Category: writing

Forty Thousand Words

I’ve just passed the 40,000 word mark in the new novel I’m working on. My first novel ended up around 60,000 words, and I expect this one to be a bit longer, so I think I might be about halfway done. It has taken me a long time to reach this point. Some people can write 40,000 words in a few weeks. I’ve been working on this for a couple of years, and much of that has been just sketching out characters, writing plot outlines, and researching. And I’ve also put it down several times for weeks or even months at a time.

I tend to write slowly, and I do all the things you aren’t supposed to do when you are writing a book. You are supposed to just write and write and write and don’t start revising until you reach the end. You are supposed to devote time to it every day at a particular time.

I torment myself over the wording of every sentence before I type it. I’m terrible at free writing. I will revise a chapter two or three times before I start the next chapter. Especially if I’ve taken a break from the work for a while, I will start from the beginning and revise everything I’d written so far before I start adding more to it. I write every day, but sometimes that is just writing for work or writing in this blog. Some days I don’t make any headway whatsoever in the novel or in any of the short stories I might be working on.

Really, it’s amazing I get anything done at all. So I just wanted to commemorate here this little moment of victory over the written word. 40,000 words. Done. Halfway done anyway.

Send Me Stuff to Read

I’m beginning to accept submissions for my latest project, a literary arts web magazine called Steel Toe Review. We are accepting fiction, plays, poetry, audio, and video. Basically anything interesting. Preference is given to people who live in or are connected to the Birmingham area in some way, but work from anyone anywhere will be considered if it is of high quality and fits our aesthetic model.

For the first issue, I’m mainly interested in work that has a new take on conventions associated with traditional Southern writing and art. However, submissions need not be limited to Southern themes. I hope to have the first issue out in November.

For more information see the manifesto and submission guidelines.

I Have Arrived

About four and a half hours ago, I arrived at my parents’ house in Birmingham. I’ll be looking for my own apartment here later on this week. I expect to keep this blog more up to date from here on out. I have a LOT of creative projects that I plan to get started on now that I have no excuse not to.

The first thing on the agenda is to get the Southside Fiction Writing Workshop off the ground. I want to use my experience as a writer and workshop leader to help other people in the area to hone their fiction writing skills and also to access the parts of their subconscience that lead to inspiration. I think this is a little like group therapy, and I like that. I believe this is one of the clearest ways that I can use whatever talents I have to actually help people recognize their own potential and be better versions of themselves.

Now if I can just get a few people to sign up…

If you are in the Birmingham area, spread the word.

Other things I’d like to start here, which I’ll talk about in more detail later:

Any of my Birmingham friends that want to help out with any of these things, get in touch!

Zen, Mississippi is Available for Pre-Sale on Lulu.com

You can buy Zen, Mississippi right now on lulu.com and have a copy in a week or so.

Buy it here: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/zen-mississippi/8076267

I’m calling this a “pre-sale” because it will be another 6-8 weeks before it will be available for general distribution. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll find it on the shelf in your local bookstore, though I’ll do what I can. What it DOES mean is that you will be able to go in your local bookstore and ask them to order it, and they should be able to easily get it for you. It will also be listed on Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com and possibly other websites where books are sold.

Even then, I make a couple of dollars more if you buy it directly from lulu.com, but I’m not concerned about how much money I make. I’m concerned about the easiest way to get this book in peoples’ hands, and if ordering it from Amazon is what’s easiest for you, then that is just fine with me.

Save the Date: Book Release Party May 13 at Lolita Bar

I’m planning to have a book release party at Lolita Bar (266 Broome Street) on May 13 at 7pm.

I will read a little from the book, play a little music, and have some friends play a little music. Of course, copies of my book(s) will be available for sale and signing. But mostly I just want to have a party and hang out.

Lolita Bar has happy hour specials until 8, so get there early. I’ll post more information about this event as the date gets closer.

New Book Will Be Out Soon

My new book, a novel titled Zen, Mississippi, should be on sale on or around May 15. Mark your calendars, if you’re the sort of person who marks a calendar when a book comes out. You will be able to pre-order copies from lulu.com even sooner than that, probably within a week or two from now. I’ll keep you posted, of course.

This is my first full-length novel, one that I’ve been working on for, oh, about 20 years now, off and on. I hope that you will buy it, read it, and enjoy it.

Summary:

Patrick Alexander thinks he’s going crazy. At age 30, he’s frustrated with his life in the small Mississippi town where he grew up, stifled by his unhappy marriage and his soul-crushing pizza-delivery job. But when he drinks, his world becomes populated with the hallucinatory characters he invented as a child, including a Martian and a talking monkey. In the midst of an existential crisis, Patrick leaves his wife and the only home he’s ever known to embark on a spiritual quest where he will find new loves, face his long-missing father, and confront the demigods of his personal mythology.

Blog Name Change Explained

Last week, I decided to change the name of this blog from “There Will Be Blog” to “Zen, Mississippi” in anticipation of my forthcoming second book, which is now in production and due to be published later this year by my own imprint Tritone Media. I also incorporated my other blog, which was dedicated to promoting my first book, into this one. So now all your M. David Hornbuckle news can be found in one location.

The new book, of course, will be titled Zen, Mississippi, and it’s a novel about a man on a spiritual quest, led on by three fantastical characters that he invented as a child and have recently come back to life for him. He isn’t sure what he is looking for at first, but he comes to understand that it is about realizing the ways in which is both similar to and different from his father, who abandoned him when he was ten.

It’s a serious book, but also a humorous book. And I’ll be talking about it much more in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

New Work: The Boy Who Cried Wolves

The new issue of Fogged Clarity just came out, and it features a short story of mine called “The Boy Who Cried Wolves.”

This issue also features an interview with author Benjamin Percy, fiction by Harvey Havel, and a bunch of other multimedia coolness. This is one of the nicest looking literary/arts magaizines on the web, IMO, so please check it out.

Also, check out the highly pretentious “Statement of Intent” that I submitted to them along with the story (one of their requirements for submission).

One of the things I’ve been interested in exploring with my fiction is the way that a new story can be affected by a an old one that is already deeply imbedded in our consciousness. In this case, only the title is a play on words from a traditional fable, and the rest of the idea flowed from the slight change in the wording. But because of that small wordplay, the reader’s experience is colored through the association with the traditional story even though the two actual stories are actually quite different.