Ever have a bad day at black rock? Today is mine.

 

An arctic cold front moved in to shake the last leaves off trees and scatter them willy-nilly. Dangerous thunderstorms last night left many residents without power. The winds are so vicious that Chicago has closed the Skyway until further notice. Wind gusts of 60 to 90 miles an hour rip shingles from rooftops and tear down powerlines.

I wrote about killer winds in Winds: A Novel (November 2015, 2AM Publications, ISBN 978-0-937491-16-4), and today I feel like a character from that novel. I feel hunted and haunted and targeted. I’m running for my life in a vain attempt to escape.

 

It’s a perfect day to make revisions to Impossible, the second novel in my Under the Gun series of thrillers. I love the four main characters in Impossible. I don’t want any of them to die. Unfortunately, each of them is hunting the others and it seems impossible that all of them—or any of them—will make it through the entire novel alive.

 

When I’m having a bad day at black rock, the only escape is to write.

 

Paul Dale Anderson Writer: Back Blast by Mark Greaney is highly recommended

Paul Dale Anderson Writer: Back Blast by Mark Greaney is highly recommended: Back Blast by Mark Greaney (Berkley Books, February 2016, ISBN 978-0-425-2879-3) is an exciting and authentic thriller that reads like a Was...

Back Blast by Mark Greaney is highly recommended

Back Blast by Mark Greaney (Berkley Books, February 2016, ISBN 978-0-425-2879-3) is an exciting and authentic thriller that reads like a Washington Post expose. Back Blast is the best thriller I’ve read in a long time, and I make it my business to read them all.

Court Gentry, “The Grey Man,” is one of the CIA’s top assassins. Court has no idea why he been targeted for termination by Denny Carmichael, Director of CIA National Clandestine Services. When Court sneaks back into Washington, DC, to clear his name or get revenge on Carmichael, all hell breaks loose. Everyone from his former team mates to the US Army JSOC to foreign agents masquerading as DC cops to the POTUS wants Court’s head on a platter.

The story and backstory are tightly told in third person from various POVs. The descriptions of DC locations, weapons, armaments, and aircraft are highly accurate. And I cared about every one of the characters, despite their personal flaws, because their motivations seemed believable.

Back Blast is very highly recommended.

—Paul Dale Anderson, author of Running Out of Time, Spilled Milk, Axes to Grind, and Icepick

I have never before asked for reviews nor submitted works for awards. I have never before asked another author for a blurb.
This year is different. This year I turned seventy-one. Most of my friends and many of my acquaintances have perished from this earth. People I depended on to review my works or edit them or recommend them or nominate them for awards are no longer able to do so.
When Gretta, my wife of nearly thirty years, died suddenly of a massive heart attack in 2012, I began writing again from scratch. In essence, I started life over. Writing was all I had to keep myself sane in a world turned upside down. Writing gave new purpose to my life and allowed me to mix fantasy with reality in healthy ways. I completed novels I had started thirty years ago and I began new novels in a variety of genres.
This year—2015—some of those novels appeared in print for the first time. Two new short stories—“Dolls” and “After the Fall”—were published in magazines. Several of my out-of-print novels and short stories were reprinted or appeared as e-books. 2015 has been a marvelous year, and 2016 appears to be even better.
Fame and fortune are fleeting. Some of my titles became momentary best-sellers, then dropped in rank like a rock hurled over a cliff. A few readers were kind enough to write reviews on Amazon or Good Reads. One or two favorable reviews also appeared in magazines or on blogs. I’m grateful for each of those unsolicited reviews, and I hunger for more.
Nelson Algren told me once that a writer needs to ask everyone—friends and strangers alike—to buy his books. “Buy my books and the autograph is free,” he said. “No one will buy your work if you don’t ask.”
Algren was right. Writers must first ask agents or editors to buy their works in manuscript, and then they must ask readers to buy their published works.
It goes against my grain to ask for anything. I was raised to be an independent person, totally self-reliant. If I couldn’t do it by myself, I didn’t bother to do it.
But now I’m asking. I ask you to buy my books and read them. I ask you to leave reviews on Good Reads and Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. I ask you to review my works in print and on blogs. I ask you to talk about my works with anyone who might be interested.
Frederik Pohl used to tell me, when we chatted in con suites at Windycon or Chicon, that a writer is always too close to his own works to judge if they’re good or bad. That’s why we need editors. And reviewers. And awards.
And, I might add, why we need blurbs from other authors. People really do judge books by their covers and cover blurbs from names readers recognize.
Up until now, I have been scrupulous about not allowing burbs on my books. Personal letters from Karl Edward Wagner, Richard Laymon, Mort Castle, Jerry Williamson, Dave Silva, and others who have read my stuff and took the time to tell me nice things about my writing are personal. I treasure them and never asked if I could share them in print.
Nor do I brag about awards I have won or the nominations for awards I haven’t won. I did not solicit those awards and was pleasantly surprised when I received them. I keep the certificates and trophies in the basement where I store old trunk stories, ARCs, page proofs, and thousands of books I have read and cherish. All of my papers and books will pass to the sff archives at Northern Illinois University when I die. I expect the awards will end up there, too.
But I’m alive and well and still writing, and now I’m asking friends and fans and readers and reviewers to consider my latest works for review and for awards. There will be more Paul Dale Anderson novels and stories appearing in print next year and the year after next. I’ll be asking other writers for blurbs to put on the covers.
If you’re an author who wants readers, you’ve got to think long term. No one lasts long-term in this business without a little help from his friends. So, at long last, I’m asking my friends and followers and fans and fellow fiends for help.
If you like my stories, say so. If you don’t like them, say that, too. Let me know if you want to see more of what I write. If you think my stories or novels are worthy of awards, nominate them for a Stoker or a Nebula or a Hugo or an Anthony. But do it only because you want to, not because I asked.

