'Is there one of your characters you did not like...?'

So, it's been a month since launch date for my début e-novella, 'The Loving Husband and the Faithful Wife'. In that month, I've been fortunate enough to have received six reviews from book bloggers, and six interviews, with many more in the pipeline. I'm very grateful to them for their support, and thrilled at how positive the response so far has been. I'll provide a full list of links at the bottom, but for now, I'm just going to say thank you for taking a shot on an unknown indie author, and I hope you decide to stick around, because there's plenty more where that came from... 

Also, thank you to the people kind enough to have left customer reviews on Amazon or Goodreads - positive reviews from paying readers are the life-blood of a new release, especially one like mine that doesn't have a massive publisher behind it with squillions of marketing dollars, so thank you to each and every one of you that left a star rating and/or some words. It really does mean everything.

So here's the thing about the interviews: You do get asked some of the same questions, but one of the pleasant surprises of doing a series of these now is that there's a lot less overlap than you'd think. So far, each interview, I've had at least one or two questions that have pulled me up short and given me real pause for thought.

The one I want to talk about today, which came from an as-yet unpublished conversation, was this: 
"Is there one of your characters that you did not like when you started writing about them, but found yourself liking by the end of the story?"

Why was that such a stumper, you may reasonably ask? Well, here's the thing. I've written about murderers. I've written about psychotic torturers, and sadistic thugs, and creatures that eat children, and all manner of vile horrors, but I've never actually disliked any of them.

Now, if I can just stop you before you complete that call to the emergency services that will lead to a knock on my door, permit me to explain. Please.

My first prolonged period of creativity was not based around writing, but theatre. I was very lucky to be involved with a local youth theatre project between the ages of 10 and 14, run by insanely talented and dedicated people, and it had a lasting impact. I got to play both heroes and villains (spoilers - I preferred the villains). And one piece of advice I got that I held on tight to was 'never think of the villains as villains when you play them'. Because, let's face it, they don't, as a rule. Or as Neil Gaiman's Death would put it 'no-one is scary on the inside'.

If it applies to playing someone, it probably applies to writing about them.

So, I've written about some people I'd never want to meet in a darkened alley, or frankly in broad daylight in a crowded shopping centre (there's this one cat who calls himself Jacob, and if I ever get my novel in shape you will one day get to meet him, and you may just recall this post and shudder), but I've never disliked any of them.

Does that make me a sociopath?

And you, fellow writers - what say you on the question of dislikeable characters?

Talk soon.

Kit Power

PS - Welcome to the book review and interview URL forest! Enjoy!

REVIEWS: 
Notebook Of Books (four stars)
Twisted Book Junkie - 4 star review PLUS interview
Author Ingrid Hall - 4 Star Review
Frank Michaels Errington's Horrible Book Reviews - 3.5 Stars
Author L M Langley - 4 star review 
Long and Short Reviews - 3 Stars 

INTERVIEWS:  
You are entitled to my opinion
IndieAuthorLand - Why you MUST read Kit Power's 'The Loving Husband and the Faithful Wife' 
Milton Keynes Citizen newspaper - 'Debut e-novella for city writer' article + interview 
The Bookie Monster 
authorsinterviews 

And don't forget you can buy your copy on 'The Loving Husband and the Faithful Wife' for Kindle RIGHT NOW from Amazon.

KP

PPS - So busy, I didn't have time to tell you about my latest acceptance of a short horror story to a new anthology! Check back later for all that news. Good times.  :)

K

Women in Horror Month - a shameful confession

As I type, we're just over halfway through 'women in horror month'. If that's news to you, you are not Derick Jacobi alone. If it hadn't been for Facebook, I wouldn't have had the first clue. I'm not even a tiny bit proud of that, but it is what it is. Ignorance is never a defense, but it still beats malevolence, in my book.

 Here's the more worrying thing - one of the practical consequences of this is that I've realised I know basically bugger all about female horror writers.

That's a travesty.

I mean, okay, I know Poppy Z. Brite made Thomas Harris look like an amateur, that Anne Rice proved to me that I basically will never dig on vampires no matter how well they are written, and... that's it. Oh, wait, no, I'm also familiar with the work of Mercedes Murdock Yardley, whose short fiction is astonishingly good and whose debut novel I devoured in less than a week. Still, when I think about the hundreds of genre novels I've read, that's a pretty shaming strike rate.

This is profoundly embarrassing, for me. I was raised as a feminist. I self-identify as a feminist. I have a daughter and a step daughter and a wife and a mother and a sister and I need the world to be better and safer and kinder and more robust than it currently is for them. I need that. I follow @EverydaySexism on Twitter (and fellas, if you don't you need to - trust me, you have no idea what the world looks like for half the population otherwise). I try really hard to write strong, complex, real female characters. I'm trying to raise my daughters to believe that they can be and do anything they want. And yet, here I sit with this big old blind spot right in my own wheelhouse.

