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| January 2006 »
In three days, I'll no longer be a single man. And in four days, we'll be at the Timberline Lodge at Mt. Hood in Oregon. It's common knowledge that parts of the exterior scenes of "The Shining" were filmed at that Lodge, though there is considerable debate on the Internet about that. But no matter, we're going anyway. And fans of my books are excited because I've announced that I'll be blogging from that setting next week. Check back often!
Meanwhile, not a day goes by where I don't receive positive comments on my latest book, "Level Heads XE: The Deluxe Edition." If you are a fan of 'Twilight Zone,' this is the book for you as each story concludes with a Rod Serling-esque ending.
Coming soon, I'll have an interactive story area on this website where I'll start a story and we all can write it together. There will be multiple stories and if any one of them turn out to be worthy, I'll include the story as bonus reading in my next book: "The Rogue."
Some say that I can't say "Merry Christmas," much less enjoy Christmas for what it is. Some say that you'll be offended if I don't wish you a "Happy Holiday." Those same people insist that I participate in the latest social revolution, one which steps on no toes, offends no single person and rolls society out into one flat, tasteless blob of politically correct dough - a thin pastry unseasoned by yeast or any other contaminant. But without that yeast, that ball of political correctness has no life, no spice, no inherent value and no interest to anyone. The spice of life is the uniqueness of each individual and culture. And while we should not intentionally seek to harm or offend anyone, we should, nonetheless, enjoy our rights.
I'm not necessarily a religious person but I value your right to worship. I value your right of expression, even if it goes against my own personal beliefs. You see, I am tolerant. And if variety and uniqueness is the spice of life, intolerance is its poison.
To that end, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy new year. And if Christmas is not what you celebrate or does not fit into your lifestyle or beliefs, no matter. By that sentiment, I also wish you the best of life and luck in love.
As I put it on another blog: "Happy Thankshannukwanzmasgivingday!"
And, to put a commercial spin on it (just to keep THAT vocal segment happy): May you find a Jim W. Coleman novel under your Thankshannukwanzmasgiving tree (if you have one.)
In this blog, I'm going to write a bit about each story in "Level Heads XE: The Deluxe Edition." It will introduce you to the content and also give more information about the stories. The quesion I'm asked most often is this: Where in the WORLD do you come UP with this stuff? In the book, each story is followed by a page or three that answer that question. But I'll elaborate here.
To start, we'll talk about how the book was named and a bit about its cover.
The book opens with "The Haggle," a very humorous story about a self-absorbed young man who is out to buy a truck. Everything else in life - his very-pregnant wife, his irritable bowel syndrome and his job - are secondary. He's in that "buying mode" and nothing is going to stop him. "The Haggle" was inspired by a recent truck purchase I'd made myself but I won't elaborate on that here ... more on that later.
To save money, I bought the standard edition of the truck, the "SE." The "XE" is the deluxe edition. Since the story opens with a humorous tale of a truck purchase, I thought it only fitting to label the book the "XE edition." It's that simple.
You see, this book writing stuff is not rocket science.
Another story, "The Long Flight" is set aboard an intercontinental flight from New York to Amsterdam, hence the airplane. Yet another story, "The Heat Pump," deals with a man whose only joy and companion in life is his brand new heat pump. The heat pump pictured on the cover is the actual heat pump that sits outside my house, photographed with a Canon Digital Rebel SLR.
And the man on the cover? As you may have noticed, he's the same man on my home page (www.jimwcoleman.com). His name is Ralph Evenson. When coming up with ideas for the cover, I needed to find a rough-and-tumble tough guy with whiskers, tattoos, etc. When I ran into Ralph at work, I just knew he was it! With great fear and trepidation, I asked him to model for me. (Go ahead...you ask a big tough guy to model for you and see how far you get thrown across the parking lot!) In all actuality, Ralph is a giant teddy bear with a big heart. He drives a big truck and works in the Bremerton, Wash. area. Say hi to him if you run into him in a grocery store or a neighborhood saloon.
