In less than a month ANOM: Awakening will be released. This week I'd like to answer some of the questions I've received about my book. Of course if I don't get to YOUR specific question, you can always ask me in person at my Launch Party! Not long to wait now. Q: When and where can I buy your book? A: ANOM: Awakening will be available for purchase online through Amazon.com on June 25th, 2016. However, you can also pre-order a paperback version of the book beginning on June 14th. This way you can bring your own copy of the book to the launch party on June 25th! And don't worry... I will provide many (MANY) links to the Amazon page where you can buy my book. Q: In what formats will ANOM: Awakening be available? A: My book will be available as both an e-book and as a paperback. I would love to offer a hardcover version of the book as well, but currently there's no way to print hardcover books through Createspace.com (Amazon's print-on-demand subsidiary). I hope to offer ANOM: Awakening as an audio book through audible.com beginning in the Fall of 2016. Q: Will I be able to buy a book at your launch party? A: YES! But keep in mind that supplies are limited. Vanessa and I ordered 100 copies of the book to sell at the launch party. The BEST (and really, the only) way to make sure you have a copy of the book for the June 25th launch party is to pre-order your copy on June 14th. Q: Is the book suitable for teenagers/young adults? A: This is a tricky question to answer as it's more a reflection on what your comfortable with as a parent than the actual content of the book. There is violence and some profanity in the book. To equate it to the movies, I would think the book would receive a rating of PG-13. Basically, if you were okay with your kid watching Captain America: Civil War, you should be okay with having them read my book. Q: Am I (insert name of friend or family) a character in your book? A: This is a question I wasn't expecting, but I've actually heard it a lot. It seems that when you write a novel, all of your friends and family automatically start to look for themselves in the characters of your book. The best answer I can give is YES... and at the same time, NO! Let me explain. You are not in my book. In fact, there are no 1:1 relationships between any character in my novel and anyone I know in real life. If truth be known, all of the characters are actually a reflection of me. That being said, as I detailed in a previous post, our relationships form part of our identity. So there are definitely pieces of people I know scattered throughout the entire story... whether its the way someone looks, or the way they speak, or even a gut-reaction to some event in the novel. We're five weeks out from the book launch and excitement continues to build! That's a good thing. It's also one of the strangest parts about this whole process. There's a building excitement among my family and friends (and I get excited too), but then I step back and truly wonder what all the excitement is about. I'm self-publishing my book through Amazon. Literally, anyone else with a computer could do the exact same thing. So what's the big deal? I was talking about my book tonight after my karate class, and one of the girls in the class told me she was writing a book too. She's only in middle school and currently her book is only 7 pages long, but I can honestly say I was excited for her. I wanted to encourage her. I was probably the same age when I wrote my first "book". Coincidentally enough, it was another superhero novel about a young boy with a passing resemblance to Batman. He called himself the Raven. I wrote it with my two friends at the time, and I thought it was a masterpiece. Earlier in the day I was talking to one of my colleagues at the high school who is also an aspiring author. She let me read an early draft of her novel, and she was finally steeling herself to start on her revisions. I'm excited for her and I want her to succeed, but more than that, I want her to keep writing. Ten years ago I wrote another novel, and just like "The Raven" I thought it was a masterpiece. Then I got buried in rejection letters, and I stopped writing for a long time. So why is this any different? The only change is that now I'm making sure my book gets published. I'm not taking it to literary agents and asking for their approval. I'm putting it directly up on Amazon where there's no one to tell me it's not good enough. And people are excited for the book launch. And I'm excited. But none of that makes me a writer. Writers write. That's it. That's what it takes. It doesn't matter if you're 12 years old and 7 pages in, or if you're 25 and still working on your rough draft, or if you're 36 and counting down to your launch party. We're all in this writing-life together. I'm going to enjoy the excitement of the next five weeks, but when it's all over, I'll still be a writer. I've always been a writer. Writers write, and I'll keep writing. And that's exciting too. So Vanessa and I went with our friends to watch Captain America: Civil War last night. It was amazing. After the movie, we all went out to a diner and over late-night milkshakes we talked about what made the movie so good. We touched on things like the dynamic action sequences, witty (often laugh-out-loud) dialogue, and, of course, the inclusion of Black Panther and SPIDER-MAN! But one of the most important components in making this story a success lies in the excellent storytelling itself. For those uninitiated, the story of