Joe Hart's Blog, page 7

I love October.

I love Halloween.

I love fall, the leaves turning and then gradually falling, one by one off the trees. It makes me want to create.

So this is what I'm going to do: Every day of October (barring a catastrophe) I'll be posting a flash fiction piece on my blog. The theme will obviously be horror. I'm going to try to keep the stories as close to a hundred words as possible.

Here we go.




With Sympathy
The card came today.I knew I’d get mine sooner or later. When I open up the mailbox, the afternoon sun shining on my head, it’s the only thing in there. I open it on the way to the house, my hands trembling as the off-white cardstock comes into view, the words ‘With Sympathy’ on the front emblazoned in gold ink. So I follow the instructions inside, just like I know my friends and family did before me.One cup of bleach.A half cup of gasoline.Three tablespoons of lye. I grimace as I drink it down.

I came home to write full-time one year ago today.

I still can't really believe I'm doing what I dreamed of since I was a teenager, it's a little too surreal even after a year of doing it.

I decided to sit down and write this after my wife reminded me of the anniversary that is today (glad she was reminding me of this anniversary and not OUR anniversary) and I thought I would stop and look back at what this year has meant to me, what I've accomplished, and what I hope to do in the future. So here we go.

For six years I worked as a personal trainer at a local, 24-hour gym and for five of them, managed it.

I loved it.

I helped people reach their fitness goals, gained friendships with my two bosses that will last a lifetime, and provided for my family.

I was also away from home for 12 to 14 hours every day of the work week. I would look in on my sleeping children in the morning before I left, and at times would kiss them goodnight as they slept when I came home.

I did not love this.

But at the time it was the best thing for our family. My wife stayed home with our children since we decided it was the best for them and financially for us. Each day I would leave them early and come home late. It was a routine that kept me away from my loved ones, but also provided for them. This is in no way special since millions do this everyday, but I hated it.

So at night I wrote.

When I would arrive home I would pound out a thousand words and then flop into bed, ready to do it again the next day.

And the next day.

And the next day.

A year ago my wife was able to start working from home. We had already made sacrifices for her to stay home with the kids and this new added income meant a decision for us. One that thrilled me to no end. Not only would I be able to spend much more time with my family, I could begin to write full-time.

My first book, Midnight Paths, came out in October of 2011 and my novel Lineage, was published on September 17th, 2012. Twelve days later I came home for good.

It took me six months writing in the evenings while working full-time to finish Lineage. Since publishing that first novel I've written three short stories and four more novels in the space of a year- Singularity, EverFall, The River Is Dark, and the latest that will be published in October. For me this pace has been perfect. I try to write 2000 words almost every day and have a great editor and cover artist who are wonderful to work with.

Now not to mislead you, I'm not making millions with my writing, but I'm very pleased with how my books have done over the last year. Two years ago I would be lucky to clear enough each month for a nice dinner and now my writing pays the mortgage, and car payment, along with various other expenses, not to mention my publishing costs.

The year has had its shares of ups and downs. One day your books are selling well, gaining momentum, and gathering shining reviews. The next there will be a horrific, static silence as readers pass your work over for someone else's. I've come to realize these highs and lows are normal, although it doesn't stop me from dancing or moping when they come along. But I'm a writer, I'm not always rational.

If I could pick out two examples of the best and worst times they would have to be in February when Singularity hit the top 100 paid Kindle list in the UK and hung there for a day, and this summer when nearly all of my books slipped down to negligible numbers for weeks at a time.

Some have asked me how I've accomplished becoming full-time. My answer is always this: keep working and adapting, and never give up. There is nothing more to success than refusing to quit.

In the coming year I'm excited to focus more on the marketing of my work while also producing another four novels.

All in all, it's been a great ride, and even if sales numbers slip sometimes or the occasional negative review comes along, I remember that I've already achieved a goal that some never get to experience.

I'm doing what I love, every day.

Fall is my favorite time of year and always breeds creativity for me, for some reason the Autumnal tones of yellow and red leaves kick start my writing gears and new things come to me. Here's a little flash fiction I jotted down the other night, hope everyone digs it!