Oops. Also, sorry.

(I have a silver lining with the above, and it's this - I do believe I've successfully answered the question 'Do we really need Women in Horror month'? Because clearly I bloody well did, and I can't possibly be the only one.)


So, good and kind blog readers, I cry your pardon, and beg your assistance in rectifying this sorry state of affairs. The first five named female authored horror books I see in comments, I will buy the recommended book on Kindle and read - they will be my next five books. I need to broaden my horizons. Famous, indie, self-published, novel, novella, shorts collection, don't care - if it's broadly in the horror genre. and you recommend it, it's good enough for me (no series please, and yes, of course you can recommend your own work). Assuming I have nice things to say (and if you're recommending them, I'm sure I will), I'll report back here.

Number two, all my profits from the February sales of my debut e-novella are going to my local women's shelter. Because I need to do better.

And by the way, thanks for sticking with this, and with me. I remain grateful, and feel more humbled than ever.

Kit Power

PS - I realise there's a whole gigantic can of worms lurking behind the question 'why did it take Women in Horror Month for you to think about this issue?' That can of worms is, I strongly suspect, labelled 'male privilege', and I hope you'll forgive me for keeping my thinking on that subject off-line for the moment. Believe me, I am thinking about it, long and hard.

KP

Launch day

So, here we are.

Today was launch day, and already I have tense confusion. Buuuuuut you know what I mean. It's gone midnight, so it's yesterday (no, wait, it was yesterday, damn, this is confusing), but I'm still awake, so, for me, it's still today.

Hmmm. Remind me not to do this again.

Anyway. Launch day. Today, I got not one, but two ISBN numbers which have my name associated with them. All false modesty aside, I'm proud of both of them. The MonkeyKettle book contains a sci-fi concept powerful enough to fuel a series of novels, if I ever locate the cure for laziness and fear and really go for it. And if I don't? Still a great little story. As for Black Beacon Books and 'The Loving Husband...' I followed the stories exactly where they wanted to go. It was like watching a movie in my head. If I wrote it right, you'll see your own version of that movie when you read it.

This evening was a launch party. For MonkeyKettle, a celebration of their second anthology. For me, that too, and also the launch of my e-novella. And it was also an open mic night, and my dear friends and companions on the path of musical perversity and celebration agreed to come up and play with me, unrehearsed, so I could sing my shit and feel like a little rock star for a bit.They did me, and more importantly themselves, very proud indeed.

Me? I sang Thunder Road the way it deserves to be sung. I have that much in me. It felt good.

It's possible I'm not entirely sober.

This weekend, from now in fact, until the end of next week at the very earliest, I have to dedicate to finishing the act of moving house. As timing goes, it couldn't get much worse - launch a book, then vanish from social media for seven or eight days. On the other, rather weightier hand, my family deserves it, I deserve it, and I owe it to myself and them to get the fuck on with it.

So... what?

So... so, thanks. If you're reading this, you know me, almost certainly personally. We've met. I know your name. We've talked, and I've made... whatever impression I've made, depending on when we talked and what particular bullshit was lighting my brain up that night. Regardless, thanks. Thanks for giving a shit, about my writing, or my music, or me. Or all three.

Thank you.

Kit Gonzo
Kit Power
Kit the soon-to-be-hungover

Kit the happy.

Kit The Published Fucking Author.

Kit the intoxicated.


:)


https://www.facebook.com/Kitpowerwriter
@KitGonzo
 http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Loving-Husband-Faithful-Wife-ebook/dp/B00HZ6D6OO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390610449&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Loving+Husband+and+the+Faithful+Wife
http://www.lulu.com/shop/monkey-kettle/do-monkeys-dream-of-electric-kettles/paperback/product-21392940.html

Boxes

Still too much happening. But I'm getting bored of numbers, so let's talk boxes.

I move house at the end of the month. One of the logical consequences of that is spending time in garages and lofts, rummaging through boxes and bags of stuff, working out what you can throw away, and realising almost none of it. If, you know, you're me.

In the garage, damp has worked it's dark and transformative magic on the cardboard boxes containing moderately intimidating amounts of books and comics, so re-boxing has become a particular pleasure. There's the inevitable sadness - such at the fact that while I do still have all six parts of Stephen King's Green Mile book in their original release format, the cover of part one and the back cover of part six have been damp-stuck to the box they were in, and are now ripped. Also a large format copy of Terry Pratchett's 'Eric', complete with many lovely illustrations, which was damaged beyond repair.

