More From my Muse

As you know -- primarily because I haven't shut up about it -- my new Markhat book Brown River Queen  was released last Tuesday.

Response so far has been wonderful. I've gotten a number of emails from readers who liked the book. Sales are brisk. BRQ is poised to emerge as the most popular entry in the series thus far.

Still, I was surprised when my Muse, the plain-spoken Visavarevagsitaga (Ancient Mesopotamian goddess of pointed sticks, argumentative hedgehogs, and minor waterways) added her own missive to the congratulatory emails.

I've posted her letter below.

Date:  Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:51:23 -0600 [12:51:23 PM EST]
From:  Visavarevagsitaga <Visavarevagsitaga@ancientwritingmuses.org>
To:  franktuttle@franktuttle.com
Subject:  REQUIRED CONGRATULATORY STATEMENT

Dear Whatsyourname,

In accordance with the Statutes, Policies, and Best Practices of the Amalgamated League of Muses, I am sending you this official Letter of Congratulations on the publication of your new novel/play/epic poem/other fictional work (select one), which is entitled (insert title of Work here). 

We wish you every success in this artistic endeavor BLAH BLAH BLAH, we hope our contributions to the creative process were BLAH BLAH BLAH.

There are another two paragraphs of like-minded claptrap but oops I deleted them both.

I did you a favor and picked up a copy of the book (Frown River Cake or whatever it is) but my copy must be defective because nowhere on the cover or in the dedication is the Holy Sacred name of Visavarevagsitaga mentioned as co-author. 

Even more inexplicable is the delay in my first royalty check, which I am QUITE SURE is on the way, because IF IT ISN'T some very agitated Egyptian Nile toads are going to be turning up in some UNEXPECTED PLACES. Hint hint, monkey boy. Need a I send a plague of biting flies to spell it all out?

Just to be clear, I expect no less than 20% of the cover and half of any foreign language sales and half of any future merchandising, praise be to My name and when I say 'biting flies' I mean 'flies easily capable of biting off both ears.' 

So, now that we're friends again -- we ARE friends again, aren't we? -- I have a few comments (three specific observations are required by the Statutes, Policies, and Best Practices of the Amalgamated League of Muses) concerning your work, Drown Shiver Mean.

1) It is a book, written in modern English. Yay you for making that bold stylistic choice. One mandated observation down.

2) The book features dark letters on a light page. Again, way to push the envelope. Moron.

3) Individual chapters are denoted by chapter breaks. That's three. Somebody get me a latte.

This concludes my mandated congratulatory communication. I see you are already working on a new book. If I can talk you out of continuing let me know, otherwise please toil in silent obscurity.

Best,

Her High Holiness and Exalted Divinity Visavarevagsitaga, Blessed of All, Goddess of Time and Space, 34th Level Muse (Extended Associate), Amalgamated League of Muses.

PS Stop calling Mama Hog's hair 'wild,' find a thesaurus and use it, idiot.

________________________________________________________________

Judging by her past emails, I take it my Muse is both in an unusually good mood and is warming up to me.

At least I haven't had any frogs show up in my coffee this week.

For any new readers of the Markhat series, let me take a moment here and suggest an order in which the books can be read.

First of all, you've got your early adventures, which are all standalone tales in which order doesn't really make any difference at all. These are:

The Mister Trophy

The Cadaver Client

Dead Man's Rain

All of which were combined in the print-only anthology The Markhat Files.

After the first three, I suggest you read as follows:

Hold the Dark

The Banshee's Walk

The Broken Bell

And finally, the new one, which is of course Brown River Queen.

If you want print versions of Hold the Dark, The Banshee's Walk, or The Broken Bell, no problem, click on the links in this sentence!

Bonus Tuesday Blog: BROWN RIVER QUEEN Release party!

It's Tuesday, March 26, and that can mean only one thing....

Yes, okay, it is time to renew my truck tag. So make that two things, with the most important being this:

BROWN RIVER QUEEN is now on sale!

You can get it from Amazon here, or from Barnes & Noble here, or from direct from the publisher in any format you please by going to Samhain Publishing.

I'd like to take a moment to thank Holly, my editor at Samhain, for all her hard work and enthusiasm on the project. Heck, thanks to everyone at Samhain, who are always a pleasure to work with!

I really hope you enjoy the book, which is the latest installment in the Markhat series. There are gamblers and vampires and guns and ghouls, all on a riverboat steaming toward certain doom.

I'm off to a signing at Barnes & Noble in Oxford. So from Mama Hog, Markhat, Darla, Evis, Gertriss, and of course Buttercup the banshee, safe sailing!

Live From MidSouthCon 31: Update #4, the Darrell Awards

I'm not often left speechless, no matter how many people fervently wish for that singular event.

The outcome of this year's Darrell Awards did manage to silence me completely for a brief but indeterminate time.

I was nominated for two pieces -- Saving the Sammi for best short story, and The Broken Bell for best novel.

Before I go any further, let me talk about the competition. I say competetion only in the broadest sense of the word, because none of us has any desire to 'beat' the other guy (or gal). We're all authors, slugging it out in the trenches I believe we all want the best for each other.

So, to my friends Jimmy Gillentine, Steve Bradshaw, and Aaron Drown (also known as the inimitable A.christopher Drown), I was honored to be in your company.

You should read these guys. Here are their works:

Bluff City Butcher, by Steve Bradshaw. Steve was a CSI investigator in Texas for many years, and his stories of mayhem and murder will curl your hair. His book is not be missed!

Night at Death's Door by Jimmy Gillentine. There are some dicey night clubs in Memphis -- but none dicier than the one the vampires favor! Check it out -- but be prepared to pay a very special cover at the door.

A Game of None Magic By A.Christopher Drown. Epic fantasy with a Southern accent! First of series, with the rest soon to come.

I really enjoyed meeting you guys or catching up. Steve's tales of high-speed impacts and down-home stabbings were especially enjoyable, because I'm a seriously weird guy.

Being included amid such a talented bunch made the presentation of the Darrell Awards for Saving the Sammi and The Broken Bell a truly humbling event.

My thanks to the Darrell Awards jury, for their consideration and efforts during the year!

Now, because I can't resist, the Awards themselves...

Thanks again folks!

Live From Midsouthcon 31: Update #3

Con are full of surprises, in that you never know who you'll meet.

MidSouthCon 31 was no exception. Among the attendees was the crew from Expedition Unknown, a paranormal investigations group based in the Midsouth.

From left to right, Expedition Unknown is Andy Brisendine, Stephen Guenther, and Tanya Vandesteeg. Andy acts as tech manager, photographer, and videographer. Stephen, Lead Investigator, is an experienced paranormal sleuth whose investigations have taken him to such far-flung sites as Stonehenge. Lead Investigator Tanya does extensive site research and debunking, among many other duties. You can catch Tanya's podcast "Live From the Multiverse" each Thursday at 8:00 PM at http://www.tmvcafe.com/.

We sat in on three panels hosted by Expedition Unknown, and each was a blast. Andy and I use the same microphone (a Zoom H1) and we all share a fascination with EVP phenomena. Plus, they're all friendly smart cool people with a genuine interest in local cryptids and other paranormal happenings.

If you're in this area and you ever encounter bumps in the night that you believe warrant a visit from the professionals, I recommend the Expedition Unknown crew!

They also offer classes and live field investigations. You can see and hear their evidence on their YouTube channel, and I cannot wait to slap on my headphones and dive into that myself.

Again, their website is Expedition Unknown. It is well worth a thorough look!

Live From MidSouthCon 31 Update #2

The Con is still underway here in Memphis, and everyone is having a blast.

So far I've met a number of talented authors, amazing artists, and equally amazing fans. I've been on a ghost hunt with the crew from Expedition Unknown, been on a panel, watched in awe as the Drunkest Fanboy in the World struggled to maintain a rough approximation of bipedalism, and won not one but two Darrell Awards. 

The Expedition Unknown crew and the Darrell Awards get their own posts, to follow shortly. 

Now, though, let's see some pictures!

No SF/fantasy con is complete without a Klingon or two. This year, I spied a Klingon with a familiar face beneath the brow-ridges. I even put up his picture a couple of years ago, when he was a roving but cordial zombie:

This year, he shed his shamble for the more menacing look of a Klingon warrior.

Despite only knowing a single word of Klingon (graak, which means 'You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you?) I asked the mighty Klingon for an interview.

Here it is, thanks Frank Chin!

Meeting people such as Frank is what makes the Con scene so much fun. I know the media loves to poke fun at us in their minute-and-a-half segments between Sports and Weather, but there are some genuinely fascinating and articulate people behind the masks. 

Speaking of masks, here are a few more of the many cosplayers at this year's Con!

I love the way this Tusken raider is being photo-bombed by an Old Republic stormtrooper. 

They're serious about pedicures on Altair VI.

This is how I see all clowns.

Stormtroopers!

