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I suffered some pain recently.

That’s one hell of an intro.

My favorite meal is hotdogs and French fries.

I feel better about that second one.

But in all honesty, my brain is having a hard time focusing, and it’s hard.

My buddy Brock interrupted me while I was trying to get into it. I’ll blame my inability to share and this stalling on him. Yeah. I watched a montage of Formula One crashes. One word… Halos. That’s funny because as I’m writing this, I’m listening to “Spirits” by the Strumbellas.

Okay. Enough stalling. I’ve been having these weird dreams about people who were really close to me. When you make a close friend, and all you want to do is hang out with them non-stop. I’ve had many of those because as a person, I love intensely. Not really much to hold back. Hell, I turned my editor into a close friend because I’m honest and open with my feelings about everything. (It drives Jackie crazy.)

But lately, these dreams have been of people I have lost. And not that friend you meet at a party and you’re like, “Let’s get brunch, or go to that beer festival, or paint a bunch of rabbits in blue and let them loose on Broadway while they are still wet,” but the close ones. The friends that if you don’t text every day you feel like you have just been sent to Antarctica alone with a weeks’ worth of MRE’s and only Timberlands for your tootsies. (I don’t care what you say, my feet are never warm in those bastards.)

Transparency here, I fear being alone. That’s probably one of my biggest fears. Or the biggest. Don’t get me wrong. I love being in my office, writing this for whomever will read it and relate, but right now, Meredith and Jackie are talking downstairs, drinking wine and laughing. Their voices bring comfort.

But these dreams, like all vivid dreams, are dropping me in this replay of moments when I knew things had to end. When these friendships had to end. If I could, I never would have lost any one of them. We all make choices that alienate some and make us appealable to others, and I have this terrible ability to remember SO MUCH of everything. Emotions matter. As a writer, I strive to recreate the feelings of characters in the minds of others. That means I have to be so mindful of the entire spectrum, and practice those to make sure I am honest with what I convey.

It’s painful sometimes.

Putting yourself out there for others takes its toll somedays.

So yeah. These damned dreams have me lost to these spirits, these shadows of people I have loved deeply, and now, are gone. It is life. (I’m not sniffling over my keyboard.) I just have to relive all those moments where I realized, or acted, when these relationships turned sour and had to be an adult about it. I had to protect myself, and that is ironic. YES! Irony used correctly!

Protecting yourself leads to pain. I’ll live.

Thanks for listening.

Or reading, I guess.

“I’ve got guns in my head and they won’t go, Spirits in my head and they won’t go.”

Let’s end with a joke.

A Jew, a Muslim, a Protestant, and a Catholic are all shipwrecked and stranded on a deserted Island. (This is where Tiarra and Haley are screaming, “NO, JON! DON’T!) The Catholic walks off and starts reciting the rosary non-stop, clutching prayer beads. The Protestant falls to her knees and starts praying, asking for grace and salvation. The Muslim distances himself and prostrates, praying to Allah. The Jew starts throwing seashells into the ocean. Everyone looks at him and the Protestant yells, “Why aren’t you covering your base?! We’re all doing our duty!” (If you know the punchline, don’t spoil it for everyone.) The Jew shrugs, “I’ve donated $50,000 to the Jewish Federation over the past ten years. They’ll find me.”

See! Funny! Harmless! Spiritual?

Have a good week, everyone, and thank you.

“But the gun still rattles, the gun still rattles, Oh-oh!”

Striking title.

What can I say? I am trying to get your attention. I promise this will take a turn that you do not expect.

So, my parents are reading my book and the preliminary reviews from them are flowing.

See? Strange.

My mother called me over the weekend and my father was in the car. They were driving to my brother-in-law and sisters, who live two hours away, for my nephew’s first birthday. (Happy birthday, River!) The phone call was… well, I’ll tell you.

My mother was reading while my father drove, and they started off by trying to pick out people in my past who were indicative of the characters I had written.

