Jack Night's Blog

Mark your calendars! On June 16th Bookbub will be featuring The Dead of Winter so you'll be able to grab a copy for $0.99! This promotion will be running for seven days starting the 16th so if you haven't gotten your own copy or would like to encourage someone else to, this is the time to do it.

Also in the next few days Goodreads will be giving away 10 paperback copies of Starvation Assembly. I'll post the entry link to that contest here as soon as it goes live.

Realistically I probably won't show up at your place of employment unless you happen to work in a bar. The next best thing to having me there personally is to hop on over and read Robin Dilks' interview with me!

A Page Turning Conversation with Author Jack Night 

p.s. If you do work in a bar, let me know where and I'll be sure to stop in on my travels!

Just a little teaser for the moment...

If there are any fans in the Atlanta area, I'll be attending the World Horror Convention 2015 May 7th-10th. Leave a comment here or shoot me an email and maybe we can all meet up for a drink!

For those faithful readers that have missed my blog (surely there's been 1 or 2 besides my mother) you'll be glad to know that it's back!

All joking aside, there will be many changes coming over the next few months as I revamp and reboot my author platform in an effort to bring you more content and more interactivity!

My latest release Starvation Assembly is out now and for the next few days it's being promoted with a Kindle Countdown Deal so be sure to grab a copy now. As always comments and reviews are MORE than welcome!

If that's truly the case then you guys must LOVE me by now! My non-blogging of late has been for a good cause however. Exciting things are in the pipeline so stay tuned!
I'll be in New Orleans this weekend for the World Horror Convention (thurs 13th-sun 16th) so if anyone happens to live nearby or be in town and would like to meet up for drinks, I can always be persuaded to hit a bar! Drop me a message here on the blog or hit me up by email Jack.Night.2012@gmail.com
I'll try to post pics and updates over the course of the weekend as well. 
~Stay scared...

Here's another behind the scenes peek at something quick, dirty, and first-draft as hell! The idea for this story prompt came from Michael Arnzen's book Instigation: Creative Prompts on the Dark Side.

Pick a random word from the dictionary. Nouns work best; try to avoid names. Then add the word "Kills" next to it at the top of a blank page (e.g. "Trivia Kills"). You've got yourself a title. Now write the story that goes with it.

I went one step further and added a random word to the other side of the equation. So I bring you Stardust Kills Cremator. Henceforth titled:


STARDUST MEMORIES

In the beginning there was light. And a big bang.
“This your first Stardust job?” Dylan nodded and looked away from the smoldering wreck of the Harmony Gardens funeral home. Mack was inside the van, straining against his own girth as he pulled on boots. “Well get ready to pop your cherry bubba, you’re in for a real treat! You’ll want the thick gloves, trust me. Less feeling through them.” Mack tossed out the gloves and a roll of duct tape. Dylan turned back to watch the smoke while he wriggled his hands into the rubbery confines. The billowing column spilled out of the hole in the roof, twisting and dancing in the wind. The smoke changed colors from deep blue, to red, to purple. It looked like an undulating and magnificent beast stretching for the heavens. “You’ll want to use the tape,” Mack continued. Dylan wound the roll around each calf and wrist until the seal was tight and impenetrable where his boots and gloves met the rest of the hazard suit. Mack coughed and spoke in grunted half-breaths as he doubled over to do the same. “Used to be a lot more cleanups like these when those Stardust things first came out. Have to be removed just like pacemakers before they burn the body. Someone forgets or just plain doesn’t give a shit, and you get this. That’s why they get those little blue star tattoos right behind the ear.” 
Or was it darkness? In the beginning there was darkness?
Dylan couldn’t remember. He turned back to the van and pulled a respirator mask from the shelves. “Not that one. We’ll need the level tens,” Mack said as he spat into the dirt. “I’ll tell you what, make it through this job without having nightmares and you’ll be solid for whatever weird shit life may throw at you.” With the mask on and hood in place, Dylan felt like an astronaut. This was the first time he’d worn a level ten and the world outside felt distant and out of reach. He supposed that was the idea.
Space. That was part of it. A big bang, and the creator scattered all of the elements for life out amongst the stars. Those weren’t the words, but the imagery was right.
Mack was shouting at him through his own respirator now. “Grab some of the bio buckets. The big ones.” He grabbed the buckets and slid the door closed. The red Crowley Clean-Up logo stood out in sharp contrast to the white of the van. Dylan took a deep breath and listened to the exhale as it whispered its way out of his respirator. Inside the hood, the sound of his heart and blood pumping was magnified. 
There was a heartbeat too. Pacemaker. Insulin pump. Something like that. A combination of the two. And Stardust.
The two set off for the open door of Harmony Gardens. Mack stopped at the threshold, chuckled, then shook his head before ushering Dylan through and into the foyer. The entry was still mostly intact, creating a darkness that enveloped them as Mack closed the door. From behind him in the darkness, Mack swore. “Hold on.”
First there was darkness. Then a big bang, that scattered the elements of life throughout the cosmos. The Stardust from Infinitech has finally found a way to harness those building blocks to rejuvenate and sustain you! How would you like to live an extra ten, thirty, even fifty years? The Stardust implant will do just that. Those might not have been the words either, but they were close enough. He could remember the blonde, against a starry background. The animation of the pump as it attached to the heart. The way it sent out its “safe and regulated dose of our patented formula” in a wave of little blue animated stars. What might have been considered a miracle in earlier times being passed off in an infomercial. First there was darkness. Then a big bang. And then there was light.
The dark entryway illuminated as Mack pushed through the adjoining door. The light from the missing ceiling passed through the haze of smoke and created a soft glow all around them. Dylan wondered whether he would’ve screamed had it not been for that surreal filtering effect. The explosion had been massive. It started in the crematorium and radiated out to destroy most of the building from there. The building, and the Funeral Director. Dylan struggled for comprehension as his heart raced and the sound of blood pumping became a deafening roar in his hood. There were too many body parts for just one person. A quick glance revealed at least five feet, four hands, and the head of an elderly woman. These ragged, and singed bits weren’t bad. They were pale and bloodless. Pieces of corpses, and not the Director. The Funeral Director had been closest to the furnaces when the implant exploded and his remains were a spray of red and pink viscera that covered every surface. At first glance even that wasn’t too bad. Messy, but not the stuff of nightmares. Dylan took a tentative step forward then stopped, foot still suspended in the air. A solitary eyeball looked up at him from the ground. When the shadow of his leg passed over it, the pupil dilated. Shredded pieces of muscle fiber inched across the walls like bloody worms, propelled by the perpetual expanding and contracting of the tissue. The gore was still alive, and moving. He registered movement on every surface. Even the tiniest pieces of organ were still performing, still trying to carry on their appointed tasks.  From somewhere in a distant universe Mack was laughing and yelling through his respirator. “Massive dose of that Stardust shit and this is what you have. Poor bastard has been dead for twelve hours but the bits and pieces won’t get the memo for another twenty four.” Dylan watched in horror as tiny connective fibers tried to weave themselves into the flesh of a dead woman’s arm. Blackness threatened the edges of his vision and a lightness unspooled from the center of his head. He was passing out. Mack’s voice was replaced by the blonde woman’s as gravity buckled his knees.
In the beginning there was a big bang, and the Cremator scattered all of the elements for life out amongst the dead.

