C.M. Genovese's Blog

You know me. When I find a new toy or a tool, I get excited
about it, and I love sharing that stuff with my readers, colleagues, and
friends.

This website I’m going to tell you about today isn’t new to me. I used to use it back in the day (back in the day as in last year lol) when I was teaching high school kids and none of them wanted to volunteer to do their presentation. I always felt bad forcing them to stand up and speak because I don’t like public speaking, and it seemed wrong to me to make people do things I don’t like doing myself. Yet, when you teach English in a predominantly Spanish-speaking country, having the students deliver speeches is a major part of the curriculum. In every English class, they need to be constantly graded on their ability to use the English language to present info to their peers.

Fine, Chris, but what is this blog post about?

I’m glad you asked. Since I didn’t like choosing students to present, I found a fun website where I could input all the students’ names and then let the spinning wheel decide. So, I stumbled upon http://www.wheeldecide.com. Just to be clear, I have no affiliation with this website and don’t make a cent mentioning it. I think it’s useful, not only for students delivering speeches but also for authors unable to make book-related choices and for anyone else struggling with decisions.

Screenshot from WheelDecide.com

This is how I used it last night. Lately, I’ve been kind of
overwhelmed with all the books I feel I need to write. Do you ever have that
feeling that you’re running out of time? Hopefully, I’m not, but I can’t help
feeling like I’ll never tell all my tales. At some point, the clock will wind
down and my stories will be lost. It’s inevitable. Unless, of course, I catch
up to my mind, scribble down all my stories, and my creativity completely dries
up. Now, I don’t want that to happen either.

But anyway… last night I opened my laptop, clicked on my
book files, and stared at the folders for my three pen names.

Do I work on a horror novel for Carver Pike? Or a kinky
tale, maybe the next paranormal shark shifter book for Chris Genovese. Or, do I
jump right into my next motorcycle club romantic suspense book by CM Genovese?

I really need to finish a Carver book. The problem with my
Carver Pike books is, I have a file with probably 50 stories in it that all
fall under the horror or dark fantasy umbrella. Oftentimes, I open one
document, write a couple thousand words in it, and then close it. The next day,
instead of going back to yesterday’s story, I open a new one and punch out a couple
thousand words in that one. You can see how this would eventually get
frustrating. Yes, I’m technically working my ass off constantly and will someday
publish a ton of books, probably all at once.

But I need to focus and work on something that I can
complete and get into my readers’ hands.

So, I decided to open up Wheel Decide. It just hit me. I’ve used the tool at takeovers (online Facebook parties where you take over a group or a portion of an event, for anyone not familiar with a takeover). I once listed all the bikers from my Razorblade Tumbleweeds MC series, spun the wheel, and then told all the viewers of my live feed, one by one, which biker would be their ultimate blind date hookup (or something along those lines). I’ve used the wheel to tell viewers which animal they would transform into if they were a shape-shifting paranormal book character.

But the website can be used for so much more than party games. Last night, I started with Carver Pike and listed all of my horror WIPs (works in progress). The way it works is you write each item you want to put into the list on its own separate line (look at the screenshot below). Then, once you’ve entered all your options, you click on “Apply Wheel Changes.” Scroll back up, and you have a wheel with all your options on it. Clicking the wheel makes it spin, and it will eventually stop on one of the options. That’s your winner.

Screenshot from WheelDecide.com

So, I did this. I typed in all the book titles. Clicked
spin, then wrote down the winning title. That’s the first one I’ll work on.
Mine was a book titled Grad Night. If all goes according to plan, that’ll be
the next Carver Pike book to hit the virtual shelves. Next, I went down to my
options and clicked the “X” next to that title to remove it from the list and
once again clicked on “Apply Wheel Changes” so the wheel would update with Grad
Night removed. I kept repeating this until I had a list of all my Carver Pike
books.

Okay, for you seasoned authors, you’re probably rolling your
eyes and saying something like, “You need to write whichever book needs to be next.
Let the stories decide.” I’m fully capable of doing that. But this was a fun
way to create a tentative publishing schedule. Of course, I’ll be adapting it
as I go along. Some books need to be in a certain order or need to be published
long before others.

But I did this for all my Carver Pike horror and Chris
Genovese books. Of course, it’s all subject to change. As of right now, my next
Chris Genovese book will be Just F’n Bite Me: Guardians of the Deep 3. I didn’t
create a wheel for CM Genovese as I know the order I need to publish those
books.

So, as I work on Fury’s Grace: Razorblade Tumbleweeds MC
book 4 by CM Genovese, I’ll be alternating between only that one, Grad Night,
and Just F’n Bite Me. Those will be my 3 WIPs until they’re done. No more juggling
fifty books at a time. Then I’ll move on down the list.

I do not have dates set.

But if you think about it, this website can be so useful.
Maybe you want to use it to choose which task on your “to-do list” you want to
accomplish first. Maybe your kids can’t decide on a flavor of ice cream. Hell,
I’ve put a list of movies into it before because our family couldn’t pick a movie
to watch together. The wheel decided our Saturday Horror Movie schedule.

You might even want to throw some sex positions in there and
see how tonight will turn out lol. Go for it.

As an author, you can use the wheel to:

Choose character namesSelect a character’s hair or eye colorDecide on a city to base your book out ofPick which character dies nextCome up with the order for your list of stories in an anthology or collection book

Anyway, I think it’s a pretty kickass tool. Hope you find it
as useful as I do.

Thanks for reading.

As always, please check out my list of books on the home page of this website by clicking HERE.

Chris

Last week, I got a message from a Facebook friend that started out something like, “Can you help me? I know I want to write a book, but I have no idea where to begin.” At first, I was scratching my head because I wasn’t sure how to come at this question. It was so open-ended.

I wasn’t sure how to start my side of the conversation without coming off sounding like a sarcastic asshole. Obviously, saying something like, “Start at the beginning,” wasn’t what she was looking for.

So, for a moment or two, an internal struggle ensued.

First of all, there are two ways of going about all this and the first thing you have to decide is, are you going to write a book because you have a story to tell? Or are you wanting to write a book because you think it’s a money-making gimmick? If you’re just at it to make money, I’m not the person to give you advice. I really enjoy writing. I always have. I always will. I can’t give you advice on hiring a ghostwriter, taking out a huge loan to fund your “get rich quick scheme,” and then fanning out those dollars like you’re a member of Migos.

So, I decided to assume she wants to write a book because she has a story to tell. She’s a sweetheart, by the way, and I chose to imagine this is what she needed. So… the internal struggle went something like this:

What do you tell her?

Why are you telling her anything? Do you know enough to be giving advice?

Will your advice be any good?

Much like when I write a book, I let my fingers fly (and I think sent a few voice messages too) and gave her the following advice. Is it good advice? I don’t know, but I wish someone had told me this stuff back in the beginning. So, this is more or less what I told her.

Pick a Genre: First, do you know what genre you want to write? Are you more into paranormal? Horror? Straight-up erotica? Action? Suspense? I could go on and on listing out genres and sub-genres. She answered that question quickly. Now, based on that genre, you’ll probably be able to decide the point of view you want to use. Certain POVs work better with specific genres than others.

Decide on a POV: I’ve written first, third, and even second-person points of view (which is usually reserved for “how-to” books like cookbooks, exercise guides, etc.).