Stormtroopers after one too many Pan Galactic Gargles Blasters at the Mos Eisley spaceport bar.

Steampunk Lives!

Old Republic Stormtroopers, and friend.

The Black Widow!

Breathless Mahoney

The Hilton at midnight

More to come!

Live From MidSouthCon 31 Update #1

MidSouthCon 31 is underway here in Memphis, Tennessee, and your roving reporter is right in the middle of it.

This year's Con is hosting the biggest crowd I remember seeing. The guest list is pretty impressive this year, and I'm sure that's a big part of the draw.

After arriving at the Con, getting checked in, and finding the nearest bar, I began my series of in-depth interviews with Con attendees. Being a bold soul, I simply turned to the first pretty woman I saw and asked for an interview. She not only agreed, but later accompanied me to my hotel room. Her picture and interview is below:

Interview with Frank's wife Karen

One of the great things about any Con is the Dealer Room. There you can find just about anything -- SF and fantasy prop art, books, comics, and of course art. 

We picked up an piece of original art by Levi White. Levi uses spray paint to create some really stunning and unusual pieces, such as ours, shown below:

In keeping with my newfound habit of sticking a Zoom H1 microphone in the faces of strangers, I begged Levi for an interview, and you can listen to it by clicking the link:

Levi White interview

Levi can (and should) be reached via email at artbylevi@hotmail.com. He does everything from superheroes to Star Trek to Dr. Who, and his prices are so affordable starving authors can afford them!

Artist Levi White and muse

When you think of cons, you might not also think of music. But MidSouthCon has a house band, and they are Order of Tyr!

Here they are in the Dealer's Room, many hours before their first Friday evening show. I picked up their new album, Tearing Reality Asunder, and they were also kind enough to speak to me after I made it clear I was fully capable of rolling on the floor and screaming if my request for an interview was denied. 

Click here for Order of Tyr interview!

The Order plays a powerful, straight-ahead blend of heavy metal, hard rock, electronic, and prog-rock, all blended with fantasy themes and lyrics. You can check them out further by hitting their webpage, VideoGameMetal!

Costumes and cosplayers. I know that's what you want to see, so let's open with the best of the Con so far. I give you <drumroll please> The Black Widow!

Regular Con-goers will recognize Alex as the 'Catwoman Cosplayer,' who graces MidSouthCon and several othyers with her beautiful costumes every year. This year, she's at MidSouthCon as The Black Widow, and she was kind enough to grant me an interview:

Catwoman Cosplayer interview

You can find Alex on Facebook here. Stop by her page and give her a like!

And now, for a more or less random series of Con images:

That was just yesterday afternoon. More to come!

Frank's Handy Guide to KindleGen. And Suicide. Because You'll Need Both.

It all looked so simple. So easy.

As many of you know, I teach a couple of writing classes. I've been teaching them for a while now, and I finally put most of the material together into a short book.

It's nothing fancy. No tables, no graphs, no interior trickery at all. Thus I thought to myself, 'Self, why don't we package the whole works as a Kindle book, and maybe make enough extra money from it to buy a single burrito, come next May?'

Fool that I am, I agreed, even though my track record of Cunning Plans tends toward catastrophe and head injuries of mild to moderate severity.

But this is an e-book. Surely, I decided, I can safely create and publish a single short Amazon e-book all on my own without involving paramedics or morticians.

I've done it before. Wistril Compleat, On the Road, The Far Corners -- all are short story anthologies composed of stories I sold to print magazines back in the 90s. I put all those titles out myself, mainly for fun. So why shouldn't I be able to do so again?

After all, Amazon now provides free formatting and previewing software. Back in the old days, I had to do all the formatting by hand! Not so now, with the amazing Kindlegen!

Like I said, it all looked so easy.

First, I downloaded the free Amazon formatting program, Kindlegen.

Then I downloaded the free Amazon previewer, Kindle Previewer.

The advantage to using these two items, I am told, is that you are absolutely assured a Kindle-compatible product. No weirdness in formatting. No glitches. You can see how your ebook looks on each and every Kindle model, and fix any problems before you take the book to market.

Sounds ideal!

I used a free HTML editor called HTML-Kit to create my HTML ebook file. This part of the process is one I know. There's nothing at all hard about it. You only need know a dozen or so HTML commands.  Most of the code is self-explanatory.

That's how I created the other ebooks. Turn the book into an HTML file. Zip that file and the interior cover image together. Upload them to KDP. Yes, I know Amazon now claims you can use Word to create your ebook, and then save that as a Web page file, and upload directly to KDP, thus skipping all the HTML hand-coding.

And you can. You can also dance with a goat. As with goat-dancing, though, the results are usually messy and often completely unacceptable. You'll find weird spaces inserted at random, odd indents, big gaps in the text -- no. Just no.

Here's how I understood Kindlegen to work:

1. Create your HTML file.
2. Use Kindlegen to convert this HTML file into a perfect .mobi file.
3. Use the Previewer to check your file for accuracy.
4. Upload your cover image and your new .mobi file to Amazon.
5. Become rich, buy your own tropical island, crush your enemies beneath your merciless feet.

I got as far as step 4 and thought myself a clever lad. I followed Amazon's documentation (I wince just using the words 'Amazon' and 'documentation' in such close proximity) and was pleased with the results.

I uploaded the new ebook and prepared my feet to begin the crushing of enemies like grapes.

What I didn't understand was that I'd skipped a step. Do you see step 3.5 above?

No?

Neither did I.

Step 3.5 is displayed in invisible letters, you see. And what is says is this:

3.5 HAHAHAHAHA. We forgot to mention that for your interior cover image to display, you'll need to create an ncx file, and opf file, an xyz file, solve Fermat's Last Theorem, calculate the value of pi out to eleventy billion characters, comb Nessie's hair, teach Bigfoot to scuba dive, and finally provide us with a singing albino sea otter who can also drive a cab.

Here's what the Kindlegen README file should state, in towering letters of blood and fire:

ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER

Because by firing up Kindlegen you just entered Hell.

I was confused and a bit embarrassed at having released a Kindle book into the wild with an error. So I quickly grabbed my HTML code, gutted the portion of it that should have resulted in the cover being shown inside the book as well as outside, and replaced the interior cover with the title of the book in big letters instead. At least it doesn't look goofy, and I was sure I could resolve the missing interior cover problem in just a few minutes.

Ha ha ha. 

The documentation provided with the Kindlegen file never bloody mentioned ANYTHING about an ncx file, or an opc file. But Googling the problem quickly pointed out that both these files were required before Kindlegen could create the final file for upload.

Look, I'm no hacker, but I know enough to code and maintain my own website. I'd never heard of ncx or opf filetypes. I had no idea what they were, what they did, or how to find them.

The Amazon documentation?

I might as well go back to goat-dancing. Never a single word was spoken of these files, their purpose, their origin, or their content. 

The references I did find via Google all seemed to assume that the files simply sprang into existence from the heavenly aether. Seriously, I've never seen such an obtuse and uninformative collection of technobabble. What does ncx stand for? Nonexistent Carnivorous Xenophobe? What about opf? Obnoxious Probe Fatality? Ornithopter Pressure Frame?

Do I create the these elusive entities? Does Kindlegen? Are they files at all, or some kind of meat? Pets? Aircraft?

The more I read, the more confused I became.  In fact, after scouring half a dozen tutorials and discussion boards, this is how I've determined one must actually use Kindlegen to create a Kindle ebook:

FRANK'S HANDY DANDY GUIDE TO USING KINDLEGEN 

• Don't. Seriously, just wave money at someone until they agree to format your book for you. If they need a kidney give them that as well, you have two.
• Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you.
• Download Kindlegen and Kindle Previewer.
• While you wait, drive to the liquor store, and head right for the rotgut whiskey because YOU WILL NEED IT. 
• Create your HTML file. Now look at it. Look at it HARD. 
• Do you see ncx and opf and half a dozen other previously unknown file formats appear?
• Take a swig of whiskey (first of many, I assure you) and stare harder.
• Run Kindlegen. Run around your living room. Both activities are equally likely to result in the creation of a fully-functional e-book.
• Use the Kindle Previewer to assure yourself you have failed.
• Look under the couch. Maybe that's where opf files wind up. No one seems to know. But there might be loose change under there, so check anyway.
• Man, the bottom half of this Old Overcoat whiskey is really smooth.
• Still no ncx files? Plenty of whiskey left. Maybe they only come out at night.
• Really, who needs a lousy interior cover image anyway?
• Leprechauns. That has to be it. Wait for a leprechaun to appear. Trick him into playing a game of riddles, and win by asking 'Where do ncx files come from?' 
• Give up and decide to patch the roof instead.
• Be careful on the ladder, because dude, you are hammered.

If you're at all interested in the writing guide, and you believe you can live without an interior cover illustration, click here. 

And if you ever decide to self-publish using Kindlegen, take my advice and get two bottles of Old Overcoat.

Ahoy MidSouthCon 31!

