Category Archives for My projects

Hungry For You on Ebooks of Horror

Hello and welcome to the latest issue of Procrastination Daily!

WTF is Ebooks of Horror?

For today only, zombie love anthology Hungry For You is featured on Ebooks of Horror — head over now to see what the fuss is all about.
Part of the Gossamer Publishing group, Ebooks of Horror is a blog dedicated to featuring and promoting indie horror authors. Authors are welcome to contribute excerpts of their work, guest posts or interviews.

Yes, YOU can be a BLOG COMMENTER!

Start Today – No Qualifications Necessary
I’d like you to be my blog commenter. If you’ve enjoyed Hungry For You, please take 30 seconds to leave a comment about how awesome it is. Let other readers benefit from your great insight and undead humour. Spread the zombie love disease. Find your soul mate. Do it now!

FORBIDDEN Knowledge For Serious Writers

Are you an indie author? Do you dream of having your novel showcased online? Gossamer Publishing is an initiative to help promote and educate authors within the self-publishing community. Check them out to promote your work for free.

ZOMBIES! Does decay matter?

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(…okay, I am done being silly.)

Zombies, Double Rainbows, Russian Chocolate… and Prizes!

No, I haven’t gone insane.

You can find all those things over at Her Book Self, where lovely book blogger Lisa is hosting an interview with yours truly.

The subject of the interview is, of course, Hungry For You, with a few asides on working for 1889 Labs, my current projects, and how much of a scaredy-cat I am.

Oh yes, didn’t I mention PRIZES?

Hungry For A Giveaway!

For a chance to win a copy of Hungry For You, leave a comment on Her Book Self.

Want extra entries into the giveaway? Leave a comment on this post, too!

Anyone who comments on this post will ALSO win a free e-copy of Belonging, so make sure to leave a valid email address!

So what are you waiting for?

Leave a comment below to claim your copy of Belonging, then head on over to Her Book Self and comment there, too. The giveaway closes on October 31st so get those fingers typing!

Changes Afoot On Qazyfiction

Despite my recent endeavours in promoting webfiction through an online podcast, I’ve rather shamefully let my own webfiction projects slide into obscurity.

That’s right. Some of you may have dim memories of qazyfiction.com, my online fiction website where I serialised my first novel, Above Ground. It also features the start of the sequel, Between Worlds.

The last six months have seen no new updates on Qazyfiction.

It’s embarrassing, I know.

I’ve come to realise I’m not entirely suited to serial publication. Or better yet: unless I want to drive my readers insane with unpredictable update schedules, I need to have a large portion of the story written before I begin posting.

Why? Because I don’t write a story sequentially. I post chapters 1-3 online, then I get excited and write chapter 13, then I scribble out a brilliant chapter 37 which makes me realise that the dog needs to die in chapter 8 and the cat is identified as the killer in chapter 19, and THEN I’m all of a sudden two weeks behind schedule with no chapter 4 in sight.

If I had my way, I’d write chapter 4 last, but I have to post it before I can post all my brilliant dog/cat murder mystery chapters, and so I push out a mediocre chapter 4 which I utterly resent. Then I start hating the story and it all goes down the drain.

So here’s a new plan which will spare me the scheduling anxieties and you the moaning of an erratic author:

1. Write a story for online serial publication.
2. Begin posting the story upon completion.

The wheels are already in motion:

I’m working on a brand new revised and expanded edition of Above Ground, which will follow three characters’ struggle for survival. It’ll begin posting mid-September.

I’m getting 1889 Labs to design a cover and ebook/print edition, meaning I’ll be able to test out the serial+ business model – I’m very curious to track those results!

Lastly, in the next few days, I’m launching a new website which will make everything prettier. All old story content will be unavailable from then on, but that’s no great loss.

So changes are afoot on Qazyfiction!

Exciting times lie ahead.

Why Zombies Should Smell Roses

Zombies weren’t always carnivores.

There is an excellent cross-examination of the rise of the 21st century zombie over in the New York Times called The State of Zombie Literature – An Autopsy, discussing just how zombies came to be the flesh-hungry beasts they are today and why we find them so appealing.

I particularly enjoyed the author’s suggestion as to why zombie fiction has seen a recent surge in popularity:

“You have to wonder whether our 21st-century fascination with these hungry hordes has something to do with a general anxiety, particularly in the West, about the planet’s dwindling resources: a sense that there are too many people out there, with too many urgent needs, and that eventually these encroaching masses, dimly understood but somehow ominous in their collective appetites, will simply consume us. At this awful, pinched moment of history we look into the future and see a tsunami of want bearing down on us, darkening the sky.” – The State of Zombie Literature – An Autopsy

I think that’s exactly what terrifies me about traditional zombies, and that’s why I walked a different path with Hungry For You: by giving my zombies personalities — the ability to think and feel — they evolve from faceless, insatiable voids mindlessly destroying the world and become people, individuals with whom I can relate.

If a zombie can take the time to stop to smell the roses… then maybe the world isn’t so bad, after all.

(Thank you to Toni of nzreader for linking me to the article.)

Ebook Author Month!

July is super special.

Why? It’s the first annual Ebook Author Month over on Feral Intensity!

The ever-so-lovely GL Drummond (whose books I cannot recommend highly enough to werewolf lovers) has spent all of July spotlighting ebook authors over on her website.

She was even gracious enough to allow a vampire and zombie enthusiast like me along for the ride, so if you’re curious to know what my current and future writing plans are, check out my interview.

The question I most enjoyed answering was whether I found it difficult to come up with character names — I ended up rediscovering my enthusiasm for phonetics!