The Walk

Their feet slapped the pavement and echoed back to them from the houses lining the road.Mathew giggled, his small body straining forward while the laughter inside him weakened his muscles.“I’m gonna get you, Matt!” Justin yelled at his son. His pace was slow enough to allow the boy just enough room to think he was going to get away.“Nuh uh!” Matthew said between bubbling laughs. They ran down the looping road that lined their neighborhood, nice houses scrolling by, the last rays of sun barely filtering through the trees. It was beginning to cool off, only early September but already the days were shorter, the temperature never climbing above sixty degrees during the day. Mathew turned the corner on the loop and jogged down a small hill, his little legs pumping harder now that he had momentum. “Can’t catch me now, dad, I’m an airplane!” “What? Oh, you’re an airplane? Well then I’m a fighter jet!” Justin made a hissing sound and spread his arms out wide like wings, poured on a burst of speed and scooped his son up into his arms. “No fair,” Matthew said amidst giggles. “You’re bigger than me.” “You’re right, but someday you’ll be bigger than dad and then you’ll be able to pick me up.” The little boy seemed to consider it for a moment, his forehead furrowing into lines, eyebrows raised high, a hint of sorrow on his face. “I won’t ever be bigger than you, dad.” “You never know,” Justin said, placing his son back on his feet. “Now, it’s getting late, we better get going home, still need to make dinner and everything.” “Already?”“Already.”“I’m really tired.”“From running? But you’re young, you should have more energy than I do.”“I just really tired.” “Need a ride.” “Yeah.” Justin scooped the boy high into the air and sat him on his shoulders while they walked. The evening blossomed with shadows patching the sides of the road. Several lights began to glow behind windows, illuminating long squares of manicured grass across lawns. Crickets played a constant symphony and a few birds flitted overhead in search of nests before nightfall. They were still a quarter mile from home when Matthew kicked his feet once. “I think I can walk now, dad.” “You sure?” “Yeah, I’m starting to get cold.” Justin lowered him to the ground and felt a bit of dismay at not thinking to put a sweatshirt on his son. He wore his favorite t-shirt, the one he always seemed to have on. “Sorry, buddy, I should’ve brought a long sleeve for you.” “It’s okay, dad, I won’t be cold for long. We’ll be home soon, right?” “We sure will, buddy, and I’ll make you some soup.” Matthew pointed ahead of them at the dusky street. “Dad, who’s that?”Justin looked up and saw a tall figure approaching on the left side of the road. Up until then he hadn’t noticed they weren’t alone. How had he missed the person on the straight stretch? As the figure neared he let out a breath he hadn’t consciously been holding. It was their neighbor, Dan Parsons. The wash of fear receded, leaving him feel foolish, but you could never be too careful, especially with your kids.“Evening Justin.” The old man said as he neared them. “Beautiful night.” “It sure is,” Justin said, feeling the warmth of Matthew’s hand slide into his own. “We couldn’t resist a walk, could we Matty?” Matthew shook his head, staring up at the tall man with wrinkles deeply set in his face like a ploughed field. Parsons glanced down at his shoes and smiled in a sad way. “How have you been lately, Justin, everything going okay?” “Yeah, just fine. Busy at work and whatnot. How about you? How’s Elsie?” “She’s good, wants you to stop by for dinner again soon.” “That’d be really nice, we’d like that.” Dan nodded, glanced around the deserted road. “You sure you don’t want to come inside, talk for a bit?” “No, that’s okay, better get the little guy home, but thanks. I’ll catch up with you soon.” Justin held Mathew’s hand and set off down the road toward their waiting house leaving Dan to stand by himself listening to the coming night. Dan finally sighed and walked a hundred yards to his own driveway, pausing to check the mail but Elsie had gotten it already. The windows glowing gold looked so inviting, but he hesitated, breathing in the evening air before going inside.Elsie was popping popcorn when he hung his coat up and pulled his shoes off. She glanced away from the pan for a moment as he stepped into the kitchen. “Saw you talking to Justin. He was out for a walk?” “Yes, I need to speak with Jill, she’s letting him have too much freedom lately, I worry he’s going to wander off one of these times.” “Well, why didn’t you invite him in?” Dan waited, watching Elsie shake the popcorn pan, her gray hair bouncing a little. He closed his eyes. “Because he had Matthew with him.” Elsie stopped shaking the pan, her spine slowly going rigid. She stared ahead out of the window, now opaque to all but their reflections. “I thought he was getting better.” “So did I.”She sighed, her fragile frame weakening, almost buckling over the stove. “We should move him in here.”“We’ve went over this before, I think that would only make it worse.” Elsie took the pan off the burner and faced him. Her eyes had lost what gleam they had only minutes earlier. “We’ll have to tell Jill to change his medication.” Dan sighed, remembering the way his son looked at him like an acquaintance. “Sometimes I just wish that I could still see him too.”    

Tomorrow's the first day of school for my kids.

They're not super-excited. A little, but not super.

I thought about how this time of year makes me feel and needed to put down my thoughts.

