RepairmanJack.com Forums - My So Called Life

Randi's Gang

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 23:54:48 +0000

I joined the James Randi Educational Foundation. If you value critical thinking, you will too. http://www.randi.org/site/

Quick Fixes...

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 23:54:48 +0000

the final correction on the tpb just went in. Won’t be long now.

What really sux:

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 23:54:48 +0000

Finishing a chapter and realizing you’ve written it from the wrong POV. Sure, changing it around makes it better, but all that extra work does not advance the narrative a whit. Bummer.

Quick fixes

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 23:54:48 +0000

Just gave the okay to print up a sample trade paperback. I think we’re looking at a September on-sale date. In the meantime, there’s still the ebook.

CRISSCROSS review

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 23:54:48 +0000

…on something called “The Ex-Scientologist Forum.” Can’t think of a better place: http://tinyurl.com/43t9khb

"Sons of Guns"

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 23:54:48 +0000

I’ve fallen in love with this show. I mean, a chromed, tatted M1919 machinegun with chopper handlebars? Come on! Gun porn!

ALL THE RAGE ebook

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 23:54:48 +0000

finally available as an ebook. CONSPIRACIES shouldn’t be too far behind. http://tinyurl.com/43gw7od

Off to NOLA

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 23:54:48 +0000

for Heather Graham’s workshop. Sending the F-Files newsletter before I go. Check your spam filters.

The NIGHTWORLD ms...

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 23:54:48 +0000

arrove, copyedited to within an inch of its life. It’s a fat one. Due back 10/7.

Photo

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 23:54:48 +0000

January 2015

Sun, 01 Feb 2015 14:17:49 +0000

1/1 - happy 2015 to all

1/3 - "Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads." - George Bernard Shaw

1/4 - Allow me to share the pain (the last panel is pretty clever) http://tinyurl.com/ksfpl6j

1/5 - I agree: "Of all the things I thought might happen in 2015, a sex scandal involving Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz was pretty low on the list." (Conan O'Brien)

1/7 - the Charlie Hebdo tragedy. as someone Tweeted: "The gunmen's basic message: If you don't stop calling our religion intolerant and violent, we'll murder you." JE SUIS CHARLIE

1/10 - "The Compendium of Srem" is now audo: http://tinyurl.com/nsdqhyq

1/13 - A rambling interview recorded during the San Francisco stop on my last book tour. (Do I always talk with my hands?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkEPlIRStg8

1/14 - had surgery on my left-hand Dupuytren's contractures.

1/16 - new FEAR CITY review http://buzzymag.com/fear-city-repairman-...ul-wilson/

1/17 - THE BOY WHO CAME BACK FROM HEAVEN didn't go. He says he lied. The irony is in his surname: http://tinyurl.com/meb5w3f

1/19 - post playoff question: Is it true the Colts' QB has changed his first name from Andrew to Shitowta?

1/21 - A surprising view of US troops in Afghanistan through the eyes of a French soldier. It's nothing like what I thought it would be. http://tinyurl.com/lf8m96l

1/22 - Is this the mindset of modern journalism? Let zealot thugs determine editorial content? This DeWayne Wickham should be immediately fired as dean of Morgan State University's School of Global Journalism and Communication http://tinyurl.com/ns4cfrp

1/23 - Word from ITW that FACE OFF has sold a combined 70k+ hardcovers and ebooks. Plus sales of the individual ebook singles of the stories are over 27k. Not bad at all. http://tinyurl.com/nbzagl3

1/23-25 - Borderlands Writers Bootcamp - a good group this year.

1/25 - SYNCHRONICITY DEPT:
After hearing a radio business report about how people are working longer hours and not taking their vacation time (or if they do, they work through their vacations), this McDonald's commercial came on:
(from memory)
Her: Do you remember breakfast?
Him: No, what's that?
Her: Once upon a time it was what people used to eat in the morning.
Him: (startled) Before work?
Her: Yes. They'd journey to the land of Golden Arches for fresh eggs and bacon. (excited) I think I remember bacon!
Him: (resolute) Let's find these Golden Arches! Let's have this breakfast!
Her: And on the way I'll tell you about vacations.
Him: My great uncle had one of those.
(Effective advertising reflects the zeitgeist. The best advertising influences it.)

