Action Pulp!

Art is subjective

Art is real

Ugly can be art

Beauty can be art

Art is observed

Art is created

Art moves

Art stands still

All art does one thing

Simultaneously with all art

And stands alone

Art feels

And makes you feel

Flowers in the garden

fall one by one

they once bloomed so beautifully

in the early morning sun

filling the air

with lovely scented perfume

a marvel to see

rich landscapes of red and pink 

return to the place 

of which they belong 

now only in my heart 

can I hear their song

© 2025 Adam Messer. All rights reserved.

Writing is a lot like baking a cake.

First you have the recipe and you had to gather the ingredients. Then you need to mix everything together in the right proportions, prepare the baking dish, and heat up the oven.

Then you need to bake the cake and prepare the icing.

After the cake is ready, you need to let it cool down before you put the icing on.

And then you wait some more to let it set up and be ready to serve as a dessert.

Writing takes preparation as well. The story doesn’t write itself. You do, word for word.

And when you have written the story, you need to let it settle for a little while and then start the editing/rewriting process.

And then when you have it polished, you let it settle some more to wait for the icing.

Once you feel comfortable with the final story, publish it.

Put it out there.

Give it to the world.

Some people don’t like carrot cake.

Some people love it.

Some folks will not like your story, while others will love it.

Keep writing and give it your best!

I took this photo from the side of the road. Our truck completely shut off and would not turn on.

Turns out it needed an alternator and new battery.

While I was waiting, I saw this batch of flowers and thought how nice they looked, so I took a photo.

This reminds me of how inspiration comes from life around us all.

Simple.

Pure.

Flowers growing and showing up in my life unexpectedly and at a good time.

Hello and welcome!

I have been seeing a lot of AI content and covers.

I’m not interested in AI content.

It’s not art and it’s not a book. It’s content.

I wish we could turn off all AI content as a preference.

Oh yeah, we can. We can simply choose not to engage with it when we see it.

https://actionpulp.com/interviews/

Please enjoy interviews with dozens of authors, artists and entertainers.

When once you flew high

Now your wings are broken

Hush now

And sleep well

Do not cry for loss

There is no more pain

Because today is no more

And tomorrow will never be

By Adam Messer

Congratulations to the 2026 The Pulp Factory Awards winners!

“The Windy City Pulp & Paper Show was this past weekend in Chicago and we want to congratulate all the winners of the Pulp Factory Awards for the Best of 2025 in fiction and art!” – Ron Fortier.

The Pulp Factory is a group of Pulp Fiction authors and artists who support and promote New Pulp.

One of my favorite superheroes is Space Ghost. I used to love watching the Space Ghost show and came across this online.

Who are your favorites?

Flow

By Adam Messer

© 2026 Adam Messer. All rights reserved

When the world melt away

And it is you

Sitting with pen in hand

Writing

The page becomes alive

As the story begins to

Flow

I saw this fake bill today while shopping for groceries. I didn’t touch it, but I took a picture because I have seen this sort of thing online, but never in person. The posts I have seen online warn of the scam, potentially having been contaminated with illegal and dangerous chemicals. Ultimately a harmful scam.

They try to lure you in by grabbing your attention because it looks like real money from a distance. By the time someone realizes it is fake, the harm is done.

This is the same with scammers targeting creators. There are lots and lots of scammers who target authors daily making false promises. They often use flattering compliments through email to try and lure someone in to the scam.

Caveat emptor. Buyer beware.

If it sounds too good to be true, then it is. With more and better technology available, scammers cast a wide net to catch unsuspecting people.

They also impersonate individuals from legitimate companies. Often they will spoof the company’s logo and name to make it appear that it is legitimate. It is not.

In addition to scamming, there are also various other “services” who sell the dream, yet do not deliver. Vanity publishers are a well known example of this.

Educate yourself.

Stay safe and be well!

The Story

By Adam Messer

Once upon a time, in a far away land, lived a simple young man who dreamt of traveling the world and painting what he saw along the way.

How many stories start with humble beginnings?

“Give ‘em what they want and give it to ‘em real good!” – Dr. David Taylor.

