THANK YOU!

Posted on by A. B. Funkhauser, Author

Thrilled to announce that my three day giveaway on Amazon.com and .ca was an amazing success. I made it to top 10 (Satire) for about two hours, but stayed in the top 20 for three days on .com. Further, I made it to #271 over all for Canada on .ca. That’s a lot of downloads. Now, if 1% actually reads and likes it, maybe, maybe, maybe they’ll buy the others? Who knows.
Anyway, I’d just like to thank everyone here for downloading the beastie/spreading the word to others. It really, really worked.
Round of applause. You deserve it.
—A.B.
Honorable mention to KateMarie Collins for setting it up, Kathi Sprayberry for doing all the things she does, and always Melissa Miller for founding a wonderful community. Solstice, more than just a publisher! TYSM.

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SAY WHAT? BEST SELLING AUTHOR CRYSSA BAZOS GRILLS FUNKHAUSER ON SHELL GAME

Posted on by A. B. Funkhauser, Author

I’ve known A.B. Funkhauser for many years, and to say that she’s as gonzo as her characters is to get it wrong. Sure, she gravitates to larger than life characters on the page and in the public eye, but she appreciates the contemplative too. Claiming to be an “introverted extrovert” she relies on her characters to do all the heavy lifting, to do the things she’d never dream of doing in real life. Her latest work, SHELL GAME, is no exception. Here, characters stay behind closed doors, preferring to spy on one another through windows under cover of night. Interaction appears limited, but is it really? When they aren’t questioning themselves and the motivations of others, they take cues from a black cat that may or may not have real supernatural abilities. Everything is subjective, including what the omniscient narrator chooses to share when and where.

A.B., let’s talk about SHELL GAME, shall we?

 

 

Cryssa Bazos:

Since your publishing date was announced, you’ve been all over social media. Do you love it, or hate it?

 

A. B. Funkhauser:

I hear writers talking about promotions a lot; how it sparks their creative juices, how it saps their energy, how it calls them out and maybe forces them to be more “in your face” than they would normally like to be. And I agree. But promotion goes hand in glove with writing ‘The Book,’ and so it’s a must. There’s a great deal of competition in the writing world. There’s a lot of competition in anything that’s worthwhile. For me, chatting up SHELL GAME is equal parts excitement and self-interest; exciting for me because I’ve completed another project successfully and delivered it to market; self-interest because who else will know about it if I don’t say so?

 

C.B.:

I also notice you tagging yourself as a multi-genre author. What’s up with that? You turning in your gonzo badge?

 

A.B.:

No! Never. But the characters ultimately set the tone, and the people of SHELL GAME are conniving, dastardly, sympathetic and very often contrite. They can’t help it, really. That’s why they need the cats. My hero Carlos is renowned for his quiet, stolid ability to be where he needs to be, affecting certain outcomes because of it. He’s quite brilliant.

Poonam 2 w Cover for Twitter

At the same time, this piece tilts more in the direction of satire and social commentary in the sense that while the humans are behaving outside of the usual boundaries assigned western society, there is still a moral conscience at play that makes them question their actions. This makes them a little less mendacious than the characters in SCOOTER NATION, for example. They are still capable of doing harm, but this time they feel really bad about it.

 

C.B.:

Where did that come from?

 

A.B.:

An event in real time, actually. I hadn’t intended to write a cat book and I’ve gone on about that on this blog and others. I wanted to tuck into the prequel to HEUER LOST AND FOUND, which currently sits at a tantalizing 89,000 words with no end in sight. (I did figure out the ending half way through SHELL GAME, and if I can pull it off it will be quite diabolical.) But like the opening paragraphs of SHELL GAME, I did receive a snarky letter from Animal Control that specifically mentioned the street I live on. I wasn’t the only person on the street to get it—it was a blind drop—but I did take it very personally. The cat I share with a neighbor had brought so much joy into my life and the lives of my family that the faceless person(s) behind the letter threatening his freedom and my pocketbook just infuriated me. The $5,000 fine for not keeping the kitty inside was either a deterrent or tax grab—popular where I live—and the intrusion could only be answered through a ragin’ fiction that sees the cats win for a change. Of course, I can see both sides to the argument for keeping cats indoors in urban areas, and I’m happy to report that my shared kitty spends far more time indoors. But that’s owing to his age and the natural order of things, not from some crummy letter from a human in an office.

