The Canister X Transmission: Year Two - Collected Newsletters

By A.P. Fuchs

Begin transmission . . .

Running weekly from May 2015 to April 2016, The Canister X Transmission was sent via email to readers worldwide.

Every week, readers received updates from the desk of A.P. Fuchs that served as a behind-the-scenes gateway into his views on the publishing industry and past work.

The newsletter covered four main topics:

Writing/Creating/Publishing, in which Fuchs shared his views on writing and creating as well as tips to help other writers and artists along their journey.

Project Analysis, where A.P. discussed his extensive backlist and what went into each project.

Creator Spotlight, where a variety of writers and artists were given the spotlight as well as their professional and personal impact on Fuchs and his work.

Weekly Ramble, in which whatever happened to be a point of interest that week became the topic of discussion.

Exclusive to this collection is a special Issue Fifty-three A newsletter unavailable anywhere else.

Welcome to The Canister X Transmission: Year Two

About the Author: A.P. Fuchs is the author of many novels and short stories. His most recent efforts of putting pen to paper are Axiom-man Episode No. 3: Rumblings, The Dance of Mervo and Father Clown, The Canister X Transmission: Year One, and Mech Apocalypse.

Also a cartoonist, he is known for his superhero series, The Axiom-man Saga, both in novel and comic book format.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Coscom Entertainment
• Release date: Jul 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781927339633

A.P. Fuchs

A.P. Fuchs is a working writer and illustrator, and the author of more than forty books. He is most widely known for his superhero epic, The Axiom-man Saga, and his shoot 'em up zombie trilogy, Undead World.He's been an independent publisher since 2004 and has played every role in the publishing business, including-but not limited to-editor, book interior and cover designer, publisher, and marketer.His spectrum of work includes fiction, non-fiction, poetry, comics, essays, and articles. He also writes a weekly newsletter called The Canister X Transmission, which you can subscribe to here.He can be found on most social networks sharing information.Join his Patreon journey for serial novels, essays, behind-the-scenes stuff, and more at www.patreon.com/apfuchsWriter and illustrator A.P. Fuchs makes his home in Winnipeg, Manitoba, smack dab in the middle of North America.

Book preview

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THE

CANISTER X TRANSMISSION

Year Two

Collected Newsletters from

May 9, 2015 – April 30, 2016

by

A.P. Fuchs

Published by Coscom Entertainment at Smashwords.com

This book is also available as a paperback at your favorite online retailer or through your local bookstore.

Please note, to comply with Smashwords’s publishing guidelines, all outside purchase links that appeared in the original newsletters have been removed.

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ISBN 978-1-927339-63-3

The Canister X Transmission: Year Two is Copyright © 2016 by Adam P. Fuchs. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce in whole or in part in any form or medium.

Published by Coscom Entertainment

A.P. Fuchs website: www.canisterx.com

The Canister X Transmission Newsletter: www.tinyletter.com/apfuchs

Text set in Garamond; eBook Edition

Cover Design by A.P. Fuchs

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This is for those who regularly publish something because they have something to say. If it wasn’t for your voices, the world wouldn’t be as a diverse and enlightened place. Thank you.

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THE

CANISTER X TRANSMISSION

Year Two

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Issue Fifty-three A – July 1, 2016

It’s Canada Day as I type up this issue. It’s also a bit of going back in time because, as of this writing, 112 issues of The Canister X Transmission have gone out. Yet here we are at 53A, which will serve as the bonus newsletter and introduction to the Year Two collection.

Year Two was special because it marked the completion of a first full year of newsletters and the beginning of a second year. There was something magical about getting over the hump of completing those first 52 issues, as if those first 52 were the surface of the water and getting into the second year was diving deep into it.

The format changed for Year Two and that’s what I’m going to discuss here.

Like the Year One collection, the Year Two collection is published as-sent, no edits. The newsletters in the following pages are as people received them as the year went on.

Thank you for joining me.

