Hellfire and Rattle-n-Roll Mario here:

If you're of those who hasn't yet seen Prometheus, count yourself lucky. I could go on and on about why it was such a mess, but go google the reviews and take your pick.

It's ironic and unfair that the critics heaped so much scorn on John Carter when its plot made a lot more sense than Prometheus'.

Closer to home, I've been reading nonfiction books as research for a freelance project. One recommended book was Hellfire by Nick Tosches, the story of The Killer, Jerry Lee Lewis. It's a very American Southern tale, what with Lewis marrying his cousin and other girls in their mid-teens, moonshine, pills, loose women, speaking in tongues, guns, his run-ins with the law, his son drowning in the family swimming pool, setting his piano on fire, more loose women, Elvis, and most fascinating of all, playing Iago in a rockabilly presentation of Othello, to critical acclaim and much success.



That video is interesting but you don't get a sense of Lewis' wild charisma. Try this for some hard rockin' 60s headbanging:



We've got reason to cheer one of our own. The Broadway Book Mall hosted Beth Groundwater's signing for her latest novel, Wicked Eddies, which earned a Critic's Pick from Kirkus Book Reviews. Beth called foul when asked if she enjoyed a good paddling.

Labels: Beth Groundwater, Jerry Lee Lewis. Nick Tosches, Othello

  ¶ posted by Mario Acevedo @ 8:28 PM  4 comments

  There's no room in Heaven for me! Mario here,

Shout Out to Biting-Edge pal, Jeanne, for her terrific interview in RT's All Things Urban Fantasy, where Para is normal! She'll be at RT 2011 next week and promises to behave herself. Ha! If you see her in the hotel (stumbling, no doubt), snark her for me.


This last Saturday, Jeanne and I were panelists at the Pikes Peak Library District, 5th Annual Mountain of Authors. Say what you will about Colorado Springs, they sure know how to turn 'em out for a literary event. It was SRO throughout the day.




Another Shout Out, this time to our hosts from the Pikes Peak Library, Becca and Krista.


Since we were on her home turf, Beth Groundwater was there, sans paddle.









One of the treats at these events is the opportunity to meet some wonderful fellow authors, in this case, Teresa Funke. She presented on the Publishing panel and shared her rather circuitous route to publication. Funke's interests are those unknown stories of World War Two which she documented in: Remember Wake, Dancing in Combat Boots, and her Home-Front Heroes series. Two literary agents loved her work, and editors remarked that they loved her work...only they didn't think there was an audience for those stories. Since Funke was concerned that WW2 veterans are dying off, rather than wait until the publishing world comes around her way, she decided to self-publish so that the veterans and their families can see themselves properly acknowledged. Funke admitted the life of a writer can be an exercise in self-torture and despair, and she quits writing twice a year...then gets up the next morning and starts banging on the keyboard. And it's paid off as she's managed to carve a successful niche for herself as a writer and publisher.


The headliner was Jerry B. Jenkins, author of the wildly successful Left Behind series with over 70 million copies of his books in print. (Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar!) Not surprisingly, considering Left Behind is based on End Times prophesy from the New Testament's book of Revelations (and we were in the Springs), one woman couldn't help but approach our tables to proselytize the message to prepare ourselves for the Rapture. I noted that she skipped me. Guess I'm a lost cause.









I wonder if even the most devoted of Evangelicals believe that fervently in End Times prophecy. The next time someone preaches to me about the Rapture, I'm going to ask him or her about their IRA and 401 (k).









Hey guys, free show up her skirt.
Hope she's going commando!

Jenkins was scheduled to speak for an hour, and I was concerned how anyone could gas on for sixty minutes without driving the audience to yawns and relentless clock watching. Well, I could've listened to Jenkins for another hour, he was so charming with his wit and self-effacing humor. He related a story of eating Big Macs with Steven King in a drive-thru. A professional writer all of his adult life, and most of it as a sports writer, Jenkins is a man enchanted with the beauty and power of the well-crafted word. He said good writing inspires him, but really good writing humbles him to the point that he thinks he has no business writing at all. I feel like that too often.

