A few announcements to make on behalf of me and some good friends, and then a chance to win cool free stuff.
STUFF TO BUY:
WOLFSBANE & MISTLETOE, edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni LP Kelner. This werewolf/Christmas anthology is available at bookstores everywhere, and has a novella by me, which I promise is a lot of fun. Plus, it's a NYT Bestseller. :)
BLOOD LITE, edited by Kevin J. Anderson. This humorous horror anthology has a funny/gory story I co-wrote with F. Paul Wilson. Go get it.
THE SPY WHO CAME FOR CHRISTMAS, by David Morrell. I was lucky enough to get an advance reading copy, and this book is terrific.
THE NEW WRITER'S HANDBOOK VOLUME 2, edited by Philip Martin. This is a good collection of essays about writing and publishing, including one by me. If you're a newbie or a pro, it's worth buying.
AFRAID, by Jack Kilborn. For the three of you in the world who don't already know, I'M JACK KILBORN. If you live in Europe or Australia, you'll be able to buy this in hardcover or trade paperback on November 13. If you live in the US and are a diehard collector and demand a hardcover edition, visit Amazon.co.uk. The rest of you must wait until April, when the US paperback edition is released.
PLACES TO GO:
My friend MJ Rose is teaching her Buzz Your Book class one time only next year. If you sign up and tell her I sent you, she'll donate $25 to Locks Of Love, which is the reason I'm growing my hair long.
My friend Henry Perez, whose first novel Killing Red is coming out in '09, finally joined the 21st century and got himself a website. It's at www.henryperezbooks.com. He also has a thoughtful blog. Be a good web friend and trade links with him. Henry's a good guy, and also a good person to know. Plus he promised to buy me a beer for every person I send over.
MURDER AND MAYHEM IN MUSKEGO. I'll be there in Wisconsin, along with a bunch of other authors, November 7 and 8. It's a lot of fun, and afterward we all drink. You should go. Trust me.
CONTEST:
Jack Kilborn's UK publisher, Headline, kindly sent me a few hardcovers and trade paperbacks of AFRAID, just in time for Halloween. In turn, I want to share these with you, my loyal fans.
There will be two contests.
HARDCOVER
To win an AFRAID hardcover (two of them are available) go to my forum at
http://www.jakonrath.com/phpBB3, sign up if you haven't already, and post something in the AFRAID CONTEST thread. The instructions are there.
TRADE PAPERBACK
To win an AFRAID trade paperback (three available), post a comment in this blog stating what makes you afraid. It could be one word (such as "spiders") or it could be more detailed.
You can enter both contests as often as you like. Winners in both categories will be judged on creativity. In the case of a tie, my wife will pick the winners. If I get a lot of entries, I reserve the right to give away more than five books.
On your end, if you do win a copy, you have to promise to review it online absolutely everywhere.
Fair enough? Happy Halloween!
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103 comments:
What makes me afraid?
An empty fridge cause I like to eat.
My biggest fear is running out of books to read.
That's my idea of an apocalyptic event. If the Apocalypse comes, what if I don't have anything to read???
When I was little, during our yearly trip to Florida to visit family, we rented the movie Jaws. The next day we went to visit the Sea World shark tanks. The day after that we went to the beach. Needless to say this last stop didn't work out to well for my parents and every since I've been deathly afraid of sharks and swimming.
I love heights, but I'm afraid of falling off them. I'd still like to try skydiving one day, though. Study in contradictions, who, me?
That there is such a thing as Tarantula Mating Season in California. (A friend who lives there has been sending me pictures when she encounters them in her daily life.) I am now terrified of visiting. I knew about fire, mudslide and earthquake seasons. Nobody ever says anything about spider season.
running out of important natural resources, like chocolate
A McCain/Palin victory.
Not necessarily for ideological reasons, but because my mother-in-law would be right.
I just can't live in a world where she's right.
What makes me afraid?
Cloning. More specifically, independently wealthy scientists who think it might be a good idea to clone our current president. With hundreds of clones...that's a lot of fingers and toes for him to count on. And Heaven forbid he decides that he actually likes math. There's no telling how many recounts he'll demand, and for what. He'll demand one recount... then another... then another... then before you know it every state will have to recount their votes. MORE HANGING CHADS???!!! It's time to run and hide, kids.
Spiders and height.
Darned scorpions in the bed!
What scares me the most is if all horror movies, books music all just ended and everything had to happy and non scary! That's what scares me the most!
My biggest fear is enclosed spaces to the point that I'll be cremated rather than buried because the thought of spending eternity in a coffin gives me the willies.
