twitter?

i don't have a twitter account because i'm too busy writing. if i become published someday i might get one use it, but for now theres just no need. in my opinion, there's too many people who aren't interesting that talk incessantly without anything to say. kind of like a big "look at me! look at me!" for the internet dependent crowd. if i get signed or famous or anything (never any guarantees) maybe ill do it to self promote. until then, not so much.

Heroes

There are few real people i would call actual heroes. other than the soldiers, policeman, firefighters and doctors that keep out of immediate harms way. As it stands now, there's one person i really look up to and admire besides family members...

Trent Reznor. The man behind Nine inch Nails and How to Destroy Angels. i'll get to him in a minute, because he wasn't my first hero.

I remember my first hero, the stock car racer, Richard Petty. Being a young boy, how could i not be enamored with a man that everyone in the high speed sport calls "The King"? I remember buying the hot wheels cars that looked like his turquoise and pepto bismol pink number 43 car and pretending to be the king of racing. At the time, he was tearing up tracks all over the country and no one could catch up to him.

As years went by, i discovered Bruce Lee. after my dad got me a VHS video of The Chinese Connection for my birthday. i...wore...that...tape...out. after seeing his kung fu, i begged my dad to let me take the closest thing to it. i found a shao-lin instructor in my home town and started as a white belt. over several years i worked from white to yellow to blue to green to third degree brown belt. it wasn't kung fu like bruce lee but it did put me in the same room as Shao Lin grand master Sin The. That guy was fearless. i saw him put a green apple on his neck and hold it there with his chin while one of his students cut apple with a friggin broadsword. balls for days.

Enter: Mark McGwire. the hot rookie out of Oakland. for years i followed his career and collected his baseball cards as he became one of baseballs all time home run hitters. i made ridiculous trades with other kids trading away Ken Griffey Jr's and Barry Bonds cards to get all of their Mark McGwire cards. I was beside my self when he became the first person to hit 70 home runs in a year. i bragged and bragged to the others how my patience and loyalty had paid off by "picking the right horse". My packed binder of rookie cards and hard to find editions was now worth a few thousand dollars.

Then the hearings happened and i learned how "the big mac" fooled all of us with the use of steroids. the cards were worthless and i felt like an idiot for believing he was the real deal. I still have half a mind to send him the cards with a letter that reads:

Dear fraudulent ass-hat,

    I made myself sick for nothing by eating at Long John Silvers during the blistering summer of 1991 to get all of your limited edition cards. thanks a whole heap. i could've collected the cards of someone who wasn't a complete lie and had a collection worth passing on to my kids in the future.  i can't wait to see what you do for an encore, do you show up at my house and shit in my bed while i'm sleeping after keying my car?  shoot yourself. shoot yourself right in the face to make up for the 10 plus years of crushing deception. and when the bullet splits your head open like a can of peaces, i hope there not grey matter but feces instead. because i want the coroner and detectives of your respective home town to see how full of shit you really are.

Once your biggest fan,
Andrew Cole

Of course, i'll probably never do it. oh well. now lets get back to the artist and hero i still keep on a high pedestal. unlike the previously mentioned person, this one never made promises of any sort. He worked hard as a professional to make his own name and got my respect and adoration for just being himself.

Trent Reznor. "Mr. Nine Inch Nails".

