Death Match

Would you like to support Jack's Inferno by helping me to crush my enemies? Of course you would! Join the Fiction Writers and Readers Death Match group on facebook. Also check out Patronquo.com to read Chapter XIV: The Four Bridesmaids of the Apocalypse. Spread the word. Final edits for the novel are complete and the publisher hunt is on. Stay tuned.

death match: http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=132051640164385&ref=mf

patronqou: http://patronquo.com/story/152/Jacks-Inferno/

Focus Group Part Two

I should really update more often. Eh.

So at this point, some of you have copies of the manuscript for Jack's Inferno. This is what I like to call the extended fluff version. Still needs one final edit to kill off the unnecessary dead weight, most of which is the by-product of trying to up the word count at the last minute. There are still a few sentences that need to be reworded. My earlier drafts had a tendency to got bogged down with pretentious psuedo-literary gibberish that got away from the proper tone of voice in the narration. At some point along the way I discovered the difference between, "I'm writing a book. This is how books are written. What eloquent prose I have." and "Hey dirtbag, got a story for you. Sit down and shut up." But of course, these are minor details. All feedback is appreciated. Criticism will be taken into account, and most likely ignored unless I happen to agree. After all, it's still my book at the end of the day.

That's all for now. Stay tuned.

The Agenda

So here's the plan. First, I need to finish up the interior illustrations for Jack's Inferno. Second comes the final page layout and overall design of the book, plus any last minute edits to the manuscript. Once it's all set in PDF format I'm ready to print. The first edition will be released through my company Degenerate Art Studios. Total creative control, no wait, no hassle. If I get a big shot publisher in the future, then great. In the meantime, I can just print the bastard myself. Then anyone with xerox bootlegs can finally get a real copy.

Volume Two and Volume Three are in the works, plus some short stories featuring some of the secondary characters from Jack's Inferno. Also planning on a full color coffee table book of my artwork illustrating Jack's personal version of Hell entitled, appropriately enough, Drunken Tours of Hell. Possibly some animation projects further down the road, but more on that later.

Jack's Inferno: The Quick Version

Here's the story, more or less...

First page, I'm dead. Death pulls up in a Cadillac, piss drunk and chain smoking. We take a suicide ride straight to Hell. That's how it starts. That was my morning.

Crash landed on the core of the Earth. I woke up on fire. You ever been on fire? Well? Have you? Yeah, I didn't think so. I don't recommend it.

So anyway, I hitch a ride with this trucker that calls himself Coalburner, or Coal for short. Strange cat. For one thing, he's a Judas freak, which I guess must be Hell's answer to the Southern Baptists. Haven't quite figured out his religious views yet, other than the fact that he often confuses Judas Priest lyrics with scripture. Whatever, we all got our own little mythologies. One's as good as the next.

Oh, and here's something else: dinosaurs. They have dinosaurs in Hell. Yeah, I didn't know about it either. My old Sunday school teacher must be delighted. What happened to all the dinosaurs? They all died and went to Hell. Take that, evolution.

Then there's the River Acheron. I got nothing nice to say about that place. Just grab a seat on one of the slave-ships and try to enjoy the ride. When you hit the shore, do yourself a favor--skip the gift shop. Complete waste of time.

Then you've got Arson Hills Trailer Court. It's a flaming white trash kingdom in the middle of a sinister backwoods necropolis. Everyone there is an asshole. Well, except Ricky. Ricky was alright.

Fat Nancy's House of Grits: a greasepit diner atop a hill of bones and surrounded by swampland. The food is shit. The service is worse. The locals are creeps. A fight broke out when we were there. Well...okay, so we started it. Not the point.

Then I was in the woods and some dead deer were hanging out. They all had rifles and they were yelling at me. I don't know, it was weird. And there was a bear there, too. He was drunk and loud and mean. I don't expect all of this to make sense to you.

Next stop was Limbo. Now Limbo is actually a really nice neighboorhood. It's like the suburbs of Hell for the upper class that managed to bribe their way out of the lower realms. And aside from the fact that everyone there is in a secret cult that worships a baby-eating pagan freak-god named Moloch, it's fairly peaceful. Except for the giant robots that occasionally patrol the area.

But that's just the first circle. One down, eight to go.

