Sunday, September 19, 2010

Nearly Dead

Apologies for not updating, and being derelict in commenting on my writer friends' blogs (which I am indeed reading, though). In addition to my previously announced melancholy over the Liberace museum closing, I’ve been busy.

I am pleased to announce I've released a free short, a St. Pete-centric, tongue-in-cheek Zombie tale titled "Nearly Dead" on Smashwords. You can download it in the format of your choice (or read it online) by clicking here.

Plot summary goes something like this:
"When a New York crime boss sends a hitman to St. Pete in the middle of a zombie infestation, the hitman finds that though infested with the undead, his beloved St. Pete hasn't really changed that much. But even in the middle of an infestation, he has a job to do."
The story is perhaps too St. Pete-centric for some, with unexplained inside jokes you'd maybe have to live here to know about. Or maybe, it doesn't work at all. Who the hell knows anymore? But hey, it's free, right?

In other news, I’ve completed reviewing the first-round edits of Applewood, my New England vampire novel, and will be sending them back in the next day or so. I’m certain the edits truly make it stronger. We’ve also had preliminary discussions about potential covers. Hard to believe it’s really happening.

One reason I opted to not self-publish this one (after making the rounds of agents and publishers, of course, and sitting at Dorchester for more than three years before they said no) was for just that, to have someone else read and edit and help with production, someone to tell me which parts suck (and not be afraid to use those exact words) and point out bad habits I’d fallen into.

Another curiosity about “Applewood” is there is a completed full-length sequel, picking up where the cliff-hanging end of "Applewood" leaves off. I started writing it as an exercise to more fully flesh out “Applewood” and it took on a life of its own.

I remember thinking at the time, “Is there any greater act of faith or stupidity than writing the sequel to an unpublished novel?”

Don’t know for sure, however I suspect J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer were sane enough to wait and see if anybody cared about the first to write the next.

But between you and me, I think the second in the series is even stronger than the first, and project it would take another four books or so to truly complete the “saga.” I’ll keep you posted.

Course with my luck, vampires will be passé right about then . . .

As always, thanks for reading!

4 comments:

Aaron Polson said...

Vampires will never go out of style completely.

Sparkles are dead. Vampires are undead.

Brendan said...

Heh. Here's hoping, Aaron!

Cheryl Tardif said...

Zombies and a hitman. Wow! :-) Sounds fascinating.

By the way, I found your blog via the Author Blogs post on the Kindleboards. :-)

Cheryl Kaye Tardif
www.cherylktardif.com

Brendan P. Myers said...

Hey, Cheryl! Thanks for stopping by. Appreciate the kind words as well.

Cool too how you found my blog. That KB thread is so humongous these days I figure I'd be lost in the shuffle!

Sincere thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment.