Living Dangerously: How In the Hell Did I Write 25 Books?

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.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

How In the Hell Did I Write 25 Books?

It's hard to believe I've had 23 books published with two in the queue. It seems like just yesterday that Darktales published Scary Rednecks and Other Inbred Horrors. David Whitman and I didn't even know what we were doing, but we somehow managed to outsell many of the mass market books with this thin horrific tome of 21 short stories. And now here I am with book 24 - Red Palm and book 25 - Grunt Traitor. Wow. Just Wow. I guess this is what happens when you keep your head down and just write.

Let me see if I can remember the books in chronological order.

1. Scary Rednecks and Other Inbred Horrors
2. Natural Selection

3. Appalachian Galapagos
4. Scarecrow Gods
5. Recalled to Life
6. The Golden Thread
7. Blaze of Glory
8. Empire of Salt
9. Velvet Dogma
10. Babylon Smiles
11. Vampire Outlaw of the Milky Way
12. Lord of the Lash and Our Lady of the Boogaloo
13. The Loup Garou Kid
14. Redemption Roadshow
15. Blood Ocean
16. Nancy Goats
17. Multiplex Fandango
18. SEAL Team 666
19. Age of Blood
20. Border Dogs
21. Grunt Life
22. Halfway House
23. Reign of Evil

24. And very soon Red Palm
25. and this summer Grunt Traitor

Someone will have to correct me if I made a mistake, after all, it's math. If you want to see the covers for all these, they can be found on my website at www.westonochse.com

And to think that I was once 32 years old, sitting in military housing on Fort Bragg, dreaming I could become a writer. And then one day I started writing and would you look at me now. I'd like to point out that not a single book was self-published. Each one was bought and paid for by publishers ranging from the small press to the Big Five. It was a hard row to hoe and it took longer for my first novel to be published (7 years), but it gave me time to refine my craft.

Yes, I'm proud, but it's more than that. I am that guy who wanted it, went for it, learned the craft, and got what I wanted. I'm you. I'm your brother-sister-cousin who wants to be a writer but doesn't know how.

I could be anyone.

It just takes time.

I definitely feel like a winner.

Now enough of this bullshit.

Time to get back to writing.

I think the number 50 sounds good!

Look for me in the stacks!

# # #

(A funny note about that picture. That's Brian Keene and Norman Partridge holding up my arms. It wasn't planned. We had like fifteen seconds to do as many poses as we could to get these free pictures. Somehow I got in the middle and they just jerked my arms up. So crazy. Good times.)