 

C.B.:

And SHELL GAME, like SCOOTER NATION, features characters from many different ethnicities. Is this your response to the current debate on cultural appropriation?

 

A.B.:

Ha! That’s a minefield and I’m not stepping into it until I have all the information. From the gonzo side of the street, my read of the issue is that writers should keep to their own pasture so as to be authentic. If that’s true, then all I can really write about are past middle-aged straight white human females and that would be a shame. It would be boring for me to write, and boring for anyone else to read.

Bronagh Character Reveal

But, research, foreknowledge, personal history and cumulative story-telling must play a big part in any writing project if the characters are to ring true and shine. To know what we’re on about—that’s our job—and that’s pretty much all I can say about this topic until I learn more.

 

C.B.:

So, what’s SHELL GAME about?

 

A.B.:

Oh, that. Lol. Well, I always say that I don’t really know for sure until some reviews come in and I get a few interviews under my belt. The best I can say right now is that it’s about a cat, a community, unwanted change, and the mechanisms employed to cope with this change that result in positive and negative resolutions. Change, I believe, cannot be stopped, but it can be messed with, and with these characters you will see activities that are silly AND life threatening. That’s the gonzo element. But there’s a love element to it as well. And of course, the cats are at the center of things, calling the plays, controlling things, just like they’ve done for millennia.

Mr know it all

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Twitter https://twitter.com/iamfunkhauser

Facebook  http://www.facebook.com/heuerlostandfound

And this website

 

 

BUY LINK AND FREE DAYS:

SHELL GAME COVER 1As a ‘thank you’ to everyone who ever  believed in my crazy plan to quit work and write full time, I’m offering SHELL GAME for FREE for the first three days of it’s release. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! ❤

A. B.

GET IT HERE

IMG_20160411_121457About the Author

Toronto born author A.B. Funkhauser is a funeral director, classic car nut and wildlife enthusiast living in Ontario, Canada. Like most funeral directors, she is governed by a strong sense of altruism fueled by the belief that life chooses us, not we it.

Her debut novel Heuer Lost and Found, released in April 2015, examines the day to day workings of a funeral home and the people who staff it. Winner of the Preditors & Editors Reader’s Poll for Best Horror 2015, and the New Apple EBook Award 2016 for Horror, Heuer Lost and Found is the first installment in Funkhauser’s Unapologetic Lives series. Her sophomore effort, Scooter Nation, released March 11, 2016 through Solstice Publishing. Winner of the New Apple Ebook Award 2016 for Humor, and Winner Best Humor Summer Indie Book Awards 2016, Scooter picks up where Heuer left off, this time with the lens on the funeral home as it falls into the hands of a woeful sybarite.

A devotee of the gonzo style pioneered by the late Hunter S. Thompson, Funkhauser attempts to shine a light on difficult subjects by aid of humorous storytelling. “In gonzo, characters operate without filters, which means they say and do the kinds of things we cannot in an ordered society. Results are often comic, but, hopefully, instructive.”

Funkhauser is currently working on THE HEUER EFFECT, the prequel to HEUER LOST AND FOUND.

 

About the Interviewer

fullsizeoutput_d9Cryssa Bazos is a member of the Romantic Novelist Association, the Historical Novel Society, the Writers’ Community of Durham Region and the Battle of Worcester Society. Her articles and short stories have been featured in various publications, both in Canada and the UK. She is a co-editor and contributor of the English Historical Fiction Authors site and blogs as the 17th Century Enthusiast. Her debut novel, Traitor’s Knot, placed 3rd in Romance for the Ages in 2016 (Ancient/Medieval/Renaissance).

 

Traitors Knot Cover“A thrilling historical adventure expertly told.” – Carol McGrath, bestselling author of The Handfasted Wife

England 1650: Civil War has given way to an uneasy peace in the year since Parliament executed King Charles I.

Royalist officer James Hart refuses to accept the tyranny of the new government, and to raise funds for the restoration of the king’s son, he takes to the road as a highwayman.

Elizabeth Seton has long been shunned for being a traitor’s daughter. In the midst of theamazon best seller new order, she risks her life by sheltering fugitives from Parliament in a garrison town. But her attempts to rebuild her life are threatened, first by her own sense of injustice, then by falling in love with the dashing Hart.

