Plug from M-BRANE SF (i.e. squee!)

If I haven't recently said (bad me), M-BRANE SF is made of win. Not only is it a great mag (do subscribe if you haven't!), but the editor, Christopher Fletcher, is absolutely fantastic about promo for authors who have had stories published or upcoming in the magazine. :D

Is this cool or what?



(The emoticon has nothing to do with this... except maybe a toast to M-BRANE... I just adored that smiley on the old NaNoWriMo boards and wanted to use it. That one too. Can you tell I'm having too much fun now?)

So yes. Now you know offically M-BRANE is awesome in all ways. :D

~Merc

Read more...

"Hangman" on Dunesteef

The first-ever podcast of one of my stories is out at Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine.

"Hangman" was originally published in AlienSkin Magazine, and the guys at Dunesteef did a fantabulous job. I'm so excited! :D

Please stop by and have a listen--I'd love to know what you think. (And yes, I already know my voice is Evil Incarnate... did you ever wonder why I have so many zombie minions?)

Enjoy,

~Merc

Read more...

Construction and deconstruction (i.e. making things explode)

I meant to eventually come back and fix the layout/colors/general blogness looks, but the zombies were in need of feeding, and one thing led to another and... yeah, it didn't happen.

Currently I rather hate the way pictures and images fit in the sidebars, I'm debating a lighter, more eye-friendly color-scheme, etc, and I need to update link lists.

So, be prepared* for random bizarre occurrences of color blindness, more explosions than usual, and the screams of innocent passersby getting struck with falling debris. Bloggish re-construction is in the near future. (I live in Minnesota. Summer = road construction. Well, actually, there is no summer. The seasons are Winter and Road Construction. But anyway, I'm just going with my home state's trends from hell and initiating construction with the warm weather.)

Don't panic if you see flaming zombies falling into the moats, m'kay? 'S all I'm saying. It'll be a work in progress for a week or so.

(You're welcome to comment on how it looks. Love or hate or want to nuke it, it's all good. ;) I'm not a visual designer for a reason. :P)

~Merc

*If anyone dares mention the Lion King song and gets it stuck in my head, you will probably want to flee the planet before I find you. %-)

Read more...

I'm a chocolate-plated yard gnome...

Not literally, but I bet that got your attention, didn't it? Mwhahaha.

Actually, it's in reference to Jeremy C. Shipp's new Bizarro Bytes.

I would totally be a zombie horde mistress anyway.

~Merc

Read more...

Combatting Shiny Ideas with flamethrowers and goals

. . . or not.

In an effort to make myself, you know, actually work on a novel, I decided to set myself a goal. I will write 500 words on NECROMANCER FALLEN before diving into new, shiny story ideas (such as the novella that invaded my brain, with tigers).

It was a spectacular failure. The first day (Sunday, aka yesterday), my brain said "screw you". I wrote a 1,200 word outline, took a nap, and then wrote 1,500 words on the "shininess with tigers" novella. NF was cruelly neglected and forced to sulk in a corner.



(I'm having too much fun shamelessly hijacking emoticons, too.*)

Ugh.

Either my brain is still in "screw you" mode (okay, fine, when isn't it?), or I'm still taken with the idea of gladiatorial were-tigers in a circus, or I'm just procrastinating on NF. Maybe all three. *sigh*

However. Even if day one was a loss on the novel (regardless of what I did get done--which was good, yes, I admit it), I shall strive to crush this pitiful rebellion off the face of the galaxy! (Damn. The rebellions tend to win in SF, don't they?)

Possibly there will be bloggish updates about the ongoing war between Empire Merc and the Brain Rebellion. *cue dramatic music*

~Merc

*This emoticon was hijacked off Absolute Write.

Read more...

Couldn't have said it better.

Though naturally I would have added zombies. ;)

Amy Laurens over at Inkfever has a brilliant post about the logic of narration and tense in general, when telling stories.

Story Elements #6: Narrators and Tense

(Having had the "dead first person narrators are illogical!" debate with people before--I'm pro on the issue, I see no problem with DFPNs--I really adore Inky's argument that all narrators are, in a way, illogical if you think about it.)

*wanders off to kill some more first person narrators*


~Merc

Read more...

Fiction Idol: Jeremy C. Shipp

Awhile back, I remember reading the story "Camp," originally published in ChiZine. It's a sick, twisted story about a special summer camp for "special" kids. (I mean that in the best possible way, of course, since I way enjoyed the short.) That story has stayed in my head ever since, and yes, I will now forever associate summer camps with the place described in the narrative.

Just recently, I "discovered" (or perhaps re-discovered) the author, Jeremy C. Shipp, via Twitter. (You can follow him here.)

I adore his work. ADORE, I tell you. (Read and you will see why.)