It's almost time!

I speak not of my next colonoscopy, but of my attendance at MidSouthCon 31.

If MidSouthCon is not known to you, it is the premiere SF/fantasy con in this part of the country. Held in Memphis, MidSouthCon is large enough to attract big names (Cherie Priest, Steve Jackson, John Picacio) and small enough to feel intimate and relaxed.

I'm even on a panel this year. If you're going to be at the Con, stop by the Grand Ballroom at 3:00 PM Saturday, where I'll be joining other Darrell Awards winners and nominees to talk writing.

I enjoy the panels. You can find everything from nuts-and-bolts author sessions to ghost hunting techniques. There truly is something for everyone.

Of course the press will concentrate solely on the cosplayers (i.e., people dressed up as fantasy/SF characters). Which is understandable, since the cosplayers are a dedicated and imaginative bunch. I've seen some truly awe-inspiring outfits at MidSouthCon, which always has a strong steampunk showing. Last year's girl with articulated wings was one of my favorites.

The Storm Troopers are always in attendance as well. They're a nice friendly helpful bunch, although they are a bit sensitive about mentions of unshielded thermal exhaust ports.

And what Con would be complete without zombies? We get all kinds. Zombie storm troopers. Zombie Alices. Zombie cheerleaders. Zombie tax preparers...

Itemize....

And, of course, steampunk Catwoman. Because -- who needs a freakin' reason?

This year I'm going to try something different at the Con. Along with the usual photos, I hope to post some short audio interviews (and possibly even video segments) with any of the more interesting cosplayers and attendees I can corner -- er, invite to take part in my blog. I've spent a lot of time tweaking my ancient Dell netbook, getting it up to snuff, and I'll be taking my microphones as well as my camera.

So, with any luck, next week's blog will feature an extensive Con report, with pictures.

March 26 is of course the release date for Brown River Queen. To celebrate, I'll be at the Barnes & Noble bookstore on the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford, where I'll be grabbing the ankles of passers-by and begging them to buy a copy until the University Police Department tazes me into unconsciousness. You don't want to miss that, so if you're in Oxford on Tuesday the 26th, please stop by the B & N at noon. I'll also be signing copies of The Broken Bell, so even if you don't have a Kindle or a Nook you can buy a print book.

Did you know that authors who fail to sell all the books at a signing are ritually shaven and then held underwater for eight minutes by the infuriated bookstore manager? It's true. I mention that not to entice you to buy a book, but just to pass the time. I'm pretty sure I can hold my breath for three of the eight minutes, and let's face it, another five minutes of brain damage probably won't have a significant effect on my cognitive skills.

I'm kidding. Signings are a lot of fun, and the people at Barnes & Noble have been most gracious and kind. There WILL BE SNACKS. I am willing to share.

To recap -- noon on Tuesday the 26th at the Barnes & Noble on the Ole Miss campus. Stop by and say hello!

One final word: progress on the new Markhat went very well last week. Looks like I might make my goal of writing two novels this year after all.

Of course it's one thing to write the books, and another to sell them. But unless I've completely lost my ability to tell good from bad, this new book is a good one.

Speaking of which, it's time to get back to work.

See you at MidSouthCon 31!

Movie Review and More!

That's your Mystery Picture for this week. What is it? Where did it come from? What if any significance does it hold?

I'm not telling.

But I will tell plenty about my new favorite movie, Oz the Great and Powerful.

By now, you may have seen some lukewarm Oz reviews. The New York Times is disenchanted, calling it an 'extravagant misfire' after babbling on about how much better movies were in the 1930s. The LA Times claims the movie is a 'rough slog' down the Yellow Brick Road.

I claim both reviewers watched the movie with their heads up their asses.

Oz the Great and Powerful is not a remake of The Wizard of Oz. It doesn't try to be. There is no Dorothy, no Toto, no Tin Man. Also, and noted with much relief on my part, there is no singing.

But there are visuals which make critically-acclaimed films such as Life of Pi and Avatar seem like cheap Saturday morning cartoons by comparison. And the new characters are just as engaging as any of Dorothy's face-painted retinue.

I dare anyone to tell me China Girl alone wasn't worth the price of admission. Go ahead, tell me that, and I will knock you down. I mean it. And Zach Braff's Finley, the flying monkey in the bellhop outfit?

Magical. And hilarious.

Without giving anything away, I can also say I loved the witches. Glinda the Good was spot on perfect, as the beleaguered defender of the peaceful folk of Oz. And James Franco's con-artist carnival magician turned makeshift wizard is unfailingly endearing.

This will sound of heresy to some, but I'll say it anyway -- Oz the Great and Powerful is a better movie than The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey.

Oz the Great and Powerful has everything -- visual feasts, engaging characters, suspense, humor, and heart. Ignore the bleating critics. See the movie. You'll be glad you did, or I'll eat a hot-air balloon.

The above is another piece of Markhat fan-art, created by Raevyn Tws (his Facebook page is here).  Some say Markhat is pointing out the guilty party, but I maintain he is indicating to a bartender which beer he wants next.

Speaking of Markhat (see what I did there?), the new Markhat novel Brown River Queen is still available for pre-sale. It goes live on March 26!

I've blathered on and on about the book for weeks. I know that. But it's a good book, and I can hardly wait until people can dive into it.

The new Markhat book is underway, of course. I'm calling it The Five Faces. I've also toyed with the idea of a book narrated entirely by Mama Hog, who has no end of things to say about any subject you might care to name. If may wind up entitled Mama On the Town. But that is by no means a promise; just keeping the Markhat books written is about all I have time to do these days.

Brown River Queen cover, just because.

Just for the heck of it, here's a brief excerpt from The Five Faces, featuring an unusually vengeful Markhat:


FROM THE FIVE FACES:

Voices, from the top of the stair.

A match scratched and flared.  The lantern bobbed off its hook. The door swung open.

Boots clambered down the stairs. A man laughed. Another cussed.

I divided feet by two and came up with three.

Three men, who didn’t know a damned thing about fighting in the dark. They held the lantern close to their faces. They took the stairs before their eyes had time to adjust. They swapped a bottle as they walked.

They never saw me coming.

Two went down before the third finished swigging at the bottle. I hit him in the gut with the butt-end of the stout club I’d found amid the trash. When he doubled over, I hit him in the mouth.

Down he went. I kicked him as he fell.

None of the three managed to stand by the time I joined them at the bottom of the stairs.

One did groan and make a half-assed attempt to rise to his elbows. I rewarded his determination with a sharp blow to the back of his head. He went down and went still.

The lantern rolled down, trailing small pools of burning oil. I snatched it up before it sparked a real fire.

“You’re going to give me a name,” I said. A pair of faint groans answered. “You’re going to give me a name, or I’ll kill every damned one of you, and enjoy doing it.”

More groans. Somebody spat teeth. I felt myself smile.

“Someone paid you to watch this place,” I said. “Who?”

Silence.

The light still illuminated the pile of dead dogs not thirty feet distant.

I issued a dozen heartfelt kicks.

“Stop it, stop it,” muttered one of my supine friends. “Chuckles. Chuckles pays us. We don’t know nothin’, mister. We just got paid to watch the door.”

I dropped to my haunches.

“Chuckles,” I said.  I waved the lantern near my talkative friend’s face.

He was maybe fifty. Whatever teeth he’d worked so hard to keep were scattered on the floor beneath him. I wasn’t sorry.

“Now, where can I find this Chuckles?”

A knife-blade glinted in the lamp-light. I brought down my lumber. Wet cracking sounds and a scream echoed in the dark.

Again, I wasn’t sorry.

“You were saying?”

“Everybody knows Chuckles. Keeps a table. Down at the Bastion.” He cut his eyes to his fellows “What the Hell’s the matter with you? We just watch the door. I don’t think Mort is breathing.”

“Worry less about Mort and more about yourself. This Chuckles. He run this place?”

“Hell if I know, mister, he just pays us to—”

“Watch the door. I heard. Tell you what. I’m going to pay this Mr. Chuckles a visit. But before I do, you’re going to give him a message. How’s your memory, pal? Think you can repeat what I’m about to say, word for word?”

He spat blood and glared hate.

“I’ll take that as a yes. My message is this – the dog fights end. Or I end you. Simple enough. Got it?”

He spat again. “You got a name?”

I don’t remember much from the days when Mom dragged all us Markhats to Church. But a line of Scripture came to mind.

“I am Death. You shall not know my name until I speak it in thine ear. Dread my name, and fear its revelation, for it shall be thy undoing, amen.”

“Crazy bastard.”

I hit him again. He rolled over and howled, and I rose. I cast my club down beside him.

The other two lay still. If they breathed, I couldn’t see their chests rise or fall.

“I am Death,” I said. “Dread my name.”

I blew out the lantern and threw it as far as I could.

Then I climbed the thirty-eight steps, whistling all the way.

END EXCERPT

That's it for this week!

