Final Edit Received

I have great news!!

During my initial conversations with the publisher, they were asking how I received criticism.  What I found to be odd, is that I also had forms to fill out describing my book and incredibly, how I received criticism.  It brought me back to the times when I had been handing in creative-writing exercises at school.  Such hope which was shattered with a bad grade.  I always said the same thing, "Are these people nuts?!?  Why can't they understand that I did "this" intentionally and I did "that" because later "this" happens?  I don't deserve this grade because the professor doesn't understand me or my writing."

So, yesterday I got the manuscript back from the editors.

It felt like I was just punched in the neck.  I literally felt the wind leave me when I saw how badly they beat up my manuscript.

Right now, all I can say is that "I got what I deserved."  Something I couldn't say when I was younger, but it's as true then as it is now.

My job is to tell a story to the reader.  I'm sure a Sci-fi/Fantasy reader would have understood a bit more with certain aspects to the review, but that's not the point.  The book is supposed to be intuitive.  At no point should a reader have to say, "Poorly written, but I know what you mean."  I feel really good about this now.  I was worried that I would publish the book and later have regrets with the fact that readers didn't understand what I was trying to say.  With this, I can be pretty sure I'll be delivering a quality product for everyone to enjoy.

I want everyone to enjoy Alorya.  I want people who have never read the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre to "get it."  It's actually the story of my son's first week of life translated into fiction.  When they come to book signings and see Aiden with me, I want them to see how it all turned out.

Perhaps if I just panicked a bit more?

There were a few facts about the hurricane (Irene) which raised some concern on my part.  For one, living in the NYC Metro area, we don't get many hurricane level storms.  Our city architecture was not designed to be a source of protection from a storm of that magnitude.  This is one of the reasons, I'm assuming, elected officials were telling us we had to evacuate.  As the storm progressed up the Atlantic towards us, I was concerned.
This is a little bit of insight into the type of person I am.  When something is big enough to get me concerned, I do some research on it to raise my own awareness. 

"This looks like it could be big, how will it affect me?"

Of Note:
My house is above sea level. 
I have two young children (5 and 1)
I have 2 medium sized trees in front of my house.
My house is about 4 feet above street level.
My roof is on its third layer of tile (maximum amount), and it's already leaked once this year.
My car is parked next to one of said trees.
I have no basement.
My backyard tends to flood on days when it's anything just above a drizzle.

Taking all of this into account, I decided to check the weather forecasts periodically on Friday and into Saturday.  I forget what channel I was watching, but this blond reporter in a studio smiled a great big pearly smile as she told us about Armageddon.  What the ....?

It was at this point the Facebook messages, the email, the tweets and the phone started screaming for my attention.  "Run!  Run for your lives," an irate message appeared in my inbox.  People who were very concerned for me were giving me advice on how to make it through disaster, should it come to that point.  It was great advice for the most part.  The only problem was that they were interrupting my own research on how bad this hurricane was going to be.  To point something else out about me, I don't go through the normal channels when I'm doing research.  I've already seen enough to know the anti-government / anti-media team will tell me the hurricane is just hype.  I also know the pro-government team will tell me how great it was that we were prepared this time around and that yes, in fact, everyone should go to their nearest shelter.

"Fill up your tub with water now, so if you find yourself without water for a bath, it will be available to you." 

My wife took a trip to the supermarket to stock up on some canned goods, just in case.  The shelves were bare.  Batteries had become a mere rumor, while some folks were seen stocking up on Klondike Bars and beer.  Nice!

"In anticipation of a power outage, set your refrigerators cool setting to maximum to extend food life."

By mid-Saturday, I had my plan.  I would go to my mother's with my son, while my wife would go to her aunt's with her mother and our daughter.  There weren't going to be enough beds for everyone, I thought.  My wife said she wanted us all to stick together, so rather than settle up on what we would do, we just looked outside and used our eyes to see that it wasn't so bad yet.

The Plan:
Watch Doctor Who on BBC America.
If Cable gets knocked out preventing this, we execute our evacuation plan previously stated.
Or, if at the end of Doctor Who, the storm looks like its getting worse, we'll execute our evacuation plan.

The Outcome:
All of the Doctors previous companions make him feel overwhelmed with guilt.
Mel seemed like a plot device.
Alex Kingston became much cooler in my book for her portrayal of River Song.
Oh, and we went straight to bed afterwards.