Third-person omniscient is cool but a mistake a lot of new authors make (and I had a horrible time with this at the beginning) is head-hopping. The narrator might know everything everyone is thinking, but if you say what’s in Mary’s head and then what’s in Nick’s and then what’s in Jerry’s… eventually you’ll disconnect from the reader and cause a shitload of confusion.

Third-person limited is a lot closer to first-person and is what I now use in many of my horror stories. I’ve used first-person in horror, but my take on it is, when I’m reading at least, I feel that first-person POV in horror makes the reader feel like everything will be okay because the person must remain alive if they’re telling the story. I know that’s not always true, but it just kind of pulls me out of the “scary” sometimes.

Third-person (omniscient and limited) work well in large, world-building stories like science fiction and fantasy.

In the same way that first-person pulls me out of most horror narratives, it’s a very effective tool when writing Young Adult, Erotica, and most other romances. First-person sucks you in because you really feel like you get to know the main character. You can see things through his or eyes, feel the things they’re feeling, and share their experiences. In YA, you feel like you too are being picked on by the school bully and in romance, you feel like you’re right there under the covers, on the receiving end of that sexual favor.

Choose a tense: In addition to choosing a genre and a POV, you have to decide if you’re going with present tense or past tense? Is the story happening right now to your character or did it happen yesterday or last year? I pretty much always use the past tense. Again, just a personal preference. Sometimes present tense doesn’t quite register with me. I enjoy reading past tense.

Be consistent: Once you’ve decided your POV and tense, you have to stick with them. A big mistake first-time authors make is switching back and forth. The story is in third person talking about Sheila and Mark and then suddenly I’m reading, “So, I opened the car door and stepped out into the rain.” Or it was past tense and changed to present as in: Something thumped against the back of my head, and I nearly pitched forward onto my face. I stand up and rub at the back of my head. It was Robert who’d hit me.

Did you notice the switch there? Stick with one. It’s either a story in the past or it’s one going on right now. It’s either you telling the story, or it’s a story about them/someone else.

Now, you could have read all of that with a simple Google search, so I haven’t really told you anything new, but let’s pretend you’ve chosen to write first-person romance. Here’s are a few things I’ve discovered while writing quite a few books. (To check out my books click HERE for the full list)

Don’t be selfish: I guess before I say that, I should ask one other question. Are you writing this story simply for therapeutic reasons? Do you want it to sit on your bookshelf only? If so, that’s perfectly fine. In that case, be as selfish as you want in your story. However, if you hope to sell your book or have other people read it and enjoy it, you can’t tell a story that’s only important to you.

Let me explain. I think most authors if they really think about it, would agree with me when I say our first book tends to be something very personal. It might deal with how we grew up and our trials and tribulations. It might mimic a relationship in our life that went downhill. It might focus on abuse that is way too close to that which we suffered during childhood or in a past marriage.

This is fine if it fits in with your story, and if you’re able to use it while also spinning a yarn that entertains the reader. Many people have dealt with shitty upbringings and nearly all of us have had a bad break up. Reading about yours may seem unique to you and tragic, but will it seem that way to readers? Are you bringing anything new to the scene? Or are you simply getting everything off your chest in literary form?

Be careful that you’re not only writing what feels good to you. It’s not Chicken Soup for the Indie Author Soul.

Along those same lines, when you’re writing about a lifestyle or a profession that you know well, be careful that you don’t bog the readers down with information used to boost your ego. I’m sorry that sounds so harsh, but let’s be honest.

I’ll use romance as an example. I’m ex-military. So, when introducing a character and talking about the weapon he has strapped over his back, I could say Sgt. Andrews was armed with an M16A2 Rifle with 5.56 millimeter Nato ball and tracer ammunition, a one to five ratio. Ha. I remember having to say that whenever anybody important visited my post in Saudi Arabia.

While some military and ex-military people might read the book, there’s a good chance your audience members are romance readers who really like a badass military alpha male who can take care of his woman. They probably don’t care about all the specifics of the helicopter they climb into. If you’re writing the next Tom Clancy story, sure, but not if you’re writing indie romance.

For the most part, a gun is a gun, a pistol is a pistol, a grenade is a grenade, and a helicopter is a helicopter.

Likewise, when you write about somebody in an IT world or a cop on his beat, you probably don’t want to cover your story with a thick blanket of slang and information you think is cool but most readers would skim over. Why? Because you could lose your audience. If your character is a taxi driver and you once drove a taxi, sure, use realistic settings and situations to tell your tale, but don’t bore us with five chapters about the ins and outs of a taxi driver’s day-to-day shift. Does that make sense?

Start off with a bang: This is difficult to do sometimes. And in some ways, this goes back to not being selfish. Instead of talking about how you woke up Thursday morning and took your medicine because you always take your medicine and you take so much medicine, etc.

How about starting your story with how you walked outside to check the mail and as you stood in front of your mailbox just staring at the street, you decided to step out in front of a garbage truck. Tell us about the crunching of your bones and the grinding of gears, squealing of tires, and shouting of the driver while you lay in a puddle of blood realizing you should have taken your anti-depressants this morning.

Start your story out mid-scene if you have to. Make something happen and make it happen soon if you want to grab hold of your readers. I struggle with this sometimes. We all do. But if you can get to something exciting right away, you’re off to a running start while some other authors are crawling.

Don’t use “I” too much: I’m sure if you go back and check out my first books, you’ll see that I did this too. You have to remember that using first-person doesn’t mean saying, “I…I…I…I…”

Your book shouldn’t read: I woke up when the sun hit me and I rolled out of bed. I fell onto the floor. I should have gotten up an hour ago, but I didn’t. I’m late now. A lot of first-person stories, especially the authors’ first, first-person stories tend to read like a long grocery list or a bunch of diary entries beginning with “I.”

Try to mix it up. Instead of saying, “I fell out of bed,” maybe use, “With my ankles wrapped up in my bedsheet, I tumbled from the bed and fell onto the floor. Blinking in red and snapping me out of my sleepy haze, the clock next to my bed reminded me I had only fifteen minutes to get to school.” It’s not perfect, but it’s better than writing I…I…I…

The same rule applies to third-person POV. You don’t want to start every sentence with “he” or “she” or any other pronoun really. It’s a constant challenge, but if you treat it like a game, figuring out ways to begin your sentences differently can be fun.

I know, I’m a dork.

This blog post keeps going on and on, right? We’re almost done. I’d be doing you a great disservice if I didn’t mention…

Show, don’t tell: I hate it. You hate it. Everyone hates it. Hearing, “You need to show more and tell less” makes most authors cringe. It’s so hard to figure out! I know, because I struggle with it myself. So, I’ll give you one tip that my author friend, Faith Gibson, told me recently. Try not to use terms like “heard, looked, felt, smelled.” Basically, knock out all the senses lol.

What I mean by this is, instead of saying: Anna heard creepy sounds, show us what she heard. A baby cried in the back bedroom, a room where no baby ever belonged. Its wails filled the night, its cries crackling and trembling, and as it fought for breath, a sudden gasp of something punching it in the gut filled me with terror. The baby wasn’t alone in that room.

Or, instead of, he looked like an 80s rock star, maybe write something like: His hot pink and black tiger-striped T-shirt hung in tatters over his ripped black jeans. Teased hair stood up much higher than any man’s ever should, and his bangs curved up and to the right, rolling over like a wave about to break on a California coast.