Ghost Hunter's Guide: Dead in the Deep South

As both long-time fans of this blog know, I do a little ghost hunting on the side.

Since my private jet is A) in the shop and B) doesn't exist, I do all my ghost hunting locally. Which means I stalk a particular brand of restless spirit -- that of the wily Southern ghost.

I'm a Southerner myself. I was born right here, not in this chair but in Mississippi nonetheless. This grants me a unique insight into the ectoplasmic minds of the local spectres, haunts, haints, will-o-the-wisps, goblins, revenants, poltergeists, apparitions, and of course the Class II free-floating non-repeating vapors that haunt these gently rolling hills.

From what I've seen on television, your northern, eastern, and western ghosts seem to have standardized their behaviors, at least when the cameras are rolling. Here's every ghost hunting show I've ever seen, condensed:

GHOST HUNTER #1: I'm getting a hit on my K2.

GHOST HUNTER #2: I'm being touched!

GHOST HUNTER #3: I saw a shadow!

Play obscure EVP segment during reveal, in which ghostly voice says short phrase:

"I smell the eggs, Bartholomew."

Which is a lot more dramatic when shot in patented Green Night-O-Vision(tm) and accompanied by a sepulchral voice-over and sinister background music.

Southern ghosts, though, often march to a different tune (usually the phantom strains of an old Lynyrd Skynyrd album).  As such, I've decided to offer my own brief primer on the nature of Southern haunts.

Pull your Alabama ball-caps down firmly, and enjoy the ride.

Ghosts of the Haunted South: A Bestiary

1) The Residual Bubba.

A residual Bubba haunting is non-responsive and wholly un-communicative, unless provoked by the playing of NPR anywhere on the property. Residual Bubba situations are rarely dangerous, and in fact often go unnoticed if they peak during football season. 

A residual Bubba haunting is characterized by the following physical phenomena:

• Repeated auditory phenomena, i.e., the sound of a pickup horn playing 'Dixie,' the reluctant cranking of an un-mufflered diesel engine, source-less WWF wrestling played at high volume, etc.
• Periodic visual phenomena. Apparitions of bodiless Big Yank overalls, translucent Pabst Blue Ribbon six-packs floating through the double-wide, etc. 

An EVP indicative of a residual Bubba in progress:

Residual Bubba EVP

2) The Intelligent Dwayne.

An intelligent Dwayne haunting occurs when the spirit of a deceased person remains attached to a property. Often, these spirits don't realize they are dead, and sometimes grow agitated when they mistakenly assume their new state of being is simply some newfangled Yankee holiday that has made their disability checks late.

These intelligent hauntings are characterized by:

• Menacing physical phenomena, most often in the form of slaps, punches, and repeated butt-kickings.
• Movement of physical objects, usually of TV remotes and bottle openers.
• Poorly-spelled Ouija Board warnings, usually of the 'Git out er I will KICK YOR ASS' variety, although some sessions might reveal a decided slant toward debating various NASCAR drivers or the inability of Ole Miss to consistently score in the fourth quarter. 

An EVP indicative of an Intelligent Dwayne haunting:

Intelligent Dwayne EVP

3) The Saturday Night Phantom.

When a person is taken by death too soon, they often remain Earthbound, tethered by a wistful sense of leaving behind unfinished business.

When a Saturday Night Phantom is taken by death, the process usually includes (but is not limited to) propane, firearms, crude incendiary devices of a homemade nature, copious amounts of easily-affordable alcohol, motorcycles, livestock, heights, wet roads, lack of headlights, amateur rocketry, and ill-timed use of the phrase 'Watch this, y'all.'

A Saturday Night Phantom, known as a poltergeist in other locales, is a mischievous (and possibly still drunk) spirit which reveals its presence through pranks and trickery, such as:

• Sudden foul odors, usually accompanied by loud raspberry sounds and faint giggling.
• Crude knock-knock jokes delivered during Ouija Board sessions.
• Repeated inexplicable toilet flushings.
• Nocturnal wails and screams, followed by slurred renditions of the Arkansas State football fight song.

An EVP typical of a Saturday Night Phantom:

Saturday Night Phantom EVP

4) The Old Man Burtrell Ghost.

Every community in the South, no many how tiny or remote, features an Old Man Burtrell by one name or another. In life, these reclusive, hostile souls demand absolute privacy and demonstrate an eager willingness to maintain it by casual discharges of shotguns and cursing. In death, their spirits continue on as they always have, not knowing or caring that their Earthly lives are over.

An Old Man Burtrell haunting is indicated by any of the following:

• Sounds of a phantom shotgun being chambered.
• Motion on the part of empty rocking chairs, followed by a spit of phantom chewing tobacco.
• Spectral gunfire, followed by confused, enraged cursing.

Sample of a typical Old Man Burtrell EVP:

Old Man Burtrell EVP

5) The Wilted Rose.

Saddest perhaps of all the Southern haunts, the Wilted Rose is the wandering spirit of the truck-stop diner waitress who, even in death, can find neither rest, peace, nor affordable astral housing on her lousy tips alone. 

The presence of a Wilted Rose is most often indicated by:

• Coffee cups which fill themselves. Small plastic containers of spoiled creamer often appear beside the cup, alongside a syrup-smeared paper packet of pure cane sugar.
• Clouds of cigarette smoke which form from nothing.
• Phantom diner checks decorated with smiley faces drawn on steamed mirrors.

Sample of Wilted Rose EVP:

Wilted Rose EVP

Next Week: On the Trail of the Southern Bigfoot, or, Sasquatch Can't Drive Worth Crap.

Bonus Tuesday Blog

I know, it's not Sunday, but here I am blogging.

I don't always blog on Tuesday, but when I do, I've been drinking Dos Equis. Which isn't true either; I haven't been drinking, but I do want to make a small special effort to let people know they can snag a copy of The Mister Trophy free from Amazon!

If you haven't read any of my Markhat books before, this is a great place to start. It's short, it's fun, it features at least one scene of gratuitous vampire-thumping, and did I mention it's free?

And of course I can't help but cackle with unseemly glee over the upcoming (March 26) release of the new Markhat novel, Brown River Queen. Which you can now pre-order.

The piece of original fan art above shows Markhat encouraging you to pre-order. (Thanks to Raevyn Tws aka Eric Ralphs for the artwork).

So, to recap -- free stuff! New release! Dogs and cats, sleeping together!

See you all Sunday!

Announcing an Announcement!

Hold your metaphorical hats tight on your allegorical heads, gentle readers, for today I am full of....news.

I saw a bunch of you mouthing a very different word from 'news,' and I find that hurtful, but even so my spirits remain undampened, and I'll tell you why.

First of all, the new Markhat title is now available for pre-order at Amazon and Samhain! Barnes & Noble doesn't have pre-order turned on yet, but Samhain offers a Nook version (as well as Kindle, pdf, and every other format imaginable) of the book. So you don't have to wait for B&N, if you'd rather not.

I'm really excited about Brown River Queen.

Sorry, I get this rash when I'm happy. 

There's the right image! The book's cover, because I never get tired of looking at it.

Fans of the series will see the return of all the old familiar faces. Mama Hog will supply her usual homespun charms. Buttercup the banshee is always underfoot. Darla, who finally made a cover (she's been waiting patiently for her spot beside Markhat) is there, and she's reading over my shoulder to make sure I mention that at no point does she require rescuing. Quite the opposite, in fact, but you'll need to read the book to find out what I'm talking about.

I've tried to bring some new influences into the Markhat series. There's always been a touch of steampunk about Markhat's world, where magic and heavy industry rub shoulders in unexpected ways. The Banshee's Walk was set in a private artist's retreat. Hold the Dark explored Rannit's churches. The Broken Bell saw the introduction of gunpowder, cannon, and the outbreak of civil war.

I set Brown River Queen on a lavish gambling steamboat right out of the Mississippi River post US Civil War. There are gamblers and ne'er-do-wells. Plots and subterfuges. Vampires and worse. Intrigue and Blues singers. It was a blast to write, and I think you guys are in for a treat when it goes on sale March 26.

To those of you who've already pre-ordered, my thanks! Few things are more gratifying that seeing one's book show an Amazon ranking before it actually goes on sale. That's rare good fun. I may well have cackled maniacally. No, I'm sure of it.

Next, I've been nominated as a Finalist for the 2013 Darrell Award! The winners will be announced at the annual awards banquet, which takes place at the always-amazing MidSouthCon. 

I'm looking forward to the Con this year, because  -- well, look at the Guest List. Cherie Priest, Steve Jackson, John Picacio, Ross Lockhart? I know these names, and others! And being nominated for a Darrell Award is a genuine honor.

 It's going to be a blast.

That's my blaster, not a blast, but you get the idea.

Since it's a long time until March 26, I'm posting a brief excerpt from BROWN RIVER QUEEN below, to whet your appetite. There aren't any spoilers, so read without fear.

