We are excited to announce the pre-sale for the wonderful sci-fi mystery novel, The Invisible Crown by Charlie Cottrell is officially here! Pre-order your digital copy on Amazon, more retailers coming soon! Click here to pre-order your copy on Amazon today! Release date is December 19, 2016. About The Invisible Crown: The city of Arcadia is a craphole, but it’s my […]
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We’re a little over halfway through November, and I’ve been busy writing in my spare time. This year, rather than creating a whole novel, I decided to work on a series of short stories in a variety of styles and genres. Most of them will probably never see the light of day, but it’s fun to flex some different creative writing muscles and try out some styles and techniques I don’t use when writing Hazzard stories.
As of Tuesday morning, I have just over 10,000 words written across a half dozen different stories. A few are complete, but a couple are still in progress. I’m not really sure where most of them will go. It’s kind of fun, creating new characters and situations completely independent of Hazzard and Arcadia. I’m not sure how much I’ll end up with by the end of the month, but it’s a nice break and a fun way to stretch my skills.
Help a guy out and review my book? I think you’ll dig it!
I mean, of course I’d think that. I wrote it. But still! Pretty sure you’ll like it.
We are looking for some wonderful bloggers to review an upcoming novel, The Invisible Crown by Charlie Cottrell. The blog tour dates are December 11-18, 2016 and the release date is December 19, 2016. Send us an email to royaljamespublishing@gmail.com or click here to join our blog tour email list today. Thanks! About The Invisible Crown: The city of Arcadia is a craphole, but it’s […]
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I’m a pretty big Tom Petty fan. I’ve seen him in concert three times, the first on the Into the Great Wide Open tour (front row center, and I got Petty’s guitar pick at the end of the show!), then again for Wildflowers, and then on a tour where he just played greatest hits a few years ago. It’s safe to say he’s one of my favorite musicians.
If I have to rank Petty’s albums (both solo and with the Heartbreakers), it’s pretty easy. Wildflowers is sitting pretty at the top, followed closely (in no particular order, ’cause they’re too close to call) by Full Moon Fever, Damn the Torpedoes!, and Into the Great Wide Open. Somewhere further down the list, after Hard Promises and Southern Accents but before Mojo and (shudder) The Last DJ, there’s Echo, the 1999 follow-up to Wildflowers (and the soundtrack to She’s the One, which was of a piece with Wildflowers).
When it initially came out, I enjoyed the record, but wasn’t all that impressed with it. Wildflowers had set a ridiculously high bar for Tom Petty albums, after all. You weren’t going to top that thing. I really enjoyed “Room at the Top,” the album opener, and a few other tracks along the way, but it’s very telling that, with most Tom Petty albums, I can sing along to every single song without a problem. But I can’t do that with Echo. I know the choruses (Petty’s choruses are always catchy as hell), and I’m vaguely familiar with the songs, but they haven’t become ingrained in my brain the way, say, the songs from Into the Great Wide Open or Full Moon Fever have. The album always felt too long: it’s 15 songs, over an hour long, and just felt too full.
But when I got into the car a few days ago, and decided I wanted to hear Echo, it was an opportunity to reevaluate the album and see if an older, wiser (?) Charlie could appreciate it in a way that 19-year-old me could not.
For starters, “Room at the Top” is still freakin’ awesome and a great opener. It’s anthematic, hopeful, heartfelt, and just all-around great. “Counting on You” is a solid, classic Petty song, and “Free Girl Now” rocks as hard as any of the rockers on Wildflowers. “Swingin’,” with its extended baseball metaphor, kind of drags, but things pick up real quick with “Accused of Love,” which was one of my favorites from the album back in the day and holds up remarkably well. The title track is a little too plodding for my tastes, but it’s not a bad song. “Won’t Last Long” is a tune in the same vein as “Won’t Back Down,” a statement of defiance and resilience. “This One’s For Me” is a fun, strummy song that feels like classic Petty songwriting. “About to Give Out” has a driving beat and is a lot of fun. “Rhino Skin” is a weird song, but does feature the phrase “you need elephant balls,” which I’m kind of amazed he worked into a song with a straight face.
Overall, my estimation of Echo is a bit higher than it was when it came out 17 years ago. Petty’s songwriting is as strong as ever, the band feel expressive and lively, and everyone sounds like they’re having a blast playing these tunes. All pretty strange, considering it’s a post-divorce album (those’re typically dour affairs, even as they generate plenty of fodder for the songwriter’s muse). Petty seemed to make some pretty damn good lemonade out of those lemons, if you ask me.
