Featured!
Oh, my. This … is cool. I am sitting there, right beside Stephen King, Robert McCammon, and William Peter Blatty. I mean, really?! Are you serious? How cool is that?
Holding a physical copy of my book in my hands was one dream. Being on the shelf next to these guys … that’s another HUGE win. And in time for Halloween, too! Unbelievable!
Thanks to everyone out there who bought and rated my collection!
So happy right now.
It happened again today. We were on the phone, and you were telling me where you wanted to meet, and I said, “Meet me on the corner of 34th and Madison in twenty minutes,” and then I just hung up without waiting to see if that was okay with you, or if you had any additional thoughts on the matter.
If this seemed rude, I apologize. It’s simply something I do–something I’ve always done. I don’t like saying goodbye, especially on the phone. I’m trying to lower my daily word count and omit the needless words in my life, and I didn’t think the rest of our conversation was going to be interesting. Again, I’m sorry if that seems rude.
Also, if it ever appears to you that I don’t listen to the second half of your sentences, it’s because I already know how most of them are likely to end. Yesterday when you said to me, “I got an A on my …,” I must confess my attention cut you off right there. I assumed you were talking about your Bio test. If you weren’t–if, say, you were saying something like that you’d gotten a scarlet A sewn onto your blouse–well, then, I probably misunderstood, because I wasn’t really listening to that part. If you want me to listen, please structure your sentences in a more suspenseful way.
I also apologize for showing up late to your birthday dinner and then leaving a few moments later. Everyone was far too agreeable, and that one guy was talking at great length about the dream he had the previous night, going way beyond the standard two or three line maximum allowed by modern dialogue. It was horrid, and at any rate I just didn’t think anything interesting was happening in that scene–that scene that was your birthday dinner.
I hope you accept this apology, realizing that I am apologizing not because I mean to change, but because I want you to accept my behavior, even if you find it rude. Because it’s not rude. Not really. I’m just trying to trim the meaningless parts of my life away, and some of them, I’m sorry to say, include pieces of you.
Cover Art, I Held My Breath as Long as I Could
Yesterday was a day of doubt spent wondering about this collection. I told myself that I would hit the publish button October 1st, no exceptions, but I really was considering pushing the date back. This morning, I feel a little better, but I still am going to be pushing myself as hard as I can this week.
For one thing, I’d love to get the stories into shape in time to run them through the content analyzing software application I built for Daukherville last year, but that would require altering some of the code to look at I Held My Breath. Still, it could prove worth it to at least run it through once and check the sentences for word repetition and things of that sort.
The second section continues to prove the most challenging. One story in particular, “The Worm, the Road, and the Sun,” runs for 10,000 words, and that proved way too long for Amanda. Not to mention she had some serious criticisms of the piece, which were entirely valid, and that means additional content work. I’d also love to shave 2,000 words off the length of the piece, but I don’t know right now where to make those cuts, especially given the additions it needs. It would really be a shame to not include it, so I’m feeling a bit like a designer on Project Runway, who’s just received a review from Tim Gunn along the lines of, “Kristopher, I have to be a truth teller … I’m a bit disturbed by this. It feels a bit dark. And the LENGTH! Oh my. I’m very worried about this piece.”
Time to make it work.
Cover Art, I Held My Breath as Long as I Could
And then there were only two weeks left.
Holy crap. The nerves, oh, the nerves. Was up late last night, finishing reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, a great book, when I found myself amusing myself by reading some of the reviews that were published of Wilde’s book when it came out. Great stuff. The kind of stuff anyone who’s received a critical drubbing would love to read. I wonder how many critics who give a scathing review to something consider what it would be like to end up the kind of critic who panned Dorian Gray. The reviewers who ripped it to shreds seemed both arrogant and ridiculously wrong–what a wonderful combination.
I also appreciate Wilde’s confidence in his own work. The man called his own book a classic. What a guy.
I fear what people might say about me after they read “Doggie-Style.” I might really be in some trouble for that one, but I’ve thought it through and decided there’s no point holding back. Either I do what I do, or I do nothing at all. “Doggie-Style” is a messed up horror story of questionable worth, but it is certainly mine. If there’s such a thing as a “Kris Kelly story,” well, “Doggie-Style” would definitely be one of them. This whole collection drips with my issues. I’m naked on this one. So be it.
Man, oh, man … I really hope people get this stuff.
In other news, to sell an eBook on Apple’s iBookstore, it turns out I couldn’t be registered to sell both apps and ebooks. I had to create a whole new Apple ID to register as an eBook seller.
Apple doesn’t want me to diversify.
Cover Art, I Held My Breath as Long as I Could
In the last month, I’ve kept busy and missed precious few days. I’ve written a completely fresh draft of a story called “Radiation,” which I originally wrote in high school (it’s the story that earned me my favorite rejection letter ever, the letter which said, “This story is almost strange enough to like — unfortunately, it makes no sense at all!!!”). I love the revision. Also been working on revisions to some of the stories here, to mixed results. I have these ideas of what I want to do, but sometimes it just doesn’t work the way I think it should. I’ve got one more month until my deadline for new content expires and I go to strict line-editing, but I’ve already gotten the feeling that these are the stories I’m going with, and that I’m going to need all the time I can get to make this heap of sentences work.
There’s so much to do. There are so many words. The idea that people routinely write long novels blows my mind a bit right now.
Tonight, I’m going to read one of the pieces at Black & White here in Manhattan. Hope the audience likes it. I feel a bit nervous, as always, but it’s been too long since my last reading. I’ve been too much in the lab, and I have to make an effort to get out more.