Shades of Night: Immortal White Trash Available Now!

I just wanted to let everyone know that (finally) the next installment in the Shades of Night series is available for download in the Amazon Kindle store. You can take a look at it by clicking here for the United States version of the story. You can see the United Kingdom version by clicking here. The premise of the story is as follows:

A rookie vampire hunter follows up on what he thinks are bogus claims of a group of vampires living in southern Nevada. He ends up being captured by a new breed of vampires, who give a new name to the term white trash.

This is the first vampire story I have ever put out for the general public to read, so I am excited to hear your reactions. If you are fearing this is going to be another one of "those" vampire stories, you may find yourself chuckling a little (just a little) at points while reading the story. My test readers definitely appreciated the dark humor in the story, so I hope everyone else does as well. 

Now on to the next Shades of Night story, and I promise this one will be available in February instead of making you wait a few months. Stay tuned to this blog for some news very soon about the next Shades of Night.

A Dog Named Harry

I often find myself writing late at night, after everyone else has gone to bed, trying to make deadlines or develop new projects. While burning the midnight oil I have done some pretty interesting things.

Just the other night I was typing as I sat on my couch. My eyelids drooped for a moment, obscuring the computer's screen from view. This has happened to me before, with the result being a slew of gibberish that I delete before I continue writing. This time, though, I was appalled that I wrote something halfway coherent.

And what did I write about in my sleep? Something about a dog named Harry going shopping for sweaters. Apparently that is what my subconscious mind desires to write, or I am crazier than I ever suspected.

Random Facts About Me

Maybe you are wondering just what kind of a person writes weird, crazy stories about the paranormal, or pours for hours over eyewitness accounts of sightings of strange creatures, UFOs or other possible paranormal activity -- or maybe you are just wondering who I really am. Allow me to peel back a little of the mystery -- if any exists -- and reveal some random facts about me.

Without further ado, here is the list:

- The main ring tone on my phone is the X-Files theme song. Yes, I am not joking.
- I am currently teaching myself German, which is taking much longer than I had originally hoped. German is a good language to learn, I think, since it is what English is based on.
- While we are on the subject of languages, I am fluent in Spanish and read, write and speak it regularly. Knowing a Latin-based language helps with some of the more complex words in English (French helps quite a lot as well).
- Sometimes even I think I am crazy with some of the subjects I cover and the ideas I dream up, but I am also having fun so it doesn't matter too much to me.
- I try to not take myself too seriously, so it always amazes me that people that I meet can't believe I am a writer. To me I am just a regular person.
- I am a Coke Zero/Diet Dr. Pepper addict, especially since I stay up late working a lot.
- I was fooled by the Sixth Sense, like everyone else I know, being completely consumed by the little boy seeing ghosts to focus too much on Malcolm.
- I really don't read paranormal fiction or horror. I find most of it too cheesy or gory for my tastes. That being said, I do read quite a variety of other types of books.
- I am always skeptical of those who broadcast their own personal supposed paranormal encounters like they are gunning to become famous. I personally find people who are almost embarrassed to talk about their experiences to be the most genuine.
- The Halo video games are a guilty indulgence of mine, as well as the Forza games. Playing either one usually will help me relax and rejuvenate.
- One day I will write a book or two that are not scary at all (more about this later).

2010's Blog Statistics

Now that we are done with the year 2010, I have decided to take a look back at the statistics for my blog during the past year. Even though things started out relatively quite at the beginning of 2010, the traffic steadily built throughout the year (and is still building for the first few weeks of 2011).

During 2010, a total of 1,314 visitors came to this blog for a visit, accumulating a a total of 1,912 pageviews. These visitors came from over 60 countries spread out across every continent but Antarctica. The top five countries for visits during 2010 were the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and India. In the United States, I had visitors from every state except Montana, South Dakota, Alaska and New Hampshire. The top five states with the most visitors were Utah, California, Arizona, Texas and New York.

Perhaps most interesting to me were the most popular articles, which included an announcement about Shadow House becoming available in worldwide distribution, another post about a local haunted mansion, news of a reported Chupcabra being killed in Texas and a post about a local mill said to be haunted.

Quite frankly, I am amazed anyone reads my blog, not because there is nothing interesting on here, but just because it all seems surreal to have this happen in such a short amount of time.

Movie Review: The Last Exorcism

I wish I could see more grown-up movies when they first come out in theaters, but good sitters don't come cheap, greatly inflating the cost of going to the theater for anything other than Toy Story 3 or How to Train Your Dragon. For this reason, despite my strong desire to see The Last Exorcism when it first hit theaters, I just saw the movie a few days ago.