"Before the storm, take a walk around the block.  Are there any dead leaves or debris covering the sewer grate?"

So, the following morning we woke up and wondered if the hurricane had hit yet.  It became my innocent question I had asked.  "Did Irene hit yet?"  I made on all phone calls to my friends/family yesterday, but after a while it became a sarcastic question I would ask.  "When is Irene going to get here?  I'm fully prepared to panic and cry like a baby, so where is this storm?"

“For those of you in New Jersey, this WILL BE the MOST SEVERE weather you have EVER or most likely WILL ever experience to date.”  This is a 3^rd person quote of the Weather Channel.  I took this person to task, because it’s overly dramatic and doesn’t offer any advice other than to make the viewer tremble with fear.

Also on FB, hours before the storm hit, someone from Staten Island posted a picture of a tree fallen on top of the telephone poll wires.  Declaring this to be a government conspiracy to cripple their neighborhood.  I asked, “What did you do after you put the camera down?”  On the defensive, they told me it wasn’t their job and even if it was, they wouldn’t know how to fix this.  I was only checking to see if they called 411.  "Oh."

So, it’s Saturday evening and I’m walking with my five year old son, in the middle of the “hurricane” just jumping in puddles.  I asked myself, why don’t I panic?  As I watch my son gleefully jumping in the water with his Toy Story rain coat, I already knew why I don’t panic.

If I were to panic, then everyone close to me would see that the guy who doesn’t panic is panicking.  If he’s scared, then no one will be gleefully jumping in puddles.  No one will be in the house taking a nap.  I dare say, no one would think it was a good idea to DJ a party on Saturday night in Queens.  Panic is contagious, I think.  Another thing to note; if the storm was worse and my house was destroyed, it would NOT be because I didn't panic.

A Mother's Birthday

I sit beside the fire and think
Of all that I have seen.
Of meadow flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been.

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
In autumns that there were
With morning mist and silver sun
And wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
Of how the world will be
When winter comes without a spring
That I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things
That I have never seen
In every wood in every spring
There is a different kind of green.

I sit beside the fire and think
Of people long ago,
And people who will see a world
That I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think
Of times there were before
I listen for returning feet,
and voices at the door.

Alorya Tag Line - Poll

I need to perfect the tag line of my upcoming novel Alorya.  Can you help me decide which one to go with?

1 - You are the father of a child, evil incarnate, prophesized to commit genocide.  What do you do?
2 - What would you do if your son was prophesized to be an evil tyrant responsible for the next great genocide?
3 -  If you knew your son was prophesized to slaughter half of the world’s population, what would you do?
4 - A child, evil incarnate, is prophesized to commit genocide.  You are his father.  What would you do?

Comment with your suggestions too!  I will go with whichever garners the most support.

- As suggested by J.J. Lancer
5 - Your son is prophesied to commit genocide.  What would you do?

Book Review - by Jon Teetsell

The Silmarillion: The Epic History of the Elves in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The first thing I want to get across is that my rating of 4-Stars is subject to the fact that I love the genre and in particular, I love the Lord of the Rings. When I read the back cover, I saw that the Silmarillion is Tolkien's book of short stories summarizing the first and second age. I had just finished Lord of the Rings and had a thirst for all things Middle Earth. This is where I would expect some of you to say "thank you, but no thank you."

The Silmarillion is for Middle-Earth lovers. Throughout the book, you'll see similarities between it and the Lord of the Rings. The thing worth pointing out though is that Lord of the Rings is done on a much smaller scale than Silmarillion. For example, the Sauron character is comparable to Morgoth. The Shelob character is comparable with Ungoliant. The stories focus on the elves, whereas Lord of the Rings focus on man.

The story of the Noldor and the men of Numenor were particularly enthralling as both Elrond and Aragorn can trace their lineage there. Galadriel is alive and well and as beautiful on paper as she is in the movies.

The truly fascinating part of the Silmarillion is that it seems like a sounding board for all that happened in the Lord of the Rings. Reading it felt as though I was perusing through the notes of a giant in my field which were left on a coffee table in his den. When I watch the Lord of the Rings with my friends, who are not nearly of the same fanaticism with the books as I am, I can play the role of "Know it All" thanks to this book. It's those little moments that make it all worth it.





View all my reviews

Catskills

Route 17 was quiet this early in the morning. Jen kept her windows rolled up, though the heat was a stifling New York heat that promised to add an equal dose of humidity.  She stared straight ahead; nothing could pull her gaze from the road. What had she just seen?  Every time the memory would try to resurface, something would suppress the image into a flash of light and the sound of children crying. She reached down to check her cell phone to find it cracked from when she fell on the tracks, in a fit of rage she flung it into the back seat.  From Rt 17, she turned onto Holiday Hill Road and made a quick left into a hidden driveway between two neglected trees. The door to the cabin flew open at her touch and she found Stan rushing over to her.

“What is it? What happened,”  he asked. She resisted his touch and sat down at the kitchen table.  “Did you find Nick and Sasha?”

She did not answer him; staring ahead, she pulled her hair frantically and began to cry.

“I’m calling the police,”  he declared and walked over to the phone.

“No,”  she said sternly. She took a moment to compose herself.  “It’s no use, they’re gone.”

“Gone,” he demanded, slamming the phone down.  His face was full of concern.  “What the hell happened down there?”

She told him what it was like driving there without him. Sasha and Nick did not come back last night from hiking in the Catskill Mountains.  Stan called the Sheriff's office and was told they had to be missing longer than a few hours before they could warrant a full search party.  Jen drove off by herself, just before midnight to the location Nick and Sasha told them they would start. Sure enough, she found their Honda Accord parked in a small gravel parking lot near the old Ulster & Delaware Railroad Company railroad tracks.  In the wooded forest, at this time of night, darkness could not even begin to describe it.  She could not see her hand in front of her face.  Without a flashlight, she used her cellphone LED to light the way ahead.

Nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, the railroad company went out of business.  Treacherous terrain caused the trains take exorbitant amounts of time just to travel up and down the mountains. During an icy winter, a deadly accident had cost the lives of nearly eighty tourists. The tracks had frozen, but this was to be expected during the peak of skiing season. Screams could be heard by people, who lived nearby, as the trains breaks failed to catch on the slippery tracks.  The odd part about the accident was that there was no crash. The train simply went into the tunnel, but never came out the other side. Without a free flowing amount of information in that day in age, the story past with the time until it became merely a legend.  Hundreds of tons of steal in that train and all of those passengers could not just disappear.  There wasn’t a sophisticated ticketing system in those days, so the passengers were just forgotten. The dramatic loss of business for the Ulster & Delaware Railroad Company and local stories turned the accident into a legend.

It wasn’t long before Jen was at the abandoned tunnel calling for her friends.  Up to this point, Stan followed the story without interuption.  “That tunnel,” he asked with doubt written all over his face.  “I lived here my whole life, there is nothing haunted about that tunnel.  The three of you came here to visit, babbling about the tunnel and full of wild stories.  It’s nothing!  A tourist trap... that’s all.”

“I was there,”  she screamed.  “I didn’t see any ghosts or anything. I just walked into the tunnel and suddenly, I was on the other side and it was already daylight.”

Suddenly, she found herself in darkness.  The immediate change in her location made her stumble and fall.  Her cell phone crashed across the ground.  She could feel the wooden sleepers with her hands as she traced them to the steel rail.  The darkness surrounded her, as did the cries of people so close she felt like she was in the center of a circle of sobbing children.

“Sasha,”  she screamed.  “Nicolas!!”



From inside the cabin, Sasha and Stan were seated on the sofa as Nicolas walked into the house, closing the door behind him.  He drove the Camry back from the parking lot near the trail feeling incredibly guilty.  He and Sasha chickened out and never went near the tunnel.  Instead, they camped out and tried to have a little time alone.  He hoped Jen would hit it off with Stan and make use of their time together as well.  Each time he went to look for her, he managed to walk the entire length of the trail, including walking from one side of the tunnel to the other.  With the aid of daylight and flashlights, he saw no sign of her.

“Any word from the Sherrif,” he asked.

Sasha and Stan shook their heads.

“It’s been two weeks,” Stan said.  “They’ve done all they can, according to Deputy Jones.”

In the tunnel, there were no remains of Jen. There was no indication she was ever there. If you ever heard her voice joined by the chorus of crying victims, you probably weren’t getting out of the tunnel either.

