BUT

I have to face a grim truth. I don’t have any novel manuscripts in condition to be sent out to editors or agents right now. Why? Because I’ve spent the last year writing Tijervyn. Now, Tijervyn has been fun, and quite a learning process besides, but the simple truth is that I cannot write for profit and for free at the same time. And sadly, I just don’t have resources and time to completely and truly self publish Tijervyn, so as a project, I’m afraid it has to be shelved. In fact, RichardFife.com is going to go kind of dark. Not in the “going offline” sense, but the “no new content” sense. Consider this more of a web-folio of writing projects, I suppose.

And, to allay the fears of you my loyal readers, I am not going to completely end Tijervyn. But updates are going to much more sporadic. Maybe once a month? I will use writing chapters of Meister of the Secret as a rest-writing exercise. Subscribe to the RSS feed (either main site or Tijervyn only) and you will see whenever I get around to putting up a new chapter.

Thanks for being readers.

I again emphasize, this is a super rough draft. I’m not even looking back over it for simple typos or awkward or repetitive stuff, so please forgive them. Consider this a rather interesting look to see what a true first draft looks like. And that is all, because even though I was thinking of writing a blog post about something meaningful, I kind of realized that would mess with my concept of vacation. Never mind that I posted up a blog over at Tor.com a couple days ago… that’s different. They actually pay me and all that, right? right. Totally excusable. Anyway, see you next week for Chapter 3.

And yes, I’m going to leave that as a cliffhanger, because April and I are taking some time off. Just December, but with the craziness of holidays, I figured you the readers and us the writer/artist could use the time off. But never fear, Tijervyn returns January 6^th, 2012. Until then, I’ve decided I’ll post a few more chapters of Rust on the Blade, since that got a good response from the first. I’ll try and think up some interesting blogs to go with them, but we’ll see when I remember I need to write them.

So, want to get me and April a holiday gift? Well, you can always buy that special someone an ebook for $2.99. Or you can always donate. Or you can review Revenant in those same ebook stores. Or you can tell all those other geeks in your family this holiday season about this awesome online story you’ve been reading. I am, as my friends are wont to say, “just saying.”

So, semi-major reveals in this chapter. That’s about all, because I’m so full of turkey it isn’t even funny (for my non-US readers, we just had Thanksgiving, our national holiday of turkey slaughter and consumption). So, no blog really today. Just the chapter. Enjoy!

I am actually rather burned out right now. Not on writing, but more just on thinking. So, no blog. I was going to put up some crazy self-affirming “I am a writer” spiel, but meh. Maybe another day. I was going to put up some deeply philosophical spiel I’ve already wrote about the older Conan the Barbarian movie, but I can’t find it, so I think it is on a different computer. So bleh. So you get me saying “Here’s your chapter! Now get off my lawn!” Or something like that.

I told you I’d get back to Markus! Let’s see how long I can stay writing about him. (hint, he is barely in next week’s chapter.) I’m already starting to wonder if I have things starting to spiral out of control. What’y’all think? To I have too many main characters/major characters? Be honest.

So, it is now official-like. You can purchase for the low low price of $2.99 the compiled Revenant eBook. You can access the store via the link up top or the ugly link over in the side bar. I put that there hoping it would make April’s brain explode in the ugly and then she’d graphic art me up a good one. You can also use this link.

As of this posting, it is only available on Amazon Kindle, but hopefully sometime next week it will be up on the Nook “PubIt” store as well. A few highlights of the compiled eBook:

• It contains a new Bonus Chapter: “Lessons of Gorlido” that takes place years before the current action and is no plot-essential, but gives you some back story on one of the characters.

• The new chapter has two whole new panels of art.

• The book is edited! Not professionally, but I went through all the chapters again and re-read them and corrected a handful of continuity mistakes and I caught quite a few typos I made, including the most embarrassing Winch/Wench goof. There are no major changes, though, so don’t expect me to reference something in Meister of the Secret that you haven’t been able to read in the online version of Revenant.

• Both Kindle and Nook versions are DRM free. I mean, I already offered all this stuff up for free, right? As I see it, this is like you donating to me.

I have some other “give me money” ideas working right now, including a way to sell high-res prints of the art and a dead-tree version of the book. I’ll keep you posted.

So, as I’ve mentioned before, I am starting to look into opening a storefront here on RichardFife.com that will have the compiled eBook of Revenant and the ability to buy high quality prints of the artwork. My announcement was made of light and hope and dreams. And no, I’m not saying that it isn’t going to happen, I’m just saying this is becoming a headache to figure out. I mean, what I am doing is basically a step above a glorified lemonade stands, small business wise, but I’m having to worry about all the sales tax (which in North Carolina is a bit of a hassle), business licenses, learning ZenCart, figuring out the best and easiest way to take payment (which will most likely be paypal). Oi. It is all exhausting, especially when I’m dealing with an understaffing at my dayjob and several big issues/projects that decided to crop up during said time, finishing the edit and re-ebook-ification of the novel, the starting of the new novel, Dragon*Con… Yeah, I got my work cut out for me.

And as thus, this is all the news post this week. I actually have some good stuff I want to talk about, just too pulled-in-all-directions right now to settle down and do it. Now, back to reading on how to sell my e-Lemonade to the world.

To the main body of today’s post, I watched a movie called “The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.” It was actually a rather new production that was made to resemble the old b-movie low-budget horror films of fifty years ago. It was amazingNow, this surprises me. Usually, I don’t like movies that try to be bad-funny. In example, I don’t really care for Evil Dead 2, although I loved Evil Dead and Army of Darkness. The difference is Evil Dead was truly bad-funny, Army of Darkness was honestly just funny, but Evil Dead 2 was a “well, I accidentally made a comedy when I meant to make a horror, let’s do it again!”.

