February Contest!

Pocket Novels are way cooler than regular novels and to prove it we're hosting a contest that's free to enter and easy to win. On top of that, the prizes are one-of-a-kind items worth more than the books we sell. But let's not jump ahead of ourselves with talk of prizes. First, I'll tell you how to WIN!

The contest is simple. All you do is tell your friends to visit our website (pocketnovelpublishing.com) and order a book... or two... or eight. When they get to the shopping cart, there's a Notes Blank. Have them type in your name as the person who referred them.

At the end of the month, we'll count up the orders and award two prizes. One will be for the person who had the most new referrals. The other will be for the person who sold the most books. So if you bring in a ton of new customers you'll be rewarded, or you can be rewarded for bringing in a few customers who just really like to buy all the books.

So jump on Facebook and tell all your friends what to do. At the end of February, we will count up the orders and announce the winners.

Stay in touch. You won't believe what the prizes are going to be.
(Hint: The first prize costs around $35.00)

Ps. You can indeed be your own referral if you order Pocket Novels. Also, two random NEW readers will receive a really awesome gift courtesy of Grangie's Gifts!

Story Profile: Grief

“Grief” is a story about a young woman named Melissa who is attempting to deal with the various stages of the grief process after the loss of her life partner. I wrote this story in an attempt to highlight the grief process, drawing on and inspired by my own experiences with grief and loss, the experiences of close friends, and my work in the field of human services and grief and loss counseling.

 

I turned and left the coffee shop, went back out into the cold. I headed in the direction of my apartment, but I knew I wasn't going home; the idea was to get away from Susan, to find someplace where she wasn't likely to be, but where? She'd lived in this city her entire life, her ghost floated over every street corner, she was in every window in every building, every brick and inch of mortar, every moment of the sidewalks. She was in the snow, in the rain and sunshine, in the leaves laying dead in the gutters. I'd grown up in Darlington too, but the city had always belonged to her.

I stopped at a convenience store and bought a pack of cigarettes, thought about getting a bottle. Who would know? But I couldn't do it; for me drinking was slow suicide, and if I was going to do something like that, I'd have to do it quickly.

Back out on Olsen Street, getting closer to home. I came up to a bus stop, sat on the bench and lit a cigarette, my mind blank. I tried not to think, tried not to see myself the way other people saw me, or would see me if they knew what was in my heart: just a poor dumb dyke still pining away for her long lost love. It was strange; everyone experiences pain in love, everyone loses somebody, but how many people really make the effort to empathize? I'd lost more than all the lovers in the world. I'd lost the rest of my life. Who could even understand that?

Anatomy of a Pocket Novel Cover

As I've said before, Pocket Novels are not like regular novels. For one, they're quite a bit smaller since they're short stories, not novels. But the length of the story is only part of what separates Pocket Novels from regular books. Much of the difference lies in the colorful wrapper.

In this case, maybe you can judge a book by its cover.

With fifteen years of professional experience in the art of graphic design, specializing in print media, our artist carefully plans, lays out, and renders each Pocket Novel cover, producing a work of art that both promotes the book and represents the overall tone and meaning of the story. When you look at the cover, it should inspire the same feelings that the story within will. This is why we get so many compliments on our covers. That awesome cover art is just a matching intro to the fantastic story behind it.

The back cover of our Pocket Novels is where the real differences show up. At first glance it might look like a tradition novel back, but then you'll start to notice certain features that you might associate with movies, comics or video games. These differences, which we hope will one day be adopted by every major publisher, are currently exclusive to Pocket Novels.

There's the blurb of course, the short description that tells you, the reader, exactly what the story is about without giving away any of the surprising bits that lay in store. What begins with the image on the front is driven home by the careful wording on the back. The story and its unique tone are summed up and presented here so you can decide if this will be a gift for your nephew or if you're keeping this one for yourself.

We said we did things with our covers that other publishing companies don't do, and here's the first. Just beside the Pocket Novel logo, you'll notice the story's genre clearly listed. When flipping through a stack of our stories, you can easily find them listed by genre. Looking for Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Mystery, Suspense, etc.? We proudly list our genres for your convenience. No more wondering. We openly tell you.

