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WHY, HOW, WHAT Do We Write?
We write because we must.
Everything we write has some basis in fact. Often, fiction mirrors reality so exactly That was eminently brought home the day after we published COMPLEXITY. Read the book's description and dedication if you're curious. In this case, the coincidence is so wild it must be ordained. We write because we want you to feel joyful when you read. We reread and enjoy our stuff. We want you to feel better off when you put the book down. we want you to have fun, to cry but to laugh afterward. We'll get a character to tell you a joke, slip you a recipe, pose a puzzle, speak directly to you from the pages, try intrigue your mind. We want you to Sleep Smiling that night, knowing that your world will be all right tomorrow. It will.
Obviously, we write what we enjoy reading. Candidly, that's why we began. We had trouble finding enough good stuff to read, stuff that lifted us up to the clouds and didn't put you and me down or rip our minds asumder. We sought stuff that surprised, stuff that inflamed, stuff that made me pray -- good stuff, right stuff and didn't find enough of it. About the other three acceptances from agents? They only consent to looking at the first 30 pages, because agents are extremely busy. One of them might accept the work. We're talking about the good agents who sell books instead of those who making their living off the authors by charging to read manuscripts. If you're seeking an agent go to the Association of Author Representatives to find one. The great and successful ones hang out there. After that, the starving author, starving because writing is a full time, non-paying job, must weather a year or two of publisher rejections, expensive and demanding editors who want to gut the book, impossible deadlines and more rejections. Then 3-6 months later, after dismal sales, the book vanishes forever, but the publisher retains all publication, movie and foreign rights for five years or so. Effectively, the publisher kills the book. No, we don't recommend being an author. We were insanely fortunate. We're tremendously thankful, but it certainly didn't end there. Next, we even had to fix broken promises from one traditional publisher. So!
We asked an odd question and made an unusual decision. "Why do books cost so much?" Did you know that when you buy a $30 book, the author gets about $2.40 before taxes? The publisher gets the rest! Did you know that 3,000 books, grossing the author $7,000 is an above average run? It's so hard to break into traditional publishing that about 1,000 books are written for every one published, and that one makes the author about $5,000, max. You see, those 999 book failures don't fit what the publishers think will sell, but it's a self perpetuating argument. Those 999 don't fit the mold and never get a chance, so the mold stays intact. We've been very fortunate that our books even got published much less sold. Eternal thanks to You! Please don't think we're grousing about this. We're not. We're merely saying that an author doesn't write to become rich. I'll tell you a secret and you won't have to read the end of the book for it. As in life, good triumphs over evil in the end. It's going to be a wild ride, though, until we win, and if I do my job right, you won't figure out how until the surprise ending of a twisty trail, uh, tale.
If you're seeking gratuitous sex, profanity, horrific scenes, blood and guts, I apologize. I'm not the author for you. It's the same if you seek inch-thick, long-winded descriptions of scenery, mechanisms and characters. We could write that kind of material but reading it bores us, so we don't suffer you through it. We want you to understand most scenery from context, characters from their dialog and mechanisms from Wikipedia, except when we have to invent some future science. We want to involve you in the whole thing, and let you live with the story, with the slithery villains and with the ordinary, clever heroes who manage to thwart them. How we want you to "be" those good people, because we believe passionately that you already are! If you're seeking clever, and fascinating, and passionate, sometimes deeply flawed men and women, who get thrust into impossible situations, who claw their way to safety and rescue others in the process, well, we write especially for you. It's like having your favorite TV show in print on a Kindle you can put under your pillow. Our favorite earthly hero is the kind of soldier who escapes a Taliban prison and crosses back over the lines with 10 fellow prisoners, herding five captive prison guards. Troy Mach of the Mach Books series, loves Christie more than his life, and proves it over and over. It's the same for gorgeous Christie, who often surpassess him as a tender lover and a potent warrior. Troy and Christie tour the world's exotic places like Mr. and Mrs. James Bond might, saving their nation, the world, each other, their kids, perfect strangers, occasionally bad guys -- and in their terrifying experiences, bravely come to love life all the more. We hope, so shall you. Oh, they get furious, even with each other. Sparks fly when strong, razor-tongued, passionate people are together, and some of the sparks have nothing to do with romance. Some do. The rest is up to you. If you're seeking terrible and passionate villains, who may love their families, or may love their nations, or may have w magnificently redeeming qualities which their personal evil overshadows, maybe we are for you. If you want authors who will (like Hemingway) break literary rules to create an effect, who would shock a staid editor's sox, who are not afraid to use incomplete sentences and attrocious grammar like people do conversing at Starbucks, who write about gritty reality, well that's what we try to do. Some people think we pull it off. Linda K. wrote me, "I just adore this book. Oh, I was Christie! I was Troy!! Don't stop. I can't wait for more...." Eric M. wrote, "What a twisty, curvy, smart, sexy, impossible yarn. It sounds like science fiction. You might not know it's science Future. I direct very interesting research and my colleagues feel like you're looking over our shoulders. In fact, you gave us a monster idea to try." Okay.... Maybe I was there. Maybe not. I've been in some very colorful places. Friends, we have a lovely and eloquent instruction taped to our bathroom mirror. Christie, our beloved daughter penned it in caligraphy. It is Philippians 4:8 from the Bible, if you want to Google it. It begins with, "Finally, bretheren, whatsoever things are" ... and ends with "...think on these things." We so love to write about "these things:"
We also know how to make any good thing better. Cast it against its opposite, to prove its mettle. Callously, we have to toss our characters against their opposites, to make their wonders all the more wonderful. Please make no mistake; we write about heaven on mortal earth. In immortality, heaven and hell are very real and there are no second chances there. Attend to your immortality while you are mortal, so you can Sleep Smiling! That turned out to be the title of our next novel.
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