The Next Big Thing Blog Chain...

I was chained to this by Shelley Brown (author of The Fall of Cliff Castle (Book One in The Glass Slipper Chronicles)) and so I'm sharing a little bit about my WIP with you today.

So without further ado (because ado is seldom useful) my WIP:

What is the working title of your book? 

 Bless the Child

Where did the idea come from for the book? 

I was fascinated with the concept of mercenaries in the ancient world. The idea especially of Greeks, when they weren't fighting each other, would sell themselves out to the Egyptians, Babylonians, and other minor kings; and that brothers could potentially find themselves facing each other on opposite sides of a conflict very far from home.

I also wanted to utilize some Biblical old world references that I found interesting such as Elephantine Island on the Nile, the fall of Jerusalem thanks to Nebuchadnezzar, and a number of rumored aspects of that siege and destruction.

* the artwork for the cover has graciously been donated by Kris Cooper

What genre does your book fall under?

Historical Action/Adventure with a Sword & Sorcery flavor

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? 

I have given no real thought to this. Most of the characters (even while many are real historical personages-Solon, Psenophis, Jaush of Lachish, Nebuchadnezzar, Zedekiah, and Balthazar/Daniel are inspired by people I personally know)

While I do think this could be turned into a screenplay much easier than my other works. The protagonist, known as The Spartan would need to be an able bodied man in his mid twenties in the beginning of the book and it follows his story up to around forty or so.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? 

Never thought about this before but here goes...

To keep from getting wet, the bloody, drowning road to redemption for a Spartan mercenary is perhaps best traveled by boat.

another...

Saving oneself is most nobly done by saving another.

and (having too much fun with this)...

No country for sword-less men.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? 

This will be my first self-published novel. The greater motivation for such will be explained toward the end of this post.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? 

I think I finished the rough draft in about 5 months. 

This was also when I was offered my first publishing contract and decided to start this blog and hence the name Nephite Blood, Spartan Heart - a merger of sorts of my Heroes of the Fallen saga and this Spartan book, the only two things I was working on at the time.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? 

I really liked, Jezebel by Frank G. Slaughter, Lord of Samarcand by Robert E. Howard, Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield, Lion of Cairo by Scott Oden, and 300 by Frank Miller.

Who or What inspired you to write this book? 

I began the book when my daughter was in the hospital with a terrible case of RSV. She almost died. The frustration and heartache in the beginning of Bless the Child is from that pain of not knowing if she would make it or not. I wrote it at her crib-side in the Primary Children's Hospital in SLC.

I was also greatly inspired by a lot of my historical research reading related to my first novel(series) Heroes of the Fallen ipso facto - Hugh Nibley.

And lastly, when I was still doing construction to pay the bills, I was remodeling a basement at the home of an old woman and her daughter - a single mother whose toddler son kept calling me 'Daddy'. It broke my heart.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? 

I am going to donate 100% of the proceeds to The GAN Warriors a trio of young local boys with a terribly debilitating disease. I wanted to do something to help them and polishing and dusting off a trunk novel seemed the most viable thing I could do. It lets me get my work out to a greater audience and help someone(s) else at the same time.

There you go, that's all she wrote!

 

Now I have to chain people to this thing...so...

I'll stick to my regular blogger friends who I know are always working on something

Charles Gramilch

Paul McNamee

Angie Lofthouse

and

Adventures Fantastic Keith, I'd love to hear more about what you're working on, not that we don't all groove on your reviews.