Getting To Know You…

   Interviews, I am horrible at them, let’s just get that out there. Horrible. I owe so much to the people that take the time to interview me, that take the time to get to know something about me so they can ask questions but man, I just feel like I am horrible at talking about myself and the books. I feel like I raaaaaaamble. Like mad. It is weird because I have so much to say about writing and about self publishing yet I feel like I am talking too much and saying too little during these things. It is like pushing a whale into a bikini, it just doesn’t all fit. Eep.

   Which is to say I did another interview today. Cool interviewer, did a good job, I just feel like I yammered a lot. Let’s hope she edits it and makes me look all professional and junk. That’s the hope at least.

Chris Ringler and the $1,200 Alien

So, if you have ever met me in person then you know that aside from my dashing good looks and rapier wit that I am a storyteller. The problem here is that while I have a lot of stories I only have like, four that are classic, hands down great stories. The real stuff that makes people like me who are not that interesting seem pretty boss. Well friends, I am about to give you one of those stories for freesies, meaning i am about to make myself far less interesting, but it happens.

Once upon a time I worked as a clerk at a convenience store. This was the late-nineties and I was just at the end of my college career and still at home and just sorta floating through life. I didn’t like the job, didn’t like dealing with drunks, but i liked the people I worked for and worked with and needed a job so there ya have it. I worked at a small store near where I grew up and it wasn’t that much work, wasn’t that much stress, and was generally ok, the bonus being that we didn’t sell lottery so that made things pretty simple.

Now, for those that don’t recall, the mid-nineties were all about aliens and UFOs and the like. This was the hey-day of X-Files, the release of Clutch‘s self titled album, and the era of the alien autopsy (which, I have to confess, I sorta thought was real, or maybe wanted to be real, I dunno, I can be pretty gullible) so culturally we had alieums on the noggin. Alieums being the countrified way to say alien. I was also digging on the space invader thing and went so far as to have a couple t-shirts with aliens. One was an Alienware shirt that I still have and it has a pic of a short, fat headed alien on it and the other was a take on the Absolut vodka ads and had an alien in a bottle and it said Absolut Alien. Corny stuff, for sure, but this was after my ripped jeans and flannel days so I was doing the best I could here.

So here I am one night working the late shift at work, which meant it was a Friday or Saturday and I was doing the 5 – 1 AM shift, when we were busy with the party people. So I am working alone at the time, before the third shift guy comes in, and I am hanging out, whiling away my shift. I had one of my alien shirts on, for some reason I think it was the Absolut Alien one but I cannot swear to it. But I am standing there behind the register hanging out and these two guys come in. They wander around the back of the store and go to the coolers and get some beer grab that and come up front. So I look at one guy’s ID and as I am looking at it one of the guys, and these are some country bucks, two big guys that are a bit grubby, and are all about jeans as all occasion fashion, well one of the guys looks at me and says -

“So, you like aliens?”

I look up at the guy and he’s smiling as I am ringing them up and I wasn’t quite sure what to say so I wrinkle my brow and reply -

“Uh, sure.”

“You ever seen one?” And this really threw me because how on earth was I going to see an alien? And if I HAD I would like to think I would have better things to do than ride cashier at a convenience store. Just saying. So I look at them and they are smiling and I am utterly dumbfounded.

“Uh, no, no can’t say I have.”

“Well, you wanna see one?” And what do you say to that? What do you honestly reply to that question. And then who DOESN’T want to see a darn alien? Seriously, if someone had an alien, just, whatever, hanging out, and asked if you wanted to see it are you telling me you or most folks would turn it down? Heck no. So I sorta shook my head in disbelief.

“Uh, of course I want to see it. Where is it?”

“We got it in the barn. It’s twelve hundred bucks if you wanna see it.” I sorta coughed. I was making maybe just over minimum wage and there was no way I 1. had that much money or 2. would pay it. Alien or no.

“Uh, I don’t really have that much. What does it look like? Where did you find it?”