53A.1

Having been part of writing and publishing for so many years, I’ve seen—and lived—good times and bad. I’ve seen people succeed like you wouldn’t believe and I’ve seen people royally fail. I’ve seen those who did succeed suddenly fall off the radar and those who struggled find success.

Publishing is a giant crapshoot. That’s fact.

So many nights I’ve spent thinking about the business and going over what I’ve learned to be true about it and the theories about what I hoped to be true. I learned a ton of lessons over the years about what worked for me, what didn’t, what worked for others, what didn’t—so my mission with the first section of the Year Two newsletter was to share that information with the writers and artists reading it so they could apply those lessons to their own careers and see where it took them.

The worst mistake any creator can make is to think they know it all or use their own experience as the sole template for their goals. While it’s good to be true to yourself and stick to what’s worked for you, it shouldn’t be done to the exclusion of all others or other information. This business has always been about finding out what works for you, being open to trying new things, keeping the new things that work and discarding the new things that don’t.

In other words, never be close-minded with this stuff. And that can be a hard challenge to overcome especially if you’re already in a place of immense success. People tend to shut other advice out when things are going their way. Be careful of pride.

If I learned anything over the years from making books and comics—and it didn’t really hit home until the past few years—is this industry is a team effort.

We’re all in this together and need to keep learning and growing from each other.

53A.2

Personal catalogue.

Aside from giving a spotlight each week to all of my books and comics and giving a behind-the-scenes as to what went into them, I also wanted to share with you some ideas. What I mean is, let’s be honest: there’s no such thing as an original idea anymore. Everything we create is somehow inspired by something else whether a little or a lot. All we end up doing is taking those inspirations and configuring them in a [hopefully] new way to entertain someone else. My hope with sharing my previous work was to stir something within you, inspire something, and possibly enable you to give birth to a project of your own.

All of us draw inspiration from different sources, and if you’re like me and read a lot of books and comics, it’s inevitable the stuff we read permeates our consciousness, percolates for a while, then comes out as something we can call our own.

It’s important we are mindful of being open to drawing ideas and inspiration from any available source and not get locked into the mentality we know everything or every idea we have is somehow solely ours and original.

It’s also a sad truth, I suppose, that there are no new ideas. How can there be? You don’t know what you don’t know and if you don’t know something, you can’t manifest an idea. Ideas all have reference points, some sort of root that spawned them. Your thoughts, your dreams—they’re all anchored in something you read or saw or heard or experienced.

Read. Watch. Listen.

Live.

53A.3

Every week a new creator was featured. I covered authors, comic people, and musicians. The idea with this section was to share how each impacted me in some way. That was the key ingredient to sharing them: impact. Some of the people had a huge influence on me, others small, but in the end, each person was counted as a part of my creative journey and had some effect on how I did, and do, things. No man is an island and the more immersed a person gets in this business, the more it’s made clear what I said above: we’re all in this together. And by that I mean it’s not just simply a yo-ho, way-to-go-chum group effort. Sure, there are the words of encouragement or the cross-marketing or collaborations that happen in the physical, but there’s also the internal impacts as well. Merely observing or reading about other creators affects how we view the business and our careers. It dictates our approach to our craft and to the business side of all this.

Like I keep harping: be open to new ideas, and a group of fellow creators is one of the best—if not the best—places to get them.

One of the missions with the creator spotlight section was to market others and share them and their work with you so you might seek them out and get to know them as a person and get to know their work and, hopefully, add a book or comic or two to your collection. Every creator needs support. We need to know our work isn’t shot out into the ether and isn’t ignored. We need to know all those hours we’ve put in were worth it in terms of reaching others. As much as we create stuff for ourselves and our own amusement, there is also the angle of having something to say about whatever topic or theme and sharing our views on that with other people.

