Rune of the Apprentice
1. What inspired you to write your book?
As
a professional writer I had been working on this novel for many years but due
to the massive undertaking of creating an entire world, I never had enough time
to actually finish it! It was not until my wife (Active Duty Army) was away
during Basic Training—and then again during Advanced Individual Training, and
again, and again during her many tours, that I finally completed this epic
work.
During
these periods I worked on Rune of the
Apprentice (and its many offshoot stories) not as an escape, but as
inspiration. Although it is epic fantasy, this book is grounded in heroism and
love, because I did not write it just to inspire myself, but also my wife. As
an Active Duty Service Member performing her duties in the field, I knew that
her day-to-day challenges were far greater than mine at home.
So,
in addition to my regular letters to her, I would send her chapters and
excerpts of the book to keep her spirits up, brighten her day, and to provide
inspiration for her military duties. All the while, I was also simultaneously
trying to have Rune of the Apprentice
address the needs of our current millennial population—more specifically,
addressing their lack of real mythic resonance which relate to their daily
lives, and their deep psychological need for a relevant mythology.
I’ll
put it another way, in The Power of Myth,
Joseph Campbell said, “Mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. Mythology is
the penultimate truth--penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into
words. It is beyond words. Beyond images, beyond that bounding rim of the Buddhist
Wheel of Becoming. Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be
known but not told.”
So
Rune of the Apprentice, as a modern
mythology, and therefore me, as a modern myth maker, had an impossible task! I
wanted to tell the penultimate truth which cannot be told; to show with images
which can only be discovered on one's own; to describe and point to a place
within the readers so Ultimate--it can only be personally known, but never
told! Jeez!
But,
in truth, that is what inspired me to write Rune
of the Apprentice.
2. What is it about?
This
is Rune of the Apprentice in three
short paragraphs:
In a world where magic, technology,
and nature have merged, the few who can control Runes hold dominance over all
of creation. All believe that Aleksi, a sixteen-year-old orphan, was blessed to
be born with a Rune embedded in his palm, but that’s only because they don’t
know the truth—Aleksi’s Rune is so powerful it’s killing him.
Asura, a brutal emperor who uses
Runes to conquer entire continents, will stop at nothing to kill Aleksi and
claim the boy’s power for his own. With Aleksi’s Rune burning its way through
his body and assassins hunting his every step, his survival depends on
discerning ally from enemy and learning to tame the competing forces of light
and dark within.
With the burden of his rune haunting
his days and the prophetic whispers of a young captive priestess illuminating
his nights, Aleksi will be able to unravel the mysteries of his past, rescue the
girl in his dreams, and challenge the most powerful warlord the world has ever
known only if the one thing keeping him alive—his Rune—does not kill him first.
3. What do you hope will be the
everlasting thoughts for readers who finish your book?
Although Rune of the Apprentice is exciting and adventurous, a large section
of the story is framed by a deep yearning romance between the two main
characters. One is a conflicted young hero named Aleksi, and the other is a young female heroine named Saiya. Most
importantly, Saiya is not only powerful in her community, but also a very
influential leader.
After being forced into a very dangerous situation, these two characters are able to communicate while they sleep by sharing their potent emotions through dreamlike messages. Despite this ability, they are unable to speak directly. This experience was directly born out of my longing for my wife while she was away on tour as I wrote daily letters to her.
After being forced into a very dangerous situation, these two characters are able to communicate while they sleep by sharing their potent emotions through dreamlike messages. Despite this ability, they are unable to speak directly. This experience was directly born out of my longing for my wife while she was away on tour as I wrote daily letters to her.
Told
upon the backdrop of an exciting adventure novel, these complicated themes of
personal honor, duty, gender roles, and committed relationship dynamics—with a
partner who serves her country first, and foremost—is the foundation of the
main characters’ relationship. In short, this book resonates so well because
these are actual, real-life themes every spouse, partner, or lover deals with
on a day to day basis. And it also resonates with traditional Fantasy and
action-oriented fans because the story is filled with, magic, swords fights,
heroism, and most of all, excitement!
For
the lovers of epic adventures, that means there are sword fights, massive naval
battles, mystery, magic, and intrigue—but for those of us who also need deeper
emotional content and connection, the novel dives deeply into the sadness of
separation, and the longing each and every spouse or lover feels during long
periods of separation.
4. What advice do you have for writers?
Write,
write, and keep writing! Then get expert feedback on that writing, and learn
how you can evolve your writing style to be an even better writer. You need
expert feedback to be able to evolve, however, so you MUST NOT write in a silo!
The best way to get this feedback (in my experience) is volunteer your time at
a newspaper, blog, editorial service, or any place that will have you create
original written content, and then give you critical feedback on that
content—on a near daily basis. Practice makes perfect, and you need to get out
there and DO IT!
As
an example: I began my writing career by volunteering at my University’s
President Office where I collaboratively wrote a variety of high-level print
and electronic publications under the guidance of senior editors. After several
months of unpaid work, I had made myself invaluable and had a paid position
solo writing and revising the President’s speeches, and created and maintained
the President’s social media networking platform. Eventually I was solo
drafting, formatting, proofreading, and editing written matter for a variety of
high-level print and electronic publications, including: speeches, articles,
magazines, essays, newsletters, reports, web sites, presentations, books,
memos, emails and other communications.
