Dave Bain's blog

TERROR IS OUR TRADE is FREE through Sunday (3/17)!

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:34:32 GMT

TERROR IS OUR TRADE, a tome in which C. Dennis Moore and I trade horror stories back and forth - one from each author's five collections - is scheduled to be free as part of Amazon's KDP Select program from Wednesday, March 13, through Sunday, March 17.

You'll also find the first mention (other than this one...) of a new novel we're working on, combining his fictional world and mine...

We've also included samples from his awesome haunted house novel THE THIRD FLOOR - a Kindle horror bestseller - my novel GRAY LAKE, and the first several scenes of our collaborative horror novella BAND OF GYPSIES.

This is, frankly, a great way to get to know our work.

Do we have any compunctions about offering ten of our stories for free? Nope, none at all. I've always looked at free ebooks as ... well, the library edition. Countless times I've checked a book out of the library only to fall in love with it and buy a copy for home - often purchasing more by the same author the next time I visit the brick and mortar store or Amazon.

Similarly, I've gone to author readings, heard a story for free, and bought a half dozen books based on the one entertaining tale or segment. The author enjoys doing the reading, and, if she's smart, loves having been read whether you bought the book or got it from the library or used bookstore or borrowed it from a friend. And a smart author will also gladly sign the ragged used paperback because, hey, you're going to show it to a friend who might buy a new copy and tell their friends, etc.

Exactly the same idea when it comes to giving TERROR IS OUR TRADE away. Yes, it's a sampler, but there are ten full stories, 70,000 words of fiction - no skimping, no excerpts (other than from our novels, of course).

There's plenty more where these come from - and Dennis and I are working daily, alone and together, to bring you more scares, more thrills, more action and oddities. Give us a try. You know you've been wanting to! And now you can. For free. No strings attached!

BAND OF GYPSYS Pre-Release Party!!!

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 19:17:51 GMT

Um, well, this is the internet, so best I can do is offer you a virtual beer.

But this clocks in at 15,500 words. And it kicks ass. And it will be yours sooner this week rather than later...

Pre-order ebook for $1.99 (Please specify e-reader) There will also be a 130+ page print edition.

Legend says Jimi Hendrix forgot the master tapes for Axis: Bold as Love in a London taxi.
Now, C. Dennis Moore, author of the Amazon horror bestseller THE THIRD FLOOR and REVELATIONS and David Bain, author of GRAY LAKE and DEATH SIGHT, bring you the true story behind the disappeared recordings, involving Jimi's ghost, soul-hopping alien demons, a shoot-out unlike any you've ever read before, and visions of the real Electric Ladyland.

Writing: Art, Business & Jimi

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:14:34 GMT

Writing: Art or business?

Both, of course.

If you’re a writer, most likely you didn’t have much choice in the matter. If you’re a writer, the signs were there early on, and it was simply a matter of discovering your craft, then taking off on the lifelong journey of honing it. Maybe you were smart and got a medical or business or law degree on the side to support yourself. Maybe you were lucky and have a supportive spouse. Maybe you were neither and are struggling at three other part-time jobs, squeezing your words in edgewise. But in any case, you probably didn’t have much of a choice about the “writer” part. You’re driven to do it, and you feel it’s at least one of the major reasons God put you on this earth.

But in your heart you still ask yourself: Art or business? For the love or for the money?

You’ve had dreams of Stephen King or J.K. Rowling cash. You’re inspired by J.A. Konrath and Dean Wesley Smith. So, business.

But you love Kafka, who starved in a garret. You don’t understand why Charles L. Grant, a grand stylist, master of so many genres, his prose both prolific and beautiful, died without health insurance. You feel somehow cleaner, emptied, exalted, in touch, having written. So, art.

What it comes down to:

You’re working on your novel for art’s sake. Because you’re driven to write it.

An editor emails on Friday, says I’ve got a last-minute slot in my monster anthology for a 4,000-word story about goblins. Here is a paragraph describing the abilities of my goblins. I need this story no later than Monday morning.

So you abandon your novel, you write the story, done by midnight, Sunday.

You go back to the novel Monday morning, the novel which might never sell, but which has been nagging at you to write it for months - the idea has pitbull jaws and won’t let you go no matter how hard you try to shake it off.

Is the goblin story hackwork because you wrote it quick, for cash?

No.

Even though the idea wasn’t there an hour earlier, even though it wasn’t an idea that had been demanding to be written, it combines elements of your life, observations you’ve made, things that you’ve been ruminating about, and it does so with a respectable amount of success.

A writer learns to trust the muse. Trust her without fail.

You became a writer because she was ever-present, pushing the art; but she will also faithfully provide when it comes to business. You don’t need to train her; she is the one who trains you - trains you to trust her.

Art can be enough to sustain the work.

But, obviously, most of us also seek success.

And success is mostly luck.

But, with all that said, this is also true: good business makes its own luck.

***

Example:

The story above is true. It happened, God, almost a decade ago now.

The novel is my crime/horror novel GRAY LAKE. I wrote it for art. It was almost published by a small press before said small press went under. Every agent I sent it to said, "So close, but no cigar. No one's buying horror anymore."

The story is “Those Who Can, Help.” I wrote it for business. (And the story still earns me a little, most months, both as an individual $.99 ebook and as part of my collection NIGHT WRITING.)

The editor of the anthology was C. Dennis Moore, artist, businessman.