From BROWN RIVER QUEEN:


A meaty fist struck my door. “Open for the Watch!” shouted my new friend Captain Holder. “Open or we’ll break it down.”

Evis stubbed out his cigar and folded back into the shadows. I rose and unlocked my door, then opened it wide before stepping back out of yanking distance.

Captain Holder marched in, hand on his sword hilt, face beet red around eyes already going teary from the cigar smoke.

“What brings you here, Captain?” Carelessly, I puffed smoke directly into his face. “Care for a Lowland Sweet?”

That’s when Captain Holder, an officer of the law and a high-ranking Watchman, dared lay hands on me—a law-abiding citizen who did nothing but exhibit a generous nature concerning his excellent tobacco.

Evis moved, a silent shadow leaving brief wakes in the smoke.

Slam went my door, plunging my office in shadows.

Snick went the Captain’s Watch-issue shortsword as it was snatched from its scabbard.

Thunk went the blade as Evis buried the tip of it in my desk before returning to his seat and once again wrapping himself in silk and shadow.

The Captain gaped, his sword hand closing on air. “I have half a dozen men right outside.”

“Only half a dozen?” I sniffed and looked down my nose. “I’d have thought a desperate criminal such as myself would have demanded a full dozen, at least.”

He wasn’t listening. Instead, he backed toward my door, his eyes on Evis, and then he yanked it open and bellowed through it.

“Your men were called to attend pressing matters elsewhere, Captain Holder,” said Evis from the dark.
“Close the door. You are in no danger. But we do need to have a chat.”

I would have bet even money on the Captain bolting. But after a moment of staring out into the empty street, he straightened, uttered a single brief curse word, turned to face us, and closed the door.

“You’ve had a bad morning, Captain,” I said. I strolled around my desk and pointed to the empty client’s chair. “But it doesn’t need to get any worse. Have a seat. Let’s talk this out like gentlemen.”

He glared but yanked the chair back and sat.

“You dumped a bucket of shit on a Watchman,” he said, his voice still rough with rage. “I know all about you, Markhat. You’ve been running roughshod over the Watch for years. I’m here to tell you you’ve gone too far this time. I’m charging you with assault on an officer of the law.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Charging me? With assault? Good thing my legal counsel is present, then. Captain Holder, meet Mr. Evis Prestley, of House Avalante. I believe you’ve heard the name.”

“I know it.”

I leaned back and laced my fingers together behind my head. “Assault, you say? Mr. Prestley. Have I, to your knowledge, assaulted any Watchmen recently?”

“Why no, Mr. Markhat, I don’t believe you have.”

The good Captain repeated his curse word. “You dumped a bucket of shit on my man outside. I can’t hang you for that but I can damned well throw you in the Old Ruth for a week or three.” He made as if to rise.
Evis appeared by my side, his dead-pale face just touched by the sun.

“And you can prove my client was involved, can you Captain?”

“It was him. You know it and I know it.”

Evis shook his head and made tsk-tsk noises. “At what time did this alleged assault by excrement occur, Captain? As you have noted the complainant is a Watchman, I assume he was able to provide such details in his official report?”

“Ten of noon,” growled the Captain, his beefy right hand clutching his Watch-issue handcuffs. “You’re wasting your time. He’s coming with me.”

“Ten of noon,” said Evis. “Well. I can produce no fewer than two dozen prominent citizens of Rannit who will gladly swear they were dining with Mr. Markhat at the Brickworks between eleven and half-past one, Captain Holder. Remind me of the names, Mr. Markhat.”

“Certainly. Tavis Green, of the Tavis Greens, was there. We enjoyed a bottle of Fitch together. Oh, and Markum Sate, and Corliss Poole, and that nephew of the Regent’s chief of staff, Malcom Slater.” I trailed off and watched a vein in Holder’s forehead bulge and pulse.

“You spoke of a waste of time, Captain. Indeed, that is what incarcerating my client will yield you. Time and trouble. I assure you, Avalante will take an immediate and active interest in the matter.”

“Might as well put the bracelets away,” I said. “Maybe one day I’ll slip up and you can clap them on me. But that isn’t today, Captain, and you know it.”

Ten breaths. That’s what it took for Holder to work out the truth behind my words. But work it out he did, and the cuffs went back in his pocket.

“I won’t forget this,” he said after a time. “Nobody dumps chamber-pots on my Watch officers. Nobody.”

I shrugged. “Good for you. Now then. Being completely unaware you had a man watching my door, I find myself suddenly compelled to ask why you’d do such a thing. So. Why?”

“Because a woman is dead and you killed her, that’s why.”

Evis waggled a taloned finger at the Captain’s nose. “My client acted in self-defense during an unprovoked attack by a deranged stranger,” he said. “Even the Watch concurs.”

“I think your client knows exactly who the dead woman was and why she ended up cut in half by a beer-wagon.”

“If I knew who she was, Captain, I’d tell you. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because, as usual, you’re mixed up in something,” said the Captain. “Think you’re above the law, don’t you, Markhat?”

“We don’t see enough law in this part of town to think ourselves above it.” I put my hands on my desk and leaned close. The Captain needed a bath. “Look. I’m not lying. I don’t know who she was or why she came at me. There wasn’t time to ask. But why do you care? The dead wagons haul bodies out of alleys every morning. Nobody asks. What makes this woman so special the Watch is pestering me about her?”

“You’re telling me you don’t know her.”

“I’m telling you I don’t.”

“What happens if I stand up and try to walk out of here, Markhat? You going to turn your vampire loose on me?”

I stood. “Beat it,” I said. “Get out and stay out until you calm down enough to talk sense. Try and snag me again and you can explain yourself to the Corpsemaster. That clear enough for you?”

“Corpsemaster is dead.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Why don’t you piss me off again and we’ll see?”

He stood. Evis watched but didn’t move.

“We’re not done here.”

“I beg to differ. Get out.”

He did, slamming my door behind him.

Evis glided back into the shadows, chuckling.

“Markhat. Did you really arrange for a Watchman to be bathed in excrement?”

“The Arwheats don’t much care for the Watch. I almost had to force their pay upon them.”

Evis shook his head. “They’ll not forget that. Not for a long time.”

“Good.” I put my hands back behind my head. “Something about that dead woman has the Watch nervous.”

“Indeed. Have you learned anything new about her?”

“Nothing. I was heading to the hotels downtown today to see if anyone fitting her description skipped a bill. Maybe she left something in her room with her name on it, along with a note detailing her dastardly plans.”

Evis nodded. “Still. A bucket of shit?” He shook his head. “As your attorney, I must admonish you against future use of night soil as a deterrent for loiterers.”

“As you say, counselor.”

Evis chuckled and produced fresh cigars.

End of Excerpt

The rest will have to wait until March 26.

This is Your Brain on Benadryl

Brain chemistry is a tricky bag of worms.

Or is it cat of bags?

You see my problem today.

Many people must resort to LSD or mushrooms or a quart jar of mecsaline to achieve what clinicians term an altered state of consciousness.

All I need to do is swallow a single Benadryl.  Which is what I did, early this morning, in a desperate attempt to rid myself of the concrete which somehow found its way into my overly large and pointlessly aggravating nasal passages.

The Benadryl worked. I can now breathe, but I cannot think. Honest. I have the attention span of a pole-axed gnat, and I keep having to look back at what I've typed because I keep re-typing portions of the same sentence.

In short, I've been rendered temporarily idiotic.

Hey, I see you out there, you with that 'Why is that different from any other day?' grin. Grin. Other day.

What was I saying? Something about cats?

Sunday is a bad day for me to drop 200 IQ points. I always do my blog entries on Sunday. This is the last day to check the ARC of BROWN RIVER QUEEN over for errors. I need to work on my writing class material for Thursday evening.

I still have to do all these things, but now I have to do them while commanding the mental acuity of a shoe.

I decided to finish my blog entry first. I correctly surmised I'm in no shape to write, so I decided to make another short stop motion movie instead. That's mostly physical, and extremely repetitive, so I thought I could handle it.

Wrong. I checked the camera, found it needed fresh batteries. Went downstairs to get the fresh set out of the charger. Forgot the dead batteries. Came back upstairs, got the dead batteries, left the good ones down there. Back downstairs, forgot camera. Back upstairs, have camera, good batteries forgotten again. Charged back downstairs to load good batteries in camera. Left camera upstairs. Went back upstairs. Missing one battery. Came back down. Found missing battery. Forgot camera.

All I needed was the Benny Hill chase music in the background.

Undaunted, I tried to compose a story for my hapless stop-motion skeleton. Wound up with a hopeless mishmash of disjointed and unfilmable scenes involving a mailbox in a tree and a sack of bone meal. While toying with the skeleton, his head fell off, probably in protest at the doomed film project's story line.

Nix that idea. I'd probably still be chasing batteries across the entire property. Or I'd get stuck in the tree and require a rescue from the Lafayette County Sheriff's Office.