I have never before asked for reviews nor submitted works for awards. I have never before asked another author for a blurb.

This year is different. This year I turned seventy-one. Most of my friends and many of my acquaintances have perished from this earth. People I depended on to review my works or edit them or recommend them or nominate them for awards are no longer able to do so.

When Gretta, my wife of nearly thirty years, died suddenly of a massive heart attack in 2012, I began writing again from scratch. In essence, I started life over. Writing was all I had to keep myself sane in a world turned upside down. Writing gave new purpose to my life and allowed me to mix fantasy with reality in healthy ways. I completed novels I had started thirty years ago and I began new novels in a variety of genres.

This year—2015—some of those novels appeared in print for the first time. Two new short stories—“Dolls” and “After the Fall”—were published in magazines. Several of my out-of-print novels and short stories were reprinted or appeared as e-books. 2015 has been a marvelous year, and 2016 appears to be even better.

Fame and fortune are fleeting. Some of my titles became momentary best-sellers, then dropped in rank like a rock hurled over a cliff. A few readers were kind enough to write reviews on Amazon or Good Reads. One or two favorable reviews also appeared in magazines or on blogs. I’m grateful for each of those unsolicited reviews, and I hunger for more.

Nelson Algren told me once that a writer needs to ask everyone—friends and strangers alike—to buy his books. “Buy my books and the autograph is free,” he said. “No one will buy your work if you don’t ask.”

Algren was right. Writers must first ask agents or editors to buy their works in manuscript, and then they must ask readers to buy their published works.

It goes against my grain to ask for anything. I was raised to be an independent person, totally self-reliant. If I couldn’t do it by myself, I didn’t bother to do it.

But now I’m asking. I ask you to buy my books and read them. I ask you to leave reviews on Good Reads and Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. I ask you to review my works in print and on blogs. I ask you to talk about my works with anyone who might be interested.

Frederik Pohl used to tell me, when we chatted in con suites at Windycon or Chicon, that a writer is always too close to his own works to judge if they’re good or bad. That’s why we need editors. And reviewers. And awards.

And, I might add, why we need blurbs from other authors. People really do judge books by their covers and cover blurbs from names readers recognize.

Up until now, I have been scrupulous about not allowing burbs on my books. Personal letters from Karl Edward Wagner, Richard Laymon, Mort Castle, Jerry Williamson, Dave Silva, and others who have read my stuff and took the time to tell me nice things about my writing are personal. I treasure them and never asked if I could share them in print.

Nor do I brag about awards I have won or the nominations for awards I haven’t won. I did not solicit those awards and was pleasantly surprised when I received them. I keep the certificates and trophies in the basement where I store old trunk stories, ARCs, page proofs, and thousands of books I have read and cherish. All of my papers and books will pass to the sff archives at Northern Illinois University when I die. I expect the awards will end up there, too.

But I’m alive and well and still writing, and now I’m asking friends and fans and readers and reviewers to consider my latest works for review and for awards. There will be more Paul Dale Anderson novels and stories appearing in print next year and the year after next. I’ll be asking other writers for blurbs to put on the covers.

If you’re an author who wants readers, you’ve got to think long term. No one lasts long-term in this business without a little help from his friends. So, at long last, I’m asking my friends and followers and fans and fellow fiends for help.

If you like my stories, say so. If you don’t like them, say that, too. Let me know if you want to see more of what I write. If you think my stories or novels are worthy of awards, nominate them for a Stoker or a Nebula or a Hugo or an Anthony. But do it only because you want to, not because I asked.