Overall, though, I got off light. And of course, you find things you'd forgotten about, that jump out and fill you with joy, unlocking whole worlds of memory that have remained unvisited for years. Like the two screen 'Game and Watch'(tm) Donkey Kong Junior that I played solidly for at least two years between the ages of eight and ten. Or the program my dad bought me from the first big rock show I ever saw - Guns and Roses at Wembley Stadium in 1991.

Such are the pleasures of the hoarder.

And then there's the books. Actually and specifically, the kids books. Books my mum had read to me when I was little. Not big hitters. Nothing world famous. No 'Hungry Caterpillar' or 'Goodnight Moon' or 'Where The Wild Things Are'. The four books I found - I doubt like hell you'll know the names. They are not great works of children's literature. They're just fun, quirky, sweet stories my mum used to read to me.

Last night, I got to read them to my four year old daughter, as she stared at the pictures and told me off for the felt tip scribbles I'd done as a child, some impossible number of years ago. We sat close, my voice finding the words that had been indelible to me as a child, then untouched by memory for over twenty years, now alive agian, fresh and familiar, my daughter hearing them brand new, absorbing with that amazing brain of hers, building them into her own childhood.

I've had worse days.

Kit Power

PS - Book news - Sci-Fi anthology 'Do Monkeys Dream of Electric Kettles?' featuring my own short story 'Reverse Engineering' is avialable NOW from the good folks at MonkeyKettle books via Lulu - see http://www.lulu.com/shop/monkey-kettle/do-monkeys-dream-of-electric-kettles/paperback/product-21392940.html for all your information and ordering needs. If you order a copy today, it should arrive prior to Friday's launch event, which would be a good opportunity to get me to sign it! For event details, see: https://www.facebook.com/events/555669011187052/

Please also remember that you now have only FIVE DAYS to pre-order my debut e-novella 'The Loving Husband and the Faithful Wife' for a discounted price - you can do so here:  http://www.blackbeaconbooks.blogspot.com.au/p/shop.html

In relation to that, please see my recent interview for The Bookie Monster website, where I discuss this book, inspiration, and my writing process: http://www.bookie-monster.com/2014/01/interview-kit-power.html - they are a great site and do a lot to promote new authors.

In band related news, blogging as Kit Gonzo, I've announced some important Disciples of Gonzo related information this morning:  http://www.disciplesofgonzo.com/D.o.G_Blog/Entries/2014/1/20_Farewell%2C_Rob_Gonzo.html

Finally, as you'll have noticed, it's all go. To make sure you are kept up to date, I urge you to email kitpowerwriter[at]gmail[dot]com to sign up to my email list. This is the best and most direct way to be kept informed of my upcoming activities, releases, appearances and news. as well as exclusive offers. I will not spam you, and I will never share your address with anyone.

KP

The week in links

Insane. Insane, crazy week. Too much. Far, far too much.

Here it is, eight days in links:

Wed 8th - I final table but fail to cash in the Wednesday night poker tourney here.

Thursday 9th - I secure a gig booking to play on Sunday night with my band The Disciples of Gonzo here, supporting these guys.

Friday 10th - A blog post, featuring an exclusive short story of mine, never before published, goes live on The Disciples Of Gonzo website. Check it out if you haven't already.

Saturday 11th - Childcare, mild packing.

Sunday 12th - Took 4 year old daughter to her first panto, then gigging in the evening with the reliably awesome Disciples of Gonzo.

Monday 13th - My blog post reflecting on the previous evenings show goes live on The DoG website. My work website also runs a story announcing my e-novella release and pre-order offer. <--time is running out to take advantage of these exciting pre-sale offers!

Tuesday 14th - Receive and accept and invitation to this event, where I will be celebrating the launch of the anthology 'Do Monkeys Dream of Electric Kettles?' which features my short story 'Reverse Engineering' AND performing as part of the acoustic outreach arm of my band with The Gonzo Street Ministry. Also completed an author interview...

Wednesday 15th - ...which is published here and features some insights into how the stories in the e-novella came to be.

Pretty goddamn exciting stuff. Bubbling under are e-novella reviews, emailing lists (if you want to sign up, drop me a line to kitpowerwriter@gmail.com ), producing some more D3's following critical reader feedback and then circulating for sales, and more interviews.

And at some point, I'm going to do some more writing. Theoretically.

Love to you all.

The story so far... in numbers

Hey,

Happy New Year, y'all. Let's get to it, shall we?