Cheesy, I know, but hopefully, you get the point.

Instead of, he drank so much that he felt funny. Funny how? Maybe he felt seven-feet tall, like his head towered way too high above his feet and the weight of it kept him off balance like if he leaned forward at all, he’d have to run to keep up with his heavy noggin. To top it off, his tongue no longer existed. Instead, he had a wad of cotton that liked his lips so much it wanted to stay connected to them permanently.

Anyway, I’m goofing around at this point. Let’s move on to my last tip.

Fuck the rules: Okay, that’s horrible advice. First of all, if you want to make money and follow some of the big names in the business, you have to play by the rules. All genres have some.

However, if you want to know how most of those big names became big names in the first place, it’s because they broke the fucking rules to begin with, and in doing so, created new ones the rest of us feel compelled to follow.

For example, if you kill off the main hero or heroine in your book, you’re going to get a verbal ass-whoopin’ from your fans and readers. You’re going to get some reviews that tell you how much of an asshole you are. It’s just how it is. If your main dude cheats on his woman, you’re going to hear about it. If there’s not a happily ever after, you’re going to lose some review stars.

However, nearly every fucking Nicholas Sparks book kills off a main character. I mean, holy shit. You dive into his books or put on one of his movies knowing you’re going to cry.

Yet, one of the rules of romance is there should be a Happily Ever After at the end, or at least a Happy For Now. Nicholas Sparks practically says, “Get the fuck outta here with that rule.”

I’ve gotten low star reviews because one of my motorcycle club characters slept with other women when he wasn’t even really with the main female character yet. Of course, they hook up later, but they weren’t together yet. I’m sorry, but that’s just the life these guys lead. In real life, many one-percenters would cheat on their wives too (not all, but many). So, to think a guy won’t sleep with someone else when he’s just kind of flirtatious with a chick makes no sense. But, oh boy, I’ve heard about it in reviews. Yet, look at Sons of Anarchy. Jax Teller cheated throughout the whole show. He almost slept with his sister! (Of course, he didn’t know it was his sister).

Anyway, my point is, there are going to be a lot of rules. You’ll hear about them. It’s a good idea to figure out what they are. Then, it’s up to you whether or not you decide to follow them. In all honesty, you’ll probably make more money if you do. For me, I need to write the stories that demand to be told. My characters drive my books, not the other way around.

Now, all that said, I hope some of this was helpful. I hope I haven’t overstepped any boundaries by assuming you want to know this stuff. I’m not perfect. I make mistakes. You’ll find errors in my books, I’m sure. But I know how tough this industry can be, so I figure I might as well share some info every now and then when I think I’ve got something you might want to hear.

Thanks for reading,

Chris (CM) Genovese

BTW, check out my book page on this site by clicking HERE. You’ll see all my Razorblade Tumbleweeds MC books lined up side by side, and if you scroll down you’ll find all my other books too (under all three of my pen names).

How many stories have you given to the Land of Lost Books?

If you’ve ever scrapped your words, thrown your tales into
the trash, or hit that delete key over a large chunk of highlighted text, then
you’re guilty!

Stop! Don’t do that anymore!

What if when Hans Christian Andersen wrote The Princess and the Pea, he decided at some point in that story he’d make the princess shrink down to the size of that pea? I don’t know Mr. Andersen’s personal life. I don’t know if he drank. But let’s pretend he did… because it’s funny. Maybe he was throwing back shots of whiskey, or whatever they drank in Denmark in 1835 – probably wine or Schnapps.

Actually, it was during the Temperance movement so probably
not much at all.

But who the fuck cares? Let’s pretend he was rip roaring
drunk and was really into this story, the creative juices were flowing, and he
cranked out a few thousand words that were all about how this princess shrank
down to the size of a pea and then went on multiple adventures in this thumb-tack
size.

The next day, he went to read over his story and was fucking
shocked at what he found. It made no sense. Why would she go from sleeping on
an uncomfortable stack of beds with a pea beneath her to suddenly shrinking
down to the size of one? What was he thinking?

So, he crumpled his story up and tossed it into the trash
bin. Then he started over and wrote what we know now as The Princess and the
Pea.

Now, I just made all that shit up. Hans Christian Andersen
did write The Princess and the Pea and he also wrote Thumbelina.
See where I’m going with this?

What if those 3,000 words he threw into the garbage bin
could have been slapped down onto the table right next to that pea story and relabeled
as Thumbelina? It might have needed some tweaking and a fresh coat of paint,
but overall, he would have already been 3k words into his next story.

The point of this blog post, my friends, is to tell you to
STOP SCRAPPING YOUR WORDS!

No more hitting that delete key.

That’s like giving up on your darlings. You wrote those damn
words. Put them to use.

I’m working on Pride’s Envy right now, the third story in my
Razorblade Tumbleweeds MC series (a little shameless self-promotion here). I
write these stories in 3 points of view with the chapters labeled with the
character’s name whose point of view we’re in. So, I had this character named
Chelsea. If you’ve kept up with my series, that might excite you a little bit.

So, every third chapter was Chelsea’s. I must have written
at least five chapters on this chick. Then, at some point, I said, “This isn’t
working. She shouldn’t even be in this book.”

My first thought was, “Fuck these chapters. I’ve wasted my
time.”

But then I realized, just because they don’t make sense in
this book, they might absolutely have a place in the next. So, I did a
cut/paste for each of her chapters and put them in my upcoming book, Fury’s
Grace, where Chelsea will be that third character. Now, before I’ve even started
that book, I’m about 10k words into it. That’s fucking awesome!

A friend of mine, author Crimson Syn, recently told me she
does the same thing. She has written dramatic scenes, maybe a fight scene or an
argument between two characters, that didn’t flow right in a book. So, she kept
them on the side and used them in one of her other works in progress.

Another author friend of mine, Riley Edwards, who is on fire right now cranking out stories, used to scrap words all the time. About a year ago, I remember practically yelling at her, “Stop throwing your words away!” She deleted so many words! If she didn’t like something, she scrapped it. It set her back a few times when trying to hit deadlines. She ended up with stronger books, but I can’t help thinking how all those words might have made excellent sequels or may have fit in a totally different story. She writes so damn fast that it probably doesn’t matter, but still!

So, let’s think about how you can do this. Let’s say you’re
working on your current WIP (work in progress) and you find yourself doubting
something you’ve written. Now, I’ve already told you in a previous blog post to
stop re-reading over and over again. If you don’t write forward, you’ll never
get through this book and onto your next one. But let’s say this isn’t that
situation. You know something is wrong with what you’ve written.

Don’t be afraid. Oftentimes we clam up at this point and put
the book down. We say something like, “Oh my God. These words are shit! I’m not
a writer. I shouldn’t be an author.”

It might be a week or a month or a year or more before you
pick that book up and start writing again.

So, let’s use this method instead. If you absolutely know something
is wrong in this book. If a character isn’t playing nice with others and just doesn’t
fit in. If a scene seems out of place. If you’ve thought of a better beginning
or a more relevant ending to this book, don’t freak out.

Open a new word document. Call it whatever you want. Call it
something based on that scene or call it Next Document. Call it whatever the
fuck you want as long as it helps you do this quickly. Then copy/paste whatever
isn’t working from this book into that new document. Save it there. Delete it
from your current WIP and write only that part over.

