[Insert Title Here] AKA Blowing Off Some Steam

*** WARNING: What follows is a rant. This is just some raw emotion I'm letting out. I'm not usually this cynical, so please bear with me. ***

Oh, look at that...I didn't write any blog posts during January. Tsk tsk. Truth is, I'm getting burned out on writing these posts. It almost feels like an obligation I don't want to see through any longer. It's become a chore to think up something I think the world will be interested to read. I'm not sure if that makes me sound pretentious or what. For the record, I know "the world" isn't reading this little blog of mine. Hell, I'm delusional enough to even think readers out there are eagerly awaiting anything I've got to say. You know what? That's fine with me. Really. It is. Which is precisely why I find it hard to scrounge the motivation to yell into the void that is the internet. Why waste my effort?

Here's another truth: I do this for myself, mostly. For posterity's sake. I started out using this as a space to market my writing, to build a "platform" for when I became a professional novelist. Well, that was a few years ago and things definitely change. I mean, I can look back and see the optimism I had in the beginning. Of course, during the following years, my mindset changed. Reality set in. I no longer have those daydreams of becoming a full-time writer sitting at home working on my next book that hoards of adoring fans are clamoring for. Please! While I don't have those visions of grandeur any more, I do still spend time working on the next book. As a matter of fact, I received proofs today of my second anthology, Negative Spaces. More on that a little later (as well as a glimpse of the cover).

After learning the success rate of writers who go on to have lucrative careers as full-time novelists, I realized it ranked up there with becoming a rock star or winning the lottery. I know someone reading this might say, "Wait a minute; That's not true! I'm a writer who supports myself with just my writing. What've you got to say about that?" Here's what I say to that: How many books are you on the hook to write each year? How much are each of the advances you get? I'd be willing to wager money you've got to complete at least four novels a year, not including all the social media you've got to keep up with almost daily, such as blogging and tweeting to stay relevant to your fans. In other words, you're writing ALL THE DAMN TIME! What I envisioned when I started out writing was becoming the next King, Grisham, or [insert best-selling author here]. Writing one novel a year that would go on to sell thousands of copies that my publisher would market extensively. I learned that's not the case. Up-and-coming writers have to work their asses off to get those kinds of breaks. Also, since the digital revolution/self-publishing paradigm, things have changed even more. I know there're self-published authors out there who are making a living (some making fat cash, even) from their writing and I think that's awesome. However, there's still a lot of work involved in churning out content for voracious readers and blogging/tweeting/whatever-other-ways-to-stay-relevant that those authors must do. To be honest, I'm not good at marketing and networking. So, for me at least, I prefer to just keep writing at my own pace and publishing the stuff I like.

Since having the revelation that I'll never be some best-selling author and living the life I daydreamed about, I discovered the blogosphere of personal finances. I've stumbled upon people who've lived below their means, saved the excess, and (most of them) retired at an extremely early age. This opened my eyes to the fact that my daydream hadn't vanished like smoke in the wind. Sure, I'm 43 and squandered much of my income up to now. I was never very good with money, usually earning a dollar but spending two. That's the best way in the world to stay broke. However, I've since been getting my financial house in order. This has become my top priority. Writing, mask-making, blogging, etc has all taken a backseat to getting my finances in order so that I can increase my savings rate so I can invest as much money as possible.

Since I've become fascinated with financial independence and early retirement, my net worth has increased by $25,000. That's a rough figure. I've spent hours creating spreadsheets for a budget and to track monthly and annual net worth tracking so I can maximize my savings. Later, I plan to post more detailed accounts of my financial strategies and progress as well as any set backs. With that said, I think it's safe to say that this blog has stopped being strictly focused on my writing and thoughts on writing and the publishing industry. But, I guess I broke that rule back when I posted about making masks. Oh well, whatever. It is my blog after all. And I'm sure the four or five readers won't mind.

