Found this quote from Michael Foucault today and thought it summed me up nicely. I'm waiting for my aura, but I can feel it starting to form!

"[Raymond Roussel] said that after his first book he expected that the next morning there would be a kind of aura around his person and that everyone in the street would be able to see that he had written a book. This is the obscure desire harboured by everyone who writes. It is true that the first text one writes is neither written for others, nor because one is what one is: one writes to become other than what one is. One tries to modify one's way of being through the act of writing."

Missed Friday

So much for my promise to update the blog every Friday. Mike put some good stuff up, though, so that is awesome! I can't speak for the other guys, but right now I'm freaking out a bit about the book. You don't get that many chances in life to do something really amazing, and I feel that this book has the ability to be truly amazing, so I just want to make sure that a) it rocks, and that b) people read it. At this point I'm about 97.324 percent sure that the book is going to totally rock. I am actually rereading it now, and I keep thinking that the author of the book is really creative and that it is really a fantastic book, and then I remember that I am one of the authors! It is somewhat surreal, to be honest. I think it slows down in about three spots (and yes, two of those are chapters I was primarily responsible for, so no offense!!!), but I think we can get those tightened up pretty easily. We have the first 200 pages of edits back, and they look pretty good. We were a bit worried that the publisher and editor would say something like, "get rid of that Hade guy," or "why didn't you set the book at an elementary school," (LOL!) but it has been completely different. It is so so so self-esteem boosting to have people tell you that something you did was really good, and we are getting a lot of that already, so I'm not worried about the book being good at all, really.
So what do I worry about? I just want to make sure that people read it. I don't want the money or fame that would go with a bookseller (okay, that was a lie, but that isn't the primary reason for doing all of this.) I want to share something with the world. I want to give something to the world that people will enjoy, that will make them think deep thoughts, that might change their world just a little bit. So I really want our marketing to be successful enough to get the book into people's hands, and for people then to share it with their friends, and for those people to share it with their movie star friends who try to get the book made into a movie for us. Or something like that! So in the next few months be looking for more posts from me along the lines of this - extremely proud yet extremely nervous at the same time. I think once the book comes out I will be fine, until then...
out!

Comic Con

Spent the weekend at Chicago Comic Con and had a blast. Learned a lot, met a lot of awesome people, too. Made some contacts with a couple other new authors, as well as got hooked up with a number of different artists...we're thinking Graphic Novel here.

There were TONS of people at the Con...at times, it was shoulder-to-shoulder throughout the entire convention center.

There were also a lot of storm troopers there, including many of the 501st (Star Wars fan organization). I especially liked the dancing shock trooper.

We are definitely going to have to have a table at next year's Comic Con. The very nature of our book lends itself greatly to the atmosphere there. Zombies and the apocalypse are all the rage.

Waiting

Up to this point in the book publishing process, the only thing I've found that I'm not such a fan of is the waiting. Or, as my 5 year old Liam would say, "I HATE IT!!!" We have a fantastic publisher, who really, really believes in us, and a wonderful editor who really got into the book and has a lot of great suggestions, and it is great that they are taking their time with the edits but man, I just really, really, really want to get my teeth into what they have done and get to work on it. We are doing marketing right now and working on book two, but book one is really our baby and I'm SO excited that it is soon to be out there for the world to read. I feel like it is Christmas Eve right now - I'm not sure if I'm getting socks and underwear or a trip to Disneyland and the suspense is just killing me! So, I'm going to set out my cookies and milk (and don't forget the carrots for the reindeer - I almost did last year and my 4 year old twins just about killed me) and wait. I hate waiting.

Great weekend

Weekends when I'm on call always bring the heat! This weekend lived up to expectations, with plenty of Denver's children needing emergency surgery, my family getting ready to go back to school, and heavy R&D (research and development) for book 2. After the recent meetings with Jed and Mike, I returned to Colorado fired up and ready to write! But wait, I'm not ready to write! I have to re-read HG (Hade's Gambit) for the third time (picture Mike and Jed with disappointed faces buried in hands). And there is a ton of literature to sift through and summarize which will keep the three of us on the same page for a major thematic development in book 2. This will be the revelation of a HUGELY ambitious storyline hinted at in HG but brought to the forefront in book 2! It will rock your soul! The R&D summary is almost ready, it sounds like mike was successful at Chicago comicon, and I'll be writing this week between patients. Yup, it was a great weekend.

