Friday, November 30, 2012

When you edify everyone, the all become dim

When you edify everyone, the all become dim.

Do you fully understand what I mean by edify? Let's use a bakery example, and a girl named Mary Jane.

Why Mary Jane? Because I'm listening to this song right now, off the Judgment Night soundtrack.

Anyway, Mary Jane works in a bakery, and she decides to sample each item in the cabinet and write a review on her blog.

She samples a cheesecake and writes on her blog that this is the most fantabuliscious cheesecake she has EVER HAD! OMG, it is orgasmic.

She next samples a yellow sponge cake, and posts it is so good she wants to smear it on her boyfriend and eat it off, LOL.

MJ then tries a chocolate mousse, of which she writes, and I quote: OMG, this is so good I want to make a man out of it, marry that man, and have his chocolate children. I would so eat my kids! LMAO.

Anyway, maybe you're getting the picture. She edifies ~everything~ to the point that her five-star rating becomes meaningless.

The people I trust the most are the ones who are willing to give a bad review. This is especially true for us as authors, and as edifiers, and as publicists.

So hold onto your five-star rating. Praise the effort, and don't be mean or cruel, but be honest when you appraise the result. Sometimes a one-star rating is what it takes to set someone on the right path! Nothing will sober you up like a bad grade, if you get me.

- Eric



Eric W. Trant is a published author of several short stories and the novel Out of the Great Black Nothing. He is currently working on his second full-length novel with WiDo Publishing. See more of Eric's work here: Publications ** ARE YOU AN ORGAN DONOR? ERIC IS! **

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Monday, November 19, 2012

Accepted: Dark Southern Horror-Thriller

My latest novel, a dark southern horror-thriller, was accepted by WiDo Publishing, slated for release in 2013. I am undergoing edits with Summer Ross, who you may recognize as the author/blogger/editor over at My Inner Fairy.

The book's title is still in working, so I won't mention it here, but I will say the book was an easy write for me, one of those that flows like breathing. With Summer's help, which has been outstanding, I hope to make this a popular novel that widens my market, and touches readers I never thought I could reach.

I will also be featured for the fourth time in An Honest Lie 4: Petulant Parables from Open Heart Publishing, slated for release in 2013. This is a dark southern short story called "The Man in the Long Black Coat," inspired by the song of the same name. (Yes, I have the Heroes soundtrack.) I now have batted 1,000 with the AHL series, placing one story in each of their anthologies, as well as landing an editorial position with them.

I'm starting to really find my niche-voice, and tone, and theme, and genre. I keep gravitating to supernatural horror, and science fiction, all of it within a home-style southern setting.

My next working draft is, I am surprised to say, an Armageddon piece, with a dark southern horror-thriller undertone. I won't discuss it much, other than to say it is ~not~ like the other books out there, nor is it a "zombie" book. It will be written with character-driven realism, with simple plotting and verbiage, populated with people you know and love and live next to, and will probably land somewhere just south of McCarthy's The Road, but with the fantasy undertones of Bradbury, and the punch-gut wit and honesty of Vonnegut, both of whom I have been reading lately.

I suppose we all have an End-of-the-World, SHTF (Shit Hits the Fan) book in us at some point, right? Have you written or read a good SHTF book lately?

Hope your holidays are going well. See you on the flip-side.

- Eric


Eric W. Trant is a published author of several short stories and the novel Out of the Great Black Nothing. He is currently working on his second full-length novel with WiDo Publishing. See more of Eric's work here: Publications ** ARE YOU AN ORGAN DONOR? ERIC IS! **

Friday, November 2, 2012

Donate to the Super Hero Project for Organ Donation

As many of you know, in May, my family lost our 18 month old son and baby brother, Dastan, to a seizure brought on by a viral infection. We donated his organs. His heart and liver went to little girls, and his kidneys went to a 69 year old woman.

That's Dastan -- DAZ -- in the video, dancing with us just a couple of weeks before he passed. He LOVED those Batman Crocs.








We have been blessed by an overwhelming response from family and friends who support us not only in our time of grieving, but in looking forward to the cause of Organ Donation.

We are establishing a non-profit to begin work with organ donors, with a goal of providing assistance for donor families, who are left with many of the same bills as a recipient family, and must further bear the loss of a loved one.

Our first event is the Walk for Hope on Saturday, November 3, at Meadowmere Park in Grapevine, TX. So much thanks goes out to our friend Kim Wolfe, who has organized funding for the walk, and to my wife, Amanda, who has tirelessly pushed to get this moving forward. Both of them are forging partnerships that will make this foundation a huge success, and a brilliant reality.

You may not know this, but donors are in no way compensated for their loss. It is, in fact, ~illegal~, to reimburse donor families. Here is a good article, if you are up for some reading:

http://www.medscape.org/viewarticle/465739

It is our goal to provide a little assistance to the families, in the form of a donation, to help with such things as funeral costs, residual medical bills, counselling, and other expenses associated with the loss of a loved one.

Below is a way you can donate to our charity. The money will be used to cover legal costs associated with establishing the foundation, and start-up capital to help us forge partnerships with larger entities. Any residual donations will, once we are established, be legally disbursed to donor families, which is our end-goal.




If you would like to add the button to your website, here is the code:


<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
<input name="hosted_button_id" type="hidden" value="TN8LW9PPY4UXS" />
<input alt="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!" border="0" name="submit" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif" type="image" />
<img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" /></form>

LIKE us on FACEBOOK, here: Super Hero Foundation

- Eric


Eric W. Trant is a published author of several short stories and the novel Out of the Great Black Nothing. He is currently represented by Debrin Case at Open Heart Publishing. See more of Eric's work here: Publications

** ARE YOU AN ORGAN DONOR? ERIC IS! **