I feel like I've simply been rambling. I started out not knowing what to blog about and then just started saying whatever came to mind. Most of this has been me ranting aimlessly. I guess I just needed to get it out of my system. Mainly, what I felt when I started this post was uncertainly; I had no idea what I should say, yet felt compelled to say SOMETHING because I didn't want to neglect my responsibility to provide a post. In other words, I felt like not writing something would be letting myself down. After all, I made a promise to myself when I started this blog that I wouldn't be like so many others who start and soon fizzle out. I don't like to think of myself as a quitter, but I also don't want to waste my efforts doing something like this if there's no benefit to it. Then, I thought of a benefit I could be sure of: I could document my progress to financial independence so my future-self could look back on.

In a nutshell, I'm saying that if you come here to find out about my books, you'll still be able to do that. However, there are going to be more posts about finances, too. And, probably whatever else I'm excited about at the time. Also, I don't always feel encouraged to write posts at regular intervals. Of course, if you have been keeping up with this blog, then that probably comes as no surprise. If you keep coming back, then great! If this is your first time here and it's going to be your last, bye. Sorry I wasn't interesting enough for you. I'm getting older and trying to appease everyone isn't something I care about trying to do anymore.

Okay, I mentioned earlier that I am just about to release my second anthology and I would provide a glimpse of the cover. I keep my promises. So, this new collection has thirteen short stories and the book is called Negative Spaces. So far, I've got it formatted for paperback distribution only. I haven't published it yet, but I will do that soon. I have to create the digital version first so they release fairly close together. That means I also have to update my website so any visitors will know about it. The stories are either horror stories or weird tales, bordering on the bizarre. Before I show you the cover, though, let me also add that I'm running a giveaway on Goodreads to give ten lucky winners autographed copies of my mystery novel, Carniville. I'll do another post soon with more details on that along with a link to enter. Okay, enough of my aimless tirade. Here's the cover...

I hope you'll go buy a copy. Thanks for reading.

A Sale!

I know, I know! I've been away from the blog for a long time. I apologize. (See explanation below)

I have news of a sale, though. That didn't seem big enough. How about...

Don't miss the sale of my novel Carniville on Amazon. From today, 12/23 through 12/26, the digital version will be $0.99. It goes up to $1.99 after that until 12/30, at which time it will return to its normal price of $2.99.

Blake Stanwick has visions, not that they ever do him any good. But when he wakes up one morning after a particularly unsettling dream about the murder of a dear friend, he can't shake the feeling of doom.

Death is coming to Carniville, the small Florida apartment complex that is home to a tight-knit community of carnival workers and human oddities. Carniville has it all -- the Fat Lady, Half-Man, Thumbelina, the Human Pincushion... Despite their impairments, they've all made a life for themselves at Crystal Springs Apartments. But for one resident, that life is coming to an untimely end.

When, inevitably, Blake's vision comes true, the authorities aren't much interested in looking past the obvious suspect, the victim's husband. But Blake knows they're wrong -- he just has to prove it. With the help of his misfit friends, Blake begins conducting his own investigation.

This is a great gift for yourself or a reader in your life. Don't miss your chance to grab a copy while the price is low and spend the holidays curled up with a whodunit.

Now, to explain why I've been AWOL for so long. I started a new job. A job that's kept me pretty busy. In the meantime, I've been working on two novels I hope to release in 2015, two novels I'm very excited about. In addition to working and writing, I've been learning German on Duolingo. I've got a 315 day streak as of this posting. Das ist gut, ja? I don't want to break my streak. I'm a bit OCD in that regard, so most all of my time is eaten up and I haven't carved any out for blogging. Hopefully, that will change in 2015. I want to keep everyone updated with my writing and book releases. Hopefully, you'll forgive me. Maybe you'll buy a copy of Carniville.

Happy holidays! Happy New Year! See you in 2015! (Thanks for stopping by.)

