Author Spotlight: James Cormier and Exile: The Book of Ever

So it's time to spin the dial and let the arrow land on a fellow writer who toils ceaselessly for love of the craft: the author of YA, fantasy and pretty much anything that he finds interesting: James D. Cormier.

I met Jim on Twitter a few months ago and followed him into that hell of an alternate universe called Ello, where we are still slogging through the mud trying to convince ourselves that it's Normandy on D-Day instead of wet sand in the see-saw area of the local park.

Jim has his first novel, Exile: The Book of Ever, Part I, out on Amazon as an e-book and it's available for free until this Sunday, so if what you're looking for is an engrossing novel of a young heroine in a post-apocalyptic world who must overcome great odds and face perilous treks, get over here and download your copy today.  And it wouldn't hurt to leave a review, would it?

Without further ado, we dive into the mind of Jim...

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1. How did the writing bug bite you -- was it a gradual interest or a thunderclap of inspiration?

I've wanted to be a novelist for as long as I can remember. I think it probably started in a way that will be familiar to a lot of fantasy fans -- I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and a deep desire to build worlds of my own was born.

For a long time I questioned whether being a writer was a "realistic" decision, and as such I sought out a career as an attorney before finally deciding to go after what I really wanted. I think it was all for the best, however: I'm a better writer because of it, and my life experience to this point has certainly informed my writing in a positive way.

My approach has certainly been gradual, in the sense that I've got a lot of fits and starts under my belt; I've got notebooks and hard drives filled with notes and outlines and partially-finished manuscripts. The story for Exile: The Book of Ever, my first novel, was certainly more of a thunderclap, however: the idea came to me and I started writing the same day. It's funny how it all works.

2. Your first venture is a story in the post-apocalyptic genre with strong faith-based symbolism and lore -- do you think the role of religion is ignored in post-apocalypse stories, or were you more interested in a what-if extrapolation?

The initial concept for The Book of Ever was based on my own speculations about what it would take to survive in a post-apocalyptic world of the type described in the book. Ever Oaks and her people live centuries after a nuclear apocalypse that destroyed or affected most of the world, and while the immediate dangers of radioactive fallout and things of that nature have subsided, they live in what is essentially a 19th Century state of technology.

A lot of the post-apocalyptic fiction, film, and TV you see focuses on people who are basically trying to live the same lives they lived before the apocalypse in a world that is no longer hospitable to that lifestyle, people who are trying to survive the immediate aftermath and figure out how to live now. I wanted to explore the idea of a group of people who embraced the idea of living differently, and who had a definite set of values that set them apart from the mainstream, and see how they fared against the ruins of a civilization reduced to barbarism and the struggle for basic survival.

Have you ever played the game of looking around at people, either friends or strangers, and asking yourself how they'd fare if the world ended tomorrow and they were forced to survive without 21st Century technology and resources? I think we all know two types of people: people who'd make it work, and people who'd be hopelessly out of their element.  With Exile, I focused on a community that had prepared for the apocalypse centuries before, and which survived it and, relatively speaking, flourished in it because they focused on timeless values like preparedness, community, charity, and faith.

I think the role of religion is either mostly ignored or focused on to the exclusion of everything else: your options seem to be The Walking Dead, which is gritty, realistic, and violent (don't get me wrong, though, I like it as much as the next guy), and books like Left Behind, which is an entirely Christian-centric view of the Rapture and the End Times.  I was interested in finding a common ground between the two, and exploring how people of faith might use their values, abilities, and beliefs to aid in their survival.

I also wanted the novel to be balanced, in regard to the Christian elements. My intention was to put the Christian elements in there for readers who were interested without turning them into a distraction for those who aren't. I don't view Exile as Christian novel, so to speak, but rather a novel with Christian characters in it. I may or may not have achieved that, but I hope that there's something in the story for everyone.

3. Which authors or books gave you the most inspiration to write?

How long do you have? Hah. Tolkien was a huge inspiration to me, of course, as was Tad Williams. If The Lord of the Rings made me love fantasy, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn made me realize I wanted to write it. On the science fiction end of things, William Gibson was a big inspiration, too.

