MYSTERY GARDEN Retitled

It's not unusual for a book title to change (even numerous times) before it's published, and certainly each of mine have gone through their share of changes along the way. Initial titles tend to be placeholders, something to circle back to later when a good shot of inspiration strikes, unless the author has a really good feeling about their title and keeps the first one that popped to mind. For me, I always think I know what the story will be called, then, through the revision stages on the manuscript, come to find a name I like better that also better suits the tale.

In the first draft, Seeing had been titled Run to Me. I believe the second, and final title came shortly before the first draft was finished. As I've stated before, the idea that served as the springboard about that book was of a boy running a race. That initial title put too much focus on the climactic race itself, whereas the title Seeing played more into Jake Sheppard's faith overall.

Before I went with The Painted Lady, my second novel had the title of Pictures. The reason for that change had been twofold; first, I liked the Lady title better, and, second, I didn't want to do another book with a one-word title. Yes, these are things I think about.

On the cover page of the manuscript for my novella, An Unexpected Visit, I had that title plus another beneath it: The Long Weekend. My choice of the final title was mostly due to that one emphasizing further the thriller aspect of the story, letting the reader know from the get-go that something unforeseen was going to take place. The words "the long weekend" do appear in the text of the story, so I still got to use it.

What this is all leading to is the reveal I hinted at the other day on my Facebook Author page, that of the new title for my upcoming third novel (fourth book) to be released in May 2018. Originally called Mystery Garden, I found through editing the second draft that the titular garden doesn't carry the same amount of focus nor mystique, but rather the theme of eventuality does present itself on numerous occasions. Therefore, I announce to you, my dear and faithful readers, that my next book will be called...

A Matter of Time

Here is an updated summary:

After mildly successful, self-proclaimed spook writer, Malcolm Aton, puts the finishing touches on his newest novel - a poignant work that he hopes will change the trajectory of his stymied career and reignite his writing passions - a message alerts him to a family emergency.

Convinced to return to the home, and hometown, he stopped looking back on with any sort of fondness, to care for his ailing father, a septuagenarian stricken with Alzheimer's, Malcolm must come to terms with the choices of his past, as well as prepare himself for the portions of his future that will never be within his control to determine.

A Matter of Time will be available in paperback and e-book from Winter Goose Publishing in May of 2018.

For more about this title, stay tuned here.

A Happy Book Birthday

Seven years ago (at age 27) I wrote a story based upon a thought of a boy running a race at a school event. The spectators in the bleachers watched, cheering, as the only other person in the race was falling behind, tiring, as the boy in the lead further distanced himself through great strides and impeccable control. But it wasn't the finish line ahead this boy I imagined had his eyes set on. There, beyond the end of the track, was something, perhaps even someone, that no one else could see.

At the time of the thought I didn't know who or what the boy was seeing. But I wanted to find out.

I worked backwards from that climactic race, figuring out the characters, the plot, and hand wrote much of the first draft of that story in a green notebook given to me by my girlfriend, who is now my wife. She had given me the notebook not just as a gift, but as a way to get started. Because she knew I had always wanted to be an author. And there was no other way to do it than to get writing.

There had been four previous (failed) attempts over the course of three years - four completed manuscripts that ranged from a massive 109,000 word sci-fi/horror Invasion of the Body Snatchers/Zombie Apocalypse/Stephen King mashup, to a modest, quiet novel about a girl suffering from terrible anxiety, to two young adult stories (one about a girl seeing ghosts and the other about an adopted child who begins to believe his life is tied to the story of a book). None of these manuscripts got beyond the initial query stage. I still have them though - copies of the manuscripts. They sit in boxes. I keep them for their nostalgic value, and as reminders that every writer starts somewhere. They are how I learned.

The fifth story - this story of the boy running the race - was The One. I knew it. I felt it. This book was strong enough, was funny, touching, heartbreaking, inspirational - it was everything I wanted my first published book to be. It would set the tone for everything else I would write. I promised myself I would never give up on the story, wouldn't go on to write something else, I would just keep editing it and editing it and making it perfect because I knew - just knew - this book, originally titled Run to Me when I started hand writing it in the pages of the green notebook, was going to be my first published novel.

And it was.

It took four years of writing, and editing, and editing some more, and querying both agents and publishers, and more editing, and adding and subtracting, and more querying, but eventually I got a Yes! from a publisher - you only need one Yes!

Winter Goose Publishing released my debut novel, Seeing, on June 30, 2014.

