31 August 2013

Day Before Launch

As fate would have it, my first published book releases tomorrow, September 1; and two days after that I fly to my next round of world explorations.

New beginnings: a book, an author website, a Facebook author page, an itinerary of locations that include possibilities both familiar (Portugal, Thailand, Bali) and unfamiliar (Croatia, Italy, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Ecuador...). Life continues to unfold as a mystery of manifestation, the past and present merging in the choice of multiple futures.

Such is the fate of the world, and such is the theme and construction of what on the surface begins as an "adventure novella," Rendezvous.

Of course the first question anyone asks is, "What is your book about?"

Given an elevator ride of, say, 7 floors, I might reply:

RendezvousRendezvous is a taut yet poetically described tale of a wilderness adventure, by a young family drawn on a romantic quest to meet in the heart of the mountains. Overcoming obstacles of logistics and physical endurance, they achieve their rendezvous at a cabin in a remote pass. During an overnight storm, through a haunted dream state, Will confronts the agonizing choices of finding a descent back to safety. The linear narrative spawns divergent scenarios of disaster, which the reader must navigate with Will in the quest for survival.

That's one way to put it. It leaves out, though, the personal, autobiographical dimension. Invite me for a coffee to say more and I would share:

The core story in Rendezvous is a real-life adventure my family and I experienced in 1987 in the Purcell Mountains of British Columbia. The successful outcome of that adventure, with its numerous challenges and pitfalls, allowed me to muse on a variety of "what-if" scenarios stemming from the actual story line - most of them disastrous. In the paranormal sense, and structurally in the novella, I conceived of these as alternative timelines or parallel realities. Somehow karmically the other characters and I "chose" the one scenario leading to our survival.
The challenge in publishing and promoting a book is to distill the entirety to a 3-page synopsis, a 1-page version, a 2-paragraph query, a back cover blurb.

Like life and this story, the task of summarizing spawns numerous possibilities to choose from. I can present you with the following finger-food, for example, as hors-d'oeuvres to give you a flavor:
  • wilderness survival Man on one side - his woman and child on the other - battle a haunted mountain for survival.

  • Seven doors: six lead to disaster, one to survival.

  • A romantic quest becomes a wilderness ordeal.

  • A simple tale of adventure spawns paranormal possibilities.

  • Groundhog Day meets Night on Bald Mountain.

  • Hero plays Russian roulette with the Canadian wilderness.
One reviewer, fellow writer Raye Rabbitfoot, offers a similar palette of tidbits from the other side of the mirror, the reader's view:
  • Fabulous: tingling fear-filled apprehension.

  • Waiting bristle-backed for the next avalanche of possibilities.

  • Drink your carrot juice; this book will take your blood pressure off the charts.

  • Suspense-filled details culminating in twists of possibilities.

  • A sword swallower... it took courage to watch the next move.

  • A maze of manifested fears.

  • A slide show of white-knuckle catastrophe.
Now that your belly is already full with a surfeit of appetizers, and I have more packing to do before embarking on a larger new adventure, I will close here to allow a spell of digestion while we await the main course, still baking until tomorrow.

September 1 update: You can now order Rendezvous at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle ebook editions (Kindle ebook also available from Amazon.ca).