I'm also afraid that one day my OCD tendencies will take over my life and I'll be forced to spend all of my waking time checking doors and ovens/stoves, stepping over cracks, waiting for the next stair on an escalator and any number of other things that I have to do as I encounter them.
I'd much rather read.
Know what would really scare me?
A contest where that creepy J.A. Konrath guy picked the winners. Just the thought makes me shiver.
Becoming a conformist and losing my curiosity. Not questioning “why?” any more. Yeah, the whole spider thing creeps me out, too, but I’m far more afraid of dying by fire or just wasting away as a drone without spunk. The idea of being a one-book author scares me, but since I have some control over that (it’s called showing up at the keyboard), I’m not waking up in cold sweat over it.
what makes me afraid:
running out of beer...
I’m afraid of being stripped naked, tied and gagged, doused in pancake syrup, and eaten alive by fire ants.
I’m especially afraid of Mrs. Butterworth. That bitch seriously gives me the creeps...
So, if you’re going to strip me naked, tie and gag me, douse me in syrup and feed me to fire ants, for God’s sake have some mercy and use Log Cabin.
My greatest fear is losing my children.
I'm afraid to forget. It's my worst fear probably, or one of the worst at least... it beats my fear of spiders or needles or my fear of Bette Midler and the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of OZ easily.
I guess I should explain a bit more... my dad died when I was 10, and there's so much about him that I don't remember, I've even forgotten what his voice sounds like... and even thinking about that just makes it hard to breath, when I try to remember something about him and I realise I've forgotten or the memory has gotten hazier, I panic.
I'm terrified that one day I won't be able to remember and the only thing I'll have left is a string of almost memories that seem more like dreams that fade with time.
It scares me because as much as it hurts to remember him knowing he's gone, it hurts even more to not remember him because then it's like I never had a dad in the first place, like he was just some story I heard about and I feel so guilty for forgetting things about him... I could count the clear memories I have of him and it would be less than 20, which when you think about the memories most people have of their dads, it's really not a lot (my parents split up when I was two, so I never got to see my dad everyday while he was alive... just when I'd go to visit him or he'd come see me).
...So yeah, that's my fear; I'm afraid to forget, it's silly and irrational but that's the thing with fear, the things we fear most tend to be things that shouldn't be scary and are out of our control anyway.
-Lanna
I am not afraid of lightning, snakes, spiders, scorpions, enclosed spaces, heights, or even death.
I am afraid of cotton balls. They CREEP me out! And don't even get me started on cotton candy! UGH!
Living a completely inconsequential life. Therefore I must win this book so that I may review it. The other big fear is being impaled and being forced to watch as it happens repeatedly, over and over for eternity. That, and pain scare the hell out of me.
I'm afraid of feeling guilty about guilt and feeling the guilt of not feeling guilty.
Cause I'm guilty of doing a lot of things, but I don't feel guilty about doing them.
Okay ... now that's just scary.
the "snuggles" fabric softner bear.
Barney, that purple dinosaur, raises the hair at the nape of my neck. ::shiver:: I honestly don't know why. He's just...evil.
Maybe one day I'll do the hypnosis thing and find out just what he did to me. There's got to be something, right? Hm.
Truthfully, I'm terrified that WHEN my books get published, some nut in this namby-pamby, everyone's-inner-child-is-a-little-bitch, I'm-too-easily-offended-and-I-need-to-grow-a-spine world will freak out over my books and look for retribution through my family.
The reason that scares me is that people go through some pretty awful things in my head (and therefore sometimes in my books), and nowadays you hear about people like Tom Hanks and Dan Brown having to hire bodyguards. I wouldn't so much be worried for me as I would for my family, because the losers that take this stuff seriously enough to hurt people over it are never gutsy enough to go after the writer. They ARE, however, chicken**** and slimy enough to go after a writer's family, and that's not okay.
Someone even hurts/torures my dogs (who are like my kids), and the red cross will need to run a donation drive to make up for all the blood I use keeping the perpetrator alive while I continue to toture him.
Oh, and spiders. :D
What am I afraid of?
Snow Globes. How do they get that stuff in there anyway?
Losing my dog’s respect.
People who collect miniature anything. Do you think they pretend they’re giants?
Ann Coulture. Seriously.
Talking birds.
Bikini waxes.
Sushi.
Babies who look like old men.
Statues of dead presidents.
What makes me afraid? Altzheimers. I am terrified of losing my mind. It is the most important thing that I have. When I was a teenager I might have said something else was more important, but now at age 63 it's my mind.
