My dear friend and artist Joie Brown — known most recently for her Ponythulhu art on a t-shirt I sell — is known as the Duchess of Dessert and the Countess of Cookies. She’s been trying to cut down on sweets, so I decided to foil her schemes by baking her delicious treats for her birthday! (It’s tomorrow as of this writing.) Since she also loves cute horses, rainbows, and the power of friendship, I decided to mess with my trusty chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe to create something that’s a little more … more. And thus I have created … Chewy Rainboom Cookies! This is a modification of the “The Chewy” by Alton Brown, which is in turn a variation of the classic Nestle Toll House recipe. And now, gentle reader, I share my creation with you.

Chewy Rainboom Cookies

This recipe uses melted butter instead of softened, so it’s a little different than the typical “creaming method” cookies. So technically it’s more of a muffin-method kinda mixing procedure. You will need …

The Wet

2 sticks unsalted butter, melted
2 oz. white sugar
2 oz. brown sugar
1 egg (large) + 1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons milk
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

The Dry

12 ounces all-purpose flour (bread flour for extra-chewy cookies)
1 teaspoon salt (kosher)
1 teaspoon baking soda

The Chunkies

10 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
Rainbow-Colored Sprinkles (I used ice cream sprinkles, but you can get the ones in the baking section)

Procedure

Raindough

Once you’ve got the butter melted, mix with the sugars until the texture is smooth, then add in the eggs, milk, and vanilla. Mix the dry ingredients separately, and then add in about three batches to the mixer, and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Mix in the chocolate chips and about 4 tablespoons of the rainbow sprinkles. Once everything is well combined, cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for about an hour.

Once you’re ready to bake, pre-heat your oven to 350° F and use a cookie disher on a parchment-paper-lined sheet pan or cookie sheet with about 2 inches between each cookie. Bake for about 14 minutes, but halfway through pull the cookies and sprinkle more rainbow bits on top (and spin the pans for more even baking). Cool two minutes on the pan before moving to racks. Store in jars, plastic bags, tubs, eat ‘em all — or give to grateful bronies.

I just launched my latest Kickstarter for my third trilogy in the 12 for ’12 series: Dangerous Games. The pitch goes something like this:

Once a year, the greatest tabletop gamers in the world descend upon Indianapolis for Gen Con, the Best Four Days in Gaming, to play games, see friends, and have fun. They play things like D&D, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40,000, Settlers of Catan, Munchkin, and everything else they can get their hands on. Mostly the competition is friendly.

Sometimes it is not.

When a world-famous game designer turns up murdered at the convention, a group of gamers makes it their quest to figure out who killed him, and why. As they dig deeper, they start to question everything they thought they knew about the man: who he is, why someone hated him enough to kill him — and if he’s really dead. In the end, they must figure out who’s playing whom or risk not only losing this most dangerous game but their lives.

If that sounds like fun, check out the video below too, and then head on over to Kickstarter and place your pledge. The drive ends on June 17 (Father’s Day!), but that’ll be here before you know it. 

If you can also help spread the word, I’d appreciate that. The 12 for ’12 plan has been a huge success so far, but that all falls apart without help from wonderful people like you. Thanks!

Yesterday, I put Brave New World: Revolution up for sale on DriveThruFiction.com and here on my site. You can now also get it for the Kindle and for the Nook through their direct stores.

Best of all, although the book’s only been available for about 24 hours, it’s already hit #1 on DriveThruFiction.com! To frost that cake, Don’t Read This Book — Chuck Wendig’s Don’t Rest Your Head anthology, in which I have a story — sits at #2, and Gareth-Michael Skarka’s Tales of the Far West — in which I also have a story — stands at #7.

Thanks to all the people who have backed and bought the book so far. I’m just thrilled with the response. If you’ve enjoyed it, don’t be shy about posting reviews, whether on your own site, at Amazon, on Goodreads, or wherever else you like. Woot!

Amazon jumped the June 1 release date and has the audiobook of Carpathia for sale already. This is my first-ever audiobook release, and I cannot wait to hear it. The talented Ralph Lister provides the voice for it.

Amazon has it for the low-low price of only $11.24 at the moment for the whole nine hours. If you like your historical horror served up with a proper British accent — which only seems fitting, given the fact the heroes are all English — be sure to check it out.

I just uploaded the files for Matt Forbeck’s Brave New World: Revolution — the first book in my 12 for ’12 series — to a number of ebook retailers. It should be available soon for the Kindle and the Nook, and I’ll post links for those formats as soon as they’re ready. In the meantime, you can order the ebook immediately through DriveThruFiction.com and directly through this website in my spanking-new ebook shop. Both of those offer the book in ePub, Kindle, and PDF formats at a single price without any DRM getting in your way.

I set up the shop today (using Jigoshop for WordPress, for those who care to know such things), and it seems to work well so far. If you have any issues with it, though, don’t hesitate to let me know.

On their 199th (!) show, we discussed the lesser-known film Diary of a Madman starring horror great Vincent Price.  Find out where Wikipedia goofed on its entry!  (Hope they fix it sometime.)  Discover the true origins of the film’s title & story!

We also discussed the late, great Jonathan Frid (who passed away just before the show) and numerous other items of interest to sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and b-movie fans everywhere.

Click here to go to the podcast.  You can (and should!) also subscribe on iTunes.  Check it out!

And if you’re in the mood for a little horror reading, why not check out Tricks & Treats, a suite of short stories which is also contained in Martian Knights & Other Tales.  Buy!  Read!  Enjoy!

This past Sunday the New York Times ran an article by Julie Bosman about how certain genre writers used to write a novel every year but are now being asked to buckle down and write as many as two — or at least some short stories to supplement their annual book. It’s called “In E-Reader Age of Writer’s Cramp, a Book a Year is Slacking.”

As you might imagine, I found this hilarious.

Now, I’m not mocking any writer’s work ethic or process. We all write at our own pace, and in the end it’s what’s on the page that matters, not how fast it got there. Besides which, every one of the authors quoted in the piece has likely sold far more novels than I have, so clearly what they’re doing works well for them.

The reporter takes an odd angle at the story, highlighting how hard this pace is for authors to manage. I doubt any of the authors pushed that angle. While writing is challenging and can be difficult, it’s not hard work.

My brother, for instance, works as a carpenter, often outside all winter here in Wisconsin. That’s brutal. I get to sit in a climate-controlled room and make up stories during hours I set. By almost any yardstick, I have it far easier.

There’s a better angle for the article, and it’s buried there in the text. It’s about how the publishers who work with these bestselling authors have finally figured out that readers want more from an author than a single book each year. Writers like James Patterson have known this for years. He uses co-authors to help him come out with around a dozen novels a year, and they all sell well.

Here’s hoping more publishers figure this out soon. It’s one of the reasons I took up my 12 for ’12 challenge this year, to show that it can be done. However, the reason I’m self-publishing the books is that no big publishers would even think about taking on a dozen books from me — or anyone but James Patterson, it seems. Moving writers up to two books a year is a step in the right direction, but they still have a long way to go.

I’m in the final stages of planning my next 12 for ’12 Kickstarter. It’s for a trilogy of thrillers set at Gen Con, the largest tabletop games convention in the hemisphere. I call it Dangerous Games.

This combines two of my great loves — fiction and games — and just thinking about it gets me excited for it. I’ve been a professional game designer for over twenty years and a published novelist for eight. If the success of a book comes down to “Write what you know,” these books will be amazing.

I hope to launch the Kickstarter drive this week. I have a preview of the page up now. Head on over there to get a taste.