Excerpts from Jack's Inferno Volume One

***from chapter 6: Of Wrath and Roadkill***

Staring out the window of the car, I see an animal scurrying from tree to tree. It's obscured by the shadows. Looks like a deer. I see more ahead, hiding and watching. They're standing on their hind legs, in hunched poses. Then I get a closer look at one of them. It's mangled and bloodied. Half the skin has been carved away from its face. Split torso. Exposed ribs. A walking carcass, cast aside by some poacher. Resurrected and pissed off.

Oh shit. He's got a gun.

The first shot cracks from the rifle and bounces off the bulletproof windshield. The mutilated hunters begin to come out in full force, each taking a shot at the car. Their rifles are useless. Francis hums cheerfully to himself as bullets harmlessly ricochet left and right. He doesn't speed up. He doesn't swerve. His only real reaction to the situation is to switch the song from Mozart to Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King. I presume it was for dramatic effect. I have to admit, it was a nice touch.

Seems like we're not in too much danger, all things considered. It's going to take a lot more than an angry herd of gun-crazy venison to put down the platinum cruiser.

But not a hell of a lot more.

A chain whips out in front of us from behind a tree. On the end of the chain is a bear trap. It clamps down on one of the front tires in a spring-loaded death grip. Holding the other end of the chain is...

Oh, f**k me. A BEAR?! Seriously?

Welcome to the Forest of Retribution. Yeah, I get it already. Call off the f**king bears. I can't take anymore ironic vengeance today. I don't know if Mother Nature had a hand in this, but if she did she's being a real c*nt about it. Sure, animal rights is a great idea in theory, but passing out a stockpile of loaded firearms to oppressed woodland creatures? That's just a bad idea. Now don't get me wrong--if this were happening to anyone else but me, I'd be laughing my ass off right now. But I ain't laughing.

The bear walks right in front of our car. We hit him (or her, I guess...not gonna dig through its crotch fur to make a genital scan) like a safety test crash into a wall. Good news is the airbags work.

The bear is wailing on the hood of the car like a bi-polar ex-girlfriend in a drunken menstrual hysteria. Only without all the tears and screaming. And maybe a bit less terrifying. Hell, we might even stand a better chance of reasoning with it.

"You there! What do you think you're doing?" Francis, stupidly enough, actually is going to attempt to reason with it.

***

copyright Mike Lamb

The worst focus group ever

Do you have any idea how hard it is to make someone read a book? Because I didn't until I wrote one.

Now this might be a good time to confess that I know absolutely nothing about the technical nuances concerning the art of writing. No academic training in the field whatsoever. Hell, I went to art school. I'm barely even literate. All my books are filled with pictures. Format and punctuation are a mystery to me. But I can tell a story. And I can tell a joke. And I can tell the most preposterous lies about the most improbable things in perfect deadpan. And because I'm older than the internet, I still know how to spell. More or less.

I like to think of Jack's Inferno--not just Volume One, but the entire trilogy--not so much as genre fiction or literary fiction or fantasy or horror...but simply as an epic anecdote. Just a clever and interesting yarn about some crazy shit that happened. Is it true? Of course not. Okay, maybe some of it. Or a lot of it. But it's fiction. My attourney will attest to that. Any similarities between crimes and sins of the author and that of the protagonist are purely coincidental and none of your goddamned business. It's brutal satire and drunken philosophy. It's horror-comedy for the desensitized.

But getting back to the focus group. Because I have no academic credentials, I felt it would be a good idea to distribute some review copies of earlier drafts of the book to a select group of friends in order to get general feedback and proofreading. Here's how that went:

"I wrote a novel."
"That's awesome! I'd love to read it!"
"Okay, here's a copy. You're in the focus group. Let me know what you think."

ONE MONTH LATER
"So what did you think?"
"Haven't started on it yet."
"Huh."

TWO MONTHS LATER
"So did you ever get around to that book?"
"No, I've been really busy."
"Yeah, I know what that's like. I've been busy trying to publish a novel. Well, good luck on that math test."

THREE MONTHS LATER
"So...about that book I wrote..."
"You wrote a book? Cool! What's it called?"

But I did manage to get a few people to read it.
"I had no idea you could write!"
"Neither did I."

THE FOUR BRIDESMAIDS OF THE APOCALYPSE

Art by me. Words by me.