Civil War revolves around the heroes of the Marvel Universe taking sides over a controversial piece of global legislation. The basic question is, "Do the countries of the world have the authority to direct the actions of the Avengers?" Iron Man says YES. Captain America says NO. What Civil War accomplished in their storytelling, however, was the equal justification of both of these choices. We, as the audience, understand and expect Iron Man's acceptance of the new global legislation. Likewise, we can empathize with the choices of Captain America. The same can be said for every other character in the movie. No matter where we fall personally on the spectrum of the issue at hand (should superheroes submit their powers to a global authority) we can at least acknowledge the validity of everyone else's choice. The takeaway from this movie, as an author, is the importance of justified character motivations. Every choice by every character has to be earned within the story. Villains cannot do evil stuff just because they're bad. Within the framework of that character there must be some reason why an "evil" choice seems legitimate. Likewise, when heroes do something heroic, there must exist within the story a justification for their choice (and "just because" is never good enough). We can contrast this to the turning point of DC and Warner Brother's Batman v. Superman when the two heroes reconcile over the shared first name of their respective mothers. This is a weak motivation that does not justify the subsequent truce AT BEST. At worst, it is the hallmark of lazy storytelling, and the belief that the audience will blindly accept any slop put up on the screen. This is why DC continues to fail when it comes to movies, and Marvel reigns as king. Storytelling (and character motivation) makes all the difference. One of the concepts that I'm currently fascinated by is identity. In other words, what makes me... me? Or, perhaps more accurately, a better question would be, "How did I become who I currently am?" Naturally (since I'm supposed to be a writer and whatnot) this is a question that I tried to explore through my writing, and while I certainly didn't arrive at any answers, I hopefully took the first steps in that direction. What is identity? How is it achieved? Can it be changed? My first answer would be experience. I believe our identity is constructed, at least in part, as the sum total of our life's experience. At the high school where I teach we hold an annual "Parade of Champions". It's a nice idea to honor the various achievements of students at the end of the academic year, but when the parade arrives I always (only half-jokingly) ask the students why they're champions. What did they win? Everybody wants to be a "winner" but you can't just claim the moniker because it makes you feel good. At some point you would actually have to win something. So we are, at least in part, defined by our past. It's the old adage that "Life is a journey". That journey is our experience. But experience alone isn't enough to define identity. It removes any sense of responsibility. It turns into the rote "Nature vs. Nurture" argument which I find terribly boring and insufficient. We weren't placed on a set of rails at birth (either by DNA or upbringing) and now we're destined (or doomed) to live out the experiences in front of us. We are active participants in our life -- not passengers along for the ride. So identity is also created by choice. I gladly concede that DNA and upbringing can make some choices easier or harder for an individual, but my point is that it's STILL a choice. In other words, we are who we choose to be. Go back to our "Life is a journey" philosophy. If I choose to go west to Philadelphia, my life's journey will look very different than if I chose to head east for the shore. But is that enough? Can we define identity by experience and choice? I don't think so. If experience represents our past and choice is symbolic of our future, I think the third part of identity -- the present -- is defined by our relationships. It's not just about where we choose to go, or what we experience on our journey . . . it's about WHO we choose to walk with on the way. Those other people (good and bad) become part of our identity. They influence our choices. They shape our experiences. They make us who we are. And I'm once again (sadly enough) reminded of the lines by John Donne: "No man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main . . . any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." If you come closer I'll tell you a secret . . . The Walking Dead is NOT about zombies. There are certainly zombies on the show. Lots of zombies. And they seem to get grosser with every passing season as their humanity continues to rot away. . . but that's not what the show's about. Not even close. The zombies are there as a backdrop. They're part of the setting. They are the blank canvas upon which the real story of The Walking Dead can unfold. The zombies are a MacGuffin. For the uninitiated, a MacGuffin is that most-paradoxical item in all of literature. A term popularized by none other than Alfred Hitchcock, the MacGuffin is both essential to the plot and completely irrelevant. It is the Maltese Falcon, the mistaken identity in North by Northwest, the plans for the Death Star hidden in R2-D2. It's the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant, the Sankara Stones, and even (regrettably) the Crystal Skull. Take any of those treasures away and you're