Tag Archives: publication

The 10% Solution

Posted by Tarleisio on
  • A loaded question, ten years on

Ten years ago today, yours truly added yet another title on her resumé: author. On December 17th, 2013, Quantum Demonology was published in hardback on Amazon, not by the author.

As someone once said, if it were easy to write a book, everyone would. However, not everyone does, and easy, it isn’t. 

To this day, it remains one of the most hectic periods of my life. I began editing the overblown, oversized manuscript on October 18th. Chapters were handed in ten at a time and typeset. Last week’s ten chapters were then proofed and handed in.

The book was, if not rewritten from the ground up, then at least thoroughly scrubbed, brushed and manicured from 1200+ pages to just over 600. My copy of the Chicago Manual of Style became indispensable. The biggest headache in the editing process was entirely rewriting all the erotic scenes in the book, which was always the last thing I did before sending my pages. 

Why? Because those scenes were agony to write. Luckily, I was also a perfume writer, which taught me a thing or two. 

The chicken and the egg

Writing is a circular business, at least for THIS writer. I had been a ‘writer’ for years on a now defunct blog called MoltenMetalMama, riffing and jamming on everything from fashion to music and even motherhood. Along came the short story that became Quantum Demonology, which in three short chapters entirely took over many of the most meaningful hours of my life at the time. By Chapter 4, I had decided to just … go big or go home. And write a goddamned novel. Basta.

Yet QD led to … a perfume blog, because the woman – if not the writer – had an aesthetic itch she desperately need to scratch. That became Scent Less Sensibilities, which went on to become The Alembicated Genie, which later hosted a very special perfume project in 2012 called The Devilscent Project. The idea was to create a big enough fuss to get someone interested in getting QD into print.

Thanks to perfume writing, I was getting noticed. That led to an email exchange with a Very Big Editor in US publishing, who cast a glance at QD. The book wasn’t right for them, but it could very well be for someone else, said the Very Big Editor. In any event, he told me: Keep writing.

It went something like this: The book led to the perfume writing, which led to the perfume project, which got me noticed (a little), which led to an offer in July 2013:

Get published.

So I took a chance. And got published.

Ten Years On

Ten years later, I’m not even entirely the same person I was in 2013. These days, when not tap-tapping away writing stories, I teach history, English, and art to middle schoolers at a Copenhagen public school. Apart from writing, it’s mostly the best job I’ve ever had – and sometimes, the worst. 😉

But in those ten years, I’ve been asked on more occasions than I can count:

Where can I buy Quantum Demonology?

The short answer: Nowhere.

Here and there, a hard copy pops up for sale second-hand. One of them, if you can believe it, had an asking price that was almost double ALL the money the author made on the book, royalties included. But with a limited print run, and no copies the writer can send (I have one copy, purloined from a former lover who never even read the damn book!), my options have been limited, not by legalities, but by time.

As of this writing, I own ALL rights to everything connected with Quantum Demonology, including the artwork. I have my own imprimatur, Vanadis Press, which is registered with the Danish Library Association and has been since 2014. I have ten ISBNs I can use. Also, I have a question I would like to ask of anyone who reads this post:

Would you like to see Quantum Demonology in print?

Let the writer know in the comments.

The Great Disgusting Idea

Posted by Tarleisio on

  • When a horror writer hits a ceiling hard

Some time ago, I submitted a short story for an upcoming DK anthology titled ‘Kvinder skriver gys’ (Women write horror) to be published on May 19th at DK publisher 2 Feet Entertainment. This particular short story will be translated and published on Amazon as soon as the writer can set up an appointment to recover a lost #SSN so she can put it up for sale. 

Back to the short story, which is both short – under 4000 words – and a story. 

In actual fact, it is without question the most terrible – in terms of theme – story I have ever written. 

Which for a long, long time – since about February 2020, when I first thought it up on a visit to Krákow in Poland – was a big part of The Problem With This Story. 

The Problem With This Story

Contrary to popular belief, horror writers, like virtually all writers I have personally ever met, are perfectly ordinary people. We don’t dismember our fellow humans or indulge in cannibalism as a matter of course. We live our lives just like everyone else. 

But what if a writer cooks up an idea for a story so horrific, she can’t even write it? 

That’s what happened here. 

The deadline came and went. I was in an agony writers might recognize. Another contributor told me the ultimate deadline was on January 31st, which was a Monday. 

Friday the 27th, I decided I would get out that story come hell or high water. If I did nothing at all else that weekend, I WOULD WRITE THAT STORY, DAMN IT.

Also, the publisher is an awesome human being who has taught THIS writer a lot, he had a lot of faith in the writer, and I was terrified I’d let him down if I didn’t, and that was no way to treat an awesome human being. 