Musings and Observations

I know I haven't posted anything new since December and I apologize. It's obvious to anyone who visits this blog on a (regular?) basis that keeping up the posts is one of my lower priorities. To be honest, my mind is usually focused more on developing new stories than it is trying to think of something to share here. I'm not saying that I don't care to share with readers via the blog. It's just difficult coming up with something that I think you may find useful/interesting here. I tend to be a private person. I don't think I'm all that interesting (well, that's not exactly true. I think I'm interesting in some ways, just not on a daily basis.) So, I try to share via the blog when I have a new release coming out or when something compels me to write a post. Sometimes, like now, I write a post out of guilt. Still, I hope you glean something useful/interesting from this.

There is something I feel like weighing in about, and that is the quality of self-published books. When I first began writing, self-publishing was considered taboo. It was the last avenue for desperate authors whose writing was considered not worth reading. Since then, the self-publishing revolution has kicked open the gates so any writer could reach readers. I think that's a good thing, because I could circumvent the old gatekeepers, whom I considered elitist. Now, I'm thinking it's also a bad thing, too. There has been a deluge of self-published books, both good and bad, to saturate the market. While there are diamonds in the rough, I think there is far too much rough to sift through in search of those diamonds. Reading is very subjective. What one reader loves, others hate and vice versa. So, it's a complex thing to simply dismiss someone's writing as trash. Sure, there is plenty of garbage out there, but I don't think we can simply dismiss a book because we don't like the subject matter and expect everyone to agree with us. Fans of those books just have different tastes than we do. However, when a book is rife with typos and grammatical errors, well, that's another thing altogether, and that's what bothers me the most.

Since the digital revolution in publishing, the choice to self-publish has been embraced by more and more writers. Some, like me, chose this route for a number of reasons: total creative control, higher royalties, ability to cross multiple genres, ability to write controversial subject matter, etc. Others have simply seen the opportunity to cash-in on no gatekeepers who once stopped them from reaching the masses. This latter group are the ones, in my opinion, who are responsible for the lingering stigma of poor quality that the self-publishing moniker still holds. This is a shame because the authors who actually take the time to edit there work into publishable quality and create beautiful, eye-catching covers are toiling amid a cesspool hoping to give readers the quality that they're used to getting from the traditionally published market. Meanwhile, for each one of these quality authors, about ten to twenty authors are completing their first draft and clicking the Easy Button to what they think is the road to riches.

I know some of these authors who publish what I consider to be crap. It infuriates me to know they are flooding the market with inferior writing. I'm not talking about the subject of their stories, but the mistakes that are in them. It seems to me that these writers are more interested in quantity over quality, and I don't think they care about the readers who legitimately complain about the inferior writing. I believe writers who subscribe to this philosophy want to cast the widest possible net, hoping to snare a larger amount of first-sales. They don't concern themselves with retaining an audience. In addition, I think these are probably the same writers who spam the hell out of the public when they release a new book. "Hey, look at the latest book I wrote. Get your copy today!" is something you hear from them every month or two. They have vast shelves on Amazon, B&N, and elsewhere. I'd even venture to wager that these "books" are less than 10,000 words and priced somewhere around $3 or $4 (the price you might pay for an actual novel--50,000+ words).

There are a few things that bother me about the self-publishing business, but the authors who prefer quantity (of books, not words) is what bugs me the most. They're the ones responsible for flooding the market with crap that readers have to sift through to find quality material. I'm not only a writer, but a reader, too. As such, this bothers me even more because when/if I get a self-published title, I'm already going into the story with low expectations. It's akin to the justice system, but in reverse. Instead of remaining innocent until proven guilty, I view a self-published title as dreadful until proven otherwise, which is why I read so few self-published stories. It shouldn't be this way, but this is what happens when barbarians storm the gates.

I am NOT one of these writers who prefer quantity over quality. Quite the opposite! I try to craft the best story I can. Each story goes through several iterations of editing before I hand it over to a few beta readers (at minimum, two). Once I receive their feedback and address any issues, I give it one more edit to make sure the story stands up to my expectations. If it doesn't, then I don't publish it until it does. I want to fill my virtual shelf, too, but I don't want to fill it with shit. Instead, I want to fill it with treasures (at least, what I consider to be treasures). I can only hope my readers see them as treasures, too. I know I won't please and dazzle everyone, but for those that I don't, I expect their negative reviews to center on the subject matter and not that the writing was horrible.

