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Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Brain keeps writing even when I'm not

My brain spent the night tweaking one critical part of the Novum series "master plan", so I didn't get much sleep. However, I really like what it came up with so I'll say this: You are forgiven brain, but just don't do it again.
 

Thursday, October 24, 2013

What was the "spark" for your latest story?

Just wondering if there was a moment, a particular “thing” that triggered the creation of your latest story. For Novum, I was driving in my car listening to "Going Under" by Evanescence, and during the chorus:

"I'm going under,
drowning in you,
I'm falling forever,
I've got to break through,
I'm going under"

I saw a woman's face falling away from me into the depths of the ocean (falling forever). That image triggered a story arc that now spans four books, and for anyone who read the first book, that exact scene haunts my main character’s thoughts and dreams, all the way to the final scene.

So, what was the "spark" for your latest story?
 

Thursday, October 17, 2013

From the author

Novum is a stand-alone story, but it is intended to be the "pilot episode" for an epic scifi series. It was written as a short novel, or novella, and is approximately 30,000 words long (about 1/3 as long as my first novel, Cyberdrome). The novella itself has a long history in science fiction and is considered one of fiction's "most open-ended and compellingly discursive forms." I'm happy to be able to offer the digital version this first book for just $2.99 around the world (and just $7.99 for the paperback) as an open invitation to enter this new world and get to know its inhabitants. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Go to JosephRhea.com to learn more.
 

Thursday, October 3, 2013

How important is the title of your book?

Let me say right from the start that the titles of my books are very important to me.  They often drive the narrative and sometimes they are a clue to some aspect of the plot. I don't pick them based on possible "market value" (even though I probably should) but instead they usually just materialize when I'm outlining the story arc.

My first book, Cyberdrome, was a combination of "cyber" (meaning man-machine interface) and "drome" (meaning arena) since my story took place inside a virtual world inhabited by digital avatars controlled either by humans or computer programs. It was essentially a meeting place for humans and A.I.

I consider it a coup d'état that I was able to snag the title "Novum" for my newest science fiction book (and eventual series) before any other SF author. Why? From the Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction:
novum (n.) [Latin for "new"] the primary element in a work of science fiction by which the work is shown to exist in a different world than that of the reader. "...the term refers to those concrete innovations in lived history that awaken human collective consciousness out of a static present to awareness that history can be changed."
That describes my story so perfectly that I was actually panicked that someone else would publish something with that title before me, even though the term has been used in science fiction circles since the 70’s.

So how important is the title of your book, and how did you come up with it?
 

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Novum 2 begins

I wrote the first 500 words to the Novum sequel tonight. Woot!