Don’t worry about the new document. Use it to jot down ideas
for that book. So maybe that character will have a story of his/her own now. If
anything comes to mind that will work in that story, go to that document and type
up your notes.

So, no more giving your stories to the Land of Lost Books.
It’s a sad place full of forgotten tales from authors who’ve given up on them.

Whatever you do, stop fucking scrapping your words because
you wrote them. You put your blood, sweat, and tears into them. Keep them
around a little longer and give them the chance to breathe.

I’m a juggler of stories. This works for me. I hope it works for you. Thank you for reading.

P.S. if you want to check out that series I mentioned in this post, here’s a link to the free prequel (just a short book to introduce you to the characters and the 3 POV style I use). Click HERE to get Anger’s Fade.

Click HERE or go up top and click on the “Home” page to see all of my books listed from all three of my pen names.

Chris (author of 3 pen names)

CM Genovese (romantic suspense)

Chris Genovese (kinky romance)

Carver Pike (horror/dark fantasy)

No more rereading. Just fucking write.

Calling all authors! Calling all authors! Listen up. No more
rereading! Yes, you heard me right. Stop reading over your work again and again
and again. You’ll never reach chapter three if you don’t kick chapter two to
the back and move on. You’ll never move forward if you keep moonwalking.

Let me start by introducing myself for anyone who doesn’t know
me. I write under three pen names. I use Chris Genovese for kinky romance,
Carver Pike for horror, and CM Genovese for all things romantic suspense (think
motorcycle club and mafia). I’m not a grammatical wizard, but I’m a damn good
storyteller. I’ve self-published over 30 books, and I’m fairly self-sufficient
at doing it (I do have to ask for help from time to time).

Enough about me. This is about you. We need to talk about
that book you’re working on and why you’re not going to finish it “eventually.”
You’re going to finish it next month or maybe even this week.

One thing Twitter has opened my eyes to, and you know I
tried like hell to stay away from Twitter, is the amount of authors constantly
back peddling and second guessing themselves. The truth is, you will only
complete that novel you’ve been working on when you force yourself to keep
writing forward.

Sure, if you take a break for a couple of days and come back
to your book feeling slightly out of it and disassociated with the story then
yes, go ahead and read a few paragraphs at the most to make sure you can dive
back into the story and that you can climb into your characters’ heads.

But don’t keep going back to the beginning to read through it, edit it, change it… don’t do it. You will never, and trust me when I say never, feel that the story is perfect. You know what they say about us being our own worst critics. You will always find something you want to change.

You know all those mental barriers you’ve built for
yourself? It’s time to barrel through those motherfuckers. Kick down those damn
doors. Be a cartoon caveman, grab that story of yours by its hair, and drag it
through to the next chapter and then the one after that and the following one
until the story is complete.

Here’s the secret to hitting those high daily wordcounts and
finishing books quickly. Just keep writing forward. Don’t look back. Finish
that damn book! Don’t spend years on the first draft. Don’t think of it as, “I
will eventually publish my book.”

You WILL finish it, and you will complete it soon as long as
you force yourself to write every single day, even if it’s only a little bit,
and you keep adding to that story.

You can go back and fix shit later. You have all the time in
the world for that. Chances are, once you reach the end, you’ll have a laundry
list of things you want to tweak, add, or remove from your story. But you’ll
never get there until you fucking get there. Sorry for being so blunt, but it’s
the truth.

You are a fucking author!

Don’t second guess yourself. Don’t wonder if you really are
an author. The second you start jotting shit down, you’re a writer. If you can
spin a yarn, you’re a storyteller. If there’s a beginning, middle, and end…
then you, my friend, are a fucking author!

You are a dream weaver. You’re a world builder. You give
dialogue to beings that never existed before you breathed magic into their
souls.

So put that damn story down on virtual paper (unless you’re handwriting it then go ahead and put it on actual notebook paper). Hell, scrawl it into the sand or smear it across the wall in blood for all I care. Just tell the fucking story.

Treat that last chapter like my mom used to treat me at the
welfare office. As in, “You sit here, and you be quiet.” Then move on to that
next chapter.

You’ve got this because you are a fucking author, writer,
blogger, whatever nametag you want to slap to your chest… that’s you.

Now, stop listening to me and go write your fucking story.

I’m out.

Chris Genovese (aka CM Genovese aka Carver Pike)

Genovese with Capone (Al Capone at Madame Tussaud’s San Francisco)

For starters, if you don’t know
anything about the Genovese name, it’s synonymous with Mafia and mob bosses. In
fact, Vito Genovese was known as the Boss of all Bosses. Vito ran the Luciano
(as in Lucky Luciano) crime family for a long time which was later renamed the
Genovese crime family.

Growing up, I was fascinated with mob life. I must have watched The Godfather, Goodfellas, A Bronx Tale, and Casino a hundred times. I watched documentaries about the mob and read books about it whenever I could. I think a part of me always wanted to grow up to be a made man. There was just something about the way these well-dressed, smooth-talking, money-making tough guys took the respect they wanted. I think it all started when my grandfather told me about the Genovese name and how, even if it was just a little bit, I had Italian blood in me and was related to the Genovese family.

My grandfather, Matthew “Marty” Genovese was full-blooded Sicilian. His accent was thick, he spoke softly, and he carried himself like a real man’s man. Have you ever seen the TV show Oz? I couldn’t see the old Italian mob boss on that show, Antonio Nappa (played by Mark Margolis), without seeing my grandfather. As cool as I thought the old man was, he rarely came around when I was a kid. Usually, when he did, he was an asshole.

For a long time, my mom was basically a single mother. So when Grandpa Marty showed up, he liked to pick at the things he felt my mom wasn’t doing right as far as raising young men went. I still remember when he corrected the way I was sitting. Of course, he did it in front of everyone. He told me boys don’t sit like women. We don’t cross our legs the same way a woman does. Women cross their legs at the knee so men can’t see up their skirts. A man never does that. If he wants to cross his legs, he needs to sit so that the ankle of one foot is resting just above the knee of the other so that it forms a figure four. Look at the picture below. Hell, look up at the picture up top. Even the wax figure of Al Capone crosses his legs Grandpa’s way.

Like this! (Image from StockSnap on pixabay)

His mother was even tougher than he was. Great Grandma Genovese taught me that I was clearly on my way to hell since I’d never been baptized. Seriously. We had this conversation at the dinner table at her home in Fort Pierce, Florida, when she lost her shit (God bless her soul) because I wasn’t yet baptized. That stuck with me for life. I ended up getting baptized with my daughter… eventually, but up until then I always wondered if I was on my way to hell if I didn’t check that off my “to do” list ASAP.

So… why on Earth did I choose my
grandfather’s last name to write under? Well… for some strange reason, I’m
proud of the name. It’s a badass Mafia related name. In some roundabout way,
I’m related to Vito Genovese, and that’s pretty damn cool.

My brother, Kyle, has our dad’s last name tattooed down one forearm and Genovese down the other.

So, even though the old man wasn’t really there for me when I was growing up, and I wanted nothing to do with his name at first, when it came time to choose a pen name, it just suddenly seemed to make sense. I would keep my first name, but I would add my mother’s maiden name. It was time to put the name to more modern use. My wife likes to say it was meant to be like maybe this was my own way of making peace with the old man. He wasn’t there for me in life, but at least his name is here with me in death.