“No. Mom. I told you. Don’t try to attach them to someone. Yes, I do breathe life into my characters with nuances of real people, but these are not people I have met. I promise.”

I tried reason.

“Are you sure?”

I face palmed.

“Yes! I told you to just enjoy it.”

She laughed. “I remember now. Hold on, your father wants to ask you something.”

I braced myself.

“Who are you writing about? Someone we know?”

I wanted to drink cyanide.

“No, Dad! Just a book! Just characters! Just a story! I promise!”

Then they started talking about Erin and Santana.

God help me.

“But Son… You always liked big hips. That’s what Erin has, right?”

I poured my coffee into the sink and went for the Jack Daniel’s.

“Dad! No! I am not my characters! I do put a little bit of me into every one of them, but I am not Carnegie! I am not Allen! I am not anyone!”

My mother, in her wisdom, reentered the conversation.

“Yeah, Andy. He’s more of a boob guy.”

I tipped the bottle skyward, bottom up.

“Yeah, I guess. But what about that one girl?” My father contemplated.

My father contemplated whether or not boobs or hips were my fancy.

He had no idea who he was talking about. I had no idea who he was talking about.

My dad is the guy who would yell at me and my sisters as, “Leah! Naomi! Jonathan! Shoot! You! Hey!”

He would pass our names like there were a dozen of us.

Three.

There are three of us.

Now, my parents don’t read much fiction, and I love them for delving into this world. It isn’t exactly an easy introduction, but they are supportive, wonderful parents. They’ve been married for 7,203 years. (That’s a joke. 38 years.)

Let’s rewind.

The conversation started with my mom yelling at me because my dad had been late to many engagements that week because he was reading for too long in his “office.”

My dad reads in the bathroom.

A lot.

 

**News Update**

I was just on the phone with my older sister for almost an hour. (Yes, the Gorgon from the Christmas post.) She told me her and my other brother-in-law and my parents had formed an unofficial book club about my book and my mother has spoiled too many things because she is a few steps ahead.

Long story long, my family makes all of this worth it.

I miss them so much. Every day, I wish I could drive over and see my nephews, my sister, my mom.

My dad. (He will always be my hero.)

(Period.)

Well! Now I just switched my Spotify to “Fall on Me” by Andrea Bocelli!

My mom is amazing.

I’m done.

I hope wherever you are at in the book, you are enjoying it. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. And it makes me happy beyond words that my parents are doing just that.

Beyond words.

A girl.

Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t date her or ask her out and get turned down. And yes, this was before I knew Jackie existed.

She wasn’t drop dead gorgeous.

She wasn’t anything I knew in anyway shape or form.

But, she did grab my attention enough to build a character around what she looked like.

I honestly don’t think I even spoke to her. She just looked interesting.

So, I made Erin.

Erin looks very similar to this girl. And so I built my characters around this one.

I promise I am not being cryptic in anyway. I swear to the Great Old Ones, I have no clue who this girl was, and I will never.

But, she bred in me a character, an idea that gripped me and held on until I could birth her onto a page. I breathed some of me into her, making her a real person. I gave her friends. I gave her a family. I gave her a personality. I gave her ambitions, hopes, dreams, and goals.

Then I nuked her world, killed her family and had her kidnapped.

Later, I will get into characters of this series and who my favorite is, but seeing as how they have not matured fully and I don’t know where they will end up, I can’t do that in all fairness.

But to date, Santana is my favorite in The Time of Tears, and I kind of like Nicholas in the next installment more than the others. It’s a work in progress.

So, the plot and conflict was set, characters were catalyzed by Erin’s presence, and I set off in southern Arizona, killing, destroying and obliterating everyone.

It was quite a build, trying to set an end, or waypoint in the same ballpark of where I want things to end for these people, but I think if you have real characters that breath and think for themselves, as a writer, you create their world and their troubles. You step back. You watch how they react to the problems you have set up for them, and record all that you see.

