Diversity in Fiction

Back when I was trying to drum up interest in the King's Blood, I asked a site if they'd host a chapter. They said they didn't do chapters out of novels but wondered if I'd write a post about including diversity in my book. I admit, I felt a bit weird doing it. Contrary to the talking points, there wasn't much agenda, I just wanted to change the color of the old sword & sorcery genre a bit.

Anyway, I put down my thoughts and went on a long rant about that terrible cover situation.

You can read it here.

Lots of rantings about that cover. It still pisses me off.

In the Corn

In the corn, the night air rustles;
only by moonlight the clouds allow
and a voice whispering in the stalks,

"Turn back now." 

 

Silken threads dangle from ears,

spun gold only nature can endow.

Stumbling over knots and bends...

"Turn back now."

Scattered straw dripping from sleeves,
a silhouette dipped in a bow.
The head rises, paper skin lifting,
"It's too late to turn back now."

Happy Halloween....

Adamantium Skeleton

I've had an insanely stupid idea in my head for a few weeks where it mostly percolated as a joke. It would have remained that way if, killing time before a haunted house, I hadn't come across the remaining 5' skeleton at WalMart.

Like all of WalMart's props it was incredibly shitty, a half assed paint job with screws and twist ties still exposed. But I had plans that would hide all of that.

In half a day I created my Wolverine skeleton. You can't keep a good mutant down.

All you need to make your own is

• One skeleton
• 6 tongue depressors
• Krylon plastic adhesive silver spray paint
• tattered remains from a dog toy (or fake sideburns/mutton chops)

The first trick was making those claws.

 I had some popsicle sticks left over but not enough. So half my claws wound up being a nice thin sized, the other the much thicker balsa wood. I'd recommend going full tongue depressor.

Trace your claw pattern and chop them out with scissors. Got six?

Okay, now for the not fun part. In order to anchor them, I had to cut apart the finger bones, wedge in the claw, then hot glue the whole mess together.

One hand was really giving and worked beautifully. The other fractured in half and I had to make a monster glue mess to keep it from falling apart.

If you have your claws on, we move to stage 2: spray paint time.

It'll take a whole can more of less, and the plastic stuff takes a bit longer to dry and properly set, but no prep time.

Now just add some mutton chops. I had fur left over from my dog ripping a mammoth toy to shreds. It worked pretty damn well, all things considered.

One wolverine skeleton ready to go for Halloween.

Ebook Covers

I own a preponderance of horror related paraphernalia, pictures, and enough blood graphics to drown a vampire movie and yet, I don't write horror novels. Which means those pictures of my skulls, tombstones, and dribbly candles were mostly left to rot until I discovered a catalog self publish site.

Called SelfPubBookCovers, people can create and then upload to sell book covers for all the self publishers in the world.

I opened up my own shop and went a wee bit crazy with some of my back catalog.

You can pick one, add your book title and name, and buy it. There are some color/shadow/outer glow options.

Or, if you really like one but want a color changed/piece moved/better font choices, just get in contact with me and I can come up with something. Plus I'd only charge $50 since that's all I'd make from the site.

If you're looking for some horror ebook covers, a little dark fairy tale, fantasy, or trees (always with the trees) come and have a peek.

And Another Stolen Painting

This has not been my year.

I decided to try and reverse image search a few of my paintings, just for kicks. I started with this old tree I never got a proper sized picture of:

There were a few avatars, which didn't surprise though it does confuse me, scattered across tumblr and youtube. Then I found this: (link doesn't work anymore, as it's been removed)

 The background contrast is blown up, so it looks like shit, but that's my tree.

That's definitely my tree!

Combing through the sales list of only 31, I saw that they'd sold my tree image once on some earrings.

I wasn't just pissed, I was ready to shred and destroy all in my wake levels of angry.

Summoning up my best scary language I messaged the shop owner that they were using my image and illegally violating my copyright.

Despite being in hong kong, I got a response back in a half hour late on Saturday.

The first one was basically "Oops, my staff made a mistake (uh huh). I didn't know it was yours. (What? You think magical internet elves make those images you download and slap in cheap tin to sell as hand-made jewelry?) I'll take down the listing (at least hiding the evidence also works in my favor)"

Then it got kinda weird. I wasn't purposely avoiding it, I was working out some rage and kinda watching Doctor Who.

I got two more messages from FlowerCatJewelry asking if I was the owner of the picture and again blaming it on some magical staff for a place that's only had 31 sales. Yeah, staff, sure. All ten fingers of them, I bet.

This last message is so weird I have to show it in its glory:

"Hi Blablover,

I search some inforamtion around an hour.
I believe the picture comes from you. (As there are several guys sending a conversation to me, I am not sure which one is owner before.)

I just also discussed with my staff.
He told me that he saw it from other website (not your etsy, not your deviantart, !! I believe you are the picture owner!!).

I am trying to find that website to show my unintentional and apology now( It really my mistake for haven't checked detail)

The thing I can do now is trying my best to find that website and compensate to you"

I don't give a flying fig shit where you stole it from. And trust me, you got it off deviantart. I just did a reverse image search, I know where it's wandered off to. Walking back to a bank and saying, yep, that's the one I robbed, doesn't get you off scot-free. Figuring out which website you ripped it off of really doesn't alter the facts. Nor does blaming it on that mythical staff.

Painting, stolen, more than likely along with all the other images stored inside FlowerCatJewelry's pieces. She just made a mistake and swiped from a little guy, who occasionally gets bored and googles her own shit.

I was forgiving of Dark Candles using my image as their catalog picture. It wasn't actively making them money or being sold as their shit. I still wasn't happy, and am hesitant to want to do business with them again, but I can let it slide with some attribution.

But for this...that's a big ol' nope! At least the response to getting caught wasn't to double down and insist they were "in the right. Their second cousin twice removed had actually painted it." It probably helped that so many of my friends reported the listing (thanks guys). One voice can be ignored, a multitude not so much.

It's gone, and that's probably the best I can hope for. Any mythical compensation would mean I'd have to give more than my shop info to someone in Hong Kong (or god knows where) that steals paintings. I'd rather not.

I think I'm gonna avoid reverse image searching for awhile.