Digital versions of the Dirt series are now for sale (and sample preview) at Drivethru and Eagle One Media. And you can get it with none of the muss and fuss of paper, if you want pure story. Of course, you can still get print versions, too, through post Mortem Comics. Check out the other Post Mortem titles while you’re there: Fever, Dorothy Rising, and Magic Eight Ball. The first batch is “at the printers” and the special upside-down cover will only be released in this first run.

I’m also planning a new release of my first novel The Red Church and I’m looking at Ingram’s Lightning Source. The upside is it’s linked right into Amazon, B & N, and all other book outlets that carry Ingram titles. The downside is the cost is higher, because it will probably be released through their print-on-demand service, which runs trade paperbacks up to about $18 or so. The alternative is to publish them myself and pay for an offset print run, but then I have the problem of getting them into those many outlets. And of course, simply having a book available doesn’t mean bookstores are going to order it–like every author, I will have to create demand. Since the book has already been through the pipeline once, it probably reached the core audience, but all you wonderful people who have discovered me in the last few years haven’t had a chance to try it, unless you picked up a used copy somewhere. At any rate, I’d like to have the book back out there, especially since I’m developing it as a comics series.

In other news, it’s that time of year to get the garden ready, and while I now save most of my own seeds, I did pick up a few things from Baker Creek Heirlooms. The asparagus really did well last year and I spread the crowns around, and barring a late frost I should finally get some fruit from my trees. It’s been satisfying to eat home-canned food this year, and I noticed a difference on my grocery bill. Now I just need to get my chimney installed and I’ll edge a little further from the grid. But I’ll still need a computer, huh?

Fresh Dirt–Scott Nicholson’s journal
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March 2
Post Mortem Comics is rolling out with a vengeance, and publisher John Parker is also organizing “Fallen Heroes Con,” a project to benefit disabled veterans. The two-day music and comics convention in Haywood County, NC, will also feature online auctions, and we’ve already received commitments from some of the biggest names in the industry, like Laurell K. Hamilton. Proceeds will also go toward printing “Untold Stories,” a graphic novel featuring real-life soldiers’ tales from Iraq and Afghanistan, headed up by artist Clayton Murwin.

Post Mortem has also secured a distribution deal with Haven, so pester your local comic stores to carry Post Mortem. We’re working on digital distribution, as well as bookstore and magazine rack distribution, so beware the avalanche. Oh, and we’ll also be expanding into animated digital comics as soon as we get the technical stuff lined up. I will not only be writing my DIRT series (and narrating it as the Digger), but I’m also developing The Gorge with artist Kewber and his wife Schimery, a zombie mini-series, and the ongoing series The Circuit Rider with Nima Sorat (Graveslinger). Look for sketches soon in the “Comics” section of the Web site.

After years of preaching “Go the traditional publishing route,” I’ve decided to take a more entrepreneurial approach. A lot of “traditional” publishing involves waiting around for someone (or multiple someones) to make a decision. In light of the economy and the rampant fear, I have decided to reject fear. After watching my “traditional” investments trickle into the pockets of invisible people, I reject putting my faith in people who could care less about my future. I choose to invest in myself. Sure, this attitude will horrify plenty of people who say “Never self-publish.” But some of those people had their book releases pulled out from under them, had contracts canceled, had books dumped out there with no promotion, had books go out of print while the publisher still holds rights for years afterward, or waited years and years and never got responses. I will continue to partner with large publishers, but I will also partner with small publishers, amateurs, lunatics, saints, and gardeners. I call this new model “compassionate self-reliance”–working on creativity, productivity, spirituality, and shared abundance. I hope you’ll join me.

I was riding along today, beneath one of those beautiful iron-gray, tufty skies that mark the last half of winter here in the Southern Appalachians, and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” came on the radio. During the song, a complete rainbow appeared, with a second echo rainbow behind it. Farther on, another rainbow arced, and Girl and I could see where it fuzzed into the ground on a nearby wooded knoll. I thought, “This is better than any drug I’ve ever taken.” I’ve been very busy with a number of projects and changes in my life, and I takes signs like these as proof that I am on the right track. It’s simple: follow your heart, trust your mind, and be considerate of the world and its creatures.