I might not run one of the five
families, but I write some pretty badass characters who’d be willing to try.

So Genovese is a family name. It’s a name that evokes power, it’s a name I respect, and it’s a name I now own as part of my author persona. Or as Derek Adam used to call me #mobboss. That’s why I write under Chris Genovese (and CM Genovese).

Thanks for reading. Don’t forget to click on the home button to see my list of books, or click HERE to go there now.

One of the questions I hear quite often, and probably one most authors are asked, is, “Why do you write?” Or, “What made you start telling stories? How did you get into writing?”

I’ve answered that question a hundred times at least, and
depending on my mood, I may have answered it a dozen different ways. Recently,
I received a message on Facebook messenger asking that question or something
similar to it. This time I stopped to really think about it.

Most of you have probably heard me tell the story about how
I started writing a YA novel back in high school. The Good Life was the title. It was a stupid book, really. It was
all about this handsome teenager who moved to his dad’s old town. All the girls
liked him, all the guys hated him, but he was a martial arts badass so he could
handle any of the guys who dared try and bully him.

I handwrote the story in red spiral notebooks broken up into
six parts. I passed those around to some of my female classmates, and they
loved it. Somehow, I kept track of all six parts. When I lived in Chicago, probably
around 2007, I pulled those notebooks out of a box and tossed them into the
trash bin.

That’s a true story, and that is what started me off on my path
to becoming an author.

However, after giving it some serious thought, I realized that was when I began to write down my stories, but that wasn’t how I began storytelling. So I’ve accidentally lied about that. I owe you all, and I owe myself, a much better explanation.

The truth is, it started back in San Diego, California, when
I was probably eight or nine years old. I’ve talked a lot about my shitty
childhood. If you know nothing about it, read my other blog posts, and I’m sure
there will be many more to come. I spent a lot of time grounded, sent to my
room, and I don’t even remember why. This post isn’t about all the unfair
treatment I received as a kid. It’s about how that part of my life sparked my
creativity.

I didn’t have a whole lot of toys back then, and what I did have usually came as a result of my constant trading with some of the other kids living in our apartment complex. I remember making up stories, the same way most kids do I suppose, while playing with my tiny M.U.S.C.L.E. action figures. I used a Frisbee as a wrestling ring and would create stories for each character. I even gave each one his or her own ring entrance song.

Remember these?

When I played with my G.I. Joe toys, I hated the fact that I
didn’t have any girl characters. How could I have a love story in the fake
movie I was creating if I didn’t have a woman? Of course, I would never ask my
asshole step dad to buy me a doll. That would be downright embarrassing. Besides,
I didn’t play with dolls. I played with action figures. So, I did the next best
thing.

I had this one bad guy action figure. He was part of team
Cobra and I remember thinking he seemed really feminine. He was skinny, had a wimpy
looking mask covering his mouth, and wore a helmet. So, I always pretended it
was a woman under that mask. That allowed me to create love story, and better
yet, have sex scenes.

Yeah, I was a perverted little shit.

After being grounded for an absurd amount of time for a
little kid, and when I say grounded, it wasn’t this modern version of the word
where kids aren’t allowed to touch their cell phone, tablet, or PlayStation for
a couple of days. I mean I was kept in my bedroom all the time and could only
leave to use the bathroom, do my chores, and eat. When it was dinner time, I
was only allowed to stare at my plate. I couldn’t even glance at the TV. Then
it was right back to my room. Since it was summertime and I didn’t have school,
I thought I was going to go crazy inside my room.

But then I stumbled upon a Sears catalogue, and that
completely changed my entire life. Sounds nuts, but it’s true. Armed with a
pair of scissors, I created a whole world unlike any I’d ever lived in. I cut
out a loving father with clean cut hair who always wore polo shirts and khakis.
Most of the time he stood with his hands in his pockets, always smiling, and
always proud of his kids.

I found him a wife who was beautiful in her daytime clothes
and sexy as hell in her lingerie. There was even a swimsuit version of her. She
was the perfect mom. She could bake a mean meatloaf, loved to play board games,
and oftentimes stood with her arms folded in front of her chest in a confident,
strong manner. She would never let anyone take advantage of her or her kids.

The kids I found in that catalogue were happy. There were
brothers and sisters, and they were always smiling. They had nice shoes, cool
clothes, and smiles that always seemed like they were about to laugh when their
picture was taken. Their house had the best TV I could find in the catalogue. They
had an awesome boom box (yeah, that’s what we called stereos back then) and
every toy imaginable.

The next-door neighbor was a hottie. She had a great family
too. Her husband would get together with the first husband. Their families
would have barbecues and hang out around the big above ground pool I’d cut out.

These paper people were so thin. There was nothing to them
really. Yet, they embodied so much more than any real person I’d ever met in my
life. In a world where it seemed nobody gave a shit about me, I had my own
version of life, and I continued building onto it until I’d cut up every
fucking page in that catalogue.

My name is Chris. I played with dolls. And I’m a better
person because of it. Hell, I think I might have survived because of it. That’s
how I began storytelling.

If you’d like to read some of those stories I tell, check out my book page with the list of all my books by clicking HERE.

I’m thirty-nine years old and I still can’t stand sitting at a table and making small talk. In many ways, I’m a big kid. Whenever my wife has family over and everyone crowds around the dinner table, I’ll eat, share a few words with the guests, and then head off to the living room to chill with the kids and watch TV…or I retreat to the bedroom and change into pajamas.

Why? I’ll get to that.

Today, while searching Amazon for Funko Pop figures (you know I love those damn things), I saw one that kind of surprised me. Bob’s Big Boy. You know, the giant statue Dr. Evil hid inside to launch himself into outer space, but also the restaurant? Bob’s Big Boy holds a special place in my heart but also conjures up nightmares. Let me explain.

Remember in my last blog post I mentioned that my mom kind of kidnapped my brother and me and hopped a bus to San Diego? Well, there was a lot of shit that happened after that, including us (Kyle and me) going back to live with my dad in Tulsa for a while, but before all that, we moved from place to place in California. We started out living with my grandmother, and at one point stayed in an apartment with my aunt and her Navy boyfriend, but eventually my mom met a guy we’ll call Brian and things kind of went downhill from there. I’ll talk about Brian a lot in upcoming blog posts.

I don’t quite remember what led to our horrible living conditions, but I’m sure it had something to do with drugs. Eventually, we were homeless. My mental rolodex from back then is a bit cluttered and disorganized, so rifling through it doesn’t put things in proper order, but I do remember we lived in a car for a while. I slept in the backseat and during the day, we’d go to McDonald’s because they offered tiny, free, soft serve vanilla ice cream cones.

When we weren’t in the car or roaming the streets trying to collect frozen treats, we often spent our days at Bob’s Big Boy and our nights sneaking in through Brian’s mom’s apartment window so we’d have a comfortable place to sleep. You see, his mom was a real work of art and is one of the main reasons her son turned out as messed up as he did. She didn’t want us in her house, and she worked as an overnight nurse at a local hospital, so we’d head to her house late in the evening, climb in through the window, and sleep on her living room floor. Then we’d wake up early and leave before she’d ever know we were there.