1/27 - Must. See. This. Film. (and if you have any love for 60's music, so must you) These guys played on damn near EVERYTHING http://wreckingcrewfilm.com/

1/30 - all right - I just saw this for the 1st time. Totally cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqbomTIW...e=youtu.be

1/31 - it's White Castle! Why are they surprised? http://tinyurl.com/nfwlx9z

October 2014

Sat, 01 Nov 2014 18:14:57 +0000

10/2 - Okay, FREAK SHOW (the anthology, not the TV show) is now out for real. The initial ebook incarnation was plagued by a host of errors. HWA has fixed them all and now you can read the anthology that took a year out of my life to assemble. http://tinyurl.com/me864r9

10/5 - iPhone grab FAIL. I’m told this was staged. If so it’s very well staged (see the way she falls back after kicking him in the face – just the way she would with real impact). Real or not, it’s inspiring in a way: http://tinyurl.com/p29a9or

10/9 - Good panel at the Union Square B&N tonight (we had them laughing), preceded by a stop at one of my high-school hangs: the Old Town bar on E. 18[SUP]th[/SUP] Street.

10/10 - my NY ComicCon day: wrote in the A.M. and hit the Javitz in the afternoon, then got together at the Algonquin with this crew where I did my annual recitation of Dorothy Parker's Martini poem (got it right this year). Then down the street to The Lambs Club for an amazing dinner. Where can you find 8 people who can discuss Pascal's Wager and Ray Palmer's Shaver Mysteries with equal passion? http://tinyurl.com/pt2p8kd

10/13 - What a kick to see Pee-wee Herman on this week's episode of "The Blacklist"

10/13 - AHS: "Freak Show" - Watched the pilot. Visually impressive but so far it's little more than a bizarre slasher flick. I'll give it another couple of episodes. If it doesn't push beyond the boundaries of Browning's film, I'll probably bail. Would love to see some sort of paranormal/supranormal overtones like we had in the "Freak Show" anthology.

10/14 - CNN defends its new slogan: http://tinyurl.com/ktdjj2k

10/15 - Rainy night at the Jersey Shore... time for a Langley's gimlet. http://tinyurl.com/m6qg8ko

10/16 - Whenever I hear one of those anti-vaccine mooks on the radio, I'm reminded of this Josh Billings quote: "The trouble with most folks isn't so much their ignorance, as knowing so many things that ain't so."

10/17 - Well, I don't know about you folks, but I'm sure I'll rest easier tonight knowing the Prez appointed a loyal party hack as Ebola Czar

10/19 - Enjoying "Peaky Blinders" on Netflix. I hear there's a season 2 now playing in the UK.

10/20 - every downside has an upside for someone - even when it’s ebola: http://tinyurl.com/nsnqkld

10/22 - Last month at lunch the marketing and publicity people mentioned a book trailer for FEAR CITY. I love what they did. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8p2O2SBSKI

10/23 - Can this be true? 10,000 pages of CREEPY & EERIE for <$150??? https://digital.darkhorse.com/genre/185/ (I’m in Creepy#44 and Eerie #34)

10/24 - POSSIBLE SPOILER - Boardwalk Empire - WTF??? Nucky Thompson died at 85 of old age!!! Totally bogus ending to the series. If you’re gonna pick a historical figure, stick to his lifeline.

10/27 - I began posting what I call “Fear City Snippets” - posters with little bits of dialogue plucked from here and there in the novel. One a day. A dozen of them. Here are the ones that have appeared so far. Check the website for the rest as they’re posted.

http://tinyurl.com/fear-city-1
http://tinyurl.com/fear-city-2
http://tinyurl.com/fear-city-3
http://tinyurl.com/fear-city-4
http://tinyurl.com/fear-city-5

Photo

Sat, 18 Oct 2014 20:28:00 +0000

September 2014

Sun, 05 Oct 2014 14:41:23 +0000

9/1 - "A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves." -- Bertrand de Jouvenel (1903-1987)

9/3 - There's a story behind this photo. I'll probably never know the truth so maybe I'll make up one. http://tinyurl.com/kebld74

9/6 - So far I've spent the writing day in the head of a character with terrible grammar and all sorts of malaprops, and now I find myself thinking / speaking bad grammar and malaprops.