Soon, I will be publishing a murder mystery called Carniville (mentioned here and here). I'm excited to offer this story because it's my first murder mystery and I really enjoyed writing it. I've already received feedback from my two beta readers and made the necessary changes to strengthen the story. I'm awaiting proof copies to send to several more beta readers so I can gauge whether the story is strong enough to release. If it is, then it should hit the shelves near the end of this month or in early March. If mysteries are your thing, then I encourage you to keep an eye out for it.

If you've read this, I hope you're a reader I was able to please, dazzle, and/or entertain. If you've read one of my stories, do me a favor and leave a review on Amazon, B&N, or wherever you got the book. Feedback (of any kind) is always appreciated and lets me know what I'm doing right or what I need to fix. As always, thanks for stopping by!

A Special Deal...and *ahem* an announcement

First, apologies for being MIA for over a month. I've been busily working on several novels and moving one, Carniville, ever closer to publication.

Second, I want to tell you about a special deal I've cooked up for all of my readers (and everyone else in reader-land). If you'll allow me to stand atop my soapbox for just a moment. I promise I won't take long and I'll make this as painless as possible...

I've slashed the prices of all of my books at every one of my distributors. This includes Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords. Every book and story I have available is a meager $0.99. Heck Starbucks coffee is more than that! What could be better than grabbing a novel (or two or three) for a buck or less than five bucks?

In addition, if you purchase a digital version from Amazon, you can also get the paperback copy for an extremely reduced rate (or maybe even for free, depending on the book) through Amazon's Matchbook program. I promise to sign it for you if you see me and want me to. It would be my pleasure.

This special pricing is for a limited time only, so act now. This is a great opportunity to try my writing if you've never read any of my work before. Also, if you're not into horror stories, but enjoy crime fiction, or you like southern literature but hate science fiction, then you're in luck! I write across several different genres. I have books in horror, crime, science fiction, southern literature, and more. Maybe you've read my horror and wonder whether I can pull off writing southern literature? My advice is to part with 99 cents and find out. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

I also have to mention that I reduced these prices today and one distributor in particular hasn't reflected the price change yet. This is Barnes & Noble. They should have the newer, lower prices within a day or two if you insist on getting a copy for your Nook. Since Smashwords distributes my titles to iTunes, Kobo, etc., it will take a few days (or maybe even a week) for prices to trickle out to those retailers.

Oh, I almost forgot, I also have another promotion that I mentioned a while back that I want to reiterate here. I currently have a BOGO free offer for two of my novels over at Smashwords. Details can be found here.

Okay, I'm off my soapbox now. See? That wasn't so bad, was it? Now for the other announcement:
I have already dropped out of NaNoWriMo! Yes, that's right. I'm a big fat quitter. I had an idea and started off okay, but, quite frankly, I have way too many books in the hopper that I'm currently working on. Most of you probably weren't aware that I was even participating and, therefore, you probably don't even care. Instead of just winking out like a match in the dark, I decided to make my withdrawal formally, here on my blog. Maybe I'll pick up the story later. Maybe I'll put it aside and work on it during next year's NaNoWriMo. Time will tell. In the meantime, I plan to continue working on Carniville, the next novel slated for publication. In addition to Carniville, I'm working on What Goes Around and Consuming Darkness.

I hope you'll take advantage of my reduced pricing or, if you've already read my books, please tell a friend who might be interested. Stay tuned for more information about the release of my murder mystery, Carniville. And, as always, thanks for stopping by!

Sneak Peek!

I may or may not have said in the past that I will no longer give any sneak peeks of any works in progress because the design can dramatically change before I actually release a book. Well, screw that! I'm feeling saucy. Maybe it's this beautiful weather. Maybe it's because my math studies are going so well. Who knows? Better yet, who cares?

