Joe Parrino, Writer

I published my raw sales numbers here a few months ago and I’ve turned it into a snazzy looking table full of digits. I crunched some more numbers (go ahead and picture that little number crunching machine) and prettied up the table before I go to a writer thing this weekend in my continuing quest to find an agent. Here’s the table with more data.

I never knew a spreadsheet full of numbers could be so beautiful. My sold copies, at their current prices pulled straight from the publisher’s website, have resulted in total sales of roughly USD 900,000. That’s nuts. Hopefully, an agent finds those numbers as wonderful as I do.

I could not have reached these heights without you brilliant readers. I am so grateful and humbled by your support and interest in my words. I hope to have more for you soon.

Wish me luck, O Ye Wise, Faithful, and Invisible Crowd.

In a world swallowed by winter, three teens band together as Vikings, risking what little they have to stop the Twilight of the Gods. If the gods are fated to fail, what hope do they have?

On Friday, I received my semi-annual royalties statement. The document contains my lifetime sales figures for all my stories published by Black Library. I thought, after doing basic data analysis professionally, to throw them into a spreadsheet to see them all together. I was shocked to see my sales volume. One novella, Shield of Baal: Devourer, sold 28,267 copies. In writing, as in so much else, I have been plagued by doubts. These figures are ammunition against those doubts.

This is probably small potatoes across the publishing world, but it means a lot to me to see just how many times my stories have sold. I am deeply humbled and grateful to all those out there who took a chance on my stories and paid money to read my words.

The kind folks of Shepherd recently asked me for some book recommendations. The request centered around a theme that included one of my own stories. I chose Alone an audio drama that I’ve long regarded as my finest work, excluding yet-to-be-published novels that wait in fitful slumber. The list centers around a theme, that of craft and stories to craft by. My list begins with The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, contains Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett, Norse Mythology by Jackson Crawford, Nettle & Bone by T Kingfisher, and Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. The specific reasons for my list can be found at Shepherd.

I earned my start as a published writer through publication by Black Library, stories meant to flesh out a wider world of hobbycraft. But writing itself is a craft, a magic that conjures worlds of its own from words and hard work. In writing, the raw materials are thought and patience, memories and dreams. In other crafts, they are foods, yeasts, flour, or skeins of wool, blobs of paint. These are stories to keep you company while you craft of your own.

Shepherd has my sincere gratitude for asking me for recommendations of stories that I love. It has been a good long while since I’ve had some writing craft momentum. I hope it is but a taste of things to come.

Yesterday, I drove to Philadelphia on a quest. I sought to attend an event I had looked forward to for several months. There was an Old Book Fair held in an old church. I didn’t really know what to expect beyond the promise of old books, a profound magic made by the concentration of so many wondrous objects. What knowledge lurked within? What wisdom?

In an old stone church, tucked between red brick row houses, looked down upon by the vaguely smiling saints of a deity I could no longer bring myself to worship, the old books gathered in their hundreds. There were books about fairies, boy wizards, and clever budding arcanists. There were books graced by the signature of one of my heroes, President U.S. Grant. There were so many books I had never heard of. History of places I was only just starting to explore. Books of poems and plays bound in leather sat beside golden age mysteries and the luminaries of visionary science fiction.

All were priced well beyond my means. Someday, I told myself. Someday, I would be able to peruse such rarefied shelves and purchase ancient occult tomes to satisfy my interests. Someday, I told myself, I would see my own books in such company. That day seems far off now, but it beckons in my dreams.

Over the past 2.5 months, I’ve been devoting some of my free time to learning Swedish. At some point along the way, I made it into the top 2% of language learners with Duolingo. Foreign languages are one of my many passions and I’ve picked up a few in my 33 years on this planet. At one point I was fluent in German. This skill runs in my family. One of my great grandparents spoke seven of the dang things.

As a writer, Swedish appealed to me from my interest in the Norse and now Sweden is becoming relevant to current events. It’s granted me insight into my Norse characters, Kori and Idunn. Odin may have spoken it as a native Swede as some of the sources attest. So I thought I’d try my hand at learning it to stave off boredom and expand my skills. There are things I want to read in Swedish academia, analysis of the runestones, deeper delves into topics that have captured my interest. So I’m trying my best. I hope to follow this with Norwegian, Finnish, and Icelandic. We’ll see how far I get into these successor languages of the Viking world.

Swedish is fun, with its singsong cadence making it a joy to speak. It’s like a weird mix of English and German, with many elegant aspects that have made it easier to learn than others I’ve tried (I’m looking at you, Gaelic).

I wrote this post in haste on my phone yesterday so please excuse the typos. The bottom line is that I’ve been learning Swedish and enjoying the helvete out of it.

The night was dark and humid. Fireflies left their grassy plains of respite, heading towards the stars to find love. The day had promised storms, but delivered only sweat. I was bound for the bedroom, where a portable AC unit delivered relief.

Uncommon activity from the cat drew me from the land of dreams. She was restless, bounding about the bed. I turned on the light to find a visitor within the room.

The creature flew circles around the ceiling, looking for escape. It failed and spun about in terror.

I stared, momentarily struck dumb. A bat had made its unlikely way inside, to find itself trapped around the artificial white of this apartment ceiling. Bereft of the stars to navigate, echolocation found only walls and the predatory prowl of a black domestic cat below. Desperately, it chirped. Lupo sought shelter beneath the bed.

Battle called. I needed a weapon for this deed. I found a broom.

I swung, not too hard. My goal was not to harm the poor bat, but to knock it down, so I could catch it and bring it back to where it belonged.

Once. Twice. Three times I struck, each time dazing the poor thing, or so I hoped.

Upon the third strike, it fell within arm’s reach. I caught it in a brown towel. Desperately, it chirped, chittered, and bit at the fabric. So small it was. It was brown and fuzzy, with leathery wings and bright white teeth. I tried to handle it gently, to keep from harming its delicate bones.

Shirtless, I dashed down the stairs of the apartment, into the sweltering embrace of the Maryland night. I let it loose, and off it flew. I took it for a good sign that it was relatively unharmed by the night’s battle.

The excitement ended and the night’s routine resumed. Soon, all thoughts of battle chased from my mind, replaced by the words of Roman conquest.

This article on Kate Warne, the first U.S. female detective, showed up in Smithsonian Magazine, one of my favorite reads. The article, by Kellie B. Gormly, quotes my old boss, Brian McNary, from when I was a Pinkerton, on her importance and relevance. she thwarted a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln in the city near where I now live, Baltimore. They even used the only known image of her that I hunted down from the Chicago History Museum.

According to Brian, many Pinkertons had tried to find a picture or likeness of the elusive Warne, but to no avail. The project and task fell to me. In three years of searching, the person previously tasked with finding her failed.

I found her in three days, over the course of a weekend.

She was waiting in the archives of the Chicago History Museum. That is one of my favorite stories from those days as a Pinkerton agent, an analyst following in Warne’s footsteps. Later, I visited her grave and let her know that Pinkertons today still honor her.