still left with Indiana Jones. In The Walking Dead it's zombies. In ANOM: Awakening it's genetic anomalies with super-human powers. So what is The Walking Dead really about if not zombies . . . ? It's a story about relationship. Minor Spoilers ahead for The Walking Dead season 4 I'm a big fan of The Walking Dead but the latter half of season 4 is hands-down my favorite. In the final episode of the first half of season 4 (episode 8 titled "Too Far Gone") the relative safety of the prison is shattered and our rag-tag band of fearless survivors are scattered to the wind. Thankfully, in episode 9 titled, appropriately enough, "After" the survivors start to find each other again. They form up in groups of two or three, and the rest of the season is spent with these smaller groups trying to reconnect and find each other. But in these imperfect relationships - the survivors are thrown together out of circumstance rather than their choice - character is revealed. Those relationships are the universal truth in the series - the reality that everyone can understand. It's family, and friends, and strangers, and enemies . . . all thrown into stark relief BECAUSE OF the MacGuffin (in this case the zombies). By the time the season ends at Terminus, we all understand what Rick means when he says, "They're fucking with the wrong people." That line is powerful because (thanks to the events and relationships revealed over the course of season 4) the viewers understand exactly what kind of people Rick and his group are. How does that apply to my novel ANOM: Awakening? Just like The Walking Dead, my book is about character and human relationship. It's about intentionally choosing the kind of people we want to be, and it's about everything that can get in the way of those choices. That's the universal truth, and just like in The Walking Dead it's revealed through the MacGuffin. So is it a book about superheroes? Yes! But hopefully it's so much more. Hopefully it's a book about relationship, because strong relationships make strong stories. The MacGuffins just get you started. There's been a lot going on over the past week and I want to take a minute to update all of you regarding the book business. Last week I had the opportunity to have my photograph taken around town by my friend and professional photographer Kristy Straub. These photographs will be used on my website and, eventually, on my Amazon author page. The ordeal of having my picture take was, in a word, weird, but Kristy did an excellent job of making me feel at ease. She was good enough to share some of the early returns, and I've included one of the photographs here. For more examples of her work you should check out Syllipsi Photo. Vanessa and I have found the perfect venue for my launch party on June 25th. Alaura's Kitchen is a local ice cream shop (although they also offer homemade caramels, hotdogs, and the best french fries ever!). We've reserved the date with the owners Patrick and Michelle, and lots of details will follow in the weeks ahead. Needless to say, you're all invited and if nothing else. . . we'll have ICE CREAM! I finally started on the first draft of the ANOM: Awakening sequel. There's a feeling at the start of any novel that's hard to describe. It's equal parts excitement and terror -- excited for the adventure that lies ahead and scared to death that I'll fall on my face in the attempt. There's a long way still to go before the rough draft is complete (it took me more than a year to get the first one finished) but I can share my working title: ANOM: Legacy. I saved the best for last. The "proof copy" of my novel arrived in the mail today from Createspace.com. It wasn't a perfect representation -- it was missing the page numbers -- but even holding this incomplete copy felt like a small victory. It was one more reminder that this whole journey I'm on is REAL. . . and now I have the real book to prove it. Confession time -- I don't really like Facebook. Let me back up. What I mean to say is I don't like posting on Facebook. I've discussed my preference for keeping my life and my writing very private in previous posts to my blog (You can read them here). I guess you can call it introversion, if you like. It's certainly one of the things that I love most about writing. In my imagination, the perfect weekend is spent alone in a hoodie and virtual silence as I type away at my computer. Posting on Facebook is the opposite of that ideal. I just don't see the appeal of throwing your life's business across the internet for relative strangers to gawk at and comment on to their "friends". Of course that hasn't stopped me from writing one of these blog posts every week. It seems the one pearl of wisdom that every self-publishing-website has in common is that a writer must generate "buzz" for his or her book. Start a blog. Get a Facebook page. TWEET! Before I went public with all this book business, I used Facebook in the way God intended: to quickly share pictures with my family and friends, and to stalk my old acquaintances on the internet -- all the people you're curious about, but not close enough with to actually stay in touch. Honestly, even with that limited usage, Facebook still has a lot of negatives:
