Where I Am: 2016 Edition

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I thought it would be useful to let you know where I hang out online. 1000 ways to get in touch with me:1. text2. email3. tweet4. facebook…999. writing with my blood on a wall1000. telephone — Sarah Houghton (@TheLiB) January 4, 2016 (I stole this idea from Larry, who is more of a media superstar than I can ever be). RSS: This site spits out RSS for the newsreader of your choice.  Here it is. Mailing List: behold.  New signups get a free ebook copy of Night’s Favour. Facebook: I’ll post here from time to time, because I get that a lot of people CBF with blogs ‘n’ shit. Twitter: I spend a lot of time lurking on here.  140 characters is about the most of any one human I can take, so it’s perfect.  @ParryForte is my ‘hood. Instagram: I, Read More …

Cover Art

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I’m at that delicate phase where I need to find some new cover art. You know, I feel … the pressure.  Night’s Favour’s cover art was pretty outstanding — I’d like to keep with the theme, but that piece did seem fairly one-of-a-kind.  I don’t want Night’s Fall’s cover to seem less than it’s prequel. Know any artists who want to do some cover art?

Facebook and the Devil

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I’ve had a long, distrustful relationship with Facebook for a while. Maybe it’s my professional history in IT security or government privacy, but whatever, the way Facebook seems to treat people — and their data — gives me the heebie jeebies.  My main reason for using Facebook was to keep up with the play in my karate dojo, but during 2015 my work, life, and the universe applied so much pressure I needed to step back from that. Thus, do I need Facebook anymore? I’m conducting a small, controlled experiment.  Here’s what I popped up* yesterday: Next weekend, I’m planning to go through and flense my Facebook friends clean, and reduce Facebook to a news agregator and “Richard Parry Author” system.  I won’t be responding to friend requests for a little while, if ever.  It’s quite interesting embarking on this phase Read More …

Sweet Baby Jesus

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New Years Eve hit pretty hard. We had a bunch of family together, and sat about drinking and talking shit until about 3 or 4 AM.  I made good use of caffeine mixed with alcohol to preserve a wakeful state.  Because of that, I suspect my state the next day was slightly more ruined than it should have been. You’ll be happy to know, dear reader, that this impacts Night’s Fall not a whit — that’s in the bag, so to speak, so there’s no drunken angsty writing going on here.  If you wanted drunken angsty writing, too bad.  Anyway, we got ourselves a new Weber barbecue — which is amazing — and cooked up a fairly massive feed along side drinking beer, wine, cocktails, and then back to beer again because we got thirsty. In retrospect, that may have Read More …

Smokin’ Hot

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Merry Christmas, all of you. I know it’s been a shade on the quiet side around here, and that’s because I’ve been slaving over a hot keyboard.  I wanted to finish Night’s Fall‘s first draft this year, and this evening I nailed it. As y’all probably know, there’s a few steps still to go before you can have it in your mits.  Lots of editing, rewriting, editing, critique, rewriting, editing, and general anxiety attacks still to go.  I need to find a bunch of beta readers to tell me if it sucks!  But … there it is.  I can enter Christmas Day knowing how this story ends. Have a safe Christmas.  See you next time.  

Another One Down

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I killed a major character today. It’s not (spoilers? I mean, it’s not like my books don’t have a body count that is legion) the only one that drops in Night’s Fall, but I tend to hit a bit of a funk afterwards because I want all the good guys to live forever.  Unfortunately, that’s shit storytelling, so if it’s plausible that someone dies, well. Now, I’ll go drink myself to sleep.

Research

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I don’t normally go in for war simulators, but I’ve been playing some Black Ops III. It’s quite good. Despite that ringing endorsement, which you can read in various flavours on other sites that are qualified to write video game reviews, what I’m enjoying is the characterisations of the female version of the protagonist.  In case you don’t know, the game now allows you to be either a dude or a chick, and the script is the same.  This means that the characters appear equally strong, confidant, pro-grade people who can wage war in a dystopian future against other humans and robots and the fucking CIA. I really like this.  It’s this kind of messaging that needs to be out there — for my specifics on research, I’m playing the campaign as the female protagonist, and it works.  I am Read More …

You Know It’s Monday When…

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…you hit yourself in the face with an Olympic bar doing shoulder presses. This week will have a … slightly reduced writing cadence.  I’m doing a bit of a work-related rodeo, a few speaking gigs, presentations, and other things.  It’s good timing, truth be told: as I’m doing the “big finale” in Night’s Fall, this gives me a good slice of time to re-order (or re-confirm) my thoughts and take a good sprint to the finish. On other news, I’ve been called a cunt in the nicest possible way.  Yeah, I try.  Or am trying, one of the two.

The Business Model of Indie

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You ever heard dubstep violin? Didn’t think so.  Check this out.  A friend linked it to me this morning. What I think is interesting here is not that there’s someone that’s successful doing “indie stuff, and fuck the man,” but rather that there are two things missing from the conversation. Publishers provide a useful service — marking, production, etc.  The problem is, they think they are gatekeepers.  This is one of the reasons driving the schism between the two — but I don’t think it has to be that way.  I think there’s room in the conversation for people who want to buy or produce indie and publishers both, if only both sides mature a little. These success stories are non-repeatable.  If they were, then everyone would have a #1 seller on Amazon.  There isn’t a programmatical way to attack Read More …

The Rush to the End

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Danny jumped out of a helicopter today. Without a parachute. Night’s Fall is making its slow sprint (?) to the end.  All houses are in order.  The opponents are lined up.  It is time for the final showdown. Knowing me, this will still take 30,000 words, but it’ll be a lot of fun, because, you know, werewolves.