How to Succeed in Evil

The Latest Evil

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January 24, 2010 2 Comments

So hey, why haven’t you gotten any more ‘Evil?

You think it’s frustrating for you? You have no idea how frustrating it is for me not to be able to work on fiction full-time. Sadly, that’s just not the way things work at the moment. But writing isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. And if there is anything an endurance race calls for it’s patience. Patience and the ability to endure pain past the point where a more sane, reasonable person would give up.

But I’m still slugging it out. I’ve been creating a good deal of content on my other sites. All of it is aggregated on PatrickEMcLean.com — so if you haven’t swung by, you should check it out. My target is a blog post a week and a podcast a month. In the meantime, I’ve hit the 40k mark on Unkillable and feeling good about it. (after feeling hopelessly lost and confused.)

As soon as that’s done I’ll be back on How to Succeed in Evil. Sorry it takes me a little longer than some, but I feel that you have to give the work the time it needs. Otherwise it comes out covered in suck. Thanks for hanging in there.

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October 29, 2009 12 Comments

Update: The End is Never the End (at least not with this book)

So I’ve gotten a number of emails asking about a sequel. And yes, another book is coming. (With that ending, c’mon? There has got be another book.) But here’s a brief update on what I’ve been up to, and what I will be doing before book two.

I have completed a massive rewrite of the book. I’m very happy with it. A pivotal event (to avoid spoiler) happens 2/3rds of the way through and Edwin spends the last 3rd of the book kicking ass. I cut about 20,000 words out and added 10,000 back in. So we’re at a much faster-paced 90,000.

As soon as I am done with this post I am calling an agent to finalize a contract. If that all goes well, I will have secured representation for the print version, and it’s off to the races. And by races, I mean publishers.

I’m the process of migrating all my work under one website, PatrickEMcLean.com, so that there will be a steady stream of updates and goodness and suchlike. (Don’t worry, this site will remain). Because if you just looked at the Seanachai over the last 6 months, it appeared that I was very lazy. This is not the case. I’ve got 71 chapters of written, recorded and produced non-lazy awesomeness right here.

Currently, I’m working on a novella/novel length project called Unkillable. For a number of reasons, it has been important for me to put How to Succeed in Evil down for a while. When Unkillable hits 50,000 words, I’m going to start Evil again. At the the very least there will be a 10,000 word short of How to Succeed in Evil in January. If you’ve been very, very good, maybe in time for Christmas.

Lastly, and more on this soon, I am self-publishing a collection of short stories entitled “Stories I Told Myself” They are taken mainly from the Seanachai. There will be several new pieces in this book. Including the story of how I was shot and almost killed when I lived in Los Angeles. (No punchline here. It’s a true story. Although it is fairly funny in places.)

That’s all the news I got. Hang on. There’s lots of great stuff in the pipeline.

Audio Novel

September 3, 2009 35 Comments

How to Succeed in Evil by Patrick E. McLean

The Latest Evil