I know I enjoy getting glimpses into other writers' minds when they share where they are with a story, especially when some of those stories are still near the edges of their radar in terms of being released. I figured I would share some of the things I am working on and give you a bit of information about their status in the process. A word of warning before we proceed, however. Keep in mind that some of these books are still in the creation process, so they are still very much apt to change. In addition, the synopses on the covers you will see are most likely going to change. Currently, these are placeholders, but they do reflect my intentions (more or less). Side note: you might think I'm a bit odd for creating the book covers before I've written the story. "That's not how (insert famous author's name here) does it!" Well, f***k (insert famous author's name here)! is what I say. I'm not that person and this is how I do it and find inspiration to keep plugging away. We cool with that? Okay then, so, here we go...


First, I present to you, Lathem's Lament. This is a Southern Gothic novel I have been kicking around since 2010. I wrote it after reading several classical southern writers such as Faulkner, Steinbeck, and Caldwell, to name but a few. I enjoyed many of their stories so much that I decided to try my hand at a story that was brewing during my reading. This is the end result. This story is already in print, but won't be available to the public until later this month or (very) early April. I've received a lot of positive feedback from my beta readers and have a couple of other beta readers going through it now. Anyone familiar with Faulkner's As I Lay Dying will see a similarity in the book's format. I really loved how he wrote each chapter as a different character's POV and wanted to do that with one of my own.


Next, we have Rabbit on the Run, another Southern Gothic, this time from the Depression-era. Currently, this is a novella. I just finished the first draft of this story this past week. For some reason, I'm finding that writing southern literature is loads of fun. I questioned whether southern literature still had a sizable audience and then remembered that Joe R. Lansdale is doing pretty well, so I guess the answer is Yes. Anyway, I show some of the hideous mentalities of society in this story, about a black man wrongfully accused of killing a white girl and flees a lynch mob. Hopefully, it will meet with a warm reception. I'll have to see what my beta readers say first.


Youthanasia is my first foray into real science fiction. It deals with the pros and cons of curing aging, something that really piqued my interest when I listened to a presentation given by a scientist named Aubrey de Grey. He's very passionate about this field of study and claims that we will eventually cure aging, and probably sooner than anyone thinks. If that doesn't grab your attention and give it a good shaking, then you need to check for your pulse. Needless to say, the gears of my imagination began to spin and I came up with this story, which follows a geneticist who has secretly taken a serum he and some other researchers developed, which stops the aging process. The reader gets to see the pros and cons of this polemic subject first-hand from the character's POV and decide for themselves whether they would want to live forever, or not. While researching this story, I corresponded with a biologist in the field to pick his brain on some of the finer points. Hopefully, I will do his feedback justice. Regardless, I will dedicate this book to him and probably send him a free copy for all of his help.


This is a book I'm sure I've mentioned in the past. Carniville is a locked-room mystery I created using an apartment complex of sideshow workers when they were not touring the freak show circuit. First, I wanted to try my hand at writing a locked-room mystery, something which seems very difficult for me not only to solve when reading one, but also to develop using my feeble brain. Secondly, I decided, failing to achieve that first point, I'd at least have an interesting cast of characters for a good crime story. During the writing of this story, the words flowed nicely. Eventually, however, I hit a brick wall with the plot, so I put it aside (yes, these other stories are what happen when I fall into a rut during my writing). I will let this one mellow until I can return to it with a solution for traversing that wall I mentioned. The cover's too damn good to let go to waste!


Last, but certainly not least, is Consuming Darkness. This is the first novel I ever wrote. This is what started it all. Yes, you can blame this abomination for the madness I unleash upon the world from my twisted, depraved mind. Originally, this was titled The Shadow People. I've rewritten it three times (so far). There's another rewrite waiting, I just haven't begun yet, but I have a good idea of what I want to do with it. I hope that this book will eventually be a fresh new horror story (in case you don't know my feelings for the horror genre to-date, here it is) with an admiring nod to Lovecraft's Call of Cthulu.

So, there you have it. Several of the books I have lined up for your future reading pleasure. I can assure you, that's certainly not all of them. There are a couple of other stories in the works, at various stages, I just don't have covers for them, so there isn't really anything to show.

