Writing is a very strange business. You think you have it nailed, and then things go topsy-turvy on you. For instance.

I've been writing seriously since the mid 1980s. I published a magazine for a few years, made some contents, took a class with Writer's Digest, and started to try and carve a career out for myself. From that point on, it was never predictable. I went for years writing nothing but unpublished short stories and bad poetry, and then things changed. Not immediately, but they definitely changed.

I sold stories. I made more contacts. Then I sold several books almost simultaneously in a flurry of "success," not realizing at the time that the tie-in novels, while great work, and good experience, were not heading me down the road to recognition and fame I'd hoped for. I wrote a Star Trek novel, and I wrote half a dozen other novels for White Wolf, the gaming studio. It really looked and felt like success was calling to me.

Then things shifted. My personal life went on the fritz, and I was suddenly only writing tie-in novels. I was cranking them out, but even the short stories and poetry had fallen way back, and people started to forget who I was. Maybe I forgot too. Along the way I managed to do a couple of things right, and that probably saved me. Definitely it saved my career. I wrote a novella for Cemetery Dance titled Roll Them Bones. People still seem to love that. I wrote a novelette for an anthology titled Strange Attractions—and it wouldn't let me go—so I sat down in my depression and my little pity-puddle of angst, and I expanded it into the novel Deep Blue. Then I sold it.

Now, at this point it still seemed to me as if I was following a straight career path. I had another book ready to come out. I found out that I was wrong. The collectors and readers and fans I'd known only a few years back had shifted. Some of the old folks remembered me, but didn't remember why. New people had no idea who I was. My publisher wasn't a genre publisher, or even a very good retail publisher, so despite the build-up I gave it, Deep Blue didn't make much of a splash.

That was when I saw it, I guess. I had to start all over again. Since then I've been busy, and despite that business, things moved very slowly. I sold another novel, The Mote in Andrea's Eye, to Five Star, who published Deep Blue. I sold a bunch of stories. I sold my novel Ancient Eyes to Bloodletting Press, but didn't realize it would be a two year journey to get it into print. I still credit Larry Roberts for my comeback—he had faith in me, and he took on that book. It made the difference.

Let's get to the point (I'm notoriously bad at that). Here we are in 2008. Last year, Ancient Eyes was published to good reviews. It sold out 300 copies before it was even offered for sale on the web site. My first serious short fiction collection, Defining Moments, came out, and was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award, along with one of the stories inside—"The Gentle Brush of Wings." I also got nominated in the non-fiction category for www.storytellersunplugged.com—where I am one half of the admin staff.

This year, I have sold three novels, a novella, a novelette, another collection, and a series of chapbook stories with my long time collaborator and pal, Brian A. Hopkins.

I find myself a bit overwhelmed, and I think I'm standing on the brink of something big. It feels good, but it's unfamiliar ground. At the time of writing this column, I have no idea if I've won any Bram Stoker Awards this year, but you know what? When you get two nominations in two decades, and then you get three in one year? It is damn-straight an honor just to be nominated, and a sign.

I apologize for taking this column to talk about me, but hey—it's MY column, after all, and it just needed saying. Thank you to those of you who read and buy my books. Thank you to the friends who stood with and behind me. Thank you to the words because they keep coming.

You can find more of my rants and nonsense at: www.macabreink.com

From the Shadeaux,

DNW