I have received many beautiful comments and reviews regarding the book, but perhaps my favorite came from Erik Weibel of thiskidreviewsbooks.com, who said, "Even though this isn’t the typical action/adventure book I usually go crazy over, the book really left an impression on me. The story kept me reading. I finished it in one day. The story, even though is one of loss, is also one of hope. It is motivating, in a way. The book is appropriate for all ages, but I think kids 12+ and adults will truly enjoy the message of the story. For anyone who says small press publishers don’t produce good books – check out Seeing. It will change your mind in many ways."

What's more, at the end of the year, Erik named Seeing one of his Top Books of 2014.

I couldn't have asked for a better start.

Seeing is available at Amazon, B&N, and anywhere else books are sold. It is available in both paperback and e-book formats. If you haven't read it yet, please consider checking it out - download the free sample for your Nooks or Kindles, then go from there. If you have read Seeing and haven't left a review on either Amazon or Goodreads, please consider dropping a few honest words. Every little bit helps.

Coming Around to the Idea of a Series (aka The Long Journey)

I've dabbled in this subject before.

Months before Maddie was born, I devoured the first Harry Potter novel - yes, it took me about sixteen years to get around to beginning what will be considered J.K. Rowling's magnum opus. Don't judge me. Truth be told, I was spoiled on the movies, and read in a lot of other genres and authors while the Potter books were being published. And while the books are always better (far better), the endings and main themes were explored and displayed in great depth in the films. So I knew the ultimate fate of Harry Potter and the enormity of his battles with He Who Must Not Be Named long before I read the first page of The Sorcerer's Stone. But I enjoyed the book immensely.

Unfortunately, I have yet to read the second book, Chamber of Secrets, even years later. I do plan to read them, but again, life and other reading, and writing, and many other things has gotten in the way.

While in high school, I read Lord of the Rings, a fascinating, if not bloated book (mine was the single volume of the three main books). There's not much I can tell you from memory that you haven't seen in those films, save for a few nonessential side characters and treks that didn't make it to the big screen.

A few years ago I read the Hunger Games' three books (Catching Fire the best of the three, in my opinion).

Currently, I have just finished the third novel in the Dark Tower series, and am reading through Still Alice in my attempt to get a wider understanding of Alzheimer's Disease before picking up the fourth DT novel, Wizard and Glass.

I'm afraid to admit there are many other truly wonderful sets of books that constitute a series that I have not yet read. The Chronicles of Narnia, Chaos Walking, His Dark Materials, Discworld, The Dark is Rising to name a few.

In my own writing, all of my stories have been developed in such a way that they're wrapped up in a single volume. It's just how I operate.

Until last spring.

During a "break" (because when do writers ever truly stop working?) after finishing a first draft of a YA novel, I got an idea for a story that could possibly be the first steps of a much longer journey. I had been reading one of the Walking Dead novels by Jay Bonansinga, which center around the town of Woodbury and how it became a fix-up town in the wake of the apocalypse, along with its own justice system, and the thought occurred to me to use a similar setup. Minus the zombies.

I wrote a first draft, titled The Long Road Home, and left it to simmer for a while. I did a second draft over the summer and expanded on some of the themes. There were times I was really into it, and other times where I thought it made for a very interesting "trunk novel" if nothing else, and provided me the place to further exercise my craft.

Over the course of about eleven months away from the project, my mind has started to wander back...wander with a fevered curiosity to those typed pages, to my hero, Jace Maddox, his mantle as the peacekeeper of a waystation thoroughfare called Lin-Maycomb in the generations following a catastrophic event that has wiped the world clean, forcing people to start over, and wrapping his mind around the truth of his existence as provided by the arrival of a stranger who has given no name, who has come to the town confessing of murder with a book in his hand that holds the most simple explanation of all as to the truth of his origin and Jace's destiny.

Thing is...while that all may sound intriguing...this book is unlike anything I've previously scribed. It's very much centered on the protagonist, with few side characters (that's my norm), but the dystopian setting, the fantasy elements, the fact that it is only the first steps of a long journey, are new to me.

I can't say I'm totally comfortable yet making this manuscript a promised future novel - and mostly because beyond Volume One, I don't know where the story goes - but if I do, you'll see it here first.

I mention all of this because, well, where I was once against ever doing a series before, I've started to give it serious consideration. To see if I can do it.

To date, my longest piece of writing is the first novel I ever wrote - a massive mashup of sci-fi/horror/zombie apocalypse/Invasion of the Body Snatchers POS called Signal, which I wrongfully self-pubbed ten years ago (don't bother looking for it if you don't have one, it's out of print). I would love nothing more than to have my longest piece of writing be something that means more to me, something to be proud of, that embodies all of the themes of life I tend to explore, and that is just all around better.

The Long Road Home may turn out to be just that.