It terrifies me that one day I'll wake up and realize that my horrible, recurrent nightmare that humans run the planet has come true... that would well and truly suck.
Clowns. What else can I say? The only form demons can take in this realm, laying eggs through their mouths in the form of balloon animals. Clowns have scared me since childhood. Clowns are not our friends.
Doctors. A room full of them, lining the walls, watching. The only sound their whispers, and the relentless noise of the machine. Too many people between me and the door, they'll stop me before I can get two steps from the bed. I lie back, control my breathing. Watch what's happening. Try to plan.
First off, I have to second Bren...but I will admit that it's for ideological reasons.
Running out of books I don't worry about TOO much simply because I've stock piled so many I'd have to be cut off for at least two years to actually run out...now a fire in my house where the books are stockpiled...that would scare me.
I'm also afraid of exactly what my pets do when I'm not at home...
Reading your email was a nice wakeup this morning. Always a good laugh there!
What makes me afraid? Well, besides falling, which is the big one, I have one other fear. That would be laughing so hard I wet my pants. Not a good thing. The wetting that is. Gets worse after a few drinks, unfortunately!
Crowds-someone is always looking at you.
Public speaking-EVERYONE is always looking at you.
Being scared.
I am more than just afraid; I am terrified of snakes. Just the thought of those slinky, slimy, slithering beast makes me woozy!
What makes me afraid?
The wrath of my wife when she's mad.
There! That's right! I said it!!!
What else makes me afraid?
That dream where I'm a chick and I'm on the Family Feud. And I know it's my turn next. And Richard Dawson's lips are getting closer...and closer...and closer...
I am afraid that I have so many books that someday the entire second floor of my house will collapse.
God help the cat.
Steve Vernon
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Dammit, some of these entries are really good.
This may come down to flipping coins...
When I was little it was still a big deal to watch The Wizard of Oz on TV. While I loved the songs and the good witch, I had nightmares about that wicked witch and her flying monkeys. The nightmares persisted until my 20's when I finally got to douse that witch with a bucket of water!
I still think it is the scariest movie--at least for me.
Snakes!
What makes me afraid?
Driving on Ice and Snakes.
my in-laws
I used to be so afraid that someone would break into the house and kidnap my son that I wouldn't use the air conditioner in my bedroom at night because it might keep me from hearing the would-be kidnapper. Now that he's 16, I shut both our bedroom doors and crank it up!
Driving on Ice and Snakes.
I too am afraid of driving on snakes. :)
I'm "afraid" others in this blog have been more creative then me and I won't win a paperback copy of AFRAID which I know after reading will make me very "afraid" to ever leave my house again!
Mel K.
Spam.
Spam frightens me. Not the email kind - the canned variety. That mixture of unknown pink animal parts always makes me shiver. Questions never stop as to the nature of the pasty concoction so loosely called “meat.” What horrors are buried within its rounded corners? Did I feel its flesh quiver on my tongue when I took that last bite?
What ceaselessly inhabits my nightmares however, is the jelly - the sickly fallow goo that inhabits the corners of the can. One can only imagine what hideous ingredients comprise this nauseating bile. I picture an undead legion feeding on it, using straws to suck the last remaining drops from the can. When all is consumed, they look up and bleat its name begging for more. “Spaaaaam!” Of course, their decaying brains cannot fathom that this name seems to be an acronym: Specially Processed Animal Mucus.
I have a really bad water phobia. I'm not afraid of the water, in fact, I love the water. I'm afraid of the creepy crawlies in the water. I'm fine in a pool, but open water is out of the question.
My biggest fear is a plane crash. I don't avoid flying as it get's me to many lovely destinations. I just can't stop thinking of plummeting to my death.
Knowing I'm about to be squashed into the earth at thousands of miles an hour is one of the scariest things to me.
Well, since I'm a wolf, it's Sarah Palin in a helicopter.
I'm afraid of people who are trying to kill me.
I'm afraid of Virgina Woolf. I'm afraid of zombies carrying whole wheat bread and a half-used jar of mustard, the butter knife clanking against its edges. I'm afraid of solipsism and nutmeg. I'm afraid of reruns. I'm afraid of Christopher Walken. I'm afraid of not waking up. I'm afraid of not being able to fall asleep. I'm afraid of blogs and death and musty breezes and apples with razors in them. I'm afraid of the sword of Damocles. I'm afraid of Santa Claus and clowns and leprechuans with fuzzy red beards.
I am afraid I will be in the room when my father dies. He has lung cancer and just weeks left. I was with my first husband when he did and it was months before the images stopped popping into my head. I don't want to go through that again.
