Introducing author, Jason McIntyre, plus your chance to win books and a teddy bear!

Today I'm introducing you to an exceptionally talented author who has become a good friend of mine. I first met Jason here on Goodreads back in August 2010. He sent me a friend request and I read his blog to see who he was and instantly felt that he was someone I would like to get to know. His blog post at the time was something about how difficult it is as an independent writer to fit in writing, marketing, promoting, etc., when there are so many other things that we have to deal with in life. It struck a chord, and I invited him to join BestsellerBound.com a message board for Indie writers to meet and chat with each other and readers.
So, a couple of emails later, he joined Bestsellerbound and not long after that Nestor Maronski was born. For those of you who don't have a clue what I'm on about, Nestor Maronski is the main character in the book Cutting The Fat written as an online writing challenge by me and Jason. We took turns to write the chapters of the novella online. It was such a hit with BestsellerBound members that we decided to release the book as a kindle ebook in January. It's available there for just $0.99 if you want to find out all about the evil Nestor Maronski and why he MUST die. That brings me to the special giveaway today:

Jason has very generously agreed to give an ebook to 3 lucky winners. If you're a winner, you will have the choice of which of Jason's books you receive!

As well as that, and to celebrate having my co-author on my blog today, I'm giving away a cute teddy bear (picture at the end of the blog post) wearing a 'Nestor Maronski Must Die' t-shirt!

All you have to do to be in with a chance to win a book or the teddy bear, is leave a comment!

Winners will be randomly picked on 25th March 2011.

Right, I won't keep you in suspense any longer as I know the reason we are all here is to read all about Jason McIntyre!

Here are Jason's replies to my interview questions:


Is there a particular author, or book, that inspired you to start writing?

Even as a child of nine or ten and onward, I was always writing and coming up with stories and characters, but the turning point in deciding that I might have an interest in it as more than a simple hobby was probably in my late teens. I was reading a lot of poorly written movie novelizations at the time, things like Indiana Jones and Robin Hood. I stopped reading and said, "These aren't very good and they're selling hundreds of thousands of copies. I could write something better."

Do you have an tips for someone who is considering self-publishing their own book?

Get a good line editor and either pay them or help them in some return way. You don't want typos, plain and simple.

Cut at least 30% of your first book. If you've been writing long novels for a while and this book isn't actually your the first you've written, then you might be able to get away with cutting 10 or 20% instead. This isn't a hard an fast rule, of course, like I've heard some publishers and agents say. But it is true to a degree: much of writing is warming up. It's you getting to the point. It's part of the craft, learning which parts are necessary to character and plot, and which simply aren't. Chances are good, you have a pile of material in that book that is not needed. The closer your reader is to the story out of the gate, the better chance they'll read the whole thing and ask for more.

I have noticed from reading your short stories and also the online serial Thalo Blue (now a novel), that your writing contains a very visual element. Do you visualise your stories as you are writing them?

First of all, thank you for reading! Maria, I know you've been an ardent supporter of mine since I popped into the online world last autumn and you've always had very productive insights to share with me and everyone else.

The visual element is very important in my writing. I 'see' everything I write and when I'm working through a tough scene or crucial chapter that takes a while to finish, it plays over and over behind my eyes like a film strip that I can't turn off. The projector runs twenty-four hours a day until I'm satisfied that I have explained it well enough to match the visuals haunting me on repeat. It's not unlike the description of how Hannah Garretty 'sees things' in my first novel, On The Gathering Storm. And, when I was writing the opening chapter of Thalo Blue when Sebastion Redfield's house is broken into; I had that scene bothering me to the degree that I couldn't sleep. I saw the whole thing as if it was up on the big screen and some beefy theatre ushers wouldn't let me out of my seat.

I’m going to ask this question because I know that I’ll get in interesting answer from you, judging by one of your recent blog posts. Do your books fit into a specific genre?

Some days I wish they did. I'm getting incredible feedback and a growing readership, but I still believe readers find it hard to approach a novel that isn't easily identifiable in one genre. Luckily, many readers have taken a chance on my books, finding them at Amazon or through book blogs. More often than not, I hear that readers were dubious about what I was writing but then enjoyed the story immensely and wished to read my whole catalogue. As a writer, that's the biggest and best thing I can hear and keeps my motor running on writing more.