Back to Bob’s. My aunt was a waitress there. I’m not sure how she got away with it since I can’t imagine many managers being cool with a family taking up a table all day long, but there we’d sit, in the smoking section, while my mom and Brian drank coffee and smoked and talked all fucking day long. For a kid, that’s excruciatingly boring, hence the part up top where I wrote that Bob’s gave me nightmares. I remember climbing under the table to play and trying to escape as possible as often, always to be told to sit still and behave.

“Sit still and behave, Chris.”

Nothing bad happened at Bob’s. It did give us a place to get out of the sun and to drink water and probably have a free soda or two. My aunt even taught me how waitresses get the fizz to go down in your soda so they can easily fill it all the way to the top. Not sure if they still use this practice, but back in the day they’d stick their finger in the fizz and the natural grease from the finger would make the fizz dissipate almost immediately. It’s gross, other people putting their finger in your drink, but try it. It works. I’m going off on a tangent. I do that often.

My point in all this is that still to this day, when I’m forced to remain at a table for too long, I get antsy. My legs constantly bounce up and down like a nervous puppy. It drives my wife nuts. It used to bother the hell out one female classmate in high school too who used to put her palm on my knee to try to stop me from shaking my leg at my desk. When I’m at the dinner table, I can make it through a meal and I’ve been to many business meetings and company parties and formal dinners. I’m good at doing what I have to do. However, I do find it extremely difficult to sit still at the table and make small talk.

I truly think it’s a result of spending so many hours being told to sit still and behave. When grandma and grandpa and auntie and uncle and friend number one and friend number two sit around the table and we’ve passed the point where people are asking others to pass the potatoes, that’s when it’s time for me to make my escape. If you’re looking for me, you’ll find me hanging out with my kids watching Netflix or playing PlayStation.

That’s one of the memories that made me.

Chris

My life isn’t worthy of a book. Nothing of serious significance has taken place. I haven’t cured some illness or stepped in front of a bullet meant for a messiah. My name means nothing more than a meanderer with a knack for the written word. In some ways I think I’m kind of like the metallic ball in a pinball machine. I shot out of the womb headed down one path, but a series of sideways slaps and mental barriers have knocked me this way and that, sending me off course and in a million different directions.

Maybe this is why I like odd movies like Mute (the Netflix 2018 movie) and Running Scared (the one with Paul Walker not Billy Crystal) because real life isn’t about one set of scenes in a specified order. Weird shit happens. Kooky characters appear from out of nowhere and then disappear just as quickly. In many ways, life is more like a TV series, one of those soap operas with way less surprise pregnancies (we hope) and no soundtrack to add dramatic emphasis.

I’m rambling.

What I really want to say is nothing I’m going to write here is going to change anything about your life. My wife always tells me I should write a book about my upbringing. I don’t think it would be interesting enough, plus my thoughts are all out of order. My memories aren’t a set of numbered index cards. If they were, card fifteen would come before slide two. It’s all a jumbled mess in my head.

Yet, I hear all the time that people would like to spend a day inside my head. No, you wouldn’t. Trust me.

The next best thing I can do is describe to you some of the memories that made me who I am. Some people will read this and say, “Who gives a shit what made him who he is.”

Fair enough. If you’re thinking that, you probably shouldn’t read on. If you’re a little bit curious about the real me, then pull out a seat and stay awhile.

So, the other day I was watching the movie Slumdog Millionaire. If you’ve never seen it, it’s about a young man who wins a foreign version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. It’s thought that he might have cheated, so he’s arrested and questioned by a detective. He explains his horrible upbringing, stopping at each situation that helped him arrive at one of the answers to a question on the TV competition. It got me thinking about my own life and all the random shit I remember.

I figured since I’m thinking about it, I might as well share it with you. Now, these thoughts will be totally unedited, so you’ll probably find them riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. As I write these blog posts, I’ll also be working on my books and I can’t really put serious editing time into these posts when I need to spend all the extra time I can on my books. I am a writer after all.

So, let’s get started.

My first Memories That Made Me post will be: Alcohol and Drugs Wreak Havoc on a Young Mind

Why have I chosen to start here? It was the first thing that came to mind. The other day my wife asked me an interesting question. She asked, “If you could go back in time and tell yourself something, what time would you choose and what would you say to yourself?”

I said, “The time my dad was beating the shit out of my mom and what I’d say to myself is, ‘Remember this because you’ll be a better husband because of it.’”

My dad was an alcoholic. He married my mom when he was about twenty and she was sixteen. She was seventeen when she had me. They were basically pot smoking, beer drinking hippies. I’m sure they dabbled in other drugs that were popular in the early 80s. I didn’t see any drugs but smelled marijuana smoke all the time. My dad is and always has been a nasty drunk. This is the guy who, during my teenage years, would purposely come into the room when I was right at the fucking end of a Nintendo game (think Mario brothers or Donkey Kong Country) and turn off the game console announcing that it was, “Time to go to bed.”

He had no reason to. Hell, I was like sixteen/seventeen years old. I didn’t even have a fucking bed time. But he must have gotten a kick out of pissing me off because he did it all the time.

Now, I love my dad. I always have, and I still do. He’s cleaned himself up and has moved back to the Tulsa area where we lived when I was a young kid. He’s on his own right now and it breaks my heart that I’m not closer to him. I live far away with my family and don’t see myself moving back to the U.S. anytime soon. If you ask my mom, she’ll probably say he deserves everything he has right now. They’re friendly to the point that they can be in the same room together, but they’re not besties or anything. He did her wrong when she was young, and it’s one of those things she can forgive but she’ll never forget.

Many of the stories I’ll tell come as a result of his treatment of her. I know that now. She had some nasty habits of her own and made some really bad decisions that really fucked my brothers and me up, but if she’d had a better husband, maybe things would have turned out differently.

The memory that stands out the most, and the one I told my wife I’d travel back to, is the following:

I must have been about five years old. My brother, Kyle, was still an infant. I don’t know where he was in the house. I think he was in a crib in my room. The sound of a struggle taking place in the other room shook me from my sleep. My moms screams echoed down the hallway and made their way under my door. Having no idea what was going on at first, I climbed out of bed and made my way over to the door. Peeking out into the hallway, I saw nothing but darkness.

But the sounds are something I can never forget. He was forcing himself on her. She screamed. She fought. He fought harder. I knew my dad was drunk. He drank a lot. Back then, I thought that was all he did, but I know now that there was more to it than that. He was a violent drunk, but he became much worse when he mixed drugs with his alcohol.

My little mind could only take so much and at some point, I crouched down on my bedroom floor, curled up into a ball, and started crying. I screamed for him to stop. I begged.

Finally, my dad came in to comfort me. He was completely naked. He told me everything was okay, but it wasn’t. My mom used that moment to run out of the house. My dad chased her out to the parking lot (I suppose he’d at least pulled on a pair of shorts by this point) where she’d already started her car and was backing out of the driveway. He punched her driver’s side window and shattered the glass. I don’t know how I know this. Thinking back, it seems like a movie scene. Like I can see it happening, but I don’t think I did. I think I somehow heard about it after the fact. Unless I’d peeked out the bedroom window. I don’t know. She escaped, and he came back with a hand covered in blood.