“Twelve hundred bucks and we’ll show you.” So at this point they are smiling and I am intrigued but then there is the notion that they have some farm animal or cousin all made up like an alien in their barn. Or maybe they were going to just snatch me and make me their alien. Maybe there was an underground slavery ring and aliens were the lure. Again though, as tempting as it was, I had to turn the offer down.

“Yeah, I just don’t have that much. I’d love to see it but can’t afford it.” Shrewd businessmen, they lowered their price but it was still far too high, so again I turned it down.

“Well, it’s yer loss, man. It’s pretty cool. Yer gonna regret it.” And saying that they left and never returned.

For some fifteen years I have been trying to figure out what exactly I missed out on. I mean, it was clearly a hoax, right? Who the heck has an alien in a barn? I dunno what they were up to other than trying to rook a noob but it was weird, nonetheless. And how can you not wonder what if? What if they did have something, maybe not even alien but something different, something strange, something unnatural? And I will never know, and it’s probably better that way because it wasn’t a good investment, a safe investment, and the story is better as a story as opposed to a – the time I was held captive by crazy rednecks who I thought had an alien in their barn - tale. What they had, and how they came up with a value of $1200 will always be a mystery for me but then sometimes the mystery is better than the wisdom behind it. Still, it makes you wonder, doesn’t it, about what the heck those goons had there in their barn, and whether it really was worth the  money or not.

Ooops!

So, sometimes you just have to admit that ya mucked up. I mean, it happens, and if you are a writer especially you are bound to boo-boos. For me it comes in the editing of my books. From time to time I miss some things as I am fixing and expanding the stories and darn it they make it into the book. And while it’s embarrassing, for sure, it is also pretty neat that I am using something like Create Space where I can go and fix my mistakes, re-submit the book, and be up and rolling again within a couple days. That is pretty amazing. I hate that I make some mistakes but that I can go in and fix them is amazing. The last thing you want, as an author, is to have your work judged for some mistakes you have made that you are not story but are structure – something you can fix.

 

I am very lucky to have friends brave enough to tell me that I made the mistakes and that will take the time to help me fix them, and am happy to have the ability to fix things. The stories, the books are part of my legacy and as such it’s pretty important to me to get it right. So, I apologize to those that get the earlier books with the mistakes but am still confident that you got a pretty darn good book just the same. And heck, perfection is for robots and barn aliens.

c

MEEP!

Let Me Die Quietly – movie review

Let Me Die Quietly

 

Personally I cannot imagine how hard it would be to make a low budget film. You are trying to make a movie that can compete with the bigger budget films yet has none of the money behind it. Still, you have to look at your limitations and make them your assets. If you have no money then why try to do a special effects heavy story? Why have two dozen sets? Keep it simple and play to your strengths. These qualities are all on hand in Let Me Die Quietly, a modern day noir film that focuses more on the story than on effects there is no money to fund.

 

Mario is a lost man, a man driven by lust, by self-doubt, and by a fear of things he sees and feels but cannot understand. Mario is an empath that sees and feels murders when he comes in contact with places and people who have that stain of blood to them. These views drive him to a psychiatrist who doesn’t seem to help and toward a dangerous lifestyle of excess so he can numb the pain of what he sees and feels. Mario’s pain only seems to ease a little when he meets a Gabrielle, a young woman who also senses things and with her he finally feels there may be some light left in the world. What he doesn’t see though is that Gabrielle is working with someone to betray Mario and use his perceived gift against him and unless Mario can foretell his own fate then he may end up just like the victims he sees – another nameless body in a city full of ghosts.

 

I have to hand it to the filmmakers here because like I mentioned above, the biggest mistake that low budget directors make is to try to do too much with too little. Their ambition outweighs their common sense. Too often I see movies that are an utter joke because the people behind tried to make a Hollywood movie on an off Broadway budget. Let Me Die is well made and well shot and is not bad in any way but that doesn’t make it good. The acting is pure noir and that pushes things a bit much. Everything is too muted and too slow moving. The acting is fair here, with the actors doing the best with what they have. The real problem is the story and writing, which are just not there. There is a lot here but none of it seems to really find a place or beat. In the end the film feels boring and just too slow. And for me, there are too many loose ends that are left to blow in the wind.

