TMi by Patty Blount
I’m still in the Book Trailer business, my beautiful babies, and here’s a new one I cooked up for Patty Blount‘s upcoming novel TMi:
I think I captured the urgency of the book pretty well. It’s a great read – check it out!
Author Archive: jsomers
Jeff Somers (www.jeffreysomers.com) was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and regrets nothing. He is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series published by Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket Books. He sold his first novel at age 16 to a tiny publisher in California which quickly went out of business and has spent the last two decades assuring potential publishers that this was a coincidence. Jeff publishes a zine called The Inner Swine and has also published a few dozen short stories; his story “Sift, Almost Invisible, Through” appeared in the anthology Crimes by Moonlight, published by Berkley Hardcover and edited by Charlaine Harris. His guitar playing is a plague upon his household and his lovely wife The Duchess is convinced he would wither and die if left to his own devices.
The Brain Cloud Cometh
This initially appeared in my zine The Inner Swine 16(1/2).
The Brain Cloud Cometh
I’m at “That Age”
by Jeff Somers
“That” Age
PIGS, I don’t go to doctors much. Part of this is my Viking heritage (buried deeply in my genetic code, yes, but I am convinced it’s there), which makes me naturally hardy. Part of this is the usual charming male hubris that informs me that I can walk anything off. Lose a limb? Walk it off, hands on your hips, taking deep breaths. Coughed up a lung? Take the bench for an inning, you’ll be fine. Part of it, of course, is my general incompetence and bad memory: I am usually shocked to discover when my last doctor’s appointment was.
Also: How awkward. I mean, I’m terrible at social interaction as it is. Make me naked under a thin hospital gown while another man cops a feel, and my small talk just dries the hell up, trust me.
My infrequent visits to the various doctors we need to stay alive from year to year used to be more or less perfunctory: My old General Practitioner, whom I’d gone to from the age of five until I was about 25, used to tell me to keep the weight off and to never smoke cigarettes, and that was usually the entire content of our conferences. Even past that I usually coasted through examinations: I was either there for a specific reason, burrowing towards a prescription and getting on with my life, or I was there for some sort of routine physical, generally passing with flying colors. Recently, though, while my visits are still not exactly complex or problematic, there’s a new wrinkle cropping up: My advancing age.
An Essay and Two Reviews
Over at the glittering blog Geeks Versus Nerds, I have an awesome guest post:
It may be the greatest thing you ever read. Or not. I don’t know, frankly.
ALSO! In what might appear to be some sort of payment for my awesome guest post but which certainly was not, Geeks Versus Nerds also reviewed Trickster:
HUZZAH.
AND ALSO! The Electric Church, book #1 in the Avery Cates series, was reviewed by The Taichung Bookworm:
Not bad for a book that came out in 2007. And now: Celebratory drinks for everyone! Note: Must supply your own celebratory drinks.
Ask Jeff Anything 4-16-13
I warned you we were open for business. I warned you.
Today’s question is courtesy of Melanie Meadors, who has a burning question about my attitude towards pants:
I hope that clears everything up.
The Witch King of Angmar
Here’s an unpublished story from a few years ago. The meaning of the title is, frankly, forgotten by this writer. WHo forgets a lot of things.
The Witch King of Angmar
by Jeff Somers
WHEN the report that the Beckels Sphere had become unstable, it preempted and interrupted every broadcast in the world. All the uplinks were seized by priority interrupts, and no one complained. I was with Denise, sharing a bottle of wine, when the hulking monitor in the corner of her living room came to life without warning, the looped report stating in clipped, computer-modulated sentences that the world was going to end now, it was unavoidable. Denise took my hand. We were both trembling.
BRING ON THE HELPER MONKEYS
This originally appeared in my zine The Inner Swine a few years ago.
BRING ON THE HELPER MONKEYS
How My Genius Novels Get Written
by Jeff Somers
FRIEND, do you have a book in you?
Note: Not literally. Or, OK, why not: Literally too.
If you’re one of the billions who does, indeed, have a story to tell but doesn’t know where to start, then this issue of The Inner Swine is for you. Because, you see, I myself have written several books. More than was probably wise, actually; if you consider how much time I’ve spent on them compared with how many I’ve sold and made money from, the resulting per-hour salary is depressing (homeless folks begging on the street make more per hour). Still, this isn’t an essay about selling a book, but rather about writing one.
Are you one of those folks who, when they’re introduced to a working writer at a party immediately tell them that you have a great idea for a book? Do you have a notebook filled with random notes for your “great American novel”? Do you work in an English Department, anywhere? Then this essay is for you, because I’m going to show you how easy it is to write a book. Easier than many other things, in fact. Hell, I’m writing a book right now, while I write this essay. It’s that easy.
An aside: I think everyone in the universe has a book in them, yes, but of course not everyone wants to write one, which is fine. I make no judgments. And some folks have self-help books or dictionaries in them, which again: no judgments, but you really should ask yourself two questions: Do I have a book in me, and should I actually write it?
You will almost certainly always discover the answer is: no.