A friend introduced me to  Pretty Hate Machine in 1991 (in between trips to LJS) and i fell in love with the music that didn't sound like anyone else. So as soon as 1992 rolled around, i had to have the EP, Broken. and i wasn't disappointed. sure it was different from Hate Machine, but i had the open mindedness to let the artist be himself. i wasn't expecting PHM part 2. this mindset would serve me well as the other albums came along. some NIN fans jumped ship when The Fragile didn't turn out to be: The Downward Spiral: part 2.
My first concert was the downward spiral tour with marilyn  manson and the Jim Rose freak circus louisville gardens in 1994. I got my mind blown and still have the ticket stub.Up until the internet started being widely searchable, i didn't know a lot about the guy that made the music. i knew the basic stuff like growing up in Mercer, PA and being in the Michael J Fox movie Light of Day. if he'd stopped making music at this point i would've been happy with what i got because it wasn't like all the flash in the pan shit that blew out of MTV at me. Lucky me, Trent kept going. i got everything that came after it. The NBK soundtrack, Lost Highway, Quake, all that. Through it all, Trent did his thing and the product that showed up on the music store shelves fit into what i needed as a music lover. Now i'm not the typical "OH MY GOD TRENT IS JESUS" "ninny" but i'm a big fan. i have all his music and when i had to sell off all my cd's to put myself through college, i couldn't bear to part with my NIN collection and was prepared to go hungry for a week or so if it meant i didn't have to part with some thing that brought me this much enjoyment. i don't feel the music is directly speaking for me as much as its him making music that continually finds the sweet spots on my eardrums. although in a moment of weakness i did leave a bottle of bourbon with his assistant while visiting New Orleans in 2003. had i known he'd dealt with a substance problem i would've left something else and felt like less of an asshole for it. but then again i didn't know. no one did. thats what makes him different from the majority of the other artrists who are begging to throw their lives in front of a reporter or camera in exchange for exposure. instead, he took care of his business like a man and kept working. plus he got married and has a "trentling". look who's scoring movies and winning academy awards and making tracks for COD black ops! in a way it feels like it did before because i can point and say "theres the one i chose." and there's no amount of performance enhancing autotune bullshit that can detract from those accomplishments. now, if he emerges from a hotel room with five underage children hanging out of his pants while coked to the gills i may have to consider writing a letter to him as well, but i doubt that'll happen.

I write ALOT. i write more and faster than all the other writers around me. and NIN is always there in the playlists to keep me going and creating. but to date he's the hero who hasn't disappointed. keep doing your thing, man. you keep making them and i'll keep buying them.

AJC

so... you're still trying to write, huh?

eight years and two months  I've been at this. its the only constant i'm used to now. i'm about 250 pages into book ten and all i can think about is finishing it so i can write a great ending and somehow submit this monster to someone, anyone who will listen.

there's a lot of great people in the writers groups i attend. everyone is doing their thing but no one is working either in the same field/genre or at the same pace as me. its difficult for me to relate to the person who would like to write as much as i do but "just can't find the time to write."

it doesn't work like that. to be a writer, you can't just do all the other things in life and then write that NY times bestseller in your spare time. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that.

you have to commit to it. it should be a passion to do what you do. Johnny the homicidal maniac once said something that i feel is very true. "There's nothing more deplorable  than to have contempt for ones own motivations."

people are always amazed that i'm in the break room at work with my laptop out while eating. They ask "are you still writing?" well how do you think the job gets done? "wanting" to be a writer doesn't make it happen.

I'm going to write this book and when i finish it im going to write another. and when i'm done with the series, that son of a bitch is going to be over 4000 pages. fuck you. not 400... 4000 its an epic that leapt out of my brain and commanded me to write.

if anyone is reading this, i'm having a hard time with everything else... no one is interested, rejection letters (email that is. we publishers and agents dont waste our good envelops on you wannabe failure types)

but at least im writing. i'm going to write those books and then i'll write another... then another.

and someday, someone is going to say yes.

and when that happens, im going to fucking cry.

i will see about getting a sample chapter from book 1: Fusion Heart up soon.

so here it is. a couple of pictures of what it looks like from my end. the upper picture was taken from my usual writing spot in 3rd Street Stuff here in Lexington ky. its an independent coffee shop that doesn't hassle its patrons about only making the minimum purchase before soaking up their wi-fi. in exchange for power plug access for my laptop and centralized air conditioning, i try and buy a candy bar or something. ive never been a big coffee drinker, but they've got an insane cajun turkey sandwich that's worth the seven bucks.

the second pic is my current looping playlist that i let run while i write. every month or so i clear it out and change up the artists to keep it fresh, but the one constant is the tempo. i like stuff with a  steady beat, riff, or chorus keep my toe tapping while i knock out some writing.

if you care.

Boomshakalacka! weighing in at 70,000 words and change is book 5: War Saint. its finished!

on to the next: Book 10 of the series, Stealing Echoes (the next to last book in the series) will bring bring old and new characters alike together for an adventure on a frozen battleground far out of the reach of any aid. who will survive the sub freezing temperatures of planet Noan as an old evil is unleashed? and who will be able to stand up to a new evil that threatens the fate of the entire arterian race?

