baD kARmA INk

Sorry guys, but I’m beat. Between work, moving, and some demented god’s idea of fun in the form of e-fucking-bola infecting both me and Joanna, and, in my case, the return of the Lovecraftian sinus infection, I am calling an brief intermission this week.  Real life is just kicking my ass this week.  Fortunately, believe it or not, I’m actually ahead of the game, so next week I’m gonna make it up to y’all with a 2-fer.

That’s right, next week we’ll have a 2-for-1 sale on BotH chapters.

And trust me, you’ll love it. Here’s a quick preview:

• See actual illegal activities occurring!
• See someone that is not Gus get lucky!
• Learn why migas are tasty hangover food!
• See CT jump to conclusions!
• See the beginning of some epic 3 book story-arc foreshadowing (provided there is an audience)!
• See Zen and the art of video games in action!
• And see the stupidity surrounding the heist get amplified!

It’s gonna me money, baby!

The Texas Noir Project

Ladies and gentleman, baD kARmA INk is proud to announce that first fruits of the Texas Noir Project will be the serialization of Brotherhood of the Hand by P.A. “Pat” Humphreys and Christopher A. Helton starting with the first 2 chapters of the novel on Thursday July 1st , followed by at least one chapter every Tuesday and Thursday.  In addition, we will be re-running the previously published short stories that will be collected in the TNP anthology Once Upon a Time in Texas.

Oh, and did we mention that Brotherhood of the Hand is being adapted into an independent film? No, really, it is.  Pre-production is coming along as scheduled and it’s on track to actually happen. Expect more info to come.

The Texas Noir Project

Wow, don’t know about any one else, but this summer has been crazy busy thus far. Both Chris and I either have or will be having fun with our extended families. Chris doesn’t have to teach over the summer, but he still has a ton of stuff going, so it’s kinda amazing the progress he’s made. He’s the got the outline/scripting done for 2 of the new stories going into Once Upon a Time in Texas, not to mention all the work he’s put into his side of Brotherhood of the Hand (We’ll explain exactly what he’s doing with BotH shortly).

I, on the other hand, have been busy with bunch of backend stuff in prep for when the TNP is released, not to mention the day job, so I feel like I haven’t done much in the name of production.

Turns out that’s not the case. I appear to be a good chunk into my final re-write of BotH, and I’m currently averaging 4 chapters a night, but I’m coming up to the sections where things need to be added, not just tweaked, so I may be slowing down.  I don’t think it’ll be too bad, after all, that’s actual writing, and that’s fun.  Unfortunately,  I’ve got at least 3 weekends in the next 6 where I’m not going to be able to do too much work, but hey, that’s what life is.

Stay tuned for more (and hopefully frequent) updates.

The Texas Noir Project

I doubt anyone noticed the TNP page being down yesterday, but that was because I was upgrading bkI and rolling this site into that install. What does this mean to you? Not a damned thing, but it lets me do lots of cool stuff.

And speaking of cool, what do you think of my haphazardly thrown together Texas Noir logo?

Well, I got good news and bad news.

Good news: We have something big coming down the pipe. Like really big. BIG I tell you.

Bad news: I can’t tell you yet. Believe me, I really wanna talk about it, but 1) I don’t have enough info to feel comfortable gabbing about it and 2) I don’t want to jinx it.

Yeah, I know, I’m being a cryptic tool, but trust me, big things are coming down the Texas Noir Project pipeline. Stay tuned.

Yeah, I got nothing.

Seriously, I have nothing to report.

Why? Well, once again real life got in the way.

No, really. Chris is still wrapping up the school year and, on top of other commitments, I’ve had some kind of cold that has traveled into my chest to form some ancient Lovecraftian cabal of mucus powered shoggoths intent on changing reality into a non-euclidian hell worthy of the Great Old Ones.

No, really, every time I blew my nose I had to roll a saving throw to keep from losing sanity points.

So, yeah, nothing to report, butI did manage to get my writing space pseudo-organized, so it’s not a total loss.

One of the reasons I setup TexasNoir.com was as a kind of public shaming accountability.  I mean, by leveraging the Facebook fans, the Twitter followers, and the random direct web-hit folks,  I theoretically have people other than just Chris keeping me on task.

Therefore I pledge a weekly (at a minimum) Texas Noir update, be it some long diatribe about how me and Chris plan on working together or just a cop out word count. Course, it would also help if said co-author, over the summer, dropped me some essays, stories,  or rants for that other site I ride herd on.

This leads me to the State of the Project. »Read More

Howdy. This is the first post on the Texas Noir Project homepage.

The Texas Noir Project is a set of stories set in a shared underworld created by Christopher A. Helton and P.A. “Pat” Humphreys.  Working together, they have created a shared world of drugs, crime, guns, dark cults, psychopaths, and people simply pushed to far. The first fruits of the project, The Brotherhood of the Hand and Once Upon a Time in Texas: An Anthology of Texas Noir are currently in draft and planning stages with publication planned for late 2010 early 2011. In the mean time, texasnoir.com will be the place to find info and status reports for this project.

As part of the greater baD kARmA INk family, The Texas Noir Project Webpage should cross post to the main bkI site.