Outside of the genre, the writers that inspired me to write included Hemingway, Faulkner, and Michael Chabon.  Reading Chabon taught me that you could think outside the box and tell the stories you wanted to tell and stories that entertained and still be a great writer acknowledged for his craft.

4. Was your protagonist, Ever Oaks, modeled after a specific person or was it a composite sketch of different character traits?

She's a composite sketch, but her best qualities--courage, determination, faith, intelligence -- are reflections of my wife, who is the best person I've ever known and an example to me every day of my life.

5. The story of Ever Oaks continues past the first book -- was this a planned series or did you reach the story's end and feel that there was more to the character's adventures?

It was most definitely a planned series -- a trilogy, to be precise.  I did want each book to have its own narrative arc, but the story as a whole is only one-third finished.  Here's hoping I can fit the rest of it in two more books.

I know where they started, where they're going, and the broad strokes of what happens, but the middle of the story often ends up telling itself as I write.

6. Are there other genres that hold your interest or in which you'd like to write someday?

Absolutely!  My wheelhouse is fantasy and science fiction, both YA and adult, but I'd also like to write some mainstream literary fiction.  I'm working on a book of short stories right now that is pretty much literary fiction, for lack of a better term, though there are some magical realist elements to it.

I've also got a thriller in me of some kind, probably paranormal.  That project excites me, but at the moment all I've got are some incomplete ideas.

7. Which is the next book you're planning on reading, and why?

I just finished Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson, which was good but too long. I'll be posting a review at my website. I'm planning on reading Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood next, mostly out of simple curiosity: I've heard a lot of good things about Atwood, and wanted to check it out.

I'm also reading a couple of nonfiction books at the moment: The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans, and Rough Stone Rolling, a biography of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church.

8. Do you find it easier to write straight through as you work the scenes in your head, or do you edit as you go along? Which is more productive for you?

I tend to edit as I go. I find that blowing through a scene or chapter only results in missing things, for me, so I write carefully and try to think about the scene in detail as I write. I don't tend to write in drafts, so to speak; it's more a continuous editing process.

9. Going from lawyer to writer was quite a switch -- were there any moments of hand-wringing or cautionary self-assessment?

It was certainly a risk financially, in the sense that writing income isn't always as "stable" as receiving a traditional salary or billing hours as a private attorney. But I think it would actually have been harder for me not to do it: I'd been thinking about writing for so long that I had to at least try it out. I found that I wasn't nearly as able to focus on it as much as I'd like to while still working as a lawyer.

10. Anything else you'd like to tell us about your upcoming plans or projects?

I'm working on the sequel to Exile, Extinction, which is Part 2 of The Book of Ever. In addition to that I'm writing a stand alone sword and sorcery novel for adults, tentatively titled The Trials of Karthanas, and I've also got about half of a book of short stories written. So there's a lot on the stove at the moment--and I couldn't be more excited about it!

Thank you for such a wonderful interview!

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No, on the contrary, I thank Jim for taking time out of his busy schedule of writing and editing and feeding the two cats which every fantasy author receives upon publication of their first novel to instead ruminate on his responses to this interview.  Jim, we wish you the best of luck with your future books, and we look forward to Book 2 of the next Ever Oaks novel!

Again, Exile: The Book of Ever, Part I, available here from Amazon, and free until Sunday 11/23, so grab your digital copy now!  Of course, it wouldn't kill you to pay for it, either...

The Short, Unhappy Life of a Rushed Book Cover

I am, by nature, the most impatient of assholes.  Whether it's traffic on the motor bank lanes at First Federal, televised State of the Union addresses, or the unique corporate torture of only three out of 18 checkout registers which stay open at Target during peak shopping, I have just never liked waiting my turn, plain and simple.  Which can make for a damned unattractive trait in an indie writer doing his or her own book covers.

What's that?  Fuck the world, you say?  You want it all and you want it right now?  Okay, let me take you for a walk on the impatient side and impart the lessons that left me scarred and listening to Billy Joel for days on end.

The original cover, bland as a Sunday
pancake with no butter or syrup...

