The Desire to Write

In my day-to-day life I run into a fair amount of people who find out what I do for a living. Reactions vary, with some people acting like what I do is not "real" work while others remark how cool my job must be. I have to admit I love my job, especially since I have worked in other, more traditional positions that were not as rewarding for me.

Now, before you quit your day job and start writing as your main source of income, I want to warn you this job is not as easy as it looks. Everything I do is highly scrutinized, from editors combing over my every word (which is very useful, in case any of my editors is reading this and deploring my casual writing style on this blog), to readers and critics and even other writers. In addition, I have to be expert in a number of subjects other than language, meaning I have to pick up a subject I may know little or nothing about and have command of the subject in as little as a few hours.

To top everything off, those of us who write for a living but do not have the sales figures of Dan Brown must write A LOT to pay the bills. On an average day, I write about 10,000 words or more. That is not a small quantity, especially considering most of what I write is technical in nature.

So there you have it: you must really want it to be a full-time writer. This job is fun, but it requires a lot if work. In fact, last night I was dreaming that I was typing on my computer. Yes, you must literally dream this job.

Some Bad News

Shades of Night will be put on hold until January of next year. I'm not happy about this, but some things in my life take priority and so I have made this tough decision. I have been surprised and pleased with the reception the first two installments of Shades of Night have received. Hopefully this break means Immortal White Trash will be that much better of a story, since it is quite the tale that deserves the best telling possible.

The Great Mike Collins

Hello again, everyone. The creative industry is a funny place, and one full of so many different talented individuals. I love working with other creative people since the way they see things is not exactly the same way I see things, and so I am enriched by their unique viewpoint. I am currently working with an extremely talented artist by the name of Mike Collins to put together a compelling cover for my next novel, The Devil's Nightmare.

Now, I do some art myself but I don't feel like my style of art really lends itself to what is needed for the book's cover. I started looking for an artist I felt would be equal to the task and came up with an old friend of mine, Mike Collins. So far working with Mike has been great. His ideas and take on things has helped move this cover in a direction I'm sure it would not have gone without him. I am extremely excited to see the finished product once Mike arrives at that point, and am even more excited to share it with the rest of you.

Mike has worked as an artist in a number of professional settings, most notably as an artist for Cartoon Network Studios. You can see his personal blog and some of his work by clicking here. Mike has been bringing the main villain in The Devil's Nightmare, the Purple Man, to life in a most frightening way. This promises to be one cover that will jump out and grab you.

The Devil's Nightmare cover is the first project I have worked with Mike Collins on, but hopefully it is not the last. I have more tricks up my sleeves, some of which require quite a bit of superb artwork to pull them off.