My story "Testimony" is featured today over at Out of the Gutter. My thanks to Court Merrigan and the rest of the folks at OFTG for making it happen. Some readers might believe the story experimental in form, but I would have to disagree. If anything, I think it's more traditional in form than what we all now consider "traditional." I'll talk more about that later this week, but for now check out the story. Be prepared, though, it is rather disturbing.
Our Father, The Music Teacher
I haven't written or published much flash fiction for awhile. In fact, it's been over a year. Obviously my attention has been elsewhere. This isn't to say that I won't get the flash fiction bug again one day, but right now my workload seems to be novel- and novella-length works. Because, you know, I have bills to pay.
Anyway, the point of all this is I'm excited to tell you I have a new flash piece over at Matter Press. It's called "Our Father, the Music Teacher." I hope you enjoy it.
I wanted to include some audio here of me reading the story, but quite honestly I just don't have the extra time. If you've noticed, I haven't really been keeping this blog going as regularly as I used to. For a few weeks I was reading chapters from The Inner Circle and posting them every Friday, with the idea of posting a new chapter until the novel's release. But then I missed a week, and when nobody said anything, I got curious and let another week go by and then another week. As much as I enjoyed reading the chapters, time has become more important than ever to me right now, so I figured if nobody was listening to them, I wasn't going to waste my time. (Believe it or not, despite the short length of the chapters, it can take between a half hour and an hour to read it, edit it, get it uploaded, etc.)
Anyway, hopefully one of these days I'll be able to keep up with the blog. Until then, read the story, why don't you?
Dear UK Readers
CreateSpace has finally made it possible to sell directly through Amazon.co.uk. Which means that if you wanted to read any of my novels but don't have an ereader, you can now order from Amazon and the shipping won't be as crazy as if I were to ship them from my side of the pond. Though, of course, if you ever wanted a signed copy, email me and we'll figure something out. For now, you can see what titles are available here.
Giving Away The Needle
- Control by Matthew C. Funk
- White Haze by Doc O’Donnell
- Nine Hole Caddy by Scott Morse
- Finn’s Missing Sister by Jen Conley
- She Don’t Eat No Meat by Kent Gowran
- Smothered and Covered by Tom Barlow
- Haymaker by Nik Korpon
- Empty Hours by Loren Eaton
- Smiles by Jeffery Hess
- The Spin Out by William Dylan Powell
- Mistake by A.A. Garrison
- Bad for Business by Carlos Orsi
- Mr. Mockingbird Drive by Robert Swartwood
- Push Comes to Shove by BV Lawson
- Ordo ad Chao by Benoit Lelièvre
- Right Where She Wants Him by Meriah L Crawford
- A Dog Named Buddy by Chris La Tray
- Paying It Off by Kieran Shea
My story "Mr. Mockingbird Drive" is straight-up crime. Here's the opening:
They wait until he finishes with his transaction before they make their move.
Taking his card back from the machine, putting it in his wallet along with the twenty-dollar bills, he turns around with his head down and starts to take a step forward and doesn’t even hear them when they walk right up to him, Tyshawn already with his gun out and pointed at the man’s head.
“Freeze, motherfucker.”
The man freezes. Doesn’t even look up at them, just keeps staring down at his wallet.
Julio glances around the bank parking lot, sees no trouble, knows they have to hurry anyway. “We goin for a ride, mi amigo.”
The man still hasn’t looked up. His black leather wallet shakes in his hands.
Tyshawn steps forward, presses the barrel of his gun against the man’s head. “Yo, he’s talkin to you.”
The man raises his head, but in a slow, cautious way, Julio happy to see the fear in the man’s eyes.
“Your keys,” Julio says, motioning to the man’s BMW behind them.
The man’s lips tremble. “My—my—my keys?”
“To your fuckin car, dickhead,” Tyshawn says, pressing the barrel against the man’s head once again.
The man’s hands are shaking so bad now that he drops the wallet. It hits the ground with a dry thud. The man looks down, looks back up, raises his hands slowly.
“I have to reach into my pocket,” he says.
Julio says, “Keys better be what comes out, or else my boy here will blow your face off.”
The man reaches into his pocket. He brings out a set of keys.
Tyshawn grabs them from the man’s hands, tosses them back to Julio. Julio catches them, smiles, says, “Now get in the car.”
“What? But I thought—I thought you just wanted my car!”
“No way, Mr. Mockingbird Drive. We want a whole lot fucking more.”
Wanna read the rest of this story, and all the other stories in this issue? Of course you do! You can order your copy here, or you can enter to win a signed copy that I'm giving away (or, if you're adventurous, you can do both). Every time I do a giveaway I try something different, so here's what we're going to do this time. To enter the giveaway, you need to utilize social media. Either you can tweet the following (I've made it easy for you to copy and paste because I'm just that swell of a guy):
Look! @RobertSwartwood is giving away a copy of @needlemagnoir! http://bit.ly/GAcsxn
Or you can share the link to this post on Facebook, saying the same thing (again, copy and paste):
Look! Robert Swartwood is giving away a copy of Needle Magazine!
Or you can share the link to this post on your blog, Tumblr, etc. Whatever it is, let me know then in the comments section. This giveaway goes until the end of the month, when a random name will be selected. Ready? Go!
The Second 10,000
In case you're extremely new to this blog, you know that last year I really took a chance and jumped into the whole self-publishing game. It was, of course, a risk, but one that I felt confident about. In January of last year I sold only a handful of ebooks because I didn't have many ebooks available. But the more ebooks I started putting out there (especially the novels), the more I sold, until come the beginning of December and I sold my 10,000th ebook of the year. It was a big deal for me, I'll tell you what. And, well, I was going through my February sales report tonight and realized that sometime in the past week or two, I passed my 10,000th ebook for 2012. Granted, it helps that I ran those special promotions on a few ebooks (notably Man of Wax and No Shelter), and yes, I'm including borrows, but still, just over two months to sell 10,000 ebooks ain't too shabby. I'd love to think that the sales will progress throughout the year, but I'm a cynical person and try to be realistic and know that sales could slow (or, God forbid, stop) at any time. After all, whether or not a book sells is completely out of my hands. The only thing I can control is just how good it is. And so I'll see you all next week, because I have a lot of writing to do over the weekend. Have a great St. Patrick's Day.