The Whitechapel Project

Rob at the BearSwarm podcast is working with me to try and produce another Q&A episode. If you have burning questions about Whitechapel, my process, the project, or even just about me, feel free to check out this link:

http://www.bearswarm.com/the-whitechapel-project-question-and-answer-session

Today, my distant drinking buddy and fellow asylum inmate Chuck Wendig posted a bit about the search terms people use to find his blog. David, my webmaster, was all like “Oh yeah, we can totally do that too,” and I was like “Well totally do that,” and he was like “totally, I’ll do that.” (Note: That may not be quite how the conversation actually went.) I expected a fair amount of weirdness, just because people might be searching for something in Whitechapel, London, and stumble across my site. But there is some cool, some interesting, and a fair amount of weird. Let’s take a peek into the hits, shall we?

• white chapel sweatpants: This came up a lot. A whole lot. Most of the hits were from Germany. Is there a brand of sweatpants named Whitechapel? (Answer: Kind of. http://www.imperial-clothing.com/shop/catalog/product/view/id/26403/s/whitechapel-logo-sweat-pants)
• mister poll sitting on his face: Whoever Mr. Poll is, I hope he’s feeling better.
• mur woods: I think I referenced Mur Lafferty once on the blog. Do they mean Muir Woods?
• whitechapel you really didnt need to see this: Wow. Thanks a fucking lot, Internet.
• does whitechapel inhale: No. It stabs. It stabs so much.
• chuck wendig: GET OUT OF MY BLOG, CHUCK.
• allyvie.com: A website that doesn’t appear to exist. Again, less with the subtle reminders of obscurity, Internet. Thanks.
• tiger stripes eden ep: I didn’t know this even existed until I looked it up. So… uh… thanks for the free publicity?
• myspace mission to murder
• what happened to assshare.com: Also “candy assshare.” It has to be three s’s. You can guess what kind of site it is. What does it have to do with my story of murder and amnesia?
• The Podge Cast and Bearswarm: Looks like they send a lot of traffic my way. Return the favor and give their podcasts a listen.
• little smiles car wash: This has to be a strip club. Or it should be.
• something changes when she glances: Did I write that line?
• whitechapel underwear: I’m not going to Google this one. I leave that for the reader to pursue if they desire.
• timetopuke.com mr hands: Another website that doesn’t seem to exist. Does Mr. Hands know Mr. Poll? Maybe they can go bowling or something.
• ergofiction: Ergofiction also sends me a lot of traffic. Much love!

The Internet continues to be a strange and magical place.

Cover of "Close Encounters of the Urban Kind"

Long story short: an anthology I’ve been published in is open for pre-orders. Buying a copy would be awesome.

Details: Pre-ordering opened today for Close Encounters of the Urban Kind, the fiction anthology by Apex Book Company. This anthology features my short story, “Gloomy Sunday.” It’s about a washed-up private detective, his government-employed ex-girlfriend, and a song that kills people. While the story isn’t directly tied to any events in Whitechapel, it does share elements with it (most notably the Lacuna organization, a first-person narration style, and a tendency for me to be really horrible to my protagonists).

The special pre-order price is $15.95, and the book will be available for sale in April 2010. If you’ve been a fan of Whitechapel so far, picking up a copy of this book would be a great way to support me.

The link to the pre-order page is here:

http://www.apexbookstore.com/collections/frontpage/products/close-encounters-of-the-urban-kind-edited-by-jennifer-brozek

Not to be outdone, Super Agent of Whitechapel Matt Timm has also started a Whitechapel translation project — this time, into Spanish! If you’ve been looking for your favorite amnesiac psychic killer en espanol, add this baby to your RSS feed:

http://proyectowhitechapel.blogspot.com/

“The Cell” is also already translated and posted:

http://proyectowhitechapel.blogspot.com/2010/01/episodio-01-la-celda.html

Between last night (when I wrote my post-mortem) and this morning, this interview about Whitechapel at Ergofiction magazine went live:

http://www.ergofiction.com/2010/01/cafe-wednesday-eddy-webb/

Go check it out!

Agent of Whitechapel Alex Cochrane — who I mercilessly murdered in Episode 7 — has started translating all of the Whitechapel episodes in French! I’ll post links to each French version at the bottom of the English episodes, but you can follow along at the blog here:

Projet: Whitechapel

Épisode 01 – La cellule

After lots of intense negotiations (okay, after I asked nicely), Rob Justice of the BearSwarm podcast has agreed to host a question and answer podcast with me about Act I of Whitechapel! If you have questions about the story, the writing process, the podcast production, or even just personal questions about me, you can email Rob at whitechapel@bearswarm.com over the course of the next week, and he’ll pepper me with them while I try to answer them with some sort of logic and sanity. We’ll record sometime next week, and it’ll be posted both here and on the BearSwarm podcast sometime in early December.

Looking forward to answering your questions!

One week until the launch of Whitechapel! If you’re looking for other free Internet serials to fill your time with while you wait, I have four other sites you should check out.

Jet Pack is a central point for the fiction of three extremely talented writers: Chuck Wendig, Will Hindmarch and Wood Ingham. I’m particularly into Wood’s sci-fi novella “Memory Sticks.”

And if you can’t get enough Chuck Wendig, he and Marty Henley just launched The Storyverse, a dueling serial that trades off between Chuck and Marty every week. It’s… well it’s… there’s kind of a sci-fi thing… with pirates… and pulp… kinda. It’s awesome, and they’re big supporters of the Project (they even changed their release date so as not to conflict with the launch of Whitechapel), so go check out their work.

I’ve always been a fan of Mur Lafferty, and she’s been doing some of her own serial work in a multimedia story called “Her Side.” I haven’t read it yet, but I’ll probably start catching up really soon. I understand it can be a bit disturbing, but if you’re waiting for horror goodness from me, you’ll probably like Mur’s work just fine.

Finally, I have been ordered by Filamena Young to go check out Tim Pratt’s Bone Shop. It’s a donation-funded urban fantasy novella that’s only a few weeks old, so now is a good time to check it out.

Once you’ve read all that, come back here and get ready for episode 1!