On The (Temporary) End of My Office

Now that it's out my wife and I are expecting Baby #2 in November, I can talk freely about how the expansion of our family means the impending closure of what is currently my office, as it will cease current operations as a shrine to all things Star Wars, my work, and an impressive collection of movies and books, and will become - once repainted and redecorated - our daughter Maddie's big girl bedroom. Most of what is cluttering up the inside of my office now (previously mentioned books, Blu-rays, and lightsabers) will be boxed temporarily (until we either move, or the nursery becomes the office/guest room in another two years).

And, really, I'm totally cool with it.

Many writers talk about having "their space" whether it's an office out of a spare room in their house, a desk shoved into the corner of a basement or attic or laundry room, or even just taking their laptop into the bathroom with them (gross). It's generally agreed upon by many writers that one so dedicated should manage to find an escape into that quiet, coveted corner in which to close the door and create.

To that I say: it really doesn't do much for me. I don't like to escape (and never think of it that way), and even when I do use the office for work, I never close the door anyway.

Quite honestly, as long as I can find the time in a day to write, I'm happy. I can create almost anywhere. As it is, I wrote much of the first draft of Mystery Garden (my novel out next year) during my lunch break at work - and I eat at my desk, so there are people and students in the room when I work. Once I get into the groove of the story, I can shut almost anything out. At home, I write during my daughter's naps over the weekend, and usually I'm on my laptop downstairs at the dining room table, not in some private closed off space away from my family. What I do works for me, and certainly I don't believe it makes me any less dedicated to the craft.

When we were moving into our house in June of 2014, my wife let me have choice over whichever room to become my office, so I can't say it doesn't effect me at all to lose what's been a place dedicated to all things me for the last three years - and I do have visions of what my "perfect office" would look like - but, more or less, the biggest inconvenience I feel is finding a place for some of the stuff to go. But find a place, or places, we will.

So, in about a month, all of the current furniture will come out of that room and I'll start painting. My wife and I will then decorate Maddie's bedroom, and then the munchkin will move in. All the while my writing will go on. And life, as well, will go on, very happily.

MYSTERY GARDEN in May 2018

It's been hinted at the last few weeks on my social media accounts, so I figure why not make it official:

A year from now my fourth book (and third novel), Mystery Garden, will be out in both paperback and e-book editions. Published by Winter Goose Publishing, this bizarre and emotional novel tells the experience of Malcolm Aton, a mid-list author in the course of trying to change the trajectory of his stalled career, who gets an urgent message out of the blue to return home. The resulting week spent in the company of his father, whom he hasn't spoken to in three years, amounts to an odd configuration of the absolute strangest and most heart-wrenching string of days Malcolm has ever had to endure.

For more regarding Mystery Garden, stay tuned here to this blog, my website, and my social media accounts.

On Word Counts

Yesterday, I finished the day's work on the latest first draft, coming to a stopping point at exactly 32,000 words. Knowing what's left of the story to tell, and accounting for the unforeseen, yet natural, bursts of inspiration that take the story in different directions before returning to the mainline, I estimate the first draft of Mystery Garden will end somewhere between 58,000 and 62,000 words.

For me, that's about right.

Of course, my first drafts are all about laying the groundwork; my first drafts are barebones. The subsequent drafts are when I focus on building the world around the frame I've constructed, honing the balance between what's necessary for you to know, and what gets the point across. My goal, by the time I finish my fourth draft, is to give you, dear reader, a seamless film in your head to imagine while you're reading that moves along at a steady pace, paints a beautiful picture that's framed with precise composition, and, equally as important, doesn't overwhelm you in minutiae. If I dedicate more than ten words about a rocking chair then that chair is significant (or just a red herring), otherwise I won't bother. A reader doesn't need to know, or be told, everything.

And yet, for those who have never looked into the word count of their favorite books, 62,000 words is relatively short for a novel. Novels are defined (and this is depending on where you look; I'm gathering from a few general sources here) as being, typically, between 40,000 and 120,000 words. But there's a lot of wiggle room, especially toward the far side of that spectrum. There are also a lot of factors that are included in those longer word counts, like genre, subplots, the inclusion of side characters, or shifting POV to other main characters, etc. It depends a lot on the author and their style. My favorite author is Stephen King, and maybe only one or two of his books are anywhere near that 40,000 word count bookend (Carrie, one of his shortest novels, is somewhere around 63k); many of his works reside in the 200,000 range (like Bag of Bones). His novel, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, one of my favorites, is shorter than his typical fare (around 60k), but also focuses primarily with a single character, whereas Mr. Mercedes (around 130k) alternates between telling the story from the view of the protagonist, Bill Hodges, and antagonist, Brady Hartsfield.