But the differences don't end there. Is the book suitable as a gift for your nephew? Will his mom call you up the day after Christmas, furious, because the innocent-looking book contains and explicit love-scene on page 16? Not if you can take the split-second to read what's located in the lower right corner of the back cover. Printed plain as day is the story's rating. All Ages, Teen, Mature. And we don't just rate the stories just like games and movies, we tell you exactly why it has that rating. No unpleasant surprises. No furious mothers. Just one more convenience to make your decisions that much easier.

What's that printed below the genre? What do those four words proclaim? Surely it can't be. I haven't seen that in 20 years! But it's true. Pocket Novels are printed right here in the United States of America, supporting local jobs and local families. Always have been. Always will be. Period. No outsourcing to foreign countries. No sweatshops. No slave labor. Just honest, hard-working individuals that you may bump into on the streets of this great nation. All our books are produced by a small, local printer. And that's how it's going to stay. Yes, that is a promise.

Finally, last but not least, is our logo. Pocket Novels. At the bottom left, proudly proclaiming that The Short Story Is Back!

Author Interview: Henry Moon Fortune

WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO BECOME A WRITER? When I was fifteen I had to read Albert Camus’ novel The Plague for a class I was taking, and I was so impressed by it that I decided, “I want to write stories like that.”

DO YOU GET YOUR INSPIRATION FROM A PARTICULAR SOURCE? Most of my inspiration comes from my own life experience, the things I’ve learned and the conclusions I’ve drawn from living life.  I do get the occasional idea from something I’ve read in the news, or else a scene or situation in a novel that wasn’t explored to a satisfactory extent.

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR FIRST POCKET NOVEL.I started writing “Grief” in 1995, primarily as a personal response to the death of a close friend.  It took me several months to write it, and even though I’ve written four novels, I think this one story was probably the most difficult piece of literature I’ve ever produced.  But it helped in my healing process, and I hope it can help others in theirs.



WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO PUBLISH WITH POCKET NOVELS? When I first learned of Pocket Novels and their mission to revive the dime novel, I thought that was an excellent idea.  I checked out their website, learned more about their operation, and decided that I wanted to contribute to this new direction in publishing.  I believe it will be a great thing for the world of literature.

WHAT'S THE MOST DIFFICULT PART OF THE WRITING PROCESS?  Actually starting a new project; I might have a story outlined from start to finish, but for me the most difficult part is getting those first few sentences and paragraphs out onto the page.

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE PART OF THE WRITING PROCESS? When my characters begin to take on a life of their own and start writing the story for me, even if they take it in a direction I hadn’t intended; it’s then that I know I’m onto something good.

DO YOU THINK THAT WRITING SHORT STORIES (POCKET NOVELS) IS HARDER OR EASIER THAN WRITING NOVELS?  Definitely much harder.  Because of their brevity, pocket novels have to be more focused and compact, ideas have to be fully explored with a limited number of words, and so choosing the right words and still managing to tell the complete story is much more challenging than writing novels.



WHO ARE YOUR FAVORITE AUTHORS/STORIES/GENRES? I could probably fill an entire page with just a list of my favorite writers.  The top few would include Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Jack Kerouac, Albert Camus, Vladimir Nabokov, Allen Ginsberg, Sarah Schulman, Stephen King, and Gregory Maguire.  My favorite books would  include most of the books these fine writers have produced.



ANY PARTICULAR GENRES YOU LIKE WRITING MORE THAN OTHERS? I write almost exclusively in the mainstream/literary genre, though recently I’ve taken to experimenting with a fantasy novel.

DO YOU HAVE ANY INTERESTING WRITING QUIRKS? I don’t think so.  The only odd thing I can think of is that, with the occasional exception (like the story “Grief”), I tend to write my stories and novels solely from an idea, without any kind of outline, or even plan of how to get from beginning to end.



DO YOU HAVE ANY NON-WRITING PASSIONS?  Not really.  Writing is about the only passion I indulge, though I am addicted to the arcade game Space Invaders.

Story Profile: Bonnie vs. The Zombies

Writers should not read about zombie survival during a major natural disaster, but in 1995 that's exactly what happened. Hurricane Rita tore through my state and knocked out power for weeks. The roads were blocked by downed trees and no one could come in, get out, or make phone calls. Naturally, I was seeing zombies shambling about behind every chunk of debris that littered the roads.