Labels: Beth Groundwater, Jerry Jenkins, Pikes Peak Library, the Rapture

  ¶ posted by Mario Acevedo @ 11:59 AM  5 comments

  Dangerous Ideas

First, a shout out to my Colorado mystery-writer pal, Beth Groundwater, and her interview in the Miami Examiner.

A fan recently contacted me to say that he had looked up my novel, Jailbait Zombie, in his local library. But when he went to check it out, the book was missing from their catalog system. Why? I called the library and hoped to hear that they had pulled my book from their shelves because of a patron’s complaint. In other words, I had been banned! Yes! Somebody considered my works, my ideas, such a public menace that they were taken away and buried.

Sadly, the truth was not so dramatic. Seems someone had stolen the book and the library had deleted it from the catalog until the replacement arrived.

Damn! I wanted to join that pantheon of writers so dangerous their works are banned.

Can a book be that incendiary? Are there thoughts so provocative, that their mere discovery will cause to us to tear off our ideals and dance naked in the philosophical forest?

I recalled those books people told me I shouldn’t read because they would ruin my young mind. I remember the fuss over The Satanic Bible, and really, I thought I’d burst into flames when I cracked open a copy. Of course I didn’t. (It would’ve been a great story if I had.) Truthfully, I found the book disappointingly banal and preachy. Another time I brought home a copy of Eerie, and my father went livid with disgust, especially over that panel illustrating a thug getting his hand mangled by the villain’s bionic arm.

My dad wanted to shame me for wasting my money on this trash, when actually I thought that scene was pretty cool. A bone-crushing mechanical arm. Awesome!

Pornography was the subject of other taboo books. My friend Bobby Baca brought to school a copy of Justine by the Marquis de Sade. We’d pass the book around but I preferred novels from Greenleaf Classics because that prose was a lot more accessible to my 14yo brain. I guess my tastes then weren’t sophisticated enough to appreciate S&M.

Fast forward to adulthood. I discovered the one book that made me change my thinking about the world had nothing to do with the devil, or comic book mad scientists, or naked people doing naughty things to one another. The book that profoundly altered my perception of the way things are and the way they outta be, was Spiritual Marketing by Joe Vitale.

Sounds trite perhaps, but writing fiction is all about dialing up your imagination and flying into the unknown.

What fuels your imagination is what Martin Luther King once said: There is nothing so dangerous as relentless optimism.

That’s what drives me as a working writer: relentless optimism. My A + B = C fell way short of the mark a long time ago and I am still here. Spiritual Marketing is about articulating your desires, focusing your energy toward them, but realizing that at one point, you must let go and allow the universe to manifest itself. Seems like a loco way to pursue your career but there is so much in this crazy writing business that is out of your control. As Bob Mayer noted, “If you’re a Type-A person, being a writer will cure you of that.”

Which is not to say that you sit on your ass, eat bonbons, and wait for destiny’s lottery ticket. Every published writer I know works damn hard. I try for 2000 words a day and that paints me as a lazy slacker compared to many. Weekends? What are those? Vacations? Many have been blessed with success. Others founder. We may stumble but we don’t give up. For one day, you’re in the doldrums, the next, you get a call from your agent that the manuscript you’ve been slaving at is up for auction.

I’m not claiming I’m anywhere close to the success I’ve dreamed of. But I’m still trying. So should you.

Labels: Beth Groundwater, Joe Vitale

  ¶ posted by Mario Acevedo @ 2:31 PM  5 comments

  Who got lucky? I got lucky.
Mario here:

Labels: Ben Bova, Beth Groundwater, Deborah Coonts, Richelle Mead

  ¶ posted by Mario Acevedo @ 5:08 PM  5 comments