I know so many people stressed out by the economy, and I do sympathize with anyone who has lost a job, because I’ve been there before. But it’s also a time of great opportunity. Do more with less, enjoy simple things, open up to the wonder around you. If you can’t afford to eat, be glad you can breathe. No matter what some subjective bean-counting gizmo says you are “worth,” the truth is there is exactly as much beauty, abundance, and joy as there was before the Recession.

Taoist missive complete, I now become self-centered and blab about myself again. I’ll be at PSI Con on Feb 28-March 1 in Lake Lure, NC. Post Mortem is taking preorders for The Magic Eight Ball and Dirt #1, limited to 250 copies. I’m also looking for script submissions for Grave Conditions.

I was cooking up the last of the stored apples this morning (I love them with oatmeal) when I got down to the last few little ones. I was going to toss them to the goats, because they seemed more trouble to peel than they were worth. Then I started on one and it was saying, “Look, I hung on until February for you, I gave you everything I had, I’m small and sweet and this is the way I was made and I went to a lot of trouble to get into your pot.” That apple was healthy, and probably the firmest of the batch. Accept things the way they are, and appreciate the little things.

I’ve been updating the Post Mortem Comics site and learning more about the comics industry. It’s a very exciting time to be a creator, despite all the gloom and doom over money. Corporate ways of doing things are crumbling, and new markets and distribution channels are emerging. I’m not making a rant about shortsighted or any of that, as I’ve heard some people blog about. It’s just a natural cycle, and work is going to get released in lots of different avenues, some of it lousy and barely on the edge of art, some of it slick and soon to be made commercial, some of it honest and lasting, some of it destined to go unnoticed. In a way, that’s what I love about the creative challenge–any mook can throw mud patties at a canvas, but actually reaching out and finding an audience is where the real satisfaction lies.

And live from the United Kingdom, it’s Haunted…me first chapbook.

Here’s an interesting tutorial on the making of a comic book, from Dark Horse comics. Dark Horse is a solid company that emerged as sort of a second-tier house in the 1980s and 1990s, when Valiant and Image were also breaking into the independent comics market. Dark Horse has kept a core of success through titles like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Star Wars while also busting out some innovative titles and doing smart work in collecting some lost classics.

I’ve learned a lot with these scripts, since I tend to not flesh out so much background detail, instead leaving the artist room to maneuver. However, the writer works in some ways like the director of a movie–he or she is not usually looking through the camera lens but instead is shaping the larger vision. I see where I could put more emotion in my scripts, though they are basically memos to the artist. I will add a few script pages and sketch pages, along with finished pages, to the comics section of the Haunted Computer as we move along. I’m always looking to build comic resources and networking, especially among the independent creators and publishers.

Incidentally, I recommend William Harms’s “Impaler” series if you like horror/thriller comics. The series has an interesting history, starting with Image and then moving to Top Cow, and William helped me a lot in getting started. Also, John Parker’s first comic “Fever” from Post Mortem is about ready to roll from the presses, so we’ll be able to promote them at the same time while we get future issues ready. John’s very knowledgeable about art, paper, and the industry and it’s been great to work with him to get the comics going. Jeff Mariotte, novelist and creator of a numbe rof comics titles, has also been helpful. The biggest joy I’ve gotten out of writing is in the friends I’ve made and the readers that contact me–it really humanizes what is a lonely and often frustrating endeavor.

Speaking of which, hillbilly wunderkind Mark Justice has me back on Pod of Horror #51, a podcast that will be posted by Jan. 30 or so, in which Mark asks, “Where did you disappear to?” Good question, and I will have to listen so I will know what my answer is!

Okay, so I had no idea scorpion exposure was a competitive endeavor, but apparently there’s this crazy Thai chick (maybe smoking Thai stick?) whose lot in life is to hang out with scorpions, see how long she can hold them in her mouth, and how many times she can get bitten and survive. She lived with 5,000 scorpions for 33 days, except for potty breaks. What was the previous record? Living with 4,999 scorpions for 33 days? “I can top THAT!”