At the time, back in spring of 2004, I only knew Dennis through a story he’d submitted to something I’d edited. I believe I had, in fact, turned his story down. But I must have done something right in that rejection, because, out of the blue, he asked me for the goblin story for THE BOOK OF MONSTERS (which is apparently still available and selling reasonably well, even though the publishing company (Scrybe - avoid like the plague!!!) hasn’t paid Dennis or anyone else in literally years … hmmm - seriously, if you want the story, please don't buy it from this scummy publisher).

Being the absolute bastard that he is, Dennis made it a competition, no less. He also solicited a goblin story from at least two other authors. Mine apparently won out.

But here’s what I’m saying about business, about trusting the muse:

I quit the novel for a weekend, accepted the challenge, business first.

And it’s paid off in so many ways.

Yes, I wrotes me my story and I gots paid. Gotta gets paid. But, as a result of that story, and various emails about it, Dennis has become one of my best online friends. The muse knew what she was doing by working with me on that "business" project. For almost a decade now, we’ve shared almost daily emails about, well, everything from music to the major concerns of our lives. There’s not much I wouldn’t be able to tell him.

And many years of that decade have been lean in terms of writing success.

We were there for mutual support because of that business decision I made that long ago Friday night. This support has been invaluable. I would have missed out on so much had I been in it just for art.

And, at last, Dennis has, lately, started finding some major success, especially with his latest novel, THE THIRD FLOOR, a killer haunted house tale which has topped the Amazon horror charts. I’m chasing at his heels, with Kindle sales that are promising, but what I’d call midlist at best. (Do I begrudge Dennis his success? Hardly. Even though we’ve never met in person, we’ve carried each other through some extraordinary lows, and he deserves every sale he gets.)

So, all this past decade, Dennis and I have talked genre, we’ve talked art, we’ve talked business - we’ve talked writing. And now he and I have come full circle with a couple collaborations: one for art, one for business.

The one we’ve done for business is already available. In TERROR IS OUR TRADE, a full book-length (70,000-word) collection of short stories and novellas, Dennis and I trade stories back and forth - we realized we each have five short story collections. In this book, we each included one story from each of our collections. It’s an Amazon exclusive for now, and at just $1.99 it's less than you'd pay for many lesser collections. I think our motivations are pretty transparent - two names on the spine of the book introduces us to each other’s readers, and if they like a story from a particular collection, maybe they’ll buy the collection. Business.

As for art, well, Dennis and I are both rabid music fans. Nearly every day for the past decade we’ve discussed everything from classical musicians to some kid one of us found who recorded this awesome mp3 in his bedroom. And we agree wholeheartedly that Jimi Hendrix was perhaps the most inspiring, unique and revolutionary musician of the twentieth century. No one was quite as completely, out-of-the-blue alien as Jimi.

Then, one night about a year ago we started musing on a collaboration with a music theme. Combining some of our discussions with a dream I had way back in college, I sent Dennis the opening paragraphs of a story, just asking what he thought of it. He responded with some ideas. I asked him to write them up. The collaboration which resulted in our forthcoming novella BAND OF GYPSIES resulted. It’s a musing on the true fate of the first master tapes of Jimi’s album Axis: Bold as Love, which legend says he forgot in a London taxi. To date, the tapes have never been found.

Will it sell? Some, I expect, but I doubt it’s going to rival THE THIRD FLOOR.

We wrote it for fun. For art.

Art is, after all, what the business of writing’s all about, right?

BAND OF GYPSIES cover and Tandem $.99 Kindle Ebook Sale!

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 12:49:40 GMT

Celebrating the forthcoming release of our collaborative novella BAND OF GYPSIES: A DARK ROCK N' ROLL FANTASY, C. Dennis Moore and I are discounting some of our $2.99 Kindle ebooks to $.99 for a limited time! The items we're putting on sale include two horror novels - my GRAY LAKE and his THE THIRD FLOOR - and our full-length horror story collections - my NIGHT WRITING and his (quickly forthcoming) THE DICHOTOMY OF MONSTERS. That's upwards of 300,000 words of horror for four bucks!

THE THIRD FLOOR update...

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 01:38:21 GMT

You know that novel by friend and sometime cowriter C. Dennis Moore, his new haunted house novel, THE THIRD FLOOR, that I was pimping a post or two back? It's been slowly climbing Amazon's hot 100 in the horror category all day - currently at #84!

Two Weird Things I've Seen Recently

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 13:19:26 GMT

Two rather bizarre instances in the last couple days:

1) We went to a Flat Top Grill on Saturday night. I went to get the car to pull it up to the curb. My wife and daughter waited inside. I went back in to get them. It’s pretty late, not many patrons, couples at three or four tables. Guy at a table very close to us – he and the female get up. They’d seemed like normal types, both a little chubby, kicked back to the point of almost lounging. As he leaves, he picks up his glass of water, holds his hand out straight, pours his water all over the table and laughs and leaves. We hadn’t noticed any particular altercations with the staff or anything like that. He just acted as if he’d suddenly had this hilarious idea. Very strange and sorta unsettling.

2) I turn a corner at Wal-Mart, and in an otherwise empty aisle this scraggly, tweaker-looking chick who doesn’t see me finishes emptying one of those spray bottles of whipped cream into her mouth and chucks the empty under the shelving. Then she gets back behind her cart and, seeing me, goes wide-eyed and tries to act like she doesn’t have puffy chipmunk cheeks. I about L’edMAO!

THE THIRD FLOOR - A New Haunted House Novel by C. Dennis Moore

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 03:38:24 GMT

Hey everyone! Check out my buddy C. Dennis Moore's new haunted house novel THE THIRD FLOOR!

Hell House. The Amityville Horror. The Haunting of Hill House.