I'm in Ecstasy!

Today was the official publication date of Winds: A Novel, and I’m ecstatic.

I began writing Winds (working titles “Whispers on the Wind” and “Written on the Wind”) in 1979. The first draft featured Philip Ashur, the main protagonist of a planned series of supernatural fantasies I tentatively titled “Cast Away Stones”. Over the next 35 years, Philip Ashur evolved into the villainous behind-the-scenes manipulator you’ll meet in Winds.

Ashur could astral travel. He learned the precious secret more than 8,000 years ago in the Indus Valley. Philip Ashur wasn’t originally a bad man. In his own way, he was quite heroic. Like all mortals, however, Ashur wanted a way to not only prolong his life but to accumulate incredible knowledge and wealth he could take with into his next lives. Ashur’s fatal flaw was he didn’t care what he had to do nor whom he had to hurt to accomplish his goal. I sought to follow Ashur’s quest for immortality, omniscience, and omnipotence through multiple reincarnations. I think I have done that in Winds. Spoiler alert: Ashur will return next year in Stones.

I pitched the idea to my agent Barbara Puechner in 1989. Barb said she thought Stones and Winds would be my break-out novels. She encouraged me to continue developing those stories. But, she said, editors wanted me to also produce the kind of horror and police procedurals I was already known for, and that’s what I did.

I worked on Winds and wrote a few short stories for anthologies and magazines while Barb took time out to deal with family and personal health issues. Gretta, my wife, also had family and personal health issues in the early to mid 1990s, and I experienced my own health crisis and close brush with death in 1996 and 1997. I didn’t try to find another agent nor attempt to market any of my novels on my own when Barbara Puechner died. I had nearly fifty novels—science fiction, fantasy, horror, westerns, and mysteries—in various stages of completion when Gretta died in January of 2012. If I wanted to see any of those novels in print before I also died, I needed to get busy. I completed twenty 100,000 word novels and began work on several more between January 2012 and November 2015.

4 agents and six respected editors expressed interest in my work, but none wanted to tackle the Winds series. David Niall Wilson at Crossroad Press agreed to reprint my previously published horror novels and short story collections, and David said he also wanted to publish all of my original horror and police procedural novels. I revised those manuscripts and Crossroad Press has been successfully publishing them as e-books for the last two years.

Eldritch Press published Abandoned, the first novel in the Winds-series, in March 2015. I pitched Abandoned as a stand-alone novel to several small presses, and Eldritch was the first to offer me a contract. I wanted to see how Eldritch marketed the book before I offered them the rest of the Winds novels. I’m glad I waited.

Because Eldritch Press did little or no marketing, I revived the 2AM Publications imprint Gretta and I had founded back in 1985. 2AM published Darkness in June, Light in September, and Winds in October. Winds was still in the hands of a traditional publisher in May 2015. The editor loved the novel but the publisher saw no place in their list for a novel with a reincarnation theme. When I received their rejection, I was thrilled. 2AM would publish the novel. If Eldritch Press does not renew their contract for Abandoned, 2AM will publish a new edition of Abandoned late next year.

Likewise, the editors who have considered Spilled Milk for nearly two years without offering me a contract, are out of luck. 2AM Publications will publish Spilled Milk in November 2015.

Some people have cautioned me against publishing too many titles in a single year. When you’re 71 years old and have been writing novels for fifty years and few of your titles are in currently print, you don’t want to wait. And you sure as hell don’t want to use pseudonyms. Been there, done that. I want all of my new books to be published with my byline.

I write every day from 9 AM until 2 PM, and again from 10 PM until 2 AM. I produce at least a thousand words a day of fresh fiction. I write four novels a year with time to do revisions and minimal marketing. Writing has taken over my life.

Although I have had ten new novels appear in 2015, those novels were written long ago and recently revised. I have another forty novels—some in first drafts, many in second and third drafts, and a few in partials with detailed outlines and synopses—in progress. And I have one or two brand new novels on the drawing boards.

I also have a couple of hundred trunk stories I’ll get around to revising for magazines or short story collections.

I have no idea when Damnation Books will publish Deviants. That novel has been under contract for more than a year and no publication date has yet been set.

I have news for all the agents and publishers who said reincarnation doesn’t sell: Reincarnation is the next big thing, bigger even than zombies. During the twenty-plus years that I was a professional hypnotist and past-life regression therapist, I regressed thousands of people who discovered their own past lives. I was completely booked up at conferences, and even today I get people requesting past life sessions every week (I tell them to buy my books instead). True, there are many people who are turned off at the thought that their karma will follow them even after death. The main selling point of Christianity is forgiveness for one’s sins. The fact that one is responsible for one’s actions and must suffer the consequences for everything one does is reprehensible to those people. They’re entitled to their beliefs. I pity them when they stand before their God and must account for what they have done with their talents. They’ll be up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Crying “Forgive me for I have sinned” just ain’t gonna cut it.