Next, I settled on the idea of blogging about something mysterious and creepy. That's not a bad idea, really, but it needs refinement, i.e., a specific instance of mysterious and creepy.

Okay, so, um, Bigfoot. Hairy dude, nine feet tall, camera shy.

That's all I've got.

Ghosts? Right! I've got a lot to say about ghosts. They're insubstantial, filmy, and share Bigfoot's reluctance to be photographed. Boo?

EVPs! I'm loaded with EVP recording gear. I fired up a white noise generator and conducted an EVP session right here at my desk, hoping for something -- anything -- anomalous to happen, because frankly I'm exhausted from chasing cameras and batteries up and down the stairs.

The spirits, as usual, showed no mercy. I did record a faint disembodied yawn, followed quickly by a ghostly voice saying 'Change the bleeding channel, he's really off his game today,' but otherwise, just white noise. Oh, and in the process of recording, I somehow bit the end off a black magic marker, so now I resemble an overfed Marilyn Manson after a bad blond dye job.

Is any of this breaking exciting new ground in the realm of paranormal investigation?

Yeesh. Not really.

In closing, let me assure you I'll be back in fine fettle next week, because I might clear my sinuses with modest amounts of gunpowder or a masonry bit on my hammer drill, but I will NOT take another Benadryl on a Sunday.

And now, without further ado, Frank Tuttle and the Seven Dog Choir present Beethoven's Ode To Joy, arranged for canine and primate:

Ode to Joy by the Seven Dog Choir

Finis.

Interview With a Zombie

Tonight is the night!

I speak of course of the season premiere of AMC's brilliant The Walking Dead, which begins again tonight.

As a writer, I'm supposed to hold television and all things related to television in high disdain. And I do, in some instances. But The Walking Dead is one instance where television gets it right.

For anyone unacquainted with the show, The Walking Dead is set in the aftermath of a global catastrophe brought on by the sudden and inexplicable rise of dead bodies as flesh-eating monsters. Civilization has fallen. Most of the population has died, only to rise again as one of the billions of hungry undead.

That's the backdrop. The real drama takes place among the living, as they fight to live through another merciless day in the absence of the rule of law. The walkers, as the dead are called, are often the least of our heroes' problems.

Zombies have eclipsed vampires, werewolves, and ghosts as the go-to monster in popular media. I wondered -- how has all this success and attention changed the un-life of the average walker? Has fame gone to their empty, rotting heads?

To find out, I arranged to interview a real live (so to speak) zombie.

I started my search on the Web, and quickly found a thriving community of outspoken undead (I'd been wondering just who still used MySpace). A few emails later, I actually sat down with Mr. Uurgh<gurgle>jawsnap, who appeared as an extra in the first three episodes of The Walking Dead and acted as technical adviser on a number of Hollywood zombie films.

The audio interview is only about 3 minutes long. Please give it a listen. Safe for work, or for play in an isolated farmhouse.

The same video on YouTube for my Apple friends!

It's nearly time for The Walking Dead, so I'm off to pop some Orville Redenrotten popcorn (with 25% less rigor mortis!) and get settled in for the evening.

And remember, if you don't watch, you may see shadowy figures shambling about in the fog, later on...

BWAHAHAHAHA...

More From the Muse

Back in January, I met my personal writing Muse, the plain-spoken Visavarevagitaga. You can read abut our first meeting here.

I didn't expect to hear from Visavarevagitaga again so soon. Or ever, to be honest. But today I received an email from her, subject line HEY MORON, which I have pasted below:


Date:  Sun, 3 Feb 2013 11:52:43 -0600 [12:52:43 PM EST]
From:  Visavarevagsitaga <Visavarevagsitaga@ancientwritingmuses.org>
To:  franktuttle@franktuttle.com
Subject:  HEY MORON

I see you're working on a new book. If one defines 'working' as pecking at the keyboard between screwing around on Facebook. But I'm feeling generous so we'll call it working. Idiot.

As your Muse, I've got a few things to say. Most of them involved being removed as your Muse, but that request was denied. Twice. So.

The book is a train wreck. A flaming, toxic spill, nuclear-waste-hauling five-alarm evacuate the surrounding counties smoke plume seen from space train wreck, and that's just the dedication, and it's all downhill from there. What were you thinking? What were you *drinking?* Can I interest you in another hobby? Origami? Animal husbandry? Spelunking? Anything that doesn't involve words?

The sad bit, the part that truly makes me want to lay waste to all of Mesopotamia and then weep abut it for a dozen centuries thereafter, is this may be the best thing you've ever written. Let that sink in, and then Google the many joys of spelunking.

Great. My third request for a transfer was just denied. Sigh. I miss the Bronze Age. So much less paperwork.

If you insist on pursuing this book to completion, the first thing you need to do is STOP BEING SO NICE TO YOUR CHARACTERS. Honest to Zeus, are you writing a murder mystery or hosting some demented fictional tea party? Here's a quick tip from an ancient Muse to you, bub -- for it to be a murder mystery SOMEONE NEEDS TO DIE.

So kill one of them off. Kill two of them off. Take my advice and kill them all off and try your hand at origami -- it's soothing and there's never a risk of dangling a participle...no?

Lackwit. Fine. Ignore my advice, what do I know, I'm only older than recorded human history and I once held the fate of millions at my whim. But hey, you read an article about Stephen King's writing habits, so obviously you're the expert.

Even if you refuse to kill off whatshisname, Muckrat the finder, or his wife Duller, consider smiting one of the minor characters. Zeus knows nobody will miss any of them. And if you can't bring yourself to kill them, at least maim them a little bit this time. You've got to thin the herd, pal, or by book ten you'll be drowning in supporting cast and forget I said that, we both know there will never be a book ten because you cant' stay off Twitter long enough, can you, monkey boy?   

I give up. Or rather I would give up if Central Assignments would let me. This email constitutes my official dispensation of my Muse duties for this Julian calendar month. To summarize:

1) Give up.
2) Seriously, give up. Woodworking! That's a good hobby for someone with your literary skills.
3) Give your characters nothing but grief. Grief, trouble, and constant turmoil, followed by epic disaster, and all before you type the words CHAPTER TWO.
4) Stop referring to me mentally as Visa-veggie. I can hear your thoughts, you ungrateful chimpanzee. 
5) Moron.

Sincerely,

Visavarevagsitaga (See #4 above)

PS Don't reply to this email. Or any of my emails. I'll delete your replies unread and if you think a rain of toads isn't impressive wait until it happens in your bedroom with high-velocity toads.

Actually some of what she said makes sense. I do have a tendency to coddle my established characters. And maybe it's time to rock the boat a bit, at least in the Markhat series.

Speaking of Markhat, the new book, BROWN RIVER QUEEN, hits the stands March 26!

Dem Bones: The Movie

Yeah. I know. I have a thing about skeletons.

I blame my fascination on stop-motion animation master Ray Harryhausen. Even if you don't recognize the name, I'll bet you've seen his work -- and if you haven't see classics such as The Golden Voyage of Sinbad or The Valley of Gwangi, you've missed out on some great old-school animation. The fighting skeletons Mr. Harryhausen created are probably part of the reason I write (and read) fantasy -- they intrigued me as a kid, and that led to a search for more of the same, and now here I am.

The photo of the skeleton above is taken from a short movie I made this afternoon. The skeleton is a five-dollar Halloween prop that normally sits on my writing PC. I spent half an hour adding some stiff wire to him, so that he can stand and pose.

The thick wire (flexible aluminum antenna grounding lead, actually) extends down about half an inch below his heels. I drilled same-diameter holes in a scrap piece of plywood, and that became his stage. Hang a scrap of red velvet on the wall, and viola, the stage is set for DEM BONES, a short (very short) film about a dancing skeleton.

I took 104 still photos, moving Mr. Bones a bit between each shot, making the little film. Putting the still images together as an animation was easy -- I imported the photos and then used Windows Movie Maker to stitch them together with a 0.2 second display time for each frame. Add an opening sequence and some credits, and it's a wrap.

But let us dissemble no longer! Watch the movie by clicking here for the DEM BONES video on YouTube.

Or just press PLAY below!

Yeah, I know, don't quit your day job. But it was fun, the animation actually worked, and you get to see a short movie rather than read yet another tearful entry in the 'writing is hard' parade o' writer's blogs.

I'm still working on the new Markhat novel, which is going well. It's fun, having an established stable of characters to draw on, and then introducing someone new. Without giving away too much, Markhat finds himself running afoul of the new and improved City Watch, now run by a man named Holder, who is no fan of Markhat and his casual approach to proper police procedure. 

The rest of the gang is back as well. Or at least the ones I didn't kill off in the upcoming book, BROWN RIVER QUEEN. Ha! See what I did there? I know. I have a thing about skeletons, and money. Mostly money.

Hope you enjoyed the film! I've got to get back to work, so until next week -- DEM BONES!

Worth 885 Words!