As for genre, I can only say that labels are a tricky thing to manoeuvre. I want to be read so I pick genres to label my work: literary, suspense, thriller, family drama. But I pull so many of my favourite kinds of stories in: paranormal, sci-fi, spiritual, satire, young adult, even romance. I write what I need to write and feel like if I stuffed myself into a particular genre the stories would suffer. I feel like I need all the colours to work with or the painting won't look like anything meaningful by the end.

When you write a novel do you plan it beforehand?

To a degree, yes. But not the plot. On the surface, that might make little sense. But I usually commit to a character first. I know who I'm going to be talking about or through. And once I'm comfy with him or her then I figure out where they are in their lives. If I can get an idea of what I need them to learn, understand or come to grips with then, I start in. But I never know the plot details that will happen over the course of it. Only the points A and Z on the spectrum of the character.

Where do your ideas come from?

Crazy, trippy dreams after a road trip when I haven't slept for 72 hours. Driving in the rain. Walking, walking, walking. I usually see a very specific person inside a very specific scenario. I have a bad memory and forget these quite often but if it's interesting enough it will stay with me and I revisit it mentally and keep adding on pieces like the astronauts do with the International Space Station. When the idea is big enough and strong enough to support life, I send a shuttle with real characters and get started. Quite often, I have to light sticks of dynamite on the station a few times to get things really cooking and make the characters scramble. I'm a sadist that way. But then I experience terrible guilt for what I put them through in the end.

I haven’t read it yet, but am hearing that your novel, On The Gathering Storm, is a very intense read, which contains scenes that readers have described as ‘disturbing’ and ‘horrific’. In fact, I understand that readers have actually lost sleep or vomited when reading the text. Were you aware when writing the book that it would have such an effect on readers?

I've gotten reader notes and reviews that state, yes, people are feeling light-headed, are passing out, or getting the urge to vomit or dry-heave. Some folks have complained of migraine headaches and not being able to eat meals while reading On The Gathering Storm or Thalo Blue. This is all heresy, of course, but I'll be honest when I say one of my goals as a writer is to appeal to readers' emotions in a deep and meaningful enough way that it incurs some kind of physiological response. I like that readers sweat when they read my stories. Or need to take a break for fresh air. Now, granted, I'm not interested in eliciting cheap thrills. Neither of these books are gratuitous in my opinion. My hope is that you're so emotionally invested in the characters that you can't stand to see anything bad happen to them. After all, that's how I felt as I wrote the books.


Are all of your books adult only reads, or are there some than can be read by under 18s?

Not at all. In fact, Shed, which centres around the lives of two young boys living in an idyllic island town, was about five minutes away from seeing publication with an international publisher dedicated to Young Adult titles. Thalo Blue is suspenseful and moody but there's no reason that teenagers wouldn't find appeal in Sebastion's life story. It's really a coming-of-age book, after all. I was reading "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "It" when I was thirteen and fourteen and not batting an eyelash at the content. To me, my work is just storytelling and isn't age-specific. Should kids be reading some of it? Probably not. But there may well be an astute fifteen year old out there who will appreciate it more than a thirty year old.

I enjoyed reading the online serial chapters of Thalo Blue and am waiting for a spare moment in my reading schedule when I can finish reading the novel. The main character, Sebastion Redfield endures a rather unique condition, doesn't he? How much research into the condition did you do for this novel, and how long did it take to write?

Well, without giving too much away, I will say that I have not been diagnosed with the same condition as Sebastion but, as a very young boy was taken to see doctors in a similar way. They bandied about and eventually used the name of this condition in describing some of my behaviours. Though they left it at that and I have never been officially diagnosed with, well, anything except for a bout of pneumonia when I was nine, I have wondered for years and years if I do in fact have some mild form of it.

The book was 175000 words in its first draft and took me three solid months to write. It was a fevered, harried time. I wrote for as many as ten hours some days. It was an intense experience and I know I'm not the first writer to describe a book-writing experience as more like channeling than creating. It felt like the story was written and I was mostly just interpreting the language and typing it out.