Alright, don't get too damn excited! This post is going to be shorter than the last....and probably worse!

It has recently come to my attention that some people go to weird and ridiculous lengths to market their writing so I thought I'd contribute a terrible idea myself!

How about taking the first several pages of your novel and gluing them to the inside of bathroom stalls? Of course at the end of your "preview" you'd have a handy scannable QR code that would take  new fans to your favorite online retailer where they could then purchase the book! Hmm, actually this  is sounding better and better as I type it.

Beware...Jack Night: Coming To A Bathroom Stall Near You!

Anyone have some better, awful, guerrilla marketing ideas? Post them up! Or better yet, take to the streets on my behalf and market the hell out of The Dead of Winter and send me pics @ Jack.Night.2012@gmail.com

The scarier and more outlandish the better! I'll even give a signed copy of my next book Starvation Assembly to the winner. BEFORE it's released! This way in case you end up doing jail time for your misguided marketing, you'll have something to read.

DISCLAIMER: The author takes no responsibility for his own actions, so you can damn well bet he won't take any for yours. But he probably will start a half-ass Twitter campaign to get you released from police custody. And you'll probably earn the honor of a blog post.

P.S.  For any of my fellow darklings out there who are looking for better ways to promote your books, you can't go wrong with Books of the Dead Press. Check them out! Or else go back to stamping dollar bills with your Amazon link.

Stay scared...

I'm not going to lie, the word "blogging" brings to mind something the cat would do in the middle of the night....accompanied by retching sounds. But here I am at it again because it's one of those things that seems like a good idea around 3 in the morning. Of course usually my "good" ideas in the post-normal-people-hours are anything but!

I digress however. What I really wanted to say is a heartfelt thanks to everyone that sent care packages of bourbon during my couple of no power days, I'd also like to say that they still haven't arrived (hint hint)...

Another thing that seems like a good idea at 3am is coming up with ridiculous blog post titles and then trying to fit something to it. Have no fear, I've got this.

It might not actually be a Femingway with too much makeup and tight fitting pants, but it is related.

The Death of the Rockstar Writer!

In a day and age where even the common man can become a celebrity cautionary tale of "what not to do with your life," it seems a shame that writers are no longer well represented here. What happened to the Hemingways, Bukowskis, William S. Burroughs, and Hunter S. Thompsons? Ok, yeah, I know what happened to them, but where are the replacements?

I still personally like to think of the job as "cool" and one where only half the action takes place sitting at a keyboard, alone with your thoughts. The rest of it happens in bars, on the streets, illegal dice games in dark alleys, boxing matches, brothels, and any of the other places where life gets weird....and interesting. Most people don't have the luxury of living in such a reckless manner so I feel like it's my personal responsibility to get out there, get messy, and report back. Plus, let's be honest, I'd probably be doing all of that anyways but at least I can call it "research" as long as I write about it!

Just in case anyone is taking applications for new Rockstar Writers, I can provide excellent references....from several precincts and jurisdictions.

That is all for tonight, now on to the real work. You can't say I didn't warn you several posts ago that this blogging thing would get ugly and rambling at some point!

Stay scared....

It's a catchy title, yes? However in this case I'm being literal and not clever. I'm writing this on my phone, in the near-dark, surrounded by 30 flickering tea lights. It's not mood lighting either. The power is out.

This brings me to the second part of my post title, because the writing life while fun, isn't always glamorous.

Writing full-time does give you unprecedented freedom, but as someone recently said, it takes great discipline to make it work. Both the freedom and the writing.

You still have to show up at the "office" every day or else the words don't get done. You also have to manage everything else in your life accordingly or else you wind up drinking warm beer, surrounded by candles and smoking cheap cigarettes because you're a few days from another royalty check and have a tendency to plan poorly! I think it's clear where I fall at the moment.

That being said, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world because it's always an adventure and even the mistakes can get chalked up to "research" because it'll wind up in something, someday.

And even when things are screwed up somebody will say something amazing about your work and you'll remember why you signed up for this job in the first place!

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

That's all the wisdom I've got for tonight. I think the moral of the story is that warm beer is bad and having a manager is good!