Post Mortem is about to take the first issue of “Dirt” to the printers. We’re still setting up subscription links and we’ll have direct distribution to a number of regional comics stores. I’ll also be selling copies here on Haunted Computer (signed if you want). I’m really pleased with the tone of the series and how it’s evolving, and Kewber Alves Arruda is really growing in his talents. These stories are in the tone of “Tales From The Crypt,” “Twilight Zone,” “Creepie,” “House of Secrets” and those other venerable horror, fantasy, and “weird” comics. We’ll also have T-shirts available featuring The Digger, with links to those coming soon. Kew just finished the second cover, and I’ll post it soon. We plan to publish one issue every three months, with a complete run of six that will be collected in a trade paperback. I’m developing three other graphic series at the moment, so hopefully they will roll out in the next year or two. I really love this style of storytelling and I’m finding new possibilities that don’t work as well in either fiction or screenplays.

After getting a little feedback on new types of books, what interests me as a writer, and what the future of publishing holds, I’ve come to realize I want to be a little more daring and challenging instead of simply hunting for that middle-ground commercial success. Neil Gaiman has a quote along the lines of “Anyone can do that meat-and-potatoes sort of stuff. Aim for spectacular failure.” Seems a much more noble goal to me, since so many books seem interchangeable and offer little in the way of ideas. And, no, I would never say bestsellers are crap, because there is some true and meticulous craft in many of them. They just aim low, and they restore order, and they assuage people’s sense of justice. I listen to a lot of books on tape, and I saw one in the library and thought I ought to “read” it. Then I realized I already had, and I couldn’t remember much of anything about it besides the main concept and that the protagonist was an artist. This was by an author I admire who has been hugely successful and known for stellar characterization. I couldn’t remember any of the characters.

Similarly, I watched “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” last week and it sparked a lot of thought about the nature of time and perception, and the beautiful and temporal futility of love, and how we change as we age. I don’t know if the movie will be a classic, but for me it got me talking to people close to me about our ephemeral relationships, whether we are together a day or 80 years. That’s poignant stuff, not violent stoner dreck like “Pineapple Express” or popular movies that I felt a social obligation to watch because they were popular. Give me thought-provoking art any day, even if it’s jagged and terrible, over highly polished and soulless entertainment. Not that challenging stuff can’t be popular, either–I’m sure Brad Pitt could have taken a simpler eye-candy role.

Here’s an amusing article on the benefits of a federal bailout for writers, of whom most of us agree comprise too great a percentage of the population. Thankfully we have agents, editors, and publishers as gatekeepers, but they are mostly just standing around with their thumbs in the crack of a dike (no Gertrude Stein jokes here) as the floodwaters build and everyone either self-publishes a book or decides to distribute their work on the Internet for free. Because New York “isn’t ready for their genius” or they “are too cutting edge.” The problem is nobody tells them “no” anymore. Or better yet, “Shut up. Stop. Please. For the sake of all that is holy.”

In the good old days, editors actually typed and signed letters of regret for being unable to accept work, but then the mimeograph was invented and form letters became socially acceptable, perhaps under the notion that wholesale, generic rejection was somehow more compassionate. Then most editors and publishing houses stopped accepting queries altogether, counting on agents to serve as first line of defense in the trench warfare of literature. As recently as a decade ago, you could still get a form letter for the price of your self-addressed, stamped envelope. Now most agents simply don’t respond at all “unless interested.” Meaning they don’t respond at all.

For years I tried to talk people out of self-publishing. It’s bad economics, because the biggest stumbling block to getting an audience is getting your books in front of the readers who can buy them. After all, why else would we need a publishing industry? I’ve heard people who call themselves writers tell me, “I’ve already had three rejections, so I may as well print it up.” I don’t even waste my breath anymore, though I did wonder how they ended up with rejection slips in an age when ignorance is bliss. The same Internet that makes it easy for agents (and, by extension, publishers) to ignore you and still consider their profession to be genteel, courteous, and crusading also makes it easy for anybody to throw up a Web site and dump 100,000 words of Gurglish without insulting any electrons.

Luckily for those who consider themselves real writers (and the article’s stated $40,000 a year “average” income would inspire most of the writers in my acquaintance to turn joyous backflips and buy health insurance for spinal surgery), not many fly-by-nights or type-by-12-packs are actually going to stick with it long enough to compete with you.