 

From what I have been getting for review this isn’t bad at all. It is melodramatic as heck, with an awful score, but if you have an interest in noir and for more muted, thoughtful films this has something to offer. For me it was just not enough of one thing or another to really keep me invested. A fair effort, and a promising look at some actors and a filmmakers who, with some honing and better scripts, might do some really strong work in the future.

 

6 out of 10

 

MEEP!

www.meepsheep.com

Tools of the Trade (and stuff)

   As I have probably mentioned, like eighteen hundred times by now, I have been writing for some twenty years. I started as a teenager, when I had visions of being a cartoonist or a special fx makeup guy. Ah, the good old days. Anyway, I got serious about writing back when my friend Mike and I started doing a horror ‘zine and I got into the habit of writing almost daily. And whether it was writing movie reviews, stories, blogs, or just the occasional rant I fell in love with writing at an early age and it was that writing that got me through any tough patches I hit on the road. With Back From Nothing I finally started to look at writing as more than just a hobby but as a way to tell stories on a grander level and a way to make some money on the side as well.

   Now, as I have also said, you are probably not going to get rich writing, or doing any art. Which is not to warn you away from it at all but to make sure you understand that just as the kid that plays high school football doesn’t have much chance to make it to the NFL you don’t have a really good chance to become a best seller. Just the same you can make some really good money as a writer and artist and if you have the drive, the passion, and the talent you can make consistent money at it. And while the story, the art, the passion is why you do it and should always do it you do also have to be able to support yourself along the way or the art and stories are lost. I mean, I can tell you from experience that it doesn’t really inspire a lot of writing when you don’t know how you are going to pay your rent or bills. Poverty doesn’t make you a great artist, it’s heartbreak, remember that! (Which is utter crap but once in a while you have to make up your own catch phrase and I thought I would try that one out for size. Walk around with it, see how it feels on ya.) So as I went around to shows, conventions, and anything I could to promote my book and chapbooks I started figuring out better ways to show and sell my work. I got into that side a while back in a previous post and it was basically me passing on my experience as a writer and artist doing shows. Ah, but I wanted to add to that, add something on the business side of it.

   If you are going to try to sell your art and books at events then you need to have a system. You need to have Tools of the Trade. Like

  Notepad – you are gonna wanna keep a record of what you sold and how much, and what day you sold it. Some stuff you can write off and some you need to declare and it’s good to have a record of what you are doing.

  Pay Pal  – I am not necessarily the biggest fan of Pay Pal but it is what it is – an easy way for people to pay you online or in person for goods they are purchasing. Cash is always great but you will quickly learn that you will lose some sales because you cannot take other forms of payment. Pay Pal has free apps for Android and iPhones and it’s worth looking into if you are going to do any online sales or direct sales at events. You can exchange email addresses and do it really, really quickly. Be forewarned though that there is a fee involved.

   Square – I cannot say enough about this device. This is a free app and dongle for your phone that allows you to take credit and debit payments on your phone safely, securely, and at the point of sale. Basically you go and download the app, which is like a cash register screen, and then you sign up for an account on the website. With no charge for the app, or to sign up, you are then sent a dongle to plug into the headphone jack of your phone and you can now swipe credit and debit cards. You can add in tax. You can add in a photo and description of the product. The great thing too is you can email or text them a receipt immediately that has the image, description, and a location of where they bought it. And it’s instantaneous. Square takes a small percentage of the sale (for twenty bucks I give them like thirty cents or something) and that is it and they put the money in your bank within a few days. A great and important tool of the trade. There are other things out there like this but I use this one and it’s free to get so that is what drew me and keeps me a fan.

