S.G. Browne

Hello 2012. Pleasure to meet you. How have you been? What’s that? You’ve got some news to share? And it has to do with shooting monkeys and lucky bastards? Well, now, that does sound interesting. Tell me more…

On March 27 I’ll be releasing an e-book collection of ten short stories titled Shooting Monkeys in a Barrel. Details on pricing and availability are TBD but you’ll be able to get it for your Kindle, Nook, iPad, and any other e-reader you might be partial to. While it’s not available for pre-order yet, you can read a description of the ten stories included in the collection on my previous blog post Zombie Gigolos, Luck Poachers, & Dream Girls.

Three weeks later, on April 17, my third novel, Lucky Bastard, will be released into the wild in hardcover. Although the final cover hasn’t yet been approved, you can click on the link to read a description of the book and pre-order if you’re so inclined. You can also read a brief description below:

Nick Monday is a private detective with a penchant for coffeehouse baristas and the ability to steal other people’s luck. Politicians and celebrities. Lottery winners and game show contestants. Accident survivors and successful athletes. All it takes is a handshake and Nick walks away with their good fortune, which he sells on the black market to the highest bidder. But lately, business has been slow.

So when the sexy daughter of San Francisco’s mayor offers Nick $100,000 to find her father’s stolen luck, Nick thinks this is his big break. But he soon ends up blackmailed by the feds, kidnapped by the Chinese mafia, and accosted by vegans and angry naked women with knives…all while trying to save a ten-year-old kid with the purest luck he’s ever seen.

Finally, on July 17, I’ll have another short story appearing in the anthology 21st Century Dead, edited by Christopher Golden. “Reality Bites” is a short story about the lengths a couple of Hollywood producers will go to in order to have the #1 rated zombie reality show.

That’s it for now. More updates to come as release dates get closer. And thanks for the good news, 2012. This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

So I’m in the process of doing edits on my third novel, Lucky Bastard. These edits are based on feedback and notes from my editor at Simon & Schuster and about a 90-minute phone conversation spread out over a couple of days which ended up with me writing down about four pages of notes.

And you thought writing the book was the tough part.

Right now, I’m on my third pass through the manuscript over the past three weeks, making edits based on all of this feedback. So far, including the two rounds of edits the novel went through before I gave it to my writers group and the two additional rounds of edits it went though before I sent it to my agent and the round of edits I did based on her feedback before it even went to my editor, that makes eight passes through the book I’ve done so far. I’ll have another round of line edits, copy edits, then proof page edits, bringing the grand total of full manuscript edits up to eleven before the book goes to press.

It better not have any mistakes in it, that’s all I have to say.

The process wasn’t a whole lot different with Breathers or Fated. Both of them probably went through close to ten rounds of edits before the books hit the shelves. And every time I do a round of edits, I read the complete manuscript.

That’s the thing no one tells you and that you don’t realize when you start down this path of writing: before your book gets published, you’re going to end up reading it a dozen or more times before it hits the shelves. So you better like what you’ve written because you’re going to be spending a lot of time with it.

It’s kind of like choosing a partner. Or your friends. You better choose wisely because if it turns out you don’t enjoy their company, then you’re going to get sick of them pretty fast.

When I was two years old, I used to greet my father when he came home from work and convey to him the exploits of my day. He would watch me with this bemused expression and nod his head and say “That’s great” without having any idea of what I was saying, causing me to throw myself on the floor and scream and kick and cry because he didn’t understand me.

This is all according to my mom. I don’t have any recollection of these moments of communication frustration. Nor do I have any recollection of calling my pacifier a “loodela” (pronounced loo-da-lah). It was like I was speaking another language. Something Germanic, I’m guessing.

As I grew older, my speech began to resemble something closer to English, but I still had trouble with certain letters, like U’s and R’s. So words like “fork” came out sounding more like I was from South Boston. Apparently, this was a great source of amusement for my parents as their five-year-old son would say things like: “Where’s my fuhk?” or “I need a fuhk.”

Doesn’t everyone?

However, I do recall a not-so-amusing moment when I was seven years old and, frustrated with my mom about something that had just occurred, I yelled out “It’s all your fault!” and stormed up the stairs to my bedroom. Only because of my speech problem, what my mom heard instead was “It’s all your fart!”

I don’t know what that means, exactly. I guess it implies definitive ownership of the fart. But I do know it was enough to get my mom to follow me up the stairs and wash my mouth out with a bar of soap. Ivory. Dove. Palmolive. I don’t know what flavor it was. And I didn’t imagine myself going blind like Ralphie in A Christmas Story but let me tell you, it didn’t taste too good.

And what does this have to do with writing? (Scratches his head to try to remember where he was going with this.) Ah yes. It has to do with communicating your ideas to others. Using language and characters and plot to convey what it is you want to say to your readers. Getting your point across. As another author (I believe it was Nigel Hamilton) once said:

“If the reader doesn’t understand what you’re saying, then you’re just talking to yourself.”

I suppose you could say it would be the equivalent of literary masturbation.

I think that’s something writers just take for granted. Not the literary masturbation part, but the ability to communicate.The idea that the story we create in our heads makes it to the page without losing something in the process.

When my writing group read my initial drafts of Breathers, Fated, and Lucky Bastard, they brought up a number of questions about the worlds I’d created. I didn’t withhold this information on purpose, but the story made sense to me when I initially told it. After all, I’m the creator of the universe, so naturally it all makes sense to me.

It wasn’t until I got feedback from the other members of my group that I realized I needed to do a better job of getting my ideas across. I needed to convey the concepts in my head so that the reader would enjoy the story and understand what I was trying to say.

Which is why rewriting is such an integral part of my writing process. It’s where I get to fix the problems. Where I get to craft and shape the story. Where I get to clarify what it is I’m trying to say so I’m not just talking to myself. Sometimes this process can include as many as half a dozen rewrites before the manuscript reaches my agent. That’s followed by a round of edits with my editor, then another three rounds of line edits, copy edits, and proof edits before it’s finally ready to publish.

I guess you could say that if writing the novel is the equivalent of giving birth to it, then rewriting it is like raising it and teaching it everything you know before sending it out into the world.

After that, you just hope it doesn’t throw a tantrum or get its mouth washed out with soap.

Just a quick round-up of a few new things going on that I wanted to share:

New Interview
First off, I have a new interview up on ShadowCast Audio (though it’s a text interview, not audio) where I discuss laughing at inappropriate moments, the hardest thing about writing, the possibility of sequels to Breathers and Fated, and why afternoon naps should be mandatory.

New Conventions
Next up, I’ll be at the World Horror Convention at the Doubletree Hotel in Austin, TX, from April 27 – May 1. While the convention itself isn’t new, I’ve never been to Austin, so there you go. And although the convention does run through the weekend, I’ll be leaving Saturday to attend the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC, which is new for me. On Sunday, May 1, I have a scheduled signing at the Mysterious Galaxy Books booth, #372 with Christopher Farnsworth, Debra Ginsberg, and Steve Hockensmith. I’ll post more details about Austin and Los Angeles on Monday.

New Book
And last, but certainly not least, my third novel, Lucky Bastard, has been sold to Simon & Schuster with a tentative publication date of Spring 2012. Lucky Bastard is a dark comedy and a bit of a mystery/noir about a private detective who lives in San Francisco, has an addiction to corporate coffeehouse baristas, and who was born with the ability to steal luck.

That’s all I’ve got time for today. Thanks for listening. And Happy Easter!