To Touch the Sun Book Launch Soon

The poster on my wall says it all!

Well this is pretty exciting. The big day is coming up and Dagda Publishing will be having a Facebook book launch for To Touch the Sun Feb. 25. I'll be popping in as often as I can during the day and am looking forward to meeting people and discussing the novel. And those who attend will have the chance to win a copy of the novel. 

She's on the case!

As I've stated often before, this novel is my baby. I've even taken publicity photos for press releases and I do NOT take photos.

Finding a publisher for it was like finding gold. I've been doing some interviews on it and writing a few guest blog pieces. It's given me a chance to reflect on the story and the various inspirations that went into it. I've been covering that in this blog. 

I remember when I was writing Chicago's Most Wanted: The Top Ten Book of Murders Mobsters, Midway Monsters and Other Windy City Oddities (My first book published in 2005 by Potomac Press). The day I signed the contract for that was the happiest and scariest day of my life. Happiest of course because I was finally going to be published. Scariest because I wasn't sure if I could pull it off, especially since I'd never done anything like that before. Once it was published, and I looked back on the writing of it, I have a lot of good feelings (even though I was going crazy while actually doing it). I guess it's all hindsight. 

On the left you'll see Lake Point Tower, home to Narain Khan

It's a bit like that with this book. Slightly different though because I didn't have a contract for it and it was a work of fiction, so there was nothing pressing on me in the way of deadlines. But I remember, once I had fallen in love with it, being very concerned that I'd never find a publisher for it. I really wanted that story out. And as I say, looking back on it, I can see things perhaps I didn't realize as I was writing it. For example, I didn't realize how vital the character of Sophie is to the plot even though she really only appears in a few reminisces. Sophie helped Narain live a relatively normal life (in light of his condition) for decades. When she died, his motivations were colored by trying to retain that normalcy. 

The trenches of World War I

I used World War I as a backdrop for Narain's conversion to vampirism. I was inspired when I read that Albin Grau, producer of the film "Nosferatu" served in Serbia in World War I and heard the locals tell folk tales of vampires. It's what inspired him to produce a vampire movie. Narain left that war a very changed man. But it wasn't until I was writing up a blog entry that I stopped to consider that even if the feral attack hadn't occurred to so drastically alter his life, Narain would probably have returned to his family a very changed man. As most veterans of war do. Whether they wear that change on their sleeve or keep it buried deep inside, there's no way that the violence of war wouldn't change them in some way.

On a more personal note, and this is something I realized shortly after writing it, Narain's family dynamic somewhat mirrors mine. There were four siblings (though we had two and two). There's a wonderful scene in It's A Wonderful Life where Mr. Baily tells a young George, "You were born older." That's how I feel about Narain. He was actually born 12 years before the next child Aziz comes along, 15 before their brother Zaheer and a full 20 before their beloved sister Ujaali. So in some respects, even before he goes to war, he's on his own among the siblings. 

Denny and old time radio

It was such with my siblings. My older brother Dennis was only two years older than my sister Barbara (I came along seven years after Barb, my brother Robert a year after me). Yet from an early age, he was off working on jobs with my dad, an electrical contractor, while the rest of us had more to do with each other. Often, he came home very late at night, whether he was off working late, or with his friends. When I was ten, he had moved out of the house and popped in infrequently. I'd never even been to his apartment. Consequently, I knew very little about him. So while the age between us wasn't as expansive as Narain and his siblings, Dennis was just as apart. And sadly, as Narain was "lost" to his family (though he survived the war), my brother died at the relatively young age of 42. 

It's possible that's why I wrote Narain with so many regrets (and why he feels he needs to see if his sister, who would be in her late 90s, is still alive). He regrets never taking the chance to try to reunite with his family and help them understand what he'd become. It's that stuff that was left unsaid, for whatever reason, that makes loss difficult.

So reflecting on the novel for pieces to publicize it has led me to consider what went into writing it. Some of it done without even thinking about it. Which can be some of the best kind of writing.

And as I say often, I hope people get as much enjoyment out of reading To Touch the Sun as I got out of writing it.

My reaction to finding a publisher.

Visit https://www.facebook.com/events/251067985073893/ on Feb. 25 to stop in at the launch on Facebook and say hello. The novel will be available on Amazon for Kindle and paperback format. There have already been some wonderful reviews on Goodreads for it also. 

Origin Stories

For me, the origin story is half the fun of a vampire novel. Becoming a vampire is a pretty life altering thing. How in the world did it happen? The origin story also sets up the universe the writer is creating complete with rules for vampirism. Some vampires shun the light, some are fine in it (and of course some sparkle). Some are crazed killers, some romantic heroes. 

While doing research on the film "Nosferatu: Symphony of Horror" for my book Vampires' Most Wanted, I came across a tidbit about one of the producers. Albin Grau, one of the co-founders of Prana Films, the company behind "Nosferatu," served in Serbia during the first world war. He'd heard tales of vampire lore from the farmers in the area and it inspired him to make a vampire film once he'd left the service.

MAX SCHRECK AS COUNT ORLOCK IN "NOSFERATU"

In my mind I combined the two ideas, soldiers and local vampire legends, and started to think that those legends being told could have been legends of vampires attacking soldiers during times of war. I decided to set Narain's conversion to vampirism on the field of No Man's Land in WWI. I wanted Narain to be old, but not ancient and I discovered that some Indian Soldiers did serve in the British trenches in Europe which makes sense seeing as how India was a part of the British empire at the time.

One haunting reality of WWI worked perfectly with that idea. When soldiers were shot down while trying to cross No Man's Land (the acreage between the trenches of the Allied and Central Powers) often they were left out there to die, or if dead, their bodies left to rot. Collecting them was often too risky since anyone trying to do so was liable to suffer the same fate as the soldiers they went to get.

TROOPS MARCH ACROSS NO MAN'S LAND (SOME NEVER MAKE IT)

Considering the local farmers relating their tales (most of which they probably believed) to Grau I began to imagine vampires haunting the area. The notion of such vampires scavenging the dead and dying seemed perfect. Narain is shot down in No Man's Land and suffers the same fate as many of the other soldiers did as they tried to make the crossing. As night falls he's attacked by feral vampires but unlike the other soldiers, rather than dying, he is reborn as a vampire.

Of course I needed a reason for him to have joined the army in the first place. Narain was an unassuming man. Twenty-five when he left for Europe. Prior to that he was a well respected cook in a Bengal restaurant. 

And there was his motivation! Possessing a passion for cooking, Narain wanted to further his culinary skills. He wanted to attend culinary schools in Europe. But he couldn't ask for money from his father, a teacher with three other children to raise (Aziz age 13, Zaheer age 10 and Ujaali age 5).

So, Narain enlists in the army with an eye toward fighting in Europe. Once the war is over (and many thought it wouldn't last the first year), should he survive, he could stay on, hoping to find work that would help put him through a European cooking school.

I enjoyed writing the scene between Narain and his father who is horrified by his son's decision. It gives the reader a taste of the loving family he was a part of before his time in Europe changed his life forever. It revealed just how much he had lost.

I also enjoyed writing the scene between Alphonse, the man who finds him during his conversion, who, once Narain comes to his sense, must find a way to break the news that his life will never be the same.

Suddenly things started falling into place. I had a history. Motivation. Even "discovered" a nemesis for Narain (Reginald Jameson, the sadistic army captain from the trenches) who would prove useful to the plot of the book. It also helped give me a reason why a vampire who had been dealing with his condition relatively well over the decades was confused and troubled at the opening of the novel.