I had a mild case of the Black Death this week. Or maybe it was a touch of Ebola. Either way, it left me so weak I am barely able to water ski, so this week's entry will rely heavily on the posting of fascinating photographs, such as the one below (see what I did there? For those of you in my writing class, it's called a transition! For everyone else, it's called sloth).

Those of you who read my old Wordpress blog may have seen this photo before. But it's still quite possibly the best photo I've ever taken. I love the exploding firework and the motion-blurred crowd, and yes it is entirely possible I have absolutely no ability whatsoever to judge the quality of photography.

I took that photo with a vintage 1969 Pentax K1000 fully manual SLR film camera, using the time-honored method of holding the shutter open and hoping for the best at a Fourth of July fireworks show here in Oxford. I love messing that old camera even though getting film developed is becoming harder and harder to do.

Next up, I have captured the Moon in my evil moon-capturing device! Bwhahahaha. I actually had to alter the Moon's orbit just to take this photograph. Sorry about the extra high tides, folks, but art accepts no half-measures.

This is Jake. I know, I know, it's blurry, but Jake exists in a special state of quantum doggie excitedness, which means he is always moving in at least two directions at once. I was amazed I got him to be still long enough to get this image. Jake enjoys long walks and reducing entire century-old oak trees to splinters. Seriously, beavers watch in awe.

Above is Mr. Fletcher. He's our special-needs guy; last year he developed diabetes, and now he's on a strict diet and he gets two insulin injections a day, twelve hours apart. He bears it all with quiet good grace, and he's still a goofy puppy at heart.

Meet Petey, who is so camera shy I have very few pictures of him. He's peering down at me from the loft in the study, and I snapped this before he saw the camera.

This is the storefront to the right of Taylor Grocery, which serves up the finest catfish in north Mississippi. Notice the smaller busts on the shelves behind the pale lady. Creepy. Oh, and that bright orange line coming out of the pale lady's head? Looks like a ballistic path marker used by CSI techs to determine line of fire in shooting investigations. What it's doing there is a mystery to me.

The old general store on the town square in Bruce, Mississippi. Taken on a motorcycle ride just after a rainstorm.

I've been experimenting with a camera probe, and it took this image of my spleen Thursday evening. At least I think it's my spleen. Frankly, it's hard to tell, nothing in there is labelled. 

A nice red sunset. Or a distant nuclear test blast. Either way, it's pretty, especially the way the gamma rays highlight the clouds of noxious carbon monoxide.

I was already forty feet up in this tree when I decided to stop and take the picture. Then I leaped gracefully to the ground, landing with catlike agility and only a pair of shattered femurs. You're welcome.

Here's a skeleton, holding a book. I don't know about you, but when I see a skeleton holding a book, I feel compelled to rush out and purchase said book. Is it working? Working at all?

I had this toy when I was a kid. It walks, and the eyes light up. There's also a red light in its mouth, because apparently biology and physiology were played fast and loose in the early 1960s where toys were concerned. How I've managed to hang onto this guy for all these years I couldn't say. I think maybe he follows me from place to place, plodding along one slow step at a time, red eyes glowing in the night...

This is what the inside of a 300 disc CD player looks like. It stopped working a few weeks ago, so I took it apart and found a stretched drive belt. When the new belt arrives, I'll spend a good five hours fitting it around various pulleys only to learn that some other irreplaceable component has also failed, because that's how these things work.

One of my steampunk prop pistols. This is a Mauser Armaments Type II Aether Disruptor, favored by airship pirates of the late 19th century. Making these is a good cure for writer's block.

Here is a carved oak wand. Yeah, you've probably seen it before.  It;s the one I use to alter Lunar orbits and add extra cheese to take-out nachos. Such power is not to be wielded lightly.

Next week I promise to return to actual written content. Oh, one last thing -- BROWN RIVER QUEEN has a page up at Samhain, click here to see it!

Meet my Muse

If you're an author, you're supposed to have a Muse.

It's an ancient tradition, stretching all the way back to early Greece, where the Muses were said to be the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne.  The Muses inspired mortals to create great works of art and literature, which couldn't have been an easy day's work since neither pants nor Microsoft Word had been invented.

The Muses were actively sought by artists of the day, because having a Muse whispering in your ear pretty much guaranteed you the Bronze Age equivalent of best-sellerdom. The poet Homer even dedicated the first book of his Odyssey to a Muse, stating:


"Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy." (Robert Fagles translation, 1996)


I don't agree with the Fagles translation above. What Homer really wrote was this:

"Let's sell a few hundred thousand scrolls, baby, because Daddy needs a new pair of sandals."

And, since Homer's Muse was one of the original nine, he did just that, becoming the J.K. Rowling of his day.

I don't live in ancient Greece, which is fine by me, because no number of finely-carved Corinthian columns could ever make up for the inexcusable lack of wifi. Seriously, it's no wonder that all ancient cultures did was fight and brew increasingly powerful alcoholic beverages. Who can get through an whole day without checking their email at least once? I'd be ready to sack Troy on a whim too.

But even modern-day authors a long way from Athens claim their own Muses. Not any of the original nine, of course -- Amazon's introduction of the KDP self-publishing platform spawned a recent sharp increase in the number of people claiming to be authors, which means Muses are in short supply and often working double or triple shifts. In fact, the shortage is so severe demigods from other pantheons and areas of endeavor are often pressed into Muse service, resulting in situations where Andraste, the Celtic goddess of rabbit-magic, winds up red-faced and mumbling into the ears of half a dozen romance authors who don't understand why their characters twitch their noses so often these days.

I've wondered about my Muse for years now. Aside from occasional distant snickers or airy whispers of "Oh, not that again" I don't get much divine inspiration while writing.

But I am a writer, and I do have books on Amazon, so by the Ancient Code I get a Muse. It only took a bit of digging through old bookstores and a brief glance inside the Kindle version of the Necronomicon (Second Edition, Mad Abdul Press, with illustrations throughout) to discover the ritual for invoking one's personal Muse.

The tricky part of the ritual involved getting the Klein bottle inside the tesseract without spilling the two-headed squid, but after that, it was simply a matter of reading off a few words of ancient Greek. As the final echoes of the words died away, the air inside the summoning circle shimmered, and a voice spake the words 'All circuits are busy, please try again later, you will find a charge for $29.99 added to your wireless data bill, thank you for using Verizon.'

I haven't gotten my Muse to materialize, but after six repetitions of the summoning ritual I finally got an email, which I've reproduced below.


Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 11:52:43 -0600 [12:52:43 PM EST]
From: Visavarevagsitaga <Visavarevagsitaga@ancientwritingmuses.org>
To: franktuttle@franktuttle.com
Subject: Enough With the Summoning Already

Mr. or Ms. (Insert Author's Name Here),

Greetings! I am (insert your name here), your personal writing Muse. I am pleased that you have attempted the ancient rite of summoning. We Muses deeply regret that our current schedules and work load do not allow us to meet with every client.

Please make no further attempts at a summoning, as they will go unacknowledged. Also the squid will explode.

As your Muse, I, (insert your name here), am always ready to provide you with Divine inspiration for your writing endeavors. If you find a spiritual connection does not meet with your needs, you may use this email address NO MORE THAN ONCE PER JULIAN CALENDAR MONTH to ask six brief questions of me. 

We look forward to providing you with quality literary inspiration.

Sincerely,

(insert your name here).

An afternoon of research revealed that my Muse Visavarevagitaga was the daughter of  the Sumerian god of pointed sticks and his consort, Eatalottasalsa, who was reputed to hold dominion over red feather-dusters and a small plot of land east of Ur.

Of the goddess Visavarevagitaga herself little is known, save for her disdain of shorn oxen and songs featuring the lyrics 'la la la.' The only recorded miracle performed by Visavarevagitaga resulted in the sudden appearance of half a dozen lethargic toads and a tankard of beer later described as 'just more of that sour Egyptian stump-water.' She is said to have vanished from the Sumerian pantheon in a snit after being depicted on a temple fresco as having the head of a wombat and a length of toilet paper stuck to her shoe.

But, as we know, one must take the Muse one is assigned, and hope for the best. With this in mind, I sent her an email yesterday and asked my six questions. The reply just came in, so read along with me...



Date:  Sat, 14 Jan 2013 11:52:43 -0600 [04:51:43 PM EST]
From:  Visavarevagsitaga <Visavarevagsitaga@ancientwritingmuses.org>
To:  franktuttle@franktuttle.com
Subject:  Re: My Six Questions

Mr. or Ms. (Insert Author's Name Here),

Greetings! I am (insert your name here), your personal writing Muse. I am pleased that you have chosen to ask My wisdom in regard to your six (6) allotted monthly questions. My replies are below. Sorry about the squid, but you were warned.

Question 1: What can I do to improve sales of my existing books?
Answer: How in Hades should I know? I'm a Muse, not an Oracle. I whisper inspiration in your ear. What happens next isn't my problem. I can do a couple of toads, if that will help. Moron.