I found him

It was Autumn, 1992, and I had agreed to move back to Staten Island to spend more time with my brothers and sisters.  I went to school for the last time in Long Beach and made sure to find Danny McIntyre to say good-bye.
There just was not enough time to tell him all of the details of this departure, so I just told him the basics.  ”Don’t worry,” I said.  ”I’ll be in Long Beach every weekend, so I can see you then.”  That was the last thing I said to him.
About five or six years ago, I started looking for the friends I had when I was young.  The good friends were good, the enemies were good and everyone had grown up to be responsible adults for the most part.  All of my friends were there except for three of the greatest.

• Danny McIntyre
• Joe Henry
• John Deifenbach

No one had heard of them.  They were lost, without a trace.  Thanks to Social Media sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, I’ve been able to launch a search into finding these gentlemen.  For one of them, the memory that had stuck out in my mind was an interaction I had with one of my other friends in the mid-nineties.  ”Oh, Danny,” he asked.  ”Last I heard, he got in with a bad crowd and we haven’t seen him since.”
Up until today, two of them remained hidden and one of them I choose not to believe the results that I have found  (I’m still looking Joe).  Today, my search is over.  Unbidden, a search algorithm came to mind.  (Penguin & McIntyre & Kevin & Dan).  A Q & A session with Kevin’s band asked the question of ‘who was your inspiration?’  ”My brother Danny,” was Kevin’s reply.  Logic told me, that a band from Point Lookout with the lead singer of Kevin McIntyre was most likely the best place for me to look.  The fact that he also had a brother named Danny was the clincher.
Whether or not Danny had fallen in with a bad crowd is inconsequential right now.  I’ve found him.  He is doing everything that I had thought he was going to be doing with his life.  All this and I am happy for him too!  Good Luck, Dan.  I found you.  Now, I’ve got two more to go.

Update - 1

I met with the Marketing Editor for my book yesterday evening. The next phase is a Content Edit, but during the next week or so, I’m going to be setting the marketing expectations for Alorya.
The good news is he likes the book. I thought a major plus was the fact that he said he does not really like Sci-Fi / Fantasy novels, so the fact that he likes it speaks volumes.
It’s so good to hear that someone besides my friends and family like the book as well. I always get the feeling my friends and family are telling me what they want me to hear, instead of the truth. Now, I know for certain that the book is not pure drivel.

Method Writer

“What if you were given the knowledge that you will meet a genocidal maniac when they were a child; before they committed any atrocities?”  - Alorya Tag-line (2007)

I think we’ve all heard the term “method actor”, which is basically an actor who dives so completely into their role, that he actually becomes the character being played.  While classical acting focuses on the external tools used by actors, such as voice, facial expressions and mannerisms; method acting focuses on the internal tools.  A Method Actor can develop internal abilities which mimic the muse the actor is trying to portray, such as emotions and psyche.

To be honest, Alorya isn’t so much a fantasy book as it is a series of real life events which were exaggerated, and then documented in a fictional world.  Add to that the fact that I really did wish the stories of Harry Potter, Anakin Skywalker and Ned Stark had gone differently, which was the main reason I started writing a book.  I created characters which were not really extensions of me, but other people in my life.  The character I created in my own image is not really introduced until the end of the story.

When I wrote Alorya, I had to climb into the heads of people I had brief encounters with and those encounters were mostly negative.  As I passed the story along to my editors, they told me I needed to flesh out these characters.  I had the unfortunate task of climbing into the character of an ambitious murderer, which was extremely difficult.  For some time, I wanted the tag-line of my book to be “What if you were given the knowledge that you will meet a genocidal maniac when they were a child; before they committed any atrocities?”  Writing my worst fears in a journal was supposed to be a therapeutic way of dealing with my realistic problem.

Recently, I’ve been talking to my wife about the possibility of being a “method writer”.  I’ve seen stories of writers taking steroid to be more authentic when writing about that topic and at first, I laughed.  I can then think back to some really dark times for me in 2007 – 2009, and they really stand out for me.  Was it due to writing what is ultimately a very dark book?

My follow-up to Alorya will not be so dark.  It’s a story about two brothers inheriting a detective agency from their uncle.  I’m half-way through the first draft and I’m pretty excited about it.  I appreciate it if you made it this far.