Book One in Wordle Form

Mike in Chicago

Mike is in Chicago at Comicon. We are leaving NO stones unturned as Hade assaults the world. Can't wait to hear how it goes!

Friday post

Another great week. We lost Jaren back to Colorado :( but good things are happening. Perhaps the most exciting news is that Mike knows someone at Heartland who's nephew is Ashton Kutcher (and I promise I didn't just make that up!) and she said that she was telling Ashton about our book and that he is interested in reading it and perhaps would even tweet about it. He only has 7 million followers (which equates to well, at least a few more followers than I have!), so that could change everything. If he loved it and wanted to help make it into a movie, well, that would change everything again. Yeah! We also spent time working on our marketing. Mike and I had a bit of a row over the length, style, content, well, just about everything, in the short animated clips we are making, but I think we got everything sorted now. That is kind of the dark underbelly of three people working on a project - there is NO way that all three of us can agree on everything - otherwise why even have three people working together? But we fight for what we care about, we let go of the things we really don't care about, as my dad used to say we cussed and discussed things, and in the end I think we are at a really good spot. Compromise and Consensus. I hung out a lot yesterday with my friend Jason who read the book and had tons of positives to say about it. He said parts of it were some of the best writing he had ever read, which made me happy. He is totally going to help us rock our web presence, so a huge shout out to Jason Jarbo! That is about it - but here are the links to the first two videos in our series. Enjoy!

Hade's Groupies Episode One

Hade's Groupies Episode Two

This Week

It has been a great week for the three of us working on Hade's Gambit, piecing together the next book in the series, and doing some marketing. Jaren and Jed both got their own twitter accounts, we set up this blog, and we worked on some short videos about the book. Thursday night we had a photo shoot with Jaren's wife Jessie taking tons of pictures. As we sort through them we'll get a few up on the web. We took one of us in a corn field that I absolutely love. You have to embrace being an Iowan! Here are a few more pictures from our day together on Tuesday. It was so much fun hanging out with the guys and it was nice to get a lot of stuff done in the process. Out!

After a long day we needed some Old School Halo Action to calm us down!

 Sometimes we need to resort to other, more controversial methods to arrive at consensus when working together. You can disagree with the method, but you can't disagree with the results!

Rileys, Kooglers and Petersons, oh my!

The Three Muskateers!  

One of about 20 tries at getting the picture above. You can tell we are authors, not super models!

Tuesday

We had a great day on Tuesday. We all met up at Mike's, where we talked about marketing and looked over the first 200 pages of edits. The book looks great, and we should be able to get going on it pretty soon! We also confirmed that we will be calling our production group (us three!) sHade Tree. I love it! We then went over to the Iowa City Library where we recorded an interview with UNESCO City of Literature that will be up on their website in October. After that, we went to Prairie Lights, where we confirmed that we will be having a premier party, streamed over the internet live, when our book comes out. Then we went to Haunted Book Store, where we set up a reading there. Then it was off to Buffalo Wild Wings, where we worked out some things for Books Two and Three. Super Awesome Stuff came out of that! The three of us really are at our best when we are together! After that, we split up, only to reconvene at Jed's house for a huge super bash with all the Petersons, all the Rileys, and almost all the Kooglers. After brats on the grill and an evening full of Halo we called it a night. On the whole it was really a fantastic day. Here are a few pictures I took with my phone, but we have others with a few different cameras that I'll upload soon.

Us with Jeanette after our Video Shoot for UNESCO!

Mike and Jaren checking out a great book at the Haunted Book Store!

In front of a sign saying "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword!" We hope that is true!

Hanging out in Mike's basement! Otherwise known as the Man Cave or the Writer's Pit! Some of our best ideas have emerged from here!