Living Dangerously: New Years Day

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Weston Ochse is a former intelligence officer and special operations soldier who has engaged enemy combatants, terrorists, narco smugglers, and human traffickers. His personal war stories include performing humanitarian operations over Bangladesh, being deployed to Afghanistan, and a near miss being cannibalized in Papua New Guinea. His fiction and non-fiction has been praised by USA Today, The Atlantic, The New York Post, The Financial Times of London, and Publishers Weekly. The American Library Association labeled him one of the Major Horror Authors of the 21st Century. His work has also won the Bram Stoker Award, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and won multiple New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. A writer of more than 26 books in multiple genres, his military supernatural series SEAL Team 666 has been optioned to be a movie starring Dwayne Johnson. His military sci fi series, which starts with Grunt Life, has been praised for its PTSD-positive depiction of soldiers at peace and at war. Weston likes to be called a chaotic good paladin and challenges anyone to disagree. After all, no one can really stand a goody two-shoes lawful good character. They can be so annoying. It's so much more fun to be chaotic, even when you're striving to save the world. You can argue with him about this and other things online at Living Dangerously or on Facebook at Badasswriter. All content of this blog is copywrited by Weston Ochse.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

New Years Day - 2011

The last few days of 2010 were filled with Family. Not much writing, but getting back with family is important. My daughter came home from college and my son came down from Nevada. First time he'd been home in four years. It was nice to have them back, if not a little hectic. Family sure is something special and I have a certain amount of pride for both of my children.

Christmas came and went. I got plenty of goodies, not the least of which is this awesome Christmas ornament that plays Viva Las Vegas. For Yvonne I got a 27 inch HD flat screen monitor from BenQ. Her office is now a NASA backup location.

On the writing front, Locus Magazine reported that I signed a contract for Dark Regions Press to publish my first ever solo fiction collection. It's titled Multiplex Fandango. Cover art by Vincent Chong. Introduction by Joe Lansdale.

Locus also reported that Yvonne Navarro and I signed another contract with Dark Regions for a YA novel called Ghost Heart. Vincent Chong will also do the cover for this one. It takes place in the Black Hills of South Dakota during the Sturgis Biker Rally. It's pretty awesome.

I also have a story in the next Cemetery Dance Magazine.

On the personal side. I've been doing a lot of reading. I read A Happy Marriage by Rafael Yglesias. It was damned awesome. I know why it won the L.A. Times Book Award now. You might know him from his screenplays, From Hell, Dark Water, Fearless, etc.

I also read Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. It was a modern Peyton Place. I thought it was too long, but enjoyed it nonetheless. Franzen has a skill in making me want to read about people I don't like.

Reading now The King's Bastard by Rowena Cory Daniells. Major epic fantasy from my publisher in England. Truly enjoying it. Highly recommend.

On the Movie front, I watched The American with George Clooney. Oh My God. It was so awful. I mean, it wasn't even good. It was the slowest thing I've ever seen. My local video store had 50 copies (which were all checked out) and I told my son when we saw that there are now 50 pissed off people in town.

That's it so far.

I got up this morning and finished the proposal excerpt for a major novel that an editor at a major publisher asked me to do. Nothing firm yet. He can still turn it down. But it has awesome potential. I still need to do the chapter summary, but that will come easier now I'm 4 chapters into the novel.

Wish me luck.