At some point, probably the next day, she came back and took Kyle with her. I stayed with my dad. I think there has always been a part of me that wondered why I was left there. Resentment? Maybe a little. I loved my dad. I guess I’d always been more of a daddy’s boy. Perhaps she’d even given me a choice. I don’t know. I just remember that she took Kyle and left. I remember visiting her apartment on Christmas Eve that year but returning home to my dad’s apartment. One thing that I can say about my dad is that he never laid a hand on me. He threatened to all the time. He loved to threaten me with the belt, but I don’t remember ever being hit by him. Not many kids can say that, so I guess I had it good.

Eventually, my mom took my brother and me on a Greyhound bus to California. She didn’t tell my dad. I found out years later that he’d driven all over the city looking for us and eventually had found my mom’s car parked at the bus station.

That’s how I went from Tulsa, Oklahoma to San Diego, California at about the age of five or six.

See? It seems stupid writing that down. If nothing else, it’s therapy for me to put this stuff down on paper. I’m so glad to say that my dad has changed and is normal now, but his issues in the past have definitely helped shape the person I am today.

So, yeah, if I could go back in time, I think that would be one of the moments I’d choose. Only so I could squat down next to myself one of those days that I was sad my mom had left with my brother. Or maybe even that time I was crying in the bedroom while he was beating her in the other room. I’d tell myself that this is one of the moments that would make me the man I am today. I’d tell myself to hold on and all would be fine in the end. I’d tell myself that because of that moment, I would never in my life lay a hand on a woman. No matter how angry I got, I would never do what my dad did to my mom. And I’d teach my kids to follow my way, not his.

This is the beginning of a new chapter for me. My writing has gone through so many phases since I first started.

Phase 1: Shitty high school YA writer. Maybe I’m being hard on myself, but like many authors, my first book was a written testimony of all the things I wished life was. It was about a teenager name Sage who moved to his dad’s hometown (someplace in Oklahoma, sound familiar?) and was forced to enroll in a new school. All the girls liked him (which of course led to a love triangle) and because all the girls liked him, all the guys hated him. But…he was an excellent fighter who took no shit from anyone and could hold his own when it came to swinging fists. Yep, it was everything I wished life was. I wrote it down in spiral notebooks with the title The Good Life scribbled across the front in ballpoint pen. Under the title was a big circled number so I could keep track of the pieces of the story. My female classmates loved the book. Like a novel version of a creative relay race, the first girl would start with notebook one, she’d read it, and hand it off before she received notebook two. There were six parts to the story and ultimately it sucked enough for me to toss it all into the garbage about ten years ago. I’ve thrown away at least three books written back then.

Phase 2: After hearing about Movie Magic Screenwriter and how Matt Damon and Ben Affleck used the software when writing their award winning screenplay for Good Will Hunting, I decided to give movie scripts a try. I bought David Trottier’s Screenwriter’s Bible and studied on my own. I wrote my Edge of Reflection series out in screenplay format and started pumping out dialogue heavy stories like nobody’s business. I wrote a musical, a romantic comedy, several horror scripts, and even my version of where the Halloween series should go. Once I even met a movie director at an elegant dinner party, a director whose name I actually recognized as being a someone in the industry. After a short conversation with him, he gave me his email address and told me to send him my romantic comedy. I did, and the feedback I received was tough, but it was eye opening. He basically said my character development sucked. The story was funny, but there was no reason to care about my characters. Fair enough. Back to the drawing board.

Phase 3: Movies aren’t so easy to make on your own and finding the funding for one is even more difficult so I started considering graphic novels. I studied all the info I could find online about turning my Edge of Reflection series into a graphic novel. Back then, the story had more characters and longer, more detailed fight scenes. Turns out, finding a good illustrator isn’t easy either. Most, and for good reason I suppose, want to be paid upfront. I wasn’t in a financial position where I could afford to lay down the funds for projects that weren’t guaranteed to bring a return. So I moved on.

Phase 4: Once I moved to my wife’s country, I started thinking again about writing novels, especially since I’d heard about Amazon’s new KDP program. I’d sent over 50 query letters to agents and maybe received five rejection letters back. The rest? Never heard from them again. It was the typical story most aspiring novelists go through. It’s a Catch 22 because most agents want an established author. Most publishers want an author represented by an agent. It’s not easy to become that established author without the agent and the publisher. See the problem? So I signed with a small publishing house that ended up screwing me in the end. Not only did the publisher constantly complain through a barrage of daily emails letting us all know how difficult it was to deal with authors like us, but she also hired a new PR person who, on a Friday night at about 10pm, emailed me to let me know I would no longer be on their team due to low sales. By 8am the next morning, my only two books at the time, were no longer available for purchase. It was a breach of contract since I had it in writing that I would be given at least two months notice before removing my books from sales channels in the event that I would no longer be published by the company. I didn’t fight it. It wasn’t worth it. Instead, I saw it as a blessing. I was no longer handcuffed to this publisher. I could go back to doing things my way. I decided to start putting my first book on Wattpad and the old program Amazon had at some point. I can’t remember the name of it now, but it was basically their version of Wattpad.

Phase 5: With my story posted online for free in exchange for feedback, I met some great people. One of whom loved my story but suggested I switch it to first person POV. She also thought my style would work well in the erotic romance genre. I’d never thought about it before. I’d been focused on dark urban fantasy and horror for so long. This friend of mine dared me to try erotica. She told me about all the recent success stories following Fifty Shades of Grey. I’d never read erotica. It wasn’t my thing. I’ve always been a very sexual person so I figured I could write sex. Kinky Carnival Games was my first shot at a sexual tale. I wanted to write about a girl who gets fucked on a Ferris wheel. Mission accomplished. Now what? I had no idea how to establish a social media presence. I began meeting people who would help with that. I got my first PA and we started a street team and a fan club/reader group. At first, I wrote as C.C. Genovese because I figured if people weren’t sure whether I was a male or a female author, they’d be more likely to give my books a try. That didn’t last long. I was so uncomfortable. I couldn’t be gender neutral. So, within a few months of publishing, I switched my pen name to Chris Genovese. Chris is my real first name and it felt amazing being able to be myself online. From that point on, I went full speed ahead. Facebook takeover after Facebook takeover, I came up with creative ways to play with the fans and readers. I had a great time. And I kept writing erotic romance stories.

Phase 6: My passion has always been the darker, more twisted tales, and I thought I could write those under the name Chris Genovese. So I did for awhile. I re-published my Edge of Reflection dark urban fantasy series and added more graphic sex scenes to appeal to my new audience. I heard crickets. I thought my readers would be excited to read something different, but they’re erotic romance fans for a reason…because they like erotic romance. Makes sense, right? I tried erotic horror too. Same result. Plus, I hated the way my Amazon backlist, my catalogue as I often call it, looked. Maybe Mandy was right next to Diablo Snuff. Daughters of Venus was stuffed between Twisted Mirrors and Figments of Fear. It was a mess. So I created the Carver Pike pen name and published all my darker stuff under that name. Now, Chris Genovese could be the fluffier, fun guy and Carver Pike would be the truly fucked up one. Things were going okay.

Phase 7: As if I were a drug dealer slinging crack on the social media market, I put in the work, man. I did a shitload of takeovers including a few where I singlehandedly entertained the readers for 5 to 6 hours at a time. I launched Authors in the Dark on YouTube to give authors who didn’t like to show their face on social media the chance to read their books to an audience with their face shrouded in darkness. It was really cool. Readers could watch each weekly video without knowing who the author was, and then click the link at the bottom to be taken to their Amazon book page. I created I think close to thirty of these videos, but authors weren’t as eager to participate as I thought they’d be and readers didn’t seem so interested in viewing the videos, so I had to put the project to the side. It was just taking up too much of my time. I attended my first book signing at Naturally Naughty in NOLA in New Orleans in 2017. For the first time, I got to meet my readers face to face. I could hug some of the people who’d made my life so amazing over the past few years. And I was able to meet some of the authors I knew online. It was more like a family reunion than an author signing.

