Out with the old, In with the new!

As of this beautiful sunny morning, the 30th of August in the year 2012 Anno Domini, my short story "Management - A Zombie Satire" went on sale for the Kindle and Nooks on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, respectively.

2005 was a year that I was "Un-bottling" as they say. I was just pumping out story after story. It was during this year that I wrote "Management" and it was the first story that someone suggested, well, umm, that I might not be right in the head.

I'm not going to lie.... it was the best compliment I'd had so far! My brain doesn't work like normal peoples (thank goodness!) and that's why I'm able to put out a kids book, and then a horror story, and then an over the top disgustingly hilarious story like Management. I don't want to be normal! I want people to read it, laugh, and then look at me and say "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???". If they do that, then I did my job.

You can check out Management - A Zombie Satire at AMAZON or at BARNES & NOBLE

Now onto the new! I started writing a YA novel years ago titled "The Final Summer of Innocence" and it will be a full novel, and IMO my best work to date BY FAR! It's the story I've wanted to tell since the first day I started writing, and have thought about it every day. I'll keep you all in the loop, but it's going to take awhile.

Thank you O' Readers of My Words, and as they say back in my home town "Oh shit! Here comes Nick again!"

Good book amidst ridiculous smoking glorification for teens

Looking for Alaska by John Green
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like John Green. I like his books. I like his videos. I like his characters. However, the characters in this book who revolve more around the need to smoke than anything else are part of a bigger problem in teen fiction. We as writers have an opportunity to reach teens. It's a rare opportunity that we as parents barely have. Kids listen more to characters than they listen to us as parents, and when the characters they keep reading about are all smokers, and are pushing other new kids INTO smoking, and the new kids GIVE IN to the peer pressure of smoking, why not just have a damned coupon for cigarettes in the back of your book? It would help the kids not cut as much into their allowance when they go buy cigarettes. Obviously their allowances aren't very big, so that coupon could sure help them out. Less money on smokes, means more money on the books that tell them how cool smoking is! So it seems like a good idea for the author.

OK, rant over. I did like the book, and the characters were for the most part believable. I can't really say how I wish characters had gotten what they wanted without spoiling the ending. I definitely didn't see the ending coming, and that's good writing so I give Mr. Green his props. I'll continue reading his books, as long as he doesn't write any gateway books into characters that all think Heroin is cool.


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Quick Sale and then The Big Boy

Currently (Well, once I'm done blogging that is. Post-Currently? Anyway...) I am revising and creating a cover for my short story "Management - A Zombie Satire" which takes a comedic, and sometimes over the top grotesquely and vomitously insane, look at the way slackers can sometimes rise to the top, while the hard workers are stuck at the bottom. Also, when the two live together, and one is a zombie, shit just gets out of control!

After that is finished and on sale, I will pick up the YA Novel I started a few years back "The Final Summer of Innocence" and overcome my fears and actually write the damn thing. It is the offspring of a 27,000 word zombie novella I wrote years ago that had two characters in it that deserved better. They deserved to live without zombies. They deserved to grow up in school like normal kids, come of age like other kids, get the shit beat out of them by bullies like other kids. There are more horrors for a teenager in high school than a zombie could ever dream of. It's probably going to take me damn near a year to write it, but I'm going to write it.

(Although, my 8 year old daughter Alayna may force me, physically, to write my short story "The Midnight Clown" because she wont leave me alone until its done.)

Anyway, just a heads up, O' Readers of My Words, there is a short story coming this week, and within the year my book I've dreamed about for years. Wish me luck! Namaste!

Halloween is running around FREE!!! (Catch it quick!)

Sure, Halloween isn't quite here yet, but author Roy Hudson has done us a huge favor and brought my favorite holiday here a bit early with his collection of short stories titled "Halloween Tales" on Smashwords, and he's doing it for FREE for a short time with the coupon code VK24N

Read about:

"Last Halloween," in which the prior year's Halloween prank led to a death, and someone is getting revenge in the present.

"Mirror Madness," in which a group of twisted friends make their own horrifying Halloween attraction.

"The Blog of Eternal Funk," in which a case of cyber bullying earns a frightening and final comeuppance.

"Count The Roadkill," in which two college roommates on the drive home for the Halloween weekend leads to the revelation of a local legend.

It's never too early for Halloween, but it may be too late to read some great stories if you don't get a move on! Check it out right HERE on Smashwords!

FREE STORY OF YOUR CHOICE!

As probably three people out of the hundreds of Facebook friends know by now, I finally achieved my goal of making it possible to buy my stories directly from my website. All you have to do is have a Paypal account, and once the order is completed a PDF version of the story will be emailed to your account within 24 hours at the latest. (Usually within minutes.)

BUT HERE'S SOMETHING TO MAKE YOU AS HAPPY AS I AM RIGHT NOW!

The first five people to buy Maze of the Blue Rose, Book One of my Trouble Meets the May Boys series, can pick one of the short stories for FREE! When your book is delivered, you will be notified which number you were, and if you are in the first five just let me know which story you want and I will send it to you immediately.

Now, just visit my website NICHOLASMAY.US and check out the selection of available stories in the Library section of the site.

As always, I thank you for your support as I follow my dream! Namaste!

FREE SHORT STORY! August 18th, 19th, and 20th!

Hey everyone, August 18th, 19th, and 20th my short story "NOW and THEN" will be FREE on Amazon!