Pre-sale: November 21, 2016
Blog Tour: December 11-18, 2016
Release date: December 19, 2016
”The city of Arcadia is a craphole, but it’s my craphole. I’ve walked its streets my entire life, always searching for something: a purpose, a suspect, or a stiff drink. My name’s Eddie Hazzard, and I’m a hard-boiled detective. Yeah, laugh it up. It’s a ridiculous job description, but this is a ridiculous town. It’s full of every cliché you can imagine: corrupt city officials, police officers on the take, greedy businessmen, and crime so organized it has an accounting department, a health plan, and retirement benefits. Which is more than I can say for myself.”
Meet Eddie Hazzard: he’s tenacious, a certain kind of clever, and usually drunk. When a beautiful woman comes into his office and asks him to find her husband, Eddie takes the case because the alternative is having his creditors show up at his door and do terrible things to his limbs. But the case takes a series of bizarre turns, getting Eddie caught up in a tangled web of reluctant cops, sketchy businessmen, and shadowy crime bosses. The deeper he gets, the worse things look. Will Eddie solve the case? Will he save the day? Most importantly, will he get paid?
The Invisible Crown is the first full-length novel of a series featuring Detective Hazzard and the bizarre, bewildering array of tough mobsters, genetically-modified creeps, and ruthless scumbags who inhabit the city of Arcadia.
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Charlie Cottrell is a history and special education teacher in Northern Virginia by day and a writer of “speculative noir” (near-future, science-fictiony, hard-boiled detective stories) by night. He likes to blend action, mystery, and a healthy dose of humor and sarcasm in his work. He also writes music and draws comics and thinks he vaguely remembers what free time was, but he’s not one hundred percent sure on that. Charlie hates tucking in his shirt, because he is a rebel. To read more about Charlie, you can visit him on his website.
If you would like to review The Invisible Crown by Charlie Cottrell or join the blog tour, click here or send an email to royaljamespublishing@gmail.com
It’s Tuesday, November 8, 2016. Election Day. Today, we elect a new president, some senators, all the members of the House of Representatives, and various state and local officials.
Regardless of your political affiliation, I hope you get out there and exercise your fundamental civic right. People fought and died for this right, so make sure you’ve carefully considered the candidates and ballot measures before you.
No matter how the election turns out, we’ve still got to live with each other tomorrow and the day after that. Don’t let your political position interfere with your ability to maintain a relationship with your loved ones or your coworkers or such. I have lots of friends and family with whom I disagree, politically, but I still love ’em.
(Even if they’re wrong)
Another short vignette from a few years ago that I thought you all might enjoy.
—
“God, today fucking sucks,” Walter said, collapsing into his chair at the cafeteria table like the fall of empires.
Molly sat silently for a moment, expecting Walter to elaborate. Clearly, he wanted to say more. You could see it in his face. And though she was curious, she would not give him the satisfaction of asking why.
“Why?” she finally said, despite herself.
“It’s Tuesday, Molly,” Walter replied, as though the answer were self-evident.
Molly pondered this for a moment, probing the statement’s depths and finding them unfathomable.
“Okay, I’ll bite. Is it this particular Tuesday that sucks, or Tuesdays in general?” she asked.
“Tuesday,” Walter said, with the air of someone about to impart great wisdom, “is the worst day of the week.”
“That seems…well, that just doesn’t make any sense,” Molly said, frowning.
“It’s quite simple,” Walter replied, wagging a finger at her. “Mondays, for all of their horror and frustration, are really not to be feared. Most folks are still too hung over from the weekend to really notice Monday is even happening. We have the afterglow of the weekend to keep us warm on a dreary Monday.”
“I’m not entirely sure I agree with that, but I’ll give it to you for the sake of argument,” Molly said doubtfully. “What about Wednesday?”
“Wednesday is New Comic Day,” Walter replied bluntly, as though no one could possibly not know that. “Thursday, of course, is the day before Friday. There’s anticipation. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. There’s hope.”
“And Friday, of course, is Friday,” Molly finished for him.
“Of course,” Walter said. “Which leaves only Tuesday, that poor, misbegotten naïf with nothing to recommend it. Think of it. Every other day has at least something happening. Tuesday is the week’s equivalent of an hour spent in a doctor’s waiting room.”
Molly considered Walter’s assertion. “I still maintain Monday is pretty horrible,” she said tentatively.
“Oh, I’m so sick of everyone going on about Monday!” Walter cried, rising to his feet and startling people around them. Molly scrabbled at his arm, trying to drag him back down into his chair and mentally willing everyone in the cafeteria to look the other way. Walter returned to his seat without appearing to notice. “Monday is a much-maligned day, I tell you, a day with much to be joyful about! Why, it gives you the opportunity to reconnect with comrades, to discuss the events of the weekend and dissect them with excruciating detail among friends and confidants. Monday is the chance to strut back into your place of work or what-have-you and proclaim, loudly, ‘I got laid on Saturday, even with this haircut!’ Monday is the weekend’s not-quite-sober victory lap.”