I slipped and tumbled into this abyss early this year when I was hopping to go live on Amazon with my first short story, which I had called, at that time, Squirters.  It was the first piece of fiction I was about to circulate, and I was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs (I don't remember where I heard that line, but I readily admit I clearly stole that one).  However, thanks to what turned out be a very misleading title, despite 99.9% of the population expecting titillation and porn, I gave them a supernatural war story instead, and a pretty pissed off, otherwise expectant readership was born.  But poor title selection was just the beginning of this mess I made.

Because there's this: the tumult of book cover design goes beyond the usual headache of should I pay a professional or do my own?  A professional, just like any industry, will charge you based on complexity of the thought process, and unless you are buying one of the designer's stock covers, you will not get what you pay for if the road is traveled in fits and starts.  When I was in my teens, I had trouble selecting the exact snippet of a song that would best represent my individuality for my answering machine, so you can see my problem there.  And I haven't outgrown the habit, so indecision can kill this tete-a-tete collaboration really fucking fast.

You have to remain actively involved in the progress of the design, or even a customized job may not work out for you.  Even worse, if the soul of a bitchy art director is trapped inside your body trying to get out, you may also end up frustrating the book cover designer or graphic artist you're working with, and the partnership will end with someone flipping the bird, billing for time spent, and perhaps even a veiled reference to Yoko Ono will be muttered.

Well, I decided not to go that route, for those aforementioned reasons.  I don't have and have never used Photoshop because back in the mid-90's I failed to master the unique male compulsion for retouching photos of women's boobs and lady bits, so that skill set was out.  Plus, Photoshop is expensive and unless it is for a full-time career move, better to grab a Dodge instead of a Lamborghini for your first trip out on the back roads, know what I mean?  Instead, I patrolled the Google landscape and found my way to a couple of free (emphasis on free) graphics programs (GIMP, which you can download here, and Inkscape, downloadable here) and began one of the fastest and most intense learning-curve marathons known to man.

Once that was done, I needed what any red-blooded nerd trapped in his mother's basement with a bag of Doritos and an overclocked Alienware will need: images.  A plethora of images.  And here I was at a real roadblock because not only does my mother have no basement, but I hate Doritos and I can't afford another Alienware.  So I just tapped my Asus laptop on its smooth little forehead and told it, "Go fetch."

A big, big note here: if you are tempted to just find, copy and use any image floating through the digitalsphere...DON'T.  Just don't.  There is a mine field of copyright infringement lawsuits just waiting to shred you and your checking account to pieces -- and a phalanx of online, Starbucks-sipping, Arcade Fire-listening, website-chasing lawyers who have nothing better to do than try to make a quick one or two grand in billable hours filing on unsuspecting or impetuous writers (like me).  Basically, if you are not the person who took the photo or generated the original image, you do not have any ownership rights to re-use that image, in ANY fucking way, unless the owner of that image gives you said permission first.  (And you'd better get it in writing, too).

So the sources I decided to use for this maiden effort came from some Department of Defense websites, mainly because photographs taken by soldiers on active duty are considered to be in the public domain under Section 105 of the US Copyright Act.  NASA is also good, all those astronauts and their high-resolution cameras really have a public-domain gold mine going on if you're a sci-fi writer.  Specifically, the disclaimers on Wikimedia Commons will say something like the phrase below, corresponding to the following image:

This image or file is a work of a U.S. Air Force Airman or employee, taken or made as part of that person's official duties.  As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image or file is in the public domain.

So that's the first thing you should check, and then you can use the image as I've done below:

Credit: U.S. Air Force photo [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Note that even public-domain images need attribution, and Wikimedia Commons will actually have a link on the image page telling you what this attribution should state.

You may run into a lesser form of public domain that will say something else, like this:

The copyright holder of this file allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed.  Redistribution, derivative work, commercial use, and all other use is permitted.

Which is almost as good as public domain, except that you absolutely have to credit the copyright holder, because copyright is still with the owner of the image, not you.  So you do something like what I've done with an image under this license below:

Credit: By Georgios Pazios (User:Alaniaris) (Own work)
[Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons

Don't be alarmed by the selection of photos, I'm not planning on bombing any small industrialized nation anytime soon.  I searched for jet fighters and the results provided included the images above.  This can be done with any kind of image that you may be looking for, just like a Google search, except you're going through the Wikimedia Commons repository where most images which are uploaded were intended to be shared, albeit with one or two restrictions.  This will yield better search results than using Google, where a majority of your image search results will probably include copyrighted images.