War Saint update!

SO. THINGS ARE COMING ALONG. (Shit, caps.)  *click* That's better. See that picture above? That's the cover art I commissioned for the front of book five of my series entitled War Saint. Sereth (pictured the above) is the main protagonist of the book and it's almost done. She's part infantry grunt, part Florence Nightingale and part holy mage/pope.  i'm on page 312 of 3?? and i think its almost finished. i'm writing the conclusion as we speak and have knocked out like 16 pages in the past 3 days. now, what remains to be seen is whether there are points in the original plot lines i wrote that i forgot to add during the process. i'm such a damn DERP sometimes. oh well. i promise to start posting more often as i start the next project and keep all 34 visitors of this site updated about my efforts to get refused by every mainstream publisher and agent in the world as i try and sell book 1 : FUSION HEART. stay tuned. oh shit. i forgot to add the facet that for those of you who aren't up to date on how this project is developing, books 1-4 and book 6-9 are done with 10 and eleven being plotted but not written. I think i can finish them by mid 2013 if i work hard. her's hoping!

always writing.
AJC

my dad won't actually READ my books but he's been somewhat supportive in my endeavor to become published. Last xmas he got me a shirt with a slogan on the chest that reads: Even if its crap, get it down on paper." There's a lot of truth in that. I belong to several writing groups and the best advice you can give for someone genuinely attempting  to write is: JUST WRITE IT. I tell that to almost every person i come across. I hear "well ive been thinking about", or "ive been trying to conceive..." JUST WRITE IT.

If you don't write anything to start with, there's nothing for other people to look at and tell you if its good or sucks. if there is nothing to read, no one will know.

i write everyday. every...friggin...day. if i didn't like writing i wouldn't do it. There's been a surge of people wanting to become writers lately. I cant help but wonder if its because of the likelyhood of fame oinvolved should they write a hit or whether its because they really like to write. either way, its good to see poeple interested in making books.
ajc

YAY! i finally found an editor to give Fusion Heart the professional polishing i think it deserves! instead of the usual $1,200 to $2,000 price tag i've seen from people who offer this type of service, i discovered a reputable source that suggested they would clean up my manuscript for $400. i can only do so much on my end.

So here it is. the first post of my blog.  Why should any of you care? let me tell you. After the Harry Potter books burst onto the scene, books are cool again. I'm grateful for J. K Rowling's contribution to literature and the fire it put under the younger demographics to start enjoying the world of reading. And whether you liked them or not, the Twilight series reinforced those who finished the books about wizarding and kept the proverbial train going with stuff to read. Its a very exciting time! And with others like The Hunger Games trilogy making big waves both in the world of books and cinema, you've got an atmosphere ripe for new stories and worlds to unfold. And that's where i'd like to come in. You see, since late 2004 I've been creating my own little fantasy world filled with danger, heroes, villains, and  a cast of characters to ensnare the hearts and minds of readers. My own special branding of a science fiction-fantasy epic for the YA crowd. The story lends itself well to older readers, but i think the teens will really sink their teeth into whats been created and savor the story. How big is it?  

REAL BIG.  

But i'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start where every story starts. The beginning. In a short amount of time i'm going to post a sample of the first book: FUSION HEART to let you the readers get a taste of what's been in the works for so long. I think you'll like whats been prepared. I've spent my life ingesting the content of books, comic books, graphic novels, movies, plays, and even cartoons and anime to soak in what's needed to create a memorable cast for a reader to fall in love with. Something familiar, but original enough to stand alone. Fusion Heart is the beginning, but its a drop in the bucket compared to what's going to follow, I guarantee. I'll be posting bits of Fusion Heart and other works soon. So add this blog to your favorites and tell a friend you heard about the "newest thing". It's still underground and being polished to be sent to an agent or publisher. This is the ground floor. This is where the product ends the assembly area and is prepped for the masses. I'bve laughed and cried for these characters. I hope they do the same for you.

buckle up.

A.J.C.