Horror author C. Dennis Moore invites you to the newest haunted house on the block, a place so mean, even in a town where strange is the norm, the stories surrounding this house are legend. The problem is they’re all true.

THEIR NEW HOME IS OUT TO GET THEM

Welcome to Angel Hill, Missouri, a town that shot blood from the ground at its own groundbreaking. There are only two roads in or out of Angel Hill, and everything within those borders is subject to the whims of reality. Those who grew up here are immune to the town's peculiarities. But Jack and Liz have just moved here, and for their young son, Joey, it's almost like coming home again.

As the Kitches settle into their new home, a large abandoned house in need of a lot of TLC, Angel Hill welcomes them the only way it knows how. Footsteps in the middle of the night. Voices on the phone. Their big empty house wasn't so empty after all. There's a presence, and it's growing stronger. And angrier.

DOES MADNESS LIVE ON AFTER DEATH?

A hulking figure stalks the halls while childlike voices whisper in mourning. And there's something unexplainable happening to Joey. His hair is shorter now, and his eyes . . . they didn't used to be that color, did they? And that birthmark on his neck looks more like a scar every day. Jack doesn't want to believe his own eyes, but for Liz the threat is all too real, and it's closing in.

From the invisible shapes under the sheets, the eyes she feels on her constantly, and the banging coming from the third floor . . . is that something trying to get in? Or something wanting out? Welcome to Angel Hill.

C. Dennis Moore is the author of REVELATIONS and “The Man in the Window” as well as over 60 published stories in the speculative fiction genres. THE THIRD FLOOR is based in part on his real experiences in the house on which this novel is based. His horror fiction has appeared most recently in VILE THINGS, WHAT FEARS BECOME, DARK HIGHWAYS, DARK HIGHLANDS 2 and DEAD BAIT 3. In the review of his first short story collection, TERRIBLE THRILLS, CEMETERY DANCE MAGAZINE called him “an author worth keeping an eye on.”

Interview at Myriad Spheres

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 19:13:49 GMT

Author Michael K. Rose interviewed me over here at Myriad Spheres, just in time for today's official release of my new novel DEATH SIGHT.

DEATH SIGHT Contest!

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 17:16:36 GMT

DEATH SIGHT, the first Will Castleton novel, has just been released. Many of you might already know Will from my free download story "Island Ghosts" or from THE CASTLETON FILES collection.

Today I'm announcing a chance for you to be an integral part of the series of stories in novel - one lucky winner will get to be a character who gets killed off in GREEN RIVER BLUES, the second Will Castleton novel, due out in 2013. This won’t just be your name filling in a character I’ve already written - this will be you, as near as I can write you! (I’ll have a questionnaire for the winner to fill out with details about him or herself.)

The winner also gets one free, signed print copy of their choice from my available books.

Just for the fun of it, two runners-up will also receive a signed book of their choice.

To enter, simply shoot me an email at GreenRiverMichigan at gmail dot com, answering the following five questions about DEATH SIGHT:

1. Name one of Mazie’s cats.

2. What is the name of the bar they go to after the funeral?

3. What do Will and Dougly use as weapons in their final showdown with Ricky Cahill?

4. What is the name of the witness Will escorts to Arizona?

5. Where does the epilogue of DEATH SIGHT take place?

I’ll select a winner at random from all correct emails on Feb. 1, 2013 and announce them here on my blog. (I’ll literally put names in a hat.)

DEATH SIGHT is available for just $2.99 on Kindle, Amazon UK, Kobo, Nook
and Smashwords. (Print edition and other ebook venues forthcoming.)

First Review of DEATH SIGHT

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 16:49:43 GMT

C. Dennis Moore, one of the advance readers of DEATH SIGHT, offers his thoughts on the novel.

Although the official release date isn't until Tuesday, the ebook has been released early to

Kindle, Smashwords, Kobo and Nook.

How the Will Castleton Stories Got Started...

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 18:36:28 GMT

I just added the following note to all the ebook versions of the existing Will Castleton stories. Thought those of you who've already read them might want a look-see. It gives some background on the stories and info on DEATH SIGHT, the first Will Castleton novel, due as an ebook and trade paperback on Tuesday, Dec. 4!

Dear Reader:

I hope you enjoyed this Will Castleton adventure. If you’re reading this, it means you’ve finished one of the four stories currently available in ebook format. Obviously, Will travels a long way - physically, mentally and spiritually - between the events detailed in “Island Ghosts”, “Samantha”, “The Bridge” and “Nighteyes”.

I’m excited to announce that the first full-length Will Castleton novel - DEATH SIGHT - is coming out on or about December 4, 2012!

I wrote the original four Will Castleton stories back in the early 2000s for small press magazines and anthologies.

The first, “Island Ghosts”, came pretty much out of nowhere and was simply an exercise in speed, movement and suspense. It appeared in a Future Mysterious anthology simply entitled DIME - a collection of hard-boiled private eye stories. Thank you, Babs Lakey, for taking a story that technically didn’t even feature a private eye! But Lakey apparently saw potential in Will Castleton, and, eventually, so did I.

The first two Will Castleton novels, DEATH SIGHT and GREEN RIVER BLUES, both take place before the events detailed in “Island Ghosts.” DEATH SIGHT details the accident that led to Will’s becoming psychic - with a serial killer, a ghost from a cold case murder, some very nasty bikers and a fugitive apprehension that goes very, very wrong all thrown into the mix. GREEN RIVER BLUES involves Will investigating a series of devastating murders in his hometown, as well as the confrontation which leads directly to the little vacation highlighted in “Island Ghosts.”

