Hey, listen up! Will Norman of AuthorReads, a podcast that features exciting books by indie authors, interviewed me recently about my novels WE, THE WATCHED and DIVIDED WE FALL.
I offered some thoughts on the government surveillance debate and what makes a great dystopian novel. I also read an excerpt from WE, THE WATCHED and — I have to say — my unique voice-acting talents must be heard to be believed.
You can listen to the entire thing below via SoundCloud!
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Library Journal and Biblioboard have selected my second novel, Divided We Fall, as a featured indie novel in its curated SELF-e Select module!
This means my novel will soon be available to libraries all over the US through BiblioBoard Library. In addition, Divided We Fall will soon be available to readers throughout my home state of Pennsylvania in the Indie PENNSYLVANIA module as a highlighted selection.
Divided We Fall is a dystopian love story and the sequel to We, The Watched, which was accepted into SELF-e earlier this year.
The idea behind SELF-e is to expose notable self-published eBooks to readers around the country who are looking to discover new authors. Libraries can make ebooks available for free with no requirement to return the book and no multi-user restrictions.
Libraries are a perfect place to discover new books, and I’m super excited that both of my novels will soon be available for free to this large audience of hungry readers.
In Divided We Fall, Elite Guard Eve Parker must arrest her fiancé after he loses his memory and becomes a revolutionary called Seven. But when Eve learns more about the President’s plan to broaden citizen surveillance, she begins to question what she’s always believed to be right.
Seven runs, but in his flight realizes that losing his memory may not have been enough to erase his feelings for Eve. Unable to escape his past, Seven determines that he must come to terms with the man he was if he ever wishes to win freedom.
You can buy Divided We Fall today as an eBook or paperback from Amazon and other major online retailers.
Join my mailing list to get a free eBook edition of the first book in the series, We, The Watched.
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Big news for my upcoming third novel! I’m excited to announce that Rachel Gluckstern will edit The Wanderer and the New West.
Rachel is an award-winning editor who worked more than ten years at DC Comics, including as editor of the Batman Group from 2010 to 2015. Follow Rachel on Twitter and check out her LinkedIn profile for more details. We connected on Reedsy, an innovative web platform that helps authors find freelance publishing assistance. Be sure to check out my interview with Reedsy co-founder Emmanuel Nataf.
Rachel will be doing content and copy editing on The Wanderer to sharpen my prose and, generally, to keep me from looking like a hack. I’d be lying if I said comic books didn’t influence the knockabout action in my new book, and I believe Rachel’s experience with action/adventure stories will really give the novel a boost.
I completed my own edits for The Wanderer last week, and–if you’ll allow my biased opinion–it’s a fun and topical book. The story is set in a possible future won by gun evangelists and advocates for hands-off government. Plagued by shootings, this America has returned to the ways of the Wild West, a lawless land where people make their own justice.
Keep your eye on this blog and please sign up for my newsletter for more updates!
3 CommentsWhat, you think writers are just writing all the time? No, we read, too! And, you know … have a life outside of books … but that’s not the point I was getting at.
If you like my novels We, The Watched and Divided We Fall, you’ll really dig my first two selections — The Leftovers and Homage to Catalonia. The latter is actually a journalistic account by the great George Orwell about his true experiences during the Spanish Civil War. My third pick, City of Thieves, is another war story — this one about the siege of Leningrad during World War II — but what makes it clever is that it’s also a coming of age story. Finally, for the writers out there, I’ve reviewed Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury, a huge influence and inspiration for me.
And now, without further adieu….
The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I love stories that start with a fantastical or sci-fi premise and then take a realistic look at what would happen in the real world. That’s exactly what happens in The Leftovers. There is a rapture, but a seemingly random one with nothing to do with religion, and we see what the people in a suburban community do next.
If you’re expecting a grand sci-fi plot with an explanation for what happened, this book’s not for you. It’s more about the people and how they deal with losing people they loved. While that might sound sad, there’s actually a lot of humor that comes from the absurdity of the situation and the way people have responded.
Perrotta’s clear, humorous writing style adds to the fun. It’s effortless to read and hard to put down.
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Did you know George Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War? Like a lot of people, I only really knew Orwell for 1984 and Animal Farm. Reading this account of the author’s experience fighting Franco and fascism offers great context for other works while also illuminating all the confusion and propaganda from this 20th Century war. Orwell writes in an accessible way, effectively conveying his own outrage at the events of the war but also his fondness for the Spaniards. Worth a read for all Orwell fans and war history buffs.
City of Thieves by David Benioff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A coming of age set during the siege of Leningrad, City of Thieves deftly mixes humor, teen angst and the horrors of World War II. The prose moves along briskly, making for a quick read that never drags. It’s also a true story, making the tale all the more poignant.
I also really liked the characters and felt emotionally involved with their highs and lows. The descriptions of the dead and the desperate are tragic, and the brutal actions of the Nazis are truly horrifying.
Looking forward to reading more by this exciting new author.
Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity by Ray Bradbury
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This excellent collection of essays about writing by the great Ray Bradbury should be essential reading for any writer. This book is not about grammar or stylistic techniques. It is about finding focus and setting the right conditions to allow the writer inside to come out and show what he or she is made of!
The final essay, for which the book is named, is worth the price of admission alone. Bradbury makes the case for writers to stop thinking about commercial or critical success. Instead, he argues that writers should relax and write honestly.
There are also a few essays that give insights to Bradbury’s most famous novels, including Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles. These I had read before, as they were included as forewords in those novels. Even so, it’s nice to have them in a single collection.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I should get back to my writing!
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Leave a CommentWhen I finished the first draft of my upcoming third novel, The Wanderer and the New West, it was only the beginning of an equally important writing process — editing.
Editing is more than fixing typos. Over the past few months, I have gone into detective mode — reading and re-reading my story and taking notes about what I need to add, what I need to cut, and what I need to reorder. Writing a novel takes a lot of time, and a lot of things — including characters and writing style — can (and should) evolve as you write. Sometimes as I write, I know that a scene doesn’t quite work, but don’t have an immediate solution. Rather than bash my head against the wall, I just move on to the next scene, because in my experience the perfect solution often comes along later when I’m solving something else.
Cutting scenes can be hard. One of my problems is that I’ll write a joke or a bit dialogue that I believe is terribly clever, but in fact does nothing for the story. Usually my wife and editing ally Mallika calls me out on (and ruthlessly chides me for) such passages. It’s hard to hit the delete button, but in the end it’s better for the overall story. This is why I always am wary of new editions of novels or movies that restore previously cut material. In most cases, scenes or chapters are cut for a reason.
While I have cut some unnecessary segments in The Wanderer since the first draft, I’ve also added a few chapters in the middle to fill what I saw as a void in the plot. Without giving much away, there’s a part about two-thirds of the way through when the heroes decide to go stop the bad guy. In my original draft, however, there didn’t seem to be quite enough pushing them to make that decision beyond my fervent wishes as the author. As I went to work coming up with a new episode, I inadvertently addressed a few other weaknesses along the way (remember what I said before about waiting for the perfect solution?). I didn’t just fill a plot hole; I created one of my favorite sequences in the novel!
Editing is hard. It takes a lot of time. But it’s also a lot of fun. And when you read the end product, I think you’ll agree it’s worth it.
I am happy to say I’m getting close to the finish line for my edits, but of course, that will only mark the start of the next challenge: getting the story through someone who does this for a living — a professional editor! How’s that going to go? Stay tuned!
Win a paperback of my first novel WE, THE WATCHED from Goodreads!
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