UPDATE: Seems I forgot to link to my feelings on the current state of the horror genre. Consider it fixed. Like I said, I have a feeble mind.

Status Update and Cover Sneak-peek

I haven't posted any status updates in a while, for those who might want to know what's going in the world of J.R. McLemore. Let me appease those few people now. If you recall, I posted a while back a list of projects I was working on. Well, that list has changed.

I'll get to the changes in a moment, but first, let me assure you that The Old Royal is still slowly marching its way toward publication. It is currently in the hands of a third beta reader and I am anxiously awaiting feedback. Hopefully, there will not be any major changes needed. I'll review the feedback, make the necessary edits, and hand it over to a fourth beta reader. When I receive the story back from that last reader, I will go over it one final time and then publish it. I know this sounds like a lot of beta reading, but I want it to be the best story I can deliver and I feel that having more people look at it and point out faux pas for me to address is the best way to ensure a quality story.

In that previous post mentioned above, I said I had a southern Gothic book called Lathem's Lament that I needed to edit. This has not changed. Nor, I am sad to admit, have I done any editing on this story. I promise, though, I will. My thought was to release Lathem's Lament simultaneously with another book, which I will mention in a moment. Since Lathem's Lament is not crime fiction, I was hesitant to release it separately. I thought it would be better received if it was released along with a crime story for those readers who don't care to read southern Gothic. We'll see what happens closer to the release date. Maybe I'll release it separately, maybe not.

And now for the change. But, first, let me be open here and confess that I tend to flip-flop between projects. I will get excited by a story idea before I finish outlining it, only to start writing prematurely. Once I realize that the story needs more time to mature, I abandon it with the intention of returning to it later. I've done a lot of flip-flopping during the previous months. I finally settled on a story called Carniville that has been lurking in my Story Ideas file for a while now.

I turned the plot over and over, filling in obvious plot holes and sketched a cast of characters that I felt comfortable with. I pitched the idea to friends who provided enthusiastic feedback and, after feeling comfortable with the notes and outlines I've made, decided to proceed. Carniville is a locked-room mystery. It is the story of a murder that takes place at a small apartment complex in Florida where sideshow freaks live when they are not touring the carnival circuit. When the fat lady is murdered in her apartment, and her husband becomes the prime suspect, a resident name Blake feels obligated to expose the real killer in order to clear the husband's name.

I'm not very deep into the story--only about 50 written pages so far--and I am very excited by what I currently have. I've never written a mystery, especially a locked-room mystery, so this is a real challenge for me. I feel that it's coming along very nicely. In fact, I'm so excited about it, I've already developed the cover, which I've included below. I welcome any and all feedback regarding the cover and what you think of my short synopsis. Does it pique your interest? I hope so. Also, I hope you'll stick around to read it and The Old Royal when I publish them. Thanks for dropping by!

My 40th Birthday

Today is my birthday. I turned 40. *Sigh*

To me, age is nothing but a number. Well, it used to be that way. Actually, it kind of still is just a number. I mean, I don't really feel any older. Truth be told, I feel like a kid trapped in an adult's body most of the time, something I think many adults won't openly admit. But, as 40 drew nearer, it made me think of my goals in life. And, then I realized that FORTY years of my life have passed!

It's a little bit daunting to think that you're getting closer and closer to those final days. But, on the other hand, 40 isn't like turning 70 or 80 (I hope I'll be around to celebrate those milestones. Hell, why not even 90 and 100!) It's just a number that sets the mind to thinking about the future. There are still a lot of books I hope to write, masks I want to make, and things about our world that I want to learn.

I don't feel any different now that I've reached my 40th birthday. I still feel like a kid held hostage in an adult body. I like living life and I try to have fun doing it. I intend to continue living that way, with optimism instead of pessimism. I don't usually celebrate my birthday with cake and gifts or big gatherings. Since entering adulthood, I've treated my birthday just like any other day. I'll do that today. I'll celebrate by working on my current book, Carniville, and cooking out this evening.

Thanks for stopping by! I'll leave you with a little humor from Louis C.K.'s perspective of turning 40: