F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction (New Weird) Author

The Uninvited

Crazy Ants Invade!

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Ants play a role in The Uninvited. Fire ants (Solenopsis richteri Forel and Solenopsis invicta Buren). But last week I’d read an article about a new variety of ant causing a ruckus in the southeastern U.S. What are they called?

Crazy ants.

Or, as they are officially called, “Tawny crazy ants.”

And, apparently, they come in colors, like black, red, or yellow.

And can sport wings.

They’re omnivores and take over areas by killing, and what they don’t kill, starve out. They don’t bite and sting like fire ants, but they get into everything. Inside and out. Nest inside walls, crawl spaces, house plants, empty containers. Bags of leaves. Anywhere and everywhere. And their populations are incredibly dense. Experts say at least fire ants were…polite. Yes, that’s the term used. Fire ants at least stayed around their outside mounds, and only interacted if you interrupted their lives, like came plowing through their mounds.

This all kind of reminds of the 1974 Phase IV novel and movie.

I mean, where do these kinds of things come from? Why do they exist? It seems we get used to one critter, and another comes along and takes its place. Or is it something much more insidious? Could it be…an alien invasion? Did Barry Malzberg, Mayo Simon, and Saul Bass know something we didn’t know? Mother Nature fighting back?

Or…do we attract the crazy ants, the fire ants, the killer bees into our lives?

There is the old adage, “Like attracts Like.”

Aphorisms like these usually have some form of truth to them. What if (remember, I’m “What-if” Guy)…all our Human-generated angst is bringing these kinds of infestations into life? And not just the crazy ants, but the crazy weather, the crazy politics, the crazy despots? If “Like” truly does attract “Like,” might this be how it would manifest in real life? That all our collective fears, collective angsts, which really are another form of energy (exactly like electromagnetic radiation; everything has a frequency, matter is just another form of energy), and all forms of energy radiate (even Black Holes radiate), because all of life is about energy, the change in its state, the manipulation of it…what if we’re the ones bringing these “intrusions” into our lives, and it’s not really about any so-called “invasions”? And it’s not that what we’re experiencing is anything new. Throughout Human history we see the nasty, but what I’m getting at, is, what if we’re the ones bringing the nasty upon ourselves? What if we cause our own experiences—good and bad—and we are not at the whim of “exteriorized” forces?

Or…I could just be full of it, and it really could just be Phase V of the invasion….

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The Uninvited—LIVE at Smashwords!

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The Uninvited, © F. P. Dorchak (cover art: Duvall Design, 2013)
The Uninvited, © F. P. Dorchak (cover art: Duvall Design, 2013)

Well, I erred!

I was just trying to see if I could upload my book into Smashwords and have it ready to go live later, but, apparently (and I downloaded a copy to check it), it’s available right now, my friends!  Yeah, The Uninvited, 12 years in the making, is now available FOR FREE at Smashwords (only for a couple weeks)!

Click here to go to The Uninvited Smashwords page.

Well, there it is, where the rubber hits the road. I hope you all enjoy it, and please, write up some reviews and post!  Feel free to copy the cover and use it, but attribute the proper copyright, please.

Also, please let me know about any viewing/formatting errors.

I look forward to hearing from you about your reading experiences!

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Going Indie—What I’ve Learned (So Far)

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How to Be Indie
How to Be Indie (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In diving head first into this New Indie World, here’s what I’ve learned, so far:

  1. Writer a killer story. But, you knew that.
  2. Get your work proofed by another! Doesn’t matter how many times it’s been done before, do it AGAIN before going live. I’ve been working on The Uninvited for 12 years…lost track of how many sets of eyes have read it, and I’ve still found issues!
  3. Formatting is king. If you don’t want to do this yourself, hire someone, for Pete’s sake. Lynda Hilburn referred me to A Thirsty Mind’s Pam Headrick. She’s quite reasonable in her rates, and oh-so-easy to work with! I’m a newbie to The New Indie, and she was so danged gracious and helpful. I know she probably aged 5 years dealing with me that past two weeks….
  4. There is a growing list of digital distributors out there! I’m going with Smashwords as my lead, but may also going to go with B&N (which has a weird statement in their contract, about how authors are responsible for all the laws in all the countries in which their works are published—really, B&N, for real?)…unless I go through another, like, Digital2Digital.
  5. There’s never enough time in the day. You can’t do it all. Just do what you can. Find out what you’re best at and focus your efforts there.

Well, that’s all I got for now.

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Going Indie—What I've Learned (So Far)

by

How to Be Indie
How to Be Indie (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In diving head first into this New Indie World, here’s what I’ve learned, so far:

  1. Writer a killer story. But, you knew that.
  2. Get your work proofed by another! Doesn’t matter how many times it’s been done before, do it AGAIN before going live. I’ve been working on The Uninvited for 12 years…lost track of how many sets of eyes have read it, and I’ve still found issues!
  3. Formatting is king. If you don’t want to do this yourself, hire someone, for Pete’s sake. Lynda Hilburn referred me to A Thirsty Mind’s Pam Headrick. She’s quite reasonable in her rates, and oh-so-easy to work with! I’m a newbie to The New Indie, and she was so danged gracious and helpful. I know she probably aged 5 years dealing with me that past two weeks….
  4. There is a growing list of digital distributors out there! I’m going with Smashwords as my lead, but may also going to go with B&N (which has a weird statement in their contract, about how authors are responsible for all the laws in all the countries in which their works are published—really, B&N, for real?)…unless I go through another, like, Digital2Digital.
  5. There’s never enough time in the day. You can’t do it all. Just do what you can. Find out what you’re best at and focus your efforts there.

Well, that’s all I got for now.

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KA-BAR and The Uninvited — Not For The Squeamish

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In my travels, I found this site, for KA-BAR, They craft knives, and I feature the USMC version of a KA-BAR knife in my novel. This video is not for the squeamish, but I thought, man, what product placement! Sure, it’s not for everybody (but, neither is my novel), but how cool that: 1) the Zombie craze is, um, creeping about, and b) they can totally capitalize on it for their products! Check out some of their other videos (if you dare). I checked out a couple, and they’re well made and actually tell stories. Hmmm, wonder if they’d do one on an opening scene from The Uninvited….

Getting The Uninvited ready for release in a couple weeks (May 24th is my target date, with Smashwords) has been fun, but it’s keeping me on my toes. At times, exhausting, doing the constant sprint from hopping out of bed in the morning (and, like today, the day after a gym workout, gets a little tough at oh-dark-thirty in the a.m…), to doing the rest of my day, then coming back to it toward the end of the day, if the gods allow. My formatter and I are in constant back and forth, ironing out the little things, but it’s almost there!

I’ve also created a new page on my website for the novel. I have really mixed feelings about doing anything Facebook, because of Zuckerberg’s views on privacy (I terminated my account 2 years ago). He doesn’t believe in it. It may be changing, but I’m not yet sure about how much I believe him. I’m betting that were I to go back and re-up…my account would still be there. So, I’m torn. Were I to do anything with Facebook, it would be a fan page.

In the whole formatting biz, I hope to post some things I’m learning in the near future.

Okay, I’m off and running…..

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The Uninvited

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The Uninvited, © F. P. Dorchak (cover art: Duvall Design, 2013)
The Uninvited, © F. P. Dorchak (cover art: Duvall Design, 2013)

Kacey Miller is running from her past.

Sleepless, frustrated, and out-of-work, she stumbles onto a heinous crime scene. In the dead of night all residents of a brand-new retirement home in the balmy, sleepy south Florida town of Sunset Harbor have been murdered. The killers are everyday people from across the globe. None know why they did what they did, and—once apprehended—many take their own lives.

Desperate for work, and angst-ridden from having left her husband and newborn in a fit of postpartum depression a year earlier, Kacey writes up the story and lands a job as a local stringer—but all is not as it seems with the murderers…nor Kacey. The murderers are normal everyday people, with no history of past violence, and all are confused and vehemently disbelieving of their actions, tormented by inexplicable, supernatural forces. During her investigation, Kacey, like the murderers, is besieged by the same bizarre, supernatural visions the murderers are experiencing, and begins having her own angry, violent nightmares that end up forcing her to confront another long-denied secret: a one-nighter with a high-powered news media executive the night she’d run away from her family…who later turns up during the executive’s national coverage of the crime.

Kacey, the investigators, and the murderers are all forced to confront their actions and inter-relations to examine deep, buried issues to find how they are all tied to each other in ways that will forever change their lives..and those around them.

Welcome in…the uninvited. A bizarre supernatural murder mystery that takes crime scene investigation—and prosecution—to a whole new level. The Uninvited will be released Memorial Day weekend.

Let them in…you don’t really have a choice….

“I get the chills…a most impressive work.”

Rob Butts, Seth Material Facilitator/Author, The Seth Material, The Early Sessions, The Personal Sessions

“I found I could not stop reading this thriller. I became totally fascinated by the depth of Dorchak’s exploration into the many influences beneath the hostilities performed. I was especially delighted with his reference to the modern pioneer in metaphysics and philosophy, Jane Roberts—right there beside the famous psychic Edgar Cayce. Today’s police and lawyers need this novel!”

Madelon Rose Logue, Editor/Publisher, The Black Sheep

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