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Featured Author: Adam Graham
Fly Another Day |
Why did you feel you had to tell this story?
After my first novel,
Tales of the Dim Knight was released, I realized two things.
First, there really was more we could do with the character. Based on listener feedback, I felt like we could do a more focused story, so
Fly Another Day is the beginning of a brand new series for my superhero Powerhouse. It’s the first of what will be a five book series, with one key central plot working through each episode. The second book,
Powerhouse Hard Pressed will be out this week, and the third one,
Ultimate Midlife Crisis is available in June.
Second, when I started with
Tales of the Dim Knight, I set out to poke fun and play with every superhero trope and conventions. As I began to
research the possibility of a second book (research=reading comic books and watching superhero programs), I realized I had quite a bit of comedic material to work through. And I would never leave that much material on the table.
Where do you get your ideas?
Most of the parody ideas come from the source material will come from superhero stories themselves. One of my favorite examples is a silver age Daredevil comic book I read in which he faced Electro who bragged about “almost defeating Spider-man.” In this book we introduce the character of the Silver Medal who brags about everyone he almost defeated (but ended up losing to.) Another classic item that invited parody is a 1994 Iron Man cartoon in which our hero announces that he can use sound energy in place of solar energy and escapes from the villains on the strength of a cassette tape of classical music in the Walkman of a teenage girl.
Beyond those sorts of parodies and homages, I really keep my eyes open looking for story ideas and they are everywhere. I received an email from someone who was very passionate about an issue of etiquette and maybe a little overwrought. And it occurred to me that would be fun to have an insane etiquette blogger who is over the top rude in his advocacy of good manners, and then as we wrote the story, he became one of the main villains in
Powerhouse Hard Pressed.
Do you ever experience writer’s block and how do you overcome it?
I do and usually it’s caused either by lack of rest or more often, taking the story in the wrong direction. If it’s the first, I try to go to bed and realize at some point that I’m not making progress and step back. In the other case, I journey back through the book and I find where my plot took a wrong turn and I take the book in another direction. If I’ve written anything significant, I’ll save it in a file for “cuts.” And then resume my story.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers on the writing and publishing process?
First, find what writing style works for you. There are some fairly absolute writing rules out there as well as some rules set by your publisher if you opt to publish traditional. Beyond that, there’s a lot of writing advice out there you have to wade through. How do you research? How do you write? What programs do you use? You have to be very careful that you don’t adopt practices that sabotage yourself.
In the 21st Century, I think the most important decision is whether to self-publish or not. The big question you need to answer before you do that is why you want to self-publish. There are many great reasons to self-publish. For me, it’s a matter of writing in a genre without a lot of other publishers. Others just want to write and publish prolifically without the red tape of a publisher. Still others are uber marketers and the only thing traditional publishers could do for them is relieve them of part of the profits.
There are bad reasons to self-publish too. You shouldn’t self-publish to avoid editing, and you shouldn’t self-publish expecting things to be easy. You’ll need a lot of help and it’ll be a lot of work, and the only way it pays off is with a quality product.
How do you market your work? Have you found some avenues to be more successful than others?
I do plenty of Goodreads Giveaways. (You can follow my goodreads
author page for more info. I do blog interviews and I’m willing to try almost anything. I even tried advertising on movie screens back in 2011.
If your book was made into a movie, who do you picture playing each part?]
Dave and Naomi Johnson would be played by first time Hollywood actors, not stars to reflect their regular people nature. Robert Downey, Jr would be great as Mitch Farrow, CEO of Dorado Incorporated, a very complex villain. I’d love to see Dana Carvey given a shot at a comeback playing Mr. Manners, the mad etiquette blogger. David Hasselhoff would make a cameo as reformed mob boss Marco Silvano. In
Powerhouse Hard Pressed, Marco shows up dressed as a sea captain wearing a beard. I’d love to see Hasselhoff pull that off.
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Synopsis
A year ago, Dave Johnson flew high as the super-powered crime fighter Powerhouse, defeating Seattle’s top crime family and becoming a local legend. In the process, his marriage nearly crashed, his eldest son suffered a life-threatening injury, and Dave lost his super powers. Now, Dave is a new Christian, a stay-at-home Dad, and living off memories and comic book royalties.
An interdimensional alien hires the cynical Mitch Farrow as the CEO of Dorado Incorporated. Farrow attacks Powerhouse’s legacy in the media. This only prompts Dave to seek to regain his powers and become Powerhouse again. This time, he’s determined to not only fight crime, but poverty, fatherlessness, and hunger and enlists the help of local churches.
Farrow’ then hires a lawyer who threatens Powerhouse with frivolous lawsuits that could ground him forever. Outraged, the Johnson family’s super-powered alien chef pledges to rid Earth of lawyers and introduces his race’s robotic lawyers. He unwittingly sells the plans to a Dorado subsidiary, who equips the Robolawyers with powerful alien weapons that make them the most dangerous threat Powerhouse has ever faced.
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Mild-Mannered Goofball and Recovering Journalist Adam Graham is a strange visitor to Earth whose ancestors hailed from Scotland and Ireland. With his amazing powers of wit and poignancy, he writes science fiction stories appearing in Residential Aliens, Light at the Edge of Darkness, and in the Laser & Sword e-zine, and he writes a political column that appears on
Pjmedia.com. With his astonishing ability to pack twenty six hours into twenty four, he is the host of the Truth and Hope Report podcast, the Old Time Dragnet Radio Show, the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio, and of course the Old Time Superman Radio Show. Our hero does all this with the help of a Journalism Associates degree from Flathead Valley Community College and his auburn-haired leading lady, Andrea.
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FOR MORE INFO
Website: http://www.dimknight.com
Blog: http://www.christiansuperheroes.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/idahoguy
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Amazon: http://amzn.to/12b3LqL