Ask Jeff Anything 4-2-13
Hear ye, hear ye – a new Ask Jeff Anything for your watching pleasure. Or to burn 2 minutes of your day away, to never be found again. Today’s topic courtesy of Patty Blount and regarding book trailers and how they is made:
HUZZAH. I am an genius.
I Been Interviewed
Hola! I was interviewed by the very smart and funny Larry Gent (whose first novel is coming out soon) over at 42webs:
“2) What research goes into a book centered on self mutilation? (insert obvious emo music joke)
I think your standard issue adolescence is all that is required, actually. Including the Emo Music. Which we all have far more of then we’re ready to admit. J’accuse!
In other words: None research. None whatsoever. That’s how I like to roll: Ignorant and defensive.”
Go check it out and tell me how cool I ain’t.
Spring Breakers: MY EYES! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!
Let’s start off with a definitive statement: Harmony Korine’s movies are awful, and we are all lessened by viewing them.
However, sometimes people mature. To be fair, Korine has matured, and Spring Breakers does have a method to its awfulness, I think. The fact that it remains awful is part of the point: This film is meant, like most of Korine’s film, to irritate. So, I didn’t enjoy it. I actually had a curious lack of reaction to it, really: When it was over I honestly wasn’t sure if I had enjoyed myself or not. Or stabbed myself in the eyes or not.
I’ll say two things about this movie that are semi-coherent.
1. Korine Makes Partying Look Painful. This is, I think, a triumph actually. Korine manages to make a film about four nubile college-age girls who spend much of the film wearing bikinis, snorting drugs, and engaging in SexyTime dancing that is about as titillating as a Root Canal. After watching this film the last thing I want to do is go down to Florida and party with the coeds. And he does this with some skill – there’s no abrupt moral event horizon. No one gets sick (in fact, these chicks bust out the coke and booze constantly and never once seem to have a single moment of physical suffering for it) and no one has a bad date-rapey moment. Korine manages to make partying look just as exhausting as it actually is – the sort of good time you have to ingest chemicals to even tolerate, much less enjoy.
2. Korine Uses Irritation Effectively. One technique Korine uses over and over again in the film is an annoying repetition. Lines of dialogue and images are repeated, sequences shown again, and the repetition is continued until you want to claw out your eyes. Curiously, though, this means that when he finally cuts to a new scene, your sense of relief is visceral. I think this has to be on purpose, judging from how often he uses the trick. And it works. It put me on the edge of my last nerve and when he finally switched to a new scene – even if that scene was three girls in pink ski masks holding guns singing a Britney Spears song – I was psyched to see this new scene just because it was new. It’s an interesting effect, if not an enjoyable one.
So, clearly Harmony Korine is not a hack: He’s a thoughtful filmmaker who makes films the way he wants to, with goals and artistry. I simply find the finish products pretty irritating, and that’s fine. In the end, if you’re looking for a movie about boobs, sex, and drugs, you should look elsewhere, despite the fact that there are indeed boobs, sex, and drugs in this movie. If you’re looking for a movie with characters instead of soulless, expressionless puppets in bikinis, look elsewhere.
If you’re looking for a movie wherein James Franco appears to be slathered in some sort of Sex Grease, then this is the ticket you have been looking for.
Ask Jeff Anything Open for Business
As most of you may recall, a few years ago I challenged everyone to ask me anything and I’d make a video response. Over the years I’ve had a lot of fun with that, but the last one I made was about a year ago. What can I say? It was a busy year and I am pretty much incompetent. I let it slide. That’s what lazy incompetent dudes, do, after all. Here’s a collection of previous Ask Jeff Anythings.
But, things have calmed down for the moment, so I’m ready to get back in the Ask Jeff Anything swing. So this is an open invitation/reminder. Ask me about my books, my writing, my personal hygiene, my cats (you know you want to), my childhood, my dangerous drinking binges, my hatred of pants, my theories on life, baseball, and rye whiskey, my upcoming projects, my obsessive and disturbing cleaning, my zine The Inner Swine, other people I know, other people I don’t know, celebrity culture, movies, other writers, book trailers, Godzilla, the Eurozone, the Many Worlds Theory, the Higgs Boson, Linux, guitars, music, Don Camillo, the infield fly rule, how to play an F Chord, blogging, growing up in Jersey City, marriage, writing, the correct way to drink whiskey, exactly what chord is played at the beginning of A Hard Days Night, college life, Miller’s Crossing and whether it is the greatest movie ever made (it is), the terrible television my wife makes me watch, the 1978 Chevrolet Nova’s charms and deficiencies, whether Liam Neeson will make a good Matt Scudder in the upcoming film, Downton Abbey, whether Breaking Bad or The Wire is the greatest television show in history, guitar solos, kittens, how to clean your house, the decline of the Roman Empire, the Fall of the House of Usher, whether or not there’s a bottle of red wine I won’t drink (there probably isn’t but research continues), my published short stories, or, you know, anything else.
So go on and email me a question or leave on in the comments and I will start making these sad, ridiculous videos again. Sure to disappoint, confuse, and irritate.