But then, on Friday, I experienced one of the true joys of life . . . and it was all thanks to Facebook! I found myself at the center of the "web-of-life". Full disclosure: I don't know if a "web-of-life" is a real thing or not--I just made up the name right now-- but I know they happen, and I know they're rare. They usually happen at big events, like at funerals. A web-of-life is when all of those old acquaintances -- the countless people who fill our everyday lives --go out of their way to express their gratitude, encouragement, and support. They go out of their way to express their love. It happened for me on Friday. That's when I announced the release date for my book. That post was subsequently flooded with "likes" and "loves" and comments. I got comments from my wife's relatives across the country. I got likes from my ex-teachers and comments from families who go to the same martial arts school with me. I got a phone call from a colleague, and a text message from an old youth leader. I was contacted by friends of friends who I've only met twice. I got messages from ex-students (one from New Jersey and one from North Carolina). The whole experience was humbling. And at the end of the day what I realized was it had nothing to do with my book. None of those people cared about the book! They were all writing because they cared about me. In that one post I could look back and see the threads of my life -- the countless people who have filled my days. It was a gift -- a gift from Facebook. So this week, I wanted to use this space to say "thank you" to all my Facebook friends (even the liars and the trolls). Friday was a celebration that I will carry with me for a very long time. Thank you, thank you, thank you. With this week's release of the much-anticipated Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and its subsequent evisceration by the film critics of America, I thought it only fitting to write about some of the key differences between DC Comics and Marvel (and how those differences have affected my own writing). 1. People Over Powers: Powers are cool. They put the "super" in superhero, but at the end of the day, powers alone do not make a compelling character. The best characters are human, and that means they are filled with flaws. This is a concept that Marvel has always understood. For example, compare and contrast the DC character of Bruce Wayne/Batman with his Marvel counterpart Tony Stark/Iron Man. On the surface, these two characters are very similar -- they are both billionaires who use their fortunes and technology to fight crime. Now look deeper. What can the casual fan tell me about Bruce Wayne? He's an orphan. Check. Got it. That explains his motivation to fight crime. But what can you tell me about the adult Bruce Wayne? Can you tell me anything other than he's rich? Now contrast that with Tony Stark -- What do we know about Tony? He's arrogant. He's a womanizer. He's prone to addiction. He's a genius trying to meet the expectations of his late father. The man has so many inner-demons that you start to lose track (and that's a good thing). When you strip these two characters of their alter egos, it becomes clear that Tony Stark is much more interesting than Bruce Wayne. 2. Weaker Is Better: It's hard to fault DC when they've created the most iconic superhero in history, but in my opinion it's harder to come up with a more BORING superhero than Superman (even the name is pretty boring when you think about it). The problem with Superman is he's too powerful. The audience is never really worried about his failure, and without that specter of defeat on the horizon, it's hard to create a compelling story. Even when writers try to create a plausible threat for Superman, the end result is often so contrived (like magic glowing rocks from your exploded home planet) that the weight of the story is lost. Compare this to a character like Marvel's Spider-Man. In the pantheon of heroic powers, Spider-Man is far from top dog. He's strong, but not THAT strong. Fast, but not SUPER fast. Even his web-shooters can run out of webbing. In fact, Spidey's history is filled with defining failures (Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacey to name two), but those losses give a sense of urgency and importance to every Spider-Man fight. He's routinely cast as the underdog, and we love rooting for the underdog. 3. Respect: This may not be fair, but I'm going to draw this final conclusion specifically from the DC and Marvel movies. The Marvel cinematic universe (including television) has thrived while the DC universe has sputtered (with a few exceptions like Arrow and the Flash, both on the CW). Why? I firmly believe the answer lies with respect, both for their characters and their audience. Marvel has gone out of their way to respect their characters and their audience -- if you want proof, remember that before the Marvel universe exploded onto the scene with Iron Man, popular thinking was to dress all superheros in black leather (I'm looking at you Bryan Singer and the X-Men) instead of their iconic costumes. Contrast this approach to what you get from Warner Bros. and DC. Case in point, a failure to cast Grant Gustin as the Flash in Batman v. Superman. For those of you who don't know, Gustin plays the title character in the CW's The Flash, and his portrayal has earned praise from fans and critics alike. This was DC's golden opportunity to create continuity and show some respect to their fans who invested themselves in Gustin's turn as Barry Allen. Instead, Zack Snyder tagged Ezra Miller for the role of the Flash. Dumb. So what does this mean for ANOM: Awakening? I hope it means I have characters who prove to be much more than just the sum of their powers. I hope it means I have a story that's filled with dramatic