But back to the short stories, if you’ll indulge me for a moment. After writing “Island Ghosts,” I hadn’t thought much more about Will Castleton until an editor friend asked me for a story to include in an anthology about ghost hunters. I thought Will would be perfect. So I moved him forward in time a bit and wrote “Samantha.”

The third and fourth Will Castleton novels - MENGER (featuring the fate of a certain orally-fixated, nefarious, burn-scarred bad guy known to readers of my crime/horror novel GRAY LAKE) and RUNNING - both currently little more than outlines, further explore Will’s coming to grips with the spirit world and his move from U.S. Marshal to private investigator. In these novels and beyond, we’ll fill in events merely hinted at in “The Bridge” (the only one of the original Will Castleton stories not written specifically at an editor’s request, it was accepted by a small press mystery magazine) and, in time, we’ll see Will combat the cosmic enemy of whom we see only the first vestiges in “Nighteyes” - a story which, though it doesn’t feature any form of the word “vampire,” was originally published in a collection of stories about vampire hunters.

I foresee myself spending a lot of time with Will Castleton - maybe to the tune of a dozen or so novels, maybe more - Robert B. Parker started his Spenser novels when he was my age and wrote forty of them! However far we get to go together, I’m thrilled to be writing Will’s extended story, seeing him through the long haul. I officially welcome you along for the ride!

Thanks again for reading!

Dave Bain

http://DavidBainBooks.com

DEATH SIGHT: Official release date! (And Wattpad Serialization Announcement!)

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 15:06:37 GMT

At long last, DEATH SIGHT, the first Will Castleton novel, has an official release date. The book is in the last stages of professional formatting and should be available in print and for Kindle, Kobo, Nook and other ereaders by Tuesday, December 4.

But!

If you want to start reading it now, the novel will be serialized on my Wattpad account, starting today. Here's a direct link to the novel. I’ll post a new chapter each day this holiday weekend. Then I'll continue to release a chapter or two per week on Wattpad, even after the book’s published - if you have enough patience, you’ll eventually be able to read the whole thing there for free!

So what’s the book about? Here’s the blurb:

Hospitalized after drowning during a rescue attempt, newly graduated U.S. Marshal Will Castleton is besieged by visions of a hulking executioner torturing a bound man. A perilous race against time leaves Will broken, unsure if he even wants to join the marshals. Escaping to his Michigan hometown, Will finds his father dying, a young woman’s ghost desperate to communicate with him, and a biker kingpin out to make a statement by taking out local law enforcement’s golden boy.

DEATH SIGHT is the first novel in the Will Castleton series, mixing crime and the supernatural. Will's adventures will continue in 2013 with Green River Blues, which is already in the early writing stages.

For a glimpse of Will’s future, check out THE CASTLETON FILES, featuring five adventures from diverse points throughout Will’s career.

The novel is dedicated to everyone who read and enjoyed “Island Ghosts” (still free on Wattpad and wherever ebooks are sold) before any of Will’s other adventures were widely available and encouraged me to keep going…

Goodbye KDP Select, Hello Smashwords, et. al.

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 04:06:49 GMT

Tonight I posted the above four items on Smashwords (and elsewhere) after they spent nearly a year as exclusives on Amazon. (Clicky on the covers if you want to see them in their new Smashwordsian habitats.)

Without belaboring the point too much, I'll just say that, while my year-long experiment devoting certain titles to one market had its moments, I think the cons of KDP Select outweigh the pros. I shan't go back.

UNDERDOGS and DARKER CORRIDORS should also be available at Kobo and Barnes & Noble within a day or two, and within a week or two all the titles should be at all the major ebook outlets, via Smashwords' distribution system.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday I plan on also making the following ten short stories, previously Amazon exclusives, available to Smashwords and all the markets to which they distribute.

About the Stars, About the Rain
Faith: A 9-11 Ghost Story
House Cleaning: A Messy Ghost Story
The Little Guy
The Mold of Memory
Something Clean, Something Pure
The Trunk: A Killer Ghost Story
Those Who Can, Help
Vigil
War Wounds: A Civil War Ghost Story

(Several of these titles are available in print exclusively via Amazon & CreateSpace. That won't change. In fact, eventually, all of them will likely be available in print.)

SWORD & ZOMBIE Table of Contents Revealed!

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 17:53:09 GMT

I've officially closed submissions to Volume 1 of SWORD AND ZOMBIE! (Though I'll still look at submissions for future volumes.)

The walking, sword-swinging, spell-slinging dead will be coming at you courtesy of the following tales by the following authors:

TABLE OF BODY PARTS

Warlock - William Meikle

The Work We Have in Hand - G. W. Thomas (a 21,000-word novella)

Silver Daemonsdotter and the Cracked Wax Seal
- Rebecca L. Brown

Wudewasas - Eric S. Brown (a medieval entry in his infamous BIGFOOT WARS series)

Cover and interior art by Coy Powers

SWORD AND ZOMBIE: Volume 1 should be out in time for Christmas in trade paperback and all ebook formats!

Best! Political!! Speech!!! EVVAAARRRR!!!!!

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 16:12:14 GMT

The election might be over, but it'll never be over for this guy! PHIL DAVISON FOR STARKE COUNTY TREASURER!!! RAAAARRRGGHHH!!!

Little Girl Is "Tired of Bronco Bamma and Mitt Romney"

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 16:24:29 GMT

Your Assignment: To Feel Truly Alive

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 15:12:14 GMT

There are four occasions during which I feel totally alive.

One is when I’m with my family and we’re doing something - it could be something as mundane as making soup or doing homework or something as thrilling as going camping, traveling to a swim meet or the infrequent vacation.

