FULL BLEED: TAKE A RIDE, TAKE A SHOT NOW

Thirty-five years ago, I started a job out of college. I'd moved to a new city to be with my girlfriend of four years, to one day to be my fiancée then wife who I'm still married to. I'm anything but a quitter I guess. Just don't talk to my bandmate in the Roswell Incident.

The turn of the new year makes me think of this, mostly because I started that job on January second, which is basically monster-like behavior. It wasn't a great job, but it wasn't terrible. I was (shockingly) under-utilized. (Okay, perhaps not shockingly). It did get me sat in front of a computer where I answered phones and greeted people.

Within a month, even with the addition of fiber internet (UCSD was right on the backbone and the San Diego Supercomputer Center just down the way from the office where I worked) I was either bored or comfortable enough to start writing what would become my first novel. There's some good stuff in it. There's some not great stuff in it. What can I say? It was my first one and I'm ego-driven enough to have published it anyways. Why not? It's not like anyone's reading it and reviewing it. What's the harm? Besides, it was easier to get away with that than playing games. It looked like work, at least. (But then, so did USEnet.) Oh, that first novel? I did some rewrites (mostly additions that I’ve been told aren’t necessary and oh well) in 2014 or so, finally putting it out in 2024 maybe, under the name Black Trace. It is what it is. Largely derivative plot/setting, some good lines, pretty clunky and stumbly but at least I tried something, did something sorta new.

So I've been at this for some time now. Honestly weird to think about how long. And how many times I've walked away from it only to come back because it's one of the few things I'm good at. I know. Up for debate. Besides, being good at a thing isn't necessarily an indicator of being successful at it. Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun, the universe likes to say. And yeah, that gets to be grinding, the universe setting those big gray steel teeth to wearing you down into whatever you get when you grind past dust. It's still atoms, right? Just cast out over creation. So, yeah, I guess it's only quitting if you don't get back up. And I say that hating all that motivational stuff. If it's what gets you through the night, then go for it. I can't tell you how to do things. I barely know myself.

Speaking of not knowing anything, I've laid out what I think will be the rest of the books in Hazeland. There's probably too many. Definitely. I kinda don't care. It's the only thing that makes any sense. I've kept it so that the first six (more or less) could be seen as jumping-on points, only a couple pieces need to be in a definite chronological order. This is stupid. Don't do this. But I've done it already. Hell, decent odds that I'll be dead before they finish. But I'm putting the marker down anyways.

Granted, this means that it's going to be the only thing I do. There are lots of other projects that I think about doing, I could drive you and me nuts by listing them off here. Maybe I will one day. They're not going to happen unless someone wants to step up and not only offer decent money but decent publishing support. And if we're talking where I want to put my markers on bets that will pay out, lemme tell ya, I'm not putting one there. Nobody gets money out the gate anymore unless the timing is absolutely right and you catch the wave, and even then, that wave will pass right by you and move onto something else (though publishers will be slow to respond and often seen paddling listlessly until they give up and catch something else that's ready to immediately crest and then move on. Yeah, sounds like VC/Private Equity, but then we're in a world where the only real profit is to be dealing in money, not in products.)

To this end, I've been cleaning out my library a bit. Entire boxes of books that would be devoted to research and setting on a project and I'm letting them go. It's not easy. In fact, it really sucks. I can remember the excitement of finding them and reading into them, seeing what stuck and what was sparked and, yeah. Sorry, not everyone gets to be born, I guess. Skill issue. Pick a better avatar or midwife next time. Someone will probably do something like them. But not me.

It's a strange and unenviable thing to think about. But I'm also looking at not just the world changing but my world changing, transforming in ways that I knew were coming but had hoped would not. "Are you ready for the world that's coming?" the King asked. And folks, I'm not sure that I am, but it's coming anyways. That's the trouble with things.

