Thanksgiving, You Kidding Me?

Ok. I know writers have it tough. Hell, I play a writer in the new novel The Method Writers. But isn’t it carrying things a bit far by making me, Marty Pitchford, a character in a book, write this blog?

I should have known. Michael Ray King, my MASTER, my CREATOR, decided to spend time with his family and left me to do the writing again. Like I’ve said before, I suppose I shouldn’t complain.

I’m getting more exposure than he is these days. I even wrote a kick-ass short story for our new book. Yeah, the one all the characters from The Method Writers are writing. I’m enjoying loads of fun on this one.

Mr. King wrote an award winning short story titled Why Me? last year. Click on that link to buy the book the story appears in. Hey,  come on! The book’s only $2.99. I know you can afford that!It is in Kindle format. Remember, you can get a free Kindle App out there!

Anyway, what I did was take that story, which was written from the guy’s perspective, and I turned it around from the woman’s perspective. What a great exercise in writing skills! I loved the story too, as it was pretty hot and steamy.

My fellow characters are pretty close to being done with their stories. Our plan is to get our book out before the Rogues Gallery Writers can get The Method Writers novel out. We figure, if we show people what we can do, maybe we’ll make a name for ourselves before the Rogues.

Of course, there is the problem that we call ourselves the Rogues Gallery Writers too. What’s up with that? I think our creators didn’t entirely trust us. I mean, why else would they do that?

Now, if we get our book out, people might think we’re the real Rogues. I mean, we are the real Rogues, but I mean the real, real Rogues. Ok, the Rogues that exist in your world. We’re damn good writers in our own right (and world), so we need some love too, you know.

We have a trick up our sleeve, though. When we release our book on ebook, guess what we’re going to do. Ninety-nine cents. Yep. We’re going to undercut our creators. We’re going for volume, baby! We have some great stuff in this book too.

I think I’m just going to reconcile myself to writing this blog every week. Like the babe I slipped into the blog? Hey, like I said, I just wrote a steamy short story based on Mr. King‘s award winning story. I needed some inspiration, you know?

Until next week…

Project Launch! Watch Our Smoke!

  The day has arrived – October 5, 2011. The Rogues Gallery Writers will sit down at 7:00pm, eat some    Chinese, discuss final tweaks to the plan, then gather around the mouse. Yes, the wireless mouse of a laptop. The four of us will place our forefingers on the left-click button and press as one.

The occasion happens to be the launch of our Kickstarter.com project. This project is the culmination of months of work and preparation. We’ve written a novel, blogged loads of blogs, Facebooked as many posts as is respectable, and we’ve made short films. Videos of silliness and seriousness about our baby, our novel – The Method Writers.

The Rogues recently gathered at the Florida Heritage Book Festival in St. Augustine, Florida. We had a great time, sold a few books, and generally got our name out to John Q. Public a bit more. This notoriety we’re building is not by accident.

What we need most at the moment is precisely that – a moment of your time. Drawing attention to your book project these days is a labor, albeit one of love. Kickstarter.com is a place where benevolent people go and pledge monetary support to creative projects. We own one such project – The Method Writers.

We are looking for funding to produce a 5000 print run of the book as well as funds to cover the editing and some marketing of the book. Acquiring the assistance of anyone and everyone we know as well as those they know as well as people THEY know is critical to getting funding of this nature. Please take a moment to click on the above links to our project, or heck, use this one (www.kickstarter.com), and watch our video, read over our project and pledge some money to help us launch this book properly.

With all the books being published these days, the ones that make enough noise get noticed. We cannot make noise without your help. Each individual person who pledges funds to our project, lifts us up. One of the great aspects of Kickstarter.com is the fact that you, the Pledge, receive something in return. You receive a piece of the project in the form of Rewards. We have set up 23 Rewards for our Pledges based on their level of giving. We believe there is a satisfactory Reward for each level of pledge.

Yes, you get a piece of the project as well as the pleasure of contributing to the launch of an ambitious new novel. We believe what we created in The Method Writers is viable, entertaining and well-worth launching into the world. Won’t you please click on over to Kickstarter.com now and pledge to the project right now? If we do not reach our target money in 45 days, we will get nothing and no pledges will be collected. That would be a travesty.

We look forward to thanking each and every one of our Pledges once we hit our target! The Rogues Gallery Writers ask also that you contact everyone you know and send them to our project at Kickstarter.com. We obviously require the help of many. We humbly thank you for your participation in our project and we sincerely hope you will be rewarded by your assistance!