Subsequent re-writes and editing, of course, took many months more. But I'm extremely satisfied that all the energy, nuance and feeling remains in the final book. It's getting fabulous, energized reviews from some wigged-out readers and critics, so I couldn't be more pleased with that.

How long does it usually take you to write a novel, and do you do your own editing?

So far, every story has had a different process, length and outcome. Yes, I do my own editing because I hate sharing anything that I feel is unfinished with someone. I usually go through six stages. I call it the Seven Stages of Birthing a Book: Myself, myself, myself, until I'm satisfied. Then a close group of authors. Then a larger group of outsiders. Then everyone else. Then of course I mourn the empty nest and wish I'd never released the damn thing at all.

Which of your characters can you most relate to, and why?

I'm probably a mix of Sparrow from the forthcoming series The Night Walk Men and Sebastion Redfield, the sensitive artistic loner from Thalo Blue. Sparrow because I have a penchant to tell it like it is and not spare time enough to worry about feelings that might be hurt when I'm honest. And Sebastion because I look at the world through glasses the colour of whatever mood I happen to be in.

You have a background in graphic design. How does writing compare to being a designer?

The two are actually quite similar. Graphic design is a one-man show that is vetted by committee. Same with writing. Graphic design requires you to sit alone in the figurative dark with your mind, your hands and your tools and hopefully create something no one has ever seen before. Same with writing. Graphic design has you present your work to a group of peers, superiors, clients, nobodies and they will all find faults with different aspects, often out of their own gut feelings rather than any innate knowledge of the skill or background of the work. Same with writing.

Who are your favourite authors and what is it about their writing that you like?

This list varies, of course. But today, I'll say Jeffrey Eugenides, Dave Eggars, Stephen King, and Ernest Hemingway. These and others are able to strike me first with a backhand of realism. Even when they are writing fantastical or unbelievable things, writing that speaks to me most is told in a way that I believe, without falter, that it actually happened or IS happening to someone at this very moment. My goals as a writer are the same: to make you believe it with every fibre of your being, even if it's happening on the far side of the moon.

Is there a book you own that you’ve read more than once?

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

If someone wanted to read your books, which would you recommend they read first, and why?

Always a difficult answer to give. Someone who asks this question directly usually gets a half dozen probing questions so I can base my answer on them personally. But not knowing a thing about a reader, I'd say they'd be safe starting with my novella Shed. It's dark, but no so dark that it will make them run from the room. It's also not as controversial as, say, On The Gathering Storm which has been called by some reviewers as a book about women, written by a man.

What was the last book you read?

Full Dark, No Stars by Steven King

Are you reading a book at the moment?

No. I'm writing right now. Never the twain shall meet.

What do you think of ebooks?

Love them. I'm saving my pennies and turning over the couch cushions in search of coins to collect into an iPad purchase fund.

How important are reviews for you as a writer?

Honestly, I don't know the answer to this question. The surface answer is 'very'. But I think they may be a more intangible benefit, serving to tell the writer he or she is doing something that others wish to keep reading. I almost feel like sales are independent from reviews. Because, after all, we've all seen the ridiculously bad reviews associated with ridiculously high selling authors and their work.

How do you go about choosing a cover for your books?

When it's possible, I spend a week or two trying different designs in and among the myriad of other tasks I have on my plate. I usually send my top two or three to trusted friends and designers to get their preferences and, quite often I combine elements from several ideas. My hope is to expand my own jacket design skills as I extend my writing ability. I certainly don't know even close to everything about either art form. And, yes, I do believe writing and jacket design to be formidable art forms of their own.

What are you working on now?

Book one of the Night Walk Men novel series.

Where can people buy your books?

All the major ebook outlets:

Amazon

Sony

Barnes & Noble

Apple iBookstore

Kobo

Smashwords

EzRead

New audiobook of On The Gathering Storm available at:

Spring Brook Audio

Do you have your own website or blog where people can read more about your work?

All my latest blog posts, news and book information can be found at

The Farthest Reaches

Thank you Jason, for answering my questions :)

Remember, there are 3 books up for grabs as well as this adorable teddy bear who hates Nestor as much as we do! Just leave a comment to enter! Good luck!