Thursday, March 27, 2014

How Do You Know That?

My chuckle came in my writing class when a student kept asking how I would know certain facts I incorporated in a piece of nonfiction; a simple historical article.

I think it's called research.

And I think it is important to always do research whether writing fiction or non-fiction.

I also think it is important to always do research in the genre in which you work. It helps to know who came before you and how they did what they did.

Your writing certainly won't suffer.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

We Are In WEIRD TALES

It has been a life goal of mine that if I ever wrote again that I would get something in WEIRD TALES. For those acquainted with Horror know THIS IS the place to be.

Well we are in with an article about Robert W. Chambers influence on H. P. Lovecraft. Details and link to follow to see how TEH KING IN YELLOW gave birth to CTHULHU.

Monday, March 24, 2014

Chris Linebaugh reviews TECHNICOLOR TERRORISTS on Lurid-lit now!!!

Our dear friend and founder of Lurid-lit.com reviews TECHNICOLOR TERRORISTS hot off the press. Stop by if you dare........

My Apologies....

Well it appears the site Two Sentence Stories is down because of bandwidth and has been since the weekend.

My apologies. If this site wishes to entertain writers and their talents they should be able to accommodate them.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

TWO SENTENCE STORIES yes they have a website

If anyone knows anyone there, please let them know I am waiting on a response. I submitted a story titled "Eggs". I have heard nothing and there has been no response to my follow up. Thank you.

UPDATE: YES we have made contact and getting things worked out. Thank you.

Missing Malaysian Jet Flight 370

This story has been great fodder for conspiracy theorists and those who promote the inter-dimensional lizard people theory. I like that theory considering I have published two horror stories about disappearing planes and passengers: "Flight 377" and "A Story About Flight".

Look, it either crashed or was taken. Simply and logically, it either crashed or was taken. If it crashed, debris will eventually be found. Missing planes are nothing new.

If it was taken, it will re-appear as a dirty bomb. We should all hope it crashed.

But for CNN anchor Don Lemon to speculate in the supernatural realm is ridiculous. He first said God took the plane. I guess a giant hand reached out and grabbed it. Funny enough but last night he proposed a new theory.

A Black Hole took it.

Yeah, a black hole that didn't suck up our planet let alone anything on it except for the plane; just the plane.

And CNN ratings are at an all-time high.

Always be closing NIGHTMARE ILLUSTRATED ON SALE MARCH 23rd Three More Days

Here and all over the globe.

EDITORS NOTES: CONTROL CONTROL CONTROL AND SELF-PUBLISHING

The fact of the matter is cash. The fact to all life is CASH. Many established writers are self-publishing for that fact. In the past two plus years I started this folly money has been scant and many publishers who have owed me money have gone belly up leaving me like most creditors: pant-less let alone with empty hands with turned out pockets.

Still the stigma of self-publishing persists in some circles; in smaller concentric circles as technology and the economy change  perhaps for the worse.

'Vet your publishers' truer words have never been spoken but in these times everyone is hurting. 

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Saturday, March 15, 2014

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY HAVE A BEER AND KILL A DOG

Ireland is becoming ground zero for the genocide of PitBulls. If a dog looks like a pit, the law is put it down. If a dog has pit in its DNA it is put down. These are dogs NOT involved in attacks. These dogs are killed because of who they are.

For a country who boasts its long history of being discriminated and its people hated for their look and DNA one would think they would think before enacting laws calling for the murder of innocents.

Every time I see green now I will see red and black.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Always Be Closing

By the way we have updated my website:

josephjpatchen.weebly.com

Seven additional publishing credits and one interview were added for 2014.

Get those plugs in. Always be closing.

Get Over It

This younger generation is amazing to me. And forgive me if I sound like my father. Someone posted on Facebook one of those 'clever' fake news stories claiming Stephen King purchased/posted a number of fake reviews to lift a doubtful book upon publication.

I stated in my comments that I didn't believe the story. After all King is an icon. Fan boys and girls, mostly horror writing hopefuls, would spend their mother's last nickel to purchase a fully stocked, flies included, manure bucket if Mr. King himself wrote the word 'manure' on it. In between fainting over the brilliance of the written word, these same followers would write 'clever' tomes extolling the bucket of manure's historical horror virtues. This is a given. So the story itself is clearly ridiculous.