Saturday at noon – after I did every single avoidance action any writer can cook up at the drop of a hat or less – I sat myself down. I told myself in advance that I could not get up, I could not do anything at all else until I had at least 2400 words. 

Because I had spent three years planning it out, doing my usual insane amount of research, and purloining every digitized map I could find on the location, writing in my head and trying to come to terms with my own sick, demented mind, those 2400 words came, not easily, but well. 

By the time it grew dark, I had 2800 words, and called it a day. 

Sunday morning, I wrote the rest. By noon, it was finished. By 3 PM, it was proofread and sent to the editor. It was not this writer’s space to judge it and find it wanting. If he liked it, great! If not, well, back to the drawing board. 

The sick, demented mind

Obviously, I had no such luck. The publisher was shocked to his core. (Considering his own authorly output, that says something.) The story was accepted. 

What I couldn’t accept was my own disgust/contempt that I had even conceived of such a horror. 

IRL, I’m a mild-mannered, book fiend semi-recluse with a day job that includes daily sightings of fluffy, happy bunnies. I cry over rescue kitten videos on YouTube. (Don’t ask.)

So what the everloving F was wrong with me, if I could cook up this Sick and Demented idea? 

Well, I was – among the several other hats – a writer. And gradually, over the course of this winter and spring, I’ve come to accept the fact that the writer and the individual are, if not two separate people, then at least two faces of the multiverse that all humans contain.

Therefore, sick and demented ideas executed as well as the writer can manage are acceptable. 

It took a long time and a lot of soul searching to get to that point. 

Third time’s a charm

Tomorrow afternoon as of this writing, I have a meeting with that awesome human being, the Publisher. 

For the third time in my life, my words will be in hard copy. This story is as far removed from anything I’ve done previously as I can likely get. Few adjectives, short sentences, a simple – if sick and demented – plot, and only three characters to keep track of. Since the anthology isn’t out for another month, no one has reviewed it yet – or called me out for being a waste of ink and paper. 

And yet. I’m not worried. Let the rotten tomatoes fall where they may. A writer can control everything except how the story is received, and really – that’s not a writer’s problem, is it? 

The writer’s problem lay in accepting that great – if disgusting /horrific/terrible idea. 

Keeping The Devil Down

Posted by Tarleisio on

DevbyLouisMoe2

– on the nebulous future of a devil you might know

Ladies, gentlemen, and all other sentient beings,

It’s been four years since the instigation of this website and also, the publication of Quantum Demonology. I’ll spare you the sob story of that debacle – evidence of which can be found elsewhere on this site – and instead tell you this:

Quantum Demonology is returning – if not in print, then as an e-book. I’m currently in the process of updating my Amazon Author Central pages, this site and all other Quantum Demonology-related pages I have.

Why?

Well, why not? Why hoard my literary capital when I could spread it around and make a little noise – or maybe even a lot of noise? If I get very, very lucky.

It will be made available as an e-book rather than print, because 1) I can’t afford to, not even on Lulu and b) distribution. I can do things with an e-book; giveaways, review copies etc. etc. I could never afford on my present student grant. Copies can be had instantly anywhere in the world.

Also – I direly need a new MacBook if I’m ever to finish the prequel currently underway titled The Book of Abaddon, (my old MacBook Pro is falling apart, literally, thanks to Janice Divacat and her propensity to lie down on warm laptops) and this could well be a great way to get one.

If I get lucky.

Having said that, there will be a few discrete differences between this second edition and the first. For one, some minor changes were added in the text itself. Second, this coming edition will be under my own imprint. I’m registered in the DK publishers’ database, I have my own ISBN-10/13 numbers, and a worldwide copyright is heading my way as I type.

I harbor no illusions as to fame and glory, because the disappointment hurts too damn much. But I have some hopes that a few more people might actually read it.

If I’m lucky.

One thing I do know – you can’t keep a great Devil down.

Especially not this one.

Watch this space.

(Illustration by the Norwegian illustrator Louis Moe)

The Waiting Room

Posted by Tarleisio on

NY_Central_Stationred

Writing a novel is such an involved process that most people aren’t aware of that endless gap from writing ‘The End’ until the day you have a bound, printed book in your hand. In an ideal world containing overinflated delusions of grandeur, so the demented writer’s mind thinks, we would get published to instant and raucous acclaim, skyrocketing sales and within two weeks Hollywood would be barking at our doorstep about options and rights.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have some news for you. It doesn’t work quite like that any longer if indeed it ever did.

Quantum Demonology was published for Amazon Kindle on December 6th 2013, and in hardcover through Amazon on December 17th (the official publication date) by the new indie publisher Nigel’s Flight. A Euro-friendly Customs-free version is also available on Amazon UK. Although the plans were underway over the summer of 2013 and the contract was signed in September, neither the publisher, the artist or the author shifted into high gear until mid-October for a variety of reasons none of us could control.

