermore, I’ve begun to identify the Twitter profiles on my feed that do little more than constantly spray spam onto the body Internet, and have chosen to remove them from my feed. Why did I make this decision rather than to create lists or use a Twitter app to weed through the chaff? The decision had nothing to do with marketing… it had everything to do with wanting to find and participate in genuine conversations. There was no benefit to keeping the promotion mongers on my Following list. I’m not offending them by un-following. It’s likely they would never notice.

What I have seen, however, is that it’s much easier to interact with real people now that my feed is relatively free of one-sided promotional broadcasting. It doesn’t just make my voice heard, it allows me to hear others. And that’s far more enjoyable than endless scrolling.

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

And as a finale to the photo tour for The Curse Merchant, one of the darkest locations… perhaps the strongest display of the dichotomy between what is real and what lies beneath.

I looked out my window, watching as the taller buildings of downtown Baltimore cast their shadows over us. This wasn’t going to be a long drive.

“Do you have any advice for me?” I asked.

“Advice?”

“For talking to Osterhaus.”

He cocked his head and considered the question for a moment, before responding, “Be polite.”

He drove up Light Street and stopped in an alley between a tall bank building and a red brick row house. I tried to step out, but the door was locked. I had to wait until Malosi opened the door from the outside.

Once free of the Cadillac, I looked up and down Light Street, the clear sky above slowly succumbing to a front of overcast clouds. Malosi gestured me towards a flight of steps dropping below the street in the alley, leading to a basement entrance to the red brick building. At the base of the steps was a thick iron door with a wrought bronze knocker. Malosi pulled the handle and pushed the door open with a loud scrape.

Imagine peering down this alley…

And approaching this doorway…

Osterhaus’s office is described as a basement entrance, but when I found this little gem down the actual Light Street in downtown Baltimore, I felt I had adequately captured the feeling of the old world lurking just beneath the modern world. In fact, I took this photo as I looked straight up…

At the feet of the normal world, in an old back alley office, tucked away behind the busy streets and the pedestrians… what exactly is being bought and sold? This is the very essence of The Dark Choir series. I have to admit, I hustled back to my car after taking the photo. My skin was crawling.

I hope you enjoyed this little excursion. Now back to the writing dungeon where The Curse Servant is already underway. Spread the word… if you’ve read The Curse Merchant and enjoyed it, tell a friend or two!

Thanks again, and I’ll be chatting with you soon.

Let’s take a drive west of Baltimore today, to visit Dorian’s best friend.

“Edgar Swain operated an antiques shop in the middle of the old colonial town of Frederick. Quaint red-brick row houses passed the windows of my car, as the spires of seven old cathedrals loomed over the skyline. Sunday street shoppers were lining the sidewalks, most of them walking dogs or pushing strollers. Frederick was only sixty miles away from Baltimore, but there was a world of difference between them.

I pulled my car down Carroll Street, staying to the side to allow a car to pass me in the narrow lane. An elegant but decaying store front came into view, its large black sign declaring in white cursive letters ‘SWAIN’S ANTIQUES AND ODDITIES.'”

This building was the actual inspiration for Edgar’s store. Quite a memorable scene takes place in that second-story living space! I feel the town of Frederick is a reflection of Baltimore in the same way that Edgar is a reflection of Dorian. Both places have similar architecture lining its streets, but one has a much smaller scope, is more organized, and simpler.

Tomorrow we’ll end this little photo tour with my favorite of all of the site finds. Be sure to check back tomorrow!

I have a double-header for you today on the Curse Merchant Photo Tour, both in Dorian’s neighborhood.

First, the properties that Dorian owns. Here’s an excerpt:

“I peeked through the eyehole to find the tall, spindly frame of Abraham Carter lingering on my concrete stoop. Abe was one of the tenants from the block of row houses I had picked up ten years ago when I had moved back to the States. Real estate wasn’t expensive in West Baltimore, and I bought the properties embarrassingly cheap. It took a couple years to fill them with reliable tenants like Abe, and since then I hadn’t had to think much about them. Which was why his showing up at my door on a Sunday morning worried me.”

West Baltimore is a maze of row houses, most of which are in some state of disrepair. It’s one of the two worlds you’ll find in this city… an underclass and the glass towers.

Second, Dorian’s favorite place to spend his mornings…

“I felt the need to start boxing up my possessions, but the enormity of the task pressed into me. I elected instead to grab my coat and walk down to the café. The rain had stopped long enough for me to find an outside chair. It was damp, but I didn’t really care. I needed to be out in the open, on the street, perhaps for the last weekend. I sipped a cappuccino as I watched a homeless man panhandle his way down Fayette. He locked eyes with me and kept moving on. I must have been giving off the ‘not worth the hassle’ vibe.”

As it turns out, this real world café is just two blocks away from the real world red brick house I posted yesterday to represent Dorian’s house. I wrote the book before I ever laid eyes on this café, but it certainly fits the bill nicely!

Tomorrow we’ll take a stroll down the freeway to visit the Swains!

I’ve said before that the city of Baltimore was not only a major influence in the creation of the Dark Choir series, but is fundamentally a character in The Curse Merchant. The locations and settings of the novel were directly influenced by individual structures and street corners in the city of Baltimore. Ever since I decided to self-publish The Curse Merchant, I figured I would post up photos of the real world locations that either served to directly inspire specific scenes, or reflect the description of scenes that were written.

Now that my blog tour is concluded, it’s a good time to go ahead and put these out there. If you’ve read the book, you may recognize some of these shots. Perhaps some will be more eye-opening.

I thought I would start big today… Dorian’s House.

Here’s an excerpt from the book:

“By the time I reached my red brick two-story just north of the Stadium, however, the headache had eased. I checked the street before parking in the narrow driveway. After sunset, the neighborhood couldn’t be described as friendly.

I bought the house when I returned to the States after ten years living in London. It was supposed to have been an historic building. The realtor said Poe lived there once. I never did the research to see if that was a load of bull, for fear that it was. The realtor had also told me the entire area was due for a community revitalization. So, I invested in a block of row houses around the corner as rental properties and waited for the block to start cleaning up. Unfortunately for me, the block across the expressway experienced the revitalization, and I ended up putting bars on my windows.”

Fun fact: I actually based Dorian’s street address on the Poe Museum, which was the building in which Edgar Allan Poe had once lived. The actual building itself is less representative of my mental picture of Dorian’s row house. When I drove around the corner, however, I found this beauty tucked between a dead-end alley and a modern building, which is something of a theme in The Curse Merchant. The modern city of Baltimore exists oblivious to the ages-old magic rendered at its footsteps.

I do note, however, this particular building is a three-story… alas, you can’t have everything. Also, just pretend that car in the foreground is an Audi.