I'm looking at the necessity of moving in a year, perhaps two. I'd wanted it to be further away, but the future doesn't want to be held back. Two story house now, probably should be a one story and should have been some time back, but stubborn and refusal and yeah. Probably will have mobility limited pretty severely, distances I can travel to shows curtailed. Definitely will have daily time spent more in things not writing. Trying to accommodate that, learning to write in short bursts, which has been somewhat effective, though I still need a clear hour or two. I can't make much useful in fifteen minutes though I can do ten pages in two hours, go figure. This isn't a flex. If I were a decent writer, I could be steady and consistent and my voice would be regular and books would flow better. That's not what I get.

When it's good, it's good. When it isn't, it is absolutely excruciating. When I'm able to write, it feels great. When I think about what happens to the writing after, it's awful. Yes, yes, I know. Why don't I learn how to market effectively and maybe submit stuff to publishers and blah blah blah fucking blah. Even the fora that are supposed to be supportive of self-publishing are all low-key flexes and secret methods and not a fucking thing about the writing itself. And this is me in relative anonymity. I'm trying to imagine becoming part of the discourse of the moment and that alone makes me want to quit. Maybe it'll happen and I'll be able to tell that whole world to fuck right off, which would be literally the only pleasure involved.

Looking at the realities of things, I'd like to say that I'm doing the kickstarter for My Gifts Are Hungry in a couple months. But I'm dreading the reality that I won't be able to consistently do a book a year over this next patch. I mean, maybe, but I'm not sure I want to let the quality of the books slip (they would) or feel like I was choosing between this (effectively) hobby and very real obligations. I already quit WoW (which was fun but too much time). So, what I'm considering is putting it off for a year, kickstarting My Gifts Are Hungry next year when the following book is hopefully on paper (torn between Air Burst and Flowing Pink Vapor Stew as titles and the final one will likely be neither of those.)

I've said it several times before and I'll say it again. I won't attempt crowdfunding on a book that isn't substantially done. For me that means a complete first draft, which is where things are going to go wrong if they do (and they do.) I won't have people putting money down on these books only to have to give it back because I couldn't deliver. It's not fair to the backers. It's not fair to me. And I'm not talking about coming in years late and mea culpas and asking forgiveness, which I've gotten and dude we made a fucking deal.

I know. We live in a world of trying to fuck our way out of deals. It's me. The guy who will shave himself and walk backwards into Hell saying "You bought the book, here's the book." The book is it. No monthly pledges, no tip jar, no smash that like and subscribe, no unpaid army of publicists, no payment to platforms to try and keep my name afloat in the Howling Pit. I put the book up for sale. You say whether you're in or out. The books are on sale after but lemme tell ya, nobody buys them. Lifespan of a drunk mayfly on a highway at night. If I'm lucky, they get logged in new genre releases this quarter. They don't get reviewed. They don't get talked up aside from occasional Bluesky posts from readers. (The reason for this, of course, being that talking about my books won’t get a podcaster any prestige, any juice. I’m not the new voice of horror or intergenre or smogwave. I’m not a hot new something and in fact on the shopworn side.) My books only exist for those moments where they're almost a thing and then they become a thing and are swept along the grand stream of books that only gets greater in volume every year. They pay for themselves and postage and time to pack them and a bit past that.

And, truthfully, this is how much they'd pay me if they were being published by someone else, even a big publisher. Which is not happening.

That's the gig. That's the hobby. That's the job. I make something that nobody else could make (and I fucking defy anyone else to have written the first three Hazeland books). They get to live past me a little. That's the only game in town.

I would have been a debut author thirty-five years ago. Hell, I might've managed it even in 2008 when Strangeways was published. And maybe if a publisher picks up any of my work, they'd try to make me debut in 2030 at age (redacted). A hot new something. Don't worry, it's not happening. I'm not even sure I'd want it to happen. Imagine being brand new now, plucked out of obscurity and having to manage being a social media star, maybe even maintain your own podcast at the same time, being that piece of fresh meat that the discourse of the moment gets to judge every aspect of perhaps but what you've written. Yeah, sounds like a great time. Yes, I'd like more readers. No, I wouldn't want to be famous, even in genre. Besides, being famous without money to insulate you sounds like a short and one-way trip to madness. No thanks.

Back to balancing the Kickstarter with life. Seems to me that it's all about maintaining a continuity of output, regularity. Which I'm not sure even matters for someone in my position. So long as things are around once a year, maybe that's enough. Something to think about, anyways.

Yeah, thirty-five years doing this. And I'm worrying about managing a book a year via Kickstarter and direct sales to readers. That's the dream right there. You bet. And at least I have gotten this far. Accomplishment or being too tough to die? I'll let the reader decide. It's funny, I saw someone in the field today saying "All you have to do is keep showing up and outlasting" and I wish that were enough. I mean, I've stuck with writing long enough to get pretty good at it [citation needed]. Is that showing up? I no longer submit to open calls, short story or long fiction (and brother, doing an entire book for free and throwing it into slush is not a thing that makes sense for me any longer -- if that's ego talking, then I've got a fucking ego and I'll live with it.) I don't participate in publishing any longer. Is that showing up? I'm still out there talking up books, giving anti-writing advice (or is that writing anti-advice), going through cover design process. Is that showing up? I'm doing this for me, largely. Showing up or delusion?

Was listening to a talk by Terence McKenna, where he was expounding on the subject of the universe wanting infinite novelty, the vast variety of human cultural production (though one wonders what he'd think of LLM-based slop output: threat or revelation?) Ultimately though, the process being its own reward. And my usual response is "Easy for you to say, buddy. Your honoraria are covered forever." This is my same reply to everyone saying "You should produce art to fight against the degradation of the world's politics etc." or "Just put it out for free" and that sounds like something that someone running a platform would say.

You have to do it if it makes sense for you. I'm still trying to figure out if it makes sense at all. And maybe sense isn't what it should be making. Maybe it works because it doesn't (and I'm not in a position where I have to depend on the income from it, what let's face it, small potatoes are in the yield.) I don't know. I still fight with it. I still let it push me around because I'm not in charge of it. The whole thing is to be an action painter (granted, with a lot more structure, in my case.) Writing is recording those motions, translating something that comes from a place that I can not name, filtered through everything I've read and seen and turning it into what amounts to a portable code. Now that might sound like an awfully cold way of looking at this, particularly for someone who's a romantic when it comes to things like souls and books. I'd say stories, but I think that word's gotten poisoned, or at the very least tired. When an author talks about their work being centered around the magic of stories, that's a good indicator for me to run the hell in the other direction.

Even if they are magic. Maybe not talk about it and just let it be that.

Did this end right? A proper summation of what's come and gone in thirty-five years? Probably not nearly. I haven't even listed all the books I've written and all my awards and... Yeah all writers have to be award-winning. Says right here. It says it so much that when I get a new writer following me, if they lead with those words in their bio, I probably don't follow back. I might even do something more strenuous.

Look. Nobody cares about the awards. I'm sure they're nice. And I'm sure it's easy for me to say this knowing that my work won't win awards (hint: there's no publisher to bestow prestige or an advertising budget). They don't matter. Sales don't matter. And in not too long a time, they're going to be history. Same with Netflix adaptation deals. It's all changing. Only the process doesn't, only the work and the work revealing itself through that effort doesn't change.

Hey, maybe I got another thirty-five in me. Stranger things have happened. Stranger Things happened (I had it beat in the writing by a year, and I didn't resort to LLM slop for script assists, either.) Maybe there's room to get those other stories done. Maybe it's over tomorrow.

In the meantime, it’s hello Hazeland (on page 390 of My Gifts Are Hungry, hope to push 400 this week, probably close to 500 final length). It’s goodnight the three books in the Black Trace trilogy. Goodnight Hellmaw, you gothic space opera darling of glittering jewels and decayed technology. Goodnight undead flaneur and strange traveling company of various liches, specters, disembodied animate hands and jarred ghosts. Goodnight Dustbearer, once-lieutenant in a world ending army granted of all things a conscience and purpose and chained to the woman sworn to kill her. Goodnight contemporary insurance fraud/hostile takeover disguised as political movement disguised as natural disaster.

I’ll keep the Old Testament noir on the back burner. That and the story that largely takes place after the stars have cooled to iron cores in the dark. That one might have some life still. Of course I’ll keep writing here. I love hearing myself talk too much to not do this.

Until next time.