I feel alive, I suppose, because I’m immersed in that which the average man is meant to be immersed at my stage of life.

I know it’s precious. It could all disappear in a second.

And thus I am alive.

The second occasion during which I feel truly alive is when I’m teaching a group of receptive students. Lackadaisical or simply “present” students can kill this, but there are moments when you know someone’s getting it, when you know the knowledge you’ve spent the better part of your life amassing is actually being transferred, when you know something lasting might have come of you, something that has a hope of sticking and perhaps being passed on to yet another generation after you’re gone - my teaching voice was, after all, influenced by several of my own teachers, who were surely influenced by voices long gone. (And you certainly don’t have to be a classroom teacher to experience this - the same thing that I’m talking about also happens in garages, in factories, in backyards, in business offices.)

The third occasion during which I feel truly alive, well, I’ve honestly only experienced it a few times: a true runner’s high. I’m not talking about the jazzed feeling one gets from a good workout or from being healthy. A true runner’s high is much more than that.

And the truth is I’m not a runner anymore - though I should be. But in several years of daily running there were a very few times when the right mix of physical exertion, adrenaline, endorphins and … who knows what else … resulted in experiences I can only describe as spiritual. A true runner’s high is an utterly physical, utterly ecstatic buzz, with sex its only rival.

But the fourth, and most quizzical way I’ve known to make me feel totally alive is a good writing session.

I say it’s quizzical because, in truth, I barely remember my writing sessions.

For instance, today I spent an hour working on the outline for GREEN RIVER BLUES, the second Will Castleton novel.

I can assure you it was pure bliss.

And I can assure you I barely remember a single god-damned minute of it.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but, for me, writing’s this blissful timewarp.

I am elsewhere when I write.

And yet, while I’m elsewhere, I’m utterly present, utterly engaged - assimilating everything I am, everything I know, everything I’ve experienced, everything I’m in the midst of experiencing, everything I think I might potentially experience.

And, as a writer of the fantastic - as a hunter of horrors, a sojourner taking forays into fantasy, sorties into science fiction - I feel I’m alive because I’m using what little I know of life to move beyond the boundaries of everything I can expect to physically experience.

Is anything more strange than this?

All I’m doing is sitting at a desk, my fingers moving, my mind moving, everything else utterly still.

To the world, I’m an utter blank.

And yet I’m as alive as I’ll ever be.

Several years ago, after going over strategies for descriptive writing with my students, I gave them what I thought was a relatively simple assignment: I asked them to write a two-page essay on the last time they felt truly alive.

Many struggled with it.

Many of them turned in essays which were obviously just phoned in. They went to the beach, had a nice cookout, saw the sunset, got away from work for a while, description, description, yadda yadda.

What got me was many of them admitted they really had no idea what I was talking about, what I wanted from the essay other than some descriptive sentences.

Many of them admitted they simply didn’t know what I meant by that: feeling truly alive.

I can’t imagine life as such a slog.

Given: I’m often bored or jaded. I’m victim to frequent black funks and dark depressions. I have, in my time, been mean, surly, uncommunicative, grumpy and withdrawn, not to mention a drunken asshole (I’ve tried to avoid that in recent years).

But to live a life where I never feel alive?

That’s simply unfathomable.

But perhaps that’s the artist’s gift.

Since giving that assignment, I’ve seen my mission more clearly.

If you’re lucky enough to consider yourself a writer, a teacher, an artist of any sort - and many athletes and businessmen transform their sport, their profession into an art form - that’s your job, right there: To work to remind your readers, your fellow humans - and, perhaps most importantly, yourself - what it feels like to truly be alive despite the struggle, the grey slog and encroaching darkness of everyday life.

Joss Whedon on Mitt Romney

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 22:12:12 GMT

Pseudonyms: Guess You're Stuck with David Bain for a While...

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 13:18:14 GMT

Dean Wesley Smith’s post on pseudonyms has me thinking.

I write comfortably in many genres, and, to date, I’ve always published everything under my “real” name - which is, actually, a pseudonym.

I did this mostly for two reasons:

1. My main career is teaching English to college students. I’ve been a published writer for something close to 25 years now, but for most of that time I dealt almost exclusively with the small press, writing whatever took my fancy or whatever someone asked (and paid) me to write, with little concern for a bigger picture. My output was almost exclusively short stories, with my only longterm focus being on one novel - GRAY LAKE, which is now available in all sorts of formats. My publication history is scattershot, all over the place, from horror to sword and sorcery to mystery and even straight-up lit’rature as well as both genre and high-falutin’ poetry. While I am indeed professional about my writing, I looked at it more as a craft, an art form, than a career. (And, just to be clear: a craft or art form is much more than a hobby - but that's another post.) My point is, these days, though I still enjoy the luxury of mostly writing whatever I want, a bigger picture is indeed emerging, and I'm realizing my art form could also be a career...

2. Many, possibly even most of my writing heroes are ostentatious genre-jumpers. From King and Koontz to Joe Lansdale, from Michael Chabon to Joyce Carol Oates, these writers have published a mish-mash of genres under their own names and have done just fine. Writers like Oates who can write well in any form they choose impress the heck out of me, and I’ve always set out to follow in their footsteps. Though all of the above have used pseudonyms of one sort or another, they’ve all returned to their primary names, successfully pushing genre envelopes with them.

So I find myself in a quandary. I’ve published a crime/horror novel. Two of my bestselling ebook short stories are of a historical bent: THE COWBOYS OF CTHULHU, a weird Lovcraftian Western, and WAR WOUNDS, a Civil War ghost story. I’m in the midst of getting my Will Castleton psychic detective series off the ground, and several of the stories have already been published in anthologies and online under my own name. I've also already kicked off a series of straight smalltown crime novellas. My Shin and Skulk sword and sorcery stories are also under my name, and I think I have at least one novel featuring these guys in me. And I’ve already announced my more mainstream novel THE CARE AND FEEDING OF MICHAEL ANTHONY ZEE, forthcoming this fall, in too many places to back out now.

So it looks like you’re stuck with David Bain as the author of everything mentioned in the previous paragraph. Hope readers can handle another genre-jumper out there. Smith’s reasoning for the use of pseudonyms is certainly sound, and I’d love to give it a try and see the results, but it might be a while before you see the names Darren Bainser, Daryl Binnes or Naib Divad on any covers of books featuring my work…

Interview with Author C. Dennis Moore: On Reviewing

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 15:03:52 GMT

I recently conducted an interview with C. Dennis Moore, author of the novel Revelations, several story collections (including the free sampler Welcome to The Trust) and the recently released C Dennis Moore Horror Movie Guide, Vol. 1. An inveterate consumer of pop culture and all things horror, Moore has written well over 1,000 reviews.

You just released Volume 1 of your horror movie reviews. Can we expect more volumes? How about collections of your other types of reviews (music, books, etc.)?

I certainly PLAN more; I have almost 1100 reviews, after all (plus I have actually reviewed GOOD movies, too, and would like to send some attention their way as well). I think for the most part I'll stick with movie reviews, though. There's the entire Horrofest After Dark series--4 volumes--50 Classic Horror movies, 50 Classic Sci-Fi movies, the Decrepit Crypt of Nightmare series, and those are just the ones I have already written. And I have hundreds more to come. I've got enough movies in my office that I haven't reviewed to keep me reviewing a movie a week for a few years. I'd like to do a true Halloween Movie Review collection with all the great slasher films, the Fridays, the Nightmares, the Halloweens, the Saws, the Chainsaws, etc, almost all of which I have, but haven't reviewed yet. I probably won't be releasing the music reviews because I tend to do those in sets. I started reviewing the entire Prince catalog, then moved to Bowie, and Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson and Ani DiFranco. I then spent about a year or so reviewing movie soundtracks before moving onto my considerable collection of Greatest Hits albums, but I quickly got burned out and have only done one music review in the past year. I'm just not as comfortable with music reviews; I understand story a lot better than I do melody. Plus it's much easier to rip into a bad book or movie than it is a bad album.

Why did you start reviewing?

I got into it because I was in a literary guild and thought it would be a cool addition to the monthly newsletter. I kept at it after that because I found it to be a very valuable tool in my own writing. For years I only reviewed books and I tried to review them with an eye toward what I was able to take away from it as a writer. What did this book teach me to do, what did it teach me to avoid? That carries over to movies, too; I've discovered a ton of cliches and story models that just don't work for the stuff I want to do just by watching a ton of bad movies. Also, movies help you develop a better ear for dialogue, I think, than books, because so many of them are crammed with things people just wouldn't say in those situations.

Who are your favorite reviewers, movie and/or otherwise?

I actually don't read a lot of reviews, but I think Mike Bracken is a hell of a movie reviewer. He makes me feel like I've just written my very first review ever, every time. He's very knowledgeable about the genre AND movies, while I'm just reporting what I liked or didn't and why I did or didn't like it. Roger Ebert is a genius, even if I don't always agree with him. Craig Clarke seems to really cut to the heart of whatever he's reading, and I don't say that just because he liked my collection TERRIBLE THRILLS. Whether he had reviewed it favorably or not, I came away from his review feeling like he actually GOT it, and that's so important.

How much time do you spend watching the movies, reading the books and listening to the music you review?

With music I try to spend a week listening to it over and over, usually at work because that's when I listen to music, but I'll give it a listen or two every day from Monday to Friday and then usually do the review on Saturday--when I'm reviewing music. With books, I take as long as it takes to read it, then I usually try to do the review as soon after finishing the book as I can, while it's still fresh in my mind, although I always find that waiting a day usually makes for a more complete, well-rounded review. But then again, I don't let myself start reading something new until the review for that last book is done, and I really like to read, so I try to move on as soon as possible. Movies I watch in the morning and do the review immediately after, again, while it's still fresh. If there's a commentary track I want to listen to, though, I'll do that the next day, and THEN do the review. I try to watch all the DVD features, if they're included, to get a more complete picture of the movie. Those are easier, though, to let rest a day and write a more thorough review the next day, because if I forget something, it takes a few seconds to find the scene and watch it again or, even easier, look it up online.

Gimme some bio stuff!

My website is www.cdennismoore.com. My novel is REVELATIONS. My short stories, novellas, collections, etc, are all available on my website. So's my novel.

Story Acceptance!

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:30:24 GMT

Received word last night that my story “Phone & Games” has been accepted for Necro Publications’ forthcoming INTO THE DARKNESS anthology.

I’ve always been impressed with the quality of Necro’s publications, both the content and the format – great stories, beautiful books. I was a fan of the original INTO THE DARKNESS magazine back in the day and can’t express how thrilled I am to be part of Necro’s continuing legacy in the dark fantasy genre.

Pimping Two New Books - Not My Own!

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:51:33 GMT

Time to pimp a couple new books just released : A new story collection by veteran writer Ken Goldman and a first book of poems by Alexander Thorne. (Click on the covers above for ordering info.)

First off is DONNY DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE, a 150-page collection by Ken Goldman.

If you’ve followed horror or crime fiction at all in the past thirty years, you’ve likely seen Goldman’s name - he’s only had 650 stories published during that time.

