R.N. Shapiro's Blog, page 5
October 24, 2015
Author Note: Amanda’s Near Death Experience in Taming the Telomeres
This chapter must have gone through 30, 40, maybe 50 edits over time, since it was one of the first chapters in TTT. I kept editing it in very small ways as I made progress through the book manuscript. It was intended to foreshadow many events and really grab the reader. My goal was to draw readers in as early as possible, see more insights in this book bubble:
Insights: “Semi-Conscious” Chapter
September 30, 2015
Award Winning Author MacRae Interviews Author R.N. Shapiro About Taming the Telomeres
Author R.N. Shapiro was recently interviewed by international award winning writer Marni MacRae, author of the 2015 Readers Favorite Silver award winning romance novel, Lady Sun.
Shapiro’s novel Taming the Telomeres won the fiction thriller gold award in the 2015 readers favorite international book award contest and MacRae recently read the novel and sat down with Shapiro for this author-asks-author interview. Marni MacRae posed these seven questions:
MacRae: I could see Taming the Telomeres (TTT) on a big screen, but due to the depth and detail I think it would do better as a series. I think the story has more to it and could be filled in to make quite a few seasons, have you considered pitching it for TV?
Author Marni MacRae interviews R.N. Shapiro about Taming the Telomeres
Shapiro: That’s funny I haven’t thought of T.V., but I am taking steps to work on a screenplay to actually pitch TTT as a movie, I’ve really been encouraged by several of my friends and readers. But maybe I need to think about a T.V. pitch too.
Macrae: Well, congratulations on winning the 2015 Readers Favorite Gold Award for best fiction thriller. I know you feel great about that. If the plot concerning Telomere research has real facts behind it, how likely do you think it would be that this research would be released for potential treatment of cancer or other medical benefits?
Shapiro: There is no question that researchers all over the world are experimenting with telomerase enzymes and our chromosomal telomeres, the fact that this sort of biological research is happening worldwide is not fiction. And the impact it could have on cell life and even in the field of cancer research is also well-established. When and whether breakthroughs will occur is just a matter of time. How valuable and important a breakthrough will be is a variable that I don’t think we can forecast and that is a centerpiece of my novel. This research can be fantastically important and valuable.
Macrae: I understand you hold a few patents yourself, what inventions are they for and what inspired you?
Shapiro: I have 18 United States patents all in the field of folding wheel axle technology. My field is fold flat wagons, carts, and baby strollers. I was inspired to design compact convenient products that could stow in the small car trunk or in a closet. My invention design company is Pancake Wheel, meaning everything I design folds flat like a pancake.
Macrae: Now that you can add ‘Author’ to your title along with inventor and lawyer, what field has given you the greatest reward?
Shapiro: Unfair question. Sometimes being a trial attorney is very rewarding, I’ve had some great experiences being an inventor and designer, like entering a major license agreement on one of my inventions with a great company too. I was stunned to win the gold award for Taming the Telomeres (TTT) but winning that recognition has really given me renewed enthusiasm for my second novel.
Macrae: What would you say was the hardest thing about writing Taming the Telomeres?
Shapiro: Really everything about it, because I had previously written a non-fiction book but I had no idea how much more difficult writing a fiction thriller was. Every conversation, each move your characters make, and thinking stuff through. Sticking with it once I got halfway through was probably one of the hardest things, when you are at a point that you doubt your novel will be any good. And yes there is a lot of self-doubt in writing. And then also my editor Mary and I did tedious manuscript reviews where we hacked portions out of the book before it was finally published.
Macrae: Do you have a next book in the works? If so, does it follow TTT or is it a stand-alone?
Shapiro: My second novel follows TTT and picks up just a couple of months after the first novel ends. I knew before I finished the first novel that I had ideas for what would happen in the second book and I’m still working on that, and I’m featuring many of the same key characters, like Amanda, Andy Michaels, Agent Solarez, and David Owlsley, but introducing a bunch of others.
Macrae: How similar are you and Andy Michaels, one of your protagonists, since you are a trial attorney like him? I found he was the character with the most depth.