My revised attempt; and guess what?
It still sucked...

Now, am I a patent and trademark lawyer?  No.  This is all based on information I read on Wikimedia Commons, and if some bloodsucker comes after me, I'm going to encourage them to go rifle through Jimmy Wales' coffers, not mine.  But his Wikimedia Commons page has great information on the images that it has to offer, I doubt that it is there to lead you astray, and it will even tell you if the images are public domain, if they can be re-used with credit given (which is a really small price to pay, so just pay it already), or if there are other restrictions which the copyright owners have imposed on sharing or using the images.  It's all explained in legalese that's as clear as mud, but bottom line, try to go for stuff that won't get you strung up by your thumbs in a courtroom.

There is also a much easier solution to this and that is going out and taking your own photos.  At least, it's easier from a copyright-holding perspective as long as there are no people in your shot.  But I'm a lousy photographer, I don't know a damned thing about filters or shutter speeds or whatnot.  And if you are taking photos of random people on the street, you'll need to get a release from each and every one of them before you can even think of using their faces or likeness for commercial purposes.  If you commission a model for a photo session, however, they usually sign such a release, but you are also paying them for that photo session.  See how complicated this can get?

Finally, a photo that doesn't involve
worrying about fucking copyright...

Notice that nowhere thus far have I mentioned the dark art of skill that needs to be applied to these creative bursts of hemorrhoid-like flare-ups.  Oh sure, you can go out and decide to comb through the offerings of eBay and learn everything there is to learn about designing book covers -- and if you're going to do that, go buy Chip Kidd's excellent introductory book, A Kidd's Guide to Graphic Design, which distills a good chunk of his vast professional knowledge into a very approachable treatment of the subject.  Seriously.  It is that good.

However, even after a revised cover, I saw the zero-sum sales on my KDP page and figured it was time for some professional CPR.  So after some perusing, I found a website and graphics developer at SkyRuby.com which charged me very reasonable rates to prop up what was at that point a dead body and try to at least make it look like it had once walked the earth as a living thing.  This is where I discovered how detail-oriented and obsessive I could be over even the tiniest details.

Call this chaper The Adventure of the Skull Moon...I could write an entirely separate post on the imagery that haunted my brain, just trying to get that thing right.  The skull moon was a key image in my concept of the cover design, you see.  But the original skull moon was this:

Revision No. 3; or How I Learned To Stop
Worrying and Prematurely Love
My Skull Moon...

I had decided to change the title and was using a half-assed placeholder title, but I still wasn't feeling that skull moon...it looked sad and maybe a little hungry, like a kitty cat that just wants to be let inside the house.  Those Special Forces soldiers aren't heading into danger, they're embarking on a mission of feline mercy to deliver a bowl of milk.  And the title?  Might as well have called it Waiting for Cuddles.

Problem was that I had already told the designer that I was happy with the outcome...but I wasn't.  It was like tasting jalapeno poppers for the first time: you don't really know it at first, but you keep eating them and suddenly get up from the table knowing that, somewhere along the way, you've made a grave mistake.  And this is a key thing to remember when you are working with a professional: don't be afraid to speak up.  You're paying for services rendered, you have to be able to say what's on your mind.  This isn't your marriage, no one's going to bitch you out for admitting you hate to get up early to take out the trash...um, yeah, anyway.  So I emailed her again the next morning and said, Hey, we need to talk...

The designer I worked with was very patient, and she charged by the hour but she brought mad skills to the game and worked very fast, and in a matter of just two hours (I shit you not) I had a much better skull moon, the best one I think I will ever find.

And what did I end up with?  A final cover, which now looks exactly like this:

Prey.  That's right. Prey.  As in, "pray" that this is the last
fucking change this asshole makes to his book cover...

The moral of the story is yes, I am a control freak, yes I drove my cover designer crazy andd you can, too!  But fuck it because you know what?  You will get a cover design that is much closer to what you envisioned than if you were to hand the reins to a publishing firm.  Publishing firms have their own designers and art departments and they decide on a marketing plan, not you.  They decide what your cover will look like, not you.  They may even decide to change the title of the book, and suck it up, buttercup.

