Why do you feel you had to write "Nine Meals"?
It was a story I had kicking around in my head for quite some time. There was a major power outage where I live, and we were without electricity for three days. That’s when the major plot of “Nine Meals” took shape. As a society, we are so reliant on our fragile infrastructure. I wondered what would happen to us if this outage was permanent. And “Nine Meals” was born.
From where do you get your ideas?
I am a what-if person. I often ponder scenarios and wonder what would happen if X, Y or Z were about to occur. I also take things from my personal life and through observations of the people around me. What is my biggest fear? What are my friends’ biggest worries? Hopes? Dreams? Desires? A good book isn’t about the plot but the people in it.
Do you ever experience writer's block, and how do you overcome it?
I don’t experience writer’s block per se, but I do go into what I call a “writing slump.” When this happens, I just keep writing, even if I think what I have written is terrible. Even in the worst pages, there are salvageable pieces that I can pluck out later when I break out of my slump. I liken it to a hitter in baseball. You have to keep swinging.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Don’t get discouraged. You will be rejected. People will say nasty things about what you have written. Not everyone is going to love every single word. That’s okay. This is the best time to be a writer. There are so many outlets to get your work out there, and if it is good and if you have poured it out from your heart, the majority of the people will gain something from it. Just keep at it.
How do you market your work? Are some avenues more successful than others?
There is no better promotional device than word-of-mouth. I have seen sales of “Nine Meals” build like a snowball rolling down a hill, and that has come mostly from word-of-mouth. Someone reads it and likes it, so they recommend it to someone else, who reads it and likes it and so on and so forth.
Another great avenue is Author & Book Buzz. I saw my sales explode when I used their promotion service.
If your book was made into a movie, who would play each role?
That’s a great question. What author hasn’t thought about who would play their protagonist in a movie? There is no doubt the perfect actress for my heroine would be Ellen Page. She has that spunky personality of Antigone. As for the male lead, that is a bit more difficult. There’s always Nicolas Cage – he’s in everything.
About the Book
When the sun belched and the power grid failed, it was only nine meals until the end of the world.
Billy “Shep” Shepard always thought the apocalypse would come from an asteroid with a funny name, or a super bug, or a nuclear war, or even Yellowstone blowing its top. It came from none of those things. Instead it came from an angry sun in the form of the biggest Coronal Mass Ejection mankind had ever seen – and it slapped the human race back a century.
In these grim times, people kill for food, water and weapons. They scratch out a feeble existence after “The Ejection.” But not Shep. His biggest question each day in his underground bunker is “Cheese Ravioli, Beefaroni or SpaghettiOs?”
Shep soon discovers that nothing in this new world is guaranteed. He and Antigone, a girl he rescues, are forced to take a perilous journey across an unyielding landscape toward the one place rumored to be unsullied by the disaster. Along the way they must overcome hunger, disease, desperation and death while running from a man who wants nothing more than vengeance.
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https://twitter.com/KilroyWasHere7
BUY THE BOOK
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IE0T608
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