The lovers’ loyalty is tested through war, defeat and separation. James must fight his way back to the woman he loves, while Elizabeth will do anything to save him, even if it means sacrificing herself.

Traitor’s Knot is a sweeping tale of love and conflicted loyalties set against the turmoil of the English Civil War.

GET IT HERE

 

Cryssa’s Links

Amazon Author Page

Twitter

Website

 

UP NEXT:

 

FUNKHAUSER AND THE OMNISCIENT VOICE

 

FREE DAYS! SHELL GAME AVAILABLE NOW

 

FREEDOM IN SHELL GAME AND THE STRANGE THINGS THAT RESULT FROM IT

Posted on by A. B. Funkhauser, Author

Freedom has always been a big one for me, for what am I as a gonzo if I cannot judge, poke fun, get it wrong and then slide in a rueful subtext among the laughs and guffaws?

That’s my mission, anyway, and as SHELL GAME’s release date draws near, the notion of freedom as it relates to the plot and characters who seek to keep it has grown more dear.

Imagine a world peopled with ungoverned free-spirits culturally sanctioned to say whatever they like. You wouldn’t have to go too far. Ricky Gervais showcased the concept brilliantly in the film THE INVENTION OF LYING (2009). In it, characters managed to convey whole truths without the sturm und drang of hand-wringing, hair-pulling and copious tear-filled apologies. Chaos did not ensue, at least not until the protagonist started lying through his teeth.

The same happens in SHELL GAME. There, in the humble burg of Pictontown on the Downs, gentle folk go about the business of doing a great deal of damage at little or no cost to the neighbors they try so hard to ignore. It is only when a mysterious and very beautiful black cat enters the picture that untidied things like lies, invasion of privacy, group sex and a missing spouse become important; important because with each new revelation, the freedom to do as one pleases becomes very difficult.

Misunderstandings as a vehicle to catapult the plot forward figure prominently in SHELL GAME as one’s presumed murder victim becomes another’s bratwurst sausage. Likewise, the Beautiful Boy Politician. With all his wealth, intelligence, glamor and promise, it becomes very easy to mix him up with his lackluster opponents because they all wind up saying the same blah, blah, blah to the effect that nothing and everything changes.

A Shell Game is defined as “a deceptive and evasive action or ploy, especially a political one”[1] Readers might want to let that percolate when deciding if the surviving characters are free by book’s end, for as we all know, freedom is subjective and absolutely always illusory.

SHELL GAME releases September 21 on Amazon through Solstice Publishing. As a thank you to readers and supporters, it will be offered as a FREE DOWNLOAD September 21, 22 and 23. Get it here.

Adult, unapologetic, and wholly cognizant, I am

A.B. Funkhauser

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Twitter https://twitter.com/iamfunkhauser

Facebook  http://www.facebook.com/heuerlostandfound

And this website

 

UP NEXT:

THE ULTIMATE SHELL GAME Q & A

 

BUY LINK AND FREE DAYS:

As a ‘thank you’ to everyone who ever  believed in my crazy plan to quit work and write full time, I’m offering SHELL GAME for FREE for the first three days of it’s release. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! ❤

A. B.

[1] Google dictionary, of course.

ON YOUR MARK, GET SET, NANO!!!!!!

Posted on by A. B. Funkhauser, Author

LET IT BURN

In the run up to this year’s NaNoWriMo, I’d half expected to struggle, owing to the tedium of a couple of broken bones that limited my ability to roam free range, and the fine line I’d drawn between completion of the sophomore novel and starting another manuscript. Turns out, I didn’t have to worry. Somewhere between draft six, aluminum crutches that skid, and a much anticipated finish line, I locked on to the key ingredient for a successful writing experience—the inciting incident.

For many of us, the grocery store can be a harrowing experience. Years ago my ‘baby on board’ and I were nearly taken out by a grocery cart piloted by a veddy veddy important looking hooman on a cell phone too busy to notice us. When I protested the T-bone collision, its ensuing effect resulting in a twenty degree kant that toppled the produce from my cart and freaked out my heir, the important telephone person suggested that I “bite [her].”

Bite her?