I'm made of much more arrogant, self-centered stuff.  I want my ideas, my concepts, my execution out there.  This is not the way for everyone; I sincerely understand that.  For those who have already reached the hallowed halls of traditional publishing, giving up final cut, as it were, in exchange for the freedom to write more stuff may be exactly what they want and need.  But I'm having a hell of an adventure in this indie environment, and I'm in no particular rush to do anything except enjoy the ride.

I'm speaking non-pornographically, of course.

The 7-7-7 Challenge: Or, I Just Have Seven Sentences...

For this latest outing I have to thank fellow scribe Paige Randall, who will slide a tumbler of bourbon across the bar to you, give you a friendly nudge, and in quick measure proceed to drink you right under the table.  Paige is an expert in the microdynamics of male-female interactions, from the heady onset of romance to the harsh reality of the breakup.  This makes her a great observer and chronicler of the most complicated facets of our human condition.  Who else can trace the emotional algorithms of pain and joy, friendship and betrayal, and reshape the psychic experiences into words that everyone can relate to, except the most gifted writers and poets?  Paige is one of those people.

One of the spots where Paige ruminates on the human condition and proceeds to shoot down thoughts of the day; it is her personal Dealey Plaza... (photo courtesy of Paige's website, because she is way cool like that)

Paige also has a great romance novel, Circling, which is winding its way to the reading public, and she is already working on its sequel.  She lives in DC and spotted Janet Napolitano once; if you're a fan of cutting wit, cuss words and no-holds-barred straight dope, go check out her blog right here.

Without further ado, then, below are my little creations:

Captain Anton Brubaker knew better. He had fought and bled and survived and managed to hold out this long, but a part of him was gone. It had been gone for a while, therefore what he had just done didn’t insinuate itself in his mind with any crippling sense of conscience. He sat in his chair and reflected on that. He was calm.

Blood seeped along his right sleeve from where one of his sergeants tried to stab him with a pair of scissors just over an hour ago. The cut along his bicep was deep and painful, but that sergeant was also dead in the secured server room.

And thus begins the second part of my short story Dead Air Dying Sky; this scene follows the first scene where a group of pilots begin reacting to something happening to them while in flight, and the skies are soon peppered with the flying dead.  It may help you to know that the original title of this story was Zombie Pilots Over Tulsa, but for purposes of avoiding the narrow straits of niche marketing, it was suggested that I veer away from that one.

The new title was actually suggested by the spouse of a friend.  That switch in the title will likely save the story, as poorly chosen titles can capsize even the sleekest of Ohio-class nuclear submarines.  I will forever be grateful to them for recommending this.

Why zombies?  Oh, I don't know.  Why does every truck driver in the world seem to be able to find the Walmart parking lots with disturbing divination?  Why do bluebonnets spring up in the most messed-up places along IH-35 in the springtime?  Why is Outlander so fucking boring?  (Sorry, Suzie K!)  We will never know, and we have to content ourselves with the not-knowing, with simply accepting what we can't ever understand and move on with the lesser mysteries of life.

Well just like Phil Hartman's Frozen Caveman Lawyer, I am frightened and confused by these blog-based challenges I find myself in, and I haven't tagged anyone for follow-up on this specific challenge, either (sorry Paige!).

Instead, I'm going to list a host of writers off the top of my head who I have met on Twitter and who are fellow rowers, those who together have shared the ravings of galley slaves, who suffer the lashes of the creative whip, and who pray for the break of dawn known as success, however we choose to dress up that little buttercup.

And here goes:

Paige motherfucking Randall at PaigeRandall.com: I don't know what her occupation is but I think she's either a lawyer at a PR firm, a lobbying firm, or some other kind of firm.  Too smart for the federal government, in my opinion.  Her blog has great insights on the creative process and the adventures of trying to find an agent in these complicated digital times (remember, the road to hell is paved with agents making you wait for weeks on a yes or no).  If you want to laugh out loud right now, read her blog post, "Ode to the Gym."  Yes, yes, I know I mentioned Paige already at the top of this post.  But she set me on this challenge; it's only fair that she get extra credit.

