The Next Big Thing

I was invited by Jessie Mahoney, the author of The Community Vampire Series , and K.R.Rowe, author of Amber and Blue to participate in a question and answer blog interview about my newest book. I was more than happy to participate. I have added their links to the bottom of my page. Please take a look at both of their interviews and read about their books.

1. What is the name of your work in progress?
   The book is called “Pilgrimage of Angels”, it is the first book in a series that is entitled “Of Angels and Olympians” It will be my first published book, and it is co-written with a friend of mine named JD. Rice

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?
   I had an idea a few years ago about having the Greek and Roman Gods be Angels that left heaven when Lucifer revolted because they had been so upset over the War between the Angels. So instead they decided to look over the evolution of man. But man, being who they are, instead looked upon them as God's. From there I wanted to incorporate the Titans into the story and the main nemisis and started writing my outline. It started to take on a life of it's own but then as it unfolded it had become to convoluted with too many sub plots and characters to keep track of. That is when I turned to J.D. To help sort it out and he did an excellent job. The real funny part is that I have the last book 75% already written. That is when JD felt we should start in a different place and lead up to that one.

3. What genre does your book fall under?
   This can be classified two ways I think, in one aspect it is a Fantasy Novella. But in another fashion it could be considered a Mythological story. I think it will depend on the reader take on the story. In book two it will take on a more Fantasy driven story and will see the introduction of many creatures that can be found in contemporary Fantasy works of today.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
   This question is much tougher than it would seem. Of course my knee jerk reaction would be to say Matt Damon or Brad Pitt, as a writer I think you always wish for a movie to be made of something you have created, and of course you want a big name star to be the lead, but when I think of Greagian I don't envision either of them to play the part. But I do think that Jonny Lee Miller of the TV show Elementary would be perfect in the role.

5. What is the one sentence synopsis for your book?
   Angelic and Mythical yarn spun to delight readers of all ages.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
   This book will be self-published and so will the next few in the series. We already have the basis for book two and the lead up into book three. I think I will try in the future to work with an agent, if one would be willing to tolerate me that is, but for right now the self-publishing is the best fit for me.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
   Minus the time it sat on my desktop as an icon before I sent it to JD, it took about 3 months of actual work after that. The re-writes are in the process right ow and we are still looking at a late April release date. And possibly a cover art release in Mid March.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
   I don't really know of any stories that mix Christian and Ancient Greek Gods together, so it is hard to compare it to any. I like to think we were able to take two very popular stories and meld them into one exciting tale.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?
   The only inspiration was an idea I had about trying to bring an air of realism to Ancient mans beliefs into modern days. Basically it was just an idea I had while sitting around in a quit house.

10. What else about your book might pique the readers' interests?
    There will be a lot of action, and a lot of battles. Some of the Greek Gods you will like and some you wont and the same goes for the Angels. But I hope it will entertain any and all who decide to read it. 
    
    
    These two fine ladies and writers were kind enough to include me in this opportunity and here are the links to their blogs.
    
    
    Jessie Mahoney's Blog 
    
    
    K.R. Rowe's Blog

Time traveling N.Y. homicide detective

I have been working on this book for a couple of years now. I have thrown away 3 complete manuscripts of it also, but bad writing is just bad writing, no sense keeping any of it but the story line.

I spent the time while the Angles and Olympians book was being beta read to refine the Character profile pages and changed some of their profiles to better match where the story line was heading, I also added some new character’s to the story. The main “hero” of the book is a NYPD officer in the future that ends up in the past, specifically on the day the Towers where hit, he was inside them and knowing his history knew he had to get out and tried to save as many as he could in the process. I am thinking of changing that a little bit to reflect his arrival immediately after the towers fall, I have two versions and I am still deciding on which one to use for it.

I have come up with a reasonable explanation for his time traveling, I did not use a machine, I have decide to use his eagerness, in his college youth, to make money and volunteering for an experimental drug from a Big Pharmaceutical company while attending New York University in Manhattan.  It is falling a little short on realism but I have written down some ideas on how to make that part of the story line more plausible. I am using the theory of the untapped potential of the mind to move it’s “essence” so to say, to different time periods and occupy different vassals, specifically one vassal in particular. With this of course there needs to be a nemesis, so I have created a serial killer that also has this ability, and I will have the crimes mirror each other in both time zones. So far I have made the serial killer extremely brutal, I may have to tone it down a little bit, but I may not, this book is not intended for children in any way and it helps keep to the realism. There is so much more to the story than just these two characters, there are two additional subplots that are happening also. I have completed the outline and have the first couple of chapters done, of course this is the first draft only.

This book will be a full novel, I am figuring somewhere around 80K words maybe a little more. As of right now I have this being a trilogy, but may leave it open for future stories also, I will have to see how people react to the characters and the story line.