Blog Hoppin Entry

Kind of sounds like Cherry Poppin' Dadies, doesn't it?
Basically it's a great chance for writers to get interviewed for the books they have written, and give a shout out to authors they want to support.
After all, who will help the Indie Writer except other Indie Writers?

What is the title of your book?

True Monsters. Originally I titled it and marketed it as The Shepherd's Wolf, a title I was very proud of...until I found someone who published after I did with the same title, and refused to change it. It was a thirty-something-page erotic novel involving beastiality. I contacted them and asked them to change it, but they refused. I was also reading a marketing book at this time and it recommended using a more marketable title, and True Monsters was born.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Initially the idea came from my own sense of smell. It's very sensitive, and often I let my nose get plugged so I can't smell. Then one day I kept getting a whiff of a cologne and I kept trying to find the person, like a bloodhound. That's when I developed the idea of a police detective that used her mutant sense of smell to find clues. I toned it down and made it, I think, more believable than that.


What genre does your book fall under?

It would best be placed under Crime/Police Procedural, though the ending could throw it into philosophy or the supernatural. Once you read the book, you can go through it and see it subtle references and clues you may not have noticed the first time around. Especially the characters

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

In a way I want to avoid that. I want to give the reader a little credit with their imagination, to get to know these characters. When I first read Lord of the Rings Elijah Wood was in Back to the Future Part Two, and I would never have imagined him as a Frodo. At gunpoint? Mila Kunis, as Ginny. Her acting chops have really come around, especially since American Psycho 2. Definitely Ben Kingsly as Revernd Phios would be a dream. Ioan Gruffud would be a great Rob Oldsole.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Would you catch a serial killer you identified with?

Is your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
My book is available on Amazon, so self published. The ultimate goal is to be published in paper because in my mind that is the childhood goal.


How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I laid the groundwork for about four months, and then my wife gave birth to our first son. The beauty of my current job is that I can take up to nine months off with pay, so I was able to work full time on the novel for six months. So less than a year. My new novel is taking a lot less time.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

That's kind of difficult, as I tried very much to make it original. But what author doesn't say that? I would compare it to a Faye Kellerman's Rina Lazarus for strong female, Island of Dr. Moreau for setting, and No Country For Old Men for moral ambiguity, with a little Dean Koontz action/science for fun.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

I wrote this book because I read a novel by a writer who published under a pseudonym, and the story was very, very much like one I had worked on. I felt they didn't do the story justice, and that the characters and plot got cheated. Normally I love the books by this author. This time I finally said, “I can do this. I can do this better.” So I scrapped what I had written and started working on True Monsters, an idea I had bounced around for a while.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Every fantastic thing is grounded in the real world, and I even have a running list on my website for “doubters”. That, and the ending really pays off. I invite others to ask me questions about the story and the characters on my website amachineofwords.weebly.com
My book can be found at :

http://www.amazon.com/True-Monsters-Shepherds-Wolf-ebook/dp/B005QH1ZYW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1349735434&sr=1-1&keywords=true+monsters+the+shepherds+wolf


One Last Thing:
Check out these other great authors! They give excellent feedback about their novels, tweet pithy things, and help out other authors. They are also inspiring.

Chris Turner at: http://www.innersky.ca

Jeff Whelan: http://jeffwhelan.wordpress.com/

Cheryl Bradshaw:http://cherylbradshawbooks.blogspot.com/

Roberto Calas: http://clumsyseduction.blogspot.com/

Sayed Sabat: http://www.zeus-publications.com/way_to_kabul.htm