If you’ve been reading my books, and I mean like all of them, you probably noticed that I borrowed some plot elements of Playlist of the Ancient Dead for the Misfits of Carnt 4. What is called “the warehouse” in Playlist appears as the main trials Petra and other misfits must get through to achieve a goal set forth for them in the book. 

This decision to pirate my own book came about because when Petra got into the mysterious dungeon at the top of the mountain (don’t worry, no spoilers), I needed her to earn what came next. My original plan for a DnD inspired dungeon crawl with trap rooms, puzzles, crazy mages, and what you’d expect from a dungeon crawl just didn’t seem like it would work, especially for the epic ending that quite frankly had to top the Demon God on the 26 and the World Tree.

When your heroes topple skyscraper high demons and city destroying trees, you really got to up the stakes for what comes next. The dungeon needed to be equal parts mysterious, magical, and tied to the overall plot of will Earth/Carnt survive? There needed to be an intelligent force at work and not just the cold unfeeling dungeon that most crawlers find themselves in.

A dungeon crawl is ultimately a survivalist story where the dungeon is in place of nature as the main obstacle in the way of the protagonist’s survival, and the Misfits of Carnt is not a survivalist story but a metamorphosis one. It’s about change, how that can be sometimes hard, and sometimes sweet, and sometimes scary. In order to have the characters pass through that change, the dungeon needed to be one too.

And well, I already wrote that story, the one where the setting is a living thing with mysterious motives, a long history, and an agent of change. That was Playlist of the Ancient Dead. Now, for those fans of that story, I think you’ll be pleased. I kept the heart of the warehouse and the function it serves the same. I even reprise some characters and locations that I think you’ll love. But I couldn’t keep it the same for it’s not in the same universe.

Also, Playlist of the Ancient Dead suffers the second novel curse. I know if you look at publication dates, it looks like my first full length novel, but it’s my second. Time Agency was in the hands of a major publisher in consideration for publication, so I wrote Playlist mainly for something to do while waiting (Time Agency was ultimately rejected 2 ½ years later).

But the second novel curse, is actually a term I borrowed from the music industry called the second album curse. A lot of musical artists over the years have released second albums that are complete duds. Or even if they are pretty good, they are nowhere near as good as the first album. There are exceptions of course. Lucky or brilliant people who have killer second records, but even Metallica, who escaped the second album curse with hits like Fade to Black, has some of their worst songs on that album. There are other musical acts that aren’t so lucky, and the second album is also their last album and typically get dumped into the one hit wonders category.

There’s a reason why the second album curse exists, and it’s purely manufactured by the music industry. When a band gets signed by a record company, they have usually been working on that first album for years, playing it in bars, tweaking the songs here and there, making revisions, and perfecting it. So, when they get signed and that first album gets put in the studio, they have worked on it for years, they have put so much into it, and that’s why there are a lot of really good songs on that first one. But then that second one comes. They are on contract, they’ve been touring, they’ve been doing interviews, events, and they’ve been in a whirlwind. They are then dumped in a studio and have to write a bunch of songs very quickly.

This process of squeezing out the album while the market and the band is hot, is why so many second albums fail. They don’t have nearly the same amount of time to practice and put their soul into writing the songs, and they are exhausted from their success. Many bands don’t make it. Go back to your favorite era of music, look for the one hit wonders, and for their second album, you’ll see what I mean.

On a side note, this is why I think The Beatles were one of the best bands of all time, they not only produced fantastic albums each time, but they did it all within 7 years, 1963-1970. Even if you don’t like The Beatles, you have to respect that they did what they did in a 7-year span. It’s no wonder they broke up, I don’t know anyone who can truly sustain that lifestyle.

Anyway, I think Playlist of the Ancient Dead suffered the second book curse, not because I had an executive hounding me to write another and giving crazy short deadlines considering how long it took me to write Time Agency, but rather because I was putting pressure on myself. At the time, I was thinking because the publisher took time to send me an email to say they were considering my book (not a form one mind you, the editor from the company gave me his email and phone number), I thought I was so close to having a writing career, I could feel it.

I kept myself up worrying that if the editor asked, “what else you got?” I’d say, “Nothing.” I had also heard of this thing called self-publishing and wanted to try it out (the publisher had a one submission under consideration at a time rule, so I couldn’t have submitted Playlist anyway). It was mainly me, treating myself, as if I already had a writing career when I didn’t.

And I suppose that’s how it’s always been, that’s the secret of writing 30+ books, treat it like it is your career when it’s not. We don’t always want to do our day jobs, but we do because we have bills to pay, roofs over our head, etc. I’ve always written because I have readers waiting (even if it’s only a few), or series to complete, something I want to express, or a story I want to tell. The way for me to do all that is to do it even when I want to do it the least.

Now I don’t overwork myself like I used to. I now take at least one month a year off writing. When my family wants to do something while I’m writing, I shut down my computer and come back to it. I still don’t play as many video games as I could, but I’m getting better at allowing myself some gaming time. But back when I wrote Playlist, I did nothing else until the book was completed. I thought, “This is it. This is my time to shine.”

And what I got was a cool premise for a story, but poor execution, not enough character development, could use another round of editing, etc. In fact, if I was vainer, I’d probably have depublished it long ago. But I’m a little weird in the sense that whenever I hear that terrible song from Ride the Lightning by Metallica (you know the one I’m talking about, it’s like their worse song), I think to myself, wow even Metallica sometimes doesn’t do it perfectly.

I personally like to know that authors who are heralded for writing masterpieces like Stephen King also have that clunker that’s left out of all the biographies. So, if I ever write a masterpiece one day, or hell, I’ll settle for a book that can pay my house payment, my clunker is still out there to show the world that I to work for it.

I’m glad I was able to rescue the idea of the warehouse from the book and bestow it into the Carnt universe, as well as make up for some missed opportunities when naming characters from that place.

It’s funny, there’s an unfinished novel on my computer in the Playlist of the Ancient Dead universe that may have been a sequel or may have been just a rewrite of the original. Mainly because I wanted the warehouse idea to really get its due. I never finished it because my heart was never in writing a sequel nor do I really like to go back and rewrite things that are published.

If I make a mistake, I like to take what I learned and put that into the next novel. I think that’s why what I write gets better and better because I put what I learn into the next one, and there are a lot of years (and books) between Playlist and Carnt 4. I’m excited to finally given that concept what it deserves, but in a way that preserves the heart of the story.

Thanks for being here. 

Books to Consider

There's a cache of magical weapons that just might save the world from an apocalypse that could leave both Earth and Carnt in ruins.

Read The Golden Assault Rifle today!

Imagine if “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” ran off with a Mills & Boon paperback, detoured through Discworld, picked up a battered Lonely Planet from 1998, and tuned in to The Spice Girls on the way.

Read Cyberchicks in Love today!

Five ordinary lives. One extraordinary transformation. A world hanging in the balance.

Read The Volcan Council today!