I've started one, if anyone's interested. . . .
http://johnnyostentatious.blogspot.com/

I've come to realize that whenever a book jacket describes the author as "being at the height of his (or her) storytelling powers" it's the publisher's way of saying: "This book sucks but this writer wrote a lot of good novels in the past so we had to buck up a huge advance, and now that the author is resting on their laurels we're praying this book at least breaks even." Oh, and another piece of jacket copy to keep an eye for is when they say the writer is "at the top of their game." Beware… Continue

Wow, what a novel!



On an average year, I'll pick up about 150 books, finishing about 70. Of those 70, a handful or two I'll give five out of five stars over at my LibraryThing account. Obviously, Money Shot got five stars.



It's been almost a month since I finished Money Shot, and I can't stop thinking or talking about it. Faust's novel has it all: perfect pacing, dead-on dialogue,… Continue

For years I've been fond of calling everybody "bitch". But that's a little too politically incorrect for me, so I'm now using "ditch". It's kinda cool 'cause I get lots of double takes.

I'm kinda jazzed. The draft for my first Young Adult novel is done (only took a month to write). It's 20,000 words, but I'm not too worried. A lot of my drafts are underwritten. The first rewrite is where I start fleshing shit out, doing more showing and less telling.



I'll probably wind up trying to sell this novel, since I have no idea how to reach the YA audience. Though, I may put out a limited hardcover version on my small press. We'll… Continue

Once again, I've changed my P.O. box. It's at the same post office, I just downgraded to the smallest box ya can get -- more economical to pay $72 a year than $112 for a medium box. Address is:
Johnny Ostentatious
PO Box 342
Cheltenham, PA 19012

and now back to our regular programming. . . .

Been kicking myself recently. I realized a few things are missing from my latest novel, When the Shit Hits the Housewife:

1) The character that goes missing, Matthew Dougherty, was in AA. His wife, Marie, should have gone to an AA meeting to talk to his friends and acquaintances there.

2) Nick Marsh, who is helping Marie track down Matthew, is a bass player. He should have at least once pined for his bass, since he didn't bring it along on their travels.

3) On the… Continue

This officially comes out tomorrow, June 1st. It's the fourth novel of mine to come out on my small press -- the sixth title overall in the Active Bladder catalog. For now, it's available mailorder from me and Amazon for $10. If your book… Continue

I'm still working on the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association's top 100 mysteries of the 20th century, and this book came up. Good book. I gave it three out of five stars over at my LibraryThing account.



One thing I didn't dig about the book was the violence. It seemed the heroes were doing so much killing, it felt like an eighties Arnold… Continue

I had my iPod on shuffle the other day and two songs by The Church played in a row: the rockin' "Fraulein" from the early '80s and the oh-so-mellow "Radiance" from 2002's After Everything Now This. It still amazes me how they changed from an excellent pop-rock piece to a sleepy psychedelic outift.



I much prefer their older stuff, so a few years ago I picked up 2003's Forget Yourself, since I read it was less psychedelic and more rock. It was good (I kept seven of the… Continue

After blowing through the first season in about a week, I started watching the second season on DVD last night. Goddamn, what a TV show! Best sitcom I've seen in a long time. Nice to see great writing and an excellent ensemble cast. And Neil Patrick Harris can actually act!!! Who knew?

I tracked down this 1955 sci-fi novel after reading Stephen King's Danse Macabre (it was in the Suggested Reading appendix). I was hesitant at first of reading The Chrysalids because while I loved The Day of the Triffids, I was less than thrilled with The Midwich Cuckoos (which became the film Village of the Damned).



Glad I read The Chrysalids. IT WAS AWESOME!!! Wyndham packed in a lot of plot in 200 pages; lesser novelists would have made it… Continue

I recently ordered Adrian Hyland's Moonlight Downs. It was published in his native Australia as Diamond Dove. It really pisses me off when publishers do shit like that! Apparently, there's some writer out there with a Dove series, which I never heard of before reading the review of Hyland's novel.



What also makes me see red is when publishers change the contents of a book. J.K. Rowling's… Continue

I started a thread about this a while back, but I thought I would babble about it here.



Goddamn, what a TV show! See, this is what I love about England. They did two series (16 episodes total), ending it before the story ran out of steam. You know when the American version hits the airwaves, they're gonna milk it for as long as possible, dragging it out like a Stephen King storyline.



My… Continue

Got wind that over at Goodreads, they have my novels listed. Regarding the first novel I put out on my small press, Ian Hahn: The Olfactory Empath, somebody wrote that it was poorly written. I got to remembering how I did a lot of rewriting for that novel. The original draft was very cliched, with a Tony Soprano-like character featured prominently and the bad guy being the guy who hires P.I. Ian Hahn in the first chapter. Wow, if… Continue

Recently posted my published novels over at my Web site. All four of 'em are up there in their entirety in both HTML and PDF. One of these days I'll upload blurbs and cover copy.

Gonna shut down my small press, Active Bladder, this year. It's becoming too much of a money-losing operation. The last Active Bladder book will be a novel of mine, out in the spring -- When the Shit Hits the Housewife. I'm still gonna write, though. Going back to the traditional route of trying to find a publisher. After the adult novel I'm working on now, I'm gonna take a stab at the Young Adult field.