Trickster

IDOLATOR

SO, I done went and wrote a new Ustari Cycle story. Idolator is set in the We Are Not Good People universe, and is a standalone story set after the events of that novel.

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It’s funny how inspiration strikes. I last worked in this universe in the 2017 short story Nigsu Ga Tesgu, which was published in the anthology Urban Enemies. I didn’t consciously decide not to work with these characters and this magic system after that — there just wasn’t an inspiration to do so.

Then a few months ago I had an idea. Riffing off the idea of The Entertainment in Infinite Jest, I thought about a magical artifact that compelled your attention, that took over your pleasure centers. And then I wondered how it might be used to enslave people, and the chaos such a thing might cause. When you put magic, chaos, and darkness into a box and shake it, what comes out is an Ustari Cycle story starring Tricksters Lem Vonnegan and Pitr Mags.

The story is up for presale and will go live on December 15th. There’s a handy free sample available at Google Play, if you want to see what you might be reading before you buy.

If you’ve never read anything in this series, this is an easy way to dip your toe in and see if it might be for you. And if you have read the other stories, I hope this one lives up to the rest!

Idea Origins

Like any writer, I’ve been asked numerous times ‘where do you get your ideas’? I used to react to these questions with a snarl and a sarcastic remark, followed by a sassy strut accompanied by the theme music I hear constantly in my head1. The reason for the reaction was due to the nature of the question: It’s both incredibly complex and brutally simple. I steal most of my ideas from stuff I read, watch, or listen to, and I have no idea how the process actually happens in my brain. How do I go from watching a rerun of Community on a Saturday night at 3AM after drinking an entire bottle of Scotch to writing a novel about superintelligent cats who subjugate mankind and make us all run around randomly so they can chase us? I have no idea.

Now that I’m older and more mature, however, I realize that this impossibility is exactly why people ask the question. How do you know if your ideas are any good? Sadly, there’s really only one way: You spend several years of your life writing them, and then show as many strangers as possible. Which is a lot of investment for someone who doesn’t have the careless, unearned confidence that I have. So I’ve taken to being more thoughtful about my responses to the ‘ideas’ question, and one thing I’ve realized is how often I have to have an idea several times before it actually turns into something resembling a good story.

Trickster Mark One

Take my novel Trickster, which morphed into the novel We Are Not Good People. I had the original idea that formed the kernel of that story back in 1995 or so; a flabby, not particularly good short story in which a stunned drifted encounters a man floating several inches off the ground as pigeons sat on his shoulders and head. The old man tells the drifter that its easy to do magic, you just have to be willing to be alone.

It wasn’t a great story, but it was a great tone, and the central image stuck with me. I carried that idea with me for twenty years or so. I never re-worked the story, though hints of it made their way into other stories, references to the old man, to the drifter, the fucking pigeons.

When I finished the Avery Cates series in 2010, I started thinking about what I wanted to write next. I found myself thinking of the old man again. That central idea — magic was possible if you’re willing to be alone, really, truly alone, came bubbling back and slowly morphed into the idea of blood magic, magic that literally stole lives to function. That, I thought, was loneliness, and I was off to the races.

In a way, I stole from myself. I developed an idea into a bad story in 1995. That kept the idea preserved in amber over the years, so when in 2011 or so I chipped the amber away that idea was still there, fresh and ready.

That’s one reason why I write a short story every month in a notebook. Most of these stories are terrible–but they each enclose an idea that I might be able to use later. I also write these stories because an old witch once told me the month I don’t write a story is the month I die, but that’s a whole other post, man.

#gettheblood Videos

As many of you know, I started a little #gettheblood hashtag recently as part of my increasingly desperate efforts to get everyone in the world to buy a copy of my upcoming novels Fixer and We Are Not Good People. I wrote some essays about scars I’ve gotten, since scars factor in the books, and people sent me some of their own scar stories.

I totally encourage this — email your scar stories to me and I’ll do something with them. Recently I’ve made two videos based on the scar stories folks have sent me. First up was Kent Bunn:

And today I posted a new one inspired by a story told by Matt Handle:

Got a scar story to share? Send it on and we’ll do something creative with it.