The article also touches on the plight of Ann Beattie, whose authorial good name has been hijacked by another Ann Beattie. There is another Scott Nicholson (not the real one, I can assure you) who has self-published a book called “Seeds of Achievement.” In researching for this blog entry, I discovered one site that erroneously had the author’s bio as mine. Hell, maybe the guy writes better than me. That wouldn’t be too difficult, since I’m part of that vast subset of writers who aren’t verifiable geniuses like Larry McMurtry, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson, or Richard Brautigan. But the annual thirty-cent royalty checks are not making their way to my address.

It irks me when his books are listed alongside mine or when one of my readers asks me “WTF?” about that book. True, he has a right to use his name (and I’m not even sure this is the same Scott Nicholson who “stole” scottnicholson-dot-com or the one who writes board games, or a new imposter) and I have a right to change my name. Who knows, maybe these other Scott Nicholsons have been submitting badly written query letters that open with, “Dear mean agent, I know you’re going to reject me, but….” And these agents, seeing the sullen and mutilated grammar, immediately block “Scott Nicholson” from their email inboxes, then real Scott Nicholsons like me can’t even tell when we’re getting rejected. Does that “no” mean “no” or does it mean I’m sending spam, or is it that my genius is so far ahead of its time that it’s cutting edge?

The U.S. government may find it worth $40,000 a year to keep people from writing. Maybe we can then all turn to some other. more-useful enterprise, like dog-sledding, porcupine husbandry, or natural-gas exploration. I figure with a one-time cash grant of $250,000, we could convince all Scott Nicholsons to rest their weary pens forever.

But, hey, if you are the one in hundred writers who actually finishes a novel and are then one in the hundred novelists who actually gets a response and then become one of the hundred “read” novelists who gets passed to an editor and then…well, you see where this is headed. Your odds are a lot better at being a Scott Nicholson than it is at being a New York-published novelist. In fact, I feel ready to self-publish a book myself. The title is “Scott Nicholson” and I will release it under a pen name. Do you have a successful authorial name I can steal? I would pay you $40,000, except I’m a writer.

New updates from the Green Park Paranormal Conference: an EVP, two shadow photos, and an incidence of “automatic writing” can be accessed at the ghost register. In a similar vein, Paranormal Scene Investigators is hosting a paracon at the Lake Lure Inn in February 2009.

As you can see from the front page, I’ve also scheduled the Boone Comicon in Boone NC for Apr. 18, 2009–part of Haunted Computer Production’s plans to take over the world one ostrich at a time. (I don’t know what ostriches have to do with it, except you rarely see ostrich in plural form and it sounded cool.)

I’m also converting this blog to a Wordpress blog, hopefully offering more categories to discuss screenwriting, comics writing, books, and the paranormal, in addition to general interests. I’d like to make this site more of a destination point and open forum, possibly even an open writing workshop, but it will take some tech tinkering on this end. Drop a line if you have any suggestions.

Still working on two novel projects and developing a couple of movie project ideas (”ideas” is about as specific and solid as these are right now), and we’re about to finish up the second issue of “Dirt” as we get the final editorial pieces together. Oh, yeah, I’m working with Australian artist Clayton Barton on a children’s book and I just did a sketch for inclusion in Ghostwriter Publication’s chapbook of my short story “Haunted,” which will be released in the UK in a week or so in conjunction with an audio version of the story. What makes the chapbook extra special (besides being my first, and my first standalone UK publication) is that it also features art from both my daughter and stepson, who are both much more skilled than I am. The chapbook is a prelude to the upcoming release of both my story collection The First (an expanded version of my first story collection Thank You For The Flowers) and my novel The Red Church.

Okay, I’m blabbing solely about me and my projects–and that’s why I’d like to move to a more interactive format. I’ve spent a lot of time the past few years reading “commercial” novels and trying to figure out their appeal. I have heard that some writers pick a formula and type and carve out their niche and build on it, but that seems far too calculated to be interesting. I’ve been more inspired lately by diverse, even subversive, material like Roman Dirge’s “Lenore,” Brian Vaughan’s “The Pride of Baghdad,” Lemony Snicket, and Larry McMurtry (and his unabashed inclusion of carnality). I don’t know if I can capture that kind of energy, but it’s refreshing to approach my own work as something that can be bold and inventive rather than marketable–though of course the two are not mutually exclusive.