Friday, March 24, 2017

Interview With Author Robert E Flynn III



The Touch – A Supernatural Story – Part I


1.      What really inspired you to write your book, to force you from taking an idea or experience and conveying it into a book?
I have written all my life, mostly associated with lyrics for songs, which is poetry after all, and I also wrote extensively in college.  None of this inspired me to write an extended work.  What inspired me to write this novel was an idea.  The idea is not revealed in the book until about two-thirds of the way through.  I was hoping to keep the reader in some limited suspense about the actual hook.  I can reveal it to you, but I still would like to keep some semblance of secrecy, even though I am sure that skipping pages would take care of the surprise.  Suffice it to say that my intention is to bring all the characters of Biblical antiquity into a new focus with Creation as the bigger picture.   My background story is a life-long scenario.  I have always looked at life through the eyes of practical thinking.  I see a concept and try to look at it with as much logic as I have in my reasoning.  When I thought about God, there were so many emotional aspects of my reasoning, due to my upbringing and what I was taught.  I spoke to a presence all my life, knowing with logical thinking that a being such as this must exist and that it was listening to me.  I knew enough about science to know that what I heard did make sense up to a point.  I simply could not logically assume that the Universe and Life had just sprung forth on its own.  Being very creative myself, it made perfect sense to me that a Creator must have crafted this phenomenal world and everything in it, and of course the entire Universe that surrounds the very small planet we live in.  I saw Creative genius in every aspect of what I saw in my life.  I also saw the history of humankind as a testament to something as well.  It made perfect sense to me that we were given only good, but we chose to know all that there is to know, including evil.  This choice, as far as my logic was concerned, explained all the inhumanity of life and the inhumanity of man. 


2.      What is it about and whom do you believe is your targeted reader?
This is the first book of a three-book series.  This first book brings in young, highly disadvantaged children, with no hope, and subject to all the abuses and atrocities of evil.  These children hear a voice and are given a power from the presence they are hearing.  They are finally able to strike back at the evil in their lives with this power.  They are not entirely comfortable with this presence for many reasons.  The impossibility of what they are experiencing gives them pause, as well as a certain feeling that something is not completely right.  Something has chosen these children for a purpose beyond their understanding.  They are so consumed by the wonder of what they are experiencing to fully grasp who it is they are dealing with, even though they have strong doubts.  Who can trust something like this?  The children are wise enough to question.  They are also stronger than they would have ever known without the guidance of the presence.  They strike fear into those that have preyed upon them and their families.  The feeling of strength is intoxicating and they continue.  Time passes and finally the presence reveals itself.  The story also includes characters from antiquity, other than the more obvious ones, and these characters will play an even more important role in the second book. 
This book is about hope for all.  This book is about the redemption that comes from living as a truly good person, not allowing evil to extinguish you.  This book also attempts to explain the fall of humankind and our hope that still is present.  The target audience would be 15 to 85, including readers of fiction, supernatural, mystery, thriller and even Biblical.

3.      What do you hope will be the everlasting thoughts for readers who finish your book? What should remain with them long after putting it down?
The message of the book is simple.  We were given only good by our Creator, but we wanted to know all.  This simple thought can explain the entire, brutal history of man.  This simplicity is what I have always been attracted to.  We all need to look at the written works of history and see if we can find clues to our existence.  I would wish that this book would offer hope to all those that suffer in this world.  The reason for this is that we are children of the being that created the entire Universe, so if we are a child of this being, what can this world offer that could ever stamp out the flame we have inside?  Even if we have just a small spark of the Creator, we are infinite.

4.      What advice or words of wisdom do you have for fellow writers?
I would say that a writer should write from the heart.  I would also point out that a story usually will run away from you, if you give it enough time, but a story is also not unlike luggage.  It stays with you, so keep revisiting it.  I could point out that narrative disciplines are extremely important.  Find one that fits your personality.  Edit, edit, edit and edit again.  Think about everything you say, every chapter, every character and try to release your actual self in the book.  If you are a new writer, such as myself, find the best sweet spot between your intuition and all the wonderful direction you can find from those that are more experienced. 

5.      What trends in the book world do you see and where do you think the book publishing industry is heading?
With my experience in the musical world, I have seen how technology has affected artists.  The consumers want everything now and everything free.  This is happening with all artistic content.  I would say that you give it away for as long as you can and hope that at some point people will start paying for what you offer.  We cannot stop technology, we simply must embrace it. 

6.      What great challenges did you have in writing your book?
One challenge is trying to formulate the story and deciding as best you can, the length of the work.  In today’s world, there are accepted norms about how many pages a book should be.  These rules have many nuances and apply to everyone.  I knew that I had at least one thousand pages, so I had to decide if I could split the story up into more than one book.  This is a challenge for many reasons, but I was compelled to go forward with a series.  Also, my story covers the entire world, so breaking that landscape down to a digestible amount was difficult.


7.      If people can only buy one book this month, why should it be yours?
There are so many offerings out there, it is difficult to find a target.  If you are a reader, you can spend time just being astounded at the volume of work.  I am a new author, and this is my first novel.  If someone wants to discover something new, I would suggest that my book fits that description.  My novel has characters that many are familiar with, but I present them in a human fashion, not a “Hollywood”, in your face fashion.  A new author requires a bit of investment, because the voice is so new, and possibly entirely unlike many well-known authors.  This investment is usually worth the time, and that is true in my case.  I have started work on the second book of the three-part series and if the reader will take the time to invest in this first book, I am betting they will be inclined to check out the second and third as well.  After all, I am like wine in that I will improve with age!

Robert E Flynn III is a software-developer, musician, living with his beautiful girlfriend, Claudia, in San Antonio, Texas.  He has two wonderful children, Caitlin and Zachary, who are grown and exploring their own fantastic lives.  He has spent his entire life pursuing creative endeavors.  Music was his first love and still is, and writing was always part of his life, but one college professor instilled the positive input that pushed him to create his first novel.  While writing endless essays and research papers, this professor wrote something truly inspiring on every one of those works one semester.  He simply wrote, “This was a pleasure to read!”  This simple message inspired deeply.  This is my first novel, but the story has been developing in his mind for two years.  The book has a supernatural theme, but it is also a story of the condition of humanity. For more info, see:

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2017©. Born and raised in Brooklyn, now resides in Westchester. Named one of the best book marketing blogs by Book Baby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs

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