Failure.
Or is it success?
lanna-lovely said she's afraid to forget. I'm afraid to remember.
Christopher Robbins says he's afraid of reruns. So am I. Remember the time he got caught trying to tape the Doobie Brothers concert? That was some scary shit. Hey hey hey, what's happenin JA?
I'm afraid of psych wards. It's crazy how they depict them in movies and television. I'm majoring in Psychology and I have NO idea how I'm going to stand treating patients in a psych ward!!
President Sarah Palin
I am afraid of my car accidentally running into a lake, river, or ocean. Cars that end up underwater are one of the most terrifying things I can think of. Strangely, I still don't have one of those special glass-breaking hammers in my car. I should ask for one for Christmas.
I have one fear that is actually three in one. I'm afraid of clowns, yet afraid to tell anyone I'm afraid of clowns because I'm afraid they will then torture me with my fear of clowns. If anyone close to me knew this it would guarantee every birthday card would have a clown on it.
success and failure
My greatest fear is of writing. Which is weird because I want to be a writer, but let me explain. I'm terrified that whatever I write is crap and that whoever tells me differently is just trying to humor me. And when I'm convinced I'm a good writer, I'm suddenly scared of that confidence, because I don't want to sound cocky. (Then I go back to being worried about being a bad writer.)
I'm scared of posting any of my writing, because I'm terrified it'll be ripped and critiqued to pieces. But I'm scared that if I never post, I'll just be another closet writer that spends her days being bitter because she never got any feedback.
I'm scared that I'll look back on what I've written in past years and think, "My God, that is really bad."
I'm scared of success, but I'm paralyzed by the thought of failure.
Oh, and I'm also scared of meeting people that I should remember the name of, but keep forgetting. ("Um, yeah. Hi.... uh, you. Nice to see *you* again." :D
Oh, and forgot to mention this before: I finally purchased a copy of "Wolfsbane and Mistletoe." It's a really good read! My two favorite stories were yours and Rob Thurman's.
Any kind of bug touching me...or just the idea of a bug touching me...makes my heart pound and my head spin. Riding in airplanes really gets the ol' terror juices flowing and the butterflies swarming.
I am afraid of genetically engineered troops escaping a helicopter crash and terrorizing my small northwoods Wisconsin town.
Someone should write a book like that!
I'm "Afraid" of not winning the book of the same title; closed spaces; and roller coasters. Roller coasters ever since I saw the movie Final Destination 3.
What made me afraid was having my Marine grandson in Iraq. We were lucky he and his buddies all came home earlier this month.
There are many things I fear. The book of revelations, censorship, homelessness, the loss of loved ones, (Stephen King, JA Konrath, Dean Koontz)... fire, zombies, aliens, creepy crawly slithering things, and grandchildren. But wait, they fall under creepy crawly slithering things.
I fear loss. I would be lost and my world would be empty if I lost my loved ones. Also, I fear losing my JA Konrath collection!!
My biggest fear is loss. I would be lost and my world would be empty if I lost my loved ones. Also, I fear someone stealing all of my JA Konrath collection!!
"Lucky the Leprechaun" cause he's always after me Lucky Charms...and you know what charms I'm talking about.
I’m afraid of…
picking the wrong invisible entity to worship.
Sweet. Jeez. Us. Christopher Robbins's comment about bread reminded me of something else (as if Barney isn't enough). Wheat bread disguised as white. No!!
That white/wheat stuff is insidious. It's everywhere you turn now, taking over the world one loaf (pod?) at a time. My formerly white bread mother buys it in BULK. My father, who used to complain, is strangely happy with it these days. I was visiting, and Mom comes at me with two loaves from the PILE on her kitchen island. "Here, honey... take one for your brother, too." ???
There's something going on. Don't say I didn't warn you.
My biggest fear is dark water. Grew up on the coast, currently live on a lake. I can swim. Just make it chlorinated and don't put other live entities in it with me or I come unglued. I have to think twice about whether to get in a boat.
What makes me afraid?
My kids. They are so cute when they are little and then they grow into little monsters.
I'm on a search to find something that makes me more afraid than the kids. I hope I will succeed after reading the copy of Afraid that I win from the contest.
What gives me shivers in the night is the concept of losing my vision. If that were to happen, I could no longer read, which scares the living crap out of me.
That, and the thought that J.A. Konrath might someday decide to write no more books. Shudder!
Jay
What scares me? Men with smiley face tatoos!!