Phase 8: Writing wise, I could feel myself growing. The fun erotic stuff was cool and all, but instead of coming up with short, one-handed read ideas, I kept thinking about full length novels and I had a desire to write stories that wouldn’t really fit in with the work I was currently publishing. Then I was invited to join the Romance & Erotica Authors Fraternity on Facebook. Click HERE to be taken to the R&E Frat group on FB. I’d looked up to the guys in that group for a long time and was excited to join them. This brotherhood of male authors puts on live videos to interact with readers and shares excerpts, etc. It felt like I was reaching a new level. In addition to that, I launched the Horror Authors’ Carnival group on Facebook so Carver Pike would have a fun place to play with his readers. Click HERE to check out that group where I’ve joined together with other horror, paranormal, and suspense writers to chat with and share work with our readers. This past year has been one of growth and connecting with readers and other likeminded authors. We’ve had a lot of drama in our indy author world, that’s for sure, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’re a pretty close knit community. Last year, I attended the Frat signing in Gettysburg and the Naturally Naughty in Nola signing again. Yet, something was constantly nagging at me all the time. I knew I was better than the books I was churning out.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my stories, but I have much deeper ones to tell.

Phase 9: So here we are. It’s 2018 and my head has been a mess. I’ve complained on Facebook a few times about being cock blocked by Amazon and Facebook. I’ve had such a hard time trying to promote myself and get the sales to make all my hard work make sense. That, combined with all the recent drama on social media, has made me really think about things in a different light. I love writing. I always have. But now it’s time for it to be much more than a hobby. So I need to make some changes. If I’m ever going to do this full time, I need to be smarter about how I do things, or I’ll burn myself out. Here are some of my plans.

I’m going to seriously limit the amount of takeovers I do. They’re fun, but I need to focus more on spending time on writing.
I’ll continue doing my live feeds in the R&E Frat and in the Horror Authors’ Carnival, alternating weeks. So I’ll do one on Monday in the Horror Authors’ Carnival, and then the following week I’ll do it on Thursday in the Frat. Then the following Monday in the carnival and so on.
No anthologies. I understand the reason for them and I know they help with charities and stuff like that, but any work I put out has to have an ability to make some sort of profit for my family. I can’t keep telling my family that I’m spending time away from them for side projects. I hope everyone understands.
I’m taking my writing in a new direction. Sure, I might come back to some of the lighter, silly stories later, but for a while I’m going to focus on edgier work, mostly full length novels. You can expect a crime series (Mafia like), an MC series, a paranormal series, etc. These are the kinds of things I like writing, so it’s time to get back to what I love doing.
I’ve already unpublished my Edge of Reflection series because I think that friend of mine from so long ago was correct. It should be in first person POV. I also need to add so much more to it. So it will be back on Carver Pike’s Amazon page soon enough. I just need to put in the work to make that story as great as it should have been to begin with. It was an awesome story, but it can be so much greater.
I will continue publishing books in Milly Taiden’s Paranormal Dating Agency series. I may cross over into some of her other worlds too. We’ll just have to see where that road leads. Milly is a really cool person and I can’t wait to see what comes of this new relationship. For now, I’m going to re-release Oh, Bite Me under her new publishing house and have already begun working on the sequel, Bite Me Harder.
New website. You’re on it, so you know this already. Erotic Mayberry was a cool idea. I thought it would be fun to build a kinky neighborhood. I won’t change the name of my fan/reader group on Facebook, but for my website, it just didn’t make sense. Nobody is going to think to look up Erotic Mayberry when trying to find my website. So this will be better I think. For now, and I’m not sure if it’ll stay this way, I’ve also put a tab up top to show my Carver Pike books. Carver Pike also has a website at www.carverpike.com which I rarely use. I need to get better at managing all these different aspects of my life.
Will I sign with a publisher or an agent? I’m not as opposed to the idea as I once was. It just needs to make sense. If I find the right one and they’re willing to put in as much work as I am to grow my brand, then that’s always a possibility. For now, I’ll keep going the indy route and see what happens.

So that was my author journey in a nutshell. Thanks for reading this far and for holding my hand on this journey. Hopefully we’ll find ourselves in some pretty kickass places in the near future.

Chris Genovese

As I’m working on new material, I think it’s fun going back and thinking about what inspired the books. Not that all my books have any big story behind them, but usually there’s at least something that sparked the idea. So let’s talk about my first ever erotic romance, Kinky Carnival Games. This is where you and I both got to meet Mandy. I fell head over heels in love with this sexy siren from day one.

First of all, her sense of humor is off the chain. She rarely takes anything seriously…until she does as we find out later in the third book. But back in book one, Mandy was newly separated after finding out that her ex was cheating on her. With a newfound sense of freedom and a seemingly unquenchable sexual appetite, Mandy finds herself set up on a blind date.

Her date, Braden, takes her to a fair where they have one wild, supercharged sexual romp.

Now, I grew up loving when the annual church carnival came to town. I grew up in a pretty rough area of South Florida where I was forced to join a gang at a young age if I didn’t want to get my ass kicked every day. So for me, the carnival was usually a place where you’d have to constantly look over your shoulder to make sure a member of a rival gang, or the rich kids who frequented the place and were kind of like their own gang, didn’t start any shit. Of course, it was also a place to hook up with girls.

So, I think the carnival for me was always kind of a place where I felt like a kid again, yet I couldn’t really lose myself in that childhood kind of innocent fun. I could see it. It was right there dangling on a string, ready for me to reach out and grab it. The carnival was a reminder of what it was like to be a kid…for the kids who didn’t grow up in my environment. I grew up too quickly at too early an age, and I never got that chance to truly enjoy my youth, so the carnival kind of took on a different meaning for me. It was more of a glimpse at what could have been. It was a reminder of the innocence I’d lost.

Is that why I have Braden take her to the carnival? Wow, I’m getting deeper with this than I thought I would. I’ve never really thought about it like this. Maybe it is why I have Mandy explore all her desires at an amusement park. From Braden going down on her on a playground slide to a hand job in a Tilt-O-Whirl to full-blown sex on a Ferris wheel, I think Mandy sort of loses her innocence that night too. If she was ever innocent in the first place.

Maybe Mandy is just a horny modern woman not afraid to explore her sexual fantasies. And that’s all. Food for thought.

To pick up a copy of Kinky Carnival Games: Maybe Mandy book one click one of the following links based on your country.

US: KINKY CARNIVAL GAMES

UK: KINKY CARNIVAL GAMES

CA: KINKY CARNIVAL GAMES

AU: KINKY CARNIVAL GAMES

To pick up the Maybe Mandy collection of all 3 books in one. This one has Kinky Carnival Games, Margaritas by Moonlight, and Slippery When Wet. Click Below.

US: MAYBE MANDY COLLECTION

UK: MAYBE MANDY COLLECTION

CA: MAYBE MANDY COLLECTION

AU: MAYBE MANDY COLLECTION