Reasons Why You Should Join the WANGP Street Team

Street Team

Street Team

SO, on October 7, 2014, the world will change forever. Well, not really. What’s actually going to happen is my next novel, We Are Not Good People, will be released. Whether or not I spend 2015 dancing on street corners for nickels or ordering rounds of drinks for strangers as I blaze, briefly, in alcoholic splendor before doctors arrive to harvest my ruined body for parts, depends entirely on what happens in the bookstores and online venues in the days and weeks afterwards.

In the past, with the Avery Cates novels, I organized a Street Team (organized may be a strong word here) to help with promotion, and we had a lot of fun, so I’m doing the same, gathering blackguards and bravos from around the world to help make it seem like a passably good idea to spend money on my book. And I want you to join the Street Team. It will be ever so much fun.

We have a forum: http://wearenotgoodpeople.freeforums.net/

The book has a website: www.wearenotgoodpeople.com

I understand your hesitation. I am a notably unreliable author who is easily distracted by glasses of booze and things like videos of kittens acting surprised. So, here are

REASONS TO BE ON THE WANGP STREET TEAM

  1. You love me. You may not realize it, but you do.
  2. You fear me and know if my writering career goes south I will start showing up at your door, begging for a couch to sleep on.
  3. There will be swag — free books, signed things, T-shirts, bookmarks, anything else we cook up to give away or what have you, Street Team members will get first dibs. In the past every member got a T-shirt or a hat and some other stuff just for being awesome.
  4. Meet new people! Who are not me pretending to be other people just to make my Street Team seem huge and imposing, promise.
  5. All Street Team members pat and present earn the Right of Cocktails, which means they can march up to me at any time under any circumstances and, once they’ve identified themselves, demand that I buy them a drink, and I will.
  6. Did I mention the swag?
  7. The forum is there to exchange ideas and suggestions, so if you’ve ever wanted to humiliate and destroy me publicly (and who hasn’t) here is your chance. Why not suggest I dress up in a pig outfit and dance on your lawn? Because if everyone on the Street Team votes for it, I will totally do that.
  8. The abbreviation of We Are Not Good People is WANGP, so you get to throw around the word “Wang” a lot and no one can complain.

    The Pork Avenger (Artist's Conception)

    The Pork Avenger (Artist’s Conception)

  9. Someday, when they decide to make a documentary about me (most probably because I snap mentally in 2016 and start showing up in public in a pig outfit and dancing, eventually becoming known as The Pork Avenger) they will totally come to interview you about it.
  10. Because I am dancing for right now, even though you can’t see it. And also weeping. How can you be so cruel?

So there you have it. There’s no official sign up or anything — just participate. Send me your contact info via email or message, let me know you’re interested, join the forum and say hello and suggest things. What can you suggest? Well, anything:

  • If you know of a bookstore that would love to have me come read, let me know.
  • Ideas for swag or giveaways
  • Ideas for digital graphics that I could create and distribute
  • Forums or other sites that people could post on
  • Ways to tweet and post about the books (or my other books), write reviews, or otherwise spread the word

Or, just lurk until something gets suggested that appeals to you. Literally, anything you want to do is appreciated and I’ll be extremely grateful for.

Onward! I’ve just discovered I will have to have my Pork Avenger outfit let out a little. I’m … not a young man any more.

Jersey City Writers

SO, last night I was invited to speak at the first-ever Genre Night for Jersey City Writers. Now, I was born and raised in Jersey City and I currently live a 5 minute walk away from that city, but when I was a kid it didn’t have writer’s groups. It had gangs, yes, and Boy Scouts. But no writer’s groups. So this was exciting stuff.

The event was held at the Freshly Baked Gallery on Monmouth Street in JC – it’s a delightful little space in the middle of a sleepy block in a newly revitalized area of the city. If you click through you’ll see a lot of really neat pieces – The Duchess and I were really intrigued by a couple of them.

Naturally, I was awkward. We walked in and after greeting Meg Merriet, who organized everything, The Duchess and I sat up front trying to look casual while an alarmingly large crowd filled the space. I turned to the Duchess.

