Unrelated To Movies: I Request Your Assistance!

To take a break from the recent onslaught of reviewing I've been doing, I'd like to ask all of you a favor (if you have the time).

I'm entering one of my novels into the Amazon.com breakthrough novel award contest that begins in February (the winner of which gets a $25,000 book deal with Penguin, Inc., and anybody who knows anything about the publication world knows how huge Penguin is). Anyway, the novel I chose is the best fitting for the contest; however, while it has one of my favorite stories/plots, I don't believe it's my strongest on a stylistic level. And I keep hearing that it's great, the style works for the type of story, etc., etc. (and this from people who wouldn't hesitate to tear it to shreds if it were bad). But like any writer, I'm hard on myself.

So that's why I come to you, the people who don't really know me on a personal level. I've posted up a preview/excerpt of the novel and would like your input. It's less than 5000 words, so it's not like it's an insane amount. It's just a prologue and the first chapter of the book (though you'll see it labeled as chapters one and two. This is because, for the contest, I had to re-title the prologue as chapter one). There are questions and a star-rating thing at the link with the excerpt, as well. If you don't find, for whatever reason, that you have enough space for all your comments, you can always comment here.

If you do this, please keep all comments constructive. You don't have to be all positive or anything about it... but just don't be like 'omg this is gay go die'. But if you don't like something, tell me what it is and why. If you do like it, then awesome. Anyway, besides all that, I suppose the last thing I have for you is the link.

Click Here.

And thanks again!

Unrelated to Movies: Finished Book.

This has nothing to do with movies or anything. I just wanted to share that I just finished writing my third novel. Though, I have been told numerous times that my writing style has a very cinematic feel to it (Gee, I wonder why). So anyway, it's just the first draft, but here's all the details...

The length isn't too bad for a first draft. It's slightly longer than my other first drafts have been. I'll probably end up adding another 100 pages or so (maybe a little less) in the next couple drafts. But this has been a story that's been in my head for at least 3 and a half years now, and includes a character that's been constantly evolving in my brain for about 7-8 years. So without further ado...

Page Count: 270.
Word Count (according to WORD): 58,828.
Chapters: 28.

And the moment that y'all have been waiting for...

Title: A Whisper Softly.

I fought with the title for a long time. I actually just decided to make it that. For the longest time it was The GodBreath: A Whisper Softly... but that doesn't fit right to me, and it hints that it might be a series or trilogy, which it might not be. I thought about just making it 'The GodBreath', but that only comes in near the end, and I really wanted 'A Whisper Softly' in the title. But the latter eventually won over the former... so there it is. And now, to continue...

Story Synopsis:

Sadistic pedophile and serial killer Laurence Fyche has finally been caught; there's just one problem: his latest victim, Darren Meraux, is still out there somewhere, possibly alive. Detective Akemi Endo and her partner, Malcolm Phoenix, are desperately trying to figure out where he has hidden Darren before the boy dies of dehydration. But when a mysterious man who calls himself Stockholm sets up what seems to be the perfect hostage situation at a local bank, with Malcolm as one of the hostages, and states that his only demand is to speak with Akemi and Fyche in private, Akemi is forced to oblige. Once alone, Stockholm's sole request is for Akemi to listen to a Legend that stems back to the old west, while Fyche begins to finally tell his own story, bit by bit. Meanwhile, Malcolm and Captain John Harrison try to figure out what exactly is going on with the hostage situation and if there is any way to get the hostages out. Nothing is pointing toward this being an actual robbery. The mistakes are too obvious for such a perfect scenario. So what is Stockholm really after? Is he merely trying to help the police find Darren's location through drastic measures, or is the reasoning something far more complex, something that can only be found in the words of his Legend? All Akemi can do to find out is sit, wait, and listen…

And because the Legend is a -huge- chunk of the story...

Legend synopsis:

Three decades after the Texas Revolution, whispers of a secret war loomed. Entire families would be taken and never heard from again. 13-year-old Antonio belonged to one such family. Taken to a run-down containment camp and split up from his mother, Antonio meets Maria, a kind 16-year-old girl who becomes his closest friend. However, after an awful massacre, of which Antonio believes he is the only survivor, he leaves with only the shirt on his back and a bible in his hand. He is eventually found by a strange religious group who live in a nearby Monastery, and they tell Antonio that he is special and has to complete three tasks, one of which includes finding the mysterious GodBreath. Meanwhile, Maria, barely alive and having also survived the massacre, stumbles upon a down-on-his-luck con man named Jack, who conned the wrong outlaw. Jack takes Maria back to a nearby town in which he resides with only the worry that the outlaw he had conned will show up to confront his brother, the town's Sheriff. So the two children who were once the closest of friends go separate ways, leaving only room to wonder how their stories will intertwine once again.

So there it is! I'm actually pretty surprised, as it really turned out to have a lot of social commentary in it. I don't think it's preachy, but it's just there... kind of like that quote says that I put at the beginning. The quote, by the way, is this...

"I'm so sick of sarcasm and irony, I could kill! Sincerely, the real root of things is love and sacrifice. Everything else is an illusion. I'm not trying to preach here. I can't tell anybody anything. But I will say, if you're available to them, there are so many great secrets in the world, so many signs. It's when we stop for a moment and listening that the world gets interesting."

~ Ben Foster (Actor)

Yeah... I used a quote by an actor... but it was so fitting that I just had to. So yeah, I'm really happy with what I have in this draft. Now I get to have my celebratory headache (I always get a headache after finished a book. I don't know why).