New “Reality Makes the Best Fantasy” article on Troll in the Corner:

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There are approximately 640 skeletal muscles in the human body. These are the muscles that work in conjunction with your glorious skeleton to move you from the computer to the fridge and back to the computer again. I’m assuming you live like me, wrapped in a blanket, drinking coffee and wishing your kid was old enough to make sammiches.

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Continue reading the whole article here.

New article is up on Troll in the Corner – Reality Makes the Best Fantasy: Bathing and Personal Hygeine

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Bathing for many people is part of a daily routine. It’s a time to cleanse the body and zone out to the sound of rushing water for those of us who shower (don’t front). Baths can be used for cleaning, relaxation, medicine or ritual cleansing. And the list of accompanying products is daunting. Soap, body wash, scrubs. Sponges, those poofy mesh things, loofahs, washcloths. Razors with an infinite amount of blades. Lotions, aftershaves, shampoos, deodorants, powders. Cleaning and grooming is a huge industry, taking up shelf spaces larger than some studio apartments. And there’s always some new product, assuring you it will fizz, bubble or explode cleanliness upon your epidermis, visiting cruel doom upon germs and dead skin cells….
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Read the rest of the article here.

New article is up on Troll in the Corner – Reality Makes the Best Fantasy: Taxes and Fees

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I don’t do our taxes. This is because when it comes to numbers my brain has a hard time keeping them straight and tends to mix them up. I can also be a very paranoid person and the idea of incurring the wrath of the federal government for failing to carry a one fills me with dread. I don’t try to conquer my issue or face my fear. My spouse is insanely better at this kind of thing so I let him handle it. If someone has to invent a race of mangrove-forest dwelling fish people, huzzah! I am here to serve. But numbers and finances? No thank you…
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Read the rest of the article here.

So the gaming site I write for is UP FOR AN AWARD!!

That’s right, Troll in the Corner is up for Site of the Year at Stuffer Shack! WOW. I can’t say how happy that is making all of us at Troll in the Corner.

If you have the time, we would really appreciate some VOTES. Even if you don’t vote for Troll in the Corner, pay a bit of an homage to your favorite gaming site with the click of the button.

But seriously, vote for us. We were the people who brought you COCAINE BOLOGNA.

Hope you’re all having a great week! Cheers!

12 Free Books From 12 Fantasy Authors

April 17th is Tax Day in the US and a group of fantasy writers have banded together to bring you something to feel better about – FREE fantasy books! Tristan and 11 others are offering their books for free today on Amazon.

This is also a chance for us to kick off the release of Tristan’s newest book ‘Little Girl Lost’, a short story that reveals Tavera’s history and how she ends up where we find her at the beginning of ‘Thieves at Heart’. So please help us celebrate this release by downloading it for FREE!

So today my short story, Botanica Blues, went live in the Barnes and Noble store and the Amazon store, after a bit of wrestling with Techno Hermes.

‘Botanica Blues’ is the first thing we’re releasing that isn’t fantasy. It’s a modern day, noir, weird story. It spawned from a few other short stories and ideas I’ve had, placing the island of Puerto Rico and its people square in the Lovecraft Mythos. Puerto Rico, its people and its traditions teem with so many things lending itself to the weird. One point of the Bermuda Triangle touches its shores. Its indigenous population is rife with tales not familiar to most. Its history as a colony, demographic made up of native Americans, Spaniards, Africans and the customary integration of the traditional religions with Catholocism means the spiritual culture is a glorious mixture of saints, spirits, taboos, demons, and mysteries. People believe in angels and aliens. And the population moved and set up communities in mainland America that except for the weather and the architecture are microcosms of this people group. Top this all with a fierce pride and you’ve got yourself an amazing starting point for all kinds of stories.

I grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Brand new project housing set up in the 50s was where many recently migrated Puerto Ricans, including my maternal grandmother, decided to put down roots. They set up bodegas, worked in factories and worked hard to gain better lives than could be afforded to them on their beautiful island home. I’m sure Lovecraft would have relegated them to ‘evil looking foreigners.’ Fiercely proud of their heritage they became Nuyoricans and contributed to the American economy and culture, dealing with racism that was all too common at the time and still persists in a less obvious way.