action sequences that leave the readers on the edges of their seats. And I hope it means that I have enough respect for the genre and my audience to create the kind of superhero novel they deserve. If I can accomplish all of that, it means I have a story that people will want to read. Hey everybody! Welcome back. It's been a crazy week in terms of the book, and I can't wait to give you all an update about where we stand. If you saw my post from last week in the News/Events section of the website, I received my revised manuscript from my editor at Invisible Ink Editing last weekend. I immediately dove back into my novel to start re-writes and revisions. The process has been, in a word, overwhelming. There were lots of notes, suggestions, and questions. A LOT! I shared the editor's commentary with Vanessa and a couple of friends, and they all came back with the same question. They asked if I was discouraged. I'm pleased to report that I am not. If anything, I feel reinvigorated to make my novel the best reading experience possible for my audience. The hardest part has been listening to my own inner voice. Some of the editor's suggestions I agreed with, and I made those changes right away. Other times, I flat-out disagreed and those suggestions were easy to ignore. But then there's a fuzzy gray area when the editor has raised an issue or question I've never fully considered. What do I do with those? Do I go back in and make changes, or do I trust my original instincts? I remind myself that all the suggestions are merely that -- suggestions. I tell myself that the foundation of the book is solid -- more than solid. It's good, but I don't want to mess it up now. So I've spent every night of the past week poring over the editor's notes and my manuscript. It's getting to the point where I'm starting to see hobgoblins -- phantom missteps in style that I change only to "undo" seconds later. Last night Vanessa called me a suffering artist -- probably because I've made her watch reruns of Downton Abbey by herself (My wife and I have very different definitions of "suffering"). But I know I'm close. If I can hold out for one more week -- if I can resist the urge to rush through the process so I can finally say I'm done -- I think the end result will be something special. Just one more week, and then big things are coming! This week, I'm writing the first in a new category of blog posts. I want to examine some of the creative influences in my life that have effected my novel ANOM: Awakening. For this initial offering, I'm going to talk about the impact of George R. R. Martin's fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. At this point, it would be prudent to mention that, for better or worse, my novel is not really like George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire at all. For one thing, Martin's novels fall squarely within the fantasy genre. ANOM: Awakening, does not. The closest I can get is by labeling my book as Science Fiction, but even this is a stretch. ANOM: Awakening is more like a really long comic book without the pictures. Secondly, Martin's writing is mega-successful and has spawned a multi-media phenomenon with the runaway success of HBO's Game of Thrones. Last I checked, I'm still waiting to self-publish my first novel on Amazon. The bottom-line is, I am NOT trying to equate my book with the novels of George R. R. Martin. That being said, I did learn an important lesson from Martin, and that's the issue I would like to explore today. If you are unfamiliar with Martin and his novels, the HBO series Game of Thrones is a good place to start. This served as my own introduction, but after the first season of the television show, I turned to the novels themselves. Just like you would expect, the books contained A LOT more detail and backstory than could ever be shown through the television. One of the aspects of Martin's novels I most enjoyed (and something that, until recently, has been lacking from the HBO series) is a sense of history. You understand through the novels that Martin's world of Westeros existed for a very long time before we ever read the first word on the first page. Throughout the series, characters constantly reference a well-known history that readers never get to experience first-hand. Even so, that history is always there-- and it influences characters and events in a way that the reader can't understand at first. Martin reveals that history slowly -- half a memory told in one chapter, a reference to some important battle somewhere else -- and the reader is left hungry for more. I distinctly remember wishing for a series of prequels about Robert's Rebellion (although that might be asking a bit much, as Martin has yet to finish the actual Song of Fire and Ice series). Ultimately, the lesson I learned is that a story doesn't have to begin on the FIRST day. I can start writing in the middle of an adventure, and trust in the patience of my readers to give me enough time to fill in the blanks. Rationing out this history in carefully proportioned revelations may even prove more satisfying in the end. Writing any story with a rich history (even if that history remains hidden for a time from the reader) lends a gravity to all the characters and their choices. The reader will understand the characters BECAUSE of that history, and in my own experience with A Song of Fire and Ice, that's a very satisfying experience, indeed. Now I only need to sell that to HBO. |
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