The man is a freaking genius with dark fiction (horror, bizzaro, dark fantasy, etc) and absolutely awesome all around. Did I mention hilarious, too? And he has a thing for gnomes. (According to this interview at Fear Zone, he actually is a gnome who is shortness challenged.)

Mr. Shipp is the author of Sheep and Wolves (a short story collection) and the novel Vacation, with a second novel, CURSED, coming soon.

I suppose I could sum up my fandom with a bout of manical laughter. So. Bwhahahaha!

If you like dark, twisted, disturbed, thought-provoking, highly entertaining and imaginative fiction, check out Jeremy's body of work. (No, not the bodies in the trunk of the car.)

I guarantee the stories will stick with you for a long, long time. They may even breed gnomes in your spleen.

(Of course I still prefer zombies, but hey, to each his own.)

~Merc (who is parathentical and has discovered icons can be pasted into posts--let the world beware!)

Read more...

Cloned gods and dentures--April Recap

I nearly forgot about this. *sets her hair on fire*

GOALS SET IN APRIL

- edit/revise the Permits 'Verse short (the "controversial" one )
Mwhahaha. I actually did this--at least, cohesified it into a short. (It was formerly part of a novel.) Also, ooooh, I didn't think images transferred from CC! *is distracted by shiny devil emoticons*

- fix the other permits short I finished yesterday and decide if either of them can be dragged out of suckiness to consider for subbing
Meh. Forgot about this one. Oh well.

- finish the two Fourth Reich shorts I have going (that tag is so much easier to write than shiny-alt-history-post-apocalyptic-SF-fantasy-weirdness)
Check. I was pleased.

- ignore all novels until after I move
That was the easiest one of all. O:)

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED

Novels
Nothing, it was glorious!

Oh. Wait. Damn it--somehow I got suckered into finishing TSASHI's first chapter. *le sigh* I got to blow stuff up. A ship, a prison wagon, and almost the MC. Funness. O:)

Still, in comparison with my goal, that's not too bad.


Short Stories
Six shorts completed. Shockingly I'm even happy with most of them. :P Two "Fourth Reich" stories done (involving sphinxes, antlered elves, elementals, jackal-headed semi-cyborg dudes running around, blowing up tanks, and killing the MC. Several times). Shah is still an irredeemable pest. PUT THE GRENADE DOWN, Shah. Argh.

Moving on. Another re-told fairy tale got added to the mix last month, involving Hansel and Gretel, the Gingerbread Man, and zombies.

The anthro snake short involving a cobra fallen angel and a gay brown mamba didn't turn out so well. Meh. Have to figure out how to fix it. On the plus side, there was an albino anaconda general dude.

The necromancer short is, well. Let us say it at least has a beginning, middle and end. I'm waiting on the verdict about coherency and workability. ;) (It's set in my goblin world. So the fun part was my sexy, coloful goblins. Okay, and messing with Leopard, the necromancer.)

And finally, I edited the Permits short "Ryan" into something resembling coherency.

Started a few new shorts, mostly a non-short set in the goblin world, a third "Fourth Reich" short (involving baby psychic griffins and many explosions of armored mechs), and a horror piece about teeth. Floating, killer, invisible teeth. And dentists. Ugh, why do I do this to myself...

Other Writing Stuff
Not much. A crit or two.

Random trends of the month
It is clearly the month of killing main characters. Someimtes more than once.

Alas! No zombies. It was sad. I'm aiming for better luck with them in May. O:)

OVERALL

Total word count: rounded off to 29,500. Which normally would be on the low end, but given moving and whatnot, I consider fairly decent.

Satisfaction level: moderately high. I actually got things done I'm happy with, I survived the move, and achieved some goals.

Blogging? Who knows. I wasn't keeping track.

Did you have a good April?

~Merc

Read more...

Zombies lurking in the spam folder

So, I finally figured out why I was randomly not getting comment notifications on some of my posts.

Apparently a zombie went mental (it was messy) and ate the brains of my gmail account. Almost all my notifications and replies to Blogger posts were being eaten by the now mindless spam folder. Gah!

After a hasty brain-transplant and zombie slaying (really, once they go psycho, you have to put them down) I fixed the problem. Now I will actually know when people comment, huzzah!

(So if I missed replying to your comments, it was the zombie's fault. Sorry. ;))

Now, you may return to your regularly scheduled mundane existences. Or not. Up to you.

~Merc

Read more...

"Chatterbox" out

We shall not discuss why it took me this long to figure out which mag my story was in. *coughs* Moving on...

My micro fiction horror story, "Chatterbox" was published in the Spring 2009 issue of Sonar4 Horror Mag.

It was one of those 'random inspiration stories' (where I had a line of dialogue pop into my head, and on my lunch break I wrote the entire story in one sitting) about a man who talks to much. Needless to say, not everyone appreciates this endearing quality.

Enjoy!

~Merc

Read more...