Your best bet is to buy the book today because otherwise, this blog may ruin some of the surprises for you. I would recommend reading my future comments about this book AFTER you read the book itself. That way, it's like coming back for seconds after a perfectly delicious meal. Oh, and after you read it, it's very helpful to go to amazon.com and leave a comment about the book for others to read. As the author, I thank you in advance for that.
I have stated very publicly - and oftentimes controversially - that my novel "Omens" is my favorite of all the novels I have written. I don't dispute that here. But I can tell you that of all the BOOKS I've written, "Level Heads XE: The Deluxe Edition" is my hands-down favorite. And don't buy the first edition, "Level Heads" - get the deluxe version. It's only a dollar or two more and it has far better production quality and new stories.
XE, as I call it, is a perfect entry into my writing for those who have not yet read a Jim W. Coleman book. Basically, it's a collection of short stories written over the last 20 years. Some are very humorous, some are a bit scary, some are creepy and some might just make your toes curl. But one thing they all have in common are their endings - unpredictable and on-the-edge.
You see, my inspiration while writing this book was Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone." Each story is like a "Twilight Zone" episode in and of itself.
A man recognized me on the street the other day and told me that he'd just finished XE. "Jim," he said, "if Rod Serling were still alive, he would tip his hat to you." What a compliment! Another said, "I am halfway through the story about the guy who is trying to quit smoking. You hit it dead on, Jim. Good job!"
The book, newly available on amazon.com is my latest and also my best. Additionally, it contains samples of the three previously-published novels, plus a peek into the upcoming novel: The Rogue.
After each story, you'll find several pages that explain how I got the idea, how the story developed and what inspired me to write it. These are the questions I'm asked most often and this book answers those questions. In almost every case, people are surprised to find out that little, ordinary things we all see and experience every day inspire the stories in the book.
If you are an aspiring writer or if you are just an avid reader, this is a book I would encourage you to get from amazon.com. It makes a perfect gift or ... outside of that, it's what I call perfect "bathroom reading" - short stories that are quick, hard-hitting and thoroughly moving.
There is an area on this blog for each of my novels/books: Secret Things, Glass, Omens and Level Heads XE: The Deluxe Edition. It's a good place to discuss the books if you have read them or for me to elaborate on the books.
I will start with my favorite of the novels, "Omens."
This novel, set in Safford, Ariz., is a spooky, sadistic tale, one laced with the paranormal, and one that comes with a parental warning. This book is not for the faint of heart, nor is it one for the sensitive reader.
When writing this book I had one objective: to scare myself. You see, I've read many so-called horror or "scary" books that totally and completely missed the mark. Rather than being scary, they were simply intriguing at best and formula-material at worst. Some, like movies we've all seen, were perfectly predictable and/or were interwoven with characters and scenes that were so completley unbelievable as to be ridiculous.
So when I sat down to write "Omens," I wanted to write something that would one, be believable and two, scare the pants off of me. And also, I wanted a werewolf or some other mythical creature in it. And there was the challenge - how do you write a "werewolf story" and keep it believable? How do you do this without alienating readers who thrive on werewolf lore?
To accomplish this, I often experienced elements of the book firsthand. I interviewed topless dancers, physics and an El Paso police chief. When writing the "boat chase" scene out on the dark lake, I sat on the Silverdale pier and dangled my feet down into the black water, praying nothing would nibble on my toes. I climbed electrical towers, felt the bite of cactus thorns beneath my bare feet and got a severe all-over sunburn. In doing so, I believe I was able to add a real intensity to many of the scenes in the book.
And coming from a background in which my siblings and I had endured varying degrees of abuse, I was able to write with sometimes bitter and angry undertones.
This book, as with all my books, does not glorify abuse but rather, illustrates that it really is a serious social issue and that there are unspeakable atrocities occuring behind closed doors in every town and city you could name. And that, alone, is frightening.
 Here's a guy who might have spent too much time down at my favorite watering hole, The Manette Saloon. Contributed by Ed Hallda.