“Think there’s a window in the back I can fit through? I’m terrified. I think I just wet myself.”

She slapped me violently and warned me not to embarrass her in public.

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I’ve Been Steampunked

Win ALL the things.

Win ALL the things.

Over at Lynn Viehl’s Toriana Blog (Lynn is the author of the Disenchanted & Co. books I created trailers for a few weeks ago) I took part in a regular “Steampunking” series where authors are asked jolly questions and give jolly answers. Go check it out!

1. If you could replace one piece of current technology with a steam-powered equivalent, what would you swap out, and what would you call it?

The coffee maker. My coffee maker right now is basically Star Trek: It uses those little pods and it’s like you insert this obscure plastic thingamabob and then coffee is dispensed. For all I know the plastic pods are the currency of aliens who accept my sacrifice and give me coffee in return.”

AND ALSO TOO there is a grand giveaway, where you could win all the stuff pictured here: — Unsigned paperback copies of the complete Avery Cates series along with Trickster, The Writer’s Lab by Sexton Burke, Writing the Paranormal Novel by Steven Harper, How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You, The Geek edition of Magnetic Poetry, A typewriter-shaped notepad, The Predict-a-Pen, Handy bookmarks, A brand-new black and denim O’Neill backpack. What are you waiting for?

Trickster Review

I don’t go out of my way to read reviews of my work, because it’s alternately frustrating and horrifying. I’m generally embarrassed by good reviews and enraged by bad ones, and after all every book gets a bad review or fifty. People are still arguing over whether The Great Gatsby is a good book, after all.

Sometimes, though, Google Alerts or something just brings a review to my door and it’s occasionally a happy moment. Recently, Sarah E. Bewley who runs a book review blog posted a review of Trickster that warmed my tiny black heart. It reads, in part:

“The book is powerful, terrifying, involving and makes you, as the reader, want to race to the end to see what happens. It is well worth every moment spent reading.

I look forward to more Lem and Mags. The world needs them.”

Huzzah for me, I say. Why not buy a copy? Papa needs liquor monies.

An Essay and Two Reviews

Over at the glittering blog Geeks Versus Nerds, I have an awesome guest post:

“So, yeah, I’d love to have my life recorded for me. Although what would happen then is that I would always intend to go back and cull out the boring stuff – the bathroom breaks, the time spent doing nothing – and hone it down to a grand documentary called Jeff Fucking Somers and then I’d never get around to it.”

It may be the greatest thing you ever read. Or not. I don’t know, frankly.

ALSO! In what might appear to be some sort of payment for my awesome guest post but which certainly was not, Geeks Versus Nerds also reviewed Trickster:

“I love urban fantasy, I blame The Dresden Files for that, and I love the wonder that could be hiding in the shadows of the streets we walk every day.  But everything always seems to stay in the shadows.  There is rarely any consequences when the Vampire declare war or when the Fae revolt.  UF also seems to have, despite its dark atmosphere, a rosy feel to it.  Everything will always work out.  Jeff Somers seems to ignore both of that.  When shit start to explode it takes millions of ‘normals’ with them.  Jeff’s UF world is dark and gritty.  It’s full of backstabbing and horrifying people and that’s before the cutting starts.”

HUZZAH.

AND ALSO! The Electric Church, book #1 in the Avery Cates series, was reviewed by The Taichung Bookworm:

“If the set-up sounds equally insane and implausible then you’re absolutely correct and let me assure you – that’s part of the fun. The Electric Church is an oil-burning page-turner playing like a pulp novel yet with a serious literary bent. Jeff Somers obviously spent some large portion of his life wolfing down Hammett, Chandler and their lesser-known ilk and portrays bustling, seedy dives and wandering, down-on-their-luck loners with a natural ease. Cates is such a grim, sardonic anti-hero that he often seems in danger of falling into caricature before saving himself with his stark insights into the rigged nature of the game he’s forced to play.The team of broken, conniving rejects he rounds up as his crack team and the decaying world they inhabit all contribute to the atmosphere of hopelessness which all must overcome.”

Not bad for a book that came out in 2007. And now: Celebratory drinks for everyone! Note: Must supply your own celebratory drinks.