My Twitter Milestone, and Other News

State of the Apocalypse, Mid-December Monday 2015

I finally feel secure in having over 1,000 Twitter followers now that some of the spammy accounts I haven’t followed back have dropped off. I still need to curate my list for accounts that have proven to be stealth-spammers, but this is looking good. The great bulk of them are authors and horror fans and people who simply like to read, and that’s as it should be. I’m a long way from October 2014 when I had all of 36 followers, and decided to get serious with the platform. 

I didn’t pay one red cent for these people. Save for the few spammy ones I’ve missed, these are all real authors, real fans, real people, and I’m damned proud to (sort of) know them.

Twitter has helped keep my blog visits and book sales going years after most people’s books and brand fade. It’s no secret how this works, and I’m not charging you for the advice, so you’ll probably ignore me when I tell you that you must give Twitter love to get Twitter love. Which is fine. It’s not a matter of less competition for me—my preferred mindset is abundance mentality; these people are colleagues, not competitors—it’s that if you’re so damn dense that you cannot comprehend the most fundamental principle of the universe, that What Goes Around Comes Around, we don’t need you on the team. 

This guy.

At this point I need to shout-out to my unwitting mentor, @BleedingCritic of BleedingCritic.com. Bleeding Critic was there at the beginning when I elected to quit goofing around and get invested. It’s been inspirational watching the man behind the mask build his site with thoughtful, comprehensive reviews of horror films, along with original spoken-word content, and Skyped-in testimonials of favorite moments in horror films from fans. Me, I’ll be happy to finish writing this next book. This guy, he could make himself famous with his mad Photoshop skills alone. Yet he does so much more, and all for straight-up love of horror cinema, from the soundtracks to the cinematography to the part that made you hide your face in the throw pillow. You can’t fake that. If you’re a fan of horror cinema, you owe yourself a look at Bleeding Critic’s site.

I need to do another Skype review just for this. He’s got another version of this image with the clown  mask on the boy’s head second-from-right. Bleeding Critic’s Photoshop-fu is unbeatable.

In other news, I did manage to write a full page beyond what happened to that unfortunate soldier at the cold dead hands of Abby Cadaver yesterday, and I’m within striking distance of finishing that chapter. I’ve got so much further to go, but for the first time in maybe six months, I don’t feel like I’m spinning my wheels. (Fun fact: I don’t get writer’s block. I get goddamn son-of-a-whoring pissshit stuck. It’s not a metaphorical wall I can’t get around; it’s virtual mud I can’t get traction in.)

My partner in pixelated fiction, James Robert Smith, finally finished his COALITION trilogy and is working on exciting new stuff. And I’m finally over 1,000 Twitter followers. It’s a good life if you don’t weaken.