Hey! My blog! I'll put down my thoughts!

So here we go.

Today we did lots of fun stuff together as a family, got home in time for me to cook dinner. My wife cleaned out their backpacks, washed them, hung them up to dry. My daughter labeled her pencils for a half hour so no one would take them tomorrow.

As a writer I get to stay home and do what I love to do everyday, but I must admit, when there's no one else in the house, I do get more done. I'm alone with my thoughts. It's quiet. I can think clearly with my ideas making the loudest noises I hear. Tomorrow I'm going to sit down and pound out a couple thousand words on my WIP. Then I'm going to go workout, and then pick my kids up from their respective schools.

And as much as I'll relish the time to work, I'll be truly looking forward to getting them back home and listen to them tell me about their first day. I'm going to make them snacks and cook them a special dinner and help them do their homework. The quintessential feeling is hard to express but it's something along the lines of appreciating what you have when it's not there.

I do love my time alone to write.

But the house gets too quiet sometimes.

And when my family gathers together in the evening is when things are the best.

That's it, a little gushing about my loved ones. Thought I'd share. Hope everyone else who's sending their children off to school tomorrow has a great day.

And a great evening when they come back home again.

Lots of talk lately about what makes someone a writer. There was a post on a HWA sponsored site by Lisa Morton about what it means to be a pro writer. Chuck Wendig did a post also at Terribleminds.

Most everyone including the great Neil Gaiman failed to answer yes to most questions that Lisa posed as far as being a professional writer instead of a hobbyist, so I won't beat a dead, and in my opinion, done in very bad taste, horse. What I wanted to explore with this post is what it means to be a writer to me.

First off, who am I?

I'm Joe Hart. I've been writing since I was 9.

I write about scary things. Monsters. Ghosts. Murderers. Average people.

I'm self published, not sure if that will change or not.

People buy my books everyday. It appears that they read them and then (most of them) say nice things about them. I love this.

Each day I get up and write or re-write/edit something I wrote. I love this more.

I make words where there were none before.

I don't clock into a job that requires me to leave my house and my family. I used to, but not anymore.

Sometimes I work for lots of hours. Sometimes its only a few.

Sometimes people think I don't really work, or that writing isn't a job. That's fine.

Sometimes I'm inside at my computer writing when the people who don't think writing is a real job are out having fun, not working at their job. That's fine too.

Some people base whether they're a writer or not by if they get paid to do it. I get paid to do it, but some would dispute this. Some say that if you write, you're a writer. I would follow closer to this path than any other.

If you create words where there were none before, and they tell a story, you're a writer. No one should doubt themselves or try to take a quiz to see if they qualify for something they love to do. They should simply do it and then the next day, do it again.

To me that's what writing is. Writing.

Simple enough.

So I've been busy writing my fingers off and editing my brains out and it's finally time to reveal my latest novel which will be out August 6th.


The River Is Dark is my first foray into thriller territory and I'm really excited about it. Below is the synopsis.



Ex-homicide detective Liam Dempsey is waiting to die. 
His career, the only thing he ever knew how to do well, is over. The single solace each day brings is the ever-growing contemplation of suicide. 
But when his estranged brother and sister-in-law are brutally murdered in their bucolic town set on the banks of the Mississippi River, he is drawn into an investigation surrounding a string of killings unlike anything he has ever seen before. The murderer is ruthless, cunning, and without conscience. 
Soon Liam learns that the river is dark. 
And so are its secrets.

So that's it for now. Like I said, The River Is Dark comes out August 6th and I'd be really pleased if everyone took a peek at it when it goes live. Thanks for stopping by! 

Really simple post today folks. This one's for people wondering how to start and end chapters in the projects they're writing. So here we go...

The beginning of a chapter should be a fishhook through the eyes.

It should yank the readers attention to the words with clarity and concern and bit of unease. Something should be happening at the beginning of a chapter, something you want to read more about. Here's an example from my short story The Line Unseen:


Jay knew the guy was dead before he stopped twitching on the rough concrete. The light wasn’t good in the alley, a single sodium bulb hanging by a limp neck from a pole beside the bar tinged everything in a urine glow, but it was good enough to see the man’s chest heave in and then out, then stay still.
Now this doubles as an opening line, but you get the picture. Something must be happening at the beginning of a chapter to make us want to read on. We have to care what happens next. 

Now, for the end of a chapter you want to slide the reader right off a cliff's edge with almost nothing to hold onto. Here's an example from my novel Singularity:
Sullivan scanned the dresser for his necessities: ID, keys, and gun. They were all there. "Okay. Anything else I need to know?"The silence in the phone sounded almost like that of a dead line. He wondered for a moment if his SAIC had hung up without further comment, but then he heard the familiar intake of breath before Hacking spoke."The victim was killed in solitary confinement."   
The only thing there should be for the reader to grasp is, yep, you guessed it, the next chapter. Every chapter's ending should leave a question or concern hanging in the air. There should be some sort of peril or twist that no one saw coming. This makes the reader plunge forward to find out what happened and continue reading, and that, my friends, is really what we want as authors, to make readers go running forward, pell-mell into the fray we've created because they can't help themselves. 
Hope this helps those that are wondering about beginning and ending chapters. Just remember to hook them then leave them hanging, and you'll be fine. 

So, my Twitter buddy, Steven Montano , writes some really excellent vampire, military fiction called The Blood Skies series, and you should really check it out, you won't be sorry. But Steven's a busy guy and he's actually started a new series of books called The Skullborn Trilogy, which is more epic fantasy. I wanted to give him a shout out since his cover reveal for the first book in the series is today. So without further ado, here it is:





City of Scars (Book One of The Skullborn Trilogy)By Steven MontanoRelease Date: June 28th, 2013Cover Art by Barry CurreyIt’s been three decades since the Blood Queen led her legions on a brutal campaign of conquest and destruction, and the Empires are still struggling to rebuild.  Now, in the distant aftermath of the war, the real battle is about to begin.Haunted by the crimes of his past, fallen knight Azander Dane ekes out a mercenary existence as he drifts from one city to the next.  His latest job is to hunt down Ijanna Taivorkan, a powerful outlaw witch desperately seeking a way to escape her destiny. Dane and Ijanna find themselves in Ebonmark, the City of Scars, where deadly crime guilds and shadowy agents of the White Dragon Empire prepare for a brutal confrontation.  Pursued by apocalypse cults, mad alchemists, exiled giants and werewolf gangs, Dane and Ijanna soon learn a deadly lesson – in Ebonmark, only the cruelest and most cunning can survive. City of Scars is the first volume of The Skullborn Trilogy, an all new epic fantasy adventure from the author of the Blood Skies series.Check out bloodskies.com for more!

Snobbery aside, what is literary fiction? Hmmm?

Critically acclaimed? Sure. Complex? Yes. Multilayered? Absolutely. Pathos? Most definitely.

Serious? Sure, at times.

So let me pose this question: What sets "literary fiction" aside from all other genres? Shouldn't all fiction, no matter what the subject matter, hold the above characteristics?

I think the answer lies in the first attribute. Critically acclaimed. Universally accepted pieces aren't just rare, they don't exist. For every classic there are those that will pick a hole in the plot, rip the main character to pieces, shit upon the theme. If you cut "critically acclaimed" out of the aspects of literary fiction, you have, well, just good fiction.

It doesn't matter if it's a civil war drama or a horror novel, a depression-era mystery or a contemporary comedy, good fiction should have a slamming plot, characters that breathe, and universal struggles that everyone recognizes and feels.

That's good fiction.

That's good writing.

That's good storytelling.

Literary is literature.

Or it should be.

"Don't judge a book by its cover."

This old adage goes back who knows how long. Yeah, I get it, a book might have a boring cover but the story within is what counts. Well the days for this saying have long since passed. When someone says this to me I reply:

"Make sure your book doesn't have a shitty cover."

I'll have to agree with Konrath on this point as having a great, eye-catching cover is second only to writing a fantastic, well-edited book. Your cover is what draws a reader in, especially in this day and age of the digital revolution. If your cover says DULL across the front, what exactly are your potential readers going to think about the content? You might have the next great American novel written on the inside, but no one's going to know because they won't be pulled in long enough to find out.

Not to toot my own horn (but what the hell, this is my blog, right?) but I'm very proud of my covers and here's a few examples of them:





Now just to point out a few features that I think are critical in a great cover.

The cover must convey your content. You have to have a cover that speaks to your audience. Don't have two lovers embracing in a field if your book is a science fiction. 
The colors and arrangement must be eye-catching but also eye-pleasing. Which brings me to my next point.
Hire a professional. I hear some indie authors say they design their own covers but typically they don't have to tell anyone, it's apparent. If you're not a whiz at design, don't attempt it. Hire it out, it's definitely worth the money. My cover artist is the very talented Kealan Patrick Burke. You can contact him about his services here.So that's about it folks, don't chintz on your cover. You wouldn't sacrifice anything on the inside of the book, why would you do so on the outside?