If you are anything like me, then you have probably seen a fair amount of exorcisms as portrayed in the media. Those exorcisms are almost always performed by a Catholic priest and go through certain motions that seem like requirements in order to portray an exorcism properly. The Last Exorcism breaks a lot of the rules, providing a fresh take on the exorcism movie. Patrick Fabian's character, Cotton Marcus, is an Evangelical minister who essentially has lost his faith, and yet has kept preaching. He recruits a film crew to document him doing an exorcism simply to prove that exorcisms are a hoax, since he believes exorcisms have harmed many innocent people, including children. The movie starts out with a pretty light mood considering the subject material, sometimes becoming comical.

Like the movie Full Metal Jacket, The Last Exorcism almost pulls the rug out from under you as it makes a hard and emotional transition from comedic and lighthearted to dark and sinister. You can see coming from a mile away that the girl Cotton Marcus goes to exorcise really is possessed by a demon. I don't want to give away what happens after that, but I will say one thing about the ending without going into detail. Like Frankenstein's monster, the ending of the movie seemed like a body part or piece of another movie sewed in, morphing the movie into almost something else entirely without warning or foreshadowing of any real sort. The ending would have worked better for me if the jump had not been so abrupt, which is a real shame since the movie starts off so promising. I would definitely recommend renting The Last Exorcism, but this movie will not make it into my home collection of DVDs.

Have you seen The Last Exorcism? Post your thoughts below!

Real Vampires Don't Sparkle, or Drive Volvos

As the title of this post indicates, I am in the mood to discuss vampires, a subject which has become feverishly popular in the past few years. At the risk of being lost in a sea of other people writing vampire-themed stories, my January Shades of Night story will be about vampires, but not the type that seems to be splashed around so much these days.

I originally came up with the idea for my story Immortal White Trash over a year ago. At first I was very excited and wanted to start writing it immediately, but then my excitement died quickly as I feared I would be falling into the latest trend. After having published other stories and proving, I think, that I do not write typical stories, I feel that now is a good time to release Immortal White Trash on the world.

Don't download Immortal White Trash expecting sparkling vampires that drive Volvos and romance their high school sweetheart. I will not be offended if you are a fan of that type of thing and want to pass on this story. I will keep writing a variety of stories and do not expect everyone will like every last story I write. Immortal White Trash will be a vampire tale done my way, with vampires that are a little rough around the edges (actually very rough around the edges). These vampires will be rude and have a great distaste for other vampires that they feel are snobs. Although they do not sparkle in sunlight, these vampires have learned that eating red meat in high quantities changes their complexion, allowing them to be out in the sunlight. As a result, they are not gaunt nor do they have ghostly white skin.

What else is different about my vampires? You'll find out more toward the end of January when Shades of Night: Immortal White Trash is up for sale on Amazon.com.

Shadow House Turns One!

On January 7th, 2010 Shadow House was introduced to the world. That day I took a step off the edge of what I knew, thrusting myself forward into the publishing world, not really knowing what to expect. I was completely surprised when copies began selling immediately, especially since I had done little to promote Shadow House.

I have been told that your first book is the hardest to write, and I believe it. I put an incredible amount of time and work into the book, but the effort so far has paid off. After a year, Shadow House has continued to gain continued support, interest and positive reviews

Some people who have reviewed Shadow House have said the book was "compelling" and that the mystery in the storyline kept them turning the pages. I have heard from several readers who claim that certain scenes from Shadow House stayed with them, haunting their dreams for weeks or months later. Some readers have said they became hooked almost from the beginning of Shadow House and could not put the book down until they were done, taking only a few days to finish it.  A few readers have suggested Shadow House is an excellent book to be made into a movie, which I find to be a most high compliment (hint, hint any producers or directors who are looking for a fresh story for your next movie).

When I put Shadow House out in the market a year ago, I secretly wondered if after a year interest in the book would wane or die off completely. On the contrary, December of 2010's sales figures were the best Shadow House has ever seen. I am excited to see what kind of attention Shadow House gets in its second year

2010 Was a Great Year

I really hate how some people call everything "great" or "awesome" including when things are average or even horrible. That being said, 2010 has truly been a great year for my writing.

The year started with the publication of Shadow House on January 7th. For the past year I have watched word spread and sales of Shadow House steadily rise. My experiment in writing and publishing Shadow House has not been a failure, and has led to plans to release a new novel in 2011.

In September Shades of Night launched. I was even more uncertain how the Shades of Night series would be received, but so far the reception has been surprisingly warm. Because of this success, many more Shades of Night stories will be coming in 2011, exploring more paranormal topics in a variety of settings and introducing many more characters.

For Examiner.com, I wrote numerous articles during 2010. I explored local paranormal topics as well as national and international phenomena of varying types. I had the unique chance to interview different individuals who deal with the paranormal, including a famous clairvoyant, Lisa Williams, when she came through town. 

The ball has also started rolling on several other writing pojects that for now I am keeping a secret. Obviously I have hopes that 2011 will be an even better year, but I can't really complain about 2010.