Kenneth Harmon at GhostUnderfoot.com:  Kenneth is a fine writer whose novel, The Amazing Mr. Howard, will be published by JournalStone in early 2015.  I told him once that his writing style reminded me of Robert Bloch, and I meant it.  He and I direct-message quite a bit, and in addition to being probably the number-one cheerleader I have on Twitter, we have shared a keen interest in wordsmithing, a general gripe about the pitfalls of traditional publishing, and a too-detailed discussion of enlarged prostates, an affliction whose burden, fortunately for him, is not his to bear.

Eric Keys at EricKeys.wordpress.com:  Eric is an aficionado of that special brand of fiction that blends horror and erotica.  Sometimes I call it "horrotica" and it reminds me that I'm no poet.  His novelette, Grace and Blood, is probably the best example of this structure, and it's available on Amazon.  But his most personal piece is probably "A Single Act of Prolonged Vengeance," which was anthologized in an inaugural volume under the title A Light in the Darkness as a collaborative effort for Writing Out Child Abuse, and is also available on Amazon.

A.U. Gonzales at scriptogr.am/infinityinthemiddle: A.U. was so drawn to the craft of writing that he resisted his family's urging to continue a trans-generational career in the medical field and become a doctor.  It's not every day you get to tell your folks you're following a far different path than what they expected, so he is to be commended for his bravery and his confidence.  And his skill: go check out And Then Acid Fell, an anthology of very well-written stories connected only by nature's soft wrath.  It's available on multiple platforms, including Amazon, Smashwords, Google Play, pretty much every damned digital platform A.U. could think of, and then some.

Kym Darkly at TheHorrorInMyHeart.com: Kym's narratives, which appear on her blog, are little gems of madness, a storyteller by the fireside entrancing her audience with her latest tales.  She has also recently posted a very interesting and insightful interview with a demonologist.  The best place to enjoy the horror in her heart is to go to her blog, also titled in like fashion.  My only complaint is that, although she has written many television and film scripts because her influences come from that medium, she hasn't yet published a longer piece, but I suppose I could characterize her as the female version of Thomas Ligotti.

Teresa Hawk at TeresaHawk.com:  Teresa is somewhere in a classified location in the Nevada desert (okay, okay, it could be Area 51) and she writes full-time while waiting for the zombie apocalypse that she is certain will be upon us soon.  Her story Meat had a very Southwestern Gothic vibe, if I do say so, and Death Ray Potato Bake was a total blast to read.  And speaking of blasts, she also shoots guns, many many guns.  Very precisely.  So for those who wish to tread on that classified location, remember that curiosity killed the wandering zombie.  Anyhow, her work is available on multiple platforms, including Amazon, as well as through her website in PDF direct-download.

Katerina Baker at KaterinaBaker.com:  Katerina is an accomplished traveler (I think she was in Budapest the last time we tweeted, and I encouraged her to run along the rooftops like Liam Neeson in Taken 2).  I can only assume she uses her acumen of observations from her bad-ass trips to weave the interesting settings for her stories.  She's a daytrader or stockbroker or something related to the financial industry by profession, and a self-described unrepentant romantic.  Check out her musings on her website's blog for inspiration and a sampling of her great storytelling.  Her books include All Roads Lead to Anatolia and The Day I Became a $py.

A.S. Washington at ASWashington.com: A.S. is both a writer and a poet; but his poetry is meditative and graceful, and his sword-and-sorcery fiction (check out An Insurrection, his latest short story) is violent and visceral.  A family man who practices martial arts, he has gone down from 300 lbs. to I think he said about 204 lbs. on his last post, which is an amazing example of perseverance.  His debut novel was The Virgin Surgeon and his first book in the Danger Kids Universe, The Twelve, with co-author DeQuan Foster, has one of the most compelling and vibrant cover designs I've seen in a while.  Go check them all out on Amazon.

There are many other authors, writers, poets, artists, and talented people I've met on Twitter that I can't list here today for reasons of space and the annoying ring of the dinner bell, but I'll feature them in subsequent posts, just because that's the sort of kind, compassionate asshole that I am.