Winds is fiction. It’s a suspense thriller. You can read Winds as a stand-alone novel or as part of a series. The same is true of Abandoned, Darkness, Light, Time, and Stones.

I did something completely different with Spilled Milk. Part of that forthcoming novel is written in first person from a female’s POV. Part of Spilled Milk is written in third person from male POVs. Like the rest of my novels, Spilled Milk is not for everyone. It’s filled with graphic depictions of rape, murder, and mutilation and is meant as a cautionary tale. If you’re offended by graphic violence, please do not read Spilled Milk.

Read Winds instead. Then read Darkness, Light, and Abandoned. You’ll be glad you did.

A Writer's Heaven

Rockford isn’t known for much that’s good. It’s called “Screw City” for a reason.

 

The Stockholm Inn is very good, and Maria’s Restaurant used to be good. The Ratskeller used to be good, too, and so was the Sweden House. The Stockholm Inn is still in business. The others aren’t.

 

Rockford is known for having an exceptionally high crime rate. It’s also known for having an exceptionally low literacy rate. Anyone see a connection?

 

Rockford used to be known as the “Second City”, second only to Chicago in size, culture, and amenities. Now Rockford has diminished to the fifth or sixth largest city in Illinois. Intelligent people abandoned the town in droves, and more leave every day. Rockford is going downhill rapidly, and no one knows how to apply the brakes.

.

 

Rockford used to support a viable community of writers, poets, artists, and musicians. Most have gone elsewhere, although Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick and poet Christine Swanberg still remain in town and only God knows why. New American Theater closed. The only live theater in town is at the local community college during summer months and at the restored Coronado Performing Arts Center when roadshows come to town. The big box Metro Center—excuse me, the renamed BMO Harris Bank Center—has become a venue for ice hockey and religious festivals and no longer includes a regular schedule of musical performance by big name artists.

 

The annual 3-day and 3 raucous night Labor Day “On the Waterfront” music extravaganza fizzled out and exists only in memory.

 

Rockford used to have one of the finest public libraries in the state. Instead of investing in maintaining the library and increasing its collections, the city chose to build golf courses and sports complexes. Soon the main public library building will be torn down while a new indoor mega-sports center appears on the opposite bank of the Rock River.

 

 

Rockford has no new bookstores other than a few Christian booksellers and one pint-sized children’s bookstore. Borders closed and Barnes and Noble moved out of town to nearby Cherry Valley. Toad Hall, one of the best record and book memorabilia shops in the country, is still on Broadway, but it has deteriorated into a ghost of what it once was. Tomorrow is Yesterday has become more of a gaming haven than a comic book emporium and changed its name to Top Cut Comics and then to Top Cut Central. There is a Half-Price Books discount outlet that opened a few years ago. But they carry only remainders and inventory acquired from bankrupted bookstores.

 

 

I left Rockford and I came back. I left the first time when I went away to the University, but I came back to attend Rockford College when John Bennett and Mary Dearing Lewis and Donald Walhout were teaching there. I left the second time to enter the army and complete my formal education. But, eventually, I came back.

 

Declining home values makes Rockford affordable for low-lifes like me. Rockford’s escalating crime rate provides daily inspiration for crime writers like me. Paranoia and superstition and religious fanaticism fuel the fires of horror fiction. Rockford, Illinois, is a wonderful place to observe entropy in action. In short, Rockford is the perfect place to write.

 

Although I miss brick-and-mortal bookstores, Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com make it easy to buy new and used books from the same computer I use to craft my own fiction. Facebook and Skype allow me to stay in touch with other writers throughout the world without leaving my computer. I can easily access library databases and do research on the internet from the comfort of my own home.

 

Because “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household,” I do leave Rockford to make personal appearances and do book signings all over the world. My novels and stories sell well in England and in Europe and Japan and China. I can hop a commuter bus or airline in Rockford and make connections to anyplace I want to travel. Or I can drive to Chicago’s O’Hare and be there in less than two hours.

 

But I return to Rockford to write. No one here knows or cares that I’m a writer. There are too few venues here to bother about doing local autographings, and the local newspaper and radio and television stations prefer to report on true crime and not the imaginings of home-town boys and girls.

 

Crime runs rampant in Rockford. Gunshots are a daily occurrence. No one here pays any attention to the voice of one person crying in the wilderness.

 

Rockford is known as one of the ten worst places to live in the nation. For a crime writer, it’s one of the best.