I was still living in New York when 9/11 happened. I was in my freshman year of college, getting ready for a 10:30 class and watching the news to get the weather and they were reporting a strange fire at the WTC. I still remember watching the TV and pulling a stupid face when the second tower suddenly burst into flames. I went outside. A lot of people did. I was 11 when the failed carbomb went off in the basement. I walked all down Delancey Street, watching, wondering what the fuck was happening. I wasn’t expecting the towers to collapse. But they did.

Living in the Lower East Side meant no cars were on the streets the following week. We lived just south of the Houston Street check point. Walking to the grocery store was eerie and various items were absent on the supermarket shelves since trucks weren’t allowed into Lower Manhattan. The sound of planes had us all running to the windows to see what was in NYC airspace, to see how low it was flying. School was closed. And we waited. We were afraid. Eventually they lowered the barricades to Canal Street so that Chinatown was off limits.

‘Botanica Blues’ deals with the misadventures of Luis Quintana, a Puerto Rican private investigator dealing with those bits of religion and culture that don’t translate well or are misrepresented by America at large. He lives in what is basically a parallel NYC, in one of the barrios. He’s served in the military, joining after 9/11 as a lot of people did because they loved their country, even while proudly proclaiming they are of a different heritage. He’s been through terror. He’s ‘fought terrorism.’ He has a family and friends. He has a degree. He lives in a place where politics trump many things. And he struggles with the spectrum of right and wrong, good and evil, sanity and madness.

I didn’t write ‘Botanica Blues’ with the express purpose of flipping off Lovecraft’s racism. I wrote a story that sounded interesting to me that drew upon my background as a Nuyorican. I see Puerto Ricans and minorities as more than mindless followers or degenerate worshippers. I love weird fiction and I love my Puerto Rican upbringing, thrown chancletas and all. While it might seem misplaced to honor something by subjecting it to the terrible presence of the Elder Gods, being included in a mythos and being allowed to go insane alongside the various denizens of New England is something I think Puerto Ricans and other people of color can do just as well. I just hope that everyone who reads ‘Botanica Blues’ hopes its up to snuff.

I’ve dedicated this story to my family as well as the Lower East Side, which will always be mine, if not my home. If you’ve lived on the LES or you live there now, I hope it fills you with a little bit of pride. And makes you shiver when you look up at the sky.

Hey all, what’s up? Working on the second round of edits of ‘Self-Made Scoundrel’ these days as well as some interview questions. Also, I found the time to write an article for Troll in the Corner. This week’s topic? Cocaine Bologna.

“…the terrible picture was of a KILO OF COCAINE which someone had attempted to smuggle into the country by hiding it in a LOG OF BOLOGNA. I…I didn’t know what to do. The idea in and of itself wedged itself into my mind. Once seen, never unseen. So gross and bizarre. BIZARRE. I mean, seriously, what was the conversation leading up to this?

‘Hey, I’ve got this kilo of cocaine I need to send to someone. What should I do?’”

ENJOY

Once Seen, Never Unseen

My newest weekly article on Troll in the Corner is up! Here’s an excerpt:

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Reality Makes the Best Fantasy: Friends and Family

As much as I like to joke that I have no friends and that I moved 3,000 miles away from the East Coast to get away from my family, the fact remains that I do in fact have both of these things. My spouse is one of the most misanthropic people I know but he still is an amazing son, brother and spouse and stays in close contact with his best friends from High School (yes, they gamed together). It is very rare indeed to find someone who doesn’t have one friend or family member to speak of. Everyone short of the extremely unfortunate or the extremely self-sufficient has connections to someone.

Oh wait, I forgot to add adventurers to that list.

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Read the rest of the article here and if you like it please share it, retweet it, or spread the word.

