David Foster Wallace: Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. (VIDEO)

He couldn’t have said it better:

The final draft is finished. A few chapters need final proofreading but everything is looking better.

I’m shopping for a a cover artist now but don’t bother me about it here. I’m not giving business to a spammer.

Have a decent week. -JK

Unblogging: A Rant and a Meltdown

Hi All,

As you can see, I pulled the novel from the blog. I did this for a few reasons:

1) The manuscript is riddled with errors and is currently an embarrassment. I aim to fix that. Someday.

a) I hate blogging.

iii) As another blogger put it, the best book promotion blogs reflect a genuine personality. I translate that into meaning that you need a nice headshot and be really appealing and kind to people who you don’t know. It also helps to be photogenic, and a professional writer to start with. As you can probably guess, I’m an asshole (and not the slightest bit photogenic), so the media celebrity thing isn’t going to work for me. At all.

*  It apparently takes an enormous amount of time and energy that I can spend putting together a product that  is actually good. I can’t do that and post enough material to keep people interested.

5) I really hate blogging.

VI)  Not everyone promoting a book is equal. I’ve noticed the most successful bloggers in my network have more-than-adequate finances, family, friends, school resources, connections or simply lots of free time to burn on the fine art of self-promotion (not book promotion so much as self-promotion). I have none of those resources. The funniest part is that you now have an entire industry of self-promoting hacks, like David Gaughran and  Shannon Thompson selling the dream of self-publishing or clogging up blogs with self-promoting likes and up-votes. Publishing has begun to look a lot like Amway. I hate phonies too.

###### Did I mention that I really hate blogging?

23) I have to constantly post to stay relevant, and posting on a guest blog means that I can’t edit my posts. Then my impulsive error-riddled posts just make me look like an idiot.

42) I’m neither a pundit nor an entertainer, but I am a misanthrope and a pessimist. I don’t do werewolves, vampires or self-insertion action kids. I write about young people carrying and using guns to kill adults in a justifiable way. They get as good as they give. People you like, die, horribly and with no hand of god to save them. I write about teenage sex and don’t care whose mind I’m polluting. I glorify militarism and hedonism and challenging social, gender and economic authority un-apologetically.

In other words, I’m naturally inclined to take settled, certain people completely out of all their comfort zones in the most efficient, pithy way possible. You can’t curl up to this book. Ever. It’s neither literary escapism nor mental comfort food. It’s that asshole kicking your chair in the back in a movie theater while making out with his loud, gum-smacking girlfriend reminding you that you don’t control anything–not even yourself.

Once the book is done, I will announce it here and offer it with online booksellers. I will write another one and post in on the same sites. Then another until all nine or ten unappealing pieces of crap don’t sell. If they sell, then great! If they don’t, then the audience has no taste.

Either way, don’t come back here for updates, good luck working on your crappy book and get off my lawn. -JK

Chapter 4: Squad Mates

Joshua leaned forward in the hot shower, so far forward his head rested against the ceramic tile. He took in a deep breath, which roused another cough. Regardless of the aches and pains, he couldn’t help but smile. That was totally worth it, he thought, a grin quickly consuming his face.

He again thought about Esther’s smell, her face, and her chest showing through her tight, clean shirt. He pretended not to notice all that. He figured she was testing him, seeing if he had improved any. He wondered if she actually did that just for him. It would have been the very first time she cared for him in that way.

Joshua reached for the bar of dry soap and began to lather down; he thought about Es. He thought about every inch of her: her elegant face with her full lips and soft nose; her delicate long neck that met her deceptively soft shoulders; her firm back and chest, her slender, toned, brown legs covered with goose bumps from the cold; her sleek, curvy hips that hugged her shorts; her . . .

Chapter 3: Meeting

Guardian Samantha breathed deeply through her nose, enjoying the smell of coffee, which due to the recent reconfiguration in the hot houses, had become an increasingly rare treat. Another rare treat was having a completely private conversation with the Lead Guardian. The dark brown-skinned, gracefully-aging woman with hazel eyes was sitting bolt upright. One of her long, elegant hands was firmly grasping a coffee mug. She was staring intently into the cup, as if the brew could answer all of life’s questions for her.

“How long has it been since you’ve had time to relax, darlin’?” Samantha asked with a cocked eyebrow. The Lead Guardian leaned back in her chair, saying nothing. Samantha waited, studying her old comrade’s face again and again and finding nothing to work with. For once, she couldn’t help but notice that Trainee Esther was a spitting image of the LG. I have no idea how that came to pass, she thought. She knew the LG from the time she was a Trainee. Pulling that stunt isn’t her style, but I can’t think of anyone who could possibly put her up to it, not even him.

Chapter 2: Debriefing

Joshua pushed legs that were ready to quit. He glanced across the other side of the field and saw a speck of Esther in the distance, dashing toward the concrete bunks of the Training Area. She’ll make the cutoff, he thought. Now he had to hold up his end of the bargain.

He dropped into a dry irrigation ditch, awaiting the spring thaw to feed the newly planted crops. After some distance, he leaped out of the ditch, surprising a dozen fleece-clad farming Traders in the fields, busily monitoring the planting robots and otherwise enjoying the early spring air.

The farming Traders were startled but didn’t bother saying anything. Once they realized the fast mover was a Trainee, they quickly returned to their work. Some Trader’s two-year-old, gray-and-black husky joined in the sprint, barking and snarling, but after a few hundred meters, the pup whined dejectedly and returned to his afternoon nap.

Chapter 1: The Dash

“Did you hear that?” Joshua whispered intently. “Trucks. Heavy. Lots of them. Let’s go.”

Esther dropped another tuber in the bag, shaking a bit of dirt off her left hand. Out of reflex she cupped that hand over her forehead and scanned upward into the blue horizon then down toward the opposite tree line, about 5 kilometers off—left to right—in a pattern that didn’t miss any areas.

The only things she could see in that blue sky were a couple of swooping brown hawks. On the ground was the usual scenery: an unnaturally flat and desolate clearing extending into a vast forest of pine in the far distance. The air was almost warm, but she could feel that warmth surrendering to a fading sun in the western sky. The shadows of the pines were growing longer, brushing their backs.

Soon enough, it would be dusk.