Molly’s brow furrowed, her left eyebrow arching in barely-sustained suspension of disbelief. “Okay, so let’s say Tuesdays are as bad as you say,” she began. “For the sake of argument, we’ll go with that. If your big problem with Tuesday is that it’s got nothing to it, why not give Tuesday some deeper personal meaning? Why does it have to be the ennui of the work week?”
Walter gave Molly a look of mixed sadness and condescension. “Molly, my dear, dear Molly, it does not work that way,” he said pityingly. “One cannot simply ascribe any old meaning to a day and expect it to stick. Reality is not so easily convinced.
“Let us say I were to, as you put it, ‘give Tuesday a deeper personal meaning.’ What then? Will everyone else take up the change? Will Tuesday become a personal day for the whole world? And if it does, how do we benefit? No, Tuesday must remain as it is, unloved and unfulfilling. It provides the context for the rest of the week, and nothing more.” He sighed as a Byronic poet might, gazing off longingly into the middle distance. Or possibly he was staring at the pudding, Molly couldn’t be sure.
“Whatever,” Molly replied, giving up on the conversation and gathering her empty lunch things onto her tray. “I’m off for Physics. You coming?”
“What’s the point?” Walter asked somberly. “It’s Tuesday.”
“Well, we’ve got that test today…” Molly said.
“Oh, right,” Walter said, his eyes suddenly refocusing. “Off we go, then.”
We are looking for some amazing bloggers again to participate in an upcoming cover reveal. It’s for the amazing novel, The Invisible Crown by Charlie Cottrell. The date for the cover reveal is on November 11, 2016. Join now! Send us an email to royaljamespublishing@gmail.com or click here to join our blog tour email list. Thanks! About The Invisible […]
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I love to draw (as anyone who follows the webcomic knows full-well), and I decided it’d be fun to do the #inktober thing for October: a drawing a day, in ink. Some of them were pencil drawings that I then inked with a variety of pens (some were brush pens, some were Prismacolor markers, and several were done with an ultra-fine Sharpie and a regular Sharpie for a bold outline). Others were done, start to finish, with regular ol’ ballpoint pen. Here’s all 31 inky drawings for your enjoyment!
Are you like me, and find yourself wanting to enjoy Halloween but struggling because of a dearth of decent songs associated with the holiday? I mean, in terms of inspiring music, it’s not Christmas, that’s for sure. I just find that I can’t stand listening to the Monster Mash and the Addams Family theme and the Munsters theme again and again on repeat this year. I need some actual, non-novelty music.
And we’re in luck! There are actually plenty of real, pretty awesome songs that have a stealth-Halloween theme to them. Here’s a selection of some of my favorites.
1. The Eagles, “Witchy Woman”: Sure, it’s easy to rag on the Eagles as being the dad-est of Dad Rock, but they did some fun songs. This one carries the witch metaphor throughout pretty strongly, and fits right in with our “real song but Halloween-y” theme.
2. Creedence Clearwater Revival, “I Put a Spell on You”: Yeah, I know, the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins version is probably better, and certainly more Halloween-y, but I can’t pass up the opportunity to include a CCR song on a playlist.
3. The Beatles, “Devil in Her Heart”: Not even a little bit of the right tone, barely even mentions anything Halloween-related (the titular devil in her heart, which is more metaphorical than actual), but it’s the Beatles, and it’s my playlist, so nyah.
4. Warren Zevon, “Werewolves of London”: There was a 0% chance I wasn’t going to include this. An obvious but classic choice.
5. Tom Petty, “Zombie Zoo”: “Sometimes you’re so impulsive/You shaved off all your hair/You look like Boris Karloff/But you don’t even care” is probably the best line in any song ever, and I will fight you if you say otherwise.
6. Josh Ritter, “The Curse”: A love song about a mummy told as sincerely as this is proof this world is sometimes better than we deserve.
7. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, “Red Right Hand”: Honestly, you could just put a Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds album on for Halloween it’d be fine. If I have to go with one song, though, this is the one. The Pete Yorn version from the first Hellboy movie isn’t half-bad, either.
8. Jeremy Messersmith, “Ghost”: A haunting beautiful (get it?) song about disappearing out of someone’s life.
9. The Flaming Lips, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Part 1”: War of the Worlds, if it was fought between a Japanese pop singer who knows karate and giant pink robots that want to eat people.
10. The White Stripes, “Walking with a Ghost”: I don’t have a whole lot to say about this one. I just wanted another song about ghosts on here.
Happy Halloween, everyone!
Charlie Cottrell 