Everything else that happened in The Time of Tears played out the way it should naturally, or at least as natural as I needed it to in a world that is resetting itself.

I hope you enjoy the book, and at the very least, attach yourself to a character that you can enjoy changing and shaping like the world they live in.

So, I figured veering off and talking about content for one day would be a solid choice. Sure, hearing me talk about family and friends is wonderful, but if we are being honest, let’s talk about the book you have hopefully read and are now invested in.

Time of Tears started as an idea, and like every idea, it became a sickness. I started writing it in 2010, just before my divorce. It was a solid idea, but my head was swirling from a catastrophic shift in my life.

Without putting too much time into that little dilemma, I took a break from writing my 5^th novel for almost a year, spending time with my short fiction. I remember an author, who eludes me now (so I don’t really remember her), but she had a publication story I will always remember. Her twenty-something novel (let’s just call it her 23^rd) that she wrote was the one she actually published.

Putting time into a novel, story, plot, etc. and watching to see if it will be a series is hard enough. Writing over twenty of those is a crazy amount of time. You have to stumble through the terrible ideas, practice those out, and find the ones that are actually worth telling.

I had a heading, an idea that shaped into a couple of thousand words. I wanted a story to break from classical fantasy norms, and how young people, still shaping their persons might react to the end of the world.

I wanted to write fantasy period, failing in short form for years. My stories always become much more. I am still convinced that short fantasy (between 800-1200 words) is almost impossible to do well, at least for me.

And the last ingredient to the swirling mixture I was bubbling up with became this realization where I wanted to tell a story about the transition from our world to a world ravaged by apocalyptic terror, shaped by fantasy, became the fantastic land that held so many myths and legends. I wanted to show that change, instead of being the story up to the end, or the story hundreds of years after. I wanted it all. Before, during, and after, all in one book.

As you will see, the Bombs will always be cornerstone to this world.

And the catalyst… yes.

What sparked the bomb to go off clear in my head? What set fire to the oily ideas drenched in my waking imagination? Hmmmm.

Well, I’m at the word limit of this post… blame Haley for that. 😉 But I will tell you in the next post.

I promise!

So, it is a much colder winter in Denver than last year.

I’ll make it.

Does anyone have winter shows? Like shows you only watch during snowy seasons?

I have two.

I trying to distract myself because this post is going to be as real as it gets.

Might as well get into it.

Struggles.

Every writer faces them. Every writer comes to that ethereal wall where we have to decide whether climbing it is important or settling will do for us. This takes on many forms. A lot of writers will slump at the thought of sitting in a room, undistracted, to do that deep-thinking that every author must do in a piece. We are plagued by voids that fill our manuscripts, while the wrong words sit in front of a beautiful space that needs the perfect arrangement of letters. It ends up looking like a puzzle with the wrong piece in place. We need to sit and think ourselves out of that, dreaming and reading and dreaming. Sadly, a lot of writers settle.

Or the other struggle. The one I found all too recently.

Will my struggles be recognized as enjoyable? Can my piece become something that people will be pleasantly surprised with, flipping through the pages because the fact that they found this series at the start attaches them more to my characters than snatching a book in a store. There should be some type of magic associated with stepping into the unknown with the author, and the characters, and seeing what the world has, right?

In the meantime, I am worried, as all artists are, that their lifeblood, their work, will not fulfill the role it was intended. How funny. Writers not only create their work from nothing, but then search to create a space, an interpretation of a need that none of their readers knew they had, but now need filled. Hopefully, The Time of Tears fits that place like the last piece to complete the puzzle.

It did for my work. My ability as a writer would be nowhere helpful or fulfilling if I did not learn the lessons from this series.

As I trudge my way through writing book 4, All my readers are entrenched in deserts, and caverns and desolate towns, wondering if the people to whom they are attached, will make it to where they need to be, and I thank you for your excitement and your willingness to tread these dangerous setting with me.

Happy reading and get ready… Book 2 is just around the corner.