Shapiro: Andy Michaels is far too virtuous to be like me! But more seriously it’s a matter of getting ideas for dialogue, having experienced things in my cases either in the courtroom, or in a meeting, that I could twist, turn and fictionalize. I wanted to build a trial lawyer with a conscience, and show how things impacted him and his own family, and show the impact tragedy could have on him.
Macrae: Do you have a favorite author who inspired you?
Shapiro: John Grisham. First of all I do railroad injury litigation and so did he earlier in his career, I think he is so popular as an author now he doesn’t need to actually try cases anymore, even if he thought it was rewarding. In his first couple novels, he dealt with aspects of the legal system, and used real events that inspired his writing, even though they were fictionalized. His style did have a big impact on me.
MacRae: Thanks Rick, I am definitely looking forward to the next Telomeres novel myself.
September 8, 2015
“Taming the Telomeres” Fiction Thriller Wins Gold Award in 2015 Readers Favorite Int’l. Book Award Contest
Virginia Beach, VA author R.N. Shapiro’s debut novel “Taming the Telomeres” was awarded the Gold Award for fiction thrillers in the 2015 Readers’ Favorite Int’l. Book Award Contest. The Amazon release of the biological thriller, “Taming the Telomeres,” 
has attained over 50,000 downloads since its November 2014 release, gaining Amazon Best Seller status on June 5, 2015. ‘A masterpiece’ and ‘spellbinding page turner’ are just some of the praises showered on this cutting-edge biological thriller, according to Bloomberg Businessweek (3/23/2015).
Annually the contest fields books by thousands of entrants on an international basis, from independent authors, small publishers, and publishing giants like Random House, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, and past contestants include J.A. Jance, James Rollins, and #1 best-selling author Daniel Silva, as well as celebrity authors like Jim Carrey (Bruce Almighty), Henry Winkler (Happy Days), and Eriq La Salle (E.R., Coming to America).
“Taming” features high school senior Amanda Michaels who suffers amnesia with regard to everything before the jet crash that only she survives. She loses her parents and her memory in the aftermath, and once Amanda learns she may possess biological secrets that competing intelligence agencies will kill for, she has no idea who to trust, unwittingly caught up in a web of biological espionage.
The author is working on a follow along novel, featuring Amanda Michaels and several other characters featured in TTT.
August 19, 2015
Taming the Telomeres Reaches #1 Again on Amazon on Free Promo Day (Mystery and Suspense)
On August 19, 2015 over 22,000 Amazon customers downloaded Taming the Telomeres (TTT), a thriller about the amazing survivor Amanda Michaels during the one day free Amazon promotion. Taming the Telomeres reached #1 for all mystery ebooks, and #1 for the suspense category and I am grateful to the folks who downloaded my novel, and now just hope that the large majority enjoy TTT and will tell a friend.
June 6, 2015
Taming the Telomeres Lands #1 Position Among Amazon Best Sellers On Promo Day
Thanks to all of my Telomere friends who downloaded my thriller, “Taming the Telomeres” (R.N. Shapiro, Challedon Publishing) at Amazon on the June 4 & 5 promo days. I am blown away that TTT held #1 positions for all suspense and suspense action thrillers on June 5, worldwide, on Amazon! I am working on the follow along novel to Taming, which will follow Amanda, Andy and Ron Michaels where the first book left off. Thanks!
June 2, 2015
Amazon Featuring my novel Taming the Telomeres FREE on June 4 & 5
The tale of Amanda and Andy Michaels in “Taming the Telomeres” has captivated readers, now the book has 43 reviews and counting! Also, “Taming” has a 4.5 Star Rating and I am very grateful to those who have taken the time to enter a review. All this motivates me to continue working on my follow along novel that will pick up fairly close to where TTT leaves off. Amanda Michaels is in her freshman year at UVA and who knows what will happen next. (Hint: read the first novel!).
Also, Amazon is featuring Taming the Telomeres ebook version FOR FREE this June 4 and 5, 2015, so jot down a note to go to Amazon and search for TTT and get the ebook free for kindles, iPads, iPhone or whatever you use to read novels.