Check it out, and if you like it, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could click the "Like button" on the amazon page, and leave a short review. Reviews equal sales! So I'd greatly appreciate it!

WARNING! GRAPHIC (i.e. Realistic) VIOLENCE! How far will a man go when he finds his brother in trouble with a local mob boss, and how much of himself will he give up in order to save him?

When a man finds his brother being beaten and threatened with death by a local mob boss and his thugs, the man is forced to call up skills he possesses but does not like to use in order to save his brother's life. When he is forced to pit his skills in an illegal cage fight against a vicious killer to save his brother, the man, and the men that dared to threaten his brother, find out what happens when you test a brother's love.

 

Amazon - NOW AND THEN, by Nicholas May

OMG People can subscribe to me???

What is this world coming to, when there is an option for people to sign up and have my insane blathering sent straight to them?? It means the world is evolving, you monkeys! Finally, the world is realizing that I AM RIGHT, and YOU WERE ALL WRONG, well no you were still right that I'm insane but at least my insanity can be subscribed to now.

So the world is finally catching on.

BTW.... free stuff coming soon. Keep your eyes peeled!

The Crying Scarecrow of The Missed Collaboration

Many years ago, back when Ellen Hopkins was new on the scene with her best-selling debut Crank, I was invited to a very small writer's group that she was a member of and I loved it. Every single person there was so nice, and so helpful, and because they were so accomplished I felt like I was just a kid getting to hang out with a group of all my favorite Aunts and Uncles that normally wouldn't let a kid hang out with them as they did grownup activities.

I felt out of my league!

It was during this time that I really started pumping out short stories (Many of which are real stinkers, now that I look back on them.) and kind of picking at the edges of my abilities. I wrote my zombie novella that nobody has read since then. I also wrote book one of my Trouble Meets The May Boys series, "Maze of The Blue Rose".

Ellen, The Great and Powerful as I think of her, read it and instantly loved it (She even was gracious enough to provide a blurb for it once I finally started selling it!). Sure, she made some suggestions (Which of course were exactly the right direction to go.), but my first book was completed, and I started on book two almost immediately. (While it is still being written, we both agreed it is better than the first.)

I was on fire! I was really writing, in a group of people so far out of my league they had to read my stories with telescopes. Well one day, a writer I'll just call Bob threw out a story idea that I fell in love with. It was around Halloween, and the story dealt with scarecrows, which I've always had a fascination with. Bob knew this, and came to me with the idea of the two of us collaborating on the story together for two reasons: 1) I loved the idea so much and loved scarecrows, and 2) He said our minds put together would make the story better than anything either of us alone could come up with.

Of course, I INSTANTLY DECLINED!!!! Why? Well it should be obvious. He would know I was a fraud! Sure, Ellen Hopkins, who was quickly becoming a worldwide star in front our eyes believed in me and swore up and down that I was going to be a star some day. Yeah, the other members loved my stories. Whatever! What they didn't realize was that I was faking it!

That's right! I was faking it! I wasn't really a writer! I mean, how could I be? I wasn't famous. I'd never been published. I was terrified every single time I sat down in front of an empty page. How could I collaborate with this writer that I felt was so much better than me and basically pull back the curtain and embarrass them for all of the praise they'd heaped on me during that time? I was terrified that they would figure out that I was just a scared guy with a big imagination and no idea where these stories came from, or how I got them down on paper.

It was one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made in this very small writing career of mine. There is a scarecrow out there crying right now that Bob and I never imagined up and gave a voice to. Never set him on his adventure (or on fire, given the nature of our imaginations). I passed up on the opportunity to write with someone I looked up to, passed up on an opportunity to work with someone who could have improved not only my confidence, but my skills as well. All because I was afraid, and I didn't realize that all writers are.

I know that now. The scariest thing in the world to one of us is a blank page. Not because something might not come out, but possibly because of what DOES come out! Ellen pushed me for years to seek publication, and I hemmed and hawed out of sheer terror that someone was going to tell me what I now know is the truth "You're terrified. You have no idea what you're doing, and you're making it up as you go along. YOU ARE A WRITER!"

I'm sorry Bob. I'm sorry Scarecrow (Although we probably would have killed you.). I'm sorry to myself, for passing up the opportunity to better my craft, and gain the confidence I needed to truly believe in myself, and put my skills to work.

So now I know. One or two of your friends like your stories? You might be a writer, or at least a good story teller (There is a difference.) Or they might just be really nice friends. When a few good writers like your stories, (and Hell, want to work with you!!!) then you're a writer dammit.

If I never sell another story, I'll still be a writer. Because Ellen always wanted to read what I wrote. Because Bob wanted to put HIS story idea in MY hands. I am a writer.

Teach your young boys to read!

Parents, teach your young boys to read. Male authors were once little boys who loved to read, and they are becoming a huge minority.

The literary world needs more of Matheson's "I am Legend, King's "The Stand", Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea", any Jack Reacher story by Lee Child, and almost anything by the late, great Robert E. Parker. It needs far less trash like 50 Shades of Grey, and Twilight. Two series that would never have been published back in the day when merits and talent made your book famous, instead of the "well, all my friends are talking about it, so I have to read it too." Popularized and unoriginal smut has the country buzzing, and it's ridiculous that the majority of readers are so easily swayed into reading this swill instead of looking at the world outside of sparking vampires *sprarking? really? how did you sell a single copy?* and submissive women giving into the demands of stereotypical male pigs.