Last week, I attended the memorial service for a good friend and fellow Kiwanian, Tom Stansbery. It was a very moving service, and I'm proud to have known Tom. After the ceremony, I did what is customary to me - I slipped around the corner to the Hi-Tide Bar to get a beer and to unwind. In the alley, I ran into a character from one of my books but this was different - it was a character I'd not yet written, but I knew immediately that this character was something that only I could create.
That being said, I'm not sure that I can even capture this character into bits, bytes or paper.
He was a tall chap, at least as tall as me. He was in his fifties or very late forties. Or seventies - I couldn't tell. His clothes stank and he pulled a little dolly of personal belongings.
"It's you!" he spat, turning toward me as I walked past.
"Beg pardon?"
"It's you!" he hissed, his eyes bulging from his head in what could only be described as the byproduct of repressed anger. "Don't think I didn't recognize you!"
"I don't believe I've had the pleasure..." I offered warily, stopping with what I hoped would be taken as bravado. Inside, I was wondering how I could speed-dial 911 on my cell phone.
And here's where it gets crazy - and beyond my ability to capture here.
"You took my uncle's business and with your stupid regulations you intruded in my personal life and it cost me my wife and my job and don't think I don't recognize you."
I stood motionless.
"Oh yeah. Remember Washington D.C.? Well I do. I bet you weren't even briefed. Were you?"
"No," I replied. At this point, I knew that I was into a character. And I wanted to play it out.
He shuffled up into my personal space -- to close. I could smell odors from him that I wish I had never smelled.
"Oh yeah," he said, his eyes narrowing to slits. "I know. And I remember you. And you're going to pay. My uncle, my wife, my life, my job. You and your counterparts with all the coverups and ..."
At this point, he babbled incoherently. It literally was impossible to understand what he was talking about.
I nodded politely from time to time, my finger on the speed-dial in my jacket pocket.
Before too long, I realized that he wasn't going to hurt me, though he kept threatening too. I also discovered that I am a CIA agent and that I murdered someone and that because of what I did in the government, this man had lost everything and that he knew all about it and he was going to blow the lid off of it all and expose me for what I was - a traitor to this country and to its citizens.
His eyes weren't slits at this point - they were wide orbs of barely contained anger and glistened with hate. Now, I began to fear for my well-being.
He spoke in tongues. I pointed that out to him, still stringing the character along. That only provoked him further.
I thought to myself: I HAVE to get that audio recorder to capture moments like these so I can write them into the character later.
Unfortunately, his babblings were so insane that to even capture moments of them would strain credibility. And then, I didn't care about the character. And, oddly, I didn't care about him. Dumb fuck could plunge into the water of Puget Sound and I wouldn't care. I didn't care about his wife or his uncle or his conspiracy or Viet Nam or whatever he wanted to blame his situation on. I've seen the homeless and deranged and I care about them. But I have no compassion on some quack who confronts civilians in an alley, especially civilians fresh from the funeral of a friend.
I could put this character into a book, but no one would believe it. You can't make this kind of stuff up. So I'm going to forget about this forever, but I had to document it here.
Just in case my boss at the CIA wonders who told the quack in the alley that we killed his uncle. That was supposed to be classified.
On this website (in the "About the Author" section) I proudly proclaim that my favorite read in the whole wide world is "Twilight Eyes" by Dean R. Koontz. However, that may no longer be the case.
Of course, those who read far enough down the page and those who know me well know also that "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera also is a favorite. In many ways, that book, much like the movie "Pink Floyd The Wall," is also a religion of sorts to me. I can't tell you how long it's been since I read the Bible, but I can tell you how long it's been since I read all or part of "Unbearable." Last week.
But there's another.
I'm fond of hot baths at night. Writing is hard work. So is web programming. After a long, hard day of toiling with words and functions, I like to take my bath. And now, I'm reading "Naked came the Sasquatch" by John Boston. I've read it about ten or twelve times before, most often while suntanning out back, out of sight of the neighbors.