So 2014 is already a landmark year for me. On a personal level, I'm almost certainly moving house at the end of the month, following a long period of employment uncertainty, and whilst in the short term this means I'm entering a personal hell of boxes, packing paper and scotch tape, in the medium and long term it is unequivocally A Good Thing.

And of course professionally, my first three pieces are being published. Which is nice.

So this seems like a good time to reflect on my writing career so far, and maybe just do a little bit of thinking about what comes next. I'm going to start with the numbers:

•  Folder entitled 'Stories' created in my Dropbox account on 13th August 2012 (I'd started work before this, but this must have been the day I realised I needed good back-up storage for my work)
• File entitled 'Lifeline D1.wps’ created 24th August 2012. 'D1' designation is only attached to completed stories, so this is the date I finished D1 of Lifeline, my first story.
• From then to today, I've written 22 short stories and 1 novel to at least D1.
• 12 of these short stories are now at 'final' status, indicating they are ready for market submission. Of the remaining 10, 2 are awaiting final story edits following critical reads, 1 is currently with critical readers (so at D2), and the remaining 7 (including the novel) are at D1.
• Of the 12 stories at 'final', 9 are currently 'at market' - i.e. collecting rejection slips. So far, I have made a total of 50 submissions to markets for consideration. I have received 38 rejections (5 personal), with 9 currently pending.
• 3 of the above 12 have been accepted for publication.

For my first 18 months, I think that's pretty good going. My production rate could be higher - will be, once I'm in the new place and have more space. But given I have a full time job, yeah, not too shabby. Also, I'm being published.

This is insane. To be getting acceptances, and acceptances this early on, is nuts. It's a huge confidence booster, sure, but there's also a weirdly nervous component to it. I have a complicated relationship with success. I can handle rejection. I expect rejection. This is helpful in many ways. It means I'm not fazed by getting told 'thanks but no thanks' for the 38th time (and counting) - I just shrug, look for the next market, and send it back out there. Also, as long as this thing is just a hobby, I'm 100% free to write whatever the hell I want, without any worries about expectation. Crime thriller? Cool. Sci-Fi? Go for it! Friday night at a casino poker table? Hell, why not?

I get a cool title or concept, I can just write it, see what happens, where it goes. It's endlessly entertaining and liberating and I don't want to stop.

On the other hand, I want people to read this stuff. That's kind of the point. And yes, specifically, I want people to pay me to read this stuff, because I'm better at doing this than I am at doing anything else, and because I love doing it.

Which means sales.

So here's where I am. My debut e-novella 'The Loving Husband and the Faithful Wife' (plus short story 'The Debt') goes on general release via Amazon on 25th January. It's being published by Black Beacon Books. The release price will be $1.99 ASD, which will be a little over £1 on amazon.co.uk.

I want people to pre-order this story, because I want good week one sales. It's important. It tells the publisher I'm serious. It demonstrates I have an audience. It helps build my profile, increases chances of better exposure which in turns means more people are likely to want to read, my piece, which means... all good things. The bandwagon effect, driven by positive word of mouth. It’s pretty well the only shot small indie publishers and authors have, for obvious reasons.

So that's what I want, and what's in it for me. What's in it for you? Well, for starters, if you pre-order before release date (25th January, remember) direct from the publisher ( http://blackbeaconbooks.blogspot.co.uk/p/shop.html ) you will be charged only $1.10 ASD - which works out around 60p - and you will receive the book by email on the day of release. So you'll get to feel great about supporting my work, AND get it way cheaper than the people who stumble in late to the party. Also, the 25th, 50th, 75th and 100th people to place a pre-order will have that order fulfilled straight away - that's right, those lucky people will actually get the book IN ADVANCE of general release. You'll need to be quick though, as that 25th order will be placed any day now... :) Finally, if 100 pre-orders are made, one lucky UK resident will receive a signed copy of my band’s debut album in limited-to-100-pressings CD format, and I will sign it with the dedication or inscription of your choice.

 I'm doing what I can, everything I can, to try and make this a success. I've sent queries or review copies out to 75 book review bloggers over the last week. I've hassled every writer friend I know, and dropped 'no obligation' review copies into in-boxes. Some of those critical notices will be coming in before the 25th, and you can bet I'll be yelling it from the rooftops when they arrive. I've spammed Twitter ( @KitGonzo ), Facebook ( www.facebook.com/kitpowerwriter ) and in the next day or two, my band blog and emailing list. You have my apologies, and my gratitude for your forbearance.