9/9 - RiP Graham Joyce - so sorry to hear this. I thought he was holding his own. A unique voice in fantastic fiction and, quite simply, just a great guy.

9/10 - This will look like a name-dropping exercise, but I do have a point to make. Genre hopping has its downside for writers, but upsides too. Like at last night's 40th Anniversary party for my literary agency, Writers House. All the writers seemed to cluster by genre or by agent and didn't intermingle much because they didn't know many outside their circle. But I was able to wander from Megan Abbott (we discussed gin and gimlets) to Ellen Datlow (who told me about her new reprint anthology) to Wallace Stroby to Neil Gaiman (he's got a beard now) to M.J. Rose to Laurell Hamilton to Daniel Waters, etc. Genre hopping allows me to feel at home with all of them. (It also helps to have been hopping since the Jurassic Age.)

9/11 - If you've been to the Borderlands Press Bootcamp you've no doubt noticed that I often reposition the word "only" in my line edits. Here's a great example of why you have to pay attention to where you place it in a sentence. http://tinyurl.com/khfebwd

9/12 - real newspaper header: "Statistics show that teen pregnancy drops off significantly after age 25." (I have a feeling it's sooner than that.)

9/13 - Ha! Spellcheck surrenders! The 2nd Nocturnia YA novel Tom Monteleone and I are writing has so many intentional misspellings and neologisms that spellcheck just waved a white flag and said it can no longer keep flagging errors.

9/14 - A LIFE by Keef. Love the guitar stuff (I'm def going to change my electric to his 5-string open-G tuning - no wonder I could never get "Jumping Jack Flash" to sound right) and the scenes behind the scenes, but his junkie life is wearing me out. If he doesn't clean up soon I'm bailing.

9/16 - these were supposedly written by high schoolers. Don't know about that, but take a look: http://tinyurl.com/lpmhw9c [I kind of like number one, although it could be improved with specificity (e.g.: replace "farm equipment" with "back hoe")]

9/17 - Nice Publishers Weekly review of FEAR CITY:
"Set in 1993, the riveting final novel chronicling Repairman Jack’s early years (after 2013’s Dark City) finds the score-settling “fixer” living in Manhattan, straddling the boundary between both sides of the law. A brutal murder catalyzes the collision of several subplots developed in Jack’s two previous outings, notably the Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order’s backing of Muslim extremists, whose passion for bringing jihad to America sets them on course to bomb the World Trade Center. Jack loses several people dear to him in the destruction of the Twin Towers, and is witness to interrogations that come close to being torture porn, discovering just how cruelly the darkness inside him can express itself. Wilson skillfully cross-cuts between characters and their viewpoints as the clock ticks down to the exciting climax. If, as the author’s note suggests, this may be the last Repairman Jack adventure, Wilson has certainly sent the series off with a bang."

9/18 - Mark Twain: "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

9/19 - the final 2 stops on the FEAR CITY tour are booked. (see WHERE I’LL BE)

9/20 - FYI - an amazing and helpful website for any reader who follows a series (or two or three): http://www.orderofbooks.com/authors/

9/21 - FaceOff - just heard from Steve Berry that it's sold an amazing 15,000 hardcovers and nearly 40,000 ebooks for a total of 55,000 units in its first 15 weeks. Unheard of for an anthology. All royalties go to ITW to keep it a dues-free writers' organization.

9/22 - Coolness and scariness all rolled into one: http://tinyurl.com/o48fq58

9/23 - One of my a.m. pre-work surf stops is Locus Online where I check to see if any writer I know has died. The good news: nobody listed today.

