This blog has been started in order to inform
potential readers about my first novel: Check
to the Better. The e-book is now available at the following locations for
$2.99:
Kindle:
Links to Nook, Kobo, and iBooks will be posted as
soon as they are available.
Follow any of those links in order to see a synopsis
for the novel as well as view a sneak peak of the first few pages.
This blog will also be used to provide updates
pertaining to my progress on other works, and a forum for me to post musings on
a wide range of subjects—movies, novels, television series, food, politics, and
whatever else crosses my mind. The goal
is to provide new content at least once a week, so feel free to hold me to that
(procrastinator extraordinaire).
I will utilize my first ever blog post in order to give
a background/origin of the novel Check to the Better (CttB). Without further
ado:
On
a day in early September, 2013, I was riding my bike around the Creek Turnpike trail
located southeast of Tulsa (ostensibly in Broken Arrow but really in the no man’s
land that separates the city from its more affluent suburb). I love bike riding
for three main reasons: it’s exercise, it’s outdoors, and it’s a strenuous enough
activity that I can maintain some semblance of fitness, while still being easy
enough to allow me to think freely and ponder the finer things in life (runners
are masochists).
It
was a beautiful late summer/ early fall evening around 6:30 PM; I’d just gotten
off work an hour before from the multinational auditing firm that employed me.
My thoughts and reflections on this evening (as with many of these rides) were
focused on my present situation placed in the context of past aspirations. Usually my mind wanders from year to year and
memory to memory, musing on what might have been and what was going to
be—nostalgia and future planning intermixed forming a cocktail of entertaining what-ifs
and contingencies (if you read my novel you will soon come to notice many of my
characters suffer from a “cocktail of emotions”. Viewer discretion advised).
Then, I suddenly stopped my bike in the middle of the trail.
A
question had occurred to me; one that had always operated in the peripheral of
my mind (subconscious) but had never been given representation in the form of a
direct question: What would my eighteen year-old-self think of this ten years in
the future representation of him? Taking into careful consideration that
eighteen-year-olds are notoriously ignorant and idiotic (myself especially
included), the answer and its subsequent epiphany still shook me to the core:
he would be disappointed.
Not
angry or embarrassed—I had a hard-earned, respectable college degree and the
well-paying, respectable job that accompanied it—but just resoundingly disappointed.
I had always had the dream of becoming a writer, from my early teenage years
all the way up until midway through my college career. Yet, at some point along
the journey I allowed the focus of my ambition to shift; my future writing
career, the province of a tomorrow hoped for, took a back seat to the pragmatic
necessity of getting a job today. So, over the next couple of years I worked
hard, passed the CPA exam, and took a job in Tulsa right out of college
starting January 1, 2012. During that time writing went from being a future
endeavor to something occasionally thought about—a musing what if during happy
hour after another 40 hour (60 hour for auditors, Amiright?) work week.
The
answer to the question was followed immediately by the realization that I could
quit my job; wanted to quit my job; needed to quit my job. For twenty-one
months I’d labored at the firm, wore the suits, dealt with the clients, came
home exhausted and spent day after day after day. And for what? I was twenty-eight years old
dammit! No family or tantamount obligation forced me to toil in monotony, but
only the comfort of expectations and apathy. I had saved up enough money over
the past year and a half to get me through a few months, and knew I could make
money playing poker on the side in order to maintain a subsistence level of
income.
I
swear each breath at that moment was an elation. The chains of bondage had
suddenly come off. I’d once had a dream that was Rome, you could only whisper
it… (wait, that’s Gladiator). I’d
once had a dream that I would someday write for a living, and at my age the
crossroads had finally come. Travel down
the hard-going but predictable and lucrative career path of a CPA, or plunge
into the depths of the unknown in order to attempt to write a novel—something I
had no idea at the time whether or not I had the fortitude or ability to
accomplish. The answer was so simple and empowering that now I can look back and
wonder why there had been any trepidation in the first place. I chose to write.
I
hopped back up on the bike and finished the trail in record time, with hope and
purpose driving me to get home as fast as possible. When I arrived at my
apartment I went straight to the computer and typed out an email to HR giving
them my two-weeks-notice. The next morning I met with the partner and informed
him of my decision. On September 22,
2013 I ceased being the CPA and became the amateur novelist. Then came the hard
part.
The
first month of the process was dominated by getting together a proper outline
for the plot, characters, and setting. I’d
always wanted to write a story about some sort of apocalyptic scenario, and in
previous years devised a very basic plot. From that starting point, I crafted
together what quickly became a broad-reaching narrative that would touch upon
several themes and events including poker, power, panic, and, of course, A-Day.
By the beginning of November I had my outline, the title to my novel, and a
long arduous task ahead of me.
The
writing process, I quickly learned, required a great amount of self-discipline
(remember: slothful human being). I’ll
save my lengthy musings on the writing process concerning CttB for another post
(I know you all wait with abated breath), but I can say the hardest part of
everyday was actually finding the wherewithal to make myself sit down and write
two to four hours a day. The winter months passed into spring, and I began to
realize what was to be an 80,000 to 90,000 word book—think Hunger Games—had
begun to grow into something larger. As George RR Martin says, “The story grew
in the telling.”
Days
were given over to writing, reading, and riding my bike while nights were
dominated by poker. Yet again, this is another story for another blog post, but
may it be placed on the official record that playing poker from 7:00 p.m. to 3:00
or 4:00 a.m. two out of every three nights gets old extremely fast. I know, I
know: “Poor you having to play cards while the rest of us actually work
productive jobs.” I digress.
In
April 2014, with roughly half of the book finished, I moved back to Stillwater
(cheaper living, better biking). What followed was a little over three month crawl,
drag, and scrape to the finish-line; thankfully interrupted by intermittent
visits to the Paige Farm, run by my good friends, Kyle and Natalie (I hope I
got the name of the farm right…). On August 3, 2014 CttB’s first draft was
completed. Over the next two months the editing, formatting, and other fun
stuff took place, but, once again, that’s another blog post for the future. It’s
tedious but necessary—and vital. A special thanks to my copy editor Emmy Kathyrn
Eoff; if you ever need an editor she’s the one.
Now
it’s Saturday, October, 18, 2014. A full thirteen months and change have passed
since my plunge into the realm of writing. Was it foolhardy? Possibly. Was it
difficult? Undoubtedly. Were there times of incredible self-doubt and
hand-wringing—looking at the clock and then my manuscript and realizing I’d
only written one paragraph over the past two hours? Of course. Was it worth it
in the end? Time will tell, but I can say this with the utmost conviction and
certainty: Ten years from now, when I look back at these past thirteen months, I
will feel a great pride. Check to the
Better was the hardest/ most work I’ve ever put into anything in my life, and
I believe it was the best.
Check it out
(price-plug: only $2.99!), and hopefully you come away thinking the same.
PS: The novel is
dedicated to my parents, Robin and Larry Gregory, for a reason. Their support
throughout the process was invaluable.
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