I didn’t want to do that. I had standards and I didn’t care much for pork. What I did have were my big girl words, and it was to these that I turned in the face of profound absurdity. A speech made by the late Sir John Gielglud’s character to Liza Minnelli in the film Arthur (1981) seemed apropos, so I paraphrased, suggesting to the reckless grocery cart operator that one “didn’t often meet such quality in another person outside a holding cell or drunk tank.”

The line—spectacular in its arrogance—had the desired effect, silencing the ‘bite me’ hooman in a way that I hoped would ruin the rest of her very important day. A shining moment to be sure, its effect sparked something remarkable. Getting slammed was leveling, but taking it out on the page? Elevating. I could not do to the offending human what I might have wanted to, but a character certainly could. In that pursuit, I’ve built my philosophy for creating at NaNo Time:

What good is fiction, if fiction cannot roam freely? What better a character than one that can do what we cannot?

Scooter Banner Blurb

“Seltenheit manager Kevin Gustavson had kept the sale secret, such that the transition from heritage building to hole in the ground happened without a single heart attack or lawsuit. For his subservience, Kevin got a timeshare. The others got a payout indexed to inflation. The old embalmer, unimpressed, hanged himself in the garage.”

“Symbols of the old regime, the suit of the undertaker was forbidden to them, as if looking like a mortician was some kind of intolerable offense in the house that Jocasta built. Yet Scooter took no heed of the boss’s orders, tossing his pomegranate colored blazer into the dumpster with a finality that impressed Carla Moretto Salinger Blue. The morning suit he wore, like the cigarette he smoked, was a clear act of defiance as was, she supposed, the firearm he was holding.”

“Anybody who ever worked at B.H. Hoage, Funeral Directors, where Clayton managed in the late Eighties and early Nineties, never forgot him. Whether inflicting time management strategies on the lowliest earthworm or back breaking lady heels on the feminist wedge ‘steam rollering this fine business of ours,’ Clayton left his mark, much like a cat spraying its territory.”

 

—SCOOTER NATION (WIP completed October 21, 2015)

 

 

Rude, inane, maybe even profane, free ranging characters can drive a story farther and faster than their creator ever dreamed possible, especially when the rigorous demands of NaNoWriMo come up from behind.

Generally, I like to mull a NaNo story for a good year in advance of November 1st. Character names like “Zoltan” “Bronaugh” “Poonam” “Gus” and “Carlos the Wunder Katz” are scratched down and stored in a file along with pop scenes as they make themselves known. But what gets the beauty started is that moment THE MOMENT when you know:

Twitter compressed

On October 6, 2015, a letter was received. In it were a set of instructions and a veiled threat. “Dear Home Owner: It has come to our attention that residents have not been cleaning up after their pets. This is particularly true of Saffron Drive where cats have been roaming freely without proper banding and/or licensing.”

The homeowner frowned.

“City bylaws are explicit. Failure to comply shall result in seizure and a fine of up to and including $5,000. All pets seized by the municipality shall be considered forfeit, property to be retained pending appeal or adoption by an appropriate third party.”

Bronaugh Caley scowled.  It was barely past sunrise, the morning air still carrying on it that vaporous layer of moisture from a cool night and above average day time high’s for that time of year. The missive in her hand wrinkled with the wet of it. Plain stock, Helvetica lettered and baring the stamp of the nascent city’s newly minted coat of arms, it was not francked, but hand delivered. Her tax dollars at work.

She crumpled the paper in disgust. The assessors would be out soon to see if they could raise the levy on her addition. Meantime, she could recycle the plain stock paper. What else could she do with it? She didn’t own a goddamned cat.”

—SHELL GAME (WIP NaNoWriMo 2015)

On October 6, 2015, a letter was delivered to my door from municipal animal control. Chilling and vague, the inference contained within was clear: our beloved neighborhood visitor, a black cat of exceptional beauty, had been singled out by city 5-O. A complaint from a single resident has forced this beauty indoors against his nature, forcing his owner and legions of fans to find a proper home for him in the country where cats can be cats.

A story here? I think so. It incited the above paragraphs. I’ll see if it takes me through to the end of November.

What is your inciting incident? Find it and let it burn bright.

Adult, Unapologetic and Cognizant, I am

A.B. Funkhauser

NaNoWriMo 2015

GOOD LUCK ONE AND ALL!