9/23 - "The Compendium of Srem" ebook pubbed today: http://tinyurl.com/l4qchhp

9/24 - THAT'S OKAY, MR. MANN. WE'RE GOOD!
Michael Mann at Loyola Marymount U: A student asked a question that led to mention of The Keep (the full interview is in The Hollywood Reporter)
Student: Is there any one film you wish you could make again?
MM: Uh, probably The Keep. [Laughs.]
Student: Which is a hard film to get to see.
MM: It's a hard film to get to --
Student: Why?
MM: It was a script that wasn't quite ready, and, [a hard] script to schedule, because of how the picture was financed. And a key guy in the making of it, a man named Wally Veevers, who was a brill -- wonderful, wonderful man, who was a very talented visual effects designer from 2001 all the way back to The Shape of Things to Come, tragically passed away, right there in the middle of our post production. And, so it became for me, a film that was never completely, never completely realized."

9/24 - my new wallpaper: http://tinyurl.com/l223ca8

9/25 - looking forward to this: http://thekeepdocumentary.com/

9/28 - This 240-year-old writing automaton is without a doubt the finest piece of clockwork you'll ever see. Ever. http://tinyurl.com/lzmxldp

August 2014

Mon, 01 Sep 2014 11:47:46 +0000

8/1 - nifty review of DARK CITY: http://tinyurl.com/psm5hkl

8/5 - Wait...10,000 people killed annually by SNAILS???... http://fb.me/70a3YhK49

8/7 - Hey, "True Detective" fans: Looks like everything that lifted TD above another ho-hum serial killer story was lifted from Thomas Ligotti. http://lovecraftzine.com/2014/08/04/did-...nd-others/

8/10 - a balanced look at Amazon/Hachette from @LeeGoldberg http://bit.ly/1oBJnDm

8/11 - RIP Robin Williams - MY ROBIN WILLIAMS STORY:
Back in the mid-90s Matt Costello and I were freelancing at Disney Interactive, scripting "MathQuest with Aladdin." The hope, of course, was that Robin Williams would do the Genie's voice and he eventually agreed. We were back East when he came into the studio to do his lines, so we missed the recording session, but we were each sent a copy of the raw tape.

What a revelation. We'd assumed that the animators would choose the Genie's look in a particular scene and Williams would adopt the appropriate accent for the dialogue. Wrong! Williams did every single line in a different accent -- at least four per line -- and rarely the same mix of accents. At times he would stop and say he didn't like the way one came out and would repeat it until he got it the way he wanted. (I should mention that he was sick and running a fever during the session but this was the only window he had to be in the studio, so he hung in there like the proverbial trouper.)

The animators took the tape and chose the accent(s) they thought worked for a particular scene, and illustrated Genie accordingly. (Jonathan Winters also performed on "MathQuest.")

So there's my Robin Williams story: He performed dialogue I co-wrote. (How many degrees of separation is that?)

8/13 - I've found it best to avoid fiction where "luminous prose" is a selling point.

8/15 - A 2-minute Q&A on an Aussie website. Give it a look, mate. http://www.festivale.info/questions/f_paul_wilson2.htm

8/17 - retweeting: “Finished the wayward pines trilogy by @blakecrouch1. bummed it was over. @fpaulwilson then came to my rescue with the The Widow Lindley”

8/18 - RIP Scott McKenzie - (Yes, he died 2 years ago but I just heard.) I like his "Like an Old-Time Movie" (another John Phillips song) better. Great voice. http://tinyurl.com/psoyhoj In case you've never heard "Like an Old-time Movie" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78GxqOoiA50

8/19 - Ya know, I can't put my finger on it, but there's something I like about this DARK DUETS review: http://tinyurl.com/kbo6qb8 (It contains “Renascence” by Rhodi Hawk and me - a zombie story but unlike anything anyone else is doing. I didn't even think of it as a zombie story until Rhodi pointed it out. We've come up with a sociopathic main character who's definitely not a victim of the so-called "Trinity Syndrome." Ton's o' fun. So much so that we plan to continue the story once our schedules allow.

8/22 - Project Pulp has begun an audiobook serialization the entire "SEX SLAVES OF THE DRAGON TONG" triptych: http://tinyurl.com/pk7r3j5

8/24 - if you know a cooler form of graffiti, I’d like to hear it: http://tinyurl.com/pk34bbx

8/28 - UFO caught on tape. Now I believe!!! http://tinyurl.com/mojf9wh

8/30 - Welcome to NY - now go home: The truest (and funniest) NYC tourist video ever. Not kidding. http://tinyurl.com/kmpt77s