Wednesday, July 30, 2014

An Update About my Dark Fantasy Novel - Beware the Ills

Recently, I was thinking as an author, what I could offer my readers and audience concerning my recently published book (it has been out about a year) since the sequel is still a few months away. All I can really offer is some perspective on the story and its origin. It took me six years to write Beware the Ills, mostly because I was a teller at a bank and I would write sections by hand in a Moleskin notebook, which always seems to fascinate us writer types. I would also write on receipts and bank notes (no worries, there wasn’t any privileged leaked by a paragraph of narration). Eventually, I had this hodgepodge creation to type up, which took another year of my life. I eventually self-published the book on Kindle and in paperback. I’ve worked hard to sell the book at conventions, events, and to local bookstores. This is an unending battle, yet, I really enjoy doing it. I have complete control, which is pretty great. I also have help with copy editing and work-shopping, so I’m not putting out an inferior product.
Now to the guts…
Beware the Ills was inspired by three different things; the brave men and women locked overseas in endless war, the Roman invasion of Britain, and how my own consciousness tries to understand the complex world we live in. The book’s written in first-person, so I could use the narration of thought as a style and foreshadowing tool to engage the audience. You might realize when the author is lying to himself. You might not trust the narration, and this is part of the style. I didn’t want to write the standard three-act higher fantasy novel, but instead a fast-paced yarn about the metaphor of war, and humanities capacity for violence and change. When you write from third-person, you eliminate the taste of some details, and since war can only really hit our moralistic core when we’re given the grimmest of details, first-person was my pick of poison. The sequel will also deal with war, how we as humans are condemned to certain acts of violence, and also the social systems designed to keep us in endless conflict. Also, there is very little exposition in this novel beyond the main character. Stay tuned for the sequel in October where the world gets filled in a little bit.
If you haven’t read my novel, here are some links to it on Amazon. Thank you everyone for your support.

No comments:

Post a Comment