Spent

I received an email with full of sad news this morning. 

It wasn't directed towards me with the sadness. And for the most part, it had little affect me or my children.

But it was sad nonetheless.

The message shared about a young boy (the age of my own boys) who had passed away in a tragic car accident.

When sharing the news with my boys, because they all went to school with the child, i was tearful, heartbroken, and, sorrowful myself.

They also were sad, but it seemed to affect me more than them, even though I never shared recess with this child.

I could't understand why I was crying.

But after thinking about it for a while this morning, and monitoring my own reactions to the people in my house, and reviewing my own reactions to things in recent days, I realized...

I am emotionally exhausted.

Between pandemic responses and reactions, injuries, inability to "get away from it all", no relief from normal stresses - let alone compounded ones, and the irritability of society on general...

I am emotionally exhausted.

As a result, I cry over a grieving family, i mourn the loss of a child I never knew, I can't hold myself together when I have to discipline my children (always toeing the line between raising my children and making the most of my limited time with them).

I am tired people.

And if you are too, just know that you are not alone. We can, and should talk about this.

5 days later

It has been something, to say the least.

I have published my first book. Physical copies are being seen in the wild. My name is in print in real, tangible sense.

Not that it feels quite real, not just yet. But I am getting there.

The past weekend was full of my circle of people showing support, buying the book, helping with grass roots advertising -and it was amazing.

Funny thing is, the real work begins now. Where as it took about 6 years of inconsistent work to create End of Reason (and the other books in the series), now I have to but effort into marketing, sales, and distribution as well as write books 2 and 3.

I don't mind.

I am ready for this.

I have wanted it for a long time.

And because of the support I have been shown by my circle of people in recent days, I have been emboldened. 

I want it now, more than ever.

Thank You ALL. 

It is Done

This morning I finished final edits and revisions for End of Reason. 

It is a satisfying feeling.

I have had some amazing support along the way, readers, conversationalists, editors -all have been influential and integral to this being a success.

I still have some marketing to work on.

I still have some final formatting to complete for an effectively beautiful published product.

And my first book (hopefully of several more) will be published on Amazon and Kindle this coming Friday.

June 5, 2020

End of Reason

EoR: The Final Countdown

I should upload a recording of my boys singing the "Final Countdown" for dramatic effect. Plus, it's cute.

This weekend I received the final edits and have been working on them. There is much going on at home, life adjustments, home projects, etc. I am still aiming for mid-June release!

Independently designed paperback cover art has been completed (Thanks Trisha!)

Facebook Author page has been created for promotional use. Nearly 150 likes!

And every bit of sharing, word of mouth, and future purchases will go a long way in making this venture successful. Thank you all for being on the ride with me. It will make future books that much easier to write!

About the Author

Forged in the fires of Mount Doom of Mordor… Dana Steele, inspired by the likes of Crichton, Martin, Tolkien, Jordan, and others aims to blend reality with fantasy in most of his works. Altering the familiar to suit a fictional narrative is his desired niche. He works as a Physical Therapist Assistant when not writing, creating, or caring for his wife and three boys in the Toledo, Ohio area.

T-Minus 30 days

I have been prepping hard for the weeks ahead. I created a blog page and an Author Facebook page for the purposes of promotion. 

https://www.facebook.com/Dana-Steele-Author

I have added tools for subscriptions and email subs to the blog site. I have created a draft page for Kindle/Amazon launching of End of Reason. Cover art and final edits are pending in the next few weeks.

And I have been "lightly" working on Book 2 - End of Seasons.

So far, the support has been more than I imagined it could be before the first book has even been released. And it humbles me to tears to receive that support.

The lead up to June 2020, and the release of End of Reason has been amazing. And I hope the fallout is even better.

#EoR
#june2020

End of Seasons, sneak peak

Lowman had little use for words. In fact he could not talk, not since his tongue was cut out nearly two decades ago. Instead, Lowman preferred action. He preferred to be one who accomplished things. He had a tendency to opportunistically arrive in situations that required actions instead of words. He liked it that way. 

Clutching a thick leather bound journal, he sat down at the base of a tree. The brown leather cover was worn with years of travel, but still sturdy, protecting the weathered pages within. An ornately designed compass adorned the leather, with the 'N' turned a few degrees to the left. It was that compass that inspired Lowman to become a cartographer, setting him about a journey to chart the post-Collapse Black Swamp. The first few pages turned in his dark leather gloved hands. The finger-less gloves allowed his digits to dance freely over the pages of maps. Then he turned a page that caught his eye.

Lowman had little use for words, but he had much use for pictures. He drew what he saw throughout his travels. His ink sketches showcased interesting trees, shaped like scraggly hands chasing after vermin, or shafts of wheat catching late day sun. He drew of settlements that he had encountered across the region: a series of shipping containers suspended from high tension wires, a windmill surrounded by a conglomeration of steel, tractor trailers and rail cars creating a palisade of steel around a white and red transmission tower -fallen in such a way that it sat like an odd triangle over the settlement, a replica box-fort that sat at the flooded junction of two raging rivers that spanned a tremendous distance, and a concrete fortification that stood on a hill overlooking the junction of three small rivers.

