New Feature: Scene-Of-The-Month

~ James Viscosi ~ 7 Comments

This is a feature that my wife suggested a while ago:  Putting up a few random paragraphs from my books once a month or so.  She also suggested putting up a poll so readers can choose which book they want to see excerpted.  My wife is so smart!  Here’s the poll:

The books are tagged (broadly) by genre:  “F” for Fantasy, “H” for Horror, and “DF” for Dark Fantasy (essentially fantasy with a strong horror element, or horror with a strong fantasy element).  At the end of the month, I will choose a scene at random from the book with the most votes and put it into a post.  I won’t choose scenes that give away major plot twists, but other than that, pretty much anything will go.

I’ve decided to start with the prologue from my nowhere-near-finished werewolf novel (unimaginative working title:  The Wolf).  It’s a very short scene, but I like it.

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It Had To Happen Someday

~ James Viscosi ~ 4 Comments

I had been wondering for a while if this would happen … one of the agents whose (ancient) form rejection letter I recently posted came across the post and added a comment in response.  What did he have to say?  Read the thread and find out.

Welcome to the wonderful world of new media, where you can get a lengthier comment on a simple blog post than you would ever get on a rejection letter!

Review: “The Graveyard Book”

~ James Viscosi ~ 10 Comments

As you can see by my sidebar, Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite authors; I’ve loved all of his books except one — his children’s book, Coraline, pretty much left me cold.  I can’t really explain what I didn’t like about Coraline; it just didn’t grab me the way Gaiman’s books usually do.  I was interested to see if The Graveyard Book would be different, and it sure was.

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The Early Years: Space Battle; Or, Why I Didn’t Do My Own Comic Book Artwork

~ James Viscosi ~ 13 Comments

My drawing ability never did get much better than this:

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Random Rejection: L. Perkins Agency

~ James Viscosi ~ 10 Comments

This week we have another one of those lovely impersonal rejection letters from a literary agency, in this case, L. Perkins Associates:

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The Early Years: Jim Likes Animals

~ James Viscosi ~ 6 Comments

These “early years” samples are not really writing-related, but they probably explain a lot about why I spend so much time on Dennis’s crazy adventures.

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The “Honest Scrap” Award

~ James Viscosi ~ 15 Comments

Last week, A Blog in the Rough tagged Dennis and me for the “Honest Scrap” meme, in which you have to list ten honest things about yourself, along with the exhortation “and make it interesting”.  Gosh, ten honest interesting things about me?  I’m not sure I can manage that, but let’s find out.  I’m pretty sure that by the time you’re done reading this list, you’ll consider me an even bigger geek than you do already.

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Random Rejection: Maria Carvainis Agency

~ James Viscosi ~ 12 Comments

Well after the last couple of weeks of me being chatty about my checkered past in the horror field, this week we are back on more familiar ground, with a lovely random rejection letter from the Maria Carvainis Agency:

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Okay, So I Lied

~ James Viscosi ~ 7 Comments

Earlier, I wrote a brief story about how I got into the horror field; now, as promised, is the story of how I got out.

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Sorry, No Part Two Today

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

So I was working on part two of my story about how I got into and out of the horror field.  I think it was a good post — unusually long (by my standards) and unusually revealing (also by my standards).  It was almost finished; I just wanted to add a few links.

And then my browser ate it.

And WordPress, which normally keeps revisions of drafts as you go along, mysteriously didn’t have any revisions of this one.

I’m just not feeling up to retyping the whole thing again right now.  So, unfortunately, I’ve got no Part Two to show you today.  Can I interest you in some talk about the legendary Chilean Meat Plant instead?