For those of you interested to know, I’m also the author of 4 books (3 of which are novels, the other a short story collection). Besides the short story collection, my three full-length books (80,000 to 85,000 words in length) are not Science Fiction or Horror. No. They’re two different genres completely, and I once held a great love for penning long works of Espionage/Intrigue & Western Fiction…
Yup! I was into James Bond and Clint Eastwood. No, serious. And I enjoyed it.
So what happened? Why give up the chance to become the next Robert Ludlum? Why not try and be like Louis Lamour? I don’t know. I can’t really answer that. I tried to get back into novel-writing. I did, I really did. But I saw, after the last two years of writing tons of short stories (almost like there was no tomorrow; okay, I’m prolific, so what!), that I was not only better at short fiction–and the occassional novelette, mind you–but there was a lot more exposure and money in it. Freelancing fiction and putting it out at a rate of one or two per week, then submitting them and going on to write the next one. Perhaps this is why I have 260 publishing credits. I know that I made a mistake back in 2002 to early 2004. And that was “SELF-PUBLISHING” the books that I did write through a company called Xlibris. Yeah, I know. I was a novice in the industry back then. And I hadn’t really learned this until 2004 into 2005, after I had finished writing my fourth title, Allegiance to Arms.
Now I look back at such titles as Espionage First and Spencer Prague, pulp-written spy thrillers in the vein of yesterday’s golden age masters. Slowly, carefully, I flip through the pages of the hardcover versions and say to myself, “Wow, does this shit need an edit!” As I look upon my 2004 short story collection, Death of the Common Writer, I see where my improvement has taken root. It shows in areas, promising areas, and it is the reason why I have sold each story from the collection to a small press market one or more times. And then there is Allegiance to Arms. My 4th book; I suppose my latest one, but surely not my last. I could have gone to signings, had I funds… I could have met movie people, had I funds… I could have marketed it, had I funds… And it’s not that badly written. If you like Sergio Leone, you’ll like Allegiance to Arms. I promise. It just came out two years ago and I wrote this western, mostly, for personal reasons. Personal demons. Perhaps if you read into it hard enough you’ll know what those demons are…
So have I given up on novels altogether? Given up after finding that there is more money, more chances to get into print, and more exposure for me through the Small Press? Nope.
To purchase Allegiance to Arms, or any of my other books, simply go to:
Barnes & Nobles.com: www.bandn.com
Amazon: www.amazon.com
Filed under: Western, Writing, speculative fiction
