Five Years of the Foul Mouth

SEPTEMBER 1, 2011 was the date when I finally got to share King Henry Price with the world.  Not that anyone really noticed at first judging by my sales in those beginning months, but 4 more main novels, 6 shorts and an auxiliary novel later, here we are we a respectable fanbase and cult favorite status, with hopes that FM6--and those that come after--will push the series even farther and wider.

It's an exciting time to be a Foul Mouth fan and to be the writer in control of the slowly unfolding disaster that is The King Henry Tapes.  I truly believe that the next five years will be even more exciting.  I don't know if we'll manage to finish the last half of the series in that time (since these things have gotten a tad larger than The Fanged Lady was) but surely a number more, filled with twists, turns, and just a bit of cursing.

The first five years has seen numerous covers, revisions, the formation of a beta reading team, the building of a fanbase thousands strong, over 50 thousand copies of FM1 given away, promos, tweets, blog posts, and of course, lots of writing...about a million words in fact.

For you it might have begun five years ago, likely much sooner, for me it was before even that.  2009, fed up with the vampire fad (especially the sparkling ones) and with what the publishers were doing to Urban Fantasy (what's this "paranormal" shit on every shelf?), pulling from Jordan, Martin, Herbert, Erikson, Star Wars, Lost, X Men, Pulp Fiction, and hundreds of other sources of inspiration, I started piecing together a reaction, maybe even a rebellion of all things fad and publisher and "paranormal."  I asked questions: what would be a truly unique type of  vampire?  What would a boy wizard abused and forced to live under the stairs actually act like?  Why was no one in paranormal using a magic system and could you make elemental magic almost scientific and unique outside of staff waving and yelling?  Why is everyone focusing on the Urban and not the Fantasy?  Can you start as low and become high?

I think I've answered some, am still trying for others and have even found new questions in the journey.  It started with lots of world building and pieces of blank paper...

Xylomancy?  WTF was I thinking?

Then it moved on to the writing itself...

That's right, the first fifty pages of the school story are handwritten because i couldnt sit in a chair due to a pulled back.  Yes, yes, there were typos even then.  Then of course, editing...which for FM1 lasted almost an entire year.  I've gotten a tad faster nowadays.

Anyway, consider this a thanks for the support in my beginning and in King Henry's beginning as well.  Neither of us are done yet and there are plenty more adventures to come in the next five and beyond, new worlds to explore, villians to fear, and new heroes to related to.  Not all of them will curse, but the first, yes he very much does!