The new collection gathers two of his darkest novellas and three of his best short stories.

The book is available in trade paperback and for all ereaders via Amazon, Kobo & Smashwords. It’ll be coming soon to Barnes & Noble, Sony, and other ebook markets.

Here’s the skinny on the stories:

Donny Doesn't Live Here Anymore - First there was the awful incident with Donny and the turtle. Artie, Donny's childhood best friend, could forgive that. Then Donny grew up...

Hotline - What's poor, insecure Phoebe to do when the unstable caller on the other end of the phone thinks he's dialed the suicide hotline?

A Museum Piece - The strange skull in the display supposedly stems from a demonic love triangle. But bewitching tour guide Belinda also has a wicked tale of infidelity to tell...

Sine Qua Non - Cultured, privileged, prim and proper, Timothy will tell you: Trying to kill yourself can be murder!

'Vette Fever - Wally's midlife crisis toy seems to literally be making him younger. But the worship of speed, horsepower and youth demands sacrifices...

Next is ANOTHER MISTAKEN ANIMA by Alexander Thorne.

Full reveal: I’m on the acknowledgements page, and Alex is the son of one of my best friends.

But the poems reveal someone who knows the territory. Alex studied under Stuart Dybeck, for example, and his work is more sharp, insightful and intriguing than anything I was writing at the same age. For now his book is only available on Smashwords, but I’m encouraging him to publish it lots of other places.

Alexander Thorne was born in 1989 and spends most of his time living in western Michigan. His written work has appeared in the e-magazine Phoenix Lore, the short fiction and poetry collection There Are Monsters Everywhere, and in news articles from the Western Herald.

The Road to Gray Lake

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 21:48:53 GMT

[Following is an essay regarding the writing of my first novel, GRAY LAKE. This also appears in THE ROAD TO GRAY LAKE, the companion book to the novel. You can read a preview and find out more info on the GRAY LAKE page of my website.]

Gray Lake: A Sort of Memoir

by

David Bain

I
It’s 1985. I’m sixteen. I’m driving down a long, straight road in my ’79 Mustang. The dark of night. There is no moon. “Soul Kitchen” by The Doors is on the radio. The headlights are fuzzy and I have to squint to see through the fog starting to roll in from the sides of the road. A book is sitting in the passenger seat. It’s the book I want to write about the strange, wonderful summer I’m experiencing. Two of the protagonists of the book are Brian and Iggy, guys my age, who have a ghostly encounter on the shores of Gray Lake, just like my best friend and I had (or convinced ourselves we had) only a few weeks ago. I realize the road I’m on is Lakeview, and that the lake which is the title of the book I have yet to write is my destination. I frown a little as I look at the paperback. The cover is a picture of the lake with a lady’s regal eyes opening just at the horizon. I love reading; I especially love Stephen King and H. P. Lovecraft and this newly emerging guy, Clive Barker, who’s just insane. But the sad truth is I have absolutely no idea how to write a book. And besides, even though I don’t know it, I’m still experiencing the stuff I want to write about. And there’s a lot of road up ahead.

II
It’s 1988. I’m nineteen. Same road, feels like the same night. Guns n’ f—in’ Roses is cranking on the cassette deck of my killer Chevy Nova – did I have a little accident with the Mustang back down the road a ways? Why, yes! Yes, I did! And I’ve discovered various fun substances which may or may not have contributed to that little fender-bender, and I might have been in a little bit of trouble because of those substances, but who cares because my car is full of girls and friends and the smoke in here is thick as the fog outside. The book is still sitting there on the stained passenger seat, but who has the time to write it? The headlights stutter, they flicker and seem to fade. The night is getting dark and I’m losing focus. Too much beer, too much smoke, too many friends who really aren’t friends at all – and suddenly it goes dark. Suddenly I’m alone. And I can barely see now. I flick the one remaining headlight to bright, but I’m going slow, slow, able to see only one yellow stripe ahead on the road. I feel around. The book is still there. Its shape is comforting. And it starts whispering to me, urging me on to my destination.

III
It’s the early 1990s. I’m in my mid-twenties. I find myself quite a bit further down the road, in a rusty AMC Hornet. A shit car if ever there was one. There’s nothing good on the radio; it seems everything is crap. I lost the Nova back down the road a ways and had to walk for a long stretch, but I read and learned a lot and managed to stay out of further trouble – did four years of college fly by somewhere in there? – and in some blink-or-you’ll-miss-it slowdown along the way I apparently realized that poetry might save my mortal soul. I’m traveling the road not taken – the road I thought I’d never take, that is. And it’s good for me. But it’s also lonely, terribly lonely, nothing but fog and cold and dark, though the headlights are working better. I feel around and find the book is still there on the passenger seat (the Hornet has a bench seat – dull, tan vinyl), but the book – and the whole passenger side, in fact, are buried under a heaping mound of loose typewriter paper – poems and short stories, many of which have sold or been published. Sheets of white paper stained with scattered words and letters are spilling over into the footwell, are blowing out the window which I’ve left slightly open; sometimes a draft gets in and they billow and fly about the car, making it hard to see, and in the end, all of it amounts to little more than … me, driving alone on this never-ending road. It seems somehow that I’m teaching at the local community college and doing every other sort of odd job, from working in sawmills and trailer and baby food factories to selling men’s suits and driving roads much like this one, checking the growth of endless fields of corn in order to support myself and keep this piece of crap car - is it a long hatchback or a short station wagon? – running. I swear this shitkicker car will nickel and dime me to death! And meanwhile there’s no sign of a destination, not even a rest stop or any hint of dawn on this endless night, this murky, forlorn road.