   Create Space – Finally there is Create Space, the publisher I have used for the last three books. I cannot say enough about this company. A subsidiary of Amazon.com, this is the best way I have found to get your book printed professionally with no investment and no big charges. Basically you sign up for an account and decide if you are putting together a book, CD, or DVD. For me I go with books and so I go to the create book part of the site. Here you can input the name, the page count, the author, and all the details of your book but you really wanna be done with the book when you start this process. So write or collect your book and then come here. So you set up all the details and then you want to see how you have to format things. You have to pick the size of your book and from there you can go into MS Word or a program like Adobe In Design. This is not easy. I did Red Dreams myself in Word and had a pretty easy go of it with the templates you can download but if you really know your stuff and want to tinker with the layout and design then try your hand at a program like In Design. You can do a lot with that program and if you have the program and the know-how you can really make it look pretty unique. From there you create your cover. The cover can be art you did, or a photo, or something you commissioned, or even an image they have on file at CS. and again you have to make sure you format it right and, again, they have the templates to make sure. For me, the formatting was the hardest part of the books but you want to make sure that the thing looks professional, and can be read so it’s a bridge you have to cross. So you do all that and submit it and there you go, you have your book submitted. So what does it cost? Well, it depends on how many pages your book is and all that fun. CS takes a percentage of your sales and you make a royalty. You get a free e-store for direct internet sales, you get listed on Amazon, and you can buy copies for direct sales. For $39 you can get their ‘pro-plan’ which lets you buy books for less, and gives you a bigger royalty. It’s pretty handy and for the cost it is a heck of a great way to get your work out there. Now, again, you will not get rich doing this (unless you blow the heck up as an author which, good for you, but it takes a LOT of work). For me CS is pretty great for indie authors. If you are willing to put the work in and get out there to promote, and to sell then you can make some money and can put out a polished, professional looking book.

Now, these are only some tools I use and I could do a full post on each one of these but this is just a tip sheet on things to look into. Things that I have found helpful and which have really upped my game. The thing though is to find your own tools and find what works for you and what you are doing. And darn it when you do, share with the class for goodness sake

Red Dreams

The Meep Sheep

This Beautiful Darkness

RED DREAMS Book Release Party

If there is something you should do when you are able to release a book it’s have a book release of some sort. For Red Dreams I wanted to celebrate with friends and family so I had people come over to where I live and we invaded my friend and neighbor’s apartment for some delicious food and cookies and a lot of talk. It is a real honor to be able to celebrate the release of a new book with people I love. Now comes the work of getting the book out to the world at large but hopefully that will be just as rewarding and just as fun.

Want to see what the hub-bub was about? Read more about RED DREAMS

Prefer something with a little more whimsy? Try THE MEEP SHEEP

Perseverance

If there is one thing that a writer (and any artist but I need to shrink the net here) needs to have, even more than talent, it is perseverance. You can gain talent, you can create drive, but without the willingness to keep at it against all odds then you are doomed right out of the gate. Perseverance is the heart of the writer, and without that heart you will never survive.

Unless you are remarkably talented (AND in the right place at the right time, AND have a compelling story, AND…), or very lucky you are going to need that drive to stick to things. Inevitably you will run into rejection in any one of a hundred ways because that is the nature of this beast and you have to be able to put that rejection into perspective and move on. How many people do you think kick themselves because they were not the brave soul willing to take a chance on some new writer that became a huge best seller? In the end, if you are not willing to believe in yourself and your writing, and if you are not willing to be your own champion then you will never be more than another person that writes. And that is fine, it is fine to write, and to paint, and to do anything that makes you happy but if you want to take the next step then you have to push yourself to do it. I love writing, I love painting and all the rest and I love it all enough to want to share it. I don’t need to write stories out for me because they and dozens more are all in my head (though they are pretty nebulous until I write them out, to be honest) but I want to share my stories and art. Take out the money part of it for a moment – the world needs as much art as it can get. There is so much self involvement anymore that many times it is only through the arts that we are able to pull ourselves away from ourselves and can see the world through new eyes. Not that that makes it any easier to put yourself out there but it helps to know that what you are doing is important in some small way.

Looking back at it I find it amazing that for ten years I promoted one book and still stuck with it. I had a lot of doubt, and worry, and fear over those years but I never stopped working on promotion and on ways to promote the book. I still did conventions, I still made chapbooks, I still did what I could to keep promoting Back From Nothing because I believed in it and I believed in myself. It is funny that in threes years now I have released three books with another in the works. My perseverance and patience paid off and self publishing got more legit, better, and the world turned in a way that made it a viable way to get your work out there. Honestly, the consumer doesn’t care if a book or album or any art is self produced or released or published they just want something compelling. Something good. It is the industry and those within it that hate self publishing. And while I may not be with a publisher I still sell books, I still tell good stories, and I still believe in what I do. And in the end the stories will get out there. Even if I had to release my books solely electronically I would do it because they deserve to be out there. I spent ten years looking for a publisher and none bit on my work. And since they never told me anything concrete, simply sending me back my submission and a form letter, I never knew if it was my work, what I sent, or how I sent it. That is the heck of it – that if you don’t write your inquiry letter in a certain way then you may not get past the trash can. It is horrible. Even accepting that there are say, a thousand publishing houses for a hundred thousand writers that we that submit to them are so often treated so poorly is awful. Why do I want to spend hours researching a publisher, spend the money and time to send them my work and then all I will get back is a form letter. That is a joke.

That is why I turned to self publish.

I got tired of waiting.

Some will tell you that you have WAIT and EARN your publishing chops and you are told that you don’t deserve publication unless you have been writing for a certain amount of time and I am here to tell you that those are the sweet lies we believe gladly because we are told them so often. While I think you SHOULD try to get published on websites, in magazines, in books, and in anything you can but you shouldn’t sell your soul to a future you cannot see. You should go the mainstream route while you write, while you create your voice, but you should never settle for the mainstream or nothing because sometimes you have to make the path you want to be on. Sometimes you have no choice.

You have to persevere.

You have to believe.

You have to be willing to believe in your writing.

I would love to have an editor to go over my work, a solid paycheck waiting for me when I finish a book, and I would love to have the luxury of not having to sell AND promote my own work but that isn’t the reality of the situation and it is what it is. You move forward. You don’t look back scratching your head. You have to believe in what you are doing and go forward.

Here’s something I know as an absolute fact – I know and have met a lot of writers, all of them talented, and none of them were rich. Once you get past the need to get rich at writing the easier the rest gets. You can go at things however you want, however works for you, but in the end it all comes down to perseverance, the rest works itself out from there. If you can’t keep believing in yourself, however the path takes you, then you are screwed, plain and simple.

Nothing you love is easy. The easiest part is the writing, the rest is the work, and it’s the rest that you have to make yourself, and as hard as it is, it’s also the most rewarding when you can be there on the front lines when it works and that is where the perseverance pays off. And that is why you keep at it.

That is why I keep at it – to be there when it works, when people ‘get’ it. And it is that which will keep me writing and doing all the art stuff I do.

Meep!

And THEN…

Well, now that Red Dreams is out and I have had the book release party – which was amazing, by the way – what comes next?

Next is the long running over the big hills. Now I need to plot out the course for the year and beyond. I need to start figuring what conventions, art shows, and festivals I want to target as the places where I can present my work and have it appreciated. That is the key – the work being appreciated. It is easy to just throw darts at the board and see what happens but I am at a stage where the investment needs to be returned or to get much closer than it has before. I take my writing and art seriously and need to make sure I do events that take it seriously as well.

Which ain’t so easy.

But it isn’t impossible.

Promotion is a part of this but the main part is presentation and pitch. I have never been great at pitching my work, not wanting to oversell the stuff and feeling unsure what to say. That needs to change. I need to better sell my work and need to take advantage of the opportunities presented to me. Having read a lot of stuff I can say that I am pretty damn good writer, and that needs to get out there. The people need better stories, darn it, and I have them. They shall feast on my saucy words.

FEAST, my friends. FEEEEEEAST!

Anyway.

So now comes the planning. I hate the planning because I want to be working. I want to be pushing forward. Now is the time for plans though, and for writing. So I will do that.