It was that drawing that caught his eye.

He felt a smile creep across his lips, but to only his lips did it stay. On the page opposite of the concrete fortification at three rivers -the Fort, he recalled its name- was a drawing of the same location in flames. The smile reflected his pride in the imagery he captured with the ink; the flames, the fury, the crumbling mortar and brick. The water of the rivers caught the light from the fire and reflected it to the sky. His fingers hovered above the ink as though he could feel the heat from the flames. Echoes of screams filled his ears as he recalled the day the Fort was burned. It was not only the Fort, however, the entire city of Three Rivers was burned to the ground. People commonly recalled that the Country was responsible for the burning of the Fort and Three Rivers, after some dispute regarding trade. 

But, in fact, it was Lowman who was responsible... 

Perspective

End of Reason is presented with each chapter from a specific character's perspective. This was a mechanic that I was initially shown by Michael Crichton (though George R.R. Martin would also employ this mechanic). He gave primary characters their own chapters in order to show the events from their eyes, often using their own skills and knowledge to propel story points forward.

I use this mechanic similarly, but I noticed that it can serve a different purpose.

In my childhood years, at my Grandmother's house in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, there hung a sketch of my aunt above a mantle. It was greyscale pencil, well shaded, encompassing 80's 'glamor shot' glory with a more artistic flair. It very much resembled my Aunt, but there details missing. When I noticed that it was indeed hand drawn, I had asked my Dad a question.

"If everyone had the same skill. And we all drew a picture of the same person, would they look different?"

He replied, "I think everyone looks a bit different to everyone else. So, yeah, we could all draw the same person, or thing, and they would look slightly different to each other. Or maybe even a lot different. We don't all see everything exactly the same."

It was a casual response to a casual question that actually stuck with me for a very long time.

The notion that different people can see the same thing differently was a driving proponent for why I wrote from specific character perspectives in EoR. It is why I have some points of backtracking and overlapping, in order to display events from varying points of view. I try to get the reader into characters heads, with either their limited scope of knowledge, or their raging tendencies, or to explore the Black Swamp through new eyes. It wasn't easy. And sometimes I really had to deliberate which character was going to take the lead for certain chapters. But if you, the reader, found resonance with a character (good or bad) because of this writing style, then my mission was accomplished.

Inspiration

End of Reason (the 'End of' series) gained its initial inspiration on real world events. In 2014, an algae bloom in Lake Erie produced an excessive level of toxin in the water, rendering it unsafe to drink for several days.

Panic ensued.

People began mass buying bottled water. People then resorted to fighting in the aisles over the last stocks of hydration. Judgement flew as social media exploited hoarders and greed.

Watching the chaos was a great catalyst for End of Reason.

I decided to take everything a few steps farther. What if the lake was completely un-salvageable and we had no means to recoup the life giving water? What if events much larger took place first, and the fight for water was merely a post symptom of a larger problem? What if I placed those events much further into the future, after the Earth had started to reclaim its throne, and humans had to scurry for every element of survival?

The combination of real world events, my own imagination, and elements from several video games (Fallout, The Last of Us, for example) led to the forward motion of End of Reason.

Characters are a part of me, melded with other personalities I have met throughout my life, as well as characters from other media that have stayed with me for years.

The region is my home. Though it has been flooded, twisted, ravaged by time, and settled anew by the ingenuity of people just trying to get by. I hope that readers will appreciate the inclusion of land marks (in an apocalyptic light) of the Toledo and surrounding area.

The themes ( of leadership and society and survival) are designed to make the reader think about their own complacency and their role in such a world.

The purpose is to share a world with readers that is both familiar and adventurous. And I hope you come along for the journey.

Everything has...

Everything has a beginning.

About 30 years ago, I had a desire to be a writer. I wrote adolescent stories, songs, poems, teen horror, over-the-top drama, and other less fabulous things. It gave me great joy to create. It fulfilled me in phenomenal ways, but I walked away from it for many years.

Through the ups and downs of adulthood, that need for creative outlets resurfaced, and with much inspiration from the people around me, my experiences, and world events, a new drive to realize child dreams arose.

Over the last 6 years, I have worked intermittently on a book series of post-apocalyptic fiction, drawing further inspiration from a variety of mediums to create a story of survival, revenge, moral ambiguity, and the relentless human spirit.

I hope that you readers will join me on this journey (of mine, and my characters), humble as our paths may be. Your support as readers, as web surfers, and echo chambers will allow this child hood dream to move beyond a beginning... and into a conclusion.

Everything has an End.

End of Reason will launch on Kindle and Amazon in June 2020.