Sometime later, a dear friend of mine asked me to write a story with her as the main character. Thus my post-hurricane zombie story was born. My friend, tough, sassy, fearless, became Bonnie in more ways than one. After completion of the story, I tagged the fictional name on her and there it stuck. It was probably the worst Christmas present ever. Sorry Bonnie, but for better or worse, you've been immortalized.

"Bonnie, get the gun."

She hurried to the back of the room and removed a pistol from its holster. She thumbed back the hammer and looked at Troy. Never could Bonnie have imagined that she would be drawing down on another human being, but now the situation was thrust upon her, and she had to take action. She stared into his lifeless eyes, into his blank expression as he attempted to bite her friends.

No, she was not drawing down on a human being. Whatever it was that had invaded and attacked them only resembled a human, and the longer she watched him, the less human he seemed.

Bonnie shut her left eye, took aim and squeezed off a shot. The bullet passed through his left shoulder, exploding the joint as it exited. They expected a cry of pain, a scream, and for Troy to jerk away. But he failed to even flinch. The pain did not even register.

Bonnie fired a second shot that ruptured his torso and obviously damaged his spine, as his legs went limp. Still he tried to squirm free and bite.

"Shoot him in the face," Joe yelled an instant before Bonnie reacted. Troy's head came apart as the hollow point ripped through his skull, spraying blood and brains across the room. The lifeless, ruined corpse dropped limp and Joe and T.L. released their hold on the thing.

"Someone tell me that didn't just happen," Bonnie said, shaking her head.

"Bonnie," Joe said quietly as he rose to his feet. "You just killed a zombie."

Story Profile: Pyro

"What should I write about?" I had asked one of my younger brothers. For me, younger brothers are like locusts. There are too many to count and they're always eating my food.

"Write about a pyromaniac," he replied without hesitation.

I'd never written about a pyro, but figured it couldn't be that difficult. I imagined someone with a fascination that became an addiction. Then I started researching interesting ways to create fire. Well, I researched a little, and then I started to recall some of the ways that I had created fire when I was a kid. So maybe it wasn't too much of a stretch for me to connect with the character in Pyro, which was probably why it's told as a first person narrative.

The story flowed rather easily, wrapping itself up in just two writing sessions. I polished it up and let some people read it. Though it was one of my earlier short stories, it's still one of my favorites, which probably says some things about me.

Anyway, when I was ten, the new digit birthday (the only time in life when your age gets another digit unless you live to be a hundred) my mom lit the candles on my cake just before she realized the camera was in the other room. She ran off to fetch her aged Canon to snap a shot of me blowing out my candles, and for thirty seconds I was there with my friends, unsupervised.

To this day I'm not sure why I did it, but as soon as she turned around, I slid the cake over, pushing it across the table, allowing it to settle beneath the white drapes. Before she had the camera in her hands, the cloth was flaming and my friends were laughing, most of them at least. The others gasped, then screamed.

Mom rushed in, some of my friends rushed out and I just sat there. She ran to the table, dropping her camera on the floor, then ran over to the sink to grab the fire extinguisher. As soon as her hand touched the red cylinder, she ran back to the table to evacuate us from the area. Jerking me up by the arm, she flung me back. She panicked for another few seconds, then returned to the sink to actually pick up the fire extinguisher this time.

After fumbling with the pin for God only knows how long, she managed to spray down the table, the cake, the wall, the floor and the window. Only the last little bit even hit the drapes that were almost burnt out by that time.

Of course she beat the hell out of me for that stunt, but despite the fact that I couldn't sit down for almost an hour, I didn't regret it. Not after realizing the power I had over order and chaos, creation and destruction. With no more effort than it takes to pass the peas, I managed to unravel two days of planning, an hour and a half of baking cake and cookies and six dollars worth of ice cream. I don't even know how much those curtains were worth, but we had a black spot on the ceiling that wouldn't come off for four years.

When the air conditioner went out and the whole trailer turned into an oven, if you stood beside the window, you could smell that birthday fire, even though it had been painted over.

After that I was hooked.

Author Interview: Jason Foux

WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO BECOME A WRITER?