December 11, 2014
Get Your Copy of Taming The Telomeres For Free!
Taming the Telomeres was selected to be part of the Read & Review Program on Choosybookworm.com. In this program, I’m giving away 25 copies of Taming for FREE in exchange for an honest review. If you are one of the first 25 to request my book, you will receive an email from me. with further instructions.
Get your copy here:
http://choosybookworm.com/product/taming-the-telomeres/
December 9, 2014
About Heroes: Why I Wish I’d Met Matt Schnirel
They say that heroes leave behind a little part of themselves in each of us. I don’t know if that’s true, but I want to tell you why I wish I’d met Matt Schnirel, who I think was a hero. And he’s not the only one either.
Singer songwriter Jack Johnson asked: “Where’d all the good people go? I keep changing channels. I don’t see them on the TV shows…” But–if heroes surrounded us every day, they wouldn’t seem heroic, would they? Why? Because heroes are rare. And, they make you aspire to be a person of integrity. Someone you hope you can be.
Michael Doran was a fantastic trial attorney from Buffalo, and a professional friend of mine. He hired Matt Schnirel right out of law school to work at his small law firm. He didn’t hire him because he finished at the top of his class. He hired him because he had clerked for his small law firm in Buffalo, and everybody that met Matt loved him. Michael was a very successful, persuasive attorney in front of juries. And he was a great judge of a lawyer’s character.
I was as shocked as everyone in Buffalo that knew Michael and Matt when I heard the news that Michael Doran’s small Cirrus plane crashed in 2009 after it took off from a municipal Cleveland airport, after Michael and Matt had attended a hearing there. Something went horribly wrong right after take-off and Michael tried to get the plane back to the airstrip when it crashed not far from the airport. And, it was one of those planes with a special parachute that can be deployed, but only after the plane reaches a certain altitude.
I went to the funeral for Michael Doran, and that was where I heard a lot about Matt Schnirel, who was a new, young lawyer working with Michael’s law firm and who was the only other passenger who lost his life in the crash.
Heroes don’t panic in life threatening situations. I learned a great story about Matt Schnirel after Michael’s funeral at a tribute for Michael and Matt. Matt and a group of his high school friends accidentally went down a wrong trail on a Jay Peak Vermont ski slope in 2003 on a frigid winter afternoon-ending up stranded at nightfall in a deserted valley with no ability to get out (and no cell phone service).
Night fell, and the temperatures dropped to 30 below zero, and as each hour passed they all became more and more desperate. One lighter proved pivotal—Matt and the others broke off tree branches and built a fire and continued to feed it hour after hour, fighting off frostbite. At dawn, Matt led his friends to try to find their way up and out of the valley, and during that effort rescuers found them.
Matt Schnirel retold this story in his personal statement to Buffalo school of law in his application, and he was (you guessed) accepted there.
Other heroes don’t help save anyone, but still are heroic. My late aunt, Annette Halprin, may never have “saved” anyone but she lived live with a certain savoir-faire, meaning she was adaptable, knowing what to do in any situation. She treated everyone around her with dignity, she was funny, and she was always someone who I looked up to. She’s another hero, and I was privileged to give a eulogy at her funeral.
Perhaps that’s why I wrote about a hero named Amanda Michaels, the leading female character in my first fiction thriller, “Taming the Telomeres.” I am sure I infused a part of Matt and a part of Annette in the character development for Amanda. Though Amanda seems imperfect and perhaps not heroic at the beginning of “Taming,” she manages to pull through against her seemingly insurmountable obstacles after being the sole survivor of a jet crash.
I wish I had met Matt Schnirel. We all have heroes. I’m sure you know someone like him or my aunt, and no, all the good people are not gone. They are just hard to find.
Rick Shapiro Interviewed on NetCast News About Taming the Telomeres
Rick Shapiro, author of Taming the Telomeres, was interviewed by Andy Zajac, host of NetCast News. Rick and Andy discuss the book and the challenges Rick faced in getting the novel published.
https://rnshapiro.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/copy-of-rick-shapiro-tv-interview.mp3