Question 2: Lately, I don't feel the same motivation to write that I once did. Why? What can I do to change this?
Answer: Look, monkey-boy, stop trying to cram three questions into one. This ain't my first rodeo, got that? And maybe you'd feel more 'motivated' to write if you'd listen to me once in a while instead of messing around on Twitter. Yeah, you think I can't see that? Hashtag lazywriter, pal. 'Nuff said.

Question 3: How can I make my characters more realistic, more sympathetic?
Answer: I am Visavarevagsitaga! I once ruled the entirety of Mesopotamia, and you ask me questions barely worthy of a community college Creative Writing instructor? Expect a pair of toads in your Cheerios, bub.

Question 4: Will I ever be a big commercial success?
Answer: Again, you want an Oracle, not a Muse, but let me save you a couple of squid and answer anyway -- you will be a big commercial success about the same time I sponsor a NASCAR team. So when you turn on ESPN and see a bright orange Camaro with "Visavarevagsitaga Racing" plastered on the hood, you know you're about to hit the big time. Idiot.

Question 5: Is it better to start by carefully outlining the plot, or by just diving in and letting the book shape itself?
Answer: Once upon a time, when I rolled My eyes in disgust, mortals dove for cover. So let me answer your question with a question -- What is the sound of  one hand slapping you upside your head? THWACK. The book gets written either way, and I couldn't care less. Mollusk.

Question 6: Is it best to provide a detailed physical description of main characters, or give minimal details and let readers create their own images of the people in the book?
Answer: I have no reply, because you just BORED ME RIGHT TO DEATH. So now I have to petition Otoralit, Dark Lord of the Underworld, for a bus pass just to get home. Thanks ever so bleeding much. That was your last question. Your height is five-six. There's your final answer. Go away. 

Best,

(insert your name here)


From now on, I believe I will seek inspiration elsewhere.

Frank's New Year Resolutions

I don't usually waste time on new year's resolutions, for the same reason I stopped putting teeth under my pillow -- the effort is futile. Plus it's hard to get bloodstains out of the pillowcases.

Look, I only had so many teeth, and the Tooth Fairy only leaves a quarter for each, so I had to start outsourcing. Saving for retirement is hard.

But I digress. The new year has arrived, all smiles and waves, full of hope and dreams and renewed determination.

I know. Annoying, isn't it?

Nevertheless. I don't want to put a damper 2013, so for the first time ever I'm making New Year's resolutions of my own.

Frank's 2013 Resolutions:

1) I will end my nightly hang-glider attacks on Bosnia and Herzegovina. You're welcome.

2) No more wee-hours experimentation with dead body parts and resurrection machines.

3) In reference to #2 above, I will clean out the basement.

4) I will write at least a thousand words a day. Different words, this year, although I can now spell yacht without looking it up.

5) I will seek to bring peace and harmony to all those in my life, every other Tuesday, between 4:46 PM and 5:11 PM .  As long as they bring snacks. And not a crappy Walmart pound cake, either. Put some effort into it, people.

6) I will stop silently mocking beliefs or opinions that differ from mine, because mocking beliefs or opinions that differ from mine aloud is a lot more fun.

7) I will establish a healthier lifestyle -- for my Sims. Seriously, what a lazy, nacho-gobbling bunch of hypertensive artificial intelligences they are. Getting them up at five AM for a brisk six-mile jog before settling down to a nutritious breakfast of grapefruit and air is just what they need!

8) I will spend less time on the computer and more time outdoors, experiencing the splendor and wonder of Nature. As soon as I recover from the fit of gut-wrenching laughter induced by typing the previous sentence. Hey, have you looked at Nature lately? It's hot, it's full of bugs and snakes, and if you get lake water in your ear you die because amoebas eat your brain. If I want Nature, that's what the Animal Planet channel is for.

9) I will get to know the people in my life better. Wait. No. A variation of Rule 8 applies here, just replace Animal Planet with The Biography Channel.

10) I will sell my fleet of gently-used hang gliders and un-expended munitions on eBay.

Anybody else want to take a crack at Bosnia?

In other news, The Oxford-Lafayette Public Library is starting an adult writing class this Thursday evening. If anyone reading this is in the area and interested, shoot me an email and I'll give you all the details.

I'll be teaching the class, or at least making mouth-noises from the instructor's chair. My hope is to present an even mix of fiction story crafting mechanics and a nuts-and-bolts look at the business side of writing -- how to submit, where to submit, what you should never do (it involves penguins and propane canisters), and so forth. Hopefully we'll have some fun too, or I've wasted a lot of money hiring Grammar Mimes.

Happy 2013, everyone. See you next week!

My Day as a Rental Suit Santa, and a CONTEST!

Everyone faces milestones in their lives.

Your first bike. Your first bloody nose. Your first completely groundless and utterly absurd arrest on suspicion of arson. The opening of your very own secret FBI dossier.

These are things that often mark divisions between the eras of our lives.

I've faced quite a number of them, and each has lacked that heartwarming quality of quiet dignity that fills Hallmark cards. Frankly, I think card-writers are smoking a certain potent herb, and a lot of it.

I faced another milestone last week. And it has marked the beginning of a new curve in the ever-increasing slope of my life's sad decline, for I have donned the red suit and oft-used beard of the Rental Suit Santa.

That's right. Me, ensconced in red and white, booming out 'Ho ho ho' at random intervals like some life-sized but poorly programmed dime-store automaton.

We all know there are very real health risks to being slightly overweight. Increased chance of heart disease. Diabetes. Elevated blood pressure. Blah blah blah. News flash, Doc -- life kills rail-thin health nuts just as dead as it does morose old fat men, but at least the fat guys don't die with a mouthful of granola. Put that in your stethoscope and probe it.

But perhaps the worst side effect of being, shall we say, portly, is the certainty of being singled out to play Santa in some ill-advised act of holiday costumery.

But that's what happens. One moment you're cruising along, not quite fifty, still might have a few moments of youthful vigor left under the hood, and the next you're trying not to choke on fibers of rental beard, last place of use unknown, which are snaking their way down your throat.

Let's back up here for a moment. Rental beard. Think about it. Should those words ever appear together?

No. No, they should not.

But I have worn the rental beard, my friends. I have fixed it to my face, and I have breathed deep the scent of Santas past.

Curious to know how rental Santas smell?

Two words, folks.

Whiskey.

Whiskey, and despair.

Wearing a Santa suit is akin to donning a furry, vision-obscuring oven. Sweat poured off me, soaking the beard, making breathing difficult. Sweat poured into my eyes, the saltiness stinging them, leaving me half-blind.

So there I was stumbling about on the verge of heatstroke, unable to see anything more than blurs and flashes of movement.

Which isn't really all that unusual, for me. Heck, it could describe practically any Tuesday. But this instance was far worse, because after all, I was Santa.

People have certain expectations of Santas. We are supposed to be jolly and personable and kind and merry and cram-packed full of Christmas cheer.

I suppose I could be at least a couple of those things, if you hooked an IV of purest grain alcohol to my right arm and one of Absinthe to my left. Otherwise, I'm about as far from Santa by nature as anyone can be. I can pronounce the words "Ho ho ho," and I did, but whether anyone found them particularly cheerful or not is anyone's guess.

Oh. And let's not forget the children. What was their reaction to Santa?

I'd say 'guarded expressions of horror and loathing' sums it up pretty well. Not that I blame them. Look, I'm sure when I was kid-aged (0.3 or 1 or 7 or whatever that might be) and some fat sweaty lunatic in a seedy red elf-suit came stomping up to me bellowing monosyllables, I probably started bawling too.  There's a reason Fred Rogers never hid behind weird clothes and excessive facial hair.

Anyway, I made my rounds and said "Ho ho ho" and traumatized half a dozen toddlers. And in doing so, I permanently divided my life into two distinct periods: BS and AS (Before Santa and After Santa).

Because now I'm just the fat guy behind the suit. I am one of that small, downcast band of middle-aged men who can look upon a sweat-soaked rental beard and merely nod in silent acknowledgment.

Ho ho ho.

*********************************************************************************

And now, the contest!

Last week I showed you the cover for the new Markhat novel, which should be out by March.

This week, I'm going to ask you a question. Be the first person to email me with the correct answer, and you get two things. One, a signed copy of the current latest Markhat novel, THE BROKEN BELL. Two, when BROWN RIVER QUEEN comes out in print, you get a signed copy of that too.

Not too shabby, huh?

Okay, there's the cover (points up), and here's the question:

Kanaxa, the brilliant cover artist, has hidden something in the cover. This something is an object which has played a major role in many of the Markhat adventures.  If you're a fan of the series, it shouldn't be too hard to spot. I put a large image up there, so take a good hard look.

When you see it, email me at franktuttle@franktuttle.com .

Couldn't be easier.

Next week I'll post the winner, and a cover image spotlighting the hidden thingy, which KaNaxA also kindly provided.

Good luck, and happy hunting!