One parent is creative and the other is a great story teller, so I didn't really have a choice in the matter. Stories started happening in my head and I started writing them down. The more I wrote, the more they happened. Now it's sort of an addiction. I can't go too long without getting my fix.

DO YOU GET YOUR INSPIRATION FROM A PARTICULAR SOURCE?

Music is a big source of inspiration. It helps me color a scene to give it the desired feel and portray the appropriate emotions. If I'm writing a fast paced scene, I use fast music to inspire me while I write.

As far as where I get my ideas, I'm not certain. Some of them just appear, popping up like a memory of something that never happened. For some, I'll see or hear about something and say 'What if' and that usually gets me into trouble because my imagination takes over and there's no stopping it after that. And sometimes I'll be in a certain mood or a situation and it just feels like a story is waiting to happen. The setting is right, like the opening scene of a movie and the story grows from that.

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR POCKET NOVELS?

The first is Pyro. It's a first-person narrative. The narrator is recalling his long and storied relationship with his one true love; fire. he's not a bad guy, he just likes burning things and the power that the ensuing chaos gives him. A girl once told me that when she read the story she could see the character in some bar narrating his life over a beer. That's exactly how I tried to write it.

Bonnie Versus the Zombies is a bit of an odd story. Well, how it came about is. The story itself is probably exactly what you expect it to be. How it came about was like this. Hurricane Rita destroyed my part of the state, and in the post-apocalyptic setting that was once my hometown, my brothers and I ran around and explored the area, talking about how it would be the perfect time for a zombie outbreak. I wasn't that into zombies at the time, but the idea seemed fun. A dozen zombie movies and a few books later, I was ready to write a novel. The novel was introduce by the short story in question that doubled as a birthday present for a friend. Now the story itself is pretty simple and relatively close to actual events. After a major hurricane lays waste to Louisiana, three friends find that a portion of the population that hadn't evacuated had turned into zombies. If they're to survive, they must rely on each other and find a way to escape… if escape is possible. That's pretty much what happened after Hurricane Rita… sort of.

DESCRIBE YOUR NORMAL WRITING PROCESS.

There's not much normal about it. It starts when some stray idea latches onto my brain like a tick and won't let go. It's usually something like this: "Did that singer just say 'what if it was paradise' or 'what if it was parasites'?" And I get way too excited at the possibilities. Then I start brainstorming, letting my overactive imagination run wild with the idea. Basically, I cut the leash and turn it loose. When it's had its fun, it brings the idea back, but only after much gnawing and slobbering. It has then turned into something like this: "So this alien parasite gets inside a person and uses chemicals to alter the host's behavior to ensure its own survival." Then I remember something that I once saw about parasites and snails and birds and I incorporate things that actually happen into the story to make it more realistic. That way, if someone says that my story is too far fetched, I can say "there are actual parasites that take control of a snail's brain and force it up on a high branch so that a bird will eat it, allowing the parasite to infect the bird." Then there's this long process where I'm working on the characters, plot, timeline of events, conflict, resolution, etc. That part is pretty stressful. It's like trying to set up a tent from the inside. The more I try, the more things keep falling down on my head and nothing wants to take shape. Finally, I get it set up, step outside, and that's when I start seeing all the wrinkles. After some more time, I get those ironed out and I can write the blasted thing. by this point I'm so frustrated with the story that I pretty much hate it. So I write it for the sake of defeating it. There's usually some cursing, screaming, throwing of pens, and long walks to prevent me from losing my temper and going postal on a whole coffee shop full of people who don't deserve it because the characters don't do what I tell them to do, but in the end the story gets finished.

Told you it wasn't normal.

WHAT'S THE MOST DIFFICULT PART OF THE WRITING PROCESS?

Those damned characters. I spend days, weeks, or even months carefully and meticulously constructing the perfect plot outline just to have a character go off and deliberately disobey me. People get killed, the plot gets derailed, and the entire outline has to be scrapped and rewritten. We writers have far less control over our characters that one might think. In fact, we have very little control. They do what they will and we writers just type what happens. I guess I'm more like a reporter. I'll put my spin on things, but really I'm just telling you what happened in my own words. And that sucks because I spend a lot of time on my outlines.

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE PART OF THE WRITING PROCESS?