Being a newspaperman, this book strikes a chord with me. Being a sasquatch fan, it strikes yet another chord. And being a flippant, cynical son-of-a-gun, it strikes yet a third. It's a great book and a fantastic read. Try it. But good luck finding a copy. I just bought my third copy on Ebay. After a while, the sun tan lotion tends to break down the composition of the pages - they melt into some weird out-of-this-world greasy texture.
You'll love John Boston, and you'll love his book. Tuberski is a name you will come to know as a brother and a friend (among other things.)
Let me know your thoughts on this book. Or share your favorite book with the rest of us. Ten bonus points if it's one of mine. :)
Okay, so this forum is open. What have been your successes, failures with print on demand book publishers and book publishing companies? I'm really hoping to get some feedback here so that other writers and aspiring authors can avoid pitfalls and find success with their trade. I have successes and horror stories (no pun intended). Authorhouse gets a four out of five stars. Airleaf (formerly Bookman Marketing / Bookman Publishing) gets worse than an "F."
I will elaborate in this forum on Airleaf (formerly Bookman Marketing / Bookman Publishing) sometime in the future. It's been more than a year and still no resolution, despite the fact that I retained a lawyer and got the barest minimal capitulation from Bookman. I will continue to warn writers of that company and to spit on their brand until - and don't hold your breath - that there is some resolution.
On the other hand, I will continue to hold on to a belief that Authorhouse has my best interests in stake, despite an arrogant and barely-explained new policy of charging the author to keep their books in print listed with major resellers like amazon.com. Again, more on that later.
What are YOUR experiences? I, like you, have books ready or nearly ready to publish and I wish to avoid the type of headaches and/or financial loss that I experienced in the past. Let's bypass the nitty and get down to the gritty and talk, author to author.
And you. Yes, I see you there. You want to publish your first book. This should be your starting point. Ask your questions or talk about your previous experiences. The music has started ... can you hear it?
Let's dance. The floor is all yours. I promise not to step on your toes...
On January 1, 2006, Linda and I will be married at our home in Port Orchard. The Rev. Pablo Bastard will officiate. Hey, I've tried the real reverends twice and THAT didn't work, so we're going for some flair now. Pablo has asked for a bottle of Crown Royal in return, and I've already purchased it.
We will honeymoon at Oregon's Timberline Lodge at Mount Hood. This is, of course, a location where 'The Shining' was filmed. What better place for a horror writer to spend a honeymoon?
I hope to update this blog while on location in Oregon and will let you know if I see dead people in bathtubs or if the fire hoses start chasing me down the hall. And, admittedly, anything is possible, especially if I take a bottle of Crown Royal with me...
Stay tuned to this blog and feel free to comment and participate anytime you read something that strikes your fancy or sends a chill down your spine. That is, after all, where I specialize.
Welcome to HORROR FROM THE 'LEFT COAST' - a personal blog by horror/suspense author, Jim W. Coleman.
Jim W. Coleman lives in Port Orchard, Washington, with his wife, Linda, and three daughters.
Born in Phoenix, Coleman is a 1982 graduate of Glendale High School. He later attended Arizona State University. He's maintained an art business since 1985 and exhibits original and reprinted art pieces at art shows and community festivals throughout the Pacific Northwest. Additionally, he is very active with the Port Orchard and Bremerton Kiwanis Clubs and with local PTA's in his school district.
A “political junkie," Coleman dreams of one day running for a public office.
He has been a yarn-spinner and storyteller since childhood—a side occupation that has been profitable, but also has gotten him into hot water on a number of occasions.
His hobbies include that which is self-evident (artwork and writing), but also include gardening, high-end digital photography, music, baking, cooking, home canning, sunbathing and quitting smoking.
Despite the dark nature of his writing and artwork, Coleman is a fun-loving, optimistic guy—usually the life of the party. Go ahead and invite him to one...but don't be surprised if you end up in some bizarre compromising position in his next book.
Home page:
http://www.jimwcoleman.com
Email:
jim3@jimwcoleman.com
AOL IM:
omensauthor
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