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Thursday, July 27, 2023

My Latest and Greatest

This month I published two new books, both of which feature new content not contained in any prior book:
A Fish Out of Water. This is based on material in my book "To Be Loved, Love; To Be Liked, Be Nice to People; To Be an Adult, Forgive People," it's based on the examples I gave about alcohol and negative behavior and self-forgiveness, but I rewrote the material, so the actual text itself is new and unique. The premise of the book is, there is a longstanding phrase "men of a certain age," and this collection of short stories isn't about them, but it is about "men of a certain blood alcohol content." The book is a set of short stories and flash fiction (they're really short stories but they're only 5 to 7 pages each, the entire book is 50 pages) all (well, mostly) focused on the topic of alcoholics who attempt to quit drinking alcohol. As a recovering alcoholic myself (100% sober for 13 years and yet I still think about alcohol at least once a week, especially because a lot of the queer scene in my town revolves around this one gay bar where everyone drinks), this is a topic where I can follow that sage writer's advice, "write what you know."
The other one is an epic young adult horror science fiction novel called "Manifestation." Perhaps the first thing that one will notice about it is that it is set in the far, far, far future, in the year 3891. I attempted to give a serious, realistic, coherent depiction of what life might look like for humans 2000 years in the future. Part of the fun of reading the novel is to assess whether that future looks real, and, if so, whether it is a dystopia or a utopia or maybe a little of both.
However, it isn't just about the setting. It has a fast-paced, clever, exciting plot, with fun, interesting characters. The book blurb explains the premise of the plot, so if you're interested, please feel free to take a look.
And, with that, I can officially declare that I am not working on any other books at the moment.

P.S. I have been vegetarian again for a full week and this time I think I've found a sustainable vegetarian diet. It's basically just eat rice and beans with a side of fresh vegetables for every meal. Rice and beans is the perfect vegetarian lunch or dinner. For veggies I am rotating broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, kale, and some other stuff.

Tuesday, July 4, 2023

My Latest Novel "Bloodthirsty Spiritualist"

So, now that I've stopped writing, I spend a lot of time writing....
Anyway, I wrote a new novel. It kind of just happened spontaneously, and it only took me five days to write it (it's 75 pages long). It's a novel at the intersection of literary fiction, urban fantasy, horror, and thriller, and LGBTQ literature, with an extreme focus on vampires. It does not fit neatly into any one genre. It's called Bloodthirsty Spiritualist. It's definitely the best work of fiction I ever wrote, although an argument can be made that I have written nonfiction books that might be better. I've been spending some time writing poetry at a writer's workshop recently (I do not intend to ever publish my poetry), and I think that writing poetry and getting a feel for how to write a poem has improved my quality of prose fiction, which is on display in my new novel. But I don't know, see what you think, you might like it, or you might dislike it.