Thieves at Heart is FREE march 16th-17th on Amazon|Amazon.uk|Amazon.de|Amazon.fr

Howdy! How are you all doing? For any of you who only follow my blog, I am not in fact dead or in some kind of catatonic state that does not allow me to blog. But I have been busy and yammering away on Twitter a lot so the blog is thought about often but not really opened. For that, I apologize.

Busy with what, you might ask? Well, first and foremost I finally finished the First Round edits of Self-Made Scoundrel. Holy balls. Thank (insert appropriate deity here). Thieves at Heart was kind of fun to edit, to be totally honest. Breaking into the world of editing with an editor was kind of like a magical adventure with Annetta Ribken, who I love working with. Self Made Scoundrel was more like…wrestling a bear. I’ve never actually wrestled a bear but I maybe made sound sounds like one in my head while I was typing. It was nuts but I’m glad that I managed it and that my editor has it again so she can send it back and we can bang away at it. I do like Derk but I think I like writing about Tavi a bit better. There are some revealing bits about Derk’s past and some sad parts and infuriating parts. Derk’s a bit of an ass and showing some of his past was a bit hard to do. I’m hoping you all like it.

I managed to write one piece for an anthology and I should be hearing back in April whether it was accepted or not. I’ll probably be writing for another anthology later in the year but editing The Valley of Ten Crescents takes priority. Still, gotta stretch all the writey bits don’t we?

I’ve also been writing for Troll in the Corner still, with my weekly column ‘Reality Makes the Best Fantasy.’ It goes up on Fridays (though once it went up on a Saturday because I was dead effing tired). I’m not doing ‘Movies for Gamers’ at the moment because two articles plus the editing was too much and well, you gotta prioritize, people. I’ve been enjoying writing for Troll in the Corner. Ben Gerber is a fun guy and they’ve got some great articles up there. A few of my articles have bits of fictions included so if you want something to tide you over till SMS, check them out.

What are our plans for the Spring? Get Self-Made Scoundrel out and maybe a little something extra. Get cracking on the third book ‘Red Moon Rising.’ Get ready for GEEKGIRLCON, which I am really excited about and hoping to attend with my Admin and the Small Boss. Also, it’s my Small Boss’ 5th birthday in…egads, two weeks. I can’t believe this time five years ago I was some kind of gestation behemoth, plodding through Portland and making angry eyebrows at my father in law for wishing for a St. Patrick’s Day baby. A lot has changed. Damn.

Well, that’s the news for now. I hope this tail end of winter is treating you all kindly. Cheers!

So, Anna Meade of Yearning for Wonderland is running a Flash Fiction Contest where authors write 300 words or less regarding an incident with the supernatural. I decided, hey, I should try. What’s the worst that can happen?

So here it is, my submission.

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From barred windows I watched you and wondered at you. You called to me, flaunting your rich greenness, your hands reaching towards the sky and the tops of buildings. Showed me the effects of time and the seasons with your colors. Over and across and under what our hands have made, you crept and creep and will continue to creep, verdant, attempting, tempting me with your energy. You washed over me and transformed me, awoke a dualistic nature.
All life starts as intrusion, you say, and there is forgiveness in your voice. You run your fingers through my hair, over my skin. You kiss me with heat and cold. Ageless fingers point it out. The fossil in the stone slabs of a building. The moss that clings like a lover to the stone. The seedling that peeks through the cracks in the cement. The sun shining on the side of an edifice. The screech of the owl as I lay in my bed. The laugh of a crow as I slip in the snow. The acorn that crunches underfoot. The spider’s home in the corner.

Your caves came before the womb, your trees before the phallus. We find ourselves in you and you chuckle and allow the travesty.

Beautiful, terrible, ravenous, giving, you have captured my imagination. You run your fingers through my mind and plant your seeds in my skull. Germinated by blood, they send their roots into my brain. Your beautiful chaos, your erratic dance in a time both measured and eternal enrapture my mind.

Sublime beauty, you both mock and comfort. You have carved your name into my skin, like a pair of lovers might carve their initials into a tree. Within you I dwell and within me, you reign.