As
time went on, I then became responsible for coordinating events for the
President’s Office and assuring that all the details of events ran properly. I
later was promoted to a Project Manager position where I not only was writing
high level business and marketing plans, but also leading teams, providing
management, business strategic planning, budget templates, and financial
analysis. Additionally, I planned and managed three large-scale fund raising
events and oversaw media correspondence, too. All of this started from an
unpaid internship and the strong desire to become a better writer so that I might
one day be a published author!
5. Where do you think the book publishing
industry is heading?
It
is clear that Web 2.0 has annihilated the barriers to publishing. Anyone with a
story to tell can now start a blog or self-publish a book. But the byproduct of
Web 2.0 is noise—and lots of it! Barriers are filters, and the historic filters
are now gone.
Although
I am relatively new to the publishing scene, I strongly feel that books are now
“phase 1 of the story filter.” The current story-based IP market, which
comprises the film and publishing industries and takes the form of
movie/TV/videogame rights, audiobook rights, foreign-language rights, etc., is
desperate to find "signal" in this new, anyone-can-publish paradigm.
Because
of this, I am very exciting to be publishing Rune of the Apprentice though Inkshares, a new platform that not
only publishes the books readers want to read, but then allows the IP market to
clearly see and understand the future story telling potential of Rune of the Apprentice through all
surrounding noise.
It
is my hope that the “future of publishing” is a future where my publisher
Inkshares is able to allow the world of Rune
of the Apprentice, and other authors like me, to bring their IP to mass
audience through many forms of media ranging from movies, television shows, and
video games—so not only avid readers can enjoy my story, but the whole world!
6. What challenges did you have in writing
your book?
Creating
a massive word is a profoundly difficult undertaking and requires a lot of
planning before you can even begin writing the first word. As an example, in Rune of the Apprentice I used C.G.
Jung’s psychology of archetypes and the collective unconscious to adapt Joseph
Campbell’s theory of the Monomyth (updating it to be relevant for Millennials
who now live in a “Collective Technological Age”) to create the foundations of
a contemporary “Modern Myth”.
As I
wrote the actually story, however, I needed to constantly reshape and mold my
“Hero’s Journey” adaptation to fit with the specific character arcs of Rune of the Apprentice’s hero and
heroine, respectively. In short: In Rune
of the Apprentice, these two aspects of the story—World and Character
Arc—are intimately intertwined and constantly evolving together. Just that
alone is very difficult to pull off well, and has nothing to do with the actual
word craft of writing!
7. If people can only buy one book this
month, why should it be yours?
Rune
of the Apprentice has gotten RAVE reviews:
"Within just a few moments of beginning to
read Rune, I was
immediately drawn into the adventurous, magical world that Jamison Stone has
created―my heartbeat pulsed, my breath grew shallow, my fingers trembled as I leap
from page to page―and this was all in merely the first chapter! Stone has hit
it out of the ballpark with this book, and you will not want to put it down. An
epic read indeed." ―Ben Greenfield, New
York Times bestselling author
of Beyond Training
"Rune is an epic journey about transforming the darkness within so that we can achieve true peace in the world around us." ―Chade-Meng TAN, New York Times bestselling author of Joy on Demand and Search Inside Yourself
"Jamison Stone presents us with a fresh, superbly crafted fantasy epic that conquers both world and character building. Rune is tantalizing to the imagination, and invigorating for the soul." ―Tal M. Klein, author of The Punch Escrow
"Stone writes beautifully. The characters of Rune are alive and vibrant; the world in which they dwell is both exciting and rich; and the story which propels it all is not only engaging, but profoundly deep." ―Stuart Calvin Lord, author of Common Good Common Ground
"Rune is an epic journey about transforming the darkness within so that we can achieve true peace in the world around us." ―Chade-Meng TAN, New York Times bestselling author of Joy on Demand and Search Inside Yourself
"Jamison Stone presents us with a fresh, superbly crafted fantasy epic that conquers both world and character building. Rune is tantalizing to the imagination, and invigorating for the soul." ―Tal M. Klein, author of The Punch Escrow
"Stone writes beautifully. The characters of Rune are alive and vibrant; the world in which they dwell is both exciting and rich; and the story which propels it all is not only engaging, but profoundly deep." ―Stuart Calvin Lord, author of Common Good Common Ground
I have pledged to donate all of this book's preorder profits to
Military family charities. While my wife and I live very humbly, I am not
actually looking to make money on the pre-orders of my book. Instead, my wife
and I have decided to give all of the author proceeds on pre-orders back to our
community. I did not write this book to become rich, instead, I worked on it
for years as a labor of love and passion and want nothing more than to be able
to share it with the world.
If you are a lover of epic stories,
heroic characters, thrilling fight scenes, and emotive love stories, Rune of the Apprentice is THE book for
you! Enjoy it and then tell a friend (or three!)
For more information, please check out: https://www.amazon.com/Rune-Apprentice-Jamison-Stone/dp/1941758916
Please Click On The
Best Out Of 2,100 Posts
2016 Book Marketing &
Book Publicity Toolkit
2015 Book Marketing
& PR Toolkit
2014 Book Marketing
& PR Toolkit
Book Marketing &
Book PR Toolkit: 2013
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 2016 ©.
Named one of the best
book marketing blogs by Book Baby
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.