Character Dysfunction

Life is not easy for a character in a book. Take me, for example. Marty Pitchford. My ‘creator’ wants me to be some kind of magnificent character readers will fall in love with. Mr. Big-Time-Author decided to make me a wuss in the beginning of the book just so I could grow some, you know? How do you think that makes me feel?

Yeah, I bet you wouldn’t like it any more than I did. Characters have to grow. I get it. They have to move through their allotted storylines and show some progress, some change, that significantly changes their lives. I’m tellin’ ya, this is pure hell. I’ve been stuck in wuss mode in this book for a while, then I go to borderline perv, and then I go through an number of other changes.

I suppose I have it better in this one than other characters. Take Franco. Poor sap  gets nabbed and roughed up, AND, he’s afraid of dogs. Nonetheless, Franco takes the fall as a mean character because his creator decided this was his fate. Sometimes I think we should sue for some kind of self-creating rights.

Ok, ok, so my creator allowed me to ‘go with the flow’ in my growth. I suppose as authors go, he is kind to his characters and allows us to make our own mistakes and take the story places he would never go. Like all the sex stuff in my life. My author would not necessarily go there normally, but he let me do the walkin’, talkin’ and, well, you know what.

My big beef, though, is that he takes credit for it. Asshole! Who does he think he is? He lets me run amuck and give him a decent character who gets into all kinds of shit, then he goes and claims he “wrote it”. Isn’t that something I can sue for? Shouldn’t I claim some sort of character plagiarism or something? What right does he have to take all the credit for me living my life out on the page? That’s what really sucks. I get myself into all those messes, allow people to call me a wuss in the beginning, deal with a wife that is nothing short of a slut, come out of it a changed man and HE gets all the credit.

I’m going to form the Character’s Writing Guild and we’re gonna sue the pants of all you yahoo’s who think their the cat’s bark when it comes to writing. Everyone knows character driven stories are the best. We do all the heavy lifting. We should be able to demand higher compensation. Hell, we don’t get any compensation. How’s that for one big, fat ripoff?

Well, I’m gonna change all that. Wait and see. In the meantime, check out my performance in The Method Writers, due out in November 2011. You won’t be disappointed. I promise.

Sex – How Much is Too Much?

   Yeah, that’s me sitting behind the babe. I’m a writer and my name is Marty. I know most guys think where I’m sitting is the best of all possible worlds. Most guys don’t necessarily get stupid like I did.

I’m married. On one hand, my marriage is not the problem. On the other, my marriage is nothing but one massive, sex-laden nightmare. My wife wants me in that chair. Seriously! I’m not joking. She’s the one who pushed me to get out and have some fun.

Here we go. Come on guys, sex is not everything! To my wife, however, sex appears to be the only thing. Yeah, Jessica’s a bit of a nymphomaniac. At this point, other guys immediately want to know where in the world I’m finding a problem. They also begin suggesting therapists for my obvious mental or emotional issues.

Jessica and I have a daughter, Annabelle, who is one of the sweetest five-year-olds you would ever want to meet. Anna pays the price for Jessica’s less than demure ways, even more so now that I am being pushed into the vibrant, wanton world of sex. The more I travel this path, the less I like what is happening to our family.

A few years ago I would never even whisper, much less think, that a person can get too much sex. Now, I have to come to grips with what is important in my life. Do I commit to satisfying my wife? Will the repercussions of living that lifestyle be too destructive to our daughter? Am I being stupid by questioning whether I should be so involved in the sex scene?

I also need to research the sex scene so I can write my new erotic thriller from a knowledgeable standpoint. Nothing like first-hand research to show you what you need to know when you’re writing on a specific topic. Career. Marriage. Family. Personal sex drive. I’m being pulled so many directions I don’t know where to turn. If it weren’t for my writing buddies, the Rogues Gallery Writers is what we call ourselves, I know I would be a total loss. I’m finding out they are all in their own personal dilemmas as well. Misery does appear to love company.

Tell you what. If you would like to check out what I’m doing and the decisions I’m having to make, pick up a copy of The Method Writers. It’ll all be there in all its sordid glory. For that matter, you’ll be able to find out what’s going on with the other Rogues (Dorian, Georgie Mae and David), as well.  The book should be available for sale October 2011.