Having said that, three people – the author, the graphic designer/cover artist and the publisher – managed to completely rewrite, revise, polish, edit, proof-read, design, revise, typeset and proof an original manuscript of 212,000 words (give or take a few) down to 190, 210 and get it to press, bound and in a physical bookstore in two months minus one day.

It happened across two continents and nine time zones. I’ve yet to actually meet my publisher in person or the artist. The artist is in Portland, the publisher in Austin, and meanwhile in an obscure garret apartment in an obscure town in Denmark, the author – that would be me – sits at 4 AM on a snowy January night and wonders why the earth hasn’t moved yet.

After such a massive energy surge, it’s very hard to slow d-o-w-n. It’s like owning a beautiful, brand-new Maserati just screaming for rubber to burn, and it sits in a garage and smolders.

Meanwhile, for reasons I can scarcely explain or articulate, I sit here in what I’ve come to call The Waiting Room. In Quantum Demonology, the Waiting Room is the place where the story ‘times out’, takes a break, and comes to terms with what lies ahead. That’s also a great description for my own present state of limbo, as that force of nature who took a massive chance on an unknown writer (and her own peace of mind) lines up all the metaphorical ducks in the shooting gallery and cleans the Winchester she dearly prays the author will shoot them with.

To be fair, there’s a lot to be said in favor of someone who plans to turn you into the next Charlaine Harris, if not Anne Rice. She knows as I do that I have more sizzling stories up my sleeve.

So as I wait – for the epiphany, for the massive sea change I sense is coming, for all the marvels and wonders ahead, I do what I can to keep myself sane. I map out the sequel, and introduce a few new characters along with Dev and his feisty writer. Some of the characters from QD will be back to wreak havoc with my carefully laid plans. Some facts will be revealed, some events will change, some semblance of plot is emerging in my dreams, in my journal, in the dirty dishwater of my quotidian life.

I wrestle with my other writing, which for whatever reasons seems a bit frivolous now the book is out. I watch an awful lot of BBC history documentaries on YouTube. I entertain my two cats. I daydream. I read. I run mock interviews in my head to come up with sassy answers to silly questions. I pray to Freya, to Sophia, to Providence and Fortuna:

Please don’t let me fall flat on my face. Please don’t let me disappoint. Please let me show just how bright I can burn. Please.

Above all else, I sit in the Waiting Room, which looks a lot like Grand Central Station in New York City, eyeing the clock up above, waiting for my crazy train to be announced.

As surely it will, any day now…

A Transgressional Affair

Posted by Tarleisio on

venus

Being the true confessions of a (newly) published writer

Someone once said that the problem with a published book of the kind with your name on it, is you can’t take it back. If you’ve written it as “ Anon” or even a pseudonym you can always shrug and feign your innocence. It wasn’t you. Nope. As if.

As if you’d ever write such a §!”#€%&/()=?_∞£¶[ awful collection of questionable prose.

So when I received an offer to have it published by a new publisher who would make this her first book, I toyed for some time with the idea of a pseudonym. If only so I could shrug, smirk and feign my innocence.

But then – such being the perfidious nature of vainglorious writers – my vanity kicked in. It wasn’t as if I had anything to hide, scores of people already knew me by name elsewhere on the web, and down below in that swirling, seething, molasses-black mass of egomania, I wanted the accolades, the acclaim, the solicitous care and feeding of my ego. (I wish!)

Yet far more than anything at all else, I wanted to flip the metaphorical bird at all the skeptics, non-believers, doubters, haters and every single sucker who ever tried to grind me down. I did want to write my own humble ‘Kilroy was here’ on the hallowed walls of literature, I wanted to leave an epitaph behind that said I did this, I wrote that, I cooked it all up out of music, boredom, desperation and the darkness I spent all my life trying to deny I even had.

Only to find I might as well have been as naked as Botticelli’s Venus (if looking nowhere so good) once the book was out on Amazon.

It’s all true. I can’t take it back or deny I had anything to do with it. For every doubt I’ve had along the long journey from out-there idea to hardcover and Kindle edition, for every time I’ve clutched my feline teddy bear and burrowed under the covers wishing the whole nightmare enchilada would just go away and disappear, down below in the Sea of Egomania, I was damn proud of that book, damn proud I did it, and inordinately proud all those so-called doubters and non-creative types who sneered condescendingly and flatly stated ‘they had never had that (cough)…urge’, all those who said ‘Forget about being published. That will never happen.’ – they could all just kiss my Taboo-painted toes, because by Golly, I did it!

And by Golly, I feel so very naked, because… I can’t take it back.

All in all, it’s been – a most transgressional affair.