But I need you. I need you to 'like', and 'share', and 'retweet', and '+1' and all of that shit. I have 100 friends on FaceBook, and 90 twitter followers, with  a fair amount of overlap. It's unrealistic to expect every one of them to buy a copy. So I need you. I need you to help me, to tell anyone you know that owns a device that can read Kindle format books (which, by the way, is anyone with a SmartPhone or iPad or PC - so, everyone) who likes thrillers, crime stories, non-supernatural horror, who likes writing with passion and blood, writing that sucks you in and makes you think, every single one of them, and ask them to take a flyer, and put 60p on a hungry up-and-coming author friend you know who is trying to make something happen.

Oh, yeah, and buy a copy yourself. I promise you won't regret it. I'm proud of these two tales, and I want them out in the world.

This is not the last time I will be published. But it is my only debut.

Thanks for being here at the beginning. It means the world, and I will not forget.

Kit Power

www.facebook.com/kitpowerwriter

@KitGonzo

www.disciplesofgonzo.com

http://blackbeaconbooks.blogspot.co.uk/p/shop.html

Sign up to my email list to receive updates about my writing direct to your inbox! Drop a line to kitpowerwriter [at] gmail [dot] com. I will disclose your address to no-one else, ever.

We don't have this kind of time

We just don't. I don't, you sure as hell don't.

Seriously, you guys. I mean, check it: Lou Read just died, like, yesterday. You think he thought, 'Ah, well, I had a good innings'? Did he fuck. There was a man who understood the importance of producing, who defined himself by his work, his passion: There was a man who fucking wrote.

Anyway. So neither of us have time for this shit. It's my lunch break from the job that actually pays the bills, and any one of the following items is more pressing than the one I'm doing now:

• Getting my www.critters.org account back in good standing. This is an online writers workshop that specialises in Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror short stories. You submit a story to the queue, after 3 or 4 weeks your story hits the top of the queue, and then you get critiques from your fellow writers. In order for your story to be eligible for critiquing, you need to have averaged 3 critiques every four weeks, or you are deemed 'not in good standing' and your piece gets deep sixed until you catch up. Having taken three months to write a non genre novel, I stopped critiquing, and now I owe them about 10 or 11 critiques just to get back on terms. I've got a genre piece out with my critical readers right now, and as soon as they've done with it, I want to get it back in the queue. So the solution is to do a critique every lunch break (otherwise it's eating into my evening writing time, which I just can't afford). I need to be doing this. Also
• my latest D1. It's really hard. I'm excited as hell about the idea, but actually writing it down is like pulling fucking teeth at the moment, and I don't know why. It's dispiriting. I had tough patches with the novel, but I dont' remember ever finding it this consistently hard to just put one word in front of the other. If I'm slacking off of Critters, the least I should be doing instead is trying to make some headway there. Instead
• I'm pondering a different blog entry for Facebook ,where I talk about the fact that it's 13 months since I started writing, and talk some numbers about what that's involved. I think it might be potentially interesting, useful documentation (to a point - I mean, I'm a fiction writer, so it'll be lies, but good lies, useful lies, I hope), and guess what the sticking point is? I don't know where to host it. Do I use my 'personal' FaceBook account, with the 70 odd friends, or do I post it to my 'official' author 'page' in an attempt to drive traffic there and build that profile? Isn't it too personal for the author page? Too 'wonky' for the personal page? Or
• should I post it here, the place where I write about not having time to write, because writers need a blog, a place where they can connect with their audience in a more long form method than FaceBook is really built for? But I do not have time to write a blog. I don't. It would take time away from the writing that really matters (D1's or revisions) and the writing that also matters (the critiquing). The reason I'm not self-publishing my work is precisely this issue - I work full time, and I sing in a band, and oh yeah, I have a family that actually enjoys my company (quiet at the back), and somehow I feel the need to be a writer as well. I have, I'd estimate, at least two and a half full time jobs already, only one of which pays. Publicist is another full time job. I don't have the time to do it. I don't have the skills either, so that tracks at least. And
• I don't have an agent. I don't have an agent because I haven't made enough sales yet, and I haven't made enough sales yet because I haven't gotten enough pieces to enough markets yet to make that connection and sell pieces, because it takes time. And, probably, not all my work is good enough yet. That's okay. I'd better be getting better.

I really need to get a grip on this new piece. I really like the idea, and I just need to grip it and make it happen. And I've got to get disciplined about Critters - it's a fantastic resource, and you do get out what you put in. I'm too scared of deconstructing writing, afraid I'll kill the butterfly by pulling the wings off it. But a piece of prose isn't a butterfly. I don't think it is, anyway. Well, not my prose.

Anyway. So I don't have time to do this blog, and you don't have time to read it. I need to get over to Critters and get cracking, but my lunch break is almost over, and I also need to eat.

Lou Reed died yesterday. You have less time than you think. Fucking write.

KP