Monthly Archives: March 2018

Graveyard Mind Available For Preorder!

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Graveyard Mind is available for preorder!

Order from Amazon, Chapters, Indiebound, and for the local folks, McNally Robinson Booksellers.

Check out this fucking wild cover by Erik Mohr! I love it!

This is my first book with ChiZine Publications, and one I hope will be the opener of an ongoing series. Only one way to ensure that: make it worth ChiZine’s while to publish more! And that means the book needs to find readers.

To sweeten the deal, I am offering a present for all you early adopters! I’ve written a short comic set in the world of Graveyard Mind which is being drawn now, and have commissioned an artist to do an illustration from the book! Email me at justonewick [AT] gmail.com and say I’ve pre-ordered Graveyard Mind! When the comic and illustration are done, I’ll email you a copy. Easy peasy.

What is Graveyard Mind about? Check it out:

In Winnipeg’s underworld, every mortician is on the take and every revenant of myth waits to claw their way out of their tombs.

 

The dead stay in the ground because of Winter Murray, a necromancer of the Compact. A victim of abduction and a criminal herself, Winter stalks Winnipeg’s Graveside, preventing larger, more heinous crimes from spilling over into the lives of the Sunsiders, no matter what laws of gods and men she must break to do so.

 

Winter is a chimera, sharing the genetic material of her own never-born fraternal twin sister. Her dead twin’s essence provides her a link to the Kingdom – the land of the dead – and a tie to a past she’s run from for thirteen years.

 

Winter struggles to find a redemption she doesn’t believe she deserves. The temptation of dirty deeds is everywhere: An animated skeleton with a penchant for wearing dead men’s clothes wants her on his payroll. Her deceased, but not gone, mentor still pushes her to take the easy way by being hard. A composite man assembled from soldiers who still puts boot to ass when Winter demands. A vampire that wants just a taste. Each pulls at Winter ensuring a normal life remains eternally out of reach, and the easy way is anything but.

 

Music Monday: Liquor Beer and Wine by The Reverend Horton Heat

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One of my favourite bands will be returning to Winnipeg neatly (mostly) coinciding with the day the marks me having spent another year rolling around the sun.

I have tons of memories wrapped up in this group, from being in the mosh pit when they opened for Soundgarden and losing a hat and a shoe (found the shoe, my LSU Tigers hat was gone for good), sharing a smoke with Jimbo when he randomly stepped off the tour bus right when I was on my way to buy tickets from the West End Cultural Centre, to the time the band sang Happy Birthday to my at the time current, now-ex girlfriend (despite many drinks that night, I remember the song to this day: “Happy Birthday, [NAME REDACTED], fuck you, [NAME REDACTED], FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT BEER.”)

It’s been a while since I’ve seen them live, and while I’m probably too old to have a proper psychobilly freakout, I can’t wait to see the man with the big red guitar!

I look up to the heaven’s
For a ray of hope to shine
And there it is in neon,
Liquor beer and wine

March 2018 Goals

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Well. Once I again, I forgot that February is a short month; made shorter this time by the ghost of a Christmas cold past returning with a vengeance.

My February Goals:

  • Separate IP from that work-for-hire project, which means a reread and LOTS of notes to write, and forms to fill out
  • Work on something fun and super secret
  • Write a chapter for An Excuse for Whiskey
  • Finish polishing one of my comic scripts and send it to my editor
  • Finish edits on my story “Midnight Man versus Frankie Flame”

I still feel pretty good about what I got accomplished (including finishing my goals post in a relatively timely manner this month)! Separating my IP was never going to be fun, so I’m not surprised it got dropped, especially given a short month and week-long illness.

The super fun and super secret thing is moving along, I hope to make more progress soon, and have more news soon. I didn’t get my Excuse for Whiskey chapter to Sandra when I’d hoped to, but I did write it. A few things weren’t hanging together, but it’s close to me being willing to share it with Sandra. I reread the previous fifty pages of the story and some of our notes before I got started up again, but that wasn’t quite enough after a long (too long) vacation from working on the book.

My comic script has been edited, revised, and is in the hands of the artist. This will be the first Midnight Man comic story, and I’m really excited to see the finished piece. If all goes according to plan, you’ll be able to get this story at Prairie Comics Festival in May. Also in Midnight Man news, “Midnight Man versus Frankie Flame” was revised and returned to Rhonda Parrish for her Fire: Demons, Dragons and Djinn anthology. I had a ton of fun writing this story, and I’m stoked for people to read it.

And what’s on deck for March:

  • Separate IP from that work-for-hire project, which means a reread and LOTS of notes to write, and forms to fill out
  • Finish final round of substantive edits for Graveyard Mind (already done!)
  • Finish drafting a new short story
  • Submit a story to On Spec
  • Start arranging book launch and tour details for Graveyard Mind

That’s more than enough, I think!