53A.4

My head gets pretty full and tends to fill up with all sorts of thoughts about anything and everything. Some stuff is dismissed, some stuff is dwelt on, and some stuff is dwelt on too much. The weekly ramble section was a way to dump out some of that information and clear up some headspace so I didn’t have to think about it anymore. We all need an outlet, and I found clearing my head via this newsletter week-to-week was a great help in lightening my mental load. It freed up brain power to work on other things and, in a very basic sense, just make my day-to-day living easier.

You can be the strongest and toughest person on the planet and can be physically capable of amazing feats, but that kind of strength is far different than mental and emotional fortitude, and when a person is mentally or emotionally busy—that drains the life out of you.

Ever have those hard days where you used your head all day and came home completely wiped though your body was still rested and ready to go? Suddenly you find yourself stuck on the couch or in bed frustrated because you want to do something but are so mentally exhausted you’re about as useful as a slug.

The weekly ramble helped alleviate that kind of fatigue for me, so thank you for putting up with my rants and raves over the course of Year Two.

And, perhaps, as has been the theme of this intro/bonus newsletter, you learned something from it. Heck, I might’ve even impacted you with it. And that was the idea and goal with Year Two: impact. It was important to me to share things with you week-to-week to help you along through this thing called life.

And, to be sure, it wasn’t me pretending I had my act together and then trying to get you to see things or do things my way. I’m a giant mess of a person, but I have learned some things over the years so if those lessons—life-changing or just FYI stuff—could give you a nudge along your own journey, then it was completely worth it.

Welcome to the collected edition of The Canister X Transmission: Year Two.

It was a great year and a lot of fun to write every week.

Now go and read.

- A.P. Fuchs

Winnipeg, MB

End transmission

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Issue Fifty-three – May 9, 2015

Welcome back, everybody.

Today, we commence Year Two of The Canister X Transmission. Thank you again for joining me for the previous year.

Back issues can be read on-line at www.tinyletter.com/apfuchs and you can get caught up there.

For all the rest of my on-line activities, www.canisterx.com is your central hub. Social media links are available there as well.

Let’s get rolling with the first part.

53.1

Yesterday (Monday, for me), I took some time and thought about what Year Two of this newsletter was going to look like. After getting some feedback from you folks, I learned that you guys liked the newsletter as it was, which is good and is a nice compliment. However, I wanted to change things up a bit so for this first section I’m going to talk about what you can expect from this newsletter over the coming year. This little talk also fits into what will be the theme of the first section of each issue.

Here’s what each newsletter will look like, broken down by category.

Section 1:

Writing/creating/publishing.

I’m merging the writing/creative thought of the week with the publishing/marketing tip of the week. You’ll get either/or each week, depending on what’s on my mind. After having written about that stuff so much in Year One, I hope I don’t end up repeating myself as I’m not going to bother checking back issues (to go through 52 of them each week, well, I just don’t have the time for that). If I do repeat myself, I’m sorry. I hope the tips and thoughts presented thus far have been helpful.

Section 2:

Project analysis.

Each week I’m going to pick one of my books or comics that I’ve written and/or drawn and talk about each one, giving an overview of the premise, what I had hoped to accomplish with each story, what inspired it, where I thought maybe I fell short, etc. As a fan of behind-the-scenes info, I thought there would be others on this list who’d appreciate learning some background history behind each book.

This little analysis will also kind of serve as a personal author commentary for me as I look back on things and, selfishly, will help me revisit each project and/or relive them after all this time.

Section 3:

Creator spotlight.

Over the years I’ve met so many talented and smart writers and artists. Some are well-known folks, others not as much, but they’ve all had an impact on me in some way. What I’d like to do is take a moment each week and introduce you to them. This won’t be an interview section or a Q&A or anything, but rather just my thoughts on whomever is being covered.

This will also be a chance to point out to you creators worth getting into. I’ll try and provide weblinks when available.

Section 4:

Weekly ramble.

This will be the brain info dump section of the newsletter. The topic could be anything: a news article, an observation, a note of encouragement, a complaint, a promo thing—whatever is picking at my noggin that needs to get out on paper.

I think with the above plan, things will still remain true to the Year One version of The Canister X Transmission but at the same time add a couple of new elements that you’ll enjoy reading about week to week.

Then we’ll end off each newsletter with a book ad as per usual.

Sound good?

53.2

A Stranger Dead.

This was my first novel. It started as a series of serial short stories, the goal having been to write five or six tales that would all link up to each other. Once I finished this first chunk of writing, I realized the scope of the story was much bigger than I originally planned and so decided I’d take a stab at writing a full-length book.

The premise of this book is quite simple: if you knew who the Antichrist was before he came into power, would you kill him to prevent all the atrocities he’s foretold to commit?

To add a twist to the tale, I made the Antichrist-to-be a kid. Five years old, I think. I also assigned him a supernatural origin because it’s my thinking that a man so bent on going against Christ, someone foretold from long ago, and someone who eventually does supernatural feats and gets in league with the devil would be someone who has an unusual birth as opposed to simply being a guy gone bad.

The story was multilayered, with the main plot being the hunt for the Antichrist and then the subplots revolving around the relationships between the main protagonists Gwen, Harry, and Marty. There was also a running storyline between the Antichrist-to-be, Calvin, and the supernatural being who visits him, Mr. Gray. It’s a story of destiny and asks the question if God’s plan can be changed or not? It’s not preachy by any means. If anything, it’s quite secular.

The writing of this book took place over the course of eleven months, nine of which were spent actually writing. I had two months’ writer’s block, which was the first and last time I’ve ever been blocked. (Years later, I came to realize that writer’s block is a myth. I’ve talked about this in a previous newsletter.) At the time, however, to unblock myself, I discovered the true meaning of the phrase write what you know. I was dealing with a breakup part way through writing of this book and it was the aftermath of that breakup that pulled me out of being stuck on what to say. I ended up incorporating some of the things I was going through into the story and, well, the whole thing flowed just fine from there.

This book is special because not only was it my first book, but it also set the tone for most of my work in the future. I had gotten into horror writing for two main reasons: 1) I was in a dark place personally and so gravitated toward darker subject matter and, 2) for years and years prior I was—and still am—fascinated with the world of the supernatural and the horror genre seemed to fulfill me creatively in both those arenas.

Once the book was done and revisions were made, I did your standard practice of sending out queries and the manuscript, only to be rejected in the end. (At the time I didn’t quite get why as, from what I recall, all the rejection slips were form letters so no constructive criticism was offered; nowadays I understand why it was turned down.) Frustrated, I ended up stumbling across a subsidy press online where they said, basically, that they’d publish anything. Of course, there was a hefty fee involved but, not knowing any better, I went with them and went through the book production process, which was a nightmare from start to finish. When all was said and done, I had my first book printed but, by that time, having grown in my craft, I wasn’t too big on getting it out there. I did some marketing anyway, but it didn’t become a bestseller by any means.

A few years later the book was pulled from print and has sat dormant ever since. From a strictly story point-of-view, I stand by my story. It’s a good one and is a unique take on an old subject. From a writing point-of-view, it stinks and so my plan is to one day rewrite the thing and re-release it properly. When that’ll happen, I don’t know.

It’s a rare book to come by, but I do have around a dozen copies left here at the studio if you’re interested. How’s $5 each sound plus whatever shipping is from my place to yours? Just shoot me an email if interested and we’ll make arrangements.

53.3

Creator spotlight: Roxanne Fuchs

’Tis only fitting, I think, that the inaugural creator spotlight entry goes to my wife, Roxanne.

When I first met her some thirteen years ago, one of the things I discovered was that she was also a superhero fan and liked to draw. She has also been the only person in my life who has consistently been behind me creatively for the most amount of time.

Anyway, this isn’t about our relationship.

Roxanne is an artist, you see. Not only does she create different pictures and signage for around our home, she also writes and draws a comic book series called Fuzz Society. It’s an all-ages comic that focuses on the adventures of one Lyra Ladybug and her explorations of the big, wide world around her. This leads her to encounter other animals with which she forms a friendship.

The art’s done in black and white, with color covers. Roxanne’s particularly good at adding detail to a simple line drawing. She’s able to crosshatch and add texture in a way that I’m still learning how to do. She also draws quite pretty ladies in a quasi-anime style when human characters pop up. As someone who struggles with drawing females—namely their faces—I pay attention to how she does it so I can learn something.

A few years ago, she and I did the 24-hour comic challenge and she produced a book called Average Jill, which was a 24-page comic showcasing the ups and downs of motherhood through a series of one-panel strips. I’m extremely proud of her for sticking through the challenge especially since by hour 14 or 15, one’s hand begins to cramp like crazy.

Adding to the mix of her creative exploits, she also runs a mom blog called Sharing Mom Life, which can be found on the web here: www.sharingmomlife.com This is her way of sharing her crafts, her sewing, mom thoughts and other things with other mothers.

Back to comics. So far she’s produced three comic books, with Fuzz Society No. 3 about half-finished on her drawing board. She’s not one hundred percent sure if she’ll release parts 3-5 as single issues or if she’ll wait and complete the story then do a graphic novel. From a marketing point-of-view, graphic novels are much easier to deal with.

I’ve always been a fan of my wife’s art and not just because she’s my wife (I’ve given her pointers when asked and have been honest with those). It’s my hope she keeps cartooning for many years to come. She and I have also talked about collaborating on a project where I’d write the script then she’d do the pictures.

Time will tell.

53.4

Beer.

I like beer. It’s good.

A long time ago, when I first tried it, I didn’t care for it. It wasn’t sweet, wasn’t sour, it just kind of had its own thing going. As time went on, of course, I acquired a taste for it. Back in my party days, it used to be my go-to drink—Budweiser—along with a mickey of Sour Puss and one of those tiny bottles of whiskey. From the ages of roughly 19-24, getting slammed was a regular occurrence. After having kids and getting married and all that, my drinking took a backseat to real life. Which is totally fine.

(Side note: no sin in drinking; Jesus drank wine. The issue with drinking is when you go overboard and it impairs your judgment.)

Up until recently, I’d drink maybe a handful of times a year, usually when my out-of-town friends would come in for Christmas or summer and we’d all get together.

Over the past few months, more specifically since Comic Con in the fall, I’ve fallen in love with beer all over again. There’s nothing like a cold one after a stressful day, or to drink alongside a greasy hamburger or cheesy pizza.

Good news is I’m not an alcoholic and very rarely do I go over my personal drinking limit (which is about four drinks; then I get the sillies). But I will admit that I’ve been craving beer lately more than I usually do. I don’t crave its effects, but the taste. Alexander Keith’s is my beer of choice these days, but a good Coors is also welcome. My dad brought home some Mexican beers from when he was in Arizona and I’ve had a few of those. All tasty.

As a treat beer, I’ll buy a bottle of Schofferhofer, which is a German beer. Its flavor is like a dark beer mixed with a bit of cigar smoke (but not in a bad way). It’s also the kind of beer that you could have maybe two in a row at most and then it’s a bit much.

Unfortunately, beer costs you your right kidney here in Canada. Depending on the brand, you’re looking at anywhere between $1.50-2.00 a bottle/can. If you go to the bar, $5 minimum, usually more like $6+ for a pint.

I made homebrew once. Turned out all right. Learned a few things. Hope to do it again when I have the time. It’s a huge money saver and homebrew can be just as good as the store-bought stuff if done correctly.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say about that. (Not really, but this newsletter is already over 2,200 words long. Time to cut if off.)

Thanks for tuning in to the first issue of Year Two, folks!

See you next week. Be good to each other.

End transmission.

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Issue Fifty-four – May 16, 2015

Writer’s log, Stardate 0514.15

I’m sending this transmission two days into the future. When it arrives, I hope the recipients are amused, intrigued and, dare I say, learn something.

In the meantime, my ship and its crew are trying to escape the newly emerged entity known as W. While a necessary part of the universe, W tends to take up a lot of my time—one-third of it, to be precise—and leaves me with time for little else. The other entity, known as S, calls to me regularly. It’s difficult to escape her charm. What kind of final hold she’ll have on my crew and I still remains to be seen.

Thankfully, my ship is equipped with Weapon C, which combats S, her only known weakness.

Until things change, please consider this my current status.

We hope to dock at Homebase 130 on Stardate 0518.15 if we survive.

Captain Fuchs, out.

54.1

A newsletter or two back—maybe more, can’t remember; too lazy to look it up—I was talking about finding that happy medium about the free eBook thing.

I think I found it.

Maybe.

After much thought, I’ve settled on the idea that it’s inappropriate of an author to give away a whole book. A full book represents a lot of work, time and effort, and to just give it away hoping for a return seems like a waste. Besides, research has shown it is a waste. Do you expect your favorite band to give away an entire album? How about Warner Brothers giving away an entire movie after investing so much into it? Why is the author any different? We’re artists, too, and have a right to be compensated for our efforts.

Short stories seem a little flimsy to me as a giveaway. I’m talking ones somewhere between 2,000-4,000 words long, especially the shorter end of that range. (The exception, I think, would be a short story so mind-blowing that its content carries the weight and impact of a full novel, which can be done. i.e. The Road Virus Heads North by Stephen King.) If someone has an eReader, they probably want something more substantial than a short story, especially if the freebie download is identified as a short story. There are more novel fans than short story fans, so far as my understanding goes.

The good news is there is a halfway point between the two extremes, and it’s on a length spectrum that is fair: novelettes or novellas. The word counts of these vary depending on who you talk to, but a novelette runs around 10,000-15,000 words, with novellas usually starting at 20,000 and going up to 40,000 or so.

While I personally feel even giving away 40,000 words is a bit much—that’s roughly half a regular-length book—giving away up to 20,000 words seems reasonable. It shows the reader-to-be that you’re willing to offer them a good chunk of writing for nothing while also kind of hinting you’re still keeping your more substantial work to yourself and if they’re interested in such, they’d have to pay for it. It demonstrates your bigger work is something you value and won’t give away for free.

As a reader myself, when I see authors giving away free books, it appears cheap and desperate. It suggests they can’t sell what they’re offering so they give it away instead. I rarely, if ever, download free fiction books. Maybe I’m one of the weird ones, but I’d rather pay for a story than get it free. If I pay for it, I feel like I’m getting something of worth versus something the author deemed worthless enough to give away.

The reason I’m thinking about this is I do want to give away something to get people interested in The Canister X Transmission and I have a 13,000-word unpublished story kicking around on my hard drive. Wouldn’t take much to format it, slap on a cover and use it as my lure. (Don’t worry; if I execute this plan, I’ll be sure to email a copy to everyone already subscribed to this newslist.) I’d feel ripped off if I gave away one of my books yet would feel I’m short-changing you—even off a freebie—if I gave you just a short story.

Last, so far I’ve only seen the two extremes offered by writers. To offer something in the middle ground would be unique and might set me apart.

I think 13,000 words of a beginning, middle and an end is more than enough for a reader to decide if they should get into a writer’s catalog or not. It also promotes the idea of fairness, with neither side getting ripped off.

54.2

For the Cause

This book was meant to be a sister book to A Stranger Dead in that it wasn’t a direct sequel but took place in the same universe with a few of these established universe-like traits and places showing up throughout the narrative.

At the time—circa 2001 or so—Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher had just come out. I read it, then read his afterword—or maybe it was his foreword, I can’t remember—and he talked about writing Dreamcatcher longhand and that it put him in touch with the language in a way he hadn’t experienced in years. As someone who was still in his early stages of being a writer and wanting to learn all I could, this idea of getting in touch with the language was extremely appealing to me, so I decided that for my second novel outing, I’d do it on loose leaf in a binder, King-style.

This book was started shortly after finishing A Stranger Dead, if I remember correctly, and still in the aftermath of a bad breakup that was entirely my fault. As painful as it was to deal with at the time, it made me come up with an excellent story premise: what if a boy and girl broke up because of the guy and, so distraught, the guy killed himself because he could no longer endure the heartache and regret? What if that guy came back as a ghost and tried to rekindle the relationship with the girl he left behind? Would it work? Would it be too little too late?

And so the story began.

When I wrote For the Cause, I was hurt and angry, and that anger showed through in the story itself. It was written from a very bitter point of view and while there were nice moments and commentaries on love and feelings, it also probed the question of forgiveness from the point-of-view of the perpetrator.

Side note: the thing I’ve never learned about romantic relationships is the idea that two people could be so into each other for however long, be best friends and, even, intimates, and then one day just throw it all away because someone made a single mistake. What bothers me even more is the standard practice of the boy and girl breaking up and, nine times out of ten, never speaking to each other again. Going from one extreme to the other has always been an issue with me because if you really did love someone, even if they hurt you, wouldn’t you still want them to be a part of your life? And, no, I don’t agree with the argument having them still being a part of your life is too painful because it reminds you of the hurt. Really? Sounds selfish to me.

Anyway . . .

So I wrote For the Cause, mostly at the coffee shop. It took three months. I really have very few memories of actually doing it. It’s all a blur of paper, ink, coffee and cigarettes.

When the book was done and it came to draft two, I had to type it up. It took me around eight months to do so because I hated typing the thing and from that point on, I’ve never written a book or short story longhand again.

When it was finally typed up, I did my rewrites and, having learned my lesson about the importance of an editor from A Stranger Dead (of which I didn’t have a professional editor), I hired an editor—not my current one—to go over my book. It was pricey, some $400ish for the job. When I got my manuscript back in the mail, it was covered in red ink. In fact, the book was such a wreck that it became unpublishable, a big reason being I had done head hopping in the book, which is a big no-no in fiction writing. I also learned the importance of tightening my sentences and cutting out unnecessary words.

The book was never published and I haven’t looked at it pretty much since I wrote it. If it ever sees the light of day, it’ll need to be redone like its predecessor.

Was it a waste?

No.

It was my education.

I learned a ton about writing thanks to that editor. It cost me $400 and a book, but it was worth it. Besides, the whole book was one giant exercise in catharsis and helped me deal with what I was going through at the time.

Fun fact: writing this book developed a callus on my right middle finger, a bump. It’s still there to this day, a reminder of the book.

54.3

Creator spotlight: Keith Gouveia

If there is any one person in the biz that carries the most weight with me, it’s Keith. I first met him in a Yahoo! horror group in 2003 or 2004. I noticed that he had used the same subsidy press I had when I published A Stranger Dead. I can’t remember why I first contacted him—possibly to discuss having the same publisher—but after that, we kept in touch and have grown closer as the years have gone by.

I live in Canada. He lives in the US. I’ve only spent a week with him in person once, back in 2006 when I went down to visit. The rest of the time we chat online and I try and give him a call every couple of months.

Keith is a horror writer, and an exceptionally good one. Not only does he have a crazy wild imagination, he can craft a sentence like nobody’s business. Out of all the small pressers, he’s my favorite writer. There’s a quality to his work that surpasses even the mass market stuff. He knows the rules of writing; which ones to keep, which ones to break. And he’s very thorough in the logic behind his stories. When reading him, you don’t go, Oh, why didn’t so-and-so do this instead? He’s got the reasoning for a character’s actions locked down and if by chance you did ask that question, somewhere later in the book he answers why his characters acted the way they did and why there was no other option for them to do what they did.

I’ve collaborated with Keith on two novella projects: Devil’s Playground and On Hell’s Wings. For the former, he wrote one story for it, I wrote the other,