This is the follow-up edition to Thomas Lucas’ blog hop. He proposed ten questions to help curious readers get to know me. Also, he asked to provide links to five authors’ blogs that I know. Since I am a recluse in the finest Hemingway tradition, I could come up with two. They will follow the important things (which are about me).

So here are my answers to these questions ten: 

1: What is the working title of your book?   Indigo 
 

2: Where did the idea come from for the book? The story is an adventure tale of crows. One day I was sitting in my office, looking out the window on the 14th floor, and saw a line of crows sitting on the ledge. One crow made a heart-stopping leap into space, like a forlorn lover committing suicide. Suddenly he came floating up, riding the upblast of wind blowing up the side of the building. He went up about thirty feet, tipped out of it, dropped back to the ledge where he’d started. Then he cawed as if in approval, a mocking laugh of a thing, and leapt again. And that’s when I realized he was doing it just for fun. It struck me then that crows could have human characteristics yet dwell in a much more interesting environment (mainly that they can fly and eat dead things).

3: What genre does your book come under? It’s a combination of coming-of-age and an animal story. My hero starts out young and makes all the mistakes of youth.

4: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? I think, when it comes that dark, edgy air I gave Tuft (the hero), I’d have to go with John Cusack. Of course, unless the makeup is brilliant, it would have to be animated, I suppose.

5: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? Jonathan Livingston Seagull meets Top Gun.

6: Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency? I think this book stands well enough on its hoary claws that it should be represented by an agency. I’ve self-published and was not really happy with the rewards/effort ratio. My birds deserve more than this.

7: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? It took about six months to finish. I write pretty much every day for an hour at lunch. When people try to sit with me and tell me about their lives, I glare at them until they go away.

8: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? Watership Down was the epic that inspired this book (and sadly one largely forgotten today). If you don’t think you can write a ‘blood and thunder’ epic about rabbits, you haven’t read this. The battle in the end, down in the warren tunnels, gave me chills.

 9: Who or what inspired you to write this book? In a self-serving way, I  inspired this book. I’ve had romantic relationships that failed just like Tuft’s. I’ve had my love rejected (as have most of us). And I’ve shot my mouth off when silence would have been the wise choice. I’ve done many of the things in this book, outside of fighting for my life inside a hurricane at night.

10: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? If nothing I’ve said here has piqued your interest, I’m trying to rouse the dead 🙂 . Still, I might add that one of my more youthful tomfooleries was building a ultralight aircraft in the 80’s and flying it around the Central Florida skies that my crows later inhabited. Nothing gets you closer to flying than feeling every bump and thump of air beneath your wings. And once you get over being scared to death, once the sky opens up around you, only then do you start  to see life as crows see it.

…And that’s my ten questions. Hope you enjoyed it. If you’d like to read the first chapter, it’s HERE. If you are an agent, please contact me (Please! Please! Please!). And if you’d like to read some of my other works, you can find them HERE, both my published effort and my self-published sci-fi yarn.

And now, my writing friends. The first is Alan Kierstead, who doesn’t have a blog himself but I provided him space (at a very reasonable rate). Alan is a great guy, a bear of a man so out of place in our corporate environment. Check out his words HERE.

The second is my sister, Doctor Pat Raymond, with who I co-wrote Don’t Jettison Medicine (available at the bottom of HERE). If you are a doctor and need coping exercises to get you through your hectic day, turn around – you just missed the link. It’s one of the funniest self help books you can read. Otherwise, you can check out her site HERE.

And that’s it. Thanks for stopping in and letting me pour you an eyeful!