delgrosso dot com

Awesome little “Coobie” paper cut-out model. Download the file and construct your own. Put him on your monitor and let him tell you lurid tales of miniature Gothic horror. Hours of fun!

(via Neatorama)

Hey kids, today I posted chapter 2 of Mr. Abernathy. Go download it and put it in your weekend reading queue.

Speaking of reading, that’s something I haven’t done much of lately. Leisure reading, that is. I spend 16 hours a day, usually 7 days a week, reading and writing. But I haven’t cracked open a book just for fun since my week off back in September, and that’s just way too long.

The weather is supposed to be gorgeous here this weekend, so I’m going to find a silly “guilty pleasure” book and spend a few hours reading outdoors. I dunno, maybe something with zombies¹. I think I owe it to my overworked self to let loose with an easy read.

So, other than my serial novel, what’s your most recent “guilty pleasure” read?

So, if you were a working writer with multiple huge deadlines this week, and a new Mac Pro and 30″ Cinema Display showed up on your doorstep this morning, would you:

a) smile happily, put the unopened boxes in a corner, go back to work, and set up the new equipment over the weekend once you had met your deadlines,

or

b) squeal like a preteen girl at a Hannah Montana concert, rush the stuff up to your office, take geeky unboxing photos, set up the new machine, reinstall all of your software and documents, and hope that you can stay up late enough to make up for the roughly 4 hours of lost productivity in an already overscheduled day.

If you answered “a”, then I applaud you and your highly disciplined work ethic. I also herby revoke your nerd card and offer my gratitude that you’re not my writing partner.

The first chapter of my serial novel, Mr. Abernathy, is available for download today.

Now, I’d just like to say up front that I am terrible at self-promotion. It feels like sales to me, and I can’t stand salespeople.

Most of you likely already know about this book, but some of you may not. Either way, I’d really appreciate your help in promoting it if you enjoy the work, or know someone who would. I’m doing this project entirely on my own, strictly for fun as a one-off effort, with no paid or publisher-backed marketing or promotion of any kind. I’m depending exclusively on word-of-mouth buzz to spread it around, because it won’t be any fun for me to keep doing it if I don’t get a large enough reader base.

So I’m asking my current audience to pimp it out for me a bit. First of all, download and read the damn thing. If you like it, then mention it during your podcast, talk about it to your friends, throw a link my way from your blog or whatever site you have influence over. Tie a note on a helium balloon and launch it into the air. Write it in Sharpie on the forehead of a passed-out hobo. Whatever. I just need your help getting some critical mass around this project. You’re all amazingly talented people who I respect and admire (yes, even you), and with your help I think this could be a big success. I’ll even bake you cookies¹.

Now get out there and pimp my prose, peeps. I thank you for it from the bottom of my poor, abused keyboard.