Revelations during the Wedding

I knew that I was not Matt’s oldest friend. I was reminded of it often during our friendship from his other friends, but I always thought it was a good thing that friendship could endure the way it obviously had between him and his childhood friends. The reminder that set my mind down this path came yesterday during my friends wedding. JT had huddled with Matt and the groomsmen, which were all friends from the age that came when the parents open their doors to let their children explore the world. They huddled while JT told them that the first one of them was getting married and together, they will all get to this stage.
As a parent, I think to the days that come when I will open the doors for my children Aiden and Elena and when they will let their friends into their hearts. One day, I know, these friends will be closer to and know more about my children than I do. Yesterday, I saw the “driven one”, the “nice one”, the “strong one” and the “real one” hugging and for a moment, I saw them when they were young. I saw the “Long Hair” years, I saw the Hockey Years, I saw the “first love” years. It was clear that all of us were way past our Luke Skywalker years and into our Han Solo years.
During ICON 2011, I was in class which I think was called something like “Sci-Fi / Fantasy for old Rock Stars”. One thing I had learned about ICON was that the titles don’t always match the content, but this ended up being the greatest class I had taken at one of these events. The theme wanted us to think about all of those Sci-Fi heroes when they became gray and old. It was a very interesting topic, but for this blog it really comes down to the following Categories:
Years -

• Luke Skywalker - Young, talented and with something to prove. The Luke Skywalker years would be our last years of school and the first few years in our careers. Driven to succeed with a chip on our shoulder’s at trying to prove that we’re not kids anymore. 
• Han Solo - Mid-Career, established with little to prove. The Han Solo years would be from that moment when we win our first major battle in life to the moment when the gray hairs outnumber the regular color we have. Above us, they don’t work very hard and below us, they’re after our jobs. In this stage, we learn the phrase “What have you done for me lately” focuses more on the word “lately” than any other word. 
• Obi Wan Kenobi - Older, near retirement with nothing to prove. The Obi Wan Kenobi years are the years in which we advise or lead the others and hope to have a grand finish. Delegation to the Han Solo’s while teaching the Luke Skywalker’s is the basic method of operation. 

Honestly, Matt and I didn’t like each other when we first met. He thought I was a prick and I thought he was unreliable. We became friendly as time went on, but I can tell you right now the moment that changed our lives and made us allies and then friends.
We were at Komegashi with Bill O’Connell, who at that time was closer to a friend than Matt was to me. In truth, I was a prick and did not think it was possible to work with friends due to the fact that you may one day need to fight them for the same position. That day at Komegashi, we were discussing our dissatisfaction with the people we worked with, although all of us agreed that we liked working there. And then it came - Bill asked us how much money we made. Knowing it was a mistake, I didn’t see any harm in telling him and Matt. Bill was about to move to Washington and I didn’t feel threatened by Matt at all. I knew I made good money since I was making more than my acceptable range of salary. Matt maintained that he made more than all of his friends. Even Bill followed suit with the fact that he made more than all of his friends. The numbers killed us though. Bill had asked this question of the entire team of new hires before he had gotten to ask it of us. Matt and I were paid less than others who we felt didn’t deserve it. We didn’t complain. There were numerous avenues to which we could have taken, but what happened was we both became so driven to learn new things that we set out to conquer.
I taught Matt everything I knew about the hardware dynamics of PC’s and Servers. Matt learned programming while I learned databases. We were unstoppable. When we added Matt’s friends Mike and Dave to the clique, we became formidable enough to be noticed by everyone up to the CIO of a billion dollar company. As I watched the groomsmen in the huddle with the groom, I didn’t feel like a fellow groomsmen. I felt like an outsider watching the Goonies grow up and get married. Folks from my generation know that to be a compliment. These were friends who took the baton from Matt’s parents and raced their way up to the point where his career started. From here, they passed the baton to me.
Together, Matt and I had our Luke Skywalker years and began our Han Solo years. Over the course of this time, many of us joined Matt in his race during the career stage of this race, but yesterday was when we passed the baton over to his wife Rachel. Standing next to his parents, his brother and his age old friends we watched Matt and Rachel celebrate this momentous occasion and we will cheer them through the final leg of the Han Solo years of his life. Together, they will finish the race. Together, we will cheer them on. Those are the rules. We all know our parts. We all have to play them.