IV
It’s later in the same decade and I’m in a zippy silver Celica. It’s bright out, blue skies for once, and I can see the lake glimmering in the distance, out there on the horizon! I’m suddenly a journalist, so I must be on my way to cover a story, but it seems Gray Lake is also my destination. My wife? My wife to be? Either way she’s in the car with me, and so is the book. It’s fifty pages long, one-hundred, two-hundred! It’s growing day by day, writing itself, a treasure trove of ideas – it isn’t whispering to me, it’s singing! Look! The book has grown to nearly four-hundred pages! But hey. Hey, what’s this curve in the road ahead? The lake’s on the left side of the road, way up ahead there by the horizon. So why is the road turning right? Why is Gray Lake suddenly nowhere in sight? The book’s whispering to me again as a colorless, depressing mist starts settling over the scenery. The book whispers that it doesn’t want to be longer than It or The Stand or Swan Song or, hell, Proust. It whispers that, if we’d stayed on the particular path we were on to Gray Lake, that’s what would have happened. What it does not say, but what I’m coming to understand as I drive on into the mist, is that while I might have the skills to drive a sleek Celica, I’m not up to commandeering a rampaging two-ton semi quite yet.

V
Somehow I’ve driven into a new millennium. I’m cranking Jimmy Buffett. Life’s not bad. The weather is fair. I can’t complain. The minivan I’m driving has cruise control and the three kids in the back, though always making their presence known, aren’t being too loud. At least not usually. The stack of small press short story anthologies, diverse magazines and literary journals on the passenger seat are nice companions, and the book is taking form again, starting to peek through the pile. I’m headed for Gray Lake once more – there it is now, back in front of me, on the approaching horizon – but I’m also heading for Chicago. Columbia College in Chicago, to be exact. My goal is to return to teaching, by way of a master’s degree in writing. There are developmentally disabled people in the vehicle and me helping them seems to be paying for the minivan. These folks want me to write a book about them, but I tell them I have another destination, other promises to keep before I can do that. The book that’s been my longtime companion has distinct weight in the passenger seat – the upholstery is sinking around the book’s edges. The lake comes closer into view, its waves sparkling, suggesting mysteries only I can uncover. Teachers, compadres, writing associates come and go from the van as we crest a final hill. Another half-mile to the shore. The book sits fully formed. We’re almost there, my friends.

VI
Summer 2011. My PT Cruiser is sitting on the shore of Gray Lake, but it’s soon to be replaced by a Hybrid Honda Civic – gotta watch the gas mileage these days…. I’ve been teaching at a community college for about five years now, and I’m only stopping here for a quick breather on my way home … and yet it seems I’ve spent more than a quarter century just driving, driving, driving to this spot to drop off the book. There are countless tire tracks here on the shore. Lots of people stop here. It seems a good place to say goodbye to this novel and leave its fate to others to decide. The road goes on from here. There are lots of other stops I want to make. Along the way I’m going to pick up a guy named Will Castleton and spend a lot of the trip with him. There’s another lake where a guy’s been kidnapped and is staring out a special window. Another stretch has indie rock concerts at almost every stop, and I get to report on all of them. Pretty soon I’ll pass a van containing a couple developmentally disabled people about to start down their own road with a slightly off-kilter social worker. Yet another stretch of my road home is rife with zombies and a post-apocalyptic landscape.

There’s lots of adventure, heartache and excitement coming up.

I can’t wait to get going.

[Here's that link again for the GRAY LAKE page on my website...]

The Writing Life Begins at 44

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 15:54:15 GMT

For the first 42 or so years of my life, I found the old saw about how “life begins at 40” downright offensive. Youth has a lot to offer; young people – in every guise from musician to athlete to computer geek – can, and do, transform the world.

But with my 44th birthday just around the corner, I can see how the term came to be.

I’ve considered myself a writer for 25 years, since I was 19 or so. But in many ways, despite several million words under my belt, I feel like I’m just getting started – like I haven’t even, in fact, actually started in earnest just quite yet.

I was a community college student the first time I got paid for my writing, and I regularly sold poems and stories throughout my twenties and thirties – I stopped counting at about 120 publications. I’ve edited a poetry magazine lauded by Writer’s Digest. I supported myself and my family by writing for newspapers for ten years. I have an MFA in creative writing. And doing a little math tells me I’ve taught writing to about 1,500 to 2,000 students … and counting: I have about 130 students this semester, and I’m teaching one class less than usual.

And yet I’m just getting started.

Some food for thought:

Robert B. Parker wrote 40 Spenser novels, publishing his first novel at two years younger than I am right now. He wrote a total of 66 novels. (I have one novel available – Gray Lake, a horror and crime novel, published a year ago. Death Sight, the first novel in my Will Castleton series, comes out at the end of October. By this time next year, there should be at least five of my novels available, likely six.)

And Elmore Leonard is exactly TWICE MY AGE and still going strong. He’d only written five short Westerns, (novellas, by some standards) by my age. Since then, he’s written 44 novels, an average of one per year.

It’s taken what many might consider a lifetime of experience to get me to this point.

But I’m only getting started…

Hump Day = Free Story Day!

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 14:23:45 GMT

Today (10/17/12), nine of my short stories and one collection will be available free on Amazon Kindle.

It’s been a tough, busy couple of weeks for me recently – mid-semester grading for my classes – but things are finally going to slow down for bit, and I’m looking forward to remembering what it feels like to read something other than student work and textbooks.

I thought Wednesday, Humpday, would be a good day to share the reading love!

My short stories available on Kindle (and elsewhere).