Rest assured though, friend. This is just the beginning of the year and there is a LOT of work to be done.

Now, my friends, upon your literary steeds and ride. RIIIIIIIDE!

Meep!

S&Man – review

S&Man

For fans of horror films there is always the allure of the unknown and the unseen. There is always the pull of the forbidden. When I was in my teens and twenties the bootleg horror market was booming. There were all kinds of horror movies from Asia, Europe, Mexico, even the U.S. that went unseen, or at least only seen in heavily edited forms and the only way to find these movies was on the underground dealer circuit, at conventions, or on sketchy websites that lived as close to the edge of legal as possible. This was such an exciting time to be a fan because, while so many films were unavailable many of them were out there waiting to be discovered and their discoveries were amazing. Now there is little that is unseen and there is less that is undone. Now that some of the great and rarely seen horror films are available, and can now be seen cleaner, crisper, and louder than ever before there is little undiscovered country for the hardcore horror fan. Ah, but there is always the draw to the underground. The underground is where the gore is thicker, the violence harder, and where the only thing off limits is being boring. The underground is where you head if you want something that the indie and mainstream filmmakers are not giving you. Enter S&Man a pseudo-documentary that delves into the world of underground horror films and the people behind them.

The film begins discussing how director J.T. Petty first got into directing by doing an extreme horror film and that when he saw the filmmakers doing the horror con circuit and the brand of horror he decided to link that to a voyeur he had heard a story of when he was young, and this is where the film begins. When the neighborhood voyuer refuses to be interviewed though the film Petty had planned seems in question but within the underground horror world he finds his focus. Here is where horror becomes more extreme, more taboo, and where nothing is off limits. Here we meet several pundits and filmmakers who talk about the allure of the underground, the power of it, and why people are drawn to it. As we are meeting these people we also meet the director of the S&Man series, a quiet man who directs a series of videos where his ‘character’ stalks young women, steals mementos from their homes, and eventually kidnaps and ‘kills’ the women. Petty and his crew are immediately suspicious of how he makes his films and what they really are but he is the only one of the filmmakers that not only wants to talk about his movies but wants the crew to understand them and what they are. Just the same, as Petty and his crew get to know the filmmaker more they start to push for answers – who are these women? do they know you are following them? where are the women now? The more they push for answers though the less the filmmaker will reveal and the more the questions mount, creating a mystery that may prove deadly in the end.

This is a pretty interesting film. On one hand the documentary is very good and deserves to be longer and deeper as the underground scene is getting a lot bigger these days. Sadly, of the two main filmmakers interviewed you only really take one of them seriously where the other really lives down to the stereotype. As for the fictional part of the film it’s very fun but not terribly believable. I won’t ruin the film, and am dicey about whether or not to say what is or is not real but honestly, if you believe that someone put a movie out about a serial killer on the prowl well, you are a big gullible. Which is not to say that this aspect of the film is poorly done. It’s very creepy and when played against the ‘extreme’ horror the nature of the ‘real’ killer and how reserved his murders are really pushes the question of which is more disturbing – the reality or the preceived reality? The movie is good, to be sure, but it just didn’t pull me in. As interesting as the extreme horror subgenre is I really have no interest in that stuff and have seen things that disturbed me more. Not having seen a whole film from the filmmakers of this stuff I can say I saw enough to know that Nekromantik and A Serbian Film were much more disturbing because there was depth there and more art. The scarier stuff for me was definitely the ‘fake’ part of the film about the killer. It was handled very well and really showed the difference between gross out and tone in horror films.

While not a great film., this is a find and a lot of fans will find something to like here. The extreme footage is definitely a bit much and will turn of many viewers but if you can get past that it’s a solid entry and worth a watch. As a fan of this type of film it’s pretty well done and handled and has a very creepy ending.

6.5 out of 10

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Ohhh, a ‘Fan Page’

It seems facetious to have a fan page made BY the person looking for fans but it is what it is. I prefer to call this more of a ‘find out new stuff’ place.

And you can find said place HERE