Back in the long dark of autumn and winter of 2011, this writer started the first draft of a high-concept, dystopian novel entitled Chemicals.  

While writing it, I listened to the EP Iron by Woodkid on repeat, ad nauseam, until I could understand all his lyrics even if they’re heavily obscured by his French accent.  By the by, check out one of his awesome videos right now! 

Chemicals isn’t my first novel.  That distinction goes to Ten Being The Highest, my first attempt at writing a piece longer than 10,000 words, prompted by NANOWRIMO and an antsy pressure building in my gut and my mind pressing me to give something longer an honest try.  That book is awaiting a good round of editing and its sequel penned before I’m content with its worth.  So Chemicals, as my second go at a novel, will be my first published novel.

I hesitate to label myself as a procrastinator.  It’s not that I don’t deserve the label, it’s just that I’d like to hold off before I decide whether or not I should accept the title.  Ha.  See, most of my procrastination stems from fear.  Big surprise there.  Fear and the desire to get things just so, just perfect enough without rubbing out all the rough, dirty character around the edges of my work.  So I primped Chemicals a little and then left it alone.  I didn’t immediately move on to another story.  What did I do instead?  If you guessed started a business attached to the economy of gold miners in Idaho, you win the giant cookie I’m holding in my hand!  Come get it before I eat it.  You have three seconds.

When I did get back to writing, I fell into plotting comics like Kali and my mind became focused on the books in my series The Blood Zodiac.  Chemicals was always on the back burner.  But I should have learned my lesson from Dirty Dancing.  Nobody puts Baby in a corner.  Or in my case, nobody puts Chemicals in a corner.  Chemicals deserves to be read by someone other than me, swaddled in a blanket, drinking vino verde while my two dogs rassle at my feet.  Chemicals is just as pretty as Jennifer Grey BEFORE the nose job.  It deserves to have people grinding up on it.

I wasn’t sure how I wanted to bring Chemicals to life.  I went back and forth between publishing options before deciding that self-publishing suited me best.  Corvid Tear Media will be releasing Chemicals and I couldn’t be prouder of the author or the publisher.  I’m basically saying I’m proud of myself.

This past month has been a race to learn the basics about publishing, formatting, converting, uploading, and a slew of other verbs dealing with the internets and putting stuff up on it.  I’m nearing the end of the process and couldn’t have done it without the patience and help of several of my dear friends.  They know who they are and they know how much I heart the beegeesus out of them (details on said friends coming in future posts).

One of the most exciting experiences of this whole process was when I saw my book on a Kindle for the first time.  Sure, it was just a test conversion, but it was there, on a reader, and I was looking at it with my own two peepers.  I’ll tell ya, the excitement was palpable.  So palpable I sort of choked on my own spit a little.  But just a little.

So when, you  might be asking, does Chemicals escape my computer and my Kindle and make it out to you fine people?  Well I’m glad you asked.  Because it’s going live in October, as in a week from now.  It’s a beautiful thing, this release date, because the story itself begins in the early days of October.  Except in the world of Chemicals, things go to shit pretty fast.  Let’s hope life doesn’t imitate art.  If it does, I’m sorry.  I’ve destroyed our society.  My bad.

Chemicals Drops October 1st!