Yet, Lost Skeleton actually worked for me. It had so many of the old tropes that are still in use today, even if in much more mature forms. In fact, the movie felt like a bit of an homage to where Sci-Fi and Horror have come from. It had a re-animated skeleton, aliens, and evil scientist, a good scientist, and a mutant. It had the grim farmer on the side of the road that gives directions to ominous locations, laced with likewise dark warnings. It had the hapless local authority that didn’t believe in the legends.

It also had the mark of good acting and good writing, which is to say the ability to write badly while not actually writing badly. A similar example I would point to was John Sclazi’s April Fools joke: The Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City. He spent a long paragraph saying “it was a dark and stormy night”, and did it in one sentence! And yet, it wasn’t totally painful to read, like actual bad writing that is often found in fan fiction or under author’s bed where they keep their first manuscript in an airtight sarcophagus.

So, to be short for once, “Lost Skeleton of Cadavra” his hilarious. You should watch it, preferably with friends and booze. You won’t be disappointed.

So, April and I have really been enjoying this vacation while Kassy does most of the work. But, alas, all good things must come to an end. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to be replaced with another good thing, right? So, I am please to announce that Tijervyn Volume Two is coming. And this time, I’ll even actually have a title for it other than “Volume Two” before we start. Not that I’m not still going to fly by the seat of my pants all “serialized fiction” style, but I think I have a stronger feeling of where the Tijervyn story in general is going, and I’ll be able to create a title, at the least, by the time is starts.

Wait, what is that you ask? When is this start going to be? Well, the way I have things scripted out, Legends of Tijervyn Issue One will end on the 19^th. Dragon*Con, the only super-major convention I currently attend, is the first weekend of September, so I don’t want to start on August 26^th only to have to deal with an “on the road” update for chapter two, so April and I have decided that Volume Two begins on September 9^th.

Other things to look forward to in the perhaps foreseeable future:

• More Legends of Tijervyn.
• A “For Purchase” fully compiled eBook of Volume One, edited, including an additional short story in the Tijervyn world.
• A print version of Volume One.
• HQ Prints of the Chapter Art.
• A new short story in the “random short fiction” work. Not quite sure what yet, but I have the itch burning in me. Maybe something a little Lovecraftian….

If there is anything else you’d like to see (including possible products for the implied storefront), let me know in either the comments or an email. Exciting times!

Page four of Legends of Tijervyn here, by the by.

Now, I’m not a big comic book guy. I know more than the average bear about comic book superheroes and the like, but I can probably count on my digits how many comic books I’ve actually read, at least in Marvel and DC. No, may introduction to those worlds were via Saturday morning cartoons and movies. I say this so that you know I’m not going to nitpick the differences between canonical Captain America and the movie. I heard a few from my friend I went to see it with who is a comic book fan and knows the mythos, but even he agrees with me that the movie was very well done and the changes made sense to the movie-Avengers continuum. So there is that.

As to the actual movie, I have almost nothing bad I can say about it. It isn’t the most meaningful or deep movie I’ve ever seen, but I didn’t go there to see that. I went there to see Captain America beat up Nazis and Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull. Tommy Lee Jones was brilliant as well with dead-pan snark. In fact, I’d go so far as to say there really wasn’t a bad acting job in the movie. No one felt flat or annoying to me. Over the top, perhaps, but this is a comic-book hero movie that is set in the 1940s. Over-the-top is exactly what it is supposed to be.

If I had to have one criticism of the movie, it was the montage in the middle. The montage itself is actually fun and enjoyable, showing Captain America and his “team” taking down several of the enemy’s bases. It also showcased the strength of Captain America pretty well, too. But, the reason I would complain is that it takes place just after the line “I have some ideas about the uniform”. At this point in the movie, Captain America has proven he isn’t just some USO show morale booster like they have been using him as, and that he actually has a purpose in the warfront proper. Said demonstration, a daring rescue of 400 POWs, was done in his “costume” from the show with a leather airmen’s jacket over it and the prop kite-shield which is at least made of functional steel.

And then, boom, montage with the real “uniform” and the painted round shield (which was at least explained in the scene prior) and the movie completely switches gears. That’s right, gear-swap, paradigm shift, and goal change. Now, the goal was always “fight the Nazis and Red Skull”, but the feeling of the first half of the movie (which was very enjoyable) was that it was all about the runty kid who is turning into a super-soldier still having to prove that he can be of use in the war, culminating in the daring rescue. We then get a bit of dénouement and then, boom, montage. After the montage, we now have a new plot. Captain America, the blooded and proven soldier, hunting down the last of the Hydra bases and stopping Red Skull. Both of these “movies” are very enjoyable, and the montage in the middle was good too, but it just felt a hair disjointed to me. Not that I’d say it was a bad movie, because it was a very good movie. It was just two very good shorter movies with a montage in the middle. But, I suppose if I had known that going in, I wouldn’t have been bothered by it. So, there is your heads up.

Oh, and I saw the movie in 2D because I think 3D is an abomination, and I didn’t need to see Captain America’s shield coming right for my head at the cost of the 3D ticket and having to put up with those annoying glasses. But, even in that “old fashioned” 2D, this movie was both a visual treat and a fun superhero action flick with that little bit of superhero high drama and morality that helps us have a bit of faith in humanity.