What does the amount of words in a story mean in the grand scheme of things? Not a whole lot, really. I admit, I'm one of those writers who's obsessed with word count. It bothers me though. I hate that it creeps into my mind when I'm telling a story, because the amount of words I use is the last thing that should concern me, rather than how I'm using the words I'm using, and why. But it does. I suppose it's because I want to give the reader as much as I can, and not have them feel slighted - give them their money's worth. Give them a place they can lose themselves for a while and concern them with a fictional character's plight rather than anything going on in their own lives. And I know that's easier with a denser book.

As it is, I know my pacing, my style, and I know my inclination (and comfort) to focus my stories from the point of view of a single protagonist and put them through the ringer with a sprinkling of side characters who join the fray. My stories are smaller, intimate, closed off. I also know a longer book doesn't necessarily make a better one. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is considered one of the best novels ever written and it's only about 45k words. My own personal favorite book, A Monster Calls (by Patrick Ness) is only 35k long.

Perhaps someday I'll write that sprawling novel that shifts points of view, balancing numerous main characters and subplots. I know I want to. I have the ideas for it.

As an interesting comparison in closing (and because I thought it made a cool visual), below are two pictures of completed manuscripts. The first is the tree that was destroyed in stacking up Stephen King and Owen King's upcoming collaboration, Sleeping Beauties, and the second is a third draft manuscript to my second novel, The Painted Lady (which, at third draft, was around 71,000 words).

Stephen and Owen King's Sleeping Beauties (2017)

My very own The Painted Lady (2015)

Before Being Published and After

My writing life (dare I call it a career?) is divided into two parts: Before being published, and After.

The time Before spanned a great deal of years, from around age 10 through my teens when I was writing stories strictly for fun, and then from my mid-twenties to age 31 when I decided to really hunker down and focus on the craft, which involved the output of dozens of short stories, a bunch of flash fiction, a few novellas, and four (trunk) novels. I was 27 when I met the girl who became my wife, who also took on the mantle of my muse and inspired me to finally chase down the dream of publication with the utmost seriousness and putting forth my best effort.

Perhaps needless to say, I did it. Besides a few small tales and non-fiction pieces published on the Net, two of my short stories were chosen for issues of RiverLit magazine in early and late 2014. Seeing, my first novel (a coming of age story), was published June 27, 2014. The Painted Lady, my second novel (a paranormal thriller/romance), came out August 5, 2015. And my novella An Unexpected Visit dropped recently on November 16, 2016.

And so, from age 31 on, I've been living in the After.

And, to be honest to those still seeking their first book contract, there is no Happily Ever After when you sign your name the first time. I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from seeking a publisher and, instead, going it alone, but rather commenting on a reality. I'm not set for life. I'm not making enough to do a multi-state bookstore tour. I'm still working a day job. I've also discovered what once was a singular goal to just be published has exploded into many more objectives in the literary world I want to achieve.

A few weeks ago I put the finishing touches on a novella I absolutely love called Something Above the Stars that I've sent out to numerous publishers who focus on novella-length works. One of my newer goals is to branch out and work with different publishers, different editors, to learn more about the industry via how others do the work from handling the manuscript to putting out the finished book. I want to get more experience, more comfortable with promotion, and I want to feel I've earned it again. I also have a deep admiration for the novella, so another of my new goals is to get my work in the hands of a publisher who specializes in that particular form. If Stars isn't destined for acceptance, waiting in the wings I have six other novellas in different draft stages ready to continue working on once I finish with my most recent undertaking.

I'm currently in the first quarter of the first draft of a new novel called Mystery Garden. I don't want to put out a lot about this project right now because it is so new, but if you follow my Twitter for the month of April, you'll get bits and pieces by way of the hashtag #WIPjoy (WIPjoy is a wonderful event held every few months that encourages writers who are at work to share about their projects and to support others).

When Mystery Garden is done... I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with it. One of my larger goals has always been to get in with one of the top tier publishers. To do that, I unquestionably have to get an agent, which isn't just difficult and stressful, but very time consuming, and requires me to raise my game. With time never standing still, and never a guarantee, the question I ask myself all the time is when am I finally going to pull the trigger and go all in on the agent search, especially considering it takes me about a year to do my four drafts of a novel (and that's with no side projects). Saying I could begin the search with the novel following Garden means I wouldn't even begin putting out queries for another two years.

Right now, that feels like too much time.

I know it may be hard for my readers to accept that they may not see another publication from me anytime soon. Yes, I always have Winter Goose as a home for my work, but I never want to use them as a back-up. They were my first publisher - my first YES! - and if I do publish work through them, it'll be work I intended to give them.

So, this is where I'm at. Both exciting and uncertain times, for sure.

Stay tuned.