Tag Archives: publication

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.