Happy Release Day! Michael Infinito's In Blog We Trust

A couple of years ago, a writer contacted me about my agent.  He had a full out to her and he wanted to know if I was happy with her or not.  We emailed back and forth and quickly became friends.  Eventually, my agent offered him a contract, which was really cool because now we had even more in common than before.  We were on submissions together for what felt like years.  We exchanged short emails almost every single day.  Usually one to two liners, just enough to keep each other's spirits up. That writer has come to mean a great deal to me, even though we've never met.  He is someone whose constant support and encouragement would be hard to live without.  Plus, he never fails to make me laugh in my darkest writing hours!

That writer is Michael Infinito and his first novel, In Blog We Trust comes out today!

It is not your standard fare--it's very shocking and twisty, which I found extremely refreshing.  I know I can count on Michael to keep me up late at night frantically turning pages only to be all "HOLY #*$$#&S&#*$" at the end!

Here is the synopsis:

Throughout history, people have sold their souls to the dark side in order to make their selfish wishes come true.  With the dawn of the computer age, the ritual continued.  A few rock stars, race car drivers, and even certain politicians found their fame and fortune with the help of a new and mesmerizing, evil website.  Little did these people know what price they’d pay for the use of its services.

When Carrie Palmer, a frustrated housewife, logs onto the website and enters an under duress comment about her husband, a chain of events begins to unfold that no one could have ever predicted. Now she must put two and two together and try to solve the riddle of the killer blog before it’s too late. With the clock ticking, and the fate of other people hanging in the balance, Carrie’s only hope lies twelve hundred miles away in the City of New Orleans. But will she make it there before their time runs out, or will her worst nightmare become a reality. Only time will tell.

Get it here or here.

In honor of his release day, I've asked Michael to indulge me and let me interview him!  So here goes!

How long have you been writing? Why did you start?


When I was in high school I used to write warped song lyrics and poems...really gruesome and raw stuff. I always had ideas for stories, but I never really put them on paper. About four years ago I bought a laptop computer with the intention of writing a novel. It didn't happen. Instead I got into blogging. I started writing short stories and posting them. The positive feedback I received for the shorts gave me the confidence to finally sit down and have a go at something full length.

How long did it take you to find an agent?

Between querying two novels, it took me probably 200 letters before I was even asked for a manuscript. I'd say at least 6 or 8 months.

What is the most challenging part of the writing/publication process?

By far the query letter. I always say that writing a novel is much easier than writing a query. I think it's because we're too close to our own work to effectively summarize it. I could easily write a query for someone else's story, though.

I've had the privilege of reading a lot of your work and many, if not all, of your stories have lots of twists and turns and some very shocking events. Where do you come up with this stuff and why do you enjoy writing such shocking, twisty stories?

I've always been about shock value. It hasn't always worked out well for me. I drew a picture of one of my teachers being decapitated when I was in high school. I got in trouble, but now-a-days they would have locked me up. lol  As far as the twists and turns go, that's just the way I think. When I write a novel, I know how its going to start and I know how I want it to end. Everything in between is subject to change as I go. The twists are not always planned, and the story is very loosely outlined.

Who are your favorite writers?

This is a tough one because I don't really read much. I tend to follow books more than writers. I loved the Da Vinci Code, but not Brown's other novels. I liked a few Stephen King books, and a couple by Dean Koontz, but honestly, aside from your stuff, I've probably only read one book in the last five years.

What advice would you give aspiring authors?

I would say that when a person sits down to write a novel, they shouldn't feel overwhelmed at the number of words needed to complete a full-length work. If you wrote only 500 words per day, in six months you'd have a 90,000 word novel. I'm also not a big fan of those 'write 50,000 words in thirty days' things that pop up. If you end up with 50,000 words of jumbled crap, it'll take you another month to sort it all out. So anyway, I guess my advice would be to take your time and worry more about quality than making a word quota.
Oh yeah, and no matter how bad you want to write a literary agent back and tell them to go @*#@ themselves after rudely dismissing your efforts, it probably isn't a good idea. Haha

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FYI - Michael's second novel, 12:19 will be out from MuseItUp Publishing in March 2013!