My professor Dr. David Taylor was talking about the audience when he said this. It has stuck with me ever since.

We all crave a good story, and we love telling our own stories. As a storyteller, I enjoy stories about people who become the object of some kind of obstacle and overcome through transformation despite having little to no resources or experience at first. Transpiring through the process of their journey and coming out on the other side as the same person, yet different; renewed hope and changed in a fundamental way.

Once you know something, you may forget it, but you will never learn about it again for the first time.

I once heard the audience, or the reader, wants something new and different, but the same familiar story. Tropes, the hero’s journey, the story arc; call it what you will.

Ultimately the story proceeds through from the start, to the middle, and then to the end. Whatever may come.

To say one has an original idea is to say one created the water of the sea, or the stars in the night’s sky. Nothing is new. Nothing is original. Nothing is avant-garde. Everything is washed out and overplayed.

I do not agree with this philosophy because creating art is not simply a system of design, it is an expression of life. The personal lens which the creator uses encompasses their life experiences including a range of pre-determined circumstances based on social, political and economic conditions of the time period of their lives and the medium available to them.

To say nothing is new is one perspective which holds little truth, yet it may be that person’s experience, meaning it is an absolute truth to them.

Storytelling is innate to all human beings, and while they may use a variation of a previous work, an inspiration from one’s work from another creator, their story is as new as any other story.

The nuance of interpretation makes the story new.

The novelty comes when someone masterfully captures a new story using familiar imagery where the audience not only embraces the characters, but also invites them to feel as part of the story. Whether they feel like they are the character, or like they have witnessed the story first hand, the story offers a connection from one person to another.

This is the magic of storytelling. Human connection. Overcoming tragedy. Learning, growing, sharing; life is our own story. One worth telling.

And they lived happily ever after.

The end.

Yesterday I came across a Paid review group online. Third party group paying for reviews left on the major market platform.

As an author and publisher, I had heard of people paying for reviews, but I had never seen it in the wild.

First of all, I’m not going to post the name of the group. But I took a look around and I was shocked to find people posting about signing up to review books, and getting paid for their reviews. They had to sign up through the service, select a book to review, and had to submit a link to their review in order to get paid.

Several people posted they were not able to leave reviews, to which replies stated their account might be too new.

One person posted their major market account was flagged and no longer able to leave any reviews.

One person posted their account was banned from the third party and didn’t know why. Someone replied it was because they named the third party in the major market review, and stated the third party requirements was to only leave a 5 star review in the review. They left a 4 star review. A few comments were stating along the line of ruining it for everyone else.

The whole sham and shame of this is rigging the system. Leaving a review as a paid reviewer is dishonest and misleading.

Sadly, there are a lot of predatory scams out there who operate like this. Shame on them.

It takes two to tango. Three really. The “readers” who leave reviews and are getting paid should disclose it is a paid endorsement, just the same with any other advertising. Essentially they are misleading other consumers into believing they left a review in good faith.

And the “authors” who pay for this service are doing an injustice to themselves and others.

Enough of that.

I have never paid for a review, and never will. I have given away promotional copies of my books, review copies, and ask them to leave an honest review if they would like to do so.

But I will never pay anyone for a review. Ever!

Created by humans is more than a logo. It is our promise to you that we will always support art and creativity for humans by humans.

Human creativity isn’t going anywhere, but we want to ensure our readers what we publish is created, edited, and published by human beings.

Sure we use technology; the logo was created in an app using graphics and fonts, but made by a human being, by hand and not by using a prompt to create it.

All of our articles interview people about their creative process and our books are written by humans and produced by humans.

With the ever growing use of technology, we here at Valhalla Books do not and will not use AI in any of our books.

There is a lot of buzz around with “authors” using AI to create and publish books. One publisher just pulled a book having found significant AI content in the book. AI art, writing, etc was just ruled as not being able to be copyrighted.

As a publisher, I have hired editors, formatters, cover artists and designers, and paid authors royalties earned. Human beings creating art.

As an artist, I create art for myself and to share with others. To celebrate, to mourn, to educate, to learn, to love, and to be loved.

The work created by artists.