What isn't ridiculous and what I commented on was the author/publisher practice of filing a flurry of fake reviews to bolster a questionable book; as well as some finagling of printing/sales
data to boost numbers on best seller lists. This IS and HAS ALWAYS BEEN found in literary circles for decades.

Of course I am attacked. Of course I missed the point. This is a genius fake story that is so funny H. L. Mencken himself can be heard belching in belly laughs from his own grave.

Well, the story itself is not funny. It's as funny as most bizarro literature. And clever? It's clever like two plus two equals four or is it seven now that we have Common Core?

I wish this generation specifically would actually experience the outside world and stop being reactionary and naïve. We don't live in a utopia. There is no such thing as an utopia. The world is a bad place. The world is a dangerous place. The world is deceitful.

Authors and publishers will do anything to promote a book and pad sales. Hype is promoting and is usually promoting something far from genuine. And if I say something about Stephen King that is negative, which I did not, I do have freedom of speech.

Well do I?

All my years, history backs me on this, to live in  a world believing everybody is nice, that no one lies, that is no one is bossy; and unfunny is funny will only leave that dreamer holding nothing but a bucket of manure.

Wake up.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

We Are Leaving Social Media For A While

Because of the amount of requests we cannot adequately take the time to respond and to attend to our duties in business, home and in writing.

But this blog will continue and we can be reached here. This as well as my fiction has suffered because of the demands and peer pressure of Facebook.

My apologies to anyone should this be perceived as a slight. It is not.

Okay Nothing more On Law and Politics

But that decision really irks me. Enough with our bent moral compass let's get back to WRITING.

Anyway, I had a discussion the other day with two budding authors who thought me to crazy for the genre I toil in.

One: They initially had the idea I was hiding a hockey mask in right back pocket while the machete was in my left. Let me ask you, I said, if you write a romance piece does that mean you are over-sexed? "Well no... but.."

Two: Do you honestly think I cannot be trusted with women and children in the same room? "No, but the things you think of ...."

Imagination has always been the fuel with which we create our art. Let's not lose this sense and judge a book simply by its cover.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

It's Not The Law That's An Ass, It's The Massachusetts SJC

Today's unanimous decision that it is legal in Massachusetts to shoot photos up a women's skirt is not only baffling in its logic and stupidity it clearly questions the way judges are appointed in the Commonwealth.

How such an invasion of privacy; how such an assault can be declared legal by jurists is enraging. The entire panel should be removed as they simply cannot be trusted with preserving the law and the peace.

To say the law wasn't written concisely enough is intellectual overreaching and deducing without merit. My first suggestion to the panel is to learn how to read a statute before taking your activism to the streets.

This is an assault on women. This is an attack on women. And the real war on women now has an identifiable epicenter and that is Massachusetts.



Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Anonymous-9 returns to Lurid-lit.com just to let us know.....

"Just So You Know I'm Not Dead: Three Short Stories" is slim razor sharp brilliant book by our friend Anonymous-9. Catch the full review on Lurid-lit.com.

The Death of Writing and Writers

A recent article in THE GUARDIAN told the story of two award winning best selling writers who have fallen on hard times. To be truthful this is a trend throughout the industry. To be trendy we tend to ignore the economy and its realities as long as we still have our shiny baubles to drool over.

At the heart of the article is the change in the publishing business; the net with a ton of free content and self-publishing. The stature many writers thought themselves to have has eroded. Writers are no longer celebrities; no longer considered to be the cornerstone of the cool lunch table.

These writers are struggling. They have awards, no money and are pissed.

True, much of what is out there is crap. True, much of the self-published world is actually birdcage liner. But then again there are publishers who specialize in bird cage liners because their dumb downed maturity challenged readership likes what they publish.

So, what are they to do? Do what the rest of us do. Keep to your craft; tune out the riff raff and get a second job. It will all turn over again when these writers get together and stop voting in politicians who cater to the clueless and lazy; fill schools with agendas that have nothing to do with learning but everything to do with constituency.

How about writing about that? How about mounting a campaign to combat the illiteracy of those who can read?

Nothing is ever over until you lie down and make it so.

ACCORD is in SMASHED CAT MAGAZINE today

Thank you E. S. WYNN. My short story ACCORD has been published in SMASHED CAT MAGAZINE today.

http://www.smashedcat.com/