It's a tossup between two things. First is the actual act of writing. Creating a story from the careful arrangement of letters on a page is just magical. There's nothing like it. For me, the act of writing is very fulfilling despite the stresses and frustrations. I have to write. The stories inside me have to get out or I'll go crazy, and releasing them makes me happy.

Then there's the feedback. I'll get an email from a reader that says "Reading your novel has become part of my morning routine. I read a chapter before work every day." I write for myself, but hearing things like that is such an added and unexpected bonus that I'm not sure what to do with the compliment. So I just smile and do my best to not disappoint with the next story/chapter/novel.

DO YOU THINK THAT WRITING SHORT STORIES (POCKET NOVELS) IS HARDER OR EASIER THAN WRITING NOVELS?

I think they're about the same. A novel gives the writer more time to develop the characters and story, but the Pocket Novel allows for less complex works. Some stories can only be novels because there's so much that has to go into them. Some have to be shorts because it's not about the complexities but about a central idea and stretching it too far will dampen it.

WHAT AUTHORS DO YOU ADMIRE/READ MOST?

H.P. Lovecraft has been a favorite for over a decade for his use of psychological suspense and being the only author who can instill in me a sense of impending doom even though I know it to be fiction. (At least, I hope Lovecraft wrote fiction) Neil Gaiman is another. His stories are always so rich and unique.

WHAT DO YOU WANT READERS TO KNOW ABOUT YOU AND YOUR WRITING?

They need to know that my work is the greatest ever (don't tell them that it's not true). In all seriousness I want to push boundaries and write things that other people haven't written before. I know that everyone says that, and and serious writer should. I try to blur the lines between good and evil, pull stunts, break the rules. I want to try new things and take the reader along with me and I want it to be convincing. If my character wants to commit suicide, can I convince the reader to go along with it? Can I convince the reader that it's for the best? Can I convince the reader to hope that the character is successful in his attempt? And if he isn't successful, can I make the reader sad that the character wasn't able to accomplish the task? That's my goal. I want the reader to live the story with the characters and for the story to be as rich and unpredictable, yet believable, as real life.

ANY PARTICULAR GENRES YOU LIKE WRITING MORE THAN OTHERS?

Sparkly Vampire Teen Stalker Romance. Or maybe not. Mostly I write modern mostly-realistic stories with elements of humor, crime and dark drama, but I've also done zombies, vampires, fantasy, horror, mystery, sci-fi, pear trees, flaming hurricanes, train rides with the devil and a mutiny on a three-man fishing boat and I've had a blast writing all of them. Currently I'm on an apocalypse kick, but who knows what will be next? I sure don't.

DO YOU HAVE ANY INTERESTING WRITING QUIRKS?

I sometimes type the words of a story while singing the words to whatever song I'm listening to. The weird part is that I don't recall what I typed until I go back and read it… and it always makes sense and doesn't contain Rod Stewart lyrics. Possibly the oddest thing is that one character in particular seems to be a powerful influence on me while I'm writing one of his stories. Whenever I work on a Jericho Mills story (a series about an alcoholic with a remote viewing problem) I tend to start talking like him. It wouldn't be so bad if Jericho Mills wasn't a dyed in the wool bastard. I've found myself saying things that I would have never said before I started writing his stories.

WHAT WAS THE FIRST PIECE YOU EVER WROTE?

The Hunted was about a guy being pursued by a killer who won't die. It was basically Friday 13th, or at least my impression of it based off what I'd seen from the previews. I was 9 when I wrote it… on a camping trip… with pencil colors. It was bad. Very bad. But it was also illustrated.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PIECE TO DATE?

That's a tough one. Maybe Flare, my vision of the world after a technology-frying solar flare sends us all back to the dark ages. I had a lot of fun with that one, but it was difficult to write. Not from the effort or length or detail, but because of what happens in the story. A lot of bad things had to happen to turn the main character from the everyman at the beginning of the story to the person he is at the end and to be convincing, I had to be… thorough. I have been told that some parts of that story were difficult to read. Well, they were difficult to write. But the characters and the story and the setting and the details all fell into place and I enjoyed writing that novel something fierce. I think it's my favorite… but I could name a dozen other pieces that could be favorites for equally good but completely different reasons.