Actually, this is weird. I was born on November 13th. You would think that I love to see that day come, but too many bad things have happened on that day. Once, as a child, we were returning from picking up my birthday cake on November 13th, when a driver hit us head-on. So, I guess I have a right to be freaked out and scared of the 13th. It is so weird to think that the book will come out on my birthday. My birthday was ruined by a stupid driver...I lost my cake, too. That was scary, and I have had a few dreams about it.
i am afraid of books ending in cliffhangers that make me wait a year to know the ending. wait... damn you konrath!!!
i am really afraid of cars. i understand the need for them and i drive daily. just every time i get into one i always think i wont be getting back out.
i am also afraid of being murdered and no one being able to solve the crime. i want the detectives from csi:ny to investigate my murder so i know all avenues have been explored. can i get that in a contract prior to death?
anyway, just wanted to say hi. hope you all have a great day. i am tired and rambling now. i need to go.
What makes me afraid? Living down the street from the author of AFRAID, especially if it is as scary as it is made out to be.
I'm deathly afraid of authors that blurb their own books.
I'm afraid the election will be postponed and the ads for the candidates will go on forever.
I'm afraid of...
not winning this contest.
I'm AFRAID of being AFRAID.
Just the thought of being AFRAID frightens me.
Maybe if I weren't so AFRAID of being AFRAID, then I wouldn't be AFRAID all the time!
Say for example, I had a lovely, compelling book to read... one by that nice and talented Jack Kilborn would do.
That might help me to forget how AFRAID I am about being AFRAID.
Hell, I'd even settle for a book by that lush JA Konrath!
I'm afraid of leaving a comment unless at least 80 people have gone before me.
afraid = going blindwolf1
snow & ice on the roads; ignorance & bigotry; restaurant buffets...and the list goes on and on. :-)
A bird eating spider.
The Golden Orb Weaver spider located in Australia - right where I live. Birds are big!!
So is the spider.
Reported on 23 October 2008
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=652115
(Sung to the tune of "My favorite things")
Big harry spiders, and really high places,
Fast moving cars, and ugly old faces,
Girlfriends who want engagement rings,
These are a few of the scarriest things.
I fear the repo man... I fear collections agents, and big scary lawsuits served by the sheriff on my door step. I don't answer the phone if the caller ID is blocked... I turn the lights out and slink along the wall below the front window to hide if I think a random slowing car might be servailance looking my way. I hide my valuables in relatives storage units to avoid retaliation from the unsuccessful repo man, and I park my car under a tarp in a friend's garage and hike nearly a mile home each day... well at least I did before it was repoed... but still! I fear debt, and credit cards, and buying crap I can't afford and don't really need. I fear the constant demand to keep up with the Joneses.
Deep water, at night.
what makes me afraid?
white screen with blinking cursor.
I just got into the Repairman Jack books by Wilson. Very cool series!
I'm afraid of the muffin man.
My fears are pretty traditional ones, but they don't frighten me separately, only together. So what really scares me is standing on the ledge of a high rise, naked, giving a speech on a topic I know nothing about to a crowd of angry clowns holding their pet snakes and spiders.
I structure my life to avoid that scenario.
I'm a afraid of posting on the internet....please don't steal my identity
I fear eight-legged critters. Even tiny ones. I once felt an irritation on my stomach and pulled up my shirt to look. Eight black bristles inside my belly button meant a tick was imbedded there. Now I feel a slight tickle on my shoulder blade. Is it a spider? Another tick? I contort my body to search it out. My fingertips encounter what feels like a large flake of dry skin hanging on for dear life. JUST LIKE A TICK! I scream and race to the bathroom, tearing off my shirt, craning my neck to study my reflection. Yes, I think it has legs! GET IT OFF ME!!!
Off topic, but this is a suggestion. Add FeedBlitz to your blog so I can get an email update. That would be SOOOOO wonderful. Thanks.
Hope Clark
Fundsforwriters.com
I fear an empty wallet because it'd prevent me from buying my donuts. Mmmm...donuts. *drool*
Spiders, because they're just tiny versions of vampires and vampires really creep me out thanks to reading too much Stephen King when I was in high school.
I fear the irrational. Those that can not be sorted with reason or logic. Be it a Michael Myers (Disregarding the sequels of course) character or even fate itself. For fate can not be reasoned with. It simply continues onward. Once something is fully beyond one's ability of comprehension, then things can be quite scary.
Thanks everyone who entered! The winners are posted on my forum, under the AFRAID CONTEST heading.
http://www.jakonrath.com/phpBB3
People who run in place at stoplights.
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